March 1 the account writing-prompt-s on tumblr posted the following prompt:
You bought a cheap mirror from an antique store, not knowing it was enchanted. The mirror shows the reflection of the viewer 60 years in the future. You didn’t realize it was magical because your reflection is… exactly the same.
Here’s a tiny bit of fiction I wrote in reply.
Well, almost exactly the same. Sometimes it strikes you as just a bit too…. polished. Like perhaps your chin is just a little too smooth and creamy? or maybe it’s that the smear of chocolate sauce on your chin from that ice cream sundae isn’t reflecting the light quite right.
When other people – friends, family – look in the mirror, they see themselves aged sixty years, or worse, their bodies aged sixty years and breaking down as they may be in the grave. But not all of them. A few of your friends close to your own age have the same experience you do. Your older sister looks like something out of the end of an Indiana Jones flick, but you, your bud Robin, and even Harry from down the street, all look just as you do now. You’re in your twenties, you’re young and neat looking, dressed in polos and slacks, ready to take on the world.
You thought it was weird, but you also thought that it was a sign of great things to come. After all, your stupid older sister wouldn’t be there, and you would. That had to be great, right?
Then one day when you were walking past the mirror, the image began to glitch. You knew this was “just” a mirror. Your friends had helped you take it apart to confirm there was no screen and nothing electrical involved. Your reflection stabilized after a second, but then glitched again, looking more like a lost UHF signal from your grandmother’s black and white TV set than a mirror, or even a digital display.
One more time, you saw your reflection. This time, it screamed at you. “You have to get off the moon!” it yelled, clawing at the inside of the glass. “YOU HAVE TO GET OFF—“ A mushroom cloud lit the background, which was supposed to be the bland yellow living room wall behind you.
After that, the mirror went black. A few moments later, it reflected you, your friends, and your stupid older sister, just like any other mirror.
It’s time to put some good in the world as best we can.
Check your vaccination records
Hey, if you haven’t noticed, things like tuberculosis and measles are making a comeback here in the United States thanks to all the folks who think vaccines are for other people. As an added bonus, the US has cut its aid to a bunch of other countries — aid that very often included money, supplies, and vaccines for things like polio, measles, TB….
Do you know what you were vaccinated against as a child? It turns out a lot of people don’t! But since you had to be vaccinated to get into school, those records are available at your state. The CDC has a list of contacts for immunization records. Look up your state, follow their contact instructions, and find out what you’ve been immunized for. Then check in with your doctor on what you might need as a booster.
Antibody Titer Test (a blood test you can have to determine if you actually have immunity to something)
Safer driving
Got an annoying pothole that you’ve reported to your department of transportation and nothing’s been done? Alert your fellow drivers creatively! (Be safe!) A giant pothole plagued this Englishman’s commute. He put an upside-down statue in it. The article contains other militant but decent actions people have taken to draw attention potholes in case upside-down statues are not your thing.
Write your congress critters, your governor, and Vice Admiral Nancy Hann. You can use resist.bot to contact the first two, and Vice Admiral Hann’s email address is nancy.hann@noaa.gov. Here’s a script I threw together.
Hi! My name is [NAME] and I’m a constituent from [TOWN].
I’m calling to demand that [REP] do everything in their power to block and reverse the job cuts that President Trump just made to NOAA.
NOAA has been understaffed based on needs for over 50 years due to Congressional budget decisions, making it more and more difficult for trained scientists and engineers to protect the American people.
If we don’t have accurate weather, solar flare, giant storm, and volcanic activity reports, people die. If firefighters fighting wildfires don’t know which way the winds will be blowing, people die. If your state department of transportation doesn’t know which roads need to be salted, people die.
In other words, President Trump’s cuts are going to kill Americans, lead to significant damage to our infrastructure, shut down businesses, and skyrocket disaster costs.
[If your state is in particular danger due to literally any kind of weather or disaster, point that out here when writing to your congress critters or your governor.]
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Remember to provide your full address (including 9-digit zip) if you’re leaving a voicemail or emailing directly because that maps you directly to a specific voting district.
Not quite reviews, I talk about books I read and enjoyed.
First, if you bought The Long Earth because Terry Pratchett wrote it, know that it is absolutely not the style or type of a Discworld book. The book probably should have had Stephen Baxter’s name lead because my understanding is that he’s a “hard sci fi” guy and while this isn’t the hardest of sci-fis, it’s definitely not fantasy.
Second, the writing is solid, the plot is credible and creative, and the ending is a gut punch, in just the right way (especially as the first book of a five book series). There are a few dead spots where things get a bit monotonous but it’s also easy to argue that the authors were trying to let you know that it felt monotonous to the characters too.
And there is a main character that I’d gladly punt out a window, but I suspect that’s also intentional.
There’s no romance (thought I can’t say for sure that some won’t develop in a future book) and a lot of good common sense thinking from the main characters. There’s only one spot where you’ll be yelling “don’t do it!” at the book, which is good. The biology elements are awesome, as is the geography and geology. And the “magic” is consistently applied, so no giant plot holes.
I’ve already bought book two, and I suspect that I’ll be reading the entire series.
Here are some things you can do to chip away at the world’s cruelness, whether the world likes it or not.
Pick one relatively small project at your home that would both help you and your guests and that you’ve been putting off. Do it.
Maybe it’s organizing your towels so that it’s easy to help dry off a bunch of people who just came in from the rain. Maybe it’s making sure all the doorknobs are on tight so the doors close cleanly. Maybe it’s making sure that the bathroom has grab bars or that the stair railing is secure for people who have mobility issues. Maybe it’s making sure there’s a path through your junk room (we all have one, it’s ok) so that you can get through that room in a hurry if there’s a fire.
Me, I’m doing all my filing so I can use the dining room table if I suddenly need to.
The short-short version is that some lawmakers want to take away the elements in the Affordable Care Act that provide people who are trans with gender-affirming care. But instead of targeting those specific parts of the law, they brought a cannon to the knife fight and want to declare the entirety of Section 504 unconstitutional. That would not only strip away rights from people seeking gender-affirming care, it would also strip rights away from everyone who has a disability.
Remember, approximately 24% of the US population identifies themselves as disabled right now — the numbers are even higher if you count all the folks who have a disability but don’t want to admit to it, like people with low vision or hearing problems.
You can read more about Texas v Bercerra , the name of the suit that would take away your rights and the rights of those around you.
If you’re a scientist or similar expert (software engineer counts!), add your voice to an open letter calling on Congress and the Trump administration to ensure that NOAA remains fully funded and protected.
We want our weather, geology, and oceanography information to be accurate and timely because, well, we want to live through natural disasters. We don’t want that org to be underfunded.
Support science channels on Youtube
One of the hidden damages to the cuts that have been made to science and education recently involves whether your favorite Youtube science education channels get funding. The folks over at Minute Earth can explain it better:
So if you have a favorite science communicator, go subscribe to their Patreon, or maybe throw some cash in whatever tip jar they’re using.
And if you don’t have a favorite Youtube science communicator, can I suggest Complexly?
Provide feedback on the latest proposed changes to passports
Then, visit the following three pages where the Department of State has published 30-day notices for public comment for changes to the following passport forms:
You can read each doc in its entirety, or you can read the section on “Changes since last renewal” for each one, which says a variant of the following:
To comply with E.O. 14168, “ Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” the Department updated the form to replace the term “gender” with “sex.” The U.S. Passport conforms with the standards set by the E.O. and the International Civil Aviation Organization, which among other things determine the various fields on the passport’s biographical data page. Consistent with the E.O., the revised DS-11 will request the applicant’s biological sex at birth, male “M” or female “F.” Amendments to the fields and instructions (section 3) have been made to reflect this.
Assuming that you disagree with the executive order that declares everyone either male or female based on an undefined and/or vague definition of “biological gender” that’s not likely to hold up in court, your next steps are to:
Click on the link that says “Public Comments” in the navigation menu.
Click the “Submit a public comment” link.
Read the “Commenter’s Checklist”.
Provide a comment and, if you feel it necessary, supporting documentation.
Submit your comment.
Please do that for each of the three documents. We certainly don’t want the powers that be to only change one of them.
If you need a script, well, here’s what I’m sending.
I am unclear on why a sex or gender field is required at all. Is it to determine whether the person in front of us is who they say they are? If that’s the case, the photo does a better job of identifying the individual than an M or an F. Is it to determine whether the person should be housed in a male or female jail cell? It seems that there are many solutions to that problem that don’t involve either assuming someone will be in a jail cell or involve assuming the their assigned-at-birth sex marker will tell you what they look like. Is it to determine what bathroom they are allowed to use? Let people pee in peace, they don’t need our help to choose a bathroom. People who commit sexual assault are not identifiable by their assigned-at-birth sex marker either.
It’s been 50 years since then, and you’d think people would be used to people looking any way they wanted to by now.
As per Judge Ana Reyes’ hearing with the Justice Department on Tuesday February 18, we don’t currently have a valid legal argument with biological findings that shows that there are only two sexes, or that they can be cleanly assigned to all humans based on chromosomal or biological morphology. The question as put forward in E.O. 14168 is not only significantly flawed, it’s the wrong question.
What our biology says about our sex characteristics is unclear. What our culture says about the social construct of gender is very clear: there are people who consider themselves male, there are people who consider themselves female, there are people who consider themselves neither, both, or something else entirely. If the issuance of a passport requires “the determination of identity, nationality, and entitlements with reference to the provisions of Title II of the Immigration and Nationality Act” then classifying individuals by their biological sex when they do not recognize that sex as their identity is a flaw in the accuracy of the document.
I propose removing the field altogether. You can’t worry about compliance to a field that doesn’t exist. We didn’t need the field when passports were introduced and we don’t need it now.
As always, there’s no need for you to do everything
There’s 340 million of us in this country all trying to make our lives better every day, a little bit at a time. You personally don’t have to take on the whole burden. Do what you’re able, when you’re able, and rest in between.
This is a long post, but I leave you with two more things.
First, a video produced by our own government on fascism:
Second, a quote from a book called Moving Beyond Individualism in Pastoral Care and Counseling: Reflections on Theory, Theology, and Practice by Barbara J. McClure. This is a paraphrase she created of work by Rabbi Rami Shapiro, who was translating Rabbi Tarfon’s work. (I love tracing things to their original sources.)
Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
Walk humbly now.
Do justly now.
Love mercy now.
You are not expected to complete the work,
but neither are you free to abandon it.
