#name negotiations have been ongoing

[metamorphesque]

Considering the blissful ignorance with which Armenia is treated by the foreign press, I’ve taken it upon myself to keep you (those who care) updated on what needs to be known.

BACKGROUND

Following years of violations of ceasefire and intimidation against Armenian civilians, Azeri military forces used massive force in September 2020 to invade and occupy two-thirds of Nagorno-Karabakh. In September 2023, Azeri military forces took over the remaining territory, contradicting previously agreed-to negotiations and statements (OSCE peace negotiations, trilateral statements 2020,2021).

While an ethnic cleansing was taking place, the Azeri government arrested eight former members of the Republic’s government and advocates for the self-determination of Artsakh. Those detained include Ruben Vardanyan, an Armenian businessman and philanthropist who served as the State Minister of the Artsakh government.

Mr. Vardanyan and the seven others join over 50 Armenians arrested during the conflict, some of whom have been held for years by Azerbaijan. The negligible information on the health and well-being of these prisoners is deeply concerning.

Ruben Vardanyan

In addition to being the State Minister of the Artsakh government, Ruben Vardanyan is an influential Armenian philanthropist who in 2024 was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize for the creation and support for around five dozen new and unprecedented educational, charitable, scientific and humanitarian structures not only in Armenia, but also in a number of other countries.

Mr. Vardanyan has been charged with financing terrorism, although the legal situation for him and the others remains unclear and lacks transparency. The charges levied against him are considered completely unsubstantiated and are seen as an act of political retribution.

For this reason, it appears Azerbaijan is holding him as a political prisoner, hindering his ongoing projects and suppressing a voice advocating for progressive and positive change.

“We are gravely concerned about my father’s deteriorating health, though we are not surprised by his bravery," said David Vardanyan, one of Mr. Vardanyan's sons. "Despite our initial relief, my father’s conditions are only worsening. The world has shown Azerbaijan that it is watching the fate of the Armenian prisoners, including my father, and from our family I want to thank everyone for their support at this difficult time. I hope that this growing international attention may lead to his release in the nearest future. We urge the international community to further increase the pressure on Azerbaijan to ensure that at least his trial takes place in May 2024 with international observers.” The State Department’s annual Human Rights Report, released on April 23, corroborated the unjust conditions that Mr. Vardanyan and other political prisoners and detainees face in Azerbaijan. The report on Azerbaijan estimated that the country held approximately 254 political prisoners and detainees as of December 2023. The judiciary was also described as largely corrupt, inefficient, and lacking independence. According to the report, defendants in Azerbaijan were often “denied the right to a presumption of innocence; a fair, timely, and public trial; to communicate with an attorney of their choice; to have adequate time and facilities to prepare a defense; to confront witnesses and present one’s own witnesses and evidence; and not be compelled to testify or confess guilt.”

Today Azerbaijan has extended the detention period of Ruben Vardanyan by 5 months.

HELP FREE RUBEN VARDANYAN Join the international community in calling for Ruben Vardanyan’s release alongside the other Armenians being held in Baku, Azerbaijan.

TAKE ACTION by adding your name to THE LIST of supporters.

[anti-workshop]

Hey US friends! Ok, so obviously the voting discourse on here is vile. We don't know who's a psyop, who's a bot etc. Also people are legitimately pissed at the failures of the system to actually represent us in any meaningful way, and livid about the myriad ongoing genocides being committed with our money, in our name.

So, I'm not going to tell you what to do in November.

Before November, after November, NOW, for the love of God, please fucking organize at your jobs. That is probably the only place you can actually exercise real, direct power.

Voting is one very very small way to exercise indirect power. It's saying, "ok I am giving power to you, other person/people, now please do what you said you would that enticed me to give you this power in the first place."

Direct power is saying "Fuck you, no. We're doing this." and then doing that.

Organizing is hard and it takes time and you have to learn how to do it well, or it doesn't work. But when it works it works really fucking well. And when we organize a lot of us, we can win everything.

Y'all know I'm in the IWW. Right now the union is struggling with some administrative bs, same old story it's always been a messy organization. Doesn't matter. Branches and Unions in the IWW are autonomous to organize how they want to. It's a structure you can use if you want, to organize well. That's the route I'm taking because I trust and respect the people in my local, and I desperately want to help build worker power in my city and I'll do anything to help that.

You don't have to join an org, but please take a training on organizing and start organizing. The IWW has an intensive, 16 hour training that is free called the OT101. We feed you 4 meals and teach you how to organize to win. The training is even fun!

If there are unions in your area, or a labor council, reach out to them too, they regularly have organizing trainings! Theirs are more geared to getting contract negotiations, which in my opinion isn't the main goal, but training is always good and helpful.

But please please please, you have to organize your jobs. That's where we have them by the balls. They need us to run this shit, everything runs because we make it run.

Yes, they can fire you if you organize or get uppity. Yeah, right now that's illegal but probably won't be for long. Guess what, they have to hire someone to replace you! If that worker is also organizing, the bosses are fucked and we win!

The other thing is everyone can organize! My ass is disabled, decrepit, a major depressive and I can do it! You can too! You're not alone! That's the whole point! We can't do shit alone, we need each other and when we have each others' backs we can get shit done.

We all can see with our own eyes that shit is bad, it's been bad forever and it's going to get worse before it gets better and the only way it gets better is us making it better.

If you're in Milwaukee, or Wisconsin, or fuck generally the Midwest feel free to reach out to me and I will personally get you set up in an OT101 here. Get yourself here and we'll put you up somewhere, feed you, train you, get your connected to people in your area who are also organizing and build through from there.

Solidarity is where we have power, so let's use it.

[mxcottonsocks]

Reading Like A Victorian

A while ago, I discovered the website 'Reading Like a Victorian', a digital humanities project from The Ohio State University and collaborators.

Since tumblr's been going through a bit of a serial-literature revival, I thought I would share...

Here are some extracts from the website's 'About Us':

RLV is an interactive timeline of the Victorian period. It focuses on serialized novels [...] and adds volume-format publications for context. 

When we read Victorian novels today, we do not read them in the form in which they originally came out. Most Victorian novels appeared either as “triple deckers,” three volumes released at one time, or as serials published monthly or weekly in periodicals or in pamphlet form. Serialized novels’ regularly timed, intermittent appearance made for a reading experience resembling what we do when we are awaiting the next weekly episode of Game of Thrones, watching installments of other TV serials in the meantime. Whenever we pick up a Penguin or Oxford paperback of a Victorian novel today, we are engaged in the equivalent of binge-watching a series that has already reached its broadcast ending [and is] a very different experience from what Victorian audiences were doing with novels. Reading Like a Victorian reproduces the “serial moment” experienced by Victorian readers [...]

More info and screenshots and so on below the cut:

[...] if reading serial installments at their original pace is valuable, it is even more valuable to read them alongside parts of novels and of other kinds of texts that Victorian readers could have been following at the same time [...] [...] a reader who, in 1847, had been following the part issues of both Dickens’s Dombey and Son and Thackeray’s Vanity Fair and then picked up Jane Eyre, published in volume form in October of that year, might notice in Florence Dombey, Becky Sharp, and Jane Eyre a pattern of motherless or orphaned girls trying to negotiate a hostile world on their own. While this figure is well known to be a character type in Victorian fiction perfectly embodied by Jane Eyre and Florence Dombey, Becky Sharp does not often emerge among the heroines who fit that type; reading the novels simultaneously foregrounds parallels between Becky, Florence, and Jane that are not at all obvious if their storylines are experienced separately

I find that, for browsing, the website is easier to use on a computer or tablet than a phone, but it's ok on phone to search for something specific.

The timeline:

Here's what the timeline looks like:

It shows 12 months at a time, and using the left and right arrows will move you back or forward by a month. You can use the 'Jump To Date' function to navigate to a different twelve-month period. Or you can use the 'Author Search' function to navigate to particular works if you know the author's name.

In the above screenshot of the timeline, which shows the period January to December 1852, there are several works shown, including:

ongoing serialised works which had at least one installment published prior to 1852;

works which began serialisation during 1852;

works published in three-volume format during 1852;

other works published during 1852

Details about each work:

You can click on the bar that represents a book's publication to get a drop-down that provides information about that book, its publication, and links to help you read the relevant serial parts.

Here's what happens if you click on Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford:

On the left of the drop-down, there's some general information about the work, its publication history, and how to use the links.

On the right, there's information and links to help you experience the book in its serial parts: it separates out the parts, indicates the month and the year they were published, and what chapters of the work were published in that part. It also provides notes on each part where helpful. There is a scroll-bar at the right of the drop-down, so you can scroll down to the later installments of the work.

[I chose Cranford as an example as it helps demonstrate the value of the Reading Like a Victorian website... From what I understand, Gaskell initially wrote 'Our Society at Cranford' as a standalone piece of short fiction, but was encouraged to write more, so further pieces also set in the fictional town of Cranford were published intermittently in the same magazine over the next year or so. While a particularly dedicated Gaskell fan who wanted to 'read along' with Cranford following the original publication could probably search 1.5-years-worth of a weekly magazine to find the 9 issues which included the material which would later be published as Cranford, the Reading Like a Victorian website has already done that work for them... and also for anyone else who might be interested, but not quite that interested.]

The links

You can then click on an individual chapter to get links to various places to read it online:

When available / where possible, the website tends to include links to:

a facsimile copy of either the relevant serial part in the original publication, or in an 'annual' or similar volume collecting together the content of that publication, or a volume-form edition of that work if the work was not published serially or if facsimile copies of the original serialised publication are not available. [Most of the facsimiles are hosted by either the Internet Archive or the Hathi Trust Digital Library, but some are hosted as part of smaller, more specific collections, such as - in the case of Cranford - Dickens Journals Online which provides online access to the journals/magazines edited by Charles Dickens);

the text, usually on Project Gutenberg (this is usually the volume-form text, so the exact content and chapter breaks and so on may be different than originally published in serial parts; the Reading Like A Victorian website will generally explain when this is the case);

audio recordings, usually volunteer recordings from Librivox (again, the recordings are usually based on the volume-form text, so the exact content and chapter breaks and so on may be slightly different than originally published in the serial parts).

So yeah, I just thought it was a cool website and worth sharing. I believe the website is already used as a resource by some University courses and for academic research, but it can also be used by book clubs and to aid personal reading, etc. I'm using it to inform a personal reading project for 2024-26 where I follow along with six or seven novels serialised in 1864-66.

To save a scroll to the top, here's the link to the RLV website again: Reading Like A Victorian (osu.edu)

[If you want to join an already-planned read-along based on the original serialisation schedule, @dickensdaily will be doing Charles Dickens's historical novel Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty from mid-February 2024 to late-November 2024, to follow along with the original weekly publication of the novel in Master Humphreys Clock from February 1841 to November 1841. I personally found Barnaby Rudge a really engaging, thought-provoking read, and I'm really looking forward to reading it again. (Anyone with particular triggers or other reasons to be wary of the content or language used in older books may find it helpful to look up content warnings for the book before making a decision to read it.)]

[workersolidarity]

[ 📹 Insane scenes of contradictions as an Israeli occupation F-16 drops bombs on civilians in the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, it is immediately followed by a second plane which air drops humanitarian aid for civilians being bombed to death. 📈 The death toll in Gaza rises again, now exceeding 36'379 Palestinians killed, while another 82'407 others have been wounded since Oct. 7th. ]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨

DAY 239 OF "ISRAEL'S" GENOCIDE IN GAZA: PALESTINIAN CHILD DIES OF STARVATION, ISRAELI OCCUPATION ARMY ADMITS 36 PALESTINIANS DIED IN THE CUSTODY OF OCCUPATION PRISONS SINCE OCT. 7TH, NETANYAHU SAYS NO CEASEFIRE UNTIL HAMAS IS DESTROYED, 70 BODIES RECOVERED FROM JABALIA CAMP, MASS MURDER ONGOING IN GAZA

On 239th day of the Israeli occupation's ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 5 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 95 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, while another 350 others were wounded over the previous 24-hours.

It should be noted that as a result of the constant Israeli bombardment of Gaza's healthcare system, infrastructure, residential and commercial buildings, local paramedic and civil defense crews are unable to recover countless hundreds, even thousands, of victims who remain trapped under the rubble, or who's bodies remain strewn across the streets of Gaza.

This leaves the official death toll vastly undercounted, as Gaza's healthcare officials are unable to accurately tally those killed and maimed in this genocide, which must be kept in mind when considering the scale of the mass murder.

"Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: The destruction of Hamas military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages, and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel."

Those are the words of Israeli occupation Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who refuses to negotiate a ceasefire deal as long as Hamas retains the ability to govern the Gaza Strip and retains military capabilities.

“Israel will continue to insist these conditions are met before a permanent ceasefire is put in place. The notion that Israel will agree to a permanent ceasefire before these conditions are fulfilled is a non-starter,” Netanyahu added.

His comments come after US President Joe Biden gave a speech on Friday outlining terms submitted by the negotiators for the Israeli occupation in an attempt to pressure both sides into accepting the Israeli-proposed deal.

As negotiations have continued for months, Israeli negotiators have repeatedly put ideas on the table before the Prime Minister shelves the proposals with his comments, seeking instead the complete destruction of Hamas and Gaza, and using ongoing negotiations to buy time for continued ethnic cleansing operations in the Strip.

In other news, in an article published by the Associated Press, the Israeli military's medical corps told the AP's correspondant that "36 people from Gaza have died in Israel's detention centers since October 7th."

Of those, at least "some died from medical negligence," according to Physicians for Human Rights- Israel.

The Israeli occupation has detained some 4'000 Palestinians since October 7th, releasing roughly 1'500 after it was determined many of the detainees were not associated with Hamas or other Palestinian resistance factions.

Meanwhile, another Palestinian child has died of starvation as a result of the occupation's ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip.

According to local reporting, a 13 year-old Palestinian child named Abdul Qader Al-Sarhi has died at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, due to malnutrition and dehydration.

The latest starvation death marks the 37th case of a Palestinian dying as a result of starvation and dehydration.

The healthcare situation in the Gaza Strip has become catastrophic over the last several weeks as the Israeli occupation forces closed the Rafah border crossing to humanitarian aid convoys, while at the same time, occupation bombing, shelling and ground operations have put all hospitals in the Rafah Governate out of service, and closed nearly all hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip as well.

Meanwhile in the north of Gaza, local Civil Defense crews announced the recovery of more than 70 decomposing corpses of Palestinians killed by the Israeli occupation army during its 20-day-long siege of the Jabalia Camp.

Civil Defense spokesperson, Mahmoud Basal, said in a statement that “Our crews recovered more than 70 martyrs, most of them women and children, from Jabalia camp," adding that "these include about 30 martyrs from the Asalia family alone, 22 of whom are children and women."

Basal continued by saying “Our crews have not finished their work yet in Jabalia, and are continuing to search for more martyrs under the rubble of destroyed homes.”

He went on to describe the Jabalia Camp as a "disaster area", resulting from occupation shelling, bombing, missile and drone strikes, and its purposeful burning of, and detonations of, local residential buildings.

“The occupation destroyed the infrastructure in Jabalia and its surroundings, as water, sewage, and electricity networks, schools, health facilities, and dozens of homes were destroyed," Basal continued, pointing out that “the occupation forces also destroyed the main electrical generators in Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip.”

Basal concluded by adding that “the occupation destroyed the fifth floor of Al Awda Hospital in Jabalia.”

At the same time, the Israeli occupation continues its invasion of Rafah, with Merkava tanks and other armored vehicles advancing into central Rafah where intense battles with the Palestinian resistance factions continue to rage, and as Israeli bombs and missiles continue to pummel residential buildings and local infrastructure, including healthcare infrastructure, wreaking havoc on the local population.

Occupation bombing, shelling and gunfire also continues in central and northern Gaza, continuing to target civilian housing and infrastructure.

IOF fighter jets conducted a firebelt today on the town of Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip, while in Gaza City, occupation warplanes bombed a residential home belonging to the Al-Haddad family, on Al-Jalaa Street near the Al-Ghafri Junction, resulting in the deaths of three civilians, including journalist Ola Al-Dahdouh and wounding several others, including her husband and child.

In another airstrike, occupation forces bombed in the vicinity of the Salah al-Din Mosque, in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City, killing three Palestinians and wounding several others who were taken to Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in the city.

The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) also bombarded the vicinity of the University College, killing and wounding several Palestinians.

At the same time, in Gaza's south, Zionist occupation forces bombed several civilian residences in Sultan Hill, west of Rafah, including at least one inhabited home, resulting in a number of casualties.

Witnesses say occupation forces on the ground open fire on anyone or anything that moves in the residential neighborhoods of Rafah they occupy.

Another four civilians were killed near Lafat Badr, north of Rafah, after the Israeli occupation fired several artillery shells into the neighborhood, while occupation ground forces continue detonating homes in neighborhoods east of Rafah.

In central Gaza, Zionist warplanes bombed a residential house belonging to the Al-Sharif family in the Bureij Refugee Camp, along with bombing a second home in the camp, while the body of a civilian killed in occupation bombing was discovered near the sea in the Nuseirat Camp.

As a result of the Israeli occupation's ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the death toll among the local population has risen to exceed 36'379 Palestinians killed, including over 15'000 children and 10'000 women, while another 82'407 others have been wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression, beginning with the events of October 7th, 2023.

June 1st, 2024.

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#videosource

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[acourtofthought]

Elain and her Father

He was smiling mildly at his beloved Elain, the only one of us who bothered to really speak to him at all.

My father smiled freely, laughed readily, and doted on Elain, who in turn doted on him.

Elain quietly washed his face. Combed out his hair and beard. Straightened his clothes. She found flowers—somewhere. She laid them at his head, on his chest. We stared down at him in silence. ��I love you,” Elain whispered, voice breaking.

Tears slid down Elain’s pallid cheeks as she adjusted an errant flower on our father’s chest, white-petaled and delicate, and then backed away to my side with a nod.

Like the rest of us, Elain’s recovery was ongoing. She’d wept for hours the day I’d taken her to a wildflower-covered hill on the outskirts of the city—to the marble headstone I’d had erected there in honor of our father. I’d turned his body to ashes after the King of Hybern had killed him, but he still deserved a resting place. For all he’d done in the end, he deserved the beautiful stone I’d had carved with his name. And Elain had deserved a place to visit with him, talk with him. She went at least once a month.

had a portrait on the wall along one side of the grand staircase: him and Elain, smiling and happy, as they’d been before the world went to shit. Sitting on a stone bench amid bushes bursting with pink and blue hydrangea. The formal gardens of their first home, that lovely manor near the sea.

Elain went forward, whispered a few things to their father’s grave,

Cassian about Papa Archeron:

Feyre’s father … and Nesta’s father. Cassian blocked out the memory of the man’s neck being snapped. Of Nesta’s face as it had happened.

Lucien about Elain's father:

But Lucien noticed that scorched patch of grass behind us and said, “I heard—what happened. I’m sorry for your loss. All of you.”

“Yes. But your father, ever the negotiator …” A sad, small smile toward that burnt grass. “He managed to cut a deal with Vassa’s keeper to come here. Temporarily, but … better than nothing.

But Lucien again looked at that singed grass, and his blood-splattered face turned solemn. “He was a good man,” he said. “He loved you all very much.”

Lucien had been there, Cassian recalled. Had gone with Nesta’s father to the lake where Vassa was held captive.

Az about Elain's father:

...............................................................................

..............................................................................

You mean to tell me Sarah wrote Lucien and Cassian reaching for Elain and Nesta during the Cauldron scene, with Az reaching for Mor.

She wrote both Lucien and Cassian as showing concern for the sisters after the events of the Cauldron.

Neither Lucien or Cassian named the sisters powers but they demonstrated that the girls powers were not more important to them than their health and well-being overall.

And then she wrote their confirmed mates as being the ones who were there with the girls during or immediately after what was a extremely traumatic event for them in relation to their father.

She wrote Lucien as having been there with the sisters to witness the scorched earth where their father once lay. With Lucien offering his condolences. With Lucien having met him. With Lucien knowing he was a good man and how he loved them all very much.

But she never wrote a single line about Az and Papa Archeron though he was extremely important to Elain, never wrote Az reaching for Elain during the Cauldron, wrote Az drawing straws to avoid staying with her during her depression.

But some still think a dagger she didn't even want, naming that she was a Seer (like Rhys confirmed Nesta was Death), a few flirty glances and an almost kiss between e/riel is the biggest predictor of endgame in this series?

[bestworstcase]

option 1: tai’s guarding the crown of choice.

pros:

a legitimately important task that recontextualizes his ongoing decision to remain on patch as a personal sacrifice he makes for the greater good.

ozpin would pick the guy named for the god of light to be the gatekeeper of choice, huh.

if any parent in this story is meant to die, it’s him, and narratively this is the most intuitive way to do it.

cons:

realistically, what can tai do to prevent salem / cinder / summer from accessing the vault if they find it? if he’s the gatekeeper, staying on patch alone after everyone else evacuates achieves nothing except, ah, signaling to the enemy that the real vault is under signal academy. bad plan.

it means oz is breaking his promise to be honest and forthcoming, undermining his character growth for the sake of ‘surprising’ the audience with the most obvious answer.

means qrow has either been kept in the dark (see prev point) or he’s also deliberately hiding this information from his nieces after they asked him outright if he knew where tai is; this is so far afield for his character as to border on character assassination, and likewise undermines his positive growth since v7.

honestly makes both yang and ruby seem kind of stupid. they know the crown is hidden somewhere near beacon, that ozpin did something to protect it differently from the others, and that their father hasn’t left patch. ruby was sharp enough to guess that long memory might be a relic hidden in plain sight; yang is just as smart, and she knows tai had “some things” to look after on patch. are we expected to believe that “hey, is dad guarding the relic?” somehow hasn’t occurred to either of them?

tai harbors a whole lot of resentment toward ozpin, and based on qrow kicking him out of ruby’s bedroom to drip-feed her hints on where to go next, he seems to have been on the outer perimeter of the inner circle. why would oz entrust him with the relic’s safety?

glynda—ozpin’s scrupulously loyal second-in-command whose emblem is a crown and whose semblance puts her on par with a maiden—is a far more narratively plausible vault-guardian than tai, and the “sun dragon” makes a damn good red herring.

if he’s guarding the vault, he dies. sorry. but the point of putting the father of 2/4 protagonists in between the two main villains and the thing they want most (choice) is so they can kill him to get it, increasing tension and raising the emotional stakes of negotiating peace. to be clear, rwby is willing to Go There, but i think it’s an unsatisfactory way to close out the rose xiao long family arc.

option 2: survivors trapped under mountain glenn, and tai is taking point.

pros:

a genuinely important, worthwhile thing for him to be doing—even more so than guarding the crown. likely sets up a resolution for him in the vein of “you can be a good huntsman or a good father, and tai picked being a huntsman,” which is an elegant way to balance his contradictions.

gives him meaningful stuff to do in v10; for example, one stealthy huntsman with a bullhead could slip in and out of mountain glenn to get a few dozen people out at a time, and/or run supplies and messages between the kingdoms.

we get to see zwei back in action around mountain glenn :)

introduces a natural segue from playing defense in vacuo to mounting a counteroffensive against beacon as tai’s work clarifies the situation in vale.

easily the most 'heroic' direction for him without contorting the story to arbitrarily lionize tai: he’s a scout preparing the stage for the heroes to take the fight to salem, making him the good counterpart to watts.

cons:

makes no sense to keep it a secret. the emotional beats of B4 can still happen if the girls know this is what tai’s doing: instead of “do you… wonder why he’s not here? i know qrow said he’s on assignment, but what’s more important than here?” yang says “do you… wish he were here? with us? i know qrow said he’s looking for survivors, but how many of them can there really be by now? we need all the help we can get,” and ruby says “maybe we don’t have the full picture” as in maybe dad knows something we don’t and that’s why he hasn’t given up yet. the emotion is the same, and the big "they’re hiding in mountain glenn" reveal is hinted without spoiling.

leaves hanging the narrative thread of what tai has been doing since the fall of beacon, because the “some things” he was dealing with in v4 obviously wasn’t this.

option 3: tai is dead.

pros:

explains the apparent secrecy; qrow knows tai was away “on assignment” (i.e., had taken a huntsman contract that brought him out of the kingdom) at the time salem attacked vale, so he is missing but not yet presumed dead.

might reopen the mystery box of summer’s last mission through the real-deal “left on a mission and never came back” echo.

cons:

raven would know.

it’s a cheap, narratively unsatisfying twist that fails to deliver on the bread crumbs set up in v2-3 (tai starts going on missions again) and v4 (“some things”), and also undermines any serious emotional resolution with regard to yang and ruby’s complex relationships with tai.

option 4: summer’s working with salem, and tai is trying to convince her to come back.

pros:

“some things” being his presumed-dead wife who left him to join the enemy and with whom tai is now having an affair or otherwise hoping to coax back to the heroic side through the power of love whilst also keeping his mouth shut about her being a) still alive and b) a traitor is OBJECTIVELY the funniest answer.

brings forward and interrogates the way tai’s romantic grief informs the choices he makes as a parent: from hiding raven and then refusing to talk about her with yang, to shutting down when he lost summer and letting his five-year-old pick up the pieces, to discovering and then keeping summer’s secrets for the sake of some faint hope that she might finally come back to him.

cogent with the Dead (Absent) Mother / Neglectful Father / Evil Stepmother fairytale paradigm rwby deconstructs with raven, tai, and summer; the father chooses the stepmother over his children.

raises the emotional stakes of the war for summer through direct confrontation with the life she left behind, creating narrative opportunities to develop her character (is she still in love with tai? how does she feel about being his first priority, over their children? does she resent that he has her on this pedestal even now?) and apply pressure to her relationships with salem and cinder (do they know? is summer keeping her communication with him a secret, too? or is he an “asset” she’s using for salem’s benefit?).

consequently, raises the momentum of the narrative toward negotiation with salem; tai still has the coalition’s trust, however strained his personal relationships may be. summer is the obvious ambassador for salem’s side of the war, but she’s also the traitor who needs someone to vouch for her good intentions.

the secrecy needs no explanation: just as summer’s last mission was a summer secret, tai’s "assignment" is a taiyang secret and the girls know everything that oz and qrow do, because all of them have been left in the dark. raven might know, and she has the means to find if she doesn’t, but tai’s whereabouts are entangled with what raven knows about summer, so she can’t explain where tai is or why until she reveals her deep dark secrets about what happened between her and summer that night.

foreshadowing is solid: tai starts to go on "missions" again in v2, after the inner circle becomes aware that salem has infiltrated beacon and just before the breach downtown. when ruby visits summer’s grave in v3, she says "[dad] told me he’s going to be on some mission soon! i think he misses adventuring with you." he’s got to "look after some things" (but he isn’t talking about yang, because he stays home after she leaves). and then with B4 we have ruby echoing what the blacksmith taught her about summer in relation to tai, "maybe we don’t have the full picture?"

juicy

cons:

???

dependent on the unconfirmed theory that summer is working for salem as herself, not some unrecognizable enslaved monster, but i am as confident in that as i was about salem going to vale next and we all know how that turned out :)

taking their mom was not enough salem had to go for the full set APPARENTLY

option 5: secret fifth thing

pros:

???

cons:

???

[girlactionfigure]

🚨 IDF PREPARES FOR GROUND MANEUVERS AGAINST HEZBOLLAH, CALLS UP RESERVE BRIGADES TO DEFEND NORTHERN ISRAEL 🚨

⚠️ The IDF has successfully completed airstrikes on 60 Hezbollah targets, guided by the Intelligence Directorate. These strikes targeted Hezbollah's intelligence infrastructure, including intelligence-gathering tools and command centers, which are critical to the enemy’s situational assessment capabilities. See illustration image.

🚨 In light of the ongoing conflict with Hezbollah, the IDF has called up two reserve brigades for operations in the northern arena. This mobilization is essential to maintain defense efforts against Hezbollah and to create conditions that would allow residents in northern Israel to safely return to their homes.

🚨 Major General Ori Gordin, the Commanding Officer of the IDF Northern Command, has indicated that the army is prepared for ground maneuvers as the conflict with Hezbollah enters a new phase. He emphasized the readiness of armored forces, although the government has yet to authorize an invasion of Lebanon. During a visit to the 7th Brigade at the northern border, MG Gordin stressed the importance of preparedness to shift the security dynamics and allow the safe return of northern residents. He also noted the operation, named Northern Arrows, has already inflicted significant damage on Hezbollah’s firepower and leadership.

⚠️ American officials have suggested that the situation in Lebanon is approaching a full-scale war. Despite the U.S. administration’s reluctance to use the term, the rapidly escalating conflict indicates Washington’s diminishing ability to influence the situation.

⚠️ Hospital directors in central Israel, south of Haifa, have been instructed by security officials to increase their alert level in anticipation of potential emergency admissions. Hospitals are preparing to receive patients from northern Israel and to handle additional casualties, should the situation escalate.

⚠️ Meanwhile, the IDF launched another strike deep into Lebanon, targeting Ras Al-Ata, about 30 kilometers north of Beirut. According to Sky News Arabic, the strike resulted in the elimination of senior Hezbollah field commander, Fuad Shafiq Khazal.

🎗️In a broader diplomatic effort, Reuters reports that the U.S. is pushing for a ceasefire agreement linking Lebanon and Gaza. Prime Minister Netanyahu informed his ministers that he has authorized Ron Dermer to communicate to the U.S. that Israel is open to a temporary ceasefire in Lebanon to negotiate Hezbollah's withdrawal without further conflict. While the chances of this deal materializing are considered low by Israeli officials, agreeing to the proposal could help Israel gain international legitimacy if Hezbollah refuses.

The U.S. is keen on securing a ceasefire for several reasons:

1. The upcoming U.S. elections are just over a month away, and the Biden-Harris administration is eager to achieve a ceasefire agreement in Gaza or secure the release of hostages, a demand from the progressive base of the Democratic Party.

2. The lack of progress in securing peace only strengthens former President Trump’s position. Republicans argue that under Trump’s leadership, the war might not have broken out. With Trump positioning himself as the candidate who can prevent wars, this situation bolsters his standing.

3. Uncommitted Democratic voters could boycott Vice President Harris if no ceasefire is reached, a concern for her campaign, as losing these votes could sway the election in Trump’s favor.

After previous unsuccessful attempts to secure a temporary ceasefire in Gaza, more ambitious efforts are now underway as noted above, according to journalist Amit Segal. However, a Lebanese report from Hezbollah states that the group rejects any ceasefire involving Lebanon unless it also includes Gaza.

[transformersclandestine]

Bar Talk

Inside the dimly lit barroom of Maccadam’s Old Oil House, there was a fervent ease. To most of the patrons there, it was the end of the work week; a time to relax and celebrate another cycle of hard work and accomplishment. To the two ‘bots sitting in a corner booth however, there was uncertainty and a bit of melancholy.

Orion Pax played with the glass holding his Engex. Double-shaken, just how he liked it. But despite his initial positivity towards the trip to Maccadam’s, he had to admit that he really wasn’t in the mood for drinks.

Neither was Megatron, Orion’s best friend who sat across from him in the booth, his glass also remaining untouched. Megatron was never one for drinks, but Orion’s infectious enthusiasm convinced him. And yet he too sat in uncomfortable silence, gazing out the nearest window as the bar around him was teeming with life and laughter.

Orion, naturally, was the first to speak up.

“So…any ideas for a new job?” He asked Megatron, whose only response was a subtle shake of his head.

Megatron, formerly an Energon miner by the name of D-16, had just this evening been arrested for assaulting his foreman at the mine. The foreman, of course, had incited the incident as Megatron was not one for unprovoked violence. Like clockwork, when Megatron was arrested, Orion was the one to pay the bail and free his friend. The data clerk was also an effective peacekeeper and had managed to convince Nitro, the foreman Megatron attacked, not to press charges. However, the negotiations were not without sacrifice from Orion’s side as Megatron was fired with cause from his mining job. In Orion’s eyes, it was a necessary action lest Megatron spend most of his early years rotting in a Kaon prison cell.

Megatron sighed and placed his head in his hands.

“I don’t know, Orion. I can’t believe I attacked Nitro. I don’t know what came over me.”

Orion placed a comforting hand on Megatron’s arm.

“You said it yourself: a lapse in judgment. It happened, there’s nothing you can do, now. You just have to move on to a better you.”

Once again, thought Megatron, the uncharacteristically inspiring librarian has done his magic. Orion’s positive message cemented itself into Megatron’s mind and he slowly relaxed, taking a sip from his Engex.

“Thanks, bud. I’m still clueless about my career, though”, Megatron said.

Orion rapped his fingers on the table in quick but deep thought.

“I can try to scrounge up something at the Vaults. Wouldn’t pay as much as the mining gig, probably sanitation duties, but it’s something.”

Megatron shrugged and took another sip.

“At this point, anything’s worthy.”

Orion finally began drinking his Engex. A little room temperature now, but all good just the same. 

“Another round?” He asked Megatron who had gotten to the bottom of his glass faster than Orion. He shook his head and waved his hand.

“Nah. Not unless you’re buying.”

Orion laughed. 

“After all the shanix I just spent bailing your hide out of jail? You’re a shrewd customer, Mr. Megatron.”

Megatron laughed back. He took his glass and Orion’s and headed towards the bar. 

Maccadam’s crowd made it a bit snug for Megatron to walk through. Squeezing his way between ‘bots of all shapes and sizes, he made it to the barkeep, ordering another round of Engex for him and Orion. Across the bar, a boxy, faceplated ‘bot with a piercing red visor stared intently at Megatron. He left his post and approached the unemployed miner.

“So you’re the Megatron I’ve heard about,” the visored bot uttered. His voice was chillingly electronic, what sounded to Megatron like the effects of consistent and unregulated cygar use. 

“Depends on what you heard,” Megatron shot back.

The visored bot sat next to Megatron on an unoccupied barstool.

“It’s not every day you hear of a Kaon miner fighting back against the ongoing worker’s oppression - literally,” the stranger chuckled. Megatron was slowly growing leery of this bot’s tone, as if he was implying something sinister. The stranger noticed the unease and placed his hands on the counter innocently.

“Don’t worry, I’m no cop. Just a scouter looking for potential and talent.”

This got Megatron’s attention. 

“What kind of talent?”

“Strong of will and strong of chassis.” The stranger’s chest opened, and he produced a holographic business card, handing it to Megatron. On one side was a purple symbol, opposite was a scannable code that Megatron’s internal systems registered as a communications frequency.

The stranger got up from his stool and turned to leave Megatron to him and Orion’s newly-arrived drinks.

“If you’re looking for a substantial career, give us a call.”

Megatron looked again at the strange symbol. When he glanced up, the stranger had already disappeared into the crowd. He nervously looked around before paying the bartender for the two drinks and walking them back to him and Orion’s table.

“What kept you?” Orion asked playfully. Megatron cautiously set the drinks down and carefully hid the business card on the inside of his hand before resting it on the booth seat. 

“Long line at the bar,” Megatron lied. It seemed to work as Orion shrugged and took a swig from his drink.

“But yeah,” Orion continued, “let me talk to Codexa after the rest cycle. I’m sure I can manage to get you in somehow.”

Megatron smiled and nodded. He raised his glass as did Orion in turn.

“To the future,” Megatron toasted.

“To our future,” Orion added.

The two clinked glasses and continued their weekend pleasures.

———

Megatron slid the door open to his apartment. It wasn’t a pretty place but it did the job insofar as providing him with a place to recharge and relax during the rest cycles. It was decorated with mementos of his past, including more than a few copied data tracks Orion had made him for their various celebrations. There were also some tasteful electronic paint murals adorning the living space though these were standard with the building and not a choice of Megatron’s. 

Closing the door and locking it behind him, Megatron fished into his side compartments and pulled out the stranger’s business card. Scanning the code on the back, he downloaded the frequency and began a call. It took a few minutes, but Megatron finally heard the other line pick up. Immediately, he recognized the gravely tone of the stranger from Maccadam’s.

“Seems like you’re interested,” the stranger growled over the line.

“I’m willing to talk,” Megatron replied.

“Excellent. Before we begin though, a few pleasantries now that we’re on a secured channel. Name’s Soundwave. It’s a pleasure to be working with you, Megatron.”

[evidence-based-activism]

"Research into trans medicine has been manipulated"

The Sources

A recent Economist* article has described how the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) has manipulated research into trans medicine. The article is reproduced here in full by the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM). The SEGM also discusses the topic in their discussion on how "WPATH Influence Undermines WHO’s Transgender Guidelines"

*For those who care: The Economist is rated as "least biased" and "highly factual" by Media Bias/Fact Check. While it has varied over time, they currently tend to be preferred by a left-leaning audience.

The Situation

Essentially, unsealed court documents have shown WPATH first commissioned research into trans medicine from Johns Hopkins University (for the "development" of their guidelines) and then prevented the researchers from publishing this research. (Among other ethical violations including undue influence over manuscript contents and requiring researchers to (illegitimately) claim independence from WPATH.)

Presumably their suppression and manipulation of the research occurred because the conclusions reached by the researchers did not meet advance their desired opinions.

This is extraordinarily unethical from a scientific, medical, and political perspective. Strong objections from the researchers involved were documented, but ultimately failed to prevent the limitation of academic freedom and maintenance of scientific integrity. Aside from this, their actions have deprived their own community (trans individuals) from potentially vital information about their medical treatments.

So, the next time someone asks for "proof" that the current standards of trans medicine are not evidence based and may, in fact, be harmful: reply with these sources documenting the unscientific, unethical suppression of such proof. (And, while you're at it, remind them that the burden of proof is on intervention, not the lack of intervention.)

Choice Quotes from the Sources

From the reproduced Economist article:

From early on in the contract negotiations, WPATH expressed a desire to control the results of the Hopkins team’s work.

Ms Robinson [the research director] saw this as an attempt to exert undue influence over what was supposed to be an independent process.

But an email in October 2020 from WPATH figures, including its incoming president at the time, ... made clear what sort of science WPATH did (and did not) want published. Research must be “thoroughly scrutinised and reviewed to ensure that publication does not negatively affect the provision of transgender health care in the broadest sense,” it stated.

[The WPATH president has] been named to a World Health Organisation advisory board tasked with developing best practices for transgender medicine

Another document recently unsealed shows that Rachel Levine, a trans woman who is assistant secretary for health, succeeded in pressing wpath to remove minimum ages for the treatment of children from its 2022 standards of care.

From the extended discussion by the SEGM:

The court documents reveal that WPATH leadership was "caught on the wrong foot" when two systematic reviews of evidence regarding endocrine interventions, ... did not provide the kind of support that WPATH was hoping to see. Consequently, WPATH leadership, ... took action to prevent the evidence evaluation team from making public the offending systematic reviews.

The court documents also reveal that WPATH subsequently instituted a new approval policy to ensure that only favorable evidence reviews could be published by researchers engaged in evaluating the evidence: (... WPATH had to approve the conclusions. ... WPATH had ongoing content control over the content of the planned publication. ... WPATH had the final document control.)

The authors were also required to insert into the article a statement that asserted its independence from WPATH, effectively denying that WPATH interference had taken place. [Imagine a drug company exerting this much influence over research into their a drug, and then demanding the researchers lie about this influence.]

[The Baker 2012 review] was the only review to survive WPATH’s approval process, despite "dozens" of reviews being completed by the Johns Hopkins team, as the court documents reveal. [Meaning dozens were suppressed, presumably for unfavorable conclusions.]

The Baker review has an alarming number of irregularities, which bear the marks of WPATH interference, and which deserve a separate spotlight. Here, we will only note that the review's conclusions ... are explicitly contradicted by the actual systematic review findings, which found only "low" and "insufficient" evidence.

The suppressed evidence regarding hormones interventions for all age groups raises questions about what basis WHO is using for its presumption that hormones should be widely available to all adults who seek them [This is of particular concern since several influential members of WPATH - including its president - have been appointed to the WHO board developing clinical guidelines]

[transingthoseformers]

Do you have a WIP you haven't talked about because it's not fleshed well enough?

Hmm, let me look through my notes because I think I talk about most of my WIPs even when they're just bare bones I chew on

A few of the plotlines I don't think I've talked about yet but I've been internally toying with include:

The earthspark mecha reconnect with Cybertron, only to learn the war is still very much ongoing up there (Rodimus and Megaempress may or may not be two big names involved here)

Earthspark Tarn and Overlord arrive on Earth, with a mutual deal that circles around killing Megatron. However, they end up disagreeing on how exactly they're going to execute this idea, and Tarn ends up doubting his alliance with Overlord the more he spends time with the blue mech.

Earthspark Trepan somehows his way to earth, and Megatron is torn between what, exactly, he is going to do with Trepan. Sometimes in this plotline, Trepan end up striking a malicious deal with agent Kroft and GHOST, which doesn't bode well

In general I have a million ideas about Megatron's pre-war past being dug up and consequences ensue

Vaguely tfp but it's been several years since the Great Cybertronian War ended, since the transformers left to go back to Cybertron. Except, for one reason or another, necessity calls Optimus back to earth and he isn't alone (he's with Megatron. Megatron is here. And his 💖husband💖, as it's made increasingly clear that a lot has changed since the bots left)

Instead of getting strapped down to the laboratory table, CYLAS becomes a decepticon and joins their ranks. He wanted to be one so bad? He gets to realize it's not all cupcakes and rainbows as it really sets in that he's not quite human anymore and that the decepticons suck fucking ass.

We only saw a bit of the bot brawls in Earthspark, but I like to explore the idea a little further— especially with the concept of an exgladiator getting involved with them.

Quintessons invading earth, causing the autobots, decepticons, and humans alike to need to team up is a favorite concept I like to fuck with

Tfp decepticon win or seemingly decepticon win scenario where Megatron, as part of his ever enigmatic plans, starts a planned pregnancy because to him? They've won, and it's time to move on to the next phase of the plan. Sure, rebuilding while on earth was not anticipated, but it's nothing the decepticons can't puzzle out :)

This one's a little more freeform and sillygoofy but, as part of peace negotiations, Megatron wants something unexpected: a sparkling. He wants Optimus to give him a sparkling.

Tfa decepticon win scenario where a disgraced decepticon traitor teams up with the autobots to topple Megatron from his throne

An au were some especially ambitious humans find a (bayverse?) hatchling, and take it in. They're about to learn raising a sparkling is you guessed it pretty fucking hard

What were things like when earthspark Megatron freshly defected? I like to think about that

Other stuff probably

[specialagentartemis]

The new agreement will soon be enshrined into BC law, naming the Haida as the rightful owners of all 200-plus islands of Haida Gwaii, which they have been stewarding for millennia. After a two-year transition period, the Haida Nation will manage the 98 percent of its archipelago that was formerly considered Crown land, including protected areas and other forested lands. Having more of a say over the logging industry—which has clear-cut over two-thirds of the islands’ old-growth forest since 1950—has been a focus of the Haida’s title fight since the very beginning. The agreement won’t affect private property or municipal and provincial services, from highways to hospitals, which will continue to be regulated by the province. “The idea that each legal system is recognizing the other one is a turning point,” Borrows [a member of the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation and an expert in Indigenous law at the University of Toronto] says. “It’s also radically democratic and participatory.” This marks a new kind of relationship, which can draw on the best of Haida and Western influences, he adds. And unlike a treaty or court decision, which are more set in stone, this approach requires ongoing negotiation that can adapt and evolve with the times. “It can keep people at the table, learning and working together with one another and trying to find that path to mutuality,” Borrows says.

[ghost-1-y]

I normally do not speak about my personal life on this blog, but I can no longer stay silent about this.

My university uses our tuition money to fund the genocide in Palestine. In response, we, the students, set up an encampment on our campus as an act of protest in order to demand the divestment of our university from the genocide that they fund, and from any partnerships that also fund or support Israel or the IDF. In response, our university has conducted a mass suspension of students (I am fortunate to not be one of them), increased police presence on campus, and has purposefully villianized our encampment, charging us with “disorderly or lewd conduct” despite our constant de-escalation of confrontations provoked by the so-called “peaceful” counterprotestors – consisting of both professor and student – whom have engaged in harassment towards the students in the encampment.

The university has been uncooperative and hostile with our negotiations team, giving them limited time to respond to negotiations and offers and accusing us in broadcasted emails to all students of being uncooperative and unwilling to meet – despite our frequent and informative communications with the university’s negotiators and the chancellor’s Chief of Staff. 

As of today, our encampment has expanded and we have reclaimed one of our lecture halls in the name of Alex Odeh – a martyr of the Palestinian movement who was assassinated in 1985. This alone was enough for the university to deem our protest a violent one, and within minutes the police presence on campus increased substantially. The university has called upon eight police departments of neighboring cities to not only intimidate protesting students, but to attack our encampment. They carry guns with rubber bullets, and are equipped with tear gas. They are here to make the protest unsafe. The police are the ones who are making this protest violent, not the students. 

I am ashamed of my university. I am ashamed of it’s complicity in genocide, and I am ashamed of the awful treatment that the students – who pay thousands of dollars to learn – have received from the university and from the police. 

I am not disclosing the name of my university for personal privacy reasons – not for the sake of the university. 

I will use the rest of this post to ask those who are able to please donate to Operation Olive Branch. I know I do not have a large platform, but if even one of you who sees this post can donate, then that is enough for me. For those who do not know, Operation Olive Branch is a grassroots organization with the purpose of amplifying Palestinian voices. They currently have a spreadsheet of families that are currently in Gaza/Rafah that are in need of donations in order to escape the ongoing genocide that is taking place. 

If you cannot donate, please become active in your local community if you haven’t already. We need more voices, we need demonstrators. These protests that are taking place at universities like mine need to expand into the general community. We – not only the students, but the people – are responsible for what our government(s) have failed to do. So again, I ask you to speak out against this genocide and to get organized.

[beskarinhyperspace]

A Ripple In Space |Kylo Ren, *ongoing

*Mature, Explicit, NSFW*

// AO3 | Wattpad | MASTERLIST

You have been kidnaped and brought on the finalizer where you meet the famous Kylo Ren. The one who brought so much fear and destruction to the galaxy. Not being able to know the truth about your identity, he keeps you imprisoned on his ship.

Both POV Fem.reader insert

*Canon Divergence, slow burn, softdom, hurt/comfort

Kylo is supreme leader, slow burn, fluff, angst, comfort, he is obsessed with you, touch starved, fools in love, shy/insecure, he needs a hug, feelings, plot with p, soft/dom, reader insert, no y/n, female reader, pet names. 

1. More Air - Silly girl, I need you alive..

2. Black And Grey - What is this? What does he want?

3. Leather And Blaster Dust  - This was a new kind of power, and he couldn’t get enough of it.

4. Viper - I just want to know you more.

5. Prejudice -I want to do that with you, all of you.

6. Negotiations -"What can I say, I’m an extreme individual.."

[fatehbaz]

The “khoai” is the name colloquially given to [...] landmasses in and around the Chotanagpur Plateau in eastern India. Rich in iron oxide, these [...] soils are marked by a rugged and often undulating topography, resulting from millennia of erosion from monsoon rains, the many winding rivers that populate the region and action of winds from summer thunderstorms, popularly termed in Bengali as “Kalboishakhi.” The winds and the rains of the kalboishakhi dance across the lands adjoining the Bay of Bengal, often arriving at the horizon with ominous dark clouds right before sunset. [...]

The khoai is a charismatic frontier in an ongoing conversation within South Asian developmentalist imaginaries that call for optimal land use for the purposes of economic growth. [...] As the lateritic soil of the region is not suited for intensive agriculture, efforts have been made to make vast sections of the region arable [...]. And so, slowly, the red soils get taken over the green [...]. This is often done by breaking gullies and hoodoo-like structures [...] to flatten the lands [...]. The ongoing project to turn such “deserts” green has a long history. Yet alongside these projects, is the place that the khoai have in the literary, cultural, and spiritual imagination of many [...] that inhabit the Chotanagpur Plateau. The vastly open and hilly topography, dotted with sal forests [...] has often been the fodder for songs of longing [...]. The horizon of the sky meeting the red gullies of the badlands also form many a narrative that appear in local folk songs and stories. [...] They have also been sites of community-based agroforestry.

---

Recently, such badlands have been termed unproductive in and around my hometown of Santiniketan, India.

As South Asian developmental imaginaries wholly absorb the understanding of terra nullius from modern Euro-American conceptions of land, the idea that “badlands” are necessarily “wastelands” become cemented. Once beloved [...], the dark brown-red hoodoos and gullies today are seen as wasted potential that are depriving the public of much-needed resources, and the possibility of the coming of civilization in accordance with upper-caste aspirations. Khoai today have become sites for proposed plantations facilitated by local forestry authorities, holiday homes and cafes [...], luxury resorts [...].

The ethos of invoking terra nullius has travelled into discourses surrounding “practicality” and the absolute necessity for villagers and small town folks in the area to be saved by their urban-dwelling upper caste counterparts [...] who are interested in their cultural practices, seemingly idyllic agricultural lifeways and the simplicity away from the stresses of cities such as Kolkata. But in this framework, the imaginaries of development are necessarily embedded in compulsory extraction, whether that be of cultural economies, minerals, timber, or land for development. [...]

[B]adlands get turned into places that need saving from being “wasted” by the carelessness and unimaginative shortsightedness of villagers and Adivasis, who are simply seen as ill-equipped to deal with the progression of the global economy.

These days, it is hard to find a piece of the “khoai” that has not been subjected to projects of agriculture, forestry, or have been subjugated to [...] property ownership [...]. As the figures of the plantation and its attendant cultures of enclosure and theft of commons creep into places previously overlooked by the tentacles of global extractive forces, many, if not most khoai areas are mobilized to be “redeemed” into productive little plots legible to capital.

I have to wonder about the processes of consent and negotiation that have informed such projects. [...] These areas were in the past predominantly inhabited by Adivasis or Indigenous peoples of India, who had resisted the [...] hierarchies [...].

Badlands such as the “khoai” present a challenge to capitalist imaginaries because they defy its temporalities and its compulsion to make all aspects of being productive and legible to exchanges that foster logics of uninhibited growth. [...]

What, then, does it mean to care for wastelands? [...]

What histories are paved over by concrete? What does development mean in places where inequality is still rife, but there are shiny new roads? What does a future look like, where we can let badlands and “wastelands” just be, as part of ecological and cultural commons?

---

All text above by: Aadita Chaudhury. "Caring for Badlands". The Otter, Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE). Emotional Ecologies series. Ed. Jessica M. DeWitt and Sarah E. York-Bertram. 14 July 2023. [Photography by Aadita Chaudhury, included in the original article. Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[vergess]

Is “from the river to the sea” inherently an antisemetic dog whistle or can it be used in good faith in a similar vein to Free Palestine?

I’ve been hearing conflicting viewpoints

obviously if you feel uncomfortable you don’t have to answer

It's... complicated.

Personally, I don't believe most people saying "from the river to the sea" are actually calling for the immediate dismantling and re-refugeeing of Israel's entire population.

Nevertheless in absolute terms, that is EXACTLY what the slogan is demanding. See, a lot of people don't actually look at a map:

The area highlighted in red is, approximately, what "the river to the sea" refers to in its most conservative terms. Note how almost every single population center is within that range.

In practical terms, it's straight up a demand that Israel stop existing and Palestine be returned to local control.

And normally, being a fucking sensible person, you'd think, "Well, land back! Give it back!!"

Only you're assuming Israelis are colonizers.

Which IS. NOT. TRUE. Just because Israel is operating as a US colonial project doesn't make Israelis colonizers themselves.

Israelis are better thought of as refugees. People who were successfully genocided out of EVERY SURROUNDING NATION:

This map shows the expulsion or genocide of Jews from the area surrounding Israel over the last century.

Black-coloured countries have eliminated over 80% and up to 100% of their Jewish populations. That is to say, countries in black successfully committed genocide against their Jewish populations in the last century.

With any surviving refugees sent where?

To Israel.

Red represents greater than 60% population loss. In a century.

Blue represents 40+%, and yellow 20+%.

Remember: population loss over 10% is considered a strong indication of genocide, and 30% population loss is proof.

And remember that these number include the entire span of time between the holocaust and now.

IF it were possible to genuinely negotiate in good faith a peace treaty that allows Jewish refugees to Israel to stay in the Jewish Homeland that they've only barely even been sent to.

Then maybe "from the river to the sea" would not be a threat to finish off the last survivors of genocide.

But between US interventionism in the region, existing racial tensions, and the last century of genocide?

Good faith negotiations simply are not possible right now, and they won't be possible until the US and European powers make it possible by dialing back the imperialism and instead using their massive global power to support genuine negotiations of peace, that actually strive to develop a healthy, equitable society for both Jewish refugees returning to their historic homeland AND the people already living there.

Which, let's be realistic here. The EU is so busy crowing about how it's less racist than the US that they deny having even participated in these forced expulsions, claiming it was all "voluntary." And the US is literally still enslaving BIPOC in prisons.

So! That's just not going to happen!!

Which means we have to look at the phrase "from the river to the sea" not in the context of peace where it would be harmless, but in the context of, unfortunately, more wars over the last century than you could even give names to.

Where it calls for the expulsion of Jewish refugees from their homeland.

To where?

Well, most likely to death. After all, it's not like we're raring to take in ~7 million surviving Israeli Jews here in the US.

And that's the quiet part, I think. The part that people don't realize is being implied.

If Israel is gone, as the chant demands, then where do the 7 million Jewish Israelis go?

"Back home"? To the nations that killed off their entire families?

Because this isn't like land back movements in North America, where it is widely accepted that there would be no expulsions or relocations because they're inhumane.

The expulsions and forced relocations are already underway and currently ongoing.

That's the distinction that I think a lot of gentiles in the west don't grasp.

This slogan isn't "turn Israel over to Palestinian governance to achieve freedom" it's "turn Israel over to Palestinian control to complete the last century of genocides."

Like. Okay. In my ideal world, Israel as a state would never have been founded because the UK wouldn't have Done That To Palestine. But we live in this world, with this history.

To clamour for the dissolution of the Israeli state is to clamour for the slaughter and expulsion of 7 millions Jews. Bro that's half the global population.

Now, do I think "from the river to the sea" is an evil phrase and everyone who says it is genocidal?

No.

I think it's a poetic chant that works well in English and gets a decent message across to most listeners that they should support Palestinian humanity in the face of that genocide.

But I think that if I catch your ass shouting it after a ceasefire or during peace negotiations instead of during actual war crimes?

I won't be likely to trust you. Either you're well intended but uninformed, or worse, you know damned well what you're doing and its vile.

So, I don't know. I guess I would say it's not inherently antisemitic now, at this moment in time.

But give it a few months, and it will be, just like it has been before.

[good-old-gossip]

BOMBING HOSPITALS and UN SHELTERS in the NAME OF FIGHTING RESISTANCE

The Israeli army said it has launched a new operation in Gaza City’s Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, claiming to have knowledge of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad infrastructure and operatives in the area.

The military also said it was operating at Unrwa’s headquarters in the area, claiming it has been used by Hamas.

Palestinians said this was one the heaviest attacks since the start of the war on 7 October. Gaza’s Civil Emergency Service said they believed dozens of people have been killed in eastern Gaza, but their teams have been unable to reach them due to the ongoing offensive in the Tel al-Hawa, Sabra, Daraj, Rimal, and Tuffah neighbourhoods.

Two missiles also hit the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City overnight, with the Israeli military ordering a full evacuation of the hospital.

As mediation efforts towards a ceasefire continue, a team headed by Israel’s Shin Bet chief is headed to Cairo to pursue negotiations.