Units

November 3, 2014, 3:56 pm

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Indigenous people visit their loved ones in a cemetery in the outskirts of Lima, Peru #DiaDeLosMuertos #DayOfTheDeath: image via Qariwarmi @qariwarmi, 2 November 2013

Dank leafmulch under rubber gluon muckshoe
First rain of the season earthsmell scumble

All saints and souls crawl back under

The wormy circumstance rug again no snug bug

At the witching hour time's vague vista opens up

Sun going down over mountain into ocean

A marbled grey wall split into violet underlit slats

Successive rooms we've been through now stacked

The floorplans of the endarkened cube units

Six deep memory storage for another world

 

Children living inside the Navotas graveyard in Manila climb on to stacked graves as millions across the Philippines prepare to pay their respects at public cemeteries for All Souls’ day: photo by Noel Celis / AFP via The Observer, 1 November 2014

 

Papier-mâché skulls in front of the Bellas Artes building, Mexico City: photo by Antonio Olmo via The Guardian, 3 November 2014

 

#Navotas, Filippine, il cimitero che è diventato città: photo via Lettera43 @Lettera43, 29 October 2014

 
  A mother and her son visit the tomb of their departed loved one at a public cemetery in a slum community of Navotas north of Manila, Philippines, on Friday, ahead of Monday's All Saints' Day observance. Filipinos as all other Christians all over the world, troop to cemeteries every November 1st to pay respects to the departed in the Christian tradition of All Saints' Day: photo by Bullit Marquez / AP via Jakarta Post, 29 October 2010

 

 

Informal settlers with homes built on top of multi-level tombs go about their daily business as relatives spruce up the tombs of their loved ones at a public cemetery in Navotas north of Manila, Philippines, in preparation for observance of All Saints’ Day: photo by Bullit Marquez / AP, 31 October 2012

 

 

Relatives spruce up the tombs of their loved ones Thursday 30 October 2008 at a public cemetery in Navotas, north of Manila, Philippines, in preparation for All Saints' Day observance. Christians all over the world troop to memorial parks and cemeteries and offer prayers to honor the departed every November 1 in the annual observance known as All Saints' Day: photo by Bullit Marquez / AP via Waterloo Region Record, 28 October 2008

 

 

Navotas, Philippines. A woman reads a book outside her house, located on top of a cemetery: photo by Ezra Acayan / NurPhoto / REX via The Guardian, 28 October 2014

 

 

Niño local coloca vela en tumba durante el #DiiaDeMuertos en #Navotas #Manila #Filipinas (Xinhua/ZP: image via XinhuaGráficaEspañol ‏@Xinhua9,1 November 2014

 

A boy climbs up apartment-style tombs to light a candle inside a public cemetery in #Navotas city, north of Manila: photo by Romeo Ranoco / Reuters via Hans Solo @thandojo, 7 November 2013

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This is where the magic happens (Dark Money)

November 5, 2014, 12:43 am

≫ Next: Edward Dorn: On first looking into Shakespeare’s Folios just after Christmas 1998, at the New British Library

≪ Previous: Units

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rt so this does happen again #votefifthharmony: image via celinie @floridalilos, 4 November 2014 

Kansas Falls to Girl Warriors Without Sin

The time just seems to crawl by when you've scored a billion rts in the past 24 hours

But all the results aren't yet in

The left hemisphere

.........................nothing but haters and deniers

out there

And anyway now that they've all got their own private vaporizers

Nobody in these mountains cares much about politics anymore

And the Court has ruled that money is speech

Even if forty seven percent of Americans don't really object to the idea of government

Implanting micro chips in their bodies

Bloomberg Politics all-nighter! #midtermelections working till 6 am! This is where the magic happens: image via Mia Saini @miasaini, 4 November 2014

 

Empire State Building on #MidTermElections night #NewYork: image via Yuwei Zhang @yuweizhang_CD Manhattan, NY, 4 November 2014

#DarkMoney in Key #Senate Races Is ‘Shattering’ Records: image via MintPress News @MintPressNews, 4 November 2014

Virginia, US. Residents wait in line in the pre-dawn hours to vote in the 2014 US midterm elections at a historic property called the Hunter House at Nottoway Park in Vienna. Virginia voters are choosing between Democrat Mark Warner and Republican Ed Gillespie for the US Senate: photo by Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA via The Guardian, 4 November 2014

Tehran, Iran. A demonstration to mark the anniversary of the storming of the US embassy by student protesters that triggered a hostage crisis 35 years ago: photo by Atta Kenare / AFP via The Guardian, 4 November 2014

#voting #elections Lol. Hmm. One to discuss: image via MooreLiberty @NonStatis, 4 November 2014

Happy #DiaDeLosMuertos!!!: image via Dandelion Dollars @DandelionDollar, 2 November 2014

 

Feeling ominously like I've arrived at the #Overlook #TheShining: image via Scott Simmie @scottsimmie, 4 November 2014

Come play with us, for ever and ever and ever. #TheShining #HalloweenParty: image via Light House Cinema @LightHouseD7, 9 October 2014

#Kubrick is everywhere these days! Have you seen the IKEA ad inspired by #TheShining: image by SK13Movie @SK13movie, 23 October 2014

10-year-old Gabriella Baiano holds a sign supporting Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, who won re-election in Kentucky: photo by Shannon Stapleton / Reuters via The Guardian, 4 November 2014

Supporters of the Republican Florida governor Rick Scott wait for the start of a midterm elections night party in Bonita Springs: photo by Steve Nesius / Reuters via The Guardian, 4 November 2014

Alice Butler-Short, a supporter of Virginia Republican Senate candidate Ed Gillespie, displays her star-spangled shoes at the election night party in Springfield: photo by Cliff Owen / AP via The Guardian, 4 November 2014

 

A worker cleans a stage in preparation for the victory party of Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo in New York: photo by Lucas Jackson/Reuters via The Guardian, 4 November 2014

 

The San Juan Valley in San Benito County is said to contain oil deposits. A county ballot measure would ban fracking, steaming and acidizing for oil San Benito County's measure would also ban cyclic steam injection and acidization methods: photo by Brant Ward / San Francisco Chronicle, 2 November 2014


 

Anti-fracking forces claim that the oil industry is removing their signs from peoples yards and placing their own signs on public roads near Hollister, Calif. In the upcoming election, three California counties will vote on ballot measures to ban fracking (hydraulic fracturing) within their borders. San Benito County's measure would also ban cyclic steam injection and acidization methods: photo by Brant Ward / San Francisco Chronicle, 2 November 2014

Outdoor movie #TheShining so cool having movies in our yard: image via TY That Kid SIMPKINS @TYSIMPKINSactor, 27 October 2014

Edward Dorn: On first looking into Shakespeare’s Folios just after Christmas 1998, at the New British Library

November 6, 2014, 2:15 am

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Henry V, the first king to write in English since Anglo-Saxon times, born #onthisday in 1386: image via The British Library @britishlibrary, 16 September 2014

It’s not a state secret

That E mail is not written.

Why is this when ordinarily

Good writers are writing it?

The reason is that E mail

Is inherently bad -- in and of itself

And if the most elegant and pains-

Taking care and craft were taken

With its execution the result

Would be inelegant, ugly, cheap

Clap trap and disgusting.

E mail just doesn’t think

Nor does it “write".

A message that cannot wait three days

Is probably not at all urgent

Or worthy of delivery.

We know this

Because the messages of great importance

Have had no standardized delivery rate

Whether by horse, human runner, or the

Flash of mirror from Querebus to Puylaurens.

A cable can be handed to you

With a flourish, terse language

Pasted on crisp paper --

What an occasion!

Of course that is why it’s ascendant

And will probably be final -- unless

When the lights go out the goose quill

Hath another day.

Missed our #Shakespeare First Folio at yesterday’s talk? Another chance to view at our Open Day: photo via Guildhall Library @GuildhallLib, 19 June 2013

 

Shakespeare's First Folio, title page (1623): image via The British Library, 2014

Goose quill pen: artist unknown, c. 18th c., via Jane Austen's World, 17 November 2011

 

Favourite Gunpowder fact: One plotter wrote secret letters in orange juice to his lover while he was in the Tower: image via Dainty Ballerina @DaintyBallerina, 4 November 2014

And here is his actual signature after being tortured. A human man with dislocated joints: image via Dainty Ballerina @DaintyBallerina, 4 November 2014

 

The English poet and soldier Wilfred Owen was killed in action #onthisday in 1918. #WWI: image via The British Library @britishlibrary, 4 November 2014

#ChateauDeQueribus #Aude #CheminCathare #Brume: image via Ludivine Félix @GingerLudi, 16 September 2014

#onthis day in 1957 Jack Kerouac's On the Road was first published. Read his inspirations: image via The British Library @britishlibrary, 5 September 2014

 

When writing an email, don't think electronic, think EVIDENCE: image via Hospitality Lawyer @hospitality_law, 23 October 2014

Three ways most #marketers screw up #email subject line split tests: image via Ecoconsultancy @Ecoconsultancy, 2 November 2014

Remise des prix du concours départemental de labours à #puylaurens Bonne image pour les jeunes #agriculteurs: image via Philippe Folliot @philippefolliot, 25 August 2013

L'exterieur Francais #puylaurens: image by Jennifer Adam @RubiedMoon, 4 June 2013

  

Shakespeare’s First Folio currently on display at U of T's rare book library: image via Torontoist @torontoist, 22 September 2014

The plays of #Shakespeare were written by……Shakespeare! 1st folio at @bodleianlibs #HappyBirthdayShakespeare: image via Matthew Ward @HistoryNedsYou, 23 April 2014

Love this: @FolgerLibrary's s copy of Shakespeare 1st folio features a child's doodles: image via The Appendix @appendixjournal, 17 October 2014

Shakespeare's birthday is celebrated today! Here's a list of his original cast from our copy of the First Folio: image by Glasgow Uni p Coll @GUspcoll, 23 April 2014

 

Fantastic! Shakespeare's First Folio 1623 Inspiring wrinkles, worn edges & stains! Thanks @StratPerthMuse @stratfest: image via Josue Laboucane, 17 August 2014

Edward Dorn (1929-1999):  On first looking into Shakespeare’s Folios just after Christmas 1998, at the New British Library (unpublished, courtesy Jennifer Dunbar Dorn)

"...a poem of Ed's called "On First Looking into Shakespeare's Folios" that I discovered on computer while I was there.  Ed sure wanted out before the new millennium crashed in, didn't he?" -- J.D.D. 

Ed was a wonderful letter writer, and he wrote most often by hand, using those writerly tools of lost epochs, pen and ink. (To us, in any case, he never wrote electronically. At times I suspected he associated email with the hand of the assassin.)  He wrote in a singular, expressive hand that moved with the thought, now swift, now slower. His voice could be heard in it. Getting a letter from him was indeed always an occasion!

Grapefruit Moon with Murmurations

November 7, 2014, 1:43 am

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≪ Previous: Edward Dorn: On first looking into Shakespeare’s Folios just after Christmas 1998, at the New British Library

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Good morning world. Moon setting next to Table Mountain from Somerset West: image via Alfred Thorpe @vuurtoring. 6 November 2014

There is a grapefruit moon out there and tart cherry juice

Was the arthritis remedy suggested to me by the woman who had just emerged from her vehicle after

Demolishing it in a four-car pileup out front on the freeway feeder, and as

The crowd gathered, I looked up, saw spots

Created by the sunlight filtering through the polluted walnut trees

The phenomenon which causes the continuous house rocking heart stopping chain collisions here on the freeway feeder

As the uphill speeders come round the S curve, floor it to make it through the light, are blinded

The social order that was is no more there is only the race to make it through

The light, and there, the ragged OG, I took thought, nobody cared or noticed

As always happens since that Jetta jolted my membership in the social

Order and the chaos to be controlled, to be controlled, that

Would be the aim as indeed it must be to survive

Within the murmuration, the mutually protective gathering of souls in migration,

There's just no way to say it that applies

To this doomed isolato species, whereas the starlings are numerous and sociable, they gather together, they will survive

A murmuration of starlings fills the evening sky above Gretna, Scotland: photo by Scott Heppell / Associated Press, 2011

Amazing shot from Copter4 of tonight's #fullmoon as an airplane from @DENAirport flies through the frame: image via Mark Neitro @CBS4Mark, 6 November 2014

 

For its beauty the #Starling i think is a very underestimated bird, the glint in its eye is actually my conservatory: image by Martin.M. @som_nature_spy, 27 October 2014

Would love to see a murmuration! MT @naturebygreen: One of my best #starling #murmurations from last year in Somerset: image by Carol Probets @carolprobets, 21 January 2014

When #starling #murmurations suddenly descend into reedbeds, the sound is like the whoosh of an aircraft engine: image via iain green @naturebygreen, 23 January 2014

Thousands of Starlings coming in to roost on Shapwick Heath this evening: image via Mark Pollock @PollockMark, 29 January 2014

RT @The Atlantic The #murmurations of starlings: image via Andrew Russell @amruss1, 1 March 2014

 

This is a flock of starlings. Amazing!: image via Odhrán Allen @odhranallen, 1 March 2014

Starlings at Westwood Marshes, Suffolk: photo by Neil MP / Green Shoots via The Guardian, 17 October 2014

 

Tomorrow night I will follow them to their roost and become more intimate. #Murmurations: image via Mick Ryan @vertical_brain, 5 March 2014

 

One more #Murmurations from tonight in the Peak: image via Mick Ryan @vertical_brain, 5 March 2014

BBC News - Starlings: Mapping and modelling the ballet of the skies: image via Carol @RickysFlower, 27 October 2014

See stunning images of #starlings putting on incredible displays in #Scotland: image via ScotsUSA@scotsusa, 6 November 2014

It's that time of year again! Seen any good#starling #murmurations yet?: image via BTO @_BTO, 7 September 2014

Breathtaking > MT  @BTO: #starling murmurations are like liquid helium apparently - who knew?: image via Dominic Mitchell @birdingetc, 29 October 2014

 

Autumn, near Gretna Green. Dark clouds begin to form in the sky above fields, woodlands and reed beds. But these are no ordinary clouds. They are one of the UK’s most incredible wildlife spectacles: starlings starting their autumnal murmuration: photo by Owen Humphrey / Press association via The Guardian, 6 November 2014

Throughout the autumn and winter months, hundreds of thousands of starlings turn the sky black around the UK. The birds come together in huge clouds, wheeling, turning and swooping in unison in formations known as murmurations: photo by Owen Humphrey / Press association via The Guardian, 6 November 2014

Starlings join forces for many reasons. Grouping together offers safety in numbers – predators such as peregrine falcons find it hard to target one bird amid a hypnotising flock of thousands: photo by Owen Humphrey / Press association via The Guardian, 6 November 2014

Starlings also gather to keep warm at night and to exchange information, such as good feeding areas. They often feed miles away from where they roost – sometimes up to 20 miles away. They return to their roosting site at around the same time each evening: photo by Owen Humphrey / Press association via The Guardian, 6 November 2014

Early evening, just before dusk, is the best time to see them across the UK as they perform their aerial dance and choose their communal night-time shelter. They roost in places that are sheltered from harsh weather and predators: photo by Owen Humphrey / Press association via The Guardian, 6 November 2014

They tend to roost in woodlands, but reedbeds, cliffs, buildings and industrial structures are also used. During the day, however, they form daytime roosts at exposed places such as treetops, where the birds have good all-round visibility: photo by Owen Humphrey / Press association via The Guardian, 6 November 2014

Autumn roosts usually begin to form in November, though this varies from site to site and some can begin as early as September. More and more birds will flock together as the weeks go on, and the number of starlings in a roost can swell to around 100,000 in some places: photo by Owen Humphrey / Press association via The Guardian, 6 November 2014

 

 

The huge gatherings are at their largest in winter, as they are boosted by thousands of migrant birds visiting from Europe for Britain’s milder Atlantic climate: photo by Owen Humphrey / Press association via The Guardian, 6 November 2014

 

 

just part of 40K #murmurations of starlings @RSPBMinsmere on Sat evening -- magical!: image via Simon Waters @SuffolkSi, 26 October 2014

"These faint pastel bands..."

November 8, 2014, 4:21 am

≫ Next: Thousand Year Empire

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Lake Briones, early morning: image via Elie Byrd @eliejeanb, 2014

These faint pastel bands

across the refinery corridor

fog soft kissing cold blue water

won't turn frog into prince

self inseparable from other

fade to traffic frightwig night

[Sunset over San Francisco Bay seen from Berkeley, with Golden Gate Bridge and Mt Tamalpais seen in distance] The best part of weights is walking home from it #berkeleysunsets: image via Elie Byrd @eliejeanb, 13 February 2014

 

[Sunset over San Francisco Bay, seen from East Bay hills] And that's a wrap. #san francisco #sunsets: photo via Timbuk2 @timbuk2, 29 April 2014

Thousand Year Empire

November 10, 2014, 1:25 am

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photo by Robert Adams from Summer Nights, Walking: On the Colorado Front, 1976-82 (2009)

In the ThousandYearEmpire all freedom will be planned.

photo by Robert Adams from Summer Nights, Walking: On the Colorado Front, 1976-82 (2009)

 

In the ThousandYearEmpire even the most idle neural signal will be monitored.

photo by Robert Adams from Summer Nights, Walking: On the Colorado Front, 1976-82 (2009)

In the ThousandYearEmpire Paranoia and Awareness will be One.

 

photo by Robert Adams from Summer Nights, Walking: On the Colorado Front, 1976-82 (2009)

 

In the ThousandYearEmpire"man" will become a Destroyer of Worlds.

photo by Robert Adams from Summer Nights, Walking: On the Colorado Front, 1976-82 (2009)

In the ThousandYearEmpire the crust of the earth will grow thinner under our feet... could we slip and fall through?

photo by Robert Adams from Summer Nights, Walking: On the Colorado Front, 1976-82 (2009)

In the ThousandYearEmpire the night will become deeper than a spent fuel rod sinking in mud since prehistoric times.

 

photo by Robert Adams from Summer Nights, Walking: On the Colorado Front, 1976-82 (2009)

In the ThousandYearEmpire the Sleep of Reason will be perpetual.

photo by Robert Adams from Summer Nights, Walking: On the Colorado Front, 1976-82 (2009)

In the ThousandYearEmpire the borders of morning and evening will no longer be known.

photo by Robert Adams from Summer Nights, Walking: On the Colorado Front, 1976-82 (2009)

TC: ThousandYearEmpire(1972-2014)

Mahmoud Darwish: In Jerusalem

November 11, 2014, 2:36 am

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Resistance will continue .. #palestine #Jerusalem @SanduKanKanack: image via ibrahem_km @ibrahem_km, 7 November 2014

In Jerusalem, and I mean within the ancient walls,
I walk from one epoch to another without a memory
to guide me. The prophets over there are sharing
the history of the holy . . . ascending to heaven
and returning less discouraged and melancholy, because love
and peace are holy and are coming to town.
I was walking down a slope and thinking to myself: How
do the narrators disagree over what light said about a stone?
Is it from a dimly lit stone that wars flare up?
I walk in my sleep. I stare in my sleep. I see
no one behind me. I see no one ahead of me.
All this light is for me. I walk. I become lighter. I fly
then I become another. Transfigured. Words
sprout like grass from Isaiah’s messenger
mouth: “If you don’t believe you won’t believe.”
I walk as if I were another. And my wound a white
biblical rose. And my hands like two doves
on the cross hovering and carrying the earth.
I don’t walk, I fly, I become another,
transfigured. No place and no time. So who am I?
I am no I in ascension’s presence. But I
think to myself: Alone, the prophet Mohammad
spoke classical Arabic. “And then what?”
Then what? A woman soldier shouted:
Is that you again? Didn’t I kill you?
I said: You killed me . . . and I forgot, like you, to die.

Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008): In Jerusalem, 2004, translated by Fady Joudah

 
[Israeli police detain a Palestinian youth following clashes after Friday prayers in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Wadi al-Joz]Undercover IDF kidnap and detain Palestinian children in #Jerusalem. #Palestine. Scum of the earth: photo by Finbarr O'Reilly / Reuters via F. @Palestinianism, 9 November 2014

Still they have courage faith and standing against evil forces. #AqsaUnderAttack #HandsOffAlAqsa: image via Aamir Hayat @wajdnali100, 6 November 2014

Men under 35yo in the alleyways of the Old City not allowed into Al Aqsa for prayer: image via Alexander Marquardt @MarquardtA, 7 November 2014

Israel 'pushing for religious warfare', Palestinian minister says #Jerusalem: image via Malika Bilal @mmbilal, 7 November 2014

New restrictions on access to Al-Aqsa Mosque #Aqsa #AqsaUnderAttack: image via DAILY SABAH Breaking @DSBreaking, 7 November 2014

A Palestinian makes a hole in the separation wall in #Jerusalem 1 day the whole wall will come down #AlAqsaUnderAttack: image via handsoffAlaqsa #BDS @azadzman, 8 November 2014

Masjid al-Aqsa completely closed down by Israel and no Palestinians are allowed in! #AqsaUnderAttack #FreePalestine: image via Ibrahim Ellily @hima_madrid92, 31 October 2014

Jerusalem. Access at Muslim religious site denied as part of the continuing escalation of the occupation forces against Palestinians: image via Palinfo @PalinfoAr, 3 November 2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jerusalem. Occupation gangs prevent Muslims entering Al-Agsa Mosque today while keeping the site open to settlers: images via Palinfo @PalinfoAr, 2 November 2014

 

 

 

Desecration of holy site by Zionist settlers guarded by occupation gangs today: images via Palinfo @PalinfoAr, 3 November 2014

 

Israeli forces re-open Al-Aqsa grounds to Zionist settlers: images via Palinfo @PalinfoAr, 4 November 2014

 

For the first time the occupation army enters the Aqsa Mosque, the most serious violation so far: images via Palinfo @PalinfoAr, 4 November 2014

 

Israeli forces attack determined worshipers in the courtyards of the Al-Aqsa: images via Palinfo @PalinfoAr, 4 November 2014

 

Jerusalemites burning settlers' car: images via Palinfo @PalinfoAr, 4 November 2014

''All Muslims are a part of one body''. When it comes to these things, we must make our voice heard!: image via Mustafa Yaleze @uAmsterdam66, 5 November 2014

Don't say "There is nothing to do." Pray for KUDUS! Pray for all of us!! #AqsaUnderAttack #AKSAcigneniyorSUSMA: image via Gülsümm @gulsumkr, 5 November 2014, 5 November 2014

Aqsa occupied Ummah under the Qur'an Qur'anic feet deep sleep wake up anymore @AqsaUnderAttack #AksalcinHareketeGec: image via #Güllü @Memleketim_36, 5 November 2014

 

@QudsN From #Shuafat camp in #Jerusalem...#AlAqsaUnderAttack #JerusalemUnderAttack: images via Kholoud Lafi @kholoudPal, 5 November 2014

Activestills' Abu-Rmeleh followed night clashes in #Shuafat and #JerusalemOldCity: image via Activestills @activestills, 8 November 2014

Occupation gangs storm charity hospital before kidnapping wounded young man: image via Palinfo @PalinfoAr, 8 November 2014

 

Confrontations between youths and the Zionist occupation soldiers near the Ofer prison: images via Palinfo @PalinfoAr, 6 November 2014

Commitment to a Losing Cause: Simonides of Ceos: For the Spartan Dead at Thermopylae (480 B.C.)

November 12, 2014, 2:08 am

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London, UK. Workers inside the the Lloyds building pause during a service of remembrance held at the building for Armistice Day: photo by Chris Radburn / PA via The Guardian, 11 November 2014


ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε
κείμεθα τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.

Spartan Girl: Edgar Degas, c. 1860. pencil on paper, 229 x 360 mm (Musée d'Orsay, Paris)

Take this news to the Lakedaimonions, friend,
That here we lie, who followed your command.


Epigram 8: For the Spartan Dead at Thermopylae (480 B.C.) [Epitaph on the Cenotaph of Thermopylae, recorded by Herodotus]: Simonides of Ceos (c. 556-468 BC), translated by Peter Jay, in The Greek Anthology and Other Ancient Epigrams, 1981

View of the Thermopylae pass at the area of the Phocian Wall. In ancient times the coastline was where the modern road lies, or even closer to the mountain: photo by Fkerasar, 17 April 2007

 

Young Spartans Exercising: Edgar Degas, c. 1860, oil on canvas, 109 x 155 cm (National Gallery, London)

The hard fate of the vastly outnumbered Greek warriors under King Leonidas of Sparta making what would become perhaps history's most famous last stand at Thermopylae is condensed into this appropriately laconic cenotaph inscription for the crazy-brave fallen ones. Brief as it was, it was inarguably their moment (well, theirs, and the Persians' also, of course, in another sort of way); happy chance the poet came by before the elements had conspired to render the road marker illegible. The inscription was recorded by Herodotus, and attributed by him and some (though not all) later scholars to the renowned public-performance lyricist Simonides of Ceos, popular composer of after-dinner epigrams, particularly noted for his epitaphs for the dead heroes of the Persian wars. This inscription has also provided a common object lesson in the effective deployment of the Greek elegiac metre, and has been held up as such for the instruction of generations of students of prosody down through the centuries. As it happens this was the first Greek poem I was, as a beginning student of classics, made to learn by heart. While at present I must admit to having some difficulty remembering much of anything at all, this is one poem which, in its original form, I find I simply cannot forget. Perhaps this curious mnemonic persistence is down to the inscription's "message", which remains irritatingly relevant to human existence. I mean, alas, it doesn't take a genius to see that if "good" doomed causes never quite seem to go out of style, neither do acquiescent (if not in fact heroic) players in the game. The first rule of this patriotism game may be that players in it must be willing to "take one for the side", even if they no longer or perhaps never in the first place actually did know which side they're on; or, moreover, whether there was really ever any other side at all, but only the one. In this sense, to say one gave up, or would ceded be the better word, one's small existence, for what it may be worth, to the big Good Cause, or "the System", represented here by the Lakedaimonians, would constitute more a Willie Loman than a Leonidas Moment. But of course this is all just an example of (object lesson in) "playing with words". Willie who? Leonidas diCaprio? And I do wish Leo would get on with putting that sword away. As Perugino shows it, the job looks so -- halfway done. For commitment to a losing cause to be worth anything at all it has to go all the way.

Carnival Prince Lambert I, Mardi Gras: photo by Peter Mokveld, n.d. (Spaarnestad Photo / Nationaal Archief)

Lyon, France. Veterans take part in an Armistice Day ceremony: photo by Jeff Pachoud / AFP via The Guardian, 11 November 2014

Famous Men of Antiquity: Pietro Perugino, 1497-1500, fresco, 291 x 400 cm (Collegio del Cambio, Perugia)

 

Virginia, US. A truck with an explosive is detonated during a US diplomatic security service high threat training programme held at a mock town named Erehwon -- nowhere spelt backwards -- on a rural military base: photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP via The Guardian, 11 November 2014

 

Famous Men of Antiquity (detail): Pietro Perugino, 1497-1500, fresco, 291 x 400 cm (Collegio del Cambio, Perugia)

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Philandering Moon (We Are Not a Virus)

November 13, 2014, 1:52 am

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Honey! It's #Moon! ;) #awesome wt @angkasamalaysia @dihashnatt @nickyzulu: image via esmider @EsmiderZ, 13 November 2013

but if a tear falls in the rain forest

is it audible on the philae lander

Now, as you awaken

a few drops of rain fall then a few more

I give thanks to every cycle of the moon

heaven sleeps in the other room

under a white blanket early frost fitful cats

the drumbeat of everything around us

including the plants and trees

who give to us in the deeps
where there is more and more gravity

It’s me… landing on a comet & feeling good! MT @ESA_Rosetta: I see you too! #CometLanding: image via Philae Lander @Philae2014, 13 November 2014

'I am an #Ebola survivor, this is my story’ -- meet Juliana from Kenema, #SierraLeone: image via World Food Programme @WFP, 12 November 2014

Scientists celebrate in the observation centre of the French space agency in Toulouse as they receive information that Philae has landed on the Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet: photo by Remy Gabalda / AFP via The Guardian, 13 November 2014

'It feels like the whole country is in quarantine'. Our #SierraLeone Director on #Ebola crisis: image via Amnesty UK @AmnestyUK, 7 November 2014

This picture released by the European Space Agency ESA was taken by the ROLIS instrument on Rosetta’s Philae lander during its descent from a distance of approximately 3 km from 2.5-mile-wide 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet: photo by AP, 13 November 2014

#Ebola surging in #SierraLeone amid lack of treatment centres: UN: image via ST Foreign Desk @STForeignDesk, 6 November 2014



Remember this out-of-this-world #selfie? CIVA will also take a pic of @ESA_Rosetta as we separate #cometlanding #67p: image via Philae Lander @Philae2014, 13 November 2014

TT @reformanacionalTeachers burn cars at #Guerrero Congress #YaMeCansé #AyotzinapaSomosTodos: image via Revolution News @NewsRevo,12 November 2014

Journalists wait at the European Space Agency operation centre: photo by Remy Gabalda / AFP via The Guardian, 13 November 2014

 

#Mexico: Protesters Decry Years of Impunity After Apparent Massacre of 43 Students: image via Saulo Corona @SauloCorona, 10 November 2014

Scientists work at the Toulouse space centre: photo by Remy Gabalda / AFP via The Guardian, 13 November 2014

#SierraLeone footballer John Kamara declares to the world: "We are West Africans. We are not a virus." #EbolaOutbreak: image via Live From Mogadishu @Daudoo, 6 November 2014

Scientists look at the first picture transmitted by Philae: photo by Remy Gabalda / AFP via The Guardian, 13 November 2014

Via @David ThomsonWV safe and dignified burials as health workers and community unite to pay respects #SierraLeone: image via SL Ebola recruitment @fightebolasl, 13 November 2014

The Rosetta mission spent much of the second half of October orbiting comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at less than six miles (10km) from its surface. This previously unpublished image, taken by Rosetta’s navigation camera, shows its dramatic terrain: photo by ESA / Rosetta / NAVCAM, 13 November 2014

#EbolaCrisis means schools in #SierraLeone are closed. We're helping to reach children like Mada with radio education: image via Concern UK @ConcernVoices, 12 November 2014

 
Children look at a model of Philae in Toulouse: photo by Remy Gabalda / AFP via The Guardian, 13 November 2014

Empty desks. An entire country of children out of school. Ebola takes more than lives in #SierraLeone: image via Rachel Unkovic @Civoknu, 8 November 2014

So beautiful: The Earth, taken during our last Earth swing-by in 2009 with the OSIRIS camera: image via Philae Lander @Philae2014, 19 March November 2014

#Ebola Kailahun #SierraLeone Often exhausted staff must be guided step by step during the undressing process ©MSF: image via Stefano Zannini @StefZannini, 11 November 2014

Rosetta's lander Philae is safely on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, as these first two CIVA images confirm. One of the lander’s three feet can be seen in the foreground: photo by CIVA/Philae/Rosetta/ESA via The Guardian, 13 November 2014

Protective suits are left out to dry after an Ebola training session held by the Spanish Red Cross in Madrid. Doctors, nurses and engineers are being trained to fight the virus at a mock field hospital resembling the organisation’s Ebola treatment centre in Kenema, SierraLeone: photo by Susana Vera/Reuters via The Guardian, 1 November 2014

This image, taken with the lander’s CIVA-P imaging system shortly after release, captures one of Rosetta’s 14 metre-long solar arrays: photo by DLR/ROLIS/Philae/Rosetta/ESA via The Guardian, 13 November 2014

#Ebola Crisis: Fear and anxiety in SierraLeone as situation worsens says @SavetheChildren: image via SBS News @SBS News, 1 November 2014

Rosetta’s OSIRIS narrow-angle camera captured this parting shot of the Philae lander after separation: photo by CIVA/Philae/Rosetta/ESA via The Guardian, 13 November 2014

Premonition

November 14, 2014, 12:46 am

≫ Next: Philae Lander: Fade Out / Frantz Fanon: The End of the European Game

≪ Previous: Philandering Moon (We Are Not a Virus)

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Motel, Florence, Oregon: photo by Austin Granger, 25 October 2013

While everything external
dies away in the far off
echo of the soul
still there’s a mill wheel turning

it is like a good
kind of tiredness in
the moment before sleep
by some distant stream

a note of peace
in a life which
will never be peaceful
as the daylight fades
 

the dream disintegrates
but the shadow holds
no power
over what’s about to happen

Untitled: photo by Robert Adams, c. 1981, from Summer Nights, Walking: On the Colorado Front, 1976-82 (2009)

Aurora: photo by Robert Adams, 1979, from Summer Nights, Walking: On the Colorado Front, 1976-82 (2009)

Sunset Mausoleum at sunset (El Cerrito, California): photo by efo, 28 November 2005

Barber and Coin, Guns and Ammo, Beaverton, Oregon: photo by Austin Granger, 5 February 2014

exit: one crow tree / none crow tree (Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio): photo by wood_owl, 23 January 2014

Speaker, Portland: photo by Austin Granger, 5 February 2014

 star lofts and fireplug, downtown kansas city: photo by Clayton Percy, 26 January 2014



Alpha Omega (Webster, Oakland): photo by efo, 18 September 2010

Guardian (South Egremont, Massachusetts): photo by efo, 22 August 2010

The Last Supper, Rhyolite, Death Valley: photo by Austin Granger, 25 February 2011

The Last Supper, Portland: photo by Austin Granger, 10 January 2013

Corner,  Florence, Oregon: photo by Austin Granger, 20 October 2013

Central High School Fire, York, Nebraska. Onlookers and window outlines in silhouette: photo by Johnson, 13 February 1917; image by yorklib (Kilgore Memorial Library, York, Nebraska), 7 March 2012

water tower over tennis court: photo by Clayton Percy, 7 March 2014

foot of the water tower night: photo by Clayton Percy, 7 March 2014



  base of the tower, no parking. a quieter view true to the nature of the place: photo by Clayton Percy, 7 March 2014

Factory, River des Peres, Dogtown (St. Louis): photo by chalkdog, 1 September 2013



Factory, Dogtown (St. Louis): photo by chalkdog, 7 September 2013

Utility poles in moonlight, Dogtown (St. Louis): photo by chalkdog, 18 September 2013
 

Night on the fringes of Dogtown (St. Louis): photo by chalkdog, 1 September 2013

shinjuku, tokyo: photo by wire_paladinSF, 10 April 2014

Denver, Colorado: photo by Robert Adams,1973, fromDenver: A Photographic Survey of the Metropolitan Area, 1970-1974 (1977)

Philae Lander: Fade Out / Frantz Fanon: The End of the European Game

November 15, 2014, 3:43 am

≫ Next: Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore: The Brother to the Dog

≪ Previous: Premonition

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You'd be a sad simulated-topography Ming Dynasty clay lion at the alien base on B-57, too, if the rich kids came over to your part of the Galaxy to play, and then went off again without deciphering a single one of your carefully prepared coded messages designed to help them save the universe from themselves, before it's too late ("batteries went dead" -- right, it's always something... oh, "a shirt problem", yeah...): image via Philae Lander @ Philae2014, 14 November 2014

 

Rosetta and Philae: Why this space story fills us with so much awe: The comet landing has given us a rare glimpse of the outer limits of human excellence –- and restored our faith in progress

Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian, Friday 14 November 2014 14.47 EST

These could be the dying hours of Philae, the device the size of a washing machine which travelled 4bn miles to hitch a ride on a comet. Philae is the “lander” which on Wednesday sprung from the craft that had carried it into deep, dark space, bounced a couple of times on the comet’s surface, and eventually found itself lodged in the shadows, starved of the sunlight its solar batteries needed to live. Yesterday, the scientists who had been planning this voyage for the past quarter-century sat and waited for word from their little explorer, hoping against hope that it still had enough energy to reveal its discoveries.

#SF riots: image via Not Frantz Fanon @violentfanon, 30 October 2014

If Philae expires on the hard, rocky surface of Comet 67P the sadness will be felt far beyond mission control in Darmstadt, Germany. Indeed, it may be felt there least of all: those who have dedicated their working lives to this project pronounced it a success, regardless of a landing that didn’t quite go to plan (Philae’s anchor harpoons didn’t fire, so with gravity feeble there was nothing to keep the machine anchored to the original, optimal landing site). They were delighted to have got there at all and thrilled at Philae’s early work. Up to 90% of the science they planned to carry out has been done. As one scientist put it, “We’ve already got fantastic data.”

 

Sexist Shirts Aren't Cool, Even If You Have Landed A Spacecraft On A Comet #MattTaylor: image via Feminism Trends @ Feminismolizer, 14 November 2014

Those who lacked their expertise couldn’t help feel a pang all the same. The human instinct to anthropomorphise does not confine itself to cute animals, as anyone who has seen the film Wall-E can testify. If Pixar could make us well up for a waste-disposing robot, it’s little wonder the European Space Agency has had us empathising with a lander ejected from its “mothership”, identifiable only by its “spindly leg”. In those nervous hours, many will have been rooting for Philae, imagining it on that cold, hard surface yearning for sunlight, its beeps of data slowly petering out as its strength faded.

#SF riots: image via Not Frantz Fanon @violentfanon, 30 October 2014

But that barely accounts for the fascination this adventure has stirred. Part of it is simple, a break from the torments down here on earth. You don’t have to go as far as the Christopher Nolan film Interstellar, which fantasises about leaving our broken, ravaged planet and starting somewhere else -- to enjoy a rare respite from our earthly woes. For a few merciful days, the news has featured a story remote from the bloodshed of Islamic State and Ukraine, from the pain of child abuse and poverty. Even those who don’t dream of escaping this planet can relish the escapism.

The wall of rock facing the Philae lander where it has come to rest on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko: Photo by ESA/REX/ESA/REX, 13 November 2014

 

But the comet landing has provided more than a diversion: it’s been an antidote too. For this has been a story of human cooperation in a world of conflict. The narrow version of this point focuses on this as a European success story. When our daily news sees “Europe” only as the source of unwanted migrants or maddening regulation, Philae has offered an alternative vision; that Germany, Italy, France, Britain and others can achieve far more together than they could ever dream of alone. The geopolitical experts so often speak of the global pivot to Asia, the rise of the Bric nations and the like -– but this extraordinary voyage has proved that Europe is not dead yet.

Rosetta scientist Dr #MattTaylor apologises for ‘offensive’ shirt #gamergate: image by #GamerGate Trends @Gamergatolizer, 15 November 2014

Even that, as I say, is to view it too narrowly. The US, through Nasa, is involved as well. And note the language attached to the hardware: the Rosetta satellite, the Ptolemy measuring instrument, the Osiris on-board camera, Philea itself -– all imagery drawn from ancient Egypt. The spacecraft was named after the Rosetta stone, the discovery that unlocked hieroglyphics, as if to suggest a similar, if not greater, ambition: to decode the secrets of the universe. By evoking humankind’s ancient past, this is presented as a mission of the entire human race. There will be no flag planting on Comet 67P. As the Open University’s Jessica Hughes puts it, Philea, Rosetta and the rest “have become distant representatives of our shared, earthly heritage”.

"I don't care if ..." you are marie curie. #shirtstorm #shirtgate: image via DeadShane #5421 @Shane5016, 14 November 2014

That fits because this is how we experience such a moment: as a human triumph. When we marvel at the numbers -- a probe has travelled for 10 years, crossed those 4bn miles, landed on a comet speeding at 34,000mph and done so within two minutes of its planned arrival -- we marvel at what our species is capable of. I can barely get past the communication: that Darmstadt is able to contact an object 300 million miles away, sending instructions, receiving pictures. I can’t get phone reception in my kitchen, yet the ESA can be in touch with a robot that lies far beyond Mars. Like watching Usain Bolt run or hearing Maria Callas sing, we find joy and exhilaration in the outer limits of human excellence.

Who's going to get the #Matt Taylor shirt produced so we can signal we aren't interested in #feminist or #SJW scolds: image via Worst Dude Ever @worst, 14 November 2014

And of course we feel awe. What Interstellar prompts us to feel artificially -- making us gasp at the confected scale and digitally assisted magnitude -- Philae gives us for real. It is the stretch of time and place, glimpsing somewhere so far away it is as out of reach as ancient Egypt.

#SF riots: image via Not Frantz Fanon @violentfanon, 30 October 2014

All that is before you reckon with the voyage’s scholarly purpose. “We are on the cutting edge of science,” they say, and of course they are. They are probing the deepest mysteries, including the riddle of how life began. (One theory suggests a comet brought water to a previously arid Earth.) What the authors of the Book of Genesis understood is that this question of origins is intimately bound up with the question of purpose. From the dawn of human time, to ask “How did we get here?” has been to ask “Why are we here?”

 

Well done, whoever coined the term #shirtstorm MT @astroprofhoff #CometLanding: image via Meg Rosenburg @trueanomalies, 12 November 2014

 

It’s why contemplation of the cosmic so soon reverts to the spiritual. Interstellar, like 2001: A Space Odyssey before it, is no different. It’s why one of the most powerful moments of Ronald Reagan’s presidency came when he paid tribute to the astronauts killed in the Challenger disaster. They had, he said, “slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God”.

#SF riots: image via Not Frantz Fanon @violentfanon, 30 October 2014

Not that you have to believe in such things to share the romance. Secularists, especially on the left, used to have a faith of their own. They believed that humanity was proceeding along an inexorable path of progress, that the world was getting better and better with each generation. The slaughter of the past century robbed them -- us -- of that once-certain conviction. Yet every now and again comes an unambiguous advance, what one ESA scientist called “A big step for human civilisation”. Even if we never hear from Philae again, we can delight in that.

Hi! and aren't I cute then? I went for my first simulated walk today...: image via Philae Lander @ Philae2014, 14 November 2014

Frantz Fanon:  Les damnés de la terre

Come, then, comrades; it would be as well to decide at once to change our ways. We must shake off the heavy darkness in which we were plunged, and leave it behind. The new day which is already at hand must find us firm, prudent and resolute.

We must leave our dreams and abandon our old beliefs and friendships of the time before life began. Let us waste no time in sterile litanies and nauseating mimicry. Leave this Europe where they are never done talking of Man, yet murder men everywhere they find them, at the corner of every one of their own streets, in all the corners of the globe. For centuries they have stifled almost the whole of humanity in the name of a so-called spiritual experience. Look at them today swaying between atomic and spiritual disintegration.

Paris, France. President Francois Hollande wears 3D glasses to watch the Philae probe as it lands on comet 67P: photo by Jacques Brinon/Reuters via The Guardian, 13 November 2014

And yet it may be said that Europe has been successful inasmuch as everything that she has attempted has succeeded.

Europe undertook the leadership of the world with ardour, cynicism and violence. Look at how the shadow of her palaces stretches out ever farther! Every one of her movements has burst the bounds of space and thought. Europe has declined all humility and all modesty; but she has also set her face against all solicitude and all tenderness.

She has only shown herself parsimonious and niggardly where men are concerned; it is only men that she has killed and devoured.

Sierra Leone double whammy: #Ebola + #TonyBlair photo visit @georgegalloway: image via taigs @taigstaigs (Southampton, South East) 14 November 2014

So, my brothers, how is it that we do not understand that we have better things to do than to follow that same Europe?

That same Europe where they were never done talking of Man, and where they never stopped proclaiming that they were only anxious for the welfare of Man: today we know with what sufferings humanity has paid for every one of their triumphs of the mind.

Easy does it... baby steps... hey, now I'm getting kinda tired... think I'll take a little simulated nap...: image via Philae Lander @ Philae2014, 14 November 2014

Come, then, comrades, the European game has finally ended; we must find something different. We today can do everything, so long as we do not imitate Europe, so long as we are not obsessed by the desire to catch up with Europe.

Europe now lives at such a mad, reckless pace that she has shaken off all guidance and all reason, and she is running headlong into the abyss; we would do well to avoid it with all possible speed.

Migrants from Africa and the Middle East are taken to the mainland after being rescued off Malta by the Italian navy: photo by Giuseppe Lami / EPA via The Guardian, 18 September 2014

Yet it is very true that we need a model, and that we want blueprints and examples. For many among us the European model is the most inspiring. We have therefore seen in the preceding pages to what mortifying set-backs such an imitation has led us. European achievements, European techniques and the European style ought no longer to tempt us and to throw us off our balance.

When I search for Man in the technique and the style of Europe, I see only a succession of negations of man, and an avalanche of murders.

Health systems are collapsing under the weight of #Ebola crisis response. Demand global action: image via AmnestyInternational @amnesty, 14 November 2014

The human condition, plans for mankind and collaboration between men in those tasks which increase the sum total of humanity are new problems, which demand true inventions.

Let us decide not to imitate Europe; let us combine our muscles and our brains in a new direction. Let us try to create the whole man, whom Europe has been incapable of bringing to triumphant birth.

#shirtstorm #GamerGate #OpSKYNET Wear whatever shirt you want. You're awesome and what you achieved was amazing: image via Dattebayo! @OddKinzo, 14 November 2014

Two centuries ago, a former European colony decided to catch up with Europe. It succeeded so well that the United States of America became a monster, in which the taints, the sickness and the inhumanity of Europe have grown to appalling dimensions.

#SF riots: image via Not Frantz Fanon @violentfanon, 30 October 2014

Comrades, have we not other work to do than to create a third Europe? The West saw itself as a spiritual adventure. It is in the name of the spirit, in the name of the spirit of Europe, that Europe has made her encroachments, that she has justified her crimes and legitimized the slavery in which she holds four-fifths of humanity.

Yes, the European spirit has strange roots. All European thought has unfolded in places which were increasingly more deserted and more encircled by precipices; and thus it was that the custom grew up in those places of very seldom meeting man.

A permanent dialogue with oneself and an increasingly obscene narcissism never ceased to prepare the way for a half delirious state, where intellectual work became suffering and the reality was not at all that of a living man, working and creating himself, but rather words, different combinations of words, and the tensions springing from the meanings contained in words. Yet some Europeans were found to urge the European workers to shatter this narcissism and to break with this un-reality.

But in general the workers of Europe have not replied to these calls; for the workers believe, too, that they are part of the prodigious adventure of the European spirit.

Amanata lies dead under the tree after a day of writhing in the hot sun. No bed available #ebola: image via alex thomson @alextomo, 11 November 2014

All the elements of a solution to the great problems of humanity have, at different times, existed in European thought. But Europeans have not carried out in practice the mission which fell to them, which consisted of bringing their whole weight to bear violently upon these elements, of modifying their arrangement and their nature, of changing them and, finally, of bringing the problem of mankind to an infinitely higher plane.

Today, we are present at the stasis of Europe. Comrades, let us flee from this motionless movement where gradually dialectic is changing into the logic of equilibrium. Let us reconsider the question of mankind. Let us reconsider the question of cerebral reality and of the cerebral mass of all humanity, whose connexions must be increased, whose channels must be diversified and whose messages must be re-humanized.

Come, brothers, we have far too much work to do for us to play the game of rear-guard. 

Europe has done what she set out to do and on the whole she has done it well; let us stop blaming her, but let us say to her firmly that she should not make such a song and dance about it. We have no more to fear; so let us stop envying her.

The view is absolutely breathtaking ESA_Rosetta! Unlike anything I've ever seen #CometLanding: image via Philae Lander @Philae2014, 13 November 2014

The Third World today faces Europe like a colossal mass whose aim should be to try to resolve the problems to which Europe has not been able to find the answers.

But let us be clear: what matters is to stop talking about output, and intensification, and the rhythm of work.

No, there is no question of a return to Nature. It is simply a very concrete question of not dragging men towards mutilation, of not imposing upon the brain rhythms which very quickly obliterate it and wreck it. The pretext of catching up must not be used to push man around, to tear him away from himself or from his privacy, to break and kill him.

Staff at the European Operations Space Centre in Darmstadt, Germany on November 12, 2014 during the landing of the Philae craft:photo: Handout/ESA 

No, we do not want to catch up with anyone. What we want to do is to go forward all the time, night and day, in the company of Man, in the company of all men. The caravan should not be stretched out, for in that case each line will hardly see those who precede it; and men who no longer recognize each other meet less and less together, and talk to each other less and less.

It is a question of the Third World starting a new history of Man, a history which will have regard to the sometimes prodigious theses which Europe has put forward, but which will also not forget Europe’s crimes, of which the most horrible was committed in the heart of man, and consisted of the pathological tearing apart of his functions and the crumbling away of his unity. And in the framework of the collectivity there were the differentiations, the stratification and the bloodthirsty tensions fed by classes; and finally, on the immense scale of humanity, there were racial hatreds, slavery, exploitation and above all the bloodless genocide which consisted in the setting aside of fifteen thousand millions of men.

#BlockTheBoat in Oakland records 3rd huge victory in as many months. Apartheid goods are not welcome in the Bay Area: image via Not Frantz Fanon @violentfanon, 30 October 2014

So, comrades, let us not pay tribute to Europe by creating states, institutions and societies which draw their inspiration from her.

Humanity is waiting for something other from us than such an imitation, which would be almost an obscene caricature.

If we want to turn Africa into a new Europe, and America into a new Europe, then let us leave the destiny of our countries to Europeans. They will know how to do it better than the most gifted among us.

We saw 2 more people ill with #Ebola in the community of Devil Hole Junction -- here a husband & wife...: image via Stuart Webb @Worldwidewebb1, 10 November 2014

But if we want humanity to advance a step farther, if we want to bring it up to a different level than that which Europe has shown it, then we must invent and we must make discoveries.

If we wish to live up to our peoples’ expectations, we must seek the response elsewhere than in Europe.

Moreover, if we wish to reply to the expectations of the people of Europe, it is no good sending them back a reflection, even an ideal reflection, of their society and their thought with which from time to time they feel immeasurably sickened.

For Europe, for ourselves and for humanity, comrades, we must turn over a new leaf, we must work out new concepts, and try to set afoot a new man.

Frantz Fanon (1925-1961): Chapter 6. Conclusion,in Les damnés de la terre, 1961, translated into English as The Wretched of the Earth by Constance Farrington, 1963, first published in English 1965 

Illegal migrants attempting to escape into the Club Campo de Golf de Melilla, a public golf course in the small Spanish enclave of Melilla, a tourist and fishing town on Morocco's northern coast, where games can cost up to about $28 per 18 holes. The per capita income of Melilla is 15 times more than that of the surrounding areas of Morocco and astronomically higher than many parts of sub-Saharan Africa: Jose Palazon / Reuters, via Business Insider, 23 October 2014

#WestAfrica ‘on brink’ of major food crisis in wake of #Ebola outbreak, warns @UN expert: image via UN News Centre @UN_News_Centre, 11 November 2014

#GamerGate supporter thanking #shirtstorm & the femloons for keeping the spark alive. Bless you THE RIDE NEVER ENDS!: image via Eggard Snark @Eggkin, 14 November 2014

Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore: The Brother to the Dog

November 16, 2014, 2:53 am

≫ Next: Pablo Neruda: Keeping Quiet

≪ Previous: Philae Lander: Fade Out / Frantz Fanon: The End of the European Game

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Room used as a mosque inside Rikers Island Prison: photo by Associated Press, 16 May 2007)

The brother to the dog who ate the newspaper was

also the father of the dog who trekked through

five states to reach home on its own

and whose great grandfather sniffed contraband on

New York's pier when the

 

Excelcius drew near the wharf filled with

opium and ripped the pilings and three men drowned

on a disaster Tuesday long forgotten except by the

 

longshoreman's great grandchildren who have

problems of their own

 

And angels rise in continuous sheets not only

behind these scenes but also

straight up through their centers

 

to a music barely caught by strings or tiny pianos or bells
and the dogs in this piece however doggedly

doggy they are chasing squirrels and other dogs

 

know the music in their inner ear and you can see them almost

enviously following the upward arc of angels

 

from time to time

with their dark wet eyes

................................................................10/6

Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore: The Brother to the Dog, from Stories Too Fiery To Sing Too Watery To Whisper (13 June-24 October 2005), The Ecstatic Exchange, 2014

Head of an angel: Piero della Francesca, 1460, San Francesco, Arezzo (image by Sailko, 2009)

He was, however, impersonal, not in his method only, as all great artists have to be, but he was what would be commonly called impassive, that is to say, unemotional, in his conceptions as well.  He loved impersonality, the absence of expressed emotions, as a quality in things. 

 

Bernard Berenson, Italian Painters of the Renaissance, 1897

St. Julian: Piero della Francesca, 1455-1460, Pinacoteca Communale, Sansepolcro (image by Sailko, 2009)

Mangoes #9a: After the Fruit Bats: photo by Like Jazz, 4 January 2010

 

Mangoes #10a: After the Fruit Bats: photo by Like Jazz, 4 January 2010

Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, interior. (Original caption: BENEATH THE DOME OF THE MOSQUE OF OMAR. Under this gorgeous dome, with its superb mosaics of Arabesque design, seen only in the subdued light which filters in through the ancient stained glass windows, is a great black rock, the summit of Mount Moriah, part of the threshing floor of Ornan, the Jebusite. I Chron xxi and xxii): photo and cation from National Geographic Magazine, March 1914; image by Mattes, 11 April 2006

Mango trees during a storm, Srimongal, Syrhet, Bangladesh: photo by s_karr, 13 May 2009

Chinvat Bridge, Gallicanta, Montemolin, Extremadura: photo by Angel (Angel. G-), 23 July 2004

It is not in the power of a human being to destroy his celestial Idea; but it is in his power to betray it, to separate himself from it, to have, at the entrance to the Chinvat Bridge, nothing face to face with him but the abominable and demonic caricature of his 'I' delivered over to himself without a heavenly sponsor.

Henry Corbin (1903-1978): The Paradox of Monotheism, 1976

The Path from Endarkenment (Beckton Park, London): photo by Ian Tindale, 28 August 2008

Every physical or moral entity, every complete being or group of beings belonging to the world of Light...has its Fravarti. What they announce to earthly beings is...an essentially dual structure that gives to each one a heavenly archetype or Angel, whose earthly counterpart he is.

 

Corbin: Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth, 1977

[Untitled]: photo by Prof Alex O Chevtchenko, 9 May 2012

 

 The history of the modern West is the history of "l'homme sans Fravarti."

Corbin: The Paradox of Monotheism

NK Mall (Stockholm): photo by Mikael Jeney, 1 September 2012

It is this Fravarti which gives its true dimension to the person. The human person is only a person by virtue of this celestial dimension, archetypal, angelic, which is the celestial pole without which the terrestrial pole of his human dimension is completely depolarized in vagabondage and perdition.

Corbin: The Paradox of Monotheism

In Line (Stockholm): photo by Mikael Jeney, 29 August 2012

I saw myself present in a world of light. Mountains and deserts were iridescent with lights of all colours... I was experiencing a consummate nostalgia for them; I was as though stricken with madness and snatched out of myself by the violence of the intimate emotion and feeling of the presence. Suddenly I saw that the black light was invading the entire universe. Heaven and Earth and everything that was there had wholly become black and, behold, I was totally absorbed in this light, losing consciousness. Then I came back to myself.

 

A Persian Sufi, Lahiji, quoted in Corbin: The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism, 1971

Summer, Gallicanta: photo by Angel (Angel. G-), 23 July 2004

 

...to leave this world, it does not suffice to die. One can die and remain in it forever. One must be living to leave it. Or rather, to be living is just this.

Corbin: Cyclical Time in Ismaili Gnosis, 1983

Vault (southwest section): Italian mosaic artist, 1240-1400, mosaic, Baptistry, Florence


Revelations of St Bridget of Sweden: Italian miniaturist, c. 1400, illumination on parchment, 268 x 190 mm (The Morgan Library and Museum, New York)

What a wet day - so we made the most of it! #wetdog #followthepaw: image via Police Pup Asco @No1GhostDog, 25 April 2014

PD Wilbur's just had a bath, he doesn't look too happy about it either #wetdog: image via Derbys Dog Section @DerbysDogPolice, 20 May 2014

Pablo Neruda: Keeping Quiet

November 17, 2014, 2:19 am

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A herd of elephants gather at a watering hole in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. The watering hole was one of several that were contaminated by poachers with cyanide in 2013, leading to the death of at least 100 animals, according to Zimbabwean authorities: photo by Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters via The Guardian, 21 October 2014

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth,
let's not speak in any language;
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fisherman in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity

Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973): Keeping Quiet, from Extravagaria, translated by Alastair Reid, 1974

An ivory bust of former Chinese leader Mao Zedung for sale in Guangzhou, China. Chinese demand for ivory is stripping Tanzania of its elephant population: photo by STR/EPA via The Guardian, 7 November 2014

A callarse

Ahora contaremos doce
y nos quedamos todos quietos. 

Por una vez sobre la tierra
no hablemos en ningún idioma,
por un segundo detengámonos,
no movamos tanto los brazos.
 
Sería un minuto fragante,
sin prisa, sin locomotoras,
todos estaríamos juntos
en un inquietud instantánea.
 
Los pescadores del mar frío
no harían daño a las ballenas
y el trabajador de la sal
miraría sus manos rotas.
 
Los que preparan guerras verdes,
guerras de gas, guerras de fuego,
victorias sin sobrevivientes,
se pondrían un traje puro
y andarían con sus hermanos
por la sombra, sin hacer nada.
 
No se confunda lo que quiero
con la inacción definitiva:
la vida es sólo lo que se hace,
no quiero nada con la muerte.
 
Si no pudimos ser unánimes
moviendo tanto nuestras vidas,
tal vez no hacer nada una vez,
tal vez un gran silencio pueda
interrumpir esta tristeza,
este no entendernos jamás
y amenazarnos con la muerte,
tal vez la tierra nos enseñe
cuando todo parece muerto
y luego todo estaba vivo.
 
Ahora contaré hasta doce
y tú te callas y me voy.
 

 

Pablo Neruda: A callarse, from Extravagaria, 1958

 

The Vatican. A gust of wind blows Pope Francis’ mantle during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square: photo by Alessandra Tarantino / AP via The Guardian, 7 November 2014

Queen Elizabeth II greets actor Angelina Jolie to present her with the insignia of an Honorary Dame Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George, in the 1844 room at Buckingham Palace, London: photo by Anthony Devlin / PA via The Guardian, 11 October 2014

 

Beijing, China. Russian president Vladimir Putin walks past US president Barack Obama in traditional Chinese dress before a welcome banquet for the Asia-Pacific economic cooperation summit: photo by Sergei Ilnitsky / EPA via The Guardian, 10 November  2014

 
An Abyssinian Colobus baby yawns at the Nogeyama Zoological Gardens in Yokohama, Japan: photo by Itsuo Inouye / Associated Press, 2011

 

Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica) with cub, Buffalo Zoo: photo by Dave Pape, 2008

A female Amur Tiger, Iris, licks its 7-week-old cub during one of their first walks in an open-air cage at the Royev Ruchey zoo in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. The Amur Tiger is an endangered species: photo by Ilya Naymushin / Reuters, 2011

A one-week-old Jaguar cub plays with her mother Rosa Salvaje at the National Zoo in Managua, Nicaragua: photo by Esteban Felix / Associated Press, 2011

Attica, Athens. A young white tiger plays with his mother in their enclosure at the Attica zoo. White tigers have not been seen in the wild since 1958: photo by Louisa Gouliamaki / AFP via The Guardian, 10 November 2014

Naypyitaw, Burma. A baby elephant, which was found in a river during the rainy season, plays with white elephants, seen as sacred signs of good fortune, peace and wealth: photo by Damir Sagolj / Reuters via The Guardian, 12 November 2014

Rasuruan, Indonesia. A seven-day-old female Sumatran elephant calf stands with its mother at the Safari zoo. Smallest of the Asian elephants, Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatrensis) is facing serious pressures arising from illegal logging and associated habitat loss, and fragmentation in Indonesia: photo by Fully Handoko / EPA via The Guardian, 14 November 2014

 

Barn Owl chicks sit in a box in Israel's Beit Shean Valley near the border with Jordan: photo by Baz Ratner / Reuters, 2012

An Indian Myna holds a grasshopper for its chicks in a nest built inside the wall of an underpass in Greater Noida on the outskirts of New Delhi: photo by Parivartan Sharma / Reuters, 2012

A mother bear and her two cubs, spooked by noise from TV helicopters, peer from a tree in Altadena, California: photo by Nick Ut / Associated Press, 2012

A Giant Panda sits in a tree at a breeding center in Dujiangyan, China. The animal is among six young Giant Pandas which were bred in captivity and were released as a group of "pioneers" into an enclosed forest in Sichuan province: photo by China Daily / Reuters, 2012

Diademed Sifaka (Propithecus diadema), ready to push off and leap, Mantadia National Park, Madagascar: photo by C. Michael Hogan, 2006

Diademed Sifaka (Propithecus diadema), sitting, Mantadia National Park, Madagascar: photo by C. Michael Hogan, 2006

Diademed Sifaka (Propithecus diadema), with radio collar, Andaside-Mantadia National Park, Madagascar: photo by Karen Coppock, 2007


 

Diademed Sifaka (Propithecus diadema): photo by Tom Junek, 2003

Diademed Sifaka (Propithecus diadema): photo by Tom Junek, 2003

 

A rare baby diademed sifaka lemur peaks out from its mother’s lap, almost hidden in the canopy of a lowland rainforest of Madagascar, the only island where lemurs can be found. They are critically endangered due to habitat destruction and hunting: photo by Hery Randriahaingo / Aspinall Foundation via The Guardian, 21 October 2014

Tony Abbott with koala at G20 summit in Brisbane. To right, Vladimir Putin in the grips of a second koala (two-year-old Jimbelung, whose name means ‘friend’): photo by Andrew Taylor / G20 Australia via The Guardian, 16 November 2014

 

Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff with Abbott’s mate: photo by Andrew Taylor / G20 Australia via The Guardian, 16 November 2014

Angela Merkel, out of picture to right, takes a more cautious approach and admires Tony Abbott's koala from a safe distance. It might be a wise strategy. From the Wildcare Australia website: ‘Koalas have strong razor-sharp claws that are capable of causing severe injuries, particularly to the face. They also bite – hard. Although they may appear docile, they are capable of lashing out very quickly’: photo by Andrew Taylor / G20 Australia via The Guardian, 16 November 2014

Habitat: photo by Karena Goldfinch, 11 November 2012

Logging at Toolangi State Forest: photo by Karena Goldfinch, 11 November 2012

Logging at Toolangi State Forest: photo by Karena Goldfinch, 11 November 2012

Black forest: photo by Karena Goldfinch, 17 October 2012

The dark side of the hill this morning: photo by Karena Goldfinch, 27 November 2012



Black wallaby: photo by Karena Goldfinch, 3 July 2012

St. Andrews Kookaburra: photo by Karena Goldfinch, 17 July 2012



He only wanted to eat some grass. (This young wombat was hit by a car.): photo by Karena Goldfinch, 7 October 2012

Untitled: photo by Karena Goldfinch, 21 March 2013



Toolangi: photo by Karena Goldfinch, 11 November 2012



If you go down to the woods today... #2: photo by Karena Goldfinch, 12 February 2013

A solitary desert elephant bull (Loxodonta africana) walks through sand dunes on the Skeleton Coast, Namibia. Conservation groups are calling for members of the public to sign a petition after Namibia's decision to grant more elephant hunting licences: photo by Jami Tarris / Corbis via The Guardian, 18 July 2014

An ‘Act Of War'

November 18, 2014, 2:23 am

≫ Next: Air of Resignation

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Girls at sink. [Rosebud Indian Reservation of the Sicangu Oyate, also known as the Sicangu Lakota or Brulé, of the Sioux Group in South Dakota]: photographer unknown for Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Rosebud Agency, 1938 (National Archives and Records Administration)

Public Indian gathering. [Rosebud Indian Reservation of the Sicangu Oyate, also known as the Sicangu Lakota or Brulé, of the Sioux Group in South Dakota]: photographer unknown for Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Rosebud Agency, c. 1936 (National Archives and Records Administration)

Climate advocates and representatives from the Rosebud Sioux tribe of South Dakota protest against the Keystone XL pipeline in front of US Senator Mary Landrieu’s home in Washington. “I pledge my life to stop these people from harming our children and our grandchildren and our way of life and our culture and our religion here,” the tribe president, Cyril Scott, said on Monday. Scott said he will close the reservation's borders if the government goes through with the deal, which is scheduled to come up for a Senate vote on Tuesday. Environmentalists believe the pipeline would increase US reliance on fossil fuels and that the transport of tar sands oil across the United States could have serious environmental consequences: photo by Gary Cameron/Reuters via the Guardian, 17 November 2014

Rosebud Sioux Tribe - House Vote On #KeystoneXL #Tarsands Pipeline An ‘Act Of War': image via Mike Hudema @MikeHudema, 17 November 2014

Rosebud Sioux declare #KeystoneXL an act of war. @MaryLandrieu @SenatorCarper @SenBennettCO are you listening? #NoKXL: image via 350 DC 350@_DC, 17 November 2014

  Nebraska Sandhills, Hooker County #1. Seen from Nebraska Highway 97 south of the Dismal River: photo by Ammodramus, 12 October 2010



  Nebraska Sandhills, Hooker County #2. Seen from Nebraska Highway 97 south of the Dismal River: photo by Ammodramus, 12 October 2010



  Nebraska Sandhills, Hooker County #3. Seen from Nebraska Highway 97 south of the Dismal River: photo by Ammodramus, 12 October 2010

Ask your Senator to vote #nokxl. Stand up to oil-soaked Congress, stand w/ farmers, ranchers, tribes, @BarackObama: image via Jane Fleming Kleeb @janekleeb, 14 November 2014

Cowboy & Indian Alliance at the People's Climate March. I stand with Rosebud Sioux President Scott who says Congress just declared an act of war on their people and land: image via Jane Fleming Kleeb @janekleeb, 15 November 2014

All thank @CoryBooker @SenJohnsonSD @timkaine for standing w/ our families by voting #noonxl, protecting our water: image via Jane Fleming Kleeb @janekleeb, 15 November 2014

#NoKXL The Cowboy and Indian Alliance is standing strong: image via Jane Fleming Kleeb @janekleeb, 15 November 2014

Protesters lay pipeline on Sen. Landrieu's front yard. #KeystoneXL: image via Jeremy Diamond @JDiamond, 17 November 2014

@GregGreyCloud: #KeystoneXL will violate our treaties, we are here to call on Landrieu to stop this monster #noKXL: image via Energy Action @energyaction, 17 November 2014

#Canada #tarsands pipelines, including #Keystone, facing more U.S. lawsuits: image via Mike Hudema @MikeHudema, 13 November 2014

Map showing the extent of the oil sands in Alberta, Canada. The three oil sand deposits are known as the Athabasca Oil Sands, the Cold Lake Oil Sands, and the Peace River Oil Sands: image by Norman Einstein, 10 May 2006



Operational and proposed route of the Keystone Pipeline System (data source: TransCanada): image by Meclee, 21 July 2012



Saturated thickness map of Ogallala Aquifer with Keystone XL route layered: image by 570ajk, 17 November 2011, using aquifer map by kbh3rd



Scenario for benzene transport to groundwater from oil spill. Oil spills in or on soils have the potential to release benzene to the environment when a precipitation event carries dissolved benzene to groundwater sources: image by 570ajk, 28 October 2011

 
Clouds over a country road, Cass County, Nebraska: photo by MONGO, 22 June 2007

Truck hauling 36-inch pipe to build Keystone-Cushing pipeline SE of Peabody, Kansas. Location is Timber Rd and 20th St in Marion County. Looking south-west with rural Whitewater Center Church in background: photo by Steve Meirowsky, 10 July 2010

 Pipes for the Keystone Pipeline, Nebraska: photo by shannonpatrick17, 13 August 2009

@climatekeith says #KeystoneXL means Canada won't hit emission reduction targets: image via CBC-The Current @TheCurrentCBC. 17 November 2014

How should this play any role in one of the world's largest aquifers? #TarSands #DirtyOil #WaterIsLife #NoKXL: image via tara zhaabowekwe @zhaabowekwe, 17 November 2014

Remember when windmills and solar panels caused long term, horrific environmental damage? No? Me either #KeystoneXL: image via Angel @angelmouse4, 17 November 2014

I'd rather not live on a planet that looks like this. And you? #NoKXL Plz read up on the #TarSands & RT: image via Tinsel Korey @tinselkoey, 17 November 2014

RT @climateprogress: How oil companies lost $17B defying activists over Canada's #tarsands: image via Shawna @S_WhiteBear, 5 November 2014

Senate votes #keystone Wed. Regardless of vote, #Tarsands companies will ship their oil to US: image via Daniel Grossman @grossmanmedia, 17 November 2014

#TarSands Reporting Project film to premier at Media Democracy Days Friday 7pm: image via Vancouver Observer @VanObserver, 7 November 2014

More than 100 birds die after landing on #tarsands waste ponds in Canada: image via Shawna @S_WhiteBear, 7 November 2014

Picture of #Tarsands tailing ponds created by removal of Boreal forest - compared to Mordor by @londonmining #olsx: image via Occupy London @OccupyLondon, 8 November 2014

Reports of birds landing in toxic #tarsands tailing lakes spark investigation: image via Mike Hudema @MikeHudema, 5 November 2014

Nearly 100 birds land in three #oilsands tailings ponds: image via Everett Coldwell @EverettColdwell, 5 November 20144

Athabasca oil sands mining field: NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, acquired 29 July 2009 using EO-1 Advanced Land Rover data courtesy of the NASA EO-I team; caption by Holli Riebeek (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 23 July 1984 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 28 September 1985 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 14 August 1986 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 18 September 1987 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 4 September 1988 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 6 August 1989 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 24 July 1990 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 27 July 1991 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 13 July 1992 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 17 August 1993 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 26 July 1994 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 24 September 1995 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 22 June 1996 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 12 August 1997 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 5 July 1998 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 15 June 1999 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 13 September 2000 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 7 August 2001 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 11 September 2002 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 30 September 2003 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 28 June 2004 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 5 October 2005 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 21 August 2006 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 30 July 2007 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 25 July 2008 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 14 September 2009 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 3 October 2010 (NASA)

Athabasca Oil Sands: satellite image by NASA Earth Observatory, 15 May 2011 (NASA)

Nitrogen emissions from Athabasca oil sands mining operations, data acquired 2005 - 2010

 

Athabasca Oil Sands mining operations, Nitrogen emissions, data acquired 2005-2010: graphics by NASA Earth Observatory

Dust hangs in the sunset sky above the Suncor Millennium mine, an open-pit north of Fort McMurray, Alberta: photo by Peter Essick, in The Canadian Oil Boom: Scraping Bottom, National Geographic, March 2009

The oil sands industry has utterly transformed this part of northeastern Alberta in just the past few years, with astonishing speed. Where trapline and cabin once were, and the forest, there is now a large open-pit mine. Here Syncrude, Canada's largest oil producer, digs bitumen-laced sand from the ground with electric shovels five stories high, then washes the bitumen off the sand with hot water and sometimes caustic soda. Next to the mine, flames flare from the stacks of an "upgrader," which cracks the tarry bitumen and converts it into Syncrude Sweet Blend, a synthetic crude that travels down a pipeline to refineries in Edmon­ton, Alberta; Ontario, and the United States. Mildred Lake, meanwhile, is now dwarfed by its neighbor, the Mildred Lake Settling Basin, a four-square-mile lake of toxic mine tailings. The sand dike that contains it is by volume one of the largest dams in the world.

Nor is Syncrude alone. Within a 20-mile radius are a total of six mines that produce nearly three-quarters of a million barrels of synthetic crude oil a day; and more are in the pipeline. Wherever the bitumen layer lies too deep to be strip-mined, the industry melts it "in situ" with copious amounts of steam, so that it can be pumped to the surface. The industry has spent more than $50 billion on construction during the past decade, including some $20 billion in 2008 alone. Before the collapse in oil prices last fall, it was forecasting another $100 billion over the next few years and a doubling of production by 2015, with most of that oil flowing through new pipelines to the U.S. The economic crisis has put many expansion projects on hold, but it has not diminished the long-term prospects for the oil sands. In mid-November, the International Energy Agency released a report forecasting $120-a-barrel oil in 2030 -- a price that would more than justify the effort it takes to get oil from oil sands.

Nowhere on Earth is more earth being moved these days than in the Athabasca Valley. To extract each barrel of oil from a surface mine, the industry must first cut down the forest, then remove an average of two tons of peat and dirt that lie above the oil sands layer, then two tons of the sand itself. It must heat several barrels of water to strip the bitumen from the sand and upgrade it, and afterward it discharges contaminated water into tailings ponds like the one near Mildred Lake. They now cover around 50 square miles. Last April some 500 migrating ducks mistook one of those ponds, at a newer Syncrude mine north of Fort McKay, for a hospitable stopover, landed on its oily surface, and died. The incident stirred international attention -- Greenpeace broke into the Syncrude facility and hoisted a banner of a skull over the pipe discharging tailings, along with a sign that read "World's Dirtiest Oil: Stop the TarSands."

The U.S. imports more oil from Canada than from any other nation, about 19 percent of its total foreign supply, and around half of that now comes from the oil sands. Anything that reduces our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, many Americans would say, is a good thing. But clawing and cooking a barrel of crude from the oil sands emits as much as three times more carbon dioxide than letting one gush from the ground in Saudi Arabia. The oil sands are still a tiny part of the world's carbon problem -- they account for less than a tenth of one percent of global CO2 emissions -- but to many environmentalists they are the thin end of the wedge, the first step along a path that could lead to other, even dirtier sources of oil: producing it from oil shale or coal. "Oil sands represent a decision point for North America and the world," says Simon Dyer of the Pembina Institute, a moderate and widely respected Canadian environmental group. "Are we going to get serious about alternative energy, or are we going to go down the unconventional-oil track? The fact that we're willing to move four tons of earth for a single barrel really shows that the world is running out of easy oil."

Robert Kunzig, in The Canadian Oil Boom: Scraping Bottom, National Geographic, March 2009

Photographer @ianwillms documents a typical day in Alberta's Fort McMurray: image via AACC @artsandclimate, 11 November 2014

Gas station attendants peer over their "Out of Gas"sign in Portland, on day before the state's requested Saturday closure of gasoline stations: photo by David Falconer for the Environmental Protection Agency's Documerica Project, November 1973 (US National Archives)

Trans-Alaska Pipeline at Mile O: photo by Sanao, 12 September 2004; image by The RedBurn, 25 November 2005 (The Joint Pipeline Office / U.S. Government)

The Trans-Alaska oil pipeline coming from underground, on the road between Fairbanks and Anchorage (the long route via Delta and Glenallen -- a great drive but very long): photo by Frank K., 22 March 2008

The Trans-Alaska oil pipeline running far into the horizon, taken on the road between Fairbanks and Anchorage: photo by Frank K., 22 March 2008

Trans-Alaska Pipeline, Kettle Lakes, Prudhoe Bay, Alaska: photo by Nick Bonzey, 10 July 2007

Trans-Alaska Pipeline: from here to forever (a 270 degree view): photo by Nick Bonzey, 14 July 2007

Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline: photo by Marcin Klapczynski, 14 July 2005

Trans-Alaska Pipeline System: photo by Ryan McFarland, 28 September 2005

Trans-Alaska Pipeline: photo by Dubhe, 2004

Trans-Alaska Pipeline Road Construction: Aerial view of overlay construction: photo by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1 October 1969; image by Daktari, 25 October 2010 (US Fish and Wildlife Service/National Digital Library)

Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline, Fairbanks: photo by Gillfoto, 17 May 2002

Trans-Alaska Pipeline at Delta Junction, Alaska: photo by Dave Bezaire and Suzi Havens-Bezaire, 22 June 2009; image by Aconcagua, 24 June 2009

Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. It runs from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Alaska at Valdez 800 miles (1,300 km): photo by Luca Galuzzi, 6 August 2005

Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline. Moose in the foreground, south of Delta Junction, Alaska: photo by AK Smith, November 2003

Trace of the Denali Fault after the 7.9 magnitude earthquake of 3 November 2002, Alaska, USA. View south along the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System in the zone where it was engineered to cross the fault (the pipeline rests on sliders rather than rigid pillar supports). The fault trace passes beneath the pipeline between the 2nd and 3rd slider supports at the far end of the zone. A large arc in the pipe can be seen in the pipe on the right, due to shortening of the zigzag-shaped pipeline trace within the fault zone. It was snowing when the photo was taken: photo by Whhalbert, 7 November 2002 (United States Geological Survey)

Caribou walking next to a section of the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline north of the Brooks Range in Alaska: photo by Stan Shebs, July 1998

 Hess Creek construction camp on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline route, looking west: photo by Dennis Cowals for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, August 1973 (U.S. National Archives)

Alyeska Pipeline service Company's Fairbanks pipeyard, with more than 200 miles of 48-inch pipe. Most lengths are 50-to-60 feet: photo by Dennis Cowals for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, August 1973 (U.S. National Archives)

A State of Alaska Highway Department gravel pit located a mile east of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline route. Contractors building the pipeline will have to excavate pits similar to this where gravel is not easily obtainable from watercourses: photo by Dennis Cowals for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, August 1973 (U.S. National Archives)

A tanker is loaded with crude oil at the Valdez Marine Terminal in winter: photo by Joint Pipeline Office, n.d.; image by JKBrooks85, 30 July 2009 (U.S. Government)

Alaska Pipeline route along Valdez River. View northeast across Valdez River floodplain showing pipe storage yard, center foreground, which holds 418 miles of pipe. Yards at Fairbanks and Prudhoe Bay hold 238 and 168 Miles of pipe respectively. The community's airport, paved in the summer of 1974, sits at the base of West Peak (Elevation 5,255 Feet). Mile 788, along the Alaska Pipeline Route: photo by Dennis Cowals for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, August 1974 (U.S. National Archives)

Port Valdez waters appear milky under some lighting conditions as a result of suspended sediments dumped into the sea by the Lowe River and others like it which annually dump tons of ground rock flour into the ocean. This view shows Entrance Island at the right near the mouth of Port Valdez, Mile 789, near the Alaska Pipeline route: photo by Dennis Cowals for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, August 1974 (U.S. National Archives)

 Birds killed by the Exxon Valdez oil spill: photo courtesy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, 1989; image by KillerChihuahua, 27 October 2006



Eagles (Haliaetus leucocephalus) rescued from the Exxon Valdez oil spill, in the care of Raptor Education Group Inc.: photo by Mckennagene 4 October 2008

An oil-stained dead eagle lies on the shore after the Exxon Valdez spill: photo by John Lyle / Arlis, March 1989 via The Guardian, 24 March 2014

Staining the vista of the Chugach Mountains, the Exxon Valdez lies atop Bligh Reef two days after the grounding, in Prince William Sound, Alaska. Southbound from the trans-Alaska pipeline terminal at Valdez, the ship had met disaster after 28 miles, outside normal shipping lanes, with the captain absent from the bridge: photo by Natalie B. Fobes / NG, 26 March 1989 via The Guardian, 24 March 2014

A beach cleaning operation in Prince William Sound: photo by Bud Ehler/Arlis, 4 June 1989 via The Guardian, 24 March 2014

A modified C130 plane sprays dispersant on the Exxon Valdez oil spill area of the sea in the Gulf of Alaska: photo by Natalie Fobes / NG, 26 March 1989 via The Guardian, 24 March 2014

Oil leaches off an island beach in the Gulf of Alaska weeks after the Exxon Valdez incident: photo by Natalie Fobes/Corbis, April 1989 via The Guardian, 24 March 2014

Clouds hover over snowy peaks near Prince William Sound, Valdez, Alaska. Twenty-five years after the Exxon Valdez supertanker split open on a submerged reef and spilled 11 millions gallons of crude oil on 24 March 1989, legal fights continue. Experts thought the crude would be gone by 1995 but oil still clings to rocks on once-pristine beaches: photo by David McNew via The Guardian, 24 March 2014

Air of Resignation

November 20, 2014, 4:14 am

≫ Next: It Changes Everything (Perilous Sanctuary)

≪ Previous: An ‘Act Of War'

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#Smog-stricken #China woos #meteorological talents: official: image via Xinhua World News @Xinhua_Intl, 14 November 2014

Behind the screen

propped up before the mirror

that is also a shield

against the questions that can't be asked

the planet of the self deceived

struggles to breathe

through the fine mesh fabric
 the no-answers mask   An air
of misgiving thankless not-breath

resignation . belated

howsoever suffocating withheld
going through the tunnel
Stinking viscous muck more lethal
before you even put it in your car
and set it on fire

The particulate aerosol mass
remains inarticulate

to the death

A woman wears a mask as she walks by the National Stadium on a hazy day in Beijing: photo by Ng Han Guan /AP via The Guardian, 25 February 2014

Weather authorities warn heavy #smog in north #China including Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei on Thursday: image via CCTVNEWS @cctvnews, 20 November 2014

Weather authorities warn heavy #smog in north #China including Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei on Thursday: image via CCTVNEWS @cctvnews, 20 November 2014

What annoys me about the apec summit, US & China agree to be greener by 2027? View from hotel room in Chang an #smog: image via Dan Dan @latachedanny, 20 November 2013

China World Trade Centre Tower III (C), one of the tallest buildings in the city at 330m (1083ft), in the heavy haze in Beijing. Beijing and broad swaths of six northern provinces have spent the past week blanketed in a dense pea-soup smog that is not expected to abate until Thursday. Beijing’s concentration of PM 2.5 particles –- those small enough to penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream –- hit 505 micrograms per cubic metre on Tuesday night. The World Health Organisation recommends a safe level of 25: photo by Jason Lee / Reuters via The Guardian, 25 February 2014

A woman wearing a facemask in Shanghai: photo by Aly Song / Reuters via The Guardian, 25 February 2014

Tourists from mainland China take photos in front of a large outdoor banner in in Hong Kong showing what the city looks like on a clean-air day: photo by Alex Hofford / EPA via The Guardian, 25 February 2014



A big screen flashes commercials on the exterior of an office building in Xi'an on 15 December 2012: photo by Mayi Wong / EPA via The Guardian, 25 February 2014

The Jinshanling Great Walls in Chengde, north of Beijing: photo by ChinaFotoPress / Getty Images via The Guardian, 25 February 2014

Great Wall cloaked in smog, Beijing: photo by Vicky (vicky tricky), 10 October 2005

Atmospheric aerosols affect weather and global general circulation by modifying cloud and precipitation processes, but the magnitude of cloud adjustment by aerosols remains poorly quantified and represents the largest uncertainty in estimated forcing of climate change. Here we assess the effects of anthropogenic aerosols on the Pacific storm track, using a multiscale global aerosol–climate model (GCM). Simulations of two aerosol scenarios corresponding to the present day and preindustrial conditions reveal long-range transport of anthropogenic aerosols across the north Pacific and large resulting changes in the aerosol optical depth, cloud droplet number concentration, and cloud and ice water paths. Shortwave and longwave cloud radiative forcing at the top of atmosphere are changed by −2.5 and +1.3 W m⁻², respectively, by emission changes from preindustrial to present day, and an increased cloud top height indicates invigorated midlatitude cyclones. The overall increased precipitation and poleward heat transport reflect intensification of the Pacific storm track by anthropogenic aerosols. Hence, this work provides, for the first time to the authors’ knowledge, a global perspective of the effects of Asian pollution outflows from GCMs. Furthermore, our results suggest that the multiscale modeling framework is essential in producing the aerosol invigoration effect of deep convective clouds on a global scale.

Yuan Wang, Minghuai Wang, Renyi Zhang, Steven J. Ghan, Yun Lin, Jiaxi Hu, Bowen Pan, Misti Levy, Jonathan H. Jiang, Mario J. Molina: Assessing the effects of anthropogenic aerosols on Pacific storm track using a multiscale global climate model: Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 14 April 2014

Great Wall cloaked in smog, Beijing: photo by Vicky (vicky tricky), 10 October 2005

Great Wall cloaked in smog, Beijing: photo by Vicky (vicky tricky), 10 October 2005

A smog cloud is cast over a bridge in a tourist area in Hangzhou: photo by Lam Yik Fei / Getty Images via The Guardian, 25 February 2014

A view of downtown Shanghai on 5 December 2013: photo by Peter Parks / AFP via The Guardian, 25 February 2014

Buildings are seen through thick haze at the central business district in Guangzhou: photo by Alex Lee / Reuters via The Guardian, 25 February 2014

A big screen flashes commercials on the exterior of an office building in Xi'an on 15 December 2012: photo by Mayi Wong / EPA via The Guardian, 25 February 2014

A satellite view of northern China covered by pollution haze on 23 January 2014: photo by MODIS / Aqua/ NASA via The Guardian, 25 February 2014

A satellite view of northern China covered by pollution haze on 23 January 2014: photo by MODIS / Aqua/ NASA via The Guardian, 25 February 2014

Children with respiratory diseases receive treatment at a hospital in Hangzhou: photo by China Daily / Reuters via The Guardian, 25 February 2014

Heavy smog shrouds the second ring road in Beijing, 21 January. The government had hoped that rain and snow would disperse the smog that has blanketed the city since last weekend, but an index monitoring of PM2.5 particulates revealed that it still stood at 400 in some parts of the city -- down on last week's record score of 755, but still well above levels deemed hazardous to human health. Beijing authorities have proposed new rules that would force more factory shutdowns and increase fines for vehicle emissions when smog reaches dangerous levels in the latest attempt to tackle the Chinese capital's air pollution. The plans come a week after 'airpocalypse' -- when pollution levels in the city hit a level that was almost 40 times more than the limit recommended by the World Health Organisation: photo by Adrian Bradshaw / EPA via the Guardian, 22 January 2013

An outdoor screen glimmers as heavy fog shrouds Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan province: photo by Zhu Xiang / Corbis via the Guardian, 22 January 2013

The Forbidden City in Beijing is shrouded in pollution: photo by Feng Li / Getty Images via the Guardian, 22 January 2013

On 12 January the Chinese meteorological authority issued a yellow alert indicating dangerous levels of smog in China's northern and western regions, including major cities like Beijing. It said that parts of China were facing the worst recorded pollution. According to Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Centre website, density of PM2.5 particulates had surpassed 1,000 in Beijing -- the World Health Organisation considers a safe daily level to be 25 micrograms per cubic metre: photo by Rex Features via the Guardian, 22 January 2013

The CCTV tower is seen in heavy smog in Beijing. The city has seen a major spike in pollution-related illnesses with heart attacks and respiratory ailments: photo by Imaginechina/Corbis via the Guardian, 22 January 2013

Cars in heavy fog in Hefei, central China's Anhui province: photo by Stringer / AFP via the Guardian, 22 January 2013

A view of a busy highway as heavy smog engulfs the city of Beijing, 11 January: photo by How Hwee Young / EPA via the Guardian, 22 January 2013

Chimneys of a cement plant emit smoke into the air in Binzhou, in east China's Shandong province. Air pollution is a major problem in China due to the country's rapid pace of industrialisation, reliance on coal power, explosive growth in car ownership and lack of environmental regulation. It typically gets worse in the winter because of weather conditions and an increase in coal-burning for heating needs: photo by Zhang Bin / EPA via the Guardian, 22 January 2013

Power station chimney near Beijing's central business district on 18 January. Officials last week ordered some factories to close down, but reports from state media Xinhua indicate that the city government will propose new rules for tackling air pollution: photo by Feng Li / Getty Images via the Guardian, 22 January 2013

The Oriental Pearl tower on a hazy day in Shanghai, 21 January: photo by Carlos Barria / Reuters via the Guardian, 22 January 2013
 

A woman wearing a mask walks under a bridge during severe pollution on 18 January in Beijing. Chinese factories and coal-fired power stations could soon face further rolling shutdowns, as the government battles to get a hold on the smog crisis that has gripped the capital: photo by Feng Li / Getty Images via the Guardian, 22 January 2013 via the Guardian, 22 January 2013

哈尔滨松花江. Despite heavy smog there is a lot of life on the frozen Songhua River, Harbin, China: photo by SinoLaZZeR, 23 November 2013

A woman wearing a mask checks her phone in front of Harbin's landmark San Sophia church. The second day of heavy smog has forced the closure of schools and highways, as visibility has been reduced to a few metres: photo by AP via The Guardian, 21 October 2013

Two women share a jacket to cover up their mouths and noses as they cross a street covered by dense smog. Small-particle pollution soared to a record 40 times higher than an international safety standard: photo by AP via The Guardian, 21 October 2013

People wear masks as they ride along a street in Daqing, Heilongjiang province. All of the province's highways and the Taiping international airport in Harbin have been forced to close: photo by Reuters via The Guardian, 21 October 2013

Smog shrouds buildings in Harbin. A red alert for thick smog has been issued in the provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning: photo by Rex Features via The Guardian, 21 October 2013
 

People wait for transport in Harbin but many public bus routes were shut due to the smog: photo by Rex Features via The Guardian, 21 October 2013

A man covers his nose and mouth with a newspaper as he walks on the street in Harbin: photo by AP via The Guardian, 21 October 2013

A man pushes a bike onto a bridge in Harbin: photo by AP via The Guardian, 21 October 2013
 

The subjective city -- No. 5.  Fisherman and his pregnant wife (Chongqing): photo by wang yuanling, 15 March 2009

Cowboy (Chongqing): photo by wang yuanling, 2009 [posted 7 January 2010]

Helmet (Chongqing): photo by wang yuanling, 2009 [posted 25 February 2010]

The subjective city -- No. 25. Goats on the way home (Chongqing): photo by wang yuanling, 22 July 2009
 

Go for a walk (Yangtze River): photo by wang yuanling, 24 October 2009

In the fog (Chongqing Wulong): photo by wang yuanling, 4 June 2010

Fog in the river (Yangtze): photo by wang yuanling, 15 October 2009

Bridge (Chongqing): photo by wang yuanling, 2009 [posted 7 January 2010]

The subjective city -- No. 8 (Chongqing): photo by wang yuanling, 16 March 2009




Take a picture for me, yeah! (Funny boys, Yangtze River, Sichuan): photo by wang yuanling, 16 March 2009

The subjective city -- No. 26. (Picnic, Yangtze River, Chongqing): photo by wang yuanling, 25 November 2009

 Heavy #smog to hit #Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei from Thursday to Friday: image via CCTVNEWS @cctvnews, 29 October 2014
 

 Heavy #smog to hit #Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei from Thursday to Friday: image via CCTVNEWS @cctvnews, 29 October 2014

Heavy haze hung in the air in central Beijing this week: photo by David Gray/Reuters, 7 December 2011

Paramilitary policemen practise drills inside the Forbidden City during a heavy haze and smog night in central Beijing: photo by Jason Lee / Reuters, 4 December 2011
 

Smog in Beijing: photo by David Gray / Reuters via the Guardian 15 April 2014

Traffic plods through heavy smog in Beijing. China will start assessing the "social risk" of major projects, its environmental protection minister said, after anti-pollution protests forced a series of industrial ventures to be cancelled: photo by Wang Zhao/AFP, 21 November 2012

An employee walks past new cars at Ford's joint venture in Chongqing, China: photo by Reuters, 12 October 2012

What part of this makes you want to dismantle the EPA? #China #smog: image via Mike @ScottsHusband, 12 November 2014

#Beijing and the nearby Tianjin and Hebei will be once again shrouded by #smog: Image via China.org @chinaorgcn, 22 October 2014

A new spell of  #smog is expected to affect central, northern #China over the weekend: Image via China.org @chinaorgcn, 16 October 2014

11 Minutes a day -- choking Beijing style: image via Team Carma @TeamCarma, 14 August 2014

 

The head (western China): photo by wang yuanling, 10 March 2012

The air qualityindex in Harbin soared to the maximum of 500 yesterday. #airpollution #smog: Image via China.org @chinaorgcn, 30 October 2014

Shijiazhuang, AQI 360, China 2014. This panoramic shot shows a city barely visible through thick fog. Only the title -– AQI 360 –- suggests there is something sinister here. AQI stands for ‘Air Quality Index’. The index runs from 1-500, where 0-50 is ‘good’ and 301-500 indicates a hazardous level of pollution. AQI 301-500 can aggravate heart or lung disease, lead to premature mortality in the elderly and cause serious respiratory problems in the general population: photo by Benedikt Partenheimer via The Guardian 18 November 2014

---

It Changes Everything (Perilous Sanctuary)

November 21, 2014, 4:48 am

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Child of an FSA -- R.R. borrower? in front of house, Puerto Rico: photo by Jack Delano, December 1941 or January 1942(Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Nothing changes everything.

Everything changes nothing.

We're all about change

for a while then not; times
are tough, then that's enough
of not

enough. Change nothings

everything. Metal will never

evolve into life,
no 

Metal however

precious
will ever

evolve into life.

 

Astrid Silva: 'It changes everything.' Vegas has a new star. #immigration: image via Rory Carroll @rorycarroll72, 21 November 2014

 

Full house at Las Vegas's Hermandad Mexicana office for Obama's speech. #immigration: image via Rory Carroll @rorycarroll72, 21 November 2014

Katia Pereilla: 'thousands of children will sleep tight tonight knowing they parents won't be deported.' #immigration: image via Rory Carroll @rorycarroll72, 21 November 2014

Whoops and cheers when Obama appears. Then complete silence, straining to catch every word. #immigration: image via Rory Carroll @rorycarroll72, 21 November 2014

Obama's challenge to congress - 'pass a bill' - elicits biggest cheer yet. #immigration: image via Rory Carroll @rorycarroll72, 21 November 2014

That's Astrid Silva in the red. #immigration: image via Rory Carroll @rorycarroll72, 21 November 2014

Tears, cheers. #immigration: image via Rory Carroll @rorycarroll72, 21 November 2014

Nooo! Screen freezes. #immigration: image via Rory Carroll @rorycarroll72, 21 November 2014

Astrid Silva trembling, happy, relieved that parents won't be deported. 'I don't have to be scared.' #immigration: image via Rory Carroll @rorycarroll72, 21 November 2014

Astrid's boss Theresa Navarro. 'It's given us hope. We'll vote in 2016 to get a president who makes this permanent.' #immigration: image via Rory Carroll @rorycarroll72, 21 November 2014

Baseball game, Sixto Escobar Stadium, San Juan: photo by Melvin Lauver, c. 1946-48; image by Tom Lehman, 10 July 2011

 

Dressed as a princess, Jennifer Knoepfel, is helped with her dress during the Saturday night stock car races, Agassiz Speedway, Agassiz, British Columbia. Jennifer dressed up in the long gown and tiara as part of her duties presenting the trophies to the winners of the night's competition: photo by Andy Clark / Reuters, 7 July 2012

 

Will Power of Australia, bottom, goes under the car of Mike Conway of Britain during the Indianapolis 500 auto race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Indiana: photo by Peter Kirles / Reuters, 27 May 2012

Worker on Irrigated agricultural land on Oxnard Plain, a prime farming area now being developed for housing near Oxnard, California, north of Los Angeles: photo by Charles O'Rear for the Environmental Protection Agency's Project DOCUMERICA, June 1975 (US National Archives)

 

Colorado River at the Mexican border, Yuma County, Arizona: photo by Charles O'Rear for the Environmental Protection Agency's Project DOCUMERICA, May 1972 (US National Archives)

Colorado River on the Mexican side of the border: photo by Charles O'Rear for the Environmental Protection Agency's Project DOCUMERICA, May 1972 (US National Archives)

Colorado River on the Mexican side of the border: photo by Charles O'Rear for the Environmental Protection Agency's Project DOCUMERICA, May 1972 (US National Archives)

Las Vegas street scene: photo by Charles O'Rear for the Environmental Protection Agency's Project DOCUMERICA, May 1972 (US National Archives)

 

A migrant family looking for work in the pea fields of California: photo by Dorothea Lange for Federal Resettlement Administration, 1935 (Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library)

Maybe read a few books. Or graduate beyond trolling. RT @owillis: the GOP prepares its response to #ImmigrationAction: image via T. Becket Adams @BecketAdams, 21 November 2014

 

A stranded migrant in his shanty, Fresno, California: photo by Matt Black, 2011 (Matt Black Photography)

Monte Albán, Zapotec/Mixtec site, highland Oaxaca: photo by Reinhard Jahn, 26 December 2003

Left behind by his migrant children, an ailing man lies in his yard, San Miguel Cuevas, Oaxaca, Mexico: photo by Matt Black, 2011 (Matt Black Photography)



Mexican man in front of movie theatre, San Antonio, Texas: photo by Russell Lee, March 1939 (Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress)
 


Marks, Mississippi: photo by janet larson (silvrdollmoon), 11 October 2013



Lockhart, Texas 1978 (from the Archives): photo by Don Hudson, April 1978

Untitled (Mount Desert, Maine): photo by Patrick Joust, June 2013

When you visit Pine Bluff, you can see it suffers from a broken heart. Kareem Bearden works the night shift at a drive-through liquor store on the outskirts of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, He moved to town a few years ago from Milwaukee, Wisconsin when a friend opened the store: photo by William Widmer via NYT Photo on twitter, 15 July 2014

 Tlalpan, Mexico City: photo by Jair Cabrera Torres (rastamaniaco), 24 November 2013

 

Iztapalapa: photo by Jair Cabrera Torres (rastamaniaco), 15 September 2012



Mexico City: photo by Jair Cabrera Torres (rastamaniaco), 20 January 2013

 

Metro, Mexico City: photo by Jair Cabrera Torres (rastamaniaco), 4 February 2013

 

St. Jude the Protector, Mexico City: photo by Jair Cabrera Torres (rastamaniaco), 28 July 2012

 

St. Jude the Protector, Iztapalapa: photo by Jair Cabrera Torres (rastamaniaco), 17 March 2012

 

Exit, Gomez Palacio, Durango: photo by Jair Cabrera Torres (rastamaniaco), 1 June 2012

 

Durango: photo by Jair Cabrera Torres (rastamaniaco), 27 April 2012

Man on roof, East Oakland, night: photo by Dennis McGuira, 10 March 2012



East Oakland (North Kennedy Tract): photo by djpurity, 12 April 2009

 

Even Oakland: photo by Presley Martin, 12 January 2006

  Night Releases, Mississippi River Corridor, Louisiana: photo by Richard Misrach, 1998

 

If anyone is on a flight to Acapulco, good luck. Students are blocking the airport. #VivaMexico #YaMeCanse #Mexico43: image via Random Walker @Morology, 10 November 2014

Swamp and Pipeline, Geismar, Louisiana: photo by Richard Misrach, 1998

Que Se Vayan Todos (Calling the Ancestors)

November 22, 2014, 3:23 am

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"@JesusdeVeracruz: Calling the ancestors #SavingMexico #YaMeCansé @epigmenioibarra @reyes lourdes": image via Gerardo Oliver @gerardooliver, 21 November 2014

He could see hills on the horizon. The hills were dark yellow and black. Past the hills, he guessed, was the desert. He felt the urge to leave and drive into the hills, but when he got back to his table the woman had brought him a beer and a very thick kind of sandwich. He took a bite and it was good. The taste was strange, spicy. Out of curiosity, he lifted the piece of bread on top: the sandwich was full of all kinds of things. He took a long drink of beer and stretched in his chair. Through the vine leaves he saw a bee, perched motionless. Two slender rays of sun fell vertically on the dirt floor. When the man came back he asked how to get to the hills. The man laughed. He spoke a few words Fate didn’t understand and then he said not pretty, several times.

“Not pretty?”

“Not pretty,” said the man, and he laughed again.

Then he took Fate by the arm and dragged him into a room that served as a kitchen and that looked very tidy to Fate, each thing in its place, not a spot of grease on the white-tiled wall, and he pointed to the garbage can.

“Hills not pretty?” asked Fate.

The man laughed again.

“Hills are garbage?”

The man couldn’t stop laughing. He had a bird tattoed on his left forearm. Not a bird in flight, like most tattoos of birds, but a bird perched on a branch, a little bird, possibly a swallow.

“Hills a garbage dump?”

The man laughed even more and nodded his head.

Roberto Bolaño (1953-2002):  from Part Three: The Part About Fate, in 2666 (2004), English translation by Natasha Wimmer, 2008

Mexico City, Mexico. A costumed protester marches with thousands of others, to demand authorities find the 43 missing students: photo by Eduardo Verdugo / AP, 20 November 2014

 
Ciudad Juárez at dusk looking west toward Misión de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe: photo by Daniel Schwen, 3 April 2004

Heavenly city (Tenochtitlan), Mexico: photo by Jair Cabrera Torres (rastamaniaco), 28 January 2014

Durango: photo by Jair Cabrera Torres (rastamaniaco), 4 May 2013

Octavio García. Octavio García "El Payo" toma un respiro y un descanso para bajar la adrenalina bajo los tablados de la plaza. Puede apreciarse la construcción de esta a base de palos, mecates y petates. A "El Payo" le ha costado trabajo matar a su toro y lo ha dejado exhausto. Villa de Álvarez, Colima, México: photo by Emigdio Salgado (Millo Salgado), 12 February 2012

Vuelta al ruedo de Diego Silveti. Diego Silveti recibe un obsequio del público mientras da la vuelta al ruedo por cortar una oreja. Villa de Álvarez, Colima, México: photo by Emigdio Salgado (Millo Salgado), 12 February 2012

Picador al caballo. Villa de Álvarez, Colima, México: photo by Emigdio Salgado (Millo Salgado), 14 February 2012

 Hurricane, Acapulco, Guerrero: photo by Jair Cabrera Torres (rastamaniaco), 20 September 2013

Slide area, Cuajimalpa: photo by Jair Cabrera Torres (rastamaniaco), 26 September 2013



IMG_1963: photo by locaburg, 27 February 2014

IMG_5423 (iztapalapa): photo by locaburg, 17 March 2006

IMG_0190 (Julian, azotea, laundry): photo by locaburg, 6 May 2006

IMG_2002 (dog, Monte Escobedo, Zacatecas): photo by locaburg, 10 January 2008

IMG_1482 (dog, skull, Xoloscuintle, iztapalapa): photo by locaburg, 16 February 2011

IMG_7684 (dog, car, brick): photo by locaburg, 22 December 2009

Ceramic representation of Mictlantecuhtli, Aztec god of the dead and king of Mictlan (Chicunauhmictlan), lowest and northernmost section of the underworld, recovered during excavation of the House of Eagles in the Templo Mayor, now on display at the museum of the Templo Mayor, Mexico City: photo by Thelmadatter, 23 March 2008

¿Solo asi he de irme?

¿Como las flores que perecieron?

¿Nada quedara en mi nombre?

¿Nada de mi paso aqui en la tierra?

¡Al menos flores, al menos cantos!

Turquoise mosaic mask: Mixtec-Aztec, 1400-1521 CE: photo by Gryffindor, 17 January 2009 (British Museum)

Was it for this only that I came?
To die away like the flowers?

Nothing left of my name?

Nor of the days I have spent on earth?

At least my flowers, at least my songs!

 
from Cantos de Huexotzingo: Nahuatl, attributed to Ayocuan Cuetzpaltzin, aka Aguila Blanca de Tecamachalco (The White Eagle of Tecamachalco), early 16th c. (English: TC)
 

Statue of Mictlantecuhtli, Aztec god of the dead, museum of the Templo Mayor, Mexico City: photo by Jamie Dwyer, 19 August 2008

La imagen que muy seguramente no difundirán los medios. #EstadoFallido: image via Cesar Costa @EnriqueIX, 20 November 2014

Students clash with riot police near Mexico City’s international airport: photo by Alfredo Estrella / AFP, 20 November 2014

Protesters throw stones at riot police. Global marches called for justice and a solution for the 43 missing student teachers and their families: photo by Anadolu Agency, 20 November 2014

Protesters burn a police car during the global protests: photo by Anadolu Agency, 20 November 2014

Agent provocateur MT @AreliMSS Soldiers with civilian clothes break peaceful demo... outraged#YaMeCanse #Mexico: image via Anonymous @C0d3fr0sty, 20 November 2014

(translated) MT soldiers disguised as "civilians" infiltrate among people to disturb and blame protesters #YaMeCanse: image viaAnonymous @C0d3fr0sty, 20 November 2014

"if we burn, you burn with us" #YaMeCanse: image via y. @stilackles, 21 November 2014

The MexicanRevolution started November 20th 1910....It is obviously not finished... Viva La Revolucion! #Ayotzinapa: image via Viva la causa! 70@torinoman, 20 November 2014

Mexico City, Mexico Demonstrators gather to protest over widespread corruption and the missing students from the city of Iguala: photo by Zuma / Rex, 20 November 2014

RT @EnrigoJM: And media.. Stop talking about the disturbers. focus on the REAL PURPOSE #YaMCanse #Ayotzinapa: image via peperivera @peperivera, 20 November 2014

Thousands of students and civil organizations participate in a march, with banners reading ‘murderer’: photo by Jose Mendez / EPA, 20 November 2014

“Toda vida, le dijo esa noche Epifanio a Lalo Cura, por más feliz que sea, acaba siempre en dolor y sufrimiento. Depende, dijo Lalo Cura. ¿Depende de qué, buey? De muchas cosas, dijo Lalo Cura. Si te pegan un balazo en la nuca, por ejemplo, y el pinche asesino se acerca sin que lo escuches, te vas al otro mundo sin dolor y sin sufrimiento. Pinche escuincle, dijo Epifanio. ¿A ti han pegado muchos tiros en la nuca?”

“Todo pasaba por el filtro de las palabras, convenientemente adecuado a nuestro miedo. ¿Qué hace un niño cuando tiene miedo? Cierra los ojos. ¿Qué hace un niño al que van a violar y luego matar? Cierra los ojos. Y también grita, pero primero cierra los ojos. Las palabras servían para ese fin. Y es curioso, pues todos los arquetipos de la locura y la crueldad humana no han sido inventados por los hombres de esta época sino por nuestros antepasados. Los griegos inventaron, por decirlo de alguna manera, el mal, vieron el mal que todos llevamos dentro, pero los testimonios o las pruebas de ese mal ya no nos conmueven, nos parecen futiles, ininteligibles[...] Durante la Comuna de 1871 murieron asesinadas miles de personas y nadie derramó una lágrima por ellas. Por esa misma fecha un afilador de cuchillos mató a una mujer y a su anciana madre (no a la madre de la mujer, sino a su propia madre, querido amigo) y luego fue abatido por la policía. La noticia no sólo recorrió los periódicos de Francia sino que también fue reseñada en otros periódicos de Europa.”

Robert Bolaño: from 2666, 2004

Cruces colocadas en Lomas del Poleo Planta Alta (Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua) en el lugar donde fueron encontrados 8 cuerpos de mujeres víctimas de feminicidio en 1996: photo by lose, 31 August 2007

IMG_8128: photo by locaburg, 9 November 2010

Aún puede quedar alguna duda? #FueElEstado y no diremos #YaMeCanse hasta que #SeVayanTodos #20NovMx: image via Penagos @epenagosv, 20 November 2014

Si todos nos movemos el gobierno va a caer #Ayotzinapa #CrimenDeEstado #FueElEstado #YaMeCansé #Mexico #EstadoFallido: image via Irincon 190951 @Irincon190951, 15 November 2014

Simon Schuchat: Lion

November 23, 2014, 2:41 am

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An elephant named Fred Astaire stretches on his hind legs to reach foliage in a tree while a lion watches in Mana Pools, Zimbabwe. Only two elephants in the region are known to stand on their hind legs: photo by Marit Van Meekeren / Barcroft Media via The Guardian, 21 November 2014

They lie around.
They have no stamina, but they are beautiful and fully self-possessed.

With coats the color of the grass, they blend in perfectly
until they want to pose luxuriously on a rock.

*
The lions divide into female prides, a mother and siblings and cousins, and male
alliances, also of siblings and cousins.  A pride will be associated with an
alliance, and prides will recognize some degree of kinship with other prides.
Around the area, which has been monitored and studied for half a century, the
territories of prides and alliances have ebbed and flowed.  Because there is
knowledge of the kinship relations among the prides and alliances, it would be
possible to write a history of their conflicts and struggles, victories and defeats,
like the history of Europe.

*
They have no stamina.
They will chase prey if they are highly confident of victory.
Otherwise they will steal from lesser cats.
How can such nobility co-exist with such low, conniving behavior?

*
Elsewhere, but nearby
the leopard sits in its tree, or on a rock, observing the moon, sunset at its back.

Female lions at rest with their cubs, Serengeti National Park, Tanzania: photo by Michael Nichols via The Guardian, 22 October 2014

An unsuspecting warthog took a wrong turn in the Addo elephant park in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa when he fatally crossed the path of a hungry lion: photo by Dr Trix Jonkers / Caters News Agency via The Guardian, 24 April 2014

The lion reaches out with its paw to stop the warthog running away: photo by Dr Trix Jonkers / Caters News Agency via The Guardian, 24 April 2014

The warthog makes a valiant but futile attempt to escape the clutches of the lion: photo by Dr Trix Jonkers / Caters News Agency via The Guardian, 24 April 2014

The lion fatally wounds the warthog: photo by Dr Trix Jonkers / Caters News Agency via The Guardian, 24 April 2014

The male lion sees off another lion interested in free food: photo by Dr Trix Jonkers / Caters News Agency via The Guardian, 24 April 2014

… and settles down to feed on his kill: photo by Dr Trix Jonkers / Caters News Agency via The Guardian, 24 April 2014

II.xi. ...What is internal is hidden from us."---The future is hidden from us. But does the astronomer think like this when he calculates an eclipse of the sun?

If I see someone writhing in pain with evident cause I do not think: all the same, his feelings are hidden from me.

We also say of some people that they are transparent to us. It is, however, important as regards this observation that one human being can be a complete enigma to another. We learn this when we come into a strange country with entirely strange traditions; and, what is more, even given a mastery of the country's language, we do not understand the people. (And not because of not knowing what they are saying to themselves.) We cannot find our feet with them.

"I cannot know what goes on in him" is above all a picture. It is the convincing expression of a conviction. They are not readily accessible.

If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.

Ludwig Wittgenstein: from Philosophical Investigations, c. 1945-1949

J-Lo and lion: the star’s 45th-birthday cake: photo via The Guardian, 30 July 2014

I made J-Lo’s lion birthday cake -– and I’m proud of it: Samantha Brooks, The Guardian Wednesday 30 July 2014

When Samantha Brooks got the call to make Jennifer Lopez’s 45th birthday cake, she knew it would need steel pipes and floor flanges as well as the requested coconut mousse filling

Last week I got a text from Ron Gelish, an old friend of mine, and J-Lo’s personal chef. He wanted to know if I would be interested in making a cake. Sure, I said, what would you like? After a long pause, the reply came: “We should probably talk over the phone -– It’s for J-Lo”. Ron knows what I'm capable of doing and I was really pleased he felt I was the right person to create Jennifer Lopez’s 45th-birthday cake.

Less than a minute later we were talking details. Next, Sindy Mashiah, J-Lo’s party planner, contacted me -– I was really excited about her vision because I have always wanted to create a cake in lion form. We went over various ideas -– I sketched about six different positions of J-Lo with the lion. After a few hours we agreed that she should be lying on the lion, wearing a sleeveless onesie.

I moved straight on to making the cake since I had only two days to do it. A cake of this size needs different pieces of hardware for stability, including steel pipes, floor flanges, PVC pipes, as well as more traditional baking ingredients such as modelling chocolate, Rice Krispies, fondant and gum paste. And I had to bake the most important element –- the requested lemon cake with coconut mousse filling.

J-Lo's birthday cake: photo via The Guardian, 30 July 2014

J-Lo, her staff, and the guests at the party were all pleased with it. So was I -– and I’m proud we were able to pull it off in just two days!

The photographs that have since been all over the internet and papers don’t represent it 100% accurately -– it had been sitting out unrefrigerated for a few hours, and the candles and sparklers beside it caused it to melt a little. To hear the feedback –- negative or positive –- about the positioning of her body is irrelevant [internet scamps and gossip columnists have had much fun suggesting J-Lo is "humping" rather than lounging on the lion]. My client was happy with what I made and that’s all that matters to my staff and me. Maybe the design isn’t for everyone -– we’re all entitled to our opinion -– but at the end of the day, our cake is the most talked about to date, and I’m very proud of that.

Custom Birthday Cake for Jennifer Lopez: image via SamiCakes, 2014

Trophy hunters from the U.S. with a male lion in Tanzania: photo by miombosafaris via The Guardian, 11 August 2009

Asiatic Lions (Panthera leo persica), male, Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Borivali, Mumbai: photo by supersujit, 2008

II.xi. ...What is internal is hidden from us."---The future is hidden from us. But does the astronomer think like this when he calculates an eclipse of the sun?

Lion (Panthera leo), Ngorongoro Crater: photo by Rob Qld, 2007

If I see someone writhing in pain with evident cause I do not think: all the same, his feelings are hidden from me.

Lion (Panthera leo),Tanzania: photo by John Storr, 1997

We also say of some people that they are transparent to us. It is, however, important as regards this observation that one human being can be a complete enigma to another. We learn this when we come into a strange country with entirely strange traditions; and, what is more, even given a mastery of the country's language, we do not understand the people. (And not because of not knowing what they are saying to themselves.) We cannot find our feet with them.

Lioness hunting warthogs in the western corridor of the Serengeti: photo by Schuyler Shepherd, 2009 

"I cannot know what goes on in him" is above all a picture. It is the convincing expression of a conviction. They are not readily accessible.

A lion cub walks in Tanzania's Serengeti National Park: photo by Noor Khamis/Reuters, 2012

If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.

Lion (Panthera leo), Olomouc Zoo: photo by SonNy cZ, 2007

C-Boy, a black-maned male lion, and his coalition partner, Hildur, once controlled a superior territory in Tanzania’s Serengeti national park, but they were deposed by a squad of four males known to researchers as the Killers. The photographer came across C-boy and Hildur hunkered down in the rain: ‘I had never before seen these two senior coalition males together’: photo by Michael Nichols/National Geographic, via The Guardian, 28 August 2013

Leopard (Panthera pardus): photo by Rupert Taylor-Price, 16 September 2008

Leopard (Panthera pardus pardus): photo by Michael Potts, 2 July 2011



Leopard relaxing on a tree: photographer unknown, n.d.; image by Bogdan, 26 November 2008 (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Just 45 Amur leopards remain in the wild, but there are 220 of the critically endangered cat in a global conservation breeding programmes in zoos around the world with a reintroduction scheme currently in the planning stages: photo by Chris Sargent/Alamy via The Guardian, 15 August 2013

A wild leopard prepares to pounce on a forest guard after it strayed into Prakash Nagar village near Salugara in India, on 19 July; the animal ended up being shot: photo by Diptendu Dutta / AFP via The Guardian, 20 July 2011

Six people were mauled by the leopard before it was caught by forestry department officials: photo by Diptendu Dutta / AFP via The Guardian, 20 July 2011

The animal leaps on an armed forest guard in Prakash Nagar village, India: photo by Diptendu Dutta / AFP via The Guardian, 20 July 2011

Forest guards try to ensnare the leopard: photo by Diptendu Dutta / AFP via The Guardian, 20 July 2011

The animal tries to escape from forestry officials: photo by AP via The Guardian, 20 July 2011

The leopard attempts to flee the village after attacking forest guards and injuring residents: photo by Diptendu Dutta / AFP via The Guardian, 20 July 2011

A forest guard prepares to shoot the leopard after he and his colleagues were attacked. Officials made several attempts to tranquilize the animal –- many were injured in the process. The animal, which suffered injuries caused by knives and batons, died later in the evening at a veterinary centre: photo by Diptendu Dutta / AFP via The Guardian, 20 July 2011



A male wild leopard climbed a net after it fell into a water reservoir tank at a tea estate in Haskhowa, West Bengal, India: photo by Diptendu Dutta / AFP, 2012

Leopard in a tree: photo by David Berkowitz, 16 September 2008

Female Leopard (Panthera pardus): photo by Steve Jurvetson, 1 July 2011

Abandonment (Bunting's Horace: Forget the weather)

November 24, 2014, 2:56 am

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≪ Previous: Simon Schuchat: Lion

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Abandonment, Uummannaq, Greenland. "This picture was taken in Uummaannaq, a mysterious island lost north of Greenland. The island is home to an isolated Inuit people who are torn between modernity and tradition, ecological disaster and natural greatness, abandonment and resistance. The landscape is as beautiful as it is disturbing. This picture was taken in the town’s waste sorting center, located on an ice field very close to locals' homes, where the waste burnt in open air is responsible for a significant 'dioxin' pollution": photo and caption by Camille Michel, 2014 via Syngenta /The Guardian, 18 November 2014

Vides ut alta stet nive candidum
Soracte, nec iam sustineant onus
    silvae laborantes geluque
    flumina constiterint acuto.
Dissolve frigus ligna super foco
large reponens atque benignius
    deprome quadrimum Sabina,
    o Thaliarche, merum diota.
Permitte divis cetera; qui simul
stravere ventos aequore fervido
    deproeliantis, nec cupressi
    nec veteres agitantur orni.
Quid sit futurum cras, fuge quaerere et
quem fors dierum cumque dabit lucro
    adpone, nec dulcis amores
    sperne puer neque tu choreas,
donec virenti canities abest
morosa. Nunc et Campus et areae
    lenesque sub noctem susurri
    composita repetantur hora;
nunc et latentis proditor intimo
gratus puellae risus ab angulo
    pignusque dereptum lacertis
    aut digito male pertinaci.

 

Horace: Odes 1.9

Perm region, Russia.A sinkhole measuring 20 by 30 metres has appeared near a potash mine, with the cause still unknown: photo by Uralkali Company / EPA via The Guardian, 21 November 2014

Snow's on the fellside, look! How deep;
our wood's staggering under its weight.
The burns will be tonguetied
while frost lasts.

 

But we'll thaw out. Logs, logs for the hearth;
and don't spare my good whisky. No water, please.

Forget the weather. Elm and ash

 

will stop signalling
when this gale drops.

Why reckon? Why forecast? Pocket

whatever today brings

and don't turn up your nose, it's childish,

at making love and dancing.

When you've my bare scalp, if you must, be glum.

 

Keep your date in the park while light's whispering.

Hunt her out, well wrapped up, hiding and giggling,

and get her a bangle for a keepsake,
she won't make much fuss.

...........................................(says Horace, more or less)

 

Horace: Odes 1.9, translated by Basil Bunting, 1977, in Agenda 16/1 (1979)

A pedestrian holds on to her coffee while walking through a snowstorm: photo by Dan Cappellazzo / Barcroft USA via The Guardian, 21 November 2014

Storm clouds and snow over Lake Erie in Buffalo. A blizzard dumped a year’s worth of snow in three days on the west New York state: photo by Lindsay DeDario / Reutersvia The Guardian, 21 November 2014

Buriganga River, Dhaka, Bangladesh. ‘As we celebrate 400 years of Dhaka City, the Buriganga river, which has played a vital role in its growth, is being choked to death. It is used by millions every day to transport goods –- but chemicals, sewage and industrial waste are also dumped in it. Nearly 700 brickfields on the riverside, dockyards and used engine oil from boats and steamers add to this pollution’: photo and caption by Rasel Chowdhury via Syngenta / The Guardian 18 November 2014

End of November and no snow in @Uummannaq 70 degrees North in #greenland: photo by Idrissia Thestrup @IdrissiaT, 23 November 2014

Deep #Greenland Sea #Warming faster than the rest of the world #climate #consequences #greed #GlobalDying: image via Not Warming, Dying @ClimResJudicata, 23 November 2014

The @PolarPortal weather anomaly is showing the big freeze pretty vividly right now - and much warmer in #Greenland: image via greenlandicesmb, 18 November 2014

Vibrant green aurora borealis over #Greenland: image via Beautiful Pictures @BEAUTIFULPICS, 10 November 2014

Bless

November 25, 2014, 4:46 am

≫ Next: Glory

≪ Previous: Abandonment (Bunting's Horace: Forget the weather)

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Can't help but appreciate @reuterspictures photographer, Jim Young, for this ironic capture. #SeasonsGreetings indeed: image via Ahmed Sirour @AhmedistheOne, 24 November 2014

 

Taylor Swift’s performance of Blank Space at the American Music Awards included lots of pop theatrics -- from fire outbreaks to poison apples and ... picture frame choreography: photo by Christopher Polk /AMA2014 via The Guardian, 24 November 2014

A scene from tonight's unrest in #Ferguson: "Season's Greetings" (@AP_Images - Charlie Riedel): image via Mashable News @MashableNews, 24  November 2014

Photos from #Ferguson more powerful than words: image via Jeremy Stahl @JeremyStahl, 24 November 2014

BREAKING: Same squad car that was trying to run protesters over is now on fire. #Ferguson: image via TheAnonMessage @TheAnonMessage, 24 November 2014

Selena Gomez debuted her new song The Heart Wants What It Wants at the AMA show: photo by Kevin Winter via The Guardian, 24 November 2014

#Ferguson police seem to think excessive use of force will silence folks angry about their excessive use of force: image via Zach Green 140 @elect, 24 November 2014

Walgreens on fire and people are rushing in before it burns down to loot more goods: image via Paul Lewis @PaulLewis, 24 November 2014

BREAKING: Dozens of squad cars advance into central #Ferguson. This is as close to martial law as we may get tonight: image via TheAnonMessage @TheAnonMessage, 24 November 2014

A protester walks out of a store with goods after the announcement of the grand jury decision Monday: photo by David Goldman/AP via The Guardian, 24 November 2014

Smoke bombs are fired on the crowd in #Ferguson after decision not to indict #DarrenWilson: image via CNN Video @ CNNVideo, 24 November 2014
 

Iggy Azalea and Jennifer Lopez closed the AMA show with the debut live outing of their single Booty: photo by Image Group LA via The Guardian, 24 November 2014

A scene from tonight's unrest in #Ferguson: "Season's Greetings" (@AP_Images - Charlie Riedel): image via Mashable News @MashableNews, 24  November 2014

 

A protestor in all black is now tagging buildings. Here's one. #Seattle #FergusonDecision #MikeBrown: image via Mitch Pittman @ Mitch Pittman, 24 November 2014

burning up corporate businesses #Ferguson: image via Bassem Masri @bassem_masri. 24 November 2014

AutoZone on fire #ferguson: image via Bassem Masri @bassem_masri. 24 November 2014

 #Ferguson police passes a burning AutoZone on West Florissant: photo by Robert Cohen @kodacohen, 24 November 2014

Protesters and media on scene, police standby nearby as #Ferguson burns: photo by Robert Cohen @kodacohen, 24 November 2014

#Ferguson burns: photo by Robert Cohen @kodacohen, 24 November 2014

#Ferguson businesses burn, protesters celebrate: photo by Robert Cohen @kodacohen, 24 November 2014

Little Caesar's burns in #Ferguson: photo by Robert Cohen @kodacohen, 24 November 2014

Protesters seen thru shattered window of county police car in #Ferguson: photo by Robert Cohen @kodacohen, 24 November 2014

Man blocks police tactical vehicle in front of the I Love #Ferguson store: photo by Robert Cohen @kodacohen, 24 November 2014

Seasons Greetings in #Ferguson: photo by Robert Cohen @kodacohen, 24 November 2014

STL @stlcountypd car burns in #Ferguson: photo by Robert Cohen @kodacohen, 24 November 2014

#Ferguson protesters in #Oakland shut down westbound I-580: image via SF Chronicle @ sfchronicle, 24 November 2014

Civil disobedience in #Oakland right now. Protesters blocking traffic on 580 freeway: image via Dennis Price @dennisprice, 24 November 2014
 

Thousands protested tonight in #Oakland after the #FergusonDecision: image via KQED News @KQRDnews, 24 October 2014

 Protesters burn flags in #Oakland. #Ferguson: image via TheAnonMessage @TheAnonMessage, 24 November 2014

 RT @UnToldCarlisle LOS ANGELES: 10 Freeway from La Brea backed up for miles after #Ferguson protesters block freeway: image via Revolution News @NewsRevo, 24 November 2014

I went to college less than a mile from here. Never saw a group of people shut interstate down. #Ferguson: image via Nicholas J,C. Pistor @nickpistor, 25 November 2014

Cars burn at a car dealership in Ferguson: photo by Larry W. Smith / EPA via The Guardian, 24 November 2014

Protesters parade in the parking lot of a burning auto parts store in Ferguson: photo by Tannen Maury/EPA via The Guardian, 24 November 2014

Police arrive at a business in Dellwood, Missouri, as cars in a parking lot next to the building burn: photo by Charlie Riedel / AP via The Guardian, 24 November 2014

A man walks past a burning building during protests in Ferguson: photo by Jim Young / Reuters via The Guardian, 24 November 2014

Looters run out of a store in Ferguson: photo by Aaron P. Bernstein via The Guardian, 24 November 2014

A protester holding a flare runs on Highway 580 in Oakland, California: photo by Stephen Lam / Reuters via The Guardian, 24 November 2014