#dominic petros

[pepperclint]

[treethymes]

With the exceptions of North Korea and Cuba, the communist world has merged onto the capitalist highway in a couple different ways during the twenty-first century. As you’ve read, free-trade imperialism and its cheap agricultural imports pushed farmers into the cities and into factory work, lowering the global price of manufacturing labor and glutting the world market with stuff. Forward-thinking states such as China and Vietnam invested in high-value-added production capacity and managed labor organizing, luring links from the global electronics supply chain and jump-starting capital investment. Combined with capital’s hesitancy to invest in North Atlantic production facilities, as well as a disinclination toward state-led investment in the region, Asian top-down planning erased much of the West’s technological edge. If two workers can do a single job, and one worker costs less, both in wages and state support, why pick the expensive one? Foxconn’s 2017 plan to build a U.S. taxpayer–subsidized $10 billion flat-panel display factory in Wisconsin was trumpeted by the president, but it was a fiasco that produced zero screens. The future cost of labor looks to be capped somewhere below the wage levels many people have enjoyed, and not just in the West.

The left-wing economist Joan Robinson used to tell a joke about poverty and investment, something to the effect of: The only thing worse than being exploited by capitalists is not being exploited by capitalists. It’s a cruel truism about the unipolar world, but shouldn’t second place count for something? When the Soviet project came to an end, in the early 1990s, the country had completed world history’s biggest, fastest modernization project, and that didn’t just disappear. Recall that Cisco was hyped to announce its buyout of the Evil Empire’s supercomputer team. Why wasn’t capitalist Russia able to, well, capitalize? You’re already familiar with one of the reasons: The United States absorbed a lot of human capital originally financed by the Soviet people. American immigration policy was based on draining technical talent in particular from the Second World. Sergey Brin is the best-known person in the Moscow-to-Palo-Alto pipeline, but he’s not the only one.

Look at the economic composition of China and Russia in the wake of Soviet dissolution: Both were headed toward capitalist social relations, but they took two different routes. The Russian transition happened rapidly. The state sold off public assets right away, and the natural monopolies such as telecommunications and energy were divided among a small number of skilled and connected businessmen, a category of guys lacking in a country that frowned on such characters but that grew in Gorbachev’s liberalizing perestroika era. Within five years, the country sold off an incredible 35 percent of its national wealth. Russia’s richest ended the century with a full counterrevolutionary reversal of their fortunes, propelling their income share above what it was before the Bolsheviks took over. To accomplish this, the country’s new capitalists fleeced the most vulnerable half of their society. “Over the 1989–2016 period, the top 1 percent captured more than two-thirds of the total growth in Russia,” found an international group of scholars, “while the bottom 50 percent actually saw a decline in its income.” Increases in energy prices encouraged the growth of an extractionist petro-centered economy. Blood-covered, teary, and writhing, infant Russian capital crowded into the gas and oil sectors. The small circle of oligarchs privatized unemployed KGB-trained killers to run “security,” and gangsters dominated politics at the local and national levels. They installed a not particularly well-known functionary—a former head of the new intelligence service FSB who also worked on the privatization of government assets—as president in a surprise move on the first day of the year 2000. He became the gangster in chief.

Vladimir Putin’s first term coincided with the energy boom, and billionaires gobbled up a ludicrous share of growth. If any individual oligarch got too big for his britches, Putin was not beyond imposing serious consequences. He reinserted the state into the natural monopolies, this time in collaboration with loyal capitalists, and his stranglehold on power remains tight for now, despite the outstandingly uneven distribution of growth. Between 1980 and 2015, the Russian top 1 percent grew its income an impressive 6.2 percent per year, but the top .001 percent has maintained a growth rate of 17 percent over the same period. To invest these profits, the Russian billionaires parked their money in real estate, bidding up housing prices, and stashed a large amount of their wealth offshore. Reinvestment in Russian production was not a priority—why go through the hassle when there were easier ways to keep getting richer?

While Russia grew billionaires instead of output, China saw a path to have both. As in the case of Terry Gou, the Chinese Communist Party tempered its transition by incorporating steadily increasing amounts of foreign direct investment through Hong Kong and Taiwan, picking partners and expanding outward from the special economic zones. State support for education and infrastructure combined with low wages to make the mainland too attractive to resist. (Russia’s population is stagnant, while China’s has grown quickly.) China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, in 2001, gave investors more confidence. Meanwhile, strong capital controls kept the country out of the offshore trap, and state development priorities took precedence over extraction and get-rich-quick schemes. Chinese private wealth was rechanneled into domestic financial assets—equity and bonds or other loan instruments—at a much higher rate than it was in Russia. The result has been a sustained high level of annual output growth compared to the rest of the world, the type that involves putting up an iPhone City in a matter of months. As it has everywhere else, that growth has been skewed: only an average of 4.5 percent for the bottom half of earners in the 1978–2015 period compared to more than 10 percent for the top .001 percent. But this ratio of just over 2–1 is incomparable to Russia’s 17–.5 ration during the same period.

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, certain trends have been more or less unavoidable. The rich have gotten richer relative to the poor and working class—in Russia, in China, in the United States, and pretty much anywhere else you want to look. Capital has piled into property markets, driving up the cost of housing everywhere people want to live, especially in higher-wage cities and especially in the world’s financial centers. Capitalist and communist countries alike have disgorged public assets into private pockets. But by maintaining a level of control over the process and slowing its tendencies, the People’s Republic of China has built a massive and expanding postindustrial manufacturing base.

It’s important to understand both of these patterns as part of the same global system rather than as two opposed regimes. One might imagine, based on what I’ve written so far, that the Chinese model is useful, albeit perhaps threatening, in the long term for American tech companies while the Russian model is irrelevant. Some commentators have phrased this as the dilemma of middle-wage countries on the global market: Wages in China are going to be higher than wages in Russia because wages in Russia used to be higher than wages in China. But Russia’s counterrevolutionary hyper-bifurcation has been useful for Silicon Valley as well; they are two sides of the same coin. Think about it this way: If you’re a Russian billionaire in the first decades of the twenty-first century looking to invest a bunch of money you pulled out of the ground, where’s the best place you could put it? The answer is Palo Alto.

Malcolm Harris, Palo Alto

[workersolidarity]

Three, four years ago I could have told you, and did tell people, that inflation would start steadily going up, and I said even then that it would likely be stubborn, meaning it wasn't going to be an easy fix.

I knew this back then because it was obvious, even years ago, that the BRICS countries, along with many African and South Asian countries and elsewhere were looking for ways to get around using the US Dollar for trade.

They were making moves to expand trade relations outside US dollar transactions and were for many years planning and building the infrastructure for a future Multipolar world.

And that process began rapidly picking up pace three or four years ago.

I began to say then, what I'm still saying now, as that process goes on and trade outside the US Dollar system grows exponentially year-on-year, that's going to begin to have an effect on inflation.

Why? Well, Imperialism really. Because the US for decades has depended on the steady demand for US Dollars to hold down inflation, allowing the US to use debt spending to finance wars, military bases and imperialistic ventures like Syria.

Remember, it was the US in its massively dominant position after WWII that built the Bretton Woods System that made the US Dollar the world reserve currency pegged to gold, and it was the US that unilaterally abandoned Bretton Woods 1 and took the dollar off Gold, allowing for the US to finance wars through debt spending, and created the Petro-Dollar with Saudi Arabia in the 1970's.

This debt spending is essentially the surplus value from the Global South and other poorer countries that must buy US Dollars to fund infrastructure projects, energy consumption, food and medicine imports, etc since it's the world reserve currency and if you wish to use the US Financial System at all, such as the World Bank, or SWIFT messaging system, well you have to use US Dollars.

Basically, it's the sucking of the wealth out of poorer countries to finance their own economic oppression.

But as these countries catch on and with new rising global powers like Russia, China and Iran building the infrastructure for an alternative system, the US Dollar is being abandoned faster than ever.

In 2000, more than 70% of Foreign Exchange Reserves were held in US Dollars. By 2020, that figure had dropped considerably to 59%. And the rate at which it's dropping is only increasing.

Knowing this, I said back in 2019 and 2020 that inflation was likely to become a problem. And if it did become a problem, then we knew exactly what the Fed would do as a result: dramatically increase benchmark Interest rates.

This didn't take any particularly specialized or secretive sources to figure out. It's been obvious for years to anyone seriously interested in economics and geopolitics.

And what happens when interest rates go up? The value of the bonds bought under lower interest rates suddenly go way down, while debts become more expensive. It's like gravity in economics.

So with all that being said, why then did all these banks (Signature Bank, First Republic Bank, and Silicon Valley Bank) continue buying troubled assets and Treasury bonds if they're so smart and educated and knew all this?

I mean, these guys are supposed to be the best of the best corporate bankers, right? On the cutting edge of investment banking, right? That's what everyone said even just months before Silicon Valley Bank failed. (CNBC host and moron of the year Jim Cramer literally praised Silicon Valley Bank less than a month before its failure)

So one of two things must be true here and neither one is good for YOU the average worker.

Either these bankers are idiots; complete morons who have little to no understanding of basic economics, geopolitics, and monetary policy, something that should be of concern to all of us.

I mean, I'm just a dude working for a small retailer in New Orleans and even I knew this inflation and higher interest rates were coming.

So why exactly are these people paid such exorbitant salaries? If I can understand the basics of their job better than they can, why am I a retailer, and he, a millionaire banker???

So that's one possibility, one I'm virtually certain is actually true, that our ruling Elite isn't particularly smart or well educated in reality, anymore than ordinary people I meet everyday, and any one of us could easily do their jobs just as well or better than they do given the opportunities afforded to them.

But even if in this case, that's not what happened. That these weren't idiots. Well then the alternative is something that should also be deeply disturbing to you: that these bankers knew they would be facing this situation, that they were well aware of the coming inflationary pressures and equally aware what the Feds response would be, interest rate hikes.

And instead of using the last couple of years to shed possibly dangerous assets and shore up the money the banks kept on hand, they continued to do what was personally making them so much profit, at the expense of tax payers, because they were absolutely certain that the government these bankers spend so much money on campaigns for, would swoop in regardless of the recklessness of their behavior, and bail them out no matter what.

These are not the signs of a healthy political, economic or banking system.

[evolia7]

DA RECITARE IL SABATO

INDULGENZE CONCESSE ALL’ANTICA ORAZIONE “PIETATE TUA”

DA RECITARE PER QUATTRO SABATI CONSECUTIVI_

Papa Leone XII, il 9 Luglio 1828, concesse quaranta giorni di Indulgenza a tutti coloro che reciteranno la seguente Orazione.

Concesse inoltre CENTO ANNI (non giorni!) o cento quarantene, quando si recita tutti i sabati del mese.

PREMESSA:

Che meraviglioso tesoro che la Santa Chiesa ci dona, e con la quale possiamo liberare tantissime Anime dal Purgatorio dalle dolorose sofferenze che patiscono anche per lunghissimi anni!

Un di’ in punto di morte capiremo quali enormi vantaggi avremo ottenuto per la nostra anima, con l’applicazione di tali indulgenze alle Anime Purganti.

ORAZIONE:

Ti preghiamo, o Signore, che Tu voglia nella tua infinita misericordia scioglierci dai nostri peccati, e per l’intercessione della Beatissima Vergine Madre di Dio Maria, degli Apostoli Pietro e Paolo e di tutti i Santi, degnati conservare noi tuoi servi, i nostri paesi e le nostre abitazioni in perfetta santita’; purificare tutti i nostri parenti, amici e conoscenti da ogni peccato, e glorificarli con ogni virtu’; darci la salute e la pace; allontanar da noi tutti i nostri nemici visibili ed invisibili; frenare i desideri della carne, conservare la sanita’ dell’aria, accordare la santa carita’ tanto ai nostri amici, quanto ai nemici; difendere la nostra citta’ ( o paese ); conservare il nostro Sommo Pastore il Papa N.N., tutti i nostri superiori spirituali, i Principi, e difendere da ogni disgrazia tutto il popolo cristiano.

La tua santa benedizione riposi sempre sopra di noi, e a tutti i fedeli defunti concedi la pace perpetua, per Gesù Cristo Nostro Signore.

Così sia.

CONSIDERAZIONI:

Per molti aspetti questa antica Orazione sembra attualissima, ma quello che colpisce in modo particolare sono i CENTO ANNI di Indulgenza concessi a tutti coloro che la reciteranno tutti i sabati del mese.

Se pensiamo che talune anime giacciono da centinaia di anni tra le fiamme del Purgatorio e che puo’ bastare una preghiera come questa, recitata ovviamente nelle condizioni di animo previste dalla Chiesa, a liberarle finalmente da quel luogo di tormento, dovrebbe spronarci a recitarla tutti i sabati ( due minuti appena), ben sapendo poi dell’immenso dono che potremo fare a queste anime cosi’ sofferenti da lunghissimo tempo, e ai benefici che ne ricaveremo per le nostre anime soprattutto nel giorno del giudizio!

PER CHI VOLESSE PREGARLA IN LATINO:

PIETATE tua, quaesumus, Domine, nostrorum solve vincula peccatorum, et intercedente beata semperque Virgine Dei Genetrice Maria cum beato Ioseph ac beatis Apostolis tuis Petro et Paulo et omnibus Sanctis, nos famulos tuos et loca nostra in omni sanctitate custodi; omnes consanguinitate, affinitate ac familiaritate nobis coniunctos a vitiis purga, virtutibus illustra; pacem et salutem nobis tribue; hostes visibiles et invisibiles remove; carnalia desideria repelle: aerem salubrem indulge; amicis et inimicis nostris caritatem largire; Urbem tuam custodi; Pontificem nostrum N. conserva; omnes Praelatos, Principes cunctumque populum christianum ab omni adversitate defende. Benedictio tua sit super nos semper, et omnibus fidelibus defunctis requiem aeternam concede.

Amen

[secular-jew]

Maybe I'm dumb and missed something but "You were too much of a coward to post the source" Isn't the source literally in the fucking picture? Like, right underneath the population increase there's literally a source listed? (inb4: But you can't click it." Yeah I can't fucking click the sources in physical papers either, some don't even link the books in online papers.)

Also... bonus side note, any population count is gonna be considered an estimate unless you'd literally be able to count each person, birth and death. Estimate is because you can never be 100% certain, but the estimate goes based on the most available trends. Also, please note that 2.02% is a pretty significant increase during war time, or honestly any population, if you consider how many countries have downward trends. Just because the % isn't a huge number, doesn't mean it isn't a significant increase.

About the genocide thing, from my educational understanding, genocide always happens with the intent to eradicate an entire genetic branch. That isn't going on in Gaza. I think someone once worded it like so "Genocide is bureaucracy." basically you know it's going on because it'll be written down and the people in power will it, it'll be an "open" secret. Nobody "accidentally" does a genocide. War is not a genocide. Blah blah blah, genocide isn't some stupid buzzword for soggy leftists to throw around when their (actually) genocidal death cult is losing.

There's neither genocide not apartheid, two of the common terms thrown around by the global intifada that seeks to eventually dominate the west through demographic jihad.

Mobs always speak in robotic slogans.

Meanwhile, Arab petro dollars are funding Islamic Jihad globally, and the West, dependent on Arab oil, is importing full-price jihadists (acting as students) into every university, as these Middle East potentates are generously funding these schools.

Turns out, gaslighting works at zombie-izing entire population groups who aren't historically savvy and don't seem to have any ability to discern. The Islamist mob is savvy at enlisting immature students into their "protests" and the universities put up with it under the cover of "tolerance," because they fear losing their petro-funding gravy trains.

The millions of Islamist trolls (who sympathize with Islam), perpetuate the lies without a second thought.

The ICC is heavily influenced by Islamist propaganda and Islamist members.

[azspot]

Much more than domestic political scorecards are at stake. The immigration crisis is global, combining at least three forms of domination: the denial of people’s right to remain in their homes, the denial of their right to move, and the imposition of punitive social and economic discipline, particularly in the workplace. The political crisis over immigration obscures, as it is designed to, the deeper crises pushing people from their homes across the hemisphere and the world; yet it also obscures the causes of intensifying feelings of insecurity within the United States. Nativism’s trick is to cast racialized foreign others as concrete explanations for problems with otherwise abstract causes. At root, it is sheer scapegoating. In December, Colombian President Gustavo Petro connected the dots: “The unleashing of genocide and barbarism on the Palestinian people is what awaits the exodus of the peoples of the South unleashed by the climate crisis. . . . What we are seeing in Gaza is a rehearsal of the future.” We must either embrace radical new forms of solidarity or normalize the mass death of surplus populations.

Do Border

[pattern-recognition]

i cannot wait to see the end of the dollar’s global dominance in my lifetime

[compneuropapers]

Interesting Papers for Week 12, 2024

Neural representation of goal direction in the monarch butterfly brain. Beetz, M. J., Kraus, C., & el Jundi, B. (2023). Nature Communications, 14, 5859.

The scope and role of deduction in infant cognition. Bohus, K. A., Cesana-Arlotti, N., Martín-Salguero, A., & Bonatti, L. L. (2023). Current Biology, 33(18), 4014-4020.e5.

Increasing associative plasticity in temporo-occipital back-projections improves visual perception of emotions. Borgomaneri, S., Zanon, M., Di Luzio, P., Cataneo, A., Arcara, G., Romei, V., … Avenanti, A. (2023). Nature Communications, 14, 5720.

Dopamine and glutamate regulate striatal acetylcholine in decision-making. Chantranupong, L., Beron, C. C., Zimmer, J. A., Wen, M. J., Wang, W., & Sabatini, B. L. (2023). Nature, 621(7979), 577–585.

Perturbed Information Processing Complexity in Experimental Epilepsy. Clawson, W., Waked, B., Madec, T., Ghestem, A., Quilichini, P. P., Battaglia, D., & Bernard, C. (2023). Journal of Neuroscience, 43(38), 6573–6587.

Common population codes produce extremely nonlinear neural manifolds. De, A., & Chaudhuri, R. (2023). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(39), e2305853120.

Dimensionality reduction reveals separate translation and rotation populations in the zebrafish hindbrain. Feierstein, C. E., de Goeij, M. H. M., Ostrovsky, A. D., Laborde, A., Portugues, R., Orger, M. B., & Machens, C. K. (2023). Current Biology, 33(18), 3911-3925.e6.

Information-theoretic principles in incremental language production. Futrell, R. (2023). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(39), e2220593120.

Echoes from Intrinsic Connectivity Networks in the Subcortex. Groot, J. M., Miletic, S., Isherwood, S. J. S., Tse, D. H. Y., Habli, S., Håberg, A. K., … Mittner, M. (2023). Journal of Neuroscience, 43(39), 6609–6618.

Intrinsic dopamine and acetylcholine dynamics in the striatum of mice. Krok, A. C., Maltese, M., Mistry, P., Miao, X., Li, Y., & Tritsch, N. X. (2023). Nature, 621(7979), 543–549.

Multiple dynamic interactions from basal ganglia direct and indirect pathways mediate action selection. Li, H., & Jin, X. (2023). eLife, 12, e87644.3.

Internal feedback in the cortical perception–action loop enables fast and accurate behavior. Li, J. S., Sarma, A. A., Sejnowski, T. J., & Doyle, J. C. (2023). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(39), e2300445120.

A role for ocular dominance in binocular integration. Mitchell, B. A., Carlson, B. M., Westerberg, J. A., Cox, M. A., & Maier, A. (2023). Current Biology, 33(18), 3884-3895.e5.

The representation of occluded image regions in area V1 of monkeys and humans. Papale, P., Wang, F., Morgan, A. T., Chen, X., Gilhuis, A., Petro, L. S., … Self, M. W. (2023). Current Biology, 33(18), 3865-3871.e3.

Switching between External and Internal Attention in Hippocampal Networks. Poskanzer, C., & Aly, M. (2023). Journal of Neuroscience, 43(38), 6538–6552.

Reward expectations direct learning and drive operant matching in Drosophila. Rajagopalan, A. E., Darshan, R., Hibbard, K. L., Fitzgerald, J. E., & Turner, G. C. (2023). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(39), e2221415120.

Engram stability and maturation during systems consolidation. Refaeli, R., Kreisel, T., Groysman, M., Adamsky, A., & Goshen, I. (2023). Current Biology, 33(18), 3942-3950.e3.

Different rules for binocular combination of luminance flicker in cortical and subcortical pathways. Segala, F. G., Bruno, A., Martin, J. T., Aung, M. T., Wade, A. R., & Baker, D. H. (2023). eLife, 12, e87048.3.

Anatomical restructuring of a lateralized neural circuit during associative learning by asymmetric insulin signaling. Tang, L. T. H., Lee, G. A., Cook, S. J., Ho, J., Potter, C. C., & Bülow, H. E. (2023). Current Biology, 33(18), 3835-3850.e6.

Robust multisensory deviance detection in the mouse parietal associative area. Van Derveer, A. B., Ross, J. M., & Hamm, J. P. (2023). Current Biology, 33(18), 3969-3976.e4.

[pepperclint]

[the-girl-who-didnt-smile]

CRACKPOT THEORY: PAPA LIBA WAS BOTH PORTIER DIVIN AND MAITRE DES CARREFOURS

Maitre Carrefour might not have split off from Papa Legba until the mid 19th century or later, which would explain the absence of Maitre Carrefour in the historical record of New Orleans.

This is a reissue of an article that was originally titled “CRACKPOT THEORY: PAPA LEBAT WAS BOTH ATIBON LEGBA AND MAITRE CARREFOUR”. The original thesis made little sense; in order to be true, ‘Maitre Carrefour’ would have had to have split off from ‘Papa Legba’, then merged back with him to create Papa Liba (“Papa Lébat” / “Papa La Bas”). It is more reasonable to argue that Papa Liba was both ‘portier divin’ and ‘maitre des carrefours’, either because he predates the existence of Maitre Carrefour or because Maitre Carrefour was never transmitted to New Orleans. If true, Papa Liba captures an earlier state of Papa Legba that is closer to Legba of West African Vodun. Additionally, I claimed that the Petro rite is named after the maroon leader Don Pedro, which is probably not historically accurate. This would imply that the history of the Petro rite is brief, shortly predating Bwa Kayiman by a mere two decades. Such a notion makes little sense and requires a revision. Finally, I have decided to change my preferred nomenclature: Papa Lébat → Papa Liba.

The Rada and Petwo rites feature prominently in Haitian Vodou. They are often positioned as counterparts, with Andre Pierre describing Rada as “civilian” and Petwo as “military”[1]. This rivalry may reflect the two dominant ethnic groups of the late 18th century: the ‘Creoles’ and the ‘Congos’[2]. ‘Creoles’ describes an older generation of slaves, who had been born on the Island and descend from the Arada (Aja-Fon). ‘Congos’ describes a younger generation of slaves from western Central Africa[3]. From these two groups come the founders of the Rada and Petwo rites respectively.

Most of the 21 rites of the Sèvis Ginen are named after African tribes. The Rada rite derives its name from Arada, a West African tribe that was a major source for slaves sent to Haiti[4]. However, the Petwo rite deviates from this trend. Previously, I claimed that the Petwo rite derives its name from the maroon leader Don Pedro (Jean Petro, Dan Petwo, Dan Petro), but such claim is dubious. Don Pedro appears to have assumed the name of the warrior king Pedro III, as the maroon leader was of Kongo descent[5]. To be historically accurate, the Petwo rite does not derive its name from the maroon leader, but the veneration of King Pedro III. 

The Petwo rite is a product of Haitian syncretism that merges elements of Kongo origin with those indigenous to Haiti[6]. Within the Petwo pantheon are the Simbi lwa, which are Kongo in origin. Alongside them are Maitre Carrefour and Erzulie Dantor, who are not derived from the Kongo, but serve as Petwo counterparts to the Rada lwa Atibon Legba and Erzulie Freda. 

Previously, I described historical documents pertaining to the colonial precursors of the Rada and Petwo rites. There is historical evidence that Marie Laveau incorporated elements of this Rada prototype into her sect of Voudou.

Several deities in the pantheon of New Orleans Voodoo have counterparts in the Rada rite (Rite Arada), as described by Milo Marcelin[7]: 

Papa Liba (Laba) → Atibon Legba

Monsieur D’Embarras* → Damballah Oueddo

Miché Agoussou (Yon Sue) → Agassou Gnenin

Simbé → Papa Simbi

*Some theorize that Monsieur Danny (Daniel Blanc) might be derived from Damballah Oueddo; however, Daniel Blanc might be derived from a different divine serpent, as he was identified with Saint Michael instead of Saint Patrick.

“Grand Zombi” might be derived from Jan Zonbi or Captain Zombi. “Assonquer” might be derived from Ossangne (Osany). “Joe Feraille” might be derived from Ogou Feraille. “Charlo” might be derived from Chal Ogou (Charles Ogou)**.

**Rather than Chal Ogou, “Charlo” might be derived from Ti Chal La Kwa (Ti-Charles la Croix). Ti Chal La Kwa is not listed in Milo Marcelin’s or Milo Rigaud’s lists of lwa, let alone the Rada rite. Instead, he belongs to the Gede rite[26].

Marie Laveau would sing a song for St. Peter, who was identified with Papa Liba (“Laba”)[8]: 

“Marie Laveau…even taught her a Voodoo song. It went like this:

St. Peter, St. Peter, open the door,

I’m callin’ you, come to me!

St. Peter, St. Peter, open the door …

“That’s all I can remember. Marie Laveau used to call St. Peter somethin’ like ‘Laba.’ She called St. Michael ‘Daniel Blanc,’ and St. Anthony ‘Yon Sue.’”

The description matches a Haitian song sung for Atibon Legba[9], who was also identified with St. Peter[10].

What is less clear is whether the Petwo prototype was also incorporated. 

Marie Laveau had altars set up for “good work” and “bad work”, described like so[11][12]:

Raoul enjoyed describing the home of the Laveaus. According to him there was an altar for “good luck and good work” in the front room. It was covered with a white cloth and held a statue of the Virgin and one of Saint Peter. Raoul recalled one of another saint, a Saint Marron, who, he explained, “was a colored saint white people don’t know nothing about. Even the priests ain’t never heard of him ’cause he’s a real hoodoo saint.”

But this altar in the front room was secondary to another at the back of the house, Raoul believed. “In the back,” he said, “was the altar for bad work. On it was statues of a bear, a tiger, a lion and a wolf. Right in the middle was a big carved box with a snake inside it. That box and snake had been sent to Marie Laveau from Africa and that snake was the devil. I know that’s true, ‘cause I seen it myself, me.”

If it is not a fabrication by Tallant, the inclusion of the snake is similar to descriptions of precolonial Haitian Vodou. 

Still, I have struggled to find definitive evidence that the Petwo or Gede prototypes (i.e., “Don Pedro sect” & “cult of the dead”) were transmitted to New Orleans. Interestingly, the name Don Pedro appears in the historical record of New Orleans, assumed by a self-described “King of Voudou”[13][14]. It is unclear whether this “Pedro, Prince of Darkness” had any relation to the Petwo rite , or not.

Was the Don Pedro sect strong enough to take root in New Orleans?

If so, how and which elements were incorporated?

To what extent did the Don Pedro sect resemble the modern Petwo rite? 

These are all questions I do not have answers to. 

The following is purely speculation, but I hypothesize that Papa Liba of New Orleans Voodoo was both portier divin and maitre des carrefours. 

This is because I do not think the split between Papa Legba and Maitre Carrefour was codified until the mid 19th century or later; that is, after the Haitian Revolution and subsequent migration wave to New Orleans. 

The Haitian lwa Papa Legba is derived from Fon Legba; Fon Legba is himself derived from the Yoruba orisa Esu[15]. 

The distinction between “crossroads” and “gateways” is an illusion, as the Yoruba word orita can refer to both types of intermediary space[16]. As gods of the orita, Esu and Legba are associated with both entrances and crossroads. 

Descriptions of Papa Legba as guardian of the crossroads appear in texts from the early 20th century.

From Milo Marcelin[17]:

“Papa Legba ou Atibon-Legba est le dieu des portes, le maître des carrefours et des croisées de chemins et le protecteur des maisons. En vertu de ces différentes fonctions, il est invoqué sous les noms de « Legba-nan- bayè » (Legba des barrières), de « Legba-calfou » (Legba des carrefours) ou « Grand chemin », de « Legba Mait' bitation » ou « Legba Maiť habitation ». En tant que dieu qui sait toutes choses, il porte l'épithète d'Avadra...”

“...Pour invoquer Legba, l'officiant se sert d'une pierre qu'il place sur l'autel. Ensuite il trace un dessin symbolique (vèvè) sur le sol et récite la prière suivante :

Par pouvoir saint Antoine, au nom de M. Avadra Boroy, de Legba-Atibon, le maître des carrefours et des grands chemins, de Legba-Kataroulo, de vaillant Legba, de Legba-Sé, de Alegba-Si, de Legba-Bois, de Legba-Zinchent, de Legba- Caye, de Legba-Misé-ba, de Legba-Clairondé, de Legba-Signangnon, des sept Legba-Kataroulo, vieux, vieux, vieux Legba. Ago, Agoé, Angola.”

TRANSLATION

“Papa Legba or Atibon-Legba is the god of doors, the master of crossroads and the protector of houses. By virtue of these different functions, he is invoke under the names of “Legba-nan- bayè” (Legba of the Barriers), “Legba-calfou” (Legba of the Crossroads) or “Grand chemin”, “Legba Mait’ bitation” or “Legba Mait’ habitation”. As the god who knows all things, he bears the epithet of “Avadra”...”

“...To invoke Legba, the officiant uses a stone that he places on the altar. Then he traces a symbolic drawing (vèvè) on the ground and recites the following prayer: 

By the power of Saint Anthony, in the name of Mr. Avadra Boroy, of Legba-Atibon, the master of the crossroads and great paths, of Legba-Kataroulo, of valiant Legba, of Legba-Sé, of Alegba-Si, of Legba-Bois, of Legba-Zinchent, of Legba-Caye, of Legba-Misé-ba, of Legba-Clairondé, of Legba-Signangnon, of the seven Legba-Kataroulo, old, old, old Legba. Ago, Agoé, Angola.”

From Milo Rigaud[18]:

LEGBA. Papa Legba. Le mystère-Principe identifié au soleil et l'Est cosmique. S'identifie aussi au poteau rituel. Legba est le gardien des portes de I'astral; c'est lui qui garde < la barrière > ; aussi est-il Maître Grand-Chemin comme gardien des passages, attribution qui lui vaut d'etre, en meme temps, Maître-Carrefour ou le mystère de tous les croisements de route. Le syncrétisme religieux l'assimile au calvaire. Dans le panthéon voudoo, il est placé entre ses deux femmes: T-Sih-Lah We-Do et Ai-Da We-Do. Legba est le Christ voudoo ; il est placé au centre de toutes les races, ce qui signifie qu'il est < mulâtre >. Sa couleur est le blanc, tandis que Aida Wedo porte un drapeau d'azur, et Tsihlah un drapeau rouge. Synthèse des points cardinaux.

TRANSLATION: 

LEGBA: Papa Legba. The Principle mystère identified with the Sun and the cosmic East. He is also identified with the ritual poteau. Legba is the guardian of the astral doors; it is he who guards “the gates”; he is also Maître Grand-Chemin as guardian of passages, an attribution which makes him at the same time, Maître-Carrefour or the mystère of all intersections of paths. The religious syncretism assimilates him with Cavalry. In the Vodou pantheon, he is placed between his two wives: T-Sih-Lah We-Do and Ai-Da We-Do. Legba is the Vodou Christ; he is placed at the center of all races, which means that he is a “mulatto”. His color is white, while Aida Wedo carries a blue flag, and Tsihlah a red flag. Synthesis of the cardinal points.

From Alfred Metraux[19]:

“Master of the mystic ‘barrier’ which divides men from spirits, Legba is also the guardian of the gates and of the fences which surround houses and, by extension, he is the protector of the home. In this latter rôle he is invoked under the name of Maît’-bitasyon (Master of the habitation). He is also the god of roads and paths. As ‘Master of the Crossroads’ he is the god of every parting of the way – a favourite haunt of evil spirits and propitious to magic devices; and it is at crossroads that he receives the homage of sorcerers and presides over their incantations and spells. Many magic formulae begin with the words ‘By thy power, Master of Crossroads.’” (p.124)

“Arriving at a crossroads we halted so that we could pay homage to the patron spirit of crossroads–Legba. The god’s emblem was quickly traced out in flour in the middle of a clearing, a small fire was lit and into it each in turn made libations and offerings. The hunsi sang hymns to Legba, and the standard-bearers, having done the rounds of the fire, kissed the earth. Legba chose this moment to possess a girl who was still almost a child…” (p. 314)

“The religious ceremonies called manger-morts include offerings to the dead of food cooked without salt and prepared entirely by men…After prayers and appeals addressed to the ancestors and the unknown dead who have died by steel, fire or water, the père-savane or head of the family knocks three times on the door and goes in. He brings out a calabash full of various foodstuffs which he distributes among the children of the household…Another calabash is placed at a crossroads for Legba…” (p. 362)

“The grand-master of charms and sorceries is Legba-petro, invoked under the name of Maître-Carrefour, or simply Carrefour. Indeed, crossroads are favourite sites for the ‘works’ of magicians, handfuls of earth taken from them are an ingredient of many beneficent or harmful spells…” (p. 366)

“In Fon mythology Legba, as interpreter to the gods, fulfills a function of primordial importance in the whole system of religion. He alone can deliver messages of the gods in human language and interpret their will. He is also the god of destiny, he who presides over divination with palm-nuts or shells. As intermediary between human beings and the divine pantheon and receives the first offerings. He is also a phallic god, represented in front of every house by a little mound of earth out of which sprouts a phallus made of iron or wood. Out of this most potent of gods the Voodooists have made an impotent old man who walks on crutches. Recalling vaguely his rôle as divine messenger they have made a sort of doorman out of him, the supernatural guardian of the ‘barriers’ who must be invoked first of all loa. He has also remained the guardian of houses and to an even greater extent of roads, paths and crossroads. Since any intersection of ways is a hot-spot for magic, Legba-carrefour has become and important magician and presides over the ceremonies of sorcerers. Legba has lost much of his majesty but in exchange he has acquired new functions...” (pp. 488-489)

From Maya Deren[20]:

"Legba, Sun-Lord of the Cross-roads, of the meeting point of opposites, is twinned by his own opposite. Across from him, on the same gate, sits the Petro Maît' Carrefour (also called Kalfu) and he too commands the traffic through it.”

Leslie Desmangles and Michel S. Laguerre also described Papa Legba as lwa / guardian of the crossroads[21][22]. Karen McCarthy Brown off-handedly described Papa Legba as “guardian of crossroads” in her description of Mama Lola, as did Zora Neale Hurston; however, Brown’s mention is brief and does not come directly from Mama Lola’s testimony, while Hurston’s description contains errors[23][24].

For these reasons, Ava Kay Jones and Denise Alvarado may be correct in describing Papa Lébat as both gatekeeper and guardian of the crossroads. 

This is merely speculation that could prove to be false… An early record of Maitre Carrefour could disprove this hypothesis.

What is the earliest historical record of Maitre Carrefour? 

Another question I don’t have the answer to.

Still, consider the following:

The lwa Papa Legba is derived from Fon Legba. There is no Fon Maitre Carrefour; Legba presides over “gates” and “crossroads”[25]. 

The split between Atibon Legba and Maitre Carrefour is a product of the rite / fanmi classification system, which was formalized by the Sèvis Ginen. Ati Max Beauvoir classified 401 lwas by ‘rite’ ‘famille’ and ‘nom’ in Lapriyè Ginen, where Legba and Kafou are described as separate ‘famille’; most of the Legba belong to the RADA rite, while most of the Kafou belong to the PETRO FRAN rite[26]. 

The Sèvis Ginen was not codified until many years after the Haitian Revolution. As such, this enormous pantheon of lwa does not exist in New Orleans (more broadly, America) as there is no counterpart to the rite / fanmi classification system. Without this classification system, how could Papa Liba be split into Atibon Legba and Maitre Carrefour?

This is another reason I don’t think there is an American Maitre Carrefour - only Papa Legba (Papa Liba).

This is merely my opinion, and I could be wrong.

COUNTERPOINT: 

Consider the possibility that the Don Pedro sect (precursor to Petwo rite) was transmitted to New Orleans.

Hoodoo has been likened to the Petwo rite - not the Rada rite - of Haitian Vodou[27]. For this reason, it is possible that elements of the Petwo rite were merged into Hoodoo.

Petwo lwa such as Maitre Carrefour have been described as “evil” or “more evil” than the Rada lwa, but this is false. In part, the Petwo rite has earned this reputation because of the threat it posed to the institution of slavery, with Don Pedro (Jean Petro) being a famous maroon leader[28]. Lwa within the Petwo rite can grant someone immediate access to power without regard for systems of morality[29]. Naturally, such immediate access to power would be dangerous and easily abused, but it can also be used for just causes, such as the liberation of slaves.

If Maitre Carrefour had already split off from Papa Legba, maybe he was incorporated into the Hoodoo community, as (one of) the Spirit(s) at the Crossroads.

This, too, is just a theory.

NOTES

1. Interview with Ralph Isham, spring 1976, quoted in: Thompson, Robert Farris. Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy. United States, Vintage Books, 1984. p.165

2. From: de Heusch, Luc. “Kongo in Haiti: A New Approach to Religious Syncretism.” Man, vol. 24, no. 2, 1989, pp. 290–303. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2803307. Accessed 19 Sept. 2024.

“According to the books of an indigo plantation factory from 1777, the 'Congos' are, after Creoles, the largest ethnic group (Debien 1961: 369).”

3. From: Hebblethwaite, Benjamin. A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou: Rasin Figuier, Rasin Bwa Kayiman, and the Rada and Gede Rites. United States, University Press of Mississippi, 2021.

“The founders of the Rada Rite were among the earlier enslaved people taken to Saint-Domingue (circa 1680-1730). Western Central African people arrived in the colony as captives after the 1720s.”

4. For a comprehensive history of the Rada rite, see: Hebblethwaite, Benjamin. A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou: Rasin Figuier, Rasin Bwa Kayiman, and the Rada and Gede Rites. United States, University Press of Mississippi, 2021.

5. See: Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence, E 182, Ferrand de Beaudière to the Naval and Colonial Minister, translated in “Prophet or Cook? The Real Don Pedro” in Geggus, David. The Haitian Revolution: a documentary history. Hackett Publishing, 2014. https://archiveofourown.org/works/54861145/chapters/139063189

And: de Heusch, Luc. “Kongo in Haiti: A New Approach to Religious Syncretism.” Man, vol. 24, no. 2, 1989, pp. 290–303. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2803307. Accessed 19 Sept. 2024.

6. For a complete discussion of this topic, see: de Heusch, Luc. “Kongo in Haiti: A New Approach to Religious Syncretism.” Man, vol. 24, no. 2, 1989, pp. 290–303. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2803307. Accessed 19 Sept. 2024.

And: Janzen, John M. Lemba, 1650-1930: a drum of affliction in Africa and the New World. Garland Publishing, Inc., 1982.

7. The New Orleans Voodoo pantheon, as described in: “Table 1. The Deities of Voodoo” in: Anderson, Jeffrey E. Voodoo: An African American Religion. LSU Press, 2024. p. 82

Lwa from the Rada rite, as described in: Marcelin, Milo. 1950. Mythologie Vodou (Rite Arada), vols. 1-2. (Pétionville: Éditions Canapé Vert)

“Papa Lébat”, “Monsieur Danny”, “Miché Agoussou”, “Assonquer”, and “Monsieur D'Embarras” are mentioned in: Cable, George W. The Grandissimes: A Story of Creole Life. United States, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1887. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Grandissimes_A_Story_of_Creole_Life/xuYhgJXZIkUC?hl=en&gbpv=0

8. Federal Writer’s Project interview with a woman named Mary Washington (“Mary Ellis”), Age 75, born 1863, as quoted in: Tallant, Robert. Voodoo in New Orleans. 1946. Reprint, Gretna, La.: United Kingdom, Pelican Publishing Company, 1983.

9. From: Marcelin, Milo. 1950. Mythologie Vodou (Rite Arada), vol. 1. (Pétionville: Éditions Canapé Vert) p. 15

Atibon Lèba, l’ouvri bayè pou moin ago-é! Papa Lèba, l'ouvri bayè pou moin, Pou moin passé, Lô m'a tounin m'a salué loa-yo! Vodou Lèba, l'ouvri bayè pou moin, Pou moin ca rentré, Lô m'a tounin m'a remercié loa-yo Abobo!

Atibon Legba, ouvre-moi la barrière, ago-é! (exaucez-nous) — Papa Legba, ouvre-moi la barrière — Pour que je puisse passer, — Lorsque je retournerai, je saluerai les loas — Vodou Legba, ouvre-moi la barrière, — Pour que je puisse entrer — Lorsque je retournerai, je remercierai les loas — Abobo! (Amen).

10. From: Marcelin, Milo. 1950. Mythologie Vodou (Rite Arada), vol. 1. (Pétionville: Éditions Canapé Vert) p. 16

“Toutefois, certaines personnes pensent que Legba doit ètre également identifié à St. Pierre, car, disent-elles, s'il est le gardien de toutes les entrées, il l'est aussi de la porte du Ciel.”

11. Federal Writer’s Project interview with a man named Charles (“Raoul Desfrene”), Age 72, born ca. 1868, described as “a “French Negro” of 77” in: Tallant, Robert. Voodoo in New Orleans. 1946. Reprint, Gretna, La.: United Kingdom, Pelican Publishing Company, 1983.

12. A different description of Marie Laveau’s “bad work” altar can be found in: Long, Carolyn Morrow. A New Orleans Voudou Priestess: The Legend and Reality of Marie Laveau. United States, University Press of Florida, 2007.

According to the LWP informants, Marie Laveau also practiced less beneficent magic. Charles Raphael told interviewers that in the back room of her house, Marie “had an altar for bad work…[where] she prepared charms to kill, to drive away, to break up love affairs, and to spread confusion. It was surmounted by statues of a bear, a lion, a tiger, and a wolf.” A similar description was given by Raymond Rivaros, born in 1873: “Her altar was in the last room of the house on St. Ann Street. I’m positive she had no saints on that altar. It took the width of the room, and had large plaster statues of a bear, a lion, and a tiger, paper flowers, and candles.” 38

13. From: Castellanos, Henry C.. New Orleans as it was: Episodes of Louisiana Life. United States, L. Graham Company, 1905. P. 99. Retrieved from: https://www.google.com/books/edition/New_Orleans_as_it_was/gNA-AAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

”The prince of the occult science , styling himself Don Pedro is now the recognized head of the sect, and his adepts, I am told , are legion. The police have, however, nearly broken up his business, having compelled him to go in hiding . He is heard of sometimes through the medium of the press, as he advertises occasionally as a healing medium . As long as charlatans are not put down by the strong arm of the law, there will ever be a host of believers.”

14. The moniker Pedro, Prince of Darkness (called Don Pedro by Castellanos) appears in several newspaper articles from the 1890s, including The Daily Picayune and The Galveston Daily News. For more information about “Pedro, Prince of Darkness”, see: Long, Carolyn Morrow. A New Orleans Voudou Priestess: The Legend and Reality of Marie Laveau. United States, University Press of Florida, 2007.

15. Cosentino, Donald. “Who Is That Fellow in the Many-Colored Cap? Transformations of Eshu in Old and New World Mythologies.” The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 100, no. 397, 1987, pp. 261–75. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/540323. Accessed 10 Sept. 2024.

16. Aiyejina, Funso. "Esu Elegbara: A Source of an Alter/Native Theory of African Literature and Criticism." text of a lecture from his work in progress on ‘Decolonising Myth: From Esu to Bachaanal Aesthetics (2010). https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=25a632183b18b3d34abea946fb0fab4e0f6a864f

17. MARCELIN, Émile, and A. Métraux. “LES GRANDS DIEUX DU VODOU HAIÏTIEN.” Journal de La Société Des Américanistes, vol. 36, 1947, pp. 51–135. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24601899. Accessed 18 Sept. 2024. https://www.persee.fr/doc/jsa_0037-9174_1947_num_36_1_2357 

Also found in Mythologie Vodou (Rite Arada) Vol. 1

18. Rigaud, Milo. La tradition voudoo et le voudoo haïtien: son temple, ses mystères, sa magie. FeniXX, 1953. P. 424. https://lib-ufdcweb3.uflib.ufl.edu/AA00002240/00001/428x

19. Métraux, Alfred. Voodoo in Haiti. N.p., Normanby Press, 2016. Originally published in 1959.

20. Deren, Maya. Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti. United States, McPherson, 1983. https://archive.org/details/divinehorsemenli00dere/page/100/mode/2up

21. From: Desmangles, Leslie G.. The Faces of the Gods: Vodou and Roman Catholicism in Haiti. New Caledonia, University of North Carolina Press, 2000. pp.109-110 https://archive.org/details/facesofgodsv00desm/page/108/mode/2up

"Vodouisants say that Legba has two personae, each corresponding to one of the aspects of his total personality. Rada's Legba is the sun, the regenerative force, the lwa of the crossroads, the mediating principle between opposites. His reflection, known as Mèt Kafou Legba (Master Legba of Intersections), is his inverted image in the Petro nanchon…”

22. From: Laguerre, Michel S. Voodoo and politics in Haiti. Springer, 2016. Originally published in 1989. p.77

“After they have sung this song, Legba, a Voodoo spirit - the guardian of gates and crossroads - is invoked. He is called to open the gates so that the people can leave the temple, and he is supposed to protect them as they walk through the streets at night…”

23. Brief mention in: Brown, Karen McCarthy. Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn. United States, University of California Press, 2001. Originally published in 1991. p. 54

“...first to be greeted is always Legba, guardian of crossroads and doorways…”

24. From: Hurston, Zora Neale. Tell my horse. United Kingdom, HarperCollins, 2008. Originally published in 1938:

“Legba Attibon is the god of the gate. He rules the gate of the hounfort, the entrance to the cemetery and he is also Baron Carrefour, Lord of the crossroads.”

25. From: Montgomery, Eric, and Vannier, Christian. An Ethnography of a Vodu Shrine in Southern Togo: Of Spirit, Slave and Sea. Netherlands, Brill, 2017. p. 197

“The assistants knelt in front of a large white basin around which a circle of chalk was inscribed in the sand for Legba, Yewevodu god of crossroads, keeper of gates, and guardian of ritual knowledge.”

26. Beauvoir, Max. Lapriyè Ginen. Haiti, Edisyon Près Nasyonal d'Ayiti, 2008. pp. 187-196 https://archive.org/details/beauvoir-max-g.-lapriye-ginen-2008/page/n97/mode/2up 

27. From: Lane, Megan. Hoodoo heritage: A brief history of american folk religion. Diss. University of Georgia, 2008.  https://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/lane_megan_e_200805_ma.pdf

“The Petwo side of Vodou is one largely of action; it can be said that it is the Petwo incarnation of Vodou that is recognizable in American Hoodoo Conjure.”

28. From: Deren, Maya. Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti. United States, McPherson, 1983. pp. 61-62 https://archive.org/details/divinehorsemenli00dere/page/60/mode/2up? 

"If the Rada loa represent the protective, guardian powers, the Petro loa are the patrons of aggressive action….For example, whereas Erzulie, the Rada Goddess of Love, who is the epitome of the feminine principle, is concerned with love, beauty, flowers, jewelry, femininities and coquetries, liking to dance and to be dressed in fine clothes, weeping in a most feminine fashion for not being loved enough, the figure of Erzulie Ge/Rouge, on the Petro side, is awesome in her poignancy. When she possesses a person, her entire body contracts into the terrible paralysis of frustration; every muscle is tense, the knees are drawn up, the fists are clenched so tightly that the fingernails draw blood from the palms. The neck is rigid and the tears stream from the tightly shut eyes, while through the locked jaw and the grinding teeth there issues a sound that is half groan, half scream, the inarticulate song of in/turned cosmic rage.

Petro was born out of this rage. It is not evil; it is the rage against the evil fate which the African suffered, the brutality of his displacement and his enslavement. It is the violence that rose out of that rage, to protest against it. It is the crack of the slave/whip sounding constantly, a never-to-be-forgotten ghost, in the Petro rites. It is the raging revolt of the slaves against the Napoleonic forces. And it is the delirium of their triumph. For it was the Petro cult, born in the hills, nurtured in secret, which gave both the moral force and the actual organization to the escaped slaves who plotted and trained, swooped down upon the plantations and led the rest of the slaves in the revolt that, by 1804, had made of Haiti the second free colony in the western hemisphere, following the United States. Even today the songs of revolt, of "Vive la liberte", occur in Petro ritual as a dominant theme.”

29. From: Deren, Maya. Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti. United States, McPherson, 1983. https://archive.org/details/divinehorsemenli00dere/page/100/mode/2up

“Thus, as the cosmic year of the race wanes, and Legba, the sun, droops toward the cosmic horizon which divides the upper regions from the underworld, so even in the daily, immediate round of day and night it is Carrefour, the moon, who has the greater immediate power.” (p. 101)

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Anthropocene Magazine:

I write about the climate and energy for a living and even I can’t quite wrap my head around how cheap low-carbon power technologies have gotten. The cost of onshore wind energy has dropped by 70% over just the last decade, and that of batteries and solar photovoltaic by a staggering 90%. Our World in Data points out that within a generation, solar power has gone from being one of the most expensive electricity sources to the cheapest in many countries—and it’s showing little signs of slowing down.

So where does this all end?

Back in the 1960s, the nuclear industry promised a future in which electricity was too cheap to meter. Decades later, the same vision seems to be on the horizon again, this time from solar. It seems, well, fantastic. Perhaps (almost) free renewable power leads to climate utopia. Then again, should we be careful what we wish for?

The Road To Decarbonization Is Paved With Cheap Green Power

1. More renewables = less carbon. The math isn’t complicated. The faster we transition to clean energy, the less carbon dioxide we’re adding to the atmosphere and the fewer effects of global warming we will suffer.While humanity is still emitting more greenhouse gases than ever, the carbon intensity of electricity production has been dropping for well over a decade.

2. Cheap, clean power also unlocks humanitarian goals. Modern civilization rests on a foundation of electricity. Beyond its obvious uses in heating, cooling, cooking, lighting and data, electricity can decarbonize transportation, construction, services, water purification, and food production. Increasing the supply and reducing the cost of green electricity doesn’t just help the climate, it improves equity and quality of life for the world’s poorest.

3. Scrubbing the skies will take a lot of juice. Once we get emissions under control, it’s time to tackle the mess we’ve made of the atmosphere. Today’s direct air capture (DAC) systems use about two megawatt hours of electricity for every ton of CO2 plucked from fresh air. Scale that up to the 7 to 9 million tons we need to be removing annually in the US by 2030, according to the World Resources Institute, and you’re looking at about 0.5% of the country’s current energy generation. Scale it again to the nearly 1,000 billion tons the IPCC wants to sequester during the 21st century, and we’ll need every kilowatt of solar power available—the cheaper the better.

Cheap Power Has Hidden Costs

1. Cheap technology doesn’t always mean cheap power. If solar cells are so damn cheap, why do electricity bills keep rising? One problem is that renewables are still just a fraction of the energy mix in most places, about 20% in the US and 30% globally. This recent report from think-tank Energy Innovation identifies volatility in natural gas costs and investments in uneconomic coal plants as big drivers for prices at the meter. Renewables will have to dominate the energy mix before retail prices can fall. 

2. The cheaper the power, the more we’ll waste. Two cases in point: cryptocurrency mining and AI chat bots. Unless we make tough social and political decisions to fairly price carbon and promote climate action, the market will find its own uses for all the cheap green power we can generate. And they may not advance our climate goals one inch.

3. Centuries of petro-history to overcome. Cheap power alone can only get us so far. Even with EVs challenging gas cars, and heat pumps now outselling gas furnaces in the US, there is a monumental legacy of fossil fuel systems to dismantle. Getting 1.5 billion gas cars off the world’s roads will take generations, and such changes can have  enormous social costs. To help smooth the transition, the Center for American Progress suggests replacing annual revenue-sharing payments from coal, oil, and natural gas production with stable, permanent distributions for mining and oil communities, funded by federal oil and gas revenue payments.

[damianmian]

Day 5 OCtober: Re-Designed OC

Here we have Alek’s. My first design of him 6 years ago, and my design of him now in the HunterVerse AU (with Priya or sometimes Petro depending on the universe. Gender isn’t really hardwired in the multiverse, except for Alek. Alek is always a guy and even if he wasn’t born that way he will always be a dude). Obviously he’s gone from rocking that ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ type aesthetic to the blacksmith ensemble.

He’s an entirely too serious guy that anyone would think is not breaking any laws. Unfortunately they’d be wrong. Putting aside his “better than all of you” demeanour he’s not immune to a prank now and then (especially if it’s for the greater good). And you can’t have Priya for a partner if you’re NOT going to lay down your morals for the latest hyper-fixation that week.

In the HunterVerse he’s a blacksmith, infusing magic from the lay-line into weapons and armour. There are some tattoos peaking out from under his collar, those are runes. They’re what all people who work around the lay-lines get when they’re of age (about 12). It helps strengthen your connection to magic (and keep your trapped in the compound). He’s working through people constantly mis-gendering him, and trying not to snap at anyone (positions are tenuous, he can’t afford to step out of line). Luckily, Priya doesn’t take any of this shit and constantly jumps at the opportunity to put anyone in their place (no matter how tenuous her position is too).

Side note: Hunters have runes too. They carve a promise to themselves on the non dominant wrist, they’re partner (hunting partner in this case) carves a promise to them on their dominant hand, then one member of their family carved a promise to the homeland on their back. It’s all very fucked up since they’re 12.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Jack Ohman, Sacramento Bee

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 18, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 19, 2024

Paul Manafort walking onto the floor of the Republican National Convention yesterday illustrated that the Republican Party under Trump has become thoroughly corrupted into an authoritarian party aligned with foreign dictators. 

Manafort first advised and then managed Trump’s 2016 campaign. A long-time Republican political operative, he came to the job after the Ukrainian people threw his client,Viktor Yanukovych out of Ukraine’s presidency in 2014. Yanukovych was backed by Russian president Vladimir Putin, who was determined to prevent Ukraine from turning toward Europe and to install a puppet government that would extend his power over the neighboring country. Beginning in 2004, Manafort had worked to install and then keep Yanukovych and his party in power. His efforts won him a fortune thanks to his new friends, especially Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska. Then in 2014, after months of popular protests, Ukrainians ousted Yanukovych from power in what is known as the Revolution of Dignity. 

Yanukovych fled to Russia, and Putin invaded Ukraine’s Crimea and annexed it, prompting the United States and the European Union to impose economic sanctions on Russia itself and also on specific Russian businesses and oligarchs, prohibiting them from doing business in United States territories. These sanctions crippled Russia and froze the assets of key Russian oligarchs.

Now without his main source of income, Manafort owed about $17 million to Deripaska. By 2016, his longtime friend and business partner Roger Stone was advising Trump’s floundering presidential campaign, and Manafort stepped in to remake it. He did not take a salary but reached out to Deripaska through one of his Ukrainian business partners, Russian operative Konstantin Kilimnik, immediately after landing the job, asking Kilimnik how “we” could use the appointment “to get whole,” and he made sure that the Russian oligarch to whom he owed the most money knew about his close connection with the Trump campaign.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election explained at least one answer: Manafort and Kilimnick “discussed a plan to resolve the ongoing political problems in Ukraine by creating an autonomous republic in its more industrialized eastern region of Donbas, and having Yanukovych…elected to head that republic.” The report continued: “That plan, Manafort later acknowledged, constituted a ‘backdoor’ means for Russia to control eastern Ukraine.”

This policy was the exact opposite of official U.S. policy for a free and united Ukraine. Russia worked to help Trump win the White House, and immediately after his election, according to the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee, Kilimnick wrote that "[a]ll that is required to start the process is a very minor ‘wink’ (or slight push) from D[onald] T[rump] saying ‘he wants peace in Ukraine and Donbass back in Ukraine’ and a decision to be a ‘special representative’ and manage this process. The email went on to say that once then–Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko understood this “message” from the United States, the process “will go very fast and DT could have peace in Ukraine basically within a few months after inauguration.”

The investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia slowed the consummation of this plan, and strong bipartisan support for Ukraine threw a monkey wrench into the works, prompting Trump’s cronies to try to smear Ukraine as the country that interfered in the 2016 U.S. election, a story that began to come out during Trump’s first impeachment hearing. Biden’s election meant an abrupt end to Russia’s quiet absorption of Ukraine’s eastern region, and in February 2022, Putin simply invaded the country and then claimed that the people there had voted to join Russia. 

Trump seemed to bring this back up at a CNN event in June in which, referring to Putin’s invasion of eastern Ukraine in February 2022, he said: “Putin saw that, he said, you know what, I think we’re going to go in and maybe take my—this was his dream. I talked to him about it, his dream.” Trump has said he has a plan for “peace” in Ukraine that will stop the war in a day. 

Republican vice presidential pick J.D. Vance is wildly inexperienced for such a position, but he has been staunchly in favor of ending U.S. assistance to Ukraine and was the pick of that party faction. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov cheered Vance’s nomination, saying: “He’s in favor of peace, he’s in favor of ending the assistance that’s being provided and we can only welcome that because that’s what we need—to stop pumping Ukraine full of weapons and then the war will end” Russia needs this sort of help, for just this week Ukraine forced it to remove its last remaining patrol ship from occupied Crimea (when the 2022 invasion began, it held most of its 74 Black Sea Fleet warships at ports there). 

Manafort was convicted of a slew of criminal charges for his work with Ukraine and obstruction of the investigation into the connections between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives, and was serving a seven-year sentence when Trump pardoned him in December 2020. Now he is back at the center of Trump’s MAGA Party. 

Before 2016 the Republican Party stood staunchly against Russia, and getting Republican voters to forget that history required adopting the argument of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who is aligned with Putin and Trump, that democracy has ruined the United States. In this argument, the central principle of democracy—that all people must be equal before the law, and have a right to a say in their government—destroys a country by making women, people of color, immigrants, members of religious minorities, and LGBTQ+ individuals equal to heteronormative white men and permitting them to influence government. In place of democracy, they want to impose their version of Christianity on the nation, banning abortion, rejecting immigrants, and curtailing the rights of gender, religious, and ethnic minorities.

Josh Kovensky and John Light of Talking Points Memo picked up that in his speech at the Republican convention last night, Vance pushed back against President Joe Biden’s traditional idea that America is an idea, tying it instead to a place and a people. As Kovensky and Light note, this is “a somewhat-quiet, somewhat-obvious dog whistle, gesturing toward the idea there are, as some on the far-right contend, ‘heritage Americans,’” native-born Americans who have a deeper understanding than newcomers of what this country means. That view of nationhood is commonplace elsewhere, Kovensky and Light note, but its absence in the U.S. “has long made our country exceptional.” 

This nationalist concept is at the heart of MAGA attacks on immigrants, which were in full display at the convention yesterday. From the podium yesterday, Thomas Homan, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for Trump’s first two years in office, told undocumented immigrants: “You better start packing to go home.” Trump has promised to round up 11 million migrants (although he claims there are 18 million) currently living in the U.S., put them in camps, and deport them. There were actually preprinted signs at the convention for attendees to wave, which they did with apparent enthusiasm. The signs said: “MASS DEPORTATION NOW!” 

The convention has also emphasized its opposition to women’s rights. Trump, who has proudly claimed responsibility for the Supreme Court’s overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing abortion as a constitutional right, walked out last night to the song “It’s a Man’s World.” By focusing on the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which gives Congress the power to enforce it, as the protector of “Life,” the Republican platform covertly endorses a national abortion ban. 

Their rejection of democracy requires a strongman at the head of the government, and in Milwaukee that man is Trump, who will be the first convicted criminal nominated for president by a major party. He was convicted for trying to tip the 2016 election by hiding payments to an adult-film actress after they had sex, in order to keep the story from voters. 

Conference attendees are honoring Trump with large bandages on their right ear as a tribute to an injury he sustained in a shooting attempt on Saturday, although—and this is very weird—there has been no information about that injury aside from his own comments and those of his inner circle, a lack the press seems willing to ignore despite their deep interest in every piece of medical information from President Biden. As he did at his criminal trial in Manhattan, Trump keeps nodding off to sleep at the convention. 

The theme of the party has been unity, but that unity depends on everyone lauding Trump. Gone are the establishment Republicans that ran the party before 2016; even longer gone are the traditional Republicans who were chased out of the party in the 1990s as “Republicans in Name Only” because they believed government had a role to play in the economy and did not see tax cuts as the solution to everything. In the Philadelphia Inquirer, Will Bunch wrote: “Here in Milwaukee, the political pundits finally saw the thing they’ve been pleading for—unity—and what that really looks like. It looks a lot like Jonestown,” where a cult leader took the lives of his followers in 1978.

In 1959, veteran Robert Biggs wrote to Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had led the Allied forces in Europe during World War II, asking the president to make “direct statements” that would give people the confidence to “back him completely.” Americans needed “more of the attitude of a commanding officer who knows the goal and the mission and states, without evasion, the way it is to be done.” 

Eisenhower answered that “in a democracy debate is the breath of life. This is to me what Lincoln meant by government ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people.’” 

“[D]ictatorial systems make one contribution to their people which leads them to tend to support such systems—freedom from the necessity of informing themselves and making up their own minds concerning…tremendous complex and difficult questions,” Eisenhower wrote. “But while this responsibility is a taxing one to a free people it is their great strength as well—from millions of individual free minds come new ideas, new adjustments to emerging problems, and tremendous vigor, vitality and progress…. While complete success will always elude us, still it is a quest which is vital to self-government and to our way of life as free men.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[sergeantsporks]

Petro: *Learns that Hunter likes wolves. Is pleased about that because he associates wolves with stereotypical stuff, like say: Them being maneaters, who kill livestock, are deceptive loners, prone to cannibalism, who exact revenge on people who harm them, etc and so forth. Thinks that if Hunter is fond of an animal with that kind of reputation, then he must be one hell of a ruthless kid.*

Hunter: *Meets Petro and happily info-dumps about why he loves wolves. He adores them because they: Aren't out to harm people, prefer to prey upon wild animals, have strong familial bonds, care for their injured pack mates, who occupy an important niche in the wider ecosystem.*

Petro: *Listens in growing horror as he comes to realize that Hunter isn't the ruthless kid he assumed he was... He's a nerd desperate for love and affection. Is disappointed immensely.*

Hunter: Want to watch a documentary about wolves?

Petro: YES, let us watch them FIGHT for DOMINANCE in a VIOLENT BATTLE to see who is WORTH OF BEING PACK LEADER!

[Documentary]: And so this mother wolf adopts into her own litter the orphaned pups from her fallen pack member. They will be raised together as if she had birthed them herself and grow with the rest of the pack.

Petro: What

Hunter, tearing up: Oh my titan, the mother wolf is adopting puppies that aren't her own 🥺 They're siblings with the rest of her litter 🥺

Petro: What

[starkatstories]

the Prince and Pauper Rigel and Sterling and Silver Cord/Petro Dragonic Rigel and Sterling are fighting for dominance of my brain GIRL HELP !!!!!!