Disenchantment: Stevie Smith: The Frog Prince

September 13, 2016, 3:03 am

≫ Next: Jose Saramago: All the Names / the spearing of the bull

≪ Previous: Outside Unit C / Untergang (W. H. Auden: from September 1, 1939)

$

0

0

.

A Red-eyed green frog (Agalychnis callidryases) at the Montibelli private wildlife reserve, Ticuantepe, Nicaragua: photo by Inti Oconinti Ocon/AFP, 12 September 2016



A Red-eyed green frog (Agalychnis callidryases) at the Montibelli private wildlife reserve, Ticuantepe, Nicaragua: photo by Inti Oconinti Ocon/AFP, 12 September 2016

Tree frogs sit on a leaf at an amphibian feeding camp outside Hanoi. Vietnam's first amphibian breeding farm was established in 2004 with the aim of promoting environmental awareness, conservation, and export of the animals as pets: photo by Kham/Reuters, 2011

 

A Heterixalus madagascariensis from Akanin'ny Nofy, #Madagascar: image via Johan Lind @etologen, 9 September 2016

Heterixalus madagascariensis. >99% of Malagasy #amphibians are endemic. Mad #Madagascar: image via Johan Lind @etologen, 2 September 2016

Found a wee #frog when cutting back the strawberry patch! #nationaltrust #Sunnycroft: image via Caroline Wakefield @cwake84, 2 September 2016

Check out those toe pads! Cuban #treefrog #InvasiveSpecies #Florida: image via Noah M. @mbystoma, 2 September 2016

A #frog in a pond is worth one in the bush...wait WHAT?!: image via Daniel S. Liuzzi Daniel S. Liuzzi, 2 September 2016

Jack! #hoppinhelp #frog: image via Hopp'in Help @Hoppin_Help, 2 September 2016

Found a cute #frog during a wet and late afternoon hike on the #PoCo Trail. #portcoquitlam: image via Geoffery Kehrig @GeofferyKehrig, 2 September 2016

The torrent #frog Amolops cremnobatus is extremely abundant in rocky streams in northern central #Vietnam: image via Jodi Rowley @jodirowley, 6 September 2016

Today's Garden #Frog little smirky frog sitting on the chard. A foot-soldier in my Green Army fighting garden pests: image via Will-le: Wagtail, SC@AngryWagtails, 10 September 2016

I spy a #frog! The recent rain has made this creek a creek again, it was muddy at the best of times all summer #ptbo: image via PTBO Flora @PTBOFlora, 12 September 2016

 @jcu researchers turn to crowdfunding to save endangered corroboree #frog via @ABCnrthqld: image via Jen King @JustJenKing, 12 September 2016

Stevie Smith: The Frog Prince

Common frog (Rana temporaria) and frogspawn in a garden pond in Surrey, England. Frogs are breeding early this year due to the mild autumn weather: photo by Linda Pitkin  via The Guardian, 29 November 2014

.

Common frog (Rana temporaria) and frogspawn in a garden pond in Surrey, England. Frogs are breeding early this year due to the mild autumn weather: photo by Linda Pitkin  via The Guardian, 29 November 2014

I am a frog
I live under a spell
I live at the bottom
Of a green well

And here I must wait
Until a maiden places me
On her royal pillow
And kisses me
In her father’s palace

The story is familiar
Everybody knows it well
But do other enchanted people feel as nervous
As I do? The stories do not tell,

Ask if they will be happier
When the changes come
As already they are fairly happy
In a frog’s doom?

I have been a frog now
For a hundred years
And in all this time
I have not shed many tears,

I am happy, I like the life,
Can swim for many a mile
(When I have hopped to the river)
And am for ever agile.

And the quietness,
Yes, I like to be quiet
I am habituated
To a quiet life,

But always when I think these thoughts
As I sit in my well
Another thought comes to me and says:
It is part of the spell

To be happy
To work up contentment
To make much of being a frog
To fear disenchantment

Says, It will be heavenly
To be set free,
Cries Heavenly the girl who disenchants
And the royal times, heavenly,
And I think it will be.

Come then, royal girl and royal times,
Come quickly,
I can be happy until you come
But I cannot be heavenly,
Only disenchanted people
Can be heavenly.

 

Florence Margaret "Stevie" Smith (1902-1971): The Frog Prince, from The Frog Prince, 1966

William Robert Symonds The #Princess and the Frog 1894 #BradfordMuseumsandGalleries: image via GPN Arts and Culture  @GpnArts, 21 November 2014



Common Water Frog (Rana esculenta): photo by Holger Gröschl, 2003

A frog peeks out of grass on a garden lawn in Billericay, Essex, UK: photo by Roj Whitelock/Alamy via the Guardian, 15 May 2015

.

 

A frog peeks out of grass on a garden lawn in Billericay, Essex, UK: photo by Roj Whitelock/Alamy via the Guardian, 15 May 2015

 

The endangered Bornean rainbow toad (Ansonia latidisca) was photographed for the first time in 2011. It had last been spotted in the 1920s. Habitat loss and degradation are threatening this species, which is known from just two locations in western Borneo: photo by Chien Lee/Minden Pictures/FLPA via The Guardian, 10 December 2014

 

Untitled [frog, springtime, Sweden]: photo by Thomas Jacobson, 29 March 2015

 

Untitled [frog, springtime, Sweden]: photo by Thomas Jacobson, 29 March 2015

Cuchumatan golden toad, Incilius aurarius, from the Cuchumatanes mountains of Guatemala. The toad, discovered in 2012, was photographed during a search for the lost Jackson’s climbing salamander: photo by Robin Moore via The Guardian, 11 September 2014

 

 

Cuchumatan golden toad, Incilius aurarius, from the Cuchumatanes mountains of Guatemala. The toad, discovered in 2012, was photographed during a search for the lost Jackson’s climbing salamander: photo by Robin Moore via The Guardian, 11 September 2014

 

The now extinct golden toad (Bufo periglenes) was once abundant in the Monteverde cloud forest in Costa Rica. Scientists say one-in-six species faces extinction due to climate change.: photo by Robert Fried/Alamy via the Guardian, 1 May 2015

 

 

The now extinct golden toad (Bufo periglenes) was once abundant in the Monteverde cloud forest in Costa Rica. Scientists say one-in-six species faces extinction due to climate change.: photo by Robert Fried/Alamy via the Guardian, 1 May 2015

A frog in the Camisea jungle in Cuzco, Peru. Climate change, deforestation and illegal mining are a threat to species including turtles, crocodiles, birds, frogs and monkeys.: photo by Ernesto Benavides/AFP via the Guardian, 23 June 2014

 

 

A frog in the Camisea jungle in Cuzco, Peru. Climate change, deforestation and illegal mining are a threat to species including turtles, crocodiles, birds, frogs and monkeys.: photo by Ernesto Benavides/AFP via the Guardian, 23 June 2014

 

A pair of cobalt poison dart frogs (Dendrobates tinctorius) from Guiana: photo by Michael Kern via The Guardian, 14 November 2014

 

 

A pair of cobalt poison dart frogs (Dendrobates tinctorius) from Guiana: photo by Michael Kern via The Guardian, 14 November 2014

 

Green and black poison dart frogs (Dendrobates auratus), part of a new Land of Frogs permanent exhibition at the Gamboa Rainforest Hotel on the outskirts of Panama City: photo by Carlos Jasso/Reuters via the Guardian, 9 January 2015

 

 
Green and black poison dart frogs (Dendrobates auratus), part of a new Land of Frogs permanent exhibition at the Gamboa Rainforest Hotel on the outskirts of Panama City: photo by Carlos Jasso/Reuters via the Guardian, 9 January 2015

 

A strawberry poison dart frog, part of the Land of Frogs exhibition at the Gamboa Rainforest hotel on the outskirts of Panama City: photo by Carlos Jasso/Reuters via the Guardian, 9 January 2015

 

 A strawberry poison dart frog, part of the Land of Frogs exhibition at the Gamboa Rainforest hotel on the outskirts of Panama City: photo by Carlos Jasso/Reuters via the Guardian, 9 January 2015

The variable harlequin frog, Atelopus varius, disappeared from the forests of Costa Rica and Panama before being rediscovered in 2003. The reappearance of these Lazarus frogs could help us decipher how we prevent these and other frogs succumbing to extinction: photo by Robin Moore via The Guardian, 11 September 2014

 

 

The variable harlequin frog, Atelopus varius, disappeared from the forests of Costa Rica and Panama before being rediscovered in 2003. The reappearance of these Lazarus frogs could help us decipher how we prevent these and other frogs succumbing to extinction: photo by Robin Moore via The Guardian, 11 September 2014

A reticulated glass frog in the Chocó forests of Colombia. Armed conflict has kept developers out of these forests, resulting in vast swathes of lush rainforest and a high diversity of frogs: photo by Robin Moore via The Guardian, 11 September 2014

 

A reticulated glass frog in the Chocó forests of Colombia. Armed conflict has kept developers out of these forests, resulting in vast swathes of lush rainforest and a high diversity of frogs: photo by Robin Moore via The Guardian, 11 September 2014

A newly metamorphosed emerald glass frog, Espadarana prosoblepon, in the Chocó forests of Colombia: photo by Robin Moore via The Guardian, 11 September 2014

 

 

A newly metamorphosed emerald glass frog, Espadarana prosoblepon, in the Chocó forests of Colombia: photo by Robin Moore via The Guardian, 11 September 2014

In order to address the massive decline and extinction of amphibians worldwide the Amphibian Survival Alliance is addressing the primary threats of habitat loss and disease. New reserves are being created to protect critical habitat for species such as this Guatemalan brook frog, Duellmanohyla soralia, and ensure a brighter future for frogs' forests: photo by Robin Moore via The Guardian, 11 September 2014

.

In order to address the massive decline and extinction of amphibians worldwide the Amphibian Survival Alliance is addressing the primary threats of habitat loss and disease. New reserves are being created to protect critical habitat for species such as this Guatemalan brook frog, Duellmanohyla soralia, and ensure a brighter future for frogs' forests: photo by Robin Moore via The Guardian, 11 September 2014

 

The La Hotte Glanded frog, Eleutherodactylus glandulifer, is one of six frogs rediscovered after close to two decades in southwest Haiti. The frogs are a flagship of hope for the preservation of fragmented cloud forests: photo by Robin Moore via The Guardian, 11 September 2014

 

The La Hotte Glanded frog, Eleutherodactylus glandulifer, is one of six frogs rediscovered after close to two decades in southwest Haiti. The frogs are a flagship of hope for the preservation of fragmented cloud forests: photo by Robin Moore via The Guardian, 11 September 2014

 

A Costa Rican red-eyed tree frog (Agalychnis callidryas, native to the Neotropical rain forests of Central America) prepares to make its leap: photo by Arnel Hecimovic via The Guardian, 17 January 2014

 

 

A Costa Rican red-eyed tree frog (Agalychnis callidryas, native to the Neotropical rain forests of Central America) prepares to make its leap: photo by Arnel Hecimovic via The Guardian, 17 January 2014

Off it goes: photo by Arnel Hecimovic via The Guardian, 17 January 2014

 

Off it goes: photo by Arnel Hecimovic via The Guardian, 17 January 2014

 

A red-eyed tree frog peers out from the surface of the water: photo by Arnel Hecimovic via The Guardian, 17 January 2014

.

A red-eyed tree frog peers out from the surface of the water: photo by Arnel Hecimovic via The Guardian, 17 January 2014

 

The frog hugs a flower bud: photo by Arnel Hecimovic via The Guardian, 17 January 2014

And now crawls along a tree branch: photo by Arnel Hecimovic via The Guardian, 17 January 2014

 

 

And now crawls along a tree branch: photo by Arnel Hecimovic via The Guardian, 17 January 2014

 

Karate frog: photo by Arnel Hecimovic via The Guardian, 17 January 2014

 

Karate frog: photo by Arnel Hecimovic via The Guardian, 17 January 2014

  

In flight: photo by Arnel Hecimovic via The Guardian, 17 January 2014

 

.

 

In flight: photo by Arnel Hecimovic via The Guardian, 17 January 2014

Taking a breather: photo by Arnel Hecimovic via The Guardian, 17 January 2014

Upside down: A close up of those eyes: photo by Arnel Hecimovic via The Guardian, 17 January 2014

 

Upside down: A close up of those eyes: photo by Arnel Hecimovic via The Guardian, 17 January 2014

The great escape (spring migration, Salmistu, Harju County, Estonia): photo by OKaur (Kaur O), 28 April 2013

---

Jose Saramago: All the Names / the spearing of the bull

September 14, 2016, 6:49 am

≫ Next: heads in the sand / The Spell

≪ Previous: Disenchantment: Stevie Smith: The Frog Prince

$

0

0

.

A Syrian man and his son pray over the grave of a relative at a cemetery in the rebel-held town of Douma, east of the capital Damascus: photo by Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP, 12 September 2016



A Syrian man and his son pray over the grave of a relative at a cemetery in the rebel-held town of Douma, east of the capital Damascus: photo by Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP, 12 September 2016



SYRIA - A girl reacts in pain at a make-shift hospital following government air strikes on Douma. By @AbdDoumany: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 13 September 2016

NICARAGUA - A man waits for funeral of former president of National Assembly Rene Nunez Tellez in Leon. By @intioocon: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 13 September 2016

 SPAIN - Neighbours share a drink on the eve of the "Toro de la Pena" festival in Tordesillas. By @PedroAlmestre: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 13 September 2016

Wherever the famous people in his collection went, they always had a newspaper or a magazine following in their tracks and sniffing around them for just one more photograph, one more question, but nobody wants to know about ordinary people, no one is really interested in them, no one cares what they're up to, what they think, what they feel, even when they try to make you believe otherwise, it's all pretence. If the unknown woman had gone to live abroad, she would be beyond his reach, she might as well be dead. Full stop, end of the story, murmured Senhor Jose, then, he thought, that might not be the case, for when she departed, she would at least have left a life behind her, perhaps only a brief life, four years, five, almost nothing, or fifteen, or twenty, a meeting, an infatuation, a disappointment, a few smiles, a few tears, which seem, at first sight, the same for everyone but which are, in fact, different for us all. And different each time too. I'll go as far as I can, concluded Senhor Jose, with unaccustomed serenity.

... perhaps she would finally ask him what the devil the Central Registry was up to going to so much trouble over one person, a woman of no importance, it would be an indecent lie, as well as arrant stupidity, to tell her that we are all equal in the eyes of the Central Registry, just as the sun is there for everyone each time it rises, there are things one should avoid saying to an older person if we don’t want them to laugh in our faces.

... it is in the General Cemetery that the results of progress are set out before the eyes of the studious or the merely curious, there are even those who say that a cemetery like this is a kind of library which contains not books but buried people, it really doesn't matter, you can learn as much from people as from books.

... the General Cemetery's unwritten motto is All the Names, although it should be said that, in fact, these three words fit the Central Registry like a glove, because it is there that all the names are to be found, both those of the dead and those of the living, while the cemetery, given its role as ultimate destination and ultimate depository, has to content itself only with the names of the dead. This mathematical evidence, however, is not enough to silence the keepers of the General Cemetery who, confronted by what they call their apparent numerical inferiority, usually shrug their shoulders and argue, With time and patience everyone ends up here, the Central Registry, from this point of view, is merely a tributary of the General Cemetery.  

... in the Central Registry there were only words, in the Central Registry you could not see how faces had changed or continued to change, when that was precisely what was most important, the thing that time changes, not the name, which never changes. When Senhor José’s stomach began to rumble, there were seven... 

Jose Saramago (1922-2010): from All the Names, 1997, translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa

Men on horseback ride through a pine tree forest chased by a brave bull in Tordesillas, Spain. Men on horseback and on foot traditionally have chased the bull and speared it in front of thousands of onlookers in what became known as one of Spain’s goriest spectacles, but amid increasing protests by animal rights activists the regional government last year banned the killing of bulls at town festivals, though traditional bullfights were not affected.: photo by Daniel Ochoa de Olza/AP, 13 September 2016

Men on horseback ride through a pine tree forest chased by a brave bull in Tordesillas, Spain. Men on horseback and on foot traditionally have chased the bull and speared it in front of thousands of onlookers in what became known as one of Spain’s goriest spectacles, but amid increasing protests by animal rights activists the regional government last year banned the killing of bulls at town festivals, though traditional bullfights were not affected.: photo by Daniel Ochoa de Olza/AP, 13 September 2016



 A young Nepalese girl wearing traditional attire waits for the Kumari puja to start at Hanuman Dhoka temple, in Kathmandu, Nepal: photo by Niranjan Shrestha/AP, 14 September 2016

 A young Nepalese girl wearing traditional attire waits for the Kumari puja to start at Hanuman Dhoka temple, in Kathmandu, Nepal: photo by Niranjan Shrestha/AP, 14 September 2016

Colin Powell: photo by Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP via the Intercept, 13 September 2016

.

Colin Powell: photo by Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP via the Intercept, 13 September 2016

Colin Powell Urged Hillary Clinton's Team Not to Scapegoat Him for Her Private Server, Leaked Emails Reveal: Lee Fang and Naomi LaChance, The Intercept, 13 September 2016

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell attempted to discourage Hillary Clinton and her team from using him as a scapegoat for her private email server problems, according to newly leaked emails from Powell’s Gmail account.

“Sad thing,” Powell wrote to one confidant, “HRC could have killed this two years ago by merely telling everyone honestly what she had done and not tie me to it.”

“I told her staff three times not to try that gambit. I had to throw a mini tantrum at a Hampton’s party to get their attention. She keeps tripping into these ‘character’ minefields,” Powell lamented. He noted that he had tried to settle the matter by meeting with Clinton aide Cheryl Mills in August.  

Powell’s private messages were leaked by D.C. Leaks, an anonymously managed website that shares hacked emails from U.S. military and political figures. D.C. Leaks has a relationship with Guccifer 2.0, a hacker that many allege to have ties with Russian intelligence. D.C. Leaks provided access to Powell’s emails to a number of reporters on Tuesday.

The emails show Powell regularly corresponding with reporters and friends about the Clinton email server scandal, explaining that his situation was different. When Powell arrived at the State Department, the information technology system was badly dated, he argued. And unlike Clinton, Powell never set up a private server. Instead, he used his personal AOL account, on a server maintained by AOL, and used a government computer for classified communications.

“It is no secret that I used a[n] unclassified personal email account in addition to my classified State computer,” Powell wrote to the New York Times’ Amy Chozick. He implored the dozens of reporters and producers who emailed him to read his book, It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership, in which he devoted an entire chapter to his efforts to revamp the State Department’s IT system.

The Clinton campaign’s effort to blur the lines between Clinton’s private email server and Powell’s AOL account left Powell deeply frustrated.

“They are going to dick up the legitimate and necessary use of emails with friggin record rules. I saw email more like a telephone than a cable machine,” Powell wrote last year to his business partner Jeffrey Leeds. “As long as the stuff is unclassified. I had a secure State.gov machine. Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris.”

Powell added in a tangential complaint: “I told you about the gig I lost at a University because she so overcharged them they came under heat and couldn’t any fees for awhile. I should send her a bill.”

Clinton sought Powell’s advice at a dinner on June 16, 2009 at former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s house, according to the emails. Powell gave Clinton “written guidance on why and how [he] had been doing it.” Also in attendance were former secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice, Lawrence Eagleburger, George Schultz, Warren Christopher, James Baker and Henry Kissinger.

“Dumb. She should have done a ‘Full Monty’ at the beginning,” Powell wrote. He added: “I warned her staff three times over the past two years not to try to connect it to me. I am not sure HRC even knew or understood what was going on in the basement.”

Colin Powell and mega Dem donor Jeffrey Leeds chat about how much the Clintons hate Obama (via newly leaked emails): image via Les Fang @lhfang, 13 September 2016

 

Colin Powell and mega Dem donor Jeffrey Leeds chat about how much the Clintons hate Obama (via newly leaked emails): image via Les Fang @lhfang, 13 September 2016

Also back in 2015, Leeds and Powell discussed Hillary's health: image via Les Fang @lhfang, 13 September 2016

Clinton server technicians decline questions from Congress: image via Reuters Top News @Reuters, 14 September 2016

 
Mook: #Clinton did not lose consciousness, full medical update later this week #TheLead: image via jake tapper Verified account #@jaketapper, 12 September 2016

Can someone explain why Jim Harbaugh denying that he ate a booger is a top story for USA Today? #BoogerGate: image via Benjamin Fang @BenFang93, 12 September 2016

 

US - A fashion show attendee walks past a grafitti wall during New York Fashion Week. By @timothyaclary #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 14 September 2016

Israeli soldiers manuever a tank during a military exercise in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. By @jalaamarey: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 13 September 2016

 

Palestinian women take a dip in the Mediterranean sea in Tel Aviv during Eid al-Adha holiday: photo by Menahem Kahana, AFP, 14 September 2016

 

Palestinian women take a dip in the Mediterranean sea in Tel Aviv during Eid al-Adha holiday: photo by Menahem KahanaAFP, 14 September 2016
 

Palestinian women swim in the Mediterranean sea in Tel Aviv during Eid al-Adha holiday #AFP Photo by Menahem Kahane: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 14 September 2016

Migrants from the ‘Jungle’ migrant camp who have been denied access to a bus heading to a “Welcome and orientation centre” (CAO) are gathered under police surveillance today: photo by Philippe Huguen/AFP, 13 September 2016

 

Migrants from the ‘Jungle’ migrant camp who have been denied access to a bus heading to a “Welcome and orientation centre” (CAO) are gathered under police surveillance today: photo by Philippe Huguen/AFP, 13 September 2016

 
PAKISTAN - Muslim children look out of a window during the Eid al-Adha prayers in mosque in Karachi. By Asif Hassan: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 13 September 2016

Model feebee poses as part of art installation “Narcissism : Dazzle room” made by artist Shigeki Matsuyama at rooms33 fashion and design exhibition in Tokyo: photo by Eugene Hoshiko/AP, 14 September 2016



Model feebee poses as part of art installation “Narcissism : Dazzle room” made by artist Shigeki Matsuyama at rooms33 fashion and design exhibition in Tokyo: photo by Eugene Hoshiko/AP, 14 September 2016

 
Zebras walk towards crossing wildebeest in the Mara river during the annual wildebeest migration in the Masai Mara game reserve: photo by Carl De Souza/AFP, 13 September 2016



Zebras walk towards crossing wildebeest in the Mara river during the annual wildebeest migration in the Masai Mara game reserve: photo by Carl De Souza/AFP, 13 September 2016

KENYA - The annual wildebeests migration in the Masai Mara game reserve. By @CarldeSouza1 #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 13 September 2016

A police personnel canes a motorcyclist during a curfew following violence in the city due to the Cauvery water sharing dispute with neighbouring state Tamil Nadu, in Bangalore: photo by Manjunath Kiran/AFP 13 September 2016

A police personnel canes a motorcyclist during a curfew following violence in the city due to the Cauvery water sharing dispute with neighbouring state Tamil Nadu, in Bangalore: photo by Manjunath Kiran/AFP 13 September 2016

#Syria Following a reported air strike in the northern city of Aleppo, on September 11 #AFP: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY\, 12 September 2016

 

#Syria Following a reported air strike in the northern city of Aleppo, on September 11 #AFP: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 12 September 2016

#Myanmar #sunset Residents of Sittwe play football on the Bay of Bengal on Sept 6 #AFP by Romeo Gacad: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 10 September 2016

#Portugal #sunrise on the isle of Madeira #AFP Photoby Patricia De Melo Moreira: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 11 September 2016



The sunset is seen over New York on September 11 #AFP Photo by Kena Betancur: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 11 September 2016 

heads in the sand / The Spell

September 15, 2016, 6:51 am

≫ Next: Small boy with large tin horn at Taj Mahal / Brecht: Everything Changes

≪ Previous: Jose Saramago: All the Names / the spearing of the bull

$

0

0

.

#Yemen - A girl attends a parade held by women loyal to the #Houthis movement in #Sana’a  By K. Abdullah @Reuters: image via Photojournalism @photojournalink, 13 September 2016


 Urban fox, Bristol, UK: photo copyright by Sam Hobson / Wildlife Photographer of the Year, 14 September 2016

The Spell

The day of the dead when
the veil between us and them
is thinnest eyelash
kitty breath umbrella flutter
psychic butterfly --

A whole procession of them coming
pushing through the net –- the sugar candy
shedding of the skin and how
it lets the wind blow through the veins
the dance of the skulls and when
the spinning of the little mechanic
inside the toy clock stops
the dark man carrying two suitcases
steps from the now no longer moving train --

That’s the day when
I know someone will be
no longer waiting,
the unborn child said.
I invented what I wanted to say
in case anybody out there,
on a cold grey day in autumn,
wanted to hear the thoughts
of the dead --
I opened the door and
in flew a moth, thinking
twilight came early

 
 A common pipistrelle bat emerges just after nightfall from its roost in a derelict house in Salamanca, Spain, to go hunting. Each has an appetite for up to 3,000 insects a night, which it eats on the wing. Its flight is characteristically fast and jerky, as it tunes its orientation with echolocation to detect objects in the dark. The sounds it makes -- too high‑pitched for most humans to hear -- create echoes that allow it to make a sonic map of its surroundings: photo copyright by Mario Cea / Wildlife Photographer of the Year, 14 September 2016
 

Boys play next to the gates of the Zueitina oil terminal, west of Benghazi, Libya: photo by Esam Omran Al-Fetori/Reuters, 15 September 2016



Boys play next to the gates of the Zueitina oil terminal, west of Benghazi, Libya: photo by Esam Omran Al-Fetori/Reuters, 15 September 2016

Israeli Arab youths, from the scouts youth movement, prepare for a parade for the Eid al-Adha festival in #Israel: image via AP Images @AP_Images, 12 September 2016

Muslim Israeli-Arabs play at the beach in Tel-Aviv during the three day Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice) Muslim holiday: photo by Menahem Kahana/AFP, 15 September 2016

 

Muslim Israeli-Arabs play at the beach in Tel-Aviv during the three day Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice) Muslim holiday: photo by Menahem Kahana/AFP, 15 September 2016

ISRAEL - Muslims Israeli-Arabs play at the beach in Tel Aviv during Eid al-Adha Muslim holiday. By @menahemkahana: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 15 September 2016

YEMEN - Smoke billows following a reported airstrike carried out by Saudi-led coalition in Sanaa. By Mohammed Huwais: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 14 September 2016

SYRIA - Boys play on a see-saw in the rebel-held town of Arbin near Damascus. By @AmeerAlhalbi #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 14 September 2016

THAILAND - A city worker sprays chemicals to control the spread of Zika virus at a school in Bangkok. By @TheLilyfish: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 14 September 2016

KENYA - A hot air balloon carrying tourists is pictured during annual wildebeest migration in the Masai Mara reserve. By @CarldeSouza1: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 14 September 2016

More than two million animals migrate from the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania to the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya from July to October annually, according to Maasai Mara. Here, a herd of wildebeests walks during the annual wildebeests migration: photo by Carl de Souza/AFP, 13 September 2016

  

A herd of wildebeests reaches the Mara river crossing during the annual wildebeests migration: photo by Carl de Souza/AFP, 13 September 2016

Zebra gather during the annual wildebeest migration in the Masai Mara game reserve: photo by Carl de Souza/AFP, 12 September 2016 

 

Zebra gather close to a river during the annual wildebeest migration in the Masai Mara game reserve: photo by Carl de Souza/AFP, 12 September 2016

Zebra walk towards crossing wildebeest in the Mara river during the annual wildebeest migration in the Masai Mara game reserve: photo by Carl de Souza/AFP, 13 September 2016

A wildebeest herd crosses the Mara river during the annual wildebeest migration in the Masai Mara game reserve: photo by Carl de Souza/AFP, 13 September 2016

 

A crocodile in the Mara river during the annual wildebeest migration in the Masai Mara game reserve: photo by Carl de Souza/AFP, 13 September 2016

A large crocodile attacks a jumping wildebeest during the migration in the Masai Mara game reserve. The daring wildebeest returned after the first attempt by the crocodile and was attacked again but walked away unharmed.: photo by Carl de Souza/AFP, 12 September 2016 

 

A crocodile attacks a wildebeest in the Mara river during the annual wildebeest migration in the Masai Mara game reserve: photo by Carl de Souza/AFP, 13 September 2016

A crocodile attacks a wildebeest in the Mara river during the annual wildebeest migration in the Masai Mara game reserve: photo by Carl de Souza/AFP, 13 September 2016

A wildebeest herd is pictured during the annual wildebeest migration in the Masai Mara game reserve: photo by Carl de Souza/AFP, 13 September 2016

An elephant walks past a tree during the annual wildebeest migration in the Masai Mara game reserve: photo by Carl de Souza/AFP, 12 September 2016

A hippo bares its teeth during the annual wildebeests migration in the Masai Mara game reserve: photo by Carl de Souza/AFP, 12 September 2016

 

A hippo bares its teeth during the annual wildebeests migration in the Masai Mara game reserve: photo by Carl de Souza/AFP, 12 September 2016

Giraffes stand together during the annual wildebeest migration in the Masai Mara game reserve: photo by Carl de Souza/AFP, 12 September 2016

 A male lion injured in a fight with another male during the annual wildebeest migration in the Masai Mara game reserve is seen: photo by Carl de Souza/AFP, 12 September 2016

Wildebeest walk in front a hot air balloon during the annual wildebeests migration in the Masai Mara game reserve: photo by Carl de Souza/AFP, 12 September 2016

An ostrich walks in front of a hot air balloon carrying tourists during the annual wildebeest migration in the Masai Mara game reserve: photo by Carl de Souza/AFP, 14 September 2016

 

A wildebeest herd is pictured during the annual wildebeest migration in the Masai Mara game reserve: photo by Carl de Souza/AFP, 13 September 2016

Zebra gather close to a river during the annual wildebeest migration in the Masai Mara game reserve: photo by Carl de Souza/AFP, 12 September 2016

 

Wildebeest stand in the savannah during the annual wildebeest migration in the Masai Mara game reserve: photo by Carl de Souza/AFP, 13 September 2016

Syrian boy rides a donkey as they play in the rebel-held town of Douma, on the eastern edges of the capital Damascus, on the second day of Eid al-Adha: photo by Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP, 14 September 2016

Syrian boy rides a donkey as they play in the rebel-held town of Douma, on the eastern edges of the capital Damascus, on the second day of Eid al-Adha: photo by Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP, 14 September 2016

Windows are opened in a high rise building as mild spring weather arrives in Sydney: photo by Peter Parks/AFP, 14 September 2016

Windows are opened in a high rise building as mild spring weather arrives in Sydney: photo by Peter Parks/AFP, 14 September 2016

AUSTRALIA - Windows are opened in a high rise building as mild spring weather arrives in Sydney. By Peter Parks#AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 14 September 2016

 

Pakistani children buy balloons to celebrate the Eid al Adha in Karachi, Pakistan: photo by Fareed Khan/AP, 13 September 2016

 
 

Pakistani children buy balloons to celebrate the Eid al Adha in Karachi, Pakistan: photo by Fareed Khan/AP, 13 September 2016



An Indian Muslim child purchases decoration items for his goat after it was purchased at a livestock market #AFP: image via sajjad hussain @sajjadkmr, 11 September 2016
 

INDONESIA - Shantyhouses are seen on the banks of the Ciliwung river in Jakarta. By @b4yismoyo #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 14 September 2016

 A govt school in Shoian, Anantnag #Kashmir in flames after catching fire during clashes. #KashmirKillings: image via Umar Ganie @UmarGanie1, 10 September 2016   Munshi Bagh, Jammu And Kashmir

RUSSIA - A street vendor waits sits next to portrait of president Putin at a kiosk in Moscow. By Kirill Kudryavtsev: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 14 September 2016


A general view shows an overturned fishing boat in the aftermath of super typhoon Meranti, at Sizihwan in Kaohsiung: photo by Sam Yeh/AFP, 15 September 2016 

A general view shows an overturned fishing boat in the aftermath of super typhoon Meranti, at Sizihwan in Kaohsiung: photo by Sam Yeh/AFP, 15 September 2016

A large cardboard depiction of a woman is placed in one of the windows of an office building in Bucharest, Romania: photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP, 15 September 2016

 
 
A large cardboard depiction of a woman is placed in one of the windows of an office building in Bucharest, Romania: photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP, 15 September 2016

Small boy with large tin horn at Taj Mahal / Brecht: Everything Changes

September 16, 2016, 7:02 am

≫ Next: Species / oatmeal for the refugees

≪ Previous: heads in the sand / The Spell

$

0

0

.

 

A woman looks out from a window in Srinagar, during a protest against the recent killings in Kashmir: photo by Danish Ismail/Reuters, 16 September 2016

 A woman looks out from a window in Srinagar, during a protest against the recent killings in Kashmir: photo by Danish Ismail/Reuters, 16 September 2016

Lockdown

Kashmir remains shut for 70 consecutive days: image via Zee News Verified account @Zee News, 16 September 2016

In Kashmir, an Eid of confinement and pellets, death and mourning [A policeman fires a teargas shell towards demonstrators during a protest against the recent killings in Kashmir, in Srinagar: photo by /Danish Ismail/Reuters, 13 September 2016]: image via the Wire @thewire_in, 16 September 2016

 

In Kashmir, an Eid of Confinement and Pellets, Death and Mourning: What Eid is this, ask people in the Valley as an unprecedented curfew and communication blockade cut them off from each other – and from the spirit of a much-loved festival: Fahad Shah, The Wire, 16 September 2016

Srinagar: It was a silence of mourning. A population of hundreds of thousands, forced to stay indoors on a day when the Kashmir Valley would otherwise be bustling with people wearing new clothes –- and smiles on their faces. In the last two months, colours have acquired a different meaning here: white is for shrouds, green for flags and red is blood.

For Kashmiris, this Eid was a day of mourning.

The Mehbooba Mufti government imposed the strictest curfew ever in the Valley on the day of Eid Ul Azah. A day before, all mobile phone and internet networks were snapped for 72 hours. Across the Valley, Eidgah grounds – where congregational prayers are offered every year – were deserted, with security forces contingents dotting the fences.

For children, Eid would always mean new clothes, food, receiving Eidi from elders and playing with friends. But this time, children watched TV, slept in the afternoon, played games on their parents’ ‘no network’ mobile phones or attempted in vain to locate news about Kashmir on the national channels.

Nothing moved on the streets of the Valley except the armoured vehicles of the security forces. In several areas, people marched after Eid prayers, but were shot at with pellets, tear gas shells and even bullets by edgy paramilitaries. The pro-azadi leaders of the Hurriyat Conference had asked people to march to the United Nations office in Srinagar. The area around the UN office was sealed with barbed wire and guarded by troops. At around noon, near that spot, a few men from the paramilitary forces stopped me at the barricade and asked, “You want to go that way? You want to pass through that? Today there is a march to the UN. You want to visit the UN?”

Demonstrators shout slogans during a protest against the recent killings in Kashmir, in Srinagar: photo by Danish Ismail/Reuters, 13 September 2016

 

By afternoon, two civilians were killed on Tuesday in north Kashmir’s Bandipora and south Kashmir’s Shopian, while dozens had received injuries across the Valley. Eighty-three people have been killed since July 8 in protests following the killing of the popular Hizbul Mujahideen commander, Burhan Wani, in south Kashmir. More than 11,000 civilians have been injured, including 700 who have wholly or partially lost their eyesight to the pellets fired indiscriminately by paramilitary troops on protestors – those throwing stones and those not – and on bystanders, including, in many cases, young children. Despite curfew, the civilian upsurge shows no signs of abating. According to the government, some 4,000 security forces personnel have sustained injuries in the protests.

Monday, the day before festival, should have seen the markets abuzz with customers, shopping for Eid. Instead, the bakers had put up notices in bold letters: “No bakery available.” The evening before Eid, Mohammad Hussain and his wife were returning from their relatives’ house in downtown Srinagar when a group of young demonstrators stopped them. “Are you returning from a bakers shop? Had you gone shopping?” the young boys had asked. “They told us to open our car trunk and checked if we were  carrying any shopping bags,” said Hussain, a businessman.

At Srinagar’s Eidgah ground, where sheep and goats are sold to people as sacrificial animals every year, only the government forces were visible this Eid. The ground is also the main venue for Eid prayers and from where thousands of people had marched towards the city centre at Lal Chowk during the 2010 uprising.

A protester throws a stone towards Indian police during a protest against the recent killings in Kashmir, in Srinagar: photo by Danish Ismail / Reuters, 13 September 2016

With no mode of communication other than landlines, people couldn’t wish each other this Eid. Breaking away from their long family tradition of visiting the Eidgah for the festival, 16-year-old Abrar Ahmad accompanied his father for Eid prayers at a nearby mosque outside their house in Srinagar’s Nawa Kadal. Outside, four armoured police vehicles were parked, along with a contingent of forces. Walking briskly, people went back to their homes, where they remained confined. “I have been at home all day. In the afternoon I slept. What Eid is this? There was nothing. Only the curfew,” said Abrar.

Every Eid, children burst firecrackers to celebrate. But this year, the sound of firecrackers was replaced by tear gas shells, pellets and bullets. Abrar said, “Who will buy firecrackers this time? Where will anyone get them? We can’t even go out of the gate.”

A few kilometres away from Srinagar’s Eidgah, Abdul Majeed Khan and his son Umar Majeed Khan had gone to offer prayers at 8:30 am in Batmallo, following the timing given by the pro-azadi leaders for everyone. But Umar, 17, didn’t get to return home. He is now lying on a hospital bed wearing blackout sunglasses in the ophthalmology ward of SMHS hospital in Srinagar.

“After prayers, we took out a peaceful march led by the Imam,” said Khan, a car mechanic. “My son and I also joined and the police was watching us. Everything was peaceful; we went to one end of road and turned back. But suddenly the forces started firing pellets. In the chaos, I couldn’t hold on to my son.”

By then, Umar was hit by pellets in the eyes and chest. Standing next to his son at the hospital, an angry Khan said, “I have no regrets that my son was hit. He will be better and will now go out to protest with faith on Allah and his Prophet. We shall win one day. India has to leave from here, today or tomorrow.”

At the hospital, for volunteers like 25-year old Basheer Ahmad Lone, Eid was just another day, when the injured were expected. A bus conductor on normal days, Lone has been volunteering at the hospital since July 8. “It was no Eid for me. I arrived at the hospital at 6 am like everyday and around 20 injured were brought,” said Lone.

Among the injured, was 15-year-old Yasir Ahmad, from Handwara. After offering prayers, Yasir had returned home. He had left to visit his uncle who was going to sacrifice a lamb, but also met a small procession along the way. “A cop directly shot at him. When the first bullet hit him in the crotch, he was still standing. But then, when the second bullet hit, he fell down,” says Haseena Banu, his aunt who has been looking after him since his mother had passed away when he was only 18 months old.

While Yasir’s testicles are damaged after being hit, his relative, 44-year-old Ghulam Mohiudin Waar has a bandaged right eye and is lying on a bed in the same hospital. A father of four children, Mohiudin was going to offer noon prayers when the forces started firing and pellets hit his eyes. “What government is this? They kill people. We want freedom, we don’t want development, or anything, but freedom,” he said.

Back home in Handwara, Mohiudin’s children and wife were waiting for him to return for Eid lunch. But their wait ended with news of his pellet injury. His neighbours brought him to the SMHS hospital. “My family hasn’t seen me yet. And I don’t even know if they are alive or not. There are no phones so I can’t even speak to them,” said Mohiudin.

#Kashmir: thousands of people including women march towards home of martyred youth, Mustafa Mir: image via PTV World @WorldPTV, 15 September 2016

.


The family members said that the police officials from Kothibagh Police station called him in the evening asking him to visit the police station because Superintendent of Police wanted to speak to him: photo via Facebook/Khurram Parvez, 16 September 2016

JandK Police arrests human rights activist Khurram Parvez: This is the first such high profile arrest of a human rights activist in Kashmir in the recent past.: The Indian Express, New Delhi, 16 September 2016

The JandK Police have arrested a well-known Kashmiri human rights defender from his home in Srinagar late this evening. This is a day after he was stopped in Delhi by authorities to board a flight to Geneva where he was going to attend the ongoing United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) session.

Khurram Pervez (39), who is presently Chairperson of Asian Federation Against involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) and Program Coordinator of Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), has been kept in Kothibagh Police Station. Despite repeated attempts, the police officers were not available to comment on the arrest.

This is the first such high profile arrest of a human rights activist in Kashmir in the recent past and is seen as part of government’s crackdown on civil society in the valley that is critical of the Mehbooba Mufti led government’s use of excessive force to quell the current uprising.

According to Pervez’s family members, he had returned home from Delhi this morning. 

The family members said that the police officials from Kothibagh Police station called him in the evening asking him to visit the police station because Superintendent of Police wanted to speak to him. “He called the SP and told him he will come at 10 am tomorrow,’’ a relative said. “Late in the night, a police party came to his home, asking him to accompany them to the police station. There wasn’t any police officer in the police station at that time. They told us that he would have to stay in the police station”. 

Pervez’s family members said that the police didn’t give any reasons for the arrest.

On Wednesday, Pervez was stopped by Immigration authorities at IGI airport in Delhi and disallowed to board a flight to Geneva. “At around 1.30 am, as I was about to board my flight to Geneva, I was stopped at immigration and detained for one-and-a-half hours. The officer had stamped my boarding pass but they subsequently disallowed me to proceed to board the flight,’’ he had told The Indian Express. Pervez had also said that he was “only orally informed that immigration officers had instructions that he was not to be arrested, but that he should not be allowed to leave the country”.

While Pervez was not allowed to board a flight to Geneva by the Immigration officials at IGI on Wednesday morning, the authorities subsequently allowed his two other colleagues, lawyers Parvez Imroz and Kartik Murukutla, to travel to attend ongoing United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) session.

A statement issued by the JKCCS said that Pervez “is not being allowed to travel because he has been highlighting violations of human rights. Preventing him from travelling is an attempt to criminalize the human rights campaign and documentation work which JKCCS has been involved in for the last several years”.

Protesters in Srinagar, the capital of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, on Tuesday: photo by Dar Yasin/Associated Press, 13 September 2016  

.

Protesters in Srinagar, the capital of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, on Tuesday: photo by Dar Yasin/Associated Press, 13 September 2016

India PreventsKashmiri Activist From Traveling to U.N. Meeting: Suhasini Raj, The New York Times, 16 September 2016

NEW DELHI — An activist from the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir  said on Thursday that he had been prevented from boarding a flight in Delhi as he was on his way to Geneva to speak at a session of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

The activist, Khurram Parvez, of the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, planned to submit a “civil society stakeholder’s report” to the council on the situation in Kashmir, where the death of a commander for a separatist group in July has set off clashes between stone-throwing protesters and Indian security forces. He had also planned to attend a European Union session in Brussels.

More than 70 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in the confrontations, and thousands of civilians and security forces have been injured.
 
Mr. Parvez said he had already passed through security checks at the airport on Wednesday when “something popped up on the screen of the immigration officer’s computer.”

“He said he had to consult someone and disappeared in a back room for the next 15 minutes,” said Mr. Parvez, who has since returned to Srinagar, the capital of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.
 
A spokesman for India's Ministry of Home Affairs said that he could not immediately comment on the reasons Mr. Parvez was prevented from traveling.

Mr. Parvez said that after an hour and a half, the immigration official told him that he had instructions from an official in the Intelligence Bureau to bar him from traveling to Geneva. The official noted that there were no charges against him.

The incident echoed a decision in January 2015 t prevent Priva Pillai, a Greenpeace activist, from flying to London to speak on the effects of mining on indigenous tribes in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. She was told that her name was in a database of people not allowed to leave the country.

The Ministry of Home Affairs said afterward that her visit was “prejudicial to the national interest” and would harm India’s image abroad.

In March of that year, the Delhi High Court ruled in favor of Ms. Pillai’s petition against the ministry, ordering the government to expunge the “offload” notation in her passport.

Mr. Parvez said on Thursday that he had filed inquiries with the Ministry of External Affairs and the Home Affairs Ministry, asking why he was barred from traveling.

  
Never seen women carrying their dead in my entire life. India has sunk to a new low in #Kashmir. @UNHumanRights @UN: image via Baba Umar @BabaUmarr, 16 September 2016

 another fake ceasefire: "the real job is to empty syrian cities"

The regime was very quick to react to the American Russian agreement, a massacre in Idleb in the central market: image via Khaled Khatib 995 @Khaled, 10 September 2016

These helmets for martyrs of the white helmets @SyriaCivilDef, they were killed by Asaad's and Russian aircraft: image via Khaled Khatib 995 @Khaled, 13 September 2016

The real job of #UN and #demistora, is to empty syrian cities in the syrian regime's interests #UN_FUNDED_ASSAD: image via Khaled Khatib 995 @Khaled, 14 September 2016

2 civilians killed by cluster bombs in city of #Douma in #EastGouta In the first day of #EidAlAdha: image via SCD Rif Dimashq @SCDRifDimashq, 12 September 2016

Many civilians were wounded by the artillery attack on the civil neighborhoods of #Irbin city in #EasternGouta: image via SCD Rif Dimashq @SCDRifDimashq, 12 September 2016

The rescue team of @SyriaCivilDef in #Douma wounded during taking the wounded to hospital under the heavy bombing: image via SCD Rif Dimashq @SCDRifDimashq, 12 September 2016

The rescue team of @SyriaCivilDef in #Douma wounded during taking the wounded to hospital under the heavy bombing: image via SCD Rif Dimashq @SCDRifDimashq, 12 September 2016

The rescue team of @SyriaCivilDef in #Douma wounded during taking the wounded to hospital under the heavy bombing: image via SCD Rif Dimashq @SCDRifDimashq, 12 September 2016

"To save a life is to save all of humanity." #TheWhiteHelmets, only on @Netflix September 16th: image via SCD Rif Dimashq @SCDRifDimashq, 13 September 2016

An unforgettable day in #Douma - #EastGouta 13 martyrs In the first day of #EidAlAdha: image via Anas Al-Taän @Anas_altaan, 12 September 2016

An unforgettable day in #Douma - #EastGouta 13 martyrs In the first day of #EidAlAdha: image via Anas Al-Taän @Anas_altaan, 12 September 2016

An unforgettable day in #Douma - #EastGouta 13 martyrs In the first day of #EidAlAdha: image via Anas Al-Taän @Anas_altaan, 12 September 2016

Today was a violent day for #Douma, dozens of shells and rockets killed 13 civilians, including children and women: image via SCD Rif Dimashq @SCDRifDimashq, 13 September 2016

If this photo was of Ground Zero on 9/11 it would be revered as an icon. But it's not. It's #Aleppo: image via Stephen Lautens @stephenlautens, 9 September 2016

In Syria's Aleppo, 'Happy' the monkey is zoo's last resident: image via AFP news agency @AFP, 16 September 2016

Face

Show face to cops, Muslims in Philippine city ordered: image via AFP news agency @AFP, 16 September 2016

LIBYA - A man waves a Libyan flag as fighter jet flies by at the Zueitina oil terminal. By Abdullah Doma #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 16 September 2016

YEMEN - A woman inspects damage at a factory allegedly targeted by Saudi-led airstrikes in Sanaa. By Mohammed Huwais: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 16 September 2016

It's 'Dallas' in Gabon as country awaits key vote ruling: image via AFP news agency @AFP, 15 September 2016

WEST BANK- Israeli soldiers free Palestinian youth in Burin after scuffles with Israeli settlers. By Jaafar Ashtiyeh: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 16 September 2016

Indian Muslims offer prayers on Eid Al Adha at the Kharudin Mosque in Amritsar: photo by AFP, 13 September 2016

A girl takes a picture of a lion in the zoo in Frankfurt, Germany: photo by Michael Probst / AP, 13 September 2016

A woman applies makeup to a young girl dressed as the Living Goddess Kumari during the Kumari Puja festival in Kathmandu, Nepal. The festival is a gathering in which young girls pose as the Living Goddess Kumari and are worshipped by people in belief that their children will remain healthy.: photo by Navesh Chitrakar / Reuters, 14 September 2016

Happy Monkey Rocked

 

A motorist takes cover on a wall as winds and rain from Super Typhoon Meranti lash Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan. The storm is the strongest recorded since Super Typhoon Haiyan developed in 2013.: photo by EPA, 14 September 2016

Residents clean up a flooded street in Xiamen, Fujian province, China, after typhoon Meranti made landfall on September 15, 2016. Parts of Taiwan came to a standstill on Thursday as the super typhoon brought the strongest winds in 21 years. China issued a red alert for waves as the storm bore down on the mainland.:photo by Agence France-Presse, 15 September 2016

Super typhoon Meranti hits Kaohsiung, Taiwan, on September 15, 2016. The typhoon is moving towards the Chinese provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang, after lashing the southern part of Taiwan on Wednesday, leaving close to a million households without power and water supplies: photo by Ritchie B. Tongo / EPA, 15 September 2016

Passengers crowd a railway station on the first day of the Chinese mid-autumn festival holiday in Wuhan, Hubei province, China: photo by Reuters, 15 September 2016

Inflatable Happy Monkey Immersive

Devotees immerse an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, into the Sabarmati river on the last day of the ten-day-long Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Ahmedabad, India: photo by Amit Dave/Reuters, 15 September 2016



Devotees immerse an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, into the Sabarmati river on the last day of the ten-day-long Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Ahmedabad, India: photo by Amit Dave/Reuters, 15 September 2016

INDIA - Devotees immerse an hindu god Ganesh during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Hyderabad. By @noahseelam #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 16 September 2016

A man collects coconuts thrown as offerings by worshippers into the Sabarmati river, a day after the immersion of idols of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, in Ahmedabad, India: photo by Amit Dave /Reuters, 16 September 2016

 
 
A man collects coconuts thrown as offerings by worshippers into the Sabarmati river, a day after the immersion of idols of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, in Ahmedabad, India: photo by Amit Dave /Reuters, 16 September 2016

Happy Monkey Burns

 

A French riot police officer gestures as he is surrounded by flames, during a demonstration against the controversial labour reforms of the French government in Paris: photo by Thomas Samson/AFP, 15 September 2016



A French riot police officer gestures as he is surrounded by flames, during a demonstration against the controversial labour reforms of the French government in Paris: photo by Thomas Samson/AFP, 15 September 2016

FRANCE - A riot police officer is surrounded by flames during demo against labour reforms in Paris. By Thomas Samson: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 16 September 2016

#France #Flames during a demonstration against the controversial labour reforms in Paris #AFP Photo by Thomas Samson: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 16 September 2016

 

#France #clash during a demonstration against the labour reforms #LoiTravail in Paris #AFP Photo by Thomas Samson image via Aurelia BAILLY @Aurelia BAILLY, 16 September 2016

 

#France #clash during a demonstration against the labour reforms #LoiTravail in Paris #AFP Photo by Thomas Samson image via Aurelia BAILLY @Aurelia BAILLY, 16 September 2016

 

#France #clash during a demonstration against the labour reforms #LoiTravail in Paris #AFP Photo by Thomas Samson image via Aurelia BAILLY @Aurelia BAILLY, 16 September 2016

 

FRANCE - A protesters speaks with a police officer during demo against labour reforms in Bordeaux. By Georges Gobet: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 16 September 2016

FRANCE - A demonstrator holds up a flare during a demonstration against labour reforms in Nantes. By @LoicVenance: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 16 September 2016 

People take part in a demonstration against the French government’s labour law reforms, in Marseille, southern France: photo by Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP, 15 September 2016

People take part in a demonstration against the French government’s labour law reforms, in Marseille, southern France: photo by Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP, 15 September 2016

Happy Monkey Has Left the Error Forest 

Members of the public look inside Ikea’s ‘The Dining Club’ pop up restaurant, cafe and shop in Shoreditch in London, England. The Scandinavian furniture company has opened a ‘pop-up’ ‘do-it-yourself restaurant, cafe and store.: photo by Dan Kitwood, 13 September 2016

 

Members of the public look inside Ikea’s ‘The Dining Club’ pop up restaurant, cafe and shop in Shoreditch in London, England. The Scandinavian furniture company has opened a ‘pop-up’ ‘do-it-yourself restaurant, cafe and store.: photo by Dan Kitwood, 13 September 2016

A couple read on deck chairs in Green Park in central London as temperatures soar in London: photo by Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP, 14 September 2016 



A couple read on deck chairs in Green Park in central London as temperatures soar in London: photo by Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP, 14 September 2016

Brecht: Everything Changes

A water drop: photo by Sven Hoppe, 2005

Everything changes. You can make a new start
With your last breath.
But what has happened, has happened. And the water
You have poured into the wine, you can
Not pour back out.

What has happened, has happened. The water
You have poured into the wine, you can
Not pour back out, but
Everything changes. You can make a new start
With your last breath. 

 

Surface waves of water (expansion of a disturbance): photo by Roger McLassus, 2006

Alles wandelt sich. Neu beginnen
Kannst du mit dem letzten Atemzug.
Aber was geschehen, ist geschehen. Und das Wasser
Das du in den Wein gossest, kannst du
Nicht mehr herausschütten.

Was geschehen, ist geschehen. Das Wasser
Das du in den Wein gossest, kannst du
Nicht mehr herausschütten, aber
Alles wandelt sich. Neu beginnen
Kannst du mit dem letzten Atemzug.

Impact of a drop of water on a water-surface: photo by Roger McLassus, 2006

Bertolt Brecht: Alles wandelt sich / Everything Changes, c. 1954: English version by TC 

An Indian Muslim boy runs as he holds a speaker during the Eid Al Adha festival at the mosque inside the Taj Mahal in Agra: photo by AFP, 13 September 2016

Species / oatmeal for the refugees

September 17, 2016, 8:29 am

≫ Next: crept over by shining white flies (from a private diary)

≪ Previous: Small boy with large tin horn at Taj Mahal / Brecht: Everything Changes

$

0

0

.

crept over by shining white flies (from a private diary)

September 18, 2016, 4:11 am

≫ Next: underground play structure / Out of the Fog

≪ Previous: Species / oatmeal for the refugees

$

0

0

.

A GREAT MEMORIAL NEARS COMPLETION: Life, 09/30/1940 (image via Gallery of Graphic Design)

Thurs. a.m. Headache mental insensibility heaviness oppressed. That acid feeling.

 
Your engine makes this much acid every day: Boris Artzybashef, Life, 04/30/1951 (image via Gallery of Graphic Design)

Tues. extremely late. Few improvements no advancements. Citizen of no nation. Stupefaction, shortness of breath &c.

 
Now -- All America can have JESTS: Life, 09/30/1940 (image via Gallery of Graphic Design)

Sat. night, call it morning. Done nothing need of doing pressing time of doing short.

Mon. Sounds, late. Little mice if I am not wrong. Or something. (Cats hear this.)

Do you ever awaken like this at night?: Time, 08/17/1953(image via Gallery of Graphic Design)

Sun. Day of darkening drips then night. Indolence indifference. Mind encumbered. No plan pursued or formed. Want of rest. Nor ad nor product.
 

 
Appointment in Electronia...: Life, 12/20/1943 (image via Gallery of Graphic Design)
 

Tues. Survey past life many faults many deficiencies much to be repented very little reformed. Time not expected to be long. Dark stain shadowed ceiling.

Wed. Misspent time infirmity of body perturbation of mind. As ever, tea. When p and ~p have a common boundary.

angry young computer: Newsweek, 10/12/1964

Sat. Seventy-somethingth year. Mandrill. What can be done ought not to be delayed. Delayed reaction. Left the p out of swimming. It is NOT ENOUGH to point to ~p's lying outside p. Relentless peaks & valleys &c. Whereas p and ~p have a common boundary. Already presupposing the existence of a whole world of propositions.

His wife is right... the blowout wrecked the party!: Time, 08/17/1953 (image via Gallery of Graphic Design)

Thurs. Again. As before.

Sat. after long unquiet and perplexing thoughts. Thoughts not my thoughts ways not my ways much to be done little to be known. Unprofitable and dangerous enquiries. Curious doubts impossible to be solved.

ELECTRONIC "FINGERS" to speed up today's automation!: Life, 06/24/1957 (image via Gallery of Graphic Design)

Mon. too late.

Obverse fog Tues. early. Stood silent on the iron trellised balcony crept over by shining white flies.

Why we chose the NCR computer: Time, 2/23/1962 (image via Gallery of Graphic Design)

underground play structure / Out of the Fog

September 19, 2016, 6:47 am

≫ Next: In the mountains of Yemen / Brecht: Angry Daemon Mask / nothing to see here ("a little bit of a wraith, a ghost”)

≪ Previous: crept over by shining white flies (from a private diary)

$

0

0

.

 

Refugees walk through a field on their way to a makeshift camp at the Greek-Macedonian border, near the village of Idomeni: photo by Angelos Tzortzinis / Magnum Foundation via Time, 17 September 2016

A view of the camp for refugees and migrants along at the Greek-Macedonian border, near the village of Idomeni: photo by Angelos Tzortzinis / Magnum Foundation via Time, 17 September 2016

#Greece Thousands of migrants, #refugees remain stranded in #Europe By @atzortzinis @MagnumFND [A girl from Syria rests near a camp for refugees on the Greek island of Chios]: image via Photojournalism @photojournalink, 17 September 2016

#Greece Thousands of migrants, #refugees remain stranded in #Europe By @atzortzinis @MagnumFND [Graves of refugees who drowned while crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece, many of them unidentified, were made on the Greek island of Lesvos]: image via Photojournalism @photojournalink, 17 September 2016 

#Greece Thousands of migrants, #refugees remain stranded in #Europe By @atzortzinis @MagnumFND [A group of men praying at the Schisto camp for refugees and migrants, near Athens]: image via Photojournalism @photojournalink, 17 September 2016
  

 

Issa, an eleven-year-old Kurdish boy one of thousands of refugees stranded at a squalid encampment near the Greek border village of Idomeni, gazes out from a tree toward Macedonia: photo by Angelos Tzortzinis / Magnum Foundation via Time, 17 September 2016

 

 

Issa, an eleven-year-old Kurdish boy one of thousands of refugees stranded at a squalid encampment near the Greek border village of Idomeni, gazes out from a tree toward Macedonia: photo by Angelos Tzortzinis / Magnum Foundation via Time, 17 September 2016

 

#Greece Thousands of migrants, #refugees remain stranded in #Europe By @atzortzinis @MagnumFND [Issa, an eleven-year-old Kurdish boy, one of thousands of refugees stranded at a squalid encampment near the Greek border village of Idomeni, gazes out from a tree toward Macedonia]: image via Photojournalism @photojournalink, 17 September 2016 

SYRIA - Children play in an underground playground built to protect them from shelling in Arbin. By @SameerAlDoumy: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 17 September 2016

A Syrian child running into the tunnel in an underground playground in the town of #Erbin. Ph @SameerAlDoumy: image via Sameer Al-Doumy @SameerAlDoumy, 17 September 2016

“Unbeing dead isn't being alive.” Here's Douma .. where the survivors die thousands of times everyday #Douma #Syria: image via Abd Doumany @Abd Doumany, 30 August 2015 



Syrians amid the rubble of buildings destroyed by airstrikes in the rebel-held area of Douma, a suburb of Damascus:  photo by Abd Doumany / Agence France-Presse, 19 September 2015

   

SYRIA - Syrians walk through the rubble following an airstrike on Karm al-Jabal. By @KaramAlmari25 #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 18 September 2016

A Syrian man stands in the rubble of destroyed buildings following an air strike in Aleppo’s rebel-controlled neighbourhood of Karm al-Jabal: photo byKaram Al-Masri/AFP, 19 September 2016
 

 
A Syrian man stands in the rubble of destroyed buildings following an air strike in Aleppo’s rebel-controlled neighbourhood of Karm al-Jabal: photo byKaram Al-Masri/AFP, 19 September 2016

An Afghan boy runs past a local brick factory on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan: photo byRahmat Gul/AP 19 September 2016

An Afghan boy runs past a local brick factory on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan: photo byRahmat Gul/AP 19 September 2016

 
Out of the Fog

A woman passed out on a sidewalk in San Francisco: photo by Gabrielle Lurie for The New York Times, 19 September 2016

A woman passed out on a sidewalk in San Francisco: photo by Gabrielle Lurie for The New York Times, 19 September 2016

TAZ. Montpellier, France.: photo by Michel Droz, 2 May 2015

 
Rio Theatre, Monte Rio, California: photo by efo, 23 July 2016

Rio Theatre, Monte Rio, California: photo by efo, 23 July 2016

Rio Theatre, Monte Rio, California: photo by efo, 23 July 2016

 

Sleep addressed me familiarly, calling

She takes a third of our lives and when

we come back this way a second time
                  doesn’t recognize us

traipses to the curtains to let
              in the broken glass light of clouds

                       CLOSED

          read the sign on the dream shop door
          the battered mouse          a gray dust ball
                                               about two days dead


roared about lost innocence
to a loose sock                            on the closet floor

            ripped anew

                    out of the upside
                                  down canoe

                                                (sleep’s protection)

Investigators walk through debris near the scene of the explosion in Manhattan: photo by Jason Szenes/European Pressphoto Agency, 17 September 2016

Investigators walk through debris near the scene of the explosion in Manhattan: photo by Jason Szenes/European Pressphoto Agency, 17 September 2016

Indian soldiers arriving at the army base, in Uri, Kashmir, that heavily armed militants stormed on Sunday: photo by Mukhtar Khan/Associated Press, 19 September 2016

Smoke rises from the Army Uri camp during Fidayeen attack in which 17 Soldiers were killed. Srinagar #UriAttack: image via Umar Ganie @UmarGanie1, 17 September 2016

This picture fills me with emotions I can't explain. To all the brave hearts, Jai Hind #UriAttack #Kashmir: image via Virat Kohli Verified account @imVkohli, 17 September 2016

Black smoke coming out of army barracks at the Brigade which was attacked by four suspected terrorists near LoC in Uri in Kashmir's Baramulla district: photo by Times of India, 18 September 2016

An Army Soldier blocked the road where militants were hiding inside d Army Uri Brigade camp in #Kashmir #UriAttack: image via Umar Ganie @UmarGanie1, 19 September 2016

 
Uri attack: Tell-all map in Pashto exposes plotters: image via Times of India @timesofindia, 19 September 2016

Two-point breach helped terrorists access Army camp: image via Times of India @timesofindia, 19 September 2016

 #UriAttack:  Pak army asks for 'actionable intelligence': image via Times of India @timesofindia, 19 September 2016
 


Army to turn on heat, asks govt to consider cross-border strikes': image via Times of India @timesofindia, 19 September 2016

Normal life remains crippled in occupied #Kashmir as #Indian authorities continue to enforce curfew: image via PTV World @WorldPTV, 19 September 2016

Constant Crfue in #Kashmir hundreds died thousands injured no Muslim country and UN able to talk Cruel India why???: image via CAP Basit @basitashfaq21, 19 September 2016

 

CNN carried news on "rivers of animal blood" in #Bangladesh. But it ignored the "rivers of human blood" in #Kashmir: image via Salman Raja @RSalmanMussadaq, 16 September 2016 

Funeral of 11 years old schoolboy whose body was found riddled with pellets. #Kashmir: image via Syedih @SyedIHusain They kill 11 year old and call us terrorists. Prayers for our brothers being harassed for 65 years. #UriAttacks: image via Salman Raja @RSalmanMussadaq, 17 September 2016
 

Funeral of 11 years old schoolboy whose body was found riddled with pellets. #Kashmir: image via Syedih @SyedIHusain They kill 11 year old and call us terrorists. Prayers for our brothers being harassed for 65 years. #UriAttacks: image via Salman Raja @RSalmanMussadaq, 17 September 2016

They kill 11 year old and call us terrorists. Prayers for our brothers being harassed for 65 years. #UriAttacks: image via Salman Raja @RSalmanMussadaq, 19 September 2016

Funeral of 11 years old Nasir Shafi in Harwan Srinagar @lookaround81: image via Faisal Khan @lookaround81, 17 September 2016  

Funeral of 11 years old Nasir Shafi in Harwan Srinagar @lookaround81: image via Faisal Khan @lookaround81, 17 September 2016
 

Funeral of 11 years old Nasir Shafi in Harwan Srinagar @lookaround81: image via Faisal Khan @lookaround81, 17 September 2016

 

Funeral of civilian Abdul Qayoom in Srinagar Kashmir September 09, 2016 @lookaround81: image via Faisal Khan @lookaround81, 9 September 2016


 
Funeral of civilian Abdul Qayoom in Srinagar Kashmir September 09, 2016 @lookaround81: image via Faisal Khan @lookaround81, 9 September 2016

Gandhi ji murder isn't true. He escaped to Dubai and now selling Mobile phone covers. RoFL: image via Ramesh Seethur aman @rameshethu, 17 September 2016

 
A group gathers near the scene of the explosion in Manhattan: photo by Rashid Umar Abbasi/Reuters, 17 September 2016



A group gathers near the scene of the explosion in Manhattan: photo by Rashid Umar Abbasi/Reuters, 17 September 2016

Early morning, Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Oregon: photo by Austin Granger, 16 September 2016

Early morning, Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Oregon: photo by Austin Granger, 16 September 2016

Early morning, Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Oregon: photo by Austin Granger, 16 September 2016

Palms, Mare Island: photo by efo, 17 September 2016

Palms, Mare Island: photo by efo, 17 September 2016

Palms, Mare Island.: photo by efo, 17 September 2016

Along a Road, Eastern Oregon: photo by Austin Granger, 17 September 2016

Along a Road, Eastern Oregon: photo by Austin Granger, 17 September 2016

Along a Road, Eastern Oregon: photo by Austin Granger, 17 September 2016

In the mountains of Yemen / Brecht: Angry Daemon Mask / nothing to see here ("a little bit of a wraith, a ghost”)

September 20, 2016, 5:45 am

≫ Next: a world of someone someone / To Popeye & Co.

≪ Previous: underground play structure / Out of the Fog

$

0

0

.

Boys sit on the edge of the roof of their house in the mountains, in the Jafariya district of the western province of Raymah, Yemen: photo by Abduljabbar Zeyad / Reuters, 31 May 2016



A boy stands on the roof of a pond in the mountains, in the Jafariya district of the western province of Raymah, Yemen: photo by Abduljabbar Zeyad / Reuters, 2 June 2016


Houses dot the mountainsides in the Jafariya district of the western province of Raymah, Yemen: photo by Abduljabbar Zeyad / Reuters, 21 May 2016

  A cable car carries supplies to Dhalamlam Mountain: photo by Abduljabbar Zeyad / Reuters, 20 May2016
 

A girl sits on the roof of her house on Dhalamlam Mountain: photo by Abduljabbar Zeyad / Reuters, 1 June 2016


People shop at a market in the mountains of Yemen: photo by Abduljabbar Zeyad / Reuters, 3 June 2016


A Yemeni beekeeper checks his beehives in the mountains: photo by Abduljabbar Zeyad / Reuters, 21 May2016

Bertolt Brecht: Angry Daemon Mask / Die Maske des Bösen

Noh mask ko-tobide, Momoyama period, c. 16th c.: photo by Gryffindor, 2006 (Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst, Berlin-Dahlem)

On my wall a Japanese carving hangs,
A blackgold lacquered Daemon mask.
Not unsympathetically I observe
The marks of strain upon the veins of the forehead, showing
How strenuous being furious is.

Stone mask, neolithic period, c. 7000 BC: photo by Gryffindor, 2009 (Musée de la Bible et de la Terre Sainte, Paris)
 

An meiner Wand hängt ein japonisches Holzwerk,
Maske eine bösen Dämons, bemalt mit Goldblack.
Mitfühlend sehe ich
Die geschwollenen Stirnadern, andeutend
Wie anstrengend es ist, böse zu sein.

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956): Die Maske des Bösen, 1942: English by TC

Masks in showcase of first aid supplies shop, Berlin: photo by Till Krech, 2006

 
Masks of Death: photo by James Reynolds, 2004

Bertolt Brecht: photo by Kolbe, 1948 (Deutsches Bundesarchiv)

nothing to see here ("a little bit of a wraith, a ghost”)

New York bomb suspect's family clashed with New Jersey city over restaurant: image via Reuters Top News @Reuters, 19 September 2016

Mr. Rahami kept little social media presence that the authorities have been able to locate.

“He’s a little bit of a wraith, a ghost,” a law enforcement official said.

-- New York Times, 19 September 2016

The Rahami family’s restaurant in Elizabeth, N.J. The family had a fractious relationship with neighbors and the police because of the always-open hours the restaurant kept and the rackety customers it attracted: photo by Bryan Anselm for The New York Times, 19 September 2016



The Rahami family’s restaurant in Elizabeth, N.J. The family had a fractious relationship with neighbors and the police because of the always-open hours the restaurant kept and the rackety customers it attracted: photo by Bryan Anselm for The New York Times, 19 September 2016


Ahmad Khan Rahami, the suspect in the Manhattan and New Jersey bombings, was taken into custody after a shootout with the police on Monday in Linden, N.J.: photo by Moshe Weiss,  Associated Press, 19 September 2016



Ahmad Khan Rahami, the suspect in the Manhattan and New Jersey bombings, was taken into custody after a shootout with the police on Monday in Linden, N.J.: photo by Moshe Weiss,  Associated Press, 19 September 2016

Ahmad Khan Rahami splayed out next to a street in Linden, N.J., after he was shot by police officers in a gun battle on Monday morning. He was found sleeping in a doorway of a bar.: photo by Ed Murray/NJ Advance Media for NJcom via The New York Times, 19 September 2016

Ahmad Khan Rahami splayed out next to a street in Linden, N.J., after he was shot by police officers in a gun battle on Monday morning. He was found sleeping in a doorway of a bar.: photo by Ed Murray/NJ Advance Media for NJcom via The New York Times, 19 September 2016

Bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami is wheeled into an ambulance after a shootout in Linden: image via Reuters Pictures  @reuterspictures, 19 September 2016

 

rackety customers 

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton arrives to a press briefing before boarding her campaign plane at the Westchester County airport in White Plains, New York: photo by Eduardo Soteras/AFP, 19 September 2016

,

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton arrives to a press briefing before boarding her campaign plane at the Westchester County airport in White Plains, New York: photo by Eduardo Soteras/AFP, 19 September 2016
  

Demonstrators gather in front of a burning car during an opposition rally in Kinshasa: photo by Eduardo Soteras/AFP, 19 September 2016



Demonstrators gather in front of a burning car during an opposition rally in Kinshasa: photo by Eduardo Soteras/AFP, 19 September 2016

DRCONGO - Demonstrators gather in front of a burning car during an opposition rally in Kinshasa. By #@edusoteras #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 19 September 

Congolese protesters in Kinshasa, the capital, on Monday. They are calling on President Joseph Kabila to abide by term limits and step down.: photo by Kenny Katombe/Reuters, 19 September 2016

Congolese protesters in Kinshasa, the capital, on Monday. They are calling on President Joseph Kabila to abide by term limits and step down.: photo by Kenny Katombe/Reuters, 19 September 2016

A broken billboard showing Mr. Kabila’s face on Monday. Deadly political protests have shut down Kinshasa.: photo by Eduardo Soteras/Agence France-Presse, 19 September 2016

A broken billboard showing Mr. Kabila’s face on Monday. Deadly political protests have shut down Kinshasa.: photo by Eduardo Soteras/Agence France-Presse, 19 September 2016

Artist belonging to Nepalese ethnic-based Madhesh political parties acts as an injured activist while protesting to mark the Nepal’s first constitution day in Kathmandu, Nepal: photo by Narendra Shrestha/EPA, 19 September 2016

.

Artist belonging to Nepalese ethnic-based Madhesh political parties acts as an injured activist while protesting to mark the Nepal’s first constitution day in Kathmandu, Nepal: photo by Narendra Shrestha/EPA, 19 September 2016

INDIA - A paramilitary trooper stands guard during a curfew in the Lal Chowk area in Srinagar. By @TauseefMUSTAFA: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 19 September 2016

 SYRIA - Women walk in between destroyed buildings in gov. held Jouret al-Shiah neighbourhood of Homs. By Louai Beshara: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 19 September 2016

JORDAN - Funeral in Karak of Jordanian man who try to stab an Israeli policeman in Jerusalem. By Khalil Mazraawi: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 19 September 2016

Rahela Sidiqi, a trustee of Women for Refugee Women and originally from Afghanistan, poses for a photograph among lifejackets that have been used by refugees to cross the sea to Europe as they are laid out in Parliament Square, London today: photo by Carl Court, 19 September 2016

 

Rahela Sidiqi, a trustee of Women for Refugee Women and originally from Afghanistan, poses for a photograph among lifejackets that have been used by refugees to cross the sea to Europe as they are laid out in Parliament Square, London today: photo by Carl Court, 19 September 2016

UK - Photocall in London to highlight number of refugees who died trying to reach Europe since 2015. By @lealolivas: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 19 September 2016

 

Aid is seen strewn across the floor in the town of Orum al-Kubra on the western outskirts of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Tuesday after a convoy delivering aid was hit by a deadly air strike on Monday. The UN said at least 18 trucks in the 31-vehicle convoy were destroyed en route to deliver humanitarian assistance to the hard-to-reach town: photo by Omar Haj Kadour/AFP, 20 September  2016

Aid is seen strewn across the floor in the town of Orum al-Kubra on the western outskirts of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Tuesday after a convoy delivering aid was hit by a deadly air strike on Monday. The UN said at least 18 trucks in the 31-vehicle convoy were destroyed en route to deliver humanitarian assistance to the hard-to-reach town: photo by Omar Haj Kadour/AFP, 20 September 2016

 

Fishing boats head out to sea in order to catch crabs, in Xianrendao in China's northeastern Liaoning province: photo by Johannes Eisele/AFP, 20 September 2016

 

Fishing boats head out to sea in order to catch crabs, in Xianrendao in China's northeastern Liaoning province: photo by Johannes Eisele/AFP, 20 September 2016

---

a world of someone someone / To Popeye & Co.

September 21, 2016, 5:15 am

≫ Next: Something hanging over us: Hölderlin: Die Kürze

≪ Previous: In the mountains of Yemen / Brecht: Angry Daemon Mask / nothing to see here ("a little bit of a wraith, a ghost”)

$

0

0

.

The ruins of the convoy on Tuesday. “We know the plane in question was Russian, not Syrian, and was directly overhead,” a United States official said.: photo by Omar Haj Kadour/Agence France-Presse, 20 September 2016

The ruins of the convoy on Tuesday. “We know the plane in question was Russian, not Syrian, and was directly overhead,” a United States official said.: photo by Omar Haj Kadour/Agence France-Presse, 20 September 2016
 

 

The bombed trucks: “Just when we think it cannot get any worse, the bar of depravity sinks lower.”: photo by Ammar Abdullah/Reuters, 20 September 2016

The bombed trucks: “Just when we think it cannot get any worse, the bar of depravity sinks lower.”: photo by Ammar Abdullah/Reuters, 20 September 2016 

 
[Untitled]: photo by sebati, 18 August 2015

 
[Untitled]: photo by sebati, 18 August 2015

 
[Untitled]: photo by sebati, 18 August 2015

 
[Untitled]: photo by sebati, 18 August 2015

   
#Syria Men remove debris near a victim after an air strike in rebel-held #Aleppo  By @AmeerAlhalbi @AFPphoto: image via Photojournalism @photojournalink, 20 September 2016 

[Untitled]: image via Hazem Bader @hazemjbader, 22 June 2014

I am someone of the world But I a world of someone: tweet via Hazem Bader @hazemjbader, 13 April 2014
 

[Untitled]: image via Hazem Bader @hazemjbader, 22 June 2014

[Untitled]: image via Hazem Bader @hazemjbader, 22 June 2014
 

Israeli security forces body search Palestinians in the West Bank town of Hebron after a Palestinian tried to stab Israeli soldiers before being shot to death at a checkpoint at the entrance of the nearby village of Bani Naim: photo by Hazem Bader/AFP,  20 September 2016

.

Israeli security forces body search Palestinians in the West Bank town of Hebron after a Palestinian tried to stab Israeli soldiers before being shot to death at a checkpoint at the entrance of the nearby village of Bani Naim: photo by Hazem Bader/AFP,  20 September 2016

Israeli security forces evacuate a wounded Palestinian who was shot during a reported stabbing attack against Israeli officers in Hebron: photo by Hazem Bader/AFP, 19 September 2016

[Untitled]: photo by sebati, 27 April 2003
 

To Popeye & Co.

Peareye [Washington, D.C.]: photo by carnagenyc, 14 April 2014

Age makes strange changes in Wimpy's

Face. Slowly what hid Swee-Pea's bones away

Un-knits. Gravity undoes Olive Oyl

Bit by bit, day by day accepted

And reality creeps in

Between the you

That exists

And the you

You merely dream, you who came

Before knew as we do, and equally

Did not speak of it! No you didn't Popeye!

TC:  To Popeye & Co. (excerpt), fromAt Malibu (1975)

 

[Graffiti, Munich]: photo by txmx2, 2 March 2013

[Untitled, Baghdad]: photo by sebati, 30 April 2003
 

 

#SouthAfrica Clashes at a demonstration against university fee hikes in #Johannesburg #AFP Photo by @SafodienMujahid @AFPAfrica: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 20 September 2016

#SouthAfrica Clashes at a demonstration against university fee hikes in #Johannesburg #AFP Photo by @SafodienMujahid @AFPAfrica: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 20 September 2016

#SouthAfrica Clashes at a demonstration against university fee hikes in #Johannesburg #AFP Photo by @SafodienMujahid @AFPAfrica: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 20 September 2016

Homo naledi, a new species of human ancestor has been discovered in South Africa @AFPphoto: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 10 September 2015

[Untitled]: photo by sebati, 10 November 2003

[Untitled]: photo by sebati, 9May 2007

 

[Untitled]: photo by sebati, 10May 2007

[Untitled]: photo by sebati, 10May 2007

[Untitled]: photo by sebati, 9 May 2007
 

[Untitled]: photo by sebati, 9 May 2007
 

[Untitled]: photo by sebati, 9 May 2007
 

[Untitled]: photo by sebati, 9 May 2007

Policemen inspect the body of a man, with tape wrapped around his head and feet, who police said was a victim of drug related vigilante execution in Manila, Philippines: photo by Ezra Acayan/Reuters, 21 September 2016



Policemen inspect the body of a man, with tape wrapped around his head and feet, who police said was a victim of drug related vigilante execution in Manila, Philippines: photo by Ezra Acayan/Reuters, 21 September 2016

Police officers wearing riot gear block a road during protests after police fatally shot Keith Lamont Scott in the parking lot of an apartment complex in Charlotte, North Carolina: photo by Adam Rhew/Reuters, 21 September 2016 

 

Police officers wearing riot gear block a road during protests after police fatally shot Keith Lamont Scott in the parking lot of an apartment complex in Charlotte, North Carolina: photo by Adam Rhew/Reuters, 21 September 2016

Something hanging over us: Hölderlin: Die Kürze

September 22, 2016, 7:18 am

≫ Next: heightened awareness / To Autumn

≪ Previous: a world of someone someone / To Popeye & Co.

$

0

0

 

Auto Center, Compton (South LA]: photo by Andrew Murr, 14 September 2016

Friedrich Hölderlin: from Die Kürze

Wie mein Glück, ist mein Lied. -- Willst du im Abendroth   
....Froh dich baden? Hinweg ist’s, und die Erd’ ist kalt,         
........Und der Vogel der Nacht schwirrt
............Unbequem vor das Auge dir.

[Brevity]

As my luck goes, so goes my song. Would you have the glow

...of the setting sun put you right? It's gone! And the Earth grows cold

......and the ungainly bird of night flutters down

.........much too near, so that you must shield your eyes.

Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843): from Die Kürze (Brevity), 1798, English by TC

 

TO IMPE'ND. v.n. [impendeo, Latin.]  To hang over; to be at hand; to press nearly.

Destruction sure o'er all your heads impends;
Ulysses comes, and death his steps attends.

Pope's Odyssey

Samuel Johnson: A Dictionary of the English Language, 1st ed., 1755

Tear gas is used to disperse protesters in Charlotte, N.C.: photo by Jeff Siner/The Charlotte Observer, via Associated Press, 22 September 2016

  
 Police officers in formation facing protesters on Tuesday: photo by Jeff Siner/The Charlotte Observer, via Associated Press, 22 September 2016

Protesters shout and confront riot police officers in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA: photo by Caitlin Penna/EPA 22 September 2016

Protesters shout and confront riot police officers in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA: photo by Caitlin Penna/EPA 22 September 2016

People in the crowd move to shield a man on the ground in Charlotte, N.C., after he was shot during protests Wednesday night: photo by Logan R. Cyrus for The New York Times, 20 September 2016

People in the crowd move to shield a man on the ground in Charlotte, N.C., after he was shot during protests Wednesday night: photo by Logan R. Cyrus for The New York Times, 20 September 2016

Governor declares state of emergency in violence hit US city: image via AFP news agency @AFP, 21 September 2016

Governor declares state of emergency in violence hit US city: image via AFP news agency @AFP, 21 September 2016
 

Governor declares state of emergency in violence hit US city: image via AFP news agency @AFP, 21 September 2016

  
Don't be fooled. Ha! {Los Angeles]: photo by michaelj1998, 24 August 2016

Don't be fooled. Ha! {Los Angeles]: photo by michaelj1998, 24 August 2016

Don't be fooled. Ha! {Los Angeles]: photo by michaelj1998, 24 August 2016

CatDonuts and other weird things {Los Angeles]: photo by michaelj1998, 24 August 2016

CatDonuts and other weird things {Los Angeles]: photo by michaelj1998, 24 August 2016

CatDonuts and other weird things {Los Angeles]: photo by michaelj1998, 24 August 2016

Citizen Collision {Los Angeles]: photo by michaelj1998, 27 July 2016

Citizen Collision {Los Angeles]: photo by michaelj1998, 27 July 2016

Citizen Collision {Los Angeles]: photo by michaelj1998, 27 July 2016

Let's Party {Los Angeles]: photo by michaelj1998, 29 July 2016


 
Let's Party {Los Angeles]: photo by michaelj1998, 29 July 2016

Let's Party {Los Angeles]: photo by michaelj1998, 29 July 2016

Berlin fire. While tourists examine remnants of the Berlin wall and exhibits at a terror museum, a fire burns in the distance.: photo by Andrew Murr, 13 June 2015

 
Sesh (La Brea, LA]: photo by Andrew Murr, 12 September 2016

Los Angeles: photo by Andrew Murr, 17 September 2016

Off Melrose [Hollywood]: photo by Andrew Murr, 19 September 2016

Vicious hair by blessed hand [Hollywood]: photo by Andrew Murr, 18 September 2016

A view of a destroyed building in #Sirte #Libya @AFP @AFPphoto: image via Fabio Bucciarelli @fabio_buccia, 21 September 2016

Migrants are plucked from an overcrowded dinghy off the Libyan coast: photo by Reuters Pictures @Reuters Pictures, 21 September 2016

Migrants are plucked from an overcrowded dinghy off the Libyan coast: photo by Reuters Pictures @Reuters Pictures, 21 September 2016

Migrants are plucked from an overcrowded dinghy off the Libyan coast: photo by Reuters Pictures @Reuters Pictures, 21 September 2016

A critically endangered colour-changing lemur leaf frog at Paignton Zoo, where they were bred by using artificial rain storms: photo by Paignton Zoo/PA, 21 September 2016

.

A critically endangered colour-changing lemur leaf frog at Paignton Zoo, where they were bred by using artificial rain storms: photo by Paignton Zoo/PA, 21 September 2016

Thousands fled after a fire ripped through a migrant camp on the Greek island of Lesbos: photo by Reuters Pictures @Reuters Pictures, 20 September 2016

Thousands fled after a fire ripped through a migrant camp on the Greek island of Lesbos: photo by Reuters Pictures @Reuters Pictures, 20 September 2016

A man carries an injured girl after airstrikes on the rebel held al-Qaterji neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria today: photo by Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters, 21 September 2016

A man carries an injured girl after airstrikes on the rebel held al-Qaterji neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria today: photo by Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters, 21 September 2016

The unraveling of Syria's fragile truce: photo by Reuters Pictures @Reuters Pictures, 21 September 2016

The unraveling of Syria's fragile truce: photo by Reuters Pictures @Reuters Pictures, 21 September 2016

The unraveling of Syria's fragile truce: photo by Reuters Pictures @Reuters Pictures, 21 September 2016

A campaigner holds an American flag in front of a ‘Stop Trump’ open-top double decker bus before touring London to urge Americans living abroad to register and vote: photo by Stefan Wermuth/Reuters, 21 September 2016



A campaigner holds an American flag in front of a ‘Stop Trump’ open-top double decker bus before touring London to urge Americans living abroad to register and vote: photo by Stefan Wermuth/Reuters, 21 September 2016

A vet tries to cover the eyes of a tranquilized rhinoceros to be microchipped during an operation of RHINO911, a non-governmental organisation at the Pilanesberg National Park in the North West province, South Africa: photo by Gianluigi Guercia/AFP, 21 September 2016



A vet tries to cover the eyes of a tranquilized rhinoceros to be microchipped during an operation of RHINO911, a non-governmental organisation at the Pilanesberg National Park in the North West province, South Africa: photo by Gianluigi Guercia/AFP, 21 September 2016

#France #migrants run away from tear gas during clashes with riot police in #Calais #AFP Photo by Philippe Huguen: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 21 September 2016

#France #migrants run away from tear gas during clashes with riot police in #Calais #AFP Photo by Philippe Huguen: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 21 September 2016

#France #migrants run away from tear gas during clashes with riot police in #Calais #AFP Photo by Philippe Huguen: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 21 September 2016

#France #migrants run away from tear gas during clashes with riot police in #Calais #AFP Photo by Philippe Huguen: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 21 September 2016

A woman and a young girl young child suffering from severe malnutrition sleep on a bed in the ICU ward at the In-Patient Therapeutic Feeding Centre in the Gwangwe district of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, northeastern Nigeria: photo by Stefan Heunis/AFP, 21 September 2016



A woman and a young girl young child suffering from severe malnutrition sleep on a bed in the ICU ward at the In-Patient Therapeutic Feeding Centre in the Gwangwe district of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, northeastern Nigeria: photo by Stefan Heunis/AFP, 21 September 2016

Children of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia Members (FARC) wash clothes at the camp in Llanos del Yari, Caqueta department, Colombia: photo by Luis Acosta/AFP, 21 September 2016



Children of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia Members (FARC) wash clothes at the camp in Llanos del Yari, Caqueta department, Colombia: photo by Luis Acosta/AFP, 21 September 2016

COLOMBIA - Inside the camp of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Llanos del Yari. By @lacostacastro: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 21 September 2016

COLOMBIA - Inside the camp of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Llanos del Yari. By @lacostacastro: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 21 September 2016

COLOMBIA - Inside the camp of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Llanos del Yari. By @lacostacastro: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 21 September 2016

The wax figures of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie after they were moved apart at Madame Tussauds London following the news of their split: photo by Yui Mok/PA, 21 September 2016



The wax figures of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie after they were moved apart at Madame Tussauds London following the news of their split: photo by Yui Mok/PA, 21 September 2016

South Korean soldiers wear North Korea’s military uniforms and hold North Korea’s flags, acting as North Korean soldiers, as they take part in a re-enactment of a battle of the Korean war during a commemorative war victory event to mark the 66th anniversary of the Korean war: photo by Chung Sung-Jun, 22 September 2016

 
 

South Korean soldiers wear North Korea’s military uniforms and hold North Korea’s flags, acting as North Korean soldiers, as they take part in a re-enactment of a battle of the Korean war during a commemorative war victory event to mark the 66th anniversary of the Korean war: photo by Chung Sung-Jun, 22 September 2016

Students from the University of the Witwatersrand are injured by a police grenade during a protest against university fee increases in Johannesburg, South Africa: photo by Paul Daylin/AFP, 22 September 2016

.
 

Students from the University of the Witwatersrand are injured by a police grenade during a protest against university fee increases in Johannesburg, South Africa: photo by Paul Daylin/AFP, 22 September 2016

heightened awareness / To Autumn

September 23, 2016, 5:12 am

≫ Next: Aleppo -- Day of pain

≪ Previous: Something hanging over us: Hölderlin: Die Kürze

$

0

0

.

Havre, Montana [Miss Montana 2016]: photo by Don Hudson, 17 September 2016

awareness

 

the coming on of autumn often heightened awareness

that was then this is uniquely almost now almost tomorrow

never more than a modicum of it at any given time

never more than a pinch, to startle one out of the shadowlands

 

there you are on the back roads ever gentle on my mind

old Hrothgar never had a clue nor will other find nor see

 

none knew you as a boy as did I nor did I know you

nor did my interior mentor and semblable Old Edgethrow

 

the colours of the bushes and of the fallen leaves
repeat themselves in the streaming headlights

 

O absent hand discovered in fallen leaves on the back

roads of leaf muck and little stars that live in emptied skies 
 

By the rivers of my memory clinging to the rocks and ivy

in the early morning separate shared blurred vision

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



Chelsea, Michigan: photo by Don Hudson, 26 August 2016

 

Cadillac, Michigan: photo by Don Hudson, 26 August 2016

 

Cadillac, Michigan: photo by Don Hudson, 19 August 2016

Glasgow, Montana: photo by Don Hudson, 16 September 2016

 

Ashland, Wisconsin: photo by Don Hudson, 9 September 2016

 

Hibbing, Minnesota: photo by Don Hudson, 11 September 2016

Havre, Montana: photo by Don Hudson, 16 September 2016

Chisholm, Minnesota: photo by Don Hudson, 11 September 2016

in the early morning separate shared blurred vision

GREECE - Migrants who left Moria camp during a fire sleep at the port of Mytilene, on the island of Lesbos. By @lgouliam #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 22 September 2016

GREECE - Migrants who fled Moria camp after shelters were torched collect water in the port of Mytilene on island of Lesbos. By @lgouliam: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 21 September 2016

EGYPT - Men and policemen react upon arrival of bodies of migrants in Rosetta after a boat carrying migrants capsized. By Mohamed el Shahed: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 22 September 2016

EGYPT - Egyptian policemen and medics stand over a body of a migrant in Rosetta after a boat carrying migrants capsized. By Mohamed el Shahed: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 22 September 2016

An artisan works on an idol of Hindu goddess Durga at a workshop ahead of the Durga Puja festival in Kolkata, India: photo by Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters, 20 September 2016

An artisan works on an idol of Hindu goddess Durga at a workshop ahead of the Durga Puja festival in Kolkata, India: photo by Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters, 20 September 2016

INDIA - An artisan works on semi-finished clay idols of Hindu goddess Durga inside his workshop in Kumartoli. By @DIPTENDUTTA #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 22 September 2016

An Afghan girl counts in Greek the numbers on the wall during a lesson by a non governmental organization at a refugee camp in the western Athens suburb of Schisto: photo by Thanassis Stavrakis/AP 22 September 2016

An Afghan girl counts in Greek the numbers on the wall during a lesson by a non governmental organization at a refugee camp in the western Athens suburb of Schisto: photo by Thanassis Stavrakis/AP 22 September 2016

awareness

 

Awareness: photo by James Wainwright, 14 December 2007

Girl: photo by James Wainwright, 14 August 2008

 

[Untitled, Athens]: photo by gina maragoudaki, 17 February 2011

[Untitled, Syntagma, Athens]: photo by gina maragoudaki, 12 October 2012

[Untitled]: photo by gina maragoudaki, 21 April 2013

[Untitled]: photo by gina maragoudaki, 23 June 2013

[Untitled]: photo by gina maragoudaki, 2 June 2013

[Untitled]: photo by gina maragoudaki, 20 September 2013


 

[Polykhrono. Macedonia and Thrace, Greece]: photo by gina maragoudaki, 19 July 2012

 

[Untitled]: photo by gina maragoudaki, 10 May 2015

[Untitled]: photo by gina maragoudaki, 10 May 2015

Momentum (13): photo by Marek Wykowski, 3 September 2011

 

Garbage piles up at a temporary dump on a highway in the town of Jdeideh, north of the Lebanese capital Beirut: photo by Patrick Baz, 23 September 2016

Garbage piles up at a temporary dump on a highway in the town of Jdeideh, north of the Lebanese capital Beirut: photo by Patrick Baz, 23 September 2016

Festival goers arriving at sunset attend the first day of Wasteland Weekend in the high desert community of California City in the Mojave Desert, California, where people are gathering for the world’s largest post-apocalyptic festival: photo by Frederic J. Brown/AFP, 23 September 2016

 

 

Festival goers arriving at sunset attend the first day of Wasteland Weekend in the high desert community of California City in the Mojave Desert, California, where people are gathering for the world’s largest post-apocalyptic festival: photo by Frederic J. Brown/AFP, 23 September 2016

To Autumn

riverbank #23: photo by Chris Friel, 20 September 2012

riverbank #23: photo by Chris Friel, 20 September 2012

 

riverbank #30: photo by Chris Friel, 13 October 2012

riverbank #30: photo by Chris Friel, 13 October 2012

JohnKeats to George and Georgiana Keats, Winchester, 21 September 1819:

Some think I have lost that poetic ardour and fire ’tis said I once had—the fact is, perhaps I have; but, instead of that, I hope I shall substitute a more thoughtful and quiet power. I am more frequently now contented to read and think, but now and then haunted with ambitious thoughts. Quieter in my pulse, improved in my digestion, exerting myself against vexing speculations, scarcely content to write the best verses for the fever they leave behind. I want to compose without this fever. I hope I one day shall. You would scarcely imagine I could live alone so comfortably. “Kepen in solitarinesse.” I told Anne, the servant here, the other day, to say I was not at home if any one should call. I am not certain how I should endure loneliness and bad weather together. Now the time is beautiful. I take a walk every day for an hour before dinner, and this is generally my walk: I go out the back gate, across one street into the cathedral yard, which is always interesting; there I pass under the trees along a paved path, pass the beautiful front of the cathedral, turn to the left under a stone doorway,—then I am on the other side of the building,—which leaving behind me, I pass on through two college-like squares, seemingly built for the dwelling-place of deans and prebendaries, garnished with grass and shaded with trees; then I pass through one of the old city gates, and then you are in one college street, through which I pass, and at the end thereof crossing some meadows, and at last a country alley of gardens, I arrive, that is my worship arrives, at the foundation of St. Cross, which is a very interesting old place, both for its gothic tower and alms square and for the appropriation of its rich rents to a relation of the Bishop of Winchester. Then I pass across St. Cross meadows till you come to the most beautifully clear river—now this is only one mile of my walk. I will spare you the other two till after supper, when they would do you more good. You must avoid going the first mile best after dinner—

 

The River Itchen at Woodmill. Looking South West along the River Itchen from Woodmill Bridge on a fine summer's evening: photo by GaryReggae, 13 July 2005

JohnKeats to John Hamilton Reynolds, Winchester, 22 September 1819:

 

My dear Reynolds—I was very glad to hear from Woodhouse that you would meet in the country. I hope you will pass some pleasant time together. Which I wish to make pleasanter by a brace of letters, very highly to be estimated, as really I have had very bad luck with this sort of game this season. I “kepen in solitarinesse,” for Brown has gone a-visiting. I am surprised myself at the pleasure I live alone in. I can give you no news of the place here, or any other idea of it but what I have to this effect written to George. Yesterday I say to him was a grand day for Winchester. They elected a Mayor. It was indeed high time the place should receive some sort of excitement. There was nothing going on: all asleep: not an old maid’s sedan returning from a card party: and if any old woman got tipsy at Christenings they did not expose it in the streets. The first night though of our arrival here, there was a slight uproar took place at about 10 o’ the Clock. We heard distinctly a noise pattering down the High Street as of a walking cane of the good old Dowager breed; and a little minute after we heard a less voice observe “What a noise the ferril made—it must be loose.” Brown wanted to call the constables, but I observed ’twas only a little breeze and would soon pass over.—The side streets here are excessively maiden-lady-like: the door-steps always fresh from the flannel. The knockers have a staid serious, nay almost awful quietness about them. I never saw so quiet a collection of Lions’ and Rams’ heads. The doors are most part black, with a little brass handle just above the keyhole, so that in Winchester a man may very quietly shut himself out of his own house. How beautiful the season is now—How fine the air. A temperate sharpness about it. Really, without joking, chaste weather—Dian skies—I never liked stubble-fields so much as now—Aye better than the chilly green of the Spring. Somehow, a stubble-field looks warm—in the same way that some pictures look warm. This struck me so much in my Sunday’s walk that I composed upon it.

 

The River Itchen, a chalk stream in the Hampshire Downs near Winchester. The stream is shallow, slow flowing, and has much long grass growing on the river bed: photo by Colin Smith, June 2000

John Keats: To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

      For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

   Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

      Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

   Steady thy laden head across a brook;

   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

      Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?

   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

   Among the river sallows, borne aloft

      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

 

John Keats (1795-1821): To Autumn, 19 September 1819, from Poems, 1820

View across the water meadows towards St Cross. The view here is from the east bank of the Itchen Navigation, across the water meadows of the Itchen valley, towards the huge chapel at St Cross Hospital: photo by Jim Champion, 20 November 2005

Exhibit of crops and vegetables at the Pie Town, New Mexico Fair: photo by Russell Lee, October 1940(Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

 

.

Exhibit of crops and vegetables at the Pie Town, New Mexico Fair: photo by Russell Lee, October 1940 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

 

[Untitled]: photo by James Wainwright, 22 February 2009

autumn #15: photo by chrisfriel, 2012

autumn #15: photo by chrisfriel, 2012

Aleppo -- Day of pain

September 24, 2016, 6:45 am

≫ Next: 6 heroes fallen one of them in bad situation / Nizar Qabbani: Still

≪ Previous: heightened awareness / To Autumn

$

0

0

.

 
A Syrian man reacts next to the foot of a small child sticking out out from the rubble of a building following a bombardment on the al-Marja neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria.  Missiles rained down on rebel-held areas of Aleppo, causing widespread destruction that overwhelmed rescue teams, as the army prepared a ground offensive to retake the city.: photo by Ameer Alhalbi / AFP, 23 September 2016



Day of pain - Aleppo martyrs more than 90 martyrs in one day over the city of #Aleppo images from district transportation 23-9-2016 #HolocaustAleppo: image via THAER MOHAMMED @THAER_MOHAMEED, 23 September 2016

Day of pain - Aleppo martyrs more than 90 martyrs in one day over the city of #Aleppo images from district transportation 23-9-2016 #HolocaustAleppo: image via THAER MOHAMMED @THAER_MOHAMEED, 23 September 2016

SYRIA - Children die following bombardment on the al-Marja neighbourhood of Aleppo. By @THAER_MOHAMEED #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 September 2016

Day of pain - Aleppo martyrs more than 90 martyrs in one day over the city of #Aleppo images from district transportation 23-9-2016 #HolocaustAleppo: image via THAER MOHAMMED @THAER_MOHAMEED, 23 September 2016

Day of pain - Aleppo martyrs more than 90 martyrs in one day over the city of #Aleppo images from district transportation 23-9-2016 #HolocaustAleppo: image via THAER MOHAMMED @THAER_MOHAMEED, 23 September 2016

SYRIA - Children die following bombardment on the al-Marja neighbourhood of Aleppo. By @THAER_MOHAMEED #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 September 2016

SYRIA - Children die following bombardment on the al-Marja neighbourhood of Aleppo. By @THAER_MOHAMEED #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 September 2016

SYRIA - Syrians mourn over the body of baby following bombardment on the al-Marja neighbourhood of Aleppo. By @AmeerAlhalbi #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 September 2016

Warplanes launch heavy air strikes on rebel-held Aleppo after Syrian army declares offensive to capture the city: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 23 September 2016

People inspect a crater filled with water in rebel-held Tariq al-Bab: photo by Ismail/Reuters, 23 September 2016 

 

People inspect a crater filled with water in rebel-held Tariq al-Bab: photo by Ismail/Reuters, 23 September 2016

SYRIA - A rescuer walks amidst destruction following an air strike in the rebel-held Ansari district in Aleppo. By@KaramAlmasri25 #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 September 2016

The body of a child is pulled from the rubble in al-Marja: photo by Ameer Alhalbi/Agence France-Presse, 23 September  2016

The body of a child is pulled from the rubble in al-Marja: photo by Ameer Alhalbi/Agence France-Presse, 23 September  2016

SYRIA - A man lays on a hospital bed at make-shift hospital following air strikes on rebel-held eastern areas of Aleppo. By @KaramAlmasri25 #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 24 September 2016

A Syrian man carries a toddler after removing him from the rubble of a building destroyed in an airstrike in Aleppo on Wednesday, as government troops attacked rebels there after a cease-fire faltered.: photo by Ameer Alhalbi/Agence France-Presse, 21 September 2016



A Syrian man carries a toddler after removing him from the rubble of a building destroyed in an airstrike in Aleppo on Wednesday, as government troops attacked rebels there after a cease-fire faltered.: photo by Ameer Alhalbi/Agence France-Presse, 21 September 2016

#HolocaustAleppo

120 martyrs have ascended today at #Aleppo city and surroundings in the aerial bombing by military helicopters at a level of intensity the city has not seen before #HolocaustAleppo: image via ahmad assaf @homsi119, 23 September 2016

 Extensive raids on neighorhoods of #Aleppo since the beginning of the month of September have caused the deaths of 222 men, 36 women and 117 children @ahmad09904 #HolocaustAleppo: image via ahmad assaf @homsi119, 23 September 2016

 #HolocaustAleppo: image via ahmad assaf @homsi119, 23 September 2016

 #HolocaustAleppo: image via ahmad assaf @homsi119, 23 September 2016

 #HolocaustAleppo: image via ahmad assaf @homsi119, 23 September 2016

#HolocaustAleppo: image via Mohamed Khair Hak @mhamed_khair, 23 September 2016

 #HolocaustAleppo: image via Ahmad Alokdeh @ahmadalokdeh, 23 September 2016

 #HolocaustAleppo: image via Ahmad Alokdeh @ahmadalokdeh, 23 September 2016

 #HolocaustAleppo: image via baraa al halabi @baraaalhalabi, 23 September 2016

#AleppoAMC #HolocaustAleppo: image via Aleppo AMC @AleppoAMC, 23 September 2016
 

#AleppoAMC #HolocaustAleppo: image via Aleppo AMC @AleppoAMC, 23 September 2016
 

#AleppoAMC #HolocaustAleppo: image via Aleppo AMC @AleppoAMC, 23 September 2016

#AleppoAMC #HolocaustAleppo: image via Aleppo AMC @AleppoAMC, 23 September 2016

#AleppoAMC #HolocaustAleppo: image via Aleppo AMC @AleppoAMC, 23 September 2016

#AleppoAMC #HolocaustAleppo: image via Aleppo AMC @AleppoAMC, 23 September 2016

 #HolocaustAleppo: image via ahmad assaf @homsi119, 23 September 2016

6 heroes fallen one of them in bad situation / Nizar Qabbani: Still

September 25, 2016, 5:23 am

≫ Next: Karam Al-Masri: Life and Death Under Siege / Joseph Ceravolo: Legacy (Going Back)

≪ Previous: Aleppo -- Day of pain

$

0

0

.

Regime, Russian warplanes strike Aleppo, killing 56 #MassacreinAleppo: image via R4BIA Platform @r4biaplatform, 24 September 2016

 

 

more than 50 injuries arrived to AlQuds hospital from Bustan alqaser neighborhood. #HolocaustAleppo: image via PrimoAhmad Verified account @PrimoAhmad, 24 September 2016

For those who ask about the current state of things in Aleppo... #HolocaustAleppo: image via Hozaifa Dahmaan @hozaifadahmaan, 24 September 2016

 
#HolocaustAleppo: image via Coordinators of the Syrian Revolution @thuwwar, 24 September 2016

6 heroes from @SyriaCivilDef have been injured during response to Airstrike in Aleppo city one of them in bad situation #HolocaustAleppo: image via KhaledKhatib 995@Khaled, 24 September 2016

50 civilians killed and more than 200 injured since this morning, and the aircrafts still on the city. there R catastrophes #HolocaustAleppo: image via KhaledKhatib 995@Khaled, 24 September 2016

 

50 civilians killed and more than 200 injured since this morning, and the aircrafts still on the city. there R catastrophes #HolocaustAleppo: image via KhaledKhatib 995@Khaled, 24 September 2016
 

50 civilians killed and more than 200 injured since this morning, and the aircrafts still on the city. there R catastrophes #HolocaustAleppo: image via KhaledKhatib 995@Khaled, 24 September 2016

[Aleppo graffiti, 2016]: image via Hozaifa Dahmaan @hozaifadahmaan, 24 September 2016

Nizar Qabbani: Still

Santa Rosa, NM: photo by moominsean, 4 July 2016

 

Santa Rosa, NM: photo by moominsean, 4 July 2016

Santa Rosa, NM: photo by moominsean, 4 July 2016

Tucumcari, NM: photo by moominsean, 4 July 2016

Tucumcari, NM: photo by moominsean, 4 July 2016

Tucumcari, NM: photo by moominsean, 4 July 2016

Southern California coastal range in fog: photo by Wing-Chi Poon, 7 November 2007

still traveling further
still, after the tenth year, a spear
planted within

ما زلت

ما زلت يا مسافرة
ما زلت بعد السنة العاشرة
مزروعة...كالرمح في الخاصرة

 

Nizar Qabbani (1923-1998): Still (English: TC)

 

Abies lasiocarpa forest encroaching upon a meadow, Mt. Rainier National Park, Washington: photo by Wing-Chi Poon, 12 July 2005



Base of Gorman Falls, Colorado Bend State Park, Bend, Texas: photo by Wing-Chi Poon, 23 April 2005



Three male Tule Elk (Cervus canadensis subsp. nannodes) standing in heavy fog, along Tomales Point Trail, Point Reyes National Seashore, California: photo by Wing-Chi Poon, 22 November 2008



Bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis), slightly west of Logan Pass along Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park, Montana: photo by Wing-Chi Poon, 16 June 2004



Bighorn sheep, possibly female, resting on forest floor, Kootenay National Park, British Columbia: photo by Wing-Chi Poon, 6 July 2005

Gallup, NM: photo by moominsean, 4 July 2016

 

Gallup, NM: photo by moominsean, 4 July 2016

 

Gallup, NM: photo by moominsean, 4 July 2016

 

Bluff, UT: photo by moominsean, 13 July 2016

 

Shamrock, TX: photo by moominsean, 3 July 2016

Palm Springs, CA: photo by moominsean, 8 July 2016

 

Rolla, MO: photo by moominsean, 2 July 2016

 

Grants, NM: photo by moominsean, 15 July 2016

Grants, NM: photo by moominsean, 15 July 2016

 

Grants, NM: photo by moominsean, 15 July 2016

Karam Al-Masri: Life and Death Under Siege / Joseph Ceravolo: Legacy (Going Back)

September 27, 2016, 7:17 am

≫ Next: Mother, I shall be glad when it is over

≪ Previous: 6 heroes fallen one of them in bad situation / Nizar Qabbani: Still

$

0

0

.

 

People looking for survivors on Monday at a site hit previously by an airstrike in the rebel-held Tariq al-Bab neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria: photo by Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters, 26 September 2016

  

People looking for survivors on Monday at a site hit previously by an airstrike in the rebel-held Tariq al-Bab neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria: photo by Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters, 26 September 2016

A bus burned on Sunday after a reported airstrike in Aleppo. Hundreds of people have been killed in the city since Thursday: photo by Ameer Alhalbi/Agence France-Presse, 26 September 2016

A bus burned on Sunday after a reported airstrike in Aleppo. Hundreds of people have been killed in the city since Thursday: photo by Ameer Alhalbi/Agence France-Presse, 26 September 2016

 
Rescue workers and residents carrying the body of a victim on Sunday after a reported airstrike ina rebel-held area of Aleppo, Syria: photo by Ameer Alhalbi/Agence France-Presse, 25 September 2016

 

Rescue workers and residents carrying the body of a victim on Sunday after a reported airstrike ina rebel-held area of Aleppo, Syria: photo by Ameer Alhalbi/Agence France-Presse, 25 September 2016

 
Members of the Syrian Civil Defense group recovered a body after airstrikes on Saturday in the contested city of Aleppo. More than 90 people died on Friday, and more than 100 on Saturday.: photo by Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, via Associated Press, 25 September 2016



Members of the Syrian Civil Defense group recovered a body after airstrikes on Saturday in the contested city of Aleppo. More than 90 people died on Friday, and more than 100 on Saturday.: photo by Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, via Associated Press, 25 September 2016

Matthew Rycroft, the British ambassador to the United Nations, speaking on Sunday with his American counterpart, Samantha Power, during a Security Council meeting in New York.: photo by Andrew Kelly/Reuters, 25 September 2016

Matthew Rycroft, the British ambassador to the United Nations, speaking on Sunday with his American counterpart, Samantha Power, during a Security Council meeting in New York.: photo by Andrew Kelly/Reuters, 25 September 2016

A makeshift hospital in Syria. Heavy Syrian and Russian bombardments of rebel-held areas in eastern Aleppo have overwhelmed doctors and rescue workers.: photo by Karam Al-Masri/Agence France-Presse, 24 September 2016



A makeshift hospital in Syria. Heavy Syrian and Russian bombardments of rebel-held areas in eastern Aleppo have overwhelmed doctors and rescue workers.: photo by Karam Al-Masri/Agence France-Presse, 24 September 2016

Joseph Ceravolo: Legacy (Going Back)

            May 1, 1984

Oh young of this world!

What is it that the ancient erupts?

Even in the midst

of silicon chips and endless terminals,

slick musicals, advertisement,

and business journals

mind-warping takes the masses

so that an elite

of control and money again subjugates

human minds beyond the scope of death

Half-minds caught up in gain

thinking that a little ditty

or clever idea makes

a genius with cause to forego others

for the sake of money and power,

little hard ants of self ingratiation

bragging about success

without a universal thought

or thought of human suffering,

upon which much of their

   success is built. 

But who needs communism,

that contemporary refuge

from material subjugation

into a newer human subjugation?

I want to go back to the Pond

and transcendent destinies

back to that innocent belief that

to be stubborn for a harmless cause

is a spiritual awakening,

that real freedom is to contemplate

and not lose ground or starve or die

without honor or love,

back to the mystery

of the individual

and of the people

though rash, proud and narrow

still manage to taste the flowers

of love brush their lips

and beauty touched once before death,

back to the lava of the dream

spurting from inside,

      flowing into the real

O young of this ancient world

we leave you

to the perpetual danger of the galaxy
of which we have no stroke
but like a tree or an ant
   live and die,
   and maybe live again.

Joseph Ceravolo (1934-1988): Legacy (Going Back), 1 May 1984, from Collected Poems, 2012

2016, ya'll: image via Victor Ng @victomato, 25 September 2016

A woman looks towards part of an artwork called ‘Lichen! Libido! (London!) Chastity!’ by Anthea Hamilton, one of the four artists shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2016, at the Tate Britain gallery, on Monday: photo by Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP. 26 September 2016

A woman looks towards part of an artwork called ‘Lichen! Libido! (London!) Chastity!’ by Anthea Hamilton, one of the four artists shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2016, at the Tate Britain gallery, on Monday: photo by Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP. 26 September 2016

Indian folk dancers from the Panghat Group of Performing Arts during a dress rehearsal for an event to mark the forthcoming Hindu festival ‘Navaratri’: photo by AFP, 26 September 2016

Indian folk dancers from the Panghat Group of Performing Arts during a dress rehearsal for an event to mark the forthcoming Hindu festival ‘Navaratri’: photo by AFP, 26 September 2016

Factory girls from a rural village living in a Bangalore hostel watch the street life below: photo by Andrea Bruce for The New York Times, 24 September 2016

Indian residents photograph the launch of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C35), on Monday: photo by AFP, 26 September 2016

A woman receives a tattoo on her leg at the International London Tattoo Convention at Tobacco Dock in London, England: photo by Jack Taylor, 23 September 2016

A woman receives a tattoo on her leg at the International London Tattoo Convention at Tobacco Dock in London, England: photo by Jack Taylor, 23 September 2016

Indian children of local boatmen play on the banks of the river Ganges in the Sangam area of Allahabad: photo by Sanjay Kanojia/AFP, 23 September 2016

 

Indian children of local boatmen play on the banks of the river Ganges in the Sangam area of Allahabad: photo by Sanjay Kanojia/AFP, 23 September 2016

INDIA - Children of local boatmen play on the banks of the river Ganges in the Sangam area of Allahabad.  By @sanjaykanojia07 #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 September 2016

 A nail house is seen in the middle of an area covered by a dust screen in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China: photo by Reuters, 27 September 2016

A nail house is seen in the middle of an area covered by a dust screen in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China: photo by Reuters, 27 September 2016

Karam Al-Masri: A message to the outside worldfrom Aleppo

 

Aleppo, September 2016: photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP

 

Aleppo, September 2016: photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP

Aleppo, September 2016: photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP

Aleppo, September 2016: photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP

Aleppo, September 2016: photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP

Covering Syria through hunger and fear: Karam Al-Masri and Rana Moussaoui, AFP Correspondent, 26 September 2016

For Karam al-Masri, AFP's reporter, photographer and videojournalist in rebel-held Aleppo, the past five years have been a series of tragedies: detention by the regime, and then the Islamic State group, the death of his parents in an air strike, the siege of his hometown, hunger and bombardment. Though it all, he has continued to report, with unwavering courage, the story of his ravaged city. 

Herewith his story, in his own words and those of Rana Moussaoui, his colleague in Beirut who works with him daily.

Aleppo, June 2016: photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP

Aleppo, Syria - Before the revolution in Syria began in 2011, my life was very simple. I was a law student at Aleppo University. But today, I’ve lost everything -- my family, my university. I'm an only child. What I miss most is my family, my father, my mother. Particularly her. I think about her every day, I see her in my dreams. To this day, losing her hurts me. I live alone, I don't have anyone. Most of my friends are gone, either dead or in exile.

My life since the beginning of the bombing in Aleppo has become about trying to stay alive. It is like I live in the jungle and I'm trying to survive until tomorrow. When the planes come, I try to shelter in a more secure building. When there is artillery fire, I go to the lower floors. I'm constantly fleeing. Before the siege, I relied on fast food places, but now everything is closed. I don't know how to cook, and there are days when I only eat one meal, and others when I have none at all. Before the siege, I spent the day outside looking for stories to film. But since the siege, I'm hungry and weaker and I stay at home more.

Anti-regime demonstration in Aleppo, May 2016: photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP

When the uprising began in 2011, I was nearly 20 years old. Two or three months later, I was arrested by the regime's political intelligence services. I spent a month in prison, including a week in complete isolation in a tiny cell. It was awful, but I was released during an amnesty in 2011. At the beginning of the uprising there were peaceful demonstrations. There was no bombing. There was nothing to fear except detention and snipers in the street.

The following year, in July 2012, Aleppo was divided into two, with the eastern side held by rebels and the western side by the regime. In November 2013, when I was 22, I was kidnapped by Daesh (Islamic State group). They took me from an ambulance with my friends, a paramedic and a photographer. We were all taken to an unknown location. It was worse than the regime's prisons. It was very, very tough.

A Syrian man shows marks of torture on his back after being released from custody by regime forces in Aleppo, August 2012: photo by James Lawler Duggan/AFP

The photographer and I were released six months later after an "amnesty" but our third friend, the paramedic, wasn't as lucky. He was decapitated after 55 days in prison. They filmed it and showed us the video: "Look at your friend, that's what will happen to you soon." We were utterly terrified. I was constantly afraid. I thought "tomorrow it will be my turn, the day after tomorrow it will be my turn."

I still remember every detail. The 165 days in IS detention are etched into my memory. In the first 45 days, they only fed us every three days. The food was a half portion of Arabic flatbread, or three olives or an egg. I didn't see a single shabbih (pro-regime militant) -- all those held with us were rebels, activists and journalists.

I was tortured during both detentions, but it was worse with the regime because they wanted me to confess who I was working with. With Daesh, the charges were set from the beginning -- I had a camera and for them I was an infidel -- so there was no need to interrogate me.

Aftermath of a barrel bomb attack in Aleppo, September 2015: photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP

I lost my family at the beginning of 2014, when I was still being held by IS. A barrel bomb hit our building, killing all the residents inside, including both my parents. I only found out when I was released. My friends tried to persuade me not to go to my house and told me what had happened. I spent a month in complete despair. I knew nothing about my parents when I was in prison, and then when I was released, they were gone. They had been waiting for news about me, and in the end, they weren't there to celebrate my release.

In 2016, the city came under siege. But for me the siege is less difficult than prison, and the loss of my parents.

  
A child is evacuated from a building following a reported barrel bomb attack in Aleppo, May 2015: photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP

I got the idea of becoming a cameraman in 2012, when I filmed protests with my cellphone and uploaded the images online to show what was really happening, that it wasn't just 10 people or just terrorists like the regime said. There were people who didn't want the regime anymore, they wanted freedom, democracy, justice. In 2013, I started as a freelancer with AFP and gradually I improved. I would watch reports on foreign channels and see how they filmed, what angles they used, and try to do the same.

Aftermath of an air raid in Aleppo, May 2015: photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP

I never thought about becoming a reporter, but over time I've come to like this job. I have enormous respect for journalism, and I'm honest in how I practice it. Even if I sympathise with the opposition and I live in opposition-held territory, even if I participated in anti-regime demonstrations, I avoid filming subjectively and taking the opposition's side in my work. I think this job is sacred, and I'm very careful. If something is in doubt, or doesn't seem real, I don't film it.

Working with journalists abroad, or outside of the besieged areas is like a window for me to send a message to the outside world.

  
Aftermath of an airstrike, Aleppo, April 2016: photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP

The massacres and the bombings have become normal, along with images of children under rubble, the injured, bodies torn to pieces. I've gotten used to it, not like before. At the end of 2012, during the first massacre, when I saw a man with his leg torn off, I felt ill and I fainted at the sight of blood, because it was the first time. Now it's something normal to me.

The hardest thing for me would be going back to my family home. Until today, I haven't had the strength to go. Since 2014, it’s the only area in Aleppo that I prefer to avoid, I can't bear to. It would stir up old memories. I'm told the building has been destroyed…

Covering #Syria through hunger and fear @KaramAlmasri25 @AFPblogs: image via AFP Correspondent @AFPblogs, 26 September 2016

Rana Moussaoui: 'Karam ya Karam, how are you? What's happening?'

A makeshift barricade, made of wreckages of buses, lies in a street in Aleppo, to obstruct the view of regime snipers, March 2015: photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP

Beirut -- Listening to Karam's voice everyday, it is almost impossible to believe the horror this level-headed young man has lived through in the last five years. His voice is calm, he never panics, even when the bombs are falling all around him. The war has taken everything from him, except his passion to inform... and his sense of humour.

Karam started with AFP in 2013, taking photos, and then the video service became interested in him. “We needed to find a new stringer in Aleppo,” says Quentin Leboucher, AFP TV's coordinator for the region. “Karam had worked for the photo service, and we contacted him. He pitched a first story, on the bathhouses of Aleppo. I was immediately taken by the precision of his work. When we recruit stringers, we send them a manual to explain AFP TV's format. Karam followed it to the letter. His images didn't even have to be edited.”

“So we asked him for more,” added Leboucher. “Karam pitched us a story about an old man who had chosen to stay in Aleppo despite the war to take care of his car collection. It had everything. He gave us everything we needed to tell the story. The images were touching and I remember in particular a sequence of the man listening to a record on his gramophone.”

“We immediately realised the quality of his work and his potential. He's become our top contributor in Aleppo.”

Two other AFP photographers, Thaer Mohammed and Ameer al-Halbi, are in the same situation in the east of the city.

The Beirut bureau has been in charge of covering the Syrian conflict since 2012, and since February 2016, we've “lived” daily life with Karam. He started off by giving us little bits of information. But then, after impressing us with his rigour and accuracy, we started asking him for full stories.

Aleppo, December 2015: photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP

A ceasefire in February gave him the chance to do stories about the disoriented residents of Aleppo, out again in the streets on the first day of the truce after years of bombardment: the doctors and rescue workers experiencing quiet, the rebels who used the halt in fighting to play video games or do shopping, and the taxi drivers who expressed hope that business might pick up.

But his Aleppo had also become a city “dying of thirst” after the destruction of pumping stations, and a place with barely a single window left unshattered by the bombing. He did a story on both subjects, which affect both sides of Aleppo, with contributions from a journalist living across the frontline in government-controlled western Aleppo.

With the siege that began in July, his stories have been increasingly focused on the shortages that have forced people to survive on little more than a bit of purslane and aubergine, grown locally, or make fuel from plastic bottles. When another short-lived truce took hold, he produced a report on the children who took to the streets to enjoy the fresh air and play on makeshift swings.

A Syrian man fills a barrel with plastic as part of efforts to produce homemade fuel, Aleppo, September 2016: photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP

Karam's preferred method of communication is the WhatsApp messaging service, which is quick and efficient. We've created a WhatsApp group -- 'Aleppo with Karam' -- that we use to communicate with him, as we do with other AFP correspondents in Syria. The conversations last all day long and into the night. Invariably they start around the time our office opens with “Karam, ya Karam, how are you? What's happening?” We're not just asking about the situation on the ground, but about him. “Reassure us, how are you? Where are you?”

Karam loves to express himself with emojis, and with his city under siege and almost relentless bombardment, they are often sad. When bombs fall around him, he tells us and adds an emoji of a face pale with fear or dripping with sweat. “The barrel bombs are falling like rain,” he writes. “A shell just hit right next to my house.”

The smell of hunger is frightening

When the siege was briefly broken by rebels in early August, he messaged happily one day to inform us “I ate pizza”, accompanied, of course, by an emoji of a face with its tongue poking out. But the siege was reimposed soon after, and often he tells us he is “looking for something to eat.”

“Have you heard anything new about the aid? Where is the convoy?” he will ask, hoping we have new information from the UN. Our anglophone colleague Maya one morning asked if he'd had a coffee yet –- “There hasn't been coffee for a month,” he replied. Meanwhile we guiltily sip our large mugs of Americano or cafe au lait, available at any hour of the day.

Aleppo residents line up to buy bread, July 2016: photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP

Karam's WhatsApp profile often contains a phrase -- for much of the siege it has read “The smell of hunger is frightening.” Recently, he told our Arabophone colleague Rouba that his favourite food is french fries but he has “forgotten what a potato even looks like.” He dreams of being able to eat kiwis and cherries again.

“I weigh 58 kilos now. Two months ago, before the siege, I weighed 67,” he says, before joking “I've gotten used to eating parsley. I like it now. My cat Nanoush is on a diet, like me, and has also lost weight.”

Aleppo, May, 2016: photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP

The fuel shortages also mean that the two gas canisters he still has are worth "a fortune". “I'm hoping for lots of offers to sell them,” he laughs.

“It breaks my heart when we're talking about a story we want him to cover and he tells us he is hungry. That's the hardest thing,” says Layal, another Arabophone journalist in Beirut.

Since the most recent truce effort broke down on September 19, Syrian and Russian aircraft have pounded eastern Aleppo with virtually unprecedented firepower, and Karam's messages have become increasingly sombre.

 
Wounded in an Aleppo hospital following an air strike, September 2016: photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP

Wednesday September 21

“The bombing is so intense it is lighting up the sky like fireworks,” he writes.

“I'm hiding in the corridor,” he tells us.

“I'm hiding in one of the rooms.”

 
Rescue worker in Aleppo, September 2016: photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP

Thursday September 22

“We're surrounded by death”.

“There's no escape.”

“Where can I hide?”

“Aleppo is on fire, I don't have any doors or windows left. The buildings all around me are on fire,” he writes, sending us images of flames filmed with his cellphone. His habitual emojis are in tears.

But his sense of humour is back just hours later, when Maya asks him about his plans for the day. “I'm going to repair my windows and doors,” he responds with a smiley face.

Aleppo, September 2016: photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP

Friday September 23

“I haven't closed my eyes even once. The smell of gunpowder is overpowering, I can't breathe.”

“Where could I go? Nowhere. We are waiting for death turn by turn.”

“It is the first time that I've seen this level of destruction. What's happening now is as destructive as all the bombing of the last three years,” he tells me by phone.

Karam has received two awards for photos he has taken for AFP, but he remains impossibly modest and gentle. He apologises when he is out of reach because the internet is down or his battery is drained because of the ongoing electricity cuts.

My anglophone colleague Sara tells me she feels helpless when she asks Karam how he is doing, amid such evident horror. “Everything I say to him feels utterly inadequate,” she says.

Last week, he discovered with joy a story done by one of our journalists in government-held territory in Aleppo on Saeed (Happy), a monkey who has been a star attraction at a local makeshift zoo for nearly 25 years.

“I remember the monkey from when I was five years old. We're the same age,” he jokes.

“But he has gotten old. I'm still young.”

Saeed, the star attraction in Aleppo's makeshift zoo: photo by Youssef Karwashan/AFP

Writing by Karam Al-Masri with Rana Moussaoui, translated by Sara Hussein in Beirut, with contributions from AFP's Beirut bureau 

Karam Al-Masri, AFP stringer in Aleppo, Syria

Rana Moussaoui, AFP Beirut deputy bureau chief

There is a new awe and horror

#Aleppo this afternoon #HolocaustAleppo: image via Ryad Alhussen @ryadalhussin, 24 September 2016

Pits left by #Russian and #Syrian raids on the city of #Aleppo yesterday evening #HolocaustAleppo: image via Ryad Alhussen @ryadalhussin, 24 September 2016

There is a new awe and horror in residents’ voices as they describe the impact of the bunker busters. “We are standing before inhumanity, real massacres, extraordinary weapons whose blasts we never heard before. They make the ground shake beneath our feet,” said Mohammad Abu Rajab, a doctor in one of the largest medical centres in eastern Aleppo.

 -- Kareem Shaeen in Beirut for the Guardian, 26 September 2016 

We only witness it as a war zone, but for some the city of #Aleppo is their home: image via Panorama @BBCPanorama, 26 September 2016

7 people were killed and many injured as Asaad Airstrikes targeted Bosatn Albasha neighborhood in Aleppo 3 hours ago.#HolocaustAleppo: image via Khaled Khatib 995@Khaled, 26 September 2016

#HolocaustAleppo: image via FADIALHALABI @fadikhateib, 24 September 2016

Field hospitals are taking in too many injuries and ambulance teams are unable to evacuate critical cases out of the city because of the siege: image via Khaled Khatib 995@Khaled, 25 September 2016
 

Field hospitals are taking in too many injuries and ambulance teams are unable to evacuate critical cases out of the city because of the siege: image via Khaled Khatib 995@Khaled, 25 September 2016
 

Field hospitals are taking in too many injuries and ambulance teams are unable to evacuate critical cases out of the city because of the siege: image via Khaled Khatib 995@Khaled, 25 September 2016
 

Field hospitals are taking in too many injuries and ambulance teams are unable to evacuate critical cases out of the city because of the siege: image via Khaled Khatib 995@Khaled, 25 September 2016

@InsRepTeam @almoghrabi93 This photo in same place: image via Faisal M. AlAswad@faisalalaswad, 25 September 2016

15 people were killed and 35 injured as Asaad aircraft targeted Aleppo city by more than 60 Airstrikes since morning. #HolocaustAleppo: image via Khaled Khatib 995@Khaled, 26 September 2016

Les pénuries s'aggravent à Alep sous les bombes, Moscou accusé de "barbarie" #AFP: image via Agence France-Presse @afpfr, 26 September 2016

SYRIA - A tractor clears rubble following Syrian gov. forces airstrikes in rebel neighbourhood of Tariq a-Bab in Aleppo. By @THAER_MOHAMEED: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 25 September 2016

 

Pools of blood and shredded bodies on the streets of Aleppo because of bombardment by Syrian regime and Russia 24-9-2016 #HolocaustAleppo: image via Karam Almasri @KaramAlmasri25, 24 September 2016
 

Pools of blood and shredded bodies on the streets of Aleppo because of bombardment by Syrian regime and Russia 24-9-2016 #HolocaustAleppo: image via Karam Almasri @KaramAlmasri25, 24 September 2016
 

Pools of blood and shredded bodies on the streets of Aleppo because of bombardment by Syrian regime and Russia 24-9-2016 #HolocaustAleppo: image via Karam Almasri @KaramAlmasri25, 24 September 2016

Apocalyptic scenes in streets of Aleppo that were destroyed by Russia and Assad 24-9-2016 #HolocaustAleppo: image via Karam Almasri @KaramAlmasri25, 24 September 2016
 

Apocalyptic scenes in streets of Aleppo that were destroyed by Russia and Assad 24-9-2016 #HolocaustAleppo: image via Karam Almasri @KaramAlmasri25, 24 September 2016
 

Apocalyptic scenes in streets of Aleppo that were destroyed by Russia and Assad 24-9-2016 #HolocaustAleppo: image via Karam Almasri @KaramAlmasri25, 24 September 2016
 

Apocalyptic scenes in streets of Aleppo that were destroyed by Russia and Assad 24-9-2016 #HolocaustAleppo: image via Karam Almasri @KaramAlmasri25, 24 September 2016

Kerry defends diplomacy as Russian airtsrikes pound Aleppo: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 26 September 2016

A man walks on rubble after an airstrike in Aleppo, amid a Syrian army offensive on the city: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures,  26 September 2016

Mother, I shall be glad when it is over

September 28, 2016, 5:16 am

≫ Next: Looking to the sky

≪ Previous: Karam Al-Masri: Life and Death Under Siege / Joseph Ceravolo: Legacy (Going Back)

$

0

0

.

 7 civilians were killed and 10 injured in Al Sha'ar neighborhood in Aleppo city after an airstrike targeted civilian areas #HolocaustAleppo: image via Khaled Khatieb 995 @Khaled, 27 September 2016

Noctilucent clouds, Kuresoo bog, Soomaa National Park, Estonia: photo by Martin Koitmäe, 2009

Stevie Smith: Bog-Face

Dear Little Bog-Face,
Why are you so cold?
And why do you lie with your eyes shut? --
You are not very old.

I am a Child of this World,
And a Child of Grace,
And Mother, I shall be glad when it is over,
I am Bog-Face.

Florence Margaret "Stevie" Stevie Smith (1902-1971): Bog-Face, from Mother, What Is Man? (1942)

Foreign policy section [of presidential debate] ends without mention of Syria, the humanitarian crisis of our generation. One of the photos sent from Aleppo today:: image via Louisa Loveluck @leloveluck, 27 September 2016

Another massacre, 6 people killed and many injured in Al-Mashahad neighborhood after an airstrike targeted Civilian area #HolocaustAleppo: image via Khaled Khatieb 995 @Khaled, 27 September 2016

Another bloody day in eastern #Aleppo #Russian and #Assad air strikes don't stop 27-9-2016#HolocaustAleppo image via Karam Almasri @KaramAlmasri25, 27 September 2016

Another bloody day in eastern #Aleppo #Russian and #Assad air strikes don't stop 27-9-2016#HolocaustAleppo image via Karam Almasri @KaramAlmasri25, 27 September 2016

Looking through terrible images from east Aleppo today, this one stopped me in my tracks. Taken in aftermath of airstrike on al-Shaer: image via Louisa Loveluck @leloveluck, 27 September 2016

A man mourns as his daughter’s body is pulled from the rubble of a building after an airstrike in the Sha’ar neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria, on Tuesday: photo by Karam Al-Masri/Agence France-Presse, 27 September 2016



A man mourns as his daughter’s body is pulled from the rubble of a building after an airstrike in the Sha’ar neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria, on Tuesday: photo by Karam Al-Masri/Agence France-Presse, 27 September 2016

Another bloody day in eastern #Aleppo #Russian and #Assad air strikes don't stop 27-9-2016#HolocaustAleppo image via Karam Almasri @KaramAlmasri25, 27 September 2016

Another bloody day in eastern #Aleppo #Russian and #Assad air strikes don't stop 27-9-2016#HolocaustAleppo image via Karam Almasri @KaramAlmasri25, 27 September 2016

A drone reveals scenes of devastation in Aleppo, Syria: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 27 September 2016

A drone reveals scenes of devastation in Aleppo, Syria: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 27 September 2016

A drone reveals scenes of devastation in Aleppo, Syria: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 27 September 2016

Craters and damaged buildings on Tuesday in a rebel-held part of Aleppo: photo by Reuters, 27 September 2016
 


Craters and damaged buildings on Tuesday in a rebel-held part of Aleppo: photo by Reuters, 27 September 2016

This is @995Khaled, 21. He's risking his life to film what's happening in Syria so the whole world can see: image via NPR Goats and Soda @NPRGoatsandSoda, 27 September 2016

A boy next to the body of his brother, who died in an airstrike in April in Aleppo: photo by Karam Al-Masri/Agence France-Presse, 27 September 2016

 

A boy next to the body of his brother, who died in an airstrike in April in Aleppo: photo by Karam Al-Masri/Agence France-Presse, 27 September 2016

Barcelona

Barcelona: photo by Tom Olson, 26 August 2016

 

Barcelona: photo by Tom Olson, 26 August 2016

Barcelona: photo by Tom Olson, 26 August 2016


 [Nassau Bay, Texas]: photo by mhh, 28 February 2016

 

 [Nassau Bay, Texas]: photo by mhh, 28 February 2016

[Nassau Bay, Texas]: photo by mhh, 28 February 2016

  

[Cuervo, New Mexico]: photo by mhh, 21 April 2015

Hilltop (Giddings, Texas): photo by mhh, 20 April 2015



Hilltop (Giddings, Texas): photo by mhh, 20 April 2015

[Untitled]: photo by _JerD, 24 September 2016

[Untitled]: photo by _JerD, 24 September 2016

[Untitled]: photo by _JerD, 24 September 2016

[Untitled]: photo by _JerD, 24 September 2016

Minneriya: photo by Tom Olson, 28 July 2016

Minneriya: photo by Tom Olson, 28 July 2016

Minneriya: photo by Tom Olson, 28 July 2016

[Untitled]: photo by Paul McFarland, 11 July 2016

[Untitled]: photo by Paul McFarland, 11 July 2016

[Untitled]: photo by Paul McFarland, 11 July 2016

Sagebrush sundown on Mt. Jefferson (Madras, Oregon): photo by JET, 5 September 2016

Sagebrush sundown on Mt. Jefferson (Madras, Oregon): photo by JET, 5 September 2016

Sagebrush sundown on Mt. Jefferson (Madras, Oregon): photo by JET, 5 September 2016

---

Looking to the sky

September 29, 2016, 6:00 am

≫ Next: Bugs / Aleppo endless death series

≪ Previous: Mother, I shall be glad when it is over

$

0

0

.

Stacks of bread are seen at a damaged bakery after an air strike in the rebel-held Bab al-Maqam neighbourhood of Aleppo: photo by Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters, 28 September 2016

The price of bread

A man works at a bakery in the rebel-held town of Douma, east of Damascus, providing bread for impoverished families during Ramadan: photo by Sameer Al-Doumy/Agence France-Presse, 19 June 2016

 
A man works at a bakery in the rebel-held town of Douma, east of Damascus, providing bread for impoverished families during Ramadan: photo by Sameer Al-Doumy/Agence France-Presse, 19 June 2016

 

A Syrian man works at a bakery in the rebel-held town of Douma, east of the capital Damascus, as a part of an initiative to distribute bread to impoverished families in the Eastern Ghouta area during the holy fasting month of Ramadan. The bakery is managed by the Douma Society which was created in 1960.: photo by Sameer Al-Doumy/Agence France-Presse, 19 June 2016
  

Loaves of pita bread are baked in an oven at a bakery in the rebel-held town of Douma, east of the Syrian capital Damascus, as a part of an initiative to distribute bread to impoverished families in the Eastern Ghouta area during the holy fasting month of Ramadan.: photo by Sameer Al-Doumy/Agence France-Presse, 19 June 2016

Bab al-Maqam oven where the bread mingled with blood and body parts in devastation ... #Aleppo this morning #HolocaustAleppo: image via Hozaifa Dahmaan@hozaifadahmaan, 28 September 2016

And the blood and the body and the bread - this scene familiar for years in Syria, where Assad has targeted bakeries and bread queues to kill the largest number of Syrians #HolocaustAleppo: image via Hozaifa Dahmaan@hozaifadahmaan, 28 September 2016

6 people were killed and many injured in Al-ma'ady neighborhood in Aleppo city after an Airstrike targeted their queue in front of a bakery: image via Khaled Khatib 995@Khaled, 28 September 2016

Price of bread Cost of being human in #Syria #Aleppo. It's your Soul #Assad warplanes killed over than 30 civilians in Aleppo #HolocaustAleppo: image via taim shami @taimshamii, 28 September 2016

Warplanes knock out Aleppo hospitals as Russian-backed assault intensifies: image via Reuters Top News @Reuters, 29 September 2016

Looking to the sky

People look at the sky fearing another air strike in the rebel-held al-Myassar neighbourhood of Aleppo: photo by Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters, 28 September 2016

Civil Defence workers search for survivors at a site hit by an air strike in the rebel-held al-Shaar neighbourhood of Aleppo: photo by Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters, 28 September 2016

 

People dig in the rubble in the search for survivors at a site hit by an air strike in the rebel-held Tariq al-Bab neighborhood of Aleppo: photo by Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters, 28 September 2016

 

A boy inspects the rubble after air strikes on the rebel-held Tariq al-Bab neighborhood of Aleppo: photo by Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters, 28 September 2016

Corps déchiquetés et médecins impuissants à Alep dévastée par @KaramAlmasri25 #AFP: image via Agence France Presse @afpfr, 27 September 2016 

#Syrie: Kerry menace Moscou, l’ONU dénonce des «crimes de guerre» à Alep par @KaramAlmasri25 / @GebeilyM #AFP: image via Agence France Presse @afpfr, 28 September 2016

 

If President Bashar al-Assad's forces do recapture the ancient city it would mark a turning point in the war, which has killed an estimated 400,000 people and displaced millions: photo by Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters, 28 September 2016
 

order of battle, as the shades of evening come down

A photograph released on September 25 2016 by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syrian government troops at Handarat camp in the north of Aleppo after its recapture: photo by Sana Handout/EPA, 28 September 2016

Jets pound Aleppo in government push to take city: Government fighter jets backed by Russian air force pound rebel-held Aleppo, as ground assault begins: Al Jazeera English, 28 September 2016

Syrian government forces and their allies began a major ground offensive to retake the opposition-held east of Aleppo on Tuesday, the biggest ground assault yet in a massive new campaign that has destroyed a US-backed ceasefire.

More than 275,000 civilians are believed to be trapped inside the besieged rebel-held sector of Aleppo, where intensive bombing over the past week has killed hundreds of people, many trapped under buildings brought down by bunker-busting bombs.

Only about 30 doctors are left in rebel-held Aleppo, coping with hundreds of wounded each day who are being treated on the floors of hospitals that are bereft of supplies.

The World Health Organization called for the "immediate establishment of humanitarian routes to evacuate sick and wounded" from the besieged eastern part of the city.

Oh hey. Just being super comfy with my cats. #snowpantherqueen #selfie: image via Audra Auclair @AudraAuclair, 28 September 2016

Crowd turns its back on Hillary #Clinton as photo captures the age of the #selfie: image via Linda Yueh Verified account @lindayueh, 26 September 2016

Always time for a #selfie #NYFW: image via Sophie Beam Verified account @Sophie Beam, 26 September 2016

This is my 98th #selfie since the previous one, couldn't capture my Lipstick shade correctly. #reallifeproblems: image via Dr Natasha @bajwas24, 26 September 2016

 A tourist takes a selfie in front of the Sphinx, Giza, Egypt. The United Nations’ ‘World Tourism Day’ is observed today.: photo by Khaled Elfigi/EPA, 27 September 2016



A tourist takes a selfie in front of the Sphinx, Giza, Egypt. The United Nations’ ‘World Tourism Day’ is observed today.: photo by Khaled Elfigi/EPA, 27 September 2016

Best #Selfie: image via Alice Vachet @AliceVachet, 25 September 2016

[Nassau Bay, Texas]: photo by mhh, 28 February 2016

[Nassau Bay, Texas]: photo by mhh, 28 February 2016

[Nassau Bay, Texas]: photo by mhh, 28 February 2016

[Untitled]: photo by Tom Olson, 28 November 2014

[Untitled]: photo by Tom Olson, 28 November 2014

 

Valentino Spring 2017 "War" collection: photo by Gio Staiano/Nowfashion, 24 June 2016
 

Valentino Spring 2017 "War" collection: photo by Gio Staiano/Nowfashion, 24 June 2016
 
Valentino Spring 2017 "War" collection: photo by Gio Staiano/Nowfashion, 24 June 2016



Valentino Spring 2017 "War" collection: photo by Gio Staiano/Nowfashion, 24 June 2016



Valentino Spring 2017 "War" collection: photo by Gio Staiano/Nowfashion, 24 June 2016

State television reported that the army had retaken al-Farafra district in Aleppo's Old City, while engineering units were clearing mines in the area: photo by Sana Handout/EPA, 28 September 2016

Free Syrian army fighters queue as they head towards their positions in the northern rural area of Aleppo: photo by Khalil Ashawi/Reuters, 28 September 2016

A vehicle drives past damaged buildings in the northern Syrian rebel-controlled town of al-Rai, in rural Aleppo: photo by Khalil Ashawi/Reuters, 28 September 2016

Bugs / Aleppo endless death series

September 30, 2016, 5:15 am

≫ Next: Hanging by a thread / Giuseppe Ungaretti: In Memoria

≪ Previous: Looking to the sky

$

0

0

.

Eastern Oregon: photo by Austin Granger, 29 September 2016

Eastern Oregon: photo by Austin Granger, 29 September 2016

Eat More Fowl. Abandoned roadside complex, Halloran Springs, California. Smoke from the Blue Cut Fire, full moon night.: photo by Troy Paiva, 16 August 2016

Lo-Gas Eat 1993. Halloran Springs, California, off of Interstate 15, overlooking the eastern approaches to Baker, 15 miles away. A late afternoon June monsoon, in 1993, when the gas station was freshly refurbished with a new set of islands, and the mechanic roved the steep grade with his tow trucks helping stranded motorists.: photo by Troy Paiva, 26 September 2016

Halloran Springs, California, a lonely exit off of Interstate 15, overlooking the eastern approaches to Baker. On a 108 degree night in August 2016, the gas station and restaurant long abandoned, the view of the valley obliterated by smoke from the Blue Cut fire, 100 +miles to the southwest: photo by Troy Paiva, 16 August 2016

XL5. Dry-lake fringes of Edward AFB, Califonia.: photo by Troy Paiva, 4 August 2014

Bugs [Richmond, California]: photo by efo, 29 September 2016

Bugs [Richmond, California]: photo by efo, 29 September 2016

Desperate for his dead father, passed away while he was out, came back to see the disaster! #Aleppo endless death series Haven't got enough!: image via Zouhir AlShimale @ZouhirAlShimale, 29 September 2016 

Letter fromAleppo:'We will not be able to keep going this way for long'

'We will not be able to keep going this way for long': photo by Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters, 29 September 2016
  

Letterfrom Aleppo:'My city is not just a death toll':  A Syrian Civil Defense member and resident of Aleppo reflects on the worst onslaught the city witnessed since 2011: Al Jazeera News, 29 September 2016

Aleppo - During the past week, Aleppo has been the target of the worst aerial onslaught since the start of Syria's civil war in 2011. More than 400 people were killed, hundreds of others wounded, and several buildings flattened since a short-lived ceasefire broke down last week. Here, Beebers Mishal, 31, one of the founders of the Syrian Civil Defense in 2013 and a resident of Aleppo, reflects on the humanitarian situation in the city and world reaction to it.

I don't remember when I woke up this morning, I don't remember when I went to sleep. I don't sleep easily, no one here does. The aerial bombardment is relentless all across the city.  In our lives there is no such thing as sleep. 

I have three civil defence certificates, and another on the laws of war and peace. The last one is not mandatory, they teach it to people who want more information. I can say with full confidence that the international community does not enforce any of the laws of war.

This same community has been watching what is happening in Aleppo for eight days. Aleppo is burning and the world is watching silently.  Russian warplanes have not stopped bombing us, not for a second.

They've dropped all kinds of forbidden munitions: phosphorous bombs, cluster munitions and the powerful bunker buster. I've seen these bombs destroy entire neighborhoods and bury people alive.

The regime is targeting areas that were struck before, resulting in more casualties.

There is no food and we are running out of water. The only supply road to the city was closed. No one can afford to buy a piece of bread because the prices are too high. People are eating one meal of rice and mint, or one packet of instant noodles a day

Journalists ask me how many people died on this day or that day, but Aleppo is not just a death toll.

Every fired missile is a story. Seconds after an explosion, our units go straight to the area and start pulling people from under the rubble.

Maybe the bomb destroys the entire building. Maybe there are five families inside when it does.

We saved a man from under the rubble after three hours of searching. After one attack, an 11-day-old baby was missing. We found her by listening to the sounds of her cries from beneath the wreckage. 

Three of our headquarters were also attacked and some of our vehicles were destroyed. So we risked heavy shelling and used our hands to lift the pieces of the shattered homes, and rescue the people underneath.

But even those pulled out might not be saved.

We are running out of fuel, hospitals are working under fire with limited electricity and medicine.

We will not be able to keep going this way for long.  

This isn't new for us. This is our routine. Hear a bomb, go to the site, identify people and get them out. In the last few days, we didn't stop, not even for a moment. The use of powerful munitions mean our work is never done. There is no "start time" for what we do. I don't have a life outside the White Helmets.

Of course, the war has an effect on me. I am married, but my wife is not with me. She is safer in the Aleppo countryside. But I am stuck here, in the besieged city.

Before the war I was working as a language teacher and a public servant. I don't have children.

In four years, I have witnessed the carnage of innocent children. I've heard the sound of people struggling to breathe their last under the rubble.

This is not normal. No one can express what this feeling is like.

We always say, when the war ends whoever is left will need psychological help to feel what normal people feel like again. 

I was one of the founders of the Syrian Civil Defense in 2013. In the past three years and a half I have witnessed thousands of massacres, bombings, air strikes.

But the past few days in Aleppo have been unbelievable.  You can see sorrow in the eyes of the people.

You can hear the crash of bombs and death everywhere. They only have memories of blood, displacement and destruction.

814 residential areas, 13 industrial areas and 236 agricultural fields have been targeted by airstrikes  #HolocaustAleppo: image via Primo Ahmad @PrimoAhmad, 29 September 2016 
  


3 volunteers were killed in Al-Bab area after an Airstrike targeted them during response to rescue operation yesterday. rest in peace guys: image via Khaled Khatib @995Khaled, 29 September 2016



3 volunteers were killed in Al-Bab area after an Airstrike targeted them during response to rescue operation yesterday. rest in peace guys: image via Khaled Khatib @995Khaled, 29 September 2016
 

N. Aleppo : Opposition fire Grad missiles at Regime forces gathered in #Handarat Camp: image via Christian Turner @CombatChris, 29 September 2016

Bugs

Hassan Ammar/AP

A man holds a fishing rod as floating rubbish hits the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday: photo by Hassan Ammar/AP, 29 September 2016



A man holds a fishing rod as floating rubbish hits the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday: photo by Hassan Ammar/AP, 29 September 2016

Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images

Mercedes Benz CEO Dieter Zetsche delivers a speech on the first day of the Paris Motor Show: photo by Miguel Medina/AFP, 29 September 2016

Mercedes Benz CEO Dieter Zetsche delivers a speech on the first day of the Paris Motor Show: photo by Miguel Medina/AFP, 29 September 2016

Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, the Indian director general of military operations, at a news briefing in New Delhi on Thursday: photo by Reuters, 29 September 2016

Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, the Indian director general of military operations, at a news briefing in New Delhi on Thursday: photo by Reuters, 29 September 2016

INDIA - An Indian paramilitary trooper looks on in Srinagar. By @TauseefMUSTAFA #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffard, 29 September 2016  

Indian soldiers as they patrol along a barbed-wire fence near Baras Post on the Line of Control (LoC) between Pakistan and India some 174 kms north west of Srinagar. India’s military has carried out “surgical strikes” along the de facto border with Pakistan in Kashmir to thwart a series of attacks being planned against major cities, the army said on Thursday.: photo by AFP, 29 September 2016

Indian soldiers as they patrol along a barbed-wire fence near Baras Post on the Line of Control (LoC) between Pakistan and India some 174 kms north west of Srinagar. India’s military has carried out “surgical strikes” along the de facto border with Pakistan in Kashmir to thwart a series of attacks being planned against major cities, the army said on Thursday.: photo by AFP, 29 September 2016

A police officer walks in the middle of Indonesian union workers protesting against a government tax amnesty on their way to the presidential palace in Jakarta, Indonesia on Thursday: photo by Darren Whiteside/Reuters, 29 September 2016

A police officer walks in the middle of Indonesian union workers protesting against a government tax amnesty on their way to the presidential palace in Jakarta, Indonesia on Thursday: photo by Darren Whiteside/Reuters, 29 September 2016

U.S President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry disembark Air Force One upon landing at Israel’s Ben Gurion International airport to attend the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres, in Lod, Israel: photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters, 30 September 2016

U.S President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry disembark Air Force One upon landing at Israel’s Ben Gurion International airport to attend the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres, in Lod, Israel: photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters, 30 September 2016

Technicians visit a new hybrid operating room of the IHU, Institute of Image-Guided Surgery in Strasbourg, France. The hybrid operation room of the IHU combines the most advanced minimally invasive surgery techniques and the latest medical imaging technologies, resulting in the most advanced surgery platform in the world.: photo Vincent Kessler/Reuters, 30 September 2016

 

Technicians visit a new hybrid operating room of the IHU, Institute of Image-Guided Surgery in Strasbourg, France. The hybrid operation room of the IHU combines the most advanced minimally invasive surgery techniques and the latest medical imaging technologies, resulting in the most advanced surgery platform in the world.: photo Vincent Kessler/Reuters, 30 September 2016 

The canton of Bern is pictured from the summit “Chasseral” based in the Jura Mountains, in the canton of Bern, Switzerland: photo Anthony Anex/EPA, 30 September 2016 



The canton of Bern is pictured from the summit “Chasseral” based in the Jura Mountains, in the canton of Bern, Switzerland: photo Anthony Anex/EPA, 30 September 2016

Hanging by a thread / Giuseppe Ungaretti: In Memoria

October 1, 2016, 6:32 am

≫ Next: A salt lake divided by a road weeps tears of different colors

≪ Previous: Bugs / Aleppo endless death series

$

0

0

.

A man walks in a devastated neighbourhood in Eastern Aleppo: photo by Karam al-Masri/AFP, 28 September 2016

A man walks in a devastated neighbourhood in Eastern Aleppo: photo by Karam al-Masri/AFP, 28 September 2016

Giuseppe Ungaretti: In Memoria

.......Locvizza il 30 settembre 1916

Si chiamava
Moammed Sceab

Discendente
di emiri nomadi
suicida
perchè non aveva più
Patria

Amò la Francia
e mutò nome

Fu Marcel
ma non era Francese
e non sapeva più
vivere
nella tenda dei suoi
dove si ascolta la cantilena
del Corano
gustando un caffè

E non sapeva
sciogliere
il canto
del suo abbandono

L'ho accompagnato
insiema alla padrona dell'albergo
dove abitavamo
a Parigi
dal numero 5 della rue des Carmes
appasito vicolo in discesa

Riposa
nel camposanto d'Ivry
sobborgo che pare
sempre in una giornata
di una
decomposta fiera

E forse io solo
so ancora
che visse

Cinquièmrue 6 (3 rue Basse des Carmes, Paris 5 e.): photo by André Fantelin, 24 August 2012

.....Locvizza 30 September 1916

His name was

Mohamed Sceab

Descendant

of emirs of nomadic tribes

took his own life

because he had lost

his Homeland

Loved France
and changed his name

Was Marcel

but wasn't French

had forgot how

to simply live
sipping a coffee

in the tent of his people

where the little singsong

of the Koran is chanted

And didn't know how to

give

his separateness
a voice

I went along with the concierge

from the hotel where we lived

in Paris

following his body

down the dingy alleyway

from number 5 rue des Carmes

His remains

rest

in the cemetery at Ivry

dolorous suburb

that always brings to mind

the day

a fairground comes down

It may be I alone
still know

he was once alive

 

Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888-1970): In Memoria, 30 September 1916, from ll porto sepolto, 1916; English by TC

 

Rescue workers and residents try to pull a man out from under the rubble of a building following an  airstrike on the rebel-held neighborhood of Salhin in Aleppo: photo by Thaer Mohammed/AFP, 11 March 2016

When I saw this old man and his face covered in blood, mixed with the dust of his house, looking at me, I imagined the man was telling me “make your lens the witness to this crime that has been committed against us!” His facial expressions affected me very much and every time I would take a picture of him, I would imagine myself in his place, being a survivor, not knowing what the fate of the rest of my family members is, as he was the only one whose head was seen amid the rubble and dust. Other times I’ve imagined him to be one of my family members and I’m documenting the damned crime committed against him. Whenever he’d look at me, I could see in his eyes the pain that women, children and men of this nation have suffered, and images of victims of violence in Syria would flash before my eyes.

-- Thaer Mohammed via Time Lightbox, 29 September 2016 

A boy runs after airstrikes conducted by Syrian government forces hit a neighborhood in rebel-held Aleppo: photo by Beha el Halebi/Anadolu Agency, 24 April 2016

One day I heard that the Sukkari neighborhood of Aleppo was under a heavy attack. I got on my motorbike and rode down to Sukkari immediately. I saw casualties when I got there. There was panic and women and children running in fear. Among the dust cloud I saw a child was running away from the area and I took a picture of him.

People were screaming for help and I was scared, too. The regime was attacking the same areas again so I finished my work early and left the shelled area. I sent the images to the agency. I have experienced this kind of massacre before, so I can still hear the voices of people screaming inside my head. Being a journalist in the world’s most dangerous city is a very difficult job to do. We risk our lives to make the world hear the systematic killing by Assad’s regime against civilians. It is like screaming for help in a deep well where no one can hear you.

Can anybody hear us?

-- Beha el Halabi via Time Lightbox, 29 September 2016

 
A man covered with dust sits on a street following a reported airstrike by Syrian government forces in the rebel-held neighborhood of Sukkari in Aleppo: photo by Baraa Al-Halabi/AFP, 30 May 2016

One day the market where Abu Adel works was hit by a barrel bomb. He is married with four daughters and lives in the rebel-held neighborhood of Sukkari in Aleppo, where he works as a fruit vendor to earn a living and feed his children. He lost his cart full of cherries.

He sat next to it and was shocked to see what had happened and that he had escaped death. When I see the photo, I feel sad that such an old man doesn’t have children to help him earn a living. I feel sad how people are dying and that there is no human value left, as they become merely documented numbers.

I loved the photo because I found him again on a different occasion, selling vegetables in the neighborhood with his fixed cart. After all that he went through, life went on.

-- Baraa Al-Halabi via Time Lightbox, 29 September 2016

  
A boy is comforted as he cries next to the body of a relative who died in an airstrike in a rebel-held neighborhood of Aleppo: photo by Karam al-Masri/AFP, 27 April 2016

I took this picture in April after Syrian government forces shelled the Al-Quds hospital in the Sukkari neighborhood of Aleppo. This kid lost a number of his family members on that day -- his mother and younger brother -- and his father had died a couple months before. 

The boy was crying next to the body of his brother, after he was unable to identify his mother’s disfigured body. His intense crying reminded me of myself when I lost family members about three years ago in government airstrikes.

The boy later recognized his mother through the golden jewelry she was wearing. He then completely collapsed and sat beside her body on the ground, crying and saying “I have no one left except God to take care of me! Who will feed me now? Where will I go? How will I live?”

I can’t forget these words. This is one of the most heart-wrecking scenes for me. I couldn’t continue taking pictures as he was crying next to his mother’s body. Tears started filling my eyes as I remembered myself, how I was standing next to the body of my own mother. The only difference between us being that he is still a young child and cannot rely on himself, while I was 22.

-- KaramAl-Masri via Time Lightbox, 29 September 2016 

 

The rubble of war in the rebel-held Tariq al-Bab neighborhood of Aleppo on Monday: photo by Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters, 26 September 2016

 

  

The rubble of war in the rebel-held Tariq al-Bab neighborhood of Aleppo on Monday: photo by Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters, 26 September 2016

 Children play with water from a burst water pipe at a site hit yesterday by an air strike in Aleppo’s rebel-controlled al-Mashad neighbourhood, Syria.: photo by Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters, 30 September 2016

Children play with water from a burst water pipe at a site hit yesterday by an air strike in Aleppo’s rebel-controlled al-Mashad neighbourhood, Syria.: photo by Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters, 30 September 2016

Airstrikes hit two bakeries in #Aleppo countryside early this morning, 77k people without bread. #HolocaustAleppo: image via Vero Ger @GerV29, 29 September 2016

He's alive he's trying to be alive or at least to survive, #Aleppo today no words can explain what he's feeling: image via Ahmad Alkhatib @AhmadAllkhtiib, 30 September 2016

He's alive he's trying to be alive or at least to survive, #Aleppo today no words can explain what he's feeling: image via Ahmad Alkhatib @AhmadAllkhtiib, 30 September 2016

Aerial bombardment phosphorous bombs on opposition held neighborhood #Aleppo #HolocaustAleppo photo Mahmoud Rslan: image via HalabToday @HalabTodayTV, 30 September 2016

killing those who rescue US every hour, alike killing dozens of people, and these died while trying to save a soul, rest in peace! @Aleppo: image via Zouhir AlShimale @ZouhirAlShimale, 30 September 2016 

SYRIA - Wounded Syrian children await to receive treatment at a hospital following a reported air strike on Idlib. By @omarnajdat #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 30 September 2016

 
#Douma today: image via Fadi Hussein @fadihussein8, 30 September 2016

SYRIA - A wounded man is reflected in a mirror as he awaits treatment at a makeshift hospital in Douma.  By @AbdDoumany #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 30 September 2016

Palestinian protesters carry a wounded comrade during clashes with Israeli security forces along the border fence with Israel on the eastern outskirts of Gaza City: photo by Mohammed Abed/AFP, 30 September 2016



Palestinian protesters carry a wounded comrade during clashes with Israeli security forces along the border fence with Israel on the eastern outskirts of Gaza City: photo by Mohammed Abed/AFP, 30 September 2016

GAZA CITY - A Palestinian boy holds an old car door that he found near the beach. By @mohmdabed #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 29 September 2016

 

President Obama attends the funeral of Shimon Peres: photo by Stephen Crowley/The New York Times, 30 September 2016

 

President Obama attended the funeral of Shimon Peres: photo by Stephen Crowley/The New York Times, 30 September 2016

President Barack Obama and Shimon Peres’ daughter Tsvia Walden attend the funeral ceremony held for the former Israeli leader Shimon Peres at Mount Herzl on September 30, 2016 in Jerusalem, Israel. World leaders and dignitaries from 70 countries attended the state funeral of Israel’s ninth president, Shimon Peres, in Jerusalem on Friday, after thousands of Israelis paid their last respects to the elder statesman who died on Wednesday.: photo by Ben Gershom/GPO, 30 September 2016



President Barack Obama and Shimon Peres’ daughter Tsvia Walden attend the funeral ceremony held for the former Israeli leader Shimon Peres at Mount Herzl on September 30, 2016 in Jerusalem, Israel. World leaders and dignitaries from 70 countries attended the state funeral of Israel’s ninth president, Shimon Peres, in Jerusalem on Friday, after thousands of Israelis paid their last respects to the elder statesman who died on Wednesday.: photo by Ben Gershom/GPO, 30 September 2016

African migrants take a lunch break in the courtyard of the Karareem detention center near Misurata, on the Libyan coast. About 230 migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan countries, have been detained there.: photo by Fabio Bucciarelli/Agence France-Presse, 26 September 2016



African migrants take a lunch break in the courtyard of the Karareem detention center near Misurata, on the Libyan coast. About 230 migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan countries, have been detained there.: photo by Fabio Bucciarelli/Agence France-Presse, 26 September 2016

SERBIA - A boy washes his hair at a standpipe at a makeshift refugee camp close border between Serbia and Hungary, near Horgos. By @iandrej#AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 29 September 2016

SERBIA - Clothes hang on the barbed wire at a makeshift refugee camp close border between Serbia and Hungary, near Horgos. By @iandrej#AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 29 September 2016

#Lebanon Rubbish bags piled up on the side of the road in Jdeideh, north of Beirut #AFP Photo by @JOSEPHEID1: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureiaBAILLY, 20 September 2016

Compressed cans are seen at a waste recycling plant in the Lebanese town of Bikfaiya east of Beirut. By @Patrick_Baz #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 29 September 2016

Migrants by a campfire in Calais, France, where they continue to gather, hoping to cross the English Channel to Britain. More than 100 refugees arrive in Calais every day.: photo by Tyler Hicks/The New York Times, 26 September 2016



Migrants by a campfire in Calais, France, where they continue to gather, hoping to cross the English Channel to Britain. More than 100 refugees arrive in Calais every day.: photo by Tyler Hicks/The New York Times, 26 September 2016 

Makeshift shelters at a camp known as The Jungle in Calais: photo by Tyler Hicks/The New York Times, 26 September 2016

.

Makeshift shelters at a camp known as The Jungle in Calais: photo by Tyler Hicks/The New York Times, 26 September 2016

 

Overgrown railroad tracks in an industrial area just outside the camp: photo by Tyler Hicks/The New York Times, 26 September 2016

 .

Overgrown railroad tracks in an industrial area just outside the camp: photo by Tyler Hicks/The New York Times, 26 September 2016



Men prepare meals in the evening: photo by Tyler Hicks/The New York Times, 26 September 2016



Men prepare meals in the evening: photo by Tyler Hicks/The New York Times, 26 September 2016
 

The Jungle, as the shades of evening come down: photo by Tyler Hicks/The New York Times, 26 September 2016



The Jungle, as the shades of evening come down: photo by Tyler Hicks/The New York Times, 26 September 2016

Models wear creations for Chalayan’s Spring-Summer 2017 ready-to-wear fashion collection in Paris: photo by Zacharie Scheurer/AP, 30 September 2016



Models wear creations for Chalayan’s Spring-Summer 2017 ready-to-wear fashion collection in Paris: photo by Zacharie Scheurer/AP, 30 September 2016

  Sotheby's employees hang a painting by David Hockney called ‘Woldgate Woods, 24,25 and 26 October, 2006′ at Sotheby’s auction rooms in London. The painting is estimated to sell for 9 million pounds and will be auctioned in the Contemporary Art Evening Auction in New York on November 17.: photo by Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP, 30 September 2016



Sotheby's employees hang a painting by David Hockney called ‘Woldgate Woods, 24,25 and 26 October, 2006′ at Sotheby’s auction rooms in London. The painting is estimated to sell for 9 million pounds and will be auctioned in the Contemporary Art Evening Auction in New York on November 17.: photo by Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP, 30 September 2016
 

Members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, push a vehicle stuck in mud at their camp near El Diamante, Colombia. On Sunday, the rebel group ratified a peace agreement with the government after 50 years of war.: photo by Mario Tama, 25 September 2016



Members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, push a vehicle stuck in mud at their camp near El Diamante, Colombia. On Sunday, the rebel group ratified a peace agreement with the government after 50 years of war.: photo by Mario Tama, 25 September 2016

A Filipino pirate climbed the anchor chain of a cargo ship docked in Manila on Saturday. Southeast Asia now accounts for a majority of seafaring attacks globally, surpassing the Horn of Africa, according to the International Maritime Bureau’s latest data on crimes at sea.: photo by Francis R. Malasig/European Pressphoto Agency, 24 September 2016



A Filipino pirate climbed the anchor chain of a cargo ship docked in Manila on Saturday. Southeast Asia now accounts for a majority of seafaring attacks globally, surpassing the Horn of Africa, according to the International Maritime Bureau’s latest data on crimes at sea.: photo by Francis R. Malasig/European Pressphoto Agency, 24 September 2016

 
An abandoned home in the neighbourhood El Cambray in Santa Catarina Pinula on the outskirts of Guatemala City, one year after a mudslide destroyed the neighbourhood. The mandatory evacuation order was ignored by a half-dozen residents who apparently cannot afford to live anywhere else.: photo by Moises Castillo/AP, 30 September 2016  



An abandoned home in the neighbourhood El Cambray in Santa Catarina Pinula on the outskirts of Guatemala City, one year after a mudslide destroyed the neighbourhood. The mandatory evacuation order was ignored by a half-dozen residents who apparently cannot afford to live anywhere else.: photo by Moises Castillo/AP, 30 September 2016

A salt lake divided by a road weeps tears of different colors

October 2, 2016, 6:12 am

≫ Next: autumn wind

≪ Previous: Hanging by a thread / Giuseppe Ungaretti: In Memoria

$

0

0

 

A woman and child after an airstrike in Syria on Friday: photo by Amer Almohibany/Agence France-Presse, 30 September 2016

 

.
A woman and child after an airstrike in Syria on Friday: photo by Amer Almohibany/Agence France-Presse, 30 September 2016

Missing

Missing [DTLA]: photo by Andrew Murr, 1 October 2016

unusually heavy rain event out of the near future at All's Well

Dall'ampia ansia dell'alba

Svelata alberatura

the vast restless
need of dawn to drink you in

but that was then

Dolorosi risvegli

Foglie, sorelle foglie,

little sister leaves,

to feel your pain
as from an enchanter fleeing

down the bleak autumn wind tunnel ave

It's great to swing with it

if you can swing with it

while you can

but this is now, e-p-if

fanny again, as the weather turned

and the city lights across the bay

created a vivid blue patch

the color of electrified lupines

against the encroaching fog

for one moment

in the murican night

O notte

DSC4420_S. Heavy rainand hail, seenfrom the window... I very much like a storm, when I've got a roof over my head!: image via Ilya Paramygin, 29 September 2016 

DSC4420_S. Heavy rainand hail, seenfrom the window... I very much like a storm, when I've got a roof over my head!: image via Ilya Paramygin, 29 September 2016

DSC4420_S. Heavy rainand hail, seenfrom the window... I very much like a storm, when I've got a roof over my head!: image via Ilya Paramygin, 29 September 2016

Rayiz_21. Panorama of five vertical shots.: photo by Ilya Paramygin, 25 September 2016

Rayiz_21. Panorama of five vertical shots.: photo by Ilya Paramygin, 25 September 2016

At Owl's Well

Owlbathing2bg. Juvenile Great Horned Owl bathing in the birdbath this morning.: photo by Nick Lyle, 27 September 2016

Owlbathing2bg. Juvenile Great Horned Owl bathing in the birdbath this morning.: photo by Nick Lyle, 27 September 2016

OWL Cigars: photo by Nick Lyle, 7 September 2016

OWL Cigars: photo by Nick Lyle, 7 September 2016

OWL Cigars: photo by Nick Lyle, 7 September 2016

DTLA: photo by Andrew Murr, 22 September 2016

A salt lake divided by a road shows different colors due to algae in China: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 22 September 2016

autumn wind

October 3, 2016, 6:26 am

≫ Next: Burst firing / Giuseppe Ungaretti: Stelle

≪ Previous: A salt lake divided by a road weeps tears of different colors

$

0

0

.

HUGE mackerel skies -- rain's in the forecast...[Sonoma, California]: photo by laura alice watt, 30 September 2016

HUGE mackerel skies -- rain's in the forecast... [Sonoma, California]: photo by laura alice watt, 30 September 2016

Oregon: photo by Austin Granger, 30 September 2016

Oregon: photo by Austin Granger, 30 September 2016
 

Gober punks (Los Angeles, California): photo by michaelj1998, 16 September 2016
 

Gober punks (Los Angeles, California): photo by michaelj1998, 16 September 2016

2016-482 (Berkeley, California): photo by biosfear, September 2016

2016-476 (Fort Bragg, California): photo by biosfear, 21 September 2016

2016-474 (Berkeley, California): photo by biosfear, September 2016

2016-472 (Berkeley, California): photo by biosfear, September 2016

2016-489 (Berkeley, California): photo by biosfear, September 2016

2016-464 (Berkeley, California): photo by biosfear, 11 September 2016

2016-471 (Berkeley, California): photo by biosfear, September 2016

2016-468 (Albany, California): photo by biosfear, September 2016

2016-465 (Albany, California): photo by biosfear, 11 September 2016

2016-469 (Berkeley, California): photo by biosfear, September 2016

2016-454 (Emeryvile, California): photo by biosfear, September 2016

2016-485 (Albany, California): photo by biosfear,  September 2016

2016-473 (Berkeley, California): photo by biosfear, September 2016

 autumn wind

 bodies of migrant leaves pressed flat

against the fence

Ouch: photo by michaelj1998, 9 September 2016

Ouch: photo by michaelj1998, 9 September 2016



Saloon (Richmond, California): photo by efo, 28 August 2016

the sedge is withered from the lake

During the annual wildebeest and zebra migration on a circular route through Tanzania’s Serengeti to Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve, the animals cross the Mara River in search of food and water. Some of the animals inevitably end up as the prey of crocodiles.: photo by Tomasz Gudzowaty via The New York Times, 28 September 2016

During the annual wildebeest and zebra migration on a circular route through Tanzania’s Serengeti to Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve, the animals cross the Mara River in search of food and water. Some of the animals inevitably end up as the prey of crocodiles.: photo by Tomasz Gudzowaty via The New York Times, 28 September 2016

Five policemen came to @Kashmir_Reader to serve the ban order: image via Moazum Mhammad @moazum_m, 2 October 2016

India bans publication of English Daily @Kashmir_Reader. In Indian democracy, truth is biggest casualty. #Kashmir: image via Occupied Kashmir @OccupiedKashmir, 2 October 2016

#Kashmir Day 86: #Pellets return to haunt again, many injured in clashes: image via Ghulam Abbas Shah @ghulamabbasshah, 2 October 2016

 
Message from #kashmir: You can't keep kashmir calm in ur occupation: image via Nomy Sahir @Nomysahir, 2 October 2016

 INDIA - A Border Security Force soldier takes up position at an outpost at the India-Pakistan border in R.S Pora. By @TauseefMUSTAFA: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 2 October 2016

SYRIA - The grandfather of Syrian siblings reacts over the bodies lying at a morgue following reported air strikes in Douma. By @AbdDoumany: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 2 October 2016

SYRIA - A man reacts over the body of his brother who was killed in a reported air strike in the rebel-held town of Douma. By@AbdDoumany: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 2 October 2016

SYRIA - A wounded boy lies on a bed at a makeshift hospital following reported air strikes in the rebel-held town of Douma. By @AbdDoumany: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 2 October 2016

MYANMAR - A plastic cover is installed in a shophouse in Yangon during its demolition to make way for apartment building. By Romeo Gacad: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 2 October 2016

 #BreakingNews Chlorine bombs dropped in Hama 2 Oct 16. Clearly marked as Chlorine (CL2). @JohnKerry @BorisJohnson: image via The White Helmets @SyriaCivilDef, 2 October 2016

 #BreakingNews Chlorine bombs dropped in Hama 2 Oct 16. Clearly marked as Chlorine (CL2). @JohnKerry @BorisJohnson: image via The White Helmets @SyriaCivilDef, 2 October 2016



#Footage Russian regime cluster bomb attacks on the free parts of #Hama province today: image via Julian Röpcke @JulianRoepcke, 2 October 2016

BREAKING Another @samsusa supported hospital has been targeted and heavily damaged by regime/Russian airstrikes this evening in #Hama #Syria: image via Sophie McNeill Verified account @Sophiemcneill, 2 October 2016

SNHR: gov warplanes (allies) missiles targeted hospital in Kafr Zita city in #Hama, rendering it inoperable, Oct 2 #Syria: image via Syrian Network Verified account @snhr, 2 October 2016

Civil Defense firefighters extinguish a blaze that struck a store in #Douma city after an airstrike: image via SCD Rif-Dimashq 3 October 2016

#Russian warplanes destroyed my house in #Doumacity .. this morning, and I do not know any thing about my family: image via @MHDYASEEN4, 3 October 2016


#wanted for #justice because of your crimes in all #Syria and especially in #Aleppo #Douma #PutinWarCriminal: image via Firas Abdullah @firasabdullah, 30 September 2016


Le régime syrien pousse à Alep-Est, devenue "l'enfer sur Terre": image via Agence France-Presse @afpfr, 2 October 2016



#Footage #Russian and #Assad air strikes on already injured civilians in #Aleppotoday: image via Julian Röpcke @JulianRoepcke, 2 October 2016



#News The terrorists from #Assad (+ Shiite militias), the #YPG and #Russia entirely destroy free #Aleppo to recapture it. And it works ...: image via Julian Röpcke @JulianRoepcke, 2 October 2016


#Footage The criminal #Assad regime captured the #Kindi hospital area after heavy #Russian and regime air strikes: image via Julian Röpcke @JulianRoepcke, 2 October 2016

with the apparition of the tenth emperor god we will be changed
 

A devotee of the Nine Emperor Gods is seen with multiple skewers pierced through his mouth during the annual Phuket Vegetarian Festival in the southern province of Phuket: photo by Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP, 3 October 2016

A devotee of the Nine Emperor Gods is seen with multiple skewers pierced through his mouth during the annual Phuket Vegetarian Festival in the southern province of Phuket: photo by Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP, 3 October 2016

THAILAND - A devotee of the Nine Emperor Gods has a sword pushed through his cheek during annual Phuket Vegetarian Festival. By @TheLilyfish: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 2 October 2016

Morning mist sits over the Cropston Reservoir in Britain: photo by Darren Staples/Reuters, 3 October 2016 



Morning mist sits over the Cropston Reservoir in Britain: photo by Darren Staples/Reuters, 3 October 2016

GREECE - A man fishes off a rock on the beach of Faliro in Athens. By @atzortzinis #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 2 October 2016