How To Capture Awesome Auroras : The Picture Show : NPR
How To Capture Awesome Auroras : The Picture Show : NPR.
So beautiful and such a great article for photo buffs to take great pictures of the Northern Lights.
These bring back quite a few memories from when I was a kid. We lived on a dairy farm, and had a good number of cattle. During the winter it was always pitch black out with only the stars winking down at us. And some of those mornings there was the most impressive display of lights.
I really miss seeing that sometimes.
2005's Southern Spectacular: A satellite took this image of the aurora australis (southern lights) in September 2005, after a solar flare sent plasma — an ionized gas of protons and electrons — flying toward Earth.
Rocket Fox: sneak peak for February
A little bit more from the workings of the first series of the Lupine star system. The scene takes place at one of Vulpine’s oldest airfields, sort of like a World War II airfield in Britain. The location in the story is near a village called Chattingham, and not far from the town of Warrenshire, home of the Royal Military College. I picture it to look similar to the photo below, which is Seletar Camp.
Seletar Camp was a British airfield and camp. The airfield is still there but has been converted to a commercial airstrip. The buildings, once barracks and officers' quarters, are now used for aerospace related commerce and for residence.
The barracks themselves weren’t anything extravagant, but they did have a somewhat homey feel to them. There were the neatly laid out bunks where each cadet slept, along with enough room for a locker so a modest amount of personal items could be stored. A small area near the bunks had been cleared away to make room for a seating area, complete with a small wood burning stove so that the cadets could make tea should they wish it. As the four cadets walked into their barracks, luck should have it, tea was being served.
Natalie Bascombe, an older, heavy set Vulpine, with a charming smile and twinkling eyes, was pouring a few cups already for some of the newer cadets who would be attending full classes in the fall. She looked up as the four entered, cooing softly as she saw Senia.
“Now there’s a smart lass in uniform,” she said with a smile as she placed the tea pot back onto its trivet on the tea service. “A sharp look, Left-tenant. Remind me o’ me own uniform b’fore I joined the 103rd.” Natalie wasn’t just a caretaker around the barracks, she was a veteran of the Great Lupine Land War of 3572, New Calendar, and she was an alumni of the Chattingham Airfield Academy. “Ah, but I do see a long face that go with it. C’mon now, all o’ ye sit down for a cup o’ tea. You’re just in time. Malcolm, get a couple more chairs, will ye?” she called out to one of the junior cadets who nodded and quickly retrieved a few extra chairs.
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This has come up a lot, and it’s important to recognize it
Image via Wikipedia
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. ~Martin Luther King Jr.
There is a great deal of truth in that statement. There is a similar quote, by Desmond Tutu, that goes like this. ”If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
We can’t be silent about things that are put in place to hurt, harm, or destroy people that are part of our society. Some say that getting rid of that section of society is morally just. But isn’t that a slap in the face of morality? By attempting to oppress the lives of people of colour, people with a different sexual orientation, people who do not identify as the gender they were born with, when doing that is that not in itself morally objectionable?
This talk of being “colour blind” or claiming “we all bleed red” is very nice to think of when we discuss matters of race or even alternative sexuality. But starting a sentence with “I’m not racist but” can usually be continued with a summary of paragraphs of information by the original speaker as “I’m now going to say something completely racist”. The same with those that say things like “I have gay friends” as though that’s supposed to give you a pass for saying something very homophobic.
We need to stop saying things like that and start listening. Then, when we have enough information, enough facts that don’t use a broad brush against an entire population of people, whatever their skin colour, sexual orientation or even religion or lack thereof, then we can start to narrowing the gap that makes those people feel like second or third class citizens. But it takes effort, and it’s not something that will just change over night. When one unjust law is changed, it doesn’t mean we’ve completely won. Because there is still a large group of oppressors out there who are working just as hard to ensure that any group that is not described as the “norm” will not have the same rights and freedoms as every single person on the planet.
