[Nekko Fox]'s diary
moto obs moto motoko kotit bsb bbs mottoki mokoto bmoto bs motookookk obmo sbb mtotoko
My favorite creepypasta of all time.
"The Art of Jacob Emory"
"Ghost stories? Nah, we don’t have anything like that around here. We DO have the story of Jacob, but that’s about as close as you’ll get.
…You really want to know?… Well, I’m not supposed to tell you, but all right, just no interrupting. I don’t have the patience for it.
How to describe Jacob Emory… well, I guess you could say he was the kind of guy you could never take notice of. This isn’t to say he was a bad kid, in any sense- many people in this town thought he was the most reliable person for an odd job in the state- but he never really excelled in anything. He was the living proof behind the statement, “jack of all trades, ace of none.” Most of this was due to his own lack of will. He dabbled in damn near everything this town could offer him, automobiles, radio operation, store management, what have you, but he never stuck with anything. His friends and workers went after him about it a number of times, but everybody got the same unsatisfying response: “It just wasn’t enough.” Needless to say, any friends he kept were either very patient or never spoke of the matter altogether.
It was probably inevitable, then, that Jacob would leave to go abroad. I don’t remember where he went, but I think Gertrude down the street knew before she passed on- you’ll have to scout someone else if you ever get curious. In any case, no one even tried to stop him. Everybody thought that a little travel would stamp the ambition out of him, or else feed it until it was no longer an issue. Hell, we even gave him a sending-off party, which I thought was pretty nice of everybody.
So anyway, he was gone for… six, seven years? Can’t remember. You’ll have to check with someone else about that, too. Anyways, he came back, eventually, and he had changed, obviously enough. He was amiable, energetic, all smiles all the time, and we all quickly learned why. He showed us a souvenir he’d brought back- a solid black stick, the length of a pencil but the texture of chalk. We all wondered why on earth such a simple thing would prompt such a spring in his step, until he gave his demonstration. He took a piece of paper, and with this stick- God, there’s got to be a better word for it- with this stick, he… he drew a crude circle.
It dropped, and rested on the border of the paper, like a stone. It didn’t leave the paper, but it acted out on it, sort of like an old movie projector on a screen.
Son, I know how crazy that sounds, and if you feel like playing skeptic, then you can leave an old man to his craziness, but I know what I saw, even if everyone’s been hushing it up, and that stone he drew dropped. Jake even passed around the paper, and as it was being passed, it rolled around as the paper got tilted. None of us had any words for it- Hell, what was there to say?- but he continued drawing demonstration after demonstration for us, stick figures in various pageants and plays doing everything from fighting each other to making perfect “human” pyramids, and we all thought it was incredible. That was all the go-ahead he needed- he announced that he planned to put on shows to pay for rent and food, where he would draw anything the crowd members wanted. THAT we talked to some length about, and he eventually convinced us that it would be safe, his drawings ethical, the practice lucrative and unique, and the attention would not go anywhere outside of the town’s borders.
Poor Jacob. If I’d not been so swept up in the moment, I might’ve read the signs right then and there, and saved the sorry son of a bitch by snapping the terrible thing in half. But I was younger, we all were, and we saw no problem with encouraging him with what we all saw as an incredible experience to be shared with everyone else. Now, he didn’t have any big radio or television connections, mind you, and the internet wouldn’t come around for another decade, so he did what all people on a shoestring budget do- he advertised his show with fliers. Fliers might not mean anything to you city-folk, but in a small town, they gain a fair glance-over from time to time, and what’s more, Jacob’s managed to stick out by having little figures jump up and down and whatnot to get people’s attention. His first show must’ve gotten nearly sixty or so people, probably a lot more than that.
And his shows were fantastic. Someone would shout out a scene from a play or a comedy sketch, and Jake’s hand would fly over a white wall like a bird. He’d been holding back when he made that stone, that’s for damn sure. His illustrations were all spot-on, and he could make an incredible human figure in minutes. Come to think of it, I don’t remember any of his scenes lasting more than ten minutes to make. They were all really well-done scenes, too- not only could you see a knight charge a castle, Jake would draw the castle’s interior as well, like a wedding cake split down the middle, so you could see the knight scale the walls, fight his way through levels to the dungeon, fight back out with the princess, and make a leaping jump off castle parapets onto his getaway horse all in complete silence. Not realistic, no, but that was part of the appeal- none of us went in there expecting something real. When a scene or a sketch was finished, either the characters would leave off a wall or he’d cover the wall with white paint. This was good, in a way- it gave these shows a time limit, so that when he’d finished with all of the four walls in the room, everyone knew the show was over until the paint dried.
Jake, meanwhile, was changing in a bad way. I’d mentioned that upon his return, he’d been extremely energetic. Well, that energy, that vitality or fervor or whatever you want to call it, it never left him. Not for an instant. Far from it, it seemed to grow in him, and he enjoyed it all too much. His eyes grew wider, he slept gradually less over time, his statements and opinions more radical and frenzied, and though he never was a pushover, he was starting to make people nervous in his company.
A month or two passed, and Jake’s audience grew like a wildfire. Nearly everyone in the town paid to see Jake’s art in action, and he had to rent out larger and larger places for them to sit. He now didn’t stop after one scene was done- he moved directly on to the next, put on the next blank space on the wall, sometimes to the intriguing effect of causing scenes to mingle, which the crowd loved. The subject matter got more wild and immoral, the monsters got more bizarre and creative, the fighters using more impossible weaponry, all for the sake of the crowd’s interests. Jake got steadily more indulgent, which we figured was from the money, and he became a drinker and a womanizer (neither of which got rid of that vitality, by the way.) Some of those women claimed that they’d woken up in the middle of the night to see him scribbling with that stick on a drawing pad, a gigantic grin on his face, and while most of them said that they’d assumed he was drawing them in the nude, there’s rumors that one or two of them got glances at that notepad. Those anonymous few supposedly said that those drawings absolutely weren’t nude pictures, but neither of them, whoever they are, will say what he was drawing. Don’t bother looking for the notepads or fliers, though, they’re all gone now. I’m getting off-track; point is, he was hitting the bottle, and that’s important, because it was that drinking that would eventually ruin everything.
On the night of one of his performances, as he walked in front of his cheering crowd, it was immediately apparent to everybody that he was completely drunk. I was in the front row, and I could smell the bourbon on him from ten feet away. The show started, he went through a bunch of sketches and scenarios the crowd recommended, when at the end someone asked that he draw himself. Everyone cheered the idea, I guessed they’d been wondering what his creations thought of him, and he eventually obliged.
No sooner had Jake finished connecting the final two lines on his coat, than every single character, across the vast, expansive wall, all stopped and looked directly at that illustration. Lovers stopped kissing, clowns stopped laughing, robots stopped fighting pirates, everything stopped and looked at the Jacob-illustra
That Jacob reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a black stick of his own, and as we all watched, drew a door. He pushed on his side and the door swung open, allowing him to walk through onto the floor of the auditorium.
The rest was an absolute hellish pandemonium. People screamed and ran for the exits as Jacob’s characters, both those currently on the wall and those which had previously left before being covered up, ran out of their own exit, throwing pies, shooting lasers, blowing fire and poison and the impossible. I was near enough the exit to escape, and gave only one backwards glance. The scene will haunt me forever.
Jacob Emory was being dragged by his creations, kicking and screaming, through the door his copy had made.
The auditorium burned down, obviously enough, but I have no idea how many characters escaped, what happened to the fake Emory, or how many people died. The fire brought the fire department from the nearest cities up to over a hundred miles away- they in turn brought the police force, which brought the government, which hushed up everything. They took the fliers and any art Jake had made, and swore everyone to secrecy or else life detainment. The fire was blamed on a cigarette in the garbage during a basketball game, and we all eventually went on with our lives. Jacob was made to never have existed.
In retrospect, I realize everything. Jacob hadn’t been creating illustrations. Illustrations don’t move, much less act or attack-they’re just images people see, shadows made to look like real things. Jacob had been making life- actual thinking things in some alternate dimension, using a power that was never meant to fall to mortal hands. He got drunk on his power. His punishment was probably well-deserved.
Incidentally, the government screwed up on two different accounts. They did a damn good job silencing everyone, but proof remains. The ruins are still there, you know. The auditorium’s ruins. I hear they’re going to start reconstruction soon, which will wipe out any remaining evidence someone can definitely see, but I went back there once, several years after the fire- just once. Amidst the rubble, covered in ash, I saw something squirming. I looked closer. It was Jacob Emory’s hand on the wall. Exactly like it had been three years ago, (sweaty but calloused, I remember,) but it was constantly flailing, as if the body it was supposed to be attached to was still writhing in flames.
That was mistake number one. Number two was those creations.
Like I said, I don’t know how many escaped, nor how many the government agents found and caught, but I will say only this- Those tall grass meadows on the outskirts of town? Don’t go into them. Ever. You were asking about those white figures you’ve seen at night, right?
This town doesn’t have ghost stories."
"Several writers have misapprehended or objected to the term natural selection. Some have even imagined that natural selection induce is variability, whereas it implies only the preservation of such a very a shins as a rise and are beneficial to the being under its conditions of life. No one objects to the agriculturists speaking of the potent effects man's selection; and in this case the individual differences given by nature, which man for some objects selects, must of necessity first occur. others have objected that the term selection implies conscious choice in the animals which become a modified; and it has even been reached that, as plans have no volition, natural selection is not applicable to them! In the literal sense of the word, no doubt, natural selection is a False term; but who ever objected to chemists speaking of the elective affinities of the various elements? - and yes and acid cannot strictly be said to elect the base with which it in preference combines. it has been said that I speak of natural selection as an active power or deity; but who objects to an author speaking of the attraction of gravity as ruling the movements of the planets? Everyone knows what is meant and is implied by such a metaphorical expressions; and they are almost necessary for brevity. So again it is difficult to avoid personifying the word nature; but I mean by nature, only the aggregate action product of many natural laws, and by laws the sequence of events as ascertained buy us. With a little familiarity such superficial objections will be forgotten."
-Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
Title 4 of the United States Code, which outlines the role of flag of the United States, specifies occasions on which all government buildings, offices, public schools, and military bases are to fly their flags at half-staff, occasions which include the deaths of presidents, vice presidents, members of Congress, justices of the Supreme Court, and state governors. As well, the President of the United States may issue proclamations directing U.S. flags to be flown at half-staff on other occasions, as was done in recent years for the death of Pope John Paul II,the interment of Frank Buckles (the last surviving American World War I veteran), the crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia's final mission (who died when the ship disintegrated during re-entry), the funeral of astronaut Neil Armstrong, and the shootings at Fort Hood, Virginia Tech, the Century Aurora theater, and Sandy Hook Elementary School.
State governors may also direct all U.S. and state flags in their jurisdictions flown at half-staff to mark the death of state officials and
state residents who died on active duty as members of the armed forces. In some cases governors may also direct that flags be lowered to half-staff to honor the passing of other state residents prominent outside the areas of government and the military.
Christopher Scott "Chris" Kyle was a U.S. Navy SEAL who was known as "the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History" (a phrase which was used in the title of his autobiography). Kyle, a Texas native and resident, was shot and killed on 2 February 2013 at a Texas shooting range, and he was buried in the state capital of Austin. Texas governor Rick Perry issued a Press Release statement expressing his condolences to Chris Kyle's family "and the thousands of service members that were his extended family," but despite a good deal of public support for the gesture, Governor Perry did not issue a proclamation directing flags to be flown at half-staff statewide on the occasion of either Chris Kyle's memorial service or his funeral. (As noted above, that honor is a traditional one for those who have died while active duty members of the armed forces, but Kyle did not die on active duty, having left the U.S. Navy in 2009.)
Pop singer Whitney Houston passed away on 11 February 2012 from an accidental drowning in a bathtub, an event which the Los Angeles County coroner's office reported was due to the "effects of atheroscleroti
Although the White House issued a statement through press secretary Jay Carney after Whitney Houston's death noting that President Obama's "thoughts and prayers are with Whitney Houston's family, especially her daughter," as far as we know President Obama has made no public expression of condolence or mourning to mark the passing of Chris Kyle. It is not true that President Obama ordered flags throughout the country flown at half-staff to honor Whitney Houston; as noted above, that action was undertaken only at a state level by the governor of New Jersey.
1 of the fiercest penalties in the Old Testament is the 1 exacted for blasphemy. It is still in force in certain countries. Section 295-c of the Pakistan penal code prescribes the death penalty for this 'crime'. On 18 August 2001, Dr Younis Shaikh, a medical doctor and let your, was sentenced to death for blasphemy. Is particular crime was to tell students that the Prophet Muhammad was not a Muslim before he invented the relation at the age of 40. 11 of his students with ported him to the thirty's for thus 'offense'. the blasphemy law in Pakistan is more usually in Boca against Christians, such as Augustine Ashiq 'Kingri' Masih, who was sentenced to death in Faisalabad in 2000. Masih, as a Christian, was not allowed to marry his sweetheart because she was a Muslim and - incredibly- Pakistani (and Islamic) law does not allow a Muslim woman to marry a non Muslim man. so he tried to convert to Islam and was then accused of doing so for bass motives. It is not clear from the report I have read whether this is in itself was the capital crime, or whether it was something he is alleged to have said about the profits on morals. either way, it certainly was not the kind of offense that would warrant a death sentence in any country whose laws are free of religious bigotry.
in 2006 in Afghanistan, Abdul Rahman was sentenced to death for converting to Christianity. Did he kill anyone, hurt anybody, steal anything, damage anything? No. all he did was change his mind. Internally and privately, he changed his mind. He entertains certain spots which were not to the lighting of the ruling party at his country. And this, remember, is not the Afghanistan of the Taliban but the 'liberated' Afghanistan of Hamid Karzai, set up by the American Led coalition. Mr Rahman finally escaped execution, but only on a plea of insanity, and only after intense internal pressure. He has now sought asylum in Italy, to avoid being murdered by the cell it's easier to do there is slimy duty. It is still an article of the constitution of 'liberated' Afghanistan that the penalty for apostasy is death. apostasy, remember, doesn't mean actual harm to persons with property. It is pure thoughtcrime, to use George Orwell's 1984 terminology, and the official punishment for it under Islamic law is death. on the third of September 1992, to take 1 example where it was actually carried out, Sadiq Abdul Karim Malallah was publicly be headed in Saudi Arabia after being lawfully convicted of apostasy and blasphemy.
Written about Saturday 2013-02-09
Written: (4454 days ago)
Fundamentalist religion it's hell-bent on ruining the scientific education of countless thousands of innocent, well-meaning, either young minds. Non-fundamenta
I am no more fundamentalist what I say evolution is true then when I say it is true that New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere. We believe in evolution because the evidence supports it, and we would abandon it overnight if new evidence a rose to disprove it. No real fundamentalist would ever say anything like that.
it is all too easy to confuse fundamentalism with passion. I may well appear passionate when I defend evolution against a fundamentalist creationist, but this is not because they Weible fundamentalism of my own. It is because the evidence for evolution is overwhelmingly strong and I am passionately distressed that my opponent can't see it - or, more usually refuses to look at it because it contradicts his holy book.
I do not deny that humanity's powerful tendencies towards in-group loyalties and out-group histories would exist even in the absence of religion. Fans of rival football teams are an example of the phenomenon whit small. Even football supporters sometimes divide a long religious lines, as in the case of Glasgow Rangers and Glasgow Celtic. Languages (as in Belgium), races and tribes (especially in Africa) can be important divisive tokens. But religion amplifies and exacerbates the damage in at least three ways:
-Labeling of children. Children are described as 'Catholic Children' or 'Protestant Children' etc. from an early age, and certainly far too early for them to have made up their minds on what they think about religion.
-Segregated schools. Children are educated, again off in from a very early age, with members of a religious in group and separately from children his family is here to other religions. It is not an exaggeration to say that the troubles in Northern Ireland would disappear in a generation of segregated schooling were abolished.
-Taboos against 'marrying out'. This perpetuates hereditary fueds and vendettas by preventing the mingling of feuding groups. Intermarriage, if it were permitted, would naturally tend to mollify enmities.
The Bible is a blueprint of in-group morality, complete with instructions for genocide, enslavement of out-groups, and world domination. But the Bible is not evil by virtue of its objectives or even it's glorification of murder, cruelty, and rape. Many ancient works do that - The Iliad, the Icelandic Sagas, the tales of ancient Syrians and the inscriptions of the ancient Mayans, for example. But no one is selling the Iliad as a foundation of morality. Therein lies the problem. The Bible is sold, and bought, as a guide to how people should live their lives. And it is, by far, the world's all-time best seller.
Novel Prize winning physicist Steven Weinberg said, "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion."
Blaise Pascal said, "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
"Historic Mecca, the cradle of Islam, is being buried in an unprecedented onslaught by religious zealots. Almost all of the rich and multi layered history of the holy city is gone... Now the actual birthday place of the Prophet Muhammad is facing the bulldozers, with the connivance of Saudi religious authorities who's hardline interpretation of Islam is compelling them to wipe out their own heritage... The motive behind the destruction is the Wahhabist' fanatical fear that places of historical and religious interest could give rise to idolatry or polytheism, the worship of multiple and potentially equal gods. The practice of idolatry in Saudi Arabia remains, in principle, punishable by beheading.
I do not believe there is an atheist in the world who would bulldoze Mecca - or Chartres, York Minster or Notre Dame, the Shwe Dagon, or, of course, the Buddhas of Bamiyan.
Written about Sunday 2013-02-03
Written: (4460 days ago)
Why not all Allah's omnipotent power? Or Lord Brahmas? Or even Yahwehs?
Why, I can't help wondering, is God thought to need such ferocious defense? One might have supposed to him amply capable of looking after himself.
Freedom From Religion Foundation, FFRF, which campaigns peacefully against the undermining of the Constitutional separation of church and state.
"God and Country make an unbeatable team; they break all records for oppression and blood shed."
~Luis Bunuel
Gregory S. Paul, in the Journal of Religion and Society (2005), systematically compared 17 economically developed nations, and reach the devastating conclusion that ' higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies'.
Many of our human ailments, from lower back pain to hernias, prolapsed uteruses and our susceptibility to sinus infections, result directly from the fact that we now walk upright with a body that was shaped over hundreds of millions of years to walk on all fours.
"Why is God considered an explanation for anything? It's not- it's failure to explain, a shrug of the shoulders, an 'I dunno' dressed up in spirituality and ritual. If someone credits something to God, generally what it means is that they haven't a clue, so they're attributing it to an unreachable, unknowable sky-fairy. Ask for an explanation of where that bloke came from, and odds were you'll get a vague, psuedo-philoso
" If the history of science shows us anything, it is that we get nowhere by labeling our ignorance 'God'".
~Jerry Coyne
Written about Saturday 2013-01-26
Written: (4468 days ago)
The human appendix:
In plant-eating vertebrates, the appendix is much larger and its main function is to help digest a largely herbivorous diet. The human appendix is a small pouch attached to the large intestine where it joins the small intestine and does not directly assist digestion. Biologists believe it is a vestigial organ left behind from a plant-eating ancestor. Interestingly, it has been noted by paleontologist Alfred Sherwood Romer in his text The Vertebrate Body (1949) that the major importance of the appendix "would appear to be financial support of the surgical profession", referring to, of course, the large number of appendectomies performed annually. In 2000, in fact, there were nearly 300,000 appendectomies performed in the United States, and 371 deaths from appendicitis. Any secondary function that the appendix might perform certainly is not missed in those who had it removed before it might have ruptured.
Male breast tissue and nipple:
The subject of male nipples is a sensitive, and maybe confusing, topic to many. Those who wish to invalidate evolutionary theory might pose the question, "Was man descended from woman?" The answer, of course, is no. Both men and women have nipples because in early stages of fetal development, an unborn child is effectively sexless. Nipples are present in both males and females; it is only in a later stage of fetal development that testosterone causes sex differentiatio
Wisdom Teeth:
With all of the pain, time, and money that are put into dealing with wisdom teeth, humans have become just a little more than tired of these remnants from their large jawed ancestors. But regardless of how much they are despised, the wisdom teeth remain, and force their way into mouths regardless of the pain inflicted. There are two possible reasons why the wisdom teeth have become vestigial. The first is that the human jaw has become smaller than its ancestors -and the wisdom teeth are trying to grow into a jaw that is much too small. The second reason may have to do with dental hygiene. A few thousand years ago, it might be common for an 18 year old man to have lost several, probably most, of his teeth, and the incoming wisdom teeth would prove useful. Now that humans brush their teeth twice a day, it's possible to keep one's teeth for a lifetime. The drawback is that the wisdom teeth still want to come in, and when they do, they usually need to be extracted to prevent any serious pain.
The coccyx or Human Tailbone:
These fused vertebrae are the only vestiges that are left of the tail that other mammals still use for balance, communication, and in some primates, as a prehensile limb. As our ancestors were learning to walk upright, their tail became useless, and it slowly disappeared. It has been suggested that the coccyx helps to anchor minor muscles and may support pelvic organs. However, there have been many well documented medical cases where the tailbone has been surgically removed with little or no adverse effects. There have been documented cases of infants born with tails, an extended version of the tailbone that is composed of extra vertebrae. There are no adverse health effects of such a tail, unless perhaps the child was born in the Dark Ages. In that case, the child and the mother, now considered witches, would've been killed instantly.
Erector Pili and Body Hair:
The erector pili are smooth muscle fibers that give humans "goose bumps". If the erector pili are activated, the hairs that come out of the nearby follicles stand up and give an animal a larger appearance that might scare off potential enemies and a coat that is thicker and warmer. Humans, though, don't have thick furs like their ancestors did, and our strategy for several thousand years has been to take the fur off other warm looking animals to stay warm. It's ironic actually that an animal, sensing danger is near, would puff up its coat to look scarier, but the human hunter would see the puffier coat as a warm prize, leaving the thinner haired weaker looking animals alone. Of course, some body hair is helpful to humans; eye brows can keep sweat out of the eyes and facial hair might influence a woman's choice of sexual partner. All the rest of that hair, though, is essentially useless.
"But we are made in his image!"
And yet God gave you a bunch of spare parts, some of which will kill you or cause severe pain and discomfort.
Yes, we were 'designed' broken. Brilliance.
David Hume : " No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that it's also it would be more miraculous than the fact which is endeavors to establish."
Jim Watson : " Well I don't think we're for anything. We're just product of evolution. You can say, "Gee, your life must be pretty bleak if you don't think there's a purpose." but I'm anticipating having a good lunch."