#Colombian Blues Society

[socialjusticeinamerica]

There are hundreds of millions of southern European white people with an olive (tan) complexion. It’s what happens when white folk live in warm sunny climates. Same is true in South America where tens of millions more of white/white identifying people have been living for generations. Being Hispanic or having a Spanish name doesn’t mean you automatically aren’t white or capable of being a racist.

Fascism held sway in Spain and to a lesser extent next door in Portugal for a good part of the 20th century. Fascism, usually hand in hand with racism, also has a history in South and Central America. Even if someone doesn’t identify as white doesn’t mean they can’t be racist, or xenophobic, etc. Bigotry exists outside the box that young Americans want to fit it in. Only a small percentage of Europeans are pale, blonde/red, and blue-eyed. The overwhelming majority have dark hair and brown eyes, and many more are olive. This simplistic bullshit that someone can’t be a white supremacist because they have an ethnic sounding name is ridiculous MAGA talking points that’s being bought into by Dems. Republikkkan talking points have become so pervasive and so persistent that a majority of progressives buy into them without question or even being aware of it. We’re wasting time debating the perceived identity of a killer that was radicalized for the sole purpose of murdering and intimidating us.

In point of fact the press using the term white supremacist to describe the Allen, Texas shooter is in itself fallacious. He was a staunch xenophobe (and repeated “Great Replacement Theory” tropes learned from Tucker Carlson) and billions world wide don’t like immigrants, it isn’t limited to Caucasian Americans. I’ve said this before, Republikkkans can not generate enough angry white guys so they have been recruiting heavily among “Hispanics” to bolster their numbers. 1/3 of of Hispanics are registered Republikkkans. They have also been recruiting from other groups with much less success. Stop putting people from South America into boxes, that methodical behavior is an Anglo-Saxon characteristic that was transplanted here. Decades of radicalization are bearing fruit for the far-right while we quibble over whether or not the Republikkkans are actually attacking us.

People from South America identify by national origin just like everyone else. They’re Colombians, Peruvians, etc. Terms like Hispanic, Latino, Chicano, etc are inventions of American immigration officials trying to fit people into boxes. Why are we (our media) so obsessed with this when Republikkkans are launching their decades long planned assault on our basic human rights.

MAGAts, white supremacists, Nazis, xenophobe, Aryan Brotherhood, Atom-Waffen, III%’ers, etc can and do find kindred spirits beyond national origin and outdated stereo-types based on appearances. Our enemies are evolving and branching out. We must be aware of their present and historical attempts to spin what they want us to believe. Further you need to know historical context. American racist groups admire fascist dictatorships from South and Central America and wish to emulate them, hence the “Right Wing Death Squad” logos. They admire and learn terrorist tactics from radical Islamic groups as well. Look at WWII, you’d think the “Aryan” German Nazis would have had a problem with the Asian Japanese. Just the opposite, both the Japanese and Germans at the time felt they were racially superior to their respective neighbors and bonded over being kindred spirits. It wasn’t a political expediency. They were too far apart to support each other or have any meaningful trade. They were fascist states that both wanted to impose their own unique fascism in there own sphere. We can’t let history repeat itself either here or abroad.

Not enough people in our society are taking the threat of Republikkkan fascists seriously. If you’re taking the time to read this rant then you were already in the know but the general public, both our side and theirs are not. This threat goes beyond the identity politics so en vogue with young people, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s part of a much bigger war against us all. Republikkkans don’t even realize they’ve been co-opted by Nazi’s and the few that do don’t care.

I’ll keep repeating this ad nauseum but the racists, homophobes, militias, evangelicals, xenophobes, Republikkkan politicians, and even the fascists are all foot soldiers duped into waging war against the rest of us by the billionaire oligarchs and their corporations. It always comes back to money. Yes they share most of the same beliefs and each thinks they are manipulating the others. But the only ones with the power (dollars) to bring this shit storm together in a cohesive fashion are the oligarchs. The Rupert Murdochs, Elon Musks, Koch, Walton, etc are coordinating and funding everything for power and profit. Meanwhile we are fighting a Hydra of Nazis, Confederates, Klansmen, evangelists, and armed militias.

In 2020 we took to the streets to protest the George Floyd execution but that quickly morphed into a widespread national protest of Trump. We can’t only begin massive protests when one of our African-American allies is killed unjustly. We should be doing this for every major issue of the day; abortion rights, disenfranchisement of black voters, gun control, trans-persecution, preservation of Medicare/Social Security, migrant rights, union rights, and all basic human rights that the corporate/Christo/fascist/Republikkkans are taking away from us. They are no longer content to persecute people of color and are coming for us all, at once.

This isn’t an intellectual exercise anymore, we have become a de facto fascist state under the yoke of an oppressive and hostile Republikkkan Party. They aren’t even pretending to disguise it anymore. Their leaders and political spokesmen are openly telling us they are going to strip our rights and begin sending us to death camps. They’re past the concentration camps already and we barely even protested those on the border. Between their control of the state legislatures and the Supreme Court they are doing as they please and will begin overturning election results in 2024. A few more takeovers of state legislatures and they will hold a Constitutional Convention to write a MAGA/Republikkkan Constitution.

Now is the time to fight. Resisting didn’t work and a tidal wave of GQP laws and SCOTUS decisions prove that every day. You can not take the high road with Nazis or anyone who is literally trying to kill you.

Rant concluded. Please bear in mind this is food for thought and not an incitement to violence. Remember John Lewis and his “good trouble.” Also try to refrain from violent comments about Republikkkans in comments, notes, and reblogs. We certainly don’t want any of us to be de-platformed by admins.

✌️

[dear-indies]

Hiya! Messaging to request some fc suggestions please? Needing help finding an fc for my character who will is very southern gothic, Ethel chain's Preacher's Daughter album, bones & all and southern blues inspired, I imagine her as dark haired and between ages of 25 to mid 30s - all ethnicities/races/genders come but if you don't mind me specifying , can I ask for only actors to be listed please? Aka no influences, singers or models etc - thank you so so much in advance!!!

Southern gothic, Ethel cain fc request here again sorry!! Forgot to add but if you don't mind me adding - also ideally someone who gives off messy/haphazard vibes please?? Kinda like they're obviously on the road a lot so have a permanent grease vibe?? So sorry if that's too specific and apologies again for adding this bug again tysm in advance!!!

Annabelle Wallis (1983) - Malignant.

Diane Guerrero (1986) Colombian - Doom Patrol.

Jodi Balfour (1987) - Quarry.

Courtney Bandeko (1988) Nigerian - Legacies.

Ritu Arya (1988) Indian - Lady Parts, Polite Society.

Nadia Hilker (1988) Tunisian / German - in The Walking Dead.

Nico Tortorella (1988) - is genderfluid, poly, pansexual and demisexual (any pronouns) - Fear The Walking Dead.

Rob Raco (1989) - Riverdale.

Hannah John-Kamen (1989) Nigerian / Norwegian - Resident Evil.

Michael Vlamis (1990) 37.5% Lebanese 25% Greek 25% Serbian 12.5% English - Roswell: New Mexico.

Emory Cohen (1990) - Lords of Chaos.

Kiowa Gordon (1990) Hualapai, English, Scottish, Danish, Manx - Blood Quantum.

Sarah Kameela Impey (1991) Indo-Guyanese / British - iWe Are Lady Parts.

Vico Ortiz (1991) Puerto Rican - non-binary (they/them) - Our Flag Means Death.

Joe Keery (1992) - Stanger Things.

Kiana Madeira (1992) Portuguese / Irish, Unspecified First Nations, Black Canadian - Fear Street.

Hari Nef (1992) Ashkenazi Jewish - is trans - Assassin Nation.

Katerina Tannenbaum (1993) - Betty,

Joseph Quinn (1993) - Stranger Things.

Taylor Russell (1994) Black Canadian / European - Bones and All.

Han Sohee (1994) Korean - My Name.

Lily Sullivan (1994) - Evil Dead Rise.

Sophia Ali (1995) Pakistani / Sicilian Italian, Danish, Norwegian, German - Uncharted, The Wilds.

Sasha Lane (1995) African-American, Māori, English, Scottish, Sorbian, French, Cornish, distant German, Italian, Belgian Flemish, Russian, and Northern Irish - is gay and has schizoaffective disorder - American Honey.

Adeline Rudolph (1995) Korean / German - Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

Sarah Pidgeon (1996) - The Wilds.

Elliot Fletcher (1996) - is trans masc - Y: The Last Man.

Aria Shahghasemi (1996) Iranian - Legacies.

Archie Renaux (1997) English, Punjabi Indian.

Luka Sabbat (1997) Afro-Haitian, Irish, English, German.

Sydney Park (1997) African-American / Korean - There’s Someone Inside Your House.

Daisy Edgar-Jones (1998) - Where the Crawdads Sing.

Julia Dalavia (1998) Brazilian - Pantanal.

Felix Mallard (1998)

Hey anon! This ask was way harder than it should have been so I hope my followers give you more suggestions because I was struggling! Please keep in mind that some of these just give move around vibes.

[honeyleesblog]

June 10 ZODIAC

They are amiable individuals, who endeavor to plan and communicate their perspectives and impact the climate. Hence, they ought to track down somebody close by. They frequently go through the world with their satisfaction. They like to be perceived and might want to be decided on their keenness. Since they are to be sure insightful, with exceptional knowledge and understanding. They have a decent memory and learn everything without any problem. Because of their extraordinary tirelessness, flexible abilities, and persuasiveness, they can make a lifelong in any calling. They are particularly capable in a wide range of exchange. Nonetheless, they frequently change their calling as they are uncertain and reluctant. Their shortcoming is too minimal self-assurance, which could hurt them. They frequently act and think in an unexpected way, being saved and shrewd. They are very exotic commonly, with a liking for religion and mystery. They put stock in dreams and dreams, they have an interest in the profound life and they are entranced with everything uncommon and unusual. Be that as it may, researchers appreciate studies and frequently go into collaboration with researchers. The incredible companions of the present birthday are persuasive individuals. His life is loaded with work, generally delegated with progress. They have a very great job and they get perceived. What would it be a good idea for them to look out for? Try not to let your interest with the abnormal lead you down risky ways. June 10 ZODIAC 

 Assuming your birthday is June 10, your zodiac sign is Gemini June 10 - character and character character: energetic, unbendable, valiant, abnormal, furious, wary; calling: pilot, servant, entertainer/entertainer; colors: orange, olive, white; stone: beryl; creature: crow; plant: Snapdragon; fortunate numbers: 7,9,12,22,38,39 very fortunate number: 29 Occasions and observances - June 10 Portugal: Portugal, Camoes and Portuguese People group Day. Argentina: Day of the Assertion of Argentine Privileges over the Malvinas, Islands and Antarctic Area. Worldwide Heraldry Day. June 10 VIP birthday celebrations. Who was conceived that very day as you? 1903: Theo Lingen, German entertainer and chief (d. 1978). 1904: Luis Moya Blanco, Spanish engineer and scholarly. 1904 - Frederick Loewe, American arranger. 1905: Juan Rof Carballo, Spanish specialist and author (d. 1994). 1908: Robert Cummings, American film and TV entertainer (d. December 2, 1990), 1910: Julie Haydon, American entertainer (d. 1994). 1910: Howlin 'Wolf, American blues performer. 1915: Saul Howl, Canadian author, Nobel Prize for Writing in 1976. 1917: Luis Ramirez Saldarriaga, Colombian vocalist of well known music. 1920: Josდ© Manuel Castanდ³n, Spanish writer. 1921: Felipe Mountbatten, English blue-blood. 1921: Jean Robic, French cyclist. 1922: Judy Wreath, American vocalist and entertainer (d. 1969). 1923: Philippe Pinchemel, French geographer (d. 2008). 1927: Ladislao Kubala, Spanish footballer of Hungarian beginning (f. 2002). 1927: Diana Maggi, Argentine entertainer. 1927: Karl-Heinz Adler, German stone carver and calculated craftsman. 1928: Maurice Sendak, American essayist and illustrator. 1929: Edward Osborne Wilson, American scholar. 1931: Joao Gilberto, Brazilian artist lyricist and guitarist. 1932: Irma Roy, Argentine entertainer. 1934: Emiliano Rodrდ­guez, Spanish ball player. 1935 - Vic Elford, English engine hustling driver. 1936: Tito Lectoure, Argentine money manager (d. 2002). 1937: Manuel Vicent, Spanish essayist and writer. 1938: Violetta Manors, Clean soprano (d. 2011). 1939: John Joseph Bossano, Boss Pastor of Gibraltar (1988-1996). 1941: Josდ© Antonio Ardanza, Spanish lawmaker. 1941: Graciela Borges, Argentine entertainer. 1943: Zamba Quipildor, Argentine society vocalist. 1944: Yona Wallach, Israeli writer (d. 1985). 1949: Frankie Faison, American entertainer. 1953: Andrდ©s Trapiello, Spanish writer. 1953: John Edwards, American lawmaker. 1954: Jorge Marshall Rivera, Chilean business analyst. 1958: Alfredo Adame, entertainer and Mexican TV moderator. 1958: G. Harishankar, Indian percussionist (f. 2002). 1958: Berta Pereira, Uruguayan percussionist. 1959: Carlo Ancelotti, Italian footballer and mentor. 1959: Vდ­ctor Cდ¡mara, Venezuelan film and TV entertainer. 1960: Nandamuri Balakrishna, Indian lawmaker and film entertainer. 1961: Juan Fernando Lდ³pez Aguilar, Spanish lawmaker. 1961: Kim Arrangement, American artist and lyricist, of the band Sprites. 1961: Kelley Arrangement, American artist, of the band The Reproducers. 1962: Gina Gershon, American entertainer. 1962: Vincent Pდ©rez, Swiss entertainer of Spanish beginning. 1962: Fernando Olmeda, Spanish columnist. 1963: Jeanne Tripplehorn, American entertainer. 1964: Jimmy Chamberlin, American artist, of the band The Crushing Pumpkins. 1965: Elizabeth Hurley, English entertainer. 1965: Joey Santiago, Filipino artist, of the band Imps. 1968: Bill Burr, American comedian. 1969: Patricia Teherდ¡n, Colombian artist and lyricist (f. 1995). 1969: Ariel Raiman, Argentine artist, of the band Los Pericos. 1970: Gerdur Kristnდ½, Icelandic essayist. 1970: Miguel დ?ngel Rodrდ­guez "El Sevilla", Spanish artist, comic, radio personality and entertainer. 1971: Bruno N'Gotty, French footballer. 1971: Soraya Sდ¡enz de Santamarდ­a, Spanish lawmaker. 1973: Confidence Evans, American artist. 1976: Jorge Federico de Prusia, German blue-blood. 1976: Michel Brown, Argentine entertainer. 1976: Mariana Seoane, Mexican artist and entertainer. 1978: DJ Qualls, American entertainer. 1979: Vდ­ctor Moreno, Venezuelan baseball player. 1979: Ivდ¡n Rana, Spanish long distance runner. 1979: Jake Tsakalidis, Greek-Georgian ball player. 1980: Francelino Matuzalem, Brazilian soccer player. 1980: Carlos Castel, Spanish entertainer and moderator. 1981: Aly Amr Fathalah, DJ and music maker of Egyptian beginning, individual from the band Aly and Fila. 1981: Ewerthon, Brazilian soccer player. 1981: Alejandro Damiდ¡n Domდ­nguez, Argentine footballer. 1981: Jonathan Bennett, American entertainer and model. 1981: Gabriel Valenzuela, Colombian entertainer. 1982: Magdalena of Sweden, Swedish princess. 1983: Mercedes Oviedo, Argentine entertainer. 1983: Marion Stylist III, previous American football player. 1989: Alexandra Stan, Romanian vocalist. 1991: Pol Espargarდ³, Spanish bike racer. 1992: Kate Upton, American entertainer and model. 1996: Jun, Chinese entertainer, vocalist and artist.

[writingwithcolor]

Find your next diverse read! (WWC Reader Publications)

We asked you to tell us about your publications to have it featured on our page, so here we are! These are the ten (10) books submitted to us written by Writing With Color readers. Thank you for sharing your lovely diverse works. Folks who missed out on this shout-out or haven’t had their works released just yet, look out for more submit requests in the future! 

Book Titles 

The Apprentice Sorceress

Change of Address

Eight Secret Nights

Firebreed

Illusive: Need vs Want

Inspired

The Language of Flowers

Rescues and the Rhyssa

The Sleeping Seer

The Unlikely Tale of the Royal Elite Squad

Book Descriptions

Title: The Apprentice Sorceress

Author: E.D. Walker | @beth-a-saurus

Series: Yes. Stand-alone Series.

Buy: Amazon | Goodreads

Premise: A lady would never practice magic…until now. Using magic could destroy her reputation, but denying her powers could get her killed.

Themes/Elements: Orphans, nobility, fake relationship, a ball

Main Character (MC) Race/Ethnicity: Mixed Race - Black and White

Other Diversity: Trans boy love interest

Title: Change of Address

Author: Jordan Brock | @anauthorandherservicedog

Series: No

Buy: Goodreads | Amazon 

Premise: Disabled veteran Michael Baldwin retreats to his family’s vacation home with his service dog, Kaylee, intending to rebuild his life without giving in to his father’s political ambitions. On his first day there, he discovers the local bagel shop – and proprietor Josh Goldberg. Letting someone in is a tall order for two men who can’t trust themselves, but if they have any hope of a future together, that’s exactly what they’ll need to do.

Themes/Elements: Romance

MC Background: Michael (white), Josh (white, Jewish, adopted, ownvoices)

Other Diversity: Queer (gay, bisexual), Jewish family (ownvoices), mental illness (PTSD, anxiety, service dog, ownvoices; also aphasia and dyslexia), physical disability (traumatic brain injury), weight (fat character, insecurity but no fat-shaming, ownvoices)

Title: Eight Secret Nights (short story)

Author: Shoshana David | @rosefyrefyre

Series:  No

Buy: Books 2 Read

Premise: Someone’s been leaving Hanukkah presents on Mara’s doorstep.  Sweet presents – thoughtful presents.  Hopefully her secret admirer is the cute guy who moved in next door and not the creep from 7A.

Themes/Elements: Romance, Secret Admirer, Hanukkah

MC Background: Jewish, White

Title: Firebreed

Author: Aviendha Rounds | @lady-of-the-summer-court

Series: Yes

Buy: Amazon

Premise: The twins Amber and Ember find themselves thrust into a world on the brink of civil war.

Themes/Elements: Young adult, War, coming of age, super rad sword fights, fantasy and sci fi

MC Race: Filipino

Other Characters: Japanese, African American, Mexican

Other Diversity: LGBT characters, mental illness

Title: Illusive: Need vs Want (Novella)

Author: By Celeste-Marie Lyon @celeste-marie-lyon

Series: Book 1 in The Illusive Series (Book 2 is available also)

Buy: Amazon | Nook | Smashwords

Premise: Alyssa was on a well-deserved vacation when she met the lead singer of Djed. The two hit it off immediately but is there more to their attraction? Will Alyssa let down her guard and give Marcu a chance? There may be something stronger than chemistry drawing them together.

Themes/Elements: Romance, Erotica

MC Race: Black

R/E Others: White/Sicilian, Asian

Title: Inspired

Author: Danielle E. Shipley | @outlawsofavalon

Series: Yes; 2 novels, 1 flash fic, and 1 journal published, so far.

Buy: Amazon

Premise: An author’s sudden death means her characters need to find a replacement writer to be their home and tell their stories. 16-year-old Annabelle could be just what they’re looking for. …if she can put in the work to one exacting muse’s satisfaction.

Themes/Elements: The art of writing; imaginary friends; multiple planes of realty; stories within stories

MC Race: Annabelle = African American

Other Characters: Apart from Annabelle and her family, no human* races/ethnicities are specified (*fantastic races like light elemental and cat god, though present and hella awesome, don’t count)

Other Diversity: Both Annabelle and character Uri identify as asexual

Title: The Language of Flowers

Author: Christina Rose Andrews | @christinaroseandrews

Series: No

Buy: Books2Read

Premise: Afghanistan vet and new teacher, Cole Visser, never expected to find himself teaching at his old high school. Which is why when he runs into his old college girlfriend, Zara, and her cute-as-a-button daughter, Angelica, Cole’s life turns on its head. How is he going to reconcile his feelings for the one who got away while trying to build a relationship with his newly discovered daughter?

Themes/Elements: Romance, Second Chance Romance, Teachers

MC Race: White

Other Characters: Hispanic/White Bi-racial.

Other Diversity: LGBTQIA+, disability, mental illness, etc.) Main character is an amputee with PTSD, Love Interest has Depression

Title: Rescues and the Rhyssa

Author: TS Porter | @ts-porter

Series: No

Buy: Goodreads

Premise: Cadan is the king of Nidum star system’s favorite weapon, and his beloved cousin. Her sometimes-lover and main annoyance Sophi captains a smuggler ship. When the king’s children are kidnapped, Cadan knows only Sophi has the skills to help her get them back before full war breaks out.

Themes/Elements: Lesbians IN SPACE, aliens, antagonistic relationship to romance, family both found and blood, love in many permutations

MC Race: Black

Other Races: Chinese diaspora

Other Diversity: Lesbians, Trans characters, Disabled characters, Nonbinary characters, Muslim characters, Polyamorous characters

Title: The Sleeping Seer

Author: Morgan Blue Malory | @morganbluemalory

Series: Yes

Buy: Amazon

Premise: Siblings Luke and Ellie Kakiro are the last surviving members of an ancient line of seers. Armed only with their late mother’s journal to teach them control over a perilous and oftentimes forbidden gift, the two become the target of complex hidden societies and forces not entirely human. Entangled with Lilith, a complicated woman trapped in the modern world and on the run from the same enemies, and aided by Viper Insane, an all-women street-racing gang, the Kakiro siblings journey across the country—and sometimes between worlds—in search of the secrets behind their mother’s research.

Themes/Elements: modern fantasy, magic & tarot, family, the first generation experience, mental illness worsened/complicated by magic, moral dilemmas, society, girl gangs

MC Race: Mixed - Puerto Rican, White, and Middle Eastern/North African Diaspora

Other Characters: Colombian, Mixed - White, Middle Eastern/North African Diaspora

Other Diversity: Bisexual main character, LGBTQIA+ major secondary characters; mentally ill main character & major secondary character

Title: The Unlikely Tale of the Royal Elite Squad

Author: D.A. Alston | @da-alston

Series: Yes

Buy:  Amazon | Character Artwork 

Premise: It’s a coming of age tale about 4 young and very different girls who get paired together for a science fair project. Something goes wrong and they end up blowing up their school. The series follows them afterwards as they try to pick up the pieces of their lives, manage new friendships, juggle school, maneuver through family drama all while discovering new abilities.

Themes/Elements: Superhero, Friendship, Diversity, Life skills

MC Race: Cuban/Puerto Rican , African American , Caucasian , and Pakistani

Other Characters: Creole

Other Diversity: Muslim, Plus size

If you enjoy any of these books, let us know here so the author can see! Also please leave a review on goodreads, amazon, etc. 

WWC Reader Publications - Spring 2019

[retroandreal]

Trust Issues (Antonio x MC)

She’s back, baby!! Usual kinda fluffy, angsty fic in Antonio’s POV. This was inspired by the song ‘Trust Issues’ by Drake and I have been keeping the song on repeat for the longest time now cause... Drake’s voice is just honey butter. Also, I’m half Colombian so I saw this as a perfect opportunity to include some Spanish in it (just basic words and phrases, nothing too complex). I hope you all enjoy and I love every single one of you. Especially you; @official-alex-cyprin

Summary: Little snippets from Antonio’s route from Havenfall is for Lovers in his point of view; before meeting our sarcastic MC, revealing he is a vampire and the moment Eva was turned on the private beach

Warnings - mentions of blood and medical procedures

“I promise you, mi hermana. I am close to finding a cure for you”

MC; Havenfall. Not too far from the Indiana branch of DSD Corp. Tomorrow night, I go and seek this girl who holds the special blood to potentially save my precious Evita. For many life spans, I have worked tirelessly to find the miracle to save you and I have a feeling that I am very close with this woman in Havenfall. I have done everything to save you; my life, this company and many late nights all for you and I would do it again in a heartbeat and nothing with stop me from finding that cure for you… even if I have to kill for it.

All I care about is money and the city that I’m from

You never deserved any of this. If I had to give up my own life to save you, I would have done it many years ago. If I had to give up my sworn hermano and his own life, I would do so with no remorse. Every day, you’re slowly getting weaker and weaker and cannot bare to watch you frail away while I did nothing all those years ago. Diego, cabron, you are a doctor, yet you shy away from what was once the most important thing in your life all those years ago. Diego, I am coming for your city, and I will stop at nothing to get the blood of that girl to save Evita. If you were in my position, I know you would have done the same.

“Mierda… when did I get so hungry”

The mini fridge (or personal blood bank) was just restocked a few hours ago. One of the perks of working within the medical industry is the seemingly ethical sources of blood that I need. Regardless, I have been rationing the blood and volunteering them for Evita’s emergency source. It’s doing the job of keeping her vitals alive and breathing but I know that mortal, human blood is slowly poisoning her. There was a time where I would feed unforgivingly on other humans, back then. Not because I was insatiably hungry, but I was frustrated. Frustrated and angry at the world and I wanted to see the life slowly get sucked from it, just as Evita’s life is slowly sucked from her own.

I’mma sip until I feel it, I’mma smoke it till it’s done

I was young back then and full of rage. It was a temporary fixation and I don’t really give a fuck and my excuse was that I was young. I grew up, older and wiser… eventually. I started to look for a more permanent solution for Evita’s sickness hence why I and now CEO of DSD Corp.

“Grace… scholarship acceptee to the University of Indiana. Family; MC”

Grace, huh? Looks like I found my connection to Evita’s cure quicker than I anticipated.

“Well. My dear ‘Grace’, how do you fancy studying abroad in Spain?”

~~~~~

“Somebody should have told you, MC”

She’s trembling. A mixture of shock, awe and fear. She had just found out, through me, that her hometown and closest friends have been immortal monsters, and no one told her anything. What is this feeling? It’s not mine. Are these her projections of her anguish and feelings that I can feel as well? No, there has to be an explanation for this. I haven’t felt this sensation since Diego, Evita and I were altogether on the streets of Spain over a hundred years ago.

She turns to me. Now, I feel the anger radiating off of her body

“Is that why you paid for Grace to go to Spain on scholarship? Just so you could get to me. Fine, just kill me dammit! Tear me to pieces! I don’t know what your kind do!”

What is this feeling? She’s the one I am supposed to drain the life out of in order to save Evita. But I cannot simply bring myself to do so. Clueless is what she is. She knows nothing about this life or the vampire society. I offer her a middle ground;

“Say, MC. It appears that you are very mistaken of my needs and my vendettas. I am not here in Havenfall to kill you. Your friends, however, would be the one to tear ME to pieces if they ever found out I even harmed a single hair on you especially that djinn friend of yours.” She ponders over that thought and slowly agrees.

“Well, I guess you have a point there… Th-That doesn’t mean that I should trust you right away you know!” Tears well up in her eyes. Her icy blue orbs becoming glassy and she fails to keep her sobs at bay while she talks. “Grace is my only family… Antonio. Do you know what it feels like to have your only family taken away from you and you just feel helpless? Like you can’t do anything more, that they deserve even more than what you are capable of giving them?”

I do. I really do. I know she does not possess the same abilities as I do but I try to convey the most empathetic of feelings as I can.

“Her name is Evita, Eva if you would prefer. She’s dying, MC. The blood that I have been able to source for her has only been able to keep her vitals stable, but it’s not permanent. You’re special, MC. I need some of your blood to save her. Please?”

You’re the only one, I don’t trust these others

She shifts uncomfortably on the bar stool

“Ok, fancy me this. I can teach you all you need to know about the vampire society; the good and the bad in order to gain your trust for this. I will not keep secrets only if you ask me to, trato?”

Her beautiful blue eyes roll to the back of her head

You’ll know what I’m sippin’, I’ll teach you how to mix it

“You gotta stop with the Spanish spiels okay? I can barely speak English fluently and my kneejerk reactions usually consists of mono-syllable sounds. But, fine. I will help Eva for you. NOT because I am doing it for you. But because I have a sister too, and I would do anything for her. So, I guess I kinda know what your go is here. Like, we’re not that different you and I when it comes down to it.”

She looks down towards the tips of her bowling sneakers and plays with the frayed hem of her uniform

“You really love her… don’t you, Antonio?”

Now you’re understanding where I’m coming from, mi Salvador, so it will not take you long to realise that you will need to keep your promises for my livelihood, and Evita’s life… and your life too.

~~~~~

“Lillian, do it”

The powerful coven leader sinks her teeth into Evita’s flesh as she starts the controlled ritual of turning her, into one of us. No longer bonded by the blood of a third party, who was also draining the life of someone that used to trust me until they would breathe their last breath. She chose to be present for the turning of Evita, slightly overdressed for the beach location but nonetheless, she’s still here. Despite us not being connected by our bond, not together… I still love her and everything that she stands for. If it was not for her bravery, Evita would not have even been able to gain consciousness to even consent to her turning into someone like me. I was very against it at first, but I can never disregard the wishes of my baby sister. Despite us being ‘broken up’ and she put it, she still helped Evita, she knew it was slowly draining the life out of her; as far as her passing out from the amount of blood that had been sucked from her in order to keep Evita alive. But she never backed down or ran away. But she ran away from me. Because I am the monster that was selfish enough to strip her of her own freewill in order to keep her by my side.

“A-Antonio?”

“Evita! Mi hermana” I run to her side as she opens her eyes; coloured like the blood moon, just like me. I check over every inch of her body to make sure she isn’t bleeding from anywhere else besides the two puncture wounds in her neck. She is safe. Here. Alive. One of the most important women in my life is now safe. The long hours and billions of dollars funneled, hanging onto a thin string of hope that I can bring her back from her unconscious state.

I catch her in the corner of my eye, slowly sinking her body into the ocean. I let her be… until I feel a throbbing and burning sensation within my lungs. I can still feel her. No, I can once again feel her. Another localized pain radiates through me. Within my heart; a dull but hurting ache. She is hurting as much as I am. Being away from her. She agreed to stay friends for the sake of Evita but nothing more. I was the one that pushed her away in the first place, for her protection. But I acted like nothing more than a selfish bastard towards her and didn’t care about her own health.

You acting like somebody you don’t know

The burning ache in my lungs grows stronger; she’s losing oxygen!

I run towards the water, discarding my shoes on the way there and hastily sink my whole body into the warm water of the private beach. She slowly closes her eyes, engulfing her sight into a pit of darkness. I grab her wrist and cup her face with both my hands as we stay suspended in the warm water. She opens her eyes and looks right into mine. She’s hurting; because of me. I wanted to stay away to keep her safe, but I can see and feel that she is hurting. Was being friends not enough?

Tell me, how we supposed to stay friends when you got a bunch of feelings that you don’t show

No, I cannot simply “stay friends”

I feel that ache within my heart as well

You were the only one that opened their heart for me when I was desperate

Certain people don’t like me no more

I have never felt a touch as gentle as yours

I push everyone away, but you still managed to keep me hooked

You can look me in the eye and see that I ain’t myself

But you drive me crazy

You’re insatiable, but I want to keep pleasing you. Appeasing you

That’s the shit that drives me crazy

Because I have Trust Issues, I have never let anyone get as close to me as you have

But if you will allow me.

Let me keep you, and you for me.

Mi cielo.

Mi reina.

[heavensenthearty]

One time I saw a someone say fan art of Zuko in a blue water tribe coat while he’s in the south pole is basically cultural appropriation. I wanted to smash my phone to a million pieces. I’m 90% sure that was some white kid too.

I'm not gonna bring race into this (if I started complaining about white people, I wouldn't be any better than the white people that do the exact same), yet there are several things wrong with that statement.

The first one makes me realize some people really need to go out more. (Like, right the fuck now!)

Do you want to know how most countries receive foreigners who are interested in their culture?

Warmly.

We like them thinking our traditional clothes are pretty, we like them hearing our popular myths, we like them dancing (or trying to) our traditional music.

If anything, Colombians get more angry by Venezuelans entering their country than what they would with North Americans. (For personal reasons.)

I was just talking about this to my mom — Venezuelan; in case I haven't been clear enough about my heritage — and she only said:

"If someone was wearing my clothes, I would consider it a compliment. One would have to be sick to think it was an insult."

"If a North American came to Venezuela and wore a liqui liqui, I would applaud them. They would be expressing admiration towards me. Hailing me."

(I would put it all in Spanish for extra emphasis, but it would redundant.)

Seriously, why does people even think POCs make so much effort to write books, make music, clothes that are reminiscing to our countries? We are not the ones that need to learn about that. We are not the ones that need to learn to respect it. The outside world is, for them to not believe they are better than us even when they're visiting our houses.

I know some countries are recogned and revered... but not everybody counts with that luck. Same happens in the Avatar-verse.

Southern Water Tribe who? Not even their sister tribe wants them. Must be nice when a friend from a powerful country takes the time to immerse himself in their culture for spreading its word! 😍😍

Here's some worldly wisdom: Visibility is not about catching a glimpse of a random brown-skinned, or African, or Asian person; we want people to see us for who we are. And I'm sure Southern Water Tribe wants to.

Now, to the second wrong thing in that statement (and this is just... 🤦🏽‍♀️) The thing about cultural appropriation is that it is something that's wrong within our society, our world. Not the Avatar one. The beauty of fiction worldbuilding is either adding or excluding all the IRL social constructs and issues that you want, to make it resembling or different from the real world. That user was literally inserting one of those social issues that we could perfectly leave out (just like homophobia in the first place😒) and come up with all the happy headcanons that we want to make the Avatarworld perfect and equalitarian🤩🤩🤩... but no. Let's better forget fiction is supposed to be a escape from reality and make it all as inherently evil and sad as the real world, huh? 😒

[spanishskulduggery]

What are some cultural differences you (or your follwers) have discovered while studying spanish?? I’m curious, i’m from the US & recently talking to my latina cousin I realised that when she says she is going clubbing she’s talking about going out after 2am and coming back at like 8am!!! Which is mental to me, i need my sleep lol. So now i feel like there are so many things we do different & i’m so eager to find out more 😂

Is this a culture thing or a language-y thing. Either way, in no particular order:

- Weddings are a big one. Latin American weddings are a BIG thing and go on at least 24 hours pretty much.

- Another I’ve noticed is that Spanish uses a lot of nicknames that sound really demeaning if you used them literally in English. Like in a lot of countries, you could just be known as el gordo/la gorda if you’re fat, or judío/judía “Jewish” if you’re Jewish. In English, if you went around calling someone “Jew” it would make you sound like a Nazi, and if you just referred to someone as “fat” without any context you would sound like a monster. English is very PC at times and Spanish sounds very rude when translated literally. [I definitely took that one from Joanna rants but I knew someone who went by Flaco growing up]

- I’ve also found out that sometimes these nicknames just last for life? Like I don’t know where I saw it but someone had been hearing their relative’s nickname all their life and thought it was their actual name.

- Last names are very unique. I had no idea that so many Spanish-speaking countries had women keeping their own last names even when married.

- Names in general. I didn’t realize that so many people seemed to have multiple first names. I have met people in the US named like “Ann Marie” or “Mary Margaret” but it wasn’t as common as Spanish.

- Also English tends to assume the last name you mention is your last name, while Spanish tends to have the first last name mentioned be the father’s surname and is the one you’d use most often. Or like… if your name was Miguel Díaz Vega or something, in English-speaking culture you’d call him “Mr. Vega”. In Spanish-speaking culture, you’d say “Mr. Díaz”.

- I didn’t realize that for a time Franco made it so you had to give a child a Christian name in Spain.

- That Spain and Latin America don’t always get along, which I did sort of know but I thought it was like how the US and the UK don’t always get along but it’s a lot more intense. 

- Also, not all of Spain gets along with all of Spain. And all of the autonomous communities have kind of a reputation among each other. It’s kind of like how in the US everyone thinks of California as one way. Except in Spain it’s a little more serious and contentious at times.

- And some Latin American countries are like… openly hostile about other Latin American countries, which again, the US and Canada are neighbors and generally both speak English but we’ve got stereotypes and not seething hatred. Not to say all Latin American countries hate all other Latin American countries, but I knew someone who nearly got disowned because they were dating a Colombian person.

- That “racism” in the US is almost always black or white, literally. In Latin America most racism comes out as “colorism”. In the US and a lot of English-speaking places, people think of anyone from Latin America being a person of color. In Latin America, everyone realizes that some people have European ancestry, some people have African ancestry, some people have indigenous ancestry, some people have Asian ancestry, and some people are any combination therein.

Meaning that you could be “white” by US standards like a blonde and blue-eyed person who just happens to be Mexican or Puerto Rican, but the US assumes outright that you’re a person of color.

But in Latin American society, the colorism comes out in that everyone seems to understand that most people are mixed in some way, but there’s preferential treatment or more representation for people of lighter skin tones. This comes out especially in families where some family members might just not associate with other branches of the family or ignore they exist. And that there are all kinds of words in Spanish (different words in different countries at that) for people who are light skinned or people who are darker, or people who are light skinned who act like they’re darker and vice versa.

- Also there are weird superstitions and things that are kind of vaguely racist by US standards. Like in some countries if you see a black person it’s customary to pinch someone you’re with for good luck.

- In some places you’re supposed to pinch a redhead when you see them for good luck which is less racist but more invasive I guess?

- People are also very relaxed about certain words or traditions that I as an American have some politically correct visceral reactions to. Like in Spain it’s not that uncommon to see someone in blackface when it’s Three Kings Day, or how in the US it’s no longer considered acceptable to say “gypsy” you’re supposed to say Roma or Romani, but in Spanish gitano/a is not seen as anything that bad except for when it is

- Also Three Kings Day is a thing and very important. I mean we do have the Epiphany in the US but unless you’re religious, it means nothing for you. On Three Kings Day, it’s kind of like Christmas because you get gifts and you leave out grass or food for the camels.

- I was not prepared for Pascua being used for both Christmas [also Navidad] and Easter by the way. That’s real difficult for me.

- You also kiss your elder family member’s hands in some places. I’m not totally sure if it’s like la bendición exactly, but in some countries it’s a sign of respect or how you ask for someone’s blessing

- “Heal, heal, frog’s tail/ass, if you don’t heal today, you’ll heal tomorrow” when someone - especially a little kid - gets hurt or sick. It’s kind of like “kissing a boo boo to make it better” except it is literally phrased like a magical spell

- In most places, the idea of “Friday the 13th” is “Tuesday the 13th” in Spanish countries. Unless you literally mean a date, “Tuesday the 13th” is the unlucky day, which kind of makes me think of Ides of March I dunno

- Being told not to walk around barefoot because your ovaries will freeze

- Gross, but if you’re a girl being told to “serve” your male relatives like your cousin or your brother; sírvele 

- Sometimes there are terms of endearment that translate very badly in English. I could never call someone mi gordito/a or mi negro/a as a term of endearment, regardless of body type and regardless of skin color and it translates as “sweetie” or “dear”. I would never feel comfortable saying those words to anyone at anytime for any reason because it took me years to get over feeling weird about negro/a being “black”

- Trying to figure out whether to use a comma or a period when talking about thousands because some people will do 100,000 and some people will do 100.000 and then SOME people will just do 100 000 

- It’s not a “party” if there isn’t dancing. If you’re just standing around talking, it feels like a funeral. You at least need a space where people can dance if it’s a party.

- Las Mañanitas being the Mexican Happy Birthday song and if you listen to it literally you’re just like “why are we talking about dawn so much??”

- “suburbs” in the US are nice places where people live who work in a big city, they’re like nice slightly rural communities and they’re the dream of the middle class. A suburbio in Latin America is a “shanty town” or a “slum” usually, like makeshift houses built out of sheets of metal and bits of wood. 

- “Middle class” in general just means something completely different for the US than it does for Europe and parts of Latin America. In Europe especially the “middle class” are the snobs who act like they’re better than each other and are obsessed with materialism. In the US “middle class” is “I’m not poor because I worked hard and I’m not rich because I’m self-made and I picked myself up by my bootstraps and I now live in comfortable stability with a wife and 2.5 kids and a picket fence and this is the American dream”. Europe is like “the middle class is the worst part of humanity” and is more like how the US would describe “keeping up with the Jones’s”

- Trying to explain the times Spaniards eat is very difficult because in the US you have breakfast when you wake up, 12 noon is lunch, dinner is sometime between 5-7 usually. In Spain there’s a breakfast, a snack, a second breakfast, a huge lunch, maybe another snack, dinner if you’re hungry but it’s late and probably tapas. I’m like 90% sure that the US definition of meal time was based on a factory schedule because it is so weirdly strict and on a timetable.

- The US cares more about Cinco de Mayo and the majority of us don’t even know what it symbolizes for Mexico, or that the majority of Mexico doesn’t celebrate it

- The US is very rushed as a culture especially in big cities. If you make people wait for you, you’re the rude one and you should be ashamed. In a lot of Spanish-speaking countries, it’s more relaxed. Like I’ve heard “Spanish time” or “Mexican time” etc when people are saying they’re operating slower but I think the US is just VERY rushed

- The US is very weirdly affectionate and loving but also very prudish. Like we smile at each other, we laugh and say “I love you” as a goodbye. But when sex comes up we act like it doesn’t exist and it is so bizarre because it is the exact opposite in Europe because many countries would consider you being weirdly inappropriate or disingenuous for smiling at strangers or asking people how they are as a greeting [and make no mistake, in the US except in the South, we say “how are you?” and if we don’t know you, we aren’t looking for an answer other than “good”]… We really must seem like overly emotional liars sometimes to people in Europe.

- The grading system in general

- I can’t even get into the metric system and Celsius. I’ve seen fear when I tell someone it’s 98 degrees outside. 

- La chancla

- There are some superstitions that most countries have about not putting your wallet or purse on the floor and itchy palms meaning money coming your way

- People making jewelry out of baby teeth

- Speaking of, the Tooth Fairy is a mouse named Ratoncito Pérez

- el hombre del saco is a common thing to scare children with if they misbehave

- You’re gonna learn real quick that in Latin America if you’re from the US and you say soy americano/a you might get some nasty responses about how they’re also Americans living in the Americas, which is valid and why I say estadounidense

Spain on the other hand says americano/a pretty often and also norteamericano/a which I guess is closer but also I guess canadiense is distinct enough? I dunno. I usually stick with estadounidense because I don’t want to be That Gringo

- Along the same lines, generally avoid calling people in Latin America “Hispanic”… that’s a term that really only Spanish-speakers in the US use. For everyone else it sounds kind of like you’re calling them “subjects of the Spanish Crown”

- SPANISH REGIONALISMS THAT NO ONE TAUGHT ME AND NOW GROCERY SHOPPING IS THE WOOOOORST IT’S NOT EVEN A CULTURE THING ALL THE TIME BUT I JUST WANT SOME BEANS AND WHY IS BANANA A PLANTAIN THEY ARE DIFFERENT

-Also Chile. Just Chile. Just Chile in general. Shout out to my lovely Chilean followers, you know what why you’re on this list and not just because yellow is your lucky color, ya po

Anyone else want to add some because I want to learn

[iowaskablog-blog]

Iowaska and self-healing

As well as I was actually certainly not prepped for what took place. iowaska transformed my lifestyle upside down, diffusing the wall surface in between my personal as well as the planet. I viewed what I required to observe when I was actually all set to observe it.

It's my rely on consume. Right stuff is actually vicious, like a mug of electric motor oil weakened along with a dash of water. I toss it back like a discharge of low-cost whiskey.

It is actually 30 or even 40 mins after the 1st cocktail, as well as presently my feelings are actually swamped. Every opportunity I open my eyes, the area around me begins to close, kind of like what Einstein illustrates in his concept of relativity.

The competent companies that led the services advise that you start along with a basic demand: Program me that I have actually come to be.

Unexpectedly the superstars begin to rotate in a right path. For main reasons that leave me, I begin hollering at the moon, claiming over as well as over once again, "Is actually there anybody up there?

There are actually numerous methods to hit the reality of non-selfhood. Consider it as a mountain range top, along with meditators and also specific metaphysical heritages rising various edges. Hallucinogens supply a type of faster way; you acquire a glance of the greater fact without all those years of major, regimented technique.

The inquiry signifies that at some factor you shed your own self, that when you were actually a little one, your spirit was actually true, open, untainted through lifestyle. You begin to determine on your own through outside criteria.

It is actually today 5:15 pm, as well as the 1st service begins in 15 mins. I am actually fairly certain I will not as if the response-- just about no one performs, it seems to be.

For the remainder of the evening, perhaps yet another 3 hrs or two, I rest there thinking of exactly how self-centered I usually am actually, and also regarding the meaning of the serpents. The emotion was actually thus strong that I began to sob. (Edge keep in mind: Individuals burst into tears a whole lot on iowaska.).

SUDDENLY, ANDREA POSSESSES 40 OR fifty YELLOWISH SNAKES GUSHING AWAY FROM HER ORAL CAVITY As Well As INTO MINE. I spin onto my appropriate edge as well as find Andrea, a girl coming from Toronto, battling to puke. Brad, the company, had actually stated the Peruvian and also Columbian groups that utilize iowaska view removing-- puking, looseness of the bowels, weeping, chuckling, and also sleeping-- as a necessity of the recuperation the medicine carries. When you expunge, you are actually eliminating all the spitefulness-- the tension, the stress and anxieties, the concerns, the remorses, the disgust, the self-loathing.

Today, the herbal tea is actually possessing a little an instant.

I am actually certainly not worried about due to the notion of handling her discomfort; it is actually the entire untamed culture-- the serpents, the nausea or vomiting, the sights. I can not detail any one of it, and also however it was actually one of the most real take in of my lifestyle.

I take my initial cocktail around 7:30 pm, though I can not understand for certain since phones as well as electronic devices are actually stopped as quickly as you go into the air travel deck. My purpose coincides as it was actually the opening night: Program me that I have actually come to be.

It had not been till 1908 that Western side researchers accepted its own presence; English naturalist Richard Spruce was actually the initial to research it as well as blog about the "removing" it appeals to. He was actually generally thinking about categorizing the creeping plants and also leaves behind that composed the magic mixture, and also in knowing its own task in Amazonian society.

RIGHT STUFF Is Actually NASTY, LIKE A MUG OF ELECTRIC MOTOR OIL WATERED DOWN ALONG WITH A SPRINKLE OF WATER. Just about every person listed below is actually carrying out iowaska for the 1st opportunity, as well as our team are actually all afraid shitless. They declare the very first telephone call to consume, as well as I create my means to the face of the line.

Our experts belong to a surge of Westerners seeking iowaska as a resource for mental recovery, private development, or even broadening awareness.

Evening 1: hate. The technique at this sanctuary facility, gotten in touch with Rythmia, is actually comprehensive. Throughout the day they indulge you along with all the deluxes of a health refuge-- massage therapies, excitable dirt bathtubs, health food, doing yoga courses, colonic cleanses. At evening, you consume iowaska and also placed on your own with psychological as well as bodily heck.

An iowaska boom iowaska stays an edge mental medication, yet it is actually little by little functioning its own technique right into the mainstream. Till relatively just recently, you must take a trip to South The United States if you wished to trying out the vegetation, now iowaska services are actually turning up in the USA and also Europe.

It is actually cooler tonight, however there is actually a warm and comfortable doddle spinning by means of the area. A lot of individuals around me are actually doodling final details in their publications; others are actually resting stoically expecting the initial telephone call.

It is actually 2 am, as well as it is actually opportunity to finalize the service.

I strike on the very first cushion I observe; it is actually near the door and also merely a couple of feets coming from the washroom. I really feel risk-free below.

It goes, for what experiences like a hr or even 2. I maintain launching those pair of concerns at the paradises yet acquire no responses, no understandings, only muteness and also rotating.

When I eventually hurled on the 4th evening, I really felt a strange feeling of satisfaction.

iowaska subjects the space in between that you believe you are actually as well as that you really are actually. In my scenario, the void was actually huge, and also the discomfort of finding it for the very first time was actually virtually excruciating.

Beat article writers like William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and also Port Kerouac all explained their encounters along with iowaska, many notoriously in Burroughs's publication The Yage Characters. All of this assisted take iowaska in to Western side society, yet it was actually certainly never really promoted.

I end up throwing up and also begin weeping as well as chuckling as well as grinning simultaneously. One thing has actually been actually elevated within this "cleanup," one thing dim and also strong I was actually holding around for several years. Alleviation cleans over me, and also I gradually create my back to my bed on the flooring.

Brad informs our team to permit go and also give up. "Do not deal with the medication," he states. "Only listen closely.".

Some of the very first thing I was actually said to is actually that I needed to get in the iowaska event along with a crystal clear target or even inquiry in thoughts: What perform you wish to discover on your own?

ASSOCIATED.

Aboriginal folks in nations like Colombia and also Peru have actually been actually making the compound for hundreds of years, usually for spiritual or even metaphysical objectives. It is actually thought about a medication, a means to cure interior cuts and also reconnect along with attribute.

Famous Personalities like Lindsay Lohan, Sting, as well as Chelsea User have actually mentioned their take ins from it. "I possessed all these gorgeous photos of my childhood years as well as me as well as my sis having a good laugh on a kayak, plus all these lovely factors along with me and also my sibling," User said to the New york city Message after her 1st iowaska journey. "It was actually quite concerning opening my thoughts to caring my sis, as well as certainly not being actually thus hard on her."

Tonight is going to be actually various. I am actually mosting likely to remain in the minute, stick with my breathing spell, as well as observe what takes place.

Buddhists, intellectual researchers, as well as thinkers have actually all created influential disagreements that there is actually absolutely nothing like a "set personal," no thinker responsible for our notions, no doer responsible for our actions. There is actually merely awareness and also urgent adventure; whatever else is actually the outcome of the thoughts forecasting in to recent or even the future.

For 4 successive evenings, a team of 78 people listed here at a hideaway facility in Costa Rica have actually been actually consuming alcohol a foul-tasting, molasses-like herbal tea consisting of iowaska, a vegetation compound which contains the organic hallucinogen referred to as DMT.

It is actually poorly ignited, and also beds are actually edged up on the flooring versus the wall surfaces. At the feet of each bed is actually a barrel of bathroom newspaper and also a blue or even reddish pail.

I rest back down, barrel onto my remaining shoulder, and also am actually swamped along with a definite information for the remainder of the evening: It is actually certainly not regarding you! Andrea's ache as well as suffering-- the serpents-- had actually entered me, which was actually the entire aspect.

I stroll back within as well as failure in my mattress. For the remainder of the evening, I envision occasional eyesights of mathematical bodies, a handful of flashes of illumination, yet that has to do with it. One of the associates begins to sound a mild alarm.

I make an effort to rub my skin yet can not order the cells newspaper considering that it thaws whenever I grab it. Close by, a guy begins to yell. I can not create what he is actually claiming therefore the medicine man vocal singing gorgeous Colombian tracks in the various other space.

One means to leave this snare, I wish, is actually to receive the heck out of my scalp.

ONE TECHNIQUE TO LEAVE THIS CATCH, I WISH, Is Actually TO OBTAIN THE HECK OUT OF MY SCALP. I have actually attempted practicing meditation, as well as I am actually awful at it. My thoughts is actually a march of inharmonious notions, and also as an end result, I am actually hardly ever found-- in chats, during the course of mind-calming exercise, in everyday lifestyle.

The company is actually Brad, a kind, strongly basted man coming from Indianapolis that was actually learnt iowaska through a group in Peru. The companies participate in a significant job each evening, despite the fact that there isn't a lot personalized communication. They established the shade, quick guide the event, detail where the medication stemmed from and also just how it operates, and also they aid individuals that require it throughout the evening.

The interesting, unusual clinical possibility of hallucinogens, revealed in fifty+ researches. What I was actually seeking. My enthusiasm in iowaska specified: I would like to traverse the impression of selfhood. Psychedelics possess a technique of taking down our mental barricades. You believe linked into one thing greater than your own self, as well as-- momentarily, a minimum of-- the feeling of splitting up disappears.

The following time, Andrea informs me that she certainly never took care of to expunge yet that her nausea or vomiting immediately faded away, after which she wandered right into a serene half-sleep. I do not understand if that developed around the moment I viewed those serpents, however the notion of it maintained me up that evening.

I go outside, stroll around a little bit, experience my feets in the yard. They declare a telephone call for the 2nd alcoholic beverage. If you may listen to the telephone call, if you may relocate your physical body, you consume.

The clinical proof on iowaska is actually restricted, yet it is actually understood to trigger held back moments in means that make it possible for individuals to happen to a brand new understanding of their past times. In some scenarios, it assists folks function by means of minds of upsetting activities, which is actually why neuroscientists are actually starting to examine iowaska as a procedure for anxiety and also POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER.

Inside the loud, suffocating event space, folks were actually chuckling, shedding tears, shouting, circling, as well as, yes, puking, around me. When my opportunity lastly arrives, I presume: Only go for the container as well as maintain your butt over your head like the medicine man informed you.

DO I REALLY DESIRE TO FIND WHAT I possess END UP BEING? I are actually RATHER CERTAIN I WOCERTAINLY NOT LIKE THE RESPONSE. There is actually absolutely nothing brand new concerning these tips, however they hit me as accurate just the same. I choose to concentrate on self-discovery.

That faster way is what I sought.

Evening 2: "Do not battle the medication". The following time I discover why I possessed no terrific discoveries on the initial evening. As quickly as I presumed one thing-- everything-- was actually regarding to occur, I made an effort to presume on my own out of the take in.

Our experts are actually coached to stay up and also raid the wall structure after the 1st mug. The herbal tea takes at the very least half an hour to function its own means with the physical body. I rest gently for forty five mins, possibly a hr, and after that I rest on my cushion and also hang around.

Prior to I understand it, they bring in the phone call for a 2nd cocktail. "Do not believe, consume alcohol," I maintain informing on my own.

Due to the fact that you are actually aware, given that it is actually like one thing to be you, it is actually incredibly quick and easy to strongly believe that a wall structure exists in between your thoughts as well as the globe. If you are actually experiencing one thing, after that there need to be actually a "you" carrying out the experiencing.

Concerning 30 moments pass, as well as I begin to experience ... weird. I can easily view different colors, designs, as well as switching shades on the wall surface.

And also after that I am actually promptly wrenched along with the worst queasiness I have actually ever before experienced. I can not obtain it out. I keep on my legs for yet another 5 or even 10 moments standing by for one thing to occur.

Evening 4: the absolute most truthful looking glass you'll ever before find I recognized the 4th evening would certainly be actually harsh when I found the iowaska mixture (each evening it is actually a somewhat various dish coming from a various people or even location or even practice). It was actually therefore solid and also oily that you could not consume it. Rather, you needed to compel it down like insert.

I desire to go back to Costa Rica, and also certainly not for the factors you could anticipate. Fail to remember regarding the iowaska, neglect regarding the exotic views, overlook concerning all that. Every individual appears straight at you, and also you seem straight back.

I see my whole entire lifestyle unfold as though it were actually forecasted on a flick display. It had not been my entire lifestyle; it was actually every deception, every imitation posture, every overlooked option to claim or even carry out one thing real, every incorrect shuck and jive and also fawning action, every useless try to be actually found in a particular illumination.

I maintain assuming regarding this tip that an evening of iowaska is actually like a years of treatment. Perform you spend a cost for taking this kind of faster way?

The feature reel is actually way longer than I thought of.

I find on my own creating my identification based upon what I believed would certainly excite other individuals. On it went-- one insignificant show after one more developing a rockpile of fraud.

I am actually certainly not in my mind, consequently points may not be occurring to me; they are actually only occurring. It is actually most likely way too much to state that my vanity was actually gone-- I do not believe it operates like that. Finding on my own coming from a various standpoint delivered an odds to reassert management over it.

Folks point out that a singular iowaska vacation feels like a many years of treatment stuffed in to an evening. That is actually most likely a tall talk, yet it is actually certainly not entirely incorrect. In 4 evenings, I seem like I relinquish a life-time's well worth of temper and also anger.

I find on my own in higher college claiming to be actually one thing I was actually certainly not, as well as I find all the uncertainties stacking up inside me. I view all the opportunities I self-censored totally out of worry of opinion.

I OBSERVE Just How Much OPPORTUNITY I LOST, The Amount Of AFFECTION I CONCEALED This last service is actually longer than the remainder. Commonly, our team collect around 5:30 pm as well as surface through 1 or even 2 am actually. This moment our experts come across around 7:30 pm and also do not end up till daybreak the following time.

"I do not recognize," I state. Everybody, he thinks, is actually happening back, either listed here or even to some various other location like this. I am actually still refining what occurred; the thought and feelings of the following "travel" have not also happened to me.

I do not recognize what lifestyle will certainly feel like in 6 months or even a year, yet I assume iowaska was actually the best factor that has actually occurred to my relationship. It had not been concerning ending up being a far better individual; it concerned enjoying the function my better half-- as well as various other connections-- play in my lifestyle. I needed to leave my scalp to observe that.

The setting switches and also I am actually drifting in what I think is actually a type of primitive soup. I assume I am actually a shaking bit right now, and also strand idea instantly makes good sense in a manner I can not clarify.

And also after that I view her lifestyle-- it is actually certainly not very like a flick; it is actually additional like a collection of showing off eyesights that are actually only crystal clear sufficient to sound. I observe exactly how tough it was actually for her to possess me at Twenty years aged, and also exactly how little bit of I will assumed regarding that.

Once I have actually possessed time to think of it, I would certainly mention iowaska is actually the most ideal as well as worst trait I have actually ever before carried out. I devoted a full week looking down all my bullshit plus all my instabilities, and also it was actually completely liberating. It was actually likewise scary as well as certainly not one thing I prefer-- or even need to have-- to view once more.

The expertise created me knowledgeable of just how commonly our company all perform this. No one yearns for to bring in eye connect with, as well as many of the opportunity individuals go mad out if you actually attempt. Our company are actually assuming regarding what our experts'll point out following or even exactly how our experts are actually being actually viewed.

Evening 3: creating affection to my other half for the very first time-- once again I am actually midway by means of this factor, consequently much it is actually not what I counted on. I still have not needed to face my past times in the means I foreseed I will.

Abby begins to vocalize tracks referred to as icaros, which are actually conducted in iowaska services throughout the Amazon.com. A restful takes over me, as well as I begin to grin as well as laugh.

Just before I may answer, there is actually the very first phone call to consume alcohol. The mixture is actually more thick tonight, as well as it samples like wax as well as white vinegar.

I inquired my partner yesterday if I seem to be various to her after the vacation. She stated that she regularly thought that she must compel me to supply my interest, specifically in those silent, easy instants, and also currently I offer it openly. I carry out locate it much easier to listen closely because I returned, and also it is actually incredible what a distinction that can easily create.

True lifestyle isn't appreciate that. I use the Region to function each day, and also recently I have actually attempted speaking with arbitrary folks. It is actually a whole lot more challenging than you presume.

The significance of the previous pair of evenings is actually more clear right now. I possessed to experience again those short lived seconds of union to view what created all of them therefore pre-eminent.

What currently? Back then of the creating, I have actually been actually home 3 full weeks. The euphoria I really felt in the times instantly after the journey has actually stopped as I have actually slid back in to my normal lifestyle. A pressure has actually developed that I still do not pretty recognize.

I BEGIN TO OBSERVE EVERY INSTANT OF OUR PARTNERSHIP Through Which SHE CONNECTED TO ME AND ALSO I SKIPPED IT I toss back onto my best edge, and also quickly I find my other half's skin. I experience the 1st opportunity our team created affection. I may find our bikes responsible for our company, the water in front end of our company, the covering below our team, and also the lawn all around our team.

The alarms begin to sound, and also it is actually opportunity to shut the service.

The time after I leave behind the sanctuary facility around 11 perform Sunday to panel a shuttle bus to the airport terminal. Along with me are actually 3 individuals coming from my team.

Abby starts through informing our company that tonight has to do with the womanly feeling. "It is actually a festivity of development," she points out, "of childbirth as well as revitalization." The concept is actually comforting.

I hit up a talk along with the fella upcoming to me. "My entire identification is actually connected up in that," he states, as well as "I do not really want that any longer."

I view on my own embeded my very own mind, my very own ideas, my very own instincts. As well as I view the dissatisfaction on her skin. I find her view me skip a chance to reconnect.

I observe her as well as my daddy, in an university condo, questioning what the heck they are actually heading to carry out upcoming. I recognize exactly how fucking alarmed I would certainly possess remained in that place at that grow older. A surge of sympathy cleans over me; whatever cynicisms I was actually hanging on to slope.

Today is actually various. Short conflicts along with unknown people like that are actually positive; the clumsiness is actually gone.

I observe on my own certainly not appearing in to the eyes of the individual I am actually chatting to due to the fact that I am actually participating in out all the techniques they may be actually determining me. I find on my own making believe like my hair had not been decreasing years back and also all the opportunities I made an effort to conceal it.

All the pose ruins any type of odds for a legitimate relationship.

IN 4 EVENINGS, I SEEM LIKE I RELEASE A LIFE-TIME'S WORTH OF TEMPER As Well As ANGER Our company reach out to the airport terminal, state our bye-byes, and also at that point component methods. I am actually standing up in pipe hanging around to go by means of customizeds, and also I am actually shocked at just how unwinded I am actually.

Mitra palms me my very first mug, and also I recede to my cushion. I presume it is actually perhaps half a hr prior to I get on what I may merely refer to as the absolute most brilliant crystal clear desire.

I felt these points to be actually impressions prior to I took iowaska, as well as currently I am actually particular that they are actually. What carries out that in fact imply in everyday lifestyle?

And also the globe is actually an unhappy area total of lonesome folks. In my scenario, psychedelics created that a little bit of less complicated.

I assume he is actually in his mid-30s, though I can not remember. He is actually acquired this stuporous appeal on this skin, like he only found The lord.

The medicine man, an Israeli guy called Mitra, reckons our team that it was actually a 5,000-year-old dish derived from among the earliest Amazonian groups in Colombia, where Mitra was actually qualified. He is actually high, along with a cut scalp and also a guaranteed temperament. He seems like he can debunk the universes as well as douse a baseball all at once.

I must keep in mind just how uncomfortable it is actually to view your own self coming from outdoors your own self. Many of our team may not be truthful along with our own selves regarding that our team are actually and also why our experts perform what our company carry out. To observe it therefore precisely for the very first time hurts.

The 3rd event is actually led through pair of girls. The company is actually Abby, a younger, silently reliable female coming from Cincinnati that is actually supported through Kat coming from Montana. Each proficiented in Peru.

I experience all those minutes once again, and also this opportunity I observe on my own carry out or even claim what I must possess carried out or even mentioned. I observe just how a lot opportunity I squandered, just how a lot passion I kept.

Also after taking what is actually probably one of the most strong ego-dissolving medication in the world, I still reside in a globe that enhances the tale of me constantly. There is actually no quick and easy technique around everything.

He merely stooped, placed his palm on my mind, as well as pointed out, "Satisfied birthday celebration."

I have actually invested years creating a noble initiative to stay away from uncomfortable substitutions, so I receive it. I am actually frankly fretted that in a handful of full weeks or even months, I'll be actually that individual once more. As well as in retrospection, this entire adventure will certainly think that a quick holiday season of recognition.

I am actually weeping once more, this time around also louder, as well as the countenance my skin is actually thus significant that my mouth injured the following time. As well as I deal with just how I am actually heading to take a look at my partner when I return home, as well as exactly how she'll recognize I am actually observing her-- definitely observing her-- for the very first time across once more.

When the event eventually finished, I stayed up in my mattress and also beginning jotting keep in minds to on my own. Prior to I could possibly complete, Mitra approached me and also inquired just how I was actually performing. I attempted to reveal what took place, however I could not.

The routine of day-to-day lifestyle experiences a lot less harsh. I definitely perform locate it much easier to find what is actually in face of me.

The sensation, I visualize, isn't considerably various coming from what progressed meditators experience when their feeling of personal fades away. You just possess no recognition of everything yet your body system as well as the second.

After that the sight transforms darker.

The telephone call for a 2nd alcoholic beverage happens. I consume alcohol, stroll outside, and afterwards go straight back to mattress.

PERFORM YOU PAY FOR A RATE FOR TAKING THIS SORT OF FASTER WAY? A guy rested throughout coming from me the various other time putting on a Tulane hat (coming from the educational institution in New Orleans). I utilized to stay in the place, so I appeared at him till he appeared back, thinking I would certainly attack up a chat.

I find her requesting me to go to a mind-calming exercise training class, as well as I drop. I view her inquire me to go dance at a program near our house, as well as I enjoy on my own mindlessly drop.

A concern worth inquiring: If you checked into the globe's very most straightforward looking glass, what would certainly you observe?

[newstfionline]

The bridge of desperation

By Katy Watson, BBC, Aug. 23, 2018

The humanitarian crisis in Venezuela has led to one of the largest mass migrations in Latin America’s history.

President Nicolás Maduro blames “imperialists”--the likes of the US and Europe--for waging “economic war” against Venezuela and imposing sanctions on many members of his government.

But his critics say it is economic mismanagement--first by predecessor Hugo Chávez and now President Maduro himself--that has brought Venezuela to its knees.

The country has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. It was once so rich that Concorde used to fly from Caracas to Paris. Now, its economy is in tatters.

Four in five Venezuelans live in poverty. People queue for hours to buy food. Much of the time they go without. People are dying from a lack of medicines. Inflation is at 82,766% and there are warnings it could exceed one million per cent by the end of this year.

Venezuelans are trying to get out. The UN says 2.3 million people have fled the country--7% of the population. More than a million have arrived in Colombia in the past 18 months.

Many of those Venezuelans have come over the Simón Bolívar International Bridge.

The bridge is about 300m long and 7m wide. It straddles the Rio Táchira in the eastern Andes, a river that snakes along the border between Colombia and Venezuela. The river bed can sometimes dry up but heavy rains soon change that.

The two small towns the bridge connects--San Antonio del Táchira on the Venezuelan side and Villa del Rosario in Colombia--are in two very different worlds.

Colombians rarely pop over the border to do their shopping in Venezuela like they used to. It’s almost entirely one-way traffic nowadays.

Every day at 05:00 Colombian time, (06:00 in Venezuela), the sound of a fence being dragged across tarmac breaks the silence in the valley and marks the opening of the bridge to pedestrians.

The queue from Venezuela into Colombia usually builds steadily overnight. When the gates open, it’s like athletes out of the starting blocks. Venezuelans can’t get over quickly enough.

Some people are stopped by guards and told to open their bags. While most do so without drama, you can see panic in some faces when people realise they are about to be caught.

With Venezuela’s economy in crisis, there’s an incentive to smuggle staples like meat and cheese into Colombia so it can be sold for higher prices. The people doing it aren’t Mr Bigs--they’re mostly just Venezuelans desperate to raise money to buy other essentials.

One woman, whose meat is confiscated, wails: “What am I meant to do?” The guard replies gruffly: “This is a humanitarian corridor--you can take food into Venezuela but you can’t take it out.” And so it repeats throughout the day.

Those with nothing to declare--or perhaps just the lucky ones who aren’t stopped--walk on through. The trundle of suitcase wheels is the soundtrack of this bridge.

When you get to the end of the bridge, you reach what’s known as La Parada, or “the stop” in English. It’s a bustling community that makes its money from border trade. Market sellers, pharmacies, shops and bus companies all vying for sales from those crossing the bridge. Most of the street traders here used to be Colombians--this is after all Colombia.

But increasingly, Venezuelans have also started setting up shop here, trying to sell their wares in a country where the currency hasn’t been decimated.

Right at the end of the bridge, amid the chorus of street-sellers, one man shouts: “Who wants to sell their hair?”

In front of a metal barrier protecting the bridge, Laura Castellanos sits on a plastic stool. The 25-year-old has long wavy brown hair to the bottom of her back. She looks uneasy.

A woman is stood behind her, scissors in hand. Laura is about to lose most of her hair.

She’s nursing her two-month old daughter Paula who is wrapped up in a big fluffy blanket and wearing a stripy pink hat. She yawns as she lies patiently in her mother’s arms, unaware of the border chaos around her. Laura’s husband Jhon Acevedo is nearby looking after their two older daughters.

The hair-cutter is lifting up the top layer of Laura’s hair and cutting what’s underneath right back to the roots. She doesn’t want to talk much.

With every snip she hands a chunk of hair to another woman standing next to her. The hair buyer says nothing and looks away. It feels like a cold transaction, nothing more.

Laura is getting paid 30,000 pesos ($10) for her hair. It’ll be sold on to make extensions or wigs.

“It’s the first time I’ve done it,” she says with a mixture of nervousness and embarrassment. She’s come for the day from the town of Rubio, about an hour from the border.

Laura is selling her hair because her eldest daughter, eight-year-old Andrea, has diabetes and the family needs to raise money to pay for her insulin which she takes three times a day. The family has run out of supplies and it’s been three days since little Andrea last had her shots. Jhon’s salary as a saddler doesn’t always stretch to pay for his daughter’s drugs.

“There’s no medicine, it’s hard,” says Laura. “People are dying in Venezuela because they can’t get the medicines they need.”

After five minutes of cutting, the family heads off to find a pharmacy. At first glance you can’t tell Laura’s had most of her hair removed. The hair-cutter has left a thin layer of long hair on top to hide the truth. Laura admits she feels a bit sad.

“It will pay for something at least,” she says. Her husband Jhon says they’re looking for a “pirate” pharmacy--an informal stall that sells drugs in plastic cabinets on the street. Insulin pens will be cheaper there than in a walk-in drug store.

But on the streets around La Parada there’s no way of knowing that what they are buying is the real deal. Counterfeits abound but it’s a risk Laura and the family think is worth taking.

“There’s no insulin back home, you can’t get it anywhere,” Laura says as she eyes the best-before date on the side of the insulin pen. They pick up two dark blue pens for 8,000 pesos each ($2.65) and go on their way. That will last them nearly two months before they have to begin the search again. It’s not enough time for Laura’s hair to grow back.

“President Maduro is the worst thing Chávez left us.” That’s a feeling shared by many. When Hugo Chávez came to power in 1999, there was hope. He was a man who championed the poor in what has always been a deeply divided society. He was a vibrant and controversial figure who wanted to lead a socialist revolution in Venezuela.

But Chavez was helped by strong commodity prices that funded his ambitious social programmes. With a fall in oil prices, President Maduro has had no such luck--and little of the charisma his predecessor had. During his leadership, the country has fallen into economic decline.

“The government does whatever it wants, it has all the power,” says Celene. “Only God can help us--it’s the only thing left.”

But Celene has a lifeline. Her mother-in-law lives in the US and sends back $500 every couple of months. With her new baby, and two older children who are four and eight, Celene is unable to work. So she relies on that money to keep her afloat. It’s money that she also shares with her sister, her brother-in-law and their baby.

Ten minutes’ drive away into the centre of the nearest city Cúcuta, the Erasmo Meoz hospital is creaking under the pressure.

In the emergency ward, patients are lined up in hospital beds along the wall and in front of doors. Family members are gathered around the beds, comforting their relatives.

Those who are able to are sitting on a row of plastic chairs. Other patients are in wheelchairs, attached to drips. Outside the ward, in the hospital courtyard, more people are waiting. In among the mass of people, a group of prisoners, chained by the wrists, is guided to another part of hospital for treatment.

The emergency ward has capacity for 75 beds. But there are currently 100 patients in this room. There’s hardly any space to move.

In a room off the main ward, a dead body lies waiting. Covered in a white cotton sheet, and tied tight around the neck and feet, it’s there for all to see until a member of staff finally wheels it through the crowds of beds and on to the mortuary. There’s no space or time for a peaceful exit in this chaotic hospital.

Each bed is marked with the patient’s nationality.

Ángel Escobar, 28, is one of the Venezuelans. His mother is wrapping bandages around arms which are red-raw, blistered and weeping.

Ángel, his brother Teobaldo and their mother Cecilia recently made the journey from the city of Barinas, 350km from the border. They didn’t have the money for a bus ticket, so instead they hitched several rides, nursing Ángel and his wounds along the way.

Ángel used to be a motorcycle mechanic. Five years ago, he was fixing a bike in his workshop when a spark caused a petrol tank to explode.

“I got second and third degree burns,” he explains. “I waited in hospital in Venezuela for help--it never came.”

Instead his situation got worse. He contracted three infections in hospital and he went downhill rapidly.

The injuries he’s got look so red and recent but this has been five years of daily pain. The seeping raw skin is the aftermath of the infections, not the burns themselves.

“They didn’t treat him because they didn’t have supplies,” Cecilia explains.

Ángel has got large scaly scabs on top of his skin that are slowly coming off now he’s in hospital.

His arms are deformed because of an error made by the doctors in Venezuela. In Colombia he says he’s being looked after at last.

Dr Andrés Eloy Galvis Jaimes, who is in charge of the emergencies ward, says the situation is getting out of hand.

“Thirty per cent of our patients in emergencies are Venezuelans,” he says. “The national government isn’t giving us extra money. There’ll come a moment that we won’t have any more resources for anyone. That’s a real fear.”

Around the corner, a middle-aged man is lying on a bed in the corridor waiting for a gall-bladder operation. He came over from San Antonio, the town just across the bridge. He’s been lying here for four days.

“In Venezuela you can’t get anything, you just die,” he says. “There aren’t even sedatives,” he adds laughing. He used to work in a bag factory but it closed down.

Now, he earns his money smuggling petrol.

“There’s nothing else to do,” he says. Every night he works in “las trochas”--the word used for illegal trails that cross the border. It’s a journey of 20 minutes, there and back, he says. He does the trip two or three times a night.

“They give it away in Venezuela,” he says, of the heavily-subsidised fuel.

While hyperinflation has seen prices of most goods soar in Venezuela, petrol prices have remained low. A bottle of water can cost 30,000 times the price of filling up a tank in Venezuela.

To smuggle 250 litres, he says he pays off the soldiers with 15,000 Colombian pesos ($5) and gets 20,000 pesos himself.

Smugglers earn a tidy sum reselling fuel over the border. It’s one of the reasons President Maduro said earlier this month that he wanted to get rid of universal subsidies and allow prices to rise to international levels.

President Maduro and his administration often paint themselves as the innocent victims in this story of Venezuela’s decline. And they paint those who leave as deserters of the socialist cause.

As the day goes on, the queues carry on building on the border. Hundreds of people wait in line at immigration for a stamp in their passport to make their onward journey more straightforward.

There are queues at money transfer houses where Venezuelans wait patiently to pick up much-needed funds from relatives and friends who live abroad.

And there are queues for buses--people waiting with suitcases piled up high, their entire possessions carefully packed as they head to meet their friends and families across South America.

But for every Venezuelan lucky enough to be moving on, there remain dozens who don’t have the resources to go anywhere.

Johnny, Angel and Yember are hanging around the middle of the bridge, waiting for Venezuelans to come over. Dressed in T-shirts, ripped jeans and trainers, they’ve each got a luggage trolley in hand with rope wrapped around the handles--they’re ready to tie up the heavy bags of incoming Venezuelans and help them get to the nearest bus stop.

They’re all recent arrivals from the capital Caracas, Valencia and San Cristobal. They’ve stayed by the border to earn some money before moving on. But business as a “maletero” is slow.

“The people coming from Venezuela are immigrants with nothing,” they say. They’re coming in search of money and better lives so few nowadays have the spare change for a luggage-handler.

On a good day, they earn 15,000 pesos ($5) but on a bad one, not even a cent.

They’ve given up hope of change back home. With President Maduro winning the elections, he now has another six-year term they think he’ll complete.

“If things could end peacefully, then that would be the best thing,” says Johnny. He dismisses the idea of the military turning against the president. “A coup could mean lots of people, including children, would die. But if things could end, well...” he trails off, thinking of the options.

From the bridge where the maleteros are, you can see a blue-painted cage. Inside is a figure of the Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Virgen del Carmen). She’s the patron saint of drivers and of the Army in the Andes. In a part of the world where hope is fading, faith remains strong. Fitting too that her home is an insecure frontier town, an area where soldiers operate around the clock.

The virgin sits across a dirt road, in front of a metal yard where Pompilio Rincón is throwing slabs of aluminium on to a scrap heap.

He says there are lots of metal collectors that come over from Venezuela.

“Before, Venezuelans would come in their cars and trucks,” he says. Now, people are bringing metal on their backs--women and children too.”

As he chats, a young teenager in a smart checked short-sleeved t-shirt comes in with a big bag and dumps his treasure on to the massive set of scales on the floor of the warehouse. He hopes to get 1,500 pesos (50 cents) per kilo of his metal.

Breiner Hernández, 15, comes from San Cristóbal in Venezuela. He goes to school in the morning and when he’s not studying, he’s looking for metal. Every few days he jumps on the bus with his bag to sell on the other side of the border here in La Parada.

“With scrap metal, what I make in one month in Venezuela, I make in one day here,” he explains, adding that the money goes to help his family eat. He lives with his grandfather who looks after Breiner’s two younger siblings so his salary matters.

He’s been doing this since the start of the year.

“The situation is really difficult,” he says. He can’t vote but it doesn’t stop him having an opinion on his country’s politics.

“No one wants Maduro, he treats people really badly,” he says. “We need a change.”

As the sun starts to set, more and more Venezuelans head back over the bridge, their jobs done for the day. Food purchased, medical appointments met. One passer-by loaded with nappies shouts “what a humiliation”--people having to leave their country to buy basic goods so they can survive.

But even as the afternoon fades, there are still plenty of people still trying to enter Colombia. They’re queuing up along a bright yellow metal fence, like corralled cattle, waiting for their turn to show their documents and be allowed in.

The Bolivarian National Guard--Venezuela’s army--usher them through to the Colombian side. On one fence, there’s a billboard.

“Territory of peace” it reads. But one soldier mutters. He sounds fed up. He may work for the government but he suffers the same as his compatriots. His salary doesn’t stretch and he can’t eat a decent meal.

“I wonder how long I can last here,” he tells me as he too contemplates his escape.

[rjzimmerman]

An aerial view of the of blue and yellow macaws (Ara ararauna) over the Caquetá River. 

Excerpt:

Located in the heart of the Colombian Amazon, Serranía de Chiribiquete park is a vibrant, biodiverse hotspot that has one of the highest rates of plant diversity in the northern Amazon and is home to thousands of species—many of which are threatened—including lowland tapirs, giant otters, giant anteaters, woolly monkeys, jaguars, and the Chiribiquete emerald hummingbird, the only endemic species in the Colombian Amazon.

In addition to its unique biodiversity, the protected area is culturally significant for indigenous communities and contains one of the oldest, largest, and densest archaeological pictographic complexes in the Americas. Fifty murals made up of more than 70,000 ancient paintings depicting animals, hunting, battle, and dancing—some more than 20,000 years old—can be found across the region’s many tepuis, table-top rock formations that rise out of the dense forest.

The park has been a protected area since 1989 and is the ninth World Heritage listing in Colombia, the second-most biodiverse country in the world after Brazil. Chiribiquete’s new designation will help strengthen protections around the park, providing critical buffers against deforestation throughout the Amazon’s essential wildlife corridors.

To prevent further destruction and to secure the natural resources within Colombia’s vital network of protected areas in the coming years, the Government of Colombia is working to manage Chiribiquete under an initiative called Heritage Colombia. Supported by WWF, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Protected Areas and Biodiversity Fund, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Conservation International, and with initial funding from the German government, Heritage Colombia is a Project Finance for Permanence (PFP) initiative that uses an innovative funding mechanism to increase the amount of land in Colombia’s protected areas while ensuring the land is properly governed.

[khannagems]

Which emerald stone is the best?

Identifying a high-quality emerald necessitates experience and knowledge. There are four criteria for determining high-quality emeralds: colour, clarity, cut, and carat weight.

The preferred emerald colour ranges from bluish to pure green, with bright colour and a tone 

created by chromium, vanadium, and iron. The presence or absence of each element and its relative amounts determine the specific colour of an emerald crystal. 

Colombian Emerald is known to be the best in the world. They are well-known for their warmer and more intense green colour, which distinguishes them from other emeralds.

Significance of Colombian Emerald

Colombia is the largest emerald producer accounting for 50-95% of the world's total emerald production depending on the year. Emeralds may be found in two Colombian departments: Cundinamarca and Boyacá. Boyacá is exceptionally well-known for emeralds due to its famous Muzo mines, commonly known as the world's "Emerald Capital."  

Quality standards

Colombian emeralds have a high grade recognised internationally due to the material's excellent composition and the best and brightest colours.  Colombian emerald production has expanded in recent years due to the development of new technology and global mining company investments.

The term "Colombian emerald" refers to the most vibrant and abundant of all jewels. For hundreds of years, kings and queens and individuals at the pinnacle of society have adorned themselves with emerald jewellery. Muzo is the most well-known emerald mine in Colombia. This mine must provide raw stones of unparalleled beauty for at least ten years.

It is a beryllium stone that owes its stunning colour to vanadium and chromium, two extremely rare chemical elements. These two components are the reason for the hue of the world's sole crystalline greenstone. A gem's market value is determined by its colour, purity, size, and brilliance. It has a unique look that distinguishes it from emeralds, even though they are mined on the same continent. The blue-green tint of this diamond is the most valuable.

Conclusion

The Colombian Emerald is prized for its beauty, colour, and historical significance. The most well-known beryl-family gemstone is Colombian emeralds. Because it has a Mohs value of 7.5 to 8, it is more exquisite than rubies, diamonds, and sapphires. Visit Gem Selections for more information.

[honeyleesblog]

June 19 ZODIAC

Their disposition tells the truth and open, an outstandingly gifted mind. They show expansive interests and perspectives, being for the most part capable individuals. In spite of the fact that they carry on with a material life, their scholarly life is profoundly evolved. Simultaneously, they express a specific affection for country magnificence. Extremely touchy, diligent. They can capably apply their capacities, which creates and enables them. Your continuing on endeavors will at last bring you achievement. They are described by being exceptional researchers. What would it be a good idea for them to desire? Your satisfaction and solace is in a condition of vulnerability. These individuals should continuously endeavor to control their considerations to become bosses of their lives. His body is very safe and sound. In spite of the fact that their fortunes are normally dependent upon future developments, they will find actual success, various relatives and gave companions. [caption id="attachment_19239" align="aligncenter" width="612"]June 19. Round schedule Symbol with long shadow in a Level Plan style. Day to day schedule detached on a blue circle. Vector Representation (EPS10, all around layered and gathered). Simple to alter, control, resize or colorize.[/caption] June 19 ZODIAC 

 Assuming your birthday is June 19, your zodiac sign is Gemini June 19 - character and character character: faultless, extreme, capable, reckless, insufferable, imprudent calling: space explorer, welder, bookkeeper tones: blue, pink, dim stone: quartz creature: panther plant: Thyme fortunate numbers: 9,14,26,28,37,59 very fortunate number: 23 Occasions and observances - June 19 Uruguay Birth of Artigas, recognizes the introduction of Josდ© Gervasio Artigas, the country's most prominent legend. Paraguay Tree Day. Chile: Analyst Day US: Juneteenth, recognizing the liberation of Texas slaves in 1865. Day for the End of Sexual Brutality in Struggle June 19 Big name birthday events. Who was conceived that very day as you? 1901: Piero Gobetti, Italian distributer, columnist and legislator (d. 1926). 1903: Lou Gehrig, American baseball player (d. 1941). 1903: Hans Litten, German legal advisor (d. 1938). 1903: Juan Quintero Munoz, Spanish film writer and piano player (d. 1980). 1905: Mildred Natwick, American entertainer (d. 1994). 1906: Ernst Boris Chain, German natural chemist, Nobel Prize in Medication in 1945 (d. 1979). 1908: Eduardo de Guzmდ¡n, Spanish essayist (d. 1991). 1909: Osamu Dazai, Japanese author (d. 1948). 1910: Paul J. Flory, American scientific expert, 1974 Nobel Prize victor in Science (d. 1985). 1914: Lorenzo Spirits, Colombian arranger (d. 2011). 1921: Rafael Leoz, Spanish planner and artist (d. 1976). 1921: Amador Schდ¼ller, Spanish doctor and college teacher (d. 2010). 1922: დ?lvaro Delgado, Spanish painter. 1923: Andrდ©s Rodrდ­guez Pedotti, Paraguayan military and president somewhere in the range of 1989 and 1993 (f. 1997). 1924: Manuel Alonso Olea, Spanish attorney (f. 2003). 1926: Julio Pდ©rez, Uruguayan soccer player (d. 2002). 1927: Bernarda Seitz, religious woman, author, cook and Argentine TV moderator (f. 2014). 1928: Nancy Marchand, American entertainer (d. 2000). 1928: Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, Indian intellectual and language specialist (d. 2012) 1930: Gena Rowlands, American entertainer. 1931: Juan Carlos Moreno (1931-), Argentine guitarist and society artist, from Los Fronterizos. 1932: Wharf Angeli, Italian entertainer (d. 1971). 1932: Josდ© Sanchis Grau, Spanish sketch artist (d. 2011). 1933: Viktor Patsayev, Soviet cosmonaut (d. 1971). 1934: Bonifacio Alfonso, Spanish painter (d. 2011). 1934: Nდ©lida Lobato, entertainer and Argentine vedette (d. 1982). 1934: Rubდ©n Lდ³pez Ardდ³n, Nicaraguan cleric. 1935: Rodrigo Borja Cevallos, Ecuadorian government official. 1936: Marisa Galvany, American soprano. 1941: Vდ¡clav Klaus, Czech government official and president. 1943: Gioia Lombardini, first Venezuelan nationalized TV entertainer. 1944: Chico Buarque, Brazilian artist musician, writer and author. 1944: Peter Bardens, English keyboardist, of the band Camel. 1945: Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese government official, 1991 Nobel Harmony Prize victor. 1945: Radovan Karadვ¾iე‡, Serbian government official. 1947: Sir Salman Rushdie, Indo-English essayist. 1947: Humberto Elizondo, the principal Mexican film and TV entertainer. 1948: Scratch Drake, English society vocalist musician (d. 1974). 1948: Phylicia Rashad, American entertainer. 1948: Ernesto Silva Bafalluy, Chilean market analyst and minister (f. 2011). 1949: Hassan Shehata, Egyptian footballer. 1950: Miguel დ?ngel Ferriz, Mexican entertainer (f. 2013). 1949: Juan Schiaretti, Argentine government official. 1949: Daria Nicolodi, Italian entertainer and screenwriter. 1949: Paty Chapoy, Mexican driver and journalist.1950: Ann Wilson, American artist, of the band Heart. 1951: Francesco Moser, Italian cyclist. 1951: Aymდ¡n al-Zawahirდ­, Egyptian fear based oppressor. 1953: Larry Dunn, American artist, of the band Earth, Wind and Fire. 1954: Kathleen Turner, American entertainer. 1956: Sergio Fajardo Valderrama, Colombian mathematician and government official. 1957: Anna Lindh, Swedish Social Vote based legislator (d. 2003). 1957: Subcomandante Marcos, Mexican military and ideologue. 1958: Luis Francisco Esplდ¡, Spanish matador. 1959: Christian Wulff, German lawmaker, previous leader of Germany. 1962: Paula Abdul, American artist lyricist. 1962: Jeremy Bates, English tennis player. 1963: Katia Cardenal, Nicaraguan vocalist musician. 1964: Boris Johnson, English legislator. 1964: Alejandra Darდ­n, Argentine entertainer. 1967: Araceli Gonzდ¡lez, Argentine entertainer and model. 1967: Pablo Llorens, Spanish illustrator and producer. 1969: Alejandro Silva, Chilean independent guitarist. 1969: Soledad Villamil, Argentine entertainer and vocalist. 1970: Rahul Gandhi, Indian legislator. 1970: Quincy Watts, American competitor. 1970: Brian Welch, American guitarist, of the band Korn. 1971: Josდ© Emilio Amavisca, Spanish footballer. 1971: Fernando Monroy, Mexican Analyst. 1971: Eva Isanta, Spanish entertainer. 1971: Jorge Almirდ³n, Argentine soccer player and mentor. 1972: Brian McBride, American footballer. 1972: Jean Dujardin, French entertainer. 1972: Mდ³nica Ayos, Argentine entertainer. 1972: Poppy Montgomery, Australian entertainer. 1972: Robin Tunney, American entertainer. 1975: Hugh Dancy, English entertainer and model. 1975: Pedro Munitis, Spanish footballer. 1975: Anthony Parker, American b-ball player. 1978: Dirk Nowitzki, German b-ball player. 1982: Joe Cheng, Taiwanese entertainer. 1983: Macklemore, American rapper. 1984: Aleksandr Samდ©dov, Russian footballer. 1985: Sandra Cervera, Spanish entertainer. 1986: Nazareno Casero, Argentine entertainer. 1986: Marvin Williams, American b-ball player. 1987: Mauricio Castillo, Costa Rican soccer player. 1987: Mutsumi Tamura, Japanese voice entertainer 1988: Jacob deGrom, American baseball player. 1996: Larisa Iordache, Romanian creative athlete.

[euroman1945-blog]

The Daily Tulip

The Daily Tulip – News From Around The World

Monday 27th August 2018

Good Morning Gentle Reader….  I hope you slept well and have woken full of the joys of summer… The meteors are quite beautiful this morning, I stood and watched with Bella as streaks of fire zipped across the night sky, then together we walked back to the house, Bella thinking about the cookie I promised her and me looking forward to the fresh Colombian Coffee that was brewing while we walked, it’s 3 years ago that we lost Sadie and almost 5 years since Mackie left us, but I believe they still walk the town with us in the mornings……So before I start getting all maudlin on us, let’s take a look at what’s happened in this mixed up world we call Earth….

DRUG TUNNEL RAN FROM OLD KFC IN ARIZONA TO MEXICO BEDROOM…. US authorities have found a secret drug tunnel stretching from a former KFC in the state of Arizona to Mexico. The 600ft (180m) passageway was in the basement of the old restaurant in San Luis, leading under the border to a home in San Luis Rio Colorado. Authorities made the discovery last week and have arrested the southern Arizona building's owner. They were alerted to the tunnel after the suspect, Ivan Lopez, was pulled over, according to KYMA News. During the traffic stop, police dogs reportedly led officers to two containers of hard narcotics with a street value of more than $1m in Lopez's vehicle. Investigators say the containers held 118kg (260lb) of methamphetamine, six grams of cocaine, 3kg of fentanyl, and 21kg of heroin. Agents searched Lopez's home and his old KFC, discovering the tunnel's entrance in the kitchen of the former fast-food joint. The passageway was 22ft deep, 5ft tall and 3ft wide, and ended at a trap door under a bed in a home in Mexico, said US officials. The drugs are believed to have been pulled up through the tunnel with a rope. This is not the first such discovery - two years ago a 2,600ft tunnel was found by authorities in San Diego, California. Authorities said it was one of the longest such drug tunnels ever discovered, used to transport an "unprecedented cache" of cocaine and marijuana. In July alone, US Border Patrol seized 15kg of heroin, 24lbs of cocaine, 327kg of methamphetamine and 1,900kg of marijuana at border checkpoints nationwide… Comment: Now we know what the “Secret” ingredient is in the Col’s recipe…..

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION 'CONSIDERS FUNDING GUNS IN SCHOOLS'…. The Trump administration is considering allowing schools to access federal education funding to purchase guns for teachers, US media report. The Department of Education (DoE) is looking at allowing states to use academic enrichment funds for firearms, the New York Times first reported. The federal grant being considered for this purpose is one that does not specifically prohibit buying weapons. Congress forbids using federal funds for school safety to purchase weapons. DoE spokeswoman Elizabeth Hill told CBS News: "The department is constantly considering and evaluating policy issues, particularly issues related to school safety." "The secretary nor the department issues opinions on hypothetical scenarios," she added… Comment: I cannot think of a more irresponsible action on behalf of a government…

AUSTRIA REJECTS 'GIRLISH' IRAQI ASYLUM SEEKER…. Austrian officials rejected an Iraqi migrant's asylum application because he was too "girlish", local media say. The 27-year-old's claim to be gay was deemed "unbelievable", in part due to his behaviour, according to reports. He can appeal against the decision. It comes just days after Amnesty International criticised Austria's asylum processes as "dubious". The government has hit back at the criticism, saying its asylum officials work appropriately. In the latest case, the Iraqi asylum seeker was felt to exhibit "stereotypical, in any case excessive 'girlish' behaviour (expressions, gestures)", which seemed fake, Austria's Kurier newspaper reported. Said to be an active member in local LGBT groups, he is understood to have fled Iraq in 2015, fearing for his life. However a spokesman for Austria's asylum office said the decision had been reviewed, and rejected the accusation it contained any "clichéd phrasing" by officials in Styria state, Kurier added. It is the second controversial asylum case in recent days. Last week, activists said that an 18-year-old Afghan asylum seeker had his application rejected because he did not "act or dress" like a homosexual. "The inhuman language in asylum claims does not conform with the requirements of a fair, rule-of-law procedure," Amnesty International said in a report. Interior Ministry spokesman Christoph Poelzl also rejected the accusation officials used "inhuman" language, telling news agency AFP that all employees who assess asylum claims receive training. However, the official involved in the Afghan asylum seeker's case is no longer involved in assessing applications, he added. Austria is currently run by a coalition of the conservative People's Party and the far-right Freedom Party, which came to power following an election dominated by Europe's migrant crisis last year. Comment: Immigration should not be based on “Sexual Preference” especially when determined by the “Far Right” party…

CHINA ARRESTS OVER TANG DYNASTY RELIC THEFTS…. Chinese police have arrested 26 people suspected of stealing relics from an ancient burial site. The gang allegedly seized almost 650 objects, including gold and silver cutlery and jewellery, from the Dulan Tombs, which lie on the ancient Silk Road in northwest China. The stolen items date back to the 7th Century, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security said in a statement. The suspects allegedly tried to sell them for about $11m (£7.8m). The objects were said to have been illegally excavated from the tombs, located in the north-western province of Qinghai. Silk, gold, silver, bronze ware and other items have been unearthed at the tombs, of which there are more than 2,000, since 1982. Experts believe that many of the items are of huge historical value as they show cultural exchanges and interactions between East and West during the early Tang Dynasty (618-907). Following the arrests, police will increase their crackdown on cultural relics crimes to better protect the country's cultural heritage, the Chinese government said. (See photographs at https://www.facebook.com/groups/OurPastBeneathOurFeet/ )

INDIA'S 'BIGGEST' PET RESCUE OPERATION IN KERALA FLOODS….  When rescuers in India's flood-ravaged southern state of Kerala reached a flooded hut in the city of Thrissur, the couple living there refused to leave without their 25 dogs. The water was rising, and the dogs were huddled on a single bed. The rescue workers had arrived on boats, and Sunitha, who uses only one name, flatly told them she and her husband would not leave without their stray and abandoned pets. "Our neighbours had been moved to schools and camps nearby. Rescue workers said that we could not bring our dogs to the relief camp," she said. So the workers went back and got in touch with an animal rescue group. Sally Varma of Humane Society International told the BBC that their volunteers arrived soon, and arranged for the dogs to be taken to a special shelter for affected animals. Ms Varma said she has started a fundraiser for the family and its pets so a kennel could be built at their home after the floods recede. Nearly 400 people have died in the worst flooding Kerala has witnessed in a century. Thousands remain stranded. More than one million people have been displaced, with many of them taking shelter in thousands of relief camps across the state. But what is striking is how hundreds of animals are being rescued in the affected areas. In what appears to be one of the biggest animal rescue operations during a natural calamity in India, hundreds of volunteers and animal rescue workers have travelled to flood-affected areas. Social media is awash with dramatic rescue videos: a rescuer removing his life jacket and putting it on a Labrador to help it swim to higher ground; drenched dogs being taken out of flooded homes and kennels; and country boats and inflatable rafts carrying dogs, goats and cats to safety. Rescuers have waded through water, and travelled on boats and rafts to treat, feed and rescue hundreds of animals - dogs, cats, goats, cows, cattle, ducks, and even snakes - as the waters have begun receding. Trucks with animal feed and medicines are reaching affected districts. Some animals have been moved to shelter camps, and others to higher ground. A number of animal rescue help lines have been set up, and rescuers are using WhatsApp and social media to respond to calls. "We are getting more than 100 calls a day on our helpline. The number of animals that have been moved to higher ground and rescued must be in hundreds," Anand Shiva of Kerala Animal Rescue said.

Well Gentle Reader I hope you enjoyed our look at the news from around the world this, morning… …

Our Tulips today are from India, where the Tulip garden with the backdrop of the mighty Zabarwan range of mountains was thrown open for the public, on Sunday by Minister for Floriculture Javid Mustafa Mir.

Asia’s largest tulip garden, which has about 12.5 lakh tulips of 50 varieties in its lap on the banks of world famous Dal Lake in the summer capital, Srinagar, marked the beginning of new tourism season in the Valley.

A Sincere Thank You for your company and Thank You for your likes and comments I love them and always try to reply, so please keep them coming, it's always good fun, As is my custom, I will go and get myself another mug of "Colombian" Coffee and wish you a safe Monday 27th August 2018 from my home on the southern coast of Spain, where the blue waters of the Alboran Sea washes the coast of Africa and Europe and the smell of the night blooming Jasmine and Honeysuckle fills the air…and a crazy old guy and his dog Bella go out for a walk at 4:00 am…on the streets of Estepona…

All good stuff....But remember it’s a dangerous world we live in

Be safe out there…

Robert McAngus #Spain #India #China #USA #Bella

[jamescurcio]

White Lines, Black Magic

This came up on various public groups when I was doing my research for Masks. I wanted to share it with you, because I think it’s an interesting, and generally good, take. 

David's Dark Doings - And How He Escaped To Tell The Tale David Bowie's Station To Station and the "Berlin Trilogy". By Ian MacDonald

"I ran across a monster who was sleeping by a tree. And I looked and frowned and the monster was me" (David Bowie, "The Width Of A Circle", 1971)

EMI's latest batch of mid-price Bowie reissues, discs released at full price in 1990-1, consists of the 1976-8 sequence, Station To Station, Low, "Heroes", and Stage. It might have been truer to his career to have made a foursome of Low, "Heroes", Stage and Lodger - the "Berlin Trilogy" plus their complimentary live album - and to have corralled Station To Station with his other "American" albums, David Live and Young Americans. Never mind. As it happens, EMI's decision highlights a little-understood juncture in Bowie's development: the transition between the two The Man Who Fell To Earth albums, Station To Station and Low. Bowie's modus operandi during the Seventies was transformation, acting out the suburban dream of escape into glamorous "otherness" - hence his popularity among a very specific audience  segment (and the total blank he registered with those for whom escape was not an issue). This method held good until Young Americans, even though that album's associated transformation - white boy on Soul Train - was less the usual Brechtian device than an identity-crisis on the part of the artist (or the Actor, as he then referred to himself). Uprooted from his native context in the cultural artifice of Europe, isolated in a largely unironic and cultureless alien land, Bowie was forced back on himself, a self he didn't much like. Weary of the artistic transformations which were now getting too close to home, he fended off self-examination with mental diversion, reading obsessively from a portable library and deadening his growing sense of emotional emptiness with cocaine and booze. David Live is, in effect, a station-stop in this journey on the old Oblivion Express, an evening's snapshot of Bowie's deepening malaise.

With Station To Station - its title partly suggested by Bowie's 1973-6 touring schedule which, due to his fear of flying, mostly consisted of travel by train-the Oblivion Express reached another halt. But, this time, Bowie, rarely one to repeat himself, refused another David Live stop-over. Instead, he got off the damned train. A sonic "dark night of the soul", Station to Station is to Bowie what On The Beach is to Neil Young's album, rooted in the folk-blues tradition of American "authenticity", remains too musically raw for wide appeal, whereas Station, if only superficially, is one of Bowie's most glamorous discs. However, the superficial view of Station to Station doesn't tell half the inner story of the album, a recherché work which, despite being recorded at Cherokee Studios in the hyper-American suburb of Hollywood, is essentially European.

The key to the transition between Station To Station and Low (whose covers both employ images from Nicolas Roeg's the Man Who Fell To Earth) is that it does not coincide with Bowie's usual sort of artistic transformation: the persona swap. Bowie's final mask, the Thin White Duke, travels no further than Station to Station. There's no mask, no persona in Low. Just a rather gaunt young man in a "styleless" dufflecoat, looking sideways to the viewer as if in a police mugshot. Some would say that this is merely because Bowie then ceased touring for a while (appearing live only as Iggy Pop's keyboard player), and consequently had no need to invent a new stage character. In truth, Bowie's temporary low profile, coded in the cover of Low itself, was forced on him at a time when an interlude of retreat for recuperation and regrouping was the only alternative to a full-scale crack-up during the recording of Station to Station, a period of which he claims to recall almost nothing. Mental breakdown still appeared to be impending in May, 1976 when, returning to Britain from his sojourn in America, a seemingly stoned Bowie acknowledged the British press corps at Victoria Station with what most of those present took to be a Nazi salute.

Britain was then witnessing the electoral rise of the neo-fascist National Front, and Bowie's proclaimed ambition to be the country's fascist dictator was naturally, those of us who were fans chose to read Bowie's stance as ironic. Neither was wholly correct. Like Neil Young's republicanism, Bowie's brand of fascism, while it embraced irony, was basically serious; or was taken seriously by a certain hermetic compartment of his mind, wherein it dwelt. The rest of him - what passed for the normal lad from Brixton - was deeply uneasy about it; so uneasy that he included on Station To Station a song open to God in case the demons evoked elsewhere in the album should get out of hand. Bowie's fascination with Nazism was never conventionally political. Rather, it was one aspect of a personal cosmology traceable in cryptic songs like "Cygnet Committee" (Space Oddity, 1969), "The Supermen" (The Man Who Sold The World, 1971), "Big Brother" (Diamond Dogs, 1974), but most explicitly in "Oh! You Pretty Things" and - particularly - "Quicksand" on Hunky Dory (1972): "I'm closer to the Golden Dawn/Immersed in Crowley's uniform/Of imager/I'm living in a silent film/Portraying Himmler's sacred realm/Of dream reality." Eagerly absorbed from the omnivorous reading with which the self-taught Bowie, insecure in his intellect, then shored up his self-esteem, this personal cosmology was rooted in the Gnostic myth of the Fall, viz: we human beings are born into this world from a higher dimension ("heaven") which we forget upon entering the sphere of material existence. Hence, homo sapiens is a half-finished thing living in a state of waking sleep he calls reality, but which is actually a kind of delusion. Only those "awake" on the physical plane, the "enlightened" ones, see reality as it truly is. As such, they are supermen. Now that "home sapiens have outgrown their use", such mental supermen are set to inherit the earth. As a young man, Bowie was impatiently obsessed with the inefficiency of our unenlightened minds ("We're today's scrambled creatures, looked in tomorrow's double feature"). As a result, he viewed the majority, unaware as they were of their plight, with a blend of tolerant irony and frank contempt ("the mice in their million hordes"). Elaborating on the Gnostic myth, he cross-bred Nietzsche's Superman - "The Wild-Eyed Boy From Freecloud" is a sort of pop Zarathustra - with esoteric motifs in the writing of Madame Blavatsky and the teaching of the American mystic, Gurdjeff. Both allude extensively to mysterious "Masters": enlightened super-beings who supposedly guide human affairs from mountain fastnesses in Tibet and the Hindou Kush ("the men who protect you and I"). Blavatsky's writing, along with those of Eliphas Levi, gave birth to the late 19th-century Occult Revival which in Britain produced the magical society called The Golden Dawn, whence Aleister Crowley emerged, and which in Germany created the occult basis of Nazism, epitomised in Himmler's vision of his SS as an Arthurian company of immortals, incarnated to bring order to the physical plane. Though he made plenty of pro-Hitler statements around 1975-6, Bowie ultimately remained sane enough to distinguish the ideal of an order-bringing élite from the Nazi reality. He was, he would occasionally claim, a Nietzschean, his "fascism" being conceptually benign (if nonetheless arrogant). He favoured a New Order not of domination, but of enlightenment: rule of the "asleep" by the "awake". The main snag was that he was doing too many drugs. Imbibed along with piles of prime Colombian, books like Pauwel and Bergier's The Morning Of The Magicians (1971) and Trevor Ravenscroft's The Spear Of Destiny (1973) had, by 1975, led Bowie into a remote headspace where even UFO's were part of the plot.

During the LA sessions for Station To Station, the Fuhrerling (as Bowie drolly refers to himself in a demo of "Candidate" on the 1990 reissue of Diamond Dogs) was archetypally "torn between the light and dark". At one point the journalist, Cameron Crowe, found him burning black tapers in the seeming aftermath of some ritual magic that had gone wrong. "Been having a little trouble with the neighbours," said Bowie, evidently not referring to the people in the apartment next door. Michael Lippman, a friend of Bowie's during this period, remembers him describing strange nightmares. Lippman gave him a gold cross. Bowie later asked him for a mezuzah (a parchment in a glass tube, inscribed with the divine name Shaddai, which Orthodox Jews keep nailed to their door to ward off evil). The title track of the album is packed with occult references and allusions to the Gnostic myth of the Fall. A mention of White Stains, Crowley's very obscure first book, shows how deeply Bowie delved into the golden Dawn background; indeed, the lyric suggests that he also studied The Tree Of Life by Crowley's pupil, Israel Regardie, a brilliant treatise on the magical use of the 13th century Jewish mystical system, Quabala. In Quabalistic language, the Gnostic myth of the Fall can be expressed as "one magical movement from kether to malkuth" (Kether being the sphere of the Godhead, or Crown of Creation, and Malkuth being the sphere of the physical world, aka the kingdom). These spheres (sephiroth) lie at opposite ends of the glyph known as the Tree of Life, which Bowie is seen drawing on the back of EMI's reissue of Station to Station. Seems he thought of the sephiroth as stations - "standing places", as in the Stations Of the Cross (which have their own occult interpretation). Sadly there are 14 Stations Of The Cross but only 10 sephiroth. (The Christian sign of the cross, though does "map" onto the Tree..) The song, "Station to Station", also has a Shakespearean resonance. Prospero the magician (and incognito duke) in Shakespeare's most mysterious play. the Tempest, surrounds himself with books, among which is his occult grimoire. At the end of the play, he abjures magic and "drowns" his book of spells. In "Station To Station", the Thin White Duke - Bowie as a cocaine-frozen Prospero lost in his (magic) circle, tall in his room overlooking the ocean (Prospero's Island "cell" transported to the coast by Los Angeles) - despairingly reviews his repertoire of illusions. "Such is the stuff from where dreams are woven," he muses, not quite quoting Prospero ("We are such stuff/As dreams are made on"). Clearly, illusion is no longer what he wants. Station to Station - like Plastic Ono Band, like Todd, like On the Beach - is an exorcism: an exorcism of self, of the mind, of the past. By 1976, Bowie had nearly had enough of his "magic" - the theatrical "grand illusion" by which he'd lived since 1972. Thus, he "flashes no colour" - another magical allusion, this time to the so-called Tattva symbols which use "flashing" complimentary colours to after consciousness, ushering the magical aspirant into the Astral Plane of heightened vision. Decoded: Bowie has travelled the Astral (or ascended the tree Of Life); now he wants to come down o earth, to love. (Hence the cover image of the soundproof chamber in The Man Who fell to Earth.) One could easily continue for another thousand words in this vein about "Station To Station". (Let alone the rest of the record. Bowie; "It's the nearest album to a magical treatise that I've written"). Yet none of this symbolism would matter if the artist were not in control of it; and if it didn't crack, via the desperate drunken grandiloquence of the song's bridge ("Once there were mountains on mountains"), into the naked-and-wired stamped of its epic, up-tempo release, driven by that magnificent late Seventies rhythm section of Carlos Alomar, Dennis Davis, and George Murray, and lit by the elemental fire-scream of Earl Slick's hysterical guitar. Those who accuse Bowie of lacking feeling should listen closely to this transition: the quavering, hopeless-to-hopeful vulnerability of the couplet, "It's not the side effects of the cocaine/I'm thinking that it must be love." This is a deeply unhappy human being, harried by his own incandescently gifted mind.

In fact, Bowie didn't cast his grimoire into the ocean after station To Station. He hedged his commercial bets by mixing the album "big", and made plans to tour it in Europe. He was still half in his mystic-fascist Thin White Duke persona when he "returned", like some parallel universe Duke of Windsor, to Britain in May, 1976 (and he would certainly have been aware that the Nazi salute is identical to the occult sign of the Zelator grade in the Golden Dawn system). Yet he went on, soon after this, to move to a roughhouse Turkish suburb of Berlin, there to kick the white powder, clean up his mind/body, and start a new career in a new town. The artistic transformation between Station to Station and Low was an inner one, not a career move, it happened to Bowie himself, not to Bowie the Actor. In Berlin, the sons of real SS men sorted his head out. In Berlin, he saw neo-nazis beat up Turkish immigrants. In Berlin, low in the aftermath of heavy drugs and Hollywood glamour, he forced himself to live like an everyday person, buying his own groceries. The nightmare of the Thin White Duke faded, chased away by hours of laughter with his new cohort, Eno, the first person Bowie worked with who could keep up with him. He finished Low (another album one could write thousands of words about) and mixed it, as he claims he intended to mix Station To Station, "dry": close, compressed, and with a gate on the snare so vicious that it became the first drum-sound people outside the studio-world actually noticed. What happened to the private cosmology, to the magical Nietzschean? Bowie has lately conceded "a need to vacillate between atheism or a kind of gnosticism". On his 1997 tour, he played, of all things "Quicksand". Think on, secret thinkers."

[jmejambbc]

Growing up Dominican we had just a few simple rules Be better than you were yesterday Make the ancestors proud Remember la patria. La Bandera had 2 meanings: 🇩🇴 & 🍛 Start the day with plátano y salami Cafecito is enjoyed any time. I’ve followed the rules doing what I could to make my parents proud. Unsaid, it was my responsibility to prove to them emigrating to the States was worth it. We go the extra mile for our parents, getting close to perfect; a successful & productive citizen of society. Sometimes that meant being a “good” American & understanding the privileges we were granted simply because we were born with a blue passport. I’ve felt guilty & been feeling like this for some time. {Imposture Syndrome much} I can yell it off the rooftops, I can wear it on my chest but at the end of the day I WILL NEVER be Dominican enough. I remember the EXACT day I lost my Spanish-Spanish. I was in high school & two women I worked with made fun of me because; “you sound so Dominican jajaja” They were Ecuadorian and felt my Spanish & culture was inferior because I spoke fast and sometimes forgot to end my words often skipping the “s” if it ended with one. Today I have a weird twang😕. Spanglish, an accent sprinkled with Spanish learned in school, lathered in Dominicanismo who sometimes sounds like they were raised by Colombians🤷🏽‍♀️. When speaking Spanish I think & form my sentences in English. Forgetting simple words like goma or almohada. I have many brain farts where I picture the thing I’m talking about it, think of the word in Spanish & can’t remember the word in English. It’s hard, but when I see the autrocities that’s going on in our mother’s land we recognize how “good” we have it & how it’s our responsibility to SAY IT WITH OUR CHEST•PROTECT US•DEFEND US•NEVER FORGET DOMINICANA SOY (at Westchester County, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/CRb1F2JgIwL/?utm_medium=tumblr

[dailynewswebsite]

Why all human rights depend on a healthy environment

Rising sea ranges are threatening houses on Diamniadio Island, Saloum Delta in Senegal. A baby stands outdoors a house's former kitchen, surrounded by mangrove branches, in 2015. (AP Picture/Jane Hahn)

Current revelations concerning the velocity and scale of nature’s decline are arduous to actually comprehend. Not for the reason that dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years in the past has the variety and abundance of life on Earth plunged so precipitously.

For many years, governments have signed treaties and made pledges to halt the harm to our biosphere, notably the 1992 Conference on Organic Variety. Looking back, it’s an embarrassing litany of daring rhetoric, timid motion and damaged guarantees.

The current World Biodiversity Outlook-5 reveals that not one of the 2010 Aichi Biodiversity Targets, which offered nations with the targets for the safety of species and habitats, had been achieved by 2020.

But all human rights in the end depend upon a wholesome biosphere. Among the many human rights being threatened and violated by the ecosystem degradation and the decline of biodiversity are the rights to life, well being, meals, a wholesome surroundings, water, an satisfactory lifestyle and tradition.

Wholesome ecosystems save lives

With out functioning ecosystems, which depend upon wholesome biodiversity, there can be no clear air to breathe, protected water to drink or nutritious meals to eat. Wholesome ecosystems additionally regulate the Earth’s local weather, filter air and water, recycle vitamins and mitigate the affect of pure disasters.

Learn extra: How our meals decisions lower into forests and put us nearer to viruses

Maybe probably the most conspicuous instance is COVID-19, a pandemic that has brought about multiple million deaths and is the newest rising infectious illness to spill over into people from one other species. Proof is mounting that the rising danger of those ailments is attributable to human actions that harm ecosystems and biodiversity.

Cyclone Kenneth struck Ibo Island, Mozambique, in Could 2019, flattening communities and contaminating ingesting water wells. (AP Picture/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

Wholesome ecosystems present a buffer in opposition to rising infectious ailments, safeguarding the appropriate to well being. Communities protected by wholesome mangrove ecosystems are much less more likely to undergo deaths attributable to cyclones, defending the appropriate to life. Bugs, bats and birds pollinate greater than 75 per cent of crops, important for fulfilling the appropriate to meals.

The very important function for human rights

Scientists’ warnings have by no means been extra dire or extra clear. The Intergovernmental Panel on Local weather Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Coverage Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Companies are calling for fast, systemic and transformative modifications to deal with the worldwide environmental disaster.

That’s why there’s a very important function for human rights. Traditionally, rights have served as catalysts for societal transformations, together with the abolition of slavery, equality for girls and the top of apartheid. Rights are being strategically employed by Indigenous peoples, LGBTQ+ people and individuals with disabilities to cut back discrimination, enhance alternatives and enhance their high quality of life. It’s by no means simple, however human rights undoubtedly have sparked constructive transformative modifications.

Rights are getting used more and more in efforts to deal with the planetary environmental emergency. Final yr the Supreme Court docket of the Netherlands, within the Urgenda case, dominated that the Dutch authorities violated the rights of its residents underneath the European Conference on Human Rights by failing to take sufficiently formidable motion to cut back greenhouse gasoline emissions. The courtroom ordered the federal government to make quicker and deeper emissions cuts.

Learn extra: What a Dutch Supreme Court docket determination on local weather change and human rights means for Canada

Related instances are popping up everywhere in the world. The Torres Strait Islanders filed a case in opposition to Australia with the UN Human Rights Committee, arguing that Australia’s abysmal document on local weather change violates their rights to life, well being and tradition. Greta Thunberg and 15 different youths have filed an analogous case on the UN Committee on the Rights of the Baby, asserting that insufficient local weather motion violates their rights.

The appropriate to a wholesome surroundings

One other encouraging growth is the emergence of the appropriate to dwell in a wholesome and sustainable surroundings. Portugal and Spain had been the primary international locations to place this proper of their constitutions, in 1976 and 1978 respectively. The appropriate to a wholesome surroundings first appeared in regional human rights treaties with the African Constitution on Human and Folks’s Rights in 1981 and the San Salvador Protocol to the American Conference on Human Rights in 1988.

Right now, the appropriate to a wholesome surroundings is acknowledged by greater than 80 per cent of the UN’s member states (156 out of 193). Canada and the USA don’t, though a number of the provinces, territories and states acknowledge the appropriate to a wholesome surroundings of their laws or constitutions.

In international locations the place the rule of legislation is in good condition, the appropriate to a wholesome surroundings has led to stronger environmental legal guidelines and insurance policies, greater ranges of public participation in environmental decision-making and most significantly, improved environmental efficiency.

Land lately burned and deforested by cattle farmers stands empty close to Canutama in Amazonas state, Brazil, Sept. 2, 2019. (AP Picture/Andre Penner)

The Supreme Court docket of Colombia issued a globally necessary determination that addresses each the local weather emergency and the character disaster. In response to a lawsuit filed by 25 youngsters and youth, the courtroom dominated that deforestation within the Colombian portion of the Amazon rainforest violates their proper to a wholesome surroundings. The courtroom ordered the federal government to satisfy with the younger folks and main scientists to develop a plan to quickly finish deforestation.

It’s not too late, however time is operating out

With COVID-19, humanity is paying a horrible worth for ignoring scientists’ warnings. We should not make the identical mistake once more.

States should take a rights-based strategy to pressing motion in 4 key and interrelated areas:

adopting carbon impartial and nature constructive financial restoration plans, concentrating on the important thing drivers of zoonotic ailments, scaling-up measures to guard and preserve nature, respecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples, rural and native communities.

If we fail to make use of a rights-based strategy to defending the biosphere, future generations will dwell in an ecologically impoverished world, disadvantaged of nature’s essential contributions to human well-being, ravaged by more and more frequent pandemics and riven by deepening environmental injustices.

If we place human rights and nature on the coronary heart of sustainable growth, people may attain a simply and sustainable future through which folks dwell joyful, wholesome and fulfilling lives in concord with nature on this stunning however beleaguered blue-green planet.

David R Boyd receives funding from SSHRC, the Open Society Basis, and the College of British Columbia. He’s affiliated with the United Nations Human Rights Council, which appointed him because the Particular Rapporteur on human rights and the surroundings in 2018.

from Growth News https://growthnews.in/why-all-human-rights-depend-on-a-healthy-environment/ via https://growthnews.in