First Screen Batmobile From 1948. 

MAJOR MATT MASON - MAN IN SPACE

Major Matt Mason, Mattel’s Man in Space.  This is an original 1966 release, as the straps on his space suit are blue.  All subsequent versions of the figures had black straps.

Mattel took full advantage of young Americans’ fascination with the space program by releasing the Major Matt Mason line of astronaut action figures in 1966.

Sgt. Storm on the Space Sled, a flying jet ski-like personal transport.

There were initially three color-coded 6-inch astronaut figures in the line: Major Matt Mason was in a white space suit, Sgt. Storm was in a red space suit, and Mason’s civilian scientist buddy, Doug Davis, wore a yellow suit.  In 1968 a fourth astronaut, African-American Jeff Long, made the scene in a blue spacesuit.

Long’s addition to the line was a bold move on Mattel’s part, as the astronaut program at NASA during that time was lily white.

Astronaut Jeff Long, who appeared nearly 20 years before Guion Bluford became the first black American to orbit Earth.

The figures were a rubber-like body over a thin wire armature - similar to the Gumby and Pokey toys - with molded plastic heads.  The wire armatures and pliable bodies made the figures extremely posable.

All four astronauts lived and worked on the Moon, which was pretty darn cool.  The coolest thing about the Major and his crew, though, was that - initially, at least - all their equipment was based on actual designs and prototypes developed for the space program.

Doug Davis, first civilian on the Moon.

And boy, was there a LOT of equipment and accessories: a flying Space Sled, a Cat Trac one-man tractor, a moon suit, a Space Crawler that used rotating “legs” instead of wheels, and a whole bunch more up to and included a  multi-storey Space Station play set (although it really was a Moon Base).

The Space Station play set in all its glory.

The Space Station was modular, and you could make it taller or shorter by adding or subtracting pieces of the red pylons.  The idea was for kids to have several Space Stations of varying heights, because Major Matt Mason had a ziipline accessory that enabled him to travel between them.

The Moon Crew in their color-coded spacesuits.

In fact, there were so many gadgets and accessories that, even with mid-1960s prices, I’m sure many parents would have had to take out a second mortgage in order to afford them all.

Doug Davis wearing a specialized back pack while riding his Space Sled.

Unfortunately for me, the only accessory I ever received was the rather prosaic Cat Trac.  It wasn’t as exciting as the Space Sled, or as zippy as the Jet Pack (there were a few different versions), or battery-powered like the Space Crawler.  Nevertheless, I used my imagination to make the most of it.

The Cat Trac: looked cool at first glance, but it was only a hollow piece of molded plastic.  Would’ve scored much higher on the coolness scale if the tracks at least moved.

The Moon Suit, based on an actual prototype developed by Grumman.

The Space Bubble was essentially a rickshaw on the Moon: One man did all the work while another just relaxed in the back.

The Space Crawler, the creme de la creme of the Major Matt Mason transport toys.  This guy crawled along at a pretty decent clip, and due to its “legs” it could cover some rugged terrain.

It wasn’t long, however, before someone at Mattel became bored with the relatively realistic theme of the Major Matt Mason line.  Their solution: introduce science fiction elements to make things more exciting.

Captain Lazer, mysterious alien friend to Major Matt Mason and crew.

The first was the introduction in 1967 of Captain Lazer, who was so different from the rest of the line that there is speculation that he was intended for another line of figures entirely, or acquired from a Japanese company (his helmet reminds me of the Toei tokusatsu hero Captain Ultra, which was airing in Japan at the time).

Captain Lazer was 12 - almost 13 - inches tall, towering over Mason and the other astronauts.  His body was made of hard plastic  The head rotated at the neck, the arms rotated at the shoulders, and the legs rotated at the hips, but that was the extent of his articulation.  He had battery powered glowing red eyes and chest plate, as well as the laser pistol that was attached permanently to his hand.  There were attachments that connected to the pistol to change its appearance.  All in all, he looks like a pulp magazine or Golden Age comic book version of a space hero.

Good guy alien Callisto.

Evil alien Scorpio.

Then there were the aliens Callisto and Scorpio.  These were both in scale with the astronaut figures, and came with various gimmicks and accessories.  Callisto, listed as Mason’s friend from Jupiter, had a rubber and wire armature body.   Scorpio was an evil alien had battery-powered glowing eyes.

A first edition version of the good Major.

The astronauts’ equipment became typical science fiction props, like the Firebolt Space Cannon, assorted hand-held weapons, the Super Power Set (think Ripley’s exosuit cargo loader from Aliens), and the Gamma Ray-Gard (a projectile firing toy).

Major Matt Mason even got his own Big Little Book.  This is the only surviving piece of my MMM collection.

I had a lot of fun with the few Major Matt Mason toys I had, as did everyone I knew who had some.  There were, unfortunately, two major problems with the figures that reduced their enjoyment and playability factors.

First, the wire armatures were extremely thin and broke within a matter of days. The wire would then stick out through the rubber body, poking you in the hand every time you picked the figure up.  Meanwhile, the limb the wire was attached to would flop around uselessly.

Second, the paint on the rubber bodies began to flake off almost immediately, exposing the black base.  I remember finding paint flecks all over my hands and clothes each time I played with the figures.  At a price in 1966 of around $2.37 (approximately $22.00 today), the figures weren’t inexpensive, and I know my folks couldn’t afford to replace them.

Sadly, just as America lost its interest in the space program due to severe problems at home (the Vietnam War, Watergate, the oil crisis, rampant inflation), so did kids lose interest in Major Matt Mason.  Mattel cancelled the line abruptly in 1972 and never looked back.

Nevertheless, the Major and his crew have remained favorites of that generation.  Tom Hanks has been trying to get a Major Matt Mason film made for years.

And the Major was a big hit with NASA.  He reportedly been to space as a crew member on several missions of the space shuttle, including Senator John Glenn’s shuttle mission in 1998.  Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if you found him somewhere on the International Space Station.

Today’s reminder that Bradley Manning and Reality Winner were prosecuted and jailed for revealing truths about government wrongdoing that were hidden as official US secrets’.

No actual threat to ‘National Security’ has been articulated.

Edward Snowden is hounded for the same crime of truth-telling.

The US is trying to extradite Julian Assange who is not a US citizen nor in the US when he published- for revealing the truth of US crimes deemed secret because revealing them would jeopardize ‘National Security’.

By contrast the politicians who lied and lied and perjured themselves in open court about non-existent US election fraud are not being tried for their demonstrable insurrectionist threat to ‘National Security’. They are being charged with lesser offenses.

The attorneys who enabled the fraud are being civilly sanctioned; not criminally

Some political and legal liars are being sued in civil courts for the impact of the falsehoods on corporate profits.

Actual January 6th insurrectionist aren’t being charged with insurrection or treason. But for trespassing, assault, vandalism, rioting - Federal offenses solely because they occurred on federal land.

None of those convicted have received a sentence duration that Manning received; few as harsh as Ms. Winners.

None of those in Congress involved in inciting the ‘riot’ or conducting pre-lynching walkthroughs out weak points for entry, or texting the locations of political targets have been inconvenienced by any legal consequences.

None of those in the Administratiion or on the Pentagon who blocked rescue or reinforcements for four hours have been inconvenienced.

Removing the illegally applied veil of secrecy from US government crimes is unequivocally treated as more serious legal concerns than tbe almost successful decapitation of the line of succession and the collapse of Democracy.

Assuming the term ‘democracy’ applies to this oligarchical kleptocracy.

The GOP wonders why young people (and others) don't want to vote for them. Some wise scribe assembled this list.

1.) Your Reagan-era “trickle-down economics” strategy of tax breaks for billionaires that you continue to employ to this day has widened the gap between rich and poor so much that most of them will never be able to own a home, much less earn a living wage.

2.) You refuse to increase the federal minimum wage, which is still $7.25 an hour (since 2009). Even if it had just kept up with inflation, it would be $27 now. You’re forcing people of all ages but especially young people to work multiple jobs just to afford basic necessities.

3.) You fundamentally oppose and want to kill democracy; have done everything in your power to restrict access to the ballot box, particularly in areas with demographics that tend to vote Democratic (like young people and POC). You staged a fucking coup the last time you lost.

4.) You have abused your disproportionate senate control over the last three decades to pack the courts with religious extremists and idealogues, including SCOTUS—which has rolled back rights for women in ways that do nothing but kill more women and children and expand poverty.

5.) You refuse to enact common sense gun control laws to curb mass shootings like universal background checks and banning assault weapons; subjecting their entire generation to school shootings and drills that are traumatizing in and of themselves. You are owned by the NRA.

6.) You are unequivocally against combatting climate change to the extent that it’s as if you’ve made it your personal mission to ensure they inherit a planet that is beyond the point of no return in terms of remaining habitable for the human race beyond the next few generations.

7.) You oppose all programs that provide assistance to those who need it most. Your governors refused to expand Medicaid even during A PANDEMIC. You are against free school lunches, despite it being the only meal that millions of children can count on to actually receive each day

8.) You are banning books, defunding libraries, barring subject matter, and whitewashing history even more in a fascistic attempt to keep them ignorant of the systemic racism that this nation was literally founded upon and continues to this day in every action your party takes.

9.) You oppose universal healthcare and are still trying to repeal the ACA and rip healthcare from tens of millions of Americans and replace it with nothing. You are against lowering the cost of insulin and prescription drugs that millions need simply to LIVE/FUNCTION in society.

10.) You embrace white nationalists, Neo-Nazis, and other groups that are defined by their intractable racism, xenophobia, bigotry, and intolerance. You conspired with these groups on January 6th to try to overthrow the U.S. government via domestic terrorism that KILLED PEOPLE.

11.) You oppose every bill aimed at making life better for our nation’s youth; from education to extracurricular and financial/nutritional assistance programs. You say you want to “protect the children” while you elect/nominate pedophiles and attack trans youth and drag queens.

12.) You pretend to be offended by “anti-semitism” while literally supporting, electing, and speaking at events organized by Nazis. You pretend to hate “cancel culture” despite the fact that you invented it and it’s basically all you do.

13.) Every word you utter is a lie. You are the party of treason, hypocrisy, crime, and authoritarianism. You want to entrench rule by your aging minority because you know that you have nothing to offer young voters and they will never support you for all these reasons and more.

14.) You’re so hostile to even the notion of helping us overcome the mountain of debt that millions of us are forced to take on just to pay for our post K-12 education that you are suing to try to prevent a small fraction of us from getting even $10,000 in loan forgiveness.

15.) You opened the floodgates of money into politics via Citizens United; allowing our entire system of government to become a cesspool of corruption, crime, and greed. You are supposed to represent the American people whose taxes pay your salary but instead cater to rich donors.

16.) You respond to elected representatives standing in solidarity with their constituents to protest the ONGOING SLAUGHTER of children in schools via shootings by EXPELLING THEM FROM OFFICE & respond to your lack of popularity among young people by trying to raise the voting age.

17.) You impeach Democratic presidents over lying about a BJ but refuse to impeach (then vote twice to acquit) a guy whose entire “administration” was an international crime syndicate being run out of the WH who incited an insurrection to have you killed.

18.) You steal Supreme Court seats from democrats to prevent the only black POTUS we’ve ever had from appointing one and invent fake precedents that you later ignore all to take fundamental rights from Americans; and even your “legitimate” appointments consist of people like THIS (sub-thread refuting CJ Roberts criticisms of people attacking SCOTUS’ legitimacy).

19.) You support mass incarceration even for innocuous offenses or execution by cop for POC while doing nothing but protect rich white criminals who engage in such things as tax fraud, money laundering, sex trafficking, rape/sexual assault, falsifying business records, etc.

20.) You are the reason we can’t pass:—Universal background checks—An assault weapons ban—The ‘For the People/Freedom to vote’ Act or John Lewis Voting Rights Act—The ERA & Equality Act—The Climate Action Now Act—The (Stopping) Violence Against Women Act—SCOTUS expansion.

21.) You do not seek office to govern, represent, or serve the American people. You seek power solely for its own sake so you can impose your narrow-minded puritanical will on others at the expense of their most fundamental rights and freedoms like voting and bodily autonomy.

22.) Ok, last one. You are trying to eliminate social security and Medicare that tens of millions of our parents rely on and paid into their entire lives. And you did everything to maximize preventable deaths from COVID leaving millions of us in mourning.

Source: https://imgur.com/gallery/e8DBZLH

Trump & the Military

(This was shamelessly copy/pasted from OP on Reddit (u/myusernameiscool1234, thanks dude!) because it needs to be spread and I wanted to update a tad, add links and reformat it so it's easier to follow. I'm sure I'm missing stuff, so feel free to add to it and I'll try to update accordingly. Please Share!)

On Military Service

• Trump dodged the draft 5 times, 4 for college and 1 by having a doctor diagnose him with bone spurs.

• Trump said having unprotected sex was his own personal Vietnam (1998)

• Trump said “I felt that I was in the military in the true sense because I dealt with those people” because he went to a military-style academy and that he has “more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military”. (2015 biography)

• Trump accepted a Purple Heart from a fan at one of his rallies and said: “I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.” (Aug 2, 2016)

• ⁠No Trump in America has ever served in the military; this spans 5 generations, and every branch of the family tree. In fact, the reason his grandfather immigrated to America was to avoid military service

• Trump made his 2nd wife, Marla Maples, sign a prenup that would have cut off all child support if Tiffany joined the military (reported on June 4th, 2019)

Use & Treatment of Military

• He sent commandos into an ambush due to a lack of intel, and sends contractors to pick them up, resulting in a commando being left behind, tortured, and executed. (Trump approved the mission because Bannon told him Obama didn’t have the guts to do it) (Oct 4, 2017)

• He forgot the aforementioned fallen soldier’s name during a call to his pregnant widow, then attacked her the next day (Oct 23-24, 2017)

• He urged Florida to not count deployed military votes (Nov 12, 2018)

• He used troops as a political prop by sending them on a phantom mission to the border and made them miss Thanksgiving with their families (Oct-Dec, 2018).

• He stopped using troops as a political prop immediately after the election. However, the troops remained in muddy camps on the border (Nov 7, 2018).

• He called troops on Thanksgiving and told them he’s most thankful for himself (Thanksgiving, 2018)

• He fired service members living with HIV just before the 2018 holidays (Dec 19, 2018-present)

• He finally visited troops 2 years after taking office, but only after 154 vacation days at his properties (Dec 26, 2018)

• Trump lied to deployed troops that he gave them a 10% raise. He didn’t give them a 10% raise (Dec 26, 2018). He initially tried to give the military a raise that was lower than the standard living adjustment. This was before Congress told him that idea wasn’t going to work. Then after giving them the raise that Congress made him, he lied about it pretending that it was larger than Obama’s. It wasn’t.

• He revealed a covert Seal Team 5 deployment , including names and faces, on Twitter during his visit to Iraq. Endangering both the operatives and their families. (Dec 26, 2018)

• He refused to sign his party’s funding bill, which shut down the government, and forced a branch of the military (see below) to go without pay. This branch of military was forced to work without pay, otherwise they would be AWOL. However, his appointees got a $ 10,000 pay raise (Dec 22, 2018 – Jan 25, 2019)

• He didn’t pay the Coast Guard, forcing service members to rely on food pantries (Jan 23, 2019)

• He denied female troops access to birth control to limit sexual activity (on-going. Published Jan 18, 2019)

• He banned service members from serving based on gender identity (Jan 22, 2019)

• He diverted military housing funds to pay for border wall (Feb 15, 2019). A judge subsequently denied this. In July 2019, SCOTUS ruled that Trump could in fact divert military housing funds to pay for his wall.

• Trump pardoned war criminals (May, 2019)

• In May 2019, Trump turned away US military from his Memorial Day speech because they were from the destroyer USS John S. McCain. Trump initially ordered the USS John McCain out of sight during his visit to Japan (May 15, 2019) which led to the ship’s name subsequently being covered. (May 27, 2019)

• In June 2019, Trump sent troops to the border to paint the fence for a better “aesthetic appearance” (June 7, 2019)

• Trump demanded US military chiefs stand next to him at 4th of July parade (reported July 2, 2019)

• Trump made the U.S. Navy Blue Angels violate ethics rules by having them fly at his July 4th political campaign (July 4, 2019)

• On July 31, 2019, Trump ordered the Navy rescind medals to prosecutors who were prosecuting war criminals.

• On ⁠October 8th, 2019, Trump plans to withdraw from Open Skies treaty giving Russia the ability to target our military aircraft.

Attacks on Service Members

• Trump said he doesn’t consider POWs heroes because they were caught. Says he "prefers people who were not caught" (July 18, 2015)

• He said he knows more about ISIS than American generals (Oct 2016)

• Trump attacks Gold Star families including: Myeshia Johnson — a gold star widow and the Khan family—gold star parents (2016-present)

• He called a retired general a ‘dog’ with a ‘big, dumb mouth’ (Jan 1, 2019)

• Well documented dislike of Sen. John McCain, going back to his statement on POWs (see above) and leading up to McCain’s passing. On March 20, 2019, Trump complained that deceased war hero, Sen. John McCain, didn’t thank him for his funeral.

• Trump started his D-Day commemoration speech by attacking a private citizen (Bette Midler, of all people) (reported on June 4th, 2019)

• Trump used his D-Day interview at a cemetery commemorating fallen US soldiers to attack Robert Muller, former FBI special counsel and a Vietnam veteran (June 6, 2019)

• Children of deployed US troops will no longer get automatic American citizenship if born overseas during deployment. This includes US troops posted abroad for years at a time (August 28, 2019)

• After he pleading with superiors in a letter asking to offload most of the sailors on the ship in order to allow for social distancing and sanitizing the USS Theodore Roosevelt, Trump attacks Capt. Crozier calling his letter “terrible” and "not appropriate” leading the Secretary of the Navy to remove Capt. Crozier from his post. 114 of 4,000 sailors on the ship had already tested po sitive for COVID-19. (April 3, 2020)

• On June 24, 2020, the White House ends the National Guard's deployments to assist the American people during the COVID-19 pandemic, the day before thousands of National Guard members would qualify for early retirement and education benefits under the Post-9/11 GI bill.

Immigrants in the military

• He deported veterans (2017-present)

• He ordered the discharge of active-duty immigrant troops with good records (2017-present)

• Trump doubled the rejection rate for veterans requesting family deportation protections (July 5, 2018)

• Trump deported active-duty spouses (11,800 military families face this problem as of April 2018).

• Trump deported a spouse of fallen Army soldier killed in Afghanistan, leaving their daughter parentless. The US has since overturned this as of April 16, 2019.

• In July 2019, Trump denied a United States Marine of 6 years entry into the United States for his scheduled citizenship interview (Reported July 17, 2019)

Treatment of Veterans

• For a decade, Trump sought to kick veterans off of Fifth Avenue because he found them unsightly nuisances outside of Trump Tower. Being quoted as saying, “While disabled veterans should be given every opportunity to earn a living, is it fair to do so to the detriment of the city as a whole or its tax paying citizens and businesses?” in 1991.

• Trump sent funds raised from a January 2016 veterans’ benefit to the Donald J Trump Foundation instead of veteran’s charities (Jan, 2016). The foundation has since been ordered shut because of fraud and Trump to pay $2 million in damages as of November 2019.

• The controversy surrounding wether or not he said vets get PTSD because they "aren’t strong" (Oct 3, 2016)

• He blocked a veteran group on Twitter (June 2017)

• Trump changed the GI Bill through his Forever GI Act.

• Trump changing the GI Bill caused the VA to miss veteran benefits, including housing allowances and forced many veterans to run out of food and rent. “You can count on us to serve, but we can’t count on the VA to make a deadline,” one veteran said. (reported October 7, 2018)

• While in Europe commemorating the end of WWI, he didn’t attend the ceremony at a US cemetery due to the rain – but other world leaders went anyway (Nov 10, 2018)

• He got three Mar-a-Lago guests to run the VA (unknown start – present, made well-known in 2018)

• He increased privatization of the VA, leading to longer waits and higher taxpayer cost (2018)

• He tried to slash disability and unemployment benefits for Veterans to $0, and eliminate the unemployability extrascheduler rating (Dec 17, 2018)

• He canceled an Arlington Cemetery visit on Veterans Day due to light rain (Nov 12, 2018)

• He tried to deport a marine vet who is a U.S.-born citizen (Jan 16, 2019). He deported countless other veterans (2017-present)

• When a man was caught swindling veterans’ pensions for high-interest “cash advances,” Trump’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined him $1. As a reminder, the Trump administration’s goal was to dismantle the CFPB, installing Mick Mulvaney as the director, who publicly stated the bureau should be disbanded. (Jan 26, 2019)

• Trump purged 200,000 veterans’ healthcare applications (due to known administrative errors within VA’s enrollment process and enrollment system) (reported on May 13, 2019)

• On August 2, 2019, Trump requisitioned military retirement funds towards the border wall.

🌎

Sertraline/Venlafaxine/citalopram/mirtazapine/fluoxetine/escitalopram/klonopin/buspirone/abilify/quetiapine/propranolol/amitriptyline the list goes on!

So if you're unlucky enough to know what these tablets are or know a loved one who takes them, then I don't have to describe to you what this post is regarding. But if you don't I will fill you in.

That medication allows people to deal with a normal day to day life. Although most days it leaves them tired, spaced out and emotionless. Crazy right? 🤷🏼‍♀️Why would anyone want to feel like that. Well this is why.

You see some people suffer from depression, anxiety, ocd, ptsd and borderline personality disorder.

In their brain it doesn't sit right, something seems different. They notice little differences that 'normal' people wouldn't notice.

That comment you didn't tag them in, but you tagged other people? They see that, and say to themselves why didn't you tag me? What's up with me?

You read that message they sent and they see that you did, but you didn't reply.. why didn't you reply? And they feel like they have done something to upset you?

You didn't say I love you on the phone.. do you not love them anymore? Do you love someone else instead?

They just made a comment about them was it a joke? Was that person supposed to laugh? Or did they mean it? Are they being nice? Are they talking about them? Do they talk about them? And they then think I bet they don’t like me really.

They say sorry all the time. They feel like they annoy everyone. Are you mad at me? Because they feel like you’re mad at them ALL.THE.TIME!

And for all those questions they will spend hours trying to answer. Let it all build up in their mind, until it sends them to tears...... it's mental isn't it!!! They see things that way.

It's not only mental changes, but physical changes. They don't eat a lot, mainly rubbish, because they need it now and need the energy from lack of sleep. Insomnia, up all night answering questions to situations that don't even exist, or sleep too much and waste half their day still feeling tired.

They still smile and they have every excuse for when you ask why.

But the tablets can help them.

Because they know when they start to feel this way or think this way, they need help.

They know that when their behaviour starts to change, they need guidance.

And they understand that they don't need to be ashamed. They don't need to be understood. They just need to be accepted. Everyone is fighting a battle and sometimes you need to be kinder.

So I may just be another person who's talking about mental health....

Living with this illness is hard, but trying to understand it, is even harder. It’s also 100 times harder if they have another condition on top of this.

Don't suffer in silence.❤

In the aftermath of Roe v. Wade being overturned, here’s some resources:

1. AbortionFinder.org

2. Planned Parenthood’s Find a Health Center

3. ABC News’ state-by-state legality list

4. Politico’s state-by-state legality list

Abortion-friendly (one asterisk indicates potential change and two asterisks indicate some limitations) U.S. states include:

Alaska

Arizona*

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware

D.C.

Florida**

Georgia*

Hawaii

Illinois

Indiana**

Iowa**

Kansas**

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan*

Minnesota

Montana

Nebraska**

Nevada**

New Jersey

New Hampshire**

New Mexico

New York**

North Carolina*

Ohio*

Oregon

Pennsylvania**

Rhode Island

South Carolina*

Vermont

Virginia**

Washington

5. Finally, an important reminder: Research Shows Access to Legal Abortion Improves Women’s Lives

Suleiman Class Scout/Courier, Type S ship, Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society No 6, GDW, 1980 (William H Keith Jr cover)