#History in my lifetime

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Thinking about ME/CFS...

I remember, back in the '80s, when the first hints of this were hitting the news, it was called "Yuppie Flu," and it was roundly dismissed (still is in a lot of places, sadly) as overly privileged, white, suburban, upper middle class women seeking attention from their doctors.

And the thing is: Long [insert virus here] Syndromes don't just effect the young, upwardly-mobile, professionals. They effect everyone.

But the suburban, Yuppie, white women were the people with enough privilege that they could go to their doctors and complain that they couldn't recover from that last flu they had.

[lady-raziel]

i can't do this anymore. i can't. i can;t.

[laurapetrie]

She was wild and vivid in a cautious and pale world. Always burning a little more brightly than any of us around her. Then I remembered a story written by Henry James. It was the story of a young girl named Isabel. A girl who was as brave as she was beautiful, who was pure of heart and as unafraid to love. His description of Isabel mirrored that of Carolyn and I wondered out loud how it was possible for him to have known her when he wrote that story over a century ago. But, I suppose, it was because he was writing about his dream of a pure and brave American girl, who comes along maybe once every hundred years, if we are lucky. - Carole Radziwill in her eulogy for Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, July 24, 1999

[pinnithin]

enver gortash fascinates me from the perspective of his relationship with the dark urge because like, as far as i know his alliance with them is one of the very few he didn’t actively despise. the guy was sold into slavery by his own parents (who tried to justify it by saying their child was a hateful monster and anyone would have done the same) and spent his formative years employed by a devil who gets off on gratuitous levels of suffering and manipulation. and then once he's escaped that and built himself up so he can never be used and enslaved again he meets this bhaalspawn who also had to adapt and survive a violent and manipulative environment for years by becoming the monsters who raised them.

gortash sees how the dark urge has risen to command armies and slaughter hundreds in the same way he outfoxed raphael and ruthlessly controls the people in his employ, and after earning and owning his reputation as a tyrant heres another person who might actually have like, a shared lived experience. not exactly a friend, because people like them can't afford to have friends, but someone who at least understands. and he willingly works with them on this plan to enslave the sword coast and agrees to share power with them.

and then orin lobotomizes them, puts a tadpole in their head, and leaves them for dead at moonrise.

like, can you imagine. youre working with the first person you see eye to eye with and prooooobably arent plotting to actively sabotage (or, at least would hesitate to do so) and the rug just gets yanked out from under them by their own sister, and now you're stuck with her because the plan still has to move along. and as the days go by a group of adventurers start to screw up your plot right when baldur's gate is within your grasp, and you learn that among them is your old almost-friend who you actually liked and respected - and they have no memory of you whatsoever. oh, and on top of that they're rolling with people you've actively fucked over and want to kick your ass.

did it hurt for him to learn this? did he ever think about how things could have been different? did he think, you were supposed to be my ally, my friend, someone who actually understands that becoming a monster is the only way to keep yourself safe and in control. we were going to rule together. and now you're ride or die with this squad of people you've only known for a few weeks at best, and you want me dead. you don't even remember me. you don't even remember yourself.

[todayinhiphophistory]

Today in Hip Hop History:

Jay-Z his second album In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 November 4, 1997

[calamitoustide]

thinking about history fic james in the current timeline scribbling poetry on the edges of his papers for work after meeting regulus not knowing where that urge came from he never had it before

thinking about history fic regulus in the canon timeline hiding away in his room afraid to go outside and face the world dreaming up visions of brushstrokes and simple melodies not knowing where those good dreams come from he never had anything like that before

[bobcatmoran]

So, with the 20th anniversary of the US's incredibly ill-advised and generally terrible invasion of Iraq, I've been reminded of where I was at the time that happened. Namely, I was in college, and I was taking a course called "Human Geography of Global Issues." The professor was a Texan, and was known for a) the fact that he loudly and proudly wore cowboy boots everywhere, sometimes capped off with a ten gallon hat — not your typical fashion at my Minnesotan college — and b) his repeated insistence, delivered in his drawling accent, that "Bush Junior is not a real Texan — the whole family are just a bunch of carpetbaggers from New England." (he was also just an absolute gem of a man — I have a very vivid memory of coming into the Geography Department offices the next year, distraught because a computer glitch meant that none of my class registrations for the next semester had taken and the GIS course I wanted to take for my minor was full — and he calmed me down, reassured me that there were ways around this for not only the GIS class but all the classes I was now locked out of, helped me navigate the system, and I got an email within the week saying that despite the GIS class having no room in the online course registration, I was now registered for it)

He was also an expert on the Middle East. And, as it became clearer and clearer as the semester went on that the then-Current Administration (which he had negative respect for) was hellbent on going into Iraq for reasons which seemed to largely amount to "Gonna finish what Daddy Bush started," he made predictions. Predictions about how easy it would be to topple Saddam Hussein and how hard it would be to fill the power vacuum. Predictions about the looming sectarian time bomb between the Shia and Sunni Muslims in Iraq. Predictions about how the Kurds would react. Predictions about how the US would get bogged down and wouldn't be able or willing to leave for years and years and would, in the meantime, commit warcrimes that would just lead to the rise of new terrorist groups.

Every single one of those predictions came true.

(He also predicted in detail during one class, with terrifying accuracy and illustrations, exactly what would happen if a major hurricane hit New Orleans, which it did two years later with Katrina).

Meanwhile, on campus, a "Peace Camp" sprung up in front of the campus center, with students living in tents until…uh…ok, the goals were kind of fuzzy, but it was a fixture for the rest of the school year. At one point, the Young Republicans (all three of them :P) decided to set up a "Freedom Camp" on the other side of campus, which wound up consisting of like, two guys with signs for a single day, and which led to a sprouting of mocking signs for "Weed Camp" and "Space Camp."

Also, a group of anti-war protestors took up a station kitty-corner from campus and they were there every day until I graduated, waving signs, with cars honking as they passed.

[anotherpapercut]

the girlbossification of ruth bader ginsburg has to be one of the most just plain annoying aspects of white liberal feminism. like it's not as actively harmful as a lot of other shit obviously. but it is soooooo annoying. if I never see another notorious rbg tote bag as long as I live it will be too soon

[pywren]

Hello my fellow Trek obsessed,

because I can’t keep my mouth shut about my hoarding like crazy collecting fanfiction, specifically old fanfic from different ships (so...so many ships you have no idea) and keep getting asks about it: here is something you lovely people might enjoy.

There is a collection of fanzines both Gen and Slash curated and continuously expanded on by some absolute legends over at the internet archive! There are over 400 items in the collection many of those are zines with a couple hundred pages of fanfiction, poems, musings, comics, and original art. Not all of them are Trek, but the majority is (I found some Star Wars stuff from the 80s and was delighted!). 

And if you don’t find what you’re looking for in this collection, there are more to find, if you just go and search through the archive by yourselves!

Go nuts! Have fun and if you have a couple bucks left maybe think about donating them to the archive, because they are not only the main source of wikipedia, they also house the waybackmachine, and fight for open source knowledge.

P.S. You can also look through the Orion Press Archive but I personally found success there is pretty 50/50.

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

If They Ever Made a Historical Drama movie about the Americans with Disabilities Act

This bit from the speech by President George H. W. Bush, on July 26, 1990, would be called "Foreshadowing," and there would be an ominous swell in a minor key in the movie score:

The Administration and the Congress have carefully crafted the ADA to give the business community the flexibility to meet the requirements of the Act without incurring undue costs. Cost may be taken into account in determining how an employee is “reasonably accommodated,” whether the removal of a barrier is “readily achievable,” or whether the provision of a particular auxiliary aid would result in an “undue burden.”

Transcript of Statement By The President July 26, 1990 (From the National Archives of the United States)

[arainesque]

x / x

[magidragon12]

It's pride month!

AKA time to re-read Hold Your Violet Tiara High and cry about it!

Seriously, this is my favourite fic ever written. Ever. Written.

[nerice]

(maleniaposting again) saw someone say there's a good chance that bc she's blind she never realized that miquella was stolen & that's why she attacks you. bc she thinks she is still safeguarding his transformation........... and i've been so??????!!!!!!!!!!! circling this like a fucking shark bc i always assumed the 'as i awaited his return' to be about him returning from wherever mohg kidnapped him to but it never really made sense!! that malenia doesn't go beat his ass and take her brother back (rationalized it as that after the caelid disaster she cannot risk going scarlet bloom again and losing herself which fighting mohg wld most likely cause) HOWEVER. HOWEVER!!!!! esp w the sote angle Miquella Traveling To The Realm Of Shadow *that* is what it is, right?? miquella built the haligtree sanctuary for her and all the other dispossessed, but her rot is already infecting it. corrupting it. it's in the treetops where you enter and down at the very roots where she rests. so miquella enters cocoon stasis bc he has to be better, different. different from marika and her golden order. which is why he travels to the lands of shadow, to learn of marika and her origins while in the meantime malenia is out fighting, conquering (the less she is at the haligtree the better) but then the caelid disaster happens & puts her in godslumber & finlay carries her back to the haligtree into the sanctum where she continues to sleep literally until you enter. the rot has taken her eyes. and mohg has taken miquella's cocoon while she was away, but there is no way for her to know that; she is defending this location on instinct. she doesn't know her brother is gone, and miquella doesn't know you killed his sister (yet !) :))

[alfhildr-the-word-weaver]

I must say, it's pretty poetic that I've gotten to season 6 of Vampire Diaries right before another solar eclipse happens in America. I certainly didn't plan it, but it does feel like my timing is very appropriate with this one. I do have questions about the accuracy of the eclipse portrayal in the show, though. I mean, a solar eclipse did in fact happen on May 10, 1994, and it was visible across much of the country, so that much is accurate. But I don't think Mystic Falls would've had quite as good of a view as they show it having. For reference, here's a map of the May 1994 eclipse path (credit: timeanddate.com):

And, if you'll remember, Mystic Falls is like two hours from my old hometown just a stone's throw north of Lynchburg, Virginia, as seen on the locator spell map (this one's all over tumblr, forgive me for not remembering what blog I grabbed it from):

So if you zoom in on the timeanddate map and pick somewhere closeish to there:

It looks like Mystic Falls would be getting a little over 77% coverage or so. It's also worth noting that the '94 eclipse was an annular eclipse, not a total eclipse like tomorrow's eclipse. That still means that the moon went directly in front of the sun, but it does mean that it was small enough/far enough from earth that you didn't quite get full coverage of the sun (thanks to weather.gov for the nifty graphic):

So, I'm not positive whether it would've looked quite as dark as was shown in the show:

Although, I must admit, in this video I found on youtube of the '94 eclipse, (part of me is shocked to find footage from then but I know I shouldn't be like yes they had cameras in the 90s) it actually looks more similar than I expected it to look, but I imagine it was most likely filmed within the path of totality:

But also, when Kai takes Bonnie to Portland, don't they see the eclipse again there? I couldn't find that clip on youtube just now, but Portland barely had any eclipse--only 42-43% coverage, so it would've been way milder of a visual effect, barely any dimming in the sky noticeable without eclipse glasses.

The funny thing is, the area where I live is going to be sitting right around 80% coverage tomorrow. I was lucky enough to get to travel to Missouri for the 2017 eclipse to get into the path of totality, but I'm afraid that it hasn't worked out for me to do so this year, which is immensely disappointing to me as an astronomy enjoyer, but I do still plan to go to an eclipse party and I'm going to start saving to try and get to Spain for the next total eclipse in 2026, which is going to be right around my 30th birthday (screaming). Anyways, it isn't great, but here's my best picture from the '17 eclipse:

I didn't even have a smartphone yet then, because despite it being 2017, I was somewhat of a luddite, so I had the purple flip phone I so stubbornly clung to and a point-and-click Nikon, but I still think this picture is pretty cool for what it is. Here's the zoom in so you can really see that ring of fire (and my shaking hands doubling the image):

Obviously you can find thousands of better eclipse pictures online, but that one's still special to me because it's mine. Anyways, I'll report back with smart phone pictures from whatever I see of the 80% total eclipse tomorrow to compare and contrast with Mystic Falls's 70% annular eclipse of the 90s, because from what I've heard it's going to be much less impressive than full totality was, but I've yet to watch a partial solar eclipse, so I'll just have to find out. Also, if you happen to have any vampiric loved ones trapped in a magical prison dimension who you need help freeing during the eclipse tomorrow, let me know and I'll see what I can do! ;) Hahaha. Anyways, happy eclipse everyone, and may we all possess sufficient self restraint to avoid eye damage (says the woman who has looked at the sun unprotected so many times and is probably going to go blind because of it some day. I know what I've done lol. Don't be me.)

[todayinhiphophistory]

Today in Hip Hop History:

Jay-Z his second album In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 November 4, 1997

[an-architect-of-words]

I wanted to listen to “Once Upon a Time at Bennington” but part of me finds it more and more unethical the more I hear about it. I mean I’m willing to accept Donna Tartt could have been a less than stellar person in college, whatever. And I guess she used quirks of people she knew for some characters. But why is the world entitled to private letters and the nearly 40-year-old random rumors about her bedroom activity? Then people are like “Ooooooo she got a lawyer. She’s tried to prevent it!” Prevent the unveiling of campus gossip about her and her college boyfriend from when she was like 20? Again, why are we even entitled to that?

And this is all assuming it’s even true— so much of it sounds like it’s from vague origin or that it started as conjecture. And, I mean, the nature of tabloid-y media is to want to cause a shock/stir.