WATCH: Samuel L. Jackson’s profanity-laced pro-Obama ad - NYPOST.com

WATCH: Samuel L. Jackson’s profanity-laced pro-Obama ad - NYPOST.com: Samuel L. Jackson, whose video reading of the book “Go the F--k to Sleep” went viral on the Internet, is releasing a pro-Obama ad today in the spirit of Dr. Seuss — but loaded with foul language and in-your-face attitude urging voters to “WAKE THE F--K UP!”

Charles Bliss and Bobby Rasulnia Restraining Orders: Dismissed

Charles Bliss Restraining Order 

Bobby Rasulnia Restraining Order

Bias Persists Against Women of Science, a Study Says - NYTimes.com

Bias Persists Against Women of Science, a Study Says - NYTimes.com: Science professors at American universities widely regard female undergraduates as less competent than male students with the same accomplishments and skills, a new study by researchers at Yale concluded.

As a result, the report found, the professors were less likely to offer the women mentoring or a job. And even if they were willing to offer a job, the salary was lower.

The bias was pervasive, the scientists said, and probably reflected subconscious cultural influences rather than overt or deliberate discrimination.

Female professors were just as biased against women students as their male colleagues, and biology professors just as biased as physics professors — even though more than half of biology majors are women, whereas men far outnumber women in physics.

 

 

Leaked videos show Romney dismissing Obama supporters as entitled ‘victims’ - The Washington Post

Leaked videos show Romney dismissing Obama supporters as entitled ‘victims’ - The Washington Post: “It’s shocking that a candidate for president of the United States would go behind closed doors and declare to a group of wealthy donors that half the American people view themselves as ‘victims,’ entitled to handouts, and are unwilling to take ‘personal responsibility’ for their lives. It’s hard to serve as president for all Americans when you’ve disdainfully written off half the nation,” Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said in a statement.

Titanic (1997 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"And all the while I feel I'm...

... standing in the middle of a crowded room...

... screaming at the top of my lungs...

... and no one even looks up."

"But the purpose of university is to find a suitable husband."

"All life is a game of luck."

"Now they retreat to congratulate each other on being masters of the universe."

"Of course it's unfair.  We're women.  Our choices are never easy."

"A woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets."

Titanic (1997 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Titanic is a 1997 American epic romantic disaster film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. A fictionalized account of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as members of different social classes who fall in love aboard the ship during its ill-fated maiden voyage.

Cameron's inspiration for the film was predicated on his fascination with shipwrecks; he wanted to convey the emotional message of the tragedy, and felt that a love story interspersed with the human loss would be essential to achieving this.  The film was partially funded by Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox, and, at the time, was the most expensive film ever made, with an estimated budget of $200 million.


Upon its release on December 19, 1997, the film achieved critical and commercial success. Nominated for fourteen Academy Awards, it won eleven, including the awards for Best Picture and Best Director, tying Ben Hur (1959) for most Oscars won by a single film. With an initial worldwide gross of over $1.84 billion, it was the first film to reach the billion-dollar mark. It remained the highest-grossing film of all time for twelve years, until Cameron's 2009 film Avatar surpassed its gross in 2010. A 3D version of the film, released on April 4, 2012 (often billed as Titanic 3D), to commemorate the centenary of the sinking of the ship, earned it an additional $343 million worldwide, which pushed Titanic's worldwide total to $2.18 billion. It became the second film to pass the two-billion mark (the first being Avatar).  

***  

On one of my mother and sister's visit to Atlanta, took them to the Titanic exhibit near midtown off Seventeenth St.  Upon entering, they took our picture in front of a lime green background as well as handing us each a boarding pass with the name of an original passenger that ill fated voyage.

 

Upon finishing the tour at the end, we were to compare our boarding pass to the names listing those who survived and those who did not.   Mine was  2nd class Benjamin Hart.  Although his wife and daughter survived...

I did not.   

 

***

 



The Passion of the Christ - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"For if you love only those who love you...

... what reward is there in that?"

The Passion of the Christ

The Passion of the Christ - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The Passion of the Christ (sometimes referred to as The Passion) is a 2004 American drama film directed by Mel Gibson and starring Jim Caviezel as Jesus Christ. It depicts the Passion of Jesus largely according to the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It also draws on other devotional writings, such as those disputedly attributed to Anne Catherine Emmerich.


Plot

The film opens in Gethsemane as Jesus prays and is tempted by Satan, while his apostles, Peter, James and John sleep. After receiving thirty pieces of silver, one of Jesus' other apostles, Judas, approaches with the temple guards and betrays Jesus with a kiss on the cheek. As the guards move in to arrest Jesus, Peter cuts off the ear of Malchus, but Jesus heals the ear. The temple guards arrest Jesus and the apostles flee. John tells Mary and Mary Magdalene of the arrest. Peter follows Jesus at a distance. Caiaphas holds trial over the objection of some of the other priests, who are expelled from the court. When questioned by Caiaphas whether he is the son of God, Jesus replies "I am." Caiaphas is horrified and tears his robes and Jesus is condemned to death for blasphemy. Three times Peter denies knowing Jesus but then runs away sobbing. Meanwhile, the remorseful Judas attempts to return the money to have Jesus freed but is refused by the priests. Tormented by demons, he flees the city and hangs himself with a rope he finds on a dead donkey.

Caiaphas brings Jesus before Pontius Pilate to be condemned to death, but after questioning Jesus, Pilate sends him instead to the court of Herod, as Jesus is from Herod's ruling town of Nazareth. After Jesus is returned, Pilate offers the crowd that he will chastise Jesus and then will set him free. Pilate attempts to have Jesus freed by giving the people an option of freeing Jesus or the violent criminal Barabbas. To his dismay, the crowd demands to have Barabbas freed and Jesus killed. Pilate washes his hands and proclaims he is not guilty of Jesus' punishment, but in an attempt to appease the crowd, has Jesus brutally scourged and mocked with a crown of thorns. The crowd continues to demand that Jesus be crucified, and Pilate reluctantly orders Jesus' crucifixion.

As Jesus carries the cross along the Via Dolorosa to Calvary, Seraphia wipes Jesus' face with her veil. Simon of Cyrene is unwillingly pressed into carrying the cross with Jesus. Jesus is then crucified. As he hangs from the cross, Jesus prays forgiveness for those who did this to him and redeems a criminal crucified next to him. After Jesus gives up his spirit and dies, a single drop of rain falls from the sky, triggering an earthquake which destroys the Temple and rips the cloth covering the Holy of Holies in two, to the horror of Caiaphas and the other priests. Satan is then shown screaming in defeat. Jesus is taken down from the cross. In the end, Jesus rises from the dead and exits the tomb.

***

I particularly enjoyed how this film portrayed Pontius Pilate.  An official looking after the interest of Rome, as well as his own job security,  at an isolated, desolate outpost he saw no value in other than situated along a major trade route.

I played a game with myself:

"What does it take to be the "FAIREST ONE OF THE ALL?"

I've decided...

one must be willing to displease them all,

that being what it would take...

this day and age...

fair to them all.

Jesus of Nazareth had it easy.

All he had to do was give everyone 

a 

hug.

Infamous (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"You can forgive a person a lot who really enjoys you."

"Here's a word I loathe:  eccentric.

Eccentric is a word that  boring people use to describe someone I think of as interesting."

"We're in control until we're not.  Then we're helpless."

"Artists have the power, through our imagination...

to escape a degenerate world and create a better one."

Infamous (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Plot

Truman Capote (Toby Jones), known in New York City society for his wit and fashion flair as much as he is recognized in literary circles as the celebrated writer of Other Voices, Other Rooms and Breakfast at Tiffany's, reads a small article about the murder of a farming family in Holcomb, Kansas, in the back pages of the New York Times of November 16, 1959.

Curious as to how the residents would react to a brutal massacre in their midst, the author and his friend, Harper Lee (Sandra Bullock), travel to the small town, ostensibly so Capote can interview people for a magazine article. Once there, he realizes there might be enough material for what he eventually describes as a nonfiction novel.

re·port·age 

rep-awr-tahzh

noun

1. the act or technique of reporting news.

2. reported news collectively: reportage on the war.

3. a written account of an act, event, history, etc., based on direct observation or on thorough research and documentation.

  Capote, whose dress and demeanor both amuse and dismay law enforcement officials, allows Lee to act as a buffer between himself and those whose trust he needs to gain in order to obtain as much background information as possible. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation's lead detective on the case, Alvin Dewey (Jeff Daniels), has refused to cooperate with the writer, but when his starstruck wife Marie meets Capote in front of the cheese display at the local grocery store, she invites him and Lee to Christmas dinner. He eventually wins over his host with his stories about Humphrey Bogart, John Huston, Ava Gardner, and the like. As a result, when ex-convicts Richard Hickock (Lee Pace) and Perry Smith (Daniel Craig) are apprehended in Las Vegas and extradited to Holcomb, Capote is permitted to interview them in their cells. The two men are tried and found guilty, and a lengthy period of appeals begins.

Truman finds himself entangled in a personal and professional dilemma. As much as he wants Perry to be sentenced to life in prison, death by hanging will provide a far more satisfying ending for readers of his book. He begins to waver in his feelings and provides no legal assistance for the final appeal. Perry and Richard have exhausted all their options; they ask that Truman be present at their April 14, 1965 execution, and he complies reluctantly with their request.

Singular Sensations - NYTimes.com

Singular Sensations - NYTimes.com: Singularities reflect nature’s attempt to resolve mismatches, to enforce continuity against all odds. When disagreements become inevitable (between hair directions, or wind directions, or time zones), singularities confine those mismatches to the smallest space possible: a single point.

One of the most remarkable features of singularities is their persistence. They have a kind of permanence to them. As you grow, your skull and scalp get bigger but you never lose that cowlick.

The Grey (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Once more into the fray...

Into the last good fight I'll ever know.

Live and die on this day...

Live and die on this day...

Freezing and alone,

Ottway then curses God and asks for his help with no response.

The Grey (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The Grey is a 2012 American Psychological thriller film directed by Joe Carnahan and starring Liam Neeson, Frank Grillo, and Dermot Mulroney. It is based on the short story Ghost Walker by Ian MacKenzie Jeffers, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Carnahan. The story follows a number of oil-men stranded in Alaska after a plane crash, who are forced to survive using little more than their wits, as a pack of gray wolves stalk them.

Plot

John Ottway (Liam Neeson) works in Alaska killing the wolves that threaten an oil drilling team. On his last day on the job, Ottway writes a letter to his wife Ana (Anne Openshaw) that he plans to commit suicide. While holding the barrel of a rifle in his mouth, Ottway hears the howl of a wolf, and pulls the trigger, but the gun doesn't fire. Upon completing the job, the team and Ottway head home on a plane that crashes in a blizzard. Ottway then sees a vision of his wife but awakens to find one of the team, Lewenden (James Badge Dale), mortally wounded. Ottway calms him, letting him know that he is going to die, and then Lewenden dies peacefully.

***

REMEMBERING SEPTEMBER 11TH

Black ribbon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The black ribbon, like similar awareness ribbons, is worn or displayed as a political statement.

The ribbon has been used in connection with numerous events and causes.

Sign of mourning

Similar to a black armband, the black ribbon is a public display of grief. Individuals or organizations display the ribbon in commemoration of victims after specific incidents. Some examples have included:

• 9/11 - This ribbon is a sign of mourning for those killed in the September 11th attack.
• In New Zealand, a black ribbon was worn by family members after the deaths of 29 trapped miners who died in an explosion on November 25, 2010.
• In Poland, a black ribbon was worn by mourners of Polish president Lech Kaczyński, his wife, and 95 other important senior officials who died on April 10, 2010.
• In the United Kingdom after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997.
• The black ribbon has again made an appearance shortly after category 5 Hurricane Katrina landed along the Gulf Coast of the United States in August 2005.
• The black ribbon was a symbol of popular grief in Spain after the 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks. It was worn on clothing and also pinned on the Spanish flag.
• Google displayed a black ribbon as a mark of respect and sympathy for victims of 9/11, the 7 July 2005 London bombings, and victims of Hurricane Katrina.
• After the earthquake on August 15, 2007 in Peru, black ribbons were the icons of all Peruvian television channels for 3 days
• After the death of Heath Ledger in January 2008, Warner Brothers placed a black ribbon on their marketing website for The Dark Knight in his memory.
• The black ribbon has been also used by the journalists in the Philippines to condemn the killings of journalists on the Maguindanao massacre.
• In Northern Ireland, Bloody Sunday 1972 - to remember the murders and attempted murders of civilians at the peak of The Troubles.
• Police officers often wear black ribbons in mourning of fallen officers.
• 20 July 2012: The 12 people killed, out of the 71 shot, at the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado.
• Turks use the black ribbon to mourn for the casualties of Turkish soldiers in the Turkey-PKK conflict.

Other meanings

• Melanoma Awareness - To bring awareness to melanoma and worn by people who know someone or are themselves affected by melanoma.
• In Argentina, a black ribbon, sometimes with the national flag's colours in both ends, is used to raise awareness about the victims of subversive terrorism.
• By the Anarchist Black Ribbon Campaign, a free speech campaign started in 1996 inspired by the Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign.
• During the 6th International Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) the black ribbon was worn worldwide to show support and promote awareness of the Palestinian struggle.
• In India, 2011 to show support to Anna Hazare who was fasting to fight against corruption by government. 

Gray ribbon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The grey ribbon, like similar awareness ribbons, is worn or displayed as a political statement.

The ribbon has been used in a variety of manners:

Diabetes awareness

Brain cancer awareness

Asthma awareness

Vote annulation (Mexico)

Mental Health awareness, specifically Borderline Personality Disorder

Support of Secession or in the American South Pro-Southern Nationalism

Zombie Awareness  

***

Luke 24:5
King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)

Zombie Awareness

And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?


***

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion_King

Plot

A baby prince is born to Sarabi and Mufasa, the lion rulers reigning over the Pride Lands, and the cub is presented to their subjects, an enormous hoarde of Serengeti animals, by the wise mandrill Rafiki (The Circle of Life). However, Mufasa's envious, contemptuous younger brother Scar is chagrined by the birth of his nephew, Simba, as he has been stripped of his status as heir presumptive to the throne through the prince's birth and conspires against Mufasa and Simba in secret in hopes of one day earning dominance over the Pride Lands.

Before long Simba ages into an eager, adventurous little cub anxious at the prospect of one day taking over the throne. In an attempt to prove his courage, Simba invites his closest friend Nala to venture out into the Elephant Graveyard (beyond the Pride Lands) with him in spite of his father's cautions of the hazards of the area. After distracting their babysitter Zazu the hornbill through song (I Just Can't Wait to Be King) the cubs escape to the graveyard but run into a trio of starving hyenas called Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed with the intentions of hunting them. Nala and Simba try to flee from the clutches of the hyenas, though fortunately Mufasa arrives to his son's aid before long and wards them off. Afterward, Simba apologizes to the forgiving king, who explains the guardianship of the spirits of previous kings to him in the stars above.

Controversies

Certain elements of the film were considered to bear a resemblance to a famous 1960s Japanese anime television show, Kimba the White Lion, with characters having analogues, and various individual scenes being nearly identical in composition and camera angle. Matthew Broderick believed initially that he was in fact working on a remake of Kimba, since he was familiar with the Japanese original. Disney's official stance is that the similarities are all coincidental. Yoshihiro Shimizu, of Tezuka Productions, which created Kimba the White Lion, has refuted rumours that the studio was paid hush money by Disney but explains that they rejected urges from within the industry to sue because, "we're a small, weak company. It wouldn't be worth it anyway ... Disney's lawyers are among the top twenty in the world!"

Protests were raised against one scene where it appears as if the word "SEX" might have been embedded into the dust flying in the sky when Simba flops down,which conservative activistDonald Wildmon asserted was a subliminal message intended to promote sexual promiscuity. The film's animators have stated that the letters spell "SFX" (a common abbreviation of "special effects"), and was intended as an innocent "signature" created by the effects animation team.

Hyena biologists protested against the animal's portrayal: one hyena researcher sued Disney studios for defamation of character, and another—who had organized the animators' visit to the University of California's Field Station for Behavioural Research, where they would observe and sketch captive hyenas— included boycotting The Lion King as a way of helping to preserve hyenas in the wild.

***

I'm amazed Wikipedia didn't mention the cultural war among it's controversies.  Scar's silhouette in front of a crescent  moon as he plots to be king while surrounded by hyenas definitely hinting at Islam.

I'm not the only one who's caught this symbolism.

Red Tails - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Politics is the art of postponning a decision

until it is...

no longer relevant."

"Experience is a cruel teacher. 

She gives the exam first, then the lesson."

Red Tails - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Red Tails is a 2012 American war film produced by Lucasfilm and released by 20th Century Fox. The film is a fictionalized portrayal of the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African American United States Army Air Force (USAAF) servicemen during World War II

Plot

In 1944, after enduring racism throughout their recruitment and training in the Tuskegee training program, the 332d Fighter Group of young African American USAAF fighter pilots are finally sent into combat in Italy, although flying worn-out Curtiss P-40 Warhawk aircraft. Chafing at their ground attack missions against trains and enemy ground transport, the Tuskegee Airmen recognize that they may never fight the Luftwaffe in fighter-to-fighter combat. The tight-knit group of Capt. Martin "Easy" Julian (Nate Parker), Lt. Joe "Lightning" Little (David Oyelowo), Ray "Ray Gun" or "Junior" Gannon (Tristan Wilds), and Samuel "Joker" George (Elijah Kelley) under the guidance of Major Emanuel Stance (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) and Col. A.J. Bullard (Terrence Howard), face a white military bureaucracy still resistant to accepting black flyers as equals.

***

If I post a movie on my blog, it's not necessarily that I enjoyed the movie; just something in the movie clicked with me.  Red Tails I did enjoy.

Other movies I enjoyed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Color_Purple_(film)

 Filmed in Anson and Union counties in North Carolina, the film tells the story of a young African American girl named Celie and shows the problems African American women faced during the early 1900s, including poverty, racism, and sexism. Celie is transformed as she finds her self-worth through the help of two strong female companions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Soldier's_Story

 A black officer is sent to investigate the murder of a black sergeant in Louisiana near the end of World War II. It is a story about racism and segregation in a black U.S Army regiment with white officers deep in the Jim Crow South, in a time and place where a black officer is unprecedented and bitterly resented by nearly everyone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heart_Specialist

A modern comedy about the everyday perils of first year medical residents at a shabby south Florida hospital. Wood Harris is the Chief Resident, who teaches the trainees how to save lives and not take themselves too seriously, all the while hiding a chilling secret of his own.

***

A Soldier's Story, me an my mother watched together a long time ago on one of my visits home.

My mother enjoyed it so much, she brought up the topic to her lady friends during a game of bridge.  I remember her being shocked, as she told me their story, of her friends having no interest in watching the movie only because it was from a Negro's perspective.

The Color Purple altogether a different story.  Mother didn't like that movie because of the lesbian insinuation between two characters.

Same reason she didn't like Fried Green Tomatoes...

 another movie I loved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fried_Green_Tomatoes_(film)

 It tells the story of a Depression-era friendship between two women, Ruth and Idgie, and a 1980s friendship between Evelyn, a middle-aged housewife, and Ninny, an elderly woman who knew Ruth and Idgie. The centerpiece and parallel story concerns the murder of Ruth's abusive husband and the accusations that follow.

The film received a generally positive reception from film critics and was nominated for two Academy Awards. The filmmakers drew criticism from some reviewers for removing the lesbian content of the book's plot, but the film won a GLAAD Media Award for "best lesbian content".

Shunning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"There are times the human heart needs more

than

the old ways can give it."

~The Baby Catcher~

Anabaptism

Shunning occurs in Old Order Amish and some Mennonite churches. Shunning can be particularly painful for the shunned individuals in these denominations, which are generally very close-knit, as the shunned person may have no significant social contact with anyone other than those in their denomination.


Upon taking instruction classes, each applicant must make a confession to uphold shunning of all excommunicated adult members, and also submit to being shunned if they are excommunicated. The stated intention is not to punish, but to be used in love to win the member back by showing them their error.

***

SHUNNING

Shunning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Shunning can be the act of social rejection, or mental rejection. Social rejection is when a person or group deliberately avoids association with, and habitually keeps away from an individual or group. This can be a formal decision by a group, or a less formal group action which will spread to all members of the group as a form of solidarity. It is a sanction against association, often associated with religious groups and other tightly knit organizations and communities. Targets of shunning can include persons who have been labeled as, apostates, whistleblowers, dissidents, strikebreakers, or anyone the group perceives as a threat or source of conflict. Social rejection has been established to cause psychological damage and has been categorized as torture. Mental rejection is a more individual action, where a person subconsciously or willfully ignores an idea, or a set of information related to particular viewpoint. Some groups are made up of people who shun the same ideas.

Shunning can be broken down into behaviours and practices that seek to accomplish either or both of two primary goals.

1. To modify the behaviour of a member. This approach seeks to influence, encourage, or coerce normative behaviours from members, and may seek to dissuade, provide disincentives for, or to compel avoidance of certain behaviours. Shunning may include disassociating from a member by other members of the community who are in good standing. It may include more antagonistic psychological behaviours (described below). This approach may be seen as either corrective or punitive (or both) by the group membership or leadership, and may also be intended as a deterrent.
   
2. To remove or limit the influence of a member (or former member) over other members in a community. This approach may seek to isolate, to discredit, or otherwise dis-empower such a member, often in the context of actions or positions advocated by that member. For groups with defined membership criteria, especially based on key behaviours or ideological precepts, this approach may be seen as limiting damage to the community or its leadership. This is often paired with some form of excommunication.

Some less often practiced variants may seek to:

• Remove a specific member from general external influence to provide an ideological or psychological buffer against external views or behaviour. The amount can vary from severing ties to opponents of the group up to and including severing all non-group-affiliated intercourse.

Shunning is usually approved of (if sometimes with regret) by the group engaging in the shunning, and usually highly disapproved of by the target of the shunning, resulting in a polarization of views. Those subject to the practice respond differently, usually depending both on the circumstances of the event, and the nature of the practices being applied. Extreme forms of shunning have damaged some individuals' psychological and relational health. Responses to the practice have developed, mostly around anti-shunning advocacy; such advocates highlight the detrimental effects of many of such behaviors, and seek to limit the practice through pressure or law. Such groups often operate supportive organizations or institutions to help victims of shunning to recover from damaging effects, and sometimes to attack the organizations practicing shunning, as a part of their advocacy.

In many civil societies, kinds of shunning are practiced de-facto or de-jure, to coerce or avert behaviours or associations deemed unhealthy. This can include:

• restraining orders or peace bonds (to avoid abusive relationships)
  
• court injunctions to disassociate (to avoid criminal association or temptation)
  
• medical or psychological instructing to avoid associating (to avoid hazardous relations, i.e. alcoholics being instructed to avoid friendship with non-recovering alcoholics, or asthmatics being medically instructed to keep to smoke-free environs)
  
• using background checks to avoid hiring people who have criminal records (to avoid association with felons, even when the crimes have nothing to do with the job description)

Stealth shunning

Stealth shunning is a practice where a person or an action is silently banned. When a person is silently banned, the group they have been banned from doesn't interact with them. This can be done by secretly announcing the policy to all except the banned individual, or it can happen informally when all people in a group or email list each conclude that they do not want to interact with the person. When an action is silently banned, requests for that action are either ignored or turned down with faked explanations.

Civil rights implications

Some aspects of shunning may also be seen as being at odds with civil rights or human rights, especially those behaviours that coerce and attack. When a group seeks to have an effect through such practices outside its own membership, for instance when a group seeks to cause financial harm through isolation and disassociation, they can come at odds with their surrounding civil society, if such a society enshrines rights such as freedom of association, conscience, or belief. Many civil societies do not extend such protections to the internal operations of communities or organizations so long as an ex-member has the same rights, prerogatives, and power as any other member of the civil society.

***

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Bittersweet Revenge

The statement about "there being times the human heart needing more than the old ways can give it" may very well be the reason explaining  the mob's attraction to Jesus' unsanctioned sermons.

May very well also explain the mob's abandonment of Jesus during his trail before Pontius Pilate.

If the miracles Jesus performed in front of his own people weren't convincing enough to spare his life; 
why should we be convinced by them today.

Leaving us only with the message of his sermons.

You cannot repeat what HE said THEN...
this day and age...
and have it MEAN the same thing today. 
Just cannot DO that.

Not ALL of US anyway.

***

On September 25th, will have to appear before Judge Nora Polk regarding restraining orders place against me by my two of my neighbors, Charles Bliss and Bobby Rasulnia, who live right next door to me.

My question before her is going to have to be:

"How does one be a good little progressive

without

 being confrontational?"

Find it funny how even Liberal say "confrontational"

the way "

Conservatives" say:

"PROGRESSIVES!"

&

"YOU'RE A LIBERAL!"

"Confront." 

"Confrontational." 

"Confront."

 "Confrontational."

That's not a dirty word either.

&

I take pride in that.

As all politics is local, 
from my perspective it begins with my home 
and 
spirals outwards from there.

As I lived in my house first, 
it's not my fault 
our story 
(mine, Charlie's, and Bobby's) 
is 
such a huge part of my of my story.

I have every right to tell my story/sing my song 
to 
any and all willing to listen or read.

Although atheist...

can't help feel it ordained God feeding me two useless faggots to make an example of...

helping prove my lack of tribal loyalties.

Either we are all God's children 
or 
we never were.

Meet Joe Black - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Mostly lonely here too.  Maybe nice pictures in our head to take with us."

~Dying Old Jamacian Woman~

"Tell everything there is to know about you

and

let the chips fall where they may."

Meet Joe Black

Meet Joe Black is a 1998 American fantasy romance film produced by Universal Studios, directed by Martin Brest and starring Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins and Claire Forlani, loosely based on the 1934 film Death Takes a Holiday. It was the second pairing of Hopkins and Pitt after their 1994 film Legends of the Fall.

Meet Joe Black - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Plot

Billionaire media mogul William "Bill" Parrish (Anthony Hopkins) is considering a merger between his company and another media giant, while also about to celebrate his 65th birthday with an elaborate party being planned by his eldest daughter Allison (Marcia Gay Harden). He begins to hear mysterious voices, which he tries with increasing difficulty to ignore.

The grim reaper of Death arrives at Bill's home in the body of the young man, explaining that Bill's impassioned speech has piqued his interest after an eternity of boredom. Given Bill's "competence, experience, and wisdom," Death tells Bill that in return for a few extra days of life, Bill shall be his guide on Earth. Bill agrees, and Death places himself at Bill's right hand as "Joe Black" and establishes a constant presence in Bill's home and work.