Fantasniar

Evelyn: “We dig up dead people who often have monstrous curses placed on them!”

Rick: *grabs sword from equally ominous looking wall full of weapons one of which seems to be glowing* fantastic I was getting a bit rusty

Rick: Have I mentioned how wonderful my wife is yet, I really feel like I haven’t really expanded enough on how wonderful she is

Gomez: do go on, I would be delighted to hear about how wonderful your wife is, I strongly encourge all men to extoll the virtues of their wives with rapturous praise, however I should perhaps mention my wife is in fact better

Now, I can't tell you that you should, for example, leave a comment about your concern for the way Grok has been promoting white nationalist beliefs, but public comments in the regulatory process are a key step and they shape what comes next. If the regulatory agency doesn't fully consider the comments and form a reasonable response to the ones it disagrees with, that can form the basis for overturning a regulation in court.

Be aware that they will use workarounds (“do you have reliable transportation”, “do you require any special accommodations”).

7th Doctor doodles, I will find a better way to simplify him eventually

To 2025:

Hell, they even cover the devastating heaviness of MASS SHOOTINGS without censoring or watering anything down.

They've been doing this for YEARS, and it's ALWAYS handled with dignity, respect, seriousness, understanding, and love.

Or how about when someone is put into the foster care system because their home isn't safe anymore and their needs aren't being met?

Maybe some discussions about group therapy/getting help and support?

Hey look! Here's a segment about gender expression vs taught expectation, including unlearning harmful biases and what to do when you hurt someone on accident because you didn't know it was wrong!

Look! The topic of race and diversity! The importance of unity and equity!

They even also have a more allegorical take on discrimination and being looked down on for who you are, featuring Big Bird. The conflict is about how he's not being let into a club because the one bird running the club personally decided he didn't want someone like Big Bird there.

Big Bird goes out of his way to keep changing parts of himself in order to "prove" he can fit into this club if he just changed enough. The truth comes out though, and there's nothing he can do to gain the approval of that bird. He will never be good enough in his eyes, and Big Bird starts to hate himself. His real friends see this finally put their feet down, emphasizing that you should never change yourself just to fit into one singular narrow idea someone else has.

There's A LOT of different situations this can be an allegory for. Racism, sexism, homophobia, basically ANY form of exclusion is put on full blast in this 15 minute clip. Sesame Street can be both blunt and allegorical when approaching difficult topics, and it NEVER misses or looses the point.

It does an exceptional job in both styles of representation WITHOUT watering anything down. The more sanitized everything gets, the more radical Sesame Street is suddenly considered, hence why so many "particular groups" want it gone. Hmmm! I can only imagine why that could be, in this current political climate! (I'm being sarcastic)

When Sesame Street is suddenly labeled as "questionable" or "politically/agenda motivated" content...it says A LOT about where we currently are and who gets to decide what's "best" for kids or not. Don't fall for the censorship and topic-dodging excuses that are covered by the "But think of the children!!!" movement. Never fall for it, because you know which side you're on if you do.

Sesame Street proves kids can be taught and trusted with learning about these topics when it's handled with the right amount of understanding and care. It shows what all this "controversy" is all really about. What it's always been about, actually.

It's year 13?! Here’s the AO3 link if you want to see all 13: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1968099 (including me talking about playing the long game, of creating new systems, giving yourself time to rest, and the importance of meetings)

Here’s the tumblr tag if you prefer to stay on this site: https://potofsoup.tumblr.com/tagged/happy%20birthday%20steve/chrono

Anyways, thank you everyone who encouraged me to do this even though I'm not really in the MCU fandom anymore. (I hear Sam and Bucky are currently on the outs? Well I made them talk to each other again here. :P) This is done especially in memory of @rubynye, who passed away this year, and who I miss deeply. She was an eternal friend and perennial encourager of my July 4th comics, from the very first one. <3 Love you and miss you.

Sorry Steve ended up doing most of the talking, but it felt like a Steve year, because it's time to fight back.

Also, at one point I was going to set this by the Reflecting Pool, and had planned an extended analogy about how the Reflecting Pool has always needed maintenance against the sinking ground and the hot sun, but Trump is the first to (a) make it worse, and (b) refuse to own up to the mistakes, and (c) post National Guard to arrest anyone who tries to touch it. [quick reflecting pool history timeline] But then there's the heat wave and I'm like "the boys are staying inside this year." :P

Sorry this year's is more hastily done than usual -- I just finished my Asian American Citizenship comic a few days ago, and haven't really been thinking Captain America thoughts.

We'll see what next year brings!

As we meditate upon and consider the now 250-year-old words of Thomas Jefferson this weekend, consider also the "classically American" meals that many of us will be enjoying --besides the inevitable hot dogs, hamburgers, and buffalo wings, there will also undoubtedly be three additional items on the cookout menu: french fries, macaroni and cheese, and vanilla ice cream. Which neatly brings us back to Thomas Jefferson --or more accurately, another member of the household at Monticello.

Meet James Hemings, the very first French-trained American chef. Born enslaved in 1765, Hemings was the son of wealthy planter John Wayles and his concubine slave Elizabeth "Betty" Hemings --the second of six siblings. Wayles also had an older daughter, Martha Wayles, who would later become Mrs. Martha Jefferson --making James Hemings the half-brother of Martha Jefferson. (The youngest of James's siblings, Sally, certainly merits an entire study of her own, but we'll circle back around to her story.)

In the aftermath of the Revolution, in 1784, Jefferson was named by the brand-new nation as America's Commerce Minister to France. He brought James (now 19 years old) with him, and for the next five years James studied under some of the greatest chefs in all of Paris. During this time Jefferson paid Hemings an actual wage, also ensuring that James learned French. In that time Hemings was apprenticed to different pastry chefs and other masters of the trade, including one chef of a prince. He eventually earned the title of chef de cuisine in Jefferson's kitchen, preparing and serving dishes to many diplomats and other guests. Among the many dishes he mastered were "macaroni pie;" forerunner to what would become macaroni and cheese, as well as "snow eggs," which led into what would one day be known as vanilla ice cream.

In 1789 France abolished slavery and Jefferson expressed worry that James might at some point demand his own freedom, but Hemings surprised everyone by pursuing no legal action and returning to Monticello with Jefferson when his time as Commerce Minister was up --bringing with him all his accumulated culinary knowledge. Jefferson continued to pay James, employing him during the brief time the United States government operated out of New York. Hemings was the chef for the critical June 20, 1790 dinner (i.e., "the room where it happened") where Jefferson famously mended fences with Alexander Hamilton and agreed to establish the District of Columbia as the permanent capital of the new nation. After the Constitution took effect, James also accompanied Jefferson to Philadelphia while that city served as the capital. However Pennsylvania had by this time also abolished slavery and instituted a policy of freeing any slave in the state for more than six months. The Washingtons had already figured out an end-run around this policy (see Lesson #123 about Oney Judge for more about how well that worked out for them), and Jefferson, faced with a similar situation with James Hemings, eventually worked out a contract agreement with the young man in which he would be freed after training up a replacement chef at Monticello. Hemings agreed and passed on all of his accumulated knowledge to his younger brother Peter, who was also literate in both English and French. In 1793 James set out from Monticello as a free man, ready to embark on his own career as a master chef.

Unfortunately despite his master-level credentials James's life didn't exactly open up with endless possibilities; he journeyed back to Europe for a time and then returned to Philadelphia where he worked as a cook, and then eventually to Baltimore where he worked in a tavern. Several times James returned to Monticello but never lingered for more than a few months at a time. He never married nor had children, and pointedly refused Jefferson's offer of working as the White House head chef when he became President in 1801. He returned to Baltimore but inexplicably died by suicide in November of 1801 at the age of 36.

As you enjoy your french fries, vanilla ice cream, and especially your macaroni and cheese this summer, take a moment to thank the young man who ensured that these dishes found their way to America.

Okay... Today is a good example of me stepping (a little) outside my comfort zone. My partner and I enjoy riding our bikes on a local trail. We both had a day off today, and I suggested that we ride to a bar on the trail that we'd never been to. It was a longer ride than I've taken as an adult. I would be riding by places where I did NOT KNOW if there would be loose dogs barking at people from their yards. (I have a mild dog phobia). I was not entirely sure of the terrain, either.

So, bike? Familiar and comfortable. My bike is my happy place. 2/3 of the ride? Familiar. I knew people along the route did not, in fact, have barky dogs roaming unrestrained. Part of my comfort zone. Last 1/3? A LITTLE unfamiliar. Distance? Not entirely sure if I was up for it or not.

That is the kind of leaving your comfort zone we talk about. If my body started saying, "TURN AROUND" I would have said "Yes, ma'am" and done so. If someone who lived along the route had a barky dog in the yard, might have turned around, too. (Unlikely. This trail is incredibly popular and beloved. Having a territorial dog along the route would get you hated by two towns).

I've seen people online saying we should be pregnancy testing "at the southern border," of course, just in case someone is trying to smuggle a foetus in.

If someone decides to challenge your citizenship? Chances are very good that you'd have a hell of a time proving it.

As someone from a hot country that's regularly on fire, here's some tips:

WATER IS YOUR FRIEND! WATER! IS! YOUR! FRIEND! You can transfer SO much heat into this bad boy! You cannot cool down without water!

Wrists under the cold tap. Splash your face and the back of your neck. Fan yourself.

In some countries you can buy a little handeld fan with a water sprayer.

Damp tea towel around the neck. Stick an ice pack in there on hotter days.

Half fill a water bottle with water, stick in freezer. If you use a bottle with a straw, make sure it's lying on its side with the straw side up and out of the water. When frozen top up the rest of the way with tap water and off you go.

Desperate to cool off? Wet T-shirt. Sit in front of a fan. This will nuke it, just don't get hypothermia and don't fall asleep like this.

Cold showers are also your friend in summer. Some people get psyched up by these. Personally, I sleep like a baby, so I'm good to have them before bed. Just keep in mind that it takes a bit of time for the cool to circulate, so your body will tell you that you're colder than you actually are. I find that when I have cold showers I need to step out of the spray when I think I'm cold... I'll just wait, and thirty seconds later the temperature has evened out and I actually need to step under again. Rinse and repeat until you maintain coolness even after stepping out for a bit.

If you can't do cold showers, turn the cold shower on anyway and just stick your arms under. When they're cold, lift your arms up above your head. The sensation of cool blood draining into your body is fucking weird and kinda unpleasant but less unpleasant than being hot.

Feet in a tub of water with ice. Blood naturally flows to your extremities when hot, so take advantage of this. If you don't have a tub of ice water, sticking a wet rag on your feet in front of the fan works too, it's the less powerful version of the wet T-shirt.

Drinks lots of water but make sure that water has electrolytes as well. Stay in the shade.

Keep air circulating. Fans don't actually cool rooms down, they just help transfer heat from your body to the moisture on your skin or the air via evaporative cooling.

Block north facing windows early in the morning so the sun doesn't get in. If you're in the northern hemisphere, this is opposite for you. Keep in mind that if your home is brick, the bricks will still heat up and slowly release heat into your home even after the sun goes down so this will only do so much.

If it's hotter inside than outside, close all your windows but two, making sure they're on opposite sides of the house/unit you're in. Point a fan out of one window, making sure that the doors between the rooms with the open windows are all open. This will help create a mini pressure system in your home, pulling cooler air in and pushing the hotter air out via the fan. Bonus points if you can get that fan high up where the hot air rises; even within a single room the top is much hotter than the air by the floor. Adjust the amount of open windows based on how many fans you have, but generally you want more windows with fans open than windows without fans to keep the pressure correct.

Obviously, use your common sense for these. Not everything WILL work for you, just use the stuff that does and adjust what needs to be adjusted. Some of these will be impossible to use in the workplace but others you can still use. Others are best used at home. If humidity impacts your ability to use any of these, get a dehumidifier if that's an option, or use more ice instead of evaporation.