Observations of The Urban Spaceman 
In 1966, James Brown sang “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World”—a song which goes on to detail the various accomplishments of men, such as inventing the electric light and making toys for unhappy children. Women and girls get a mention too, but only as a prop for supporting man’s ego whilst he does all of his inventing.
We’ve come a long way since 1966. Though sexism is still a global issue, and women are in some places and cultures considered inferior in many ways to men, considerable progress has been made. In many countries, women can—and are actively encouraged to—study subjects which would previously have been denied to them; subjects such as science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Time to take a look at James Brown’s song and see how it holds up 51 years after it was originally recorded. Let’s take a look at some of women’s accomplishments over the years:
“You see, man made the cars to take us over the road”
Sarah Guppy made the suspension bridges which carry the cars (and the roads on which they are driven) over the gaping chasms.
“Man made the train to carry the heavy load”
Marie Curie. Need I say more?
“Man made electric light to take us out of the dark”
Serious illness can put you in a dark place, but those dark places are a little brighter thanks to Gertrude Elion advancing drug treatments for leukemia and organ transplant rejection.
“Man made the boat for the water, like Noah made the ark”
Ellen H. Swallow Richards was a pioneer in water sanitation standards. Think of her the next time you’re pouring yourself a cup of delicious germ-free tap water.
“Man thinks about our little bitty baby girls and our baby boys
Man made them happy, ’cause man made them toys”
Chemistry was child’s play for Rosalind Franklin, the woman who discovered the double helical structure of DNA.
“And after man make everything, everything he can”
But is man as prolific as Dr. Giuliana Tesoro, who held 125+ patents in her lifetime?
“You know that man makes money, to buy from other man”
No list of remarkable women in science would be complete without Stephanie Kwolek, whose Kevlar keeps men (and women) safe on the streets and in war zones, so that they can come home and continue the cycle of purchasing!
International Women’s Day is about celebrating the successes of women, raising awareness of gender inequality, and pushing towards greater equality in all aspects of life. Remember, women aren’t just 49.6% of the world’s population; they’re also mothers and grandmothers, sisters and daughters, cousins and friends. They’re teachers and innovators, doctors and and soldiers—you name it, women are doing it.
Even if you’re not involved in IWD activities in your local community, there’s still plenty you can read online. Check out the official IWD website and #BeBoldForChange, and have a look at some fascinating statistics related to gender inequality on the UN’s IWD homepage. If you’d like to learn more about women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, check out any of the links in my list above. You might be surprised by some of the stories you read.
Personal Log: Captain Aloysius Wren
2617.9.26 GSD
There’s a saying my great-grand-pappy liked to churn out when things weren’t going his way: Up shit creek without a paddle. It’s a saying I’ve only had to use three times in my life—until today. As figures of speeches go, it’s a pretty damn apt one right now.
I’ve nobody to blame but myself. Shouldn’t have tempted fate by taking a shortcut through the Voltire Nebula. Ten days off our journey versus the possibility of crossing paths with pirates. Sounded like a no-brainer at the time. Figured we could sneak past any smuggling ports or listening posts. Avalon’s small and quiet. Should’ve been easy, but I guess someone looked out the window at the wrong time and made a visual on us.
In the depths of the forest he toiled for hours, sweeping his stage of errant leaves and broken twigs, preening each magnificent tail-feather to perfection.
A beautiful symphony warbled and trilled and cooed from his throat, an harmonious and heartfelt plea of come close and admire me. The other birds listened, awed and confused as he sang the Kookaburra and the Bristlebird, the Honeyeater and the Wren. He accepted their silent encore again and again.
But no female came to applaud his efforts. As the sky darkened, he finished with a swansong, unwitting ode to his own destruction.
A Bird’s-eye View
Every other Sunday I’ll be publishing a drabble about, or from the perspective of, a bird. This week’s bird is the amazing Lyrebird. A native of Australia, the males of this species are the world’s most talented mimics, and attract a mate by performing songs comprised of the sounds they hear around them. Usually this comes in the form of the songs of other birds, but as can be seen in the following David Attenborough clip from his series, The Life of Birds, the Lyrebird can also mimic the sounds of humanity encroaching on its territory—including the sound of chainsaws and handsaws which accompany the slow loss of the bird’s own habitat.
The Youtube clip is © The BBC. The featured Lyrebird image is © Fir0002/Flagstaffotos (source) under the terms of this CC 3.0 non-commercial license.
Project Lazarus
Personal journal of Dr. T. Miller
Day 163
They cut funding. Again. Beginning to think they want us all to die here.
Day 190
Survival of the fittest. Those that can’t adapt, die. I’m not ready to give up on Lazarus yet. They cut funding. I adapted.
Day 260
Dr. Chen came by for a progress report. I get the feeling he wasn’t impressed by what I told him. Tried to give him a demonstration, but couldn’t get the nanites to function in cohesion. Problem lies in the positronic uplink… I think.
Ever wondered how to write captivating prose? Cathleen Townsend explains it beautifully in poetry!
If you want to write meaningful fiction,
You’ll need a setting that forces your characters to grow.
Shall it be modern, Edwardian, or antebellum?
Which conflict will nurture the plot elements you sow?
You need a hero to carry your readers’ hopes,
Trusted friends on whom he or she can rely,
And a villain or rival to bar the path of ease,
Leaving a trial by fire your protag can’t deny.
And don’t neglect to add a twist at the end,
An improbable fruit of an earlier seed,
Or perhaps an unlooked-for result,
A reflection of your character’s most deep-seated need.
Stir that melody of elements together inside you,
Water it with tears, give it all that you are–
Write and rewrite until only the story remains,
And publish with the hope that your tale will go far.
Weathered stone markers
Guide the way to Grandma’s house
Silent paws follow
Today’s haiku is written for Sue Vincent’s #writephoto prompt! Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to download the photo from Sue’s site (Failed – Path too long… a very fitting error message for my poem?) but you can click the link above to see the picture which inspired this poem. I hope you enjoy the Pixabay featured image instead.
After my last Goldilocks-themed haiku, the talented Sam Brady suggested a series of fairy tale themed haikus, and asked, What could you do with Red Riding Hood? Well, Sam, this is the answer! 🙂
The small convoy rolled up to the foot of Gunslinger Ridge as the stars winked their way across the darkening sky. A half-dozen cars and trucks were already parked haphazardly among the scrub. The newcomers joined them, abandoning their vehicles with little care for locking doors and enabling alarms.
Wilbur Blake pocketed his keys and tagged onto the back of the chain of people hiking up to the summit. As the sun finally gave up its claim on the sky, Wilbur dug into the inside pocket of his Eisenhower jacket and pulled out a small flashlight. Others followed suit, and soon a small group of yellow and white beams danced their way up the mountainside.
It took forever to create the universe. Time was easy; matter was complicated. Matter distorted time, slowing it in places where too much—or not enough—matter converged into a matter-soup or a matter-absence. It took forever to create the universe, but he fixed time afterwards, so that it didn’t take forever at all. Blink, and you missed it.
He almost did.
It was a cold universe, so he set fires going. They raged hot, angry, and very nearly consumed all the matter he’d made. He blew out the fires, then made them smaller. He created matchsticks, plucked off their heads, and sprinkled them around the universe. They didn’t burn for very long, but then, wasn’t that relative? And they looked so beautiful in the seconds before they finally went out.
Now the universe was warm, but it was boring. Matter moved around according to the laws he’d dictated. He wished he’d given all things different laws to obey. Suddenly—in the space of a million years—a thought occurred. He would create a different type of matter, and he would call it life, and he would give it different laws; laws which would not constrain, but liberate.
He scattered billions of gigantic, pinhead-sized marbles around the matchstick fires of the universe, and toyed with them until they were just right. It took a very long time for anything exciting to happen with the great life experiment—ten or fifteen seconds, at least. Finally, his patience bore fruit. Literally. Fertile gardens covered his worlds, and he wasn’t exactly sure where they’d come from.
Well, that’s enough of that! he thought. My universe is perfect.
But… something was missing. He could feel it. He’d laboured since the beginning of time—about twenty minutes ago—yet had nobody else to share his creation with. Nobody to tell him how wonderful and amazing he was for creating such perfect things as time and matter and life.
So, God created Mankind.
Today’s flash fiction was written for an Absolute Write flash fic prompt: enough of that. Image courtesy of Pixabay.
Neither hot nor cold
the most delicious bowl holds
Baby Bear’s porridge
Written for today’s WordPress daily prompt, Center.
Set against a backdrop of ominously grey sky, Neuschwanstein loomed over the the lonely forest. It presided, dominated, menaced and threatened. The synonyms tumbled through Clara’s mind as she stood staring agape at the eerie, fairytalesque castle—and if fairytalesque wasn’t a word before, it damn well was now!
It was the perfect setting for a writer’s retreat, and she sent a thousand silent thank-yous to God or Luck or Fate that she’d been given the chance to come here and learn from the Reginald P. Valence in a setting so amazingly suited to the Horror genre. The ambiance of the castle’s exterior alone was a fertile oasis to the desert of her mind.
She pulled out a pocketbook and wrote, ‘fertile oasis in form of eldritch exterior.’ Yes, this was definitely worth the £2000 she’d paid. A bargain.
Glorken
The Urban Spaceman
Observations of The Urban Spaceman 
Things humans said