#West Coast Coal Mine

[georgebbwbush]

the fact that the area southeast of seattle actually used to be coal country is a fun little fact that most people around here probably don't know

[gnomebud]

a large part of that is like. being southern is very important to me especially having gone to college in the northeast and realizing just how quickly people will invalidate that as being important to you. obviously having an accent comes with its own preconceived notions but it is also a signifier of who you are!!!!! and also i think it sounds soooo comforting and i wish i sounded like all of my dad’s cousins. sadly my parents were cursed to be californians

i do wish i had more of a southern accent. a lot of my extended family has the kentucky accent and then my more local extended family has another kind i can’t really identify and they are sooo comforting and familiar to me…

[wordrummager]

The state I’m in I’ve never bothered to count the number of barns I pass most days, nor the number of churches in my town. For being a state of old forests, there are some spectacular skies. If you look up. I think we have one of the largest Dollar store ratios per capita and nowhere near enough museums. There are parts of my state steeped in history yet most couldn’t care less, roaming what’s left of the wilds. Which are beautiful. I know dental care is low on the list for many, but we brought pretzels from the old country and invented birch beer and funnel cakes- and we like our breweries. Most women here have dress boots, most men have dress ball caps, and kids often wear both coats and shorts simultaneously as it can vary in a day from 20 to 60 degrees. We have a lot of floods but not earthquakes. The number of potholes is embarrassing. We have mosquitoes and ice storms but are central between several cities with all the glories of civilization without all the traffic. We’re bigger than most realize- 7 hours drive from Erie to Philly. It’s not far to the ocean or the backwoods, depending where you want to be. We have mountains, lakes, rivers, resorts, coal mines, battlefields, and four seasons. PA is a common stopover from all points west to New England as well as up and down the east coast via Routes 6 & 80. We have shops, barns, and warehouses teeming with antiques - we’re like a giant rummage sale, complete with baked goods. I’ve lived elsewhere but mostly Pennsylvania, where family is, where school and work are, and I still find new things to see in old landscapes. For now, I stay in a place with its own Grand Canyon, a town called Intercourse, and cool places like Ortlieb’s.

[mapping-elysium]

Coast Orb: Snow Shivers

WEST

More coast with abandoned buildings and piers

Pre-revolution effort to gentrify the coast

Coal city

Boom town from when revachol was powered mostly by coal

“in the shadow of Saint-Martin”

Supplanted by offshore petroleum and hydropower from Esperance

Infrastructure crumbled. Now a poor area “only the weakest remain”

Below the mines: L'Ossuaire Municipal, Revachol's underground cemetery

Les Petits rats attempt to to find Le Royaume (royal burial chambers)

EAST

Canal and Martinaise

[see PLAZA ORB] whitest part of town

Run-off point of a long forgotten canal

NORTH

Church

1 of 2 remaining stave churches

Originally of a set of 8 called Les Sept Souers “other six sisters were destroyed during the revolutions”

World’s end

Islets

Sea Fortress: The 114th Anti-Aircraft Division of the 4th Army of the Commune of Revachol

Résurrection: Popular spa for  Ozonne residents

A couple of other islets scattered and uninhabited

Martinaise Inlet

Bay of Revachol

1200 m depth

Ozonne

SOUTH

8/81 - raised motorway

Separates Martinaise from Jamrock

Buildings under the motorway (Labyrinthine alleyways)

The Pox

Once a park for the Old Military Hospital

In the 20s was a quarantine center during measles outbreak

Abandoned after the outbreak

Completely wild now, overrun by feral dogs and wolves

Police keep deepest corners cordoned off

Precinct 41

Line of motor garages 

Repurposed silk mill

Central Jamrock

Utility district - Library, florist, saramisizian restaurant

Brothels, drug dens and Zemlyaki(gang) chopshops

Built around lake formed by meteorite strike [Ship in the middle]

Below

sand poisoned with industrial run-off. The storm drainage. Hidden bunkers

NOTES: This is unfortunately the last of the notes I had written ahead of time so things may move slower. Hopefully I've made enough posts that you all can understand the format I'm going for. Joyce's Reality Lowdown is going to take a long time to work through

Shivers - Winter, slow to let go of Revachol, flecks some more wet snow from above...

You - Look around you.

Shivers - The snow falls lazily, making the beach sand paler still, mixing with the rust-coloured sewage run-off.

Shivers - And to think -- it seemed as though it were already spring.

You - How does it feel?

Shivers - Your teeth chatter as the snow melts on your exposed skin, running down your chest and your back in icy rivulets. To distract yourself, you look around...

Replaced with "Your teeth chatter as the snow melts on your exposed skin, running down your chest and your back in icy rivulets. The toes of your one bare foot are growing numb. To distract yourself, you look around..." if HasShoes() == false and (CheckEquipped("shoes_snakeskin_left") or CheckEquipped("shoes_snakeskin_right"))

Replaced with "Your teeth chatter as the snow melts on your exposed skin, running down your chest and your back in icy rivulets. Your bare feet are growing numb. To distract yourself, you look around..." if HasShoes() == false

You - What's in the west?

Shivers - More winding coastline lined with abandoned buildings. Crumbling piers, salt water lapping at their dark piles. Grey and red, forgotten city blocks. What remains of the pre-revolutionary effort to gentrify the coast.

You - And beyond that?

Shivers - The waters turn black. Coal City in the shadow of Saint-Martin, a boom town, back when coal extracted from countless shafts near the city was needed to power Revachol.

Shivers - No more. The coal was supplanted by petroleum from the ocean floor and hydropower from the Esperance. Everything crumbled. These days, only the weakest remain in Coal City. Their hopes of getting rich linger in the defunct shafts under their feet.

You - What is there?

Shivers - Below the old mines -- L'Ossuaire Municipal, Revachol's underground cemetery. *Les petits rats* brave the underground passageways, trying to get to Le Royaume...

You - Le Royaume...

Shivers - ...where the Filippian kings were interred, with their doctors and their admirals. Mausoleums, burial chambers, leaf gold still remains on the Double Door of the Morning.

You - That's where Cuno said he's gonna go...

Shivers - Yes. To peel the gold off with his fingernails.

You - Les *petits rats*...

Shivers - Children under 14. They go underground, looking for artefacts to sell to foreign museums -- and for fabled relics. Their parents let them. They go deeper...

You - Deeper...

Shivers - ...after rubies, melchiorite, lapis lazuli plundered from Safre and Seol during the time of the Suzerain. In the burial chambers of the kings: Grand Old Filippe, Guillaume II, and even in the mausoleum of Filippe the Opulent.

Shivers - Two kilometres underground, in a winding shaft along whose walls mirrors have been placed so that daylight may eternally fall upon the richest of all the kings.

Shivers - The mausoleum contains untold quantities of gold -- and that special, purest-of-the-pure magenta cocaine favoured by Revacholian royalty.

Electrochemistry - Did someone say *untold quantities of cocaine*? Drop everything immediately and go looking for this hoard!

Logic - How can it be pure if it's magenta?

You - Wipe the snow from your shoulder.

Shivers - Few *petits rats* return from the shafts -- and even fewer find what they're looking for. A small child steps out of a black tunnel, with silver trinkets in her pockets.

Shivers - All around her, white snow on the extinguished coke furnaces, and on the weather-worn shacks, where fathers beat their sons after drinking. The snow melts on your fingers, turning to water.

You - What's in the east?

Shivers - The canal you crossed to get here, and beyond it -- Martinaise proper, the district the police forgot to police. There is laughter, lights, attempts at entrepreneurial activity, cynicism.

Shivers - Someone is scraping snow off their windshield. At the roundabout, in the midst of which a statue of Filippe the III serves as a destination for grade-school field trips and a fine perch for winter birds.

You - And further...

Shivers - A fenced-off yard. There's a truck belonging to a logistics company parked next to the gate. Bright light from a building behind the fence reflects off its hood.

Replaced with "A fenced-off yard. There's a truck belonging to a logistics company parked next to the gate. You've seen it. Bright light from a building behind the fence reflects off its hood." if Variable["jam.dlc_truck_shivers_orb_done"]

Replaced with "A fenced-off yard. There's a truck belonging to a logistics company parked next to the gate. You've heard about it. Bright light from a building behind the fence reflects off its hood." if Variable["village.idiot_cocaine_dlc"]

Conceptualization - Clean white light, coming from the windows of a clean cube-shaped office building hidden amidst ruins. A secret...

You - What's in the north?

Shivers - The abandoned church. One of two remaining stave churches which were collectively called les Sept Soeurs. The other six sisters were destroyed during the Revolution.

You - And further north?

Shivers - A serpentine strip of land weaving its way into the Martinaise inlet. Unfortunates on the run -- from the law, from themselves -- sometimes hide out on nearby islets. Little dots in the ocean that are occasionally submerged when the tide is high and the weather foul.

You - And on the islets?

Shivers - The remains of a camp on a jagged piece of rock -- a tent, old dishes and cutlery. Long since abandoned. A hermit crab scuttles among the debris, looking for a new shell.

Shivers - Further out, the lights burn bright on Résurrection; way beyond Martinaise -- a popular spa destination for ample-bodied Ozonne kids with equally ample pockets.

You - And on the other side of the inlet?

Shivers - Then there's Ozonne... but the snow falls too thick. You cannot see that far.

You - Before that? Before the curtains are drawn...

Shivers - The Bay of Revachol, vastness, great depth -- over 1200 m at its deepest. Water, air brinier than here. It is crisscrossed by huge cargo ships bearing company logos: Wild Pines, ZAMM, Moriyn.

Shivers - And, at the farthest reaches of the Bay of Revachol -- the shadow of Coalition Warship Archer, on perpetual patrol duty, ready to unleash artillery fire if you were to rise up against the market. You shudder.

You - What's in the south?

Shivers - The raised motorway, 8/81, separating Martinaise from Jamrock. Vehicles whoosh past one another day and night, while those who reside in the labyrinthine alleyways beneath the motorway attempt to carry on with their lives in the snow and the slush. And south of the 8/81 is the Pox.

You - The Pox...

Shivers - ...was once a park, a place for reflection and recuperation for the patients of the Old Military Hospital. In the Twenties, it was used as a quarantine centre during a measles outbreak that killed many children. Most everyone has avoided the hospital and surrounding park ever since.

Shivers - The Pox is completely wild now. Evergreen thickets covered in snow and industrial dust. Feral dogs and even wolves roaming in packs. The police try to keep the deepest corners cordoned off.

You - But still...

Shivers - ...heavy drug users do slip through and hole up in the Old Military Hospital, hoping to find something to get high on among the hastily abandoned supplies. Or just to overdose in peace.

You - Further south...

Shivers - A line of motor garages with armoured carapaces, hunched in the cold. A mechanic is hard at work, patching up bullet holes in the side of a Coupris 40. These are the garages of Precinct 41. Snow settles on the roof of the re-purposed silk mill that serves as your station. Shivering RCM personnel hurry in and out of the main entrance.

Mack Torson - "Wonder if Vic's found his hetero-sexual life partner yet." The man in the fishnet wifebeater looks over at Chester McLaine.

Chester McLaine - "Damn, I don't know. Even a real *bröderbund* like that can't survive everything..."

Shivers - Around you, the snow continues to fall. To the west, the ocean swells.

You - No, it was home. I want more.

Shivers - The stairs descend -- to Central Jamrock. A man named Kuklov has a snow-covered stall there, in the market across the bridge. He sells kebab infested with fly larvae to your colleagues who believe eating it will make them immune to food poisoning.

Shivers - Snow falls on the utility district: the library, the florist, the Saramirizian restaurant that offers homemade wine. And also on the brothels and drug dens, and the chop shops of the zemlyaki.

Shivers - All of this built around a lake that formed in a meteorite strike. At the centre of this lake, there is a little ship. There are lights at the bottom of its hull. They are lights directed toward the sea floor, looking for something, like whiskers...

You - For what?

Shivers - A chill comes over you, crawling down your back. The sand under your feet is wet. Somewhere in the south, tarpaulin flap in the wind.

You - What's below me?

Shivers - Layer upon layer of sand poisoned with industrial run-off. The storm drainage. Hidden bunkers. Rats scuttle...

You - Tell me a secret of the sands, wind.

Shivers - Someone's stuffed a big old polar anorak into a concrete pipe under the boardwalk. It would keep you warm. You will probably never happen across it, but who knows.

You - Stomp your feet for warmth, brushing off the snow. [Finish thought.]

Kim Kitsuragi - "We should keep moving. Who knows when this snow will let up?"

[greeenchrysanthemums]

Hi yes I'm very normal about this au and was wondering in terms of the world, let's say for a hypothetical map that I want to hypothetically draw, are there any major biomes, important towns or landmarks, things of that nature?

Oooo, fun! I know this is a fairly simple question, but I will be giving you another long-winded answer, so bear with me.

For your hypothetical map there are three major kingdoms to take note of.

In the upper right portion of the map is Coral Crest. It is very well known for its booming economy, which they have their rich glass, fish, salt, and pearl trades to thank for. It is the largest and wealthiest of the three major kingdoms, and the castle is grand and luxurious where it sits on the crest of a large sea cliff. Beneath and above the capital would be many small fishing towns along the coast, and two or three more small villages in-land. It is important to the plot, as this is the kingdom they are/were at war with.

in the bottom center would be another kingdom, Floweret. This kingdom has little in ways of trees or other defining landmarks, it is mostly just low hills and grass lands. The land there would be rich in nutrients, though, and it is perfect for farming, which is where this land would get most of its trade from. It is the smallest out of the three and therefore has a very small, modest castle. This kingdom is pretty new compared to the others, being only around 30 years old. This place is not important to the plot outside of it being mentioned that they turned down an alliance with Grian, and that Jimmy lived there before moving to live with Tango.

South-east of this would be a small town called Sahara that is part of Floweret and borders a desert biome. This is where Grian and Mumbo met Scar for the first time. They are known for their grain alcohol.

The third kingdom, Wintertide, is the one our story takes place in. It is in the top left corner, a bit more north than Coral Crest and in a colder climate. There is a pretty big amount of distance between Wintertide and Coral Crest; it would take someone nearly a whole month to travel to or from either of them on foot, a few weeks by horse. Most of this kingdom is surrounded by dense forest and backed by a large, snowy mountain (Crystaline Mountain). Wintertide mostly relies on the gemstones and coal mined from their mountains for their livelihood, but they also bring in money with their decent livestock and farming trade.

On top of Crystaline Mountain is a village of the same name, Gem and Etho's home village. This is a mostly independent village, though they do pay taxes to Wintertide and rely on it for protection.

South-west, in between Floweret and Wintertide, is a decently sized trading town that is on neutral ground, where merchants from any land are welcome to go and do business. This area is thin in trees, but not as lacking as Floweret. The town is lively, eclectic, and colourful, with people from all over living in its borders. It doesn't really have a name, as it is not official to any of the kingdoms, but it is has acquired the nickname "The Monopoly" because of how easy it is to, well, set up a monopoly there.

There are other, smaller towns and villages scattered across the map between all three kingdoms, but they aren't important, and I have not thought of names for them. (feel free to suggest some!)

There are also other, far-off kingdoms, including some across the sea from Coral Crest, but they are never mentioned, and they are so far away from our main kingdoms that they don't even matter.

Disclaimer: most of these names are up for change, as I have honestly put very little thought into the map since most of the story takes place in the one kingdom. This is all bare minimum brainstorming that I have done over the past few days.

Anyway, if/when you hypothetically finish this map, please tag me or send it to me; I would love to see it! And if you have any further questions about the world, please feel free to send another ask. Or, if you would prefer, you can dm me!

[grandmagbignaturals]

Green party are really not doing themselves any favours....

Got an email arguing against the fast track projects (reasonable. Lefty consensus) specifically because of the west coast (Oof).

For non-kiwis the West coast (where I live) is mining country and also a temperate rainforest. Due to mine disasters and ecological concerns our mines have been mostly closed. Now we have no industry, poverty is rampant and everyone is struggling.

Even lefties here kind of want to see some mining come back, and the greens are often painted here as just sort of... wishing nobody lived here. That it was wilderness.

Which yknow. It isn't. People do live here, and we are overwhelmingly poor, and disproportionately disadvantaged in other ways (disability, queerness, neurodivergence). Our local mental health crisis team is one of the biggest in the country when taking the overall population into account.

So sending out an email that's like "oh won't you think of the poor West coast how dare the government try to do more mining there"

To a local it is just. Yikes. Maybe. Hm. Not a good political move in this specific location.

Unfortunately the entire population of the region fits into a suburb of Auckland so I'm sure the city greenies will love this email.

Ps. When coal is not mined here coal is shipped from Asia before it is burned. Is that. Better? It sure changes some equations.

[trashland-llamas]

Dec Wrap Up

Twilight in Hazard; An Appalachian Reckoning [4.5 stars]

I found out about this book from my public library branch's Libby section for books about Appalachia and I'm glad. I've been wanting to learn more about Appalachia for a few months now, as I've lived in KY for most of my life but felt like I didn't really know anything. Not truly having roots here as my parents are west coast transplants. This book gives a very thorough history across many decades to the early 2020s.

Covering the coal industry, the OxyContin boom, the major levels of poverty, political corruption, and the shift from physical newspapers to online tabloids in Eastern Kentucky. The last one being that the author used to work for the Louisville Courier Journal and that this shift has actually been more detrimental to rural areas than beneficial. The book is a good starting point for those who know next to nothing about Eastern Kentucky and why it views the federal government and certain social issues the way it does. Would say to read other books in conjunction with this one due to its geographical specificity though. But there will definitely be similarities regarding the surrounding states.

Plus I'm overall tired of how people keep only recommending Hillbilly Elegy as that book is just another "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" story that doesn't seem to care about what happens to the area. Which I don't like that line of thinking as it doesn't account for all the outside forces affecting someone's life and why they make the choices they do. That's not to say they're the uwu helpless sort, just to clarify. Rather, the whole situation is a lot more nuanced than people like to admit and I think the author does a good job going about it all.

Alongside this, I'd simply rather hear from those who actually do want Appalachia to flourish. Even if said person starts out as an outsider. I listened to the audiobook version and will probably end up checking out the print version as there were some things mentioned that I definitely want to research and learn more about.

Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins  [4.25 stars]

Knowing the end of Gale's character arc in this series makes certain sentences a shit ton more eerie which is definitely foreshadowing on Collins' part

'He's something of a whiz with snares, rigging them to bent saplings so they pull the kill out of the reach of predators, balancing logs on delicate stick triggers, weaving inescapable baskets to capture fish.'

'Hands that have the power to mine coal but the precision to set a delicate snare.'

'I recognize that voice. It's the same one he uses to approach wounded animals before he delivers a deathblow.'

Apparently I remember the film a lot better than I thought cause I'd be reading certain passages and the movie scene would pop into my head as I was reading it. But just like TBOSAS, it's interesting to discover what they changed for the movie. Even with Collins' previous work in television before THG series.

I understand what people mean when they say Katniss' internal monologue is funny cause I was laughing at her pulling a Timothee Chalamet SNL character break, going 'I'm pregnant!?' knowing damn well she isn't. Yes, Peeta is charismatic but not that charismatic. 

That and her struggling to keep up the facade in the games. Like no wonder Snow didn't believe y'all's love bs, beyond his past w/ Lucy Gray

Same with the 'ayo, why is Finnick kissing Peeta?' but then going 'oh, right, cpr is a thing,' which I do think emphasizes how she's 17 without necessarily calling to it. Like a show, don't tell thing cause there's only one line I saw that outright said her age.

Also the attention that Collins gives to implementing folk customs into the story - the herbalist book from her mother's side, the district's all having a diff staple bread, & how district 12 does their wedding

And I am now caught up on the Hunger Series except for the Haymitch book that's about to be released. Reading order has gone; The Hunger Games -> Mockingjay -> TBOSAS -> Catching Fire

Dark Moon: The Blood Altar Vol 1 - HYBE [4.25 stars] Seven Spools of Thread: A Kwanzaa Story - Laurie Loughlin [4.0 stars] Pupposites Attract Vol 1 - Hono Natsuna [4.0 stars]

Has similar vibes to the webtoon My Giant Nerd Boyfriend but the roles are reversed and there are exponentially more dogs involved. But that's where the similarities begin and end. One of those sappy/fluffy, quick reads for when the weather's dreary. 

All-New Wolverine: Immune Vol 4 - Leonard Kirk & Tom Taylor [3.75 stars] Given Vol 7 - Natsuki Kizu [3.0 stars] Hanukcats: And Other Traditional Jewish Songs for Cats - Angela Shelf Medearis [3.5 stars] Pupposites Attract Vol 2 - Hono Natsuna [3.75 stars]

The next 6 were rated 3.0 stars just b/c while I wasn’t the intended audience, I still greatly enjoyed them and thought the art style was extremely adorable. 

Narwhal: Unicorn of the Sea - Ben Clanton [3.0 stars] Super Narwhal and Jelly - Ben Clanton [3.0 stars] Narwhal's Otter Friend - Ben Clanton [3.0 stars] Narwhal's Sweet Tooth - Ben Clanton [3.0 stars] Narwhal's School of Awesomeness - Ben Clanton [3.0 stars] A Super Scary Narwhalloween - Ben Clanton [3.0 stars] Pack Origin - Kate King & Jessa Wilder [2.0 stars]

I always forget that romantasy is not really my thing seeing as I'm extremely picky when it comes to romance in general. Haven't entirely given up on the genre though.

As implied by the title, it's omegaverse where a character thinks they're a beta and then ends up an omega and their pack/harem is their alpha friends. There was an interesting aspect mentioned offhandedly in the first chapter about how omega/alpha pheromones are used as party drugs by betas. But because this book, despite the multiple povs is mainly framed in the fmc Bliss' perspective so it's unfortunately never explored. Otherwise, this book did make me realize I only like omegaverse in fanfiction b/c the book wasn't terrible.

It is a prequel novella to what seems to be a duology at this point in time. Went into it blind so Idk if the author is continuing it or if it's a completed series. Anyways, I bring this up as the novella does seem to be akin to how designers will make mock-ups of stuff when pitching ideas.

Unofficial Recipes of the Hunger Games: 187 Recipes Inspired by the Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingbird [2.75 stars]

This cookbook, oddly at the beginning, wants you to make everything in the recipe from scratch but the further it goes along, the more it becomes 'yea, buying stuff's fine.' Which isn't necessarily a bad thing but I'd rather them pick a lane

Would mostly recommend it for those who know next to nothing about cooking/baking and are wanting a place to start. That or if you're wanting to make more dinners at home with more vegetables

While it heavily acknowledges the fact that district 12 is supposed to be Appalachia, there's not a single recipe for grits. Closest they get is Mrs. Everdeen's Breakfast of Mush

It also treats meats such as squirrel, rabbit, and even venison at times as being 'exotic' meats. Which, as someone who lives in the south, aren't considered such. So that just came across as weird to me

Taylor Swift By the Book - Tiffany Tatreau & Rachel Feder [1.5 stars]

It's a recap video when I was expecting a video essay but in book form. It's extremely surface level and comes across pretentious as f. And funny enough in a book where you should be allowed to quote the lyrics, there's next to nothing. Or rather it's a single line used so it falls extremely flat when they point out the references. Like it's basic ass stuff you could research yourself going line by line on your own time. That and their quips piss me off.

Quips include [listening to the audiobook so apologies if the punctuation is off];

'If the theme of two girls competing for the affections of one guy doesn't sit well with you, we invite you to consider the following thesis; Cinderella was the original pick-me girl.'

'The choruses of Don't Blame Me and I Did Something Bad could've been sung by Ophelia and Lady Macbeth respectively at karaoke night...'

'Romeo and Juliet wish they had this steamy song to bop to, back in the 1500s'

Not a quip but 'Swiftian'

And to clarify, this isn't to say having this lightheartedness or the attitude the authors have towards old timey classics insults or devalues their work. Because simply put, it doesn't. The classical authors mentioned throughout have been dead for a while now. It's rather that there's an insulting insincerity that comes with treating Swift’s work akin to academia.

[rjzimmerman]

“Spring in the Coal Regions,” 1944 by Hubert Davis. Credit: Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. John Lambert Fund, 1945.2

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

In a 2018 photograph taken by the Philadelphia artist Andrea Walls, a ghost floats toward the viewer. Draped in a white shroud and framed by power lines and splintered tree branches, the faceless figure is following train tracks that fall off the edge of the page.

Walls’ eerie portrait, called “Railroaded,” appears in the final section of a new exhibit about Appalachian art now at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Placed alongside paintings of coal miners and graying manufacturing towns, its presence in “Layers of Liberty: Philadelphia and the Appalachian Environment” suggests something haunted about the city’s connections to Appalachia, which includes 70 percent of Pennsylvania, stretching from the northeastern corner of the state to Pittsburgh and the western border.

Curated by West Virginia native Ali Printz, an artist and curatorial fellow at the academy, the exhibit illustrates the ties between Philadelphia and the natural resource extraction—of Appalachian timber, coal, oil and gas—that fueled its growth for centuries. In Walls’ work, those ties are literal, the march of wooden slats visible beneath the phantom’s feet. They are also historical: In the 19th century, railroads made it possible to transport coal faster and farther, driving the expansion of mining in Appalachian Pennsylvania and making Philadelphia a manufacturing hub so mighty that it was known as “The Workshop of the World.” 

With this exhibit, Printz draws attention to that history of environmental abuse and its relationship to the silencing of Appalachian voices. “There’s a very close tie between this systemic erasure of positive contributions of Appalachia to American culture and outsider interests coming in for coal and timber and gas and all of the resources that they took from the region,” she said. That pattern of degradation and exploitation continues in the 21st century. For Americans who live outside Appalachia, “it’s kind of out of sight, out of mind, but for the people that are living in the region, it’s like a constant battle.” 

“Layers of Liberty” begins with pastoral depictions of a Pennsylvania wilderness untouched by industrialization. In these 19th-century images of sunsets and towering trees, European settlers and their descendants confront an awe-inspiring landscape. But as Printz points out, that landscape was already under assault and had been since colonization began. Deforestation was well under way, and the rivers were being used to move coal toward the coast. 

[irradiate-space]

1632 but instead of a West Virginia coal-mining town from 2000 being sent to Germany during the 30 Years' War it's The Will To Battle.

It's Romanova on September 6, 2454, and J.E.D.D. Mason and the Censor open the doors to the Temple of Janus in Romanova, sealed with stone garlands these last two hundred years, and at that moment Romanova is swapped from the west coast of Sardinia to a cozy spot on the Egyptian shore just west of Gaza, on 8 October 2023, with the initial Hamas offensive already completed, and Israel's response in full swing.

I held my breath. Leaves stirred in the dust as the wind blew through the open temple. I let one breath out and took another as the seconds of hush ticked by. The world hadn't ended yet. Mycroft looked at me. We were all ready to react, not to act. Whispers started, and craning of necks. Somehow it didn't occur to me until then to wonder what was in the temple. The ancient one would've had a statue of Janus with their double face looking both ways. I couldn't see from where I stood, but Su-Hyeon was clearly peering in at something. Except now there was a murmur, and a voice which pierced the murmur. "Nineveh?" It was a cutting voice, worried. A second voice: "Luna? Luna City, can you hear me? Hello?" Third: "Atlantis? Come in, Atlantis?" "Alexandria? What's going on? Alexandria? Exaudi me! Alexandria!" There was a rumble on the horizon, unlike thunder.

[therearelightningonthetatra]

The Kingdom of Prussia is a German survivor nation located in northern Germany along the coast of the Baltic Sea.

Doomsday and World War III Due to its unique circumstances being split between Allied and Soviet forces, Berlin managed to survive better than most major cities. During World War III, both the Soviet and Allied leadership believed the city could be captured, and with significant resources invested by both sides, it was not struck by nukes.

-100kt strikes- •Altenburg •Chemnitz •Damgarten •Dranske •Dresden •Fürstenberg/Havel •Groß Dölln •Halle •Leipzig •Magdeburg •Parchim •Peenemünde •Rechlin •Rostock •Strausberg •Wünsdorf •Zerbst •Zwickau •Zossen

-10kt strikes- -Bitterfeld chemical industry complex -Goitzsche brown-coal open cast mine -Görlitz brown-coal open cast mine -Nochten brown-coal open cast mine -Cottbus Air Base\Flugplatz Cottbus-Nord Airport -Jüterbog's Soviet army base -Soviet Jüterbog Airfield\Altes Lager airfield -Soviet Altenburg Airfield.

--The aftermath-- By the time the situation was fully realized, the leadership of the Soviets and the Allies had been destroyed and a nuclear attack could not be authorized for the city. With East German military leadership crippled by strikes on Moscow and Strausberg, East Berlin soon fell into chaos. After several days of rioting and fighting in the streets between citizens and Soviet/East German troops, the citizens eventually gained the upper hand and the troops surrendered. Before the the imprisoned Soviet troops could be executed, the allied forces in West Berlin intervened with the Berlin Wall border stations unmanned. Knowing the coming situation would require as many trained troops as possible, many of the East German and Soviet troops were distributed amongst allied units.

Christian-Sigismund, member of the former royal family of Prussia and last surviving heir of the house of Hohenzollern, after fallout in Potsdam killed his father Louis Ferdinand and nephew Georg Fredrich, was imprisoned in East Berlin at the time. Although reasons for this remain unknown it was likely due to his heritage and high status. He became a rallying figure for many of the German people, a symbol of their old greatness before Nazism destroyed the country, and was forced into a leadership role he likely would rather not have had. He was instrumental in unifying the people of East and West Berlin in the days afterward and organizing civilian salvage teams for food and resources. Some people claims Königsberg and the Kaliningrad Oblast

(Map based on: www.deviantart.com/mdc01957/ar…)

-Saxony- The Nationalist People's Republic of Saxony (Nationalistische Volksrepublik Sachsen) is a survivor nation based around Annaberg-Buchholz, a city in the south of former East Germany. It has declared itself the successor to the pre-DDR state of Saxony.

The southern region of East Germany was severely affected by the Doomsday attacks. Targets included Saxony's four largest cities, Chemnitz, Dresden, Leipzig, and Zwickau, along with the Soviet air base at Altenburg.

-Weimar- Weimar is a city-state in former East Germany controling most of the OTL German state of Thuringia.

[kitty-pelosi]

actually a bit of lesser known history:

Appalachians have a particular reputation for militancy among their deeply proud communities (often mixed indigenous, black, and white) and it’s because of labor actions staged at the beginning of the 20th century which are referred to as the West Virginia Coal Wars which included the Battle of Blair Mountain (1921)- the largest labor action and insurrection against the U.S. government to date.

essentially, Appalachian coal miners lived and worked in company coal towns where everything from the food you ate, the house you had - the furniture in the house, the tools of your trade, and your income were owned by the coal company in a true geographic monopoly. Miners were not paid in USD, but rather company credit which could be used to buy food from company owned stores and pay rent on your company owned house and tools. This was a terrible situation which rendered Appalachian miners effective serfs - they could not move, as they were paid in a currency which was useless anywhere but the company town. With resentment against mining management growing, the workers began to organize with the help of socialists.

It wasn’t getting anywhere. Socialist party activists would go on to supply rifles and ammunition to the miners, which prompted the mining companies to hire the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency to guard their mines. Don’t be fooled by the name, the BFD was a private for-hire army. Baldwin-Felts mercenaries began confiscating weapons and evicting miners who were associated with the Socialist party from the towns, rendering them homeless in the middle of the mountains with literally nothing but the clothes on their backs, if that. This is what Baldwin-Felts did, they were known Union busters who favored violence in their methods against organizing workers. They had a reputation for this (see: the Ludlow Massacre). The first family they evicted was a woman with her kids, very visibly in the public eye. It was a threat to the workers.

obviously, the miners fought back.

There were a lot of company towns with ensnared Appalachian miners working on them dotted all throughout Appalachia - from Pennsylvania to Kentucky (a very very large region, with many people larger than many countries). As these strikes escalated, the President and the United States Army, along with the West Virginia State Police, would cooperate with Baldwin-Felts mercenaries to put down the strikes - lethally. The most infamous event was the Battle of Blair Mountain, in which a confrontation between Felts agents and the striking miners turned into open warfare. For over a week skirmishes took place between state police, Felts agents, and striking miners, with millions of rounds fired. But eventually the US Army arrived, and many of the miners were unwilling to kill veterans, having been soldiers in WWI themselves. Unfortunately, this would lead to the defeat of the strike, with many miners fleeing. It became a habit of theirs to stash their socialist-given weapons in the woods and underneath houses in hidden compartments or tunnels (your reblogged photo).

This was an immense victory for capitalists and the government, as miner union membership plummeted following the battle. And sadly, victors write the history, and I don’t doubt that it is east coast writers and the government which have had a hand in mislabeling Appalachians as a bunch of white toothless gun-toting brother-fucking hicks. Ask most Americans what a Melungeon is and they’ll look at you like you’ve sprouted a third eye - but this is a rich ethnic group in Appalachia with a multi-racial history. And they were the strikers who lost.

Coal miner's child using a hole in the door to enter a bedroom with a smoking pipe in one hand and a gun in the other in Bertha Hill, West Virginia. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. 1938

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 3.4 (after 1980)

1980 – Nationalist leader Robert Mugabe wins a sweeping election victory to become Zimbabwe's first black prime minister. 1985 – The Food and Drug Administration approves a blood test for HIV infection, used since then for screening all blood donations in the United States. 1986 – The Soviet Vega 1 begins returning images of Halley's Comet and the first images of its nucleus. 1990 – American basketball player Hank Gathers dies after collapsing during the semifinals of a West Coast Conference tournament game. 1990 – Lennox Sebe, President for life of the South African Bantustan of Ciskei, is ousted from power in a bloodless military coup led by Brigadier Oupa Gqozo. 1994 – Space Shuttle program: the Space Shuttle Columbia is launched on STS-62. 1996 – A derailed train in Weyauwega, Wisconsin (USA) causes the emergency evacuation of 2,300 people for 16 days. 1998 – Gay rights: Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc.: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also apply when both parties are the same sex. 2001 – BBC bombing: A massive car bomb explodes in front of the BBC Television Centre in London, seriously injuring one person; the attack was attributed to the Real IRA. 2002 – Afghanistan: Seven American Special Operations Forces soldiers and 200 Al-Qaeda Fighters are killed as American forces attempt to infiltrate the Shah-i-Kot Valley on a low-flying helicopter reconnaissance mission. 2009 – The International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Al-Bashir is the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the ICC since its establishment in 2002. 2012 – A series of explosions is reported at a munitions dump in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo, killing at least 250 people. 2015 – At least 34 miners die in a suspected gas explosion at the Zasyadko coal mine in the rebel-held Donetsk region of Ukraine. 2018 – Former MI6 spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter are poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent in Salisbury, England, causing a diplomatic uproar that results in mass-expulsions of diplomats from all countries involved. 2020 – Nik Wallenda becomes the first person to walk over the Masaya Volcano in Nicaragua.

[moretrains25]

Tuesday 25th February

Well up 5am to be able to get breakfast,bags and on bus by 7am. On the transalpine train now on our way to Greymouth. Heavy fog this am but even now at 0830 it is clearing.

Very mixed day weather wise. On train until 1.40pm the bus until 5pm. The scenery on the train made you realise how different that east and west of the range is. The Canterbury plains in the east are as flat as a board and very little vegetation. They are farming especially sheep and the soil is quite good as it was created from screefrom the mountains. This side is dry and very windy so there a lot of wind screen plantings.this is also on the earthquake zone due to 2 tectonic plates sliding over each other. They irrigate a lot on this side. Originally settled by people sponsored through the Canterbury assoc which was a Church of England association hence the name. The whole place was run very much like England including the class system. It is only in recent time that they have thrown off the tag of being more English than England. However the original settler families who were given large tracks of land still exist in the area to this day. It seems suddenly you go from the flat Canterbury plains to mountains. The west side of the divide receives all the rain from 2-5metres per year. The soil is however not so good for crops but this side does a lot of dairy farms. There has also been gold mining (which is back in vogue due to the current price of gold,) & coal mining. The west coast was very isolated but the coal and gold needed to be transported so the railway was born. It did take a long time and done in stages but with the help of some tunnels they were able to get across the ranges. One of the crossing was decided by 2 brothers who were trying to determine the best place to put the line using Māori movement information the brother who found the best route to pass through was Arthur hence the name Arthur’s Pass. Snow falls almost permanently on the peaks in some areas but the rail line only has snow reach down to the rail line a few times a year. There is an excellent app you can get and as you travel on these iconic rail journeys in NZ you can use your ear phones and listen to commentary on each plays on the trip. Really good idea. We got really consistent and at times heavy rain from just before Greymouth where the train terminates and when we arrived by bus to Franz Joseph. However we are expecting no rain for the next few days as we go to Franz Joseph and Fox glaciers,Haas and onto Queenstown. The train was very pleasant with good facilities.

Arrived at Franz Joseph hotel feeling quite tired but had a complimentary wine then one I paid for and a very nice dinner so more awake now!! Bit of a later start tomorrow so bit of a treat😁. The hotel is very nice again and again I scored a double room rather than a shoe box single that sometimes happens when you travel solo.

[ffsmnrk1989]

"Qullissat" as performed on Alternativfestivalen 1975

While watching The Joy of ABBA on YouTube, I heard that there was this growing protest to ABBA's win of Eurovision. This protest culminated, in 1975, in a festival called Alternativfestivalen (Swedish for "Alternative Festival"; precursor to this year's Falastinvision, in a way) to protest not just ABBA's win, but also the commercialisation of music; it ran on what is now the present-day SVT2 (opposite Eurovision itself -- hosted by Sweden that year, '75 -- on the sibling channel, SVT1). I'd already heard "Doin' the Omoralisk Schlagerfestival"; but the festival itself also introduced me to acts I'd not heard, chief among them being Fungus (with "Kaap'ren Vaaren" ), and the subject of this post, Greenlandic rock group Sumé -- which I'd actually heard several years back, believe it or not, on Progressadelic. The song here is "Qullissat", which protested the closing of the mining town on the Greenlandic island of Disko 3 years earlier (the previous year it'd appeared on their album Inuit Nunaat, when the incident was still raw and fresh in Greenlanders' minds). ORIGINAL INTRO: PER BERTHELSEN: Pillugu pisut erinaarsut "Qullissat" oqaluttuarpoq Malik Høegh-om. MALIK HØEGH: I 1920-erne blev oprettede en kulmineby på ø Disko for Grønland. Men i 1972 bestemte de danske myndigheder at lukkede den byen - fordi at den regeringen mente, at den gik med underskud. Arbejderne mente at mindet til, at minen kunne klare sig selv, men regeringens beslutning var stærkere. Arbejderne blev forflyttet ned langs den Grønlandske vestkysten hvor der hverken var arbejde eller bolig til; arbejderne blev forflyttet til ulykke. "Qullissat". THE SONG: Aningaasat naalagaapput Naalakkersuisunut Aqqutaapput perlunnut Ha iar! Piumasaapput Pissutaapput Iluanaapilunnernut! Suunngivippusi sulisusi Suunngivippullu isummasi! Qullisat matuneqarput Sulisut tununneqarput Nuuttitaapput perlunnut Ha iar! Ajagaasut Isigaasi Isummasi suniikkamik? Suunngivippusi nipaatsusi Suunngivippullu isummasi! Qullissat Qullissat Qullissat Qullissat TRANS:ATION: PER BERTHELSEN (in Greenlandic): Here to tell the events of the song "Qullissat" is Malik Høegh. MALIK HØEGH (in Danish): In the 1920s, a coal mining town was established on the island of Disko in Greenland. But in 1972, the Danish authorities decided to close the town - because the government believed it was running at a loss. The workers believed that the mine could support itself, but the government's decision was stronger. The workers were moved down the west coast of Greenland where there was neither work nor housing; the workers were forced away to ruin. This is "Qullissat". Money is in power It controls the authorities It is the road to ruin Alas! People lust for it And it is the reason For the goddamn profiteering!

You workers count for nothing Your opinions count for nothing!

Qullissat was shut down The workers let down Forced away to ruin Alas! You saw how they were pushed away Where were your voices?

You who stay silent, you count for nothing Your opinions count for nothing!

Qullissat Qullissat Qullissat Qullissat

[andhumanslovedstories]

I was originally going to move to the Pacific Northwest with Cyrus at the beginning of 2017. Then Trump got elected, and I couldn’t do that anymore. I didn’t know what I was going to do instead, but I felt a duty. It feels more comfortable in a way to say I felt a duty to my community, and I did, and I do, but it might be more honest to say rather I felt and feel a duty to my country. As a kid, I heard the phrase, “My country, right or wrong. If right, to be kept right, and if wrong, to be made right.” To me—naively, idealistically, yes—that was what America meant. A flawed nation full of people who were trying. And Washington DC was the place where that happened. So the work I needed to do would be in DC.

It wasn’t. I didn’t end up going into politics—probably a good call since I think that would have killed me. Instead, I became a nurse. I help people on a more personal level. I try to change one hospital’s culture. It’s a smaller focus, more sustainable, and one that gives me satisfaction, but it’s not what I thought I’d be doing in 2016 when I woke up to discover that I’d been even more naive about our country than I thought. And it’s a role I’ve been feeling the limits of lately as history unfolds.

But weirdly enough, thinking as much as I have about the country lately, I’ve come to the realization that I am still as patriotic now as I was as a kid attending anti-war protests and sitting during the pledge of allegiance. The worst of us don’t get to claim to be the only people who get to love our country. They don’t get to make this country whatever they want. I am an American, and as fraught as that identity is, it is mine as much as it is anyone else’s.

For better or worse, for good and for evil, the core of the American identity is that we can make America whatever we want. You can (and should!) analyze, critique, deconstruct, and often condemn that idea and the ones underpinning it (like, for example, the false and harmful idea that the continent was a vast empty space just waiting for us to fill it with “real” civilization). But the idea endures. And the idea has power. And the idea doesn’t have to be ceded over to those who can’t conceive of a world not shaped by their cruelty, hatred, bigotry, and a bottomless lust for power.

I’m not just an American. I’m also a Virginian. Sandwiched between the capital of the Union and the capital of the Confederacy, teeming with civil war battlefields, it’s a state that reminds you constantly that you have to fight for the country you want. To the north, we’re the south, and to the south, we’re the north, and every region of the state is its own distinct subculture. It’s not easy to find the overlap between Nova and coal country. I love my state, and I am deeply ashamed of so much of its history and culture. Leaving Virginia didn’t make reconciling those two facts any easier or make me hold them any less true.

After writing the first part of this post, after thinking all the thoughts that led me to writing it, I went on the most impromptu cross-country trip of my life back to the east coast and northern Virginia. Crazy what makes you homesick. I wanted so badly to move away from Virginia after living there my whole life. And I love the west coast. I bought a house out here, it’s safe to say I’m pretty locked in to the PNW. But lately I’ve been feeling wistful for other versions of my life. Not regretful, but still a little sad that life is a series of mutually exclusive choices.

There’s worse fates than loving two places. And that love has given me comfort when reality has absolutely not. As Trump and his cronies remake American in their image, the betrayal and grief I feel has been strangely invigorating. I wouldn’t mourn as much as I am if I didn’t love what they were taking away. It’s not a simple love or an easy one, but it’s still love. As we go into this particularly dangerous continuation of the debate about what America is, it will be very important for us to remember what we love.

There's so many horrible things happening in America right now that it has been interesting to see what individual horrors hurt me personally the most. I grew up going to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Musicals, plays, concerts, that weird bust of JFK, playing around on terrace during intermissions, putting on a velvet dress that you're going to ruin dropping a milk dud in your lap and not noticing until it's fully melted, wearing the pinchy shiny shoes that are the training bras of women's formal footwear, operas I didn't like but did love, jazz I didn't understand but still fascinated me, red carpet, big stairs, the absolute nightmare amount of experiences I had as a new driver as I repeatedly got trapped in the Kennedy Center's fucking private DC island or whatever the hell is going on traffic-wise, free performances on small side stages, getting to see an enormous production on the Center's most enormous stage, all of which was accessed by walking through that a long, tall hallway lined with flags of the world that made you feel like a dignitary attending the most important even in the world.

And now Trump's taken it over. He fired its board. He appointed one of his loyalists to run it. I want to throw up.

Sometimes I miss DC so much. I love the Pacific Northwest and expect I'll live here for the rest of my life, but this isn't my hometown. I grew up the edge of the District. I've lost cumulative years of my life stuck in traffic on the inner loop and outer loop. Because of the Smithsonian, it used to be so baffling to me that anyone ever had to pay to get into a museum. I've used the Washington DC zoo as a shortcut to a different part of the city because it's free to enter. You couldn't count the amount of knockoff Spider-man popsicles that I've eaten sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. My reading tastes were molded by Kramer Books in Dupont Circle. I spent afternoons walking around the National Mall, normally just a big empty field until there's an event--book fair, country music program, international cuisine, whatever--at which point for a day or a weekend or a week it becomes a sea of tents and stages. I went to protests outside the Capital and the White House about the war in Iraq. I froze my toes off watching Obama's 2008 presidential inauguration.

It seemed like everyone's family touched the federal government in some way. Everyone's family had moved here because they were military or state department or a political consultant or worked with an NGO or some other reason that meant you had to be here, in the nation's capital. Plenty of people had connections to the federal government that we more hush-hush. Like kids in class straight up going, "I have no idea what my parents do for a living. They're not allowed to tell me." High schoolers regularly, accidentally drove into the CIA parking lot and got escorted out because the premises were that accessible. My family moved here because my dad is a reporter who ended up covering international trade. (Imagine how much his job sucks right now.) He switched beats one summer to cover the White House instead. He got to fly on Air Force One. He got official Air Force One M&Ms. I was SO disappointment my dad didn't work there for Bush to call on him by nickname.

Every day my family got The Washington Post. I read the comics and the kid's page, then the rest of the Style section, then Metro, then news. I learned to read from it. We wrapped our delicate Christmas ornaments with its pages. We used yesterday's papers to clean our windows because they didn't leave streaks. I took journalism in high school. You can't IMAGINE how much and how frequently we talked about Watergate. When Post changed its motto to "Democracy Dies in Darkness" after Trump's election in 2016 that meant something to me. I knew Bezos owned the paper now, but that was still my paper, and the motto spoke to something I fervently believed: if people just knew what was happening, they wouldn't allow it to happen. If you expose a problem, people will naturally agree that it is a problem and that we should do something to fix it. Flash forward to Trump's third fucking campaign, and the newspaper wouldn't endorse a presidential candidate. Chickenshit cowardice. Then they change the motto. "Riveting Storytelling for All of America." Eat shit. You're nothing now.

Politics in America is just telling everyone how much you hate Washington, DC so that they'll elect you so you can move to DC. Well, guys, the city fucking hates you too. Republicans will never give the District actually meaningful political representation because no one in that city would vote for them. It's not just the policies; it's the contempt. No one in the new administration loves the city they schemed and lied and stooped to take over. It's just iconography to them, and all they care about is taking that iconography for themselves. Trump doesn't give a shit about the summer program for the Kennedy Center. He has never seen a show at the Kennedy Center. When he was president, he never attended the annual awards. He's trying to destroy one of the most significant places of my life and I'm genuinely unsure if he has ever stepped for inside of it.

[beckleysbooks]

The Glass Ceiling

Thirty days have passed, which has given me time for reflection and consideration of the adjustments that lie before us in our new reality. 

Here in America, I seem to always make more progress with my research and writing during the winter months. Weather and the lack of garden to attend to probably account for this additional “author time”. I’m currently drafting the chapter in my upcoming historical fiction sequel, The Gilded Age, that relates to the Irish immigrant's entry into this country during the 19th century. The more fortunate and entrepreneurial Irish settlers arrived in this country during the 1820-1830's. This is the group that my ancestors belong to. However, from the 1840-1870's, a potato famine occurred in the Emerald Isle causing hundreds of thousands of deaths from starvation. Still, no fewer than 1.5 million Irish were able to escape and arrive on our eastern seaboard.  

The Irish immigrants were not welcomed due to their willingness to work for lower wages. They displaced many of the African Americans on the east coast of their jobs. There were other Irish who moved inland, mostly through Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and were put to work in coal mines. The story is told of how mine workers back then were mainly divided into two groups, “Miners” and “Mine Workers”. “Miners” were mainly those from England and Wales and men who had been working the coal fields for some time before the arrival of the Irish. A caste system was carried over from the old days in Europe whereby the Irish immigrants became “mine workers”. Both miners and mine workers reported to work by 7am, the miners entering the shaft to free the coal from the seam face, and they were usually finished by lunch time, leaving of course, the mine workers to pile up the lumps, sometimes filling three to four cars, before the end of their shift at 6pm. It was not uncommon for the mine workers to spend most of their day working in waist-deep water and for their troubles, receive only one third of the pay for their labor. 

Irish immigrants were also used to fill up the factories that were burgeoning at that time in history. They also were instrumental in laying the railroad track for the Union Pacific Railway, which opened up the entire country in 1869. Needless to say, Irish lives were expendable and these immigrants were surely underappreciated for their hard labor. Matter of fact, they were despised and maligned. Most were condescendingly called “Bridget” and worse. The Irish labor activists, otherwise known as “Molly Maguires”, who were petitioning management within these large companies for better working conditions, were tracked down, prosecuted, and sentenced to death. The Irish mine workers who were either crushed by collapsing shafts or suffocated by leaking gases within the earth, were subject to a more excruciating death. And yet, it was the public’s prejudice against them as immigrants that affected all of the Irish. They were referred to as “damned drunken, ignorant papist”. At least the immigrants from this period of our history weren’t castigated as murderers and rapists who eat cats and dogs, which is the malarky we’ve just been witness to recently. 

In H.W. Brand’s book, “American Colossus”, he addresses another late 19th century prejudice in the chapter, “Meet Jim Crow”. Brand highlights the story of Ida Wells who was born into a slave family, eventually goes to live with her aunt in Tennessee, and becomes a school teacher. One day while traveling on the Chesapeake, Ohio & Southwestern train, the conductor had her physically removed from her first-class seat and placed in the smoking car against her will. A court case followed in which Ida was awarded $500 compensation for her troubles, only to have the Tennessee Supreme Court reverse the lower court’s order. Ida had to return the $500 award and ended up paying $200 in court costs. The famed Booker Washington weighed in on this incident, but in the end admitted that conscience might motivate some folks, but conscience is fickle. Brand writes, “Democracy was even less reliable than conscience ... (and) that democracy sooner or later expressed the will of the majority, whatever courts or constitutional amendments might declare. ... Blacks were a minority in America and always would be; for them to demand what the majority wasn’t ready to give was to spit into the wind.”  

Chief Justice John Marshall Harlan had his own thoughts on the subject. He would write the majority opinion (7-1) in the Plessy v Ferguson case stating that segregation did not perpetuate race prejudice. Quoting, “This prejudice, if it exists, is not created by law mandating separate railcars for the two races.” Justice Harlan alluded to a Pennsylvania Supreme Court case in his remarks, "To assert separateness is not to declare inferiority ... It is simply to say that following the order of Divine Providence, human authority ought not to compel these widely separated races to intermix.” Thus, began the “Separate but Equal” policy that became the law of the land in the United States. The Civil Rights legislation of the 1960’s officially struck down this notion that a separate section on public transport or restroom facility or even a drinking fountain could be passed off as equal. However, legislation didn’t change the prejudices that lie deep-seeded in the minds of many Americans. I attended a school in a small, almost entirely Caucasian community. I can attest that our schools were very much different than the mostly black community’s ones not too far down the road. A full decade after acknowledging separate is not equal, nothing much has changed the minds of the people.  

I have a confession to make. I was one of them. Back in 1980 I was attending university and was loosely aware that women had finally been granted their right to vote. The 19th Amendment to our Constitution was inserted on August 18, 1920. What I didn’t know was that many other countries around the world had already made this mental leap, that women should be considered “equal” enough to have the right to vote. By the way, New Zealand was the first self-governing country in the world in which the women had the right to vote. With Lord Glasgow’s signing off the “New Electoral Act” on September 19, 1893, the proverbial glass ceiling had been busted open. It just took Americans twenty-seven years to come to grips with this concept. It wasn’t for the lack of trying, as I write in my upcoming sequel how Susan B. Anthony crashed the Independence Day ceremony at the Centennial Fair in Philadelphia. She and two friends read their own version of the declaration of independence whilst the officials looked on in disbelief and a cannonade was exploding in the background in celebration of the moment. 

Back to my confession. I was fortunate to be an official attendee of the 1980 Republican Convention in Detroit. That was the one which first nominated Ronald Reagan. The evening events were concluded late and I was traveling by public transport back to my vehicle miles away. It was well past midnight. The bus was full of Republicans and I recall one lady turning to me and asking why I was wearing a button against the proposed ERA Amendment being added to the party’s platform? I knew the “party line” by heart and began the recitation I had been taught. She wasn’t buying the argument that women weren’t equal. Here’s a synopsis of what she and a few others refused to buy in to: “That the ERA conflicted with the God-given differences between men and women and disregarded traditional family and gender roles embedded in their religious beliefs.” Phyllis Schlafly was the most outspoken anti-ERA proponent. Her claim was that God’s mission for women was to give their families spiritual and emotional guidance and the Equal Rights Amendment threatened this mission and would also force women to question their value. Who else was pushing this appeal to men’s natural disposition to prejudice? - any number of religious groups including that of the fundamentalist Christians and the Catholic Church. 

Neither this pro-ERA woman nor I officially won over each other in our late-night debate, but I certainly could not have been considered a winner when I realized after she got off at her stop, that my car was in a lot two stops back! Yes, I was dropped off at some obscure Detroit neighborhood and had to find my way back at 12:30am. That was some penitence that I deserved and may elaborate on in a future blog, but I can vouch that people even today will hold on to their prejudice that women should not be treated equally in society, within the family, nor the workplace. I will never live down the shame I carry from that awful bus ride. 

So, reflecting back on the election result some thirty days ago. What chance did a daughter of a mix-raced immigrant family have of becoming the President of the United States? All good children are schooled up that anyone can become president in this land of opportunities, but what is the reality? How or when will these glass ceilings that hang over our nation’s immigrants, our citizens who aren’t Caucasian, and in general, women? If the rumblings coming out of our post-election/pre-inauguration are any indication, this current seemingly impenetrable glass ceiling is going to get double-paned. I sincerely hope that this isn’t the case, but we’re working with long-held, deep-seeded prejudices becoming once again du jour. I guess only time will tell.