Ptolemy I portrayed as pharaoh of Egypt, late 300s BCE. After Alexander the Great died without having named a successor, his empire quickly fell apart as his generals fought a long and bloody civil war for dominance. One of these generals, Ptolemy, stole Alexander’s body and brought it to his base in Egypt, using it as a sign that Ptolemy was the rightful heir to Alexander. Ptolemy was unsuccessful in expanding his power very far beyond Egypt, but he did establish a Greek dynasty of pharaohs that would last until Cleopatra died in 30 BCE. As the artwork demonstrates, this Greek ruling dynasty went to great lengths to present themselves as traditional Egyptian leaders.
Listen to activist Marilyn James discuss Sinixt/Native storytelling, caribou of the rainforest, and extinction in the Inland Northwest, from June 2019: ‘Marilyn James and Kootenay Co-op Radio have won the 2019
Neskie Manuel Award for Aboriginal Affairs and Cultural Programming for
the “In the Shadow of Extinction” episode of Sinixt Stories: Ancestral
Roots, Cultural Seeds program. The award is given annually by the
National Campus and Community Radio Association (NCRA) for a radio shows
or individual radio segment by, for, or about Indigenous people.’ [x]
Excerpts from series producer Catherine Fisher’s summary of this episode:
“In
the Shadow of Extinction” was recorded and produced at Kootenay Co-op
Radio by Catherine Fisher, a member of the Blood of Life Collective. The
Collective has been working on numerous projects from recordings of
traditional and contemporary Sinixt stories told by Sinixt
knowledge-keepers Marilyn James and Taress Alexis.
“In the Shadow
of Extinction” is based on a contemporary story told to Marilyn James by
her relative, Ambrose Adolph, about his experiences with caribou in the
Sinixt tum'xula7xw (traditional territory) in the 1930s and then after
his return from World War 2. The episode also features information about
the plight of the caribou herds in the Sinixt tum'xula7xw currently.
1) The endangered southern mountain caribou - a unique ecotype of woodland caribou - which rely on the inland temperate rainforest and live almost exclusively on Sinixt and Kutenai traditional land. Photo by BC provincial government. 2) Cedar-hemlock temperate rainforest on Sinixt land. Photo by Tourism Revelstroke. 3) Sinixt activist and storyteller Marilyn James. Photo by Catherine Fisher.
In
the episode Marilyn notes, “As settlers began settling the area, like
Ambrose said, open spaces were dissected by fences and fields. It
becomes critical for the survival of migratory animals for settlers and
people to make way for those travel corridors, but that was never
considered… Now, the caribou are like the Sinixt, they’re just a
shadow of the landscape - you don’t see them, and when you do see them
it’s kind of a vision because they’re so rare. And it was such a natural
aspect to this landscape in the past.”
“As many people are
aware,” says Blood of Life Collective member K.L. Kivi, “the South
Selkirk and South Purcell caribou herds were extirpated this past year
and the Central Selkirk herd is down to about 25 individuals. What many
people don’t realize is that pre-contact, the caribou lived here in the
hundreds of thousands and were a main food source for the Sinixt
people.”
The Lighthouse will be released on Digital on December 20 via A24 and on Blu-ray and DVD on January 7 via Lionsgate. I this descent into madness to be a lot to digest, but the performances are transformative.
Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson star in the 2019 psychological horror film. Robert Eggers (The Witch) directs from a script he co-wrote with his brother, Max Eggers.
“Nearly every Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives
voted to fully reauthorize the Patriot Act through March 2020, extending
the right of federal agents to use all sorts of secret surveillance
against Americans,” reports Reason.
As the EFF says,
“The USA PATRIOT Act broadly expands law enforcement’s surveillance and
investigative powers and represents one of the most significant threats
to civil liberties, privacy, and democratic traditions in US history.
[It] gives sweeping search and surveillance to domestic law enforcement
and foreign intelligence agencies and eliminates checks and balances
that previously gave courts the opportunity to ensure that those powers
were not abused. PATRIOT and follow-up legislation now in development
threaten the basic rights of millions of Americans.”
Kudos to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and 9 other Democrats for
voting against it! And boo to the 219 Democratic representatives who
voted to deprive us of our civil liberties!
On this day, 5 November 1843 an enslaved woman called Carlota led a slave uprising in Matanzas, Cuba. Brandishing machetes, Carlota and her co-conspirators summoned other slaves with a kettle drum, then killed the cane plantation slave owners before heading to neighbouring plantations and farms to free other slaves. The rebellion lasted until the following year, when authorities succeeded in violently repressing it. Carlota herself was tied to 4 horses and torn apart. The abolition of slavery in Cuba was eventually achieved in 1886. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1255834527935028/?type=3
This blog is mostly so I can vent my feelings and share my interests. Other than that, I am nothing special.
If you don't like Left Wing political thought and philosophy, all things related to horror, the supernatural, the grotesque, guns or the strange, then get the fuck out. I just warned you.
