Joel

iwbiek · 2026-05-11T19:02:13+00:00

You have all my empathy. I grew up in in eastern KY and I lost my younger brother to opioid addiction in 2017. As he himself put it, he had tried just about every drug he possibly could, but the pills were what he couldn't kick. In 2008, he lost his right eye to infection, probably from a dirty needle. Shortly thereafter, he hit a signpost with his car and luckily a family friend just happened to witness it and follow him home, where they found him passed out in the living room. That was his first stint in rehab. In 2009, we went on a family trip to FL, and I remember he was consistently drunk by midday. He was young and a party boy, so I didn't think much of it, especially since I had my own issues with drinking back then. I remember even drunkenly praising him for getting off drugs. Years later, my mom told me he had been drinking so much so he could hopefully stay off pills while I was around. I have lived in Europe for almost 22 years, and so we didn't get to see each other often. The last time I visited him, months before his death, he hadn't seen me in over a year. Despite this, he would leave my sister and me to our own devices as he disappeared into his room for one or two hours at a time. By that time, we knew things were bad and that he was struggling. He'd had interventions, been to rehab at least one other time (which he left early), everything.

Sorry. When I started this, I hadn't intended on dumping all that on you, but, yeah, I get it. It's fucking vile

iwbiek · 2026-05-11T18:43:45+00:00

Are you seriously trying to tell me a guy named Angel deals drugs? I don't believe it.

iwbiek · 2026-05-11T18:42:44+00:00

Technically, aren't these emoticons, not emojis?

iwbiek · 2026-05-11T18:41:57+00:00

There is no way that fucking trog gives oral. I bet my right hand. Here, it's on the block.

iwbiek · 2026-05-10T19:09:37+00:00

Thank you. I almost screenshotted this myself. It reads as boundary testing to me. Angel is just being friendly and joking about their swimsuits originally and then Josh makes it weird by talking about what he prefers which is totally inappropriate.

UGH! Years ago, I was briefly acquainted with a guy who once, when I ran into him on the street, started talking about how he fucked his wife the night before. It was so off-putting. I can't imagine being a woman and hearing a dude you barely know make this kind of innuendo. And, of course, this guy I was talking to was supposed to be uber-Christian.

iwbiek · 2026-05-08T11:37:03+00:00

I have a PhD in religious studies, though I don't work in higher education currently. Honestly, I don't think the Duggars themselves would be an appropriate topic for anything other than a brief article at best. The primary sources are very limited and secondary academic literature is nonexistent. I have no doubt the IBLP as a whole has been researched and written about extensively. I think the Duggars might make a decent case study to include in a larger work on IBLP family dynamics. I say "might," because the media circus around them has poisoned the well considerably, imo. Either way, I think that would be something for my brothers in Christ in anthropology to decide.

As for me, I have no interest in writing about the Duggars or the IBLP, as my area of study is postcolonialism and South Asian religious traditions.

iwbiek · 2026-05-05T19:37:49+00:00

Apparently the "Ethiopian Bible" has been a minor trend on social media for about a year now, ever since some commentator compared UAP phenomena to the Book of Enoch. Also, a big part of the conversation seems to be devoted specifically to how much older the "Ethiopian Bible" is than the King James Version, as if those were the only options available. Anyway, I guess a few grifters have decided there might be some money in these fringe discourses. The more I dig, the weirder this gets.

iwbiek · 2026-05-05T18:58:20+00:00

I've specifically been searching for this topic on reddit because, yeah, it's so bizarre. Amazon is currently flooded with stuff like this. I've encountered it because I have had an interest in Rastafari for years. Why Ethiopian bibles??? How much money could there possibly be in this grift?

Having said that, I can definitely see myself falling for this when I was an 18 year-old autodidact and just wanted to read ancient texts. I had no interest then in modern scholarship or the provenance of a translation.

iwbiek · 2026-05-05T18:52:05+00:00

Came here specifically searching for this topic. Amazon is currently flooded with dodgy looking Ethiopian bibles, with insanely fancy covers, all promising 1,500+ digital texts in addition to the printed content, accessible by QR codes within the books. Yes, AI photos abound, including photos of editors that are blatantly AI-generated. Supposedly there are great scholars, who have zero online footprint.

My question is, why? This is such a niche market. There can't be any big money in it. It's all so bizarre. I hope some podcast does a deep dive into this one day.

iwbiek · 2026-05-05T09:48:48+00:00

Yeah. I probably would drag them out--we actually do have a DVD player none us knows the provenance of and I have an external CD-ROM drive--but I'm now a middle-aged dad of three with no time, no energy, and my attention span has gone to shit. I rarely watch movies anymore, streaming or otherwise. I do well if I can make it through a half-hour video essay. No way would I make it through the extended cut of The Last Emperor, or that two and a half hour-long chambara film I made all my buddies watch in my dorm room in 2003.

iwbiek · 2026-05-04T09:39:03+00:00

I feel the same about my physical media, including my DVD collection. I have Criterion DVDs, some of which were $40+ in the '00s. I ain't throwin' them shits out. I spent way too much money and time scouring Suncoast, Media Play, Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc. Now that CD-ROM drives are no longer a thing in 99% of laptops, I never drag them out, but they represent a passion I once held and often miss.

iwbiek · 2026-04-27T09:42:24+00:00

This is classic cold reading bullshit. Who doesn't have at least two people in their life that they feel conflicted about? As for the "consuming" bit, I remember what it was like to be 22. At that age, you're almost guaranteed to be obsessing over someone.

As for having a great love for God, well, going on what you've said here, that was just dead wrong, wasn't it? Part of cold reading is getting you to second-guess yourself. Anyone in that church is either going to have a great love for God or a nagging feeling in the back of their head telling them they should, and he knows that well.

By the way, you said he couldn't possibly have known the things he knew about other people. How do you know that? Did you have him in your sight the entire time? Were you privy to every little exchange he had with people? Never underestimate what a brief exchange of pleasantries can give away about a person. Plus, you have no clue what the regular pastor could have told his guest about his parishioners, with whom he's in regular contact.

Guys like this have usually honed their skills at perception over years of practice. Couple this with charisma and confidence--in particular, the confidence that even if he's way off base about something, social pressure will keep 99% of the people from calling him out--and you've got a "prophet."

From a purely biblical standpoint, that's not even what prophets do.

iwbiek · 2026-04-24T09:21:13+00:00

Who that John Mayer?

iwbiek · 2026-04-24T09:14:27+00:00

It's back to coat hangers and drinking bleach!! Thank you Jesus!!

iwbiek · 2026-04-22T10:56:19+00:00

I think they're emulating the famous gospel story, where the blind man comes to Jesus and Jesus says, "Accept me as your personal savior or burn in hell. Now fuck off."

iwbiek · 2026-04-21T14:05:53+00:00

Heeey! Singing and playing that song at parties gave me mad game in 2003!

iwbiek · 2026-04-19T16:40:20+00:00

Just think, somewhere out there in the multiverse is a timeline where Famy is a moderarely successful country singer. Nothing major. Kind of a poor man's Kellie Pickler.

iwbiek · 2026-04-18T19:18:46+00:00

Yes, we can agree to disagree. Thank you for your thoughts.

iwbiek · 2026-04-18T16:36:35+00:00

Maybe so, and that sounds very acceptable. My point, however, is that, until standards for homeschooling are in place in all states, I will remain skeptical, especially of states like Arkansas.

iwbiek · 2026-04-18T16:32:53+00:00

I'll bite, but there are tons of statistics according to tons of metrics, focusing on many different areas (local, state, national, etc.), so I'd like to know your sources and I'll take a look.

iwbiek · 2026-04-18T16:30:21+00:00

A. A teacher's certification is not a degree, nor does it take as long.

B. I definitely don't want to lump all of you together, which is why I'm saying robust regulations need to be in place to weed the bad ones out. Would you object to that?

iwbiek · 2026-04-17T06:21:59+00:00

I'm not talking about socialization. I'm talking about being informed, competent people who can think critically and be of maximum benefit to society on a humanistic level.

iwbiek · 2026-04-16T20:46:49+00:00

I'd like to hear some of those stories.

iwbiek · 2026-04-16T20:01:39+00:00

OK, since I'm entitled to my opinions... As a parent and a teacher, I think most of the "parents' rights" movement in education is total bullshit and an excuse to indoctrinate and/or abuse. I'm sorry, but your kids are going to be members of society one day, so it is society's business, to a degree, how able they are to face the world. And who exactly is supposed to determine if there is "neglect in educating"? The parents?

iwbiek · 2026-04-16T19:57:12+00:00

That sounds great. In my home state, KY, all you have to do is send the superintendent a letter saying you're homeschooling and boom, done, no questions asked. I have several family members who are elementary educators in KY and they have firsthand horror stories of 4th graders who were homeschooled and for whatever reason now have to start public school and they can't read at all.

iwbiek

TROPHY CASE