Tristan S. Rapp

NEW from me: from the high ridges of Tibet and the Andes to the shallow seas of Southeast Asia, from the ability to consume dairy to the fine structure of our metabolisms - humans remain enmeshed in the process of biological evolution, yet how does our unique agency impact it?

@onzathegreat Yeah it instantly turns far less 'Mormon-y' the moment you put some sort of more elaborate colouration unto it

@Hieraaetus I grew up in the “Mormon Belt” of Mesa, and yep this looks like a lot of the new LDS temples that have been popping up all over the Mountain West and West Coast. It’s the emphasis on white everything.

This is a very nice looking building, in terms of its unusually competent combination of modern and traditional architectural elements, but it is also by far the most Mormon looking Catholic church I have ever seen

@Hieraaetus You're gonna get excommunicated for that 😭

NEW VIDEO NOW LIVE! They created beautiful cave paintings, the oldest human figurines, and the world's oldest musical instruments. This is the story of the Aurignacians. I hope you enjoy this video. Shares very welcome, it makes a huge difference for me. Thank you! 🙏

@MScarince Why would it be wrong for the British to prevent the Argentinians from conquering and settling an archipelago that wasn't theirs and wasn't inhabited by their people? The British expelled a garrison of 22 people.

@Hieraaetus The British actively worked prevented to prevent Argentine colonization of the islands and expelled the islanders who had settled there.

"An artificially imposed population" Over an *uninhabited landmass.* I understand that ideology, which is obviously much at play here, is generally a dampener on the critical faculties, but the Falkland Islanders have the strongest claim to indigeneity conceivable.

@HodariNundu Such actors are unfortunately in rather short supply nowadays

@Hieraaetus Ok but did they cast a pygmy elephant as Polyphemus?

This is true, and hypocritical, but it is also equally true that a great deal of the people who are fine with the casting in The Odyssey are *not* fine with John Wayne playing a Mongolian, or other similarly iffy 20th-century casting, so the hypocrisy is entirely both ways.

I agree that most people I know who were against the castings in Nolan's movie would have been against Wayne's casting too. There are a few though who would be against the one and for the other because both are the 'based' attitude, which is indeed the exact mirror image of those who are for black actors in Homer but against white actors in Asian history.

@Hieraaetus Most people who dislike the Odyssey casting also think that John Wayne as Khan is ridiculous. Simultaneously, it took place at a time where the Asian proportion of the US population was like, what, 2%? There were no Asian movie stars that I’m aware of.

@Deltoidceltoid @DanDavisWrites He'll kill you for this

@Hieraaetus @DanDavisWrites Dan rn

🤯

@General_JWJ "They have sweat bees in South America too"

During my holiday in Ecuador I was the only member of our group who saw it because I was the only one willing to spend all our downtime at the lodge sitting next to the river in 32°C heat having my sweat licked by sweat bees for 6 hours a day. Worth it

@esjesjesj I hate it when I accidentally mismanage 30-45 million people to their deaths. Really spoils my Friday.

Hitler killed 40-55 million on purpose, the policies of the CCP killed 30-45 million through accidental mismanagement and natural disasters. Every anti communist resorts to Nazi propaganda like clockwork

In all, it's not terrible, it's not even bad - there are some fantastic set-pieces (the Cyclops, Circe, the visit to Hades). But, the many good elements only make it all the more frustrating how let down the movie is by bizarre and unnecessary creative decisions.

Furthermore, the costuming is just terrible, perhaps the worst I have ever seen in a major historical production. It's not just about it being inaccurate - it looks cheap, flimsy, often like plastic. Agamemnon is probably the most directly comical figure, looking like nothing so much as Nolan's own Batman. I was dubious from the first set photos and this concern was entirely valid. Much of the casting is also strange, yes, and the people defending it would clearly never do so if the conversation was about a movie set in Polynesia, Kenya, China etc.

Saw Nolan's Odyssey. In short, it's a 7/10, but a very uneven 7. Some elements are truly splendid - the camera work is excellent, the lighting is masterful, the music is good and the screenplay does an impressive job condensing the unwieldy picaresque nature of The Odyssey's plot. Much of the acting is also very strong, especially Pattison, Hathaway, Damon and Leguizamo.

Our age of Arthur is collapsing.

@CatholicPods There is a reason absolutely everybody is dunking on you

Vance told Bishop Barron that for his prayer life, he tries to say a decade of the Rosary in the morning and then another before bed. That's scary to me. Don't get me wrong, any prayer is good, and I can't judge his soul, but just objectively, you need more than 2 decades of the Rosary a day to even be a good Catholic janitor, hours more than that to be a truly Godlike father, to avoid regularly falling into mortal sin, let alone to be a good Catholic Vice President of the most powerful country in the world. Let no one say "I don't have enough time" - the wisdom of the saints is that the busier you are, the more pressure you are under, the more time you need to make for prayer. We all make this excuse and we are almost always wrong. The ones who became saints are the ones who didn't give themselves permission to keep an 8-year-old's prayer life (but without the innocence and simplicity). Imagine the blessing it would be for the country of JD Vance had a serious prayer life. I'm going to pray that he sees the need for it and commits to it. It's not about judgment. It's about how much we need God.

Not the only no, if that is the criterion. The Maori, the Samoans, the Easter Islanders and others were all the first populations on those islands too. The Icelanders arguably count - there were Irish monks living there before them, but whether a group without any women counts as a "population" is perhaps dubious..

@Hieraaetus Falklanders are probably the only people who are truly indigenous to anywhere. There was nobody else in the islands before them. Any other group necessarily had to replace someone else at some point. If they're not indigenous to the Falklands, nobody is indigenous to anywhere.