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reasonsforhope · 6 months ago

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"Winning what’s been called the ‘Green Nobel’ an Indian environmental activist has been recognized for saving a 657 square-mile forest from 21 coal mines.

From the New Delhi train station to high-end hotels to the poorest communities, virtually no one in India is free from periodic blackouts. As part of the Modi regime’s push for a developed and economically dominant India, power generation of every sort is being installed in huge quantities.

GNN has reported this drive has included some of the world’s largest solar energy projects, but it also involves coal. India is one of the largest consumers of coal for electricity generation, and Hasdeo Aranya forests, known as the “Lungs of Chhattisgarh,” are known to harbor large deposits.

The state government had been investigating 21 proposed coal mining blocks across 445,000 acres of biodiverse forests that provide crucial natural resources to the area’s 15,000 indigenous Adivasi people.

Along with the Adivasi, tigers, elephants, sloth bears, leopards, and wolves, along with dozens of endemic bird and reptile species call this forest home. It’s one of India’s largest intact arboreal habitats, but 5.6 billion metric tons of mineable coal threatened to destroy it all.

Enter Alok Shukla, founder of the Save Hasdeo Aranya Resistance Committee, which began a decade ago advocating for the protection of Hasdeo through a variety of media and protest campaigns, including sit-ins, tree-hugging campaigns, advocating for couples to write #savehasdeo on their wedding invitations, and publishing a variety of other social media content.

Shukla also took his message directly to the legislature, reminding them through news media coverage of their obligations to India’s constitution which enshrines protection for tribal people and the environments they require to continue their traditional livelihoods.

Beginning with a proposal to create a single protected area called Lemru elephant reserve within Hasdeo that would protect elephant migration corridors and cancel three of the 21 mining proposals, Shukla and the Adivasi began a 160-mile protest march down a national highway towards the Chhattisgarh state capital of Raipur.

They hadn’t even crossed the halfway mark when news reached them that not only was the elephant reserve idea unanimously agreed upon, but every existing coal mining proposal had been rejected by the state legislature, and all existing licenses would be canceled.

“We had no expectations, but the legislative assembly voted unanimously that all of the coal mines of Hasdeo should be canceled, and the forest should be saved,” Shukla says in recollection to the Goldman Prize media channel.

“That was a very important moment and happy moment for all of us.”

Shukla shares the 2024 Goldman Environmental Prize with 5 other winners, from Brazil, the US, South Africa, Australia, and Spain."

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-via Good News Network, May 20, 2024. Video via Goldman Environmental Prize, April 29, 2024.

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cherrysweather · 3 months ago

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hi do you think you could do a miles edgeworth x reader where reader comforts edgeworth during or after an earthquake ? maybe angst/comfort :) tysm!

Hello Anon, I'm glad to be writing again! Apologies for the late response, but I hope you're still around to read this :')

(Requests are now open again :D)

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Comforting Miles Edgeworth during an earthquake:

Ever since the death of his father, Miles has always tried to avoid places where earthquakes are known to occur;

But with his constant traveling, he sometimes can't avoid it;

So when he's most insecure, he likes to bring you along, knowing that your presence alone is soothing enough for his terror;

Even if he knows that he's scared and knows how he behaves, he still cannot avoid fleeing to the first spot he deems safe enough and stays there, paralyzed;

He hates being in that state, remembering all the times it blocked him even at work;

But the worst times are when earthquakes strike where he thinks they're rare, like his home;

However, he noticed that whenever you were around, everything was easier, he would calm down faster and his reactions were milder;

He'll probably never recover from the trauma, so finding you was the best thing that could happen to him.

Miles set the freshly brewed tea on the table as he waited for you to return from the kitchen, sat on the chair and adjusted his glasses before pouring the drink into each of your cups.

"Which one did you prepare? Darjeeling again? Or the usual Earl Grey?" as you finally emerged from the room next door, drying your hands with a dishcloth, Miles felt a little tug on his lips and moved a chair closer to his, instead of in front of it. "It's the one I brought you from India, it's a green tea mix of Sencha and Assam, so it's a little less intense than a black one" he gently guided you by hand to sit "So I'm not allowed to add any sugar?" "Nu-uh" he sipped his cup, as his muscles melted on the seat.

Miles loved this moment of the week; after a long, usual day of work, he could relax all the time wanted, knowing tomorrow was a full rest. He would usually read one of his books, or a file case -if in a better mood- and just wait to fall asleep. Luckily, now with your company, he could also have pleasant conversations with someone equally lovely.

The time flew by between a teapot-amount of tea, some discussions about work, hobbies and a very long parenthesis about Miles' recent new assistants in his investigations. You moved on the couch and searched for something to watch as Miles took the tea set and brought it to the kitchen.

However, everything paused when the lights suddenly went out "Miles? Stay where you are, I'll go take the torch" You carefully moved around the apartment, making your hands go first. All the other buildings outside were in total blackout, so the research for the torch was sped up, feeling something bad was arriving.

Feeling that was confirmed mere seconds later, sensing the earth under your feet and the furniture around starting to tremble, first imperceptible, but soon became a true quake. Your first thought went to Miles. Found the torch, as everything trembled, the sound of many pieces of porcelain crashing to the ground of the other room made your guts fall to the ground, and your body followed soon enough.

You had to stay still until the tremors weakened enough to stand up again and rush to the kitchen, making way with the light in hand. As soon as all the ceramics on the ground were spotted, you searched for Miles and undoubtedly found him huddled under the table, quivering and protecting his head with his arms.

Miles froze on the spot when the light blacked out, holding tight to the tray with the tea set, but as soon as the smallest tremor hit his feet, he started shaking and searched somewhere to hold on, but a horrific shake made him fall to the ground, crashing everything in hands and banging his head on some counter. The already black vision didn't help his attempts to not go back to that elevator, all he could do was hug himself as strongly as possible and reach the first wall to have some sort of support around. When a light was pointed at his face, he somewhat understood that he was not inside the elevator, but his head couldn't come out of there.

"Miles! Miles are you hurt?!" you kneeled beside him and tried to "unlock" his head from the protection he created "Miles, it's okay, we're safe, it's gone" you attempted to make him better see around, but he was elsewhere right now, shaking uncontrollably and barely breathing. Nothing comforting worked, between cuddles and gentle whispers, he went increasingly apnoea and tears started falling.

To avoid panicking, you forced his hands away from his face, making him look at you, softly shaking his shoulders to make him inhale air again "Miles please, breathe with me, everything is all right" You found his hand and almost instinctively he clasped his hand with all his strength around yours.

Luckily, lights started to come back to the buildings outside, and when the kitchen ones turned on again, you turned Miles' face towards yours, seeking for any potential injuries, which were more than visible on his temple "I have to get something for your head, you're bleeding" you applied soft pressure on it, but instantly understood that no one was moving soon

Miles remained rigid for some more minutes before slowly coming back to earth. He finally recognized his kitchen and your hand, which up until three seconds ago was the gun he had thrown all those years ago. His mouth wouldn't open, his eyes wouldn't stop leaking tears and his body wouldn't stop shaking; all he managed to do was climb on your legs, searching for a safe position and trying to stabilize his breathing.

You slowly dragged his body from under the table, moving with him until a wall could be used as a backrest, covering his body with your own to give comfort and warmth. Your free hand gently stroked his locks while the one Miles held, kindly caressed his fingers. "Everything is okay Miles, as long as I'm here you're safe, nothing will ever happen to you again" Your thumb cleared his eyes of tears and slipped along his cheeks, allowing Miles to finally relax against you, keeping his eyes open to not permit his mind to play tricks.

"I'm sorry, I hate being like this" he mumbled and tried to straighten his back, loosening the grip on your hand "Don't even start, you're doing so good and it's not your fault. When you're ready we can go to bed and try to forget all this" You shushed him when he tried to talk again, probably about the tea set or the "nuisance" he's causing you "I don't know… if I want to sleep" he softly sobbed, holding his head where it banged "Everything could be worse, and my head is hurting like crazy" he fell again against your body, hiding himself where nothing could see all the overbearing emotions on his features "We'll do whatever you want, just don't hide. The only thing I ask is that you let me aid that wound on your head" You sighed and watched yourself around, noticing that almost all the other cups in the cupboards were destroyed, but everything outside Miles was a tomorrow problem "It's ok, just… stay with me".

It took another two hours to pull Miles up that floor, dragging him to bed first and convincing him to get in his comfortable clothes after "You don't want to try and sleep?" his head was finally patched and massaged carefully to relieve some pain "Not now, if I get asleep, good, otherwise I prefer staying vigilant for any other earthquakes" Miles melted against you, trying his best to listen to your advice and get some sleep, trying to forget what happened and how the perfect evening was ruined in the worst way possible "You can ask for some days off if you want to re-do this stolen time; I'm sure Gumshoe would help your request" Your mind could read his thoughts, and caught the opportunity to let his head wander somewhere else "I hate to skip work for such futile motives; my weakness shouldn't obstruct my work" "Oooh yes, sorry Mr. Chief Prosecutor, the office will crumble on its own weight without you" Your hands kept cuddling him softly enough to stimulate his sleep.

Miles stayed still and silent, eyes closed, ignoring the pain in his head and everything else around, and inside his thoughts. He'll never recover, he knows that perfectly, but if the reserved treatment every time was like this, he could learn to handle better his trauma, and learn how to be properly thankful for what life is finally granting him, not just inflicting; you.

#ace attorney #ace attorney x reader #ace attorney headcanon #ace attorney headcanons #miles edgeworth #miles edgeworth headcanons #miles edgeworth x reader

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macrolit · 1 year ago

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NYT's Notable Books of 2023

Each year, we pore over thousands of new books, seeking out the best novels, memoirs, biographies, poetry collections, stories and more. Here are the standouts, selected by the staff of The New York Times Book Review.

AFTER SAPPHO by Selby Wynn Schwartz

Inspired by Sappho’s work, Schwartz’s debut novel offers an alternate history of creativity at the turn of the 20th century, one that centers queer women artists, writers and intellectuals who refused to accept society’s boundaries.

ALL THE SINNERS BLEED by S.A. Cosby

In his earlier thrillers, Cosby worked the outlaw side of the crime genre. In his new one — about a Black sheriff in a rural Southern town, searching for a serial killer who tortures Black children — he’s written a crackling good police procedural.

THE BEE STING by Paul Murray

In Murray’s boisterous tragicomic novel, a once wealthy Irish family struggles with both the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash and their own inner demons.

BIOGRAPHY OF X by Catherine Lacey

Lacey rewrites 20th-century U.S. history through the audacious fictional life story of X, a polarizing female performance artist who made her way from the South to New York City’s downtown art scene.

BIRNAM WOOD by Eleanor Catton

In this action-packed novel from a Booker Prize winner, a collective of activist gardeners crosses paths with a billionaire doomsday prepper on land they each want for different purposes.

BLACKOUTS by Justin Torres

This lyrical, genre-defying novel — winner of the 2023 National Book Award — explores what it means to be erased and how to persist after being wiped away.

BRIGHT YOUNG WOMEN by Jessica Knoll

In her third and most assured novel, Knoll shifts readers’ attention away from a notorious serial killer, Ted Bundy, and onto the lives — and deaths — of the women he killed. Perhaps for the first time in fiction, Knoll pooh-poohs Bundy's much ballyhooed intelligence, celebrating the promise and perspicacity of his victims instead.

CHAIN-GANG ALL-STARS by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

This satire — in which prison inmates duel on TV for a chance at freedom — makes readers complicit with the bloodthirsty fans sitting ringside. The fight scenes are so well written they demonstrate how easy it might be to accept a world this sick.

THE COVENANT OF WATER by Abraham Verghese

Verghese’s first novel since “Cutting for Stone” follows generations of a family across 77 years in southwestern India as they contend with political strife and other troubles — capped by a shocking discovery made by the matriarch’s granddaughter, a doctor.

CROOK MANIFESTO by Colson Whitehead

Returning to the world of his novel “Harlem Shuffle,” Whitehead again uses a crime story to illuminate a singular neighborhood at a tipping point — here, Harlem in the 1970s.

THE DELUGE by Stephen Markley

Markley’s second novel confronts the scale and gravity of climate change, tracking a cadre of scientists and activists from the gathering storm of the Obama years to the super-typhoons of future decades. Immersive and ambitious, the book shows the range of its author’s gifts: polyphonic narration, silken sentences and elaborate world-building.

EASTBOUND by Maylis de Kerangal

In de Kerangal’s brief, lyrical novel, translated by Jessica Moore, a young Russian soldier on a trans-Siberian train decides to desert and turns to a civilian passenger, a Frenchwoman, for help.

EMILY WILDE’S ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF FAERIES by Heather Fawcett

The world-building in this tale of a woman documenting a new kind of faerie is exquisite, and the characters are just as textured and richly drawn. This is the kind of folkloric fantasy that remembers the old, blood-ribboned source material about sacrifices and stolen children, but adds a modern gloss.

ENTER GHOST by Isabella Hammad

In Hammad’s second novel, a British Palestinian actor returns to her hometown in Israel to recover from a breakup and spend time with her family. Instead, she’s talked into joining a staging of “Hamlet” in the West Bank, where she has a political awakening.

FORBIDDEN NOTEBOOK by Alba de Céspedes

A best-selling novelist and prominent anti-Fascist in her native Italy, de Céspedes has lately fallen into unjust obscurity. Translated by Ann Goldstein, this elegant novel from the 1950s tells the story of a married mother, Valeria, whose life is transformed when she begins keeping a secret diary.

THE FRAUD by Zadie Smith

Based on a celebrated 19th-century trial in which the defendant was accused of impersonating a nobleman, Smith’s novel offers a vast panoply of London and the English countryside, and successfully locates the social controversies of an era in a handful of characters.

FROM FROM by Monica Youn

In her fourth book of verse, a svelte, intrepid foray into American racism, Youn turns a knowing eye on society’s love-hate relationship with what it sees as the “other.”

A GUEST IN THE HOUSE by Emily Carroll

After a lonely young woman marries a mild-mannered widower and moves into his home, she begins to wonder how his first wife actually died. This graphic novel alternates between black-and-white and overwhelming colors as it explores the mundane and the horrific.

THE HEAVEN & EARTH GROCERY STORE by James McBride

McBride’s latest, an intimate, big-hearted tale of community, opens with a human skeleton found in a well in the 1970s, and then flashes back to the past, to the ’20s and ’30s, to explore the town’s Black, Jewish and immigrant history.

HELLO BEAUTIFUL by Ann Napolitano

In her radiant fourth novel, Napolitano puts a fresh spin on the classic tale of four sisters and the man who joins their family. Take “Little Women,” move it to modern-day Chicago, add more intrigue, lots of basketball and a different kind of boy next door and you’ve got the bones of this thoroughly original story.

A HISTORY OF BURNING by Janika Oza

This remarkable debut novel tells the story of an extended Indo-Ugandan family that is displaced, settled and displaced again.

HOLLY by Stephen King

The scrappy private detective Holly Gibney (who appeared in “The Outsider” and several other novels) returns, this time taking on a missing-persons case that — in typical King fashion — unfolds into a tale of Dickensian proportions.

A HOUSE FOR ALICE by Diana Evans

This polyphonic novel traces one family’s reckoning after the patriarch dies in a fire, as his widow, a Nigerian immigrant, considers returning to her home country and the entire family re-examines the circumstances of their lives.

THE ILIAD by Homer

Emily Wilson’s propulsive new translation of the “Iliad” is buoyant and expressive; she wants this version to be read aloud, and it would certainly be fun to perform.

INK BLOOD SISTER SCRIBE by Emma Törzs

The sisters in Törzs's delightful debut have been raised to protect a collection of magic books that allow their keepers to do incredible things. Their story accelerates like a fugue, ably conducted to a tender conclusion.

KAIROS by Jenny Erpenbeck

This tale of a torrid, yearslong relationship between a young woman and a much older married man — translated from the German by Michael Hofmann — is both profound and moving.

KANTIKA by Elizabeth Graver

Inspired by the life of Graver’s maternal grandmother, this exquisitely imagined family saga spans cultures and continents as it traces the migrations of a Sephardic Jewish girl from turn-of-the-20th-century Constantinople to Barcelona, Havana and, finally, Queens, N.Y.

LAND OF MILK AND HONEY by C Pam Zhang

Zhang’s lush, keenly intelligent novel follows a chef who’s hired to cook for an “elite research community” in the Italian Alps, in a not-so-distant future where industrial-agricultural experiments in America’s heartland have blanketed the globe in a crop-smothering smog.

LONE WOMEN by Victor LaValle

The year is 1915, and the narrator of LaValle’s horror-tinged western has arrived in Montana to cultivate an unforgiving homestead. She’s looking for a fresh start as a single Black woman in a sparsely populated state, but the locked trunk she has in stow holds a terrifying secret.

MONICA by Daniel Clowes

In Clowes’s luminous new work, the titular character, abandoned by her mother as a child, endures a life of calamities before resolving to learn about her origins and track down her parents.

THE MOST SECRET MEMORY OF MEN by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr

Based on a true story and translated by Lara Vergnaud, Sarr’s novel — about a Senegalese writer brought low by a plagiarism scandal — asks sharp questions about the state of African literature in the West.

THE NEW NATURALS by Gabriel Bump

In Bump’s engrossing new novel, a young Black couple, mourning the loss of their newborn daughter and disillusioned with the world, start a utopian society — but tensions both internal and external soon threaten their dreams.

NORTH WOODS by Daniel Mason

Mason’s novel looks at the occupants of a single house in Massachusetts over several centuries, from colonial times to present day. An apple farmer, an abolitionist, a wealthy manufacturer: The book follows these lives and many others, with detours into natural history and crime reportage.

NOT EVEN THE DEAD by Juan Gómez Bárcena

An ex-conquistador in Spanish-ruled, 16th-century Mexico is asked to hunt down an Indigenous prophet in this novel by a leading writer in Spain, splendidly translated by Katie Whittemore. The epic search stretches across much of the continent and, as the author bends time and history, lasts centuries.

THE NURSERY by Szilvia Molnar

“I used to be a translator and now I am a milk bar.” So begins Molnar’s brilliant novel about a new mother falling apart within the four walls of her apartment.

OUR SHARE OF NIGHT by Mariana Enriquez

This dazzling, epic narrative, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell, is a bewitching brew of mystery and myth, peopled by mediums who can summon “the Darkness” for a secret society of wealthy occultists seeking to preserve consciousness after death.

PINEAPPLE STREET by Jenny Jackson

Jackson’s smart, dishy debut novel embeds readers in an upper-crust Brooklyn Heights family — its real estate, its secrets, its just-like-you-and-me problems. Does money buy happiness? “Pineapple Street” asks a better question: Does it buy honesty?

THE REFORMATORY by Tananarive Due

Due’s latest — about a Black boy, Robert, who is wrongfully sentenced to a fictionalized version of Florida’s infamous and brutal Dozier School — is both an incisive examination of the lingering traumas of racism and a gripping, ghost-filled horror novel. “The novel’s extended, layered denouement is so heart-smashingly good, it made me late for work,” Randy Boyagoda wrote in his review. “I couldn’t stop reading.”

THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS by Vajra Chandrasekera

Trained to kill by his mother and able to see demons, the protagonist of Chandrasekera’s stunning and lyrical novel flees his destiny as an assassin and winds up in a politically volatile metropolis.

SAME BED DIFFERENT DREAMS by Ed Park

Double agents, sinister corporations, slasher films, U.F.O.s — Park’s long-awaited second novel is packed to the gills with creative elements that enliven his acerbic, comedic and lyrical odyssey into Korean history and American paranoia.

TAKE WHAT YOU NEED by Idra Novey

This elegant novel resonates with implication beyond the taut contours of its central story line. In Novey’s deft hands, the complex relationship between a young woman and her former stepmother hints at the manifold divisions within America itself.

THIS OTHER EDEN by Paul Harding

In his latest novel, inspired by the true story of a devastating 1912 eviction in Maine that displaced an entire mixed-race fishing community, Harding turns that history into a lyrical tale about the fictional Apple Island on the cusp of destruction.

TOM LAKE by Ann Patchett

Locked down on the family’s northern Michigan cherry orchard, three sisters and their mother, a former actress whose long-ago summer fling went on to become a movie star, reflect on love and regret in Patchett’s quiet and reassuring Chekhovian novel.

THE UNSETTLED by Ayana Mathis

This novel follows three generations across time and place: a young mother trying to create a home for herself and her son in 1980s Philadelphia, and her mother, who is trying to save their Alabama hometown from white supremacists seeking to displace her from her land.

VICTORY CITY by Salman Rushdie

Rushdie’s new novel recounts the long life of Pampa Kampana, who creates an empire from magic seeds in 14th-century India. Her world is one of peace, where men and women are equal and all faiths welcome, but the story Rushdie tells is of a state that forever fails to live up to its ideals.

WE COULD BE SO GOOD by Cat Sebastian

This queer midcentury romance — about reporters who meet at work, become friends, move in together and fall in love — lingers on small, everyday acts like bringing home flowers with the groceries, things that loom large because they’re how we connect with others.

WESTERN LANE by Chetna Maroo

In this polished and disciplined debut novel, an 11-year-old Jain girl in London who has just lost her mother turns her attention to the game of squash — which in Maroo’s graceful telling becomes a way into the girl’s grief.

WITNESS by Jamel Brinkley

Set in Brooklyn, and featuring animal rescue workers, florists, volunteers, ghosts and UPS workers, Brinkley’s new collection meditates on what it means to see and be seen.

Y/N by Esther Yi

In this weird and wondrous novel, a bored young woman in thrall to a boy band buys a one-way ticket to Seoul.

YELLOWFACE by R.F. Kuang

Kuang’s first foray outside of the fantasy genre is a breezy and propulsive tale about a white woman who achieves tremendous literary success by stealing a manuscript from a recently deceased Asian friend and passing it off as her own.

#new york times #100 books #reading list #2023 #books #reading #have you read any of these titles?

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metamatar · 8 months ago

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Why do you always defend China like that? I mean I get the the world tries to do the red scare, but aren't you defending a nation state when you brush off every criticism? Or does the criticism like target things that hamper capitalists and the actual criticisms regarding China lie elsewhere?

"Always?" All I said India is worse than China on a reblog about censorship on the Monkey Man lmao. There's stuff on my blog this year critiquing: Chinese uselessness on Palestine, involvement in Congo and critiquing workers rights in China through the lens of Foxconn factories trying to replicate their model in India.

I'm getting accused of campism for saying that India's blood and soil fascism is way worse, more dangerous than Chinese high surveillance 'socialism with Chinese characteristics.' India is formenting religious pogroms. The average Chinese citizen is not lynching their neighbours and burning down their homes on suspicion of eating the wrong thing. For Netflix to distort and kowtow to rabid fascists when the United States is strengthening ties with India (for anti China reasons) is really dangerous, given how much influence organisations like the Hindu American Foundation have in US politics. The average Westerner hates China plenty. Liberals do however cluelessly support Indian origin politicians who are funded by the Sangh.

Look man. I'm Indian. India has, since the BJP came to power gotten worse on hunger indexes every year. For countries not at war, we have the highest rate of child hunger in the world: 1 in 5 children are wasting despite the economy growing 6% every year. Journalists are routinely jailed and die in there. Kashmir is still under curfew and internet blackouts. Whatever hysterical story you want to tell about China is reality in India too. Without any kind of economic prosperity.

Why do these lives not matter to you? Why does the fact that Indian govt is passing laws that would enable India to strip muslims of citizenship not seem urgent to you? Is it because you maybe only think that the lives of people only matter in so far as they can be weaponised in some kind of story aligning with american state department?

#hatemail

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thefirelookout · 4 months ago

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Dead silence

This post is an attempt to share or let out some of my complex feelings about the situation in Bangladesh.

We went to our city's protest yesterday. It was a silent, peaceful protest. The Bangladeshi student community here in Kingston stood in a human chain with placards. "Save Bangladesh student", yes grammatically wrong, yes, it assumes that young revolutionaries need saving, so on and so forth. The protest started and ended quietly. My non-Bangladeshi friends were a bit confused, since they're used to chanty protests for Palestine, or union picket lines with cars passing by, honking in support. There was more noise even for the Iranian protests, Zan Zendegi Azadi. The silence of a graveyard in this one, though.

Who cares about little old Bangladesh? I sometimes wonder. We're not in the eye of the middle eastern storm like Syria, Lebanon or Palestine are. We're not strategically important, we don't even have many natural resources like Sudan or Congo do. The Prime Minister visited China recently to ask for an aid or a loan, and came back pretty much empty handed. China isn't very interested in us. India has gotten what it needed to get, and can milk more out of us, but they can do the same with Nepal or Bhutan too. We're never in the headlines, the US or the West in general isn't interested in us at all. And Pakistan denies that the 1971 genocide ever happened.

Which is why, the world isn't missing our voices due to the internet blackout.

The voices were all over my Facebook newsfeed. Aunties and apus on Facebook live selling sarees, jewelry, crafts, elderly boomers sharing gardening tips, quick fixes or herbal remedies that they swear by, people sharing posts about cricket or which cricketer's wife wore what, food bloggers calling every possible dish juicy (be it a burger or the meat in biriyani), celebrity drama, political drama to the extent of what was allowed back home. That sort of thing.

Now, again, there's the silence of a graveyard over here. And I feel like screaming till I snap my vocal cords. Can you all please come back? Please? The silence is unbearable! Please! I won't judge you if you sell your wares! Please! I won't judge if you think turmeric water can act as a miracle detox! Please, please I won't say a word if your post about your stupid cricket match! Just something, please say something! I haven't seen a single one of you online. Please don't die, please stay safe. When the internet comes back, please, post about your vacations and your pets. Not the dead, please, don't post about the bodies. I can take a bit of silence but not more bodies please!

Speaking of bodies. There was an armoured vehicle, painted navy blue in the colours of the police (fuck them). And there was a body on top of it. Dead, obviously, very dead, because it flopped down with the slightest nudge, and was left on the streets. Before that happened, the vehicle drove about as if parading its spoils of war, with the body on top. Sending a message. This will happen to you if you raise your voice.

That image has been haunting me for two nights now. So yeah, I'm not man enough to get some incisive political analysis out. I have no either or predictions for what happens if the regime falls or doesn't fall. My body feels numb, I've been binge eating because I still have food in the house and I won't be gunned down if I go out to get groceries now. My non-Bangladeshi friends, bless their first world hearts, have never had to live under fascism. Bless their hearts, have never had to stifle their voices to the extent that we've had to. Bless their beautiful hearts, could hardly pronounce Bangladesh. But they still showed up to that docile little protest because they care about my spouse and I. I can't even begin to thank them.

My insides are tearing up. I'm sitting with a poker face typing all this word vomit, but my insides are nothing but a scream. No clever realpolitik comes out of a heart that's screaming, because our mouths are sewn shut.

#bangladesh #student protests #quota movement #all eyes on bangladesh

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ultfreakme · 10 months ago

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Freeing Palestine is India's fight

I've seen lots of posts about how Western countries and their populations should be concerned for stopping the genocide in Palestine but Indians are involved in this as well.

India has a HUGE Islamophobia problem, from the day India became what it is, this country exists the way it does through conflict regarding religious majorities and it is a problem we must acknowledge.

Collective punishment has often been carried out indiscriminately against Muslims in India- Muslim people's houses in Madhya Pradesh have been demolished without warning. This has also happened in Uttar Pradesh and in 2023, Haryana(300 businesses and homes). These were all normal innocent civilians who had proper legal paperwork showing their purchase and ownership of their home and land, but the police did not care. In many of these instances the police stood by and were involved in demolition and all of these were under BJP-majority and ruled areas. The recent Ram Mandir was built on the demolished land of Babri Masjid(it was built in the 14th century before India as it was even a THING, its destruction & demolition on the claim that it was Ram's birth place is unfair). Hate crimes against Muslims run amok and there are multiple cases of violence against Muslims in India.

PM Modi of the BJP party has been consistent in maintaining positive relations with Benjamin Netanyahu and the occupying force of Israel. A majority of the military equipment for India comes from Israel, and India has constantly been neutral in UN council meetings when decisions regarding Israel are brought up. A spyware called Pegasus, developed by the occupying force of Israel was used to surveil politicians, journalists, activists etc severely breaching right to privacy and threatening freedom of speech.

Worse; India has been using the Israeli strategy of colonizing Palestine with Kashmir. Jammu & Kashmir is a union territory which basically means they are allowed to function independently on most fronts but India has been seeking to integrate J&K into itself and has been extremely hostile to its Muslim citizens and are currently intensifying their occupation efforts. There have been consistent internet and communication blackouts since 2018 and it is STILL ongoing.

India invited Israeli officials to Kashmir to open 'Centers of Excellence' which are supposedly for agricultural innovation but everyone in J&K are concerned and see it as India taking an opportunity to intensify its occupation with Israeli help.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, several Kashmiris told Middle East Eye the Israeli agriculture hubs would deepen India's occupation in the region and accelerate its settler-colonial project. "Earlier, we would draw the parallels between Kashmir and Palestine or India's intimate alliance with Israel. But now they are bringing Israel to the Valley in the form of these institutions - which will be "agro-oriented" in name - but we all know that Israel will physically help India in Kashmir to turn it into a proper Palestine," a Kashmiri academic based in Istanbul told Middle East Eye.

In 2016 Coalition of Civil Society said there are more than 8000 'disappearances' of people in J&K. There are mass graves with over 2000 bodies being found with these unlawful activities being attributed to the Indian Security Forces. That's just scratching the surface of decades of violence and human rights violations enacted by India.

BJP is not shy about its ties to the RSS and promotes Hindutva(I've seen people citing the literal meaning of the word as evidence that it is harmless but the word is a label given to an embraced by extreme right-wing groups who are open about their Islamaphobia. Meaning of the word becomes pointless when actions speak otherwise).

India is an occupying force on J&K, it's suppressing Muslims, demonizing them and further marginalizing them in the name of 'Hinduism'. It buys from Israel and endorses them. As Indians, it is key that we do whatever we can to stop the genocide because we are unwittingly being used to fuel this and are being radicalized to hate on our neighbors, the people we share our land and history with.

Even outside of the ways in which the current government is shamelessly supporting Israel, India's history is rife with colonization. The British had occupied us, forced us into fighting each other, into prioritizing meaningless differences to suppress each other. We were once starved by occupying forces, violated, killed. Our land is also covered in blood shed by colonization.

What are we doing if we don't speak up? If we don't stop this? Do not follow the propaganda conflating extreme right-wing ideologies with the identity of being Indian. Don't buy into the idea that India is "for Hindus", we are so ridiculously diverse, there are 100s of languages and religions in this country.

Free Jammu & Kashmir, free Palestine, stop Islamophobia.

#palestine #free gaza #desiblr #desi tumblr #gaza strip #free palestine #islamphobia #I have no special patriotism for my country but if that's the identity i'm forced into i'm going to stand up for Palestine #I am aware that Kashmiri Hindus have also experienced multiple hate crimes and were forced out and it had been classified as ethnic cleansi #but the fact that happened should only fuel you more to STOP the occupation & violence against muslims in J&K #absolutely nothing justifies genocide- nothing

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royaloak-furniture · 3 months ago

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Why do people use blinds instead of curtains?

For a variety of functional and decorative reasons, people frequently select blinds over curtains. With the ability to precisely control the quantity of sunlight that enters your room or to entirely block it out, blinds provide you with greater privacy and light management. It is this flexibility that curtains are unable to match.

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If you're thinking about upgrading your window treatments, checking out the selection of blinds at Royaloak online furniture store could be a good place to start. They provide elegant and inexpensive solutions for any home.

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pardewale · 7 months ago

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writingforatwistedworld · 2 years ago

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Hello dear!💜 My request for the alphabet event is for Silver- A, K, U Idia- I, X, C Deuce - I, B, U I'll send another one, probably, so I'll be right back~

I do not take any responsibility for you reading this no matter which age group you are from!

WARNINGS: Yandere themes, kidnapping, imprisonment, violence, blood, murder, death, manipulation, stalking, spoilers for masquerade event in Silvers part

Deuce Spades-I, B, U/Idia Shroud-I, X, C/Silver- A, K, U

Blood: How messy are they willing to get when it comes to their darling?

Mind washing that stain?

Deuce having a violent background is no big secret

So yeah, of course he is capable of some damage

And he gets quicker too since he has started using magic for it again

You want to be crushed by a huge cauldron? No? Thought so

It's also very messy

“Why is there a knife in your bag?” “Hm? There is one?”

Since he has started becoming more violent again he has started to cross lines he didn't cross before

A shiny bit of metal has me er hurt? Right?

Yeah tell that that one student who accidentally bumped into you

Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

A peaceful one

Deuce wants to be the best person he can be

It's just sometimes a bit hard...

You know, keeping others away from you... accidentally breaking someone's leg

Surprisingly no one has found that one body yet

A family with you

Even if you can't have children I can see him wanting that warmth

So one day you might wake up just to see a kid sitting at the end of the bed all whilst shaking

“I found our child! Aren't they the cutest.”

Mhm Deuce went full kidnapper here

And since he is so delusional he really thinks that they are your child

Good luck

One where you can be uninterrupted

Deuce hates it when people are even breathing the same air as you

This has led to some not so pretty scenes

Don't ask about that red paint, its just from painting the roses

Mhm. Sure. “Paint”

One where he doesn't have to lie to you

Keeping you away from others is a bit hard and there is really no reason why you should stay away from people

Well, unless we take Deuces feelings into account

So he lies. Lies that everyone is after you. Lies that they are disgusted by your mere presence since you are from a different world

He is also very delusional here, after some time he believes that he is some sort of protector

Unique: Would they do anything different from the classic yandere?

What is special about his uh... “infatuation” is how much he is in denial

Despite him being definitely one of the more violent ones he doesn't think that he does this out of selfish goals

“This is all for them and their protection!” Yeah. No. Deuce, no.

He once had a blackout moment and when he woke up again there was a freshly covered hole in the middle of the woods

His ability to fool you unknowingly

Deuce truly believes that he is doing this for your good

And you know what is worse than a manipulative liar? One that actually believes their words

There is just no way of disproving them from their logic

Hang in there

I'm sure one day you can slip out... hopefully

Cruelty: How would they treat their darling once abducted? Would they mock them?

He isn't cruel physically, “just” mentally

India is a shut-in, one on a completely different level than most

So he doesn't understand

Why do you need to go out? Everything you need is here

But he would never purposefully hurt you

Well, the only time would be if you ever were to escape but that is a different can of worms

Is overall very gentle but...

He rarely does something with you

Physically at least

The cameras are a different story

This of course adds to your own personal hell

It's already bad enough to be imprisoned here but also to be monitored every second? Not sure how good that is for your mental health...

Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

One where you are never to leave him

Idia is very aware that his actions aren't the best if not to say horrid

But being with you is so addicting... give hi. More of your presence

You are his God and Idia is nothing more than a lonely soul hoping that his prayer might reach you

Which prayers? Prayers of your neverending love of course

A future in which you can also be happy

It's already bad for you but it's also not a walk in a flower field for him

Idia is very sensitive to the feelings of those around him

So is it that hard to believe that he wishes for you to be happy as well?

Now that I think about it, this might be more selfish than originally thought....

A future in which he can trust you without constantly watching you

Idia doesn't know what he would do if you were ever to escape

But there is that wish that maybe one day you would accept your situation

And maybe love him back? That would be a dream come true

A future in which he can finally forget the fire

Idia might have burned someone to the ground

But hey, what was he supposed to do?

They were about to tell you how much they adored you

And, well, his hair is pretty expressive, wouldn't you agree?

That doesn't mean he won't have nightmares from that

One day you might hold him whilst he sleeps, making him forget the pair of eyes staring back at him whilst flesh and bone melted into nothingness

Xoanon: How much would they revere or worship their darling? To what length would they go to win their darling over?

Neverending devotion

Idia grew up in a place where you were a literal God

So yeah, you might be able to imagine how he sees you

But when you ask him when he will finally let you go he will start to cower in front of you whilst clawing at the skin of your legs

Has he done something wrong? It's his fault, right? Of course it is! Y-you are bleeding! Oh what has he done??! He is worth of no-

Please hug him. No matter how much you hate him at that point just do it

Self-sacrifice

Idia wants nothing but a teeny tiny bit of your love

So when you tell him you want something he will find and get it

Even if it means not sleeping for an entire week he will do it

So unless it's something simple I wouldn't recommend ever telling him when you want something

Affection: How do they show their love and affection? How intense would it get?

Once upon a dream

Silver often tells you that he dreamt of you once more

This man will spend every single hour of his existence at least thinking about you

And you can even tell that he is dreaming about you

If his occasional murmuring of your name doesn't give you the clue then that he hugs his pillow close to him, clutching it, almost ripping it

Just how he forces his hugs onto you

Giving you always his attention

Lilia wants something? That can wait

Right now he has you in his arms

It's already hard enough to keep himself awake with how warm you are but once that phase of you fighting against him has passed you even pat his back sometimes

And that is not all

You just need to call out the three first letters of his name and he is there

It's almost like he is always watching you

Acts of service

“Aww how cute!” No.

I mean yes if this was a normal relationship

But here you two are, him having literally kidnapped you

But if there is something he can do he will do it

You are hungry? There is an entire four courses meal prepared

You are tired? No need to worry. Not only does he understand how you feel right now but also will carry you to bed and tuck you in

And this is where the creepy part starts

You may think “He just prepares some food and carries you”, right?

Wrong, when he carried you to bed for the first time he had even changed your clothing without asking you first

And when he cooks and you don't look like you are inhaling the food because of how good it is he will look like a kicked puppy

Boundaries just don't exist

If you tell him that something makes you uncomfortable though then he will stop it

Well, unless it's about the hugs and sharing warmth, there is no stopping him

Kisses: How do they act around or with their darling?

In public

He lets you out? Uh... Somewhere between yes and no

Silver is aware of how much a human needs interaction with others

But when you are outside for your half an hour walk he is staring so intense that everyone is avoiding you

He is more like a guard than a loving lover outside

But there is just no way he could let others come too close. What if they were to hurt you??!

You two holding hands? Yes but only so that you don't run off and so that the rope binding you to him isn't easy to spot

How cute you two are

In private

That glare? Mhm gone

But so are also the boundaries he had in public

Suddenly it's back to keeping you close

There just is no escape from him

Even if you had the keys to this house you would constantly be held by him, making it impossible to leave

Just tell him that he needs to wear thinner clothes. He can get pretty warm if they are too thick

Best comparison is eating too many sweets

His affection is the sweets but it's just so much sugar that it melts your teeth away

Unique: Would they do anything different from the classic yandere?

Him not understanding lines that shouldn't be crossed

It's almost ironic

He understands that humans need certain things like interactions

But he seems to forget that you shouldnt force yourself on one

Its almost like he ignores some things

But that can't be, right?

His way of making you dependent on him

Silver willies certain spells and potions that make you dream of him

If you tell a person long enough that they feel a certain way they start to believe it

So you either have nerves of steel and hold on until another one of them snatches you away (Frollo could be a pretty good candidate for that with his little botanic talent) or you are a lost cause

“Once upon a dream”, huh...

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argyrocratie · 1 year ago

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"The largest, quickest, and most devastating pandemic in all of human history was the influenza epidemic whose first of three waves began in Kansas in March 1918, and recurred in ever widening and more mortal forms in the autumn and the winter. Yet, this epidemic is distinguished from others by a second reason, the historical amnesia - a virtual blackout of memory - that has greeted it in subsequent generations. Its historian summarizes: "Nothing else - no infection, no war, no famine - has ever killed so many in as short a period. And yet it has never inspired awe."

Between 22 and 30 million people were killed in a year. Half a million of these were in the United States whose troop-ships carrying young men to the Western Front of Europe during World War I, in conditions that were floating test tubes of the virus, brought the 'flu to France, then Germany, England, and Russia, and from the European continent the virus was transmitted along the sea-lanes of European imperialism to Latin America, to West Africa, to India (where 12 million died), to China, Japan, and the Pacific islands. More were killed by the epidemic than were killed by the Civil War or World War I Which Robert Graves called "the Sausage Machine, because it was fed with men, churned out corpses, and remained firmly screwed in place."

The age specific mortality curve of the epidemic was shaped more like a 'W' than a 'U' which is to say that those in the strong middle years of life were as affected, and more so, than the very young or very old. This characteristic deeply worried the official macroparasitic institutions which relied on those in their middle years to produce, to reproduce, and to fight. To them, not so much life, as production and reproduction was the worry. Henry Cabot Lodge was concerned about the productivity of munitions plants. In March 1,000 workers at the Ford Motor Company fell sick. The number of rivets driven per day at the Philadelphia shipyards fell at a rate that alarmed the war producers. The equivalent of two combat divisions of the AEF, or the American Expeditionary Force ("Ass End First"), were incapacitated in France. 40% of U.S. Navy personnel were affected. 37 life insurance companies omitted or reduced their annual stock dividends. The macroparasites and the microparasite were thus in mortal competition for the bodies of the healthy ones in middle life, and that for another reason too. As an air-borne infection, "the rich died as readily as the poor."

(...)

500 were arrested in New York on "Spitless Sunday." Large gatherings were prohibited. Telephone booths were padlocked. Public water fountains were closed. In San Francisco face masks were required to be worn. Cash tellers were equipped with finger bowls. A municipal ordinance of Prescott, Arizona, adopted a suggestion from an obscure newspaper by the Fascist, Benito Mussolini, making it a crime to shake hands. The Army Surgeon General reported that "civilization could easily disappear from the earth."

The middle point of the 'W' grew and as a result the famous 'Lost Generation' of despairing American writers came into being, and yet with the exception of Katherine Anne Porter none wrote about the 'flu epidemic. Was this massive, social, denial? Was this male chauvinism? Was this a sequela of the disease's "profound systemic depression"? They are important, unanswered questions.

Katherine Anne Porter synthesized the times, the creation of the 'new man,' and the 'new woman.' As Prohibition loomed guys started sporting hip flasks, and the new woman took up the cigarette - alcohol and nicotine, traditional responses, since the 1790s, towards epidemics. The government-issue wristwatch became the emblem of the urban individual; it became essential to the urban-and-factory planning of the Twenties. The government drive for money (War Bonds) was the only occasion of permitted gathering, and that under the slogan "Give 'till it Hurts." Indeed, "Sacrifice" was the watchword for the soldier and the 'new' woman alike: give money, give your time, give your labor, give you life."

-Peter Linebaugh, "Lizard Talk: Or, Ten Plagues and Another - An Historical Reprise in Celebration of the Anniversary of Boston ACT UP" (1989)

#peter linebaugh #influenza epidemic

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