In the TW half-season just ended, Dylan Sprayberry was a newbie with the wolf boys. Sorta cute in a babyish kinda way and a pretty mediocre actor. Then I read he's just turned 17, so that splains a lot. He's just done a cover shoot for BELLO magazine and jeezoman, lookin' more grown up. Give him about 4 more years . . .
Now he looks like Jonathan Rhys Meyer's much younger kid brother . . .
Published: 15:51 EST, 24
July 2015 | Updated: 04:07 EST, 29 July
2015
Music is well known for its power to move listeners,
often to tears, but there are some people who experience it so intensely they
compare it to having an orgasm.
The sensation, known as a skin orgasms, produces a
feeling of pleasure so intense it can be felt all over their body, can produce
trembling, sweating and even arousal.
A team of researchers have highlighted the powerful
reaction in a recent review of the evidence surrounding the physical response
people can have to music.
Another study found that around 24 per cent of people
experience tears, 10 per cent get shivers while five per cent get goosebumps on
their skin.
DO THESE SONGS GIVE YOU A 'SKIN
ORGASM'?
Laboratory tests showed the songs below were most
likely to trigger musical ‘frisson’ or skin orgasms in
listeners.
1. Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No 2
2. Adele – Someone Like You
3. Leonard Cohen – Hallelujah
4. Bach – Toccata in F Major
5. Celine Dion – My Heart Will Go
On
However, they say a small proportion of people compare
their experience to the sensory overload that accompanies a sexual
orgasm.
Professor Psyche Loui, a psychologist at Wesleyan
University in Middletown, Connecticut, and her colleague Luke Harrison, said
skin orgasm was a 'uniquely accurate description of the spectrum of musically
induced emotional phenomena'.
Writing in the journal Frontiers in
Psychology, they said: 'The term implies a pleasurable sensation
that is paradoxically both universal and variable.
'It affects different parts of the body depending on
the person and circumstances of induction, and retains similar sensory,
evaluative, and affective biological and psychological components to sexual
orgasm.'
However, the pair said the term rarely gets used due to
its sexual connotations.
Instead they suggest using the word 'frissons' to
describe the intense reactions listeners can have to music.
They said: '"Frisson" may be the most accurate and
usable term because it integrates emotional intensity with verifiable tactile
sensations not localized to any one region of the body.
'Its relative specificity and obscurity in popular
culture allow it to avoid loaded cultural association.
'Furthermore, it does not have the thermal priming
potential of the cold-inducing, "chills".'
The researchers also looked at research which has
attempted to explore what it is about certain types of music that illicits these
intense physical responses in people.
One study found unexpected harmonies, a progression of
descending chords, melodic sequences and dynamic leaps.
Pieces that use notes that clash with the main melody,
known as melodic appogiaturas, can also be powerful, much like in Adel's Someone
Like You.
However, strong psychophysiological reactions are most
commonly reported in response to western classical music.
Professor Loui told BBC
Future that she
herself feels a fluttering in her stomach, a shiver down her spine and a racing
heart when she listens to Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto
No 2.
She said for some people such experiences can leave
them completely captivated.
She said: 'The aesthetic experience can be so intense
that you can't do anything else.'
However, she says the tendency for classical music to
be seen as the main cause of these reactions may be more due to bias in research
than anything unique about it.
The researchers say other genres of music like pop,
folk and those from elsewhere in the world also could also trigger similar
responses.
There are a number of theories that are thought to
explain why the human body reacts in this way to music
It is thought that it is linked to the release of
dopamine in the brain – a hormone that deals with emotion and
reward.
The auditory area is also thought to be connected to
the emotional and reward processing areas of the brain.
Bo Roberts - Born November 8, 1985, in Charlestown, Indiana, discovered during a cage fight, currently working as a model and aspiring actor. Seen here in his pre-manscaped days.
Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz agreed this week that Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis must begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses because it was the “law of the land.”
In an interview with the conservative outlet Newsmax, the former vice president said that he had not studied the details of Davis’ case but it was “clear” to him that she had no choice.
“It’s the law of the land and as a general proposition, it seems to me you’ve got to go forward with it,” Dick Cheney argued.
Newsmax host Steve Malzberg suggested to the Cheneys that forcing Davis to serve LGBT people could be a “step” toward forcing churches and synagogues to perform same-sex weddings.
But Liz Cheney shot down Malzberg’s logic.
“As my dad said, it is the law of the land,” the younger Cheney noted. “The court has ruled. And she’s not an employee of a church or synagogue, she’s a government employee. So, she has an obligation to uphold the law.”
During her failed Wyoming Senate run last year, Liz Cheney announced that she only supported “the traditional definition of marriage” even though her sister was in a same-sex relationship.
COMMENT: A GAY BEST FRIEND WOULD NEVER LET HER GO OUT LIKE THAT IN PUBLIC!
I've pretty much ignored Kim Davis—save the
odd tweet—since she first made the news for refusing to issue a marriage license
to a gay couple. Davis is the clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, an elected
position, and everyone from the governor of Kentucky to the U.S. Supreme Court
has ordered Davis to comply with the post-Obergefell law-of-the-land and issue
marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Davis has refused because she's a
Christian, you see, and, as a Christian, she believes same-sex marriage to be
sinful and unbiblical. Being forced to issue marriage licenses to same-sex
couples would violate her religious freedom, Davis insists, and lawyers from the
odious rightwing Christian special rights group Liberty Counsel have stepped in
to protect Davis from the horror of having to do her fucking
job.
So, anyway,
yesterday afternoon the Supreme Court ordered Davis to immediately start issuing
marriage licenses to same-sex couples. This morning Davis
refused to comply:
In a raucous scene in this little town, two
same-sex couples walked into the Rowan County Courthouse, trailed by television
cameras and chanting protesters on both sides of the issue, only to be turned
away by the county clerk, Kim Davis. As one couple, David Ermold and David
Moore, tried to engage her in an argument, Ms. Davis said several times that her
office would not issue any marriage licenses. “Under whose authority?” Mr.
Ermold asked. “Under God’s authority,” she replied.
Ms. Davis at first remained in her office
with the blinds drawn, while a deputy clerk told Mr. Ermold and Mr. Moore and
the other couple, April Miller and Karen Roberts, that no licenses would be
issued Tuesday. But the two men began shouting for her to come out and confront
them face to face. “Tell her to come out and face the people she’s
discriminating against,” Mr. Ermold said. Ms. Davis emerged briefly, and asked
them to leave.
Under God's authority.
Davis and her supporters would like to see
the "rule of law" replaced with "the rule of your imaginary friends." The
trouble with that, of course, is that people have very different ideas about who
their imaginary friends are and what their imaginary friends think is sick,
sinful, or icky. (Their imaginary friends, in fact, might not think much of your
imaginary friends.) So empowering people—particularly public servants—to violate
the rights of their fellow citizens based on the opinions of their various
imaginary friends is an invitation to civic chaos.
I would say I
can't wait for a Muslim county clerk in, say, Dearborn, Michigan (which has a
huge Muslim community), to refuse to issue a marriage license to a Christian
couple on the grounds that the this kafir couple hasn't been paying jizya... but that's not going to happen.
Religious minorities in this country intuitively understand that to empower
religious bigots like Davis is to paint bullseyes on their own backs. So the
Jesus-freak goons at the Liberty Counsel work to frame discrimination as a
"religious freedom" because they're confident that American Christians will be
the ones doing the discriminating, not suffering from it.
Anyway, I haven't written much about
Kim Davis because I knew how this was going to play out after Davis first made
the news: Davis would continue to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex
couples, she would disobey multiple court orders, she would take it all the way
to the Supreme Court, she would disobey the Supreme Court's order, she would be
charged with contempt (her
contempt hearing is scheduled for
Thursday), she would possibly wind up in prison and
definitely wind up losing her job. Then she would "write" a book about her
traumatic experiences—that book is doubtless being ghostwritten for her
already—and finally she'll spend the rest of her life on the rightwing speaking
circuit playing the persecuted Christian martyr lady. I saw it coming and I
didn't want to help build Davis up—I didn't want to help cash in—but my efforts
to ignore Davis didn't slow her rise to fame. The events this morning in Rowan
County have led the news summary on NPR all day and are currently the top story
on the homepage of New York Times.
But no one is stating the obvious: this
isn't about Kim Davis standing up for her supposed principles—proof of that in a
moment—it's about Kim Davis cashing in. There's a big pile of sweet, sweet bigot
money out there waiting for her. If the owners of a pizza parlor could rake in a
million dollars just by threatening not to cater the gay wedding no one asked
them to cater... just imagine how much of that sweet, sweet bigot money Kim
Davis is going to rake in. I'm sure Kim Davis is already imagining
it.
In addition to my desire to serve the
people of Rowan County, I owe my life to Jesus Christ who loves me and gave His
life for me.... I never imagined a day like this would come,
where I would be asked to violate a central teaching of Scripture and of Jesus
Himself regarding marriage. To issue a marriage license which conflicts
with God’s definition of marriage, with my name affixed to the certificate,
would violate my conscience. It is not a light issue for me. It is a Heaven or
Hell decision. For me it is a decision of obedience. I have no animosity toward
anyone and harbor no ill will. To me this has never been a gay or lesbian issue.
It is about marriage and God’s Word.
Kim Davis has been divorced three times and married four
times.
Some Pharisees came to Jesus to test him.
They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every
reason?”
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at
the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’[a] and said, ‘For this
reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the
two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore
what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command
that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her
away?”
Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to
divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from
the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual
immorality, and marries another woman commits
adultery.”
So... yeah.
The opinions of Kim Davis's imaginary
friends matter very much when you want to get married... but not so much when
Kim Davis wants to get married and divorced and married again and divorced again
and married for a third time and divorced for a third time and married for a
fourth time. (Mozel tov to you, Kim, and here's hoping the fourth time in the
charm.) Davis's hypocrisy stinks to high holy heaven, as my mother might've
said, but Davis has an answer for that: She started going back to church four
years ago to honor the dying wish of her "godly mother-in-law" (her statement
doesn't indicate which of her four MILs was the godly one) and that's when Jesus
entered her heart and His magical mystery blood cleansed Davis of her sins—and
how dare you bring up Davis's own marital history when she's just trying to do
the Lord's work down there in Kentucky interfering with the rights of other
couples to create their own marital histories. (And speaking of marital
histories: Has anyone gone down to the courthouse to look up Kim Davis's own
divorce records? Because in all fairness... if Davis was divorced for "sexual
immorality" then all three of her divorces could've been "biblical," I
suppose.)
It's a pretty neat trick: If I bring up Kim
Davis's four marriages, I'm being rude and mean-spirited and her first three
marriages are in the past and she's saved now and fuck you, gaywad. (That's the reaction
you get on Twitter when you mention Davis's three divorces and four marriages.)
But it's not rude and mean-spirited for Kim Davis to tell same-sex couples that
they're sick and sinful and going to hell (opinions she's free to hold) and to
further prevent these couples from exercising their civil and secular right to wed (something Davis, as a
public servant, is not free to do)—and somehow it's not dangerous for the goons
at Liberty Counsel cram this new and potentially destabilizing definition of
"religious freedom" down all of our throats. (A pluralistic, multi-cultural,
multi-denominational, multi-faith society where "them's my religious beliefs!"
is grounds for Americans discriminate against each other? That sounds like
fun.)
Lordy, lordy.
I say this with
sadness, I say this as the son of a preacher, I say this as a former
seminarian: This pathetic bullshit is what passes for
Christianity in America today. Thanks to the efforts of hate groups
like the American Family Association, the Family Research Council (co-founded
by a
tortured closet case and lately the employer
of a
kid-diddling serial adulterer), the 700 Club,
the Moral Majority, the National Organization for Marriage, the National
Association of Evangelicals, etc., and the mousy, near-complicit silence of
left-wing and progressive Christians, "Christian" is now
synonymous with "anti-gay bigot."
To be a good American Christian like Kim
Davis—or a good Alaskan Christian like Bristol Palin—you don't have to stay in
your first marriage, you don't have to stop sitting on the dicks of randos who
aren't your husband, you don't have to deny marriage licenses to straight people
who are remarrying or marrying outside the faith or obtaining marriage licenses
for Godless secular marriages. Nope. You just have to hate the homos. Hate the
homos and you're right with the God of Tony Perkins and Josh Duggar, hate the
homos and you're good with American Jesus. (Toss in support for capital gains
tax cuts and American Jesus loves you even more.) You don't have to feed the
sick, clothe the naked, house the homeless—you don't have to do any of that shit
Jesus actually talked about—you just have to hate the homos hard enough to go to
jail for for your beliefs cash
in on your bigotry.
In asking the court to grant Davis a
religious exemption, her attorneys compared her to a conscientious objector
being forced to go to war, for example, or an opponent of capital punishment
being forced to participate in executions.
But these analogies fall flat. Unlike the
conscientious objector, Davis is not being drafted into service against her
will. She has chosen a job that requires her to grant licenses in accordance
with civil law. She is no longer willing to do that. She should not expect to
keep her job, any more than a military commander would keep his job if he became
a pacifist, or a surgeon would keep her job if she became a Christian Scientist
and refused to perform surgery. Religious liberty does not entitle the bearer to
line-item vetoes for essential job functions.
Davis cites her Apostolic Christian faith
to support the traditional definition of marriage as one man and one woman. But
civil marriage and religious marriage, though historically intertwined, are not
the same thing, and Davis's job is to administer the law, not a
sacrament.
Let me say right out that I'm not a militarist. There used to be a saying that old men start wars and young men fight them. Still true except now the services are co-ed. So I have nothing but contempt for those who started wars we didn't need to fight and nothing but heartfelt sympathy and respect for those who gave their lives and those who still serve. I just came across the statement below from the blog fuckyeahafghanistan. It speaks for itself . . .
