#i hope that syria will manage to survive all the havoc

[dead-salmon]

germans are amazing because they just, after years, had the realisation that if in any way syria stabilizes around 5% of healthcare workers (especially doctors and nurses) may end up leaving the country, and now they're panicking

like why are you panicking babe? didn't you since 2015 scream for them to leave the country and go back home since they're "using the welfare system"?

what? you suddenly realised how significant they actually are for our economy, health care system and society? that they too are humans? well boo-fucking-hoo and too late

[fredpage]

The importance of being in love.

After getting lost while walking off into what was for him anonymous territory, one winter afternoon in north-central Australia, author Barry Lopez, used a simple technique of awareness that had long been his way to open a conversation with any unfamiliar landscape, intimacy—the tactile, olfactory, visual, and sonic details of what, to most people in his culture, would appear to be a wasteland. “Who are you? How do I say your name? May I sit down? Should I go now?” Over the years, the author found this way of approaching whatever was new to him consistently useful: establish mutual trust, become vulnerable to the place, then hope for some reciprocity and perhaps even intimacy. “You might choose to handle an encounter with a stranger you wanted to get to know better in the same way,” he wrote. “You must, at the very least, establish a truce with realities not your own, whether you’re speaking about the innate truth and aura of a landscape or a person,” he added. The goal in these conversations, from a traditional point of view, is to put off for a good while arriving at any conclusion, to continue to follow, instead, several avenues of approach until a door no one had initially seen suddenly opens. Barry Lopez wrote that he had felt for a long time that the great political questions of our time—about violent prejudice, global climate change, venal greed, fear of the Other—could be addressed in illuminating ways by considering models in the natural world.

“Evidence of the failure to love is everywhere around us. To contemplate what it is to love today brings us up against reefs of darkness and walls of despair. If we are to manage the havoc—ocean acidification, corporate malfeasance and government corruption, endless war—we have to reimagine what it means to live lives that matter, or we will only continue to push on with the unwarranted hope that things will work out. We need to step into a deeper conversation about enchantment and agape, and to actively explore a greater capacity to love other humans. The old ideas—the crushing immorality of maintaining the nation-state, the life-destroying belief that to care for others is to be weak, and that to be generous is to be foolish—can have no future with us.

It is more important now to be in love than to be in power. It is more important to bring E. O. Wilson’s biophilia into our daily conversations than it is to remain compliant in a time of extinction, ethnic cleansing, and rising seas. It is more important to live for the possibilities that lie ahead than to die in despair over what has been lost.

Only an ignoramus can imagine now that pollinating insects, migratory birds, and pelagic fish can depart our company and that we will survive because we know how to make tools. Only the misled can insist that heaven awaits the righteous while they watch the fires on Earth consume the only heaven we have ever known.”

In this trembling moment, with light armor under several flags rolling across northern Syria, with civilians beaten to death in the streets of Occupied Palestine, with fires roaring across the vineyards of California, and forests being felled to ensure more space for development, with student loans from profiteers breaking the backs of the young, and with Niagaras of water falling into the oceans from every sector of Greenland, in this moment, is it still possible to face the gathering darkness, and say to the physical Earth, and to all its creatures, including ourselves, fiercely and without embarrassment, I love you, and to embrace fearlessly the burning world?

https://lithub.com/barry-lopez-love-in-a-time-of-terror/

[machinehead]

RE:  PINEAPPLE SUNFLOWER SEEDS AND MORE

I don’t know if any you have tried this ridiculous experiment with sunflower seeds and/or pineapple, but the comments and this music video by nut job/ Head Case Floyd MC BBQ have kept me in stitches!! @mcbbq - Big Loads (music video):  https://youtu.be/s7wqVXBTRHI

And I couldn’t stop laughing at this photo:  https://instagram.com/p/BU4jHD1FDj_/ Dyin’ ova' here! This just in; my A&R head honcho Monte Conner tells me that veteran music manager Scott Koenig claims that pure Pumpkin Seed Oil produces HUGE loads! One more thing to try I guess... I have yet to see any results, but it is supposed to take a couple weeks. Below are 3 of the most interesting replies I recieved regarding muslim/gay friends. From:  Peter Southwood Sunflower seeds and pineapple - no fucking idea. Sounds like bullshit. Muslim Friends - Apart from having very few friends anyway, none at the moment. However, I have known plenty, and the one thing I know is that they are people first, Muslim second (unlike the majority of Christians I have met). The Muslim community in the UK don’t even recognise jihadists as being Muslim. They don’t want the three pricks who attacked London on Saturday to be buried with Muslims. Kathy Griffin - It’s all a matter of perspective. If there weren’t beheadings by extremists in the middle east, would we see the picture in a different light? If this were during the election campaign, would we see it as less disgusting? With what Trump has said about Muslims, trying to ban them from going to the US, people could see the image as a jihadist with the presidents head, and therefore an attack on America. Personally, I have no problems with the picture; not funny nor satirical, but controversial and too easy to be misinterpreted by those who want to. Gay friends - Can’t say much about having gay friends; as I mentioned before, I have very few friends as it is, let alone gay ones. However, being gay myself, I find it funny that it’s frowned upon in the metal community. Let’s face it, one of the most popular rock singers was gay (Freddie Mercury), and the main figure behind the leather look that a lot of metal bands and fans adhere to, Rob Halford, got his look from the Leather scene in the gay community! Personally, I’m not worried about being open at a metal gig. In fact, whilst queuing outside the Hammersmith Apollo to see you guys, I got speaking to a couple of others. When they asked if I was married, I told them that my boyfriend and I were waiting for a while. We then went on to have a fucking fantastic time inside. The fact that I’m in the UK and not the US may explain it somewhat; there’s no-where near the level of bigotry over here. There are still some fucktards, but I’ve been lucky enough not to have come across them (not that I would, even if they wanted it!) From:  Waseem Ahmed Mr Flynn A 43 year old Londoner here who’s been listening to your music since 1994, well-kept digipaks of Burn My Eyes and TMTC proudly sat in my music collection, along with your other releases. And a muslim too. And I naturally know shedloads of muslims, both professionally and personally. Last Sunday, I was on the underground on my way to the theatre in the Covent Garden area with my kids. My sister sat opposite me, still heavily mourning the loss of her childhood favourite Chris Cornell. I received a text from a friend in Paris asking me to be careful as emotions would be running high following the London Bridge incidents. I responded that I’d be fine, "I’m wearing a Machine Head t-shirt so everyone will love me." Then it hit me. We’ve reached a point in London, one of the most awesome multicultural cities in the world, where we are now having to explain ourselves and how we differ to the maniacs that wreaked havoc in Manchester and London. Passing questions. All politely asked though. Are you ashamed about what they did? You’re not like those other muslims are you? At that moment, protecting me from any glare was my Bloodstone & Diamonds tour t-shirt. Damn, bad times. My 9-year-old boy is going to his first gigs this year, ticking off Linkin Park and Metallica of his wishlist. He’s scared after hearing about the Ariane Grande concert incident. I’ve told him he will be safe as security has increased everywhere. Fortunately he’s not cottoned onto the muslim label thing yet. That would be heartbreaking to see. I’ve been gigging in London since the age of 17. Classic venues such as The Marquee and Astoria have gone. One thing has remained. The camaraderie at metal gigs, irrespective of faith, skin tone or whatever. Everyone looks after everyone and we’re all there for the same thing. Together. Irrespective of the nonsense taking place in the world, I hope this bond remains throughout my lifetime and beyond. Well now you kinda know another muslim, although via email. If you’re ever in London and fancy a hearty home cooked curry, you’re most welcome to join me and my family. I’ll invite my gay work colleagues too. They are awesome too. And one’s a diehard metaller and one my favourite gig buddies ☺ All the best Waseem From: Svetlana Simanski Subject: Muslims and pineapples Hey Robb, I just read your TGJ email and laughed a lot - what a mix of topics and - since I'm already craving for new MH stuff - I thought the email would maybe an update. Anyway... as a straight girl I have been confronted with the pineapple-hypothesis several times in my life and - until today - in my opinion this is just a way to get girls into BJs a little more. :D Men can never get enough, so they invented this hoax to maybe achieve exactly this. And yes, I already tried to prove the hypothesis. Guess what, the pineapples had no effect at all. If you've ever tasted cum in your life you might know why pineapple-flavor sounds like a nice game-changer. So much on this topic. Now lets get to the muslims. I'm 28 years old right now and I am from Germany. After WW2 there came many guest-workers from Turkey to help us out here, to rebuild the country and most of them stayed, had families and their kids had families themselves, but I never was in touch with them. I met some in my time as a student at university, but never was closer friends with one so I didn't have a chance to get to know the culture or the religion. So, honestly, I had some prejudices. Not from my own experience, but from the word that spread. I live in a big city and we have to deal with some issues here. There are places you shouldn't visit after dark or even whole parts of the city which are not completely safe for white girls in black clothes and without a hijab. Well, of course I had kind of an inner fight with myself and these prejudices. I didn't want to have them at all and since we welcomed like two millions of refugees in Germany over the past two years I decided to work this out for me. Can you believe we still have Nazi-stuff going here in Germany? Didn't they learn anything from history or is it just a story, a bad fairy tale for some people? Honestly, I don't get it. Anyway I took a new job offer at a stationary youth welfare institution and had no idea what to expect. This was kind of an experiment for me and I started six months ago. I work there with 22 refugees. With kids. They came all the way without their parents or any other relatives. The youngest one is 15 years old and he arrived in Germany when he was 13. He did the whole fucking trip vom Afghanistan to Germany by himself. This age I played with barbie or tried out how to look good with make-up. Those were my problems. Wow... I thought I had to go through some things in my life, but I realized it was nothing compared to what they did to come here. What they had to do in their countries to basically survive. They killed for the Taliban to save their families. Can you imagine? No, neither can I. So now I know like 26 muslims (my boss and some coworkers are muslims as well) and I love them all. The kids are so kind and so cute, help- and respectful. You can't imagine. For me this changed everything in my life. Before this job I couldn't image to have a romantic relationship with a muslim, now I can. Besides... they're all a little too young, but in ten years from now... I'd see a bunch of handsome and polite young men from Afghanistan and I can tell you, there are some really, really special characters among them. Just awesome. I got to know their culture a little bit, their habits and routines in religious practice and I even started to learn a little Persian. My job is to look after them in any situation and explain the pitfalls of german bureaucracy. We are also friends somehow, they tell me stories about their lives in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Eritrea - sad and happy ones - and this is basically all I need. This job just gives me back so much. The love and the kindness you get back from these kids is amazing. It took some time to realize: I'm part of their lives now, I am somehow their sister, mother, aunt and friend at the same time. I can't write down all my experiences here, but I wanted to let you know at least a small part of my story and how this job changed my view, my behavior, my thinking and the way I speak to others about muslims or their culture, especially from Afghanistan. I'm hoping my English isn't too bad and you can somehow imagine what I tried to describe. Hope to see you in Germany in 2018. I'll be there, somewhere in the crowd. Cheers from Germany, Svetlana

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