Ironhold

After enough people - including the CEO of indie publisher Alterna Comics - called King out on the matter, he was forced to modify the story. Now King is saying that the person in costume was in line and didn't have his mask on. When King saw that he didn't have his mask on, he flipped out and yelled at him to mask up. When the person fumbled with their mask (which could well have gotten crumpled up if it had been in their pocket long enough), King straight-up exploded on him. And basically, since it was the Rorschach character, King just *assumed* the person was "alt-right" without knowing anything more about them. This was enough of an incident that the venue basically chose to sacrifice the person to appease King, throwing them out completely. Suffice to say that King is now persona non grata among much of the comic industry, particularly a large swath of readers.

A few days ago, comic book writer Tom King went on a rant on social media. In the "Watchmen" comic, there's a dramatic scene where masked hero Rorschach removes his mask as part of a plea to Doctor Manhattan; former hero Ozymandias outright confessed to crimes against humanity, and Rorschach wants Doctor Manhattan's help in exposing what happened. It ends with Doctor Manhattan killing Rorschach because he, too, feels that what Ozymandias did was for the greater good. King was, if he's to be believed, at a comic convention when he saw someone in a Rorschach costume unmask, likely re-enacting this scene. King freaked out and caused enough of a spectacle that the convention staff were forced to have security eject the costume guy from the venue. King then went on a tirade on social media, and a number of sycophants are agreeing with what he did and echoing similar sentiments that people who don't mask up and people who aren't vaccinated need to be forced out of society. A few were all but demanding that the military go house-to-house and enforce vaccinations. This is the kind of thing that has people worked up, the knowledge that everyone from everyday peeps to various celebrities are *that* ready and eager to see those who they disagree with as sub-human and start removing their rights.

Earlier today I saw someone in a Facebook group I'm in freaking out because they assumed that as we got closer to the latter days there would be more persecution and whatnot, especially online. I looked at the "future" they described and pointed out how the actual past, that is, what critics of the church used to do online, was worse than what they predicted and yet we as a whole emerged triumphant. As I tried to explain, while those of us who *had* lived through it and had fought those battles had no qualms about fighting them again if needed, it was on each individual member of the church to study matters out for themselves (scriptures, Gospel Principles, Teachings of the Presidents of the Church, et cetra), develop their own testimony, and then develop the voice with which to convey their testimony. We could help them if things ever got that bad again, but they needed to be able to stand on their own. It's the same thing for everyone, really: when that time comes to face a major burden, people can help, but it's your own two feet you need to stand on.

"If that ox is in the mire, and you're down there trying to get it out, how long are you going to stay clean?" The sad, simple truth is that the further down a person is, the further down you've got to go if you're going to try and pull them back up. As you go down, you'll see things you'll wish you'd never seen. As much as you want to flinch, to turn away, you have to remember that whoever you're trying to reach is *living* down there. Even the first rescue attempt will ensure that you'll never be the same person again. But if you're lucky, whoever you just rescued won't be the same, either.

http://joeguide.com/summaries/second_hand_emotions/ http://joeguide.com/summaries/second_hand_emotions/misc.shtml "Second-Hand Emotions", original air date 31 October 1986 (in most US media markets that aired the "G. I. Joe" cartoon on weekdays) Lifeline, the team's medic, is basically a modern version of real-life war hero Desmond Doss. He's a pacifist, but enlisted to become a medic in order to help people. Unfortunately, his father, a Protestant minister (the denomination is never mentioned), is such an extreme pacifist that he disowned Lifeline for enlisting. The only reason he's even spoken to Lifeline after all this time is because Lifeline's little sister is getting married, and as dad is doing the ceremony Lifeline is the nearest biological male relative and tradition demands that he be the one to walk her down the aisle. Cobra spies have intercepted their communications, however, and have arranged to cause a scene at the wedding to humiliate the Joe team and destroy Lifeline psychologically. So 31 years ago we had an episode of a kids' cartoon looking at pacifism and its value during war.

If you'll recall, the Book of Mormon states that Captain Moroni was so righteous that "if all men were like unto him, the devil would have no power over the hearts of men". He was one of the most righteous people in the Book of Mormon, yet was also one of the most brutally effective military leaders and saw nothing wrong with tricking the Lamanites into maneuvering into poor positions.

Whenever people ask me for recommendations, I specifically ask for additional details, such as specific genre of interest, what specific bits of content they may or may not object to, and other such details. This is to help me tailor my recommendations for people. A lot of other individuals I've spoken with have adopted a similar stance, as there's a lot of possible entertainment content out there that on the surface might be into but that in an individual circumstance may be inappropriate. For example, one of my favorite comic books is Alterna Comics' "Mr. Crypt" franchise. It's a kid-friendly comedy series about a talking skeleton who just wants to get on with his afterlife but keeps getting stuck in increasingly bizarre situations (such as hunting vampires or tracking down Bigfoot). Every issue I've read so far (I'm a bit behind) is at a level an 8-year-old could hypothetically enjoy, but because it has built-in horror elements it may be a bit too spooky or intense for individual children. That's why so many folks now ask for details rather than just dumping recommendations.

"Edge of a Revolution" was the kind of pretentious "We want to be seen as doing something to change the world but don't actually want to put any effort behind it!" nonsense that a lot of rock and punk fans in the late 2000s / early 2010s were sick and tired of, and so even people who hadn't yet gotten on board the bandwagon started writing them off. After that, the band slowly faded away to the point of them only being remembered as a living meme.

I make it a point to make my Sundays as calm and quiet as possible. I listen to a couple of radio shows I like before church, during which I get my online matters knocked out. I have church, then I go to a particular store to get a particular newspaper. Barring any situations that may arise, once I'm home, I'm home. I find a comfortable spot, turn the radio back on, and just chill. I usually read and otherwise just take it slow to recharge for Monday.

I know that property values in my part of Texas (two hours north of Austin) are going up significantly as people move in. Folks are trying to escape New York & California by going to red states, and it's putting a squeeze on things.

Yeah; it seems like every time they update the church website whoever does it tends to fix more than they break. Basically, once an update goes live, it's 6 - 12 months before the site regains full functionality.

The WWE mandates that all talent under contract wrestle exclusively for them, with contracts actually including non-compete clauses to prevent anyone from immediately turning around and joining another promotion; it's 30 days for the people you see on NXT and NXT UK, and 90 days for the people you see on Smackdown and Raw. In fact, up until last year they were actively keeping talent bottled up by having them under contract, even if they weren't using them, to keep other promotions from having them. With the WWE being so large and so dominant, this basically meant that if you wanted to hit the "big time" in wrestling, it was all or nothing. The "Forbidden Door" is the exact opposite of this, and officially cements the arrangements that AEW was allowing their talent to have with other promotions. This allows talent who are being under-utilized in AEW to take work elsewhere until their fortunes improve, and also allows talent still under contract in other promotions to finish out their contracts.

The more "elite" someone is, the more likely they are to claim that professional wrestling is the province of "white trash". In reality, however, professional wrestling is one of the most diverse sports going right now. Not only is it popular in the United States, where you currently have wrestlers of all races and ethnic backgrounds and several top wrestlers are or have been in interracial marriages, it's also incredibly popular in Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and Mexico. It's very common to see wrestlers from one country work for a promotion in another country, and in fact right now the big thing in the industry is the "Forbidden Door", an official talent-sharing arrangement between All Elite Wrestling (US), Impact! Wrestling (US), New Japan Pro Wrestling (Japan), Stardom (Japan), National Wrestling Alliance (US / Canada), and AAA (Mexico). A wrestler signed to one promotion could hypothetically wrestle with most of these promotions (Stardom is all-female) if they become popular enough, and in fact All Elite Wrestling routinely features wrestlers *from* Japan as travel restrictions permit. So yeah... perhaps the most diverse sport in the world right now is the one that most people presume only one race are fans of.

As someone who writes for a newspaper? If he's been using his account for official business, then this could easily be (mis)taken as the official position of whatever organization he works with. His editors may want a word with him after this one.

Oh, they showed up. Yesterday I just got hammered around noon, feeling so incredibly exhausted I just laid down on the couch and slept. I'd sleep for a while, wake up, have a severe nose bleed (I am prone to nose bleeds because of damage to my sinuses, but even for me this was bad), then once the bleeding stopped I'd go back to sleep. I finally woke up around 6:30, had a little bit of dinner, watched wrestling, watched a game show, and then basically went to sleep... ...During which I had repeated fever dreams and woke up sweating hard, and as before when I was awake my nose was bleeding. I'd say that between the nose bleeds and the fever dreams, I've very much had a reaction.

My mom wouldn't stop nagging me, so I got my shot today under the condition that she be there with me in case I had a reaction. Today is the only day of the week I don't have fixed plans for work or other activities in the evening, so it's my only real shot. ...But dad decided he had plans for today on top of what mom already had, and so it was close to 2:30 PM by the time I got my shot. On a normal Tuesday, I'd have done my errands around 9 AM, gotten home, and gotten right on my paperwork. Instead, I waited until about 11 AM to give them the benefit of the doubt before doing my own errands because I wanted to give them time, and instead it was 2 PM before they finished up with theirs. Had I done things to my schedule, I'd have already been done with paperwork when the office called to let me know some customers hadn't gotten their papers. Instead, I had to drop everything *yet again* to run, re-deliver those papers, and come back. I'm now several hours behind, missed an important message about some people from church getting spoof friend requests (meaning I'm now worried about my Facebook account), and now have a blazing stress headache. It's 6 PM local, and I figure it'll be about 10 PM local before I'm done with what I need to do. This is the kind of snafu I was hoping to avoid, but she just wouldn't stop. She knows I have issues with stress, she knows I'm likely on the autism spectrum to the point that I need to get in to see someone, but she just wouldn't let up. Once again, her drama became my drama, and I'm paying for it. (And no, so much of my paycheck goes for Obamacare that I can't even afford regular medical checkups, let alone rent on a place of my own.)

Bell County Comic-Con is coming up on the 7th and 8th in Belton, Texas. Mom is after me to get my first shot before this happens because of the sheer number of people who are likely going to be there. What I'm looking at is that one of my brothers had a reaction to the vaccines he got (he never said which one), and when my dad got his first shot he was exhausted for several days. In addition to working for the newspaper, I also do a *lot* for other people IRL in addition to handling my own things. For example, I just now got notice that one of my fellow couriers is going to be out this week, and so they'll have a substitute in his place. I simply don't have the downtime available to me in case I have an issue with the vaccine. Rock and a hard place here...

In real life, there's something known as "Caregiver's Fatigue". This is a situation where a person puts so much of their time, energy, and focus into caring for others that they have very little left for themselves or those around them. I actually have a deformity because of this. My maternal grandmother had Alzheimer's, and my parents were so busy taking care of the paperwork and legal materials *in addition to* going to the nursing home to make sure she was taken care of that I couldn't get them to understand that the assorted aches and pains I kept feeling were more than "growing pains" or my "not [being] used to physical activity". It turns out that the aches and pains were scoliosis, and by the time I was an adult and in a position to actually get myself to a doctor on my own accord a pretty bad case had set in. It actually got to my hips and legs because of how long my spine was curved, and I'm now looking at multiple rounds of surgery to correct it. Situations like this, where a person is completely drained or where someone's efforts to care for others left them uncared for, are when #2 turns into #1 and people start walking some very dark paths.

IRL, I'm the entertainment writer for a local family of newspapers. I've had people tell me that they wait to get my review before deciding to see a movie or not. Even if they disagree with my review, they trust that I'm being honest with my opinion. In other words, I - as one person - have the ability to influence what people in three counties see in theaters. Never underestimate how much influence you can have with your friends and neighbors.

From what I understand, Hawaii is being incredibly strict about COVID vaccinations, to the point that even individuals such as the person in the story are being denied exemptions that doctors in Utah or Idaho likely would have granted. I know that here in Texas she'd have pretty good odds of getting that exemption. The decision to deny the exemption was likely based on state requirement rather than anything to do with the college or the church. However, this hasn't stopped people on social media from going after the church like they usually do when it makes the news.

Movie theaters were able to re-open last August here in Texas. The Cinergy chain re-opened for "Tenet".

I have tickets for Bell County Comic Con on August 7th. These are the tickets I got last year, and they've been rolled over by the organizers because COVID shut the con down last year.

The building here in Cove has four congregations: Cove I Ward Cove II Ward Killeen 4th Ward Clear Creek YSA Branch Even though I've aged out of the YSA branch, they're so short-handed some weeks they don't even have the people to do the sacrament if I'm not there.

My branch -> Masks are optional if you've been vaccinated, but no one is asking questions Still using Covid precautions with sacrament, including putting the pieces of bread in their own separate cups and giving the trays a chlorine bath between congregations meeting in the building People are still being asked to leave a row between family groups Singing hymns is allowed, but still no hymnals

I myself was a branch finance clerk at one point, and so I've been on both sides of this particular issue. On one hand, it's daunting, period, to handle any sort of in-person donation, be it cash, check, money order, or so on. There are very strict protocols that must be followed to ensure that everything is handled properly and nothing is embezzled. If it tells you anything, I was the clerk when the California State Democratic Party discovered that their finance officer had embezzled them into near-bankruptcy, and I was shocked to discover that the church had far stricter standards than what these officials had going. That we get any physical donations at all puts whoever handles them under a very bright, hot spotlight. Every penny has to be accounted for, every document kept in a designated fashion, and so on. On the other hand, there are many reasons why a person would still prefer to do physical donations. You have people who either do not have regular access to the internet or who are, for one reason or another, very hesitant to direct-deposit their donations; remember, computer crime is a very big deal, and a lot of folks are afraid. There are folks in society who don't even have bank accounts or the like, especially those living at the lower financial rungs. Many younger individuals need the practice and physical discipline. Then there are individuals like myself who either wouldn't remember to pay or otherwise do it to help them better manage their finances (remember, I've had a *lot* of head trauma over the years).