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Dec. 1st, 2017 05:07 am* "Bosnian Croat war criminal dies after taking poison in UN courtroom:" https://www.theguardian.com/law/2017/nov/29/un-war-crimes-defendant-claims-to-drink-poison-at-trial-in-hague-slobodan-praljak
* "People for sale: Where lives are auctioned for $400:" http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/14/africa/libya-migrant-auctions/index.html
* "Uproar as Bolivia lifts term limits:" http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42165258
* "Donald Trump attacks Theresa May over her criticism of his far-right retweets:" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/29/donald-trump-theresa-may-tweet-uk-us
* "Trump pushed top GOP senators to end Russia probe: NYT:"
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* "Secret Service has spent nearly $150k on golf cart rentals since Trump took office: report:" http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/362489-secret-service-has-spent-nearly-150k-on-golf-cart-rentals-since-trump
* "Please Stop Giving Trump Supporters a Stupidity Pass:" https://johnpavlovitz.com/2017/11/28/please-stop-giving-trump-supporters-stupidity-pass/
* "Trump's Counselor Kellyanne Conway Is Now Leading His Opioids Strategy:" https://www.buzzfeed.com/danvergano/kellyanne-conway-is-opioids-czar?utm_term=.qka5rVMzX#.woP8WgAX1
* "Top Intel Dem: Sessions refused to say whether Trump asked him to hinder Russia probe:" http://thehill.com/homenews/house/362599-top-intel-dem-says-sessions-refused-to-say-whether-trump-asked-him-to-hinder
* "Mnuchin fails to deliver promised tax report:"
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* "GOP nearing vote on tax bill nobody has read:"
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* "Trump wrongly says he won't benefit from GOP tax plan:" https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-wrongly-says-he-won-t-benefit-gop-tax-plan-n825066
* "Senator Collins says not committed to tax bill, concerned about SALT:" https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax-collins/senator-collins-says-not-committed-to-tax-bill-concerned-about-salt-idUSKBN1DU221
* "Republicans rewriting tax bill — and won’t vote tonight:" https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/30/mccain-to-vote-for-gop-tax-bill-270511
If you can not protest in person, here are some other options:
Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the representative of your choice.
This App phones your rep for you: http://takeastance.us/
Here is one that will send your reps a fax: https://resistbot.io/
* Want to fight to save the Internet? http://seananmcguire.tumblr.com/post/168047389295/yay-phan-since-this-post-got-deleted-here-it-is#notes
* "Why James O'Keefe isn't going away:"
( Embed: )
* "Garrison Keillor Accused Of 'Inappropriate Behavior,' Minnesota Public Radio Says:" https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/29/567241644/garrison-keillor-accused-of-inappropriate-behavior-minnesota-public-radio-says
* Re: Matt Lauer and the Shake up of Media and Hollywood. (TW: Sexual assault, Rape Culture)
I've hated him for decades, based entirely on his open racism and creepy sexist remarks as an Olympics commentator. It is no surprise to me that he is worse in his private life. It truly saddens me that it took him doing so much harm to women to finally get him fired. The Network is clearly lying that they didn't know. that tape of a female coworker complaining on air is pretty damned definitive even if you leave out all the women who tried to complain or were silenced.
To all those saying that if we fired everyone in news and entertainment who did these terrible things there would be hardly any men left, I say good. How many able women were chased out of the industry or had their careers destroyed? Why would we want dangerous criminals doing these jobs when people with far more merit could be doing them.
And while we're clearing out the rapists, let's clear out the racists too. How many truly talented people were blocked from achieving their potential by asshole racists in charge. Let's get rid of all the dead wood impeding far more able people and see what amazing art and reporting could result. Would we rather not see more projects like wonder Woman and Get Out? How about more folks like Rachel Maddow, Joy Reid, and Melissa Harris-Perry heading news programs? Instead of yet another boring straight white male lead who is clearly less competent than the love interest inexplicable in charge, or more creepy sexist and racist old white men preaching old straight white guy perspective of what is wrong with the world.
Shaking shit up is good in this case. Why not make success on merit for once be the norm instead of the exception?
* Pedophilia is so wildly popular in Alabama that Roy Moore is up 6 points.
* Why is Woody Allen still making movies? It's creepy as hell watching all these stars doing press tours bubbling about how much they like a pedophile.
* "To all of my male friends in the wake of #metoo:" http://flowisaconstruct.tumblr.com/post/168072673898/to-all-of-my-male-friends-in-the-wake-of-metoo
* "Is there a serial killer roaming the streets of Chicago?" https://news.vice.com/story/is-there-a-serial-killer-roaming-the-streets-of-chicago
* Things that make me go hmmmmm.... "Murdered Baltimore cop was to testify in police corruption case, shot with own gun:" http://abcnews.go.com/US/murdered-baltimore-cop-shot-gun-set-testify-police/story?id=51341526
* "How a McDonald's food bag led Tampa police to alleged serial killer:" http://abcnews.go.com/US/cell-phone-tracking-shell-casings-place-alleged-tampa/story?id=51454854
* Henry VII mostly gets forgotten (except for things like The White Queen, which was terrible and didn't do him well at all). Look, I get it. He's sandwiched between a lengthy and destructive series of civil wars (The War of the Roses, like the hundred Years War, is actually a series of related wars with rests of varying lengths in between bouts of hostility. No one can fight continuously for 150 years. There would have been nothing left.), and that incredibly flashy Bluebeard of a King Henry VIII. He can be a bit of a cipher and it's easy to gloss over and forget him on the way to Henry VIII and Elizabeth I (just as it's easy to gloss over and forget Edward VI on the way to Mary and Elizabeth from Henry VIII). I get it, I really do. I never thought about him much until I did that massive paper on the use of symbolism and propaganda in Medieval and Tudor England back in the '90's.
He explains so much of what's going to happen in the course of the Tudor Era though. He was trying so hard to put a violently divided country back together after thirty three years of bloody civil war and the deep seated feuds it left in it's wake. He faced a long series of uprisings and a truly alarming number of political challenges foreign and domestic. He was doing this while part of a bastard line that was only legitimized with the agreement that they'd never rule England in a country where his Royal ancestor's double adultery was still a scandal a century later. It's honestly a miracle he managed anything near as well as he did.
What fascinates me about him is that while he used arms whenever necessary, his preferred weapon was narrative.
No really.
Henry VII's political genius is easiest to see in his use of symbolism, pageantry, and myth to try to heal his country and consolidate power in his dynasty. you can see it in his marriage to a Yorkist Princess and all the writing, art, pageants, etc. pushing the idea of united dynasty. He toured the country doing procession and pageants that were carefully designed visual propaganda pushing his narrative of unity and peace not only for the nobles at the carefully designed entertainments and feasts, but all those common folk watching the procession, many in parts of the country that hadn't seen a King in person in generations. You can see it in his open embrace of the King Arthur Cycle and his appropriation of it's images and narrative into his personal dynastic myth to the point of naming his oldest son Arthur. Imagine how clever that would have been, having feuding branches of English royalty unite in the partially Welsh Tudors and crowning a New King Arthur over a reunited country!
It's genuinely kind of brilliant.
Now imagine his sons being raised in that atmosphere (and his daughters, but the fate of his daughters is a whole other interesting story and this is already long.): Poor doomed Arthur, the embodiment of unity piece and renewal, raised to be the perfect Prince, the culmination of the British national myth; and Henry, the spare, raised to be the embodiment of the chivalric ideal as it had evolved by the tale end of the Middle Ages (The chivalric ideal had changed dramatically over the centuries, but that too would be a separate long post, Suffice to say that Chivalry at the time of the first Crusade and late medieval chivalry could only barely recognize each other, much as Tudor Era jousting in neat lists bears hardly any bears much resemblance to the wild team war games that ranged over the country side in the twelfth century beyond the existence of knights in armour with lances being involved in both. It's easy for use to forget that approximately as much time lies between the first crusade and Henry VIII as between the end of Louis XIV of France and us. Cultures change dramatically over that much time.).
You can see that image of himself Henry VIII absorbed growing up was part of the Tudor myth Henry VII spent his adult life deliberately shaping. Henry VIII was not a self reflective or self aware man for all his obvious intelligence. He carried that image of himself unchanged throughout his reign, regardless of actual reality and information to the contrary. He had a literal round table commissioned for fuckssake. It explains things like a middle aged monarch getting a massive head injury in a stupid joust, his bizarre behavior with Anne of Cleves when she first arrived, and his inability to understand how his behavior looked from outside right up to his death. He couldn't see what he'd become because in his head, he was forever a handsome young athletic troubadour Prince, the perfect courtly lover and knight, forever spotless in word and dead. People died because of it.
Poor Edward spent most of his reign dying, but one can see him trying so hard to do what was expected, to try to build an edifice that would last with what strength was left him. It's hard to judge because he hadn't much time and so much was swept away almost immediately.
Mary was her father's daughter, I think, both in pride and unshakable belief in the narrative she was raised to believe about herself. That narrative was her strength in those long, grim years between her Mother's divorce and her tragedy when she finally got into power and married the Prince she'd been promised as a girl. Her fairytale did not work out and getting what she wanted did not in the end make her happy. (It always seems a little unfair that she is remembered as "Bloody Mary," when her half sister Elizabeth burned so many more people, but the victor gets to right the history. My deep fondness for Elizabeth I doesn't blind me to her faults).
If Queen Mary was her father's daughter, I have often felt that Queen Elizabeth I was very much like her Grandfather. She had a similar political instinct: to use force where absolutely necessary, but to use diplomacy and narrative wherever possible. she used a lot of her grandfather's tricks: processions and feast entertainments starting the day of her coronation, everything carefully orchestrated to project the exact right image and symbolism. She paid poets and dressmakers and artists and eventually playwrights to make art that endlessly reflected the image she was trying to project at a given time. She used Gloriana instead of the Arthurian legend her father and Grandfather used, but it is the same instinct to use symbols and narrative as propaganda to shape how people reacted to her, a young virgin Queen coming to the throne after a period of religious dislocation, rebellions, and having had to fight her Kinswoman Lady Jane Gray for the throne. She would have ahead of her Rebellions, Wars in several countries, on top of various pressures and challenges unique to her as a reigning Queen in the early modern era. Over time her shaping of the narrative got more complex and harder to pierce to see the person under the image. It was always her best armour, her best weapon, just as it was for her grandfather.
That to me is fundamentally interesting, and it always makes me sad that popular images of the Tudor Dynasty tend to leave out Henry VII, because he is clearly an important part of the story, and most people forget he exists beyond having sired a king who had six wives.
* "A Courtroom Suicide & America's New Opioid Czar:"
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* "From the Tax Plan to Libya, Everything Goes Back to Trump:"
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* "The Threat Is Real: Trump's Islamophobic Tweets Spark Outrage:"
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* "Why Matt Lauer Wasn't On 'Today' Today:"
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* I miss counted. It was four strings of lights to scavange, so even with the dead lights, I could easily do four strings, though some of the oldest lights had died when I turned things on today. Really, I need way more purple C9's, though I can't see that happening this year, finances being what they are. Long tern, I'd like another white cluster garland, and two more blue icicle lights, but that isn't happening this year.
Last night Tavy eventually let Livia share the top of the cat tree with him, and I caught them napping in paw's reach of each other on my bed, the first time I saw her on there since she came. she follows him around nearly everywhere, they wear each other out playing, and we're only having one real (short) dispute per night. You should see them galloping around together, shoulder's bumping. She's still not willing to be touched, but she naps in the cat tree cave and frequently watches me work from close in, so I have hopes of soon.
It is hard to get pictures, as my moving the lap top, sends her fleeing. The lighting is terrible as I could not get up to solve it without startling her, but this is an actual photo of them both hanging out in the cat tree. That’s Livia half asleep in the cave with her head sticking out. The brown lump next to the blue toy on top is Tavy giving himself a clean: http://gwydionmisha.tumblr.com/post/168073187052/the-lighting-is-terrible-as-i-could-not-get-up-to
I have been cleaning the last few days as there are people coming. I pulled myself out of bed on schedule, bathed, did more cleaning, did lung treatment, got dinner ready to go into the oven, and... no one came. They all decided last minute to bail. After I'd used most of my cheese. Sigh. As you've likely guessed, I spent what was left of the evening catching up on a bunch of writing I'd not gotten to what with the whole constant struggle with the updates requiring tons of reboots every evening thing.
On the way back from time traveling book drop, I got a good look at my lights. The white with dots of pink, blue, and purple in the front window is very me and lovely, I think. My Bedroom window is a wall of red, and the white, green, and blue draping up over the plant shelving when combined with the red window is a little more Christmassy than I like in Solstice decorations, but I think time will solve that given the age of some of those bulbs.
* As I was making dinner today, carefully spooning capers onto a pizza, I thought as I often do at this time of year of the boy who introduced them to me. He was my second to last virgin, beautifully long and lean, looking like an Alan Lee faerie. He was the most femme man I was ever with, so dainty it made me feel like a barbarian every time we ate together. We were together one Autumn and Winter. We took a December break trip to see his family, which strengthened the sense that he was a changeling switched at birth for a human child. They were these sporty, gregarious, bog standard upper middle class white people, of the type one sees in advertisements. Their house looked like a photo spread for some glossy magazine's Christmas issue, and their he was in the midst of them, this strange, quiet, artistic creature, fond of Gorey and in live with the Mountains from which he sprang.
And then he brings home his first lover, the first person he ever dated, a strange, intense Androgyne Goth, Buddhist and vegetarian, voracious in all sorts of ways. They took me in stride, used to not understanding him, I think. They made me up the guest bed in the study, and included me in things, but really it was as if he and I were half apparitions. I will never see the cliffs on the Oregon side of the Columbia gorge without remembering him fondly and wondering how his life turned out.
We went down with his family to the village, in perfect white snow flurries for a Unitarian Christmas party. the whole village looked like something out of a Christmas special with the lights and the flurries. Beautiful, perfect. The party was wildly awkward as I knew no one and he was an introvert, and I stuck out like a sore thumb with my high goth gear and mohawk. We had carried over the chairs from the church. at some point, they all decided to sing Christmas carols, and I went with them to the room where it was happening. Something to do at this incredibly awkward Christmas sweater bedecked party, and I liked singing.
They had no music. They had no song books or hymnals. So, a capella and trusting to the memories of random Unitarian party goers. I had been in choir pretty much the whole of my growing up, though I stopped went I went away to college and ultimately converted, so it had literally been years since I'd sung any carols, but these songs were ingrained. Someone would say, "How about" random carol. They'd all start out confident and trail off round the second verse, leaving me, the only non christian in the room, barreling on several more lines while they all stared at me, and then they'd try another. It was wildly awkward and quietly hilarious.
So I think of him this time of years when I eat capers.
* "5 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Books That Treat Mental Illness with Compassion:" https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/5-sci-fi-fantasy-books-that-treat-mental-illness-with-compassion/?st=AFF&SID=BNB_DRS_Evergreen_20150928&2sid=VigLink_6172853_NA&sourceId=AFFVigLinkM000003
* "Coping with Destiny: The Chosen Children of Portal Fantasy:" https://www.tor.com/2017/11/28/coping-with-destiny-the-chosen-children-of-portal-fantasy/
* Dianda reads "Into the Drowning Deep:" http://seananmcguire.tumblr.com/post/168047335890/hi-it-took-me-awhile-to-finish-into-the-drowning#notes
* "The Walking Dead, Season 8, Episode 6: The King, The Widow and Rick:" http://www.fangsforthefantasy.com/2017/11/the-walking-dead-season-8-episode-6.html
*****
* Full list of Resistance and charity links has been migrated to my profile as it was getting out of hand.
* "Help us stop the humanitarian crisis on Manus:" https://www.asrc.org.au/donate-now/
* "RISE (Refugees, Survivors and Ex-Detainees):" https://www.givenow.com.au/riserefugee/donate
* How to help Rohingya refugees: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/asia/rohingya-aid-myanmar-bangladesh.html?emc=edit_nn_20171012&nl=morning-briefing&nlid=50784086&te=1&_r=0
* A list of organizations to help you run for office: http://lovingmyselfishard.tumblr.com/post/167330144634/psst-hey
* Trans Lifeline is one of those organizations you can call at (877) 565-8860 in the US and in Canada (877) 330- 6366.
* The Trevor Project has a 24 hour hotline geared toward helping our youth, and you can call it at 1-866-488-7386
* Resistance links for the tax cuts for the rich: http://gwydionmisha.tumblr.com/post/166977878817/fullhalalalchemist-the-gop-is-aiming-for-a-65vc
* Republicans are trying to kill library funding. Help us save the libraries. http://www.ala.org/advocacy/advleg/federallegislation/fight-for-libraries
* Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the representative of your choice.
* This App phones your rep for you: http://takeastance.us/
* Here is one that will send your reps a fax: https://resistbot.io/
* Help pay for cat food, litter, meds, medical copays: Paypal [email protected]
* Birthday/Solstice master list: https://gwydion.dreamwidth.org/1925021.html
* Want Game of Thrones without the creepy? We need new players. We are very inclusive. "Game of Bones MUSH:" gobmush.wikidot.comd I
* "People for sale: Where lives are auctioned for $400:" http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/14/africa/libya-migrant-auctions/index.html
* "Uproar as Bolivia lifts term limits:" http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42165258
* "Donald Trump attacks Theresa May over her criticism of his far-right retweets:" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/29/donald-trump-theresa-may-tweet-uk-us
* "Trump pushed top GOP senators to end Russia probe: NYT:"
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* "Secret Service has spent nearly $150k on golf cart rentals since Trump took office: report:" http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/362489-secret-service-has-spent-nearly-150k-on-golf-cart-rentals-since-trump
* "Please Stop Giving Trump Supporters a Stupidity Pass:" https://johnpavlovitz.com/2017/11/28/please-stop-giving-trump-supporters-stupidity-pass/
* "Trump's Counselor Kellyanne Conway Is Now Leading His Opioids Strategy:" https://www.buzzfeed.com/danvergano/kellyanne-conway-is-opioids-czar?utm_term=.qka5rVMzX#.woP8WgAX1
* "Top Intel Dem: Sessions refused to say whether Trump asked him to hinder Russia probe:" http://thehill.com/homenews/house/362599-top-intel-dem-says-sessions-refused-to-say-whether-trump-asked-him-to-hinder
* "Mnuchin fails to deliver promised tax report:"
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* "GOP nearing vote on tax bill nobody has read:"
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* "Trump wrongly says he won't benefit from GOP tax plan:" https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-wrongly-says-he-won-t-benefit-gop-tax-plan-n825066
* "Senator Collins says not committed to tax bill, concerned about SALT:" https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax-collins/senator-collins-says-not-committed-to-tax-bill-concerned-about-salt-idUSKBN1DU221
* "Republicans rewriting tax bill — and won’t vote tonight:" https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/30/mccain-to-vote-for-gop-tax-bill-270511
If you can not protest in person, here are some other options:
Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the representative of your choice.
This App phones your rep for you: http://takeastance.us/
Here is one that will send your reps a fax: https://resistbot.io/
* Want to fight to save the Internet? http://seananmcguire.tumblr.com/post/168047389295/yay-phan-since-this-post-got-deleted-here-it-is#notes
* "Why James O'Keefe isn't going away:"
( Embed: )
* "Garrison Keillor Accused Of 'Inappropriate Behavior,' Minnesota Public Radio Says:" https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/29/567241644/garrison-keillor-accused-of-inappropriate-behavior-minnesota-public-radio-says
* Re: Matt Lauer and the Shake up of Media and Hollywood. (TW: Sexual assault, Rape Culture)
I've hated him for decades, based entirely on his open racism and creepy sexist remarks as an Olympics commentator. It is no surprise to me that he is worse in his private life. It truly saddens me that it took him doing so much harm to women to finally get him fired. The Network is clearly lying that they didn't know. that tape of a female coworker complaining on air is pretty damned definitive even if you leave out all the women who tried to complain or were silenced.
To all those saying that if we fired everyone in news and entertainment who did these terrible things there would be hardly any men left, I say good. How many able women were chased out of the industry or had their careers destroyed? Why would we want dangerous criminals doing these jobs when people with far more merit could be doing them.
And while we're clearing out the rapists, let's clear out the racists too. How many truly talented people were blocked from achieving their potential by asshole racists in charge. Let's get rid of all the dead wood impeding far more able people and see what amazing art and reporting could result. Would we rather not see more projects like wonder Woman and Get Out? How about more folks like Rachel Maddow, Joy Reid, and Melissa Harris-Perry heading news programs? Instead of yet another boring straight white male lead who is clearly less competent than the love interest inexplicable in charge, or more creepy sexist and racist old white men preaching old straight white guy perspective of what is wrong with the world.
Shaking shit up is good in this case. Why not make success on merit for once be the norm instead of the exception?
* Pedophilia is so wildly popular in Alabama that Roy Moore is up 6 points.
* Why is Woody Allen still making movies? It's creepy as hell watching all these stars doing press tours bubbling about how much they like a pedophile.
* "To all of my male friends in the wake of #metoo:" http://flowisaconstruct.tumblr.com/post/168072673898/to-all-of-my-male-friends-in-the-wake-of-metoo
* "Is there a serial killer roaming the streets of Chicago?" https://news.vice.com/story/is-there-a-serial-killer-roaming-the-streets-of-chicago
* Things that make me go hmmmmm.... "Murdered Baltimore cop was to testify in police corruption case, shot with own gun:" http://abcnews.go.com/US/murdered-baltimore-cop-shot-gun-set-testify-police/story?id=51341526
* "How a McDonald's food bag led Tampa police to alleged serial killer:" http://abcnews.go.com/US/cell-phone-tracking-shell-casings-place-alleged-tampa/story?id=51454854
* Henry VII mostly gets forgotten (except for things like The White Queen, which was terrible and didn't do him well at all). Look, I get it. He's sandwiched between a lengthy and destructive series of civil wars (The War of the Roses, like the hundred Years War, is actually a series of related wars with rests of varying lengths in between bouts of hostility. No one can fight continuously for 150 years. There would have been nothing left.), and that incredibly flashy Bluebeard of a King Henry VIII. He can be a bit of a cipher and it's easy to gloss over and forget him on the way to Henry VIII and Elizabeth I (just as it's easy to gloss over and forget Edward VI on the way to Mary and Elizabeth from Henry VIII). I get it, I really do. I never thought about him much until I did that massive paper on the use of symbolism and propaganda in Medieval and Tudor England back in the '90's.
He explains so much of what's going to happen in the course of the Tudor Era though. He was trying so hard to put a violently divided country back together after thirty three years of bloody civil war and the deep seated feuds it left in it's wake. He faced a long series of uprisings and a truly alarming number of political challenges foreign and domestic. He was doing this while part of a bastard line that was only legitimized with the agreement that they'd never rule England in a country where his Royal ancestor's double adultery was still a scandal a century later. It's honestly a miracle he managed anything near as well as he did.
What fascinates me about him is that while he used arms whenever necessary, his preferred weapon was narrative.
No really.
Henry VII's political genius is easiest to see in his use of symbolism, pageantry, and myth to try to heal his country and consolidate power in his dynasty. you can see it in his marriage to a Yorkist Princess and all the writing, art, pageants, etc. pushing the idea of united dynasty. He toured the country doing procession and pageants that were carefully designed visual propaganda pushing his narrative of unity and peace not only for the nobles at the carefully designed entertainments and feasts, but all those common folk watching the procession, many in parts of the country that hadn't seen a King in person in generations. You can see it in his open embrace of the King Arthur Cycle and his appropriation of it's images and narrative into his personal dynastic myth to the point of naming his oldest son Arthur. Imagine how clever that would have been, having feuding branches of English royalty unite in the partially Welsh Tudors and crowning a New King Arthur over a reunited country!
It's genuinely kind of brilliant.
Now imagine his sons being raised in that atmosphere (and his daughters, but the fate of his daughters is a whole other interesting story and this is already long.): Poor doomed Arthur, the embodiment of unity piece and renewal, raised to be the perfect Prince, the culmination of the British national myth; and Henry, the spare, raised to be the embodiment of the chivalric ideal as it had evolved by the tale end of the Middle Ages (The chivalric ideal had changed dramatically over the centuries, but that too would be a separate long post, Suffice to say that Chivalry at the time of the first Crusade and late medieval chivalry could only barely recognize each other, much as Tudor Era jousting in neat lists bears hardly any bears much resemblance to the wild team war games that ranged over the country side in the twelfth century beyond the existence of knights in armour with lances being involved in both. It's easy for use to forget that approximately as much time lies between the first crusade and Henry VIII as between the end of Louis XIV of France and us. Cultures change dramatically over that much time.).
You can see that image of himself Henry VIII absorbed growing up was part of the Tudor myth Henry VII spent his adult life deliberately shaping. Henry VIII was not a self reflective or self aware man for all his obvious intelligence. He carried that image of himself unchanged throughout his reign, regardless of actual reality and information to the contrary. He had a literal round table commissioned for fuckssake. It explains things like a middle aged monarch getting a massive head injury in a stupid joust, his bizarre behavior with Anne of Cleves when she first arrived, and his inability to understand how his behavior looked from outside right up to his death. He couldn't see what he'd become because in his head, he was forever a handsome young athletic troubadour Prince, the perfect courtly lover and knight, forever spotless in word and dead. People died because of it.
Poor Edward spent most of his reign dying, but one can see him trying so hard to do what was expected, to try to build an edifice that would last with what strength was left him. It's hard to judge because he hadn't much time and so much was swept away almost immediately.
Mary was her father's daughter, I think, both in pride and unshakable belief in the narrative she was raised to believe about herself. That narrative was her strength in those long, grim years between her Mother's divorce and her tragedy when she finally got into power and married the Prince she'd been promised as a girl. Her fairytale did not work out and getting what she wanted did not in the end make her happy. (It always seems a little unfair that she is remembered as "Bloody Mary," when her half sister Elizabeth burned so many more people, but the victor gets to right the history. My deep fondness for Elizabeth I doesn't blind me to her faults).
If Queen Mary was her father's daughter, I have often felt that Queen Elizabeth I was very much like her Grandfather. She had a similar political instinct: to use force where absolutely necessary, but to use diplomacy and narrative wherever possible. she used a lot of her grandfather's tricks: processions and feast entertainments starting the day of her coronation, everything carefully orchestrated to project the exact right image and symbolism. She paid poets and dressmakers and artists and eventually playwrights to make art that endlessly reflected the image she was trying to project at a given time. She used Gloriana instead of the Arthurian legend her father and Grandfather used, but it is the same instinct to use symbols and narrative as propaganda to shape how people reacted to her, a young virgin Queen coming to the throne after a period of religious dislocation, rebellions, and having had to fight her Kinswoman Lady Jane Gray for the throne. She would have ahead of her Rebellions, Wars in several countries, on top of various pressures and challenges unique to her as a reigning Queen in the early modern era. Over time her shaping of the narrative got more complex and harder to pierce to see the person under the image. It was always her best armour, her best weapon, just as it was for her grandfather.
That to me is fundamentally interesting, and it always makes me sad that popular images of the Tudor Dynasty tend to leave out Henry VII, because he is clearly an important part of the story, and most people forget he exists beyond having sired a king who had six wives.
* "A Courtroom Suicide & America's New Opioid Czar:"
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* "From the Tax Plan to Libya, Everything Goes Back to Trump:"
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* "The Threat Is Real: Trump's Islamophobic Tweets Spark Outrage:"
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* "Why Matt Lauer Wasn't On 'Today' Today:"
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* I miss counted. It was four strings of lights to scavange, so even with the dead lights, I could easily do four strings, though some of the oldest lights had died when I turned things on today. Really, I need way more purple C9's, though I can't see that happening this year, finances being what they are. Long tern, I'd like another white cluster garland, and two more blue icicle lights, but that isn't happening this year.
Last night Tavy eventually let Livia share the top of the cat tree with him, and I caught them napping in paw's reach of each other on my bed, the first time I saw her on there since she came. she follows him around nearly everywhere, they wear each other out playing, and we're only having one real (short) dispute per night. You should see them galloping around together, shoulder's bumping. She's still not willing to be touched, but she naps in the cat tree cave and frequently watches me work from close in, so I have hopes of soon.
It is hard to get pictures, as my moving the lap top, sends her fleeing. The lighting is terrible as I could not get up to solve it without startling her, but this is an actual photo of them both hanging out in the cat tree. That’s Livia half asleep in the cave with her head sticking out. The brown lump next to the blue toy on top is Tavy giving himself a clean: http://gwydionmisha.tumblr.com/post/168073187052/the-lighting-is-terrible-as-i-could-not-get-up-to
I have been cleaning the last few days as there are people coming. I pulled myself out of bed on schedule, bathed, did more cleaning, did lung treatment, got dinner ready to go into the oven, and... no one came. They all decided last minute to bail. After I'd used most of my cheese. Sigh. As you've likely guessed, I spent what was left of the evening catching up on a bunch of writing I'd not gotten to what with the whole constant struggle with the updates requiring tons of reboots every evening thing.
On the way back from time traveling book drop, I got a good look at my lights. The white with dots of pink, blue, and purple in the front window is very me and lovely, I think. My Bedroom window is a wall of red, and the white, green, and blue draping up over the plant shelving when combined with the red window is a little more Christmassy than I like in Solstice decorations, but I think time will solve that given the age of some of those bulbs.
* As I was making dinner today, carefully spooning capers onto a pizza, I thought as I often do at this time of year of the boy who introduced them to me. He was my second to last virgin, beautifully long and lean, looking like an Alan Lee faerie. He was the most femme man I was ever with, so dainty it made me feel like a barbarian every time we ate together. We were together one Autumn and Winter. We took a December break trip to see his family, which strengthened the sense that he was a changeling switched at birth for a human child. They were these sporty, gregarious, bog standard upper middle class white people, of the type one sees in advertisements. Their house looked like a photo spread for some glossy magazine's Christmas issue, and their he was in the midst of them, this strange, quiet, artistic creature, fond of Gorey and in live with the Mountains from which he sprang.
And then he brings home his first lover, the first person he ever dated, a strange, intense Androgyne Goth, Buddhist and vegetarian, voracious in all sorts of ways. They took me in stride, used to not understanding him, I think. They made me up the guest bed in the study, and included me in things, but really it was as if he and I were half apparitions. I will never see the cliffs on the Oregon side of the Columbia gorge without remembering him fondly and wondering how his life turned out.
We went down with his family to the village, in perfect white snow flurries for a Unitarian Christmas party. the whole village looked like something out of a Christmas special with the lights and the flurries. Beautiful, perfect. The party was wildly awkward as I knew no one and he was an introvert, and I stuck out like a sore thumb with my high goth gear and mohawk. We had carried over the chairs from the church. at some point, they all decided to sing Christmas carols, and I went with them to the room where it was happening. Something to do at this incredibly awkward Christmas sweater bedecked party, and I liked singing.
They had no music. They had no song books or hymnals. So, a capella and trusting to the memories of random Unitarian party goers. I had been in choir pretty much the whole of my growing up, though I stopped went I went away to college and ultimately converted, so it had literally been years since I'd sung any carols, but these songs were ingrained. Someone would say, "How about" random carol. They'd all start out confident and trail off round the second verse, leaving me, the only non christian in the room, barreling on several more lines while they all stared at me, and then they'd try another. It was wildly awkward and quietly hilarious.
So I think of him this time of years when I eat capers.
* "5 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Books That Treat Mental Illness with Compassion:" https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/5-sci-fi-fantasy-books-that-treat-mental-illness-with-compassion/?st=AFF&SID=BNB_DRS_Evergreen_20150928&2sid=VigLink_6172853_NA&sourceId=AFFVigLinkM000003
* "Coping with Destiny: The Chosen Children of Portal Fantasy:" https://www.tor.com/2017/11/28/coping-with-destiny-the-chosen-children-of-portal-fantasy/
* Dianda reads "Into the Drowning Deep:" http://seananmcguire.tumblr.com/post/168047335890/hi-it-took-me-awhile-to-finish-into-the-drowning#notes
* "The Walking Dead, Season 8, Episode 6: The King, The Widow and Rick:" http://www.fangsforthefantasy.com/2017/11/the-walking-dead-season-8-episode-6.html
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* Full list of Resistance and charity links has been migrated to my profile as it was getting out of hand.
* "Help us stop the humanitarian crisis on Manus:" https://www.asrc.org.au/donate-now/
* "RISE (Refugees, Survivors and Ex-Detainees):" https://www.givenow.com.au/riserefugee/donate
* How to help Rohingya refugees: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/asia/rohingya-aid-myanmar-bangladesh.html?emc=edit_nn_20171012&nl=morning-briefing&nlid=50784086&te=1&_r=0
* A list of organizations to help you run for office: http://lovingmyselfishard.tumblr.com/post/167330144634/psst-hey
* Trans Lifeline is one of those organizations you can call at (877) 565-8860 in the US and in Canada (877) 330- 6366.
* The Trevor Project has a 24 hour hotline geared toward helping our youth, and you can call it at 1-866-488-7386
* Resistance links for the tax cuts for the rich: http://gwydionmisha.tumblr.com/post/166977878817/fullhalalalchemist-the-gop-is-aiming-for-a-65vc
* Republicans are trying to kill library funding. Help us save the libraries. http://www.ala.org/advocacy/advleg/federallegislation/fight-for-libraries
* Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the representative of your choice.
* This App phones your rep for you: http://takeastance.us/
* Here is one that will send your reps a fax: https://resistbot.io/
* Help pay for cat food, litter, meds, medical copays: Paypal [email protected]
* Birthday/Solstice master list: https://gwydion.dreamwidth.org/1925021.html
* Want Game of Thrones without the creepy? We need new players. We are very inclusive. "Game of Bones MUSH:" gobmush.wikidot.comd I