Phoenician Flame

Random things from a random guy.

[onychoprion]

Syzygy

Ten years of expectation come to head Upon this desert valley high and dry. The morning sun still climbs into the air While whispy clouds mar the perfect sky. The chairs have been set up with hour to spare The blanket sheet upon the grass weighed down Thermos of coffee held in hands with care The land with quiet excitement buzzing sound. The hour did pass without a note event: Strangers by the road discussing life, Timers counting to C1 near spent As excitement levels start to rise. Glasses on and peer up to the sun To spy the moon encroaching on his disk. Like a curtain drawn, eclipse begun: A darkened corner biting into Sol. An hour passed, yet hour still to go Anticipation sending shivers 'round. Each passing minute bringing near to us That cov'ted moment of totality. Without the glasses day resumes as norm, Yet through the filters plain is seen the truth: The sun continues to be swallowed whole Its lum'nous face now half-marred by the moon. The air begins to cool as light now fades A chilly wind, a too-cold breeze now blows -- Too much of Sol is blocked to make the day As warm and bright as it would oth'rwise be. A quarter left, a sliver of sun still shines From around Selene's intruding face. Clocks are watched with ever bright'ning eyes As shadows sharpen, cast upon the grass. The air still cools, but now excitement wins Jitt'ry anticipation keeping warm The bodies of the people who now watch With rapt attention up into the sky. Twilight falls on mountains to the west, Mere minutes only are we left to wait. The sun a sliver small yet still too bright For people to look straight into the sight. Seconds left, the land still darkens round. Shadows sharp grow faint upon the hill. The timers counting down to the eclipse And then the tone, the dark totality. The twilight chill on flesh, it danced like fey -- A thousand angels on each follicle -- It prematurely brings to halt this day. And there I saw with awe the face of god. The holy wedding ring, a gift to Earth, Wreathed in divine light 'round disk of pitch. The horizon alight with twilight's hearth Hanging in the sky, that precious jewel. The halo round the head of Selene's crown Bright and white with lum'nous light so pure, Like rays cast from a bit of seraph down. Platonic id'al of such beauty grand! The ring of fire so hot and pure and light. The eye of heaven dangling in the sky. The stars' delight, Celeste's radiant bride. The stunning awe of unimagined sight. Words of grandeur fail to describe true The sight of Selene's consort with the sun. 'Beauty' 'Wonder' 'Awesome' 'Jewel' They splat like mud upon her dress so pure. Numinous. A celest'al holy sight. Numinous. A wonder from the sky. Numinous. A gift from gods so bright. Numinous. A sight words can't describe. The beads and diamond ring steal sight away Returning me onto this earthly realm. The growing light returns Sol's conqu'ring day And heaven's visitation leaves no trace. Was it dream or mere imagination? The mem'ry seems less real with passing hours. Yet know I that no human mind could make That lum'nous num'nous divine beauty view

[fuckyeahasexual]

Riverdale’s Jughead is no longer asexual, and that’s a problem for fans

The community speaks out

WOOO MAKE SOME NOISE!

[heyjudeberry]

This is good, but they talked about aromanticism and didn’t use the name. Which sucks.

[tasteoface]

^

[asexualmoments]

HOLD UP

We finally have a popular canonically Asexual comic book character. One. We finally have one. And they decide to make him straight for the movie adaption?

Why? I want a valid reason. “He’s trying to find himself” doesn’t pan out. While finding our identity holds value, they NEVER said “he’ll try to find himself and THEN for sure yes we’ll include his asexuality!”

This is more of a “maybe, we’ll see about that lol maybe y'all will forget and move on anyway lol” answer.

And another thing; do they realize Jughead can identify as an asexual, AND ALSO BE IN A HETEROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP?

I’m appalled at this blatant erasure.

[onychoprion]

I can see there being actual value in this. Lemme ‘splain. I’m pretty sure most asexuals remember the Before Times. Before you realized you were ace. For me, personally, it was difficult trying to grow up and understand why there was this huge part of my surrounding culture, especially Murican male culture, that I wasn’t getting. I felt like a broken heterosexual. (I wrote an essay about it that can be read here: The Perils of Asexuality).

I’d imagine most aces have similar experiences. Today, that’s part of being ace: living for a while wondering why you’re broken, feeling alienated, and trying to go along with everyone else to fit in, etc. That’s part of why increasing the visibility of asexuality is so important: once you know it exists, it’s an incredibly liberating experience. You’re not broken, and there are hundreds of millions (assuming that 1% figure is accurate) of others like you.

Having Jughead start out as a purple-wearing, confident ace isn’t the asexual experience. At least not yet. Having him start season 1 as a hetero is not all that different from how I grew up, and how I’d imagine lots of asexual guys do. Living the hetero life because maybe eventually it’ll click and you won’t be broken anymore. Imagine, then, getting to see the relief and liberation on the character when he learns that asexuality is a thing. Maybe like me, from randomly browsing the internet, or by asking someone why they’re wearing so much purple, or something. Seeing him watch his whole life click into place.

Remember, one of the writers of the show is asexual.

I think it could be a powerful moment, and one which will increase asexual visibility more than having him be out-and-out ace from day-1. The Before Times are part of who we are, and so should be a part of fictional aces as well.

[smartereveryday]

One of the bad things about sealing the driveway is covering up the side effects of hanging out with @gavinfree and @danielgruchy.

[onychoprion]

Waitwut? You and Gav and Dan hung out?! Please tell me this’ll be in a video...! :D

[onychoprion]

Cooperation and Chess

So ... a few days ago a right-wing think tank came out and said that we shouldn’t destroy ISIS because Russia. (Link: http://www.salon.com/2016/08/23/israeli-think-tank-dont-destroy-isis-its-a-useful-tool-against-iran-hezbollah-syria/)

So a few decades ago there was thing thing going on in the world called the Cold War. Capitalism vs Communism, the West vs the East, Murica vs the Soviets. And a lot of the foreign policy mentalities of today grew up in that environment. Communists backed North Korea, so Capitalists had to back South. Communists wanted to take over Vietnam, so the US had to stop them.

This mentality lead to some pretty ugly things. Pol Pot killed millions in Cambodia, but, most importantly he wasn’t Communist, and thus had the backing of the US military. Pol Pot eventually was dethroned by Communists from Vietnam, and Cambodia is still recovering from Pot.

So currently there’s this thing happening in Iraq and Syria called “ISIS” or “ISIL” or “IS” or “Daesh” or whatever. A militant Salafi group intent on creating an “Islamic State” (hence the “IS” in those acronyms), and they’re doing a lot of horrible things in the process. Beheadings and the like. So horrible that pretty much everyone is fighting, or in some way supporting the opposition to them.

Included in the opposition are Syria and Iran, the former being territoriality threatened, the latter being religiously threatened as Iran is a Shiite nation, and the Salafis don’t like Shiites. Also included in the opposition are countries like Russia, who are both fighting directly (mostly with bombs, I think) and supporting local armies to fight ISIS/ISIL/IS/Daesh/whatever.

And here’s where this Cold War things comes in. Posit: Russia is eeeevil communists. Posit: Russia is supporting Iran and Syria in the fight against the IS. Posit: Iran and Syria are eeeeevil Muslim countries. Posit: All these eeeevil people are fighting the IS. Solution: make sure the IS isn’t destroyed.

This is chessboard foreign policy from a time that ostensibly doesn’t exist anymore. The Cold War is supposed to be over, and yet here we are. What baffles my mind is if you look just a bit farther back, you get to WWII, where the US, France, and the UK allied with the Actual For Real Stalin because they were fighting the Actual For Real Hitler. And keep in mind this alliance was formed before we learned about the whole genocide thing he was doing.

Why can’t we go back to that? Russia, Iran, and Syria have the same goals as “The West” in this fight: get rid of the IS and, ostensibly, try to get some peace and stability in the region. And yet we have people saying we should support the IS because it might weaken one of our allies in the fight against the IS? What?!

I’d say “luckily these idiots aren’t actually making our foreign policy” except that one of the two people who have a shot at being the president of the US is advocating for shooting down Russian planes if they continue bombing the IS. (Sources: here and here).

How we’ve not blown ourselves up already is a mystery to me. (But this is relevant)

[onychoprion]

QWERTY

I like to imagine that whoever invented the QWERTY keyboard layout was trying to pick up a girl (I’m assuming it was a guy, since it was in the 1870s). Because he literally put U and I together.

[edwardspoonhands]

In light of that reptile getting off the hook despite massive amounts of evidence that she committed several crimes and lied about it, do you still support her? Are you still going to support her on the pretense that she would somehow be better than Donald Trump?

The crime that you wish Hillary Clinton had been indicted for required that the person committing the crime have malicious intent…basically, in order for her to have committed the crime, she had to do it with the express goal of harming the United States of America.

She didn’t do that…obviously.

This is why everyone…EVERYONE leading up to this knew that she was not going to be indicted. She was never going to be indicted because she didn’t break this law and this is a thing that, again, absolutely everyone who knew anything about the situation knew. But we still spent months talking about it because the Republican Party has turned small but powerful portions of the U.S. government into a machine designed to discredited Hillary Clinton. 

Maybe it would be good to ask yourself why an outcome that was completely unsurprising to every unbiased analyst is so shocking and upsetting to you.

Oh, also, yes. I support Hillary Clinton both because I think she’s going to be an excellent president, and also because Donald Trump is the opposite of everything I have ever wanted for my country. 

[onychoprion]

“Oh, also, yes. I support Hillary Clinton both because I think she’s going to be an excellent president” I am more than a bit disappointed to hear you say that, because when I look at Hillary’s voting record, I have to differ. For instance, she co-sponsored S.1911 which would have made burning a US flag a crime (even though the SCOTUS protected it as free speech in 1989). And on the topic of Bill of Rights, she also voted for the PATRIOT Act in 2001, and it’s extension in 2006, which removed a bit of the fourth amendment. On foreign policy, she voted in support of the Iraq War, which has cost already close to $2 trillion, and around $6 trillion by 2050, and which has successfully resulted in an increased number of radicals in the area and a civilian body-count numbering in the hundreds of thousands (those two achievements just might be linked). While one might argue she’s repented of that vote, she still is spouting pro-war rhetoric, even arguing for no-fly zones in Syria which totally won’t be a stepping-stone to WW3 if Russia decides to continue bombing ISIS despite the zone.

Economically, she called the TPP the “gold standard” of trade deals, when it would lose the US about a half-million jobs by 2025 in exchange for a drop of a half-percent of our GDP and a fifth of a percent in US exports. And despite her rhetoric during the primaries, her surrogates at the DNC keep refusing anti-TPP language on the platform.

Socially, she only came around to supporting marriage equality in 2013; she can hardly be considered a “leader” in that regard.

Environmentally, she voted against a bill that would give tax incentives to renewable fuel production and research and impose an average fuel efficiency of at least 35 mpg on cars. She also voted for a bill that would remove limits on how much mercury could be released via smokestacks.

Based on her record, I’d expect a Clinton presidency to result in fewer jobs, more war (with a possible World War), less base freedoms for US citizens, more stagnancy in social progress, and a continuation of our current “Eh, we can fix it later” environment policy. None of which I’d consider worthy of being labeled “excellent.”

[onychoprion]

Interesting

So, after reading this article about how Loretta Lynch will accept FBI recommendations in regards to Hillary’s criminal investigation, I wondered if there was any information as to whether or when she’d get indicted. So I went onto Google and typed in “when will Hill” and naturally it comes up with recommended search terms. Usually those are terms that other people search. For instance, “why is” results in things like “why is the sky blue” and “why is the ocean salty”. But for “when will Hill” I got some ... interesting results.

So I went to DuckDuckGo, typed in the same phrase, and got quite a lot of interesting results. Interesting in that they completely disagreed with Google’s results.

Here’s a comparison of the two: [link to larger image]

I also tried out Yahoo and Bing: [link to larger image]

Now, this is certainly interesting. But, I thought to myself, maybe people using Google are more likely to be just thrilled about her nomination, and truly are wondering when she’ll pick a running mate. And whether there are so many more searches for that then the top picks for the other three that Google doesn’t even bother to include the other three. [link to larger image]

Oh.

Thankfully the actual search results line up fairly well, but if Google’s willing to “massage” search entries like this, is fiddling with actual results out of the question? I mean, Google assures us that they’re not biased, but then again so did the DNC, when they clearly were.

Now, I did try to search about other presidential candidates, to see if Google similarly whithholds autocomplete on “avoid[ing] completing a search for a person’s name with terms that are offensive or disparaging” but, unfortunately, there are no other presidential candidates currently under a criminal investigation by the FBI. However, the incomplete search “is Don” returns with “is donald trump racist” [link to larger image] so apparently accusations of racism aren’t as “offensive or disparaging” as implying the fact that Hillary is under a criminal investigation by the FBI.

[onychoprion]

TINSTAFL

On Monday 11 April, Hillary Clinton had an interview with the Newsday editorial board, during which she said this:

“[M]y dad taught me that, if anybody tells you something is free, look at the fine print.”

This got me thinking. In particular, it got me thinking about how her generation, and in particular Hillary Clinton herself, as so far either behaved as though certain things were free, or she did read the ‘fine print’ and decided that the short term gains were better than the long-term losses.

I’m talking about the Great Barrier Reef, about 93% of which has been bleached due to abnormally high water temperatures, according to the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. The damage is severe, and while not yet entirely permanent (only half of the northern section is expected to die from the bleaching), it’s only a matter of time before it’s entirely gone.

It’s almost guaranteed that I will never get to see the reef. My children: never.

I bring this up because Hillary Clinton, as US Senator, voted against a bill that would give tax incentives to renewable fuel production and research and impose an average fuel efficiency of at least 35 mpg on cars. She voted for a bill that would remove limits on how much mercury could be released via smokestacks. She also decided not simply not vote on a bill that would put caps on carbon emissions.

And when Hillary and the super PAC supporting her have received several million dollars from fossil fuel lobbyists, bundlers, and donors in this election cycle alone, it seems that she either didn’t read the fine print on those contributions, or she did, and decided that the ability for future generations to see the Great Barrier Reef is worth less than $4.5 million.

You’re right, Hillary, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Because I, for one, will never vote for someone who has so regularly voted against my interests.

[halfthealphabet]

Dear Ace communtiy

I have a request of you. I am doing a project about Asexuality in my Body and the Culture class. The project was to pick a micro community and learn more about it. I have recently discovered that I fall on the asexual spectrum, so I decided this would be a good opportunity to explore and spread knowledge of asexuality. One part of the project includes interviews with asexual people so I thought I would come here. Any information you are comfortable sharing would be great. And if you have any other information to share, that would also be awesome. 

If you want to reblog with your answers or send them to me on tumblr, whatever works for you. Also, if any of this is offensive, please let me know, I am young and still learning. 

a.      How did asexuality first connect with you as a possible identity?

b.     Have you run into acephobia or ignorance about asexuality before?

c.      Are you aromantic, heteroromantic, homoromantic, biromantic, or panromantic?

d.     What would you like people to know about asexuality?

e.      How involved are you with the asexual community?

f.      How has being asexual affected your life?

g.     How has your partner or previous partners reacted to learning about your sexuality?

h.     How do you feel about asexual discourse and the movement to be included in the LGBTQIA community?

Edit: Also, if you could share what gender you identify as and age, that would be helpful but not necessary. And any other personal info you think I should have, like race or nationality. I want to show how diverse the ace community is. Also, if you identify as demisexual or gray sexual, mention that as well please. Sorry for so many edits.

[onychoprion]

A) The moment I learned it was even a thing, which happened from random browsing on Rationalwiki.

B) I have not encountered acephobia yet, though I’m quite a bit of an introvert. Ignorance is extremely common, though, and I’ve had to explain what it is to everyone to whom I’ve come out.

C) Heteroromantic

D) It’d just be nice if people knew what it was. Or even were adept enough at Greek/Latin to understand what ‘A-Sexuality” meant.

E) Not very, TBH. I mostly just lurk

F) Quite negatively, prior to me realizing that’s what it was. Just the background feeling that I’m broken, not fully human, etc. affected everything in a bad way

G) They’ve reacted understandingly, thankfully.

H) ..... Yes? I don’t have much of an opinion on that, actually. I think it’d be great if the information could get out, even if it wasn’t in the LGBT+ framework. I’m a 23-year-old cis-male.

[onychoprion]

How To Election Fraud

If there’s ever an election you want to rig for a certain outcome, there are a few sure-fire ways of making your dream of subverting democracy a reality! Just follow these few simple steps to ensure your favored candidate “gets” the vote!

Focus on the demographics In all elections there will generally be a demographic split between candidates. It could be old-young, rich-poor, white-minority, or whatever. Do your research, figure out your demographic and, most importantly, figure out how they're likely to vote. Then it's just a simple matter of focusing the election on the demographic that's advantageous to your voters, and suppress everyone else! If, for example, you tend to do well with older, wealthier people, who are more likely to turn in early ballots, then one good way of focusing on that is by slashing the number of polling places by 70% prior to the election. It doesn't matter if the election trend for the year is record-breaking voter turnout, cutting polling places is a fantastic way to rig the election in your favor, if the demographics are right! Most of your older voters will turn in their ballots early, while your wealthy voters can afford to wait in poll lines for up to 5 hours while the poorer people, who have to work on weekdays, can't. BRAVO! You've tilted the election in your favor, and the best part is, you can cite the decision is to 'save money', and even blame the voters for the long lines! But don't worry, we're not done yet, because there are so many things you can do with this!

Announce a winner before people have even voted. That's right, remember all your voters who turned in their ballots early? Those ones demographically biased towards your candidate? You can count those early, and then publish their results, announcing your candidate victorious even before people have voted! This can discourage people, especially those voting for your opponent who, as exampled before, tend to be younger, poorer, and thus might not be able to wait the contrived 5 hours to cast their vote. Pure brilliance! But we're still not done, since there might be a possibility that some pesky citizens dedicated to democracy might still reach the polling stations and mess up your plans! Fear not, as you only need to

Deny your opponent's voters from even casting a ballot So, let's assume that Independents heavily favor your opponent, and let's also say the state in question happens to have a closed primary. The problem is: those pesky Independents were smart and managed to re-register as Democratic prior to the election! Well, luckily, that's an easy fix. Just have someone go into the database looking for people who've recently switch their party affiliation to your party, and randomly copy their voter registration cards, change their party affiliation to something else, and submit the copy to the state. If you do it right, people who'd have statistically voted for your opponent will arrive at the polling stations, again only if they were able to wait 5 hours, only to find that they can't vote! Even if they return with their voter registration card proving they're registered for your party, you can legally turn them away!

And that should about do it. Before you know it, you'll be sweeping large margains, since, really, only people who vote for you should count, anyway. Oh, and don't worry about getting caught. You're a rich, powerful politician. It's not like you an your kin are held to the same laws those silly plebians are! Just be sure to smile as you give your victory speach: you earned it! In case you didn't know, all of these "hypothetical" scenarios actually happened on Tuesday, March 22, in the Arizona state primary. This is a disgrace, and if this isn't properly investigated and those responsable punished to the fullest extent of the law, it won't stop in Arizona, or Massachussets. The United States of America is supposed to be a democracy, but it seems once the Establisment is threatened, their true Oligarcic colors show. Don't stand idly by while our democracy is being attacked. Take the initiative! Do research on how elections are held in your state, ensure you're registered properly, know where to go to vote, and who to call if something goes wrong. And, above all, VOTE. Ostensibly, we still have that power. Use it while you still can.

[just--space]

This isn’t space related. But this needs exposure immediately. 

This person is talking about the crisis of obtaining fresh water in their town of Flint, Michigan.

[heartbeatemoji]

this is literally so horrifying

[theechrysalisamidst]

Fucking America

[asexualmoments]

This is not asexuality related, but this is an important cause for me, a Michigan native. The water crisis in Flint, Michigan is not just a Flint problem.

There are cities all across Michigan with equal, and greater, lead content. Please please PLEASE help.

Michigan’s recourses are not vast enough to solve this problem.

http://www.helpforflint.com Thank you

[onychoprion]

This crisis, and the way the powers that be in Flint, Michigan, and the state itself, make me ashamed to be an American.

[onychoprion]

Youtube comments sum up sportsball.

[onychoprion]

Holiday Optimism

I’ve been feeling abnormally happy this December, and I’ve put a lot of thought into wondering why. For the record, I’m not usually sad, but neither have I felt this generally good about things. And after much thought I think I’ve found the reason: this is the first Christmas where I know who I am.

Up until this year, I had no idea that I wasn’t broken. As my siblings found love, married, and started having children each Christmas became more stressful for me, as I felt expected to do the same. But this year, I discovered that being asexual is common (1% of the population is common, when compared to 1/7 billionth of the population), and I’ve since come out of the pantry with my friends and family. Like magic, that stress of family gatherings vanishes.

This is the first Christmas of the rest of my life. And that is a very good feeling.

[onychoprion]

“People didn’t understand that true intimacy did not consist of sexual intercourse, which could be done with strangers and in a state of total alienation; intimacy consisted of talking for hours about what was most important in one’s life.” — Michel Duval, from Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars, page 207

[onychoprion]

Best thing since sliced bread!

So, I was making dinner today, one of my favorite meals, and I thought to myself “This is the best thing since sliced bread.” But then I stopped, because I realized that could mean one of two things.

First translation: If you went backward in time from this moment (or the inception of this thing), the first thing you will reach that surpasses this in quality is sliced bread. Second translation: The improvement that is this thing over sliced bread is almost, but not quite, equal to the improvement of sliced bread over what came before.

I always assumed it was the former, that whenever you say the phrase, you’re saying nothing between sliced bread and whatever you’re talking about is better than whatever you’re talking about, but sliced bread itself is better. But I’ll give you an example of something where the second definition fits:

The photos of Earth taken during and after the Space Race, in particular the Blue Marble and Pale Blue Dot, are the greatest human discovery since the wheel.

Under the first interpretation, that would be saying the wheel is better than those pictures, but I’m arguing the exact opposite. You see, civilization would have gotten along just fine without the wheel. The Tawanitsuyu Empire, half the size of modern Germany at its greatest extent, operated perfectly fine without wheels. Civilization is possible without it. However, modern civilization, especially going forward into a more globalized world, isn’t tenable without those pictures. Or, to be more precise, without the spirit they convey: All of humanity is one species on one planet.

The Pale Blue Dot: the best thing since sliced bread.

[onychoprion]

Packing

College is where you learn how to fit a scantron, a sheet of test questions, two sheets of notes, and a calculator onto a desk designed to support a half-sheet of paper.

[onychoprion]

Trends of Gun Violence in US Schools

Ever since the shooting in Roseburg, Oregon, I’ve become suddenly very aware of school shootings, not the least of which because I go to a school not that far away from Roseburg. When two other schools were shot up only 8 days later, I began to wonder whether school shootings were really becoming more frequent, or whether I was just hearing about them more.

So I did the simplest thing, went onto Wikipedia’s List of School Shootings in the United States, and put the data into a graph. Since I noticed that many shootings have 0 fatalities, I included the number of deaths annually, and saw that it followed the same trend as the number of shootings.

Although the exponential treadline for number of shootings doesn’t perfectly match the data points (with an R-squared value of roughly 0.73), it does indicate the worrying trend.

If rates continue upward as they’re doing, by 2020 there will be one school shooting every month. By 2032, there will be two per month. By 2045, one per week. And by 2077, one every single day. So far the average deaths per shooting, including all of those with 0 deaths, is about 2. If trends continue as they have, by 2083, a thousand of our nation’s students will be executed annually for the crime of going to school.