To @RepChrisPappas @RepAnnieKuster @RepJerryNadler @RepMGS @RepAdamSchiff @SpeakerPelosi

STOP wasting time on Partisan Impeachment Articles!

The 1 Charge you MUST make is criminal, indisputable & the language ensures a Senate conviction.

18 U.S.C. § 2384-Seditious Conspiracy

In keeping with year-end tradition, I wanted to share the best books I read in 2020 – a year unlike any other - with a list of reads heavily influenced by global events including…

…Race and social justice. While not a planned reading theme as I started the year, social injustices that have plagued our nation for centuries rose up in a jolting manner. May we pass on to our children and grandchildren a more socially just world than we received.

Frederick Douglass, David Blight

Douglass was a self-educated slave who freed himself to become a tireless speaker, political leader & passionate reformer. Even reading his speeches today, you feel drawn to the power, drama & personal suffering of this great man.

Bonhoeffer, Eric Metaxas & Timothy Keller

Theologian, Pastor, Church Leader & spy/traitor. Quite a resume for an influential young German aristocrat. Details the rise of Hitler & pure evil unleashed in the face of the pure good of Christ as seen through Bonhoeffer’s eyes.

So You Want To Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo

Jarring. We have so far to go as we confront the realities of systemic racism. Since reading I've sought out reverse mentors to try and learn more. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. (Much profanity for those sensitive to such)

Oh man, I loved my Bible reading this morning. It was Exodus 28 where God gave Moses the instructions for the priestly apparel Aaron & his sons were to wear. The attention to the minutest detail confirms what we can still count on today: everything God prescribed had purpose.

Whether or not they understood it, whether or not we understand it, God is not haphazard. Nothing is for nothing. For me, one of the most marvelous parts of Bible study is how often he does tie things together for us, connecting the dots, connecting the testaments, the covenants.

I’ll just offer 1 example from Ex 28. V.3 says “You are to instruct all the skilled artisans, whom I’ve filled with a spirit of wisdom (isn’t that fantastic?), to make Aaron’s garments for consecrating him to serve Me as priest.” The turban was an important piece of the apparel.

Something I find particularly fascinating is that the skilled artisans were to make a pure gold nameplate to fasten onto the very front of the priest’s turban. It was to have 4 words engraved on it -all caps in our Bibles- “HOLY TO THE LORD. “It is always to be on his forehead.”

Imagine how a conversation would change if we were talking to a person while staring at those four words on his or her forehead. Ok, fast forward to the New Testament where the Holy Spirit says through Peter that we who are in Christ are part of a “royal priesthood.” (2 Pet 2:9)

Today’s game supplement is Death in Freeport (2000) from Green Ronin Publishing. I haven’t really featured my own work on #CuratedQuarantine to date but it is relevant to the d20 story.

D&D 3E, which I talked about yesterday, was released with two attached licenses: the Open Game License and the d20 System Trademark License. #CuratedQuarantine

The basic idea was to give other publishers a legal way to release D&D compatible material and to be able to indicate that with a special d20 System logo. This would eliminate a lot of legal headaches that TSR and then WotC had to deal with. #CuratedQuarantine

It was also hoped that certain types of support books that WotC had difficulty selling in large numbers—short adventures in particular—could be taken up by third party companies. I remember the work meeting where all this was pitched to the staff. #CuratedQuarantine

WotC was too big to be agile, it was argued, so let other companies provide support material. The more people kept playing D&D, the more WotC would benefit. #CuratedQuarantine

So last week I wrote about the disinheritance of daughters in parts of Igbo land & to my disbelief, there were Ndi Igbo claiming that this customary law of inheritance that privileges sons doesn't exist, that I had somehow fabricated this out of thin air

(even as I and others on my TL gave concrete, real life examples and some Igbo daughters have successfully brought cases contesting the law before civil court).

One ill-informed young man stated that I had to “malign Igbo culture” so that “white people” would give me money. LOL. I understand that we don’t like to see the worst of ourselves reflected back to us but how do we progress if we refuse to confront it?

We can’t pretend that we are perfect, our traditions are perfect, our lives are perfect; we can’t create false narratives in the face of overwhelming evidence disputing those narratives;

we can’t go through life with our head perpetually buried in the sand because that isn’t a sustainable posture to hold. Sand go enter your nose and choke you, abi?