#but also often in the hopes of de-legitimizing the West

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

my student for some reason: sure the Nazis murdered 11,000,000 people in extermination camps, but the United States temporarily imprisoned 110,000 Japanese Americans, and at the end of the day, those are pretty similar

me: I guess?

[jedimaesteryoda]

Euron: The Deconstruction of the Romantic Pirate Captain

Portrait courtesy of Mike Hallstein. 

Warning: Spoilers for The Winds of Winter

Pirate fiction is a popular sub-genre with a rich history in both literature and film from Treasure Island to Pirates of the Caribbean. As David Cordingly pointed out in Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates, pirate fiction’s popularity can be given to these stories often taking place in far off places with many of the readers coming from the colder Northern hemisphere, and the bulk of these pirate stories taking place in the tropical Caribbean during the Golden Age of Piracy (1650-1730). It is also the adventure providing a form of escapism with many readers and viewers often living monotonous lives. As a result, pirates have been embedded in public consciousness from real-life pirates like Blackbeard to the fictional Long John Silver. Of course, as we’ll later get into, these fun images often contrast with real-life pirates.

In A Song of Ice and Fire, Martin creates an entire culture of pirates known to themselves as the Ironborn though they are less the pirates of the Caribbean and more pseudo-Vikings. Piracy is enshrined in the Old Way, which has the Ironborn “pay the iron price,” or obtain plunder (which can even include people) by taking them at the point of an axe or sword. Many Ironborn have made names for themselves through daring raids, and it is through these exploits that they raise their standing in society, both in material wealth and reputation.  However, there is one such Ironborn who stands out. 

"Some men look larger at a distance," Asha warned. "Walk amongst the cookfires if you dare, and listen. They are not telling tales of your strength, nor of my famous beauty. They talk only of the Crow's Eye; the far places he has seen, the women he has raped and the men he's killed, the cities he has sacked, the way he burnt Lord Tywin's fleet at Lannisport . . ."

-A Feast for Crows, The Iron Captain

Euron “Crow’s Eye” Greyjoy is introduced in A Feast for Crows right after the death of his brother Balon who had exiled him. In a family of pirates and reavers, he is the black sheep of the family, the one who’s hated by everyone else. He manages to stand out from his family and all the other Ironborn through both his cunning and his sadistic cruelty as well as by boldly sailing places where no Ironborn has gone before like Asshai and (dubiously) Valyria. He is the Ironborn closest to a romantic pirate in appearance (which is intentional). 

Euron’s character, from sailing to far-off places and his treasure to his charisma and even his eye patch, makes it clear that Martin borrowed from other pirates in fiction.

Let’s start with the titular character in Captain Blood: His Odyssey, who is not a Romantic Pirate Captain™, he is the Romantic Pirate Captain™. The book was adapted into the 1935 film seen by a young George R.R. Martin with Blood portrayed by the ever-handsome, charming actor who was typecast as the dashing swashbuckler, Errol Flynn. The film’s final duel between Blood and Levasseur (portrayed by Basil Rathbone) is ranked as one of the top sword fights on-screen, with Martin himself ranking it alongside the duel between Inigo Montoya and the Man in Black in The Princess Bride. 

A common trope in pirate fiction (though less so in real-life in the Golden Age of Piracy) is the pirate captain being an aristocrat or an educated man of some standing in society who is forced to become a pirate as a result of unfortunate circumstances. Peter Blood is a sharp-witted, handsome Irish doctor and veteran who is arrested for treason for attending to a wounded rebel during the Monmouth Rebellion. Blood is later sold as a slave and transported to Barbados to serve under the brutal master, Colonel Bishop, and manages to form a relationship with Bishop’s niece, Arabella. Subsequently, he is forced to become a pirate after the Spanish attack on Barbados, leading a crew of his fellow convict-slaves to freedom, and becoming one of the most feared and well-known pirates in the Caribbean. However, he manages to adhere to his own personal code and maintain some semblance of honor as a pirate while the legitimate authority figures in this story like Deputy-Governor Bishop, French commander Baron de Rivarol and Admiral Don Miguel de Espinoza as well as King James II (unseen) tend to be worse than the actual pirates. He preys on only Spanish ships and settlements (enemies of Great Britain who are treated as stock villains in the story) never on English or Dutch ones, operating more as a privateer than a pirate. He also chivalrously rescues women from other pirates and Spanish soldiers. 

I have said already that he was a papist only when it suited him.

-Captain Blood, Chapter XVI: The Trap

No godless man may sit the Seastone Chair."

-A Feast for Crows, The Prophet

Peter and Euron both can claim descent from island nations (Ireland and Iron Isles) with a history of nationalist sentiment against domination by a larger neighbor (England/Great Britain and mainland Westeros under the Iron Throne). Euron is sharp-witted and “the most comely of Lord Quellon's sons,” coming from the most powerful noble house on the Iron Islands, and is forced to leave after being condemned and exiled by his brother Balon. Euron then pursues a life of piracy, and earns the moniker of “as black a pirate as ever raised a sail,” one of the most feared pirates in the known world. In their respective stories, Euron and Peter demonstrate themselves to be brilliant, talented commanders, always managing to defeat their foes and win battles with their wits, with examples being Blood’s gambit in managing to escape past Espinosa in the raid on Maracaibo and Euron’s strategy in the taking of the Shield Islands. They are also known for their boldness and daring among their fellows. 

What but ruin and disaster could be the end of this grotesque pretension? How could it be hoped that England would ever swallow such a Perkin? And it was on his [James, 1st Duke of Monmouth] behalf, to uphold his fantastic claim, that these West Country clods, led by a few armigerous Whigs, had been seduced into rebellion!

“Quo, quo, scelesti, ruitis?” [Latin for “Where, where are you rushing to, wicked ones?”]

-Captain Blood: His Odyssey, Chapter I: The Messenger

“I shall give you Lannisport. Highgarden. The Arbor. Oldtown. The riverlands and the Reach, the kingswood and the rainwood, Dorne and the marches, the Mountains of the Moon and the Vale of Arryn, Tarth and the Stepstones. I say we take it all! I say, we take Westeros."

- A Feast for Crows, The Drowned Man

Of course, while Blood saw the Monmouth Rebellion as madness with his only involvement being healing a wounded rebel, Euron (described as madder than Balon) actually fought in the Greyjoy Rebellion (where Balon like James, 1st Duke of Monmouth, unsuccessfully tried to crown himself), and hatched the plan to burn the Lannister fleet at port. Blood is an innocent man unjustly condemned for following his Hippocratic Oath while Euron is a guilty man condemned for raping and impregnating his brother’s salt wife. Euron's crew is made up of slaves like Blood’s, but unlike Blood, he was never a slave himself whose slave crewmen joined him willingly, but a slave master who bought or captured them, and then compelled them to serve in his crew. Captain Blood returns after being pardoned (after the king who convicted him, James II, is overthrown) for saving Jamaica from a French assault, and chosen to be its governor, replacing his nemesis, Colonel Bishop, who ironically, was removed for abandoning his post in search of Blood. Euron likewise returns to the Iron Islands after arranging Balon’s death, and takes his post as King of the Iron Islands and Lord of Pyke, at first through intimidation, violence and bribes and later through a kingsmoot. Although, I would argue that like Colonel Bishop, Balon was an unsympathetic, incompetent ruler with an ultimately doomed invasion of the North and uprisings to go with Bishop’s doomed pursuit of Blood.  

Blood looks out for his countrymen, and went to great lengths to avoid the sacrificing of his own men while Greyjoy only looks out for himself, even sacrificing and murdering his fellow Ironborn for his own ends. Peter rescues women from would-be rapists and kidnappers while Euron kidnaps and rapes them. 

If he resisted so long, it was, I think, the thought of Arabella Bishop that restrained him. That they should be destined never to meet again did not weigh at first, or, indeed, ever. He conceived the scorn with which she would come to hear of his having turned pirate, and the scorn, though as yet no more than imagined, hurt him as if it were already a reality. And even when he conquered this, still the thought of her was ever present. He compromised with the conscience that her memory kept so disconcertingly active. He vowed that the thought of her should continue ever before him to help him keep his hands as clean as a man might in this desperate trade upon which he was embarking. And so, although he might entertain no delusive hope of ever winning her for his own, of ever even seeing her again, yet the memory of her was to abide in his soul as a bitter-sweet, purifying influence. The love that is never to be realized will often remain a man's guiding ideal. The resolve being taken, he went actively to work. Ogeron, most accommodating of governors, advanced him money for the proper equipment of his ship the Cinco Llagas, which he renamed the Arabella. This after some little hesitation, fearful of thus setting his heart upon his sleeve. 

-Captain Blood: His Odyssey, Chapter XIII: Tortuga

"Who knows more of gods than I? Horse gods and fire gods, gods made of gold with gemstone eyes, gods carved of cedar wood, gods chiseled into mountains, gods of empty air . . . I know them all. I have seen their peoples garland them with flowers, and shed the blood of goats and bulls and children in their names. And I have heard the prayers, in half a hundred tongues. Cure my withered leg, make the maiden love me, grant me a healthy son. Save me, succor me, make me wealthy . . . protect me! Protect me from mine enemies, protect me from the darkness, protect me from the crabs inside my belly, from the horselords, from the slavers, from the sellswords at my door. Protect me from the Silence." He laughed.

-A Feast for Crows, The Iron Captain

Peter is loyal to one woman, Arabella, never finding companionship with another, and even rescues her from Don Miguel. Euron, by contrast, never had a single romantic relationship, just taking the daughter of the Lord of Oakenshield as his mistress, and later cutting her tongue out, and having her chained to his ship’s prow. Peter named his ship for Arabella, whose name means “yielding to prayer.” As well as reflecting his love for a certain woman, it represented his personal commitment to keeping to some semblance of honor and morality. Euron, in direct contrast, named his ship Silence, as a way of mocking his victims’ prayers of protection that are answered with only silence from both the gods and with death. The ship itself tellingly has a black iron likeness of a beautiful woman without a mouth. 

Peter is shown to be merciful as he spared his enemies like Colonel Bishop and Don Miguel, as opposed to Euron’s mercilessness shown by having Blacktyde cut into seven pieces and Lord Hewett killed after capturing him. Peter is a noble gentleman and honorable rogue while Euron is an ignoble, black-hearted scoundrel. I would argue that as a character, Peter Blood is closer to Jon Snow than he is to Euron Greyjoy, or if you’re going for characters on the Iron Isles, he is closer to Lord Rodrik “the Reader” Harlaw with a shared scholarly disposition, and Harlaw’s attitude towards the Greyjoy rebellions being virtually the same as Blood’s towards the Monmouth Rebellion. 

GRRM likely also had at least one other pirate in fiction in mind when writing Euron.

Long John Silver is the prototypical pirate from Treasure Island where many pirate tropes in pop culture get their inspiration from, and in Long John’s case, he has the talking parrot and the missing leg. He is the ship’s cook who turns out to be the pirate captain organizing a mutiny on the Hispaniola. 

intelligent and smiling. Indeed, he seemed in the most cheerful spirits, whistling as he moved about among the tables, with a merry word or a slap on the shoulder for the more favoured of his guests.  

Now, to tell you the truth, from the very first mention of Long John in Squire Trelawney's letter I had taken a fear in my mind that he might prove to be the very one-legged sailor whom I had watched for so long at the old Benbow. But one look at the man before me was enough. I had seen the captain, and Black Dog, and the blind man, Pew, and I thought I knew what a buccaneer was like — a very different creature, according to me, from this clean and pleasant-tempered landlord.

-Treasure Island, VIII: At the Sign of the Spy-glass

Euron had seduced them with his glib tongue and smiling eye

-A Feast for Crows, The Reaver

Euron and Long John both manage to stand out from their fellow pirates in a number of ways. What people often miss in Treasure Island is that Long John being a pirate captain is a plot twist. Jim doesn’t suspect Silver of being a pirate upon meeting him given while the first pirates we met in the book clearly gave the impression that they’re pirates though their heavy drinking, cursing and violent, threatening behavior, Silver by contrast is polite, well-mannered, courteous, warm and charming. He is usually sober and self-controlled, and greets you with a warm smile on his face. Likewise, the Ironborn reavers tend to display the same rough characteristics as the pirates in Stevenson’s book while Euron by contrast is charming and well-spoken, and we usually see him with a smile on his face. Long John also stands out through his intelligence which is shown in the way he manages his money well rather than spending it all away like other pirates, thinking about long-term planning, and coming up with a plan to find Flint’s treasure by deceiving Squire Trelawney into recruiting his men as crew members on the Hispaniola. Euron is shown to be intelligent and cunning as well when he takes the Shield Islands by not following the coastline and sailing out to sea to avoid being seen, and marrying Asha off to Erik Ironmaker, effectively removing her as a threat. Both men win their leadership positions through their charisma, force of personality, intelligence and lofty promises with taking Flint’s treasure in Long John’s case and all of Westeros in Euron’s case. Of course, Euron’s plan like Long John’s will likely not end well for his followers.  

However, both pirates are basically con men with their friendly demeanor being masks. Ben Gunn noted that Captain Flint feared no one, but added the exception of Silver. One could see why as Silver could be charming and courteous on the outside, but upon reaching the titular island, one witnessed the rage and capacity for violence that existed within this man when he coldly murdered Tom Redruth for refusing to join him. Euron likewise can be charming on the outside, but his true nature comes out in certain moments like drowning Lord Botley in a cask of seawater, and cutting Lord Blacktyde into seven pieces for refusing to submit to him. 

The similarities seem to end there. Look more closely, and you’ll find plenty of contrasts that separate the two characters. 

I’m [Long John] fifty mark you; once, back from this cruise, I set up gentleman in earnest. 

-Treasure Island, XI: What I Heard in the Apple Barrel

Lord Balon's eldest brother had never given up the Old Way, even for a day. His Silence, with its black sails and dark red hull, was infamous in every port from Ibben to Asshai, it was said.

-A Clash of Kings, Theon II

Long John Silver has a talking parrot that repeated phrases while Euron in direct contrast has an entire crew of mutes. Silver is actually missing a leg while Euron wears an eye patch despite not missing an eye. Although to be fair, many pirates wore eye patches despite having both eyes, since they frequently had to move above and below decks, from daylight to near darkness. Keeping a patch over one eye adapted it to the darkness, and if a pirate went below decks, he could just switch the patch to the other eye and see in the darkness more easily. In this case, Euron keeps his eye patch to hide his black “crow’s eye” and show his blue “smiling eye,” symbolically showing how he uses his smiling, charming light exterior to hide his dark side. Long John Silver also managed to be a legitimate businessman by owning a pub in Bristol in between acting as a pirate, and he planned to use his share of Flint’s treasure to settle down as a gentleman and retire from piracy. Euron was never engaged in anything resembling legitimate business as he stuck to piracy, and he only left piracy to set himself up as a reaver king of the Ironborn, and basically just do a large-scale version of what he did before. 

While Long John Silver did employ murder, he used it in a calculated manner in pursuit of a larger goal. He didn’t kill people randomly, but to get rid of the people likely to stand in the way of his obtaining Flint’s treasure: the sailors who wouldn’t mutiny with him and the people commanding the voyage. Euron also uses murder in a calculated manner against people who oppose him such as his brothers and dissident lords, but he also engages in random acts of violence that don’t provide any clear benefit to himself such as when he murdered a hedge wizard and cut out the tongue of Falia. There is also a level of sadism to his actions that Long John’s lacked such as feeding a warlock to his cohorts, chaining people to the bows of ships, and making the Hewett women serve naked. 

Long John Silver also does have some redemptive qualities such as seeming to genuinely care for Jim Hawkins to the point of risking his life when his crew wanted to harm him. Euron wouldn’t have stuck his neck out for Jim, but had the kid’s tongue cut out and used him as a slave at best. Long John also seems to be good to his wife going by the level of trust he put in her while Euron never really seems to genuinely care for anyone but himself. He is unmarried, and doesn’t seem to treat the women he’s laid with well if his mistress Falia is anything to go.

At first glance, Euron Greyjoy has a lot of the qualities that invite admiration of the romantic pirate captain: intelligence, charm, charisma and boldness/daring. However, he lacks the human qualities, ie the honor and nobility often found in these characters that keep them from being just villainous rogues. He is a handsome aristocrat who turns to piracy after being exiled from his home, but unlike other pirates in this trope, neither his backstory nor his present situation evoke any sympathy. He isn’t a good man who is unjustly condemned, but an admitted rapist and murderer who managed to avoid justice for his deeds. He uses the pirate tropes to win support from the Ironborn who esteem the Old Way that glorifies piracy. Martin effectively uses Euron to deconstruct the romantic pirate captain trope by showing how romanticism is often used to pretty up ugly things, in this case, piracy, by revealing the dark reality behind them. Piracy is, at the end of the day, a profession of armed robbery with pirate captains usually being capable of savage cruelty and violence. In real life, good pirate captains like the fictional Peter Blood amongst others were incredibly difficult to find given good people generally avoided such line of work. Even so, no matter how good a man a character like Blood was, he still obtained much of his wealth and prestige from robbing ships and settlements with the justification being that they were Spanish, enemies of Britain. Essentially, it is an argument based on the premise of total war. The Ironborn philosophy is practically the same mindset, but unlike with Blood, we got to see the side of the victims of their predations on the Shield Islands and the North. 

The way the Ironborn view piracy can be similar to how plenty of people in the real world view piracy in fiction and even real-life. The reader could ask how could the Ironborn admire people like Euron, to which one could just as easily ask how could people esteem Sir Henry Morgan to the point of naming a popular rum label for him (with the slogan “Live like the Captain”)? Euron and the rest of the Ironborn effectively have the reader critique the romantic attitudes towards piracy found in popular culture. 

On a final note, another key difference between Euron and the romantic pirate captain will likely be how his story ends. The pirate captain usually gets a happy ending, settling down with all the considerable wealth he acquired over his career in piracy. After his victory against the French in Jamaica in a final battle, Peter Blood gets his pardon, is made Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, gets the girl, Arabella, and settles down to a comfortable retirement from piracy. Long John Silver, even though he was the main antagonist rather than the protagonist, escaped the Hispaniola with "three hundred or four hundred guineas” likely to reunite with his wife. Euron’s story likely won’t be a happy ending with him winning a glorious final battle before settling down to a comfortable retirement with the beautiful girl, Daenerys, but more likely him being killed with the battle turning out to be a disastrous defeat for his fellow Ironborn. 

In this story, where the romantic pirate captain is the villain, he and his fellow pirates will get no hero’s reward, but instead their comeuppance. 

We will likely see how his story ends in The Winds of Winter. 

[tipsycad147]

Different Types of Witchcraft

Many just beginning their studies of Magick think that there is only one Witchcraft, that being Wicca.

Why magick and not magic? The answer is quite simple…magic is what Copperfield and other illusionists perform. Magick is true, not an illusion. I will never forget the intense surge of power I felt vibrating in my body the first time I practised magick, and I get that same feeling every time.

I believe it is important for beginners to realise that their are many more paths one can follow. By learning about different ones, it can not only enrich your knowledge, but even guide you towards a path that’s best suited for you. It is common for people use the terms Witchcraft and Wicca interchangeably. Whether they are different or just a way of describing the same thing depends on which Witch you ask. Either way you look at it, there is more than one path or tradition. The following are just a few descriptions of some of the most common.

Alexandrian:

Founded in England during the 1960’s by Alexander Sanders, self-proclaimed “King of the Witches”. An offshoot of Gardnerian, Alexandrian covens focus strongly upon training, emphasizing on areas more generally associated with ceremonial magic, such as Qabalah, Angelic Magic and Enochian. The typical Alexandrian coven has a hierarchical structure, and generally meets on weekly, or at least on Full Moons, New Moons and Sabbats. Rituals are usually done skyclad.

Most Alexandrian covens will allow non-initiates to attend circles, usually as a “neophyte,” who undergoes basic training in circle craft prior to being accepted for the 1st degree initiation. Alexandrian Wicca uses essentially the same tools and rituals as Gardnerian Wicca, though in some cases, the tools are used differently, and the rituals have been adapted. Another frequent change is to be found in the names of deities and guardians of the Quarters. In some ways these differences are merely cosmetic, but in others, there are fundamental differences in philosophy. Over the last 30 years, the two traditions have moved slowly towards each other, and the differences which marked lines of demarcation are slowly fading away.

Celtic:

The Celtic path is really many traditions under the general heading of “Celtic.” It encompasses Druidism, Celtic Shamanism, Celtic Wicca or Witta, the Grail Religion, and Celtic Christianity or Culdees. Each path is unique and stand alone meld together with another and still be part of the Celtic tradition. It is primarily derived from the ancient pre Christian Celtic religion of Gaul and the British Isles.

As it is practiced today, most of the Celtic paths are part of the Neo-Pagan revival, focusing on Nature and healing with group and individual rituals that honour the Ancient Shining Ones and the Earth. Most are very eclectic, and hold to the Celtic myths, divinities, magic and rituals. Celtic paths are some of the more popular traditions.

Ceremonial:

Uses a great deal of Ceremonial Magick in practices. Mostly derived from the works of Aleister Crowley. Detailed rituals with a flavor of Egyptian magick are popular, as Qabalistic ritual forms.

Chaos:

Chaos magic theory says that belief is an active magical force. It emphasises flexibility of belief and the ability to consciously choose one’s beliefs, hoping to apply belief as a tool rather than seeing it as a relatively unchanging part of one’s personality. Various psychological techniques are employed in order to induce flexibility of belief. Other chaos magicians suggest that people do not need belief to work magic. Austin Osman Spare asserts in The Book of Pleasure and various other works that will formulates desire which promulgates belief.

Chaos magic was first formulated in West Yorkshire, England in the 1970s. A meeting between Peter J. Carroll and Ray Sherwin in Deptford in 1976 has been claimed as the point of emergence of chaos magic, and in 1978 Carroll and Sherwin founded the Illuminates of Thanateros, a chaos magic organisation. The Book of Results is the first book dedicated to the subject of sigilisation and The Theatre of Magick in which Chaos as a separate discipline was first mentioned.

Visionary artist and mystic Austin Osman Spare, who was briefly a member of Aleister Crowley’s A∴A∴ but later broke with them to work independently, is largely the source of chaos magical theory and practice. Specifically, Spare developed the use of sigils and the use of gnosis to empower these. Most basic sigil work recapitulates Spare’s technique, including the construction of a phrase detailing the magical intent, the elimination of duplicate letters, and the artistic recombination of the remaining letters to form the sigil. Although Spare died before chaos magick emerged, many consider him to be the father of chaos magic because of his repudiation of traditional magical systems in favour of a technique based on gnosis.

Dianic:

This is the most feminist Craft Tradition. Most Dianic covens worship the Goddess exclusively (Diana and Artemis are the most common manifestations) and most today are women only. Rituals are eclectic; some are derived from Gardnerian and Faery traditions, while others have been created anew. Emphasis is on rediscovering and reclaiming female power and divinity, consciousness-raising, and combining politics with spirituality. The Dianic Craft included two distinct branches:

The first Dianic coven in the U.S. was formed in the late ’60s by Margan McFarland and Mark Roberts, in Dallas, Texas. This branch gives primacy to the Goddess in its theology, but honours the Horned God as Her beloved Consort. Covens include both women and men. This branch is sometimes called ‘Old Dianic,’ and there are still covens of this tradition specially in Texas. Other coven, similar in theology but not directly descended from the McFarland/Roberts line are sprinkled around the country.

The other branch, Feminist Dianic Witchcraft, focuses exclusively on the Goddess and consists of women-only covens, often with a strong lesbian presence. These tend to be loosely structured and non-hierarchical, using consensus decision making and simple, creative, experimental ritual. They are politically feminist groups, usually very supportive, personal and emotionally intimate. The major network is Re-Formed Congregation of the Goddess. Z Budapest founded the Susan B. Anthony Coven in 1971, declaring Dianic Witchcraft to be “Wimmin’s Religion”. The Women’s Spirituality Forum was Founded by Z Budapest in 1986, and is dedicated to bringing Goddess consciousness to the mainstream of feminist consciousness through lectures and, retreats, classes, cable TV shows, and rituals in the effort to achieve spiritual and social liberation.

Draconic Wicca:

Draconic Wicca is the utilization of the powers of the dragons. There are as many dragons as there are people. They are as varied as humans are also. We work with these dragons to achieve the results that we seek. In doing so, we have to deal with the unique personalities of each type of dragon. The dragons have no real hierarchy other than age, except for the case of The Dragon. The Dragon is the combined powers of the God and the Goddess. The Dragon is invoked or evoked during Sabbats and in times when great magick is needed (not when you can not find your keys). Invoking means to call into you the power of the dragon that you name i.e. a fire dragon. You ask that this dragon assume himself/herself into your spiritual body. To evoke means to call a dragon to you, to join you in your magickal workings.

Eclectic:

Refers to groups and individuals who do not fully adhere to one specific form of Paganism. They choose to incorporate some beliefs, practices, rituals etc, of a few, or many paths to form a unique one that suits their spiritual needs. Gypsy magic tends to fall into this category.

Faery/Faerie/Fairy/Feri:

Victor and Cora Anderson are the original teachers of the Feri Tradition. Victor is universally recognised as the Grand Master of his order of Feri. He was initiated in 1926 by a priestess from Africa. He is also one of the last genuine Kahuna. His book of poetry, Thorns of the Blood Rose, is considered a contemporary Pagan classic.

In 1959, Victor initiated the late Gwydion Pendderwen (age 13 at the time), who later became a leading voice in the Feri Tradition. Gwydion concentrated on the Welsh Celtic aspects; whereas Victor and Cora still practice the tradition as it was originally, with Huna and African diasporic influences, primarily Dahomean-Haitian. The Feri Tradition honours the Goddess and Her son, brother and lover (The Divine Twins) as the primary creative forces in the universe. The Gods are seen as real spirit beings like ourselves, not merely aspects of our psyche.

It is an ecstatic, rather than fertility tradition, emphasising on polytheism, practical magic, self-development and theurgy. Strong emphasis is placed on sensual experience and awareness,including sexual mysticism, which is not limited to heterosexual expression. This is a mystery tradition of power, mystery, danger, ecstasy, and direct communication with divinity. Most initiates are in the arts and incorporate their own poetry, music and invocations into rituals.

The Tradition is gender-equal, and all sexual orientations seem able to find a niche. According to Francesca De Grandis, founder of the 3rd Road branch: “Faerie power is not about a liturgy but about one’s body: a Fey shaman’s blood and bones are made of stars and Faerie dust. A legitimate branch of Faerie is about a personal vision that is the Fey Folks’ gift to a shaman.”

Initially small and secretive, many of the fundamentals of the Tradition have reached a large audience trough the writings of Starhawk, the most famous initiate. Some secret branches remain. While only a few hundred initiates can trace their lineage directly to Victor Anderson, many thousands are estimated to practice neo-Faery Traditions.

Gardnerian:

This is a closed initiatory Tradition which was founded in England ca 1953 by Gerald Gardner and further developed by Doreen Valiente and others. Gardner was initiated into a coven of Witches in the New Forest region of England in 1939 by a High Priestess named ‘Old Dorothy’ Clutterbuck. In 1949 he wrote High Magic’s Aid, a novel about medieval Witchcraft in which quite a bit of the Craft as practised by the coven was used.

In 1951 the last of the English laws against Witchcraft were repealed (primarily due to to the pressure of Spiritualists) and Gardner published Witchcraft Today, which set forth a version of rituals and traditions of that coven.

Gardner gave his Tradition a ritual framework strongly influenced by Freemasonry and Crowleyan ceremonial magic, as well as traditional folk magic and Tantric Hinduism. The Tradition was brought to the USA in 1965 by Raymond & Rosemary Buckland, who were initiated in 1964 by the Gardner’s High Priestess, Lady Olwen.

Gardnerian covens are always headed by a High Priestess and have three degrees of initiation closely paralleling the Masonic degrees. Worship is centered on the Goddess and the Horned God. The tradition emphasises polarity in all things, fertility, and the cycle of birth-death-rebirth. Eight seasonal Sabbats are observed, and the Wiccan Rede is the guiding principle. Power is raised through scourging and sex magick (“The Great Rite”), as well as meditation, chanting, astral projection, dancing, wine and cords. Designed for group/coven work, through solitary workings have been created. Covens work skyclad.

Shamanic Witchcraft:

This term refers to practices associated with those of tribal shamans in traditional Pagan cultures throughout the world. A shaman combines the roles of healer, priest (ess), diviner, magician, teacher and spirit guide, utilising altered states of consciousness to produce and control psychic phenomena and travel to and from the spirit realm. Followers of this path believe that historical Witchcraft was the shamanic practice of European Pagans; and Medieval Witches actually functioned more as village shamans than as priests and priestesses of :the Old Religion.”

Shamanic Witchcraft emphasises serving the wider community through rituals, herbalism, spell craft, healings, counselling, rites of passage, handfastings, Mystery initiations, etc. The distinguishing element of Shamanic Witchcraft is the knowledge and sacramental use of psychotropic plants to effect transitions between worlds. The theory and practice of Shamanic Witchcraft has permeated widely though out many other established Traditions.

Stregheria:

Stregheria is the form of witchcraft native to Italy; there are several distinct traditions sharing common roots, in various parts of Italy. Also called, La Vecchia Religione, Stregheria is a nature-based religion, it’s followers worship the forces of Nature, personified as gods and goddesses. The witches of La Vecchia Religione are called Streghe (plural), with the title Strega (for a female), Stregone (for a male).

Stregheria is rooted in the folk religion of the Latins (the Romans being one Latin people) and the Etruscans. In the particular tradition, taught by Raven Grimassi in Ways of the Strega, the pantheon is different from the urban gods of the Romans, though some of those deities were shared with the Latins, and the Etruscans, most notably Diana, whose worship was focused at a temple at Lake Nemi in the Alban Hills. There are however other traditions of Stregheria in Italy, who may worship the urban gods of the Romans.

The particular tradition taught by Raven Grimassi in Ways of the Strega, is derived from a renewal that occurred in the 14th century brought about by a wise woman from Tuscany called Aradia. This does not imply that witchcraft in Italy began in the 14th century. La Vecchia Religione is an evolution of pre-christian religions in Italy. The tradition taught by Aradia was a revival of the Old Ways during a time of extreme persecution of the peasants of Italy.

Wiccan Shamanism:

Founded by Selena Fox in the 1980’s. Ecumenical and multicultural focus. Combination of Wicca, humanistic psychology and a variety of shamanistic practices from around the world. Emphasis on healing. Uses traditional shamanistic techniques to change consciousness, such as drumming and ecstatic dancing.

https://shirleytwofeathers.com/The_Blog/bookofshadows/book-of-shadows/different-types-of-witchcraft/

[alexsmitposts]

I Never Saw a World So Fragmented! It is amazing how easily, without resistance, the Western empire is managing to destroy “rebellious” countries that are standing in its way. I work in all corners of the planet, wherever Kafkaesque “conflicts” get ignited by Washington, London or Paris. What I see and describe are not only those horrors which are taking place all around me; horrors that are ruining human lives, destroying villages, cities and entire countries. What I try to grasp is that on the television screens and on the pages of newspapers and the internet, the monstrous crimes against humanity somehow get covered (described), but the information becomes twisted and manipulated to such an extent, that readers and viewers in all parts of the world end up knowing close to nothing about their own suffering, and/or of the suffering of the other. For instance, in 2015 and in 2019, I tried to sit down and reason with the Hong Kong rioters. It was a truly revealing experience! They knew nothing, absolutely zero about the crimes the West has been committing in places such as Afghanistan, Syria or Libya. When I tried to explain to them, how many Latin American democracies Washington had overthrown, they thought I was a lunatic. How could the good, tender, ‘democratic’ West murder millions, and bathe entire continents in blood? That is not what they were taught at their universities. That is not what the BBC, CNN or even the China Morning Post said and wrote. Look, I am serious. I showed them photos from Afghanistan and Syria; photos stored in my phone. They must have understood that this was original, first hand stuff. Still, they looked, but their brains were not capable of processing what they were being shown. Images and words; these people were conditioned not to comprehend certain types of information. But this is not only happening in Hong Kong, a former British colony. You will maybe find it hard to believe, but even in a Communist country like Vietnam; a proud country, a country which suffered enormously from both French colonialism and the U.S. mad and brutal imperialism, people that I associated with (and I lived in Hanoi for 2 years) knew close to nothing about the horrendous crimes committed against the poor and defenseless neighboring Laos, by the U.S. and its allies during the so-called “Secret War”; crimes that included the bombing of peasants and water buffalos, day and night, by strategic B-52 bombers. And in Laos, where I covered de-mining efforts, people knew nothing about the same monstrosities that the West had committed in Cambodia; murdering hundreds of thousands of people by carpet bombing, displacing millions of peasants from their homes, triggering famine and opening the doors to the Khmer Rouge takeover. When I am talking about this shocking lack of knowledge in Vietnam, regarding the region and what it was forced to go through, I am not speaking just about the shop-keepers or garment workers. It applies to Vietnamese intellectuals, artists, teachers. It is total amnesia, and it came with the so-called ‘opening up’ to the world, meaning with the consumption of Western mass media and later by the infiltration of social media. At least Vietnam shares borders as well as a turbulent history with both Laos and Cambodia. But imagine two huge countries with only maritime borders, like the Philippines and Indonesia. Some Manila dwellers I met thought that Indonesia was in Europe. Now guess, how many Indonesians know about the massacres that the United States committed in the Philippines a century ago, or how the people in the Philippines were indoctrinated by Western propaganda about the entire South East Asia? Or, how many Filipinos know about the U.S.-triggered 1965 military coup, which deposed the internationalist President Sukarno, killing between 2-3 million intellectuals, teachers, Communists and unionists in “neighboring” Indonesia? Look at the foreign sections of the Indonesian or Filipino newspapers, and what will you see; the same news from Reuters, AP, AFP. In fact, you will also see the same reports in the news outlets of Kenya, India, Uganda, Bangladesh, United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Guatemala, and the list goes on and on. It is designed to produce one and only one result: absolute fragmentation! *** The fragmentation of the world is amazing, and it is increasing with time. Those who hoped that the internet would improve the situation, grossly miscalculated. With a lack of knowledge, solidarity has disappeared, too. Right now, all over the world, there are riots and revolutions. I am covering the most significant ones; in the Middle East, in Latin America, and in Hong Kong. Let me be frank: there is absolutely no understanding in Lebanon about what is going on in Hong Kong, or in Bolivia, Chile and Colombia. Western propaganda throws everything into one sack. In Hong Kong, rioters indoctrinated by the West are portrayed as “pro-democracy protesters”. They kill, burn, beat up people, but they are still the West’s favorites. Because they are antagonizing the People’s Republic of China, now the greatest enemy of Washington. And because they were created and sustained by the West. In Bolivia, the anti-imperialist President was overthrown in a Washington orchestrated coup, but the mostly indigenous people who are demanding his return are portrayed as rioters. In Lebanon, as well as Iraq, protesters are treated kindly by both Europe and the United States, mainly because the West hopes that pro-Iranian Hezbollah and other Shi’a groups and parties could be weakened by the protests. The clearly anti-capitalist and anti-neo-liberal revolution in Chile, as well as the legitimate protests in Colombia, are reported as some sort of combination of explosion of genuine grievances, and hooliganism and looting. Mike Pompeo recently warned that the United States will support right-wing South American governments, in their attempt to maintain order. All this coverage is nonsense. In fact, it has one and only one goal: to confuse viewers and readers. To make sure that they know nothing or very little. And that, at the end of the day, they collapse on their couches with deep sighs: “Oh, the world is in turmoil!” *** It also leads to the tremendous fragmentation of countries on each continent, and of the entire global south. Asian countries know very little about each other. The same goes for Africa and the Middle East. In Latin America, it is Russia, China and Iran who are literally saving the life of Venezuela. Fellow Latin American nations, with the one shiny exception of Cuba, do zero to help. All Latin American revolutions are fragmented. All U.S. produced coups basically go unopposed. The same situation is occurring all over the Middle East and Asia. There are no internationalist brigades defending countries destroyed by the West. The big predator comes and attacks its prey. It is a horrible sight, as a country dies in front of the world, in terrible agony. No one interferes. Everybody just watches. One after another, countries are falling. This is not how states in the 21st Century should behave. This is the law of attraction the jungle. When I used to live in Africa, making documentary films in Kenya, Rwanda, Congo, driving through the wilderness; this is how animals were behaving, not people. Big cats finding their victim. A zebra, or a gazelle. And the hunt would begin: a terrible occurrence. Then the slow killing; eating the victim alive. Quite similar to the so-called Monroe doctrine. The Empire has to kill. Periodically. With predictable regularity. And no one does anything. The world is watching. Pretending that nothing extraordinary is taking place. One wonders: can legitimate revolution succeed under such conditions? Can any democratically elected socialist government survive? Or does everything decent, hopeful, and optimistic always ends up as the prey to a degenerate, brutal and vulgar empire? If that is the case, what’s the point of playing by the rules? Obviously, the rules are rotten. They exist only in order to uphold the status quo. They protect the colonizers, and castigate the rebellions victims. But that’s not what I wanted to discuss here, today. My point is: the victims are divided. They know very little about each other. The struggles for true freedom, are fragmented. Those who fight, and bleed, but fight nevertheless, are often antagonized by their less daring fellow victims. I have never seen the world so divided. Is the Empire succeeding, after all? Yes and no. Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela – they have already woken up. They stood up. They are learning about each other, from each other. Without solidarity, there can be no victory. Without knowledge, there can be no solidarity. Intellectual courage is now clearly coming from Asia, from the “East”. In order to change the world, Western mass media has to be marginalized, confronted. All Western concepts, including “democracy”, “peace”, and “human rights” have to be questioned, and redefined. And definitely, knowledge. We need a new world, not an improved one. The world does not need London, New York and Paris to teach it about itself. Fragmentation has to end. Nations have to learn about each other, directly. If they do, true revolutions would soon succeed, while subversions and fake color revolutions like those in Hong Kong, Bolivia and all over the Middle East, will be regionally confronted, and prevented from ruining millions of human lives.

[evilelitest2]

100 Days of Trump Final Day: Marat/Sade

Welcome back to the final installment of 100 Days of Trump, where I try to explain WTF happened to the West in 100 Posts,   And we are done, I am managed to write 100 articles without losing interest or focus, I fulfilled my promise which...honestly makes me more productive than the actual fucking president.  So I”ve talked extensively about the psychology and makeup of the right as an entity, how it is based not on a real ideology such much as a collection of emotional grudges and bitterness, and I”ve talked about the problems created by centrism which makes the right’s rise to power possible, now lets talk about the left, and how better to do that than the French Revolution.  But first, a brief history lesson so you can understand how fucking awesome this movie is.

    Jean Paul Marat was a radical journalist in the revolution, one of the extremists who called for the mass killing of the upper classes long before it was cool, and likely today would be described as some sort of extreme socialist who wants mass redistribution of resources to the people.  He was assassinated by Charlote Corday, a young Geondian (a slightly more moderate faction) and his death served as as the impetus for the next stage of the Reign of Terror.  Beloved by the people, busts of Marat’s head were often put in the place of saints heads or crucifixes in the years to come.  

    The Marque de Sade was in addition to being the man who brought us the term sadism, we effectively pseudo Nietzsche but more of a nihilist, who denied the very notion of morality at all.  He was really into violating sexual norms and a lot of his writings are all about really horrible sexual violence.  He was one of those people who was all about being awful openly rather than trying to justify it.  For his writings, he often was jailed, and under Napoleon he was put into an insane asylum not because he was insane but because he was politically subversive.  He also might have been a serial rapist, he certainly liked to act like that.   He was personal friends with Jean Paul Marat.  While in the asylum, he put on plays with the inmates, and at one point he put on a play which was a dramatization of Marat’s assassination, with himself debating political philosophy with Marat.  The play evidently ended in a riot and the play hasn’t survived.  

  So the movie is a dramatization of that play, where the Real de Sade having written a play where he debates political philosophy with an actor playing Marat.  However hte actor is schizophrenic and comes to actually believe he is Marat, and starts to go off script to argue with de Sade.  To complicate matters further, the Napoleonic censor is sitting in the room trying to keep the play from being anything other than a glorification of Napeolon’s regime (Napeolon’s view was that his rule was suppose to correct the excesses of the Reign of Terror.  So both de Sade and fake Marat need to get their politically subversive debate past him and too the audience without causing a stir.  Oh and its a musical.  What more can you want.    

  So why do I end with this work?  Because in the face of the type of evil we are seeing with the Far Right and the uselessness of the centrism, we on the left need to understand the dangers of too much militarism in response.  In many way this play is a really good primer on what not to do in response to the right, and that opposing evil does not mean one should embrace evil in response.  For example, I think almost every single one of my followers would look at this clip and go “hell yeah, preach it brother”

And he is right, that is the type of attitudes used to justify inequality, to support plutocracy, to normalize poverty and suffering. But here is the thing, just because he is right...doesn’t mean he is correct?  What do I mean?  Because his solution to the problem is more...along these lines

And of course, that is where left wing rebels go from the noble protectors of the people and instead become the same tyrants they replace, why the left is so prone to auto cannibalism, self destructive paranoia, because when you are righteous, it is extremely easy to justify pretty much any crime.  

But then of course, de Sade is trying to argue a form of selfish nihilism, which suddenly makes Marat’s absolutism even more sympathetic.  Many leftists believe that they are trapped between three forces, nihilism, conservatism, and hypocritical centrism, which means any method becomes justified in response.

But...no....not that isn’t how it has to be.  And of course, once the left starts to retreat within to its, it losses touch with what people actually want or believes 

   And this extremism allows the right to grow strong and seize power once again, and suddenly you find yourself under the rule of Napoleon in an insane asylum talking about the cyclical nature of revolution.  

Revolution is after all, a cycle by nature, and those who don’t know how to understand their politics in a larger context will find themselves trapped in the same pattern forever.

   Let us end this in a warning, that the left must not embrace the paranoia and extremism of the ring even if they have a legitimate leg to stand on.  But also, see what happens when you bring nationalism into politics, because you get the type of contradictory leaps of logic that Trump supporters often operate on like in this song (Skip to 2:48 if you want to see the musical history of France as sung by people trying to justify a dictator).

   That was 100 days of Trump ladies and gentlemen, I hope it helped you understand the madness.  The fun isn’t quite over though, stay tuned

[upshotre]

Traders, others count losses at Lagos fair

By Tony Ademiluyi THE Lagos International Trade Fair ((LITF) considered a showstopper of some sort judging by the frills and thrills that usually attend the ceremony lost its shine at this year’s edition which ended today. The week-long event, to say the least, didn’t live up to its billing if the words of some participants are anything to go by. The LITF, a brainchild of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, is not just considered the largest international exhibition in West Africa, but is actually the premier international trade fair in Nigeria with the spectacular 10-day event usually starting on the first of November every year. A brief history of LITF The fair began in 1977 and was officially taken over by the LCCI in 1986, attract participants different continents including China, Japan, Belgium, Sweden, India, Portugal, Indonesia, Ghana, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Turkey, Cameroun, Kenyan, Singapore, Jamaica, Republic of Benin, South Africa, among others. 2019 edition of LITF This year’s event, which was the 33rd edition, with the benefit of hindsight was devoid of some of the goodies that make the famous Lagos fair tick. In the previous year, over 2,000 exhibitors, including 200 foreign exhibitors and about 5, 000 visitors attended the fair. This year, about 3,000 exhibitors, including 300 foreign exhibitors participated while 500,000 and 600,000 visitors were being expected. Factors that marred fair A constellation of factors, which border on the superficial to the complex may have marred the just concluded fair, chief among which is the issue of poor economy, some analysts said. The land border closure, according to event watchers may have literally taken the sail out of the fair’s wind. Firing the first salvo, the LCCI Director-General, Muda Yusuf, while addressing a symposium to herald the special business to business fair in Lagos, said the land border closure may have had rippled adverse effect in the way the exercise turned out. According to him, naturally patronage at the fair was not as one would expect, as exhibitors from West Africa may be restricted from entering the country with their goods and other items to display at the fair through the border. “Quite a number of our exhibitors are still stocked at the border, waiting for the opening or some sort of waiver to allow them come in with their consignment for the fair. Some of them have been there for the past six days with their luggage and products they want to display. So far, there has been no luck,” he said. He, however, said the exhibitors had shown keen interest in the fair as they had not opted out and were hopeful that something would be done. He said the exhibitors were prepared for the fair, and that backing out might not be on their cards as many have already paid for the spaces in the hall dedicated for exhibitors from the African sub-regions. The LCCI boss noted that the closure might affect the smooth business relationship the country has with these sub-regions as most of their legitimate inter-trade businesses have been hampered. “These exhibitors have made so much investment in preparation for the fair. It is ideal for them to have returns of their investment.  This could affect the business relationship they have with Lagos and the country as a whole these sub regions might retaliate. Normally, a situation like this affects mutual trade relationship in the sub-region. About 90 per cent of trade between Nigeria and other West African countries takes place by road.  So, when the border is closed, that means those trading are cut off. “The closure is affecting us because we have reserved a hall for those coming from African countries and over 60 per cent of the foreign exhibitors are coming from Africa. So, it is greatly affecting us. Besides, we have expended so much on this fair. There is need for quick intervention from the government,” he said. He remarked that the fair would facilitate business networking and provide opportunity for visitors to shop varieties of items of their choice. Beyond the fair, Yusuf who commented on the impact of the border closure on businesses in the country explained that though the closure had recorded some benefits in terms of reduction in smuggled rice, poultry products, sugar and petroleum products, it has greatly accounted for loss on trade. He advised that as the nation celebrates the benefits of  the closure, it should also note the jobs that have been lost, increase in price of goods, legitimate export of goods to sub-regions have been halted, intermediate products for some manufacturers have been cut off, multinational companies de-linked from their sister companies in the sub region. While noting that the country export agricultural and manufactured products, such as detergents, toothpastes, plastic products, steel products, kitchen utensils, grains, ginger, and onions, he said these losses run into billions of naira. “Most often we do not count the cost of government policy on the citizen and businesses. We should not underestimate the contribution of trade and commerce to the economy of the country. Distributive trade sector accounts for about 15 percent of the nation’s GDP), which is estimated at N20trillion naira. “Traders play a major role in the value chain of the real sector activities in the economy.  The trade sector is perhaps the largest employer in the economy,” he said. The Chairman, Trade Promotion Board, LCCI, Gabriel Idahosa, however, said the border closure may not have affected the outcome of the fair. “In fact, some of these exhibitors are here with us today, and we are still expecting more before the close of the fair. The border closure will not affect this fair,” Idahosa said. Light at the tunnel Meanwhile, the President of LCCI, Mr Babatunde Ruwase has however assured that things may soon begin to look up for the sector. According to him, the LITF had the sole aim of boosting the volume of trade among African nations. Ruwas spoke in Lagos on Thursday, during the Africa Special Day celebration organised as part of the ongoing trade fair. While lamenting the low volume of intra-African trade compared to other continents, he said, “The total trade from Africa to the rest of the world averaged $760bn between 2015 and 2017, behind Europe, which stood at $4.11tn; America, $5.14tn; and Asia, $6.81tn. “These numbers tell us that intra-African trade is extremely low; hence, the reason the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry organised this event to promote integration and cooperation among African businesses.” He was, however, quick to add that the African Continental free Trade Area agreement was a welcome development, adding, “We believe the pact will boost trade on a continent with a population of 1.2 billion and market size of about $2.5tn as it allows members to specialise in their areas of comparative advantage.” Echoing similar sentiments, the Managing Director, Nigerian Export-Import Bank, Abba Bello, who was represented by the Technical Adviser to the MD, Mr Hope Youngo, said the intra-African trade was projected to grow by over 22 per cent and that the good thing for Nigeria was that despite its challenges, it was a manufacturing hub. Interestingly, the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu holds the view and very strongly too that most foreign businesses that want to set up shop in the country need to consider opening factories here. Sanwo-Olu, who also graced the opening ceremony of the Special Business to Business Fair at the ongoing Lagos International Trade Fair at Onikan, Lagos, added that his administration would create an enabling environment for organisations from Asia to operate in the state. The B2B fair segment was organised by the Chief Executive Officer, MD Perspective Nigeria Limited, Mrs Morenike Dele-Alimi, with the President, United Asia International Exhibition Group, Mr Ni Liqun, as the chief host. “According to the Chinese Consul General in Lagos, Mr Chu Maoming, total trade between China and Nigeria stood at $8.6bn in the first half of 2019.” Cheery news Reacting to complaints against the border closure from sections of the Nigerian economy and neighbouring countries in Abuja recently, the governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele said there has been an “astronomical growth” in the number of rice farmers and local production of the commodity has increased “exponentially” in recent years. Mr. Emefiele said the border closure is a means of rejuvenating Nigeria’s economy and creation of employment opportunities. Ade Adefeko, a senior executive in charge of corporate relations with the food giant Olam, said investment in Nigerian agriculture was being hamstrung by the rice trafficking, which is estimated to reach two million tonnes a year. Olam has the biggest rice-growing business in Nigeria, owning 13 000 hectares (30 000 acres) of cultivable land of which only 4 500 hectares are being used because the sector is “not profitable” in the face of competition from Asian rice, he said. But “since the border closure, locally-milled rice has started selling, and the entire rice value chain has been positively impacted by the closure,” Adefeko said. He called for the border closure to be maintained “until the end of the year, and see how it goes on a longer term.” Between 10 and 20% of Nigerian manufactured goods are sold to other countries in West Africa, with many of these items, such as pasta and cosmetics, exported through informal routes, mainly through small sellers who travel around the region. Not all gloom It was not all gloom at the venue of the fair as most of the exhibitors gave out freebies to visitors who throng their stand. For instance, hordes of visitors thronged a stand to get a taste of a free porridge meal offered by a Japanese woman married to a Nigerian, Mrs Umi Opara, at one of the exhibition stands at the venue. Many others were also sighted at another exhibition stand where free braiding of hair was offered by Kanekalon Beauty Consult, Japan. Opara, Manager, Uma Curry Mix Seasoning Paste, said the porridge she was offering was prepared using the seasoning in a bid to introduce it to the Nigerian populace. The manager, who is attending the fair for the third time, said that the seasoning, made with natural ingredients, contains vitamins that sharpen the brain. “The curry mix seasoning contains tomatoes, thyme, pepper, onions and other seasoning and it is sold for N5000 for a pack,” she said. Also, at the Kanekalon Beauty Consult stand, a group of young ladies were seen competing to have their hair braided free by the Japanese company. Mr Hiroshi Seko, General Manager, Kanekalon Africa Liaison Office, said that the ladies started trooping in early. According to him, a raffle draw will be held later in the day and two winners will get free meals or go home with wigs for free. The General Manager said the company also introduced a new shampoo and hair moisturizers to the market and the free offer would continue daily till the end of the fair. He commended the organisers of the fair, which he said, was getting better yearly.

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[abigailswager]

Crypto "bot" trading hurting market reputation and individual investors

New Post has been published on https://forexbroker.news/crypto-bot-trading-hurting-market-reputation-and-individual-investors/

Crypto "bot" trading hurting market reputation and individual investors

Crypto press headlines typically focus on the dark side of exchange compromises and the billions in dollars of losses that must be absorbed by the firms and their customers. There is, however, a more sinister threat lurking in the shadows that is seldom discussed, but which could prevent the massive adoption that crypto zealots hope will come to pass. Crypto “bot” trading is the issue and the havoc it is presently wreaking upon the under-regulated crypto market each and every day.

For the uninformed, trading robots are not something new, nor will they overtake the world by way of some Terminator inspired Skynet conspiracy. Automated algorithmic trading hit Wall Street several decades ago. The math and programming geniuses behind this phenomenon were soon called “Quants”, and they also very quickly enriched themselves and their firms with trading profits. All major banks and hedge funds now release their automated trading routines, now driven by Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technology, each day and allow them to adapt to market conditions.

This form of high-speed trading often draws criticism, sometimes causing “flash crashes”, but as long as the methods stay within legal boundaries, the market benefits from greater liquidity and tighter Bid/Ask spreads. The “legal boundaries” have been defined by regulators and generally have to do with processes that are deliberate attempts at price manipulation.

Jay Clayton, the Chairman of the SEC, has spoken often about concerns in the crypto space that make him feel uncomfortable. He has denied Bitcoin ETF applications on many occasions, noting that:

What investors expect is that trading in the commodity that underlies that ETF makes sense and is free from the risk of manipulation. It’s an issue that needs to be addressed before I would be comfortable. Those kinds of safeguards do not exist currently in all of the exchange venues where digital currencies trade.

Abusive practices that are outlawed on regulated exchanges are “wash trading” and “spoofing”, each designed “to make money at the expense of the ‘honest’ trader”. In a wash trade, items are sold at a loss, but quickly bought back at the same price, thereby creating the illusion of major activity and volumes, a common device in a pump-and-dump scam. Spoofing involves creating fake orders to drive buy or sell volumes for similar reasons. Monitoring software is used to ferret out these illegal practices.

In last December, the Blockchain Transparency Institute (BTI) published its detailed analyses, using newly developed and tested algorithms to detect wash trading. The headline sent chills down the spines of every crypto exchange executive in the industry: “Over 80% Of The Top 25 BTC Pairs On Coinmarketcap Is Wash Traded.” The report further disclosed that:

Most of these pairs have an actual volume of less than 1% of the volume reported on Coinmarketcap. Of the top 25 BTC pairs crypto exchanges, only 2 were discovered not to be wash trading their volume: Binance and Bitfinex.

The sad part of this story is that many exchanges in the system actually encourage the use of these illicit automated trading robots, putting them knowingly at the disposal of their customers. The exchange market can be extremely competitive on the local level, and the yardstick that influences investor choice the most is how an exchange ranks in daily trading volume. Exchanges like to pump their volumes, but the new report has already led to court action. A judge in South Korea recently sentenced two exchange executives to hefty jail sentences for wash trading and illicit profit gains.

James West, a noted writer on crypto matters such as these, recently wrote:

The damage wrought upon the overall direction of the crypto industry by these short-term profit-chasers is truly massive. They de-legitimize the very mechanisms responsible for crypto asset price-discovery, compromising the integrity of the market and prompting regulators to squarely deny ETF proposals, citing these issues.

News today is that the CBOE withdrew its latest application for a Bitcoin ETF, the one item that crypto supporters believe with bring legitimacy to the crypto ecosphere. In order for new submissions to occur, price manipulation techniques must be banned, either by self-regulation or by the actions of regulators in every jurisdiction. Until then, mass adoption of cyrptocurrencies by the public and institutions will remain an illusive goal.

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[politicoscope]

Chief Great Ovedje Ogboru Biography and Profile

New Post has been published on https://www.politicoscope.com/chief-great-ovedje-ogboru-biography-and-profile/

Chief Great Ovedje Ogboru Biography and Profile

Chief Great Ovedje Ogboru (born April 10, 1958) in Port Harcourt to a father whose hometown was Abraka and a mother from Umukwata. Ovedje Ogboru, a Nigerian businessman and politician, was the gubernatorial aspirant for Alliance of Democracy, Democratic Peoples’ Party and Labour Party in the 2003, 2007 and 2015 Delta State governorship elections.

Chief Ovedje Ogboru received early education at Municipal Primary School, Port Harcourt but left the city to continue studies at a primary school in Abraka, and finished primary education at Oharisi Primary School, Ughelli.

Chief Great Ovedje Ogboru Full Biography and Profile

Great Ovedje Ogboru is a wealthy international business leader and philanthropist. He is a very credible political leader in the oil-rich Delta State of the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria. Ogboru’s simple, humane values and principled electoral and judicial struggles to restore integrity to Nigeria’s broken electoral system in Delta State distinguish him as a “bright spot of light” in a muddy political environment where political leadership often emerge from illegitimate processes due to voter intimidation, suppression, and electoral violence.

FAMILY Often called The Peoples General by his political followers for the persistent political struggles he leads in civilized manners on their behalf, Great Ogboru comes across to so many as a political icon. He was born on the 10th day of April, 1958 in Port Harcourt into the famous Ogboru Dynasty of Abraka in Delta Central and the Okolocha family of Umukuata in Delta North. A Christian, he is married to Stella Ebi Ogboru, an Ijaw from Bayelsa State. They have four children. Amongst numerous others, he holds the traditional chieftaincy titles of The Omamuyovwi (The Good Head) of Ughelli Kingdom and also The Omamuyovwi of Abraka Kingdom.

EARLY LIFE Great Ogboru had his elementary education at Municipal Primary School, Port Harcourt, Christian Missionaries Society (CMS) Primary School, Abraka and Local Authority (LA) (now Oharisi) Primary School, Ughelli from 1966 to 1971. He was admitted into the prestigious Government College, Ughelli (GCU) in 1971 and finished in 1975. Upon completion of his college education at Government College, Ughelli, he commenced work as a primary school teacher at Owodoawanre Primary School, Ughelli where he taught for four years. Within this period, he earned an external Advanced Levels result.

BUSINESS In 1980, Great Ogboru was faced with real challenges of life. The fourth in a family of 16 children, Great appreciated the full financial burden on his low-income civil servant father. He chose therefore to momentarily sacrifice higher education in the hope that that decision would in the future be a positive turning point in the destiny of his family. Consequently, in January 1978, he left home, clutching a bag that contained only four shirts and three trousers, and headed to Nigeria’s commercial capital city of Lagos in search of ‘greatness’ – a bold step of faith that would later transform so many lives beyond imagination. And so, Great Ogboru’s sojourn in Nigeria’s private sector started as a Marketing Officer in Exchange Fisheries Limited, a small Lagos fishing company. Exchange Fisheries became a “necessary apprenticeship opportunity”. For greater effectiveness in his marketing role, he enrolled into the Chartered Institute of Marketing, London.

In 1983, Ogboru left paid employment and started his own business. Banking on a rare sense of honesty, personal integrity and immense goodwill, he established Fiogret Limited, a frozen fish trading company. Operating on the twin concepts of “Customer Satisfaction” and “Delivering a Standard of Living”, Fiogret grew into a global octopus fishing conglomerate with fishing licenses around the world. Within three years, Great Ogboru, then just about Twenty-Five years of age, established amongst others, the following successful subsidiaries of Fiogret Limited in quick succession:

Grato Nigeria Limited, Warri, a foremost furniture production company which won a National Award for Excellence in 1987;

GLE Finance Limited, a finance company with bureau de change operations;

SOFIMAR Fisheries Nigeria Limited, a Joint Venture with the former Union Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) Government of President Mikhail Gorbachev. SOFIMAR was capitalised to the tune of USD5M and had a proposed asset base of USD20M;

Abraka Rubber Industries Limited;

Ajalomi Shipping Company Limited;

Fiogret Fisheries Limited;

West Coast Publicity Company Limited;

Fiogret Express Limited, a transport company;

Ethiope Commercial Bank Limited – one of the first commercial banks licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria under the financial sector deregulation policy of the then Federal Government.

With these businesses, Great Ogboru’s name became registered in global corporate consciousness as arguably Nigeria youngest and richest business mogul and billionaire of his time. On August 10, 1989, he took the world stage by storm as the youngest and highest Nigerian donor to the Namibia Solidarity Fund (NSF) in the ancient city of Benin. A firm believer in humanity and its preservation, he stood with the people of Namibia in their struggle for freedom because for him, “Humanity is one.” His philanthropic works are rooted in amazing humility. Asked about what he has done for society he says, “Ask the people. I am just favoured by grace to be an instrument in God’s hands.”

POLITICS Great Ogboru is “unapologetically democratic” and a “natural hater and fighter of any form of socio-political dictatorship, tyranny or hegemonic misrule.” This gives credence to the belief that he single-handedly financed the Major Gideon Orkar revolutionar attempt to topple the military regime of former President Ibrahim Babangida on April 20, 1990. He was to be later cleared of any wrongdoing in this matter in 1999 by the Federal Government of Nigeria under then Head of State, General Abdulsalam Abubakar.

The allegation of bankrolling the uprising against General Babaginda’s dictatorship led to his self-exile in the United Kingdom from 1990 to 2000. His business empire was destroyed by successive military governments during this period. Upon his return from the UK, Great Ogboru’s businesses initiated legal actions in damages against the Federal Government of Nigeria for assets stripping, balkanization, and ‘continuous violation’. He won a USD43 Million award in damages against the Federal Government in 2010. His business empire is once again on a robust, prosperous and dominant rise. He is the clear leader in Nigeria’s global frozen fish trade.

Great Ogboru is a member of the Nigeria Policy Group (NPG), an august body that financed and coordinated the struggle to return Nigeria to democracy in the heyday of military dictatorship. He is the national leader of the South-South Rainbow Coalition (SSRC), a robust political movement in Southern Nigeria. He contested the 2003 Governorship Election on the platform of the Alliance for Democracy (AD). He challenged the outcome of that election on the ground, amongst others, that his opponent James Ibori was unqualified to have participated in the election for being an ex-convict. The Nigerian judicial system cleared James Ibori. However, James Ibori was eventually held to be an ex-convict in London as earlier argued by Ogboru’s legal team.

He is a founding member of the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) and the party’s Governorship Candidate for the 2007 General Elections. He also challenged the outcome of this election in court. On November 9, 2010, Nigeria’s Court of Appeal upheld his argument that the election was rigged and went ahead to annul that election as prayed by Ogboru. He remains dogged in his democratic convictions that his people must continue to press hard against election riggers in their quest for legitimate, credible leadership. His recent move to the Labour Party (LP) with his overwhelming grassroots following in Delta State is a strong political statement that cannot be ignored. His political message resonates with all strata of society for various reasons. His principles are the biggest threat to crooked politics in Delta State. His huge financial war chest, capacity for mass grassroots mobilization and strategic choice of the populist Labour Party platform ahead of the 2015 elections are advantages that his followers cherish. His Equal Opportunities Development Initiative(EODI) is an attractive, well-articulated blueprint for the transformation of a united Delta State on the basis of equality and equity.

FURTHER EDUCATION Exile afforded Great Ogboru a break from intense business for personal academic development. With less busy corporate schedules, he returned to the Chartered Institute of Marketing, London. Upon completion of his studies there, he proceeded to the Huron University of South Dakota, London Campus where he obtained a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) degree. He went on to obtain a Masters of The Arts degree in International Relations (MA/IR) at the University of Kent in Canterbury. He carried out a seminal research work at Kent on the effects of IMF’s Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) on the economies of Ghana and Nigeria.

Chief Great Ovedje Ogboru Biography and Profile

[tipsycad147]

Different Types of Witchcraft

Many just beginning their studies of Magick think that there is only one Witchcraft, that being Wicca.

Why magick and not magic? The answer is quite simple…magic is what Copperfield and other illusionists perform. Magick is true, not an illusion. I will never forget the intense surge of power I felt vibrating in my body the first time I practiced magick, and I get that same feeling every time.

I believe it is important for beginners to realize that their are many more paths one can follow. By learning about different ones, it can not only enrich your knowledge, but even guide you towards a path that’s best suited for you. It is common for people use the terms Witchcraft and Wicca interchangeably. Whether they are different or just a way of describing the same thing depends on which Witch you ask. Either way you look at it, there is more than one path or tradition. The following are just a few descriptions of some of the most common.

Alexandrian:

Founded in England during the 1960’s by Alexander Sanders, self-proclaimed “King of the Witches”. An offshoot of Gardnerian, Alexandrian covens focus strongly upon training, emphasizing on areas more generally associated with ceremonial magic, such as Qabalah, Angelic Magic and Enochian. The typical Alexandrian coven has a hierarchical structure, and generally meets on weekly, or at least on Full Moons, New Moons and Sabbats. Rituals are usually done skyclad.

Most Alexandrian covens will allow non-initiates to attend circles, usually as a “neophyte,” who undergoes basic training in circle craft prior to being accepted for the 1st degree initiation. Alexandrian Wicca uses essentially the same tools and rituals as Gardnerian Wicca, though in some cases, the tools are used differently, and the rituals have been adapted. Another frequent change is to be found in the names of deities and guardians of the Quarters. In some ways these differences are merely cosmetic, but in others, there are fundamental differences in philosophy. Over the last 30 years, the two traditions have moved slowly towards each other, and the differences which marked lines of demarcation are slowly fading away.

Celtic:

The Celtic path is really many traditions under the general heading of “Celtic.” It encompasses Druidism, Celtic Shamanism, Celtic Wicca or Witta, the Grail Religion, and Celtic Christianity or Culdees. Each path is unique and stand alone meld together with another and still be part of the Celtic tradition. It is primarily derived from the ancient pre Christian Celtic religion of Gaul and the British Isles.

As it is practiced today, most of the Celtic paths are part of the Neo-Pagan revival, focusing on Nature and healing with group and individual rituals that honor the Ancient Shining Ones and the Earth. Most are very eclectic, and hold to the Celtic myths, divinities, magic and rituals. Celtic paths are some of the more popular traditions.

Ceremonial:

Uses a great deal of Ceremonial Magick in practices. Mostly derived from the works of Aleister Crowley. Detailed rituals with a flavor of Egyptian magick are popular, as Qabalistic ritual forms.

Chaos:

Chaos magic theory says that belief is an active magical force. It emphasizes flexibility of belief and the ability to consciously choose one’s beliefs, hoping to apply belief as a tool rather than seeing it as a relatively unchanging part of one’s personality. Various psychological techniques are employed in order to induce flexibility of belief. Other chaos magicians suggest that people do not need belief to work magic. Austin Osman Spare asserts in The Book of Pleasure and various other works that will formulates desire which promulgates belief.

Chaos magic was first formulated in West Yorkshire, England in the 1970s. A meeting between Peter J. Carroll and Ray Sherwin in Deptford in 1976 has been claimed as the point of emergence of chaos magic, and in 1978 Carroll and Sherwin founded the Illuminates of Thanateros, a chaos magic organization. The Book of Results is the first book dedicated to the subject of sigilisation and The Theatre of Magick in which Chaos as a separate discipline was first mentioned.

Visionary artist and mystic Austin Osman Spare, who was briefly a member of Aleister Crowley’s A∴A∴ but later broke with them to work independently, is largely the source of chaos magical theory and practice. Specifically, Spare developed the use of sigils and the use of gnosis to empower these. Most basic sigil work recapitulates Spare’s technique, including the construction of a phrase detailing the magical intent, the elimination of duplicate letters, and the artistic recombination of the remaining letters to form the sigil. Although Spare died before chaos magick emerged, many consider him to be the father of chaos magic because of his repudiation of traditional magical systems in favor of a technique based on gnosis.

Dianic:

This is the most feminist Craft Tradition. Most Dianic covens worship the Goddess exclusively (Diana and Artemis are the most common manifestations) and most today are women only. Rituals are eclectic; some are derived from Gardnerian and Faery traditions, while others have been created anew. Emphasis is on rediscovering and reclaiming female power and divinity, consciousness-raising, and combining politics with spirituality. The Dianic Craft included two distinct branches:

The first Dianic coven in the U.S. was formed in the late ’60s by Margan McFarland and Mark Roberts, in Dallas, Texas. This branch gives primacy to the Goddess in its theology, but honors the Horned God as Her beloved Consort. Covens include both women and men. This branch is sometimes called ‘Old Dianic,’ and there are still covens of this tradition specially in Texas. Other coven, similar in theology but not directly descended from the McFarland/Roberts line are sprinkled around the country.

The other branch, Feminist Dianic Witchcraft, focuses exclusively on the Goddess and consists of women-only covens, often with a strong lesbian presence. These tend to be loosely structured and non-hierarchical, using consensus decision making and simple, creative, experimental ritual. They are politically feminist groups, usually very supportive, personal and emotionally intimate. The major network is Re-Formed Congregation of the Goddess. Z Budapest founded the Susan B. Anthony Coven in 1971, declaring Dianic Witchcraft to be “Wimmin’s Religion”. The Women’s Spirituality Forum was Founded by Z Budapest in 1986, and is dedicated to bringing Goddess consciousness to the mainstream of feminist consciousness through lectures and, retreats, classes, cable TV shows, and rituals in the effort to achieve spiritual and social liberation.

Draconic Wicca:

Draconic Wicca is the utilization of the powers of the dragons. There are as many dragons as there are people. They are as varied as humans are also. We work with these dragons to achieve the results that we seek. In doing so, we have to deal with the unique personalities of each type of dragon. The dragons have no real hierarchy other than age, except for the case of The Dragon. The Dragon is the combined powers of the God and the Goddess. The Dragon is invoked or evoked during Sabbats and in times when great magick is needed (not when you can not find your keys). Invoking means to call into you the power of the dragon that you name i.e. a fire dragon. You ask that this dragon assume himself/herself into your spiritual body. To evoke means to call a dragon to you, to join you in your magickal workings.

Eclectic:

Refers to groups and individuals who do not fully adhere to one specific form of Paganism. They choose to incorporate some beliefs, practices, rituals etc, of a few, or many paths to form a unique one that suits their spiritual needs. Gypsy magic tends to fall into this category.

Faery/Faerie/Fairy/Feri:

Victor and Cora Anderson are the original teachers of the Feri Tradition. Victor is universally recognized as the Grand Master of his order of Feri. He was initiated in 1926 by a priestess from Africa. He is also one of the last genuine Kahuna. His book of poetry, Thorns of the Blood Rose, is considered a contemporary Pagan classic.

In 1959, Victor initiated the late Gwydion Pendderwen (age 13 at the time), who later became a leading voice in the Feri Tradition. Gwydion concentrated on the Welsh Celtic aspects; whereas Victor and Cora still practice the tradition as it was originally, with Huna and African diasporic influences, primarily Dahomean-Haitian. The Feri Tradition honors the Goddess and Her son, brother and lover (The Divine Twins) as the primary creative forces in the universe. The Gods are seen as real spirit beings like ourselves, not merely aspects of our psyche.

It is an ecstatic, rather than fertility tradition, emphasizing on polytheism, practical magic, self-development and theurgy. Strong emphasis is placed on sensual experience and awareness,including sexual mysticism, which is not limited to heterosexual expression. This is a mystery tradition of power, mystery, danger, ecstasy, and direct communication with divinity. Most initiates are in the arts and incorporate their own poetry, music and invocations into rituals.

The Tradition is gender-equal, and all sexual orientations seem able to find a niche. According to Francesca De Grandis, founder of the 3rd Road branch: “Faerie power is not about a liturgy but about one’s body: a Fey shaman’s blood and bones are made of stars and Faerie dust. A legitimate branch of Faerie is about a personal vision that is the Fey Folks’ gift to a shaman.”

Initially small and secretive, many of the fundamentals of the Tradition have reached a large audience trough the writings of Starhawk, the most famous initiate. Some secret branches remain. While only a few hundred initiates can trace their lineage directly to Victor Anderson, many thousands are estimated to practice neo-Faery Traditions.

Gardnerian:

This is a closed initiatory Tradition which was founded in England ca 1953 by Gerald Gardner and further developed by Doreen Valiente and others. Gardner was initiated into a coven of Witches in the New Forest region of England in 1939 by a High Priestess named ‘Old Dorothy’ Clutterbuck. In 1949 he wrote High Magic’s Aid, a novel about medieval Witchcraft in which quite a bit of the Craft as practiced by the coven was used.

In 1951 the last of the English laws against Witchcraft were repealed (primarily due to to the pressure of Spiritualists) and Gardner published Witchcraft Today, which set forth a version of rituals and traditions of that coven.

Gardner gave his Tradition a ritual framework strongly influenced by Freemasonry and Crowleyan ceremonial magic, as well as traditional folk magic and Tantric Hinduism. The Tradition was brought to the USA in 1965 by Raymond & Rosemary Buckland, who were initiated in 1964 by the Gardner’s High Priestess, Lady Olwen.

Gardnerian covens are always headed by a High Priestess and have three degrees of initiation closely paralleling the Masonic degrees. Worship is centered on the Goddess and the Horned God. The tradition emphasizes polarity in all things, fertility, and the cycle of birth-death-rebirth. Eight seasonal Sabbats are observed, and the Wiccan Rede is the guiding principle. Power is raised through scourging and sex magick (“The Great Rite”), as well as meditation, chanting, astral projection, dancing, wine and cords. Designed for group/coven work, through solitary workings have been created. Covens work skyclad.

Shamanic Witchcraft:

This term refers to practices associated with those of tribal shamans in traditional Pagan cultures throughout the world. A shaman combines the roles of healer, priest (ess), diviner, magician, teacher and spirit guide, utilizing altered states of consciousness to produce and control psychic phenomena and travel to and from the spirit realm. Followers of this path believe that historical Witchcraft was the shamanic practice of European Pagans; and Medieval Witches actually functioned more as village shamans than as priests and priestesses of :the Old Religion.”

Shamanic Witchcraft emphasizes serving the wider community through rituals, herbalism, spell craft, healings, counseling, rites of passage, handfastings, Mystery initiations, etc. The distinguishing element of Shamanic Witchcraft is the knowledge and sacramental use of psychotropic plants to effect transitions between worlds. The theory and practice of Shamanic Witchcraft has permeated widely though out many other established Traditions.

Stregheria:

Stregheria is the form of witchcraft native to Italy; there are several distinct traditions sharing common roots, in various parts of Italy. Also called, La Vecchia Religione, Stregheria is a nature-based religion, it’s followers worship the forces of Nature, personified as gods and goddesses. The witches of La Vecchia Religione are called Streghe (plural), with the title Strega (for a female), Stregone (for a male).

Stregheria is rooted in the folk religion of the Latins (the Romans being one Latin people) and the Etruscans. In the particular tradition, taught by Raven Grimassi in Ways of the Strega, the pantheon is different from the urban gods of the Romans, though some of those deities were shared with the Latins, and the Etruscans, most notably Diana, whose worship was focused at a temple at Lake Nemi in the Alban Hills. There are however other traditions of Stregheria in Italy, who may worship the urban gods of the Romans.

The particular tradition taught by Raven Grimassi in Ways of the Strega, is derived from a renewal that occurred in the 14th century brought about by a wise woman from Tuscany called Aradia. This does not imply that witchcraft in Italy began in the 14th century. La Vecchia Religione is an evolution of pre-christian religions in Italy. The tradition taught by Aradia was a revival of the Old Ways during a time of extreme persecution of the peasants of Italy.

Wiccan Shamanism:

Founded by Selena Fox in the 1980’s. Ecumenical and multicultural focus. Combination of Wicca, humanistic psychology and a variety of shamanistic practices from around the world. Emphasis on healing. Uses traditional shamanistic techniques to change consciousness, such as drumming and ecstatic dancing.

https://shirleytwofeathers.com/The_Blog/bookofshadows/book-of-shadows/different-types-of-witchcraft/

[nyingmatulku]

The Emergence of the (Religious) Shia

Continuing on from the prior post about early Islamic historiography, before we can even begin to touch upon the actual subject of this post (the Shia), we must next consider how the modern Islamicist scholar may discern the accuracy (approximately) of an early Islamic historical compilation. As Donner states, and as we have seen, merely accepting at face value the word of the Muslim sources is fraught with issues (Donner 46-47). Donner instructs one to pay attention to the author’s “strategy of compilation” (Donner 47). That is to say, there is an imperative to closely scrutinize the author’s selection of texts he chose to include, how they are placed within the texts, how and when sections repeat, and whether any manipulation or altering seems to have occurred. Though the corpus of work in this area is vast, applying, rigorously, this sort of methodological approach is certain to assist on in discerning some measure of the historical, objective truth. Though we shall not be diving into the primary sources on the development of the Shia in enough depth to make much use of this methodological approach, it is, nonetheless, essential to keep this methodology in mind when delving further into Islamic history.

Having put an end to the topic of historiography for the moment (doubless, it is be picked up again, so-to-speak, in later posts), let us now address an equally important topic: how the Sunni-Shia divide transformed from a political distinction to a religious, sectarian one. Though one may be tempted to assign sectarian staus to the arlist partisans of the Prophet’s son-in-law, Ali, ibn Abu Talib, this is a position prone to folly. During the Rashidun period, so the mainstream Sunni narrative states, the Muslim community was still of one mind, so to speak, at least in the religious sense. Indeed, until the proto-Shia community came under the influence of the 6th Imam in the Twelver tradition, the Shia, as one knows them in the modern age, had not yet emerged. On that not, let us now turn to those most internally controversial of Muslim sects: the Shia.

What is often surprising to the layman about the early Shia is that they, in many ways, bear little resemblance to their modern counterparts. The difference is most striking when comparing them to those Shia most well-known to the West and on the international stage: the Twelvers of Iran. Indeed, the early Shi’ites were, merely, a political faction in support of the Alids (the descendants of Ali) and not a realized ideo-religious sect.  Naturally, the question then presents itself: how did this change in nature arise? In pursuit of an answer to this question, we must turn our attention to the early medieval period of Islamic history, and, especially, to the 6th Shia Imam, Jafar al-Sadiq.

It was during the “reign” of Jafar al-Sadiq that some of the most recognizable Shia traditions began to crystallize. Many of these traditions were, interestingly, evolutions of the practices of the Pre-Islamic Bedouin tribes. For example, during this time, the old Bedouin tradition of raja, the idea that a hero might rise from the dead, was adopted by many despairing Shi’ites hoping for the return of Ibn al-Hanafiya or, even better, the return of Ali ibn Abu Talib, himself (Hodgson 6). Naturally, this bears a striking similarity to the later Twelver conception of the return of the Mahdi. Further, divination and prophecy, characteristic of Pre-Islamic Arabia generally, began to reassert itself amongst the partisans of Ali (Hodgson 6). Though at first confusing, given the generally held modern view of the Prophet Muhammad’s sentiments towards future individuals holding supernatural abilities (that there will not exist any more such individuals), Hodgson illuminates, within the early Ummah, this later interpretation of Muhammad’s statement about the Prophet being the ‘seal of the prophets’ was far from solidified, stating “ After all, there is nothing very explicit in the Qur'an, apart from the ambiguous phrase about Muhammad's being the 'seal' of the prophets, to debar even major prophets from appearing after him; to say nothing of God's speaking through minor figures to confirm the faith given as had admittedly happened among the Jews” (Hodgson 6).  

This reemergence of the old tribal Arab ways which began to assert itself more prominently during the time of the 6th Imam doesn't, at first glance, seem to have anything at all to do with Jafar al-Sadiq, himself. However, it is my assertion that Jafar al-Sadiq's withdrawal from the contest for temporal power over the Dar al-Islam (roughly, the lands where Muslims are dominant) allowed for a certain degree of spiritual and intellectual autonomy. Without a source of legitimate condemnation of certain quasi-heretical beliefs, the Shi’ites turned to the seductive pagan beliefs of the old ways, which could grant them some solace during such turbulent times for them. Thus, had the 6th Imam somehow seized the Caliphate and chosen to assert both secular and religious authority, such innovations would likely have never emerged.

Also, it must be mentioned, other, less dramatic, distinctions also arose during this time. An example of this type of innovation is to be found within the de-tabooification of speculation on the appearance of God, particularly, his face (Hodgson 7). Mainstream non-Shia Islam had always discouraged this kind of philosophical speculation.  

Finally, we must address the man, himself: the Iman, Jafar al-Sadiq. The most obvious way the 6th Imam contributed to the establishment of the Shia as a sect, separate from the mainstream Islam being spread in the conquered territories, was in making the distinction between spiritual and temporal leadership within the Shia community. In making the transition (interestingly, of his own accord), from the presumptive secular ruler of the Shi’ites to the purely spiritual leader of the devotees of Imam Ali, Imam Jafar laid the foundation for a new direction for the Shia community: one characterized by and emphasizing the religious devotion towards his lineage. As if to drive home this new direction, Imam Jafar, after the ascension of the proto-Sunni Abbasid dynasty to the mantle of the Caliphate, made the journey to the Abbasid court, likely to pay homage or even tribute (Halm 22).

Ultimately, the emergence of the Shia as a distinct religious sect was a complicated and multi-faceted phenomenon. It resists, therefore, many rigid methodological approaches. The Diffusionist approach works, but only somewhat. Given the influences of the pre-Islamic Arabs on Shi’ism, the chief Diffusionist postulation, that the main way new traditions and innovations arise is through the appropriation of certain practices and ideas, intact, from outside, does apply. However, given the independent actions of the 6th Imam, predicated on the geopolitical realities of his time, the Diffusionist model is necessarily deficient. The Post-Structuralist model, furthermore, is also flawed in this context. The Post-Structuralist axiom that material pressures are the dominant motivations for historical events, cannot hold strictly true around this topic, as there are far more pressing historiographical concerns within Shi’ite history, this approach is simply unhelpful. In conclusion, the Shia, and their metamorphism into their modern form is extremely multi-faceted and interestingly complex. Thus, we must, as so often occurs within Islamicist studies, not allow ourselves to be too concerned with the Sunni narrative, especially if it comes at the expense of the Shi’ite narrative.

                                           Works Cited

1.  Donner, Fred M. Ibn ʻAsākir and Early Islamic History. Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 2001.

2.  Hodgson, Marshall G. S. "How Did the Early Shîa Become Sectarian?” Journal of the American Oriental Society 75, no. 1 (1955): 1. doi:10.2307/595031

3.  Halm, Heinz, and Allison Brown. Shia Islam: From Religion to Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1999.

[clubofinfo]

Expert: Sanctions left and sanctions right. Financial mostly, taxes, tariffs, visas, travel bans, confiscation of foreign assets, import and export prohibitions and limitations; and also punishing those who do not respect sanctions dished out by Trump, alias the US of A, against friends of their enemies. The absurdity seems endless and escalating exponentially, as if there was a deadline to collapse the world. Looks like a last-ditch effort to bring down international trade in favor of — what?  Make America Great Again? – Prepare for US mid-term elections? Rally the people behind an illusion? – Or what? All looks arbitrary and destructive. All is, of course, totally illegal by any international law or, forget law, which is not respected anyway by the empire and its vassals, but not even by human moral standards. Sanctions are destructive. They are interfering in other countries sovereignty. They are made to punish countries, nations, that refuse to bend to a world dictatorship. Looks like everybody accepts this new economic warfare as the new normal. Nobody objects. And the United Nations, the body created to maintain Peace, to protect our globe from other wars, to uphold human rights, this very body is silent. Out of fear? Out of fear that it might be ‘sanctioned’ into oblivion by the dying empire?  Why cannot the vast majority of countries – often it is a ratio of 191 to 2 (Israel and the US) – reign-in the criminals? Imagine Turkey – sudden massive tariffs on aluminum (20%) and steel (50%) imposed by Trump, plus central bank currency interference had the Turkish Lira drop by 40%, and that ‘only’ because Erdogan is not freeing US pastor Andrew Brunson, who faces in Turkey a jail sentence of 35 years for “terror and espionage”. An Izmir court has just turned down another US request for clemency, however, converting his jail sentence to house arrest for health reasons. It is widely believed that Mr. Brunson’s alleged 23 years of ‘missionary work’ is but a smoke screen for spying. President Erdogan has just declared he would look out for new friends, including new trading partners in the east – Russia, China, Iran, Ukraine, even the unviable EU, and that his country is planning on issuing Yuan-denominated bonds to diversify Turkey’s economy, foremost the country’s reserves and gradually moving away from the dollar hegemony. Looking out for new friends, may also include new military alliances. Is Turkey planning to exit NATO? Would turkey be ‘allowed’ to exit NATO given its strategic maritime and land position between east and west?  Turkey knows that having military allies that dish out punishments for acting sovereignly in internal affair spells disaster for the future. Why continue offering your country to NATO, whose only objective it is to destroy the east, the very east which is not only Turkey’s but the world’s future? Turkey is already approaching the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) and may actually accede to it within the foreseeable future. That might be the end of Turkey’s NATO alliance. What if Iran, Venezuela, Russia, China and many more countries not ready to bow to the empire, would jail all those spies embedded in the US Embassies or camouflaged in these countries’ national (financial) institutions, acting as Fifth Columns, undermining their host countries’ national and economic policies? Entire cities of new jails would have to be built to accommodate the empire’s army of criminals. Imagine Russia – more sanctions were just imposed for alleged and totally unproven (to the contrary: disproven) Russian poisoning of four UK citizens with the deadly nerve agent, Novichok – and for not admitting it. This is a total farce, a flagrant lie, that has become so ridiculous, most thinking people, even in the UK, just laugh about it. Yet, Trump and his minions in Europe and many parts of the world succumb to this lie and out of fear of being sanctioned, they also sanction Russia. What has the world become?  Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, would be proud for having taught the important lesson to the liars of the universe: “Let me control the media, and I will turn any nation into a herd of Pigs”. That’s what we have become – a herd of pigs. Fortunately, Russia too has moved away so far already from the western dollar-controlled economy that such sanctions do no longer hurt. They serve Trump and his cronies as mere propaganda tools – show-offs, “we are still the greatest!”. Venezuela is being sanctioned into the ground, literally, by from-abroad (Miami and Bogota) Twitter-induced manipulations of her national currency, the Bolívar, causing astronomical inflation – constant ups and downs of the value of the local currency, bringing the national economy to a virtual halt. Imported food, pharmaceuticals and other goods are being deviated at the borders and other entry points, so they will never end up on supermarket shelves, but become smuggle ware in Colombia, where these goods are being sold at manipulated dollar-exchange rates to better-off Venezuelan and Columbian citizens. These mafia type gangs are being funded by NED and other similar nefarious State Department financed “NGOs”, trained by US secret services, either within or outside Venezuela. Once infiltrated into Venezuela – overtly or covertly – they tend to boycott the local economy from within, spread violence and become part of the Fifth Column, primarily sabotaging the financial system. Venezuela is struggling to get out of this dilemma, which has people suffering, by de-dollarizing her economy, partly through a newly created cryptocurrency, the Petro, based on Venezuela’s huge oil reserves and also through a new Bolivar, in the hope of putting the brakes on the spiraling bursts of inflation. This scenario reminds so much of Chile in 1973, when Henry Kissinger was Foreign Secretary (1973-1977), and inspired the CIA coup, by “disappearing” food and other goods from Chilean markets, killing legitimately elected President Allende, bringing Augusto Pinochet, a horrendous murderer and despot, to power. The military dictatorship brought the death and disappearance of tens of thousands of people and lasted until 1990. Subjugating Venezuela might, however, not be so easy. After all, Venezuela has 19 years of revolutionary Chavista experience and a solid sense of resistance. Iran is being plunged into a similar fate. For no reason at all, Trump reneged on the five-plus-one pronged so-called Nuclear Deal, signed in Vienna on 14 July 2015, after almost ten years of negotiations. Now, of course, driven by the star-Zionist Netanyahu – new and ‘the most severe ever’ sanctions are being imposed on Iran, also decimating the value of their local currency, the Rial. Iran, under the Ayatollah, has already embarked on a course of “Resistance Economy”, meaning de-dollarization of their economy and moving towards food and industrial self-sufficiency, as well as increased trading with eastern countries, China, Russia, the SCO and other friendly and culturally aligned nations, like Pakistan. However, Iran too has a strong Fifth Column, engrained in the financial sector, that does not let go of forcing and propagating trading with the enemy; i.e., the west, the European Union, whose euro-monetary system is part of the dollar hegemony, hence posing similar vulnerability of sanctions as does the dollar. China – the stellar prize of the Big Chess Game – is being ‘sanctioned’ with tariffs no end, for having become the world’s strongest economy, surpassing in real output and measured by people’s purchasing power, by far the United States of America. China also has a solid economy and gold-based currency, the Yuan which is on a fast track to overtake the US-dollar as the number one world reserve currency. China retaliates, of course, with similar ‘sanctions’, but by and large, her dominance of Asian markets and growing economic influence in Europe, Africa and Latin America, is such that Trump’s tariff war means hardly more for China than a drop on a hot stone. North Korea – the much-touted Trump-Kim mid-June Singapore summit – has long since become a tiny spot in the past. Alleged agreements reached then are being breached by the US, as could have been expected. All under the false and purely invented pretext of DPRK not adhering to her disarmament commitment; a reason to impose new strangulating sanctions. The world looks on. It’s normal. Nobody dares questioning the self-styled Masters of the Universe. Misery keeps being dished out left and right, accepted by the brainwashed to-the-core masses around the globe. War is peace and peace is war. Literally. The west is living in a “peaceful” comfort zone. Why disturb it?  If people die from starvation or bombs, it happens far away and allows us to live in peace. Why bother?  Especially since we are continuously, drip-by-steady drip, being told it’s right. In a recent interview with PressTV I was asked why does the US not adhere to any of their internationally or bilaterally concluded treaties or agreements? Good question. Washington is breaking all the rules, agreements, accords, treaties, is not adhering to any international law or even moral standard, simply because following such standards would mean giving up world supremacy. Being on equal keel is not in Washington’s or Tel Aviv’s interest. Yes, this symbiotic and sick relationship between the US and Zionist Israel is becoming progressively more visible; the alliance of the brute military force and the slick and treacherous financial dominion, together striving for world hegemony, for full spectrum dominance.  This trend is accelerating under Trump and those who give him orders, simply because “they can”. Nobody objects. This tends to portray an image of peerless power, instilling fear and is expected to incite obedience. Will it? What is really transpiring is that Washington is isolating itself, that the one-polar world is moving towards a multipolar world, one that increasingly disregards and disrespects the United States, despises her bullying and warmongering, killing and shedding misery over hundreds of millions of people, most of them defenseless children, women and elderly, by direct military force or by proxy-led conflicts – Yemen is just one recent example – causing endless human suffering to people who have never done any harm to their neighbors, let alone to Americans. Who could have any respect left for such a nation, called the United States of America, for the people behind such lying monsters? This behavior by the dying empire is driving allies and friends into the opposite camp – to the east, where the future lays, away from a globalized One-World-Order, towards a healthy and more equal multi-polar world. – It would be good, if our world body, the members of the United Nations, created in the name of Peace, would finally gather the courage and stand up against the two destroyer nations for the good of humanity, of the globe, and of Mother Earth. http://clubof.info/

[newsnigeria]

Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on https://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/demise-dollar-hegemony/

Sanctions, Sanctions, Sanctions – the Final Demise of the Dollar Hegemony?

by Peter Koenig

Sanctions left and sanctions right. Financial mostly, taxes, tariffs, visas, travel bans – confiscation of foreign assets, import and export prohibitions and limitations; and also punishing those who do not respect sanctions dished out by Trump, alias the US of A, against friends of their enemies. The absurdity seems endless and escalating – exponentially, as if there was a deadline to collapse the world. Looks like a last-ditch effort to bring down international trade in favor of — what? – Make America Great Again? – Prepare for US mid-term elections? – Rally the people behind an illusion? – Or what?

All looks arbitrary and destructive. All is of course totally illegal by any international law or, forget law, which is not respected anyway by the empire and its vassals, but not even by human moral standards. Sanctions are destructive. They are interfering in other countries sovereignty. They are made to punish countries, nations, that refuse to bend to a world dictatorship.

Looks like everybody accepts this new economic warfare as the new normal. Nobody objects. And the United Nations, the body created to maintain Peace, to protect our globe from other wars, to uphold human rights – this very body is silent – out of fear? Out of fear that it might be ‘sanctioned’ into oblivion by the dying empire? – Why cannot the vast majority of countries – often it is a ratio of 191 to 2 (Israel and the US) – reign-in the criminals?

Imagine Turkey – sudden massive tariffs on aluminum (20%) and steel (50%) imposed by Trump, plus central bank currency interference had the Turkish Lira drop by 40%, and that ‘only’ because Erdogan is not freeing US pastor Andrew Brunson, who faces in Turkey a jail sentence of 35 years for “terror and espionage”. An Izmir court has just turned down another US request for clemency, however, converting his jail sentence to house arrest for health reason. It is widely believed that Mr. Brunson’s alleged 23 years of ‘missionary work’ is but a smoke screen for spying.

President Erdogan has just declared he would look out for new friends, including new trading partners in the east – Russia, China, Iran, Ukraine, even the unviable EU, and that his country is planning issuing Yuan-denominated bonds to diversify Turkey’s economy, foremost the country’s reserves and gradually moving away from the dollar hegemony.

Looking out for new friends, may also include new military alliances. Is Turkey planning to exit NATO? Would turkey be ‘allowed’ to exit NATO – given its strategic position maritime and land position between east and west? – Turkey knows that having military allies that dish out punishments for acting sovereignly in internal affair – spells disaster for the future. Why continue offering your country to NATO, whose only objective it is to destroy the east – the very east which is not only Turkey’s but the world’s future? Turkey is already approaching the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) and may actually accede to it within the foreseeable future. That might be the end of Turkey’s NATO alliance.

What if Iran, Venezuela, Russia, China – and many more countries not ready to bow to the empire, would jail all those spies embedded in the US Embassies or camouflaged in these countries’ national (financial) institutions, acting as Fifth Columns, undermining their host countries’ national and economic policies? – Entire cities of new jails would have to be built to accommodate the empire’s army of criminals.

Imagine Russia – more sanctions were just imposed for alleged and totally unproven (to the contrary: disproven) Russian poisoning of four UK citizens with the deadly nerve agent, Novichok – and for not admitting it. This is a total farce, a flagrant lie, that has become so ridiculous, most thinking people, even in the UK, just laugh about it. Yet, Trump and his minions in Europe and many parts of the world succumb to this lie – and out of fear of being sanctions, they also sanction Russia. What has the world become? – Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, would be proud for having taught the important lesson to the liars of the universe: “Let me control the media, and I will turn any nation into a herd of Pigs”. That’s what we have become – a herd of pigs.

Fortunately, Russia too has moved away so far already from the western dollar-controlled economy that such sanctions do no longer hurt. They serve Trump and his cronies as mere propaganda tools – show-offs, “we are still the greatest!”.

Venezuela is being sanctioned into the ground, literally, by from-abroad (Miami and Bogota) Twitter-induced manipulations of her national currency, the Bolívar, causing astronomical inflations – constant ups and downs of the value of the local currency, bringing the national economy to a virtual halt. Imported food, pharmaceuticals and other goods are being deviated at the borders and other entry points, so they will never end up on supermarket shelves, but become smuggle ware in Colombia, where these goods are being sold at manipulated dollar-exchange rates to better-off Venezuelan and Columbian citizens. These mafia type gangs are being funded by NED and other similar nefarious State Department financed “NGOs”, trained by US secret services, either within or outside Venezuela. Once infiltrated into Venezuela – overtly or covertly – they tend to boycott the local economy from within, spread violence and become part of the Fifth Column, primarily sabotaging the financial system.

Venezuela is struggling to get out of this dilemma which has people suffering, by de-dollarizing her economy, partly through a newly created cryptocurrency, the Petro, based on Venezuela’s huge oil reserves and also through a new Bolivar – in the hope of putting the breaks on the spiraling bursts of inflation. This scenario reminds so much of Chile in 1973, when Henry Kissinger was Foreign Secretary (1973-1977), and inspired the CIA coup, by “disappearing” food and other goods from Chilean markets, killing legitimately elected President Allende, bringing Augusto Pinochet, a horrendous murderer and despot to power. The military dictatorship regime brought the death and disappearance of tens of thousands of people and lasted until 1990. Subjugating Venezuela might, however, not be so easy. After all, Venezuela has 19 years of revolutionary Chavista experience – and a solid sense of resistance.

Iran – is being plunged into a similar fate. For no reason at all, Trump reneged on the five-plus-one pronged so-called Nuclear Deal, signed in Vienna on 14 July 2015, after almost ten years of negotiations. Now – of course driven by the star-Zionist Netanyahu – new and ‘the most severe ever’ sanctions are being imposed on Iran, also decimating the value of their local currency, the Rial. Iran, under the Ayatollah, has already embarked on a course of “Resistance Economy”, meaning de-dollarization of their economy and moving towards food and industrial self-sufficiency, as well as increased trading with eastern countries, China, Russia, the SCO and other friendly and culturally aligned nations, like Pakistan. However, Iran too has a strong Fifth Column, engrained in the financial sector, that does not let go of forcing and propagating trading with the enemy, i.e. the west, the European Union, whose euro-monetary system is part of the dollar hegemony, hence posing similar vulnerability of sanctions as does the dollar.

China – the stellar prize of the Big Chess Game – is being ‘sanctioned’ with tariffs no end, for having become the world’s strongest economy, surpassing in real output and measured by people’s purchasing power, by far the United States of America. China also has a solid economy and gold-based currency, the Yuan – which is on a fast track to overtake the US-dollar as the number one world reserve currency. China retaliates, of course, with similar ‘sanctions’, but by and large, her dominance of Asian markets and growing economic influence in Europe, Africa and Latin America, is such that Trump’s tariff war means hardly more for China than a drop on a hot stone.

North Korea – the much-touted Trump-Kim mid-June Singapore summit – has long since become a tiny spot in the past. Alleged agreements reached then are being breached by the US, as could have been expected. All under the false and purely invented pretext of DPRK not adhering to her disarmament commitment; a reason to impose new strangulating sanctions. The world looks on. Its normal. Nobody dares questioning the self-styled Masters of the Universe. Misery keeps being dished out left and right – accepted by the brainwashed to-the-core masses around the globe. War is peace and peace is war. Literally. The west is living in a “peaceful” comfort zone. Why disturb it? – If people die from starvation or bombs – it happens far away and allows us to live in peace. Why bother? – Especially since we are continuously, drip-by-steady drip being told its right.

In a recent interview with PressTV I was asked, why does the US not adhere to any of their internationally or bilaterally concluded treaties or agreements? – Good question. – Washington is breaking all the rules, agreements, accords, treaties, is not adhering to any international law or even moral standard, simply because following such standards would mean giving up world supremacy. Being on equal keel is not in Washington’s or Tel Aviv’s interest. Yes, this symbiotic and sick relationship between the US and Zionist Israel is becoming progressively more visible; the alliance of the brute military force and the slick and treacherous financial dominion – together striving for world hegemony, for full spectrum dominance. This trend is accelerating under Trump and those who give him orders, simply because “they can”. Nobody objects. This tends to portray an image of peerless power, instilling fear and is expected to incite obedience. Will it?

What is really transpiring is that Washington is isolating itself, that the one-polar world is moving towards a multipolar world, one that increasingly disregards and disrespects the United States, despises her bullying and warmongering – killing and shedding misery over hundreds of millions of people, most of them defenseless children, women and elderly, by direct military force or by proxy-led conflicts – Yemen is just one recent examples, causing endless human suffering to people who have never done any harm to their neighbors, let alone to Americans. Who could have any respect left for such a nation, called the United States of America, for the people behind such lying monsters?

This behavior by the dying empire is driving allies and friends into the opposite camp – to the east, where the future lays, away from a globalized One-World-Order, towards a healthy and more equal multi-polar world. – It would be good, if our world body, the members of the United Nations, created in the name of Peace, would finally gather the courage and stand up against the two destroyer nations for the good of humanity, of the globe, and of Mother Earth.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; TeleSUR; The Vineyard of The Saker Blog; and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

[zed-air]

On the Road: 2018 Toronto

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Wagons east! First stop: Toronto.

Visited in: 2004, 2006, 2010, 2018.

Click the “keep reading” link below for blog, photos, and more.

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TRAVEL / ARRIVAL /  LODGING

The flight was the shortest one I’ve taken in years, and not too bad. I spent it reading Kitchen Confidential - a book I’ve wanted to read for years. (Why not start things off in a positive way.) We flew into Pearson Airport, arriving in the mid-afternoon local time. Traditionally, I hate this airport, and their security people tend to hate me. No issues this time around. We took the (new?) train from the airport to Union Station in downtown Toronto. The trip was convenient and comfortable. Once arrived, we walked up to Queen Street for a quick meal before tracking down our Air B&B via streetcar. No issues to speak of. 

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We stayed in a basement suite of an old house, which was well suited to our needs. The suite, though oddly configured, didn’t interfere with or complicate our stay. Good location; good amenities; somewhere we’d gladly stay again if the price doesn’t skyrocket. 

QUEEN STREET / ORIENTATION

My wife and I last visited Toronto in 2010 on the return-end of our honeymoon, again to visit family and to see the first screening of an animated film I’d soundtracked. 2010 was probably my worst experience in the city, and one of many reasons why it took us eight years to return. But, even with such long gaps between visits, it’s refreshing and hopeful that my seemingly-failing memory has as much capacity for orientation as it does for useless trivia. Especially while on Queen Street (either end), I usually knew more-or-less where I was at all times. Various landmarks I’d seen on earlier trips were in the correct spots - those that haven’t moved, anyway....

Sadly, one of my favourite local landmarks is gone now - first a mysterious and abandoned-looking sign with no clues, just ‘CZEHOSKI’, but a few years later a restaurant occupied the space under the same sign. I just read that, after a decade, it closed in 2015 under dubious circumstances. 

BEST BREAKFASTS

The Eggs Benedict at Lady Marmalade were the best I’ve ever had in Toronto. Really excellent and the side of tomatoes is an ideal and underused one with Benedicts - better than the sloppy fruit assortments one typically gets. 

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Toronto has history in pork production, and bacon sandwiches are a good food item to enjoy here. I only got to sample one variety, but Rashers’ Hogtown Sandwich (fried egg, peameal bacon, grain mustard) was excellent.

BEST DINNERS 

Cote de Boeuf was a last-minute substitute when our initial dinner plans for Portuguese food failed. Cote de Boeuf was very full, but open late. We opted to stand outside for 30 mins waiting for a table rather than finding somewhere else, but it worked out alright. Thank goodness their front window is filled with raw meat.  They cook a good steak au poivre, and make the best Old Fashioned I had in Toronto. Ridiculously tiny table, though. 

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Pizzeria Libretto makes good Neapolitan-style thin-crust pizzas, and the prosciutto and arugula pizza I had here was outstanding. Very much like Famoso’s on a good day, but with different varieties. 

OTHER MEALS AND ALMOST MEALS

Shortly after exiting Union Station upon our arrival, we wandered in the direction of our streetcar stop, and ate at the first place where there seemed adequate clearance for ourselves and our luggage. That place was Bannock. The servers were friendly and attentive, and the others really enjoyed their mac & cheese and ribs. We also had very good bannock bread in various preparations with dip as a starter. I ordered the poutine, which started out ok but the small bowl quickly became this dense black hole of heavy food that sat like a rock. A crisp local lager helped move things along. 

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I met a family friend for lunch at Rodney’s Oyster House and had raw oysters and smoked fish. The prairies aren’t really an ideal place to eat raw oysters, so I figured I’d have better luck eating them nearer to water and served by specialists. The oysters were good, the smoked fish a bit underwhelming, and the visit overdue. 

Kalyvia on Danforth made us a half-disappointing Greek meal. We love Greek food, but it seemed the heat and/or the food was stacked against us. Most of my family had unhappy tummies after this meal. My lamb shanks were disappointing (stick with Souvlaki, moron...), but the appetizers were enjoyable and flavourful. 

Hollandaise Diner is a favourite of the Toronto-branch of the family. Went there for breakfast one morning, but even though I had maximum customizability there, and made something nearly identical to what was had at Lady Marmalade, I didn’t really enjoy the results. Weak flavours. I’m guessing it was an off-day for their kitchen.  

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Remarkable Bean makes a dependable cup of coffee, according to the missus. 

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Sadly, we didn’t get a chance to eat at the terrifically-named Reliable Fish & Chips (est. 1930).

THE LONG WALK

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After my lunch of oysters, I had the afternoon to myself to explore town. Historically, when I travel I walk everywhere I can, and it helps me learn the place. This walk ended up being far longer, and far less fruitful than I’d hoped. Part of the problem was I’d really underestimated the distance between two stops. 

I have good memories of an instrument shop in Toronto called Capsule Music, and they used to be located near Trinity Bellwoods Park on Queen Street West. Since my last visit, they’ve moved to a different location north west of the old one. Meanwhile, a different shop, Shyboy & Tex Repair Co., appeared to open on the same block, leading me to think they’d taken over the same address. Well, I walked up and down that block and saw no sign of anything resembling an instrument shop, despite Google Maps telling me it was there. Giving up on Shyboy, I decided to walk to Capsule’s new address. This resulted in walking for several unsure kilometres along the edge of Little Italy through various unremarkable residential areas. Due to poor/nonexistent signage, I ended up walking past Capsule by a few blocks before turning back at Dupont Street. This oversight cost me precious time. When I did manage to find Capsule Music, it was two minutes before they closed for the day. The staff seemed annoyed (understandably) that some weird sweaty guy walked in as they were closing (to be fair, their open sign was still on...), but I said hello, looked around, and wished them well. Then, when exiting, I smashed the top of my head on the cement ceiling at their doorway. Thanks to the extreme heat and my already exerted self, I’m not sure of the impact of the impact. Hurt like a bastard, though. 

Now, quite far away from anywhere, I decided to continue walking in the general direction of home. Rather than heading back directly to Queen Street and taking the next streetcar home, I kept exploring - this time walking Bloor Street eastward. This took me through Korea Town and a few other ethnic regions. Bloor is a neat stretch, and one worth exploring more extensively when rested and flush with time. Once I reached Spadina, I turned south and walked (another greater-than-expected distance) to Queen Street, and gratefully sat down in the streetcar home. 

I estimated I’d walked about 10km in total, but Google suggests it was closer to 12km, with nothing to show for it but an aching body and a lost afternoon. Oh well. 

STARSKY

I got invited on a drive just outside of town to check out the terrific Starsky - a European food/goods superstore near Mississauga. One of my favourite things to do when traveling abroad is to explore grocery stores, supermarkets, and other goods vendors to see how they differ. This place was a stupendous place to spend a day exploring products, and their deli is a wonderland unto itself. Plus, they had an impressive selection of loose-leaf teas (some of which shown below).

And hey - free haircuts! (?)

CITY ATTITUDE AND STYLE

For those outside of Canada, Toronto occupies a similar place in the national psyche as London does to the English - the major centre that all the outsider towns resent for being self-important and acting superior. The fact that Toronto also has a reputation for thinking it’s the centre of the universe (NYC Jr.) and the greatest place in Canada often contributes to this resentment. It’s always felt to me to be an insecure place. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing, depending on what one does with it.

I didn’t explore the town beyond a few neighbourhoods this time around, but it’s funny how, at least up and down Queen Street, Toronto has gone from NYC Jr. to Brooklyn Jr.. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, but certain things were surprising. It almost seems to be mandatory for people in Toronto to have tattoos now, especially the women. Most of the tattoos I saw weren’t particularly artful or well-executed. The clothes were a surprise too. It’s as though the early 90s have come back and the majority of folks are wearing ugly garments that fit badly. And the number of adults wearing shorts.... I don’t even think I own shorts. I think back on what I wore during my first visit here, and how I was criticized for it - this is worse. Of course I’m not saying this applies to everyone in the city, but it was prevalent. 

There are also a lot more people visibly dealing with homelessness, drugs, and mental illness - more than I ever remember seeing on my previous visits - regardless of time of day and in plain sight. Even when walking through the residential parts of Little Italy, an obviously mentally-ill man was walking around mid-day, unhinged, screaming at no one visible to me. I did see some kindnesses toward a few of these people, folks helping where possible, but it was surprising how much more prevalent and visible this is now compared to previous visits. Maybe I just missed it before.

CUTLER AND GROSS

A happy surprise was finding a legitimate Cutler and Gross store. I’d never before seen a place dedicated to the brand in person, but I’ve worn their glasses for a decade. It was nice to see and try on lots of different frames back to back and in different colours. My daughter enchanted the room by putting on an ocular fashion show (a real spectacle!), and the staff were kind to let her try on so many glasses. I found a few pairs I don’t mind, but none of them fit me as well as my current pair (not the ones in the photo below). Didn’t buy anything this time around - maybe I’ll get to return someday when I have benefits again.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

I first visited Toronto in 2004, aged 20, and hadn’t done much long-distance traveling before that. Thinking back, apart from an unexpected family trip to Hawaii a year earlier, that was to date the farthest away I’d ever been from Edmonton, and my first trip east. I went to visit family, and to see two brilliant concerts (first Kraftwerk, then Einsturzende Neubauten). During that first trip, I was repeatedly made to feel like a hick by the people and atmosphere of the place. I’ve since traveled to much bigger, and much better cities around the world - some I’ve loved, others I’ve hated - but none of the others left me with that hick feeling which echoed and tainted my subsequent visits.

I have a complicated history with the city. I’ve had some good and bad experiences almost every time I’ve visited. Toronto’s a different vibe, and a different attitude to where I’m from. Several (too many) of my friends who moved there tended to change for the worse. Maybe living in Toronto let them feel comfortable being themselves. Most aren’t friends any longer.

That being said, 2018 was my most-enjoyable visit to Toronto to date, and I left better inclined toward the town. It’s still not my favourite place on Earth, but it was nice to learn I can still enjoy myself there. Good food and good company always help.

[newstfionline]

In rose beds, money blooms

By Damian Paletta, Washington Post, February 10, 2018

MADRID, COLOMBIA--The majority of roses Americans give one another on Valentine’s Day, roughly 200 million in all, grow here, the savanna outside Bogota, summoned from the soil by 12 hours of natural sunlight, the 8,400-foot altitude and an abundance of cheap labor.

Thousands of acres of white-tarped greenhouses, some the size of several football fields, are crammed with seven-foot stems topped with rich red crowns. Many are pulled into warehouses by horses, chilled to sleep in refrigeration rooms, and then packed with other flowers onto planes--1.1 million at a time--to be sold in the United States.

It’s peak season for a massive Colombian industry that shipped more than 4 billion flowers to the United States last year--or about a dozen for every U.S. resident.

The Colombian industry has bloomed thanks to a U.S. effort to disrupt cocaine trafficking, the expansion of free-trade agreements--and the relentless demand by American consumers for cheap roses.

The transformation demonstrates the barreling, often brutal, efficiency of globalization: In 27 years, market forces and decisions made in Washington have reshaped the rose business on two continents. The American flower industry has seen its production of roses drop roughly 95 percent, falling from 545 million to less than 30 million.

It’s just the kind of decline that President Trump has railed against. Trump, who recently took action against foreign sellers of solar panels and washing machines, is now considering tariffs on steel and aluminum as well as a withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement, changes that would reach deep into the American economy. He has promised an unapologetic “America First” agenda that some U.S. flower growers hope could bring them back into the Valentine’s Day rush.

But the rose industry offers a striking reminder of why it is so hard to roll back the economic relationships between countries. Where it used to face horrific violence and corruption, Colombia has nurtured an industry that produces roses faster and cheaper than anywhere in the United States--and can even get them to many U.S. retailers faster than domestic growers.

And in the United States, corporate giants such as Walmart and its competitors have replaced florists as the top seller of roses, ordering flowers in huge masses for consumers who have little interest in paying for the cost of a domestically grown rose.

Colombians don’t even celebrate Valentine’s Day, but among flower growers, the foreign holiday can account for close to 20 percent of annual revenue.

The volume of the rose trade is breathtaking. In the three weeks leading up to Feb. 14, 30 cargo jets make the trip from Colombia to Miami each day, with each plane toting more than a million flowers.

From Miami’s airport, the flowers are loaded into refrigerated trucks--200 are needed each day--and from there many go to warehouses in South Florida, where they are repackaged, assembled into bouquets, and then shipped all over the country.

A rose is both a symbol of love and a commodity, and American buyers want them to be simultaneously stunning and produced en masse. Colombia found a way to meet these demands.

Walmart alone is purchasing 24 million Colombian roses to sell for Valentine’s Day. One of its senior associates, Deborah Zoellick, is so well known in Colombia and South Florida that her travels are closely tracked. That’s because any buying decision by the United States’ largest retailer can single-handedly change the flow of roses on two continents.

This year promised to be especially busy. Valentine’s Day falls on a Wednesday, a boon for Colombian growers, as they believe Americans are more likely to splurge on midweek sales and still count on extra purchases on the weekend before and after.

Andres Osorio, managing director of Bogota-based Avianca Cargo, said he expects business to be up 7 percent from 2017, and the airline he works for added new warehouse space in Miami to make room for 12 daily flower flights.

But long before they are loaded onto Osorio’s planes or sold in Walmart’s stores, they are “pinched” from their stems by someone like Romulo Castro, who uses a two-second snip to set the whole process in motion.

Inside a steamy greenhouse here on the outskirts of Bogota, Castro, 57, was dwarfed inside a giant rose bed, surrounded by tens of thousands of bright red roses. He is wearing two hats: a baseball cap to hold his hair tight against his head and a wide-brimmed floppy hat to protect his neck from the near-equatorial sun.

He eyeballs a stem, cuts it 25 inches below its red top, and places the flower in a basket. Step left, scissors open, snip again.

He’s one of 850 workers at the Flores de Serrezuela farm, roughly 20 miles west of Bogota.

Every time Castro places a rose in his basket, it enters an integrated supply chain that, through a mix of high-end technology and a few anachronistic touches, gets the flowers from beds outside Bogota to U.S. retailers in a matter of days--often faster than flower growers in California can get their products to East Coast markets.

Bunches destined for Miami are wrapped in clear plastic. Flowers going to Canada are boxed in blue cardboard. White cardboard for the flowers going to Japan, and green-and-yellow cardboard containers for the flowers going to Russia.

Once they are boxed, they are moved into a giant refrigeration room. They will probably stay in below-40-degree temperatures until they are sold in their final destination.

Here at Serrezuela, the women wear green uniforms, and on the back it says “Nuestra Gente Florece,” which means “Our People Flourish.” There are 130,000 Colombians working in floriculture, and it exports more than 6 billion stems each year to a total of 90 countries.

The process is overseen by Ricardo Samper, 38, a second-generation flower grower who graduated from Boston University and has an MBA from Northwestern University.

He made the decision several years ago to diversify the client base beyond just the United States and to target buyers in Japan and elsewhere, where profit margins are higher, but Valentine’s Day is still his peak.

“I’m sold out,” he said, standing in the post-harvest room and surveying his holiday rose and carnation inventory. “I’ve been sold out since December.”

When Samper’s father founded the family flower farm on about five acres of land in 1985, Colombia was a much more dangerous place.

Colombian drug cartels used coca plants to produce cocaine in the South American jungle. Through corruption, guile and murder, they muscled these drugs by the ton into the United States.

President George H.W. Bush and other officials sought incentives that would push Colombians away from cocaine production and toward more legitimate parts of their economy, promising to open up access to U.S. consumers.

So in 1991, Congress passed the Andean Trade Preference Act, a law that would lift duties on numerous exports from Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru. The roughly 6 percent import duty on Colombian roses disappeared.

Still, the reminders of darker days are everywhere, both in Colombia and in Miami, where the incoming flowers are met by agents from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

When flowers leave farms outside Bogota, they are sealed in the back of trucks to prevent anyone from tampering with the delivery. Once they reach Miami, they are X-rayed for cocaine and other contraband.

Today, the vast majority of Colombian flowers come in clean, but that wasn’t always the case.

Almost all the flowers brought to Miami by Avianca are unloaded in Cargo Terminal 708, where a team of Customs and Border Protection agents is waiting around the clock to inspect a portion of each shipment. Standing beside a white table, with a magnifying glass on a chain around his neck, inspector Robert Skafidas remembers seeing much different types of flower shipments from Colombia. He said growers would sometimes use garden weeds to fill out bouquets. And many inspectors remember seeing cocaine stuffed into boxes of roses.

“They would just tuck it in the bouquet,” Skafidas said. “But that doesn’t happen anymore.”

Many U.S. government and industry officials say the 1991 law helped grow legitimate Colombian businesses, particularly flower farms, by connecting them with the global economy.

“You can employ people who would otherwise not have jobs, and have to find something else to do,” said Mario Vicente, general manager at Fresca Farms, a Miami importer that also owns flower farms in Colombia. “I’m not going to say the drugs don’t exist, but if you take flowers out of the equation, the pressure to produce more drugs would be enormous.”

Colombian roses have a number of advantages over U.S. flowers. They grow fast and at a high altitude with the same amount of sunshine all year.

The red roses many Americans will purchase this week are called Freedom roses in Colombia, a particular breed that was put into mass production around the time of the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. These roses are durable, bright and strong, but they have little fragrance. They also grow near a major international airport, where planes can reach Miami in less than four hours. And, importantly, labor costs are low. The minimum wage in Colombia is around $300 a month.

In the first three months of 1992, Colombian roses were selling to U.S. wholesalers for an average of 24 cents per stem, according to a 1995 report from the U.S. International Trade Commission. The wholesale price of U.S.-grown roses remained trapped at around 35 cents a stem from 1986 until 2006, according to U.S. Agriculture Department data. It has ticked up in recent years because U.S. growers have focused primarily on higher-end roses that are designed for weddings and special events.

At USA Bouquet Company in Doral, Fla., 75 workers are crowded in one section of the room, putting imported red roses into vases and then carefully packing them in boxes for a Valentine’s shipment to Walgreens.

The roses that come in from Colombia ready to be quickly packaged and sold are referred to as “chop and plops,” flowers that need their stems recut but no other changes. Other flowers need to be assorted into specific bouquets to meet orders for supermarkets, online retailers or anyone else who locked in a contract with the company.

The room is around 40 degrees, cold enough to keep the flowers dormant but not so cold that employees will quit. The production floor can pack up 1,200 cases of flowers each hour, with 10 bouquets in every case, a dozen flowers in every bouquet, for a 16-hour workday.

There are dozens of similar warehouses within 20 miles of USA Bouquet. In the weeks running up to Valentine’s Day, many of them run around the clock, rushing to pack and ship flowers before the next truck arrives.

[thetrumpdebacle]

MOSCOW — The boss of a Kremlin-funded news organization accused of playing a role in Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. election says she hopes the deep rift between Moscow and Washington can be mended.

Margarita Simonyan has been editor-in-chief of RT — formerly known as Russia Today — for more than a decade.

But until recently, few had heard of her outside Russia.

Then her name was mentioned 27 times in a report by U.S. intelligence agencies that was published in January. It described RT as the “Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet” and said it “served as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences.”

It alleged that government-financed RT America sought to “influence politics [and] fuel discontent” in the U.S.

Forbes magazine ranked Simonyan as the 52nd most powerful woman in the world this year — 13 places ahead of Hillary Clinton.

“I am very saddened by what is going on right now between Russia and America,” the 37-year-old Simonyan told NBC News at the network’s Moscow headquarters earlier this month.

“I lived in America. I love America,” she added, referring to a year she spent as an exchange student in Bristol, New Hampshire, in 1995. “We are not Communists anymore. We have changed, but for some reason the establishment doesn’t recognize it and doesn’t give us a chance to show that we have changed. You don’t have to be afraid of us anymore.”

President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman on Friday said the Kremlin views deteriorating relations with the U.S. as a major disappointment of 2017. Following allegations of meddling in the presidential election, the two countries have been exchanging tit-for-tat measures all year, ranging from restrictions on embassy staff to legislation targeting state-owned media.

RT America — the U.S. arm of the organization — was forced to register as a “foreign agent” in November, prompting a response from the Kremlin that called restrictions on Russian broadcasters in the United States an attack on free speech.

Russia retaliated earlier this month by designating Voice of America and Radio Free Europe as “foreign agents.”

RT has never made a secret of being a Russian TV station, Simonyan said, likening it to the U.K.’s publicly funded BBC.

“I don’t understand why any country is given a chance to make its point of view seen and heard by the world, and Russia is not given that chance,” she said. “Russia is said to be propaganda for doing exactly that. We are no more propaganda than the Voice of America or Radio Free Europe is propaganda.”

Simonyan, who covered the Second Chechen War and the 2004 Beslan hostage siege as a young reporter, took charge of RT when she was aged just 25.

The network has since been through a major transformation. Rebranded from Russia Today in 2009, it’s now a global, round-the-clock news network with 2,450 employees around the world, seven TV channels, digital platforms in six languages and video news agency RUPTLY.

RT says 70 million people in 38 countries watch its channels every week, and its content has been viewed more than 5 billion times on its YouTube channels.

With its “Question More” slogan, RT says its objective is to identify under-reported stories that mainstream media won’t cover.

“If all the media are singing one song, it gets dangerous, it really does,” Simonyan said. “Just remember the Iraq war. It’s important to at least try and say something different.”

Asked if RT aims to influence audiences in the West, Simonyan maintains RT sets out to inform. “If you think informing is influence, then you can put it in those words.”

U.S intelligence agencies disagree. A declassified version of the “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections” report said:

“RT’s criticism of the U.S. election was the latest facet of its broader and longer-standing anti-U.S. messaging likely aimed at undermining viewers’ trust in U.S. democratic procedures and undercutting U.S. criticism of Russia’s political system.”

“The Kremlin staffs RT and closely supervises RT’s coverage, recruiting people who can convey Russian strategic messaging because of their ideological beliefs.”

“In recent interviews, RT’s leadership has candidly acknowledged its mission to expand its U.S. audience and to expose it to Kremlin messaging.”

“RT’s reports often characterize the United States as a ‘surveillance state’ and allege widespread infringements of civil liberties, police brutality, and drone use.”

“RT America formally disassociates itself from the Russian Government by using a Moscow-based autonomous nonprofit organization to finance its US operations … In addition, RT rebranded itself in 2008 to deemphasize its Russian origin.”

“Russia’s state-run propaganda machine contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences.”

However, RT anchor and correspondent Kate Partridge, 47, said she had never felt pressure to report something she was not comfortable with.

“I am allowed to object,” she said. “But I can’t think of when I have been in a situation where I felt really fiercely against something.”

But others have spoken out.

RT America anchor Liz Wahl quit on air in 2014, saying the channel “whitewashes” the actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “As a reporter on this network I face many ethical and moral challenges,” she told viewers from her studio in Washington, D.C. “I’m proud to be an American and believe in disseminating the truth. And that is why after this newscast I am resigning.”

One of her colleagues, Abby Martin, also criticized Russia’s military intervention in Crimea, calling it “wrong.” In response to Martin’s comments, RT said in a statement that “contrary to the popular opinion, RT doesn’t beat its journalists into submission, and they are free to express their own opinions.” Martin left the channel in 2015.

Andrey Kiyashko, the 29-year-old deputy head of news at RT, dismissed allegations the network offers nothing but Kremlin propaganda.

“It is a serious allegation and I would suggest to those people to pay a bit more attention to what’s going on in their own media landscape in terms of the bias in the news before they make such accusations,” he said.

Earlier this year, RT launched its FakeCheck project to “weed out and correct inaccuracies, bias, misinformation and outright falsehoods in global coverage of major news stories.” However, a recent Poynter Institute analysis of the project suggested it “mixed some legitimate debunks with other scantily sourced or dubiously framed fact checks.”

In October, the network also had to pull a video segment about a burger joint in New York that allegedly offered a Vladimir Putin burger, in a tribute to the president’s 65th birthday and his political stature. The story was picked up by some Russian state news agencies as well.

But thanks in part to a very observant Russian journalist, the story came under scrutiny and the joint eventually refuted the existence of the celebratory burger.

RT’s video agency that published the segment deleted the video, saying that upon further review “it did not meet its editorial standards.”

Partridge also dismissed claims RT was more propaganda than journalism and said her work features “so many checks.”

She added: “By definition, there is an editorial concept here to show the other side. But you can say that about any media organization.”

Partridge echoed her editor-in-chief’s remarks, saying she thinks RT, and Russia in general, are misunderstood.

“I think it’s just a fear because it’s so unknown and because of the Cold War history, because of so many things — where it gets kind of a bad press and I think it has built up almost as de facto truth.”

via The Trump Debacle

[yahoo-the-dagger-blog]

Ranking college basketball's top nine conferences now that non-league play is over

Can Devonte Graham-led Kansas extend its Big 12 title streak? It won’t be easy. (AP Photo/John Peterson)

Conference play tips off in earnest this week beginning Wednesday night. Below is a quick look at each of the strongest conferences ranked from 1 to 9.

1. BIG 12 Preseason pick to win the league title: Kansas Current pick to win the league title: Kansas Projected NCAA tournament teams: 7 (Kansas, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Baylor, TCU, Texas Tech, Texas) Three conference player of the year candidates: Trae Young, G, Oklahoma, Devonte Graham, G, Kansas, Jevon Carter, G, West Virginia Biggest surprise: Oklahoma’s Trae Young blossoming from consensus top 30 freshman to early favorite to win national player of the year. The skilled combo guard is averaging a national-best 28.7 points and 10.4 assists. Biggest disappointment: Prized Kansas freshman Billy Preston’s absence. The missing piece in the Jayhawks’ thin frontcourt is sitting out while school officials seek a “clearer financial picture” of the vehicle he was driving during a preseason one-car accident. Coach under the most pressure: Bruce Weber, Kansas State Outlook: If Kansas hopes to capture at least a share of the Big 12 title for a record-breaking 14th straight season, then the Jayhawks will have to survive what is by far the nation’s deepest conference. Six Big 12 teams are ranked in the latest AP Top 25. No Big 12 team has more than three losses (Texas) and only Iowa State (No. 76) is outside the KenPom top 50. Oklahoma, West Virginia, TCU, Texas Tech and Baylor all have the talent and experience to not just make the NCAA tournament but perhaps advance beyond the first weekend. The key for Kansas will be finding someone besides Devonte Graham who can create offense and bolstering its undermanned frontcourt. Udoka Azubuike is currently the Jayhawks’ only capable rim protector and rebounder, but the potential addition of freshmen Billy Preston and Silvio De Sousa would help.

2. ACC Preseason pick to win the league title: Duke Current pick to win the league title: Duke Projected NCAA tournament teams: 9 (Duke, North Carolina, Virginia, Miami, Louisville, Notre Dame, Clemson, Virginia Tech, Florida State) Three conference player of the year candidates: Marvin Bagley, F, Duke; Bonzie Colson, F, Notre Dame; Joel Berry, G, North Carolina Biggest surprise: Despite the departure of star Jaron Blossomgame, Clemson so far appears to be a much stronger team, especially on the defensive end. The Tigers (11-1) have defeated Florida, Ohio State and South Carolina and ride a seven-game win streak into conference play. Biggest disappointment: An anemic offense made worse by season-opening suspensions to Josh Okogie and Tadric Jackson has derailed Georgia Tech. Expected to contend for an NCAA bid, the Yellow Jackets are instead off to a 5-6 start that includes losses to Grambling, Wright State and Wofford. Coach under the most pressure: Brad Brownell, Clemson Outlook: A prolific offense headlined by Marvin Bagley and Grayson Allen makes Duke the favorite to win the ACC, but the Blue Devils must get better defensively. They’ve looked vulnerable against the best teams they’ve faced this season because they’re often out of position on pick and roll defense and slow to rotate in the paint or close out on shooters. If defense proves to be Duke’s undoing, Virginia and North Carolina appear best positioned to take advantage. The Cavaliers once again boast the nation’s best defense along with a favorable schedule that includes only one game apiece against Duke, North Carolina, Miami and Notre Dame. North Carolina’s strength is a deep backcourt that surrounds rapidly improving inside-outside threat Luke Maye.

3. BIG EAST Preseason pick to win the league title: Villanova Current pick to win the league title: Villanova Projected NCAA tournament teams: 5 (Villanova, Xavier, Seton Hall, Creighton, Butler) Three conference player of the year candidates: Jalen Brunson, G, Villanova; Trevon Bluiett, G/F, Xavier; Khyri Thomas, G, Creighton Biggest surprise: Mikal Bridges’ transformation from intriguing prospect to polished two-way star. The 6-foot-6 wing has developed a reliable jump shot, which has enabled him to nearly double his scoring average and emerge as the quintessential 3-and-D NBA prospect. Biggest disappointment: Emmitt Holt’s season-ending injury. The 6-foot-9 Indiana transfer could have been the bruising frontcourt presence Providence has lacked this season. Instead he’s redshirting with an ab injury. Coach under the most pressure: Chris Mullin, St. John’s Outlook: Don’t count on this being the year someone unseats Villanova as Big East champion. The Wildcats proved they’re a worthy favorite to claim a fifth straight outright league title by storming to a 12-0 start that includes victories over Gonzaga, Tennessee, Temple and Northern Iowa. The Wildcats are top 10 in both offensive and defensive efficiency and boast a perfect blend of talent and experience, whether it’s prospective All-American point guard Jalen Brunson, emerging star Mikal Brunson or interior standout Omari Spellman. The Big East is fairly deep behind Villanova, but only Xavier, Seton Hall and Creighton appear to have a realistic chance of challenging the Wildcats. Xavier, so far, has been the best of the chase group as its lone loss came against unbeaten Arizona State in November.

4. SEC Preseason pick to win the league title: Florida Current pick to win the league title: Texas A&M Projected NCAA tournament teams: 7 (Texas A&M, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri) Three conference player of the year candidates: Collin Sexton, G, Alabama; Tyler Davis, F, Texas A&M; Kevin Knox, F, Kentucky Biggest surprise: Auburn is 11-1, and Bruce Pearl is still its coach. Didn’t see either of those developments coming two months ago when the FBI investigation ensnared the Tigers program and robbed them of two key starters. Biggest disappointment: A Vanderbilt team projected to finish in the middle of the SEC instead is the league’s only team with a sub-.500 record. The Commodores have played a murderous schedule, but they’ve yet to beat a single team rated higher than No. 147 in the KenPom rankings. Coach under the most pressure: Mark Fox, Georgia Outlook: The SEC’s basketball renaissance has arrived. While Kentucky has yet to distinguish itself and Florida has been up and down, the rest of the league has outperformed expectations so far this season. Texas A&M is a three-point loss to Arizona in Phoenix away from taking an undefeated record into conference play. Tennessee, Alabama and Arkansas have both performed like NCAA tournament teams. Don’t count out Missouri or Auburn either despite a potentially season-ending injury to Michael Porter and the FBI-related suspensions of Austin Wiley and Danjel Purifoy. Could Kentucky win the SEC if its freshman-laden rotation improves over the next three months? Yes. Could Florida win the SEC if its defense gets better and its shooters hit jumpers like they did in Portland? Yes. But Texas A&M enters league play as the favorite, and a couple other teams are also legitimate contenders.

5. BIG TEN Preseason pick to win the league title: Michigan State Current pick to win the league title: Michigan State Projected NCAA tournament teams: 5 (Michigan State, Purdue, Minnesota, Michigan, Maryland) Three conference player of the year candidates: Miles Bridges, F, Michigan State; Carsen Edwards, G, Purdue; Jordan Murphy, F, Minnesota Biggest surprise: Ohio State wasn’t expected to be relevant in Chris Holtmann’s debut season, but the emergence of Keita Bates-Diop has helped the Buckeyes exceed expectations. At 2-0 in league play already and with no bad losses, Ohio State has the look of a team that could stay on the bubble into March. Biggest disappointment: Is it a five-loss Northwestern team that has bellyflopped a year after making its NCAA tournament debut? Or is it a seven-loss Wisconsin team in grave jeopardy of not making the NCAA tournament for the first time in 19 years? We’ll go with the Wildcats only because they had more returning talent and preseason fanfare. Coach under the most pressure: Tim Miles, Nebraska. Outlook: Whether it’s Wisconsin’s early nosedive, Northwestern’s inability to build off last year’s momentum or Indiana, Iowa and Illinois all suffering bad non-conference losses, this hasn’t been a banner season so far for the Big Ten. Michigan State and Purdue appear a cut above the rest of the league with Minnesota, Michigan and Maryland headlining the primary chase group. The Spartans appear to be the Big Ten’s best hope of ending its national title drought thanks largely to an absurd collection of frontcourt talent. Whenever point guard Cassius Winston is taking care of the ball and wing Josh Langford is knocking down shots and attacking the rim, the Spartans are very, very hard to beat. Purdue, owners of five top 50 KenPom wins, have also looked dangerous of late. Nobody has more size than Purdue and nobody shoots it better from the perimeter.

6. PAC-12 Preseason pick to win the league title: Arizona Current pick to win the league title: Arizona Projected NCAA tournament teams: 5 (Arizona, Arizona State, UCLA, USC, Oregon) Three conference player of the year candidates: DeAndre Ayton, F, Arizona; Tra Holder, G, Arizona State; Reid Travis, F, Stanford Biggest surprise: Who would have thought a month ago that unheralded Arizona State would be one of college basketball’s last unbeaten teams? The Sun Devils have upset Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse, hung 102 points on a formidable Xavier team and also tallied victories against Kansas State, San Diego State, Vanderbilt and St. John’s. Biggest disappointment: So much for Stanford as a potential breakout team. Despite surrounding star forward Reid Travis with three other returning starters and a strong recruiting class, the cold-shooting, turnover-plagued Cardinal still don’t score efficiently enough. They are 6-7 with losses to Long Beach State, Portland State and Eastern Washington. Coach under the most pressure: Sean Miller, Arizona Outlook: The Pac-12 race could come down to a duel in the desert. Arizona and Arizona State both appear to be the class of the conference, though UCLA, USC and Oregon could each be a factor before the season is done. The Wildcats have reemerged as the Pac-12 favorite since they went 0-for-the-Battle 4 Atlantis last month. They need to get more from their non-DeAndre Ayton freshmen and continue to improve on defense, but they’ve beaten Texas A&M, Alabama, UNLV and UConn over the past month. Arizona State looks like a worthy challenger after a non-conference performance nobody saw coming. The aggressive, guard-heavy Sun Devils have been very difficult to guard because they spread the floor with shooters and allow Tra Holder and Shannon Evans to create.

7. AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE Preseason pick to win the league title: Cincinnati Current pick to win the league title: Cincinnati Projected NCAA tournament teams: 4 (Cincinnati, Wichita State, SMU, Houston) Three conference player of the year candidates: Landry Shamet, G, Wichita State; Rob Gray, G, Houston, Shake Milton, G, SMU Biggest surprise: Turns out Houston is more than just the Rob Gray show. The Cougars have rebounded from a head-scratching November loss to Drexel by putting together an NCAA tournament-caliber non-conference resume that includes victories over Arkansas, Providence and Wake Forest. Biggest disappointment: Wichita State’s 10-2 start is perfectly acceptable, but it masks the fact that the Shockers have been a mess at the defensive end. They’ve given up 50 or more before halftime three times already this season, an issue they’ll have to clean up if they hope to win the league title in their debut season in the AAC. Coach under the most pressure: Tubby Smith, Memphis Outlook: While name-brand programs UConn and Memphis have once again faded from relevance, the AAC has weathered that nicely this season. Newcomer Wichita State has joined Cincinnati in the league’s upper tier while SMU, Houston, Temple and UCF have formed a very credible second tier. The title race could come down to whether the return of injured wing Markis McDuffie helps solidify a Wichita State defense that has been uncharacteristically shaky so far this season. If so, the Shockers may have what it takes to outlast Cincinnati in their debut season in the AAC. If not, the balanced Bearcats have the offensive firepower to take advantage with SMU also capable of pouncing should both favorites falter.

8. MOUNTAIN WEST Preseason pick to win the league title: Nevada Current pick to win the league title: Nevada Projected NCAA tournament teams: 2 (Nevada, Boise State) Three conference player of the year candidates: Brandon McCoy, F, UNLV; Chandler Hutchison, G, Boise State; Jordan Caroline, F, Nevada Biggest surprise: Fueled by the formidable frontcourt duo of Brandon McCoy and Shakur Juiston, UNLV is off to an 11-2 start that includes victories over Utah and Illinois and an overtime loss to Arizona. Not bad for a program that lost 21 games last season. Biggest disappointment: Colorado State is the only team projected to finish in the upper half of the Mountain West that so far hasn’t met preseason expectations. The Rams don’t have any top 100 wins largely because they have struggled on offense. They are among the worst shooting teams in the country nad miss the scoring punch of graduated star Gian Clavell Coach under the most pressure: Tim Duryea, Utah State Outlook: Only four years after it finished No. 1 in conference RPI and sent five teams to the NCAA tournament, the Mountain West hit rock bottom last March. The league produced just one NCAA tournament team for a second straight season, a product of BYU and Utah bolting at the same time as flagship programs UNLV and New Mexico both faltered. The Mountain West hasn’t approached its previous heights this season, but it has improved considerably. At least two teams out of the Mountain West’s upper tier of reigning champ Nevada, Boise State, UNLV, San Diego State and Fresno State ought to be able to make the NCAA tournament. The wildcard is the Rebels, who have a history under their previous coaching staff of showing promise in November and December only to fall apart in conference play.

9. ATLANTIC 10 Preseason pick to win the league title: Rhode Island Current pick to win the league title: St. Bonaventure Projected NCAA tournament teams: 2 (Rhode Island, St. Bonaventure) Three conference player of the year candidates: Jaylen Adams, G, St. Bonaventure; Peyton Aldridge, F, Davidson; E.C. Matthews, G, Rhode Island Biggest surprise: Even though Jaylen Adams has only played in half St. Bonaventure’s games so far this season, the Bonnies are meeting or even exceeding preseason expectations. They’re 10-2 overall with a pair of notable victories over Maryland and Syracuse. Both losses came in November before Adams was healthy. Biggest disappointment: Richmond was supposed to be down this season, but nobody thought the Spiders would be this bad. They’re 2-10 with losses to the likes of Delaware, Jacksonville State and Louisiana Lafayette. They have no outside shooting, nobody who can draw fouls and no offensive rebounders. Coach under the most pressure: Chris Mooney, Richmond Outlook: Two of the Atlantic 10’s powerhouse programs have taken a temporary step backward this season. Dayton lost a trio of double-digit scorers and its head coach this past spring, leaving it without any proven shot creators in the backcourt. VCU also endured a coaching change and massive roster turnover, leaving it lacking outside shooting and interior defense. The result is that both the Flyers (6-6) and the Rams (8-5) are long-shot NCAA tournament contenders and the Atlantic 10 is suffering as a result. The league is in real jeopardy of securing two or fewer NCAA bids for the first time in more than a decade. A deep, talented backcourt has helped preseason favorite Rhode Island (7-3) weather the loss of E.C. Matthews in the fourth game of the season. St. Bonaventure should also be optimistic after a 10-2 start. But beyond those two, every other A-10 team would have to do something truly special in league play to get into at-large contention.

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Jeff Eisenberg is a college basketball writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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