"The Washington Post’s David Ignatius, in a column based on conversations with his insider circle of the D.C. elite, wrote that the U.S. has been contemplating a “day after” scenario that would see the deployment of a security force “composed primarily of Palestinians who aren’t affiliated with Hamas and are willing to cooperate with the Israeli troops still ringing the borde."
If you're a blacc cop you should know this is how they see u
Ideally, this policing force would be bolstered by foreign troops, operating under a U.N. mandate.” Ignatius added, “Israeli commandos might stage raids back into the center of Gaza when they receive intelligence about high-value targets.”
What's the thing where you reflexively say you're busy just to avoid things you don't wanna actually do, and then people stop asking if you want to do things, and you're kinda okay with that sorting itself out but acknowledge that it has tremendous drawbacks that interfere with other things you might wanna do?
Cause I still do that and its embarrassing in so many ways but like, I also don't wanna be an implacable curmudgeon, cause I'm not. Or at least I don't think I am.
If even one person ever popped me on it, like, 'are you really busy or just telling me that' I would admit I was just telling them that for my own reasons, and nervously chuckle through it, but nobody ever has. I would actually be super impressed if someone popped me on it because that would mean they really know how I work and know me then.
Today is the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. Stop rolling your eyes, this isn't a patriotic post! You know me better than that.
This is about spilling the tea... about the British East India Company's spilled tea, and what that had to do with Bengal, textile workers, and famine.
See, BEIC was using its private armies to open markets around the world to their trading policies, and to install local rulers who would keep the goods and money flowing. They did this in Bengal, one of the world's biggest producers of textiles in the mid-1700s.
Then, in 1768, drought hit Bengal and crops failed. People began to go hungry, but the BEIC's puppet rulers and agents just continued to collect taxes--and, in some cases, to profiteer off the sale of food. Over the next two years, these practices exacerbated the food shortages, leading to the Great Bengal Famine of 1770, in which 7 - 10 million people are estimated to have starved to death. That's at least 25% of the entire Bengali population of the time.
This put a big dent in the profits of the BEIC (oopsie, who knew famine profiteering could have negative economic impacts?), leading to a financial crisis in England. This is also why BEIC was unloading tea for cheap in the American colonies, to get some of those revenues back.
So yeah, "no taxation without representation" was the rallying cry, but isn't it interesting that we (USians, I mean) were never taught that the REASON colonists were worried about this is because they felt they had something in common with starving Bengalis: namely, the vulnerability to a multinational corporation which clearly demonstrated its depraved indifference to human suffering in pursuit of profit.
Couple of little nuggets I left out because I'm trying to be concise (ha), but they're so interesting:
The BEIC was able to unload tea in the American colonies because the English parliament, rather than let the company fail, bailed it out. Part of the bailout conditions were that they got a monopoly over tea sales in the colonies. Same as it ever was, eh?
BEIC agents who wrote letters and contacted the media (such as it was) to spread the word, and the outrage, about the completely unnecessary famine, were possibly the world's first whistleblowers.
@elonjet So, with this one flight, from Rome to Austin, his jet produced 6 times the carbon footprint that my car has produced in total over the four years I've had it. Granted, I can't drive to Rome, but my car has covered 47,000 miles in that time, or 8 times this distance.
I have had to fight for months to be able to survive from bad people and try to find a safe home, I have not had much luck, I have suffered a lot these last few weeks and I have not been able to eat or sleep well, please could someone help me get the funds to Can I spend Christmas safely?
@israel@palestine Noha Tarnopolsky: « Preliminary IDF investigation of the friendly fire killing of 3 Israeli hostages in Gaza indicates escaped captivity & were walking down a Suja'iyya alley, hands raised…and brandishing a white flag. 🏳️ IDF mistakenly identified them as terrorists. Against standing orders, 2 were shot. The 3rd hostage survived & ran into a nearby structure, shouting HELP! in Hebrew. The IDF commander thought it was a hoax and also shot him dead. https://nitter.net/ntarnopolsky/status/1735987457705816249?s=46&t=zQu0l2rebw1qkMx4YEvA_A
Pointing out that @everylibrary has joined the fedi.
If you care about US public and school libraries -- if you want to see library censorship stop -- give 'em a follow, and some spare bucks if you have 'em.
This Friday (tomorrow) at 4pm, AMASE Chair @ferrous will be talking with Pete Wharmby, autistic author, about #autism, #writing, #education, #monotropism and all that sort of thing.
Tickets are free and open to anyone. This event will be recorded.
I'm putting together my Christmas list for family. It's that time of year again. So... Send me some reading recommendations! Give me links to YOUR books, guys. I'm going to bookmark this and save it for later, so I can purchase stuff throughout the year as well. I want to support everyone.
I hope everyone will check out the comments, too. Let's all support and love one another and help each other when and where we can.
@floofpaldi Love seeing everyone promoting their work! 😊❤️ Hope the family finds a new favorite among them!
My book isn't out (yet), I just have some short stories and research articles available on my BuyMeACoffee. If you do this again next year, I'll throw my work in then. I will recommend "The Starless Sea" by Erin Morgenstern. Haven't finished it yet but what I have read I've enjoyed.
"the www is fundamentally a distributed hypermedia application."
— taylor, medividovic, dashofy. 2010.
"[i]t is far easier to standardize representation formats and relation type names (i.e., naming controls) than it is to standardize objects and object-specific interfaces."
— roy fielding. 2008.
I'm creating an extra credit question and I'm mocking up studies that sound good in media reporting but when you look closer, they're heavily flawed. I already did a scenario of teen social media and mental health. Suggestions for others that would be covered as causal in media?
Gibt es hier auf Mastodon eigentlich einen besonderen Hashtag, den man als deutschsprachige Autorin kennen sollte? Und worunter man die anderen buchigen Toots findet?