Hey, space cadets, your boss’s goal is to squeeze as much productivity after you as possible, and your bonuses and accolades and such are just breadcrumbs they lay down to keep your working for less than you’re worth.
We can get paid what we’re worth when we stick together and fight collectively, and you can learn how to do just that over at https://iww.org
Makoko is a fishing village located in the Lagos Lagoon. Due to the weakness of the nearby soil and its proximity to water, much of Makoko rests on structures constructed on stilts above Lagos Lagoon. Traditionally this area has been self governing so schools are funded and provided by the village.
The ingenious adaptation of building a structure that floats came from growing concerns with climate change and rising water levels. This adds to its versatility not just from an environmental standpoint but from a political and practical standpoint as well. The area of Makoko is consider a poor area and one of the slums of the city. The necessity to create a school that is not only low cost and sustainable but that also mobilizes as needed to serve the children of the village is significant. Additionally recent land reclamation efforts and commercial developments in the area have reclaimed much of the lagoon from the residents of Makoko. Their homes on stilts must be deconstructed and reassembled elsewhere, while the school’s maneuverability eliminates this process.
Built in 2013 with locally sourced wood and electrically powered with solar panels, the floating construct is designed to house about 100 students and even has a playground and green space. It is entirely sustainable due to the application of solar cells to the roof and incorporating a rainwater catchment system. The structure is also naturally ventilated and aerated. The barrels used to help the structure float are also used as water reservoirs from the catchment system. The floating schools are an ingenious design that serves the needs of the community in a cost effective and eco-friendly way.
(via )
Woman seeks man in ancient Egyptian ‘erotic binding spell’
Scholars are translating an 1,800-year-old Egyptian papyrus describing what scholars call an “erotic binding spell,” in which a woman named Taromeway tries to attract a man named Kephalas.
On the papyrus, a drawing shows the Egyptian jackal-headed god Anubis shooting an arrow into Kephalas, who is depicted nude. The arrow Anubis shoots is intended to inflame Kephalas’ lust for Taromeway, researchers say.
The spell is written in Demotic, an Egyptian script, and calls upon a ghost —the “noble spirit of the man of the necropolis” — to find Kephalas and “give to him anxiety at midday, evening, and at all time” until Kephalas seeks Taromeway in lustful desire with “his male organs pursuing her female organs.“
“His emphasized penis and scrotum surely are intentional as the ‘male organs’ she specifically wants to pursue her,” said Robert Ritner, an Egyptology professor at the University of Chicago who is translating the spell. Read more.
Roman Egypt is fucking wild
She want that D52 wmt…thicc
Since I’m unable to let the Romans be the sole arbiters of ‘love charms’ in Ancient Egypt (though literally every other one than the one I’m about to write is Roman Egyptian, and therefore has no real reflection on Pharaonic Egypt. We shouldn’t treat them as a cultural monolith) here’s the only example of a love charm we have surviving from Pharaonic Ancient Egypt (i.e. pre Third Intermediate Period):
O.DeM 1057 - Ostracon from Deir el Medina
Hail to you, Re-Horakhty, father of the Gods! Hail to you, Seven Hathors, who are adorned with bands of red linen! Hail to you, Gods, lords of Heaven and Earth! Come, <make> X (fem.) born of X come after me like a cow after fodder; like a servant after her children; like a herdsman (after) his herd. If they do not cause her to come after me, I will set <fire to> Busiris and burn up <Osiris>.
(Seven Hathors are protectors of birth. The threats may seem blasphemous to our ears, but this is a common way of addressing the gods when invoking them for their powers in things such as this)
Translation: Smither, P. 1941. ‘A Ramesside Love Charm’ in Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol 27; cf. McDowell, A.G, 1999, Village Life in Ancient Egypt - Laundry Lists and Love Songs, Oxford, OUP. 32-33
“In addition to our patrols and confrontations with the police, I did a lot of recruiting in pool halls and bars, sometimes working twelve to sixteen hours a day. I passed out leaflets with our ten-point program, explaining each point to all who would listen. Going deep into the community like this, I invariably became involved in whatever was happening; this day to day contact became an important part of our organizing effort. There is a bar-restaurant in north Oakland known as “Bosn’s Locker”; I used to call it my office because I would sometimes sit in there for twenty hours straight talking with the people who came in.
At other times I would go to City College or to the Oakland Skills Center..anywhere people gathered. It was hard work, but not in the sense of working at an ordinary job, with its deadly routine and sense of futility in performing empty labor. It was work that had profound significance for me; the very meaning of my life was in it, and it brought me closer to the people.
This recruiting had an interesting ramification in that I tried to transform many of the so-called criminal activities going on in the street into something political, although this had to be done gradually. Instead of trying to eliminate these activities..numbers, hot goods, drugs..I attempted to channel them into significant community actions. Black consciousness had generally reached a point where a man felt guilty about exploiting the black community. However, if his daily activities for survival could be integrated with actions that undermined the established order, he felt good about it. It gave him a feeling of justification and strengthen his own sense of personal worth. Many brothers who were burglarizing and participating in similar pursuits began to contribute weapons and material to community defense. In order to survive they still had to sell their hot goods, but at the same time they would pass some cash on to us. That way, ripping off became more than just an individual thing.
Gradually the black panthers came to be accepted in the Bay Area community. We had provided a needed example of strength and dignity by showing people how to defend themselves. More important, we lived among them. They could see everyday that with us the people came first.”
