#Imaging Centers in Georgia

[rachaelthemes]

Ocular — Version 3

Preview // User Guide // More Info & Install

your favorite sidebar theme just got an upgrade, babeyyy

I went to update Ocular to make it NPF post-compliant and then my hand slipped and I redesigned the whole thing lmao. here's a brief update about Ocular 3; if you're looking for a full list of changes between versions 2 and 3, click the "Read More" below)

Ocular comes with the following features:

Colors: easily change the color scheme of your sidebar and posts using any colors you want

Post sizes: 400px, 500px, 540px, 600px, 700px

Sidebar: can be on the left, right, or above the posts. pick from a list of sidebar sizes, header image heights, and avatar shapes

Fonts: 20 different fonts, sizes 13px to 18px

Background: solid, gradient, full-size image or repeating image

Links: choose either regular navigation or drop-down navigation. unlimited custom links (visit the help desk FAQ for a tutorial) and ability to rename home, ask, submit, and archive links

Endless scroll, custom ask box text, Tumblr's full-width controls and search bar, optional header, avatar, and favicon images

if you already have Ocular installed, version 3 should be coming at you as soon as the update passes the theme garden. if you installed this theme with GitHub, you'll have to re-install manually.

now let's get to the fun stuff. what's new in version 3?

wow, do I have some updates for you!

1. goodbye color schemes, hello post background and text colors

you can now directly control the color of the posts rather than relying on color schemes to do it. want your posts to be a very specific shade of navy? all yours, buddy. go wild (make sure it's readable tho)

2. hello, color schemes! wait I thought we got rid of that guy

a lot of the color schemes I made became redundant now that the new post background/text color options exist. if you were married to the old color schemes, all of them can be recreated using those options. so the new color scheme options are as follows:

"My colors" — uses the colors you picked for post background/text

"Light preset" and "dark preset" — sets the posts to white with black text, or off-black with white text

"Translucent" — uses the colors you choose for post background/text, but makes the post backgrounds semi-transparent. there are NINE different translucent color schemes, ranging from 90% (only slightly see-through) to 10% (VERY see through)

3. navigation dropdown option

you can either use the sidebar links like they were before, or you can turn them into a cute little dropdown (helpful if you have lots of links or links with long titles!) you can enable this using the "use dropdown navigation" setting. you can also customize the label for the dropdown using the "dropdown menu label" setting. for instance, the dropdown on my blog currently says "oooh you wanna click me"

4. RIP google fonts I always hated your load times

decided to stop using Google Fonts and instead I'm providing the font files directly in the code. this will help speed up load times drastically when using custom fonts, plus I don't have to use Google. win-win! there's quite a bit of coverage overlap with the old fonts, but some of them that were too similar to each other got the ax. I also added all of the system fonts as options (hit classics like Arial, Georgia, and Comic Sans MS are now available TO YOU!)

5. more layout, sizing, and spacing options

the sidebar used to be either on the center-left, center-right, or above the posts; now it can go in the top-left or top-right! you can now control the border radius on the posts and sidebar. the header height, sidebar width, and post spacing all have additional options.

6. some options have been renamed for additional clarity

"background color 1" -> "background color"

"background color 2" -> "gradient background color"

"background" -> "background style"

"font override" -> "use body font everywhere"

"title" -> "sidebar title"

"description" -> "sidebar description"

"ask box text" -> "custom HTML above ask box"

7. removed some options

you win some, you lose some. I removed the uppercase sidebar links, theme credit, and inline media spacing options, mostly for redundancy reasons or because they produced unclear results.

8. as previously stated, now NPF-compliant

Ocular was ALMOST compliant with Tumblr's new post format, but had a few tweaks that needed to be ironed out. they're now ironed.

9: now user-friendly right out of the box

I updated the default color and content options, so new users installing this theme will have a much easier time using and customizing it immediately. no more ugly ass green background!

10. and finally, new JS

I had to rewrite some of the javascript for this theme, which turned into me rewriting ALL of the javascript. doing so meant that I could eliminate dependencies on third-party JS libraries and run the whole thing on plain JS. that should improve load times!!

bonus: custom CSS can do some nifty stuff now

want to change the size of your avatar? you can do that now! just do this to your Advanced > Add custom CSS section

super helpful if you're using the Avatar shape: Uncropped setting and you need your image to be a specific size (like a pixelated GIF)

for more info, check out the Ocular user guide. thanks for reading my updates!! hope you all have a fantastic start to your 2024 ❤️

[ingravinoveritas]

So Al post always have to make sure she the centre of attention on Ms big night which doesn't come as a shock in that photo michael look tense and stiff and where the smile it exactly same as the other he pulls when he with her georgia one on seems more general and supportive of her friend and husband best friend then his actual parter

Would love to hear ur thoughts on this one

Hi there! Well, my DMs have been blowing up all afternoon about these various posts, and...yeah. A lot to unpack here, for sure.

It's interesting to see the use of two very different pictures here--one posed, one a candid pic/selfie--and how that frames everything else that is going on, and highlights several contrasts that are much too great to ignore. Perhaps the most significant contrast is that in the posed photo, Michael and AL are barely touching, and the photographer seems to have made the choice not to pose them like a couple. There is also no apparent "pull" that is unconsciously bringing them together, in spite of whatever direction they might've been given. In the picture of Michael and David, however, not only are they sitting very close together, but that "pull" is readily visible, and you can see them leaning/melting into each other without any effort. So that by itself on a foundational, fundamental level puts these pictures into two very different places.

The second aspect of the contrast--again, in my opinion--is the impersonal nature of Anna's post vs. Georgia's. Anna is posting a Getty Images picture with a watermark with another generic "Darling" caption (the same as she did in another post when the first episode of The Way aired a few weeks ago). At this point it feels, as @invisibleicewands previously described, akin to a "Best regards" at the end of an e-mail. And again, it's not only a photo shoot pic instead of a personal one--an especially strange choice given that Michael has repeatedly talked about how much he hates photo shoots--but a shot where Michael looks stiff and so uncharacteristically subdued.

In the picture Georgia posted, we see that twinkle in his eye, how relaxed he looks, full of that life and joy that we've come to so strongly associate with Michael, and it makes it even more stark how absent that is from the second picture. And further adding to all of this is what you mentioned, about AL centering herself/how she and Michael look in this post, as opposed to the opening of the play.

If we had any doubts about this, Anna seems to have taken the point home this with the story she posted immediately following this one:

For those who may not know, this is a photo from the show Schitt's Creek, of the actors who play the main family (special shout-out to Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy, my loves). I have not actually seen the show, so I can't attest to anything specific about the characters' personalities, but it appears this is who AL thinks she and Michael look like. I would say, though, that what is apparent to me is that Anna's priority in posting that first Insta story was the aesthetic/the picture, rather than celebrating Michael or the opening night of the play. Putting these two things together, Michael almost seems like the smallest part of the post, which is an odd thing to do when tonight is the opening night of his play.

And this again wildly contrasts with Georgia's post, where the picture is merely a vehicle for something much deeper, and much more meaningful. Just the positioning of the word "Michael" at the center of the picture is a visual cue that lets us know what this post is about, and this is further augmented by the caption for all of the reasons I enumerated here. I also can't help thinking that there was a reason that a picture of Michael and David was used--not a picture of Michael by himself, and not a picture of Michael and Georgia--and given that this Insta story was posted after AL's, it makes me wonder if that was a deliberate choice, for multiple reasons...

So yes, those are my thoughts on these two Insta stories/pictures from today. I'm definitely interested to see what posts or pictures we might get following tonight's performance/press night (and fingers crossed that David actually made it to the show this time). Also glad as always to hear from my followers about your take on these posts. Thanks for writing in! x

[corallapis]

Three photographs by Cecil Beaton, 1927. Middle photo, L-R: Rex Whistler, Cecil Beaton, Georgia Sitwell, William Walton, Stephen Tennant, Zita Jungman, and Teresa ‘Baby’ Jungman.

The most memorable of all is a group portrait taken at Wilsford in the summer of 1927. Here, got up in the style of a Watteau fête champêtre, sit seven of the most dandified exquisites ever placed before a camera. [...] It is an extraordinary portrait — stylized, sophisticated, ultramodern, and yet, in its dandy posturing, hugely frivolous and self-centered, an image that, in the end, conveys nothing except it's own artificiality. By chance, Lytton Strachey arrived at Wilsford while the pictures were being taken. “Strange creatures,” he is supposed to have remarked, “with just a few feathers were brains should be.”

— D. J. Taylor, Bright Young People

Cecil and the Bright Young Things had come of age in the aftermath of the First World War, a stain they took great pains to expunge from their immediate landscape. Did they feel survivors' guilt? [...] They felt perhaps that their contributions to a Brave New World should be an excess of superficiality and inward-looking self-absorption, a world of illusion, with which to dispel an inexplicable past. The heroes were gone, and the survivors could do nothing but fail to measure up. So on they went.

— Robin Muir, Cecil Beaton's Bright Young Things

[mariacallous]

Forget for a moment all the potential foreign-policy implications of a second Donald Trump presidency. What are the implications for U.S. foreign policy if Trump loses the election, denies its outcome, and tries to overturn it? How would the United States, longtime champion of democracy promotion abroad, be able to continue doing so when it has become clear that so much of the country has so little support for the actual exercise of democracy?

If Trump performs as he did in 2020 and narrowly loses the upcoming election—and polls suggest the race remains a toss-up—the likelihood of a repeat of the “Stop the Steal” campaign and a concerted effort to subvert the outcome again appears high. 

Both Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, have repeatedly refused to say whether they’ll accept the outcome of the election (unless they win). The mechanics for a similar challenge to the election’s outcome, focusing on replacing legitimate state electors with fraudulent electors, which was invented on the fly in late 2020, has been significantly built up. Election experts fear Trump has a more robust plan to overturn the election than his ultimately failed bid after the 2020 vote. And he’s already saying as much, launching broadsides in late October against allegedly fraudulent ballots in Pennsylvania, a critical state for both candidates.

His first effort to subvert a presidential election, culminating in the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was harmful enough to the image of the United States as a bastion of democracy. 

“Our soft power, our ability to attract and inspire, has already been damaged by all this—by the threats that Trump made in 2016 that he wouldn’t accept the election unless it went his way, and then what he did in 2020,” said Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

But the Biden administration nevertheless made democracies-versus-authoritarians a guiding principle of its foreign policy during its first years in office, even convening a handful of democracy summits. It seems to be a losing battle. Illiberal and authoritarian regimes are growing in number (most recently in the republic of Georgia), while democracies and freedom are in retreat. Those regimes are banding together, whether through bilateral ties (such as Russia and North Korea), multilateral groupings (the expanded BRICS is taking an anti-Western tilt), or even inside the European Union (Hungary’s prime minister has become Russia’s new Vyacheslav Molotov).

If Trump wins the election outright, fears of another Jan. 6 are moot, and major concerns can revert to issues such as the future of NATO, the fate of Ukraine, and the promised global trade war. But a Trump victory would also severely diminish U.S. democratic credentials, Diamond argued.

“If Trump wins, particularly after the campaign of racism, misogyny, authoritarian threats and intimidation, xenophobia, and so on, if he wins after that, the damage from that compared to the fallout from a contested election will be far greater,” he said.

If Vice President Kamala Harris wins the vote—and takes office next January after a prolonged campaign to delegitimize the election—how much could U.S. democratic credentials suffer on the global stage?

“It’s a very plausible outcome, another period where we look like the problem when it comes to democratic practice,” said Richard Fontaine, chief executive of the Center for a New American Security, a D.C.-based think tank. Fontaine recently published a joint call for the next administration to revitalize democracy promotion to bolster U.S. national security.

“It would make it harder and be a major distraction. The world has become less democratic over the last 15 or so years, and I think that is a more dangerous world than otherwise,” he said. “The degree to which U.S. policy and leadership can influence that direction one way or the other is important for the world, and for our own security.”

For some 80 years, Washington has sought to promote democracy abroad as a way to boost its security and prosperity at home. More democracies generally means a more stable international order, with fewer threats to U.S. prosperity or core interests. The issue has become especially acute as illiberal and authoritarian states attempt to promote an alternative vision of the international order that would have both as its goal and its consequence a weaker United States. Democracy in disarray at home would only blunt that longtime fixture of U.S. diplomacy.

Democracy promotion “is in our DNA, so it should be part of our toolbox and a natural component because of who we are,” said Derek Mitchell, nonresident senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former president of the National Democratic Institute, a nongovernmental organization that promotes democracy globally. Mitchell also just wrote a piece underscoring the importance of democracy promotion.

“More than that, it is, I think, our comparative advantage right now in the defining question of the 21st century: What norms will guide the world in the decades ahead? The question is, are we going to be reaffirming those democratic norms both at home and abroad as something in our interest?” Mitchell said.

That’s why the risk of a repeat of a contested election, coming in a deeply polarized and paralyzed American society, would be problematic in that bigger contest.

“Obviously the brand is degraded, and the autocrats will be able to use what is happening in the United States as a cudgel against America’s pretension—I think real support—for democracy,” Mitchell said.

The other risk from a contested election and a repeat of January 2021 is the power of example. Diamond noted that former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s effort to stay in office after losing in Brazil’s October 2022 election “was completely inspired by what Trump did and even the methods. So it’s not just that our soft power will be damaged by another post-election crisis, it will also have demonstration effects.”

Perhaps concerns over the tarnish left by another messy election are overblown. After all, Woodrow Wilson pledged to make the world “safe for democracy” while championing segregation, and before women’s suffrage was real. Succeeding presidents, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Trump officials all championed democracy abroad while grappling with democratic deficits at home.

“The United States has always had flaws in its democracy even while maximally promoting democracy and human rights,” Fontaine said.

History suggests that not even overt shows of support for authoritarianism and disdain for democracy can derail that train. Just two years after the first mass Nazi rally in New York City in 1939, Freedom House was created to promote democracy around the globe—the start of a decade that culminated with Roosevelt’s “arsenal of democracy,” the creation of the United Nations, and the birth of the Marshall Plan.

The United States’ own travails with democracy could, in the event of an eventual Harris win and successful inauguration, even give Washington the ability to more effectively promote democracy abroad tempered by the experience. That could make it better able to relate to fragile democracies that struggle against the seemingly never-ending attacks they face, Mitchell said.

“The U.S. struggle only points to how difficult it is,” he said. “Institutions are vitally important—that was the lesson of 2020, and maybe of 2024.”

[atlurbanist]

Atlantic Station: before, after, & thoughts for the future

This is Atlantic Station (note: I've got this upside-down, with north on the bottom). It was built on a 138-acre brownfield, the former site of an Atlantic Steel facility that required major remediation.

The work involved the removal of 180,000 cubic yards of slag-contaminated soil. Steel slag is a by-product of steel manufacturing. In the absence of regulatory controls, it had been disposed of directly onto the Atlantic Steel property.

Also required was the installation of a groundwater extraction system to prevent contaminated water from running into adjacent properties or the municipal sewer system.

In 2002, this remediation work cost $25 million. The City of Atlanta created a Tax Allocation District in 1999 as part of a financing plan for the Atlantic Station project.

[Info source: Atlantic Station, Atlanta, Georgia: A Sustainable Brownfield Revitalization Best Practice, By Christopher De Sousa and Lily-Ann D’Souza. Image source: Google Earth]

There's no doubt that this was a majorly impressive undertaking.

But can we do even better for urban sustainability on this property? I see room for a BRT line through connecting to Howell Mill Rd and to MARTA rail, for instance. And how about a protected bike path?

Can we also improve the way this fits into the city's system of neighborhoods so that it feels like a natural extension? I'd like to see some truly public-owned space here with a community center, a library, and a city park.

[conjuremanj]

More on Hoodoo (spirituality)

In my previous post I talked about traditional hoodoo where it started I want to talk a little more on it.

When we look at the origins of the word Hoodoo which actually comes from the real term "Hudu", meaning "spirit work," coming from the Ewe language spoken in the West African countries. Hudu is a African dialect spoken in the Ewe language of the Ewe people in West Africa.

Hoodoo has Bakongo magical influence from the Bakongo religion incorporating the Kongo cosmogram, Simbi water spirits, Yoruba people incorporating iron work from their deity which is used in hoodoo like railroad spike or horseshoe and Nkisi and Minkisi practices.

Sweetening Jars:

Traditional Sweeting Jar

Sweetening jars are a tradition in Hoodoo to sweeten a person or a situation in a person's favor. The practice is appropriated and its meaning is misunderstood outside the African-American community. Traditionally sugar water is used.. not honey.

During the slave trade, the majority of Central Africans imported to New Orleans, Louisiana were Bakongo (Bantu people). This image I like and wanted to show it if anyone hasn't seen it. It was painted in 1886 and shows African Americans in New Orleans performing dances from Africa in Congo Square. Congo Square was where African Americans practiced Voodoo and Hoodoo. ("So again when any non traditional Root Worker says there isn't a little voodoo with hoodoo there wrong")

Next we have this diagram the Kongo Cosmogram Cross.

Kongo Cosmogram aka Crossroads.

The Kongo cosmogram aka The Crossroads is from Bakongo origins in Hoodoo practice and is very important. In Kongolese spiritual beliefs and practices are present in Hoodoo such as the Kongo cosmogram.

Why is it important? The basic form of this symbol is a simple cross (＋) which (symbolizes the rising of the sun in the east, the setting of the sun in the west, and represents cosmic energies.)

However, is not the same as your typical Christian cross.

The vertical line of the cosmogram is the path of spiritual power from God at the top traveling to the realm of the dead below where the ancestors reside.

The horizontal line in the cross represents the boundary between the physical world which is the (realm of the living) and the spiritual world (realm of the ancestors).

The horizonal line is a watery divide that separates the two worlds from the physical and spiritual, and thus the "element" of water plays a role in African American spirituality just like Voodoo.

The Kongo cosmogram cross symbol has a physical form in Hoodoo called the crossroads where Hoodoo rituals are performed to communicate with spirits.

Dancing: Counterclockwise sacred circle, dances in Hoodoo are performed to communicate with ancestral spirits using the sign of the Yowa cross.

The Ring shout is not part of traditional Hoodoo as far as the actual rituals are concerned, but it is part of church that has its origins from the Kongo region also the ring shouters dance in a counterclockwise direction. The ring shout follows the cyclical nature of life that we see in the diagram. It represents Kongo cosmogram of birth, life, death, and rebirth.

Through counterclockwise circle dancing, ring shouters built up spiritual energy that resulted in the communication with ancestral spirits, and led to spirit possession by the Holy Spirit or ancestral spirits. The spiritual vortex in the center of the ring shout is a sacred spiritual realm. The center of the ring shout is where the ancestors and the Holy Spirit reside at. The ring shout tradition continues in Georgia. Inside reflective materials and the used of reflective materials to transport the recently deceased to the spiritual realm. Broken glass on tombs reflects the other world. It is believed reflective materials are portals to the spirit world.

[hit-song-showdown]

Year-End Poll #69: 2018

[Image description: a collage of photos of the 10 musicians and musical groups featured in this poll. In order from left to right, top to bottom: Drake, Ed Sheeran, Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line, Camila Cabello, Post Malone, Cardi B and Bad Bunny and J Balvin, Zedd and Maren Morris, Drake, Maroon 5. End description]

More information about this blog here

As mentioned in the previous poll, the streaming era led to artists finding a variety of new ways to gather chart success. Now that Billboard was factoring YouTube views into their chart data, viral videos and memes were able help give artists a wider audience that would also reflect on the charts. We can see this with the popularity of Drake's fifth album, Scorpion -- specifically the tracks God's Plan and In My Feelings. Along with the popularity of artists like Post Malone and 21 Savage, the sound of mainstream rap and hip-hop was becoming much more low tempo and "vibe-y".

We're also seeing the continuation of another rising trend from last poll. This is not the first time we've discussed a Latin music craze on this blog (the first being in the 1950's an the second in the 2000's), but now we're seeing it manifest as the mainstream English-speaking popularity of reggaeton and Latin trap. While we can see some of this influence in Camila Cabello's Havana, the song I want to highlight is I Like It by Cardi B, Bad Bunny and J Balvin. The song's hook not only centers around a prominent sample of boogaloo musician Pete Rodriguez's I Like It Like That, but the song itself features three Latin artists rapping in mostly Spanish verses. This song helped introduce Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny to an English-speaking mainstream audience, to the point where he's not just a crossover success, but a popstar without any other qualifiers. Even as tropical house starts to fade in the mainstream pop sound, we'll continue to see reggaeton and trap cast a wide shadow over the charts.

[thap1nkblog]

     ❝ CAUSE LORD, I WANNA

           𝐓𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐅𝐘! ❞

  a negative⋆azure exclusive

❝ in which a well established a list musician finds himself facing the music after a reckless night out that lands him in the wrong place at the wrong time - resulting in him being at the center of a murder investigation. ❞ 

✰ 𝐁𝐄𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐂:

“oh is that murda? turn this shit up!”

[18+] this story contains mature language, and sexual situations and suggestive themes. as well as mentions and depictions of violence, abuse, and substance use.

✰ 𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐈𝐍𝐆:

with his name in lights, sold out concerts, and billboard 100 charting rap songs, a list rapper and full time “bad boy” jamari gardner - known widely by his stage name, murda, has lived a life that is filled with money, drugs, and everything his heart could’ve ever wanted. or so he thought. 

after his latest string of crash out, piss poor behavior that has his name circulating more often than not for his publicity stunts for attention rather than his music - jamari’s image to the public is a stark contrast of what the people closest to him know him to be. 

with his face plastered all over tmz, lipstickalley, and other gossip blogs at the center of a wrong place, wrong time situation that has his name involved in a murder case, his record label had no choice but to issue him an ultimatum - 

either straighten up his act, or pay back the advance given on his contract. 

shipped back to the his hometown of woodbury, georgia by his team with the idea in mind of doing a complete detox while they handle the pr massacre left behind in atlanta, being back in his old stomping grounds has jamari facing the lights of what his fame and fortune really mean to him, and if it’s even worth it at all in the end. 

and as he rebuilds connections he thought he lost - like with one woman in particular - karma everett, a little detox from the noise and energy associated with his career could be just what he needed. 

               ❝ 𝐖𝐎𝐎𝐃𝐁𝐔𝐑𝐘'𝐒 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐓 ❞

j alphonse nicholson as 𝐉𝐀𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐈 ❝𝐌𝐔𝐑𝐃𝐀❞ 𝐆𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐍𝐄𝐑

shannon thornton as 𝐊𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐀 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐓

✰ 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓:

❝ what? his album is coming out so soon?! ❞

         𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐚 ✰ 𝐣𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐢'𝐬 𝐦𝐢𝐱 

        𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐛 ✰ 𝐤𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐚'𝐬 𝐦𝐢𝐱

𝐁𝐎𝐍𝐔𝐒: like you’ll never see me again, alicia keys

✰ 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐂:

“i know you heard me - i said turn that shit the fuck up!”

the interlude, ❝𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐫❞ 

the key signature, ❝𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬❞ 

track i, ❝𝐦𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐚 𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝❞

track ii, ❝𝐰𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐲❞ 

                         ❝ and that’s 𝐁𝐈𝐆 𝐌𝐔𝐑𝐃𝐀 to you, pussy! ❞

  ❝ 𝐓𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐅𝐘 ❞ is a negative-azure original, inspired loosely by the world/events of p-valley. i don’t own any of “murda’s” songs, and i give full credit to p-valley for their beautiful show and characters. (patiently impatiently waiting for season three)

i hope you all enjoy. 

[catdotjpeg]

[Image ID: A large group of people are gathered in protest on a sidewalk. A purple banner reading “Stop Cop City” is centered in the front of the photo. End ID.] 

A broad coalition of groups in Atlanta has launched a referendum to give voters a chance to say whether they want the controversial police and fire department training center known as “Cop City” built in a forest south-east of the city.

The effort requires organizers to collect about 70,000 signatures from Atlanta registered voters in 60 days. Then the question of the city canceling its agreement with the Atlanta Police Foundation to build the $90m center can be added to municipal election ballots in November.

The push comes after an estimated thousand people who showed up at City Hall on 5 June proved insufficient to stop Atlanta’s city council from approving about $67m for Cop City. Meanwhile, machines have already begun clear-cutting trees on the project’s 171-acre footprint in South River Forest.

The referendum faces what one organizer called “an atmosphere of repression” – including two activists being charged with felonies last week while putting up fliers, bringing total arrests since December to 50.

The largest group of arrests, on 5 March in a public park in the forest near where the project is planned, was followed by local government closing the park, in effect shutting off tree-sitting protests by “forest defenders” that had gone on for more than a year.

“We’re at the stage where they’ve pushed people out of the forest, they’ve arrested people … they’ve fenced off the forest, they’ve even begun clear-cutting,” said Kamau Franklin, founder of local group Community Movement Builders. “We’re at the stage where the most direct, legal mechanism to stop this project is by referendum.” [...]

...the movement opposing the project has drawn a wide range of people locally, nationally and internationally who oppose police militarization, urban forest destruction amid climate change and environmental racism. Most residents in neighborhoods surrounding the forest are Black.

Most of the organizations driving the referendum are also Black-led, including the regional chapter of Working Families Power, Black Voters Matter and the NAACP. Officials from the Georgia governor, Brian Kemp, down to the mayor have consistently referred to opposition against the center as the work of white “outsiders”.

“That narrative is false,” said Britney Whaley, regional director of Working Families Power. “This has been national, but it’s also been community-grown for a few years now.”

Ashley Dixon, an Atlanta-area organizer, has led canvassing efforts to inform neighborhoods around South River Forest about the center for nearly a year. Her team has spoken to more than a thousand people. About 80% opposed the project once they knew about it, she said.

The only academic poll on the issue to date, from Atlanta’s Emory University, showed slightly more Black respondents opposed the project than supported it, with the opposite being true for whites. Atlanta’s population is 48% Black.

The idea for the referendum came from one that succeeded in stopping a spaceport from being built in coastal Georgia, said Will Harlan, founder of Forest Keeper, a national forest conservation organization. “To me, Cop City is the most important issue in conservation in the south-east,” Harlan said. “A referendum is the smartest, most democratic solution … [and] a way to find resolution and closure.”

Although the 2022 spaceport referendum affected a county of only 55,000 people, similarities between the two controversies point to the role voters can play when other efforts fall short.

In that case, local officials “dug their heels in” and stopped responding to press requests or providing transparent information to the public, said Megan Desrosiers, who led the referendum. In the case of Cop City, the Atlanta Police Foundation has stopped answering press requests for at least a year, and the city of Atlanta was recently discovered to be understating the project’s cost to taxpayers by about $36m.

The project is planned on land the city owns that is located in neighboring DeKalb county. Because of Atlanta’s ownership, only Atlanta voters can participate in the referendum. [...]

Organizers of the Cop City referendum pointed to the state’s heavy-handed approach to protesters as a primary concern. There have been 42 domestic terrorism charges to date. A bail and legal defense fund’s members were also arrested and the state added fundraising to its criminal description of the training center’s opposition.

In that context, it took about a dozen attempts at finding a legally required fiscal sponsor for the referendum, which may need as much as $3.5m to reach success, said spokesperson Paul Glaze.

Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter – one of two organizations that agreed to take the sponsorship role – said the recent Atlanta Solidarity Fund arrests were done “to send a message, in hopes it would have a chilling effect. We’re not naive about what the threats are – but we believe our community cares about this issue.”

-- From “Activists push for referendum to put ‘Cop City’ on ballot in Atlanta” by Timothy Pratt for The Guardian, 16 Jun 2023 

[novemberthewriter]

good bones (or, an exercise in letting go) [1300 wds]

genre: literary/dramedy

[cw: surgery talk, body image, colorism, fatphobia, depression, negative self-talk, emotional neglect, strained relationships]

-

Mark ‘Mookie’ Simon, age 30, will break his first bones under the care of Doctor Armand in Tijuana, Mexico. He will have four osteotomies of the jaw over six months while Dodie plays caregiver (yes, paid). Dodie’s unbothered because it’s not skin bleaching or a black market butt lift or something else equally heinous, but also Very Bothered Enough to give Mookie another rendition of Why You Wanna Play With Your Face So Bad from the driver’s seat as they head to Hartsfield-Jackson Airport.

And yet again, Mookie tells her, We don’t all have good bones.

Dodie’s a good enough friend that she'll accept a half-story as long as she can monitor him. Mookie’s grateful. He’s still figuring out how to give her the whole truth. 

The PR reason is that he wants a competitive edge. Mookie is better known as Hennesse Williams, fast-growing queen of the Atlanta drag scene, and he wants to expand his horizons. He considered the staple practices: the buzzcuts for better wig placement, the spanx for a smoother look in skirts. What was wrong with something more permanent? He still can’t find an answer. Even little old ladies get chin lifts, tattooed brows. Gertrude can save at the Clinique counter and Mookie can save time contouring to look like he’s got a Disney Tarzan jaw. 

The true reason is a bit more involved.

It goes back decades.

The Weight had been the monkey on Mookie’s back (and belly, and hips, and arms, and everywhere) since birth. The Simons of Southern Georgia, USA were always markedly svelte; Mookie was nothing like them. Sure, he had the same twang and hazel eyes and tawny skin, but his facial features stretched wide, his frame and family bones buried deep under fat. It didn’t take long for him to figure out that whatever gene made the Simons energetic, ambitious, and burn off soul food like nothing had skipped him over. His childhood was spent in the solace of the N64 while Dorothy had the nerve to start singing and the gall to be good at it. 

[DOROTHY ANNE enters stage center. She is twelve years old. The stage is the Apollo, the Ole Opry, the hearts of most Simons and the world over. MOOKIE is her younger brother. He is eight years old. MOOKIE exits stage left and becomes a glass child.]

[MOOKIE wonders if there is such a thing as a glass parent. He lives with his folks yet he knows nothing about them.]

It had been many years of being grudgingly taken on tour when a blessing came to him in the form of vaudeville. (One can’t repeatedly visit New York without falling into its oldest theatre traditions.) Vaudeville became drag. Drag begot a creativity and athleticism he’d never known was possible for someone like him. Newly seventeen and now those bones that'd bent under the weight of himself and his sadness were suddenly carrying Mookie through a new chapter.  Gave strength to Hennessee, a larger-than-life character who was so very cathartic to become. Strength on his own small stages, performing for people of all ages who loved him. Strength in the streets to evade the people who sought to hurt him for finding himself. The biggest blessing: meeting Miss Dodie James.

[DODIE JAMES enters stage right. She is eighteen. She is a copper-skinned snark machine, a super-fan, and is more than happy to be Mookie’s right hand woman.]

But Dorothy was twenty and Nashville wanted her for good, so her managers  Mookie’s glass parents went with and sent him to stay with a half-dead great-aunt in ATL. He kept contact with Dodie, grew a name for himself in Georgia, kept his sights set on a forever home in New York one day. 

It was a letter from Dorothy that changed everything.

Mookie was blindsided. Her crooning and cowboy fringe had been so separate from his glitter and cocktail pantomime for so long. Read a few words with shaking hands, thought, You have everything. You don’t need me, too. Changed his address and his name and now he’s changing his face.

He’ll finally move to New York. If another Simon ever sees him again, their eyes will slide past him just as they’ve always done.

(He knows in his bones this is how it’s meant to be.)

The Tijuana condo has two bedrooms but Dodie’s bunking with him. Just for now - now that she knows everything. 

It’s the night before the first surgery. 

It starts with this, Dodie says from her side of the bed. Then you nip and tuck, nip and tuck till you’re the Black Ken Doll From Hell. What happens when we both die and they gotta identify you?

Mookie closes his eyes. They don’t know me for my smile. They can check my teeth. 

+++

[The stage is MOOKIE’S SKULL – pitch black, pain-free room. The buzz of a BONE SAW reverberates. MANDIBLE floor shudders and breaks under pressure.]

Recovery is this:

-A wired jaw

-Dodie doing all the talking in Tijuana (Mookie S.O.B.S., which means he Spares Others from his Broken Spanish)

-Dodie tending his wounds 

-Endless milkshakes and purees and Peridex mouthwash

-Extended time to shop floor show ideas

By night he falls asleep sweating under fans with 'novelas in one ear and a Bronx accent in the other (Dodie never moved into her own room).

When he gets onstage as Hennessee again he’ll have much to answer for. He deliberately kept the reason for his leave vague but he knows someone will put two and two together before he returns to American soil. (Queued media posts can only tide fans over for so long.) With this liquid diet he’s lightening up so much, too, and so having a snatched face and waist will make Hennessee the talk of Midtown. It’s all enough material for several shows over and Mookie’s pushing his pen overtime in this condo. (His jaw aches with the urge to practice aloud more than anything. Properly, not the ventriloquist dummy murmuring he can do through the wire right now.) He has way too many puns about mental gymnastics. 

[He, MOOKIE SIMON, grown-ass glass child, is she, HENNESSEE WILLIAMS, drag superstar and legendary gaywright of the 21st century. She is in Baja California with ten journals and a dry erase board and she’s not afraid to use them.]

The page on the bed between two friends comprises the scribblings of madmen. Mookie can’t tell where his ideas end and Dodie’s begin. He writes ‘Operation MB’, gives her room to work. Quickly gives her a metal grin – she’s just drawn Brain Surgery Cavity Sam instead of Full Body Cavity Sam.

Isolation got us on the same wavelength, Mookie writes.

Dodie shakes her head. We were already there. 

And that’s another thing to contend with: he's not sure when Dodie crossed over from best bud to collaborator – but he's not complaining. Who better to create with than someone who's supported him from jump? Something about her vagabond nature made her latch on.  Over the years he’s learned about her foster upbringing. How it'd hardened her in some ways, softened her in others. She doesn’t talk about her birth folks much like Mookie doesn't mention his family. Yet the whole of her has always seemed so transcendent. Mookie's trauma is written on his face when he's not on stage, and he's sure his friendship with her is predicated on her being the only one who can handle it. Maybe that's phrenology, that messy old way of thinking things are so set in bones. Maybe emotions are a bit malleable, like cartilage. Maybe Dodie just sees a person; a being made of ever-moving parts.

[The stage is MOOKIE’S SKULL. It’s newly renovated but it’s still not all that pretty. DODIE is strangely at home here.]

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Dark Nights in Georgia

Hurricane Helene’s winds surged in strength as the storm churned over unusually warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico and closed in on the Florida Panhandle and southern Georgia on September 26, 2024. When the deadly Category 4 storm struck Florida’s Big Bend area and then pushed north, winds in some areas exceeded 140 miles per hour (225 kilometers per hour)—strong enough to snap trees, tear the roofs off buildings, and topple power lines.

After the storm passed, millions of people across several states were left without electricty. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the NOAA-NASA Suomi NPP satellite has a low-light sensor, the day-night band, that measures nighttime light emissions and reflections. It captured views of some of those losses in hard-hit communities in Georgia, including Augusta (above), Savannah (below), and Valdosta (second pair below).

Scientists with the Black Marble Project at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Science Systems and Applications, Inc., and the University of Maryland, College Park, processed VIIRS data to show nighttime lights before and after Helene passed through the Southeast. Data from September 28 were compared to a pre-storm composite (August) and overlaid on landcover data collected by the Landsat 8 and 9 satellites. These three cities were not the only communities in Georgia that lost power.

Data published by Georgia Power showed that power had been restored to more than 840,000 customers by October 1. However, more than 400,000 Georgians still lacked power on that date, including 65,000 customers in Richmond County (Augusta), 38,000 in Chatham County (Savannah), and 40,000 in Lowndes County (Valdosta), according to data compiled by PowerOutage.us. More than 61,000 customers in Florida, 589,000 in South Carolina, and 383,000 in North Carolina were also without power on October 1.

Precision is critical for studies of night lights, said Ranjay Shrestha, a scientist based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and member of the Black Marble team. Raw, unprocessed images can be misleading because moonlight, clouds, pollution, seasonal vegetation—even the position of the satellite—can change how light is reflected and distort observations. The processing by the Black Marble team accounts for such changes and filters out stray light from sources that are not electric lights.

“Satellite-derived nighttime lights products like Black Marble are invaluable for capturing widespread outages in distributed energy systems,” said Shrestha. “These images not only reveal the immediate impact of disasters at the neighborhood scale but also provide insights into recovery trends over time, aiding in response, resource allocation, and damage assessment.”

The rate at which power is restored after hurricanes can vary significantly based on a variety of factors. Researchers from Florida Atlantic University and Georgia State University analyzed VIIRS data from Hurricane Ian, which roared across Florida in September 2022, and found notable differences in power restoration rates between urban and rural areas and between disadvantaged and more affluent communities.

NASA’s Disasters Response Coordination System has been activated to support agencies responding to the storm, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Florida Division of Emergency Management. The team will be posting maps and data products on its open-access mapping portal as new information becomes available about flooding, power outages, precipitation totals, and other topics.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Black Marble data courtesy of Ranjay Shrestha/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Story by Adam Voiland.

[badescapeartist-blog]

6 - Personal History Collage

I'm posting this after most of my other classmates and can confidently say that visual aesthetics is not one of my strengths. That aside, I am fairly proud of this collage. In just a few disjointed images, I've encompassed a good bit of myself.

Let's get the simple ones out of the way. I like dogs and I have two cats. I have enjoyed video games for as long as I can remember. I grew up in Georgia around trees that are not dissimilar to the ones in the top left. And, of course, I spend a lot of time at my desk studying.

Front and center in the frame, however, is the square of Neiva, Colombia, the city that my mother spent a lot of her childhood in. And although I've never been myself, my mother has been a huge support for me as I study and find my way through life. The plate of food is a traditional Colombian breakfast, my favorite in the world.

Across the bottom is my low-quality attempt at showing that I'm actively working to put myself in a better place. I was blessed enough to have a childhood where all my needs were met. But living paycheck to paycheck in my adult life (so far) is wearing on my soul, and I've decided to educate myself on how to change that.

The rest of the collage are the images I really like. I've been in love with music for years, and East Atlanta Love Letter got me through a particularly difficult time in my life.

The two paintings play off of each other. The Creation of Adam represents my belief that all humans are family--not through religion--through the simple fact that we all inhabit this planet together. And collaboration with each other is the only way for humanity to live the best lives we can. The other painting is The Kiss by Gustav Klimt. I will readily admit that I did not know of this painting before I made this collage. When reading about it though, I connected with the theme of love in this painting. In this article, the painting alludes to the love which is at the heart of human existence. That plays quite nicely with The Creation of Adam, doesn't it?

And my sister says I'm like a turtle.

It's been a week or two since I made this collage. I can see the ways that I could have added to this to paint a more fleshed out representation of myself. But I like its simplicity. Also I spent an embarrassing amount of time making it and was running towards the end of my artistic abilities. Either way, I hope you enjoy this mishmash of clip art from Adobe Express and Shutterstock.

[vikenticomeshome]

Cyberchase: The Chase Is On! - Exhibit (part 1)

You know, I always wondered if Cyberchase belonged in a museum. It's made a huge impact over the years, and it is now one of the longest-running animated shows of all time. If it keeps going, it will eventually surpass Arthur in that regard, now that Arthur has ended.

So, Cyberchase is (or at least was) in a museum at some point. The Houston Children's Museum in Houston, Texas was setup with an exhibit called "Cyberchase: The Chase is On!", which opened on March 14, 2009. HCM was the exhibit's main home, though it did tour other places, such as the Children's Museum of Atlanta in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Stepping Stones Museum for Children in Norfolk, Connecticut.

I didn't visit the museum back then. I suppose I was too old. However, there are plenty of pictures, and even some videos, out there showing what the exhibit was like. Now, I keep speaking in the past-tense, as I don't think the exhibit still exists. There is footage of the exhibit as recently as 2022.

However, WayBack machine archives of the site in early 2023 show that the exhibit was removed from the list, and it has not been re-added. So, I think the Houston version was retired after an impressive 13 year run. It may not have been open throughout the entire 13 years, as there is a video discussing it being re-opened in 2021.

At the same time, the current museum map still shows a Cyberchase area. The map file is marked as being from 2022, so it may be out of date.

I can't go there to check for myself. You can only go in if you have a child with you. Seriously, it's in their rules.

Still, even if the exhibit is gone, there are pictures that have been publicly posted online. I want to share them and talk about them. I did not take any of these myself. I believe most of these were published by the museum or by new reports on the museum. However, it is possible that I grabbed something from Instagram or Flikr, since I grabbed these images awhile ago. I apologize if I posted a picture that someone didn't want reposted. This is purely for the purpose of archiving what this exhibit looked like. I'm not making any money here.

So, here's the portal into Cyberspace. The kids and Digit are here too.

Actually Digit would sometimes appear in costume form.

Here's sort of a wide shot that shows a few of the different exhibits. We can see Motherboard's screen, a tent from R-Fair city, Jackie in her winter outfit, and the Grim Wreaker.

Here's Matt explaining how this exhibit works. You are trying to restore the power by moving different components around.

Here's Inez explaining another exhibit. It seems that this one involved understanding the Mayan numbering system.

Now, we get Jackie explaining this exhibit. The objective is to aim your shots to get past the obstacles and hit that post in the center.

Now, let's look inside the Grim Wreaker.

I like that they kept some of the hallway design from "Harriet Hippo and the Mean Green".

From what I can gather, this exhibit was all about stopping The Hacker's magnetite rocket from launching,

And now, we're helping Delete with his estimation.

Buzz also wants help fitting everything in The Hacker's closet.

Well, I guess if the Cybersquad can steal the Grim Wreaker and fly it all over Cyberspace, the kids visiting the exhibit can do it too. Are we proposing which Cybersites get deleted though?

And now, The Hacker wants to play a carnival game. How much do you want to bet it is rigged in some way?

Let's look at Motherboard.

She has some very short character bios for us.

There are other computer stations in Control Central. I see four of the flash games on it. We have Bugs in the System, Score the Pour (wasn't that Pour to Score?), Eye of Rom, and Logic Zoo.

I'll stop here, as I am nearing the image limit. I may make a part 2 though. I have a treasure trove of over 100 images, and I cannot remember where I found them.

[tomorrowusa]

EXCELLENT! 👍🏼 🇺🇦 The only way to end the war for good will be with Putin's defeat.

A flagship Russian long-range bomber has been destroyed in a Ukrainian drone strike, according to reports. Images posted on social media and analysed by BBC Verify show a Tupolev Tu-22 on fire at Soltsy-2 airbase, south of St Petersburg.

Ukraine had not been very active in that region. Soltsy is 124 miles/200 km south of Putin's hometown St. Petersburg.

The Kremlin is pretending that this is not a big deal.

Moscow said that a drone was hit by small-arms fire but managed to "damage" a plane. Ukraine has not commented. The Tu-22 can travel at twice the speed of sound and has been used extensively by Russia to attack cities in Ukraine. [ ... ] It stated the location as "a military airfield in the Novgorod region", where Soltsy-2 is situated. "The UAV was detected by the airfield's observation outpost and was hit with small-arms fire," the ministry said.

The point is to make the Kremlin feel insecure and cause the Russian military to divert resources to protecting locations which were previously thought to be immune to attack. Soltsy-2 is about 620 km from Ukraine.

The location of this attack is directly related to Russia's terrorist attacks on Ukrainian civilians.

The Tu-22 is a Cold War-era, swing-wing supersonic bomber, codenamed "Backfire" by Nato, which has been used extensively in attacks on Ukrainian cities. Modern versions such as the Tu-22M3 can reach speeds of Mach 2 (2,300km/h or 1,430mp/h) and can carry up to 24,000kg of weapons, including "dumb bombs" and homing missiles. They have been used in conflicts in Syria, Chechnya, and Georgia and most recently in Ukraine. According to prosecutors in Kyiv, 30 people were killed when a Tu-22-launched missile hit a block of flats in Dnipro in January.

There is now one fewer Tu-22 (possibly two according to other reports) which can bomb Ukrainian maternity hospitals, schools, apartment buildings, and blood transfusion centers.

Russia is losing the war – but not fast enough. Give Ukraine whatever military hardware and weapons it needs except nukes.

The bottom line is that Russia has no fucking business in Ukraine. That's all anybody needs to know about this conflict.

[atlurbanist]

A new report looks at the hot spots of Atlanta's heat exposure

I like the looks of these recommendations from a recent report about Atlanta's heat risk. Cool roofing for low-rise buildings would be a great program for Atlanta!

As the effects of climate change produce hotter weather, it's important for us to find a way to benefit from the cooling power of urban trees while also adding affordable density in walkable formats near our transit lines.

Check out this map of heat exposure at the neighborhood level in Atlanta from the report. I'd love to see an interactive overlay of this with the satellite images:

I'll forgive this next slide for pegging the property between the Mercedes-Benz stadium & Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC) as a high density neighborhood -- no one lives here.

Focus instead on the potential for a cool roof on the giant, sprawling GWCC! That would be great.

This report was funded jointly by Council's Liliana Bakhtiari and Matt Westmoreland.

Here are the recommendations:

1. Increase total tree canopy across atlanta by about 350,000 trees (average of 1,400 per neighborhood). Tree investments should be prioritized in neighborhoods with a total vulnerability score of 8, 9, or 10. All trees added by the city should be positioned to shade impervious surfaces, which will also maximize benefits for stormwater runoff.

2. The results of this heat risk assessment directly support the city council's recently adopted goal of 50% tree canopy cover as a minimum for all neighborhoods. To achieve this level of tree canopy cover, policies for protecting existing canopy will need to be strengthened and complemented with new policies and programs designed to increase tree canopy cover and to replace trees in the public right of way when lost to extreme weather or disease.

3. We recommend cool roofing for all low-rise buildings (4 stories or less). Assuming an average roof area of 1,000 square feet, meeting this recommendation would require about 940 buildings/houses to be converted to cool roofs per neighborhood, on average.

4. The number of cooling centers for extreme heat events should be expanded and targeted to neighborhoods with the highest total vulnerability scores. All cooling centers should be equipped with backup power generation and the capacity to operate during an extended blackout period. The provision of water and ample recharging stations for communication devices can further enhance population resilience during extreme heat events. We recommend that a citywide heat surveillance system be deployed with a density of at least three weather stations per neighborhood with 2,000 residents or more and real-time public reporting of weather conditions. We further recommend that the city stablish a program to evaluate the performance of heat management investments over time.

[kaiserrreich]

Happy 99th Birthday to Jimmy Carter! ❤️🎂

James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975, and as a Georgia state senator from 1963 to 1967.

source of bio

10 Facts about Jimmy Carter:

"1. Born on October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia, young James Earl Carter Jr. was the first person on his father’s side of his family to graduate from high school.

2. Carter entered Annapolis during World War II. The future President graduated in the top 10 percent of his class in 1946, and he and his new wife, Rosalynn, moved frequently as his Navy assignments changed.

3. Carter gave up his military career to save the family peanut farm. And as a parent, Carter became involved in local politics when he served on an education board.

4. He supported civil rights, which hurt his early political career in Georgia. After a poor showing the 1966 governor’s race, Carter adopted a more centrist image, and he won the election in 1970. He became known as a budget cutter while in office.

5. Carter was a “dark horse” presidential candidate in 1976. The future President was tied for 12th in early polling, well behind former Alabama Governor George Wallace and former nominee Hubert Humphrey. He used his image as a Washington outsider to defeat Gerald Ford in the general election.

6. The Carter presidency was a study in contradictions. President Carter played a key role in the Camp David peace accords, but he also struggled with Congress and the media. The Iranian Hostage crisis proved to be a significant factor in his 1980 loss to Ronald Reagan.

7. Carter’s legacy grew after the 1980 loss. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote there are no second acts in American lives, but Carter’s public career after the White House is an exception.

8. In 1982, he founded the Carter Center, which has played an active role in human rights and disease prevention issues globally. The Carters helped publicize Habitat for Humanity, also.

9. Carter received his Nobel Prize in 2002. He received the award "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development."

10. Harry Truman was Carter’s favorite President. Carter told The Guardian in 2011 that he admired Truman for not trying to profit off his presidency."

source for facts