Eclipsing Conspiracy Theories

Earlier today there was an eclipse that crossed over 13 states in the US from Texas to Maine. Some saw everything clearly (or as clearly as an eclipse allows one to see everything clearly) and others had to deal with cloudy conditions that seriously affected how the eclipse was seen.

Seven years ago, in 2017, the path of the eclipse was over 7 cities in the US named Salem. In 2024, another 24 cities in the US named Salem were in the path of totality, for a total of 33. Some conspiracy theorists have tried to tie 33 cities names Salem over 2 eclipses to the age Jesus was when he was crucified. Really?

Conspiracy theorists are also going on and on about the fact that there are 7 cities named Nineveh in the path of the 2024 eclipse. Nope. There were only 2 cities with that name — one in Indiana and the other in Ohio — in the eclipse’s path. The other five — in New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Kentucky — enjoyed the effects of a partial eclipse but that still doesn’t count as a total eclipse.

Of course, they failed to mention that Carbondale and surrounding area colloquially known as Little Egypt in Illinois was also in the path of the eclipse so …. let my people go or something like that, right?

These same conspiracy theorists are claiming there have been 7 solar eclipses in the US since 1776. Um, no. Since 1776, there have been more than a dozen total solar eclipses that have affected the contiguous United States of America. Two of them were in the 21st century — back in 2017 and today. Yes, there will be a third total solar eclipse in August 2044.

There was a total solar eclipse in 1979 and before that in 1970 and before that in 1963 and before that in 1932 and in 1925 and in 1918 and in 1900. Oh, wait! That’s 7 in the 20th century. I wonder if that counts for anything with the conspiracy theorists?

Also, there were 7 years between the eclipse in 1963 and the one in 1970, and 7 years between the eclipse in 1925 and the one in 1932. How come those 2 eclipse gaps of 7 years that don’t mean anything to conspiracy theorists?

Anyway, there were more eclipses in the 1800s and the first recorded total solar eclipse in the US was in 1778. There were other eclipses before that, but before that, the United States of America wasn’t known as the United States of America so that’s a moot point. But the fact remains that there were other eclipses before 1776.

Now as to the claim that there will not be another total solar eclipse like this for another 375 years, that’s only partly correct. You see, the geometry of the Earth’s orbit and the moon’s orbit and everyone’s relationship to the sun means that every 375 years, everything that was where it was today during the solar eclipse should be in exactly the same spot in 375 years, God willing, provided something catastrophic doesn’t happen in the universe to add or subtract from that equation. But that being said, total solar eclipses happen somewhere on the planet every year or two. Those are the facts on that claim.

Anyway, conspiracy theorists are also pointing out that today’s eclipse fell on 1 Nisan 5784 with no further explanation as to why that might be significant. Most of them have no idea why they need to mention that point, so I will. 1 Nisan is the first day of the month of the Jewish New Year and represents the Exodus from Egypt. Hey, conspiracy theorists, you missed making that flawed connection between 1 Nisan 5784 and Little Egypt in Illinois. Just sayin’ …

The last big “oh no” moment being touted by conspiracy theorists is that NASA gave demon names to all the Satellites monitoring the eclipse. What those conspiracy theorists forgot to mention was that Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks could also be visible during totality and that comet is also known as the DEVIL COMET. I know, it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.

But when I went looking for those NASA satellites that conspiracy theorists claim all have demon names, no matter how hard I searched, this is what I found.

Credit: NASA

Nary a demon name to be found among those satellites unless there’s a demon name I’m unintentionally overlooking.

My point is that every time a natural phenomena takes place that conspiracy theorists are uncomfortable living through, they start pointing to the signs they claim are signs of the end times. The number 7 seems to feature prominently in their fearmongering when it suits their purposes, but is conspicuously absent when it doesn’t.

My reason for writing this blog entry is to point out that what is meant to happen will happen, with or without the fearmongering. Conspiracy theories will continue to be shared by conspiracy theorists. Those who are naïve will fall for those conspiracy theories and worry about the future when there’s no real science to those theories and nothing that can be done even if what conspiracy theorists predict come to pass.

Instead of being afraid of the future and worrying about things you can’t change, focus on what you can change and find strength and joy in the future you are creating for yourself as well as for others. All of us believe in the end times but in different ways. For atheists, the end times happen when the body expires. For spiritual people, the end times are only the beginning of something even more magnificent. For everyone in between, the end times are a reality but each of us has our own understanding of what the end times are for us as individuals.

I love watching total solar eclipses and partial solar eclipses. I love watching total lunar eclipses and partial lunar eclipses. If you love eclipses, I hope you enjoyed today’s magnificent show from the universe and the powers that be that impact the universe.

Isn’t life amazing?

Elyse Bruce
08 April 2024

Trans This and Trans That and Trans Other Stuff

Therians: Individuals who identify as a specific animal and not a human is a different concept than those who consider themselves to be furries which involves animal costume play. The difference is that therians really believe they are not full humans even though their DNA says they are whereas furries know they are playing at being an animal.

Neither therians nor furries are otherkin which are people who identify as creatures from the mythology or pop culture of occasionally from the natural world. In other words, aliens (not the kind that cross the border to gain access to a country legally or illegally), angels, demons, dragons, elves, fairies, horses, foxes, wolves, sprites, unicorns, fictional character, et al.

They are also not the even more rare otherkins who identify as plants, machines, concepts, natural phenomena, or weather systems.

Therians often say they suffer from species dysphoria and feel disconnected from their human bodies.

Species dysphoria involves the belief that one’s body is the wrong species, and they may actually hallucinate, feel, think, or believe they are an animal of some sort. Some with this mental health issue find comfort in a form of transition, usually physical (through costumes) and/or social (how they interact with society).

What this means is that species dysphoria is very real even though being transspecies is not.

But as real as species dysphoria is, I have never seen (thank goodness) someone who identifies as a male canine suddenly lift his leg and relieve himself on a tree or a fence post or the outside wall of a building. I have never seen (thank goodness) someone who identifies as a female feline suddenly relieve herself in a sandbox or in a flower bed and then scratch the area up to cover up what they have just deposited.

I have never attended been to a conference or convention where the building had more than three identifiable restroom facilities: Men’s restrooms, women’s restrooms, and family restrooms. Occasionally I have seen the family restrooms marked as single-use restrooms.

There are no signs with arrows pointing to the room where one will find kitty litter boxes for humans identifying as cats.

Now there are those who claim the decision as to which restroom to use isn’t easy because they don’t conform to the traditional gender identification system but it’s not as difficult as such people claim it is.

If you self-identify as a woman but you, by all accounts, appear to reasonable people as a man pretending to be a woman, use the single-use (or family) facilities.

If you self-identify as a woman but you haven’t had the bottom surgery, use the single use (or family) facilities.

If you self-identify as a woman and no reasonable person would question if you are a woman, use the women’s facilities.

If you self-identify as a man and no reasonable person would question if you are a man, use the men’s facilities.

If you self-identify as a man but feel the men’s facilities must provide a feminine hygiene dispenser just in case you need such a dispenser, use the single use (of family) facilities.

If you self-identify as a man but you, by all accounts, appear to reasonable people as a woman pretending to be a man, use the single-use (or family) facilities.

The individual’s rights only go as far as that person’s nose, and when those rights start infringing on everyone else’s rights, it’s time to make a sound decision that is in the best interest of everyone involved. There is no sense in pushing an agenda so far that someone winds up getting hurt (remember lawsuits hurt).

Keep in mind that therians and otherkins do not insist that society provide species appropriate facilities for them, and it’s because they seem to understand it doesn’t make sense for them to insist on forcing businesses to provide species appropriate facilities for them. After all, how would Health Departments balance transspecies rights against Health Department rules and regulations in restaurants, for example?

I am not a vegan and for that reason, I do not go to vegan restaurants, but if I was invited to eat at a vegan restaurant, I would most assuredly find something vegan on the menu to eat (salads are delicious) and I would keep my non-vegan opinion to myself.

You may not agree with my point of view, and that’s fine. This is, after all, my blog and I am not discriminating against anyone in suggesting solutions to the problems that being transgender or transspecies create for society as a whole. I’m suggesting solutions that creates a sense of well-being and safety for all without marginalizing or minimizing anyone’s feelings.

Elyse Bruce
5 March 2024

Let Kids and Teens Be Kids and Teens

Over the past few years, there has been a great deal of furor regarding gender.  The loudest groups are those who argue that gender is determined at birth and those who argue that gender is a something that is determined after birth, when the individual decides what he or she wants to be.

A baby’s sex is determined at the moment of fertilization. Out of the forty-six chromosomes that make up a baby’s genetic material (twenty-three from the male and twenty-three from the female in a typical situation), only two of those chromosomes (in a typical situation) — one from the male and one from the female — determine the baby’s sex. Two chromosomes. The sex chromosomes.

A Y chromosome creates a boy and an X chromosome creates a girl. The outward sign of gender develops at around nine weeks, but rest assured that long before the outward sign of gender develops, the gender is already determined.

That being said, all embryos begin as females and when the Y chromosome expresses itself, this confirms the embryo is most definitely male.

Interesting enough, peer-reviewed studies have proven that if a man has more brothers than sisters, he is likely to have more sons than daughters, and if a man has more sisters than brothers, he is likely to have more daughters than sons.

The number of men and women in the world is pretty much equal more or less. Yes, men hold a slight lead with 102 men for every 100 women (based on data from 2020).  That works out to be 504 men (50.4%) to 496 women (49.6%) per 1,000 people.  And this is interesting mostly because when it comes to flipping a coin where there are only two possibly outcomes, that nearly 50-50 split happens every single time.  It makes sense it would also happen where gender is concerned. Don’t get mad at me for sharing that with you. That’s what the data bears out as being a fact, and it’s been bearing out that fact since the 17^th century believe it or not.

In a pamphlet published by the American Psychological Association titled “Answers to Your Questions about Transgender People, Gender Identity, and Gender Expression,” it states the following: “Transgender is an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression, or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth.”  That definition is pretty straight forward and clear.  Basically it states that if you feel you are a gender different than your biological sex, you are transgender, but that does not mean you are the other sex.  It means you identify as the other sex.

Basically the knowledgeable opinion of medical researchers and scientists is that biological sex is determined at conception, and gender, which is a social construct that determines behavior, is one that happens after birth.  That being the facts, it means a transgender male is still female despite taking on the social expectations of a male, and a transgender female is still male despite taking on the social expectations of a female.  In other words, a transgender male is not a male and a transgender female is not a female.

If extremists at either end of this discussion would stop long enough to see there is place for both sides to exist and co-exist, life for everyone in the middle would settle back down again.  There would be no need for the insistence on knowing what someone’s pronouns would be as those who took on the social expectations of the gender they wish to present as would lead to everyone using the pronouns that person would expect, with the exception of they/them which isn’t a biological or social possibility.

It’s also time for people to understand that children and teens can be gender nonconforming as they search for a way to express their identity.  Just because a boy likes to bake in the kitchen and isn’t into contact sports doesn’t mean he’s anything other than a boy who likes to bake in the kitchen and isn’t into contact sports.  Likewise, just because a girl likes to climb trees and fails to abide by the social expectations of sugar and spice and all that’s nice doesn’t mean she anything other than a girl who likes to climb trees and fails to abide by the social expectations of sugar and spice and all that’s nice.

What there isn’t is more than two genders.  Even when things go wonky as sometimes happens in nature, a person feels drawn to identify as a member of one sex more than the other.  Even those who say they are bi-sexual have a slightly more identifiable (to them) pull towards one sex or the other. Again, it’s that coin toss moment that determines which side has the stronger influence.

So let’s stop rushing children into making decisions when they are minors with regards to their sexuality and sense of gender.  Let them explore how they feel about traditional and non-traditional roles, and let them make wise decisions instead of pushing them into decisions that could radically alter their lives until the day they die.

If a child asks you, “Am I [opposite biological sex]?” listen to their concerns. Talk with them about the value of being themselves instead of buying into what others are telling them about who they are. Remind them that if a person almost never knows what they want to be when they grow up when it comes to a career, chances are just as high they won’t really know what they want to be until they grow up and decide what they are when it comes to gender. Let them know they can do things that are usually associated with the opposite biological sex without being worried they were born in the wrong body.

What all these arguments about transgenderism and transphobia and all things trans seem to be doing is throwing society backwards to a time when male and female roles were rigidly defined and no one dared to deviate from those inflexible and unyielding roles. Let children and teens be children and teens without forcing the expectation of making a forever life-altering decision that most likely won’t play out well for them later on as they enter adulthood. When they decide for themselves as adults, without interference in childhood, they are far more likely to feel at ease with their decision.

Elyse Bruce
20 February 2024

In Praise of Mediocrity

Undoubtedly some of you are alarmed by the title of this blog entry, In Praise of Mediocrity, but only because you didn’t know until just know that the full title is actually, In Praise of Mediocrity: In Search of Excellence.  Believe it or not, there is something worth knowing about mediocrity, and that is that without mediocrity, excellence loses its currency.

What most people don’t realize is that mediocrity isn’t a state of mind that is constant and unchanging.  Mediocrity is a choice, and every time you choose to up your game – in other words, be better than before – you take another step forward towards excellence.  But you won’t appreciate your accomplishments and achievements until you understand and accept that mediocrity can be a driving force to get you to excellence.

The difference between mediocrity as a stepping stone towards success and mediocrity as being good enough determines what kind of mediocrity a person chooses to settle for in life. 

Good enough might be fine for some, but it rarely is.  Good enough is the version of mediocrity that leads people to gripe about how everyone else has it easier than they do.  It leads people to complain about how they never had the opportunities others had which is why they didn’t succeed.   It’s the scapegoat that allows whiners to point fingers and demand to know why they can’t have all the nice things other people have.

That sort of mediocrity is never going to improve anyone’s life.

The sort of mediocrity that will improve a person’s life is the kind where the individual realizes there are gaps in their education or flaws in their way of perceiving situations, and for that reason, they redouble their efforts to address those deficiencies so they don’t hold them back in life.  It’s an ability to accept that perhaps there are aspects of who they are that don’t allow them to overcome parts of their mediocrity but regardless they continue to strive for a personal best wherein those deficiencies exist.

And make no bones about it, most people who achieve a level of success and excellence didn’t get to where they are by chance.  Even if they inherited money or a business, they still had to find a way to either continue to grow that wealth and manage that business to ensure it wouldn’t fail in years to come.  Very few people are born with silver spoons in their mouths that take them from cradle to casket.

So while it’s important to praise mediocrity, that’s only half of the equation when it comes to succeeding at whatever you set out to do.  The other half of the equation is to constantly seek out excellence whether it’s your own excellence or that of an expert whose opinion and guidance you respect and follow.

Yes, celebrate the fact that all of us can rise up from mediocrity and continue climbing our personal ladders of personal and professional success.  But don’t use mediocrity as a crutch to excuse you from doing the much-needed work to rise above your own mediocrity.  You can move towards success as long as you actually do the work to get there otherwise mediocrity and the good enough mindset will forever hold you back in life.

Elyse Bruce
23 January 2024

The Best Winter Driving Award Goes To …

The first snowfall of the year arrived over the past few days, and social media has been filled with photos and comments about how the snowfall has affected people.  Most photos, comments, and memes talk about the beauty of the first snow fall or about how fierce Mother Nature can be.  However, some comments and memes are anything but nice.

You know the memes and comments I’m talking about, right? The ones that denigrate how people are dealing with the snowfall.

There are northerners laughing at southerners about how they are struggling with having to drive through a few inches of snow while crowing about the prowess of northerners to be able to navigate a couple feet of snow without too much difficulty.  Instead of arguing my opinion versus their opinion, it made more sense to research the facts.

First off, let’s share a map of what constitutes the southern states in the U.S.

Now that we have established what are southern states as opposed to northern states, let’s continue with a few more facts.

According to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System for 2019 through to 2021, with adjustments for vehicle miles traveled and the total winter fatalities per state, the most dangerous state for winter driving was a northern state: Michigan.

The second most dangerous state was Alaska followed by Ohio, Pennsylvania, Montana, and Illinois.

Now you would think that a southern state would rank in the Top 10 but that’s not what the facts indicate, and that’s interesting all in itself because South Carolina has the third-worst drivers in the US according to the information on file with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.  First and second place go to Montana and New Mexico respectively.

So when someone from a northern state claims that southerners don’t know how to drive when it snows, the facts indicate it’s actually northerners who struggle with knowing how to drive when it snows (because it obviously does snow in nearly all of the southern states and it even snows in Texas).

Florida is the only state that can be discounted in this discussion as it’s rare to see any amount of snow in that state but even if there was snow that fell in Florida, the majority of residents in Florida aren’t Floridians by birth (that title goes to only 36% of the population).  The number one source of Florida transplants come from New York followed by New Jersey, Georgia, Illinois, and California.

Getting back to the point of this blog entry, when northerners decide the cautious attitude of southerners when it comes to snowfalls and snowstorms is something worth ridiculing, maybe it’s time to step back and consider the data about how northerners deal with driving in the snow.

Instead of pointing fingers and laughing at drivers living in southern states, maybe a few things can be learned by those doing the finger pointing.

And at the end of the day, if you really want to challenge your driving skills, maybe it’s time to visit Japan and Canada which are noted for having the most snow every year.  Yes, on Japan’s main island of Honshu lies a city known as Aomori that averages 311 inches (nearly 26 feet) of snow every year. Second and third place go to Sapporo (Japan) and Toyama (Japan) respectively, and fourth place goes to Woody Point, Newfoundland (Canada) that averages more than 21 feet of snow every winter.  Forest Montmorency, Quebec (Canada) is a close second with an annual snowfall total of 20 feet.

But just coming from a place where a lot of snow falls every year doesn’t guarantee good winter driving skills.  It just means the person knows what a lot of snow looks like at any given time during the season.

So let’s take a break from disparaging others for their driving habits and start focusing on how we drive those snowy roads.  If you’re a great driver, that’s fantastic. If you’re less than stellar when it comes to driving under certain circumstances, put effort into improving your own driving skills.

Driving through snow and snowstorms isn’t easy, and sometimes the best way to deal with snow and snowstorms is to not drive through them at all.  Stay home instead.  Make some hot chocolate and work from home (if you can) or hang out with loved ones (pets count as loved ones).  If you have a roof over your head, be grateful (not everyone can lay claim to that).

And be kind.

Elyse Bruce
16 January 2024