#a ship bound for india

[fourorfivemovements]

Films Watched in 2024: 22. Skepp till India land/A Ship Bound for India (1947) - Dir. Ingmar Bergman

[fatehbaz]

was thinking about this

To be in "public", you must be a consumer. Or a laborer.

About control of peoples' movement in space/place. Since the beginning.

"Vagrancy" of 1830s-onward Britain, people criminalized for being outside without being a laborer.

Breaking laws resulted in being sentenced to coerced debtor/convict labor. Coinciding with the 1830-ish climax of the Industrial Revolution and the land enclosure acts, the "Workhouse Act" aka "Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834" forced poor people to work for a minimum number of hours every day. The major expansion of the "Vagrancy Act" of 1838 made "joblessness" a crime and enhanced its punishment. (Coincidentally, the law's date of royal assent was 27 July 1838, just 5 days before the British government was scheduled to allow fuller emancipation of its technical legal abolition of slavery in the British Caribbean on 1 August 1838.)

---

"Vagrancy" of 1860s-onward United States, people criminalized for being outside while Black.

Widespread emancipation after slavery abolition in 1865 rapidly followed by the outlawing of loitering which de facto outlawed existing as Black in public. Inability to afford fines results in being sentenced to forced labor by working on chain gangs or prisons farms, some built atop plantations.

---

"Vagrancy" of 1870s-onward across empires, people criminalized for being outside while being "foreign" and also being poor generally.

Especially from 1880-ish to 1918-ish, this was an age of widespread mass movement of peoples due to mass poverty and famine induced by global colonial extraction and "market expansion", as agricultural "revolutions" of monoculture/cash crop extraction resulted in ecological degradation. This coincides with and is facilitated by new railroads and telegraphs, leading to imperial implementation or expansion of identity documents, strict work contracts, passports, immigration surveillance, and border checkpoints.

All of this in just a few short years: In 1877, British administrators in India develop what would become the Henry Classification System of taking and keeping fingerprints for use in binding colonial Indians to legal contracts. That same year during the 1877 Great Railroad Strike, and in response to white anxiety about Black residents coming to the city during Great Migration, Chicago's policing institutions exponentially expand surveillance and pioneer "intelligence card" registers for tracking labor union organizing and Black movement, as Chicago's experiments become adopted by US military and expanded nationwide, later used by US forces monitoring dissent in colonial Philippines and Cuba. Japan based its 1880 Penal Code anti-vagrancy statutes on French models, and introduced "koseki" register to track poor/vagrant domestic citizens as Tokyo's Governor Matsuda segregates classes, and the nation introduces "modern police forces". In 1882, the United States passes the Chinese Exclusion Act. In 1884, the Ottoman government enacts major "Passport Nizamnamesi" legislation requiring passports. In 1885, during the "Tacoma riot" or "expulsion", a mob of hundreds of white residents rounded up all of the city's Chinese residents, marched them to the train station, kicked them out of the city, and burned down the Chinese neighborhood, introducing what is called "the Tacoma method".

Punished for being Chinese in San Francisco. Punished for being Korean in Japan. Punished for crossing Ottoman borders without correct paperwork. Arrested for whatever, then sent to do convict labor. A poor person in the Punjab, starving during a catastrophic famine, might be coerced into a work contract by British authorities. They will have to travel, shipped off to build a railroad in British Kenya. But now they have to work. Now they are bound. They will be punished for being Punjabi and trying to walk away from Britain's tea plantations in Assam or Britain's rubber plantations in Malaya.

---

"Vagrancy" amidst all of this, people also criminalized for being outside while "unsightly" and merely even superficially appearing to be poor. San Francisco introduced the notorious "ugly law" in 1867, making it illegal for "any person, who is diseased, maimed, mutilated or deformed in any way, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object, to expose himself or herself to public view". Today, if you walk into a building looking a little "weird" (poor, Black, ill, disabled, etc.) or carrying a small backpack, you are given seething spiteful glares and asked to leave.

"Vagrancy" everywhere in the United States, a combination of all of the above. De facto criminalized for simply going for a stroll without downloading the coffee shop's exclusive menu app. "Vagrancy", since at least early nineteenth century Europe. About the control of movement through and access to space/place. Concretizing and weaponizing caste, corralling people, anchoring them in place (de facto confinement), extracting their wealth/labor.

You are permitted to exist only as a paying customer or an employee.

[zvaigzdelasas]

[Livemint is Private Indian Media]

Amid the ongoing Israel-Palestine war, the Water Transport Workers Federation of India – representing 3,500 workers at 11 major Indian ports – declared to refuse to load or unload weapons to Israel on any ships it may be asked to do so, carrying armaments and bound for Israel, reported The Wire.

The Water Transport Workers Federation of India has decided to refuse to load or unload weaponized cargoes from Israel or any other country which could handle military equipment and its allied cargo for war in Palestine," The Wire quoted WTWFI press release – dated 14 February – as saying.[...]

The news was confirmed by the Water Transport Federation of India general secretary T Narendra Rao. He said, as quoted by the news website, “We are affiliated to the World Federation of Trade Unions, a global body. At a recent meeting of world trade unions, held at Athens after the war of Gaza started, we saw the rousing reception the trade union representative from Palestine got there, as they explained exactly what was going on. We decided them that we would do our bit and not handle any weapon-laden cargo, which will go onto assist Israel to kill more women and children as we are seeing and reading every day in the news."

18 Feb 24

[diioonysus]

creepy/messed-up history facts

the man in the booth across from lincoln was named major henry rathbone, and after booth fired the shot, rathbone tried to tackle him to the ground, but booth sliced rathbone in the arm with a dagger. after that night, rathbone was never free of guilt. he suffered from stomach ailments to heart palpitations, and on december 23rd 1883, he attacked and killed his wife clara, and attempted to kill himself. he spent the rest of his life in a mental institution.

in 1494, sailors returning from the new world brought with them massive outbreak of syphilis, which spread through an entire french army, and with no antibiotics to counteract it, the disease spread unchecked. the skin on victims' faces would essentially rot away from the grisly ulcers. in some cases, the noses, lips and other body parts of the affected people were essentially gone.

in 1890, thomas edison, using wax cylinder, produced a line of baby dolls. they had wooden bodies, procelain heads, and miniature phonographs in their chests. the phonographs would play back recordings of young women reciting nursery rhymes like "hictory dickory dock," and "now i lay me down to sleep." (here's the audio of them x)

dentures used to be made from the teeth of dead soldiers. they were ivory base plates with real human teeth attached, a lot of these were sold to dentists by scavengers looting corpses from the battle of waterloo. the dentists would boil the them down, cut off the roots, attach them to ivory plates, and sell them.

in 1929, a pair of scientists at princeton university wanted to test and understand how the auditory nerve percieves sound, and their test subject was an alive cat. they cut out part of its brain and attached one end of a telephone wire to its auditory nerve and the other end to a reciever. weirdly enough, many researchers think this helped lead to the development of cochlear implants. but the cat was killed after the scientists wanted to see if it worked on a dead cat.

in 1726, mary toft told doctors that she gave birth to rabbits, and doctors were fully convinced until they found pieces of corn inside the stomach of one of the rabbits, proving that it hadn't developed inside her womb. she instead was manually inserting the rabbits to make the delivery look as realistic as possible.

it was believed that babies under the age of 15 months couldn't feel pain, so doctors would instead use muscle relaxers that had a paralytic effect to stop the baby from moving. this essentially meant they couldn't move or cry but they could still hear, see, and feel everything that was done to them. this was accepted up until 1980s

there was a tiger in india named man-eater of champawat who became dependent on human flesh, which at the turn of the 20th century inflicted a seven-year reign, killing 436 men, women, and children. she was eventually killed in 1907.

there was a book called "how the mail steamer went down in mid atlantic, by a survivor," which tells the story of an unnamed ocean liner that sinks in the atlantic. the protagonist is a sailor named thompson, who grows concerned over the lifeboat shortage, and sure enough the liners collides with a small sailing ship in a fog. as the ship sinks, only 200 of the 700 people on board survive. the second novella "the wreck of the titan: or, futility" by morgan robertson, follows the fictional ocean liner titan, which hits an iceberg in the north atlantic and sinks. like the titanic, the titan was described as the largest ship afloat at the time, both ships had a shortage of lifeboats, and the titan was dubbed "unsinkable." when the accident occurred, roberston simply said he was knowledgabe about maritime operations, saying "i know what i'm writing about, that's all."

some books created in the 18th and 19th century were bound in real human skin which was called anthropodermic bibliopegy. most of these books that were bound with human skin instead of animal skin were mostly based on anatomy or erotica.

during the battle of ramree island, which was fought between january and february 1945, japanese soldiers were cornered by english troops seeking to conquer burmese island of ramree, forcing japanese troops to cross 10 miles of swamp. the japanese soon began to suffer the effects of tropical diseases, but the presence of large numbers of scorpions, tropical mosquitoes and thousands of saltwater crocodiles, the world's largest reptiles, was even worse. In its genre. very aggressive beasts that can reach 8 meters in length and weigh more than a ton. according to some survivors, during the night, they were hunted one by one, in which the crocodiles would ambush them from underneath. and the survivors said the worst part was hearing the screams and the breaking of bones in the dark.

there is a cocodile named gustave (or was if you believe he's dead), a large nile crocodile in burundi who has been rumored to have killed 200-300 people. he's never been captured, but it has been stated that he could be "easily more than 20 feet, and weigh more than 2,000 pounds." he was/is estimated to be over 100 years old, and was/is described as having bullet wounds over his body, and his right shoulder blade was found to be deeply wounded, but they don't know what could have caused it. it's been rumored that he would leave the corpses he killed behind. in 2019, an article revealed he was killed, but there's no photographic evidence which leaves people doubting it's true.

[tumkaafiho]

"In the early morning hours of May 15, the cargo vessel Borkum stopped off the Spanish coast, lingering in the waters a short distance from Cartagena. At the port, protesters waved Palestinian flags and called on authorities to inspect the ship based on suspicions that it carried weapons bound for Israel.

Leftist members of the European Parliament sent a letter to Spanish President Pedro Sánchez requesting that the ship be prevented from docking. “Allowing a ship loaded with weapons destined for Israel is to allow the transit of arms to a country currently under investigation for genocide against the Palestinian people,” the group of nine MEPs warned.

Before the Spanish government could take a stand, the Borkum cancelled its planned stopover and continued to the Slovenian port of Koper. “We were right,” Inigo Errejon, the spokesperson for the hard-left Sumar party wrote on X, arguing that the Borkum’s decision to skip Cartagena confirmed the suspicions.

But missed in the debate over whether the ship ought to be allowed to dock in Spain were the unlikely origins of the Borkum’s cargo.

According to documents seen by Al Jazeera, the ship contained explosives loaded in India and was en route to Israel’s port of Ashdod, some 30km (18 miles) from the Gaza Strip. Marine tracking sites show it departed Chennai in southeast India on April 2 and circumnavigated Africa to avoid transiting through the Red Sea, where Yemen’s Houthis have been attacking vessels in reprisal for Israel’s war.

The identification codes specified in the documentation, obtained unofficially by the Solidarity Network Against the Palestinian Occupation (RESCOP), suggest the Borkum contained 20 tonnes of rocket engines, 12.5 tonnes of rockets with explosive charges, 1,500kg (3,300 pounds) of explosive substances and 740kg (1,630 pounds) of charges and propellants for cannons.

A paragraph on confidentiality specified that all employees, consultants or other relevant parties were mandated that “under no circumstances” were they to name IMI Systems or Israel. IMI Systems, a defence firm, was bought by Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, in 2018."

[apod]

2023 July 19

Chandrayaan-3 Launches to the Moon Image Credit & Copyright: Sruthi Suresh (Space Group)

Explanation: Birds don't fly this high. Airplanes don't go this fast. The Statue of Liberty weighs less. No species other than human can even comprehend what is going on, nor could any human just a millennium ago. The launch of a rocket bound for space is an event that inspires awe and challenges description. Pictured here last week, the Indian Space Research Organization's LVM3 rocket blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on Sriharikota Island, India. From a standing start, the 600,000+ kilogram rocket ship lifted the massive Chandrayaan-3 off the Earth. The Chandrayaan-3 mission is scheduled to reach the Moon in late August and land a robotic rover near the lunar South Pole. Rockets bound for space are now launched from somewhere on Earth every few days.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230719.html

[olympic-paris]

STORY: At Sea with Maurice

'So, you fancy him, do you?'

'No, I fancy you Maurice,' I answered, trying to make a joke out of it. But I was beginning to get a little irritated with Maurice. We both knew why he'd offered me this trip home, and I was getting tired of him just not getting to it.

'But you do fancy him, don't you?' Maurice persisted. 'I mean you have nothing against mixed Orientals, have you? What would you say? A fourth White Russian, half northern Chinese, a fourth Thai, I would say. And I've been around in the region taking on deck hands long enough to be a pretty good judge of that.'

'Yes, I suppose that could be right. Hell, I don't anything about that. I'd only been in Singapore two weeks when you and I met.'

'I was very selective, Paul. I always am,' Maurice continued. If he could tell I was on the edge of irritation, he wasn't admitting it. We were in the dining room of his container ship bound from Singapore to Miami by way of India, South Africa, and up the coast of South America. 'Nine days and eight nights to Mumbai, India,' Maurice was saying. 'Eight deckhands taken on in Singapore and exchanged in Mumbai for the run to Cape Town with a new set. In each port, a new set. Just like always. Carefully picked.'

I wasn't half listening to what Maurice was saying. He owned this container ship - and apparently several others - all plying the equator route, picking up here and letting off there, enabling the exchange of goods by countries across the tropics. I guess that made him quite wealthy. He was egalitarian, though. The passenger accommodations on the ship had proven to be surprisingly comfortable and plush. He must have had at least ten well-appointed cabins for passengers beyond the ship's crew, but only he and I occupied any of these cabins on this run. And all, owner, passenger, and crew alike, took their regular meals in the common dining room.

I looked over at the sailor Maurice was prompting me to show interest in. It didn't take much effort to show interest in him. He was a well over six feet and muscle hardened, as a veteran commercial sailor had to be. Maybe thirty-five, maybe older. As Maurice noted, he seemed to have enough of the Oriental in him to be somewhat inscrutable, but to my eyes, he was mainly Slavic. Maurice had mentioned he came from Harbin and claimed to be a descent of tsarist refugees. Certainly enough White Russian in him to have a sturdy, if extremely well-toned, physique and a well-chiseled face. And his hearty laugh and the way the others at his table responded and accepted him - obviously a well-liked man of good humor.

David hadn't been like that. As he'd gotten older - and especially as he came to choose to think that I never aged along with him - and his maladies had set in, he'd gotten more ill-humored and snappish. 'When will you grow into looking like a man,' he'd mutter at me whenever we had a fight. But what was I supposed to do about that? There were certain attributes that made for a horse jockey type. The grand tour of Asia was supposed to make him happier. Well, that didn't happen.

'So, you fancy him, don't you? Our quarter White Russian.'

'Yes, yes, I fancy him,' I answered in barely controlled exasperation.

* * * *

'So, you fancy him, do you?'

'Excuse me?' I responded. Surprised to hear myself addressed. It was midday in the Raffles Hotel Long Bar, and I hadn't realized that anyone was sitting at my elbow. I was slinging gin and tonics down in some sort of wake, although I had no idea how an official wake should go. I didn't even like gin and tonics. But this is what David drank, so this is what I was drinking. It was, after all, David's wake.

'The bartender. You two have been chatting it up and you both look quite good. I thought you were working up to getting it on.'

'No, no, of course not,' I said. I might have been a little short with him, but the barkeep and I had been saying enough for him to know what our preferences were.

I turned and focused on the man sitting beside me at the bar who had asked me this strange question. He was maybe pushing fifty, but he didn't drive a desk, I could tell. He had that hands-on worker aspect about him. Salt and pepper hair, and a lot of it. Thick curlings at the V of his open sports shirt and matting on the backs of his thick-fingered hands where they extended from his sports coat. But he also exuded money and power. Germanic would be what I'd guess if I had to make a guess. I wasn't surprised he was chatting me up. I seem to have something that attracts these older men. David had been about his age when he had transitioned from me riding his horses to him riding me and eventually asking me to move my toothbrush into the main house.

'No,' I started again. 'I just needed someone to talk to, I guess - to share a last salute with. And I thought the bartender was the only one here. I didn't see you at the bar.'

'I wasn't at the bar. I was over there in the corner. Waiting for you to come in.'

I didn't have time to process this, because he continued.

'Someone to share a last salute with. I don't . . .'

'My companion . . . Oh, hell, my lover, the man who fed and clothed me . . . died the other day here in the Raffles Hotel. In bed . . . with me. I've just now gotten the paperwork finished and seen his body off for the States. But there wasn't room for me in the box to Boston. So, I'm here, high and dry. I don't know if I'm here to mourn him or to feel sorry for myself.'

What was I saying? I blushed in embarrassment. 'I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said all of that. I guess I'm still in shock. I hope I didn't say that to the bartender. I just don't remember. Too many gin and tonics, I guess. I'm such a bore.'

'No, no, you aren't a bore at all. You're endearing. And, yes, you did mention to the bartender that you had been a racing jockey some years past. That caught me by surprise. You don't look hardly old enough to have had a past - or to be in this bar, for that matter. And you've said enough to the bartender that I thought you might fancy each other.'

I could tell a pass when I heard one. I started wondering whether I might string my Singapore stay out for another meal and a night. That was pretty hard as nails of me, I knew. But after tonight my suitcase would be in the hall, and Singapore's welcome mat would be jerked out from underneath me, and I had no more prospect of leaving Singapore than I had of staying here. It was unfair, really, I thought. I'd given up a promising Jockeying career to go with David; you didn't just dip in and out of that, you had to have a progression of recent successful rides to get anywhere. And I'd been nursemaid and lover to him for nearly ten years - all to the horror of his family. There would be no succor in that direction. I'd not get a dime from any of them to get home on, even though I'd been more family to him for nearly a decade than any of them had been.

The man beside me backed right off of what he was getting into saying, though. His whole expression changed. He became jocular, as if he was afraid he'd been too forward. But in my straits, I'm not sure what too forward would look like. I'd given out for my keep for some time now; I hadn't honed any other skills.

'Say, I'm starving,' he said - as if he'd been thinking for some time how to move this proposition along and this was the best he could come up with. 'You wouldn't like to join me for a bit to eat in the Palm Court, would you? I hate to eat alone.'

'Umm, the Palm Court isn't exactly in my budge at . . .' I mumbled.

'Oh bother that,' he said. 'My treat, of course. My name's Maurice, by the way. And yours is . . .'

'Paul . . . just Paul.'

'Well, Just Paul, tell me, do you fancy the bartender?'

I must have given him a very peculiar look, because he immediately steamed back into the conversation.

'Ummm, well. Pity that. But come, the Palm Court awaits us.'

Over dinner Maurice established that he owned container ships plying around the world in the tropic zones and that he had one he was taking to Miami via the India, Africa, and South America route that was about to set sail.

'I get the impression your David's sudden death has left you here high and dry,' he said over coffee. 'Would it help to get you to Miami?'

Would it ever. I'd do just about anything for him to get passage to Miami.

'It wouldn't be the fastest route, of course. It would take more than a month actually . . . but if you're interested, I could take you on board tomorrow. No, no problem, no cost to you. It would just be good to have someone to talk with during the journey. I'm not taking on any other passengers this time; you'd be no added cost to me; more than enough provisions are already on board, and what's not consumed will just have to be thrown out.'

Manna dropped from heaven. I didn't even try to pretend that I wouldn't jump at the offer.

'Would you like me to come up to your room with you tonight?' I asked as we were rising from the dinner table. I didn't want there to be any misunderstanding how grateful I was and what he had a right to ask of me in return.

'No, no. Not tonight. That's not necessary. Have your bags down by 9:30 tomorrow and we'll leave straight for the docks.'

* * * *

We hadn't set down to our evening meal in the container ship's dining room until we had cleared the Singapore Straits and were steaming into the Indian sea. All alone now on the sea; no land and no other ships in sight in any direction. The sun was still bright outside; it wouldn't set for another couple of hours. The ship's mate came into the dining room as deserts were being handed out to report that we also seemed to be steaming into a squall. All hands were called on deck to methodically walk through the stacks of metal containers as big as box cars and ensure that all of the cabling holding them in place was as tight as could be. One container dislodged could roll the whole ship over in a high sea. It was going to be hard work and the sun was still hot, so all of the hands pushed their desert plates aside, stripped down to their waists, and headed for the hatchway.

I sucked in my breath at the look of the White Russian's physique when he was stripped down. Heavily muscled, bulking, a regular Zeus. In fact, all of the deckhands were large-boned, particularly well muscled; and strong looking; it obviously was a career necessity.

Maurice left with them, but he returned in a few minutes, and we finished our deserts and coffee in an otherwise deserted dining room. He was being extremely polite and solicitous - almost fatherly - toward me. Not for the first time did I feel embarrassment at my slight size and young looks. I wondered how I was going to get past him treating me like I might break in two if he touched me. David had never shown me this regard.

Over the day on board, Maurice had grown on me. I was used to going with older men, and, although 'of an age,' he seemed in better shape than most. And his curly salt and pepper hair intrigued me. I wondered if he was as hairy under that shirt as the back of his hands and the V at his neck implied. And whether he had such a luxuriant bush at his pubes - and how low he was hung. The hair leading me down that path. I was resisting the urge to run my hands under the hem of his shirt and up to his nipples and trying to start the inevitable process of the taking - right here on the dining table. I leaned in a bit toward him and moved my hand to the edge of the table near him.

~~

But then Maurice abruptly rose again from the table and took a step back. 'We should turn in early,' he said. 'If we run into the squall, it will be a rough sailing night.'

'Shall I come to your room tonight?' I asked. Maurice had still not openly expressed the price of my passage, and I wanted to make clear that I knew what I owed. I also knew from how he looked at me that he wanted me, even though he was withdrawing from every signal I was sending him.

'No, no. It's not necessary,' he answered.

I found this very frustrating. David - at least after my jockey career was shot when I stopped competing and putting horses through their paces so that I could respond to his every whim - had never let me forget that sex was my price for any favor or spending money. I hadn't needed to beg for the responsibility or right to pay my own way with the only coin available to me with David. I couldn't figure Maurice out.

My confusion and funk continued after I had gone back to my cabin, stripped down to my sleeping shorts, and tried, unsuccessfully, to read from one of the paperbacks I'd brought. The ship wasn't churning in the disquieted seas too violently yet, but it was pitching and yawing enough so that my eyes couldn't remain focused on the small print of the paperback. I had left the night lights on as Maurice had cautioned me to do with the comment that you never could tell where the furniture would wind up at night at sea and it would be best to be able to get your bearings if you had to get up in the night. But the lights cast an eerie red glow around the cabin and fought hard with every attempt I made to sleep.

I rose and padded barefooted out to the covered deck at the back of the passenger cabins, overlooking the wide span of the open hold in which the containers were stacked. Those of the deck crew who so recently had been heartily eating and laughing in the communal dining room were still hard at work, checking cables and tightening up anything loose on deck. It had grown dark now, as much from the black clouds scudding in from overhead as from the end of day. The White Russian, still naked to the waist, torso gleaming from sweat and salt water spray in the lights beaming down from the bridge, was there, not more than ten yards from where I was standing at the railing of the covered passenger deck. What came next came to me as if in a dream.

* * * *

He has come to me in the darkness of night in a stormy sea, riding me on the crest of the waves. I have had to raise the side the rails to stay in the berth as the ship struggles through the squall, rolling and churning through the stormy sea. He comes down heavily on my back as I'm stretched out in the berth on my belly. He is heavy with undulating, insistent muscle, invading, consuming.

Unable to sleep in the tossing sea, I had come to the rail and watched the deckhands moving like dancers, tightening the ropes, securing the cargo. I watched him, the burly White Russian, for hours as the ship raced toward the twilight horizon, just ahead of the storm, losing the race by the minute, inevitably being enfolded from behind in consuming embrace.

Stripped to the waist, he worked hard with ropes at the bow of the ship, letting his muscles and hands work as they knew so masterfully to do. Beauty in motion. Sensual. Arousing. No longer watching what he was doing, because he was watching me.

'What was that you said?' I called out over tumult.

'Your cabin number?' he called back. 'I can come soon. I want to fuck you.'

'Fuck me?' I cried out in shock. Maurice had told him, had told the White Russian I fancied him.

'Your cabin number,' He called back. No longer a question.

I wonder if he would have come anyway, even if I had not told him the number.

Heavy, stretched out, covering me. Wet and salty, just come from the sea. Too strong for me, even if I had wanted to struggle. He gives me no choice, however. His strong arms lace under my armpits and back over my shoulders and make a fist with his hands at the nape of my neck.

His knees are forcing my thighs apart. His club of a dick is at my channel, pushing, pushing, pushing. Entering and rising up inside me. And he just holds me there, letting the rolling and lurching of the tossing, storm-cast sea move him deeper, deeper inside me, Rolling this way and that, the hot bulb of his cock kissing and assaulting my sensitive inner walls at all angles in the rhythm of the tossing sea. Ahhhhhhh.

* * * *

He was grunting hard and I was groaning even harder. I felt the bulk of him slip away from me and both heard and felt the slurping of his impaled dick pull out of me, and I thought he'd finished with me, short of my release. Short, I was sure, of his own. I had not invited him in, but I felt a sudden loss of him.

But he wasn't leaving me; his weight momentarily removed, he turned me over on my back, and in one swift movement pushed his knees between my thighs and grabbed me above the hips, his hands so big and my waist so thin that his fingers almost met, and pulled my torso down hard into him as he thrust his dick strongly up in me once again. I cried out and arched my back, writhing and trembling under his new, stronger assault. I reached over my head and grabbed the rungs of the headboard to hold myself in place against the tossing ship and the White Russian's digging cock.

My head lolled to one side, and that's when I saw him. Maurice, sitting in a chair across the cabin. Naked under a robe, which was hanging open at his sides. Sitting there, one leg hooked over the arm of the chair to give him a wide stance, intensely watching the White Russian fuck me, a little smile on his face, his hand pulling slowly, rhythmically on his meat. The reddish glow of the night lights made the curled wisps of his heavily matted silver-colored chest hair stand out prominently. He was breathing heavily, his barrel chest expanding and contracting, bringing movement to the thatch of chest hair that reminded me of a breeze passing over a field of wheat. His engorged cock was big and thick, extending from a luxurious bush, its bulbous head angry red in the glow of the night lights - and glistening with precum. His eyes glued to the spectacle of the slight me being manhandled and fucked by the burly White Russian deckhand.

The rolling of the ship and the thrusting of the White Russian's cock was too much for me. I gave a gasp and my muscles tightened, and then I gave a little scream, collapsed under the relentless pounding, and released my seed up into the muscular, flat belly muscle of the thrusting deckhand. He, in turn, roared in triumph and jerked and ejaculated deep inside me.

Then he was gone but was almost immediately replaced by Maurice, who took up the just-vacated position, his knees pushing under my ass cheeks and thighs, his strong hands digging into my hips, a thicker cock than the deckhand's thrusting inside me. And thrusting and thrusting. Fucking me hard, the rolling of the disquieted sea tossing and turning and churning me on his relentless cock. I ran my hands up through the enticing thick hair on his chest and took his nipples between my fingers and gently squeezed. I smiled into his face, a smile of welcome, of gratitude for the free passage. Wanting him to enjoy the fuck. Enjoying the fuck myself.

But Maurice had worked himself up into a frenzy in his voyeuristic foreplay. My welcoming him wasn't really the image and the fulfilled fantasy he was seeking.

'Fight me,' he demanded. 'Struggle for your freedom or I'll fuck you unconscious.' Then he backhanded me across the face, and I began to writhe under him, trying to escape. But this was probably why he had selected me. I was small and light, and although I was strong, I wasn't strong enough for the White Russian or for Maurice.

I did manage to dislodge his cock and scramble over to the side, but the safety slats on the side of the bed were insurmountable, especially as the ship had taken that moment to lurch to port and roll me back into Maurice.

He laughed and grabbed me around the waist with one hand and scooped up two pillows with the other. He turned me on my face and forced the pillows under my belly, raising my hips to him. The lurching of the ship was tossing us about, but Maurice was used to this. He crouched up over my hips, his thighs encasing mine. I felt his hand positioning his angry red knob at my hole, and then he reared his pelvis back and brutally thrust inside me and started pumping me hard. Going with the lurching of the ship, using the ship's motion to delve deeper into my channel and assault and caress every inch of my channel walls as he drove up inside me. Driving me to distraction. Sensations I'd never felt before. Completely taken, wholly controlled and invaded.

He was riding me like a jockey in a closely contested race, the image not lost to either one of us. He ran the fingers of one hand into my hair, and grabbed, and lifted my head up toward his face, arching my back painfully. Bringing my ear to his lips, he whispered in a throaty, lust-driven tone, 'Did your David ride you like this, my little filly? Was he this big and thick, and did he thrust like this . . . and . . . umph . . . like this . . . and like THIS?' Each brutal thrust made me jerk and spasm. Then he bit me on the earlobe.

I gasped and yelped a reply, but he wasn't listening to me. He wasn't interested in what I had to say. He had been so reserved and mannerly in the light of day. In the light of the reddish night light and on the tossing sea, he was something else altogether. He was a vengeful god; King Neptune. And he was splitting me asunder with his spear. I was completely in thrall to him. Alone out here on the sea. Completely at his mercy.

And his mercy was very thin at the moment. He was riding me like a rodeo bull performer, tossed by the wallowing ship, duplicating the fury of the gale thrusting against the creaking ship. He was slapping my butt cheeks with stinging blows from his hands, and pistoning inside me, and riding . . . riding . . . riding.

* * * *

The next morning, the sea was calm as glass. I remarked on this to the third mate as I was entering the dining room, and he said, 'Yes, that's not unusual. But the weather charts say to expect another rough night at sea tonight.'

The deckhands - and the ship owner and passenger as well - were quiet and a bit groggy after a hard night at sea - harder for some than others; harder in a different way for one than for the others.

We were all withdrawn into ourselves, needing that first cup of coffee before we could even think of being decent to each other or to struggle for something to say.

Maurice was already there, nursing a steaming mug, when I fairly hobbled in, not all from lack of sea legs.

The eight deckhands were huddled over their own coffee, hoarding their cups from each other like they were treasure chests. They all looked at me as I came in. They had had their heads together, listening to the White Russian whispering, when I entered the room. He stopped whispering as soon as he saw me come in.

I went over and sat next to Maurice, not saying a word. I was trying to think of something to say, when I felt the nudge of a hand against the one I had laid on the table top. I looked up into the eyes of a smiling, blond giant of an Australian. Open smile, a gleam in his eye. A steaming coffee mug in his hand.

'A cup of Joe, mate?' he asked. All smiles, super friendly.

I smiled wanly back at him and took the cup. 'Thanks . . . mate,' I managed.

He smiled again and backed his way to the table of the deckhands and slowly sank into his seat, his eyes still on me. The eyes of all eight on me. One set satiated; seven sets in lip-licking anticipation.

I turned my eyes to Maurice, who was also giving me 'that look.'

'So, you fancy him, do you?' Maurice said, gesturing toward the Australian, his eyes telling me all I needed to know about the rough nights at sea with Maurice.

by Habu

~~

~~

~~

[thebaffledcaptain]

Kanhoji Angre: the 18th-Century Maratha Admiral, Pseudo-Pirate, and All-Around Badass

So this post got more notes than I expected it to, so I figure I may as well follow through on my promise to make a post about him! You want to know about the aforementioned badass 18th-century Maratha navy admiral and pseudo-pirate who repeatedly fended off Western invasion in India? Then you shall. I wrote a paper about this guy, so here we go.

Let me introduce you to Kanhoji Angre. Information is scant on his early life and career—sources tend to disagree about his true origins and we don’t know a lot about his family status, but modern historians tend to trace his lineage to Tukoji Angre, his father, who distinguished himself in the early Maratha navy. We know Kanhoji was descended from a long line of Maratha mariners, which meant he fought in a number of naval raids and became acquainted with naval tactics as he grew up. As an adult, he began hiring out his own fleet to the Maratha navy itself, which, at the time, consisted only of numerous small ships and sought Angre’s heavier armament, which would become essentially the centerpiece of the naval force. In a sense he single-handedly built the Maratha navy into quite a formidable force, becoming Sarkhel, or admiral in 1698, and establishing numerous insurmountable forts along the coast.

Of course, the turn of the 18th century also coincided with growing European colonial intentions in India, and Angre’s presence is well-documented in East India Company records as a nuisance, a pirate, and a warlord in different capacities. To the English, he was a formidable pirate, a scourge to European ships on the west coast of the Indian subcontinent, and a menace to the Company, who suffered significant losses at his hand. Their interactions would eventually escalate into full-on military altercations, and the Company would go as far as to seek allyship with the Portuguese and the Viceroy of Goa, but Angre would remain undefeated throughout his lifetime, which consisted of many other interactions with various Western powers. He was arguably the most powerful maritime figure on the Indian coast by the time he died, but the European primary sources tend to play that down as far as they can for obvious reasons.

But I know you’re wondering—was he, then, a pirate? Well, it depends on who you ask. While Kanhoji Angre did, in certain ways, engage in actions that could be considered piracy from an English perspective, he still operated by a clear code of conduct. One account from 1716 tells of an interaction during which Angre detained an East India Company ship to determine whether they had a pass from the governor of Bombay, with whom he was bound to a nonaggression agreement, but otherwise did them no harm when he discovered they did. On the other hand, that same account quickly makes sure to mention how Angre would pursue vessels from Madras and Calcutta, the governments of which he had no agreements with. In the words of Patricia Risso in her excellent article about the topic, Angre “did not share the English legal definition of maritime violence,” which led to the inevitable branding of him as a pirate by the British, despite the fact that he did operate legally in accordance with those with whom he had such legal agreements. Whether this makes him a pirate or not is ultimately a matter of perspective, but in my humble opinion it certainly does not make him less cool.

Regardless of his status as a pirate or a military leader, Kanhoji Angre is a fascinating, highly overlooked, and pretty damn awesome figure in maritime history, and it’s a shame we don’t have more information on him. If you’re interested in more of the primary source material, I’d recommend checking out Clement Downing’s A Compendious History of the Indian Wars: With an Account of the Rise, Progress, Strength, and Forces of Angria the Pyrate, published in 1737 (free on Google Books!), for one such English perspective, which is the source I based my initial paper on. This is mostly my excuse to infodump about a guy I think history Tumblr would love, and who stands to be appreciated more for being an interesting dude and an all-around badass.

[catdotjpeg]

Spain has refused permission for an Israel-bound ship carrying arms to call at the southeastern port of Cartagena, Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares says. Albares confirmed reports the Marianne Danica vessel is carrying a cargo of arms to Israel and requested permission to dock at Cartagena on May 21. He said refusing permission was consistent with Spain’s policy to ban the exports of all arms to Israel since the outbreak of the war in Gaza in October. “We have detected this ship, we have refused to allow it to dock, and I can tell you that this will be a consistent policy with any ship carrying Israeli arms and arms cargo that wants to dock in Spanish ports,” Albares told reporters in Brussels. Marianne Danica is carrying nearly 27 tonnes of explosive material from Madras, India, the El Pais newspaper reported.

-- "Spain denies port call for ship carrying arms to Israel" by Mersiha Gadzo and Maziar Motamedi for Al Jazeera, 16 May 2024 20:35 GMT

[nlockett]

APOD: Chandrayaan-3 Launches to the Moon (7/19/23) Birds don't fly this high. Airplanes don't go this fast. The Statue of Liberty weighs less. No species other than human can even comprehend what is going on, nor could any human just a millennium ago. The launch of a rocket bound for space is an event that inspires awe and challenges description. Pictured here last week, the Indian Space Research Organization's LVM3 rocket blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on Sriharikota Island, India. From a standing start, the 600,000+ kilogram rocket ship lifted the massive Chandrayaan-3 off the Earth. The Chandrayaan-3 mission is scheduled to reach the Moon in late August and land a robotic rover near the lunar South Pole. Rockets bound for space are now launched from somewhere on Earth every few days. © Sruthi Suresh (Space Group)

[ltwilliammowett]

Mr. Mowett, a friend of mine (as well as myself) are wondering if you would be so kind as to confirm whether or not this ship should be considered an East Indiaman in this painting. We are both of the mind that it is not, as it more resembles a ship of the line than a cargo ship. What are you thoughts, sir? By the by, I've included the description that was listed with it.

An East Indiaman outward bound in the Bristol Channel by Joseph Walter of Bristol (British, 1783-1856), dated 1849

Hi,

well, I can tell you from my seventh that she is indeed an East Indianman. And I'll be happy to explain why I think so. She does look like a warship and that's by design, she's meant to scare off potential enemies and so she sailed under that appearance, which in fact was often based on warship plans. But how can you tell that she is a merchant vessel and not a warship? Now look at the stern, it has balconies and is also held exactly like a warship, you can't tell from that, but the hull tells you. It is narrower towards the top than towards the bottom, merchants get rounder and wider towards the keel because of the cargo. So she is rounder than a warship. The rows of gunports are misleading, but that is also intentional. Only the upper row is real (( yes they were armed then too, though not as massively as a warship), the lower row is empty, these are just gunports without anything behind them. it's really hard to tell, but the design itself is a bit outdated and still looks like it's from the late 18th and early 19th century, as does its colour.

East Indiamen in a Gale, by Charles Brooking, c. 1759 (x) Even though there are almost a hundred years between them, the two ladies look very similar.

This was no longer the case with warships in the mid-19th century, when the design had already changed to something simpler. Why were the ships not adapted, well that was because the time of the east india companies was over at that time. Faster ships had taken over, and the companies lost their exclusive trading status.

In such cases, it is always worth comparing images and looking very closely, because East Indians are nautical phasmids, they are not always what they seem.

[abracadannieltherelentless]

“Time is an agony of Now, and so it will always be”: Moorcock’s Pillar of Heroic Fantasy

Art Credit: Steven Craig Hickman on ArtStation

“The Dreaming City” by Michael Moorcock depicts a wide scale fantasy world in a short amount of time but overall does this very successfully. This work was the first story to feature the widely popular character of Elric of Melniboné, inspiring other stories and appearing in later works by Moorcock such as “The Bane of The Black Sword” which helps explain more of the world created by this short story originally published in the magazine, Science Fantasy. While the character of Elric is very different from what we would usually consider a “hero”, this work of heroic fantasy demonstrates the complexity of the genre in a not-so-overwhelming way. In addition, the descriptive writing style and immersion help the audience fall easily into the fantasy world, making this one of the most accessible and relatively simple fantasy stories to pick up by anyone who has interest in the genre. 

The story essentially follows Elric, a troubled individual that is bound to his sword, Stormbringer, by some sort of dark magic or maybe a pact with a demon we later see named Arioch. Our “hero” has a central journey to seek revenge on his cousin, Yyrkoon, and save his love interest, Cymoril. He plans this quest with the help of others, such as side characters like Yaris, who will raid the city of Immyr where Cymoril and Yyrkoon are located. Past an initial confrontation between Elric and Yyrkoon, the audience is placed right on the ships of the raiding party against The Dreaming City, nicknamed this due to most of the inhabitants being in drug induced sleep. While the initial raid worked well, Elric ends up killing Cymoril due to the uncontrollable Stormbringer in his final duel against Yyrkoon, leaving his quest at an abrupt end. Upon escaping from the dreaming city with a heavy heart, Elric and the raiding party are met with vessels that were waiting for them to leave and with quick thinking, Elric tries his best to save himself against these superior ships. The troubles for Elric and the party do not end there, however. Creatures that can only be dragons start to attack and leave most of the party dead. After this attack, Elric tries to throw his cursed blade into the water he still sits on but it doesn’t seem to want to part with him. Accepting this parasitic relationship, Elric regroups with what remains of the party and prepares for whatever adventure lies ahead. 

Fantasy is a genre that seems to struggle with putting such a fantastical world in perspective to the reader. Other fantasy works that I’ve read, mainly “Lean Times in Lankhmar” by Fritz Leiber, focus so heavily on establishing a massive world in such a short time using confusing terminology and expecting one to understand what the author is meaning. From the very beginning of “The Dreaming City”, the world around the characters is well established but pleasantly brief. The introduction of the short story puts the setting in our world just before current empires in our history like India or Egypt. Personally, this grounding of fantasy with history helped me imagine the setting a lot better than just throwing me into a strange world. Moorcock even explained that this story happens “Ten thousand years before history was recorded–or ten thousand years after history had ceased to be chronicled”, giving us a time period of the story as well and further letting the audience imagine where we are historically. Past this historic perspective, we see very vivid descriptions of places within the world. For example, when Elric first arrives to Immyr in chapter two of the story, we get a gorgeous description of the city from his perspective and from this, we encounter some hints about our main character's past, further allowing the reader to imagine the world and immerse themselves. Moorcock seems to be a big fan of describing the colors and personally, this helps greatly when imagining the environment that the story is set in. 

The vivid descriptions go beyond just the environment, however. Throughout the short story, the reader gathers additional information of what Elric himself looks like. Overall, Elric is said to be the opposite of what one would think of for a “hero”: a frail, albino man that must satiate his sword's need for bloodshed in order to keep his health and supernatural powers. Through the work, we get more details about this character, such as his “youthful eyes” or his attire. These descriptions extend beyond the main character, describing the creatures of the world as well. When the raid party encounters dragons in chapter four, the reader can imagine exactly what these beasts look like without having prior knowledge. 

The aspect I appreciate the most about this story and Moorcock specifically is how he slightly diverges from what’s already established in the fantasy genre. When we think of a hero, we usually imagine a muscular man with flowing hair and set morals that helps everyone. Moorcock's “hero” is almost the complete antithesis of this idea but we as readers almost sympathize with Elric. This makes the story stick out in a way that no other work of fantasy has for me. Going back to the dragons mentioned in the story, they are unique as well due to their ability to spit venom rather than fire and smoke. There is a sense of familiarity in this work but at the same time, there are fresh ideas that I’m sure had audiences wanting more of this world and everything in it. 

Overall, I absolutely loved “The Dreaming City”. When trying to think of any quarrels I may have with this work, I couldn’t think of any that really stood out to me. It is a little lengthy for a short story, but it tells such a vibrant world that was definitely worth reading. Because of the uniqueness of Moorcock’s writing, I have found a love for heroic fantasy literature and while I’m still learning how to appreciate it more, this is an amazing start for anyone who may be interested.

Works CitedMoorcock, Michael. “The Dreaming City.” The Big Book of Modern Fantasy, edited by Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer, Vintage Books, 2020, pp. 102-119

[fatehbaz]

Oz Rock bands were big in Brazil in the 1990s. Australian surfers know its breaks. [...] [I]n the past decade [2005-2015] Brazil has had the second fastest rate of migration to Australia [...].

Australia’s connection with Brazil began in 1787 with the First Fleet voyage. This was thanks to the port of Rio’s location in the South Atlantic and a centuries-long British-Portuguese alliance – unique among European powers in the Age of Empires. The First Fleet had three layovers on its relatively cautious eight month voyage from Britain: a week in the Spanish colony of Tenerife in the Canary Islands, a month at Rio in the Portuguese colony of Brazil and a month at the Dutch East India Company’s Cape colony in South Africa. Fleet commander Arthur Phillip had not intended to rest and resupply at Rio but sailing conditions made it prudent to do so. And Phillip’s former service in the Portuguese navy ensured a cordial welcome from Rio’s colonial authorities.  

At this time, as Bruno Carvalho writes in Porous City: A Cultural History of Rio de Janeiro (2013), Rio enjoyed rising status within the Portuguese Empire. In 1763 it had been named the new capital of Brazil. In 1808 Portuguese royals fled to Rio to escape Napoleon and remained there at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. As a consequence, Rio could boast of being the only American city to serve as a centre of European power.

One First Fleet official lamented how little the British knew of Rio. This came to be addressed, as Luciana Martins notes in A Bay to be Dreamed Of: British Visions of Rio de Janeiro (2006), as increasing numbers of British visitors ventured there during the 19th century. Visitors included New South Wales Governor Lachlan Macquarie, and later Charles Darwin – along with thousands of convict and free migrants on board ships calling at the port of Rio.

Writing in Connected Worlds: History in Transnational Perspective (2005), Emma Christopher observed that in Australian history books, travel from Britain to Australia seemed to have been “covered as if in the blink of an eye”.

This inspired her to write of the “watery non-places” of the journey not as voids, but rather as places where much transnational history was lived [...].

[J]ournals by intending Australian colonists such as Macquarie’s wife Elizabeth allow glimpses of colonial Rio through colonial Australian eyes. Elizabeth Macquarie assessed Rio with keen intelligence and, more challengingly – as Jane McDermid has argued in recent research on histories of the British abroad – a callously casual racism.

First Fleet journals tell us that, in 1787, convicts confined to ship at Rio witnessed enslaved West Africans rowing Portuguese fruit sellers around the anchored Fleet transports in decoratively festooned boats.

Convicts overheard and exchanged stories from officials permitted shore leave: stories of the songs of captive West Africans awaiting sale at the port marketplace; of colourful Portuguese Catholic institutions and festivities that were exotic to straight-laced British Protestants. Stories of being forbidden, on pain of death, to venture to hinterland jewel mines. Onshore at Rio, colonial migrants bound for Australia befriended Portuguese colonists, despite the language barrier. They purchased curios. They passed judgement – glowing and harsh – on the people of the Portuguese colony, its natural and built environment, just as Brazilians in turn scrutinised them.

---

Text by: Julie McIntyre. “I Go to Rio: Australia’s forgotten history with Brazil.” The Conversation. 16 September 2015. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[mountain-sage]

Osho’s translation of Walt Whitman’s poem PASSAGE TO INDIA :

SAIL FORTH — STEER FOR DEEP WATERS ONLY,

RECKLESS, O SOUL, EXPLORING I WITH THEE, AND THOU WITH ME,

FOR WE ARE BOUND WHERE MARINER HAS NOT YET

DARED TO GO,

AND WE WILL RISK THE SHIP, OURSELVES AND ALL.

He is saying that a spiritual seeker needs to be aware that he is going into unknown waters where no mariner has ever dared to go. And the risk is not small because the challenge is “Steer for deep waters only”… leave the shallow waters for shallow minds. Those who want to know their own depths have to steer into deeper waters.

SAIL FORTH — STEER FOR DEEP WATERS ONLY,

RECKLESS O SOUL, EXPLORING I WITH THEE, AND THOU WITH ME,

FOR WE ARE BOUND WHERE MARINER HAS NOT YET DARED TO GO…

Our goal is where no one has ever dared to go. “And we will risk the ship” — if the worst comes to the worst, we are ready to “risk the ship, ourselves and all.” But we are determined to explore the unknowable. It is a tremendously beautiful passage for every seeker of truth, every searcher for the ultimate mystery of existence: shallow waters won’t do. People want everything without risking anything, and because of this, there are so many exploiters. They tell you, “Just go to church every Sunday and you need not worry. Believe in Jesus Christ, and on the day of judgment, he will sort out those who believe in him. They will enter into paradise; and those who are not chosen by Jesus will fall into hell for eternity.” A very cheap, very shallow solution: just believe in Jesus Christ. Hindus say the same: “Just believe in Krishna. Just go on repeating, `Hare Krishna, Hare Rama.'”…

Walt Whitman is one of the people who is not understood in America at all — and yet, he is the only one America can be proud of.

O MY BRAVE SOUL!

O FARTHER, FARTHER SAIL!

O DARING JOY, BUT SAFE! ARE THEY NOT ALL THE SEAS OF GOD?

Don’t be worried about safety. Is not this whole existence one? Are you and existence separate? Don’t you belong to the same source, the same God? All these seas are of God, so you are safe. Don’t be worried; you can “Risk the ship, ourselves and all,” — and yet, you are safe in the hands of existence.

O FARTHER, FARTHER, FARTHER SAIL!

Go as far as possible. Don’t leave any place unexplored.

He is not saying these words about the outside world; he is saying these worlds are within you. When he is saying, “farther and farther,” don’t misunderstand him. His meaning in the whole poem — this is only a passage, a part — is to go into the inner and risk everything — “the ship, ourselves and all.” And there is no need to be worried about security, about safety, because all this is part of one whole. To see this whole existence — outside and inside — as one, is an immense insight; only very rarely does a poet rise to such heights. He had something of the mystic in him. Although he was born in America, he had something of the East in him; hence, this PASSAGE TO INDIA. India has been for centuries the symbol of the inner journey. It is not just a political entity — it is a spiritual phenomenon. As far back as we know, people have been coming to India from all over the world in search of themselves. Something is in the very climate, something is in the very vibe, that helps.

Osho

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Image Credit & Copyright: Sruthi Suresh (Space Group)

* * * *

Chandrayaan-3 Launches to the Moon: Birds don't fly this high. Airplanes don't go this fast. The Statue of Liberty weighs less. No species other than human can even comprehend what is going on, nor could any human just a millennium ago. The launch of a rocket bound for space is an event that inspires awe and challenges description. Pictured here last week, the Indian Space Research Organization's LVM3 rocket blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on Sriharikota Island, India. From a standing start, the 600,000+ kilogram rocket ship lifted the massive Chandrayaan-3 off the Earth. The Chandrayaan-3 mission is scheduled to reach the Moon in late August and land a robotic rover near the lunar South Pole. Rockets bound for space are now launched from somewhere on Earth every few days. :: [Robert Scott Horton]

* * * *

"The world, whatever we might think about it, terrified by its vastness and by our helplessness in the face of it, embittered by its indifference to individual suffering - of people, animals, and perhaps also plants, for how can we be sure that plants are free of suffering; whatever we might think about its spaces pierced by the radiation of stars, stars around which we now have begun to discover planets, already dead? still dead? - we don't know; whatever we might think about this immense theater, to which we may have a ticket, but it is valid for a ridiculously brief time, limited by two decisive dates; whatever else we might think about this world - it is amazing."

 - Wisława Szymborska

[whiskey river]

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 9.6 (after 1940)

1943 – The Monterrey Institute of Technology is founded in Monterrey, Mexico as one of the largest and most influential private universities in Latin America. 1943 – Pennsylvania Railroad's premier train derails at Frankford Junction in Philadelphia, killing 79 people and injuring 117 others. 1944 – World War II: The city of Ypres, Belgium is liberated by Allied forces. 1944 – World War II: Soviet forces capture the city of Tartu, Estonia. 1946 – United States Secretary of State James F. Byrnes announces that the U.S. will follow a policy of economic reconstruction in postwar Germany. 1952 – A prototype aircraft crashes at the Farnborough Airshow in Hampshire, England, killing 29 spectators and the two on board. 1955 – Istanbul's Greek, Jewish, and Armenian minorities are the target of a government-sponsored pogrom; dozens are killed in ensuing riots. 1962 – The United States government begins the Exercise Spade Fork nuclear readiness drill. 1962 – Archaeologist Peter Marsden discovers the first of the Blackfriars Ships dating back to the second century AD in the Blackfriars area of the banks of the River Thames in London. 1965 – India retaliates following Pakistan's Operation Grand Slam which results in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 that ends in a stalemate followed by the signing of the Tashkent Declaration. 1966 – Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid, is stabbed to death in Cape Town, South Africa during a parliamentary meeting. 1968 – Swaziland becomes independent. 1970 – Two passenger jets bound from Europe to New York are simultaneously hijacked by Palestinian terrorist members of the PFLP and taken to Dawson's Field, Jordan. 1971 – Paninternational Flight 112 crashes on the Bundesautobahn 7 highway near Hamburg Airport, in Hamburg, Germany, killing 22. 1972 – Munich massacre: Nine Israeli athletes die (along with a German policeman) at the hands of the Palestinian "Black September" terrorist group after being taken hostage at the Munich Olympic Games. Two other Israeli athletes were slain in the initial attack the previous day. 1976 – Cold War: Soviet Air Defence Forces pilot Viktor Belenko lands a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 jet fighter at Hakodate in Japan and requests political asylum in the United States; his request is granted. 1983 – The Soviet Union admits to shooting down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, stating that its operatives did not know that it was a civilian aircraft when it reportedly violated Soviet airspace. 1985 – Midwest Express Airlines Flight 105 crashes near Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, killing all 31 people on board. 1991 – The Soviet Union recognizes the independence of the Baltic states Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. 1991 – The Russian parliament approves the name change of Leningrad back to Saint Petersburg. The change is effective October 1. 1995 – Cal Ripken Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles plays in his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking a record that had stood for 56 years. 1997 – The Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales takes place in London. Well over a million people lined the streets and 21⁄2 billion watched around the world on television. 2003 – Mahmoud Abbas resigns from his position of Palestinian Prime Minister. 2007 – Israel executes the air strike Operation Orchard to destroy a nuclear reactor in Syria. 2013 – Forty-one elephants are poisoned with cyanide in salt pans, by poachers in Hwange National Park. 2018 – Supreme Court of India decriminalised all consensual sex among adults in private, making homosexuality legal on the Indian lands. 2022 – Boris Johnson resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and is replaced by Liz Truss. Their meetings with Queen Elizabeth II at Balmoral Castle were the Queen's final official duties before her death two days later. 2022 – Russo-Ukrainian War: Ukraine begins its Kharkiv counteroffensive, surprising Russian forces and retaking over 3,000 square kilometers of land, recapturing the entire Kharkiv Oblast west of the Oskil River, within the next week.