I’m from a small rural community, and ev’rybody who lived in my neighborhood, if you want to call it that, were relatives.  We called it “the circle,” and our house was there, my grandmother’s house was there, an aun’ an’ uncle who were childless lived there, and (uh) a couple of aunts an’ uncles who had children.  There were five female cousins, an’ in the summertime we hung out together all day long from early until late.  In my grandmother’s yard was a maple tree, and the five of us developed that into our apartment building.  Each of us had a limb, and [small laugh] the less daring cousins took the lo’er limbs, and I and another cousin a year younger than I always went as far to the top as we could, an’ we– we were kinda derisive of those girls who stayed with the lower limbs.  We had front doors an’ back doors.  The front door was the — the limb — were the limbs on the front, that were nearest (um) the boxwood hedge.  And the grass was all worn away in that area.  An’ then the back doorwa–was on the back side of the tree, an’ you could only enter the front an’ exit from the rear.  And that had to be done by swinging off a limb that was fairly high off the ground, and (um) my cousin Belinda and I had no problem with that, but the other girls — that was always somethin’ we had to coax them into doin’.  But still, you entered the front, you left the rear.  We (um) ate our lunches together.  When it was lunchtime — an’ our mothers always cooked lunch in the summertime ’cause they didn’ want to be in the hot kitchen at night.  So we would just take our (um) — go home, an’ we’d load our plates with all the vegetables an’ the cornbread, an’ get our glasses of milk or ice tea or whatever we were havin’, an’ we would head for somebody’s yard, where we would all sit down an’ eat together.  It was just an institution:  lunch in somebody’s yard.  An’ if you wanted to go home for a second helping– sometimes that was quite a little walk, but it was worth it, because that was our thing, having lunch together, every day.  (Um) We gathered at my grandmother’s on Sundays.  All my aunts would get those chairs, form a circle.  (Uh) One crocheted.  (Uh) Most of them just sat an’ talked, an’ we girls hung out for the main part with the women.  (Uh) The men would gather around the fish pond, which was in a side yard.  It was (um) — it was kind of a rock (um) pond that my granddaddy had, had built.  There was a ir’n pipe in the middle, an’ when he went fishin’, he would put his catch in there.  Or he caught a mud turtle, he’d put it in there.  An’ there it stayed until it was time to kill it an’ cook it, whatever it was.  The pipe in the middle had water that sprayed up all the time.  There was a locust tree near there, an’ that’s where we girls picked the leaves an’ the thorns to make the doll clothes out o’ the locust.  It’s where we always ate the watermelon.  We always had to save the rind, an’ we always had to leave some pink on that rind, because my grandmother made watermelon pickles out o’ that rind.  I hated the things.  I thought they were the worst things I ever put in my mouth.  But ever’body else thought watermelon pickles were just a great delicacy.  That was also around the time that ev’rybody grew gladiolias [sic] an’ I thought they were the ugliest flower I’d ever laid my eyes on, but ever’body had gladiolias.  ‘Course now I’ve come to appreciate the gladiolia, but back then I had absolutely no appreciation for it.  It was also where we made (uh) ice cream, (uh) on the front porch.  We made ice cream on Sunday afternoons.  I had an aunt who worked in the general mercantile business that my family owned, an’ she was only home on Sunday, so she baked all day:  homemade rolls an’ cakes.  And so, she made cakes an’ we made ice cream, an’ ever’body wan’ed to crank, of course.  (Um) That was just a big treat, to get to crank that ice cream.  It was jus’ our Sunday afternoon thing, an’ I, I think back on it.  All the aunts would sit around an’ they’d talk, an’ they’d smoke.  Even if you never saw those ladies smoke, any other time o’ the week.  On Sunday afternoon when we all were gathered about in gran- in granny’s yard, they’d have a cigarette.  Just a way of relaxing, I suppose.  The maple tree’s now gone.  In later years, it was thought the maple tree, our apartment building, was shading the house too much an’ causing mildew, so it was removed at some point.  And I don’t, to this day, enjoy lookin’ (uh) into that part o’ the yard. …

Sonia Joseph began reading effective altruist blogs when she was 12. The vigorous online debates about how to have the most impact in the world provided a sense of community that she was missing as an Indian-American girl growing up in suburban Boston. But when she became old enough to join in-person EA gatherings in the Cambridge area, she noticed that many of the men she met seemed enamored with “pickup artistry,” a supposedly systematic approach to convincing women to sleep with them.
xxx/ellauri261.html on line 257: Suddenly she grabbed my knee. “Sammy,” she said, “do you think that Alice and I are lesbians?” I had a genuine hot curl of fire up my spine. “I don’t see that it’s anybody’s business one way or another,” I said. “Do you care whether we are,” she asked. “Not in the least,” I said. I was suddenly dripping wet. “Are you queer or gay or different or ‘of it’ as the French say or whatever they are calling it nowadays,” she said, looking narrowly at me. I waggled my hand sidewise. “Both ways,” I said. “I don’t see why I should go through life limping on just one leg to satisfy a so-called norm.” “It bothers a lot of people,” Gertrude said. “But like you said, it’s nobody’s business, it came from the Judeo-Christian ethos, especially Saint Paul the bastard, but he was complaining about youngsters who were not really that way, they did it for money, everybody suspects us or knows but nobody says anything about it. Did Thornie tell you?” “Only when I asked him a direct question and then he didn’t want to answer, he didn’t want to at all. He said yes he supposed in the beginning but that it was all over now.” Gertrude laughed. “How could he know. He doesn’t know what love is. And that’s just like Thornie.”
xxx/ellauri268.html on line 248: Merope sucks. I pity her but also kind of am disgusted by her, which I think is exactly how we are supposed to feel about her.
xxx/ellauri268.html on line 359: Embodying greed in Jewish caricatures puts Jews at risk. But it also makes it harder to address the actual evils of greed and inequity. When people imagine they are being oppressed by these ugly aliens over here, it becomes hard to see actual injustice and exploitation committed by supposedly good, upstanding co-nationalists and co-religionists. It’s not an accident that former President Donald Trump has signed on to Soros conspiracy theories.
xxx/ellauri268.html on line 366: Still, Jewish stereotypes and prejudice persist. That is reflected, and to some degree advanced, by fictional narratives and imagery that (unconsciously or otherwise) associate goodness with Christian charity and evil with supposed Jewish greed. In his "lighthearted" criticism of Rowling, Stewart reminded us that our fantasies remain structured around antisemitism. As long as that’s the case, Jewish people will be at risk, and defeating Voldemort will be that much harder.
xxx/ellauri320.html on line 173: Cartland said nothing - but, in truth, remained doubtful. 'The Duke was supposed not to be able to have children, and never had a child by anyone else, so I think it's rather unlikely,' she concluded.
xxx/ellauri329.html on line 202: Billy and Maria Dannreuther are among a number of travelers stranded in Italy en route to Africa. While the Dannreuthers seem like an average couple, they have the same goal as Mrs. Gwendolen Chelm and some of their other shifty companions -- to lay claim to property that is supposedly rich with uranium.
xxx/ellauri354.html on line 418: The Guardian gave S-Town a critical review. The opinion piece called S-Town "a good story, but an indefensible one." The article states that the podcast is supposed to leave you feeling positive, however instead it feels forced.
xxx/ellauri379.html on line 123: One of the most resoundingly Modernist elements of Conrad’s work lies in this kind of early post-structuralist treatment of language—his insistence on the inherent inability of words to express the real, in all of its horrific truth. Marlow’s journey is full of encounters with things that are “unspeakable,” with words that are uninterpretable, and with a world that is eminently “inscrutable.” In this way, language fails time and time again to do what it is meant to do—to communicate. It’s a phenomenon best summed up when Marlow tells his audience that “it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence—that which makes its truth, its meaning—its subtle and penetrating essence… We live, as we dream—alone.” Kurtz—as “eloquent” as he may be—can’t even adequately communicate the terrifying darkness he observed around him.“The horror! The horror!” is all he can say. Some critics have surmised that part of Heart of Darkness’s mass appeal comes from this ambiguity of language—from the free rein it gives its readers to interpret. Others posit this as a great weakness of the text, viewing Conrad’s inability to name things as an unseemly quality in a writer who’s supposed to be one of the greats. Perhaps this is itself a testament to the Heart of Darkness’s breadth of interpretability.
xxx/ellauri380.html on line 356: The whole world is laughing at Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive, which captured nothing more than a couple patches of trees and trenches? How did the Russians, armed with shovels, defeat the “brave” Ukrainian Nazis armed with NATO weapons? No dear. It is definitely not. The “whole world” does not laugh at an invaded sovereign nazion that for over two years and against all odds has made a mockery out of the supposed "second best" army in the world. Don't pretend you’re aligned with the rest of the world. You are not! There is no "rest of the world" in fact!
xxx/ellauri394.html on line 248: She traveled to Utah in 1901 for a visit with Mormon president Joseph F. Smith, a former missionary to the Hawaiian Island and her teenage beau. There she joined in services at the Salt Lake Tabernacle, and was feted at a Beehive House reception, attended by many expatriate Native Hawaiians. In 1906, Mormon newspapers reported she had been rebaptized again into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by Eider Abraham Kaleimahoe Fernandez. However, many historians doubt this claim, since the Queen herself never announced it. In fact, Liliʻuokalani continued to refer to herself as an Episcopalian in secular newspapers published the same week of her supposed Mormon baptism. The Queen´s interest in Mormonism later waned. Joe was no longer what he was in the good old days.
xxx/ellauri404.html on line 479: Alter wrote: The Gospels do not record any historical words attributed to Jesus that demonstrated that he conceived of his death as a propitiatory sacrifice to save mankind from its sins! Why then did Jesus not once, during his ministry, either in private to his disciples, as recorded in the Gospels or as part of his public teaching, ever announce indisputably and unequivocally a divinely ordained scheme for the redemption of mankind? If the salvation of the world was at stake, as Christians proclaim, would it not have been reasonable, in plain and unequivocal terms, to have declared this plan to those whose benefit it was supposedly intended? (p. 77)
xxx/ellauri410.html on line 545: Eliot's precise and ironic language undercuts the supposed sanctity of religious ceremonies. He depicts churchgoers as "caterpillars" and "sutlers," suggesting their superficial and self-serving behavior. The "superfetation" and "enervate Origen" reference theological controversies, adding to the poem's intellectual complexity.
xxx/ellauri410.html on line 1061: I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see. … It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the character of God and to know...that he was once a man like us.... (“King Follett Discourse,” Journal of Discourses 6:3-4 and Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 345-346, and History of the Church, vol. 6, 305-307)
xxx/ellauri410.html on line 1127: John 1:14 states moreover: And the Word became flesh, and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth. Jesus is The Word, and being The Word, Jesus made all things for God. But hey? If Jesus was the word, who was the spirit then? A silent partner I suppose.
194