#recent history

[injuries-in-dust]

Don't vote Conservative on May 2nd people.

[metalheadsforblacklivesmatter]

-fae

[constantly-deactivated]

Remember when Biden told Ukrainian President Poroshenko he didn’t want Trump “looking into the details” of Ukraine $money$ laundering⁉️

Things to wonder about while we watch Biden and Zelensky tell American Taxpayers to open their wallets indefinitely.🤔

[phoenixyfriend]

Me just casually grabbing for semi-common financial knowledge: you know what would make for a great contrived romance plot?

Anyway, United States in 1958-1974 is a great little period to have your male and female characters get married expressly for the purpose of "She's smarter at the money stuff but can't legally own a credit card or a bank account* without her husband or father cosigning, and her dad's a dick so I guess I'm marrying her so she can be in charge of all the money. Yeah, mine too, I'm not great with it and she might as well make the most of it, right?"

* Technically women could legally open bank accounts in 1960, but it wasn't until 1974 that banks were barred from forcing them to get cosigners anyway.

[itsbansheebitch]

Today I learned (from a Jacob Geller video, but here's an article, too) that Al Qaida went on a rampage committing arson, destroying ancient scrolls and manuscripts (specifically in Mali). A librarian who was preserving a collection of PRICELESS manuscripts in Timbuktu knew that Al Qaida would be coming to their library sooner or later, so over the course of six months with the help of several volunteers, they would transport around 200,000 books.

(Some of the documents & books in the library didn't make it out/were destroyed around January 2013) In the beginning they drove 600 mile (checkpoint filled) round trip again and again to each house that has volunteered to put their life on the line to save the books.

Eventually, that method became impossible, and he discovered he (and the other volunteers) only have one choice: FLOATING THE REST OF THE BOOKS DOWN THE NIGER RIVER. BOOKS. DOWN A RIVER. Seven Hundred Ninety One (791) TRUNKS/"footlockers" of BOOKS were sent down a river. You want to know how many made it? How many were recovered? ALL SEVEN HUNDRED NINETY ONE TRUNKS WORTH.

These books are literal relics. "Some date back to the 13th Century, and have survived more than 700 years." Bro, you are awesome, but you are going to give me a heart attack. Anyway, this some wild history and the art in these manuscripts is beautiful.

[katrinaftw44]

This is a colourization I did of the late Indian cinema actress Sridevi Kapoor. Today (August 13 2023) would have been her 60th birthday. Sridevi was born in Meenampatti, Madras State (present day Tamil Nadu) on August 13 1963. She became a child actress at 4 years old starring in Tamil films. As she grew up she began a long career in Indian cinema including Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada films. She was considered a Bollywood Superstar. In 1996 she married Boney Kapoor and they had 2 daughters Janhvi and Khushi Kapoor. Both of her daughters are now Bollywood actresses. On February 24 2018 while attending a wedding in Dubai Sridevi fell and drowned in her hotel bathroom. Her funeral was one of the largest funerals with up to 7000 fans showing up to pay respects.

Sridevi was one of my favourite Bollywood actresses. Google made a "doodle" for her today on their front page.

[useless-catalanfacts]

On a day like today (February 27th) of 1976, the Spanish police killed the worker Juan Pozierro Punyon during a construction workers’ strike in Barcelona, Catalonia.

When Europa Press published this event, the Government of Spain forced them to publish a “correction” saying that their previous news story had been a mistake and that he wasn’t killed by the police but had died as a result of an accident at his workplace.

He was one of the hundreds of people from national minorities (like Catalans, Basques, Galicians) and leftists who were victims of the Spanish State during the period known as “Transition to Democracy” (after the death of dictator Franco). This Transition is praised by the Spanish parties, including the ones who consider themselves “left” (PSOE, PCE -partially predecessor of Podemos-) as exemplary, peaceful and blood-less.

Why, if there was so much blood, death and torture? I can only guess that they don’t consider the blood of Basques, Catalans and anti-capitalists a blood not to be spilled.

[troythecatfish]

[paullorenz]

A DAY AT THE BEACH, 02-15-23

A new series of daily explorations of my recent history...my likes and loves and the colors that surround me...

[factoidfactory]

Black History Month Fact #5

Brazil was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery in 1888. Princess Isabel signed the Golden Law, granting freedom to all enslaved individuals.

That means that when my mom was a kid in the early 1960s, there were still people alive who had once been slaves.

[cpntredbeard]

Yeah, fine. Nobody wants to be reminded about how bad Biden is. So here's one I made about Obama. We will return to our regularly schedules programming of mocking whoever is currently in charge just as soon as democrats lose interest in my message the day after the election x.x check out @usauthoritarianism

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

Throwback Thursday: William Lee Stokes

William Lee Stokes was a Utah-born geologist and paleontologist. He was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and he went to Brigham Young University for his bachelor's and master's degrees. He got his doctorate at Princeton.

He is best known for his work at the Cleveland-Lloyd Quarry in Jurassic National Monument near where he grew up. He was also a professor of geology at University of Utah.

He had many scientific publications as well as a number of books.

One of his goals had been to help reconcile geology and religion and he wrote several books addressing these. He was a strong supporter of evolution and old earth but he was also a staunch believer in God. He did not believe the two were mutually exclusive (and neither do I).

He made many contributions to science, and in his honor, a small theropod found in the Morrison Formation was named after him: Stokesosaurus.

[constantly-deactivated]

Former US Congressman Larry McDonald's final interview where he explains the NWO agenda. Shortly after this interview his plane was shot down. 🤔

[racefortheironthrone]

How do you feel about electing the house every four years (presidential years) instead of two?

It is true that the United States is one of the only countries in the world with midterm elections. My understanding is that political scientists really go back and forth about whether this is a good thing - while midterm elections allow for the country to react to the policies enacted in the first two years of the most recently elected government and their outcomes, turnout tends to be significantly lower, which limits the extent to which we're really talking about a new expression of the will of the people.

Moreover, it's my understanding that political scientists worry about whether midterm elections increase the possibility of gridlock due to the tendency for the governing party to lose seats to the minority party - creating more periods of divided government. However, I think it's up in the air whether this tends to shift policy to the left or the right:

2006 saw a massive reaction to the War in Iraq, Bush's handling of Katrina, and Republican sleeze in Congress, shifting control of Congress back to the Democrats for the first time since the Gingrich revolution of the 90s.

2010 saw the Tea Party wave, which led to a persistent shift to the right both in Congress and on the state level. Although the Tea Party's fiscal policies haven't really caught on due to their negative economic effects and political popularity, their destabilizing influence on the Republican establishment certainly has persisted - opening the way for the Trump Republicans and a shift to culture war politics.

2018 saw a massive reaction to the Trump scandals and the Republican attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, breaking the Republican control of government won in the 2016 elections as well as the first major shift to Democrats at the state level since 2010. It also showed a significant shift to the left within the Democratic Party with the election of AOC and the Squad - the first breakthrough for the progressive movement's efforts to challenge establishment Democrats.

Without midterm elections, things would be very different: although Bush being able to muddle through 2006 wouldn't really have changed things because of the way the financial crisis wrecked the Republicans in 2008, the butterflying away of the Tea Party wave would really have changed U.S politics profoundly. The Tea Party wave was unusually significant because of the way it coincided with the 2010 Census and the long-term impact it had on state government - we're only starting to get back some areas that went deep red, and even now huge swathe of the country are dominated by ALEC - so avoiding that shift would really transform U.S politics, especially on social policy.

On the other hand, without the ability to challenge Trump through Democratic control of Congress, U.S policy during the COVID crisis might have been much worse and Trump would definitely have been emboldened to accelerate his campaign of corrupting the Federal government to benefit his personal interests and attack his personal and political enemies. Who knows what would have happened on January 6th if Trump had had two more years of a completely free hand. But then again, if there's no Tea Party wave, does Trump still win in 2016?

So I'm ultimately unsure as to whether midterms are a good thing and it's so momentous a change that I'm a little hesitant to recommend it.

[clatterbane]

I was half-joking earlier that it felt like somebody had decided to administer a spot of Hell's Angels first aid while I was knocked out earlier. But, locally* that would apparently be as likely to involve rocket launchers as "just" the good old kick in the ribs while you're down. No shitting.

Seriously though, I have no idea why it has felt like that after both times they've knocked me out to work on my throat. It does not feel like the usual sprung ribs from asthma coughing (though I thought of that possibility pretty quickly), because I have way too much experience with bendy-person cough sprung ribs. It's feeling like I have some kind of pulled muscles right where the lower ribs attach to my waist/hips on the side and back. The left side is worse, and spasms like hell yanking on the ribs when I touch it. Absolutely no clue how that could have happened from anything I did today (or the last time), to try and avoid repeating whatever did that.

Ah well, hopefully it will settle down some with a sleep reset again. And I really do occasionally miss being able to get weak codeine OTC. Because Tylenol is really not helping to shut that up.

* Though, maybe that's less likely in Lund where that hospital is. Because I don't recall seeing anything about anybody getting their shit blown up back in the day maybe 30 minutes' drive away in Lund. Very much unlike Malmö.

[academicelephant]

Vaping has recently became a problem in my country even among kids as young as those in primary school. I thought that to be exceptional because back in my time virtually nobody started smoking before junior high but it turned out that in mid 1970s smoking was started on average at the age of 10 and by the age of 15 over 60% of the youth smoked. That is absolutely terrifying and thankfully the percentage of smoking among young people is much lower these days but it just goes to show how you lack perspective on things when you're young; kids' smoking is no new thing, it just wasn't that common for a while (I wish it would have stayed that way though because smoking is far more harmful to kids than it is to adults, and it is estimated that over 8 million people die every year because of it)