December Days 19 - Batter Up (The Eight of Bats)

[This is part of a series exploring the Baseball Tarot. If you would like to prompt for a part of the game or a card from the deck, all the rest of the month is available for your curiosity, about either baseball or Tarot. Leave a comment with a prompt if you want in. All other comments are still welcome, of course.]

Batter Up! The call from the umpire summons the hitter from their liminal space of the on-deck circle (the Seven of Bases) into the field and into the game itself. No longer required to be just an observer, the batter is now a full participant in the action taking place on the field, and their skill at observation and execution of the plan of action will determine whether they get on base or return to the dugout as one of the three outs of the inning.

As is befitting of the suit of Bats, Batter Up is traditionally seen in the game as a call to action, to get the lumber off one's shoulder and take destiny in hand by taking swings at the pitches thrown by life. A large amount of the televised game constructs and reinforces this narrative of baseball as a game of action, driven by the batter's ability (or lack thereof) to make contact with the baseball. During the game, informative graphics about each batter's performance appear with their plate appearances - first, their season totals to that point, then each subsequent appearance details their performance of the game, showing the results of each of their previous attempts to get on base. Pitchers, in the other hand, tend to receive one battery of statistics at the beginning of their time in the mound. Achievements, accomplishments, and pitch counts and selections are flashed up at the time they happen, but are then tucked back away for the next graphic of the next hitter called into the batter's box. One of the benefits of live games is the information that would otherwise be mediated by the broadcast entities is freely available for consultation at any time. At least, if you have been keeping score yourself, it is. Otherwise, you only get the subset of information built into the field and video boards at the stadium, which can often be the same that you would get by watching the game on television.

In our days, stadia, even at the learning leagues, keep the audience and the players separated and the audience somewhat protected from the possibility of foul balls intruding on someone not paying attention to the game, but there's still a lot of fields and sandlots and alleyways where the game is going on that do not have the benefits of fences, backstop, or even formal bats, mitts, and umpires. There, the cry of "Batter Up!" serves as warning to all around that baseball is about to break out, and that they can either get away from it or join in on the festivities. (Their windows, cars, and more fixed objects don't have the ability to get away, but should there be damage, most players will own up to it and find a way of making amends.) In these informal gatherings, sometimes a Coach will wander by and impart wisdom of the game and their life to the young players, passing on the knowledge that is vital to the continuation of the game in front of them and the game behind it. Trusted adult relationships are needed things for kids and adolescents. With each cry, the opportunity opens to provide one.

It is possible to ignore or refuse to enter the batter's box when summoned, but the rules state that a batter that doesn't do so within a reasonable amount of time after the umpire calls them in is to have strikes called against them for their refusal to participate, until they have accumulated enough strikes to be declared out and the next batter summoned - in that regard, there can be no delay of the game. (Pitchers who refuse to pitch in a timely manner are penalized with balls called against them - the umpire is charged with making sure the game continues, and will use all the tools at their disposal to ensure that happens.) A player or coach looking to redress grievances with the way the game has been played will have to seek other means, like the formal protest procedures.

This card, should it appear in your reading, represents a call to step into the action. All of the preparation you have done, or not done, is being set to the task at hand. Regardless of whether you feel ready to take it on, here's your chance to go out and affect the game. If you have a plan, remember that the reality of the game often demands adjustment of the plan to suit what is actually going on. The important part here, though, is that you accept the call and go forward into the unknown, for better or worse. You cannot stay where you are anymore without consequences.

The downside to the card is the desire for a static and unchanging game, a refusal to go forward. We have reasons for wanting things to stay exactly the same. When going forward means letting go, means acknowledging trauma and loss, means grieving, means being scared shitless at the sheer amount of possibility unfolding right before our eyes, there is a perfectly good reason to want not to acknowledge it or deal with it, and to retreat back into the known, the safe, and the structured. Adulting is fucking hard for all of us once we have to grapple with the randomness of life, and harder still for those who go through life lacking privileges like money, stable living situations, ability, and the "right" gender or skin color.

In a world where authority figures will treat you differently depending on your skin color, where angry mobs exist to tell you they will violate you and send police after you on false pretenses because you dared express an opinion that was different than theirs, where people decide that women who are being care for their bodies deserve to be shot and killed, where women who say no to a man deserve to be shot, stabbed, and killed, where people seek revenge for the mental damage that cliques do to the different, where you may be subjected to the mental (and physical) damage that comes with being visibly different, going out into that world looks like a sucker's bet. And yet, if we try to stay where we are, we die all the same, but faster. Change is a necessary part of our existence, movement essential to survival, growth, and thriving.

Batter up.

So much stuff that the browser slows down - 30 November - 19 December 02015

Greetings! Let's start with The fact that you can get a Raspberry Pi computer for $5, and this Pi Zero is still more powerful than the original Model B. The cables to hook up the computer cost more than the computer itself.

Adobe is ready to sunset Flash as a web platform... finally.

Three sentence fics, any fandom, pairing, or more. View, propose, fill.

A very large list of adaptations for television and movies of various books.

Training to be a voice actor often means training all the skills needed to be a pop idol and actor all in one.

Some mall Santas are now coming with the requirement to purchase a photo package, a practice drawing criticism about the increasing commercialization of a commercial icon.

Ah, important reminder - You are not obligated to spend time with people that will make you miserable, even if they are family, during the celebrations of the VEWPRF. Since amarie24 says so, is a universal truth. If you do go, there's no rule that says your family dynamic has to be the same way it was earlier in life.

The best thing you can do for someone when they are in pain, in grief, and suffering loss is to be there. Especially when it makes you uncomfortable to be there. I know I've linked this before, probably with a very similar caption. It still applies.

Also, useful data if you have a body that experiences menstruation, it should not be incredibly painful. If it is, odds are good that something needs looking at. And, because it will likely become relevant, here's an excellent method for getting bloodstain out of just about anything.

Lessons of what it's like when a male partner takes the time off to raise a newborn child. And the need to include and be intersectional in feminism.

A church becomes a sanctuary by renovating into a skate park.

Jessica Jones and Supergirl are both great shows for different audiences, and can coexist. They also both do some really good things with their casting and story decisions. There are lots of different models of behavior, and the stories being told in both cases are very unprecedented for superheroes.

Being visibly minority in spaces of white privilege is an aggressive act, which only gets bigger when someone decides to be present in that visibility and work to keep themselves visible. I do have an issue with the characterization of journal role playing as twelve women and one gay man, but otherwise, the piece itself is good for being a sense of how minorities have to construct space for themselves in places that don't make space for them.

The experience of a kids camp for the disabled, where the goal was to provide an experience simulating ability, instead of embracing the disability.

One of the more prominent SWATters of women gamers and game writers was a Canadian teenager, who was so caught up in toxic ideas that he thought it was a good idea to send the highly trained response teams after women. Which is, perhaps, better than the man who took guns and shot people in a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, but is not actually good.

An upbringing in a belief system that advocates for judgment and punishment makes children more likely to judge and punish. Religious beliefs aren't inherently problematic in this regard, but the study authors happened only to get statistically valid samples from only two systems, both of which have a strong component of punishment for the wicked.

The tenure track is being closed off to many promising educators because their administrators believe in the bottom line instead of in developing an academic's career.

Far from just providing a placebo so that a patient's mind can help with their healing, the decision to fleece consumers by marketing the same product as more effective for certain types of pain is more about profit than healing.

To cleanse those thoughts, An app where the idea is to attract and play with cats, which, like real cats, is there for the purpose of bringing happiness. And now they have physical toys, too! Also, a dystopia of those who must only feed and play with the cats.

Purchasing licensed digital manga in English is difficult, with each publisher offering their work in different places and ways.

There's also the contenders for the bad sex in fiction prize for 2015, to which Morrissey is the winner. One critic thinks the awards are in poor taste and the judges should be compelled to provide examples of what they think is good explicit literary sex. Another suggests the award has achieved its purpose, as plenty of writers now avoid explicit sex scenes in their books.

Nonfiction needs the styles of fiction to be compelling and generate narrative. Fiction needs the research and preparation of nonfiction to produce solid stories. The line between the two becomes rather blurred once it becomes apparent that regardless of categorization, the reader wants a book that they enjoy reading.

Writers do not have to write every day, and writing also starts with forgiving yourself when you're not writing every day.

It turns out that the so-bad-its-awful popularity of Manos: The Hands of Fate has generated a lot of controversy about who owns the rights to it, if anyone.

But for the fear of expies and caricatures of the Comic Book Guy and his legion of keyboard warriors, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes would totally be a romance plot.

None are ever too old to be superheroes. Or too odd, as a man who makes his living helping women get pregnant naturally will attest. Or, for that matter, too hairy of leg.

Far from being a malfunction, the ability to be fannish about characters is a sign that our brains are working just fine and besides, characters are real, anyway - they exist independent of their source material. Which is what makes them excellent teaching tools for what other experiences are like.

We could certainly use it, especially when all the markers and alibis in the world can't help a black man avoid being detained by police because he fits a vague description of a criminal from some where else, the jury trial system seems to run on high school popularity rules rather than deliberations on the law and the case provided, understanding the spectrum of sexualities, the way that women are forced to hide from being themselves online, the way that women and girls are constantly the objects of violence by men, it's still difficult for privileged white men to see how others experience the world, people with disabilities experiencing the world so horribly that they feel like not-people, and the concept of emotional labor, while relatively old, is still running into 101-level feminism questions when raised as a topic.

The technical, surgical process of taking a penis and building a functional vagina.

When a church tells you that God hates people that you love, there are difficult decisions that have to be made about staying or leaving.

An adult film actress accused a prominent adult film actor of rape, challenging the idea that people in sex work can be raped. Disappointingly, you could have removed their professions, and the lines people few about support and opposition would have looked like any other accusation. The problem is societal.

Simulations of what workforce percentages can look like at even a subtle gender bias. Which can be started at very young ages - without explicit acknowledgement that they can and should write about people like themselves, kids of color tell and write stories about White people.

Provide meaningful child and parent care at your meetings of you want parent members to stay active and involved. which can mean having emergency supplies and dinner on hand for those parents.

A decent primer on the presence and use of non-binary pronouns.

Miscarriage needs ritual and grief and feminism as well, let those who have them suffer silently and shut out everyone.

Words of encouragement to those who are working to break the cycle of violence with themselves and their children.

Talking about women in relation to men makes the assumption that men are the default and women the strange.

Since Donald J. Trump wants to ban Muslims from entering the United States, a citizen of the UK successfully gathered enough petition signatures to formally request of Parliament that Donald J. Trump be banned from entering the United Kingdom.

Sense8 is a show that can only exist in a reality that can watch entire seasons at a sitting, and is thus freed to tell an intimate and detailed story with the kinds of details that appear in movies. I'd also say, based on this article, it's implied that the show could also only exist in markets that don't depend on weekly advertising and viewing numbers to succeed. Without streaming services, Sense8 cannot exist. Also, spoilers for narrative arcs.

Jessica Jones is a series about gaslighting and defences against the same, in addition to being about all the other things that women experience and men ignore (or perpetuate). And even though it paints the villain, Kilgrave, in as unsympathetic a light as it can muster, deliberately so, Kilgrave still has a fandom, which says more about the society around the fandom than about the people who are part of the fandom. To other watchers, Will Simpson is the important problematic man, but both Simpson and Kilgrave are cut from the same cloth of misogyny, toxic masculinity, and privilege.

Travel videos of Japan in very high definition, great for seeing some of the sights. The British Museum also has high definition Google Street View pictures of the exhibits inside. And, oh yes, you can watch rocket launches in 4k as well. Hooray for very, very high definition.

Saint Harridan, sellers of fine clothing to provide a masculine look for women and transmen. And indie designers that provide great clothes for plus-size women.

the Body Braid, a resistance wrap to be worn on the body, either above or below clothing. Makes me wonder if it would be helpful for people to give them a sense of their body and to ground them from getting too far off into anxiety or mania.

Also, chino pants with the same style as hakama.

The ascetic quality of Buddhism may lead to significant temple closures in Japan as the community that one supported them dies or moves away.

Yuna, the first of a line of dolls with big dreams, and also the first Asian American to be the flagship character of a doll line.

A short video on the Trans-Atlantic accent, most prominent in older movies and radio productions, but now mostly out of favor. And, if you're a person that likes noticing details, in pieces that are supposed to be period for earlier times, you can see hairstyles more appropriate to the time of the filming instead of of when the piece is supposed to be set.

Defining grimdark stories in relation to supernatural horror stories - as it turns out, or seems to be a question of agency regarding the supernatural forces at play.

Speaking of books and other properties, Once commercial success is achieved, there is intense pressure on creators to do things exactly the same. Which may lead to less commercial success. And less of necessary things, like science fiction protagonists with anxiety disorders and characters that have much of the same issues and illnesses as their authors.

The best comics and graphic novels of 2015 according to editors and reviewers at Slate. And then the best novels of the United Kingdom, as seen by critics and reviewers outside of the UK, which shows a significantly bigger female presence than lists made by people inside the UK.

An architectural pipe that uses the motion of water to generate musical tones.

A nonprofit hotel to provide accommodation for artists in London that can't afford the cost of the rent.

Hot lava meeting cold water means lots of stone bubbles moving at the speed that regular bubbles create. which is both potentially deadly, and really, really, cool. SCIENCE!

Artistic renderings of a Terran sky that has the rings of Saturn.

Suggestions on using the LastPass password manager for maximum security, and a system that makes it hard to find encrypted traffic because every node generates garbage traffic when the message passes through it, and it goes on to many more nodes after the delivery point just to make more noise. Naturally, the system is called Vuvuzela.

The emoji in Japan is no longer as popular as it is outside, partially because adoption outside has made the emoji more defined than it was intended to be.

Vitamin C deficiency and scurvy are diseases still common to people prone to being in food deserts, many with mental health issues on top of that, despite C deficiency being a relatively easy thing to overcome, so long as one can obtain the right foods for it and remember to eat them.

if your games involve color as an important point, remember to include people who can't see color and provide another method of disambiguation.

A seal on the roof of a house, a laser-cut kit to assemble a miniature Totoro catbus, squirrels getting ready for the winter, chickens with sweaters, an artist that makes laser-cut microorganisms, cuneiform-inspired cookies, interesting wild cat breeds, Maine Coon cats being fluffy and adorable, cat infographics, tea bags that swell up to become goldfish in hot water, really fluffy cats, a pet pig that benefits from dog obedience training, a tiny baby hippo, rabbits playing with curtains, and a tiny cat growing up.

Getting toward the end, a tale of clogged drains...and the consequences of letting them drain out all at once, the comedy excellence that is the movie Clue, Mei of My Neighbor Totoro in three dimensional rendering, Star Wars-themed folding screens unveiled at a Kyoto temple, more than we wanted to know about glitter, an honest spiciness scale for food, bedding sets involving tentacled monsters from the deep, research into trying to preserve an accent of sign language, libraries loaning things other than media, and plant identification apps.

As the very last thing: beginning meditative practice, because it's okay for you not to push yourself all the time, beginning methods of building devotionals, the idea that the body is a thing to be listened to, rather than fought, and the basics of giving yourself self-care.