{"id":22551,"date":"2025-12-11T12:24:34","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T17:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/?p=22551"},"modified":"2026-02-23T12:43:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T17:43:20","slug":"how-to-start-a-war-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/blog\/how-to-start-a-war-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"How to start a war, part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/uk-england-36389581\"><figure id=\"attachment_22552\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-22552\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-22552\" src=\"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/20251211_deathphotos.jpg\" alt=\"A tintype of 5 children, at least one of whom is dead.\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-22552\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u201cTaken from life: The unsettling art of death photography\u201d \u2014BBC June 5, 2016<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/blog\/war-part1\/\">Part 1<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Can we stipulate that people die?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In any negotiation, one must define one&#8217;s terms. The day after Bros #1 &amp; #2, Paul and Nick, went to visit Aunts Susie and Millie, which reception was hostile to begin with, to ask about <em>liquidating Mom&#8217;s portion of the house<\/em>, and got a very hostile response, then left in a state of gasted flabbers, we tried again.<\/p>\n<p>This time it involved a phone, Nick, me, and Mom in a hospital room. We called. Nick was doing the talking, and he asked the profound question and current familial meme that should be the first go-to in any situation where one is tempted to prolong the suffering of a loved one (including animals) because <em>you<\/em> can&#8217;t let go and you&#8217;re just that fucking selfish. Yes. Yes, you are.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Can we stipulate that people die?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It took them way too long to answer that question, which, for a 79-year-old and an 83-year-old, is pretty damned weird. It also creates a philosophical\/theological quandary:<\/p>\n<p>If you believe in a loving God and a pretty awesome afterlife even <em>before<\/em> Judgment Day, why are you afraid of dying?<\/p>\n<p>Do you not believe what you profess to believe?<\/p>\n<p>Where is your faith?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Part 1. Can we stipulate that people die?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[548,657,367,549,476,317,547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian","category-death","category-family","category-mormon","category-musings","category-philosophy","category-theology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22551"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22551"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23722,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22551\/revisions\/23722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}