Nelson Lowhim's Blog, page 49

Mars, Bitches.

Cool images and I'm sure more is to come. 
This thing looks amazing, btw. 



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A Breakdown of Seattle's Reactions to Trying to Improve an Org

Hugo House should try to be more inclusive. But read the comments. Wow oh wow if people in this city don't get it, there's proof of it. I actually don't know much about what's going on there (first time I've heard it), but it seems like a problem (I have had the luck to work with 2 of the people who signed on to that letter and they are brilliant beyond belief) and especially if the people who signed that letter state that it is. I will say this about the opponents of "cancel culture" (assuming they can even define it), they are fine with the quiet kinds that led to this outcry. Pretty sad that they see things this way. 
Ah yes, bringing up the NFL. I remember this tactic from the 90s. Never change, people. 


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On Lead

I always thought the mistake that was lead in our gas (and in other places... it's a bad thing, friends, and a huge part of the crime wave) was foolishness rather than people actually knowing it would be bad. Well, spoiler, they knew. 
Could still improve our society by ridding all the lead (extra levels that is) in our soil, pipes etc. 
Also, speaking of noxious pollution, Rush is ded. Yeah, don't care either, plenty of other assholes to take his place.
Also, like this piece on VIP patients in hospitals. So it goes, part N, meaning this is how things work as inequality gets higher. btw, life expectancy went down yet again. No shocker. The question is if things will improve.  
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Be Safe in Texas

Been in a wind storm then had our electricity cut for the following cold spell. No fun. This is in houses ready for such cold spells and you realize how much you need electricity for your day to day. But can't imagine this in houses meant for warm weather. Hope they're all staying safe. GOP leaders there making sure to blame the Green New Deal. Love the Baghdad Bob lies and the focus on the grift, but hate that it will work on more than half of the people in that state. After how many failures of foresight and leadership (and the GOP trying culture wars to blame another) will people finally decide enough is enough? Spend money on our infrastructure, ffs. And get ready for worse weather events as climate change (so why not try to prepare the grid for that?). 
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Small Chance it was a Lab Leak

Apparently there's a small chance that Covid was a lab leak. 

The first known coronavirus to have caused serious illness in humans, SARS-CoV, also likely originated in bats, which then infected civet cats (a farmed wild animal), which then infected humans. Once the virus made the leap to humans, it spread throughout the world, causing the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2003. In 2012, another coronavirus, MERS-CoV, spread from bats into camels and caused cases of Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (MERS). Yet, in the case of COVID-19, after more than a year of searching, no intermediate host has been found. 

(though, okay, this part kinda goes against the previous statement that the first SARS was a lab leak?). Of course, the WHO has to make political statements if it wants to get any kind of access, but that also speaks to how many of the great powers have stripped the WHO of much of its powers and ability (sound familiar) and funding. So why wouldn't it go the political route when its very funding is on the line (and at all times too)?
So it seems that smaller countries (especially the likes of Taiwan and S.Korea) are the ones that have come out the best, with a good mixture of science and skepticism (of those initial claims). Let's see if we find out the truth...
Still, it means that, in this future Cold War between the US and China (or the one between the oligarchs in each country), obfuscation will win out over more transparent international organizations when that's exactly what we need right now. 
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Some Good News.

Good doc here on Planned Parenthood. The thing about visionaries like Margaret Sanger is that they truly are hated by those who lost some power (mainly powerful patriarchs) and are vilified beyond anything imaginable. Still one of the most important Americans out there, IMO. Check it out!
edit: Wow, the crazy dumb of the internet still never ceases to surprise me. Both sides, yada yada, but the right is truly the worst. Posted the above video and its good insights and instead of either a discussion on the points made in the video all I get are comments that are exactly the opposite of what the video is claiming. But, of course, one can say: this video is wrong on this count, here is the information, but instead it's just right wing propaganda about contraception and abortion being the devil and genocide etc etc. Yep, the exact topics refuted by the video. 
It's not just this, another article I posted (on nukes) was yelled down by a crew of (DOD webtroopers? Fools? Who knows) when the article tackles the exact point they are screaming. Again, if you have evidence for the contrary show it or link it, but that's not the game here. 
Not surprised, but I am pretty impressed. My view still stands that she's an amazing woman who helped revolutionize sexuality and freed women to a great extent. Of course people will want to shout that down with any kind of slander possible. Funny how it still goes, right?
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Tech Still Crazy

Good talk on the attention issue and tech.
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Where Art The Absurdist & Fantastical & Magic Realist War Fictions?

From this generation, at least. And, ostensibly from veterans. Well, this was a question another vet asked me recently (his story is here). There are, of course, lots of Iraqi-civilian side stories that are pretty interesting. Blasim's Corpse and Iraqi Christ come to mind, as well as Frankenstein in Baghdad . And in previous wars, Vonnegut is the immediate goto for scif mixed with absurdity in his war fiction. Best way to tell it, to be frank. 
And the above veteran mentioned a William's book Capitan Blackman . This latter one is something I've never heard of and will have to read:

One of the major burdens for the black novelist is that he has to correct so much accepted history. Even the first novel written by a black American, “Clotel, or the President's Daughter” (1853) attempted to affirm the allegation that Thomas Jefferson fathered children by the slaves he owned.

Having to speak in an environment of well‐established, ‐well‐broadcast lies and halftruths is bound to place this extra burden on any conscientious novelist. Williams has written a necessary work. It suggests just how much has been purposely left out of American military history.

Yeah, this definitely sounds like a novel I need to read. 

It is not a novel of flashbacks, nor a recherche du temps perdu. The past and the present are simply laid out together. We see, at once, how black soldiers were slaughtered by whites at Milligan's Bend and in southeast Kansas during the Civil War, how Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest ordered the murder of 300 black troopers at Fort Pillow, causing the Mississippi to run red with blood. In Italy during World War II, we see how the hundreds of black soldiers and their Italian girl friends who sought to escape discrimination by deserting to the swamps near Migliarino were hunted down and slaughtered—not by Germans, but by Americans.

Yeah, gritty and real and sounds like the most interesting Vietnam book out there, so why haven't I heard of it, and instead see tripe like TTWC (yes it's tripe made for MFA workshops) bandied around like a holy book? I don't know. Not surprising that SPL doesn't even carry the book. Damn shame and I'm going to add it to my list of books to read. 
But I digress, as far as veterans in the 21st century, well there aren't many. Well, there's me, of course, with a few shorts in that line of absurdity and fantasy (and hopefully a novel in that line of thinking as well). Can you think of any others?
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Thin Blue Line

I'm sure, just like the Constitutionalists trying to overturn the Reconstruction amendments and bring back a new Jim Crow, we're sure to hear from the TBL lot about how the police were mistreated by the right wing mob on 1.6. 
I'm kidding. There will be silence because we all know what TBL actually means. 

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What Games to Play?

I enjoy a lot of different games these days, and though I may not be so into board games as some people in the board game world are, I still know a few things about them (from a fun perspective)[1]. Chess (960 especially) and Go and Shogi are my favs, but I have enjoyed the more imaginative ones as well as ones that include luck (always a huge part of life). This goes with poker as well as others like Settlers of Catan etc. Now, there are ones like Fog of War (only playable on a computer) which are a joy to play (and include luck). Dixit is a more imaginative one and... well that's it. 
See, the thing is, I'm thinking of what games should be played together and with the younger generation of our entire family. I do know that I have to be more patient than when I tried to teach chess to my cousin, back in the day. 
Your thoughts?
[1] This means games with complex mechanisms, like Twilight Struggle, get low marks from me, especially since we are talking about a rule set that takes too long to learn. I suppose, I'm partial to the oldies, like go or chess, which have few rules to learn and build out complexity on that. Maybe lawyers or others will feel differently, and maybe the world really is just complex and baroque rules that we have to learn and this speaks to my biases and weaknesses as a human. 

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