#afghan interpreters

[theweeklyshowwithjonstewart]

How Fuckface von Clownstick's Executive Orders Impact Afghan Visas with Jon Stewart & Shawn VanDiver

Jon Stewart and Shawn VanDiver of #AfghanEvac break down how Fuckface von Clownstick's latest executive orders could threaten the visas promised to Afghan allies, the same brave individuals who risked everything to support US troops. They discuss the ways you can help those left behind and how we can come together to protect them.

[infohub27]

Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant (2023): A Gripping Tale of Brotherhood and Survival

Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant (2023) — Director Guy Ritchie steers away from his well-known action-comedy spice-infused palette and weaves a heart-wrenching, edgy war drama of the story of two men (Jake Gyllenhaal & Dar Salim) who shared their boundless loyalty, camaraderie and survival; amidst the ravaged immoral wastelands of Afghanistan. It seems almost sacrilegious to commend a war film that depicts soldiers at their most human and more importantly, as brothers.    Read More…

[languagexs]

Afghanistan Farsi Language: Exploring Dari and LanguageXS Solutions

Dari in Afghanistan: Unraveling the Tapestry of Afghan Persian In the heart of Central Asia lies Afghanistan, a land where ancient traditions and modern realities intertwine, and where language serves as both a mirror and a map of the nation’s rich cultural landscape. At the center of this linguistic mosaic is Dari, one of the two official languages of Afghanistan alongside Pashto. This article…

[curtwilde]

Taliban has announced that women in Afghanistan will be stoned to death in public for adultery.

The Afghan Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, has issued a disturbing proclamation, vowing to implement brutal punishments against women in public. In a chilling voice message broadcasted on state television, Akhundzada directly addressed Western officials, dismissing concerns about violating women’s rights by stoning them to death.

"You say it’s a violation of women’s rights when we stone them to death," Akhundzada stated. "But we will soon implement the punishment for adultery. We will flog women in public. We will stone them to death in public," he declared, marking his most severe rhetoric since the Taliban seized control of Kabul in August 2021.

These grim statements, purportedly from Akhundzada, who has seldom been seen in public except for a few outdated portraits, emanate from Afghanistan’s state TV, now under Taliban control. Akhundzada is believed to be located in southern Kandahar, the Taliban's stronghold. Despite early assurances of a more moderate regime, the Taliban swiftly reverted to harsh public penalties reminiscent of their previous rule in the late 1990s, including public executions and floggings. The United Nations has vehemently criticised these actions, urging the Taliban to cease such practices.

In his message, Akhundzada asserted that the women's rights advocated by the international community contradicted the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law. Akhundzada emphasised resilience among Taliban fighters, urging them to oppose women's rights persistently. "I told the Mujahedin that we tell the Westerners that we fought against you for 20 years and we will fight 20 and even more years against you," he stated.

His remarks have sparked outrage among Afghans, with many calling for increased international pressure on the Taliban.

"The money that they receive from the international community as humanitarian aid is just feeding them against women," lamented Tala, a former civil servant from Kabul.

"As a woman, I don’t feel safe and secure in Afghanistan. Each morning starts with a barrage of notices and orders imposing restrictions and stringent rules on women, stripping away even the smallest joys and extinguishing hope for a brighter future," she added.

"We, the women, are living in prison," Tala emphasised, "And the Taliban are making it smaller for us every passing day."

Taliban authorities have also barred 330,000 girls from returning to secondary school for the third consecutive year. University doors were closed to women in December 2022 and participation in the workforce is heavily restricted.

[nyc-pizza-rat]

like. thinking about the opposite of that one post of mine where dean is in love but doesn't say it. dean is in love but doesn't know it. which is a point of contention ik, but I'm not posing it as an interpretation, I'm posing it as a fic idea, don't @ me. anyway.

i like to think about it. dean moving out, after the ending. and he gets himself a little one story ranch style fixer upper. and he rebuilds it. and he is careful with how he does that, he is careful with how he fills it with the things he thinks his family will like. he builds cas a room, too, because he wants cas to live with him, but it's not the same room as his. for some reason. and he doesn't like his room. he keeps changing things in it, moving furniture around, adding posters and prints, and decor, and it's always just slightly to the left of perfect, for some reason. always something missing, and he doesn't know what. it makes him itchy though. so he doesn't sleep there. when he's working on the house, when there's no one staying over, he sleeps in cas' room. that bed will never get slept on anyway. man is an angel.

sorry. got distracted. anyway. he has this house. and it's still in kansas, maybe even in lebanon, close enough to the bunker, but with *windows*, you know? he runs a little hunter garage from there. fixes up people's cars, let's them sleep a night or two, if they need it. feeds them. he woodworks. he paints. he bakes, a lot. reads. mans the phone lines. the usual old man hunter things, right? and this is like. into the future. he's turned a nice, round 50 kind of future. sometimes his brother lives with him, i think. sometimes he stays over at eileen's. often he stays over at eileen's. others pass through often enough, though. he's not lonely. he's not not lonely. he's the least lonely when cas is around, and he's the most lonely when cas is around. he likes having cas around. they don't do anything, just sort of sit next to each other. talk. watch movies. go on drives. cas is good at all the things dean does, he's better at them than dean, but he is patient with him, too. he is proud of him, for some reason. dean basks in that. has learned to. but then at night, dean slinks off into his big, empty room and tosses and turns bc his room is stupid and he doesn't like it, and he always sleeps in cas' room but cas is there so he can't. best nights are when he falls asleep on the couch, when they're watching a movie late into the night. when he's too drunk to move and he sinks into cas' lap and pretends he doesn't remember it in the morning. it's just. well. it's just nice having another person with him, you know? it's nothing else, really. cas is an angel. cas has always watched over him. that warmth in his chest when he's with him is only natural.

anyway. ANYWAY. god. cas splits his time between earth and heaven. he is an angel, he likes being an angel, and he likes having responsibilities in heaven. it makes him feel like he's finally serving his purpose. but then time passes, and one day, cas realizes that the world is in something of an equilibrium. that there is not much to do in heaven anymore. that he is tired. jack will say, I think I want to go home. and cas will think about the house dean built and about the garage filled with *things* he makes and the kitchen where the oven is always on, the afghan on the couch he likes so much. he thinks about the smell of soap, and the dog that scratches the wood floors, baby and her purr. and he'll say, yes. okay. alright.

so they come home.

dean will think. god. thank god. he won't say it. he will say, are you sure? and of course. and good. that's good. he will take them around town, show them off to people who know everything about them already. and he will cook and he will laugh and he will drink, and too much, because he does that. he does that sometimes. a lot. almost always. but he won't talk about it — the way he feels grounded, like he is finally on steady earth. the way he feels like he can breathe.

jack will go, because he wants to do things, big things, strange things. human things. and dean's heart will do that thing that your heart is supposed to do when your kids don't need you anymore, and have lives of their own. but dean doesn't feel entitled to the feeling. still, he sets him up with a nice vintage, gives him cash, tells him, call, if you need anything. and, eyes up. don't be stupid. and, you can come home. anytime. you know that right? and then he lets him go.

there's always things to do, somehow. upkeep. some hunter stopping by. research. cas gets into it, too. sometimes cas goes out to help. he's still an angel, so that's easier for him. dean doesn't want to, but will go, when it feels like a hard case. when it feels like cas might get hurt. cas cannot get hurt. but dean's got that fear in his bones, that if he looks away, if he gets complacent, something will happen, and cas will disappear. so he goes. he gets hurt, sometimes. he makes cas angry, often. he doesn't mind either, to be honest.

life settles around them. in a few months, maybe. quick enough, either way. dean stops trying to sleep in his room, at some point. he passes out on the couch, in jack's bed, in the guest rooms downstairs. in baby. at some point cas sees this, and tells him to stop being stupid. so dean sleeps in cas' room, and cas sits at the desk, and they just sort of live like that.

anyway. cas goes off to visit jack or sth at some point. and dean gets not not lonely again. it's not that he has nothing to do, it's just weird. like how his room is weird. he manages, though. and when cas is supposed to come home, dean buys groceries and flowers and the good jelly from the farmer's market. he fires up the grill, makes burgers. acts like the house has guests coming over, like it's a party. and then cas shows up in a flurry of wings, and dean grins at him and he looks happy and tired and human enough, even if he isn't, and dean hugs him and his heart beats fast, and happy, and he thinks. oh. oh.

he pulls back and cups cas' face and cas leans into it, practised almost, covers his hands. and dean will feel like crying. he won't, but he'll want to. and he'll say, you know, right? and cas will say, of course. of course. and dean will kiss him, like that's just what they do. and cas will kiss him back. and then dean will say thank you. for waiting for me. and cas will say, i wasn't, not really. and (this is because dean has loved him, has been loving him, always. didn't really make cas wait, ykwim?)

and they'll eat and dean will bring cas into his room and sleep, happy and sound, and he'll laugh, in the morning, when the sun streams into the room and wakes him up, and everything is arranged in a mess but it's alright, it's good, he loves it anyway, because cas is there, next to him.

[allthegeopolitics]

Life as a woman in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan just got even more restrictive as a government ministry enacts new laws on “vice and virtue” in the country, banning women’s voices and uncovered faces from public life. The laws were issued Wednesday by the ministry for the “propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice,” which was established in 2021 after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan. That was the year the U.S. military and other western powers, including Canada, evacuated the country, leaving behind a power vacuum quickly filled by the militant group. Many Afghans who worked for western powers, including drivers and interpreters, were left behind in the chaotic departure. [...] Women are also forbidden from singing, reciting and reading aloud in public, as a woman’s voice is deemed “intimate” and should not be heard. It’s unclear if speaking is also banned. [...]

Continue Reading.

Note from the poster @el-shab-hussein: Just a heads up before the opportunists try and get ahold of this for islamophobic propaganda, what exactly is Islamic about banning women from reading the Qur'an? Nothing. This has nothing to do with faith and everything to do with control and abuse of power.

[vivipokedex]

I just discovered this blog and wow its really well done everything is super cool! I do wanna ask though, what was the thought process/inspiration for making the Gardevoir line insects? I like them but they're more far removed from the original Pokemon than you usually go so I was curious.

honestly for many of my interpretation of pokemon its based on an association i already had in my head, in which i see an existing creature or object and think of that pokemon. for example, when i see a white borzoi or afghan hound, i think, ohh, reshiram... when i see a small fuzzy dog whose eyes you cant see, i think, heehee, deino! of course, not all of them can be applied in this way (when i see a klm boeing 747, i think, ohh, thats latios!). and this makes it sound like i think about pokemon a lot--well, i do!

but in this case, when i see a green mantis, i think, oh, that's gardevoir. theyve simply always been somewhat mantis shaped in my mind, with some bird elements, especially owls, and white plume moths. the fun nature of insects is that theyve got all sorts of stuff going on. fur, plumes, hair, scale-like segments, appendages that imitate plants and other animals. you can really go crazy with them. which seems appropriate, since supposedly the whole idea of pokemon first originated from satoshi tajiri's interest in bugs.

thanks you for this question and im glad youre enjoying the art ^_^

[lost-carcosa]

Senior Taliban official hits out at own group’s policies towards women

Deputy foreign minister says ‘there is no excuse’ for shutting schools for girls and women

A senior Taliban official has called on the militant group to open schools for women and girls, a rare sign of internal divisions around one of the flagship policies of Afghanistan’s de facto rulers.

Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, the Taliban’s acting deputy foreign minister, said the edict forbidding girls and women from schools was not in line with Sharia law as claimed.

“We request the leaders of the Islamic Emirate to open the doors of education,” he said, claiming that “there is no excuse for this and never will be”. “In the time of the Prophet Muhammad, the doors of knowledge were open to both men and women,” the Taliban minister said at a Madrassa graduation ceremony in Khost province.

The 62-year-old UN-sanctioned official said his own leaders were “committing injustice against 20 million people”, referring to the women who make up roughly half of the Afghan population.

“We have deprived them of all their rights; they have no inheritance rights, no share in determining their husband’s rights, they are sacrificed in forced marriages, they are not allowed to study, they cannot go to mosques, the doors of universities and schools are closed to them, and they are not allowed in religious schools either,” the acting deputy foreign minister said.

After taking control of Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban pledged to govern the country based on a moderate interpretation of Sharia law, and to maintain many of the rights and freedoms enjoyed by women under the previous Western-backed government. Yet within months they had shut classes for girls beyond grade six, and colleges were closed to female students at the end of 2022. In some cases students were sent home at gun-point.

Mr Stanikzai led a team of negotiators at the Taliban’s political office in Doha before US forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, and he has criticised the crackdown on girls’ education before. But his latest comments represent the first call for a change in policy and a direct appeal to Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada.

The international community has cited the gender apartheid in Afghanistan as it has denied recognition to the Taliban regime, including in resolutions at the United Nations. Experts and human rights activists monitoring the situation in Afghanistan have said the ban will deeply affect the country’s female population.

The Taliban claims it plans to reopen schools and universities for women but has given no clear details of when or how it plans to do so. Meanwhile, a number of the Taliban’s senior leaders are reported to have sent their children to school overseas.

[literary-illuminati]

2025 Book Review #1 - 20th Century Men by Deniz Camp, S. Morian and Igor Kordey

There’s an issue left before the next Saga hardcover is complete. Which means that, to hold to my dizzyingly over-complicated set of reading goals for the year, I needed a different comic for January. Thankfully, one thing I never lack for is a long list of things being recommended to me. The basic pitch of this seemed interesting enough to try, and I’m happy I did. A bit unfocused and meandering for its limited run time, a bit didactic in its narration, but overall quite an interesting read.

The comic is set in a 20th century afflicted with heroism – the aging supersoldier who won WW2 for the United States is finishing his third term as President, a genius with an artificial heart and a hulking mechsuit is single-handedly holding the Soviet war effort in Afghanistan together, the culmination of a centuries-long eugenics and indoctrination program is spending his twilight years cleaning up all the British Empire’s messes and burning all the bodies before he turns off the lights – you get the idea. The war in Afghanistan – and the way it’s inching ever closer to World War 3 as the American Dream orders more and more open intervention against the Soviets – is the focus. The story is told from the perspective of American and Soviet soldiers, politicians and journalists, and the Afghan civilians and soldiers they’re ostensibly fighting for.

This is a comic that was created in the aftermath of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan and oh but you can tell. The human cost of wars of liberation and ‘nation-building’ and the sheer bloodlust involved in ‘peacekeeping’ and ‘counter-terrorism’ is a recurring theme throughout, both in Afghanistan and in flashbacks and discussion of Vietnam. The story does not have anything hugely original to say here, but it says it clearly and with some artistic flair.

More broadly the book is about – well, as the title says. It’s a comic with superheroes, but it’s not a superhero comic – the various heroes are all through-a-mirror-darkly takes on one classic cape or another, but the story isn’t at all interested in interpreting them according to the logic or history of superhero stories. They’re here instead as larger-than-life stand-ins and representations of this or that historical force. Captain America is a man obsessed with reclaiming the righteous moral purity of fighting the nazis and also a rough amalgamation of Nixon and Reagan. The Hulk is a walking war crime who caused such an embarrassingly public bloodbath in Vietnam that the government locked him in a black site until deciding his services are once again needed in Vietnam. Superman is the incarnate faith and belief of the Soviet people in the force of History and the coming communist paradise.

A faith and belief that, over the course of the story, vanishes or wastes away or (according to the narrator’s favourite theory) grew so disappointed with humanity that he killed himself. Which is the thesis of the story in a nutshell, really – the modernist, universalizing ideologies and narratives of the 20th century have, by the end of the ‘80s, grown threadbare and too worn out to take seriously. All that remains is old soldiers fighting a war they can’t conceive of ever winning, brutalizing everyone they claim to be here to uplift and save. Which they do with world-shattering skill and strength – destroying all the other dreams and alternatives which might have sprouted out around them almost as an after-thought. I say you can tell it was written in the 2020s, but honestly if you told me this was some particularly cynical Gen-Xer writing in the ‘90s or 2000s I’d believe you too. It’s all very End of History (but a bad thing).

Themes aside – as a work of visual art this comic is...not gorgeous exactly, but striking. Impressionistic and almost painterly, committed to conveying huge amounts in a panel or two and happily discarding any pretense of ‘realistic’ representation of the action to achieve it. The character designs often feel like caricatures or political cartoons, and I believe this is entirely intentional and even works. It, frankly, carries most of the book on its shoulders. Not that the writing isn’t good and even clever (I quite liked the issue where the narration was all quotations from news/history/propaganda texts with wildly different slants), but with basic/replacement-rate art this would barely be worth a second look.

In terms of plot and pacing the comic – well, mainly it acts like it has many, many more than six issues to make its point. Extended subplots that take up most of an issue end up going nowhere, characters get screen-time and development entirely out of proportion with how important to the plot they are, and when you really look at it the unifying story hanging it all together is surprisingly thin. Which isn’t a crippling issue in this case, really – it’s very much a theme-first sort of story, and each issue is mostly its own contained thing with its own narrative beats – but reading it as a single work you can definitely feel it. It also does feel like something of a bait and switch, as the first couple issues are by far the most plot-focused and afterwards it gets only more contemplative, impressionistic, and political.

In terms of politics – the last issue is in its entirety essentially a lecture and morality tale. One that feels a bit like having its cake and eating it too – it’s slightly rich to complain about Afghanistan’s role in the western imagination as a brutal, remote ‘graveyard of empires’ rather than somewhere people actually live when you’ve spent the first five issues of the comic leaning into precisely the same tropes. But still, I am a fairly easy sell for works on such daring and careful arguments as ‘invading Afghanistan was a bad idea’ (even if the story gives itself the easiest possible time making it).

Overall, I’m glad I read it. Worth a look if you like comics but wish Watchmen had come out last year.

[coochiequeens]

Ladies, please speak up about this. And how Begum TV is still around to offer programs for women

Taliban Suspend Women's Radio Station In Afghanistan

The Taliban information ministry said the station had been suspended for "multiple violations", in the latest search by the government of local media outlets in Afghanistan.

Agence France-Presse

World News

Feb 05, 2025 07:08 am IST

Published OnFeb 05, 2025 07:08 am IST

Many radio stations in Afghanistan have ceased broadcasting women's voices.

Kabul:

Afghanistan's Taliban authorities raided well-known women's radio station Radio Begum on Tuesday, arresting two employees, the broadcaster said, calling for the speedy release of its staff.

The Taliban information ministry said the station had been suspended for "multiple violations", in the latest search by the government of local media outlets in Afghanistan.

"Officers from the General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) assisted by representatives of the Ministry of Information and Culture raided today Begum's compound in Kabul," a statement from the radio station said.

The broadcaster said Taliban authorities searched the office, seizing computers, hard drives and phones, and detaining two male employees "who do not hold any senior management position".

It said it would not provide further comment, fearing for the security of the detained employees, and asked that the authorities "take care of our colleagues and release them as soon as possible".

The Taliban information ministry said the station had been suspended, in a statement on social media site X.

"Besides multiple violations, it was providing materials and programmes to a TV station based abroad," it said.

"Due to the violation of the broadcasting policy and improper use of the license (from the ministry), the radio station was suspended today so that the related documents can be carefully evaluated and the final decision can be taken," it added.

Radio Begum said it has never been involved in any political activity and was "committed to serving the Afghan people and more specifically the Afghan women".

- Media shuttered -

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), posting on X, demanded "the ban be lifted immediately".

The freedom of information watchdog says the Taliban authorities closed at least 12 media outlets in 2024.

Radio Begum was founded on March 8, International Women's Day, 2021, five months before the Taliban swept to power, ousting the US-backed government and implementing a strict interpretation of Islamic law.

The Taliban authorities have imposed broad restrictions on women, squeezing them out of public life with rules the United Nations has labelled "gender apartheid".

Women have been barred from secondary school and university as well as squeezed from certain types of work.

The few women who still appear on TV channels are covered except for their eyes and hands. Many radio stations have ceased broadcasting women's voices.

Radio Begum station staff have broadcast programming for women, by women, including educational shows, book readings and call-in counselling.

In 2024, Radio Begum's Swiss-Afghan founder Hamida Aman also launched a satellite television station, Begum TV, broadcasting educational programmes from Paris to help Afghan girls and women continue their education.

Thousands of videos covering the Afghan national curriculum have also been uploaded on a sister website, available for free.

The suspension of Radio Begum is the latest such action against local media in Afghanistan.

In December last year, Taliban authorities shut down Afghan station Arezo TV and detained seven employees.

The Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (PVPV) accused the channel of betraying Islamic values and being supported by media based outside the country, which have been heavily restricted and criticised by the Taliban authorities.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

[gyllenhaalstories]

JOHN KINLEY DRABBLE

trope: one bed

warnings: army/military, death, funerals, storm. 18+ NO MINORS.

word count: 800

photo credit: iheartjake / divider credits: @/firefly-graphics

notes: thank you to @sizzlingcloudmentality for the spin the wheel activity and for encouraging me to post my results as actual little drabbles. 🥰 thank you for reading & REMEMBER TO REBLOG!

I'm going full sad mode here, but funerals. He's back in America, funerals are held for one of the many men who died under his authority. You're in the family of the deceased guy. John wants to keep it low profile, he wants the focus to be on the man they're celebrating both the life and death of not on the war-hero-but-kind-of-not-heroic-at-all who helped one afghan interpreter to get a better life. So he sits towards the back of the church, next to you in fact. You don't talk, it's as if he doesn't acknowledge your presence at all until you hand him your small packet of tissues because you noticed he cried. The funerals end, everyone gathers in the cemetery of endless white graves for all of the other fallen soldiers. Except the sky gets dark and heavy, the clouds gather and soon enough rain pours and lightning strikes. Everyone rushes to the nearest restaurants or malls or hotels, for a place to stay dry until the storm passes.

You both end up in the lobby of the same hotel, soaked to the bone from the rain. Phones keep ringing, the computers' system crash from such high demand, the new and modified reservations keep coming in. The hotel manager is trying to calm everyone down and accommodate as best as they can. John, who had already gotten a room, spots you in the crowd. You look distressed. He goes up to you, you tell him you don't know how you can drive home in the rain. He's almost offended you're even considering the option of driving in such weather and put yourself in danger. He offers you to use his room, you can dry up with towels or take a hot shower until the storm passes. Except it doesn't pass. Now, not only are you stuck away from home but you're stuck in a hotel room with a total stranger.

Eventually, night falls and John insists that you get some rest so you can drive home tomorrow. The room only has one bed, not a big one at that either. There aren't enough blankets and pillows to sleep on the ground. John insists he can take the floor if you'd prefer, if it makes you feel safer. He doesn't mind. He's slept on worse surfaces than carpet. That's when you inquire about him. John Kinley. As in the Master Sergeant John Kinley? Yes. You feel a bit safer, if he went so far to protect his interpreter, you assumed he was not a bad guy. You both surrender and share the bed, using a decorative pillow as a separation for your peace of mind. He insists he does not move when he sleeps, but he understands you need the mental barrier. You both fall asleep, things seem to go smoothly.

Except, you shiver. The cold rain had gotten to you. You shiver and John cannot sleep oddly enough. John has slept in worse conditions, the loudest noises or the worst smells someone can think of. He has slept surrounded by cadavres after a mission that left him stranded and waiting to be picked up. He's slept through it all (except the emotional turmoil left by Ahmed's uncertain destiny but you don't need to know that) but you shivering and shaking uncontrollably keeps him up. He scoots closer and closer to you on the bed. You just don't stop. You don't even seem to notice your body is shaking. He puts the decorative pillow between your head and the headboard so you don't hurt yourself. He scoots even closer until his broad chest presses against your back. Warmth is warmth, whether it comes from a fireplace or a body, it does the job.

He coos at you when you stir in your sleep, noticing his presence, he whispers he just wants you to calm down. You're too tired to hesitate, you're too tired to tell him you'll be okay. He rubs your arm, hoping the friction helps your body to warm up and allows you to drift to sleep. He presses more against you, you can feel his warm skin through your clothes. He feels like a radiator. He stays right here with you until you fall asleep again. You eventually do... John falls asleep too. Holding you, spooning you, keeping you safe. Neither of you move that night.

John wakes up first, his body conditioned to wake up at ungodly hours. It takes a moment to process the presence of a stranger in his bed. As much as a person he cuddled to sleep can be a stranger. You snore softly, sleeping soundly. He takes a few deep breaths and he feels his eyelids getting heavier. A little longer won't hurt. Holding you a little closer won't hurt either.

[septembriseur]

There are very good arguments for and against voting for Biden in the US presidential election. However, the insurmountable point for me is that I know many people whose lives depend on Trump not being elected. Their lives have already been made extremely difficult and uncertain because of the Biden administration’s incompetence and callousness, but a Trump administration will effect immediate changes that massively worsen their lives. I’m talking specifically about Afghan asylum seekers and Special Immigrant Visa applicants, as well as Afghan migrants who are already in the US and have waited for years to see their parents, siblings, or other family members again.

Trump’s initial 2017 Muslim ban, even in spite of the legal challenges to it, created a nightmare for Iraqi and Syrian asylum seekers and SIV applicants. The delays it caused had huge ramifications. In some cases, US veterans had to fight protracted legal battles to bring their interpreters to the US.

I don’t not understand the arguments for not voting for Biden. But I had a guy sleeping on my couch last weekend whose ability to stay in this country vs. getting deported to Afghanistan (not to mention ever seeing his parents again) potentially depends on Biden’s awful administration staying in power. How do you weigh that against the possibility of maybe, somewhere down the line, if we’re lucky, getting an administration that doesn’t put us in these situations? I don’t feel capable of making those calculations. Fundamentally, what it comes down to is that I want to be able to look that guy in the eye. My deep hatred for Joe Biden doesn’t enter into it— it’s a practical decision based on what will immediately effect the least negative change for people here, people in Afghanistan, people in Palestine.

[beardedmrbean]

A Florida jury found CNN liable on Friday in a high-stakes defamation trial against U.S. Navy veteran Zachary Young, who alleged that the network maligned him as an “illegal profiteer” with a report on Afghan evacuees being charged thousands of dollars to flee the country following the U.S. military withdrawal.

Following two days of deliberations, the jury ruled that CNN must pay Young $4 million in financial damages and $1 million for emotional damage, adding that Young is also owed punitive damages. After the trial entered a second phase to determine punitive damages, the network eventually settled with Young for an undisclosed amount.

“We remain proud of our journalists and are 100% committed to strong, fearless and fair-minded reporting at CNN, though we will of course take what useful lessons we can from this case,” a CNN spokesperson said in a statement after the settlement was announced.

Once both sides had moved to argue their case for how much additional money Young should be awarded, Judge William Henry told the jurors on Friday that during this second phase, the punitive damages against CNN could only apply to its actions in this specific case and not on any other stories or issues. Following an extended break in the testimony, during which the two legal teams engaged in discussion, Henry informed the jury that the two sides had settled.

One juror asked Henry if they could “have the privilege to know the settlement amount,” only for the judge to look towards both legal teams before responding: “Apparently not.”

Though the amount was not disclosed, the settlement came after a business expert for the plaintiff testified that, based on his review of CNN’s earnings, he estimated that CNN brought in roughly $150 million of revenue a month. He further suggested that it could be a fair amount to pay in punitive damages.

“The numbers represent the Plaintiff’s interpretation of a subset of data as presented in litigation, and they do not represent financial data for the whole of CNN’s business,” a CNN spokesperson told The Independent.

The verdict comes weeks after ABC News paid $15 million to Donald Trump’s presidential library fund and another million dollars to his legal team to settle the president-elect’s defamation lawsuit against the network – a move that First Amendment experts warned could have a “chilling effect” on the free press.

The jury in the trial, which was held in deeply conservative Bay County, Florida, was tasked with determining whether CNN acted with “actual malice” during its reporting on Young. The court defines actual malice as a reckless disregard of the truth while publishing false information. Additionally, the burden of proof in this case was lower because the judge ruled before the trial that Young was not a public figure.

Young, a security contractor who once worked for the CIA, sued CNN in 2022 over a story it ran the year before on private contractors charging desperate Afghans large amounts of money to help evacuate them from the war-torn country after the Taliban retook control. The investigatory piece, reported by national security correspondent Alex Marquardt, was first aired on Jake Tapper’s show and warned of “exorbitant fees” from “black market” rescue operations that had “no guarantee of safety or success.” Young was the only contractor named throughout the story.

In his complaint, Young said his inclusion in the story suggested that his activities were criminal, specifically because of an on-air graphic that used the term “black market.” That banner was also used when the story ran on CNN programming and the network’s website. Young said that he only charged corporate sponsors to extract Afghans and never took money directly from residents, pushing back on the story’s implication that he was exploiting people fearful of the Taliban.

CNN’s legal team and witnesses, meanwhile, argued during the trial that their intention behind the use of the term “black market” was to show that evacuations in the region were taking place in an “unregulated market” and didn’t explicitly mean the actions were criminal. Young’s attorneys, however, noted that the dictionary defined the term as “illegal.”

“Do not let CNN rewrite the English language to avoid liability in this case,” attorney Devin Freedman told the jurors during his closing arguments on Thursday.

Young has argued that the CNN story destroyed his reputation and left him unable to make a living, claiming his yearly salary went from six figures to zero. He also said that the network caused psychological damage to him, prompting Freedman to urge the jury to “send a message that news organizations must be held accountable.”

Months after the story first ran on CNN, the network issued an on-air apology after Young’s attorneys threatened legal action. Delivered by anchor Pamela Brown, who was substituting for Tapper, the correction stated that the term “black market” shouldn’t have been used in the report and the network “did not intend to suggest that Mr. Young participated in a black market.”

During the trial, however, Marquardt and other CNN employees testified that they didn’t feel the correction was necessary and that it was merely issued at the behest of the network’s legal counsel to avoid a lawsuit.

Additionally, CNN’s legal team argued in court filings that at the “time of its reporting, CNN knew little about Young’s financials, his model, or whether he’d successfully evacuated anyone because whenever anyone [including CNN] asked Young to explain his business, he obfuscated, behaved unprofessionally, lied, and hid.” They also stated last summer that Young’s “operation was very different from how he publicly portrayed it” and he never planned any evacuations.

“I reported the facts. I reported what I found. Everything in there was factual, accurate and, I believe, fair,” Marquardt said on the stand on Monday, defending his reporting. He also took issue with his story being described as a “hit piece” by Young’s lawyers, claiming he wasn’t personally going after the security contractor.

“You needed a bad guy for your scandal story,” Freedman told Marquardt at one point. “You hated him, did you not?”

Throughout the trial, Freedman presented a series of Slack messages and emails from Marquardt and other CNN staffers in which they referred to Young as a “s***bag” with a “punchable face.” In one message to an editor, Marquardt said they were “gonna nail this Zachary Young mf***er,” while an editor responded: “Gonna hold you to that one cowboy!” In another message, Marquardt said of Young: “It’s your funeral, bucko.”

In depositions and court filings, CNN and its lawyers defended the harsh remarks as “banter” that’s part of a candid newsroom and that it didn’t impact the editorial process. “I hear a lot of profanity at work,” one producer said. “Few things are more common in newsrooms than journalists using tough and indignant language to refer to persons whose misdeeds they believe they are in the process of exposing,” the network acknowledged in a filing last month.

In a December court order, though, Judge William Henry stated that while the network “downplays the ‘coarse and harsh language’” as “journalistic bravado,” a “reasonable jury could find with convincing clarity that the reporters acted with ill will, hostility or an evil intention to defame and injure Young or intended to personally harm him.”

The jury may have tipped its hand on Wednesday when they repeatedly peppered CNN reporter Katie Bo Lillis — who first attempted to contact Young for the story — with pointed questions about the vague messages she initially sent the contractor. “Do you feel Americans are obligated to speak to you?” one juror asked, while another wondered: “At what point do you accept someone not wishing to speak or comment?”

Additionally, network lawyer David Axelrod (no relation to the CNN pundit of the same name) was severely reprimanded by Henry on Wednesday for “blatant misrepresentations” he made about a document related to Young. Saying Axelrod’s credibility with him was “none,” Henry urged the lawyer to apologize to Young for repeatedly calling him a “liar.”

The network’s editorial process and fact-checking also came under intense scrutiny during the trial, especially since some editors seemed to express reservations about publishing the story. “The story is full of holes like Swiss cheese,” breaking news editor Megan Trimble wrote, while senior national security editor Thomas Lumley replied: “Agree. The story is 80% emotion, 20% obscured fact lol.”

“I’m never going to publish a story that is factually incorrect or unfair,” Lumley said on Tuesday, insisting that he didn’t doubt the facts of the story. “That’s the red line.”

The trial took part in the Florida Panhandle, a deeply red part of the country that voted overwhelmingly for Trump. It also comes at a time when CNN, which the president-elect has repeatedly called “fake news,” and the rest of the mainstream media face ideologically polarized perceptions from the public. Conservative discontent has only grown more engrained as Trump has made legal and political threats against the press a regular occurrence.

Perhaps because of this, some legal observers called on CNN to settle before the case went to trial, especially in light of the “damning” text exchanges that had become public during discovery.

“The internal communications certainly make it sound as if the main journalist on the story wanted to ruin the plaintiff, and that there were reasons to believe that ... he was overplaying their hand factually,” University of Florida law professor Lyrissa Lidsky told NPR earlier this month.

“My advice to CNN would be to cough it up. Settle,” former Bloomberg News media legal counsel Charles Glasser added. “Admit you’re wrong. Admit your hyperbole was out of line, and move on.”

[cicidarkarts]

Hello, if I'm not mistaken, there's one canon description of Idrees I've been apparently looking for? You don't know anything about it? Also, I've been told by someone that Idrees' 14, and it seemed like they got the info from canon sources which I CAN'T find

So I've been mulling this over for a few days, because this is a rumor I've also heard. And just looking at Idrees, it feels viscerally wrong to call him 14 (not just because I wanna smash). When I first saw the movie, before any of this Idrees Redemption shit I've been doing, I thought he was probably 17-18. He looked it, acted it, sounded it. He's about as tall as or even taller than most of the other adult characters.

That's the tallest 14 year old I've ever seen in my life, bro. The median worldwide height for 14.5 year old boys is 165 cm or 5'4" according to the WHO; 175-176 cm or 5'7"-5'8" for the entire age range of 17-18; in Afghanistan the men tend toward being a bit shorter, but averaging for that, Idrees is still quite tall compared to the much older men around him, both of whom in the above scene may be in their 40s here given they fought in the Soviet-Afghan wars.

Most 14 year olds don't have facial hair (some do, most don't), but most 18 year olds definitely do. His voice actor was also a 19 or 20 year old man at the time of recording.

I looked into it as much as one possibly can while juggling being sick and having to do Adult Bullshit. And I have no idea where this number came from "canonically"; HOWEVER, I did see some interesting things online about Taliban recruitment and the general age that Muslim men in South Asia start looking for wives.

Some of the information is pretty sexist and gross. So if any of that is going to trigger you, keep scrolling boo and don't look below the cut/divider <3

So the Taliban claims that they accept a minimum age of approximately 13-15. I think this is where people are getting the 14 age from. Of course, as we know, the Taliban will also forcibly recruit children even younger than that. The general age that young boys and men join the Taliban is 13-17 years old, typically. They began their iron-fist ruling over Afghanistan during 1996. So there is at least a 5 year time gap between the beginning of their regime until the end of the movie.

Nurullah was Idrees' teacher, who we can presume he's not seen for 5 years due to the banning of his subjects in schools. We do not know which grades he taught, just that he enjoyed teaching children how to read and write. It's possibly safe to assume that he was teaching very young children in primary school, the typical ages in which children learn to read and write. In Afghanistan, this consists of Grades 1-6; or 6 years old to 12.

We're not given information on Idrees' schooling outside of him being "a good student". This is very difficult to interpret, but we can assume that Nurullah knew this from at least a year or two of working with him. This estimate can put him at a minimum age of 11 or 13, but it's possible given the time frame that he could be anywhere from 11-17.

Next thing I want to look at is the infamous scene of Idrees asking how old Parvana is, and that he "will be looking for a wife soon". This was the most interesting part to me in my research, because I found that it's common for Muslim men to seek out wives in their late teens and early 20s, approximately 18-24, in this particular area (with places like Indonesia and Malaysia typically having the men older in their mid-20s and Africa having them younger in their mid-teens).

"Looking for a wife soon" can be interpreted in many ways. Certainly the most outlandish is several years down the line if we're to believe he's 14. But more realistically, it would be within a few months, maybe a year. Which would make sense if he was 17 or 18.

The Quran does not specify ages when it comes to marriage. The Quran simply states that men need to be of sound and developed mind and body, financially able to take care of his wife, able to bear the responsibilities of starting a family. "When they reach physical and mental maturity". It's all very vague (on purpose).

With all of that in mind, let's retread schooling and Taliban recruitment. If children as young as 12 are recruited by the Taliban (typically through unrealistic incentives, like money or "being better than a family"; or threats of violence, I might add), and it's been 5 years since Nurullah has seen Idrees, that could mean he was recruited immediately at 12 and is now 17. If we're to believe he was only 7-8 and Nurullah only got one year to educate him (thus coming to the conclusion that he's "a good student"), that would mean he'd be 12-13. idk about you, but Idrees looks like no 12-13 year old I've ever seen.

Okay, what if he was 9? Then 5 years later would make him 14. It's possible that they only just recruited him maybe a year prior. But then we have the general age Muslim men seek wives in South/Southeast Asian countries, which is still much older than 14.

Let's bear in mind that all of this is extremely speculative. We're just not given enough information in the movie or the character bios to say one way or another how old any of these characters are unless explicitly stated (Shauzia is 12, for instance). I think the minimum Taliban recruitment of 13-15 colored this rumor and things weren't looked at deeper than that. But laying out of all the rest of the information makes me very heavily doubt that he's 14.

The last piece of information is toward the end of his arc, where we see him calling Parvana and Shauzia over. Parvana remarks "I know that boy". Could this be her referring to him being 14? 15? 16? 17? 69? It's yet more information that is hard to surmise.

I'd also like to address those who still think he's 14 after all of this. If Idrees is 14, why do you hate him? He's a child. A child with nothing, promised everything by the Taliban, possibly forced into it with coercive threats of violence. Is he a misunderstood, abused child within in a similar age range to Parvana? Or is he an indoctrinated full-on adult perving on a child; a despicable monster with no redeemable qualities? You can hate Idrees all you want, I really don't care. I just ask that you choose one. You can't have both.

I believe Idrees was supposed to be a minimum of 17 or had just turned 18, crossing the threshold into manhood with nothing but war and broken promises to greet him. Failed by a system that promised him everything he could ever want: family, power, education, acceptance, something greater than himself. Only to deliver nothing but blood and death.

I tried to keep track of my sources but I am by no means an academic researcher; also bear in mind that the fact that child marriages still happen in Islamic cultures is VERY buried (naturally so, yikes), making ages extremely difficult to ascertain. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/average-height-by-country https://www.who.int/tools/growth-reference-data-for-5to19-years/indicators/height-for-age https://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/history-education-afghanistan https://gchumanrights.org/preparedness-children/article-detail/the-taliban-rule-and-the-radicalisation-of-education-in-afghanistan-4945.html Fucking Google https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/02/18/afghanistan-taliban-child-soldier-recruitment-surges https://www.scholaro.com/db/Countries/Afghanistan/Education-System Literally the Quran https://aboutislam.net/counseling/ask-about-islam/am-i-too-young-to-marry/ https://www.al-islam.org/religion-al-islam-and-marriage/age-marriage#:~:text=If%20boys%20aren't%20allowed,the%20legal%20age%20of%20marriage (warning: this one is EXTREMELY sexist and misogynistic; good luck, soldier) https://44del.tumblr.com/post/671680841272967168/haha-hey-guys-just-a-reminder-to-read-the And of course the most reliable source of information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Breadwinner_(film)

Unfortunately, most of the age ranges I could find were AI overviews, as a lot of this information is very hush-hush. I wonder why /s But here are those as well:

[fictionfromthevoid]

One-shot | ACD! Sherlock Holmes - Late Night Labwork

Fandom: ACD Sherlock Holmes (original stories)

Characters: Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson

Relationship: QPR (queerplatonic relationship), but you can interpret this one-shot however you want to.

Warnings: Mention of War, Bombs, gunshots and death; mention of PTSD

A/N: Inspired by these tags I saw under this post.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sound of gunshots roared through the hot Afghan air. My comrades, one after the other, went down. Hit by bullets and other projectiles. Bombs were exploding around me. The air was filled with horrible screams as young men were shredded into pieces by shrapnel. Ducked down in the trench, I tried my best to shoot as many enemies as possible, trying to ignore the unbelievable suffering around me, but I knew it was hopeless. They were too many. We were all going to die.

*Clink*

Suddenly everything was quiet. I shot up in what I later realised was my bed. Adrenaline and Cortisol rushed through my bloodstream. Chest heaving and covered in cold sweat I had no idea what was going on or where I was there was only one thing on my mind.

'Danger' I was in danger. 'I need to survive'

I jumped to my feet and examined my surroundings. It was dark, I could barely make out a thing. Slowly the realization crept in. I was in my bedroom, at Baker Street. The war was over, at least for me. I was at home.

Letting out a sigh of relief I dropped back down onto the edge of my bed. Head in my hands and blood rushing in my ears I tried to calm myself down but as soon as I closed my eyes I was back in that trench in Afghanistan.

I desperately longed for Holmes's presence. I didn't necessarily need to talk about this, I just needed him to be there. Simply sitting in the same room as him, while he smoked his pipe, or tinkered with some experiment would be enough to soothe my tormented soul.

But it was the middle of the night, Holmes was probably asleep and I couldn't possibly bring myself to just knock on his bedroom door, wake him up and ask him to... - well pointlessly sit in the living room with me. Tears leaked from my eyes and dropped to the floor below me when -

*Clink*

There was the sound that woke me, again. It came from the living room. 'Is someone in there? Are we being robbed?' Panic threatened to seize my body a second time tonight.

*Clink* *clink* *clink*

No, that was the sound of glass clinking. Holmes! No doubt engaged in some chemical experiment. It wasn't unusual for him to be up in the middle of the night doing research or, very much to my annoyance, playing the violin, shooting the walls or whatever other shenanigans he could come up with. These unusual habits of his were often the subject of my anger or mockery, but that night, I was eternally grateful for them.

I slipped into my dressing gown and made my way to the living room. Upon my entrance, Holmes looked up from his lab equipment and gave me an apologetic smile.

"Ah dear fellow, so sorry to wake you"

"Nonsense. My dream was ... not pleasant" I answered although he had undoubtedly deduced that by now from my constitution.

"I see", he nodded. "Then perhaps you might assist me with this experiment? An extra pair of hands would be most welcome."

I gladly accepted the offer and he got up to get me a chair and a glass of water. I emptied it in one go and so my friend went back to the kitchen and this time brought the whole jug which he placed on the table among his various other chemicals. Pouring me another glass he eyed me carefully.

I can only imagine how I must have looked at that moment. Face covered and hair soaked in cold sweat with hands shaking so much that I could barely hold the glass of water without spilling it all.

However, he didn't say a word and neither did I. Trying to find excuses for my appearance would have been pointless. He had seen me like this countless times before.

Summoned to my bedside by my screams of terror, frantically shaking me awake, ripping me from the nightmare and sitting with me in the light of a candle until the gruesome images in my mind faded.

Still, with a tilt of his head and an expectant rise of his eyebrow, Holmes silently asked me if I wanted to talk. When I shook my head his attention returned to his chemicals.

He assigned me to stir various mixtures and monitor the temperature of numerous boiling liquids. All things where I wouldn't have to hold and therefore couldn't break anything. Tasks suitable for my trembling hands.

We took to work in silence. Holmes' presence keeping me anchored to reality and distracting me from the horrid images still vividly present in my brain.

Sitting here in our living room, next to Holmes working on an experiment I didn't understand a thing about, had exactly the soothing effect on my frayed nerves I hoped it would.

Slowly the shadows lifted from my soul. I could finally breathe again without that terrible feeling of constriction in my chest. Soon my heart rate returned back to normal and the cold sweat on my body began to dry. When my friend noticed, I was getting chilly in the process he wordlessly got up, fetched a blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders.

Wrapped up cosily, I adjusted the flame of a bunsen burner heating an to me unknown liquid in a vial.

In moments like this, I was beyond grateful to have Holmes by my side. I knew that I could have talked to him, anytime, had I wanted to. He wouldn't necessarily have been the best with comforting words, but he would have listened and he would have understood. But I didn't need to. This was enough.

We sat together in silence even long after the experiment was finished. Holmes in his usual armchair and me on the sofa. He tinkered with his pipe, absentmindedly plucked his violin or simply sat there lost in thought, while I soaked in, the calming atmosphere of 221B and the company of my friend.

Nonetheless, he kept a close eye on me. I noticed his glances, assessing whether I was reasonably alright and if I had everything I needed. Occasionally, I flashed him reassuring smiles to indicate that I was indeed feeling better.

A warm fuzzy feeling had found its way into my chest. Coexisting with the heightened anxiety that still lingered from my nightmare. And when the first beams of sunlight finally illuminated our little home again even the last shadows lifted from my mind.

Holmes noticing my improved mood got up from his chair. "I think I will make us some tea. What do you think Watson?" I nodded in approval.

"Holmes" I called out just before he was out of the door of the living room, "Thank you".

My friend answered with a knowing nod and a gentle smile and with that, he left the living room.