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laytonsartblog · 4 years

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Okay so I'm dumb here's a one shot

I know I said everything that's a story would be posted on AO3, but, I have dumbass energy and was inspired by the reblog I made earlier and it is 2 am on a school night so WOOO incoherency is at an ALL TIME HIGH

@infinimay whoop tagged u for what I'll call the Bus Duty AU

Perhaps I'll make this a series?? Something light, fluffy, nothing too heavy on the angst (okay I lied)

The Wheels on the Bus (Spin the Tales of Love)

Chapter 1., Like Patton

Virgil and Damian woke up to get to school at precisely 7:30 am, and to be ready by 8:10 for when their bus arrived, every school day.

Their mother, which is now Virgil's stepmother, always said that a tight schedule and tighter patience is what wins people over. That must be how she got Virgil's idiot dad, who took nearly three years of coy smiles and teasing touches to even start dating. They had married this year, and while Virgil is certainly happy about it, he didn't realize that it came with having to deal with a new stepbrother.

That's why, instead of 7:30 and 8:10, Virgil rises at 7:15 and is waiting by 8:00. Their mother never notices, never needing to wake up this early for work, and their dad works night shift. They were by themselves, but they handled it for nine year olds. Virgil especially figured out how to handle it as soon as he figured out that despite all this change, he was still by himself.

"Vi! Vi!" Damian, or DeeDee as he liked to be called, shouted as he approached Virgil at the bottom of the street. "Why do you never wait for me?"

Virgil shrugged. "I don't know, you give me a weird feeling, like cooties, but nice? Like wriggling worms in my head. It's sticky."

There was silence between them as they waited for their bus.

"You give me wiggly feelings too. Truce?" Damian suddenly said after what seemed to be forever to their adorable little minds, and he outstretched a hand.

Virgil took it. "Pleasure doing business, Worm boy."

Damian pouted and pulled his hand back, but didn't need to wait much longer in cute anger as the bus pulled up to their street. Seemingly forgetting the nickname, he pulled Virgil along onto the bus.

"Hey, kiddos!" their favorite, and only bus driver greeted as they sat in the front row.

Virgil never liked the bus, despite how early he was this year. It was loud and cranky and he had to sit next to DeeDee and there were always the mean kids who flicked his head as if a ping-pong ball on the way to their seats. The one thing that made it bearable was the fact he got to sit close to Patton.

Patton had allowed them to use his first name from the get go, inspiring names like "Patting!" from the kindergarteners or "Shatting" from the mean sixth graders. Virgil never tainted the name for he saw no reason to change what was already his favorite part of the morning.

Patton gave them treats on their birthday, never forgetting a single one. Patton hugged them when they were sad and showed them that crying was okay. Patton never yelled or screamed when things got too loud; he knew better than to plague these children with learned behavior, scorn, and hatred. Instead he'd play games that involved the whole bus to busy everyone, or at the very least play music and encourage them to sing along or guess the song.

Patton made things better. But Virgil knew he was sad.

Today, even with Damian's unwavering questions at everything he saw and with the fake stories he kept saying to the kid in the seat next to them, even he could tell that their bus driver was tired.

The two observant fourth graders watched as their second father didn't smile as brightly as he usually did whenever he greeted the kids getting on. He sagged; sluggish and baggy. Virgil noticed he looked a lot like his cousin Remy before a test under his eyes.

However, despite how observant, Virgil never knew how to comfort the gentle man. It's why he and Damian are in the front row. The doctors said he has a "speech impediment" where he couldn't put the words in his head to the outside world quite right. They said his brain was wrong. He knew Damian had a streak of lying and throwing tantrums. It's why he didn't like his new brother; he only served to make him look stupider.

Still, that didn't stop Virgil from putting a hand to Patton's shoulder, at least not entirely. He didn't expect for him to gasp and jump, but Virgil didn't exactly know what to expect anyway. He just pulled his hand back and looked down at his ripped pants in shame the rest of the bus ride.

They got there slower than Virgil had thought, but no, they were on time. Perhaps his brain was being weird again? He couldn't tell, but either way he walked begrudgingly by Damian into the school.

They passed by their school's office on the way into the gym, which is where you wait until school started. Virgil, again, ever the observant one, saw his school secretary in the window.

He was what was best described as professionally squabbled, or in Virgil's terms, cleanly messy. Mr. Nguyen had hair that was combed back just so and glasses that hid all his worries and fears. He had impeccable pressed ties that, on the occasion, got festive when a holiday came around. He had skilled hands and Virgil hadn't walked by a day where he wasn't working or presenting a board meeting or, if he wasn't doing that, wasn't there at all for the whole day.

Virgil never really disliked Mr. Nguyen. He had no reason to like him either. But right now, Virgil could see he looked exactly like Patton did; utterly miserable.

"Hey, DeeDee, y'see Mr. Nguyen? In the window?" Virgil whispered as he sat right at the entrance so he could get a good look at him.

Damian merely ignored him. "We always see him. What's the big deal?"

"The big deal is," Virgil started, already frustrated with the words that wouldn't come out. "He like- he- he's Patton today."

Damian rose a brow, a suspicious trait he most likely picked up from his mother. "You mean he looks like Patton did today?"

Virgil could only nod in relief. "Yeah! He looks Patton today. Do you think the teachers look like that today?"

Damian scanned around the room. He saw nothing out of the ordinary on the teachers' face. However, he did spot a certain trashy boy that Damian all but felt puppy love for. He waved him over. "Rem! Rem!"

The boy, peeking from the corner around his preoccupied brother at his name being called, grinned a crooked and partially toothless grin and ran over to Damian. They merely embraced before Remus took out his backpack, no doubt to reveal some gross frog from his collection.

Virgil cared less and just kept staring at the office, seeing Patton and a few other drivers come in for their mandatory morning report before they head out to go back to whatever they do when not driving. Patton still looked like a walking corpse.

Virgil vowed to take that frown away.

However, the school bell had other plans.

Virgil thinks that time really has slowed down, and maybe it isn't his stupid brain.

Every minute of class felt not as much a blur as it usually was. Usually, class was as easy as it got, and today he even got to skip out of gym for speech classes. He liked the speech teacher, Valerie. She allowed him to say her first name like Patton did. Virgil liked Valerie too.

But even his marvel at how fantastic his day had been so far didn't distract him from the fact his bus driver was unhappy.

Virgil sat with Damian and all the other broken kids at lunch. Remus was there too, and as much as he loved Damian off his back, the two talking about frogs and the fact the French eat frog legs was already starting to get on his nerves. He just focused on his sandwich and juice box, never saying a word.

It became time to throw out the food, and Virgil knew it was gametime. He looked to everyone at the table before rushing, the other two running to throw out their styrofoam plates the fastest.

Sadly, like always, Virgil's dreams of success were barred by Remus's long, nimble legs and long, skinny arms.

Virgil wanted to pout and tell them that Remus always wins, but Mr. Glover came in to clean and one look sent the three of them scrambling to recess.

Today they had art time, and Virgil had never been more determined in his life.

He grabbed construction paper, glue, crayons, markers, tape, and a How-To: pop up book. They were supposed to be making Thanksgiving cards for one of the staff members, and technically he was following what he was supposed to do. It was just that Patton's name hadn't been listed on the board to write to for their fake post office.

No matter. He would make the best card ever to cheer up his favorite and only bus driver. Damian seemed more interested in watching Remus eat the glue stick and then calling for them to go to the nurse.

Virgil ignored the two's antics in favor of focusing on his masterpiece.

Finally, at the end of the day, with high hopes and spirits and even better hope for Patton, Virgil all but ran to the bus he remembers so clearly beyond anything else. Damian followed close behind, sitting beside him in the seat they always sat.

Virgil heard Patton greet him, as always. Virgil could still hear how tired he was. He looked as pale as Virgil did.

Virgil, without prompting, took out his card and shoved it into Patton's hands before taking his seat and covering himself up with his hoodie as far in the seat as he could go.

Patton watched the young boy sat back down in a hurry before looking down at the card. The craftsmanship, of course, could be better, but honestly Patton could hardly care. He read the "I Think Your Cool" at the top and then a hand drawing of a turkey, covered in glitter and Patton's signature blue.

Patton almost cried, and then did cry when he saw the inside.

It held handwritten words with a picture of presumably Virgil fighting away the storm clouds over Patton; the bus with muscles and also beating up the stormcloud. The words wrote "I saw your sad face. I want to fix it. See! Fixed it!"

When Patton looked up, sniffling and holding the card dear to his heart, he saw Virgil peaking out from his jacket. That little boy held the softest smile and even Damian stopped for a moment to grin, gap tooth apparent but not even a hint of malice could fill Patton at this moment.

Last night had been so awful, but maybe today hadn't been so bad. No, today had been fantastic. Virgil fixed his heart for just a moment.

Edit: the card! Made by moi

#sanders sides #patton sanders #virgil sanders #sanders sides fanfiction #sander sides angst #Bus Duty AU #eventual logicality #the dark bois are gonna save the day #with an addition of Roman #after a while #whooooweee it is 4 am and I have nOT slept gn

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patternscolorsflowers · 5 years

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So, I’ve been working with this pre-series AU sort of thing with human Alastor, and I thought I’d share! –– Though canonically asexual, Alastor strikes me as an extremely calculating and pragmatic individual who will absolutely set aside his own feelings and comfort in order to achieve greater ambitions. Historically, many prolific criminals have gone so far as to establish full-fledged alternate lives in order to remove them from public suspicion while going about their crimes. They married, had children, careers, hobbies, and were involved in their communities, and with Al’s extroverted personality, I certainly see him being able to play this part perfectly. I may actually write a short fic based on this AU, but for now I’ll just leave you guys with a (pretty long-winded) summary of what I was going for here.

Going off of what Viv herself confirmed in one of the art/animation cleanup streams, Alastor was in his mid to late 30s, possibly early 40s (she bounces back and forth with his age) when he died in 1933, which would put his birth sometime in the late 1880s or early 1890s, and he was a former radio show host living in New Orleans, Louisiana. I placed him at 43 at his time of death, with a birthdate in 1890, so just remember that’s not ‘entirely’ canon. –– The story begins in 1918 with the end of WWI, with the chaos and celebration of the end of the Great War, Alastor had already been killing for a number of years; a vibrant and cheerful radio host, he spent most of his time broadcasting and rarely left the building. Thus, most people had no idea what he looked like. When he did depart, it was always in the dead of night, to commit his gruesome and elaborately planned murders, which he was always first to report on as soon as a new body was discovered, stroking his ego as the mysterious killer.

Alastor’s long time friend and occasional partner in crime, Mimzy recognizes that he is taking things too far, and the it won’t be long before police catch up to him, people in town are starting to whisper about how detailed in his accounts and vivacious the unseen radio host is about these murders. Alastor takes her advice to heart, and takes a short reprieve from his crimes, to formulate a plan. –– Being the early 20th century, there were certain expectations of people, and certain norms it was seen as strange not to conform to. Alastor was an attractive and successful man in his late 20s, with no family, and seemingly no desire to have one. A man with that much time on his hands, who no one ever sees, is obviously going to arouse public suspicion. Alastor tells Mimzy that he believes his best cover option is to take a wife, to which she happily obliges. He refuses her, stating that although she is his dearest friend, he knows that she already has a dicey reputation of her own, and has already come up with an admittedly risky plan.

The velvet-throated radio host receives numerous fan letters (mostly from young women) from all over the city, which he hardly ever bothers to read, given their often licentious nature. Alastor sorts some of the newer envelopes based on how close to his area the letter was sent from, and selects one at random. The letter is from Violet Marchand, one of the daughters of a wealthy milliner and haberdasher in the city. –– On air in a show of good faith, he begins making a habit of showing appreciation for his fans by reading three letters each week, when reading Violet’s letter he makes sure to subtly show a little extra appreciation for the little things (her penmanship, the detail in her signature, and the the divine sprig of lavender she included with her note.) –– Violet writes him again, and he knows he has her attention.

The two begin a correspondence that lasts nearly a year, and he gets to know her better; she is the fourth of five children, and the youngest daughter, she likes to paint, though she isn’t very good, she loves to dance, enjoys music, keeps pet birds, and likes sweets and flowers. She is 17, with strawberry blonde hair, green eyes, and short, somewhat stout build. Alastor doesn’t care about her looks, but her age intrigues him; she is ten years his junior, but soon to turn 18, and being from a wealthy family, and a pillar in the community at this time period, she would no doubt be presented soon as a candidate for marriage and entrance into society. Mimzy continues to warn her friend against it, (mostly out of jealousy) but he continues to write her, dropping hints about her debut, and whether or not her family had anyone immediate in mind. Meanwhile, the young lady is smitten with her honey-laced pen pal, and doesn’t hesitate (against her father’s judgment) to issue an invitation to him. In the Spring of 1919, Alastor stuns society by attending the Marchand family’s soiree. For most people in town, this is the first time he has been seen in full view. Dressed in a vulgar bright red suit that stood out among the crowds, he met Violet for the first time. She was as he pictured her, though much more unbridled in her cheerful emotional displays than he expected of a high-society lady. As the two spent the evening’s festivities together, Alastor was quick to intimidate and shock her potential suitors by swiftly presenting a bold proposal to her father, along with a year’s worth of letters they had been exchanging. At first Mr. Marchand is furious and his wife in shock at what a risk her daughter was taking with the family’s reputation, but Alastor’s success with a self-made career, and appearance of good standing with others in the community earned him an opportunity to throw his hat in the ring.

Weeks passed after the party with nothing from the Marchand house, or Violet, until one day Alastor received a sudden offer of marriage from Mr. Marchand, giving his blessing, but a warning (that he would annul the marriage and ruin Alastor socially, if he found him to be of poor character.) The two were married. –– Young Violet was elated at being married to her town’s greatest celebrity, and admittedly being the envy of her peers. However, her bliss was not destined to last; it became apparent rather quickly that things with Alastor as her husband were not going to be all that she’d hoped. He was reluctant to spend their wedding night together, and hardly wanted to share their bed, let alone a lengthy or heartfelt conversation. They had some commonalities that brought pleasure to the two of them, such as their like of music, dance and the theater, but at the core, their personalities, and wide difference in age made for a tense household. To make matters worse, she knew about her husband’s close friendship with Mimzy, and suspected an affair, which caused Violet to sink into a deep depression.

In spite of Alastor’s aversion to sharing his bride’s bed, he knew her high-profile family, and all of the town, knowing of their marriage, would begin to question the lack of children, or any apparent romance between them, so he enlisted his wife’s help in alleviating the scrutiny he was once again facing. –– At last, half a year after the wedding, Violet became pregnant with she and Alastor’s one and only child, a daughter named Ruby, was born in 1920. –– His ruse was complete. An affluent marriage to a jovial and attractive wife, a healthy new baby, a beautiful home, and a successful career, he was, by all forethought, beyond reproach. Though she was not entirely wanted by Alastor, who was only involving himself in this union for personal gain, Ruby quickly became regarded as a part of a very small (nearly nonexistent) circle of people who had Alastor’s love. He relished in spending time with her at home, she was an inquisitive and intelligent girl, who reminded him much of himself in his youth, though growing up in luxury made her struggles in life considerably easier than anything he had endured growing up. –– Years passed, Alastor kept to his ‘hobby’ as he called it, and was much away from home. Having a child seemed to lift his wife’s spirits greatly, and she was often distracted by his absence with spending time with Ruby, who from an early age, held many of her father’s traits. Though she wasn’t an especially violent or ill-tempered child, she rather craved violence in the things she liked to read and draw, which sparked alarm in her mother, who insisted that she needed more of Alastor’s presence in her life. Alastor obliged, bringing his daughter with him to work, and even letting her help him broadcast. While on their break, Ruby, now 7 years old, is the first to break the ice about why she was made to come with him. Alastor is seemingly captivated and inspired by the things his young daughter talks about, and a part of him is eager to share with her, his “hobby,” but knows he must tow the line delicately. He decides to plan a hunting trip with her. Surprisingly, Violet is accepting of his proposition, on the stipulation that she doesn’t actually use his guns.

During the trip, Alastor teaches Ruby about game hunting and tracking. He uses many of the same techniques when scouting out and cornering his human victims, so inwardly, he believes these are sufficient beginner lessons for her about his hobby killings. –– Ruby proves herself to be a natural tracker, like her father, but can’t bring herself to actually watch her father fire the gun. Alastor doesn’t chide her on it, but a part of him is disappointed, and yet, the other half, relieved.

Two years later, the Great Depression hit, and the Marchand family’s grand business takes a massive blow. Alastor decides that the family should downsize to conserve what they have, and move to a smaller home. Though a financially wise decision, this would prove to be the beginning of his undoing. –– In their stately old home, Al had a large private office and trophy room that only he was allowed to enter. In this room, along with a few items for personal pleasure (books, a Victrola, records, etc.) he kept the instruments he used to commit his crimes. –– The family’s new home was a great deal smaller, three bedrooms, a kitchen and one bathroom, but they couldn’t complain, they were much better off than millions of others. Speaking of the struggles and mass chaos of the Depression, Alastor inwardly relished at the opportunities this granted him. Thousands of people were dying and committing suicide en masse, he could double up on his atrocities and no one would be the wiser!

Alastor enlisted Mimsy’s companionship to seek new victims, the club that she danced and sang at had closed its doors anyway, and rather than sink into destitution, she gleefully accepted her friend’s prospects. During that year alone they claimed nearly one hundred lives, but little did they know, they were being watched. The owner of the club Mimzy was once employed at was Gerard Marchand, one of Violet’s older brothers, estranged from his parents, but in good company with his younger sister. He had seen Alastor and Mimzy sneaking into the abandoned building on numerous occasions, moving bags with unknown contents in and out with them nearly every night. When Garard investigated himself and discovered the pools of blood, and basins full of sinewed instruments being cleaned, he immediately called the authorities. Mimzy was caught upon her return to the club, but refused to give Alastor’s name. Gerard however, confirmed he knew him, and the police set off to arrest him. –– At home, Violet sensed something was amiss, as her husband, normally distant, sat between she and Ruby on the sofa, silently holding them close. His jacket smelled of sweat and blood. When the authorities arrived, Alastor kissed them both and went to answer the door himself, he was promptly arrested, and additional instruments, and trophies from his many victims, were discovered locked in his desk, sitting out in the open living room (having since been deprived of a private office.) –– The conviction sent the city into a further uproar, some claiming they’d known he was strange from the beginning, that they “knew” he had something to hide, and others, like Violet, in a shocked and speechless state.

Alastor was sentenced to death by hanging in 1933, and while he was taken to the gallows, he declined to have his head covered, wanting to experience every bit of his execution. As the noose was tightened around his neck, and the witnesses glared, stone faced at the platform, and the boards swung loose from beneath his feet, Alastor smiled until he had gone from the world.

PHEW! YEAH. Thanks if you stuck around to actually read all of my nonsense! Haha! Just something I’ve been working with for a little while. Like I said, I might do more with this, I might not. Not sure yet, would you guys like to see more?

Alastor, Mimzy, and Hazbin Hotel © Vivziepop

Ruby and Violet © Me

#hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #hazbin hotel fanart #hazbin oc #alastor #mimzy #fan au #oc #alastor x oc #alastor x mimzy #fanfiction #fanfic #fic #vivzmind #vivziepop #digital art #color #photo #illustration

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blackkudos · 6 years

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Viola Davis

Viola Davis (born August 11, 1965) is an American actress and producer. She is the only black woman to be nominated for three Academy Awards, winning one, and is the only black actress to win the Triple Crown of Acting. In 2012 and 2017, she was listed by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

After graduating from the Juilliard School in 1993, Davis began her career on stage and won an Obie Award in 1999 for her performance as Ruby McCollum in Everybody's Ruby. She played supporting and minor roles in several films and television series in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including the films Kate & Leopold (2001) and Far from Heaven (2002), and the television series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. In 2001, she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Tonya in the original production of August Wilson's King Hedley II. Davis' film breakthrough came in 2008 when her supporting role in the drama Doubt earned her several nominations, including the Golden Globe, SAG, and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Greater success came to Davis in the 2010s. She won the 2010 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her role as Rose Maxson in the revival of August Wilson's play Fences. For her lead role as 1960s housemaid Aibeleen Clark in the comedy-drama The Help (2011), she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress among others, and won a SAG Award.

Since 2014, Davis has played lawyer Annalise Keating in the ABC television drama How to Get Away with Murder, and in 2015 she became the first black woman to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Her portrayal also won her two SAG Awards in 2015 and 2016. In 2016, Davis played Amanda Waller in the superhero action film Suicide Squad and reprised the role of Rose Maxson in the film adaptation of Fences, for which she won the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Critics' Choice Award, SAG Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. Davis and her husband, Julius Tennon, are the founders of the production company JuVee Productions. Davis has starred in their productions Lila & Eve (2015) and Custody (2016).

Early life and family

Davis was born in St. Matthews, South Carolina, at her grandparents' house on the Singleton Plantation. She is the daughter of Mary Alice (née Logan) and Dan Davis, and is the fifth of six children. Her father was a horse trainer and her mother was a maid, factory worker and homemaker. Her mother was also an activist during the Civil Rights Movement. At the age of two, Davis was taken to jail with her mother after she was arrested during a civil rights protest.

Two months after she was born, her family moved to Central Falls, Rhode Island, with Davis and two of her sisters, leaving her older sister and brother with her grandparents. She has described herself as having "lived in abject poverty and dysfunction" during her childhood, recalling living in "rat-infested and condemned" apartments.

Davis is the second cousin of actor Mike Colter, who is known for portraying the Marvel Comics character Luke Cage.

Education

Davis attended Central Falls High School, the alma mater to which she partially credits her love of stage acting with her involvement in the arts. As a teen, she was involved in the federal TRIO Upward Bound and TRIO Student Support Services programs. When enrolled at the Young People's School for the Performing Arts in West Warwick, Rhode Island, Davis' talent was recognized by a director at the program, Bernard Masterson. Following graduation from high school, Davis studied at Rhode Island College, majoring in theater and graduating in 1988. She was awarded an honorary doctorate in Fine Arts from the college in 2002. After her graduation from Rhode Island, Davis attended the Juilliard School for four years, and was a member of the school's Drama Division "Group 22"(1989–1993).

Career

Davis received her Screen Actors Guild card in 1996 for doing one day of work, playing a nurse who passes a vial of blood to Timothy Hutton in the film The Substance of Fire. She was paid $528.

In 2001, she won the Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award for her portrayal of Tonya in King Hedley II, a "35-year-old mother fighting eloquently for the right to abort a pregnancy." She has also won another Drama Desk Award for her work in a 2004 off-Broadway production of Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage.

Davis appeared in numerous films, including three films directed by Steven Soderbergh – Out of Sight, Solaris and Traffic, as well as Syriana, which Soderbergh produced. Viola was also the uncredited voice of the parole board interrogator who questions Danny Ocean (George Clooney) in the first scene in Ocean's Eleven. She also gave brief performances in the films Kate & Leopold and Antwone Fisher. Her television work includes a recurring role in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, starring roles in two short-lived series, Travelerand Century City, and a special guest appearance in a Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode entitled "Badge".

In 2008, Davis played Mrs. Miller in the film adaptation to the Broadway play Doubt, with Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams. Though Davis had only one scene in the film, she was nominated for several awards for her performance, including a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

On June 30, 2009, Davis was inducted into The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. On June 13, 2010, Davis won her second Tony Award for her role as Rose Maxson in a revival of August Wilson's Fences. She is the second African-American woman to win the award, after Phylicia Rashad.

Davis played the role of Dr. Minerva in It's Kind of a Funny Story (2010), a coming-of-age film written and directed by Anna Boden with Ryan Fleck, adapted from the 2006 novel by Ned Vizzini.

In August 2011, Davis played the role of Aibileen Clark, a housemaid in 1960's Mississippi, in the screen adaptation of Kathryn Stockett's novel The Help, directed by Tate Taylor. Davis described her performance in the film as channeling her mother and grandmother saying, "I feel like I brought my mom to life; I've channeled her spirit. I channeled the spirit of my grandmother, and I've kind of paid homage to how they've contributed to my life and the lives of so many people". For her performance, Davis garnered great critical acclaim, and eventually received two Screen Actors Guild Awards, as well as her second Academy Award nomination, which she ultimately lost to Meryl Streep. She also received Golden Globe Award and BAFTA nominations for the same performance.

In 2012, Time magazine listed Davis as one of the most influential people in the world. Also in 2012, Glamour magazine named Davis Glamour's Film Actress of the year. On June 12, 2012, Davis was presented with the Women in Film's Crystal Award by her friend and Oscar rival that year Meryl Streep. On June 25, 2012, The Walk of Fame Committee of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce announced that Davis was part of the new group of entertainment professionals who have been selected to receive stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2013. On January 5, 2017, Davis received the 2,597th star on the Walk of Fame.

Davis reunited with The Help director Tate Taylor in Get on Up, a biopic of James Brown, playing Brown's mother. Her three-year-old daughter, Genesis also appeared in the movie.

In February 2014, Davis was cast in Peter Nowalk's pilot How to Get Away with Murder (executive produced by Shonda Rhimes for her ShondaLand production company) as the lead character. Her character, Annalise Keating, is a tough criminal defense attorney and professor who becomes entangled in murder plot with her students. Davis describes Keating as messy, mysterious, sexy, and vulnerable and noted the character was the first time a black woman, like herself, had ever been portrayed that way onscreen. It began as a series in September 2014. On September 20, 2015, she became the first black woman of any nationality to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. She received a second Primetime Emmy Award nomination for the role in 2016. In 2015 and 2016 Davis won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series for her role. She has also received nominations from the Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress – Television Series Drama and Critics' Choice Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series.

In 2015, Davis appeared in Blackhat, a Michael Mann-directed thriller film starring Chris Hemsworth. She also appeared in Lila & Evewith Jennifer Lopez. Davis also served as a producer.

In 2016, Davis starred in the courtroom drama Custody, on which she also served as an executive producer, and played Amanda Waller in the film Suicide Squad, an adaptation of a DC Comics series of the same name, and reprised her role as Rose Maxson for the film adaptation of Fences, for which she received her third Academy Award nomination and first win for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress, the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress, and the Screen Actors Guild Award.

Awards and nominations

By winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Fences, Davis became the first black actor to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting: winning a competitive Emmy, Tony and Oscar in acting categories. She is also the first African-American actress and the first woman of color to win five Screen Actors Guild Award.

Personal life

Davis married actor Julius Tennon, in June 2003. They have a daughter, Genesis, whom they adopted as a newborn in October 2011. Davis is stepmother to Tennon's son and daughter from previous relationships.

Davis has remained a booster of her hometown of Central Falls, Rhode Island. In 2016, she attended the groundbreaking of a community health center there. She has also raised and donated money for the city's library and the Central Falls High School.

Davis is a Christian and regularly attends services at Oasis Church in Los Angeles.

Wikipedia

#Viola Davis

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livinginlandmarketing · 3 years

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Infection rates. Drive-thru testing centers. Hospitalizations, ventilators and intensive-care units. It’s a very different sort of holiday season for Southern California.

Welcome to the pandemic Thanksgiving. This is the year our leaders asked us not to travel, dine away from home or gather in big groups — essentially, Thanksgiving’s tentpoles. So for many, that seat at the table for a beloved mom, a treasured uncle, a lifelong friend, a revered grandma … is empty this year.

The months-long coronavirus outbreak is surging anew, taking dozens more lives every day from San Bernardino to Pacoima to Pasadena, from Riverside to Orange County to the South Bay.

And still…

“We don’t have a lot of extra stuff, but I can’t think of anything we really need. I have so much to be grateful for.”

That’s the voice of Tanya Doby, 41, a business owner and the first Black city council member in Los Alamitos.

Amid the tragedy and the turbulence, Doby is deeply grateful.

She’s not alone.

She’s one of many folks we spoke to who reminded us that even amid a year steeped in disrupted traditions and heartbreaking headlines, there is still reason for gratitude. And hope.

“On Monday, I drove by a food bank in Anaheim with a long line of cars,” she said. “It occurred to me, I don’t have to be in one of those lines. I have food and clean water. My children are healthy, my husband is well.”

Los Alamitos City Councilwoman Tanya Doby poses for a photo at Laurel Park in Los Alamitos on Wednesday, August 26, 2020..(Photo by Kyusung Gong/Contributing Photographer)

Amen to that.

Others will mark the day having lost much this year, and yet, still are finding fortitude to push through. And many found ways to help those who weren’t so fortunate.

Twelve days in May

Julian Ramirez, 63, stares out at his yard. He and wife, Saramaria, planted and nurtured that mango tree.

It’s a symbol of a robust life the El Salvadorian L.A. couple lived. He proudly holds up a picture of Saramaria. Wide smile, lots of teeth. Lots of love.

Julian Ramirez shares a picture of him and his wife Saramaria in his Arleta home on Friday, November 20, 2020. Saramaria, 36, died of COVID-19 after catching the virus at the convalescent home where she worked as a nurse said Ramirez. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

The two met in El Salvador in the 2000s, but by then Julian, much her elder, had already long been settled in Arleta. So he helped her get a visa to come to the U.S. She arrived in 2005, and they would soon marry. They had a son, also named Julian. He’s 10.

It wouldn’t be long before Saramaria would earn her nursing degree, studying at L.A. Mission and L.A. Valley colleges in the San Fernando Valley, Julian said, adding it was the culmination of a life devoted to helping people.

Then, devastating news in 2018: Cancer.

“When we heard that.. believe me, everything just fell apart,” Ramirez said. “Not economically.. but in spirit everything just fell apart. We knew that it was an uphill fight.”

Julian Ramirez thinks of his wife at the mango tree he surprised her with in the garden she nurtured at their Arleta home on Friday, November 20, 2020. Saramaria, 36, died of COVID-19 after catching the virus at the convalescent home where she worked as a nurse said Ramirez. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

She battled hard. She continued her work as a nurse, still wanting to help people. Who was Ramirez to stop her from her mission, he asked.

But by May 2020, the pain in her back grew too severe. She’d see doctor, who ultimately diagnosed her with the coronavirus.

Saramaria, 36, never came back home — back to “la casita.”

In 12 days she was gone, leaving lasting memories of Facetime connections with a mom, a sister, a wife, a son and a husband she could not see in person.

Ten-year-old Julian Amani Ramirez holds a picture of his mother Saramaria and her wedding rings with his father Julian in their Arleta home on Friday, November 20, 2020. Saramaria, 36, died of COVID-19 after catching the virus at the convalescent home where she worked as a nurse said Ramirez. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Much of her family — Julian’s father-in-law, mother-in-law, his brother-in-law, lives with Julian now — as they raise his 10-year-old together.

As Thanksgiving arrives, the memories of the year are still raw. But he said he finds strength to be thankful that his family has health and offers thanks to a country that has enabled him to have a life to provide for a family.

He continued his gaze at the mango tree, with a few tears, and the flowers the couple planted around it.

“Everything reminds me of her,” he said, remembering the best of times.

“Many times, I felt like I am feeling like the happiest man in the whole world, from my head to my toes,” he added.

“I breathed it in.”

‘A harder Thanksgiving’

Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia will hunker down on the holiday, at home with his husband.

“…Just the two of us,” he said.

Mayor Robert Garcia (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

But it will be unlike any previous holiday for the 42-year-old mayor, now in his second term.

Garcia’s mother and father-in-law died from COVID-19.

Greg and Gabriella O’Donnell Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia’s stepfather, Greg O’Donnell died from coronavirus complications — two weeks after the mayor’s mother passed away. (Courtesy of Mayor Robert Garcia)

The mayor’s mother, Gabriella O’Donnell, who immigrated with Garcia from Peru when he was 5 years old, died July 26. She was 61 years old. Then, Greg O’Donnell, 58, her husband, died on Sunday, Aug. 9, one day after Gabriella’s memorial service.

The death of the Whittier couple came at at time when Garcia himself was — and still is — working around the clock to lead the city of more than 460,000 people through the pandemic.

As Thanksgiving arrives, he’s got both things on his mind.

Mayor Robert Garcia outside city hall in Long Beach, CA, on Thursday, Sept., 10, 2020. Garcia lost his mother and stepfather to COVID-19.(Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

“This is going to be a harder Thanksgiving for me, and quite frankly a lot of families across the country, who will be experiencing their first Thanksgiving, or their first Christmas, without members of their family — and for me, for my mom and my step dad,” he said this Monday. “I am still thankful that I have other members of my family who are healthy and alive.”

He hoped everyone would just try to stay safe, stay home this year for the holiday, as the surge threatens to put more stress on the region’s hospitals.

“I’m still thankful for all the blessings we still have in our life, and hopeful that there is light at the end of the tunnel,.” he said. “If we can just continue to sacrifice and keep each other safe, early next year in January we are going to start seeing people getting access to the vaccine… .”

‘Courageous dialogue’

The pandemic and the protests against racial injustice have exposed not just racial inequities, but also the fact that the country has a long way to go when it comes to battling systemic racism, said Pastor Samuel Casey, senior pastor of New Life Christian Church in Fontana and executive director of Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement.

Rev. Sam Casey, Executive Director of Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement, at his home in Fontana on Tuesday, July 14, 2020. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

“I’m thankful that even though we have some rough seasons this year, things are getting better, and we had the opportunity to fight for justice in new ways,” he said. “Through Black people and other people of color, it has been brought to national and global attention that America still has work to do.”

This has also been a year of reconciliation, which despite widespread division and polarization, has been taking place in pockets in communities across the country, Casey said.

“It has opened up courageous dialogue,” he said. “Proximity does breed empathy. And this year has really brought us together whether we wanted to be together or not.”

A new life

It was Sept. 9, and the time had come. After months in and out of the hospital, Janet Udomratsak was ready to give birth.

It had been a rocky road.

Janet Udomratsak with her family, James, 2 months, husband, Chris and Henry, 5 in Sylmar, CA November 25, 2020. James was born in September after a harrowing pregnancy that included complications. The family will celebrate Thanksgiving her parents and siblings who are in thier “bubble” with time. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Pregnancy complications landed her in the hospital throughout the year. Not only was her pregnancy at risk, but so was the beginning of the school year for a Sylmar woman who’s been in the business of teaching for 11 years.

Up until three days before the delivery date, during a 10-week stay, she was teaching her elementary-schoolers from the confines of her hospital room at Providence Holy Cross in Mission Hills.

But things got extra complicated at birth. Bleeding in her uterus during the planned caesarean section turned an expected 30-minute delivery into an hours-long surgery that involved tense moments, concern, multiple blood transfusions and the ultimate removal of her uterus.

Even for Udomratsak — long braced for the unexpected after such a difficult year — the tension was clear as the pre-delivery banter and anticipation turned to serious silence.

She was forced to make a life-changing decision in the matter of moments. But what mattered most was making sure the her baby was born.

Janet Udomratsak with James, 2 months. James was born in September after a harrowing pregnancy that included complications. The family will celebrate Thanksgiving her parents and siblings who are in thier “bubble” with time. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Meet James — all 3 pounds, 11 ounces and 16 inches of him at birth.

“When he came out, I was in shock,” she said. “I was like wow, he’s here. He came out, kicking and crying when he came out. The whole room was in tears. They knew the struggle. They were with me from day 1.”

This Thanksgiving, the family will be together — little James, mom, dad Chris, and Henry, 5, who loves bringing toys to show his little brother.

“Knowing it could have been worse, it makes me that much more thankful, I am more aware of everything now. I want to enjoy my time with everybody,” she said.

“And, with that, I also want to take care of myself so I can be around for everyone.”

Staff writers Deepa Bharath, Susan Goulding, Martin Wisckol and Steve Scauzillo contributed to this story.

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-on November 25, 2020 at 05:00AM by Ryan Carter

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The True Story of the ‘Free State of Jones’

A new Hollywood movie looks at the tale of the Mississippi farmer who led a revolt against the Confederacy By Richard Grant.

With two rat terriers trotting at his heels, and a long wooden staff in his hand, J.R. Gavin leads me through the woods to one of the old swamp hide-outs. A tall white man with a deep Southern drawl, Gavin has a stern presence, gracious manners and intense brooding eyes. At first I mistook him for a preacher, but he’s a retired electronic engineer who writes self-published novels about the rapture and apocalypse. One of them is titled Sal Batree, after the place he wants to show me.

I’m here in Jones County, Mississippi, to breathe in the historical vapors left by Newton Knight, a poor white farmer who led an extraordinary rebellion during the Civil War. With a company of like-minded white men in southeast Mississippi, he did what many Southerners now regard as unthinkable. He waged guerrilla war against the Confederacy and declared loyalty to the Union.

In the spring of 1864, the Knight Company overthrew the Confederate authorities in Jones County and raised the United States flag over the county courthouse in Ellisville. The county was known as the Free State of Jones, and some say it actually seceded from the Confederacy. This little-known, counterintuitive episode in American history has now been brought to the screen in Free State of Jones, directed by Gary Ross (Seabiscuit, The Hunger Games) and starring a grimy, scruffed-up Matthew McConaughey as Newton Knight.

Knight and his men, says Gavin, hooking away an enormous spider web with his staff and warning me to be careful of snakes, “had a number of different hide-outs. The old folks call this one Sal Batree. Sal was the name of Newt’s shotgun, and originally it was Sal’s Battery, but it got corrupted over the years.”

We reach a small promontory surrounded on three sides by a swampy, beaver-dammed lake, and concealed by 12-foot-high cattails and reeds. “I can’t be certain, but a 90-year-old man named Odell Holyfield told me this was the place,” says Gavin. “He said they had a gate in the reeds that a man on horseback could ride through. He said they had a password, and if you got it wrong, they’d kill you. I don’t know how much of that is true, but one of these days I’ll come here with a metal detector and see what I can find.”

We make our way around the lakeshore, passing beaver-gnawed tree stumps and snaky-looking thickets. Reaching higher ground, Gavin points across the swamp to various local landmarks. Then he plants his staff on the ground and turns to face me directly.

“Now I’m going to say something that might offend you,” he begins, and proceeds to do just that, by referring in racist terms to “Newt’s descendants” in nearby Soso, saying some of them are so light-skinned “you look at them and you just don’t know.”

I stand there writing it down and thinking about William Faulkner, whose novels are strewn with characters who look white but are deemed black by Mississippi’s fanatical obsession with the one-drop rule. And not for the first time in Jones County, where arguments still rage about a man born 179 years ago, I recall Faulkner’s famous axiom about history: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

After the Civil War, Knight took up with his grandfather’s former slave Rachel; they had five children together. Knight also fathered nine children with his white wife, Serena, and the two families lived in different houses on the same 160-acre farm. After he and Serena separated—they never divorced—Newt Knight caused a scandal that still reverberates by entering a common-law marriage with Rachel and proudly claiming their mixed-race children.

The Knight Negroes, as these children were known, were shunned by whites and blacks alike. Unable to find marriage partners in the community, they started marrying their white cousins instead, with Newt’s encouragement. (Newt’s son Mat, for instance, married one of Rachel’s daughters by another man, and Newt’s daughter Molly married one of Rachel’s sons by another man.) An interracial community began to form near the small town of Soso, and continued to marry within itself.

“They keep to themselves over there,” says Gavin, striding back toward his house, where supplies of canned food and muscadine wine are stored up for the onset of Armageddon. “A lot of people find it easier to forgive Newt for fighting Confederates than mixing blood.”

I came to Jones County having read some good books about its history, and knowing very little about its present-day reality. It was reputed to be fiercely racist and conservative, even by Mississippi standards, and it had been a hotbed for the Ku Klux Klan. But Mississippi is nothing if not layered and contradictory, and this small, rural county has also produced some wonderful creative and artistic talents, including Parker Posey, the indie-film queen, the novelist Jonathan Odell, the pop singer and gay astronaut Lance Bass, and Mark Landis, the schizophrenic art forger and prankster, who donated fraudulent masterpieces to major American art museums for nearly 30 years before he was caught.

Driving toward the Jones County line, I passed a sign to Hot Coffee—a town, not a beverage—and drove on through rolling cattle pastures and short, new-growth pine trees. There were isolated farmhouses and prim little country churches, and occasional dilapidated trailers with dismembered automobiles in the front yard. In Newt Knight’s day, all this was a primeval forest of enormous longleaf pines so thick around the base that three or four men could circle their arms around them. This part of Mississippi was dubbed the Piney Woods, known for its poverty and lack of prospects. The big trees were an ordeal to clear, the sandy soil was ill-suited for growing cotton, and the bottomlands were choked with swamps and thickets.

There was some very modest cotton production in the area, and a small slaveholding elite that included Newt Knight’s grandfather, but Jones County had fewer slaves than any other county in Mississippi, only 12 percent of its population. This, more than anything, explains its widespread disloyalty to the Confederacy, but there was also a surly, clannish independent spirit, and in Newt Knight, an extraordinarily steadfast and skillful leader.

On the county line, I was half-expecting a sign reading “Welcome to the Free State of Jones” or “Home of Newton Knight,” but the Confederacy is now revered by some whites in the area, and the chamber of commerce had opted for a less controversial slogan: “Now This Is Living!” Most of Jones County is rural, low- or modest-income; roughly 70 percent of the population is white. I drove past many small chicken farms, a large modern factory making transformers and computers, and innumerable Baptist churches. Laurel, the biggest town, stands apart. Known as the City Beautiful, it was created by Midwestern timber barons who razed the longleaf pine forests and built themselves elegant homes on oak-lined streets and the gorgeous world-class Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

The old county seat, and ground zero for the Free State of Jones, is Ellisville, now a pleasant, leafy town of 4,500 people. Downtown has some old brick buildings with wrought-iron balconies. The grand old columned courthouse has a Confederate monument next to it, and no mention of the anti-Confederate rebellion that took place here. Modern Ellisville is dominated by the sprawling campus of Jones County Junior College, where a semiretired history professor named Wyatt Moulds was waiting for me in the entrance hall. A direct descendant of Newt Knight’s grandfather, he was heavily involved in researching the film and ensuring its historical accuracy.

A large, friendly, charismatic man with unruly side-parted hair, he was wearing alligator-skin cowboy boots and a fishing shirt. “I’m one of the few liberals you’re going to meet here, but I’m a Piney Woods liberal,” he said. “I voted for Obama, I hunt and I love guns. It’s part of the culture here. Even the liberals carry handguns.”

He described Jones County as the most conservative place in Mississippi, but he noted that race relations were improving and that you could see it clearly in the changing attitudes toward Newt Knight. “It’s generational,” he said. “A lot of older people see Newt as a traitor and a reprobate, and they don’t understand why anyone would want to make a movie about him. If you point out that Newt distributed food to starving people, and was known as the Robin Hood of the Piney Woods, they’ll tell you he married a black, like that trumps everything. And they won’t use the word ‘black.’”

His current crop of students, on the other hand, are “fired up” about Newt and the movie. “Blacks and whites date each other in high school now, and they don’t think it’s a big deal,” said Moulds. “That’s a huge change. Some of the young guys are really identifying with Newt now, as a symbol of Jones County pride. It doesn’t hurt that he was such a badass.”

Knight was 6-foot-4 with black curly hair and a full beard—“big heavyset man, quick as a cat,” as one of his friends described him. He was a nightmarish opponent in a backwoods wrestling match, and one of the great unsung guerrilla fighters in American history. So many men tried so hard to kill him that perhaps his most remarkable achievement was to reach old age.

“He was a Primitive Baptist who didn’t drink, didn’t cuss, doted on children and could reload and fire a double-barreled, muzzle-loading shotgun faster than anyone else around,” said Moulds. “Even as an old man, if someone rubbed him the wrong way, he’d have a knife at their throat in a heartbeat. A lot of people will tell you that Newt was just a renegade, out for himself, but there’s good evidence that he was a man of strong principles who was against secession, against slavery and pro-Union.”

Those views were not unusual in Jones County. Newt’s right-hand man, Jasper Collins, came from a big family of staunch Mississippi Unionists. He later named his son Ulysses Sherman Collins, after his two favorite Yankee generals, Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman. “Down here, that’s like naming your son Adolf Hitler Collins,” said Moulds.

When secession fever swept across the South in 1860, Jones County was largely immune to it. Its secessionist candidate received only 24 votes, while the “cooperationist” candidate, John H. Powell, received 374. When Powell got to the secession convention in Jackson, however, he lost his nerve and voted to secede along with almost everyone else. Powell stayed away from Jones County for a while after that, and he was burned in effigy in Ellisville.

“In the Lost Cause mythology, the South was united, and secession had nothing to do with slavery,” said Moulds. “What happened in Jones County puts the lie to that, so the Lost Causers have to paint Newt as a common outlaw, and above all else, deny all traces of Unionism. With the movie coming out, they’re at it harder than ever.”

Although he was against secession, Knight voluntarily enlisted in the Confederate Army once the war began. We can only speculate about his reasons. He kept no diary and gave only one interview near the end of his life, to a New Orleans journalist named Meigs Frost. Knight said he’d enlisted with a group of local men to avoid being conscripted and then split up into different companies. But the leading scholar of the Knight-led rebellion, Victoria Bynum, author of The Free State of Jones, points out that Knight had enlisted, under no threat of conscription, a few months after the war began, in July 1861. She thinks he relished being a soldier.

In October 1862, after the Confederate defeat at Corinth, Knight and many other Piney Woods men deserted from the Seventh Battalion of Mississippi Infantry. It wasn’t just the starvation rations, arrogant harebrained leadership and appalling carnage. They were disgusted and angry about the recently passed “Twenty Negro Law,” which exempted one white male for every 20 slaves owned on a plantation, from serving in the Confederate Army. Jasper Collins echoed many non-slaveholders across the South when he said, “This law...makes it a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.”

Returning home, they found their wives struggling to keep up the farms and feed the children. Even more aggravating, the Confederate authorities had imposed an abusive, corrupt “tax in kind” system, by which they took what they wanted for the war effort— horses, hogs, chickens, corn, meat from the smokehouses, homespun cloth. A Confederate colonel named William N. Brown reported that corrupt tax officials had “done more to demoralize Jones County than the whole Yankee Army.”

In early 1863, Knight was captured for desertion and possibly tortured. Some scholars think he was pressed back into service for the Siege of Vicksburg, but there’s no solid evidence that he was there. After Vicksburg fell, in July 1863, there was a mass exodus of deserters from the Confederate Army, including many from Jones and the surrounding counties. The following month, Confederate Maj. Amos McLemore arrived in Ellisville and began hunting them down with soldiers and hounds. By October, he had captured more than 100 deserters, and exchanged threatening messages with Newt Knight, who was back on his ruined farm on the Jasper County border.

On the night of October 5, Major McLemore was staying at his friend Amos Deason’s mansion in Ellisville, when someone—almost certainly Newt Knight—burst in and shot him to death. Soon afterward, there was a mass meeting of deserters from four Piney Woods counties. They organized themselves into a company called the Jones County Scouts and unanimously elected Knight as their captain. They vowed to resist capture, defy tax collectors, defend each other’s homes and farms, and do what they could to aid the Union.

Neo-Confederate historians have denied the Scouts’ loyalty to the Union up and down, but it was accepted by local Confederates at the time. “They were Union soldiers from principle,” Maj. Joel E. Welborn, their former commanding officer in the Seventh Mississippi, later recalled. “They were making an effort to be mustered into the U.S. Service.” Indeed, several of the Jones County Scouts later succeeded in joining the Union Army in New Orleans.

In March 1864, Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk informed Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, that Jones County was in “open rebellion” and that guerrilla fighters were “proclaiming themselves ‘Southern Yankees.’” They had crippled the tax collection system, seized and redistributed Confederate supplies, and killed and driven out Confederate officials and loyalists, not just in Jones County but all over southeast Mississippi. Confederate Capt. Wirt Thompson reported that they were now a thousand strong and flying the U.S. flag over the Jones County courthouse—“they boast of fighting for the Union,” he added.

That spring was the high-water mark of the rebellion against the Rebels. Polk ordered two battle-hardened regiments into southeast Mississippi, under the command of Piney Woods native Col. Robert Lowry. With hanging ropes and packs of vicious, manhunting dogs, they subdued the surrounding counties and then moved into the Free State of Jones. Several of the Knight company were mangled by the dogs, and at least ten were hanged, but Lowry couldn’t catch Knight or the core group. They were deep in the swamps, being supplied with food and information by local sympathizers and slaves, most notably Rachel.

After Lowry left, proclaiming victory, Knight and his men emerged from their hide-outs, and once again, began threatening Confederate officials and agents, burning bridges and destroying railroads to thwart the Rebel Army, and raiding food supplies intended for the troops. They fought their last skirmish at Sal’s Battery, also spelled Sallsbattery, on January 10, 1865, fighting off a combined force of cavalry and infantry. Three months later, the Confederacy fell.

In 2006, the filmmaker Gary Ross was at Universal Studios, discussing possible projects, when a development executive gave him a brief, one-page treatment about Newton Knight and the Free State of Jones. Ross was instantly intrigued, both by the character and the revelation of Unionism in Mississippi, the most deeply Southern state of all.

“It led me on a deep dive to understand more and more about him and the fact that the South wasn’t monolithic during the Civil War,” says Ross, speaking on the phone from New York. “I didn’t realize it was going to be two years of research before I began writing the screenplay.”

The first thing he did was take a canoe trip down the Leaf River, to get a feel for the area. Then he started reading, beginning with the five (now six) books about Newton Knight. That led into broader reading about other pockets of Unionism in the South. Then he started into Reconstruction.

“I’m not a fast reader, nor am I an academic,” he says, “although I guess I’ve become an amateur one.” He apprenticed himself to some of the leading authorities in the field, including Harvard’s John Stauffer and Steven Hahn at the University of Pennsylvania. (At the urging of Ross, Stauffer and co-author Sally Jenkins published their own book on the Jones County rebellion, in 2009.) Ross talks about these scholars in a tone of worship and adulation, as if they’re rock stars or movie stars—and none more so than Eric Foner at Columbia, the dean of Reconstruction experts.

“He is like a god, and I went into his office, and I said, ‘My name’s Gary Ross, I did Seabiscuit.’ I asked him a bunch of questions about Reconstruction, and all he did was give me a reading list. He was giving me no quarter. I’m some Hollywood guy, you know, and he wanted to see if I could do the work.”

Ross worked his way slowly and carefully through the books, and went back with more questions. Foner answered none of them, just gave him another reading list. Ross read those books too, and went back again with burning questions. This time Foner actually looked at him and said, “Not bad. You ought to think about studying this.”

“It was the greatest compliment a person could have given me,” says Ross. “I remember walking out of his office, across the steps of Columbia library, almost buoyant. It was such a heady experience to learn for learning’s sake, for the first time, rather than to generate a screenplay. I’m still reading history books all the time. I tell people this movie is my academic midlife crisis.”

In Hollywood, he says, the executives were extremely supportive of his research, and the script that he finally wrestled out of it, but they balked at financing the film. “This was before Lincoln and 12 Years a Slave, and it was very hard to get this sort of a drama made. So I went and did Hunger Games, but always keeping an eye on this. ”

Matthew McConaughey thought the Free State of Jones script was the most exciting Civil War story he had ever read, and knew immediately that he wanted to play Newt Knight. In Knight’s defiance of both the Confederate Army and the deepest taboos of Southern culture McConaughey sees an uncompromising and deeply moral leader. He was “a man who lived by the Bible and the barrel of a shotgun,” McConaughey says in an email. “If someone—no matter what their color—was being mistreated or being used, if a poor person was being used by someone to get rich, that was a simple wrong that needed to be righted in Newt’s eyes....He did so deliberately, and to the hell with the consequences.” McConaughey sums him up as a “shining light through the middle of this country’s bloodiest fight. I really kind of marveled at him.”

The third act of the film takes place in Mississippi after the Civil War. There was a phase during early Reconstruction when blacks could vote, and black officials were elected for the first time. Then former Confederates violently took back control of the state and implemented a kind of second slavery for African-Americans. Once again disenfranchised, and terrorized by the Klan, they were exploited through sharecropping and legally segregated. “The third act is what makes this story feel so alive,” says McConaughey. “It makes it relevant today. Reconstruction is a verb that’s ongoing.”

Ross thinks Knight’s character and beliefs are most clearly revealed by his actions after the war. He was hired by the Reconstruction government to free black children from white masters who were refusing to emancipate them. “In 1875, he accepts a commission in what was essentially an all-black regiment,” says Ross. “His job was to defend the rights of freed African-Americans in one of Mississippi’s bloodiest elections. His commitment to these issues never waned.” In 1876, Knight deeded 160 acres of land to Rachel, making her one of very few African-American landowners in Mississippi at that time.

Much as Ross wanted to shoot the movie in Jones County, there were irresistible tax incentives to film across the border in Louisiana, and some breathtaking cypress swamps where various cast members were infested with the tiny mites known as chiggers. Nevertheless, Ross and McConaughey spent a lot of time in Jones County, persuading many county residents to appear in the film.

“I love the Leaf River and the whole area,” says Ross. “And I’ve grown to love Mississippi absolutely. It’s a very interesting, real and complicated place.”

On the website of Jones County Rosin Heels, the local chapter of the Sons of the Confederate Veterans, an announcement warned that the film will portray Newt Knight as a civil rights activist and a hero. Then the writer inadvertently slips into the present tense: “He is actually a thief, murderer, adulterer and a deserter.”

Doug Jefcoate was listed as camp commander. I found him listed as a veterinarian in Laurel, and called up, saying I was interested in his opinions on Newt Knight. He sounded slightly impatient, then said, “OK, I’m a history guy and a fourth-generation guy. Come to the animal hospital tomorrow.”

The receptionist led me into a small examining room and closed both its doors. I stood there for a few long minutes, with a shiny steel table and, on the wall, a Bible quotation. Then Jefcoate walked in, a middle-aged man with sandy hair, glasses and a faraway smile. He was carrying two huge, leather-bound volumes of his family genealogy.

He gave me ten minutes on his family tree, and when I interrupted to ask about the Rosin Heels and Newt Knight, he stopped, looked puzzled, and began to chuckle. “You’ve got the wrong Doug Jefcoate,” he said. “I’m not that guy.” (Turns out he is Doug Jefcoat, without the “e.”)

He laughed uproariously, then settled down and gave me his thoughts. “I’m not a racist, OK, but I am a segregationist,” he said. “And ol’ Newt was skinny-dipping in the wrong pool.”

The Rosin Heel commander Doug Jefcoate wasn’t available, so I went instead to the law offices of Carl Ford, a Rosin Heel who had unsuccessfully defended Sam Bowers, the imperial wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, in his 1998 trial for the 1966 murder of civil rights activist Vernon Dahmer. Ford wasn’t there, but he’d arranged for John Cox, a friend, colleague and fellow Rosin Heel, to set me straight about Newt Knight.

Cox, an animated 71-year-old radio and television announcer with a long white beard, welcomed me into a small office crammed with video equipment and Confederate memorabilia. He was working on a film called Free State of Jones: The Republic That Never Was, intended to refute Gary Ross’ film. All he had so far was the credits (Executive Producer Carl Ford) and the introductory banjo music.

“Newt is what we call trailer trash,” he said in a booming baritone drawl. “I wouldn’t have him in my house. And like all poor, white, ignorant trash, he was in it for himself. Some people are far too enamored of the idea that he was Martin Luther King, and these are the same people who believe the War Between the States was about slavery, when nothing could be further from the truth.”

There seemed no point in arguing with him, and it was almost impossible to get a word in, so I sat there scribbling as he launched into a long monologue that defended slavery and the first incarnation of the Klan, burrowed deep into obscure Civil War battle minutiae, denied all charges of racism, and kept circling back to denounce Newt Knight and the simpering fools who tried to project their liberal agendas on him.

“There was no Free State of Jones,” he concluded. “It never existed.”

Joseph Hosey is a Jones County forester and wild mushroom harvester who was hired as an extra for the movie and ended up playing a core member of the Knight Company. Looking at him, there’s no reason to ask why. Scruffy and rail-thin with piercing blue eyes and a full beard, he looks like he subsists on Confederate Army rations and the occasional squirrel.

He wanted to meet me at Jitters Coffeehouse & Bookstore in Laurel, so he could show me an old map on the wall. It depicts Jones County as Davis County, and Ellisville as Leesburg. “After 1865, Jones County was so notorious that the local Confederates were ashamed to be associated with it,” he says. “So they got the county renamed after Jefferson Davis, and Ellisville after Robert E. Lee. A few years later, there was a vote on it, and the names were changed back. Thank God, because that would have sucked.”

Like his grandfather before him, Hosey is a great admirer of Newt Knight. Long before the film, when people asked where he was from, he would say, “The Free State of Jones.” Now he has a dog named Newt, and describes it as a “Union-blue Doberman.”

Being in the film, acting and interacting with Matthew McConaughey, was a profound and moving experience, but not because of the actor’s fame. “It was like Newt himself was standing right there in front of me. It made me really wish my grandfather was still alive, because we were always saying someone should make a movie about Newt.” Hosey and the other actors in the Knight Company bonded closely during the shoot and still refer to themselves as the Knight Company. “We have get-togethers in Jones County, and I imagine we always will,” he says.

I ask him what he admires most about Knight. “When you grow up in the South, you hear all the time about your ‘heritage,’ like it’s the greatest thing there is,” he says. “When I hear that word, I think of grits and sweet tea, but mostly I think about slavery and racism, and it pains me. Newt Knight gives me something in my heritage, as a white Southerner, that I can feel proud about. We didn’t all go along with it.”

After Reconstruction, with the former Confederates back in charge, the Klan after him, and Jim Crow segregation laws being passed, Knight retreated from public life to his homestead on the Jasper County border, which he shared with Rachel until her death in 1889, and continued to share with her children and grandchildren. He lived the self-sufficient life of a yeoman Piney Woods farmer, doted on his swelling ranks of children and grandchildren, and withdrew completely from white society.

He gave that single long interview in 1921, revealing a laconic sense of humor and a strong sense of right and wrong, and he died the following year, in February 1922. He was 84 years old. Joseph Hosey took me to Newt’s granddaughter’s cabin, where some say that he suffered a fatal heart attack while dancing on the porch. Hosey really wanted to take me to Newt Knight’s grave. But the sacred rite of hunting season was underway, and the landowner didn’t want visitors disturbing the deer in the area. So Hosey drove up to the locked gate, and then swiped up the relevant photographs on his phone.

Newt’s grave has an emblem of Sal, his beloved shotgun, and the legend, “He Lived For Others.” He’d given instructions that he should be buried here with Rachel. “It was illegal for blacks and whites to be buried in the same cemetery,” says Hosey. “Newt didn’t give a damn. Even in death, he defied them.”

There were several times in Jones County when my head began to swim.

During my final interview, across a brightly colored plastic table in the McDonald’s in Laurel, there were moments when my brain seized up altogether, and I would sit there stunned, unable to grasp what I was hearing. The two sisters sitting across the table were gently amused. They had seen this many times before. It was, in fact, the normal reaction when they tried to explain their family tree to outsiders.

Dorothy Knight Marsh and Florence Knight Blaylock are the great-granddaughters of Newt and Rachel. After many decades of living in the outside world, they are back in Soso, Mississippi, dealing with prejudice from all directions. The worst of it comes from within their extended family. “We have close relatives who won’t even look at us,” says Blaylock, the older sister, who was often taken for Mexican when she lived in California.

“Or they’ll be nice to us in private, and pretend they don’t know us in public,” added Marsh, who lived in Washington, D.C. for decades. For simplification, she said that there were three basic groups. The White Knights are descended from Newt and Serena, are often pro-Confederate, and proud of their pure white bloodlines. (In 1951, one of them, Ethel Knight, published a vitriolic indictment of Newt as a traitor to the Confederacy.) The Black Knights are descended from Newt’s cousin Dan, who had children with one of his slaves. The White Negroes (a.k.a. the Fair Knights or Knight Negroes) are descended from Newt and Rachel. “They all have separate family reunions,” said Blaylock.

The White Negro line was complicated further by Georgeanne, Rachel’s daughter by another white man. After Rachel died, Newt and Georgeanne had children. “He was a family man all right!” said Marsh. “I guess that’s why he had three of them. And he kept trying to marry out the color, so we would all keep getting lighter-skinned. We have to tell our young people, do not date in the Soso area. But we’re all fine. We don’t have any...problems. All Knights are hardworking and very capable.”

In the film, Marsh and Blaylock appear briefly in a courthouse scene. For the two of them, the Knight family saga has continued into the 20th century and beyond. Their cousin Davis Knight, who looked white and claimed to be white, was tried for the crime of miscegenation in 1948, after marrying a white woman. The trial was a study in Mississippian absurdity, paradox, contradiction and racial obsessiveness. A white man was convicted of being black; the conviction was overturned; he became legally white again.

“We’ve come to terms with who we are,” says Blaylock. “I’m proud to be descended from Newt and Rachel. I have so much respect for both of them.”

“Absolutely,” says Marsh. “And we can’t wait to see this movie.”

#american history #confederacy #film #popup block

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peace-coast-island · 7 years

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Rising star Finn Dobrev came out of nowhere. As in no one has heard of him until recently and he just sort of accidentally became famous. He just unknowingly walked into stardom after being dragged by his friend, celebutante and notorious diva Lauren Pines when the actor playing the love interest quit at the last minute. The director was desperate and needed someone who could tolerate Lauren’s bratty behavior when Lauren called Finn up. The movie was a surprise hit and the rest is history. However when you’re Finn Dobrev, accidental stardom is nothing compared to what happened to him the year before when everything got really weird.

Flashback to a very long time ago, years before the story began, back to Purplewood Forest. There, was three year old Finn completely lost with no memory of his identity other than a beanie with his name on it. For nine years Finn was raised by an alien shapeshifter scientist named Mara and her adopted son, a ghost named Cloud. When Finn was twelve, a disaster struck Island 01010, an epidemic that would claim the lives of over 90% of its inhabitants. In order to save the remaining population, Mara and her team of scientists stopped the mutant virus with cyborg technology. As a result, Finn’s body is a hybrid between human and cyborg with incredible strength and durability while maintaining his consciousness as a human. He was one out of fifty to survive the disaster that eventually led to the island’s abandonment a few years later.

Fast forward to five years after the 01010 disaster to another disaster, this time in Island 02020. Over the years Finn has grown to be quite an adventurer, traveling through time and space helping others out. Not long after his conversion took place, Finn discovered that he had the ability to time travel, a trait he inherited from his father. After winning a battle and obtaining a key that allowed him to travel dimensions, Finn was like a hero in many places. From stopping a comet with a malfunctioning spaceship to solving cases like stolen socks to overthrowing an incompetent group of overpowered jerks, Finn Dobrev and Cloud the ghost were an unstoppable duo. Of course there were times when things went wrong like when they accidentally let a bunch of time criminals, like Finn’s father, free or causing thousands of dollars in property damage at Bubblerum Sea, which happens like once a month. It’s a good thing that Finn and Cloud are friends with everyone there, including their leader Rena. Living on Bubblerum was like a wild adventure.

And then everything changed when Finn, Cloud, and Rena were shipwrecked on the coast of 02020.

Cloud, being the overly curious and mischievous one, accidentally unleashed an evil spirit hidden away in an old arcade. Of course, Rena was furious when she found Finn and Cloud turning the village upside down in an attempt to catch the spirit. When it was clear that the spirit had left Bubblerum, the three went back to the arcade to find clues about where it could have gone. Hidden away in a bookshelf were the files of various people who lived in the Computer Isles, including 01010. In the very back of Island 050505’s records was a doctor named Aimee Ligaya, married to Marius Dobrev, two children: Tala and Finn. On the back were their pictures with a big red stamped marked missing on top of them. According to the date on the papers, the record was typed over fifteen years ago.

Upon finding that discovery, Finn was insistent on visiting 050505 to learn about his past. As he grew older, he began to wonder about a lot of things like his existence, his mortality, and most of all, his ancestry. After meeting with his father, whose answers are left for debate, Finn was left with more questions than ever. It took a lot of begging but Rena and Cloud agreed to help him make the dangerous journey to the ghost town of 050505.

Along the way, the three of them faced many obstacles including a fire breathing serpent that kept trying to put them to sleep, three annoying dragonflies that kept trying to sell them a weird elixir to make them charming, seaweed that makes everything look like weeds, and finally a whirlpool storm. The boat was destroyed and the three of them spent the next two days stranded in the ocean before washing up on the rocky shore of 02020, unaware of what is to come next.

To this day, no one is exactly sure what happened in the month of October that year. After being washed up on the shore, a scientist took the three of them in and started asking a million questions about their motives. Then while doing a DNA scan, Finn’s came up with a match. In shock, the scientist dropped everything and called for a doc bot, who took everyone to a hidden basement. There it was revealed that the scientist was Finn’s sister Tala and the doc bots were controlled by their mother Aimee, who pretty much ran everything through a command booth.

The big moment didn’t exactly go as Finn pictured it, especially with all the confusion going on after spinning around the ocean for two days straight but it went a lot smoother than he thought. Everything would have been good and happy if it wasn’t for that evil spirit Cloud released, which was basically a landmine that resulted in everything else that was about to go down. The spirit, a “wobblewonk” was a powerful force of nature who was responsible for the disasters that took place in 01010 and 05050. In 01010 was the epidemic and in 05050 was a mega earthquake and whirlpool storm that scattered its inhabitants everywhere and tore the island apart. Aimee and Tala landed on 02020 with little to no memory of what happened. By the time their memories returned, four years had passed and there were no signs of Marius and Finn in the Isle Registry. Heartbroken at their apparent demise, Aimee dedicated herself to helping 02020’s inhabitants thrive and prevent another disaster from occurring. Tala, whose life was saved by a team of biochemicalists, joined the DNA taskforce to improve the quality of the islander’s lives and create new lifeforms.

What happened in the month of October resulted in a series of time loops that would reset itself after 02020 was wiped out by the wobblewonk. The first disaster that struck was a lightning storm that struck the control tower and burnt down everything. Before the big fire, Finn and Cloud failed to defeat the wobblewonk, whose purpose was to destroy life. Moments before their demise, Cloud and Finn came up with an idea that could prevent the disaster from happening and save everyone’s lives. By combining Finn’s time travel abilities with Cloud’s ghostly powers, they could create an alternate timeline to fix things. Unfortunately they learned that trying to figure out the laws of time would just bring on more problems.

Hundreds and hundreds of time loops later, things seemed hopeless for Island 02020. The first reset took them to a time when the disaster was a flock of mutant insects that ate everything. Another loop involved a hidden landmine at the core of the island. Some loops repeated but even then Finn and Cloud were still unprepared. And there were times when freedom was within their grasp, only to be taken away by the wobblewonk. Eventually Finn and Cloud’s memories began to blur as they began to loose track of exactly how many times they reset. As time went on, Cloud realized that their powers were weakening when the resets started taking them back later in time.

It wasn’t until the reset began two weeks before the set disaster date when the tables began turning. To Finn’s surprise, Rena, Aimee, and Tala seemed to remember past timelines, which allowed them to avoid previous mistakes. While Cloud grew more weary and resigned, Finn became more determined.He fought hard to change fate by building resources and reaching out to others like Lauren, the Bubblerum council, and other friends from other lands, times, and dimensions. Still, every move he made, he was shooting in the dark. No matter what, something was bound to go wrong but at least if everyone put their heads together, there was a better chance of winning. Finn wouldn’t rest until the day came when the wobblewonk was defeated without any casualties.

The final showdown occurred on October 30 when the wobblewonk was finally defeated. This time, Finn and Cloud had the upper hand as they knew exactly what kind of disaster to prepare for. By putting together a network of allies, they made extra sure that they were covered. From a powerful pesticide totally harmless to humanoids, gas masks that convert poisonous air to oxygen, storm proof shelters stocked to the brim to survive for centuries underground or above ground, a stock full of medicine and gadgets to deal with the toughest diseases, multiple back up plans, and more, 02020 was more than ready.

Still, there were many close calls but somehow they pulled through, barely. Each obstacle they survived bought on relief and stress. And then there was one final challenge, facing the wobblewonk itself. Unfortunately that was the one battle they were unprepared for. Just when things were about to go south, Cloud had one more trick up his sleeve. By using his remaining power he sacrificed himself to fight the wobblewonk to the death while everyone else retreated to the sky shelter. Following a massive explosion that left 02020 in shambles, the wobblewonk was defeated and fate was finally broken. In the weeks that followed, Finn and Rena along with their friends helped rebuild the island.

A few months later Finn and Rena returned to Bubblerum where the citizens surprised them with a statue dedicated to Cloud. Finn took a break from his travels for a while, contemplating semi-retirement to pursue other things. Things weren’t the same without Cloud by his side but knowing that his brother would want him to be happy, it made things a little easier. He keeps in touch with his mother and sister often and plans to make another visit when the seas are calmer. For the first time Finn enjoyed not having anything to do for weeks at a time.

Then one day Lauren called him, begging for help. With a limited filming schedule for her movie the director needed an actor fast and all the other A listers refused. Finn being a good friend and one of the few people Lauren wasn’t a total butt to, he accepted. Being a love interest wasn’t high up on his list but it was an interesting experience and before he knew it, Finn became a rising movie star. So when Lauren invited him to attend this hip college in Peace Coast Island for rising celebs, mainly so it won’t look like she doesn’t have any friends, Finn figured, why not? As Mara always told Finn and Cloud, there’s always something new worth trying out. Finn is always full of surprises and becoming an actor is just one of them.

#hollywood u #hwu #hwu game #headcanon ramble #Finn Dobrev

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orendrasingh · 4 years

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In the six weeks since Idaho police announced that Tylee and J.J. Vallow were missing, the investigation into the siblings’ disappearance has taken more turns than one of their stepfather’s Mormon apocalypse novels.And there’s likely to be another one Thursday—the court-ordered deadline for their mother, Lori Vallow, to produce them or face a contempt of court charge and possible arrest and extradition from Hawaii.That’s where she and husband Chad Daybell have been holed up since cops started looking into the whereabouts of their children, the deaths of their previous spouses, and other bizarre incidents connected to the couple.Last weekend, police on the island of Kauai served Vallow with a court order signed by an Idaho judge, giving her five days to turn up with 17-year-old Tylee and 7-year-old J.J., who was adopted and is autistic.Ominously, police found no sign of the kids or any indication that they had been in Hawaii. Now, authorities in Kauai are waiting to see if Vallow complies with the order and brings an end to the troubling mystery.Idaho Doomsday Couple Found in Hawaii—Without Missing KidsKauai Prosecuting Attorney Justin Kollar told The Daily Beast on Wednesday that he’s been involved in other missing persons cases over the last decade, “but I’ve never seen one with so many twists and turns.”He did not know if Vallow and Daybell had left Hawaii for Idaho, and Kauai police did not return calls for comment. In Idaho, authorities are being very close-lipped because much of the child-protection case is sealed.“We hope and pray that the children will be produced or found and that they are safe and healthy,” Madison County Prosecuting Attorney Rob Wood said in a statement.A reporter for East Idaho News, who was in Kauai when police stopped the couple with a search warrant last weekend and seized their vehicle, pelted them with questions about the children that they refused to answer. Told that people were praying for Tylee and J.J., Vallow had a two-word response: “That’s great.”Beyond that, the newlyweds have only commented on the situation in a single, brief statement from an Idaho attorney. “Chad Daybell was a loving husband and has the support of his children in this matter. Lori (Vallow) Daybell is a devoted mother and resents assertions to the contrary. We look forward to addressing the allegations once they have moved beyond speculation and rumor,” lawyer Sean Bartholick said.Idaho police maintain there’s a lot more than speculation at play. No one has seen the children since late September. Daybell and Vallow got hitched soon after their previous spouses died—deaths that are now under new scrutiny. And they have refused to assist police in any way.“We strongly believe that Joshua and Tylee’s lives are in danger,” Rexburg police said last month.Chad Daybell, 51, is a prolific author of books aimed at a Mormon audience. With titles like Days of Fury, Evading Babylon, and The Rise of Zion, they focus on doomsday scenarios and near-death situations.A memoir, Living on the Edge of Heaven, catalogs what he says were his own near-death experiences, during a cliff-jumping incident when he was 17 and being hit by a wave at La Jolla Cove in California in his twenties.“While his body was being tossed by the wave, his spirit was visiting with his grandfather, who showed him future events involving his still-unborn children,” an Amazon summary of the book reads. “This accident caused his veil that separates mortal life from the Spirit World to stay partially open, so he often feels as if he has a foot in both worlds.”Lori Vallow, 46, was living in Hawaii with her fourth husband Charles, Tylee, and J.J. when she reportedly began reading Daybell’s florid end-times prose and became obsessed with his worldview.It’s not clear exactly how or when they met, but by 2018, she was involved with a group called Preparing a People that put on conferences, lectures and podcasts for those who, as its website says, “look forward to the rapidly coming changes to our current Telestial way of life, and rejoice in the hope of a far better world to soon come!”By then, Lori and Charles had moved from Hawaii to Arizona—and their 12-year marriage was on the rocks.Slain Hubby Claimed Doomsday Mom Threatened to Kill HimFamily members have said that Lori took Tylee and J.J. and disappeared for weeks. Charles filed for divorce in February 2019, painting a disturbing picture of his wife.He said she had become “obsessive about near-death experiences and spiritual visions” and refused to see a mental health professional. She claimed to be “a god assigned to carry out the work of the 144,000 at Christ’s second coming in July 2020,” Charles wrote in his petition, obtained by the Arizona Republic. He said she threatened to him kill him if he interfered with her plans.Charles didn’t go through with the divorce, though, withdrawing the petition a month later. He decamped to Texas while Lori stayed in Arizona. Four months later, he was dead.On July 11, 2019, he showed up at Lori’s home to see J.J. and was shot to death by her brother, Alex Cox, who told police it was self-defense. By his account, Charles got into an argument with Lori, became physical and then came at him with a baseball bat. “We knew immediately that was wrong,” Charles’ sister Kay Woodcock, who is also J.J,’s grandmother, said at a press conference earlier this month. “It was a setup.”Cox was not charged at the time and was found dead himself five months later of unknown causes. Arizona police have said the case was still open at the time.Within weeks of Charles Vallow’s killing, Lori moved to Idaho with Tylee and J.J. Kay Woodcock and her husband Larry, who live in Louisiana, said their contact with the little boy became more limited. “That was very concerning to us,” Kay said. By the end of September, J.J. was reportedly no longer attending Rexburg Elementary School.Over the next couple of weeks, police in Arizona and Idaho were alerted to two strange incidents that have since taken on greater significance.On Oct. 2, Brandon Boudreaux—who was in the midst of a divorce from Lori Vallow’s niece—was driving home from the gym in Glibert, Arizona, when a bullet came whizzing into his vehicle. He has said police told him the Jeep that raced away from the scene was registered to the late Charles Vallow.A week later, in Salem, Idaho, Chad Daybell’s wife, Tammy, 49, had just returned from the grocery store when, as she described to police, she was ambushed by someone clad in black and a ski mask who pointed what appeared to be a paintball gun at her. She called for Chad and the person took off.“She wasn’t shot, and there wasn’t any evidence to who it was. She figured it was a prankster. That’s what we wrote it up as,” Fremont County Sheriff Len Humphries told the Rexburg Standard Journal. “She wasn’t injured. Beyond what she told us, we had nothing to go on.”Ten days later, there was another call from the house. Tammy was dead.Doomsday Writer’s Friend Says He Prophesied Wife’s Mysterious DeathAn obituary said the mother of five grown children “passed away peacefully in her sleep.” Her father, Ron Douglas, told a Salt Lake City TV station Chad called him crying, saying that Tammy had a coughing fit the night before and simply never woke up. Chad turned down an autopsy and the death was listed as natural causes.According to the obituary, Tammy and Chad had met when she was a freshman at Brigham Young University and quickly married. She supported the family while he continued his education and helped him build the Spring Creek Book Company, which published his novels.Tammy and Chad had been married for nearly 30 years, but within weeks of her death, he remarried—reportedly traveling to Hawaii to tie the knot with Lori.By late November, the Woodcocks had grown very worried about J.J. and Tylee and asked authorities to check on them. When police showed up, Chad and Lori said the children were with relatives in Arizona. A quick check showed that was not true, but when cops returned the next day, the couple were gone. Investigators learned the children had not been seen in two months and, chillingly, that the couple had told people that Tylee was dead or that Lori did not have children.Now police were just as concerned as the Woodcocks—and not just about Tylee and J.J. In early December, they secured permission to exhume Tammy Daybell’s body to determine if there was foul play. (Autopsy results have not been completed). And police in Arizona began investigating Charles Vallow’s death with a new eye.Others began to reassess the couple, as well. Nancy and Michael James, who run Preparing a People—which they describe as a media company, not a religious organization—wrote on their website that they returned from a vacation to news of Tammy’s death.“We considered Chad Daybell a good friend, but have since learned of things we had no idea about,” they wrote last month in a post that has since been removed. “We recently learned of Chad's new marriage to Lori Vallow a couple weeks after Tammy Daybell died... We did not know Lori as well as we thought we knew Chad.”The Jameses announced they were removing any content on their site from Daybell or Vallow. “We pray for the truth of whatever happened to be quickly manifest,” they wrote.Those prayers would not be answered. On Dec. 30, Rexburg police issued an extraordinary statement, publicly blasting Vallow for refusing to cooperate with their search for her children.“We know that the children are not with Lori and Chad Daybell and we also have information indicating that Lori knows either the location of the children or what has happened to them. Despite having this knowledge, she has refused to work with law enforcement to help us resolve this matter,” they said.Police said that Vallow had left Idaho, but they did not say where she was. That became clear over the weekend when East Idaho News revealed that they were in Hawaii. They moved into a townhouse condo in a gated community bordering a golf course where neighbors said they kept to themselves.On Saturday, Kauai police served Vallow with the child protective order requiring her to produce the children in Idaho by Jan. 30. On Sunday, they stopped the couple at the Kauai Beach Resort, served search warrants and took their SUV away.On Wednesday, the Woodcocks—who have put up a $20,000 reward for information leading to the return of Tylee and J.J.—flew from Louisiana to Idaho in the hopes that Vallow does show up with the children. It’s what everyone hopes, even though nearly every development in the case has only raised more questions. As Tammy Daybell’s father, Ron Douglas, told Fox 13: “Every time you peel a layer off the onion it makes you scratch your head.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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beautytipsfor · 4 years

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It’s D-Day for Doomsday Mom Lori Vallow to Produce Missing Kids

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famouswritings-blog · 5 years

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What Have You Survived?

All leaders can be sure of having some level of disloyalty within the ranks of their followers. Jesus’ ministry survived the betrayal by Judas. Betrayal is part of life. No matter who you are or what type of leadership you have, you will experience betrayal. But you must be a survivor!

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. Psalm 23:1-6

King David spoke of surviving the valley of the shadow of death. Survival is a central theme of the ministry. All true ministers must have a survival mentality. God did not promise us an easy road when we chose to serve Him. God expects us to survive after the attacks are over.

…and having done all, to stand. Ephesians 6:13

If you cannot survive you cannot be a leader because leadership involves surviving.

Ten Things Every Survivor Must Do

1. A survivor must continue to exist or function in spite of adverse conditions. We are in a battle with a real enemy. The conditions are not good. Satan is the god of this world and in a sense we are on his turf.

2. Every survivor must come through and pull through. After I had preached in one church, the pastor told me, “It seems you have been through hell.” Certainly, I have been through a lot, but I am still around.

3. Every survivor must carry on and carry through.

4. Every survivor must continue.

Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; John 8:31

5. Every survivor must remain alive after the challenges of life.

6. Every survivor must last.

Paul was a leader who lasted.

7. Every survivor must outlive the storms.

When the storm is over you must still be around.

8. Every survivor must recover and revive.

9. Every survivor must live to fight again.

10. Every survivor must continue to live or exist in spite of danger.

Fifteen Things Paul Survived

Paul survived frequent imprisonments.

Paul survived five beatings from the Jews.

Paul survived three beatings with rods.

Paul survived stoning.

Paul survived three shipwrecks.

Paul survived forty-eight hours in the deep sea.

Paul survived several journeys.

Paul survived dangers from robbers.

Paul survived dangers in the city.

Paul survived dangers from his own countrymen.

Paul survived dangers in the wilderness.

Paul survived dangers from disloyal people.

Paul survived extreme exhaustion.

Paul survived a lot of pain.

Paul survived the cold and nakedness.

Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

2 Corinthians 11:23-27

Six Things Every Leader Must Survive

1. Survive persecution. I have been strongly persecuted for my beliefs. I have been persecuted for starting a church. I have been ridiculed for starting a ministerial association. In 1988 and 1989, two different people called me “Jim Jones”! One of them was my classmate, a fellow medical student. The other person who called me “Jim Jones” was a professor in the medical school and a family friend. By the grace of God I have survived these persecutions.

I needed a church hall for my wedding, but this professor told my parents that he would only help if I promised to close down my church. He was so convinced that I was another “Jim Jones”. Who was Jim Jones? He was a cult leader who led thousands of people to their deaths. I was portrayed as a cult leader and a lunatic. Those were difficult moments, but I came through. I have survived these hateful persecutions and I am still around by the grace of God. Don’t be discouraged because of your persecutions. A leader is supposed to be a survivor.

2. Survive rejection. I have survived rejection as a minister of the gospel. When I was getting married, there was no external minister I could trust to officiate my wedding. My associate pastor had to officiate my wedding. I invited all the pastors in the city but no one turned up. These ministers were not interested in my wedding. When it was time to take pictures with all pastors, none were present. The MC called for all pastors but no one came forward. I was completely rejected. But I have survived and many of the people who rejected me then, show respect to me today. Do not allow rejection to kill your vision for leadership. Leadership includes surviving everything that is thrown at you.

3. Survive bad stories. A leader is someone who survives bad stories. When Jesus rose from the dead some people spread a rumour about his disciples. They claimed that the disciples were grave looters who had stolen the body of Jesus. In other words, their claim was that he did not really rise from the dead. But the gospel has survived this story.

And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, Saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. And if this come to the governor’s ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day. Matthew 28:12-15

Before Peter could begin his ministry, many people saw him as a liar and a thief. Others saw him as the greatest deceiver to live in Jerusalem for centuries. Yet, he was a genuine minister of the gospel, proclaiming only what he had seen and heard. This is the lot of all true leaders or ministers of the gospel. You will have to survive the unbelievable stories that go on around you. I have heard people say amazing things about me. Once, somebody said we were printing money in our church. Someone even accused us of dealing in drugs. How do we explain all these stories?

Government officials sometimes describe church leaders as charlatans who rip and rape the people. This is the impression that many people have of us. What can we do about it? We can only survive! To survive means to outlive and outlast every storm. A leader is a survivor. To survive, you need determination and a whole lot of faith. You need to believe in yourself and you need to believe that what you are doing is the right thing. You need to believe that God will help you.

4. Survive every crisis. A leader survives every crisis. You’ve got to hold on in the midst of your crisis. I know we all want peace and perfect harmony. That is the way it should be, but life has its twists and turns. You have to survive. You need self-confidence and self-determination. You can do it! If you believe, you can conquer it all! A leader needs friends and family in times of crisis. I have found that God is your best friend in such times.

Jesus was a survivor. He met with stiff rejection and hatred. People wanted him killed from day one, but he survived. When Jesus announced that he was anointed and had a healing ministry, many people rejected him outright.

And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. But he passing through the midst of them went his way, Luke 4:17-19,28-30

Jesus survived! I see you surviving! Your children will survive! Your family will survive! Jesus survived and so will you! A leader cannot please everyone; he has to do what God has told him to do!

5. Survive envy, jealousy, disloyalty and betrayal.

(Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth). Numbers 12:3

As you go higher in ministry, you will attract lots of envy and jealousy. Most of that will come from your own brothers and sisters.

Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. Genesis 37:3,4

Joseph obtained favour and was given a coat of many colours. Soon he attracted the hatred of his own brothers. A leader must survive the envy and jealousies of his brothers. The people who have said some of the nastiest things about me are ministers of the gospel in my own city. Things have a way of getting round to you. One minister told me, “If you knew what one pastor said about you, you would never ever go to his church again.”

A leader thrives in the midst of petty jealousies and hatred. Joseph survived the test of slavery. He survived going to prison. He survived the lies and bad stories of Potiphar’s wife. A leader is a survivor! Joseph’s ability to lead Egypt in a time of crisis was partly because of his ability to survive the envy and jealousy of everyone around him.

Sometimes people want you to apologize for being blessed. How can I apologize for the blessing of God upon my life? Many of the things I have today, I did not even ask for. They just came my way. Are you a leader? Do not be intimidated by the hatred of those around you. David’s first problem began when he killed Goliath. The Bible says that Saul eyed David after that victory.

And the women answered one another as they played, and said, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands. And Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him; and he said, They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom? And Saul eyed David from that day and forward. 1 Samuel 18:7-9

Are you a leader? Get ready for envy, jealousy and betrayal as you rise to prominence. To survive all these, you need determination and a great deal of faith. Jesus’ ministry survived the betrayal by Judas. Betrayal is part of life. No matter who you are or what type of leadership you have, you will experience betrayal. If Judas is anything to go by, then one out of twelve people may be disloyal.

I recently heard of a church that voted for a new pastor. This new pastor received ninety-one percent of the votes. What did that mean? It meant that nine percent of the people did not really want the new pastor. This poor pastor will not even know who voted against him. However, he can be sure that the disapproving group will be within the congregation. All leaders can be sure of having some level of disloyalty within the ranks of their followers. Keep disloyalty to a minimum and survive the rebellion that comes against your leadership. Do not cry about it. Do not moan about it. That is leadership. Jesus was betrayed. And Paul was betrayed. How can it be that you will not experience the same? I have had friends who were very close to me, turn around against me. People I ate with, slept with and played with turned against me in bitter hatred.

Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me. Psalm 41:9

At one point, I thought I would not survive the betrayal. The betrayal of one friend cut me like a knife through the heart. I became ill for two weeks as I endured the lies and slander of an old friend. But I survived! A leader is a survivor! A leader is not someone who has had things rosy. Be determined, dear friend, to be a survivor. You will live through whatever storm you are experiencing!

6. Survive pressure. Real leaders often come under extreme and varied pressures because they are out there in the front. They are the ones who receive all the blows. The pressure is always on them. If you cannot stand pressure then you cannot be a leader.

Develop a hard forehead. Do not go mad. Do not go crazy. Some people break down under pressure. God told Ezekiel not to be afraid of the people’s faces. Be harder than everything that comes against you. Confess boldly, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Say aloud, “I am able, more than able to prevail and to win this battle. Though a thousand fall at my side and ten thousand at my left hand, I shall survive. I am a survivor in the name of Jesus. God will strengthen and keep me in all my ways!”

by Dag Heward-Mills

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stellacarrierimaginationbuilders · 5 years

Text

Title; Muse and Spirit Guide Assistant Residing in the Storytelling and House/Mansion Building Celestial Worlds Series Part Four

Preface: I must make it clear that this creative fiction story is independent of the fact that I appreciate my current University of Maryland College Park food services job and I hope that I can be eligible to be employed in my University of Maryland College Park food services job for the August 2019 to December 2019 timeframe.

Start time after at least opening the fantasy name generator website and before opening and researching other websites: sometime after 539 pm on Saturday March 30 2019

Completion time of creative fiction freestyle story by 742pm Saturday March 30 2019

Title; Muse and Spirit Guide Assistant Residing in the Storytelling and House/Mansion Building Celestial Worlds Series Part Four

Hi my name is Kalara formerly Christian Gibson in the year 2130, six years of earth time have passed since my last communication. I am transitioning in my name the longer I am spending in this blissful afterlife part of also the next role that I am evolving to in my work of helping both married women and both single and married men with their career and money lives. My name is also meant to discuss details of a multiple number of my direct descendants as a number of them are still alive and to also conceal the descendants of the women involved with my father Marvin Harper and descendants of the male loves associated with his wife Viola Kirkland. This is important because only my biological mother knew of the male and female lovers connected with Marvin Harper and Viola Kirkland as she was part psychic herself when they were all alive on earth. My mother was the only female lover that other people knew about because of the obvious reason from the first storytelling session. However, the lovers connected with my father Marvin Harper and Viola Kirkland were discreet about their affairs for multiple and obvious reasons. However, in my next session I intend to explain why I voluntarily agreed to have my name changed from Christian Gibson to Kalara in the next session.

First things first that I promised from the previous session why did my mother Maibritt Beck ask Viola Kirkland to have custody of me by the time I reached my 7th birthday in my most recent earth lifetime. Well Maibritt Beck was scheduled to undergo tubal ligation permanent female sterilization surgery by her 40th birthday because she had over 6 different children with different men regardless of the birth control method that she tried. However, all of the men that came out the be the fathers were all the married wealthy clients of hers, even though a high number of her male clients were also single for whatever reason. However, circumstances transpired where no matter what my biological mother Maibritt Beck did she would end up having to give custody of her children to these men because her lifestyle was deemed too risky to be a mother even after prostitution became legal and she tried in vain to prove that she would protect her children from getting raped. Her situation became harder to prove this after cases were popping up across the United States, Canada, and Europe of both male and female children of female prostitutes who were far from high end/upscale/high scale until the U.S. government intervened after prostitution became legal across the United States and declared that a mother could be a prostitute if she had it in legal writing that the child has at least 4 legal guardians of consenting adult age to take care of the child until she voluntarily agreed to leave the prostitution field and enter another career path. These 4 legal guardians had to show up in court at the same time over a series of 3 sessions to prove this and state their case before 3 different judges. Any prostitute whether high class or far from high class who chose to avoid following this rule had their children forcibly removed and their government andor government assistant housing benefits based on having that child/children altered unless andor until they followed those rules. Social Workers with the protection of law enforcement officials escorting and visiting the male and female children of these prostitutes were put into place in order to ensure that this rule was followed. The prostitute mother was allowed to change the child’s guardian after a year provided she found another guardian to stand in for the child and the prostitute mother could give the child however many legal guardians that she wanted as long as the four consenting age guardians had a clean record when it comes to children 18 years old and younger.The prostitute mothers until a few years ago had until the child was 8 to get the four guardians, however for security reasons the age was pushed up to the child being six months old. The only reason why my biological mother Maibritt Beck was grandfathered in and allowed more time for me was because she had “friends” in high places who had friends in political and law enforcement circles. However, even with her connections, MaiBritt Beck had until I was 8 years old for the purpose of the safety of I Christian Gibson. Multiple critics harshly criticized the move, however a number of child rapes among prostitutes decreased by over 90 percent after the rules were instituted. My biological mother Maibritt Beck wanted to ensure that she was able to freely be in my life and wanted a fourth person who she felt comfortable to look after me. Fortunately by the time I Kalara was born as Christian Gibson in that lifetime my biological mother became gifted at making more friends and she got three female friends to agree to appear in court as guardians of me.

By this time, all three of Viola Kirkland’s friends whose husbands temporarily shacked up with wealthier women, well all of three of them got their husbands back and two of the three were thanks to the help of MaiBritt Beck. This was because Maibritt Beck eventually discovered that she had a gift of using her psychic abilities of helping men and women in the areas of love and teaching them how to use their psychic abilities to find the mentors and career paths that would garner them more long term financial stability and professional and spiritual evolution. Anyhow, what this has to do with me was the two of those female friends Mona Michelsen and Linda Jorgensen along with one of their husbands Brian Birk agreed to be my alternative adult guardians. MaiBritt Beck knew that my biological father Marvin Harper was seeing two rich women at the same time both major leaders in their fields, one a 50ish age woman in the Virginia Beach Area and another women who is 49 years old who works in both Mclean Virginia and College Park Maryland. However, MaiBritt Beck also knew that Viola Kirkland was recently put on a 7 to 9 month waiting list to get back into the navy and was thinking about joining the military sealift command both to save her career life and save her marriage with her husband because Kirkland was intuitively aware of the power that a rich woman has with even married men and even her angelic husband so it was going to be a hard sell for my biological mother MaiBritt Beck to tell Viola Kirkland to give up her chance to join the military sealift command and have a better chance to compete with the two wealthier women competing for Marvin Harper’s romantic attentions. Maibritt had to think fast because one of the “sugar mamas” connected to my biological father Marvin Harper made at least 5500 dollars after taxes a month and the other woman made at least 19000 dollars after taxes each month.

My biological mother intuitively saw that Viola Kirkland was creating a reality where she was going to make at least 3500 dollars after taxes in early 2000s money within the next 18 months. However, even that was going to be far from a guarantee for Viola Kirkland to compete with the two sugar mamas. However, my biological mother MaiBritt Beck had one ace up her sleeve and this was in the area of career and friendship.

My biological mother MaiBritt Beck as gifted in the area of making money and making friends easily even though her family life was very soap opera. Viola Kirkland had this in common with her and Viola Kirkland knew that it was time to let her family members live their own life and forge a new life with more friends. By this time, it because common knowledge that it is too late for siblings andor family members to be friends with each other if they had yet to be friendly and close with each other by the time both of their parents pass away. Only the siblings andor family members who got along with each other and were rivalry free with each other even when both parents were alive had a chance to still forge any lasting connection. However, MaiBritt Beck intuitively saw potential in Viola Kirland making more friends and becoming thinner.

My mother MaiBritt Beck shared with Viola Kirkland an employment opportunity opening up for her in College Park Maryland as a career counselor in a mile long shopping mall center complete with an Amazon sponsored psychic and writing university, 8 different grocery stores such as Lidl Safeway Aldis Costco Giants Shoppers and an 8 mile indoor camping ground center complete with multiple cabins and tents depending on a person’s budget that had 3 museums and hosted multiple workshops involving writing, psychic ability, manifesting increased money and creativity for being a writer sponsored by multiple teachers from Arthur Findlay College, Edgar Cayce Institute, and the Robert Monroe Institute. Amazon company along with 22 other businesses were also putting in a metro station train center that featured speed rail service across various parts of the United States along with various parts of Virginia Maryland and Washington D.C. , hotels were being built inside this mile long metro station center along with a multiple number of open to the public adult social clubs and also clubs for parents to drop their children off for the night with caretakers who were extensively screened background check wise. There were even both overnight and day walking and running clubs starting and my biological mother offered to pay a year membership and nanny service to Viola Kirkland if she would be my guardian for at least a year long enough for her to find another person as she intuitively saw the chance at finding 3 more people within the next 10 months.

Much to both my biological mother Viola Kirkland’s and my mother MaiBritt Beck’s surprise they became close platonic friends to the point that my biological mother MaiBritt Beck joined Viola Kirkland in the 10 mile walking club and the weekly writing and aspiring writer author storyteller workshop held in the newly opened indoor campgrounds at least once a week. For her part, Viola Kirkland did her part to help me get used to the new private school that was opening up less than 3 blocks away from my biological mother’s new workplace. Both Viola Kirkland and my biological father Marvin Harper and my biological mother MaiBritt Beck and her boyfriend were there for me at my first soccer game. We were also all together when my mother was at a party celebrating her promotion in her new career counselor job which also meant that she was able to voluntarily leave the prostitution career field by her 43rd birthday. The 10 mile walking club helped Viola Kirkland became thinner by 40 pounds within 3 months and Viola Kirkland’s increased attractive appearance got her a magazine photo shoot that attracted the interest of people involved with the military wait list who took her off the waiting list and were instrumental in sending her a letter that notified her that she had been approved to rejoin the navy within 6 weeks of seeing that letter. Viola Kirkland decided to go into the culinary field in the navy and a month after rejoining some writer of an upcoming movie was interested in a creative fiction short story that Viola Kirkland wrote after seeing a photo of me, my biological mother and Viola together. We all went together when the movie premiered even some faculty members from the private high school I attended that year and my father Marvin Harper along with one of his girlfriends showed up to support us. Fortunately regardless of how it sounds, all the adults acted civil towards each other and all of us posed together genuinely happy for a photo shoot by one of the photographers affiliated with the publicity for the film. Viola Kirkland had to be careful how long she stayed because she was due to report back to the military base she was stationed on the next day to help prepare food for a military retirement party and my biological mother also had to be up early the next day because a local television channel was going to interview her for a success story as she was written to have helped over 800 married and single women and 900 married and single men in career and money matters and some even with their successful weight loss stories already during her 9 months as a career counselor.

Next session within 2 to 4 months andor less

Some details on the earth component of the Amazon and other 22 other corporate business sponsored 8 grocery store a mile long and a mile high shopping mall and adjoin indoor camping ground featuring multiple workshops involving friendship psychic abilities running becoming thinner walking at least 5 to 6 miles andor at least 9 to 11 miles, cooking competitions, and other multiple areas.

Additional details

How I Kalara have been doing in my additional roles of helping both earth based and souls residing in heaven afterlife worlds in the areas of writing and real estate

An additional interview with a celestial spirit guide who helped Viola Kirkland became 40 pounds thinner in the span of just 3 months and 2 other celestial spirit guides who help souls living in heavenly afterlife with volunteer roles and earth based souls with volunteering regardless of their career and money status because it is common knowledge that volunteering helps a person understand relationships better.

Start time of by 539 pm Saturday March 30, 2019

Completion time 742 pm on Saturday March 30 2019

Resources

https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/afterlife-names.php

https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/danish-names.php

Futuristic train service

http://www.dbknews.com/2019/02/20/umd-college-park-lidl-grocery-store-route-1-food-desert/

Lidl aims to make grocery shopping affordable in College Park

The German discount grocery chain is set to open a new location on Route 1.

http://www.dbknews.com/2019/02/20/umd-college-park-lidl-grocery-store-route-1-food-desert/

��https://www.washingtonpost.com/realestate/berwyn-herbs-history-and-affordable-homes-in-the-shadow-of-u-md/2019/03/27/bf92d062-4a7c-11e9-b79a-961983b7e0cd_story.html?utm_term=.4a7cc05bb185

Berwyn: Herbs, history and affordable homes in the shadow of U-Md.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/realestate/berwyn-herbs-history-and-affordable-homes-in-the-shadow-of-u-md/2019/03/27/bf92d062-4a7c-11e9-b79a-961983b7e0cd_story.html?utm_term=.4a7cc05bb185

military sealift command

https://www.msc.navy.mil/

popular private schools across America

best private high schools in America the college preparatory school Oakland California

https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/news/a8639/best-private-high-schools-in-america/

food businesses in oakland California

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_based_in_Oakland,_California

https://www.bustle.com/articles/51150-7-things-women-with-really-long-hair-are-tired-of-hearing-yes-it-takes-a

7 Things Women With Real Long Hair by Amy Sciaretto December 5, 2014

https://www.bustle.com/articles/51150-7-things-women-with-really-long-hair-are-tired-of-hearing-yes-it-takes-a

https://www.stylecraze.com/articles/6-long-hairstyles-for-women-over-50/#gref

50 Incredible Long Hairstyles by Anjali Sayee July 31, 2018

https://www.stylecraze.com/articles/6-long-hairstyles-for-women-over-50/#gref

women with long hair styles

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/style-beauty/beauty/advice/g3855/sexy-long-hair/

50 Sexy Long Hairstyles by the Editors March 21, 2019

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/style-beauty/beauty/advice/g3855/sexy-long-hair/

Knotts Berry Farm

https://www.visitcalifornia.com/destination/spotlight-knotts-berry-farm

robb report friendship

https://robbreport.com/lifestyle/news/perfect-10-top-products-at-robb-report-2816845/

The Top 10 Products at Robb Report

https://robbreport.com/lifestyle/news/perfect-10-top-products-at-robb-report-2816845/

friendship workshop washington post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/02/19/your-friends-social-media-posts-are-making-you-spend-more-money-researchers-say/?utm_term=.90a7df340d61

your friends social media posts

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/02/19/your-friends-social-media-posts-are-making-you-spend-more-money-researchers-say/?utm_term=.90a7df340d61

The Bier Garden in Virginia Beach by Matthew Korfhage Virginian Pilot

https://pilotonline.com/life/flavor/restaurants/article_ecd76e9a-509c-11e9-a506-2fa7f12595ff.html

https://www.curbed.com/2018/2/15/17014230/malls-califonia-america-renzo-piano-victor-gruen

The Arthur Findlay College in England

https://www.arthurfindlaycollege.org/

edgar cayce institute in Virginia Beach Virginia

https://www.edgarcayce.org/

The Robert Monroe Institute in Virginia

https://www.monroeinstitute.org/

Malls and the Future Alexandra Lange

https://www.curbed.com/2018/2/15/17014230/malls-califonia-america-renzo-piano-victor-gruen

future of shopping malls in Europe

https://www.retaildetail.eu/en/news/property/extension-makes-westfield-europes-largest-shopping-centre

Extension Westfield Europe

https://www.retaildetail.eu/en/news/property/extension-makes-westfield-europes-largest-shopping-centre

https://www.drapersonline.com/business-operations/special-reports/what-does-the-future-of-shopping-in-europe-look-like/7025934.article

Future of Shopping in Europe

https://www.drapersonline.com/business-operations/special-reports/what-does-the-future-of-shopping-in-europe-look-like/7025934.article

future of shopping malls in Canada

https://www.retail-insider.com/retail-insider/2019/1/southgate-centre-ranked-as-one-of-canadas-most-productive-malls-as-it-looks-to-the-future

Canada shopping mall article

https://www.retail-insider.com/retail-insider/2019/1/southgate-centre-ranked-as-one-of-canadas-most-productive-malls-as-it-looks-to-the-future

college shopping malls in California

https://www.sandiego.org/articles/shopping/list-of-outlet-malls-and-shopping-centers-in-san-diego.aspx

https://www.shoptheoaksmall.com/

witchcraft museum England

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/10/26/the-museum-of-witchcraft-in-boscastle-england-holds-the-worlds-largest-collection-of-witchcraft-memorabilia/

overnight theme park campgrounds California

https://www.knoebels.com/stay/knoebels-park-campground

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nedsecondline · 7 years

Text

Every Heroine Needs A Side-Kick. In Night-Time Bangalore, Mine Is My Dog

By Bhanu Sridharan

Photo courtesy Roger Price via graffiticreator.org

Tube was a semi-street dog when he followed us home. It was 2012. My friends and I had just graduated with a masters in wildlife biology. There were six of us, four women and two men—including my boyfriend—and we were renting two flats in a small building in an obscure area called Sir MV Layout in North Bangalore. My poor parents were just getting over the fact that I didn’t move back home after two years in a hostel, and that I was sharing a house with both men and women when I had to explain the presence of a dog in the house.

We were walking home after a party (in er… high spirits) and at some point noticed this dog walking back with us. Tube slept on our verandah that night but over the next few weeks, he moved into the house one room at a time, until somehow he was sleeping on my bed and kicking me off it. We were both just entering adulthood and neither of us wanted to get our own food, but as you can imagine only one of us won that battle. While the humans learnt to cook, pay bills and be biologists, Tube learnt to bark and sharpen his teeth on our footwear and debit cards. Eventually, he found himself a huge cow bone. He was fiercely protective of that bovine remain—nobody else could touch it. That’s when I realised that we may never agree on politics.

Other than that, Tube was an easy dog to live with. He slept all day on a sofa in the living room and at night after dinner, joined his pack of friends outside. He would usually be gone from 10 in the night to 4 or 5 in the morning. He would knock on the door (with his paw, in case you were wondering) in the wee hours of the morning and cry outside my bedroom window until I let him in. This went on for four years.

As must happen, my friends moved out one by one. I married my boyfriend and he promptly left the country to pursue a PhD, while I decided to write about wildlife rather than study them. As soon as I had made this decision, I decided to procrastinate by focusing on other things, like moving houses. So I shifted to a new place, a whole two km away, in an area called Sahakarnagar. After four years of living with an assortment of friends and my husband, suddenly it was just woman and dog. We turned up on this beautiful street with a jackfruit tree, a pongamia tree and two huge raintrees. Tube wasn’t impressed.

I could see his point—dogs aren’t monkeys. He felt marooned in this new place; he had lost his territory and pack. And somehow I had chosen the only street in Bangalore with no other dogs. Actually there was one dog; an elderly one-eyed dog who did not like Tube. In fact most dogs didn’t like Tube. So he couldn’t just go out freely. That’s when it dawned on me that I would now have to take him out for walks every day. Something I had never done before.

On our first day out for a walk, Tube tried to mark my neighbours’ car and he has never given up. You can forget about having friendly neighbours after that. So we walked around looking for suitable car-free, dog-friendly streets where he could roam freely. It was during these explorations that I discovered a lively living neighbourhood. Sahakarnagar and its surrounding areas are relatively new suburbs that have exploded in value thanks to Bangalore airport. A surprising number of trees soften the huge houses that have sprung up here. I would drag my dog through these streets every morning, evening and night. Unlike old Bangalore neighbourhoods such as Basavanagudi or Rajajinagar, the streets are not filled with gulmohars, tabubias and copperpods. The most common trees here are pongamia, Singapore cherry and a mix of raintrees, bahunias and coconut trees. Occasionally, a jackfruit or mango tree would pop up.

A red whiskered bulbul. Photo courtesy Bhanu Sridharan

Most people would walk their dog on a wide road parallel to a railway tack. This railway track runs from north Bangalore to the Yeshwanthpur railway station in the west. For those who say walking your dog is great exercise, pardon me while I scoff at you. Tube sees no point in running, unless we are chasing or being chased by a dog. Walking him involved a lot of standing around, while he sniffed every single pile of dog poop and rubbish. Because I didn’t want to look down at what caught his attention, I started looking up, at the Singapore cherry trees lining this road. These trees were constantly flowering and filled with fruits and birds. In the morning, purple-rumped sunbirds drank nectar from the flowers with their long bills. Pale-billed flowerpeckers, tiny enough to fit in the palm of my hand, would eat the fruits, sharing space with squirrels. In the evenings, rose-ringed parakeets, barbets, jungle crows and jungle mynas would settle on the trees, loudly announcing their presence.

But Tube was soon bored of this bourgeois life, of orderly walking and sharing defecation spots with large pedigree dogs. These quiet streets held no appeal for him. I think he also found me inadequate. I could never walk as fast as him, slow down at the right bush or clear off when a friendly dog approached. We were also frequently disagreeing about which tree to stop next to—Tube had no time for my bird-watching. I realised that these outings would be most fun if we could both do our own thing. That’s when we crossed the railway track.

Tube eating lantana. Photo courtesy Bhanu Sridharan

The railway track is a long gash, separating the affluent neighbourhoods of Sahakarnagar from the empty spaces that will soon be affluent neighbourhoods in Rajiv Gandhi Nagar. Across the railway track we discovered a land divided into 30×40 sites. Some of them were being turned into huge houses, but there were plenty of empty plots filled with bushes of castor, calotropes and lantana. Grasses and reeds almost made the area feel like a grassland. Early mornings here were filled with migrant labourers defecating in the open, before building massive bathrooms for the area’s future residents. But Tube loved these parts—here he could walk free of the leash. He sniffed and marked bushes, sand piles laid out for construction, and garbage strewn on the side of the road. Occasionally, he would flush out an ashy prinia hiding in the lantana. Parakeets, jungle mynas, wagtails and black drongos would pass us by. Satisfied with our spot, we came here every morning and evening. But at night I stuck to the railway track road, close to my house.

It’s not because I felt unsafe. But thanks to his past life, Tube became alert and excited after 9 pm. He would want to join every howling dog and investigate every passing pack. Sometimes, he would just sit on a pavement and watch the empty street. It is a huge conflict of interest, because I wanted to sleep at night and wake up in the morning. By sticking to the boring street, I tried to convince him that there wasn’t much happening at night.

Others did worry for my safety at that hour. One of my neighbours (who attempted to lecture me about having boys in my house at 11 in the night) tried to dissuade me from walking Tube after 9 in the night. When I refused to take his advice, he offered to wait up for me to come back into the building every night. He gave up when his wife reminded him that he had to wake up early and take his children to school. Passing policemen have asked me why I’m out so late. There are criminal elements at night they tell me. Sometimes, I tell them to catch the criminals and leave me alone; on more peaceful nights though, I just shrug and point to the dog, who will move things along by growling. Elderly men occasionally warned me that there are snakes about at this time. So I try to tell them that I am a trained wildlife biologist and know what to do, only to realise that I had better leave because my dog is peeing on their car.

Women rarely show concern for my safety at night. Admittedly, there aren’t too many around at night, but occasionally they will turn out in groups of two and three enjoying the night air or taking in a brisk after-dinner walk. They never look surprised or worried by the sight of me roaming alone. Occasionally, people catch me staring at an electric pole, with my mouth hanging open and Tube desperately tugging at the leash. I would be watching a pair of spotted owlets or a beautiful barn owl. Of course by the time I could show them the birds, they would have flown away, leaving me pointing at nothing. People always walk away quickly when this happens.

Winter is my favourite season as a birdwatcher. Birds escaping the harsh cold weather of the Himalayas and Europe come down to peninsular India. Warblers, flycatchers, eagles and other birds of prey make the long journey down to warmer parts, where I imagine them settling down, relaxing and fattening up. There are certain birds that mark the arrival of winter. Down south, I think it must be the Blyth’s reed warbler. By October, I began hearing a familiar chak chak from the lantana bushes. It is a small dull-looking brown bird—but here all the way from places like Kazakhstan and Mongolia to spend winter amidst garbage and rubble and Tube’s ungainly scrambling. By late December, other visitors had come down. Hundreds of rosy starlings occupied every inch of an electric transformer, wires, bushes, trees and the ground. They are really pretty birds with a pale pink body and a jet black head and wings. A flock of starlings are called a murmuration. I understood why when I saw about 300 of them arrive together, weaving through the sky in synchrony one evening. By the next morning, they had split up into smaller groups of about 30 to 60. Up close, they are a crude noisy bunch, squawking loudly and surely quarrelling with their cousins, the mynas.

Photo courtesy Ron Knight via Wikimedia Commons

Further up, near some new apartments is a huge fig tree. Most trees don’t fruit in winter, but figs do. A fruiting fig tree will provide for almost everybody. Barbets, parakeets, rosy starlings, spotted doves, mynas, crows and pigeons flock to these trees. A golden oriole, another winter visitor, has settled down here. This area is right next to the GKVK campus, a huge agricultural research space. GKVK has a mix of agricultural fields, orchards and tiny patches of the original scrub forest from which Bangalore has been carved out. Birds passing by this area on their way into the campus were a frequent sight. A common kestrel (a small falcon), a rufous treepie (a member of the crow family) and grey hornbills occasionally pass by.

Beside the fig tree is a plot of land fenced by a huge concrete wall—we both always peek in there. Tube has to climb a pile of rocks and jump onto the wall to look, but he makes the effort. I don’t think he think he finds this exercise particularly rewarding, but we would find three green bee-eaters sitting in there, waiting for the sun to come up, so they could snatch up little insects that flew about then. Occasionally, a startled Indian robin would rush past us. This is usually the end of the walk. We would never go beyond this spot because there was a sweet dog that Tube hated. I wasn’t allowed to be friendly with any dogs he didn’t like. It’s oppressive, but I kept a stiff upper lip and turned back

Towards the end of February, tragedy struck. Tube was badly hurt on one of our walks and we were house-bound for three weeks. We only ventured out for him to pee and shit or visit the vet. The rest of the time was spent cleaning his injuries and finding new ways to feed him his medicines. During his worst days, he spent all day in my bathroom, maybe because it was cool and dark. I would sit with him there, trying to comfort him while he whimpered continuously in pain. I spent hours there: reading, watching movies and American comedy shows mocking Donald Trump, on my laptop. I love my dog, but I felt my sanity ebbing during those times. After about 10 days, he started leaving the bathroom for short periods and sitting under the dining table. So I set up my laptop there and tried to start working on that writing thing. It was then that I was really grateful for the trees in my neighbourhood. From my second floor window, adjacent the dining table, I had lovely views of the canopy of a kadamba tree, a coconut tree and a jumble of bahunia, gulmohar and badam behind my house. From the kitchen, I could look into the canopy of the raintree that stands in the front. I had forgotten until then, that a pair of black kites had a nest in there. I had seen the female sitting in the nest for almost two months, but I was never very interested.

A black kite and it’s nest. Photo courtesy Bhanu Sridharan.

Black kites are basically one of the most common birds you will see in Bangalore and in most Indian cities. The female was standing in the nest and looking down at something. I grabbed my binoculars and looked through the metal grille surrounding my kitchen utility. A furry chick stood uncertainly in the nest, staring at the mother. Its eyes and head looked huge on its tiny body, while the curved beak typical of a bird of prey looked almost comical—nothing remotely threatening about its appearance. Soon, through my binoculars, I spot another smaller chick. Watching them every day became a ritual. Sometimes mid-morning, the female would leave them alone for a bit and the larger older chick would peek out over the rim of the nest looking forlorn. In the afternoon, the mother would feed the hungry chicks, while they screamed for more. A black kite sounds like a horse whinnying; the chicks sound exactly the same but higher-pitched. Black kites will often nest on water tanks on top of tall buildings. But watching them on a tree like that, reminded me that they did have some wilderness in them.

As March rolled by, things started looking up. Tube slowly started doing much better. He left the bathroom much more, he didn’t cry as much and let me clean his wounds. We were walking as far as the railway track road again; he even tried to cross the track a couple of times. As the weather turned warmer, other birds started breeding or at least courting. Birds were pairing up and males were calling all around, marking territory and advertising to females. Male pied bushchats—small black birds common in dry open areas of peninsular India—were singing loudly from their perches on electric wires.

At the kadamba tree outside my dining table office, tailorbirds were calling loudly and a pair of jungle crows had built a nest. Crows are aggressively protective of their nest. While the female cawed loudly from the nest each day, the male would chase away every bird, big or small. Black kites, bulbuls, pigeons and barbets would suddenly find themselves being unceremoniously escorted off the tree by a large (or depending on the size of the victim, small) black figure. But they reserved a special anger for the koels, and understandably so. Koels are brood parasites. They lay eggs in the nests of other birds like crows, who then raise the koel chicks mistaking them for their own. Outside my window, a male koel would call out loudly from a nearby pongamia tree, in what seemed to be a move to distract, while the female sneaked up on the nest in the adjacent kadamaba tree. It never seemed to work. The crows would always find the female skulking on their tree and chase her and the male for good measure. This happened every day and then one afternoon I noticed both the crows left the nest unattended. Right on cue, a female koel flew onto the lower-most branch of the tree. Taking a circuitous route, she hopped cautiously to the nest right at the top and peeked in. She then looked around, jumped in and was out within a minute. I excitedly called my husband, who is much better with the birds. He confirmed that it was enough time for a koel to lay an egg. Eventually, the poor unsuspecting crows returned to their nest. In about two more weeks, I hope to find out if there is a little koel chick being fed by these jungle crows.

Blyth’s reed warbler. Photo courtesy Shankar70 via Wikimedia Commons

Today, Tube decides he has had enough of these short stints on the boring railway track road. He drags me towards the railway crossing, looking defiant. I relent and we cross. For the first time in days, he looks truly happy. He is not off the leash; I don’t have the courage to do that. But he marks every lantana bush and looks longingly at garbage piles, while I try to explain the risk of infection. I am not looking forward to birdwatching though. It is getting hot and I expect all the winter migrants would have left. I feel a pang thinking that I didn’t see them off. But then I hear the familiar chak chak. The Blyth’s reed warbler is still here, enjoying the warm but not too hot sun. And at the fig tree, the fruits have gone but a few rosy starlings are still there. They are diminished in number but the ones that remain are in good spirits, looking happy to be here. Just like my silly dog.

The post Every Heroine Needs A Side-Kick. In Night-Time Bangalore, Mine Is My Dog appeared first on The Ladies Finger.

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theperfectloveproject · 7 years

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Prelude To The Perfect Love: 2: Patience

"By Making efforts to speed up the process of something you prayed for, God shows tough love by prolonging the process. "It's" coming, JUST CHILL." -Matthew Sloane

When I began my brainstorming process on how I wanted to approach the topic of patience, immediately, I hit a bump in the road. I realized that out of the five topics I chose to write about in this blog series, that "faith" was among them; and there lied my problem. As I began to go into deep thought about the true meaning of patience, faith always came to mind. I came to the conclusion that patience and faith go hand and hand, but still I couldn't differentiate one from the other, and that bothered me. To make my life a little bit easier, I did my research ; and in an article on cfaith.com titled "Faith and Patience: The Power Twins", they broke it down by saying "The power of patience is a working power. When faith has a tendency to waver, it is patience that comes to faith's aid to make it stand. The power of patience is necessary to undergird faith." After reading that, I gained a complete sense of understanding and contentment, and was able to move forward on what I wanted to write about on patience.

Using the Bible as my point of reference, I would like to bring your attention to the book of Genesis starting with the 29th chapter; focused on the story of Jacob and Rachel. From 1st-5th grade I attended school in a Christian environment;and every year that story was told, we got the watered down version; but now I'm an adult, circumstances are different, and I have a way better understanding of that story now, than I had then. "And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted his voice , and wept." Genesis 29:11

At this moment, it was Jacob's first time ever laying eyes on Rachel, and immediately he knew that he was in love with her. Personally I am a believer in love at first sight, but I view it as something extremely rare. I find it rare because there are so many people in this world, men&women alike, who have no problem masking their quality of being tremendously ingenuine at the expense of others, all in efforts to get whatever it is that they want out of them. Whether it's using the person to make someone else jealous, using them for sex, or using them for monetary gain, these ingenuine people carry on with their actions, showing their conflict of interest glimpses of love but never fully commit to them; and once they've gained what they set out to get in the situation, they just leave that person in a selfish manner, not even giving it a thought on how the person they affected may feel physically, mentally, and emotionally after the fact. It's just an "on to the next one" phase for them. Upon reading Genesis 29:11, any thought that I had of Jacob being the type of ingenuine person I just described went away. Men are perceived to be these strong, prideful beings, but Jacob threw all of that out of the window, put himself in a very vulnerable state, and shed tears in the presence of Rachel. He shed those tears because in that very moment, he knew that she was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

As we see in so many love stories, there is always the person who tries to compromise the love; and in this case, our compromiser is Laban; Rachel's father. Rachel was the youngest of Laban's two daughters, and since Rachel was his baby girl, it was a sure thing that Laban wasn't going to let her go without putting up some type of wall to slow down the efforts of Jacob trying to marry her; So to make matters less stressful for him, Jacob agreed to work under Laban for 7 years for the right to marry Rachel. "And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her" Genesis 29:20

Patience is truly a virtue, and Jacob exemplified that through those 7 years. In today's society, social media is a platform for everything; and it is so often that naturally you run across a Facebook status or a Tweet, with guidelines on how to keep a strong relationship with your significant other; and in most of those "guidelines", some sexual act is always included; which I find to be completely bogus. The Bible doesn't specify whether or not Jacob and Rachel were intimate with each other during those 7 years that Jacob worked towards marrying her, but let's say that they weren't; During those 7 years, Jacob got to know who Rachel truly was. He got to see whether she was a morning person or not, how she handled situations that angered her, how she acted around family, etc.; Jacob was exposed to all of Rachel's flaws, and obviously, he loved every bit of them, because those 7 years of work felt like a couple of days because he was working for his heart's true desire.

Once those 7 years were over, Laban brought his daughter to marry Jacob; and once the morning after the wedding passed, Jacob woke up to find out that it wasn't Rachel who he married, but it was Leah, her older sister. Laban deceived Jacob, and to justify his actions, he explained to Jacob how he would be going against tradition by marrying his youngest child before the eldest; So in Laban's way of making things better with Jacob, he agreed to marry him and Rachel the next week, as long as Jacob promised to work for him another 7 years; and of course, Jacob obliged, because he was willing to do anything if it meant being with Rachel. I'm sure Laban's deceitful act aggravated Jacob, but I'm a firm believer in one having to work harder than they've ever have before in order to gain something their heart truly desires; and Jacob did exactly that. He was patient with the entire situation, diligent with everything, and at the end of the day, he got what he worked for; then some.

Jacob was now married to both Leah, and Rachel; and it was all because of Laban's deceitfulness.

Love is something that grows over time, but with Leah, Jacob's love for her didn't; and could you blame him? He went into the situation with hopes of marrying Rachel, and only Rachel; but instead he found himself married to Rachel and her sister, and placed with the task of loving them both equally; which at the time he could not do.

"And when the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: But Rachel was barren." Genesis 29:31

Although Jacob and Leah's marriage happened under strange circumstances, God looked at their marriage like he would any other's, and He took action for the love that Leah wasn't receiving. God blessed Leah with the gift of children. From Genesis 29: 32-35, LITERALLY all Leah did was have children; 4 boys to be exact, which brought Rachel to her breaking point.

"And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die." Genesis 30:1

Love is not familiar with hate or envy, but that is exactly what Rachel felt towards her sister. Instead of being patient in prayer, Rachel took matters into her own hands and ordered her maid to sleep with Jacob. Jacob and the maid produced two boys. Acting on your impatience, choosing to take a shortcut, usually only feels good for a short while; and after that short while is over, your world comes crashing down. You get smacked in the face by your own reality, and in a sense, you find yourself back at square 1, starting all the way over again. Using myself as an example as well; about two years ago, I was involved with a female, who that in high school I had a thing for, but things really never worked out for us because I couldn't get my act together; so like any human being with good sense, she made the wise decision of moving on with her life, and not wasting her time with me. Fast forward to the summer of my freshman year of college, I began to catch feelings for the girl again, but by this time, she was in a relationship with a great guy; but I cared nothing about that. Immediately I began to think of how I was going to get this girl back on my side; Like I do with anything else I want, I go to God with it in prayer, and that was my first mistake. God answers every prayer that His children ask of Him, and He answers them in the manner in which they are asked.

Prayer is something that should be 100% pure, but I'm sure like myself, Rachel went to God in prayer; and we both went to him in the spirit of competition, jealousy, and hate; and being the faithful being that He is, God answered our prayers. I ended up getting the girl, and I got her in all of her rage. She had caught me saying some things on social media that pretty much promoted my hopes of her relationship failing. Her and her boyfriend both called me out on it; and rightfully so they should have. I was now in a state of panic because I was staring confrontation in the face, and I hated it; but I had to get through it, and that I did. That whole ordeal taught me that I can't try to force something to happen for me by trying to compromise somebody's genuine love, with my genuine ill will. The girl and her boyfriend are still in a happy, healthy relationship, and I couldn't be more happier for him or her. They're experiencing real love, and I pray that it last them forever.

As for Rachel, God blessed her with a son. You would think that after baring a child of her own that she would be content; but nothing was ever enough for her. Rachel often showed greedy, jealous, tendencies. From seeing one of Leah's sons in the field picking out fruit, deciding that she wanted that same exact fruit too, to stealing from her own father; Good was never good enough for Rachel, but God had something planned for her.

"And it came to pass, when she was in hard labour, that the midwife said to her, Fear not; thou shalt have this son also. And it came to pass as her soul was in departing (for she died) that she called his name Benani: but his father called him Benjamin." Genesis 35: 17-18

Remember back when Rachel told Jacob "Give me children or else I die."? Now we find Rachel giving birth to her second son, and upon giving birth to him, ironically, she passed away. I believe it's never justifiable to say that someone deserved to die;but with Rachel, we can at least say that she had it coming. Rachel was never satisfied with what she had. Her sense of greed, jealousy, and impatience consumed her; and in the end, the one thing she desired to have most out of life, in having children, ended up being what led to her death.

The point I really wanted to drive home today is that patience is peace, BUT; impatience is poison. Life is full of twist and turns, but luckily Jesus promised He'll take care of us; giving us a an even better reason to not look for shortcuts, or bring ill will into prayer; but to know that no hard time last forever, and we may not get what we want on our time, but that we'll get it on God's time; and He's a very punctual Man.

Patience is vital in the making of the perfect love. Patience brings you a sense of contentment, mental strength, and composure, which are all very necessary qualities to have; So I pray that if you don't have it already, that you find your patience, and your peace.

All Love,

Matthew Sloane

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viralhottopics · 7 years

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We’re very close. We couldn’t not be: the secret to a friendly divorce

This month sees a spike in couples filing for divorce, many of them vowing to stay friends. But is it really possible or worth the pain?

A few weeks ago, a man came to stay at my house and he and I made so much noise at 1am that we feared we might wake the children. The next morning at breakfast, we had to explain ourselves and apologise.

The man was my ex-husband, and he was telling me an anecdote in the early hours that had us both in fits of laughter. We separated in January 2009, and divorced a year later. He has since remarried, and lives in another city, but often comes to visit our three teenage sons. We have spent several Christmases, Easters and birthdays together.

If liking and being nice to your former partner is the essence of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martins conscious uncoupling, it could be said that my ex-husband and I are living that dream. In the three years since they announced their much-ridiculed approach to family life and relations post-marriage, the idea of the friendly divorce has become increasingly mainstream. As Helena Bonham Carter said of Tim Burton, her former husband of 13 years, I think well have something very precious still. Actor Kate Beckinsale is so friendly with her ex Michael Sheen (the father of their daughter) that shes often seen hanging out with him and his girlfriend, Sarah Silverman.

And then theres the rise of the divorce selfie, taken outside the courtroom, showing smug ex-marrieds beaming away together in the spirit of a bright future ahead of them (with a caption such as We smile not because its over but because it happened). January traditionally sees a spike in calls to family lawyers from couples wishing to uncouple. The first question for many is: can you really have a happy split?

Divorce coach Carol Sullivan thinks so. She runs Divorce Negotiator, which operates throughout England and Wales. Unlike solicitors who represent the separate parties, Sullivan assists both husband and wife and, to stop the escalation, maintains transparency between them. She claims to save a typical couple 80% of the cost of going to a solicitor, and 50% of their time. So far, she has helped more than 1,000 couples, many of whom apologise to each other and go out for drinks despite their decree nisi.

People are doing divorce differently that is, better, Sullivan says. They are more aware that the only winners are the lawyers, and bitterness and vengeance dont get anybody anywhere.

Of course, most people would say theyd like to divorce well, at least in theory, usually for the sake of any children involved. But, in practice, anger and hurt usually muddy the waters.

I am insufferably smug about what my ex-husband and I have managed to pull off, but I wont pretend it was instant. The parting of the ways was painful beyond anything I had ever experienced, but we managed to sort out our financial affairs and living arrangements ourselves. A lawyer friend kindly did the essential paperwork for both of us. We never went to court, and our whole divorce cost 90. Eight years have since passed, and time has done its cliched but excellent bit in terms of healing. Rancour has been and gone, leaving all the things we liked about each other in the first place: enjoyment of each others company, great communication, affection and respect. Plus all the things we have together accumulated over the years, namely three great boys, an important shared history and the recognition that prolonged bitterness eats away at people and benefits nobody.

Its difficult, but this approach is becoming more common. I have a friend whose husband went off with another woman. After her shock and anger subsided, she had him to stay with his new girlfriend several times, and even took coffee up to them in the morning. (Talk about forgiveness.) It was nice for the kids to see I was accepting of her with him, she tells me. I liked him. I liked her. She says she didnt indulge in any power play, at least not consciously.

The prevailing view is that good relations benefit the children, if you have them. Phyllis Maguire-Harrington, 33, is a carer and nursery manager. She sees many families who arent amicable, which has only compounded her belief that friendly divorce is vital even when she found out, three years into their marriage, that her husband had been unfaithful.

It hurt massively, she says now, but our daughter is my world. Even though I ended the marriage there and then, and never once wavered, I always spoke to him and let him see her. My daughter deserves both parents.

There was no court case. The same lawyer represented them both. It was all their own terms; he just did the paperwork. Her ex-husband has exactly the same parental rights as she does.

The couple, both from Wokingham, met at a bowling alley in their early 20s. Kieran Harrington, 35, remembers that she started dancing and I thought, wow! He found her generous, with a lot of time for others. Phyllis says she is very energetic, while Kieran was very chilled and happy to go along with anything she threw at him. They married in 2008 and separated in 2011, when their daughter was a year old.

To be brutally honest, I cheated on her, Kieran says. Its one of those things I cant explain. It was nothing she ever did or didnt do. When she found out, she went ballistic. Id never seen her like that. I deserved it. I tried to get her back, but eventually knew it was hopeless.

It was complicated, Phyllis says, because in September 2007 he had a brain haemorrhage and that altered him. Kieran says that, although he doesnt remember being tempted before the brain haemorrhage, it is nonetheless too easy an excuse. Either way, he says, the two flings with colleagues were a huge mistake. Initially, he says, there was some nastiness from Phyllis, but then it went away.

For a long time I wanted him to be my Kieran, Phyllis says, but he had changed. After the brain haemorrhage, I became more like a carer. I knew he was no longer fully in control of himself, and a psychologist told us he was never going to change. I had a baby and couldnt live like that any more, the suspicious wife.

The divorce came through in December 2014 and Kieran, a prison custody officer, now lives with his father and sister. He and Phyllis still see each other most days, and go on holiday together. They took Erin, now five, to Disneyland Paris for new year and glamping in Cornwall. Neither has another partner.

I did for a while, Phyllis says, and he and Kieran accepted each other, but he wanted to get married and I didnt. I think Kieran put me off for life, she laughs.

These days, Kieran confides in Phyllis about dates and she gives him advice. He admits hed like to get back together with her, but knows thats never going to happen; he also knows that it could all have been very different had Phyllis not been so forgiving. I could have lost a lot more, he says. As it is, the friendship we have having a laugh, watching movies together, sharing a bottle of wine when the little one is asleep is the best I can hope for, given Id still like to be married to her. Ill be a little bit jealous when shes with someone else, but I messed up, so I havent a leg to stand on. Im grateful Ive got this much and know we will be friends for life.

Phyllis agrees: Were very close. We couldnt not be, after all weve been through. But the divorce was the right decision. Would I get back with him? Never. Hes not the man I fell in love with.

***

Specialist family lawyer Peter Martin has been practising at London firm OGR Stock Denton for 40 years, and has worked with thousands of couples. In his experience, roughly 25-30% of couples are able to be friends afterwards, and its not always to protect the children. In some ways, it is easier for couples without children to stay friends, Martin says. Once the finances are sorted out, they are able to get on with their lives. They can become friends again, because they no longer have any pressures on them.

On the other hand, Martin says, couples without children have less reason to stay in touch. Those with children have to continue to communicate, and they are more likely, because of that, to rebuild a friendship. A forced friendship, because of having children, often develops in time into the real thing. Its the sort of thing I see a lot Im thinking of the first dance of a divorced couple as parents at their childs wedding.

Barry Rutter, 69, an actor, is founder and artistic director of Northern Broadsides, a touring company. He credits his ex-wife, Carol, 65, a professor of Shakespeare and performance studies at the University of Warwick, with their excellent relationship after nearly 20 years of marriage and 20 years of divorce. She credits him with not forcing her and their girls out of their home. You can be vengeful and angry and selfish and do all that stuff, Carol says. All those ugly emotions you can keep up for years, but thats just destructive.

The couple met while Barry was on tour in America in 1976. She, with her Californian chutzpah, came backstage to congratulate me, he says.

He had the tight curls of a Raphael angel and a boxers nose, she says. He was bolshie, challenging: a Yorkshireman. Everything around him was different and new.

She moved to England a year later, and they soon married. Their shared passion meant they always had things to talk about. Briony was born in 1982; their son, Harry, two years later, but he died from cot death aged just 98 days. Barrys support in the aftermath made Carol feel an overwhelming sense that our marriage could survive; how amazing it was that he could love me that much.

When he set up his own company, Barry was working so hard, Carol says, I think he started kind of shifting. Rowan, their younger daughter, was four. Carol had a full-time job at the university and Barry came home wanting shiny faces. There was a gap. It was, Barry says, a build-up of events, which I took to be a diminution between us. And my own restlessness. The cliche: the grass is always greener. The official divorce says adultery, but it is never as simple as that. I didnt fall in love, but I was distracted.

Barry says it was raw. I remember we met in the garden shed and she asked what I wanted, and I said all of my freedom to roam, and yet the home and family. It was a stupid, macho, dumb attitude to have. It was my folly. You make choices, and choices can bite.

How did I come back from that? Carol says. I went to see a divorce person who said dont fight, its not worth it; work it out between you. I was able to keep the man separate from the actor and, little by little, the birth of our three children, the death of our son, those things you shared, count. They represent the real core values of you two as people, as against the accidents of making bad decisions.

Barry says it was entirely Carols leading that set them on the footing they are on today. Its got to be about the future: I remember her saying that. I myself didnt have it in me to come up with anything like that. Its a testament to her. Id hope she is my best friend. Shes kept the name [Rutter]. Ive always been rather pleased about that.

These days, their daughters are both married, and they still see each other at least once a month and speak often. Carol goes to watch her ex-husband perform. She says he is perhaps better at expressing his emotions on stage, but he always made her laugh off it, and always will.

Tara Saglio has been a couples and individual psychotherapist for two decades. She believes that most divorced couples have to experience a period of proper separation before they can actively be friends again. As a generalisation, I think it takes five years for people to settle post-divorce, she says. It helps if both parties have reached a point where they can feel equally content, instead of one being miserable and the other blissfully loved-up with a new partner or even of one being blissfully alone and the other in a less than ideal rebound relationship. The chance of friendship depends on the emotional maturity of both parties. In my experience, Saglio adds, it is usually the couples for whom the passion has dwindled or gone, and who dont feel so betrayed or rejected, who can be friends. Sexual rejection or broken trust can skewer things.

Facebook, Instagram and so on can make it harder for couples to move on. Of course, social media always presents a happy if not idealised picture of everyones lives, Saglio says. It is hard to separate fully while having ones nose rubbed in the exs new life. On the upside, technology can be a force for good, depending on how it is used. It makes continued contact quicker and easier. A text or email is more emotionally distant than a face-to-face or phone conversation. A bit of a barrier can be a good thing.

Resolution is an organisation of family law professionals that promotes nonconfrontational divorce settlements. Nigel Shepherd, its national chair, says that avoiding unnecessary argument demands a shift of perspective: By nonconfrontational, we mean focusing on what is required for the future, as opposed to getting stuck in what happened in the past. A Resolution survey found that 90% of cases settle without a judge.

Current divorce law doesnt exactly help people to remain friendly: unless former couples are prepared to wait for two years once they have separated, they have no option but to cite adultery, unreasonable behaviour or (admittedly rarely) desertion on the paperwork. Resolution believes that a couple should be allowed to divorce simply if they think the marriage has broken down, a so-called no-fault divorce, and are lobbying for change. The current process, which pushes the majority into blame, often against their will, can really put the spanner in the works, Shepherd says.

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Businesswoman Sarah Bevan never lost sight of the fact that she wanted to retain her friendship with her husband, Tim, despite her deep sadness when their marriage came to an end. We were originally friends, and I wanted very strongly to maintain that for the greater good of our family, she says. We always had a lot of fun and we managed to retain that.

Sarah, who is now single and in her 40s, lives in south London, and is setting up her own company. Tim, 50, the MD of a packaging and design company, lives in Hove. The pair met at work in London and married in 1994. They have three teenage children. The friendship was overriding in the relationship, Tim says. Any other issues were put to one side. Thats what carried us. But then I started to do better in my career, which made me more confident and, when other possibilities presented themselves, I was weak enough to succumb.

It was 2004. He admitted he was having an affair (not his first); they finally parted in 2005 and divorced in 2011. Tim says he walked away with two pictures, a stereo and a pink tea towel.

There were no lawyers, and nothing on paper; money was divided according to their own agreement. The divorce cost 560. Rather than argue in court, he wanted Sarah and the children to have a home and security. He credits their friendship today to his ex-wifes openness and strength, and thinks they have both pulled off something pretty extraordinary. According to Tim, both realise they are not going to be jumping into bed with each other again, but hopes theyll be best friends for life.

Shes currently offering me advice on cholesterol, he laughs. Shes still got my back! It helped that neither of them slagged each other off to the children. The family has a group chat online most days and he visits them every Tuesday for a curry evening.

There were phases of extreme anger and massive hurt, Sarah says, but even though hes certainly a difficult character, I love him and we hug and say we love each other. He remains an important part of her life, all the more so because her parents died recently in tragic circumstances. As Tim says, that focused everyone on whats important.

Despite everything weve put each other through, Tim says, weve come out of it. We will be sitting in our deckchairs in 30 years time with our mint tea, looking at the children, and thinking, Weve done good.

How to divorce well

1. Slow down. Reactive decisions are usually bad ones; if you are feeling hurt, or have just discovered your partner with someone else, dont take any legal action until the red mist has gone.

2. Try to be rational. Going through a separation is highly emotional, but try to put that to one side and sit down with a neutral party with the aim of making sensible decisions. Remember that you loved the other person once.

3. Decide on your priorities. More often than not one of the biggest goals is to move on with your life with your dignity intact. The more amicable the divorce, the quicker it will be over, leaving you to get on with the next chapter of your life. It is also a lot cheaper.

4. Go to a good family lawyer. Find a family specialist committed to working out solutions as amicably as possible and in a way that will preserve your relationship with your spouse.

5. Expect a big change in your lifestyle. Your life is going to change dramatically; being shocked by this can often lead to resentment and breed conflict. Your partners life will be changing, too, and they will have the same problems adjusting as you are. Yes, really.

6. Dont do it the celebrity way. You dont have to fight dirty to get the best result in fact, judges will frown upon it when making their settlement.

7. Dont listen to your friends. Turn to them for emotional support but remember that every marriage is different and every divorce is different. Just because friends think it is a good idea, doesnt mean it is.

8. Be the bigger person. Even if your nearly ex is trying to play dirty, dont rise to the bait. It is easier said than done, but I often hear from people who, years later, regret that they allowed themselves to be brought down to that level.

9. Think about divorce before you get married. What will your situation be if things dont work out? Consider how your partner is likely to behave in those circumstances as well. Think about a prenuptial agreement realism does not have to be anti-romantic.

10. If you have children, be nice for their sake. It is only in the most exceptional circumstances that it is not in the childrens interests for their parents to remain friendly.

Peter Martin, family lawyer, OGR Stock Denton