Get your telescopes ready — tonight’s sky is expected to be a bright one.
Mars will be the brightest it’s been in two years as it undergoes what’s called Mars opposition, an orbital placement that puts the Earth directly between the sun and the Red Planet.
As a result, Mars will be brightly illuminated by the sun’s rays, making it the brightest object in the Earth’s sky, just behind the sun and moon.
“From our perspective on our spinning world, Mars rises in the east just as the sun sets in the west. Then, after staying up in the sky the entire night, Mars sets in the west just as the sun rises in the east,” NASA explains on its website.
It’s a phenomenon that happens once every two years (or 26 months), about the time the Red Planet takes to completely orbit the sun.
On Sunday, NASA estimates that Mars will be 47.4 million miles away from the Earth.
Amateur astronomer Dr. Ian Musgrave, from the University of Adelaide in Australia, has recommended stargazers use telescopes if they have the chance.
“From the point of view of someone standing around looking into the sky, it is just going to be a bright dot,” he told Australia’s ABC News. “But even if you have a small telescope, the disc of Mars will be big enough to see details and maybe even the polar cap.”
Those who miss Sunday’s event, worry not.
NASA/JPL-CALTECH
Stargazers have May 30 to look forward to as well, when Mars will be the closest it’s been to Earth since 2005.
May 30 is expected to be an even bigger show. That’s when Mars will make its closest approach to the Earth since 2005, coming about 46.8 million miles away. That process is called the Mars Close Approach.
From May 18 to June 3, the planet will appear brighter than usual because of its placement. By mid-June, it will start to become faint, as Mars and Earth move farther apart in their orbits around the sun, NASA explains.
Those will miss this month’s festivities will have to wait, but fortunately not a lifetime. The next Mars Close Approach is on July 31, 2018.
Susannah Mushatt Jones
(This article and photo courtesy of:
New York Magazine.)
Here are some things that did not yet exist when Susannah Mushatt Jones was born in Alabama on July 6, 1899: the Model T, and for that matter the Ford Motor Company. The teddy bear. Thumbtacks and tea bags. Puccini’s Tosca and Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag.” The Flatiron Building and the subway system beneath it. Emma Morano, an Italian woman born four months later, who is today the only other living soul who was around before 1900.
One hundred and sixteen years ago, Susie’s tenant-farmer* father, Callie, could theoretically have voted, though Alabama’s poll taxes and rigged literacy tests pretty much took care of that. As for her mother, she was barred from the polls twice over, because voting rights for women were two decades off. Mary Mushatt had 11 children — Susie being the third and the oldest girl — and cooked on an open fire with water drawn from a well. Corn bread was baked by burying it in the fireplace’s ashes. The family raised their own produce and meat. Susie walked seven miles to what was then called the Calhoun Colored School, a private academy specializing in practical education. Her family paid the boarding-school tuition by barter: wood cut for the fire, bushels of corn they’d grown.
Her relatives say she did not dwell on the bad aspects of the prewar South. Tee — family members call her that, short for “Auntie” — was the type to put her head down and keep moving. Which is what she did after graduation: In December 1922, she made the three-day train trip to Newark, New Jersey, where a well-off family had hired her to be a nanny and housekeeper. A year later, she jumped to an easier and more glamorous job with a couple in Westchester: Walter Cokell was the treasurer of Paramount Pictures, and he and his wife, Virginia, had no children. Winters took the Cokells and her to Bel-Air and to Florida. She met Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Ronald Reagan (all younger than she). Her already-good cooking got better and more refined.
In 1928, she married a man named Henry Jones, but they soon split up. (She doesn’t talk about him but kept his surname.) She had a room in Harlem for a while, in an apartment shared with other women from Alabama, but most of her time was spent as a live-in. After Mr. Cokell died in 1945 — killed himself, actually — she moved on to other domestic jobs. The Andrews family, with five children, was probably her favorite. Gail Andrews Whelan, now in her 70s, says Jones was a great caregiver — neither draconian nor a pushover, someone who laid down the law but also “always had your back,” and could serve breakfast to 30 girls after a slumber party.
Jones retired in 1965, a few months after the Civil Rights Act took effect. She went back to the farm in Alabama for a while, then returned to New York for good. Here, she was similarly surrounded by family, because after her journey north she had become a magnet. More than a dozen Mushatts made the trip after her, in a microcosm of the Great Migration, most settling in Brooklyn. A high percentage of her siblings and their descendants went to college, some with her financial help. Quite a few have lived longish lives, but none remotely like hers. One of her brothers reached 92, and died seven years ago. Of the 11, only she remains.
When she was about 80 — that is, 35 years ago — she moved into a seniors’ home in Canarsie. At 100, she had to stop cooking for herself and give up her neighborhood-watch role, as her eyesight started to go. (Really, it’s just cataracts, but she is too stubborn to sit for the surgery.) Late in life, she lost her aversion to curse words, though she’d subsequently deny any cussing she did. Miss Susie is her building’s microcelebrity, and on June 17, she became the world’s oldest living person upon the death of Jeralean Talley, who had six weeks on her.
She is fragile, no question about it. Sleeps a lot, can’t hear well. But she still loves her bacon — four strips, every morning, eaten with gusto. Has a pretty good appetite, in fact. Chews Doublemint gum. Her hair, long since turned white, has come in brown again. She voted for Barack Obama, twice. (A birthday letter from him hangs on her wall.) And next fall, Susannah Mushatt Jones will perhaps get to vote for a woman as well. Whoever’s elected would be her 21st president.
I joke and I kid and I’m just generally hilarious. Wouldn’t you agree?
Ya would? Oh, stop it, You! (blushes a warm shade of magenta #BlackGirlMagic)
Today, however, we need to have an authentic adult conversation about the devil in the red dress that you know versus the one that you don’t know, politically speaking.
Before I began this post, my plan was to delve into the simplicity of who won what and why (#iMean, does it even really matter anymore?) in Wisconsin and in New York but as is known to happen, the writing took on a mind of its own and in that a similar configuration kept throwing my equation off by two.
So let me ask you a question.
In all of this over-the-top racist, homophobic, xenophobic downright vulgar political jargon (Drumpf used the most unrefined description of a woman’s anatomy during a campaign rally, in front of an unsuspecting crowd of men, women, and children, and the media.)…
#DramaticPause
Where are Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson? No. Seriously. Where are they? Not that I’m on some ol’ Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice quest or anything but their collective silence speaks volumes, doesn’t it?
To be completely transparent, I don’t particularly care for any of the aforementioned individuals. I didn’t mention the Democratic front-runners but make no mistake, when I speak of red dresses, they’re all wearing one. #iJustFindItOffPuttingThat the self-proclaimed leaders of the black community have been church-mouse-quiet on the political home front. This is not typical.
There has always been speculation, from those of us that would prefer they keep their distance where the media is concerned, on the how’s and why’s of whichever sensationalized occurrence befits their outrage and presence.
Are they not outraged at this campaign?
Of course not, Silly, they are perfectly fine with Drumpfs hate-filled rhetoric against any and all. He demeans his very own followers by announcing, “…I could go on a shooting rampage on Fifth Ave and I wouldn’t lose a vote, ok...”, shows no respect for anyone or anything, and has zero understanding of the law. The law that sets the stage for the presidency he aspires to. He does not understand The Constitution of these United States – the very law of the land and politically speaking, his bible.
Haven’t we seen and heard enough of him on the campaign trail for Jay & Silent Bob to make some noise? This would-be leader of the free world sounds less like a presidential candidate and more like a tiny five-year-old boy hollering at the top of his tiny five-year-old lungs, “Waaahhhh, Little Marco said my hands were too small, but they’re NOT. See?!” all whilst, as an extension of himself, running around with industrial-strength shears. That are sharp. And pointy. Toward the people of this country. And the very fabric of America. Unmaking it great, again*. Stabbing and stabbing at all objects and obstacles in his tiny little orange wake: the carpet, the curtains, the house-cat, his nanny...
Anyway. He’s a brat. And frankly, I just don’t like him.
His aura, as bird and bat-shit colored as it can get, carries a stench that few can stomach. I’m almost positive that I couldn’t care less for the carroty creation that is he. But this isn’t about him. This is about the two nut-brown men that I really should care more for.
But I don’t. And I won’t.
Because unlike the drones at a Drumpf rally: iAm. Not. The. One.
I do not play well with others.
I will not be led down some doomed rabbit-hole with any shiny racist propaganda, and boy-oh-boy is it shiny. Blindingly so. Like it glistens. Day and night. Like the things I want to say about harping on the fears of the minority (come on, you didn’t know these southern-belters and all their sad-sack anger is in the minority?) seem to choke in my throat at the mere glimmer of his…is that even really his skin? Like I could chew him up and spit him out mentally, ethically, morally, legally for goodness sake! I got words, man. Like harsh and intrusive and foul and crude kinds of words. Like the dictionary that is my brain is backflip-rolodexing. I am chomping at the bit, Sun. Like, it be callin’ my name...
Anyway, I don’t like him.
I will not hate him because that would only make him, and me, by process of elimination, grow heavier in the eyes of the enemy. He’s not worth it; no one is. I don't hate Drumpf nor do I fear a world where he and his kind dwell; I am indifferent. He does not matter.
But the lack of pushback does.
Didn’t I just say this article was not about Drumpf? (rolls eyes at self) #WorkInProgress
So, back to these two all of a sudden non-interested political Tom-Fooleries.
They seem to pop-up at the most inconvenient times, don’t they? Times when we would just like to get through whichever trial or tribulation is upon the community without making a mockery of the process and here one of them comes.
It happens every time.
If it’s not Jesse Jackson pretending to be overwhelmed, crying tears of joy at President Obama’s acceptance speech then it’s Al Sharpton showing up at whichever atrocity has befallen a person of color where the media is certain to exploit. Speaking of tears: Honestly, what person, let alone a man, stands stalk-still, eyes dripping with tears and does not brush it off, like not even once? Is that not uncomfortable? Babies brush tears away. Actors brush tears away when the director calls Cut! Tha Feezy? I. Cry. At. Every. Thing. And even when I am dopamined – La’Porsha Renae FTW! – I still brush away my tears. It’s a natural reaction.
When have either of these two brown folks ever shied away from the spotlight?
#NotNever. (My Grammar Pedantry Syndrome - GPS - forces me to let the reader know that this should read Not Ever, the hashtag I chose just has more emphasis in its incorrect form. Not unlike both the Democratic and Republican parties thus far. And by thus far I mean, like ever. In history.)
Wouldn’t this be a primetime moment for the two most self-aggrandizing political men of color to be seen and heard? To speak out against an actual issue in their very own realm of politics and specifically in New York where Sharpton has made a name for himself? Ahhhh yah. Unless of course the black vote no longer matters or (clutching my pearls) they are biding their time and binding their tongues in hopes of garnering positions of power in either Clinton or Drumpf’s camp, if elected (see Ben Carson for more info)? Do these people not understand that if he wins we ALL lose?
(Click below to see both the winners and losers in not only the Wisconsin and New York
Primaries but all of the primaries. And when I say all, I mean, like ever. In history.)
It’s Politrikkks time again – Dead Prez
And really that’s what this whole piece has been about. Politics. Politics as usual.
The selfishness of what one person can acquire for themselves as opposed to what one person could do for the greater good of millions. It would have been for the greater good if Drumpf had not entered the race; it would have been even better if the people of America forced him out of the race by ignoring him and his hate-mongering the same way a teacher deals with the bad behavior of someone else’s child.
Ignore the behavior, don't give in to his pandering for attention, negative or otherwise, and his inflammatory ego will deflate, much like the reference connected to his tiny little hands. He’s got to overcompensate somehow.
As I sit here trying my best to revel in the last little cry of winter (three storms, Mother Nature, like, really?) I feel the need to get a few things of my chest.
Care to join me?
I am going to do this in bullet points, as opposed to my typical poison-laced paragraphs, otherwise we will be here all day and I have things to do.
1. Donald Drumpf (his German grandparents anglicized their name to Trump)
-- Hates immigrants.
-- Grandparents were immigrants
-- Both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are Cuban Americans who benefitted from immigration (and all three of which spoke on the need to have much stiffer regulations on said illegal occupation of a country founded on illegal immigration) during the same debate speaking to being the product of...wait for it: IMMIGRATION.
-- First wife and current wife are immigrants
-- Employs immigrants
-- Hates women and believes that only women should be punished for abortion procedures.
-- Thrives on the fears of the uneducated, fearful, hate-filled population on their very last legs and teeth, angry at the very mention of anything non-white except for the black phallus of which they salivate, in private. #StopDrooling
-- Said, and I quote, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot people and I wouldn't lose voters, okay." (This was said in Sioux City, Iowa) #RaceWarMuch?
I could go on and on. I could write every day at 6pm for the rest of my life, really, but the mark of true creativity is knowing when to stop. At least that's what Madonna said once.
(As an aside, when he loses; he will say he never planned to win in the first place. Otherwise he'll blame whichever candidate is left for confusing the American public. Insert. So. Many. -___- Emojis. Here.)
2. Squirrels
-- Sciurophobia. Fear. Of. Squirrels. This is more of an anxiety than an annoyance but since we were talking about me and all my issues: You. Are. Here.
-- I cross the street at the mere sound of these furry-tailed rats.
3. Smudged nails
-- iAm. Half. Man. I mean…if you're reading this it is very likely that you know me. I mean there's only about three of you out there, anyway. Lol, so you know that I think more like a man than a woman and that is obviously no slight to women as we are the very creators of Life. I have the absolute heart of a woman because I love. I didn't write that improperly. I love. That's just who I am, but my brain is just wired differently and iAm still very much a tomboy on the inside. And I don't think I need to explain this further because like I mentioned…you already know me and my very strange ways.
-- Back to the half-man thing as it refers to my nails. I never polish my nails, or hardly ever I should say. I hardly ever do this because I end up with this:
-- It's like I'm girly in the manliest way possible. I hate smudged nails but it is like, literally, inevitable. I have things to do and I rarely have enough time to get my nails done AND wait for them to dry. Like completely? #PicsOrItNeverHappened.
Upon further investigation, I see that the nail technician did not perform properly. Guess who won't be going there ever again.
4. Senator Kelly Ayotte's Commercial
-- Seriously? SERIOUSLY?
-- A. This. Is. Not. New Hampshire.
-- B. The Crack/Cocaine Epidemic has been widespread ALL. OVER. THE. COUNTRY. And more specifically, right here in Beautiful BeanTown Boston and when have YOU ever heard of, on any kind of national level an outcry to "help" an addict. The opiod crisis has apparently become such an epidemic that we need to have sympathy for addicts, which is commendable. But the timing? Where has this sort of empathy been for the decades of addicts in urban neighborhoods?
-- C. I find it extremely interesting that this particular epidemic is being called an Opiod Crisis and not what it is: Heroin. Death in a needle. Chosen death in a needle. Death by choice.
5. Bad. Hair. Days.
-- Rarely, because me.
Monday, March 14, 2016
Unlike others...I don't show the full velocity of all my vivaciousness (Lol @+OhMyMiko) so early in the morning...or the afternoon or like ever… *insert smirking Emoji here...
#ShadyPost
#NotEven
...but let's get into this.
By now, if you're at all into pop-culture, you've either seen the nude photo (yes, she's nude, but the naughty bits - are they really naughty though - have been redacted) or you've heard about it and may or may not be interested in my take on it. (So. Why. Are. You. Here. Again? Lol-ish.)
Strangely enough, I'm not as interested in said photo or photographed, as it may seem, me writing about it and all, but people tend to ask my opinion on such subjects (eleven to be exact) and being an extremely selfless woman I must give the people what they want.
#YaDig?
#ImKindOfABigDeal
(Flips hair)
The people who find themselves in the limelight intentionally or un-, at times find themselves the focal point of yet another Butterfly Effect1 type of scenario with nary an inkling.
#SillyRabbits
And so, the ponderers of the world, those of us chess-playing every modicum, every miniscule, every minute possibility of any and every situation, we stare into the ether wondering in what world do these people live and how in the ENTIRE world, that these people live in, do they not see what we see?
#iDontGetIt
What I do get is that I see a much deeper incidence than just some woman deciding to photograph herself for likes and I agree and disagree with many of the sentiments that brought the picture to ultraviolet light. Adding insult to injury, not only am I a Libran I am also a writer and I just see things from many different angles. Some good. Some bad. My opinion may not matter to the general population, especially the millennials who tend to appreciate a read in characters of 140 or less, but it absolutely matters in the grand scheme of things that shape the society we live in and the children we raise.
#WhereThemKeedsIsAt2
Again, my opinion may not matter, especially to those who somehow discredit my space here with phrases like: "That thing you do"…"Oh, she can write?" I can read too, surprisingly. …"Do people really want to read that much"…"Is that like a topic-topic"…"Is it 'controversial' or does she just want attention"3 ...Do you know what I say to that:
A). Obviously, attention is not an issue for me; I shun it, truth be told and anyhow, are you here reading or nah?
B). Whose blog is this? #Exactly.
C). This is not so much about the controversiality of the latest publicity stunting nudes, as they are wont to be called, but more about feminism and role models.
Yeah, let's get into this.
Briefly, but completely.
Define feminist.
A feminist is a person who believes that women should have equal treatment. Period. A feminist is not, by nature or definition, a male-hating woman. If you hate men, the totality of men: 1). I feel sorry for you, Sun. You got 99 problems…I’m thinking that whole b word might be one..? I mean, I don’t know, but I’d have that checked out. Soon. By a professional. Or Jesus. That’s where I’d go with that one. #iMJustLiterallySaying; and 2). Please take yourself somewhere else, like completely: YOU. ARE. NOT. WELCOMED. HERE.
I love you all, truly and deeply, but this hate mongering, of any kind, is unacceptable and you have got to go thaaaaaaat way.You’re making us all look bad. And if you know me at all, you know for a certainty that looking bad is so not my thing. I guess you were raised that way.
#GirlBye
Define role model.
A role model is someone to whom one looks for guidance; someone who possesses a level of knowledge, understanding, stature, health, wealth4, that you aspire to. Having the title of celebrity does not a role model make. #YodaIsSoInTheBuilding. The very definition of celebrity is the state of being well-known and is Christmas-mouse silent on being well-knowledgeable. What does being seen have to do with being a positive person in this world? What does that say about the influence so-called celebrities have on me, you and/or our families?
#NotNathan
And that’s the kicker, idn’t it? If and when we speak of these people, let us use their actions or non-actions as conversational springboards to teach our youth how to think, not what to think, which is what both the music and television industries are designed to do. Because, and work with me here, it’s not what our children, biological and otherwise (it really does take a village) see, it’s what our children think and know. TEACH. THEM.
If that woman, who has every right in the world to take a nude photo, decides to do so – forget the fact that she is a married woman and a mother – and posts said photo to keep herself relevant, there is nothing anyone other than her husband can say or has a right to say. You allow your children to have access to these sites that have proven time and again to be a place for the saved and the sinner, alike.If our children are exposed to these things, take responsibility for your parenting. It’s really as simple as that.
(Drops Mic)
I mean, my parents had Richard Pryor Listening parties like every weekend, for goodness sake, and guess what…I ain’t know nathan about a Richard Nobody being a tricky you know what-ey (see, my Mommikins might find herself reading this blog.It’s doubtful, but it being at all possible, I just didn’t write what we all know I was going to write. And if I did know, way back when, wouldn’t no one else know that I knew. #SeenAndNotHeard) You know why…? It's called respect. Know it. Have it. Spread it. I learned it at home.
I was a child and I wasn’t exposed to any and everything that my elders were able to know, understand and process, being the adults they were. Let these babies grow up as normal as possible. Childhood is short, adulthood is NOT.
What say you?
1In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state. (Wikipedia) 1In scientific theory that a single occurrence; no matter how small, can change the course of the universe forever. 1. A man travelled back in time to prehistoric ages and stepped on a butterfly, and the universe was entirely different when he got back. 2. The flap of a butterfly's wings changed the air around it so much that a tornado broke out two continents away.(Urbandictionary.com)
2#WhereAreTheKids (my grammar pedantry syndrome is showing and contrary to popular belief, it is not incorrect to end a sentence with a preposition as I did above *insert smirking Emoji here – because I did it here, again).
3As if. *insert falling down laughing, holding its tummy, it can't get up Emoji, if it exists. 4Wealth not riches; I’m talking generational wealth, like the Huxtables or the Thompsons (For my BFF, Fee. We will forever love Sister T, fam-a-lam, am I right?!).
