Week of August 23rd, 2020

I'm back, I think. I feel like I've woken up from a summer-long slumber and am now something approximating a real person again. Please lmk if these bore you or anything. I just find it to be a fun enough Saturday activity. I haven't done this is a damn long time, so forgive me if this is a clonker.

College COVID Update

I have a feeling this might be a running segment, though it probably won't be this long again until everything goes to shit. I have no faith in this institution to not become a hotbed of filth and disease. They've created harsher penalties for violating rules while on campus, but I don't think it's going to help. Most people are fine of course. I'd estimate that maybe 10% of people are a little lax on social distancing and 3% absolutely do not give a shit (of course that will skew toward freshmen who all live in dorms), but that's more than enough for hell to break loose. I've heard some real horror stories already

I've seen people celebrate this since there are fewer than 30 recorded cases in the first week. I'm old enough to remember a time when the White House celebrated double-digit COVID cases in the United States. This is definitely enough for things to go bad. I'm expecting a new update tomorrow, so it's a betting game to see what number 21 will turn into. That's secondary to the main betting game for this semester which is “How many weeks until they put everything online?”

The way this shook out, I have 3 classroom sessions a week, and I'm not too worried about those since they're so regulated that transmission chances are pretty damn low, despite the few horror stories we've seen.

Next week, there's a virtual event to introduce new students to our clubs so I'll be representing the atheists *tips fedora* and the filmmakers... who are really trying to figure out what to do. I'm really glad I wasn't the one elected president. Well, I can get around to finalizing some edits we never finished, and I suppose our film-making can get a little experimental. It depends on how many people actually want to attend a club introduction event over Zoom, really.

Since I don't need my laptop for any of my in-person classes, I have it set up under my desk sitting on its screen so it can ventilate hooked up to a monitor I got recently. Fortunately, I'm no longer craning my head to look at a small, old 720p monitor sitting on top of a fridge. Having a decently large screen and a mechanical keyboard is honestly a game-changer. I don't know how I survived for so long making big software projects on a laptop. I of course have my mic hooked up, and I also figured out how to use my phone as a webcam. My point is I probably have the absolute best Zoom setup in the university. I have contrast-y lighting on my face, I have an XLR mic with a pop filter in the shot and sound great. I have a pretty nice phone camera that's held up with a little stand I bought, so I'm in the left third of the shot a little below the camera's line of sight. And I do a little bit of set dressing too. Everyone else has a shitty laptop camera looking up at his or her chin and sounds like they're talking through the garbage disposal. It's a very silly thing to take pride in, but I gotta keep Zoom school life interesting somehow.

Thank God I have my full-time offer. I would not want to be going through the recruiting process this year.

Election Update

Well we just had the DNC and the RNC, so now's the right time to re-engage with politics, I guess. I wish I were writing emails during the height of the BLM protests, but political conventions it is. I won't say much about the DNC since that wasn't this week. It was boring as hell, and we all noticed that nearly every candidate except for Congresswoman Gabbard was invited to the convention. Andrew Yang jokingly mispronouncing Vice President Pence's name was extreme cringe, and Bill Clinton was invited for some reason, even though nearly everyone agrees he's probably a rapist at this point. That's really about it. I don't know if you watched the RNC, but on the other hand, that shit was insane. The Republican Party has become something really unsettling, and I think you'd have to be blind to not see it. The whole event was identity politics (some variant of “I'm a black Republican”), there was no policy to speak of (there isn't even a party platform anymore), and everyone fucking worshiped President Trump like he was God. I've watched RNCs before. It was not always like this. The party is transparently becoming more authoritarian with just a touch of lip service to the Tea Party holdouts, though there are very few of those left. I'm particularly disappointed in people like Senators Cruz, Rubio, and particularly Paul. I believed them when they said they thought Trump was unfit for office in 2015. Now they've all changed their tune even as Trump continues to degrade in office. For these people, it was never about principles, just political expediency, and though I still love Mitt Romney and a few others, I have to accept that I no longer really have any connection to the Republican party. I'm an unwitting Democrat. Cringe.

But if you could look past how terrifying it was, the RNC was pretty entertaining. They went all in on the patriotism vibes. Not a frame was missing an American flag. It actually got to the point of ridiculousness. Every speech ended with the exact same camera move as the speaker stood there awkwardly. People kept calling Joe Biden a Marxist. There were some fantastic speakers. I cannot believe they invited these people. It was wonderful.

I mean, every responsible gun owner knows these people suck, but I guess that doesn't matter anymore. I cheered when they showed up on screen. They also had the smirking MAGA kid.

I saw some people whining about him being relevant. I have zero sympathy for those people. The fact that a smiling boy in a MAGA hat was a news story is absurd. They really tried to destroy this kid's life. Not only that, they basically got the whole school closed down. Under different circumstances, that could easily have been the Academy. The lad did nothing wrong. Still, it's pretty funny that he was invited to discuss being “cancelled.”

If you missed Kimberly Guilfoyle's speech, you owe it to yourself to watch it. It's particularly insane, and I think it's a pretty clear representation of what lies underneath the 2020 MAGA energy. It's my favorite speech of the whole convention. “Stand for an American president who believes in you who loves this country and will fight for her. President Trump is the leader who will rebuild the promise of America and ensure that every citizen can realize their American dream. Ladies and gentlemen, leaders and fighters for freedom, liberty, and the American dream, the best is yet to come!”

The last thing I want to discuss here is Madison Cawthorn, the 25-year-old paraplegic running for Congress. It was particularly strange that he thought James Madison, his “favorite founding father,” signed the declaration of independence. But he's definitely going places. I think everyone who watched the RNC is going to remember who he is, if only for the “standing for the flag” stunt. It was strange to watch, but his speech was pretty much what I expected. What I didn't expect was the reaction of the Twitter Gays™ and a few others.

And apparently there's a whole group of dudes thirsting about him on Instagram. And just looking at his posts, it's not hard to figure out why. I swear this guy has to know he's thirst trapping for the gays. There are a lot of posts like this one.

I mean he is hot. Objectively. Using science. Apparently, they've been at this for a while.

I discovered this by typing “Madison Cawthorn” into Twitter search and the first suggestion was “Madison Cawthorn gay.” Congrats, Cawthorn, you've made it.

Moving on from the RNC, the next event we have to look forward to is the debate, but there's a chance it might not happen. This week, Speaker Pelosi suggested that Biden shouldn't participate in the debate, and honestly, it makes a lot of sense for him. I don't think I've updated you on this, but my prediction changed months ago. COVID fucked up Trump's chances for re-election. I think your average American is pretty pissed off about the whole thing. So I predict that Biden will win the election. The only real opportunity President Trump has to change that is the debates, where I don't think I have to tell you he is favored to win. There's absolutely nothing Biden has to gain from the debate, and at this point, I wouldn't be totally shocked if he manages to make it magically disappear. I'm certainly not celebrating this. Getting rid of our debates—as unproductive as they are—and not replacing them with something better would be damaging to our republic, and I really hope Biden doesn't follow Speaker Pelosi's suggestion. Plus, I really want to watch the debate. I don't have much else to look forward to politically.

Everything Else

I don't really have anything to say about this, but I have to mention the death of Chadwick Boseman, the actor who played Black Panther, at the age of 43. Apparently, he was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2016 and kept it private. Most of the movies he's most well-known for he did while undergoing chemotherapy, all while keeping himself in superhero shape.

Notch quit Twitter this week after a strange conversation with Mark Brown who runs the Game Maker's Toolkit YouTube channel which I follow and whose Patreon I support. I think this deal was probably for the best. It's pretty funny that Notch took such offence to complaining about President Trump re-election ads. Does anyone like those?

The only other thing I have this week is what happened to Jerry Falwell Jr. I don't know how much you know, so I'll try to tell the full story of what's gone down. In case you don't know Jerry Fallwel Jr. was the notorious president of Liberty University (which by the way, my father recommended that I attend despite knowing that I was secular) after his father. He's worth somewhere in the ballpark of $100 million. As I'm sure you know, Liberty U has some pretty strict “morality” rules violations of which can get you expelled. These include not drinking, wearing long pants, and abstaining from sex outside of marriage, even outside of the university. Well, turns out Falwell couldn't quite live up to these expectations. More specifically, Jerry Falwell Jr is a cuck. He and his wife were staying at Fontainebleau Miami Beach luxury hotel when they met 20-year-old pool boy Giancarlo Granda.

Granda and Becki Falwell had a sexual relationship. We first learned about this when Jerry Falwell Jr. published a statement to the Washington Examiner stating that his wife's former lover from an affair which he was unaware of at the time had been trying to extort their family. In this statement, he squarely places the blame for the relationship on his wife. He's the good guy. She's the bad guy. I think you can see where this is going.

Well, interestingly enough, Falwell started a business with this 20-year-old pool boy he met on vacation. With Falwell family money, Granda and Falwell's son Jerry Falwell III started a business together, the Alton Hostel (sometimes referred to as the Miami Hostel). This place was not exactly in accordance with Liberty University's Christian values, I'll just say. There was an attached liquor store, advertisements and affiliations with strip clubs, and a hopping LGBT crowd. It's a safe haven for every vice. A place with a sign on the front door reading NO SOLICITING FUNDRAISING POLITICS SALESMEN RELIGION. No religion in a Falwell establishment is strange. Even stranger is that the Hostel was built on land owned by Liberty University, I shit you not. Granda claims that he was not trying to blackmail the Falwells, he was only trying to dissolve their business partnership and sell his 25% stake in the Hostel back to the Falwells.

Granda has a different story to tell about his relationship with Becki Falwell. He claims that Jerry Falwell Jr. was fully aware of the relationship, actually soliciting the relationship, and well, enjoying it from the corner of the room or through video cameras. “He was aware from day one of our relationship and he did, in fact, watch,” says Granda. He claims this relationship continued for seven years, ending about a year ago. Though much of the proof has not been made public, Reuters claims that Granda was able to prove his claims through text messages, screenshots, and audio recordings. “She invited me to their hotel room. They offered me an equity partnership in a property venture. They brought me on multiple trips and vacations, including to their family farm in Virginia and as recently as last year, participated in video calls where Mrs. Falwell was naked and Jerry was watching.” If this really is true, and it certainly appears to be, it says a lot about Falwell's character, not only that he would violate the strict rules he forces students to abide by, but that when met with conflict, his first impulse was to throw his wife under the bus as some kind of whore. What a piece of shit.

Obviously, due to this and a few other things, such as this questionable photo taken with a woman who is not Becki Falwell:

(he claimed the drink he's holding was, and I quote, “black water”), he was forced to resign from Liberty University... or was he? He first took an “indefinite leave of absence.” Then Liberty basically said Falwell had been fired, which Falwell adamantly denied. But then not long after everything became official and this cretin was out. I'm pretty glad I didn't go to Liberty University. This story is absolutely ridiculous, and I have only scratched the very surface. Someone could write a whole book about the rise and fall of Jerry Falwell Jr. There are so many names involved and so many suspicious connections. It just feels pretty good watching this guy who has made so many people's lives worse fall apart by his own hand.

That's all I have. If I write an email next week, I doubt it will be this long. Again let me know if you don't want to read these; I just find it fun to put a recap together. Hope you're doing well.

Thanks,

Jacob Morris

A Childhood Nightmare

In my dream, I was a young asparagus. To be specific, I was Junior from Veggietales, a Christian children's show with vegetable protagonists which I watched quite a bit at that age. I was with Laura Carrot, we were outside and it was dark—pitch dark. But it was not night. Laura gestured up at the sun directly above us, in whatever way a baby carrot can gesture at all, and said, “Look, Jacob, the sun's gone purple.” And it had. The sun, hanging large and lifeless, glowed a dim violet, but seemed to cast no light on the neighborhood at all. It was the middle of summer, and it was cold out. Something was very wrong. “Yeah, we should probably get inside,” I responded. “There's a church right across the street. That might be unlocked.” We crossed the empty street, and hopped our vegetable bodies through the ornate double doors.

Warm air blasted from the foyer. The low murmur of grown-up voices filled the room—serious voices. “Come in,” someone said. “Close that door,” said another. We did. And when the door shut, I was no longer Junior. I was myself, in all my four-limbed glory. And my carrot companion was now Audra, my friend from kindergarten. I was relieved to see all these people here. They were all talking about what was going on. I knew they'd figure out what to do. Maybe this would all just pass. “It's just an eclipse,” I heard a man saying. “The sun can be purple during an eclipse. It'll pass.” But if it was to pass, it wasn't happening quickly. And all the grown-ups were talking on and on about astronomical phenomena, leaving Audra and I with nothing to do. So, she and I explored a bit. There wasn't a ton to look at in the foyer or the hallway. All we found were some poorly colored-in pictures hung up on the walls of Noah leading animals to the arc—leading them somewhere safe to hide away before the storm came. I wanted to look out the at the sky again, but we couldn't find a single window.

Then we made our way into the sanctuary. Its atmosphere was drastically different. This place was older than the church surrounding it. It fulfilled the promise of the ornate door we'd entered. A giant cross stood dimly lit behind the pulpit and the rows of yellow wooden pews. It was empty except for two older women drinking coffee near the back. But what caught my eye most were the beautiful stained-glass windows along the walls. I crept toward one of them, a depiction of Mary holding a baby Jesus. I nearly put my eye to a purple tile, but I realized that wouldn't do, and shifted to a light yellow one. And I was delighted by what I saw. It was bright outside. The sun was yellow, and the sky was blue again. I could see people swimming in a public pool. It was a normal summer day again.

I shouted the news to Audra and the ladies in the back. “It's good to go outside again!” I yelled. I was proud of myself for making such an important discovery. The adults had no idea because the foyer had no windows, and they hadn't wanted to open the doors. I ran out of the sanctuary. “It's good to go outside again! I looked out of the stained glass windows in the sanctuary, and it was bright out, and people are swimming!” The adults liked the sound of that, and we all raced outside to make the most of the rest of this strange summer day. But it had not been good to go outside again. It was still cold. The sky was still dark. The sun was still purple, and it seemed like it had gotten bigger. There was a strange high-pitched sound in the distance. Someone turned around and grabbed the door. It had been locked behind us. All the adults looked at me. Some of them ran off. Audra did. That's not possible, I thought.

I walked to the side of the sanctuary, and saw it. A small CRT television was set up on a schoolroom desk right outside the stained-glass portrait of Mary. It was connected to an orange extension cable that seemed to stretch away into forever. I turned the TV toward me, and I saw a man jumping into a swimming pool on a nice summer's day playing back on a loop. I stepped back in horror. I tripped in doing so, but this was not the result of fear. The ground had begun to shake, and I realized then that the sound in the distance was a medley of screams. It was getting closer.

Most of the adults from the church had already dispersed, running away from wherever they each judged the sound to be coming from. But I held my ground and looked toward it. The ground shook. Thud. Thud. Thud. Those were footsteps. And then, from the dark, it emerged. It was a towering, gelatinous purple monster, covered in dark spots. It must have been 100 feet tall. It looked precisely like the Fib from Veggietales, but I knew for certain that it was a different monster. It was pulling down power lines, smashing cars, stomping houses, and down the road was a crowd of terrified people running toward me. But I couldn't run. I was frozen watching the destruction. Every time it stepped, the street would tremor, and some of the people would fall and be trampled. It was hard to stay on my feet just watching, but I couldn't look away. Then I saw my mother, running, terrified, and I ran all the way home

The house was empty. My whole family must have been out there running from that thing. I saw the sun again through the living room window and quickly shut the curtain. I locked the front door. But what if they come back? I thought. What if they come back, and they don't have their keys? What if I lock them out like I did with the people at the church? I unlocked the door and ran into the basement. There weren't any windows there. I would just have to wait until someone found me, if that would ever even happen. I sat in the bean-bag chair at the other side of the ping pong table and cried and cried. Then I heard a click. The front door was opening. I wanted to yell, but I didn't hear any voices. All I heard were footsteps--quiet, gentle footsteps. I saw a shadow in the basement stairwell, descending. “Hello?” I said in a whisper. There was no answer. Then I saw it.

The monster had descended my stairwell. It was person-sized now, but it was the same monster. It was calm. “Hi, Junior,” it said in a friendly voice. I gasped. I shrunk into the beanbag chair. “Hey, what gives?” it said. It picked up a ping pong paddle and began to bounce the ball. “Do you want to play some table tennis?” it asked.

“No,” I whispered, drawing my knees to my chest.

“Come on, play ping pong with me.” And though its voice was calm and polite, I knew this was a command. So I rose up, shaking, and grabbed the other paddle.

“I'll serve,” it said And we played. It knew that I knew what it had done to my family, and I knew that I could never stop playing so long as it wanted me to. First, it wanted to destroy the neighborhood. Now it wanted to play five billion consecutive rounds of ping pong against this one kindergartner and nothing in this world could stop it from taking what it wanted. So we played ping pong forever.