#Eid 2021

[90-ghost]

Never forget when halsey tweeted about my sister reema on 2021 after the occupation army killed her and her family. It was last day of Ramadan her kids was so happy that's Eid coming to they will get toys to play with. And the suffering continues till today more than 25k people got killed all of them like my sister. More 10k missing more 70k injured.

[plounce]

researching stuff for a post about misinformation regarding girl scout cookies and man this article (10/28/23) about this palestinian-american girl scout nearly made me burst into tears

In her short 17 years on earth, Amira Ismail had never been called a baby killer.

That’s what happened one Friday this month, Amira said, on New York City’s Q58 bus, which runs through central Queens.

“This lady looked at me, and she was like: ‘You’re disgusting. You’re a baby killer. You’re an antisemite,’” Amira told me. When she talked about this incident, her signature spunk faded. “I just kept saying, ‘That’s not true,’” she said. “I was just on my way to school. I was just wearing my hijab.”

Amira was born in Queens in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks. She remembers participating as a child in demonstrations at City Hall as part of a successful movement to make Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha school holidays in New York City.

But since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, in which an estimated 1,400 Israelis were killed and some 200 others were kidnapped, Amira, who is Palestinian American, said she has experienced for the first time the full fury of Islamophobia and racism that her older relatives and friends have told stories about all her life. Throughout the city, in fact, there has been an increase in both anti-Muslim and antisemitic attacks.

In heavily Muslim parts of Queens, she said, police officers are suddenly everywhere, asking for identification and stopping and frisking Muslim men. (New York City has stepped up its police presence around both Muslim and Jewish neighborhoods and sites within the five boroughs.) Most painful though, she said, is the sense that she and her peers are getting that Palestinian lives do not matter, as they watch the United States staunchly back Israel as it heads into war.

“It can’t go unrecognized, the thousands of Palestinians that have been murdered in the past two weeks and even more the past 75 years,” Amira said. “There’s no way you can erase that.” That does not mean she is antisemitic, she said. “How can I denounce one system of oppression without denouncing another?” she asked me. The pain in her usually buoyant voice cut through me. I had no answer for her.

Many New York City kids have a worldliness about them, a certain telltale moxie. Amira, a joyful, sneaker-wearing, self-described “Queens kid,” can seem unstoppable.

When she was just 15, Amira helped topple a major mayoral campaign in America’s largest city, writing a letter accusing the ultraprogressive candidate Dianne Morales of having violated child labor laws while purporting to champion the working class in New York.

“My life and my extremely bright future as a 15-year-old activist will not be defined by the failures and harm enabled by Dianne Morales,” Amira wrote in the 2021 letter, which went viral and helped end Ms. Morales’s campaign. “I wrote my college essay about that,” Amira told me with a slightly mischievous smile.

In the past two years, Amira has become a veteran organizer. Last weekend, she joined an antiwar protest. First, though, she’ll have to work on earning her latest Girl Scout badge, this one for photography. That will mean satisfying her mother, Abier Rayan, who happens to be Troop 4179’s leader. “She’s tough,” Amira assured me.

At a meeting of the Muslim Girl Scouts of Astoria last week, a young woman bounded into the room, asking whether her fellow scouts had secured tickets to an Olivia Rodrigo concert. “She’s the Taylor Swift of our generation,” the scout turned to me to explain.

A group of younger girls recited the Girl Scout Law:

“I will do my best to be honest and fair, friendly and helpful, considerate and caring, courageous and strong, and responsible for what I say and do, and to respect myself and others, respect authority, use resources wisely, make the world a better place and be a sister to every Girl Scout.”

Amira’s mother carefully inspected the work of some of the younger scouts; she wore a blue Girl Scouts U.S.A. vest, filled with colorful badges, and a hot-pink hijab. “It’s no conflict at all,” Ms. Rayan told me of Islam and the Girl Scouts. “You want a strong Muslim American girl.”

At the Girl Scouts meeting, Amira and her friends discussed their plans to protest the war in Gaza. “Protests are where you let go of your anger,” Amira told me.

Amira’s mother was born in Egypt. In 1948, Ms. Rayan told me, her grandfather lost his home and land in Jaffa to the state of Israel. At the Girl Scout meeting, Ms. Rayan was still waiting for word that relatives in Gaza were safe.

“There’s been no communication,” she said. When I asked about Amira, Ms. Rayan’s eyes brightened. “I’m really proud of her,” she said. “You have to be strong. You don’t know where you’re going to be tomorrow.”

By Monday, word had reached Ms. Rayan that her relatives had been killed as Israel bombed Gaza City. When I asked whom she had lost, Ms. Rayan replied: “All of them. There’s no one left.” Thousands of Palestinians are estimated to have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza in recent weeks. ... Ms. Rayan said those killed in her family included six cousins and their children, who were as young as 2. Other relatives living abroad told her the cousins died beneath the rubble of their home.

As Ms. Rayan spoke, I saw Amira’s young face. I wondered how long this bright, spirited Queens kid could keep her fire for what I believe John Lewis would have called “good trouble” in a world that seems hellbent on snuffing it out. I worried about how she would finish her college applications.

“I have a lot of angry emotions at the ones in charge,” Amira told me days ago, speaking for so many human beings around the world in this dark time.

I thought about what I had seen over that weekend in Brooklyn, where thousands gathered in the Bay Ridge neighborhood, the home of many Arab Americans, to protest the war. In this part of the city, people of many backgrounds carried Palestinian flags through the street. Large groups of police officers gathered on every corner, watching them go by.

The crowd was large but quiet when Amira waded in, picked up her megaphone and called for Palestinian liberation. In an instant, thousands of New Yorkers repeated after her, filling the Brooklyn street with their voices. My prayer is that Amira’s generation of leaders will leave a better world than the one it has been given.

i believe she recently got her gold award (which, if youve never been in girl scouts, is really difficult - way more difficult than eagle scout awards), or is almost done with it. i hope she's doing okay.

this article (no paywall) about muslim and palestinian girl scout troops in socal also almost made me cry (it's like 2am). i really really hope all these kids are doing alright. god. they and their families all deserve so much better

[formlab]

The Third Stage of Imperialism, Gardar Eide Einarsson, 2021

[eretzyisrael]

By Bassem Eid

Outside obfuscators often try to misplace blame for the suffering onto Israel's "blockade" on the Strip, but a brief consideration of the timeline shows the absurdity of this conceit. Israel unilaterally withdrew all of its soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005. Within hours, Hamas-aligned looters had stripped bare and destroyed the greenhouses and farms Israel had left behind for local sustenance. In 2007, Hamas seized military control of the strip in a brutal local coup against the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority (PA), throwing its supporters off the roofs of buildings.

Since then, rather than engage in peacemaking and economic development, Hamas, like a Mediterranean North Korea, has diverted all of its resources to warfare. It and its ally, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), have repeatedly fired rocket salvos into central Israel—in 2008-9, 2012, 2014, and 2021. In October 2023, Hamas breached all precedent with an all-out invasion of Southern Israel, massacring over 1,200 innocents in a single day—including 300 young people at an all-night nature dance party celebrating peace.

Rape, torture, and bodily mutilation were reported on a systemic scale, and over 240 innocents were dragged back to Hamas's terror emirate in Gaza as hostages. Hamas is still holding over 130 of these innocents hostage.

As a human rights activist and a human being, I recognize that it defies all rules of geopolitics, morality, and human nature to suggest that Israel not respond militarily to dismantle Hamas and rescue its people, who we now know are being raped and psychologically tortured in captivity.

And yet, amidst the intensity of the ongoing war, Israel has facilitated the transfer of international aid to Hamas-controlled territory—while Hamas has been seizing these essential supplies and transferring them for military purposes. Hamas has built a massive network of tunnels under the Strip that exceeds the New York subway system in length, where hostages have been kept underground without light and used as human shields to protect terrorist commanders. Hamas's cannibalization of the civilian economy has gone so far as to dig up water pipes and convert them into makeshift rockets to fire into Israeli territory.

[alphadogmp3]

i have. many d20 mutuals AND a dropout subscription (that i actually bought specifically for game changer LOL) so i decided to watch d20 and uh. yeah. i haven't done anything other than watching d20 this eid/spring break and i am a-ok with that. also a very funny thing: my uni prep school teacher, after an icebreaker session in which the class learned that she was really into dnd, actually recommended eftbk as a great entry to d20 and gushed about brennan in 2021. and i am watching eftbk only now ms [REDACTED] i am so sorry you are the coolest teacher ever thank you for introducing me to brennan lee mulligan every day i fear that you might also be in the dropout discord and clock me from the fact that my discord name is just my name i hope the twins are well

[vsm4k]

i've rise from hell

after eid mubarak meeting many relatives chatting n stuff, it's not hell but school is.

I'm using my main oc into yassifying mk cuz I ran out idea but why not. Creating another ocs is a big responsibility to remember these gremlins so im not gonna force my brain to forget sometime cuz I'm VERY dyslexic.

Raz (razael for short) had been my first main oc for half a year since I was like what..uhh maybe 2021..? whatever, his origin are incomplete cuz me n my sister r sharing ocs together like rivals but she still working on our stories, it's dysfunctional family tree lore that she's making of but vampire, hybrid n stuff like that. (Like castlevania biblically accurate even tho I never watch it before). The origin raz (modern day), he's just an old immortal guy but billionaire bs man and role model, has been living for millennium n pretty much his life really sucks ass after been through a lot, dealing his half vampire n half demon genes (insta ahh oc) and problematic family.

Now in mk1 version, he is like younger version of him. However, his origin (AGAIN forgot to mention) is just genocidal maniac, taking the demonic role n abandoned his vampire role being. Back to mk version, this raz is different. He is caring, quirky, less energetic, and a dumbass. Aside his personality, he's an assassin n we'll get into that later. (Maybe not idk) Him being hybrid r half demon n now a half dragon. His backstory not too sure and still work in progress. Anyway here they are

I thinks that enough for me to write shi I'm being completely brainless rn (and yes, rivalry accurate)

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

There is also a border with Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea. And, lest anyone forget, there is a maze of underground tunnels one recently-freed Israeli hostage calls "Lower Gaza" which presents numerous illegal exit opportunities.

As Ari Zivotofsky observes in the Jerusalem Post, a September 19, 2023, episode of the Palestinian television show Emigration claimed that, "in the past 15 years a quarter of a million young Palestinians left for abroad." In 2022, over 15,000 of them who lived abroad (having apparently escaped the "prison") willingly returned to it to celebrate the feast of Eid al-Adha.

This is not how prisons work.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has been running a series on "Gaza Before October 7" refuting the "concentration camp" and "open-air prison" claims with pictures and videos. The first two episodes follow Palestinian "influencer" Yousef Alhelou as he travels around Gaza, showing off the top spots for tourists, including a gold market. Subsequent episodes include an Al-Jazeera feature of the economic boom in Gaza, Turkish television reports on the markets of Gaza, and various Arab media outlets covering the many sporting events in Gaza.

Hamas propagandists argue that Gazans are denied goods and services they are entitled to because of Israel's "land, water, and sea blockade," but Israel only blocks weapons from entering Gaza. Even after October 7, Israel has continued to supply electricity, food, and medicine.

What the "pro-Palestine" luminaries will never admit is that Israel has been forced into controlling Gaza's ports by the long history of weapons shipped there. In 2001, two vessels, the Calypso and the Santorini, were seized with weapons destined for Palestinian terrorists, and in 2002, a Palestinian ship called the Karine A was seized with 50 tons of Iranian weapons destined for Gaza. Since then, Israel has acted to prevent further shipments of weapons from reaching Gaza by sea. In 2007, after Hamas took over Gaza completely, Israel imposed an inspections regime and began more aggressively searching ships for smuggled weapons. Food and medicine are not prevented from entering Gaza.

Poor access to healthcare is another complaint about life in the Gaza "open-air prison." In April 2023, the Jerusalem-based anti-Israel activist group B'Tselem faulted Israel for preventing Palestinians from leaving Gaza in order to be treated in Israeli hospitals. But Israel treats plenty of Palestinians. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh sends his entire family to Israel for medical care. In 2013 his 1-year-old granddaughter was treated in an Israeli hospital; in 2014 his daughter was treated at Tel Aviv's Ichilov Hospital and his mother-in-law was treated at Jerusalem's Augusta Victoria Hospital; in 2021 his niece was treated at Ichilov Hospital. Just this month, it was reported that Haniyeh's grandniece was being treated at the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva. But why should any Gazans be treated in Israeli hospitals? There are 36 hospitals in Gaza, many of which are run by foreign nations (Indonesia, Turkey, Jordan, European countries) serving a population of around 2 million.

Of course, hospitals in Gaza are dual-purpose buildings, offering both healthcare and camouflage for the entrances to Hamas's elaborate subterranean infrastructure. An IDF spokesman said that "Hamas systematically built the Indonesian Hospital to disguise its underground terror infrastructure." The Al-Shifa hospital, where IDF soldiers found a stash of rifles, ammunition, and ballistic vests, also sits atop a major tunnel junction. IDF soldiers recently found unopened boxes of medicine for Israeli hostages at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

If Gaza is a prison, Hamas is the jailer.

[divinum-pacis]

2021: Muslim women apply henna paste after performing Eid prayers on the first day of Eid al-Fitr, in Nairobi, Kenya. [Monicah Mwangi/Reuters]

[mxhirus]

As someone with a "platform", I feel the need to speak out about this. I think the censorship of media on TikTok related to Palestine is insane. Like, I rarely ever see anything about it on TikTok anymore, and I found out it's because they apparently tend to censor or block out certain trigger words (and I figure Palestine is one of them). When I do hear about it, words like "Watermelonia" is used as a substitute.

Another thing I feel the need to point out is that not many people really talked about Israel's Eid 2021 surprise, bombing. The sky was practically ablaze with how many bombs they shot out onto the innocent people of Palestine, and it's disgusting. It's disgusting how long this has been going on. It's been around 75 years (correct me if I am wrong) since this conflict began. As Ramadan is arriving soon, it's becoming more and more apparent that the people of Palestine will not be able to experience a peaceful Ramadan because Israel keeps coming back for more every singular year. Astaghfirullah, It's absolutely abhorrent.

What's going on in Palestine is a genocide, and we, as human beings with basic emotional intelligence, empathy, and capacity, have the ability to do something about it. The fact that anyone would do something against it is completely beyond me. I pray for Palestine everyday, as this is absolutely tragic. My heart will always go out to them for the tragedies they are taking on. Palestine is incredibly strong to be handling this, and so are its people.

That being said, here's a good resource I discovered while on Twitter. arab.org is a website in which all you have to do to help out is click a button. It's great for people who can't afford to donate or are unsure as to how they can support Palestine. A link to an article below on what's going on in Palestine is also provided, since some people might not be caught up (surprisingly, seeing how so much has happened already).

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Tom Slater

Published: Mar 30, 2024

‘Forte non Ignave’, ‘Bravely not cowardly’, is the motto of Batley Grammar, a free school in West Yorkshire, founded in 1612. How grimly ironic, then, that three years ago, it became the site of one of the most craven capitulations to religious bigotry Britain has seen since the Satanic Verses controversy.

On Monday 22 March 2021, a religious-studies teacher at Batley Grammar showed his pupils cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, as part of a lesson on blasphemy. The cartoons were from Charlie Hebdo, the satirical French magazine whose staff paid the ultimate price for their supposed blasphemy in 2015, when two al-Qaeda gunmen showed up at their offices.

The cartoons had been on the syllabus for at least two years, and no one had batted an eyelid. Up to that point, Batley Grammar – a secular state school – had no reason to suspect it should have to respect Islamic blasphemy codes, especially when teaching about religion, free speech and blasphemy. It was in for a rude awakening.

‘The lesson descended into chaos as pupils took out their phones and attempted to film the teacher’, according to one report. The teacher, according to another, had a heated phone call with the father of one Muslim pupil. Then things spun out of control. Word got out online. Protesters – a mix of parents and activists from Leeds, Rochdale and beyond – pitched up outside the school gates, shutting down the school for a number of days.

All the while, the teacher was menaced by death threats. A local Islamic charity, Purpose of Life, published a statement, outing the teacher and comparing his indiscretion – bizarrely – to the brutalisation of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. A group called Muslim Action Forum also published his name, alongside more lurid libels, accusing the teacher of ‘inciting hatred’ and accusing his supporters of ‘blind hatred of the Muslim community’. These groups were, in effect, putting a target on the back of a man they had likely never met. Young men were spotted knocking at the door and trying the handle of the teacher’s house, where he lived with his wife and their children.

The bigoted caricature bore no relationship to reality, of course. According to the teacher’s Muslim neighbour, his was a nice family, who bought cards and sweets for the Muslim kids in the neighbourhood during Eid. Even so, no one should be expected to go through what this teacher went through – facing all the violent intolerance and hysteria of a medieval village, only spread far and wide by social media. He spoke to Dame Sara Khan, for her new report on modern-day mob censorship, which was published by the UK government this week. His treatment, Khan writes, left the teacher feeling suicidal.

He feared for his life, and with good reason. Five months before that fateful religious-studies class in West Yorkshire, French teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded in a Paris suburb by an Islamic extremist. Paty’s ‘crime’ was almost identical: showing Charlie Hebdo cartoons to his pupils in a lesson on freedom of expression. Adil Shahzad, an imam from Bradford who shot straight to Batley to lead the protests, warned darkly at the time that Britain risked ‘becoming like France’. Shahzad insisted Muslims should make their feelings known in the ‘democratic way’. But it turns out he has a history of praising murderous anti-blasphemy groups in Pakistan.

Where Britain after Batley certainly differed from France after Paty was in the reaction. Thousands took to the streets in France, in solidarity with the slain teacher and in support of free expression. The murder inspired President Emmanuel Macron to mount a personal crusade against Islamist extremism. In Britain, there was just capitulation. The school suspended the teacher and penned a grovelling apology. For some reason, a West Yorkshire Police officer was enlisted to read it out to the protesters. All this was welcomed heartily by Labour’s Tracy Brabin, then MP for Batley and Spen. She said she was ‘pleased that the school has recognised it was inappropriate and apologised’. After an investigation, the teacher was cleared of any personal wrongdoing, but the cartoons were removed from the syllabus. The mob won. And the teacher is still in hiding.

None of this has calmed tensions, of course. It has only emboldened the hardliners. Capitulation always does. There’s been a string of similar blasphemy scandals since. In 2022, Sunni Muslim protesters managed to get Cineworld to pull screenings of The Lady of Heaven, a Shia-made film they deemed to be blasphemous. In 2023, another school, less than 10 miles from Batley Grammar, this time in Wakefield, found itself in the zealots’ crosshairs, after a schoolboy brought a Koran to school and accidentally scuffed it. He too was bombarded with death threats. In the end, the police took no action against those trying to intimidate a child. A child who also happened to be autistic. But they did record a ‘non-crime hate incident’ against him.

A hardworking teacher forever looking over his shoulder. Shias censored at the behest of sectarians. A schoolboy threatened with death and arson. This is the cost of our cowardice, of our institutions’ inability to make clear that no one can expect to have their views forcefielded from criticism and that a free society cannot tolerate violence and threats in response to mere speech, words, cartoons. Blasphemy trials are back – only they are conducted by the mob, rather than a court. We’ve sent out a signal – loud and clear – that threats and violence and intimidation work.

And we’ve done so due to some genuinely bigoted assumptions about British Muslims. The first is that they are incapable of being citizens of liberal democracies – that, unlike any other religious group, they should expect to have their heretics burned, or at least punished. The second misconception is that the screeching rent-a-mobs that now show up whenever a ‘blasphemy’ scandal erupts are the authentic voice of British Muslims. They’re not. In fact, British Muslims and ex-Muslims are often on the sharp end of anti-blasphemy intolerance. In 2016, Glasgow’s Asad Shah and Rochdale’s Jalal Uddin both lost their lives, within weeks of each other, for their respective ‘blasphemies’. Hatun Tash, an ex-Muslim turned Christian preacher, has been stabbed and been the target of a terror plot for railing against her former faith. Thankfully, she’s still alive.

Three years on from Batley Grammar, we need to fight for the right to blaspheme all over again, before any more Brits – Muslim, non-Muslim or ex-Muslim – pay the price for our cowardice.

==

Said it before and I'll say it again: start revoking citizenship and deporting those who make these threats. They're trying to make our liberal societies into their Islamic hellholes.

[beardedmrbean]

Hibatullah Akundzada, the reclusive leader of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, rejected the idea of compromising when it comes to restrictions on women's life in the country this week.

The leader of the Islamic theocracy, which retook Afghanistan in 2021 following the withdrawal of American forces that summer, addressed thousands of worshippers on the holiday of Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of Ramadan.

Speaking and leading prayers at the central mosque of Kandahar, Akhundzada proclaimed that he "will not take even a step away from the Islamic law," according to a report in Voice of America.

Taliban fighters celebrate on the second anniversary of the fall of Kabul on a street near the US embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 15, 2023. (credit: REUTERS)

Taliban has banned women from public parks, gyms

"I am administering God's Hudud," Akundzada said, using an Arabic word that literally translates to "limits," and refers to the sets of laws and punishments prescribed by Islam. "They object to it, saying public stoning and hand-cutting are against their laws and human rights... Islam is a divine religion that deserves respect, but you insult it instead." 

The Taliban has suspended girls' education past the sixth grade and banned many women from the workplace, as well as from public spaces such as parks, gyms, and bathhouses, VOA reported.

There is only one publicly available photograph of Akhundzada, who has led the Taliban since 2016. His speech was broadcast on Taliban radio, according to VOA. 

[brookstonalmanac]

Holidays 6.18

Holidays

Academy Day (Scientology)

Autistic Pride Day

Clark Kent Day

Clean Your Aquarium Day

Count Your $$ Day

Drone Safety Day

Festival of Invisible Pornography

Finest Hour Speech Day

Foundation Day (Benguet, Philippines)

Go Fishing Day

Hand Cart Day (French Republic)

Horned Poppy Day

Human Rights Day (Azerbaijan)

International Day for Countering Hate Speech

International Declaration of Human Rights Day

International Panic Day

Jack Herer Day

Justice Institution Employees Day (Turkmenistan)

Mela Khir Bhawani (Kashmir, India)

National Black America’s Day of Repentance

National Internet Cat Day

National Jesse Day

National Relationship Day

National Splurge Day

National Wanna Get Away Day

National Wear Blue Day

Neurodiversity Pride Day (Netherlands)

No Headline Day

Police Inspector’s Day (Ukraine)

Queen Mother’s Day (Cambodia)

618 Day

Sustainable Gastronomy Day

Tabasco Day (Mali)

Trouser Day

Veterinary Appreciation Day (a.k.a. Veterinarian Appreciation Day)

Waterloo Day (UK)

Wild Den Dancing Day

World Day Against Incarceration

World Wide Knit in Public Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Insalata Day (Italy)

International Picnic Day

International Sushi Day

National Cheesemaker’s Day

National Cherry Tart Day

Independence & Related Days

Aldrodnia (Declared; 2018) [unrecognized]

Bacolod City Charter Day (Philippines)

Constitution Day (Seychelles)

Egypt (a.k.a. Eid el-Galaa, evacuation of foreign troops, 1954)

Flinders (Declared; 2022) [unrecognized]

Jailavera (Declared; 2017) [unrecognized]

Leprechia (Declared; 2021) [unrecognized]

Naga City Charter Day (Philippines)

Onontakeka (Declared; 2018) [unrecognized]

Snagov (Declared; 2020) [unrecognized]

3rd Tuesday in June

National Accounts Payable Appreciation Day [3rd Tuesday]

National Cherry Tart Day [3rd Tuesday]

Royal Ascot begins (UK) [3rd Tuesday]

Taco Tuesday [Every Tuesday]

Weekly Holidays beginning June 18 (3rd Full Week)

National Water Safety Week (Ireland) [thru 6.25]

Royal Ascot (thru 6.22)

Festivals Beginning June 18, 2024

Marysville Strawberry Festival (Marysville, Washington) [thru 6.23]

RMA Convention (Maui, Hawaii) [thru 6.21]

Taste of Little Italy (San Diego, California) [thru 6.19]

Feast Days

Amandus, Bishop of Bordeaux (Christian; Saint)

Andim Day (Pastafarian)

Bernard Mizeki (Anglican and Episcopal Church)

Chris Van Allsburg (Artology)

Elisabeth of Schönau (Christian; Saint)

Elvis Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Ephraem (Christian; Saint)

Erik Ortvad (Artology)

Festival of Anna (Ancient Rome; Everyday Wicca)

Going Forth of Neith Along the River (Ancient Egypt’ Goddess of War and Hunting)

Gregorio Barbarigo (Christian; Saint)

Gregory of Fragalata (Christian; Saint)

Into Raymi Festival begins (Inca Sun Worship Festival; until 24th)

James Montgomery Flagg (Artology)

John Bellany (Artology)

Joseph-Marie Vien (Artology)

Leontius, Hypatius and Theodulus (Christian; Saints)

Leroy (Muppetism)

Marina the Monk (Maronite Church, Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria)

Mark and Marcellian (Christian; Martyrs)

Media Ver XI (Pagan)

National Splurge Day (Church of the SubGenius)

Now Panic Day (Pastafarian)

Osanna Andreasi (Christian; Saint)

Theodoric the Great (Positivist; Saint)

Three Lasting Things of Cormac Mac Art: Grass, Copper and Yew (Celtic Book of Days)

Tiger-Get-By’s Birthday (Shamanism)

Islamic Lunar Holidays

Eid al-Adha, Day 3 [Muslim Feast of Sacrifice] (a.k.a. ... 

Al Adha (Bahrain)

Corban Bairam (Sudan)

Eid al Adha (Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, West Bank and Gaza, Yemen)

Eid e-Ghorban

Eid ul-Ad’haa (Maldives)

Feast of Sacrifice (Uzbekistan)

Gurban Bayram (Azerbaijan)

Hari Arafat (Malaysia)

Hari Raya Qurban (Malaysia)

Id el Kabir (Nigeria)

Kurban Bayram (North Cyprus)

Kurban Bayramy (Turkey)

Qurbon Hayit (Uzbekistan)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Taian (大安 Japan) [Lucky all day.]

Unfortunate Day (Pagan) [36 of 57]

Premieres

The Adventures of Ellery Queen (Radio Series; 1939)

The Bully (Ub Iwerks Flip the Frog Cartoon; 1932)

Casey Bats Again (Disney Cartoon; 1954)

Dangerous When Wet (Film; 1953)

Dare To Be Stupid, by Weird Al Yankovic (Album; 1985)

Day & Night (Pixar Cartoon; 2010)

Der Freischütz (or The Marksman), by Carl Maria von Weber (Opera; 1821)

DodgeBall (Film: 2004)

(Everything I Do) I Do It For You, by Bryan Adams (Song; 1991)

Eyes in Outer Space (Disney Cartoon; 1959)

Goodbye Cruel World, by Elvis Costello (Album; 1984)

The House with a Clock in Its Walls, by John Bellairs (Novel; 1973)

Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train (Documentary Film; 2004)

Ice Station Zebra, by Alistair MacLean (Novel; 1963)

An Ideal Husband (Film; 1999)

Inside, Outside, by Herman Wouk (History Book; 1985)

Lady and the Lamp (Disney Cartoon; 1979)

Last Action Hero (Film; 1993)

Le Marteau sans Maître, by Pierre Boulez (Chamber Cantata; 1955)

Luca (Animated Film; 2021)

Morning, Noon and Nightclub (Fleischer Popeye Cartoon; 1937)

My Cousin Rachel, by Daphne du Maurier (Novel; 1952)

The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman (Novel; 2013)

Odelay, by Beck (Album; 1996)

Once Upon a Forest (Hanna-Barbera Animated Film; 1993)

Origin of Symmetry, by Muse (Album; 2001)

Polar Fright (Chilly Willy Cartoon; 1966)

Popeye Meets Hercules (Fleischer/Famous Popeye Cartoon; 1948)

The Sparks Brothers (Documentary Film; 2021)

Suppressed Duck (WB LT Cartoon; 1965)

Tarzan (Animated Disney Film; 1999)

Toy Story 3 (Animated Pixar Film; 2010)

The Underground World (Fleischer Cartoon; 1943) [#16]

The Wild Bunch (Film; 1969)

Wouldn’t It Be Nice, by The Beach Boys (Song; 1966)

Today’s Name Days

Elisabeth, Ilsa, Marina (Austria)

Asen, Chavdar (Bulgaria)

Elizabeta, Marcel, Ozana, Paul (Croatia)

Milan (Czech Republic)

Leontius (Denmark)

Auli, Aurelia, Auri, Reeli, Reelika, Reili (Estonia)

Tapio (Finland)

Léonce (France)

Elisabeth, Ilsa, Isabella, Marina (Germany)

Erasmos, Leontios (Greece)

Arnold, Levente (Hungary)

Gregorio, Marina, Marinella, Marinetta (Italy)

Alberts, Madis (Latvia)

Arnulfas, Ginbutas, Marina, Vaiva (Lithuania)

Bjarne, Bjørn (Norway)

Efrem, Elżbieta, Gerwazy, Leonia, Marek, Marina, Paula (Poland)

Ipatie, Leontie, Teodul (România)

Vratislav (Slovakia)

Marcelino, Marcos (Spain)

Bjarne, Björn (Sweden)

Leo, Leon (Ukraine)

Effie, Efrain, Eph, Ephraim, Marina, Marnie, Nevaeh (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 170 of 2024; 196 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 2 of week 25 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Duir (Oak) [Day 10 of 28]

Chinese: Month 5 (Geng-Wu), Day 13 (Gui-Chou)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]

Hebrew: 12 Sivan 5784

Islamic: 11 Dhu al-Hijjah 1445

J Cal: 20 Blue; Sixday [20 of 30]

Julian: 5 June 2024

Moon: 88%: Waxing Gibbous

Positivist: 1 Charlemagne (7th Month) [Theodoric the Great]

Runic Half Month: Dag (Day) [Day 10 of 15]

Season: Spring (Day 92 of 92)

Week: 3rd Full Week of June)

Zodiac: Gemini (Day 29 of 31)

Calendar Changes

Charlemagne (Feudal Civilization) [Month 7 of 13; Positivist]

[khalidistan]

#FERamadan 2021: family

it's a fire emblem ramadan tradition of mine to illustrate baby cyril and claude from my brothers au!! the artwork on the right is my eid piece, and the artwork on the left is my promotional art for the 2021 event. I was studying abroad when planning that year, and I felt homesick and missed my family so much, especially my little sibling. ramadan for me is about healing from intergenerational trauma and strengthening my familial bonds.

[autistickirstenlarson]

Mona Youssef’s Collection

- Warm Winter Outfit (2015)

- Eid Al-Fitr Celebration Outfit (2021)

- Striped Hoodie Outfit (2013)

- Sparkly Tunic and Jeans Outfit (2006)

- Sweet Sequins Party Outfit (2006)

- Striped School Dress (2011)

- Cozy Sweater Outfit (2011)

- Joss’ Shine Bright PJs (2020)

I selected a few more modest of AG’s outfits for Mona, as while she doesn’t wear her hijab all the time, she still prefers to dress in long sleeves and leggings. She also loves colorful, artsy patterns.

[gemsofgreece]

Some complain that we should make a Greek song for Eurovision but we already had one in 2018, but we were disqualified even though it was a pretty song. Maybe because it a soft ballad or something but it was something to send a song in our native language.

But i think we should start first...voting for the candidates who will represent us and second mix both traditional and modern rhythms.

Bre make a Pontiac song and see how much on top we would be, would make the whole crowd dance 😉

Oh my God Anon 😂😂😂 You are young, right? Or started watching Eurovision recently? This is not condescending, I just want to cheer you up. I am asking because Greece retains a honorary title of being a Eurovision powerhouse due to its mostly consistent success throughout 2001- 2013. In all those years, almost all the songs that succeeded had either Greek music or both Greek music and lyrics. The 2014-2019 dry spell had mostly entirely English songs except for two, which had very bad performances. The 2021-2022 successes made people hopeful that Greece was coming back but long time fans complained that Greece should also return to its authentic sounds.

When it comes to the 2018 song, have you watched the stage performance???? I think even Victor two days ago was better than Yanna, and that says a lot! It had nothing to do with the song or the language or it being soft. She sang terribly and supposedly her whole freaking equipment for the staging was stuck at the customs and never arrived at Eurovision (that’s what she said)!!!Have you ever heard of such an occurrence before? 😂 One more suspicious person would say there were barely any ideas for the staging at all and she had no better way of excusing it.

Despite all that, the public did keep her in, albeit barely, and gave her the 10th place. She was murdered by the juries who gave her the 16th place and disqualified her. Here’s the thing though: Yanna accused the juries and the production in general of a sabotage. This might sound crazy but something shitty DID happen. There is a point in the song, during the chorus, where fireworks pop. However, inexplicably during the jury show, the technicians chose to randomly shoot the fireworks during the very calm verse. This was so out of place it was visibly wrong, it wasn’t like a detail you won’t even notice. The Greek team requested that the performance should be repeated, since it was the crucial jury show and it was the technicians’ fault, but the production refused and asked the juries to vote based on what they saw, a decision that was criticised by Greeks and other fans of the song alike.

So as you see here not only the singing is atrocious but as if this was not enough, they really just randomly shot the fireworks to her face. I honestly have no idea what happened but this was the unluckiest song we have sent. It was a gorgeous song that did not deserve either Yanna’s live vocals and her lousy team or the problematic production there. And the fact the audience tried to keep it in was solely the song’s and the language’s achievement as there is not any other redeeming quality in this participation unfortunately.

This is a topic I feel strongly about because I loved this song and I had a lot of faith in it and it still hurts. But also - regarding the language thing - it’s a myth, not only for Greek but for all languages I think. It was true in the past, when only English or French songs would win, but ever since 2010s people want diverse songs and more languages. The juries are worse on that but the public does want the ethnic element.

And to prove it, I once made a very passionate analysis on how Greek entries performed and the conclusion was that on average a song that was either fully Greek or at least in a Greek music style performed better than a totally English song. Again, on average. Here’s the link to the analysis:

And then I saved for last a stab to your heart… We have sent a song in Pontic Greek… and it is the third one that flopped 😅😅😅😅😅😅 The notorious Utopian Land by Argo, fam! But it was a bad song, even though I see on You Tube it has developed something like a cult following.

But in stark contrast, Alcohol is Free was a totally Greek song in everything (with freaking rebetiko) and it finished 6th (and 2nd in its semi) . And the reason it didn’t make it to the top 5 was that some hysteric people were clutching their pearls at the title, whining “how they would allow their kids to watch Eurovision now”. I have some very deep into esc stuff friends from Europe and I know for a fact that this was the case with some people. And yet it ended up sixth and some considered it an injustice, which it was, because it should have won, seriously. Oh yeah, I forgot, it would make it in the top 5 in spite of all that, had it not been for the juries. The public voted it 4th and the juries 14th and it ended up 6th. Similarly, Watch My Dance by Loukas Yorkas was half in Greek and it ended 7th (and notoriously 1st in its semifinal, ahead of the Eurovision winner of the year, Azerbaijan, which does raise questions about the final results - see the link above with the analysis). Interestingly, the only criticism I saw the song ever receiving was by people complaining that the whole song should be like the Greek laiko in the chorus and diss the English rap in the verse. Another example, OPA by Yorghos Alkeos, which was also entirely in Greek and finished 8th.

Now an ethnic Greek entry and a cheerful one at that will certainly be butchered by the juries, like they did with the Ukrainian Shum or the Finnish Cha Cha Cha and our own Alcohol is Free. But who cares? Better be butchered by the juries and be loved by the public, than going with bland and bad English ballads that only the juries might like and nobody else. The people have made clear what songs they want from Greece. And in any case, I would rather suck by sending something from my culture that others may simply not get than suck by sending something that doesn’t even represent me in any way.

I know you agree by the way, you just touched a sensitive chord in my heart and I went full rant mode 😇

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Afghan refugees in Brazil spend sad Eid Al-Adha in makeshift airport camp

This year’s Eid Al-Adha celebration was not a happy one for a group of 150 Afghan refugees who recently arrived in Brazil.

They had to spend the most important Muslim holiday in an informal camp at the terminal of Sao Paulo airport, facing lack of food and hygiene and a surge of scabies.

Fleeing persecution by the Taliban, which took control of Kabul in August 2021, thousands of Afghans have been coming to the South American country, one of the few nations in the world which is issuing humanitarian visas for them.

So far, more than 7,000 have arrived.

However, Brazil has no program to welcome refugees, so many arrive at Sao Paulo airport without somewhere to stay in their new country. A makeshift camp was set up at the terminal in 2021, with waves of Afghans staying there for up to four weeks till they find accommodation.

Continue reading.