#when is holi 2022 in india

[copper-russell]

Krish “Copper” Russell: a timeline

cw: family death, child/domestic abuse

1990s

18th September 1995: Krish Benjamin Russell is born in York, England to Malcolm and Arushi Russell

March 1998: Krish visits his grandparents in Ahmedabad for the first time with his parents; they spend two weeks there, and continue to do so every year to help prepare for and to celebrate Holi

2000s

10th November 2005: Krish’s father dies in a hit and run whilst on duty; the incident is investigated, but never solved. PC Daniel Daily also died at the scene

Early December 2007: Arushi begins a relationship with Andrew Bradford, a porter who works in the hospital with her

19th August 2008: Arushi and Andrew are married at a small civil service attended by only a handful of people. They move out of Krish’s childhood home to a new neighbourhood

December 2008: As his step-father becomes more abusive towards him, Krish tries to spend more time out of the house; he befriends Theodore, the boy living in the house opposite his, whose mother struggles with alcohol abuse

March 2009: Andrew refuses to allow Arushi and Krish to travel to India for Holi

2010s

18th September 2011: Krish and Theodore kiss for the first time

28th February 2012: When Andrew discovers the nature of Krish and Theodore’s relationship, he attempts to kick Krish out. Arushi ends their relationship, and arranges for herself and Krish to move in with her brother-in-law

March 2012: Arushi and Krish return to India for Holi

August 2014: Krish begins training to join the West Yorkshire Police Force, graduating in January 2015

12th March 2016: After learning that the job isn’t what he thought it was, and feeling like he isn’t helping anyone as an officer, Krish leaves the police force, and decides to become a paramedic

September 2016: Remembering how he and Theodore had talked about it years prior, Krish moves to Swynlake, and begins studying Paramedic Sciences at Pride U. When his fellow students learn he used to be an officer, they give him the nickname “Copper”

24th June 2019: Copper graduates and begins working as a paramedic full time. He moves into an apartment in Benbow with some of his fellow paramedic graduates

2020s

January 2022: After some saving and with money saved by Arushi from Malcolm’s pension, Copper buys a house in the Southern Isles

[pixelgrotto]

Indy's Greatest Adventures

I rewatched all of the Indiana Jones movies lately, coincidentally just in time for the trailer of the new one, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. After I replayed Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis last year and realized that Indy was way more of a tomb raider than I remembered him to be, I was a little nervous about revisiting these films. I needn't have worried too much - wonky portrayal of India aside, the movies still hold up well. There are colonial overtones if you bother to analyze things with a 2022 mindset, sure, but the truck chase scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark still has to be one of the best sequences I've ever seen on film. The same goes for the mine carts in Temple of Doom and the tank scene in Last Crusade. Even Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which I tolerate more than most, has a few moments of pulpy goodness, nuclear fridges aside.

This brings me to Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures for the Super Nintendo, one of the few video games that decided to capture the magic of all of Dr. Jones' then-current films. I first saw a screenshot of it as a kid in Issue #9 of The Adventurer, a magazine that LucasArts put out to advertise their products, and I thought it looked neat as hell. A game full of levels inspired by all three Indy movies?! Genius! I never actually played it as a child, since I didn't have a SNES growing up, but the concept stuck with me. And so after I finished watching the films I decided to give Greatest Adventures a whirl, since it's easily accessible by emulation these days.

The game, published by LucasArts but developed by Factor 5 and JVC Musical Industries, runs on the same engine as JVC's three Super Star Wars titles. I haven't played those, but a quick look online shows that they're renowned for being hard as hell and featuring levels that take quite a few liberties from what was in the movies. (Remember how Luke had to go toe-to-toe against a Sarlacc pit monster in the beginning of A New Hope?)

Greatest Adventures doesn't stray quite as far from the source material, though the last boss of the game is a goofy skeleton version of Donovan after he drinks from the wrong Holy Grail. For the most part, though, you've got traditional platforming stages inspired by most of the major moments in each film, like Indy exploring the Well of Souls, beating up Thuggees in the tunnels beneath Pankot Palace, and facing the traps leading up to the resting place of the Holy Grail. Every now and then you'll get a level that expands upon something not really seen in the films - for instance, a snow section that shows Indy in Nepal trying to reach Marion's bar. Then there are what I like to call "gimmick" levels that present you with a key moment from the movies, like Indy running from a giant boulder at the beginning of Raiders or avoiding gunshots in a nightclub in Temple of Doom, and these break up the standard platforming by forcing you to run forward to survive or duck behind cover. Finally, there are three levels that take advantage of the SNES' fancy Mode 7 chip, placing you in a 3D perspective. Temple of Doom gets two of these, mimicking the life raft plane jump in the Himalayas and the mine cart chase. Last Crusade gets the final one, presenting the moment when Indy and his dad escaped a zeppelin via biplane and had to shoot down some Nazis.

It's all standard SNES platforming goodness, though the game is pretty darn hard. Indy controls well (though for some reason his whip is a far better weapon than his gun) but as the game ramps up you can expect to find a lot of inconveniently placed enemies (like birds, a la Ninja Gaiden) designed to trip up your jumps and bleed your health meter. The latter Last Crusade levels in particular start putting you up against Nazi mechanics and guys from the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword who can throw wrenches and knives in a perfect arc that always seems to hit you, and it's a fine recipe for frustration. There's also one level where you've got to swing from your whip between the windows of Castle Brunwald, and man is it kind of impossible.

I also wish there was more of an equal distribution of levels between the three movies, since Raiders gets 12 stages while Temple of Doom and Last Crusade only get 8. Also, I would've liked to see Indy's sidekicks present. Greatest Adventures depicts the story of each film as kind of a streamlined alternate take where Indy's alone all the time, and while Marion and Professor Jones Sr. show up in cutscenes (and notably the Game Over screen), others like Short Round and Willie Scott are nowhere to be seen. Willie, I guess I can do without, but not including Short Round is a crime, especially when they could've easily designed a Mode 7 chase scene with him driving a car as Indy escapes Shanghai.

These quibbles aside, playing Greatest Adventures with save states neutralizes a lot of the frustration, and for an Indy fan, there's much to like here - from the lovingly-recreated John Williams score to the occasional stage that really rewards fans of the movies. For instance, Raiders' infamous swordsman in black shows up at the end of the game's Cairo levels, and instead of proving to be a major boss encounter, all you've got to do is shoot him once to move on, just like in the film. There's also a Last Crusade boss battle aboard a tank where you can't use any other weapons but your fists to punch Colonel Ernst Vogel into submission, and you've got to do it before the tank rolls off a cliff, too. Good attention to film detail there!

The era of licensed video game tie-ins for films is more or less over, so I doubt we'll see anything in the form of electronic entertainment when Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny comes out. (Bethesda does have the Indy license and is supposed to deliver an original game that might coincide with the movie's release, but they've been silent on that front for a year, so we'll see what happens.) With this in mind, I do recommend giving Greatest Adventures a run-through if you've got a high tolerance for old-school platforming or at least want to relive Indy's glory days before the new movie releases. Along with Fate of Atlantis, it's probably the only 2D Indy game worth replaying by today's standards.

[triviareads]

On Culture, Diaspora, and Kantara

I watched Kantara (2022) over Thanksgiving after hearing about it for weeks from my family and friends, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. It's a film that is particularly meaningful to me because my mother's side of the family hails from the region it was set in, Namely, Dakshina Kannada or the old South Canara in the state of Karnataka, India. This is where where bhoota kola is still practiced to this day.

The truth was, despite this movie being set in the land of my ancestors, I could relate very little on a physical level: These were rural villagers with minimal education living in a system of near-feudalism. I am.. not. Even the language was unfamiliar. My Kannada vocabulary can get me by when it comes to day-to-day activities, and it is insufficient if I want to consume Kannada media. In addition, because the dialect (or the accent) was true to the region, it made it more difficult for me to comprehend it. Neither my mother nor grandmother speak with the accent characteristic to the area (although they can if they want to communicate with locals), and even my father, who is not from the area but still from Karnataka, had to rely on subtitles.

There was also a matter of the culture itself. The thing about the aspects of the Dakshina Kannada culture shown in this film (kambala, boota kola) is that you'd only really be exposed to it if you lived in the area, or someone took the effort to purposefully educate you. That is because it is more of a folk culture. While I can say I am familiar with another local folk art, yakshagana (a form of dance-drama), that is because I grew up with stories of my great-grandfather, a noted yakshagana artist who brought his troop to the United States to tour. In addition, the practice of bhoota kola is not quite a part of the Hindu tradition I was raised in, specifically the Kannada Madhwa Brahmin tradition. I've read that bhoota kola and the notion of daivas is likely is a tradition practiced in the region long before Hinduism arrived.

To hear my mother matter-of-factly say that kambala (Buffalo races) and cock fights and bhoota kola occurred in her coastal village was startling. I suppose the reason she never mention it before was because she never actively went to kambalas (women from "good" families didn't go to events where there were drunk men; so she only saw the processions and parades before the actual event). As for the actual practice of bhoota kola, my grandmother admitted that when she was in around sixth grade, she snuck out of her house in the night to watch the bhoota kola. The old ancestral home in Bramhavara where she grew up was large enough for no one to notice the comings and goings of one girl. At a friend's house, she witnessed the ritual dance, and at some point, an offering of a live rooster was made to the daiva. The rooster's head was promptly snapped off its body. Eventually, my grandmother grew scared, and ran back home.

Regardless of how much I related to the villagers themselves, by the end of the film, I felt like I had a deeper understanding of my own cultural roots not only because of the film itself, but because of the greater context my family members were able to provide. But I also felt a certain amount of sadness. The thing is, I don't live where these rituals are practiced. In my lifetime, I have seen the Bramhavara house demolished, and relatives move away from their ancestral villages. My own parents moved across continents. I don't have the connection to the land that I imagine my ancestors did. At best, I feel fondness and an attachment to where I grew up, but there is no holiness in that, and a part of me wonders if I am missing out on something. I know migration is a natural part of human history, and perhaps this is the truth for any member of any diaspora, but still... I can't help but wonder.

When I finished watching Kantara, I came away entertained, thoughtful, and moved in equal measure. I felt a renewal of faith in a time I sorely needed it, not only in the classical sense, but all those holy protectors tied to the land.

[ausetkmt]

Allah supreme: how Pharoah Sanders found freedom and rebellion in Islam | Pharoah Sanders | The Guardian

The day the music died was 24 September 2022. On that Saturday, the legendary tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, a man who blew his horn “as if he was a dragon breathing fire”, passed on, at age 81. With his death came the end of a majestic era, a time of saxophone spirituality and musical mysticism that will probably never be surpassed or even replicated. Sanders, like so many of his generation, channeled spirit into song, drawing inspiration from a panoply of sacred sources.

For a while, younger hip-hop generations also found words and meaning in a similar kind of search, and the music –along with the quest – continued.

But jazz has changed and hip-hop has changed.

Never mind that only some of these artists adopted the faith itself. It was their notes and their tones that counted. Plaintive, modal, quarter-toned and chromatic, these aural landscapes of east and west and everything in between stretched the imaginations of both players and audiences. Inside the music, new alliances were forged between people and with all that was holy.

To some people, though, the music just seemed cacophonous and angry. White critics often didn’t understand. Even as astute a thinker as the English Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm wrote, in 1959, that jazz’s “flight into Mohammedanism or some other non-white culture” was a way to “sidestep” a rising avant-garde jazz that was seeking white acceptance. Describing the era, Hobsbawm explained that “the marvelous political awakening of all the oppressed and underprivileged in Roosevelt’s America put a new tone into the jazz musician’s instrument: open resentment”.

If all you heard during the long civil rights era was an endless blow of rage, you were missing out since you weren’t listening. The love was everywhere and all over the music. The piano player Ahmad Jamal told an interviewer: “I get my approach to life from the Holy Qur’an. I belong to the Ahmadiyya movement in Islam. Our motto is, ‘Love for all; hatred for none.’” (Many of the jazz musicians of that era came to Islam through the Ahmadiyya movement, a religious revivalist movement that began in late 19th-century India. It was led by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, a charismatic reformer who believed he had received divine revelations that required him to promote the unity of all religions as manifest through Islam. Ahmadis came to the USA in the 1920s and found receptive audiences in African American communities.)

And it was a love supreme. I’ve argued elsewhere that Coltrane’s most famous song, A Love Supreme, has its own Islamic echoes (the chant “a love supreme” starts to sound a bit like “Allah supreme” after a while). Pharoah Sanders, who played with ’Trane starting in 1965, extended Coltrane’s legacy after his death in 1967.

Meanwhile, Sanders continued to build his own spiritually inflected, religious ecumenical style. His 1969 hypnotic track Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah meditates on the words “Prince of peace / Won’t you hear our pleas / And ring your bells of peace / Let loving never cease” for an enveloping and achingly beautiful 15 minutes. His classic The Creator Has a Master Plan had its own second coming when it was re-released in a trip-hop remix in the mid-90s. The Trance of Seven Colors, Pharoah’s work with the master Gnawa musician of Morocco Mahmoud Guinia is simply transcendent on an interstellar plane.

And it was a way of connecting to Africa. “The Christianity of the slave represented a movement away from Africa,” Amiri Baraka wrote in this classic text Blues People. “It was the beginning of Africa as ‘a foreign place’.” For the jazz musicians of this long and spiritual era, to reconnect with Africa was more than idle curiosity. It was a way of suturing back an essential part of you that had been forcibly torn from your collective body generations ago. By the mid-1950s and 1960s, African-themed events at nightclubs and restaurants in Brooklyn and Harlem abounded, with UN diplomats from newly independent African countries frequently dropping in. The jazz pianist and composer Randy Weston described the era: “Many of the African countries were just getting their independence. And the wonderful thing about being in New York, the United Nations is there. So I had an opportunity to meet many African diplomats. Many people from Kenya, from Nigeria, from Ghana, from Egypt, many parts of Africa. And I would always talk to them to try to understand a little more about the continent.”

Weston eventually relocated to Morocco for about five years and traveled throughout the African continent before returning to the USA in 1972. “I went on a spiritual trip back home,” he told DownBeat magazine in 1998, referring to Africa. “I wanted to hear where I came from, why I play like I play, why we play music like we do. We went to about 18 countries, and wherever we went we asked to experience the traditional music of the people. Hearing the traditional music was like hearing jazz and blues and the Black church all at the same time.”

Weston also joined forces with master Gnawa musicians in Morocco. (He was playing with them and learning from them before Sanders did the same.) Others, such as Alice Coltrane, were moving in more eastern directions while still others, like Sun Ra, lived in intergalactic space and called us all to move in with him.

The spiritual jazz movement continued, but it didn’t take long for it to be eclipsed by other trends, everything from commercially accessible fusion, launched by the likes of Miles Davis, to the less accessible avant-garde innovations of Cecil Taylor or Albert Ayler. By the 1990s, jazz was also firmly ensconced in the ivory tower, featuring at prestigious arts institutions such as Lincoln Center and the Kennedy Center.

Still, the Islamic influence in American popular music never went away, though it did change addresses. Shifting from sound to word, Muslim references could now be found more in the new hip-hop than in the new jazz, even if hip-hop Islam was a yet more heterodox creed than the one found within the Ahmadiyya community. Foundational hip-hop artists including Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, and the Wu-Tang Clan were invoking the words and numbers of the Nation of Gods and Earths, an offshoot of the Nation of Islam.

Five Percenter language has permeated the pop cultural lexicon. For example, the “G” in “wassup, G?”is not “gangsta”, as many might think, but “God”. In this creed, Five Percenter men are considered Gods, and Five Percenter women are known as Earths. “Dropping science” is a term from the Five Percenters, as is the emphatic term “word”, a short form of “word is my bond”.

Scholars have written on the important influence of Five Percenters on early hip-hop. But there are also other, more mainline Muslim influences on the American scene. Five Percenter doctrine was foundational in hip-hop, but it operated as an esoteric language among the educated and enlightened. The way the language and numerology (with an emphasis on the number 7) operated was to signify kinship and belonging, which was particularly important in the early hip-hop years. But other Muslim rappers, often associated with Sunni Islam, performed their deen, their faith, more in line with the jazz tradition that preceded it, as a search for self.

Mos Def is hardly the only one who invokes this devotional search. A Tribe Called Quest’s Q-Tip (Kamaal Fareed) is another. “Praise the Lord of the worlds that’s unseen / Respect me for that and let me do my thing,” we hear in the song Get a Hold. More recently, the Five Percenters, the Nation of Islam, and Sunni Islam (and more) tentatively unite to find a home in the lyrical power of Jay Electronica. “All I have in this world is my flag and my sword / I’m on the battlefield with the flag of my Lord,” rhymes Electronica in Fruit of the Spirit. “My shahada is my cantada / My heart chakra light up when I make sajda at fajr.”

While spiritual quests such as Jay Electronica’s aren’t as common in today’s hip-hop, the search hasn’t disappeared entirely. After all, the history of Black music shows us time and again how the journey seeking the divine produces such a profound musical experience.

And that’s what Pharoah Sanders leaves behind. His was an unyielding search for a way to transcend the secular ugliness of this world, and with his passing Sanders may have finally achieved that goal. Yet music – like all that is holy – never dies. And Pharoah’s saxophone will honk and shriek and envelop all our senses, reverberating to heaven and back, and maybe even beyond.

[newstfionline]

Sunday, April 9, 2023

Joyous Holy Week celebrations around the world (AP) From dressing as Roman soldiers in Antigua, Guatemala, to carrying palm fronds on the streets of Lagos, Nigeria, Christians around the world are celebrating Holy Week. For millions of Christians, the week between Palm Sunday and Easter, known as Holy Week, is the most sacred time of the year. It’s the week Christians commemorate the passion of Jesus Christ. The week began with Palm Sunday, where mass at the Vatican was celebrated by Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square the day after he was discharged from the Agostino Gemelli University Hospital in Rome, where the Vatican said he was treated for bronchitis. In Bolivia’s highland region, artists gathered for an annual event where they built sand sculptures based on Bible stories. Members of the faithful in Brazil wore tunics and hoods to take part in the Procession of Souls in Goiás state. And in Managua, Nicaragua, a child dressed as an angel during an event observing Good Friday. In recent years, Holy Week has been scaled back due to COVID-19 restrictions that require precautions such as social distancing and mask use. However, this year many of the faithful gathered in celebrations reminiscent of the era before the virus changed the nature of religious observance.

Stabbing of Cash App Creator Raises Alarm, and Claims of ‘Lawless’ San Francisco (NYT) The fury erupted within hours, as word spread that the 43-year-old man who had been stabbed to death this week in an enclave of high-rise condominiums near the Bay Bridge was Bob Lee, a well-known tech executive. The leaders of “lawless” San Francisco had Mr. Lee’s “literal blood on their hands,” Matt Ocko, a tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist in Palo Alto, Calif., tweeted. “I hate what San Francisco has become,” added Michael Arrington, the founder of the industry blog TechCrunch. “Violent crime in SF is horrific,” Elon Musk, the chief executive of Twitter and Tesla, chimed in. The drumbeat has built since then in the liberal city that only last year recalled its progressive district attorney amid calls for law and order and deepening frustration over the city’s homelessness crisis. While city officials agree that the murder is a terrifying tragedy and a signal that San Francisco has work to do on public safety, they’re also clashing with powerful figures in the tech sector over the nature and severity of the city’s problems with crime. The tension comes at a precarious time, as the tech industry implodes with layoffs and San Francisco itself struggles to bring visitors, conventions and legions of remote workers back to the too-quiet area in and around its downtown.

Resurgent remittances in Mexico (Foreign Policy) Flows of money sent to Mexico from abroad are at historic highs. This February, total remittances to the country accounted for 11 percent more than they did in February 2022, according to Mexico’s central bank. In 2021, Mexico surpassed China to become the country that receives the second-largest amount of remittances in the world. (India is no. 1.) The high tallies may reflect the post-pandemic economic recovery in the United States, where the bulk of the Mexican diaspora lives, the Economist reported.

Deadly Attack Exposes Growing Threat in Mexico: the Military (NYT) Gustavo Ángel Suárez Castillo, an American citizen from San Antonio, piled six friends, including two brothers, into his white pickup truck with Texas plates just before dawn, having spent the night celebrating the news that he was going to be a father. Suddenly, four vehicles filled with armed men began chasing and firing at them. The pickup truck crashed and as the passengers tumbled out, the armed men threw some to the ground, shooting one in the back, survivors told The New York Times. One recounted how he watched his brother slowly stop breathing while the assailants blocked medics from arriving. When it ended, five of the men, including Mr. Suárez, were dead and the other two severely injured. The attackers? Uniformed Mexican soldiers. The shooting in the city of Nuevo Laredo in the early hours of Feb. 26 has been called a coldblooded execution by the survivors and a top government official. So far, four of the 21 soldiers involved in the encounter have been arrested and the case is under investigation by civilian prosecutors and the military. The episode has deepened concerns about the growing footprint of Mexico’s armed forces, which has not only been put in charge of domestic security, but has also been given a rapidly expanding portfolio of businesses, like a new international airport and a major rail line.

Sweden Says State Actor Blew up Nord Stream Pipeline (AP) According to a new statement by Swedish investigators, it’s most likely that a state actor was behind the explosions that took out the Nord Stream gas pipelines late last year. “Our hope is to be able to confirm who has committed this crime,” said the public prosecutor leading the investigation, though he warned that “it should be noted that it likely will be difficult given the circumstances.” While Ukraine and some in the U.S. have blamed Russia for the attacks, investigations have returned a mixed bag of suspects: the New York Times has suggested that a pro-Ukrainian group was behind the attacks, while German media pinned them on a yacht operated by a pro-Ukraine Polish company. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh also released a report blaming the U.S. for the explosions, though Washington and the U.S. media have dismissed him.

Kremlin says its strategic aim in Ukraine is to create a ‘new world order’ (Guardian) Moscow wants any Ukraine peace talks to focus on creating a “new world order”, the French press agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) quotes Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov as saying. “Any negotiation needs to be based on taking into account Russian interests, Russian concerns. It should be about the principles on which the new world order will be based.” According to the agency, he added that Russia rejects a “unipolar world order led by ‘one hegemon’.” Russia has long said it was leading a struggle against US dominance over the international stage, and argues the Ukraine offensive is part of that fight. The Kremlin said this week it had no choice but to continue its offensive, seeing no diplomatic solution.

Facing critical ammunition shortage, Ukrainian troops ration shells (Washington Post) The artillery shells were stored in a shallow mud dugout, covered with a black plastic tarp to keep them safe. Just 14 rounds remained—evidence of a critical ammunition shortage that has the Ukrainians scrambling for ways to conserve supply until their Western allies can produce or procure more. The artillery platoon, with the 59th Motorized Brigade in eastern Ukraine, used to fire more than 20 or 30 shells per day with their Soviet-era howitzer. Now, they typically shoot one or two, or none at all. The ammunition that has pounded parts of Ukraine daily for more than a year has become a precious resource in the artillery war with Russia—and which side conserves shells and rearms faster could turn the tide on the battlefield. Even amid a shortage, Ukraine is firing some 7,700 shells per day, or roughly one every six seconds. Russia, which may also be running low, is firing more—by some estimates triple that amount.

China flies fighter jets near Taiwan after leader’s US trip (AP) China sent warships and dozens of fighter jets toward Taiwan on Saturday, the Taiwanese government said, in retaliation for a meeting between the U.S. House of Representatives speaker and the president of the self-ruled island democracy claimed by Beijing as part of its territory. The Chinese military announced the start of three-day “combat readiness patrols” as a warning to Taiwanese who want to make the island’s de facto independence permanent. The People’s Liberation Army gave no indication whether they might include a repeat of previous exercises with missiles fired into the sea, which disrupted shipping and airline flights. On Saturday, eight warships and 42 planes were detected near Taiwan, 29 of which crossed the middle line of the strait that separates the island from the mainland, the island’s Ministry of Defense said.

A Historic Handshake (1440) Saudi Arabia and Iran formally reestablished diplomatic relations On Thursday, a significant milestone in the relationship between two of the largest powers in the Middle East. The pair cut off ties seven years ago after Saudi embassies in Iran were attacked following the Saudi execution of a popular Shia cleric. Saudi Arabia and Iran have been engaged in a regional power struggle for decades, exacerbated by the differing sectarian religious views—Saudi is roughly 90% Sunni Muslim, while Iran is about 90% Shia Muslim. The regional conflict has also become a proxy for greater world powers, with Saudi Arabia generally working with the West and Iran forging close ties with Russia and China. Notably, the deal was brokered by China, marking one of the country’s biggest diplomatic moves in modern geopolitics.

Tesla workers shared sensitive images recorded by customer cars (Reuters) Tesla assures its millions of electric car owners that their privacy “is and will always be enormously important to us.” The cameras it builds into vehicles to assist driving, it notes on its website, are “designed from the ground up to protect your privacy.” But a Reuters Special Report shows that between 2019 and 2022, groups of Tesla employees privately shared via an internal messaging system sometimes highly invasive videos and images recorded by customers’ car cameras, according to interviews with nine former employees. One ex-employee described a video of a man approaching a vehicle completely naked. Also shared: crashes and road-rage incidents. One crash video in 2021 showed a Tesla driving at high speed in a residential area hitting a child riding a bike, according to another ex-employee. Two ex-employees said they weren’t bothered by the sharing of images, saying that customers had given their consent or that people long ago had given up any reasonable expectation of keeping personal data private. Three others, however, said they were troubled by it. “I’m bothered by it because the people who buy the car, I don’t think they know that their privacy is, like, not respected … We could see them doing laundry and really intimate things. We could see their kids.”

‘I’ve Lost a Lot of Flesh and Bone,’ Jeremy Renner Says, Recalling Snow Plow Accident (NYT) The actor Jeremy Renner, who was severely injured on Jan. 1 when a heavy snow plow ran over him, said in a TV interview on Thursday night that the truck had hit him as he was trying to save his nephew, an accident that broke more than 30 of his bones and upended his life. Mr. Renner, an Oscar-nominated actor who is perhaps best known for his role as Hawkeye in the Marvel Avengers movie and TV franchise, spoke publicly at length about his frightening experience and arduous recovery for the first time in an interview with ABC News. “I’ve lost a lot of flesh and bone in this experience,” Mr. Renner told the journalist Diane Sawyer. “But I’ve been refueled and refilled with love and titanium.” Doctors interviewed by ABC News said that Mr. Renner’s good physical shape and health had probably helped him survive. About 10 weeks after the accident, Mr. Renner is beginning to regain enough strength to walk with a cane. When asked in the interview if he sees the same face when looking in the mirror, Mr. Renner replied, “I see a lucky man.”

[ralexsol]

I posted 5,221 times in 2022

That's 4,966 more posts than 2021!

322 posts created (6%)

4,899 posts reblogged (94%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@enderspawn

@fangirltothefullest

@lacystar

@innit-inc

@glamjrwi

I tagged 3,343 of my posts in 2022

Only 36% of my posts had no tags

#jrwi - 1,204 posts

#dsmp - 473 posts

#whatsupray? - 229 posts

#jrwi spoilers - 207 posts

#ninjago - 154 posts

#technoblade - 126 posts

#slimecicle - 111 posts

#fucking useful - 80 posts

#tommyinnit - 75 posts

#slime story - 73 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#reminder that they have video on spotify for anyone wondering where the fuck to watch it since it ain't out on youtube yet for some reason

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

OH HEY HEY!! FORGOT TO POST THIS SCREENIE!! Another Jaz update <3

(Also gonna start tagging these posts as “#grizzcord update” so y’all can find them more easily, I try to post all the cool character related answers from Grizzly here)

176 notes - Posted November 6, 2022

#4

Check Twitter, see people talking about how it's fucked up to ship Finn/Drey cause of the age difference, spooked, run back to Tumblr

192 notes - Posted December 1, 2022

#3

transmasc AND gay? holy fucking shit i love captain drake

209 notes - Posted November 2, 2022

#2

rand/rolan/kian or nightmare blunt rotation or whatever the fuck their ship name is? fucking gold. none of the big polycule ships in jrwi have been to my fancy before as a fan of the best polycule ever (karlnapity), but nbr? god. they smoke so much fucking weed and play dnd in their shitty hometown and face the horrors. what more could you fucking ask for

223 notes - Posted October 10, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

UM HEY GUYS I FOUND SOMETHING IN THE BITB SOUNDTRACK FILE FROM PATREON

LTHERE’S ACTUALLY 2 SOMETHINGS

One of them is a 7z file called “Sneak Peak.” When you try to extract what’s inside, you’re met with another 7z file called “Not that easy sorry”, and it requires a password to extract. Haven’t figured out the password yet, but the next thing will probably give us the answer.

There is an extra track in the files. It is the very last one, titled “Something Else.”

It starts as the normal bitb intro, but then suddenly turns into a strange robotic voice spouting different words, accompanied by radio static and I think a printing noise in the middle? Here’s the transcription of what I could make out.

0 Hotel India? Victim Echo White? India November Delta *printing noise?* Hotel India Echo Black November

GRIZZCORD THINKS IT IS IN MILITARY ALPHABET, I’M INCLINED TO AGREE! PLEASE HELP OUT IF YOU CAN!

248 notes - Posted October 31, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[subtletruamadumping]

Saints in the Making

______________________________________________________________ There were some saint stories that really fucked me up as a kid and continuously got more and more horrible the older I got and the more I thought about them. Fun fact: my confirmation saint was Joan of Arc since I wasn't allowed to choose Michael (because that's a boy's name).

TW: Religious Ideation and Iconography; Graphic Imagery; Graphic Mention of Rape, Murder, Victim Blaming, and Torture. Slurs.

Date Written: January 29, 2022

______________________________________________________________

Oh, good, Catholic girl, you want to be a saint, don’t you! Of course you do! What’s the point of being Catholic if you’re not a saint? The saints before us can show us how to be so good, so perfect, that we are welcomed into Heaven by God! Being perfect in God’s eyes is the only way to get into Heaven. Let’s see what we can learn from the saints’ stories!

Let’s talk about Pope Saint Gregory the Great! He is the one that came up with the Gregorian chant! He helped the poor by giving them money and clothes. He was so pious and good he couldn’t stand the thought of anyone sinning. Once, he locked a dying monk alone in a room, then threw the carcass onto their pile of human waste because the monk confessed to stealing a gold coin on his deathbed! How pious! He also did the Lord’s work by sending missionaries to convert all the neighboring countries. Helping to spread the Good Word is a great thing we can take from this story! No matter how much people don’t want to hear it, no matter how sure they are in their own beliefs or religion, you can force them to change their mind! God wants you to change their mind! By physical force if necessary! The Crusades were holy wars, after all.

On that note, let’s talk about St. Francis Xavier! He went to Asia to convert those sinful, nonbelievers. He saw Japan, India, and even Indonesia to make sure they knew how much God hated them. Until they converted, of course, then God loved them! We can also talk about St. Peter Claver, saint of the slaves. He saved hundreds of people in Columbia from themselves and their archaic forms of worship! He also taught them how to be nier, more forgiving, to their slave owners. That way, they might be able to get better treatment and would learn how to properly be obedient to God! St. Isaac Jogues was sent to North America from France to help the savage Natives finally see the goodness of God! He marched right into their home and began teaching Christianity. Can you believe they didn’t want to hear the Word of God? He was killed by them, making him a martyr! Don’t you want to be a martyr for God, too? You get to be a saint faster if you’re a martyr!

That reminds me of the first and only Native American saint; Kateri Tekakwitha. She was so brave for giving up her disgusting Indian lifestyle and allowing the Catholic men to tell her what to do. She wasn’t a martyr, but she suffered in her own way. She had chicken pox scars that made her ugly and you know how it hurts God when you’re ugly. That’s why you need to be sure you’re always looking well put together, girls! Your beauty is a reflection of God’s beauty! She would put thorns in her mattress and fast all day long, torturing herself in the name of God. She would even burn herself regularly! Isn’t she such an inspiration? She really was one of the good ones. She died so young; only 17. Don’t you want to be just like her? It’s easier to get into Heaven if you die young!

Think of Therese of Lisieux! From a very young age, she cloistered herself away in a convent and never let herself be influenced by the outside world. You should also strive to only surround yourself with people who agree with these teachings. There’s even more we can learn from her! She spent every waking second thinking about God, bringing herself to tears if she felt like she wasn’t getting enough prayer time! You should also be thinking about God 24/7. He’s always watching and knows all your sins! But do you know what you can do to rectify them? Therese taught us that, too! Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice! You don’t have anything to sacrifice? Neither did Therese! You can follow in her footsteps by sacrificing food, water, sleep, happiness, sanity! That’s what a saint would do.

St. Bernadette is another great example! She had such painful cancer while she was dying in a nunnery, but she never complained or told anyone! How saintly! Not to mention she would blindly follow anything she was told to do. She was so holy, she would receive visions from the Blessed Mother. She still needed to suffer, though! How is God supposed to know you love him if you don’t suffer for him? Suffer, suffer, suffer! That should be your goal in life. That’s how you become a saint. And don’t be afraid to die young! The younger the better! Just think of little St. Hugh. He was only 9 when he died! What did he do before age 9 to make him a saint? No one actually knows, but a bishop said some nasty Jewish kids killed him, so he must be a saint! Remember, kids, you’re never too young to die for Jesus! If you renounce Jesus and live, he won’t love you anymore. It’s better to just die.

Dying is a great way to make sure you stay pure, too! So many of the saints are in Heaven because they stayed pure their whole lives! St. Lucy plucked out her own eyeballs to keep from tempting a man. Well, it was either that or they gouged them out because she refused to marry a non-Christian. Either way, isn’t that so wonderful? Don’t you want that? That’s how you become a saint. St. Rose of Lima is another wonderful saint. She was born so beautiful that she knew from a very young age she was tempting older men into having sinful thoughts. Just by looking at the beautiful child they were tempted! She knew it was her responsibility to keep them from sinning. She would rub lye and pepper on her face to ruin her skin! It’s better to harm yourself physically than have the chance to harm others spiritually! She would fast so often and for so long, she had to do it in secret because her parents were worried about her. She would give herself painful and severe punishments for her sins; like wearing a crown of thorns, flogging herself, and even refusing to sleep. You should strive to be like her! What were her sins? She was only a child, what could have deserved that kind of punishment? It’s not our place to judge others. I’m sure she knew them in her heart, just like you know yours. Let’s also not forget she did cause men to have lustful thoughts before she scarred her face!

Just like how St. Maria Gorhetti caused the 20-year-old boy, Alessandro Serenellis, to sin. Why, she was practically a young woman when he stabbed her to death at age 11! He tried to seduce her twice, but she was strong enough in her faith to know God wouldn’t love her anymore if she wasn’t a virgin. She was a good little girl and tried to keep herself pure. How holy her screams must have been when he tried to rape her twice! She tried to run away and get to the door, like how she had managed to escape the first time. He didn’t like being told no. He remembered the last time he tried and she managed to get away, so this time he brought a knife. He stabbed her. He stabbed her 14 times. He was caught because people heard her screaming. She was 11. On the way to the hospital, her dying prayer was for his forgiveness.

And that’s what you have to do, kids! Anytime a man harms you, you have to turn the other cheek! Forgive him! That’s the only way you can get into Heaven. The only way you can be a saint. You have to forgive the sins of men, but also fight to keep yourself pure! If you don’t die fighting your rapist off, you don’t get into Heaven. You weren’t trying hard enough to keep yourself pure for God. If you cause a man to want to rape you, you don’t get into Heaven. Your beauty should not outshine the strength of God in men. If you’re so ugly no man wants you, you don’t get into Heaven. Every woman should get married to the first man that proposes to her. If you don’t suffer, you don’t get into Heaven! If you’re too happy here on Earth, you don’t get into Heaven! If you’re not a virgin when you get married, you don’t get into Heaven! If you don’t give your husband sex whenever he demands it, you don’t get into Heaven!

Don’t look so distressed, this story has a happy ending! See, Alessandro might have gone to jail, but he repented for his sins and he was let out! Isn’t that great! Sure, he was already a practicing Catholic when he tried to rape a child and stabbed her to death, but all men are driven by lust! Now, he was a new man, completely devoted to God! He constantly wrote about his ‘little angel’, his ‘little saint’, his ‘little Maria’. He reminded everyone with his letters that it was simply a ‘crime of passion’. He was let into a monistray and became a monk! Isn’t it so wonderful he was able to find God after murdering an innocent child? Or, at least, be reminded of God? See how your death might save another’s eternal life? I heard they might be making him a saint, as well! What man can’t relate to making a mistake, repenting, then getting his life turned back to God? When he’s a saint, we can learn from his story that no mistake of a man’s is too much for God to forgive!

I wonder what he would be the patron saint of. Knives, maybe? Prisoners? Oh, I think there’s already a patron saint of prisoners… What do you think you will be the patron saint of when you die? Will you be a martyr and die for God, or will you be a saint who forgives the horrible things men will do to you, or will you torture yourself day in and day out to make sure God knows how much you love him? Remember not to let your brothers in Christ sin when they see you. Also, your beauty is a way to worship God. Make sure you read up on the saints so you can have more examples of how to suffer, die, and torment the people around you in the name of Christ! Either that or you’re going to burn in Hell for all eternity.

[indianfromsouth]

Pathanamthitta collector – A role model!

How many of you have heard the name Divya.S.Iyer? No, she's not a silver screen celebrity. Divya.S.Iyer is the collector of Pathanamthitta district, of Kerala where the Sabarimala temple is located.

A couple of days ago, she was honored with the “Excellence in Governance” award by the Home Minister Amit Shah. She was one among the 18 collectors who was presented with the award, chosen from 404 district collectors across 29 states of India.

So, isn’t this just another routine award? What’s different? Divya S Iyer was in the news recently when she got into the bad books of the Communists and intellectuals in Kerala. Let me tell you why! Being the Pathanamthitta collector, she was invited to an event in connection with the beginning of Sabarimala pilgrimage season in December 2022. Being a devotee of Swamy Ayyappan herself, Divya led the chanting of the holy names of Swami Ayyappan. Please see the video in a report by Manorama News at the below link!

'പതിനെട്ടാം പടിയേ'... തങ്ക അങ്കി പമ്പയിലെത്തിയപ്പോള്‍ ശരണം വിളിച്ച് ജില്ലാ കലക്ടര്‍| Divya S iyer

പതിനെട്ടാം പടിയേ..ശരണമെന്റയ്യപ്പാ.. പമ്പയില്‍ തങ്ക അങ്കിക്ക് സ്വീകരണം നല്‍കിയപ്പോള്‍ കുഞ്ഞിനെ ഒക്കത്തിരുത്തി ശരണം വിളിക്കുന്ന പത്തനംതിട്ട ജില്ലാ കലക്ടർ. തിരുവാഭരണം കമ്മിഷണർ ബൈജു സമീപം #Sabarimala #Pathanamthitta #DivyasIyer

Posted by Manorama News TV on Wednesday, December 28, 2022

Posted by Manorama News TV on Wednesday, December 28, 2022

This immediately became a controversy with a section of the Kerala government criticizing her for this saying that she was on official duty, and she was not supposed to be a part of the prayers and the rituals there. You must remember that this is the same communist state government that sent its Christian minister to Vatican on government expenditure to witness the canonization of Mother Teresa. Muslim comrades are also allowed to practice their faith and even talk about it publicly.

But when it comes to Hindus, the rules change. Recently the Devaswom Board (the board that manages state temples) minister K.Radhakrishnan was seen at Sabarimala Sannidhanam during the pilgrimage season. See this photo to know what I am talking about!

The man was staring straight ahead, as though he was confused about to do! He didn’t have the courage or the decency to bring his two palms together in front of the deity. Many Keralites would remember how the Kerala CM mockingly asked pointing towards the Guruvayur SriKrishna deity – “Is that where Krishnan is?” when he visited the temple.

In a state where mocking Hindu rituals and culture has become a daily affair, Divya.S.Iyer comes as a breath of fresh air. Thank you Divya.S.Iyer for being who you are, for upholding your culture and beliefs! Congratulations on a well-deserved award! You are a woman with a strong spine and would serve as an inspiration and a role model for many more men and women in the years to come!

[dweemeister]

2022 Movie Odyssey

Well, it’s another record set for the the latest date that this list has ever appeared. As per tradition on this blog, this is the complete list of films I saw for the first time in their entirety over the last calendar year. They are listed in the order of completion and with a respective rating out of ten from me. Each rating (my ratings system and eligibility rules are explained here) is based on my personal imdb rating. All half-points are rounded down.

March was defined entirely by my blog’s annual 31 Days of Oscar marathon (in which I limit myself to watching films nominated for an Academy Award or Honorary Academy Award winning films). June and early July were defined almost entirely by viewing submissions for Viet Film Fest - which contributed heavily to the amount of short films (one will notice tons of MGM short films and Popeye as well; the latter I believe I will be completing later in 2023) seen this year.

In sum, I saw 207 films that were new to me in 2021 (a sharp decline from 329 in 2021). 116 of those were features (films defined as forty-one minutes or longer); 91 were short films (forty minutes or shorter). My yearly goal to watch more pre-1980 films than 1980 and after - so as to ensure that I my viewing habits are well-rounded, chronologically - failed for the first time in at least eleven years. Among features, I saw six more features released 1980 and after. Adding both features and shorts, the deficit was nineteen. My professional situation in the second half of the year did not help matters.

What follows is the entire list of the 2022 Movie Odyssey:

JANUARY

The Fly’s Last Flight (1949 short) – 6/10

All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989) – 7.5/10

Hilda and Mountain King (2021) – 7/10

Babes in Toyland (1961) – 6/10

Sidewalk Stories (1989) – 8.5/10

The Donut King (2020) – 7.5/10

The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021) – 9.5/10

Baby Wants Spinach (1950 short) – 6/10

Chicana (1979 short) – 6/10

Start Cheering (1938) – 6/10

Ladies of the Chorus (1949) – 6.5/10

Drive My Car (2021, Japan) – 10/10

Belle (2021, Japan) – 6/10

La bestia debe morir (The Beast Must Die) (1952, Argentina) – 9.5/10

The Stork’s Holiday (1943 short) – 5/10

Beach Peach (1950 short) – 6/10

American Revolution 2 (1969) – 6/10

The Murder of Fred Hampton (1971) – 8/10

Big Fella (1937) – 5.5/10

What Price Fleadom (1948 short) – 6/10

A Hero (2021, Iran) – 7.5/10

Nightmare Alley (1947) – 9/10

Flee (2021) – 8.5/10

One Ham’s Family (1943 short) – 6/10

FEBRUARY

Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (1953, France) – 7.5/10

The Doll (1919, Germany) – 9/10

Father Goose (1964) – 7/10

Death on the Nile (2022) – 6/10

MARCH (31 Days of Oscar)

Audible (2021 short) – 8/10

When We Were Bullies (2021 short) – 6/10

On My Mind (2021 short, Denmark) – 6.5/10

Please Hold (2020 short) – 8/10

The Dress (2020 short, Poland) – 7.5/10

The Long Goodbye (2020 short) – 6/10

Ala Kachuu – Take and Run (2020 short, Switzerland/Kyrgyzstan) – 8/10

Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom (2015, Ukraine) – 7.5/10

Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) – 7/10

Three Songs for Benazir (2021 short, Afghanistan) – 7.5/10

Lead Me Home (2021 short) – 7/10

The Queen of Basketball (2021 short) – 8.5/10

A Mighty Wind (2003) – 7/10

The Ladykillers (1955) – 9.5/10

A Patch of Blue (1965) – 9/10

Robin Robin (2021 short) – 8.5/10

Boxballet (2020 short) – 7.5/10

Affairs of the Art (2021 short) – 6.5/10

Bestia (2021 short, Chile) – 8/10

The Windshield Wiper (2021 short) – 7/10

Nightmare Alley (2021) – 7/10

Midnight Express (1978) – 6/10

Don’t Look Up (2021) – 4/10

The Power of the Dog (2021) – 8.5/10

CODA (2021) – 7/10

Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) – 6.5/10

King Richard (2021) – 7.5/10

Loves of a Blonde (1965, Czechoslovakia) – 8/10

APRIL

Love Me or Leave Me (1955) – 6.5/10

The Batman (2022) – 8/10

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) – 8.5/10

Mahapurush (The Holy Man) (1965, India) – 6/10

Penny Serenade (1941) – 7.5/10

The Proud Valley (1940) – 7/10

The Oyster Princess (1919, Germany) – 7.5/10

When the Cat’s Away (1935 short) – 6/10

Turning Red (2022) – 7/10

Bull Durham (1988) – 7/10

Pillow Talk (1959) – 8/10

The Ancestral (2022, Vietnam) – 4/10

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) – 8/10

Anaïs in Love (2021, France) – 6/10

MAY (VFF submissions marked with asterisk)

Time After Time (1979) – 7/10

Memoria (2021, Colombia) – 7/10

An Inn in Tokyo (1935, Japan) – 7.5/10

Lady on a Train (1945) – 6/10

Petite Maman (2021, France) – 9/10

Gym Jam (1950 short) – 6/10

How Green is My Spinach (1950 short) – 7/10

Bi, Don’t Be Afraid (Bi, đừng sợ!) (2010, Vietnam) – 6/10

Jitterbug Jive (1950 short) – 6/10

Popeye Makes a Movie (1950 short) – 5/10

Footy Legends (2006) – 7/10

Ganashatru (An Enemy of the People (1989, India) – 7/10

Quick on the Vigor (1950 short) – 6/10

Rio in Rhythm (1950 short) – 8/10

Let’s Stalk Spinach (1951 short) – 6/10

Container (2021 short, Canada) – 8/10*

Free Your Mind (2021 short) – experimental film; score withheld*

Why Am I Still Alive? (2019 short, Canada) – 6.5/10*

No Man of Her Own (1950) – 7.5/10

Double-Cross Country Race (1951 short) – 5.5/10

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982) – 7/10

Alpine for You (1951 short) – 6.5/10

The Farmer and the Belle (1950 short) – 6/10

Punch and Judo (1951 short) – 7/10

Thrill of Fair (1951 short) – 6/10

Antonio Gaudí (1984) – 6.5/10

Go for Broke! (1951) – 6.5/10

Spellbound (2002) – 7/10

JUNE

Gomenasai (2022 short) – score withheld*

Love, Laugh, Doom, Tears (2021 short) – 6.5/10*

Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko (2021, Japan) – 6.5/10

ALETHEIA (2022 short) – 6/10*

Vacation with Play (1951 short) – 6/10

good enough (2021 short) – 6/10*

Granny Boot Camp (2022 short) – 7/10*

Closing Time (2021 short) – 4/10*

A Realm of Return (2020, Canada) – 6/10*

Trespasser (2022 short) – 6/10*

Cà Phê 179 (2021 short, Canada) – 5/10*

Mabel (2022 short) – 7/10*

A Crack in the Mountain (2022) – 8/10*

Luv, Me (2021 short) – 7/10*

All I Ever Wanted (2021 short) – 7/10*

Exposed (2020 short) – 6/10*

Project Lullaby: CHOICE (2021 short) – experimental film; score withheld*

MiMi (2022 short, Vietnam) – 6.5/10*

Monkey in the Middle (2022 short, Vietnam) – 6/10*

Crouching Comic (2021 short) – 7/10*

Niềm đam mê (La passion) (2021 short, France) – 7/10*

Spring Roll Dream (2022 short, United Kingdom) – 8/10*

Me (Mom) (2019 short) – 7/10*

After Taste (2022 short, Vietnam) – 5.5/10*

Popeye’s Pappy (1952 short) – 5/10

Lightyear (2022) – 6/10

Friend or Phony (1952 short) – 5/10

Iris (2022 short) – 7/10*

Stinkfrucht (Taste of Home) (2022 short, Germany) – 8/10*

The Greatest Poem (2022 short) – 7/10*

Breakdown (2022 short) – 6/10*

Thuy & T. (2021 short) – experimental film; score withheld*

Talk to Me (2022 short) – 7/10*

Places and Times (2022 short) – 7/10*

It Was Time to Reconnect (2022 short) – 6/10*

The Aberrant (2022 short) – 6/10*

Thunderclouds (2022 short) – 7/10*

Fourth Block (2022 short) – 6.5/10*

My Mother’s Daughter (2022 short) – 7/10*

Mai Tell-Tale (2022 short) – 5/10*

Đêm Tối Rực Rỡ! (The Brilliant Darkness!) (2022, Vietnam) – 6.5/10*

Elvis (2022) – 6.5/10

Big Bad Sindbad (1952 short) – 5/10

Once Upon a Bridge in Vietnam (2022, France) – 6/10*

Buffalo Boy (2004, Vietnam) – 7.5/10

The Wiz (1978) – 6/10

Maika (2022, Vietnam) – 6.5/10*

Jimmy in Saigon (2022) – 7/10*

JULY

Memento Mori: Earth (2022, Vietnam) – 7.5/10*

Children of the Mist (2021, Vietnam) – 8/10*

Side Seeing: The Movie (2022, Vietnam) – 4/10*

Camouflage – Vietnamese Brush Strokes with History (2018) – 6/10*

Tiệc Trăng Máu (Blood Moon Party) (2020, Vietnam) – 7/10*

The Rescuers (1977) – 6/10

My Vietnam (2022) – 4/10*

Memoryland (2021, Vietnam) – 6.5/10*

Popalong Popeye (1952 short) – 6/10

The Black Cauldron (1985) – 4/10

Nope (2022) – 7/10

Shuteye Popeye (1952 short) – 6/10

Swimmer Take All (1952 short) – 6/10

Tots of Fun (1952 short) – 7/10

Oliver & Company (1988) – 5/10

AUGUST

The Rescuers Down Under (1990) – 6/10

The Prince and the Pauper (1990 short) – 6/10

The Gang’s All Here (1943) – 6/10

The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970) – 7.5/10

Three Women (1924) – 6/10

SEPTEMBER

Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022) – 7/10

Pressure Point (1962) – 6/10

See How They Run (2022) – 7/10

The Woman King (2022) – 7/10

OCTOBER

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1949) – 6/10

Babes in Arms (1939) – 6/10

Meet Danny Wilson (1952) – 6/10

The Scapular (1968, Mexico) – 7.5/10

Misterios de ultratumba (Black Pit of Dr. M) (1959, Mexico) – 7/10

The Masque of Red Death (1964) – 7/10

Two Boobs in a Balloon (1935 short) – 6.5/10

Nut Guilty (1936 short) – 6/10

The Red House (1947) – 7/10

NOVEMBER

El vampiro negro (1953, Argentina) – 7.5/10

Minnie the Moocher (1942 short) – 7/10

9 to 5 (1980) – 7.5/10

The World at Their Feet (1970) – 7.5/10

The Grandmother (1970 short) – experimental film; score withheld

Le Million (1931, France) – 7.5/10

Two Billion Hearts (1995) – 7/10

Ancient Fistory (1953 short) – 6/10

The Fabelmans (2022) – 8/10

Shaving Muggs (1953 short) – 6/10

Baby Wants a Bottle (1953 short) – 6/10

Johnny Guitar (1954) – 7/10

Glass Onion (2022) – 7.5/10

Popeye, the Ace of Space (1953) – 6/10

Island in the Sun (1957) – 6/10

DECEMBER

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) – 8/10

Firemen’s Brawl (1953 short) – 6/10

Popeye’s Mirthday (1953 short) – 6/10

Toreadorable (1953 short) – 5/10

Bride and Gloom (1954 short) – 5/10

Fright to the Finish (1954 short) – 7/10

Greek Mirthology (1954 short – 6/10

Popeye’s 20th Anniversary (1954 short) – 5/10

Private Eye Popeye (1954 short) – 6/10

Taxi-Turvy (1954 short) – 6/10

A Job for a Gob (1955 short) – 6/10

Mister and Mistletoe (1955 short) – 6/10

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) – 7.5/10

So closes out, finally, the 2022 Movie Odyssey. Thanks to you all for being a part, whichever ways large or small, of it.

[blahblahblaw18]

Finding Serenity in the City

On the 3rd of December, 2016, our beloved Supreme Leader was quoted saying “Hum toh fakeer aadmi hai ji, jhola leke chal padenge’ at an election rally in Moradabad. Now I really don’t know what the context of this quote was but six years later, in 2022, I decided that I was done toiling in my little small town and packed off all the dearest of my belongings into a metaphorical ‘jhola’ and left for Delhi... Well, not exactly Delhi... Sonipat. But I prefer saying Delhi because, let’s be honest, saying that I am studying in Delhi sounds a looooootttttt more cooler than saying that I’m studying in a University across Narela road in Jagdishpur Village of Sonipat District. And alsooo, Sonipat is in NCR (or atleast I’d like to believe that it is) so yeh sab chalta hai.

Anyway, for people like me from small towns, going to Delhi is almost like a dream come true. You grow up hearing about the place, reading about it in newspapers and magazines and sitting in the dingy room of your house in your small town, you feel like going to Delhi is the panacea that will resolve all your problems. And I, like millions of others in this country, bought into this story and packed my bags and left for Delhi with a glint in my eyes and hopes in my heart. It was only when I got off that Rajdhani Express and stepped onto the platform at Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station that I realized that this Delhi is much like any other average city... I mean, don’t get me wrong, Dilli hai badi khoobsurat but it was miles miles afar from the Delhi of my imaginations. This Delhi was beautiful, romantic and fashionable, modern and everything which my small town was not but it was also a city that eschewed silence, serenity, calmness, and compassion and pretty much everything else that my small town was. 

So when in the middle of the semester, I found myself stuck in the middle of this big city which I neither belonged to nor related to, I felt like I had been stuck in the middle of a big whirlpool. I felt deracinated and dispossessed.  I had left my culture, my people, my home, my parents and everything behind and only carried my heart to this one new place and now the very same heart bled profusely at the thought of having to live there for the next few years. My early days in Delhi drained me of all my life and energy as I knew not, the people here and understood not, the language or culture of these big burly North Indians, who very aptly fit every stereotype of North India that I had ever been fed. 

And on one such thoroughly tiresome and deeply distressing days, I decided that I had had enough of this place and was almost on the verge of a break down, when I received a message on my WhatsApp. It was from a friend from my college who had gone back to her home that week for the mid-semester Dasara break. “Heyy, I’ve seen you’ve been missing home a lot! I don’t mean to overstep or anything but would you like any sweets or anything else that could make it a ‘lil better?  I am at home and I could probably get it. I’ll be coming back to campus tomorrow” it read. And even before I could finish reading the message, a big wide smile, wider than Delhi’s roads, had unfurled on my face and my eyes, were dripping with tears like river Yamuna which quietly makes its way through the heart of the city. Rithvika, for that was the name of this dear friend, that day, to me, almost seemed like an incarnation of that holy river- quietly bringing in all the world’s joy into the life of a parched soul. Today, it’s her birthday and through this post, I want to let her and the hundreds of other thoughtful and caring people like her who knowingly or unknowingly augur joy and happiness into other people’s lives know, how valuable their presence is in for us. So my dearest friend Rithvika, thank you for that sweet message and for the sweeter snacks, hope you have a wonderful and successful year ahead. That day, in the midst of this noisy, bustling city, you became a source of serenity, silence, calmness, compassion and everything else that I missed about home. You, became home. 

Have a happy birthdayyyy <3 ilysmm

[parasparivaar]

History Of Kedarnath

Kedarnath is one of the Char Dhams in the north, with Badrinath, Gangotri, and Yamunotri. It is also one of India's twelve jyotirlingas, and the highest. Kedarnath is regarded as extremely holy and difficult to approach.

However, the true history of Kedarnath begins with the Pandavas. After the Mahabharatha war, the Pandavas and Draupadi sought penance. Killing one's own kin was a severe sin, therefore they sought atonement from Lord Shiva in the Himalayan highlands. They saw Lord Shiva right where the Kedarnath sanctuary sits today.

Lord Shiva was unprepared to forgive them. So he disguised himself as a bull and buried himself to escape being discovered. However, the Pandavas recognised him, and Bhima tugged on his tail and back legs. Mahadev was buried deeper beneath the soil before resurfacing in 5 locations: the hump in Kedarnath, the arms in Tungnath,  the face in Rudranath, the belly in Madhyamaheshwar, and the head in Kalpeshwar. These come together to form the Panch Kedar.

The Pandavas subsequently built temples in all five of these locations, which absolved their crimes.

Where Is Kedarnath Located?

Kedarnath is situated in the deep recesses of Uttarakhand, bordering Tibet. On one side, there are the Gangotri mountains, where the Ganga originates. On the other side is the sacred land of Badrinath. To get to any of these locations, you'll need to take a lengthy road diversion.

Sonaprayag, the last village before Kedarnath, is 210 miles from Rishikesh via road and 246 kilometers from Dehradun. While it may appear to be a little distance, the journey can last up to ten hours. Kedarnath is also located at an elevation of 11,755 feet, and the main shrine is not accessible by road or car. There are numerous ways to get to the shrine. Please see the 'How to Reach' section below.

When Is Kedarnath Open For Visitors?

Kedarnath's opening and closing dates vary each year because it follows the Hindu calendar. The shrine is currently open from the first day of Vaishakh (April-May) until the first day of Karthik (October-November). Diwali is traditionally the first day that the temple is closed.

During the winter, the temple and its surroundings are covered in deep snow and become dormant. The temple is currently inaccessible.

The temple is open all day, from 4 a.m. to 3 p.m. It closes for lunch and reopens from 5 to 9 p.m. The morning puja is held from 4:00 to 7:00 a.m., while the evening puja is held between 6:00 and 7:30 p.m.

Yatra Registration For Kedarnath

Following the 2013 flash floods, local officials set up a yatra registration system to limit the number of visitors to the Kedarnath Dham. Everyone must register online before starting their journey.

If you are trekking to Kedarnath, you will need to show your yatra epass. Make sure you have it before arriving. If you cannot do it yourself, try hiring someone in the vicinity for a charge (about ₹50, may change during busy season).

You will surely require this e-pass and registration to book a helicopter ticket online. Beginning in 2022, you will be expected to upload your Covid-19 certificate when registering.

Where To Stay During Kedarnath Travel?

In Guptakashi Or Sonaprayag

You will most likely need to spend a night or two in Guptakashi or Sonaprayag (if hiking), as this will serve as your base for your Kedarnath excursion. You must begin and end your journey at GuptaKashi, regardless of the mode of conveyance.

Guptakashi has a wide variety of hotels, ranging from inexpensive to mid-range. However, you are unlikely to discover super-luxurious ones in the neighborhood. While the hotel prices are equal to other hill stations during the regular months, they rise during the high season. We found super-basic lodgings (without heating or geysers) for ₹3000 per night.

The motels in Sonaprayag are somewhat basic, yet they are recommended if you want to start your journey the next morning.

Issues To Keep Note

As I indicated at the start of this article, I have mixed feelings regarding my journey. And, while I do not wish to scare you with my (personal) beliefs, I believe you should keep a few things in mind.

1. Keep in mind that the number of pilgrims making this journey is enormous. So expect it to be bustling everywhere! Hotels are full, and transportation, including ponies and helicopters, is overbooked. The queues are long, and the options are restricted. If you're travelling with the elderly or children, be prepared to pay for their discomfort with money.

2.According to ecologists, the 2013 floods were caused by overpopulation, overdevelopment, and excessive tourism. And, while local officials sought to keep this under control in subsequent years, as of 2022, there is basically no supervision or controls on activities. We'll be back at square one soon.

3.The seven helicopter companies who operate helicopters in this region frequently fail to follow the proper laws and safety criteria. The result was the helicopter crash on October 22. And you will not be surprised. The helicopters are booked at two to five times their normal capacity. This means less rest periods for both helicopters and pilots. Negligence is frequent. Some operators perform better than others, but no one can ensure a safe return.

4.All of the facilities along this road are relatively pricey, particularly during peak season. I probably paid as much as I would for a week-long vacation abroad, ignoring geyser motels and nasty drivers. If you're searching for a vacation, this is not it. If you're a pilgrim, take things as they come.

5.Only emergency and basic medical care are available in the region. Take special cautious around the elderly and children. Keep your prescriptions with you; don't expect to find them here. In the event of an emergency, you may be transported via helicopter, which must be self-funded.

[crimechannels]

By • Olalekan Fagbade NDLEA operatives arrest suspected kingpin behind fake couple’s cocaine trafficking Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have arrested a suspected drug kingpin, Ngene Onyedikachi, who allegedly recruited a fake couple, Kingsley Ilonzeh and Roseline Ilonzeh for drug trafficking. The agency’s spokesman, Mr Femi Babafemi, stated on Sunday in Abuja that the fake couple were arrested over alleged ingesting 1.822kg and 1.50kg of cocaine respectively, at the Lagos airport on Aug. 1, while on their way to India. According to Babafemi, the NDLEA operatives arrested Onyedikachi on Friday Aug. 25, at his residence located at no. 28 Afolabi Brown Street, Akoka, Yaba, after an intensive surveillance that lasted 25 days. He said that Onyedikachi confessed that the two suspects, Kingsley Ilonzeh and Roseline Ilonzeh were introduced to him by another member of his syndicate, who he claimed, met at Zion Church in the Cele area of Lagos. Babafemi said that the suspect explained that the drug was sourced from Guinea Conakry. “The suspect revealed that when he got information about the arrest of the fake couple, he threw away his old mobile phone along with the SIM cards. “He said it was done so as to avoid being traced, adding that he became relaxed and refused to leave his house because the two couriers did not know his house, since they have only met twice at different locations. “He said he was living in India before he returned to Nigeria in 2022, after the Indian authorities discovered that he was using Ivory Coast International passport. “A blue Acura Legend car was part of items recovered from his home during his arrest,”he said. In another development, operatives of the agency’s command in Lagos on Aug. 28, also arrested a suspect, one Peter Iwebema, at Ikorodu with 79 and a half bags of cannabis sativa. Babafemi said that the drugs were weighing 864.5kg, adding that their counterparts at the Tincan port, also intercepted 27 parcels of Colorado, weighing 13.5kg. He said that the seizures were made from a container, MSMU 5664550 coming from Toronto via Montreal, Canada, during a joint examination with men of the Customs Service. “The synthetic substance was discovered concealed in a bag hidden in a Ford Edge SUV, which was part of three units of used vehicles and motor parts in the container,” he said. Also, in Sokoto, operatives of the agency on Tuesday Aug. 29, arrested two male suspects, Nafiu Arzika, 30 and Jamilu Aminu, 35, with 330kg of skunk. The NDLEA spokesman, said that another suspect, Ismaila Razak, 38, was nabbed with 34.5kg of same substance and 9.5 grams of methamphetamine on Saturday, Sept. 2, at the Olodo area of Ibadan, in Oyo. In another development, the NDLEA commands in states across the country and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) had intensified the agency’s War Against Drug Abuse (WADA), advocacy campaigns to schools, worship places, palaces and local communities. “For instance, sensitisation lectures were conducted at the Holy Trinity Gospel Church, Ogbomoso and for Muslim faithful, at the Jammatul Nasirul Islam mosque, in Ilorin. “Also, we had it with members of the Association of Hair Stylists in Ado Ekiti, leaders of road transport union in Abeokuta and traders at Kwata market, Awka. “Also, involved in the lectures were pregnant women at primary health care centre, in Bonny, Dekara district palace, Babana community in Borgu Local Government Area (LGA) and the Noorul Huda Islamiyya school, Kafin Maiyaki,” he said. (NAN)

[arthurdrakoni]

Flag of the United Republic of Great Britain

This is the flag of the United Republic of Great Britain. It comes from a world where Britain, France, and the Ottomans lost the Crimean War. Things first diverged from our world when Russia convinced Austria to ally with them. Russia and Austria quickly routed the Ottomans in the Balkans. From there, it was a straight shot to Istanbul. Britain and France did their best to defend the city, but it soon fell to Russian and Austrian forces. This was the major turning point for the war. It wasn’t long after this that Britain and France sued for peace with Russia.

Russia gained Istanbul, which it renamed Constantinople. The influx of wealth following the war meant that Russia never sold Alaska to America. Winning the war also meant the Russia now had direct access to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. Austria now stood as the dominate power in Central Europe. Among other things, this meant that Germany and Italy never unified.  Things were not good for Britain following the war. The British public had never been supportive of the war, and the humiliating defeat only solidified that resolve. So many had needlessly died, and for what? British citizens began to wonder if they might be better off without the monarchy. Whispers of revolution and revolt filled the streets. The government began to crack down on dissenters, but that just made things worse. Before long, a second civil war had broken out in Britain. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, along with several of their supporters, fled to Australia when it became clear that the Republicans were gaining the upper hand. Canada had been ruled out due to its proximity to the United States. The monarchy feared that the United States might sympathize with the revolutionaries, and the possibility of an American invasion of Canada was considered too great a risk.  Once the dust settled, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland no longer existed. In its place now stood the United Republic of Great Britain. Ireland had used the chaos of the second civil war to declare independence from Britain. Several provinces of India had also used the political turmoil in Britain to gain their independence. Still, the United Republic remained optimistic about its future.  America did indeed become a staunch ally of the United Republic. The United Republic intervened on behalf of the Union during the American Civil War. The United Republic has formed an alliance with France to combat the Holy Alliance. It is an alliance of Russia and Austria, with Greece as a minor member, that aims to stop the spread of liberalism and secularism.  The United Republic prides itself on promoting democracy and liberalism throughout the world. However, that doesn’t mean they’re averse to colonialism. In fact, the United Republic often justifies its colonial ambition by claiming to spread these ideals to other nations. Early on, they did get into scuffles with the United Kingdom-in-Exile over the remnants of the British colonial empire. However, at present, both nations have come to an agreement over where the colonial boarders lie. The United Republic naturally got the lion’s share of the colonies.  The flag contains the red, white, and green bands of the British Republic flag. It also contains a coat of arms with representation of the three constituent nations. The St. George’s Cross of England, the St. Andrew’s Cross of Scotland, and the St. David’s Cross of Wales.

Link to the original flag on my blog: https://drakoniandgriffalco.blogspot.com/2022/02/flag-of-united-republic-of-great-britain.html?m=0

[100dayproductivity]

Income Tax Filing

Business-use-of-home

How much of my expenses can I deduct for pet boarding?

So far I figured out that I use 1/8th of my house for each pet or household of pets that board with me. But I don't have pets boarding with me every day, so I now need to figure out what percentage of the time 1/8th of my house is used for pet boarding.

First I needed to add up all the days I boarded a pet. Most of my pet boarding I book through Rover, and they keep a detailed accounting of all your bookings. I copy-pasted the data into an Excel spreadsheet and worked it out there. I have a few clients I book directly (i.e. not through a third-party app) and I keep detailed records of those as well. Very important to keep records! If you haven't kept track of this data then the following exercise will prove to be difficult, if not impossible.

I also included daycare bookings (when a dog stays in my house for the day but doesn't stay overnight).

Here a snapshot of what the raw data looks like:

I added up all the nights of boarding and days of daycare and came up with a sum total of 383 nights of boarding and 37 days of daycare. Holy crap! I had no idea it was that much!

You might be wondering how I could have possibly had 383 nights of boarding, plus another 37 days of daycare, when there are only 365 days in a year. Well, the data shows how many nights of boarding per booking. I frequently have multiple bookings at the same time, like a cat in my bedroom and a dog on the main floor on the same night. In those instances, I am actually using 2/8ths of my house for boarding (or two times 1/8th).

I have to figure out how to do the math with 383 out of 365 days (math is not my strong point, so bear with me, math genii). I also have to figure out how to account for 37 days. A "night" of boarding is actually 24 hours of care. A "day" of daycare is usually around 10 hours of care. They are not equal amounts of time.

So first I needed to equalize the daycare and boarding. I decided that since a day of daycare is about half a day, I should multiply the nights of boarding by two to make them also half-days of care. 383 times 2 is 766. Now add the 37 for a total of 803 "half-days".

Now I needed to convert the 803 "half-days" back to "full-days", so I divided 803 by 2 to give me 401.5 full days.

(You can also go the other way and say that 37 half-days equal 18.5 full days (37 divided by 2), then add 18.5 to 383 to get 401.5.)

401.5 is still more than 365, so I then decided to consider that, hypothetically, for each day I boarded a pet, I took two bookings at the same time, using 2/8ths of my house each day (1/8th per booking). If I'm boarding two pets per day, that means I have to divide 401.5 by 2, giving me 200.75 days of boarding.

Now I can calculate what percentage of the year I am using 2/8ths of my house for pet boarding. Divide 200.75 by 365 to get 0.55, and multiply by 100 to get 55%.

So there you have it. Those are the numbers I can use to calculate the business-use-of-home portion of my house expenses: I used 2/8ths of my house 55% of the time in 2022 for pet boarding.

Going back to my total house expenses tally, the total was $22,794.29. Multiply that by 55% to get $12,536.86 (in other words, my total house expenses for 200.75 days were $12,536.86). But remember, I can't really claim to use my entire house for pet boarding, I can only reasonably claim 1/8 per booking. For 200.75 days, I had 2 bookings, so I can deduct 2/8ths of $12,536.86 as business use expenses. $12,536.86 times 2/8 equals $1567.11.

Well actually, the CRA form wants you to deduct the "personal use" part from the total expenses. So I actually have to subtract $1567.11 from $22,794.29 to get $21,227.18. That's my personal use part. You plug that number into Line 7I (that's an "I" as in India, not an l as in "Lima" and not a number 1) of Form T2125.

So this was the hardest part of doing my taxes this year. Hopefully next year I can just look back on this post and be like, "Oh yeah! I remember now how I did the math!" And if I ever get audited and the auditor says, "Can you please explain how you arrived at this number?" I can be like, "Yep, read this." If you also use part of your home for business purposes, how do you calculate the portion of expenses you can deduct? Do you think my way of prorating my deduction is reasonable?

The only other expenses I deducted were part of my phone/Internet bill, and business-related purchases, like cat litter and dog poop bags. I keep receipts for all business purchases. Make sure you keep all your receipts! For phone/Internet, I estimated that I use them for about a half hour per day of a booking (boarding, daycare, walks and visits). I also use the Internet for about a half hour per client for the other part of my business, which is home cleaning. I tallied it all up and was able to deduct another $85. My business-related purchases were about $600.

I also claimed my health insurance premiums. If you are self-employed and have private health insurance, you can either deduct it as a business expense, or claim it as a medical expense. You can't do both, so try both ways and see which one reduces your taxes the most.

I have a pretty simple business with very few expenses, but there are a whole slew of expenses you might be able to deduct. Make sure you consult the guide to see what applies to you.

Well, I am all taxed out. Literally. So done with taxes. Oh, yeah, well I still owe a schwack of money, even with all the deductions. To the tune of $7k+. Don't forget that if you are self-employed, there are no taxes being withheld before you get your grubby little hands on the cashola. Wysiwyg. Make sure you take that into account when setting your rates, and make sure you set some of your income stream aside throughout the year for the Tax Man. So yeah, I have to wait for the CRA to send me a Notice of Assessment (NoA), and then pay up, and then I'll be so done with taxes.

[xtruss]

Muslims gather to offer Eid al-Fitr prayers at the Jama Masjid in New Delhi, India. Eid al-Fitr marks a joyful end to Ramadan, a sacred month of fasting and prayer. The three-day festival is celebrated in many different ways across the world. Photograph By Javed Dar, Xinhua/Getty Images

See How Muslims Celebrate Eid al-Fitr Around The World

From beachside prayers in Senegal to colorful festivals in Pakistan, these pictures show the many ways that Muslims observe the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

— By Gulnaz Khan | April 17, 2023

When the sun sets on April 20, Muslims around the world will look skyward for a crescent of pale white light—the conclusion to the Islamic holy month of Ramadan emblazoned in the night sky.

Beginning and ending with the new moon, Ramadan falls on the ninth month of the Arabic lunar calendar. It is believed by Muslims to be when the first verses of the Koran were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad more than a millennium ago. From sunrise to sunset, Muslims abstain from food, drink, and vices like gossip and lying. Not only is it meant to be a period of self-reflection, but to serve as a reminder to be charitable to the less fortunate.

Eid al-Fitr, Arabic for “festival of breaking fast," is celebrated over three days at the end of Ramadan through prayer, feasts, parades, gifts, and charitable giving. Here's a look at how it is celebrated around the world.

Dakar, Senegal 🇸🇳! Senegalese Muslims are seen before they perform Eid al-Fitr prayer in the backyard and adjacent beach of the Mausoleum Seydina Limamou in Dakar, Senegal, on July 18, 2015. Prayer is an important part of Eid celebrations, and is typically performed in the morning along with other community members in an open space such as this one. Photograph By Cemil Oksuz, Anadulo Agency/Getty Images

Beijing, China 🇨🇳! Chinese Hui Muslim men light incense after Eid al-Fitr prayers marking the end of Ramadan at the historic Niujie Mosque on July 6, 2016, in Beijing. Of an estimated 23 million Muslims in China, nearly half are Hui, who are ethnically Chinese and speak Mandarin. China's constitution provides for Islam as one of five "approved" religions in the officially atheist country, although the government enforces severe limits. Worship is permitted only at state-sanctioned mosques and proselytizing in public is illegal. During Ramadan, Hui Muslims fast from dawn until dusk. Photograph By Kevin Frayer, Getty Imagrs

West Java, Indonesia 🇮🇩! Indonesian Muslims attend Eid al-Fitr prayers along the banks of the river Cisadane in Bogor, West Java, on May 2, 2022. Indonesia has the largest Muslim population of any country in the world with an estimated 205 million adherents—or roughly 88 percent of its population. Photograph By Adriana Adie, Nurphoto/Getty Images

Karachi, Pakistan 🇵🇰! People enjoy camel riding during an Eid al-Fitr festival in Karachi, Pakistan, on May 5, 2022. In Pakistan, Eid is an important time for families and friends to get together to celebrate the end of the fast—and greet each other with a traditional, "Eid Mubarak." Photograph By Str, Xinhua/Getty Images

London, England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿! Two ladies, both named Fatima, take a walk through Regent's Park in London to celebrate Eid al-Fitr. The number of Muslims in England and Wales has gone up from 2.7 million in 2011 to 3.9 million in 2021​. ​London hosts an annual festival ​in Trafalgar Square to ​mark the end of Ramadan. Photograph By Elliott Franks, Eyevine/Redux

Beirut, Lebanon 🇱🇧! Lebanese whirling dervishes perform during the holy month of Ramadan in the capital Beirut's Verdun Street on June 8, 2017. The ritual of whirling dervishes is observed by Sufi Muslims in honor of the 13th century poet Rumi. Though commonly associated with Turkey, NPR notes that there "are now many Sufi dervish orders around the world." Photograph By Anwar Amro, AFP/Getty Images

Los Angeles, USA 🇺🇸! Children in south Los Angeles celebrate Eid al-Fitr. An estimated three to four million American Muslims from a diverse swath of races, ethnicities, and socioeconomic backgrounds represent a growing minority in the U.S. Photograph By Lyndsey Addario, National Geographic Image Collection

Jalalabad, Afghanistan 🇦🇫! An Afghan circus performer rides a motorcycle on the so-called "Wall of Death" at a fair on the second day of Eid al-Fitr in Jalalabad on August 9, 2013. ​ Photograph By Noorullah Shirzada, AFP/Getty Images (Top)

Moscow, Russia 🇷🇺! Muslims gather to offer prayers at the central mosque in Moscow on July 5, 2016. The city is home to about a million Muslims—and the Moscow Times reports that there's limited space at the Cathedral Mosque "so worshippers often spill out onto the surrounding streets." Photograph By Alrxander Utkin, AFP/Getty Images (Bottom)

Gaza City, Occupied Palestine 🇵🇸! A Palestinian performer amuses onlookers with a wire which ignites sparks on the top of debris in front of Gaza City's Italian Tower, on June 22, 2015. ​As documented by the Palestine Chronicle, Eid is typically celebrated in Gaza through outdoor prayers, visits to the graves of dead relatives and, on the lighter side, plenty of festivities. Photograph By Ali Hassan, Anadolu Agency/Getty Images