Reblogged from Food Justice & Anti-Racism (FJAR):

Neil Armstrong was the spiritual repository of spacefaring dreams & ambitions. In death, a little bit of us all dies with him

- Neil de Grasse Tyson

The Stars as Viewed from the International Space Station. from AJRCLIPS on Vimeo.

Nobody born since 1935 has stepped on another world. Neil Armstrong’s death is a reminder that we have been screwing about for too long now – it’s time to go to Mars.

-Martin Robbins/ UK Guardian

How’s that then??

In the images above, the largest planet or star (meaning the big buddy hanging out on the far right) becomes the starting point for the next chart. Its quite impressive to imagine that which is SO big in one line-up being itsy bitsy at the start of the next.

Here’s what you’re looking at:

1) the Inner Planets by Size

• Mercury
• Mars
• Venus
• Earth (home)

2) Earth vs the Gas Giants

• Earth-Home
• Neptune
• Uranus
• Saturn
• Jupiter

3) the shift from big planet to little star

• Jupiter
• some other guy
• our Sun (a medium sized star)
• Sirius (the brightest star in our night sky its in the dog constellation accompanying Orion)

the list goes on…

Betelgeuse, in addition to being Tim Burton’s greatest film, is the name of this super red giant (a pretty big category of star, also the final stages of a star’s life when they get huge and then go nova) featured in charts 5 & 6. If you are looking at the constellation of Orion (in the Northern Hemisphere you can find it in the Winter sky), Betelgeuse is Orion the Hunter’s shoulder- to the observer its the top left. You’ll notice its a little reddish.

The fact that Super Red Giants get even bigger than that blow my mind…

kinda puts things in perspective.

Indulge Yr inner Outer-Space Cadet,

Sunshine Superboy

Some things that aren’t represented in this map are the fact that undocumented workers don’t have access to these supposedly “progressive” benefits in the liberal blue-teal-green countries. Also, there’s a gaping silence regarding men as parents from paternity or “parental” leave all the way down to the much more critical situation of single fathers and dads who are primary parents yet don’t have access to federal or  private sector support in the ways provided by maternity leave.

What we need is a paradigm shift toward parental leave policies, and not this gendered institutionalization of what kind of people can be committed parents. Beyond this, there needs to be a broader sense of caregiving, which can account for taking care of young folks (who aren’t necessarily still babies), elderly folks, people with chronic illness, or even people enduring episodic mental instability.

I ended up in a short back-and-forth with a friend of a friend about this map a couple months ago. She was trying to salvage the US neoliberal fuck-over situation through an anecdotal testimony of her employer, a MAJOR U.S. bank, and their generous maternity policy, and how great it is that even though the Federal law provides no support, ‘we shouldn’t hate because private corporations have gone above and beyond’ even what northern European governments offer.

I of course responded with a critical perspective of particularly large corporations (especially banks??!!), and the bizarre neoliberal/ libertarian logic that corporations should make a killing by-any-means-necessary, the government should give them some space and stop taxing and regulating them for chrissakes, and then we should be grateful/ adorning/ impressed that they take a sliver of their hard-fought earnings and invest it in some HR policies that keep the workers pacified in their frustration, even obliged to the pirating cartels corporations for “taking care of them.” And then of course its understandable when corporations are going through tough times of austerity, that they cut back on “excesses” and “benefits” such as the aforementioned generous big bank maternity policy, since they have a business to run afterall…

I’m not saying that the State is my bestie (lord knows they never cut back on social programs like parental leave, pensions, or medical aid!), but I don’t think we should be so naïve as to think that our jobs/ bosses/ companies are the answer to accessing support when new children/ babies come into our lives.

Reporting Live from Dad Duty,

Sunshine Superboy

Earth, Jupiter, and Venus.

Its Mid-March! There are a couple truly stupendous March babies* (not babies anymore!) whom we ought to pause for a moment and appreciate. Lets get to it..!

Bayard Rustin was born 100 years ago, on March 17th! He is one of the dopest organizers, not just of American History, but of the entire 20th century, the world-over (IMHO).

His most visible achievement was organizing- as deputy director of mobilization and logistics- the 1963 March on Washington (in which Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the hallowed “I have a Dream Speech”, and at which a multi-racial coalition of singers performed- from Bob Dylan, to Joan Baez, and Gospel legend Mahalia Jackson- cuz thats how he rolled!) It was Bayard Rustin who visited Gandhi in India, and cross-pollinated the Sattyagraha and Nonviolent precepts, bringing them to the US south and working closely with King among others. Rustin was a quaker, a singer, a socialist, and…wait for it… unapologetically the gay! (Hooray!)

It was for this homophobia latter identity that King was counciled to throw Bayard Rustin under the bus (in the parlance of our times), which is why he has been largely written out of mainstream and much African American history.

As our culture starts to warm to the idea of gender justice and queer liberation (we’re getting there…) Rustin is slowly being woven back into narratives and history of Civil Rights organizing in the 20th century.

On the deeply regarded Bayard Rustin:

Another force of brilliance I’d like to celebrate this week is the very much alive and kicking-ass, Brazilian Samba-Rock Godfather, Jorge Ben who marks his 70th birthday on March 22nd! Jorge Ben makes me smile, move, shuffle my feet, and sometimes sigh in melancholy (see “Gabriela” where he openly weeps on the recording!) with his genius fusion of samba, bossa nova, soul and rock n roll. The execution is something you just have to listen to in full to appreciate.

As with most artists who where on their A game in the 70s, there are some awkward albums and singles that followed the apogee of their songwriting, but most of his albums are slam dunks from start to finish. Perfect for cooking brunch (a favorite pastime of yours truly), doing dishes, playtime with toddlers, or drinking on your back porch in the evening. Impress your date with your refined musical taste!

His lyrics “blend humor and satire with often esoteric subject matter” including politics of Black Liberation, and post-colonial dreams for Africa (again think 60s and 70s composer here). He intersected with the Tropicalia movement of Brazil, and his song “Mas Que Nada” (song/ video below), which was his first big hit in Brazil, remains to this day ‘the most played song in the USA sung entirely in Portuguese’. I seriously heart this dude.

Enjoy the song and slide show with some rando pictures of the 1960s (??!)

oh, and I’m not that important, but I just celebrated my birthday on March 16th so I just wanted to dredge up some homies of mine who I happen to think about or listen to every day because they are badass.

You look like a Rock Star and you shred like one too!!!

(…and many more!)
Sunshine Superboy

*ps- we also welcomed some amazing babies to our spinning planet this month (and more to come!) and I wanna holler to them too (especially you baby Marlowe xoxoxo)

Not wanting to completely nerd out on her, I highlighted the great distinction that the DC Universe has fantasy urban spaces, Gotham, Metropolis, Star City etc.

Matt Murdock aka Daredevil in the Highline Park of Manhattan

Meanwhile the Marvel Universe is situated in our own utterly realistic geography: the X-men now in San Francisco were based just north of New York City in the Hudson Valley, and as the map below shows, from Daredevil (above), to the Avengers to Captain America’s Brooklyn apartment so much of the Marvel U is not so hard to plot in the varied neighborhoods of New York.

So lets have a look, shall we?

Now this is a fairly old map, but I still think it illustrates the spatial dimension of the Marvel Universe rather well, giving us a sense of the proximity of the Fantastic Four’s “Baxter Building” HQ, of Avengers’ Tower, and all the rest of it, and where they are in relation to frequent sites of battle and intrigue such as Times Square, the Empire State building, and all them bridges that connect Jersey and all the boroughs of my native islands.

Anyone wanna help me make an updated Marvel Comics Map of New York City?!

How ’bout THEM big apples?
Sunshine Superboy