I started writing this on January 6th, a particularly tragic day in United States history. If you’re just tuning in, my name is Zeda Grace. I would kiss your asses a bit more if I cared about catering to the masses over getting to the important things, but right now, on my farm just outside of DC, I’ve been listening to military aircrafts flying overhead all day from the various bases (way more than usual) and I already had the patience for humanity’s stupidity that Ezma in The Emperor’s New Groove had, long before I started this show, so we’re just jumping in.
A few episodes ago, I opened with the introduction of how podcasting in quarantine felt like the group of radio sleuths conducting “Potterwatch” in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Unfortunately, with the current situation of death eaters (white supremacists) led by Lord Voldemort (Donald Trump) that is storming Hogwarts (the Capitol) and being ALLOWED IN BY FEDERAL OFFICERS… all the while the President of the United States, our incorrigible cunt of a dictator (again, Donald Trump) has denied the DC Mayor’s request for mobilization of the National Guard. It’s important to point out he previously denied coordination of a police force for this rally in general, spoke in front of these domestic terrorists and QUOTED THAT HE WILL NOT LEAVE THE OFFICE DURING HIS SPEECH AT THIS RALLY IN AN ATTEMPT TO OVERTHROW AN OVERWHELMINGLY SECURE ELECTION IN A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY. Yet, he mobilized federal police and the entire police in the DMV, along with the National Guard, for remarkably peaceful Black Lives Matter protests over the summer in 2020. Not to mention, because DC is not a state, thus they do not have a governor, only a mayor, they cannot mobilize the National Guard on their own. The department of defense, and thus, Donald Trump, as most officials who disagreed with him over the last four years have resigned and left their posts honorably, only to subsequently be replaced with “yes men” who endorse and support his policies, was therefore responsible for mobilizing the National Guard at the Mayor’s request. Which, again, Trump DENIED. This is just another reason to discuss validating the statehood of DC.
Where is the “no taxation without representation” crowd from the 1760’s and 1770’s?
It’s almost like revolutions were started around that. Wild. Last I checked, the Virginia Governor had deployed the Virginia National Guard to distill the Trump supporting crowd that was effectively let in to the Capitol and through the barriers by the same police force who tear gassed and shot rubber bullets at peaceful BLM protestors all summer. I guess that $750 billion defense budget doesn’t protect our nation’s capital or the validation of a secure election.
Every single one of the members of his administration, every single judge he’s placed, every single federal agent he put forth, every single person who has voted in favor of his maneuvers or continued to support him in any kind of political position needs to be temporarily removed and for full-scale investigations to take place, along with questioning and reassessment of their ability to continue in their duties with sound judgment for refusing to condemn his behavior. For actively supporting it. For encouraging it. For stoking the flames. This is disgusting.
You all are unfit to uphold the Constitution or “democracy” in any way. There must be consequences and WHOLE SCALE accountability.
…Let’s start with Amy Coney Barrett.
Kidding! I’ll get to her. Just not today.
Which reminds me…I know January 20th is less than 2 weeks away, but are we really gonna force ourselves to continue to carry to term and not late-term abort Donald Trump immediately? We cannot afford to wait. Get this megalomaniac the fuck out of his position. RIGHT NOW. I’m pretty sure it’s only around 1-2% of all U.S. Presidents as is and it’s (conveniently) also medically dire. The statistics look good.
The worst part is that this is the first time the U.S. Capitol has been breached since 1814, when the British attacked and set it on fire during the war of 1812 (shout out to the director of scholarship and operations with the U.S. Capitol Historical Society). However, as a DMV native, you KNOW that DC is NOT your playground. The police force and security is excessive. If people are getting into those buildings, it’s because they are being allowed in. The federal police were SMILING AND POSING IN PHOTOGRAPHS WITH WHITE SUPREMACISTS WHO THE FBI RELEASED STATEMENTS CONDEMNING AS THE GREATEST THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY OVER THE LAST YEAR.
The police shot Breonna Taylor in her fucking bed inside her own home and white people across this nation had the audacity to try to justify it.
Ahmaud Arbery was hunted down in the street by white supremacist vigilantes, “Get Out” style, and my ex boyfriend, a good ole Catholic boy from Georgia, had the audacity to post about “creating a better world for our children” as if he didn’t vote for Trump for a second time and also endorse things like the NCAA or NFL being considered “essential”. Or as if he didn’t get aggressive with a cop in Alabama, pull the “my daddy is a lawyer” card and refuse to follow directions on our way to his father’s condo in Auburn. Which, yes, his dad bought for his season ticket Auburn football games. Or as if we didn’t break up once I moved to Florida (we were previously in an LDR) for graduate school and thus spent significantly more time with him, (he’s a financial planner and advisor based out of Orlando. He has like 4 degrees and is fluent in Mandarin) only to also find out he was a pathological liar (and casually an aggressive racist).
Actually, let’s dissect this ex boyfriend for a second.
He’s a particularly relevant example. I wasn’t planning on introducing him to the blog yet, but domestic terrorism calls for adaptation over “tradition”. I think, without a doubt, it’s blatantly obvious that historical support for whatever the fuck is left of the Republican party ultimately comes down to one thing: religiosity. Particularly, religiosity rooted in government officials not being required to actually work for the benefit of the people they represent and to merely exorbitantly benefit personally from holding public office.
Religiosity in general will be touched on QUITE A BIT by me. I will disclaim that I have NO PROBLEM if you choose to partake in religion for your own spiritual needs. I personally feel it’s pretty selfish and egocentric to assume the humanity is the center of life and the universe and all that–very “the sun revolves around us” if you ask me. I prefer to not characterize or pretend to know universal predictability in the way the world works because the most intelligent people are aware of everything they do not, and can not, know.
However, I am also going to point out a series of flaws built in religiosity that have impacted nearly every aspect of our political and societal culture, so they simply cannot be ignored or unacknowledged any longer. Apologies in advance to everyone of Christian religiosity.
Plato once proposed that “he who speaks the truth is the most hated“. Unfortunately, the concept of “haters” has become so misconstrued that people use it to fail miserably at introspection.
“Gabe”
We’ll call my ex boyfriend “Gabe” because I’m pretty sure I knew the relationship was over when I watched an episode of “The Office” with him and realized he reminded me a LOT of Gabe. “Gabe” was a D1 cross country runner and highly ranked within the NCAA by his last year at a large state school whose football team has been running shit for the last few years…unfortunately for my siblings, who both went to South Carolina. My brother even won a National Championship.
As someone who is a Tar Heel AND a freak athlete, oh boy do I get the “school rivalry” thing, okay.
While I’m thinking about it, Fuck you to Austin Rivers. Also speaking of Duke, The Plumlees once came to “La Rez” in Chapel Hill, a bar (back when it was still a thing, RIP) and I had the humble pleasure of enjoying cynically sadistic banter that, when whichever one it was (I don’t care enough to tell them apart to be honest and don’t want to have to see their faces by a google search and then get targeted on Amazon for Duke merchandise…the horror) tried to buy me a drink, I said “Duke Sucks” and walked away.
I have no shortage of similar stories.
I think it turns me on, to be honest. Being this much of a bitch.
Anyways, back to “Gabe”. Gabe went to Tigertown USA in South Carolina for 3 years, then went to Tigertown USA in Alabama for 2 years. During his short 28 years of desperately trying to live up to his straight-edged Catholic man of a father’s expectations, he is the youngest CFA or CPA (or probably both) in Florida, has 4 degrees (3 of which he earned while being an NCAA All American), is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, as aforementioned, and has lived in China for extended periods of time on multiple occasions.
Now is probably a cool time to plug, unrelated to this, I have babysat for the former Ambassador to China and Senator of Tennessee for over 20 years. I credit them for showing me healthy, loving familial dynamics and being major influencers in changing how I was exposed to the world. I’m really slumdog millionaire-ing it through life, I tell ya. I feel like that meme of Charlie in Horrible Bosses every episode, connecting all of these weird facets of my life into the puzzle pieces I’m constructing to explain the world.
Gabe was, on paper, quite brilliant. Incredibly well achieved and financially successful. He was also, however, INCREDIBLY insecure. But not with me. He happened to mirror the people he was around. When it was just him and I, he was fine–which I credit to it being my personal goal within any relationship I have that the other person should feel 100% comfortable being inherently themselves around me. They can’t expect me to not voice my disagreement, at times, but only when I expect them to uphold certain “moral guidelines”. He could, therefore, be so much himself in my presence, that he had, for the first time in his life, fulfilled the expectations of someone and been able to exist without questioning his worth. When we were around his friends, though, (who he would preface telling me things about by talking shit in a way that just really confused me because, bro, you’re an adult…you literally don’t have to be friends with people who you don’t respect) it became scarily evident what a pathological liar he was. Being in a long distance relationship, it also took me a little longer to recognize this.
Hindsight bias or whatever, should I have known that when he drank so much our first date, the ACC college football championship game in Charlotte, North Carolina, that he had to have an ambulance called for him? Probably. Did I make the stupid assumption that he was just nervous and it was college drinking culture as is because alcoholism is treated very differently from every other drug in the USA unnecessarily? Also probably.
As someone who enjoys personal time (as one usually does with dating) I only had a weekend or so every month to really spend time to with him. I didn’t get to see the difference in how he treats or acts to others that I wasn’t around in his presence.
Truth be told, I’m pretty sure he just has ADHD and severe social anxiety that he uses alcoholism and chewing tobacco to mask in adulthood. Idk, maybe it was related to being raised on a religion centered on guilt. A religion that reassures you you’re inherently good, not so that you can be proud of who your soul actually is and pursue what it craves in love, but so it can expose you at your most vulnerable, tell you that all can be fixed and you’re still loved (but not holding you publicly accountable outside of your relationship with “God”) while reinforcing heteronormativity in a way that actively prevents you from realizing you’re at the very least bisexual–you had way too much fun at the drag shows I pulled you to (a bunch of my Chapel Hill friends were GLAMOROUS drag kings and queens).
Are you really “happy” when you have to deny yourself of loving and accepting your entire identity for public acceptance?
You run just like Mike Pence, this should not be a surprise. You really think a guy with an arguably worse response to HIV/AIDS in Indiana compared to Ronald Reagan’s during his presidency, isn’t projecting some kind of biased hatred towards the gay community because he’s actually just jealous that they can express themselves and he can’t? He’s been told it was disgusting behavior since birth, so now, even though he’s innately curious (because the “Default” of humanity should probably just be “heteroflexibility” based on the deviations in heterosexuality across the animal kingdom as well as anthropological studies, which we use to base our version of the “expected” behavior for humanity around) AND men biologically have a prostate gland that, when stimulated, supposedly enhances sexual satisfaction and orgasmic enjoyment, he won’t even CONSIDER the possibility that he might be gay.
…No matter how many times he liked “dressing up” in my lingerie as a “joke” (it was not flattering on him and I found it weird, creepy, and terrifyingly accurate for Catholicism how his go-to “persona” was a baby doll version).
Now that we’ve had the wonder that is Zendaya’s phenomenal presence within Euphoria, on HBO, and I’ve been romantically involved with a handful of white Catholic men, I can assure you, they’re ALL a little gay. Even if their own religious leaders didn’t dominate them like Hunter Schafer as Jules got dominated by Eric Dane as Cal Jacobs, they still spend every Sunday diligently praying to a white brunette man chained almost nude, to a cross (very “50 shades of Grey”). They’re indoctrinated with the fixation on a white man to save them and “Blind faith” and of ONLY confessing their deepest, darkest fears and desires, including completely normal biological predispositions that are flaunted as “taboo” and “impure”, to the church. They have classically conditioned themselves to enjoy male authority, but the Catholic church, their supreme overlord, has only this past year voiced support for same-sex civil unions. And Pope Francis is considered excessively progressive. My ex’s Alabama based family is gonna take a few generations to come around–and that’s ONLY if they’re forced to become educated on it.
You’d think a religion that prides itself for existing as tradition through the ages–you know, when civilizations were at constant collapse because they lacked the technology to communicate effectively with each other, benefitted off continued exploitation of other cultures through physical dominance and hypocritical assertions of knowing the “right” way to do things, would be more capable of adapting to reassessing and re-examining their knowledge on the things they thought they knew.
…ESPECIALLY given that they re-read and re-examine the same scripture over and over and over again and find new meanings in that.
Ya’ll do know you can just like, hang out with your friends, every Sunday, for fun. Not for some societal indoctrination for appearing “morally good” in the community. Or replacing that with a sport only the USA plays when you’re no longer religious. You can sleep in… you can go to brunch! Take a hike. Treat your body as the temple it is, instead of a vessel to transport you from man-made temple to man-made temple, with what little free time you may have to enjoy the natural world around you before you die. Your little tithe payments of asserting moral value for acceptance (even though they SAY “whatever you can give”)? It’s no WONDER our legislative system, you know, from the Supreme-Court-ruling-in-the-1800’s that we are, in fact, a Christian nation, and criminal justice system, both effectively excuse crime for the wealthy because “everything[/one] has its price” AND doesn’t tax the churches. Despite, you know, many churches being BUILT with state taxes, collected from all regardless of the citizen’s relevant religious preferences, (thus, no religious exemption THERE).
For the record, if churches funded ~10 homeless people in the United States, we could very likely END homelessness. Why are you hoarding wealth like some dragon in its lair? You know they send valiant characters on quests to slay those…right? Maybe we just need the right white, blonde women to birth them from the fires, sacrificing one life for her dragons’, taming them and ultimately serving as symbolism for how the only ACTUALLY important thing at play, in terms of conquest, is that of the impending winter. The WHITE walkers. (*Cough* Proud boys, Trump supporters, and white supremacists who spent their day gallivanting around the Capitol Building in, again, an open domestic terrorist coup d’etat encouraged by the American knock-off version of Hitler, sorry, I mean Donald Trump.) And, ultimately, the effective zombie apocalypse otherwise known as the impending doom of brutal, premature mortality. (I’m telling you–go listen to my Game of Thrones episode.)
No matter how many references to being “gay for pay” and “$20 is $20” he made, it took me until I recently reconsidered my own sexual fluidity (honestly, “pansexual” is just the medically logical term IMO) to reflect on why he thought that offered so much entertainment value. He said them as clear jokes, too. Idk if he was “testing the waters” or gauging whether I’d have a certain reaction to him liking men (I don’t, LITERALLY I JUST WANT FUCKING HONESTY FROM THE BEGINNING), but it was a FREQUENT joke. I never laughed either, so I’m not sure why he repeated it. He DID only do it around his pathetic group of friends, though.
He, and the rest of Barstool Sports’ predominant fan base–you know the type. The now semi-grown man children who watched American Pie, Jack Ass, and any Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly movie over and over and over again so much in their childhood that they for some reason fail to see the flaw is glorifying Dave Portnoy masquerading as Euron Greyjoy’s desperation for power through brute force and entitlement, despite existing in a universe highlighting Theon’s character arc of growth, mutilation, and redemption. I don’t understand the refusal to grow in your behavior. Of why you’re so adamant about NOT moving on from your immature childlike behavior or why we can’t try to improve our societies holistically (so that you don’t NEED to cling to the past).
People change! Life moves on! The things that bring you pleasure evolve!
I used to find the stupid fucking spinning tea cups at Disney World “fun” when I was a kid, and I have since realized that type of “humor” doesn’t really land very well with the adult world, in which I am no longer actively practicing gymnastics and therefore MUCH more susceptible to motion sickness and mental flashbacks as a lovely side effect of PTSD, so I am decidedly more picky about my taste. I’ve EVOLVED. Instead of the spinning tea cups, or in Amerikkka’s case, the crude and distasteful rape jokes by American comedians who turn out to be actual rapists…surprise surprise. The public outrage over things like sexual assault in the Amish community–who likely doesn’t use the internet enough to defend themselves–even though over 80% of women in the USA have been sexually harassed and 20% have or were attempted to have been raped. Insinuating condemnation of predatory pedophilic culture without acknowledging its creation, birthed from their own religion centered around themes of “purity”, female submission, and thus, hypersexualization of the innocence of youth and the condemnation of sexuality (particularly that of women).
A monster of which we all wish had been aborted.
Speaking of abortions…Those billboards lining every rural town in Southern USA, claiming “your baby could be the next Einstein”, because they’re “doing such a big favor” to the world (again, DRAMATICALLY AND UNSUSTAINABLY OVERPOPULATED) by preventing comprehensive sexual education and holistic medical knowledge and reverting to the basis of guilt, not hope. Not any kind of focus on the mother’s health, mental or physical. Those “pregnancy clinics”, like the one my best friend, Mina, from the ENTJ Women Episode, did a journalism story on in Gainesville, Florida, which promotes itself similar to Planned Parenthood, prey on women seeking education and options, then bombard them with forewarnings of how “they’re going to hell if they go through with abortion”.
Did any of you stop and think about whether those babies could also possibly be the next Adolf Hitler?
Let’s dive a little deeper…
Why is YOUR first thought “Einstein”?
Scratch that. Why are ANY of your thoughts “Einstein”?
You do realize Albert Einstein was a scientist, socialist, and all around humanitarian, right? AND JEWISH. He denounced his German citizenship in protestation of Hitler and the Nazi party’s rise–he didn’t conflate “patriotism” with “white supremacy” and march on the Capitol Building. He founded the International Rescue Committee to help save European Jews from persecution, facilitated cooperation between international conflicts (including the Israeli-Palestinian historically tumultuous tug-of-war), and led a public crusade to end lynching in the USA in public condemnation of the mistreatment of anyone deviating from white heteronormativity BUT PARTICULARLY BLACK LIVES. He didn’t separate families seeking asylum from drug cartels and mass corruption, throwing them in cages for months on end with no communication and subjecting them to surgically invasive, likely experimental and medically negligent in procedure at times, *technically* meeting the medical “requirements” of genocide and being funded by the federal government. He didn’t mobilize the National Guard against BLM protestors who were LITERALLY BEGGING TO NOT BE FUCKING SHOT BY THE SAME PEOPLE SUPPOSEDLY “TASKED” WITH PROTECTING THEM?! He didn’t enact a Muslim Ban, a U.S. “Peace Deal” disrupting foreign policy in North Africa and continuing to STICK OUR POLITICAL AGENDAS IN PLACES WE HAVE NO BUSINESS STICKING OUR POLITICAL AGENDAS BECAUSE WE SHOULD FUCKING ADDRESS THE ISSUES IN OUR OWN COUNTRY OVER POINTING THE FINGER ELSEWHERE FOR ONCE, or sell bombs to fucking Saudi Arabia…
Honestly, I don’t know at this point whether I fucking hope, for our international relations’ sake, that whatever Trump sold to Saudi Arabia is legitimate (and only furthering the already excessive international sale of firearms and weaponry that has come back to bite US citizens time and time again), or whether I hope they are similar to the ADE 101. Name doesn’t ring a bell? It’s just the the fake bomb detector, produced by British company Advanced Tactical Security & Communications Ltd (ATSC) and the creative design of UK businessman, Jim McCormick, who made MILLIONS of dollars during the invasion in Iraq and Afghanistan by selling knowingly fraudulent devices, as legitimate bomb detectors, to Iraqi government officials after bribing them–ultimately being responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of civilian lives, because a plastic sphere with an antenna on one end had no magical powers of engineering animation and was never intended to work. It was intended to turn a quick, easy financial profit from a device that costs under $20 to make, but can be marketed and sold for over 10K, in a time of “supply and demand”.
Does it really matter who we sell weapons to at this point when the Morocco-Israel deal included $1 billion in arms for Morocco. The surveillance drones, precision guided missiles and bombs?
One of my step brother’s is fluent in Moroccan and Jewish. My step dad (not related–different step family) flies, builds, and engineers Navair drones. This is why I take an interest in all of this stuff.
As an aside–that stepbrother (sorry Josh) is my favorite. He’s such an introverted observer and is very fun to watch. When we went to Hawaii for my biological father’s second wedding, where I met him, my other stepbrother, and my stepmom, he took us on the Mount Olomano Hike (just the first peak). The second one includes a fair amount of rappelling and a lot of the Army men around the island climb it. Anyone who prefers to be active and isn’t afraid to commit their lives to study the dark tresses of the world peak my curiosity.
Back to the Christians in the deep south and then also my convenient small town in rural Maryland with billboards of pressuring pregnant women into guilt line the roadways.
What about Mussolini? Fidel Castro? In whatever reality you apparently live in, this is just as plausible. Can we please, PLEASE, stop placing more societal value in an UNDIFFERENTIATED MASS OF CELLS WITH POTENTIAL OVER THE ACTUAL HUMAN LIFE IN FRONT OF YOU. EVEN AS IT BECOMES MORE AND MORE DIFFERENTIATED, WHY THE FUCK DO YOU ALL PRIORITIZE IT SOOOOO MUCH OVER THE FUCKING HUMAN BEING GROWING IT. WHY DO YOU FEEL ENTITLED TO ANY FUCKING OPINION OVER IT!?
Gabe grew up in the deep Catholic South. Or, as I like to call it, that scene in Game of Thrones where the High Sparrow, yet another white male “leader”, arbitrarily points the finger at someone else he enabled and encouraged, forcibly exposing their own corruption and villifying them to suffer guilt and embarrassment on an incredibly vulnerable exhibitionist walk of shame (of their own concoction), as distraction for their own flaws, criminal behavior, and lack of answers.
I can’t imagine how creating an entire country’s culture around being publicly ridiculed and ashamed for who you are, lest it deviate from white conservative Christian-influenced heteronormativity, might create significant repression and emotional unhappiness and only hinder human growth and progress? Whoever could have predicted THAT. At least we allowed for a slight escape from that repression–the confines of a dark confessional–such that we then flood them with a sense of relief in their place of worship–you know, because there’s at least SOME reassurance they’re still “loveable”–so that they biochemically condition THEMSELVES to enjoy the release, the security, the comforting embrace of the church.
It’s clear to all why I attribute myself to “Lucifer”, correct? Maybe it’s that scene from Lilo & Stitch–where Lilo is praying for an angel from heaven, a best friend. What does she get? A maniacal alien meant to wreak havoc on the Earth. Cast down from heaven, switching from private to public schools, relearning the reliability of the beliefs indoctrinated in me from my birth, The “Bill Nye the Science Guy” of heathenous females intrigued and helplessly intertwined in the United States political structure because of that same pressure from birth, and confused as to why everyone has seemingly forgotten that the entire premise of Scooby Doo was to convey the “Bad guys” were usually people we knew and also always logical?
I’m obviously the Hades in this production of Hercules. You, all of my humble listeners, my noble followers, my valiant soldiers, in this instance are the tweedle dee and tweedle dum minions, Pain and Panic. Seems an appropriate characterization for those who actually enjoy listening. I prefer to call it “realism” but baby, this is showbiz.
Gabe was a people pleaser. He, like so, so many of us in this patriarchally dominant world, just wanted to be loved. Desperately so. He just wanted to be rewarded with the virtuous symbol of purity–a white, blonde angel fluttering unexpectedly into his incomplete life of living adamantly by the Bible, in the Catholic (and businessman) way of doing first and praying for forgiveness (or hoping it works out in your favor) in the long run, told him it would happen. As long as he showed up to church every Sunday, no matter what, he was redeemable. He was worthy.
Ohhhh, he was worthy alright. Worthy enough for me. Lucifer cast down from Heaven to roam freely from the fiery depths of hell (which, doesn’t exist, by the way). Thermodynamically speaking, “heat” is just energy. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, according to the First Law of Thermodynamics–first proposed and tested by Emilie du Chatelet. Who, might I point out, WAS A FEMALE FRENCH PHILOSOPHER AND MATHEMATICIAN IN THE 1730’S. Drawing it back to my “Horse Girls” episode, she died in childbirth.
The only fucking people we learn about this in reference to, in any significant detail, in the American public education system is Isaac Newton–surprise, surprise…an English white male.
Her contribution to the law of conservation is conveniently branded as “Newtonian Laws”. Very “Watson and Crick and Rosalind Franklin” of us, I would say. I wonder why that would ever be the case… in a society that places excessive privilege in the “Default” leadership of white male imagery… in an economy whose intellectual distribution of knowledge is controlled by companies controlled by, you guessed it, white males… how would that EVER be the case? (Insert extremely exaggerated eyeroll here.)
Thus, if the total energy in the universe is constant and cannot be destroyed, merely transferred in a variety of forms, it serves logical that “Hell”–commonly depicted as a fiery cavern of chaos (*cough* Florida) merely contains a significant amount of heat, and thus, energy. Extrapolating on that, if you take away energy, or heat, the alternative is “cold”. If “Hell” exists in the same universe we do, and contains alllllllll the energy, or significantly more than anything in the rest, then does that make us, our human souls, energetically “cold”? Do you consider “life” less energetic? TECHNICALLY, that would make “Heaven” ALSO devoid of “heat”.
I mean have we ever stopped to consider this was just a random rich dude’s book of poetry?
His Shakespearean prose?
I had NEVER considered going a “legal” route in life because
(1) I’m not morally ethical for “Christian” life. As an atheist / arguably spiritual (but I just really don’t see the necessity in seeking identity in something for an afterlife so much that you forget to live in the now), this brings me life.
(2) I had no intentions on ever swearing on a Bible for my JOB and I didn’t know that wasn’t a requirement.
(3) the idea of working for a system that prints national imagery with symbols of “God” just displeases me.
I feel like Scar when he’s lounging around by the hyenas, muttering “I’m surrounded by idiots.”
Not to mention, it’s the very idea that Hell, the so called “punishment of souls whose lives on Earth are sinful” IS LITERALLY SAYING THEY DON’T NEED TO ANSWER FOR THEIR SINS ON EARTH BECAUSE THEY WILL IN THE AFTERLIFE. That entire logic is saying they don’t need to be publicly accountable in THIS life on THIS Earth, and it doesn’t really offer “redemption” by theory because, even if they’re tried in a court of law, complete the societally subjective criminal length of punishment, does that constitute them still being “immoral”? If they go to this so-called “Hell”, in the afterlife, isn’t that “double jeopardy”? I thought their God was all loving and just and everyone could be saved? What, then, constitutes “sin” to you? How do you justify failing to open your eyes or educate yourself on the very clear and apparent signs for literally years when in doing so, you contributed, because of this so called “faith” and subjective versions of “sin” that are based on societal constructs and if you don’t know that by now, I honestly don’t think you should be able to vote, to a sedition and domestic terrorist attack in the United States that is globally embarrassing and publicly humiliating and YOU’RE TRYING TO NOT LOOK AT YOURSELF AND SKIRT THE BLAME WHEN YOU FUCKING DESERVE THE BLAME!
Damn me to hell, I don’t care.
I think I’d get along pretty well with the devil.
I do not mind religion at all, to be clear. I get the community, the trust, the hope, blah blah blah I just don’t need it. Call me the Grinch. It’s your fault. I do, however, think our political system is so corruptly conflated with religiosity that it needs to be legislatively removed from decision making, effective immediately.
Back to my ex-boyfriend. “Gabe”.
I know you’re curious how anyone in their right mind who was a “good Catholic boy” could be so swayed by the devil. I’m good at my craft, bitches. We dated for like, two years.
She Really Ain’t Nothin’ But a Golddigger…
Gabe, being in charge of a Fidelity related investment firm–where my own biological mother opened an account under him AFTER WE BROKE UP (uggggghhhh)–was really good with money. As an adult with ADHD and with a familial background of financial insecurity and parental disagreements, verbally abusive more often than not, centered frequently around money, I get very uncomfortable about the subject. Gabe had an excessive amount of generational wealth in the deep South, which, for the record, I did not know when I first met him. Or I didn’t grasp the extent of what that meant, rather.
Gabe is from the kind of family where his grandmother wrote him out of the will when he went to the Tigertown in South Carolina for undergrad over the one in Alabama. He was only written back in when he got two Masters degrees from the one in Alabama for grad school. I wish I was joking.)
I know what you’re thinking. “Golddigger. We knew it all along. First she “jokes” about being open for financial domination and international sugar daddies who can pay her 150K a year to just physically exist on lavish vacations with literally no sexual expectations (a gal can dream, right? Isn’t that “influencing”) But it also seems practical to establish international contacts, particularly in this precocious charade. Those contacts may be *INCREASINGLY* helpful for escaping Gilead, I mean the USA, so am I just manifesting new, creative ways to leave avenues for survival open, when worst comes to worst? Obviously. Am I concerned that Trump refusing to attend Biden’s inauguration means he’s going to attempt to harm them and doesn’t want to be there and wants a plausible excuse? Maybe. RIP Margarey Tyrell. Don’t say I didn’t tell you so. (For legal reasons this is clearly a joke and hypothetical but it’s also considerably plausible.) I’m sure the CIA is already on this but we also can’t really rely on their ethics. They’re just human, after all, and institutions are just governed, ultimately, by humans. As I said, the rioters in the Capitol should have been gunned down, military training exercise style because they are actual domestic terrorists. I don’t get why any of our federal agencies are just sitting back and allowing it to continue. Or why our federal police waved them inside.
Call me crazy for endorsing policies that restructure how we tie every aspect of a human’s value–life (healthcare), liberty (freedoms facilitated by money), and pursuit of happiness (again, travel, studying what you want, time to enjoy your life)– to either productivity or dependence on another human being. It’s almost like it’s a method of controlling cultural mentality to prevent progress because progress will call into question the method of control you planned your power and life choices around. Call me crazy for being open to financially capitalizing on my current position, based around the reality of the economy and the resources at my disposal, which does actually value me transactionally so I don’t understand what the dilemma is.
Case in point: I am not a gold digger.
I was just a broke ass bitch in grad school who:
(1) genuinely enjoyed a long distance relationship because it removes the pressure of having to always be available or accessible for someone else, something I struggle with as a fiercely independent (read: traumatically complex) character, from the beginning of the relationship. My education and thirst for purpose and mental growth is always going to take the highest priority. I’m an ENTJ. I find joy in achievement.
I’d expect any partner to NEVER try to hold me back from any experience in life (within reason). THUS, someone who only had 10 vacation days a year, lived out of state, planned out 5 years of their life at a time, and set clear expectations for scheduling was compatible because he also lacked the time to prioritize me and conveniently couldn’t have any disdain for my innate busy-ness, because he was the same way.
(2) I appreciate people who make my life simpler, in any way. Since my work has typically been so heavy, and I get consumed by my educational passions and talent endeavours, I tend to live a “high pressure” life. The two things I tend to lack are: regular company that doesn’t expect much (other than enjoying co-existing) and financial security (I’m a chronic student in the USA paying for school with federal loans. If I go back to school, I can ignore them for a few more years. By the time I’m done, unless this blog somehow becomes profitable, I will likely be worth HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars NEGATIVELY. For YEARS. Someone can pay for the occasional plane ticket. Help me I’m poor.)
Having someone remove the financial stress when we were together (it’s amazing how much more apt to spend/throw around money people with financial security their entire lives are…Or maybe it was people who didn’t have grandparents who lived through world war 2 and the great depression) and always be willing and HAPPY to pay for me was something well within Gabe’s ability to contribute to the relationship (and something I think he genuinely enjoyed doing, because he never felt “equal” and always felt like I was out of his league. Which, I was… just not for the reasons he thinks.)
Plus, my parent’s marriage was constantly disrupted by financial insecurity. I mean, we all watched “The Big Short”, economic recessions and terrorist attacks are apparently commonality these days. Elder millennials have lived through like, what now, three? Having a partner whose ACTUAL JOB was to understand every aspect of financial planning and could thus alleviate any burden (or even future burden of having to be tasked with) in a partnership was SO NICE. I’m nothing but pragmatic, above all. Could I deal with a little social awkwardness and immaturity if it meant, down the line, holistic knowledge of this was always going to be available, handled, and accessible to me? Absolutely.
(3) Gabe also took me to Iceland for about a week as a present for overcoming my anxiety and applying to graduate school on impulse a week before the deadline, (though that’s for some other segment.) I don’t care very much about owning materialistic things, but I genuinely prioritize experiences and actually “doing” life with someone. Which, at times, involves traveling.
Iceland has phenomenal landscape akin to other worlds, with their natural environments virtually untouched and harness of hydropower. My science-loving, farm-lady self THRIVED (apart from it being like 50 degrees Fahrenheit in the “summer”). I’m also gonna point out, as much as I love travel, that shit (outside of the US and especially if you don’t have access to a car) is EXPENSIVE. Honestly, the most freeing travel experiences I’ve had, were the ones where someone else was funding the events (even when I was working with the families) and I could just tag along.
In Gabe’s case, I got to completely curate a meticulous itinerary, someone else funded it, AND I had a male traveling partner over 6’ tall and white who made me at least appear safer than solo travel (though, I am without a doubt the one who would’ve been responsible for any defending should whatever situation arise. Lmao. Have your lawyer daddy get you out of a hypothetical Liam Neeson’s “Taken” style kidnapping, buddy. This is why you should stay in sports, ladies.) Lucky for him, he was 6’4” and could run a mile in like 3 minutes and 53 seconds or some shit with his lanky ass legs so despite not being “dominant”, he was infrequently in physical danger. But WHAT PERSON WOULDN’T ENJOY HAVING A LIFE PARTNER LIKE THAT?!
HOW IS THAT GOLD DIGGING?
Hot girl privileges are a thing. As Chris Brown would put it, “quit hating from outside the club. You can’t even get in. ahahahaha.” Don’t brand it as “gold digging” just because you’re too afraid to sign up for an only fans, as a “cis”-hetero male with low self esteem, even though random men on the internet would ALSO happily pay you to be their sugar baby. It’s called “acting”, baby. You might have to wear a skirt at their direction, compromising your integrity within the Candace Owens-delusional crowd (who are really just scared their wives are gonna leave them for Harry Styles in a dress), but you can do it too. Shut the fuck up and stop being jealous when the opportunity exists for both of us. Even if it’s more “societally acceptable” for one of us to do it. Why do you even want to date, or concern yourselves with fixating on, women who are solely into being a “trophy wife” anyways if you hate it so much?
Maybe it’s because I’m from a rural background and was constantly dirty or outside, but I do not give a fuck about the more materialistic aspects of life because, again, I’m not fond of the public eye (shocking). Almost like I’m aware of how “controversial” of a person I am. Imagine that. The whole “Ursula was a sea witch with incredible power to transform her looks at will and chose to exist as a fat, ugly septipus” mentality? Yea. I’d say that’s me, but I also just enjoy NOT spending the hours to perfectly straighten my hair (it would NEVER), or do my make up, and I don’t think we should view our comfiest, most natural states as “a fat, ugly septipus”. The less you wear make up, the more comfortable you get with how you look without it. If you find yourself staring at your insecurities, maybe get rid of the mirrors for a while so you can focus on fixating towards the things you’re good at that provide internal validation.
It’s fucking exhausting how much time people spend on things that ultimately don’t make them feel good about themselves just for the external validation from others. It’s EXHAUSTING how much we cater towards “softening the blow” on ourselves emotionally like we didn’t drop an atomic fucking bomb on a Japanese city and create generations of hatred towards our country globally for years to come. And what that’s ultimately rooted in is a political and societal structure based around conservative, Christian-based values.
ACCOUNTABILITY
So, what do we do? How do we combat an entire country’s culture founded around a religion that only requires accountability behind closed doors? Can we even get around it?
We can’t get rid of the young girl’s on TikTok are so desperate to be “Thirty, Flirty, and Thriving” that they look OLDER THAN ME AND I’M 27 because they’re CAKED in layers of make up and desperate to prove their “maturity” for the approval of some nonexistent parental figure they needed when they were younger without addressing that ageism in Hollywood exists and we have 27 year olds playing high school roles for their entertainment, so why would they NOT think that’s how they were “supposed” to look then?
Or how about the religiosity and fraternal culture of (mostly) Southern or private sorority life that creates a foundational barrier for not calling your friends out on their criminal behavior when it negatively impacts others. The mentality of “always supporting your brothers or sisters” capitalizing on the assumption that your leadership will be virtuous. It’s literally allowing 20 year old adult children govern themselves and only in the women’s houses (at UNC at least) do you require a fucking parental figure. Yet, we wonder why there was a kid in DKE at UNC, who didn’t even have it’s charter associated with the school, whose dad, also a member of DKE, threatened to divorce the mom if she sued the fraternity for her son getting hit in the head with a 2 x 4 during a hazing event? Or how about the kid who fell off the construction site in Carrboro on his way to an ADPi fundraiser, and his body was found DRAGGED almost a football field length away from where he fell, and when the police got to the fraternity the next morning upon discovering his body, they were already lawyered up and had the exact same story?
It’s lack of accountability and failure to acknowledge that we are not preparing children for the reality of life by perpetuating naivety under the guise of “purity” in its various forms.
And why do people feel the need to feverishly protect the institutions they once held sacred SO MUCH that they REFUSE to listen to reason? This is our BIGGEST gap with addressing religiosity in the United States, because doing so condemns us to a political campaign of hatred and probably public threats to our safety.
The main reason it’s important to call out Trump and all of his enablers for fascism, sedition, and purposeful misinformation resulting in domestic terrorism is that every day the female leaders and anyone who isn’t a white male Republican ultimately are at an increased threat for their physical safety because of him.
Calling people to question the realities of their world is scary. We all saw Dolores’ walls crumble around her with disdain. I don’t expect you to “enjoy” it, to “like” me the entire time, or to find it easy in any aspect.
I do, however, expect you to face reality.
To quit expecting people to dim the harshness of the world to fit your comfort level. To stop expecting your friend’s lives to cater around YOURS in such a way that you’re inherently disregarding whatever is going on in their own lives.
I know a girl in Texas, she’s based out of Austin and I BET if you had to guess what generic white girl name she had and how many siblings you could. This girl hosted a birthday party, on a boat, in Texas in like, July of 2020–you know, height of the pandemic you only turn 25…and every other fucking birthday… once. Well, while her little bachelorette-esque birthday tribe was going on, which she bullied most of the girls to continue attending and not cancel their flights for, by the way, another boat with one of her friend’s boyfriends was on it. Cue several hours later when that same friend finds out her boyfriend DROWNED after he fucking left partying with them, and what does this girl do? SHE TELLS THE GIRL SHE’S BEING SELFISH FOR NOT HAVING THE TIME OR ENERGY TO DEVOTE TO HER BIRTHDAY PARTY AND FOR WANTING TO GO TAKE CARE OF THE CONDITIONS SURROUNDING THE DEATH.
I know MULTIPLE PEOPLE from graduate school who are partying in fucking Mexico, have been freely flying from Houston to Miami to Colorado to Mexico to the Bahamas over and over again the entire past year, because they could and genuinely don’t see how it’s bioterrorism?
This is because we pander towards lack of accountability.
Which segues perfectly into my next rant.
On top of being a domestic terrorist and organizing a seditious coup d’etat where, every day that passes and he is not forcibly removed from office is a day the rest of the world assumes the door is open for fascism, for ignorance, for intolerance, Donald Trump and his entire administration is responsible for global scales of bioterrorism that, regardless of the origins of the coronavirus, Sars-CoV-2, Covid-19, whatever you want to refer to it as, we have almost single handedly been responsible, as a nation, for.
The Donald Trump Administration is responsible for facilitating global bioterrorism over the last year so why are we surprised at domestic terrorism?
If you’d like to learn more about a brief history in warfare, please continue on to my part II of this rant, labeled “Donald Trump is a (Bio)Terrorist”. It’s something I would’ve expected more Americans, particularly WHITE Americans, to have more knowledge on, honestly, given our prevalence for “supporting the Troops” and military value and all that.
Why condemn our country to generations of other civilization’s hatred for former leader’s decision making skills (or lack of communication skills) across the globe just for the majority of our citizens to also turn a blind eye to it BECAUSE we haven’t experienced personal bloodshed from war in our own country? Why ever would other countries even need to shed their own blood when we’re capable of taking it out on ourselves? We’re like #1 in the world in the most inconsequential categories but at least we look sooooo good at the Olympics. Fucking christ.
Anyways, it’s available for you to listen and read. I recorded it at the same time I recorded this. I wrote them simultaneously, a bit of a “George R.R. Martin “Feast for Crows” and “A Dance with Dragons”” rabbit hole that ultimately connects and should leave you with absolutely no question as to what a fucking idiotic piece of shit you are for failing to see the threats of Donald Trump prior to the 2020 election, but whatever. Take it as you will.