#era. — unlikelihood.

[boyfhee]

hehe, i know and thanks for the jay fic, in enjoyed reading it ^^ well thanks for the blassing but am still not ready :] and ill tell her to do well in her boards (from you who said it)

pcm is no fun, there is no reproduction to laugh at :/ i have fear of them and that was the only, only reason for me to not choose pcb... my mom wanted me to become a gynaecologist :( sadly, it wont be true... yeaa apothorax, i font know but yea medicine is still a lot to take it.

i just watched random fs programme and only hanyu was the one i knew, i didnt go in deep but yes, i still love fs... and for the coding languages, once again thanks ^^ atleast you mentioned what to learn bevause i dont know where to start :0

anyways, my fav album is border : day one and my fav track is all time flicker and let me in. my fav bsides would be chaconne, bills, upper side dreamin, prdx, mixed up and title track would be sweet venom, tamed-dashed and drunk-dazed :)

if you have an instagram account or ny other apps talk, i would love to know it and know you more ++ the fact that you are chiyuv (my fav writer back in 22' :0 i am in tears. i never went through your old mlist until today, so nostalgia hit me hard... your how to get back with ur ex + fair and square + unlikelihood are my favssss 😭😭😭😭😭 ill trade my spy x family manga for them to reread if they were to disappear some day 🥲

i stopped using tumblr in late 2022 and started using it now + stopped writing way back in early 2021 because my mom got to know my writing acc for enha on ig 😭😭) i wanna talk more about everything with you but tumblr feels like we are in a long distance relationship, where we get our letters once in a blue moon 🥲

— lover club anon <33

sweets, i'm telling you reproduction is only fun when you're studying penis and vagina but not the mechanism TT i was going thru hell in embryology lectures 🙏 also, it's neet's fav chapter i'm lowkey bored of it. we studied it sm times that there was an ongoing joke in our class that next lecture will be based on practical and visual learning 😭 also a gynaec :O that's cool ! i'm aiming for cardio-thoracic / neurosurgery, although more inclined towards the former ( imagine five years later i'm a doctor while still crying over jay )

one of my friends was a huge fs fanatic so she made me get into it and it's fun, honestly :> and you don't have to worry about coding yet ! once classes start, i think you'll get a good idea of where to start from. although, html is usually the basic ( in my case, it was? we learnt it before anything ) and then css cause that's a bit more advanced. we took html css and python together, but javascript was only for pcm + cs students. i hope you have fun learning how to code ^^

FLICKER IS SO GOOD TT i remember looping it for hours while writing my lab manuals lmfao. and upperside dreaming too it has such a nice melody :O i'm gna be honest i didn't like prdx at first but then it grew up on me and now it's one of my fav tracks :D chaconne 🙏 no one knows her like me. when the tl was ranking it last on the basis of highlight medley i had faith in it because anything titled chaconne can't go wrong i have proof to back this up ( it's so serious for me can u believe this ) me and a close moot had out daily chaconne stream sessions lmfao

drunk-dazed aged like wine because it sounds like the first time every time i listen to it :] my favs are bite me, sweet venom, blessed-cursed, ptm, i know if only you say yes will be on the list too the moment it's released because that melody and humming is stuck in my head ><

AND TRADING SPY X FAMILY IS CRAZY ??? pls i didn't expect you to be here for so long but i'm glad you remember chiyuv .. what an era 0_0 my instagram is beusoir if you want to follow and discord is znghao. i would love to talk more, just hmu on insta or disc ^^

[taylorswiftstylequestions]

do you actually think taylor would bring back nyc pap walks for 1989 tv

I mean she briefly did ahead of the reputation tour New Jersey dates so she still knows they're a valuable promotional tool - their contextualization as it relates to her body and insecurities as revealed in Miss Americana notwithstanding.

That said, I do think if SN (TV) is next and if she plays it cooler and somewhat more low-key that there's opportunity for a ramp up after that quiet period to RED (TV)-level of increased promo for 1989 (TV).

I say that because while RED (TV) definitely had more promo than she's engaged in in years, it is also nowhere near the level of her original era runs. So I think recalibrating 1989 (TV) to this new level of promo that she's comfortable with to this 2021/2 standard seems feasible.

And while I would of course love a candid moment - and it would indeed bring back all the feels from 1989 (2014) - I understand and respect why she isn't prioritizing that as a strategy of late and thus its overall unlikelihood of happening. But one can dream!

[blainehasapen]

Link was born in the far away kingdom of Hyrule and was born the son of the King's personal guard, and was named after the heroes of legend who wielded the blade of evil's bane, either in their honor, or in hopes that the child would be the hero of this era. He grew up in Hateno Village, a humble town with his sister and grandfather, and lived a mostly normal life, if not skilled with a sword as to live up to his heritage. The boy had a lot of energy and loved exploring places no one else would go. One day, the boy heard of a rumor that a certain fortune teller prophesized the return of an ancestral evil, the Demon King, Gannon, he would venture into the Lost Woods, a maze of trees very few would ever find whatever was at the end alive, and even fewer would return to tell the tales. By some miracle, be it the writings of fate, extreme thought into the situation, or simply good fortune, the 12 year old would make it through the woods and make it to Korok Forest, the home of the Korok race, a race of wood spirits, the Great Deku Tree, guardian deity of the Koroks, and one very, VERY important element that would change his fate forever. The hero's blade, the sword that seals the darkness, the weapon forged by Goddess Hylia and her six sages, this sword had many names. The first ever hero, however, dubbed her the Master Sword. Link would approach this sword to try and pull it out, knowing that only he who bears the soul of the ever reincarnating hero could hold the blade and show it's true shine, most heroes even had to at least be 16 years of age to be powerful to hold the weapon. Against all unlikelihood, however, the 12 year old Link pulled the Master Sword in all it's glory. With his skill that dropped adults to the floor, speed that looked looked like he slowed the flow of time, and the sword that seals the darkness in his hands, the boy was praised as Hyrule's greatest warrior, and was assigned to be one of five champions assigned to fight Gannon's calamity when he returned. That would sound great to most, but the child would find himself with less energy in his face and showing less personality over time. In his mind, no one would ever see him as anything but Hyrule's hero, so if he were happy, no one would care, or if he were scared, everyone in the kingdom would lose hope. This mentality grew to the point where he would stop outwardly expressing his emotions and would rarely speak, if at all. When he was 17, Link was assigned to be the bodyguard for the King's daughter, Princess Zelda. At first Zelda hated Link, as the daughters of the royal family are said to inherit the powers of Hylia herself. But Zelda was unable to awaken the divine light of the Goddess and was expected to use them to seal away Gannon once and for all, so she saw Link, who had lived up to every expectation Hyrule had for him and then some, as everything she wasn't. After Link saved her life from an assassination attempt, however, Zelda had erased her thoughts that the champion hated her, and the two would connect more. The bond between the two chosen to do battle with the calamity had become stronger and stronger, she was one of the few people in the world Link felt comfortable expressing himself in front of, while the princess started falling for the knight. On her seventeenth birthday, however, Gannon had returned and had corrupt all of Hyrule, killing all champions but Link and Zelda. The brave knight would defend the princess' life from the guardians, machines posessed by Gannon's calamity until he didn't have enough energy to lift the Master Sword anymore, and until the blade itself was rusted and brittle, and as one last guardian was about to end his life, Zelda awakened her powers and had destroyed the dark machines with her holy light. It was, however, to late for Link to stay in this world, so Zelda brought him to a shrine that supposedly could resurect those near to death, returned the Master Sword to Korok forest in it's pedestal to repair itself, and went to Hyrule Castle to fight Gannon herself. A battle that would make the demon king lose most control over Hyrule, but he would still grow in power while Zelda would weaken. A battle that would last until the Sword, and Link were repaired and alive again. A battle that would rage on for one century. When Link had awakened from his long slumber, he had lost his memory and fighting skill, but also his mentality of keeping to yourself. He would travel Hyrule in search of who he was, but as he remembered more and more of who he was, Zelda, and all his friends and family from his past life, his goal would change to defeat Calamity Gannon. He would remaster the blade, put the spirits of the champions to rest, find successors to said champions, and reclaim the Master Sword, all in an attempt to save Zelda. The princess and her resurected knight used every tool, skill, and ability in their disposal to finally seal away the great calamity, and Link and Zelda could now meet once more after 100 years, and the knight was dubbed, "Hero of the Wild". The century old survivors would work to rebuild Hyrule, but one last remnant of calamity had survived and built itself stronger and stronger, and instead of fighting the hero, would destroy the world's foundation. Hyrule began to crumble, and could not last for much longer, so, using the last bit of her power, Zelda sent Link and whatever lives of Hyrule's people were left to another world to live there lives in a world that would live on, as Hyrule's last princess, dropped to the decaying ground, dead. Link would swear that he would find a way to restore Hyrule, no matter how many years it would take. The world Link was sent to was Nirn, a world not to different from Hyrule's Earth, but certainly many unique races, magic, and lore. He would here rumors of powerful relics called Elder Scrolls, which may have the power to bring Link back in time to destroy that last piece of Gannon's essence before the destruction of Hyrule. After 20 years of searching, an Imperial soldier would try to use his rank to "Overpower" a child on Skyrim's border, so Link killed him. The group of soldiers he was with saw the aftermath out of context and arrested Link, who fought off a good many of them before getting caught and sent to the chopping block. As we all know, however, that would only be the beginning of a new adventure for the last Hero of Hyrule. As you can tell, I'm making full use of the Zelda gear in Skyrim on switch. Also sorry I haven't been drawing as much because my drawing monitor broke. Also I'd like feedback on if you'd like to see more art like this.

[queenvernage]

the most iconic episode of each power rangers season: disney era edition

in honor of “it’s friday, i have no life and i’ve gotta put my endless power rangers knowledge to use somehow or i may implode”... i’m proud to present this listicle no one asked for. (see part 1: saban era here)

disclaimer: these are not necessarily “the best” or “my favorite” episodes of each season, merely the episode which i feel best captures the tone (erring on the lighter side) of each season. this more like “if you’re gonna watch just one episode of each season, i recommend...” episodes. i’ve excluded crossovers and specials from this list because who’s gonna say that ANYTHING is more iconic than “once a ranger” making fun of the unlikelihood of tommy having a phd? certainly not me, and that’s just not fair to the rest of a pretty iconic season. okay. on with the list.

ninja storm: "i love lothor" marah and kapri convince lothor to make a tv show to conquer earth because "it worked for britney and christina." cam and tori take a cooking class because they are good friends, the rest of the ranger boys take the same class because they like cute girls (can relate). blake and cam accidentally fall under a love spell with tori, while the girls in the cooking class (including kelly) all fall for a very leave it to beaver version of lothor. cam insists the way to a girls' heart is acne face wash.

dino thunder: "isn't it lava-ly" cassidy CANNOT function without devin who is suddenly mysteriously busy. ethan is the lovable insufferable know-it-all we all love and appreciate as he prepares to enter the "detonation man" video game tournament. he makes himself a t-shirt that says "i am detonation man" but ends up losing to devin who is secretly a detonation man whiz. trent gets sidelined for the nth time because the footage simply isn't there. the megazord hangs ten. (god i wanted to pick "lost in translation" so bad, but it's not representative, it's just good)

spd: "boom" ranger tech boom, an adult man who should know better, lied to his parents and told them he was the spd orange ranger (who simply doesn't exist) and when his parents come to town, some of the rangers bend over backwards to help him perpetuate the lie, while jack and sky have bonding adventures in space. boom's parents learn the truth, and love him just the same, because this is wholesome content, OKAY?

mystic force: "inner strength" xander cannot fathom that he isn't the best ranger or that he has anything to learn from daggeron who is literally only there to teach the rangers things. he puts both feet ENTIRELY in his mouth. the rangers take the hogwarts express, edging toby ever closer to the inevitable therapy he most certainly needs after being their work supervisor. a giant does not eat the rangers, but thinks about it. if you ever wondered what i mean by "mystic force is just harry potter meets xena with spandex" ...this is what i mean.

operation overdrive: "it's hammer time" the rangers meet actual norse god loki, disguised as actual norse god thor (who are actually norse gods, who actually exist in this universe, i cannot stress this enough) in mexico while searching for mjolnir. nascar legend ronnie robinson is mistaken for actual norse goddess freyja, and spencer disguises himself as ronny disguising herself as freya to seduce loki and it works.

jungle fury: "true friends, true spirits" rj accidentally befriends flit, camille pretends she doesn't absolutely love and care about the little bugger. lily calls flit "cute" and theo nearly pulls an optical muscle with how hard he rolls his eyes because he's that predictable. flit tries to be helpful but isn’t (he is, however, incredibly lovable). rj loses control over the fact that he's an ACTUAL werewolf, but figures it out after fighting himself. slapstick humor ensues as the rangers try to catch a fly.

rpm: "heroes among us" gem gets a gold medal, scott gets jealous, dillon gets vivid flashbacks. honestly though, we get truman family focus AND the boom twins being their cutest selves? AND gem learning the power of friendship after flying his chicken into the apocalyptic waste to save one reckless red? classic. (and we get some good citizens of corinth content which is a+)

more iconic episodes by era: saban era | neo-saban era

[robotnik-mun]

Nic literally has no reason to exist beyond Penders apparently thinking "knick knack" was a clever joke. I was actually thinking late Flynn era had a similar thing, "criminal siblings" with a terrible joke name (razorblade, so edgy) but those ones at least had personality, and weren't rule 63 of each other. Even in her first appearance, why couldn't Fiona have had more to her instead of Nic starting the arc? She's just so pointless.

A lot of the relatives Penders’ concocts tend to be pointless or at the very least redundant, largely because he doesn’t bother to flesh them out 90% of the time. Nic seems to be particular egregious example given that.... well, it’s kinda hard to not see her given that her design pretty much IS a gender reversed version of her sibling, right down to having the same fang and hat. Nor is she even allowed the dignity to really excel when set up alongside her brother. 

That said, while her intended point never going to be anything spectacular... I still rather like her, despite everything wrong with her and the motives in making her. Part of the fun of this series is what you can get from what you’re offered, and I do think that Nic does have a few key differences to Nack. They’re just not very evident due to the sheer level of suck involved in Penders’ writing, and the unlikelihood that he ever intended any of it.

That said, @theamazingsallyhogan has a pretty good write-up of what those differences might be here. I enjoy salvaging characters who seem to have nothing really going for them, along with putting in more effort than their makers could have bothered with (especially Penders). 

So yeah, she is pretty ‘pointless’. Under a certain criteria though a lot of the extended cast in general is pointless in the Sonic franchise, so I don’t really think that’s as much of a strike against Nic as you’d think. 

At least that’s how I see it. 

[smitten-miqitten]

Cid and Era with their twins Nora and Felix. Nora is slightly older than Felix, and is named after Era’s dear friend Noraxia. Felix’s name is Ilsabardian, and implies good luck. Considering that he is a mixed race male Mi'qote twin, a slew of unlikelihoods, Cid thought the name was appropriate. Nora is the more energetic twin, and takes after Cid. Felix is quieter and more reserved, and takes after Era.

As mixed children, while not really noticeable when young, their ears and tails are significantly shorter than normal. They are taller than an average Mi'qote, but not by much considering how short Cid is for a Garlean. Their aether control is sub-par, but they are extremely clever. Felix possesses the Echo, but Nora does not.

Era was not sure that she would ever be able to have children, seeing as the Warrior of Light has to be battle ready at basically all times, but when Cid realized she wanted kids, he saw to it that the other Scions were able pick up the slack. He wouldn’t make them weapons, but armor would serve them better anyway.

‘Uncle’ Nero prefers Nora, as one day when he tried to teach them how to make the boilmaster spit fire rather than boil, Nora watched in awe while Felix went to tattle. Nero was unceremoniously kicked out of the workshop by a livid Cid. Felix was henceforth regarded as a dirty snitch.

[amaised44]

“And given the political turmoil of recent years and the unlikelihood that it will soon abate, escaping into California’s Sierra Nevada or Wyoming’s Wind River Range—sans cell-phone service, news updates, and the like—can sometimes feel like shirking the responsibility of democracy. I have friends who went sober (and stayed that way) during the Trump era so they could pay attention, be present; I, on the other hand, often disappeared into the woods, an ostrich wandering among the trees.”

-Grayson Haver Currin

https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/hiking-and-backpacking/ode-to-day-hikes/

[nickgerlich]

Jean Genie

I have been wearing jeans for as long as I can remember. They are a staple item in the American wardrobe, and have been ever since 1873 when they were first created by Levi Strauss. While they were originally developed for laborers, once we hit the middle of the 20th century, they started filtering into leisure wear, and sometimes even somewhat dressy occasions by late in the century.

Unfortunately, the denim craze was pretty much the domain of males until someone at Levi’s figured out in 1934 that, rather than telling women to just wear guys’ jeans, we’re built differently. Once women had their own jeans, it took off for them as well. Today, men and women alike wear them to church, and sometimes--if we’re lucky--even to the office. We shed the day laborer stigma of denim long ago.

And now Levi’s--inflation notwithstanding--just reported banner 1Q earnings and revenues as consumers turned a blind eye to price increases. But it’s not like those customers are rushing to stores to buy new jeans. No, an increasing amount of sales is happening on the Levi’s customer-direct website. Cut out the middleman, and say hello to profitability.

It has always been a risky proposition for a manufacturer to compete with its own distributors. In order to maintain some degree of civility, manufacturers doing so must sell their wares at the full MSRP, lest those downstream distributors feel even more threatened.

But then that ensure the manufacturer is getting the full profit margin, not just the smaller cut they would get by selling through a retailer. In fact, it may even be true that customers could get lower prices from retailers, but instead they opt to buy directly from the manufacturer at full price.

There are many possible benefits of consumers dealing directly. Among them are the ability to interact with the brand, avoid the uncertainty of buying a knock-off, having access to the full collection, and the unlikelihood of a stockout in any color, size, or style. Retailers seldom ever stock every item a manufacturer offers, so consumer choice is necessarily more limited in a BAM or even online store hosted by a distributor.

But once again, convenience is king in the digital era. It’s hard to beat shopping from home and having access to the complete collection.

Selling direct is also beneficial for the firm, and perhaps the biggest of those benefits is in building a database of customers. Rather than relying on retailers to handle this function, the manufacturer can curate relationships on a far more personal level. Retailers, we must recall, sell the products of many manufacturers, not just one. They are concerned first and foremost with store loyalty, not brand loyalty. But when the manufacturer handles this function, they can work to build and maintain their own loyalties among consumers.

I suspect we will see more of this in the years ahead. Sony, a company well known for rigid price maintenance up and down its channel, also offers customer-direct purchasing options. I know that by buying from them, returns and repairs are going to be easier than going through third-party vendors. And as much as I might like to shop online at Amazon, or perhaps even at an old-school camera store like my fave Colonial Photo & Hobby in Orlando, I know that there are some untouchable benefits to me from buying straight from Sony.

Oops. I may have just left a gigantic little Easter egg there for my students. I guess I’ll see who’s reading and listening.

But back to Levi’s. Their recent financial report signals yet another change in buying habits. It’s not just that we’re buying online. It’s that we are leaning heavily into buying directly from our favorite brands. It’s going to make things exceedingly difficult for retailers, because they are indeed now competing with their suppliers, even if their supplier is not duking it out on price.

Put that on and wear it for a day. One leg at a time. Because once again, we might be on the cusp of yet another revolution.

Dr “Relaxed Fit“ Gerlich

Audio Blog

[queenmarytudor]

Although Mary spent considerable amounts of time away from court, she is also known to have spent more time with her parents than most children of aristocratic or royal birth in the era. Part of this is due to the statistical unlikelihood of her survival given the difficulties of Henry and Catherine in their pursuit of having children, but part of it also had to do with Henry’s knowledge that she needed to be groomed to rule. Along with this plan to prepare Mary for leadership, it was a common humanist belief among the sixteenth-century aristocracy that parents should be more closely involved in the upbringing of their children than they had been in previous eras. In fact, Henry’s own interest and involvement in Mary’s youth also was more common than that of most aristocratic fathers of his era with their young children. He and Catherine agreed with the humanist notion, and the queen enlisted the aid of scholar and humanist Juan Luis Vives from Aragon in 1523 to aid in Mary’s education. This maternal involvement in Mary’s academic and religious education, however, was less common with children even among the aristocracy at the time, and was not more regularly seen until after the onset of the English Reformation and closer to the end of the sixteenth century.

Stoking the Fires: The Relationship between Mary Tudor and Eustace Chapuys 1529 - 1545, by Derek Michael Taylor, 2016, page 24

[wilma-flintstones-mother]

In Memorium of ALL that was lost 17 years ago and Also Intentionally Slotted Here This Evening Most Thoughtfully to Act as Motivational Fuel for the Fires that will Rage from Within the Very Core of the hearts and minds and conscience of the soon-to-be in Revolt citizenry of these United States of America in one Final, bloody, intense and all too necessary Shoot-em-up Stand-Off to the death against the Evil Spectres of World Domination and specifically to thwart and completely overpower them before they are able to initiate the communications, media, finances, military, government shutdown and beginning of an unspeakably brutal, inhumane, uber-violent and nightmarish new era of civil war, revolution, mass execution, starvation and instantaneously unleash mass catastrophic casualties not only to the populace but also to the environment, the animal kingdom in it’s entirety, the planned destruction of entire continents through previously un-imagined and practically instantaneous destruction of the planet’s protective ozone layer, resulting in the immediate genocide of all of Earth’s indigenous carbon-based life, it’s plentiful flora, wide variety of fauna and also contaminate what hadn’t already evaporated upon impact the small remaining amounts of precious life-sustaining water, through their perfected secret mastery of previously undiscovered directed energy weaponry that is some form of combined nuclear energy, microwave technology, anti-gravitational frequencies, pure dark anti-matter (!!!seriously!!!NO SHIT!!!), weather, climate and tectonic plate manipulated modification turned up to astronomically dangerous, unstable and very likely mass extinction level event status catastrophic disasters and result in essentially prematurely creating and ejaculating another end of the world as we know it holocaust to end all previous civilizations falls and final death knells (but this time, intentionally caused by the control-freakish political, financial, industrial and military combined governing lords over mankind itself) all inclusive planetary die-off and single, solitary jumping off and into the bottomless abyss, resulting in a.) spill over into the pan-dimensional multiverse (which WAS previously thought to have been theoretically an absolute impossibility!) into the ninth, tenth and twelfth dimensions, respectively, but simultaneously also extinguishing out every last vestige of life-force on the planet in less than a tenth of a second and managed to obliterate each and every one of us from a dimension of sight, sound and mind directly into a (imminently far, far greater than simply a mere) other dimensional plane, consisting of layer upon layer upon layer (infinitude) of vehemently dangerous couplings of essentially MATTER  and  ANTI-MATTER  coming in and back out of direct contact with one another, frequently, shockingly silently co-mingling into and between and surrounding and even bridging and exchanging protons and atoms and black matter as well as sub-atomic particles and potentially even communications, emotions, entanglements, relationships, births, deaths, momentary sharing and exchanging  one another’s very fundamental opposite identities and dimensional realities and physics, with the identifying forces of one’s positive matter actually momentarily embracing and becoming the other’s negative anti-matter in a unproven but most undeniably sexual and familiarly interpersonal most extremely noticeably peculiar and identifiable fashion of cosmic similitude and the commonly shared consciousness of which we all are, have been or one day will be a consciously living, breathing and existing extension of and only temporarily branched out from, as we and every other pattern of energy and cosmic memory perpetually re-emerge from as brand new energy patterns of a dangerously unstable and eventually formidably destructive and destroying on all levels of all layers of all dimensions and each and every one of the millions of universes, galaxies, solar systems, planets, continents, countries, cities, neighborhoods, square blocks, autonomous buildings and personal dwellings, individual living spaces with identifying names defining what activity or necessity of everyday life is executed within each specified room and it’s functional purpose, personal effects, family heirlooms, furniture, keepsakes, entertainments, elemental nourishment preparatory appliances and implements,unique individual life forms laying in bed, tossing and turning back and forth, unable to achieve sound sleep, the myriad cacophony of inner voices, fleeting thoughts, obsessions, scheduling of things to accomplish the following day, what they were going to wear, weather or not so-and-so was interested in dating them, worrying that their car might break down again and having to shell out another $500 out of their laughably inconsequential savings account, the linear dream state of human beings, as it continues to develop and move forward and shift from reality to reality and from moment to moment, never actually ceasing in it’s eternal clockworks, weather the unconscious host dreamer is currently wide awake and existing, thinking, acting and forgetting all about what they had experienced within it’s hyper-reality surrealism and meditative, curative phantasmagoria just a few hours previously when they were still fully immersed in it’s calm and collected, REM-activated trappings and grasp, and even then, the dream they had suddenly woken up from unexpectedly as their alarm clock went off at 8:30 am sharp and they ever so slowly, lackadaisically began to forget all about the wild, memourable, erotic, funny, exciting, evocative dream they had been enjoying just prior to waking up, in which they even got to hang out and experience many different kinds of abstractly disjointed variations and totally irrational and illogical combinations of being in their parent’s house/but also at Disneyland/which was also a Bob’s Big Boy Restaurant/and the hospital corridors you would endless walk through at a time when your grandmother was a patient and died there/which was also your place of employment (probably several jobs ago, the one you really liked but that you really did self-sabotage your being  able to remain at) / which also had a little hidden rumpus room on the other side of the wall from your high school cafeteria, where you and another kid you had a crush on disappeared into so you could smoke a bowl together and then engage in sloppy, failed attempt at performing oral sex upon/which also had a really cool roller coaster right outside the main entrance that you could ride for free/ that would also just so happen to make a stop halfway through just outside of your very own bedroom door/ just as you hear the voice of your little brother who died when he was 10 calling your name as if he were lost somewhere and couldn’t find his way/but that’s stupid, because I KNOW and I REMEMBER that HE DIED YEARS AGO, but I’m glad he’s home and I wonder if he’ll want to go see STAR WARS with me and Jill and Kessie later on tonight at the Rialto in South Pas, that is, if I we can find each other... I hope he doesn’t get too scared/so just as you open your bedroom door and are about to walk in/suddenly you are startled by an annoying loud buzz which you can’t comprehend at first but then you/suddenly open up your sleepy eyes and it’s your alarm clock right on buzz-killing schedule as always, and your bedroom ceiling is awash in vibrant hues of yellowish-orange morning sunlight and all of that provocative zaniness was all just a dream...as always....except you never realize it fully until you have wake up and have emerged out of it’s hypnotic and compelling desire-answering and mood-fulfilling magick theatre-isms, it’s so obvious now that that was all only a dream, even though I remember dreaming that I knew it was all just a dream, even though it always more-than suffices as an even-better alternative to waking life and this reality in lieu of living in it... and those faceless character-actor-ish phantasms who you were never privy to the common knowledge of realizing or even imagining that those people and those images of people you know and knew in real waking life actually do just continue on about within the reality and time frame and space and time curvature of which their usually entertaining, carefree, monstrous hybrid of all things, real, imaginary, past, present and future, entertainment fiction real life trauma as experienced from the top hill of a b&w animated roller coaster originally drawn way back in the late 1920′s just as it begins to spill over the rather substantial incline just as the maximum momentum and locomotion has achieved it’s hand-drawn cell-animated maximum velocity, you notice the entire back half of the train of cars is literally lifting feet above the noisy pencil-drawn wooden tracks they’re allegedly connected to, a few of the people in the last two cars even fly out of their seats at the top of the hill, safely settling back into their chosen seats on the coaster by the time it reaches the bottom of the first hill.... the Fleischer Brothers ain’t got nothin’ on the power and limitless freedom of movement, imagination, unlikelihood, a human animals natural-born connected-ness with the psychic and telekinetic energies, patterns and the Earthen natural resources of magnetism and magnitude, unyielding and unrecoverable decimation, the violently opposing layers and volumes and channels and dimensions and and conflicting reams of liquid space, psychic vibratory beings consisting of nothing but pure energy, shadow and darkness ; abject, complete and unimaginable total non-existence, sequencing which would begin the intention of their callously chickenshit and much, much too prematurely arriving at that moment to end all other moments throughout the nights of time, as they safely secure themselves and their self-importance and their loved ones, pets, favourite records, movies and books, computers and internet connectivity, porn, King James versions of the Bible, all of their very  favourite processed, GMO and cloned foodstuffs, wellspring library of alcohols, sodas, sundry recreational drugs, nibbles, snacks, more cases of bottled water than anyone has ever seen in reality EVER and aperitifs... But they also DIDN’T forget to bring along all of their unnecessary baggage and dirty laundry and bad, bad, bad, bad, and I’m talking... fucking detestable, shameful-ass as-a-mother-fucker bad-bad-ass karma (that is so sullied and so soiled and so unrecognizable as still actually being legally able to be referred to tastefully and realistically as `karma’) Oh, as well as their wealth of compassionate and trustworthy and still gainfully much, much better, handsomer and more worthy, deserving and overall just plain better than you, and all of the expected limited intelligence and tunnel vision perceptions, ever having been able to just kick the fuck back worry-free and enjoy life, goddammit, being born into old, white, American money and profitably living his life day to day, year to year, lost decade to shitty new world-ordered decade, far too privileged for far too long and all the while having succeeded in incontestably lying, deceiving, murdering, littering, poisoning, manipulating, cheating, raping, pillaging, warring, creating unnecessary tensions and divisions out of friends and neighbours, guilty by treason for a lifetime consisting of literally absolute and complete incompetency, crimes against humanity coupled with a competently inhumane disregard for any and all creatures and beings and families and communities, ever able to not just survive but perpetrate every last conceivable attribute of nihilism, misanthropy, xenophobia, sexism, conservative republicanism, needlessly controlling power freak and (just short of legally being able to qualify as tangibly having lived your life and carried out your position of power over all others) just two-steps short of having followed closely in the same footsteps as Hitler, Mussolini, the George W. Bush Dynasty and Justin Bieber himself... having acted upon on all of the very worst and lowest common denominational rhetoric, politics of never more than dirty fucking pool at it’s very lowest n-word notches and, now, safely watching the pandemonium and fiery, avalanche of unprecedented 9.4 earthquakes, tsunami that stay quite far inland wracking up even more unbelievable devastation for weeks at a time, volcanic overflows overtake the Hawaiian island which are now nothing but molten lava and bodies and beaches covered in sizzling, razor-sharp newly born land, otherwise, the rest of the whole of the planet’s surface remains awash in uncontrollable fiery flames that give any imaginings of Hell a sincere run for it’s money, all of the major continents, now broken up and in disarray and many no longer connected to any other large square mile footage of land any longer quickly become one endless, suffocating, inferno of unprecedented loss of resources, life, and destruction so thorough in it’s willful desire of finally claiming and bringing to a halt the previous relative peace, tranquility and beauty of all that had been and thrived there for so long, 200 mph winds signalling the arrival of onslaughts of level 5 hurricanes, tornadoes and the tallest, most ominous and terrifying sight of 300 foot tall rogue tidal waves approaching, one after the other after the other, wiping out any and all previous beach and harbour communities ;  scary, violent new chunks of Earth shooting up from far beneath the surface, destroying everything in it’s wake and ripping-to-shreds the very land masses underneath our feet which had been home to our beloved communities, estuaries, park lands, national monuments, farm lands. rivers, forests, family homesteads, hills and valleys ;  molten lava spewing forth robustly, shooting fiery liquid fumes into the air three miles up and then landing hundreds of miles away, volcanic rock, magma, tectonic plates, mountains, hills, valleys, grasslands, rain forests, beaches, deserts, all cities of the world finally united in one overwhelmingly epic fireball burning every last shelter, building and domicile unmercifully to the ground - As the still-believing-themselves-to-be ever-privileged, special, deserving and just higher-class one per-centers, who just minutes previously inherited the title of  and factually became THE REPRESENTATIVE ENTIRETY OF HUMAN BEINGS ALIVE ON THE PLANET EARTH (or more accurately, deep within the labyrinthine caves and tunnelled out miles and miles of underground civilized word, accommodations, diversionary things like big slides, swings, swimming pools and mineral springs, bowling alleys and skating rinks, exacting replicas of their favourite four star eateries of the previous civilized world, subterranean jungles, arboretums and gardens, a n amusement park with all of the most insane and exciting thrill rides and roller coasters anybody could ever wish for,  exacting duplicate versions (all stolen, of course) from Disneyland’s Matterhorn, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, Enchanted Tiki Room and Jungle Cruise rides (poetically, they DID have the taste and intuition to not consider also having their own water flume it’s a small world ride, too!  I mean... that was the VERY LEAST they could have NOT done!) Anyway, with them all together having drinks and a small, five-course light luncheon being served to them by their staff (they DID allow a hundred or so select few of the rest of us to survive the pandemic `natural’ wave of cataclysmic destruction that the Earth and it’s surface and it’s 99% of the rest of the civilized populace, as we knew it, had suffered) and they were all assembled in their single most comfortable, cushy, oversized and simply plush movie theatre/dinner theatre/five star restaurant/full bar and pharmaceutical store/hamburger stand/coffee house/art gallery/television stations and they all watched over CCTV which played out, mechanically filming and panning back and forth and then shifting to another CCTV location and the not-so-surprisingly total loss and unrecognizable current appearance of many previously magnificently beautiful famous and beloved locations of historical and personal significance, all of the destruction and decimation on the planets surface miles above them playing out unashamedly just as unapologetically as it had happened in the first place, for all of them to see with their own eyes the trivial, trifling, megalomaniac spoiled conservative republican, unnecessarily one-sided results of their well-planned escape and future subterranean survivalist underground civilization and continuation of the human animal (or, more accurately, of the most minutely small, inconsequential, minor, petty, self-obsessed and inbred of any and all possible cliques of individuals who might ever have possibly been the few select `lucky ones’ to have actually been the only living representatives of all human life on the planet, 99% of which had just recently been violently killed in one freakish manner due to one or another of the extinction level event cataclysmic disasters that had simultaneously murdered off the entire planet itself!  They sat in surprising silence as they interestingly took in all of the devastation they witnessed live on the very large 70mm cinerama dome-like vinyl motion picture screen and, for the very first time, I believe it may have actually been the single only time ever that a group of fascistic, right wing republican conservative born again Christians ever sat together in such an immense and comfortable entertainment center, and did not open their retarded mouths to say not one fucking snide little comment about all of those unlucky one’s above who had just perished...  I believe that even if it may just have been a trick of the light or something, that I may possibly have just witnessed a conservative republican shedding a tear or two over somebody who was neither himself, a member of his family and actually who had been one of those bleeding-heart liberal democrats who ruined our country so thoroughly and ran that shit right into the ground before we did the right thing and saw to it that they finally got WTF they deserved, those stupid fucking N-word  M*%%# F&@#%$......

[boyfhee]

🗗 UNLIKELIHOOD | prologue

❝ the unlikelihood of . . . ❞

PRECIS. the chances of you confessing to your crush sums to zero when you realise you have to pretend to have a crush on sunghoon, just to help your friend hide her feelings for the ice prince.

or, alternatively, in which you borrow an eraser from your friend, yi kyeong, which has sunghoon's name written on it ( or so you think ) so, when the mentioned boy sees it, you have no other choice but to lie that you have a crush on him to avoid disclosing your friend's secret.

GENRE. humour, fluff, angst if you squint hard enough, coming of age

WARNINGS. math + other warnings will be mentioned in their respective chapters

NOTE. i said i won't be writing but here we are. this is very very slightly inspired by kieta hatsukoi. this, in no way, is supposed to disrespect the manga plot in anyway. i'm aware that it's a bl manga + show, i respect that. i wanted to write something with the plot and i know i could've made this a bl fic but first, i'm simply not comfortable with romantic portrayals of idol x idol ships and second, i'm not experienced with writing x male reader fics and i don't want to get anything wrong. besides, nothing really is same except the eraser and name incident. on another note, the pronouns for reader used here are they / them to make this more inclusive so you can imagine it whichever way you wish. send an ask / comment to join the taglist. happy reading <3

“huh?”

you stare back in confusion. “what?” 

“that eraser,” sunghoon gulps, eyes fluctuating between you and the eraser in your hand, with visible panic evident on his face. “it had my name.” 

“no, it doesn’t.” that’s a lie. “you’re mistaken.” he’s not. 

no one wants to lie at nine in the morning, right before a practice test, especially to someone who you’ve never talked to in your whole life; unless people are crazy enough to lie pathologically as a passion. you, however, happen to do the same, in hopes he would believe you. 

but sunghoon is sure he saw his name on your eraser. not only his name, but a heart as well. ‘ psh ♡ ’ that’s what it said, and he’s certainly assured that it’s for him. 

“i’m not. i’m sure i saw my name,” at this point, none of you care about the practice test. he’s trying to prove his point while your mind is lost amongst the field of excuses, looking for the right one. 

“no, you didn’t. you’re mistaken!” gaslighting is definitely for the right excuse but, that’s the best you came up with, in seconds. the look on his face tells you that he isn’t buying your words. you slowly feel the situation grip out of your hand, every second burdening on your shoulders as you hope for sunghoon to give up and move on like nothing ever happened. 

“then, show me the eraser,” sunghoon demands, eyes fixed on you for a response. he trusts his instincts, he should, he isn’t lying. you don’t know him at all, but you know that if he wants something, he gets it, no matter that. “if i’m mistaken, then show it to me. i’ll check myself.”

and so he does, snatching the eraser from your fist as he looks at you with a knowing gaze. there’s amusement in his eyes, a glint of pink resting on his cheeks, but that’s from the winter cold.

“no way, yn, you like sunghoon?” that’s sunoo, and this shouldn’t be happening. you whip your head around, looking at him as he seizes the eraser from sunghoon’s grip, taking a better look at it. “who would’ve expected?” 

no one, exactly. you don’t even know sunghoon. he’s just a classmate, someone who’s popular in whole school but not in your eyes. you respect him for his grades and talent, but you’ve never paid him any attention. instead, your mind has always revolved around sunoo, forever looking at him in a room full of angels, to put it in better words. 

“listen, it’s not mine.” yeah, it’s better to not lie; not in front of sunoo. why is he here in the first place? sunoo sleeps through his days at school, no matter how important the classes are, and somehow still manages to score good marks. he’s a miracle, a work of art, epitome of intelligence and beauty, a true angel. your heart overflows with love for him. 

“who does it belong to?” sunghoon counters, and you don’t want to answer. honestly, you could do way better if sunoo left but like a curious cat, his eyes hover over you for a response. 

“it’s—” a pause. you can’t possibly disclose your friend’s feelings, that’d be unfair to her. and you, well, you have no option but to save yourself a good friendship. “mine.”  

you don’t look at sunghoon’s face. you simply don’t have the courage to do that. so, you get to the practice question paper lying on your desk, reading through algebraic equations while your brain is enmeshed between math, your friend, and the person you’re pretending to have a crush on; all in the presence of your actual crush. 

taglist in the rbs.

[goodqueenaly]

Do you think there's any reason why the name Aegon suddenly went from appearing in every generation of House Targaryen in the first half of its history to only being used 3 times in the second half?

The first non-Conqueror Aegon, Aenys’ eldest son, was explicitly named after his, Aenys’, father, which of course makes sense; as the dominating presence in Aenys’ life, Aegon might be expected to be the natural namesake of Aenys’ eldest boy (especially given that Aenys had already named his eldest daughter after his own mother). Jaehaerys I also used the name “Aegon” for his oldest (albeit short-lived) boy, though whether that was in testament to the magnificence of the Conqueror or in tribute to the brother who had been slain by Maegor (or both), who can say.

Interestingly, Prince Baelon then broke tradition in naming his third son “Aegon” (instead of his eldest). Why he decided this is unclear: perhaps he was deeply affected by eldest brother Aegon’s death, or perhaps he thought Aemon, Prince of Dragonstone would use “Aegon” for his eldest son, and did not wish to create a rivalry between the eldest sons of two Targaryen princes (and then, perhaps, felt that Aemon’s unlikelihood of ever having a son to succeed him meant that he, Baelon, was free and clear to seize that symbolic legacy for his own line). However, his sons, Viserys and Daemon each chose “Aegon” as the name of their own eldest (living) trueborn sons. Both were the choices of their wives, though, with Alicent hoping to underline her descendants’ right to rule and Rhaenyra hoping to undermine Alicent’s line.

Now, this is where the name “Aegon” first disappears. The future Aegon II did not name either of his sons “Aegon”, but instead went with “Jaehaerys” and “Maelor”. I don’t know where “Maelor” came from (honestly, it seems far too close to “Maegor” to be a wise choice for a Targaryen prince, though the Doylist in me says GRRM simply wanted something “Targaryen-sounding” and knew it didn’t matter much, since little Maelor would not live long), although it’s my belief that Alicent insisted Aegon’s heir be named “Jaehaerys”. I think Alicent wanted to suggest a continuity of succession for her son and his line: the great Jaehaerys the Wise, his lawful heir Viserys (as designated by the Great Council), and then his lawful heir Aegon. Naming Aegon’s heir Jaehaerys would be a reminder of that Aegon II ruled by right of that line, and that the male-only succession agreed upon by the Conciliator would be maintained.

Aegon III also did not name either of his sons “Aegon”. The Dragonbane, morose and withdrawn, probably did not have too much emotional investment in the names of his sons. My guess is that Daeron was named by his mother after his maternal grandfather, Daeron Velaryon, with perhaps a secondary thought of reclaiming the name “Daeron” for the main ruling line (after the trouble of the multiple false Daerons). As for Baelor … eh. Maybe the prince was named after Baelon the Brave, a presumably admirable figure who could be an appropriate namesake (while skipping over the divisive potential namesakes of the Dance era)? Who knows. Aegon III’s brother, however, the future Viserys II, did name his own elder son Aegon - in my mind as a gesture of affection toward his only (living and full) sibling.

Aegon IV, despite his notable egotism, did not name his only legitimate son after himself (probably because Papa Viserys did the job of naming for him), although I could see baby Aegor being named after his royal father. When Daeron himself married and started having children of his own, I can hardly be surprised that none of his sons were named “Aegon”. After all, Daeron’s relationship to his father was, to put it kindly, extremely poor, with Aegon instigating countless cruelties against his mother Naerys, all but explicitly declaring that Daeron was no son of his, and deliberately undermining Daeron’s political position. Moreover, I could see where Daeron would not want to remind anyone of Aegon IV’s selfish, tyrannical, terrible reign by naming any of his own sons after the most recent Aegon. His heir would instead be named for the peacemaking Baelor, the one who had begun the process by which Dorne and the Iron Throne were (literally and symbolically) wed.

Neither Baelor nor Rhaegel named a son “Aegon”, though I couldn’t for the life of me tell you why they chose the names they did. But dutiful Maekar did, bucking the unique naming tradition of his elder brothers to give his sons classic Targaryen names: Daeron for the king, Aerion for the Conqueror’s father, Aemon for the Dragonknight, and Aegon for the Conqueror himself. Presumably, Maekar thought that Aegon the Unworthy, being nearly 20 years dead by the time of Egg’s birth, no longer cast a dark shadow on the name “Aegon” (and, with Egg being only a fourthborn son, he was dynastically unimportant enough to reintroduce the name).

Prince , of course, was the only person crazy enough to name his son after the worst king in the entirety of the Targaryen dynasty. As for his younger brother, I’ve said before that I think Egg wanted his sons’ names to reflect the ideals of his reign: “Duncan” for his hedge knight friend and mentor Duncan the Tall, “Jaehaerys” and “Daeron” for the peacemaking reformers Jaehaerys the Wise and Daeron the Good. The Conqueror was not a bad role model as a king, but Aegon V might have found him too martial to fit with his reformist, pro-smallfolk designs.

Jaehaerys II had only one son, whom I speculated before was named perhaps in honor of Jaehaerys’ own prophetic inclinations. Aerys II did actually name one of his sons “Aegon”, but the poor boy was born two months premature and did not live a year.

[yesterdaysprint]

what on earth is up with the turn of the century vitriol against novels!!! like...dude, i know jane austen poked fun at becoming overly invested in them when she wrote northanger abbey, but that was in the early 1800s, and there was still backlash against them 70 years later?!

Unmarried ladies and young women weren’t even supposed to read the newspapers in the Victorian era! It was considered most unladylike. If your paper had one, your husband might hand you the society page (with the births, marriages and obituaries) or the ladies page, you might browse some select advertisements, but everything else in the paper was most likely too scandalous or exciting for your delicate self. 

Closer to the turn of the century, if you found you couldn’t help yourself and your husband or father thought you could handle it, you might peek at the arts and science sections (and politics “if that interests you” - implying the unlikelihood of that!), but under no circumstance should you read about the vile murders, scandals or intrigues. 

Of course, it’s not so easy to find articles in newspapers explaining this from the time, since, while the men writing it almost certainly agreed with the principles for their own women at home, newspapers wanted to broaden their readership as much as possible and women were an untapped source of sales, both of the papers and for their advertisers. So it was discouraged by the men in their lives, but newspapers actively argued women should be reading the paper (though, certainly, only certain parts). They argued that a woman’s time would be much more profitably spent reading the “safe” parts of their papers than awful, terrible novels.

That’s why around 1890 they began to add more and more pages devoted to women’s interests, sewing patterns, etiquette, poems, motherhood and recipes - and especially ads aimed at women.

From a more progressive article arguing women should read (certain parts) of the newspaper: 

Chicago Daily Tribune, April 13, 1879:

Osawatomie Graphic, Kansas, October 21, 1904:

[nomanwalksalone]

THE WOLFE AT THE BAR

Réginald-Jérôme de Mans

The Hemingway Bar at the Paris Ritz, the original Ritz hotel, is certainly not the only Paris bar that could be named for Hemingway. While, according to legend, he “liberated” the bar during the Liberation of Paris, Papa was to bars what the Duke of Windsor was to tailors – if it existed, he patronized it. The bar that bears Hemingway’s name was less prepossessing – less grand – than I’d imagined it being. Tiny, with most of the tables held with “Reserved” markers for what I assumed were stratospherically high rollers, guests of the hotel whose means were so large they dwarfed any need to pay attention to taste, elegance, heritage, history, all the things that the Hemingway’s walls ostensibly bled, all the things that breathless travel guides promised their readers would find at its tables… instead of those little signs that they were held for those invisible others.

I hadn’t come to the Ritz voluntarily. A business acquaintance had suggested it. In another of the Ritz’s bars, more spacious than the Hemingway and less obnoxious than a third bar, across the hallway from the Hemingway, from whose dark depths thudded a deafening beat, I ordered a sidecar and found it somewhat disappointing, rather like the waiter, at once both obsequious and patronizing, who offered my companion bar snacks. It wasn’t until later that I learned the sidecar was supposedly invented there at the Ritz, by a British army officer towards the end of the First World War.

I had a long history with the sidecar, perhaps the second mixed drink I’d ever heard of (the first is too easy to guess). And I owe it, my favorite drink, to Tom Wolfe, the most unequivocally positive thing about him and his writing. Looking back, it’s much easier to find much to question in The Bonfire of the Vanities, beginning with the unlikelihood that two of its three New York-based protagonists would be customers of the same small London shop Wolfe himself once favored (New & Lingwood and its defunct satellite Bowring Arundel). But Wolfe’s fluid, colorful writing with its seductive faux-naïveté and feigned shock drew its reader in, no matter how intimidatingly long Bonfire had looked to me, back in my early teens. Back then I devoured the book and came away with the indelible memory of a character only present by evocation, Willi Nordhoff, recalled by his signature drink, the sidecar “mit Courvoisier VSOP.”

I didn’t know what a sidecar was. I didn’t know what Courvoisier or VSOP was. But damned if it didn’t sound indescribably sophisticated, Wolfe’s added Germanism making it that extra bit more cosmopolitan. So I ordered it at dinner with my parents soon afterwards, until they realized what it was and made their young son send it back.

Many years passed, and Courvoisier became more familiar to me as the tipple of Léon Phelps, The Ladies’ Man. It was, of course, the first brandy I tasted, with a burger at the Eurotrash café that didn’t card in my college town.

By early adulthood, I had learned to distrust Wolfe’s leering pretend astonishment, his modus operandi for tilting at windmills like the political correctness that pillories an innocent white man (in Bonfire) or the campus permissiveness that makes sheltered college kids re-enact the orgies of Elagabalus (in I Am Charlotte Simmons). I had also learned to love the sidecar.

Some of my best e-friends are huge fans of Wolfe, but I suspect his dress sense, those Kabbaz shirts and Gaziano & Girling custom shoes, contributes. I can empathize: I like Bryan Ferry and can’t deny some of my worship is for his unrivalled sense of style rather than for his sometimes elusive music. I just wish my friends would admit their worship had more to do with Wolfe’s #steez than his muse.

And, I suppose, his drink sense. Even though I’ve settled on Hennessy VS as my go-to cognac mixer (finally, something LVMH does right), Courvoisier VSOP is just a smidge better. And when I’ve run out of that and had to use an XO or my Camus Borderies, those are better still, so sadly the taste of a mixed drink does improve with more exalted liquors. The Ritz Paris itself recently announced its own house variant on the recipe with a cognac from 1830 (a “Ritz Reserve,” of course), resulting in the most expensive mixed drink in France. However, I suspect it’s not trying to attract discerning palates as much as undiscerning wallets.

But what is a sidecar? An ungainly dependency of a motorcycle, or a mix of citrus, a curaçao or citrus brandy, and brandy. The brandy gives it richness and depth and splendid warmth, the curacao dimension, the citrus direction. There are many recipes and ratios, and it’s best not to order it in a bar you’re not sure of lest you end up with some nasty orange juice concoction served on the rocks (or out 1350 euros at the Ritz). A 1920s recipe from my antique Le Barman shaker advises equal parts lemon juice, Cointreau and cognac, shaken and served up. That appears to reflect the era’s drinking habits, rather weaker than today’s (I have a suspicion that’s how people survived the three-martini lunch). My cocktail guide from midcentury has two recipes, including that old one and a slightly more modern one, calling for a splash of lime, one part Cointreau and two parts cognac, served up in a martini glass with a sugared rim. After some experimentation I’ve settled on the following ratio: 1:2:4. One part fresh squeezed lime juice, two parts Cointreau, four parts brandy. Shake vigorously, strain and serve up in a martini glass with a sugared rim. To sugar rims, take the glass out of the freezer, rotate the rim in a shallow bowl of sugar until coated. Blessed escapism in a glass, a fantasy Deco Paris confection where every sour note has its sweetness, and even Tom Wolfe can have a seat at the bar, provided it’s not reserved.

[thisdaynews]

Stop Comparing Trump’s Impeachment Case to Johnson’s … or Nixon’s … or Clinton’s

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/stop-comparing-trumps-impeachment-case-to-johnsons-or-nixons-or-clintons/

Stop Comparing Trump’s Impeachment Case to Johnson’s … or Nixon’s … or Clinton’s

The internet is awash in historical explainers and hot takes trying to make sense of our sudden constitutional crisis. Marshalled on behalf of a range of competing viewpoints, the arguments are sprinkled with references to Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton—the three presidents who faced impeachment proceedings before Donald Trump. Which one applies to the current president and his apparent effort to enlist Ukraine in going after Joe Biden, his potential opponent in the 2020 election?

Turning to the past is understandable: A presidential impeachment cries out for historical context. The past is supposed to offer a map of sorts through what feels like an unfamiliar and treacherous adventure. But—as historians, ironically, are sometimes the first ones to point out—history isn’t actually a very good guide here. We’re in uncharted waters, and it’s best that we recognize that.

Story Continued Below

Why do the Johnson, Nixon and Clinton examples offer us so little direct help today? Every impeachment poses two discrete sets of questions for the House and Senate to consider. First, there are constitutional questions:Are impeachment and conviction justified?Second, there are political questions:Are impeachment and conviction possible?With every previous presidential impeachment, the answers have been different, and in the case of Trump and Ukraine, the answers are different still. We’ve simply never had a case before where the removal of a president was so well justified—while at the same time so obviously unlikely to happen.

The 1868 impeachment of Johnson grew out of a power struggle between a reactionary president and the “Radical Republicans” who held power in Congress. Having assumed the White House after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Johnson—a Southerner who never left the union—warred with Republicans over a series of bills dealing with civil rights for the newly freed slaves and the terms for readmitting secessionist states.

The conflict crested when the Republicans passed the Tenure of Office Act, a law of uncertain constitutionality that barred the president from firing a member of his Cabinet unless the Senate approved a successor. Annoyed by Congress’ efforts to tie his hands, Johnson fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a Lincoln administration holdover, without securing Senate approval—creating a test case of the new legislation. Johnson’s defiance provoked the House to swiftly pass 11 articles of impeachment, most of which dealt with the Tenure of Office Act.

Johnson was duly impeached. But he ultimately dodged removal from office because moderate Republicans came to his aid in his Senate trial. With no vice president in place, his ouster would have awarded the presidency to Senate President Pro Tempore Benjamin Wade—a fiery radical unloved by the moderates. Johnson sent word that he would relent in his fights with the Republicans if they let him stay in office, helping him to prevail by just one vote.

In Johnson’s case, the constitutional questions—are impeachment and conviction justified?—were open to debate. Generally, historians today tend to think his impeachment wasn’t warranted (even if they mostly agree that the Republicans were correct on Reconstruction policy). As for the political questions—are impeachment and conviction possible?—the narrowness of Johnson’s acquittal makes clear that the undertaking was hardly doomed to futility. It was a meaningful exercise that could well have gone differently.

A century later, the case of Nixon and Watergate furnished a different set of answers. The House Judiciary Committee didn’t pass its articles of impeachment against Nixon until July 1974, a full two years (and one reelection campaign) after the failed burglary and bugging operation that began the unraveling of Nixon’s vast dirty tricks machine. In those two intervening years, a Senate investigative committee—along with the criminal trials of the apprehended burglars, and reporting by dogged journalists—pried loose an avalanche of evidence about abuses of power and obstruction of justice in the White House that slowly but steadily shifted public opinion. Those counts, as well as one for Nixon’s defiance of congressional subpoenas, were powerful enough to convince several Republicans to join the Democrats in supporting Nixon’s ouster.

In Nixon’s case, then, impeachment charges were clearly justified on constitutional grounds. And as Nixon discovered in August, when the Republicans’ elder statesman, Barry Goldwater, led a delegation to the White House to tell the president he had lost almost all his fellow Republicans’ support, conviction was not just possible but virtually assured. Politically, too, impeachment was a slam-dunk. Capitulating to reality, Nixon resigned before he could be impeached.

Clinton’s impeachment a quarter-century later, for allegedly lying about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, yielded still a different combination of answers. The probe of the president’s sex life by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr was something of a rogue operation to begin with, since Starr had been appointed to look into a wholly discrete matter—a real estate investment Clinton had made while governor of Arkansas (on which Starr could come up with no case for impeachment). From the start, Starr’s inquiry lacked a fundamental legitimacy, and while many Washington pundits nonetheless cheered it on, majorities of the electorate saw it as a partisan, not a constitutional, undertaking.

Was Clinton’s removal from office ever a real possibility? Probably not. It is true that when news of his dalliance broke, some people thought his days were numbered. But within a matter of weeks, public opinion turned decisively against Starr and toward Clinton, where it would remain. After taking up impeachment in October, the House Republicans promptly lost congressional seats in the 1998 midterm elections—an almost unheard-of development—providing strong clues that their partisan crusade would founder in the Senate, where even some Republicans came to voice qualified support for the president. When Clinton finally won acquittal in February 1999, it seemed like a long-delayed foregone conclusion. The outcome drove home the recklessness of pursuing an impeachment that was bound to fail.

So, what precedent do these impeachment cases provide? Johnson’s removal from office was possible but probably not justified (and thus ill-advised). Nixon’s was both possible and justified (and thus effective). And Clinton’s was neither possible nor justified (and thus farcical). Removing Trump from office over the Ukraine scandal would be different from all of these cases. Unlike in Clinton’s case, the constitutional argument for it looks increasingly powerful: We have fairly damning evidence from the White House itself of a direct conversation between Trump and the Ukrainian president about going after Biden. But unlike in Johnson’s and Nixon’s situations, removal is all but guaranteed never to happen—owing to the Republicans’ strong majority in the Senate and a disciplined tribalism of a ferocity that simply didn’t exist in the Nixon era.

Until now, many Democratsseemed to be reading the present through the past—in particular through the lens of the Republicans’ self-defeating anti-Clinton crusade. Their reading of history suggested that, given the sheer unlikelihood of actually dispatching Trump from the White House, it would be folly to press ahead with impeachment. That strategy seemed like a recipe for a bloody political fight, and even greater voter cynicism than we have now.

Only this past week did Democratic opinion dramatically shift. One reason seems to be an unwillingness to make the same mistake twice. Back in October 2016, evidence was mounting that Russia was meddling in the ongoing presidential election, along with suspicion that Trump’s campaign was encouraging or welcoming the interference. While Hillary Clinton spoke out bluntly, the administration at the time dithered, with President Barack Obama warning Vladimir Putin to “cut it out.” Everyone assumed Trump would lose the election and saw no reason to raise needless alarms. But the Ukraine scandal starkly evokes 2016—Trump seemed to have encouraged a foreign power to interfere on his behalf in an election—and Democrats grasped that they couldn’t run the same script as last time.

Still, to say the Democrats felt it necessary to finally begin impeachment proceedings isn’t to say the political risks are gone. Without any prospect of winning Republican supporters for Trump’s ouster, the Democrats’ ultimate objectives are troublingly unclear. Impeachment could galvanize voters against the president, but it could also backfire, as Bill Clinton’s impeachment did against Republicans. Or, like so much else in our polarized environment, it could just fail to move the needle.

No impeachment case in U.S. history yet has offered a perfect precedent. In fact, each one has reshaped our thinking about impeachment in the years afterward. The ill-advised impeachment of Johnson played a part in discouraging Congress from trying it again for more than 100 years. The successful revival of the impeachment machinery to use against Nixon, conversely, emboldened Republicans to try it against Clinton. And the abuse of the process against Clinton until now had deterred Democrats from using it against Trump. Whether the proceedings against Trump will open the floodgates to ever-more promiscuous uses of impeachment or serve to restrict its use only to the gravest of circumstances is unknowable. But one way or another, it is likely to redefine our politics for years to come.

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Catholic Physics - Reflections of a Catholic Scientist - Part 32

Philosophic Issues in Cosmology 6: Are we special?--the Anthropic Coincidences

“Scientists are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth - the universe looks suspiciously like a fix. The issue concerns the very laws of nature themselves. For 40 years, physicists and cosmologists have been quietly collecting examples of all too convenient "coincidences" and special features in the underlying laws of the universe that seem to be necessary in order for life, and hence conscious beings, to exist." Paul Davies.

" The argument (the Anthropic Principle) can be used to explain why the conditions happen to be just right for the existence of (intelligent) life on the earth at the present time. For if they were not just right, then we should not have found ourselves to be here now, but somewhere else, at some other appropriate time." Roger Penrose.

"One doesn't show that something doesn't require explanation by pointing out that it is a condition of one's existence. If I ask for an explanation of the fact that the air pressure in the transcontinental jet is close to that at sea level, it is no answer to point out that if it weren't, I'd be dead.” Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos.

"A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.  The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question." Fred Hoyle

This is the 6th in a series of posts summarizing an article by George F.R. Ellis on Philosophic Issues in Cosmology.

The 10,000 dials and 10,000 monkeys analogy

The presence of organic life in the universe (namely us) requires a series of unlikely happenings and restricted values for physical laws and constants.  This “fine-tuning” (as it's been called) has been likened to a room full of 10,000 dials, each of which has to be set to a precise setting in order to achieve action; 10,000 monkeys are let into the room and each adjusts a dial and, lo, action occurs.  The set of coincidences was termed “The Anthropic Principle” by Brandon Carter in 1973, when he introduced it in a conference to oppose the “Copernican Principle”, that man has no special place in the universe.

References

The Anthropic Principle has been discussed extensively in books and articles.  There is a concise summary by Robert Koons in his philosophy lectures , giving various interpretations, with arguments for and against each. (I'll summarize some of these below.) A good collection of articles with different (and opposing views) of the Anthropic Principle is given in God and Design (ed. Neil Manson).  There are many versions of the Anthropic Principle ranging from the Weak Anthropic Principle, WAP, which tautologically observes that if the universe weren't fit for us to be here we would wouldn't be here discussing the principle (see the Penrose quote above), through the Strong Anthropic Principle, SAP, that the universe has been fine-tuned for intelligent life (us), on up to the Completely Ridiculous Anthropic Principle (by Martin Gardner—you complete the acronym).

Can unlikelihood be quantified?

In assessing the improbable nature of the anthropic coincidences, some authors assign a specific probability to the value of some particular physical constant. Such assignment is not always justified, because probability considerations are ill defined, in the usual sense of evidential probability.  For example, theoretical calculations have shown that if the strong nuclear force were 2 % higher or 2 % lower, then the elements as we know them would not have been formed. This does not mean that the probability of having the strong nuclear force at an anthropic value is 4%. In order to give a probability for this range, the population distribution of the parameters for the strong nuclear force would have to be known. Moreover, there is a difficulty in using probability in an after-the-fact, rather than a predictive sense. The way to use probabilities in assessing the anthropic coincidences is via Bayesian probability techniques, with well-defined prior assumptions, and to use the resulting Bayesian probability as a measure of belief.

Ellis's interpretation

Ellis, in his presentation of the anthropic coincidences, focuses on the special nature of physical laws that allow for the presence of life, rather than on their improbability:

“One of the most profound issues in cosmology is the Anthropic question...why does the Universe has the very special nature required in order that life can exist? The point is that a great deal of “fine tuning” is required in order that life be possible. There are many relationships embedded in physical laws that are not explained by physics, but are required for life to be possible; in particular various fundamental constants are highly constrained in their values if life as we know it is to exist...What requires explanation is why the laws of physics are such as to allow this complex functionality (life) to work. ...We can conceive of universes where the laws of physics (and so of chemistry) were different than in ours. Almost any change in these laws will prevent life as we know it from functioning.”

Ellis posits as a first requirement for the laws of physics “the kind of regularities that can underlie the existence of life”:  laws that are not based on symmetry and variational principles are unlikely to produce the kind of complexity that would be required for life. He also sets up general conditions that allow for organic life and cosmological boundary/initial conditions.  In this respect he cites the following as necessary:

“Quantization that stabilizes matter and allows chemistry to exist through the Pauli exclusion principle;

The number D of large spatial dimensions must be just 3 for complexity to exist.

The seeds in the early universe for fluctuations (quantum fluctuations) that will later grow into galaxies must be of the right size that structures form without collapsing into black holes...

The size of the universe and its age must be large enough...we need a sufficiently old universe for second generation stars to come into existence and then for planets to have a stable life for long enough that evolution could lead to the emergence of intelligent life. Thus the universe must be at about 15 billion years old for life to exist.

There must be non-interference with local systems. The concept of locality is fundamental, allowing local systems to function effectively independently of the detailed structure of the rest of the Universe. We need the universe and the galaxies in it to be largely empty, and gravitational waves and tidal forces to be weak enough, so that local systems can function in a largely isolated way.

The existence of the arrow of time, and of laws like the second law of thermodynamics, are probably necessary for evolution and for consciousness. This depends on boundary conditions at the beginning and end of the Universe.

Presumably the emergence of a classical era out of a quantum state is required.  The very early universe would be a domain where quantum physics would dominate leading to complete uncertainty and an inability to predict the consequence of any initial situation; we need this to evolve to a state where classical physics leads to the properties of regularity and predictability that allow order to emerge.

The fact that the night sky is dark...is a consequence of the expansion of the universe together with the photon (light particle) to baryon (mass particle) ratio. This feature is a necessary condition for the existence of life: the biosphere on Earth functions by disposing of waste energy to the heat sink of the dark night sky. Thus one way of explaining why the sky is observed to be dark at night is that if this were not so, we would not be here to observe it.

Physical conditions on planets must be a in a quasi-equilibrium state for long enough to allow the delicate balances that enable our existence, through the very slow process of evolution, to be fulfilled.” (see the Theology of Water.)

There are a number of other constraints, limited values for forces—gravity, electromagnetic, weak nuclear, strong nuclear—and fundamental constants, including that for particle masses and number of particles that are needed for life to evolve. In summary, Ellis puts the Anthropic Principle as the following:

  “Life is possible because both the laws of physics and the boundary conditions for the universe have a very special nature. only particular laws of physics, and particular initial conditions in the Universe, allow the existence of intelligent life of the kind we know. No evolutionary process whatever is possible for any kind of life if these laws and conditions do not have this restricted form.”

Robert Koons summarizes some general objections to invoking the Anthropic Principle for carbon-based life "well isn't that special" (as the Church Lady might say):

The problem of "old evidence";

Laws of nature don't need to be explained;

We had to be here in any event (see Penrose's quote above);

Exotic life might exist;

The Copernican Principle--rejection of anthropocentricity is fundamental to science;

We're only one among many universes (see below).

Objection 1 can be countered by the argument that such evidence is used frequently in science when direct experiments can't be done--witness the General Relativity explanation of the advance in the perihelion of Mercury.

Objection 2 would do away with all interpretations of theory, quantum mechanics, and the philosophy of science.

Objection 3 is countered as in Thomas Nagel's quote above; as information seeking life form we need explanations.

Objection 4 is invalid--we're talking about conditions for carbon-based life; science-fiction can explore and has explored conditions for exotic life.

Objection 5--the Anthropic Principle was introduced to rebut the Copernican Principle.

Objection 6--the multiverse proposition is not itself proven.

The philosophic/metaphysical context for these Anthropic conditions that Ellis sets forth will be given in the final post for this summary.  It should be noted that one interpretation of the anthropic coincidences is the theory that infinitely many universes with potentially different physical laws and constants exist and so it is not unlikely that in all these one universe with appropriate conditions for life would be present.  The analogy is like that of having a lottery ticket with the numbers 1 1 1 1 1 be the winner.  That combination of numbers looks improbable, but since there are a whole host of numbers from 00000 to 99999, it is no less probable than any other number.  This brings up the notion of a multiverse, which will be discussed in the next post. (See Part 33)

Ed. Note:

I am sorry that I cannot properly display all the various pictures or tables on the post. They will, however, be displayed on the pamphlet containing this post, and a link will be provided for your convenience.

From a series of articles written by: Bob Kurland - a Catholic Scientist