#Texas ironclad

[zestyatbest]

I’d like you all to meet my little buddy, Zephyr!

They’re a Texas Ironclad Beetle! Aren’t they the cutest?? I actually just recently found them and I set up a vivarium for them, and I’d like to expand it soon and maybe someday find a friend or two for them.

I love them So much. I would have a nice little tea party with them if that were practical but it’s not so I did this for them instead!

I don’t even know what to say, they’re just. So lovely <3 I adore them

[galacticnova3]

@onenicebugperday Bit of an unfortunate update, but not without hope.

A week ago as of posting this, Green Bean Casserole had a pretty severe mismolt. I think they fell and got stuck behind their favorite stick in an awkward position after leaving the exuviae. I only found and assisted them the next morning, but by then their exoskeleton had already hardened up. Thankfully all of their limbs are intact and functional, but, well... The situation is far from ideal, as you’ll see.

At first I was pretty worried they wouldn’t make it; they seemed to be struggling to move around due to the deformity, falling when climbing and generally looking wobbly. I moved them to a different terrarium set up for my flat headed snake Absinthe, both because of the softer substrate and the lack of skinks that might be bold and attempt to take advantage of a weakened mantis. I wasn’t even sure if food would be able to pass through their system, and they had no interest in prey at all, which wasn’t a good sign. However, with some adjustments to the layout of the temporary terrarium I moved them to, they did climb and manage to hang from the lid with some effort. GBC seemed like they were a fighter, and the day after the bad molt they accepted and ate a grasshopper, so I decided to see if I could get them to their next molt and hopefully allow them to recover.

They’ve since adapted to their new shape, and I’ve moved them back to their usual terrarium for easier monitoring and better sun access. They’re climbing and hanging without falling, eating well, and drinking water droplets from the screen lid when I water the terrarium. I’d say they’re about as close to thriving as they could be in this situation! Here’s how they’re looking today. Ignore the escapee grasshopper in the background, its jailbreak was short lived…

I do feel a bit mean for making this comparison, but…

There’s a bit of a resemblance, isn’t there?

[onenicebugperday]

I can't edit the text because it's a poll (lol love that you just left it) so this was submitted by @whitewalker47ag

It's an ironclad beetle, Zopherus nodulosus! Extremely cute and fashionable little friend

[spiderton]

if all the patapon characters were bugs which bugs would they be. youve probably already done this but

oh my god i suddenly lost most of my progress on this ask so im mildly irritated (not at u though) but il go over the zigotons first. spiderton is a golden orb weaver, beetleton is a stag beetle, makoton is a bark scorpion, and kharma a death head moth. saw gong being thrown around as like, also a death head moth, but hawkmoths exist so it fits him

for the patapons most of them are ants. fah hatapon kon and tsukapons are harvester ants, as hero ton and rah are trapjaws. i think shuraba would be a lacewing though but meden is probably a phasmid (maybe giant prickly stick insect, but tbh giant malaysian leaf insect works better). patapon princess is a pond skater (jesus bug is another common name), but thats abut it for the patapons

for the karmens itd be.. a bit harder but i can make things up. nomen is a texas ironclad beetle which are infamous for having incredibly tough shells to break.. kimen might also be a phasmid, just a common walking stick. for hukmen he might be an assassin bug (not any of the wheel ones, not sure abut the species but assassin bugs most remind me of him) EDIT: i forgot ormen karmen SORRY. hes a longhorn beetle

buzzcrave is either a botfly, mantis, or centipede. whatever you like more. slogturtle is a diving beetle, sonarchy is a bat fly, and covet hiss is a centipede herself. i did it wooo yayy

[beautifulhigh]

Okay, in re asking about yourself, headcanon thingy: I enjoy the heck out of your FirstPrince meta posts, so in that vein... Can you share any headcanon about FirstPrince, please?

Also, random question, how would you describe your favourite colour to a blind person or a colour blind person?

Much love!

Thank you! I hope to get the next one up some point this week, and I'm still on the hunt for any gifs of the New Year's party (or anyone who has time/capacity to make me some bespoke ones). So hmu with links or offers.

One headcanon I've got, which is actually going to make its way (in part) into the Top Secret Experimental Fic I'm playing about with writing at the moment, is that they are fiercely protective of their private lives when they move to Texas. Like, anyone who even steps onto their property has to sign the most ironclad NDA which means they cannot post any pictures of the property, they cannot describe anything about the property, some of them aren't even allowed to say they've been to the property. That is their home, their space, and they are fully in control of what is released about it.

Everyone gets it - they have lost enough of their lives, their privacy, their intimate spaces. So their Texan home becomes their sanctuary and word gets out that this is how they are living their lives: private figures at home, public figures outside of that property boundary. Rule One: nothing is posted without clear and express permission from BOTH of them and it will be marked as such on the post. And that permission is so rarely given they just don't ask now. Any photos taken at events, gatherings, birthdays, holidays? They know that they're always going to be private.

Everyone thinks that June is the one to be afraid of if you break that one rule. When Pez uploads a picture of his OOTD hanging on the back of a door, someone thinks he's staying at the farmhouse and he's breaking Rule One because there's no tag and he has to quickly start a livestream where he can show people that he's not at the house, he's actually somewhere else entirely.

What he doesn't tell people is that he did that in a panic because Catherine called him and threatened to have him locked in the Tower for the rest of his natural life.

So yeah. My headcanon is that the boys, and their families, become ultra protective of their privacy.

As for the second question, this made me think about if I have a favourite colour! I tend to favour blues so I guess I would describe them looking as the sun feels on an autumn day: the warmth being tempered with cooler air and winds. It's not intense, it's not overpowering. The blues I favour are the kinds that are the in-between. Cosy like the drawing in of the nights and the fireplaces. Comforting like the warm mugs in hands. The range from the warmer days when autumn is still bright and clinging to summer, through to the moments it is slipping into winter.

So yeah. I'd describe blue as autumn sun, and the range as the season itself.

Come ask me anything: headcanons, random stuff, whatever you want to know

[noaasanctuaries]

Today we commemorate Juneteenth, the day (June 19, 1865) when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, were informed of their freedom -- two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This day promotes and cultivates knowledge and appreciation of African American history and culture across our nation.

The USS Monitor was an ironclad ship built to lead the Union Navy. As important as it is to learn about the technical marvel this vessel came to be, it is vital to honor those that served aboard USS Monitor during some of our Nation's most historic hours. The men of the USS Monitor served with distinction alongside diverse races, faiths, and backgrounds. Only by working together could this crew survive the horrors of war. Among the 62 man crew, we know of eight African American men who worked aboard USS Monitor. Their names were William Nichols, Siah Hulett Carter, William Scott, Robert Howard, Robert Cook, Edward Cann, Daniel Moore, and William Jeffrey.

[vrusk]

PRIDE. -What is your muses biggest flaw? / DNA. -What was your muses home life like?

PRIDE

Virgil hates to "depend" on people. Once upon a time, he needed to cultivate this sense of independence. There'd be no Virgil Rusk as he exists, now, without that willingness to break off and be his own person, to define himself beyond bounds that'd been ironclad givens before he got brave enough to question them. But poison's often in the dose, and like all things, taken to extremes... "independence" can do some real damage. And it has, over the years. His present situation has done this particular struggle no favours at all.

DNA

He breezily dismisses those years with an "I'll spare us both the gruesome details, darling," but doesn't really offer much detail at all. He came up in a military family. Surrounded, he'd say, by all that a military family, in Texas, implies. (Whatever you take that to mean.) And he was who they expected him to be - including an enlistee, straight out of high school - for as long as he could survive that horseshit. But he was always somebody else. And what he had to do to chase that self down was accept the fact that, well, accepting who he could be meant he'd be cutting ties to who he'd tried to be. And all that implied. Which... he did, anyway, and a dishonorable discharge, thousands of miles, and a few decades later: look at him now. (Not now, now. Look at him a couple years ago, before life got so "super.")

[lycomorpha]

Ironclad Beetle (Zopherus nodulosus haldemani) by Jeff Gruber Via Flickr: Zopherus nodulosus haldemani Horn, 1870. Found at Bastrop State Park in central Texas, ESE of Austin. Bastrop County, Texas, USA. This individual was found at base of large living pine (loblolly?) tree next to one of the paths in the park. Single exposure, uncropped, handheld, in situ. Canon MT-24EX flash unit, Ian McConnachie and plastic cup diffuser.

[lightdancer1]

Today in Black History, the United States from 1836-77:

Today in Black History, a set of topics near and dear to my heart and the beginning of my historical interest, as I now see it in my 30s. The sequence of events here begin with the revolt in the 1830s by the Anglo-American colonists invited by early Mexico. They were invited under the supposedly ironclad guarantee that they would obey Mexican laws. They were invited before abolition, then after their arrival Vincente Guerrero finally forced emancipation. Since the Comanche made Mexican control of northern Mexico nominal the Anglos of Coahuila de Tejas decided to declare a Republic of Texas.

General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna went to fight it, won the earlier battles, then spent time where the affairs of state took precedent over the affairs of state and got nabbed in the Battle of San Jacinto. The result was the brief, ephemoral existence of a US satellite state and the start of a crisis that would push the fabric of the United States beyond the breaking point.

From seemingly small events, great changes unleashed. It was not the first such crisis but it was the one that became nearly fatal. Agustin de Iturbide had no idea what he unleashed when he made that pact with the Austin family.

[mentally-illenial]

Our youngest went on a long evening walk with me and the pups. We saw some rabbits, a tiny baby armadillo, and these cool little guys up top: a Texas ironclad beetle, and a tiny baby brown skink! 🤎

[zestyatbest]

In case you guys are wondering what a more regular size for an ironclad is, here’s Piccadilly next to Zephyr

[galacticnova3]

you got beetles?

Ye! Specifically

-A gang of whirligig beetles I removed from our pool, which I affectionately named The Penis Musicians after discovering they are very noisy and trying to research why/how that is only to be slapped with the funniest article name ever. To be honest I’m pretty sure the “tiny aquatic beetle with ‘singing penis’” that set a noise record is a different species entirely, but there’s nothing else online that says anything about whirligig beetles making noise, so the nickname stuck. I also tentatively have a giant water scavenger beetle but I am likely going to release it soon since I’m not sure if I’m ready to maintain a suitably sized aquatic setup. It’s been doing well in the temporary one I made— I can tell it’s eating because for whatever reason it only poops in one specific spot away from where it usually hides— but I imagine it would be more comfortable with more space. Plus I haven’t found them in my area before(they are native here fyi) so I feel like I shouldn’t limit breeding possibilities just so I can look at funny big bug do a swim.

-Four Texas ironclad beetles, one of which I found in my backyard strolling around on the porch and three that I may or may not have kidnapped from a renaissance faire. It wasn’t like anyone was gonna stop me, and they were in an area with a lot of foot traffic and all, and one was already missing a leg, and they were right there… No it wasn’t responsible but also I figured the one I had could use some company(haven’t had success finding another on our property and I imagine it has to do with unnecessary pesticide use…) and the ones I took wouldn’t mind a less chaotic living situation. The short quarantine period didn’t seem to bother them and they’ve been doing great! And also doing each other. Two hooked up during transport and then as of yesterday I discovered two of them engaging in Homosexual Activities(either multiple times or for 7 hour straight/7 hours gay), which occurred again today. Since they all look very similar barring one that’s a little smaller I can’t tell if it’s two that were from the faire or one from there and the one from the yard. Either way I for one support these funky gay beetles. Will not deny that I was surprised to check on them only to see two dudes with their whole aedeagus out, though. Side note, why is the word for bug penis so cool sounding

-I also have a rove beetle? Idk where it came from but I found it with my isopods so I just moved it to the larger terrarium with more leaf litter to hide under and stuff. Weird little guy!

[adamwatchesmovies]

Sahara (2005)

While I didn't enjoy this film, that doesn't mean you won't. No matter what I say, the people involved in this project did it: they actually made a movie. That's something to be applauded. With that established...

On paper, Sahara sounds like a slam dunk. It’s Indiana Jones meets James Bond with big stars like Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz and armed with a budget to make all the stunt-filled adventure come to life. In practice, it’s devoid of any joy or excitement. Director Breck Eisner makes 124 minutes feel so much longer than two hours.

In 1865, the ironclad CSS Texas disappeared with the last of the Confederacy’s treasury gold. In present day, Dirk Pitt (Matthew McConaughey) has finally found a clue to its final resting place: Mali. With his longtime bud and fellow treasure-hunter Al Giordino (Steve Zahn), he investigates. Along the way, the meet WHO doctor Eva Rojas (Penelope Cruz) as she investigates a mysterious plague she fears will soon ravage the country.

Based on the novel by Clive Cussler, this film adaptation tries to do too much. Sahara is essentially two movies slammed together. The first is a swashbuckling adventure in the vein of Indiana Jones. Boat chases, car chases, fist fights, impromptu survival techniques in the desert and a long-lost treasure? There’s no mistaking it. The other movie has an inconspicuous, beautiful doctor embroiled in a plot that begins as a threat to Africa but could endanger the whole world and includes a solar-powered laser beam, a mad dictator and businessmen devoid of morals. The problem is that these two plots exist independently and are not well blended. In one scene, Dirk and Al are dodging entire clips’ worth of bullets with big smiles while coming up with crazy ways to take down the villains on their tail by blowing up their own boat. In the next, a single bullet is treated with enough gravitas to give you a headache.

Also problematic are the actors. Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz are talented actors. Here? they’re awful. They’re even worse together. They have no chemistry whatsoever, which makes their plots feel even more akin to a mix of oil and water. You know they’re going to fall in love from the beginning but you’ll believe a metal boat from the American Civil War will make it across the ocean on no rations before you’ll believe that romance.

From the unfunny humor meant to endear you to the characters to the action scenes that prove the actors couldn’t throw a decent punch if their lives depended on it, Sahara suffers from major problems. It also gets the little things wrong. When Commander Rudi Gunn (Rain Wilson) approaches the United States Embassy for help, he's warned it’s unlikely aid will arrive in time because “No one gives a shit about Africa”. They're not wrong. Even this movie doesn't care about Mali or its people because moments later, we learn the thing that’s gruesomely killing en-masse will soon spread to the entire world. So it wasn’t enough that Mali would become the world's biggest graveyard; the entire human race has to be at risk? Yikes.

Then, there’s the climax. This is one of those movies where the villains must have the greatest employee benefits package of all time because the baddie's top bodyguard decides to get into a fistfight on top of a building that’s rigged to explode in a few minutes. How was he going to get out of there once he got the job done?

I can give a movie slack and accept a preposterous story but you’ve got to give me something in return. When your actors have no chemistry between them, the bad guys are completely forgettable, the humour falls flat on its face, the action scenes are badly shot & choreographed and none of what you see is interesting, you want to find some way to entertain yourself, perhaps by having some laughs at the film’s expense. You'd think it'd be easy when the Los Angeles Times listed this film as one of the most expensive flops of all time but you'd be wrong. Sahara is too dull to provide any form of entertainment. (Full-screen version on DVD, January 29, 2021)

[kamreadsandrecs]

Cormac McCarthy died earlier this month, and none of the tributes I’ve read have mentioned what I consider his most important contribution to the American literary canon: He wrote the best parenting book of all time, The Road.

Not only is it the best parenting book I’ve ever read, it’s the only parenting book I’ve read cover to cover. Sure, I’ve skimmed the big hits out of a sense of obligation, but nothing has come close to resonating with me to the extent, and for the unblinking duration, that The Road has.

For those unfamiliar, The Road is the story of an unnamed man and his unnamed son, who are walking through an ashen, ruined landscape in the wake of an unnamed catastrophe that happened years prior, when the boy was quite young. The conditions that surround them are unsafe, so they have to keep moving. They are heading toward “the coast,” but the man isn’t sure there’s anything waiting for them there. What he does seem to know is that the boy needs hope to survive, and a destination provides something to hope for. McCarthy’s prose is spare and devastating. (For those who would rather not read, there’s a very good film adaptation starring Viggo Mortensen in the role of the man.)

The Road will outlast every other parenting book in terms of relevance. It will achieve immortality, because its themes, like the Bible’s, will never become obsolete or irrelevant. It reads like a dark prophecy — but only for those of us reading it beneath our crisp Brooklinen sheets. It’s the present-day story of millions of migrant families moving across the land all over the world. Parents are on the Road with their kids as you read these words. The Road crosses the Darien Gap and through Mexico to the southern U.S. border into Texas, South Sudan, and the highways of Turkey and Syria.

I first read The Road not long after my own life-changing encounter with infrastructure collapse. I was living in New Orleans when the levees failed after Hurricane Katrina. The day before the storm hit, I joined the crowds in the parking lot of traffic on I-10, which had been put into “contraflow” mode — all lanes, east and west, heading out of town. Forced dispersal. Families were in crisis on the road shoulders, helpless in the relentless heat, dealing with car breakdowns, overheated kids, panicking pets, the need for a bathroom. In the following days, when my husband and I returned to New Orleans to report on the flooding, I’d watch someone pull out a handgun in a lineup for gas. I saw police accepting bribes and hospital patients wandering the streets still wearing their open-back robes.

I was 23 and had not given any thought to having kids yet, but after what we’d seen — which was nothing compared to what people back in the flood zone endured while trying to survive for weeks after the storm — my husband and I became fixated on being prepared to walk out of any place we ever lived. If we had kids, they’d need to be prepared to do it with them too. Forget cars, I thought. Forget systems. 

I know this sounds ridiculous. But talk to people who have come up against the limits of our civic infrastructure and social contracts, and you’ll hear all kinds of crazy opinions about what you should be prepared to do, most of which involve firearms. My reaction was to make an ironclad commitment to foot travel, and anyone who knows me and my kids can confirm that I’ve kept my commitment — for better or worse. My kids can walk farther, with no snacks or water, than any other kids I know. (Granted, the kids I know are among the world’s most blessed and, therefore, among the world’s loudest and most persistent whiners, so the bar we’re working with is very, very low.)

We forced our kids to adapt to our twisted worldview by having them endure many long hikes — never with enough snacks and rarely with enough water. My friends know this about me and almost certainly pack extra snacks when we go on hikes together to compensate. Thanks, guys, and I’m sorry.

Consequently, do my kids enjoy hiking? They do not. They associate it with hunger and thirst. But it gives me peace of mind, knowing that they could walk out of Montreal and just keep going. Their grumpy resilience reassures me. Feel free to call me crazy.

But if you’re from, say, California or the Gulf Coast or Honduras, I suspect you might not. New Yorkers had their own brush with a suddenly and briefly transformed world just a couple of weeks ago, when wildfire smoke turned the sky orange. Borders are fake and can be put up anywhere, at any time, by anyone with enough resources to create a stash. Any of us could one day find ourselves on the wrong side of the one we want to cross. At which point we’re not much different from the father and son in The Road.

So when I read the book, which was published only about a year after Katrina, I felt vindicated by McCarthy’s vision of walking through a ruined landscape — empty but full of danger. See? I thought. This guy gets it. What I love about The Road is that it eschews the typical narrative terrain about heroic American ingenuity in the face of adversity and, instead, focuses almost exclusively on the emotional work of being loving and brave while fearing for your life.

When all of the accouterments are stripped away, what does it mean to care for a child? That’s what I think McCarthy was writing about more than any kind of apocalypse. And in a way, my obsession with walking long distances missed the point of the book. My lizard brain reverted to a prepper mentality, a “How will we beat this thing?” game, which is ultimately just a project of the ego. It’s actually fun, in a sick and self-indulgent way, to imagine myself walking out of harm’s way with my kids gamely trudging behind me. But what if I were caring for a disabled child or had a disability of my own? The “fun” of the scenario falls apart pretty quickly, and all that’s left is the parent’s real job: keeping a smaller person alive — ideally with the help of others.

McCarthy’s novels tell macho stories about broken men, but The Road is different. Its humanity is in its resistance to that prepper mentality that gamifies crisis and fetishizes individual choices, and it focuses instead on the emotional work of survival. As porn is for incels, so are prepper stories thrilling for people who have never had to care for anyone. The main work of survival isn’t stockpiling guns and MREs. It’s maintaining an emotional baseline of determined love.

I’m sure all of today’s best parenting practices, like Dr. Becky’s scripts or Emily Oster’s useful bits of data about how much you’re allowed to drink while breastfeeding and how to choose a car seat, will serve us all in good stead for years to come. Even when the skies turn orange, we still need to set healthy limits with our kids

and practice self-care. But there is an altogether different kind of caregiving that a growing number of people in vulnerable parts of the world learn, and we haven’t started writing books about it yet — unless you count The Road.

It’s Father’s Day as I write this. My kids have made breakfast for their dad, and they’re all eating it in the kitchen. (I’m invited to join them, but I want to finish this draft first.) I’m thinking about a scene in the book where the man finds a can of tinned pears and gives it to his son, momentarily transported by the joy of sharing something sweet. I still nurture my long-walk vision, but I know it’s stupid. There are really only two things that a parent, under circumstances of extreme duress, can possibly be thinking about: being loving and being brave.

[kammartinez]

Cormac McCarthy died earlier this month, and none of the tributes I’ve read have mentioned what I consider his most important contribution to the American literary canon: He wrote the best parenting book of all time, The Road.

Not only is it the best parenting book I’ve ever read, it’s the only parenting book I’ve read cover to cover. Sure, I’ve skimmed the big hits out of a sense of obligation, but nothing has come close to resonating with me to the extent, and for the unblinking duration, that The Road has.

For those unfamiliar, The Road is the story of an unnamed man and his unnamed son, who are walking through an ashen, ruined landscape in the wake of an unnamed catastrophe that happened years prior, when the boy was quite young. The conditions that surround them are unsafe, so they have to keep moving. They are heading toward “the coast,” but the man isn’t sure there’s anything waiting for them there. What he does seem to know is that the boy needs hope to survive, and a destination provides something to hope for. McCarthy’s prose is spare and devastating. (For those who would rather not read, there’s a very good film adaptation starring Viggo Mortensen in the role of the man.)

The Road will outlast every other parenting book in terms of relevance. It will achieve immortality, because its themes, like the Bible’s, will never become obsolete or irrelevant. It reads like a dark prophecy — but only for those of us reading it beneath our crisp Brooklinen sheets. It’s the present-day story of millions of migrant families moving across the land all over the world. Parents are on the Road with their kids as you read these words. The Road crosses the Darien Gap and through Mexico to the southern U.S. border into Texas, South Sudan, and the highways of Turkey and Syria.

I first read The Road not long after my own life-changing encounter with infrastructure collapse. I was living in New Orleans when the levees failed after Hurricane Katrina. The day before the storm hit, I joined the crowds in the parking lot of traffic on I-10, which had been put into “contraflow” mode — all lanes, east and west, heading out of town. Forced dispersal. Families were in crisis on the road shoulders, helpless in the relentless heat, dealing with car breakdowns, overheated kids, panicking pets, the need for a bathroom. In the following days, when my husband and I returned to New Orleans to report on the flooding, I’d watch someone pull out a handgun in a lineup for gas. I saw police accepting bribes and hospital patients wandering the streets still wearing their open-back robes.

I was 23 and had not given any thought to having kids yet, but after what we’d seen — which was nothing compared to what people back in the flood zone endured while trying to survive for weeks after the storm — my husband and I became fixated on being prepared to walk out of any place we ever lived. If we had kids, they’d need to be prepared to do it with them too. Forget cars, I thought. Forget systems. 

I know this sounds ridiculous. But talk to people who have come up against the limits of our civic infrastructure and social contracts, and you’ll hear all kinds of crazy opinions about what you should be prepared to do, most of which involve firearms. My reaction was to make an ironclad commitment to foot travel, and anyone who knows me and my kids can confirm that I’ve kept my commitment — for better or worse. My kids can walk farther, with no snacks or water, than any other kids I know. (Granted, the kids I know are among the world’s most blessed and, therefore, among the world’s loudest and most persistent whiners, so the bar we’re working with is very, very low.)

We forced our kids to adapt to our twisted worldview by having them endure many long hikes — never with enough snacks and rarely with enough water. My friends know this about me and almost certainly pack extra snacks when we go on hikes together to compensate. Thanks, guys, and I’m sorry.

Consequently, do my kids enjoy hiking? They do not. They associate it with hunger and thirst. But it gives me peace of mind, knowing that they could walk out of Montreal and just keep going. Their grumpy resilience reassures me. Feel free to call me crazy.

But if you’re from, say, California or the Gulf Coast or Honduras, I suspect you might not. New Yorkers had their own brush with a suddenly and briefly transformed world just a couple of weeks ago, when wildfire smoke turned the sky orange. Borders are fake and can be put up anywhere, at any time, by anyone with enough resources to create a stash. Any of us could one day find ourselves on the wrong side of the one we want to cross. At which point we’re not much different from the father and son in The Road.

So when I read the book, which was published only about a year after Katrina, I felt vindicated by McCarthy’s vision of walking through a ruined landscape — empty but full of danger. See? I thought. This guy gets it. What I love about The Road is that it eschews the typical narrative terrain about heroic American ingenuity in the face of adversity and, instead, focuses almost exclusively on the emotional work of being loving and brave while fearing for your life.

When all of the accouterments are stripped away, what does it mean to care for a child? That’s what I think McCarthy was writing about more than any kind of apocalypse. And in a way, my obsession with walking long distances missed the point of the book. My lizard brain reverted to a prepper mentality, a “How will we beat this thing?” game, which is ultimately just a project of the ego. It’s actually fun, in a sick and self-indulgent way, to imagine myself walking out of harm’s way with my kids gamely trudging behind me. But what if I were caring for a disabled child or had a disability of my own? The “fun” of the scenario falls apart pretty quickly, and all that’s left is the parent’s real job: keeping a smaller person alive — ideally with the help of others.

McCarthy’s novels tell macho stories about broken men, but The Road is different. Its humanity is in its resistance to that prepper mentality that gamifies crisis and fetishizes individual choices, and it focuses instead on the emotional work of survival. As porn is for incels, so are prepper stories thrilling for people who have never had to care for anyone. The main work of survival isn’t stockpiling guns and MREs. It’s maintaining an emotional baseline of determined love.

I’m sure all of today’s best parenting practices, like Dr. Becky’s scripts or Emily Oster’s useful bits of data about how much you’re allowed to drink while breastfeeding and how to choose a car seat, will serve us all in good stead for years to come. Even when the skies turn orange, we still need to set healthy limits with our kids

and practice self-care. But there is an altogether different kind of caregiving that a growing number of people in vulnerable parts of the world learn, and we haven’t started writing books about it yet — unless you count The Road.

It’s Father’s Day as I write this. My kids have made breakfast for their dad, and they’re all eating it in the kitchen. (I’m invited to join them, but I want to finish this draft first.) I’m thinking about a scene in the book where the man finds a can of tinned pears and gives it to his son, momentarily transported by the joy of sharing something sweet. I still nurture my long-walk vision, but I know it’s stupid. There are really only two things that a parent, under circumstances of extreme duress, can possibly be thinking about: being loving and being brave.

[irvinenewshq]

Lloyd Austin Lee Jong-sup subject stark warning after contemporary North Korean missile barrage

Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin and his South Korean counterpart vowed that any nuclear assault from North Korea in opposition to the USA or the Republic of Korea would imply the tip of the Kim Jong Un regime. The assertion got here hours after Pyongyang launched an intercontinental ballistic missile that raised tensions within the area. Minister of Nationwide Protection Lee Jong-sup was in Washington on Thursday for beforehand scheduled high-level talks. Topping the agenda was the document variety of launches by Pyongyang this week, together with practically two dozen missiles on Wednesday alone, essentially the most in a single day. The North has mentioned its newest show — which some see as a prelude to a brand new nuclear weapons check — is in protest to U.S.-South Korean army workouts it says are a menace to its safety.  “This can be a sturdy warning” in opposition to North Korea, Mr. Lee advised reporters throughout a joint press convention on the Pentagon. Mr. Austin famous that North Korea launched the missiles as South Koreans are mourning the lack of greater than 150 Halloween revelers who had been killed in a stampede in Seoul’s common Itaewon district.  “It’s extremely unlucky that the [North Korea] has chosen to interrupt this solemn interval with the unlawful and destabilizing launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile final evening, in addition to further missile launches at the moment,” Mr. Austin mentioned. The North Korean missile launches prompted the U.S. and South Korea to increase the “Vigilant Storm” workouts, army drills involving greater than 200 fight plane and 1000’s of troops. The maneuvers had been scheduled to finish on Friday. SEE ALSO: South Korea fires again in response to North Korean 23-missile barrage “We’ll proceed to work intently collectively to develop choices to guard the USA and our allies within the area,” Mr. Austin mentioned. The North has not examined a nuclear machine since 2017, a check which infuriated the Trump administration however led in time to a stunning string of summits between Mr. Kim and President Trump. However the private diplomacy broke down over what the U.S. mentioned was the North’s unwillingness to commit to completely abandoning its nuclear program. South Korea and the USA share values comparable to democracy, respect for human rights, and the rule of legislation, Mr. Lee mentioned. He mentioned each international locations achieved their safety objectives throughout this yr’s protection summit assembly. “We comply with additional strengthen the alliance’s capabilities and postures,” Minister Lee mentioned by means of a translator. Mr. Austin mentioned that, within the face of the Kim regime’s “provocations and destabilizing actions,” the U.S. stays totally dedicated to the protection of its South Korean ally. “At the moment of heightened tensions, our alliance is ironclad. That features the complete vary of our nuclear, standard, and missile protection capabilities,” Mr. Austin mentioned. SEE ALSO: White Home accuses North Korea of transport arms to Russia GOP leaders on Capitol Hill mentioned North Korea is emboldened to take destabilizing measures like firing ICBMs at its neighbors due to the Biden administration’s “weak spot on the world stage” and the assist of Pyongyang’s ally in Beijing. “North Korea’s aggression will proceed till the White Home exhibits King Jong Un that nuclear and ICBM belligerence doesn’t pay,” mentioned Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the senior Republican on the Home International Affairs Committee. “I strongly urge the administration to place ahead a technique that helps our allies, [South Korea] and Japan, and begins coping with Kim from a place of power.” Originally published at Irvine News HQ