'Could tip the balance for Trump'

He wants you to know that Republicans are the real groomers.

A post shared on social media purportedly shows an Associated Press headline claiming that the Olympic opening ceremony organizer was struck by lightning. Verdict: False The image has been edited. Fact Check: Olympic gymnast Sabrina Maneca-Voinea filed an appeal of docking her .10 points for going out of bounds during a floor final, The New York Post reported. […]

'I believe this is only an insider conversation'

'mothers like Irina have been blindsided'

'Zero faith in the head shed'

The post 10 Fast Food Chains You Should Think Twice About In America appeared first on Shareably.

Books Dissecting The Dark Descent Hug Your Land Octopus: “Born of Man and Woman” by Richard Matheson A monstrous child in a horrific situation forces the reader to question their own capacity for empathy and understanding. By Sam Reader | Published on August 27, 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. If any name in this book reverberates through American horror, it’s that of Richard Matheson. Between his career writing short stories that he later scripted as some of the most memorable episodes of The Twilight Zone, his landmark take on the postapocalyptic novel with I Am Legend, and of course his own adaptation of his short story “Duel” into Steven Spielberg’s debut motion picture, Matheson has put his stamp on every aspect of modern horror. His precision strikes on genre clichés, along with his tremendous gift for finding the empathy in the unnatural, grip his readers, forcing them to consider tough questions and feel concern for the ordinary people caught in the horrors, as seen as early as his first published story. That story, “Born of Man and Woman,” sees Matheson already employing those immense talents to interrogate the reader’s empathy, asking if they can find the humanity even in those they might look upon as grotesque and shambling horrors.         Unfolding as a series of journal entries, “Born of Man and Woman” puts us in the head of the unnamed narrator, a child chained to a wall in a basement. Through their limited interactions with the outside world, the reader is taken through glimpses of their daily life—their attempts to hide that they removed their chains from the wall, the idea that weather falls from “upstairs,” and the horror experienced as they’re repeatedly beaten for such minor infractions as “going upstairs,” “being too loud,” and “not staying chained up in the basement.” Gradually, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary child but an unnerving creature with the mind of a child, and if their parents continue to mistreat them, the narrator might be tempted to prove how “monstrous” and “inhuman” they truly are.   Matheson’s always had a talent for exploring the boundary between horror and humanity—one need only look at the collisions between a modern understanding of psychology and the gothic in his work, or his masterpiece of human-monster interplay I Am Legend to see that he knows the territory. We see this, in this story, in his decision to reveal the narrator’s true nature—in revealing that the abused child is a literal monster, Matheson illuminates numerous failures of empathy by the end of the narrative. Matheson’s point, while it might strike some readers as blunt and poorly aged, is clear: the narrator of “Born of Man and Woman” is still at their core human, regardless of how they may look or act—their relative “inhumanity” is based entirely in their appearance and the fact that they’re a child who was raised in conditions of horrifying abuse without any knowledge of the outside world. Their monstrous exterior is mainly used to question the empathy of the reader—how does one feel if the victim is monstrous, if the tormentors are human? Obviously an eight-year-old octopus-baby who spits green slime everywhere is different than a human child to some degree, at least contextually. The reader spends much of the story feeling sorry for the poor child. Should that sympathy go away just because the child looks like a shambling monster from a ’50s comic? It’s clear Matheson’s monster child has no concept of having done anything wrong, only of negative consequences, beatings, and punishment. Without any context or guidance, the child is simply going to try not to get hurt rather than learn the reason the things they did were wrong. Not that the parents, abusive as they are, are particularly interested in explaining themselves or attempting to engage with the child in any meaningful way. There’s a strong element of ableism in the parents’ reactions, as well—they view the (albeit unconventional) child as a burden and a punishment, not as a thinking, feeling being. The punishments they use—beating their child, chaining them to the wall, and harming them every time they “make a scene” or do something other than pretend not to exist at all—echoes the kinds of abuse heaped upon “lower-functioning” children who might have outbursts or look “different” enough to engender repulsion rather than empathy. Having a second child, an average daughter, even amplifies these tendencies, as they heap attention on the child who can function in conventional society, focusing all their support and empathy on the narrator’s sister. Empathy (in both fiction and reality) is rather perniciously often tied to likeability. If someone is scary or otherwise a deviation from what people understand as “the norm,” they are more likely to be seen as “creepy” or “untrustworthy” in some way. It’s a mainstay of many gothic stories, for example, that the deformed villain will menace beautiful and innocent young women and children, thereby revealing the true depths of their villainy. Matheson even references this over the course of “Born of Man and Woman” by way of a tense encounter between his narrator and the narrator’s sister in the coalbin, with the narrator accidentally murdering their sister’s cat. The scene plays out like something from a horror movie, with the human sister and her cat moving towards the hidden narrator in his coalbin, the cat hissing and biting the narrator, and the narrator squeezing the cat too hard and killing it. The difference is that we’re seeing it from the “monstrous” narrator’s perspective, in which they’re very afraid of their sister, only squeezing the cat after it hisses at them and bites them. The true genius of Matheson’s approach to his narrator is that it pushes the reader out of any comfort zone they might have been clinging to, forcing them to question long-held morals and beliefs. He front-loads that empathy in the early parts of the story, getting the reader to feel for the poor child chained up in the basement and then gradually revealing the more monstrous elements of the narrator’s nature. By the time the child is revealed as a nightmare from the id of a ’50s comic artist, the reader is already on the narrator’s side and (hopefully) feeling genuine concern toward them. The gradual reveal isn’t some kind of shocking twist but meant as an interrogation of the reader’s empathy—if the reader sees the narrator’s humanity first, will they simply discard it when they realize the narrator’s a gigantic land octopus dripping green slime all over the place? And if they would discard that empathy, what does that say about then, and how they act towards others in their lives? And now to turn it over to you: Was Matheson’s focus on empathy in this tale a forward-looking examination of ableism on the part of the parents, or merely an interrogation of creaky centuries-old themes? What was your favorite of Matheson’s Twilight Zone episodes? And would you have hugged the octopus-child? Please join us in two weeks as we take another unorthodox journey into the gothic with legendary feminist author Joanna Russ and “My Dear Emily.”[end-mark] The post Hug Your Land Octopus: “Born of Man and Woman” by Richard Matheson appeared first on Reactor.

The 1970s stands out as one of the most influential decades in film history. It was during that time that many of Hollywood's most recent iconic stars, directors, and writers proved their talents. Not only did films during this decade honor their predecessors, but they also paved the way for the film industry as we know it today. Many of the films that people consider to be classic were born out... Source

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of the accompanying video from professor Peter St. Onge. Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has effectively quit the race and endorsed former President Donald Trump, popping media heads across America. This is obviously great news for Trump’s odds of winning come November. But it’s even more significant for what it says about the Democratic Party, which has been the effective ruling party of America—the Lord of the Deep State—since FDR. Kennedy made his announcement at a Trump rally Friday. He noted how back in his childhood, Democrats were the “party of the Constitution” who championed civil rights, stood against authoritarianism and censorship, fought against imperialist wars, and against corporate power. He said that party has now transformed into the party of war, censorship, corruption, Big Pharma, Big Tech, big agriculture, and big money. It’s a party that has abandoned democracy—referring to the undemocratic coronation of Kamala Harris as well as lawfare to kick RFK off the ballot and throw Trump in jail. RFK noted that given the censorship, the weaponization of federal agencies, and collusion with left-wing media, he had no path to victory and staying in the race would risk handing victory to Democrats “with whom I disagree on the most existential issues: censorship, war, and chronic disease.” And so he’s effectively dropping out and backing Trump, adding that those original principles of the Democratic Party now lead him back to Trump. Note that RFK is formally suspending his campaign, not ending it, but that’s normally what people do when they tap out. In RFK’s case, it also means he’ll stay on the ballot in deep-blue states and deep-red states, where he won’t affect the outcome. But he’ll drop out in battleground states where it will help Trump. Kennedy had been polling consistently around 5%, which is a big deal, given that five of the last six elections were decided by less than 5%. Beyond the tactical benefit for Trump is the wider moral point. People like RFK Jr., Jordan Peterson, or even Elon Musk were passionate, lifelong liberals before switching sides. Musk spelled it out last year, saying he didn’t leave the Democratic Party; it left him—left him on radical social issues, economic issues, and wars. As for the race itself, five of the last six elections have been decided by under 5 points. So, RFK could absolutely make the difference in a second Trump term. Indeed, Trump got a boost in the betting markets with RFK’s endorsement, making it a very tight race, even with the cheating. Meaning, it’s all hands on board. So, what’s next? In theory, democracies self-correct when one party goes off the rails. It pulls back to the center to try and pick up more voters, something academics call the “median voter theorem.” But in fact, that doesn’t seem to be happening with Dems. As RFK says, they’re instead ignoring the voters and doubling-down on censorship and authoritarianism extending all the way to imprisoning the opposition. This has happened before, of course, even in democracies. In 1930s Germany, the ruling Social Democrats did not moderate. They, too, doubled down, extending to political executions by regime allies. We know how that ended, and it’s not good. We’re in a dark place at the moment, and the most famous Kennedy effectively flipping parties is a mile marker for the history books. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post RFK Jr. Didn’t Leave Democratic Party. It Left Him. appeared first on The Daily Signal.