Buy zomato and swiggy membership If you frequently order of eat out. Even you order 2-3 times a week it's worth it. Pav Bhaji - You can visit Thorat Misal for unlimited pav bhaji and Misal for 120 rs per person.
Shreeji pure vage on Zomato sells 1 kg bhaji for somewhat 280-340 and with coupon you can get it for 250 rs or below. Select bhaji only from their menue and purchase pav separately from local bakery. 1kg pav bhaji is more than enough for 2 heavy eaters and 3-4 normal peoples for one time.
Vigheshwara Pure veg has nice south Indian food. Vaishali cheese dosa is also good but horrible sambar and somewhat overpriced.
Biryani If you live near Muslim area or masjid you can get really tasty starters like kebabs, leg piece, tandoor for really cheap for 100-150 rs with ample quantity. PK has best biryani in Pune. 319 rs biryani is enough for 2 heavy eaters.
Aroma Hyderabadi is also really good option for biryani. Aroma's fried rice is also good specially simple non Schezwan one. Chicken lollypop is good but quite overpriced in my opinion.
Persian darbar's Arebian cabsa rice is also good option. Full cabsa rice comes with 8 tandoor leg piece. Enough for 2-3 people.
Barbeque nations Damsafar Biryani is also decent but comes with seekh kebabs. If you don't like texture or taste of kebabs don't order it.
Behrouz biryani did not live up to hype in my opinion.
Also never ever purchase Biryani from SP. Extremely overrated and overpriced. We waited for 1 hour in line and biryani was so basic that it felt like slap on the face. Plus we paid 1800 rs for 3 peoples.
Chinese Dilkhush Chinese center has some good Chinese.
Fast food Wendy's have some really good burgers for reasonable price. McDonald's 610 rs Chicken Maharaja MC combo is good for 2 people. Chicken popcorn from kfc are also really good Mcdee has best French fries and burger King has worst. Burger King's fries are literally Bamboo. Whopper and Mexican burger in burger King are somewhat decent.
You can buy 20 rs 1/2 litter pepsi separately. Cold drink form the fast food store is really overpriced. Always ask for 2 litter water bottle if available because it cost 28 rs while 2 water bottle of 1 liter each cost 40 rs.
You can buy 1/2 kg cake from cake shop for 200 rs.
I've no expertise in pizza and ice creams. Perhaps you can suggest me some

Edited: The title was supposed to say that: I may be a Petty jerk, but at least I got away from a toxic "friend. Auto correct changed it to Jersey, and I couldn't edit the actual title.
Fair Warning, this is going to be a LONG post, but I will try to dilute it as much as possible.
About 12 years ago I left the world of retail (of which I have MANY stories) to begin a career in childcare. Some people prefer different titles, Nanny, Babysitter, Parents' Helper, Childcare Provider, etc. To be honest each of those titles are suitable in different situations.
The first family that I Nannied for went on for about 4 years, and then on again off again for another year. Through this family, I met "Wendy" and her family. Wendy went out of her way to be friendly with me, and would often ask me to babysit her kids (B5 and G1).
At one point, I had moved on to working with another family for a few months. Sadly, that ended due to the parents getting a divorce, and they moved further away.
Wendy found out that I was unemployed and asked that I Nanny for her kids. She was also pregnant with her 3rd at the time. I agreed at a slightly discounted rate because we were "friends". I realized too late that that was a HUGE mistake on my part.
Wendy's live in boyfriend "Cole" also had 3 kids from a previous relationship. B15, G8, and G6 lived with their mother. Yes, am aware of the closeness in age of Wendy and Cole' B5 and his G6. I chose to keep my mouth shut.
Now prepare yourselves for the Rollercoaster of emotions I dealt with with this family.
Initially, both Wendy and Cole were employed. I would come over 5 days a week for 8 to 10 hour days, depending upon whether Wendy got home on time. Here is where my discounted rate bit me in the butt.... $300 a week was still complained about. Wendy asked that I not leave Cole alone with their kids because he basically ignored them and refused to change diapers. I felt pretty icky about that, but agreed. Now I lived 45 minutes away without traffic. I would often leave my house early in anticipation of possible traffic. If I arrived early, I wasn't allowed in until she our alloted time of 7am. I didn't have a key, and would often be left waiting on the porch an extra 15 minutes past our time. If I knew I was too early, I parked around the corner and ate breakfast. Wendy and Cole both got very irritated if I wasn't their door precisely at 7 am. It was a headache that I chose to avoid.
Over the first month, I realized that G2 was emotionally abused by Wendy. She constantly said to or in front of the child how much she hated dealing with the wild child. How she wished G2 was more well behaved like B5. She even wrote unkind things on Facebook, asking someone to take her on the weekend while I was off.
This took a toll on poor G2, obviously. She would get violent with me first thing in the mornings : Hitting, kicking, biting, pulling my hair, throwing things at me, or what ever popped into her mind. Eventually, once Wendy left for work G2 would calm down and become an absolute delight.
When B5 started school, Wendy took a new job that allowed her to work from home at times. Those were not fun days! I asked if I could bring G2 to my house where I have an outdoor play area, a playroom, plenty of kid movies, crafts, books, music, and local playgrounds. At first the car rides were torture with G2 screaming bloody murder for at least half of the 45 minute drive. When she got used to the new routine, those drives became pleasant. Her violent tendencies disappeared when we were spending the days at my home. The drawback was that I also had to drive her home in time to get B5 off the bus.
During school breaks, I also had B5, and if they were visiting G8 and G6. B15 stayed at Wendy's house and just did his own thing. If you thought G2 was torture in toddler form, these two girls would have made Nanny McPhee grow a few more moles, a hunch back, and closed feet.
B5 would get a little bored, being that he was the only boy that was understandable. I purchased an array of boy friendlier toys to entertain him. I already had a lot of girl friendly toys either purchased or gifted from the first family that I had worked with. Of course I had plenty of gender neutral items too.
Wendy and Cole didn't give 2 sh*ts and a shave if the kids watched TV all day, went out to a playground or museum, or were driven 2 hours away, as long as I got them home on time. I easily spent an entire paycheck on activities, gas, food (which they didn't pack), and toys over 2 weeks watching all 4 kids. By the by, when asked for additional money when I did have all 4, Wendy not so politely informed me that the kids are entertain each other, so my job should be easier with all 4.
My husband and I discussed a few times whether I should look for something else. Inevitably the people pleaser in me actually felt guilty even considering it. Yup, I was apparently a glutton for punishment. Gratefully, my income was just extra, for an nice meal out occasionally, gifts for birthdays and holiday, extra hobbies, and basic groceries.
Just before Wendy gave birth to their new baby, she became unemployed. Logically, one would think this was my easy out. NOPE!! I became more of a Mother's Helper / Nanny. At this point Wendy and Cole were beginning to look for a larger house to rent. I did more walk through than I can count. She even asked me to tour a couple without her, and to bring G2 and B5 so she could get her nails done and take a nap. (Seriously, I toured houses on her list without her!)
As we spent more and more time together, I began to learn FAR FAR more about her bedroom life than I could ever desire. G2 and I spent much less time in the peace of my home, and way too much in Wendy's company. G2's behavior began to deteriorate slowly, causing Wendy to lose her temper with her far too easily. This completely broke my heart. I TRIED to redirect them both, and expressed my concern to Wendy. Of course, she then turned her anger towards me.
Wendy would openly discuss her theories about Cole in front of her kids. She claimed that he was cheating on her with his ex because he would shower immediately after seeing her to pick up or drop off the kids. He often made those drives directly after work though. Maybe he was cheating, maybe not. I honestly don't know.
Wendy also enjoyed gossiping about absolutely anybody. The parents of the first family that worked with were having marital issues. This was a favorite topic of hers. Wendy told me about every unkind word her mother uttered in her direction. The apple obviously didn't fall far from the tree here. I was told lots of personal information about people I didn't know. The gossip made me very uncomfortable. I told her that I would prefer we not discuss the lives of people who weren't around to speak on their own behalf. This fell on deaf ears.
I became quite used to her disapproval of my loose fitting jeans and T-shirts. Working with kids, I found my favorite cartoon prints were just as possible with my tiny charges. I NEVER wear makeup or heels because I simply don't want to. My dresses always have leggings under them because it make me feel less vulnerable. I never wear shorts or above the knee skirts/dresses. That's a ME thing, not religious or cultural. I find my "uniform" of choice is ideal for working with kids. Wendy informed me more than once that it embarrassed her to be seen in public with me. She often insisted that I wear something of hers if we had to go anywhere.
My husband enjoys photography, particularly long exposure which is done at night. He has a lot of photography friends of both genders, but his best friend is a female. He also enjoys concerts and kayaking, often with an ex from high school. (He graduated in 1997). I trust my husband and have no problem with him spending time with his friends. Enter Wendy's whispers of accusations. She often "jokingly" accused him of cheating on me with these female friends. I don't enjoy concerts, crowds, or being out late; so I support his doing with people who do. At least I know he with someone if something happens. I have bad knees, which make getting in and out of a kayak difficult. Why should that stop him? Again, I told her that I trust him and that I don't appreciate her accusations joke or not. This annoyed her because she doesn't trust Cole.
I know these are major red flag issues. I know how toxic being subjected to these comments is. I also know how difficult it would be on their kids if I left too soon. I knew they needed someone who wasn't emotionally cruel. I stayed for them.
My husband and I spent 2 of our weekends helping them pack and move to house that ended up 15 minutes from us. We were thanked by words, but that was the extent of the gratitude. Wendy's mother looked after the kids while we helped them move. This was complained about because I was already paid to watch the kids during the week. Insert eye roll here!! Her mom felt my husband should be willing to help them move while I watched the kids on the weekend for no extra pay. Either way, we were doing them a HUGE favor to begin with.
A family that I had briefly Nannied for prior to working for Wendy asked if I could help out every other Saturday. The dad (Nice Guy) traveled a lot for work leaving the Mom (Angelface) home alone with the kids. She just needed a day to run errands, work out, and just have time to herself. Angelface is one of the kindest women on this planet. When I did Nanny for them (2 days a week), she was in tears when she had to let me go. They couldn't justify the outgoing money at the time. She referred me to several friends. I am legitimately friend with this family, and still babysit sporadically.
Through a random discussion, I told Wendy about working with Angelface on every other Saturday. She began to tell me what to charge, how many hours to work, and what days to leave open for her just in case. Insert headache inducing eyerolls!
One Friday, Wendy's cousin arrived for a weekend visit with her baby. Wendy told me that because it was a holiday weekend I would not be needed until Tuesday. I double checked via text, and she confirmed that she and Cole were taking the kids to the beach with her cousin. Monday morning I got a call from a passed off Wendy asking where I am. I reminded her that she had told me that they would not need me. I even took a screen shot of our text. She said that Cole had decided to work Monday anyway so she was alone with HER kids. This pissed me off, so I lied. I told her that I was out of town with my mom and wouldn't be home until 5 or 6 pm. She went on about how much of an inconvenience it was to her, and I should have checked before going out of town. For the second time, I sent her a screenshot of my text verifying that I wasn't needed Monday. She abruptly ended the call saying to just be sure to be on time Tuesday. I had NEVER been late, but opted to mention that as we hung up.
Over time we worked out a new arrangement where I brought now G3 to my house 2 days a week, and we stayed there 3 days a week. I helped with cleaning, errands, helped with the new baby (NB), etc. Mostly, I was Wendy's sounding board. She continued to accuse Cole of cheating, wasting money, and even beating her.
My husband and I offered to let her and the kids stay with us, but she declined. Wendy even told me that since she was so sure Cole was cheating, she was going to find herself a side boyfriend to cheat with. I tried to talk her out of it, to no avail. Sadly, she spoke openly about her new boyfriend in fron of G3. During one of her rants I learned that my pay came from him selling drugs. GULP!!
While cleaning out the couch one day, I came across a loaded gun kept in the couch console thing, along with baggies of pills, "dried plants", and white powder. This completely freaked me out. 2 small children and a soon to be crawling baby sat and played on and around that couch. I STRONGLY considered calling Child Pretective Services and the police. I quickly realized that if I did, they would know it was me. I regret it, but I feared their possible retaliation towards us.
Shortly after finding these thing Cole quit his job. For several months while I worked for them, they were both unemployed. Again, I thought it was an easy out. NOPE AGAIN! For another 3 months, they insisted that they couldn't take care of the house and kids without my help. Very often, I arrived to find now B6 fending for himself for breakfast and getting ready for school. He was told to wake up and unlock the door for me, but they went back to sleep. I was expected to keep the baby from crying, and to keep G3 quiet and entertained until they came downstairs. I often chose to simply take both to my house so we could play naturally. We had a crib, so this wasn't a problem for NB. G3 would just nap on the couch or my bed. When out of school B6 preferred this too. This really should have told Wendy and Cole something about their kids, but of course not.
FINALLY, I was informed after about a year of working for them, they could no longer justify paying me. At this point, I had often considered quitting anyway. I mainly stayed because my heart broke for the kids. However, based on her gossipy and judgmental nature ... not to mention my little 3 day weekend fail; I was concerned about what kind of reference Wendy would provide if I chose to quit.
So in 2019, I found myself happily unemployed. The timing here worked out beautifully because Angelface knew neighbors due to have their first baby in 2020. I ended up working for this lovely family until August of 2023. The mom (Joy) and the Dad (Mr. Cool) were such a relief to my entire mental and physical health. We became friends as well, and over time I told them about Wendy. Between Joy, Angelface, Mr. Cool, Nice Guy, my husband, and family I began to realize just hoe toxic Wendy really was to my mental health. My husband never liked her but understood my feelings towards the kids.
For almost a year Wendy would randomly call or FaceTime me .... more often than not while drunk. She would rave about how much she and the kids missed me. We would get together for a meal, and she had me over for a couple birthday parties for the kids. I found myself almost always being the only sober adult watching the kids as the adults partied. Wendy often went back to her gossiping, trash talking, and "jokes" about my husband spending time with women. She would offer underhanded compliments. "It's so nice to see you wearing a dress instead of those tacky T-shirts." You get the drift. She even INFORMED me that since her neighbor was pregnant I could quit my job with Joy and Mr. Cool. She had told her neighbor that I would work for her now, and since they were next door, I would watch her own kids too. I shut that down saying that I was quite happy working with Joy and Mr. Cool. I even lied about what they paid thinking it would detur her further. NOPE yet again. She said that I should quit anyway so her life would be easier with me around. Once more, I told her that wasn't going to happen.
AT LONG LAST, I am coming to the end of my tortuous endurment with Wendy.
A week later, she called and asked if I had quit yet. I said that I had no intention of leaving an "$800" a week job. (Not even close to that with my 3 day a week job, but she didn't need to know the truth.) She told me to let her know when I quit, then changed the subject towards gossiping about that first family and their problems. I told her that I don't feel comfortable gossiping about people who can't speak for themselves. That pissed her off, so she turned it on me again. She said of course I don't want to talk about them since my husband was cheating on me with 2 different women. I angrily corrected her. She has no reason to think my husband is cheating, and I trust him and our friends. Just because she thinks her boyfriend cheats, and she cheats, that doesn't mean everybody does. She then said we could talk when I calmed down and after I quit my job.
After hanging up, I proceeded to block Wendy on everything! Facebook, phone calls, texting, face timing, Instagram, and even Snapchat (which I hadn't used in over a year). I also blocked her mom, and any body that had been friendly simply because Wendy knew them and wanted me to have their information too. I gave her no warning at all. I was beyond passed off, and refused to be talked out of my very gratifying decision.
I told my husband, family, and friends that was now free of Wendy. Not a single person tried to tell me to make ammends. The only guilt that I feel is towards those poor kids. For once though, I put myself first. Joy and Angelface were both extremely supportive when I told them that I had Ghosted Wendy. Both even mentioned how proud they were of me for FINALLY truly stand-up for myself. They were NOT fans of Wendy!!!
I never ended up quitting my job with Joy and Mr. Cool inorder to babysit Wendy's neighbor. I also continued to babysit for Angelface and Nice Guy.
About 7 or 8 months ago, I ran into Wendy at a playground between our two homes. She was with now G5 and B2. I had Joy and Mr. Cool's daughter with me. I was polite, almost obscenely so. I was friendly towards the kids, who were stand off-ish. I offered to let Little Miss play with them, but they weren't interested. Little Miss wanted to do her own thing, so off we went to play. We left after only 15 minutes because Little Miss said "that lady" is scaring her.
That night, my husband got a Facebook message from Wendy. She described my cruelty towards her kids by ignoring them. She said that it was so hateful that I blocked her on everything after all she had done for us. This message went on and on. My husband left it unread for months before my morbid curiosity caused me to open the silly thing. We never responded, but instead he finally bl9cked her too.
Ok, if you read that bloody novel of a post, you are a ROCK STAR!! I don't have any regrets towards my eventual choice, except towards the kids. It breaks my heart knowing what kind of parents they are enduring. I often regret not calling CPS, but there isn't a shadow of doubt that would have retaliated .... most likely violently.
I did eventually get back in contact with that very first Nanny family. They had indeed broken up, but both are happier and healthier now. I warned them that Wendy enjoyed gossiping and spreading rumors about them. Neither were surprised, and both had broken contact with Wendy long ago. They supported my choice to break ties with her as well. Shocking, right!?!
I no longer work full time for Joy and Mr. Cool, as they wanted Little Miss to get used to being around more kids before starting school. I do still sporadically babysit for them and Angelface and Nice Guy though. The two couples have referred me to several other families in the neighborhood, so I stay pretty busy with much more sane individuals.
Maybe I was a jerk, and petty. I'm cool with being thought of that way towards Wendy. At least now, I have much kinder people in my life.
EDITED/UPDATE: It has come to my attention that some may feel unfulfilled on the petty revenge side. For this former doormat, removing myself as her very cheap childcare was my revenge. I realize that many may not feel it was enough, but at the time, it was a MAJOR achievement for me. I had worked 8 to 10 hours a day for 5 days a week to receive $300.
When "invited" to parties, I ended up providing free childcare while the other adults got drunk. I don't like the taste of alcohol or the feeling of being buzzed or drunk, so I don't partake. I feared what would happen to the ignored kids, so I found myself watching them.
I never had a lot of friends, so for a long time, I truly thought Wendy was my friend. It took conversations with my husband, my mom, Angelface, Joy, and others for me to see the reality of my situation.
Some may say this post is in fact gossiping about her. To a point, yes I will agree. I did change everybody's names though.
Ultimately, I have always questioned whether or not I was fair or did the right thing by Ghosting and blocking Wendy. I often second guess my choice; especially when thinking about those kids.
I have tried to be more alert about the people around me since this experience. I do still find myself being too nice and accepting of some ways in which I am treated. I have tried to build more boundaries though.

I may be the A-H and a bit Petty, but at least I got away from a toxic "friend".
Fair Warning, this is going to be a LONG post, but I will try to dilute it as much as possible.
About 12 years ago I left the world of retail (of which I have MANY stories) to begin a career in childcare. Some people prefer different titles, Nanny, Babysitter, Parents' Helper, Childcare Provider, etc. To be honest each of those titles are suitable in different situations.
The first family that I Nannied for went on for about 4 years, and then on again off again for another year. Through this family, I met "Wendy" and her family. Wendy went out of her way to be friendly with me, and would often ask me to babysit her kids (B5 and G1).
At one point, I had moved on to working with another family for a few months. Sadly, that ended due to the parents getting a divorce, and they moved further away.
Wendy found out that I was unemployed and asked that I Nanny for her kids. She was also pregnant with her 3rd at the time. I agreed at a slightly discounted rate because we were "friends". I realized too late that that was a HUGE mistake on my part.
Wendy's live in boyfriend "Cole" also had 3 kids from a previous relationship. B15, G8, and G6 lived with their mother. Yes, am aware of the closeness in age of Wendy and Cole' B5 and his G6. I chose to keep my mouth shut.
Now prepare yourselves for the Rollercoaster of emotions I dealt with with this family.
Initially, both Wendy and Cole were employed. I would come over 5 days a week for 8 to 10 hour days, depending upon whether Wendy got home on time. Here is where my discounted rate bit me in the butt.... $300 a week was still complained about. Wendy asked that I not leave Cole alone with their kids because he basically ignored them and refused to change diapers. I felt pretty icky about that, but agreed. Now I lived 45 minutes away without traffic. I would often leave my house early in anticipation of possible traffic. If I arrived early, I wasn't allowed in until she our alloted time of 7am. I didn't have a key, and would often be left waiting on the porch an extra 15 minutes past our time. If I knew I was too early, I parked around the corner and ate breakfast. Wendy and Cole both got very irritated if I wasn't their door precisely at 7 am. It was a headache that I chose to avoid.
Over the first month, I realized that G2 was emotionally abused by Wendy. She constantly said to or in front of the child how much she hated dealing with the wild child. How she wished G2 was more well behaved like B5. She even wrote unkind things on Facebook, asking someone to take her on the weekend while I was off.
This took a toll on poor G2, obviously. She would get violent with me first thing in the mornings : Hitting, kicking, biting, pulling my hair, throwing things at me, or what ever popped into her mind. Eventually, once Wendy left for work G2 would calm down and become an absolute delight.
When B5 started school, Wendy took a new job that allowed her to work from home at times. Those were not fun days! I asked if I could bring G2 to my house where I have an outdoor play area, a playroom, plenty of kid movies, crafts, books, music, and local playgrounds. At first the car rides were torture with G2 screaming bloody murder for at least half of the 45 minute drive. When she got used to the new routine, those drives became pleasant. Her violent tendencies disappeared when we were spending the days at my home. The drawback was that I also had to drive her home in time to get B5 off the bus.
During school breaks, I also had B5, and if they were visiting G8 and G6. B15 stayed at Wendy's house and just did his own thing. If you thought G2 was torture in toddler form, these two girls would have made Nanny McPhee grow a few more moles, a hunch back, and closed feet.
B5 would get a little bored, being that he was the only boy that was understandable. I purchased an array of boy friendlier toys to entertain him. I already had a lot of girl friendly toys either purchased or gifted from the first family that I had worked with. Of course I had plenty of gender neutral items too.
Wendy and Cole didn't give 2 sh*ts and a shave if the kids watched TV all day, went out to a playground or museum, or were driven 2 hours away, as long as I got them home on time. I easily spent an entire paycheck on activities, gas, food (which they didn't pack), and toys over 2 weeks watching all 4 kids. By the by, when asked for additional money when I did have all 4, Wendy not so politely informed me that the kids are entertain each other, so my job should be easier with all 4.
My husband and I discussed a few times whether I should look for something else. Inevitably the people pleaser in me actually felt guilty even considering it. Yup, I was apparently a glutton for punishment. Gratefully, my income was just extra, for an nice meal out occasionally, gifts for birthdays and holiday, extra hobbies, and basic groceries.
Just before Wendy gave birth to their new baby, she became unemployed. Logically, one would think this was my easy out. NOPE!! I became more of a Mother's Helper / Nanny. At this point Wendy and Cole were beginning to look for a larger house to rent. I did more walk through than I can count. She even asked me to tour a couple without her, and to bring G2 and B5 so she could get her nails done and take a nap. (Seriously, I toured houses on her list without her!)
As we spent more and more time together, I began to learn FAR FAR more about her bedroom life than I could ever desire. G2 and I spent much less time in the peace of my home, and way too much in Wendy's company. G2's behavior began to deteriorate slowly, causing Wendy to lose her temper with her far too easily. This completely broke my heart. I TRIED to redirect them both, and expressed my concern to Wendy. Of course, she then turned her anger towards me.
Wendy would openly discuss her theories about Cole in front of her kids. She claimed that he was cheating on her with his ex because he would shower immediately after seeing her to pick up or drop off the kids. He often made those drives directly after work though. Maybe he was cheating, maybe not. I honestly don't know.
Wendy also enjoyed gossiping about absolutely anybody. The parents of the first family that worked with were having marital issues. This was a favorite topic of hers. Wendy told me about every unkind word her mother uttered in her direction. The apple obviously didn't fall far from the tree here. I was told lots of personal information about people I didn't know. The gossip made me very uncomfortable. I told her that I would prefer we not discuss the lives of people who weren't around to speak on their own behalf. This fell on deaf ears.
I became quite used to her disapproval of my loose fitting jeans and T-shirts. Working with kids, I found my favorite cartoon prints were just as possible with my tiny charges. I NEVER wear makeup or heels because I simply don't want to. My dresses always have leggings under them because it make me feel less vulnerable. I never wear shorts or above the knee skirts/dresses. That's a ME thing, not religious or cultural. I find my "uniform" of choice is ideal for working with kids. Wendy informed me more than once that it embarrassed her to be seen in public with me. She often insisted that I wear something of hers if we had to go anywhere.
My husband enjoys photography, particularly long exposure which is done at night. He has a lot of photography friends of both genders, but his best friend is a female. He also enjoys concerts and kayaking, often with an ex from high school. (He graduated in 1997). I trust my husband and have no problem with him spending time with his friends. Enter Wendy's whispers of accusations. She often "jokingly" accused him of cheating on me with these female friends. I don't enjoy concerts, crowds, or being out late; so I support his doing with people who do. At least I know he with someone if something happens. I have bad knees, which make getting in and out of a kayak difficult. Why should that stop him? Again, I told her that I trust him and that I don't appreciate her accusations joke or not. This annoyed her because she doesn't trust Cole.
I know these are major red flag issues. I know how toxic being subjected to these comments is. I also know how difficult it would be on their kids if I left too soon. I knew they needed someone who wasn't emotionally cruel. I stayed for them.
My husband and I spent 2 of our weekends helping them pack and move to house that ended up 15 minutes from us. We were thanked by words, but that was the extent of the gratitude. Wendy's mother looked after the kids while we helped them move. This was complained about because I was already paid to watch the kids during the week. Insert eye roll here!! Her mom felt my husband should be willing to help them move while I watched the kids on the weekend for no extra pay. Either way, we were doing them a HUGE favor to begin with.
A family that I had briefly Nannied for prior to working for Wendy asked if I could help out every other Saturday. The dad (Nice Guy) traveled a lot for work leaving the Mom (Angelface) home alone with the kids. She just needed a day to run errands, work out, and just have time to herself. Angelface is one of the kindest women on this planet. When I did Nanny for them (2 days a week), she was in tears when she had to let me go. They couldn't justify the outgoing money at the time. She referred me to several friends. I am legitimately friend with this family, and still babysit sporadically.
Through a random discussion, I told Wendy about working with Angelface on every other Saturday. She began to tell me what to charge, how many hours to work, and what days to leave open for her just in case. Insert headache inducing eyerolls!
One Friday, Wendy's cousin arrived for a weekend visit with her baby. Wendy told me that because it was a holiday weekend I would not be needed until Tuesday. I double checked via text, and she confirmed that she and Cole were taking the kids to the beach with her cousin. Monday morning I got a call from a passed off Wendy asking where I am. I reminded her that she had told me that they would not need me. I even took a screen shot of our text. She said that Cole had decided to work Monday anyway so she was alone with HER kids. This pissed me off, so I lied. I told her that I was out of town with my mom and wouldn't be home until 5 or 6 pm. She went on about how much of an inconvenience it was to her, and I should have checked before going out of town. For the second time, I sent her a screenshot of my text verifying that I wasn't needed Monday. She abruptly ended the call saying to just be sure to be on time Tuesday. I had NEVER been late, but opted to mention that as we hung up.
Over time we worked out a new arrangement where I brought now G3 to my house 2 days a week, and we stayed there 3 days a week. I helped with cleaning, errands, helped with the new baby (NB), etc. Mostly, I was Wendy's sounding board. She continued to accuse Cole of cheating, wasting money, and even beating her.
My husband and I offered to let her and the kids stay with us, but she declined. Wendy even told me that since she was so sure Cole was cheating, she was going to find herself a side boyfriend to cheat with. I tried to talk her out of it, to no avail. Sadly, she spoke openly about her new boyfriend in fron of G3. During one of her rants I learned that my pay came from him selling drugs. GULP!!
While cleaning out the couch one day, I came across a loaded gun kept in the couch console thing, along with baggies of pills, "dried plants", and white powder. This completely freaked me out. 2 small children and a soon to be crawling baby sat and played on and around that couch. I STRONGLY considered calling Child Pretective Services and the police. I quickly realized that if I did, they would know it was me. I regret it, but I feared their possible retaliation towards us.
Shortly after finding these thing Cole quit his job. For several months while I worked for them, they were both unemployed. Again, I thought it was an easy out. NOPE AGAIN! For another 3 months, they insisted that they couldn't take care of the house and kids without my help. Very often, I arrived to find now B6 fending for himself for breakfast and getting ready for school. He was told to wake up and unlock the door for me, but they went back to sleep. I was expected to keep the baby from crying, and to keep G3 quiet and entertained until they came downstairs. I often chose to simply take both to my house so we could play naturally. We had a crib, so this wasn't a problem for NB. G3 would just nap on the couch or my bed. When out of school B6 preferred this too. This really should have told Wendy and Cole something about their kids, but of course not.
FINALLY, I was informed after about a year of working for them, they could no longer justify paying me. At this point, I had often considered quitting anyway. I mainly stayed because my heart broke for the kids. However, based on her gossipy and judgmental nature ... not to mention my little 3 day weekend fail; I was concerned about what kind of reference Wendy would provide if I chose to quit.
So in 2019, I found myself happily unemployed. The timing here worked out beautifully because Angelface knew neighbors due to have their first baby in 2020. I ended up working for this lovely family until August of 2023. The mom (Joy) and the Dad (Mr. Cool) were such a relief to my entire mental and physical health. We became friends as well, and over time I told them about Wendy. Between Joy, Angelface, Mr. Cool, Nice Guy, my husband, and family I began to realize just hoe toxic Wendy really was to my mental health. My husband never liked her but understood my feelings towards the kids.
For almost a year Wendy would randomly call or FaceTime me .... more often than not while drunk. She would rave about how much she and the kids missed me. We would get together for a meal, and she had me over for a couple birthday parties for the kids. I found myself almost always being the only sober adult watching the kids as the adults partied. Wendy often went back to her gossiping, trash talking, and "jokes" about my husband spending time with women. She would offer underhanded compliments. "It's so nice to see you wearing a dress instead of those tacky T-shirts." You get the drift. She even INFORMED me that since her neighbor was pregnant I could quit my job with Joy and Mr. Cool. She had told her neighbor that I would work for her now, and since they were next door, I would watch her own kids too. I shut that down saying that I was quite happy working with Joy and Mr. Cool. I even lied about what they paid thinking it would detur her further. NOPE yet again. She said that I should quit anyway so her life would be easier with me around. Once more, I told her that wasn't going to happen.
AT LONG LAST, I am coming to the end of my tortuous endurment with Wendy.
A week later, she called and asked if I had quit yet. I said that I had no intention of leaving an "$800" a week job. (Not even close to that with my 3 day a week job, but she didn't need to know the truth.) She told me to let her know when I quit, then changed the subject towards gossiping about that first family and their problems. I told her that I don't feel comfortable gossiping about people who can't speak for themselves. That pissed her off, so she turned it on me again. She said of course I don't want to talk about them since my husband was cheating on me with 2 different women. I angrily corrected her. She has no reason to think my husband is cheating, and I trust him and our friends. Just because she thinks her boyfriend cheats, and she cheats, that doesn't mean everybody does. She then said we could talk when I calmed down and after I quit my job.
After hanging up, I proceeded to block Wendy on everything! Facebook, phone calls, texting, face timing, Instagram, and even Snapchat (which I hadn't used in over a year). I also blocked her mom, and any body that had been friendly simply because Wendy knew them and wanted me to have their information too. I gave her no warning at all. I was beyond passed off, and refused to be talked out of my very gratifying decision.
I told my husband, family, and friends that was now free of Wendy. Not a single person tried to tell me to make ammends. The only guilt that I feel is towards those poor kids. For once though, I put myself first. Joy and Angelface were both extremely supportive when I told them that I had Ghosted Wendy. Both even mentioned how proud they were of me for FINALLY truly stand-up for myself. They were NOT fans of Wendy!!!
I never ended up quitting my job with Joy and Mr. Cool inorder to babysit Wendy's neighbor. I also continued to babysit for Angelface and Nice Guy.
About 7 or 8 months ago, I ran into Wendy at a playground between our two homes. She was with now G5 and B2. I had Joy and Mr. Cool's daughter with me. I was polite, almost obscenely so. I was friendly towards the kids, who were stand off-ish. I offered to let Little Miss play with them, but they weren't interested. Little Miss wanted to do her own thing, so off we went to play. We left after only 15 minutes because Little Miss said "that lady" is scaring her.
That night, my husband got a Facebook message from Wendy. She described my cruelty towards her kids by ignoring them. She said that it was so hateful that I blocked her on everything after all she had done for us. This message went on and on. My husband left it unread for months before my morbid curiosity caused me to open the silly thing. We never responded, but instead he finally bl9cked her too.
Ok, if you read that bloody novel of a post, you are a ROCK STAR!! I don't have any regrets towards my eventual choice, except towards the kids. It breaks my heart knowing what kind of parents they are enduring. I often regret not calling CPS, but there isn't a shadow of doubt that would have retaliated .... most likely violently.
I did eventually get back in contact with that very first Nanny family. They had indeed broken up, but both are happier and healthier now. I warned them that Wendy enjoyed gossiping and spreading rumors about them. Neither were surprised, and both had broken contact with Wendy long ago. They supported my choice to break ties with her as well. Shocking, right!?!
I no longer work full time for Joy and Mr. Cool, as they wanted Little Miss to get used to being around more kids before starting school. I do still sporadically babysit for them and Angelface and Nice Guy though. The two couples have referred me to several other families in the neighborhood, so I stay pretty busy with much more sane individuals.
Maybe I was an A-Hole, and petty. I'm cool with being thought of that way towards Wendy. At least now, I have much kinder people in my life.
EDITED/UPDATE: It has come to my attention that some may feel unfulfilled on the petty revenge side. For this former doormat, removing myself as her very cheap childcare was my revenge. I realize that many may not feel it was enough, but at the time, it was a MAJOR achievement for me. I had worked 8 to 10 hours a day for 5 days a week to receive $300.
When "invited" to parties, I ended up providing free childcare while the other adults got drunk. I don't like the taste of alcohol or the feeling of being buzzed or drunk, so I don't partake. I feared what would happen to the ignored kids, so I found myself watching them.
I never had a lot of friends, so for a long time, I truly thought Wendy was my friend. It took conversations with my husband, my mom, Angelface, Joy, and others for me to see the reality of my situation.
Some may say this post is in fact gossiping about her. To a point, yes I will agree. I did change everybody's names though.
Ultimately, I have always questioned whether or not I was fair or did the right thing by Ghosting and blocking Wendy. I often second guess my choice; especially when thinking about those kids.
I have tried to be more alert about the people around me since this experience. I do still find myself being too nice and accepting of some ways in which I am treated. I have tried to build more boundaries though.

This is the list that I wrote for Oklahoma's execution roster since the nationwide reinstatement of capital punishment in the late 1970s. Something that should be mentioned is that given the nature of many death penalty related crimes, many of the descriptions contain very disturbing details. Please read at your own risk.
Florida's list is next, and I'll post my list for Texas once I've completed it. With Texas, I've currently finished 464 entries out of the 587 cases to date. That will probably take 7 or 8 posts for it all to be released, so I'll probably do two posts a day with Texas to avoid spamming the sub. At the end of this year, I'll repost the states that have conducted further executions with the updated information.
As with Missouri and Virginia, Reddit's maximum character count limitations forced me to divide Oklahoma's list into two separate parts. Here is the link to part 2.
The currently 124 executed offenders, cases 1 to 62:
1. Charles Coleman (~1950s-1990, lethal injection): A month after he was released on parole in 1979, Coleman broke into a house. While sacking it for any valuables, the homeowner’s brother and sister in law, 68 year old John and 62 year old Roxie Seward, walked in on him and were both shot dead. Coleman stole Roxie’s purse, several packets of frozen meat, and the homeowner’s watch during the burglary, and was arrested shortly afterwards. However, Coleman managed to escape custody, and went on a rampage that involved several burglaries, auto thefts, slitting the throat of a policeman in a failed murder attempt, the shooting death of 49 year old Russell Lewis Jr. in a carjacking, and the abduction of a deputy. The kidnapped deputy was rescued following an armed standoff with other police officers. Coleman had an extensive history of animal cruelty, armed robberies, assaults, and carrying concealed weapons convictions dating back to when he was 11 years old. He was also heavily suspected in the murder of his teenage girlfriend’s father, but was acquitted by the courts despite the prosecution’s strong belief in his guilt.
2. Robyn Parks (1977-1992, lethal injection): During a gas station robbery, Parks shot and killed Abdullah Ibrahim, a 24 year old Bangladeshi immigrant that worked as the attendant. According to Parks, he murdered Ibrahim for catching him using a stolen credit card.
3. Olan Randle (1980-1992, lethal injection): Randle invaded a home and shot the occupants, 41 year old Robert Swinford, Sinford's fiance 42 year old Averil Bourque, and Bourque's friend 38 year old Julia Lovejoy, dead. He took a pocket knife and several watches from the victims.
4. Thomas Grasso (~1970s(?)-1995, lethal injection): While living in Oklahoma, Grasso strangled 87 year old Hilda Johnson, the best friend of his girlfriend's grandmother, to death with her Christmas lights. He took $8 from her purse, several coins that added up to $4, and a television set that he sold for $125. Grasso then moved to New York, and strangled 81 year old Leslie Holtz for his social security check. The trialing arrangements caused some controversy, as the New York governors at the time were anti death penalty, and tried to prevent Grasso's extradition in favor of giving him a life sentence in their jurisdiction. Grasso had several previous convictions for theft and was fired multiple times for stealing from his jobs.
5. Roger Stafford (~1974(?)-1995, lethal injection): Stafford was condemned for killing at least 9 people in two separate robbery incidents with his brother and ex wife, though his ex wife claimed that he was involved with as many as 34 murders nationwide. The first convicted incident was when he and the ex wife carjacked and fatally shot a couple, 38 year old Melvin and 31 year old Linda Lorenz, and their son, 12 year old Richard. A few weeks after the Lorenz murders, Stafford stormed a restaurant and gunned down 6 employees, 56 year old Isaac Freeman, 43 year old Louis Zacarias, 17 year old Anthony Tew, 17 year old David Lindsey, 16 year old David Salsman, and 15 year old Terri Horst. One of Stafford's additional attributed victims was 20 year old Jimmy Berry, who was killed in the hold up of an Alabaman McDonalds, but he wasn't charged by the state due to his death sentences in Oklahoma.
6. Robert Brecheen (1983-1995, lethal injection): Breechen was involved in a feud over money with 59 year old Mary Stubbs and her husband. In an attempt to take what he perceived was owed to him, Breechen carried out a night time burglary of their home. While rummaging through the house, Breechen stumbled upon old Marie in her living room and shot her to death. The gunshots and screams awoke her husband, and he chased him away with his own gun.
7. Benjamin Brewer (1978-1996, lethal injection): Brewer raped his neighbor, 20 year old Karen Stapleton, in her home and stabbed her to death
8. Steven Hatch (1979-1996, lethal injection): Hatch and another assailant, Glen Ake, forced themselves inside the home that Richard Dougass, a 43 year old reverend, shared with his wife, 36 year old Marilyn, and their two children, 16 year old Brooks and 12 year old Lesile. The pair tied up the family and raped Lesile in front of her parents and brother. All four family members were shot, and Hatch and Ake ran off with $43 and the parents’ wedding rings. Richard and Marilyn were both killed in the shootings, while their children survived the attack. Ake was also initially condemned for the attack, but his sentence was overturned and resentenced to life following mental health concerns, and passed away from undisclosed natural causes in 2011.
9. Scott Carpenter (1994-1997, lethal injection): In a convenience store robbery, Carpenter stabbed the owner, 56 year old A. J. Kelley, in the neck, and hid the body in the minnow room. He filled his truck with $37 worth of gas from the pumps and drove away from the scene. His execution caused some controversy, as it was reported that Carpenter gasped and spasmed for 11 minutes after being injected.
10. Michael Long (1997-1998, lethal injection): Enraged that his coworker, 24 year old Sheryl Graber, refused him sex and started screaming for help, he stabbed her over 31 times. Long also shot and killed her son, 5 year old Andrew, for being a witness.
11. Stephen Wood (1992-1998, lethal injection): While heavily intoxicated, Wood stabbed two other homeless men, 46 year old Charles Stephen and 34 year old Charles Von Johnson, dozens of times each. He was given a life sentence for both of their murders. During his incarceration, Robert Brigden, a 59 year old former minister that was serving a 40 year sentence for molesting several girls between the ages of 4-14 in his congregation, moved into his unit after refusing to go into protective custody. Woods killed Brigden in a stabbing attack, and his sentence was escalated to death by the courts for it.
12. Tuan Anh Nguyen (~1982-1998, lethal injection): By all accounts, Nguyen was jealously possessive over his wife, 21 year old Donna. During one of their arguments over his behavior, he stabbed Donna, her 6 year old nephew Joseph White, and her 3 year old niece Amanda White, in their home and left the bodies to be found by the children’s parents. He fled to Arizona, groomed a 14 year old girl into an illicit “relationship”, and impregnated her. After he convinced her to move in with him, Nguyen physically and sexually abused the girl until she fled and went to the local police for help. Nguyen was then deported back to Oklahoma to face trial for Donna and the White children’s slayings, and was sentenced to death for them.
13. John Duvall (1986-1998, lethal injection): During a fight with his wife, 30 year old Donna, Duvall stabbed and suffocated her to death with a pillow.
14. John Castro Sr. (1983-1999, lethal injection): Castro carjacked Beulah Cox, a 31 year old Oklahoma State University student, after she picked him up hitchhiking and shot her to death. A few months later, Castro held up a restaurant with an empty pistol, and attacked the manger, 29 year old Rhonda Pappan, after forcing her to open the register. During their struggle, Pappan was fatally stabbed, and he took off with her purse. During his mid teens, Castro was allegedly molested by his mother. Castro's attorneys made the argument that his glimpses of Cox's buttocks reminded him of his mother's reported abuse, and he was triggered into attacking her for it.
15. Sean Sellers (1985-1999, lethal injection): In 1985, a then 15 year old Sellers tried to buy beer from a convenience store, but the clerk, 32 year old Robert Bower, denied him due to being underaged at the time. Sellers gunned him down in a fit of rage. A year later, Sellers shot and killed his mother, 32 year old Vonda Bellofatto, and stepfather, 43 year old Paul, in their sleep. Due to being 16 at the time of his conviction, Sellers remains the youngest condemned offender to have his sentence carried out in the post Furman era. He also attracted national media attention for claiming that his crimes were the result of demonic possession.
16. Scotty Moore (1983-1999, lethal injection): Moore was fired from a motel for undisclosed reasons. In retaliation, Moore and a cousin (whom he was dating at the time), assaulted the motel, and gunned down the desk clerk, 42 year old Alex Fernandez. According to court documents, the pair took a total of $97 in the robbery.
17. Norman Newsted (1984-1999, lethal injection): Newsted tricked Lawrence Buckley, a 26 year old cab driver, into picking him up. He shot Buckley dead and took his wallet. In an attempt to cover his tracks, Newsted placed the body inside the cab, and drove it into a creek near a local church. Despite his best efforts, Buckley’s cab and remains were discovered a day later by the church’s pastor.
18. Cornel Cooks (1982-1999, lethal injection): Cooks and his accomplice broke into the home of 87 year old Jennie Ridling. She was gagged, raped, and suffocated to death with gauze wrappings. According to autopsy reports, the pair abused her for over 2 hours. They then sacked the house for any valuables and left with her checkbook.
19. Bobby Ross (1983-1999, lethal injection): While robbing an inn, Ross fatally shot a police officer, 30 year old Steve Mahan, that tried to intervene.
20. Malcolm Johnson (~1970s(?)-2000, lethal injection): Johnson invaded the apartment of 76 year old Ura Thompson and sexually assaulted her. Thompson either died from having her chest compounded during the abuse or was suffocated by Johnson’s hands covering her nose. He seized several possessions such as furs, typewriters, purse, watch, rings, and a hand mirror, which were discovered by police in his residence during an unrelated investigation of a firearms possession charge. Johnson had an extensive criminal history, which included several convictions of rape, armed robberies, and burglaries. The case attracted controversy when it was discovered that the lead chemist in the investigation misconducted several of her other cases, and forged some of the evidence used in the trial. Despite the other overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Johnson’s supporters took the opportunity to push a narrative of his innocence.
21. Gary Walker (~1960s-2000, lethal injection): Walker abducted, raped, and murdered at least 5 women, 36 year old Margaret Lydick, 35 year old Jane Hilburn, 32 year old Janet Jewell, 25 year old Valerie Shaw-Hartzell, and 24 year old DeRonda Roy, and non fatally assaulted several other women and teenage girls. The victims were mostly strangled to death with their bras and panties. Some of them were forced to withdraw hundreds of dollars from ATMs before they were killed. He also strangled a man, 63 year old Eddie Cash, with an electrical cord while robbing his home. Walker had dozens of previous convictions for burglary, carjacking, drug possession, and carrying concealed weapons. Some of his earliest arrests occurred when he was a teenager.
22. Michael Roberts (~1988-2000, lethal injection): A career burglar, Roberts was condemned for murder of 80 year old Lula Brooks. She was raped and her throat was slit by an intruder in her home. Roberts' death sentence and execution has been contested, as he was convicted on his later recounted testimony alone. He claimed that the investigators tricked him into confessing with the promise of a plea deal that was allegedly withheld from him.
23. Kelly Rogers (1990-2000, lethal injection): Rogers’ girlfriend lured 21 year old Karen Lauffenburger into her apartment with a fake pizza order. They accosted her when she arrived with the delivery. After the couple forced Lauffenburger to hand to over the $40 she earned from the night's pizza deliveries and withdraw $175 from an ATM, Rogers raped and stabbed her to death. The body was left in Lauffenburger’s apartment and was found by her boyfriend.
24. Ronald Boyd (1986-2000, lethal injection): During a robbery spree of several gas stations and supermarkets, Boyd engaged in a shootout with the responding officers. A Master Patrolman, 32 year old Richard Riggs, was killed in the exchange.
25. Charles Foster (~1980s(?)-2000, lethal injection): Foster suspected a grocery store owner, 74 year old Claude Wiley, of making sexual advances at his wife. He arranged for her to entice Wiley to their home with an order. When he arrived with the delivery, Foster stabbed and bludgeoned him to death with a baseball bat. He a history of convictions involving threats and violence, though my sources didn’t disclose any specific details.
26. James Robedeaux (1978-2000, lethal injection): In 1978, Robedeaux strangled his first wife, 30 year old Linda, and plead guilty to a second degree murder charges. He was released after serving 6 out of a 25 year sentence despite an escape attempt. In the following year, he began a relationship with 37 year old Nancy McKinney while he married a different woman. During an argument, Robedeaux beat McKinney to death, dismembered her body with a saw and machete, and scattered the remains across the state. While being investigated for McKinney's murder, he was arrested for choking and beating his estranged second wife. The cases were incidental and kept separate by the courts.
27. Roger Berget (~1985-2000, lethal injection): Berget carjacked and abducted 33 year old Rick Patterson with an accomplice, and shot him dead. He also admitted to the beating death of a roommate, 40 year old James Meadows, on the behalf of the man's wife. As a trivial side note, Berget's brother Rodney was executed in 2018 by the state of South Dakota for killing a prison guard [for more information, please see Rodney Berget's entry under the South Dakota section of my states with less then 10 executions post].
28. William Bryson (1988-2000, lethal injection): To collect a $300,000 life insurance policy, Marilyn Plantz recruited her boyfriend Byrson and his friend to kill her husband, 33 year old James. Byrson and his friend ambushed Plantz in his house as he was coming home from work and beat him to death with a baseball bat. With the intentions of staging an accident, Marilyn ordered the pair to burn the body in the couple's pickup truck.
29. Gregg Braun (1989-2000, lethal injection): Across several states, Braun shot and killed 4 women, 48 year old Geraldine Valdez, 31 year old Gwendolyn Miller, 28 year old Mary Rains, 27 year old Barbara Kochendorfer, and one man, 54 year old Pete Spurrier, while robbing stores.
30. George Wallace (~1970s-2000, lethal injection): Known as "the Mad Paddler" due to his habit of spanking abducted preteen and teenage boys with a wooden paddle, Wallace kidnapped his victims by posing as a police officer. After duping his targets into thinking that they were being arrested, Wallace restrained them with handcuffs and leg chains. The captives were then sexually abused and shot or stabbed to death. His crimes were exposed when an 18 year old man he abducted escaped from him despite being shot and stabbed numerous times. By his own admission, Wallace murdered 18 year old Thomas Reed, 15 year old William Domer, 14 year old Mark McLaughlin, 14 year old Jeffrey Foster, and 12 year old Alonzo Cade.
31. Eddie Trice (1987-2001, lethal injection): Trice snuck into the home of 84 year old Ernestine Jones and raped her. After he beat Jones to death with numbchucks, he terrorized and extorted her cognitively disabled son of $500 with threats of killing him if he told anyone of the murder. The son was also assaulted with a hammer, and he received injuries to his right eye, right cheekbone, and his right forearm.
32. Wanda Allen (~1981-2001, lethal injection): In 1981, Allen got into a fight with her live in girlfriend, 21 year old Dedra Pettus, and shot her dead. Despite giving a bungled story about her being accidentally killed in a shootout with Pettus’ ex boyfriend to the investigators, Allen managed to secure a 4 year sentence for manslaughter after pleading guilty to a plea deal, and was released after serving two years. While incarcerated, she started dating a fellow inmate, 29 year old Gloria Leathers, and continued their relationship outside of prison. The couple’s relationship was marred with extreme domestic violence on Allen’s end. In one incident, Allen struck Leathers with a rake. In 1989, while they were arguing in front of a shopping center, Allen shot and killed Leathers. Leathers herself also had history of violence, and had a conviction for stabbing a woman to death. Allen and her defense team tried to use Leathers’ previous convictions to make a self defense argument, but that was shot down by the courts.
33. Floyd Medlock (1990-2001, lethal injection): 7 year old Katherine Busch went to visit her family's old apartment, which Medlock was residing in, by herself. Busch knocked on the door and Medlock let her inside after she begged for food. He then choked and sexually assaulted the girl, dunked her head in a toilet bowl, and stabbed her to death. The body was hidden in a nearby dumpster. Busch's grandmothers were staunch pro capital punishment and anti death penalty activists respectively, and their public feud over Medlock's sentence and execution attracted some media attention. Medlock also had an extensive criminal history despite being only 19 at the time of Busch's murder, and was previously arrested several times for indecent exposure, arson, armed robbery, and marijuana possession.
34. Dion Smallwood (1992-2001, lethal injection): Smallwood walked into the home of his ex girlfriend's adoptive stepmother, 68 year old Lois Frederick, without invitation. He had a tumultuous and often violent relationship with her adopted stepdaughter that she strongly opposed, and they broke up under her pressure. After an argument, Smallwood knocked Frederick unconscious with a croquet mallet, locked her in a car, and burned her alive in it.
35. Mark Fowler (1985-2001, lethal injection): To get back at his ex employers for firing him, Fowler and his partner, Billy Fox, stormed a supermarket that he used to work out. The pair rounded up 3 employees, Chumpon Chaowasin, a 44 year old Thai immigrant, 33 year old Rick Cast, and 27 year old John Barrier, at gun point. Their hostages were shot, clubbed, and stabbed to death, and they took over $2,7000 in cash and checks.
36. Billy Fox (1985-2001, lethal injection): Fox assisted the above mentioned Mark Fowler in robbing a supermarket and murdering 3 of its employees
37. Loyd Lafevers (1985-2001, lethal injection): Lafevers and his accomplice, Randall Cannon, kidnapped 84 year old Addie Hawley from her home. She was raped, trapped in the trunk of a car, and burned alive in it. Although she was rescued, Hawley died from her injuries 6 hours later. The pair stole Hawley's wedding ring and Lafevers gifted it to a stripper. As Hawley's nephew was a Colorado state senator, her murder gained some attention from media outlets.
38. Dorsie Jones Jr. (1979-2001, lethal injection): While drinking at a bar, a barmaid chastised Jones for carrying an unconcealed gun. He shot at her in a fit of rage, but missed and injured his female companion instead. Jones then turned his attention to the other patrons and fired on them. 48 year old Stanley Buck Sr. was killed in front of his 19 year old son, who was also wounded in the shooting.
39. Robert Clayton (~1980s-2001, lethal injection): Clayton attacked 19 year old Rhonda Timmons while she was sunbathing near her apartment. She was raped, stabbed, kicked in the head, and strangled to death with her swimming suit. Her husband found Timmons' body laying next to their infant daughter, who was left unharmed. Clayton had a previous rape conviction in Tennessee and a robbery conviction in Texas.
40. Ronald Fluke (1997-2001, lethal injection): Out of despair that his gambling addiction drove his family to near poverty, Fluke shot and killed his wife, 44 year old Ginger, and their daughters, 13 year old Kathryn and 11 year old Susanne, while they were sleeping in their bedrooms. He initially attacked Ginger with a hatchet, but turned to shooting when she fought back.
41. Marilyn Plantz (1988-2001, lethal injection): The married girlfriend of William Bryson. As mentioned under Bryson's entry, Plantz arranged for him and his friend to kill her husband James to collect his life insurance policy.
42. Terrance James (1983-2001, lethal injection): While awaiting trial for a theft of government property charge, James and two accomplices strangled a fellow inmate, 25 year old Mark Berry, with wire out of their suspicions of him being a snitch. They then hung the body in an attempt to make it look like a suicide. Berry was another party in the theft of government property case, and James and his accomplices believed that it was his testimony that got them arrested.
43. Vincent Johnson (1991-2001, lethal injection): Johnson gunned down 44 year old Shirley Mooneyham in her home. The prosecution believed that Mooneyham's boyfriend arranged the killing to collect a life insurance policy, but he was acquitted at trial.
44. Jerald Harjo (~1980s-2001, lethal injection): Harjo snuck into the bedroom of 64 year old Ruth Porter, raped her, and suffocated her with a pillowcase. He then snatched Porter's car keys and drove off with her van. His past criminal history was extensive, and was in prison numerous times for burglary and autotheft.
45. Jack Walker (1988-2001, lethal injection): Disgruntled with the custody dispute over their then 3 month old son, Walker stabbed his ex girlfriend, 17 year old Shelly Ellison, and her uncle, 30 year old Donald, 32 and 11 times with an ice pick during a confrontation at their home.
46. Alvie Hale Jr. (1983-2001, lethal injection): Hale kidnapped 24 year old William Perry to extort a $350,000 ransom from his banking family. When the negotiations failed, Perry was shot dead, and Hale buried the body on his father's property.
47. Lois Smith (1982-2001, lethal injection): Smith, her son, and a female accomplice abducted her son's ex girlfriend, 21 year old Cindy Baillee, from an airport out of fear her testifying of his involvement in the drug trade. Baillee was taken to Smith's ex husband's house, and stabbed in the throat by her ex boyfriend while driving to their destination. Inside the home, she was taunted by Smith with a gun, and was shot 7 times in the chest and 2 times in the back of the head. While her son was reloading the gun, Smith jumped on and crushed Bailee's throat.
48. Sahib Lateef Al-Mosawi (1992-2001, lethal injection): Following a dispute over their newborn son's name, Al-Mosawi's estranged wife, 26 year old Inaam Al-Nashi, fled to the apartment of her uncle, 45 year old Mohammed. Al-Mosaw attacked the pair in the apartment and stabbed them to death. Inaam's sister was also stabbed, but she managed to escape with her life. The couple and their families were refugees from Iraq that were displaced by the First Persian Gulf War, and they fled into the United States.
49. John Romano (1985-2002, lethal injection): Romano and his accomplice David Woodruff robbed and murdered two of their acquaintances. One of the victims, 63 year old Lloyd Thompson, was attacked in his apartment. Thompson was held down by the pair while they stabbed him 22 times and served his spinal cord. The other victim, 52 year old Roger Sarfaty, was tied up, beaten, stabbed 5 times, and strangled to death in a jewelry store he owned. In the robberies, Romano and Woodruff stole several pieces of jewelry from Sarfaty, and took most of Thompson’s quarter collection.
50. David Woodruff (1985-2002, lethal injection): As mentioned under John Romano's entry, Woodruff took part in the robbery murders of Lloyd Thompson and Roger Sarfaty.
51. Randall Cannon (1985-2002, lethal injection): Cannon assisted Loyd Lafevers in abducting, sexually assaulting, and burning Addie Hawley alive in her car. Although he was acquitted of molesting Hawley, Cannon was still condemned for his part in the kidnapping and murder.
52. Earl Frederick Sr. (~1989-2002, lethal injection): Frederick beat Bradford Beck, a 41 year old veteran that was crippled during his service in the Vietnam war, to death in his home after befriending him. He ransacked the house and dumped Beck's body in a field. A second murder, the robbery and shooting death of a Texan man, 77 year old Shirley Fox, was also tied to him. However, authorities in Texas withheld from prosecuting Fredrick due to his death penalty trial and conviction in Oklahoma. Both Fox and Beck had physical disabilities, which led prosecutors to the conclusion that Frederick intentionally selected and depredated on disabled men.
53. Jerry McCracken (~1980s(?)-2002, lethal injection): McCracken and his accomplice shot up a bar, killed 3 patrons and the bartender, and made off with $350. The victims that lost their lives were 41 year old Carol McDaniels, 37 year old Timothy Sheets, 34 year old Steven Sheets, and 27 year old Tyrrell Boyd. Months before the mass shooting, McCracken was paroled after serving time for stabbing 3 people in a bar fight.
54. Jay Neill (1984-2002, lethal injection): During a bank robbery, Neill disemboweled and nearly decapitated 3 tellers, 42 year old Kay Bruno, 25 year old Joyce Mullenix, and 19 year old Jerri Bowles. A group of 4 customers, consisting of 33 year old Ralph Zeller, a married couple, and their 14 month old daughter, unwittingly walked in on him, and he herded them into a backroom to be shot. Zeller was killed, the couple were wounded, and Neill left the daughter unharmed due to running out of bullets. Neill's boyfriend was given a life sentence for the robbery and murders, despite not being directly involved.
55. Ernest Carter Jr. (~1989-2002, lethal injection): After being fired from an autoshop, Carter robbed it with an accomplice, and fatally shot a security guard, 35 year old Eugene Manowski. The pair stole the shop's tow truck, and later tried to burn it with Carter's girlfriend to destroy any traces of the crime. Carter was also previously accused of burning a friend to death in the previous year, but the charges were dismissed.
56. Daniel Revilla (1987-2003, lethal injection): While babysitting his girlfriend's son, 13 month old Mark Gomez, in their home, Revilla broke the boy’s ribs in a beating and scalded him with boiling water. When he brought the boy to a hospital, Revilla gave a story that he accidentally hit Gomez’s head with a door handle, which was quickly seen through by the staff. According to the accounts of his girlfriend and her family, Revilla was violently abusive to Gomez, and they recounted incidents of him trapping the boy in a kitchen drawer, dunking him in cold water, folding him into a pull up bed, and hanging him by his ankles with duct tape.
57. Bobby Fields (~1990s-2003, lethal injection): Fields shot and killed 77 year old Louise Schem while burglarizing her home. She had tried to shot him with her .25 calibre pistol, but he wrestled the gun away from her, and gunned her down with it. His intentions was to steal Schem's television set to sell for cocaine, but left empty handed after losing his nerves with the struggle and murder. According to court documents, Fields had a previous robbery and assault conviction, and several arrests for drug possession.
58. Walanzo Robinson (1989-2003, lethal injection): A member of the Gangster Bloods street gang, Robinson shot and killed 26 year old Dennis Hill, an affiliate of a rival gang, in a turf war over drug sales.
59. John Hooker (~1971-2003, lethal injection): As a teenager in 1971, Hooker attended a party at a friend's house, and got into an argument. In a fit of anger, he fatally shot 18 year old Alta Lang, and wounded two other partygoers. Due to the witnesses refusing to cooperate with the investigation and being unable to prove any calculated intentions, Hooker was given a manslaughter conviction, and released a few years later. After he was paroled, Hooker started dating Sylvia Stokes, and fathered several children with her. Their troubled relationship lasted for 8 years, and ended when Stokes filed a protection order against him. In retaliation, Hooker lured Stokes and her mother, 53 year old Durcilla Morgan, into his apartment and stabbed them both to death.
60. Scot Hain (~1980s-2003, lethal injection): Hain carjacked and abducted a couple, 27 year old Michael Houghton and 22 year old Laura Sanders. After taking $565 and some bags of clothing, he forced them into the trunk of their car at gunpoint, and burned them alive in it. He had several previous arrests for robbery, and was involved with a number of rapes and attempted kidnappings months before the Houghton and Sanders' murders.
61. Don Hawkins Jr. (1985-2003, lethal injection): Hawkins kidnapped 29 year old Linda Ann Thompson and her two daughters, aged 4 years old and 18 months old, from a mall. Although his original intentions were to ransom off Thompson and her children, Hawkins gang raped the captive woman with his cousin and his girlfriend's teenage nephew, and drowned her in a lake. Thompson's children were spared and simply left with a babysitter. Hawkins and his accomplice then went on a nation wide rampage with his accomplice that involved the abductions and rapes of several grown women and teenage girls, hanging 31 year old David Coupez of Colorado in his home while robbing him, and countless other robberies.
62. Larry Jackson (~1984-2003, lethal injection): In 1984, Jackson shot and killed his girlfriend, 19 year old Freda Washington. He accepted a plea deal that dumbed down the charges to second degree murder, and was given a 30 year sentence for it. During his incarceration, Jackson started a relationship with 29 year old Wendy Cade. Despite her promises of marriage after his release, Cade left him for another man, and they got engaged. When Jackson was assigned to a prison work crew, he snuck out and went to confront Cade. Reportedly, the two had bought alchool, cocaine, and cigerates together and had sex in Cade's apartment. However, they got into an argument, and he slashed Cade's throat and stabbed her 31 times with box cutters. Jackson then left with her jewelry, watch, and the keys to her jeep.

It was a race between The Four Tops and The Monkees, but in the end, The Monkees finished first with "Last Train to Clarksville", winning the 1966 poll. A great song. Well-deserved victory.
1967 is often considered one of the greatest years in popular music, and the year that psychedelia really became mainstream. It's also the year where the British Invasion has pretty much ended. It's also where the counterculture movement really became present in music. It's a year where rock is starting to become harder. Also, 1967 also saw a great explosion in popularity for soul music, which would continue all the way into the 1970s.
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1) “To Sir With Love” (Lulu) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOVQ4vAmM7Y
In the year of psychedelia, British singer Lulu's pop ballad from the Sidney Poitier-led film "To Sir, With Love" became the No. 1 song of 1967, making her the second British female artist to do so in the rock era, following Petula Clark in 1965. She also became the first of two Scottish female solo artists to achieve this, with Sheena Easton being the second in 1981. It was not until 2011, when Calvin Harris, featuring Rihanna, topped the Hot 100 with "We Found Love" that another Scottish artist topped the Hot 100.
I really enjoy this song. Lulu's performance is sincere, warm, and bubbly. I’m a little surprised that it was the number one song of the year, but it's definitely a great track.
2) “The Letter” (The Box Tops) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyq3PUTnpd0
"The Letter," a blue-eyed soul track by The Box Tops, topped the US charts with 16-year-old Alex Chilton as the lead vocalist. It was written by country musician Wayne Carson. Chilton later co-founded the highly influential cult power pop band Big Star. While The Box Tops never reached the top spot again, they achieved several more Top 40 hits, including the 1968 hit "Cry Like a Baby," which peaked at number two in the US. “The Letter” is also the last song to top the Hot 100 that is under 2 minutes.
I do enjoy this song, but it’s not long enough for me to truly connect with it. I always found it fascinating that Chilton sounds older and gruffer on this song at 16 than at age 23 when the first Big Star album came out.
3) “Ode to Billie Joe” (Bobbie Gentry) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJZ_ViDADOE
A US No. 1, Bobbie Gentry's gothic country song, performed with a simple acoustic guitar and subtle string background, captures the haunting tale of Billie Joe McAllister's suicide in rural Mississippi. Narrated by a young woman with a secret connection to Billie Joe, the song explores her family's indifferent reaction to the tragedy. The mysterious element of what was thrown off the Tallahatchie Bridge has intrigued listeners for decades. Gentry has repeatedly emphasised that the focus of the song is on the family's emotional detachment, describing it as "a study in unconscious cruelty," and stated that the object thrown off the bridge was irrelevant to the song's deeper message.
Fantastic song. Haunting. Very well written and performed by Gentry, who is an underappreciated artist nowadays. You can hear the influence this song had on the singer-songwriter movement of the early 70s. Check out her catalogue - she has several great songs and albums. She also scored a UK No. 1 in 1969 with her cover of “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again”.
4) “Windy” (The Association) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUv9OK4KUv8
The 2nd and final US No. 1 by the sunshine pop group The Association, this song was written by Ruthann Friedman. She initially claimed that she had written the song about a man that she had a crush on (the gender of the song was changed in The Association version), but she later revealed that she had written the song about herself during her mid-20s. She wrote "Windy" in waltz time, but the group’s producer Bones Howe changed it to the more common 4/4 to ensure the song's commercial appeal. The lead vocals were sung primarily by guitarist and new band member Larry Ramos along with vocalist Russ Giguere. Ramos, who was of Filipino descent, was a rare Asian-American lead singer to have a number one hit single.
I dunno about you, but I absolutely love this song. It’s honestly one of my all-time favourites (alongside their US Hot 100 No. 2 masterpiece “Never My Love”). It’s perfect pop. So catchy, and quite danceable. I remember first hearing it when it was used in “Breaking Bad” (how ‘bout a windy, Wendy?).
5) “I’m a Believer” (The Monkees) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQAqprjOuA
I’m sure everyone knows this song, whether by The Monkees or the Smash Mouth cover. It was written by Neil Diamond and sung by Monkees’ lead singer Mickey Dolenz. Accounting for strictly sales of singles, this was the biggest-selling single of 1967, excluding radio play. It reached No. 1 in numerous countries all over the world.
Who doesn’t love this song? It may be overplayed, but it’s a classic.
6) “Light My Fire” (The Doors) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLiq8j29Lww
"Light My Fire," the first of two chart-toppers for American psychedelic rock band The Doors, was credited to the whole band but was largely written by guitarist Robby Krieger. The song, known for its erotic lyrics and distinctive structure, epitomises the '60s psychedelic and sexual revolutions. The album version stretches over 7 minutes, while the radio-friendly single cuts down to just under 3 minutes. Krieger drew inspiration from the melody of "Hey Joe" and the lyrics of the Rolling Stones' "Play with Fire." When he brought his initial draft to the band, drummer John Densmore proposed a Latin rhythm, lead vocalist Jim Morrison contributed to the second verse and part of the chorus, and Ray Manzarek introduced a Bach-inspired organ motif. The song famously starts with a single snare drum beat, a suggestion from Densmore.
Wow, I’m shocked The Doors scored a US No. 1, let alone two (their other chart-topper was “Hello, I Love You”). That’s awesome. Great song. Not my favourite song by the band, but still, it’s a classic. I put the single version as the link.
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Rounding out the Top 10 is “Somethin’ Stupid” (Nancy and Frank Sinatra) (No. 7), “Happy Together” (The Turtles) (No. 8), “Groovin’” (The Rascals) (No. 9), “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” (Frankie Vali) (No. 10). An extremely strong Top 10. Even the worst song in the Top 10 - that Frank/Nancy song - isn’t that bad (it's more weird since it's a duet between fathedaughter).
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Be sure to listen to all songs before voting.
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First Part - I play a game they call "Sleep Points". Every night I hide under my blanket (Part 1) : nosleep (reddit.com)
Previous Part - I play a game I call "Sleep Points". Every night I hide under my blanket (Part 19) : nosleep (reddit.com)
I had no idea how to react to any of this. There was a long awkward pause of about 30 or 40 seconds where I just kept my mouth shut and let Anastasia let it all out. My first instinct, though, was to ask probably the dumbest question I could’ve asked at that moment.
“Who’s Wendy Peterson?” I asked. I immediately regretted the question. This was obviously a person ENORMOUSLY important to Anastasia, and here I was, just asking who the hell she was, like she was some nobody. But Anastasia didn’t seem too upset. I guess my question took her mind off the tragedy with her friend, since she seemed to regain her composure a bit after I asked that.
“I –“ she started, then took a few breaths. “I believe I mentioned her in passing during our meeting in the Stairwell a few days ago. When I was a new player, I needed guidance of my own. Wendy was the one who gave it to me,” she explained. “Excuse me for a moment,” she said, leaving the bedroom. I wasn’t entirely sure what she headed out for, but when she came back with a carton of orange juice and a bottle of vodka, it got pretty clear.
“Honestly, I should’ve been expecting this…” she trailed off, somberly, pouring herself a shot from the bottle and promptly downing it. “Her time was nearly up,” she explained. “One cannot play Sleep Points forever, Morgan. You can extend your time with this game all you like, but The Sandman always collects his due,” she said.
“Would you care for any?” she asked, gesturing towards the vodka bottle. On the one hand, she was probably one of the smartest, most athletic, and most all-around most accomplished students in school. She had all the best grades, all the best awards, all the best everything. And yet still, THIS was apparently the person that all those after-school specials had warned me about when they would try and scare me about “peer pressure”.
I had never been offered anything like alcohol or weed or cigarettes or ANYTHING by anyone before. Well scratch that, now and then Ezra would offer me some skunk-weed for like 90 bucks a gram. He used to make a killing heading down to the seedier parts of town buying the cheapest pot he could he get his hands on, and then re-selling it over at College High for a fucking LAUGHABLE mark-up.
Now, I had never smoked before, but even I of all people could tell that whatever Ezra was selling was absolutely NOT worth what he was charging. But a lotta freshmen at College High were so desperate for ANYTHING to get ‘em high and they’re obviously not always the sharpest tools in the shed, so even with his INSANE scalping techniques, he STILL found plenty of willing buyers.
But either way, it was ONE thing when the school edgelord offered you something. That just kinda comes with the territory, and you pretty much know to expect it. But to be offered alcohol – and very STRONG alcohol at that – by my school’s model student was nothing I could’ve ever expected. Although, this was also the same girl who was telling me to steal my parents’ car keys, sneak out in the middle of the night without either one of our parents knowing, and head on over to her place. So maybe encouraging me to break the law wasn’t THAT far out of Anastasia’s wheelhouse, come to think of it.
“Well, I DID have to drive up here. I’m gonna have to drive back, too, y’know. You DO realize that, right?” I said.
“Oh c’mon, one shot won’t kill you,” she said, trying to egg me on a little. “You’ll be sober by the time you leave at 3. And besides. What other cars will be out at THIS time of night? Don’t let Ezra’s hallucination tricks fool you. He can make you see all KINDS of things, Morgan. If you wanna know if he’s REALLY there, just poke him,” she said, downing a second shot. Which was a bit concerning to me, because I had always heard about how you’re supposed to pace yourself with drinking and this second shot came pretty shortly after the first.
“If he’s not, your finger will go right through him. Why, it’s practically a rite of passage for new players to be thoroughly bamboozled by one of Ezra’s visual gags,” she explained. “Some would call it hazing. And I would not find that to be an unfair assessment. Ezra has a rather twisted sense of humor to say the least. Tricking you into thinking that you were about to crash headlong into his vehicle is perfectly consistent to his character,” she said. Had I told her about that? I figured it didn’t really matter, since she would’ve found out either way.
“I tend to prefer my vodka neat, though I suppose you have yet to become acclimated to the taste. It is most off-putting to the inexperienced. That is why I have brought this carton of orange juice, such that the alcoholic flavor of your beverage shall be masked to a comfortable extent,” she said. “Now don’t worry, I will only pour in ONE shot. You would hardly taste it,” she concluded, as she finished pouring out my drink.
I took a sip. I’ll admit, it tasted a little funky, but not enough to gross me out or anything. So, I had a little more. Anastasia seemed quite pleased with this. She then poured herself a THIRD shot. So, just because I feel like keeping score, we were now only about 20 minutes into our meeting and this girl was on shot number THREE. She had only brought the bottle out about 10 minutes before this. Though in her defense, she didn’t have any more after that. Y’know. For about another 20 minutes. Yeah.
“That should be quite enough,” she said, finishing her third shot. She got up, put the bottle and the orange juice away, and we were back to Wendy.
“Now, Wendy is not someone you would be familiar with, because she is from upstate,” she explained. “VERY upstate. She lives in Barrow,” she said. Technically, that little town in the way far north of Alaska changed its name to something else a few years before all this, but I can’t pronounce or spell it, so I’ll just be calling it by it’s old name “Barrow” since that’s easier.
“Well, ‘lived’, perhaps I should say,” she said correcting herself. “I too lived in Barrow until fairly recently. Though my family had moved to Alaska from St. Petersburg when I was 3, we did not move to Fairbanks. Instead, we had moved to Barrow, where we had lived for approximately 10 years from sometime in the spring of 2007 until December 1^st, 2017, just over a year ago now, by now. I recall the date as it was an extremely difficult move. Not least because I had already been playing Sleep Points for over a year by then,” she said.
“Well, what about playing Sleep Points made the move so difficult?” I asked.
“I must remind you that to hide from The Sandman, you must be asleep in your OWN bed,” she explained. “I would not have been capable of escaping the clock by moving. It would follow me throughout my travels, as it ultimately did. And I knew all of this l in advance. For a few dreadful hours, I had truly thought this impromptu move from Barrow to Fairbanks would be the death of me. Surely this would require several nights out of my bed, I had thought,” she explained.
“And I must stress the point that this move was EXTREMELY spontaneous. I had not been told of it even a day in advance. One day my father told me to pack up everything into our RV, and the next, we were on the road. Well, the metaphorical road in any case. Now you see, a particularly complicated facet of my father’s bizarre plan to move us from Barrow to Fairbanks all at once was the fact that there are no roads connecting to Barrow. Typically, when a person leaves town with a great deal of luggage and cargo as we did, given that we had to take all our possessions with us as we would not be returning, it is during the summer, when the oceans have thawed, allowing for various cargo ships to ferry one’s things to one’s desired destination. Given that it was December at the time, this was simply not an option,” she explained.
“And we of course could not use an airplane to fly to Fairbanks given that everything in our old house would never fit on a commercial airliner. The only feasible option was my father’s Recreational Vehicle. It was extraordinarily cramped, but after a few hours when all was said and done, most of our things managed to, in principle, ‘fit’ to some uncomfortable degree or other”, she said. “Though some things did still need to be left behind. Such as my bedframe, for example. Though I had strongly insisted on bringing my mattress.
I did not know for certain if my bedframe was required to stave off The Sandman, but, given the frankly preposterous circumstances in which I had found myself, I had gambled on the notion that all I would need to stay safe would be to sleep in the same mattress. During my first night in the RV, I was entirely unaware of whether or not I would live to see the following day. As midnight approached, I felt my life slipping away from me, as though it were flashing before my eyes, as the old cliché goes. I am forever grateful that my clever loophole successfully warded off my seemingly inevitable demise,” she said.
And again, as a reminder, she’s 3 shots of hard liquor in at this point and still prattling on like a goddamn encyclopedia, just like how she usually would. I gotta admit, I was damn near genuinely impressed with how lucid and intellectual she could still sound, even after all she had had to drink. She didn’t even seem tipsy. Though one thing I will say, is that while she would usually speak in an American accent, the deeper and deeper into her drinking she would get, there would always seem to be more and more bits and pieces of her original Russian accent creeping through. Though at that point, I could hardly notice it. But anyway, back to the story Anastasia was telling me.
“Though I must say, my father was very opposed to me taking my mattress. And I could not, for the life of me, ascertain why. When I asked him, he claimed it was because we needed to conserve as much space as possible, and that, because there was a pullout couch in the RV for me to sleep on, that I should use that instead. But I knew for a fact, for an absolute FACT, that spending even a single night out of my proper bed would end my life most abruptly. And so, I persisted. The rest of the family was already quite opposed to the move initially, and thus I had high hopes of turning them against him, thereby overruling his decision to force me to leave behind my mattress. And, through enough prodding from my mother, my father relented, and I took it with me,” she finished.
“Well, if the rest of your family was so against the move, then how did you guys end up going through with it?” I asked.
Anastasia seemed like she was hesitating a bit to answer the question. For a moment, it looked like she might not have been comfortable answering, but then explained the difficult situation to me as carefully as she could.
“Now that, Morgan, is a rather… complicated question,” she said, slowly. “My father has what one might consider a somewhat… ‘colorful’ past, shall we say,” she explained. “Now, I am not entirely certain of the specifics as he has never been particularly forthcoming about them, but from what I gather, this colorful past of his likely has something or other to do with organized crime or perhaps something else of a similar nature.
In any case, that phase of his life is behind him, and he would most definitely appreciate it remaining that way. That was why we had initially emigrated from Russia in the first place. And why we had moved to Barrow, Alaska in particular. My father wished to make it as challenging as possible for him to be tracked down and, with Barrow being perhaps one of the most remote communities on the face of the earth, he had considered it a strong candidate. But, in late 2017, he unfortunately was tracked down after all. And he had very little time to do anything about it.
As frustrating as it was to have to pick up everything all at once and to travel hundreds of miles through the dense Alaskan forest by RV, we all understood that whatever agents or mafiosos were after him would not spare a single one of us either, thus it was absolutely crucial that we all go into hiding as fast as possible. And so, we acquiesced to my father’s spontaneous decision that we move to Fairbanks as there was a common understanding in the family that he would not be asking any such things of us unless ghosts of his past were coming back to haunt us all. We knew we had no choice but to vacate the premises post-haste.
As it so happened, there was, and continues to be, a certain man in Fairbanks that, through methods unbeknownst to me, allows for my father to hide in plain sight, and to never be tracked down again. That made Fairbanks our new safest option, and it is why my father moved us all to this town specifically. This means that we will thankfully never have to make any such sudden change in residency ever again, “she concluded.
“Would you like another drink?” she asked, noticing I had already finished my orange juice with the shot of vodka she had given it. “In any case, I will be pouring myself another shot,” she added. “And I do hate to drink alone. I find alcohol consumption far more rewarding when drinking in the company of a friend. I am aware that I set a rather poor example by having so much all at once right in front of you, but in my own defense, you should know that I do not drink in such excess when I am alone. I would DEFINITELY never endorse such behavior from anyone else, and it is why I am quite glad to have you around to care for me, should anything go awry,” she said.
“Well, how the hell am I supposed to do THAT if I’m already two drinks in myself?” I asked, trying to be the voice of reason in order to clamp down on all of this, since to me, it looked like things were starting to get out of hand. I wanted to believe she wouldn’t drink like this while alone, and that she was only doing this because she was having a really tough time getting over the death of her best friend Wendy, and just felt safe with me around. Looking back, I think at the time, that was more or less true. Maybe not entirely true, but with the benefit of hindsight, I can confidently say that at this point, having 4 shots in an hour was a bit much, even for Anastasia. But unfortunately for her, it wasn’t about to stay that way in the coming years.
“Morgan, if you are sober enough to ensure that I do not vomit anywhere other than the toilet, you will have done a fine job of caring for me. And I likely will not throw up at all, as I happen to have a rather strong alcohol tolerance as it is,” she said. For a moment, it seemed like there was a hint of pride in her voice, but that quickly went away when she realized what she had just told me, and what it implied about how much she would normally have, even when alone.
“Well, not because of how much I would TYPICALLY have to drink, I should say. This alcohol tolerance of mine is by no means ACQUIRED,” she backtracked. “Rather, it is a simple result of my genetics. My forebearers had a great deal of alcohol tolerance themselves, which it would appear I have inherited,” she explained, defensively. “Well, I’ll pour you out another, in case you would like one, but don’t feel pressure to drink it if you wouldn’t like to. I’ll have it myself, if you are uninterested,” she offered.
On the one hand, I knew I would be scared to death to drive back home if I was two drinks in, but on the other, I really wanted this fourth shot to be her last one of the night and take away any excuse she could have to drink any further. And then there was the fact that I didn’t wanna look ungrateful for her offer. She had already said she considered me a friend, and it seemed really important to her that I just go along with her and have another. This really seemed like her way of reaching out and trying to connect with me, so I just felt bad turning her down.
Though I’ll admit, it may have also been because I had a bit of a buzz going myself and wasn’t gonna say no to a bit more of one. Though I couldn’t let Anastasia know about any of that. If I did, then she’d have an excuse to get me just as wasted as she was, and I seriously could NOT let something like that happen.
“There you are, my good man. Na zdroviye,” she said, clinking her shot glass against my glass of orange juice mixed with a shot of my own.
“I’m sorry?” I asked, not quite getting the last part of what she had said.
“I said ‘na zdroviye’,” she said, a bit more slowly, enunciating the phrase she had said before. “I can’t blame you for being confused. It’s a common Russian saying when sharing a drink with one’s close confidants. It means ‘for good health’,” she explained. “Well, go on. Say it back. Have manners, now,” she said.
“I… don’t think I can pronounce that. I don’t speak any Russian,” I said.
“Understandable. I suppose it’s a somewhat difficult phrase for English speakers. But I would still appreciate your best attempt at it,” she said.
“Well alright, but I won’t promise not to butcher it,” I said, before saying something more along the lines of like “nsdroveh”.
“Meh, close enough,” said Anastasia, before downing her fourth shot of the night.
“This is gonna have to be my last one, though. It’s 1:40, and I’m gonna need to be on the road by about 3, if this meeting is gonna go according to your schedule,” I said.
“What time do your parents wake up on weekends?” she asked. “If they sleep in, you might not have to leave until 4, maybe even 5. I am entering a new stage tonight, and I would not like to go through my first night alone. That, in tandem with the fact that we still have so much more of Sleep Points to go over, is why I am far more concerned with you leaving too early rather than too late,” she said. “We may well need to fit two nights of discussions into one, tonight. Have you met your sleep quota yet?” she asked.
“Well… not quite. But should be able to get 90 minutes in during the day tomorrow. I mean, I’ve been up for 2 days, and it really feels like the new moon has been helping. I’ve already strung together 26 minutes so far, and since tomorrow is Saturday, I’ve got all day tomorrow to get some sleep in,” I explained.
“You cannot afford to risk that. If you still need 90 minutes of sleep within the next 24 hours or so, then it will be far too dangerous for you to risk missing out on it by coming to visit. You must stay at home tomorrow night. I will not let you in if you decide to come anyway,” she said. “26 minutes after two under a waning moon is, I must again say, a rather poor sign. Most by now would have strung together at least a full hour. At least among those only in Stage Two, in any case.
Now, I have no doubt that, with the melatonin I have given you, you will have nothing to worry about this weekend. The new moon will shortly be upon us, and, so long as you have melatonin at your disposal, you will most likely survive the next week or two with relative ease. It is the full moon that concerns me. The full moon on later stages, to be more specific. Not only do I have my reservations about your capacity to survive the upcoming full moon in roughly three weeks’ time, but even if you do, it will still be very worrying when you are confronted with the next full moon, when you are on Stage Three. And there are many more stages beyond that as well, each more sleep depriving than the last.
Even though you sustained 90 minutes of sleep within 72 hours once, it was a rather close call. And not even during a full moon, at that. How much closer of a call will it be when it finally arrives? I don’t see anything happening to you in the immediate future, but when I look to the long-term, I must say that your chances appear quite bleak. Now, since you have only gotten 26 minutes of continuous sleep since your last 90-minute stretch, I suppose that would mean that you have yet utilize any of the melatonin gummies since then, correct?” she asked.
“Oh no, I haven’t had any since then,” I responded. She seemed pretty relieved by that. “Good. Very good. While this does not improve my outlook on your long-term safety, your response thankfully does not worsen my predictions, as I had feared it would. How many melatonin gummies had you taken Wednesday night?” she asked.
“Well, I had taken 10, but that’s not too much, right? I mean, you had said I might need to take up to 10, didn’t you?” I asked.
“While it is true that I had suggested the possibility of requiring up to 10, I had hoped that that amount would not be the amount required of you. I had hoped that you would only need perhaps 5 or 6. While 10 is not entirely beyond the pale, it is still quite unideal. At this rate, you may have even run out of gummies entirely by the time of the full moon. I will provide you with a new container of gummies if I must, but I fear that that will only be putting a band-aid over your issues. How long will that container last? I do not have an endless supply of sleep points to spend on you.
I, myself, shall run out eventually, as my supply of sleep points will not be able to replenish itself if I am so constantly supplying you with increasingly potent sleeping aids. I have plenty of sleeping supplements which I must supply myself if I wish to continue in this new and most challenging stage that I have reached tonight. They are quite expensive, so I will have very little left over in order to cover YOUR insomnia, as well as my own.
You are quite lucky that you did not snoop through my window during this stage. You would have surely died, being that close to The Sandman if I had already graduated to this one by then. That is why, along with being so inappropriate, what you had done was so dangerous. If I had been even one Stage farther along, you would not have come out of that episode alive.
I must now be asleep every hour on the hour from 12AM to 5AM, just I had to be during the previous stage. I must also have been asleep for 5 minutes by the time a new hour is reached, and I must also remain asleep for another 5 minutes beyond that, where before I had only needed to be asleep on the hour, and nothing more.
It is presently 1:50. This means that I now have only 5 minutes to fall asleep, and so I will have to leave things here for now, though I expect to see you back at 2:05, when I may wake up once more. Sit in your truck until then. Do not stand out in the cold. Furthermore, and I cannot stress this enough, do not look through my window. Even after The Sandman is gone. I hope I have made it clear that you should never do any such thing ever again. Now leave. When 2:00 comes, you will not be safe anywhere in the vicinity of my house. I have already wasted another minute explaining the situation to you, so please leave right this instant. Go,” she finished.
She didn’t have to tell me twice. I was already panicking for her, knowing that she had to go from being wide awake to completely past out in just 4 minutes. Maybe the alcohol would help put her to sleep. Maybe that was another reason she had had so much. She needed it in order to help her be asleep on time. Though, granted, it was probably more complicated than that.
Either way, I knew to keep away as she had asked. She quickly turned out the light of her bedroom, and once I had gotten my heavy winter coat back on, I sped out back to my truck as fast as I could. I even pulled out of the driveway and drive up the street a little ways just for good measure. And when 2:00 came, I was glad that I had. Even from up the street, I could see that her entire house was now completely enveloped in a sinister red glow. And I could hear The Sandman all the way from out there. It sounded just as loud as it did when it was right next to me in own room. With how loud it was from where I was sitting, I could only imagine how absolutely deafening it must’ve been from where Anastasia had been laying.
How the hell was she managing to sleep so soundly through all of this? I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to know. In any case, I was way too busy with making sure I was far enough away to keep myself safe, as it was. Because the glowing red light was starting to grow, and it was starting to look like it might just have been heading toward me. I wasn’t entirely certain of what would happen if I DID get caught up in the red glow, but I had enough sense to know that it couldn’t possibly have been anything good.

Quick note for Charlotte before I start: Hi! I found you at a pretty pivotal part of my life where I actually had the time and space to figure out who I am. Something about watching you be so authentically you made that process easier. I've always been a bit of a class clown type and seeing that displayed to the max on your videos made me relate and fall in love with you (in like, a big sister I never had way), almost instantly. So, thank you for everything you do. Sure it may just be silly videos, but they've definitely changed my life.
Alright enough with my sappy sh*t. Here's the tea, it's a doozy.
I've been with my boyfriend, let's call him Apollo, for three years as of last March. How we got together is honestly a whole other story that I'd love to share, although I didn't think it fit any of your categories, so I went with this instead.
Let's bring in the star of the story, his grandma. Let's call her Wendy.
Wendy raised my boyfriend, and due to losing his adoptive dad when he was 15, she latched onto him very intensely. He is now the only member of their family that still tries to take care of her. Everyone else treats her like a bank (ridiculous considering she's on a fixed income).
With all that in mind, I tried my best to give her the benefit of the doubt. Despite endless stories of her emotional and verbal abuses that she dishes out to Apollo pretty regularly. If anything they've gotten more constant and worse over the years I've known them.
After losing my own home last spring (again, another long story), I moved in with them. Our agreement before I moved in was that I'd pay $1000 a month if she cleared out their extra room so I could have an office. Essentially $500 per room counting Apollo's bedroom.
A important bit of context: the Fall before I moved in, Wendy started talking about moving into an apartment. An idea that never made sense considering they own a 3 bedroom, double wide mobile home. So they only have to pay the rent for the lot. This means that their home became cluttered with packed boxes and remains basically the same to this day.
The extra room was filled up with a bunch of boxes, a huge old fashioned entertainment cabinet, and a bed Apollo's cousin (River) had used when the room was his.
Shortly after moving in, I tried to help start the process of emptying the room. This swiftly got turned into an argument. She essentially started acting like we were trying to put her in the corner and take over. A sentiment I found hilarious since her behavior basically made it so I just hid in the bedroom or outside whenever I was home. I was forced to put everything but my basic necessities (and my cat [Ivy] and her stuff) into a storage unit and never got to have my office.
Within a week of living there, I heard a argument break out between Apollo and Wendy. Something I had already grown used to. Due to having a bad anxiety reaction to yelling/arguments, I usually tried my best to ignore it and just turn up the TV a bit when this happened. This time, however, I muted it and listened in. Just in time to hear her admit that she wanted us to break up.
Despite my allergy to confrontation, I flew out of bed and into her face in a matter of seconds. This happened at like, 2 in the morning on a work night, so I was beyond pissed at this point. (I work on special needs buses, so I wake up at 5.)
I almost left that night, but Apollo calmed me down. Frankly I had no where else to go, especially not anywhere that could home both of us and our cats (he has a cute orange boy named Poncho). So I stayed.
After a couple months of paying the $1000, I made a deal with Wendy. I would start doing yard work, but I was only paying $500 from now on. A deal I figured was a win-win because gardening is super satisfying to me, and it made me feel better to feel like I actually had control over something. I could help make my "home" better.
I didn't realize what a project I had signed up for. TLDR: There was a mint army that had evaded defeat for years, moss all over the entry sidewalk and the bricks around the flower beds, more weeds than grass in the lawns, and roots of a bush that ran through the majority of the smaller of the 2 lawns. Legit some roots were 5 feet long and almost 4 inches at the thickest parts. It felt like I was pulling small children out of the dirt.
The entire time I lived there I was pretty miserable. Especially since I have a bit of religious trauma and Wendy thinks she's a Christian so there was religious imagery everywhere. I couldn't even escape it in Apollo's room due to a bunch of cross necklaces hanging about and a angel above the window. I had already made up my mind, largely due to the religious factor, that I didn't want to let her near our kids I hope to have in the future. I don't trust her farther than I can throw her. I definitely wasn't cool with the concept of her trying to influence my babies.
She sealed her own coffin last September though.
Important context: I was under extremely high stress. My first paycheck of the school year got screwed up and pushed back a month. I had just gotten assigned to my first bus route (prior to that I was a substitute), and the bus driver just decided to hate me for no reason. My uncle drowned, and less than a week later my maternal grandma (a.k.a. my childhood best friend) died.
I heard the news about my grandma on a Tuesday, on Friday I had to leave work early and go to urgent care due to abdominal pain. They told me it might be my gallbladder, but to wait and see if it would pass on it's own or go to the emergency room if it got worse.
This was a last straw for me, and after some stupid argument I don't even remember anymore, I left to go stay with my family for a bit when they came to bring me soup. I just wanted to be with my mom and get away from Wendy and the awful energy of the house for a bit.
On Sunday I woke up in even worse pain. My mom took me to the emergency room and I was given pain killer. They investigated and told me I didn't have any gallbladder stones, but instead a build up of sludge (the sludge turns into the stones usually). Sludge is a lot harder to pass than stones, hence all the pain. I left with a doctor's note for the next 2 days, and decided to stay with my family for one more day.
On Monday night I went home. The next morning I slept in and woke up to find out that Wendy was kicking me out. Due to my paycheck problem I had been unable to give her rent cuz I had to prioritize gas money so I didn't lose my job. She blamed the decision on that, but considering she let River's brother (who was a druggie) stay there for 6+ months without contributing a dime, I don't believe it for a second.
That night my mom and I were talking and she disclosed that Wendy had left her a voice-mail on Sunday. One she didn't see until Tuesday morning. Wherein Wendy essentially told my mom she had to take me back because I was a burden.
I still don't even know how she got my mom's number. But I was beyond pissed.
I immediately walked away to call Wendy. Maddeningly she answered and tried acting all sweet. Over the course of our 2 phone calls, the b!tch kept hanging up on me, she claimed "I still care about you, but you need to pay your bills." (Pretty rich coming from someone I had to save from having their power and/or internet getting shut off several times.)
On my last call, she sent it straight to voice-mail. I bitterly called her a coward and promised someday, I'd take the boys away and leave her alone the way she f*cking deserves.
I've now been living in the living room of my family's apartment for 7 months. Part of which I slept on a air mattress that left my @ss on the floor most of the night, and most of which I've made do with a pile of every spare blanket I could find. Although recently I finally managed to afford a mat to upgrade my sleep situation so that's nice.
The plan now is to save up for an apartment for Apollo and I. After I save up for a car since mine decided to go kaput a month ago. (Cuz of course I didn't have enough problems already right?) Then we'll start our life together and never look back.
So, AITA for wanting to cut Wendy out of our lives? I rest my case before the honorable Judge Charlotte. Thanks for reading! c:

I started walking outside again last week. I hadn’t done that since October of last year. I can’t say when I actually last felt joy doing it, certainly not since August of 2022, probably well before that. But I feel joy from it again. I can do it without intrusive thoughts and reminders of her, tainting the positives.
You once said that you lived a sheltered life, I don’t think that’s true at all. I definitely did, and wasn’t even aware of it. I can’t even say now that I had it bad, I just had some extreme eye opening experiences. Perhaps I said this to you before, perhaps in my own personal journal, but I’m simultaneously embarrassed & grateful for that. Some people want to make everything a comparison. You tell them something and they have to top you, let you know how they had it worse. My mom, who I am not criticizing because I do know her heart is in the right place, likes to remind you that it always could be worse. And that has recently began to infuriate me. I’m aware it could be worse. I’m usually not sharing something because I want something in return, I’m just sharing because I’m a person and that’s what people do. But hearing it could be worse minimizes whatever I’ve shared, like it doesn’t matter because it wasn’t bad enough. I’m not sure where the bad line is, where it becomes ok to share and not feel like you’re being silenced or being told to be grateful it wasn’t worse. Sometimes I just want to talk. I don’t want pity, I don’t want anything really besides some empathy and to feel heard. So as I type and share, I’m aware it could be worse. I’m aware in the scheme of the hardships of the world I have it easy. But that doesn’t mean that some things aren’t hard or painful or traumatic. I guess I feel the need to add this when speaking to you because I know you indeed had it worse.
Although I was well aware that the world was full of people who do things that are evil & wrong, although I was well aware of the saying wolf in sheep’s clothing, although I was aware that hurt people hurt people, I was unaware that sometimes it would be so difficult to see. I was aware that plenty of people were in abusive relationships, lived in abusive households, worked in environments where people would do anything to get ahead, I apparently was unaware that these things happened in friendships too. For no reason. Other than jealousy or pride or insecurity or never getting over personal problems from the past. That some people are so miserable inside that they get some sort of satisfaction out of hurting other people. Or at least they think they do, they really don’t. It’s this very thing that adds to keeping them miserable.
What I’m torn on is if they fully realize what they’re doing or not. If inside their confused mind they have justified their actions and see them as ok. If they’re so delusional that they see themselves as the victim in situations and the other person as wrong. As they go from situation to situation peddling their line of garbage, trying to convince others of their false narrative, if they themselves actually believe it. Deep down. If they paused and allowed themselves to really think about it. If they’re so emotionally immature the lies begin to sound real. If their narrative, that they’ve created, feels like truth to them.
She attacked so many elements of my life - my physical health, my mental health, my work, other friendships - it was like she infiltrated my life, thoughts, beliefs, and tried to rot it away with garbage. She succeeded some, but she didn’t win. It’s really her that loses when she keeps doing this with people. But sometimes I’m still really mad about her behaviors. To borrow your word, I felt subhuman. Like I didn’t feel things properly, couldn’t understand people properly, was selfish, and just unintentionally hurt people because I was such an inconsiderate unaware mess. And, in her opinion, whether someone intentionally hurts you or unintentionally hurts you it doesn’t matter, you’re still hurt. In my opinion there is a massive difference. But I felt like I couldn’t be trusted around others, that I shouldn’t really talk to people, that I needed to run things by M or B because I didn’t know how to act and didn’t want to hurt someone because I was such a harmful mess.
It’s difficult to look back on and not feel foolish. Like, why didn’t you see that? I’m aware it was the perfect storm of events. COVID, lockdown, me at the time just beginning to build a relationship with God, you - and if things had been different it wouldn’t have worked out the way it did. If I hadn’t have had those hundreds, probably thousands, of hours talking to her so much I wouldn’t have seen it. I’d possibly still be in her life, every once in a while getting attacked with something, and never fully understanding or realizing what was going on.
So I’m grateful it was quick and now it’s over.
I feel like I can trust myself again.
I am moving past the fear that someone is out to get me, or deceiving me, or has ulterior motives. Will that happen? Probably, but it’s no longer a fear with every person, new or old, that I encounter. I’ll be fooled again, I’ll live through it, I’ll choose what’s right (to the best of my abilities), and if someone is deceiving me that’s on them, not me for not figuring it out. If that’s what they want to feel proud of in life, their ability to lie and deceive, then the jokes on them.
I don’t know what she did to you. I have a bunch of theories, but I don’t really know. What I do know is that she doesn’t get to stop God’s plan. Whatever it is will come to be, and she’s more foolish than I thought if she thinks she has power over that. I know that you were a bright part of my life. I know that I frequently pray that I will get to do something good with you. That someday I will get to hear you teach, confidently, full of peace, being the funny, gentle, compassionate, insightful, inspirational man that you are.
There is a part of me that seems to be mentally preparing for an argument that hasn’t happened yet and I doubt ever will. But I find my mind preparing for the argument with someone and being able to prove how calculated, cruel, abusive, and diabolical her actions were. I’m probably having the argument with myself sometimes, like part of me is going are you sure? Do you have it wrong? But I am sure. It wasn’t one thing, it wasn’t a couple of things, it was dozens and dozens of things. There’s no way to add them all up and come to a different conclusion. And I would really like to. But the math just doesn’t math. Yet sometimes it’s still an imaginary argument. I guess because my brain can’t really comprehend how someone could be so close to me, pretending to be my friend, and in reality doing cruel things. What disturbs me most isn’t what she did to me, but to you. That someone could pretend to be a friend, pretend to want to help, and in reality be doing awful things to someone at their lowest point. That is what I cannot wrap my brain around. The wrongness of that breaks my heart into pieces. And I’m sorry.
What has occurred isn’t an argument, but other people with only partial knowledge immediately recognizing her behaviors as wrong, narcissistic, and one person said evil. I think for a reason that I don’t understand, is that I need to hear that from people, that the things I KNOW she did are wrong, because for some reason my brain can’t completely be trusted on this. Like I know, but I can’t fully compute it. Like I know, but it feels wrong to call these actions that were clearly wrong wrong. Like I’m also wrong for calling the behaviors out. And I’m not, I’d tell someone else they weren’t wrong, but there’s some missing connector in my brain, and I’m still messed up on this issue. And I don’t understand why. Like I can’t really believe she did things she did, because it’s just that wrong. I know that doesn’t make sense, but that girl genuinely messed me up, and there are some things I’m having difficulty healing from.
I can now, fortunately or unfortunately, spot it easier in others. Hearing their mouth say one thing, hearing their mouth tell you what a victim they are, but their actions showing something completely different. It’s disappointing. It’s frustrating. It’s maddening. But at least I can spot it and stay out of whatever web they’re trying to weave. I can listen and not argue. I can hear them and keep my mouth shut. I can wish them well, and mean it, but not partake in what they’re selling. I don’t need to enter their circular conversation and try to reason with them.
You’re a mystery to me. I’ve gone over it, more times than I can count, and I still only see good. I don’t see a twisted narcissist out to cause me harm. I don’t see a manipulative devil trying to mess with me. I see a hurting guy. Maybe some behaviors were wrong, but I don’t think it’s because you were some cruel person with ill intent, I think it’s more likely they were behaviors you learned, and didn’t know differently. Or because you were in such a bad place mentally you made some choices you wouldn’t normally have chosen. I see a lot of fear and darkness that probably lead choices. Or I’m wrong, and the jokes on me, and I’m a fool again.
I’m ok with that. I still don’t have regrets when it comes to you.
But the cold harsh reality is that you left. Without a word or an explanation. And what that feels like is that I didn’t matter at all. As more time passes that fact becomes more undeniable. I don’t have any understanding, so it makes it difficult to completely heal from it. Was I a stalker? Was I a fool? Was I frightening? Was I a friend? Did I matter at all? Was I just words on a screen, completely detached from the real human behind them? I really don’t know. I’d like to say I didn’t have expectations, but I guess I did because I didn’t expect this. Did I just insert myself where I wasn’t wanted & didn’t belong?
This healing is coming in stages, in waves, bringing up things that I didn’t expect and don’t really like. The only truths that I know, and this knowledge is what gives me peace, is that I know I had good intentions. I know I was actively seeking God and trying to follow. I know I did the best I could with the knowledge I had at the time. I know that I’d do it again, if it meant I was helping a hurting beautiful human. I probably do have some bitterness in my heart that I need to work on because I can say that about you, but I can’t say it about her. Even knowing that I could have planted good seeds in her life, even knowing that God loves her and she’s a hurting human, I can’t say that I’d do it again for her. Luckily I don’t get to choose. It’s done.
The hardest part is all of the unknowns. Those are what play tricks on my mind. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, so perhaps I should be grateful for it now. The fear that gets me the most (second most, I won’t vocalize in any way the biggest fear), is the fear that you think of me the same way I think of her.
Sometime last year I discovered that I had saved some of your old posts. Clearly at one point I knew that feature existed, and did it, but it was all new to me when I discovered them. Some were things I never care to read again. But one stood out to me, and it was still awful, but this part was touching (and awful). You said that you basically had one friend who talks to you. When I read this last year it was as though that sentence literally jumped off of the screen in gigantic letters at me. And I felt like you were talking about me. The thing that I so wanted to hear had been said, but I misunderstood it initially. Because why else would you have said it like that? One friend who talks to you. I mean, clearly I could be wrong, because I do hate making assumptions, but I feel like I’m right. Initially it never occurred to me that you meant me, because if you were talking about me it would have said two friends, because you would have included her too. But you didn’t. And I can only come up with up with two reasons why. One, you didn’t consider her a friend because she didn’t talk to you as much as I did, and therefore you just didn’t know her that well. Or, two, you saw who she was then, she’d shown you who she was then, and you knew she wasn’t a friend. If that’s true, kudos to you for seeing it, being aware of it, and knowing that’s not how any friend should act. I just wish you would have filled me in.
I mean, I do, and I don’t.
A whole lotta lessons and growth happened by what happened to me and because of her actions towards me. Although I most definitely didn’t enjoy the path getting to those lessons, I’ll accept and be grateful for them. It wasn’t all her, of course, there were other things adding to it. And I hope someday I get to talk to you about all of this. Although I am fine, although I am usually at peace with not having answers, they would be nice to have.
As I said, I found joy in walking outside again. I’ve found confidence in my job, workplace, and those that work with me. I’ve found security again in my friendships. I’ve held onto the ability to share things with others, even if there is shame attached to it, with the belief that it’s worth my embarrassment & discomfort if it can help someone. I’ve learned how to release my fears & anxieties & doubts to God, tell Him that He is in charge and to direct me as he wants. That applies to big things and the seemingly small choices that sometimes overwhelmed me each day. I let Him have it, and it’s easy. And peaceful. I mean, not always, but in general.
I’ve reached the point where I don’t fear running into her - which was a confusing fear to have. I mean, I didn’t do anything wrong to her, yet I’m sure she thinks I did, and the uncomfortableness of knowing that added to my not wanting to see her face again. That and the fact that her behaviors were literally diabolical and I don’t want to be near someone who behaves like that. That and she truly traumatized me and I’d like to remain clear of her, not remind her that I exist. I’m aware that I’m in control of myself and my actions and I can engage, or I can simply acknowledge and keep moving. She doesn’t get to control or dictate anymore, she no longer has that ability, I can do as I please.
I miss you. And everything about that is bizarre. I have no idea who you are today, you would be a completely new person. But it’s really painful to go from having someone be such a large part of each and every day to then being completely gone. Not knowing why, if I did something to push towards that happening, if she spoke lies that pushed towards that happening, or if it had nothing to do with me at all, and was all about you. I know the saying that what people do has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. I get it, I see it in action, but I can’t figure out how to frame it properly when it comes to her. Because my choice to remove her from my life has plenty to do with her behaviors, her behaviors were the catalyst of that action, it basically has everything to do with her. So there is a fear there that similar reasoning is there when it comes to you going. And it hurts my heart to think I did something to a hurting person. I guess that’s where I wish I could have resolve. That is where I wish I had answers (don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of other questions, and i guarantee a lot of them aren’t what you expect), but I need to hear that I didn’t add pain to someone who was already hurting. And if I did, I want the opportunity to apologize and/or explain.
I say again that the two years after you left were probably the most difficult of my life, and not for the reasons you would assume, if you’re assuming anything. The second year I was literally making a choice of committing myself somewhere for mental evaluation because I was crazy, or hoping the Christian counselor could help. She helped. I’m not crazy. There are definitely things I don’t understand, but not because I’m crazy.
So here I sit, writing a message to a guy that I don’t really know, that may or may not read it (which really, was true all along), with the hope that someday you’ll choose to be a part of my life again. Or help me sort out some incredibly confusing periods of my life. I’m going to be fine, and am fine, whether I get answers or not. I’m not consumed with the need for answers, it would just be nice. But sometimes we don’t get them, and sometimes we’re probably better off not having them. I’m not seeking answers from her, I have all of the answers I need, and none of them are good, I don’t want to hear any more.
It saddens me greatly that there are people out there who devote so much time to making the lives of others miserable. That’s what they do, and they think (I guess), that brings them joy or satisfaction. It’s such a waste of life. You can’t talk to them, or reason with them, or help them see past their delusions, and honestly, sometimes the way they behave is so frightening you don’t even want to try. Knowing that this person has a purpose on earth, that there is a need for them, that there is something good they could be doing, and instead they’re peddling lies and listening to lies. Knowing that someday they’re possibly going to wake up and see a bunch of wasted time. And hopefully be able to embrace truth and make the most of the rest of their life. Or just continue what they’re doing, even though it’s not working for them and never has. It’s sad to know that some people are so insecure and scared and broken that their actions of perceived self protection, that they do to keep from getting hurt, really is causing more hurt. Pushing people away. And if they would just be open and honest their life could change dramatically.
I don’t have expectations. I don’t have any anger. I’m just a person. I’m teachable. I’m clam. I have a decent ability to control my mouth. I’m empathetic. I don’t hold onto anger. I usually have the desire to see things from the other person’s perspective, even if I’m positive they’re wrong, to have understanding (and ideally, help them see reality). I’m seeking God each and every day, praying to be changed and molded and be more like Him each day, and I mean that prayer. Not that I want to go around exclaiming who I am, because usually when people are doing that it’s because they need to convince you because their actions are about to show the opposite. I guess in this forum it’s ok, because you can’t see my present day actions.
I don’t know anything about where your head is today. If you wonder about anything, or if you’ve moved past it all and it’s a foggy distant memory. I think a lot of the time for me it is now a foggy memory that I’m removed from. That it no longer seems like happened. Writing this is bittersweet, because at least it all seems real again, but simultaneously- ugh, it all seems real again. Since I know at the time your mind was in a place of blame, I’d like to say to you that any cruel action she did towards you wasn’t your fault. Even if you opted to tell her off, not your fault. She was a button pusher, a provoker, and when she got a reaction she had an uncanny skill of seeming innocent, of being the victim, of being the martyr, of whatever it was being all your issue and she wasn’t to blame at all. I’d wager that you, in the state of mind you were in at the time, were an army full of red flags waving at her and she didn’t want to acknowledge any of them. And ignoring them was probably extremely difficult. What should have been happening was she should have seen you, this hurting guy, as where her son was headed if she didn’t change some things. But she didn’t do that. At all. Maybe she has now, but at the time she changed absolutely nothing. I think I was probably meant to be an example of what she should have been doing, and it’s uncomfortable to say that, but I think it’s true. And she wasn’t doing that either. So, understand that if you have any bad feelings over why she acted certain ways towards you, or hold onto any blame, release it. She behaved this way with absolutely everyone - her son, her husband, her other friends, acquaintances, people she didn’t even know. It was, maybe still is, how she behaves. It wasn’t you. It wasn’t me. It isn’t them. It’s her.
My friend, and fortunately my current employee, is going to school to be a pastor. She doesn’t want to lead a church, she wants to minister in other ways. But, one of her latest assignments was to write her ministry goal in 125 words. Then 35 words. And finally, one word. I didn’t attempt the whole assignment, but I have a lot of thought to the one word portion of it because that seemed the most challenging. The word I would choose is truth. I want people to see who they truly are - that was definitely my goal in talking to you. I wanted you to see past all of those lies and see truth.
There are a lot of people wandering around who are deceived by lies different from that, delusions, but they’re affecting their lives in significant ways. Freezing them. Keeping them stuck. And I want them to see truth, and sometimes reality. I know it’s not my place to always intervene, but when it is I would like to drop seeds of truth.
My ex friend believed some grandiose things. The only thing I can equate it to is a little kid declaring something like one day I’m going to be president. When it’s a child you encourage them, give them real life things they can do to work towards that dream. With her, she didn’t want real life things to do to work towards a dream, she wanted something to be handed to her. You couldn’t reason with her, if you tried she’d speak to you in a condescending tone like you were a moron. So it was a difficult position to be in. One, realizing that this grown adult believes something ludicrous, like seriously believes it, and is basing real life large choices on this dream that will probably never come into fruition. Two, wanting them to have tangible parts of that dream in the present day, but realizing they not only refuse to work towards any of it, but if you point out that they were making choices that were making this dream world a reality they would literally stop doing those things. Because she quite literally wanted it to be handed to her. Thirdly, feeling incredible sadness that this person you love is literally wasting their life, and negatively affecting the security of their future by believing in a dream. A literal wish and dream. I think she believed she was psychic to some degree, that she knew things. She’d tell you things, like a fact. You couldn’t tell her differently. We’re all like that sometimes. But with her it was to a higher truly concerning degree because her belief in her feelings on things and situations left zero room for reality. She had no ability to consider the other person’s perspective at all. She literally refused to hear it, or consider it. Like it didn’t exist. Sometimes I believed her too, because I was too close to her, because I wasn’t looking at the entire picture just a piece of it, because I didn’t know better, because I truly believed God was telling her some of these things.
I don’t believe any of it now. And I feel foolish for ever doing so.
But I want to help people identify lies that keep them stuck. Whether it’s a “normal” as a thought telling someone that they are ugly, or if it’s a grandiose as them believing they’re going to win hundreds of millions of dollars in the lottery. Either way they’re stuck. Either way a lie is affecting them negatively. Either way a lie is controlling their life. I say they, but throw me in there too. I’ve got a whopper. I can throw some different circumstances in there that make mine seem more worthy of believing, more difficult to discover, but it was still a lie. A life controlling, all consuming, life stopping lie. I guess the difference between she and I is that I’m teachable, so when someone told me it was a lie I was willing to hear.
I’m working on writing about my last few years. You’re part of it, a beautiful part of it, but it isn’t about you. It isn’t a way to find you, or out you, or embarrass you, or cause you to feel shame. I respect you. It’s really my testimony. I’m not going to believe the lie that I can’t write something because I have horrible grammar. There are tools to correct that, people that can correct that, and really, if someone understands what I’m saying that’s the point, not receiving a grade for grammar. For a while I thought I couldn’t write it because I didn’t have your input, your side of things, your voice, your answers, your permission. Although I would very much like those things, I don’t have them. Nor do I have a way to get them (besides this). So I’m working on it. Your story definitely matters, and deserves to be told, and I hope you’re telling it. But mine is completely different. And it deserves to be told for different reasons. I hope when it’s finished you read it, you are reading here to know about it, you stumble upon it, whatever. I just hope you get there.
The fact is you’re a stranger to me now. I don’t know anything about where your mind is or where your heart is. And although I’m not closed off, I’m open, I don’t trust you. I’m open to building trust with you. It’s a weird thing though, because it would probably be very easy for me to just allow you full access again, with minimal discussion. I’m not sure what that says about me. Maybe it’s a good thing, maybe it’s foolish. I can say that with her there is zero desire for that. I have zero desire to know her at all. Not because I’m mad, but because of how she behaved. I once told her my openness towards something was a vision of a million doors closing, slamming shut, one right after the other, and that is how I feel about my openness to her. Not that I need to worry about it. Sure, she could one day have a true change of heart and become a changed person, and I hope that for her. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to be part of it. I told a friend that I don’t need or seek or want an apology from her, the only good thing about hearing it would mean that she’s truly working on herself, and her heart, and getting right with God. And that’s the only reason I’d like to hear it.
As I reread this I’m unsure how it sounds. Probably like I have a lot of hurt still to recover from. I’m sure that’s true, but it isn’t an all consuming everyday dwelling on not moving forward hurt. It’s there, and it’s coming out in this because that’s the topic. I know parts of this don’t make sense, and are scattered, it’s a post, it is what it is.
It’s like there are two years of my life that are an utter mystery. They don’t make any sense, and the actions of the two other people that were a big part of some or all of that time don’t make any sense either. And there is a human out there who could shed some light on this time for me. I don’t think that’s wrong to hope for. It’s unbelievable how someone who I had so few direct conversations with has impacted my life so greatly.

(EXTRA INFO AND BACKGROUND UNDER ADVICE I NEED:D)
kind of advice i need: • what to say during interviews…specifically for the “tell me about yourself” question • when asked a question and the options are basically “tell the manager” or “talk to your coworker about it and help before going to the manager”…which answer should i give? the snitch answer? or the answer that says i’ll get on their ass abt not working than go to management and snitch • if i have basically 0 experience with working AND volunteering…how should i set up my resume? • if i have no work experience…what should i put for skills? • i know they say it’s a lot easier to get a job if you have connections but what can i do if im in an area where i have no connections and the only connections i could have had were with people who absolutely hated me from the get go- meaning…i have 0 friends here and not many people i talk to in general. i gotta meet new people…ik that’s what i gotta do • at any point…even if i feel comfortable…should i bring up my wendy’s job and why i got fired from it? i’ve done it a couple times and explained why it didn’t work the first 3 days though i think thats my biggest mistake and partially why its not going well with job hunting. idk if i should lie at that point and say i’ve never had my first job or tell them i did and explain it a bit.
hihi, so ever since i turned 16…i’ve been looking for a job. at first i didn’t really look..by 17…i landed a job at wendy’s but how i got it was just bad lol. she had to reassure me a lot. i was working for 3 days and got let go a month later. (cat hit a nerve in my hand…couldn’t move it…got sent home…she left me on read each time i texted trying to tell her it was better and if im on the schedule…a week later still no response…i get hospitalized for a week then sent to a residential for one month and couldn’t tell her i was under their care…when i got out…i went straight to my job and found that out…i even tried to show them the physical AND electronic note i had from the hospital saying i was under their care…told my parents to tell them i was there cuz i personally couldn’t get my hands on a phone to call them…was reassured by everyone id still have it and in the end…i didn’t)
i’m now 18…i moved out of my house for 3 months and tried to look for jobs in largo. dunkin 100% did not want me. not after my friend told them i only worked 3 days at wendy’s because i was unsure if i should put that down on the application or not. (thanks lydia…you’re a total bitch for that lol)
i moved back home and since march…i’ve been applying to places nonstop. only got 2 interviews and a shit ton of “we are sorry to inform you….” emails. i am doing everything to get one…i have written a few cover letters to a few places in hopes it would raise my chances of getting it. i’ve revised my resume many times to better fit the position i’ve applied for…its just extremely difficult and hard to do so when i don’t even have experience at all. im pretty sure i don’t even have volunteer hours so ive got 0 experience. (i am looking into volunteering though so thats something ima be doing) one interview i had was less than 5 min and i already knew i didnt get it cuz it was “tell me about yourself” and then “thank you for coming, we’ll give you a call friday and let you know our decision” right after;-; the other one was longer and they asked alot more questions. i knew i didnt get that one either cuz there was a guy who accompanied it and i kept looking at him and he seemed hella disinterested and bored and whatnot…they left to discuss it then came back and the dude said “we have decided to take a different route, thank you for your time”
i’ve been applying left and right bro:/ i’ve applied to this one specific place multiple multiple times in the span of 2 years. i did that every few months or so and each time i don’t hear anything back even after following up.
i’m going down the list of restaurants/fast food/clothing stores/ grocery stores/pharmacies/and etc on fricking google maps. i’m looking up eachhh and every place i come across on those lists. applying on their physical website. not indeed…not any job hunting app. just the company’s website. i dont know what to do anymore. i’m trying everything and anything at this point bro:/ tbh indeed was NOT working at all so thats why i reverted to going on the company’s website instead to fill out the application

I started Semaglutide last week and for last couple of days I was extremely constipated until I ate a whopper and for the first time in my life as 25 year old man I shit my pants while driving my work car long story short I love Semaglutide because it making me achieve my dream and humbling me at the same time

Vault commissioned by: Big Mountain Research and Development Center
Location: Badlands of the Dakotas
Admittance: A random sample of locals, especially employees of the local research station, or anyone willing to move close to the vaults should be evenly distributed between the two for little to no cost so as to encourage a larger sample Access to the Alpha vault will be sold at a premium with the Beta vault being offered as a "discount" option. [JNC, junior executive at Vault-Tec wrote this change, MCL, senior executive approved]
Purpose: Study survivor behavior when forced to face the mortality of their peers.
Experiment: In the event of a nuclear attack on US soil, the vaults will be opened and allow admittance. Once sealed, Alpha and Beta will find that they have viewports, intercoms, and other ways to communicate between them. Everything will continue as normal for about two years when a manufactured "radiation leak" will contaminate Beta. Automatic systems will report a problem with the air recycling system and claim to be drawing in contaminated outside air, but the truth is that radioactive waste will be accumulated to ensure significant contamination may be achieved regardless of outside environments.
Predictions: The residents of Beta will suffer quickly from the effects of radiation exposure. Depending on where they are in the facility, their deaths may be quick but likely some residents will find the "safer" areas of the vault where their exposure will be slower. Instructions given to both Overseers will emphasize that any incident to befall one vault should be closely studied by the residents of the other under risk of imprisonment or even execution if one refuses to observe. The members of Alpha will be forced to watch their friends and neighbors die of radiation poisoning over the following weeks and months. The outcomes may be unpredictable, but observations on who is able to handle this experience and if order is able to be kept within Vault Alpha will be invaluable to Big MT and their partners. There has already been discussion of selling any analytics from the outcome to militaries in order how to prepare their soldiers or maintain order in the event of catastrophic casualties.
 
Vault 586 Beta Overseer's Terminal:
  2077-23-10:
    The worst has happened. War has come to America. We were lucky to be able to get into this vault, at least. Most of the workers got special deals, their wages were garnished and a spot for them was secured in Beta. A lot of the executives bought a spot in Alpha. We can see through the windows that they have better furniture, decorations, even food. I'm worried about my residents and how they'll maintain being forced to watch other people live better, easier lives every day. But the truth is, that's much how they lived most of their life. And many are simply thankful that they were able to survive at all.
 
  2077-17-12
    Things have been mostly smooth so far. Despite there being quite literal barriers between us, people have started getting along better than I could have expected. I think we have Overseer Elwood to thank for much of that. We've communicated frequently, and he seems like an easy man to follow. Compassionate and decisive. I think he's helping his residents connect to mine in ways they never would have on the surface. We may get through this yet.
 
  2078-04-07
    Big party today. Everyone showed up. Even Robert Parker who had been shunning any interaction with us Betas for months now. People were even talking about seeing if there was any way we could break a window to exchange gifts across the barrier or if we could maybe rig up some kind of exchange mechanism. They were talked out of it, just in case anything happens. We barely survived one disaster. We shouldn't be tempting fate any further. But I think it goes to show the sense of community we've built up between us. There's been some animosity, but it's mostly been headed off by Overseer Elwood and me. But we have a long road ahead of us and whoever comes after. It's no time to lose vigilance now.
 
  2078-23-10
    One year we've been in here now and it's starting to get to people. I've got it easier. I have a lot of people who grew up without anything in my ranks. They're used to scraping by. The Alphas, on the other hand, a bunch of spoiled brats. I'm sorry. I shouldn't say things like that about them. They're good people. Or. They CAN be good people. When they choose to be. Overseer Elwood said he had to put Pamela Perkins in containment last week after she threw such a fit that someone ended up bleeding. Said he scratched the skin right off her neighbor's face. All over some snack cakes and an old radio show. We're doing our best to keep order, but the cracks are starting to show.
 
  2079-05-04
    The first real disaster hit today. Alphas' water purifier broke down for about nine days. As per Vault-Tec instructions, the Betas watched how the Alphas addressed the problem. The Betas are floor workers, mechanics, janitors, even a few researchers. They're used to this kind of work and tried to give advice through the barriers. But the Alphas weren't having it. Said we were there to spectate, not commentate. If they hadn't been so stubborn, they'd have had clean water within two days. Instead, it took them nine. They act all high and mighty, but they need us. If only that oaf of a leader they had could admit that. I once thought Elwood was a good guy, but now I think he can take a short ride on a long rocket.
 
  2080-06-08
    Now's when we can show them who knows what they're doing. We had a catastrophic failure of our air recyclers and purifiers all at once. The western wing got blasted with radiation so bad we had to lock it down. The Hendersons are in there. Probably were by now. We can't get to them, but the Alphas can still see them. But those bastards won't even tell me if my people are still alive. But unlike them, we know our way around these machines. Hell, some of us helped BUILD these machines. We'll be back to clean air in no time. Whereas if one of their Nuka-Cola machines is one degree off, it takes them a month and a vault-wide panic before they can get the damn thing fixed.
 
  2080-09-08
    The problem appears to be worse than we thought. Actually, it appears to be a fucking ghost. I've got some of the best mechanics and engineers in the country, hell, maybe some of the last in the world, here in my vault. And they can't figure a damn thing wrong with any of the equipment. It should all be running fine. They even did an analysis on the air coming directly out of the purifier and they say it's rad-free. But just ten feet away and it's at extremely dangerous levels. It's like someone hung a plutonium rod from the ceiling like a goddamn decoration and we're all too blind to see it. I've lost a lot of good people trying to figure it out and it's only gotten worse. We're down to the last few men available. Which means that tomorrow, I've got to throw myself into the shit. I stayed out of it this long thinking that my leadership would be worth more than whatever I could do with a wrench, but that's just not true anymore. Maybe it never was. Maybe Elwood was right.
 
  2090-02-03
    I finally got back. Looking at my last entry, it was nearly ten years ago I went to try and fix that leak. Turns out there was no fucking leak. We're working on the air systems and there's an explosion. We get blasted with a pile of nuclear waste buried under our purifier. Now, who do you think put that there? I should have died there. The rest of the crew did. Most of the vault has by now. One of the Hendersons is still alive somehow. Like me. Skin falling off, hair falling out, voice like I smoked coming out the womb. I've met a few others, too. You should see how the Alphas react to us now. They've always looked at us Betas with disgust. Now they look at us in terror. I'm going to be working to get Wendy out of the west wing first, then we'll make plans from there.
 
  2093-25-11
    There are eight of us left in total. The whole vault, despite all the damage and all the lockdowns, we finally cleared it all out. We started with over four hundred and we're down to eight. Truth be told, I think we're lucky to have that many. And there had been one more. John Kriger. I used to play cards with that man. Back when he was a man. When we were fixing some doors in the south wing, we found him. There was nothing left behind those eyes. He growled and shrieked like an animal and nearly killed Frank. We put him out of whatever misery he was in. I think we've all been wondering if we're any better off. I know I have.
 
  2094-02-01
    Not much to do anymore. We have enough food. Radiation doesn't seem to hurt us anymore, so the air isn't an issue. Our water spikes a Geiger counter, but Frank tells me it just adds to the flavor. Tastes like spicy static to me, what little sense of taste I have left. So I spent most of my days with Wendy watching the Alphas. They try to ignore us. Pretend we're not there. But they're not doing much better. They broke their intercoms, put posters over a bunch of the windows. But there's always a way to keep an eye on them. One thing I've been wondering has been where Elwood's been hiding. I haven't seen him lately.
 
  2094-03-09
    All hell's broken loose over at the Alpha's vault. Turned out that Elwood had died in the decade I spent clawing my way back up from the basement. Good riddance to him I say. But the ones since then have been worse. Playing favorites, letting maintenance slide. I'm still getting the automated reports from Alpha's terminal and things have been steadily going to shit. Looks like they finally snapped. Glass was too thick to hear anything, but I noticed when one of the rooms got brighter. I went to check it out, and the poster had been torn down, replaced by a large smear of blood. They were having their own little revolution. And there was nothing the eight of us could do but look on in horror as they slaughtered each other. Turns out that while we thought we got the shit end of the stick, we're still living in peace and harmony. They, on the other hand, couldn't make it twenty years without butchering each other. It's hard to make out what's going on with most of the windows still covered. But I would hazard to guess that their numbers are more similar to ours at this point.
 
  2098-10-08
    Today's my rebirth day. Wendy asked me what I wanted to do to celebrate, and I said I wanted to never see this godforsaken place again. It's too sad to pass by the windows and see what the Alphas squandered. The windows are still mostly covered, but we haven't seen anything out of them in a few years now. I figure they're probably all dead. Or maybe they wised up and left. Didn't even leave a note. So that's what I want to do. Get out of here and don't look back. Hell, it's not like we need to worry about the radiation. I can't imagine it could be worse out there than it is down here. Six of us are going and we'll be leaving the door open. Suzy wants to stay with Clark. Clark has started to... I don't know what to call. He's got the sort of undead dementia John had. It's not as bad yet. He's not charging us on sight. But he doesn't look like he has much time left. Suzy says she wants to stay with him to the end. Either end his misery for him or join him in it, I can't be certain. But the rest of us are leaving. About time. Twenty-one years I've been cooped up in this shithole. I'll breathe real air and see the actual sun again. I can't wait.

This might be a dumb question, but one of the things I've noticed about The Shining is that there are serval shots where the camera quickly zooms in and it's very steady. It happens during the "Redrum/Murder" scene, the bear suit man scene, and the shot of Wendy finding Hallorann's dead body. My question is how did Kubrick and/or John Alcott (the cinematographer) do these extremely fast but steady zoom-ins?)

1. Snow White: Fresh Out the Slammer

The song is about someone who falls for someone right after they broke up, but I think it suits her since she ran away from her kingdom. "Now pretty baby I'm running back home to you, Fresh out the slammer I know who my first call would be to"

1. Cinderella: ThanK you aIMee

The song is about being angry but thankful to their bully. "But when I count the scars there's a moment of truth, that there wouldn't be this if there hadn't been you"

1. Aurora: Guilty as Sin

It's an adult version of Once Upon a Dream basically. "I keep recalling things we never did"

1. Ariel: But Daddy I Love Him

The title speaks for itself. "Now I'm dancing in my dress in the sun and even my daddy just loves him. I'm his lady."

1. Belle: I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)

The very obvious choice. "Good boy, that's right. I'll show you heaven if you'll be an angel all night. Trust me I can handle me a dangerous man."

1. Jasmine: Down Bad

This is probably for the middle part of the story. "Show me this world is bigger than us, then sent me back where I came from. For a moment I knew cosmic love."

1. Pocahontas: loml

Kinda describing the very short time of Pocahontas and John Smith being together. "If you know it in one glimpse, it's legendary. What we thought was for all time, was momentary."

1. Mulan: The Albatross

Albatrosses are considered bad omens by sailors but are extremely loyal. Mulan was outcasted once they found out she was a woman in disguise but she still try to save the country. "So I crossed my thoughtless heart, spred my wings like a parachute. I'm the albatross, I swept in at the rescue."

1. Tiana: I Can Do It With a Broken Heart

I know this song is about still pretending to be fine after a break up for professionalism, but I feel like Tiana could fit this song too. "I cry a lot but I am so productive it's an art. You know you good when you can even do it with a broken heart."

1. Rapunzel: My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys

Since Eugene was once a criminal. "I felt more when we played pretend, than with all the kens cause he took me out of my box."

1. Merida and Moana: Robin

Feels very 'keep it up and chase your dream' vibe. "Long may you roar, at your dinosaurs. You're a just ruler covered in mud."

1. Raya: Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?

Has a lot of rage and vengeance. "So I leapbfrom the gallows and I levitate down your street, crash the party like a record scratch as I scream."

1. Anna: imgonnagetyouback

Probably just for one verse in the chorus though. "Whether I'm gonna curse you out or take you back to my house, I haven't decided yet. But I'm gonna get you back." The rest is more for anger towards a bad lover more than a sister gone rogue lol.

1. Elsa: The Prophecy

"Please, I've been on my knees. Change the prophecy. Don't want money, just someone who wants my company."

1. Wendy: Peter

Obviously."You said you were gonna grow up, then you were gonna come find me"

1. Esmeralda: Cassandra

"So they set my life in flames I regret to say. Do you believe me now? They knew the whole time that I knew something. The family, the pure greed, the Christian chorus line. They all said nothing."

I always found that interesting how idols (even senior idols) can often be seen as completely hopeless when it comes to their creative choices, while at the same time being praised thousands of times for said choices. It’s a weird contradiction that I see everywhere (even on Reddit).
I do understand that the company creates the group around a concept that most members can’t choose. And that clearly a group that just debuted may not have a lot of autonomy, but a lot of complaints are about senior groups with idols that have been in the business for years.
For example, when Wendy (Red velvet) said that fans don’t need to send any trucks to the company, because the group is “old enough” to have input.
Or when Jin (BTS) explained during a live that the BTS members could choose whether they wanted to have a physical album or not. Some fans were saying that the company was sabotaging J-hope album back then. Clearly, they have some sort of autonomy.
Or when people were saying that Jennie (Blackpink) couldn’t choose herself her Met Gala 2024 outfit, when she proudly said that her and her team worked hard with Alaïa to create her Met Gala outfit (VIP members can choose their outfits/brands).
I’m not saying that companies are perfect and always make the right creative/marketing choices, far from that. However, Kpop fans tend to dismiss quickly their idols involvement, especially if they feel like they don’t like the final product. While blaming and dismissing other staff that work extremely hard and don’t even get paid that much: look at how many times makeup artists, stylists, and hairdressers have been publicly hated. And when they give praise, they only praise their idols like they are some sort of creative geniuses.
It, also, falls into the stereotype of the Kpop industry being extremely manufactured, with idols being some sort of attractive robots with little creativity, and autonomy. In a way, fans brag that idols are involved until they don’t want to.
I hope people would appreciate more the work of these artists that are behind the scenes, and that are actively working WITH the idols. It’s cool to see how much Law Roach (stylist) is appreciated by Zendaya and her public for example.
Source :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P8Nc7t1aIU
https://www.kbizoom.com/red-velvets-wendy-addresses-fan-protests-no-more-trucks-we-can-handle-it/

My family and I travelled from Toronto, Canada to Japan and Korea during April 10th to April 24th. We spent 5 days in Tokyo, 2 days in Osaka, 2 days in Kyoto, 3 days in Seoul and a final night in Tokyo before flying back to Toronto. My kids are 4/5F(her birthday was while we were there) and 3M. Wife and I are 38F and 37M respectively.
April 10th/11th:
-Our flight was in an Air Canada 787 that was absolutely packed. I would not recommend a flight this long in economy with kids. Save up for premium economy or business class for your own sanity.
-Taxi from Haneda to hotel was worth every cent. We checked into the Cerulean Tower Tokyu Hotel. Highly recommended and it was perfect for us. It is a 5 minute walk to Shibuya scramble and station.
-Went out for a quick walk before getting to bed. Shibuya scramble is wild at night. We had MOS burger for dinner and the tried acclaimed shrimp burger... it was okay. We definitely didn't look for any more MOS burger locations for the rest of the trip.
April 12th
-First day was tough with jetlag; I woke up at 4 AM, along with my 3 year old son.
-Tried family mart egg sandwich and tuna and mayo onigiri... the eggs sandwhiches live up to the hype (particularly Family Marts) and for me, it was the start of a daily addicition with the onigiri. Quick note for the jetlagged- Combinis do not restock sandwhiches and other food until 6AM.
-Went to Sensoji. It was absolutely stunning, especially with the Cherry blossoms in bloom. Kids loved the fish in the gardens, though not much else. We tried the viral fruit candy and it was definitely worth the hype. There were a lot of influencers and content creators clogging up the central alley in front of Sensoji.
-We then took the Tobu train to Tokyo Skytree, pretty cool and a nice place to catch your breath and enjoy some views. Kids were way too tired for the aquarium. There was a food court in the basement of the Sky Tree building with some absolutely killer udon and banana ice cream.
-train back to hotel to rest.
-went to Rappongi Hills and Mohri gardens for an evening stroll, we walked down Sakurazaka to see the cherry blossoms. On Sakurazaka, there was a pretty cool little park for the kids to play for a few minutes.
-had shake shack and taxi back to hotel.
April 13th
Trip to Mt Fuji
-Went from Shibuya to Shinjuku by local train.
-Tried to take the bus to Fuji, but it booked for three hours - and we would have lost some prime Fuji viewing time.
-We took the express train to Otsuki. Extremely busy and no reserved seats available. Absolutely sucked riding on the floor for a few hours. There was a wait to see the Chureito Pagoda that was nearly 2 hours in uncovered heat and dust. Met some cool people in line though. Kids had fun looking at the lizards running around.
-took the train back to Tokyo with the same issues; this time the train was even more packed and there wasn't even space on the floor between the cars to sit for much of it. Would plan this out better, but it was the middle of Cherry Blossom season, plus it was an exceptionally clear day, so we didn't have too many options.
April 14th
-Went to TeamLabs Borderless. The whole family absolutely loved it and it was a great way to start the morning. My only piece of advice would be to ensure you are wearing either shorts or pants that can roll up above your knees. My kids especially loved the water part and the large balls, where my son in particular loved tossing the balls around.
We then went over to Shinjuku to the rest of the day with my wife's family at Shinjuku Goeyn Park who happen to live in Tokyo. Some obervations about the park: - Extremely busy - very beautiful with Cherry Blossoms - Nice day and was very warm - no drinking in the park and we ended up with a few bottles of Kirin that we had to carry back to the hotel
April 15th
Trip to Tokyo Disneyland
-Moved hotels to Grand Nikko Mahaima hotel next to Tokyo Disneyland.
-Nice hotel with beautiful lobby and free shuttle bus to Maihama Station that connects to the entrance of Tokyo Disney.
-Tokyo Disney was pretty busy, most rides had a wait time of 10-30 minutes.
-Paid for DPA on the Beauty of the Beast ride that was incredible. Absolute Must see Attraction. My daughter is still talking about it and the "real magic" she saw.
-I wouldn't recommend Tokyo Disneyland to anyone under the age of 20. My kids didn't really care about the characters or rides, and my daughter in particular was very sad that she didn't get to meet Elsa or any of the newer Disney princesses. I would suggest skipping Tokyo Disneyland and heading to Tokyo Disney Sea instead if you have younger kids.
-Sent baggage from Hotel Lobbey to our hotel in Osaka via Sagawa. I later found out that they wrapped the luggage in plastic, which was a nice little surprise.
April 16th
Heading out to Osaka
-Took train from Maihama to Shin Tokyo.
-Shin Tokyo to Shin Osaka took around 2 1-2 hours via Shinkansen.
-Dont buy extra tickets for young kids, as there's plenty of seating typically on this route and it isn't really required.
-Ended up spending way too much at the E-cute in Shin Tokyo, which is something similar to a Mercato Centrale or St Lawrence market in Toronto.
-Checked in to Hotel Keihan. Pretty nice, but rooms are small and the check in process was automated. It was about a 10 minute walk from Namba Station.
-Went to Dotanburi and the Namba shopping area. Bought some stuff from Gu and Uniqlo - about 40% cheaper than Canada.
-Onitsuka store was very over priced and the Mizuno store was sold out of what I wanted.
-Wife bought some skin care items from a pharmacy.
-Kids absolutely hated how packed the area around Dotunburi was, but were fine after some McDonalds. Wife and I had some Takoyaki and various other street foods for dinner.
April 17th
Trip to Osaka Castle
-had Komeda coffee for breakfast. It was okay about 6.5/10. Good coffee continues to elude me in Japan.
-took taxi to Osaka Castle
-buy ticket in advance, the line up for general admission was 30 minutes in uncovered heat.
-Castle was fairly interesting, kids found it a bit boring and the souvenir shop was fairly priced. My son was not allowed to try on the Samurai helmet and sword, which I found fairly irritating. No explanation was provided as to why.
-took train to Nara park to feed deer
-some deer were extremely friendly, but a couple were very aggressive and bit my wife around her hip. A couple of the more "wild" ones became aggressive with my daughter and wife. I had to lure them away with an entire packet of crackers. Despite the aggression from a few of the deers, it was a great experience and I would recommend every one check out Nara park. The pagoda and temples were all under constructions at the time I was there.
-There was a little alley next to the train station and we ended up going to Gyukatsu Kyoto Katsugyu. Incredible food andreally great service. I saw this restaurant in Tokyo with absolutely gigantic lines, so it was a breath of fresh air to be able to just walk in somewhere with out booking in advance or waiting in line.
-rapid express train back to Osaka Namba followed by a junk food party with the kids (by this point in the trip, they had become obsessed with Family Mart).
-tried using laundry at the hotel. It was a combo washer and dryer. It took two hours and cost 600 yen; ultimately did not dry my clothes and I had to hang everything up in the room.
April 18th
Off to Kyoto
-took the rapid express train from Namba station to Kyoto station
-checked in Tennen Onsen Renka no Yu Onyado Nono Kyoto Shichijo. Kids absolutely loved the fact there were PJs and you had to take your shoes off.
-The whole family desperately needed a rest day and the onsen was welcome. Felt amazing after some time there and the kids also enjoyed it. There was unlimited ice cream in the cool down room, which was a huge hit.
-Went to Isetan for a cake to celebrate my daughter's birthday. The Isetan in Kyoto station was the only place where I felt I was being scammed in all of Japan. They were trying to charge me double the listed price for 4 pieces of cake. It might have been a mistake, but I had to type out the correct pricing on Google translate about 4 times before they agreed.
April 19th
-Went to Yasaka Pagoda and then to Kiyomizu Dera. Crowds weren't that bad and it was extremely beautiful. By this time in our trip, the cherry blossoms had more or less disappeared.
-We were quite bored of Japanese food by now and I found a Turkish doner stand in Nagakyo market. Kids has Wendys.
-There was also a Shoei design studio near this market and if you are interested in buying a motorcycle helmet, this store is a definite visit. Also went by the Grand Seiko boutique in my search for a limited edition SLGA007 Lake Suwa, but they didn't have it. Second choice was a SLGH005 White Birch, which they did have but weren't willing to give me a 5% discount that other retailers were willing to give me.
-back to hotel to enjoy more of the onsen. Kids became obssessed with the onsen and are still talking about it.
-went to Kyoto Tower Sando for dinner where we tried a few different places.
April 20th
Flight to Seoul
-Took the train from Kyoto Station to Shin Osaka, from Shin Osaka directly to Kansei International. Different rapid express limited ticket required and but we had to run from platform 3 to 6 at Shin Osaka so we didn't have time to buy it before boarding. You can buy it onboard from the fare inspector.
-Flying Air Busan to Seoul. It was undoubtedly a LCC. Flight was completely packed but they were generous with our luggage weight and the customs and security was an absolute breeze at KIX.
-Went to the Kansei North Lounge next to Gate 18 using Dragon Pass. They had a couple of hot plate items, sweets, cereals and drinks including a very cool beer pouring machine. There were only 3 or 4 other people in there and it was very nice to get away from the noise. Clean toilets and there's a mono rail shuttle to take you to Gates 1-14 once you finish up. I quickly bought two esims from Ubigi which costs $9 for 3GB of data (I only used 4 GB for th 9 days I have been in Japan thus far).
-Landing at Incheon was tough. Absolutely monster line at customs, the likes of which I've only ever seen at Istanbul International before. It took about an hour and a half, and the customs officers were constantly in a shouting battle with the Vietnamese and Chinese tourists. Very poor air conditioning and the heat was making everyone miserable.
-We checked into Hotel Skypark Kingstown Dongdaemun. It was all right...there was a very strange grape smell being pumped in to the hotel and hallways. The rooms were extremely large compared to the rooms I had been staying in Japan.
-Taxi service was available outside of the baggage claim and there were plenty available.
-Had Korean BBQ in Dongdaemun and went to sleep.
April 21st
-Next day went to Bonchok village. It was pretty interesting and worth a visit. There were many tourists with kimono Hanbok rentals taking pictures. Tons of cool coffee spots on the way as well. I would say the coffee shops in Seoul are definitely the best thing about it.
-went back to Hotel to rest
-went out to Myeongdong night market. It was packed and there were a huge amount of street vendors, clothing stores and skin care retailers. Kids had a lot of fun and my son ate at 5-6 different vendors. My wife went to a lot different skin care retailers, but ultimately just ended up going to Olive Young.
April 22nd
Third day in Seoul
-Went to Gyeongbokgung palace and museum. Very beautiful place to let the kids play and enjoy the sights. There aren't many historical things due to Korea's history of occupation. Worth a visit though.
-My wife really wanted to see the Starfield COEX library and mall. The mall was okay, had a pretty nice food court with a lot of different options. The library was really cool - definitely something I haven't seen before. The books are obviously mostly Korean, so it's a place you visit for aesthetics more than anything else.
-wife was craving more shake shack and it was right next to our hotel. Tried a couple of the local items. Absolutely hated the fact that there are no washrooms in restaurants.
-walked around the Dongdamaun neighborhood and then went to sleep.
April 23rd
Back to Tokyo
-took a taxi back to Incheon for our flight from Seoul to Tokyo with Zip Air
-absolutely breezed through security and immigration because of a sticker the Zip Air agent put on our passports.
-i went for the tax refund ($20 USD lol) while my wife bought some sunglasses from the Hyundai duty free.
-Went to the Sky Hub lounge at Incheon. It was all right, the front desk was being annoying with using Amex, so I had to use some Dragonpass visits I had saved up. Food was pretty good for a lounge that isn't exclusive to 1st/Business class travelers.
-Zip Air was fantastic. Used a 787-8 and I have never before seen such clean washrooms on a plane before. Seats were extremely comfortable as well in economy. Free wifi was available.
-Landing in Narita was a bit of an eye raise taxi wise - they were charging 32000 yen for a taxi to Ginza. Absolutely a massive difference compared to Haneda. For this reason alone I would never recommend flying into NRT over HND. We opted for Low Cost Bus for 3900 yen than would take us to Ginza station followed by a taxi to our hotel (8000 yen).
-Checked in to KOKO HOTEL Tsukiji Ginza. It was definitely more Tsukiji than Ginza. Decent hotel for the price and we were only staying there for one night.
-Went to Tsukiji Sushiko for our last dinner in Japan. Very local spot, with great service and absolutely incredible sushi.
-hit up Family Mart one last time
*April 24th*
-Flight was later in the day, so we decided to head to Ginza Six and Mitsukoshi for my ever elusive GS. By this point, I had decided to go with the hi-beat White Birch. There was nothing of interest at Ginza Six, so went to the GS Wako Boutique. I wanted the 5% discount on top of the 10% VAT refund, so I walked over to Mitsukoshi across the street and bought the White Birch.
-Went to a small stationary store across the street from Mitsukoshi to buy some more presents for people back home
-Headed over the Haneda. Went a little crazy at the Duty Free and Gift shops. Wife picked up more skincare stuff.
-Flight was Air Canada AC02. Just as packed as the flight on the way in, got through the 13 hours. Once again, do not recommend if you can afford Premium or Business class.

Listing a summary of crimes 🥷 commited by these spawns of darkness 💀⬛!
Taliscafanboi 🐍 - Since day 1️⃣ of our club (aka January first 2023 🤯), this LATINX 🇦🇷 boi was leading a rebellion 🔥✊ trying to divide our PRISTINE ✨ fanbase to worshipp the EVIL Talisnake 🐍👹! Day after day 🗓️, he was harassing us with his borderline SEXUAL 🤤 obsession to prove why his finished IDOL 😞 should be awarded 🥇the holy title of the CAMEL 🐪! At one point, things looked to get better 🙃 when this false Imam was banned 🚫 for posting Pionel Pessis BOOTY 🍑🔥 but unfortunately he has reincarnated again 😭!
ronaldo - This ABSOLUTELY HARAM 🤢 cult is leeching 🩸🦇 of our reputation by claiming to be "True Pristiano 🐪 fans" 😂! The truth is ☝️🤓, they are Pionels 🐭 dickriders 🍆 (a very small 🤏 cack mind you) whos only talent is posting extremely unfunny 🤡 posts! They appear to be led by a GAY 🏳️‍🌈 couple Digitalage and Timberland 🤯🤯🤯 who are very CRAZY 🤪, TWISTED 👹 and CREEPY 👻! Some of our most trusted followers 🙏🙏🙏 were even brainwashed 🧠🫧 into becoming Pessians 🫴🐁✨😍! What triggers me 😡 most is that they didn't even name themselves "onaldo" now that's HARAM 🤮!
Majeed AbuDhabi aka the "🦖" - This monday loving INFIDEL 😡 is trying to force us to celebrate him every monday 😭! Appears to be very JEALOUS 😏 of out Prister 🐪❤️ for taking away all his relevancy! Instead of gracefully 😇 retiring and accepting that the dinosaur 🦖 age has passed, him and his cultists regularly assault 💥✊ our Sub with self proclaimed "Majeed Mondays"! Leader of this evil group is currently not known but I am suspecting 🤔 it could be someone from mods 🤯 since there is a horifying TAG entirely dedicated to false lord! Majeed 🦖, you used to be inspiration for people 🧍🧍🧍 of desert 🏜️ you were supposed to defeat the SHIA 🇮🇷 not join them 😭!
Wendy Will (sucks) - This legend just manifested 👻 here one day telling us that we will all die ☠️ in TEN DAYS ⏳1️⃣0️⃣🤯! This were the darkest moments of our sub 😣! Many have perished in these following days out of SHEER FEAR 😨!!!! Even I myself 👉😏👈 have been pissing 💦 and shitting 💩 my pants all day non-stop!!! I kept seeing Wendy Will outside my window 🪟 every day, each time there were more dead people 💀💀💀 around my backyard! Luckily after 10 days, our sub was alive and well but we BARELY survived tho 🙃! I guess Wendy Will sucks at his job or something idk....maybe if he said 9 or 11 days instead we would have perished 🔥! Still by far one of most DANGEROUS evils 😈 we faced!
And there you go, I listed all four horsemen of NASSRICALIPSE 🔥🟡🔵🔥!
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So, we've been having issues with my Uncle Jerry's (fake name) wife for years now, when they first got together, she seemed lovely, and we did our best to make her feel welcome and included, she's Korean, we're Australian. They seemed happy, they had a child, Ben (fake name), things seemed good. Fast forward some years (I don't know the exact timeline) and there's issues, she stops coming to events and family gatherings that aren't Christmas, Easter, or grandparents birthdays, citing being busy at church, no matter what day the invitation is for.
At some point, she stopped talking to Jerry altogether, he says she'd only ever make dinner for herself and Ben, and really only talked to him to tell him off for buying Ben too much Maccas. I saw it when they were at my place, he'd have Ben ask/tell her when they were staying the night, either because he'd had a couple too many drinks with my dad (this isn't the norm, we'd see them maybe once a month) or because they had plans our way the next day (we live over an hour from them in the neighbouring city).
She started causing major issues a couple years back, around when my uncle (oldest on my dads side) died. I don't know the specifics, but it became known that she believed he and his family, and my second oldest uncle too, weren't real family because they were adopted after my grandparents were told they couldn't have kids (they then they had 6). She believes that Jerry, as the oldest birth-son, should inheret everything. Apparently this is a common belief in Korea, and apparently when her dad died, her brother took her and her sisters to an attorney to have them sign away all rights to their inheritance, in spite of their parents wishes to break that particular tradition. That is also when she started talking to Jerry again, supposedly realising she'd have nothing if he divorced her (she has 5 uni degrees but refuses to work).
Anyway, this caused a major rift with my Uncle's family and her, especially after he passed away from cancer. Then last year my brother got married, and she wasn't invited, because we wanted the aunt and cousins who we'd known our whole lives to be comfortable enough to come, over the woman we'd known for maybe 14 years, seen only a handful of times in the past 10, who didn't think of them as family. Well, she wrote a big, seemingly heartfelt, apology, but my cousin wasn't having it, and accused her of only apologising to come to the wedding. It was a big mess in the family group chat, things were heated, my parents and another aunt, Wendy, stayed out of it, and that leads to the more recent events.
So over the past year, mum, dad and Wendy have sent messages to her, happy birthdays, events and ideas for her son, invites to dinner, and they've never gotten any replies from her. Saturday night my grandfather passed away, he'd been in hospital for a week, we and many of our family spent those last 3 days in the hospital, talking to Pa, supporting each other, but she never came. Sunday, my parents were leaving Nana's place, when she and Jerry arrived. Dad went to give her a hug, because that's what you do when someone's died and everyone's grieving, but he said she side-stepped him and completely ignored him. My parents then drove to where my sister was having her engagement party, and he couldn't get out of the car because he completely broke down. I arrived with a friend about the same time mum walked up, I asked where dad was and she said 'he's crying in the car because of that -female canine-'. She almost never swears, but I immediately realised who she was speaking about. Eventually dad joined the party, and he's glad he did because some of his friends and mum's brother were there to talk to.
Today I learned what happened at Nana's place after my parents left, Wendy was there, and she completely ignored her too, soon leaving the room. Jerry eventually opened up to his mum and sister, talking about how hard an inter-racial marriage was with the differing traditions and beliefs, and when he decided to see where she'd gotten to, he found she'd left and gotten an uber home, despite living over an hour and a half away. He told my dad they'd argued the whole way there, and the only reason he'd stayed with her till now was because of Ben. He is understandably upset and angry over her actions, and said he's seriously considering divorce. He said she blames mum, dad and Wendy for not defending her when the various arguments happened, even though she was very in the wrong, and that's why she's completely ignored them for over a year.
So what's been an extremely difficult week, has been made even moreso by a selfish woman who plays the victim when she seriously hurt others with her garbage opinions.
Other things:
She and Jerry got married at my parents house, her mum told her she should have been marrying my dad because he was clearly the richer brother based on the house. My other Korean aunt (mum's side) told us, as she was the translator for her parents.
At every family gathering, the first thing she would ask me, my siblings, and the younger of my cousins, was if we'd said hello to Ben yet, she'd look offended if we hadn't, even if we hadn't even seen him yet.
Ben, who is 11 years old and in grade 7, has had tutors taking up most of his spare time for the past 3 years, because he's not at the top of his class. He is a smart kid, but obviously not smart enough for her liking. This is the kind of behaviour that reinforces those stereotypes.
She 'hired' me for a month when she had 4 girls from Korea, 12 and 13 year olds, staying with her for 'cultural enrichment'. Twice a week I'd teach them 'casual English', and about how things work in Australia, like posting a letter, or ordering at the deli counter, also some crafts, and cooking. I enjoyed working with the girls, but I was definitely getting ripped off, $150-odd a day with lunch, but I had to pay my own travel, bring my own craft supplies, write a lesson plan based on her outlines that she could send back to their parents, write a lesson review at the end of the day, and she'd get upset that I was a slow type. Jerry told my parents she was getting a lot of money from the girls parents to keep them, but he didn't know exactly how much as this was when she wasn't talking to him.
Overall, she and my other Korean aunt (that's not a story I wish to share), have not been good examples of Korean women, and I really hope they are not typical members of their societies :P
But yeah, it's been an extremely tough, heartbreaking week, and I really just needed to vent about this somewhere, because I hate seeing my dad so crushed by something that wouldn't have happened if she'd had even an ounce of empathy.

So, we've been having issues with my Uncle Jerry's (fake name) wife for years now, when they first got together, she seemed lovely, and we did our best to make her feel welcome and included, she's Korean, we're Australian. They seemed happy, they had a child, Ben (fake name), things seemed good. Fast forward some years (I don't know the exact timeline) and there's issues, she stops coming to events and family gatherings that aren't Christmas, Easter, or grandparents birthdays, citing being busy at church, no matter what day the invitation is for.
At some point, she stopped talking to Jerry altogether, he says she'd only ever make dinner for herself and Ben, and really only talked to him to tell him off for buying Ben too much Maccas. I saw it when they were at my place, he'd have Ben ask/tell her when they were staying the night, either because he'd had a couple too many drinks with my dad (this isn't the norm, we'd see them maybe once a month) or because they had plans our way the next day (we live over an hour from them in the neighbouring city).
She started causing major issues a couple years back, around when my uncle (oldest on my dads side) died. I don't know the specifics, but it became known that she believed he and his family, and my second oldest uncle too, weren't real family because they were adopted after my grandparents were told they couldn't have kids (they then they had 6). She believes that Jerry, as the oldest birth-son, should inheret everything. Apparently this is a common belief in Korea, and apparently when her dad died, her brother took her and her sisters to an attorney to have them sign away all rights to their inheritance, in spite of their parents wishes to break that particular tradition. That is also when she started talking to Jerry again, supposedly realising she'd have nothing if he divorced her (she has 5 uni degrees but refuses to work).
Anyway, this caused a major rift with my Uncle's family and her, especially after he passed away from cancer. Then last year my brother got married, and she wasn't invited, because we wanted the aunt and cousins who we'd known our whole lives to be comfortable enough to come, over the woman we'd known for maybe 14 years, seen only a handful of times in the past 10, who didn't think of them as family. Well, she wrote a big, seemingly heartfelt, apology, but my cousin wasn't having it, and accused her of only apologising to come to the wedding. It was a big mess in the family group chat, things were heated, my parents and another aunt, Wendy, stayed out of it, and that leads to the more recent events.
So over the past year, mum, dad and Wendy have sent messages to her, happy birthdays, events and ideas for her son, invites to dinner, and they've never gotten any replies from her. Saturday night my grandfather passed away, he'd been in hospital for a week, we and many of our family spent those last 3 days in the hospital, talking to Pa, supporting each other, but she never came. Sunday, my parents were leaving Nana's place, when she and Jerry arrived. Dad went to give her a hug, because that's what you do when someone's died and everyone's grieving, but he said she side-stepped him and completely ignored him. My parents then drove to where my sister was having her engagement party, and he couldn't get out of the car because he completely broke down. I arrived with a friend about the same time mum walked up, I asked where dad was and she said 'he's crying in the car because of that bitch'. She almost never swears, but I immediately realised who she was speaking about. Eventually dad joined the party, and he's glad he did because some of his friends and mum's brother were there to talk to.
Today I learned what happened at Nana's place after my parents left, Wendy was there, and she completely ignored her too, soon leaving the room. Jerry eventually opened up to his mum and sister, talking about how hard an inter-racial marriage was with the differing traditions and beliefs, and when he decided to see where she'd gotten to, he found she'd left and gotten an uber home, despite living over an hour and a half away. He told my dad they'd argued the whole way there, and the only reason he'd stayed with her till now was because of Ben. He is understandably upset and angry over her actions, and said he's seriously considering divorce. He said she blames mum, dad and Wendy for not defending her when the various arguments happened, even though she was very in the wrong, and that's why she's completely ignored them for over a year.
So what's been an extremely difficult week, has been made even moreso by a selfish woman who plays the victim when she seriously hurt others with her garbage opinions.
Other things:
She and Jerry got married at my parents house, her mum told her she should have been marrying my dad because he was clearly the richer brother based on the house. My other Korean aunt (mum's side) told us, as she was the translator for her parents.
At every family gathering, the first thing she would ask me, my siblings, and the younger of my cousins, was if we'd said hello to Ben yet, she'd look offended if we hadn't, even if we hadn't even seen him yet.
Ben, who is 11 years old and in grade 7, has had tutors taking up most of his spare time for the past 3 years, because he's not at the top of his class. He is a smart kid, but obviously not smart enough for her liking. This is the kind of behaviour that reinforces those stereotypes.
She 'hired' me for a month when she had 4 girls from Korea, 12 and 13 year olds, staying with her for 'cultural enrichment'. Twice a week I'd teach them 'casual English', and about how things work in Australia, like posting a letter, or ordering at the deli counter, also some crafts, and cooking. I enjoyed working with the girls, but I was definitely getting ripped off, $150-odd a day with lunch, but I had to pay my own travel, bring my own craft supplies, write a lesson plan based on her outlines that she could send back to their parents, write a lesson review at the end of the day, and she'd get upset that I was a slow type. Jerry told my parents she was getting a lot of money from the girls parents to keep them, but he didn't know exactly how much as this was when she wasn't talking to him.
Overall, she and my other Korean aunt (that's not a story I wish to share), have not been good examples of Korean women, and I really hope they are not typical members of their societies :P
But yeah, it's been an extremely tough, heartbreaking week, and I really just needed to vent about this, because I hate seeing my dad so crushed by something that wouldn't have happened if she'd had even an ounce of empathy.

So, we've been having issues with my Uncle Jerry's (fake name) wife for years now, when they first got together, she seemed lovely, and we did our best to make her feel welcome and included, she's Korean, we're Australian. They seemed happy, they had a child, Ben (fake name), things seemed good. Fast forward some years (I don't know the exact timeline) and there's issues, she stops coming to events and family gatherings that aren't Christmas, Easter, or grandparents birthdays, citing being busy at church, no matter what day the invitation is for.
At some point, she stopped talking to Jerry altogether, he says she'd only ever make dinner for herself and Ben, and really only talked to him to tell him off for buying Ben too much Maccas. I saw it when they were at my place, he'd have Ben ask/tell her when they were staying the night, either because he'd had a couple too many drinks with my dad (this isn't the norm, we'd see them maybe once a month) or because they had plans our way the next day (we live over an hour from them in the neighbouring city).
She started causing major issues a couple years back, around when my uncle (oldest on my dads side) died. I don't know the specifics, but it became known that she believed he and his family, and my second oldest uncle too, weren't real family because they were adopted after my grandparents were told they couldn't have kids (they then they had 6). She believes that Jerry, as the oldest birth-son, should inheret everything. Apparently this is a common belief in Korea, and apparently when her dad died, her brother took her and her sisters to an attorney to have them sign away all rights to their inheritance, in spite of their parents wishes to break that particular tradition. That is also when she started talking to Jerry again, supposedly realising she'd have nothing if he divorced her (she has 5 uni degrees but refuses to work).
Anyway, this caused a major rift with my Uncle's family and her, especially after he passed away from cancer. Then last year my brother got married, and she wasn't invited, because we wanted the aunt and cousins who we'd known our whole lives to be comfortable enough to come, over the woman we'd known for maybe 14 years, seen only a handful of times in the past 10, who didn't think of them as family. Well, she wrote a big, seemingly heartfelt, apology, but my cousin wasn't having it, and accused her of only apologising to come to the wedding. It was a big mess in the family group chat, things were heated, my parents and another aunt, Wendy, stayed out of it, and that leads to the more recent events.
So over the past year, mum, dad and Wendy have sent messages to her, happy birthdays, events and ideas for her son, invites to dinner, and they've never gotten any replies from her. Saturday night my grandfather passed away, he'd been in hospital for a week, we and many of our family spent those last 3 days in the hospital, talking to Pa, supporting each other, but she never came. Sunday, my parents were leaving Nana's place, when she and Jerry arrived. Dad went to give her a hug, because that's what you do when someone's died and everyone's grieving, but he said she side-stepped him and completely ignored him. My parents then drove to where my sister was having her engagement party, and he couldn't get out of the car because he completely broke down. I arrived with a friend about the same time mum walked up, I asked where dad was and she said 'he's crying in the car because of that bitch'. She almost never swears, but I immediately realised who she was speaking about. Eventually dad joined the party, and he's glad he did because some of his friends and mum's brother were there to talk to.
Today I learned what happened at Nana's place after my parents left, Wendy was there, and she completely ignored her too, soon leaving the room. Jerry eventually opened up to his mum and sister, talking about how hard an inter-racial marriage was with the differing traditions and beliefs, and when he decided to see where she'd gotten to, he found she'd left and gotten an uber home, despite living over an hour and a half away. He told my dad they'd argued the whole way there, and the only reason he'd stayed with her till now was because of Ben. He is understandably upset and angry over her actions, and said he's seriously considering divorce. He said she blames mum, dad and Wendy for not defending her when the various arguments happened, even though she was very in the wrong, and that's why she's completely ignored them for over a year.
So what's been an extremely difficult week, has been made even moreso by a selfish woman who plays the victim when she seriously hurt others with her garbage opinions.
Other things:
She and Jerry got married at my parents house, her mum told her she should have been marrying my dad because he was clearly the richer brother based on the house. My other Korean aunt (mum's side) told us, as she was the translator for her parents.
At every family gathering, the first thing she would ask me, my siblings, and the younger of my cousins, was if we'd said hello to Ben yet, she'd look offended if we hadn't, even if we hadn't even seen him yet.
Ben, who is 11 years old and in grade 7, has had tutors taking up most of his spare time for the past 3 years, because he's not at the top of his class. He is a smart kid, but obviously not smart enough for her liking. This is the kind of behaviour that reinforces those stereotypes.
She 'hired' me for a month when she had 4 girls from Korea, 12 and 13 year olds, staying with her for 'cultural enrichment'. Twice a week I'd teach them 'casual English', and about how things work in Australia, like posting a letter, or ordering at the deli counter, also some crafts, and cooking. I enjoyed working with the girls, but I was definitely getting ripped off, $150-odd a day with lunch, but I had to pay my own travel, bring my own craft supplies, write a lesson plan based on her outlines that she could send back to their parents, write a lesson review at the end of the day, and she'd get upset that I was a slow type. Jerry told my parents she was getting a lot of money from the girls parents to keep them, but he didn't know exactly how much as this was when she wasn't talking to him.
Overall, she and my other Korean aunt (that's not a story I wish to share), have not been good examples of Korean women, and I really hope they are not typical members of their societies :P
But yeah, it's been an extremely tough, heartbreaking week, and I really just needed to vent about this somewhere, because I hate seeing my dad so crushed by something that wouldn't have happened if she'd had even an ounce of empathy.

Megapost: A list of statements, press releases, and other sources reporting and expressing concern and criticism about Israel's war in Gaza and related aspects of the war. (Part 2)

Notes: This is a work that is currently in progress; please check back for updates. Titles have been edited to provide details.
Part 1 is here: https://www.reddit.com/Social_Democracy/comments/1clx1uc/megapost_a_list_of_statements_press_releases_and/
Part 3 is here: https://www.reddit.com/Social_Democracy/comments/1coups2/megapost_a_list_of_statements_press_releases_and/
Part 4 is here: https://www.reddit.com/Social_Democracy/comments/1crvrde/megapost_a_list_of_statements_press_releases_and/
Cori Bush: Calls for Ceasefire Grow in Month Following Introduction of Ceasefire Now Resolution ["A growing coalition of over 100 organizations has also endorsed H.Res 786, the Ceasefire Now Resolution. Endorsing organizations include: 350.org, About Face: Veterans Against the War, ActionAid USA, Action Center on Race & the Economy, Adalah Justice Project, American Center for Justice, American Federation of Ramallah, Palestine (AFRP), American Muslims for Palestine, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Americans for Justice in Palestine Action, Amnesty International, Arab American Civil Rights League (ACRL), Arab American Institute, Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC), Avaaz, Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC), Center for Constitutional Rights, Center for Jewish Nonviolence, Center for Popular Democracy Action, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Churches for Middle East Peace, Common Defense, Communities United for Status & Protection (CUSP), Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), Defense for Children International - Palestine, Demand Progress Action, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), Democratic Socialists of America, Detroit Action, Dream Defenders, Emgage Action, Freedom Forward, Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), Gen Z For Change, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Highlander Research & Education, Hindus for Human Rights, The House of the Lord Churches, IfNotNow, Institute for Middle Eastern Understanding (IMEU), International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), IRAP Osgoode Hall Law School, IRAP Rutgers, IRAP UVA Law, IRAP University of Virginia School of Law Chapter, IRAP The George Washington Law School Chapter, Institute for Policy Studies New Internationalism Project, International Refugee Assistance Project at Berkeley Law, Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis, The Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development, Jewish Voice for Peace Action, Just Foreign Policy, Justice Is Global, Leadership Conference of Women Religious, MADRE, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Michigan United, Migrant Roots Media, Movement for Black Lives, Movement Law Lab, Movement Generation, MoveOn, MPower Change Action Fund, Muslim Advocates, Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), Muslims for Progress, National Campaign for Human Dignity, National Domestic Workers Alliance, National Iranian American Council Action, National Lawyers Guild, Detroit & Michigan Chapter, National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC), NYC-DSA, Pax Christi USA, Peace Action, Peace Action Montgomery, Peace, Justice Sustainability NOW!, Progressive Democrats of America, Progressive Jews of St. Louis (ProJoSTL), Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED), Project48, Rainbow PUSH Coalition, Refugee Council USA, ReThinking Foreign Policy, Rising Majority, RootsAction.org, Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas Institute Justice Team, Southeast Asian Freedom Network, Sunrise Movement, Transgender Law Center, UndocuBlack Network, Union of Palestinian American Women, Unitarian Universalist Association, United Church of Christ, United We Dream Network, Until Freedom, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), US Council for Muslim Organizations, Vietlead, Women Cross DMZ, Women for Weapons Trade Transparency, Working Families Party, Zero Hour."] (November 17, 2023): https://bush.house.gov/media/press-releases/calls-for-ceasefire-grow-in-month-following-introduction-of-ceasefire-now-resolution
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and Anglican Church of Canada: Church leaders urge Prime Minister Trudeau to call for a ceasefire and open corridor for humanitarian aid (November 17, 2023): https://www.anglicanlutheran.ca/statements/church-leaders-urge-prime-minister-trudeau-to-call-for-a-ceasefire-and-open-corridor-for-humanitarian-aid/
Jewish American Calls for a Ceasefire Highlight Divisions in the Community (November 17, 2023): https://time.com/6335528/jewish-american-ceasefire-progressive-jews/
Jews for Ceasefire holds demonstration outside Schwarzman, demands Yale divest from weapons manufacturing (November 17, 2023): https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2023/11/17/jews-for-ceasefire-holds-demonstration-outside-schwarzman-demands-yale-divest-from-weapons-manufacturing/
Josh Ruebner, adjunct professor in Justice and Peace Studies at Georgetown University: Israel is threatening a second Nakba — but it’s already happening (November 17, 2023): https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4313276-israel-is-threatening-a-second-nakba-but-its-already-happening/
I Am the Grandchild of Holocaust Survivors, and I Am Calling for Ceasefire Now (November 18, 2023): https://truthout.org/articles/i-am-the-grandchild-of-holocaust-survivors-and-i-am-calling-for-ceasefire-now/
Diseases spread in Gaza amid water and sewage crisis, cholera feared (November 19, 2023): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/19/diseases-spread-in-gaza-amid-water-and-sewage-crisis-cholera-feared
Association of Black Anthropologists Statement on Solidarity with Palestine (November 20, 2023): https://aba.americananthro.org/aba-statement-on-solidarity-with-palestine/
With the world’s eyes on Gaza, attacks are on the rise in the West Bank, which faces its own war (November 20, 2023): https://apnews.com/article/palestinians-israel-west-bank-war-gaza-hamas-settlers-army-raid-militants-c1386ab6a633971cc18b2497169210d3
Derek Duba: Army veterans like me know that 'war is hell.' Let's push for a ceasefire in Gaza (November 21, 2023): https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2023/11/21/gaza-ceasefire-only-way-forward-israel-palestine-veterans/71660423007/
Middle East Studies Association Board Letter to Biden Administration on Ceasefire in Gaza (November 21, 2023): https://mesana.org/advocacy/letters-from-the-board/2023/11/21/mesa-board-letter-to-biden-administration-on-ceasefire-in-gaza
This Union Is Famous for Opposing South African Apartheid. Now It’s Standing With Gaza. In 1984, ILWU Local 10 refused to unload goods shipped from South Africa. Today, it’s demanding a cease-fire. (November 21, 2023): https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/ilwu-unions-ceasefire-israel-gaza/
‘Not in my name’: Jews in UK take a stand against Israel’s Gaza assault (November 24, 2023): https://www.aa.com.ten/europe/-not-in-my-name-jews-in-uk-take-a-stand-against-israel-s-gaza-assault/3063568
British Sociological Association: Sociologists’ Letter on Gaza (November 27, 2023): https://es.britsoc.co.uk/sociologists-letter-on-gaza/
Changing course, Senator Peter Welch calls for ‘indefinite’ cease-fire in Gaza (November 28, 2023): https://vtdigger.org/2023/11/28/changing-course-peter-welch-calls-for-indefinite-ceasefire-in-gaza/
National Council of Churches in the Philippines: An Urgent Statement on the Situation in Gaza, Pray for Peace and Justice in Palestine and Israel (November 29, 2023): https://nccphilippines.org/2023/11/29/an-urgent-statement-on-the-situation-in-gaza-pray-for-peace-and-justice-in-palestine-and-israel/
Rae Abileah: Never Again means Never Again for Anyone, including Gazans (November 9, 2023): https://www.hmbreview.com/opinion/matters_of_opinion/never-again-means-never-again-for-anyone-including-gazans/article_a8447418-8ecb-11ee-8df5-4bb3d40e681a.html
Public Services International: International Trade Unions Urgently call for Ceasefire in Gaza amidst Ongoing Human Rights Violations (November 30, 2023): https://publicservices.international/resources/news/international-trade-unions-urgently-call-for-ceasefire-in-gaza-amidst-ongoing-human-rights-violations?id=14308⟨%3Den
Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez says he doubts Israel is respecting international law (November 30, 2023): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/30/spain-pm-pedro-sanchez-israel-hamas-terror-attacks-gaza
Open Letter from Professionals at Jewish Organizations to President Biden and Congress [850+ signatures] (December 2023): https://docs.google.com/document1/d/e/2PACX-1vQ1EFVMTDvaxvWXldzbZvr60BE5o3UQeU_WfiXX3ivcUVU1SAYU13wZsBhDVbmtbXmKejMNajY1xSQ1/pub
Bubba Fish, Culver County Democratic Club: A Jewish Case for an End to the War (December 1, 2023): https://www.c-c-d-c.com/a-jewish-case-for-an-end-to-the-wa
United Auto Workers Statement on Israel and Palestine (December 1, 2023): https://uaw.org/uaw-statement-israel-palestine/
Jane Fonda: "I join with millions of others in calling for —in the words of the UN Secretary General —‘a true humanitarian ceasefire’ in Gaza." (December 2, 2023): https://www.instagram.com/janefonda/p/C0XIXkUJhI1/
Daanish Faruqi: Israel is using the same tactics in Gaza that al-Assad employed in Syria (December 3, 2023): https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/12/3/israel-is-using-the-same-tactics-in-gaza-that-al-assad-employed-in-syria
Catholic Workers Speak Out for Ceasefire, Peace (December 4, 2023): https://catholicworker.org/cws-speak-out-for-ceasefire-peace/
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières: The US must call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza: An open letter to President Biden from MSF-USA executive director Avril Benoît (December 4, 2023): https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/us-must-call-immediate-ceasefire-gaza
Greta Thunberg and Fridays for Future Sweden activists Alde Nilsson, Jamie Mater, and Raquel Frescia: We won’t stop speaking out about Gaza’s suffering – there is no climate justice without human rights: Young climate activists haven’t ‘been radicalised’ – solidarity with marginalised people has always been at the heart of our message (December 5, 2023): https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/05/gaza-climate-justice-human-rights-greta-thunberg
National Union of Journalists condemns unprecedented death toll of journalists in Gaza (December 5, 2023): https://www.nuj.org.uk/resource/nuj-condemns-unprecedented-death-toll-of-journalists-in-gaza.html
‘These are very hard times’: Pastor of Gaza Catholic church gives update on Christians’ plight (December 6, 2023): https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/256192/these-are-very-hard-times-pastor-of-gaza-catholic-church-gives-update-on-christian-s-plight
Catholic progressives in Brazil call Gaza war a ‘true genocide’ (December 7, 2023): https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-americas/2023/12/catholic-progressives-in-brazil-call-gaza-war-a-true-genocide
Corporate Europe Observatory: Gaza: Ceasefire now (December 7, 2023): https://corporateeurope.org/en/2023/12/gaza-ceasefire-now
Faculty and staff members in American University’s School of International Service call for ceasefire in Gaza: “We now call on our governments and campuses to bravely Wage Peace instead.” (December 8, 2023): https://www.theeagleonline.com/article/2023/12/sis-staff-and-faculty-call-for-ceasefire-in-gaza & https://sites.google.com/student.american.edu/american-university/home
International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group statement: Canada Must Oppose Genocide in Gaza and Defend Free Expression at Home (December 8, 2023): https://iclmg.ca/canada-must-oppose-genocide/
Senator Bernie Sanders: AIPAC is a right-wing organization that supports extremist Republican election-denier candidates. Now, they want to spend $100 million to defeat Progressives. Whether AIPAC likes it or not, the U.S. must not give a blank check to Netanyahu’s horrific war policies. (December 10, 2023): https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1733932123357085759
Ahead of White House Hanukkah celebration, a wave of faith-led cease-fire demonstrations (December 11, 2023): https://religionnews.com/2023/12/11/jewish-christian-activists-head-up-another-wave-of-faith-led-cease-fire-demonstrations/
Letter: What 'pro-life' justification can Hoeven, Cramer and Armstrong offer for opposing a ceasefire? "Thousands of dead children in a few weeks seems like an obvious pro-life issue," writes Mercedes Saylor. (December 11, 2023): https://www.inforum.com/opinion/letters/letter-what-pro-life-justification-can-hoeven-cramer-and-armstrong-offer-for-opposing-a-ceasefire
International Federation for Human Rights (Fédération internationale des ligues des droits de l'homme): The unfolding genocide against the Palestinians must stop immediately (December 12, 2023): https://www.fidh.org/en/region/north-africa-middle-east/israel-palestine/the-unfolding-genocide-against-the-palestinians-must-stop-immediately
Exclusive: Nearly half of the Israeli munitions dropped on Gaza are imprecise ‘dumb bombs,’ US intelligence assessment finds (December 14, 2023): https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/13/politics/intelligence-assessment-dumb-bombs-israel-gaza/index.html
Los Angeles Times Editorial Board: U.S. should join the world’s nations in demanding a Gaza cease-fire (December 14, 2024): https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-12-14/gaza-ceasefire-israel-united-states-civilian-deaths
Unitarian Universalist Women's Federation: Statement on Gaza/Israeli conflict (December 13, 2023): https://www.uuwf.org/blog/13290680
1199SEIU, nation’s largest healthcare union, calls for Gaza ceasefire (December 15, 2023): https://www.1199seiu.org/media-cente1199seiu-nations-largest-healthcare-union-calls-gaza-ceasefire
A Long History of Antifascism Is Driving the Jewish Demand for Gaza Cease-Fire (December 15, 2023): https://inthesetimes.com/article/chanukah-jewish-antifascism-israel-palestine-jvp-ifnotnow-gaza-ceasefire
Senator Bernie Sanders Introduces Resolution to Investigate Israel’s Indiscriminate Bombing Campaign in Gaza (December 15, 2023): https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-introduces-resolution-to-investigate-israels-indiscriminate-bombing-campaign-in-gaza/
Union for Reform Judaism Alumni and Current Members for Ceasefire (December 16, 2023): https://urjceasefirenow.wordpress.com/2023/12/16/urj-alumni-and-current-members-for-ceasefire/
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ President Pleads for Peace as Innocent People are Killed in the Land of Jesus' Birth (December 16, 2023): https://www.usccb.org/news/2023/us-bishops-president-pleads-peace-innocent-people-are-killed-land-jesus-birth
Jews for Racial and Economic Justice: Stop the Bombs! Ceasefire Now! (December 18, 2023): https://www.jfrej.org/events/2023/12/stop-the-bombs-ceasefire-now
Nontombi Naomi Tutu and Nompumelelo (Mungi) Ngomane, respectively the daughter and granddaughter of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu: We have failed in the fight for justice — we need ceasefire in Gaza now (December 18, 2023): https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4365307-we-have-failed-in-the-fight-for-justice-we-need-ceasefire-in-gaza-now/
Representative Betty McCollum: AIPAC Dangerously Trafficking in Hate Speech Amid Israel-Gaza War (December 18, 2023): https://mccollum.house.gov/media/press-releases/mccollum-aipac-dangerously-trafficking-hate-speech-amid-israel-gaza-war
Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, United Auto Workers Local 2325: Resolution Calling for a Ceasefire in Gaza, an End to the Israeli Occupation of Palestine, and Support for Workers’ Political Speech (December 19, 2023): https://www.alaa.org/media-releases/resolution-calling-for-a-ceasefire-in-gaza-an-end-to-the-israeli-occupation-of-palestine-and-support-for-workers-political-speech
Joint Statement by Current and Former Australian Elected Representatives on the Situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories [300+ signatures] (December 19, 2023): https://apan.org.au/joint-statement/ & https://docs.google.com/document/d/182u4eJnJUZ_Uruf1GlchLnF8XotnpnAX/
Liberal International bureau supports humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza (December 19, 2023): https://liberal-international.org/news-articles/li-bureau-supports-humanitarian-ceasefire-in-gaza/
I’m a Palestinian Christian in Gaza. I want peace—for my homeland and my family. (December 20, 2023): https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/12/20/christian-gaza-wartime-church-community-246754
Israel Defense Forces and Yom Kippur War veteran from Woodstock urges ceasefire in Gaza [Israeli veteran Mark Hammel on Israel's war in Gaza: “It's an unmitigated horror story ... It's literally on the cusp of genocide."] (December 21, 2023): https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/news/2023/12/21/israel-defense-forces-veteran-from-woodstock-urges-ceasefire-in-gaza
Public Citizen Statement on the Violence in Gaza and Israel (December 21, 2023): https://www.citizen.org/news/statement-on-the-violence-in-gaza-and-israel/
Franciscans International: Amid rising death toll, Security Council must call for a ceasefire in Gaza (December 22, 2023): https://franciscansinternational.org/blog/amid-rising-death-toll-security-council-must-call-for-a-ceasefire-in-gaza/
Holy Land: Caritas Internationalis joins today’s Global Day of Action calling for a Ceasefire Now (December 22, 2023): https://www.caritas.org/2023/12/holy-land-caritas-internationalis-joins-todays-global-day-of-action-calling-for-a-ceasefire-now/ & https://www.change.org/p/sign-and-share-this-urgent-petition-calling-for-a-ceasefirenow-in-gaza-and-israel
Marianne Williamson on her US presidential campaign, the economy and Gaza: ‘The death of a Palestinian child is no less horrifying than the death of an Israeli child,’ author tells Al Jazeera. (December 22, 2023): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/22/marianne-williamson-on-her-us-presidential-campaign-the-economy-and-gaza
The Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association condemns the indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on Gaza and reiterates the call for an immediate ceasefire (December 22, 2023): https://www.ibanet.org/The-Human-Rights-Institute-of-the-IBA-condemns-the-indiscriminate-and-disproportionate-attacks-on-Gaza-and-reiterates-the-call-for-an-immediate-ceasefire
Who Is Funding Canary Mission? Inside the Doxxing Operation Targeting Anti-Zionist Students and Professors (December 22, 2023): https://www.thenation.com/article/world/canary-mission-israel-covert-operations/
Rebecca Alpert, Reconstructionist Rabbi and Professor Emerita of Religion at Temple University: “Ceasefire Now!” Means Peace for All and Justice for Palestinians (December 28, 2023): https://truthout.org/articles/ceasefire-now-means-peace-for-all-and-justice-for-palestinians/
Palestine: Intersectional Solidarity: Statements from Afghans, Iranians, Hongkongers, Tibetans, Kurds, Syrians, Taiwanese, Uyghurs, and Ukrainians (December 28, 2023): https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-palestine-intersectional-solidarity
Physicians for Social Responsibility: Urgent Call for Ceasefire and Humanitarian Aid in Gaza (December 28, 2023): https://psr.org/urgent-call-for-ceasefire-and-humanitarian-aid-in-gaza/
World Council of Churches calls for immediate end to brutal violence in Gaza (December 30, 2023): https://www.oikoumene.org/news/wcc-calls-for-immediate-end-to-brutal-violence-in-gaza
Database of Israeli Incitement to Genocide (January-February 2023): https://law4palestine.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Database-of-Israeli-Incitement-to-Genocide-including-after-ICJ-order-27th-February-2024-.pdf
Muslims for Progressive Values: Never Again? (January 4, 2024): https://www.mpvusa.org/blog/never-again
Social workers send letters from Gaza (January 4, 2024): https://reimaginingsocialwork.nz/2024/01/04/social-workers-send-letters-from-gaza/
Anti-Defamation League staff decry ‘dishonest’ campaign against Israel critics (January 5, 2024): https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/jan/05/adl-pro-israel-advocacy-zionism-antisemitism
"We Support South Africa's Genocide Convention Case Against Israel": Over 1,000 popular movements, political parties, unions, and other organizations call on states around the world to support South Africa's genocide case against Israel. [Including: Amazon Labor Union, USA; American Friends Service Committee - AFSC, USA; AFSCME Local 526, USA; Antipoverty Centre, Australia; Australian Unemployed Workers' Union; Black Workers for Justice (BWFJ), USA; Boycott from Within (Israeli citizens for BDS); Canadian Friends Service Committee, Canada; CGT - Confederación General del Trabajo, Spain; Church Women United in New York State, USA; Civil Engagement Group of Seanad Éireann (Senate of Ireland), Ireland; Coalition Against Fascism in India (International); CODEPINK, USA; Columbia Law Students for Palestine (CLSP), USA; Community Peacemaker Teams; Confederación Intersindical, Spain; CUNY for Palestine, USA; Defence for Children International; Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN); Democratic Socialists of America, USA; Egyptian Social Democratic Party, Egypt; Faculty for Justice in Palestine at Syracuse University, USA; GEO-UAW Local 2322, USA; GSOC-UAW Local 2110, USA; Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, London; Harvard Jews for Palestine, USA; Hindus for Human Rights, USA; International Peace Bureau (IPB), International; Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions USA; Jewish Voice for Labour (UK); La France Insoumise, France; Labour For Palestine - Canada; Labour International, UK; Landless Workers Movement MST, Brazil; Medical Association for Prevention of War, Australia; Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC), USA; Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance (MIRA), USA; National Lawyers Guild, USA; National Single Payer, USA; Nonviolence International; NYC City Workers for Palestine, USA; NYU Alumni for Palestine, USA; Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace, USA; Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, PGFTU, Palestine; Pax Christi Canada; Pax Christi USA; Physicians for Social Responsibility Kansas City (PSR-KC), USA; Physicians for Social Responsibility/Sacramento, USA; Progressive Democrats of America, Oregon Chapter, USA; Progressive International; Sarah Lawrence Faculty for Justice in Palestine; Scholars Against the War on Palestine, Canada/International; Science for the People - Canada; Science for the People, USA; Secours Catholique, France; Servicio Internacional Cristiano de Solidaridad con America Latina (SICSAL Mexico); Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Enseñanza de Cantabria (STEC), Spain; Sínodo Luterano Salvadoreño, El Salvador; Transnational Institute; Trinity Lutheran Church, Brooklyn NY, USA; Tunisian General Labor Union UGTT; UMass Amherst Faculty for Justice in Palestine, USA; UMKC Students for Justice in Palestine, USA; Union Juive Française pour la Paix (UJFP - French Jewish Peace Union); Unionists for Palestine, Australia; United Church of Christ Palestine Israel Network, USA; United Jewish People's Order, Canada; United Methodists for Kairos Response (UMKR); US Committee to End Political Repression in Egypt] (January 8, 2024): https://progressive.international/wire/2024-01-08-we-support-south-africas-genocide-convention-case-against-israel/en
Etan Nechin: The far right infiltration of Israel’s media is blinding the public to the truth about Gaza (January 9, 2024): https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/09/israel-media-gaza-benjamin-netanyahu-settler-movement
Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times via U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett: America Must Face Up to Israel’s Extremism (January 9, 2024): https://doggett.house.gov/media/in-the-news/new-york-times-america-must-face-israels-extremism
Q&A: Former Biden appointee Tariq Habash says US policy is ‘dehumanising’ Palestinians (January 9, 2024): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/9/qa-former-biden-appointee-says-us-policy-is-dehumanising-palestinians
State and Local Elected Officials Open Letter to President Biden Calling for a Ceasefire [350+ signatures] (January 9, 2024): https://www.jvpaction.org/state-and-local-elected-officials-open-letter-to-president-biden-calling-for-a-ceasefire/
I led strike cells against ISIS — Israel’s strike campaign in Gaza is unacceptable (January 10, 2024): https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/4397982-i-led-strike-cells-against-isis-israels-strike-campaign-in-gaza-is-unacceptable/
Naomi Klein: We have a tool to stop Israel’s war crimes: BDS (January 10, 2024): https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/10/only-outside-pressure-can-stop-israels-war-crimes
Revealed: Congress backers of Gaza war received most from pro-Israel donors: Guardian analysis finds top recipients of pro-Israel contributions in last elections were centrist Democrats who defeated progressives in primaries (January 10, 2024): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/10/congress-member-pro-israel-donations-military-support
Why I Resigned: Meet Tariq Habash, First Biden Appointee to Quit over U.S.-Backed Israeli War on Gaza (January 10, 2024): https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/10/tariq_habash
Robert C. Koehler: The Cry of the Wounded and the Dead: End the War! End the War! (January 13, 2024): https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/when-will-the-war-in-gaza-end
On MLK Day, Representative Ayanna Pressley and Interfaith Coalition Call for Ceasefire in Gaza ["Rep. Pressley joined over 90 leaders from the Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist and other faith traditions in signing the statement, including Rev. Nikira Hernandez, Brighton Allston Congregational Church, Rev. Darrell R. Hamilton II, The First Baptist Church in, Jamaica Plain, Imam Ahmad Barry, Rev. Aisha Ansano. Rev. Otto Concannon, First Parish in Malden, Rev. Ashlee Wiest-Laird, First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain, Imam Abdullah Faaruuq, Mosque for Praising Allah, Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen, Community Justice Exchange, Chaplain Ylisse C. Bess, Rev. Jo Murphy, Rev. Shea Thompson, Rev. Rob Mark, Rev. Erica Rose Long, Rabbi Rebecca Zimmerman Hornstein, Boston Workers Circle, Imam Taalib Mahdee, Masjid Al Qur’an, Rev. Art J. Gordon, St. John Missionary Baptist Church, Rev. Fred Small, Rev. Heather Concannon, Rev. Miniard Culpepper, Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Church, Rabbi Leora Abelson, Rabbi Leah Nussbaum, Rev. Willie Bodrick, II J.D., M.Div., Twelfth Baptist Church, The Very Rev. Amy McCreath, Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Boston (Episcopal), Rev. James Harrison Jr., Southern Baptist Church, Rev. Bernadette Hickman-Maynard, Rev. Erica F Richmond, Arlington, MA, Rev. Arrington Chambliss, St Mary’s Dorchester, Rev. Dr. Michelle A. Walsh, Tuckerman Creative Ministries for Justice & Healing, Rev. Dr. Clyde Grubbs, Tuckerman Creative Ministries, Muslims for Justice, Rev. Isaac P. Martinez, The Allston Abbey, Rev. Ashley Popperson, Rev. Lindsay Popperson, Old North Church, Marblehead, Rev. Myozen Joan Amaral, Zen Center North Shore, Rev. Dr. Andre K. Bennett, Marc Fredette, UU Minister, Rev. Edmund Robinson, First Parish in Hingham/Old Ship, Chaplain Christie Towers, Rev. Kenneth Read-Brown, Rev. Martha Schick, Cassandra Montenegro, Esq., First Parish in Cambridge, Unitarian Universalist, Rev. Dr. William J. Gardiner, Rev. Wendy Page, Rev. Elizabeth Bukey Saunter, Rev. Mel Pace, Rabbi Becky Silverstein, Rev. Katie Omberg, Rev. Rali M Weaver, First Church and Parish Dedham, Rev. Anne M. Rousseau, Rev. Brett R. Johnson, Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Wakefield, MA, Rev. James Leavitt, Rev. Daryn Bunce Stylianopoulos, Mohanad Mossalam, Khateeb, Malden Islamic Center, Daniela Harrigan, Movement Chaplain, MC Miller, Candidate for Ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, University Lutheran Church, Cambridge, MA, Allison N Brown, Pastoral Candidate for Ordination , The Episcopal Church, India Wood, Seminarian, Boston University Theological School, Rhea Brown-Bright, Director of Faith Formation, First Parish Dorchester, Boston University School of Theology, Linden Jenkins, St Cecilia Parish Social & Racial Justice Ministry, Vincent Ware, Director of Public Affairs & Civic Engagement, MAS Boston (Muslim American Society), Becca Heisler, Rabbinical Student, Jayce Koester, Rabbinical Student, Hadar Ahuvia, Rabbinical Student, Sam Tygiel, Rabbinical Student, Alex Bailey Dillon, Rabbinical Student, Hannah Limov, Rabbinical Student, Chaim Spaulding, Rabbinical Student, Aaron Berc, Rabbinical Student, Rivka Nechemya Thrope, Rabbinical Student, Max Davis, Rabbinical Student, Sivan Piatigorsky, Rabbinical Student, Rayden Marcum, Rabbinical Student, Rumni Saha (MDiv, MEd), Ian Evans, Clergy in training, McKayla Hoffman, Ministerial Intern, Nichole Mossalam, Muslim Activist, Elizabeth Claggett-Borne, Friends (Quakers) for Racial Justice, Carole Rein, Quaker, North Shore Friends (Quakers), Polly Attwood, Quaker, Friends Meeting Cambridge, Isabella Bates, Quaker, North Shore Quaker Meeting, Dr. Esther Ngotho, Zen Center North Shore, Nora Williams, Zen Center North Shore, Michael Carey, Peace and Social Justice Committee, Friends Meeting Cambridge, Don Gianniny, Peace and Social Justice Committee, Friends Meeting Cambridge, Holly Aloha Jaynes, Unitarian Universalist Church of Marblehead, Ehab Hilali, Community Organizer, Independent Drivers Guild, Nicole Moore, UU Church of Marblehead & Zen Center North Shore, Sarah Manasrah, Community Organizer, Salimah Adawiya, Educator, Rabbi Victor Reinstein, Dr. Jamal Carlos Saeh, Palestinian Catholic, Friend Kristina Keefe-Perry, Three Rivers Worship Group, Rev. Carrie Ballenger, University Lutheran Church, Rev. Tricia Brennan, and Rev. Dr. Christopher Ney, United Church of Christ."] (January 15, 2024): https://pressley.house.gov/2024/01/15/on-mlk-day-pressley-and-interfaith-coalition-call-for-ceasefire-in-gaza-2/
Canadian Labour Congress Executive Committee reiterates its support for International Trade Union Confederation's call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza (January 16, 2024): https://canadianlabour.ca/clc-executive-committee-reiterates-its-support-for-itucs-call-for-an-immediate-ceasefire-in-gaza/
Unions tell Starmer of members’ anger over Gaza ceasefire position (Members of Britain’s biggest unions used a regular meeting with Starmer this week to urge him to be more critical of Israel, following weeks of tension within the Labour party over the issue. [...] “Several people at the meeting were pretty clear with Starmer,” said one person with knowledge of what happened at the meeting. “They told him, ‘Your position on Gaza is alienating working people, you are out of step with the majority’.”] (January 18, 2024): https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/18/unions-keir-starmer-gaza-ceasefire
Anglican Bishop Christopher calls for ceasefire ‘to end appalling suffering’ in Gaza (January 19, 2024): https://southwark.anglican.org/news-events/news/latest-news/bishop-christopher-calls-for-ceasefire-to-end-appalling-suffering-in-gaza/
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor: Israel kills dozens of academics, destroys every university in the Gaza Strip (January 20, 2024): https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6108/Israel-kills-dozens-of-academics,-destroys-every-university-in-the-Gaza-Strip
Gaza activist tells of beating and abuse in Israeli detention: Human rights worker Ayman Lubbad is among the Palestinian prisoners claiming abuse in Israeli custody, where six have died (January 21, 2024): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/21/gaza-activist-tells-of-beating-and-abuse-in-israeli-detention
Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK) calls for ceasefire in Gaza (January 22, 2024): https://www.sak.fi/en/whats-new/news/sak-calls-ceasefire-gaza
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Mary Kay Henry's Statement on War in Gaza (January 22, 2024): https://www.seiu.org/2024/01/seius-mary-kay-henry-statement-on-war-in-gaza
‘I just want to run’: Mental health care yet another casualty of Gaza war (January 23, 2024): https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-01-23/i-just-want-to-run-mental-health-care-yet-another-casualty-of-gaza-war
Progressive Baptists Call for Gaza Ceasefire (January 23, 2024): https://wordandway.org/2024/01/23/progressive-baptists-call-for-gaza-ceasefire/
Israeli police repressing anti-war protests with ‘iron fist,’ say activists: Since October 7, Israel's police have systematically banned, restricted, and attacked protests against the army's assault on Gaza, instilling a sense of fear among Jewish and Palestinian citizens alike. (January 24, 2024): https://www.972mag.com/israel-police-repression-protests-gaza/
More than 250 humanitarian and human rights organisations call to stop arms transfers to Israel and Palestinian armed groups: An open call to all UN Member States to stop fueling the crisis in Gaza and avert further humanitarian catastrophe and loss of civilian life. [Including: ActionAid France; American Baptist Churches USA; American Friends Service Committee (AFSC); Amnesty International; Anglican Church of Canada; Anglican Church of Mexico; Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development; BDS Berlin; Belgian Academics and Artists for Palestine; Cameroon Youths and Students Forum for Peace (CAMYOSFOP); Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD); Center for Jewish Nonviolence; Christian Aid; Christian Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament; Christian Jewish Allies for a Just Peace in Israel/Palestine; Church and Peace – Ecumenical Peace Church Network in Europe; Colombian Campaign to Ban Landmines; Community of Christ; Danish Refugee Council; Doctors Against Genocide; Episcopal Peace Fellowship-Palestine Israel Network; Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada; Federation Handicap International – Humanity & Inclusion; Finnish-Arab Friendship Society; France Palestine Mental Health Network; International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH); Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions – UK; Japan International Volunteer Center; Jewish Network for Palestine; Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns; Mercy Corps; Muslim Delegates and Allies Coalition; Muslim Peace Fellowship; National Organization of Yemeni Reporters SADA; Norwegian Refugee Council; Oxfam; Palestinian Farmers Union; Pax Christi England and Wales; Pax Christi International; Pax Christi Italia; Pax Christi Scotland; Pax Christi USA; Presbyterian Church in Canada; Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.); Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft; Salam For Yemen; Save the Children; Socialist Movement of Ghana; Syrian Network for Human Rights; United Church of Canada; United Church of Christ; United Methodist Church – General Board of Church and Society; War on Want; Women for Peace and Democracy Nepal; Young Christian Students Movement South Africa] (January 24, 2024): https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/01/more-than-250-humanitarian-and-human-rights-organisations-call-to-stop-arms-transfers-to-israel-palestinian-armed-groups/
Ayanna Pressley, Interfaith Coalition Hold Vigil for Lives Lost in Gaza and Israel, Renew Calls for Ceasefire ["Joining Rep. Pressley at the vigil was Rev. Carrie Ballenger, University Lutheran and Lutheran Chaplain at Harvard; Rabbi Rebecca Hornstein, Boston Workers Circle Executive Director; Imam Ahmad Barry of the Islamic Institute of Boston; Reverend Darrell Hamilton of the First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain; Hadar Ahuvia, Rabbinical Student at Hebrew College; Rev. Willie Bodrick, II of the Twelfth Baptist Church; Rabbi Becky Silverstein; Rev. Otto Concannon of First Parish Malden; Rev. Elizabeth Carrier-Ladd, First Parish Dorchester; and hundreds of faith leaders and community members from across Greater Boston."] (January 25, 2024): https://pressley.house.gov/2024/01/25/pressley-interfaith-coalition-hold-vigil-for-lives-lost-in-gaza-and-israel-renew-calls-for-ceasefire/
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EuroMed Rights): A conditional ceasefire is not sufficient – The EU must call for an unconditional, immediate and permanent ceasefire (January 25, 2024): https://euromedrights.org/publication/a-conditional-ceasefire-is-not-sufficient-the-eu-must-call-for-an-unconditional-immediate-and-permanent-ceasefire/
Communications Workers of America Executive Board Statement on the War in Gaza (January 26, 2024): https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/communications-workers-america-executive-board-statement-war-gaza
Bernie Sanders: The US must act to end the Gaza disaster (January 27, 2024): https://www.sanders.senate.gov/op-eds/the-us-must-act-to-end-the-gaza-disaste
Black Pastors Pressure Biden to Call for a Cease-Fire in Gaza: Black congregants’ dismay at President Biden’s posture on the war could imperil his re-election bid. (January 28, 2024): https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/28/us/politics/black-pastors-biden-gaza-israel.html
Israel and Russia Have No Place in the 2024 Paris Olympics: The International Olympic Committee has declined to curtail Israel’s involvement in the 2024 games and has placed half-hearted limits on Russia. The IOC claims it opposes the politicization of sport — but the Olympics are a historically political institution. (January 29, 2024): https://jacobin.com/2024/01/israel-russia-war-invastion-olympics
Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory: “Gaza is a massive human rights crisis and a humanitarian disaster” (January 30, 2024): https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2024/01/gaza-massive-human-rights-crisis-and-humanitarian-disaster
Texas AFL-CIO becomes first state labor federation to call for ceasefire in Gaza (January 30, 2024): https://www.tpr.org/government-politics/2024-01-30/texas-afl-cio-becomes-first-state-labor-federation-to-call-for-ceasefire-in-gaza
Former U.S. Representative Andy Levin: Military action won’t solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It’s time for diplomacy. (February 1, 2024): https://www.stripes.com/opinion/2024-02-01/military-diplomacy-israel-palestinian-conflict-12863912.html
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and Anglican Church of Canada: Church leaders urge Canadian government to support ICJ ruling (February 2, 2024): https://www.anglicanlutheran.ca/statements/church-leaders-urge-canadian-government-to-support-icj-ruling/
US city councils increasingly call for Israel-Gaza ceasefire, analysis shows (February 2, 2024): https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-city-councils-increasingly-call-israel-gaza-ceasefire-analysis-shows-2024-01-31/
Sister Nabila's appeal from Gaza: ‘We want peace, respect for human rights’ (February 3, 2024): https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2024-02/sister-nabila-gaza-holy-family-parish-appeal-peace.html