The USS Indianapolis (and Iron Man 3)

The USS Indianapolis (and Iron Man 3)

The USS Indianapolis was a heavy cruiser that in July 1945 delivered crucial components (including what was then half the world’s supply of enriched uranium) to the Philippines for the construction of the atomic bomb. Four days later it was torpedoed and went down in open water halfway between Guam and the Philippines. 300 men went down with the ship and the other 900 were left in shark-infested waters waiting days for rescue because their distress calls–sent in the twelve minutes before the ship went under–were not received by Navy command.

On the fourth day they happened to be spotted from the air by a routine patrol, which radioed for all nearby vessels to rescue the men seen in the water. A seaplane in the vicinity was the first to arrive and started dropping rafts and supplies to the survivors. But when they saw men being attacked by sharks, they LANDED IN OPEN WATER ON THE OCEAN in defiance of standing orders, and taxiied around the area gathering stragglers into the plane. When they ran out of room inside they started lashing men to the wings; they wound up damaging the plane so badly that it never flew again and had to be scuttled–but they saved 56 men until ships could arrive to pick them up.

(If, at this point, you are thinking “this sounds like something Tony Stark did in Iron Man 3″: hold that thought.)

The first ship on the scene arrived in the dark, and stopped well short of the debris to keep from injuring survivors in the water. They took aboard the men from the seaplane, and turned their largest searchlight to the sky–making themselves a target for any bombers in the vicnity–to serve as a beacon for other rescuers. That searchlight was the first that most of the scattered survivors knew of rescue arriving.

All told, 317 men survived–two thirds of those who were left after the sinking succumbed to dehydration, exposure, and shark attacks in those four days while they waited for rescue. One of the survivors was the ship’s captain, Charles McVay.

Unlike any other captain of a ship lost in the entire history of the US Navy, McVay wound up facing a court martial, accused of failing to take evasive action and putting his ship in danger. He maintained that he wasn’t at fault and instead asked why it took so long for his men to be rescued; the Navy insisted that no distress call was ever sent. He was convicted but his sentence was remitted so that he could return to duty; nonetheless he was blamed by many of the families of the men who died. He never shed the guilt (and, no doubt, the horror of being one of the men who spent those days in shark-infested waters). McVay committed suicide in 1968 with his Navy-issue revolver; he was found holding a toy sailor in his other hand. In 1975, President Gerald Ford refused to honor McVay with a Presidential Unit Citation despite the ship’s crucial role in the construction of the atomic bomb.

In 1996, an 11-year-old boy named Hunter Scott who heard about the disaster from Jaws started researching the sinking, including interviewing 150 survivors. By then 50 years had passed and documents had been declassified revealing that distress calls WERE received, by not one station but THREE. One station’s commander was drunk, another had ordered his men not to disturb him, and the third thought it was a Japanese hoax. Additionally US military intelligence had cracked Japanese codes by then; they both knew of the sinking from the Japanese side, but did not dispatch a rescue, and knew prior to the sinking that there were subs in the vicinity, but didn’t warn McVay.

Hunter Scott wound up testifying before Congress with survivors of the Indianapolis, and won an exoneration for Captain McVay. A book was written about his efforts to uncover the truth…

And in 2011 Warner Bros bought the movie rights to Hunter’s story… with Robert Downey Jr Who Does Not Know He Isn’t Really Tony Stark attached as a producer.

So in conclusion Hunter Scott is real life Harley Keener and the seaplane rescue of survivors from the USS Indianapolis totally inspired the barrel of monkeys rescue and YOU CANNOT CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE.

Damn. A valuable lesson on interdisciplinary cooperation, through vaginas with a totally valid detour through the Flint water crisis. Huh.

Polished Malachite Stalactite - Copper Crescent, Congo

Islamic terrorist did take the blame what the fuck. Donald Trump and 3 other reporters reported that the terrorist shouted "Allahu Ackbar!" but don't you see? Terrorism's the enemy. Not the gays. Not the Republicans. Islamic terrorism is an issue.

Aside from the fact Donald Trump is not a reliable source and I’ve yet to see any reliable report that the gunman shouted that, I’m not sure what post this is in response to. I already mentioned that the gunman in the Orlando shooting pledged allegiance to ISIS and is a terrorist. But so far there’s no evidence that this attack was orchestrated by ISIS or any similar organization. My point in this post was to condemn Mike Huckabee, who has literally advocated for sending gay people to concentration camps to “contain our disease” for talking down to LGBT people within hours of the attack to imply that the average American gay person’s worst enemy is ISIS and not the Republican Party, which is demonstrably false. 

A bill passed in Mississippi that literally legalizes discrimination against LGBT people; Republicans recently voted down a bill that would protect us against discrimination and hate crimes. To argue that they are not the enemy is…absurd. Even though ISIS is clearly a homophobic organization, the vast majority of American LGBT people are far more directly impacted by politicians at home.

Of course ISIS is an issue. ISIS is terrorizing people in many countries and has organized massacres all over the world. I condemn ISIS. That said, when it comes to LGBT issues, I also condemn the politicians at home who perpetuate homophobic rhetoric and have striven to strip us of our rights. I also condemn a self-satisfied neo-con like Huckabee who has the gall to, after advocating for the grossest, most extreme human rights violations against LGBT people, use our deaths to further his own political agenda.

Regarding my other post about Republicans and gun control: this man was an American citizen who (so far) has not been found to have direct ties with ISIS or other terrorist organizations. He was able to acquire a gun that has become the weapon of choice in mass shootings. The FBI had already been investigating and monitoring him for possibly being a terror threat or having terrorist connections, but found no evidence. I wonder: what do Republicans want at this point? The US government already monitors American citizens they suspect of being terror threats. They already comb through and save our internet data and wiretap our phones without warrants. They already devote much resources and time to tracking and investigating terror threats. Our military is already the most funded in the world. What do Republicans want? Even more over-reaching government surveillance? Even more warrantless searches? Even more racial profiling of Muslim Americans? More unsubstantiated arrests or detainment? The outright ban of all Muslim immigrants? Even when most mass shootings in America are perpetrated by white men and not Muslims to begin with?

Obviously, what happened early this morning was a horrifying tragedy. It was a massacre in the name of virulent homophobia and of radical pro-ISIS beliefs. But the government can’t monitor every American’s move. It can’t know every threat and when it will happen. I’m not sure what Republicans want us LGBT people and “liberals” to do exactly? Take out our fear, anger and vitriol on innocent Muslim Americans? Or Muslims abroad who have nothing to do with this attack or ISIS to begin with? What will this do to curb the epidemic of gun violence and domestic terrorism in America, which again, is mostly perpetrated by non-Muslims? 

I have absolutely no sympathies with ISIS; I condemn ISIS. I am a Jewish queer person, and ISIS and its sympathizers have massacred and targeted Jews and queer people in Western countries a small number of times, and has terrorized so many more people in the Middle East, many of whom are Muslim. But as an LGBT American, I can’t concede that ISIS is more of a direct threat to me and my wellbeing than Republican politicians who legislate against me. I also will not side with reactionary conservatives who are exploiting this tragedy in my community to fuel islamophobia, hysteria and jingoism. At the end of the day, many people on all sides are trying to simplify this event, trying to politicize it in the most simplistic ways they can. We shouldn’t ignore the connection to ISIS-related radical beliefs, but this shooting doesn’t justify any of the jingoistic, reactionary or racist policies the Right advocates, and I refuse to side with them.

I identify with this panic! When I was in high school, I shared some really explicit Harry Potter fic with my cool older cousin. I don't think she particularly liked it, but it didn't change our relationship. I also gave some dark or just niche kink fic to friends in HS, and they occasionally tease me about "remember the time when..." but seem to have accepted it as just another personality quirk. Obviously, it depends on the person, but thought I'd share. (Oh, and then there was the time the Sex Workers Art Show came to my college, and some pretty conservative housemates knew my org was one of the sponsors. One of them told my friend afterward "I didn't think I'd approve of it, but I went home and tried that thing the woman did with the tassel twirling on her boobs, and it was fun!" So you never know what will strike someone's fancy...)

I don't know why I'm asking you, but I hope you can help. I NEED HELP. I was drunk at a party and admitted to a friend I wrote a fanfic. She was surprised, but said she would read my fic in support. I was overjoyed at first, and told her how to find me on AO3. But then, thinking about it, I realized she would see my other fics, and my bookmarks, which are much darker contain more porn. I'm now freaked out that she will see that. I'm on the verge of a panic attack. What do I do?

Take some deep breaths, eat a little snack, look at some cute pictures of baby animals. Don’t panic if you can help it. This is not nearly as disastrous as you think it is. Unless your friend is super conservative and also your mom or your boss or something, the worst this can be is embarrassing, and it’s probably not even going to be that, because the most likely outcome–the really really overwhelmingly likely outcome–is that nothing happens.

If your friend is not familiar with fanfic or the AO3, it is most likely that it just won’t occur to her to navigate to your other fics, let alone your bookmarks. It seems blindingly obvious and inevitable to people who read fic and use the AO3 regularly, but it’s actually much less obvious to someone just looking at a fanfic there for the first time. Bookmarks, especially, are NOT intuitive to the random non-fannish friend off the street.

Odds are if your friend is not that into fanfic they will forget to read the fic or put it off. If they do wind up reading it, as a gesture of supportiveness to you, again, they’re probably only doing it for that reason and they’re not then going to be like “oh man I need to also read everything else this person has ever written and check her bookmarks!!” Even if they like the story you meant to link them to, the impulse to check out everything else a person has written and see what they’re reading is fanreader behavior, not noob-dipping-toe-in-for-the-first-time-because-their-friend-linked-them-to-their-fic behavior. 

If they DO go looking, odds are it’s because you got them interested in fic and they WANT to read more, in which case you have earned a toaster for converting somebody. If they tell you about this, it will probably be in the context of “I read all your fic, is there more fic somewhere?!” (This has actually happened to me.) (Literally. I still have that toaster, it’s a nice toaster.) If they don’t like it or don’t see anything else that interests them, they probably just won’t mention it.

Look, for several years my only paypal account was linked to my fannish email address. This led to me giving my mom that email address in order to send me money one time, which led to her using that email address on mass-emails that included tons of aunts/uncles/cousins. It would be SUPER EASY to find my fic by googling my email address, and a lot of my fic is FUCKED UP (haha who wrote hundreds of thousands of words of sibling incest with a main character with the same name as her younger brother? THIS GUY). It’s even possible that someone WOULD google that email address because it’s not obviously attached to my real name, so they might want to figure out which relative that email address belongs to! Totally plausible! PRACTICALLY INEVITABLE!!

It has never happened. Or if it has, no one has ever mentioned it or given any sign of it, so same thing.

My dad used to regularly read my fandom LiveJournal, including during the period when I was writing hundreds of thousands of words of sibling incest fic starring a main character with the same first name as my younger brother. If you look at the profile on my LJ, there is, to this day, a note asking him not to, which he probably never saw because he almost certainly never once navigated from “recent posts” to “profile.”

He’s never mentioned the fact, and I am dead certain he never read any of my fic. He was only there to check for signs of life and see what I was up to lately, so my fic posts just weren’t of interest to him and he ignored them. (Blessedly, he has now moved on to liking every single thing I or any of my brothers post to Facebook, including comments on other people’s posts and five-star ratings for gay romance novels.)

Bottom line: Fandom and fanfic are just not as interesting to other people as we think they are. Your friend thinks you drunkenly told her about a weird hobby you have, which she may or may not later remember to show support for by reading the story you posted on some website somewhere. The only reason she’ll ever go looking for anything further is if she happens to decide she’s interested in it herself (or if it turns out she was secretly in fandom all along). Otherwise the odds are overwhelming that it will simply pass her by unnoticed.

nah just practical :)

ok ok last thing:

(yeah, I hope you won’t become the snot puns guy. Just the running puns guy!)

foxish49 reblogged your photoset: Baby’s first street run!  I did 1.72 miles in…

re: Snot - if there weren’t bored doormen watching, I’d recommend learning the fine art of the snot rocket. But then again, maybe not something you want to do in front of people or onto a sidewalk. (I mostly run on trails, so it’s not as big of an issue.)

Yeah, I get irrationally angry when people sit or hock loogies on the sidewalk, that’s gross and unnecessary. But I think above and beyond that the issue is that it wasn’t congestion, it was a steady drip. I could have stopped and blown once and been fine if that was the case, but I just dripped the entire time like a gross snot monster. :D

Watch: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s UPenn commencement speech will move you to tears.