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Gratuitous Aaron Ashmore

I could’ve sworn his-also actor twin brother, Shawn, came out as gay a few years ago but I can find nothing online to back up that memory. Maybe it’s just that he wants to play gay characters…

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Quote of the Day

We are leaderless. America doesn’t have a president. America has a man in the White House holding the spot, and wreaking havoc as he waits for the day when a real president arrives to replace him.” ~ Charles M. Blow, writing in The New York Times

Blow continues:

Donald Trump is many things—most of them despicable—but the leader of a nation he is not. He is not a great man. Hell, he isn’t even a good man.

Donald Trump is a man of flawed character and a moral cavity. He cannot offer moral guidance because he has no moral compass. He is too small to see over his inflated ego.

Trump has personalized the presidency in unprecedented ways—making every battle and every war about his personal feelings. Did the person across the street or around the world say good or bad things about him? Does the media treat him fairly? Is someone in his coterie of corruption outshining him or casting negative light on him?

His interests center on the self; country be damned.

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Goodbye Cassini

In less than two weeks, the Cassini probe will transmit its last data back to Earth as it plunges into Saturn’s atmosphere, bringing to an end its astounding fourteen year mission to the ringed planet and its moons.

It will be missed. There are no plans (or public till to provide funding) for any new probes to revisit the outer solar system, and this saddens me no end. So much potential for our species, and yet we can’t get beyond our bickering over skin color and beliefs in imaginary sky gods.

(Be patient, it takes a while for the video to load.)

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“At Least Make It Reliable!”

My thoughts exactly.

I haven’t had any further issues with the keyboard on my MBP—only because it’s been covered with a silicone keybaord skin, preventing anything from actually coming in contact with it.

And I hate it. The things never fit properly (I’ve tried four so far), always tending to bunch up on one end or the other, and much like putting a case on an iPhone, what’s the point of Apple going to such lengths to create something that you want to touch, but is obviously so prone to damage you never actually get to?

After living with this computer for three months now and knowing what I do, if I had a chance to go back to last May, I definitely would’ve purchased the 2015 model—with the old keyboard design and no Touchbar—when I had the opportunity. The Touchbar remains of dubious utility and the fact that I have to put a condom on the keyboard to ensure that it works when I need it to work is ridiculous.

(audio source)

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MAGA?

How about doing this instead of hocking your goddamn red hats during a natural disaster?

Build new infrastructure to ameliorate the effects of huge storms and repair the rest of the existing, crumbling national infrastructure (transport, water, power), invest enormously in renewable energies and local power, move quickly beyond the targets set in the Paris accord, reduce military spending, institute a single-payer healthcare system, perhaps a move to universal basic income, provide 5 weeks annual paid leave as mandatory, provide free universal antenatal care and contraceptive advice for all women, provide cheap public transport, paid maternal and paternal leave…just a few ideas to help MAGA. Easily affordable—just up the taxes on the mega rich a bit, close a few loopholes, introduce the 0.01% financial transaction tax and regulate the fucking banking industry. There you are, fixed it and actually made America great again.

Sigh. A boy can dream—and take some solace in knowing these things are probably already happening in a parallel universe somewhere…

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Fun Animal Observations from a Zoo Docent

1. There are several ways to classify the large cats, one of the more useful ones is into the roaring cats (tigers, lions) and the purring cats (bobcats, lynxes). The puma (also known as the mountain lion) is the largest cat that purrs. I’ve heard it up close, it’s amazing. A cheetah’s purr sounds like an idling motorcycle engine.

2. Kangaroos cannot move their legs independently of each other, they have to move them in sync – when they’re on land. When they’re swimming, they can move them separately. Hopping is their most efficient way to move – a walking kangaroo is awkward as hell. They swing both legs forward using their tail as a third leg to prop up while their legs swing.

3. People often think that flamingoes’ knees bend the wrong way. They don’t – the joint you’re seeing in the middle of their leg isn’t their knee, it’s their ankle. Their knee is up by their body, and it bends the same way ours does.

4. Giraffes only sleep 1-2 hours a day.

5. Bald eagles’ vocalizations are not what you expect. When you see a flying bald eagle in the movies and hear that majestic caw sound? That isn’t an eagle, it’s been dubbed over with another bird, usually a red-tailed hawk. Bald eagles actually sound…not majestic. Kind of like if a kitten could be a bird.

6. Elephants are one of only a handful of animals that can pass the mirror test – in other words, they can recognize their own reflection (and not think it’s another animal, as dogs and cats usually do). They tested this by placing a chalk mark on an elephant’s forehead and then showing it a mirror. The elephant investigated the mark on its own forehead, indicating it knew that it was looking at itself. The only animals that pass this test are the higher primates, the higher cetaceans (orcas, dolphines), elephants, and weirdly, magpies.

7. One-fifth of all the known mammal species are bats.

8. A kangaroo mother can have three joeys simultaneously at different stages of development: an embryo in her womb (kangaroos can do what’s called embryonic diapause which means sort of putting the development on pause until she’s ready for it to develop further), a joey in her pouch attached to one nipple, and a joey out of the pouch on the ground who nurses from the other one. The amazing thing? Each of her nipples make different formulations of milk for each joey’s different nutritional needs.

9. Bonobos, our closest genetic relative (they are more closely related to us than they are to either chimps or gorillas) are almost entirely non-aggressive, matriarchal, and use sex to solve all their problems. They engage in both same and opposite sex interactions, non-penetrative sex (oral, rubbing, manual) and with any age. That’s an interesting area to work in, lemme tell you.

10. Tortoises have super loud sex. Like, really loud.

11. All grizzlies are brown bears, but not all brown bears are grizzlies (grizzlies are a sub-categorization of the brown bear).

12. Reindeer are the only deer species where both males and females grow antlers. The males shed theirs the beginning of December, the females shed theirs in the spring. So all of Santa’s reindeer are girls, heh. I love telling little kids that.

13. If a rhinoceros knocks off its horn, it grows back faster than you’d expect. One of ours, Rosie, has knocked hers off twice.

14. Gorillas get crushes on each other. And on the humans that take care of them. Male gorillas also masturbate. I don’t know if the females do, I’ve never seen it. Sometimes it’s like a soap opera up in there.

15. Langur monkeys are silvery-gray in color – their babies are bright orange. Like Cheeto orange, I do not exaggerate.

16. Polar bear fur is not white, it’s transparent, like fiber optics. Also, their skin is black.

Source.

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Dreaming of Snow

The other night I dreamt it started snowing and it was wonderful. I know, strange statement coming from a guy who had come to detest the white stuff by the time we left Denver. But this dream was…different. I wasn’t in Denver; I was in Phoenix. Now, snow in Phoenix isn’t unheard of, but it’s extremely rare and seldom lasts more than a few hours after dusting the ground. It’s so rare in fact, that I had a very hard time finding any decent photos to illustrate it.

In this dream I was coming out of a Trader Joe’s…or a Sprouts…or a Whole Foods…or some other hipster-addled grocery store where people buy ready-to-eat artisanal, cruelty-free organically-grown, non-GMO gluten-free potstickers and during the time I’d been in the store (picking the last of the good orange cherry tomatoes individually out of a bin), the skies had clouded over and temperature had dropped precipitously. It felt like snow weather. The clouds were hanging—to quote a line from Rocky Horror—dark and pendulous. The ground was already turning white as the flakes began falling.

I wasn’t concerned. I knew it wouldn’t be like a Denver storm where I might have trouble getting home, and the sheer joy I felt at the cold temperature made me realize on some level I actually missed that kind of weather.

We’re now in our third summer back in Phoenix; a milestone that I’ve always marked as being fully acclimated to a climate—especially one as brutal as Phoenix. It’s marks the point that you can relax and take solace in knowing the ridiculously hot days won’t last forever; that in just a few short months cold water will actually start coming out of the cold water tap again and you might even have to wear a hoodie when you go out.

Come to think of it, the whole thing might just have been fever-induced as I was coming down sick—something akin to a (reverse) plot line from that old Twilight Zone episode The Midnight Sun…

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Not Everything Is Lost

Via Wil Wheaton:

After learning my flight was detained 4 hours,
I heard the announcement:
If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic,
Please come to the gate immediately.

Well—one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress,
Just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly.
Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her
Problem? we told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she
Did this.

I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly.
Shu dow-a, shu- biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick,
Sho bit se-wee?

The minute she heard any words she knew—however poorly used—
She stopped crying.

She thought our flight had been canceled entirely.
She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the
Following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late,

Who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him.
We called her son and I spoke with him in English.
I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and
Would ride next to her—Southwest.

She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it.

Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and
Found out of course they had ten shared friends.

Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian
Poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering
Questions.

She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies—little powdered
Sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts—out of her bag—
And was offering them to all the women at the gate.

To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
Sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California,
The lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same
Powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies.

And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers—
Non-alcoholic—and the two little girls for our flight, one African
American, one Mexican American—ran around serving us all apple juice
And lemonade and they were covered with powdered sugar too.

And I noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands—
Had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing,

With green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always
Carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought,
This is the world I want to live in. The shared world.

Not a single person in this gate—once the crying of confusion stopped
—has seemed apprehensive about any other person.

They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too.
This can still happen anywhere.

Not everything is lost.

~Naomi Shihab Nye (b. 1952), “Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal.”

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