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Door Handles - 48 hrs Disabled Auto-Present Temporarily

Discussion in 'Model S: Interior & Exterior' started by cookpwr, Feb 26, 2017.

  1. cookpwr

    cookpwr Member

    Jan 21, 2017
    Portola Valley, CA
    I wonder if this causes confusion to many owners who don't realize this interesting "feature"

    From the Owners Manual (that I imagine many don't read fully)
    To preserve battery life, Model S is designed to temporarily disable the Auto-Present Handles feature when:
    • The key has been out of range for more than 48 hours.
    • The key remains within range for five minutes after all doors have been closed.
    In these cases, extend door handles by.touching one of them, or by pressing the unlock button on the key. There is no need to reset the setting.

    The next time you approach Model S, provided the above conditions do not apply, handles automatically extend.
    • Informative x 2

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Spalding High student arrested for having loaded firearm at school

A Spalding High School student was on Monday afternoon arrested for possessing a firearm on school grounds.

According to the Spalding County Sheriff’s Office incident report, 17-year-old Elisha Maurice Goggins was contacted by Deputy Richard Mangham and Assistant Principal Corenza Barnes regarding a complaint received Friday, Nov. 18, alleging Goggins was in a black SUV an in possession of a firearm.

“I asked Maurice (Goggins) if there was anything that happened in the parking lot after school Friday, Nov. 18, 2016. He said that nothing had happened that he knew of. He also said that he had wrecked his black vehicle during the school break,” Mangham reported.

After Goggins was allowed to return to class, Lindy Pruitt, the Spalding High School principal, requested the student be returned to the front office.

Mangham’s report states that Goggins was asked if he had driven a vehicle to school Monday. He allegedly affirmed he had driven his step-father’s Honda.

“I asked Maurice if there was anything in the vehicle. He replied, ‘Yes. I have a Glock .40 under the driver seat,’” Mangham reported.

Mangham wrote that he asked for consent for himself and Pruitt to search the vehicle, and Goggins allegedly consented.

“Maurice unlocked the door and stepped to the front of the vehicle. I located a black Glock 22 .40 caliber pistol, (serial number ******) with a flashlight and laser attached to it. The pistol was loaded with 13 rounds in the magazine and one round in the chamber of the pistol,” Mangham reported. “I made the pistol safe and placed it on the front seat of the vehicle so I could take photos for my report.”

Goggins was subsequently taken into custody on a single charge of possession of a firearm on school grounds and transported to the Spalding County Detention Center.

Publisher’s note: The GRIP has reached out to officials of the Griffin-Spalding County School System for clarification on reports that school officials informed parents of the incident, but allegedly stated the weapon was unloaded. Follow up reports will be posted as additional information becomes available.

  1. SHS parent says:

    I received an email and voicemail stating that the firearm was unloaded!

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Grand Prince

Grand PrinceProfile

  • Drama: Grand Prince: Paint a Picture (literal title)
  • Revised romanization: Daegoon: Sarangeul Geurida
  • Hangul: 대군 – 사랑을 그리다
  • Director: Kim Jung-Min
  • Writer: Jo Hyoun-Kyoung
  • Network: CSTV
  • Episodes:
  • Release Date: March 3, 2018 —
  • Runtime: Saturdays & Sundays 22:50
  • Language: Korean
  • Country: South Korea

Lee Whi (Yoon Si-Yoon) is a handsome prince and popular with women. He is talented in poetry and painting. Lee Whi doesn’t have interest in becoming the king, unlike his older brother Lee Kang (Joo Sang-Wook). Lee Kang is highly ambitious and aspires to become the king. Lee Whi and Lee Kang both fall in love with Ja-Hyun (Jin Se-Yun). She is beautiful and comes from a prestigious family.

  1. First script reading takes place November 23, 2017.

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text:
I have been generally feeling low since the past couple of weeks. Moving to a new city, a new home, the whole thought of having to adjust, know and learn to love a whole new place again, gives me a heartache truly. It takes so much time to get to know a new place, the people, to find friends, people who have the same wavelength as you is not an easy task. Add to that the pain of unpacking and setting up the whole house; AGAIN. I have done it 17 times now in my life and trust me, the novelty of it wears off.

But out of this general dissatisfaction that I am going through, the one silver lining is the huge oven that my new kitchen came fitted with. 😬😬😬

So I had been itching to use it for making something fantabulous already. Did some smallish baking stuff for baby a few times already but was just looking for a chance to really break it in and make something yummylicious and awesome. So my birthday seemed to be the perfect time to do it. We had a few guests coming over and A and me discussed and decided to make any tandoori item and zeroed in on Chicken Afghani. Though it is technically supposed to be barbequed on a charcoal fire but the grilled version also turned out yummy.

The recipe I followed is below and this makes a perfect juicy, creamy Afghani chicken.

Ingredients :

Chicken cut into large pieces – 1.5 kgs

Lemon juice – 1/4 cup

Cashew paste – 5 tbsp

Poppy seeds paste – 3 tbsp

Ginger paste -3 tsp

Garlic paste – 3 tbsp

Cream – 1/2 cup

Greem Cardamom -5

Fennel seeds – 2 tsp

Black pepper – 10/12

Ghee – for basting

Salt – for marinade as per taste

Butter- 5 tbsp

Method :

A minimum of 6 hrs are required for this dish, so if you wish to cook it in the evening, you should do the marination in the morning and leave it in the refrigrator.

Wash and dry the chicken pieces

Make 2-3 slits in all the pieces with a sharp knife

Marinade with lemon juice and salt. Rub in the lemon juice and salt with your hands, show some love to the chicken, I always feel marinating with hands gives a juicier result, so do show some love to the chicken. Now leave it for 20 mins

Soak 15-20 cashews  and 3 tbsp poppy seeds in hot water for 10 mins and then grind it

Add it to the chicken

Add 3 tbsp ginger paste 3 tbsp garlic paste

Add 1/2 cup cream

Dry grind the Green Cardamom, Fennel seeds and black pepper and add this to the chicken

Add 4-5 tbsp of melted butter

Mix in the marinade properly

Now cover it with foil and put it in the refrigrator.

Let marinate for 6 hrs minimum

Take the chicken out half an hour before cooking it

Preheat the oven

Baste the chicken with Ghee / Clarified butter

Bake for 20 mins at 220 degrees, take it out and turn over the pieces

Now bake for another 10 mins

Grill for 10-15 mins more till you get the desired golden colour in top

Generally the chicken should be cooked in 40-45 mins easily. But a lot depends on the size of the chicken you are using too. Ensure that you do not over cook it else chicken becomes dry easily. Use a toothpick to check if it is done or not.

Let the oven cool and take out the chicken.Serve hot with juliennes of onion and mint chutney. Enjoy.

To get updates whenever I post a new recipe follow my blog at http://smitasangle.wordpress.com/

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To take your mind off of the final week of classes and to make our graduating Bobcats a little bit sentimental, we’ve gathered up all our responses to an important question we’ve asked students and alumni all year: What’s your favorite part about being a Bobcat? We hope their answers bring a smile to your face and bring a little joy to your studying. Comment below or share your response to this question on social media. We would love to hear what your favorite part about being a Bobcat is!

image“My favorite thing is probably the people and how much pride they have in Ohio University. Anytime I meet someone when I’m at home or anywhere else that went here, there’s an immediate connection and I’ve never met a Bobcat that I didn’t like.”
— Kierstyn Hayden, Class of 2018

“When you meet other people that go to OU, everyone is just so excited and happy to meet you. I wore an OU sweatshirt when I was downtown in Cleveland and people were like ‘Yeah go Bobcats!’ I just think when you’re a Bobcat you gravitate toward other Bobcats and I think that’s cool.

Our campus is great too, I’m looking outside right now and I can see five different colors of trees and I’m living for it.”
— Mary Puzder, Class of 2019

“Even though so many things have changed on the campus, my experience there makes it feel perpetually unchanged. Like so many people have said, I always feel like I’m coming home when I come back to Athens.

I also love that anytime I run into anyone who has gone to OU and maybe I’m wearing my OU gear and they say, “Go Cats!” that it feels like we have an instant connection. Being a Bobcat means always having a second family that is spread across the country.”
— Stacie Ansel, Class of 1992

LaurenConradHeader“When they say we’re one big Bobcat family, they really mean it! I’d actually never heard of OU until last year when I started searching for schools to apply to. When I announced that I would be furthering my education here, all these family friends were so excited for me because it turned out they are OU alumni and I had no idea. It’s just exciting to know that Bobcats are all around me. It also seems that if you go to OU and you’re not from Ohio, you’re from Pittsburgh. So, it’s fun when I’m walking around Pittsburgh wearing my OU gear to hear that ‘OU!’ shout and I can respond with an ‘Oh yeah!’”
— Lauren Conner, Class of 2021

“My favorite part about being a Bobcat is that every day you have an opportunity to do something completely new. Athens is just a fresh start for your mentality and anything you want to change in your life.”
— Jeffrey Anzo

“My favorite thing is the environment and culture here. Ohio University is literally my home away from home. I’m not ever sad to come back here, I look forward to it. There are also just so many opportunities through different organizations and study abroad programs at OU. I just love being a Bobcat and the students here are unlike any other students.”
— Baileigh LaRue, Class of 2018

“I would have to say the sense of community. I had an experience during one of my internships where I injured my knee and I had to go to the hospital and get an MRI. I found out while I was there that my doctor graduated from Ohio University. As soon as I found that out and we made that connection, he really took care of my case and followed up with me, which was really nice.”
— Bethany Bella, Class of 2018

Image-3.png“You wouldn’t think that you would be able to find Bobcats at all these different companies and places, but the Bobcat network is huge. Everyone has always been kind-hearted, friendly and helpful which is amazing.”
— Simon Wang, Class of 202

“I feel a sense of pride when I come down to OHIO and Athens. When I talk to other people in college at different universities they just don’t seem to have the amount of love and admiration I do for my college. I just feel a deep sense of connection to OHIO and the beautiful scenery in Athens. When I leave this spring after graduation I know that it’s going to be very difficult and I’m going to be genuinely sad because this place has definitely become a home to me.”
— Billie Frank, Class of 2018

“The people. The people here are the most helpful, kind, inclusive, but also diverse group that I’ve ever met. Every professor, advisor, and person I’ve met here has been amazing and has opened my eyes to what I can do here.”
— Nick Ruhenkamp, Class of 2020

IMG_8003“The family environment. Being a Bobcat is like being part of a big family. When I’m at home or not in Athens, and I have a Bobcat sweater, hoodie or t-shirt on I often run into someone who is like ‘Oh you go to OU? I went there!’ or ‘Oh someone I know went there!’ Every time I see another Bobcat, we talk about how much we love OU and the family here.”
— J’Maira Stevens, Class of 2020

“I love the sense of community we have here. You can run into alumni anywhere and they will be really excited. The summer before I came to OU, I ran into a family when I was in Florida that had on OU gear and I was like, ‘I’m going there next year.’ They were so excited for me, which was amazing because I had literally just met them.”
— Saraya Abner, Class of 2020

“I found OU on a whim during my journalism class senior year of high-school, with 3 minutes until all submissions for prospective college visits were due. I was completely set on attending a school in Chicago, until I had a realization in the middle of Chicago, that I’m not into a subway commute to an intro to COMS class. An Appalachian town with cheap pizza, an incredible farmer’s market, and a state park just a bike ride away would suit my needs. But with all joking aside, Ohio University provides an undeniable sense of community, on and off campus, and for this, I am eternally grateful.”
— Hailey Spivak, Class of 2017

14332968_10207223792608978_8298706593053975273_nI agree with a lot of what the Bobcats above had to say about the family and community we have here at Ohio University. I’m the daughter of two Bobcats and although I didn’t always plan on coming to OHIO for college, I always had a special connection to the campus and the people here. After growing up visiting the campus with my parents every year for homecoming, becoming a student and being able to call Ohio University my university was a really big deal for me. I’m proud to call myself a Bobcat and I’m so glad I get to go to class every day on this beautiful campus. So, I guess my favorite thing about being a Bobcat is the family history I have here and the memories I’ve been able to make that add to that history.

By Kate Ansel, CLDC Social Media Intern

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Faux Elk Mount

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This beautiful six point faux Elk antler wall mount will add rustic style to any home. It is a full size reproduction and could be just the trophy your home needs. It measures 46" wide and 56" tall. Mounting kit and hardware are included. Some assembly required.

Please allow 3 weeks for delivery

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text:
Last week I made the trip to London. This wasn’t to behold the world-famous landmarks or to have a nice relaxing day around the capital but do undergo the excruciating process of applying for a working holiday visa to Japan. I’m pretty excited to jet off to the other side of the world in just under a month to train as a ski instructor and spend the season out there floating about on the oodles of powder, but all that fun depends on obtaining a valid visa. To do this I had to take a day off from work, go all the way to London on a three-hour coach, walk over to the embassy, hand over some papers and then make the arduous journey home. In this day and age of advanced technology you would think there would be an easier way of doing this. Australia, for example, have been using electronically admissioned visa’s for nearly ten years so you would expect a country as technologically advanced as Japan to be able to figure out someway of doing the same thing that wouldn’t require me to take a day out of my life to travel to London to spend five minutes filling in a form. Japan has gifted the world with the inventions of the laptop, Nintendo and square watermelon so it seems ludicrous that the officials over at the embassy won’t accept an email with all the relevant information, instead of making me print them off and hand them over in person.

Between the intermittent naps I tumbled in and out of on the megabus from Gloucester to London I was surprisingly upbeat about my days excursion, I thought I’d joyously hand over my documents and be free to take in the amusements of the big city, but as it was a plan contrived by myself, it never happened. Even before I got to the embassy I was already agitated by the sheer business of the London streets, full of slow walking tourist dawdling towards Buckingham Palace. As the embassy was the other side of the famous monarchic residence I thought I’d swing by and have a mosey around, but this proved to be a terrible idea as the changing of the guards closed off the roads and attracted crowds of zombified sightseers to clog up the pavements. After a little boogey to the tunes of the Band of the Welsh Guard I was finally free to carry on to my intended destination. And this is where things got complicated.

All my cogitation about how simple a process it should be apply for a visa was demolished upon my first attempt at applying. I got to the embassy easily, sailed through security and got my little ticket to get called to the counter trouble free and then approached the official at the desk. The man waiting for me picked the application apart like a vulture. Insufficient statement of intent, dubious bank statements and the complete lack of a passport photo and I was sent back to street with the mission of rectifying my mistakes. A passport photo would be easy enough to obtain from the nearest tube station, or so I thought. On inspection of the underground station I was unable to locate a booth and was sent instead to a small shop around the corner. Luckily Timpson’s were able to help me out and took my photo, and then their printer broke. As I waited for the repair and my photos, I sat at the counter and filled out my unworthy applications until I was finally good to go. The only hurdle left to overcome was my bank statements. The Japanese embassy requires an amount of £2500 to obtain a visa, but after paying for my ski course I didn’t even have 10 percent of that, so the day before I took a small loan from the bank of mum and dad to get my visa. This raised a few eyebrows at the embassy as they questioned the source and reasoning of the payment whilst I tried to explain, but they accepted the rest of my paperwork nonetheless. As I handed over my passport on my second attempt the unthinkable happened, a crisp £20 note tumbled out into the official’s hands. I’m not sure what the punishment is for bribing a government official in Japan, but I am sure I do not want to find out. As I craved for the ground to open up and swallow me the man slid it back sheepishly with a sceptical look darted in my direction and I was allowed to go.

With the ordeal over and done with, other than some banking doubt, I was free to explore the streets and sights until the time came to get my bus home. Having worked up an appetite over the visa debacle I wandered back through St James Park to have my lunch. I must have looked like one of the kids on a school trip as I pulled my packed lunch out of my rucksack and tucked into my ham sandwiches, but after my day I didn’t really care. I got some interested looks from passers-by, but the unwanted attention really came when I made the deadly mistake of dropping a few of walker’s finest prawn and cocktail crisps. Within seconds of potato snack meeting pavement all the pigeons in the world flocked to get a taste of Gary Lineker’s dreams, and with them came the blackbirds, wrens and tits. Before I could move I was stuck in the middle of Hitchcock’s ‘Birds’. As I plotted my escape the don of the park waddled over, a big, hungry looking goose with a taste for saturated fats and confused adolescents. The public stopped, the footpath waited, all in anticipation of what the bird would do. As he shuffled closer and parted the sea of animals I hid my food. The goose got nearer, I froze. Just as the predatory poultry entered attacking range I clenched my fist, and I’m not going to lie, I was fully prepped to punch it. I was ready to jab a goose right in the beak and run. With the theme tune to Rocky bellowing in my head it looked me in the eye, then the empty lunchbox, and scarpered. I was saved the embarrassment of a bird based brawl, the subsequent police interviews and featuring on the six o’clock news- and that is why Japan should use electronically issued visas.

4 thoughts on “Visas

  1. A fabulous recount of your day! I’m glad to read that Australia has done something right for a change!😉 The ski fields are fabulous in Japan – what a great opportunity for you!

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Recipe for a Great Book Club

IMG_5014This week was actually rather busy for me, as I’m improving my Expat social calendar weekly. I started a Book Club here in my neighborhood and I hosted the first meeting. We read the book, “The Miniaturist”, and I have to admit it was not as good as I had hoped. It had everything to make it great, with a historical and lovely setting, a promise of mystery and intrigue, and promising complex characters, but it all fell short. To me, the book seemed like it touched on everything but fully developed little. Read more


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WalkMe: a Great Way to Improve the User Experience and Harvest Business Benefits?

Issue: how do I do this online?

Travel is an essential part of my life as a management consultant and business advisor. Occasionally, whilst I am on my travels I get  a call from either my wife or children asking me for help on getting some task done on the web.  During these remote conversations I tend to be gripped by a sense of frustration and futility. Why? Because I get that the most effective way to help them, and not get another call, is to be by their sides guiding them through the job they want to get done online.

Solution: WalkMe?

This week I came across WalkMe and spoke with their Head of Marketing, Boaz Amidor. He tells me that the founder of WalkMe found himself in the same boat – his mother needed the help again and again – and this is what led him to create WalkeMe.

What is WalkMe™? It is an “interactive self-guidance technology that guides prospects, customers, employees or partners through any Web experience.”  As I understand it, WalkMe it sits on top of your website and as such does NOT need any integration or changes with the underlying site.

Why use it? If you use it intelligently – focussing on the scenarios/tasks that matter – then WalkMe reduces your customers’ frustration of waiting for assistance, shortens the time it takes for support personnel to handle an incoming request and strengthens your company’s support reputation. It also occurs to me that this technology can improve sales conversion as not all customers who want to buy from you call support when they cannot buy from you – some go elsewhere, I do!

How does it work?  “Through a series of interactive tip balloons overlaid on the screen, tasks are broken down into short, step-by-step guided instructions, which help customers act, react and progress during their online experience.  As a result, customer support managers can empower their customers to self-task successfully even through the most complex processes.”

You can get an introduction to WalkMe by taking a look at a short demo video: http://vimeo.com/48888010

And , you can learn more about WalkMe and even try it for free. Check out www.walkme.com

What can you expect from the WalkMe team?  Boaz Amidor told me that their customer support team is not called the customer support team, nor the customer services team.  It is called the Customer Success team. Why?  Because “The philosophy here is to make sure that our team is committed to the success of the customer. WalkMe brings the value and our team is here to ensure the success.”  I say that this resonates with my idea of service.

About WalkMe

WalkMe was founded in 2011, has offices in San Francisco and Tel Aviv.  It is funded by  Mangrove Capital Partners, Giza Venture Capital and Gemini Funds.

WalkMe recently WON the Red Herring Top 100 Award.  Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring, said the following regarding WalkMe’s win: “We looked at hundreds and hundreds of candidates from all across the continent, and after much thought and debate, narrowed the list down to the Top 100 Winners. Each year, the competition gets tougher but we believe WalkMe demonstrates the vision, drive and innovation that define a Red Herring winner.”

WalkMe has been included in the list of “Cool Vendors” in the “Cool Vendors” in the CRM Customer Service and Social 2013″ by Gartner.

You Should Know

I am not a fan of complex technology, I have grappled with it (MIS, ERP, CRM, e-commerce) and it tends to be hard work to implement, and it rarely generates the promised benefits.

I am a fan of simple technologies that are easy to implement, simplify-enrich lives, and create value.  This is how WalkMe showed up for me this week and this is why I agreed to write this post.

I am not being paid, in any shape or form, for writing this post.  Or any other post that I have written to date. My commitment is to write from a context of service.

As with everything I write, I urge you to “try things out AND do your homework”.

Author: Maz Iqbal

Experienced management consultant working at the intersection of strategy, customer, and technology. Combine a tendency to think strategically with a penchant for getting my hands dirty at the coalface of implementation.

2 thoughts on “WalkMe: a Great Way to Improve the User Experience and Harvest Business Benefits?”

  1. An interesting idea Maz, though I wonder isn’t it a bit of a sticking plaster? Would it not be better if a web site was so intuitive “WalkMe” was unnecessary?

    1. Hello James
      You make a great point. A large part of what I have been doing over the last two years has been on exactly this area: helping companies to design it right so that the user finds it easy-natural to do what he/she has come to site for.

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by Staff Writer

What is the meaning behind Justin Timberlake’s Supplies? Why are there people worshiping an Illuminati pyramid? Here’s a look at the intense symbolism of the music video Supplies.

SourceVigilant Citizen

Author – Staff Writer

Supplies features Justin Timberlake and his love interest – played by Mexican actress Eiza Gonzalez Reyna – running around and causing heck in a dystopian society. While the setting is somewhat futuristic, the themes addressed are very 2017: #MeToo, racism, immigration, feminism, Harvey Weinstein, Black Lives Matter and, of course, Donald Trump.

In the most striking scene of the video, a crowd of people worships a gigantic Illuminati pyramid that emits light. Then, Reyna, who plays the role of a rebellious leader, sets it on fire. Later, the world is apparently in ruins. What’s going on? Is the video a call for an uprising? Is Justin Timberlake now a rogue, rebellious, troublemaker?

Not really. The video is actually a call for … doing nothing. It is simply part of the gigantic mass media wave that is defining what can and should be discussed and what can and should be celebrated. It is part of the communication technique called “agenda-setting”:

“Agenda-setting is the creation of public awareness and concern of salient issues by the news media. As well, agenda-setting describes the way that media attempts to influence viewers, and establish a hierarchy of news prevalence. Two basic assumptions underlie most researches on agenda-setting:

– the press and the media do not reflect reality; they filter and shape it;
– media concentration on a few issues and subjects leads the public to perceive those issues as more important than other issues.

These core statements were established by measuring the changes in salience through the use of surveys with the presence of more frequent news coverage.”
– Wikipedia, “Agenda-Setting”

There’s a lot of agenda-setting going on in Supplies. Like so many other videos out at the moment, it helps define what the masses should care about (or obsess over) these days. However, in order to reach young people, the agenda-setting is clothed as a revolt against an oppressive system. But there is no actual “revolt” going on, just an industry puppet doing what he is told for the cameras. Then, he cashes his check from RCA records and goes back to his mansion.

Eternal Puppet

Justin Timberlake began his show-business career at age 11 as a cast member of the Mickey Mouse club, alongside several future industry stars.

This edition of the Mickey Mouse club included Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Ryan Gosling.

Timberlake then found super-stardom as the leader of the boy band NSYNC.

The album cover of No Strings Attached features the group (including Justin) as literal puppets.

In 2002, Timberlake launched his solo career. Once again, album art was highly symbolic.

Dressed in A Clockwork Orange-inspired outfit, Timberlake does the 666 one-eye sign of the industry pawn.
The cover of his last album features a subtle (yet still very present) one-eye sign.

One week before the release of Supplies, Timberlake released Filthy, a video that features him being replaced by … a dancing robot.

In Filthy, Timberlake stands backstage while a (rather creepy) robot replacement performs sexy dance moves on human dancers. He ultimately wins over the crowds as everybody cheers for the robot.
The concept of the video is somewhat reminiscent of the movie Metropolis where Maria – a leader of the people – is replaced by an android to do the elite’s bidding. (Read my article about the movie here).
At the end of Filthy, Timberlake “glitches out” and disappears. Was he just a projection? Was he replaced by the android?

Everything about Timberlake’s career points towards him being at the service of the industry and nothing has changed with his latest album. He is still signed with the elite-owned RCA records and as such, anything he puts out is perfectly in accordance with the elite’s agenda.

Contrary to Filthy (which is basically four minutes of watching a robot dance), there’s a lot going on in Supplies. Throughout this flurry of messages and symbolism, there’s a core message being communicated: This is what you need to be angry about in order to be “woke”.

More precisely, it is about focusing on specific issues, framing them in a specific matter, and imposing a specific social-political “solution” to them.

At the beginning of the video, Justin watches several screens at one, all of which display events of the past year: Trump, Harvey Weinstein, anti-racism demonstrations, gun control, the Vegas shooting, etc.
The scene appears to be a reference to the 1976 sci-fi movie The Man Who Fell to Earth where an alien (played by David Bowie) watches 12 TVs at once while becoming an alcoholic.

After absorbing all of that mass media, Justin goes outside where some bizarre stuff is going down.

Some very pale people, dressed in all white, harass Justin’s girl, who is dressed in black. Are those white faces a reference to White people?
Does this guy represent “gun nuts” who are against gun control?
Justin watches this scene unfold from across the street. Do the floating white umbrellas represent White America being somehow  “protected” from bad weather?

Justin doesn’t like what he’s seeing: He punches the guy in white and leaves with the girl in black.

In the following scene, Justin dances around as light effects depict people slipping under the wall and running away, in a rather clear reference to Trump’s wall with Mexico.
Here, Justin and his “army” gather at Los Angeles Public Library as flags on the walls burn. Why are the flags burning? Interesting fact: In 2011, I published an article about the occult symbolism of this very library.
We don’t see it in the video, but there’s actually a pyramid topped by a torch of illumination right above them. This indicates who they’re really fighting for.

In the next scene, Justin and his girl find themselves in a creepy place of worship.

People bow before an Illuminati pyramid.
Eiza – who is apparently a rebellious leader – sets the pyramid on fire with a Molotov cocktail.

Did Eiza set fire to the Illuminati? Not really.

Notice that there’s American money burning as it flies from the pyramid. In the previous scene, flags were burning. Now, money. Are these allusions to the destruction of national flags and national currencies … to be replaced by a one world government and a one world currency? The elite’s ultimate objective?

The same people who were worshiping the pyramid are now cheering for Eiza. The masses are idiots prone to groupthink. How about thinking for yourself for a change?

The new leader’s disposition is reminiscent of an iconic picture of the past.

This scene recreates the famous picture of Huey P. Newton, the leader of the Black Panther Party. There’s a lot of racially charged stuff in the video.
Here, people float in the air with illuminated rings around their eyes. When Justin and Eiza remove the rings, people fall off. They are now “woke”.

Throughout the video, various symbolic pictures quickly flash on screen.

A protest sign saying “The Muslim ban is White supremacy”.
RIP Amerikkka – an inverted American flag cut in half.

After all of this intense noise, the video ends in a cryptic matter.

Justin emerges from the ground as dirty children gather around him, in a post-apocalyptic world. Eiza is looking fresh and clean.

What happened there? A nuclear explosion? Why is everybody dirty except Eiza? Did she know that the destruction was coming?

The timing of this scene is rather odd as Supplies was released only days after the Hawaii false nuke alert.

On January 18th, an alert was sent to all devices in Hawaii about an incoming ballistic missile.
A few days later, the Japanese network NHK sent out a false alert saying: “NHK news alert. North Korea likely to have launched a missile. The government J alert: evacuate inside the building or underground.” The alert was then corrected.

The hook of the song alludes to a post-apocalyptic setting, where Justin (maybe representing the elite) has all of the “supplies” necessary to survive.

‘Cause I’ll be the light when you can’t see
I’ll be the wood when you need heat
I’ll be the generator, turn me on when you need electricity
Some shit’s ’bout to go down, I’ll be the one with the level head
The world could end now
Baby, we’ll be living in The Walking Dead

The video ends with a little boy talking directly to the viewers. And he’s pretty angry.

“Just leave. Die already. You’re still asleep! Wake up! Just leave. We good.”

Why is the music video telling viewers to “die already”?

Supplies is very similar to a music video analyzed last year: Katy Perry’s Chained to the Rhythm. In both videos, the singers are depicted as “revolutionaries” who are “woke” and who stand up against the powers that be. However, in both cases, the “revolution” is actually 100% in line with the world elite’s agenda. Supplies and Chained to the Rhythm are part of the new “sanctimonious Hollywood” trend where constant virtue-signaling somehow gives celebrities the right to define what should people think and believe in.

However, there’s a lot of hypocrisy going on. In my article Katy Perry’s “Chained to the Rhythm” Sells an Elite-Friendly “Revolution”, I highlight the various ways Perry’s real-life actions contradict her music video moralizing. In her very next video, Katy was back at pushing elite-sponsored degeneracy. Indeed, Bon Appétit was about her being prepped like a piece of meat for an elite cannibalistic ritual while she’s singing about her being banged by a bunch of guys. So woke.

In Supplies, Justin Timberlake appears to strongly support the #metoo movement. However, less than two years ago, Timberlake worked with Woody Allen, claiming it was a “dream come true”, despite the fact that Allen’s has long been accused by his adoptive daughter of sexually assaulting her.

Dylan Farrow even called out Timberlake on this hypocrisy:

“I struggle with how a powerful force like Justin Timberlake can claim to be in awe of the strength of women and stand with them at this #MeToo moment and then in the next breath say that working with Woody Allen is a ‘dream come true.”
– Business Insider, Dylan Farrow calls out Justin Timberlake for saying working with Woody Allen was a ‘dream come true’ then claiming to support victims of Hollywood sexual misconduct

Yes, Woody Allen is accused of sexual abuse by his own adoptive daughter. Also, Woody Allen is actually MARRIED to another adoptive daughter: Soon-Yi Previn. So woke.

Supplies also deals with race. But the hypocrisy is even stronger there. Some of the symbolism is clearly “pro-Black”. However, not unlike elsewhere in mass media, the new “pro-Black” is not about bettering the lives of Black people: It is about fomenting hatred and division.

While many get their education from Hollywood celebrities while eating Tide Pods, actual History is being forgotten. The elite that’s currently pandering to Black people is the same elite that’s been oppressing Black people for decades. Who allowed crack to enter Black neighborhoods, turning droves of people into zombies? Who allowed the killing of so many Black leaders? Who allowed police brutality on innocent Black people? The answer: Those who are truly in power, no matter who’s President. These things happened when Republicans and Democrats were in power. These things happened while Barak Obama was in power. It doesn’t matter. They do not actually believe that “Black Lives Matter”. No lives matter … except theirs.

In Conclusion

Supplies is the elite communicating to the masses using extremely manipulative techniques and classic double-speech. Through the use of virtue signaling, the video panders to the idealistic tendencies of young people. However, what are the actual values being promoted? Anger, hatred, and division between races, sexes, and political affiliations. The more the masses are divided, the more the elite can control each group efficiently. Divide and conquer is the oldest trick in the book.

There’s a great reversal going on here. The Illuminati (aka the world elite) is portraying the acceptance of its agenda as “fighting the Illuminati”. Mass media is in full force, using all of its resources to frame what’s happening in a specific narrative. Why? Because we are in a pivotal place in history.

The elite’s motto is Ordo Ab Chao: Order Out of Chaos. We are living in chaotic, confusing times and Trump and is a perfect agent of chaos. The response to him, and all of the issues highlighted above – the agenda – will be Order. And when “order out of chaos” is a reality people will actually bow down to the Illuminati pyramid.

Staff Writer at Vigilant Citizen.


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Acne / Hydrocolloid Patches

How do these patches work? These are small, adhesive patches that absorb pus and oil from  acne blemishes. Provide a healing, moist environment. Protect the area from bacterial contamination by lowering the pH levels thereby creating an acidic environment. Deliver active ingredients such as salicylic acid or tea tree oil, both of which are very… Continue reading Acne / Hydrocolloid Patches


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Yes, this is another bean spread recipe.  As you all know…I love my beans not only for their delicious taste but because they are packed with fiber!  In this recipe, I used re-fried beans, which have a nice smooth consistency – perfect for a dip or a spread.   I enjoyed this bean spread with whole grain chips and veggies alongside salsa, Greek yogurt and guacamole.

  • 1 can Re-fried beans
  • 1/4 cup chopped red onion
  • 2 scallions, finely chopped
  • 1 Roma tomato, finely chopped
  • 3 Tablespoons Fresh Cilantro, finely chopped
  • 3 Teaspoons Lime Juice
  • 1/2 Ripe Avocado, cored, peeled and mashed
  • 1/4 cup Grilled Corn Kernels (I roasted my corn in-husk on the grill first)

  • In a large bowl, combine all ingredients.  Mix well.
  • Transfer to serving dish and serve alongside Greek plain yogurt, guacamole and salsa.  Enjoy as a dip with your favorite veggies or whole grain snack or as a spread on your sandwich.

Let me know how this bean spread delights your taste buds.  In what ways to do you incorporate bean spreads/dips into your meals?

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Does Proximity Matter

Your Hometown Agent: Does Proximity Matter?

As most of the regular visitors know,  the Salus Agency is our primary business and we've done quite well assisting people all over the United States as they navigate their life insurance purchases and any number of personal financial issues.  We've used the internet to reach people in a way not possible a few decades ago.  We started doing this for two reasons:

  1. There's a great big world out there and as companies grow, so do their geographic foot prints (usually)
  2. Brandon lives in Vermont the second least populous state in the Union and I live in Georgia making it all but impossible for us to work primarily with “local” clients as a team.  We made a strategic decision to work together as our strengths complement each other and our values align quite naturally.

Things have been working out quite well for us, but every once in a while I run into push back–typically from insurance companies–about the whole not sitting down face-to-face thing.  This got us thinking about how important face time (and I mean face time like I can smell your breath, not like the option on the iPhone that I–and no one else–ever uses).  This however spurred another thought exercise while discussing business with another agent about my days as a career agent (the career shops i.e. Northwestern Mutual, Guardian, MassMutual live by the importance of local agencies–of course).

So…how important is sitting down within arm's length of your agent?

Well, obviously we don't believe it's important at all.  I'm quite sure there is a contingency of people whom disagree with that statement and that's okay with us.  We can agree to disagree on that point.  And honestly, we aren't trying to convince anyone to work with us that don't feel comfortable doing business this way.

But I would like to dispel some of the arguments against working with an agent from across the country as opposed to the guy who coaches your son's little league team.  How do I know that there are people who still feel this way?

I've talked to them believe it or not.

I sort of had an idea for running this sort of practice for years but I was convinced that it couldn't be done.  Actually, it wasn't really until I met Brandon that I was convinced this business model could actually work.  You have to understand the “old school” programming that is so pervasive in the insurance industry to grasp my apprehension that this could actually work.

Fake It Til You Make It

When I started in a career agency back in 2000, that was my General Agent's favorite phrase.

What did he mean by that?

He meant that you should act “as if”….

This video should illustrate my point clearly…NSFW (Not Safe for Work)

As if you were already successful.

As if you owned the company.

As if everyone you met would be making the biggest mistake of their life by not being your client.

Hubris Anyone?

Yeah, as you can imagine, this didn't work too well for me.

I was looking around at all these guys who'd been working there for 10-15 years, driving expensive European cars, living in McMansions and sending their kids to private school.  But…I was also looking at sales numbers for the office as all of that was made public to foster a sense of competition among the office.  Now, it doesn't take a real mathematical wizard to figure out about what type of income these guys had.  After all, we all had the same basic contract and the commissions were based on the premium sold–which was displayed for all to see in the break-room.

Let's just say that most of them were making near enough money to comfortably afford their lifestyles, they were drowning in debt and in many cases owed their soul to the company store by also owing the General Agent a fair amount of money as well.  I'm not going to get into the mechanics of how all that works as it's well beyond the scope of this piece but rest assured it is a reality.

At this point, I'm starting to feel really icky.  I remember thinking, “we're not selling vacuum cleaners, we're selling people on the idea of financial security at some distant point in the future and if I screw it up, they can't go back and fix it.”  Obviously I felt some responsibility for making sure that my clients were taken care of and offered the best of what I had to offer them.

I was trained to never get into any sort of in-depth discussion with people over the phone or through email.  The phone was merely a tool to be used to schedule your next meeting/appointment.  I can vividly remember a sales trainer telling us “we don't sell on the phone” over and over and over again.

Why is that?  Why the insistence that we sit across the table from our prospects EVERY time?

I'll admit that when I got started, I was totally naive.  I honestly thought it was to always demonstrate to people that they were important enough for me to get in my car and drive out to see them, that they deserved that kind of one-on-one attention from me.  Isn't that precious?

Why We Really Don't Do Business over the Phone

Hard to believe I would've ever been that gullible

…but I was.

So I guess you'd really like to know why the “old guard” of the life insurance industry teaches that you shouldn't “do business over the phone“?

It's because you can't look someone in the eye, get a read on their body language, and easily pick out what emotional hot-button you need to push to get that person to take action.  Yeah I know that sounds cynical but it is the cold hard truth…scout's honor.

Our industry, the life insurance industry, has relied on the face-to-face meeting for years because they want the emotional connection to sell people in a way that turns the emotional screw ever tighter as the conversation moves forward.  I determined that the line of questioning we were all taught had very little to do with facts and had way more to do with identifying feelings that a true “sales professional” could use to move the sale closer to the finish line.

It makes my stomach churn to be honest.

But it is absolutely true and for years the attitude has been that the end justifies the means.  In other words, it doesn't really matter how you make the sale because you probably left your client better off than when you found them.

I don't know about you but that doesn't quite cut it for me.

That Was a Long Introduction

Yeah, that was just setting up what I really want to talk about with you in today's post.

Why are we so confident in our business model? You know the one where two guys working together separated by over a thousand miles build a business where we work with people from all across the country?

Partly because it's working and every day our idea is given a bit more validity.  But mostly because we know that we have a very specific group of people who will choose to work with us. Not because we hammer them with annoying phone calls, leverage personal relationships to get introductions or play emotional hockey with them.

No, we attract clients who value real expertise and can see beyond the trappings of Class A office space, custom made suits and a Presidential Rolex.  Not that any of those things are bad mind you, but they really don't mean that your insurance guy is successful at helping his clients get what they want.  It does mean he's been a fairly successful salesman.

We're not delusional and if we didn't make any sales, my kids would be awfully hungry. However, we don't have to compromise our integrity to be successful.  On the contrary, the public nature of this site and our business means that we have to constantly question our motives.  We have to be certain that any advice we give or sales that we make are in the best interest of our clients.

Unlike a Bernie Madoff, we aren't running a business that operates in the shadows.  Madoff ran an exclusive club that was private and had a members-only policy.

Our business is wide open.  We take our professional lives and dangle them out there on the internet for all to see, criticize and scrutinize at every turn.  If you've followed us for any length of time or listened to the Financial Procast, you're well aware that we aren't good at hiding our opinions.

My point is that if we weren't honest, we'd be sunk and we'd quickly be outed in a very public way.  We operate our business in a way that provides we are profitable but we don't seek ways to maximize our profit from every client.

Everyone's familiar with car dealerships right?

Well if you went into a car dealership and you were willing to pay $450/month for a car…guess what they'd sell you?  In our view (if we ruled the world), if we could sell you the same car for $275/month and make a profit, we'd gladly do it.  Why? Because we know (proven by experience) that if we give you the best deal possible, you will receive maximum benefit, and you will get exactly what you wanted.

There is no shortage of business in the world for us–that is a core belief of ours.  Most agents have a mentality of scarcity which leads them to believe that they have to maximize their commission on every case.  We don't see it that way.  Our goal is always to design a policy that we write to be most beneficial to our clients.

Why the Life Insurance Industry Hates Engineers

Okay that's probably somewhat of a provocative statement but I hope you'll hang in there with me just a little bit longer and I'll bring it all back around.

It's not really that there's a memorandum floating around that tells new life insurance agents to avoid selling to engineers but I know I was told that and I know that Brandon was as well.  Why is that? Well, it doesn't have anything to do with engineers per se but was more general advice to avoid analytical types of people.  You know people who are deep-thinkers and like to analyze things.

Because they ask too many damn questions…that's why!  Look, you can't be wasting your time answering questions when you need to be selling.

Why?  Because your sales manager only gets paid when you sell something…that's why!  Duh.

For years, life insurance agents have avoided people who asked too many questions–those who wanted to understand what was in the black box and how it all worked.

But you know what?

We've got a little secret…those people who ask questions, are our best clients.  We love dealing with people who feel the need to understand how it all works.  They're not buying a new washing machine at Sears; most of our clients are considering a decision to make substantial financial commitments that may take years to produce any fruit.

I don't know about you, but I might want to understand the finer points before jumping off the cliff.  In short, our clients want to know the details and we think that's a good thing.  We'll go back and forth as long as they feel is necessary to make an informed decision and be comfortable that it is the right decision for them.

Bringing it all home

If we only worked in our local areas, we'd never have the opportunity to take our process and our expertise to people on the other side of the country.  That wouldn't be fair to the world–would it?

Forgive me if this at all sounds preachy or self-righteous and understand that's not my intent in any way.  We just felt it was time to address some of our naysayers and explain why we're not likely to be pitching life insurance at your kitchen table.

And if our way of doing business appeals to you in the least, we'd like nothing more than to see how we can help you.  Feel free to reach out to us anytime.

Brantley Whitley

About the Author Brantley Whitley

Brantley is a practicing life insurance agent and has been for nearly 18 years. After years of trying to sell like his sales managers wanted him to, he discovered that people want to buy life insurance if you actually explain the benefits.

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Oakland Raiders cornerback Sean Smith has the fourth highest cap hit on the Raiders’ roster in 2017, yet he is obviously not the fourth best player on the team and comes nowhere close to cracking the top 10.

Smith’s $9.5 million cap hit, per Spotrac, lands him in dangerous waters. He is due No. 1 cornerback money, but will probably be the No. 3 or No. 4 cornerback on the team this fall. Moreover, Oakland ranked just No. 24 against the pass in 2016, so being third or fourth on the depth chart is nothing to get excited about.

The Raiders will be moving on from Smith at some point. Whether it is this year or next year, we do not know.

If Oakland general manager Reggie McKenzie wants to see Smith in a new uniform in 2017, here are McKenzie’s options.

Related  Raiders CB Sean Smith continues to move around defense
Sep 25, 2016; Nashville, TN, USA; Oakland Raiders cornerback Sean Smith (21) celebrates after defeating the Tennessee Titans 17-10 at Nissan Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports

Cut Raiders CB Sean Smith

Many of Raider Nation might clamor for Smith to be cut, however, that would make zero sense for the football team.

If McKenzie chooses to cut him, he would only save the franchise $250,000 since $9.25 million would still count against the cap as dead money, via Spotrac. Therefore, there is absolutely no benefit to seeing Smith cut this season.

Oakland would also not be able to find an equally talented replacement for $250,000. In addition, Smith has performed poorly, for his price tag, but is still a decent starting cornerback in the NFL as long as the team plays around his weaknesses.

If no cap space is to be gained from his departure, it is safe to say he will be on the roster come Week 1 of the NFL regular season unless McKenzie surprises the NFL by making a trade.

Lastly, the Raiders can cut Smith in 2018 without penalty since there would be no dead money by releasing him then.

Related  Raiders depth chart release sees CB Sean Smith as starter
Photo via Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Trade Raiders CB Sean Smith

A trade scenario is extremely unlikely since McKenzie has never been eager to make trades and no team would want to take on Smith’s contract without getting something in return.

Regardless, here is a hypothetical trade scenario that would help out two teams and send Smith out of Oakland.

First and foremost, the Raiders must find a team that is not expecting to win this season and has cap space to spare.

Luckily, the three teams with the most cap space, the San Francisco 49ers, Cleveland Browns and Jacksonville Jaguars, are not expected to be a winning team in 2017.

Proposed trade: Raiders’ Sean Smith and 2018 6th round pick to San Francisco

Currently, the 49ers’ two starting cornerbacks, Dontae Johnson and Rashard Robinson, have Pro Football Focus player grades of 65.8 and 50.4 respectively.

If Smith came in, he would immediately become a starter Day 1 and could give valuable leadership to the young pieces in San Francisco. After Smith’s one year with the Niners, the organization could release him without any penalty and would have accrued an extra sixth round selection to help build the team for the future.

In regards to Oakland, McKenzie would be extremely hesitant to part ways with a sixth round draft pick, but he would save the team $5.25 million, via Spotrac.

With Carr and Jackson’s recent contracts and Mack’s future contract, $5.25 million could go a long way in helping keep the Raiders’ young core together. In essence, the $5.25 million could be more valuable than having one sixth round pick in 2018.

Maybe, that $5.25 million will help bring Raiders tackle Donald Penn to training camp.

Related  Raiders Training Camp: 3 takeaways from depth chart release
Photo via Getty Images

What McKenzie should do

Personally, parting ways with any assets is not the smartest move for the Raiders.

Oakland should keep Smith on the 53 man roster and cut him the following season. Then, they can have his services for 2017, not lose any draft picks and move on from him in 2018 when they can do so without hurting the team’s cap space.

Ryan Lipton is the founder of The JR Report. For more news and JR Report updates follow him on twitter @rytime98.

Ryan is currently a student at the University of North Carolina. He grew up in the Bay Area and has had Raiders season tickets his entire life fostering his love for the NFL. He has founded his own sports website, thejrreport.com and works at the Sports Desk for the Daily Tar Heel. You can follow Ryan on twitter @rytime98 if you want to discuss anything sports.

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Stop Blogging! Before You Get Hurt!

Joining the blogosphere is an interesting business. Sooner or later, you’re going to get hurt. Sometimes people write blogs that makes you feel sick. Other times, you may get personally attacked. It happens.

Here, anyone can say anything. There’s no filter, no editor in chief.

origin_2879955156Sometimes popular blogs say weird things. Writers earn their soapbox but forget to stay grounded. They say things that make the reader go… I’m sorry, what?

I read a blog yesterday like this. I loved the writer’s topic: being authentic and genuine with your readers. I can roll with that. To give a context, it’s a spiritual blog.

Then it got weird. The writer claimed that if bloggers craft “exciting titles” and cover popular topics that they are improperly manipulating their readers, and that by using writing formulas and word intentionality, bloggers are being in-authentic.

My favorite part was this:

My blogs and books will probably be riddled with improper grammar and syntax – but really, they’re just riddled with me. They’re honest.

Now I don’t want to pick apart this person’s blog, nor do I wish to unfairly scrutinize this person who had a bad blog in a bunch of good ones.

This blogger doesn’t appreciate good writing, and that’s fine. What upset me was his claim about those who DO practice good writing techniques. His claim that people like me, and many of my good friends here on WordPress, foster improper manipulation towards our readers.

In the past, I’ve claimed expertise in topics I wasn’t accomplished in; I’ve painted others I disagree with in bad lights. I’ve made these mistakes.

Here’s what I’ve learned: Write what you know, and explore what you don’t. Never assume you’re a whiz just because you have a keyboard.

Catchy Mid-Title

This topic did make me think about the future of writing. Digital platforms are taking us to a place where thoughts like these are championed, a place where everyone has a publisher and the need for polished craft is a distant second.

I wonder if we’re seeing the beginning of the end to accomplished technique.

Maybe we should all come to terms. After all, we live in a new world now. Does grammar, syntax, and stylistic intentionality really matter these days?

Let me know your thoughts!

Photo Credit: []

Post Script

I didn’t want to post a link to this person’s blog. But without doing that, I fear I’m not allowing YOU to come to your own decision. Also, I don’t want to present an argument without giving my sources. So HERE. I’ve framed the blog in a pretty negative light. Read it for yourself, you may find it’s alright.

  1. I definitely think good writing matters! If you don’t have a catchy title, unless I am really interested in the topic, or I already know I like your writing, I’m probably not going to bother reading your work.

    I clicked on your blog post because of the title. I was interested because your title says people should stop blogging — yet it’s the title of a blog post. I figured the article was either well written or riddled with hypocrisy, and either way, I might find something new to discuss at those cocktail parties I never go to.

    So having a clever title indicates that there will be good writing in the piece that follows. Unfortunately, this is not always true, but on the internet, we do not have time, and usually lack the inclination, to simply click on everything.

    Also, grammar helps writers clearly state what they are trying to get across. I do not like scratching my head in confusion, and trying to puzzle out what someone means because their grammar is odd – I have large ears, and it results in my looking quite monkey-like. (Although a cool thing about the internet is that sometimes these writers are from another country and/or English is their second language – in these cases, I forgive them, as I would certainly butcher their first language far worse than they do mine.)

    Finally, style is so important in my book (which remains half-written and abandoned in a poorly-titled Word document, like the books of many good writers). Along with these digital readers, and self-publishing becoming such an easy, viable option, there has also often been a decrease in price that makes readers such as myself willing to try new authors who aren’t promoted by the publishing industry. More often than not, however, when I do this, I discover that the ideas are really, really interesting – but the writing is not.

    One of the great things about the publishing industry is that it helps weed through writers to figure out who is ready to be published. I am of the opinion that the difference between an author and a writer is perseverance, and usually, 3 or 4 crummy books that no one else should see (with the exception of your significant other and/or spouse, who deserve occasional torture). Digital printing means that we can put any writing out there at any time – unfortunately, we usually feel ready to share our work before we really should.

    Even the arguably great Stephenie Meyer (disclaimer: I am not a Twilight fan) has said in interviews that her first novel was written while she was a novice, and is not indicative of her writing anymore.

    Great topic; love the blog title. Thank you for getting me thinking!

    1. Hello and nice to meet you!

      Thank you for the comment. It seems that we agree here. “…grammar helps writers clearly state what they are trying to get across.” Very well said. It’s like trying to play guitar without learning to tune it first.

  2. I read that blog post you were talking about the other day, and it rubbed me the wrong way too! I do believe in keeping things simple as much as possible, but he’s saying that you can’t have good writing and be authentic at the same time. Seems to me like a dumb dichotomy.

  3. Late to the party here, but I agree with everyone else. I think effective communication, and the effort put into it, is absolutely worth our time. And to say “poetic effort” (in the words of John Piper) is manipulation is almost laughable. I guess our forefathers were out to manipulate us when they very carefully crafted each word and sentence of the Declaration of Independence. How dare they put so much thought into the grammatical structure to clearly communicate their intent to be an independent nation! (That’s snarky, sorry). Here’s the link to Piper’s “Saying Beautifully as a Way of Seeing Beautifully” biography of George Herbert: Worth a listen or read.

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The Old Boy Story

by Aria Riding

Once upon a time, a man is kidnapped and imprisoned for about seventeen years without knowing his crime or his accuser.  When he is released, he meets a young woman and they fall in love.  When they are about to marry, they discover they are father and daughter.  Of course this is unsupportable and they feel very bad and separate, although they feel a great pain, because their love is a true love.  In time the man meets another woman and they fall in love.  As it happens, she too is his daughter.  She feels heartbroken and he feels heartbroken and confused.  They separate.  They divorce.  He meets another woman. They make love.  They fall in love.  She is also his daughter.  This happens two or three more times.

Finally, the man swears he is unlucky in love and that he will never marry.  The woman sitting across from him on their date says, I wanted to say exactly the same thing.  In this moment, their eyes meet and they fall into deep deep love.  They marry and after a little bit discover they are brother and sister.  They separate, and like all the other women before her, she never tells him about the pregnancy.  In fits of ecstasy and despair the man marries and separates from three more women, all of them undiscovered sisters.

The hapless guy gives up on love; he thinks, I will never be able to meet a woman.  And from time to time, he mopes, Who is it that imprisoned me and condemned me to this crazy fate?  My crime must have been really terrible and my punishment, to be related to and forbidden from love, it must be justified.

The man decides to go into seclusion and enters a monastery.  All of the monks are very quiet and kind, and he thinks, A little bit sad, he thinks, With guilty consciences like me.  They rarely speak and their nods and acknowledgments are infrequent, and if their eyes meet, there’s usually a little flash of knowing, a little flutter, a little color in the cheeks.  The head monk is very warm and kind.  His gestures are more effusive and bourgeois than the man would have expected from a monk.  This elderstatesman starts to invite the man into his chambers for tea and philosophical conversation and they play board games which seem kind of symbolic.  One thing leads to another.  The man is resistant at first but he rationalizes to himself, This man is much older than me, he cannot be my daughter or my sister, and as I’m condemned to never meet a woman, maybe I can accept at least the touch of this old man.  It takes time, but attachments form (in May).  After a few years the man is finally able to admit he loves the old man as they lie in a soft, sunlit embrace.  The old man says, Of course, it’s only natural for a son to love his father.

The man cries out, Father, I’ve been so unlucky in love!  He extrapolates: I was imprisoned for something like seventeen years, and since I was released, I have only unwittingly loved my own daughters and sisters, and now, my own father.  And to make matters worse, I don’t know my crime or my mysterious accuser, but I must have been the worst kind of person to be punished this way.  The father is taken aback, Son, you’re taking it all the wrong way.  Please stop torturing yourself and feeling so bad, you didn’t do anything wrong.  It was I who imprisoned you.  You are a good boy, just like all of your brothers.  The old man gestures broadly towards the grounds beyond the window, indicating all of the other monks going about their daily chores and meditations which usually lost focus, unraveled and reassembled into contemplative orgies.  You see, we are a very loving family, and what I did, I did out of love for you, because I loved you so much I wanted to keep you for myself.

Then the man saw that every trial in his life had had to unfold exactly as it did, love upon laboriously planned and awkwardly unseemly love, so that he could now naturally, and of his own accord, fall into the loving arms of his father.  And he did.  And there they stayed, father and son lovingly making love … until some young man that the man did not yet realize was his own son showed up at the monastery and the embrace of the two monks slackened as their hips both swiveled towards their new great love.

Aria Riding, 1977, is an artist and performer; the body of her work is about intimacy, mutations of love and intimacy, holding intimate time and space, limits of the mind and body, and the poetry that comes from exposing or being exposed by these limits.   She likes doing music and dance training with special abilities people.  Her writing, painting and sculpture collections are entitled the Book of Total Darkness and Grinder Family Archives.  Her performance work incorporates butoh dance, theater, installation, literature, and altered states like Hysteria, prisons, obsessive compulsive disorders, bloodletting, love.  She has co-directed the performance group, Danse Perdue since 2002, and the Teatro de la Psychomachia (a theater, art and workshop studio located in Seattle, U.S.A.), since 2010. Since 2005, she has performed, exhibited, and taught in different places in the United States, and, always by the grace of Flavia Ghisalberti, in different parts of Europe and Russia.  She can’t update her website from her fainting couch, but can look her up at

Sex Positive!

i’m not here to tell you what to do with your saucyparts or your goods, but we all need to finally realize that being SEXY and SEXUAL is for everyone- no matter what body type, shape, gender, sexual preference or part of the rainbow! boy parts, girl parts, dirtybits, trans, no-no spots, special purposes, whatever!

because we all need a little boost now and again- here are some AMAZING sex positive tumblrs!
i guarantee you’ll find something to make you smile! (among other things.) ENJOY!

oh- and these are SERIOUSLY nsfw- so wait until you get home where you can (ahem) view these with more privacy *coughs*… because you will!

love your body! love yourself! be sexy! be pervy!
(didnt i just say i wasnt going to tell you what to do? but these are good things- and you should do them!)

Wanted and Worthy.

by Dean McManus

It’s wrong.
It’s forbidden, it’s a sin, it’s taboo and *dangerous.*
It’s *right* and *beautiful* and *addicting.*
They’re not supposed to.
They are anyway.
They’re young, they’d be told everything they already know. Wrong, dangerous, filthy. They’d be sent elsewhere, beaten until the devil was out of them. It’s a weird age, where the roads are still dirt, they’re barely old enough to be allowed in the Saloon, and James is due to find his brother and go hunting for that night’s meal.
Thomas probably should have been home hours ago, and there’s no doubt that Jack is out and looking. They’d had to get more creative with their hiding places recently, the bathrooms and the sheds too well known by both of their brothers, and though they are willing to cover for them, it only lasts so long.
It’s quick and dirty, the flat of James’ palm pressed tight against an open mouth to stifle the sounds, and only his will stopping his own. Each breath is too short and burns his lungs, the hand trapped between the leather of his trousers and his own skin working him quickly, and James’ doing much the same in the way of returning the favor. Their shirts had already been rucked up, so used to this that they know the tricks and ways to make it a quick and easy clean up.
When they finish, it’s with stuttering movements and James biting down on Thomas’ shoulder through his clothes, and Thomas’ muffled curses in god knows how many languages painting his skin. When they let go, the draw to each other is still intense, almost dramatic even though they know their time is so limited. The kiss is lazy and unhurried, his words written with the trace of his tongue.
“James-” It’s barely heard, reluctance in the form of his name. Said man stalls the words that would come next with another kiss, kept chaste, yet lingering. “I know.” They’re still a little out of breath, but by the time they’ll be out of there it’ll be back to normal. They’ve got it down to an art. It’s a thought that when he’s alone, brings his mood down to the point of whiskey and bruising his knuckles. The truth can’t be changed, at least not yet.
Their clothes are fixed and hair patted back into place, mess contained. As per usual, Thomas leaves first.
It’s barely thirty seconds before he hears the familiar lilt of Jack’s voice, more exasperated than anything, telling his brother to hurry on home before they get whipped. Again. Because though they’re of age to be legal, you’re never too old for a lashing.
By the time James leaves, Sam’s given up searching. But when he gets home, he gets an earful. James needs to be careful, to stop, to quit before he’s hung in towns square.
Halfway through the act of brushing through his horse, Sam’s finally had enough and asks the question they’ve both been waiting for.
Is he really worth it?”
When James stops, all movement ceasing and his shoulders a tense line, Sam swallows rough and dry. He knows the answer before it comes.
“Yeah, Sammy. He is. Now drop it.”

About the author- “I’m twenty-three and I live in a small town in Texas. I started writing erotica at a young age, mostly through online roleplaying until I could gather my footing and confidence to do it on my own. I was an English Major during my time in college and hope to be going back to that soon. I have a family of my own, including a four year old stepson that keeps me busy.
I love to write in my free time, and I just hope everyone enjoys it as much as I do.”

Coming Out of the Closet- a new feature!

Hello world,

I am Sarah Jane….Residing in the city of rain….
A mid-twenty something lady who has a lot to say about nothing. Or maybe it’s something, I guess you can decide?
I write in my blog about life as I know it, a journey out of an ever so stifling closet.

Coming Out of the Closet

Coming out isn’t the easiest thing to do, especially when you are trapped in a (friendship) marriage to someone of the opposite sex whose feelings you desperately do not want to hurt. Or when you come from a very Southern, Very Christian family who is sure to cut you out the second you refuse to keep quiet. Then again who doesn’t have it hard? I guess I could sit here all day long coming up with reasons why I sat around making myself miserable for 25 years when all I had to do to be happy was tell the truth. I like women. The decision to finally end the charade known as my “heterosexuality” wasn’t made lightly. And it’s a journey that won’t come easy but I am finally ready to take. So, here it is. As I live and breath it, the painful, the happy, the lessons, the triumphs and everything in between.

I won’t always have the right thing to say, the politically correct thing to say or do the morally right thing. But this is my journey, that I am taking and for better or worse I will always do things as I see best. And selfish as it is, for the first time in my life I am putting my happiness first, which means that some people are going to get hurt along the way, unfortunately. Hopefully, throughout this whole thing I will be met with at least some understanding, support and even more strength and determination to finally be true to ME!

Come Out!

gay_parade_500New Feature!

because we all had to start somewhere. what’s your “COMING OUT STORY?”

did you come out to everyone? or just your friends? how about your spouse?  have you found yourself “switching teams?” or even switching back? whether you came out as gay, lesbian, bi, trans, pansexual or any other part of the rainbow there is someone that can relate! message me, answer some questions, and i’ll help share your story with others! (and we’ll keep you anonymous if you choose.)

what’s your story?


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My car de-ices itself. Is my car smarter than me?

Today was our first really cold day of 2014 in the UK. -2, not that cold compared to some countries but cold enough to get British people talking (we love talking about the weather).

It was also cold enough to freeze stuff. Like the roads, your hands and your car windscreen.

When you’re running late for work, the most annoying thing is running outside and realising your car is frozen. I’m sure most people have had this, where you spend 15 minutes trying to scrap ice off- with a Boots Advantage card in my case- so you’re safe to drive.

But this is no longer a problem for me my friends. I have an electric car. What? I’ve mentioned that before? Not sorry!

These cars are superior. They’re dam clever. Plugged in my car last night to give it a top up charge. Then when I woke up this morning I activated the climate control. From an app. From my bed. (I could have set a timer for this but I wasn’t that organised.)

Went outside for work. The car next to mine was frozen solid. Mine was toasty and warm waiting for me. So dam happy!

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March Madness

On the eve of the Sweet Sixteen, the Senator wanted his picks for the NCAA tournament to go on record!  He thinks he is going to win the family contest, even though we have not established any sort of official prize for the winner. Of course, the kids are lobbying for cash and candy.

Just for the record, and because inquiring minds want to know, the Senator has picked Duke, Oklahoma, Louisville and Memphis to meet in the Final Four with Memphis and Oklahoma playing in the Championship Game. AND, just for the record, this Sooner has chosen Memphis to prevail.  (Go Sooners-take him out!)
The Senator’s Wife, who knows absolutely nothing about basketball, picked Louisville, Memphis, Villanova and North Carolina for the Final Four with Louisville losing to North Carolina for the Championship. Probably not gonna happen.
The Senator’s son (a BIG basketball fan) has Louisville, Pittsburgh, Connecticut and UNC in the Final Four with Louisville defeating UNC in the Championship Game.  Now, this scenario would keep things interesting…
On the other hand, the Senator’s daughter selected her teams based on geography.  If the school happened to be located in one of her favorite states, then it made the cut.  She picked Arizona, Memphis, Xavier and Syracuse to meet in the Final Four, with Arizona and Syracuse playing in the Championship Game.  She did not pick a winner in this bracket and I’m really not sure why. Maybe she is waiting to see how things shake out….I would bet she slips OU in at the end and hopes nobody notices.  She’s sneaky like that!
So, Senator, please consider yourself officially on record with your NCAA picks. The winner will have bragging rights for the next year!
Love, your wife

One thought on “March Madness

  1. I’m with the Senator’s wife – I know nothing about basketball other than the fact that I’m voting for the team who gets the most orange balls in the net thing. Good luck Mrs. Senator!(Found you while browsing PW’s site tonight waiting for her to answer more questions on live chat.)Blessings to you all!

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SaskPower to scale back cashier services on June 1

SaskPower says it is scaling back cashier services in the province on June 1.

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SaskPower says four of its remaining five cashier service counters in the province will close June 1.

The change means that affected customers will have to pay their bills online or through their bank as opposed to cash at the service counter.

The decision to close its cash counters in Saskatoon, Regina, North Battleford and Yorkton was based on the fact that just eight per cent of its bills are paid in cash, the Crown corporation said in a news release. The cash counter in Prince Albert will not be affected, SaskPower said.

“This shift will allow us to keep wait times low, as most of our customers now prefer to handle their transactions electronically or over the phone,” SaskPower vice-president of customer services Diane Avery said in a statement.

The nine people who work at the company’s cash counters will be reassigned to handle phone calls from customers and inquiries from its website, SaskPower said.

The province’s power supplier said in the release that it will continue to maintain operation centres in the affected communities to deal with power outages and grid maintenance.

SaskPower is the second major Crown corporation to announce plans to shutter cashpayment services in recent months. SaskEnergy said in December it expects to save $480,000 annually by closing cashier services in Saskatoon and Regina on Feb. 1.

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Photo: urbancow (Getty Images)
Last CallLast Call is The Takeout’s online watering hole where you can chat, share recipes, and use the comment section as an open thread. Here’s what we’ve been reading/watching/listening around the office today.

Orangette’s banana bread recipe

Photo: GwylanAnna (Getty Images)

Okay, still trying to prepare breakfast in advance, so yesterday my daughter and I made banana bread for the first time in a long while. Yes, I let her put chocolate chips in it, but it got me covered not only through breakfast, but lunch and possible snack (the kids really like this particular banana bread). I always use the same recipe from Orangette, one of my favorite food blogs, written by Seattle resident Molly Wizenberg. Her banana bread, which I believe she pulled from Bon Appetit, even has a brown-sugar cinnamon topping; I’ve made it a bunch of times and it’s always perfect and never dry. I haven’t looked for another banana bread recipe since the first time I made this one. [Gwen Ihnat]

In praise of white jumpsuits

Photo: Randy Faris/Corbis/VCG (Getty Images)

Some days, staring dejectedly into my closet, I miss the school uniform I wore from second grade through high school. I think wardrobe bewilderment is why many friends of mine (mostly women) have been passing around this Paris Review piece about JUMPSUIT, an art/political/fashion movement that asks whether we couldn’t all just wear a white jumpsuit, everyday, forever. Two women have been doing just that for three years, in fact. [Kate Bernot]

The Hong Kong tram

I’ve been on record about how enamored I am of filmmaker Brandon Li’s kinetic, 120 mph cinematography style (see his breathtaking Hong Kong Strong video). Li is back with a love letter to the double decker trams of Hong Kong, which more than 110 years after it first traversed city streets, continue to transport people for the equivalent of 30 American cents. [Kevin Pang]


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Cheap flights from Delhi to Moscow for ₹ 22877 ($ 339)

Cheap tickets from Delhi to Moscow, Russia roundtrip for only Rs 22877 (USD 339)

Delhi, India-> Moscow, Russia -> Delhi, India

Connecting Stop:
Direct / Almaty / Bishkek

Aeroflot / Air Astana / Air Manas

Travel Period:
September to December 2018

Book airline tickets from Delhi, India to Moscow, Russia roundtrip for only Rs 22877 (USD 339)

Travel Example Dates:
17th Sep – 24th Sep

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Other Dates:
many more dates in September to December 2018…

To know more info about Tourism Russia and Paris Wiki travel Wikipedia and TripAdvisor

Screenshot:Delhi to Moscow

Book your deal hotel here

Find more cheap airline tickets and flight deals here

Do you want to know “How to Travel the World for Free“?

All the information on this page is accurate at the time of publication.
If you are viewing this deal at a later date, the price and availability may no longer be as advertised.

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Article16 January 2018Reading time 3 minutes

FX: Embracing the strong Euro

USD: Still treading water

The US dollar continues to trade on the soft side as the generally benign risk environment benefits activity currencies. Unless a currency is weighed down by specific idiosyncratic negatives (ie: the Turkish Lira and geopolitics), it is difficult for it not to appreciate against the USD, particularly when the Trump uncertainty factor is not a positive for the dollar. With the focus shifting to the ECB's policy normalisation (see below), we continue to view the Central and Eastern Europe currencies as the top Emerging Market FX pick, as this is the only EM region that neatly and directly benefits from higher EUR/USD. As per 2018 FX Outlook, we expect USD/Czech Koruna to fall materially.

EUR: Rise neither overdone nor unjustified

Even after breaking yet another multi-year high and being close to the 1.2300 level, we see EUR/USD as still undervalued - by around 1-2% based on our short-term fair value model (see EUR/USD close to 1.23 is still undervalued for details). This points to a benign outlook for the cross, with fairly limited downside risk and more strength to come this year as the ECB moves closer to the end of QE and the second step in its policy normalisation process- deposit rate hikes (see Embrace the strong EUR for the full EUR outlook). Remarks from the ECB’s Ardo Hansson yesterday on the possibility of an abrupt end to QE (suggesting a rising probability of no QE extension beyond September) support the constructive EUR outlook. Despite news about possible hurdles in the German coalition talks, the EUR/USD should stay above the 1.2200 level today, as the ECB factor is in our view a more important driver for the common currency.

GBP: Below consensus core UK CPI to weigh modestly on GBP today

We look for both headline and core December UK CPI to decline to 3.0%YoY and 2.5% respectively. Particularly for the core reading, our economists look for a below-consensus reading due in part to the decline in airfares (and expect core CPI to reach 2%YoY this summer – see Where next for UK inflation?). A downside surprise to the core CPI may modestly weigh on sterling today given that the currency has been supported in part by the expectation of tighter BoE policy. EUR/GBP could re-test the 0.8900 level.

PLN: Muted core CPI no reason for PLN weakness

Our economists expect Polish core CPI to stay at 0.9% YoY. Despite the rising wage pressures (6.5% YoY), this is not being translated into higher core prices, due in part to productivity catching up with wages. Hence, we don’t expect the National Bank of Poland to hike this year (MPC Review). As for EUR/PLN, the dovish MPC is not new news following the January MPC meeting and so we don’t expect today’s core CPI to affect EUR/Polish Zloty, with the cross broadly staying in the 4.17-4.18 area.


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Chris Hedges, Abrahamic supremacism, Plato

Chris Hedges wrote in 2007 that…

“…individualism—the belief that we can exist as distinct beings from the tribe, or the crowd, and that we are called on as individuals to make moral decisions that at times defy the clamor of the tribe or the nation—is a gift of the Abrahamic faiths.”

He then goes on to give an analysis of a selection of scripture to support his view that the “Abrahamic faiths” do advocate this sort of individualism.  He however cannot rightly argue for the further point that this is somehow a unique contribution from this tradition, as any adequate comparison with other traditions would reveal counterexamples.

As one such counterexample, read what Plato wrote, in the voice of Socrates arguing against the sophist-in-training, Polus (Gorgias 472):

“And so now you will find almost everybody, Athenians and foreigners, in agreement with you on the points you state, if you like to bring forward witnesses against the truth of what I say: if you like, there is Nicias, son of Niceratus, with his brothers, whose tripods are standing in a row in the Dionysium; or else Aristocrates, son of Scellias, whose goodly offering again is well known at Delphi; or if you choose, there is the whole house of Pericles or any other family you may like to select in this place. But I, alone here before you, do not admit it, for you fail to convince me: you only attempt, by producing a number of false witnesses against me, to oust me from my reality, the truth. But if on my part I fail to produce yourself as my one witness to confirm what I say, I consider I have achieved nothing of any account towards the matter of our discussion, whatever it may be; nor have you either, I conceive, unless I act alone as your one witness, and you have nothing to do with all these others. Well now, this is one mode of refutation, as you and many other people understand it; but there is also another which I on my side understand. Let us therefore compare them with each other and consider if there is a difference between them. For indeed the points which we have at issue are by no means of slight importance: rather, one might say, they are matters on which it is most honorable to have knowledge, and most disgraceful to lack it; for in sum they involve our knowing or not knowing who is happy and who is not. To start at once with the point we are now debating, you consider it possible for a man to be happy while doing wrong, and as a wrongdoer, since you regard Archelaus as a wrongdoer, and yet happy.”

Is Plato here not representing the exact sort of individualism which Hedges credits to the “Abrahamic faiths”?  Socrates is saying that in order to determine matters of ethics, it matters not what the rest of society at large says, but that it only depends on what truth itself reveals.

I might suggest that Hedges is taking part in a bit of Abrahamic supremacism.  Hedges plays loose with the history of philosophy is order to make his point that Abrahamic monotheism is unique in the profundity of its moral rectitude, that without the Abrahamic “prophets” to teach them, all people would be at some ethical disadvantage. The example of many such as Plato, who were writing completely independently of any Abrahamic influence, are enough to refute this supremacism.

It would be interesting to look at the first part of Hedges argument as well:  That the scriptures actually teach this individualism as he claims. For example, Hedges says:

“God exists in the word and through the word, an unprecedented conception in the ancient world that required the highest order of abstract thinking.  “In the beginning,” the Gospel of John reads, “was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  This is why the second of the Ten Commandments prohibits Israelites from making concrete images of God.”

So, the reason that that community in exile in Babylon which wrote the Book of Exodus did as they did, is because they shared the same conception of God that the author of the Gospel of John had?  That seems radically pseudo-historical.  Without some positive evidence for uniting two authors as if they had the same concerns and conceptions, it would be better to address each on their own terms.  Especially when these authors are vastly separated by time and place and language.

Perhaps Hedges places too much faith on a set of premises including his statement that “God is that mysterious force—and you can give it many names as other religions do—which works upon us and through us to seek and achieve truth, beauty and goodness.”  That is, perhaps Hedges is depending on the assumption that both of these authors (of John 1:1 and of Exodus 20:4) were worked upon by this “mysterious force” such that they were both brought to the same conception of this divine entity.  Perhaps he could give some argument for this hypothesis, but to use it as an unargued premise renders his argument very unconvincing to anyone who does not share his faith in such a holy spirit.

A final thought:  It seems that the ethical competitiveness of pagan Greek philosophy was well-recognized by antique “Abrahamic” thinkers.  And they too took part in pseudo-historical musings in order to ground their views of the supremacy of their own traditions.  Many Hellenistic Jewish and early Christian writers erroneously claimed that Plato had read the Pentateuch, including Josephus and Augustine. This claim is made in the fascinating Exhortation to the Greeks a probably fourth-century CE work by Pseudo-Justin (previously believed to be by Justin the Martyr, which actually may still be Roman Catholic doctrine).  In Exhortation to the Greeks literally every bad idea can be identified as coming from Homer or some other pagan source, and every good idea can be identified as coming from Moses or some other prophet, no matter how strained the arguments must become.

2 thoughts on “Chris Hedges, Abrahamic supremacism, Plato

  1. Excellent post. The post-Babylonian exile writers of the Old Testament and the New Testament writers did share more or less the same concept of God (it was monotheistic in nature). However, the pre-exile god(s) of the Old Testament were polytheistic. God (Yahweh/Jehovah) was portrayed as an angry, jealous tribal god. The god of the New Testament was “spirit” and was invisible (e.g. John said that no man had seen God). Yet the Abrahamic religions embrace both of these concepts of God. The confusion can be traced back to the Creation Story and the acceptance of the god of Genesis (verse 2) as the Prime Creator (which he was not).

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