#my motivation is: i want to earn money and i am willing to race through an education to get it

[iliveiloveiwrite]

Leannan // O.W. (celebration fic)

Request: Congratulations hun! Seriously, slow down xD No, please don't :D so I would like to have Oliver Wood - duh xD, Hogwarts, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff 4. - “Is that my shirt?” (You just captured my Scot baby so well, I couldn't miss it!) Congrats again, hun, take all the time you need! <3 - @heloisedaphnebrightmore​

Fluff 4: “Is that my shirt?”

A/N: Coming from the queen of Oliver fics, this means so much! Thank you! For those that don’t know, Leannan is Scottish Gaelic for ‘sweetheart’. I don’t know whether this reads as enemies to lovers but there is a lot of teasing, however, I’m happy to rewrite if you want it! As always, I hope you enjoy and thank you all so much for 1.5k!!

Pairing: Oliver Wood x Fem!Reader

Warnings: swearing, teasing

Word count: 1.7k

Truthfully, you considered yourself to be a very calm and mature person. There was very little that could rile you into a frenzy, and if it did, you almost always dealt with the problem by finding a solution as quickly as possible.

But you were absolutely certain there was no solution for Oliver Wood.

Since joining the Gryffindor Quidditch Team in your Third Year, he had made it his mission to get on your nerves every practice and every match, or whenever he had a spare moment. The teasing started off innocently enough; but then it evolved into something more and now you both felt at a stalemate.

There was no ill will between you; just teenage stubbornness tied with mutual attraction that neither of you were willing to admit. He liked to challenge you; becoming your rival in so many forms whether it was on the pitch where he would challenge you to races, or in the classroom room where he would test your patience through essay grades.

In so many forms, you could class him as your enemy for the pure fact that he drove you up the wall, but there was the rare occasion where you would catch him watching you across a classroom or the common room, and you had to wonder whether he felt something more.

---------

Sighing to yourself in the changing room, you unzip your bag, pulling out your uniform and setting it on the bench. The day had already started out bad; running late to first lesson after having spilt orange juice down your blouse and then forgetting to submit an essay for your third lesson of the day had your mood lower than it had been all week.

Closing your eyes, you take a deep breath as you begin to get ready for practice. Silently praying that it would be an easy one.

“Leannan,” A known voice sings, “Practice starts in ten.”

Turning, you fix Oliver with an unimpressed look, “I am not your sweetheart, Wood.”

He smirks, leaning against the doorframe, “How did you know I was calling you a sweetheart?”

You pause; wondering how the hell you were going to explain this one. Absolutely refusing to explain that you had spent one evening in the library, scouring through a Scottish Gaelic dictionary until you came across the word. You absolutely refuse to acknowledge how heated your skin felt one you read the translation; how seeing it sent a thrill through you.

“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”

You roll your eyes, “Shove off, Wood. I need to get ready for practice.”

Oliver holds his hand up in surrender, laughing, “I’m going, I’m going.”

You throw a piece of clothing at him, “Go faster.”

“Alright woman, no need to resort to bodily harm.”

“Wood, I asked you to leave and you’re still here. Either you love to annoy me this much or you so desperately want to see me naked, now which is it?”

Oliver splutters at your words; his face a picture as a bright blush creeps his neck, “I’ll see you on the pitch.”

You stifle your laugh as Oliver walks into the doorframe before leaving the girl’s changing room. His slight embarrassment making your day that little bit better. You find yourself thinking of him as you get changed for practice; of his confidence that really does get the better of him sometimes, of his love of quidditch, of how he lights up when he delivers the pre-match speech that the team has memorised but that he will always deliver.

Shaking your head clear of all thoughts of the brown-eyed scot, you grab your broom and head out onto the pitch, joining the rest of the team. You ruffle young Harry’s hair as you walk past him; earning a playful glare in return.

“Have we quite finished?” Oliver admonishes; his gaze fixed on you.

“Yeah, have you quite finished?” Fred parrots.

You elbow him harshly; knocking the breath out of him, “Shut it, Weasley.”

Oliver claps his hands together; gaining the attention of the team. Setting up the plan of action for today’s practice, he blows his whistle – the command to saddle brooms and take off.

It feels as if it’s revenge for your comment in the changing room. Oliver nit-picks every move you take; taking it apart and demonstrating for the team the exact moment where you went wrong and why it should have been avoided. Oliver isn’t being outwardly malicious – he doesn’t have a malicious bone in his body; he’s just placing extra attention on you because of how you reacted in the changing room.

Oliver hadn’t admitted this to anyone; how attractive he found you, but how clueless he felt when it came to approaching you. He could tease you well enough; rile you up and get on your nerves, but he really did like you. You were his Leannan, no matter how much you seemed to despise the nickname.

Practice finishes with you landing back onto the pitch in one smooth motion; hopping off your broom and flipping Oliver off as he shouts for you to come back and talk. If you spoke to him now, you knew you would say something you would come to bitterly regret. Walking away, as you did now, meant that you could cool off and think through things rationally.

As you’re pulling your robes back on, an idea springs to mind. An idea that would definitely repay Oliver for how harsh he was during training.

Your mood brightening once again, a smirk breaks across your face as you hoist your Quidditch bag onto your shoulder and take hold of your broom; this would definitely be a fun prank – one that you couldn’t predict the outcome of, but it was one you also needed particular help with.

--------

At breakfast the following morning, you take a seat next to the Weasley twins, greeting each with a wide smile that only had them questioning your motives.

“Boys, I have an idea and I need your help.”

They both lean closer to you, “This wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain Quidditch captain would it?”

You bite your lip, “It might…”

Fred and George laugh, “What do you need us to do?”

----

Fred and George succeed that very night; pulling young Harry in on the scheme as well – getting him to distract Oliver with numerous questions about Quidditch whilst they snuck into Oliver’s room and stole his spare Quidditch jersey. He would never notice it missing; choosing to wear the same one for each match for luck.

They join you in the common room after having completed the deed; smuggling the jersey to you which you hide underneath the blanket you’re huddled under. Oliver frowns at the three of you; cutting him off on his education for Harry, he shouts over to you, “What would you three be planning?”

You widen your eyes, batting your lashes, “We would never do such a thing.”

Oliver frowns, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

You place a hand on your heart, “The lack of faith you have in me is astounding, Wood.”

“Leannan, the three of you together can create enough mayhem to shut the school down.”

You grin at the use of his nickname for you, “Then lucky for you we aren’t planning anything,”

Oliver grumbles but says nothing further as he turns back to Harry; the boy looking as captivated as ever by Oliver’s explanations.

“What are you going to do with it?” George asks.

“Burn it? Tear it up? Dye it green?” Fred asks.

You shake your head at all his suggestions; feeling only slightly alarmed, “I’m going to wear it.”

Fred sits back with a huff, “I’d have dyed it green.”

You pat his leg consolingly, “Next time.”

-------

Your plan was to wear Oliver’s Quidditch jersey around Hogsmeade; starting with wearing it to breakfast in the Great Hall. You walk in proudly; winking back at Fred and George as you sit down next to them at the Gryffindor table.

If Oliver notices something, he doesn’t say – he glances your way once through all of breakfast then refuses to catch your eye after that.

You turn to the twins, “What are your plans for Hogsmeade? Room for one more?”

George nods, “We always have room for one more. We’re going to Zonko’s first and then we’ll see where the day takes us.”

You laugh, “That we shall. I’m going to grab some more money, but I’ll meet you in the courtyard?”

With a thumbs up from both of them, you leave the Great Hall, rushing back to the Gryffindor common room. Fred nudges George and points at Oliver who when noticing your absence, made sure to follow you from the room. They both roll their eyes, knowing full well you would not be meeting them in the courtyard.

-------

Returning to the common room after breakfast to grab some last minute money before meeting the twins, you’re pulled to one side by a frustrated looking Oliver.

Frustrated doesn’t seem to cover what Oliver feels at the sight of you in his shirt; he feels confirmation that you hold some feelings for him, but mostly feels desperation at how much he wants to get it off you.

“Is that my shirt?”

You look down at your clothing; your face the picture of innocence when you finally meet his brown eyes, “You know… I think it is.”

Oliver’s hands flex by his sides; an action he only does when he’s getting frustrated and can’t do anything about it, “Why are you wearing my shirt?”

You pull out the hem; reading his quidditch number out loud before saying, “I don’t know, I think it looks pretty good on me. Don’t you?”

Oliver leans in closer; just enough so he can whisper in your ear but far enough where he’s purposefully not touching you, “Leannan, what are you doing?”

You angle your body away from him, “I think you know what I’m doing.”

Oliver’s hands finally leave his side; fiddling with the hem of shirt that’s now draped over your body. With a smirk, he asks, “Just how set are you on going to Hogsmeade today?”

“Why? Got plans for me?”

He chuckles; hands fisting in his shirt, “Leannan, you have no idea.”

**********

General (HP) taglist: @chaotic-fae-queen @obsessedwithrandomthings @harrypotter289 @kalimagik @heloisedaphnebrightmore @nebulablakemurphy @the-hufflefluffwriter @figlia--della--luna @bforbroadway @idont-knowrn @summer-writes @big-galaxy-chaos @black-lake-confessions @annasofiaearlobe @imboredandneedalife @levylovegood @mytreec @haphazardhufflepuff @teheharrypotter @chaoticgirl04 @accio-rogers @msmimimerton @izzytheninja @slytherinprincess03 @nerdyatheletic-deactivated20200 @acciotwinz

#oliver wood x reader #oliver wood #oliver wood fanfiction #oliver wood fanfic #oliver wood reader insert #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter fanfic #Oliver Wood one shot #oliver wood fluff #fluff #oliver fluff #oliver wood imagine #harry potter imagines #my writing #hp fanfic #hp fanfiction #x reader #reader insert #oliver wood x y/n #oliver wood x you #oliver x y/n #oliver x you

[fearquestion]

top ten baddest bitches in hunter x hunter’s succession contest arc

I hope you’re ready for six+ pages of meta

cw: suicide mention, spreadsheets, spoilers up to Chapter 390

NO. 10 : SHIMANO

If you don’t remember Shimano, she is Oito’s last surviving maid, and the one who straight up ignored Kurapika when he told her to answer Benjamin’s call first. 

To not do what Kurapika tells you to do, especially when he’s like this takes an insane amount of guts. You have to remember that she just watched two people die, one of whom was her co-worker. Her head is so level you could build a house on it. 

She had a better strategy, she was not afraid to go through with it, she didn’t bother wasting precious time to explain herself beforehand, and she was not afraid to let him know that he was incorrect. 

She’s bad as hell!!!!!!

Shimano: lmao like hell 

What makes her interesting is that her main motivation during this succession contest is to get out alive. While she later explains to Oito that she is staying out of duty for the royal family, I suspect that she isn’t exactly attached to the young queen, which is entirely reasonable given the situation that she’s in. I mean, she’s here to do a job. 

Shimano did not know what she was signing up for, but she has not fumbled the ball once since getting on this murder cruise; something that has earned her Kurapika’s respect. I hope that cements her role as a larger player during this arc, and I really hope Togashi gives her more time to shine.

Fun Fact: she’s called Shimanu ONLY in Volume 36 of the Viz Translation. 

Survival Rating: 4/5, she might pull a Bizeff and get out by the skin of her teeth, and there’s no one actively trying to kill her. 

NO 09: MELODY

Oh sweet, sweet Melody, how I love you so. We haven’t seen too much action from her, but the reason she has placed on this list is her performance during the second banquet. 

In order to give Kacho and Fugetsu a chance to escape, she pulled a Hisoka and revealed her ability to literally anyone who would listen, placing herself in serious danger 

Little does she know how much trouble this is going to get her into, especially now that Tserriednich is interested, and it’s safe to say she won’t get back to bodyguard business anytime soon. Please, please keep yourself safe, Melody. 

Survival Rating: 5/5 bc I just can’t accept even the thought of a reality where Melody isn’t alive

NO. 08: QUEEN OITO HUI GUO ROU

Listen, we’ve all entertained the fantasy of going from sugar baby to trophy wife, but few of us are unlucky enough to turn that dream into a reality. I bet you she was living her Hot Girl Summer until all of this happened, and honestly, good for her. 

But by GOD was she ready to give it up to face the Succession Contest head on. She switched it up on us at the start by specifically targeting people who wanted to kill or control Prince Halkenburg, the current favorite to win. There was no hoping or wishing that things were different, she did the only thing that she could do in her situation: stack the odds in her favor as much as she possibly could. And I’m not gonna lie, she really lucked out. Kurapika is someone you want on your side if you’re trying not to die. 

My favorite thing about Oito is how well she handles the pressure of her situation; she just picks it up and runs. Who can afford to feel pride when your daughter’s life is on the line? Need a cockroach? Start screaming! You’re the Queen and this is your house. You get what you want, Oito. 

As someone on the bottom of the ladder, there simply is no time to entertain fantasies of grandeur. Oito never tries to check out of reality, like so many of the other Queens have done. She is not here to play around, she is here to play the game.  

Unfortunately, her convictions lie in the fact that she thinks she and Woble can get off the boat alive, a theory disproven by Kacho and Fugetsu’s ill fated attempt in Chapter 383. Given the change of circumstances, how far will she let herself go to survive, and what will she have to give up? 

If we’re being honest, the only way I can see this playing out well for her is if there’s a fire, or an iceberg, or i don’t know, a riot caused by a murder cult that somehow forces everyone on tier one to evacuate, and she just happens to be the last on to get a life boat, but I highly doubt that things are going to be that convenient for her. 

Survival Rating: 2/5

NO. 07: KACHO AND FUGETSU HUI GUO ROU

These girls are willing to do anything, ANYTHING to get themselves off of this ship, including but not limited to, learning morse code, going into unknown territory unguarded, and risking their own lives in order to protect the other. And they’re like what, 14? 15? 

Kacho said FUCK boomers

They worked, they planned, they gathered allies, and experimented, and they would have succeeded were it not for the curse that put their lives in danger in the first place. 

It was so hard not to root for them. When we learned the truth about Kacho’s ability, I literally screamed. This is Gift of the Magi on steroids, and watching this animated, if it ever does get animated is going to be a tough ride for me, and I will start crying again.

These sisters have a heartbreaking devotion to each other’s safety, and I’m terrified to find out how Fugetsu will react once she learns the truth about her sister’s sacrifice. Will it break her? Will it make her stronger? My money is on the latter for now, but the way this arc is going, who the hell knows? 

The beginning of her arc and even the passive nature of her symbiotic nen beast frames her as a co-dependent character. While Kacho 2.0 is still, technically, an active player in the form of a nen-beast, she is a nen-beast, something that I suspect will be picked up by either a bodyguard or someone from the Hunter’s association if Kacho’s original body is never recovered. Someone will have to break the news to Fugetsu eventually, setting her character up for some fantastic trajectory. She will either have to lean into her budding independence, or rely on Kacho for what might be the rest of her short life. 

They have a lot to reconcile with once when we see them again. They’re in baby jail, Their most loyal bodyguard is dead, and Melody is temporarily out of the picture thanks to her stunt at the banquet. With mostly enemy bodyguards left in their employment, she has a lot of growing up to do. I hope this doesn’t make her an easy target. We’re rooting for you Fugetsu!!

Survival Rating: 3/5

NO 06: BISCUIT KRUEGER

I am so fucking glad that Biscuit Krueger is on this boat, I love her, she’s unstoppable, I don’t need to explain why she’s on this list. My only wish is that we get to see her beat the shit out of someone who really deserves it. Could she take on Benjamin? Probably. I hope she does. She’s got like twenty years on him. 

Survival Rating: 5/5 because I just don’t think she’s capable of dying

NO 05: MACHI KOMACINE

Oh she’s on a mission, and honestly fuck Chrollo and Illumi because I would pay to see her rip that clown apart. Look at this face? How can you not get chills. I love this for her. 

Revenge won’t fill the hole in your heart where Kortopi and Shalnark used to live, and honestly I don’t know if you can survive a second tussle with Hisoka, but you Go Get Him Queen. 

Survival Rating: 1/5 Togashi said she ain’t gettin off the boat, and I’m inclined to believe him on this one. She’s had a good run. I just hope she pulls some wicked sick shit before she goes. 

NO 04: MORENA PRUDE

Edgy, Nihilist, Boss Babe, Patient Zero, Bisexual Icon, Murder Messiah, the Joker wishes that he was Morena Prude so fucking bad. She is so more committed to burning this world to the ground. If you thought we needed more women in positions of leadership, here she is. She’s like the Herbalife of homicide. Let’s take a look at the math. 

Assuming most people aren’t nen users and the Hunter x Hunter world population is about the same as ours, 7 billion, she runs out of people to kill/infect by round 13, making this a great way of causing the mass extinction of the human race, and a fantastic way to run a multi-level marketing scheme. 

She looks like she’s handling being a boss pretty well, and her 22 picks for Contagion seem to be pretty good choices. They’re legit, they know what they’re doing, they’re loyal, and they’re really excited to straight up go Purge Night on this yacht.

While it’s safe to assume that Morena has already killed between 9 to 45 people, the only reason she’s not higher on this list is because we haven’t seen her do much except set off this gigantic domino chain of problems. Her influence on the arc looks like it’s going to be more passive, but she’s definitely here to make a splash. Her nihilism, and her connections to Tserriednich have me thinking that she might to be a crucial late-game player when things go completely fucking awol. 

Ahaha, everyone in that boat is in terrible danger. 

Survival Rating: 1/5 because bad girls live fast, die young 

NO 03: SARAHELL

We do not know a lot about Sarahell, but her name has Hell in it and she’s willing to perform suicide in order to kill an infant and if that doesn’t make you Bad than I don’t know what the hell does. 

Out of all the women on this list, she’s the only one that really scares me. Not only is she willing to risk her life, she wants to die for Camilla in the most efficient way possible. Woble is in her crosshairs, and if she’s as good as acting like a two-faced bitch as she says she is, we’re not in for a good time. I doubt that Kurapika would let her anywhere near the Prince, but I don’t know. They might fake an alliance, something that the Oito and Kurapika have been very open about. I can see her offering up information on Tserriednich in an attempt to wedge her way in. She might even help them out a bunch before she goes in for the kill. 

yall are simping for the wrong woman i s2g 

This is a legitimate assassination attempt, and one that’s a lot more sophisticated than Vincent’s. They’re in for a fight over in room 1014. 

2/5 it would be interesting if she somehow managed to survive and had to live with the guilt of failure. Sarahell that she is prepared for that possibility, but I don’t think she knows how badly things can go for her yet. 

NO 02: CAMILLA HUI GUO ROU

Camilla, Camilla, Camilla literally what part of you is not bad to the bone. 

I think she might have as many costume changes as Killua? 

We are first properly introduced to Camilla when she asks her dear old dad if he could, quote, “not accept dropouts that are not biological death,” meaning that she fully intends for every single one of her brother and sisters to die, and she doesn’t give a fuck who knows.

The next time we meet her, she’s instructing her mother to buy a bunch of designer clothes, and in the SAME BREATH she goes “Oh yeah, you need to kill your son for me, okay? Thanks.” 

And you have really got to feel for Duazul here. Like. She’s got four kids and the most to lose in this game. She’s doing her best to keep it together.

Anyways, back to Camilla: uh, her nen ability? Are you kidding me? Who taught her nen? Who told her she could do that? Was the first thing that popped into her head “giant cat-shaped nen curse that activates when I’m murdered?” What kind of things do you have to do to form this kind of ability?

And don’t even get me started on her fascist suicide death cult. She’s taken advantage of people from the lowest caste of society and turned their gratitude into fanaticism. You cannot buy this kind of loyalty, especially when you expect your personal guard to do this. Which is insane, considering I don’t think she’s planning on abolishing the caste system any time soon. 

Where Benjamin takes a more traditional approach to this war, aka strongarm the competition until they forfeit, Camilla has taken the most extreme measures to ensure that she wins. She does not expect anyone to survive, including herself, and has based her entire plan around that. If Benjamin is a lion, then Camilla is a steam roller. 

As someone who has had it her way her entire life, she’s convinced herself that there is no possibility that she can fail, a trait that makes her nen ability so powerful. However, this determination is quickly turning into tunnel vision, and when people don’t play into her games, she doesn’t leave herself with a way out. 

Which leaves us with a very interesting problem: if she dies on the black whale in a way that she cannot be resuscitated, what is her personal guard going to do? It’s hard to believe that they won’t want anything but total retribution, especially when they have nothing else to lose. 

Bar Tserriednich, and maybe Halkenburg, I truly believe that she’s one of the most dangerous players on the Level One. 

1/5 she’s got mad azula vibes there’s absolutely no way she’s not going down

NO 01: THETA

Theta is the baddest bitch on the boat, and that’s a hill that I’m willing to die on.  

Who else has the resolve, the guts, the conviction to take this crazy motherfucker out for the greater good? Even after getting caught red handed, she’s still making moves to make sure that Tserriednich gets his ass assassinated. Period

post-attempt 

When she finds out what an insane risk his nen poses does she get scared? Does she try to run? Does she try to bargain with the situation? No! She puts her big girl pants on and understands what she has to do. Shoot him in the head point blank because he’s nasty.

Note: in the Viz Translation she thinks, “I have to do this. I’m the only one who can...!!”

What puts her at the number one spot is her willingness to accept the consequences of her actions. Unlike Sarahell, there is literally nothing in this for her. The fact that she alone put herself up for this sacrifice speaks miles about her character, and since nen and personality work hand in hand, I’m really looking forward to seeing her Hatsu. I bet it’s sick as hell.

Considering that Tserriednich is the big bad of Succession Arc, it’s safe to assume that Theta is going to take an important supporting role in his downfall. Listen, I am counting my blessings and praying every day that her and Kurapika find common ground and team up in the next batch of chapters. These two have too much in common not to do so, and I can’t wait to see what she does next. 

There is a lot to expect from what is one of my favorite characters in Succession Arc. She relies on herself, has her head on straight, and is willing to clock any bitch that needs dealt with.

You may not agree with me, and that’s fine, but on a list full of baddies, I dub her the baddest.

Survival Rating: Theta, I hope you live to see the end, but I’m going to give you a 2/5 on the survival scale because you are on thin ice, sister. Good luck and Godspeed.

Runner Ups: Lynch, Shizuku, and all the ladies from The Second Prince’s Personal Guard and the Hei-Ly Mafia Family. Would have loved to put Cheadle on this list but she keeps getting clowned by Pariston

Thanks for making it to the end! I just caught up last week and I have brain worms now haha please let me know if you’re posting hxh meta too!! I feel like we’re finally getting to the end of the first act, and the anticipation is KILLING me. 

#hunter x hunter #hxh #meta #succession contest arc #morena prudo #morena prude #camilla hui guo rou #queen oito #theta #machi #kacho hui guo rou #kachou fuugetsu #fugetsu hui guo rou #sarahell #biscuit krueger #shimano #melody #i spent way too much time on this lol #i made a playlist too

[popculturebuffet]

Reviews: The Stand: Captain Trips

Halloween Havoc rambles on!  I decided to read a Stephen King Classic via it’s comic book adaptation from Marvel Knights 4 and Afterlife with Archie scribe and future Riverdale showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sarcasa. A deadly plauge sweeps across the US that kills in it’s wake while the goverment tries to cover it up. Because that’s not at all terrifingly close to home.  But as this pandemic creeps around the US we meet 5 dispearte people with a part to play in what the world becomes after the end: Stu, a hard nosed man who finds himself imprisoned by the government since he was next to patient zero for the outbreak and lived. Frannie, a young woman who finds herself pregnant and dealing with her disaproving mother and the babie’s less than ideal dad. Larry, a would be one hit wonder whose come home to new york to dry out and to let Stephen King go on for several pages about how much he fucking hates new york, because that was important. Nick, a deaf and mute teen drifter who finds himself subbing for a kind sherieff who sadly got the disease. And Lloyd, a dumb criminal who finds himself in jail after a robbery gone bad. And waiting in their dreams and the shadows for his acendency, the walking dude, Randall Flagg, evil itself. Waiting paitently for the soon dawning time of his ascendency. Spoilers and the review itself under the cut. 

So yeah i’m back to doing some comics reviews and I.. genuinely missed it. I did. I just needed to reajdust from doing one issue at a time to doing full arcs as well as get it in my head to do one.  And while I didn’t INTEND to review these, I ended up liking this series, at least for this mini, so much I couldn’t resist diving into them critically.  As for why I decided to read these comics it’s simple: i’ve never read the Stand but always wanted to. No real complex motives: I’ve liked some adaptations of King’s works with It: Chapter One being the reason I finally started watching horror movies after a good decade or two of avoiding them like the plauge, finally breaking down my squeamish cowardly barrier and opening up a greater world. Granted the sequel was a giant balloon parade of disapointment, but I can get to that some other day. Point is I like Stephen King: he seems like a decent enough guy, has had some good adaptations of his works and even the bad ones have some fun. Like this trailer for maximum overdrive where it’ shard to tell if it’s his tragic drug addiction or just him that’s responsibile for that wonderful delivery. 

So yeah, with little options to read the stand and the series out of print, I decided to dive into the comics because they seemed accurate enough from the way reviews had them and frankly before horror films, I really got into horror through comics, with my gateway there being Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s afterlife with archie. Many of you may know RAS, as i’m calling him so I don’t horribly mangle his namem, as the guy behind riverdale, sabrina, which is partialy based off his own sabrina comic and kathy keene, but before he became Archie’s golden boy, he was a writer at marvel, hence these mini series, and wrote the wonderful fantastic four series marvel knight’s 4, which I might cover at some point, which followed the four as they lost all their money and had to live like us normal folks. It’s really fucking good stuff and easily one of the best runs on the characters period. Afterlife with Archie is no slouch either so pairing both guys who brought me to the terrordance of horror seemed like a match made in heaven.  So that’s where we Stand, pun intended: I haven’t read the stand or watched the mini series, only know or remember some spoilers, and am walking into this blind but eager to see what happens. So if your willing to join me on the ride and on my fresh perspective, here’s Stephen King’s the stand by RAS and Mike Perkins.  Now since, at least at this early stage, The stand is divided up by the characters and what their going through as the virus hits, i’m going to cover this character by character, with an additional section on the progress of the pandemic itself and the government response.  Before I dig in I will say there is something I really love here: The Pacing. NOw I will grant it’s slow: By the end of this mini we only JUST meet big bad Randall Flag as the pademic and it’s goverment coverup both kick into high gear.  So why does it work? Simple: The characters. By opening up as the end of the world is happening instead of shortly before or after like most post apoclayptic stories, and focusing on each of our surivivors we get a real sense of who our heroes were before society collapsed as it collapses, and get to really care about them and WANT to see how they react to the end of the world and what they become. It justifies the series, and the book’s , massive length by using that giant stretch of time to get us invested in the cast and really want to see where this story goes. It’s really good storytelling and holds up really well. So with that out of the way, we can dive into the meat of the story itself. And before we can get to our protaganists, let’s get to the plauge itself 

THE OUTBREAK

The story starts with a soldier breaking out of quarantine after getting hit with a miltary virus, infecting his wife and child  while trying to go awol and dying.. thus starting the plauge known as Captain Tripps. It crashes into a small town gas station, where we met Stu, one of our heroes, more of him later and starts to slowly grip the nation as the book goes on.  The Goverment handles making a plauge that will end up dooming the human race.. by pretending it dosen’t exist, supressing the media, and cordening off whole cities and taking them over. An early attempt by the media to get the story out get the reporters shot horribly, and we get to see all the gore in this version. it’s not plesant but it’s a well done sequence. We get an even worse sequence where the general in charge of the facility captain tripps came from seeing tons of dead bodies in the cafeteria from their sceintests failed attempts at a cure, one of which is horribly bloated, and then shoots himself..... yeah I got nothing. Just.. wow. Good horrible stuff. 

So yeah tha’ts basically how it goes: the goverment can’t figure out how to stop it and tries desperatley to cover it up or downplay it instead.. and why yes our own goverment’ sbungled handling of coronavirus, with our own PRESIDENT, in the hospital right now, does make this extra chilling to me thanks for asking!  It SOMEHOW gets worse with the final issue as various media outlets rebel against the goverment  supression with tv, newspaper and radio all reporting on this despite the risk.. that comes true as the goverment STILL dosen’t learn their lesson and kills them all and we end as the virus only gets worse and the president urges everyone that it’s all fine despite teh mass bodies dumped into the sea and to just take some juice. Just.... just..... 

Yes exactly thank you Jon. It’s good stark horrible stuff, I just have no more commentary other than please make it stop. I will say however it’s well done stuff that lets the creeping dread seep in until it really hits fever pitch at the end. 

Stu Redman: 

As I mentioned, we meet Stu very early on, as he’s on site when patient zero crashes his car into a gas station.  Unfortuntely for him this gets him and hsi town swept up to a goverment black site where as seen above, he has no time for the bullshit their feeding him and is in no mood to actually cooperate till they actually talk to them. Which.. yeah it’s entirely resonable: the Goverment is holding him here against his will, refusing to tell him anything and asking to get samples from him. How does he know their not just going to shoot him the second their done with him? He dosen’t and given what we’ve seen this version of the goverment, and hell the real goverment do, yeah. Maybe blind trust needs to be earned rather than demanded. Just saying.  Stu gets his answers, that everyone else they brought in and thus his whole town is dead, and they don’t know how to stop the virus.. and that they don’t know where it came from but as the above makes clear, that’s a load of garbage. So Stu relcutantly and grumpliy coperates. He’s basically if Ron Swanson got freaky friday’d into nick millers body. 

Stu eventually gets taken to a diffrent facility after the jounalist thing and becomes even more coperative, as they start bringing in an armed guard every time someone visits him.. and Stu starts to get even more wary of this shit as it’s very obvious he’s become expendable, he uses those exact words, and by the end of this mini is plotting his escape. He also has dreams.. of iowa cornfields.. and a sinster man in black floating above them.  I like stu a lot: A hard nosed down to earth guy who dosen’t take shit, but is clever enough to know when to bite his tounge and bide his time, easily sussing out both why he’d been moved to a new facility and just how disposable he now is: He’s a man who will fight when needed but knows when to hold back and wait for it. He’s also a nice protaganist ot be our main viewpoint in the goverment sections and is easily my second faviorite. My faviorite is coming shortly. 

Frannie Goldsmith: 

Frannie is a college student who just ended up pregnant by her  boyfriend Jesse. She dosen’t want to marry him despite him offering.. and given his reactions to her telling him this are to whine “but you were supposed to be on the pill”, which she was and gave plenty of reasons why that may not have worked, and then give a loud , what was probably groaning “Aw hell” before proposting.. yeah good call. 

Frannie’s dad takes it well as he’s sad, but he understands and loves his daughter and wants to support her. Her mother.. is a selfish nightmare who bearates her for it, berates her husband, who usually backs down as Frannie is used to at this point, for standing up for her and then just for added terrible points physically abuses Frannie, who is PREGNANT, by slapping her hard. I know that can’t hurt the baby but fucking really.  Thankfully Frannie’s father decides even if he wont’ divorce the crone to stand up to her at least, and points out she really hasn’t been the same since Frannie’s brother died, igorning her up until the pregnancy and calling her out. She leaves in a huff defeated, and Frannie leaves to go stay at a hotel for a bit while tryign to find somewhere to stay, with her mom not wanting to talk to her and her dad insiting she come around.  Given her mother had signs of the virus earlier.. she dosen’t. She dies, Frannie, having come home to help her is devistated and we actually get a devistating if confusing bit as she hugs her dad and talks about eating the pie. Something lost in translation but the visuals cover well enough. And that’s where he story ends, though with a montage in the last issue, which is all we get of htem as the issue is focused on Flagg and the pandemic response instead. Not a bad move mind as it’s easily the best issue of the series, just a note.  Frannie is a likeable enough character, a strong woman who knows what she wants, wants to keep her baby and has decent enough family drama.. if well worn at this point but fraknly the book was written all the way back in the late 70′s so this is forgivable as it probably wasn’t AS common as it is now. Frannie has plenty of personality but her plot is one of the less intresting as it’s pretty easy to tell where it’s going in comparison to the other, more intresting plots going on around it. That said you still connect to frannie enough for it to not feel like a drag on the story and to feel important, so it’s not too bad a section. 

Larry Underwood: Larry Underwood is a musician whose also a bit o fa scumbag, using people and drugs like theres no tommorow and riding high, in both senses, off the sucess of his single.. a title that sums up the 70′s in a nutshell “Baby Can You Dig Your Man?”. Just.. it sounds like a parody song from SCTV... so in other words good job on making a goofy 70′s pop hit title stephen. Respect. 

But yeah a friend of Larry’s seeing he’s hit bottom suggets he had back to new york. Larry bunks with his mom who worries it’s too late for him to change from the scumbag he is now and that only a great catstrophe could do that. 

So yeah obviously it’s gonna, but we’ll likely see that as the series goes on. So mostly Larry’s segment is one incident of him having a one night stand that seems a bit overblown.. I mean it is scummy of him but her screaming “your not a good guy and what not as seen above just seems narmy as hell and utterly stephen king in terms of writing.. but the scene of him trying to convince himself she’s wrong after is really strong. Larry’s self doubt, self hate and wondering if he’s that bad is really strong stuff and really godo character stuff showing he is an asshole who uses people including his own mom.. but also genuinely DOSEN’T want to be that person but dosen’t know how. We also get a crushing bit where he calls for his friend who helped him only to find out not only is the guy in the hopstial but it’s getting bad. As the chapter ends larry looses his mom too.  The one real weakness of this bit is King goes on a bit of an author tract that’s kept via larry’s narration, which by the way I love how the books narration is kept REALLY damn well via the caption boxes, it’s really nicely done and a way to help keep some of the bits from the book while still taking bits out where necessary. It’s a nice touch. But back on point yeah.. Larry REALLY hates new york.. which to me translates as Stephen King REALLY hating new york, and wanting you to know how much he hates new york, how much the city was festering back then, how much of a crap hole it is, how it farts turds during thunder storms etc. IT’s likely trimme down from the text but boy does it feel unecessary> We get it, 70′s pre clean-up intiative new york was REALLY fucking awful. You didn’t like it there. But if you want to rant about new york for several paragraphs.. 

Like I get that he’s TRYING to make the point Larry dosen’t like new york and dosen’t fit in at home but instead of trying into his character arc entirely it just feels like an excuse for King to ramble about his hatred of new york. I’ts easily the weakest part of this mini series and I only think it was kept because RAS, as made clear in the question and answer sessions with marvel.com in the back of one of the issues, is a huge king fan and wanted to keep as much as possible. It’s the one time I feel the comic, and the story it’s retelling, really stumbled that bad. Thankfully with that rant over we can get onto my faviorite character

Nick Andros: Nick is easily has both the most unique narriatve and is the most intresting character to me. A mute and deaf teenage drifter, he goes from town to town finding work.. and between towns get beatup by a bunch of local assholes the ringleader of which is your standard Stephen King bully because depending on the kindness of strangers in a stephen king story is just asking for a beating.  Though oddly enough that ends up working as Nick finds himself in a jail cell with the local Sheirff and after getting a pad and paper, not only verifies he was working with someone in town, and who he is , but also who beat him down. And oddly for a king story since while he DOES have a heroic sheirff i’ve heard of, most of his law enformcent seem to be corrupt hicks at best, this one.. is a nice guy who makes sure the assholes that assaulted nick are brought in despite the ringleader being his wife’s nephew and knowing he’ll get no sex for a while because of it.. the narrative points this out because we needed to knwo that apparently. 

But said wife happily takes Nick in along with the Shierff while the sheirff takes 3/4 of the assholes in, with said nephew booking it out of town. But soon our kindly sheiff takes ill from the virus and Nick gladly fills in for him as his new deputy to make sure the idiots at the jail don’t starve. He continues this throught the book even as he looses his new family tragically due to the virus.. and soon his prisoners catch it too and clearly aren’t long for the world.  Nick is a THROUGHly likeable character. Just from body laungage it’s clear there’s a bit of an edge and a bit of harshness to him.. but he’s mostly just a good kid who goes out of his way to make sure three assholes who tried beating him to death get fed and watered, and wants to do the right thing despite the world crappign on him constnatly. He’s throughly intresting and his disablity is nicely portrayed, with him being portrayed as a normal guy who simplyg ot dealt a really crappy hand and does his best with it. Easily the best part of this mini, closely followed by the last issue but we’ll get to that in a second. We have one more character to get through. 

Lloyd Henried This bit will go fast since he’s only in two sections this mini but Lloyd is a dimwitted crminal who clearly gets a thrill from the crime sprees and murders he and his pal have done but also dosen’t murder inscreimatley. Unfortunatley his partner in crime does and Lloyd gets arrested after his first scene and hsi friend gets his face gunned off. Lloyd is last scene with his lawyer teaching him to lie. He’s basically just a dumb criminal at this point who likes thrills. Not a lot to dig into comapred to the other characters soooooo let’s move on to our final focus character and the focus of the final issue only, but hitned at before... 

Randall Flagg The breakout character of the piece, one of king’s most loved and most used villians. The Walking Dude. The Devil HImself. I had high expecations of this character with all that hype and he did NOT disapoint. 

Flagg is a mysterious supernatural drifter who dosen’t even know how long he’s existed but is evil itself. He makes anyone he passes feel nervous, glass crack and everyone uneasy, yet when needed can slip in and out of any extremist or hate group easily and hands out pamphliets for whatever will get people riled up the most, good cause or bad. and easily worms his way in and out of heavily armed groups and into women’s beds. My words do not do kings words put onto the final issue justice. They jsut impart he is evil, he is here, and he is about to RISE. And you’d better be prepared to run. After a few issues of only appearing in one dream.. we meet our antagonist and he is a lot. Throughly engaging, throughly creepy and throughly unesettling we get a full sense of who flagg is a drifter who SEEMS resonable enough when talking but just.. gets under your skin, yhou just feel.. WRONG around him. This one sequence REALLY got me excited to see what this bastard does. Not a lot elsse to say  throughly engaging creepy impressive villian who lived up to the hype and star of one of the best single issues i’ve read. No notes. 

So yeah overall.. I really love this story so far. Obviously I have a LONNNG way to go and 5 more mini series to go so I hope you’ll join me but the art is good, the decisions fantastic and the writing adapted well, clearly compressed but in a way that works. A fantastic way to read the story for a newcomer such as myself and if you can find it somehwer,e read it. Ill continue with it as hte month, or months probably, go on. Until then check back on my blog for regular ducktales coverage and some more halloween fun, hit up my asks if you have some comics you’d like to see me cover, and until next time, happy halloween. 

#halloween #halloween havoc #the stand #stephen king #randall flagg #horror #marvel comics #roberto aguirre-sacasa #mike perkins #stu redman #nick andros #frannie goldsmith #larry underwood #comic books

[sonxflight-a2]

Would you kill me if I asked you to do all the emoji thing for hanryou lol 😝

☯ Send Me An Emoji ║ @kathexismania ☯

😤 - Something about your muse that makes mine angry

“His recklessness and obstinacy have always been the cause for my frustration, but... Nowadays, I doubt I can actually get angry at him in particular - no matter how stupidly stubborn he may occasionally act, my discontent grows out of worry and care rather than annoyance or ire itself. Even in the time of parting or disagreements, our bond doesn’t cease - if anything, the only reason I ever confront Hanzo is the desire for him to heed to my voice a bit more often. To remember that I wish him good and to know that he deserves the share of peace and love, no matter of his opposing beliefs. And this is the matter about which I will stay uncompromisingly persisting...”

😰 - Something about your muse that worries mine

“The very same matters I just mentioned, plus I can add here his morbid willingness. This whole nonsensical concept of ‘life isn’t meant for everybody’... He says it’s no one’s mindset but his own, yet knowing his past and trusting the experience of mine... I nonetheless believe it was long-ingrained within him by outer forces and most likely without his inital realization. I wouldn’t be surprised if once he believed oneself to be some kind of instrument, a tool of certain authority rather than actual human being. I am more than sure his late wife brought him a certain enlightenment about it, and I can only thank her for that... ”

🤥 - Whether my muse thinks yours is an honest person

“He is. At times, even brutally so, which I believe causes people think he’s crude and unthoughtful, while in reality it’s quite otherwise... At least, when it comes to the ones my husband is close with. Let this be something I got used to, it's not the best quality once you need to reach a certain goal with cautious mean, especially when the right person is already wary towards the men of our profession. Guess in this case professional partnership adds to the pros of shared workfield...”

😈 - If my muse has dirty thoughts about yours

“We are highly active, willingly married couple... Why won’t you try and guess?”

💩- A mean thought my muse has about your muse

“Hasashi, I love you, but damn I swear I'll kick your ass myself if you will do that again... Something like this, the train of such thoughts is usually pretty similar when it comes to me.”

👌 - Something my muse finds amazing/impressive about your muse

“The fact he embarked on the path of atonement and is determined to follow it with no askew is already more than worthy of admiration. Let his motives being somewhat selfish and price he paid terrifying, not many would be willing to go through such drastic change. For good or bad, his willpower in general never stops to amaze me. Even though we both think we met our match when it comes to each other’s volition...”

👍 - Something that my muse approves about your muse or thought they have done very well

“I can’t thank him enough for helping me to finally deal with the downside of my restrainment. The treatment of wounds, any wounds, can be quite hurtful and requiring of the certain anesthetic... My emotional stagnancy wasn’t exclusion. Despite me being absolutely pissed at the whole damn world the morning after our ‘cooperative therapy’, I’ve never felt so relieved in ten years as I did feel later, like it was some kind of abscess upon my very heart getting opened at last. For this and many other things that was brought by our relationship, I will always be grateful...”

😘 - How my muse shows affection to yours and if it’s different from how they show affection to everyone else

“I guess I'm way more... physical when it comes to Hanzo, in the mean I barely mind and even tend to initiate the occasional tactile contact in spite of the risk to catch a prying eye. While the most of our affections will always happen behind the close doors, at times I cannot help but yearn for something as allegedly simple as the hold of his hand. Makes me feel like some shy adolescent boy, yet all the same there’s something lovely and beauteous in the moment his palm or fingers take a returning hold of mine.”

📺 - What show my muse thinks yours will enjoy watching (together, or just in general)

“Our work schedule doesn’t allow to us pay that much attention to movie industry these days, but I don’t remember us ever watching the movies of Akira Kurosawa. Then again, it can be easily fixed during our joint days off...”

💀 - Whether my muse thinks yours is dangerous and how dangerous

“We are both dangerous, in various meaning of this word and when we need to be... Neither of us has a peaceful past nor serene field of work, so becoming a reciprocal menace in reaction to the threat can be vital for the sake of survival, either of our loved ones or our own. Men like us... They will do anything possible in order to protect the people they love. Regardless if this will require them to sacrifice their own live or take the one of their enemy...”

👑 - Whether mine thinks your muse is of high social status and/or whether they respect them in such a way

“It’s no need to mention I’ve fallen in love with my husband for who he is as a person... Honestly, I’ve never paid that much attention to the status issue. Furthermore, growing up in highly esteemed family and being surrounded by peers like mine, I know well such matter can serve as the force of deception - I cannot tell how often I had to encounter the spoiled brat who believed they allowed to do whatever they want because of their parents’ money, and how the look of their faces changed once they realized the boy who dared to resist them is no less rich. Respect is to be earned, regardless if you’re some kind of modern prince or the child of simple worker. Unfortunately, the crowd tends to believe otherwise...”

🥃 - How many shots of strong liquor my muse thinks yours can take before passing out

“I think the better question will be how many bottles... Then again, it can depend on his current condition, because it’s either just a few shots or a whole damn gallon not being enough to put him to rest.”

🎁 - What my muse will get yours for a present

“Well, it’s for him to know at his Birthday... Or any other day I will decide to make him a certain gift. After all, does the present really stays an actual present if you know what you’ll be given beforehand?”

🍿 - What my muse thinks is entertaining about yours

“We challenge each other. Motorbike race, the contest of dry humor and sassiness or... other matters of our life together, it’s nice to have a worthy opponent for a friendly brawl. Though my husband may be a sore loser at times, in my view it’s a win-win situation either way, for I enjoy the process as much as the possible victory.”

📚 - What my muse thinks your muse’s usual reading material consists of (a specific genre, smutty literature, etc.)

“Does operation reports count? It’s been a while since I saw Hanzo reading an actual book rather than work’s material, but I can't and will not make a complaint in relation to this - our job requires such a responsibility. All the same, his workaholism causes the stir my concern, no matter how hypocritical this may sound...”

🍽 - What kind of table manner my muse assumes yours to have on first meeting them

“Not the best question to ask when it comes to our couple. Recalling how tense and cranky our relations were at the very start, I doubt either of us tried to think much about each other - it was only about getting my work done as soon as possible and be over with it until the next visit. Now, I think we both were too hurting and too headstrong to see anything else aside of established images. In a way, this makes feel thankful for that hostage incident...”

🏆 - What my muse thinks of your muse regarding a specific achievement yours have

“Specific? Oh well, I believe you should name an exact one then. There’s actually a lot I can be proud of in relation to my husband and people may have a different opinion towards what to count as some sort of achievement. High career rank and well-build physical form is usually the first to be noticed...”

⚔️ - If my muse wants to have a fight with yours

“Sigh... No. Actually, I question if I ever truly wanted to fight or harm him in any way... No matter how much I treaten to kick his ass, due to his recklessness or during another of our sparring sessions. If anything, I’m still sorry for how prejustly I could treat Hanzo back in the days. Pretty sure he feels the same...”

⚰️ - What my muse will say at your muse’s funeral

“I... don’t want to think about that, all the more answer on this question. The death of beloved one is something you cannot and should not plan or even imagine - it brings no use and only gives a rise to unnecessary ache. Regardless of how morbidly curious one’s mind can be, it reality you won’t ever be ready for this kind of things. The thought itself is devastating enough...”

💎 - The most valuable object my muse can willingly give your muse

“Whatever he’d need from me... We can act grumpy about us stealing each other’s clothes, but in reality it’s really that simple.”

📣 - Something my muse will say in defense of your muse being unfairly accused

“A few would dare to make any of such accusations about my husband right in front of him, yet there were some attempts behind his back I was drastic to prevent. As a rule, people doing that lack certain intelligence along with caution and know nothing of Hanzo and what he had to come through, while I on the contrary manage to possess a sufficient data about my opponents in order for them to be quick to hold their tongues once they’re clever enough. One shall think twice before opening their mouth...”

💃🏿 - Whether my muse would want to dance with yours

“We already did, and it was quite a pleasant suprise for me to learn he’s capable of waltzing around without any actual preparation. I wouldn’t mind if he’ll express the wish to do it again once we will have a spare time or will pay a visit to Sakai’s familial residence - there’s very specific beatitude can be found in the instants you’re circling around the dance hall within the hold of your beloved.”

👗 - Whether mine thinks your muse looks good in their usual clothing/their chosen clothing style

“He does... Albeit, as long as he’s safe and sound, he looks good for my vision either way. In the eyes of beholder and all that, you know?”

🎻- If my muse thinks yours can play an instrument, or what it is

“I’m aware Hanzo doesn’t play any. Althought, as much as I don’t mind being the only musically inclined person in our pair, it would be interesting to see him learning... Knowing his tastes, a guitar would probably suit him well.”

🎲 - If mine thinks your muse’s luck is good or bad

“I don’t know... I’ve never believed much in luck anyway, however, I believe its concept is far from being so simple... Much as one’s morals, the fortune can be incredibly relative and versatile.”

💰 - If my muse will pay the ransom for your muse if they’re kidnapped

“I think Hanzo would rather want me to find the bastards who kidnapped him and bring the frigidity of justice upon their rotten heads. Not to mention, it’s unlikely someone would be foolish enough to attempt doing this to the commander of Special Team, at least not for the money...”

✉️ - Whether my muse would want to keep in contact with yours if they are apart

“We’re husbands... The answer is kind of obvious, don’t you think?”

👀 - The most interesting/memorable rumor my muse has heard about yours

“When we just started dating and yet had to reveal our relationships... Some of my former colleagues and the members of his squadron asked if we finally found a lady friends, which was especially amusing to hear when we appeared to be in the same room. Yeah, one gruff six-something-feet tall brawny girlfriend I was happy to become a spouse for, heh...”

#✧ 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕪 𝕔𝕒𝕝𝕝 𝕞𝕖… 𝕛𝕒𝕔𝕜 ✧ ║ ic #kathexismania #answer #✧ 𝕤𝕙𝕠𝕣𝕖𝕤 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕤𝕠𝕝𝕒𝕣 𝕤𝕖𝕒 ✧ ║ hanzo #☯ 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕙𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕖𝕣 𝕙𝕒𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕓𝕝𝕠𝕠𝕕𝕚𝕖𝕤𝕥 𝕙𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕤 ☯ ║ᵛᵉʳˢᵉ #{{ o O F here you go }} #long post //

[megatentious]

Majin Tensei 2 and Shin Megami Tensei If… let’s talk about them

This past year saw the fan translation release of two 16-bit Megaten games, Shin Megami Tensei If… (lord help me if I need to type this ellipsis every time) and Majin Tensei 2. I am maybe the only person who decided to play through both of these games for the first time in English in one year, and so maybe it will be instructive to see how these two series black sheep (can you call a game a black sheep if no one has actually played it?) fit together in the context of the larger franchise. Or maybe this is just an ungainly excuse to cobble together months-old observations into blog content. Let’s find out!!

Both of these games come from a period when Atlus was still trying to figure things out from a game design perspective, testing how much they could push their console audience with PC dungeon crawler inspirations. There were no compunctions at this point about making unforgiving design choices, even in their crowning achievement mainline series games. Sometimes this worked, like the lack of guidance in Shin Megami Tensei 1 leading to perfectly tuned feelings of lonely exploration. Sometimes this didn’t quite work, like the tedious backtracking and brutally untelegraphed stat skill check requirements of Shin Megami Tensei 2. “Getting Megaten’d” is a message board expression meant to describe the sudden game overs that can occur in this series after hours of play, so it’s not as if unforgiving punishment is something that has been eradicated from the more modern games. But there’s a reason even many Megafans (yes i just said megafans, please deal with that) refuse to play anything in this franchise that released before the Playstation 2, and it’s because of choices that are perceived as promoting tedium and time-wasting. We’ve seen how this can affect their big marquis mainline successes, but what happens when you apply these principles to dicier spinoffs? Well…

Majin Tensei 2 is at least, quite conceptually ambitious. Spanning numerous worlds and time periods, showcasing political intrigue and explicitly defined characters with varying motivations, five distinct endings across light-dark and law-chaos axes, hidden events that depend on how many turns you take and which demons you have in your party, there is a lot (too much!) to keep track of. There are ideas in Majin Tensei that pre-sage much of what makes up Devil Survivor, from demon races with differing map skills to introducing demon fusion to a strategy RPG space that was mainly just Shining Force and Front Mission. In practice though, what you do repeatedly in Majin Tensei 2 is slowly s l o w l y clear fifty plus maps, maps that will occasionally provide fun challenges, but more often that not will repeat large not particularly memorable landmasses with simply hellish amounts of monsters. Seriously look at this screenshot I took, this is less than one third of the map!

There’s a reason that so many volunteer debuggers dropped out during playtesting, and there is a reason that 100% of the ones who persevered used fast forwarding emulation features to finish. This is because Majin Tensei 2’s sluggishness can be linked to the infamous Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. problem, S.T.E.A.M. being a largely unloved Intelligent Systems strategy game on 3DS that was raked over the coals in reviews for allowing enemy phases to go on for inordinate amounts of time. Majin Tensei 2 does that game one better by allowing literal minutes and minutes to pass as each enemy decides its action one by one. Do you remember that map in the screenshot above? Imagine twice as many enemies as that taking 10 seconds each to complete their own turn. Majin Tensei 2 makes it clear that you are absolutely not supposed to kill every enemy, through turn limit bonuses and appeals to your general sanity. But that still doesn’t stop the game from dumping demons haphazardly across each map in the manner of someone pounding the bottom of a trashcan to make sure every piece of refuse has tumbled out. So even if you are trying to be efficient, with each passing turn you’re going to be dealing with plenty of downtime.

So yes, the game is cruel. Just to take one example, Majin Tensei 2 spends the whole game teaching you that you need to keep someone tough at your home base even if you think you are safe, since at any moment some sort of aerial demon can sweep in from 12 spaces across the map to occupy it and end your game. And then in one level 40 chapters or so in, the game will punish you for keeping anyone behind at your home base by spawning multiple inaccessible dragon type demons who will one shot anyone who was trying to hold down the fort no matter what (did I mention that this game has instant permadeath for all demons and instant game over for any of your five human characters, five humans whom you cannot possibly level up sufficiently to all be able to survive multiple demon attacks?). Majin Tensei 2 is willing to mess with you to the extent that it absolutely wants you to cheat. After all, this is a game that in 1995, allowed you to save after every turn, which is another way of the designers telling you that savestate abuse (or in my case, copious use of the rewind button) is built into the design.

So why put up with this sort of nonsense? Well, for one, you’re dealing with the atmosphere of a 16-bit Atlus game, a combination of visuals, sound design, music and tone that is simply unlike anything else in the industry. And there is absolutely satisfaction to be found in slowly conquering the game’s maps. But those who scoff at something like, say, Soul Hackers, will find this game absolutely impenetrable, which likely means it will only ever be played through by advance Megatenists (okay i changed it to this, are you happy). Majin Tensei 2 tries to do quite a bit, switching up much even from its direct predecessor, and the play experience ends up suffering despite the ambition.

SMT If in comparion, well … If is by far the least ambitious game in the series to date. While Majin Tensei 2 lavishes you with cool unique digitized photo backgrounds, an extraordinary soundtrack with lengthy moody electronica from the late great Hidehito Aoki, and spectacular boss sprites, SMT if reuses all the most drab and uninspired wall textures from its predecessors, and offers absolutely nothing in terms of new music. Worse yet, many of the reused tracks have somehow depreciated in the conversion. Listen to the offkey shrillness of the iconic Ginza music here , seriously what did they do to it!?. If does feature some lovely new boss sprites, showcasing demons from rarer mythologies that were never again revisited (where are all my Persians at ATLUS???), but even some of the best of these are hidden in new game plus routes the average player will likely never see. The general fugliness of the overall game and relentless asset reuse gives the whole experience a very unfortunate rom-hack feel, and though it’s not hard to figure out why the game ended up this way (it was cranked out less than 9 months after SMT2) it doesn’t make things better.

I should note one important item here, however, and that is that the PSX version renders almost all of these complaints obsolete. It’s the version I first played actually, stumbling through the first few hours untranslated during a Japanese PS+ trial period. The PSX version not only offers very dramatic visual upgrades and some excellent needed remixes, there is a small measure of kindness built in for the player through the game’s Easy Mode. It’s only in this mode for whatever reason that Atlus offers a design “solution” for the most infamous portion of the game, a dungeon in which you are required to wait for hours of lunar cycles in order for students to dig your path forward. In Easy Mode the time requirement is halved for you. Behold the design advancements of the 32-bit era!

If is generally an odd game in the context of the series. There is a type of person out there who likes to call this game Persona Zero, and for people who have played the Snow Queen route of Persona One I can see why the comparison is made. But despite the initial high school setting and pseudo-selectable party members, it still feels strange and off-putting to play a Shin Megami Tensei game with almost no meaningful narrative choices (routes here are essentially locked in at the start). Guardians are seen as proto-Personas, but in this game they are earned only through dying and are associated with combinations of stat augments and skill lists that are frequently at odds with each other. What you end up with is a system that is interesting conceptually (should I die to gain useful spells at the cost of my current stats?) but unworkable in practice (it is almost never worth the steep steep battle count cost to experiment). The seven deadly sins theming is sometimes used to inform the map design and dungeon concept, but again more often than not these concepts simply lead to unfortunate tedium for the player (shout out to the final dungeon of Reiko’s route though, which very brilliantly mashes together traditional SMT dungeon design and a thematically cool map floor I won’t spoil for you).

If we look at SMT If through the prism of 16-bit Atlus design principles, having the foundation of SMT1 and 2 to work from should in theory have led the developers to refine their decisions in ways that ought to have helped the player experience. Instead, the game makes bold choices that result in remarkably less fun. For example, If understands that guns were ludicrously over-powered in 1 and 2, and tries to course correct by … making it much more tedious for the player to use guns? Bullets now cost money and can only be bought by slowly ticking up the counter to 99 one click at a time, with each bundle purchase of 99 filling up a limited inventory slot. The encounter rate is as insane as usual, Estoma takes a little bit more time to get than usual, and the game’s economy does not afford you that many useful things to spend money on in terms of equipment. Combine these three aspects of the game and every player invariable ends up large quantities of makka on hand to spend on bullets to your hearts content, and given that bullets are still far and away the best way to dispatch groups of enemies, you’ll find yourself engaging in this tedium in order to play the game efficiently.

I’ve spent a lot of time repeating the word tedium in these observations, and it’s unfortunate that this is the main takeaway most players will get from playing these two games. Both SMT If and Majin Tensei 2 devise interesting systems and then execute them as grimly as possible from a playability standpoint. There are aspects of true unique accomplishment in both games (Majin Tensei 2 has the funniest demon negotiation dialogue in the entire franchise! SMT If’s final dungeon really is super cool!) but the kind of player who is willing to experience them is essentially a rounding error. I don’t have any regret at all that I played through each of them in their entirety (FYI Majin Tensei 2 is longer than Dragon Quest 7 or Persona 5 and SMT If has a new game plus with all new dungeons that increase difficulty and dullness), but I might understand if you have regret. Then again who knows, you made it to the end of this aimless and dull writeup so maybe these games will be right up your alley! Be sure to let me know!!!

#majin tensei #majin tensei 2 #Shin Megami Tensei #shin megami tensei if #games no one has finished

[sorosoroso]

Christianity in Japan Article:Part II

In Jesus’ Name, (R)Amen- Kaedama!!: Japan’s Dark History With Christianity

Christianity’s impact on Japanese culture is… debatable. Don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely there, but sometimes, it can be hard to clock. Traditions for Christian holidays like Christmas have changed to fit Japanese tastes past the point of recognition for most foreigners (“Christmas is Kentucky”, anyone?), and the aesthetics of Christianity seem to be embraced rather than for its ideologies. Previously, I discussed how the religion has permeated Japanese culture, as well as interviewing a Japanese Christian to learn more about contemporary Japanese views of Christianity. Through the interview, I could better understand not only Japan’s image of Christianity, but also how Japan viewed religion in general, and I hope some readers were able to, too.

But, the one thing I still didn’t really understand was why only 2% of the population identifies as Christian. It had been around in Japan since the mid-1500s, (almost 500 years!) and I knew that there were incidents like the 26 Martyrs, but that had happened 1597! What happened between then and now for Christianity’s growth in Japan to be so stunted? I took to the books, Internet, and articles, and as it turns out, Japan’s history with Christianity was far darker than I realized. 

It all started out happily enough. After Portuguese traders, Antonio de Mota and Francisco Zeimoto, accidentally landed on Japan’s shores in 1543, the first Christian missionaries sailed from Portugal to Japan in 1549 and began working. Spearheading the effort was Francis Xavier, a Jesuit monk. Though evangelizing the Japanese people was the main goal, the Portuguese were keenly aware that establishing Christianity in Japan could help expand their trading territory further, and with that, the race to convert (and earn money) was on.

Unfortunately, initial efforts weren’t one hundred percent successful. In addition to the language barrier, missionaries had a hard time explaining Christianity to the Japanese, who questioned how a God who created everything, including evil, could be good. Most were indifferent, and tolerated the missionaries at best. Oda Nobunaga, the most powerful warlord at the time, supported their activities, but never converted nor pushed policies to further their work. Still, the missionaries managed to catch the attention of powerful people who wanted in on the trade and commerce they brought. 

Shrewd shoguns gave some missionaries license to practice and teach in their territories in exchange for access to foreign goods, like silk and porcelain. Japanese people were seriously craving Chinese goods because China had stopped trading with Japan after pirate attacks, and Portuguese missionaries took the opportunity to motivate people to convert. Some daimyos even voluntarily converted so Portuguese traders would be more willing to trade with them. Seeing Portugal’s success, Spain eventually joined in too, sending over Franciscan monks to Japan. Slowly, but steadily, the Christian movement spread across Kyushu and Western Japan, reaching around 200,000 members by 1582. 

Alas, missionaries’ progress slowed down when Japan was reunified under Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who feared the growing influence of foreigners in Japan. Hideyoshi’s suspiscions weren’t exactly unwarranted, either; much to his horror, Hideyoshi discovered that the Portuguese were purchasing Japanese people for the slave trade, and found foreigners’ disdain for Buddhist traditions troubling. Things came to a head after the San Felipe incident of 1596, when the Spanish trade ship, the San Felipe, crashed into Shikoku and was ransacked by the daimyo of the area. 

To maintain diplomatic relations stable with Spain, Hideyoshi sent a representative to speak with the sailors of the San Felipe (up to this point, Hideyoshi had tolerated Christians, albeit with some side-eye). The following meeting proved to be a disaster, however, and the representative reported back what he understood from their conversation: that the influx of Christian missionaries in Japan was, in fact, phase 1 of a bigger plan to conquer Japan as a Spanish colony, and if all went to plan, Spain would be sending in conquistadors to finish the job.

Though it’s up for debate whether or not this plan was real, Hideyoshi was furious, and fearing loss of his power, he quickly issued an edict to remove all Christians from Japan swiftly. To discourage further converts, the warlord ordered the torture and execution of 26 Catholics, later known as the 26 Martyrs of Japan (remember them?). Unfortunately, their deaths were just the beginning, and over the next few decades, more than 200 Christians were executed, with many others persecuted for their faith.  

Things went from bad to worse in 1637, under Tokugawa Ieyasu’s  reign, when 16 year old (!) Amakusa Shiro led the Shimabara Rebellion against the current rulers. Many of the rebels, including Shiro, were Catholic, and had originally joined forces to fight against strict Christian persecution. The rebellion’s eventual failure, however, caused the deaths of an estimated 37,000 insurgents and instigated an even more serious crackdown on Christian activities. Those suspected of practicing Christianity were captured and could be tortured until they denounced the religion, or even executed.

One interrogation method was using a fumi-e (literally “stepping picture”). Authorities would order suspects to step on fumi-es, which were metal plates with pictures of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary on them. Those who refused to step on them would then be branded as Christians and be forced to recant their faith or else be tortured (or executed). Countless others had land confiscated or reduced to utter poverty, and the rampant persecution forced Christians to go into hiding, thus beginning the era of the kakure kirishitan, or “hidden Christians”, who practiced their faith in secrecy. 

 These hidden Christians took great, ingenious lengths to disguise their religion. Besides physically hiding their activities, they disguised anything to do with Christianity; holy iconography was hidden in statues of the Buddha and his disciples, Latin prayers were changed to sound more like Buddhist chants, and all printed word was eliminated, with followers resorting to orally reciting the scripture instead. Christianity became a tradition that was passed down generations, and this system continued until the Christianity ban was finally lifted during the Meiji Era.

Of course, the road to religious freedom was not a fast one. It all started with America making trade agreements with Japan. As the number of foreigners began to increase, Japan and America passed the Treaty of Amity & Commerce in 1858, which only allowed Americans to practice their religion and establish places of worship. Around this time, the practice of using fumi-e to out Christians was abolished as well. Although they weren’t allowed to spread the religion, Christian clergymen began to pour into Japan, and 15 years later, in 1873, Japanese people were granted religious freedom, too. This didn’t mean Japanese Christians weren’t persecuted anymore, though. Christians were still considered a liability to the government, and politicians were concerned that Christians would be difficult to control or subdue. Even more damning was that many Christians did not recognize the divinity of the Emperor, and as the country began to colonize Asia, one of the opposing groups was, you guessed it, Christians! As nationalism started sweeping up Japan, Christians became seen as more and more of a disgrace to society. In other words, Japanese Christians were still very much considered “the other” in their own country, but it would only get worse when Japan entered World War II.

Like with colonization, Japanese Christians were strongly against the war, much to the ire of more patriotic neighbors. Accounts of Christians receiving less rations or even being taken away by special forces are ample, and it wasn’t much better in the army, either; Christian soldiers were blacklisted if they were discovered, and labelled as a risk to the regime. Those who disobeyed orders because of their faith were severely punished or tortured. 

The shift towards acceptance began once Japan surrendered and, more importantly, the Emperor renounced his divinity, a huge blow to national pride. Post-war Japan was a difficult landscape to navigate, and under General MacArthur’s project to suppress Japanese nationalism, Japan’s entire identity was changed or reevaluated. Traditions and values people had maintained for generations meant nothing when faced with hunger and violence in this new, unfamiliar environment that was once their home. Many turned to religion for solace, and with the large presence of foreigners, Christianity started to become a more widely accepted religion. 

In my interview, I was told that many Japanese people saw Christians as too moralistic, uncompromising, and soft. However, through my research for this article, I realized that, actually, Christians have been seen as rebels, insurgents, and in some ways, revolutionaries. They chose to embrace the unfamiliar over traditional Japanese values, and when they were ordered to disconnect from the foreign influence of the religion, they disobeyed and tried to preserve their faith as much as possible. For a country like Japan, whose people pride themselves in maintaining traditions for decades or even centuries, what the early Christians did was absolutely radical. There are many, many valid problems with organized religion, and I myself don’t identify as Christian anymore despite my upbringing, but I am awed by the sheer perseverance of the Japanese Christians. 

If you would like to learn more about Japanese Christians, you can find historically significant sights in Kyushu, like Oura Cathedral in Nagasaki, the oldest standing church in Japan. There are also several remote areas around Kyushu where kakure Christians practiced their faith in defiance of authority, such as Hirado island or the Goto islands.

Even though Christianity may never truly be a major religion in Japan, I hope and pray that the country’s promise to grant religious freedom to everyone, citizens and foreigners, will never be broken. Amen.

#>2000 #christianity #japan #connect #ajet

[ericngo-blog]

Life update Hello friends and family,

Many seasons have past since I left California to start a new life in Paris.  What started as a one year teaching assistant program turned into an adventure that has now lasted 6 years.  At the age of 23, not knowing what to do with my life, I packed my bags to return to my birth country hoping to find answers to my cultural identity.  Over the years, I’ve encountered many challenges, met amazing people, fought my way through adversity, and discovered new passions in life.

2011 was exciting and the start of something new. The idea of starting over in the city Paris was full of possibilities.  With the hopeful innocence of my 23 year old self and a small amount of money, I took on a small studio apartment and taught English in a French public high school.  To my surprise, the students listened to my teaching style and I was able to develop a passion for teaching. At the end of the teaching contract, I knew I wasn’t ready to go back home in California.  Part of me had always wondered what it was like to be a waiter, so I took on a waiter job in a Japanese restaurant.  

In the summer of 2012, I waited tables night and day, 6 days a week.  It was brutal, but I absolutely would do it again because I met an my un-official god parents.  Mr and Mrs Tan are also French/American/Chinese, like me, which made our relationship that much easier, and are the owners of the restaurant “Wrap N Roll” Sushi in Paris.  They taught me how to be hard working and more responsible through their strict expectations as managers.  One day, Mrs Tan treated me to a French pastry, and while I was savoring it’s delicious flavor, I said out loud, “You know, I’d like to learn how to make these”, and Mrs Tan replied, “Well, why don’t you?”.  This was the defining moment when I realized that the dream of becoming a pastry chef was within reach.  During my last months in college, I had described my ideal life to be “Live out my faith as a Christian somewhere in the world, serve in a church as a drummer and a leader for the younger generation, and to make a living, work as a baker/pastry chef”.  After doing some research, I decided to apply to the most prestigious pastry school Paris had to offer, Ferrandi Paris.  By the end of summer, I was hired to work as a salesman in the world famous pastry shop, “Pierre Hermé Paris”.  It was there that I took my first steps towards becoming a pastry chef.  Though this experience, I learned the values of customer service and how to sell a product.  

My Career as a salesman last until the end of 2013.  During this year, I went through many trials such as work drama, having my heart broken, and dealing with the feeling of loneliness.  Don’t be fooled by the pictures that only show the happy moments, it’s the difficult moments that define who we truly are.  Over the years, I had learned how to eat by myself, even at a restaurant, and just be by myself in general.  But every once in a while, this feeling of homesickness just took over and I felt giving up.  I was able to survive these moments because of the healthy community I was blessed to have here in Paris.  I was also blessed to have a female companion by my side that made me feel loved.  2013 was probably the hardest year of my life.  I felt like I was stuck as a salesman and that I would never get into pastry school.  But I saw the light at the end of the tunnel by the end of the year.  After refueling back in California I came back to Paris, and in the winter of 2013 I was admitted to pastry school.  On top of that, I was able to move into a new place  a lot closer to my school.  (I live with an older woman, it’s just that she’s 80 years old, She’s like my French grandmother =P) God’s timing was perfect, all of this happened in the same week.  

2014 was the start of my pastry career.  The program in which I participated was an intensive one.  Instead of a regular 2 year training, it would be over 5 months only because I already had a BA.  Pastry school was amazing, I loved every moment.  Starting at 6am and ending around 2pm, we learned and practiced the art of making French pastries.  Even though I had little experience in baking, I was able to learn quickly and was blessed to have good instructors.  Our classes were small, consisting of only 12 per class.  At night, I would go back to waiting tables for the first couple of weeks of my semester to earn a living.  However, Mrs Tan wanted me to focus on my studies and loaned me money for me to use until the rest of my school year.  My initial reason for going to pastry school was to eventually open up shop in LA, but it changed as the months went by.  My new vision was to get my pastry degree, train under big chefs for a couple of years, and eventually either open up my own shop or go back to teaching, this time, pastry.  After earning my degree, I interned at my local bakery and started looking for work.  At that time, my bank account was pretty dry and I had to wait tables once again full time in order to survive.  There came a time where I had 10 euros in my bank account… The struggle was real.  But, I was oddly at peace.  I had experienced God’s grace so many times, that I knew something would come up.  By the end of the summer, that opportunity came up.  After being discouraged my not getting replies or getting rejected for work, a company reached out to me.  It was the only company who was interested.  That company was the cooking school “La Cuisine Paris”.  We got to know each other and I was given the opportunity to teach pastry classes to an English speaking people.  I will forever remember the day when the owner of the school told me, “Look Eric, I know you just got out of school, and that you have little work experience, but, I like you, and I’m willing to invest in you”.  This was a defining moment in my life that I will forever cherish.  On top of that, the teaching gig only involved a 20 hour work week with a good hourly rate that allowed me to live comfortably.  Talk about a dream job.  

2015 was all about looking for ways to honor God through my time and resources.  Because of my 20 hour or less work weeks, I found myself with a lot of free time.  I was able to be well rested all the time, see friends during their lunch breaks, read books I’ve been wanting to read, and just have a lot of “me” time in general.  All that was great, but I didn’t feel fulfilled.  I became aware that, my church had a women’s group, but no men’s group.  After a couple of weeks of brainstorming and counseling, I decided to launch “E.P.I.C men’s group”.  This acronym stood for “Edification.Perseverance.Integrity.Courage”, these were the four pillars and values of our group.  Our vision was based on the Bible verse found in 2 Timothy 1:6-7

“For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.  For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline”

Our vision was to become men equipped to live out a Christ centered life, and to one day become men worth following.  This concept was important to me because growing up, there were seasons where my age group did not have a mentor figure to whom we could look up to, and I didn’t want the younger generation to go through the same thing.  Our vision as men was to accurately reflect the image of Jesus through our lifestyle. NOT EASY. But I had met people in life whom I thought were leaders worth following, and leader not worth following.  What made the difference? I went on an adventure to find out.   2015 also came with the opportunity to go on missions.  My home church in Paris organized its first overseas mission to Senegal, located on the coast of west Africa.  This mission trip opened my eyes to Christianity that I was used to, and made me experience my faith in a different way.  Till this day, my church in France sends out a missionary team each year to Senegal where we preach the gospel through children’s ministry, teacher training programs, medical consultations, and for me personally, sharing different baking recipes with the local bakers.  These mission trips have touched me in a profound way through the relationship I’ve developed over the years.  The thought that children from the “Lac Rose” village (the village we’ve worked with) welcoming me year after year by name, after my first visit brings me chills.  

2016 was more of a routine type of year.  I started getting comfortable with my lifestyle and time flew by at an incredible rate.  I kept on teaching pastry classes, serving in a church through playing drums and leading the men’s ministry, going on the Senegal mission trip, and enjoying life in Paris.  Friends and family kept on coming to Paris over the years, and it brought me joy to show them around! One of the highlights of the year came in September when my sister Diana flew to Paris to run the Disney Paris half marathon.  I’ve never considered myself a long distance runner, but the idea of developing grit became that much more real when you experience a long distance race.  It disciplined me during the year to increase my endurance to eventually run a half marathon.  My sister Diana, a seasoned marathon runner, ran at my pace and encouraged me throughout the entire race which helped me persevere through the fatigue and guided me to the finish line.  

So here we are in 2017.  This is was by far the most I’ve ever traveled in my life.  It started with a trip back from California in January, Lyon, road tripping from Italy to Switzerland, Senegal, and Hong Kong.  It’s been great seeing so many friends from home in other parts of the world.  And here I am writing this update letter while sitting in a plane on my way back to California.  I needed to refuel.  I was discouraged by the men’s group because of the lack of attendance and motivation, and I was struggling with my worship coordinating responsibilities.  This is year has been especially hard for me ever since my 4 year relationship ended.  I realized that over the years, my feeling of “home” rested on my girlfriend’s shoulders at that time, and now with that figure gone, I suddenly felt so alone. The Sunday before I flew to California, I ate diner by myself in a restaurant and watched a movie by myself in the movie theaters.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I actually don’t mind at all, and over the years I’ve done that plenty of times, that is, when it’s by choice.  That lonely night, wasn’t by choice.  I let it sink in deep and really felt like I was by myself and that one cared about me.  I longed for this feeling of home, and I felt really alienated from the rest of the world.  The timing of coming back to California was perfect.  

This trip was exactly what I needed. My initial plan was to come back and surprise my mom for her birthday, surprise one of my best friends for his 30th, and attend a childhood friend’s wedding.  Time flew by so quickly but I was able to see family and friends and surely enough, my “love tank” was full, I was refueled.  I felt surrounded by a nurturing environment and felt appreciated through this time in California.  I was able to reconnect with friendships that have lasted over decades and I felt so loved when people made the time to see me despite the long distance.  My whole life has been about answering the question “Where is home?”, and the answer has always been “Home is where your loved ones are”.  And to be more accurate, home is where there is a nurturing environment, because “If you want to go fast, go alone.  But if you want to go far, go together”.  These past 6 years in Paris have been absolutely amazing and will cherish these memories forever.  I initially came back to my birth country to figure out where I wanted to settle down, and today I have an answer.  I’ll be coming back to California in the near future.  I’ve made myself a 2 year plan before officially departing, but there are still things I need to learn and do in Paris.  Notably, acquire more experience as a pastry chef, to one day open up my own bakery in California.  I’m also open to the idea of missionary work in other parts of the world such as west Africa, so who know’s where I’ll end up next.  

Paris remains one of my favorite places on earth.  It’s not the beauty that this charming city has, nor the amazing food it has to offer, but the friends I’ve made here that will make me miss this place.  I’m determined to savor every minute I have here for the next years to come. Part of me is nervous to leave Paris because it’s my comfort zone, at the same time I’m confident that my family and friends will make moving back to LA a smooth transition.  American friends see me as the “French guy”, French friends see me as the “American guy”, and to the rest of the world I’m just the “dark looking asian guy”.  People with my background live with chronic homesickness, and I’m determined to build a place for them to feel at home in LA.  That’s the new dream.  

Thank you so much for your friendship and prayers of over the years.  It’s been a delight catching up across the world, I wouldn’t be who I am and where I am without your counsel.  I strongly encourage you to come to Paris before I make my move back to LA.  You know it’s on your destination list and I would love to show you around the city have you see Paris through my eyes.  (Preview* it involves eating the best the city has to offer for all budgets, picture memories, cooking/ baking classes, playing board games in cafés, meeting French people, strolling in tiny charming streets, having hilarious/ meaningful conversations).  

Congratulations, you’ve made it to the end of this long update :)

Miss you guys, Eric Ngo

[rjtvargas1421]

Succeed at Work and Finances: Be a Good Steward

In another talk of CCF Taytay Singles Ministry (B1G), we got the rare chance to listen to an established God-fearing businessman. He imparted to us how to be a good steward of the work and finances God entrusted to us.

Our guest speaker is Bro. Joel Conrad C. Pedro. He  is the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Lamoiyan Corporation. Also, he is the Chief Adventure Officer (cool title! haha!) of his company, Adventure Kings. 

The following are the contents of his talk last May 26, 2018 in CCF Taytay.

Bible verses

Parable of the Three Servants

“Again, the Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long trip. He called together his servants and entrusted his money to them while he was gone. He gave five bags of silver to one, two bags of silver to another, and one bag of silver to the last—dividing it in proportion to their abilities. He then left on his trip.

“The servant who received the five bags of silver began to invest the money and earned five more. The servant with two bags of silver also went to work and earned two more. But the servant who received the one bag of silver dug a hole in the ground and hid the master’s money.

“After a long time their master returned from his trip and called them to give an account of how they had used his money. The servant to whom he had entrusted the five bags of silver came forward with five more and said, ‘Master, you gave me five bags of silver to invest, and I have earned five more.’

“The master was full of praise. ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’

“The servant who had received the two bags of silver came forward and said, ‘Master, you gave me two bags of silver to invest, and I have earned two more.’

“The master said, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’

“Then the servant with the one bag of silver came and said, ‘Master, I knew you were a harsh man, harvesting crops you didn’t plant and gathering crops you didn’t cultivate. I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth. Look, here is your money back.’

“But the master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy servant! If you knew I harvested crops I didn’t plant and gathered crops I didn’t cultivate, why didn’t you deposit my money in the bank? At least I could have gotten some interest on it.’

“Then he ordered, ‘Take the money from this servant, and give it to the one with the ten bags of silver. To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away. Now throw this useless servant into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ - Matthew 25:14-30 

And He told them a parable, saying, “The land of a certain rich man was very productive. And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’ 

And he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.”

“But God said to hi, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?

“So is the man who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” Luke 12: 20-21

For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? - Mark 8:36

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” - Jeremiah 29:11

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. - Hebrews 12:1

Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. - Genesis 2:15

His master said to him, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” - Matthew 25:21

And whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord, and not unto men. - Colossians 3:23

Key takeaways

Why you love Facebook so much? A recent study discovered a strong connection between Facebook and the brain’s reward center, called the nucleus accumbens. This area processes rewarding feelings about things like food, sex, money, and social acceptance. When we get positive feedback on Facebook, the feeling lights up this part of our brain. The greater the intensity of our Facebook use, the greater the reward.

If fame, wealth, acceptance, relationships, and career are the measurements of success, then why do the likes of George Eastman, Margaux Hemingway, Marilyn Monroe, Robin Williams, and Chester Bennington committed suicide?

All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end...This is the motive of every action, of every man, even of those who hand themselves. - Blaise Pascal

If you have good attitude and perspective, you are in step one to success.

What are we all looking for?

Success is being rich towards God.

Success comes with a process: (1) Declaration, (2) Distress, (3) Development, (4) Demonstration

Common Complaints about Work: (a) “I’m not paid enough”, (b) “I may not even have a job tomorrow”, (c) “my contributions are not appreciated”, (d) “there is too much”, (e) “I feel I’m smarter than my boys”, (f) “I’ve been stuck in this position forever”, (g) “my boss is from the dark side”

Common perspective about work: (a) a curse, (b) a necessary evil, (c) just a means for me to pay my bills and send our children to school, (d) what will allow me to save up for recruitment and enjoy the rest of my life, (e) secular, ministry is sacred

The right view of work is the starting point for true success at work.

God blessed man with work.

3 things to develop: (a) Heart - Knowledge, (b) Hands - Skills, (c) Heart - Character and Culture

No matter what stage we are in, there is someone greater and better than us.

Heart is deceptive. Do not decide based on feelings.

Eternity is better than temporary things.

When you get success overnight, you will lose it overnight too.

Don’t FOMO(Fear of Missing Out) while you YOLO (You Only Live Once)

YOLO for Jesus. Live your life to the fullest for Jesus Christ by loving greatly.

God wants you to have a Yolo kind of life.

It’s more important how you finish.

God provides us with unique skills, gifts, and talents, and calls us to particular roles and activities. Although the roles might have apparent differences in importance, our callings are equal. They are a spiritual calling. There are no second-class callings from God. - Andy Mills

Your response is your responsibility.

The level of distress or pain you can overcome with God is the level of success you can achieve.

Not everybody will be given the same opportunity because we have different roles. Natural tendency is to compare.

Stewardship is not about what we have or not have. It’s what we do to what we have.

The right view of work helps in the right view of success.

Ability and wisdom to gain money comes from God.

Know why you do what you do.

It’s not how many or few God gives you but with how you use with what God gives you.

Tithes is returning, more than that is giving.

When God asks you clearly to do something, do it immediately.

Calculate and take risks immediately.

If something is entrusted to you, you have to be faithful.

There is a process, do not rush.

Good things with bad intentions will become bad things.

Focus on God because men disappoint.

Demonstration is an everyday revelation from God.

Success is about perspective. Focus on Jesus.

Success Factors: (a) Willing to Take Risks, (b) Obedience to Authority, (c) Responsibility and Accountability, (d) Knowing why you do what you do.

Personal Reflections

As of this writing time, I am experiencing budget constraint in my savings because I do not have yet a stable source of income from my freelance writing. God already showed opportunities through different people but I still need to wait for further instructions from them. I am assured He will take care of me as how He also demonstrated every blessing and miracle in my life.

I feel blessed too hearing Bro. Joel saying he is a product of God’s grace because he has several failures and mistakes in his life. It is through God that he is blessed now with those positions in the companies he work with, and with the loving family he takes care of.

Hearing this talk at this moment makes me realize God is reminding me to be a good steward. He can bless me anytime but maybe He is just waiting for me to be fully ready as soon as He overflows me in the aspect of finances and career. There is a process indeed because I cannot simply ask God to be a genie. God needs to see first a complete character reformation so I won’t waste His blessings, either unconsciously or deliberately, as soon as He grants them all to me.

We are all stewards of God. We should make the most out of all the gifts, talents, skills, time, and opportunities He gave us to fulfill His plans in our lives.

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[thecoroutfitters]

As we hit Thanksgiving week once again, many are reminded of the need to give thanks for the many blessings we all enjoy. Sadly, we need that reminder, as many of us are too busy complaining about what we don’t have, to remember to give thanks for what we do have.

It’s basically impossible to be both thankful and ungrateful at the same time, as the two are polar opposites. But in our negatively focused world, the negative emotion of ungratefulness seems to take charge, overriding any feelings of thanksgiving.

There are many people in our country who are never really thankful. Rather, they are bitter about life in general and our country specifically.

They don’t see this day as an annual celebration of thanksgiving, but rather as an annual reminder of the wrongs that our country has done.

Yes, our country has done wrongs. We aren’t perfect by a long shot.

But the revisionist history that the progressive-liberal left is pushing these days is far from the truth. For some reason, they have chosen to vilify every action of this great land of ours, and are determined to turn everything we Americans have ever done to bad, applying negative motivations to everything our forefathers did.

These people are essentially projecting their ideology onto the past, trying to show how the things they claim are wrong with this country have existed since the beginning. They ignore the true lessons of history and the true actions of those who came before us, in favor of spewing forth hatred.

Much of this hatred is racially based. As Booker T. Washington once said,

“There is a certain class of ‘race-problem solvers’ who don’t want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public.”  

It seems that this class of people is still alive and well in America today.

Buy why should discontentment ever override thanksgiving? What is there in the human soul, which desires to complain rather than to give thanks? What has happened to this country, where we have forgotten about the importance of “happiness” in our pursuit of happiness?

I would have to say that there is more grumbling and complaining in America today, than there is in many other countries, which aren’t as well off. In fact, you rarely hear the people of those countries complain.

Oh, they might complain about their back hurting from hard work, but even that is minimal. Rarely do they complain about their country’s history, about being oppressed, or about how others have it better off than they do.

Actually, if those people talk about how others are better off than they are, it is as a dream; the dream of attaining that place for themselves. Much of the world still looks to America and the American Dream as something to be attained. That’s why hundreds of thousands of them come to America every year, by whatever means possible, including coming here illegally.

Those people come here looking for opportunity; for to them, America is still the land of opportunity. Yet there are those who languish inside our own borders, who don’t see the opportunity all around them. They complain about what they don’t have, rather than doing what they can to get it for themselves, missing opportunities that are right in front of their eyes.

This complaining attitude that we see all around us is actually a symptom of our affluence. As crazy as it may seem, when people don’t have to work hard to survive, they are much more likely to complain. With the ever-expanding welfare state we have in the USA today, there are many who have nothing better to do, than to complain.

So Many Reasons to Be Thankful For

I give thanks that I was born in this great country. No, it isn’t perfect, nor are the American people perfect. But it is way ahead of whatever is in second place.

I know many people in many parts of the world, and none of them live with all the advantages that we have in this country, regardless of our ethnic origins, gender or creed. We are a truly unique country; and for that, we should give thanks.

So, if people from other lands still see the United States of America as the land of opportunity, yet our own citizens don’t, where’s the disconnect? Who is wrong? Is it that those people just don’t see how evil our country really is? Or could it be that those of us why are discontented don’t understand who we are and the blessings they have received?

Are there people who have it better than others? Yes there are. Some are born with the advantage of wealth, but they are truly in the minority.

The true “advantage” that most have, isn’t wealth, but parents. They were born into a home with married parents who were committed to their children and to each other. They were taught a good work ethic. They were taken to church regularly. They were forced to do their homework. They were encouraged to study in college and they were disciplined by those parents, when they did wrong.

This is called “white privilege” by some, but it really isn’t a racial privilege, as it crosses racial lines. Children of every ethnicity, who grow up under the same conditions, have the same results, regardless of the color of their skin, the bathroom they use or the church they go to.

If there is any real privilege in this country, it is the privilege of being born an American. While the American Dream may not be what it once was, this is still the land of opportunity. Every day, people from all walks of life succeed, not because they are privileged, but because of having a dream and are willing to do the hard work necessary to turn that dream into reality.

I give thanks that I grew up in a country where my success isn’t dependent on my parents’ pedigree, but instead is based upon my own hard work. Were it not so, I wouldn’t be as successful as I am today. While some would want to destroy that, so far, it still stands.

Are there those who try and control society, business and the government? Yes there are. But show me a time and place in world history, where there wasn’t a group of “elite” people who were trying to control society, business and government. I don’t care if you refer to them as royalty, the Central Committee of the Communist Party or the oligarchy; there are always those who take control, “ruling” in their time and place.

American oligarchs are no more evil than the kings and princes of the past. Nor are they more selfish than the Politburo of the now-defunct Soviet Union. Whatever group of “elites” take control in whatever age of history, do so for their own benefit. There is no “class” of perfect, unselfish people who can be entrusted to rule, because they will always do what is best for others.

Yes, there have been those in authority, who have used their authority for the benefit of others, but they are in the minority. Even then, you can be assured that they used their positions for their own benefit, the benefit of their families and the benefit of their friends as well. That’s human nature.

But we can give thanks that the oligarchs of today, which some love to complain about, are at least doing so in a culture and under a political system, that allows their actions to give advantage to many others, not just themselves. While they may make millions more than the average middle-class person does, the corporations they are running give jobs to thousands of those middle-class people.

Thankful for What Makes Us Different

If there is one thing that America has given to the world, it is a system which allows the greatest opportunity for the most people to be lifted out of poverty. Our capitalistic, free-market system has generated more wealth and lifted more people out of poverty, than any other political-economic system ever devised my man. It may not be perfect, but it is the best we have.

In fact, it is so good, that it has been exported to the rest of the world. While many think of Coca-Cola and other such products as our biggest exports, they are not. Freedom, liberty, self-determination, and our free-market system are our biggest exports.

And they are exports which are changing the world.

Yet there are those who villainize that very same system, speaking of the “moral superiority” of socialism. How can it be morally superior to make everyone equally poor, while the elite still enjoy their positions of prestige and wealth? The very idea that such a socialist system is superior is beyond me, even without looking at the historic reality of how every socialist country has become communist, repressing individual liberty and stealing from the people. Any “superior system” would have to be one which gives the most opportunity to the most people.

Even with the oligarchy that we have (assuming that you and I accept that it exists), we are still a society which is based upon self-determination. Nobody is telling us what job we have to do or placing a cap on how much money we can earn. That’s something else we can give thanks for.

Our political system, while filled with imperfect people, gives us the right to remove those who fail us, the people, and replace them with those who will look after our rights. That’s what the voting booth is for. We the people are supposed to be in control.

But this takes effort. We must educate ourselves, rather than merely accepting what others say. The chattering class has their own agenda and it is not in our favor. We must look beyond what they tell us and seek the truth. Otherwise, the mainstream media will do our voting for us. They’ve done it before and I can guarantee you, they want to do it again.

Maybe if we quit complaining about our political system and the politicians in it and started educating ourselves about the issues and candidates, we could do better. We could vote for candidates of integrity and solid values. We could once more take control of our government and make it once again, a government by the people and for the people.

The problems our country faces aren’t Washington’s fault; they are ours. We the people have allowed them to exist. So it is up to we the people to do something about them. That’s why we have a vote. That’s why we have a voice. We must learn to use it.

I thank God that I live in a country where I have the right to vote… and I pray that more of us would take that right seriously and use that right in the right way!

This article has been written by Bill White for Survivopedia.

from Survivopedia Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. How prepared are you for emergencies? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag

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[nicholemhearn]

THE BIG SIX’S TAX REFORM FRAMEWORK: THE GOOD AND THE BAD

The Big Six —two representatives each from the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives — released their framework for tax reform on Wednesday and the responses have been lukewarm to negative. A particularly brutal take came from Josh Barro at Business Insider, who called the GOP’s pledge to “double the standard deduction” a lie.

Here’s the important fine print: “To simplify the tax rules, the additional standard deduction and the personal exemptions for taxpayer and spouse are consolidated into this larger standard deduction.” …

If you have children, your fate is uncertain. The plan would abolish the $4,050 exemption you get to take for each of your dependent children. But it would also increase the child tax credit—by an unspecified amount. Once that amount is specified, you’ll be able to figure out whether you face a tax increase or a tax cut or what.

Indeed, Barro is right. The released framework suggests, but doesn’t guarantee an actual reduction in taxes for middle- and lower-income taxpayers. Furthermore, I agree with my colleague Sam Hammond that the most promising way to provide relief for middle-and lower-income families is a large refundable increase in the child tax credit.

Yet, while this proposal isn’t as promising as it could be in terms of tax relief, it scores better as tax reform. For individual taxpayers, we see a meaningful effort to curb and slowly eliminate the myriad of deductions and loopholes that plague the tax code. On the corporate side, the move to a territorial system is a step in the right direction, toward a system with less gamesmanship and fewer tax-avoidance strategies.

That being said, I understand the incredulity and disgust provoked by the administration’s rhetoric. President Donald Trump explicitly rejected the tax reform label in favor of the more compelling, but far less accurate, language of a middle-class tax cut. We shouldn’t, however, let the president’s inanity drive our actual analysis of policy. If we do that, the imps win. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said it best: “The president speaks for himself.”

There are two big elements in this package that tax reformers have been looking for—for decades. The first is an end to itemization in the individual tax code. The second is the move to destination-based taxation in the corporate code.

Individual Tax Reform

The tax reform framework calls for collapsing the personal exemptions in the current tax code into a new, larger standard deduction. In the current tax system, virtually all taxpayers get to claim a personal exemption for each member of their household. Then on top of that, taxpayers get to choose to either itemize the rest of their deductions or take the standard deduction. About 70 percent of taxpayers choose the standard deduction. The 30 percent who choose to itemize are often wealthier households, who do so to take advantage of the home mortgage interest deduction, the charitable deduction or the deduction for state and local taxes.

Sweeping the personal exemption into a larger standard deduction has a few effects. First, it increases the amount of income someone can make before they owe any taxes at all.

One of the more unfortunate aspects of the 2012 presidential campaign was the rise of the “I am the 53 percent” movement. The movement’s name stemmed from Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s comment that 47percent of Americans pay no income tax at all and its central complaint was that the other 53 percent of Americans who did pay income tax were shouldering the burden of their indolent compatriots.

In truth all Americans—in their roles as workers, owners or simply consumers—bear the burden of taxes whether they write a check to the government or not. Taxes distort and typically reduce the size of the economy in ways that affect everyone.

The most distortionary effects, however, come at the extensive margin. That refers to the decision to work or invest at all. For this reason, taking as many low-income workers off the tax rolls completely has been a goal of tax reform going back to 1981. We’d like the tax system to encourage or, at a minimum, not discourage folks from entering the labor market and developing skills. For families with children this means the Earned Income Tax Credit. For young single people with few skills, this means taking as many off the tax rolls as possible.

Second, sweeping the personal exemptions into the standard deduction makes itemizing far less attractive. Now, a family considering itemizing would have to find at least $24,000 worth of deductions to make it worthwhile. For most itemizers, the largest deduction is the one for home mortgage interest. Under the new system a family would need an outstanding mortgage balance of at least $600K, for their interest payments to exceed the standard deduction.  

Adding additional deductions could push a family over the threshold, but most deductions have been slated for removal. Only the charitable deduction is scheduled to remain. In particular, the state-and-local-tax deduction has been cut.

As Niskanen Senior Fellow Ed Dolan points out, the state-and-local-tax deduction is particularly important for high- income earners in high-tax urban areas. These are precisely the areas that have the highest housing costs and consequently the families with the largest mortgage balances. This creates an interaction effect. Cutting out the state-and-local-tax deduction makes itemizing less attractive to high-income urban families, the types of people who were most likely to use the home mortgage interest deduction. The option to itemize still exists but its constituency has been cut down to the highest-income folks with the most expensive houses.

There is an element of genius to this setup that is worth noting. High-income urban voters are probably the least sympathetic group to the core Republican constituency. Even though some of these people are, of course, Republicans, the GOP does not see itself as the party of the urban elite. This makes targeting the deductions politically palpable. It also leaves an escape hatch for Realtors, one of the most powerful lobbying groups.

While even more taxpayers will be induced to take the standard deduction, the ones with the most expensive houses—that is, the houses  earning the highest commissions—will still itemize.

Political maneuvering is not the most attractive feature in a tax-reform proposal, but the reason it’s worth mentioning is that cutting deductions has traditionally proven intensely difficult. Interest groups are keenly aware of the deductions that apply to them or their customers, and fight to maintain them. Finding a way to cut through that thicket of opposition is an achievement unto itself.

Business Tax Reform

On the business tax code, moving to a territorial corporate system is the most meaningful reform. Right now, U.S. multinationals use a variety of subsidiaries and legal setups to avoid being taxed as U.S. corporations. This is because U.S. corporations owe taxes on all the profits they earn regardless of where those profits were made.

The motivation behind taxing profits where they are earned is understandable. We wouldn’t want U.S. companies to move production overseas just so they could enjoy a lower tax rate. The results, however, are perverse. Instead of moving more production overseas, U.S. companies have created overseas headquarters or subsidiaries, often-times just on paper, and then attributed all of those profits to the headquarters.

U.S. states have faced this type of problem for decades. In one of the most infamous and perhaps humorous cases, Toys “R” Us, created a subsidiary known as Geoffrey Inc. Geoffrey is the name of the giraffe in the Toys “R” Us logo. Geoffrey Inc. owned the rights to use the giraffe’s likeness and it charged a hefty fee. Since all Toys “R” Us stores use the logo, all had to pay huge licensing fees and consequently many ran in the red. As such, they owed little corporate tax. Geoffrey’s, however, made money hand over fist, but because it operated out of Delaware, where intangible assets are exempt from the corporate tax, Geoffrey likewise owed no corporate tax. States moved to undercut these types of machinations, but businesses would adapt and create new schemes. The result was a continual erosion of the corporate tax base.

These same forces are now playing out at the international level. The solution is to abandon the attempt to tax profits wherever they occur and instead focus on taxing economic activity that occurs in the U.S. This does create a form of tax competition. Companies would be incentivized to move out of the U.S. if our corporate taxes were too high. However,  and I know this is a long sell, this isn’t as bad as it might seem.

In the most dystopian scenarios tax competition will lead to a race to the bottom, in which countries wind up driving their tax rates to zero or even below zero to chase corporate jobs. In that world, workers would end up not only shouldering the burden of all taxes but also of subsidies doled out to their employers.

This scenario is unlikely to come to pass. Tax competition is not the only dimension across which countries compete for employers. A skilled workforce, the rule-of-law, infrastructure, proximity to markets, and social and cultural amenities all figure into the calculus. To the extent that these factors increase corporate profitability, corporations will be willing to pay tax to have access to them.

Moreover, to the extent that cutting the corporate tax undermines a nation’s ability to pay for these things, corporate tax cuts will not be job promoting. The reality of tax competition sharpens the trade-off between the cost of taxation and the services those taxes provide, but it does not change the fundamental relationship.

A Tax Cut for the Rich

At the end of the day, isn’t this just about cutting taxes on the rich? Vox co-founder  Matt Yglesias wrote:

Republicans want to pass a large tax cut for high-income households. We know that because the House GOP’s tax reform blueprint features large tax cuts for high-income households, all the various iterations of Donald Trump’s campaign tax plans featured large tax cuts for high-income households, and all throughout Barack Obama’s first term, Republicans fought relentlessly to prevent the expiration of George W. Bush’s temporary tax cuts for high-income households.

There is no doubt in my mind that passing a large tax cut for America’s wealthiest households is a key motivator for some folks within the Republican caucus. The Big Six hope to pass their tax reform through the Republican caucus and so they leave ample room for that to happen. Nonetheless, tax cuts for the rich are clearly not the only motivator here. There is no reason to engage in politically costly reform when all you want to do is get the tax rate down.

Notably the framework left open the door for an unspecified fourth tax rate and included the provision that the new framework be at least as progressive as current law. Now you might think this is just a talking point, but I doubt it. First of all, it’s not very strong. It’s wonkish and vague. If anything it simply sets you up for a bruising critique if you fail to hit the market.

For another thing,  if the epic and humiliating failure of Obamacare repeal has revealed anything it is that legislatures are neither the mindless automatons of some shadowy cabal nor dyed-in-the-wool ideologues who will do what it takes to achieve their parties’ goals.

Not only do the parties have differing interests and allegiances, but they are not even fully aware of what one another’s interests and allegiances are. That’s why they can go up to the wire in both the House and the Senate believing that they have support for a bill only to find at the last minute that they do not.

In short, they face serious communication and coordination failures within their own caucus. The most important function of a document like the framework is not to ever-so-slightly nudge the needle on public opinion, but to herd their own members in line. Without that, they have absolutely no chance of success. To wit, I am guessing that the reason the line about progressivity is in the framework and the door on a fourth tax rate is left open is because the negotiators mean it.

Even more importantly, no matter what the personal motivation of either the Big Six or the Republican caucus as a whole, the simple fact is that this framework does lay out significant reforms. The framework may not hold, and the reforms may be ditched, but that would be bad precisely because some of the ideas within it are good.

The post THE BIG SIX’S TAX REFORM FRAMEWORK: THE GOOD AND THE BAD appeared first on Niskanen Center.

from nicholemhearn digest https://niskanencenter.org/blog/big-sixs-tax-reform-framework-good-bad/

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[holyindianman-blog]

Getting Started

It is really easy to fins great deals. It's just like riding a bike. After a little bit of wobbling it's a piece of cake. But when It comes to money, it’s the determination to get through the wobbling that’s a personal thing

We each have a financial genius inside of us. The problem is our financial genius lies asleep, waiting to be called upon.

I offer you these ten steps to awaken your financial genius. I simply offer you the steps I have followed. If you want to follow some of them, great. If you don't, make up your own. Your financial genius is smart enough to make up it's own list.

   Have a reason greater than      reality      The power of spirit.      When asked what compelled an aspiring U.S Olympic team swimmer      with such super-human ambition and sacrifice she simply said "I do      it for myself and the people I love. It's that love that gets me over the      hurdles and sacrifices."      A reason is a combination of 'wants' and 'don't wants' I want to be rich      as I don’t want to work all my life, I don’t like being an employee. I      hated that my dad missed all my football games because he was so busy      working on his career and when he died he couldn't pass on all what he      worked for as he always worked for someone else.  I want to be free, travel the world and      live the lifestyle I love. I want control over my life and time. I want      money to work for me.      Those are his deep seated emotional reasons. So Ben what are      yours?      If they are not strong enough than the reality of the road ahead maybe      greater than your reasons. I have lost money and had many setbacks but it      was the deep emotional reasons that kept me standing up and going      forward.      Without a strong reason or purpose, anything in life is hard.

 I choose daily      The power of choice.      Our spending habits reflect who we are. Poor people simply have poor      spending habits.      Most people choose not to be rich. For 90% of the population being rich      is "Too much hassle" So they invent sayings going "I'm not      interested in money" "I'll never be rich" "I don’t      have to worry, I'm still young" "When I make some money then      I'll think about my future".      These statements rob the person to think such thoughts      if two things: One is time which is your most precious asset and the      other is learning. Just because you have no money, it should not be an      excuse not to learn. But that is a choice we all make on the daily, the      choice of what we want to do with our time, our money and what we want      our heads. That is the power of choice. All of us have choice. I just      choose to be rich and I make that decision everyday      Invest first in education: In reality the only real asset you have is      your mind, the most powerful tool we have dominion over. Each of us have      a choice of what we put into our brain once we are old enough. Do things      that will make you learn. It's your choice.      Most people simply buy investments rather than first invest in learning      about investing. I like to go to seminars. I was watching T.V and this      guy came on advertising a three-day seminar on how to buy real-estate for      nothing down. I spent $385 for that course and it has made me at least      $2million, if not more. It bought me life. I don't have to work for the      rest of my life because of that one course. I go to two such courses a      year.      Keep your mind open, don’t become arrogant and critical when you hear      something you don’t agree with. You can gain tremendous insight into the      vast resources of peoples education and experience. You still have the      old way you think, and now a different way of looking at the same problem      or situation. You have two thoughts instead of one.      There are so many 'intelligent' people who argue or      defend when a new idea clashes with the way they think. In this case,      their so called 'intelligence' combined with 'arrogance' =      'ignorance'      A truly intelligent person welcomes new ideas, for      new ideas can add to the synergy of accumulated ideas. Listening is more      important than talking.      I take a long view on my wealth. I may go in and out of stocks, but I am      long on education.

 Choose friends carefully      The power of association.      Learn from all your friends and consciously make the effort to learn from      them. Be around people that are smarter than you, better than you.      I have admittedly sought out people because they had money. But I was      not after their money; I was seeking their knowledge.      Don't always listen to poor or frightened people about money as they can      be the "Chicken Littles" of life. They'll always tell you why      something won't work.      I would say one of the hardest things      about wealth building is to be true to yourself and be willing to not go      along with the crowd.      If a great deal is on the front page it is often too late, it is usually      the crowd that shows up too late to the market that gets slaughtered.      Look for a new deal, as surfers say "There will always be another      wave"      Smart investors don't time markets. If they miss a wave, they search for      the next one and get themselves in position. Wise investors buy an investment      when it is not popular. They know profits are made when they buy, not      sell. They wait patiently.  Wise      investors take their profits and move on.

 Master a formula then learn a new one      The power of learning      quickly.      Forget "you are what you eat" rather "You become what you      study" Choose what you study carefully. When it comes to money the      masses generally have one formula they learned in school: Work hard, earn      money, pay bills, balance checkbooks, buy mutual funds and go back to      work. If you're tired of doing what you are doing, or not making enough,      it’s simply a case of changing the formula via which you make      money.      The trick is to have the discipline to put the formula      into action. This is where most people stop.      For many of the classes I went to, I did not us the information I      learned directly, but I always learnt something new.      So i always search for a faster formula.      That's why, on a fairly regular basis, I make more in one day than many      people will make in their lifetime.      In today's fast changing world, it's not so much what you know anymore      that counts, because often what you know is old. It is how fast you      learn. That skill is priceless. It's priceless in finding faster formulas      - recipes, if you will, for making dough. Working hard for money is a      formula born in the day of cave men.

 Pay yourself first      The      power of self-discipline.      If you cannot get control of yourself, do not try to get rich.      Of all the steps this is probably the hardest to master if it is not      already a part of your make up.      The world pushes people around      not because other people are bullies but because the person lacks      self-control or discipline. People who lack internal fortitude often      become victims of those who have self-discipline.      In Entrepreneur classes i teach, I constantly remind people      to not focus on their product, servive or widget but to focus on      developing management skills,=. The three most important management      skills necessary to start your own business are:      1) Management of cash flow      2) Management of people      3) Management of personal time      The skills to manage these three apply to anything. Each of these skills      is enhanced by the skills of self-discipline.      Do not take the saying of "Pay yourself first" lightly.      An individual who chooses to pay themselves first will each month,      allocate money to their asset column before they pay their monthly      expenses. My wife and I have had many bookkeepers and accountants and      bankers who have had a major problem with this way of looking at      "pay yourself first". The reason is that these financial      professionals actually do what the masses do, which is pay themselves      last. They pay everyone else first.      Have the guts to go against the tide and get rich. You      may not be weak but when it comes to money, many people get wimpy. I am      not saying be irresponsible. So although I pay my bills last, I am      financially astute enough not to get into a tough financial situation.      Let your creditors who yell at your serve as motivation to go and find      other sources of income.      So the answer is:      - Don’t get into large debt positions that you have to pay for. Keep      your expenses low. Build up                    assets first. Being      stuck in the rat race is not intelligent      -  When you come up short, let the      pressure build and don't dip into your savings or investments. Use the      pressure to inspire your financial intelligence to come up with new ways      to make more money and pay your bills.      So many times i have gotten into financial hot water and use my brain to      create income while staunchly defending my asset column.      Poor people have poor habits. A common      one is called "dipping into your savings" your savings are for      creating more money, not for paying bills. I know that sounds tough, but      as I said, if you're not tough inside, the world will always push you      around anyway.      If you do not like financial pressure then find      a formula that works for you. The rule doesn't encourage self-sacrifice      or financial abstinence . It doesn't mean pay  yourself first and then starve. Life is      meant to be enjoyed. If you can call on your financial genius you can      enjoy life.

 Pay your brokers well      The power      of good advice      My rich dad believed in paying professionals well. Today I have      expensive attorneys, accountants, real estate brokers, and stockbrokers.      Why? Because if, and I do mean if, the people are professionals, their      services should make you money. And the more money they make, the more      money I make.      We live in the information age. Information is priceless. A good broker      should provide you with information as well as time to educate you. A      broker is your eyes and ears to the market. They are there every day so      you don't have to be.      When i interview any paid professional, I first find  out how much property or stocks they      personally own and what percentage they pay in taxes. They must mind      their own business. I have an accountant that minds her own business. Her      profession is accounting but her business is real estate. Find a broker      with your best interests at heart.      Many people only manage people they feel      smarter than and they have power over. Many middle managers remain middle      managers, failing to get promoted because they know how to work with      people below them but not above them.. The real skill is to manage and      pay well the people who are smarter than you in some technical area. That      is why companies have a board of directorsand why you should too.

 Be an "Indian      Giver"      The power of getting something for      nothing.      When settlers first came to America, the Native Indians gave them      blankets when they were cold. Mistaking it as a gift, the settler was      often offended when the Indian asked for it back.      In the world      of the asset column being an Indian giver is vital to wealth.      The sophisticated investors first question is "How fast do I get my      money back?" They also want to know what they get for free, also      called a piece of the action. That’s why the return on and of investment,      ROI is so important.      My money goes into an asset and then out as soon as its paid itself off.      Therefore it makes income and I own an asset that is now technically      free.      True, i have lost money on many occasions. But I only      play with money I can afford to lose.      On every one of my investments there must be an upside, something for      free. A condo, a mini-storage, a piece of free land,  a house, stock shares, office building.      And there must be limited risk, or a low-risk idea.      So wise investors must look at more than the ROI; it's the assets you      get for free once you get your money back.

 Assets buy luxuries      The power      of focus      As i said in the "pay yourself first" section. If a person      cannot master the power of self-discipline, it is best to no to try and      get rich. For while the process of developing cash flow from an asset      column is easy, it is the mental fortitude of directing money that is      hard. Due to external temptations, it is much easier in today's consumer      world to simply blow it out the expense column. Because of weak mental      fortitude, that money flows into the paths of least resistance. That is      the cause of poverty and financial struggle.      Too often today we focus in borrowing money to get the things we want      instead of focusing on creating money. Focus on your asset column, don't      add to your liability column by getting a loan.      It is a bad habit us individuals get into. Remember the easy road often      becomes hard, and the hard road often becomes easy.      Money is a powerful force. Unfortunately, people use the power of money      against them. To be the master of money, you need to be smarter than it.      Then money will obey you. Instead of being a slave to it, you will be the      master of it. This is important as "You cannot serve both God and      Money" Matthew 6:24

 The need for heroes      The power      of myth.      Every time as a kid, when I stepped up to bat or played first base or      catcher, I wasn't me. I was Yogi Berra or Hank Aaron. It's one of the      most powerful ways we learn that we often lose as adults. We lose our      heroes. We lose our naiveté.      Copying or emulating our heroes is true power learning.      I follow what Warren Buffet invests in, and read anything I can about      his pot of view in the market. I read Peter Lynch's book to try and      understand how he chooses stocks. And I read about Donald Trump, trying      to find out how he negotiates and puts deals together.      By having heroes we tap into a tremendous source of raw genius.      But heroes do something more than inspire us. Heroes make things      look easy. It's the making it look easy that convinces us to want to be      just like them. "If they can do it so can I"

 Teach and you shall receive      The power      of giving.      Both of my dads were teachers. My rich dad gave money as well as      education. "If you want something, you first need to give," he      would always say. When he was short of money he simply gave to his church      or to his favorite charity.      If i could leave on single idea with you, it Is that idea. Whenever you      feel 'short' or 'in need' of something, give what you want first and it      will come back. That is true for money, love, a smile, friendship. I know      it is often the last thing a person may want to do, but t has always      worked for me. I just trust that the principle of reciprocity is true,      and I give what I want.      Whenever i have felt needy or short of money or short of help, I simply      went out or found in my heart what I wanted, and decided to give it      first. And when I gave, it always came back. It reminds me of the story      of the guy sitting with firewood in his arms on a cold freezing night,      and he is yelling at the stove "When you give me heat, then I'll out      some wood in."      Often just the process of thinking what I want, and how could I give      what I want to someone else, breaks free a torrent of bounty.      So that's why i say "Teach and you shall receive" I have      found the more sincerely I teach those who want to learn, the more I      learn. If you want to learn about money, teach it to someone else. A      torrent of new ideas and distinctions will come in.      There are times when I have given and nothing has come      back or what I have received is not what I have wanted. But upon closer      inspection and soul searching, I was often giving to receive in those      instances, instead of giving to give.      My dad taught teachers and became a master teacher. My rich      dad always taught young people his way of doing business. In retrospect,      it was their generosity with what they knew that made them smarter. There      are powers in this world that are much smarter than we are. All you need      to be is generous with what you have, and he'll be generous with you.

[zorintien]

Here is my secondary Blog.

Here is a link to a Tumblr account that I set up when I accidentally locked myself out of this one. https://www.tumblr.com/blog/gregorybogo. Now that I have access to this one again I will make all future posts here because it still has most of my posts. In case you cannot follow the link here are all the posts in reverse order:

 Post 7: The News Media and its unfathomable priorities.This link will take you to a collection of articles about  Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie, and anti-semetic jokes that he made.  https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/5uocnp/the_pewdiepie_megathread/. This is not newsworthy, at all. The Wall Street Journal felt the need to cover this as did the New York Times. Here is an article by Reuters about Kraft Foods withdrawing its offer to merge with Unilever. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-unilever-nv-m-a-kraft-heinz-idUSKBN15Y0RR. If this merger had gone through, it would have been the biggest take over of a British company in history. This is newsworthy. Here is an article from BreitBart about how California’s Dams are in poor condition due to lack of infrastructure spending. This is also newsworthy. http://www.breitbart.com/california/2017/02/19/oroville-dam-crisis-reveals-concerns-californias-1500-aging-dams/ California now spends the second least amount on physical public infrastructure of any state in the union. All these reputable news organizations felt the need to hold a Swedish comedian accountable for offensive material, when there is no evidence that his offensive material actually affects anything. Meanwhile, the most populous state in the U.S. is in danger of flooding due to under-investment in infrastructure. Just for good measure, MS-13 is recruiting middle schoolers in Washington D.C. http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/02/19/gang-task-force-ms-13-recruiting-elementary-school-students-in-washington-d-c-area/. There is missing the forest for the trees, and then there is giving up on the forest to go play with your Lincoln Logs.

Post 6:  The Law of Revealed Preference( Explained in a way that shows just how Immature I am).The Law of revealed preference states that If A and B are both viable options, and agent X chooses A over B, then X prefers A over B. In other words, the fact that you are doing whatever it is that you are doing automatically proves that you cannot do any better. It follows that the fact that you are doing whoever you are doing automatically proves that you cannot do anyone better. If you ever get into a fight with your significant other and try to tell yourself that you can do better but don’t file for divorce, then we know for a fact that you cannot do any better and are just lying to yourself to feel better. Sure I am still a virgin because there isn’t a huge demand for overweight guys with tiny dicks. But at least I am honest about it. 

Post 5: Is There Anything Good About Men?https://psy.fsu.edu/~baumeisterticelab/goodaboutmen.htmI read this transcript of a talk given by Dr. Roy F. Bausmeir and it was really good. The gist is that there are more men at the top of the food chain. But there are also more men at the bottom of the food chain. Most politicians and CEOs are male. But so are most prisoners, homeless people, and people who died violently. The reason for this is that men tend to focus on high risk high reward activities whereas women tend to focus on low-risk low reward activities. The most interesting part is the evolutionary explanation. A Woman has a much better chance of reproducing than a man does. Men have higher sex drives than women do. So, women generally don’t need to take risks to reproduce because they can usually find a man who is willing to impregnate them. Men on the other hand, need to compete against each other to earn social status and thereby earn the right to reproduce, because women only want the men who are better than the typical man. Men will fuck just about anything on the other hand. He also talks about how women care more about intimate relationships whereas men care more about having a large network of shallow relationships. That is why men are both more aggressive and more helpful than women according to most studies. Most studies focus on how people interact with strangers. Men are both more aggressive and more helpful towards strangers, whereas women are both more helpful and more aggressive towards their families. Here is the one problem I have with this article: “Likewise, I mentioned the salary difference, but it may have less to do with ability than motivation. High salaries come from working super-long hours. Workaholics are mostly men. (There are some women, just not as many as men.) One study counted that over 80% of the people who work 50-hour weeks are men. That means that if we want to achieve our ideal of equal salaries for men and women, we may need to legislate the principle of equal pay for less work. Personally, I support that principle. But I recognize it’s a hard sell.” Equal pay for less work is a hard sell because it necessarily implies more pay for the same work. That is not equality.  That is inequality. If you don’t see the problem with that then I don’t know what to tell you.

 Post 4: Are men more violent than women because of male social superiority? Its common knowledge that men commit more violent crimes than women. Some sociologists think that this is due to men’s social superiority. I do not support this point of view. “ Some sociologists suggest that the gap may have more to do with a lack of social equality between the sexes. This argument states that the percentages of violent crime committed by men and women would be nearly equal if social status were also equal. But this theory suggests rates of violent crime committed by women should increase over time. According to Darrell Steffensmeier and Emilie Allan, the arrest rate for women accused of committing homicide actually dropped from 1975 to 1990 [source: Steffensmeier and Allan]. But the reason for that drop isn’t that women are committing fewer violent crimes. It’s that men are committing more violent acts in comparison. “ http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/men-more-violent.htm. The problem with this theory is that it assumes that violence is a sign of social superiority. It is not. Poor people are more likely to commit crimes than rich people. Poor youth are 4 times more likely to commit crimes than middle class youth are. http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2011/oct/19/the-poverty-crime-connection/. So, by their logic, violence is not a sign of social superiority, but of social inferiority. Furthermore, Men commit more crimes than women because we are socially inferior to women. Male crime rates have risen because this social disparity is rising. 

Post 3: Why Men do not have more power than women.It is women who have the greatest power in our society, not men. Granted, men still make more money than women (1). However, we usually prefer spending money to making money. It is women who make most purchasing decisions and control most consumer expenditures (2). So, it is women who decide which businesses and which products succeed or fail. There are more men in high political office than there are women (3). However, more women than men vote in every election (4). So, it is women who select the government’s leaders, and ultimately its policies. If women have more power than men, then how does this manifest itself in our society? Men suffer many disadvantages in our society. Men are conscripted, and women are not. Women have the option to fight. Men have the duty to fight(5). Other examples include men being over-represented in victims of homicide, victims of suicide, and the homeless (7)(8). Granted, men are also over-represented among those who commit violence. Most violence is committed by adult males against other adult males. However, this does not mean that men have power or benefit from violence. Male violence is a sign not of male power. But rather, of male powerlessness(11). Men do not benefit from male on male violence. Granted, success through male on male violence has worked in the past for guys like Ghengis Khan and Alexander The Great. However, in modern society, men who commit acts of violence against other men usually just get short-term gain in exchange for long-term loss. The men who kill other men usually end up in hiding or in prison. They do not get happy endings. Men also serve longer prison-sentences than women do for the same arresting offense (9). Men are overrepresented in the most dangerous occupations. So, most on the job fatalities are suffered by men (6). This is ultimately because men are inherently less valuable than women. A society that loses half of its men can replenish itself faster than does a society that loses half of its women because men produce sperm throughout their lives, whereas each woman is born with a finite supply of eggs that never replenishes. So, the societies that do not treat women as more valuable than men tend to expand more slowly and die off faster. Some have argued that treating women as more valuable than men is not necessary anymore because humanity is in no danger of a near-extinction event (10). However, nuclear war could still drive us to extinction or near-extinction. If most of the human race dies in a nuclear war, we will still need to repopulate the species. So, we should still give women priority in fallout shelters because 9 women and 1 man can still breed faster than can 9 men and 1 woman.  However, this really isn’t relevant in most cases. Most of the time, we are not trying to prepare for the death of the majority of the human race and subsequent re population of the species. Most of the time, we are concerned with maximizing utility, or with fairness and justice. So, most of the time, we would do better to not treat men as more disposable than women. That is why women should have to register for the draft. If our sons have to die in some stupid pointless future war then in the interest of fairness, so should our daughters.

Sources:1.The Gender Pay Gap: Have Women Gone As Far as They Can? By Francine D. Blau and Lawrence M. Kahn.2. The Female EconomyMichael J. Silverstein and Kate SayreFROM THE SEPTEMBER 2009 ISSUE of Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2009/09/the-female-economy.3. Men Rule, The Continued Under-Representation, of Women in U.S. Politics. Jennifer L. LawlessAssociate Professor of GovernmentAmerican UniversityRichard L. FoxAssociate Professor of Political ScienceLoyola Marymount UniversityJanuary 2012Washington, DC: Women & Politics Institute. WOMEN & POLITICS INSTITUTESCHOOL of PUBLIC AFFAIRS.4. Gender Differences in Voter Turnout. Center For American Women in Politics. http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/resources/genderdiff.pdf5. The Myth of Male Power by Warren Farrell. Chapter 5: War Hero or War Slave?: The Armed Prostitute.6. The Myth of Male Power by Warren Farrell. Chapter 4. The Death Professions: “My Body, Not My Choice.”7. Our attitude to violence against men is out of date by N Quentin Woolf. The Daily Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/10752232/Our-attitude-to-violence-against-men-is-out-of-date.html.8. Homelessness is a gendered issue, and it mostly impacts men. Glen Poole. The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/11787304/Homelessness-is-a-gendered-issue-and-it-mostly-impacts-men.html.9. Estimating Gender Disparities in Federal Criminal Cases,Sonja B. StarrUniversity of Michigan Law SchoolAugust 29, 2012. https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=775083081114004113009067093083010125015041073000033030103117084071025080023085086099019058097123006014049015001029113107003095019050035019082064110100098071026116084015076004023115108068095108123081082113027098121013000088104021031071090000001017027&EXT=pdf.10. Feminism and the disposable male by Karen Straughan. http://archive.is/pxYjV#selection-377.3-383.16.11. The Myth of Male Power by Warren Farrell. Chapter 9. Violence against whom?

Post 2: Men’s health and feminist interpretations thereof http://menshealth.org/code/SSM.PDF. This article really pissed me off. It asserts that the reason that men practice less healthy lifestyles and don’t live as long as women is that it gives men power and social status. This makes no sense. The people with the worst health are the people with the lowest status, the poor. The people with the highest social status and most power, the rich, are the healthiest people, the one’s most likely to exercise and visit a physician regularly. Men leading less healthy lifestyles than women is note evidence of male power. If anything, it is evidence of male powerlessness. 

Post 1: Washington Post shows us how inconsistent polls are.  The opinion polls on Donald Trump and his Travel Ban are ridiculously inconsistent. On one extreme, Gallup has net -13 support for the ban, and -9 support for Trump himself. On the other hand, Rasmussen has a net 24 support for the ban and a net 18 support for Trump himself. Reuters/Ipsos is somewhere in the middle, with net 7 support for the ban, but -1 support for Trump himself. When polls from reputable pollsters vary so much, how reliable can polling really be? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/13/americans-arent-rejecting-trumps-immigration-ban-outright-but-it-has-a-tough-road-ahead/?utm_term=.033f42013287.