To be honest, I'm not quite sure what to make of my latest dream. It really could go both ways. For one, to realize putting together an amazing production with a unique cast and crew would be an amazing dream. But, on the other hand, putting all together can be like an insane nightmare.
My first memory had seemed to start out with some sort of concept for a home brew roleplay. I don't remember the details, other than there was some sort of degree system for interactions. This started the basic theme of events, the whole boy meets girl, they go off on an adventure to explore and save the world, and meet all sorts of interesting people along the way. Somehow this started forming a story, that apparently was forming in some sort of play or musical production. There was everything from this funky sax jazz street musician vibe, to even Aretha Franklin, and the impression that, whatever this thing was, it was getting big, and maybe getting away from itself, since there was so much of the actual production yet to be realised.
Somewhere in the dream, it shifted focus to this country singer who was frustrated, trying to get the crowd going. He broke character for a moment. I suppose it revealed him as not 'true country', or something. All I remember is he seemed similar, somewhat a parody of a popular country singer I remember from when I was a kid in the 90's. Somewhere in this sequence, it popped back to me trying to describe, maybe pitch the idea. The people that heard it thought it impressive, pretty wild, but just not up their alley.
If any of this sounds a bit cryptic, well, it is. Unlocking what comes from my dreams is not always easy. If I could remember and draft out half of it before the waking day starts to erase things, I probably could have many books, playwrites, movies, and music to my name by now. What I have on my YouTube channel is still a small selection compared to what's been stirring in my mind, and I still have plenty of old pieces that could use a remaster. At any rate, it's the frustrating thing about creating things. Not only do dreams fade, but time moves on. Soon, I will have to get ready for work. But at least I had enough time to jot down this much, while the dream remained in fairly recent memory.
This is a response to a podcast I listened to on CatholicVote.Com. They preface this to say that they are not trying to disparage Ben Shapiro, but 'take the conservative hat' off for a bit. One could call this being a hypocrite in the classical sense, as allusion to how actors in the classic Greek theatre wore masks to pretend to be the persona of the character that they are not. This is all fine, but the argument by Stephen Herried seems a bit out of place, especially when he talks about not watering down the other side's arguments by watering down the conservative argument. I understand the 'human element', but find this the crux of the issue, that we do need to understand facts, and not rely on feelings. I really don't care about whether Stephen Herried, or anyone cares about my feelings. I've had teachers and parents 'care about my feelings' to death, or at least help put me in poverty because they weren't kind enough to speak to me on facts of life, and preferred to coddle me to the point that, despite having a college education, I'm scraping by on a retail job that barely pays the bills. No lessons on balancing a checkbook, because, well heck, not even the government cares to balance their own checkbook and try to live within its means - er, well, the means of the taxpayers that they press to give them money to waste on terrible healthcare bills, unnecessary funding of political correctness nonsense that only causes more litigation and aggression between fellow citizens, and all the other ways that the government wastes taxpayer funding, and yet these crocodile career politicians on both sides of the aisle come out with their 'feeling's and virtue signalling campaigns to, what? Get re-elected to continue to waste our taxpayer money?
But this is what I wrote in the comments - or at least sent. Whether they actually put it up in the comments section is another story. But here is is for anyone who cares to read:
Sorry, but Ocassio-Cortez is virtue signalling. You are not even getting Ben Shapiro right with the 'because math' argument, because that's an obvious straw man. She's not hitting on points, but tossing around the usual liberal virtue signals. Low information voting means that they don't look beyond the soundbytes. This is not about right-wing pundit hat, or 'because math', which is mere fallacy rhetoric that makes no point whatsoever. The 'eat the rich', and all rich are right wing corporate owners that don't care about the poor loses ground when Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffet are both liberals that vote democrat and push the liberal agenda. The problem isn't about the money. In 1947, senators made about $30,000 a year, and the president $75,000 a year. National debt was around $200 billion. People in retail made as much, if not more than teachers, around $2400 a year, and a car cost about $1500. Houses were about $15,000.
The core problem is between greed and envy, and that vicious cycle is what has our national debt in the trillions, and why in many places you can't live off of $15/hr. By the way, in 1947, minimum wage was around $0.50/hour. How is it in over half a century, we're talking about a job paying $15/hr is being at poverty level? Within probably less than 25 years, people might all be millionaires, and so what? By that time, nobody would be able to live off a million dollars! So let's cut the crap and start looking at the root problems. Continue on the path to socialism, and we may all be millionaires, but we'll still be poor, and not in the 'poor in spirit' that makes for a beattitude, but that selfish poverty and depravity that lends itself to making a person poor no matter how much they make, that leads people to killing babies in pursuit of a career, because apparently you can't have a steady job and a family at the same time, that leads to illegal immigration because we are a lawless people that can't understand why we have borders, and that everyone will go to heaven regardless what sins they commit, and regardless of if they go to Confession or not. After all, who needs Confession in a world that's abolished the rightful judgement of sin, tells you not to listen to your conscience, even to kill it so you can sin more boldly, and that you shouldn't have to suffer to have good things? Granted, not all good things are difficult and require suffering, but to do true good and virtue is going to cost you. It cost our Lord and Savior his life, in order to redeem us from sin and give us a sacramental life whereby we can ourselves overcome the slavery of sin and fear of death so that we might have eternal life.
Ben Shapiro is not Catholic, I know that, but yet, he does give right criticism for us Catholics, who, if indeed we truly believed what Christ taught, would quit all this left winged communist virtue signalling and actually go out and do the virtuous works of mercy. We would quit looking at the sliver in our neighbor and first take out the plank in our own. What he speaks on is not mere 'nerdy' or 'because math' hard to understand stuff. It's very sound, and reasonable. We can't rely on billionaires or trillionaires, nor the Nanny State to be our saviors. Especially if we are Christians, this would be wrong as we are putting the rich and the government in the place of God. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has spoken much the same, that this is the problem of modernism, that the state is made the god after taking God out of our public lives. You don't have to be a Pope or a conservative Christian fundamentalist to see that. The question is simple, who do you choose as your god, God Himself, or the world? There's two civilizations in the world, one that's of God, and one that is not, which one are you residing in?
I had read an article that was more or less click bait. That is, they used what I'd call an "Aha! Gatcha!" sort of title to try and say how Patreon supports porn, even after Jack Conte said that they didn't in the interview with Dave Rubin on The Rubin Report.
What the article didn't seem to get is that there's a difference between people getting away with sites with funding for Porn, and what is Patreon's mission and how Jack Conte tries to use Manifest Observable Behavior (MOB) to govern Patreon. Like any system, it has it's flaws, and there are things on Patreon that essentially are porn, but hiding behind a NSFW (not safe for work) tag, and claiming they're not porn, but R-rated material. However, if MOB is to work the first thing one has to do is read up on Patreon's Community Guidelines, and if you do see Patreon pages that are not following these guidelines, make it known to Patreon, and even show them their guidelines, such as these for Nudity and Pornography:
"Patreon is not for pornography, but some of the world’s most beautiful and historically significant art often depicts nudity and sexual expression. Because of that, we allow nudity and suggestive imagery, as long as it is marked NSFW. Think of the policy as allowing 'R Rated' movies... but not porn. In keeping with our strong commitment to safety, we have zero tolerance for content that sexualizes children in any way. The glorification of rape and sexual violence is also not ok, Patreon reserves the right to review and remove accounts that may violate this guideline.
This includes images (illustrated, animated, and otherwise) that glorify rape or sexual violence, accompanied by titles/captions/descriptions.
Depictions of rape or sexual violence within the context of a personal/historical narrative or satire are subject to review."
Patreon can't do much about what they have yet to observe. Being a person that has had my own art groups on Flickr, I've had to deal with this. At first, it seems pretty easy. Make rules, or guidelines that help give an idea what is and is not allowed in the groups. And yet, there have been times I've had to ban people because they couldn't follow the simplest of rules, and continue to try and post pictures that have nothing to do with the theme of the group. For instance, I have one group to post pictures that focus on Nekos in Second Life, and have make it clear what Neko is, and that non-Neko related pictures are not allowed. Yet, I've had to ban people from the group for constantly posting (or later, submitting, when I made it submission only) fashion blog pics that had nothing to with the focus of the group. Another major thing was inverted crosses and pentagrams due to them being disrespectful to religion and often tied to Satanism, which, as a Christian, I do not and will not support. There were some favorite artists that had great art, but the moment they went down that dark road, I had to ban them from any and all groups I have on Flickr, as well as block simply to avoid drama.With Patreon, its a much larger platform than my art groups, and, as such, this ability to ban and block is that much more difficult, even just looking at the size and scale of Patreon. For me to individually look at hundreds, or even an accumulation of nearly 1000 pictures that are submitted to my Flickr groups is a daunting task, of which I'm currently backlogged on. Patreon uses a safety team, which makes sense for why Jack Conte wouldn't know all the answers on every single individual or group that starts a Patreon page and why their page might be taken down, or not be able to start one up in the first place. Also, for what is on Patreon that is porn dressing itself up as R-rated, NSFW content, if you see it, flag it and let Patreon review it. Jack Compt himself says to send the examples so Patreon can look into it.
However, with Lauren Southern, he does have the manifested observable behavior and discussed it on his own YouTube account here:
It's pretty clear and observable in the video clips that were shown in this detailed response that Lauren Southern was audibly telling the driver of the boat to block another boat. While I may believe that what Southern is trying to do is a good and noble cause, it was still crossing the lines from reporting on the issue to becoming an activist for the issue. I Southern wants to become an activist for this particular issue, that's fine. But, in crossing the line from observing to actively being involved, it can lead to consequences - some good and some bad. One of those unfortunate consequences is losing a Patreon page. While I sympathize with Lauren Southern, I can also see Jack Conte's point on this. The nuances of policies can be difficult, and, while it's easy to armchair quarterback and criticize the whole process of a business in trying to follow its mission, it's still important to know what that mission is. I can agree with the general message and guidelines, and so will continue on with Patreon for a while longer.
I know Gard wasn't French, but was born in the UK, in Bedfont, London. But this is kind of a counterpoint to the rather social justice warrior fad sort of thing that was Je Suis Charlie, when it was in reference to Charlie Hebdo. But I'm not mocking the tragedy that happened there. The shooting on the 7th of January, 2015 by two brothers, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi who sought to carry out the suicide mission for Al-Qaeda because of the way the magazine parodied the founding prophet of Islam, Mohamed, that was indeed a tragedy. The magazine had done parodies on the Pope, Catholicism, and Christianity in general, but no Christian sought retribution in the deadly manner that the two Muslim brothers did.
However, this is not about Charlie Hebdo, but Charlie Gard, which is a tragedy just as bad, and just as important as the Charlie Hebdo shooting. Yet, many will not see it that way. Most have come to believe it as a matter of 'reproductive rights', and it is, to a certain extent. After all, if you're going to argue, 'my body, my choice', then there are at least two issues to consider here.
For one, Charlie Gard was born - he was out of the womb. Therefore, it was his mother's choice to carry him through to birth him. However, he was born with mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that causes progressive brain damage and muscle failure.
On the other, the parents of Charlie Gard sought to keep him alive and seek treatment elsewhere, since the national children's hospital, Great Ormond Street Hospital (ironically having the acronym of GOSH), decided that it wasn't worth the effort to try and save Charlie Gard. Instead of letting the parents go elsewhere to try and treat Charlie Gard's condition, both the British courts and the European Court of Human Rights supported GOSH's position to override the parents' choices on the matter.
Think of that for the moment. Did Charlie Gard come out of the womb of any of the potential judges and government figures that made this decision? No. Not to mention, most of the people that made the decision were men, with the few women making the decision not being the mother, the person that carried Charlie Gard in her body throughout his pregnancy and gave birth to him. So what happened to reproductive rights being the choice of the mother? Apparently 'mother' then becomes defined as the role of the elitist bureaucracy of the government, that supposedly knows better than the parents on what choices they ought to make.
This sets a lot of precedence, considering that governments, even corporations are listening in on the poorly guided ethicists that have been postulating the notion for a while now that there is no difference between a fetus in the womb or outside the womb, so it could be argued that it is ethically ok to abort post birth. You have to wonder how far this twisted sort of ethics may go. Maybe there's no difference in aborting a child that hasn't reached the age of reason? When would that age be? Maybe one could abort their child before they graduate from high school, or if they don't choose the right college, or even want to go to college? Further, if the government can override the parents, then if the government sees the child as a threat or dreg on society, then the government can step in and abort the child.
There are numerous ways this can go, which any of us here that have been involved in Post Apocalyptic writing and roleplay could easily come up with and make a story about. However, it's one thing for such concepts and scenarios to be the basis of a fiction, it's another thing when it appears to be turning into a potential reality.
So yes, I say je suis Charlie Gard, and also say that we potentially all are. In as much as governments, industries, and corporations want to own us, we are all Charlie Gard, and we all may potentially be murdered by these self-proclaimed masters if they decide they have no use for us any more.
The question is, "Is there truly a defect in Valerian?"
It came to my curiosity when Looper had this article by Julia Bianco titled The Real Reason Valerian Flopped At The Box Office that was in my Facebook feed. You can find the same information told virtually verbatim on Looper's YouTube video here, by a guy with an Australian accent. However, what made me decide to take a trip to the local movie theater to see for myself if the movie is really as much of a flop as articulated came more from Alachi Queen's more raunchy review, where her main argument was that the story of Valerian: The City of a Thousand Planets was that the story was 'stupid', 'ridiculous', and a 'terrible movie'. Why? Because the story was based around Valerian and Laureline, which is a typical love story between an alpha male and a strong woman that keeps rejecting the man's courting until the end. She claims that she can't buy into the story because human beings hadn't progressed to the intelligence she would have expected. Never mind that Alachi Queen herself doesn't show a lot of intellect in her arguments, not to mention something of a naiveté about human progress with regards to her notion that human leaders will evolve into some pure nobility without personal motives. I'm not sure what universe she expects this in, nor how she can have no problem overlooking all the rest of the aliens that have their personal motives and not see how hypocritical her critique is. Regardless, none of this persuades me to believe that Valerian is a flop, beyond what people expect as per monetary commercial success.
The issue behind the source, for one, makes me more interested in seeing the movie. As Looper notes, the movie is based on Valerian et Laureline. However, I don't understand why Looper/Julia Bianco seem to dismiss it as just a comic strip, and not at least grant more detail, as Wikipedia did, including the artists who created the story, writer Pierre Christin and artist Jean-Claude Mézières, as well as the first publication, Pilote, a French comic magazine published from 1959 to 1989 that showcased major French and Belgian comic art and story talents during its era of circulation. Looper/Julia Bianco at least noted that the Valerian series influenced Star Wars, and briefly acknowledge how it influenced other science fiction franchises, omitting writer Luc Besson's own movie from 1997, The Fifth Element. One also has to wonder why they downplay that Valerian is a landmark franchise in European comics and pop culture and influenced until you read in the Looper article (or hear the verbatim of it in the YouTube video) about how "in the United States, the comic never really found the audience that it did on the other side of the Atlantic," and "[n]on-franchise and non-sequel films without much name recognition can struggle at the box office." In other words, the big picture for success and failure of movies in the US is not based on originality or compelling legacy source material that influenced big name science fiction movies, but whether the franchise can be turned into sequels and if it already has popularity in the United States. Alachia Queen doesn't seem to argue about this, and seems to be oblivious to the original source material, which is apparent in her lack of understanding why the main story is what it is. If anything, she shows the particular expectations she has about what she thinks would be human progress in 400 years. I'm not really sure why she expects this when one of her first things to note about the concept of the first ten minutes us some mention of her husband was supposedly masturbating while enjoying the big idea around the future of the International Space Station being made into an Intergalactic, Inter-species city-planet. Just on that alone do I question the intellect of the critique, especially when she is trying to talk about the movie with a false pretense of intellect that can only resort to mind in the gutter humor.
I'm not going to make this all about trying to debunk the two critiques of the movie mentioned, as they were examples of the sort of thing that made me decide to go check out the movie. For one, I love a nice love story, and one that keeps in the PG-13 rating. It's supposed to follow a traditional trope because it is following the source material that influenced major space operas and science fiction movies like Star Wars and The Fifth Element. If you look closely, you'll see some of the elements that made it into those movies, such as the spaceship that Valerian and Laureline travel around the universe in that looks very similar to the Milennium Falcon. Then there is a silly reference to the source material itself, when Valerian is in a part of the city of Alpha and is confronted by a woman that speaks French, and says to her, "Sorry, I don't speak French." Obscure, but it is a humorous irony that you can appreciate if you understand where it's coming from. Admittedly, I do agree that Dane DeHaan sounds a lot like Keanu Reeves, but, since I liked Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, and even his earlier work of Bill and Ted, this is no problem for me. Keanu Reeves, in his own right, helped form the trope that DeHaan is playing, so it's not that terrible to me. Plus, I love movies from the 80's and 90's, and find, really, that the modern YouTube critics, other than maybe Cinema Sins, are really the ones that are terrible and not worth listening to. To that, I'm glad I didn't listen to the critics, and instead gave the movie a chance. It is actually a pretty awesome space opera, and, considering its source material, could become a cult classic in its own right. So, all I ask is, if you're tired of all the big, dramatic, commercially successful movies, or even if you are not, to consider giving Valerian: The City of a Thousand Planets a chance and go watch it. If you are not a jaded YouTube critic who hates 80's and 90's movies, but rather loves them, including The Fifth Element, then you are likely to love this movie. So go see it! 😉
That is to ask, "Is man always to be the jester for woman?"
It is a question I pose after a discussion had on Facebook regarding whether men are funnier than women. It came about when one who commented noted that men commonly try to be funny at parties, and do what they can to make women laugh. I noted that this is mostly observing a general manner or behavior in particular situations, such as in performing for entertainment, or at a party.
Interesting enough, especially since liberals are claimed to commonly be the experts in entertainment, how it is that they put men and women into boxes so easily - of the goofy husband that will humiliate himself for laughs, and the woman who is the only sensible person in the room, and even at parties would never assume the place of jester, because that's only for men.
Oh course, I come from a male perspective on this because, well, I'm a man. While I don't think there's anything wrong with a man making a woman laugh, I do think that our society pushes the role of jester on men to the point where it's the only caricature that will be accepted as masculine - or its the only way that men can get attention, by looking goofy or acting, well, stupid. How dare a man even show any ounce of intelligence or backbone, or any actual dignity that comes from being a man? He must be always the jester and pay his homage to women by making them laugh, or he is no "real" man™.
But really, these sorts of discourses return me back to the market place analogy that Christ gave:
"But how shall I esteem this generation and what it is like? It is like children sitting in the market place, who, crying to their companions, say, 'We have piped for you, and you have not danced. We have lamented, and you have not mourned.' For John came neither eating nor drinking; and they say, 'He hath a devil.' The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Behold a man that is a glutton and a wine drinker, a friend of publicans and sinners.' And wisdom is justified by her children." (Matt. 11:16-19, see also Mark 7:31-35)
And yet, between John and Jesus as the Son of Man, both are examples of men. And I'm sure John the Baptist could smile, even crack a joke, but we know him for being a serious person. Of course Jesus is more than a man, being God dwelling among us, who we might expect to always be serious, but yet he will go to parties and show joy among sinners. He shows humility, but does not degrade what it means for him to be the Son of Man and the Son of God.
But the point is, there is more to being a man than being a jester. I refuse to let the entertainment industry, or any industry lay claim to the definition of man to one simple caricature.
So I was about to go to a local sandwich shop close to where I live in town for my first taste of meat since the beginning of the onset of Lent. However, they had a sign up stating they were closed for Easter Sunday. My first thought was that it seemed strange in this day and age for a restaurant to close on Easter. Christmas, it is still customary, even though much of the Christmas season has been taken over with secular winter festivities and the commercialization of gift giving for the sake of giving gifts, and the hope of stores to end the final quarter of the year on a high note. None of the old customs of true liberality, in the largesse, as it were, of generosity, which was the old fashion of Christendom in the middle ages before its decadence into modernity, have survived, save maybe as a matter of trivia and frivolity. More often than not, such things are footnotes in dusty old history books, not to mention poems and songs that have long ago lost their luster in the world. Such fashions of the largesse liberality of the Middle Ages have gone for better, or, quite possibly more true, for the worse.
