#its like he has this very utopian version of a family in his head and if something goes out of line his temper issues just flare uo | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

solarscholarsofmagick · 4 years

Text

Saturn in Aquarius: 2020-2023

Beginning on March 21, Saturn entered the revolutionary sign of Aquarius for a brief month and a half preview and will retrograde back into Capricorn until the end of September. On December 17, it will re-enter Aquarius until March of 2023. Saturn is known as the planet of limitations, boundaries, responsibilities and hard lessons, and up until now has been making its way through the restrictive and authoritarian sign of Capricorn since the beginning of 2018. Though Saturn is the ruler of earthy Capricorn and identifies well with that controlling energy, it doesn’t always do its best work in this sign. Traditionally, Saturn also rules the airy free-flowing sign of Aquarius and tends to be very comfortable in this sign, despite how different they may seem. When Saturn enters this humanitarian sign, it evolves into a higher version of itself, capable of bringing much needed equality and change into the world. How do we know this? Well, let’s take a look at the last few Saturn transits through Aquarius – from 1991 to 1994, and before that, from 1962 to 1964.

Let’s begin with Saturn’s transit through futuristic Aquarius back in 1962. Right off the bat, as Saturn entered the sign, the first automated (unmanned) subway train in New York City began running. Aquarius rules technology and automation, so this stood out to me as a very modern Aquarian development already. Also in 1962, Spacewar! was developed and released as the first computer game, featuring two spaceships fighting it out. Each spaceship was controlled by a player, meaning it was not only the first computer game, but also the first multi-player game for computers. Fitting, as Aquarius rules groups as well as spaceships and technology.

In the early 1990s, there were also some major technological advancements, specifically related to the internet and computers. In 1991, at the beginning of Saturn’s transit through Aquarius, Apple released the PowerBook, the first modern laptop computer, which was a huge development in the computer world and has influenced our modern computers significantly in their portability and design. The WorldWide Web was technically invented in 1989, while Saturn was transiting Capricorn, and it was exclusively meant for information-sharing between scientists in institutions around the world at that time. However, in April of 1993, after Saturn had entered Aquarius, CERN made the “www” software public, accessible to anyone with a computer. This is significant because Aquarius represents freedom and equality, and though it was still mainly the upper class that could afford computers at the time, this movement away from intellectual elitism essentially opened the internet up for free public use like we have today. In 1992, ViolaWWW was released, and was the first web browser to become popularized by users. It was also the recommended browser by CERN until it was replaced by Mosaic in 1993, the first web browser to display images with text rather than in a new window.

In the upcoming transit of Saturn through Aquarius, we can expect to see even more advanced technology developments. Many people are expecting Artificial Intelligence to really take off in the coming years, as well as 5G technology and space travel on a grander scale. Smart devices and appliances are becoming more readily available and more advanced.

The future of technology was on the minds of many in the early 1960s, reflected in ABC’s first color animated TV series, The Jetsons, premiering in September of 1962. Not only does Aquarius rule color television and cartoons, but the futuristic utopian vision held by The Jetsons is also very Aquarian in nature. Television also welcomed the eccentric and beloved Addams family in 1964 with ABC’s premiere of The Addams Family. This television classic questioned social norms of the time, specifically the values of the traditional mid-century American family, which were quite conservative at the time. This series became a symbol of the counterculture in television, a typically Aquarian concept. Another incredibly popular futuristic TV show that technically started during Saturn’s transit through Aquarius, Star Trek began filming in November of 1964, during the last couple months of Saturn’s journey through this sign. Star Trek is also notable for this transit due to the fact that it was one of the first television shows to give women, especially black women, prominent and respected roles. The character Lt. Uhura, the ship’s communications officer, was played by Nichelle Nichols, a black actress. At that time, black women typically only appeared in television as servants and maids, so this was a revolutionary change not only in television but in the civil rights movement as well. In fact, when Nichelle Nichols considered quitting the show to pursue a career on Broadway, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. met with Nichelle, convincing her to stay on the show as a part of history.

Television in the early 1990s during Saturn’s next transit through Aquarius was just as influential on culture as the television of the early 1960s. One of the first TV shows that comes to mind when I think of the 90s in television is the classic sitcom Friends. Though this show technically didn’t air until Saturn had moved into Pisces in 1994, the concept of the show resonates very closely with Aquarian themes. For one, the name “Friends” is representative of Aquarius, the sign of friendship and camaraderie. David Crane and Marta Kauffman, the show’s creators, began developing Friends in late 1993 under the early title of Insomnia Cafe, as Saturn made its way through the last 10 degrees of Aquarius. Though it initially had mixed reviews, Friends grew to become one of the most popular and beloved television shows of its time. Another well-loved show of the early 90s, though aimed more towards a younger audience, Bill Nye the Science Guy first aired in 1993, and embraced the forward-thinking Aquarian scientist archetype. Science in general is ruled by Aquarius, sign of innovation and discovery, and this show was designed to teach children about the realities of science and observation. One TV show I thought I should mention here as well is The Real World, which first aired on MTV in 1992, and is credited as being the birth of the “reality TV” genre of television, though it was edited quite often in favor of certain situations and reactions that didn’t quite reflect reality. It received a lot of criticism as well for not ever casting an Asian man in nearly 30 years on television. Reality TV is also very much a Saturn in Aquarius concept, as Saturn rules realism, and Aquarius rules television in general.

Aquarius is also the ruler of cartoons, as I touched on earlier, so it’s only fitting that I discuss a few cartoons of the early 90s. The trend of “cartoons for adults” was beginning to take off around this time, after The Simpsons paved the way in 1989 with its adult humor and hidden messages about adult life. One of the more “mature” cartoons that comes to mind when thinking of Saturn’s transit through Aquarius in the early 1990s is The Ren & Stimpy Show. This show first aired in 1991, and was quite grotesque in its animation style, featuring detailed animated close-ups with which other shows later followed suit. It was especially adored among college students due to its bizarre animation style and dark yet quirky humor. Another “adult cartoon” that began while Saturn was making its way through Aquarius is Beavis and Butt-Head, which first aired in 1993. This cartoon had mixed reviews and stirred up a lot of controversy with its seemingly idiotic social criticism, but became a staple of early 90s adult television nonetheless. The social criticism in this show is representative of Saturn in Aquarius as well, as Saturn portrays a harsh, critical nature, and Aquarius is a sign of society and social groups. Rocko’s Modern Life was yet another cartoon series that was aimed for young adults rather than children, and achieved moderate success after its initial release in 1993. This show was known for highlighting adult situations through cartoon animation- combining the adult responsibilities and themes of Saturn with the off-beat cartoony Aquarian personality. One last cartoon I’d like to mention in this segment of adult cartoons is Animaniacs, which first aired in 1993, and quickly became a hit with both children under age 11 and adults over 25. The large following among adults even led to one of the earliest Internet fandom cultures, another Aquarian concept.

Television in the coming years will likely circle around again to some of these rebellious Aquarian ideas, and it’s likely that TV will become even more entwined with the Internet over the next few years, as online streaming is more common these days than watching cable TV.

Saturn’s movement through Aquarius was a big part of the civil rights movement of the early 60s as well. The sign of Aquarius is a sign of freedom, equal human rights, and disrupting the status quo, which essentially were a few of the main goals of the movement. In fact, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a 10th house Aquarius Mercury, which is why we remember him best for his “I have a dream” speech, which he delivered August 28, 1963 in Washington D.C. for the 200,000+ people who gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial for the March on Washington. During the time he was writing and revising this speech, Saturn was transiting his Mercury in Aquarius as well. Later in 1963, on October 22, roughly 200,000 students stayed out of school in Chicago to protest segregation of African-American students in schools. This was a major peak of an ongoing battle to desegregate schools across America, again acting out the Aquarian values of equality and social justice.

In the early 1990s, this theme re-emerged through the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. A video went public in 1991 of five white Los Angeles police officers severely beating Mr. Rodney King after pulling him over for speeding. The riots began on April 29, 1992 after a trial jury acquitted four of the officers, enraging thousands of Southern Californians who took to the streets in anger. By the end of the riots, in early May, sixty-three people had been killed and thousands more were injured or had been arrested. The 1992 Rodney King riots went on to inspire the folk song “Like a King” from Ben Harper’s debut 1994 album Welcome to the Cruel World, which was released just after Saturn transited into Pisces; therefore, the songs were written and recorded while Saturn was in Aquarius.

In the coming transit of Saturn through Aquarius, we can expect to see another revolutionary movement, particularly watching the Black Lives Matter movement, because the hashtag was born while Saturn was in Scorpio, meaning Saturn in Aquarius will be coming up on a Saturn square for the birth chart of the movement.

Furthermore in music, there were a few major developments in the early 1960s while Saturn was in Aquarius that stood out to me. First, in the early to mid 60s, Joan Baez was beginning to make a name for herself in folk music during the American folk revival. Then in 1962, Peter, Paul & Mary released their debut album, which reached #1 on the US album charts. During the same year, Bob Dylan released his self-titled debut album of cover songs, and later went on to release his first original album The Times They Are a-Changin’ in 1964, towards the end of Saturn’s journey through Aquarius. These politically-charged folk artists all peaked with the folk revival during Saturn’s transit through Aquarius, which makes sense, as folk music is Aquarian in its nature, typically discussing issues of politics, inequality and other “radical” ideas of change. In fact, these artists also all performed “We Shall Overcome” at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington in 1963.

Another emerging group that stood out to me from this Aquarian transit was The Beatles. This incredibly successful rock group released their first couple of songs, “Please Please Me” and “Ask Me Why,” in January of 1963. By the next month, their single “Please Please Me” was topping the British rock charts. The Beatles released their debut studio album, Please Please Me, in March 1963, and by May had landed on the top of the UK album charts, staying there for 30 weeks, only to be replaced by their second studio album, With The Beatles. By October of 1963, the media began using the term “Beatlemania” to describe the frenzied behavior exhibited by Beatles fans across the globe. Many of their live performances were accompanied by the sounds of screaming fans and general hysteria. Fanatics, by the way, are also ruled by Aquarius. In February of 1964, The Beatles made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, drawing a record 73.7 million viewers. The crazed audience clearly depicts the “Beatlemania” phenomenon in full swing. But how do The Beatles relate to Saturn’s transit through Aquarius? First off, The Beatles were one of the first mainstream groups to market to the younger generation of teenagers rather than to their parents. This was a big shift in the music industry, as typically it was the older audience with all the spending power, whereas now, young teenage girls were a powerful force in the music market. Though their earlier songs avoided heavier social topics, it became obvious later in their career that The Beatles were a huge part of the birth of counterculture and anti-establishment ideas. In 1964, when the band was informed that a venue they were scheduled to perform at in Florida in the US was segregated, they refused to play unless the audience was integrated. Many more conservative countries refused to allow The Beatles to perform at all, in fear that their progressive counterculture ideas would “infect” their younger population. Even the United States attempted to ban all British acts in 1965, as they saw their emerging rock ‘n’ roll culture as “dangerous” to the youth of the nation. The Beatles were also highly progressive in their music style, and incorporated many new and unusual recording techniques into their albums. This ongoing theme of progressive thinking and “peace and love” apparent in the music of The Beatles is very in line with the nature of Aquarius.

Later, in the early 1990s, grunge bands were the new emerging music trend. A number of grunge rock bands all released major hit albums around the same time: right around Saturn’s transit through rebellious Aquarius. In 1991, Pearl Jam released their debut album Ten, followed by Nirvana releasing their second album Nevermind, and then Soundgarden with Badmotorfinger– all within a span of two months! All three albums were incredibly successful, and resonated strongly with the Aquarian counterculture and anti-establishment ideas brought out by the earlier generation in the early 1960s. Then in 1992, Alice in Chains released their second studio album, Dirt, which is considered by many to be their best work. Also released in 1992, Stone Temple Pilots debuted with their first studio album, Core, which received mixed reviews, though it went on to win a Grammy in 1994 for Best Hard Rock Performance. Nirvana received a lot of attention and success in the early 90s as well, and Kurt Cobain was dubbed “the voice of a generation” by many. Similar to The Beatles influence on counterculture, Kurt Cobain’s darker lyrical content touched many listeners’ hearts on a deeper level than the earlier hair metal had been able to.

In the next few years in music, we’re likely to see younger emerging artists, similar to Billie Eilish, who has an Aquarius Moon, taking over the scene with some revolutionary new ideas and social commentary in their lyrics.

Though Aquarius is a masculine sign, I’ve also noticed a pattern with emerging feminist movements during these transits due to the focus on equal human rights. The second wave of feminism began picking up speed around 1963, when two major works of feminist writing were published: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. Both works were largely critical of the typical role of a female as a domestic housekeeper/mother figure in 1960s society. These works encouraged women to pursue careers that they felt passionately about for the first time. Also in 1963, journalist Gloria Steinem became a prominent figure in feminist culture after going undercover as a Playboy Bunny and revealing the poor treatment and underpayment of the waitresses at the Playboy Club.

In the early 1990s, during Saturn’s next transit through Aquarius, the third wave of feminism began to emerge. While second-wave feminism dealt primarily with issues surrounding equal opportunities for [predominantly white] women in the workplace, this third wave of feminism dealt with issues regarding intersectional feminism, violence against women and reproductive/sexual freedom. A trend of reclaiming “derogatory” female terms (for example: bitch, slut, whore) began largely with the Riot grrrl movement in punk music, popularized by female-constructed bands like Bikini Kill and Bratmobile, as a way of expressing feminine identity on their own terms.

Feminine power is already on the rise again, with Uranus having moved into feminine Taurus a couple years ago and still having several more years to go on that transit. Women in power will do great things with that power, and more women will come to be in power over the next few years with Saturn in this sign. Whether it be individual political power, or power in numbers, women around the world will come together and rise to power from now until 2023. Another trend I expect to see play out while Saturn transits Aquarius these next few years as well is that of gender revolution. With the gender roles of the past melting away, a revolution is roaring around the corner, and gender queer/LGBTQ+ identifying people will likely score a few big victories in the upcoming Aquarian transit.

Another theme I noticed through Saturn’s transit of Aquarius in the early 1960s was a theme of national independence and freedom. In August of 1962, the colony of Jamaica became independent, freeing Jamaicans from the United Kingdom after 300 years of British rule. In October that same year, Uganda also became independent from the UK. Then, in 1963, Kenya declared independence from the UK as well. Meanwhile, the Dominican Republic and Zanzibar both experienced major revolutions during this time frame in search of freedom. This trend continued in the early 90s, with many countries, including Lithuania, Ukraine, Latvia and Estonia, all declaring their independence from the USSR in 1991.

It’s likely that we will see many more uprisings and movements towards independence, including the United States’ Pluto return in 2022/2023, which is expected to be a revolutionary moment for the history of the country.

These are the kinds of themes we are likely to see re-emerging until March 2023, while Saturn roams through free-spirited Aquarius. Technological innovations are going to be increasingly involved with our lives, as the internet of things develops further. Television will trend towards witty humor and social criticism, as it did the previous few times Saturn was in Aquarius. Civil rights movements will be center-stage, writing more groundbreaking history into our textbooks, while the future leans towards figures who are genderqueer, females, diverse, and/or of color, rather than in favor of the cis-gender/heterosexual white male. Mainstream music will take on its own social commentary within the industry. Independence of the individual as well as the nation will be stressed in the coming years. Saturn feels confident in this sign, and we should too, moving forward into Saturn’s “Age of Aquarius” with hope for a better future.

#witchblr #witch #witchcraft #witches of tumblr #pagan #paganism #pagans of tumblr #wiccablr #wicca #wiccan #wiccans of tumblr #divination #astrology

295 notes · View notes

blackswaneuroparedux · 4 years

Text

Anonymous asked: I love your blog it’s definitely one of the most smartest and cultured ones around. Since you are a super chilled out military vet (flying combat helicopters, how cool is that?!) and also a very thoughtful and devout Christian (I think you talked about being an Anglican) I know this is a cheeky question but I’ll ask it anyway. Would you rather live in a military dictatorship or a theocratic dictatorship?

Now this is an interesting question you play at 2am and the wine is dangerously low.

I have to correct you on a couple of things. Yes, it was ‘cool’ to fly combat helicopters especially in a battlefield setting but it was just a job, like any other. And it’s never about the pilot it’s about the rest of the team behind you, especially your ground crew who make sure you go up and come back in one piece. As for being super chilled you clearly have never seen how sweaty one gets flying in high stress situations. Oh and the stink! A skunk wouldn’t last 5 minutes in my cockpit.

As for my Christian beliefs, I’ll settle for being a believing one. My faith, such as it is, is about living - and failing - by grace day by day than being fervently devout. Faith is a struggle to not rely upon one’s own strength but on divine mercy and grace.

Anyway....

Would I rather live in a military dictatorship or a theocratic dictatorship?

History has shown there's not a lot of difference between the two...

No, wait. On second thoughts maybe I would rather live in a military dictatorship as the lesser evil.

As an ex-officer in her HM armed forces, I know things will be run pretty efficiently with no dilly-dallying. So there’s that.

I suppose even if one does say it’s preferable to live under military rule rather than a theocratic one there is still the question of what kind of military rule? Every nation that has been under military rule came to power and sustained their hold under different dynamics. And of course it also depends on how mature civil society and the rule of law as well as the democratic culture really was in the first place. A lot is tied up with the brutal nature of the personality of the regime leader too. There are simply too many variables.

So one is forced to generalise. So l can’t get too serious in answering this question.

Rather than focus on the negative side let’s look on the bright side.

Just off the top of my head I can think of these reasons why I would choose to ‘live’ under military rule than a theocratic one. There are in no real order:

Beds will be made properly subject to inspection.

Families will be run like military units with the man at the head of the table.

Family meals will be taken at set times.

Public civility will make a return (e.g. no public spitting, drunken, or loutish behaviour).

Freedom of speech will more likely be censored than abolished (better than nothing I suppose)

Elections would be rigged rather than banned (but who really votes anyway these days?) 

They will most likely make the trains run on time (unless you’re British or Italian).

Military leaders often enjoy genuine popularity - albeit after eliminating plausible rivals - that is based on “performance legitimacy,” a perceived competence at securing prosperity and defending the nation against external or internal threats. The new autocrats of today are more surgical: they aim only to convince citizens of their competence to govern.

Maintaining power, for military dictators and their court, is less a matter of terrorising and persecuting victims than of manipulating beliefs about the world. But of course they can do both if backed into a corner to survive.

State propaganda aims not to re-engineer human souls but to boost the military regime leader’s ratings.

The military tend to stay out of personal lives. They have a political police but not necessarily a moral police.

Economic growth is more likely to be stable than under a theocratic state.

Military dictatorships are more likely to build vast bureaucracies to run the state - more jobs for everyone

The military put on great events. Their parades are more colourful and spectacular.

Having a sense of humour is more likely to get you imprisoned than executed for telling an anti-regime joke. It’s no joke to say that people develop a more refinery subversive sense of humour when oppressed. Take for example a famous comedian in Myanmar, Zarganar, for whom comedy is a shield and a weapon. During the time of the military dictatorship (1962-2010) he would make jokes like, “The American says, 'We have a one-legged guy who climbed Mount Everest.' The Brit says, 'We recently had a guy with no arms who swam the Atlantic Ocean. But the Burmese guy says, 'That's nothing! We had a leader who ruled for 18 years without a brain!" It was for jokes like this that Zarganar received a prison sentence in 2008 - for up to 59 years.

Military dictatorships don’t last long. They are more unstable. They tend to fall from the weight of their own contradictions.

One of the problems of living in a theocracy is how absolutist it would be in looking at life in terms of clear cut black and white according to those who rule over you. I strongly suspect in a theocratic state the morality secret police will be all over you looking for any social or moral infraction. In a Christian Theocracy, you'll never be Christian enough - the same would be for states that were Islamic, Judaic or Hindu etc. There's always going to be some pious asshole there with another version of Christianity that is more Christian than you and you're going to lose the freedom to make your own choices.

Under theocracies, unlike other authoritarian regimes, the rulers are the moral authorities that legitimises and fuels their political legitimacy to govern. It assumes its own moral correctness married to its political destiny to rule over others. As C.S Lewis memorably puts it, “Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant, a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations.”

Finally, I’ll go with the military dictatorship with the hope that there might be some way of bringing the system down with a bit of logic and rationality. Hell knows that wouldn't be possible in a theocratic system!

I agree with Margaret Atwood when she said, “If you disagree with your government, that's political. If you disagree with your government that is approaching theocracy, then you're evil.” There’s more wriggle room with fighting against a military dictatorship because it’s usually against an asshole tyrant - or a ruling oligarchy of a military junta - and not a pernicious idea soaked in theological bullshit or an entire ideology divinely santificated by God himself.

A more interesting question is not to ask is why many people are so readily drawn to be ruled under a military rule or a theocratic one and especially a benevolent dictatorship (like Lee Kwan Yew in Singapore or Paul Kagame in Rwanda) but why increasingly more people in the Western world look to authoritarian figures to rule and shape their lives?

Why do Silicon Valley titans like Peter Thiel and others like him think fondly of ditching democracy in the name of some utopian hyper-capitalist vision of ‘freedom’?

I hear murmurs of the same talk when I interact with corporate colleagues and high net worth individuals I hear it around dinner tables about how democracy is bad for business and profit. Often it’s accompanied by praise for China's ability to "get things done." I just roll my eyes and smile politely.

I think - outside of the legitimate concern of the decay of civil discourse, the corruption of politicians, and corrosiveness of crony capitalism - it’s because democratic politics is hard. Damn hard.

Moreover democratic politics does not have a "right" answer. There never is.

In our Western societies it is the playing field (or market place?) where our values compete. Surely, you say, there is a right way to get the job done: to fill in the potholes, build the roads, keep our streets safe, get our kids to learn reading and math. Ah, but look how quickly those issues get contentious.

Whose potholes should get filled first? Do we try to keep our streets safe through community policing or long prison sentences? Should teachers be given merit pay, are small classrooms better, or should we lengthen the school day? These issues engender deep political fights, all - even in the few debates where research provides clear, technocratic answers. That is because the area of politics is an area for values disputes, not technical solutions.

One person's "right" is not another's because people prioritise different values: equity versus excellence, efficiency versus voice and participation, security versus social justice, short-term versus long-term gains.

Democratic politics allows many ideas of "right" to flourish. It is less efficient than dictatorship. It also makes fewer tremendous mistakes.

The longing for a leader who knows what is in her people's best interests, who rules with care and guides the nation on a wise path, was Plato's idea of a philosopher-king. It's a tempting picture, but it's asking the wrong question.

In political history, philosophers moved from a preference for such benevolent dictators to the ugly realities of democracy when they switched the question from "who could best rule?" to "what system prevents the worst rule?"

But clearly democracy is buckling under pressure in our torrid times. Populism - the logical end consequence of a purer democracy - is chipping away at the edifice of democratic norms and conventions. Increasingly inward looking nativism and nationalism fuel passions beyond the control of reason.

Perhaps it is time we went back to the tried and tested example of a monarchy, a constitutional one that is.

A revitalised monarchy in Britain needs a Head of State that can provide a personal identity to an impersonal State, and a collective sense of itself. A Head of State who does not owe his or her position to either patronage or a vote can more properly represent all the people. Consider that a President who has been elected, often by a minority of a minority of the electorate, cannot adequately speak for the people who did not vote for him or her. It is even worse if the President has been appointed, because then he owes his position to a small clique.So, the accident of birth is the best means of appointing a Head of State. Someone who has no party political axe to grind, or special favours to repay to a vested interest. Someone whose allegiance is to the people. Not just allegiance to the people who voted for him or his political party, but allegiance to all the people of the country equally. Far from being "incompatible" with democracy, a Monarchy can thereby enhance the government of the land.

The Monarch is a national icon. An icon which cannot be replaced adequately by any other politician or personality. This is because the British Monarchy embodies British history and identity in all its aspects, both good and bad.

When you see the Queen you not only see history since 1952, when she took the throne, but you see a person who provides a living sense of historical continuity with the past. Someone who embodies in her person a history which extends back through time, back through the Victorian era, back into the Stuart era and beyond. You see the national history of all parts of our islands, together, going right back in time.

As Edmund Burke, Roger Scruton and Michael Oakeshott would say, the monarchy is a living continuity between the past, the present and the future.

With its traditions, its history, its ceremonial, and with its standing and respect throughout the world, the British Monarchy represents a unique national treasure, without which the United Kingdom would be sorely impoverished.

If you value national distinctiveness, you should be a Monarchist.

If you are anti-globalist you should be a Monarchist because Monarchies represent the different national traditions and distinctions among the nations.

The desire to secure, strengthen and promote your own distinct national icons, whether your Monarch, or your own unique national identity, should be your concern, whether you live here in St Andrews, or whether you live in St Petersburg, or whether you live in St Paulo.

As the global financial system rushes us all towards a world intended to eradicate all local and national distinctions, the Monarchy stands out as different, distinct and valuable. Constitutionally, practically, spiritually and symbolically the Monarchy is a national treasure, the continued erosion of which would change the character of Britain, and not in a good way!

I’m speaking as a High Tory now, sorry. And so of course I only see it working for the United Kingdom....and the Commonwealth (slip that discreetly in there for you India, Australia, Canada, and Africa).

Still, if you want egalitarianism then look at Norway and the Netherlands - both highly "egalitarian" societies, and both monarchies.

Everyone else will just have to jolly well do without or ask us politely to come back (I’m looking at you my dear American colonial cousins, all will be forgiven).

The best of all worlds? Time will tell.

At your service, Ma’am....

Thanks for your question.

#question #ask #military dictatorship #government #rule #democracy #culture #society #theocracy #army #christianity #religion #nd high net worth individuals

33 notes · View notes

andromeda-sapphire · 4 years

Text

Saturn in Aquarius: 2020-2023

Beginning later this month, on March 21, Saturn enters the revolutionary sign of Aquarius for a brief month and a half preview before it retrogrades back into Capricorn until the end of September. Then at the end of the year, on December 17, it will re-enter Aquarius for the long-haul until March of 2023. Saturn is known as the planet of limitations, boundaries, responsibilities and hard lessons, and up until now has been making its way through the restrictive and authoritarian sign of Capricorn since the beginning of 2018. Though Saturn is the ruler of earthy Capricorn and identifies well with that controlling energy, it doesn't always do it's best work in this sign. Traditionally, Saturn also rules the airy free-flowing sign of Aquarius, and tends to be very comfortable in this sign, despite how different they may seem. When Saturn enters this humanitarian sign, it evolves into a higher version of itself, capable of bringing much needed equality and change into the world. How do we know this? Well, let's take a look at the last few Saturn transits through Aquarius - from 1991 to 1994, and before that, from 1962 to 1964.

Let's begin with Saturn's transit through futuristic Aquarius back in 1962. Right off the bat, as Saturn entered the sign, the first automated (unmanned) subway train in New York City began running. Aquarius rules technology and automation, so this stood out to me as a very modern Aquarian development already. Also in 1962, Spacewar! was developed and released as the first computer game, featuring two spaceships fighting it out. Each spaceship was controlled by a player, meaning it was not only the first computer game, but also the first multi-player game for computers. Fitting, as Aquarius rules groups as well as spaceships and technology.

In the early 1990s, there were also some major technological advancements, specifically related to the internet and computers. In 1991, at the beginning of Saturn's transit through Aquarius, Apple released the PowerBook, the first modern laptop computer, which was a huge development in the computer world and has influenced our modern computers significantly in their portability and design. The WorldWide Web was technically invented in 1989, while Saturn was transiting Capricorn, and it was exclusively meant for information-sharing between scientists in institutions around the world at that time. However, in April of 1993, after Saturn had entered Aquarius, CERN made the "www" software public, accessible to anyone with a computer. This is significant because Aquarius represents freedom and equality, and though it was still mainly the upper class that could afford computers at the time, this movement away from intellectual elitism essentially opened the internet up for free public use like we have today. In 1992, ViolaWWW was released, and was the first web browser to become popularized by users. It was also the recommended browser by CERN until it was replaced by Mosaic, the first web browser to display images in line with text rather than in a new window, in 1993.

In the upcoming transit of Saturn through Aquarius, we can expect to see even more advanced technology developments. Many people are expecting Artificial Intelligence to really take off in the coming years, as well as 5G technology and space travel on a grander scale. The Internet of things is also on the rise, with smart devices and appliances becoming more readily available and more advanced.

The future of technology was on the minds of many in the early 1960s, reflected in ABC's first color animated TV series, The Jetsons, premiering in September of 1962. Not only does Aquarius rule color television and cartoons, but the futuristic utopian vision held by The Jetsons is also very Aquarian in nature. Television also welcomed the eccentric and beloved Addams family in 1964 with ABC's premiere of The Addams Family. This television classic questioned social norms of the time, specifically the values of the traditional mid-century American family, which were quite conservative at the time. This series became a symbol of the counterculture in television, a typically Aquarian concept. Another incredibly popular futuristic TV show that technically started during Saturn's transit through Aquarius, Star Trek began filming in November of 1964, during the last couple months of Saturn's journey through this sign. Star Trek is also notable for this transit due to the fact that it was one of the first television shows to give women, especially black women, prominent and respected roles. The character Lt. Uhura, the ship's communications officer, was played by Nichelle Nichols, a black actress. At that time, black women typically only appeared in television as servants and maids, so this was a revolutionary change not only in television but in the civil rights movement as well. In fact, when Nichelle Nichols considered quitting the show to pursue a career on Broadway, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. met with Nichelle, convincing her to stay on the show as a part of history.

Television in the early 1990s during Saturn's next transit through Aquarius was just as influential on culture as the television of the early 1960s. One of the first TV shows that comes to mind when I think of the 90s in television is the classic sitcom Friends. Though this show technically didn't air until Saturn had moved into Pisces in 1994, the concept of the show resonates very closely with Aquarian themes. For one, the name "Friends"is representative of Aquarius, the sign of friendship and camaraderie. David Crane and Marta Kauffman, the show's creators, began developing Friends in late 1993 under the early title of Insomnia Cafe, as Saturn made its way through the last 10 degrees of Aquarius. Though it initially had mixed reviews, Friends grew to become one of the most popular and beloved television shows of its time. Another well-loved show of the early 90s, though aimed more towards a younger audience, Bill Nye the Science Guy first aired in 1993, and embraced the forward-thinking Aquarian scientist archetype. Science in general is ruled by Aquarius, sign of innovation and discovery, and this show was designed to teach children about the realities of science and observation. One TV show I thought I should mention here as well is The Real World, which first aired on MTV in 1992, and is credited as being the birth of the "reality TV" genre of television, though it was edited quite often in favor of certain situations and reactions that didn't quite reflect reality. It received a lot of criticism as well for not ever casting an Asian man in nearly 30 years on television. Reality TV is also very much a Saturn in Aquarius concept, as Saturn rules realism, and Aquarius rules television in general.

Aquarius is also the ruler of cartoons, as I touched on earlier, so it's only fitting that I discuss a few cartoons of the early 90s. The trend of "cartoons for adults" was beginning to take off around this time, after The Simpsons paved the way in 1989 with its adult humor and hidden messages about adult life. One of the more "mature" cartoons that comes to mind when thinking of Saturn's transit through Aquarius in the early 1990s is The Ren & Stimpy Show. This show first aired in 1991, and was quite grotesque in its animation style, featuring detailed animated close-ups with which other shows later followed suit. It quickly became a cult classic, especially among college students, who adored its bizarre animation style and dark yet quirky humor. Another cult classic "adult cartoon" that began while Saturn was making its way through Aquarius is Beavis and Butt-Head, which first aired in 1993. This cartoon had mixed reviews and stirred up a lot of controversy with its seemingly idiotic social criticism, but became a staple of early 90s adult television nonetheless. The social criticism in this show is representative of Saturn in Aquarius as well, as Saturn portrays a harsh, critical nature, and Aquarius is a sign of society and social groups. Rocko's Modern Life was yet another cartoon series that was aimed for young adults rather than children, and achieved moderate success after its initial release in 1993. This show was known for highlighting adult situations through cartoon animation - combining the adult responsibilities and themes of Saturn with the off-beat cartoony Aquarian personality. One last cartoon I'd like to mention in this segment of adult cartoons is Animaniacs, which first aired in 1993, and quickly became a hit with both children under age 11 and adults over 25. The large following among adults even led to one of the earliest Internet fandom cultures, another Aquarian concept.

Television in the coming years will likely circle around again to some of these rebellious Aquarian ideas, and it's likely that TV will become even more entwined with the internet over the next few years, as online streaming is more common these days than watching cable TV.

Saturn's movement through Aquarius was a big part of the civil rights movement of the early 60s as well. The sign of Aquarius is a sign of freedom, equal human rights, and disrupting the status quo, which essentially were a few of the main goals of the movement. In fact, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a 10th house Aquarius Mercury, which is why we remember him best for his "I have a dream" speech, which he delivered August 28, 1963 in Washington D.C. for the 200,000+ people who gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial for the March on Washington. During the time he was writing and revising this speech, Saturn was transiting his Mercury in Aquarius as well. Later in 1963, on October 22, roughly 200,000 students stayed out of school in Chicago to protest segregation of African-American students in schools. This was a major peak of an ongoing battle to desegregate schools across America, again acting out the Aquarian values of equality and social justice.

In the early 1990s this theme re-emerged through the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. A video went public in 1991 of five white Los Angeles police officers severely beating Mr. Rodney King, who was black, after pulling him over for speeding. The riots began on April 29, 1992 after a trial jury acquitted four of the officers, enraging thousands of Southern California residents who took to the streets in anger. By the end of the riots, in early May, 63 people had been killed and thousands more were injured or had been arrested. The 1992 Rodney King riots went on to inspire the folk song "Like a King" from Ben Harper's debut 1994 album Welcome to the Cruel World, which was released just after Saturn transited into Pisces, therefore the songs were written and recorded while Saturn was in Aquarius.

In the coming transit of Saturn through Aquarius, we can expect to see another revolutionary movement for POC, particularly watching the Black Lives Matter movement, because the hashtag was born while Saturn was in Scorpio, meaning Saturn in Aquarius will be coming up on a Saturn square for the birth chart of the movement.

Furthermore in music, there were a few major developments in the early 1960s while Saturn was in Aquarius that stood out to me. First, in the early to mid 60s, Joan Baez was beginning to make a name for herself in folk music during the American folk revival. Then in 1962, Peter, Paul & Mary released their debut album, which reached #1 on the US album charts. During the same year, Bob Dylan released his self-titled debut album of cover songs, and later went on to release his first original album The Times They Are a-Changin' in 1964, towards the end of Saturn's journey through Aquarius. These politically charged folk artists all peaked with the folk revival during Saturn's transit through Aquarius, which makes sense, as folk music is Aquarian in its nature, typically discussing issues of politics, inequality and other "radical" ideas of change. In fact, these artists also all performed "We Shall Overcome" at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington in 1963.

Another emerging group that stood out to me from this Aquarian transit was The Beatles. This incredibly successful rock group released their first couple of songs - "Please Please Me" & "Ask Me Why" - in January of 1963. By the next month, their single "Please Please Me" was topping the British rock charts. The Beatles released their debut studio album, Please Please Me, in March 1963, and by May had landed on the top of the UK album charts, staying there for 30 weeks, only to be replaced by their second studio album, With The Beatles. By October of 1963, the media began using the term "Beatlemania" to describe the frenzied behavior exhibited by Beatles fans across the globe. Many of their live performances were accompanied by the sounds of screaming fans and general hysteria. Fanatics, by the way, are also ruled by Aquarius. In February of 1964, The Beatles made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, drawing a record 73.7 million viewers. The crazed audience clearly depicts the "Beatlemania" phenomenon in full swing. But how do The Beatles relate to Saturn's transit through Aquarius? First off, The Beatles were one of the first mainstream groups to market to the younger generation of teenagers rather than to their parents. This was a big shift in the music industry, as typically it was the older audience with all the spending power, whereas now, young teenage girls were a powerful force in the music market. Though their earlier songs avoided heavier social topics, it became obvious later in their career that The Beatles were a huge part of the birth of counterculture and anti-establishment ideas. In 1964, when the band was informed that a venue they were scheduled to perform at in Florida in the US was segregated, they refused to play unless the audience was integrated. Many more conservative countries refused to allow The Beatles to perform at all, in fear that their progressive counterculture ideas would "infect" their younger population. Even the USA attempted to ban all British acts in 1965, as they saw their emerging rock 'n' roll culture as "dangerous" to the youth of the nation. The Beatles were also highly progressive in their music style, and incorporated many new and unusual recording techniques into their albums. This ongoing theme of progressive thinking and "peace and love" apparent in the music of The Beatles is very in line with the nature of Aquarius.

Later, in the early 1990s, grunge bands were the new emerging music trend. A number of grunge rock bands all released major hit albums around the same time - right around Saturn's transit through rebellious Aquarius. In 1991, Pearl Jam released their debut album Ten, followed by Nirvana releasing their second album Nevermind, and then Soundgarden with Badmotorfinger - all within a span of two months! All three albums were incredibly successful, and resonated strongly with the Aquarian counterculture and anti-establishment ideas brought out by the earlier generation in the early 1960s. Then in 1992, Alice in Chains released their second studio album, Dirt, which is considered by many to be their best work. Also released in 1992, Stone Temple Pilots debuted with their first studio album, Core, which received mixed reviews, though it went on to win a Grammy in 1994 for Best Hard Rock Performance. Nirvana received a lot of attention and success in the early 90s as well, and Kurt Cobain was dubbed "the voice of a generation" by many. Similar to The Beatles influence on counterculture, Kurt Cobain's darker lyrical content touched many listeners hearts on a deeper level than the earlier hair metal had been able to.

In the next few years in music, we're likely to see younger emerging artists, similar to Billie Eilish, who has an Aquarius Moon, taking over the scene with some revolutionary new ideas and social commentary in their lyrics.

Though Aquarius is a masculine sign, I've also noticed a pattern with emerging feminist movements during these transits, due to the focus on equal human rights. The second wave of feminism began picking up speed around 1963, when two major works of feminist writing were published - The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, and The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. Both works were largely critical of the typical role of a female in 1960s society - that of the domestic housekeeper/mother figure. These works encouraged women to pursue careers they felt passionately about for the first time. Also in 1963, journalist Gloria Steinem became a prominent figure in feminist culture after going undercover as a Playboy Bunny and revealing the poor treatment and underpayment of the waitresses at the Playboy Club.

In the early 1990s, during Saturn's next transit through Aquarius, the third wave of feminism began to emerge. While second-wave feminism dealt primarily with issues surrounding equal opportunities for [predominantly white] women in the workplace, this third wave of feminism dealt with issues regarding intersectional feminism, violence against women and reproductive/sexual freedom. A trend of reclaiming "derogatory" female terms (for example - bitch, slut, whore) began largely with the Riot grrrl movement in punk music, popularized by female-constructed bands like Bikini Kill and Bratmobile, as a way of expressing feminine identity on their own terms.

Another theme I noticed through Saturn's transit of Aquarius in the early 1960s was a theme of national independence and freedom. In August of 1962, the colony of Jamaica became independent, freeing Jamaicans from the United Kingdom after 300 years of British rule. In October that same year, Uganda also became independent from the UK. Then in 1963, Kenya declared independence from the UK as well. Meanwhile, in the Dominican Republic and Zanzibar both experienced major revolutions during this time frame, in search of freedom. This trend continued in the early 90s, with many countries, including Lithuania, Ukraine, Latvia and Estonia, all declaring their independence from the USSR in 1991.

It's likely that we will see many more uprisings and movements towards independence, including the USA's Pluto return in 2022/2023, which is expected to be a revolutionary moment for the history of the country, over the course of the next few years.

These are the kinds of themes we are likely to see re-emerging until March 2023, while Saturn roams through free-spirited Aquarius. Technological innovations are going to be increasingly involved with our lives, as the internet of things develops further. Television will trend towards witty humor and social criticism, as it did the previous few times Saturn was in Aquarius. Civil rights movements will be center stage, writing more groundbreaking history into our textbooks, while the future leans towards gender queer/female figures of color, rather than in favor of the cis-gender/heterosexual white male. Music will take on its own social commentary within the industry, perhaps birthing a new genre of sorts. Independence of the individual as well as the nation will be stressed in the coming years. Saturn feels confident in this sign, and we should too, moving forward into Saturn's "Age of Aquarius" with hope for a better future.

If you enjoyed reading this post, feel free to buy me a coffee here!

https://ko-fi.com/andromeda_sapphire

#saturn #aquarius #2020 #blog #astrology blog #astrology #astrology readings #astrologer #me #mine #witchblr #astro witch #astro #saturn in aquarius

107 notes · View notes

terramythos · 4 years

Text

TerraMythos' 2020 Reading Challenge - Book 27 of 26

Title: How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? (2018)

Author: N. K. Jemisin

Genre/Tags: Short Story Collection, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, Dystopia, Magical Realism, Steampunk, Cyberpunk, Post-Apocalyptic, Female Protagonist(s), LGBT Protagonist(s).

Rating: 8/10 (Note: This is an average of all the stories -- see below the cut for individual story blurbs/ratings).

Date Began: 9/27/2020

Date Finished: 10/4/2020

I really liked this collection! Jemisin wrote my favorite fanstasy/scifi series ever with The Broken Earth trilogy, and I really enjoyed her recent novel The City We Became. I was in the mindset for shorter fiction so decided to read this collection of short stories. Of these 22 stories, my absolute favorites (9/10 or higher) were:

The City Born Great - 10/10

The Effluent Engine - 9/10

Cloud Dragon Skies - 9/10

The Trojan Girl -10/10

Valedictorian - 9/10

The Evaluators - 10/10

Stone Hunger - 9/10

The Narcomancer - 9/10

Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows - 9/10

Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Beneath the Still Waters - 9/10

A more detailed summary/reaction to each story under the cut. WARNING: IT’S LONG.

1. Those Who Stay and Fight - 8/10

Describes a utopia called Um-Helat that exists solely because no one is seen as superior or inferior to anyone else. Over time we learn it's a future, or potential future, of America. But America today is pure anathema to it due to rampant structural inequality. In order to achieve its utopian ideal, Um-Helatians have to root out and destroy people corrupted by the past.

This story was apparently written as a tribute/response to the Ursula K. Le Guin story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”. I first read this without context, then went and read the Le Guin story. I definitely see the parallels. Both feature a narrator describing a wonderful utopia in the midst of festival, trying to convince the reader of the place's existence, before introducing something dark that is the price of the utopia. In the Le Guin story, the utopia exists at the price of the horrible misery and suffering of one child, and everyone is aware of it. Most live with it, but a few leave for the unknown rather than continue to live there (hence the title). In Jemisin's story, the price is instead the annihilation of those tainted by exposure to the evils of the past. The choice, instead of leaving, is for those tainted yet capable to become protectors of the new world, or die.

The thesis is pretty clear: that only by abandoning horrible ideologies and refusing to give them any ground or quarter can a utopian society truly exist. I will say that rings clear, especially when one considers Naziism and fascism. Not all ideologies deserve the light of day or debate, and even entertaining them as valid allows it to take hold. I liked this story, though it comes off as a social justice essay more than a story in and of itself.

2. The City Born Great - 10/10

This one is told from the perspective of a homeless young black man who feels a strange resonance with New York City. He meets a mysterious figure named Paulo, who tells him the city is about to be born as a full-fledged entity, and the man has been chosen to assist with its birth. However, there’s an eldritch force known simply as The Enemy that seeks to prevent this from happening.

I've read this one before since it's the prologue to The City We Became. And honestly it was one of my favorite parts of that book. New York City is a phenomenal character. I love that the proto-avatar of NYC is a young homeless black man, one of the most denigrated groups out there. Cops being the harbingers of eldritch destruction is... yeah. It was fun to reread this. The ending is a little different, because in the novel, something goes terribly wrong that doesn't happen in this short story. There is also a flash forward where he is, apparently, about to awaken the avatar of Los Angeles. Makes me wonder if that is ultimately the endgame of the series. But otherwise it's the same thing with absolutely phenomenal character voice and creativity regarding cities as living creatures. I'm glad Jemisin expanded this idea into a full series.

3. Red Dirt Witch - 7/10

Takes place before the (1960s) Civil Rights Movement in Pratt City, AL. The main character is Emmaline, a witch with three kids. A creepy figure called The White Lady comes to visit and steal one of her children.

I love the little twist that The White Lady is a faerie. And the different take on rowan/ash/thorn instead being rosemary/sage/sycamore fig. There is a lot of touching bits about the horrible trials and human rights abuses during the Civil Rights marches (which are unfortunately all too relevant still), but ultimately a hopeful glimpse of the future of black people in America, though hard-won.

4. L'Alchimista - 6/10

Stars a Milanese master chef named Franca, who fell from glory for Reasons, who now works as head chef at a run-down inn. She feeds a mysterious stranger, who then challenges her to fix a seemingly impossible recipe.

This one was fun and charming. I thought the food (and magical food) descriptions were very vibrant and interesting, especially the last meal. I can tell this is an earlier story and it's pretty light hearted, but I enjoyed it. It felt like it needed a little more of.. something.

5. The Effluent Engine - 9/10

In an interesting steampunk take, Haitian spy Jessaline comes to the city of New Orleans to meet one of its foremost scientists. Her goal is to find a viable, unique energy source to strengthen Haiti in a world that wants to see her nation dead.

I really liked this; it's one of the longer stories so there's more time for character development and worldbuilding. And it's gay. I'm not hugely into pure steampunk because a lot of it comes off as very... samey (hyper Eurocentric/Victorian, etc) but I thought this take was fresh.

Like much of Jemisin's work, there is a lot of racial under and overtones; this one specifically goes into the terrible atrocities committed against the Haitians during their Revolution, and the varied social classes of black/Creole people in New Orleans at the time. A lot of this is stuff I was unaware of or knew very little about. I thought it was interesting to bring all of these to the forefront in a steampunk story in addition to the dirigibles, clockwork, action, and subterfuge. Also, everything tries together in a very satisfying way by the end (the rum bottle!), which I love in short fiction.

6. Cloud Dragon Skies - 9/10

Takes place in a post-apoc future where some humans evacuated to space while others stayed behind and took on more indigenous traditions to heal the Earth. The sky has suddenly turned red on Earth, and some representatives from the "sky-people" come to study it and figure out why.

I really enjoyed this little story; fantasy/scifi fusions are my jam, but science fiction specifically told through a fantasy lens is just so cool to me. The cloud dragons were very interesting and imaginative. Also, I love how the opening statement's meaning isn't particularly clear until you read the whole thing.

7. The Trojan Girl - 10/10

This one is about sentient computer programs/viruses that struggle to survive in something called the Amorph, which is basically a more advanced, omnipresent version of the Internet.

Holy fucking shit was this a cool story. Probably the coolest take on cyberpunk I've ever read. The main character Moroe has formed a messed up little family of creatures like him who live and hunt in Amorph's code, but can upload to "the Static" (real life) if needed by hijacking human hosts. The way this is described is so damn creepy and unsettling. I love that while they're anthropomorphized, the characters are mostly feral and compared to a pack of wolves. Soooo much wolf pack imagery. And the ending is so fucking good and imaginative.

This was apparently a proof of concept story that Jemisin decided not to adapt to a longer series, which I'm kind of sad about, but it was REALLY cool nevertheless. The next story is apparently in the same universe and serves as the "conclusion".

8. Valedictorian - 9/10

This one is about a girl who is, well, top of her class in high school, and the stresses that mount as graduation approaches. But while it seems like a familiar setup, there is something decidedly Off about everything, which is revealed gradually over the course of the story.

I originally gave this an 8, but honestly I couldn't stop thinking about it so I boosted it to a 9. It doesn’t become clear how this connects to the previous story until the midpoint. I liked this one because it functions as a nice dystopian science fiction story but also biting social commentary on the modern American education system. I'm not going go say more on it because spoilers. While I personally like the first story more I think this is an interesting followup/conclusion with a more cerebral approach.

9. The Storyteller's Replacement - 6/10

This one's presented as a traditional "once upon a time" fable told by a storyteller narrator, about a shitty despotic king named Paramenter. Desperate to prove his virility, he eats the heart of a dragon, which is said to be a cure-all for impotence. It's successful, but the six strange daughters that result seem to have plans of their own.

Not really my cup of tea-- it's pretty fucked up. But it's definitely cathartic by the end, which I appreciate, and I do like how creepy the daughters are.

10. The Brides of Heaven - 5/10

Framed as an interrogation in an offworld colony called Illiyin, in which a terrible accident occurred on the way that left all the adult men dead. Dihya, who lost her only son to an alien parasite, is caught trying to sabotage the colony's water supply for reasons unknown.

I like some things in this story. I love the trope of alien biology affecting human biology in unexpected ways. I'm not terribly familiar with Islam but thought it added an interesting faith vs practicality vs tradition element to the science fiction. However I found the sexual body horror REALLY squicky which turned me off the story as a whole.

11. The Evaluators - 10/10

Stylized as a collection of logs and excerpts from a First Contact team of humans visiting and studying a sapient alien species to potentially set up trade relations. There's a focus on one team member named Aihua and her conversations with one of the aliens, but there's miscellaneous important hints/excerpts from the survey that hint Something Creepy Is Going On.

This one was BIZARRE and took me two reads to fully appreciate, but it’s a great work of nontraditional science fiction horror. Just... the epitome of "*nervous laughter* 'what the fuck'". I can't say more without spoiling but dear lord. That whole Jesus bit hits different on a second read. Fucking hell.

12. Walking Awake - 7/10

Takes place in a dystopian society in which parasitic creatures known as Masters keep a small number of humans alive to be flesh suits for them, which they take over and trade around at will. The main character Sadie is a human "caretaker" responsible for propagandizing and raising well-bred human children that eventually become the Masters' hosts. She starts to have disturbing dreams when one takes over the body of a teenage boy she was particularly attached to.

This is apparently a response to Robert Heinlein's The Puppet Masters, which I have never read. It's a full damn novel so I probably won't. Google tells me it's about parasitic aliens, but was obviously also Red Scare paranoia about communist Russia. The argument in the Jemisin story is that the parasites are a result of human folly in an attempt to punish/control people their creators didn't like. This went poorly and resulted in the whole world being taken over.

The story itself is disturbing since the victims are innocent children, but it's ultimately about standing up and taking the first step toward revolution. I felt pretty neutral about the story itself; perhaps I would have liked it more if it was longer and I had more time with the world and protagonist. I wanted to connect to Sadie and her maternal relationship the boy who got killed more. Or maybe it's more impactful if you're familiar with the Heinlein novel and can see the nods/digs.

13. The Elevator Dancer - 7/10

A very short story that takes place in a Christian fundamentalist surveillance state. The protagonist is an unnamed security guard who occasionally sees a woman dancing alone in the elevator and obsesses over her.

I like this one but I'm not sure if I really get it. It's heavily implied the dancer is a hallucination, and the narrator gets "re-educated" but it's all a little ambiguous. I think it's about the struggle to find meaning and inspiration in an oppressive world.

14. Cuisine des Mémoires - 8/10

This one's about a man named Harold who visits a strange restaurant that claims it can replicate any meal from any point in history. He orders a meal which his ex-wife, whom he still loves very much, fixed for him years ago.

This one was certainly different, but I really like the idea of food-as-memory, especially because that's an actual thing. This story just takes it to an extra level. Honestly this story made me feel things... the longing of memory and missed connections/opportunities. Jemisin did a great job with emotion on this one.

15. Stone Hunger - 9/10

Stars a girl in with the ability to manipulate the earth who's tracking down a man she senses in an unfamiliar city. It's heavily implied the world is in a perpetual post-apocalyptic state. When she's caught damaging the outer wall of the city to break in and injured/imprisoned, she's aided by a mysterious, humanoid statue creature with motives of its own.

I have to say it's really interesting to see an early beta concept of The Broken Earth. Orogeny is a little different (and not named)-- there's some kind of taste component to it? Though that's possibly unique to the main character? While hatred of orogenes exists I don't think it's a structural exploitation allegory at this point. Ykka + proto-Castrima existing this early is pretty funny to me. People also use metal, which is VERY funny if you’ve read the series. But I was thrilled to see stone eaters were Very Much A Thing this early and almost exactly how they appear in the series (a little more sinister I guess. At least the one in this story is. I think he basically gets integrated into the Steel/Gray character in the final version).

Anyway as a huge fan of The Broken Earth it's inspiring to see these early ideas and just how much got changed. It's hard for me to look at this as an independent story without the context of the series. I think I'd like it due to the creative setting and strange concepts, but I appreciate the final changes to narrative style and worldbuilding, which really made the series for me.

16. On The Banks of the River Lex - 8/10

Death explores a decaying, post-human version of New York City. He and various deities/ideas created by humans are all that survives in the future and they struggle to exist in the crumbling infrastructure of the city. But Death gradually observes new and different creatures developing amid the wreckage.

I liked this! Despite a typically bleak premise the story is very optimistic and hopeful for the future of the world post-humanity. I like anthropomorphized concepts/deities/etc in general. I thought the imagery of decay and life was gorgeous. Also octopuses are cool.

17. The Narcomancer - 9/10

Told from the perspective of Cet, a priest known as a Gatherer, who can take the life of someone through their dreams in order to bring them peace. When a village petitions his order to investigate a series of raids conducted by brigands using forbidden magic, Cet joins the party. However, he is troubled by his growing attraction to a strong-willed woman of the village.

This apparently takes place in the Dreamblood universe, which I have not read and know nothing about. However, I really enjoyed this story. It's the longest in the collection so I felt I really got to know the characters. The dream-based religion and fantasy was captivating to learn about. It was also romantic as hell, but not in the typical way you’d expect. I thought the central conflict of a priest struggling between an oath of celibacy and his duty to do the right thing (bring peace to someone who needs it) was fascinating.

18. Henosis - 4/10

A short piece, told anachronistically, about a lauded, award winning author on the way to an award ceremony. He gets kidnapped, but there's Something Else going on.

Honestly I get the sense this one is personal, lol. I will say I like the disturbing play on expectations, but I didn't connect much with it otherwise.

19. Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows - 9/10

Follows a group of bloggers who have found themselves caught in isolated quantum loops. Their only human contact is through tenuous online conversations with each other. Styled as various chat logs and emails interspersed with the thoughts and perspectives of Helen, a young black woman who before the loop was teaching English in Japan.

This one is real depressing and definitely Social Commentary (TM). The central thesis about loneliness and disconnect at the end made me pretty dang sad. Good stuff in an ouch kind of way and made me think.

20. The You Train - 6/10

Told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator talking (presumably on the phone) to a friend about her struggles adjusting to life in New York City. She regularly mentions seeing train lines that either don't exist or retired a long time ago.

This is the kind of story I'd normally really like. I think trains are interesting and like vaguely supernatural, inexplicable shit. The one-sided phone call is also an interesting narrative device. But I'm not sure I really got this one. It comes off as vaguely horror-y but also optimistic? I couldn't really figure this one out, and it was too short to feel much investment on top of that.

21. Non-Zero Probabilities - 7/10

Luck has gone completely out of whack in New York City. Highly improbable events suddenly become way more likely, both good and bad. This story follows a woman named Adele and coming to grips with the new ways of life this brings.

I liked this one well enough but I don't have a lot to say about it. I liked how the story looks at how people would adapt to a life where probability doesn't mean anything anymore.

22. Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Beneath the Still Waters - 9/10

A magical realism story about a man named Tookie struggling to survive in New Orleans in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He meets a talking, winged lizard and the two help each other out. But it soon becomes clear there is something sinister lurking in the flooded ruins of the city.

This story was very imaginative and a great cap to the collection. I thought it was an intriguing time period to set a magical realism story in. I love the little details, especially those of omission -- the "lizard" is never called a dragon, for example. I can see echoes of this story in The City We Became, especially the themes of cities as powerful entities, vague eldritch fuckery centered around hatred, and certain people being guardians of the city.

#2020 reading challenge #BONUS ROUND #taylor reads #8/10 #i am posting this Late but i was basically writing this review as i read so it's like. all done lol

9 notes · View notes

cultml · 4 years

Text

Breaking of Now

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"

That’s what I should have said to my sister when she asked genuinely what my problem with wearing a mask was. On this occasion I had gotten trapped and was pretty pissed about the whole situation. The week before one of the big retailer announced a mandate masks. Virtue signalling group think as far as I was concerned and assumed, wrongly that if i bought a little more I would have time to finally workaround them. The day the mandate took effect and the day i talked to her, I stopped by one of the more expensive less convenient workaround places to find a mask mandate. An couple hours latter i find out my main grocery store and the others options where going to mandate as well. Online is feeding a different beast and sending someone in my place is out sourcing my acquiescence. Trapped. In the end I just told her no one knows what they are doing (the failure to still count the deaths correctly), it's ridiculous (contradictory studies and disparate rules), that i suddenly didn't have a choice and it was going to take me a few days to adjust.

What was really going through my head was about USSR. “ It wasn’t the just the necessary lies it was the absurd little pointless ones that broke the spirit of the people” to paraphrase badly from a place I don’t remember. That is clearer statement of Voltaire and a simple explanation of why we shouldn’t lie. It’s not the childish notion that we should not because the truth is easier. Most see mask wearing a virtuous, for me it’s an affirmation of a lie, of several, of the ones closer to the roots. It’s not a herculean feat to see for me it’s just stupid hard wired reflexive contrarian angst , not hell no so much as why the hell . It leads you to question anti-vax, reduced fat, publish or die, replication crisis, Russell conjugation, virtues signalling, Overton window, attacks on moral relativism destroying gradation of sin and virtue, cognitive biases , government building as nation building, gas lighting, the church defending itself and the existence of God but not the moral order(not that it knew the difference), the irreconcilability of socialist thought and Jihadists with the west, big government as government playing god, half the people are dumper than the other, death of the common, the long list of what’s called the regressive left we focus so much on (more of a symptom than a cause),cultural relativism, common human behavior dressing up common human behavior as conspiracy, fragility of high civilization, economics standing in for moral order, monogamy, “perfect as your are” drowning the phoenix, nuclear family, woke rewrites hiding more subtle rewrites of western mythos, the prison of two ideas, deep silos of knowledge standing in for wider wisdom, and....

At some point you find yourself outside and not in some sort of edgy artsy way, not quite smart enough to figure out why no one else is there. I am sliding back into the hope I have gone insane. You deal with the whirling nightmare as little as possible, you don’t call it out at every turn, you don’t cheer it on, you don’t help it, and YOU DO NOT FUCKING LIE ABOUT IT.

So sitting in the parking lot,deciding if one of the innocent creatures that lives with me, approaching month four of the six the vet said she had left, gets the food she prefers at the moment... She had other food that was better for her anyway.., not that it matters now. I have a duty of care especially now. She won’t understand the problem or the cost to my honor, for lack of a better word. She will just miss the thing she is used to. In reality avoiding the mask is likely impracticality anyway. On the verge of throwing up, crying, punching the dashboard or screaming fuck over an over... a car pulls into the spot across from me and a woman starts unpacking a kid out or the back seat... none of the above. A few deep breaths and fuck it, the easy way it is. Never thought about actually punching a stranger or really anyone but the assigned finger wager at the door.... “I am a virtuous little citizen and those who know better know better” and not “we aren’t all writhing around in the liquefying corps of a great civilization” On queue they where still out of or ran out of again of the food I was after.

I didn’t feel anything brake that day. Thinking about it since something is missing. Maybe things are just numb and will come back in time. As of now thinking about what may have to be done in defense of a civilization worth defending against those that can not be reconciled with it, elicits little. The little emotional triggers that made question if I could if i had to, are gone.... I am pretty weak willed and was happy to stand on the side lines. Muse at what might untangle this mess. I am not a hard man by any imagining, but you made me lie exactly in the way that end civilizations. Not that mask work. Not that I was virtuous for doing so. Not that “we are all in this together”. Not that those in charge know. Not that anyone is in charge. Not that some version of normal coming. Not that this version of the west isn’t dead. It’s the lie that there isn’t a massive upheaval coming.

The mass of rubble , ideological and real that will have to be cleared. Unfortunately a fair amount of blood that is likely to be spilled. Driving now the phrase “ the ugliness of modern architecture” rings in my ears. Affordable little canvases of our own that last only a life time is not the worst thing, but churches in strip malls? Regardless if this is just contrivance of my head or not I have been pushed a few degrees off of where i was. For now, a reprieve as there is still the innocence creatures in my care. It sadly is not open ended.

This kinda of thing might not have pushed as hard as it did if the ground wasn’t already soft. Before all that a few thing had pushed me to wrap up what i was thinking and walk from my online musings. So. Brit Hume has been one of the perennial “ this is the most important election of our lives... til the next one” He and Thomas Sowell, calling it a point of no return have both come to the conclusion that it actually is. If Biden wins the next election wouldn't matter and any other road blocks would be gone.

Charlie Hurt calling it a make it stop election and latter Victor David Hanson questioning if a silent major exists leads one to believe that reason may have been locked out. That this is a who ever can convince enough people they can save them election. It really fell like the argument don’t matter at all. My suspicion is that if you had really solid polling and knew the outcome of a handful of thing you could easily predict this election now, nothing the candidate did would mean anything. I have kind of gotten used to the idea that thing are going to get well... bloody when the left takes power and finally nails the door shut behind its self.

I was under the illusion that there are a number people that “know” where that leads and would as a last resort raise the black flag. Someone “on the inter webs” I thought was one (for no good reason on my part) when asked opted for the benedictine option. “The monasteries survived”. The monasteries where not an existential threat to the king. Little literacy. little printing and no internet. The parallels to the Maoist and the jihadists to our current insurgents? rebels? look pretty clear. What makes anyone thing they going to be left alone by this “madness”. I got very worried. Those you think might keep Trump in power surrender to the mob.... and those who would fight might decide to hide..... A number of things start looking pretty frivolous.

Author Brooks among a legion of others, well meaning I am sure, prescribe kindness and reason and be patient. I short you don’t hug the guy with the suicide vest.... clear? For the jihadists anything said buy outsiders is meaningless, faith isn’t easily to question on the best of days. For the utopians, you can’t understands till it finally works and usually the censors and secret police help. To our little friends if your the oppressor you have no room to speak even if you think you understand how evil you are or your so oppressed that your don’t know what your taking about. It all insulated ideology, and all of it gets people killed. They haven't officially taken power so i guess you could try it one a time, cult deprogramming. However the cult isn’t living in the middle of nowhere, we are all living in it.

Jordan Peterson comes at it from a reasoned position focused more on the broader problems of the West. “Orientate your self properly,aye”. You raise yourself up and it raises those around you. Don’t think saving the West was at the top of his list when it all started Again a one at a time, bottom up approach. At the time I was sure it was far to slow and he never seemed to have a handle on American politics though he knows how badly societies can go wrong. He and many other I don’t think quite understood how bad intentioned the left really was, or how much the compromises made with them where always seeding ground. It seems like a great many people are still living there.

The other problem is the lack of a common. “if there is no common understanding there is no common sense” Mark Steyn if memory serves. My past understanding of the malignant “God is dead” quote was just that and it was a good thing. In part from Peterson, my understanding now is “the common belief in a common God / moral order is dead”. A strong civil society might be able to hold things together and let people do generally what they want....... as long as the reap the consequences of their choices. The problem comes when all choices become valid because there are no consequence . A strong moral order would have put the brakes on.

This is the general problem with the various libertarian imaginings. Over time it will always be a problem. Any significantly democratic organization will trend left or as to hear the left tell it “the long arch of history tend toward justice”... social justice.... popular judgement..... mob rule. Entropy. We all want to be nice and liked so we let the margins slide, leave a little wiggle room in the rules. Eventually it ticks over. Instead of allowing it’s restricting. I doesn’t matter now whatever the case. There is no way now to go any where near letting people reap their own consequences, what would the bureaucrats do with themselves.

So come at it from the other side? The moment the Enlightenment or the industrial revolution started the church was in existential peril. The less the average person need God to explain their day to day the less the ethereal wonder holds. The explosion of knowledge even if they didn’t understand all of it, become a surer path. Defense of the moral order was what was called for. The church defended itself and eventually the existence of God. I would like one of these fill in the blank “nationalist”, common good conservatives, new theocrat types explain to me how governmental policy is going to fix it? They seem to see it as a problem caused by the left. The left is just taking advantage. If it wasn’t them now it would be something else in a generation or four. Not only are they misidentifying the problem their solution is making it harder to solve. Setting government policy to favor what worked is not a guarantee it works going forward. There are plenty of good studies and sound arguments and some policies may work well. The problem, it introduces rigidity. It will help stave off the known worse, meanwhile staving off the unknown both for the worse and for the better. It slows the development of better.

There is this notion that the “left and the “right” should just get a divorce. The “left” will never be satisfied with that. There is as well the notion that we are to diverse to coexist. This is another result of the lack of a common. If a civilization or a country in this case, are bound together even loosely by a civil order an a moral order diversity isn’t a fatal issue. To say it isn’t possible is to reject the American experiment out right.

Those who have accepted a civil war is inevitable talk as if the fight will be to restore something? The war is between who? One side is usually the government. Not sure what is gained by pickling fight with Antifa et al.

I had thought after Ferguson leadership would have leaned it’s lesson. APCs for riot control, yes. For no knock warrant, not so much. It’s become abundantly clear I assume far to many things. We went from throw a water bottle at a cop, jail and the protest is over to everything is acceptable up until your try to burn people alive in a public building. As far as I am concerned those mayors and governors who allow this signed there own resignation letters.

It is has become clear Trump or likely any president can’t fix this. Trump specifically doesn’t have the tack to talk us off this ledge. Suspend the campaign for a week and talk about the consequences, the nature of and solution for the problem.... and never mention himself? I don’t know that and president would have the resources to declare an insurrection, deploy enough federal agents and national guard (assuming the governors allow it) and hold on til the local government went back to arresting the first bottle thrower. I doesn’t look like the decades long hold the “left” has had on these city is going to be broken by this, so no major change in policy that will stop this short term is coming. Those who decide to leave are likely to bring the same ideas that lead to the policies that lead to the chaos where ever they go. It’s not going to stay contained.

It sounded like there where the start of some defensive militia and there are always community deescalation groups. This is driven by policy fuel by ideology that can not be question (though they used to act as if it could). All solutions look to be outside our normal acceptable practice. Comment by Mark Steyn about Islam are instructive. Surrender, destroy, or reform. As with Islam this is a self fulfilling ideology. So? a form of colonization inside our country, an insurrection? Remove the mayors, city counsel and the prosecutors, none of which are doing their jobs. If the rule is that the feds don’t declare insurrections, and it is not declared as such then it is not. What about the governors? Then what..? What policies changes the culture? What are the markers for holding the next election? It is outside our norm, not so much for history in general.

If Trump wins whatever the left does including secession will be responded to by the federal government, our little city experiment aside. That at best will just reimpose the status quo. It is very unlikely to force the “left” ideology into retreat. If Biden gets elected? Play the city experiment out writ large . The constitution almost by definition can’t survive. So... just reprint the thing and put a new start date on it? What does that solve? Maybe I am not digging in the parts of the internet where these this are being hashed out. If they are I not sure it’s by the type of people I want running things.

A list of systemic grievances going into all this would be useful both as a guild for what comes after and as set of red lines. I am sure most libertarians could give you a library full of outrages. It is not the day to day bureaucratic nonsense that’s the problem or police outrages. It’s things like deferential impact, judicial realism, popular election of senators, and the supposed precondition in which regulation is allowed just to start. The last line may be when the left has easily won two or three elections in a row while everyone is being forced to do things they don’t want and never hear a word in the press about it. It may be to late by then. I believed that would be the result if Hilary got elected and it looks to be a certainty if Biden gets in.

Whatever the case maybe the violence has started and to what degree it escalate who knows. The idea that violence is never the answer was always a myth, one we are coming face to face with now. The fact is violence on very rare occasions is the only answer unless you are prepared to surrender everything, to live on your knees in agony. That is why the idea that the constitution is not a suicide pact never made any sense. We seeing it now to with the virus. “we must sacrifice everything even if it save one life”. What childishness. If you won’t die or worse live in pain for your principles they only hold until someone or thing threatens you with just that. If others know it your principles don’t mean much. Further more at societal level if leadership isn’t prepared to risk the live of civilian to protect those principles they aren’t going to last long either

All that in the end still solves nothing. You have beaten back the enemy for what? If violence comes or not we have to have something to go to, to strive for as a civilization. We are a fractured mess of half thoughts and endless “problems” to solve. We have no common understanding of what the moral order or any order is or should be. As is we are done.

“We are very unlikely to come up with entirely new definition or invention. We are very unlikely to invent new Gods, very unlikely to come up with new religion, ...very unlikely to be able to go anything this good again.” Douglas Murray.

A similar sentiment two plus years ago sent me in this direction.

“ Where the road we’re traveling takes us. Where do the above events and that one trend leave us? Not in a good place. Unless there’s a black swan somewhere down the line, we are heading inevitably towards a socialist America. “ “ I’m praying for a Black Swan. My prayers aren’t usually answered, though. That’s why I’m assuming that the American future will be totalitarian — either Marxist or Islamic — and that it might happen within my lifetime and will definitely happen within my children’s. “ - Bookworm

So what we are looking for is a Black swan, a new god, a new religion. In an ocean of ignorance with an occasional mist of wisdom let me see if I can puzzle this out a bit. First there is no puppet master just us. Though they took full advantage ,even the “left” isn’t the problem. We began to gain knowledge abundantly, with certainty if not ease. It distracted, if not overwhelmed the the ethereal of the church and rendered the judgement of the wise mute. So what do we need? We need to temper knowledge. We need not just the facts or the working of the parts we see. We need to pursue the truth, not exactly the truth. Not the truth of the tangible world or that of the ethereal. It is the truth of the moment. Our best understanding of the working of the two combined. And an understanding that some day it will change. And that is what we should pursue. The honest truth of what we know and a drive to find more. To try, succeed and fail, to find what is actually better. It is an extension of the road humanity was on before this diversion.

How to paint the picture? A discovered / revealed God/ devil/ saint/ mythic hero, a torch bearer along the path humanity has always been traveling. The path of our increasing understanding, the path that raised our civilization. A light that only shines on the path behind us, to illuminate the things we missed and on our figure calling us forward. One who demands that those who obscure the past repent. One who demands that those who misrepresent the path their on to get others to follow repent. One that asks us to forgive those who do and use the shape of their misdeeds to search for our own misunderstandings and mistakes.

In practice, a secular church that is neither. A voluntary body with neither the force of law or a claim to the moral order. A nondemocratic organization because the long arc of history tending toward social justice. An organization the is trusted to ask better questions. A group of people that will put themselves in the experiments in order and be brutally honest about the results.

So for instance the question about transmission of wisdom from one generation to the next is about how we raise children and that is about family and marriage. What is best? what do we really know? Follow the path all the way back. Romantic marriage is new, so why not practical or arranged marriage? We see the obvious problems with polygamy, with polyamory? Maybe some combination? maybe not one big romantic marriage but three,may be four people, one marriage is practical, one arrange, and one romantic. I have no idea. We can’t just default to the wisdom of religion or assume the recklessness of the “left”. Let Go. If it works or not we are better for knowing. We will have surer footing on the path ahead at least in the understanding of this moment.

If don’t like that formulation good. You build a black swan. If there’s a flock of them maybe one survives. Maybe we avoid generations of brutality. Maybe something of what we have done survives.

All I can do now is try to find a way not to live on my knees before anyone, anything, any ideology or idea. Try. That is all I can do.

Credit to those i stole ideas from that i can no longer remember if they're mine or not. I am going to put away my crayons down, shut my mouth give my mind a rest, deal with only what i must, and hopefully find a way to wonder at the world again.

or try to

#black swan #god gap #reversion is not reformation #CultML

12 notes · View notes

ralafferty · 4 years

Text

81.2 Dotty

Dotty is, in form, a spiritual biography; unlike Lafferty’s first novel of a few decades earlier, however, Dotty’s is not the life of a saint, unless it be an ambiguous one. The course of the novel will see her through advanced juvenile delinquency, multiple family-forsaking crises, several relationships, and state-shifts between grace and perdition so rapid it’ll make your head spin.

All of which by way of saying that Dotty’s spiritual biography is not Ray Lafferty’s. Unlike Archipelago (or the later In a Green Tree books), where Lafferty is drawing on his own life and serves as sort of a present absence throughout, Dotty details a life that is pointedly not his own. Lafferty was never delinquent, never in crisis (at least never to the point of separating the family), never in a relationship, and if he ever felt himself to be out of grace, he never speculated upon it and was never more than a few hours from his next mass, besides.

In the first entry on Dotty, I noted that, as a character, Dotty is not larger than life. But the sheer expansiveness of Lafferty’s conception of life and its size should be taken into account: while there is nothing world-historical about her, nonetheless she is exceedingly precocious, possibly the archetype of all Lafferty’s precocities, model for everyone from Carnadine Thompson in “The Transcendent Tigers” and Clarissa Willoughby in “The Seven-Day Terror” to the entire Rampart and Dulanty clans in “Narrow Valley” and Reefs of Earth, respectively.

But Dotty has neither the joyous household of the Thompsons or Willoughbys, or the sibling solidarity of the Ramparts or Dulantys (or perhaps, for that matter, the Laffertys). Her precocity, in particular her intelligence and her intemperate eagerness to speak her mind (not to mention her predilection for shocking actions), marks her for nothing but trouble. Thus a pattern is set early on: Dotty finds a haven of sorts against the tempests of life, and then catastrophic tempests make that haven unlivable, regardless.

Given this, it’s appropriate that she makes her lifelong home in Galveston, Texas, of all American towns perhaps the most subject to tempest and catastrophe. Lafferty always held Galveston in a special regard; it was the second city of his childhood, one that his family visited multiple times on their summer automotive vacations. Young Raphael would have been far too shy to get up to the shenanigans that Dotty does here (a kiddie version of McSkee’s bacchanal in “One at a Time,” in which an adult Dotty has a cameo), but he shared with her the love for the salt and spray, the “Sea and Island” that serve as “one of life’s spices,” so long as you discover it before nine years of age.

I cannot tell if all their trips were by car or if the Laffertys, like the O’Tooles, ever took the bus. If so, Lafferty would have treasured the time spent listening to others’ stories, perhaps especially those from the Black riders forced to ride in the back. Dotty is one of the few places where Lafferty openly references the segregation he would have grown up within; in Tulsa society Irish Catholics wouldn’t have counted as fully white, especially to the very active Klan contingent that ran Tulsa for several years. But the fully white people of Tulsa wouldn’t have kicked him to the back of a trolley car, and they wouldn’t have burned down his neighborhood, either.

It’s a measure of their comparative comfort that the O’Toole’s have a refuge waiting for them, even amidst the Dust Bowl and Depression. The “farm” on Elm Road is a miniature Eden, an extrapolated version of the Laffertys’ own house on Quincy Road, which was perpetually playing host to various relatives of the greatly extended family. This plenitude is mirrored in what will become Dotty’s second haven, the Galveston grocery store of the Parisis, gathering spot for that island’s Italian immigrant community. But both these havens are acknowledge as temporary respites at best, however utopian they may seem for short periods of time. There is a “curious worsening in the country” at the time, one that infects personal as well as community relations; Dotty will quickly reach a point where she can’t go “home” because that concept no longer exists for her. She will have to build her own home (not just physically, from the studs, but conceptually, from the roots of what “home” means), and constitute what family she can, along the way.

#Novel #noteworthy #NonGenre #oklahoma #galveston

0 notes

howwelldoyouknowyourmoon · 6 years

Text

How L. Ron Hubbard and Robert Heinlein influenced the murderous cult of Manson.

Charles Manson’s Science Fiction Roots

New Republic by JEET HEER November 21, 2017

In 1963, while a prisoner at the federal penitentiary at McNeil Island in Washington state, Charles Manson heard other prisoners enthuse about two books: Robert Heinlein’s science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) and L. Ron Hubbard’s self-help guide Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health (1950). Heinlein’s novel told the story of a Mars-born messiah who preaches a doctrine of free love, leading to the creation of a religion whose followers are bound together by ritualistic water-sharing and intensive empathy (called “grokking”). Hubbard’s purportedly non-fiction book described a therapeutic technique for clearing away self-destructive mental habits. It would later serve as the basis of Hubbard’s religion, Scientology.

Manson probably didn’t delve too deeply into either of these texts. But he was gifted at absorbing information in conversation, and by talking to other prisoners he gleaned enough from both books to synthesize a new theology. His encounter with the writings of Heinlein and Hubbard was a pivotal event in his life. Until then, he had been a petty criminal and drifter who spent his life in and out of jail. But when Manson was released from McNeil Island in 1967, he was a new figure: a charismatic street preacher who gathered a flock of followers among the hippies of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco.

Manson won them with a doctrine of communal bonding: They would be a family and share in all things, including love. Manson’s made-up religion was a cut-and-paste invention that borrowed from many sources. As The New York Times notes, Manson’s philosophy was “an idiosyncratic mix of Scientology, hippie anti-authoritarianism, Beatles lyrics, the Book of Revelation, and the writings of Hitler.” But the sci-fi component was pronounced. Stranger in a Strange Land provided the Manson family with its rituals (water-sharing ceremonies), terminology (“grokking”), and promise of transcendence (Manson’s followers hoped that, like the hero of Heinlein’s novel, they would gain mystical powers). The dream of mind triumphing over matter was also the sales pitch of Dianetics.

The Manson family, of course, had a twisted definition of love, which they wanted to keep for themselves. For the outside world, they wanted a violent race war, which would end with them ruling over the survivors. Towards that end, the Manson family went on a killing spree in August 1969 that left nine dead and earned them a notorious place in history. ...

Manson went to jail, and remained there until his death on Sunday at a hospital in California’s Kern County. Amidst an ongoing assessment of his historical relevance—the Manson family killings have been popularized, by Joan Didion and others, as the death knell of the 1960s—it is worth revisiting how two books, steeped in utopian ambitions, played a role in a country’s unraveling. It was hardly an accident that Manson borrowed heavily from both Heinlein and Hubbard. No two writers better illustrate the tendency of science fiction to generate cults.

Heinlein and Hubbard first met in 1939 and immediately hit it off. To his wife Leslyn, Heinlein described Hubbard as “our kind of people in every possible way.” (The friendship between the two men is described in William Patterson’s two-volume biography of Heinlein). They were both prolific pulp writers, contributing heavily to Astounding Science-Fiction, which was revolutionizing the field under the editorship of John W. Campbell. Astounding’s major claim to fame was that it specialized in “hard science fiction,” which was rigorously based on extrapolations from actual science. This claim was a bit self-serving since Campbell always had a taste for pseudo-science, but it’s undeniable that Heinlein’s own work, grounded in his education as an engineer, brought a new level of plausibility to the genre.

Heinlein was in an open marriage with Leslyn, a poet and script editor. He had a habit of encouraging his close male buddies to take Leslyn as a lover. As Hubbard would later marvel, Heinlein “almost forced me to sleep with his wife.” Sharing his wife’s body was a form of male bonding for Heinlein, and it served as a precursor to the communal orgies that he imagined in Stranger in a Strange Land, which helped the members of his imaginary religion form group solidarity.

Hubbard and Heinlein also shared an interest in the supernatural. Together with their friend Jack Parson, a rocket scientist, they investigated the teachings of the occultist Aleister Crowley and tried their hand at black magic.

Hubbard may have suffered from some form of post-traumatic stress disorder following World War II. (He served in the Navy, and later made up stories of his wartime adventures; in reality, military records show that Hubbard’s wartime service was “substandard.”) His attempts to create a new science of the mind, culminating in the publication of Dianetics, can be understood as an attempt to self-medicate. The first article about Dianetics appeared in the March 1950 issue of Astounding Science-Fiction. Campbell was an early enthusiast, crediting Dianetics with helping him cure his chronic sinusitis. (The cure was psychosomatic and temporary.) Many science fiction writers in Campbell’s orbit, notably A.E. van Vogt, Katherine MacLean, and James Blish, got caught up in the Dianetics craze.

Campbell eventually became disillusioned with Dianetics, but moved on to becoming an advocate for other forms of pseudo-science...

Unlike Campbell, Heinlein kept clear of Dianetics. But Heinlein was nonetheless fascinated by the way his old friend Hubbard had created a pseudo-science that eventually became the religion of Scientology. This planted the seeds for an idea: What if someone created a religion like Scientology that actually worked—that did give people transcendent mental power, such as mind-reading and levitation? The result of this thought experiment was Stranger in a Strange Land, which remains Heinlein’s most famous novel. One of the heroes of the novel, Jubal Harshaw, a polymathic pulp writer who is very successful in seducing women, is clearly an idealized version of Hubbard.

Heinlein meant Stranger in a Stranger Land to be a jape, a satire on religion. While Hubbard had turned science fiction into a religion, Heinlein was trying to turn religion into science fiction. But many readers took it all too seriously. In March of 1969 at a film festival in Rio, Heinlein met a charming actress named Sharon Tate. A few months later, she was murdered by a cult that took inspiration from Heinlein’s novel.

No literary genre has been so fertile at generating religions as science fiction. Heinlein’s work was the springboard for many competing sects, and he called himself “a preacher with no church.” Rare among the many intellectual gurus whose fame mushroomed in the 1960s, Heinlein was a beacon for all kinds of people: hippies and hawks, libertarians and authoritarians....

Heinlein’s ability to excite cultic faith among all sorts of groups speaks to the power of science fiction as a literature of ideas, especially during utopian moments like the 1960s, when the future feels open. Heinlein’s book was not alone in gaining a cult following, it was joined by J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings, Herbert’s Dune, and Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. Each of these books spoke to a desire for an alternative reality, just as older social norms were breaking down.

As vile and sociopathic as he was, Charles Manson did have a gift for absorbing the zeitgeist, which is one reason he held such a powerful sway over the cultural imagination. Manson picked up Stranger in a Strange Land in the same spirit that he learned to strum a guitar and offer exegeses on Beatles lyrics. It was a way for him to ride the wave of cultural change. Manson remained infamous all these decades not just because he inspired mass murder, but also because he did so by manipulating some of our most powerful myths.

Jeet Heer is a senior editor at the New Republic.

https://newrepublic.com/article/145906/charles-mansons-science-fiction-roots

“In Korea, one even senses a fear, like one induced by the Mafia, among the opposition to the Unification Church, and … outspoken opponents speak of death threats.” Prof. Sontag, 1976

Tahk Myeong-hwan was murdered four weeks after Sun Myung Moon spoke about him as an opponent.

Tahk Myeong-hwan was attacked with car bomb

Tahk Myeong-hwan was offered a bribe of $450,000 to discontinue research into the Unification Church

UC members sent more than 200 text messages to Cho’s cell phone, saying, “We’ll kill you.”

Abducted and beaten up by the Unification Church in Korea

1. Freedom of the Press in Korea – Unification Church style

2. Freedom of the Press in Japan – Unification Church style

Prime Minister Kishi of Japan, organised crime and the Moon involvement in Japanese politics gained protection for the UC

The Mysterious Death of Robert Boettcher in 1984

Donald M. Fraser’s house was attacked by an arsonist just after his investigation into the Unification Church. It was only saved by good fortune.

Moon’s followers poured a pot of urine and feces on the head of a Seoul University Professor of Religion.

In 1975 Korean Unification Church members physically attacked many Christian pastors

#Violence in the FFWPU #Sun Myung Moon

1 note · View note

glenmenlow · 4 years

Text

BMW expands its sci-fi thriller podcast series after a successful start

BMW podcast, “Hypnopolis” promises listeners a thrilling story set in a utopian world of the future

Recently, the English sci-fi thriller podcast “Hypnopolis” celebrated its debut. This makes BMW the first automobile manufacturer in the world to offer its customers their own audio entertainment podcast. In a total of six episodes of 15-20 minutes each, listeners can expect not only a gripping story but also insights into the mobility of the future.

“Hypnopolis” is already the fourth podcast series by the BMW brand next to “Changing Lanes”, “Creators of a different beat” and “KulturMobile”.

With “Changing Lanes”, BMW has been offering a weekly infotainment show about technology, lifestyle, design, innovation and of course cars since mid-March. At the height of the corona pandemic, “Changing Lanes” presented four special issues so far under the name “Creators of a different beat”.

The live interviews with guests such as Alex Zanardi or yoga expert Sinah Diepold are intended to inspire listeners, sparking optimism for the future and help a little in overcoming these challenging times.

The literature podcast of the KulturMobile was developed in this spirit, with readings of works from 19th-century world literature in German and English. The head of BMW Cultural Commitment and producer of the podcast, Prof Dr Thomas Girst, says about the history of its origins:

“First of all, it was about doing something good for our employees and their families in these difficult times. Very soon we decided to publish the podcast for all people interested in culture and BMW. With this podcast, we want to make literary works available in audible form and in an experience-oriented way for as wide a circle as possible. KulturMobile is an employee initiative of the BMW Group, which has been making employees aware of the company’s commitment to culture and inviting them to participate since 2003.”

“As a brand, BMW has always been telling exciting and emotional stories. The best-known and internationally awarded examples of this are the short film series “The Hire” with Clive Owen or “The Small Escape” featuring the modified BWM Isetta as an escape car. With our Hypnopolis podcast, we are now opening up the next chapter: Cinema for the ears!” – Jens Thiemer, Senior Vice President of Customer & Brand BMW.

With “Hypnopolis”, the BMW brand is now expanding its podcast range to include a pure entertainment programme. It will entertain listeners on long car journeys, for example. The emotional bond to the brand is strengthened in this way.

In line with the motto “Beyond the car” stories, “Hypnopolis” does not focus on the BMW brand or vehicles, but is based on assumptions made by BMW future experts, for example about the development of cities and mobility.

The story mainly tells of a scenario set in the future. In the first episode, Hope Reiser awakes from a thirty-year sleep penalty and suddenly finds herself in the year 2063. However, she is convinced of her innocence and fears that the real murderers have been waiting for her and are watching her. The search for the truth begins.

With Robert Valentine, BMW was able to win over one of the most well-known science fiction authors. The science fiction genre is familiar territory for the Londoner, who has won the “BBC Audio Drama Award”. He works as a writer for the audio version of Dr Who, amongst other things. “Hypnopolis” is set to become his next award-winning podcast alongside “Red Moon” and “Dr Who”:

“Whilst I was keen to present the positive potential of technology in the future, as a dramatist I’m well aware that the one thing that never changes is human nature. The world of Hypnopolis may be a technocratic garden paradise, but just like the garden of Eden, there’s a snake lurking in the grass in the form of the shadowy figures determined to bring down our heroine, Hope Reiser. Her spirit and her refusal to accept the lies of a complacent authority are the qualities I think we’re all going to need if we’re going to make the future the place we hope it will be.”

The article BMW expands its sci-fi thriller podcast series after a successful start appeared first on World Branding Forum.

from WordPress https://glenmenlow.wordpress.com/2020/06/30/bmw-expands-its-sci-fi-thriller-podcast-series-after-a-successful-start/ via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress

0 notes