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thrawns-backrest · 11 months

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Thank you all for the feedback so far!! Chapter 3 is hallway done so enjoy this one in the meantime.

Title: Buried in Ice

Characters: Ronan, Ba'kif and others

Chapters: 2/?

Summary: Ronan adjusts to life with the Chiss when a sudden revelation leads him to realize that his fate is not as firmly in his hands as he'd thought it was.

___

Ronan used to think that having to endure Vanto’s insipid company was a punishment in and of itself.

Only he wasn’t so sure of it now.

Staring at the intricate golden pattern on his sheets, he contemplated whether to trace it with his finger again or just pull the sheet over his head and try and get a few more hours of sleep.

Even in a simple suite like this the Chiss still liked their luxury. They had an affinity for gold patterns and dark colors and this whole room looked like an illustration from some exotic picture book despite being nothing more than a low end unit in the low-ranking bureaucracy’s housing district.

He vaguely remembered Vanto telling him that things weren’t the same in the secondary worlds. Apparently this kind of all-encompassing splendor was reserved for Csilla and doled out more sparingly in other places. But for all its gold embroidered glory, the planet itself was utterly depressing.

For if he were to step out of his suite now, Ronan knew, the textured fabrics and crystal furnishings would quickly give way to metal and roughly hewn rock. The whole place was essentially a hole in the ground, the underbelly of a pompous façade the Chiss went to great lengths to keep under wraps.

More secrets and more things fettering him to this place, Ronan thought bitterly and closed his eyes in despair. The despondency of his circumstances warred with his boredom and he wondered how long it would be before he started throwing crystal ornaments at the walls for fun.

Four days.

It had been four days since Vanto had been whisked away on some mission with Ar’alani, one requiring a smaller ship and a correspondingly small crew, while Ronan was left to rot in Csaplar.

Four days since he’d last seen another human face.

And two weeks since he’d realized the direness of his situation.

The sheets under his fingers suddenly felt cold and he turned to lay on his back with a shuddering, almost panicked sigh. He was handling this whole thing poorly.

Despite the apparent hopelessness of it all, his mind had been hard at work, turning over all kinds of escape scenarios in his head, from commandeering a Chiss ship to collusion with the enemy and all of them had wound up at a logical dead end because he had nowhere near the necessary resources to pull them off. And that wasn’t even considering the fact that the Chiss had him under constant surveillance.

He had pleaded, bargained with whatever entity out there was listening for some miraculous opportunity to present itself but all of it had been in vain.

In the end, following hours of frustration and scheming, his sleep had begun to suffer.

The insomnia had in turn made way for exhaustion and exhaustion meant less mental fortitude to keep the mounting claustrophobia and paranoia at bay.

Even if he did return to the Empire, he’d concluded grimly, where would he go? In the unlikely case that the military took him back, Thrawn could easily hunt him down and deliver the punishment his people couldn’t when no one was looking. He wouldn’t even have to do it himself, Ronan thought cynically as he remembered the murderous look on Faro’s face.

He’d seen the ease with which Thrawn had brought Savit to the brink of madness. How hard could it be to instigate his own subordinates? Those same subordinates who were already jumping through hoops for him without a second thought.

(What kind of crew faced off against four Star Destroyers when their commander wasn’t even on board? Madness, it was complete madness…)

A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts and he forced himself into a half sitting position.

“Yes?”

“Supreme General Ba’kif requests your presence in his office.”

He frowned to himself. Then wondered for a moment if there hadn’t been some mistake. He had already spoken at length to Ba’kif, his de facto handler on Csilla.

He’d questioned Ronan on his past, his qualifications, his service under Thrawn and his time with the Ascendancy so far, all standard procedure so far as Ronan could tell. Ba’kif would have of course already had that information, be it from Ar’alani or Thrawn or even Vanto, but he was testing Ronan for discrepancies and trying to get a sense for his attitude and loyalties.

Ronan hadn’t bothered to try hiding where those lied. If Thrawn could flaunt his true allegiance like that, then so could he. The Chiss was siphoning off imperial resources, plain and simple, and while his pretended innocence could fool Vanto, it wouldn’t cut it for Ronan.

Shaking his head with a grumble, he made to get off the bed. He briefly considered asking whatever secretary had been saddled with delivering the message if he had the right address but then changed his mind. The least they could do was keep proper track of their guests. Especially if those guests were one of a kind.

“Very well, I will be there shortly,” he said, garbling the last few consonants and finding great satisfaction in the fact that he no longer gave a damn. Retreating footsteps were the only sign that the messenger had heard him and he sneered at the lack of etiquette as he shucked the lounge robe off his shoulders, relishing the swish of long luxurious fabric as he did.

It was with a curious sense of loss that he set it down on the bed and headed out in his uniform. The same drab set of pants and tunic the Empire punished its own rank and file with.

The trip to Ba’kif’s office was one of the few he’d memorized (seeing as most of the damned city was off limits to him) and could be made on foot. Far enough to keep him away from the capital’s more important dealings but close enough to keep an eye on him.

By the time he was stood in front of Ba’kif’s door, his mood hadn’t improved much. He swallowed the apathy down with a sigh and raised a hand to knock.

“Come in,” Ba’kif’s voice called and Ronan reached for the controls. Predictably, the hatch opened after entry had been granted from inside.

The sight of the Chiss’ snow white hair and uniform made him want to raise his chin and straighten his back on reflex. But that was just reflex and his true feelings were more on the petulant side as he dragged himself to the large burgundy desk at the far side of the room.

“General,” he greeted vapidly, not waiting for permission to lower himself into a seat. This was his third visit to this place and he’d stopped being impressed by it long ago.

Ba’kif himself was a different story.

Loathe as he was to admit it, Ronan couldn’t help a sense of respect for the Chiss sitting opposite him and watching him with intelligent eyes. He couldn’t tell if the man was on the older side or if his coloring was some biological quirk – Chiss biology was still a mystery to him – but he certainly had an air of authority about him.

“Well.” Ronan crossed his arms in front of him. “Why am I here today?”

Disrespectful. Blunt. He really didn’t care at this point.

Ba’kif raised a single silver eyebrow.

“A good day to you as well, Lieutenant,” he said with a surprising lack of bite. Ronan had expected some kind of reaction but the General seemed as relaxed as always, almost unbothered.

“I hope you’re settling in well?”

Ronan felt his lips thin. As if he had a choice.

“Well enough,” he grumbled and watched as the Chiss reached for the questis on his desk.

“Good, that’s good. You don’t lack for anything here?”

A ride home, Ronan’s mind supplied sarcastically but it must not have shown on his face or else Ba’kif didn’t care enough to notice.

“I called you here today, hoping you would indulge me.” The questis was pushed over to his side. “Please. Take a look.”

Ronan reached for the device almost tentatively, his eyes running over the blue Cheunh script as he pulled it to himself.

It was a report of sorts. Some long winded document on a recent feud between two families with different accounts and a summary of the events that had sparked the conflict along with other relevant information.

Ronan found his rhythm quickly enough, his eyes skimming over the familiar bureaucratic jargon with ease, filtering out buzzwords and turgid filler to get to the meat of the text. Some of the Cheunh words put up a fight but the general gist of it was simple enough.

Still, the text was lengthy and took a while to get through. During that time, he and Ba’kif sat in silence and Ronan almost regretted it when he got to the end and had to set the questis aside, bringing his eyes up to meet Ba’kif’s.

“Well?” He crossed and uncrossed his legs under the desk “What do you want from me?”

Ba’kif, who Ronan had the uncomfortable feeling had been observing him all this time, shrugged and waved a hand. “Let’s start with the basics. What can you tell me about it?”

Ronan threw a quick glance at the screen as he formulated his answer.

“The Thuf are trying to gain favor with the Irizi.”

“Oh?”

Ba’kif leaned forward.

“And what makes you think that.”

It was Ronan’s turn to shrug. “They’re allied with the Chadok who are in good standing with the Mitth and they like to play it that way. At least they’re obnoxiously vocal about it. But a small mine on a minor world can’t keep them happy for long and that vein is drying quickly from the looks of it.”

“Is it now?”

“They wouldn’t be so frantic about it otherwise. Meanwhile their supposed ally is seeing huge success on nearby worlds and it doesn’t sound like they want to share it with anyone. It looks like the Thuf are trying to get the Mitth to side with them but that’s ridiculous when you know that the Chadok are one of the Forty. Most likely the Thuf have some dirty laundry on the Chadok business operation and are blowing this thing out of proportion to prompt an inspection. Jumping ship and securing firm ground under their feet.”

“By humiliating the Mitth and ingratiating themselves with the Irizi.” Ba’kif nodded.

“And trying to look innocent in the process,” Ronan finished with a huff.

Same old political maneuvering, different alien packaging. Just as obnoxious as it had been in the Empire, he decided as he looked around the office, desperately wishing for a cup of caf. Not that Ba’kif would have any caf but the urge for it was there anyway.

Ba’kif himself had fallen silent, one of his hands stroking his beard as he stared at a point somewhere above Ronan’s shoulder.

“Interesting… Tell me, Lieutenant, you’re not feeling your best today, are you?”

Ronan flinched in surprise and glared at Ba’kif, feeling his defenses rise.

“I had a bad night,” he all but ground out. One of many, in fact, but Ba’kif didn’t need to know that.

“I see.” Ba’kif’s hand stopped its thoughtful stroking. “Sleep deprived and yet you still managed to untangle that whole convoluted mess from just skimming the report once. Rather impressive.”

Ronan went still at that, caught completely off guard by the compliment. His moth opened and closed a few times as he processed it before he felt the urge to lower his eyes to his lap.

“I’m good at administration.” He mumbled lamely.

“So you are.”

Silence stretched between them again, this one decidedly more awkward, and Ronan felt his nerves get the better of him as the last of his patience ran out. Ba’kif clearly wanted something from him and Ronan hated it when people were cryptic about their expectations.

Director Krennic, at least, had always been straightforward in that regard. A quality Ronan missed among so many others.

“If I may General, what is all this about?” He gave in finally, rubbing a hand over his temples. He could feel a headache forming under the skin and the desire to run and curl up under his thrice damned gold patterned sheets was growing stronger by the minute.

“I’m glad you asked,” Ba’kif answered without missing a beat and Ronan felt something shift in his demeanor. As if he’d been waiting for this from the moment Ronan stepped into his office.

“The Expansionary Defense Fleet is planning to open a new division,” Ba’kif continued. “It’s a move in response to the difficulties we’ve had with resolving political conflicts that arise in the military. As you can probably guess, those are brought up in front of the Syndicure and the resulting inquiries often take more time than we would prefer to waste on them.”

A flash of long suffering irritation crossed his face and Ronan almost caught himself sympathizing.

“As a result we want to create a department that deals specifically with mediating these issues. To ensure their speedy resolution.”

“And you’re telling me this because?”

Ba’kif held Ronan’s stare and Ronan felt his discomfort skyrocket.

“Because I want you,” Ba’kif said slowly, “To be part of it.”

___

taglist (drop me a line if you want to be added): @vibratingbonesbis

#thrawn #thrawn ascendancy #thrawn trilogy #thrawn treason #brierly ronan #ba'kif #thrawn books

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contentment-of-cats · 1 year

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WIP bit 18

"Agral! Pyro!" Lomar bellows across the room. "We ordered - come eat!"

Yindan's is an old haunt of academy days. Platters of food and pitchers of premises-brewed ale beckon those who've had only mess-hall food for an entire deployment. The midshipmen scurry out of the way of actual officers and Ilyana asks when they started making the cadets this damn young.

"They all look... twelve," Jashin says, breaking the crowd in front of them while Ilyana picks up four pitchers from the counter and follows.

Half the Chimaera's bridge is tucked into a round corner table piled high with platters of finger foods and emptied pitchers of brew. They are made welcome, plates filled, and ale poured. The Ascension Games have come and gone, leaving the Chimaerans much to celebrate, but little time to do it in. Tonight might be the only night out as Thrawn and Faro are tucked up with Colonel Yularen at ISB headquarters instead of the usual amount of voluntold socializing at the Allisandre, the Diplomat, and the Admiralty Tower.

The crew is jammed hip to hip and in some places in each other's laps. Yissa wraps an arm over and gives her a kiss. "What kept?"

"A bunch of Royal and Skystrike fucknuts who wanted to know how a 'girl' managed to beat the boots off them in an undergunned Arquetiens instead of an ISD." Ilyana rolls her eyes. "With men, it's always about size."

"Oi. Some of us get by on skill." On Coruscant, Ilyana was Jashin's beard to his family - who all but disowned him when he reupped his commission last time. "Lots and lots of skill. Loads of it."

"And modesty, too." Major Quach leaned over and swiped some bokbok wings. "Got room for the other side of things, bridge ladies?"

"He's jealous that we've got the best looking and deadliest fems in the district," Yve sniffed. "Help me unfold the rest of this table if you want to sit."

The table went from a half-round to a full circle, and benches extended to make more seating. Ilyana was too busy eating as she always got the whimwhams before an engagement.

"Pyro, you did great." Quach loaded his own plate. "But why an Arquetiens? The ISDs got roasted and cracked, so why go smaller?"

"Like I said, bigger isn't better. You have to have someone focused on getting the job done instead of swanking around." Thrawn would get it. "If you can't get it done with a big ship, you're not going to get it done with a bigger ship."

"Oh? How very interesting. I do enjoy a ripping exchange of ideas with my former students." That soft, querulous voice shot a bolt of freezing cold down her spine. "Pyrondi - thesis, please."

Oh. Fuck. Me.

The entire naval section of the table looked fit to piss themselves as Pyrondi turned to behold Professor Partagaz in the white tunic and black trousers of the ISB. "Major Partagaz, sir."

The man stood, relocated himself to an empty chair, and sat with a smile. "You were a quiet one back then, Senior Lieutenant, and I read your promotion board thesis. It was quite impressive. I expect no less of you now. Thesis, please."

#pyrondi #hammerly #agral #quach #bridge nerds #isd chimaera #major partagaz #meeting your old professors #thesis please #isb #thrawn #wullf yularen

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docpiplup · 1 year

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@asongofstarkandtargaryen There's another interesting upcoming film, O corpo Aberto (The open body), it's an horror film set on Galicia at the beginning of the 20th century, starring Tamar Novas. The release on cinemas will be on December 9.

"Ninguen marcha nunca de todo" (No one ever leaves at all)

The enigmatic town imagined by Méndez Ferrín, included in the book Arraianos, is transferred to the big screen in this film debut. The filmmaker Ángeles Huerta, an Asturian living in Galicia, uses this history and this cross-border territory to explore the concept of the border in O corpo aberto, a film with the participation of RTVE, it was shot mainly in Galician and Portuguese language (who are considered as variants/dialects of the same language)

Commonly known as A Raia*, the border between Galicia and Portugal is a space in which diversity and identity merge. This is where the story of this movie takes place. "A Raia Seca is that magical space where not only national and linguistic identities are blurred, that uncertain border between Galicia and Portugal, but also where the borders between masculine and feminine or even between life and death are blurred", says the director in an interview with RTVE.es.

*A Raia or La Raya is the informal name by which the land border between Spain and Portugal is traditionally known. In a broader way, La Raia is also the geographical space, on both sides of the political border, in which the population shares the same historical, cultural, economic and sometimes even linguistic elements.

La Raya (The Streak) has a length of 1214 km. It is the longest border between two member states of the European Union and the fourth on the continent, after that of Norway with Sweden (1619 km) and those of Russia with Ukraine (1576 km) and with Finland (1340 km). From north to south, the Spanish provinces bordering Portugal are Pontevedra, Ourense, Zamora, Salamanca, Cáceres, Badajoz and Huelva. The Portuguese districts bordering Spain are, from north to south, Viana do Castelo, Braga, Vila Real, Braganza, Guarda, Castelo Branco, Portalegre, Évora, Beja and Faro.

The history of La Raya begins at the time when Portugal was born as an independent kingdom in 1143, after the Treaty of Zamora, becoming independent from the Kingdom of León. The current layout of La Raya was definitively established in the Lisbon Boundary Treaty in 1926.

In the Galician-Portuguese part of the border, it is common to distinguish between the hydrographic border and the one drawn on land. Thus, A Raia Húmida (the wet streak) coincides with the course of the Miño river in the province of Pontevedra (Baixo Miño, O Condado and A Paradanta), while A Raia Seca (the dry streak) corresponds to the south of the province of Ourense (Terra de Celanova, Baixa and Alta Limia, valley from Monterrei and As Frieiras)

Synopsis

Terror and rural drama come together in this story. We are in 1909. Miguel (Tamar Novas), a young teacher, is assigned to a small mountain town on the border between Galicia and Portugal: Lobosandaus, an inhospitable village with ancestral traditions. He is a man of reason, but he cannot control his passionate desires and, as winter approaches, he feels darkness take over everything around him while his fascination with the enigmatic Dorinda (Victoria Guerra) grows.

Dorinda had an affair with Mauro (José Fidalgo), and he is found dead hanging from a cherry blossom tree and his spirit is freed, in search of a body that allows him to continue with his existence, which will lead Miguel to question the limits between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

Cast

The actor from Santiago de Compostela, Tamar Novas, leads the Galician-Portuguese cast in this folk horror story. He plays Miguel, a rookie teacher from the capital, whose first destination is a small mountain town. He is so scientifically and rationally minded that he finds it hard to understand why the neighborhood believes that the spirits of the dead can remain among the living by possessing other bodies. He confesses that he is surprised by the richness of the film: "I went to see images of what we are doing and everything is very attractive, the space, the characters, the worlds that are alluded to, the rhythm of the film I think is to sit down and travel".

María Vázquez, from Vigo, plays Obdulia, a bedridden neighbor who, due to being ill, becomes an "open body" when she is possessed by the spirit of a Portuguese capador, Mauro. For her, the difficulty of the film was having to play a female character who, after being inhabited by the spirit of a deceased man, begins to behave like him.

Victoria Guerra, from Faro, Portugal, is the female lead of the film. She plays Dorinda, the fascinating married woman with whom the teacher falls in love and who is seduced by the character of María Vázquez. She confesses that she loves how the director approached female sexuality at the beginning of the 20th century and the closeness of the Galician and Portuguese cultures.

The cast is completed by José Fidalgo as Mauro, Elena Seijo as Aparecida, Federico Pérez as Turelo, Nicolás Otero as Clamores, Izaín González as Martín and Miquel Insua as Don Fernando.

Director: Ángeles Huerta

SCRIPT: Ángeles Huerta, Daniel D. García

PHOTOGRAPH: Gina ferrer

MONTAGE: Sandra Sanchez

SOUND: Jordi Rossinyol Colomer

MUSIC: Mercedes León- Song: "Do outro lado" (From the other side)

PRODUCTION: Gaspar Broullón, Ana Costa, Adrià Monés

PRODUCER: Fasten Films, OlloVivo Productions, Cinemate

DURATION: 91 min.

The trailer has alredy been released, probably during the following days I will make some post about it.

#o corpo aberto #the open body #films #tamar novas #victoria guerra #maría vázquez #josé fidalgo #elena seijo #federico pérez #nicolás otero #izaín gonzález #miquel insua #pics #upcoming film

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dankusner · 26 days

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When a Defendant Gets Lost in Translation

The English expression “like a deer in the headlights” has no real equivalent in Spanish.

Instead of its literal translation, “como un ciervo en los faros,” which would be lost on many Spanish speakers, you might instead use the phrasal verb “quedarse pasmado” (“to stay stunned”), which still fails to capture the momentary paralysis that accompanies the subject’s bewilderment.

That’s how Fidel Gutierrez-Garcia looked when defense attorney Robert Garcia spoke to him in Spanish about his case, Garcia would later testify: “like a deer in the headlights.”

Gutierrez-Garcia, a pecan picker from a rural part of the Mexican state of Chihuahua, had been charged in Texas with possession with intent to distribute more than one hundred kilograms of marijuana—a felony, punishable by five to forty years in prison.

On November 30, 2021, he and three other men were apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol officers while walking near Van Horn, 120 miles southeast of El Paso, carrying what the officers described as burlap sacks containing the drug.

The agents transported the men and their bags to the Van Horn Border Patrol station for processing.

The next day, two agents responsible for recovering the marijuana interviewed the men.

Unable to speak Spanish, the officers called an interpretation company to facilitate their conversation over the phone. Interpreter Christian Saenz later testified, at a motions hearing in March 2022, that he could tell Gutierrez-Garcia was not a native Spanish speaker.

The defendant, Saenz said, told him that he spoke a Mayan language.

Gutierrez-Garcia’s mother tongue turned out to be Northern Tepehuan, spoken by some 10,000 Indigenous residents of northern Mexico.

It belongs not to the Mayan family of languages but to the Uto-Aztecan family, which includes more than thirty languages spoken by Indigenous people as far north as Idaho and as far south as Nicaragua.

Few linguists in the U.S. have made it their focus.

One of them, Stefanie Ramos Bierge, occupies a postdoctoral position at the New York Botanical Garden, documenting ecological terms in the Uto-Aztecan language Wixárika.

She described Northern Tepehuan as a fast-paced and melodic language that makes frequent use of palatalizations—when consonant sounds are softened by the tongue meeting the palate, as with the “s” in “measure.”

Whereas typical English and Spanish sentences usually follow a subject-verb-object sequence, in Northern Tepehuan the object’s placement is not fixed, and often the speaker will leave out the subject entirely.

On the witness stand in March 2022, Saenz said Gutierrez-Garcia responded to his questions in Spanish, albeit with short replies, though the interpreter could not glean his level of comprehension.

But when he translated Gutierrez-Garcia’s Miranda rights into Spanish, Saenz recalled, Gutierrez-Garcia said he did not understand.

The language barrier became increasingly problematic as the case progressed.

The Western District of Texas appointed Robert Garcia—who spoke fluent Spanish—as Gutierrez-Garcia’s counsel.

Garcia met with Gutierrez-Garcia at the detention center in Sierra Blanca, 85 miles southeast of El Paso, to discuss his plea.

“He said very little,” Garcia testified during the motions hearing.

Having withdrawn from the case in March 2022 because of health issues, he now appeared as a witness for the defense.

(Garcia died later that month.)

“I would talk to him for a while, and he would . . . just sort of nod his head. And then I’d ask him, ‘Do you understand what I am saying?’ He would nod his head.” Garcia continued: “I frankly got the impression right away that . . . he was nodding his head just to be polite more than anything else.”

Given the proximity of the Western District of Texas to the border with Mexico, language interpreters are in high demand.

Typically, the court will supply defendants with one—if it can find an interpreter who speaks the defendant’s mother tongue.

Luis Navarro, a federally certified Spanish-language interpreter for the Western District of Texas’s Pecos and Alpine divisions, spoke with Gutierrez-Garcia to determine whether he could effectively translate for him in court and found that he could not.

“He does speak some Spanish, in the sense of ‘hello,’ ‘goodbye,’ ‘[my] name,’ and that’s it,” Navarro testified at the motions hearing.

Navarro informed the court that he was unable to communicate with the client and tried to help locate an interpreter who could.

But he was unable to enlist one fluent in Northern Tepehuan who was willing to take the case.

After Garcia withdrew as counsel, he was replaced by Shane O’Neal, a criminal defense attorney based in Alpine, an hour north of Big Bend National Park.

O’Neal, who is proficient in Spanish, said he could gather some basic information from Gutierrez-Garcia: he had a wife and child, he lived with his father-in-law, he picked pecans for work.

But O’Neal believed that the language barrier would compromise the case.

He filed a motion to dismiss it on the grounds that his client did not understand Spanish well enough to comprehend the proceedings against him.

“It’s a bedrock principle of our Constitution,” O’Neal told me, “that people aren’t supposed to sit through this Kafkaesque proceeding, where they are in a courtroom and a lot of things are being said but they don’t understand what’s going on, and they’re not playing a meaningful role in making really important decisions that affect both how their case unfolds and what happens to their liberty.”

Brandon Beck, a law professor at Texas Tech University, who worked for eight years as an appellate attorney at the public defender’s office in the Northern District of Texas, compared the issue of language barriers in court to the way the government protects people who are legally “incompetent” from standing trial.

“They can’t participate in their own defense,” he said.

Though the issues of competence and language proficiency are fundamentally different, the takeaway is the same: a defendant’s comprehension is essential to the due process of law.

To demonstrate this point, O’Neal put Gutierrez-Garcia on the stand during the motions hearing.

First demonstrating his client’s ability to understand and respond to basic Spanish, O’Neal asked him a series of simple questions—his name, his place of origin. Gutierrez-Garcia answered these in Spanish.

When O’Neal then asked him questions about the crime he was accused of committing, Gutie-rrez-Garcia’s responses suggested that he understood his infraction.

But as soon as O’Neal began asking questions related to the court proceedings, Gutierrez-Garcia’s comprehension seemed to hit a wall.

“Do you know what a witness is?” O’Neal asked.

“No,” Gutierrez-Garcia said.

“Do you know what a judge is?” O’Neal asked.

“Judge, yes,” Gutierrez-Garcia replied.

“What’s a judge?” O’Neal asked.

“Judge,” Gutierrez-Garcia said.

“Can you tell me who in the room is the judge?” O’Neal asked.

Gutierrez-Garcia replied, “No.”

During a recent press appearance in Eagle Pass, Donald Trump made one of his hallmark incendiary speeches, remarking on migrant traffic crossing the Texas-Mexico border.

“We have languages coming into our country,” he said from the town 330 miles northwest of Brownsville. “We have nobody that even speaks those languages. They’re truly foreign languages. Nobody speaks them.”

The remark drew plenty of criticism that noted the obvious:

“It cannot be the case both that someone speaks a language and that no one speaks that language,” wrote a Washington Post columnist.

But in the sense that some of the rare languages spoken by migrants are barely spoken in the United States, Trump’s not wrong.

“There are people who come here and no one speaks their languages,” said O’Neal.

For the few interpreters in the U.S. court system who are fluent in rare Indigenous languages, the task is a formidable one.

For one, they must contend with the regular challenges of interpretation, making choices about what to prioritize—intonation, logic, sentence structure—within the overall transmission of meaning.

They also face unique challenges in working with languages that lack cultural touchstones common to English and Spanish, said Dale Taylor, a Nebraska-based court-appointed interpreter of a Uto-Aztecan language called Tarahumara, spoken by some 70,000 in the state of Chihuahua.

“They don’t understand a court system. They don’t understand a judicial system,” Taylor said of the Tarahumara people. “They don’t even have a word for a ‘law.’ ”

Bierge noted that the same can be said for Northern Tepehuan.

“Legal terms are not going to be in the language,” she said. The only interpreter Garcia and Navarro were able to find—a missionary who had interpreted for two previous cases—declined to take on Gutierrez-Garcia’s case, citing the difficulty of explaining legal concepts to Northern Tepehuan speakers.

The work of the interpreter within these Indigenous languages requires creativity and contextualization.

Using the example of a “term of probation,” Taylor said of Tarahumara, “there’s no word for ‘probation.’ So you have to say, ‘You’re going to be watched. It’s kind of like you’re going to be watched for five years.’ ”

Emiliana Cruz is a Mexico City–based linguistic anthropologist and an interpreter of Chatino, spoken by about 45,000 people in the state of Oaxaca.

She said communicating legalese to clients in U.S. courts can be an arduous process, often requiring lengthy explanations of abstract concepts.

“I often find that the judges roll their eyes like, ‘Okay, when are you going to be done talking?’ ” Cruz said.

Some judges will assume that her clients’ ignorance of legal matters equates to stupidity.

Cruz’s two sisters, who’d also worked as interpreters, decided they didn’t want to continue; it was too emotionally taxing.

“I do it because I feel that it is the only way someone can understand their rights in their own language,” Cruz said. “I think that is something fundamental for all of us, right?”

Emiliana Cruz, left, hiking with locals and experts in San Juan Quiahije, in Oaxaca, Mexico, to document the names of flora and fauna in the Chatino language, on July 4, 2014.

Gutierrez-Garcia’s motion to dismiss the case was denied.

U.S. district judge David Counts, of the Western District of Texas, concluded that Gutierrez-Garcia had “a sufficient understanding of the Spanish language to proceed to trial with a Spanish interpreter.”

While Counts acknowledged the defendant’s right to an interpreter competent in his primary language, he wrote that the issue ultimately required a balance of the defendant’s rights against the “economical administration of criminal law.”

Gutierrez-Garcia pleaded not guilty but sought to minimize his penalty by accepting responsibility for the crime in what is called a “stipulated bench trial.”

There, the parties agreed that Gutierrez-Garcia had possessed marijuana with the intent to distribute it and that he reserved his right to an appeal, where he could challenge the district court’s finding that he was proficient in Spanish.

He was sentenced to 24 months in prison.

In August 2022, O’Neal filed an appeal with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which accounts for a high number of court hearings involving interpreters in the United States, and argued that the district court had abused its discretion.

But a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit deferred to the district court’s decision.

“True, there is evidence in the record that Gutierrez did sometimes struggle to understand legal concepts,” the opinion stated.

It then framed Gutierrez-Garcia’s confusion as an issue not of language but of education.

“The record indicates that Gutierrez never attended school.”

The circuit judges concluded that because Gutierrez-Garcia was able to acknowledge having committed the crime, “any deviations from ideal communication” were minor enough that they would not be considered fundamentally unfair.

In other words, as long as Gutierrez-Garcia was able to admit responsibility, his lack of comprehension of the proceedings or the arguments being made about his sentencing were considered unimportant.

Courts over the years have ruled that the right to an interpreter is necessitated by the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which grant certain rights to those accused of crimes, including the right to know the charges and evidence against them.

The Court Interpreters Act, enacted by Congress in 1978, turned those court decisions into statute law, stating that a court should use a certified interpreter provided that a defendant “speaks only or primarily a language other than the English language.”

“If we all agreed he couldn’t speak Spanish, and we all agreed there wasn’t an interpreter there for his particular Indigenous language,” said Beck, “then there is no way to have any of these proceedings without violating the Sixth Amendment and probably the Fifth Amendment . . . and the Court Interpreters Act.”

Nevertheless Beck was unsurprised by the ruling.

“The Fifth Circuit has evolved over time [into] a court that has a lot of emphasis on law and order,” he said. “The Fifth Circuit today is often unsympathetic to the plight of the criminal defendant.”

When Trump took office, in 2017, he had the opportunity to fill more than one hundred judicial vacancies, including seventeen across the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Six of the seventeen judges in the Fifth Circuit are Trump appointees.

“Anytime one third of the court changes with one president—which should never happen—it’s going to shift the ideological perspective of the court,” Beck said.

All three of the judges on O’Neal’s appeal were Trump appointees, including Texas judge Don Willett, whom Trump also considered as a potential Supreme Court nominee.

Gutierrez-Garcia’s case was not the first, nor the last, of its kind to appear before the Fifth Circuit.

In United States v. Herrera-Quinones (2022), the Western District of Texas court provided a Tepehuan man with an interpreter fluent in his native language before determining that the defendant’s Spanish was sufficient.

The defense argued that the Tepehuan interpreter should not have been dismissed.

Its request for reversal by the Fifth Circuit was also denied.

In 2023 criminal defense attorney Matthew Kozik’s client Jose Manuel Ayala-Alas, a Tepehuan speaker who was provided with a Spanish interpreter, was sentenced to thirteen and a half years in prison for smuggling marijuana across the border, even after an expert testified that Ayala-Alas spoke Spanish at a second-grade level.

“You have a federal court turning a blind eye to language issues,” said Kozik, who filed for an appeal and is awaiting a ruling.

“This is not just some small-town Hudspeth County state court. This is a federal jurisdiction.”

As his last resort, O’Neal petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States to hear Gutierrez-Garcia’s case, invoking the Court Interpreters Act, as well as the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.

The odds were against him. Fewer than one percent of the cases heard by the high court involve indigent criminal defendants.

“These are people who are poor, who can’t afford to pay, who are utterly helpless, who are pitted against the most powerful institution in the world—the United States of America,” Beck said.

Gutierrez-Garcia served eighteen months in federal prison.

His current whereabouts are unknown; O’Neal has been unable to contact him. In January the Supreme Court responded that O’Neal’s petition had been denied.

He had expected the result but was disappointed.

Still, he takes solace in the fact that it won’t change Gutierrez-Garcia’s fate significantly.

By the time of the high court’s action, he had already served his time.

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junkyard-robin · 28 days

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Countries and subdivisions

Alaska

Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island (CANADA)

California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, District of Columbia, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine (THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA)

Baja California Sur, Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosi, Aguascalientes, Zacatecas, Durango, Culiacan, Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Michoacan, Queretaro, Hidalgo, Tlaxcala, Puebla, Morelos, Ciudad de Mexico, Estado de Mexico, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Veracruz, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatan, Quintana Roo (MEXICO)

Corozal, Orange Walk, Belize District, Cayo, Stann Creek, Toledo (BELIZE)

Canada, The United States of America, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama

Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Bermuda, The Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands

Cuba, Jamaica, The Cayman Islands, Ayiti, La Republica Dominicana, Puerto Rico, The United States Virgin Islands, The British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Saint-Martin, Sint Maarten, Saint-Barthelemy, Saba, Sint Eustatius

Saint Kitts and Nevis, Montserrat, Antigua and Barbuda, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago

Islas de la Bahia, San Andres, Providencia y Santa Catalina, Aruba, Curacao, Bonaire, Dependencias Federales de Venezuela

Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana

Rondonia, Acre, Amazonas, Roraima, Amapa, Para, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Goias, Distrito Federal, Tocantins, Maranhao, Piaui, Ceara, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraiba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe, Bahia, Minas Gerais, Espirito Santo, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Parana, Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul (BRAZIL)

Jujuy, Salta, Tucuman, Catamarca, La Rioja, San Juan, Santiago del Estero, Formosa, Chaco, Santa Fe, Cordoba, San Luis, Mendoza, Misiones, Corrientes, Entre Rios, Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Provincia de Buenos Aires, La Pampa, Neuquen, Rio Negro, Chubut, Santa Cruz, Tierra del Fuego, Antartida y Islas Atlantico del Sur (ARGENTINA)

Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador

Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Islas Galapagos (Galapagos Islands)

Greenland, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Ireland

Northern Ireland, Isle of Man, Scotland, England, Cornwall, Wales, Guernsey, Jersey (THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND)

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Jan Mayen Island, Svalbard, Norge (Norway), Sverige (Sweden), The Aland Islands, Suomi (Finland), Eesti (Estonia), Latvija (Latvia), Lietuva (Lithuania), Kaliningrad Oblast

Byelorussia (Belarus), Ukraine, Crimea, Sevastopol, Transnistria, Moldova, Romania

Bulgaria, Hellas (Greece), Shqiperi (Albania), Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Srbija (Serbia), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hrvatska (Croatia), Slovenija (Slovenia)

Magyarorszag (Hungary), Osterreich (Austria), Slovensko (Slovakia), Csko Republika (Czech Republic), Polska (Poland)

Deutschland (Germany), Danmark (Denmark), Nederlands (The Netherlands), Belgie (Belgique/Belgium), Letzebeurg (Luxembourg), Liechtenstein, Suisse (Schwyz/Switzerland), San Marino, Citta del Vaticanum (Vatican City), Italia (Italy), Monaco, France, Andorra, Espana (Spain), Portugal

Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Sachsen (Saxony), Sachsen-Anhalt (Saxony-Anhalt), Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony), NordRhein-Westfalen (North Rhine-Westphalia), Rhineland-Pfalz (Rhineland-Palatinate), Saarland, Hessen (Hesse), Thuringen (Thuringia), Bayern (Bavaria), Baden-Wurttemburg (GERMANY)

Liguria, Piemonte (Piedmont), Valle d'Aosta, Lombardia (Lombardy), Trentino-Alto Adige (SudTirol), Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, Marche, Umbria, Toscano (Tuscany), Lazio, Abruzzo, Molise, Campania, Apulia (Puglia), Basilicata, Calabria (ITALY)

Hauts-de-France, Ile-de-France, Centre-Val de Loire, Grand-Est, Bourgogne-Franche-Comte, Auvergne-Rhone-Alps, Provence-Alps-Cote d'Azur, Occitanie, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Pays-de-la-Loire, Bretagne (Brittany), Normandie (Normandy) (FRANCE)

Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, La Rioja, Pais Vasco (Basque Country), Navarra (Navarre), Aragon, Catalunya (Catalonia), Valencia, Murcia, Andalusia, Extremadura, Castilla y Leon, Madrid Comunidad, Castilla la Mancha (SPAIN)

Azores, Madeira, Islas Canarias (Canary Islands), Gibraltar, Ceuta, Melilla, Islas Baleares (Balearic Islands), Corse (Corsica), Sardegna (Sardinia), Sicilia (Sicily), Malta, Djerba, Kriti (Crete), Rhodos (Rhodes), Lesvos (Lesbos), Kypros (Cyprus), Akrotiri and Dhekelia, Northern Cyprus

Morocco, Western Sahara, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Al Misr (Egypt), Sudan

Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somaliland, Somalia, Kenya

South Sudan, Republique Centrafricaine (Central African Republic), Tchad (Chad), Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania

Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia

Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroun (Cameroon)

Guinea Ecuatorial (Equatorial Guinea), Gabon, Republique du Congo (Congo-Brazzaville, The Republic of the Congo), Democratique Republique du Congo (Congo-Kinshasa, The Democratic Republic of the Congo), Angola

Namibia, South Africa, Lesotho, eSwatini, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi

Mozambique, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda

Cabo Verde (Cape Verde), Sao Tome e Principe (Sao Tome and Principe), Ascension Island, Saint Helena, Tristan da Cunha, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands

Seychelles, Comoros, Mayotte, Madagasikara (Madagascar), Reunion, Mauritius, British Indian Ocean Territory

Murmansk, Karelia, Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Leningrad, Saint Petersburg, Pskov, Novgorod, Tver, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod, Ivanovo, Vladimir, Moscow Oblast, Moscow Smolensk, Kaluga, Tula, Ryazan Bryansk, Oryol, Lipetsk, Tambov, Penza, Ulyanovsk, Samara, Orenburg Kursk, Belgorod, Voronezh, Rostov, Krasnodar Krai Adygea, Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia-Alania, Ingushetia, Chechnya, Dagestan Stavropol Krai, Kalmykia Republic, Astrakhan, Volgograd, Saratov Mordovia, Chuvashia, Mari El, Tatarstan, Udmurtia, Bashkortostan Perm Krai, Kirov Oblast, Komi Republic, Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Yamalo Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug Sverdlovsk, Kurgan, Tyumen, Omsk, Tomsk, Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, Altai Krai, Altai Republic, Khakassia Republic, Tuva Republic, Krasnoyarsk Krai Irkutsk Oblast, Zabaykalsky Krai, Amur Oblast, Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Primorsky Krai, Khabarovsk Krai, Magadan Oblast, Sakha (Yakutia) Republic, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Kamchatka Krai, Sakhalin Oblast (RUSSIA)

Russiya (Russia), Kartvelia (Georgia), Armenia, Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Nakhchivan, Turkiye (Turkey)

Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Socotra, Oman, The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq

Gaza, West Bank (PALESTINE)

Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Umm al Quwain, Ras al Khaimah, Ajman, Fujairah (THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES)

Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Karakalpakstan, Kazakhstan

Balochistan, Sindh, Punjab, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Azad Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan (PAKISTAN)

Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, Zhongguo (China), Viet Nam, Kampuchea (Cambodia), Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapura (Singapore), Myanmar

Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang Uyghur, Tibet, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Hebei, Beijing, Tianjin, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau, Hainan, Guangxi Zhuang, Yunnan, Guizhou, Jiangxi, Hunan, Anhui, Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Hubei, Chongqing, Sichuan, Gansu, Ningxia Hui, Qinghai (CHINA)

Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Bharatam (India), Sri Lanka, Maldives, Indonesia, Timor Leste, Brunei Darussalam, The Philippines, Taiwan, Nippon (Japan)

Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assam, Pashchim Bengal (West Bengal), Odisha, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagarhaveli, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Keralam (Kerala), Lakshadweep, Andaman and Nicobar Islands (INDIA)

Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Bali, Nusa Tanggara (INDONESIA)

Luzon, Cebu, Mindanao, Palawan (THE PHILIPPINES)

Okinawa, Ryukyu Island, Kyushu, Honshu, Shikoku, Hokkaido (JAPAN)

Western Australia, Northern Territory, South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory (Canberra), Jervis Bay, Victoria, Tasmania (AUSTRALIA)

Australia, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Christmas Island, New Zealand, Niue, Tokelau, Papua New Guinea, New Britain, New Ireland, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Marshall Islands, Bikini Atoll, Micronesia, Palau, Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, Nauru, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Pitcairn Island, French Polynesia

Hawai'i

#countries #geography #first level subdivisions #special administrative divisions #islands

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plethoraworldatlas · 2 months

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Two years after Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele declared a "state of exception" that was originally adopted for a 30-day period in response for a spate of apparent gang killings, the government is boasting that its policies have driven down the homicide rate by 70%—but international rights defenders on Wednesday warned the crackdown has plunged the country into a human rights crisis.

Amnesty International said that according to local victims' movements and human rights groups, El Salvador's former murder rate has been replaced by 327 cases of forced disappearances since March 2022, as well as 78,000 arbitrary detentions as police have raided neighborhoods, particularly in low-income areas.

"A total of approximately 102,000 people [are] now deprived of their freedom in the country—a situation of prison overcrowding of approximately 148% percent and at least 235 deaths in state custody," said Amnesty.

Bukele adopted the state of emergency after El Salvador reported its deadliest peak in apparent gang violence in recent history, with gangs blamed for 92 people's deaths over three days in March 2022.

Under the emergency order, authorities have suspended the right to privacy in communications, to be informed of the reason for one's arrest, and to be taken before a judge within 72 hours of an arrest. A report by Human Rights Watch in December 2022 also warned of "torture, or other cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment against people accused of crimes." Officers told people during arrests only that they were following "orders from the president," and in some cases, told people they were being taken to a police station for "questioning" when they were actually under arrest.

"The insistence of Nayib Bukele's government on maintaining the state of emergency, the adoption of disproportionate measures, and the denial, minimization, and concealment of reported serious human rights violations reflect the government's unwillingness to fulfill its duty to respect and promote human rights in the country," Ana Piquer, Amnesty International's Americas director, said Wednesday. "It also demonstrates its inability to design comprehensive long-term measures to address the root causes of violence and criminality without forcing the population to choose between security and freedom."

Amnesty's statement came a day after Justice and Security Minister Gustavo Villatoro said Bukele's government plans to continue its strategy to "eradicate this endemic evil."

"This war against these terrorists will continue," said Villatoro in a televised address.

Despite outcry from domestic and international human rights groups, Bukele won his reelection campaign in a landslide last month. El Faro reported that Bukele's government had violated some election rules including airing ads within three days of the election and campaigning on Election Day. Some poll workers also wore clothes identifying them as supporters of Bukele's Nueva Ideas party, and police allegedly blocked journalists from working near polling locations, prompting accusations of intimidation and harassment by the Association of Journalists of El Salvador.

The Due Process of Law Foundation released a report Tuesday warning that Bukele's government could be guilty of crimes against humanity as it continues its crackdown.

"Well over 76,000 people, including minors, have been detained under the state of exception, accused of having ties to gangs," wrote the group. "Many or most of these detentions appear to be occurring without any reasonable grounds for suspecting that the person may have committed a crime. Mere physical appearance—including having tattoos—seems to be enough to put people at risk of arrest, with young men from poor districts a particular target. Arrests of this nature are in themselves discriminatory, and may well qualify as arbitrary. According to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, under customary international law, 'The legal basis justifying... detention must be accessible, understandable, nonretroactive, and applied in a consistent and predictable way.'"

Amnesty noted on Wednesday that human rights defenders and dissidents also face "increased risk" under the state of emergency, "as they are criminalized." As Common Dreams reported this week, five water defenders are scheduled to stand trial on April 3 for allegedly killing a military informant, an accusation for which the government has produced no proof.

"In the absence of any kind of evaluation and checks and balances within the country, and with only a timid response from the international community, the false illusion has been created that President Bukele has found the magic formula to solve the very complex problems of violence and criminality in a seemingly simple way. But reducing gang violence by replacing it with state violence cannot be a success," said Piquer. "The authorities in El Salvador must focus the state response on comprehensive policies that respect human rights and seek long-term solutions."

"The international community," she added, "must respond in a robust, articulate and forceful manner, condemning any model of public security that is based on human rights violations."

#el salvador #authoritarianism #authoritarian state #police brutality #police state #political prisoners #human rights #nayib bukele

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rabbitcruiser · 1 year

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International Dinosaur Day

Today we celebrate those large, extinct reptiles: dinosaurs. Scientists believe they first appeared about 245 million years ago, at the beginning of the Middle Triassic Epoch, and existed for about 180 million years, going extinct about 66 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous Period. The period when they lived is called the Mesozoic Era. During this time they went through many changes, and various species of dinosaurs replaced other species. Some dinosaurs were bipedal, meaning they walked on two legs, and some were quadrupedal, meaning they walked on all fours. Some switched back and forth. Some were covered with feathers, while others had what was almost like body armor. Some ran fast, and others were slow; most were herbivores, but some were carnivores. There were at least 700 species of dinosaurs, and possibly more than 1,000.

There were big biotic changes at the end of the Cretaceous Period, and many other animals and plants died at that time as well. There are many theories as to why dinosaurs died out, including disease, heat waves, cold spells, changing sea levels, a large amount of volcanic activity, the emergence of egg-eating mammals, or from X-rays from an exploding supernova. One other common theory is that an asteroid smashed to earth, spread ash widely, and shifted the earth's climate. However, it is not believed that all dinosaurs died out at the same time. Rather, it is believed they had been declining during the last part of the Cretaceous Period. Scientists also believe that some dinosaurs may have evolved into birds.

Richard Owen, an English anatomist, came up with the word "Dinosauria" in 1842. The word comes from the Greek word "deinos," meaning terrible or fearfully great, and "sauros," meaning reptile or lizard. He applied the term to three animals that fossilized bones had been found of over the previous few decades. The remains came from reptiles that were both larger and had more vertebrae than any found before. The earliest known published record of dinosaur remains was in 1820, and many fossils were found in the 1820s and 1830s. Many other kinds of dinosaurs were found in the years following the 1842 naming as well. Fossils of dinosaurs have now been found on all seven continents.

How to Observe Dinosaur Day

The best way to celebrate the day is to visit a museum or other dinosaur-related attraction, where fossils or bones may be viewed. You could also watch a documentary about dinosaurs, or a film that features dinosaurs, such as Jurassic Park. If you have children, there are many dinosaur-related activities they could do today.

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ricmlm · 2 months

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Essayist, fiction writer and university professor, Nuno Júdice was one of the main authors in a time of transition in Portuguese poetry, from the 1960s to the 80s and beyond.

The President of the Republic has already mourned this death. Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa refers to the poetic work and the work of decades in different institutions that were a major contribution to the uniqueness, cosmopolitanism and projection of Portuguese literature.

Nuno Júdice was born in Mexilhoeira Grande, in Portimão, in the district of Faro, in 1949.

He was an associate professor at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, an institution where he received his doctorate in 1989 with the thesis "The space of the tale in the medieval text".

Poet, essayist and fiction writer, Nuno Júdice was, until 2015, a professor at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences at Universidade Nova de Lisboa.

Júdice served as director of the literary magazine Tabacaria (1996-2009) and was commissioner for the Literature area of the Portuguese representation at the 49th Frankfurt Book Fair.

He served as cultural advisor at the Portuguese Embassy in Paris (1997-2004) and director of the Camões Institute in the French capital.

He organized the European Poetry Week, within the scope of Lisbon'94 - European Capital of Culture, and directed the Revista Colóquio-Letras, from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Literally, he made his debut in 1972 with the poetry book "A Noção de Poema".

Throughout his literary career, Nuno Júdice was awarded several prizes, including the Queen Sofia Prize for Ibero-American Poetry, in 2013, the Pen Clube Prize, the D. Dinis Prize from Casa de Mateus.

He received the Grand Prize for Poetry from the Portuguese Writers Association, for "Meditação sobre Ruínas", a finalist for the European Literature Prize.

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#Instagram

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travelella · 1 month

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Faro District, Portugal

Geranimo

#Faro District #Portugal #Europe #PortugalNature #From Above #FromAbove

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levadamadeira · 3 months

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Ten districts on the continent, the north coast of Madeira and Porto Santo will be under orange warning on Thursday and Friday due to forecasts of sea unrest, the Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA) reported today. On the mainland, the districts of Faro, Porto, Setúbal, Viana do Castelo, Lisbon, Leiria, Beja, Aveiro, Coimbra and Braga will be under yellow warning between 09:00 and 18:00 on Thursday, after which the orange between 6pm on Thursday and 6am on Friday. The north coast of the island of Madeira and Porto Santo will be under yellow warning between 03:00 and 09:00 on Thursday, then turning to orange between 09:00 on Thursday and 00:00 on Friday. fair. Porto Santo and the North Coast of Madeira will then go under yellow warning between 00:00 and 06:00 on Friday. The IPMA predicts for the continent, north coast of Madeira and Porto Santo for Thursday and Friday waves from the west/southwest with a significant height of 5 to 6 meters, reaching a maximum height of 11 meters. The orange warning is issued by IPMA whenever there is a “moderate to high risk meteorological situation and the yellow warning when there is a risk situation for certain activities dependent on the meteorological situation.

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sellmycommercialpropertyusa · 3 months

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contentment-of-cats · 1 year

Text

A pre-Thyrondi nibble

See below the line.

"I am so proud of all of you." Captain Faro looked proud, Ilyana thought. Back straight, shoulders back, chin up. "The 96th showed the rest of these pretty boy captains how it's done, but the Chimaera's crew led the way. We nailed it, boys and girls."

Ilyana had to admit that Commodore Thrawn's tactics had worked - again - and Faro ran the ball hard. Still, it was hard to swallow that Captain Faro wasn't the one in command. When Ilyana was a shiny ensign, Faro picked her, Agral, Yve, and Lomar for the bridge of the Chimaera. Faro had her loyalty first. Faro gave everyone the praise they deserved and the critique they needed. Then grinned even wider.

"Orders from the top. Shore leave rotations to Coruscant for the winners of the Ascension Day War Games." And didn't everyone go bonkers at that. Even though she'd been at Royal Imperial, she stuck to campus, traveling with her cohort, and keeping as low a profile as a future bridge nerd could manage. Ilyana resisted the urge to pull out her datapad and look for pay grade friendly places. "Now, we need to talk about Coruscant and where you can and can't, should and shouldn't go."

They got the whole Mom-Talk. Including a rather graphic presentation about using prophy and how deep the shit one could be in if they returned with an STD.

"There's been insurgent activity even in the Central District. Now, mainwatch goes down first, check in, be back in five days. Miss the shuttle and I personally cycle you out an airlock."

Ilyana ducked out after that. She'd be taking her boards for senior lieutenant, leaving very little time to party hard. Part of them had already been completed aboard the Chimaera - practical and exam - but not her oral defense of her work on the need for a more diverse weapons profile. With the Seppies (called Alliance to Restore the Republic) moving to smaller ships, the heavy, slower firing turbolasers were not enough. They were great against capital ships, heavy freighters, or anything big, armored, and slow, The InCom Corporation ships showing up were small and zippy, needing the faster response and firing time of your basic quad turbolaser.

The shuttle down was packed, and Ilyana ended up wedged into a jumpseat before being disgorged onto the landing platform and processed through the Shore Authority. Her rental vehicle was waiting, and… well… she got what she paid for. It had very sincere inspection stickers, but she still popped the hood and ran basic pre-starts, much to the discomfiture of the clerk. Ilyana decided that since she had someone by the balls, a degree of twisting was in order and ended up with a Stellar F-131 instead of a poky old Skipper Basic Skycar. Much more oomph, much more room, and no empty bottles of prophy spray under the seat along with underwear of unknown origin.

Fancy undies, too. Pink lacy ones.

The BOQ was packed, but offered free parking and firstmeal. After an investigation of nearby restaurants, Ilyana loaded up a tray at a buffet advertising 'real meat' and went back to her cubicle-room. If the meat was real, it tasted a lot like her boots might if she gave them a good stewing. Ilyana checked her citations and then fell easily into her focus mode, rousing only at the insistent chirp of her commlink.

"Yana? If I study any more, I am going to jump out the window." Agral, he of the ever-growling stomach and reddest hair in the galaxy. "I know you went to a rent-a-wreck. Come pick up your study buddy and we'll get something to eat. I buy if you fly."

"Deal, but it has to be real food."

"I'm the native son, Sparky. How about some real, juicy grilled meat for my little carnivore?"

"If it's not real meat, do I get to use you for target practice?" In truth, she was already getting her boots on. 'Meet me in the lobby in three minutes."

"It'll take that long for the turbolift to get here. See you downstairs."

The junior officers' hostel had admittedly seen better days - at least two centuries ago. Jashin did beat her there, and was suitably impressed with their conveyance. He had a list of grills, and yes they were going to sit down and eat like civilized people. It was as they passed the senior officers' hostel that Ilyana spotted some familiar faces on the pickup platform - a glance at Agral confirming it. Vanto, Hammerly, Lomar, Faro, and the Blue Face of Doom.

Okay. Fine. She respected Thrawn, Hammerly and Vanto. Faro was her captain from day one. Odo Lomar came from the same year at Royal as both her and Agral. There was no way that they were going to get a cab with an alien with them, never mind that said alien was a hero and flag officer in the Imperial Navy.

"Do it," Agral sighed.

Ilyana stopped, threw it into reverse gear, and to utterly unnecessary screaming from Jashin, maneuvered back to the platform. "Relax, there's nobody coming."

The group on the platform stared, then stared harder as Ilyana keyed off the forcefield. "Good evening, sirs." Then she grinned at Vanto's shiny new insignia. "Go Commander Vanto! Congrats, sir."

"Thank you, Lieutenant. That was… some kind of driving right there."

"We were on the way to go eat when we saw you. Can we give you a lift somewhere, or you could join us." Jashin's elbow hit her ribs. "Ow. We're going for real meat, though."

Thrawn and Vanto both lit up.

"That sounds like a good idea," Faro said, "But it's going to be a tight fit."

"Everyone will be in everyone's laps," was Thrawn's protest.

"Well, Seven Swords is the closest grill, and their last seating is at twenty-two, sirs." Jashin scrolled his datapad. "How about it, Sparky? Can you get us there?"

"The shortest distance between two points is a firing solution," Ilyana replied.

Yissa held on for dear life. It was like being in a full-immersion Grand Theft: Coruscant. Pyro seemed to operate on aiming and firing herself in the direction she wished to go. Thrawn was calm as ever, Faro visibly popped a couple of grey hairs, but she, Vanto, and Lomar all seemed fairly certain of being a juicy splotch on the side of a building somewhere. They pulled up at the grill in plenty of time and then were charged an astonishing amount for parking - at least they were until Thrawn got out of the aircar and the extortionate bastards realized they had a flag-rank officer on their doorstep.

The smell of food made Yissa's belly rumble and that got her a little smile from Pyro.

The overt hostility had eased, but the woman still held herself, Vanto, Marinith, and Thrawn at arm's length. That smile was actually pretty. Yissa had tried dropping a few hints, as Pyro was unpartnered and really kind of cute. The hints hadn't been ignored, it was as if Pyro simply didn't pick them up. Officers came from all over the Empire, so it could be cultural, or perhaps Pyro was simply unsocialized - because when it came to nerd ranking, Pyro was a very high-grade nerd.

The grill was possibly a little above her pay grade, but nobody ever went broke serving on an ISD and Yissa had plenty of margin for an extravagant dinner. They were led through the main salon to a plusher, quieter area with more senior officer uniforms in evidence. Yeah, definitely not a pitcher-and-platter establishment. Then again, Agral was from a wealthier merchant family - in the same league as Vanto's - and likely considered this affordable. He said he was treating Pyro because Pyro had the aircar and agreed to drive.

Seating went in order of rank, with everyone to the right of their chairs and sitting only when the commodore and captain were seated. The menu's extravagance was astounding and a carnivore's delight. Ilyana ordered modest meal, only to have Agral override and chivvy her into an inch thick red-meat ribeye plus a baked and stuffed starchroot. Yissa went for surf-and-turf as did Agral, Lomar, and Faro. Vanto went for meat, with a side of meat, plus extra meat. Thrawn ordered the equivalent of a small roast nerf.

Then he had the brass to preemptively pay the bill - and quell a minor mutiny. One captain at the table behind them murmured that it was the first time he'd ever seen junior officers object to a free feed.

"This establishment is closer to my pay grade than yours." Which was true, what with Yissa's dinner being a week's worth of credits.

Oh, and worth every last one based on the appetizers alone.

In Yissa's opinion, a good restaurant was a quiet one. The food should be enough to ensure silence. Table chatter was limited to individual plans. Art for Thrawn and presumably for Vanto. Meeting with old friends for Faro. Yissa planned to discreetly party her doors off, but Lomar was being trapped with family visits and fending off a betrothal. To everyone's surprise, both Pyrondi and Agral were defending their theses before their promotion boards.

"What are your theses?" Thrawn was on the scent.

"The possibility of communication within the hyperlanes, including tracking other vessels," Agral replied.

That was in Yissa's wheelhouse, as well as Lomar's. To date, the only communications in hyperspace were visual. If you could see another ship, a version of tap code would be the limit of communication. Not even sensors worked past the outer hull when in hyperspace, not even to verify that the othership you could see was actually there. Agral referred to travel within the 'probability bubble' - apparently traveling in a hyperlane meant entering a bubble that moved between one set of coordinates and another. There was also some dispute as to the nature of the hyperlanes themselves - constructed or naturally occurring?

This was dinner chit-chat she could get behind.

Pyro was surprisingly keen on hyperspace theory, but her thesis was naturally about weaponry - and one surprisingly critical about overreliance on heavier, slower turbolaser batteries over a more diverse weapons array. Yissa could all but see other officers bending ears at the resulting debate between the outspoken lieutenant and her commanding officers. Faro was firmly on Pyro's side, having been through the Clone Wars and all the droid armaments, Thrawn put forth his favor of better TIE fighters, but allowed that a more diverse weapons array served the offensive and capabilities of the ship. And from there Pyro dove into a variety of weapons that could - should - be deployed before a very determined throat-clearing from the next table.

Oh. Shit.

Admiral Motti. The smarmiest of smarmy bastards about to smarm, and three other members of the High Command that she recognized from newsholo shows. And Andres Sienar who looked far too interested in Pyro for Yissa's comfort.

"My own argument, Admiral Motti, coming out of the mouth of a baby lieutenant."

"Full disclosure, sirs. I worked at the Sienar Armaments and Fleet Systems main industrial facility on Corulag for four years," Pyrondi stated. "I was in the Imperial Youth Corps at the time."

And the conversation - Pyrondi could not be said to argue with her superior officers while defending her position - was off and running from there. Motti was definitely a 'bigger is better' guy, but Pyro was an active, serving weapons officer, and one who had helped to take first place in the games. It was hard to argue against the winners. If Pyro stood her ground like this for her boards, then Senior Lieutenant rank was hers.

The night did not end after caf, pastries, and arguments, and a bit of Yissa was meanly glad that the ranking wankers had to wait for transport while Pyrondi went to the valet and got her rent-a-wreck back. There was a minor dustup over driving. None of them were drinking with dinner, but Thrawn moved to preempt the driver's station. Pyro claimed it was against protocol for a flag rank officer to chauffeur his subordinates. When the dust settled, Vanto was driving as Thrawn's aide, and would give the vehicle back at the admiralty accommodation.

Vanto grew up flying cargo donks and freighters. Yissa almost wished for Pyrondi to be back in the driver's position. He flew like a pirate. Even Thrawn took a white-knuckle grip on his seat. At least nobody yarked their dinner. Yissa and Lomar went back to their rooms while Thrawn, Vanto, and Faro went to the rarefied heights of the Admiralty Tower.

Back in her room, she changed into sleepwear and flicked on the holonet, looking for some new series to buy. Holonet was sketchy and inconsistent, so the crews of the Seventh always brought back entertainment to while away off-duty hours. At some point she dozed off, awaking to the sound of an urgent voice-

"-the junior officers' hostel is being evacuated as we speak, with close to two thousand naval personnel from ensigns to senior lieutenants being evacuated for unknow- There's blaster fire on one- no, two of the floors facing the street. It's unknown if it's due to insurgents and-"

Yissa pulled her trousers on over her shorts as her comlink chipred.

"I know. I saw. I'm on my way there." She told Lomar. "Tell Mom and Dad."

Ilyana hated bugs. Even some of the insectoid sentient species gave her the whim-whams. Right now she was in her worst nightmare. Duct mites. Why did it have to be ducked mites? Blind, six legged, a ghastly grey-white, and carnivorous, they were from the deep lower levels of Coruscant, and now they were flooding out of ventilation ducts all over the hostel.

Mite was not a statement on their size, either.

She and the officers on her floor were shooting them, making their way to the emergency drop tube that would land them safely on the platform below. Dimly, from an open door with a half-eaten body jamming it open she heard-

"We are told that this is a hazmat situation, not an infestation of vermin. The sources were in error and likely suffering delusions from too many exotic intoxicants."

Oh. FUCK her. Junior officers were painted with the same sprayer as academy students. The only thing saving someone's ass was the fact that duct mites would burn to death rather than go outside. Temperature fluctuations killed them as handily as a blaster. And just before she and agral hit the drop tube, that's what Ilyana did, hooking her fingers under the headplate and jumping after her buddy. There was a keen pang of leaving her duffel behind, but her datapads were both secure in her undershirt.

The hologenic chaos that the networks were expecting did not materialize. These were naval officers, not a bunch of pampered civvies. Faro began to muster her officers from the moment her feet hit the platform.

"Chimaera officers, to me!"

Other captains and commanders were arriving and bulling through the district security forces to round up their juniors, Thrawn's bellow alternated with hers, While Hammerly, Lomar, and Vanto played herders, getting everyone in one place.

"Any sign of Agral or Pyrondi?" Karyn asked a pale ensign who's knees were shaking.

"No, ma'am. They were up on floor 2314, I was down on 1609."

"Drop tube coming down!"

"Is everyone out?"

"No, by headcount there's more than a thousand missing. Granted, some might still be out making bad adult decisions-"

"What was the cause of the evacuation?" Thrawn asked.

The evacked officers answer was duct mites, but the ISB supervisor's reason was hazmat, causing a mass hallucination of duct mites. One did not call 'bullshit' on an ISB supervisor and expect to have a career left afterward, or indeed, much lifetime left. The droptube slowed, then let a cluster of junior lieutenants onto the platform. Karyn sprinted away as soon as she saw Agral's copper-bright hair.

"Agral, is Pyrondi with- Don't get snippy, Pyrondi, you're an inch taller than Captain Piett, we could lose you under a table somewhere and what in the name of bright stars-" A duct mite, still smoking hanging by the headplate in her left hand. "Throw that away right this minute, it's disgusting!"

"It's evidence, ma'am. If this place is so lax in maintenance practices, then everyone needs to know it." Pyro argued back. The woman could take orders, but Karyn sensed a sticking point. "I'm not going to let some prissy bitch in a four-figure frock shit-talk my fellow officers. Some of them were dinner for these things."

The ISB supervisor was speaking with the aforementioned prissy bitch, assuring her and the other press fleas that it was all some nebulous 'gas' - possibly introduced by insurgents - that caused hallucinations in the junior officers billeted there. And Karyn felt a certainty settle into her bones as she turned to Pyrondi only to see her combat face on, a firing solution already in place and her arm swinging. In slow motion, she watched the duct mite arc gracefully over the heads of the people in front of them and fly into camera range.

Oh, as usual, shit.

Several things happened at once. One of them was the insect splatting all over the ISB's white tunic and the reporter's expensive dress - why would you cover a potential disaster in heels and a party dress? The next one was a blue hand grabbing Pyro and yanking her backwards into the crowd. Another was Hammerly and Lomar moving at high speed to corral Agrall, who was getting ready to launch himself at the supervisor, and Vanto taking her arm and murmuring, "This way, ma'am." in that soft drawl just as all hell broke loose.

Ilyana Pyrondi was a quiet, obedient, loyal and highly intelligent bridge nerd, but when her chaos came out, it did so on the crest of an explosive temper.

#thrawn #karyn faro #hammerly #agral #lomar #eli vanto #gen for now #pre thyrondi #pre pyrammerly #thyrondi #pyrammerly #slowest of the slow burns #shore leave universe #not on ao3 yet

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