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he's my thesis advisor now 💀

just sent my professor the most poorly written email ever about a topic unrelated to class 💀 hello and goodbye bridge i could have burnt at a later date (preferably after the exam oh my god im so dumb)

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Filipina comfort woman Hilaria Bustamante has passed away at age 97, the group Lila Pilipina has announced.

Bustamante was a member of Lila Pilipina, an organization of Filipino comfort women who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of Japanese soldiers in World War II by being captured and forced into sexual slavery.

Bustamante reportedly died of old age, a representative of Lila Pilipina confirmed.

Her passing has come within weeks after the United Nations released their finding that the Philippines failed to provide compensation for these women who were victims at the hands of the Imperial Japanese Army.

Just days earlier, comfort women group Malaya Lolas (Free Grandmothers) also urged President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to immediately seek reparations from Japan on their behalf, as “many among us are now dead and the few of us remaining do not have long to live. Some of us are already bedridden because we’ve become old, ill or senile,” its group leader, Maria Quilantang Lalu, said.

The UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women coincidentally released its finding on International Women’s Day (March 8), saying that the Philippines has failed to provide reparation, social support, and recognition for comfort women, which has led to “ongoing discrimination against them that continues to this day.”

Bustamante, who was 16 years old when Japanese soldiers captured, enslaved, and repeatedly raped her for over a year, was one of “several plaintiffs who sued the Japanese government in 1993 at a Tokyo District Court.” Although she received a letter of apology from then-Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and atonement from the Asian Women’s Fund, she insisted that the Japanese government should offer official compensation to comfort women and issue a formal public apology.

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The mango cult (Standard Chinese: 芒果崇拜) was the veneration or worship of mangoes in Mainland China during the Cultural Revolution period.[1][2][3] On August 5, 1968, Mao Zedong gave a box of Sindhri mangoes, given to him by the Pakistani Foreign Minister Mian Arshad Hussain, to the Worker-Peasant Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team stationed at Tsinghua University.[4]

Mao gave them to the workers stationed at Tsinghua University. His refusal to eat the fruit himself was seen as a personal sacrifice for the benefit of the workers. The workers believed that the mangoes were symbolic of Mao's gratefulness. The gift of the fruits coincided with the transfer of the Cultural Revolution’s stewardship from China's intelligentsia to the working class.[5]

Very few people in that region of China at the time knew what mangoes were, leading to many people being in awe of the fruit, and comparing them to the Peaches of Immortality from Chinese mythology.[7]

The original mangoes were preserved using chemicals such as formaldehyde and were displayed in various Chinese colleges.[6] Workers soon began to venerate wax models of mangoes and parade them around the country, punishing anyone who disrespected them as counterrevolutionaries. One dentist from Fulin, Dr. Han, saw the mango and said it was nothing special and looked just like sweet potato. He was put on trial for malicious slander, found guilty, paraded publicly throughout the town, and then executed with one shot to the head.[8][5]

After more than a year, the cult of the mango had declined significantly, and some people even began using wax mangoes as candles when the power went out.[1][7]

In 1974, when the First Lady of the PhilippinesImelda Marcos visited China with a box of mangoes as a gift, Mao's wife Jiang Qing tried to reignite the veneration of mangoes by giving the box to the workers once again.[7] Jiang Qing later directed a propaganda film called The Song of Mangoes.[1] However, before the film was finished, Mao Zedong died, representing the loss of the revolutionary figurehead of the Cultural Revolution. Within a week of the film's release, Jiang Qing was arrested, and The Song of Mangoes was taken out of circulation. This marked the end of the mango cult.[7]

man the cultural revolution was crazy huh

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Maybe this is what she meant by the 1830s

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when you get thinkpieces like "The Rise And Fall Of The Trad Wife" it's important to remember that they're not describing the thing, they're describing the cultural framework around the thing; articles of the form "everyone is doing thing" really mean "media is currently focusing on thing" and articles of the form "nobody is doing thing" mean "media has moved on from discussing thing", but the actual rate of thing can remain unchanged the entire time, it's media-on-media coverage.

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Critical Thinking Cheatsheet

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much to think about

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Disgust has absolutely no ethical weight. If you are basing your ethical positions on the emotion of disgust you should stop, it is entirely unjustified and leads to a huge amount of harm.

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now this was an interesting pre-work read.

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Earlier this week, I had the privilege of attending a teach-in regarding Palestine's history + current fight for liberation by a Palestinian-Jordanian former university colleague. While I can't share the exact lecture due to confidentiality, I strongly recommend looking into the following educational resources we received from the event.

Please don't stop talking about Palestine. Please continue educating yourselves and others about Palestine's past and present. One of my biggest takeaways from this workshop is the UN's (and consequently most of the world's) historical "induced amnesia" toward Palestinian humanity and rights to their own land, but continuing to educate and speak out is a direct disruption to this cycle of willful, violent negligence.

History & Other Teach-Ins:

A 101 Course to Understanding Israel’s Oppression of the Palestinian People: https://uscpr.org/activist-resource/palestine-101/

Noura Erakat, In This Moment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YavyF186PA

UCLA’s “Teach-in on the Crisis in Palestine” (Part 1 - 10/11/23): https://racialviolencehub.com/teach-in-on-the-crisis-in-palestine/ 

UCLA’s “Teach-in on the Crisis in Palestine: Genocide in Gaza” (Part 2 - 10/19/23): https://racialviolencehub.com/emergency-teach-in-the-crisis-in-palestine-part-two/ 

Gaza in Context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAKWgcpeYNo

Brief History of Israel-Palestine Conflict: https://youtu.be/nUfWTHbCS78?feature=shared

UC Berkeley Teach-in with Angela Davis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_lL0eFchEY

Haymarket Books and Critical Resistance’s Abolition and the Liberation of Palestine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9GjTMP9qZs

Zionism from the Point of View of its Victims - Edward Said: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~aoude/ES455B/said/Said_Ch.5.pdf 

Palestine Solidarity: Speak Out/Talk Back - (10/23/23, organized by Lara Sheehi and The Red Clinic) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLrC8m8Ka4E

The Dig’s Palestine Teach In interview with Noura Erakat. 

Resources from Our Teach-In:

A Newer Hamas? The Revised Charter | Institute for Palestine Studies. https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/214551

جدلية, Jadaliyya -. n.d. “Palestine.” Jadaliyya - جدلية. https://www.jadaliyya.com/Country/43/Palestine

Khalidi, Rashid. 2021. The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. https://www.everand.com/book/516439155/The-Hundred-Years-War-on-Palestine-A-History-of-Settler-Colonialism-and-Resistance-1917-2017 (I couldn't find a completely free resource, but check with your local library)

Mondoweiss – News & Opinion About Palestine, Israel & the U.S. https://mondoweiss.net. Includes articles such as:

El-Kurd, Mohammed. “What Role Does Culture Play in Palestinian Liberation? – Mondoweiss.” September 5, 2023. https://mondoweiss.net/2023/09/what-role-does-culture-play-in-palestinian-liberation/

Jewish Settlers Stole My House. It’s Not My Fault They’re Jewish. – Mondoweiss. September 26, 2023. https://mondoweiss.net/2023/09/jewish-settlers-stole-my-house-its-not-my-fault-theyre-jewish/

The Stenographer Party – Mondoweiss. November 29, 2023. https://mondoweiss.net/2023/11/the-stenographer-party/

“Origins and Evolutions of the Palestine Problem.” n.d. United Nations. https://www.un.org/unispal/history2/origins-and-evolution-of-the-palestine-problem/part-i-1917-1947/#Origins_and_Evolution_of_the_Palestine_Problem_1917-1947_Part_I

Toolkits for Organizing & Taking Action:

Palestinian Feminist Collective’s All Out for Palestine Digital Action Toolkit: https://palestinianfeministcollective.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/All_Out_Palestine_Toolkit_3.0.pdf 

Religion and Reconciliation Action Guide: https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/Religion-and-Reconciliation-Action-Guide.pdf

The Cynefin Framework: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7oz366X0-8

A Better Strategy to Discuss Gaza - Janine De Novais’ “Brave Community” Approach: https://kingdomofculture.substack.com/p/a-strategy-to-better-learn-and-talk?utm_medium=ios 

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Punk Academia, in my opinion.

Studying either at home with music blasting or at the public library, very quietly.

Possibly drinking a pepsi or something, whatever you got from a vending machine.

Whatcha reading? Books on anarchy, or maybe history, political movements, social studies -- anything that opens your horizons and educates you.

Hell, maybe you're even studying the history of punk rock? Getting familiar with its core philosophies?

Or, you know, you could also be reading a fiction book or a zine.

Taking notes on your notebook with a pencil.

The notebook is filled with poems and lyrics you've created or you've liked from other places.

Written rambling on whatever you read, something that might go up on your blog, or your zine if you have one.

Doodles, designs and stickers all over that notebook and the notebook cover too.

You're dressed however the fuck you want??? As you should??

Your hair is also however you want, casual, mundane, crazy as fuck, who cares.

Finding ways to help your community and those in need, that seems very punk academia.

Discussing what you learned with others.

Educating people who aren't in your scene, too.

Or, hell, talking to yourself about it while you work on a patch.

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27/11/2023

https://www.genocidewatch.com/it/single-post/ethnic-cleansing-is-a-euphemism-used-for-genocide-denial (only accessible on mobile for some reason)

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23/11/23

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1468-0130.2012.00755.x?saml_referrer

https://www.aipac.org/

https://www.oasiscenter.eu/it/ricordati-di-scordare-amalek-o-la-necessita-di-passare-dal-mito-al-mite

some stuff my profs referenced during seminars on the conflict

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just sent my professor the most poorly written email ever about a topic unrelated to class 💀 hello and goodbye bridge i could have burnt at a later date (preferably after the exam oh my god im so dumb)