#Conservation Visionary

[delicatelysublimeforester]

Unveiling the Green Guardian

[vox-anglosphere]

Britain's leading classical architect invites you to hear him speak at the Rotherwick village hall in Hampshire on August 31st at 3:00pm

[janavimfolsbee]

thank you @houstonmayor for your #inspiring words and being an advocate for us #houstonartists by creating #oppertunities and #civicart programs such as this where #visionaries can dream imagine create and have a voice in our city to make monumental works of art such as #theaquariusarttunnel it was an honor to be one of 10 artists selected for site specific public art work installation that was celebrated today by @houstonmayor yesterday and @hobbyairport @bushairport @altondulaney I am so grateful to the opportunity to have been selected out of 347 artists and be the first female indian woman at 35 to create the 240 foot long permanent tunnel art installation at #bushintercontinentalairport #terminalD #theaquariusarttunnel don’t miss this installation it is a presecurity site and has been endorsed by @unoceandecade @ioc_unesco I am overjoyed to bring this this work of art to passengers from all walks of life and from the #global #community and my #local community to you I am grateful 🥹 I am so grateful to you @houstonartsalliance @janicebond @theresae.af @gracezuniga7 @lynnbirdwell @bhprodhtx @houstonmoca for your hard work and the amazing work you do for the houston #artworld and local #texasart community. #janavimfolmsbee #janavimahimturafolmsbee #marineconservation #marineconservationartist #scubadiving #marinelife #conservation #oceanlife #blueplanet #arttunnel #aquariusarttunnel @noaasanctuaries @flowergardenbanksnms @marinesanctuaryfdn @coh_mayors_events @janavimfolmsbee @agencyhtx This project was commissioned by @houstonmoca on behalf of IAH @bushairport @HoustonAirports for @houston through the city’s Civic Art Program and @houstonartsalliance. (at Hobby International Airport Houston, Texas) https://www.instagram.com/p/CmKwqCyJEw4/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Rosemary Kirstein’s “The Steerswoman”

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT (May 4) in VANCOUVER, then onto Tartu, Estonia, and beyond!

For decades, scammy "book doctors" and vanity presses spun a tale about how Big Publishing was too conservative and risk-averse for really really adventurous books, and the only way to get your visionary work published was to pay them to fill your garage with badly printed books that you'd spend the rest of your life trying to get other people to read:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/04/self-publishing/

Like all successful grifts, this one worked because it wasn't entirely untrue. No, mainstream publishing isn't filled with corporate gatekeepers who relish the idea of keeping your brilliance from reaching its audience.

But.

But editors sometimes make bad calls. They reject books because of quirks of taste, or fleeting inattentiveness, or personal bias. In a healthy publishing industry – one with dozens of equal-sized presses, all commanding roughly comparable market-share, good books would never slip through the cracks. One publisher's misstep would be another's opportunity.

But after decades of mergers, the population of major publishers has dwindled to a mere Big Five (it was almost four, but the DOJ blocked Penguin Random House's acquisition of Simon & Schuster):

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-block-penguin-random-house-s-acquisition-rival-publisher-simon

This means that some good books definitely can't find a home in Big Publishing. If you miss with five editors, you can exhaust all your chances with the Big Five.

There's a second tier of great publishers, from data-driven juggernauts like Sourcebooks to boutique presses like Verso and Beacon Press, who publish wonderful books and are very good to their authors (I've published with four of the Big Five and half a dozen of the smaller publishers).

But even with these we-try-harder boutique publishers in the mix, there's a lot of space for amazing books that just don't fit with a "trad" publisher's program. These books are often labors of love by their creators, and that love is reciprocated by their readers. You can have my unbelievably gigantic Little Nemo in Slumberland collection when you pry my cold, dead fingers off of it:

https://memex.craphound.com/2006/09/25/gigantic-little-nemo-book-does-justice-to-the-loveliest-comic-ever/

And don't even think of asking to borrow my copy of Jack Womack's Flying Saucers are Real!:

https://memex.craphound.com/2016/10/03/flying-saucers-are-real-anthology-of-the-lost-saucer-craze/

I will forever cherish my Crad Kilodney chapbooks:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/19/crad-kilodney-was-an-outlier/#intermediation

Then there's last year's surprise smash hit, Shift Happens, a two-volume, 750-page slipcased book recounting the history of the keyboard. I own one. It's fantastic:

https://glennf.medium.com/how-we-crowdfunded-750-000-for-a-giant-book-about-keyboard-history-c30e24c4022e

Then there's the whole world of indie Kindle books pitched at incredibly voracious communities of readers, especially the very long tail of very niche sub-sub-genres radiating off the woefully imprecise category of "paranormal romance." These books are landing at precisely the right spot for their readers, despite some genuinely weird behind-the-scenes feuds between their writers:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/16/17566276/cockygate-amazon-kindle-unlimited-algorithm-self-published-romance-novel-cabal

But as Sturgeon's Law has it: "90% of everything is shit." Having read slush – the pile of unsolicited manuscripts sent to publishers – I can tell you that a vast number of books get rejected from trad publishers because they aren't good books. I say this without intending any disparagement towards their authors and the creative impulses that drive them. But a publisher's job isn't merely to be good to writers – it's to serve readers, by introducing them to works they are apt to enjoy.

The vast majority of books that publishers pass on are not books that you will want to read, so it follows that the vast majority of self-published work that is offered on self-serve platforms like Kindle or pitched by hopeful writers at street fairs and book festivals is just not very good.

But sometimes you find someone's independent book and it's brilliant, and you get the double thrill of falling in love with a book and of fishing a glittering needle out of an unimaginably gigantic haystack.

(If you want to read an author who beautifully expresses the wonder of finding an obscure, self-published book that's full of unsuspected brilliance, try Daniel Pinkwater, whose Alan Mendelsohn, The Boy From Mars is eleven kinds of brilliant, but is also a marvelous tale of the wonders of weird used book stores with titles like KLONG! You Are a Pickle!):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Mendelsohn,_the_Boy_from_Mars

I also write books, and I am, in fact, presently in the midst of a long book-tour for my novel The Bezzle. Last month, I did an event in Cambridge, Mass with Randall "XKCD" Munroe that went great. We had a full house, and even after the venue caught fire (really!), everyone followed us across the street to another building, up five flights of stairs, and into another auditorium where we wrapped up the gig:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulnlSRbH80Y

Afterwards, our hosts from Harvard Berkman-Klein took us to a campus pizza joint/tiki bar for dinner and drinks, and we had a great chat about a great many things. Naturally, we talked about books we loved, and Randall said, "Hey, have you ever read Rosemary Kirstein's Steerswoman novels?"

(I hadn't.)

"They're incredible. All these different people kept recommending them to me, and they kept telling me that I would love them, but they wouldn't tell me what they were about because there's this huge riddle in them that's super fun to figure out for yourself:"

https://www.rosemarykirstein.com/the-books/

"The books were published in the eighties by Del Ray, and the cover of the first one had a huge spoiler on it. But the author got the rights back and she's self-published it" (WARNING: the following link has a HUGE SPOILER!):

https://www.rosemarykirstein.com/2010/12/the-difference/

"I got it and it was pretty rough-looking, but the book was so good. I can't tell you what it was about, but I think you'll really like it!"

How could I resist a pitch like that? So I ordered a copy:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-steerswoman-rosemary-kirstein/7900759

Holy moly is this a good novel! And yeah, there's a super interesting puzzle in it that I won't even hint at, except to say that even the book's genre is a riddle that you'll have enormous great fun solving.

Randall wasn't kidding about the book's package. The type looks to be default Microsoft fonts, the spine is printed slightly off-register, the typesetting has lots of gonks, and it's just got that semi-disposable feel of a print-on-demand title.

Without Randall's recommendation, I never would have even read this book closely enough to notice the glowing cover endorsement from Jo Walton, nor the fact that it was included in Damien Broderick and Paul Di Filippo's "101 Best Science Fiction Novels 1985-2010."

But I finished reading the first volume just a few minutes ago and I instantly ordered the next three in the series (it's planned for seven volumes, and the author says she plans on finishing it – I can't wait).

This book is such an unexpected marvel, a stunner of a novel filled with brilliant world-building, deft characterizations, a hard-driving plot and a bunch of great surprises. The fact that such a remarkable tale comes in such an unremarkable package makes it even more of a treasure, like a geode: unremarkable on the outside, a glittering blaze within.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/04/the-wulf/#underground-fave

[lizardsfromspace]

We talk a lot about people rewriting history to claim problematic authors were always bad but there's a inverse phenomena where people rewrite history to give artists they agree with a ridiculously outsized reputation

You see this with conservatives falling over themselves to declare that "Kid Rock is better than Bruce Springsteen!" bc Kid Rock agrees with them but also

TERFs have gone from claiming JKR is the best British children's writer of her generation, a defensible belief (one I'd disagree with, that's motherfucking Philip Pullman, and that's what I thought as a kid too), to increasingly ridiculous and lavish praise about her being the greatest female writer, the greatest living writer, the writer of the best first sentence in literature, after Dickens and Orwell of course, you have to be modest and acknowledge the classics. It's not enough for her to be an acclaimed best-seller, she has to be literally the greatest writer in history, for some reason

Which is wild enough with Harry Potter, but when they apply it to her detective books it gets bizarre. Her detective novels, which only sold well (but not Harry Potter well) after her identity was revealed, and which get mixed reviews as they crest past a thousand pages a book, a ludicrous length for a murder mystery novel. They absolutely do not have a rapturous reception anywhere but in TERF circles, where they're unimpeachable masterpieces and the fact that they aren't more popular is suspicious, so you must buy Mission Earth Comoran Strike, and talk about it, and do anything you can to support visionary author L. Ron Hubbard JK Rowling as she changes the world forever

[tomorrowusa]

Sorry France, but the biggest political event of the week will take place on Thursday in the UK. At the very least, it will herald a change in the right direction.

John Oliver outdid himself in the vid posted above . No spoilers from me! But please watch through the end. 😁

The last third of the vid describes how absolutely abominable the Conservative Party reign of the past 14 years has been. Most people in the UK already know this but outside the country the international community may not understand the full extent of the Tory rot.

Brexit, austerity, and tax breaks for the filthy rich did not bring prosperity to the UK. The US and the EU countries are currently doing better economically than Britain under the Tories. And the NHS (National Health Service) is verging on collapse with malnutrition spreading in the country. Easily preventable diseases like rickets and scurvy (fucking SCURVY!) have reappeared. As an aside, this is where America is headed if Republicans are returned to power in the US.

When COVID-19 struck the UK, the country had an inept leader who downplayed it and made matters even worse. Sound familiar? The already severely stressed NHS was barely able to cope while Boris Johnson and his powerful friends held parties in violation of pandemic regulations.

ABC Australia, BTW a top notch public broadcaster, describes the horrific mess the Conservatives created for Britain's NHS.

Britain's beloved NHS was kneecapped by the Conservative Party. Then the COVID pandemic hit

Yes, Labour's Sir Keir Starmer may be as boring as John describes. But do you really want somebody flamboyant and unintentionally entertaining like Boris Johnson just for the sake of amusement?

Sir Keir should be viewed as the captain of a competent team rather than as a fantasy superhero who will singlehandedly save the country. The Labour shadow cabinet has several members who have been described as progressive realists. David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, and Jonathan Reynolds are three shadow ministers who strike me as visionary and talented. Labour has ditched neoliberalism and regards fairness as a policy goal.

One way or another, Britain will begin to get relief by next weekend. Though the worse the defeat is for the Conservatives, the greater the public repudiation for the past 14 years of misrule. So every vote in every constituency is essential.

In addition to giving Labour a big majority, it would be nice to see the Liberal Democrats pushing the Conservatives down into third place in Parliament. That's more than just symbolic because the Lib Dems would then become the official opposition and the Tory successor to Sunak the Wet would be more limited with regard to power in Parliament – including number of questions allowed at the weekly Prime Minister's Question Time.

[ansbobcar]

I'm ready to become a part-time lore builder of a fandom if I can't get any answers.

Seriously. Time to do some mental gymnastics again because, I LOVE TALKING ABOUT LORE (well worldbuilding lore) AND MAKING LORE IF THERE IS NOTHING ABOUT IT!!

We're back to looking at the Divine Visionaries again because, what the hell are these administration/department/subdivisions man.

Here are my rankings of most straightforward to least straightforward (in terms of what they govern) and my reasoning, questions, headcanons AND MANGA SPOILERS. Feel free to discuss!

1. MAGICAL ITEMS

It's basically quality control check of any magical tool and also acts like a museum. Very straightforward to guess. It's managing, checking the quality of new, old, or powerful magical items. We also know the most about it I think because Rayne currently manages it (idk why i trust the fandom wiki)

2. FORBIDDEN MAGICAL TEXTS

This is also straightforward. They manage forbidden magical texts from being accessed to the public. But I'd like to think that this department has to ensure that any texts which use magic, such as newspapers and maybe even children's books, abide by their printing laws and don't enter into that forbidden valley. Prevention of more forbidden magical texts is probably one of their main goals. I mean, confiscation of books and materials or clues regarding them will either be stored or burned possibly. Censorship is a possibility.

3. MAGIC SECURITY (FORCE)

Every time I hear security I think of that random post from twitter I think about how the US' whole military like thing is called the defense something or something. AND I THINK ABOUT IT. But you know atleast security makes more sense.

Current headcanon is that the magic police is under their jurisdiction but being called a magic security officer is diff from a magic police officer. The main difference is that magic police focus solely on internal and surface level, local scale magic (and lack-magic) crimes.

Magic Security is a more national/international scale, or something that involves the Bureau directly. Like a war between other magical races or those type of conflicts. The bar to being a magic security officer is much higher than a magic police officer too.

4. MAGICAL CEMETERY

The management of deceased magic users/wizards is pretty straight forward BUT what I'm tryna figure out is:

a) How many official cemeteries are under their jurisdiction? If so is it illegal to bury a deceased wizard's body on your own?

b) Do they only manage the cemeteries? If they don't does that mean that it's a law to contact their department while preparing for a funeral and burial? How early do they have to get involved?

c) Whoever was managing this division when Adam Jobs died was not good at their job. Nvm this guy's body was gone to bits. Still bad management on their part to not scavenge for that bit of flesh left over. Burn the area to the ground if you have to. Fucking Innocent Zero got his body.

5. MAGICAL CREATURES

The only reason I have this much lower than I initially intended is because there are so many fucking magical creatures in this fucking world that it should be one of the biggest ass divisions of the Bureau alongside Magical Items.

a) You need research/encyclopedias on these creatures. What their weakness is and so on, research on magical creatures (probably in conjunction with magical research).

b) Is animal cruelty a thing in this world? It probably is. It better be then there has to be a governing body for that.

c) I feel like for magical magical creatures like Dragons, they have to manage/hand out yearly licenses towards educational institutes to allow those dragons to be used. Otherwise, I think they'll be released to the wild and will be blacklisted from ever owning a dragon. (Animal cruelty act or something)

d) They probably have a national zoo which is used for both research and conservation purposes. Bet there's a bunch of endangered species.

6. MAGICAL RESEARCH

Just like the previous department/administration... this is also pretty broad. (You'll realise a pattern as we go down the list). The way I see it is that every year, they gather statistics and feedback from the people, and come up with 4-6 projects of varying scales to help. These can range from new technology for pre-existing magical tools or making new innovations and tools.

They also do research on animals, plants and probably somewhat manage the welfare of the country slightly.

What I wonder is if it's illegal to do research outside of their department? Or do they allow exceptions, like some company can pitch their idea to the magical research department who then greenlight their thing or not like Dragon's Den.

7. MAGICAL POWER

Orter and Rinka, idk how y'all even do this. Magical Power Admin according to the fandom wiki (which I think took info from the fanbook, but cannot confirm), looks into shit related to power basically (abuse, lack ofs, very magical power creatures).

My problem is that kind of overlaps with magic security just slightlyyy. I also headcanon that the magic police are governed by magic security and magical power.

So far for my fanfic (big spoilers lol):

a) Their main goal is to reduce/prevent the abuse of magic within the kingdom/country.

b) They can make and enforce laws/policies/the legal rules surrounding the use of magic which include giving penalties/punishments.

8. MAGICAL TALENT

What the fuck is Kaldo's job. I get he looks at Divine Visionary candidates before they even get to the final exam but seriously. I would like to think that part of his job is to take note of what kind of personal magic has ever fucking existed other than tryna analyse people. If his department was more like HR, I think it'd make more sense.

His department probably has the least amount of people/staff.

_ _ _

There's probably other departments as well that aren't governed by a Divine Visionary for now. My ted talk is finished. For now.

[qidynamics]

“It’s an outlined program for Christian supremacy."

“That’s not a 501(c)(3) activity.”

A network of ultrawealthy Christian donors is spending nearly $12 million to mobilize Republican-leaning voters and purge more than a million people from the rolls in key swing states, aiming to tilt the 2024 election in favor of former President Donald Trump.

These previously unreported plans are the work of a group named Ziklag, a little-known charity whose donors have included some of the wealthiest conservative Christian families in the nation, including the billionaire Uihlein family, who made a fortune in office supplies, the Greens, who run Hobby Lobby, and the Wallers, who own the Jockey apparel corporation. Recipients of Ziklag’s largesse include Alliance Defending Freedom, which is the Christian legal group that led the overturning of Roe v. Wade, plus the national pro-Trump group Turning Point USA and a constellation of right-of-center advocacy groups.

EXCERPTS:

“We are in a spiritual battle and locked in a terrible conflict with the powers of darkness,” says a strategy document that lays out Ziklag’s 30-year vision to “redirect the trajectory of American culture toward Christ by bringing back Biblical structure, order and truth to our Nation.”

Ziklag was the brainchild of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur named Ken Eldred. It emerged from a previous organization founded by Eldred called United In Purpose, which aimed to get more Christians active in the civic arena, according to Bill Dallas, the group’s former director. United In Purpose generated attention in June 2016 when it organized a major meeting between then-candidate Trump and hundreds of evangelical leaders.

After Trump was elected in 2016, Eldred had an idea, according to Dallas. “He says, ‘I want all the wealthy Christian people to come together,’” Dallas recalled in an interview. Eldred told Dallas that he wanted to create a donor network like the one created by Charles and David Koch but for Christians.

The group’s stature grew after Trump took office. Vice President Mike Pence appeared at a Ziklag event, as did former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, Sen. Ted Cruz, then-Rep. Mark Meadows and other members of Congress. In its private newsletter, Ziklag claims that a coalition of groups it assembled played “a hugely significant role in the selection, hearings and confirmation process” of Amy Coney Barrett for a Supreme Court seat in late 2020.

The Christian nationalism movement has a variety of aims and tenets, according to the Public Religion Research Institute: that the U.S. government “should declare America a Christian nation”; that American laws “should be based on Christian values”; that the U.S. will cease to exist as a nation if it “moves away from our Christian foundations”; that being Christian is essential to being American; and that God has “called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society.”

The Seven Mountains theology embraces a different, less democratic approach to gaining power. “If the Moral Majority is about galvanizing the voters, the Seven Mountains is a revolutionary model: You need to conquer these mountains and let change flow down from the top,” said Matthew Taylor, a senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies and an expert on Christian nationalism. “It’s an outlined program for Christian supremacy."

A driving force behind Ziklag’s efforts is Lance Wallnau, a prominent Christian evangelist and influencer based in Texas who is described by Ziklag as a “Seven Mountains visionary & advisor.” He was one of the earliest evangelical leaders to endorse Trump in 2015 and later published a book titled “God’s Chaos Candidate: Donald J. Trump and the American Unraveling.”

One key document says that “the biblical role of government is to promote good and punish evil” and that “the word of God and prayer play a significant role in policy decisions.”

Other internal Ziklag documents voice strong opposition to same-sex marriage and transgender rights. One reads: “transgender acceptance = Final sign before imminent collapse.”

A prominent conservative getting money from Ziklag is Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer and Trump ally who joined the January 2021 phone call when then-President Trump asked Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” enough votes to flip Georgia in Trump’s favor.

Mitchell now leads a network of “election integrity” coalitions in swing states that have spent the last three years advocating for changes to voting rules and how elections are run. According to one internal newsletter, Ziklag was an early funder of Mitchell’s post-2020 “election integrity” activism, which voting-rights experts have criticized for stoking unfounded fears about voter fraud and seeking to unfairly remove people from voting rolls. In 2022, Ziklag donated $600,000 to the Conservative Partnership Institute, which in turn funds Mitchell’s election-integrity work. Internal Ziklag documents show that it provided funding to enable Mitchell to set up election integrity infrastructure in Florida, North Carolina and Wisconsin.

EagleAI, which has claimed to use artificial intelligence to automate and speed up the process of challenging ineligible voters.

Now Mitchell is promoting a tool called EagleAI, which has claimed to use artificial intelligence to automate and speed up the process of challenging ineligible voters. EagleAI is already being used to mount mass challenges to the eligibility of hundreds of thousands of voters in competitive states, and, with Ziklag’s help, the group plans to ramp up those efforts.

According to an internal video, Ziklag plans to invest $800,000 in “EagleAI’s clean the rolls project,” which would be one of the largest known donations to the group.

Operation Checkmate

Ziklag lists two key objectives for Operation Checkmate: “Secure 10,640 additional unique votes in Arizona (mirroring the 2020 margin of 10,447 votes), and remove up to one million ineligible registrations and around 280,000 ineligible voters in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and Wisconsin.”

In a recording of an internal Zoom call, Ziklag’s Mark Bourgeois stressed the electoral value of targeting Arizona. “I care about Maricopa County,” Bourgeois said at one point, referring to Arizona’s largest county, which Biden won four years ago. “That’s how we win.”

Targeting Transgender

Operation Watchtower

For Operation Watchtower, Wallnau explained in a members-only video that transgender policy was a “wedge issue” that could be decisive in turning out voters tired of hearing about Trump.

The left had won the battle over the “homosexual issue,” Wallnau said. “But on transgenderism, there’s a problem and they know it.” He continued: “They’re gonna wanna talk about Trump, Trump, Trump. … Meanwhile, if we talk about ‘It’s not about Trump. It’s about parents and their children, and the state is a threat,’” that could be the “target on the forehead of Goliath.”

As preacher and activist John Amanchukwu said at a Ziklag event, “We need a church that’s willing to do anything and everything to get to the point where we reclaim that which was stolen from us.”

“I am troubled about a tax-exempt charitable organization that’s set up and its main operation seems to be to get people to win office,” said Phil Hackney, a professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh and an expert on tax-exempt organizations.

“They’re planning an election effort,” said Marcus Owens, a tax lawyer at Loeb and Loeb and a former director of the IRS’ exempt organizations division. “That’s not a 501(c)(3) activity.”

“It’s an outlined program for Christian supremacy."

“It’s an outlined program for Christian supremacy."

[saturnrevolution]

your 4th/10th house dynamic

ARIES 4TH/LIBRA 10TH - You might have grown up around conflict, maybe your family was arguing all the time or there was a sense of rush and like you need to get a lot of things done in a short time. Lack of patience might be something that you developed and lack of focus. When it comes to your career, you need peace. You need order to do things and might sometimes avoid conflict. You express your anger best in your home environment/when you feel safe. Your career is based on justice, beauty and harmony, writing, art, law, communication.

TAURUS 4TH/SCORPIO 10TH - You grew up with a certain sense of stability, things sometimes felt slow paced and boring, maybe there was stagnation or your family is rather conservative. In your career, you are looking for that chaos that can instigate change. Your career is transformative, and you’re always seeking to look behind the obvious, but might want to impose your power, as a psychologist, investigator, researcher or in a managing position, never a dull moment.

GEMINI 4TH/SAGITTARIUS 10TH - There was a certain duality in your family while growing up, divided opinions and a hot and cold behavior. When it comes to your career, you are seeking freedom of mind and independence in your opinions. You are looking to expand your horizons, feel free, have a bigger view. You might travel, teach, learn languages, work in a foreign country, study abroad, be a trainer, coach or philosopher.

CANCER 4TH/CAPRICORN 10TH - You grew up in a cozy environment, might have a strong connection with your mom, but there were also emotional outbursts or a victim view of life. A boundary-less environment. This is why, in your career, you are looking to set boundaries, to be ambitious and reach the top. You might become a manager or open your own business and succeed, you like being disciplined. In your career, it seems like you have it all figured out, while at home you’re able to express your emotions and be all over the place.

LEO 4TH/AQUARIUS 10TH - You might have been an only child or have been in the center of attention while growing up. There might have been some drama in the family, a focus on pride. This is why, in your career, you want to stand out and find your authenticity, and it might feel lonely at first - who are you without your family? You are likely going to have a rather unusual career compared to the environment you grew up in. You are looking to express your forward-thinking nature and beliefs.

VIRGO 4TH/PISCES 10TH - While growing up, there might have been a lot of rules or pressure put on you. This is why, in your career, you want to go with the flow and follow your intuition. You need to be careful with setting boundaries at your job, as you might prioritize others out of fear of not being liked. But you need to give yourself the freedom to be the artist, the visionary, the spiritual and helping hand you were meant to be.

LIBRA 4TH/ARIES 10TH - There was a sense of harmony and a loving environment while growing up, but there might have been a tendency to “keep a good appearance” and avoid conflict. This is why, in your career you are looking to express the way you feel as a way of release, you might attract conflict with bosses or at work. You would find balance through a dynamic career, that is action oriented and requires you to be fun and learn through mistakes, a career in sports or always on guard.

SCORPIO 4TH/TAURUS 10TH - Growing up might have felt chaotic, as there was a lot of transformation within your family, which might have created fears around safety for you. This is why, you became an ambitious person that is searching for security through career. You might choose a rather conservative, office job, or you might focus on long term jobs. However, there is potential for wealth and material gain, through crafts, horticulture, massage or a vocation with a hands-on approach.

SAGITTARIUS 4TH/GEMINI 10TH - You grew up with a lot of freedom, sometimes too much, a lack of rules and an emotional or conversational detachment from family. This is why, in your career, you are looking to collaborate more and seek to form relational connections, communicate clearly and share opinions. You might succeed as a writer, journalist, scientist, anything factual based. You also might juggle between careers, multitask or change them often, as you’re getting bored easily.

CAPRICORN 4TH/CANCER 10TH - Growing up, your family might have put lots of pressure on you to succeed and tried to impose their wants on you. There was a lack of emotional involvement and a very practical approach. This is why, in your career you are looking to express your empathy more and you need to build connections with those you work with. You need to work in a career in which you use your intuition and emotions to understand and help others, such as nursing, marketing, doctor etc.

AQUARIUS 4TH/LEO 10TH - You might have been the weird one in school, or your way of thinking made you feel misunderstood. This side of you is one that you carry on in the world, and you sometimes allow it to make you feel lonely. In reality, you are a very passionate person and your beliefs of the world are able to make great changes and get the attention of others. You develop your confidence in time, through a career in which you are in the spotlight - acting, entertainment, motivator and so on.

PISCES 4TH/VIRGO 10TH - Growing up might have felt confusing, your family might have tried to get in your business and lacked boundaries. Also, you were able to feel and felt responsible for their emotional distress. This is why, in your career, you are looking to have the order you lacked and can sometimes be hard on yourself. You have a healing power due to your past, so careers connected to providing a service, medicine healing, analyzing and helping others in practical ways suit you.

[foxloft]

There are less than 3 days to get in on the fun - help support wildlife rehabilitation and conservation education work & get yourself some awesome art in the process!

All *20* exclusive designs have now unlocked and are available, including the four pendants, bat just hit its goal! We have a few more exciting stretch goals, can help us get there?

Lock in your discount and get the campaign-exclusive freebies today!

[zerogate]

At the time, [Ian] Stevenson was Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia Medical School. During his more than half-century at the University of Virginia, Stevenson carried out pioneering work in the empirical investigation of the mind-body connection, focusing on phenomena suggesting that contemporary scientific hypotheses concerning the nature of mind, and the mind’s relation to matter, may be seriously incomplete.

Stevenson authored a dozen books and more than two hundred scientific publications related to this work. Stevenson was a meticulous scientist and conservative in his interpretation of data. At the same time, he was a true visionary, and courageous in his study of phenomena that lie outside the current scientific mainstream. Under Stevenson’s leadership, DOPS became the largest and longest-running university-based group in the United States devoted exclusively to empirical investigation of phenomena that are not easily encompassed by the current paradigm in the biophysical sciences for understanding the mind. This paradigm maintains that consciousness is entirely generated by, or emerges from, the physical processes of the brain and body, and can in no way be more than that.

[...]

In 1975, Stevenson began a four-volume series of books called Cases of the Reincarnation Type. The different volumes included carefully documented cases from India, Sri Lanka, Lebanon and Turkey, and Thailand and Burma. When the first volume was published, the book review editor of JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, wrote: “In regard to reincarnation he has painstakingly and unemotionally collected a detailed series of cases from India, cases in which the evidence is difficult to explain on any other grounds.”

[...]

Over the years, Stevenson studied cases of children born with birthmarks or defects that corresponded to wounds (usually the fatal wounds) suffered by the deceased individuals whose lives the children appeared to remember. He went to great lengths to verify that the birthmarks or birth defects did in fact match the previous wounds. He always tried to obtain autopsy reports if they were available, along with medical records or police reports. If no written records were available, he would elicit eyewitness testimony about the wounds.

For many years, he put off publishing reports as his collection continued to grow. Finally, in 1997, Stevenson produced Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects, a 2,200-page, two-volume collection of over two hundred such cases.

He also wrote a shorter synopsis of that work, entitled Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect. In these books, he included numerous pictures of birthmarks and defects that were often highly unusual. The cases included a girl born with markedly malformed fingers who remembered the life of a man whose fingers were chopped off; a boy with only stubs for fingers on his right hand who remembered the life of a boy in another village who lost the fingers of his right hand in a fodder-chopping machine; and a girl who remembered the life of a man who underwent skull surgery. She had what Stevenson called the most extraordinary birthmark he had ever seen: a three-centimeter wide area of pale, scar-like tissue that extended around her entire head.

He reported that in eighteen cases in which the previous person was shot, the child was born with double birthmarks, ones corresponding to both the entrance and the exit wound on the previous person’s body.

-- David E. Presti (ed.), Mind Beyond Brain: Buddhism, Science, and the Paranormal

[radiofreederry]

“Revolution is never practical – until the hour of the revolution strikes. Then it alone is practical, and all the efforts of the conservatives, and compromisers become the most futile and visionary of human imaginings.”

- James Connolly

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this Op-Ed from The New Republic:

The terrifying truth of the climate and mass extinction crises is that we don’t understand all that we stand to lose. And without extraordinary acts of imagination and foresight, as a society, we won’t understand what’s being lost till it’s too late—at which time we’ll have to look back at what we might have done with a heartbreak and remorse that have no remedy. 

So we need to protect the living world with the best tool we have: the law.

Evolution is slow, while the climate is changing at a breakneck pace. For organisms like elephants and whales, who can live as long as we do, or trees, who live much longer, both the path to potential adaptation to this rapidly morphing planet and the path to our understanding may stretch beyond any time frame that could help us to save them before the clock strikes midnight. 

Small animals, whose lives and reproductive cycles tend to be shorter, can be more readily studied across generations. Some researchers have seen signs of resilience: Mother zebra finches in Australia, one scientist found, warn the embryos inside their eggs of warming conditions outside by uttering certain calls. The chicks those embryos hatch into have lower birth weights than those who weren’t exposed to the mothers’ calls, which helps the young birds stay cool in hot weather. Lizards in Miami appeared to lower their cold-tolerance thresholds in response to a cold snap in 2020, which might defend against future environmental fluctuations; certain male dragonflies grow paler in warmer weather, losing some of the bright ornamentation that attracts females but making them less vulnerable to overheating.

But examples of seemingly speedy accommodation are tiny flags fluttering on a battlefield where the overwhelming outlook for biodiversity is catastrophic. Instead of shifting gradually over thousands or even millions of years, environments are being transformed so fast that adaptive mechanisms don’t have the opportunity to kick in. 

In many cases, due to human-caused habitat loss and other pressures, of which the unstable climate is a massive threat multiplier, strategies that may have saved other life forms historically are no longer available to them: Pikas, for instance—cute little squeaking mammals native to western North America and Asia—may be able to move up a mountain to reach colder climes as the lower elevations get too hot, but if they reach the peak and it gets hot too, well … there’s nothing left for that wingless pika but the bare blue sky. The desert where I live is getting too hot even for arid-adapted wildlife—a lizard that had thrived in Arizona’s Mule Mountains for three million years is now newly believed extinct, and plants from the small acuña cactus to the Seussian Joshua tree are struggling to hang on.

The list of our dependencies on the other beings with whom we’ve coevolved is nearly infinite. So visionary policy is called for to protect those other beings and systems—not only for their intrinsic and cultural value but because they’re our life support, worth far more to our continued welfare intact than liquidated for short-term profit. If the goal is a livable future, for which we need to achieve a paradigm shift from exploitation to conservation, the services these networks of life supply need to be fully and properly valued. Their right to exist has to be enshrined in law.

Both domestically and internationally, species and ecosystems need to be endowed with legal standing to give local and native stewards the tools to save them from the depredations of industry in the short term and sustain them over the long. 

Luckily, bestowing legal standing on extra-human parties isn’t a fanciful idea: The U.S. Supreme Court did exactly that in the 2010 case known as Citizens United, when it declared that corporations were legal persons—a decision that hobbled American democracy but also set a neat precedent for extending legal personhood to nonhuman entities. And corporations are clearly more abstract and disembodied than animals: Just a couple of weeks ago scientists and philosophers from many nations published the New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness, which argues for the likelihood of consciousness in all vertebrates and many invertebrates, including cephalopods and insects.  

[rivensdefenseattorney]

Government of Zenith

(WIP)

Chancellor: The executive director in charge of overseeing governance and policy implementation.

Directors: In charge of specialized divisions within the government

Divisions:

Technological and Magical Integration Division: Focuses on integrating technology and magic, exploring innovative applications and societal integration.

Education and Talent Development Division: Nurtures and develops young talent for leadership roles and houses E.N.C.O.D.E - the Evolutionary Nexus for Candidates' Optimal Development and Evaluation.

Resource Management and Infrastructure Division: Manages energy, resource allocation, infrastructure development, and environmental sustainability.

Community Integration and Welfare Division: Ensures societal harmony, welfare programs, and integration initiatives for diverse inhabitants.

Crime Prevention and Law Enforcement Division: Specializes in crime prevention, law enforcement, and community engagement.

Defense Strategy and Technological Development Division: Oversees defense advancements, strategic planning, and technological innovation for defense.

Foreign Relations, Economic Development, and Trade Division: Manages diplomatic missions, economic strategies, trade agreements, and partnerships.

E.N.C.O.D.E - Evolutionary Nexus for Candidates' Optimal Development and Evaluation:

Encode, operating within the Education and Talent Development Division, serves as a comprehensive program dedicated to identifying and nurturing future leaders within Zenith's society.

Structure of E.N.C.O.D.E:

Evaluators: A group responsible for assessing and evaluating the progress and potential of candidates based on rigorous criteria and assessments. They observe candidates' performance and growth.

Advisors: Seasoned leaders and experts who provide guidance, instruction, and mentorship to candidates, imparting knowledge and nurturing their skills for leadership roles.

Panellites: The ultimate decision-makers responsible for selecting the most promising candidates based on evaluations, progress reports, and recommendations from Evaluators and Advisors.

Specialized Curriculum: Provides tailored educational programs focusing on leadership skills, technological understanding, magical integration, and strategic thinking.

Leadership Pathways: Offers selected candidates pathways to assume leadership roles within Zenith's governance, industries, and societal initiatives based on evaluations and recommendations from Evaluators, Advisors, and Panellites.

Political Factions

Pathos (Innovation Faction): Pathos is a forward-thinking faction advocating for innovative ideas, technological advancements, and the seamless integration of magic and technology. They prioritize progress, envisioning a future where innovation propels Zenith to greater heights. Pathos champions visionary thinking and embraces change as the catalyst for societal advancement.

Ethos (Traditional Faction): Ethos is dedicated to preserving Zenith's cultural heritage, traditional techno-magical practices, and societal stability. They prioritize the conservation of time-honored values, advocating for the protection of traditions and the cautious approach towards technological advancements to maintain the planet's cultural identity and stability.

Logos (Logic Faction): Logos represents a faction driven by logic, efficiency, and pragmatic decision-making. They prioritize data-driven approaches, aiming for tangible and measurable outcomes in technological and magical integration. Logos advocates for the rational utilization of resources and technology to optimize Zenith's societal development.

Notable Members of Government

Chancellor

Name: Cryos

Race: Human

Political Faction: Pathos

Background: A prodigious figure raised from a young age as a candidate within E.N.C.O.D.E. Cryos emerged as a visionary blending magical mastery with technological brilliance.

Abilities: Mastery in air and electricity magic, seamlessly integrated with cybernetic enhancements, grants Cryos unparalleled control over magic-infused technology.

Personality Traits:

Inquisitive Mind: Cryos is ceaselessly curious, constantly exploring the realms of magic and technology to unlock new possibilities.

Mad Genius Brilliance: His unconventional thinking leads to breakthroughs that challenge societal norms, inspiring innovation while occasionally stirring controversy.

Visionary Leadership: Cryos envisions a harmonious society where magic and technology coexist symbiotically, fostering inclusivity and diversity.

Playful Eccentricity: Despite his responsibilities, Cryos maintains a whimsical demeanor, surprising peers and citizens with his unconventional methods.

Quirky Innovator: Cryos's eccentricity extends into his innovative thinking. He's known for unconventional problem-solving methods, often combining seemingly unrelated concepts to create revolutionary solutions. His office is a playground of prototypes, holographic blueprints, and whimsical experiments.

Curious Adventurer: Despite his responsibilities, Cryos is an eternal explorer. He embarks on spontaneous journeys across Zenith, seeking inspiration from both the natural world and the technological marvels he's helped create.

Empathetic Innovator: Beyond his eccentricities, Cryos possesses a deep empathy for the citizens of Zenith. He's dedicated to ensuring that technological advancements improve lives, championing inclusivity and accessibility in all innovations.

Creative Expressionist: Cryos channels his creativity not only into technological innovations but also into artistic pursuits. He dabbles in holographic art installations and even hosts impromptu techno-magical performances to inspire creativity among Zenith's citizens.

Unconventional Communicator: Cryos's communication style is a blend of whimsy and depth. He's known for speeches that fuse magical anecdotes with technological insights, captivating audiences and making complex concepts relatable.

Director of Technological and Magical Integration Division

Name: Dr. Kohen Polaris 

Political Faction: Logos

Race: Human

Background: A brilliant and pragmatic technologist, Dr. Polaris rose through the ranks with a focus on optimizing resource usage and implementing efficient technological integrations. Known for his logical thinking and data-driven approach, he's highly respected for his contributions to technological advancements.

Traits: Analytical, Efficient, Rational, Driven by Data, Pragmatic.

Director of Education and Talent Development Division

Name: Professor Helix

Political Faction: Pathos

Background: An innovative educator passionate about nurturing young talents, Professor Helix champions a futuristic curriculum. Her progressive teaching methods and belief in the power of innovation have shaped many young minds.

Traits: Innovative, Visionary, Inspirational, Forward-Thinking, Mentor.

Director of Resource Management and Infrastructure Division

Name: Xe-1519

Political Faction: Logos

Background: Xenos is a resource management expert with an unwavering focus on efficiency and sustainability. Their data-driven decisions have optimized resource allocation and guided infrastructure development, contributing significantly to Zenith's stability and growth.

Traits: Pragmatic, Resourceful, Strategic, Analytical, Methodical.

Director of Community Integration and Welfare Division

Name: Dr Theta

Political Faction: Ethos

Background: Dr. Theta is a dedicated community advocate, prioritizing societal harmony and welfare. With a background in cultural studies, she emphasizes the importance of preserving traditions while fostering inclusivity and social welfare programs.

Traits: Empathetic, Dedicated, Cultural Preservationist, Inclusivity Advocate, Compassionate.

Director of Crime Prevention and Law Enforcement Division

Name: Captain Thyone

Political Faction: Logos

Background: Captain Thyone, a seasoned law enforcement officer, believes in the power of strategic planning and data analysis for effective crime prevention. His logical approach and community engagement strategies have made significant strides in reducing crime rates.

Traits: Analytical, Strategic, Decisive, Community-Oriented, Disciplined.

Director of Defense Strategy and Technological Development Division

Name: Commander Dagon

Political Faction: Pathos

Background: Commander Dagon, a visionary leader, is committed to advancing defense strategies through technological innovations. Her innovative thinking and strategic planning have elevated Zenith's defense capabilities significantly.

Traits: Innovative, Strategic, Leadership, Visionary, Tactical.

Director of Foreign Relations, Economic Development, and Trade Division

Name: Ambassador Kami

Political Faction: Ethos

Background: Ambassador Kami is a seasoned diplomat and advocate for cultural diplomacy. Their approach prioritizes cultural preservation in international relations, focusing on economic growth while maintaining Zenith's cultural identity.

Traits: Diplomatic, Cultural Advocate, Strategic, International Relations Expert, Persuasive.

___

I was supposed to post this yesterday, but I definitely had to sort something out and lost track of time.

Anyways I'm still tinkering with Zenith's Government, but the core will pretty much stay the same.

[hazardous-waste-containment]

the way that apartheid is defined under international law is much broader than its original meaning in south africa – literally ‘separateness’, the demographic restructuring of the country to move africans en masse into separate enclaves which would, in the most idealistic versions, eventually become developed self-governing republics after an indefinite period of white tutelage. this extreme racial separatism (which interestingly anticipated some of the pseudo-enlightened claims of contemporary white nationalists to ‘differentialism’ and ‘separation, not supremacy’ etc) was compromised by conservative industrial and agricultural interests that saw total separation as unfeasible and basically as bad for business, and put forth their own more ‘pragmatic’ segregationist proposals. all of these factions of course operated on a baseline assumption of the complete denial of africans’ legal and political rights.

all of this together was called apartheid, but of course what really distinguished post-1948 south african policy from segregation as practiced in the u.s. or the pre-48 union were those afrikaner christian-nationalist goals of complete separation which gave apartheid its visionary, radically transformative ethos that, e.g., jim crow to my knowledge lacked. in various ways israeli policy in the west bank and gaza is a functional equivalent to apartheid even in this stricter historical sense* but it comes from somewhere different politically and culturally, it’s followed a different trajectory and has different long-term goals (not that there are no ideological parallels between zionism, especially revisionist and religious zionisms, and afrikaner nationalism)

*not to imply that the ways in which the israeli version differs make it more moderate. obviously the bombardment of gaza, for example, is much more brutal than anything in south africa