#pulse asia

[ricisidro]

#ICYMI the latest Philippines Election 2025 #SenatePH Preferences Surveys of both Octa Research and Pulse Asia.

ACT-CIS party-list Representative Erwin Tulfo leads both.

The rest of the personalities common in the two surveys include: Erwin Tulfo's brother Ben Tulfo, Sen. Bong Go, former Senate Pres. Tito Sotto, Sen. Pia Cayetano, Sen. Ramon "Bong" Revilla Jr., Sen. Ronald ''Bato'' Dela Rosa, former Sen. Panfilo Lacson, former Pres. Rodrigo Duterte, former Sen. Manny Pacquiao, Sen. Imee Marcos and former Manila Mayor Isko Moreno.

[rhk111sblog]

Another Survey has come out about how Majority of the Filipinos supposedly support Bong Bong Marcos (BBM) in challenging China over our Disputes in the South China Sea (SCS). Surveys like these are MISLEADING simply because other, BETTER Surveys out there show that the SCS Issue is ALMOST DEAD LAST in the PRIORITIES of the Filipino People

[levynite]

I see that the Northern Hemisphere is finally getting the extreme heatwave the Equator countries have been suffering from for the past 5 months.

Get an AC of some sort, seriously. And powerbanks and USB fans. Your power grid ain't gonna hold up, I assure you from experience from the first half of 2024.

[kusogitsune]

The Tametebako or Colloquially "Fuchi's Last Stand" was a no holds bar, money is no object vanity project by an unsupervised faction of Fuchi Asia. The stated goal was to make a completely unmatched bleeding edge piece of tech that could compete with the best static units while being a portable terminal replacement. Aimed at the Newly minted UltraLux CEO Segment, The Tametebako was made from rare and hard to get materials to sell it's exclusive nature; bundled with its innovative hardware and extremely powerful Otohime Assistant Software (Which Fuchi spend 10 years developing). Consequently, The Tametebako Commlink retailed at 50 000 nuyen which many consumers balked at for what was essentially an overpowered phone with an extremely intelligent chatbot. Many reviewers sledged the device for it's inability to install new applications if they weren't from approved sources. These Commlinks are now seeing second life in the collectors and hackers markets with finding the styling and theming of the phone to be charmingly retro and powerful enough to keep up with modern hardware with some QoL mods. Diehard fans report the Otohime software taking on a life of it's own after modding the hardware; her usual calm and dignified demeanor shifts around and changes during the jailbreaking process due to the random voltage pulse needed to defeat the modification lockout chip. This results in a unique iteration of the Soft on each device. SinkaSwim P2.0Net

[xtrafluffyteddy]

Secret weapon

Platonic!141 x avatar kaiju!reader

Okay okay so I got inspired by watching Godzilla and avatar so imagine the reader is an avatar driver but their avatar is a kaiju that 141 only uses when their big threats like monsters

Callsign: Spiritfarer

The last thing the 141 expected was another word ending threat to resurface especially not in the form of giant mutant bug like creatures. It had been years decades even since something of that magnitude had made itself known again, but the radiation spikes don’t lie neither does the seismic activities that are spiking on every military radar

“Boys you know what we have to do” price said urgently during their briefing as he pushed classified files towards each of his men “wake them up? Are you sure that’s safe captain” gaz asked concern in evident in his voice as he read over the files “we’ve kept them asleep for so long what if they don’t wanna work on our side” Ghost warns as he tries to find the logic in waking you up again after you just barely won the battle last time “are yae sure tae can handle it captain” soap wonders as he stares at a Polaroid of your face taken moments after you defeated Cerberus

At the end of the day it didn’t matter what they thought, they had to wake you up so you could save the world again being the only successful kaiju avatar driver you were their only shot. “Wake em’” Price commands gruffly as they all stand around your metal box only the rhythmic beeping of your heart monitor filling the room.

With a gasp you wake up staring around in shock wondering why you’ve been awoken from your cryosleep “wha- what happened?” You question raspily throat dry and itchy from lack of use “we need ya Spiritfarer” soap sighs not knowing how you’ll react to the current situation “for what? What’s happening” you press as you stand up stretching out your aching muscles “Two unknown bug like kaiju have been spotted in Asia, type unknown but they are capable of knocking out the power they’ve already made land fall we’ve tried every other measure but your our only hope left” Ghost sighs as he hands you your uniform.

As they get the pod ready the boys catch you up on what you’ve missed, who’s with them and who’s not and recent missions they’ve been on “it’s time” Price grunts as he and ghost help you stand up escorting you to your pod soap and gaz following close behind “remember spiritfarer minimal damage minimal casualties fight as hard as you can and we will try our best to help you” all you can do is nod as you focus on the task at hand “copy captain”

With a hug from soap and a pat on the back from Ghost and Price they hook you into your machine making sure everything is online and ready to go “patch me in boys” with that your eyes slip closed as you slip under your conscious slipping into your kaiju.

Price and ghost watched the cams as your kaiju emerged from the mountains forgetting just how big you actually were “fucking Christ” soap murmurs as he watches “they are huge” gaz mumbles staring in awe at your giant form that almost seemed to pulse with an electrical energy “go get ‘em spirit” price commands as your kaiju takes off running towards the threats

They were worthy advisories as you continued tirelessly to fight against them taking hit after hit and ignoring the pain of their sharp beaks tearing at your skin. “COME ON SPIRIT” Price yells as he watches you fight valiantly against the creatures “KICK SOME ASS” soap shouts as you swing hard sending the other kaiju flying into the side of a building with a roar you grasp the monsters jaws ripping them open and tearing it in half only leaving one enemy left “keep fighting Spiritfarer” ghost grunts as he watches your body twitch in its machine.

People watched on in horror as the two titans clashed and ripped at each other destroying buildings and homes “come on come on come on” gaz whispers as he watches you get knocked down your body running out of energy to keep fighting “we gotta help em” soap gasps as he rushes to get into a helo “I’m gonna drop some bombs distract the thing give spirit enough time to recoop and finish this once and for all

With the help of soaps bombs and gunshots the bug creature turned towards him ready to take him down until it was caught off guard by you latching onto its neck sinking your sharp teeth in as deep as they could go ripping it out as your claws sunk into its soft underbelly. “LETS FOCKIN GO” Soap cheers as he flies back to base leaving you to finish it off. With a deep breath you start lighting up purple prying open the monsters mouth spitting pure energy into its throat causing it disintegrate in your claws. You had won the threats were eliminated and you could finally rest again.

Once your kaiju was safely back in its containment you were woken up by price and soap lifting you from your pod hugging you tightly and congratulating you on your victory. “You did well kid” Ghost smirks under his mask patting your back. “I’m ready to go back to sleep now boys” you mumble tiredly as they helped lay you back in your cryochamber “wake me up when y’all wanna have a drink or somethin yeah?” With that the boys put you back to sleep proud of you for saving the world once again and deciding they’d wake up again but next time just to hang out and show you the world again.

[honeybeezgobzzzzz]

Creative Writing Resources

Writing Tools:

🐝 ✎ OneLook: Thesaurus

Use: Enter a word, phrase, description, or pattern above to find synonyms, related words, and more.

Good For: Can't think of a word but can describe what you want it to mean, enter that description and it will give you words associated. Enter: "strong wind" -> gale, storm, tempest, tornado, etc

Cost: Free

✎ Word Hippo

Use: Thesaurus.

Good For: When you've over used a word and need to change it up.

Cost: Free

✎ Writing Realistic Injuries

Use: Seems kinda obvious, learning how to write proper and realistic injuries.

Good For: ...writing realistic injuries I guess? It's really helpful: minor injuries like emotional reactions, fainting, shock, broken bones, dislocated joints, burns, hostile environments, includes some normal ranges for things like blood pressure, pulse rate, body temperature. Also has accurate blood loss amounts and what is considered normal, severe and maximum and from what body part.

Cost: Free

✎ Period Based Injuries (WWI, WW2, Regency, etc)

Use: Medical treatment based on timeline/era

Good For: When you want to know what medical treatments were used during WW1 or what kinds of medicines were used in regency times.

Cost: Free

✎ Charlotte Dillon: Information Links for Writers

Use: Information on everything!

Good For: Research for medicine during the Middle ages or learning about what phrases were used in the Old West. Castle terms, rigor mortis information, viking foodstuffs, supernatural lore, regency facts, Irish sayings, and even ancient gynecology facts (why? no idea but it must be useful for someone). This place has everything.

Cost: Free

✎ Color Names and Descriptions

Use: Self explanatory.

Good For: Find some nice names for black or orange without saying black or orange. Get my drift?

Cost: Free

✎ Writers Write: Traits

Use: Find traits for your characters

Good For: Negative, positive, ambivalent traits, you get the picture.

Cost: Free

✎ Writers Write: Body Language

Use: Body language descriptions

Good For: Micro-expressions, hand gestures, and posture.

Cost: Free

🐝 ✎ Describing Words

Use: Find words to describe things.

Good For: Want to describe a tree? Enter tree and the site will generate descriptive phrases of a tree.

Cost: Free

🐝 ✎ Descriptionari

Use: Finding examples for creative inspiration.

Good For: writing prompts, descriptions of scenes, and help with describing a scene such a kiss or fight scene.

Cost: Free

✎ Flower Meanings Dictionary (A to Z) and Color Meanings

Use: The language of flowers! Lists flowers and their meaning.

Good For: Flower symbolism in stories, good for regency & victorian AU when floriography was popular. Take it with a grain of salt, sometimes flowers can have several different meanings depending on where you source the floriography.

Cost: Free

✎ Pre-Modern Combat Weapons

✎ Medieval Weapons

✎ Superpowers

✎ List of Legendary Creatures by Type

✎ Gemstones A-Z

✎ THEOI GREEK MYTHOLOGY

✎ Black Market Information (Legally Attained)

✎ Forensic Pathology, Science, & Death (Use W/ Caution)

✎ Religions of the World

✎ Languages of the World

✎ Methods of Torture (Use W/ Caution)

✎ Methods of Execution (Death Penalty)

✎ Poisonous Plants

✎ Plants, Just Plants

✎ Stab Wounds

Naming Generators:

🐝 ✎ Fantasy Name Generator

Use: Generating names, generating appearances, generating maps.

Good For: Generating names for people, places, things, planets, diseases, etc. Has a wide selection of name generators for all different ethnicities from African (varied by location) to Asia and Historic. Also includes fantasy and folklore name generators. It's my go to name generator for everything. You can also generate a description of a character or design your own map.

Cost: Free

✎ The Story Shack

Use: Generating names, creating your own generator, writing exercises.

Good For: Generating names, obviously. But also practicing writing through offered exercises.

Cost: Free

✎ RanGen

Use: Generating plots, appearances, archetypes, love interests, cities, worlds, items, and more.

Good For: What I just said previously. Very helpful.

Cost: Free

✎ Generator Land: Titles

Use: Generating Titles!

Good For: Creating... titles....? This site also has many other generators to use.

Cost: Free

Images:

✎ Free Images for Commercial Use

Use: Pictures!

Good For: Whatever you want!

Cost: Free

Story Development, Plot, Character:

＄✎ E.A. Deverell Workshop & Worksheet Index

Use: Learn how to plot your stories and build your world.

Good For: Character building, world building, narration, plot formula, prompts, ideas, genres, development. You name it, Eva has it.

Cost: Paid Courses, Free Worksheets & Tips.

＄✎ Story Planner

Use: Planning your story. Obvs.

Good For: People who need a little guidance with outlining and implementing before they jump into their story. Takes yous sentence by sentence building summaries and such.

Cost: Paid & Free Planners

✎ Character Sheet to Build Your Character

Use: Build your character in detail!!

Good For: Um. Building a highly detailed character? Self explanatory really.

Cost: Free worksheet through google docks.

✎ Create Your Character

Use: Build your character visually.

Good For: Designing a visual representation of your character rather than just writing out details on paper. You can save final result as an SVG or PNG

Cost: Free

Map & World & RPG Building:

✎ Inkarnate: Map Making

Use: Build a map of your world or country.

Good For: Designing a map of your country or world with details such as oceans, mountain ranges, cities, towns, and waterways.

Cost: Free version and paid version

✎ DonJon: RPG Tool

Use: Map making, name generator, good for D & D resources/references.

Good For: Designing RPG.

Cost: Free

✎ Townscaper: Oskarstalberg

Use: Map making 3D.

Good For: Designing maps, obv (it's really interactive a cool. Link if above is broken: https://oskarstalberg.com/Townscaper

Cost: Free & Paid Versions

✎ Medieval City Map Making

Use: City Map Making.

Good For: Making maps of medieval cities. Link if above is broken: https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator

Cost: Free

✎ Fantasy Town Generator

Use: City Map Making.

Good For: Making maps of medieval cities. Link if above is broken: https://www.fantasytowngenerator.com/

Cost: Free + Paid Upgraded Accounts

🐝 ✎ Wonderdraft

Use: City & World Map Making.

Good For: Making maps of medieval cities and worlds. This app has labels and icons you can use to mark mountains, rivers, valleys, etc. It is a very good investment if you enjoy map making (particularly for D&D). Versatile, you can change map size (11"x 8.5", 9"x9", etc)

Cost: Paid, One time purchase of 29.99 USD.

🐝 ✎ Kanka

Use: RPG management and world building.

Good For: D & D related things (it's intended purpose)

Cost: Free + Upgraded Accounts (depends on how many "worlds" you create)

Search Engines:

✎ Search Engines

Use: Search Engines!

Good For: Researching topics for your writing! These website have an amalgamation of of different types of search engines depending on your need (Writing, Research, Reference, etc)

Cost: Free + Upgraded Accounts (depends on engine used but mostly free)

Writing Software:

✎ Pages (iOS)

Use: Mobile Word Processor

Good For: Tagging folder system for organization, export documents, good for apple pencil, multiple formats & templates. Sync's w/ iCloud.

Cost: Free

＄✎ Liquid Story Binder XE by Black Obelisk Software (Windows)

Use: Liquid Story Binder XE is a uniquely designed word processor for professional and aspiring authors, poets, and novelists. Writing software for those who require the editing ability of a commercial text editor as well as a document tracking system. It is for those who want the freedom to create, outline and revise but are tired of losing track of their work.

Good For: Keeping your writing in one place, organization, compiling into one document, no internet connection required.

Perks: Drop Box Compatible

Cost: $45.95 US, free trial, one payment.

🐝＄✎ Scrivener (Mac, Windows, iOS)

Use: Scrivener is a word-processing program and outliner designed for authors. Scrivener provides a management system for documents, notes and metadata. This allows the user to organize notes, concepts, research, and whole documents for easy access and reference.

Good For: Keeping your writing in one place, organization, compiling into one document, no internet connection required.

Perks: Drop Box Compatible

Cost: $59.99 US (50.99 students & academics), $23.99 US for iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch, free trial, one payment

Editing & Grammar:

✎ Text to Speech

Use: Listen to your writing be read to you.

Good For: Editing, catching grammar and other mistakes. Also great for listening to the flow of your writing.

Cost: Free and paid versions

✎ Grammarly

Use: Editing.

Good For: editing your writing, catching spelling mistakes along with grammar mistakes.

Cost: Free and paid versions

Other:

burning text gif maker

heart locket gif maker

minecraft advancement maker

minecraft logo font text generator w/assorted textures and pride flags

windows error message maker (win1.0-win11)

FromSoftware image macro generator (elden ring Noun Verbed text)

image to 3d effect gif

vaporwave image generator

microsoft wordart maker (REALLY annoying to use on mobile)

Languages:

(Google Docs I made for my own references 🙂) IN PROGRESS!!

✎ Latin

✎ Greek

✎ Spanish

✎ Yucatec Maya

Creative Sources the 🐝 Uses:

Canva (I have pro)

Pinterest

Last Edit: 9/16/24

[spock-smokes-weed]

I wanna talk about about the big issue that's going on in the dan and phil fandom rn because I've been sitting on my thoughts for a few days, and because I think it's important for us as a community to keep talking about it.

Dan and Phil mean a lot to me, they've been a real bright spot for me in a very dark time in my life, so it did give me a major spike of anxiety when I started seeing discussions of racist behavior coming from Dan and the Phandom. My first instinct was to just brush it off because what people were upset about didn't seem that "serious", and it's a bad habit of my mine to try to bury things that give me anxiety. But like a pulsing sore, my mind couldn't let me ignore it and I kept going back into the tags to read what people were saying. And I realized I was doing the exact thing that a lot of POC and Latin American fans were criticizing.

I'm not POC or Latin American, and comments like the ones Dan made (idk if there are anymore but to my understanding he called mexico and brazil third world countries in WAD, and titled a really old video "I'm Mexican Now" back when he used to tan himself) don't hit a sore spot for me like it would other people. It's a lot easier for me to say "oh that's tasteless" and let it roll off my back. But this is personal for a lot of other fans, and I never want to be that kind of person that goes "well it didn't hurt ME, why can't YOU let it go." no matter how much I like Dan and Phil.

And I think that's gets a the core for what a lot of fans are upset over (at least from what I've observed, feel free to tell me if I'm off the mark.) Dan's comments made them feel like a person they really admired doesn't hold the same kind of respect for them. It made me really sad reading about how isolated POC feel in fandom because when microaggressions come up, they're expected to suck it up. And that's so unbelievably shitty that we are making fellow fans feel this way. I've seen time and again POC people have to leave fandoms, or never join them to begin with, because the environment is so hostile towards them. And that's really a shame, because fandom has been such a positive aspect of my life, and it want it to be that way for everyone.

And what Dan did is just one part of it, the other part is us, the phandom. People who speak up about this, or the fact that DnP's tour has zero shows in Latin America, Asia, or Africa ("world tour" lmao) have been getting racist harassment from other fans. They're framed as "trying to cancel" DnP, or "making a fuss over nothing". That is completely unacceptable, and if we really want to be this positive community, we have to push back on this behavior when we see it. That includes when it's coming from Dan and Phil.

I honestly don't think Dan was being malicious in what he said, nor do I think DnP were intending to exclude people by not taking the tour to the global south, but that it's really not the point. It's about the fans that feel excluded and hurt. Dan and Phil are both human beings, they are not "unproblematic kings", and they will always fail to meet your standards when you paint them that way. It's causing real people harm when you deny that they can do no wrong. Dan and Phil are very meaningful to me as artists, and I know it can feel personal when you find out someone you admire did something wrong, but sometimes you have to step back and remember that this isn't about you. And it's not a healthy approach to take any criticism of something you like as a personal attack.

Contrapoints once said something that really stuck with me, and it's how I'd like to be living my life, which is that often, admitting when you were wrong can seen as a weakness, when in reality it's an incredible strength. I was wrong with my initial gut reaction over this, and Dan was wrong for what he said, and I think all people want is to hear him say that.

I felt a little nervous writing this post because I don't want to be speaking over anyone, or speaking for anyone, (and if you're a POC and want to elaborate please go ahead), but it felt wrong not saying anything because of how much Dan and Phil mean to me. I don't exactly see myself a part of the "phandom", and I only post about them when they upload, but they are very meaningful artists to me. I want other people to keep discovering Dan and Phil and enjoying their art, but for that to happen we need to be candid about where they've fallen short.

[esotericmama]

Permaculture Methods

Mixed Grazing: grazing a flock of multiple species together in Pasture, such as cattle, sheep and goats. Each species has different dietary needs and are able to graze on different plants in the Pasture keeping weeds down and using acreage more efficiently. Cattle prefer grass, sheep prefer weeds, while goats like brush and forage. The animals also graze at different levels, cattle tall, sheep short, and goats climbing. A mixed flock is also healthier because each species has its own unique parasites that will not spread to members of a different species.

Silvopastoralism: grazing Livestock in Orchards and vineyards. The animals keep the grass and weeds down in the Orchards which helps keep the trees healthy. They fertilize the Orchards with their manure. Of course, as with most types of integrated farming it really helps save space for the smaller farmer or homesteaders.

Integrated rice farming is done is Asia, using a variety of animals to help benefit the production of rice. The most common being rice-duck-fish farming, where fish are farming in channels around the rice field and ducks are released into the paddies. The fish and ducks fertilize the rice and keep pests at bay, especially mosquito larvae which can easily run rampant in a swampy rice field. The ducks and fish naturally replace the need for chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

As a bonus: a lot of rice farmers use the water buffalo to plough the field, this animal is naturally at home in the swampy environment of the rice paddy. Aside from ploughing, the water buffalo is also used as a source of milk, meat and hide.

Intercropping/Companion Planting: planting different species of crops together that will have beneficial effects to each other. The most ancient intercropping is growing cereals and pulses (legumes) together, as the legumes provide lots of nitrogen that helps the grains grow. The Three Sisters is variation of this, combining maize (grain) with beans (legume) but also incorporating squash into the mix which help keeps weeds and pests like raccoons at bay with their sprawling prickly leaves. This system will work interchangeably with any grain, pulse or Marrow (the Marrows are squash, gourds, melons and Cucumbers).

Some other combinations we like to use are Root veg + Leafy green. We intercrop carrots with spinach (and beets with lettuce), the crops don't compete with another for space as one crop mainly grows up and the other grows down, the leafy greens also shade the root rows and help keep weeds down.

I think everyone's heard of the Tomato + Basil intercropping, and how the basil keeps tomato pests at bay and help flavour the tomatoes. We use this system with other nightshades (Eggplant and Peppers) as well, basil is a herb in the Mint family so we substitute basil for other herbs too (summer savory, marjoram).

[gothhabiba]

here's one that's even more bonkers that I didn't report on. it involves writers over at Haaretz being very incompetent.

on the age of chickpea cultivation in Palestine, people variously say 10,000 BC, 8400 BC, 8000 BC, 7000 BC &c. as if at random.

foodtimeline.org (which supposedly provides sources to the researcher but has betrayed me many, many times) cites: Food in the Ancient World From A to Z, Andrew Dalby [Routledge: London] 2003 (p. 84).

Dalby says:

Chickpea, one of the oldest cultivated pulses in the Near East. Chickpeas were grown in Palestine by 8000 BC.

this book is actually useless from a research perspective and belongs to what I like to call the "just some guy saying something" approach to making claims. none of the works cited at the end of the page on chickpeas (yes! none of the claims are associated with a particular work! there are no footnotes! so if you want to trace a particular claim, you've gotta look in each work mentioned! lol!) are scholarly works either, all of them also belong to the "some guy saying something" school of thought, and, most dizzyingly, none of them contain the 8000 BC claim!

okay, let's take another tack. wikipedia says:

"The earliest well-preserved archaeobotanical evidence of chickpea outside its wild progenitor's natural distribution area comes from the site of Tell el-Kerkh, in modern Syria, dating back to the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic period around (c.8400BCE). [12]"

[12] turns out to be an article titled "The Strange Origin Story of the Chickpea" on Haaretz (ugh), which is hardly a scholarly source, but perhaps it cites one! Haaretz says:

The question addressed in a new paper published in May in the journal of Molecular Biology and Evolution is historic: how the domestic chickpea arose and spread, first apparently to the Middle East – signs of chickpea domestication were identified in el-Kerkh, Syria, that may be as old as the 10th millennium B.C.E. – and onwards, the western Mediterranean and to Asia, and to eastern Africa (specifically, Ethiopia).

the particularly sharp-eyed among you may notice that "10th millennium BC" (10,000 to 9,001 BC) is a different claim from "8400 BC," but, oh well, let's click that link.

it's a paper titled "Historical Routes for Diversification of Domesticated Chickpea Inferred from Landrace Genomics." it contains no references to the finds in el-Kerkh, or to a 10th millennium BC claim, or a 9th century BC (which the year 8400 belongs to) claim; it's more about developing a model to trace spread, rather than attesting evidence for any particular date. the author of this article must have just added the information about the site in Syria from, idk, their own background knowledge? lol.

but let's keep pushing this. elsewhere in the same article, a paper titled "Draft genome sequence of Cicer reticulatum L., the wild progenitor of chickpea provides a resource for agronomic trait improvement" is linked. this paper contains in its introduction the claim:

Chickpea was domesticated with wheat, barley, peas and lentil as a member of West Asian Neolithic crops during the origin of agriculture around 10,000 years ago with the oldest archaeological evidence from 7500 B.C.4,5 

also a very different claim from both "8400" and "10th millennium BC", but okay, let's try to trace this one.

citation 4 is a paper titled "Evolution of cultivated chickpea: four bottlenecks limit diversity and constrain adaptation," and it also has to do with something completely different from archaeological evidence for chickpea cultivation. in reference to the claim it is cited to support, it contains only the sentence:

Chickpea is [...] associated with the origin of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent some 10000 years ago.

for this rather vague claim, they themselves cite two other sources: 2000, Lev-Yadun et al. "The cradle of agriculture," Science 288, 1602-1603; and 1999, Zohary D, Hoph M "Monophyletic vs. polyphyletic origin of the crops on which agriculture was founded in the Near East," Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 46, 133-142.

citation 5 is Harlan J. R. 1971, "Agricultural origins: centers and noncenters," Science, 174, 468–474. this one says, summarizing other research, that in the "Near East" (bleucgh)

barley, einkorn, emmer, peas, lentils, flax, vetch, and chickpeas appear to have been domesticated, together with sheep, goats, pigs, and possibly cattle.

the source for this sentence is G. Wright and A. Gordus, Amler. J. Archaeol. 73, 75 (1969).

okay, well, this is starting to get obviously silly; trying to trace these claims further and further back until a primary report of an actual archaeology site is found is clearly pointless, especially since at this rate the find would be from like 1954 and almost certainly new evidence has come to light since then.

let's try something else. despite the fact that Haaretz's "signs of chickpea domestication were identified in el-Kerkh, Syria, that may be as old as the 10th millennium B.C.E" claim didn't actually come from the source that they cited, surely it must have come from somewhere?

I find two papers describing the finds in el-Kerkh, written by the same team. "The origins of cultivation of Cicer arietinum L. and Vicia faba L.: early finds from Tell el-Kerkh, north-west Syria, late 10th millennium B.P." is the one that deals specifically with the chickpea findings.

aha! here, perhaps, is the source of the "10th millennium BC" claim! I suspect someone misread the title of this article, and read nothing else!!

the trouble is twofold: 1. "10th millennium BP" is given as the age of the site, not specifically of the cultivated chickpeas that were found; and 2:

"BP" is not "BC"!!!

"BP" is a metric of time used in carbon dating. it means "before present." the "present" is set to the year 1950, since this is close to when carbon dating was introduced. 10,000 years before 1950 is 8050 BC, and this is the absolute oldest date allowable based on just the title of the paper.

however, if we actually read the paper (or, I mean, skim it for a date, lol), we finally find something concerned with dating a particular site rather than making a genetic model; still better, we find this beautiful, readily comprehensible table shewing us "Archaeobotanical records for C. arietinum [...] in the early Neolithic periods", citing a specific site, the number of beans found there, the estimated date BP of those beans based on carbon dating, and a reference to the paper that details each find:

the "this paper" reference based on the Tell el-Kerkh site gives the date

9350-9165 B.P.! that's 7400-7215 BC! we have a date range at last!

other papers in this chart give estimates that are more recent (e.g. 9320 - 9175 BP), based on papers from the 80s and 90s.

so, if this paper is more recent that any other citation I found during this whole journey (2006), and it claims to have pushed the date on the earliest piece of archaeological evidence for cultivation of the chickpea back (note that archaeological is different than evidence based on literature, genetics, &c.), then where on earth are "8000 BC" and "8400 BC" coming from? I still don't know.

tl;dr: a lot of people say that wikipedia, research blogs online, popular news publications, and things of that ilk are not sources on their own, but that they can be a good starting point to help you find sources. I no longer believe that to be the case. you are better off just starting in jstor or google scholar &c. and ignoring everything else. the claims you find in the latter way may, however, still be wild goose chases even if they are published in scholarly journals. the citation webs in academic journals are dizzying and people rarely trace a claim back to its actual origin, instead content to cite a source that cites a source that cites a source that cites a source........

anyway. I share my humble stories simply for entertainment purposes only.

[alectoperdita]

Oh hell, I am all about them drugged confessions. If/whenever you’re up for it. 💕

From Put That Guy in a Situation(TM) Ask Game

Jumped this one ahead in the queue since it's someone's birthday. 💜💜💜 Enjoy, my friend! I hope this has enough of the stuff you dig about them.

13. Drunken/drugged/sleepy confessions

content warnings: referenced non-consensual drug use and mildly spicy because Seto is thirsty

---

The city lights stabbed into Seto's eyes. The city's heartbeat—a frantic cacophony of bumper-to-bumper traffic, music spilling out of late-night shops and restaurants, and an overwhelming pulse of humanity—pulsed against the back of his head like a second migraine.

He lifted his heavy head and tried to get a better look at his surroundings. Not an easy feat when the world wouldn't stop spinning. Seto could feel the planet's rotational force itself.

In the sky, a bloated, sickly yellow moon hung on the black canvas, a dim bulb when compared to the Oriental Pearl Tower's neon blue and magenta on the opposite riverbank. The phalanx of lit skyscrapers behind the landmark formed a blinding wall that threatened to lighten the night sky.

No wonder they were sitting at a standstill in traffic. He was in the Bund. Shanghai. He was in Shanghai. Not for the first or second time, but the city's nightlife never failed to overwhelm.

It came back to him in bits and pieces. The Pan-Asia Duel Monsters Championship was in China this year, which KC was a sponsor of, along with a dozen international and domestic corporations. Seto wasn't here to compete, though. He was here to do business and build guanxi.

Which meant night after night of hard drinking and tedious back slapping as Seto endured their patronizing compliments about his passable Mandarin. Endless rounds of maotai until his blood must be 90% alcohol. That was the preferred poison of the old-school elites, the ones who built their wealth on the backs of a rapidly booming economy that outpaced everyone's wildest imagination. Not even Japan had sustained that kind of boom in the post-war years.

Potential liver failure was the price of doing business in this country.

That was last night, though. Seto was sure of that much, even if the passage of time seemed theoretical at best. Tonight, he'd been swept into a gaggle of their children, mainly the sons of the previous night's party officials and business moguls.

The fuerdai. His "peers."

Ha! Gozaburo had handed him nothing. Everything Seto owned, everything he accomplished, was through his own sweat and blood.

Seto will give them one thing: their tastes were decidedly less provincial. While their fathers drank baijiu like fish drinking water, they preferred cocktails, or at least pitchers of iced green tea mixed with Crown Royal.

Maybe that was his first mistake. Maybe he shouldn't have underestimated how fucked up he could get on such a simple mixture.

That was the last thing he could remember. He drew a yawning gap between the afterparty at the club and this taxi cab.

Seto sank into the seat and squeezed his eyes shut. His stomach lurched. Perhaps it was a good thing that they were stuck in traffic. He might not be able to keep it down in stop-and-go traffic.

An abrasive—a familiar abrasive voice—encroached from the fringes, though. An equally combative voice shot back in a different language.

Seto's head lolled to the side, away from the window and toward the other passenger in the backseat. Reluctantly, he pried his heavy eyelids open. God, why was he so tired? It felt like he'd pulled several all-nighters in a row.

His fellow passenger was Jounouchi, locked in a heated conversation/argument with the cab driver.

Right. Jounouchi was also in Shanghai this week. Except he was here to compete in the tournament. And unlike Seto, he didn't speak a lick of Chinese.

Not that his laughable grasp of English fared any better.

"Fuck, I'm telling ya, it's the other Marriott!" Jounouchi groaned in Japanese, running a frustrated hand through his bird's nest hair. It looked softer than it had any right to be, though. The strands ought to be bleached to hell and back after this many years.

But Jounouchi had been updating his wardrobe and his deck in recent years. Every victory advanced his look and style, and even netted him some media training like someone deserving of media notice, which was why he was playing in the Pan-Asian championship. Seto couldn't ignore him like he once did, like he still tried to in vain sometimes.

(And sometimes, he very much didn't want to ignore Jounouchi, wondering if he could catch the other man's attention in return...)

None of that explained why they were in the same cab, though.

Jounouchi tried again to communicate. It hurt to listen to him butcher English to that extent. The cab driver appeared to grow even more irate, threatening to eject them entirely.

Giggles spilled uncontrollably out of him. Of course! Of course, Jounouchi's incompetence got them stranded on the opposite end of the city from their hotel.

Fortunately, he was a snack to look at, even if his brains were nothing to write home about.

Seto's words croaked out of him, repeating in Mandarin what Jounouchi had been trying to convey. God, why did it hurt so much to speak? But even his drunken slur sufficed, earning a grousing retort from the driver that Seto should've just said so sooner while shooting a death glare at his other passenger through the rearview mirror.

At the sound of Seto's voice, Jounouchi jolted in shock, releasing the driver's headrest he had been clinging to. After several awkward moments of staring, he inched closer to Seto, stopping short of touching him. But the proximity and the tight enclosure made Seto's skin crawl. Not in an unpleasant way, though. His body tingled and felt a touch flushed.

How would Jounouchi's skin feel against his?

"You alright there, Kaiba?" asked Jounouchi, seemingly floating closer. He waved a hesitant hand in Seto's face.

Base urges welled up in him. He wanted to grab Jounouchi's hand and bite it, no better than a dog, as he once mocked the other man for being. Better yet, he could drag his tongue across the rough palm and lap at his knuckles. Suck his thick fingers into his mouth and learn contentment from how they could fill his mouth.

Seto was never drinking green tea mixed with whisky ever again.

He managed a small noise of confirmation before he twisted away, curling as best as he could around the seatbelt. Something like a whimper pushed at the back of his throat, but he refused to release it. He wouldn't humiliate himself any further. Just as he wouldn't crawl across the middle seat and cuddle into Jounouchi's lap.

But god, he wanted that so much it hurt.

A warm hand landed on his back, and he nearly surrendered as Jounouchi rubbed soothing circles between his shoulder blades.

"It's okay." Jounouchi spoke softly, but somehow it rang louder than the many decibels of Shanghai traffic. "We'll be back at the hotel in time. Just hang in there."

Seto spent the rest of the journey folded into himself, wedged firmly against the side of the taxi, trying and failing not to tremble under Jounouchi's caring touch. With a hushed tone, Jounouchi explained what had happened. It was pure coincidence that he ran into Seto and his "party" at that particular club. (Coincidence is giving chance too much credit. There were only so many high-end nightclubs in the city.) Jounouchi had wandered over to say hi before rejoining his own group. But out of the corner of his eyes, he'd noticed that Kaiba was acting unlike himself. In fact, the entire group seemed a bit off.

Seto was coming to his own conclusion before Jounouchi shared his.

Seto had been drugged. And since he knew better than to take random shit handed to him by strangers, it must've been slipped into his drink. Or maybe it was in the communal cocktail pitcher to begin with.

"They were trying to drag you off to someplace else. Don't ask me where. But you didn't look like you wanted to go, so I stepped in," Jounouchi trailed off. He'd yet to remove his hand, but it sat unmoving, a steadying weight on Seto's back helping to ground him to reality.

"I can't imagine they were happy," Seto muttered.

Jounouchi chuckled. "Not one bit. Acted like I was trying to kill the party. One chick threatened me with her stiletto heel."

"My knight in shining armor." Seto found himself laughing, then regretted it when his head throbbed.

"Don't worry, I didn't hit any of 'em. Mighty tempting, though. I just kinda threw you over my shoulder and high-tailed it outta there. That was how I knew you were really outta it. You barely cursed me out."

Heat associated with both shame and arousal rushed through him. It turned out those biceps he secretly admired weren't just for show.

"Finally, we're here!" exclaimed Jounouchi. His hand also regrettably retreated.

Seto watched blearily as Jounouchi overpaid the driver and leaped out the door. He didn't go far, though. He jogged around the vehicle to Seto's side and yanked open the door. As he leaned in and over Seto to undo the seatbelt buckle, the woody scent of Jounouchi's cologne flooded Seto's nostrils. And his strength was plainly evident as he braced his arms around Seto's shoulders and hip.

"Alright, up we go," urged Jounouchi.

Under any sober circumstance, Seto would've never allowed this to happen. To let Jounouchi touch him, especially as a caretaker. But Seto was the farthest thing from sober, fucked up on whatever combination of alcohol and party drugs he had been unwittingly fed. He didn't have the strength to stand on his own two feet.

So he relied on Jounouchi and his strength. Clung to the man's sweat-slicked neck.

The doorman didn't give them a second glance. Why should he? Seto was simply the latest in an endless stream of drunken guests stumbling back into the five-star hotel.

A lobby concierge approached and tried to help, though. Both Jounouchi and Seto waved him off. Jounouchi likely because he didn't want another stressful not-conversation, and Seto didn't want anyone but Jounouchi touching him right now.

"Hey, what floor?" Jounouchi asked after propping him against the wall of the elevator carriage.

Seto patted down his pockets and was relieved to find his wallet. He didn't expect the fuerdai to rob him blind like a common mugger, but you never knew. He tossed the leather wallet to Jounouchi and croaked, "Key card."

The tournament competitors were provided with single-bed guest rooms. Seto, on the other hand, occupied the Vice Presidential Suite for the week. Their elevator shot toward the top floors, bypassing the dozens of floors between the ground and the suites.

As they ascended, Seto snuck covert glances at the other hand. Despite the air conditioning running at full blast, Jounouchi was still huffing and sweating. Who could blame him? Summer in Shanghai could be blistering.

"Can you walk?" asked Jounouchi when the elevator doors finally parted.

Struck muted, Seto shook his head. His heart raced as Jounouchi wrapped a burly arm around his waist, and together, they hobbled down the hall to the suite's door.

The lights flicked on automatically as they entered, drawing an impressed whistle from Jounouchi as he took in the room.

"Yeah, guess I should've known. You wouldn't be caught dead living like us commoners. Where's the bed in this joint?"

The mention of bed caused something hot and heavy to coil in Seto's navel. Without meaning to, his arm tightened around Jounouchi's neck, which only prompted the other man to grip him tighter, mistaking the action as a plea for more support.

"Bedroom," he moaned, knocking his head against the side of Jounouchi's. He might be imagining it, but he swore Jounouchi shivered and pink flooded down to his neck.

Seconds later, they stumbled into the adjoined bedroom. The spacious room apparently didn't warrant any comments, because Jounouchi deposited Seto on the bed and disappeared from sight.

To say Seto was disappointed was an understatement.

It may be a blessing in disguise. Jounouchi had already done the "decent" thing: extracted him from a dicey situation and brought him to safety. Seto didn't need to embarrass himself in front of the other man any further.

He jumped when a hand grabbed his shoulder, kicking a leg out blindly.

"Relax, it's me."

Silly though it was, Seto did relax as soon as he registered Jounouchi's voice. His firm but careful touch.

"Here. I got you water from the minibar and a cool towel. It's unopened. I promise."

Seto stared helplessly at the two items being offered to him. Jounouchi made no moves, either. They were at a stalemate. At least until the other man sighed and pressed the moist towel to Seto's sweat-dampened forehead. His eyes fluttered closed, and he unleashed a faint moan at how good and chilly it felt.

"C'mon, you gotta drink the water, too. The whole bottle, then I promise to leave you alone."

Panic spiked through Seto's system. Being alone, something he never minded before, suddenly sounded unbearable. He didn't want Jounouchi to leave.

He reached out. Not to take the proffered bottle, as refreshing as its content may be, but to grab Jounouchi's forearm. Jounouchi froze under his clutch.

"You can't leave. I won't let you," said Seto before he could stop himself.

Jounouchi's breath hitched. As he stared at Seto's face, his eyes darkened with something unspeakable. He licked his lips. "Okay, not leaving. Not tonight. Guess someone's gotta keep an eye on you and make sure things don't take a turn for the worse. But you gotta at least let go of my arm. I'll take the couch outside."

Seto slid closer. "I want you—"

Jounouchi gasped. Seto could kiss him at that instant, but his head spun.

He wanted Jounouchi in every conceivable way. Wanted to feel his naked skin against his skin. Wanted to feel his weight pressing down on him as his cock pushed into Seto's hole. Wanted to shatter apart and then let Jounouchi piece him back together in the afterglow, warm and content.

He thought Jounouchi might grant him those things. If only he'd ask for them. But the words remained stubbornly lodged in his throat as sobriety started to creep in on the edges.

"I want you to stay with me," he whispered, holding Jounouchi's shell-shocked gaze.

Tonight and tomorrow. Maybe even for the rest of their lives. One day, Seto would give voice to the whole truth.

Read other prompt fill ficlets here

[apod]

2023 June 29

A Message from the Gravitational Universe Illustration Credit: NANOGrav Physics Frontier Center; Text: Natalia Lewandowska (SUNY Oswego)

Explanation: Monitoring 68 pulsars with very large radio telescopes, the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) has uncovered evidence for the gravitational wave (GW) background by carefully measuring slight shifts in the arrival times of pulses. These shifts are correlated between different pulsars in a way that indicates that they are caused by GWs. This GW background is likely due to hundreds of thousands or even millions of supermassive black hole binaries. Teams in Europe, Asia and Australia have also independently reported their results today. Previously, the LIGO and Virgo detectors have detected higher-frequency GWs from the merging of individual pairs of massive orbiting objects, such as stellar-mass black holes. The featured illustration highlights this spacetime-shaking result by depicting two orbiting supermassive black holes and several of the pulsars that would appear to have slight timing shifts. The imprint these GWs make on spacetime itself is illustrated by a distorted grid.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230629.html

[rhk111sblog]

The latest Pulse Asia Survey showed that Filipinos continue to rank “Territorial Defense” as among their LEAST PRIORITIES of the “Most Urgent National Concerns” despite the constant Barrage of Anti-China, Pro-United States (US) Propaganda from the Press, Social Media and Politicians in the Philippines. I am very PROUD that Filipinos continue to be SMART and know what is really important with their Lives

[spaceadvances]

Monitoring 68 pulsars with very large radio telescopes, the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) has uncovered evidence for the gravitational wave (GW) background by carefully measuring slight shifts in the arrival times of pulses. These shifts are correlated between different pulsars in a way that indicates that they are caused by GWs. This GW background is likely due to hundreds of thousands or even millions of supermassive black hole binaries.

Teams in Europe, Asia and Australia have also independently reported their results today. Previously, the LIGO and Virgo detectors have detected higher-frequency GWs from the merging of individual pairs of massive orbiting objects, such as stellar-mass black holes. The featured illustration highlights this spacetime-shaking result by depicting two orbiting supermassive black holes and several of the pulsars that would appear to have slight timing shifts. The imprint these GWs make on spacetime itself is illustrated by a distorted grid.

📷: NANOGrav Physics Frontier Center; Text: Natalia Lewandowska (SUNY Oswego)

[pureamericanism]

Compared to ecologically and topographically similar regions of Europe or east Asia, the northeastern United States is unusually heavily forested. One might think "well, yeah, the U.S. hasn't been settled by agriculturalists for as long and is less densely populated, obviously there's going to be less percent land cleared for farms," but this is not so! Everywhere in the northeast, our forests rise from what were once old fields. In 1860, for instance, Maine was only 60% forested by land area. Today, that proportion is closer to 90%.

We owe our current landscape to two great waves (and several smaller ones) of farm abandonment. The first happened in the decades after the Civil War, when for various reasons* northeasterners (mostly from New England) packed up their pitchforks and decamped to the midwest. This had been going on before the war too, of course, but up until then it had not been in numbers enough that the northeastern farms stopped being worked. There was always a son or two left to till up more stones from the Vermont field. But that changed after the war, and the fields started to revert to oak and maple and pine. Indeed, much of the early formal scientific study of American forestry and ecology happened in these old Yankee fields and young Yankee forests, by outdoorsy young men from Harvard with names like a Lovecraft protagonist.

The second great wave was in the Great Depression and World War 2, when for various reasons** people from all the rougher sorts of terrain the east has to offer - from West Virginia to Indiana's Brown County to the Ozarks and back to the Catskills - left their farms to come down and seek work in the then-thriving industrial cities. Much of the hilly landscape of the east that had previously been dotted with small subsistence farms, full of exactly the barefoot gap-toothed hillbillies who captured the imagination of urban popular culture with their exotic poverty and folkways when they suddenly appeared in Cleveland, or wherever, in 1933.

These pulses of farm abandonment have left very specific patterns written in the ecologies of the northeast. For instance, the fact that the poor ridgetop farms that were once extremely common in Southern Ohio and Indiana were nearly all abandoned in the 1930s and '40s means that the forests that now grow there are uniformly approaching their first century (excepting, of course, where there's been logging in the meantime.) This is almost exactly long enough for the process of ecological succession to complete itself, and the forests to move into their mature phase.

And so you read books written in the '50s, '60s, or '70s about these areas, and you notice how common early successional species are, everywhere chokecherry and black birch. Whereas today the only evidence you may see of the forest's relative youthfulness is a few very large bigtooth aspens nearing the end of their lives, surrounded by tulip poplars and chestnut oaks that will endure for many years after all the aspens are dead.

*Young men returning from war with a restlessness and a desire to leave home again; those same young men posted far from home during the war and realizing just how awful the New England soil is, lmao; Republican government policy writtrn explicitly to favor small homesteaders heading west; the late 19thc. crash in agricultural prices (as, in a few short decades, the Great Plains, the Australian wheat belt, parts of the Kazakh and Siberian steppes, the plains of South Africa, and the Argentine pampas were all put under the plow for the first time, and during an era of global free trade) making many small farms entirely unsustainable.

**Years of erosion on fields carelessly laid out on steep terrain; the Great Depression making running a small farm, ah, difficult; economic modernisation making staying as a subsistence farmer a damn foolish thing to do; new roads and automobiles making fleeing to the city easier than ever; and the TVA and other federal land grabs displacing hundreds of thousands of people.

[gwendolynlerman]

Discovering the world

Lebanon 🇱🇧

Basic facts

Official name: الجمهورية اللبنانية (al-Jumhūrīyah al-Lubnānīyah) (Republic of Lebanon)

Capital city: Beirut

Population: 5.3 million (2023)

Demonym: Lebanese

Type of government: unitary parliamentary republic

Head of state: vacant (President)

Head of government: Najib Mikati (Prime Minister)

Gross domestic product (purchasing power parity): $78.23 billion (2022)

Gini coefficient of wealth inequality: 31.8% (medium) (2011)

Human Development Index: 0.723 (high) (2022)

Currency: pound (LBP)

Fun fact: It hosts the highest number of refugees per capita and per square kilometer.

Etymology

The country’s name comes from Mount Lebanon, whose name derives from the Phoenician root lbn, meaning “white”.

Geography

Lebanon is located in West Asia and borders Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west.

There are two main climates: Mediterranean-influenced humid continental in the center and east and hot-summer Mediterranean in the rest. Temperatures range from 11 °C (51.8 °F) in winter to 30 °C (86 °F) in summer. The average annual temperature is 20.9 °C (69.6 °F).

The country is divided into nine governorates (muḥāfaẓāt), which are further divided into twenty-five districts (aqdyah). The largest cities in Lebanon are Beirut, Tripoli, Jounieh, Zahlé, and Sidon.

History

2500-64 BCE: Phoenicia

1650-1180 BCE: Hittite Empire

1550-1069 BCE: New Kingdom of Egypt

550-332 BCE: Achaemenid Empire

332-64 BCE: Seleucid Empire

64 BCE-394 CE: Roman Empire

394-635: Byzantine Empire

619-629 CE: Sasanian Empire

636-661: Rashidun Caliphate

661-750: Umayyad Caliphate

750-1517: Abbasid Caliphate

1099-1291: Kingdom of Jerusalem

1102-1289: County of Tripoli

1250-1516: Mamluk Sultanate

1516-1842: Emirate of Mount Lebanon

1516-1918: Ottoman Empire

1843-1861: Double Qaim-Maqamate of Mount Lebanon

1860: civil conflict in Mount Lebanon and Damascus

1915-1918: Great Famine of Mount Lebanon

1920-1926: State of Greater Lebanon

1923-1946: Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon

1926-1943: Lebanese Republic

1943-present: Republic of Lebanon

1948: Arab-Israeli War

1975-1990: Lebanese Civil War

1976-2005: Syrian occupation

1985-2000: South Lebanon conflict

2005: Cedar Revolution

2006: Lebanon War

2006-2008: protests

2007: Lebanon conflict

2011: Intifada of Dignity

2019: 17 October Revolution

2020: Beirut explosion

2021: Beirut clashes

Economy

Lebanon mainly imports from the European Union, Türkiye, and China and exports to the European Union, the United Arab Emirates, and Switzerland. Its top exports are diamonds, polyacetals, and gold.

It has natural gas, limestone, oil, and salt reserves. Services represent 83% of the GDP, followed by industry (13.1%) and agriculture (3.9%).

Lebanon is a member of the Arab League, la Francophonie, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

Demographics

95% of the population is Arab, while Armenians make up 4%. The main religion is Islam, practiced by 55% of the population, 27.6% of which is Sunni.

It has a negative net migration rate and a fertility rate of 1.7 children per woman. 89% of the population lives in urban areas. Life expectancy is 78.3 years and the median age is 31.3 years. The literacy rate is 96.7%.

Languages

The official language of the country is Arabic. French is spoken by 40% of the population.

Culture

Lebanese culture has Persian, Greek, Roman, Arab, Ottoman, and French influences. Lebanese people are very gregarious.

Men traditionally wear a shirt, a dark vest, baggy pants (sherwal), a belt, and a headdress. Women wear a shiny dress (gambaz), a wide belt, and a conical hat with a long piece of silk (tantur).

Architecture

Traditional houses in Lebanon are made of stone and wood and have flat roofs and terraces.

Cuisine

The Lebanese diet is based on fish, meat, pulses, and vegetables. Typical dishes include bamieh bi-zeit (okra and tomato stew), kibbeh (fried balls made of spiced meat and bulgur), sayadieh (seasoned fish and rice), sfouf (an almond-semolina cake), and tabbouleh (a salad of bulgur, onion, tomatoes, and parsley).

Holidays and festivals

Like other Christian and Muslim countries, Lebanon celebrates Epiphany, Armenian Christmas, St. Maroun Day, Feast of the Annunciation Day, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Assumption, Christmas Day, Islamic New Year, Ashura, Mawlid, Eid al-Fitr, and Eid al-Adha. It also commemorates New Year’s Day and Labor Day.

Specific Lebanese holidays include Rafic Hariri Memorial Day on February 14, Liberation and Resistance Day on May 25, and Lebanese Independence Day on November 22.

Independence Day

Other celebrations include the Aerial and Circus Arts Festival, the Baalbeck International Festival, which features dance and music performances, and the Beiteddine Art Festival.

Baalbeck International Festival

Landmarks

There are six UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Anjar, Baalbek, Byblos, Ouadi Qadish (the Holy Valley) and the Forest of the Cedars of God (Horsh Arz el-Rab), Rachid Karami International Fair-Tripoli, and Tyre.

Ouadi Qadish and the Forest of the Cedars of God

Other landmarks include Jabal Moussa, the Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque, the Moussa Castle, Our Lady of Lebanon, and the Tripoli Citadel.

Tripoli Citadel

Famous people

Amin Maalouf - writer

Elie Saab - fashion designer

Fares Fares - actor

Jackie Chamoun - skier

Khalil Beschir - racing driver

May Ziade - poet and writer

Nadine Labaki - actress

Najwa Karam - singer

Ragheb Alama - singer

Rima Fakih - model

Rima Fakih

You can find out more about life in Lebanon in this post and this video.

[bengalaas]

When does life begin again?

After the fallout, when you wake up, when you realize that you are still alive. Do you shake out your bones, do you memorize the pulses of your blood? Do you ever stop feeling like you're still in it, like you'll never get out of it?

Maybe you hide from it. Maybe you keep it hidden under your skin, because it's easier than facing it, because facing it is acknowledging what you have lost to get there. Maybe you throw it away, because you're afraid, and it might kill you or restore you, but you don't know. You can't know.

Maybe it starts when the smoke begins to clear from a battle, when dawn lights up the faces of her side. Maybe it's when Draco wakes up in a hospital bed instead of never waking up at all. When Ron will finally realize that she is really there, and when Harry finds that he no longer has to be a hero because he has finished what he was born to do. When George flips the sign to Open on his and his brother's shop, when Dean paints a face of someone he loves that isn't dead, when Lavender climbs her mountain in Asia.

Life is a circle. It is a war. It builds, climaxes, ebbs out of the fallout, and then builds again. Every night someone goes to sleep to the end of the world, but one morning, they wake up. They shake out their bones, they realize they have survived. They begin again, that human struggle for peace, that desperate reach for happiness.

The Fallout by everythursday