#morocco newspaper

[ahmed25646]

PLF-2023: 46 amendments accepted for the first part

PLF-2023: 46 amendments accepted for the first part

Among the 210 amendments presented under the first part of the Finance Bill (PLF) 2023, 46 were accepted and 41 others withdrawn, indicated, Thursday in Rabat, the Minister Delegate to the Minister of Economy and Finance, Fouzi Lekjaa. Speaking during a plenary session in the House of Representatives dedicated to the examination and vote of PLF N° 50.22 for the 2023 budget year, Mr. Lekjaa…

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Marlene Dietrich (Shanghai Express, Witness for the Prosecution, Morocco)—Bisexual icon, super hot when dressed both masculine and feminine, lived up her life in the queer Berlin scene of the 1920s, central to the 'sewing circle' of the secret sapphic actresses of Old Hollywood, refused lucrative offers by the Nazis and helped Jews and others under persecution to escape Nazi Germany, the love of my life

Xia Meng, also known as Hsia Moog or Miranda Yang (Sunrise, Bride Hunter)—For those who are familiar with Hong Kong's early cinema, Xia Meng is THE leading woman of an era, the earliest "silver-screen goddess", "The Great Beauty" and "Audrey Hepburn of the East". Xia Meng starred in 38 films in her 17-year career, and famously had rarely any flops, from her first film at the age of 18 to her last at the age of 35. She was a rare all-round actress in Mandarin-language films, acting, singing, and dancing with an enchanting ease in films of diverse genres, from contemporary drama to period operas. She was regarded as the "crown princess" among the "Three Princesses of the Great Wall", the iconic leading stars of the Great Wall Movie Enterprises, which was Hong Kong's leading left-wing studio in the 1950s-60s. At the time, Hong Kong cinema had only just taken off, but Xia Meng's influence had already spread out to China, Singapore, etc. Overseas Chinese-language magazines and newspapers often featured her on their covers. The famous HK wuxia novelist Jin Yong had such a huge crush on her that he made up a whole fake identity as a nobody-screenwriter to join the Great Wall studio just so he can write scripts for her. He famously said, "No one has really seen how beautiful Xi Shi (one of the renowned Four Beauties of ancient China) is, I think she should be just like Xia Meng to live up to her name." In 1980, she returned to the HK film industry by forming the Bluebird Movie Enterprises. As a producer with a heart for the community, she wanted to make a film on the Vietnam War and the many Vietnam War refugees migrating to Hong Kong. She approached director Ann Hui and produced the debut film Boat People (1982), a globally successful movie and landmark feature for Hong Kong New Wave, which won several awards including the best picture and best director in the second Hong Kong Film Award. Years later, Ann Hui looked back on her collaboration with Xia Meng, "I'm very grateful to her for allowing me to make what is probably the best film I've ever made in my life."

This is round 5 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Xia Meng:

Marlene Dietrich:

ms dietrich....ms dietrich pls.....sit on my face

its marlene dietrich!!!! queer legend, easily the hottest person to ever wear a tuxedo, that hot hot voice, those glamorous glamorous movies…. most famously she starred in a string of movies directed by josef von sternberg throughout the 1930s, beginning with the blue angel which catapulted her to stardom in the role of the cabaret singer lola lola. known for his exquisite eye for lighting, texture, imagery, von sternberg devoted himself over the course of their collaborations to acquiring exceptional skill at photographing dietrich herself in particular, a worthy direction in which to expend effort im sure we can all agree. she collaborated with many other great directors of the era as well, including rouben mamoulian (song of songs), frank borzage (desire), ernst lubitsch (angel), fritz lang (rancho notorious), and billy wilder (witness for the prosecution). the encyclopedia britannica entry im looking at while compiling this propaganda describes her as having an “aura of sophistication and languid sexuality” which✔️💯. born marie magdalene dietrich, she combined her first and middle names to coin the moniker “marlene”. she was a trendsetter in her incorporation of trousers, suits, and menswear into her wardrobe and her androgynous allure was often remarked upon. critic kenneth tynan wrote, “She has sex, but no particular gender. She has the bearing of a man; the characters she plays love power and wear trousers. Her masculinity appeals to women and her sexuality to men.” in the 1920s she enjoyed the vibrant queer nightlife of weimar berlin, visiting gay bars and drag balls, and in hollywood her love affairs with men and women were an open secret. she was an ardent opponent of nazi germany, refusing lucrative contacts offered her to make films there, raising money with billy wilder to help jews and dissidents escape, and undertaking extensive USO tours to entertain soldiers with an act that included her a playing musical saw and doing a mindreading routine she learned from orson welles. starting in the 50s and continuing into the mid-70s she worked largely as a cabaret artist touring the world to large audiences, employing burt bacharach as her musical arranger.

First of all, there are those publicity photos of her in a tux. Second of all, I have never been the same since knowing that she sent copies of those photos to her Berlin lovers signed "Daddy Marlene." Not only is she hot in all circumstances, but she can do everything from earthy to ice queen. Also, she kept getting sexy romantic lead parts in Hollywood after the age of 40, which would be rare even now. She hated Nazis, loved her friends, and had a sapphic social circle in Hollywood. She also had cheekbones that could cut glass and a voice that could melt you.

Her GENDER her looks her voice her everything

“In her films and record-breaking cabaret performances, Miss Dietrich artfully projected cool sophistication, self-mockery and infinite experience. Her sexuality was audacious, her wit was insolent and her manner was ageless. With a world-weary charm and a diaphanous gown showing off her celebrated legs, she was the quintessential cabaret entertainer of Weimar-era Germany.”

The bar scene in Morocco awoke something in me and ultimately changed my gender

"Her manner, the critic Kenneth Tynan wrote, was that of ‘a serpentine lasso whereby her voice casually winds itself around our most vulnerable fantasies.’ Her friend Maurice Chevalier said: ‘Dietrich is something that never existed before and may never exist again.’”

"Songstress, photographer, fashion icon, out bisexual phenom (notoriously stole Lupe Velez and Joan Crawford's men, and Errol Flynn's wife, had a torrid affair with Greta Garbo that ended in a 60-year feud, other notable conquests including Erich Maria Remarque -yes, the guy who wrote All Quiet on the Western Front- Douglas Fairbanks Junior, Claudette Colbert, Mercedes de Acosta, Edith Piaf), anti-Nazi activist. Marlene was a bitch - she had an open marriage for decades and one of her favorite things was making catty commentary about her current lover with her husband, and her relationship with her daughter was painful- but she was also immensely talented, a hard worker, an opponent of fascism and the hottest ice queen in Hollywood for a long time."

"She can sing! She can act! She told the Nazis to fuck off and became a US citizen out of spite! She worked with other German exiles to create a fund to help Jews and German dissidents escape (she donated an entire movie salary, about $450k, to the cause). She looks REALLY GOOD in a suit. If you're not convinced, please listen to her sing "Lili Marlene". Absolutely gorgeous woman with a gorgeous voice."

Gifset link

"Bisexual icon and Nazi-hater. Looks absolutely stunning in the suits she liked to wear. 'I dress for the image. Not for myself, not for the public, not for fashion, not for men'."

"would you not let her walk on you?"

[sissa-arrows]

I was asked for ressources on Western Sahara so here is a list.

Context: Western Sahara was colonized by Spain. In 1975 Spain was about to leave and they somehow decided that it was their right to fucking give the land despite the fact that the people did not want it. So Spain kinda agreed to give the land to Morocco (2/3) and Mauritania (1/3). Except they had no right to. Morocco then organized the “Green March” a march during which Moroccan colonizers marched to Western Sahara and settled there. Becoming settlers in a land that did not belong to them. Morocco claims that Western Sahara belongs to them because once a long time ago (in like 1040) the chiefs of multiple Sahrawi tribes allegedly swore allegiance to the Sultan of Morocco. It makes no freaking sense. On top of it the founder of the dynasty to which Western Sahara allegedly swore allegiance was an Amazigh man from Mauritania not from Morocco. Anyway after Morocco colonized Western Sahara in 1975, a war broke. In 1979, Mauritania gave back the land Spain had given them but Morocco still refused to give back their land to the Sahrawi people. They actually decided that if Mauritania didn’t want that piece of Western Sahara then it would also belong to Morocco and they colonized it too. In 1991 a ceasefire was signed under the condition that a vote would be organized for the independence of Western Sahara. Except they never voted… Morocco refuses to. In 2020, the Polisario (the name of the Sahrawi resistance) blocked a bunch of trucks between the border of Western Sahara and Mauritania. Morocco considered that it was a declaration of war and the ceasefire ended.

(If people wanna know how Algeria is involved in all this just tell me I’ll make a post)

Now the ressources to learn more about what’s happening!!

Sons of the clouds, the last (colony of Africa) a documentary in Spanish and Hassania (Sahrawi language) about Western Sahara. The link included subtitles in French.

An article from Amnesty international regarding how a Sahrawia activist, Sultana Khaya, was abused by Moroccans authorities.

The book “Sáhara occidental: un viaje a la libertad” by Taleb Alisalem a sahrawi activist. Only available in Spanish but if you have Twitter you should really really follow him. He shares a lot of information past and current on the subject with sources.

A human rights watch article from 2022 about the situation in Western Sahara (the article mention the Human rights situation in Morocco too)

Because listening to local journalists is very very important here is a Sahrawi newspaper in multiple languages: in Arabic in English in French and in Spanish

The APS (Algeria Press Service) is also a good ressource BUT I wouldn’t suggest to quote it when you’re debating with someone who is pro colonialism. Algeria is 100% pro Western Sahara so people against the independence of Western Sahara don’t consider that Algeria is a reliable source on the subject.

A friend suggested the Book “Sahara occidental: conflit oublié, population en mouvement” by Sébastien Boulay (Western Sahara: forgotten conflit, displaced population) to my knowledge its only available in French maybe in Spanish too as the co-author is Spanish. I personally haven’t read this one yet but I 100% trust the person who recommended me the book.

[girlactionfigure]

🇮🇱FRIDAY - events from Israel  

✡️Erev Shabbat (before Shabbat) - Parshat (Torah portion) Ki Teitzei - Deuteronomy 21:10 - Seventy-four of the Torah’s 613 commandments (mitzvot) are in this portion. These include: the laws of the beautiful captive, the inheritance rights of the firstborn, the wayward and rebellious son, burial and dignity of the dead, returning a lost object, sending away the mother bird before taking her young, the duty to erect a safety fence around the roof of one’s home, and the various forms of forbidden plant and animal hybrids.

🔹WAR HINTS.. The Lebanese newspaper Al-Nahar : Yesterday, Hezbollah asked the residents of villages in the south to evacuate their homes for fear of extensive security operations by Israel.

▪️FAKE NEWS - IDF CHIEF OF STAFF TO RETIRE.. fake news going around that the IDF chief announced his retirement.  IDF spox: it’s fake news.

▪️UPDATE CAR BOMB (likely criminal) - RAMLA.. car explodes in front of a store, which catches fire. Update: 4 dead, 8 seriously injured.

▪️TWO TRY TO ENTER GAZA?  IDF surveillance detected two Israeli citizens crossing through a gate in the fence into the area of ​​the barrier between Israel and the Gaza Strip. An IDF force was dispatched to the scene, arrested the citizens and transferred them to the police.

▪️POLICE RAID - LOD.. after the car bomb in Ramla yesterday, a special extensive operation of the central district of the police in the early hours of the morning, as part of which hundreds of police officers, including special units, carried out an extensive raid on the compounds of crime families in the Juarish neighborhood in Ramla and in the city of Lod.  Many arrests, weapons seized.

▪️HEZBOLLAH CLAIMS.. from their (thwarted) attack: The Lebanese Almiadin (identified with the Iranian resistance axis) from "European sources":  In the response action to the assassination of Hezbollah Chief of Staff Fuad Shakar, 22 Israeli soldiers from Unit 8200 were killed and 74 were wounded. (This is a false report for internal propaganda purposes.)

▪️HOUTHIS CLAIM.. Muhammad Ali al-Houthi:  The return of the Roosevelt aircraft carrier to Israel and the completion of its mission confirm:  Yemen's victory in the Eternal Revolution of September.  A new victory comes to the Yemeni people with the arrival of the anniversary of the prophet's birthday.  (As above, internal propaganda message - note they think the carrier returned to Israel? And left because of them, rather than because of reduced threat, resupply and other priorities.)

(The point of these two is: see how the enemy is thinking - when there is no success, create one for the masses.)

▪️JUSTICE SYSTEM.. 274 lawyers demand to disband the current bar (lawyers governance association): "it has become political”.

▪️ATTEMPTED KIDNAPPING OF TRAVELING ISRAELIS - NATION OF GEORGIA.. A group of Israeli travelers were subject to surveillance and attempted kidnapping by a group of Arabs and were foiled at the last moment by the intervention of the local police in Georgia (the country). (Ch. 14)

▪️AIR TRAVEL.. FlyDubai increases service to Tel Aviv, 8th daily flight added.  

▪️POLL OF THE WEEK.. Channel 14 (right wing) & Maariv (left wing)

Likud - 29 / 24

National Unity - 18 / 21

Israel our Home - 13 / 14

The Democrats - 11 / 8

Yesh Atid - 10 / 15

Shas - 9 / 9

United Torah Judaism - 8 / 7

Otzma Yehudit - 7 / 9

Ra’am - 6 / 4

Religious Zionism - 5 / 4

Habash Ta’al - 4 / 5

Sa’ar - 1.2% / 1.2%

🔸DEAL NEWS.. Report: Egypt recently received a proposal for the deployment of Arab forces along the Philadelphi border corridor, negotiations are underway with Morocco, Mauritania and Djibouti.  

[todaysjewishholiday]

17 Menachem Av 5784 (20-21 August 2024)

Many people are familiar with the stories of Ashkenazi Jewish mass migration to the United States, seeking refuge from pogroms, economic hardship, and drafts into the czar’s army. What is less well known is the story of extensive migration from the same Eastern European shtetls to the plains of Argentina.

That story begins on the seventeenth of Av in 5649, when 824 Russian Jews landed in Buenos Aires, eager to start a new life together free from the constant threat of violence they’d lived with in the pale of settlement. They had been given a fabulous vision of the wonders of life in the Argentine countryside by the Argentine immigration bureau in Paris. The reality proved rather less rosy, but the new arrivals were determined. Since the entire Jewish population of Argentina had been under 2000 persons at the time of their arrival, that initial group of 824 was a significant increase to the nation’s Jewish community.

Denied their first homesteading location when the landowner they’d purchased it from decided he could get a better price, and finding the second property they were promised utterly lacking in any of the housing or farm goods they’d been told it would have, the settlers reached out to the French Jewish railroad magnate and philanthropist Baron Maurice Moshe Hirsch for financial aid for their settlement.

Hirsch was not only happy to assist, he thought the idea of Russian Jewish immigration to Argentina was brilliant and created an expansive plan to fund Jewish emigrants seeking to establish new lives in agricultural communes in the Argentine grasslands. To this end, Hirsch established the Jewish Colonization Agency, which funded land purchases and the costs of emigration and farming equipment for Russian Jews seeking to follow in the footsteps of that initial group of 824 settlers. Within 30 years, the Jewish population of Argentina had swollen from under 2000 to over 150000.

The initial group named their farming settlement Moïsesville in honor of the Baron. The cooperative structure of the Jewish settlements, who pooled resources for purchases of seeds and farm equipment, made them resilient in the face of the challenges of rural living. They learned from the surrounding gentile farmers and ranchers, adopting to the gaucho lifestyle but with distinctly Jewish touches. It is this legacy of successful rural agricultural communities that differentiated Jewish immigration to Argentina from Jewish migration elsewhere in the Americas.

The success of Jewish settlement in the hinterlands also swelled the urban Jewish population, and Buenos Aires soon became a major hub of global Jewish life and literature, with three separate Yiddish language daily newspapers, numerous Yiddish publishers, and an active Yiddish theatrical scene. In addition to the large influx of Ashkenazim, Sephardi Jews from Morocco and the Ottoman Empire also came in large numbers, which meant that in addition to Yiddish a visitor to a synagogue in Buenos Aires in the late 5600s might also hear Haketia, Ladino, or Judeo-Arabic. Over time, the children and grandchildren of these immigrants became primarily Spanish speakers. Argentina now has the largest Jewish population in South America and the seventh largest in the world, but is no larger now than it was a hundred years ago and is approximately half the size of the Argentine Jewish population’s peak. For the most part, the Jewish gauchos are a thing of nostalgic memory rather than a contemporary reality, but the migration they spearheaded has grown into a community with deep roots in Argentine soil.

[eretzyisrael]

by Ben Cohen

One of Canada’s leading French-language news outlets abruptly removed a crudely antisemitic caricature of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from its website on Wednesday morning following a storm of protest from Canadian politicians and Jewish advocates.

The image, drawn by veteran cartoonist Serge Chapleau — who has won several awards for his work and was honored with the Order of Canada medal in 2015 — was published by the Montreal-based newspaper La Presse and appeared on the front page of its print edition. It showed Netanyahu as Nosferatu, the titular character of a classic 1922 German Expressionist silent movie about a blood-sucking vampire, Count Orlok, who preys upon a real estate agent and his wife under the cover of purchasing a house and who, later in the film, unleashes a plague of rats onboard a ship on which he is traveling. The film is based on the famous 1897 novel Dracula, set in Romania.

Chapleau’s cartoon imposed Netanyahu’s features on that of a vampire wearing a grim, lifeless expression, with his hands replaced by long claws. An accompanying text displayed the word “Nosfenyahou” — a contraction of “Nosferatu” and the Francophone spelling of Netanyahu’s last name — dripping with blood. Another text beneath declared “On the way to Rafah,” the city in Gaza where Israeli troops have been battling Hamas terrorists.

Historically, antisemitic caricatures of Jews frequently depicted them as blood-suckers, building on earlier Christian libels that falsely accused Jews of using the blood of Christians in their religious rituals. Since the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel, the same motif has appeared across the Arab world in relation to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, with news outlets in Morocco, Jordan, and Qatar all publishing cartoons of Netanyahu drinking the blood and consuming the flesh of Israel’s adversaries.

By the middle of Wednesday morning, La Presse had removed its contribution to the genre following widespread protests on social media. However, the paper has not apologized for the offending image nor offered an explanation as to why it was published to the 860,000 followers of its feed on X/Twitter.

“No big deal, just the second-largest newspaper in French Canada caricaturing Jews as vampires,” David Frum — a Canadian-American writer and former speechwriter for US President George W. Bush — remarked in a post. Frum added: “That’s how antisemitism often works. A rich inventory of anti-Jewish images and themes pre-exists: the Jew as bloodsucker, the Jew as child-killer, the Jew as alien enemy. When a user wants to vent rage or dislike … the resource accumulated over centuries is waiting for him.”

Canadian politicians who condemned the cartoon included Quebec Senator Leo Housakos, who said he had been “appalled” by it.

“While Mr. Netanyahu, as with any politician, is not above criticism, this kind of antisemitic trope is reminiscent of the 1930s. I’m saddened for Jews across Canada for the level of hate to which we, as Canadians, have co-signed,” Housakos’ X/Twitter post continued.

[darkmaga-retard]

FDNY chief Daniel Nigro, the aforementioned commander on duty, says he never spoke to Silverstein that day and doesn't know of anyone who did

Etienne de la Boetie2

Sep 12, 2024

by W.M. Peterson

On September 11, 2004, the New York Times published an opinion piece commemorating the third anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. The article began by acknowledging that key facts about what happened that day continued to be withheld by government agencies:

 “In the three years since 9/11, we’ve begun to understand that it’s possible to know what happened without knowing what happened. It’s the difference between knowledge that is both private and communal. . . and knowledge that is truly public. Some of what we need to know publicly has been provided by the report of the 9/11 commission. Other answers are lacking.”

These are extraordinary words from our nation’s newspaper of record. The suggestion that the American people should passively accept being lied to about a world-changing event by those elected to serve the public interest proves there was no intention on the part of the media to find out what actually transpired that day or to hold anyone accountable. Nearly 3,000 Americans were killed in broad daylight and an impossible explanation was force-fed to the world, yet just three years after the fact the Times could hardly be bothered to investigate who did it and why. 

If America had an honest media, there is no way the perpetrators could’ve gotten away with their audacious attack and equally audacious cover story of ’19 Arabs with box cutters outwitting the most sophisticated technological superpower the world has ever known.’ An extraordinary amount of data exists proving the official story can’t possibly be true, but the media has done its best to ignore all of it while besmirching anyone who raises any inconvenient fact as a damnable ‘conspiracy theorist.’ Surprisingly, the BBC cast doubt on the official government story early on by reporting on September 23, 2001 that five of the nineteen ‘hijackers’ had turned up alive and well in places like Saudi Arabia and Morocco, and had been nowhere near New York City or Washington D.C. on the morning of 9/11. In spite of this stunning revelation, the names and faces of the men remain permanently fixed to the 9/11 legend, and the sensational story, like so many others, was hastily discarded down Orwell’s memory hole.

[lonestarbattleship]

August 4, 2023 Restoration work on the Battleship Texas

"I am 'declassifying' Hunter Miertschin's 'Top Secret' picture from a few weeks ago.

Atlantic Theater Map Declassified

On behalf of our crew, our colleagues at Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's (TPWD) Cultural Resources branch, and OnAim Conservation, I am pleased to announce that the stabilization, conservation, and partial restoration of the Atlantic Theater Map in the Captain's Cabin is complete!

This map of the WWII Atlantic Theater was painted on a bulkhead in the Captain's Cabin after September 1944 (based on references in the map). It shows the ports of call Texas made during WWII (white dots with anchors in them), where she performed shore bombardment (noted by little explosions), national capitals (yellow triangles), and a few surprise discoveries as the map was conserved.

The 1966 newspaper photo of Chief McKeown, with the map in the background. This is the only known photograph of the map prior to it being painted over.

Sometime after 1966 (which is when the only known historic photo of the map was taken), the map along with the rest of the Captain's Cabin was painted white. That act was not great, but not terrible either. What was truly terrible is a window was cut into the bulkhead right in the middle of the map sometime in the late 1970s, after the map and compartment were painted white. We believe that because the map had been painted over and the loss of institutional knowledge of the map, those who made that decision did not know it was there.

Fast forward to around 2000 when the map beings to reveal itself as the white paint begins to flake off and the map is rediscovered during the planning for the Captain's Cabin restoration. When the Captain's Cabin was restored, the window was welded up and the map was partially uncovered exposing the Mediterranean and most of Europe. In 2009, I discovered the 1966 picture of Chief McKeown with the map in the background, which spurred a lot of excitement about what possibly survived. However, due to budgetary constraints we were not able to perform any real conservation treatments to the map.

This is the map in 2002. You can see Italy, Southern France, and the Mediterranean emerging. At left you can see the frame of the infamous window.

The map sat partially uncovered and untouched until last summer. In partnership with TPWD Cultural Resources we hired OnAim Conservation to stabilize the remaining paint on the bulkhead, just prior to the tow to Galveston. This initial step preserved what remained and protected it from any vibrations from the tow and/or shipyard work. It also set the stage for uncovering the rest of the map and recreating the missing sections.

This is the map in 2011. During the 2002-2003 Captain's Cabin restoration, it was partially uncovered. But work stopped out of fear of damaging the map further.

All through July 2023, the incredibly talented husband and wife team of Zak Miano and Ariane Roesch (who own OnAim Conservation), with the expertise and hard work of artist and conservator Bob Pringle, performed the tedious work of uncovering the map by removing the remaining white paint, revealing that much more of the map survived than anyone thought. They also discovered that whoever painted the map, had painted the State of Texas in Africa in burnt orange!

This is the map as it appears today. The gloss is from Damar varnish that was used by OnAim to protect the paint and bad lighting.

Europe afte the remaining remnants of white overpaint was removed and the the destroyed sections of Spain and North Africa were recreated. You can see the explosions where the ship did shore bombardment at N. Africa, Normandy, and Southern France.

We made the decision to use French Morocco as Morocco was a 'protectorate' of France and French Morroco showed on a lot of 1940s maps.

Once the map was uncovered, OnAim added Kati Ozanic-Lemberger to the team to recreate the destroyed section and features of the map. In consultation with TPWD Cultural Resources, it was a unanimous decision to touch up the paint of the surviving sections of the map, fill in and blend in missing areas within surviving sections, and recreate the large missing sections. We made this decision for two main reasons, 1) it would preserve the existing map longer 2) it would allow us to tell the story of what happened to this map. The artistry of OnAim is phenomenal in how they blended the recreated areas of the map with the original, infilled and blended missing patches, and emphasized the surviving features that were being last. The map blew me away, but the skill of these folks was just as impressive.

The big surprise: TEXAS!

The Eastern seaboard of N. America, with all of Texas's Dec 7, 1941 to September 1944 ports of call. Another discovery OnAim made was the remnants of 'North'. THis do not show in the 1966 photo, Referencing period maps, we opted to infill the missing sections of 'North' and create 'North Atlantic Ocean'. As that seemed the most logical as to what was there -there was no 'South'. Because this was largely on the destroyed section we would not be harming the original map.

The faded areas are what survived of 'North'. The more solid and brighter blue is what was infilled. Same with the gray for the oceans.

I also want to add that Ariane, Kati, Bob, and Zach were working directly under the work going on the Signal Bridge. They performed their magic while having to deal with the sounds of needle guns, grinders, hammers, et al, right above their heads and occasionally getting smoked out from welding and cutting smoke that would get sucked into Captain's Cabin. How they kept steady hands and focus amid the normal cacophony of a shipyard environment is astounding.

Custom matching and blending colors

The detail work....

Bob and Katie recreating the destroyed section of the map.

The on OnAm team: Kati, Ariane, Zak, and Bob

As to the future of the map, we plan to have it on exhibit in the Captain's Cabin shortly after we reopen and are planning to incorporate it into an AR experience."

Posted by Travis Davis on the Battleship Texas Foundation Group Facebook page: link

[fatehbaz]

Almost four years after the French Algerian city of Orleansville was devastated by an earthquake in September 1954, the Franco-Algerian playwright Henri Krea published a play that presented the seismic disaster as a harbinger of [...] decolonization. [...] [T]he struggle was still underway when Krea wrote Le seisme: Tragedie. [...] [T]he play’s portrayal of natural disasters is intertwined with its portrayal of Roman/French colonialism in North Africa. [...] For the average historian, “Algeria 1954″ is shorthand for one thing: the beginning of the Algerian Revolution [...]. For the survivors of Orleansville, [...] “Algeria 1954″ invokes not only the revolution but also the earthquake.

For those who experienced environmental disasters in Morocco, Algeria, and France between 1954 and 1960, the consequent horrors were major events, not mere footnotes [...]. The inseparability [...] of disaster and decolonization, was inscribed across a range of historical texts [...]. These disasters occurred in the period of French Africa’s transition to independence [...]. 

Two of the disasters [...] were earthquakes: the September 9, 1954 earthquake and its seismic aftershocks in Algeria’s Chelif Valley, and the February 28, 1960 earthquake in Agadir, Morocco. The other two are of overtly anthropogenic origins: the flooding of Frejus, France, due to the collapse of the Malpasset Dam in 1959, and a mass outbreak of paralysis in 1959 Morocco, caused by a contamination of the food supply with jet engine lubricant from an American airbase.

---

These four disasters were interrelated in multiple ways. Refugees from the Orleansville earthquake found themselves in Frejus when the Malpasset Dam collapsed, and Orleansville became a model for state responses to disaster in both Frejus and Agadir. The experience of the 1959 poisoning altered the political calculus of both the US State Department and the Moroccan political opposition following the 1960 earthquake. [...]. 

Steinberg has argued that the modern idea of a “natural” disaster is a technology of power, allowing elites to obscure the processes that produce disproportionate suffering among the disempowered. [...]

Scholars Gregory Mann and Emmanuelle Saada, among others, have urged their colleagues to integrate the study of particular localities into our understanding of imperialism in both metropole and colony [...], to see beyond the colonial cultures and discourses of the imperial administrative centers (Paris, Dakar) [...].

---

The historiographic turn toward locality parallels efforts by Algerian scholars and memoirists to explore and remember local pasts [...]. Ait Saada’s examination of the Chelif Valley details an enduring discourse about the violence of the environment in Algeria that has persisted from the time of French conquest [...].

Ait Saada explains that the association of natural disaster with the uprising of the Algerian people appeared not only in the work of Henri Krea but also in that of other Algerian writers such as Habib Tengour and Belgacem Ait Ouyahia [...], as well as Jean Millecam and Mohamed Magani. Ait Saada could also have included the leftist dissidents Boualem Khalfa, Henri Alleg, and Abdelhamid Benzin, who echoed Krea in the memoir of the dissident newspaper Alger Republicain: “The autumn of 1954 opened with cataclysm. As if nature wanted to be the herald of the hurricane that, for more than seven years, would tear apart and convulse the country.” [...]

---

The intersections of colonialism and decolonization with environmental calamity are equally evident in writings about the disasters in Frejus, Agadir, and Meknes. In Morocco, there has been much interest in distinct histories of localities long neglected in nationalist historiographeis [...]. This interest is due both to the widespread perception [...] that the 1960 earthquake had a deleterious and disorienting effect on Agadir’s relation to Moroccan heritage and identity and to the countervailing narrative of the Berber cultural movement that posits Agadir as the “capital” of Morocco’s Berber culture. [...]

[I]n these localities, the experience of catastrophe was inseparable from the upheavals of decolonization, and the shape of decolonization was crafted by catastrophe.

---

Text by: Spencer Segalla. “Chapter One: Introduction.” Empire and Catastrophe: Decolonization and Environmental Disaster in North Africa and Mediterranean France since 1954. 2021. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks added by me.]

[mcflymemes]

ALMOST FAMOUS PROMPTS *  assorted dialogue from the 2000 film

never take it seriously.

it's unfair that we can't listen to our music.

i really love your band.

you made friends with them.

everyone says it's so glamorous out here.

we gotta stop them!

famous people are just more interesting.

please don't give him any more acid.

most people are just waiting to talk, but you listen.

these people are not your friends.

you are what it's all about. you're real.

give me your address. i'm coming to you this time.

let's have an adventure together, you and me.

i thought maybe we could hang out. you know. do some stuff back home like... like regular stuff, get to know each other a little bit better.

this is the circus. everybody's trying not to go home.

they make you feel cool.

your looks have become a problem.

do you give a shit about a t-shirt?

simon and garfunkel is poetry.

now listen. get it together.

this is not my idea of a good time.

oh my god. holy shit. fuck!

well, don't stop there!

they say you're dangerous. you see everything.

i love this kitchen. i fucking love this kitchen.

we showed you america. did everything but get you laid.

can we just skip the vibe and go straight to us laughing about this?

we're not groupies.

if i ever met a man in the real world who looked at me the way you just looked at me...

forgive me father for i may sin tonight.

don't you have any regular friends?

i kept thinking i was gonna go home the next day.

you look awful, but it's great. you're living your life.

maybe we just don't see ourselves the way we really are.

keep the small bills on the outside and call me if anyone gets drunk.

look at this. an entire generation of cinderellas and there's no glass slipper.

do you wanna hang with some good people looking to have a good time?

i'm glad we spoke.

you're taking notes with your eyes.

it's okay! i'm easy to forget! just leave me behind!

what, are you like the star of your school?

all the kids make fun of him.

i'm always gonna tell you the truth.

so... this is where the enemy sleeps.

excuse me, but didn't we all get into this to avoid responsibility?

could you please give them a message for me?

i'm still in love with you.

go do your job then.

you're like a family to me.

some people have a hard time explaining rock 'n' roll.

they don't even know what it is to be a fan. you know? to truly love some silly little piece of music, or some band, so much that it hurts.

how do we know you're not a cop, huh?

i sound like a dick!

i can't say anymore with the writer here.

your mom kind of freaked me out.

you don't know what they say to me in private.

is a song better when it really happened to you?

i have to go home.

god, it's gonna get ugly.

is it that hard to make us look cool?

good looking people don't have any spine.

great art is about conflict and pain and guilt and longing and love disguised as sex, and sex disguised as love.

rock 'n' roll is a lifestyle and a way of thinking and it's not about money and popularity.

i'm glad you were home.

what kind of beer?

i'm never as good as when you're there.

this is a house of lies!

from here on out, i'm only interested in what is real.

i know what's going on.

you can trust him. you can say whatever you want.

don't be self-righteous.

some money would be nice.

i waited until you broke up with them.

fuck it. i'm gay!

if you never take it seriously, you never get hurt.

i didn't invent the rainy day. i just own the best umbrella.

how old are you?

i'm gonna kill you!

one of these people is gonna save the world.

do you have to be in love to write a love song?

i've seen the future and this all works out reasonably well.

the truth just sounds different.

so you're the one who's been sending me those articles from your school newspaper.

do you wanna come?

you just held it over us, like you might leave.

there's nothing to worry about.

look, you should be happy for me.

one day, you'll be cool.

your charm doesn't work on me.

your dad was so proud of you.

i'm gonna live in morocco for one year. i need a new crowd.

what do you love about music?

what else are you gonna ban?

you cannot make friends with the rock stars.

i had to live with you, and now i might die with you, and it's not fucking fair.

music, you know... true music... it chooses you.

am i speaking to you clearly?

do we understand each other?

stop fucking looking at me!

i work just as hard or harder than anybody on that stage.

you are rebellious and ungrateful of my love.

you can tell rolling stone magazine that my last words were... i'm on drugs!

do you have any pot?

it's not too late for you to become a person of substance.

if something should happen... maybe i never said this enough, i love all of you.

you want to rebel against knowledge.

do you have to be depressed to write a sad song?

i've made a decision.

i can't live here. i hate you!

don't be a drama queen.

call me if you need a rescue. we live in the same city.

does anybody remember laughter?

you're too sweet for rock 'n' roll.

sometimes i think i live in a different world.

i am dark and mysterious and pissed off!

write what you want.

you've been kissing!

don't take drugs!

[ahmed25646]

What promotes well-being at work?

What promotes well-being at work?

Since the health crisis has upset the world of work, the question of quality of life at work has gone from a logic that is no longer limited to simple compliance with legal obligations to a logic of strategic choice and social responsibility. The desire to go to work in the morning, having the feeling of mastering your workload or even maintaining good relations at work… these are some of the…

[follow-up-news]

An early victim of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was the genetic riches of one of the traditional breadbaskets of humanity. In the first months of the conflict, Russian shells hit the Plant Genetic Resources Bank in Kharkiv. Founded in 01908, the gene bank preserved the seeds of 160,000 varieties of crops and plant seeds from around the world, and was the repository for many unique cultivars of Ukrainian barley, peas, and wheat. Tens of thousands of samples, some of them centuries old, were reduced to ash. “Under Hitler’s Germany, when the whole of Ukraine was under occupation, the Germans did not destroy this collection,” a lead researcher at the institute told the online newspaper The Insider. “They knew their descendants might need it. After all, every country’s food security depends on such banks of genetic resources.” A similar fate befell one of the world’s most important collections of wheat landraces, as varieties that have adapted to local conditions, often over thousands of years of cultivation, are known. Located in Aleppo, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) kept tens of thousands of varieties of wheat and other food plants, from 128 countries, in cold storage. When the Syrian civil war began in 02011, staff set to work loading 20,000 precious samples of crop varieties, not duplicated in other gene banks, across the borders to Turkey and Lebanon. “It was looted,” Ahmed Amri, the director of ICARDA, told me on a video call from the gene bank’s new location in Morocco. “The latest news is that it was completely destroyed.”

[olympic-paris]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more …

August 19

1867 – Germany: In Munich, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs is jeered when he attempts to persuade jurists that same-sex love should be tolerated rather than persecuted. He is probably the first to come out publicly in defense of what he calls "Uranism" (homosexuality).  Ulrichs coined various terms to describe different sexual orientations, including Urning for a man who desires men (English "Uranian"), and Dioning for one who desires women.

1919 – Malcolm (Stevenson) Forbes (d.1990) was publisher of Forbes magazine, founded by his father B C Forbes and today run by his son, Steve Forbes.

He is a graduate of the Lawrenceville School and Princeton University, where he donated the money for Forbes College, one of the five residential colleges at the University.

After dabbling in politics, including a term in the state legislature and candidacy for Governor of New Jersey, he committed to the magazine full time by 1957, three years after his father's death, and after the death of his brother in 1964 acquired sole control of the company.

The magazine grew steadily under his leadership, and he diversified into property and other ventures. One of his last projects was the magazine Egg, which chronicled New York's nightlife. (The title had nothing to do with Forbes's famous Fabergé egg collection.)

Malcolm Forbes was legendary for his lavish lifestyle, his private jet, ever larger Highlander yachts, huge art collection, substantial collection of Harley-Davidson motorbikes, his French Chateau (in Balleroy, Normandy), his collections of special shape hot air balloons and historical documents, as well as his opulent birthday parties.

He chose the Palais du Mendoub (which he had acquired from the Moroccan government in 1970) in the north-western city of Tangier, Morocco to host his 70th birthday party. Spending an estimated $2.5 million, he chartered a Boeing 747, a DC-8 and a Concorde to fly in eight hundred of the world's rich and famous from New York and London. The guests included his friend Elizabeth Taylor (who acted as a co-host), Gianni Agnelli, Robert Maxwell, Barbara Walters, Henry Kissinger, half a dozen US state governors, the CEOs of scores of multinational corporations likely to advertise in his magazine. The party entertainment was on a grand scale, including 600 drummers, acrobats and dancers and a fantasia - a cavalry charge which ends with the firing of muskets into the air - by 300 Berber horsemen.

He died suddenly in 1990 following a heart attack.

In March 1990, soon after his death, OutWeek magazine published a cover story, 'The Secret Life of Malcolm Forbes', by Michelangelo Signorile, which outed Forbes as a gay man. Forbes was known to many in his social circles as gay, but his homosexuality was never reported on in the media. When Forbes died, he was held up by many conservatives as a great American capitalist. Signorile felt that the historical record also needed to show that he was homosexual; he interviewed many people who knew Forbes as gay, some of them men who'd been intimately involved with Forbes.

Highlighting just how controversial it was at that time to report on the undeclared homosexuality of even a public figure who was dead - let alone living - many newspapers viewed Signorile's Forbes story as shocking and scandalous, and it took months for some papers to report on it. The New York Times reported on it four months after the fact in a story about outing, and still would not name Forbes, only saying that a 'recently deceased businessman' had been 'outed'. (Years later, the paper would finally report that Forbes was 'gay', in a story about his son Steve Forbes' run for the presidency).

1936 – The Spanish poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca was martyred on this date (b.1898). He is also remembered as a painter, pianist, and composer.

He was executed, shot by Falange militia on August 19, 1936. Lorca was thrown into an unmarked grave that was only recently identified in the last few years. The Franco fascist regime placed a general ban on García Lorca's work, which was not rescinded until 1953 when a (censored) Obras Completas (Complete Works) was released. Following this his plays were successfully staged in the main Spanish theaters. Obras Completas did not include his late heavily homoerotic Sonnets of Dark Love, written in November 1935 and shared only with close friends. They were "lost" (or suppressed by his family) until 1983 when they were finally published in draft form (no final manuscripts have ever been found.)

Today, García Lorca is honored by a statue prominently located in Madrid's Plaza de Santa Ana. Political philosopher David Crocker reports that "the statue, at least, is still an emblem of the contested past: each day, the Left puts a red kerchief on the neck of the statue, and someone from the Right comes later to take it off."

1946 – (William Jefferson) Bill Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001.

Clinton implemented the Department of Defense directive known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", which allowed gay men and women to serve in the armed services provided they kept their sexuality a secret, and forbade the military from inquiring about an individual's sexual orientation. This move garnered criticism from the left (for being too tentative in promoting gay rights) and from the right (who opposed any effort to allow gays to serve).

Some gay-rights advocates criticized Clinton for not going far enough and accused him of making his campaign promise to get votes and contributions. Their position was that Clinton should have integrated the military by executive order, noting that President Harry Truman used executive order to racially desegregate the armed forces. Clinton's defenders argue that an executive order might have prompted the Senate to write the exclusion of gays into law, potentially making it harder to integrate the military in the future.

Later in his presidency, in 1999, Clinton criticized the way the policy was implemented, saying he did not think any serious person could say it was not "out of whack." The policy remained controversial, and was finally repealed in 2011, removing open sexual preference as a reason for dismissal from the armed forces.

1953 – Joachim Hohmann (d.1999) was a German writer, pedagogue, sociologist, poet and post-doctoral professor. He made a name for herself among others with scientific publications on the topics of homosexuality, prejudice research , gerontology , youth research , musicology and history of German teaching.Hohmann attended grammar school in his hometown of Hünfeld up to the twelfth grade. There he stood out for his special handling of the language. At the age of 14 he was already publishing reports and articles on current affairs in his local daily newspaper. He dropped out of high school and switched to the journalism school in Munich. During this time his first volume of poetry, Mein Fisch Vulkan, was published . He then became editor-in-chief of the local newspaper Bayerwald Echo in Furth im Wald. He then switched to Dö-Werbung in Frankfurt / Main.

From autumn 1975 onwards, Hohmann attended the Fulda University of Applied Sciences.

During this time he was the editor-in-chief of the gay newspaper Mann and a freelancer for the magazine HIM.

Throughout his career, Hohmann was always concerned with poetry Between 1975 and 1999, he published around 15 volumes of poetry.

Much of his prose work and collections concerned homosexuals and homosexuality, such as Entstellte Engel: Homosexuelle schreiben (Disfigued Angels: Homosexual writings).

2005 – DC Comics orders the Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts Gallery in New York to remove an exhibit of watercolors showing Batman and Robin in a variety of romantic poses. DC threatened both artist and the Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts gallery with legal action if they did not cease selling the works and demanded all remaining art, as well as any profits derived from them.

Homosexual interpretations have been part of the academic study of the Batman franchise at least since psychiatrist Fredric Wertham asserted in his 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent that "Batman stories are psychologically homosexual". Wertham, as well as parodies, fans, and other independent parties, have described Batman and his sidekick Robin as homosexual, possibly in a relationship with each other. DC Comics has never indicated Batman or any of his male allies to be gay, but several characters in the Modern Age Batman comic books are expressly gay, lesbian, or bisexual.

2013 – New Zealand becomes the 13th nation to legalize same-sex marraige.

The legalisation of gay marriage adds another notch to New Zealand's liberal record. It was the first country in the world to grant women the right to vote in 1893 and it has declared itself to be nuclear-free since 1984.

[whileiamdying]

Artist Profiles: Hasna El Becharia

Angel Romero June 10, 2016

Hasna el Becharia

Hasna el Becharia is a female Gnawa multi-instrumentalist. She was born in 1951 in Béchar (formerly known as Colomb-Béchar, a garrison town during the time of the French colonization). This town in southwestern Algeria is a fertile musical ground, with styles such as Diwan, Foundou and the popular Haddawi repertoire to celebrate Arab-Berber weddings of this sub-region.

The daughter and grand-daughter of Gnawa musicians, she plays popular Saharan traditional songs and personal compositions. In 1972, she began to play by herself. With three friends of hers, including Zorah and Kheira who are still singing by her side, singing and playing drums and tambourines. Hasna played traditional desert tunes on the acoustic guitar. They became successful very quickly, playing at weddings, banquets, etc. Everybody wanted to hear Hasna and her pals. During their performance, people sang along all the songs. It was so noisy that Hasna began to play the electric guitar to be heard. At that moment, she became really famous. Beyond the little town of Bechar, her name was known all over the south of Algeria. Algerian producers tried to make her record some tunes on a tape recorder, but she refused because she didn’t trust them.

In less than 4 years, Hasna and her band built their own legend. In 1976, they were the guest stars of a great concert in Bechar, organized by the Union of Algerian Women, in front of a female audience.

She arrived in France in January 1999 when she was invited to a festival called “Women of Algeria. She was one of the two new-comers who emerged from this festival. Fascinated by her music, the organizers of the festival decided to put her on stage every night, although it was originally planned that she would only play one evening. Quickly, rumors spread throughout Paris about this incredible female guitar player from the desert. Journalists and producers showed up and the prestigious French newspaper Libération published an article about her.

Hasna decided to stay in Paris because her situation was too difficult in Algeria. In spite of singing about the Prophet, she did not conform with tradition. She is too free and does not accept the old fashioned patriarchal customs that still rule in her country.

The guimbri and karkabas (two instruments masterfully played by Hasna) are the pillars of North African black music. Hasna creates a powerful and rough guimbri sound and she has an astonishing sense of rhythm.

Like numerous Algerian Gnawa musicians, Hasna takes her roots in the popular wedding repertoire. In addition to guimbri and karkabas, she plays electric guitar, ud, darbuka, bendir and even banjo. At the age of 51, Hasna recorded her first album. She composed the majority of her songs in France. By no means corrupted by stage or studio performance, she took advantage of these new experiences to explore the sound of guitars, vocal timbres on different tonalities, to improvise and make new encounters. In order to make her recording, the producers brought together great musicians from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Niger.

[beardedmrbean]

A 17-year-old English boy from Oldham who went missing in Spain in 2017 has been found in France, authorities say.

The teenager, answering to the name of Alex Batty, was found in the town of Revel east of Toulouse early on Wednesday morning.

Six years ago, Alex, then 11, was on holiday with his mother and grandfather when they disappeared in Spain.

A police source told the BBC Alex had been taken to a police station by a concerned motorist.

The boy said he had been in France for two years, the police source said, adding that he bore a resemblance to the last known picture of Alex.

He was in good health and did not say he had been mistreated in any way.

The prosecutor's office in Toulouse confirmed the identity to the BBC, stating: "It is the missing child. The family have confirmed it."

His grandmother - and legal guardian - Susan Caruana told the BBC in 2018 that she believed Alex's mother Melanie Batty and grandfather David Batty had taken him to live with a spiritual community in Morocco.

She said they were seeking an alternative lifestyle and did not want Alex to go to school.

A local journalist told the BBC a delivery driver had spotted the boy walking along a road in the foothills of the Pyrenees, carrying a backpack and skateboard and, feeling sorry for him, picked him up.

"They spent three hours together in the car, and the boy told his story," Remi Buhagiar of La Depeche newspaper said.

"He said he'd been living in a kind of itinerant commune. He wasn't under any compulsion but he said he found his mother a bit weird and decided he didn't want this kind of life, and that he wanted to set his own path - that's why he decided to leave," he added.

Alex had been walking through the hills for days, Mr Buhagiar explained.

"He asked the driver if he could borrow his phone and sent a message via Facebook to his grandmother, saying he was fine and wanted to see her. He was not sure if she got the message," he said.

The area in the foothills of the Pyrenees is well-known for attracting people in search of alternative lifestyles.

The boy is currently being looked after by social services. British police have been contacted via the embassy in Paris.