#wichita nation

[travelella]

Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma, USA.

[goalhofer]

2023 World Baseball Classic Venezuela Roster

Pitchers

#3 Elieser Hernández (New York Mets/Ocumare Del Tuy)

#5 Max Castillo (Kansas City Royals/Santiago De León De Caracas)

#8 Alex Rivero (Leones De Ponce/Maracay)

#18 Anthony Vizcaya (Navegantes Del Magallanes/Barquisimeto)

#35 Erick Leal (Navegantes Del Magallanes/Carabobo)

#37 Enmanuel De Jesús (Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp/Valencia)

#38 Norwith Gudiño (Worcester Red Sox/Puerto Cabello)

#43 Carlos Hernández (Kansas City Royals/Ciudad Guayana)

#44 Jesús Luzardo (Miami Marlins/Parkland, Florida)

#45 Jhoulys Chacín (Leones Del Caracas/Maracaibo)

#46 José Alvarado (Philadelphia Phillies/Maracaibo)

#47 Edwin Escobar (Yokohama DeNA BeiShutsuen-Sha/Ciudad La Sabana)

#49 Pablo López (Minnesota Twins/Cabimas)

#54 Martín Pérez (Texas Rangers/Guanare)

#55 Ranger Suárez (Philadelphia Phillies/Pies De Cuesta)

#56 Silvino Bracho (Louisville Bats/Maracaibo)

#57 Eduardo Rodríguez (Detroit Tigers/Valencia)

#58 Endrys Briceño (Amarillo Sod Poodles/Maracay)

#59 Andrés Machado (Washington Nationals/Valencia)

#60 Darwinzon Hernández (Norfolk Tides/Ciudad Bolívar)

#65 José Quijada (Los Angeles Angels/Caripito)

#66 José Ruiz (Chicago White Sox/Guacara)

#77 Luis García (Houston Astros/Ciudad Bolívar)

Catchers

#13 Salvador Pérez (Kansas City Royals/Valencia)

#16 Omar Narváez (New York Mets/Maracay)

#28 Robinson Chirinos (free agent/Punto Fijo)

Infielders

#0 Andrés Giménez (Cleveland Guardians/Barquisimeto)

#1 Luis Rengifo (Los Angeles Angels/Ciudad Naguanagua)

#2 Luis Arráez (Miami Marlins/San Felipe)

#7 Eugenio Suárez (Seattle Mariners/Ciudad Guayana)

#10 Eduardo Escobar (New York Mets/Palo Negro)

#14 Gleyber Torres (New York Yankees/Santiago De León De Caracas)

#15 Hernán Pérez (Cardenales De Lara/San Francisco De Asís)

#24 José Cabrera (Detroit Tigers/Maracay)

#27 José Altuve (Houston Astros/Maracay)

Outfielders

#6 Senger Peralta (Los Angeles Dodgers/Valencia)

#25 Anthony Santander (Baltimore Orioles/Ciudad Agua Blanca)

#42 Ronald Acuña; Jr. (Atlanta Braves/Ciudad La Guaira)

Coaches

Manager Omar López (Corpus Christi Hooks/Valencia)

Bench coach Carlos Mendoza (New York Yankees/Barquisimeto)

Hitting coach Rodolfo Hernández (Minnesota Twins/Maracay)

Assistant hitting coach Wilfredo Romero (Beisbol Venezolano/Maracay)

Pitching coach Iván Arteaga (Beisbol Venezolano/Puerto Cabello)

Bullpen coach Luis Ramírez (Beisbol Venezolano/Valencia)

1B coach Rouglas Odor (Akron RubberDucks/Maracaibo)

3B coach Ramón Borrego (Wichita Wind Surge/Maracay)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lisa Needham at Public Notice:

Elon Musk is busy. No, not because he’s attending to any of his multibillion-dollar companies. For Tesla and SpaceX and Starlink, he’s full of wild promises with very little actual progress. But what Musk is really spending time on these days is attacking the core foundations of American democracy on multiple fronts. There’s his thus-far successful effort to get rid of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). There’s his political action committee, America PAC, which pretends to help register people to vote but is just hoovering up voter data to give to the Trump campaign. And there’s his lawsuit seeking to force companies to advertise on X, despite the fact advertisers generally do not want their ads running next to the Nazi content X is full of now. All of these efforts have the potential to succeed because the federal courts are broken, and the administrative state is dying a slow and painful death. 

Immiserating workers

Let’s start with the NLRB. It’s no surprise that Musk is no friend to labor. He doesn’t believe in unions, saying that they create “a lords and peasants sort of thing,” whatever that means. When workers at his Fremont, California, plant began an organizing campaign, he tweeted that they would lose their stock options if they joined the union. This sort of threat is extremely illegal, and the NLRB sided with the workers who brought multiple unfair labor practices charges against Tesla. Tesla also prohibited workers from wearing t-shirts with union insignias, even though the right to wear pro-union clothing at work has been a legally protected activity for several decades. Then, of course, there’s the class-action lawsuit in California state court, where almost 6,000 Black workers at the Fremont factory recently got the right to sue Tesla for ignoring massive racism at that plant. How massive? Nooses at the workstations of Black workers massive.  [...]

A scam PAC

America PAC purports to help people register to vote. If you live in a state that isn’t a swing state, that’s what the PAC’s website does — sends you over to your state’s voter registration page. But if you live somewhere in play this November, the America PAC website asks you for detailed personal information, including things utterly unrelated to voter eligibility, like your cellphone number. After all that is entered, the PAC doesn’t register you at all. It doesn’t even send the user to their state registration website. It just displays a “thank you” page.  So, swing state voters may think they’re registering, but they’re not. Instead, they’ve handed over their data to a PAC that is coordinating with the Trump campaign. While PACs are generally not allowed to work directly with campaigns, America PAC is a door-to-door canvassing group, and those, inexplicably, can work hand in hand with a candidate. However, pretending to register people to vote is probably a bridge too far.

[...]

Suing advertisers

Mr. Free Speech is also availing himself of the courts to try to force companies to advertise on X. On Tuesday, X filed a lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), an advertising trade group, in the Wichita Falls Division of the Northern District of Texas. Why Wichita Falls, some 300 miles from Austin, where Tesla is located? Because the Northern District of Texas enthusiastically embraces judge shopping, and every case in Wichita Falls goes to Reed O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee who routinely tries to throw out the whole of the Affordable Care Act and is a reliable vote for anything conservatives want. (The WFA announced Thursday that it’s shutting down because it does not have the financial resources to fight X in court.) Musk already has another case before Reed O’Connor on a similarly twisted legal theory.

Late last year, X sued Media Matters in O’Connor’s court after Media Matters accurately pointed out that ads were appearing next to the Nazi and white nationalist content that is rife on X now. That case shouldn’t exist, period, and it especially shouldn’t be in O’Connor’s courtroom. As Mike Masnick pointed out over at Techdirt, X is incorporated in Nevada, with headquarters in California. Media Matters is in DC, and the Media Matters writer named in the suit is in Maryland. The only connection to Texas is that Reed O’Connor is very friendly to conservatives.

Elon Musk is selling out to enemies of America who seek to erode our democracy.

[sharkuda-prompt-meme]

IT'S NICE TO BE WANTED: A SAN JOSE SHARKS PROMPT MEME FOR '24-'25 SEASON

Landed at the bottom of the Mariana Trench for Macklin and there’s nowhere to go from here but up. Sharkies, assemble: the Sharkuda prompt meme is back and it’s open ALL SEASON.

🦈 Schedule 🦈 Prompts open: October 10 Posting opens: November 10 Soft Deadline #1: February 12 Soft Deadline #2: Western Conference Final end 2025 Collection closes: June 30

🦈 How this works 🦈 This year we’re keeping the prompt meme open all season long. Prompting opens the day of the Sharks' Home Opener on October 10 and the collection closes on June 30. The collection opens for posting on November 10, but this is not a hard deadline! There are instead two soft deadlines for you to work for: 4 Nations Cup 2025 and the conclusion of the Western Conference Finals 2025. There is a hard deadline of June 30, at which point, the collection will close for posting and prompting.

🦈Prompts & Fills 🦈

Leave at least one but no more than 50 prompts. Pairing prompts must include at least one member of San Jose Sharks, San Jose Barracuda, or Wichita Thunder organizations, past or present. General, non-pairing prompts must involve the team, franchise, or the Bay Area in some way.

All fills welcomed - fic, art, podfic, poetry, fanmixes, creative nonfiction, whatever you can think of! Fic must be a minimum of 100 words and all other works must be equivalent effort. Fills must include at least one member of the Sharks, Barracuda, or Thunder organizations at any time in franchise history.

FAQ

RULES

Questions? DM or send an ask.

[batboyblog]

"My Name is Harvey Milk and I'm Here To Recruit You!"

If you don't know Harvey Milk was the first openly gay man elected to public office, to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. To this day Harvey remains the most famous queer person elected to office maybe in the world. His short and tumultuous time in office was dominated by the fight for gay rights. In the late 1970s there was a huge backlash against the rise of gay rights spearheaded by a group called "Save Our Children". Across the country they organized elections to revoke local gay rights ordinances in Miami, Saint Paul, Wichita and Eugene in the summer and fall of 1977. In 1978 a California state Senator John Briggs brought forward a citizens referendum, Proposition 6, which would ban gay people and supporters of gay rights from being teachers any where in the state of California. The last year of Harvey's life was consumed with the struggle against Briggs who he debated across the state. In the end the Briggs Initiative was defeated 58-41% with Harvey's home of San Francisco turning out over 70% against. The national anti-gay fever broke and "Save Our Children" never recovered.

Harvey opened every speech he ever gave with "My name is Harvey Milk, and I'm here to recruit you" In the 1970s rather than accusing gay people of "grooming" children (an idea that didn't exist then) they were accused of "recruiting" them. "Recruiting our children to the homosexual lifestyle". So Harvey used it as a joke but also a battle cry

Today it feels like every day there's more bad news. Across the country state legislatures are trying to ban trans health care for minors and even adults. Local school boards are banning books about LGBT people (and others). States are trying to ban drag. violence and the threat of violence are trying to stop companies from doing Pride and attacking Queer events. The internet is flooded with "groomer" attacks on our humanity. There are days it does feel like the 1970s all over again.

BUT! we won then, and there are many lessons we can take from Harvey and his struggle and use to win the fight against the current wave of hate plunging American in darkness. Harvey's been gone a very long time so... My name is Max and I'm here to recruit you, here are some things I want everyone to do.

VOTE BITCH!

Are you an American citizen 18 years of age or older? Are you registered to vote? if the answer is no, register to fucking vote bitch, here check out what you need. If you want registered, click the link any ways and double check. If you're 16 or 17 years old good news more than half the states in America allow you to "preregister" so you're all signed up and become a registered vote right on your 18th birthday. Whats more ask every vaguely left of center person in your life, everyone who supports LGBT rights, if they're registered to vote and if any one says "no" bug the shit out of them till that changes.

But more than just registering to vote you have to go and vote, yes every election. Right now across America conservative queerphobes are using local elections that get little to no attention and are often very low turn out to take over and push wildly extreme and hateful agendas. Local school boards across America are banning books that have LGBT characters or themes. They pushing policies that refuse students the right to their correct names and pronouns. They want to require schools to out students to their parents against their wishes. Check Vote411 or ballotpedia to find what elections are happening around you.

Candidates on a local level, school board, town/city council, county government, even up to state Rep and state Senate candidates are almost always very responsive to questions. Email everyone running and ask them where they stand, you will get answers I PROMISE you will get answers. Its the easiest thing to do and everyone who has the right to vote in this country should do it, vote in every election.

"But I live in a super blue area my vote doesn't matter" SHUT UP! SHUT UP! even if every local election is Democratic it can be more progressive, ask local candidates what they're gonna do to push LGBT rights forward. Will your local school board push teaching LGBT history? respect trans students pronouns? will your local library board host a drag queen story hour and put together programs for pride? ask! push them! let local candidates know!

"but I live in a super red area my vote doesn't count" BULLSHIT! where ever you are there's a local election that can swing to the non-shitty side if people show up, you can be the difference in a school board election. No matter what stand up and be counted.

Come Out Come Out Wherever You Are.

Since the earliest days of the movement in the 1950s and 1960s before Stonewall, through Harvey Milk's time in the 1970s through to right now, the most powerful tool we have is to come out. It is easy to hate the homosexual, the transgender as an abstraction, as a stereotype as an unrefuted lie. It is so much harder to hate a brother, a sister, a son, a daughter, a friend, a neighbor, your lawyer, your doctor, the mailman, your 8th grade English teacher. In 1978 Harvey said:

"Unless you have dialogue, unless you open the walls of dialogue, you can never reach to change people's opinion. In those two weeks, more good and bad, but more about the word homosexual and gay was written than probably in the history of mankind. Once you have dialogue starting, you know you can break down prejudice. In 1977 we saw a dialogue start."

Thats what they're scared of, thats why they're freaking out in Target, why they're trying to shut down Drag Queen story hours and take away the books. Ignorance and hate lives in darkness and dies in the light. In 1978 gay men and lesbians went door to door in California and introduced themselves to strangers to explain the harm Briggs would do to them. They vote for us 3 to 1 if they know they know one of us.

It shouldn't be like this, it should be when you're ready when you have all the words, but they're coming for us all so come out come out wherever you are. If you know your parents will love you but you've been holding off because it's scary or stressful, nows the moment. If you're a grown ass adult who lives on your own and don't need mom and dad's money to pay your rent, tell them, no matter how much it hurts, call them on the phone, write them a letter if you have to. Does your family know but they asked you not to tell grandma, grandma, great-aunt Marge because they're old or whatever, or your aunt and uncle who are born again Christians. Listen if they still vote they could be hurting you and if they really love you they shouldn't want to do that, tell them! tell them who you really are, and it might be the work of years to bring that person around, but you never know till you try it.

Are there family members you have who know and love you but you know they're conservative and still vote Republican and you've been avoiding talking to them about it because it's awkward? Stop avoiding it, explain it to them, explain that it's not "just politics" explain to your loved ones that they ARE hurting you. If they don't hear it the first time, don't stop, if they love you they shouldn't hurt you.

Come Out at Work, Come out at your bowling league, come out to that friend of a friend you see sometimes, wear a pin, rainbow shoes, a shirt in public, tell your co-workers, your clients, your Church, your Synagogue. Wear that rainbow pin, that pronoun t-shirt, put a sticker on your car, your bag, your phone. If it's safe for you to be out in a space, claim it, COME OUT WHEREVER YOU ARE.

COMING OUT AS TRANS OR NON-BINARY

COMING OUT AS LESBIAN, GAY, OR BISEXUAL

Go To Pride This Year.

Conservatives are trying harder than any time in my lifetime to shut down Pride. Florida and Tennessee have passed laws that will limit pride events. Terrorists are threatening and attacking brands that are doing Pride themed events and products. These events and products go back at least 20 years but the violence of attacks against them is really new. So the only answer is to GO TO PRIDE. I don't care if crowds are not your thing, I don't care if its 97 degrees out the day your city does it, I don't care if your local pride is small and embarrassing, I don't care you might see that one ex, I DON'T CARE. If you physically can go to a pride event this June DO IT. If you're scared to be seen, wear a mask, go in drag, put make or body pant over your tattoos whatever you need to do. If we want to have Pride again next year in many areas this year needs to be a show of force. If you've never been and you never go again this is the year, do it, go, find the Pride event closest to you and do it.

Get Involved Whore!

So far I've offered you pretty easy asks for things you can do, voting, coming out, going to Pride. Now comes the harder ones, get involved. In 1978 gay men and lesbians knocked on doors and told voters across the state of California how an anti-gay measure would affect them personally. If they had the nerve less than 10 years after Stonewall to go to strangers houses and come out to them, I believe you can do it too. Get out there, knock doors, make phone calls, mail postcards, wave signs. Talk to Voters from anywhere, find your local Democratic Party, check out LGBT Democrats in your state, check out groups like the HRC and PFLAG

if you've got money give to HRC, give to GLAD, Give to The National Center for Lesbian Rights all 3 of whom have been the tip of the spear fighting the insane anti-LGBT laws coming out of the states.

If you don't have money, check out The Victory Fund thats supports LGBT candidates and find one close to you and sign up to help. Can't find anyone? try Run for Something that supports young progressives. If you live in a Blue area of a blue state, you can check the Sister District Project which links up volunteers with swingy districts across the country. Swing Left does much the same on a more federal level

crazy right wing extremists can count on organized support from Churches and far right groups. You, yes you, talking to you Glenn! HAVE TO be the support network, the volunteer base for LGBT candidates and their allies and supporters. You have to HAVE to get out there, give if you have money, knock on doors, call, text, write letters go to a protest, sit at a booth, register people to vote, hand out literature, WHATEVER whatever. You can do it, please give at least one weekend over the next two years to a political campaign, be it a local school board candidate, town council, working for the Democrats or volunteering through the HRC or a progressive group, the people who want to destroy you are out working to win elections, you have to be too.

Fucking Run, why not?

This is the last thing, the hardest thing and the thing I don't expect everyone to do. Run, yes really, run for office, yes you, yes I mean it. If the crazed insane conservative who thinks Hillary Clinton drinks child blood out of kids like a juice box is qualified for School Board to ban all the books with queer people or black folks, you are MORE than qualified. I don't care if you're a high school drop out with face tats, you're more qualified than these people, so do it, if you've ever thought of it, do it. Frustratingly dozens of dozens of offices across this country are filled every day but uncontested elections only one person signed up, hell that person can be you why not? Look into it Last year 41% of the seats in the Florida Legislature went uncontested, 37% of the seats in Texas, 53% in Tennessee, 58% in South Carolina. It's not for everyone, but if you've ever wanted to, ever thought about it, take this as your sign, do it. Do you have a friend who's so smart, cool, involved and just better than you in every way and you think they should run the world? Nominate them, give them a push to run

I think Harvey put the importance of electing queer people better than I ever could so

Somewhere in Des Moines or San Antonio, there’s a young gay person who all of a sudden realizes that she or he is gay. Knows that if the parents find out, they’ll be tossed out of the house. The classmates will taunt the child and the Anita Bryants and John Briggs’ are doing their bit on TV, and that child had several options. Staying in a closet, suicide, and then one day that child might open a paper, and it says “Homosexual elected in San Francisco,” and there are two new options. An option is to go to California or stay in San Antonio and fight. Two days after I was elected, I got a phone call, and the voice was quite young. It was from Altoona, Pennsylvania, and the person said, “Thanks.” And you’ve got to elect gay people so that that young child and the thousands upon thousands like that child know that there’s hope for a better world. There’s hope for a better tomorrow. Without hope, not only gays, but those Blacks, and the Asians, and disabled, and seniors. The us’s. The us’s without hope, the us’s give up. I know that you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. And you, and you, and you have got to give them hope. Thank you very much.

If you read all this thanks, I can't make anyone do anything of course, but whatever you choose to do, I'll be out there knocking doors. I wish I did not live in such dark times but as Gandalf The Gray said "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” 

Finally to all my Queer brothers, sisters, and siblings, even though I do not know you, and even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you. I love you. With all my heart, I love you.

[nuri148]

Distances in AoT

Or: Yams has no idea of geography and the relationship between distance and travel times in AOT makes no sense.

After a long time in the works, I present to you this 3-part, long af essay about the above statement. Grab your copy of Aot and your calculator and buckle up!

Disclaimer: I’m not a numbers girl. I always struggled with math at school and cannot determine how much each party needs to chip in for a group outing without an excel spreadsheet. And yet the numbers in AoT are so out of proportion that even with my limited math talent I realised what a train wreck they were.

PART ONE: SCALE

The manga, and later the anime, inform us that there are 250 km from the center of the walls to Wall Sina; 130 km from wall Sina to Wall Rose; and 100 km from Wall Rose to Wall Maria.

For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to ignore a few facts that should be painfully obvious in a real-life setting:

1) The walls could never be perfectly circular. Because...

2) Terrain, even in super duper flat places like the Argentine Pampas or the Netherlands1, is never completely flat and never completely uniform. So, even in the Great Plains, the 230 km (equivalent to the distance from Ehrmich to Shiganshina) between Wichita and Oklahoma City, as the crow flies, become 238 km when made in a car – or 256 km on a bike (since bikes can’t take the highway). Likewise, the rougher the terrain, the higher the difference. Salzburg and Linz, in Austria, are merely 100 km away in a straight line, but the shortest route is 124 km.

And bear in mind this distances are on modern roads in modern countries, built with technology that allow us to circumvent geographical accidents such as rivers, canyons or mountains with cool bridges and tunnels. The world in which AoT is set doesn’t have those. If a river is down a canyon, first they’ll need to zig-zag down the canyon, then cross the river (via bridge or ferry at best, fording it at worst), then zig-zag all the way up again. This happens still today, even in our modern whitebread world, in places where the traffic doesn’t justify building a big-ass bridge over the canyon. When I lived in Germany, it was like that to go to the next town.

But, as I said, for the sake of simplicity, I’m going to pretend the walls are perfectly round, the terrain is perfectly flat, and that there is a straigh-ass road, as straight as Argentina’s 22 National Road between Río Colorado and Choele Choel, between each of the Wall Districts. For simplicity reasons too, I won’t be using decimals or taking the thickness of the walls into consideration.

I’m also going to assume (though this is pretty much confirmed by canon), that the only passage between walls is through the Districts.

You’ve likely seen the basic layout plenty of times over the internet.

Well, Let’s start by saying I have a huge problem with this layout. If you bother to separate walls S-R-M to scale with their informed size, the sizes used to depict the Districts are always wildly out of all proportion².

From the several panoramic views of Sigansina, Trost, etc. that are shown in the manga³, and considering the usual sizes of German-style 17th-19th century houses, which is what’s shown from down in the streets (and I’m familiar with from my time living there), the districts seem to be, at the very most, 5 km from the main wall to the district outer wall⁴, with a bridge over the river every 500 m or so. (The walls are usually visible whenever they are in the districts, so you know it’s a small area.) Yet as you’ve seen, most maps show the districts ridiculously large, going to even half the distance between walls. This not only contradicts canon, but defeats the in-canon purpose of building a concentrated, out-jutting urban area to concentrate possible titan attacks there and eliminate the threat more easily.

So in my map, I’ve adjusted the size of the districts to roughly 5 × 5 km. They look almost like dots. That’s another problem of the disproportionate maps that populate the web: it makes you lose sense of just how big the walls are.

Districts of Paradis: Mitras (center); to the East: Stohess, Karanes, Holst (from AotBTF); To the West: Yarkell, Krolva, Quinta (from AotHMOTC); to the South: Ehrmich, Trost, Shiganshina; To the North: Orvud, Utopia, [unknown].

Now, geometry is a wonderful thing. If you know the radius of a circumference, you can calculate all other possible measurements in that circumference. And in this day and age, with computers, you don’t even need to learn formulas or crunch numbers. Yay Math.

So, if radius Mt-S (Mitras-Sina) is 250 km, and wall Rose is 130 km further, and wall Maria 100 km further still, the radius Mt-R is 380 km and the radius Mt-M is 480 km.

The Districts are lined up with the cardinal points. Therefore, to go from a district on the N-S axis (e.g. Ehrmich) to the corresponding one on the W-E axis (e.g. Stohess), you have basically three options:

Route 1) Take roads we know nothing about. The most likely, logical option in a realistic scenario, unfortunately un-checkable. Also slower than the following two hipothetical routes.

Route 2) Ride atop or along the wall. For numbers, I’m assuming a flat wall top. Because we know the radius of the walls, we can calculate the arc length between any two districts (blue in map).

Route 3) Use an imaginary, straigh-ass road between two adjacent districts on a given wall (e.g. Ehrmich-Stohess, Trost-Krolva). Again, because we know the radius of the walls, and the angle of separation of the districts (90°) we can calculate the length of this chord line (brown in map). Note that this solution doesn’t work for districts in Wall Maria, as the resulting chord would intersect wall Rose, and there is no passage there (red in map).

So, how long are these distances? EXTREMELY.

The Arc distance (riding along the wall) between adjacent wall districts is:

Wall Sina (e.g. Ermich-Stohess): 393 km (more or less equivalent to a straight line from Mar del Plata to Buenos Aires).

Wall Rose (e.g. Trost-Karanes): 597 km (Paris-Montpellier).

Wall Maria (e.g. Shiganshina to Quinta): a whooping 754 km (San Diego-Sacramento)

The Chord line distance (straight line between two adjacent wall districts) is shorter, but not by that much (about 10 % less):

Wall Sina: 352 km (Mar del Plata-La Plata)

Wall Rose: 537 km (Paris-Orange)

Wall Maria: 679 km in theory (San Diego-San José) but, as explained, the chord line between Wall Maria districts is interrupted by Wall Rose, so that route is out. The shortest alternative would be to ride in a very slight curve approximating Rose; I couldn’t find a suitable calculator to let my mathematically challenged self get the exact number but I reckon it’s around 700-720 km (San Diego-San Francisco).

The takeout from this is that distances in AoT are HUGE.

Moreover: We know the island of Paradis is based on the island of Madagascar. The diameter of Wall Maria is 960 km (480 × 2), but the island of Madagascar has a maximum width of roughly 590 km.

So we have two scenarios here:

1) The world of AoT happens in a very big planet

2) Yams (and his editors) suck at maths and spacial awareness big time.

Guess which one I’m betting on.

Part 2 Part 3

Notes:

¹ Having grown up in Argentina and living in Europe, but also mindful that many reading this are from the US, I’ve mixed cities from all those locations as real-life examples.

² There is one and one map only, in chapter 5 of the manga, that depicts the walls more or less realistically, but it also shows the geography within the walls as pretty non-flat, non uniform, no straight-roads, so I’m being very generous with my calculations here, borderline delulu.

 ³ I was going to illustrate this with a few shots of the districts, but as I started gathering said shots from the manga I found myself opening yet another can of worms, for the differences in size of a given city between chapters are enough to merit their own post I’m afraid. Not that I can commit to one atm.

⁴ Though, realistically, European medieval walled towns were no larger than 1 km across. Nördlingen, in which Shiganshina is inspired, as well as Rothenburg o.d. Tauber and other partially preserved walled towns are 500 m in diameter.

[cr1mson5returns]

I fell down a sudden and spiky rabbit hole wondering where exactly in my home state of Kansas the fictional town of Smallville is supposed to be. I checked the DC Wiki for comic book information and got nothing. Kinda pissed me off, because I didn't want to have to randomly assign a plot of land to Smallville. But when I checked the Smallville Wiki (TV series Smallville, that is), I found out that the show gave it the zip code which corresponds to Chase, KS. Chase is in Rice County, which is a few hours west of Wichita on the highways, putting it pretty solidly in South Central Kansas.

And guys.....as a bitch who was born and raised in South Central Kansas, you have to know that we're some characters out here. I can't speak for Rice County, never lived there, but there's this hilarious smattering of accents scattered about the south central part of the state. Some people have that flat Midwestern/Wichita way of speaking, where you can almost pretend they're not Midwestern if they didn't unironically say "lemme just squeeze by ya" so much. But other people have that Rural Kansas drawl that isn't quite as Southern as you can hear the closer you get to the Ozarks, and despite that you'd still be able to pick them out in a crowded room because they sound a touch out of place amongst everybody else. They say "color" like "collar" and talk about "y'all down on Green Street" and they warsh their clothes while they're drawling some pictures. And that's just the way we talk, don't even get me started on the very rigidly Baptist morality and the tense feelings about whether we should even root for the Kansas City Chiefs since they're Missouri's team, anyway.

Armed with this knowledge and context, I present to all of you: Clark Kent who hauled hay in severe thunderstorm warnings as a teenager because fuck, it had to get done somehow and half the time the National Weather Service was just being cautious. Clark who learned to drive at age 12 on the farm and the county sheriff saw fit not to ticket him when he was 14 and took Pa's truck into town to pick up some last-minute ingredients for a birthday cake at the store. Clark who went to Wichita State for a journalism degree and thought Wichita was a big city and complained about the stupid ass layout of the streets between clearly historic districts and newer developments. Clark who got on a domestic flight at Eisenhower Intercontinental Airport and took off for Metropolis intent on getting out of Bumfuck Nowhere. Clark who comes back to Smallville when it's all too much because the city's great, and Lois and Jimmy and everyone else are just as great, but Kansas has the most beautiful full moon nights and not as much light pollution on the horizon, and he can fly through the Flint Hills and pretend he's a kid again and things aren't so noisy and weird and terrifying.

[sunskate]

IAMO 2024-25 Schedule

2024 NextGen Competition and Camp (Gatineau, QC July 26-27, 2024)

Veillon/Brandys 2nd place🥈 (2nd RD, 2nd FD)

Lake Placid Ice Dance International (Lake Placid, NY July 30-31, 2024 Madison Hubbell and Adrian Diaz for IAMO)

Hensen/Lickers 12th place (11th RD, 16th FD) Dozzi/Papetti 14th place (13th RD, 15th FD) Robinson/Portz 15th place (16th RD, 12th FD) Ritter/Brykalov 19th place (21st RD, 18th FD Shilling/Baeten 20th place (20th RD, 20th FD) Roberts/Alis 21st place (19th RD, 21st FD)

Corneil/Emery 8th place jr (8th RD, 8th FD)

USFS Champs Camp (Norwood, MA, August 12-16, 2024. Madison Hubbell for IAMO)

Carreira/Ponomarenko

Sectional Series August (Waterloo, ON August 16-18, 2024, Sheri Moir, Cara Moir for IAMO)

Hensen/Lickers 🥇1st place (2nd RD, 2nd FD) Dozzi/Papetti 🥉3rd place (3rd RD, 1st FD) Robinson/Portz 4th place (5th RD, 3rd FD) Ritter/Brykalov 6th place (6th RD, 6th FD) Roberts/Alis 7th place (8th RD, 7th FD) Shilling/Baeten 8th place (7th RD, 8th FD)

Veillon/Brandys 🥇 1st place (1st RD, 1st FD) Corneil/Emery 5th place (5th RD, 6th FD)

Skate Canada High Performance Camp (Mississauga, ON Aug 28-30, 2024)

Hensen/Lickers

ISU Junior Grand Prix Czech Republic (Ostrava, Czech Republic, Sept 4-7, 2024, Adrian Diaz for IAMO)

Veillon/Brandys 🥉3rd place (3rd RD, 2nd FD)

Lombardia Trophy (Bergamo, Italy, Sept 13-16, 2024, Adrian Diaz for IAMO)

Dozzi/Papetti 9th place (9th RD, 9th FD) Ritter/Brykalov 12th place (12th RD, 11th FD) Roberts/Alis 13th place (14th RD, 13th FD)

Nebelhorn Trophy (Oberstdorf, Germany Sept 19-21, 2024)

Carreira/Ponomarenko 🥈2nd place (2nd RD, 2nd FD) Dozzi/Papetti 10th place (11th RD, 11th FD) Ritter/Brykalov 16th place (17th RD, 15th FD) Roberts/Alis 17th place (16th RD, 17th FD)

Denis Ten Memorial Challenge 2024 (Astana, Kazakhstan Oct 2-5, 2024)

Hensen/Lickers

JGP Ljubljana Cup 2024 (Ljubljana, Slovenia Oct 2-5, 2024)

Veillon/Brandys

Budapest Trophy 2024 (Budapest, Hungary October 11-13, 2024)

Carreira/Ponomarenko

Trophy Metropole Nice Côte d’Azur 2024 (Nice France October 16-20, 2024)

Ritter/Brykalov

Skate Ontario October Sectionals (Barrie, ON October 17-20, 2024)

Robinson/Portz Shilling/Baeten Corneil/Emery Anderson/Dawson

2025 Skate Ontario Junior and Senior Sectional Championships (Oshawa, ON November 7-10)

ISU Grand Prix NHK Trophy (Tokyo, Japan Nov 8-10, 2024)

Carreira/Ponomarenko

ISU Grand Prix Cup of China (Chongqing, China Nov 22-24, 2024)

Carreira/Ponomarenko

Skate Canada Challenge (Winnipeg, MB Nov 28-Dec 1, 2024)

Canadian National Figure Skating Championships (Laval, QC Jan 14-19, 2025)

US National Figure Skating Championships (Wichita, KS Jan 20-26, 2025)

Carreira/Ponomarenko

[cryptid-quest]

Cryptid of the Day: Boar Man

Description: For an unspecified amount of time, people in and around the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge claimed to have seen a strange creature called the Boar Man. He’s described as an 8ft man who wears pig-skin, carries boar tusks, and could transform into a massive boar.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A small Kansas town is reeling after a baby-faced 23-year-old manipulated procedural technicalities to reinstall himself as mayor in one night, seemingly taking a page from the playbook used by former President Donald Trump after he was voted out of office.

Only, this time, it worked.

“People have said this reminds them of Germany in 1935,” Jeffery Jones, whose bid for a council seat in Goddard, Kansas, collapsed last week as Hunter Larkin abruptly took control, told The Daily Beast. “Like, ‘Hey, we don’t like you anymore and we’re gonna vote you out and put our own person in.’”

The convoluted machinations by which Larkin maneuvered his way back into power were described as “essentially, a coup” and reminiscent of a totalitarian regime, according to one recently departed council member. And while Goddard, a Wichita suburb with a population of just under 5,400, isn’t necessarily going to influence policy shifts on a national scale, the strategy used by Larkin—a right-winger who last year promoted an appearance in Goddard by accused sex pest and conservative kingmaker Matt Schlapp—could serve as a stark warning of what’s possible elsewhere.

“I have to hand it to Larkin,” Wichita Eagle columnist Dion Lefler wrote. “I’ve covered cities for a long time and have seldom seen a political takeover that was this sleazy, and yet this well-orchestrated.”

Larkin’s improbable ascent to office can be traced back to August 2020, when the then-mayor of Goddard stepped down amid a fraud charge for counterfeiting tickets to the local zoo’s “Zoobilee” charity fundraiser. Then-21-year-old City Council President Hunter Larkin was appointed to the job.

In November 2021, Larkin, who by day works as an accounting manager for a fiberglass oil field pipe manufacturer owned by a wealthy local family that has helped fund his political aspirations, was busted for DUI. He later pleaded guilty, receiving a sentence of probation and staying on as mayor until May 2022, when he resigned in the wake of a news report calling his ethics into question. Larkin said he was leaving office to focus on a statehouse run, but kept a seat on the city council.

“This campaign is about giving a voice to the people of our community and defending what so many of us hold dear, like voter integrity, the right to bear arms, protecting the unborn and keeping Critical Race Theory (CRT) out of schools,” Larkin’s campaign website thundered. “As your next Representative, I can promise that I will fight for just that!”

Vice-Mayor Larry Zimmerman was then appointed Goddard’s mayor, and has filled the position since—until last Tuesday night.

The agenda for that evening’s city council meeting didn’t appear particularly unique, at least on the surface; members would, among other things, consider a sign regulation amendment, discuss a road closure request for a Lions Club car show, and appoint a new city councilperson after a councilman named Michael Proctor relinquished his seat on Dec. 31.

Zimmerman nominated Jeffery Jones, who works as a hospice chaplain, for Proctor’s old job.

However, the vote ended in a tie. So Zimmerman instead nominated Aubrey Collins, a radio host and residential solar panel salesman who goes by “Cowboy Rip.” Collins’ candidacy was approved, and he was sworn in.

And, according to Jones, “That’s when everything kind of went haywire.”

As Collins was being seated, Larkin, who lost his bid for the Kansas legislature, immediately moved to amend the agenda and hold a non-public executive session to discuss “unelected personnel.” According to Lefler, the newspaper columnist, Larkin was eager to cast out City Administrator Brian Silcott, who has been critical of him in the past.

At this point, Jones left, thinking the meeting was over.

“Had I known what would happen next, I would have stayed,” he told The Daily Beast. “Because when they came back, that’s when Hunter asked for the election of a new mayor.”

When they returned, Larkin swiftly proposed removing Zimmerman as mayor, a motion which was approved by all except Zimmerman himself. Vice-Mayor Sarah Leland was then installed as mayor of Goddard—briefly. She immediately addressed the others, saying she felt she did not have “the capability to do these job duties… especially the current situation we are dealing with, so I would like to nominate Hunter, as I feel he can complete the steps that need taking.”

And with that, Larkin became mayor, switching seats with Leland, now his second-in-command. Larkin quickly moved to oust Silcott, who he considered a fly in the ointment, prompting now-ex-Mayor Zimmerman to quit his city council seat in protest.

“Before you get to that point, I’d like to tender my resignation from the city council, effective immediately,” he said, and walked out.

The council then filled Zimmerman’s empty council seat with resident Keaton Fish, a support staffer at a local special-ed school. As he took his position, Larkin introduced a motion to terminate Silcott’s employment. They then went to a second closed session to discuss Silcott’s firing, where the decision was consummated. (The next day, Assistant City Administrator Thatcher Moddie resigned.)

“The day and age where unelected bureaucrats ran this town is over,” Larkin later exulted. “This governing body is going to be more involved than ever before.”

This, Jones argued on Friday, is wholly disingenuous.

“Hunter said ‘we’re tired of being run by unelected bureaucrats,’ but I’m like, ‘Well, you’re kind of unelected.’ He was elected as a council member, no one voted him in as mayor [either time]. And right now, there’s a petition out for a recall.”

The recall campaign was started by Proctor, the councilman who quit office on Dec. 31. He called the situation in Goddard “a disaster.”

“He needs to go,” Proctor told The Daily Beast of Larkin, adding that he was baffled by the vice-mayor’s support for his mayoralty.

He said he will need roughly 168 signatures to move the proposal forward, and feels confident he’ll get them.

“Look, there’s complete outrage over this,” he told The Daily Beast. “Getting those votes won’t be difficult, there are plenty of willing participants.”

Proctor has also started a Facebook group called “For Goddard’s Sake,” where he is organizing and rallying support.

“This city is a joke!” one commenter wrote. “in who’s right mind is DUI kid a good choice for mayor after not being re-elected.”

“[H]unter has made it clear that he intends to turn the city into a rental community by helping his developer buddies build as many multi family dwellings as possible,” wrote another. “This is a very clear pattern all in the name of ‘growth’ and it is going to fundamentally change this town. He and his gang now make a majority and will be able to approve whatever Hunter’s little heart desires.”

“So where can concerned citizens file complaints?” wrote a third. “Surely we have a lawyer or three within reach who can help Goddard with its latest problem. Anyone?”

Proctor said he will be filing a report with the sheriff’s office, alleging campaign finance improprieties by Larkin which Proctor claims violate the Goddard city code.

“Somebody’s gotta do it,” he said. “Somebody’s gotta stand up. Otherwise, there’s a vacuum that’s going to be filled by somebody who shouldn’t be doing it.”

Replacing Silcott will also be a heavy lift, according to Proctor, who said Goddard last week “went from a city where up-and-coming city managers would love to come and work, to a bottom-of-the-rung situation, overnight. He’s delivered quite a mess.”

Fish did not respond to a request for comment on Friday. Zimmerman, for his part, told local outlet KWCH that Larkin’s maneuvering “wasn’t right.”

Brady Burdge, an assistant district attorney in Wichita who was in the running for a council seat but withdrew his name on Monday due to his heavy workload, said he found the Larkin situation “really unfortunate.”

“It is definitely troubling,” Burge told The Daily Beast. “The local level is where it all starts, and you definitely don’t like to see things like that happening in your own community… [Larkin] has had trouble in the past building trust with our community, and it looks like it happened again.”

Jones said he is not planning to fight the outcome of the election, and is “just going to let the chips fall where they may.” At the same time, he isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon.

“I feel honored that the mayor at the time selected me, but I’m not going to raise a fuss,” he conceded on Friday. “I told them at that meeting that I want to effect change within Goddard, and if I can't do it from the [city] council, I’ll do it from the community. And I’m going to be there at as many council meetings as I can, where I’ll be bringing up questions that the people want answered.”

For his part, Aubrey Collins said he is looking forward to his first experience serving in public office.

“I have no comment other than, we’re going to do the best we can for the city,” Collins told The Daily Beast. “I believe the steps that were taken will allow Goddard to win. Goddard is gonna win, based on what transpired.”

Before the council session concluded, Larkin remarked, “Today was a tough day. I know. Wasn’t fun, I don’t think anybody here enjoyed it. But I want you all to know it was done out of love.”

Larkin, who told local NBC affiliate KSN TV that he’s not concerned about any challenges to remove him, did not respond to multiple requests for comment by The Daily Beast.

[crystal-tefari-2099]

Asking as a writer, so please let me know if this is offensive:

I’m writing a Native American character from the Waco band of the Wichita Tribe named River Renatus (they/them). They are a part of a superhero narrative I originally started for a class project, but I’ve since grown attached to the narrative they’re apart of and want to make a fleshed-out story of it. I originally started from power up after my friend suggested a nonbinary shapeshifter who doesn’t hold form too long due to dysphoria, and after naming them River, I started to look into what their heritage could be. While researching, I came across Native American cultures (I’m from Australia and haven’t had heaps of exposure to other First Nations cultures) and two spirited people. I thought that that would be a really cool concept, and decided to research it a bit more. I’ve been looking into both Wichita and Waco culture, as well as tropes and stereotypes to steer clear of. The thing about River is that they’re a shapeshifter, and I’m now debating on changing them because of a couple things:

1) I’m still not clear on their origin story, and whether their powers are because of magic exposure or scientific modification. In the event of magic, I’ll probably steer clear of it being genetic, as that could have affiliations with “Native Shaman” and “Magic Native” tropes.

2) Shapeshifting may have negative affiliations to do with sk/nwalkers, two-faces, and other folklore myths and stories in Native American cultures.

3) The name River may need to change. I named them River because of associations with fluidity and change (because they’re a shapeshifter), but I named them that before deciding on race, ethnicity or heritage. During my research, I found that naming a native characters after nature-y things can play into stereotypes, and can also be related to Spirit Names, which is a deeply personal and complicated practice.

TLDR: I would like a bit of advice about writing a Native American character (specifically one from the Wichita region), and whether I should change their name (River) and power (Shapeshifting) to be more sensitive.

Also, when I write, I try to incorporate as much diversity and belonging as possible, especially in real life settings, because I believe positive representation matters and it’s important to me, as an individual, to be respectful. I usually put a lot of very extensive research into writing my characters, and 99% of the time I can find an answer to any questions I may hold, but I unfortunately couldn’t find answers to these questions. Please help, and please don’t be shy if I’m being insensitive or overthinking this.

[lboogie1906]

The Dockum Drug Store Sit-Ins occurred in Wichita, Kansas (July 19 and August 11, 1958). Ronald W. Walters, a local college student who was at the time president of the Wichita NAACP Youth Council, organized the sit-ins at the Dockum Drug Store along with his cousin, Carol Parks-Hahn, who was treasurer of the Council. The sit-ins protested the Dockum policies that barred African Americans from being served at its lunch counter.

On July 19, 1958, Walters, Parks-Hahn, and ten other students entered the Dockum Drug Store until all the lunch counter seats were taken. He ordered a Coca-Cola from a waitress, who was about to serve it to her but pulled it back when she realized that the store policy banned service to African Americans. The students told the waitress they intended to stay until they could be served. The waitress closed the Blacks-only fountain, leaving the whites-only fountain open. When the store closed for the night, the students left.

The student protestors returned to the lunch counter, where they sat for an hour without getting service that day. As the second sit-in occurred at Dockum, 20 White segregationists began taunting and threatening the protestors.

The students continued to come in day after day and sit at the lunch counters. White college students from Wichita State University joined them. The Eagle and the Beacon refused to publish information about the sit-ins, and the local Black-owned newspapers, the Enlightener and the Mid-West News-Press, provided regular accounts to their readers.

The Wichita branch of the NAACP applauded the students’ efforts but did not participate because the national office did not sanction sit-ins. On August 11, 1958, the store manager ended the protests by saying, “Serve them. I’m losing too much money.” Chester A. Lewis, attorney, and head of the Wichita NAACP, called Walter Heiger, the vice president of the Dockum Drugstore Chain, to confirm the new integration policy. Heiger instructed all Dockum stores to provide service to people of all races. The Dockum Drug Store Chain was officially desegregated. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[luciloo0]

Character Sheet

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Name: Dean Baker-Fitzgerald

Nicknames: Deanie, Blondie

Age: 16

DOB: September 15th, 2007

Place of birth: Wichita, Kansas

Nationality: Italian-American

Gender: Cisgender Male

Sexuality: Pansexual

Height: 6’0”

Weight: 180lbs

Build: athletic

Eye Colors: Blue (left), Green (right)

Hair Color: Blonde

Personality Type: ESDJ (caregiver)

Positive Traits: Outgoing, Athletic, Sweet

Negative Traits: Naive, Trusting, Oblivious

Hobbies: Track, Basketball, Cooking, Violin, Writing, Gardening

Interests: Music, Hockey, Basketball, Outdoors, Plants, Baseball

Religion: Baptist

[zerosecurity]

LockBit Ransomware Gang Claims Responsibility for Wichita, KS Cyberattack

The notorious LockBit ransomware gang has claimed responsibility for a devastating cyberattack on the City of Wichita, Kansas, the largest city in the state with a population of nearly 400,000. This ransomware attack has forced the City's authorities to shut down crucial IT systems used for online bill payment, including court fines, water bills, and public transportation. Wichita, a major cultural, economic, and transportation hub in the region, and home to several aircraft factories, announced the disruptive ransomware attack last Sunday, May 5, 2024. In response, the City's IT specialists promptly shut down computers used in online services to contain the damage and stop the spread of the attack, as stated in their announcement: "This decision was not made lightly but was necessary to ensure that systems are securely vetted before returning to service." LockBit Ransomware Gang Threatens Data Leak Earlier today, the LockBit ransomware group added Wichita to its extortion portal, threatening to publish all stolen files on the site by May 15, 2024, unless the City pays the ransom. This unusually quick listing of a ransomware victim, merely three days after the attack, is believed to be in retaliation for the recent international law enforcement operation that named and sanctioned the leader of the LockBit ransomware operation, a 31-year-old Russian national named Dmitry Yuryevich Khoroshev, who uses the online alias "LockBitSupp."

Lockbit Lists the City of Wichita as one of its victims.

Widespread Service Disruptions in Wichita

Meanwhile, Wichita continues to face significant disruptions, with the latest status update indicating that the following services remain unavailable: - Auto payments for water bills are suspended. - Public Wi-Fi at certain locations (Airport terminal, Advanced Learning Library, Evergreen, and Walters branches of the Library). - The online catalog, databases, and some digital services of the Library. - Email communications through the city network for Library staff. - Self-service print release stations and self-check stations at the Library. - Automated materials handler at the Advanced Learning Library. - Most incoming phone call capability for the Library. - Wi-Fi and phone services at neighborhood resource centers. - Public services, including golf courses, parks, courts, and the water district, require residents to pay in cash or by check while online payment platforms are shut down. Additionally, any Request for Bid, Proposal, or Qualifications with a due date of May 10, 2024, has been deferred until May 17, 2024, and the 'Bid Opening' scheduled for Friday, May 10, 2024, has been canceled. Public safety services like the Wichita Fire Department (WFD) and Wichita Police Department (WPD) have resorted to using "pen and paper" reports, and the Wichita Transit buses and landfill services can only accept cash payments. Data Theft and Potential Leak While the City is still investigating whether data was stolen in the attack, the LockBit ransomware gang is known for stealing data before deploying their encryptors. Therefore, if a ransom is not paid, data will likely be leaked in the future on the ransomware gang's data leak site, exacerbating the already severe impact of this cyberattack on the City of Wichita. Read the full article

[kvetchlandia]

I’m an old man now, and a lonesome man in Kansas    but not afraid        to speak my lonesomeness in a car,        because not only my lonesomeness            it’s Ours, all over America,                O tender fellows—            & spoken lonesomeness is Prophecy            in the moon 100 years ago or in                the middle of Kansas now. It’s not the vast plains mute our mouths            that fill at midnite with ecstatic language        when our trembling bodies hold each other            breast to breast on a mattress—    Not the empty sky that hides                the feeling from our faces    nor our skirts and trousers that conceal        the bodylove emanating in a glow of beloved skin,            white smooth abdomen down to the hair                between our legs,    It’s not a God that bore us that forbid        our Being, like a sunny rose                all red with naked joy        between our eyes & bellies, yes All we do is for this frightened thing        we call Love, want and lack—    fear that we aren’t the one whose body could be        beloved of all the brides of Kansas City,        kissed all over by every boy of Wichita—    O but how many in their solitude weep aloud like me—        On the bridge over Republican River            almost in tears to know                how to speak the right language—        on the frosty broad road            uphill between highway embankments        I search for the language                that is also yours—        almost all our language has been taxed by war. Radio antennae high tension    wires ranging from Junction City across the plains—    highway cloverleaf sunk in a vast meadow        lanes curving past Abilene            to Denver filled with old                heroes of love—        to Wichita where McClure’s mind            burst into animal beauty            drunk, getting laid in a car                in a neon misted street                    15 years ago—    to Independence where the old man’s still alive    who loosed the bomb that’s slaved all human consciousness        and made the body universe a place of fear— Now, speeding along the empty plain,        no giant demon machine            visible on the horizon    but tiny human trees and wooden houses at the sky’s edge        I claim my birthright!            reborn forever as long as Man                in Kansas or other universe—Joy        reborn after the vast sadness of the War Gods! A lone man talking to myself, no house in the brown vastness to hear        imagining that throng of Selves            that make this nation one body of Prophecy                languaged by Declaration as Pursuit of                    Happiness! I call all Powers of imagination    to my side in this auto to make Prophecy,                    all Lords        of human kingdoms to come Shambu Bharti Baba naked covered with ash        Khaki Baba fat-bellied mad with the dogs Dehorahava Baba who moans Oh how wounded, How wounded    Sitaram Onkar Das Thakur who commands                    give up your desire Satyananda who raises two thumbs in tranquility    Kali Pada Guha Roy whose yoga drops before the void            Shivananda who touches the breast and says OM Srimata Krishnaji of Brindaban who says take for your guru    William Blake the invisible father of English visions    Sri Ramakrishna master of ecstasy eyes        half closed who only cries for his mother Chitanya arms upraised singing & dancing his own praise    merciful Chango judging our bodies        Durga-Ma covered with blood            destroyer of battlefield illusions        million faced Tathagata gone past suffering    Preserver Harekrishna returning in the age of pain Sacred Heart my Christ acceptable        Allah the compassionate one                Jaweh Righteous One            all Knowledge-Princes of Earth-man, all    ancient Seraphim of heavenly Desire, Devas, yogis            & holymen I chant to—                Come to my lone presence                    into this Vortex named Kansas, I lift my voice aloud,    make Mantra of American language now,            I here declare the end of the War!                Ancient days’ Illusion!—        and pronounce words beginning my own millennium. Let the States tremble,    let the nation weep,        let Congress legislate its own delight,            let the President execute his own desire— this Act done by my own voice,                nameless Mystery— published to my own senses,        blissfully received by my own form    approved with pleasure by my sensations        manifestation of my very thought        accomplished in my own imagination            all realms within my consciousness fulfilled    60 miles from Wichita                near El Dorado,                    The Golden One, in chill earthly mist    houseless brown farmland plains rolling heavenward                        in every direction one midwinter afternoon Sunday called the day of the Lord—    Pure Spring Water gathered in one tower            where Florence is                    set on a hill,            stop for tea & gas

   Cars passing their messages along country crossroads        to populaces cement-networked on flatness,                    giant white mist on earth        and a Wichita Eagle-Beacon headlines        “Kennedy Urges Cong Get Chair in Negotiations” The War is gone,    Language emerging on the motel news stand,                    the right magic        Formula, the language known    in the back of the mind before, now in black print                    daily consciousness Eagle News Services Saigon—    Headline Surrounded Vietcong Charge Into Fire Fight        the suffering not yet ended                    for others        The last spasms of the dragon of pain                shoot thru the muscles            a crackling around the eyeballs            of a sensitive yellow boy by a muddy wall Continued from page one area    after the Marines killed 256 Vietcong captured 31    ten day operation Harvest Moon last December                Language language    U.S. Military Spokesmen            Language language                    Cong death toll        has soared to 100 in First Air Cavalry        Division’s Sector of                Language language            Operation White Wing near Bong Son Some of the    Language language            Communist                Language language soldiers charged so desperately    they were struck with six or seven bullets before they fell    Language Language M-60 Machine Guns            Language language in La Drang Valley    the terrain is rougher infested with leeches and scorpions            The war was over several hours ago! Oh at last again the radio opens    blue Invitations!        Angelic Dylan singing across the nation            “When all your children start to resent you            Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?”    His youthful voice making glad                the brown endless meadows    His tenderness penetrating aether,        soft prayer on the airwaves,            Language language, and sweet music too            even unto thee,                hairy flatness!            even unto thee                despairing Burns! Future speeding on swift wheels        straight to the heart of Wichita! Now radio voices cry population hunger world                if unhappy people        waiting for Man to be born                O man in America!    you certainly smell good                the radio says    passing mysterious families of winking towers    grouped round a Quonset-hut on a hillock—        feed storage or military fear factory here? Sensitive City, Ooh! Hamburger & Skelley’s Gas            lights feed man and machine,    Kansas Electric Substation aluminum robot        signals thru thin antennae towers        above the empty football field                    at Sunday dusk to a solitary derrick that pumps oil from the unconscious                working night & day    & factory gas-flares edge a huge golf course        where tired businessmen can come and play— Cloverleaf, Merging Traffic East Wichita turnoff            McConnell Airforce Base                    nourishing the City—    Lights rising in the suburbs    Supermarket Texaco brilliance starred            over streetlamp vertebrae on Kellogg,        green jeweled traffic lights            confronting the windshield, Centertown ganglion entered!        Crowds of autos moving with their lightshine,        signbulbs winking in the driver’s eyeball—    The human nest collected, neon lit,                and sunburst signed        for business as usual, except on the Lord’s Day—    Redeemer Lutheran’s three crosses lit on the lawn                reminder of our sins    and Titsworth offers insurance on Hydraulic    by De Voors Guard’s Mortuary for outmoded bodies                of the human vehicle        which no Titsworth of insurance will customize for resale— So home, traveler, past the newspaper language factory    under Union Station railroad bridge on Douglas    to the center of the Vortex, calmly returned        to Hotel Eaton Carry Nation began the war on Vietnam here            with an angry smashing ax                attacking Wine—    Here fifty years ago, by her violence began a vortex of hatred that defoliated the Mekong Delta—    Proud Wichita! vain Wichita        cast the first stone!—                That murdered my mother        who died of the communist anticommunist psychosis            in the madhouse one decade long ago    complaining about wires of masscommunication in her head            and phantom political voices in the air                besmirching her girlish character.    Many another has suffered death and madness            in the Vortex from Hydraulic                to the end of 17th –enough! The war is over now—    Except for the souls            held prisoner in Niggertown still pining for love of your tender white bodies O children of Wichita!

-- Allen Ginsberg, “Wichita Vortex Sutra”  1966