The West decided to ignore all common sense and allow massive, unvetted immigration into their countries. Germany was the leader. Our Western societies decided to take in millions from countries where they practice Sharia, have an innate, learned contempt for women, Jews, Gays, Christians, and a disregard for freedom. We haven’t gotten their best. Radical […] The post Germany: Jews & Gays Told to Hide Their Identities in Arab Areas appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

'Quit being a baby and actually shave your head'

'I was dizzy with loneliness'

Allegedly, there is a saying among the Cree Nation that goes “listen or your tongue will keep you deaf.” For Adam Rieger, a waiter at a cafe in Saskatchewan, it was his listening that opened up a world of human connection when he decided he should learn the language of his customers. Smitty’s Restaurant in […] The post A Waiter in Canada is Learning Cree to Better Serve Customers: ‘Immediately People Would Light Up’ appeared first on Good News Network.

News 100 Nights of Hero Julia Jackman’s 100 Nights of Hero Adaptation Has a Pretty Stacked Cast The two Star Wars stars are just the start By Molly Templeton | Published on November 19, 2024 Screenshot: Lucasfilm Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: Lucasfilm This is not a cast lineup you see every day. 100 Nights of Hero, writer-director Julia Jackman’s adaptation of Isabel Greenberg’s graphic novel, now counts among its stars the following: Oscar nominee Felicity Jones (Rogue One, pictured above), Emma Corrin (Deadpool & Wolverine), Richard E. Grant (Gosford Park), Nicholas Galitzine (Red, White and Royal Blue), Markella Kavenagh (The Rings of Power), Varada Sethu (Andor), and Charli XCX. Yes, that Charli XCX. 100 Nights is Jackman’s debut as a feature screenwriter; she previously directed 2002’s The Riley Sisters. Her adaptation slightly changes the name of Greenberg’s graphic novel, which is called The 100 Nights of Hero; the novel has the following synopsis: In the Empire of Migdal Bavel, Cherry is married to Jerome, a wicked man who makes a diabolical wager with his friend Manfred: if Manfred can seduce Cherry in one hundred nights, he can have his castle—and Cherry.But what Jerome doesn’t know is that Cherry is in love with her maid Hero. The two women hatch a plan: Hero, a member of the League of Secret Story Tellers, will distract Manfred by regaling him with a mesmerizing tale each night for 100 nights, keeping him at bay. Those tales are beautifully depicted here, touching on themes of love and betrayal and loyalty and madness. In a statement quoted by Variety, Jackman said, “I’ve been in love with Isabel’s graphic novel since I read it in 2016, and it’s been a dream to adapt it into its own weird cinematic universe. … |I’m excited for people to see what we’ve done with Manfred, Cherry and Hero—even if you’ve read the book, you may not know the whole story just yet.” No release date has been announced.[end-mark] The post Julia Jackman’s <i>100 Nights of Hero</i> Adaptation Has a Pretty Stacked Cast appeared first on Reactor.

Books Dissecting The Dark Descent There’s Always a Bigger Fish: “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor A self-loathing bully meets a cheery Bible salesman… By Sam Reader | Published on November 19, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share Welcome back to Dissecting The Dark Descent, where we lovingly delve into the guts of David Hartwell’s seminal 1987 anthology story by story, and in the process, explore the underpinnings of a genre we all love. For an in-depth introduction, here’s the intro post. Flannery O’Connor might not have invented the Southern Gothic, but her work certainly helped define the genre. Through her stories of grotesque situations underpinned by what she characterized as “harsh, unsentimental realism” and exaggerated characters, she outlined a moral universe where grace and unpretentiousness were valued over more nebulous pursuits, outlined by sharp humor and stark human drama among characters who were deeply flawed both psychologically and physically. “Good Country People” showcases all these elements, observing an arrogant bully whose toxic defense mechanisms and deep resentment of herself and the world around her deliver her directly into the arms of a much greater monster, one who has accepted and embraced his flaws. Mrs. Hopewell lives on a large onion farm called The Cedars with her tenants, the Freemans. She’s also host to her daughter Joy, a full-figured one-legged woman in her thirties who exaggerates her limp, refuses to work, and legally changed her name to “Hulga.” Mrs. Hopewell entertains her friend Mrs. Freeman’s grotesque stories about her daughters and is constantly burdened with the equally grotesque behavior of Joy-Hulga. They exist in a kind of long-suffering détente until the day a young travelling Bible salesman shows up on her doorstep. Introducing himself as “Pointer,” it’s clear that something is off about the young man, but for all the ugliness in Mrs. Hopewell and Joy’s life, Pointer’s goal is something far darker and uglier than either of them could realize. While “Good Country People” might be partly told from Mrs. Hopewell’s point of view, it’s clear that the focus of the story is Joy, who views the world with a sneering resentment. In her introductory scene, she’s seen as a large, one-legged nuisance who shuts herself in the bathroom first thing in the morning. She’s also stuck in her family home, partly by design and partly by physical limitation—the text notes that if it wasn’t for her weak heart, she’d be living her best life at a northern university lecturing on philosophy to “people who actually knew what she was talking about.” Being stuck, treated like a child by her mother, and dealing with the limitations of a weak heart and a missing leg are by no means easy. Worse still, she’s clearly very intelligent, but she’s stuck depending on her mother. Joy resents her situation, the parts of herself she can’t change, and everything around her by proxy. She acts out, trying to give people the loathsome version of herself she thinks they see anyway. Joy’s ugly behavior—her stomping around, wearing the same skirt and yellow sweatshirt every day, the fact that she legally changed her name to “Hulga”—also point to defense mechanisms. Among “good country folk,” her intelligence and lack of conventional attractiveness leaves her vulnerable, not just to the people she believes would look down on her for her disability, but as a woman and one with more smarts than sense in the rural South. She exaggerates her shortcomings, lumbering around her mother and Mrs. Freeman with all the grace of (as the text describes her) “a hulking battleship.” It even extends to the name “Hulga,” a grotesque sound with an unnerving mouthfeel that’s meant to be as ugly as she acts. If she’s ugly but with a mind sharper than all the people around her, then at least there’s something to her life. Her exaggerated ugliness and bright interior life makes her interesting and keeps away the people she doesn’t want to deal with. Her mannerisms and childish, antisocial behavior are an act to get out of doing things she doesn’t want to do and keep other people at bay. She’s even infuriated and scared when Mrs. Freeman homes in on the things she resents and uses them to directly needle her, reinforcing her own resentment and self-loathing in a tangible enough way to hurt her. Lest we view Joy too sympathetically, it’s useful to point out that these things inform her experience but do not excuse it. Joy’s sin above anything else is arrogance. She treats the people around her like a joke. Her intellectualism and disability might set her apart from the “good country folk” around her, but it’s telling that she treats her mother as little more than the help; she regularly insults her, and is unwilling to help with the farm and the laborious process of weeding the onion fields on the Hopewell property. She even delights in telling her mother that she’s “got no inner light.” It’s this arrogance and superiority, as well as her intense need to bully others due to her self-loathing, that eventually dooms her. Pointer’s is the superiority of someone who has honed his act well enough to get away with it. In fact, he seems to know exactly which buttons to push, the horror from his encounters with the Hopewells coming from the clear air of menace and manipulation surrounding him. From the moment he fake-trips into Mrs. Hopewell’s house, he tries to push all the buttons he can to convince her to give him more access. It’s also unnervingly clear he knows his intended targets, as he tells Mrs. Hopewell a (probably false) story that mirrors Joy’s own to win her sympathy. The difference is, of course, while Mrs. Hopewell is polite, she’s got enough sense to know not to buy what he’s selling. Joy, meanwhile, buys the aw-shucks country act hook line and sinker. Pointer knows which buttons to push on her, too, and for all her intelligence, Joy can’t resist the fact that he sees through her ugly act to the person underneath. All these things make the scene of Pointer’s intimate violation (if not in the explicit sense in the psychological sense) even more tragic and horrifying. After some initial conversations, Joy takes Pointer up into the barn loft, abandoning her defense mechanisms as she goes. He takes a genuine interest in her, and she, thinking he’s a dumb Christian bumpkin fascinated by the “inner light” she has and which these “good country people” lack. There’s even an intimate moment as she shows him how to take her leg off, and he brings out a flask of whiskey, some pills, and a pack of playing cards to set the mood. Joy is (for once) not acting as a brash and arrogant grotesque but as a human being. Then when she rebuffs Pointer and his offer of sex, nudie cards, pills, and whiskey, he completely drops the gentle approach, steals her leg, and uses everything he knows about Joy to mock her for her beliefs. Joy resents her own vulnerabilities and weaponizes her ugliness, and Pointer uses his acceptance and seeming lack of ugliness as a weapon to attack those clear vulnerabilities. Joy’s inability to navigate her own humanity puts her at the mercy of a real monster, one who leaves her a pathetic, helpless wreck. “Good Country People” is, in the end, a psychological portrait of Joy, defenses and all. In her resentment and inability to accept herself, Joy weaponizes the parts of her situation she dislikes into a grotesque bullying caricature, only to be disarmed and forced to accept her shortcomings anyway when Pointer steals her leg. O’Connor creates a tragic monster and has them then destroyed by an even larger monster, one who operates freely, unhindered by self-loathing and vulnerabilities. In the end, it’s a haunting reminder not only of the necessity of learning to love oneself, but to not pick on others you find weaker. Sometimes, you might attract the notice of a real monster.  And now to turn it over to you. Was Mrs. Freeman feeding Pointer information? Was Joy truly tragic, or merely the victim of a higher moral calculus? And what was your first experience with Flannery O’Connor’s work? (This is in fact the second time around for me, the first time was reading this story in a modern American lit class.) And please join us in two weeks for “Mackintosh Willy,” by modern gothic superstar (and occasional lurker in our comments section) Ramsey Campbell![end-mark] The post There’s Always a Bigger Fish: “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor appeared first on Reactor.

Born in 1929 in Ixelles, Belgium, Audrey Hepburn grew up to be one of the world's leading actresses and fashion icons. She was one of the most recognized on-screen actresses during the Golden Age of Hollywood, quickly becoming recognized for her work in films such as Breakfast at Tiffany's and Roman Holiday, for which she became the first woman to win an Academy Award. And while people today... Source

As a First Lady, the country will scrutinize their attire if something is considered too risque for the White House, such as showing their shoulders or re-wearing a dress. These First Ladies didn't back away from wearing some daring gowns throughout history, though. From Jackie O and Todd Lincoln to Michelle Obama and Melania Trump, here are some of the most controversial First Lady gowns in... Source

Still smarting from the loss of its access to Washington as President-elect Donald Trump gears up to reenter the White House, the Left’s cancel culture enforcer has trained its sights on Not the Bee, the real-news partner of the Christian satire site The Babylon Bee. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left smear factory that gaslights its donors and engages in routine defamation against mainstream conservatives and Christians, targeted Not the Bee after Tesla Founder Elon Musk purchased Twitter in 2022. One of Musk’s first directives at Twitter was restoring The Babylon Bee’s speech on the platform, and it seems likely he bought the social media platform in part for this reason. Twitter had silenced the Bee for the crime of disagreeing with transgender orthodoxy, one of the key issues on which the SPLC will brook no dissent. In fact, this connection may explain a secondary motive behind the SPLC’s attack. Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon revealed the SPLC’s forthcoming attack in a post on X Tuesday. “The discredited, scandal-ridden smear factory known as the SPLC is about to publish a hit piece doxxing several of our ‘Not the Bee’ writers who wished to remain anonymous so they could speak freely, without fear,” he wrote. “The SPLC extracted sensitive information from our site, then used that information to contact our writers directly.” Dillon said the SPLC went digging for the information “because they’re left-wing activists masquerading as journalists.” “They did it because they lack principles,” he added. “They did it because they’re vindictive bullies who’ve admitted their aim is to ‘completely destroy’ individuals and organizations they disagree with by making them pay a steep price for speaking freely.” Dillon admitted that since he’s a public figure, he accepts that getting attacked “comes with the territory.” “What I won’t accept is the doxxing and smearing of our staff because they said some things the SPLC doesn’t like,” he added. The discredited, scandal-ridden smear factory known as the SPLC is about to publish a hit piece doxxing several of our “Not the Bee” writers who wished to remain anonymous so they could speak freely, without fear. The SPLC extracted sensitive information from our site, then used… pic.twitter.com/toQLfga5SU— Seth Dillon (@SethDillon) November 19, 2024 Why Is It Called the SPLC? The Babylon Bee CEO is exactly right. In fact, he arguably understates his case. As I wrote in my book, “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” the SPLC began as a noble civil rights nonprofit, providing legal representation to poor people in the South. It won some major cases, getting black men who had been falsely convicted of rape off of death row and even representing white people who faced reverse racism (yes, even some on the Left used to care about that). Beginning in the 1980s, however, the SPLC began a massive—and quite lucrative—rebrand. The organization’s co-founder, Morris Dees, had an uncle in the Ku Klux Klan, and his familiarity with the Klan naturally bred a rather just contempt. Dees began targeting Klan groups to sue them into bankruptcy, and since he was doing this in the 1980s—and not in the Klan’s heyday of the 1920s or the 1950s—he found it rather easy. In fact, SPLC staff compared taking the Klan to court to “shooting fish in a barrel.” Suing the Klan paid dividends. Dees cast a grand narrative of himself as a noble knight, slaying grand dragons in the courtroom. Northern liberals, who saw the South as a den of hateful white rednecks, sent massive checks. SPLC’s do-gooder attorneys weren’t happy with the work. Many of the left-leaning attorneys didn’t appreciate SPLC’s work with law enforcement, and they wanted to help people who actually needed it, not find every excuse imaginable to sue Klan groups that had barely a cent to their name. They quit en masse in 1986, while Dees doubled down on the strategy. The Hate Map Eventually, Dees ran out of grand dragons to slay, so rather than abandoning the strategy, he started casting a wider net. In a stroke of fundraising genius, the SPLC expanded its “Klanwatch” project into “Hatewatch,” and started publishing a map plotting small and ineffectual “hate groups” alongside Klan chapters. Gradually, the SPLC added more and more mainstream organizations to the “hate map.” Today, the SPLC’s “hate map” is a political and ideological enemies list that the SPLC uses to scare donors into ponying up cash and to “mortally embarrass” those who dare disagree with its leftist agenda. If you disagree with the SPLC’s open-borders approach on immigration, you’re an “anti-immigrant hate group.” If you don’t think kids should be told that a boy can become a girl and vice versa, you’re an “anti-LGBTQ hate group.” If you condemn the ideology of radical Islam, you’re an “anti-Muslim extremist.” If you support parental rights in education, you’re an “antigovernment extremist group.” This isn’t hyperbole. The SPLC does actually put conservative groups like the Center for Immigration Studies, the Family Research Council, Alliance Defending Freedom, and Moms for Liberty on the “hate map” alongside Klan chapters. The SPLC’s Year in Hate and Extremism 2023 report, released in June, describes the groups on the map as “organizational infrastructure… upholding white supremacy.” As for the idea that the SPLC aims to “completely destroy” those they disagree with? Dillon is exactly right. SPLC spokesman Mark Potok said so at the annual conference of the Michigan Alliance Against Hate Crimes in Lansing, Mich., in 2007. “Sometimes the press will describe us as monitoring hate groups, I want to say plainly that our aim in life is to destroy these groups, completely destroy them,” he said. Potok reiterated this point at a Vermont school group in 2008. “You are able to destroy these groups sometimes by the things you publish,” he declared. “It’s not so much that they will bring down the police or the federal agents on their head, it’s that you can sometimes so mortally embarrass these groups that they will be destroyed.” The Results In 2012, an LGBTQ activist targeted the conservative Christian nonprofit the Family Research Council for an attempted mass shooting. The building manager, Leo Johnson, prevented the attack, but the terrorist later confessed to the FBI that he intended to kill everyone in the building. He pleaded guilty to terrorism charges and is serving a 25-year sentence. The SPLC rightly condemned the attack, but it has kept FRC on the “hate map” ever since. Companies like Amazon, Eventbrite, and NextDoor have used the SPLC to exclude people they brand “extremists.” Legacy media outlets, Democrats, and others consider the SPLC a reliable arbiter of “hate,” despite the group’s many scandals. The Scandals In 2019, a reckoning came for the SPLC. The group fired its co-founder, Morris Dees, and saw its president, Richard Cohen, resign. This took place amid a racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal. Amid the scandal, a former employee came forward, calling the “hate” accusations a “highly profitable scam.” Yet the SPLC brought in Tina Tchen, former first lady Michelle Obama’s chief of staff, to run an internal review, and the results of that review have never seen the light of day. It seems Tchen’s job was to brush the scandal under the rug. Employees weren’t happy, so they unionized. Earlier this year, the SPLC restructured in what union leaders are calling “classic union-busting behavior.” The SPLC also faces multiple defamation lawsuits. It paid more than $3 million to settle a lawsuit after branding a Muslim reformer an “anti-Islamic extremist.” Last year, a judge allowed the Dustin Inman Society’s defamation lawsuit against the SPLC to move forward. Why Attack Not the Bee? Despite all these scandals, the SPLC has enjoyed undeserved clout. Many on the Left prop up this corrupt organization because it is politically useful—an attack dog they can cite to demonize conservatives. As I wrote in my forthcoming book, “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government,” the SPLC has had tremendous access to the federal bureaucracy under President Joe Biden. SPLC leaders and staff have visited the White House at least 18 times. Biden nominated an SPLC attorney, Nancy Abudu, to a top federal judgeship, and she was confirmed in 2023. SPLC leaders have briefed leaders at the Justice Department and the Department of Education about “hate” and “extremism,” and the FBI’s Richmond office notoriously cited the SPLC in its 2023 memo on “radical traditional Catholics.” The SPLC will likely lose this access in January, as President-elect Trump takes office. The far-left group may harbor some resentment at The Babylon Bee for this development, because Elon Musk appears to have bought Twitter in part to liberate The Babylon Bee, and Musk’s purchase of Twitter loosened the Left’s stranglehold on information. Musk’s new platform, X, has circumvented the Left’s ability to censor information that conflicts with its narrative in the name of suppressing “misinformation,” and this development likely helped Trump prevail in the 2024 presidential election. Not only does the SPLC want to silence Not the Bee’s reporting on cultural issues, but it also likely harbors resentment against the entire Bee enterprise. The post CANCEL CULTURE: SPLC Targets the Real-News Partner of The Babylon Bee appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Senator Paul Rand, who is about to take over as chair of the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, has spoken in favor of shutting down the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). CISA, a part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was established in 2018 to do just what its name says – but has in the meanwhile become weaponized to suppress free speech, opponents believe, citing a number of programs where CISA was involved in monitoring and flagging online posts for removal. Senator Paul refers to the agency’s behavior – which he says included the ability to censor content and thus influence what information is available to people – as “intrusions into the First Amendment.” “The First Amendment is important, that’s why we listed it as the First Amendment. I’d like to, at the very least, eliminate their ability to censor content online,” Paul said in a post on X. The senator was referencing his previous statements made for Politico, when he revealed he is in favor of shuttering CISA completely, while at the same time conceding that this is “unlikely” to happen – but also promising there will be hearings, as the incoming committee starts probing this government entity “working” with social media. According to Politico, Democrats in Congress would react “fiercely” against any attempt not only to dismantle but also to limit CISA’s powers. CISA representatives, like senior adviser Ron Eckstein, continue to claim that the agency is merely doing its job, without ever overstepping the mandate and engaging in censorship. Quite the contrary, Eckstein told the press – according to him, CISA is in fact protecting Americans’ “freedom of speech, civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy.” Taking into account what has come to light regarding CISA’s activities over the past four years in particular, that is an extraordinary claim, and one Senator Paul clearly disagrees with. Even though established under President Trump’s first administration, CISA assumed an active role around the highly contentious 2020 election, allegedly to suppress those voicing their concerns online about the legitimacy of the vote. CISA and legacy media supporting the policies the agency is executing – or has been until now – describe this as “countering domestic disinformation,” and suggest that CISA is these days more focused on fighting back adversaries from abroad. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post “Shutting Down CISA” Senator Paul Rand’s Crusade Against Online Censorship appeared first on Reclaim The Net.