As 30 April launch looms, ModState bolsters staff, expands allied network

While the pre-launch dismissal this week of longtime colleague and early ModState editorial signee Jeremy Bennett was a development unforeseen by the surrounding members, any possible concern(s) over the credibility of the upstart publication evaporated almost immediately after. Within the same workweek as Bennett’s departure, Jonathan D. DeViney (ModState‘s EiC) revealed the renewal of a long-standing partnership with a friend of nearly a decade, Maryland attorney, radio host and political author James Braswell. The latter’s five-year-old online firm, Free State Radio, has entered into a broad network alliance and content affiliation with the former’s upstart e-zine.

With ModState due over the course of the weekend to enter into its’ second public beta-testing phase, further details are slated to emerge promptly as Braswell and DeViney continue to explore the extent to which the content of FSR will appear on MS as well as how many (if not all) of Braswell’s staffers will be joining DeViney’s crew in at least minor roles of contribution. Already established are many of the tenets set to operate the business mechanics of the arrangement, as well as the guarantee that Braswell and DeViney will be heavily entrenched in unique content creation (original video content, in particular) throughout the next seventy-two hours.

“While it may only stay up for a couple of days, when ModState becomes available for limited viewing this weekend during the second of three planned beta test periods,” DeViney said, “there will be far greater movement in terms of actual content available this go ’round. For those who observed the first beta test, saying it was very limited would be a big understatement. One whole post, the one concerning the pending difficulties of Paul Ryan’s job, was all that was apparent. The reason for that was because things still weren’t settled as far as the graphical layout, the aesthetics, were concerned. It wasn’t about whetting the editorial appetite of potential return visitors. For one thing, virtually no one outside of the organization even knew we were doing a beta test. This time, we’ve made available a few details about both the timeframe and what to expect in terms of original content during this period. The only real similarity will be the duration of the beta test; it is highly unlikely to last for much longer than forty-eight hours. We’ll probably go live tomorrow [Saturday] night and bring it back down by Tuesday morning.”

Regarding the timing of the aforementioned third (and likely final) beta test slated to happen later this month or the first week of April, neither Braswell nor DeViney ventured any information. As pertains to the current activities and future plans of Jeremy Bennett, only the assertion that the editorial and recording aspirations of the former contributing editor were incompatible with the direction of ModState and thus the continued working relationship was deemed obsolete. Bennett previously worked under DeViney as a staff writer and columnist for the now-defunct game journalism e-zine GamePartisan from 2007 until it ceased operations on the seventh anniversary of its launch, 02 February 2009. He was primarily known for his eclectic column, “The Gaymer”, and as a content strategist who helped DeViney refine much of what would become GamePartisan editorial policy regarding an eventual video arm/YouTube channel of the site. The latter facet of the network never officially launched and, in terms of public access, never saw the light of day.

 

 

 

Staff

State of Mind: A Person is a Person

“If being crazy means living life as if it matters, then I don’t mind being completely insane.” – Kate Winslet

There’s a fundamental breakdown that, for whatever the reason may be, is completely disregarded by many modern Americans. While there are so many behaviors that can be clarified on a psychological standpoint, this one isn’t presenting itself quite as easily as some other predominate issues. Fifty years ago, mental health wasn’t a recognized issue. There was no reasoning or justification for people suffering with such, only that they were traditionally characterized as a bad person. We come from a civilization that, 50-100 years ago, men would institutionalize their so-called weaker parts for some of the most mundane reasons; superstition, novel reading, tobacco use, masturbation, etc. Thank God that doesn’t happen anymore, right?

Consequently, the ship turned, starting on the daybreak of the 21st century, to a focus on mental health. We have the Boomer generation that started to classify themselves as damaged and recognized there was a problem. The Boomers came from parents who were the product of the Great Depression and World War 2 which, from the psychological viewpoint, we can take a look at the time and infer that while they were traveling into adulthood, the focus was more on a Country as opposed to the needs of an individual. This outlook coupled with extreme PTSD from the lack of basic needs and war time elements brought to life the behaviors of “sweeping it under the rug.” We then had the Boomers raise the generation coming into adulthood now who are focused on mental health. “Focused.” At least mental health matters when it fits and supports an agenda. Before we go further, I am not and will not relate politics to mental health. In this context, they are in no way or form related. There are snowflakes everywhere people; stay woke.

I will be the first person to say that I absolutely love the fact people are more focused on mental health. I truly do not know how I would react in a culture that didn’t and there still are countries where that is not highly recognized. For anyone that has/does suffer with anything in the mental health category, it’s an extremely comforting to know there is some safe space and people that do understand its real and it’s not going away. Adhering to this train of thought, there is a big difference between needing a safe space because you are trying to work through an issue and because you refuse to admit that it’s ok for people to disagree with you. They are not the same thing and never will be.

Let’s talk about this disparity. In the grand scheme of things, we are not special, our feelings only matter to ourselves, and if we don’t do something, America is going to be governed by a bunch of oversensitive, ill-informed, entitled children; this doesn’t sound very promising to me. However, I’ve been wrong before.

“If you’re going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you’re going to be locked up.” – Hunter S. Thompson

If you made it thus far, you’re thinking, “What’s the point here Brittany? What are you getting at?” When is the last time that you have seen a peaceful protest? When is the last time you have seen multiple groups of the modern Americans that differ on views come together and either achieve the agenda or at least agreed to disagree, and didn’t end up looking like a bunch of snotty nosed, bratty children fighting over the last cookie? It’s cool, I’ll wait. When did we lose the social capability to have the basic respect for other people regardless of political stance, race, economic status or literally any other way you want to group people? When did we have to start grouping people anyway and then treating them differently just because of such? When did we forget that the Constitution protects freedom of speech? PSA, the Constitution also protects ideals we may not agree with.

Looking at current events, we have a group of people aware of mental health but refuse to accept that people differ in their views and when that difference does come about, we then choose verbally and/or physically attack those that do not agree. For what? We are mentally aware enough to know that abuse in any form causes trauma, trauma then has the potential to create mental health issues, however, in that same sentence we will condemn any person to just that, solely because they do not agree with our ideals. Anyone else confused?

The late, great Dr. Seuss wrote, “A person is a person, no matter how small.” How and when did we forget this? How do we now have people that have been friends for years removing each other from their lives just because of who they voted for during the last election? How do we say we care about each other in such a primal way as mental health and with the same tongue cause the trauma we were still healing from? Most importantly, why? Why are we so stuck on being right as opposed to just agree to disagree?

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Political Beast: Three-Year (Leather Anniversary) Retrospective

“Get on the ready line, Marines! Get some today!”

On this, the third anniversary of the founding of the (multi) media beast that has become ModState, let’s take a quick look back at what we’ve accomplished this year, and what has kicked our collective asses. This being the “leather” anniversary (or crystal if you follow “The Chicago Guide for Style and Asinineness”, but we’ll forget that), Political Beast would like to point out the tough (and not-so) commentaries and informationalities offered by the crew aboard the good ship. Leather in the minds of Political Beast has always conjured up images of John Wayne astride a horse, hat always seeming to be just about to blow away as he leads his men (or just himself) up a hill or down into some dangerous valley; always the hero, always sure of himself, always a winner, even when he’s down. Our personal favorite of his films is the one he shares with Jimmy Stewart, Lee Marvin, Vera Miles (hottie!) and a host of others at the top of their game. We guess competition for screen time sometimes brings out the best in you. “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” suffers for being black-and-white, but you can still almost smell the boots and saddles. Not quite sure what ModState would smell like if you got us all together, but after banging this out over the last few days, Political Beast needs a bath. In this political climate, seems we all do…constantly. But, leather-faced and determined, ModState continues to dive down into the belly of the cavernous animal that is reality and tries to stay in the saddle. If a much greater man than any member of Political Beast could describe the year in review, he might do it thusly:

We’d tilt our gaze downward, too. The Internet is forever.

“It is not the critical education Theresa Leary attempted to give us in her American Scandal Primer, or the fact that she forgot to capitalize “Deep Throat” that counts. Nor is it in the way DeViney points out how the Steele Dossier, or GamePartisan or Harvey Weinstein (no affiliation) stumbles, or where Apologetics articles could’ve done things better. Like not making a description of ModState’s history look like a Trump circle-jerk cabinet meeting. The credit belongs to the guys who are actually arguing (sometimes redundantly) in the Podcast, whose faces are marred by dusty facts and changing priorities, and sweat and lack of sleep, and blood from the veins popping out of DeViney’s neck whenever he has to admit Hillary is still relevant; who strives valiantly as Leary does to convince us that she is a mom; who errs in saying “We are all the descendants of rebels” (sorry Al Sharpton), who comes up WAY too wordy again and again, because there is no effort—especially by Political Beast’s recent writing team—without error in Wellein’s shifting definitions of socialism, and shortcoming in DeViney’s confusion over how “universal” universal healthcare should be; but who does, like Geoff Sheppard, actually strive to do the deeds of giving us an accurate portrayal of Katharine Graham’s role at The Post and setting the record straight; who knows the thinly-veiled enthusiasms of seeing the Mueller report exonerate Trump (DeViney), the great continuing devotions to the legacies of Kennedy (Wellein) and Nixon (I’ll ignore the obvious); who spends himself in a worthy cause, bringing the seedy-stream media to its knees (ok, they’re kinda doing that to themselves) who best knows in the end the “zero-tolerance, zero-humanity” (of getting) high on achievement, and who at the worst, if she fails at explaining why kids are still getting separated at the border, at least fails while daring us to take her seriously, so that none of these media warriors’ place will ever be with those cold, right-wing stooges or timid left-wing loons, who never accept Trump’s victory, Hillary’s defeat, or realize the exultation of the exit song on celluloid as the leather-bound hero rides off into the sunset.”

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PRESS RELEASE: Al Eldeen Dismissal

Saturday, 18 May 2019

ModState Magazine

Aurora, Colorado 80017

For Immediate Release

Aurora, Colorado – 18 May 2019 –

In Honor of Lilly

It is with the heaviest of hearts that we address what is certainly the darkest and saddest chapter for ModState to date. Yesterday, managing editor J. DeViney and associate editor (and podcast host) Nate S. Wellein learned of the indictment of our former copy editor, Albin Eldeen, by The State of Texas on charges of child sexual assault. His apparent arrest in November 2018 and subsequent indictment in February 2019 (both occurring in San Antonio, Texas) was information that was made available to Mr. DeViney (The GNO /New Orleans metro) and Mr. Wellein (Denver metro) yesterday evening.

With that, we dually thank Mr. Eldeen for his efforts as copy editor to ensure exacting editorial standards were met and to provide “Layman’s Terms” assessments of the Bill of Rights. However, the decision within both houses (editorial and multimedia) of ModState Magazine was unanimous in removing all content authored by Mr. Eldeen that was ever posted to the editorial site, and furthermore to dismiss him from his advisory role permanently.

While we also feel it is important that justice be carried out before denouncing anyone in the court of public opinion, regardless of the charges leveled against them, we also feel very strongly that, even should a legal outcome favorable to Mr. Eldeen occur, any future efforts by his person should be expended in the best interests of his immediate and extended family units. Therefore, while Albin Eldeen served honorably as a NCO (non-commissioned officer) in the United States Army (including nearly two years of which was spent alongside fellow Army veteran Nate S. Wellein and Navy veteran J. DeViney at Walter Reed in Bethesda, Maryland), he is barred from any subsequent participation in our operations in any capacity, regardless of future legal outcomes.

By direction: DeViney-Wellein, Ltd., legal agent of ModState, ModState.com & ModState Magazine, and accountable officer Jonathan D. DeViney

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