#catholic university in california

[newslink7com]

🚨 BREAKING: A federal judge just BLOCKED Trump and Elon Musk’s government downsizing team from accessing sensitive data from the U.S. Education Department and Office of Personnel Management. 📂🔒

Is this a major setback for Trump’s agenda? Find out why this ruling is causing legal battles across the country! 👀🔥

👉 Read the full story at NewsLink7.com

[reasonsforhope]

"Faced with declining membership, aging buildings and large, underutilized properties, many U.S. houses of worship have closed their doors in recent years. Presbyterian minister Eileen Linder has argued that 100,000 churches may close in the next few decades.

But some congregations are using their land in new ways that reflect their faith – a focus of my urban planning research. Some are repurposing their property to provide affordable housing, as the housing crisis intensifies across the country.

Take Arlington Presbyterian Church in Arlington, Virginia. In 2016, the church sold its historic stone building to the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing to construct a 6-story complex with 173 apartments, known as “Gilliam Place.” The building still houses space for the congregation, as well as La Cocina, a bilingual culinary job training facility and cafe. In Austin, Texas, St. Austin Catholic Parish is partnering with a developer to build a 29-story tower providing 200 beds of affordable student housing, in addition to new spaces for ministry.

Other houses of worship are pursuing similar projects today.

Same mission, new projects

Faith-based organizations have been building housing for many years, but generally by purchasing additional property. In recent years, however, more houses of worship are building affordable housing on the same property as the sanctuary.

This can be done in a variety of ways. Some congregations adapt the existing sanctuary and other faith-owned buildings, while others demolish existing buildings to construct a new development, which may or may not have space for the congregation. Another option is to build on excess property, like a parking lot.

Depending on how a development deal is structured, a faith-based organization may receive proceeds from the sale of its land, or from leasing their property to a developer – funds which they can then spend on ministry or on a new space for worship. If a new development includes space for the congregation, sometimes they rent out those spaces when the space is not being used for worship, which can also financially benefit the congregation.

Faith-based organizations often see these projects as a way to do “God’s work.” In some instances, they include community services beyond the housing itself.

Near Los Angeles, the Episcopal Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Placentia partnered with a nonprofit affordable housing developer – National Community Renaissance, also called National CORE – to develop 65 units for older people. The complex also includes a 1,500 square foot (140 square meter) community center. The city’s diocese has a goal of building affordable housing on 25% of its 133 properties.

For some congregations, these are mission-driven projects rooted in social justice.

In Washington, D.C., Emory United Methodist Church redeveloped its property and constructed The Beacon Center – which has 99 affordable housing units, community spaces, and a commercial kitchen that provides job training for recently incarcerated people – while preserving the sanctuary. In Seattle, the Nehemiah Initiative is working with Black churches in the Central District, a historically African American neighborhood, to redevelop its properties into affordable housing to keep residents from being displaced."

Potential to evolve

As states and cities struggle to provide affordable housing, studies have been conducted from Nashville to New York City on the amount of land faith organizations own, and their potential as housing partners.

In the D.C. metro area, for example, the Urban Institute found almost 800 vacant parcels owned by religious organizations. In California, a report from the Terner Center at University of California, Berkeley found approximately 170,000 “potentially developable” acres of land owned by religious organizations and nonprofit colleges and universities...

When thinking about the redevelopment process, Arlington Presbyterian member Jon Etherton told me, “the call from God to create, do something about affordable housing was bigger than the building itself.”"

-via The Conversation, July 19, 2024

[blasteffect]

Jupiter !

This image from the NASA Hubble Space Telescope shows the planet Jupiter in a color composite of ultraviolet wavelengths.

Released in honor of Jupiter reaching opposition, which occurs when the planet and the Sun are in opposite sides of the sky, this view of the gas giant planet includes the iconic, massive storm called the “Great Red Spot.”

Though the storm appears red to the human eye, in this ultraviolet image it appears dark blue because high altitude haze particles absorb light at these wavelengths .

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Wong (University of California - Berkeley); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

[thespacewirednews]

Side-by-Side Galaxies Arp140

A barred spiral galaxy and a lenticular galaxy come together to create this interacting pair known as Arp 140. The lenticular galaxy, NGC 274, is visible on the right side of this Hubble Space Telescope image, and the barred spiral, NGC 275, is at left. The twosome is located in the constellation Cetus.

Lenticular galaxies and barred spiral galaxies have different structures. In barred spiral galaxies, a bar of stars runs through the central bulge of the galaxy (seen here as a bright-white, vertical haze in NGC 275). Typically, the arms of the galaxy start at the end of the bar. Lenticular galaxies, on the other hand, are classified somewhere between elliptical and spiral galaxies. They get their name from the edge-on appearance that resembles a disk. Lenticular galaxies have large central bulges and flattened disk-like spirals, but no spiral arms. They don’t have much gas and dust and are made up primarily of old stars .

Credit: NASA/ESA/R. Foley (University of California - Santa Cruz)/Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

[androgynousbirdtale]

Jupiter in Ultraviolet light

NASA, ESA, and M. Wong (University of California – Berkeley); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) Nov 2023.

[hsslilly-blog]

claire swanson lore dump. i tried to be concise, so i linked to posts i've made before for context (and archival purposes). still very long. i'm open for asks! here’s her immediate family tree. here’s her masterlist, with a chronological overview. everything is under the cut.

background/lore

Claribel Marie Swanson (she/her) was born in Santa Barbara, California, on February 14th, 1990. She’s the single daughter of Christina Murray, a failed-actress-turned-nurse-turned-housewife, and Werner Swanson Jr., a psychiatrist and (at the time of her birth) university professor. Her paternal grandfather made a fortune selling engagement rings in the late 40s and since then the Swansons have lived very comfortably.

She was named after the character from The Tempest, as both her parents are fond of Shakespeare. Marie because her family is Catholic, but Mary didn’t fit her French-sounding first name.

Her parents met while working in a hospital, then got married in 1988. Claire was a planned pregnancy, by which I mean she is an IVF baby. No fertility issues involved. She arrived 9:47 AM, caesarean. From the moment she was born, her parents knew exactly what they wanted her to be, although their expectations weren’t in agreement; Christina saw in Claire a second chance of her dreams coming true, while Werner envisioned a more traditional career path to his daughter, akin to his own. If only they had talked at some point. But alas.

From age three, Claire had acting, dancing and singing lessons. Her mother made it her mission that Claire had the best training, attended every single audition for every role available and had as little free time as possible. By age seven, Claire had perfected her smile. By age nine, she called herself a ballerina. By age eleven, she wanted to be a full-time actress; she starred in an indie film called ‘Marigold’ around this time, in a very small part.

Her father wasn’t very pleased with his wife’s efforts at grooming Claire into an acting career, since it obviously hindered his plans of grooming Claire into an academic career. So, when Claribel turned 12, he told his wife that Claire was already old enough to make her own decisions and that, actually, she preferred biology anyway, so maybe Christine should back off. Animosity brews. This man isn’t even at home half of the time. What does he know about Claire?

Not sure. What Claire knew, however, was that her father was finally here and he was paying attention to her. So, yeah, she loved biology! And she did: from an early age, Claire was interested in genetics and she’s had a fondness for insects for as long as she can remember. Getting a break from constant auditions and being able to choose when she pursued her acting ambitions was a welcome change as well. Claire focused on academics for a while, but still acted: she joined Santa Barbara's Lit Moon Theatre Company at 14. She got diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at 15. She was in drama club, cheer team, and was valedictorian of her graduating class. Claire is proficient in Spanish and took French in high school.

Claire met her best friend Donna Ryder in elementary school. They’ve been inseparable since. In high school, Claire constantly begged Donna for more pages in the yearbook. They loved driving around Santa Barbara in Claire's car after curfew hours. Then, she met Sebastian Ballion, her other half (platonically) in middle school. He was her first everything. By which I mean OBVIOUSLY that he was her first director. They had big dreams together; she starred in lots of his short films throughout high school, and he was the one to come up with Platinum Blonde Claire when she was 17. A visionary.

On October 13th, 2005, Claire and Sebastian headed to the Swansons’ beach residence in Malibu for the weekend. There, she found her father in a compromising situation with his secretary. He bribed her into silence and she got a nice trip to Jersey with Donna and some new clothes. This, though, only delayed the inevitable: her parents separated by late 2007 and finalised their messy divorce in November, 2008. Claire doesn’t know how her mom found out, and as guilty as she was for hiding it from her, she’s glad she wasn’t the one to tell.

This all happens around the time Claire is preparing to go to university (2008). With her father drifting away (literally, as he moved out), plus financial “incentive” (he'd pay for her tuition as long as she pursued something other than performing arts), Claire decided to major in biology. She got into University of California, Berkeley and moved to the Bay Area. Being out in the world without the tutelage of either her parents was very liberating; you can bet Claribel wreaked havoc during that time. She’s always been very Claire, but it’s around this time she grew into Claire. She got more confident, more tactless, more charming and more reckless. She got a job as a drive-in waitress while living there. She had an abortion at some point. She loved going out dancing. And she loved being surrounded by queer people, as it was around this time she felt comfortable calling herself bisexual. I think Claire was happy here.

After graduating from UCB, Claire had plans of going to med school at UCSF, but in May, 2012 she received an acceptance letter to Hollywood University, which she did not remember applying to. She packed her bags, moved to L.A. and decided to major in performing arts, finally. Soon after, her father found out about it and cut her out/disinherited her. Bummer. Anyway, she had a Mysterious Benefactor now.

As for Hollywood U: most posts I make take place in an around her third year at HWU, in 2014/2015. You may notice my relationship with HWU is very "playing with dolls". I move a lot of plot elements around: for example, Bianca's ploy to get Claire expelled happens in her third year, around Oct/2014. Clash at Sunset comes out in Jan/2015. And I ignore what I consider stupid (which means you will NOT see the studio plotline on my profile). Claire is very close to Addison and Ethan, and sees Lisa as a younger sister. She starts dating her stupid professor by Dec/2014-Early 2015. This is good and appropriate and Claire is not an archetypal femme fatale (this man will lose his job).

claire's little head

Claire has a complicated relationship with her parents. Her mother never felt like a mother to her, filling more of a role of an older sister. She was her mother’s perfect little doll, a medium to live vicariously through. Meanwhile, her father was emotionally and (due to work) physically distant. She was her father’s strange creation, a successor desperate to be recognised as more than that. She grew up in a weird environment. Very privileged (which she is glad for), but very cold. She had her entire life planned out for her by her parents. Different paths. She escaped one and followed the other, tried escaping it too… only to fall back into the first. Her entire life has been directed, in a way, by other people. She is not aware of this (yet). Is Claire a role she plays?

These dynamics made her develop a profound need of approval from others; if she’s good- if she’s really, really good, then maybe they will love her. She needs to impress people. Attention = love. She needs the spotlight. When her mother clapped at her opening nights, she knew she loved her. When her father nodded after seeing her report cards, she knew he loved her. Most of her relationships (platonically or otherwise) are defined by this.

So, Claire has no body image issues, but she does have self-esteem issues; being overly confident often correlates with compensation. She feels innately unlovable. She doesn’t know what’s wrong with her (because there must be something wrong with her). She works really hard to make people like her, love her maybe. She masks, then masks again. Romantically, she craves attention from her partners, but she has to work for that attention; if it’s too easy, she’s not interested. If it’s too easy, something is wrong (it’s never been easy?!). She uses her sexuality in her favour, but that's not a healthy behaviour.

Nowadays (as in, 2014), Claire is in good terms with her mother, but she doesn’t feel close to her. Christine invites her for brunch and margaritas and gives her TMI about her love life. As for her father, they don’t talk.

Claire has had many romantic relationships throughout her life, and this is important to her character. In no chronological order, and non-exhaustively, I'll list some of the men she has dated: Sebastian (inconclusive)(17), her first agent (33), guy running for U.S. Senate (45), her therapist (37), her parents' divorce lawyer (52), Chris Winters (31), her married tennis instructor (47), Italian F1 driver (32). Claire likes putting men in situations, but she is not an archetypal femme fatale. She dated her SJSU roommate Sabrina for a while. She had a situationship with Madeline, lead singer of a goth band and fellow HWU student. All of these were whirlwind relationships and very short lived.

She feels very lonely! She's always surrounded by people, but she desperately craves connection. She feels misunderstood. This is due to a combination of what I've written here + people's (especially men's) perception of her + her ASD diagnosis. I'll link these two other posts about her personality + relationships. Sorry! At the end of the day Claire is, like, just a normal person with lots of flaws and failings, and lots of good things as well. But she'll never get what she wants as long as she keeps pursuing people who put her in a pedestal. They go to bed with Gilda, but wake up with me. She's setting herself for failure. She's not being sincere with them, and, mostly, with her.

that's it for now. i could write about her forever. but i'll end here! this was mostly to centralise all the information in one place, as her lore was very scattered around my profile.

[4rielle]

“Stars fading but I linger on dear still craving your kiss”

-dream a little dream of me,the mamas and papas

Hello my name is Rielle/Elle I’m a minor and welcome to my corner of the internet.

This is probably the fourth introduction I made lol.

I originally created this blog for the purpose of just sharing my writing but I’m not sure what happened because now I’m a stranger things/byler and Yellowjacket centric blog who created separate side blogs for her writing and ocs.

My main fandoms are stranger things and Yellowjackets although I’m planning on making this blog more oc centric in the future when I finally gain the motivation to write again.

Other minor fandoms I’m into are newsies 1992, the outsiders, the enemy series by Charlie Higson and It.

Musicians im currently into are the Cranewives, the Cranberries, Lord Huron, Mitski, Weezer and Vashti Bunyan.

My favourite albums of all time are stranger trails by Lord Huron, coyote stories, fox lore by the Cranewives and lookaftering, some things just stick in your mind and heart leap by Vashti Bunyan.

My all time favourite songs are meet me in the woods, frozen pines, love like ghosts, louisa, hurricane (johnnies theme), keep you safe, allies or enemies, never love an anchor, the hand that feeds, metaphor,know how, dream a little dream of me, California dreaming, train song, winter is blue, here before and I���d like to walk around in your mind someday.

Currently in the process of developing two novels one of which has been a passion project of mine since I was 11 and the other I got the idea for this week.

Summaries: (I will probably rewrite these later lmao)

The older of the two is an untitled story taking place in a futuristic dystopian world surrounded by a 350 foot wall to keep its inhabitants away from the outside world.

The novel is centered on two teenage best friends Jackson Hills and Toby-Michael Gray as their summer of mutual pining for each other is cut short through Jack finding a journal belonging to an anti wall revolutionist who he believes is his biological father and as his obsession with the man grows the duos friendship is tested as the discovery forces both boys to come to terms with their pasts, worst traits and their relationship which is on the fine line of romantic and platonic.

The protagonists in this one are unintentionally Mike and Will skull emoji.

The more recent novel remains unnamed although I’ve been using the st.catherine project as a place holder name. It takes inspiration from my experience from being in a catholic all girls school as well as elements from yellowjackets, the walking dead and enemy book series. the novel takes place in a prestigious all girls boarding school with a reputation for great academic achievements from its pupils despite the strict environment students are still able to find fun and form deep connections with each other. the premise for it is it takes place in a universe where a disease takes over turning a majority of people into zombie like creatures and the pupils and teachers remaining are forced to confront their own mortality, disregard their morals and come to terms with who they really are to themselves and each other for the sake of survival. despite taking place in an apocalyptic setting the story focuses more on the characters ever changing relationships with each other with the apocalypse acting as a catalyst to it.

Side blogs:

@not4rielle

-side blog/back up blog in the case of anything happening to my main blog such as shadow banning

@4rielle-archived-posts

-side blog I created for the purpose of archiving posts I deleted off of my main blog

@tales-from-the-wanderer

-side blog for ocs from various pieces of media like ranging from the outsiders to stranger things to Yellowjackets.

@the-dome-of-salus

-side blog for the first novel I mentioned as of now there isn’t much on it but once I gain enough motivation I will become more active on it.

@stcatherine-project

-side blog for the second novel I mentioned as of now there’s only the introduction post on it but I’m currently working on character bios for the focus characters.

Rp blog master list:

Dni:

I don’t think I have a reason to write a dni since I block freely and filter content I don’t want to see but just incase:

-proshippers, xenophobes of any kind, homophobes,transphobes, ed blogs, ableists and Noah Schnapp antis especially the ones who believe he deserved the antisemitic and homophobic hate train he received.

To note:

I automatically assume that anyone in my inbox looking for donations for whatever cause is a scammer using peoples empathy and naivety to profit off of a human crisis and any donation asks will be deleted end of story.

I have chronic illness which limits mobility in my joins and leaves me feeling fatigued a majority of the time so it takes time for me to respond to reblogs, comments, asks and messages in my dms.

[scotianostra]

April 22nd 2005 saw the death of the sculptor and artist Eduardo Paolozzi

Paolozzi’s Italian parents ran a small ice cream parlour in Leith, in June 1940, when Italy declared war Eduardo was interned (along with most other Italian men in Britain).During Eduardo’s three-month internment at Saughton prison his father, grandfather and uncle, who had also been detained, were among the 446 Italians who drowned when the ship carrying them to Canada, the Arandora Star, was sunk by a German U-boat.

There is little online about his internment and you wouldn’t have condemned him if he decided to leave Scotland after his release, the words of a Proclaimer’s song always springs to mind when I read about Eduardo Paolozzi, and other Scots=Italians:

Joseph D'Angelo dreams of the days When Italian kids in the Grassmarket played We burned out his shop when the boys went to war But auld Joe’s a big man and he forgave all

By the time Eduardo was released it was 1943 and he began attending Edinburgh College of Art before moving to London and feigned madness to secure his release from army duties in order that he could study sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1944 to 1947.

To me Eduardo was way ahead of his time, if you look at the second pic, Was a Rich Man’s Plaything,, it screams 1950's, don't you think? Oor Leith man created this in 1947, this is real Pop Art, and was a good seven years before Andy Warhol began his career in art, this work was the first artwork to feature the word ‘Pop’ in it.

After a spell in Paris he returned to London and moved into a studio in Chelsea and by the 1950s was establishing himself as a surrealist artist through a series of screen-prints, pioneering the technique in which each print can have a separate colourway, predating Warhol’s famous prints of the same nature by four years.

In 1968 Paolozzi taught sculpture and ceramics at the University of California, Berkeley. He worked in Berlin from 1974, and was Professor at the Fachhochschule in Cologne from 1977 to 1981. He also later taught at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich.

Paolozzi might have spent many years away from his home town of Edinburgh but didn’t forget it, he donated a great deal of work to the Scottish National Gallery, who have since displayed a reconstruction of his studio and a large body of his work in the Dean Gallery.

If you have wandered around Edinburgh and visited St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral you will have come across Eduardo Paolozzi statues, “Manuscript of Monte Cassino” which comprises a giant foot and matching hand and ankle. The work was a gift to the city by entrepreneur Tom Farmer, the work is found outside St Mary’s RC Cathedral, I like how the area there has three pieces of art, on the left at Picardy Place you can enjoy a statue of Sherlock Holmes, and on the right you have two giant Giraffes outside the Omni Centre made of scrap metal.

Eduardo Paolozzi suffered a serious stroke in 2001 and he died in a hospital in London on this day in April 2005.

[wokealqaeda]

Terrence Andrew Davis (December 15, 1969 – August 11, 2018) was an American electrical engineer and computer programmer best known for creating and designing TempleOS, an operating system in the public domain, by himself.

As a teenager, Davis learned assembly language on a Commodore 64. He later earned both a bachelor's degree in computer engineering and a master's degree in electrical engineering from Arizona State University. He worked for several years at Ticketmaster on VAX machines. In 1996, he began experiencing regular manic episodes, one of which led him to hospitalization. Initially diagnosed with bipolar disorder, he was later declared to have schizophrenia. He subsequently collected disability payments and resided in Las Vegas with his parents until 2017.

Growing up Catholic, Davis was an atheist for some of his adult life. After experiencing a self-described "revelation", he proclaimed that he had been in direct communication with God and that God had commanded him to build a successor to the Second Temple. He then committed a decade to creating an operating system modeled after the DOS-based interfaces of his youth. In 2013, Davis announced that he had completed the project, now called "TempleOS". The operating system was generally regarded as a hobby system, not suitable for general use.

Davis amassed an online following and regularly posted video blogs to social media. Although he remained lucid when discussing computer-related subjects, his communication skills were significantly affected by his schizophrenia. He was controversial for his regular use of slurs, which he explained was his way of combating factors of psychological warfare. After 2017, he struggled with periods of homelessness and incarceration. His fans tried to support him by bringing him supplies, but Davis refused their offers. On August 11, 2018, he was struck by a train and died at the age of 48.

Davis was born in West Allis, Wisconsin, on December 15, 1969, as the seventh of eight children; his father was an industrial engineer. The family moved to Washington, Michigan, California and Arizona. As a child, Davis used an Apple II at his elementary school, later learning assembly language on a Commodore 64 as a teenager. Davis grew up Catholic.

In 1994, he earned a master's degree in electrical engineering from Arizona State University. On the subject of his certifications, he wrote in 2011: "Everybody knows electrical is higher in the engineering pecking order than computer systems because it requires real math". For several years he worked at Ticketmaster on VAX machines.

-

Davis became an atheist and described himself as a scientific materalist until experiencing what he called a "revelation from God". Starting in 1996, Davis was admitted to a psychiatric ward around every six months for reoccurring manic episodes, which began in March. He also developed beliefs centering around space aliens and government agents. According to Davis, he attributed a profound quality to the Rage Against the Machine lyric "some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses" and recalled "I started seeing people following me around in suits and stuff. It just seemed something was strange." He donated large sums of money to charity organizations, something he had never done before. Later, he surmised, "that act probably caused God to reveal Himself to me and saved me."

Due to fear of the figures he believed were following him, Davis drove hundreds of miles south with no destination. After becoming convinced that his car radio was communicating with him, he dismantled his vehicle to search for tracking devices he believed were hidden in it, and threw his keys into the desert. He walked along the side of the highway, where he was then picked up by a police officer, who escorted him to the passenger's seat.

Davis escaped from the patrol vehicle and was hospitalized due to a broken collarbone. Distressed about a conversation in the hospital over artifacts found in his X-ray scans, interpreted by him as "alien artifacts", he ran from the hospital. He attempted to carjack a nearby truck before being arrested. In jail, he stripped himself, broke his glasses and jammed the frames into a nearby electrical outlet, trying to open his cell door by switching the breaker. This failed, as he had been wearing non-conductive frames. He was admitted to a mental hospital for two weeks.

Between 2003 and 2014, Davis had not been hospitalized for any mental illness-related incidents. In an interview, he said that he had been "genuinely pretty crazy in a way. Now I'm not. I'm crazy in a different way maybe." Davis acknowledged that the sequence of events leading to his spiritual awakening might give the impression of mental illness, as opposed to a divine revelation. He said, "I'm not especially proud of the logic and thinking. It looks very young and childish and pathetic. In the Bible it says if you seek God, He will be found of you. I was really seeking, and I was looking everywhere to see what he might be saying to me."

Davis was initially diagnosed with bipolar disorder and later declared to have schizophrenia. He felt "guilty for being such a technology-advocate atheist" and tried to follow Jesus by giving away all of his possessions and living a nomadic lifestyle. In July 1996, he returned to Arizona and started formulating plans for a new business. He designed a three-axis milling machine, as he recalled having 3D printing in mind as an obvious pursuit, but a Dremel tool incident nearly set his apartment on fire, prompting him to abandon the idea. He subsequently lived with his parents in Las Vegas and collected Social Security disability payments. He attempted to write a sequel to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, but he never finished it. Davis later wrote that he found work at a company named "Xytec Corp" between 1997 and 1999, making FPGA-based image processing equipment. He said the next two years were spent at H.A.R.E., where he wrote an application called SimStructure, and the two years after that were spent at Graphic Technologies, where he was "head software/electrical engineer".

After 2003, Davis' hospitalizations became less frequent. His schizophrenia still affected his communication skills, and his online comments were usually incomprehensible, but he was reported as "always lucid" if the topic was about computers. Vice noted that, in 2012, he had a productive conversation with the contributors at MetaFilter, where his work was introduced as "an operating system written by a schizophrenic programmer"

-

Throughout his life, Davis believed that he was under constant persecution from federal agents, particularly those from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He was controversial for his regular use of offensive slurs, including racist and homophobic epithets, and sometimes rebuked his critics as "CIA niggers". In one widely circulated YouTube video, he claimed that "the CIA niggers glow in the dark; you can see them if you're driving. You just run them over." Davis would also coin the term "glowie", which is based on the aforementioned phrase, and would later be used by far-right online groups to denote an undercover federal agent or informant. Psychologist Victoria Tischler doubted that Davis' intentions were violent or discriminatory, but "some of these antisocial behaviors became apparent" through his mental illness, which is "something really common to people with severe mental health problems."

Such outbursts, along with the operating system's "amateurish" presentation, ultimately caused TempleOS to become a frequent object of derision. Davis addressed concerns about his language on his website, stating that "when I fight Satan, I use the sharpest knives I can find."

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TempleOS (formerly J Operating System, LoseThos, and SparrowOS) is a biblical-themed lightweight operating system (OS) designed to be the Third Temple prophesized in the Bible. It was created by American programmer Terry A. Davis, who developed it alone over the course of a decade after a series of manic episodes that he later described as a revelation from God.

The system was characterized as a modern x86-64 Commodore 64, using an interface similar to a mixture of DOS and Turbo C. Davis proclaimed that the system's features, such as its 640x480 resolution, 16-color display, and single-voice audio, were designed according to explicit instructions from God. It was programmed with an original variation of C/C++ (named HolyC) in place of BASIC, and included an original flight simulator, compiler, and kernel.

First released in 2005 as J Operating System, TempleOS was renamed in 2013 and was last updated in 2017.

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Once TempleOS was completed, most of Davis' time was spent browsing the Internet, coding, or using the results of the National Institute of Standards and Technology's randomness beacon to further his relationship with God, and he drew fans following his various online activities. He posted video blogs and would refer to himself as "the smartest programmer that's ever lived" while showing his creations. His YouTube channels were repeatedly terminated due to his vulgarities. In 2017, the OS was shown as a part of an outsider art exhibition in Bourogne, France. Davis said he was happy to receive the attention but was disappointed that few of his fans had used the OS to speak to God.

Davis would frequently communicate in randomly generated blocks of text and off-topic declarations about God, which led to bans from websites including Something Awful, Reddit, and Hacker News. However, the critical reception to TempleOS was mostly favorable, as tech journalist David Cassel wrote, "programming websites tried to find the necessary patience and understanding to accommodate Davis". TechRepublic and OSNews published positive articles on Davis' work, even though he had been banned from OSNews for hostile comments targeting its readers and staff.

In September 2018, OSNews editor Thom Holwerda wrote: "Davis was clearly a gifted programmer, writing an entire operating system is no small feat, and it was sad to see him affected by his mental illness". One fan described him as a "programming legend", while another, a computer engineer, compared the development of TempleOS to a skyscraper built by one person. The engineer had previously spoken to Davis at length and believed that Davis, had it not been for his illness, could have been a "Steve Jobs" or a "Steve Wozniak".

-

During his final two months, Davis struggled with periods of homelessness and incarceration. He stopped taking medication because he believed that it limited his creativity. Some fans helped him by bringing him supplies, but he refused their housing offers. After living with his sister in Arizona, Davis traveled to California, and in April 2018, he stopped in Portland, Oregon. Police in the city of The Dalles, approximately 90 miles east of Portland, were informed by locals about Davis. No further complaints were received about Davis.

In his final video, recorded on a bench at The Dalles Wasco County Library, and uploaded hours before his death, he explained that he had removed most of his videos because he did not wish to "litter" the Internet, and that he had learned how to "purify" himself. At the very end, he states: "It's good to be king. Wait, maybe. I think maybe I'm just like a little bizarre little person who walks back and forth. Whatever, you know, but..."

On the evening of August 11, 2018, while walking alongside railroad tracks in The Dalles, Davis was struck and killed by a Union Pacific train. Investigators could not determine whether his death was suicide or accidental, although the train engineer believed his death to be a suicide. The police report stated that Davis was walking with his back toward the train and that he turned around before the moment of impact. When The Dalles Chronicle ran a story about an unnamed homeless man who was struck by a train, the newspaper was inundated with phone calls inquiring whether it was Davis, which the paper later confirmed in a follow-up piece.

[darkmaga-returns]

Joey Shagoury is an undergraduate at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where he studies world politics.

Roman Emperor Nero could only have dreamt of being as out of touch with the “peasantry” as Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. Nero, for his credit, actually watched Rome burn from his palace. Bass took a tropical vacation to Ghana, while Los Angeles was torn asunder.

Ghana’s critical importance to Los Angeles remains unseen, but for us peasant folk, we are not capable of understanding the multifaceted mind of Bass and the Democratic Party elite. The people of Los Angeles do not seem to understand either as they criticize and question their duly selected commissar.

Expecting water in your fire hydrants or firefighters who can lift a two hundred pound man are bourgeois questions that can only come from the problematic privileged middle class. These concerns must be ignored and put aside. The tastemakers at the DNC think it is far more important to attend the Ghanaian inauguration to virtue signal rather than to govern. At least California’s Governor Newsom was in state, but he too failed at answering questions or effectively managing the fires.

[eternal-echoes]

“Whereas the evidence in favor of a transgender brain has proven to be underwhelming, The Journal of Neuroscience Research published a 791-page issue explaining the differences between men's and women's brains and "documenting sex differences at all levels of brain function."(24) One of the authors, a professor of neuroscience from the University of California Irvine remarked, "So overpowering is the wave of research that the standard ways of dismissing sex influences (e.g, They are all small and unreliable,’ ‘They are all due to circulating hormones,’ ‘They are all due to human culture,' and 'They don't exist on the molecular level') have all been swept away, at least for those cognizant of the research.”)25)

Unfortunately, proponents of gender theory often don't seem cognizant of the research. Take, for example, Dr. Kristie Overstreet, who explained transgender identification by saying, "Gender identity is sense of self, so think of it as what's between your ears: sense of self, who you are. This is very different than biological sex, right? Hormones, genitalia, chromosomes: That's what's between our legs."(26)

Her level of imprecision is both astounding and irresponsible. As a clinical sexologist, she should be aware of the fact that one's chromosomes and hormones aren't isolated to the genital area. Furthermore, what's between one's ears reveals one's biological sex. If a gender theorist wanted to retreat to any place in the human body to escape from the reality of the binary nature of human sexuality, the brain would be the last place to hide.

In her book, Sex and the Developing Brain, Dr. Margaret M. McCarthy explains, "[E]very cell in a male brain is to some degree fundamentally different than every cell in a female brain."(27) Dr. Larry Cahill added, "[S]ex influences on brain function are ubiquitous, found at every level of neuroscience.”(28) Not only are brain cells and functions unique for men and women, entire regions of the brain grow in different proportions. For example, the medial preoptic area, which is associated with sexual pursuit, is 2.5 times larger in men. The dorsal premammillary nucleus, which is in charge of signaling the need for territorial defense, is also larger in males. However, the mirror-neuron system, which is in charge of reading others' emotions, is larger in women. The same is true of the prefrontal cortex, which is in charge of inhibiting impulses.(29)”

-Jason Evert, Male, Female, or Other: A Catholic Guide to Understanding Gender

—

Work cited:

24) Larry Cahill, "An Issue Whose Time Has Come: Sex/Gender Influences on Nervous System Function," Journal of Neuroscience Research 95: 1-2 (January/February 2017), Spc1, 1-791.

25) Cahill, "An Issue Whose Time Has Come," 12-13.

26) Kristie Overstreet PhD, "Why Are Many Doctors Scared of Transgender Patients?, TEDxLivoniaCCLibrary," https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tG3LWxWZxg.

27) Margaret M. McCarthy, Sex and the Developing Brain, 2nd ed. (San Rafael, CA: Morgan & Claypool, 2017).

28) Larry Cahill, "A Half-Truth Is a Whole Lie: On the Necessity of Investigating Sex Influences on the Brain," Endocrinology 153 (2012), 2542.

29) Cf. Louann Brizendine, The Male Brain (New York: Harmony Books, 2010).

—

For more recommended resources on gender dysphoria, click here.

[spacenutspod]

2 min read Hubble Glimpses a Bright Galaxy Group This new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a tangled group of interacting galaxies called LEDA 60847. NASA/ESA/A. Barth (University of California – Irvine)/M. Koss (Eureka Scientific Inc.)/A. Robinson (Rochester Institute of Technology)/Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) This new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a group of interacting galaxies known as LEDA 60847. LEDA 60847 is classified as an active galactic nuclei, or AGN. An AGN has a supermassive black hole in the galaxy’s central region that is accreting material. The AGN emits radiation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum and shines extremely brightly. By studying powerful AGNs that are relatively nearby, astronomers can better understand how supermassive black holes grow and affect galaxies. Galaxy mergers are relatively common occurrences. Most larger galaxies are the result of smaller galaxies merging. The Milky Way itself contains traces of other galaxies, indicating it is the product of past mergers. Astronomers believe somewhere between 5% and 25% of all galaxies are currently merging.  This image of LEDA 60847 combines ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared data from Hubble. The ability to see across all those wavelengths is one of the things that makes Hubble unique. Different types of light across the electromagnetic spectrum tell astronomers different things about our universe. Ultraviolet light traces the glow of stellar nurseries and is used to identify the hottest stars. Visible light shows us moderate-temperature stars and material, and also how the view would appear to our own eyes. Last but not least, near-infrared light can penetrate cold dust, allowing us to study warm gas and dust, and relatively cool stars. LEARN MORE: Hubble’s Cosmic Collisions Hubble Science: Galaxy Details and Mergers Hubble Science: Tracing the Growth of Galaxies Download this image Media Contact: Claire AndreoliNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MDclaire.andreoli@nasa.gov Share Details Last Updated Jan 23, 2024 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms Active Galaxies Astrophysics Division Galaxies Goddard Space Flight Center Hubble Space Telescope Missions The Universe Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA Hubble Space Telescope Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe. Galaxies Stories Stars Stories James Webb Space Telescope Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It studies every phase in the…

[justforbooks]

Joseph Wambaugh

Bestselling crime writer whose work drew on his own experience as an LAPD detective

Joseph Wambaugh, who has died of cancer aged 88, was one of the most important US crime writers of his generation. Beginning with his novels The New Centurions (1971) and The Blue Knight (1972), and the nonfiction The Onion Field (1973), Wambaugh’s books and their screen adaptations were built around the inner tensions of police work.

Wambaugh, himself a Los Angeles cop for 14 years, knew well the challenges officers faced in maintaining some sort of normality while trapped in the messy realities of their brutal and often irrational jobs. He revealed the strains this put on their lives, and the sometimes extreme means they took to relieve that pressure. He also dealt unflinchingly with corruption, both personal, among cops, and structurally, within the politics of the police department and the city the officers were sworn to protect and serve.

“If he didn’t invent the police novel, he certainly reinvented it,” said the writer Michael Connelly, whose cop Harry Bosch confronted many of the same issues. Certainly, Wambaugh’s world was a far cry from the squeaky-clean image of the LAPD detective Joe Friday in the TV show Dragnet.

Wambaugh was born in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where his father, Joseph, a steelworker and cop, was a small-town police chief and his mother, Anne (nee Malloy), was a housewife. They joined the postwar exodus to California when Joe was 14; he graduated from high school in Ontario, California at 17, in 1954, and joined the Marines. The following year, he married his high-school sweetheart, Dee Allsop.

Discharged in 1957, he worked in a steel mill while taking night classes in English at Los Angeles State College (now California State University Los Angeles). He received his BA in 1960 and joined the LAPD. He continued studying at night while walking a beat, and in 1968 received his master’s degree and was promoted to detective.

His early short stories were all rejected, but one editor advised he try longer form. His first novel, The New Centurions, spent 32 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. It tracks three 1960 graduates of the police academy as they learn their jobs, culminating in the Watts riots of 1965. The 1972 film of the novel gave George C Scott one of his best roles. By then Wambaugh had retired from the LAPD; he was arresting criminals who asked for his autograph, or for referrals to publishers or movie producers.

The Blue Knight told of a career beat cop, Bumper Morgan, in his last days before retirement. The 1973 TV miniseries based on the book produced an Emmy award for William Holden as Bumper, and a Golden Globe for Lee Remick as his wife, and spun off a TV series starring George Kennedy.

Wambaugh followed with The Onion Field, an account of the kidnapping by petty criminals of two LA cops, one of whom was killed while the other was able to escape. In a work often compared to Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, Wambaugh contrasted the way one of the two killers learns the veneer of respectability during the course of the trial, while the surviving cop struggles with the trauma of his experience. “I’m most interested in characters who have no conscience,” he explained, referencing his own Catholic upbringing. The book won a special Edgar Allan Poe award from the Mystery Writers of America; Wambaugh wrote the screenplay for Harold Becker’s excellent 1979 film, which starred James Woods and John Savage.

In 1973 he co-created the TV anthology series Police Story, episodes of which won Edgars in 1974 and 1975, and spun off another hit series, Police Woman, starring Angie Dickinson.

Each of Wambaugh’s next three novels quickly transitioned to film. The Choirboys (1975) became a vehicle for one of the director Robert Aldrich’s most anarchic efforts, in 1977, for which Wambaugh wrote the screenplay; he won another Edgar for the script for Becker’s adaptation of The Black Marble (1978).

The Glitter Dome (1980) was set in a Chinatown bar by that name where police officers romanced “chickens and vultures”, drawing a moral parallel with the police investigation into pornography. The 1984 HBO production starred James Garner and Margot Kidder.

After ranging into politics and Nobel prizes in Delta Star (1983), Wambaugh returned to true crime in 1984 with two books, Lines and Shadows, and Echoes in the Darkness. The latter became a TV miniseries with Stockard Channing, Peter Coyote and Treat Williams. It dealt with the murder in suburban Philadelphia of a schoolteacher and her two children, for which the school principal was one of two men convicted. When his conviction was later overturned, it emerged Wambaugh had paid the lead investigator $50,000, contingent on the principal’s arrest. Though the payment was not part of the overturning of the verdict, Wambaugh was sued by the principal, but won the case.

By now, his influence on police dramas had been widely absorbed, in everything from Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue to The Shield. But Wambaugh’s own writing switched focus as he moved out of LA to Orange County and to San Diego: five novels between 1985 and 1996 dealt more with the shadow-lives of the rich elites in exclusive communities.

The Blooding (1989) was the true crime story of the Leicester murderer Colin Pitchfork, who was one of the first people convicted via DNA evidence. Wambaugh won his third Edgar for his next true crime story, Fire Lover (2002), about Frank Orr, America’s most prolific serial arsonist, who worked as a fire investigator.

Two years after his fourth Edgar, a lifetime achievement award in 2004, he returned to fiction, prompted by the federal government’s oversight of the LAPD following the Rampart corruption scandal. Hollywood Station (2006) was the first of five novels in six years, all with Hollywood in the title, starring the detective “Hollywood Nate” West and featuring a pair of detectives called Flotsam and Jetsam, shades of Connelly’s Crate and Barrel. They recalled the stories of his own early days on the force. “Once I create the characters,” he said, “I let [them] take me [where they are going]”.

Wambaugh is survived by his wife, son, David, and daughter, Jeanette. Another son, Mark, died in 1984.

🔔 Joseph Aloysius Wambaugh, writer, born 22 January 1937; died 28 February 2025

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

NASA Solar Observatory sees coronal loops flicker before big flares

Using NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, scientists have identified flickering loops in the solar atmosphere that seem to signal when the Sun is about to unleash a large solar flare.

For decades, scientists have tried in vain to accurately predict solar flares — intense bursts of light on the Sun that can send a flurry of charged particles into the solar system. Now, using NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, one team has identified flickering loops in the solar atmosphere, or corona, that seem to signal when the Sun is about to unleash a large flare.

These warning signs could help NASA and other stakeholders protect astronauts as well as technology both in space and on the ground from hazardous space weather.

Led by heliophysicist Emily Mason of Predictive Sciences Inc. in San Diego, California, the team studied arch-like structures called coronal loops along the edge of the Sun. Coronal loops rise from magnetically driven active regions on the Sun, where solar flares also originate.

The team looked at coronal loops near 50 strong solar flares, analyzing how their brightness in extreme ultraviolet light varied in the hours before a flare compared to loops above non-flaring regions. Like flashing warning lights, the loops above flaring regions varied much more than those above non-flaring regions.

“We found that some of the extreme ultraviolet light above active regions flickers erratically for a few hours before a solar flare,” Mason explained. “The results are really important for understanding flares and may improve our ability to predict dangerous space weather.”

Published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters in December 2024 and presented on Jan. 15, 2025, at a press conference during the 245th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, the results also hint that the flickering reaches a peak earlier for stronger flares. However, the team says more observations are needed to confirm this link.

Other researchers have tried to predict solar flares by examining magnetic fields on the Sun, or by looking for consistent trends in other coronal loop features. However, Mason and her colleagues believe that measuring the brightness variations in coronal loops could provide more precise warnings than those methods — signaling oncoming flares 2 to 6 hours ahead of time with 60 to 80 percent accuracy.

“A lot of the predictive schemes that have been developed are still predicting the likelihood of flares in a given time period and not necessarily exact timing,” said team member Seth Garland of the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.

“The Sun’s corona is a dynamic environment, and each solar flare is like a snowflake — every single flare is unique,” said team member Kara Kniezewski, a graduate student at the Air Force Institute of Technology and lead author of the paper. “We find that searching for periods of ‘chaotic’ behavior in the coronal loop emission, rather than specific trends, provide a much more consistent metric and may also correlate with how strong a flare will be.”

The scientists hope their findings about coronal loops can eventually be used to help keep astronauts, spacecraft, electrical grids, and other assets safe from the harmful radiation that accompanies solar flares. For example, an automated system could look for brightness changes in coronal loops in real-time images from the Solar Dynamics Observatory and issue alerts.

“Previous work by other researchers reports some interesting prediction metrics,” said co-author Vadim Uritsky of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the Catholic University of Washington in D.C. “We could build on this and come up with a well-tested and, ideally, simpler indicator ready for the leap from research to operations.”

IMAGE: NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of coronal loops above an active region on the Sun in mid-January 2012. The image was taken in the 171 angstrom wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light. Credit NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory

[jbaileyfansite]

Interview with Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer from GQ Hype

Filled with cozy, Hemingwayesque signifiers of midcentury masculinity (think: taxidermy and artfully-tattered boxing gloves), the restaurant seemed perfect for a breezy, late-autumn hang in the West Village.

But there’s one problem: Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey have burgers on their minds. And while this place boasts a surplus of dead animals nailed to the wall, it somehow only serves snacks and salads in the afternoon. And as Bomer points out, Corner Bistro—a pub that, in his opinion, serves some of the best burgers in town—is just a six-minute walk away.

The British-born Bailey—who, in his black sweater, floppy beanie and overstuffed backpack, looks more like a backpacker who just rolled out of his hostel rather than one of the streaming era’s top heartthrobs—waxes rhapsodic about In-N-Out, the California burger institution, which he recently tried for the first time.

He asks the suave, Old Hollywood-handsome Bomer, who spends most of his time in L.A. with his husband and three teenage sons, where In-N-Out falls on his personal burger index. “Our boys are really good judges of burgers,” Bomer says, and for them, In-N-Out is up there—but so is the burger at Corner Bistro. And how can we send Bailey—the Viscount of Bridgerton himself—back to London without tasting New York’s best?

Our location, midway between Stonewall Inn and Julius, two of New York’s most historic gay bars, is apt. The project we’re here to talk about—the epic new Showtime series Fellow Travelers, in which the pair star—tips its hat to the legendary 1969 riots that happened in Stonewall, but goes even further, telling the story of gay liberation in the second half of the twentieth century.

Part epic love story, part political thriller, Fellow Travelers begins in 1950s Washington, D.C., with an illicit affair between the strapping Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller (Bomer), a State Department official savvy to the ways of power, and the earnest, energetic Timothy “Tim” Laughlin (Bailey), the kind of wide-eyed idealist who goes to D.C. wanting to change the world. When they first meet, Tim is a conservative Catholic boy; his passionate, intensely erotic affair with Hawk both liberates him and throws him off his path.

Through the decades-spanning run of their relationship, the series takes us from the Lavender Scare of the 1950s—when a McCarthy-era policy that institutionalized homophobia expelled many “sexual deviants” from government, resulting at one point in a suicide a day—to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s.

The series is based on the Thomas Mallon novel of the same name. But where Mallon’s book generally focuses on the 1950s and the explosive romance between Hawk and Tim, the series expands the Fellow Travelers universe to reach through the decades and cover the Vietnam War protests of the '60s and the White Night riots of 1979.

“It's been taught that LGBTQIA+ history begins at Stonewall,” says Jelani Alladin, the actor who plays queer Black journalist Marcus Hooks in the series. “It’s a kind of false narrative. Queer people have been around taking a stand for themselves since the beginning of time.”

It feels like a disservice to call a series so sexy and so compelling as educational. But Fellow Travelers does serve as an important history lesson for younger generations who may not fully understand the battles fought before their time. “It was a really dark period in American history that obviously we're not taught in school,” says executive producer Robbie Rogers, who prior to his work in film and TV was the soccer player who became the first openly gay man to compete in a North American professional sports league. “We're not taught LGBT history.”

When the first episode of the series came out in late October, a viral clip showcasing Bailey and Bomer in a particularly kinky sex scene had Gay Twitter shuddering with excitement. In the scene, Bailey’s Tim uses his power as a sub to persuade Bomer’s Hawk to take him to an important D.C. party. “I’m your boy, right?” he tells Hawk. “Your boy wants to go to the party.” In surely one of this year’s hottest scenes on film or TV, we see Bailey hungrily suck on Bomer’s toes and gamely attempt to put his foot in his mouth. Earlier in the series, Hawk gives Tim the name “Skippy” after thoroughly dominating him in bed, a gesture of affection as much as of ownership.

Sex is a powerful, world-shifting force in Fellow Travelers, but it’s also a Trojan horse. While the early episodes bristle with erotic energy, every exchange between Bomer and Bailey is about power as much as it is about sex. And the further you go into Travelers, the more you realize what’s really at stake when these two hit the sack.

“Even in the ‘50s, they had joy,” Travelers creator and writer Ron Nyswaner, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Philadelphia, says. “You might be struggling, but that doesn't mean every moment of your life you're a victim of oppression. Behind closed doors they had a life—it's just that at any moment, the police could come through those doors and ruin that life.”

That unapologetic approach to queer desire is still pretty revolutionary in a big-budget prestige series on a major network. Gone are the days when gay characters were allowed to exist onscreen as long as they adhered to respectability politics. In Fellow Travelers, the queer characters are allowed passionate, unapologetically freaky pleasures.

“There's no shame attached to that,” Bailey says. “And I do think Matt's character detonates something in Tim. It's a gift to meet someone [who does the] radical act of helping you feel less shame and understand that intimacy that can be explored in so many different ways.”

Religion is a big theme in Fellow Travelers. Hawk is bound by covenant to his wife; Tim struggles with Catholic guilt. And like many queer people, Bomer and Bailey themselves have both had to negotiate religion within their queer identities.

“It took me a long time to dismantle it and to question what I was being told,” Bailey says. “Religion is interesting because it’s the voice of the shame but also [a source of] relief. There was this person that I could speak to—and I definitely did have that full conversation with a higher power. But the contradiction is brutal. To really lean into that as a gay kid who's not born into a gay family, you see both sides of what religion can provide, which is scathing judgment—as I felt it looking back—but also a real space for catharsis and nourishment.”

Bomer says he has an individualized approach to religion: “It's something that I've found for myself over years and years of exploration. It's just highly personal that way.” Bomer is proud to have raised his kids in a truly intersectional environment. “They go to an Episcopal school, but they're in school with Muslim kids, with Jewish kids,” he says. “We gave them that experience and then let them find their own way from there.”

On the way to Corner Bistro, Bomer gives Bailey a capsule tour of gay West Village. “That’s an iconic lesbian bar,” he says, pointing out Cubbyhole on West 12th street. Later, he asks if we’ve ever been to Fire Island. “You can have any experience you want there,” Bomer tells me, when I confess my anxiety around Speedos. “It's not just one thing.”

These streets bring up certain memories for Bomer. He tells us about coming up as an actor in New York in the early 2000s, at one point living in “a renovated crackhouse in Brooklyn.” Later, he worked two jobs to afford a one-bedroom apartment he split with a fellow aspiring actor—none other than Lee Pace, the famous, and famously tall (6′ 5″, if you don’t know), actor and Internet Boyfriend who Bomer has known since high school. “I’ll tell you how long I've known Lee Pace,” he says. “I’ve known him since he was shorter than me, when he was 14 and I was 15.”

As gay men are wont to do, trust that the group veered off-topic to talk about vocally-prodigious divas. Bomer has just seen the Broadway production of David Byrne’s Here Lies Love, which tells the story of the rise and fall of Imelda Marcos, the wife of the Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. And when he finds out that I grew up in the Philippines, he tells me how much he loves Lea Salonga, the Tony-winning Filipino Broadway star who appears in the production.

We ask Bailey if he’s familiar with her. “Do I know Lea Salonga?” he asks. “She was Fantine!” he retorts, referring to her role in Les Misérables in Concert: The 25th Anniversary.

From there, we fall into a Filipino diva rabbit hole, talking about former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger (currently appearing in a well-received West End production of Sunset Boulevard that Bomer tells Bailey they must catch together), Mutya Buena of the Sugababes (an iconic U.K. girl group that Bailey and I separately saw live recently), and Darren Criss (who Bomer directed on The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story—technically a straight male, but one who earns diva status for his formidable vocals and the dance he did in a red speedo on Versace).

As we near the pub, a thirty-something woman walking hand in hand with her man does a hilariously convincing impression of the Distracted Boyfriend meme at the sight of Neal Caffrey and Anthony Bridgerton casually strolling through West 4th Street.

“Her neck!” Bailey says, audibly concerned.

In Corner Bistro, with sandwiches and coffees in hand (Bailey decides on a classic burger and a grilled chicken sandwich), we settle down in a cozy booth and talk about the points in their careers where Fellow Travelers found the actors, the hard-won representation Hollywood’s queer community has been fighting for for decades, and the LGBTQ+ talents of color they’d like to support on their own projects.

Bomer, of course, has been famous since the early 2010s, when he became a star on the series White Collar, and along with Neil Patrick Harris, proved that openly gay actors could become leading men. Since then, he’s conquered Broadway (The Boys in the Band), won a slew of awards (Golden Globe and Critic's Choice trophies for The Normal Heart) and become a producer and director.

In the past, Bomer has discussed the way doors closed on him even as he was being celebrated for being an out gay actor. When asked about that now, he says, “I choose just to never look back in anger about anything. Ultimately, my career is a lot richer because I decided to be open with who I am.”

“It’s a wave of progress that Matt's been surfing and is at the front of,” says Bailey. “And it's been a real honor to be able to get on my boogie board next to him.”

Before he became a global star mid-pandemic playing the grumpy, furry-chested Anthony Bridgerton on the Netflix juggernaut Bridgerton, Bailey was an award-winning actor in both the West End and British television. Huge fame didn’t find Bailey until his early 30s, so when it did, he had a clear idea of what he wanted to accomplish with his platform.

“I feel the responsibility immeasurably,” Bailey says. “I get it when people are saying you create a chair and bring people [to the table].” He talks about the connection between the civil rights movement and the queer liberation. “The Black queens are the ones who really started to fight,” he says. “It's amazing to feel politically activated. And if there's any project to do that, it's going to be Fellow Travelers. It will change the way I see myself in and the world I live in.”

The intersectionality makes the story Travelers is trying to tell even richer—most of all in Alladin’s scene-stealing portrayal of the conflicted Marcus Hooks, a pioneering Black journalist who pushes against segregation as he grapples with his own sexuality. “When I look at older men today, I'm like, You guys have endured so much,” Aladdin says. “From the Second World War all the way through to the AIDS crisis, it was nonstop life crisis after life crisis. To have been able to survive through all that, there needs to be a real, solid weight on the feet of [these characters].”

Part of the pleasure of watching Fellow Travelers is picking up on the cinematic references hidden in each scene. Hawk and Tim’s first interactions evoke the forbidden affair in David Lean’s 1945 classic Brief Encounter. When Hawk’s family settles in suburbia, the show evokes the Technicolor repression of the great Douglas Sirk melodramas. When Hawk and Tim run through the beaches of Fire Island in the ‘70s, that iconic image of Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr kissing on the beach in From Here to Eternity may flicker in your mind. And in some ways, the series plays like a gayer, hornier The Way We Were—an epic love story tossed on the tides of political change. (In this version, of course, the Barbra Streisand character is an eager foot-licking sub and Redford’s Hubbell Gardiner is a daddy with a pit fetish.) Fellow Travelers allows us to imagine an alternate timeline where queer love has always gotten as much screen time as cinema’s great heterosexual romances, giving other kinds of stories the chance at celluloid immortality too.

In the book, Hawk is described as being more handsome than Gregory Peck. But seeing Bomer in period-appropriate clothing, the Old Hollywood leading man I thought of was Montgomery Clift, the talented and ultimately tragic gay actor who starred in classics like Red River and A Place in the Sun. For a time in the mid 2010s, Bomer was attached to star in a Montgomery Clift biopic for HBO, to be directed by the great gay director Ira Sachs. “Ira is a genius,” Bomer says. “[But] I think that ship may have sailed.”

Still, when I press him about doing it in the future, he lights up. “You know, I’m [now] the same age Monty was when he passed away,” Bomer says. “I always thought it'd be really interesting to do a play about the last night of his life, when he's watching one of his old movies on TV. And he had this man who lived with him and took care of him for the last chapter of his life.There's an interesting play in there somewhere…. Maybe Liz Taylor swings by.”

What’s changed since the mid 2010s is that a lot of Hollywood’s current gatekeepers are queer people who were fighting from the bottom a decade ago. “It's the people, the gatekeepers who are now going, ‘We are going to make this [queer] story,’” Bailey says. “This narrative that gay people have to be closeted in order [for a project] to be commercial and in order for things to be interesting to people—it's been dismantled. But it's slow because it's not just straight people who think that—I think everyone believed that in the system of Hollywood.”

Nyswaner, who has been working in Hollywood since the early ‘80s, has seen that shift up close. “When I grew up in the ‘60s and early ‘70s, I never heard the word ‘homosexual’ spoken aloud,” he says. “There was no conversation that I ever had with anybody about homosexuality. It was not just bad, it was the unspeakable thing—that's how terrified people were of us.”

And while he agrees that, in some ways, it feels like the LGBTQ+ community is once again losing ground on some rights, Nyswaner refuses to accept that there hasn’t been change. “Sometimes I hear people say, ‘Well, we haven't gotten anywhere.’ And I'm here to say, ‘Oh, yes, we have.’ Because actually you can turn on the television and find gay characters.”

Fellow Travelers is the culmination of a dream for a number of the men involved in the series.

“When I met Ron, he was talking about how he thinks about this as his lifelong legacy project,” Bailey says. “And I just said to him, ‘Whoever ends up going on this journey with you, I think it'll be the same [for them] probably.’”

“In some ways, Fellow Travelers is a span of my life,” Ron Nyswaner says. “I was an infant in the McCarthy era. And then I came out of the closet in 1978 and just danced and did cocaine and had multiple sexual partners—we didn't know what was coming, which was the AIDS crisis.” Nyswaner was nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 1993 for Philadelphia, the landmark drama about an AIDS patient who sues his employers for AIDS discrimination. In a way, the historical span of Fellow Travelers gives the battles fought in Philadelphia their context.

Rogers remembers being a closeted soccer player in the late 2000s, watching Tom Ford’s A Single Man and hoping one day to be able to find love and take control of his own narrative. And Bailey recalls, post-Bridgerton, realizing that he could suddenly write his own destiny and vowing to seek out “a sweeping gay love story.”

Bomer, meanwhile, says—laughing, but seemingly dead serious—that it’s his goal to play a queer character from every decade of the 20th century. “A queer Decalogue,” he says, referencing the Krzysztof Kieślowski classic.

Bomer’s next project might just help him do that. He’s currently producing a Steven Soderbergh film on Lawrence v. Texas, the case that overturned the sodomy laws in Texas in 2003 but started in the 90s.

There are many more stories to tell. And as our interview winds down, Bomer and Bailey start spitballing dream projects.

We talk about All of Us Strangers director Andrew Haigh, who’s revered for his portraits of gay intimacy. “Andrew Haigh has been a special filmmaker for years,” Bailey says. “I think [his film] Weekend informed actually how I approached the sex scenes in [Fellow Travelers].”

“I’d love to play Jessica Fletcher's queer grandson who moves back to Cabot Cove,” Bomer says, referencing Angela Lansbury’s iconic role in Murder, She Wrote. “He's inherited her house and he finds an old journal in her library, and it's a case she never saw and he takes up her mantle.”

And moments before the restaurant speakers suddenly start blaring George Michael’s “Freedom ’90,” Bailey comes in with a killer pitch: “I’m obsessed with the Sacred Band of Thebes, an army of 300 gay lovers in [ancient] Greece. They partnered in pairs, this gay army, and they overthrew a Spartan army… I want to do that as a comedy.”

“Oh hell yes!” Bomer says.

“Just get all the queer actors together,” Bailey says, laughing.

“Lee Pace, everyone,” Bomer says.

“Where would we film it?” Bailey asks.

“Mykonos?” Bomer suggests.

“Flaming Saddles, down the road,” Bailey counters with a chuckle, referring to a gay bar in midtown.

“Oil us up and let’s go!” Bomer says.

Source

[weirdestbooks]

Countryhumans Oneshots

The United States of Idiots: [Non-Canon]

50 Times the States Did Something Super Dumb and Funny. And America's Reaction to His Kids Being Crackheads.

Sleepy Twin:

Delaware is tired and decides to take a nap on his twin New York.

Coffee:

In America’s household, there is one rule. Don’t touch the Coffee Trio’s coffee.

Bonding:

Delaware tries to bond with one of the newest territories, Hawaii.

Bonus Scene From Chapter 5 of Secrecy and Deception:

"A British man talking about how the Declaration of Independence was important and great. He almost laughed but was not able to hold back giggles. Dad also looked incredibly amused by that. Britain would probably be getting a call from Dad laughing about this." -Missouri, Secrecy and Deception

Americanized:

Oklahoma used to be the Indian Territory. Now, he's an American State that wants nothing to do with them. What happened to cause this? Based on @walkingtalkingcountries' headcanons!

Languages:

America is very tired and forgets English.

A Reckoning With Oneself:

Ireland is a very catholic nation and over a thousand years old. Therefore, being queer and accepting queerness is hard for him.

The Living Ghost of a Long Dead Brother:

Sweden meets her long-dead half-brother.

Sammy and Sammy Junior:

Polynesia is a very close family. They visit each other and hang out often. It's a shame when one of those meetings goes a bit sour due to an accident.

America and the Struggles of Having a Human Face:

America has body dysmorphia. It's not something he's handled well.

The Frozen State: [Non-Canon]

Lake Superior. Beautiful, but deadly. Michigan learned that the hard way.

Camping is Deadly:

Florida is a great brother and friend. He's just not the best person to go camping with.

Dog Therapy:

Alaska gives his nephew therapy with the help of his dogs.

Concerned Family:

New Zealand was abused. He doesn’t think so. His family is concerned.

Arson:

California likes fire. They also hate their brother.

Human Perceptions:

Sometimes New Jersey just wants to pretend to be human. That does make things awkward when his human friends start talking about his family though.

A Dead Man's Flag:

Delaware was the reincarnation of the son of Forest Finns. Due to his reincarnation-caused amnesia, he has very limited memories of the man he calls isä. But a gift from his uncle might spark a new memory to return. More importantly, he had a physical trace of his father.

Fuck Tourists:

Hawaii hates tourists. America gets her a shirt.

Fear:

Illinois is haunted by the threats of the mob, not that his roommate is aware. That won’t stop Michigan from comforting him as the nightmares awaken him again and again.

United States of Ameridad: [Non-Canon]

America is a dad, and he loves helping and caring for each and every one of his kids.

Hawaii and the Celtic Nations:

Hawaii visits the Celtic Nations, oblivious to their family ties.

The Sign:

Germany has a funny sign. So does his father.

Finland's Wings:

Finland gets a new flag. In doing so, he also gets a pair of wings.

The Thoughts of an Empire:

Russian Empire was an awful person. He didn’t think of his son as a son. Just as a tool.

Southern Neighbors:

Texas has a problem

impermanently:

An angry man shoots and kills New York. It’s the first time a state dies.

The Burn Recovery:

Alaska is hurt badly. Luckily, he always has his dad to help him.

Nieuw York:

New Netherlands was murdered a long time ago. It’s really unfortunate who found her body.

The Parental Sibling:

Delaware is sick. Luckily he has a big brother/father figure who can look after him

What's the Worst Way to Punish an Introvert?:

Sometimes child abuse isn't as apparent as it seemed. Take this case of Finland and the Russian Empire.

America and his Cat:

Just a little America drabble.

Tulips: [Non-canon]

Canada is picking up his boyfriend from the airport so they can spend a week together. (Not canon to my countryhumans universe, this is a requested oneshot)

The Fire Pokémon Club:

Five countries have the ability to create fire. So why not make a club?

India Gets Revenge:

India does not like the curry that exists in England. She really shouldn't.

The Fires of Hatred and Passion Are Much the Same:

France and Britain are somewhat enemies. However as time goes on, they become fonder and fonder of each other.

An Old Friendship:

Morocco was the first country to recognize America's independence. The two countries have been firm friends ever since.

The Outlier of Oceania:

Madagascar is not Polynesian, but her sister, French Polynesia, seems determined to drag her to Polynesian family reunions anyway.

The Boston Christmas Tree:

On the hundredth anniversary of the Halifax Explosion, Massachusetts and Nova Scotia meet again in Boston.

ASEAN Nonsense:

A typical ASEAN meeting can be very exhausting for it's namesake.

The Funky Gender of the Northern Carolina:

North Carolina has a strange relationship with her gender.

The Place of Origin:

North Carolina is the home of her father's birthplace. They talk about that.

Alba agus A Mac:

Scotland adores his son, the personification of the Orcadians.

York and Jay:

New York and New Jersey have a sibling rivalry. Sometimes, it feels too real for New Jersey.

Meeting Mississippi:

The time has come for the US states to meet their newest sister, Mississippi.

When the Father Had Power [Non-Canon]:

When America goes back in time, he confronts the man who raised him.

The Dragon's (Grand)Son:

A talk with Wales ends up with Britain gaining dragon traits. They learn to adjust.

A Drowned Out Voice:

The District of Columbia had always been different from her siblings. That difference always made her feel so alone.

Sammy's Crush:

American Samoa has been crushing on Fauna for months. Will he finally have the courage to ask them out?

Panic Attacks and Drunkenness

United States has trauma from the 1814 Burning of Washington. It's a shame that trauma is so easily triggered.

An Older Sister

Virginia didn't expect to become an older sister again. That didn't mean she wasn't excited about it.

The Night Sky

San Marino had always loved looking up at the stars. So when they began to fade away, he panicked.

Autonomous Menaces

Northern Ireland hates getting dragged into the UK's nonsense. Unfortunately for her, Wales and Scotland are intent on dragging her in anyway.

Estranged Son

Britain and America have a very estranged relationship. That doesn't mean they can't be close.

Past Accents

South Carolina and Australia have a strange history with each other's accents

Estranged Brothers

North Korea and South Korea never got along much. But they still loved each other anyway.

Christians Thing [non-canon]

A gift for a friend

Familial

Cornwall makes her relative a gift while thinking about his nature.

The Deepest Betrayal

Hawaiʻi has something to say to the United States. He's happy to hear that she is adjusting to life as an American territory, before he realizes something is off about his drink.

What Empires Can Lose

Britain and France are both old empires that have seen and lost a lot. That can be hard to deal with.

This Beast Has Grown Horns

The day Idaho learned she was growing antlers was the worst day of her life. It was the day she was marked as abnormal and strange. She hated every minute of it.

Three Parents

America knew he hadn't always been there for his children. So he shouldn't have been surprised to learn that Massachusetts and Virginia had parented them for him.