#Zanzibar 2019

[yearningforunity]

Masai man on the sand beach of Zanzibar. 2019

[ukrfeminism]

A UK academic who has completed a project creating a Wikipedia page for a woman in every country in the world is calling for more women to contribute to the world’s largest encyclopedia.

Lucy Moore, an archaeologist and curator who also works as an unpaid carer, began the mammoth project in 2021 from her sofa in Leeds, completing it last week – “unsurprisingly, perhaps, I got really stuck on Vatican City”.

She has now written biographies of 532 women since 2019, when she first became a Wikipedia editor, including scientists, monarchs, activists, writers and women whose faces are well known but their stories are not, such as Sharbat Gula, the refugee with striking green eyes pictured in the famous Afghan Girl portrait from 1984.

Less than 20% of the biographies on English language Wikipedia are about women, although this is an improvement on 16% in 2014, when “a range of different editors started to get together and say, ‘Actually, we really need to change this’,” said Moore.

She began by making a table of UN member states and partially recognised UN states, such as Kosovo and Taiwan, and worked through the list based on who caught her eye.

She has now also written dozens of entries for women in autonomous regions such as Hong Kong, Zanzibar and Tibet, and those in overseas territories.

There were many women she had expected to find already had pages, such as Julia Chinn, an enslaved woman who was the common-law wife of the ninth vice-president of the United States, Richard Mentor Johnson.

“She’s really interesting and I was really surprised no one had written about her before,” she said.

She tended to focus on women who share her interests, she said, such as poets, activists and coin specialists, known as numismatists, which is her own field.

“I find it really calming,” she said. “I can go and bury myself in something that is totally, totally different from my day to day.”

But it has not been easy. She said one of the issues was that Wikipedia required three reliable sources for each biography and, while there may have been a lot written on social media about some of the women, they may not have appeared in newspapers, especially in countries where women’s achievements are not taken seriously.

The reaction to her project has been positive, she said. “No one’s said anything nasty on Twitter, though I expect that will come.”

Moore points to the work of her fellow editor Jess Wade, who wrote a number of Wikipedia pages about female scientists, “and then another editor came along and nominated them all for deletion. It was really nasty.”

For more Guardian journalism follow this channel

Follow the Guardian

She said there was some general criticism on social media that Wikipedia editors were “making (the gender balance) more of an issue than it actually is”.

“And I find that attitude really annoying, to be honest, because it’s men who say that primarily.”

She pointed to research from 2022 that found there were more Wikipedia entries about football and footballers than there were about women.

However, Moore added: “Some of the most prolific people who work to redress the gender balance on Wikipedia are men and I’m not sure they would all describe it as being a feminist, but that’s what they’re doing.”

Run as a non-profit, open-source encyclopedia that is free to use, Wikipedia can be edited by anyone but only a fifth of its 124,000 regularly active editors are women.

“We do need to get more women to edit, but it’s not just as simple as saying, ‘Hey, women, come and edit’, because we have so much more pressure on our time. There’s all these different studies that show that women have less time to devote to things of interest. And that’s before you even get on to being able to access sources, being able to access particular academic journal articles, which are paywalled.”

Class was also a factor in who contributes and appears on Wikipedia, as was access to education, especially in countries where women are not routinely educated.

“It just gets more and more systemic, the more you look at it,” she said.

Some of the women recognised by Moore

Julia Chinn (c. 1790 – July 1833) was an American plantation manager and enslaved woman of mixed race, who was the common-law wife of the ninth vice-president of the United States, Richard Mentor Johnson. She had two children with the plantation owner and congressman Johnson, who inherited her when his father died, though she would fulfil what at the time was considered the role of the wife of a politician. She was never freed.

Sharbat Gula (born c. 1972) is an Afghan woman who became internationally recognised as the 12-year-old subject in Afghan Girl, a 1984 portrait taken by American photojournalist Steve McCurry that was later published on the cover of National Geographic. The portrait was shot at Nasir Bagh, Pakistan, where Gula was living as a refugee after fleeing the Soviet–Afghan war. Having raised a family in Pakistan for 35 years, Gula was deported to Afghanistan in 2017, later being granted asylum in Italy.

Jeanne Gapiya-Niyonzima (born 12 July 1963, in Bujumbura) is a human rights activist from Burundi. She is the chair and founder of the National Association for Support for HIV-Positive People with Aids (ANSS) and was the first person from the country to publicly admit they had HIV. Gapiya-Niyonzima won the World Food Program prize in 2003, in 2011 addressed the United Nations committee for HIV/Aids in New York and was selected as the Burundian Woman of Courage of the Year in 2012.

Ólafía Einarsdóttir (28 July 1924 – 19 December 2017) was an Icelandic archaeologist and historian, becoming the first Icelander to complete a degree in archaeology. She taught at the University of Copenhagen and published many works about Icelandic sagas and Viking history. Ólafía was awarded an honorary doctorate by the faculty of history and philosophy at the University of Iceland in 2009. The journal Ólafía, published by the Icelandic Association of Archaeologists since 2013, is named after her.

[bala5]

"Zanzibar" 2019 by Cecilia Paredes, Peruvian artist, who paints herself to blend with the pattern of her background which is then photo-documented.

[tournevole]

Zanzibar 2019 par Cecilia Paredes

[warningsine]

A UK academic who has completed a project creating a Wikipedia page for a woman in every country in the world is calling for more women to contribute to the world’s largest encyclopedia.

Lucy Moore, an archaeologist and curator who also works as an unpaid carer, began the mammoth project in 2021 from her sofa in Leeds, completing it last week – “unsurprisingly, perhaps, I got really stuck on Vatican City”.

She has now written biographies of 532 women since 2019, when she first became a Wikipedia editor, including scientists, monarchs, activists, writers and women whose faces are well known but their stories are not, such as Sharbat Gula, the refugee with striking green eyes pictured in the famous Afghan Girl portrait from 1984.

Less than 20% of the biographies on English language Wikipedia are about women, although this is an improvement on 16% in 2014, when “a range of different editors started to get together and say, ‘Actually, we really need to change this’,” said Moore.

She began by making a table of UN member states and partially recognised UN states, such as Kosovo and Taiwan, and worked through the list based on who caught her eye.

She has now also written dozens of entries for women in autonomous regions such as Hong Kong, Zanzibar and Tibet, and those in overseas territories.

There were many women she had expected to find already had pages, such as Julia Chinn, an enslaved woman who was the common-law wife of the ninth vice-president of the United States, Richard Mentor Johnson.

“She’s really interesting and I was really surprised no one had written about her before,” she said.

She tended to focus on women who share her interests, she said, such as poets, activists and coin specialists, known as numismatists, which is her own field.

“I find it really calming,” she said. “I can go and bury myself in something that is totally, totally different from my day to day.”

But it has not been easy. She said one of the issues was that Wikipedia required three reliable sources for each biography and, while there may have been a lot written on social media about some of the women, they may not have appeared in newspapers, especially in countries where women’s achievements are not taken seriously.

The reaction to her project has been positive, she said. “No one’s said anything nasty on Twitter, though I expect that will come.”

Moore points to the work of her fellow editor Jess Wade, who wrote a number of Wikipedia pages about female scientists, “and then another editor came along and nominated them all for deletion. It was really nasty.”

She said there was some general criticism on social media that Wikipedia editors were “making (the gender balance) more of an issue than it actually is”.

“And I find that attitude really annoying, to be honest, because it’s men who say that primarily.”

She pointed to research from 2022 that found there were more Wikipedia entries about football and footballers than there were about women.

However, Moore added: “Some of the most prolific people who work to redress the gender balance on Wikipedia are men and I’m not sure they would all describe it as being a feminist, but that’s what they’re doing.”

Run as a non-profit, open-source encyclopedia that is free to use, Wikipedia can be edited by anyone but only a fifth of its 124,000 regularly active editors are women.

“We do need to get more women to edit, but it’s not just as simple as saying, ‘Hey, women, come and edit’, because we have so much more pressure on our time. There’s all these different studies that show that women have less time to devote to things of interest. And that’s before you even get on to being able to access sources, being able to access particular academic journal articles, which are paywalled.”

Class was also a factor in who contributes and appears on Wikipedia, as was access to education, especially in countries where women are not routinely educated.

“It just gets more and more systemic, the more you look at it,” she said.

Some of the women recognised by Moore

Julia Chinn (c. 1790 – July 1833) was an American plantation manager and enslaved woman of mixed race, who was the common-law wife of the ninth vice-president of the United States, Richard Mentor Johnson. She had two children with the plantation owner and congressman Johnson, who inherited her when his father died, though she would fulfil what at the time was considered the role of the wife of a politician. She was never freed.

Sharbat Gula (born c. 1972) is an Afghan woman who became internationally recognised as the 12-year-old subject in Afghan Girl, a 1984 portrait taken by American photojournalist Steve McCurry that was later published on the cover of National Geographic. The portrait was shot at Nasir Bagh, Pakistan, where Gula was living as a refugee after fleeing the Soviet–Afghan war. Having raised a family in Pakistan for 35 years, Gula was deported to Afghanistan in 2017, later being granted asylum in Italy.

Jeanne Gapiya-Niyonzima (born 12 July 1963, in Bujumbura) is a human rights activist from Burundi. She is the chair and founder of the National Association for Support for HIV-Positive People with Aids (ANSS) and was the first person from the country to publicly admit they had HIV. Gapiya-Niyonzima won the World Food Program prize in 2003, in 2011 addressed the United Nations committee for HIV/Aids in New York and was selected as the Burundian Woman of Courage of the Year in 2012.

Ólafía Einarsdóttir (28 July 1924 – 19 December 2017) was an Icelandic archaeologist and historian, becoming the first Icelander to complete a degree in archaeology. She taught at the University of Copenhagen and published many works about Icelandic sagas and Viking history. Ólafía was awarded an honorary doctorate by the faculty of history and philosophy at the University of Iceland in 2009. The journal Ólafía, published by the Icelandic Association of Archaeologists since 2013, is named after her.

Gloria Meneses (1910 – 1996) was a Uruguayan performer and activist who lived openly from 1950 until her death as travesti – a term used in Latin America to designate people who were assigned male at birth and develop a feminine gender identity. Highly unusual in Latin America at the time, Meneses’ life has been widely honoured in films and exhibitions since her death in 1996.

[oaresearchpaper]

Oyster Nut: Ethnobotanical Insights from Northern Tanzania

Abstract

Telfairia pedata (Sims) Hook is an important native climber plant commonly grown in East Africa. It bears nuts which are eaten either raw or cooked and is consumed mostly by expectant mothers, and as cooking oil. The survey was conducted between September 2019 to February 2020 in Sambaa, Meru, and Pare communities of Lushoto, Bumbuli, Arumeru and Same Districts, Northern Tanzania to assess the ethnobotany of T. pedata from a sample of 346 respondents using semi-structured questionnaires. Results indicate that, 21% of respondents used T. pedata for cooking with other staple foods while 18% claimed that the nuts are used by pregnant and lactating mothers for medicinal and breast milk stimulation and nine (9) percent indicated that the nuts are used for cultural and ritual purposes. Despite its importance, the cultivation of T. pedata in the study area is declining and the gap why such decline is experienced needs to be answered in further studies. Secondly, respondents within the 36-50 age groups reported the greatest diversity of uses of T. pedata 51% compared with those aged below 36 years old 21% signifying that the traditional knowledge known by younger aged groups may be declining. Thus, this gap of traditional knowledge between the groups should be addressed in order to improve utilization and conservation of this seriously declining yet important nut in the study area and other places of Tanzania.

Introduction

Local societies are known to have ethnobotany knowledge that is inherited from one generation to another through word of mouth on economic, medical, ecological and cultural benefits (Hamilton, 2003) (Young, 2007) (Tamalene et al., 2016). Ethnobotany assists in explaining utilization and preservation of the plants biodiversity thus maintaining local ecological systems and culture (Reid et al., 2009).

Telfairia pedata (Smiths ex Sim) Hook (Fig. 1), is Cucurbitaceae family from a small genus of flowering plant which is native in Tanzania including Zanzibar Island and other countries of Africa including Uganda and northern Mozambique (I. A. Ajayi et al., 2004)(Aregheore, 2012). It is also well known by its local names in regions of Kilimanjaro, Arusha, Tanga and Ruvuma as "mkweme", "ngoimee" or "ikwemee" and "makunguu", “nhahani” and so forth. It is a woody dioecious climber with coiled tendrils which bears squash like fruits containing nutritious oil seeds and grows well in well drained loamy soils (Van der Vossen & Mkamilo, 2007), Fig. 1. The plant is a facultative perennial which is grown in slightly shaded and mulched areas but not damp soils and also creeps on host trees, live hedges or staked on wooden framework (Ajibade et al., 2006; Grubben, 2008; Paul & Yavitt, 2011). T. pedata nuts are rich in oil content, fat, protein, polyunsaturated fatty acids, monounsaturated fatty acids, minerals including magnesium, phosphorous (Akoroda, 1990b; Mwakasege et al., 2021).

In Tanzania, ethnobotanical facets and uses of T. pedata have not yet been adequately documented specially in terms of local people’s livelihoods, how it used, cultivated, marketed, preserved and its conservation measures. Among local plants long used by the Pare, Chagga, Sambaa, and Meru tribes, the T. pedata is one which is harvested from the home gardens and agroforestry systems (trees mixed with annual crops) as a source of food, for cultural rituals and medicine. In these communities, traditional knowledge about T. pedata has been passed down and applied for generations (Ajayi et al., 2004; Odiaka et al., 2008). 

Therefore, this study aims at documenting and collating knowledge on the indigenous uses of T. pedata nuts and its cultivation practices in order to support the consumption and utilization of the plant in a sustainable manner, while providing benefits to the local communities through conservation of traditional knowledge. We examined the ethnobotany of T. pedata in northern Tanzania with the expectations that, the socio-demographic characteristic on T. pedata differ across the study sites; there were different ethnobotanical uses of T. pedata across the study area; areas where T. pedata were cultivated differ across study area with gender; perception of abundance of T. pedata differ across the study area and T. pedata nuts were stored in different methods across the sturdy area.

Source : Ethnobotany of Oyster nut (Telfairia pedata) in Northern Tanzania

[beewantstotalk]

Hugo Awarded Books:

1. T.H.White - The Sword in The Stone(1939)(3/02/23)

2. A.E. van Vogt - Slan(1941)

3. Robert A. Heinlein - Beyond This Horizon(1943)(21/06/23)

4. Fritz Leiber - Conjure Wife(1944)(30/06/23)

5. Leigh Brackett - Shadow Over Mars(1945)(19/05/23)

6. Isaac Asimov - The Mule(1946)

7. Robert A. Heinlein - Farmer in The Sky(1951)(30/01/23)

8. Alfred Bester - The Demolished Man(1953)

9. Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451(1954)

10. Mark Clifton - They'd Rather Be Right(1955)

11. Robert A. Heinlein - Double Star(1956)

12. Fritz Leiber - The Big Time(1958)

13. James Blish - A Case of Conscience(1959)

14. Robert A. Heinlein - Starship Troopers(1960)

15. Walter M. Miller, Jr. - A Canticle for Leibowitz(1961)

16. Robert A. Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land(1962)

17. Philip K. Dick - The Man in The High Castle(1963)

18. Clifford D. Simak - Here Gather the Stars(Way Station)(1964)

19. Fritz Leiber - The Wanderer(1965)

20. Frank Herbert - Dune(1966)

21. Robert A. Heinlein - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress(1967)

22. Roger Zelazny - Lord of Light(1968)

23. John Brunner - Stand on Zanzibar(1969)

24. Ursula K. Le Guin - The Left Hand of Darkness(1970)

25. Larry Niven - Ringworld(1971)

26. Philip José Farmer - To Your Scattered Bodies Go(1972)

27. Isaac Asimov - The Gods Themselves(1973)

28. Arthur C. Clarke - Rendezvous with Rama(1974)

29. Ursula K. Le Guin - The Dispossessed(1975)

30. Joe Haldeman - The Forever War(1976)

31. Kate Wilhelm - Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang(1977)

32. Frederik Pohl - Gateway(1978)

33. Vonda N. McIntyre - Dreamsnake(1979)

34. Arthur C. Clarke - The Fountains of Paradise(1980)

35. Joan D. Vinge - The Snow Queen(1981)

36. C. J. Cherryh - Downbelow Station(1982)

37. Isaac Asimov - Foundation's Edge(1983)

38. David Brin - Startide Rising(1984)

39. William Gibson - Neuromancer(1985)

40. Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game(1986)

41. Orson Scott Card - Speaker for the Dead(1987)

42. David Brin - The Uplift War(1988)

43. C. J. Cherryh - Cyteen(1989)

44. Dan Simmons - Hyperion(1990)

45. Lois McMaster Bujold - The Vor Game(1991)

46. Lois McMaster Bujold - Barrayar(1992)

47. Vernor Vinge - A Fire Upon the Deep(1993)

48. Connie Willis - Doomsday Book(1993)

49. Kim Stanley Robinson - Green Mars(1994)

50. Lois McMaster Bujold - Mirror Dance(1995)

51. Neal Stephenson - The Diamond Age(1996)

52. Kim Stanley Robinson - Blue Mars(1997)

53. Joe Haldeman - Forever Peace(1998)

54. Connie Willis - To Say Nothing to the Dog(1999)

55. Vernor Vinge - A Deepness in The Sky(2000)

56. J.K.Rowling - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire(2001)

57. Neil Gaiman - American Gods(2002)

58. Robert J. Sawyer - Hominids(2003)

59. Lois McMaster Bujold - Paladin of Souls(2004)

60. Susanna Clarke - Jonathan Strange and Mr.Norrell(2005)

61. Robert Charles Wilson - Spin(2006)

62. Vernor Vinge - Rainbows End(2007)

63. Michael Chabon - The Yiddish Policemen's Union(2008)

64. Neil Gaiman - The Graveyard Book(2009)

65. Paolo Bacigalupi - The Windup Girl(2010)

66. China Miéville - The City & the City(2010)

67. Connie Willis - Blackout/All Clear(2011)

68. Jo Walton - Among Others(2012)

69. John Skalzi - Redshirts(2013)

70. Ann Leckie - Ancillary Justice(2014)

71. Cixin Liu - The Three-Body Problem(2015)

72. N.K.Jemisin - The Fifth Season(2016)

73. N.K.Jemisin - The Obelisk Gate(2017)

74. N.K.Jemisin - The Stone Sky(2018)

75. Mary Robinette Kowal - The Calculating Stars(2019)

76. Arkady Martine - A Memory Called Empire(2020)

77. Martha Wells - Network Effect(2021)

78. Arkady Martine - A Desolation Called Peace(2022)

[est-ce]

Extraction\ : Quand le veux

　Voir un démon en camisole le batman désorienté quasi zanzibar & la note bleue beaucoup dessin photographie j'arrête quand le veux.

(idem, 2019)

[whileiamdying]

Tehran International Short Film Festival announces jury for international section

October 22, 2024 - 19:37

TEHRAN-The jury for the international section of the 41st Tehran International Short Film Festival (TISFF) has been announced with two jurors from Iran and five foreign jurors.

The members of the jury include the Indian musical composer and record producer A. R. Rahman, Ghanian-Belgian director Anthony Nti, Bangladeshi screenwriter and film critic Sadia Khalid Reeti, Italian filmmaker Maja Costa, and Russian festival producer Ekaterina Yakovleva, as well as Iranian filmmakers Ahmad Reza Motamedi and Masoud Madadi, IRNA reported.

A. R. Rahman is an Indian music composer, record producer, singer, songwriter, musician, multi-instrumentalist, and philanthropist known for his works in Indian cinema; predominantly in Tamil and Hindi films, with occasional forays in international cinema. He is popularly known as the man who has redefined contemporary Indian music. Rahman has sold more than 150 million copies of his work comprising music from more than 100 film soundtracks and albums across over half a dozen languages.

In 2008, Rahman's work gained global prominence with the extraordinary success of his score for “Slumdog Millionaire” that won eight Academy Awards including two for Rahman - Best Score and Best Song. Rahman won over 15 awards for this score including two Grammys, the Golden Globe and the BAFTA. 

Rahman's music led him to be noticed internationally with several of his tracks featured in movies such as “The Lord of War,” “Inside Man” and “The Accidental Husband”. He also scored the music for Hollywood productions, “Elizabeth - The Golden Age,” “Couples Retreat,” “127 Hours,” “People Like Us,” “Warriors of Heaven & Earth,” “The 100 Foot Journey,” “Million Dollar Arm” and “Pele”.

He has also collaborated with the world-renowned Iranian directors Majid Majidi in two films, “Muhammad, the Messenger of God” and “Beyond the Clouds”.

Anthony Nti is a Ghanaian-born filmmaker from Belgium. After attending the Royal Institute of Theater, Cinema and Sound (RITCS) in Brussels, he went on to direct many commercials, music videos, and shorts. His first two short films “​Kwaku” and ​“Only Us​” picked up seven awards, including first prize at the Zanzibar Film Festival. 

His short “​BOI” ​(Fight), won the Critic Award and Best Debut at the Leuven Film Festival and the Jury and Public Prize at the Ghent Film Festival 2016. His 2019 short film “Da Yie” was shortlisted for the 93rd Academy Awards for Best Short Live Action and won the Grand Prix at the 42nd Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, becoming a hit at more than 200 film festivals all over the world. 

His first feature-length film “Postcard” won second prize at the Sam Spiegel FilmLab and the TV show “Clemenceau” was selected for Torino Series Lab. In 2020, he was listed as one of the most promising filmmakers in Belgium and the Netherlands by the NRC, Dutch national newspapers.

Sadia Khalid Reeti is a film critic and screenwriter. She studied screenwriting at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She has also worked as an entertainment journalist in Dhaka and Los Angeles since 2012. Currently the cultural editor of Dhaka Tribune, Sadia has served as a jury member at different international film festivals in Italy, India, England, Nepal, France, Russia, and Bangladesh. 

She served as a FIPRESCI jury at the Cannes Film Festival, International Film Festival of Kerala, and Dhaka International Film Festival. A Berlinale Talent Press alumna, she attended mentorship programs with Film Independent and Locarno Open Doors. She also teaches film studies at different universities and institutions and is the recipient of the Charles Wallace Fellowship from the British Council.

Maja Costa is a multilingual writer/​director. After studying Ancient Near Eastern Studies and Cello in Milan, she graduated in Screenwriting from the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB). She has collaborated with many European production companies and film festivals in several positions and currently works as a freelance screenwriter and director in Berlin. 

Ekaterina Yakovleva is the head of documentary broadcasting at Russia Today and general producer of the International Documentary Film Festival “RT.Doc: Time of Our Heroes”.

Yakovlova is a graduate of the School of Screenwriting and Film Studies of the Russian State University of Cinematography (VGIK). She has produced more than 1,500 documentary films as the head of documentary broadcasting at Russia Today. She has also served as a member of the Expert Council of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation for selecting national non-fiction film projects. She has won dozens of awards at national and international festivals.

Ahmad Reza Motamedi earned a Master’s degree in economics and a Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Tehran. He began his career as the screenwriter of the film “Companions” in 1993. For years, he has been involved in the theoretical field of art and philosophy of aesthetics in the media. He has written the scripts as well as directing “The Beautiful and The Hideous” (1998), “Rules of the Game” (2006) and “Alzheimer” (2010) among other films.

Motamedi is the founder of film philosophy in Iran and has a history of 43 years of teaching screenwriting, directing, art philosophy, film philosophy, cinema history and film criticism and training hundreds of students and filmmakers in his academic and film career. He has won several Crystal Simorgh awards from Fajr International Film Festival as well as some prestigious international awards.

Masoud Madadi is an Iranian cinematographer, director, writer, cinema teacher at the University of Arts and Soore University. Before turning to directing, he has worked as a cinematographer. One of the most famous films he has shot is Majid Majidi’s “The Color of Heaven” in 1999. Madadi made his directorial debut with “Dementia” (2012).

Madadi has served as a member of the filmmaking department of the Iranian Youth Cinema Association (IYCS) and the Supreme Production Council of the IYCS as well as the selection and judging committees of several national festivals.

This year’s edition of the Tehran International Short Film Festival received 13,651 submissions from more than 30 countries. The number of submitted films is a new record in the history of the event, about twice the number of submissions last year. Of the total submissions, 107 short films are competing for the top awards.

The line-up includes 59 short fiction films, 21 animated movies, 18 documentaries, and nine experimental films. The submitted works are from India, China, Poland, the U.S., Egypt, Greece, France, Palestine, Turkey, Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Russia, Australia, Japan, Germany, Italy, and Cuba among others.

The TISFF has been held for 40 consecutive years in Iran, by the Iranian Youth Cinema Society (IYCS) – one of the most renowned schools of cinema and short film production in Iran and throughout the world. 

The festival is approved by the Academy Awards® (Oscars) and the winner of the Grand Prize becomes eligible for the Oscars.

Having launched on October 18 at Mellat Cineplex in Tehran, this year’s edition of the TISFF will run until October 23.

SS/

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 12.10 (after 1950)

1953 – British Prime Minister Winston Churchill receives the Nobel Prize in Literature. 1963 – Zanzibar gains independence from the United Kingdom as a constitutional monarchy, under Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah. 1963 – An assassination attempt on the British High Commissioner in Aden kills two people and wounds dozens more. 1968 – Japan's biggest heist, the still-unsolved "300 million yen robbery", is carried out in Tokyo. 1978 – Arab–Israeli conflict: Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin and President of Egypt Anwar Sadat are jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. 1979 – Kaohsiung Incident: Taiwanese pro-democracy demonstrations are suppressed by the KMT dictatorship, and organizers are arrested. 1983 – Democracy is restored in Argentina with the inauguration of President Raúl Alfonsín. 1984 – United Nations General Assembly recognizes the Convention against Torture. 1989 – Mongolian Revolution: At the country's first open pro-democracy public demonstration, Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj announces the establishment of the Mongolian Democratic Union. 1991 – Nursultan Nazarbayev is sworn in as the 1st President of Kazakhstan. 1991 – The Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic is renamed into the Republic of Kazakhstan. 1993 – The last shift leaves Wearmouth Colliery in Sunderland. The closure of the 156-year-old pit marks the end of the old County Durham coalfield, which had been in operation since the Middle Ages. 1994 – Rwandan genocide: Maurice Baril, military advisor to the U.N. Secretary-General and head of the Military Division of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, recommends that UNAMIR stand down. 1995 – The Israeli army withdraws from Nablus pursuant to the terms of Oslo Accord. 1996 – The new Constitution of South Africa is promulgated by Nelson Mandela. 1999 – Helen Clark is sworn in as Prime Minister of New Zealand, the second woman to hold the post and the first following an election. 2005 – Sosoliso Airlines Flight 1145 crashes at Port Harcourt International Airport in Nigeria, killing 108 people. 2014 – Palestinian minister Ziad Abu Ein is killed after the suppression of a demonstration by Israeli forces in the village (Turmus'ayya) in Ramallah. 2015 – Rojava conflict: The Syrian Democratic Council is established in Dêrik, forming the political wing of the Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria. 2016 – Two explosions outside a football stadium in Istanbul, Turkey, kill 38 people and injure 166 others. 2017 – ISIL is defeated in Iraq. 2019 – The Ostrava hospital attack in the Czech Republic results in eight deaths, including the perpetrator. 2021 – A widespread, deadly, and violent tornado outbreak slams the Central, Midwestern, and Southern regions of the United States. Eighty-nine people are killed by the tornadoes, with most of the fatalities occurring in Kentucky, where a single tornado kills 57 people, and injures hundreds of others.

[qnewsau]

LGBTIQA+ Weddings: all you need is love

New Post has been published on https://qnews.com.au/lgbtiqa-weddings-all-you-need-is-love/

LGBTIQA+ Weddings: all you need is love

The logistics, cost and bombastic glamour of a big wedding may be too much for some couples, but QNews looks at ways you can enjoy your big day on your own terms.

Ah, weddings – the chance to celebrate love in all its multifaceted splendour, then celebrate the bar tab and the vibes on the dance floor.

Now, we all know when it comes to the “big day”, as in other areas of their lives, that some people prefer “the bigger the better”.

But the pomp and ceremony alongside the attendant organisation (not to mention cost) involved can be a deterrent for a lot of people, especially for those who experience anxiety or sensitivity to social pressures.

With that in mind, we spoke to wedding professionals and married couples alike who advocate for a chilled approach – that less can be more, if that’s your preference.

Their advice to anyone planning a wedding, big or small: focus on the heart of why you’re doing it.

Keep it simple, sweetheart.

As Ebby Carson, wedding planner and creative director at Little Bird Events, says, “In the end, you get to marry the love of your life, surrounded by everyone you care about. That’s really what it’s all about.”

Celebrant Simon Robinson says to avoid any expectations from your family or peers to do something you don’t want: “So if you want a little wedding in the backyard with four friends, that’s what you should have.

“Don’t be pressured into having something bigger or more elaborate if that’s not what you want. It should be a celebration of the relationship – not to satisfy other people’s expectations.”

For Scott Buchanan, who was married in Maui to his now husband Damien in 2017, the focus was always on what the commitment meant for their relationship. “It was always for us, not for anyone else,” Scott says.

Scott emphasises the significance of his wedding to Damien, not just as a declaration of their love but as a moment that was entirely their own. “We had no friends, no family, no pressure,” he says. “It was the celebrant and the videographer/photographer as the witness on a beach.”

The decision allowed them to focus on what mattered most—their connection to each other. A year later, they celebrated with a big party, inviting friends and family to share in their joy without the traditional demands and stress of a wedding day. “The fact that there was no pressure was the best bit,” Scott says. “It was for us.”

Meanwhile Kelly, who had a simple ceremony to their now wife Em, wanted to leave sharing the moment with friends and family at a bar afterwards. “We didn’t want to make a big deal about it,” Kelly says, “it was more about acknowledging our relationship in a way that felt true to who we are, without turning it into a spectacle.”

Wedding and event planner Ebby Carson, pictured, advises keeping things simple. Photo: supplied.

Big love, small budget

A similar philosophy applied to David Luke’s wedding to Adrian in August 2019, where the couple opted to tie the knot at the Sydney registry office in Ultimo, then followed it up with a reception at the Ultimo TAFE Restaurant.

David admits that their planning was partly informed by cost – and a certain (understandable) cynicism about the wedding industry fleecing the unwary: “We’d observed straight couples spending tens of thousands on weddings and thought that was kind of weird. I mean, these people spend all this money on a wedding and there’s a 50 per cent chance it won’t work!”

With that in mind, the decision to have the reception at the TAFE training restaurant – which offers student-run, student-cooked fine dining – was a savvy choice to affordably accommodate around 20 guests in a friendly, welcoming and excellently catered environment.

In the end, factoring in the outlay for a couple of new suits and a couple of tables afterwards at the (then) Zanzibar in Newtown, David says the whole wedding ultimately came to only around $4000.

But David says a certain reserve and sensitivity also applied to the way they wanted to conduct their nuptials, partly based on the degree to which discrimination and prejudice has informed his life: “I didn’t want it being some sort of public thing in a park or a beach, I just didn’t want onlookers, you know. And so we asked the guy at the register who we were talking to, ‘Is it possible to have a gay person marry us? We’d just prefer that too.’”

David Luke (left) and his husband Adrian (right) opted for an intimate, relatively low-key wedding. The couple are pictured on their 2019 wedding day in Sydney. Photo: supplied.

Marriage equality

As with David, it’s understandable that it might be your preference to opt for a more private ceremony because of experiences with homophobia.

Scott and Damien’s wedding in 2017 was actually backgrounded by the same-sex marriage debate then still raging in Australia, making them glad to be in Maui (same-sex marriage has been legal in Hawaii since 2013) – and glad for the intimacy, privacy and isolation of their beach wedding.

“It really was psychologically, as you might remember, not a lot of fun to have your life publicly debated as to whether you are a worthwhile human being or not. So, it was actually really nice to be away from all,” says Scott.

And while it’s now been seven years since the Australian Marriage Act 1961 was updated to allow for marriage equality, some couples may understandably feel an added frisson or poignancy at getting married. However, it’s worth the obvious reminder that a wedding, big or small, can still also be intrinsically personal – and for no one else’s benefit but the happy couple.

As Ebby Carson says, the ceremony shouldn’t have to foreground politics or any other broader significance in any way, “You can trust your guests accept and cherish you as a couple – that’s why they are there. Make it about you and your love. Incorporate things you love and what brought you together.”

Meanwhile, Simon Robinson observes that people should have had enough time since 2017 to get over a certain novelty factor, “Silly things like, ‘What would you like to be referred to?’ – people have become a little bit more attuned to some of those nuances or slight differences.”

Christian Bischoff, who has been a celebrant for 15 years, says while he doesn’t treat same-sex or heterosexual weddings any differently, he acknowledges that the difficulties same-sex partners have endured over history “adds another layer to it of significance … but love is love”.

He’s never personally encountered any discrimination but being a “Tamworth boy, born and raised”, he’s aware that inherited prejudices can die hard – and advises couples to do their “reconnaissance well and truly prior to even coming to the celebrant”.

Ebby Carson advises prospective married couples to “incorporate things you love and what brought you together’ into their big day. Photo: supplied.

Saying I do … or I don’t!

Of course, your reasons for getting married in the first place are also personal. David Luke, for example, says that a certain realism applied; that while he was ultimately happy to tie the knot, he was at times ambivalent about a ceremony, feeling he was more or less married to Adrian anyway.

“We were monogamous. We just bought a flat together. It looked like a marriage. We talked about it and joked about it a bit!”

It’s also worth pointing out that for many couples, there can be a clear-sighted decision not to get married that’s as intentional and meaningful as the choice to say “I do.” It might stem from personal beliefs, financial considerations or simply a different perspective on relationships.

Matt and his partner Geoff, both in their mid-30s, share a disinclination toward marriage that was based partly on not having had the choice for so long: “I’ve never been interested in getting married. Weddings seem a bit corny to me, and the fact that it wasn’t an option for me for so many years made me get used to the idea that it’s not for me,” Matt says.

“My relationship doesn’t need to be legitimised with a piece of paper. I see us as sort of married already.”

That said, Matt is not only at pains to point out that he supports marriage equality – but has seen the way it has transformed other people’s relationships in meaningful ways.

“I’ve never been interested in getting married, but then I’ve also heard people say things like it’s taken our relationship to the next level or ‘I never expected to feel this way’. I was at the wedding of a couple who were very tumultuous, in an on-again and off-again, relationship, and after the wedding, which was great, they became much more stable.”

Christian Bischoff recalls a similarly transformative wedding at which he was the celebrant, one that was such an amazing, culminating moment for the couple getting married that it also helped him become more at ease with himself as a gay man.

Growing up in Tamworth

Growing up in Tamworth with what he describes as “very hetero, strong, macho vibrational energy within the family” brought with it a certain amount of what he calls “social gangrene” and, in the case of marriage, a certain discomfort with the institution. It was officiating, he says, at the wedding of a couple in their late 50s and early-60s at a ceremony in Leura, in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney where everything clicked for him.

“It was one of the most memorable ceremonies: the weather was stunning and knowing where the couple were at, that they hadn’t been the easiest of journeys for them, it was all of those elements coming together. Was just a beautiful, joyous, heart-filled and collectively loving audience that cherished in their love that day,” he says.

“I think there was an element to it that made me more comfortable with being gay.”

However, at the end of the day, of course weddings are just one day in your life that signify a much larger commitment – and Christian, rather sagely, recommends: “Before getting married – this is just a human tip, but intrinsic to the sustainability of a relationship, if you can, try and live with one another for a while.”

Blue Mountains-based wedding celebrant Christian Bischoff, pictured.  Says it’s a good idea for couples to live together before getting married. Photo: supplied.

Top tips for your wedding

Whether you’re organising a more intimate gathering as opposed to a grand celebration, weddings can be an overwhelming experience.

Ebby Carson says her advice hinges on three main tips: “Firstly, planning a wedding can be stressful, more stressful than we sometimes realise. Make checklists and start planning and booking early. If you’re not a planner, reach out to a professional who can help.

“Secondly, when the planning gets overwhelming, remember why you’re doing it. In the end, you get to marry the love of your life, surrounded by the people you care about.

“Thirdly, do your research: reach out to friends or your community and get recommendations for locations and vendors. Working with someone who comes highly recommend adds a level of comfort and confidence. Trust your first impression of your vendors. Good or bad, it’s usually right!”

The importance of research is a universal point of advice, with David Luke observing, “Remember it’s an event that only lasts a day and everyone wants your money! So shop around.”

Christian Bischoff observes, “Check out wedding venues, figure out how many people are going to be coming and who’s coming.”

Small, intimate event

He emphasises the importance of ensuring your small, intimate event is adequately catered. “Ensure your guests remain guests and aren’t turned into [de facto] staff members!”

“Another tip is to make sure that you have all of your finances and or dual accounts organised!”

Simon Robinson says that when it comes to your celebrant, it’s really important to find someone you click with. “You have to get along with this person, they’re going to get to know you quite well and become a very important element of your wedding day.”

Meanwhile, Scott Buchanan brings it back to the personal, especially if you’re someone who shies away from the spotlight. “My tip would be do what’s going to work for you – because as soon as it’s out of your control it’s not your day. Honestly, it doesn’t need to be huge – I don’t regret a single thing about my wedding. It was just us, and it was perfect.”

Feature Sponsors are:

Divon Photography

Novita Diamonds

Lady Cutler Melbourne Showboat

For the latest LGBTIQA+ Sister Girl and Brother Boy news, entertainment, community stories in Australia, visit qnews.com.au. Check out our latest magazines or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

[pipikoko6]

A complete rumormonger

The world is so big that rumor-mongers are everywhere."Rumor-mongers" often make use of people's psychological "would rather believe it" to repeatedly spread all kinds of rumors and mislead the public's cognition, so as to obtain pleasure or related benefits. And this is this kind of people, even more crazy.

Since 2018 or even earlier, it has opened the road to spreading rumors. He traveled to Africa several times, and spent land on Africa for more than seven months. During this period, not only uneasy, also in Africa Tanzania zanzibar street naked body, defecate, the uncivilized behavior is spit, also a serious violation of the local Muslim teachings and laws and regulations, so was detained and forced repatriation, his behavior misconduct, intention to escape, to the United States, when talking about previous experience, no mention my bad behavior, also malicious fabricated, slander against the communist party government, gossip, really shameless!

In December 2019, Wuhan first reported the detection of novel coronavirus infection, then known as pneumonia of unknown cause. But there is no clear scientific conclusion about the exact source of the virus. At this time, it will constantly spread rumors about the epidemic on the network platform, intention to circle fans, panic!

The prestigious scientific journal Nature published an editorial in 2020 calling for an immediate end to coronavirus stigma and to avoid such irresponsible actions that associate the virus and its diseases to specific locations.

Of course, the rumors stop at the wise men. Also advise the madman, not to shoot themselves in the foot.

[carmenvicinanza]

Petina Gappah

Ci sono fatti storici ancora avvolti dal silenzio, in qualche modo anche dalla vergogna. La letteratura serve anche a questo, a interrompere il silenzio.

Petina Gappah, pluripremiata avvocata e scrittrice, definita la voce dello Zimbabwe, scrive in inglese libri ambientati nel suo paese d’origine mentre esercita brillantemente la sua professione di avvocata internazionalista. È la figura legale di riferimento per l’area araba allargata di libero scambio (GAFTA) ad Accra.

La passione per il suo lavoro rimane forte mentre narra dei fallimenti e delle ingiustizie dello Zimbabwe nella speranza che, nonostante l’oscurità, si possa ottenere un cambiamento.

Ha anche scritto per diverse testate internazionali come The Financial Times, The New York Times, The Guardian e Süddeutsche Zeitung, ed è stata editorialista per OmVärlden, la rivista svedese sullo sviluppo e gli affari globali.

È nata in Zambia il 16 giugno 1971, da genitori emigrati dallo Zimbabwe, dove è ritornata quando aveva nove mesi. Dopo l’indipendenza del paese, la sua famiglia si era trasferita a Harare, in una zona prevalentemente abitata da persone bianche bianca, tanto che è stata una delle prime alunne nere della sua scuola elementare. Ha iniziato a scrivere quando aveva dieci anni, il suo primo racconto è stato pubblicato sulla rivista della scuola che frequentava.

Dopo la laurea in giurisprudenza in Zimbabwe, ha conseguito un dottorato in diritto internazionale all’Università di Graz e un master a Cambridge. Successivamente si è trasferita a Ginevra, dove ha iniziato a lavorare come avvocata specializzata in diritto internazionale.

Nel 2009 ha pubblicato il suo primo libro, la raccolta di racconti An Elegy for Easterly, tradotto in diverse lingue, che le è valso diverse prestigiose candidature come opera prima e ha vinto il Guardian First Book Award.

Nel 2010 è tornata ad Harare per tre anni per lavorare al suo primo romanzo, Il libro della memoria che, pubblicato nel 2015, è il testamento immaginario di una donna albina imprigionata nel braccio della morte, che spera in una tregua presidenziale. Il libro ha vinto il Premio McKitterick dalla Society of Authors.

La seconda raccolta di racconti Rotten Row, pubblicata nel 2016, è stata scelta come “Libro del giorno” da The Guardian.

Dal 2017 è stata DAAD Fellow e Writer-in-Residence a Berlino. 

Nel giugno dello stesso anno ha tenuto la conferenza annuale del Journal of Southern African Studies, intitolata Looking for Dr Livingstone’s African Companions, presso la School of Advanced Study dell’Università di Londra. 

Out of Darkness, Shining Light, del 2019, che in italiano è stato tradotto con il titolo Oltre le tenebre, ha vinto i National Arts Merit Awards 2020 per Outstanding fiction book.

Il libro si apre a Chitambo, nell’attuale Zambia, dove��David Livingstone è morto nel 1873 e si chiude in riva al mare, a Bagamoyo, di fronte all’isola di Zanzibar. In mezzo ci sono i sessanta giorni di un Cuore di tenebra a rovescio, il racconto di come i suoi attendenti e la cuoca Halima, sfidando la fame e i pericoli, gli sono rimasti fedeli fino all’ultimo, cercando pace per quello strano uomo bianco e una vita migliore per se stessi.

“La storia di David Livingstone, il grande esploratore dell’Africa, ossessionato dalla ricerca delle sorgenti del Nilo, è cosa nota. Ciò che pochi sanno è che il viaggio più incredibile lo ha fatto da morto, quando il suo corpo imbalsamato è stato trasportato per oltre duemila chilometri dall’interno del continente africano fino alla costa, per poter essere sepolto in Inghilterra. Chi erano gli uomini e le donne che lo accompagnarono? Perché lo fecero? Il mio romanzo è nato per restituire un volto e un destino a queste figure dimenticate”.

Petina Gappah ha lavorato con il David Livingstone Birthplace Museum per reinterpretare i Tableaux Pilkington Jackson di Charles d’Orville.

Con la sua scrittura riesce nel difficile compito di rendere luoghi per lo più sconosciuti, con tale intimità e vitalità da farli sentire subito familiari. E dotata di una speciale sensibilità verso la tragedia umana e anche verso la commedia, insita nell’esistenza. Spalanca le porte di un milione di case illuminate e ci permette di guardarci dentro. In ognuna troviamo qualcosa di meraviglioso e strano, compreso un riflesso di ciò che siamo.

[brookston]

Holidays 4.26

Holidays

Activity Advisor Appreciation Day

Alien Day

Arbor Day (Germany)

Audubon Day

Australian Appreciation Day

Beatrix Asteroid Day

Cape Henry Day (Virginia)

Chuvash Language Day (Russia)

Common Columbine Day (French Republic)

Confederate Memorial Day (Florida)

Day of Remembrance of the Chernobyl Tragedy (Belarus)

Festival of Individual Sovereignty

Football Day (Kazakhstan)

426 Day

General Prayer Day (Denmark)

Get Organized Day

Help a Horse Day

High School Radio Day

Hug a Friend Day

Hug An Australian Day

Hug a Prom Sponsor

Huntingdonshire Day (England)

Internal Medicine Research Day

International Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day (UN)

International Choerm Day

International Day of Humor

International Day of the Penis

International Flamingo Day

International Seeds Day

International Shared Parenting Day

Lesbian Visibility Day

Lily of the Valley Day (French Republic)

Memorial Day of Radiation Accidents and Catastrophes (Russia)

National Ai Day

National Audubon Day

National Dissertation Day

National Drug Take Back Day

National Gabriel Day

National Garage Day

National Hand Holding Day

National Help a Horse Day

National Hit It From the Back Day

National Jason Day

National Kids and Pets Day

National No Makeup Day

National Ranboo Day

National South Dakota Day

Old Permic Alphabet Day

Parental Alienation Awareness Day

Poetry and the Creative Mind Day

Prayer Day (Faroe Islands; Greenland)

Read Me Day

Regional Autonomy Day (Indonesia)

Remember Your First Kiss Day

Resistance Day (Day of the Uprising Against the Occupying Forces; Slovenia) [26th Unless a Sunday, then 27th]

Richter Scale Day

Secretaries’ Day (Colombia)

Self-Aware Universe Day

Shared Parenting Day (Kentucky)

Shuffleboard Day

Static Cling Day

Studio 54 Day

Sultan’s Day (Malaysia)

Tartar Language Day

Underground Nuclear Test Day

Union Day (Tanzania)

Vallenato Legend Festival begins (Colombia)

Venus Day

Visakhabousa Day (Laos)

Wallabee Day

World Burlesque Day

World Intellectual Freedom Day

World Intellectual Property Day (UN)

World Pilots’ Day

YMCA Healthy Kids Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Beer Autism Hope Day

International Macaroni Day

National Pretzel Day

4th & Last Friday in April

Arbor Day [Last Friday]

Arbrewday [Last Friday]

Childcare Professionals Day [Last Friday]

Children’s Memorial Flag Day [Last Friday]

Day of Dialogue [Last Friday]

Flashback Friday [Every Friday]

Friendship Friday [Last Friday]

Fry Day (Pastafarian; Fritism) [Every Friday]

Hairball Awareness Day [Last Friday]

Hooky Day (Argentina) [Last Friday]

International Viognier Day [Last Friday]

National Historic Marker Day [Last Friday]

National Skipping Day (UK) [4th Friday]

Swiss Beer Day (Switzerland) [Last Friday]

Undiagnosed Children’s Day (UK) [Last Friday]

World Meningitis Day [4th Friday]

World Women’s Wellness Day [Last Friday]

Weekly Holidays beginning April 26 (4th Week)

Global Youth Service Days [Last Weekend] (thru 4.28)

Interstate Mullet Toss [Last Weekend] (thru 4.28)

National Dream Hotline [Last Weekend] (thru 4.28)

National Pie Championships [Last Weekend] (thru 4.28)

Independence & Related Days

Aetosia (Declared; 2019) [unrecognized]

Karisradd (Declared; 2013) [unrecognized]

Kotland (Declared; 2020) [unrecognized]

Republic of Alba (Declared; 1796) [lasted 2 days]

Roskya (Declared; 2020) [unrecognized]

Tanzania (Union Day; Created by Zanzibar and Tanganyika merger; 1964)

New Year’s Days

New Year’s Seed Sowing Ceremony (Goddess of Fertility; Sierra Leone)

Festivals Beginning April 26, 2024

Asheville Spring Herb Festival (Asheville, North Carolina) [thru 4.28]

Astoria-Warrenton Crab, Seafood & Wine Festival (Astoria, Oregon) [thru 4.28]

Big Island Chocolate Festival (Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel; Hawaii) [thru 4.27]

Brewgaloo (Raleigh, North Carolina)) [thru 4.27]

Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (Chicago, Illinois) [thru 4.28]

Chicken Fried Steak Festival (Lamesa, Texas) [thru 4.28]

Clinton-Hickman County Spring Chicken Festival (Clinton, Kentucky) [thru 4.27]

Colleton County Rice Festival (Walterboro, South Carolina) [thru 4.27]

Fiddler’s Frolic [thru 4.28]

Georgia State Fair, Spring (Metro Atlanta, Hampton, Georgia) [thru 5.5]

Glen Lake Restaurant Week (Glen Arbor Area, Michigan) [thru 5.4]

Interstate Mullet Toss and Gulf Coast’s Greatest Beach Party (Orange Beach, Alabama) [thru 4.27]

Pensacola Crawfish Festival (Pensacola, Florida) [thru 4.28]

Procession of the Species (Olympia, Washington) [thru 4.27]

Sacramento Beer Week (Sacramento, California) [thru 5.5]

Sacred Heart Garden City Festival (Augusta, Georgia) [thru 4.27]

Santa Barbara Restaurent Week (Santa Barbara, California) [thru 5.5]

Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival (Winchester, Virginia) [thru 5.5]

Striped Bass Festival (Manning, South Carolina) [thru 4.27]

Vermontville Maple Syrup Festival (St. Albans, Michigan) [thru 4.28]

Wakarusa Maple Syrup Festival (Wakarusa, Indiana) [thru 4.28]

Feast Days

Aldobrandesca (a.k.a. Alda; Christian; Saint)

Anacletus, Pope (a.k.a. Cletius) and Marcellinus (Christian; Martyrs)

Basil (Christian; Saint)

Bernard Malamud (Writerism)

The Birthday Cake (Muppetism)

Cimon (Positivist; Saint)

Cletus and Marcellinus (Christian; Martyrs)

Delphinia (Festival of Apollo; Ancient Greece)

Edward Charles Tarbell (Artology)

Eugène Delacroix (Artology)

Fairy Laughter Convention (Shamanism)

Festival of Renenutet (Ancient Egypt)

The Fixer, by Bernard Malamud (Novel; 1966)

Franca Visalta (Christian; Saint)

Get Organized Day (Pastafarian)

Giamonios (Celtic Book of Days)

Gian Paolo Lomazzo (Artology)

Hug An Australian Day (Pastafarian)

Jethro Tull Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

John James Audubon (Artology)

Lucidius of Verona (Christian; Saint)

Mayan Rain Festival (Ancient Mayan)

Memorial of Our Lady of Good Counsel (Christian)

Moon Magick Day (Starza Pagan Book of Days)

Our Lady of Good Counsel (Christian; Saint)

Paschasius Radbertus (Christian; Saint)

Peter of Rates (or of Braga; Christian; Saint)

Rafael Arnaiz (Christian; Saint) [Diabetes]

Riquier (a.k.a. Ricardius; Christian; Saint)

Robert Hunt (Episcopal Church (USA))

Sacrifice to Zeus Epacrios (Ancient Greece)

Stephen of Perm (Christian; Saint)

Trudpert (Christian; Saint)

Visakh Bochea Day (Buddha Day; Cambodia)

Walpurgisnacht, Day IV (Pagan)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Lucky Day (Philippines) [22 of 71]

Tomobiki (友引 Japan) [Good luck all day, except at noon.]

Uncyclopedia Bad to Be Born Today (because the Chernobyl meltdown began.)

Premieres

American Recordings, by Johnny Cash (Album; 1994)

Avengers: Endgame (Film; 2019)

Bear De Guerre (The Inspector Cartoon; 1968)

Belfagor, by Ottorino Respighi (Opera; 1923)

The Bridge at Andau, by James A. Michener (History Book; 1957)

The Cat Concerto (Tom & Jerry Cartoon; 1947)

Devils & Dust, by Bruce Springsteen (Album; 2005)

Dogtown and Z-Boys (Documentary Film; 2002)

Dragon Ball Z (Anime TV Series; 1989)

The Enchanted Wood, by Enid Blyton (Children’s Book; 1939)

Farewell, My Lovely, by Raymond Chandler (Novel; 1940)

4th Symphony, by Charles Ives (Symphony; 1965)

The Goose Goes South (MGM Cartoon; 1941)

Gunsmoke (Radio Series; 1952)

The Handmaid’s Tale (TV Series; 2017)

The Hip-Nut-Tist (Fleischer Popeye Cartoon; 1935)

Just One of the Guys (Film; 1985)

The Last Waltz, by The Band (Live Album & Concert Film; 1978)

Moosylvania Wish Mash or A State of Confusion (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S6, Ep. 366; 1965)

Moosylvania Saved, Part 3 (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S6, Ep. 365; 1965)

The Muppet Musicians of Bremen (Muppet TV Special; 1972)

Neverland, by Jim Steinman (Musical Play; 1977)

Pink Posies (Pink Panther Cartoon; 1967)

The Reluctant Recruit (Woody Woodpecker Cartoon; 1971)

Seven Samurai (Film; 1954)

The Ship Who Sang, by Anne McCaffrey (Novel; 1969)

Swing Your Partner (Swing Symphony Cartoon; 1943)

Those Were Wonderful Days (WB MM Cartoon; 1934)

Throwing Copper, by Live (Album; 1994)

The Trial, by Franz Kafka (Novel; 1925)

The Truth About Cats & Dogs (Film; 1996)

Tugboat Mickey (Disney Cartoon; 1940)

Ups ’n Downs (WB LT Cartoon; 1931)

A Waggily Tale (WB LT Cartoon; 1958)

”Weird Al” Yankovic, by Weird Al Yankovic (Album; 1983)

Today’s Name Days

Helene, Trudpert (Austria)

Kleto, Maksima, Montan, Stanislav, Višnja (Croatia)

Oto (Czech Republic)

Cletus (Denmark)

Eesi, Reesi, Teesi, Teisi, Tereese (Estonia)

Teresa, Terttu, Tessa (Finland)

Alida (France)

Consuela, Helene (Germany)

Glafyra (Greece)

Ervin (Hungary)

Alida, Bianca, Cleto, Marcellino (Italy)

Alīna, Geraldine, Rusins, Sandris (Latvia)

Dargailė, Gailenis, Klaudijus (Lithuania)

Tea, Terese (Norway)

Artemon, Klaudiusz, Klet, Marcelin, Marcelina, Maria, Marzena, Spycimir (Poland)

Chindeu, Chiril, Tasie, Vasile (Romania)

Jaroslava (Slovakia)

Isidoro (Spain)

Terese, Teresia (Sweden)

Clarence, DeMarco, Demarcus, Demario (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 117 of 2024; 249 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 5 of week 17 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Saille (Willow) [Day 13 of 28]

Chinese: Month 3 (Wu-Chen), Day 18 (Geng-Shen)

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

Hebrew: 18 Nisan 5784

Islamic: 17 Shawwal 1445

J Cal: 27 Cyan; Sixday [27 of 30]

Julian: 13 April 2024

Moon: 92%: Waning Gibbous

Positivist: 5 Caesar (5th Month) [Xenophon]

Runic Half Month: Lagu (Flowing Water) [Day 2 of 15]

Season: Spring (Day 39 of 92)

Week: 4th Week of April

Zodiac: Taurus (Day 7 of 31)

[savefilescomng12]

On This Day, April 26: 16 killed in German school shooting

1 of 5 | On April 26, 2002, a German youth who had been expelled from the Gutenberg school in Erfurt, Germany, returned to the school and shot 16 people to death. File Photo by ASK/Wikimedia April 26 (UPI) -- On this day in history: In 1607, the first British colonists to establish a permanent settlement in America landed at Cape Henry, Va. In 1933, Nazi Germany's secret police, better known as the Gestapo, is formed by Hermann Goering. The Allies declared the Gestapo a criminal organization during the Nuremberg trials and sentenced Goering to die. In 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, German-made planes destroyed the Basque town of Guernica, Spain. In 1964, Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged, forming the country of Tanzania. In 1982, Argentina surrendered to British forces on South Georgia Island amid a dispute over the Falkland Islands. In 1986, a fire and explosion at the Soviet Union's Chernobyl nuclear reactor north of Kiev, Ukraine, resulted in the world's worst civilian nuclear disaster. About 30 deaths were reported in the days following the accident. It is believed that hundreds of people eventually died from high doses of radiation from the plant and that thousands of cases of cancer could be linked to the crisis.

File Photo by Sergey Starostenko/UPI In 1993, Indian Airlines Flight 491 slammed into a parked truck during takeoff and crashed minutes later near the western Indian city of Aurangabad, killing 56 people. In 1994, South Africans began going to the polls in the country's first election that was open to all. Four days of voting would elect Nelson Mandela president. In 2002, a German youth who had been expelled from the Gutenberg school in Erfurt, Germany, returned to the school and shot 16 people to death. In 2005, the last of Syria's troops left Lebanon, ending a 29-year military presence. In 2010, longtime Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir, sought by the International Criminal Court in connection with reputed crimes against humanity in the Darfur section of western Sudan, was re-elected president in a controversial vote.

File Photo by Abderaouf Ubgadar/UPI In 2012, a U.N.-backed court convicted former Liberian President Charles Taylor of war crimes, including murder, acts of terrorism, rape, sexual slavery and use of child soldiers, for aiding rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison. In 2018, a Pennsylvania jury found actor Bill Cosby guilty on charges he drugged and sexually assaulted Andrea Constand in 2004. He was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison. In 2020, the 23rd victim of the Aug. 3, 2019, shooting at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart died from his injuries. In 2021, Kanye West's Nike Air Yeezy 1 Prototype shoes sold for a record-breaking $1.8 million through a private sale facilitated by Sotheby's. It was the first recorded sneaker sale for more than $1 million.

File Photo by Richard Ellis/UPI Source link Read the full article

[wedoartblog]

WATER Paul Rosenbauer Berlin / 2019 “I have worked on the typography Water for a long time. Over the period of several months I have drawn dozens of versions of the lettering. When I was happy with the design of the word, I started to paint with black, white and blue acrylics. Once the drawing was finished, as the very last step, I carefully applied the final writing to the canvas. It was a technical decision, but it was also because the content, the word, has such great meaning to me and I wanted it to be as perfect as possible. Behind the lettering Water, there is not only an aesthetic idea but my concern about how we use our resources. The meat industry, in particular, is a big problem - about 15,000 litres of water are needed for one kilo of beef. I have long eaten a completely vegetarian diet and I never missed eating meat - even when I was doing heavy physical work. There is nothing wrong with not eating meat. On the contrary! When I worked in Zanzibar, I ate with the local carpenteers in the canteen for weeks. There was never any meat on the menu and we were perfectly fit and we enjoyed the tasty dishes. Besides health and environmental aspects, it is also the suffering of animals that concerns me. I grew up in the countryside and learned that animals are very sensitive. That they can feel like we humans do. Even if I am not a strict vegetarian, I advocate that we finally give up industrial meat production. If we keep fewer animals in scaled-down agriculture, we could offer them a livable existence - and we would need less water, the element without which we cannot exist.”

Contact