The Chained Lady
Sirrah? Alamak? Is it written in the stars?
The myth of Andromeda is like many tales from Ancient Greece—on the surface a selection of arbitrary punishments and outlandish solutions. As with many tragic comedies of divine overreach used to instill virtue and coerce the behavior of mortals, the myth of Andromeda does little to dispel these stereotypes. Dig a little deeper beneath the vengeance, jealousy, vanity, or spite and a few intriguing anchors to the present emerge.
Andromeda, a princess of Ethiopia, became the unfortunate victim of her mother’s vanity. Her mother Cassiopeia boasted to the gods that her daughter’s beauty surpassed that of the Nereids—sea nymphs who must have been raised by those doting Alabama Mommas who primp and preen their daughters all day to look “beautiful” before creepy male judges because these nymphs were not fond of losing beauty contests. So they called in a favor with the god of the sea to set things straight.
The gods were enforcers of disproportionate retribution, but they liked to make mortals squirm first. So Poseidon decreed that the only way to save the kingdom was to sacrifice Andromeda by chaining her to a rock by the sea, leaving her to be devoured by a sea monster. The imagery is cruel—a young woman bound to a rock left to face an impending, grisly fate—all because her mother’s boasting bruised a few sea nymph egos.
In Greek mythology, innocence and penance weren’t shields against divine retribution. Apparently, de-escalation and diplomacy hadn’t yet been invented. Comedy?
It’s almost laughable that in a world where these nymphs had eternal life, they were still wrapped up in the shallowest form of vanity, causing the kind of destruction you'd expect from a teenage grudge in South Chicago or West Baltimore.
As with many innocent and beautiful youths today, poor Andromeda didn’t have very thoughtful parents either. Tragedy?
Cassiopeia and Cepheus, Andromeda’s father, didn't think through the consequences of their prideful boasting, nor did they volunteer to take the sacrificial punishment from Poseidon themselves, but instead dutifully had their daughter chained up—because what better way to solve a divine dilemma than by offering up your innocent child to Pfizer Poseidon?
Trust the science gods?
Tragedy.
Enter Perseus, a hero returning from slaying Medusa, armed with the Gorgon’s head, a winged horse (Pegasus), and an apparent need to keep proving himself to…himself. He sees Andromeda, chained and helpless, and after a bit of negotiation with her parents, proceeds to slay the sea monster and rescue her.
Perseus gets the beautiful girl, Andromeda gets saved, and her parents conveniently get to continue living without the remorse of losing their beautiful daughter on account of their boasting.
The tragi-comedy defined: Andromeda’s beauty became her downfall, to no fault of her own. Her suffering came from her parents’ idiocy, her fate was decided by the whims of gods, and her salvation came from a passing hero who negotiated Andromeda’s future for his saving actions.
The ancient Greek myth is not just intriguing in the context of astronomical science, but also within the astronomical idiocy of the current Red, White, and Bruised political selection theater.
To be clear, the selection has already been made. Voting week is when they make the official announcement. The winner will confirm the threats the opposition feard. The enraged masses of the losing side, programmed to deliver the appropriate reactions, will do so. The people are chained to the seats of this theater for eternity, to be devoured by the scripted drama as a kind of torture. (more on the Great Selection this weekend)
Regarding Andromeda, the celestial formation of The Chained Lady, and domestic political theatre, this is where things get…bizarre.
When we look at the night sky and see Andromeda immortalized in celestial permanence (or programmed holographic deception?), the constellation is marked by two key stars.
Sirrah and Alamak.
Nothing impressive until these stars are spelled backward.
Harris Kamala
A cosmic coincidence?
A playful wink from the universe?
A poison pill from past Arabic astronomers in Islam’s Golden Age eight centuries ago?
Revealation of the method?
The name is not uttered in silence to oneself without the cringy echo of an idiot’s voice.
One can hear that retarded vocal fry running circles around her five brain cells.
The significance of the passage of time is significant because of its significance.
Or, to a southern audience…
The significance of the passage of time is significant because…well it just is, y’all!
For the coup de grâce…these stars Amalak and Sirrah, denote Andromeda’s head and foot.
Not foot in mouth, but head and foot.
The universe is not without a sense of irony, though it could have really sent us mere mortals into a hilarious uproar if the stars were a foot in the chained lady’s mouth.
Now that her voice is already poisoning your mind, imagine Kamala Harris explaining the Andromeda myth—it’s easy if you try have the vocabulary of an eight-year-old.
“There’s a pretty girl, and she’s chained. Then there’s this rock and she’s chained to it. And a monster is coming. And then the sea and all these natural wonders that we all wonder about. They represent something holistic. And what we learn is that we learn from these myths, that sometimes we’re bound, but not just by what we see—we’re bound by what we see, and frankly what we don’t see.”
It’s enough to make one beg for the return of capricious gods to nail tongues to rocky cliffs and leave barely literate anointed public muppets hanging in silence for eternity.
Hey!
Kamala Harris in Greek mythology?
Her entire political story and the nation falling for it, are a slow-motion tragi-comedy of epic proportions.
In ancient Greece, there lived a girl named Amalak Sarrah, the daughter of a cunning mother who thrived on the manipulation of others. Amalak was mocked by the villagers for her inability to express a coherent thought. She fumbled over her words and her attempts at debate were met with derisive laughter. Her mother harbored grand ambitions for her daughter and plotted her steps for revenge and retribution on all those who mocked her.
Amalak’s mother saw a way to elevate her daughter from ridicule to reverence and power. “Power,” she whispered to Amalak, “is the only answer to mockery. You must go to Athens to obtain power, but power rests with the whims of men and the men of Athens crave two things: law degrees and the kind of oral persuasion not taught in schools. You will earn one by giving the other.”
With that, she handed her daughter a pair of golden knee pads, a gift that gleamed with opportunity. “Use whatever means necessary to rise to power. When you return, you will rule as Archon of our village, and those who once mocked you will beg for forgiveness.”
Amalak journeyed to the great city. There, she maneuvered her way into the halls of law through the oldest profession known to humankind. She descended to her knees at every opportunity and ascended the social ladder even faster, leaving behind a trail of scandal, though none dared speak of it openly for fear of being associated with such a lowly scoundrel with blind ambitions for only power.
The gods, watchful of mortals’ vices, did not turn a blind eye. Zeus, the guardian of divine justice, looked upon Amalak’s rise with disgust. Her speeches, when she attempted them, were incomprehensible gibberish. The people of Athens thought she belonged in an Asclepeion for the deficient and retarded. The people of Athens, long trained in the art of rhetoric and debate, were repulsed by her incoherence, whispering that her ascent had come at the cost of her integrity and not from any valued proficiency. Her disregard for the values Athens held sacred—rhetoric, logic, and wisdom—forced Zeus to act.
Fed up with her mockery of Athenian virtues, he finally decided to mete out punishment. He descended from Olympus and addressed Amalak, “You dare insult the sacred arts of oratory and reason? You who wield power through base cunning? I will silence your false tongue forever so that no man should be tempted, and no ears should be molested.” He dragged Amalak to the base of Mount Olympus and, with a single strike of his hammer, nailed her by the tongue to the mountainside for eternity as a warning to other devious and lascivious aspirants of power.
Amalak remained bound to the mountain, her tongue stretched and bloodied until one day a nomad from the Sephardim tribe named Ffohme wandered through the land. Ffohme was not without his own scandals, having impregnated and beaten his daughter’s nanny in a scandalous affair. He was a man who thrived in the shadows of societal decay. Spotting Amalak, he approached her, intrigued by her suffering. As her garbled screams of “Fweedom!” reached his ears, he saw in her a kindred spirit—a soul whose rise to power had been thwarted by the righteous forces of a divine justice his people abhorred.
With a flick of a clipped coin, Ffohme removed the nail from her tongue, freeing her from her eternal punishment. “You have potential,” he told her, “but you lack subtlety. Power, to be acquired must be done by stealth. Vengeance must be wielded in darkness. Your mistake wasn’t your ambition, but your methods. Now return to your village, but do not openly seek revenge. Instead, let the enemies of your enemies do the work for you.”
Amalak, grateful but unbroken by her ordeal, returned to her village with Ffohme by her side, where she quickly rose to the position of Strategos—chief of justice and law. She heeded Ffohme’s advice. Despite an overwhelming desire to openly punish those who had mocked her, she opened the city gates, inviting hordes of escaped slaves from the distant lands of Egypt and Persia, long-time enemies of her people. She released the criminals from the prisons and allowed these alien tribes to flood the city. Chaos ensued as the once-proud village crumbled under the weight of lawlessness and disorder.
Amalak, now fully embracing her mother’s lessons, watched from her seat of power as the village tore itself apart. From the shadows of her boudoir her kyphotic savior Ffohme rubbed his hands with glee. After an eight-year reign of destruction, Amalak and Ffohme fled to an ocean-view villa in Tel Aviv.
The Good Citizen is now on Ko-Fi. Support more works like this with one-time or monthly donations.
Sixteen months ago I cut this video edit of the first and second U.S. Vice Presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, from the HBO series John Adams, alongside unedited clips of the 49th and last Vice President Amalak Sirrah attempting to speak without a teleprompter. And here we are 30 days away from her selection?
While I knew that Papa Dementia would never make it to the 2024 finish line, I never could have imagined the demoralization ritual of planting Amalak Sirrah as his replacement—after the primaries without a single vote, and calling her the pro-democracy candidate while being championed by corporate media with the most incredible deadpan abilities of any non-human bunch in history.
That she’s been endorsed by all those vapid blackmailed celebrities, paid handsomely to keep a straight face and serious tone while destroying their credibility forever is the final cherry atop one of the biggest political farces in history.
I’ll never be able to hear a Bruce Springsteen song again without thinking about that assclown sitting at a folksy small-town cafe endorsing the chained lady. The fu**ing boss? The boss of being bribed and extorted? Nobody with that much talent and songwriting creativity can be that insincere. Perhaps he’s an even better actor.
It’s as if we really are living in a simulation, and those interdimensional shape-shifting reptilians who write the code for our farcical world are leaning back in their gaming chairs, sipping pints of lager, and having a constant laugh at our expense.
Now let’s get one of their favorite popular musicians to endorse her!
Everything seems like a test nowadays, as in a kind of judgment of character in the response to each current thing.
Not unlike those popular juvenile Web 2.0 sites with names like “hot or not?”, where two images of young people appeared side by side and visitors rated them or clicked on the “hotter” image, except this game is called, “Idiot or not?”
And we are the subjects being rated.
Proceed accordingly holistically Good Citizens.
Special thanks to continued support from flock members (especially this past year!) for helping keep this substack alive, and welcome to the latest flock arrivals.
Thank you for the kind words. It keeps me going.
Anyone having issues with Stripe or payment processing (there’s been a lot of trickery lately), or anything related, please email me: tgc_substack@protonmail.com
Hey!
you gotta get me outta here
Hey!
runnin’ circles in my brain
Hey!
you gotta get me outta here
Hey!
you got nothing to lose but your head
Bring the gods holistic joy!
Fixed Income Pensioner Discount (honor system)
Student Discount (valid .edu email)
Thank you for sharing
The Good Citizen is now on Ko-Fi. Support more works like this with one-time or monthly donations.
Visit shop.thegoodcitizen.live
Donate
BTC: bc1qchkg507t0qtg27fuccgmrfnau9s3nk4kvgkwk0
LTC: LgQVM7su3dXPCpHLMsARzvVXmky1PMeDwY
XLM: GDC347O6EWCMP7N5ISSXYEL54Z7PNQZYNBQ7RVMJMFMAVT6HUNSVIP64
DASH: XtxYWFuUKPbz6eQbpQNP8As6Uxm968R9nu
XMR: 42ESfh5mdZ5f5vryjRjRzkEYWVnY7uGaaD
This is simply brilliant! You are a storyteller in the ancient tradition of the bards.
Personally, I think they've selected Trump. The author of "The Art of the Deal" has cut a deal to stay out of jail. All he has to do is lead America's sons to bleed out on the sands of Iran. Once again, the US of A will do Israel's bidding. Remember that shortly after 9/11, Netanyahu stood in front of Congress and delivered Israel's wish list: regime change in Iraq, Libya, and Iran.
TPTB have tipped their hand with CBS' ambush interviews of the Democrats over the weekend. Walz and Harris, like Biden in the June debate, were brought on stage to be humiliated and then discarded. Couple this with the Coolest Man on Earth Who Also Wants to Implant a Chip in your Brain's enthusiastic endorsement of Trump, and I would put a substantial amount of cash money on Trump to get the W next month.