#joe sill

[luminarai]

cold day cuddle puddle ❄️ // prints etc

[cyberciggie]

[spookystarfishzombie]

[rvstyartstar]

Hey, if there is still an empty space in your 6 cowboys meme draw, I would love to see Lemonade Joe (from the movie Lemonda Joe from 1964) with all of them. He's just so silly and goofy, I think he'd have a great time with the whole gang

The gangs all here The silles!!+ the bisexual cowboys !! :D

[sheafrotherdon]

The kitchen windows are crooked, Joe thinks, looking at them anew.

It’s long after midnight. The room is dark, the table and chairs, stove and sink thrown into dim relief by the here-and-there moonlight that spills between the clouds. The sashes of the windows are raised high and the wind rattles through them, a sound so familiar to Joe as to be no sound at all.  He crosses the room, his bare feet quiet, and splays his hand against one window’s wooden frame.

I am older than this, he thinks, older than the saw, and the nail, and even the tree.

It's not every night that he feels this, the weight of his years like an anchor that he drags, but tonight he is restless and worried about nothing he can name. He closes the windows just before the rain begins to fall, the scent a tell that sweeps across the sill and tumbles into the sink with damning assurance. The patter of rain against the glass makes Joe shiver, and he watches the shadowed garden turn to mist as he rubs his hands up and down his arms.

“Come to bed, foolish man,” says Nicky.

He’s standing in the open doorway, leaning against the frame, pale and tall and yawning. Joe feels his heart warm at the sight of him, at the angle of his elbows and the small rise of his belly, the cowlick of hair above his left ear that gives away how hard he had mashed his face into his pillow when he fell asleep.

“Hmm,” Joe offers for want of anything better to say.

Nicky ambles over, drops his forehead against Joe’s shoulder, and makes a small contented sound when Joe wraps him in his arms. “What is it?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” Joe replies, and tightens his hold just a little, just enough to root himself in the here and now of Nicky’s warm skin. “Sad?” he suggests.

Nicky presses a closed-mouthed kiss to Joe’s shoulder before he raises his head and lifts his hands, before he frames Joe’s face and studies him. Joe waits for the diagnosis that must surely come, an honest blessing born of a thousand years of knowing and being known.

Nicky nods his head and kisses Joe’s forehead. “Come with me,” he says, and leads the way back to the bedroom, herds Joe back beneath the covers and onto his side, curls up behind him and presses close. “You must sleep now,” he says. “Because I have you.”

And nothing is solved or fixed or mended except all that is.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Hate Speech

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

June 30, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 01, 2024

In addition to his comments about Russia in Ukraine, Trump said something else in Thursday’s CNN presentation that should be called out for its embrace of one of the darkest moments in U.S. history. 

In response to a question about what the presidential candidates would say to a Black voter disappointed with racial progress in the United States, President Joe Biden pointed out that, while there was still far to go, more Black businesses were started under his administration than at any other time in U.S. history, that black unemployment is at a historic low, and that the administration has relieved student debt, invested in historically Black colleges and universities, and is working to provide for childcare costs, all issues that affect Black Americans. 

In contrast, Trump said: “As sure as you’re sitting there, the fact is that his big kill on the Black people is the millions of people that he’s allowed to come in through the border. They're taking Black jobs now and it could be 18. It could be 19 and even 20 million people. They’re taking Black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs and you haven’t seen it yet, but you’re going to see something that’s going to be the worst in our history.” 

Trump was obviously falling back on the point he had prepared to rely on in this election: that immigration is destroying our country. He exaggerated the numbers of incoming migrants and warned that there is worse to come.

But what jumped out is his phrase: “They’re taking Black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs.” 

In U.S. history it has been commonplace for political leaders to try to garner power by warning their voters that some minority group is coming for their jobs. In the 1840s, Know-Nothings in Boston warned native-born voters about Irish immigrants; in 1862 and 1864, Democrats tried to whip up support by warning Irish immigrants that after Republicans fought to end enslavement, Black Americans would move north and take their jobs. In the 1870s, Californian Denis Kearney of the Workingman’s Party drew voters to his standard by warning that Chinese immigrants were taking their jobs and insisted: “The Chinese Must Go!” 

And those were just the early days.

But while they are related, there is a key difference between these racist appeals and the racism that Trump exhibited on Thursday. Politicians have often tried to get votes by warning that outsiders would draw from a pool of jobs that potential voters wanted themselves. Trump’s comments the other night drew on that racism but reached back much further to the idea that there are certain jobs that are “Black” or “Hispanic.”

This is not a new idea in the United States. 

“In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life,” South Carolina senator James Henry Hammond told his colleagues in 1858. “That is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect and but little skill. Its requisites are vigor, docility, fidelity. Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement. It constitutes the very mud-sill of society and of political government; and you might as well attempt to build a house in the air, as to build either the one or the other, except on this mud-sill.” 

Capital produced by the labor of mudsills would concentrate in the hands of the upper class, who would use it efficiently and intelligently to develop society. Their guidance elevated those weak-minded but strong-muscled people in the mudsill class, who were “happy, content, unaspiring, and utterly incapable, from intellectual weakness, ever to give us any trouble by their aspirations.”

Southern leaders were smart enough to have designated a different race as their society’s mudsills, Hammond said, but in the North the “whole hireling class of manual laborers and ‘operatives,’ as you call them, are essentially slaves.” This created a political problem for northerners, for the majority of the population made up that lower class. “If they knew the tremendous secret, that the ballot-box is stronger than ‘an army with banners,’ and could combine, where would you be?” Hammond asked his colleagues who insisted that all people were created equal. “Your society would be reconstructed, your government overthrown, your property divided.” 

The only true way to look at the world was to understand that some people were better than others and had the right and maybe the duty, to rule. “I repudiate, as ridiculously absurd, that much-lauded but nowhere accredited dogma of Mr. Jefferson, that ‘all men are born equal’” Hammond wrote, and it was on this theory that some people are better than others that southern enslavers based their proposed new nation. 

“Our new government is founded…upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical and moral truth,” Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy, told supporters. 

Not everyone agreed. For his part, rising politician Abraham Lincoln stood on the Declaration of Independence. Months after Hammond’s speech, Lincoln addressed German immigrants in Chicago. Arguments that some races are “inferior,” he said, would “rub out the sentiment of liberty in the country, and…transform this Government into a government of some other form.” The idea that it is beneficial for some people to be dominated by others, he said, is the argument “that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world…. Turn in whatever way you will—whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent.” 

According to the mudsill theory, he said the following year, “a blind horse upon a tread-mill, is a perfect illustration of what a laborer should be—all the better for being blind, that he could not tread out of place, or kick understandingly. According to that theory, the education of laborers, is not only useless, but pernicious, and dangerous.” He disagreed. “[T]here is not, of necessity, any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life.”

He went on to tie the mudsill theory to the larger principles of the United States. “I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it, where will it stop,” he said. “If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out!” To cries of “No, no,” he concluded to cheers: “Let us stick to it then. Let us stand firmly by it.” 

One hundred and sixty-six years later, Black and Hispanic social media users have answered Trump’s statement about “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs” with photos of themselves in highly skilled professional positions. But while they did so with good humor, they were illustrating for the modern world the principle Lincoln articulated: in the United States there should be no such thing as “Black jobs” or “Hispanic jobs.” 

Such a construction directly contradicts the principles of the Declaration of Independence and ignores the victory of the United States in the Civil War. Anyone who sees the world through such a lens is on the wrong side of history. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[help-i-need-a-cool-username]

Been reading some genderbent spn fics and i disagreed with some of the alternate names some authors gave the characters so i thought id give it a shot myself

There are specific reasons for each name i chose but this is already gonna be long enough so ill skip it for now but if you want to know feel free to ask

Angels

All their names are the same. No difference

Jack Kline -> Jackie Kline

Winchesters

John Winchester -> Joan Winchester

Mary Winchester -> Maury Winchester

Dean Winchester -> Deanna "Dean" Winchester

Samuel "Sam" Winchester -> Samantha "Sam" Winchester

Adam Miligan -> Addison "Addie" Miligan

Hunters

Robert "Bobby" Singer -> Roberta "Bobbie" Singer

Ellen Harvelle -> Allen Harvelle

Joanna Beth "Jo" Harvelle -> Joseph Seth "Joe" Harvelle

Garth Fitzgerald IV -> no change

Jody Mills -> no change

Claire Novak -> Clarence Novak

Eileen Leahy -> sill deciding (current contender: Eli. Maybe Elliott)

Allies

Charlene "Charlie" Bradbury -> Charles "Charlie" Bradbury

Kevin Tran -> idk man. Ive met a girl named Devin before so maybe that? Supposably the fem spelling is Kevyn so maybe that?

Benjamin "Benny" Lafitte -> Benjamina "Bennie" Lafitte

Rowena MacLeod -> Rowen MacLeod

Demons

Fergus MacLeod/Crowley -> Fergia MacLeod/Crowley

Meg -> idk man

Ruby -> Ruben

Other

Chuck Shurley/God -> apparently there are in fact women who are called Chuck so im debating on keeping it

Amara -> Amar

Kelly Kline -> no change

Kate Miligan -> Kaden Miligan

Lisa Braeden -> Louis Braeden

Benjamin "Ben" Braeden -> Benna Braeden

Cassie Robinson -> still deciding (contenders: Cassian or Casey)

Jessica "Jess" Moore -> Jesse Moore

James "Jimmy" Novak -> Jamie Novak

[v-o-i-d-p-u-n-k]

Joe hills when he writes stuff down, call that joe quills

Jow hills when he drops some liquid, call that joe spills

Joe hills writing peoples wishes for what they will give to people after they die, call that joe wills

Joe hills when he feels a light breeze that's a little too cold, call that joe chills

Joe hills when he experiences years of evolution as a creature learning to breath underwater, call that joe gills

Joe hills when he commits manslaughter, call that Joe kills

Joe hills when he gotta take his medication, call that Joe pills

Joe hills when he studies how a place have changed over many years by looking at the diffrent layers of soil to see how the world has changed, call that joe drills

Joe hills when he is sick, call that joe ill(s)

Jow hills when he puts extra fabric on clothing for the pretty factor, call that Joe frills

Joe hills when he finds a way to make eco friendly electricity using wind, call that joe mills

Joe hills when he wears a specific fabric, call that Joe twills

Joe hills when he has to pay for his living feas, call that joe bills

Joe when he has to stuff a turkey, call that Joe fills

Joe hills when he wants to give someone a flower that symbolises good luck, call that joe daffodills

Jow hills when he started being a dj in the late 90's, call that joe nills

Joe hills when he listens to Micheal Jackson, call that Joe thrills

Joe when he does something humanly impossible, call that Joe skills

Joe hills when he is a river in an austrian state, call that joe sills

Joe hills when he has to practice running but doesn't want to go outside, call that joe treadmills

Joe hills when he is one of the most haunted hospitals in the us, call that joe waverly hills

Joe hills when he joe hills, call that joe hills

[raedear]

Hi, I was hoping to give you a line for your 'fifth to first' series: Nicky's hands were fascinating to him. The breadth of his palms, the length of his fingers, their dexterity as they moved over the piano keys.

Nicky's hands were fascinating to him. The breadth of his palms, the length of his fingers, their dexterity as they moved over the piano keys. Joe watched him warming up through the tiny window in the practice room door and tried to think of what he could possibly say next to jump over all their years of hurt feelings and land somewhere in amiability, if outright friendship was truly off the cards.

Never in his life had Joe been accused of being short of words, and yet here he stood, entirely tongue-tied, watching the elegant motions of Nicky’s hands through glass so old it warped and twisted at the edges.

No battle was ever won by hiding on the wrong side of a door. Joe took a breath so deep he rocked back on his heels with it, and then stepped smartly into the room, entirely unready to face the music but too proud to do otherwise.

He'd figure out what to say on the way. He was sure of it.

'Good morning,' said Nicky, without looking up from the keys, neatly stealing the wind from Joe's sails.

'Ah,' said Joe, in a stirring riposte.

'Good morning?' he tried again, entirely unable to help the total shift lifting his voice into a question.

Nicky played a few bars more, a tune Joe vaguely recognised but couldn't place, before he said:

'Do you still take three sugars?'

'Sorry?' Joe's fingers flexed around the strap of his violin case. Nicky still hadn't looked at him. The keys must truly have been fascinating.

'In your coffee,' Nicky said, so quietly Joe almost couldn't hear him over the gentle singing of the piano. 'Three sugars, a chai latte if you can get it, a normal latte if you can't?'

'I'm trying to cut out sugar,' Joe said before his brain could catch up on the conversation. It was stuck somewhere more than a decade ago, goggling at Nicky remembering his coffee order for so long. 'But I actually enjoy it more with sugar!' he continued, too brightly, once it got itself in gear. He cringed at himself, but tried not to let it show on his face.

Nicky smiled. Just the lightest, softest lifting of the corner of his mouth, but there nonetheless.

'It's there if you want it,' Nicky said, tilting his head towards the window sill where two blue takeaway coffee cups sat in a bright pool of morning sunshine. 'I need a few more minutes to warm up anyway.'

Joe needed at least fifteen minutes to warm up, most of them with Nicky leading arpeggios. He knew what Nicky meant by saying that though, that if he wanted to take a few minutes just to sit with the (likely too sweet, calibrated to a 17 year old Joe's tastes) coffee Nicky had brought for him, he should feel free. 

The tune Nicky was playing began to build in intensity, before he played a complex little phrase that twisted an imperfect cadence back into the gentle music box-like melody he’d been playing when Joe entered the room. 

In Joe’s years of studying and performing music, he’d been around dozens of pianists. Hundreds, possibly. 

None had played like Nicky. 

With broad, sturdy hands he coaxed the most delicate of sounds from the piano that you had to hold your breath to hear them, and with a gentle touch he could rattle through a crescendo so powerfully it could bring people to their knees. 

‘Thank you, Nicky,’ Joe said softly, placing his violin carefully on his chair and reaching for the coffee Nicky had brought for him. ‘That’s very kind of you.’ 

Nicky just smiled that same almost smile, and played that quiet melody again.

also here on ao3

[i-eat-rusty-nails]

The planet is dying and Texas is going to have another freeze this year

Since the last time this happened it was a disaster, here is some advice for new texans and other people who might be new to this happening in their area.

Texan houses are not built for cold temperatures. This means that cold air will flow in. Normally this is good, but during a freeze this is awful. Put fabric, spare clothes, blankets, towels, etc. under doors and on window sills.

You should also make sure to put down blinds and close curtains if you can.

(illustrations included for clarification)

You will likely lose water. Make sure you have clean clothes (you won't be able to use the washer), baby wipes (to wash yourself), and blankets.

You will likely lose power. Make sure you have candles (you can get dripless ones that burn 80 hours for just 4 dollars at Trader Joe's), lighters, matches (you may run out of lighter fluid).

It's called a freeze for a reason. It will get cold. Make sure you have wood and other things you can safely burn in your fire place to avoid hypothermia and frostbite. Make sure you have some water (preferably not drinking water) near the fire so your house doesn't burn down. Do not, under any circumstances, bring a gas grill inside to warm yourself up. You will die of carbon monoxide poisoning.

You need water jugs, as well as some (NON-PERISHABLE) food to sustain yourself and your family.

The largest problem last year was pipes bursting. My house only had one burst, (thankfully outside) but wrapping your pipes in fabric will circumvent this.

Please reblog even if you aren't a texan. Feel free to add any information.

[crisalidaseason]

Hi cris

You being a historian I wonder what's your opinion about israel and palestine. You don't need to answer if you don't want

I stand with Palestinians

I believe that any person, regardless of their profession, can read on the topics and comprehend that there are nuances to every conflict. I will not speak over the voices of palestinians and jews who are commenting on this topic. As a communist and historian, I can give your other people's words:

Against the loveless world by Susan Abulhawa

This story was one of the first books about the topic I read, it will sure cause a big impact on your opinions.

Freedom is a constant struggle by Angela Yvonne Davis

My sweet, sweet Angela. I highly suggest that people from the US read this ASAP. It is a very very interesting discourse that she brings about US history.

The Hundred Years' war on Palestine: a history of settler colonialism and resistance (1917-2017) by Rashid Khalidi

A difficult read for many reasons, it is academic but also brutally painful to read. It is a really good insight on the entire history.

Palestinian Identity by Rashid Khalidi

Good for those who wish to know more about what Palestine is and why they deserve their right to exist as people.

Honorable mentions: I have not read those, but they were reccommended to me by a fellow historian:

1. Palestine by Joe Sacco

2. A land with a people by Esther Farmer, Rosalind Pollack and Sarah Sills

3. The ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe

4. The question of Palestine by Edward W Said

[liebgotts-lovergirl]

BoB Headcanons: How They Sleep With Their S/O

A/N: This was an idea no one asked for that came to me awhile back lol. Made in collaboration with @wwhatev3r 💖

✿ Dick Winters: Sleeps like the dead, completely still on his back. There will be points when you have to check to be sure he's still breathing bc he makes 0 noise or movement. Almost vampiric. 🤣 

✿ Lewis Nixon: Lays on his back & snores like a chainsaw. Don't let him blame you for "stealing all the blankets"; it's 100% him & you were just trying to get some back. May turn over once or twice. Wakes up in the morning in a tangled blanket-cocoon with bedhead 🤭 Doing his best.

✿ Carwood Lipton: Side sleeper, arm around your waist like a gentleman, gentle nuzzles as he's getting comfortable which turn into y'all giggling. Very soft, barely-perceptible snores. A fairly light sleeper so if you get up, he'll notice but he has no trouble getting back to sleep after.

✿ Harry Welsh: Curls almost into the fetal position, holding you insanely close. If you need to get up for any reason, good luck because you will have to Pry his arms from around you and he will groan a complaint even in his sleep. He is somehow Always cold & uses you for warmth.

✿ Ronald Speirs: Force him to sleep please or he will stay up for days. Talks in his sleep but it's just complete & utter nonsense. Mumbles everything from "peanut butter" to "window sill" to something you swear was in a different language altogether, but if you confront him about it, he will deny it. He has a badass reputation to uphold, after all.

✿ Buck Compton: Between college, the Army, & law school, this man has been TRAINED to knock-out at a moment’s notice so he Can & Will sleep anywhere: The couch, the table, on the floor, on a train, on a boat, on a plane, you name it but wherever he is, he is Dead To The World. He does grind his teeth tho (all that internal stress, poor guy 🥺); please let him be the little spoon to relieve some of that.

✿ Don Malarkey: Snack King. Will hesitate in the doorway for like 5 minutes though, weighing his options bc he'd feel bad eating without you but he'd also feel bad for waking you up. Definitely stays in the kitchen to eat so he doesn't wake you (so considerate 😍). Moderately light sleeper. He doesn't wake up for every sound but he'd hear something like the phone ringing or a door opening.

✿ Bill Guarnere: TOSSING & TURNING. This man is as active asleep as he is awake. Hope you're a deep sleeper bc he sure is! Will get up at least once to get a snack tho & will bring it back to bed with him. There will be crumbs & if you wake up, you'll probably hear him crunching away. 😆 He grew up in a busy neighborhood in Philly with a big family so he'd probably fall asleep with the TV on for some background noise, if you let him. 

✿ Joe Liebgott: INSOMNIAC. He'll lay on his back with you so you can sleep on his chest but he'll be awake most of the night, staring at the ceiling. Definitely insists on being closest to the door, just in case (so protective 🥰). Might get up once or twice but he's impossibly quiet EXCEPT when he stubs his toe/trips over something, then you'll hear a "FUCK!" or "SHIT!" from somewhere in the dark.

✿ Eugene Roe: the world's lightest sleeper. He's so used to being on-call at all hours that he'll bolt awake at the slightest sound in case someone (you) needs something. Please cuddle & reassure this boy, he needs it. 🥺 Curls up under the blankets like a kitten. Definitely makes tea before bed. It's a nightly ritual at this point.

✿ George Luz: Sleeps on his stomach, one arm dangling off the bed. Has to be touching you somehow, even if it's just his foot or an arm draped across you. Drools on the pillow (but it's cute, dw 😆). Has the CRAZIEST dreams & will wake you up to share them with you. Gremlin energy (affectionate).

✿ Shifty Powers: Keeps a glass of water by his bedside (we love a hydrated king 🤌🏼) but gets up to use the bathroom like 50 times a night. He tries so hard to slip in & out of bed quietly though, bless him, because he doesn't want to disturb you. Gentle butterfly kisses every time he gets up. What a cutie 🥺

✿ Bull Randleman: Takes up all the space on his back like a starfish ⭐ so you kinda have to sleep piled on top of him like a kitten sleeping on someone's chest 😆 He loves it though bc he gets to feel like your protector. Truly a giant teddybear 🥺🙏🏼

✿ Joe Toye: Secret snuggler. Please give this man lots of cuddles bc he needs them. Sleeps on his side & loves to hold you. Please let him be the big spoon so he can feel powerful 🤭 Occasional sleepwalker. He woke up standing in the garage one night with no clue how he got there.

✿ David Webster: Definitely reads before bed. Has a pile of books on his bedside table that he’s “been meaning to get to" but he’s always falling asleep around the halfway mark with one on his face. Pls save his place for him or he'll wake up grumpy 😅

✿ Skip Muck: THE DEEPEST SLEEPER. He wouldn't notice if the world was ending. Rolls straight off the bed during the night too. You'd wake up & peek over the edge & there he is, laying spreadeagled on the floor, still sound asleep. 🤭

✿ Floyd Talbert: Definitely a snuggler so he'll hold you from behind but if you start "accidentally" pressing your butt into him, you're gonna get him going iykwim 😏 & he's gonna start kissing your neck. Many a sleepless night with that boy lol.

✿ Johnny Martin: He tosses & turns a little but mostly just some light snoring. Totally swears by his white noise machine though; he Cannot & Will Not live without it.

✿ Babe Heffron: Very cuddly but gives off a ton of heat so prepare to sweat. The good news is that his hands are always warm! Babe is all lanky arms & legs like a baby colt so you'll probably end up tangled together during the night (so cute 🥺)

✿ Frank Perconte: Definitely kicks in his sleep. If you wake him up, he'll immediately apologize & feel really bad about it but the moment he falls asleep again, he's right back to doing it. 💀

✿ Skinny Sisk: In a Perpetual state of motion, I am so sorry. 😭 Twitches quite a bit. Snacks also have had to be banned from the bed bc he is Not Above Eating Chips under the sheets & the crumbs get Everywhere.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 31, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 01, 2024

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden issued an executive order instructing the National Park Service to “highlight important figures and chapters in women’s history.” “Women and girls of all backgrounds have shaped our country’s history, from the ongoing fight for justice and equality to cutting-edge scientific advancements and artistic achievements,” the announcement read. “Yet these contributions have often been overlooked. We must do more to recognize the role of women and girls in America’s story, including through the Federal Government’s recognition and interpretation of historic and cultural sites.”

In a time when American women are seeing their rights stripped away, it seems worthwhile on this last day of Women’s History Month to highlight the work of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who challenged the laws that barred women from jobs and denied them rights, eventually setting the country on a path to extend equal justice under law to women and LGBTQ Americans.

Ginsburg was born in Brooklyn, New York, on March 15, 1933, in an era when laws, as well as the customs they protected, treated women differently than men. Joan Ruth Bader, who went by her middle name, was the second daughter in a middle-class Jewish family. She went to public schools, where she excelled, and won a full scholarship to Cornell. There she met Martin Ginsburg, and they married after she graduated. “What made Marty so overwhelmingly attractive to me was that he cared that I had a brain,” she later explained. Relocating to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, for her husband’s army service, Ginsburg scored high on the civil service exam but could find work only as a typist. When she got pregnant with their daughter, Jane, she lost her job.

Two years later, the couple moved back east, where Marty had been admitted to Harvard Law School. Ginsburg was admitted the next year, one of 9 women in her class of more than 500 students; a dean asked her why she was “taking the place of a man.” She excelled, becoming the first woman on the prestigious Harvard Law Review. When her husband underwent surgery and radiation treatments for testicular cancer, she cared for him and their daughter while managing her studies and helping Marty with his. She rarely slept.

After he graduated, Martin Ginsburg got a job in New York, and Ginsburg transferred to Columbia Law School, where she graduated at the top of her class. But in 1959, law firms weren’t hiring women, and judges didn’t want them as clerks either—especially mothers, who might be distracted by their “familial obligations.” Finally, her mentor, law professor Gerald Gunther, got her a clerkship by threatening Judge Edmund Palmieri that if he did not take her, Gunther would never send him a clerk again.

After her clerkship and two years in Sweden, where laws about gender equality were far more advanced than in America, Ginsburg became one of America’s first female law professors. She worked first at Rutgers University—where she hid her pregnancy with her second child, James, until her contract was renewed—and then at Columbia Law School, where she was the first woman the school tenured.

At Rutgers she began her bid to level the legal playing field between men and women, extending equal protection under the law to include gender. Knowing she had to appeal to male judges, she often picked male plaintiffs to establish the principle of gender equality. 

In 1971 she wrote the brief for Sally Reed in the case of Reed vs. Reed, when the Supreme Court decided that an Idaho law specifying that “males must be preferred to females” in appointing administrators of estates was unconstitutional. Chief Justice Warren Burger, who had been appointed by Richard Nixon, wrote: “To give a mandatory preference to members of either sex over members of the other…is to make the very kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment” to the Constitution.

In 1972, Ginsburg won the case of Moritz v. Commissioner. She argued that a law preventing a bachelor, Charles Moritz, from claiming a tax deduction for the care of his aged mother because the deduction could be claimed only by women, or by widowed or divorced men, was discriminatory. The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit agreed, citing Reed v. Reed when it decided that discrimination on the basis of sex violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

In that same year, Ginsburg founded the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Between 1973 and 1976, she argued six gender discrimination cases before the Supreme Court. She won five. The first time she appeared before the court, she quoted nineteenth-century abolitionist and women’s rights activist Sarah Grimké: “I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.”

Nominated to the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton in 1993, she was confirmed by a vote of 96 to 3. Clinton called her “the Thurgood Marshall of gender-equality law.”

In her 27 years on the Supreme Court, Ginsburg championed equal rights both from the majority and in dissent (which she would mark by wearing a sequined collar), including her angry dissent in 2006 in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber when the plaintiff, Lilly Ledbetter, was denied decades of missing wages because the statute of limitations had already passed when she discovered she had been paid far less than the men with whom she worked. “The court does not comprehend or is indifferent to the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination,” Ginsburg wrote. Congress went on to change the law, and the first bill President Barack Obama signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

In 2013, Ginsburg famously dissented from the majority in Shelby County v. Holder, the case that gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The majority decided to remove the provision of the law that required states with histories of voter suppression to get federal approval before changing election laws, arguing that such preclearance was no longer necessary. Ginsburg wrote: “Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” As she predicted, after the decision, many states immediately began to restrict voting.

Ginsburg’s dissent made her a cultural icon. Admirers called her “The Notorious R.B.G.” after the rapper The Notorious B.I.G., wore clothing with her image on it, dressed as her for Halloween, and bought RBG dolls and coloring books. In 2018 the hit documentary "RBG" told the story of her life, and as she aged, she became a fitness influencer for her relentless strength-training regimen. She was also known for her plain speaking. When asked when there would be enough women on the Supreme Court, for example, she answered: “[W]hen there are nine.”

Ginsburg’s death on September 18, 2020, brought widespread mourning among those who saw her as a champion for equal rights for women, LGBTQ Americans, minorities, and those who believe the role of the government is to make sure that all Americans enjoy equal justice under law. Upon her passing, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton tweeted: “Justice Ginsburg paved the way for so many women, including me. There will never be another like her. Thank you RBG.”

Just eight days after Ginsburg’s death, then-president Donald Trump nominated extremist Amy Coney Barrett to take her seat on the court, and then–Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) rushed her confirmation hearings so the Senate could confirm her before the 2020 presidential election. It did so on October 26, 2020. Barrett was a key vote on the June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, the Supreme Court ruling that overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the constitutional right to abortion.

Ginsburg often quoted Justice Louis Brandeis’s famous line, “The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people,” and she advised people to “fight for the things you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” 

Setting an example for how to advance the principle of equality, she told the directors of the documentary RBG that she wanted to be remembered “[j]ust as someone who did whatever she could, with whatever limited talent she had, to move society along in the direction I would like it to be for my children and grandchildren.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[azspot]

Few of you will have missed the nontrivial fact that on Thursday night, 27 June 2024, Joe Biden gave the worst campaign debate performance in American history.  Frail, addled, and largely ineffectual in a contest he and his staff had insisted on to show his fitness, he indelibly evidenced instead his manifestly diminished capacity live on TV to a national and international audience which his cagey foe gave him all space to display.  Already all but certain to lose the Presidential election in November 2024, Biden’s continued ‘damaged goods’ candidacy was instantly judged certain to carry the Democratic Party, some say the nation too, though the privy floorboards with him into the stinking mire of history.  Before half an hour into that display, talk was rampant in the Democratic Party of how to get to a brokered Convention in August 2024 to designate anyone else as their candidate.  As of this writing, the whole of his party with characteristic desperate fecklessness craves to pry their fate from his withered fingers yet grovels at his wingtips unable to ‘do the job’ as with the colossal vanity and wrongheaded selfishness signal of his career Biden as he twists in the wind is yet clinging to the window sill of an unsalvageable campaign all know except him will end in a wipeout loss . . . if he remains.

Joe Biden Is the Biggest Loser in American History, Part III

[comparativeoracle]

Curiosity. Art by Adam Oehlers, from Thistledown.

You may have noticed by now that our Curiosity card features a little jumping spider gazing at a gleaming dewdrop that clings to a beautiful flower....We know some people are afraid of or are creeped out by spiders, but we wanted to make this card as approachable as possible...

We absolutely love spiders in general (seriously, we do), but we have a soft spot for jumping spiders, especially. Dare we say that they are some of the cutest arachnids ever?! They're essentially the teddy bear of the spider world! They have big, forward-facing puppy dog eyes, expressive body language, and small, fluffy bodies. The most important thing, though, is that they are known for being curious, which is why we chose the humble jumping spider for the Curiosity card.

Now, some of you might be thinking, 'Gahhh! No way!' but hear us out. Here are seven cool facts we found about Jumping Spiders:

In general, spiders are critically important to the Earth’s ecosystem because they keep the insect population under control. Jumping spiders comprise 13% of all spider species on the planet. They are the largest family of spiders found almost everywhere, with the exception of extreme polar regions.

Jumping spiders are usually little (often 0.5 inches or less in length), often fuzzy, and distinguishable by their distinct eye pattern in which the large middle pair sits close together at the front of the face.

They're excellent hunters! According to Joe Hanson, Ph. D., "Most spiders build webs and wait for their food to come to them, but jumping spiders stalk and hunt and pounce on their prey like eight-legged cats."…Call us crazy, but we think that is pretty cute! Interested in learning more? Click here for another great video where Joe Hanson talks about the science of jumping spider vision.

The spiders, despite their tiny size, can leap up to 6.3 inches (160 mm), according to a 2018 paper in the journal Scientific Reports. They will spin a quick line of silk that they use as a dragline; the tension in the silk allows the spiders to adjust their body for a smooth landing (Nabawy, Mostafa R.A., et al. “Energy and Time Optimal Trajectories in Exploratory Jumps of the Spider Phidippus Regius.” Sci Rep, vol. 8, 2018, doi:10.1038/s41598-018-25227-9)

They tend to jump only when on the hunt or when startled.

According to the Menunkatuck Audubon Society, 'Jumping spiders are active during the day, loving bright sunny spots. Look for them hanging out on flower heads, along outside deck railings and inside window¬sills as they hunt for small insects.'

And the most adorable fact we found?…research published in the journal Royal Society Biology Letters found jumping spiders often fixate on people and love watching them. "Whereas many spiders, like black widows or the brown recluse, tend to avoid people, jumping spiders often seem quite fearless," says researcher Elizabeth Jakob, PhD. "If a spider turns to look at you, it is almost certainly a jumping spider."

[ukrainenews]

Daily Wrap Up January 16-17, 2023

Under the cut:

Britain will send a squadron of Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine to help push back Russia’s invasion, the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has confirmed.

The death toll of Russia's Jan. 14 attack on an apartment building in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro has risen to 45, according to Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Governor Valentyn Reznichenko. The death toll includes 6 children. 79 are injured. [Note: These numbers may continue to change as rescue and cleanup efforts continue.]

Ukrainian troops have arrived at Fort Sill in Oklahoma to begin training on the Patriot missile system, the US Army base announced Monday.

The Netherlands plans to join the US and Germany in sending a Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said during a meeting with US President Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday.

“Britain will send a squadron of Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine to help push back Russia’s invasion, the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has confirmed.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Wallace said Russia had “singularly failed to break the will of the Ukrainian people” and had “managed to lose significant numbers of generals and commanding officers”.

He said:

We now would expect a trend back towards a Russian offensive, no matter how much loss of life accompanies it.

Ukraine’s allies must “accelerate our collective efforts to dramatically, economically and militarily to keep the pressure” on Vladimir Putin, Wallace said.

Announcing what he described as “the most significant package of combat to date to accelerate Ukrainian success”, Wallace said the UK would send a squadron of Challenge 2 tanks with armoured recovery and repair vehicles.

The announcement makes the UK the first western power to supply the Ukrainians with main battle tanks, which would be used to help train Ukrainian troops, and will heap further pressure on Germany to approve a wider delivery of the vehicles this week.

In a call with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on Saturday, the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, confirmed for the first time that it was Britain’s intention to provide a small number of Challenger 2 tanks to Kyiv.

After the phone call, a spokesperson for the prime minister said the offer of Challenger 2 tanks and additional artillery systems was a sign of the UK’s “ambition to intensify our support to Ukraine”.

In response, the Kremlin said today that the Challenger 2s “will burn” on the battlefield, and claimed the supplies were an attempt to draw out the conflict.”-via The Guardian

~

“The death toll of Russia's Jan. 14 attack on an apartment building in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro has risen to 45, according to Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Governor Valentyn Reznichenko.

Another child has been found among those killed, Reznichenko said.

At least six children were killed in the attack.

The strike also left 79 injured, and the death toll could still rise as dozens of people are still missing, and the rescue mission continues.

Three days after a Russian Kh-22 missile struck the apartment building, rescuers continued to work to retrieve people from the rubble.”-via Kyiv Independent

~

“Ukrainian troops have arrived at Fort Sill in Oklahoma to begin training on the Patriot missile system, the US Army base announced Monday.

CNN was first to report that the training was set to begin as soon as this week.

Fort Sill is home to the Fires Center of Excellence where the US conducts Patriot training for its own military and other countries.  

“The same instructors who teach U.S., allied and partner nations will conduct the Ukrainian training, and these classes will not detract from the ongoing training missions at Fort Sill,” the base said in a statement.

The training will take “several months” on the advanced but complex long-range aerial defense system, according to Pentagon officials. It’s not clear how much the military can accelerate the training program.”-via CNN

~

“The Netherlands plans to join the US and Germany in sending a Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said during a meeting with US President Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday.

“We have the intention to join what you are doing with Germany on the Patriots project, so the air defense system. I think that is important that we join that,” Rutte said, adding that he’s already discussed the issue with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“We can never accept that Putin and Russia get away with it this, so our accountability to take them to court, to make sure that this all gets done,” Rutte said. A Dutch defense ministry spokesperson declined to comment beyond Rutte’s statement.

Biden and Rutte “reaffirmed the historic ties and shared values that link” the US and the Netherlands when they met Tuesday, the White House said, in a readout of the meeting.

The two leaders, “reviewed our steadfast political, security, economic, and humanitarian support for Ukraine in the face of Russia’s brutal war of aggression, including our efforts to hold Russia accountable for its abuses and for the war crimes committed by Russian forces,” according to the readout. They also discussed “growing cooperation on other foreign policy priorities, including our shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific.””-via CNN