~Riene's Phantom Phan Site

Please have a moment of silence for the people who were killed instead of freed when news of emancipation finally reached the furthest corners of the american south.

have another moment for the ledgers, catalogs, and records that were burned and the homes that were destroyed to hide the presence of very much alive and still enslaved people on dozens of plantations and homesteads across the south for decades after emancipation.

and have a third moment for those who were hunted and killed while fleeing the south to find safety across the border, overseas, in the north and to the west.

black people. light a candle, write a note to those who have passed telling them what you have achieved in spite of the racist and intolerant conditions of this world, feel the warmth of the flame under your hand, say a prayer of rememberance if you are religious, place the note under the candle, and then blow it out.

if you have children, sit them down and tell them anything you know about the life of oldest black person you've ever met. it doesn't have to be your own family. tell them what you know about what life was like for us in the days, years, decades after emancipation. if you don't know much, look it up and learn about it together.

This is Juneteenth.

icarian task: when you have a task you know you’re going to fail at anyways, so why not have some fun with it before it all comes crashing down

cassandrean task: when you have to deal with people you KNOW won’t listen to you, despite having accurate information, and having to watch them fumble about when you told them the solution from the start (most often witnessed in customer service)

pyrrhic task: you can get it done but it's going to cost you

medean task: you can get it done and you don't care what it costs you

dionysian task: task that might not be -better- if you do it drunk, but -will- definitely be more fun

hegelochic task: it was a simple job, but your name will be recorded in the annals of history for how impressively you fucked it up

task of theseus: a project for which the parameters have changed so many times that you're not sure it IS still the same task

???

Researchers have used Easter Island Moai replicas to show how they might have been “walked” to where they are displayed.

Maori told Europeans that kiore were native rats and no one believed them until DNA tests proved it

Until they finally payed closer attention to local songs and legend that all essentially said “Yah the Goddess Nanda Devi got mad and sent huge heave stones down to kill them”. That was consistent with huge contusions found all on their neck and shoulders and the weather patterns of the area, which are prone to huge & inevitably deadly goddamn hailstones. https://www.facebook.com/atlasobscura/videos/10154065247212728/

“Inuit traditional knowledge was critical to the discovery of both ships, she pointed out, offering the Canadian government a powerful demonstration of what can be achieved when Inuit voices are included in the process.

In contrast, the tragic fate of the 129 men on the Franklin expedition hints at the high cost of marginalising those who best know the area and its history.

“If Inuit had been consulted 200 years ago and asked for their traditional knowledge – this is our backyard – those two wrecks would have been found, lives would have been saved. I’m confident of that,” she said. “But they believed their civilization was superior and that was their undoing.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/16/inuit-canada-britain-shipwreck-hms-terror-nunavut

“Oh yeah, I heard a lot of stories about Terror, the ships, but I guess Parks Canada don’t listen to people,” Kogvik said. “They just ignore Inuit stories about the Terror ship.”

Schimnowski said the crew had also heard stories about people on the land seeing the silhouette of a masted ship at sunset.

“The community knew about this for many, many years. It’s hard for people to stop and actually listen … especially people from the South.”

it’s literally the oldest accurate oral history of the world.  

Moon Joy June artists!  The prompt for this week is “Crew.” Coincidentally, we announced the Artemis III crew last week! These four astronauts will practice docking the Orion spacecraft with two lunar landers in low Earth orbit. While Artemis III will not land on the Moon, this mission will test the complex capabilities we need to return humanity there — this time to stay.

Meet the Artemis III crew:

Commander Randy Bresnik was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 2004. Bresnik completed his first spaceflight on STS-129 in 2009 — this was the 31st shuttle flight to the International Space Station. In 2017, Bresnik served as Flight Engineer aboard the Soyuz 51S and Expedition 52 as well as Commander of the International Space Station for Expedition 53.

Pilot Luca Parmitano was selected as a European Space Agency astronaut in May 2009. In 2011, he served as a flight engineer to Italian space agency ASI's first long-duration mission on the International Space Station. He was also the third European and first Italian to command the space station during Expedition 61, which began in 2019 and ended in 2020.

Mission specialist Andre Douglas was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 2021. Upon selection, Douglas was a senior professional staff member at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab working on maritime robotics, planetary defense, and space exploration missions. He served as a backup crew member for NASA’s Artemis II mission. Artemis III will be Douglas’ first spaceflight.

Mission specialist Frank Rubio was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 2017. He lived and worked aboard the International Space Station between 2022 and 2023, breaking the record for the longest single duration spaceflight by a U.S. astronaut with a mission duration of 371 days. Dr. Rubio is a board-certified family physician and flight surgeon.