/big things

1) First time we spoke was a week after the beggining of freshman year she summed up my entire character and most of the events of my life Sherlock style. I asked her how the hell she knew all that. She just shrugged and said she figured out our entire class already.

2) The one time we had religion class instead of ethics she listened to the teacher for a few minutes, laughed and told me:

“Humans have wished to be gods so much they’ve forgotten they have to ability to create them. Imagination has truly suffered from this ‘monotheism’ stuff.”

I was confused and asked her if she was an atheist. She rolled her eyes and said:

“Oh I believe in god alright. I just don’t think the bastard deserves to be worshipped.”

3) Out of nowhere she gave me this advice:

“The only truth a liar ever told was that lies weren’t going to save you. Don’t become the liar who has to pass that wisdom on, because they speak from experience.”

4) To this day, she has one of those old-timey phones with buttons she only uses to ocassionally call someone. When I asked her why she never got a smartphone she got pouty:

“I hate social media. On Facebook they talk a lot but never say anything. If I wanted to listen to people moan about their problems and ask for help they don’t expect I’d listen to their prayers.” (Notice the choice of words)

5) I noticed she was stiff and I offered her a massage since I’m really good at it but when i started kneading her back I swear to this day those were not muscles I felt. I asked her what she did to turn her muscles into rocks covered with a thin layer of skin and she kinda froze then shrugged and said she was just really, really stiff. My hands hurt after ten minutes when I can usually go for an hour. Next time I offered she seemed surprised and laughed. She still has rocks for muscles.

6) We were having a debate over the way neural pathways are formed (I study biology and she forensics) and I jokingly asked if I could have her brain for study when she dies. She laughed.

“Sure, if you find a way to kill me you can have it. I’m actually curious what you’re gonna find.”

7) One time she was tired and miserable and I tried to comfort her. We both have really dark sense of humor so I told her she could scare the dead out of their graves with that glare. She told me the dead can’t come back and I rolled my eyes and said ‘obviously’ but she continued:

“When you die you descend to the underworld with nothing to lose. To keep you, they give you something to lose. When you want to return, they will demand it back. That’s why nobody ever leaves. The only way out is to never enter.”

8) One day she just came up to me with a disappointed look on her face. When I asked her what was wrong she was quiet for a few seconds and then just told me:

“Betrayals committed in good intentions are still damning. Just… keep that in mind.” Then she left and didn’t speak to me for three days. I still don’t know what she meant but even three years later I haven’t forgotten it.

9) We were casually sitting on a bench when, out of nowhere, she asked me: “Is it just me or have humans gotten dumber? Or have they always been this stupid and I just haven’t been paying attention?”

10) She asked me if I ever wondered what it was like to die. I said no but told her I would tell her when I found out. I meant it as a ghost joke but she smiled at me and said:

“Great. I’ll wait for you to come back. Maybe you’ll even remember me.”

In conclusion, she is some kind of low-key god and she lost her faith in humanity even before we lost our faith in her but she’s stuck with us because immortality is a bitch.

Americans aren’t told this shit. 

The only thing we’re taught about any Middle Eastern country in school is that 1) the region exists 2) it’s where The War is happening and 3) Muslim people live there. That’s it. Maybe if you’re lucky you’ll get into the Hammurabi Code and some early Babylonian stuff but American schools seem to think that if it happened outside Europe and before the colonial period, or makes America look bad and isn’t about A Very Watered Down Version of What Slavery Was, it’s not important.

Info on this is almost notoriously hard to find. It’s not in any texts on American and Russian involvement in the Middle East during the Cold War that I can find. You have to specifically look for a book about the Shah’s return to power, and even then you’d be hard pressed to find a book like that at your local bookstore. Once you get into some higher level college courses you might know about it, but the people who can afford those are more likely to already be indoctrinated into a certain Way of Thinking (read: they’re racist as shit) by the time they get there. And it’s almost like you have to know about it beforehand if you want to find information on it.

She’s 60. She never heard of this.

As I was explaining this and how, during the Regan years, we funded Osama Bin Laden to fight against Russia, leading to the destruction of much of the infrastructure in the region, one of the plant workers came in to get his badge fixed.

He works in the quality control lab. He served 15 years active duty in the Army. Super smart guy, has a masters in chemistry and another masters in biology, raises saltwater fish in his spare time for sale, has the saltwater aquarium setup of the gods.  Raises rare corals too, some of which he donates to be used in re-seeding reefs around the world, but that’s a side tangent.

And he listened for a minute, then nodded and said “Yeah. I was there during that. I helped train people to fight. They wanted us to help them build schools and hospitals, after, but we were only interested in them as cannon fodder. Left the whole area in ruins. I wasn’t surprised when they hated us for it later. Told people then it would happen. We let them know then that they were only valuable to America as expendable bodies. Why wouldn’t they resent us for that?”

And she just looked floored.

“So…” She started, after a few minutes. “What do you think of Trump?”

“I hate him. He’s a coward and he’s going to get good people killed.” He didn’t even blink. “

She looked back and forth between us for a second, and then asked how I knew all this.

“I research things.” I said. “Google is great.” He nodded enthusiastically.

And she just sat there for a second and then said, really quietly, “I didn’t know.”

She lived through it.

Women who are beyond done with all of this shit.

That’s a very good question and thank you for asking so politely. 

The word feminism was coined by Charles Fourier in 1837, a French philosopher who advocated for the emancipation of women because he believed society treated women as slaves. We weren’t allowed to vote, own anything, or work a real job. Women were ruled by their fathers/household patriarch until they married at which time they’d be under the rule of their husband. If a woman did not belong to male household she was shunned by society and had very little means to make money, most of them unsavory. You know the idiom “rule of thumb”? That comes from a running joke that started in the 1600s, and was still around in Fourier’s time, that said it was okay for a man to beat a woman with a stick as long as it wasn’t any thicker than his thumb. 

Previously, I’d only seen the first two panels and assumed it was the complete comic.

@BadHombreNPS

@RogueNASA 

@Alt_NASA

@altUSEPA

@AltUSForestService

@Alt_CDC

@AltHHS

@AltFDA

@Alt_NIH

@AltUSDA

@ActualEPAFacts

@AltMountRainierNPS

@AltUSFWS

@AltSmithsonian

@AltGlacierNPS

[below, Jerrie Cobb photographed during testing]

They are collectively known as the Mercury 13, there’s a great blog entry about them here and a brilliant PBS documentary too.

Their names are Myrtle Cagle, Jerrie Cobb, Janet Dietrich, Marion Dietrich, Wally Funk, Sarah Gorelick, Jane “Janey” Hart, Jean Hixson, Rhea Hurrle, Gene Nora Stumbough, Irene Leverton, Jerri Sloan and Bernice Steadman. They should be remembered and celebrated for their role in the history of space exploration.

It wasn’t until 2 decades later that Sally Ride became the first woman in space in 1983.

7 of the surviving members of the Mercury 13 are pictured below, 33 years later in 1995.