#national preservation week

[dopescissorscashwagon]

April 20 - 28 is National Park Week, so each day of the week Richard will be highlighting a favorite US National Park.

Brown bear, Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, Alaska USA

📸 by Richard Bernabe

[rjzimmerman]

480 Otis, a beloved brown bear made popular by the Explore.org bear cams of Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve, hunts for salmon at a popular bear fishing spot known as “the jacuzzi” on July 20, 2014. Ed MacKerrow / In Light of Nature.

Since 2012, millions of viewers have tuned in to Explore.org’s bear cams of Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve, and many of them can tell you that bear 480 Otis is a legend.

Otis has become the face of Fat Bear Week, an annual online bracket-style competition that celebrates the heft of the brown bears at Katmai’s Brooks Falls. At that waterfall, bears gorge on salmon to pack on the pounds in order to prepare for hibernation. This year will mark the tenth anniversary of the competition, which launched October 2. But the four-time Fat Bear Week champion, who is more beloved for his personality than his size, is missing.

Known as the “Zen master,” Otis practices patience and avoids conflict. As larger and younger bears battle it out for salmon in the “jacuzzi,” a competitive plunge pool directly beneath Brooks Falls, Otis sits in a shallow pool set apart from the action, waiting for the salmon to swim directly to him. In the remote southwestern Alaska wilderness, where human visitors hardly register as a significant factor of the landscape, Otis embodies the spirit of the park’s peacefulness, says novelist and ghostwriter Angel Canann.

“He’s kind of the grandfather of the place, really,” says Canann, who became involved with the bear cam community after a trip to the park in 2021. “All of the different factors about Katmai that make it the special, extraordinary, unusual and singularly amazing place that it is—he encompasses that in himself, and that’s one of the reasons everybody loves him so much.”

Otis has been reliably showing up to the falls since 2001, when he was first identified as a 4-to-6-year-old sub-adult. Each year around July, bear cam viewers anxiously anticipate his return, knowing the beloved elder bear is approaching the limit of his 20- to 30-year lifespan. Fans always breathe a big sigh of relief when Otis shows up to his preferred spot in the pool, which viewers have dubbed his “office,” says Stacey Schmeidel, a college public relations professional who has volunteered both in-person as a visitor interpreter at Katmai National Park and Preserve and online operating Explore.org’s nature cameras.

But Otis didn’t show up to the falls this summer, and rangers can’t account for his whereabouts. Bears in Katmai aren’t tracked by any method other than observation, and the nature cameras at Brooks Falls cover only about a mile and a half of the vast, 4.2-million-acre park, says Sarah Bruce, Katmai National Park and Preserve’s visual information specialist. As Fat Bear Week gets underway, fans are wondering what may have happened to the beloved bear.

Since Otis is an older bear and his absence is unusual, he may be deceased, says Mike Fitz, the resident naturalist for Explore.org and a former Katmai National Park and Preserve ranger who launched Fat Bear Week. Or Otis may have adapted to a different fishing spot elsewhere in the park. Fitz has seen bears that take a break from the falls for a season and return in following years. But they were all younger than Otis, he says. While cautioning he doesn’t know where Otis is, he says his instinct tells him Otis likely isn’t elsewhere in the park.

This year’s Fat Bear Week will likely be the first without Otis as a contender since its inauguration as “Fat Bear Tuesday” on Katmai National Park and Preserve’s Facebook page in 2014—which Otis won. Adult males usually weigh between 600 and 900 pounds in mid-summer, but they can chunk up to more than 1,000 pounds by fall. In the initial contest, the bear with the most likes and positive reactions on Facebook won.

The tournament celebrates fat as a sign of success for the bears, which must consume a year’s worth of food in six months in order to survive the loss of about a third of their bodyweight during hibernation. The week is a testament to the richness of the park’s ecosystem, which allows the bears to thrive. Katmai is home to a massive sockeye salmon run, and Brooks Falls provides a natural barrier to the fish migrating up Brooks River. The resulting salmon scramble amounts to a veritable bear buffet.

UPDATE:

Fat Bear Week was delayed by a few days because two other bears are missing. According to NPR: "Fat Bear Week, a celebration of brown bears’ survival instincts, brought a grisly reminder of the animals’ predatory nature on Monday, when a male bear, 469, killed a female, 402, at Katmai National Park & Preserve in Alaska." If you go to 9:45 on this video, you can see the start of the bear fight. She's clearly dead about a minute and a half later. Sad, but nature doing another nature thing we can't understand.

[geezerwench]

FAT BEAR WEEK

OCTOBER 4 - 10, 2023

Do you like Fat Bears? Do you enjoy voting? Do you need more enrichment in your enclosure?

If you answered YASSS to all 3, get excited because it's the US Natl Park Service's Fat Bear Week! Vote for the fattest bear each day! Read the bear bios and share your own hypothetical bear bio to #FatBearBios just for funsies

* you do not need to be a US citizen to vote for Fat Bears

[orcelito]

So I found out upon checking my email this morning that the therapy appointment isn't in the health building like I thought, but rather in the basement of a boy's only dorm further north

Which brings up two problems: that's even further away than I'd accounted for, and I find it SUPREMELY uncomfortable to go to a boy's only dorm for therapy, even if the office is in one of the general areas.

I'd already been conceding on the matter of agreeing to talk to a man, since I'm generally uncomfortable with talking to men I don't know, but it was the soonest appointment I could get... so I agreed to it, but finding out it's in the boy's only dorm is just Too Much. Not only would it make it even harder to get there, but my skin just kinda crawls thinking about baring my fuckin heart in a place so thoroughly meant for guys. Like it's a place I don't belong, which REALLY does not help give the comfort kinda required of such an appointment.

I called the office asking if the appointment could be set up on zoom (bc it mentioned it in the email), but the therapist was staunch on it being in-person, so I rescheduled with a different person for the 13th. Bc if this dude isn't gonna be understanding with my discomfort with the location, like fuckin hell I'm gonna let myself be emotionally vulnerable with him. Bet he was thinking I was being too picky like "Oh it's a stupid Girl who can't handle being around Men" like sorry I have a healthy fear of guys I don't know 😋😋😋😋😋 if U have a problem with it then change society so talking to unknown men doesn't feel like walking in a minefield. Thanks.

[katmaibearfan]

128 Grazer is your Fat Bear Week 2024 Champion!

this is the first time that a sow with cubs has won Fat Bear Week, and 128 Grazer's second Fat Bear Week crown!

you go, you massive, angry lady!

remember, I'm just a fan! all credit for Fat Bear Week and all photos and graphics goes to Katmai National Park and Preserve, Katmai Conservancy, and Explore.org!

[wileycap]

Selected Excerpts From The Fire Nation Royal Palace Servants' (Unofficial) Handbook

Or: Revisions To Normal Protocol After The Ascension Of Agni's Exalted Flame, The Dragon Of The Sun, et cetera, Fire Lord Zuko

1. Agni's Exalted Flame, The Dragon Of The Sun, et cetera, Fire Lord Zuko should not be referred to by his full titles and styles, no matter the context. This appears to annoy him. "Fire Lord Zuko" and "Lord Zuko" are acceptable, as well as "your majesty" and "my Lord".

1.1 "Lord Hotman", however, is unacceptable.

1.2. Even if the Avatar specifically requests you to address Fire Lord Zuko as that.

1.3. In fact, any attempts by the Avatar, the Lady Beifong, the honorable Tribesman Sokka or even Master Katara to get you to address Fire Lord Zuko by anything other than his proper title should be disregarded.

1.4. Referring to Ozai of the Fire Nation (titles rmvd, dishon.) as "The Loser Lord", however, is acceptable.

2. Fire Lord Zuko is aware of the concept of mortality, but does not seem to understand how it relates to His Majesty. Following activities should be discouraged: Free climbing, glider usage, contact with exotic animals larger than a turtleduck (or smaller, if the animal is known to be venomous), amateur theatre productions, cooking, sailing, spelunking, botany, please see full list in the Matron's office.

2.1. It should be noted that His Majesty's belief that mortality does not apply to him does not appear to be completely unfounded. After several "close calls", it has been decided that upon his demise, Fire Lord Zuko should lie in state for at least two weeks.

2.1.1. We do not want another incident.

3. The turtleducks in the Western Pond do not need to be fed by the servants any more.

3.1. However, the turtleducks should be rotated out at regular intervals in order to prevent overfeeding.

4. At any official social functions, at least three servants should be vigilant in case His Majesty tries to tell a joke.

4.1. It should be noted that there is no concern for His Majesty's jokes being offensive, crass or otherwise contrary to good taste. They are simply very bad. His Majesty always ends up embarrassed.

5. Any children left unattended in the Royal Palace for more than 15 degrees can be retrieved from the Fire Lord's office.

6. Should His Majesty go missing, the following places should be searched: roofs and any high places, cellars and secret passages, the fur of the Avatar's sky bison (which is surprisingly deep), and every place that an ordinary five-year-old would think to hide in during a game of "Hide and Explode."

6.1. All of the Imperial Firebenders as well as any soldier who wears a mask during the course of their duties should be questioned.

6.1.1. Important note: Some of the soldiers who are especially close to His Majesty can perform a passable imitation of him. Efforts should be made to prevent an uneducated soldier from, say, conducting a meeting with the Minister of Agriculture.

6.2. After the recent incident, that list is expanded to include the Kyoshi Warriors and any other groups that might wear concealing full face paint.

6.3. If all of these measures prove ineffective, a letter should be sent to The Dragon of the West, Prince Iroh, asking His Highness to return His Majesty.

6.4. If a ransom note is delivered, it should be immediately checked against the handwriting samples from the honorable Tribesman Sokka as well as Avatar Aang, before any other actions are taken.

6.4.1. Replying "Good luck, he's your problem now" to a ransom note is absolutely unacceptable.

6.4.1.1. To further drive home the point, the Royal Archives are required by law to preserve every single piece of royal correspondence. That thing will end up in a museum.

This handbook will be updated should it prove necessary.

[bachiles]

Fat Bear Week 2023

I almost missed it again. Last year I got in on the last few days of Fat Bear Week and this year it is the same. 2 days of voting left. I have resolved to mark my calendar for next year so that I don’t miss a day of voting! The event runs from October 4-10, 2023 so there really are only a couple of days left to vote. Last year I discovered Fat Bear Week – Katmai National Park and Preserve is…

[pktechgirlus]

Photo: LDeans

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

Daddy Yankee - Gasolina 2004

"Gasolina" was released as the lead single from Puerto Rican rapper Daddy Yankee's 2004 album Barrio Fino in the US in October 2004. By November 6, WSKQ-FM in New York City reported "Gasolina" in their top 10 rotation, and WRTO-FM in Florida said the song was their number one most-played track. It entered the US Billboard Hot 100 chart a week later, rising to number 32 in January 2005. "Gasolina" was a hit in North America and the Caribbean, gaining Daddy Yankee popularity among Latino mainstream music fans. In July 2005, "Gasolina" was released as a single in the UK, eventually earning a Silver certification in March 2019. Australia saw the single enter their charts in late January 2006 during their summer season, rising to number 12. "Gasolina" was the first reggaeton song to be nominated for the Latin Grammy Award for Record of the Year. Puerto Rican reggaeton singer Glory sings the line "dame más gasolina", although she is not credited.

In 2015, the song was ranked number nine on the "50 Greatest Latin Songs of All Time" list according to Billboard. In 2018, it was ranked number 38 on Rolling Stone's 50 Greatest Latin Pop Songs. In 2017, it was included on Billboard's "12 Best Dancehall & Reggaeton Choruses of the 21st Century" at number eight. In 2021, it was ranked number 50 on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time", and a year later it was ranked at the first place on their 2022 "100 Greatest Reggaeton Songs of All Time" list. In 2023, "Gasolina" was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The song was used in the 2023 movie Fast X / Fast & Furious 10.

"Gasolina" received a total of 77,4% yes votes!

[reasonsforhope]

"In an unprecedented step to preserve and maintain the most carbon-rich elements of U.S. forests in an era of climate change, President Joe Biden’s administration last week proposed to end commercially driven logging of old-growth trees in National Forests.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, issued a Notice of Intent to amend the land management plans of all 128 National Forests to prioritize old-growth conservation and recognize the oldest trees’ unique role in carbon storage. 

It would be the first nationwide amendment to forest plans in the 118-year history of the Forest Service, where local rangers typically have the final word on how to balance forests’ role in watershed, wildlife and recreation with the agency’s mandate to maintain a “sustained yield” of timber.

“Old-growth forests are a vital part of our ecosystems and a special cultural resource,” Vilsack said in a statement accompanying the notice. “This clear direction will help our old-growth forests thrive across our shared landscape.”

But initial responses from both environmentalists and the logging industry suggest that the plan does not resolve the conflict between the Forest Service’s traditional role of administering the “products and services” of public lands—especially timber—and the challenges the agency now faces due to climate change. National Forests hold most of the nation’s mature and old-growth trees, and therefore, its greatest stores of forest carbon, but that resource is under growing pressure from wildfire, insects, disease and other impacts of warming.

Views could not be more polarized on how the National Forests should be managed in light of the growing risks.

National and local environmental advocates have been urging the Biden administration to adopt a new policy emphasizing preservation in National Forests, treating them as a strategic reserve of carbon. Although they praised the old-growth proposal as an “historic” step, they want to see protection extended to “mature” forests, those dominated by trees roughly 80 to 150 years old, which are a far larger portion of the National Forests. As old-growth trees are lost, which can happen rapidly due to megafires and other assaults, they argue that the Forest Service should be ensuring there are fully developed trees on the landscape to take their place...

The Biden administration’s new proposal seeks to take a middle ground, establishing protection for the oldest trees under its stewardship while allowing exceptions to reduce fuel hazards, protect public health and safety and other purposes. And the Forest Service is seeking public comment through Feb. 2 (Note: That's the official page for the proposed rule, but for some reason you can only submit comments through the forest service website - so do that here!) on the proposal as well as other steps needed to manage its lands to retain mature and old-growth forests over time, particularly in light of climate change.

If the Forest Service were to put in place nationwide protections for both mature and old-growth forests, it would close off most of the National Forests to logging. In an inventory concluded earlier this year in response to a Biden executive order, the Forest Service found that 24.7 million acres, or 17 percent, of its 144.3 million acres of forest are old-growth, while 68.1 million acres, or 47 percent, are mature."

-via Inside Climate News, December 20, 2023

-

Note: This proposed rule is current up for public comment! If you're in the US, you can go here to file an official comment telling the Biden administration how much you support this proposal - and that you think it should be extended to mature forests!

Official public comments really DO matter. You can leave a comment on this proposal here until February 2nd.

[ridenwithbiden]

"Native Americans across Indian Country shared mixed emotions this week after President Biden apologized for the U.S. government’s role in running Native American boarding schools across the country.

During the 150-year practice, at more than 400 schools where the U.S. partnered with various religious institutions, Indigenous children were separated from their families and stripped of their language and customs in an effort to assimilate into white culture. There were also documented cases of abuse and death.

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, who is a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe and has been instrumental in bringing these issues to a wider audience through her Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, applauded Biden’s move.

“I'm so grateful to [Biden] for acknowledging this terrible era of our nation's past,” Haaland, whose grandparents were taken to boarding schools, posted on X.

ederal Indian boarding schools have impacted every Indigenous person I know. These were places where children - including my grandparents - were traumatized. I'm so grateful to @POTUS for acknowledging this terrible era of our nation's past.

“I would never have guessed in a million years that something like this would happen,” she told the Associated Press.

At the Gila Crossing Community School near Phoenix, Biden celebrated Haaland’s historic role and apologized today for America’s “sin.”

“It’s an honor, a genuine honor … to right a wrong, to chart a new path,” he said. “I formally apologize as president of the United States of America for what we did. I formally apologize. It’s long overdue.”

However, Indigenous leaders and citizens across the country stressed that this is only the first step.

“This is one of the most historic days in the history of Indian Country, and an apology of this size must be followed by real action,” Nick Tilsen, who belongs to the Oglala Lakota Nation and is president and CEO of the Indigenous rights organization NDN Collective, told Yahoo News.

Tilsen believes that there are specific, actionable steps that need to accompany any apology. For him, that means passing the U.S. Truth and Healing Commission bill in Congress, rescinding medals of honor for those who participated in the Battle of Wounded Knee, releasing “longest living Indigenous political prisoner in American history Leonard Peltier, who is also a boarding school survivor” and “unprecedented investment in Indigenous languages and education.”

Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation Chuck Hoskin celebrated the move, calling out Haaland’s role in particular, and echoed the sentiment of following any apology with action.

“The [Department of the Interior’s] recommendations, especially in the preservation of Native languages and the repatriation of ancestors and cultural items, can be a path toward true healing,” Hoskin said in a statement.

While many Indigenous leaders are calling for action, Tilsen stressed that this is also a time to hold boarding school survivors and their families close.

“At this moment in history, we have to remember many of the survivors of the boarding schools are still alive,” he said. “It's in every household and it's in every community. And it's directly tied to the struggles that our people have today.”

Dylan Rose Goodwill, who is Diné (Navajo), Hunkpapa Lakota and Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota, was visiting Sherman Indian High School in Riverside, Calif., on Thursday when she heard the news about Biden’s forthcoming apology. It’s a place that is part of her family history, as her grandmother (or másáni) was sent there when it served as a federally run Native boarding school.

She told Yahoo News that hearing the news there was “complicated.”

As the senior assistant director of undergraduate admissions at the University of Southern California, Goodwill was visiting the school as a college recruiter.

“I've always had these kinds of mixed feelings because it's been weird to be the admission counselor for the schools that my own grandparents attended,” she said.

“It was already a tough morning to go and then to receive the news on site was really a mixture of feelings because I felt anger mostly, where it was like disbelief that this was happening, excitement that at least it was happening, but also feeling like this isn't enough,” Goodwill added.

Sitting where her grandmother sat in the 1930s and '40s, Goodwill asked herself, “What is that gonna really hold for her now? She passed in '04.”

Biden’s statement comes 16 years after former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized for Canada’s role in the Indigenous residential school system — a topic filmmakers Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie document in their film Sugarcane, about St. Joseph’s Mission School near the Sugarcane reserve in British Columbia.

NoiseCat is a member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen and a descendant of the Lil’wat Nation of Mount Currie and whose grandmother attended the Catholic Church-run residential school and gave birth to his father there. He told Yahoo News that this moment was important for a “continentwide conversation about what happened to Native families and Native children at Native American boarding schools and Indian residential schools.”

Joining Biden and Haaland for the event on the Gila River Indian Reservation along with Kassie, NoiseCat continued, “The fact that the president has chosen to formally apologize to survivors and their families is a real testament to the significance of this story, which needs to be understood as a foundational story to North America.”

However, Kassie echoed that actionable steps must follow sentiment.

“As momentous and important as this day is, it's important that it's followed up with action,” she told Yahoo. “It's important that the records of what happened at these institutions that are held by the U.S. government and the Catholic Church are opened to Indigenous communities who are looking for answers. And it's important that those communities also have the opportunity to hold to account those institutions and individuals who abused them.”

For Tilsen, it’s also a time to “center the survivors.”

“As we sort of politically dissect this moment,” he said, “I also want to recognize the pain that is being resurfaced, and that our people deserve the right to have pain and they deserve the right to have rage in this moment while we lean towards moving forward in action.”

NoiseCat, who has a deeply personal connection to the residential school history, said, “I'm probably going to call my dad today after the apology and just check in with him.”

[pluckyredhead]

What the heck is going on in Batman/Gotham War?

I know a lot of people in fandom are confused and/or upset about what's been going on in Gotham War - why is Bruce acting like this, what is Selina doing, why are the Batkids taking sides. So I figured I would fill you all in on what's been happening in Batman and Catwoman since Chip Zdarsky took over with Batman #125, because it has been BONKERS and I have been enjoying the hell out of it.

Below, the quickest summary I can manage while still being comprehensive:

[Content warning: mental illness, abuse, suicide (...ish), LOTS of violence.]

The first arc, "Failsafe," starts with Batman and Robin (Tim, in this case) in pursuit of the Penguin, who is on a killing spree. In the very first issue, Tim gets shot in the neck. Bruce has to take him to the hospital, but first he has to strip him out of his costume and put him in civilian clothes to preserve their secret identities, triggering memories of when he had to do the same to Jason's dead body. There is LITERALLY NO PURPOSE TO ANY OF THIS EXCEPT WHUMP (Tim is back in action with a fucking BAND-AID on his neck very quickly), which is how I knew this was going to be good. Beat Tim up! Make Bruce cry about Jason! I want these men to suffer! (There is also SO much to be said about Tim's own Poor Mental Health Decisions throughout the entirety of Zdarsky's run so far, but that's for a separate meta post.)

Anyway. Bruce leaves Tim in the hospital and goes to confront Penguin, who turns out to be dying of mercury poisoning. He kills himself and makes it look like Batman did it, forcing Bruce to flee. (Penguin actually faked his death and is alive elsewhere under an alias, but that's not important right now.)

In the Batcave, a massive robot called Failsafe emerges. Failsafe attacks Bruce, who usually eats killer robots for breakfast, but he can't seem to get the upper hand on this one. Duke, Cass, Steph, and Dick show up to help, but Failsafe beats them all too, while Tim gets an injured Bruce away and to the Batcave.

In the Batcave, Bruce puts on a weird purple and red Batman costume and a new personality takes over: the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh. Now, Zur has a very complicated history going back to 1958, but for the purposes of this story, all you need to know is that when he was younger, Bruce decided it would be good to hang out in a sensory deprivation chamber until his mind created a secondary personality, Zur, who is essentially Batman without Bruce. Zur is pure efficiency who does not care about anything but the mission. He created Failsafe, for one purpose: to kill Bruce if Bruce ever crossed the line and killed someone. And right now, Failsafe believes that Bruce killed Penguin.

Failsafe nearly kills Tim, which Zur is okay with writing off as an expendable soldier's death, but this causes Bruce to take control of the body back because "Tim isn't my soldier...HE'S MY SON!" (Tim Nation, why are you not ALL OVER this story? It's catnip.)

Babs calls in the JLA (SuperBat fans, you will also want to read Bruce's adoring description of Clark when he shows up), but of course Failsafe has kryptonite, which it stabs Clark with. The League dumps Clark and Bruce into the JLA jet and distracts Failsafe while Tim flies Clark and Bruce to the Fortress of Solitude. Bruce tells Tim he's a good boy and jumps out of the jet and into the ocean so that Tim and Clark will be safe from Failsafe. He's rescued by Arthur, who takes him to Atlantis to heal. THIS HAS ALL ONLY BEEN FOUR ISSUES SO FAR.

Two weeks later, Bruce wakes up to discover that Failsafe has taken over Gotham. He teleports up to the JLA Watchtower on the moon to lure Failsafe there, then blows the Watchtower up, hoping to catch a ride on one of the Javelins. But Failsafe has already destroyed them, so Bruce RIDES A BOOSTER ROCKET BACK TO EARTH, OXYGEN MASK CLAPPED OVER HIS FACE. The whole thing has some powerful Scooty-Puff Jr energy.

The only tricky part is reentry, when Bruce starts to burn up - his costume is fireproof, of course, but his chin is exposed. SO HE TAKES OFF HIS LITTLE BAT-PANTIES AND PUTS THEM OVER HIS HEAD. I swear to god this happened in a real comic book and the entire "Bruce falls off the moon and survives" sequence is utterly delectable goofy nonsense and I truly cannot recall a time I've had more fun reading a comic book.

Anyway, Bruce lands directly outside of the Fortress, BECAUSE OF COURSE HE DOES, and runs inside to find Clark and Tim. While Clark keeps Failsafe distracted, Bruce and Tim program nanobots to inject compassion into Failsafe. I SWEAR TO GOD. They zap him with the nanobots, but Failsafe pulls a high tech space gun out of the Fortress and shoots Bruce with it anyway, apparently disintegrating him. Tim falls to his knees in the snow, weeping. TIM NATION, WAKE UP, THIS RUN IS CANDY FOR YOU.

But of course Bruce isn't dead! That wasn't a killing gun, it was a "zap you into another dimension" gun!!! THAT was the compassion!

So Bruce finds himself in a dystopian alternate Gotham, and I'll be honest, I didn't love this arc ("The Bat-Man of Gotham") as much as I loved "Failsafe," but it has its moments. In this Gotham, Bruce Wayne is dead, so Regular Bruce is like "Oh boy, time to Batman this place up." Also he's plagued by hallucinations of a skeleton version of Jim Gordon who is still wearing a trench coat AND A MUSTACHE. Like I said, it has its moments.

This Gotham is controlled by Arkham, and anyone who is diagnosed as "crazy" is locked up. A new villain, Red Mask, is in charge, and Selina and a Venomed-up Harvey Dent work for him. Bruce teams up with an orphan kid (of course) named Jewel and goes after Red Mask, who turns out to be some guy named Darwin Halliday and ALSO...the Joker. Well, he's the Joker who hasn't been Jokerized yet. But one time he breathed in some chemicals that let him see into the main reality of the DCU (???) and glimpsed Regular Joker and now he wants to build an interdimensional machine to mentally connect with Regular Joker across universes which he assumes will make him insane, NATURALLY.

Bruce attacks Red Mask, who sics a Venomed-up Ghost Maker on him. Ghost Maker cuts off Bruce's right hand. Bruce cauterizes it with an electroshock machine and ties some spikes on it (SERIOUSLY) and goes after Red Mask again. Meanwhile Red Mask mentally connects with an alternate dimensional Joker...but instead of it driving Red Mask insane, he's what drives the Joker insane. Desperate to become the Joker somehow, anyhow, he jumps into the interdimensional portal, and Morally Dubious Alternate Universe Selina kicks Bruce in after him.

Meanwhile, Tim is in full "I KNOW I SAW HIM DIE BUT HE'S NOT DEAD" mode, which: bless. So he teams up with Jon Kent, which...gosh, what an astonishingly boring duo. I love Jon, I love Tim, they're perfectly nice and normal around each other, I'm falling asleep. Anyway Tim fights Toyman for a while and then makes a VERY stupid costume where the entire torso is a giant light-up R, because "I want him to see that Robin is coming to save him." GET A THERAPY, TIM.

Bruce finds himself first in the Michael Keaton Batman universe, then the Red Rain universe, BTAS, Batman Beyond (yes I know they're the same universe but I guess he goes there twice), Silver Age, Kingdom Come, Gotham by Gaslight, and more. Adam West gives him a utility belt. The Dark Knight Returns Bruce builds him a robot hand.

Finally Bruce and Red Mask reach the end of the multiverse, which is a Gotham asteroid floating in space, surrounded by giant Jokerized sharks. LUCKILY BRUCE HAS BAT-SHARK REPELLANT IN HIS ADAM WEST UTILITY BELT!!! Honestly this whole arc was worth it for that moment.

Bruce knocks Red Mask out, but now he's stuck. He has a device from Batman Beyond Bruce to get home, but it's only good for one person, and he can't leave Red Mask there to die. Of course, that's when Tim shows up in his stupid giant glowing R costume and they hug it out, thereby fulfilling but also compounding all of Tim's issues since 1989.

Anyway things are fine now, right? Sure, Bruce is hallucinating that his family is on fire, and the Zur personality is not going neatly back into the box where it's been all these years, and he still has a robot hand (Damian, hilariously, immediately announces that he wants one too), but he's FINE. He is a little bit mad at Selina, because she broke out of jail (she was in jail because she killed her fuckbuddy because he was trying to kill Bruce), and also because she didn't tell him Penguin was alive and that would have stopped Failsafe, and also because Other Selina kicked into another universe. Selina, very fairly, is like "Well I'm not responsible for Other Selinas and also maybe don't build robots to kill yourself with and not tell anyone about them???"

THEN we got Knight Terrors, the summer event in which a villain called Nightmare caused everyone to fall asleep and, uh, have nightmares. Bruce, specifically, had a nightmare that he met an eight-year-old version of himself that vomited up a man-sized bat with a gun for a head. I laughed SO HARD. Bruce also had his body borrowed by Deadman for the duration of the event, so while he endured the psychological toll of nightmares like everyone else, he also endured the physical toll of everything Deadman was doing PLUS the mental toll of being aware of what was happening in the waking world even though he couldn't control his body. As soon as the event was over, he lapsed into a coma so that his body could get some damn rest.

Okay. Now we're up to Gotham War.

(I know, I know. But for all of you who are like "How could Bruce do this???" about Gotham War...*points up* THAT'S HOW. HE IS NOT WELL.)

Bruce awakens from his coma and IMMEDIATELY decides to Fight A Crime even though Babs is like "Maybe don't?" But he can't find any crime, which is...weird. His kids confirm that Gotham's been super quiet since he's been out.

Selina hears that Bruce is awake and is like okay, time to pay the piper. She calls all of the Bats to a meeting and explains that she's the reason crime has been down. See, villains like Joker and Two-Face always have goons, right? But what if the goon supply dried up because the goons have better jobs? So Selina has trained All The Goons In Gotham to be...cat burglars. No violence, no stealing from anyone who can't afford it. More importantly, no helping Scarecrow or whoever commit mass murder.

All of the Batkids are like "Hmm...I feel uncertain about this, but it's working...I don't know what to think..." except for Jason, who thinks it's hilarious and is instantly Team Selina, and Damian, who is staunchly Team Bruce. Bruce, meanwhile, is like "No! NO! THIS IS CRIMES, AND CRIMES IS BAD!" and Selina's like "I mean, robbing from the rich is basically a victimless crime" and Bruce screams, I swear to god, "MY PARENTS WERE 'RICH'!" Inexplicable scare quotes and all. I laughed so hard.

Anyway this is the basis for Gotham War and it is endlessly hilarious to me because everyone in the Batfamily is supposed to be a genius and yet not one single character has pointed out that:

There are jobs the goons could be doing that AREN'T illegal. It's not just violent crime vs. nonviolent crime. There are in fact many other jobs! I am POSITIVE Gotham needs construction workers and hospital orderlies. (Yes, I know it's hard for people with records to get jobs. That isn't addressed.)

Being Batman is SUPER ILLEGAL.

They are all so stupid.

Selina's plan doesn't even work, because one of her thieves gets killed by a rich person defending their home, and Bruce is like "See? This is why crime is bad!" and like...pretty much snaps. He's particularly fixated on Jason, even (rhetorically) threatening to kill him, which is when the other kids jump into the fray on Jason's side, all except for Damian, who like I said is firmly Team Bruce. (This makes complete sense to me, Damian has been dealing with severe trauma and isolation pretty much nonstop since 2018 and he and Bruce have finally made a tenuous peace, so I can understand why he wouldn't want to lose that.)

Also, Vandal Savage buys Wayne Manor. It's so random and SO funny.

OKAY BATMAN #138. Bruce has kidnapped Jason and injected him with a variation on fear toxin which will be triggered whenever Jason's adrenaline spikes, the idea being that Jason is no longer capable of killing - but in practice, Jason is no longer capable of even getting up off the floor, he's so terrified. I want to be really, really clear here: Bruce is like 90% Zur here, and the only reason he goes this route and doesn't kill Jason is because the remaining 10% that's still Bruce loves Jason and is trying to help him. He's just incapable of good or humane help because Zur literally can't do feelings.

Dick knows something is up and is sneaking around Bruce's Secret Other House We've Never Heard Of to figure out what it is. Damian attacks him to protect Bruce. Tim attacks Damian so that Dick can do what he needs to do, and handcuffs Damian to a parking meter:

THERE IS SO MUCH TO UNPACK HERE!!! TIM GO TO THERAPY! DAMIAN GO TO THERAPY! EVERYONE GO TO THERAPY!!!!!

Dick figures out what Bruce did to Jason (it's on the computer, for...some reason?) and absolutely loses his shit on Bruce, beating the crap out of him, which tbh is the only thing that felt off to me in this run because frankly I don't think Dick likes Jason that much. BUT WHATEVER.

Tim pulls Dick off of Bruce. Bruce leaves them both tangled in a net and flees as the cops approach. Zur's like "Good, fuck 'em" in Bruce's head, because the cops will expose Dick, Tim, and Damian's secret identities and Bruce will be free of the dead weight of a family, but the little bit of Bruce still in there throws Dick a batarang so he can free them all in time.

Then Bruce leaves. Damian is devastated.

I WILL NEVER RECOVER FROM THIS PAGE. Damian really thought he could have Bruce's love and loyalty if he turned on everyone else! Tim is going to be a therapy dog to a Wayne even if he has to settle for the one he doesn't like! That unresisting, blank hug made me SCREAM when I turned the page. Incredible. (Also the art fucking S L A P S, god bless you Jorge Jimenez.)

ALSO it turns out that Selina's second in command has been Vandal Savage's daughter Scandal Savage the whole time and they are turning Selina's cat burglar army into their own personal army WHOOPS. (This also feels very OOC for Scandal but at this point I trust Zdarsky with my life so let's see where things go.)

SO THAT'S WHAT'S GOING ON IN GOTHAM WAR. TL;DR:

Bruce is unhinged because he nearly died like 19 times in a week and it unlocked the smaller, meaner purple Batman that lives inside him.

Selina is unaware that you can get money legally.

Tim is going to have a nervous breakdown if he can't fix someone, ANYONE.

Damian needs a hug but ideally from someone he actually likes this time.

Jason is so scared.

THE END.

[alicedrawslesmis]

(sorry this is from a week ago but) Wait, what's going on right now that's complicated with Amazonian farmers' land rights?

Not farmers, indigenous people

See, recently they put a new law through congress that severely reduces indigenous land to the borders established during the late dictatorship, or immediately post-dictatorship, in 1988. An absolute joke of a border that was dreamed up by some military assholes. People in america may recognize this type of society from the times of westward expansion and think this is a thing of the past because for you guys it is. But here it is a reality. Murder is rampant. The reach of the law is incredibly limited. Government is just too weak and landowners basically run things. THAT'S WHY it's so important to donate directly to the native peoples instead of random NGOs because native people are fucking there and the more power they hold in the land the safer the land will be from agroindustrial expansion.

Well the law was vetoed by the the president and the Supremo Tribunal Federal, aka supreme federal court, labeled it as unconstitutional. Which it is, because our 1988 constitution describes native american land rights in some of its first articles. We thought this would be it for the law

But then the senate (that already overrepresents landowners in rural states) just went along and approved it anyway. I had no idea they could approve something unconstitutional. The progressives and particularly the socialists are fighting this in court. But it happens that for now the legal border is the severely reduced version.

Doesn't mean they'll just give up, because as it happens we don't have any stand your ground laws so even if you own a piece of land, you cannot legally speaking just shoot everyone there. Or attack or threaten them in any way. They'll just have long legal battles individually for the rights to occupy land based on use. Also the Xingu national park, the largest preserved land of the Amazon described as 'larger than Belgium', is being encroached by huge farms that are poisoning their water supply. The border is Visible. I'll try to find video of it but essentially you have a forest and a desert separated by a strict line.

Just last week in the south of Bahia (not the Amazon, let me explain more about the Amazon situation in a bit) Hãhãhãe leadership Nega Muniz Pataxó was shot and killed by an armed militia group that invaded and occupied the Caramuru territory.

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The situation in the Amazon, specifically the yanomami territory in Roraima our northernmost state, aka deep forest, is more dire than average given difficulty of access, sheer size, and government abandonment. It's a place that depends on government aid for medicine. It's land that is being systematically invaded by gold miners, pandemic, toxins from nearby farmlands, wood extraction etc. (wood extration is rampant everywhere tho). Early 2023 saw a massive federal government operation by now president Lula to empty the mines and try to look for where funding comes from. Yanomami land is still being invaded to this day, the struggle is ongoing.

The yanomamis need support right now more than any other. Last year saw a massive heat wave that (well, one, caused a girl named Ana Clara Machado to die during the Taylor Swift concert. This is unrelated but I feel like not enough foreign media covered this, Taylor even lied about it as well.) dried up a lot of rivers, killed a LOT of fresh water animals including an unprecedented amount of pink dolphins. Access that was already hard became damn near impossible without boats. I cannot overstate how many pink dolphins were found dead.

Another technique that landowners use to clear space for farms is to just set things on fire and then occupy the empty land, which they legally can do to land that was naturally burned in a forest fire. It happened that Pantanal, another national park of swampland, was massively devastated by fires last year too

this article is from 2020, the year that the worst fire happened, but in 2023 there was another one. It's been happening yearly now due to a) deliberate action and b) climate change aggravation.

And this is not nearly all. Just off the top of my head. If you speak portuguese I recommend following the APIB or the COIAB on instagram to keep up with the news. The FUNAI is the government branch of indigenous organization, but it's not generally that well liked. Still.

[betterbooktitles]

"I’m certain I’m not the only millennial who feels we as a nation have taken a dizzying turn when it comes to drugs. I remember a uniformed police officer showing up once a week in 5th Grade (a year before Sex Ed) to explain how to avoid buying and taking drugs. Luckily, I already knew the dangers of the drug trade because I had seen The Usual Suspects. I knew cocaine was a bad thing to buy, sell, or steal, especially from a drug kingpin. The D.A.R.E. program, however, let me know how important it was to say no to anything fun, including alcohol. At least until I understood a little algebra first. We did role-playing exercises where we walked one by one toward the portly police officer and he casually asked if we wanted to hit a mimed joint with him. All we had to do was say “no” and walk to the other side of the room, defying the only rule I knew about improv. We wrote essays about how important it was to preserve our pristine bodies and minds, obviously unsullied since we had yet to take the class teaching us how puberty was going to defile them both. I’m still mad that my friend Nicole’s essay beat mine in a contest, and she got to read hers in front of the whole school all because she had the benefit of an older brother who took too much acid and sat in her room all night talking about why the existence of light proved God was real. My essay about a time I saw my friend’s dad drink a beer and then drive his truck somewhere was also good! We signed pledges to enter the new millennium drug-free. We took the red pencils that said “Friends Don’t Let Friends Do Drugs” and sharpened all of them down to say “Let Friends Do Drugs,” “Friends Do Drugs,” “Do Drugs,” and simply “Drugs.” Despite that little rebellious act, my friends and I spent a solid six months swearing we’d never put any harmful substance into our bodies besides every form of candy available.

Imagine how I feel now as a D.A.R.E. graduate becoming my dad’s drug dealer. It’s less thrilling than I thought it would be. Between my father’s warning not to hang around one specific neighborhood in Cleveland as a kid and nearly every TV show about drugs, I thought I’d always be buying marijuana from an intimidating dude who definitely had a gun and would use it immediately if he thought I was wearing a wire. Instead, I now buy marijuana from a well-lit storefront that looks like the Apple Store. I’ve even gone to a place where a guy with an iPad explained what each available strain would do to me. I buy what sounds good with all the confidence of a man pointing at items on a menu written in a language he can’t read. I put it all in a cardboard box. I place a book on top. I mail the box to my dad from my local post office. I tell myself the book is to hide the contraband crossing state lines, but in truth, the book is what clears my conscience. I want to send my dad something edifying while also sending him the drug that all of America worried would make me unable to read if I tried it once. The unrequested book is a red herring to distract from the vice, like when you were young and didn’t want to buy condoms outright at the store so you cushioned them between a pack of peanut M&Ms and a magazine. Hmm, what else did I need, — right, while I’m here — might as well pick up a few condoms.

Right as marijuana becomes legal in most states, I’m about done with the drug. I’ve had three good times on edibles, and one of them was when I felt nothing and fell asleep at 9:30 PM. I’m flabbergasted that my dad likes edibles. He seems to be a man free of anxiety. Case in point, I once brought him some THC lozenges to our summer holiday in Chautauqua, and around dinner time I told him “You might want to only take half of what I gave you” to which he replied, “I took it hours ago.” He was stoned and no one noticed.

While I’m stuck in my head, stoned or sober, wondering why I didn’t take some acting gig 15 years ago, wondering if I’ll ever make enough money, worrying I’m doing everything wrong including in this moment as I write this sentence, my dad is enjoying himself.

Judith Grisel, the author of Never Enough: The Neuroscience And Experience of Addiction, describes using marijuana as throwing “a bucket of red paint” on your brain. She was approaching the stimulant clinically in terms of how it differed from the laser focus of other drugs (THC reacts with many receptors in the brain, cocaine focuses on one), but now every time I smoke, I think of the red paint metaphor. While other people seem able to crank an entire joint and do insanely complicated stuff like function at their jobs, I am reduced to a gelatinous blob, on top of which my eyes and brain are navigating a dream state that, like many dreams, isn’t all that interesting the next day. Mostly, I get high and can’t decide what I want to watch on TV or what video game I want to play, I realize how hungry I am, and then I fall asleep with cereal still stuck to my teeth. Pot, for me, is like the squid ink hitting the screen in Mario Kart: I can still see where I’m going, but everything gets a little harder to do, and the panicked half-blindness makes everything slightly more chaotically fun."

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Other articles include:

An essay on Claire Dederer's book Monsters and movies made by monsters.

Writing inside a Toyota Service Center.

Writing mistresses.

[mossadspypigeon]

Something I’ve been thinking about: Israel has killed more terrorists in the last two weeks that are on the most wanted list than the US has in 20 years, and they probably could have done this years ago. the ONLY reason to have not done it was the knowledge that it was impossible to not risk killing civilians too, and it would’ve been aggressive rather than defensive in engaging in warfare which Israel basically never does. they wouldn’t strike without reason. Hamas murdered innocent people in the worst ways on October 7, Hezbollah launches rockets constantly from October 8 and plans their own massacre. it could not be more justified to go after them and take them out, but it’s still risky because they embed with civilians so people will inevitably die. with regards to Hezbollah, they try the closest precision possible. with Hamas, a 1:1 casualty rate is basically unprecedented. anyone else would blast them out of oblivion too, but no one else would be so careful about it.

Israel gets called genocidal and indiscriminate because everyone’s morality is opposite reality. Hamas and Hezbollah literally are genocidal and indiscriminate. Israel has tried to preserve lives however possible. Israel would never have started eliminating these terrorists had they not attacked first.

They’ll never be thanked for it, even when the ME is safer. America should be cheering in the streets to see Hezbollah dismantled, politicians should be thanking the IDF. instead, they’re glorifying terrorists in the streets and politicians are shaming Israel and the media are decrying escalation as if the escalation didn’t happen a year ago. as if Hamas isn’t still holding A BABY HOSTAGE.

it’s such a childish view of war, to act so self-righteous and like maybe the IDF could magically evaporate terrorists who hide under civilians without any damage. that would be nice, but they can’t.

Joan Rivers clip: you’re all insane! they started it!

If the US had taken out Nasrallah we’d be smug and self-congratulatory and we’d expect the world to thank us for it. Israel knows they’ll get shamed for it. there is no explanation for this except antisemitism. sorry to the people who insist that it’s not, but their problem is the only Jewish nation in the world fighting back.

^^^^ all of this

[katmaibearfan]

Please welcome your Fat Bear Week finalists!

VS

Voting takes place at FatBearWeek.org on October 8th from 9am-6pm Pacific / 12pm-9pm Eastern.

Infographics about each bear are under the cut!

Remember, I'm just a fan -- all credit for Fat Bear Week and the associated graphics and photos goes to Katmai National Park and Preserve, The Katmai Conservancy, and Explore.org!