#what about little town of bethlehem???

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

ONCE IN ROYAL DAVID'S CITY ISN'T A STAPLE CAROL FOR Y'ALL???

#what about little town of bethlehem??? #please tell me you at least do o come all ye faithful

[vavoom-sorted-art]

Of Kings And Kids - Chapter 1

Welcome to @gaiaseyes451 and my Christmas collab! We'll be publishing a chapter every day, whith the fifth and final chapter going up on the 26th of December!

Head to AO3 to read the entire chapter.

*~*~*

Aziraphale stood at the town’s well, clay cup in hand, and drank, grateful for the cool water. While the journey from Nazareth hadn’t been particularly arduous, the angel was happy for an opportunity to rest after traversing the loamy, rolling hills; especially after guiding a flock of sheep and goats for the last five days. Michael had assured him, when she was briefing him on the Mission Messiah assignment, that Heaven had an alias prepared this time. Somehow, Silas the shepherd who was leading his flock of bovids to Bethlehem for the autumn livestock auction was not precisely the backstory Aziraphale had expected. Nevermind that Bethlehem had never held a livestock auction before, best not to question these things.

Bethlehem was built around the town’s well which stood in the center of a courtyard. Most inns and lodging houses surrounded the well while private residences were scattered among the slopes. The city was surrounded by a modest wall with roads granting access from the North and South. The land itself was lovely rolling hills with lush grasslands and natural grottos, perfect for grazing livestock. It would have been conspicuous if a shepherd had moved at the same pace as a woman who was about to give birth, so Aziraphale had arrived ahead of the holy family. He was glad for the chance to get acquainted with the town and for the brief respite before the real work started.

Preparing for the arrival of the Messiah really was quite stressful.

Having filled his waterskin, Aziraphale was about to head off to one of the rest houses to sample the local cuisine when a familiar voice called out.

“Hello, angel!”

Aziraphale stopped short. While he was always happy to see this particular demon on his assignments, having him this close to the savior’s birth was a tad disconcerting. He turned and greeted him warmly, even if his smile was a bit cautious. “Crawly! Hello.”

“Ah, actually, call me Crowley.” He said, casually.

“Oh, have you changed your name?” Aziraphale asked.

“Nah, not officially. Just tryin’ it out for a bit. ‘Sides, little odd to have a nobleman called ‘Crawly’.” He said, gesturing to himself.

Aziraphale took a moment to take in Crowley’s garb.The demon was wearing his hair a bit longer, russet waves held out of his eyes by a beaded headband. He was clothed in his preferred hues in a deep charcoal robe and cloak made from fine linen with patterns embroidered in red at the neckline and hem. The cloak was fastened at the shoulder with an onyx snake broach and synched at the waist with a burgundy leather belt with a serpentine fastener. The robe drew his eyes down to strappy sandals that accentuated Crowley’s calves. His wrists were adorned with wide, silver cuffs that emphasized his svelte arms and long fingers.

Aziraphale dragged his eyes back to Crowley’s face and attempted to make eye contact through the dark lenses. “Well, hello, Crowley. What brings you to Bethlehem?”

*~*~*

Keep reading on Ao3 to see additional illustrations! We'd love to hear your thoughts! Find all chapters and additional content for this story here.

big thanks to @goodomensafterdark for the support!

Happy Holidays and Happy Reading!

#Of Kings And Kids #good omens #good omens fanart #crowley #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #good omens 2 #art #goodomens #good omens fanfiction #good omens fanwork #ineffable christmas #christmas #christmas story

[gaiaseyes451]

Of Kings and Kids - A Good Omens Christmas Story

I'm super excited to announce that Chapter 1 of Of Kings and Kids is officially live on AO3! This is a collaboration with the incredibly talented @vavoom-sorted-art. We will release one chapter a day until all five chapters are available - the last release will be on 26-Dec.

Head to AO3 for the full Chapter AND additional, gorgeous illustrations!

An Excerpt:

----

Aziraphale stood at the town’s well, clay cup in hand, and drank, grateful for the cool water. While the journey from Nazareth hadn’t been particularly arduous, the angel was happy for an opportunity to rest after traversing the loamy, rolling hills; especially after guiding a flock of sheep and goats for the last five days. Michael had assured him, when she was briefing him on the Mission Messiah assignment, that Heaven had an alias prepared this time. Somehow, Silas the shepherd who was leading his flock of bovids to Bethlehem for the autumn livestock auction was not precisely the backstory Aziraphale had expected. Nevermind that Bethlehem had never held a livestock auction before, best not to question these things.

Bethlehem was built around the town’s well which stood in the center of a courtyard. Most inns and lodging houses surrounded the well while private residences were scattered among the slopes. The city was surrounded by a modest wall with roads granting access from the North and South. The land itself was lovely rolling hills with lush grasslands and natural grottos, perfect for grazing livestock. It would have been conspicuous if a shepherd had moved at the same pace as a woman who was about to give birth, so Aziraphale had arrived ahead of the holy family. He was glad for the chance to get acquainted with the town and for the brief respite before the real work started.

Preparing for the arrival of the Messiah really was quite stressful.

Having filled his waterskin, Aziraphale was about to head off to one of the rest houses to sample the local cuisine when a familiar voice called out.

“Hello, angel!”

Aziraphale stopped short. While he was always happy to see this particular demon on his assignments, having him this close to the savior’s birth was a tad disconcerting. He turned and greeted him warmly, even if his smile was a bit cautious. “Crawly! Hello.”

“Ah, actually, call me Crowley.” He said, casually.

“Oh, have you changed your name?” Aziraphale asked.

“Nah, not officially. Just tryin’ it out for a bit. ‘Sides, little odd to have a nobleman called ‘Crawly’.” He said, gesturing to himself.

Aziraphale took a moment to take in Crowley’s garb.The demon was wearing his hair a bit longer, russet waves held out of his eyes by a beaded headband. He was clothed in his preferred hues in a deep charcoal robe and cloak made from fine linen with patterns embroidered in red at the neckline and hem. The cloak was fastened at the shoulder with an onyx snake broach and synched at the waist with a burgundy leather belt with a serpentine fastener. The robe drew his eyes down to strappy sandals that accentuated Crowley’s calves. His wrists were adorned with wide, silver cuffs that emphasized his svelte arms and long fingers.

Aziraphale dragged his eyes back to Crowley’s face and attempted to make eye contact through the dark lenses. “Well, hello, Crowley. What brings you to Bethlehem?”

----

A warm thanks to @goodomensafterdark for the support on this project with thanks also to @sohoscribblers

#good omens fic #good omens #good omens christmas #crowley #aziraphale #good omens fanfic #good omens fanfiction

[its-to-the-death]

Songs that made it through preliminaries (minus the MLP songs)

Rogues Are We (Holy Musical B@man)

Kick It Up a Notch (Starship)

Nerdy Prudes Must Die (Nerdy Prudes Must Die)

Join Us (and Die) (The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals)

No One Remembers Achmed (Twisted)

Feed Me (Little Shop of Horrors)

Dentist (Little Shop of Horrors)

Mean Green Mother From Outerspace (Little Shop of Horrors)

Old King Cole (Once Upon a Time in Space by The Mechanisms)

Favoured Son (Ulysses Dies at Dawn by The Mechanisms)

Odin (The Bifrost Incident by The Mechanisms)

There's a Platypus Controlling Me (Phineas and Ferb)

Evil for Extra Credit (Phineas and Ferb)

All the Convoluted Reasons We Pretend To Be Divorced (Phineas and Ferb)

I Love You (As Much As Someone Like Me Can Love Anyone) (Galavant)

No One But You (Galavant)

She'll Be Mine (Galavant)

Mother Knows Best (Tangled)

Ready As I'll Ever Be (Tangled the Series)

Nothing Left to Lose (Tangled the Series)

Pretty Women (Sweeney Todd)

Dancing Mad (Final Fantasy VI)

When the Chips are Down (Hadestown)

Master of Masters (Kingdom Hearts)

U.N. Owen Was Her? (Touhou 6: Embodiment of Scarlet Devil)

The Old Man of the Mountain/You Gotta Ho-De-Ho/The Scat Song Medley (Betty Boop)

Our Love is God (Heathers)

Biskit Family Business (Littlest Pet Shop)

We Both Reached For the Gun (Chicago)

Heaven on Their Minds (Jesus Christ Superstar)

Good to Be King (Journey to Bethlehem)

Jester (Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return)

Sympathy for the Devil (song by The Rolling Stones)

Dressed to Oppress (Play It By Ear - The Muck of Merkmere)

One Step Ahead (Spies Are Forever)

Let the Pun Fit the Crime (Wander Over Yonder)

Necrostar (The Vice Quadrant by Steam Powered Giraffe)

Lost in Thoughts All Alone (Fire Emblem: Fates)

The Ring motif (Lord of the Rings)

I'm Alive (Next to Normal)

Where There's a Whip, There's a Way (Return of the King 1980)

There Ain't Nothin' But Bad Days Ahead (The Swan Princess: Mystery of the Enchanted Treasure)

Les Poissons (The Little Mermaid)

It's Our House Now (The House of Mouse - Halloween special)

Grandpa's Gonna Sue the Pants Off Santa (Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer)

Master of the House (Les Miserables)

Peaches (The Super Mario Bros. Movie)

The Boys Are Back In Town (To Kill You) (The Boys)

Dark Riders (Star Stable Online)

Grand Ceremony (Pyre)

Coraline (Coraline)

Better Than You (Camp Camp)

In the Hall of the Mountain King (Peer Gynt)

Get in the Water (Epic: The Musical)

Descole's theme live version (Professor Layton)

Isabella's Lullaby (The Promised Neverland)

Get Jinxed (League of Legends)

Pieces of You/Hologram Professor Song (Puppet History)

Great at Crime (Epithet Erased)

Davy Jones' theme (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest)

Herbert Style (Club Penguin)

No One's Gonna Make a Monkey Out of Me (The Donkey Kong Country cartoon)

Diddy Drop Rap (The Donkey Kong Country cartoon)

Attack at the Wall (Mulan)

No More Toymakers to the King (Santa Claus is Comin' to Town)

What's Up Duloc? (Shrek musical)

If I'm Gonna Eat Somebody (It Might As Well Be You) (Ferngully)

The Phantom of the Opera (The Phantom of the Opera)

Prowler's theme (Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse)

How Can I Refuse? Reprise (Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper)

Friends in Low Places (Bigtop Burger)

That's Not How the Story Goes (A Series of Unfortunate Events)

The World Revolving (Deltarune)

Heffalumps and Woozles (Winnie the Pooh)

Waikyou Shenshoujin (Senki Zesshou Symphogear G)

No Good Deed (Wicked)

Fabulous (High School Musical 2)

Kidnap the Sandy Claws (The Nightmare Before Christmas)

Between Two Worlds (Limbus Company)

Your Best Nightmare (Undertale)

We Don't Talk About Bruno (Encanto)

Jaws theme (Jaws)

The Executioner (Umineko no naku koro ni)

#villain song showdown

[pub-lius]

aaron burr pt. 1

hey y’all.... how y’all doing.......

so ive been gone for a while. sorry about that. but! i have a lot of posts to work on. i only have three more historical figures to do for @thereallvrb0y because i love him, and then imma post my notes from A People’s History of the French Revolution by Eric Hazan, so i am back. anyway, it’s burr time

but before i get into everyone’s favorite bisexual with a receding hairline, i have to give a little disclaimer. these notes are OLD. like from 2020 old, and while I always trust my sources, i don’t trust my ability to read my own handwriting, so if you go on the google doc and see Burr’s notes and you’re like “this makes no sense”, i don’t understand what i meant either. they’re also the most disorganized notes i have, but im not taking them again so. this is what we’re stuck with besties. 

The Start of the Shitshow

Aaron Burr Jr. was born at Newark, New Jersey on February 6, 1756. His father was a highly respected clerical scholar who served as a pastor of the Newark First Presbyterian Church and as president of Princeton University. He contracted a fever and died when his son was only one and a half. His mother was a daughter of noted Puritan theologian and scholar Jonathan Edwards, who was remembered for his passionate speeches. She died when he was two, so he got the whole orphan arc over with very quickly. 

He and his sister, Sally, lived with family friends until 1759 when Uncle Timmy Edwards of Stockbridge Massachusetts became their legal guardian and local pain in the ass. He was highkey abusive and we don’t like him. They moved to Elizabethtown, New Jersey in 1760, and Uncle Fuckface noticed that Burr had inherited his parents’ intellect, but not their piety, because he was too busy serving cunt to pray. He was also described as high-spirited, independent, precocious, and self confident, which sounds about right.

He had a fairly advanced education, studying with a private tutor until he was 13 when he got into Princeton, and he graduated from there at 16, which was round the age of most freshmen there, so that’s pretty sick. He enrolled in Reverend Joseph Bellamy’s school at Bethlehem, Connecticut in 1773 to study ministry, until he realized he couldn’t accept the Calvanist discipline nor avoid the distraction of the town, or maybe just got tired of the highly not okay gay relationship with Bellamy, so he moved to Litchfield, Connecticut in May 1774 to study law under his brother-in-law, Tapping Reeve. (Burr moves around so much, I never know where this mf is at any given point). \

Burr didn’t get his degree in law (yet *foreshadowing noise*) because his studies were interrupted by the revolution

The War *eagle screech and fireworks*

Burr joined the march on Quebec as an uncompensated “gentleman volunteer” in 1775. During the December 31 assault, he attempted to carry General Montgomery’s body back after he had been shot and killed by grapeshot, which won him an aide-de-campship to Washington’s staff. However, he was almost immediately reassigned to General Isreal Putnam because he didn’t like Washington’s office, which I can’t blame him because we all knew that shit was stressful. Washington also didn’t seem to like Burr much, but like Joseph Reed worked there, so Washington obviously wasn’t firing people bc he didn’t like them. 

Under Putnam, he received a commission as a Lieutenant Colonel and commanded his own regiment, which was a vast improvement to the rank as one of Washington’s aides, because they weren’t considered actual Lt. Colonels and they were constantly at a desk, which Burr would not tolerate. He saw action at Monmouth, and his regiment suffered heavy casualties, and he was also ordered by Washington to determine future movements of the British in New York. He commanded troops at Westchester, NY, and imposed rigid discipline that brought order to the frontier outpost. 

He resigned his commission in 1779 due to stress and exhaustion. This was a pretty great military career, and he was proud of it. People called him “Colonel Burr” even after his service. 

After the war

He traveled often after leaving the army and continued his law studies. In 1782, he began his law practice and married Theodosia Bartow Prevost, a widow of a British officer he had been hardcore flirting with. Their wedding was actually unplanned, bc her sister was getting married and Burr was invited so they were like “why have two bitches get married when you can have four” so they had a cute little double wedding. 

Burr moved to New York in November, 1783 after the British evacuation, along with Burr’s two stepsons and their infant daughter, who lavished special attention on his only child and supervised her education. If you want more info on Theodosia Jr., I answered an ask about here here. 

Burr was an able lawyer, working mainly for non-whigs (loyalists/tories, neutral parties during the war). This worked in his favor and he rose to prominence. This is around when he began his famously neutral political philosophy, the whole “don’t let them know what you’re against or what you’re for” thing Lin Manuel Miranda is obsessed with. 

He served a single term in the New York assembly during the 1784-85 session, and left public life until 1788, when he played a minor role in the NY debate over ratification of the Constitution. The Sons of Liberty (bc they’re still around apparently) considered Burr as a possible delegate to the ratification convention, but he declined. He had some reservations over the Constitution, but abandoned them when a majority of the states ratified it. 

He supported Richard Yates along with Alexander Hamilton during the 1789 gubernatorial election. Yates was an anti-federalist and a friend who helped Burr win admission to the Bar (which btw there was this whole thing about Burr fighting so that college credits before the war didn’t have to be retaken after the war or whatever idk i can’t remember). Yates lost to George Clinton, who appointed Burr as attorney general in 1781, so he didn’t really lose anything. 

Clinton also helped orchestrate Burr’s Senate election in 1791, unseating Philip Schuyler. Now, this did cause beef between him and Hamilton, like in the musical, but this wasn’t their first beef, especially since Burr dueled Hamilton’s brother-in-law soooooooo...

Also, during this time, Burr’s daughter, Sally, died in October 1788 at three years old and four months of an unspecified (i think) illness. 

Okay, that’s it for now, but the other posts are coming soon because I’m literally dedicating the next to days to this and only this so yay! hope y’all missed me <3 

#aaron burr #american history #amrev #amrev history #history #founding fathers #american revolution #alexander hamilton #do it for richie 💪

[andnowanowl]

Since "Palestine Speaks: Narratives of Life Under Occupation" is suspiciously not available in the US in the form of an e-book, I purchased a physical copy and wanted to share it here for anyone else also unable to get access.

MUHANNED AL-AZZAH

Artist, 33

Born in Al-Azzah refugee camp, West Bank

Interviewed in Bethlehem and Ramallah, West Bank

The Al-Azzah refugee camp in Bethlehem is barely more than an alleyway bordered by dozens of small houses jammed closely together. As one walks through the tight corridors, it's hard to miss the haunting murals painted on the walls of the houses. These paintings are taken from the Handala cartoon series created by the late Palestinian artist Naji Al-Ali.¹ In one mural, a girl's hair is twisted into barbed wire. The painting on another house shows gaunt refugees packing their bags and preparing to flee. On another house farther down the street, fat politicians wag their fingers at an emaciated man in rags.

The artist behind these graffitied murals is Muhanned Al-Azzah. With a full beard on his lean face, Muhanned looks the part of an artist. He's soft spoken but funny, and laughter accompanies all of our interviews. Muhanned's family gave the Al-Azzah refugee camp its name when they led the flight from their village in what is now Israel to Bethlehem during the Arab-Israeli War, or Nakba, in 1948.² For Muhanned, as well as many other refugees, the dream of returning to lands lost in 1948 (and during the Six-Day War in 1967) persists, even if little remains today of those farms and villages. This dream of a right to return to property long ago claimed by Israel drives much of the politics of resistance within Palestine.³

Muhanned is a prolific painter, and his work can be found both on the sides of buildings and in galleries around the West Bank. On the day of our first interview, he is preparing a collection of abstract paintings for a show in London. Muhanned's paintings explore different subjects, but his recurring focus is the three years spent in an Israeli prison. At the end of our first interview, he shows us his rooftop studio, his paintings, and the bullet holes in the walls from the night of his arrest.

MY FAMILY HAS BEEN IN THE CAMP SINCE 1948

I was born here in the camp, in September 1981. My parents were born here too. In 1948, my grandparents on both sides left our land, our original village, Beit Jibrin, which is northwest of Hebron.⁴ Even though I've never visited Beit Jibrin, I feel I'm from there. I know all its details, since I've heard so much about it from my grandparents. I know that it's our village.

I know the story of how my grandparents fled the village in October of 1948. One day the soldiers came with guns, planes, and tanks, and everyone in town fled to nearby caves. But some people came back to the village in the night to sleep inside their houses or get things they needed. Then Israeli soldiers entered each house. The first adult male they found inside a house, they brought him to an open space and shot him in front of everyone.The men knew that if they were caught, they might be arrested or shot, so they fled right away. The women followed with whatever they could carry. They didn't have much money, and they couldn't carry much with them. The most important thing was to bring documents to prove that they owned their houses and keep them someplace safe. Most villagers fleeing Beit Jibrin then came here to Bethlehem, where they set up a camp and named it Al-Azzah, after my family.

I have a twin sister, two younger brothers, and one younger sister. Life in the camp has been the same since I was a child. On a typical day, we wake up and the adults go to the main street to eat and talk, to speak about things that are important. Really, it's like cocktail conversation—the news of the day, what's happening with different families, what's happening with the houses in camp. We have political discussions every day, but only in the evenings. In the morning, politics will destroy your brain.

This camp has a little over 1,500 people living in maybe 120 buildings, all packed close together. Everyone knows each other—people spend a lot of time outside because we have such small houses. On the one hand, it can be useful that the community is so close. If a family needs work done on their house, people from the neighborhood will just show up and help. If a family is hungry, a neighbor always has food for them. But you can't expect any privacy here. If you make something good to eat, people are going to know about it and show up for a meal. If you just want some time to yourself, forget about it. You could be sitting in your pajamas trying to rest or think, and someone will show up at your house and say, "Hey, you wanna go get coffee?" It was especially hard for my sisters growing up. If they came home in the evenings even just a little late, everyone in the camp would know they were out late and gossip about them. The girls have an even harder time here than the boys, I think.

THE SOLDIERS WENT CRAZY WHEN THEY FOUND WRITING ON THE WALLS

I grew up dreaming of Beit Jibrin as a paradise. My grandparents always told us about how great life was for them there. Their home and garden in Beit Jibrin were as big as the whole refugee camp where my family lives now. All of my family has hoped that one day we'd be able to return there and live again in our own home.

That's why we were against the Oslo Accords in the mid-nineties.⁶ The accords officially made the land that Beit Jibrin was on part of Israel. For us, we've always wanted a single state between Israel and Palestine so that we can return to Beit Jibrin. We didn't want to accept the Oslo Accords, and some parties in Palestine didn't either. The PFLP opposed the accords and the idea of two separate states that took our land in places like Beit Jibrin and just gave it up to Israel.⁷ The PFLP also supported the right of return, the rights of Palestinians to reclaim land lost in the warduring the Nakba.⁸ So as I grew up, although there wasn't really a single time or event that led me to it, I came to join the PFLP. There were other things I liked about them too—they weren't a religious party. Hamas, that's the big religious party. And Fatah, that's the big party within the Palestinian Liberation Organization, they were always looking for compromise and were willing to accept two states.⁹ But the PFLP seemed like a fit for me-they represented my interests as a refugee from 1948. I'm not going to say much more about their beliefs, though, because I don't want this story to sound like propaganda!

As I grew up, I got more and more into art. My father was an Arabic Literature teacher, and my parents sent me to classes and workshops in Palestinian art at a young age. I grew up seeing art as a way of resistance, through graffiti. During the First Intifada, in 1987, there was no media, there was no radio to cover all that was happening in Palestine.¹⁰ But there were the walls of the houses. They were the only place for media. For example, if there was to be a strike the next day and everyone had to close their shops, there was no simple way to get the message out. So in the night, some people with masks would go into the street with spray paint and write, "Tomorrow, August 9, will be a day of strike for all the shops and schools." So in the morning, everybody could see it.

And every day, when the people went outside, the first thing they did was look at the walls. Sometimes the message was, "Next week, we are gathering for a demonstration on Tuesday." Sometimes there was writing about a martyr, someone who was killed in Bethlehem." The soldiers, when they came in the camp, they'd go crazy when they found this writing fight over on the walls. They would arrest people, and every day there was a who should clean it up. Some people cleaned it, some people refused. And it was very dangerous when artists went out at night to write on the walls.

I was doing some of the same sort of thing even as a teenager. Art was my own individual way of resisting, but we can't do much just as individuals to resist-that just leads to chaos, so that's why I joined the PFLP. More than anything I wanted a chance to go back some day to live in Beit Jibrin, and so a lot of my art has been about being a refugee, about wanting to return home.

After high school, I went to Al-Quds University in Abu Dis to study painting.¹² I also had a chance to study traditional arts in Morocco-decoration, Andalusian art, mosaics, and writing.¹³ When I returned home, I continued to study Palestinian art and culture, and I stayed politically active as well.

I was part of the PFLP through 2004, when I was around twenty-two. I met with other members and organized protests and other campaigns on campus. The Israelis considered the PFLP terrorists and an illegal political party, and so I knew that I could be arrested one day, and maybe even killed. But at that time I was feeling that we were under occupation and somebody must do something to change this situation, and anything anybody could do for Palestine was for the good.

SOMETIMES PEOPLE JUST DISAPPEAR

Late on the night of April 15, 2004, I was home asleep. I slept in an apartment on the roof, where I also had an art studio. My whole family was there, and they stayed on the second floor of the building. We had a friend staying with us as well. My uncle's family lived on the ground floor. Suddenly I woke up hearing megaphones. I knew it was the Israeli military. They were ordering everyone out onto the street, demanding that everyone on the block come out of their homes.

I got out of bed quickly and my first thought was how I could escape. I went to the window and looked out. I saw my neighbors filing out of their homes, and Israeli soldiers were there with jeeps and vans—it looked like they were circling the entire camp. As I watched, the soldiers were moving toward our house, starting to circle it. Then they called out my name through the megaphone. They spoke directly to me in Arabic. "Muhanned Al-Azzah. You cannot escape. Put your hands up and leave the house."

I took my time, if I can speak freely, to hide whatever I didn't want them to take when they searched the house. I hadn't been part of planning any big operations or doing anything violent, but it was against Israeli law to even promote or be part of the PFLP. I guessed they were arresting me because someone had let them know I was organizing for the party.

All I could think was that I might die in a moment, and I asked God for just a few more moments to live. My adrenaline was so high, it wasn't a matter of being strong or not strong, just wanting to survive. But I took my time and put on warm clothes. I knew if I went outside, there would be no time to come back and get clothes. After a few minutes, they started shouting into the megaphone again. By this time, the rest of the people in my house were already outside. I started to see the red laser lights of their guns all over my room. They fired a couple of shots at the house. And they kept demanding that I come out, even as they were shooting at my window. I hid as best I could while I decided what to do next.

After some more time, they brought my mother from the street to my bedroom door. She told me to open the door, that it was safe to go outside. So finally I opened the door and went out with five laser sights hovering over my body. I was terrified.

My neighbors were all outside their houses sitting in the street in the middle of the night. There were maybe fifty people, my family and neighbors, watching and waiting for me.

The soldiers didn't tell me why they were arresting me. They told my family they needed to speak with me for five to ten minutes and then I'd come back. My mother was crying, but she couldn't move because there were a lot of soldiers surrounding her. She couldn't tell me goodbye. My family knew I would come back, but not when-in one hour? One day? One hundred years?

After the soldiers handcuffed me, they put me in one of their jeeps, and we drove for what seemed like a couple of hours. We ended up at Al-Muskubiya in Jerusalem.¹⁴

The room where they took me was small-maybe eight feet by eight feet, white, with air conditioning. There was a white light, a table, and computer—these were the only things in sight, other than a chair in the middle of the room. The chair was fixed to the ground. They cuffed my hands behind the chair and chained my legs and hands to it. I couldn't move a millimeter.

Then they questioned me for two days straight. They'd be asking me questions for twenty or more hours a day, with three or four officers asking the same sorts of questions. They weren't really about anything particular—just questions about my life. They didn't even accuse me of anything. I started to get very confused and disoriented. I fell asleep hundreds of times, but just for a second each time. When they saw that I was nodding off, they'd throw water on me to wake me up. They pushed me very hard. Twice a day, they brought me beans and released one of my hands. They said I had two minutes to eat. After two days of being awake, sitting upright, not moving, my legs and hands became numb.

They'd also tell me things to break me down. They told me that my house had been demolished, that my family had been killed. They brought pictures of my younger brothers and told me they'd been shot. I didn't really doubt them, and I assumed I'd be killed too. Sometimes people just disappear, and I thought I'd be one of those people. I started to feel lost, just completely out of focus.

Finally on the third day, they let me know I was being held because of my association with the PFLP and because they suspected the PFLP was planning an attack on Israel. They wanted me to talk about it. I didn't know anything about an attack, but I also didn't want to give them any names of other people in the PFLP that I knew, so I stayed quiet. If I gave them names of other PFLP members, they would arrest them too. Sometimes they'd interrogate me for just a few hours a day, sometimes for twenty hours or more. When I wasn't being interrogated, they sent me to a small, gray room—less than six feet by six feet. If I tried to lie down to sleep, my head and legs would be pressed against opposite walls. If I caused a problem in this room, like making too much noise, they'd cuff me and leave me bound up for five or six hours. They gave me just enough food to keep me alive. After a week, they gave me a few cigarettes but no lighter.

Sometimes in between long sessions, they'd put me in a cell with other Arab men. These men would tell me their stories, say they were from Hebron or whatever, and then start asking a lot of questions about me. It was pretty obvious that these men were informants, part of the interrogation, and that their job was to get me to talk when I was feeling less scared, more relaxed. They'd say things like, "I told the Israelis everything, and now I can sleep. If you tell them everything, they'll be easier with you.”

I never saw sunlight. I never knew what time it was—evening, morning? I would sleep for a few hours, and I didn't know whether I slept for one hour or for one hundred hours. I didn't know what day it was. I didn't know anything. I spent a lot of time alone, and my mind was going, but I had something inside that pushed me to stay strong.

JAIL IS A TIME TO MAKE AN EVALUATION OF YOUR LIFE

After about four months in Al-Muskubiya, I was taken to military court.¹⁵ There were around twenty soldiers there, all with guns. I felt alone and threatened, and I think this was part of the game. They wanted to scare me in any way they could. But I felt strong, because I was not just one person, I was one with the Palestinian cause. I was a civilian, I had the right to resist occupation, and I didn't care about what they would accuse me of. I didn't listen to what they said, really. They charged me with political activism, activity against the Israeli state, and being a member of an illegal political party—the PFLP. They had no evidence against me that I was part of any attacks on Israel, just that I had promoted the PFLP. They gave me three years.

I was taken to a prison near Be'er Sheva around August of 2004, not quite four months after my arrest. The amazing thing was that the route that the prison bus took to get to Be'er Sheva took me right through the site where my home village, Beit Jibrin, used to be. I had never seen it before, so I tried to see as much as I could as we passed through. When I saw the village, I was shaken. My grandparents had said so many good things about it, about the good old days. I had dreamt of it as a paradise. But the land was barren except for a few trailers that make up an Israeli settlement. There was an old mosque, and lots of ruins—old stones and parts of buildings that were thousands of years old.

My grandparents had been driven from their home by force, and here I was seeing it, again only by force. It was hard. I was alone. It reminded me that I wasn't with my family, and I always imagined I'd see the village some day with them. It was a bad, lonely feeling. It was almost like I had woken up from a coma—I couldn't make sense of everything that must have changed from that time before 1948, a time I knew only in my dreams.

Life at the prison at Be'er Sheva took some time to get used to. I spent most of my days inside my cell. The cells were about ten feet by fifteen feet, and there were seven people living in each one. There were bunk beds for each of us, but we couldn't come down from the beds all together at the same time because there wasn't enough space to stand. For example, when we wanted to clean the room, only two people could do the cleaning.

Everyone was from different places. Some people were very old, some people were young. Some had ten or twenty years in jail, and some had one year. If you wanted time alone, you had to pretend you were sleeping. From the first day, I began to get to know the other prisoners pretty well. Social relations in Palestine are very close—there are strong connections between Palestinian people. So you can find somebody in jail whose brother or friends you know and you can speak with him.

We had two opportunities to leave our room-once in the morning and once for an hour in the evening. We walked outside in the prison courtyard. In my section there were over a hundred people, but only forty people could fit in the courtyard. So forty people entered and walked in a circle in rows, four to a row. We had one hour, so we walked half an hour clockwise and half an hour counter-clockwise. One of the prisoners would clap when half an hour was up and then we'd walk in the opposite direction. As we walked, I thought, This is the circle of our life, of every day. And when we start at this point, after one hour we will be back at the same point.

The courtyard was mostly covered, so there was barely any sunlight even on bright days. Most of the prisoners started to feel sick, just from lack of sun. There were some small windows in the hallways outside the rooms, and if you wanted to get sun, you had to go there in the morning. But there was a pecking order. I was new to the prison, and there were older people who had been in jail for twenty years and they were sick, so it was more important for them to be in the sun than me. I didn't really see any sun for over a year.

Slowly, my mind started to bend and adapt to life inside cell walls. Jail is a time for each Palestinian to sit with himself, a time to make an evaluation of his life. And it's an important, powerful experience to have the time to learn and share stories with people in jail.

Sometimes we found somebody sitting by himself in the room with his mind on the outside world, and we knew we had to keep him from feeling alone. If any of us prisoners began to live with our mind outside the jail, we would start to feel down, depressed. So we would give each other a little time to think those thoughts, but if we saw someone looking pensive, we would go to him after maybe half an hour and start joking, discussing things, anything, just to keep him from getting lost within himself.

I was in isolation a few times—sometimes for a few days, sometimes for a week. This could be for something like having contraband, like cell phones. It was very bad in isolation. There was no bed, just a small room with a mat on the floor that you slept on. You had five minutes to go to the bathroom and do what you want, shower, clean—just five minutes. And then you came back to the small cell. Some people spend years in isolation.

There were often conflicts with the guards inside the jail. We would begin to shout or knock on the door and they would come and shoot us with pepper bullets.¹⁷ The bullets cut your skin and the pepper goes in.

The guards searched the room several times each day. When they did these searches, they would bring at least nine or ten soldiers to every room. Sometimes they came just to search. Sometimes they came to bother us. They might come at three in the morning, when we were sleeping. Within a second they'd open the door and nine soldiers would enter with their guns, shouting, "Get down! Put your hands up!"

Still, we were able to hide things sometimes. One thing that was important to us was a cell phone. We used the phone to get news, to talk to our families. At one point, it was my job to hide the phone every evening. We would take it out at six o'clock in the evening and use it until ten, twelve at night, and then hide it. I hid it in a lot of places—for example, we put it in the floor. We cut out a little bit of tile and put it underneath. But you had to be very fast and careful because when the guards came, they searched everything, even the floor sometimes. One time, they brought in a metal detector, and they were able to find our phone that way. They took it, and as punishment they took away visits for two months.

THEY WANTED MY FAMILY TO FEEL LIKE THEY WERE IN JAIL TOO

During the whole time I was under interrogation in Jerusalem, my family had no idea where I was or what was happening to me. Toward the end of my time in Jerusalem, someone who knew me from the camp spotted me as I was being escorted down the halls to or from interrogation. This guy told his mother about me when he got out, and then his mother told my mother where I was. Then my mother and father went to the International Red Cross to ask for permission to see me.¹⁸ Finally, two months after I was transferred to Be'er Sheva, they came to visit me.

When I first saw them, my mother had been crying. She was behind a pane of glass and we spoke into telephones. It was difficult for me and it was difficult for her, because we knew she was going to leave after forty-five minutes. During the visit I told them, "It's okay, I'm good. We have a big space, and TV, and the food is good. We have meat, we have chicken every day, we have juice, we can drink what we want." And all of that was a lie to make her feel better about the situation. It wasn't easy, because I knew if anybody was released from jail, they would tell her what was really going on. And I knew that she knew I was lying, but she didn't want to say it.

But she wanted to keep my spirits up as well. I kept asking about what was happening outside, and she told me everything was good—this friend was getting married, this one was about to graduate from college. There were a lot of bad things she didn't tell me about. I know she lied because she wanted to give me a nice picture of the outside. So we were lying to each other just to keep each other happy.

My parents came twice a month. It was hard for them to visit the jail. They'd get on the bus at four in the morning and wouldn't arrive until noon, and the visits were only forty-five minutes long. They wouldn't get home until at least seven or eight at night. Sometimes when they came, the prison guards told them, "He's not here, we took him to another jail," or "He's in court." It wasn't true. Once, another prisoner coming back from a visit told me, "Muhanned, your family is waiting outside." I changed my clothes for the visit and waited for my turn. But every time I asked the soldier about it, he said, "Not now, not now." Finally, visiting hours ended and the soldier said, "Your family didn't come." I told him my family was outside, and he went to check. When he came back he told me they had been there, but that they had to leave because visiting time was over.

You know, I didn't want my family to come. I didn't want them to spend all these hours just to come for forty-five minutes and sometimes not even see me. It was a punishment for my family. The Israeli authorities wanted to make my family feel like they were in jail too. So, one night, I used the mobile that we had hidden to tell them not to come anymore.

A couple of months after my parents first started visiting, my two younger brothers were arrested as well. The older of the two was sentenced to two years. He was nineteen. My youngest brother was given administrative detention for a few months-he was just sixteen at the time.¹⁹ I was the first, but my father and mother now say the Israelis have a map of the house since they've visited so many times.

When I was arrested, it was hard for my family. My mom didn't leave the house for a while. But after she came to visit me the first time, she began to meet people and she began to see there were people who would spend all their lives in jail. They had families, wives, and children that they'd never see. So this gave her some perspective. She thought, My son, at least he will get released. And she felt the same way about my brothers. I felt the same way, too. There were a lot of people who had twenty-year sentences. So I felt I was just in prison as a tourist.

After a year and a half, in the spring of 2006, I was moved again, this time to the prison in Naqab.²⁰ There I lived in a tent in the desert for eight months. There'd be maybe twenty of us in each tent, and huge walls around each section of tents. The walls were the same height as the apartheid wall.²¹ We were in the desert in June and July, the hottest time of year, under the sun all the time. It was like 104 degrees Fahrenheit, but we were just out in the sun. All the prisoners, they spent their time close to the wall trying to get shade. And there were so many bugs—mosquitoes, bed bugs. It was terrible. The only good thing was the other people, the other prisoners I met.

After the prison in the desert, I was transferred again to Shate Prison, near Nazareth, not long before my release.²² I spent a few months there. Then finally, in 2007, I was released.

I MADE MY ROOM LOOK LIKE THE ROOM IN JAIL

I knew the date I would be released, but not the place. They released me in Jenin.²³ It was very far from home, and I didn't have any money. I didn't have anything. In 2007, the situation in Jenin was not easy. I borrowed a phone from a taxi driver to call my family and tell them to come and take me back to Bethlehem.

When I got home, I found a hundred friends, family, and neighbors waiting for me at the camp. All of them wanted to carry me on their shoulders or to hug me. I had spent the last three years speaking and living with a maximum of seven people, and to be around so many people all of a sudden, so much commotion, was overwhelming. I was happy, but it was a little too much. Everyone seemed to be talking at once, and I couldn't focus.

The first day I slept in my own house, I woke up at six in the morning, alone. I had gone to sleep at four or five o'clock in the morning because I was celebrating with my family and friends, but I woke up at six because every day while I was in jail, we woke up at six to do the count.

For three or four months, I wanted to be alone. I didn't want to speak with anybody. I didn't want to meet anybody. I made my room look like the room in jail—I filled it with some boxes to make myself a smaller space, and I had coffee and everything I needed around me in that one room.

Everybody who goes to jail has a lot of problems when they get released. For me, I had trouble speaking with more than one person at the same time, and sometimes I needed a long time to focus on all the details of a conversation. Also, sometimes I had a problem with—I don't know how to say it—feeling secure. For example, if I heard a voice outside, I had to go and see who was talking. If somebody opened the door to my family's house, I had to go and see who it was. Sometimes I'd be sitting in some public space with friends and I'd notice a person sitting behind us, staring at us. My friends, who hadn't been to jail, wouldn't notice that.

But still, I tried to get back into my life. I wasn't as active anymore with friends or politics. But I started school at Abu Dis again in 2008. I was going back to my old art program, the one I'd been in when I was arrested in 2004. My family is educated, as are many people in the camp. Work is not easy to find, and we are not in a normal country. So you must study to have something to do. Having a B.A. here in Palestine is like the same level of qualifications as finishing high school somewhere else. I have four uncles—one has a Ph.D. from Rice University, one has a Ph.D. in education, one is an engineer, the other finished his master's. Two of my aunts are getting their master's. It's the only way to make a living. My twin sister finished her master's and is working for her Ph.D. So getting a degree was very important to me.

Still, it sometimes felt like the hardest thing in my life to go back to university. I had been out of university for almost five years, and when I came back, all my old friends were gone. People who had been studying with me, they were now my professors at the school. I couldn't spend time with other students to discuss anything because they were five or six years younger than me. They felt the things they were discussing were very important, but I didn't care if I had Ray-Ban sunglasses or how much my watch cost or whatever. So I found a distance between myself and others. To be honest, I skipped a lot of classes.

I wasn't like that before jail. Before jail I was happy and proud to go in the morning to lectures, to attend university. I was proud of the books I was reading. But after jail, I was ashamed. I didn't want anybody to see me, having me going to school. I felt too old and that this time was finished for me.

But I also met someone, a woman who was about six years younger than me named Aghsan. Before long, we got engaged. But for a girlfriend didn't change much—it was still hard to adjust to being out of prison. For the Palestinian, the occupation changes everything, controls everything your mind, your life. Aghsan is from Ramallah, and it should have taken me one hour to go and visit her coming from Bethlehem.²⁴ But at the checkpoint, Palestinians are stopped for hours, even if you are just going to meet your girlfriend. At the checkpoint you don't know how long you will stay.²⁵

I had to tell the soldiers at the checkpoint that I had been in jail, because if I had not been honest when they asked, they would have checked and it would have been a problem for me. They asked a lot of questions. And sometimes they didn't ask anything, they just told me to get out of my car and made me wait. It depended on the soldier. If the soldier had a problem with his girlfriend, if he was having a bad day, he would make it a bad day for me. So during our engagement I would just go from Bethlehem to Ramallah to see my fiancée for a couple of hours and then head the opposite way to come back, and this was my whole world. After a while, I started to think the story of Romeo and Juliet was easier than my story. I thought, Why am I in love with a girl in Ramallah? London and Ramallah seem like the same distance. Is this really worth it? Sometimes I think the occupation will even stop love.

I also have had trouble at work because of my time in prison. I got a job at an organization called Addameer, a prisoner support and human rights association, a little after I started school.²⁶ It's difficult for me when I feel I'm under someone else's control. I don't want to be under control. This is a problem I have at work. I don't like signing in every day, having my actions determined by someone else.

I BELIEVE ART IS RESISTANCE

When I came back to university at Abu Dis, I spoke with my art teacher. I told her that I wanted to make art about the jail. She supported me because she said there were few artists like me who had experienced jail, even if there were a lot of artists who made prison the focus of their work. Palestinians and international organizations are always speaking about political prisoners in Palestine. Some Palestinian artists make posters, drawings, paintings, and they often depict prisoners as very big and strong, as guys who can destroy the walls of the jail. But I wanted to do something different. I wanted to speak about prison, about life from the eyes of a prisoner. My art was about how the prisoners see the outside world. I painted the bars of the windows, because that's the view we knew. We never saw a view without the fence, without the windows. And when I went to visit my family, my mother, she was on the other side of the glass. So when I was looking at my mother, I saw my mother, but her face was never completely in view. I've painted glimpses of faces and people and houses and cars on small square canvasses to represent the way the outside world appears to prisoners, seeing the world through these little screens, through small glimpses.

I had an exhibition in London in 2011, and also one in Jerusalem, and a third one in Bethlehem. I am proud of that. But I know these paintings I made, somebody can take them for money and put them in his house and close them up. So the maximum number of people who will see these paintings is ten people, twenty people. But I believe that art is for all levels of society. I am from a refugee camp, and I am drawing for the poor people in Palestine, not for the bourgeoisie. I'm not doing a painting to keep it inside the house.

After I was released from jail, I started doing graffiti. Sometimes I and a couple of other artists used stencils, because we did a lot of painting in places where we are not allowed to paint, so we had to go fast. I did graffiti in the main street to let everybody see the drawing.²⁷

I believe art is resistance. The graffiti in Palestine, it's not like the graffiti in any other place in the world. Because when you write something on the wall, this means it has a connection with the First Intifada and the revolutionary time.

When I make my art, it feels that I am giving something to my homeland and sending my message to the rest of the world. I paint because I'm speaking for thousands of people nobody knows about the people in jail. Many of them have been living for thirty years or more in jail. Few people speak for or about them. There are 12,000 people incarcerated in military jails. Why people don't know about them, I don't know.

If you live in Palestine, you have big problems—much pain, much suffering. I am painting to change that, to help ease the pain. Many of us are not fighting with guns, but we find our own way to resist. We may lose our lives or freedom, but we are working for the lives of our next generation.

---

Footnotes

¹ Naji Al-Ali (1938-1987) was a political cartoonist who criticized Palestinian politicians and the state of Israel. A recurring character in his artwork was Handala, a faceless ten-year-old Palestinian boy whose story represented the Palestinian refugee experience.

² Members of the Al-Azzah family had been leaders in the region of their former village ever since revolting against Ottoman rule in the nineteenth century. After many of the residents in their community fled to Bethlehem in 1948, the refugee camp was named after them, in recognition of their prominence.

³ From the glossary -

two-state solution: A proposed peace plan that would create a separate Palestinian state and define clear boundaries between Israel and Palestine. Peace process plans since the First Intifada between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have targeted a two-state solution rather than a one-state solution.

⁴ Beit Jibrin was an Arab village located thirteen miles northwest of Hebron and twenty-five miles southwest of Jerusalem. Before 1948, the population was a little under 3,000. The village was depopulated during Israeli raids in the 1948 war, and there is currently an Israeli settlement on its former location called Beit Guvrin.

⁵ From the glossary -

Arab-Israeli War: A conflict between newly formed Israel and neighboring Arab nations that has shaped Israeli-Palestinian relations since 1948. Tensions between Jewish and Arabic residents of the British Mandate in Palestine (1923-1948) were high leading up to the 1947 United Nations announcement of partition of the region into a Jewish nation (Israel) and a state for the region's non-Jewish Arab population (Palestine). The Arab League, an organization of neighboring Arab countries, opposed the partition plan, and declared war on Israel in May of 1948, immediately after Israel officially declared statehood. The war between the Arab States and Israel lasted until armistice agreements in the spring of 1949. During the war, more than 750,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes, and Israel annexed 60 percent of the land that had been demarcated as Palestinian territory under the 1947 U.N. partition plan. Palestinians refer to the war and its aftermath as the Nakba, or "catastrophe," and much of Palestinian politics today is driven by the claimed right of families to return to lands they were expelled from in 1948.

⁶ From the glossary -

Oslo Accords: A series of negotiated agreements between the leadership of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization starting in 1993, during the height of the First Intifada. The goal of the accords was to institute a peace plan and create an interim Palestinian government in anticipation of eventual Palestinian statehood. The Oslo Accords led to the creation of the Palestinian National Authority (subsequently called the Palestinian Authority), a temporary governing body formed from the administration of the PLO.

⁷ The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was formed in 1967.

⁸ The "right of return" refers to a political position that Palestinian refugees and their descendants should be permitted to reclaim land and property that they were driven from in the wars in 1948 and 1967.

⁹ From the glossary -

Fatah: A left-leaning political party that makes up the majority of the Palestinian Liberation Organization coalition. Fatah was founded in 1959 largely by Palestinian refugees who had been displaced by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. After its founding, Fatah had several militant wings and conducted a number of military actions against Israel, and Israel targeted military and non-military elements of Fatah.

Hamas: A political party founded in 1987 as an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is a Sunni Islamist political party, and its stated aims are to liberate Palestine from Israel and establish an Islamic state in the region that now encompasses Israel and the occupied territories. Hamas gained greater influence in the early 2000s, surging to power on dissatisfaction with the Palestinian Authority, which many Palestinians viewed as corrupt and willing to cede too much to Israel in peace negotiations. After winning parliamentary elections in the Gaza Strip in 2006, Hamas solidified its power in Gaza after violent skirmishes with opposition party Fatah. By 2007, Hamas had effectively taken control of Gaza, driving the Palestinian Authority from power there. Because Israel views Hamas as a terrorist organization, it imposed a crippling economic blockade on the Gaza Strip following Hamas takeover. In the spring of 2014, Hamas and Fatah announced a political reconciliation, though to date Hamas remains the sole power in Gaza.

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): The Palestine Liberation Organization is a coalition of political organizations that was formed in 1964 with the aim of creating an independent Palestinian state. The PLO was first formed in the summer of 1964 during a meeting of the Arab League, and was composed of numerous political and military factions, including Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Yasser Arafat led the PLO from 1969 until his death in 2004. The coalition was considered a terrorist organization by Israel and the U.S. until 1991. After negotiations known as the Oslo Accords began in 1993, the PLO became the official governing and diplomatic body of the Palestinian people. In 1994, the Palestinian Authority was formed out of the organizational structure of the PLO and chartered as an interim government of Palestine for the duration of peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine.

¹⁰ The First Intifada was an uprising throughout the West Bank and Gaza against Israeli military occupation. It began in December 1987 and lasted until 1993. Intifada in Arabic means "to shake off."

¹¹ Palestinians use the term "martyr" generally for anyone killed by Israelis, not necessarily someone who died while fighting. Although originally a religious term, it is now used by religious and secular Palestinians alike.

¹² Al-Quds is a university system with three campuses in the West Bank, including one in the city of Abu Dis, which together serve over 13,000 undergraduates. Abu Dis is a city of around 12,000 people just east of Jerusalem. Al-Quds is the Arabic name of the city of Jerusalem.

¹³ Muhanned is referring to the art and culture from Spain during the 800 years when it was under Muslim influence. In 710, Islamic armies succeeded in conquering large areas of Spain within a short span of years. The conquerors gave the country the name Al-Andalus.

¹⁴ Al-Muskubiya ("the Russian Compound") is a large compound in Jerusalem that was built in the nineteenth century to house an influx of Russian Orthodox pilgrims into the city during the time of Ottoman rule. It now houses a major interrogation center and lockup as well as courthouses and other Israeli government buildings.

¹⁵ Up to this point, Muhanned was being held in administrative detention, a system that allows Israel to indefinitely detain Palestinians without specific charges.

¹⁶ Eshel Prison, near the Israeli city of Be'er Sheva, is a maximum-security facility that was opened in 1970. Be'er Sheva is a city of over 200,000 people located sixty miles southwest of Jerusalem.

¹⁷ Pepper-spray projectiles are weapons sometimes used to incapacitate and control crowds. Each projectile ball fired from the weapon contains chemicals such as capsicum, which is also used in pepper spray. Though they are intended to be non-lethal, deaths have been reported from the use of pepper-spray projectiles.

¹⁸ The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is an organization that monitors prisoner rights around the world, among other functions.

¹⁹ From the glossary -

administrative detention: A legal procedure under which detainees are held without charges or trial. Some forms of administrative detention are legal under international law during times of war and while peace agreements are negotiated between opposing factions. Many of the detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are held by the United States in administrative detention indefinitely, and the procedure has also been employed in Northern Ireland against the Irish Republican Army and in South Africa during the apartheid era. Administrative detention was employed by the British against Jewish insurgents during the British Mandate of Palestine, and the Israeli military adopted the practice at the formation of Israel. In 2014, Israel has held as many as 300 Palestinians in administrative detention. Though each term of detention is limited to a set number of days (usually a single day to as many as six months), detention can be renewed in court, meaning detainees can be held indefinitely without trial or charges. Though article 78 of the Fourth Geneva Convention grants occupying powers the right to detain persons in occupied territories for security reasons, it stipulates that this procedure should only be used for "imperative security reasons" and not as punishment. During the Second Intifada, Israel arrested tens of thousands of males between the ages of fourteen and forty-five without charges.

²⁰ The Ktzi'ot Prison is a large, open-air prison camp in the vast Negev desert (Naqab desert in Arabic), located forty-five miles southwest of Be'er Sheva. Ktzi'ot was opened in 1988 and closed in 1995 after the end of the First Intifada, and then reopened in 2002 during the Second Intifada. According to Human Rights Watch, one out of every fifty West Bank and Gazan males over the age of sixteen was held at Ktzi'ot in 1990, during the middle of the First Intifada.

²¹ This is a reference to the barrier wall separating Israel from the occupied Palestinian territories, which in many places is twenty to twenty-six feet high and made of triple-reinforced concrete.

²² Shate Prison (shate means "hot pepper" in Arabic) was opened in 1952 and houses 800 prisoners.

²³ Jenin is a city of almost 50,000 people on the northern border of the West Bank. It's located over sixty miles north of Bethlehem.

²⁴ Ramallah is the de facto administrative capital of Palestine. It is about thirteen miles north of Bethlehem.

²⁵ From the glossary -

checkpoints: Barriers on transportation routes maintained by the Israeli Defense Forces on transportation routes within the West Bank. The stated purpose of the checkpoints in the West Bank is to protect Israeli settlers, search for contraband such as weapons, and prevent Palestinians from entering restricted areas without permits. The number of fixed checkpoints varies from year to year, but there may be as many as one hundred throughout the West Bank. In addition, there are temporary roadblocks and surprise checkpoints throughout the West Bank that may number in the hundreds every month. For Palestinians, these fixed and temporary checkpoints—where they may be detained, delayed, or questioned for unpredictable periods of time—make daily planning difficult every month.

²⁶ Ramallah is the de facto administrative capital of Palestine. It is about thirteen miles north of Bethlehem.

²⁷ Most of Muhanned's murals are done with the permission, and even at the request, of the property owners.

#palestine speaks #palestinian voices #book exerpt #part 13 of 16 #the israeli soldiers going crazy at the writing on the walls reminds me of king belshazzar and daniel from the bible

[watchinghallmark]

Okay! I'm so excited to have the big movie announcement out today!! I still maintain that 40 is too many even if like none of you agree. This is the first time I'm going through the list so I'll react as I go! Under the cut because it's a little long.

Checkin' It Twice - Love Kevin and have really enjoyed Kim. Sounds like a cute plot and he gets to be Canadian and play hockey so that's fun.

Where Are You, Christmas? - What a fun concept with having it in black and white! I'm into the cast for this one.

Under the Christmas Sky - Excited to see Jessica in a movie and Ryan, of course. Could be interesting. Love to see some disability representation.

Ms. Christmas Comes to Town - Interesting concept. People love their home shopping. I used to watch it all the time actually haha

Christmas by Design - Meh about this one.

Mystic Christmas - Not sure I understand the plot of this one but decent cast.

Joyeux Noel - So happy Jaicy is back and in France!

My Christmas Guide - This feels very Guiding Emily but I'm here for the representation. The actor is visually impaired so that's a plus!

Flipping for Christmas - They randomly include a clip of this movie in the Fall into Love promo. Anyway. Could be cute.

Never Been Chris'd - Obviously can't wait for this one!

The Santa Summit - A Hallmark movie about bar hopping! Love it.

Mystery on Mistletoe Lane - I like Victor. This sounds pretty cute with the kids.

Everything Christmas - Fun concept with roommates.

Christmas Island - Kind of a weird plot but should be fun with Andrew and Rachel.

A Heidelberg Holiday - Excited to see a Christmas movie in Germany!

A World Record Christmas - Love that we're getting some autism awareness this Christmas!

Navigating Christmas - Sounds fine.

A Merry Scottish Christmas - Should be a good one!

Holiday Hotline - This sounds really adorable.

A Season for Family - We need more movies about adoption, honestly.

Catch Me If You Claus - Ridiculous and I can't wait!

Letters to Santa - Could be cute.

Holiday Road - An 'inspired by true events' road trip. Okay.

Christmas in Notting Hill - Really looking forward to this one! It got the coveted Saturday after Thanksgiving spot which means Hallmark is also excited about it.

Haul Out the Holly: Lit Up - Did we need a sequel? I'm sure it'll be really fun.

Our Christmas Mural - Meh about this one too.

A Biltmore Christmas - Very excited about this one!

Time for Her to Come Home for Christmas - Can we be done with this series?

My Norwegian Holiday - You had me at 'troll figurine'.

A Not So Royal Christmas - This sounds really fun.

Christmas with a Kiss - Not much to go off of with this one.

To All a Good Night - I always love Kimberley.

Magic in Mistletoe - Damage control? Sounds fun.

Miracle in Bethlehem, PA - New baby!! Cute.

Friends & Family Christmas - FAKE DATING LESBIANS!!! It's a Christmas miracle!

Sealed with a List - Could be fun.

The Secret Gift of Christmas - Excited to see Meghan back but a little meh about this.

Heaven Down Here - Love a good stranding.

Round and Round - Super weird and I'm here for it (for for Bryan!!).

Christmas on Cherry Lane - This sounds good.

[authorisnotdead]

When “engineer” is not just a vocab word

When I was 21 years old, I studied Arabic for a year in college.

The class was taught by a Bosnian woman who introduced herself to us the first day by saying “My name is Ines Ansceric Todd. But you are not here to learn Bosnian, you are here to learn Arabic. So you may call me Dr. Todd.”

Dr. Todd’s method of teaching us Arabic was through affectionate humiliation.

“What?” she would often say, looking around the room, chuckling.

“What is he trying to read? Is he on the right page?” “I can see that Felicia has done the homework.”

We learned very basic phrases that year,

Ones that textbooks love to use that don’t really come up in conversation—

Adhab ila maktaba kul yam. I go to the library every day.

Hunaka sayarat fi-shari. There are cars on the street. Bab al-bait. The door of the house.

Andi kilab. I have two books.

Huya muhandis , or hiya muhandisa

He is an engineer, or she is an engineer.

Family members: baba, ama, akh, ukht—father, mother, brother, sister.

I am 30 now and scrolling through news about a war a world away. I have forgotten all of the Arabic that Dr. Todd instilled in me through fear of teasing.

There is a video of a young girl, she’s maybe 8 or 9 years old.

She’s surrounded by the ruins of her town, in a street that used to be filled with cars, a house with no door.

“What is your dream for the future?” someone asks her.

She replies in Arabic ‘Yam min a yam, yurid muhandisa.” One day, I would like to be an engineer, she tells them. So that I can build a home that the bombs cannot tear down. A home where my family will be safe. I see the words of a poet who I did not know

Whose work I have not read who asks that if he dies he should like to become a kite with a long white tail

So that a child in Gaza may look up to see a kite flying in the sky and they might see an angel of hope.

I am baking Christmas cookies (because Christmas comes even when it feels like it shouldn’t) and the song playing in the background

tells a story of a star in the sky with a tail as big as a kite in a little town of Bethlehem. I do not know the fate of the little girl who wanted to be an engineer when she grew up. I do not know the fate of her family.

Her baba, her ama, her akh, her ukht,

I do not know what became of them.

My niece is now six and last summer we walked on the beach and watched people flying kites,

colorful tails blowing in the wind

I wonder if someday

she might like to be an engineer.

#Palestine #Refaat Alareer #please forgive my shit Arabic... I truly have forgotten all of it

[walkswithmyfather]

“When Jesus was born in the village of Bethlehem in Judea, Herod was king. During this time some wise men from the east came to Jerusalem and said, “Where is the child born to be king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.” When King Herod heard about this, he was worried, and so was everyone else in Jerusalem.

Herod brought together the chief priests and the teachers of the Law of Moses and asked them, “Where will the Messiah be born?” They told him, “He will be born in Bethlehem, just as the prophet wrote, ‘Bethlehem in the land of Judea, you are very important among the towns of Judea. From your town will come a leader, who will be like a shepherd for my people Israel.’”

Herod secretly called in the wise men and asked them when they had first seen the star. He told them, “Go to Bethlehem and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, let me know. I also want to go and worship him.” The wise men listened to what the king said and then left.

And the star they had seen in the east went on ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. They were thrilled and excited to see the star. When the men went into the house and saw the child with Mary, his mother, they knelt down and worshiped him. They took out their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh and gave them to him. Later they were warned in a dream not to return to Herod, and they went back home by another road.” —Matthew 2:1‭-‬12 (CEV)

“Following The Star” - A Sermon For Epiphany By Dr. Robert D. Cornwall:

“According to Matthew, Magi – Zoroastrian priests from Persia -- followed a twinkling star to the house of Jesus, so they could honor him as King of the Jews.

In Matthew’s story, a star shines brightly in the darkness of the night sky, drawing the attention of the Magi, who recognize that this light in the sky is a sign that something important is occurring, and that they need to follow the sign to where it leads. You may have heard the slogan: “wise men still seek him.” It’s an invitation to join these men of wisdom in finding enlightenment at the feet of Christ.

There are, of course, other characters in this story besides Jesus and the Magi. There’s even a villain – Herod, the titular King of the Jews. That is, while he holds the title, his claim is questionable. He’s not a descendant of David, and he came to power in part by marrying into the last Jewish dynasty, but what is more important, he had the support of Caesar.

So, while it’s not surprising that when the Magi come looking for the “King of the Jews,” they first stopped at Herod’s palace, this wasn’t their final destination. What they learn from Herod, however, is that the prophet Micah had spoken of a shepherd arising out of Bethlehem. And so, they head out from Jerusalem to Bethlehem to find their promised king.

When the Magi reach Bethlehem, their search ends at a little house in Bethlehem. Upon their arrival, they fall on their knees and honor this child with tribute – gold and incense – recognizing in him the rule and reign of God.

The Magi recognize Jesus as the true king, but as we learn from the gospels, his kingdom is very different from that of Herod. His is a kingdom of light rather than darkness; love instead of domination. Instead of enslaving us, it sets us free. In fact, it’s the kind of kingdom described in the Beatitudes, where Jesus declares: Blessed are the poor, the grieving, the meek, the ones who hunger after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted.

It’s no wonder that Herod tried to snuff out the realm of God at the beginning, even as Pilate tried to do the same later on. It’s just not the way the world does things!

So, where do you see signs of God’s kingdom present in your life? If you’re looking for lights in the sky, then you’re probably looking in the wrong place…We, having been enlightened by our encounter with the child born in Bethlehem, carry the light of God into the world.

The message of Epiphany is this: The light of God is made manifest in Christ to the world, and as the body of Christ, the church continues to shine this light into the world. As Jesus said: don’t put your lamp under a bushel basket; instead put it on a lampstand so that your light will “shine before people, so they can see the good things you do and praise your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:15-16 CEB).

So, as Isaiah puts it: “Arise, Shine! Your Light has come; the Lord’s glory has shone upon you” (Isaiah 60:1 CEB). Darkness may be closing in on you, but “the Lord will shine for you; God’s glory will appear over you.” (Vs. 2).

The good news is that each of us has access to the light of God that twinkles in the night sky, guiding “us to thy perfect light.”

[Edited from a sermon preached by Dr. Robert D. Cornwall, Pastor

at Central Woodward Christian Church, Michigan]

#epiphany #bible #christian blog #god #belief in god #faith in god #jesus #belief in jesus #faith in jesus #what is epiphany #encouragement #christian encouragement #bible study #bible verses #bible truths #matthew 2:1‭-‬12 #the three wise men #bible scriptures #bible quotes #the word of god #christian life #christian living #christians #christianity #christian inspirational quotes #christian inspiration #christian faith #christian quotes #keep the faith #make him known

[estherdedlock]

Every year, there’s a pop-culture debate about whether some movies that aren’t about Christmas, like Die Hard and Catch Me If You Can are actually “Christmas movies.” I think it depends on how the movie makes the viewer feel. If it gives you those vibes, then by golly, it is a Christmas movie.

I think a lot of readers tend to associate The Secret History with autumn, which makes perfect sense, but for me, it’s a winter’s tale---and that puts it firmly in the category of Christmas books. So in the spirit of the season, here’s an excerpt, abridged for the holidays, of one of my favorite parts of the story. Because The Secret History isn’t just a winter’s tale but a Winter tale, if you know what I mean.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all!

************

  Christmas came and went without notice, except that with no work and everything closed there was no place to go to get warm except, for a few hours, to church. I came home afterwards and wrapped myself in my blanket and rocked back and forth, ice in my very bones, and thought of all the sunny Christmases of my childhood---oranges, bikes and Hula Hoops, green tinsel sparkling in the heat.   Around the second week of January I got a postcard from Rome, no return address. It was a photograph of the Primaporta Augustus: beside it, Bunny had drawn a surprisingly deft cartoon of himself and Henry in Roman dress (togas, little round eyeglasses) squinting off curiously in the direction indicated by the statue’s outstretched arm. (Caesar Augustus was Bunny’s hero; he had embarrassed us all by cheering loudly at the mention of his name during the reading of the Bethlehem story from Luke 2 at the literature division’s Christmas party. “Well, what of it,” he said, when we tried to shush him. “All the world shoulda been taxed.”)   Late one afternoon, as it was getting dark, I looked down into the empty courtyard and was startled to see that a dark, motionless figure had materialized under the lamp, standing with its hands in the pockets of its dark overcoat and looking up at my window. It was shadowy and heavy snow was falling: “Henry?” I said, and squeezed my eyes shut until I saw stars. When I opened them again, I saw nothing but snow whirling in the bright cone of emptiness beneath the light. It was Friday, and Dr. Roland was going to be out of town until the following Wednesday. For me, that meant four days in the warehouse, and even in my clouded state it was clear I might freeze to death for real.   When Commons closed I started for home. The snow was deep, and before long my legs to the knees were prickling and numb. Everything in East Hampden was dark and deserted, even the Boulder Tap; the only light for miles around seemed to be the light shimmering around the pay phone in front. I had about thirty dollars in my pocket, more than enough to call a taxi to take me to the Catamount Motel.   I had one more quarter in my pocket; it was my last one. I took off my gloves and groped in my pocket with my numbed fingers. Finally I found it, and had it in my hand and was about to bring it up to the slot, when suddenly it slipped from my fingers and I pitched forward after it, hitting my forehead on the sharp corner of the metal tray beneath the phone. I managed to get up on all fours. I saw a dark spot on the snow. The quarter was gone.   I made it up the stairs, half walking, half on my hands and knees. Blood was trickling down my forehead. I pushed the workshop door open with my shoulder and began to fumble for the light switch when suddenly I saw something by the window that made me reel with shock. A figure in a long black overcoat was standing motionless across the room by the windows, hands clasped behind the back; near one of the hands I saw the tiny glow of a cigarette coal.   “Henry?” I said at last, my voice scarcely more than a whisper.   He let the cigarette fall from his fingers and took a step towards me. It really was him---damp, ruddy cheeks, snow on the shoulders of his overcoat. “Good God, Richard,” he said, “what’s happened to you?”   It was as much surprise as I ever saw him show. I reached for the door frame, and the next thing I knew I was falling, and Henry had jumped forward to catch me.   He eased me onto the floor and took off his coat and spread it over me like a blanket. “Where did you come from?” I said.   “I left Italy early.” He was brushing the hair back from my forehead. I saw blood on his fingertips.   “Some little place I’ve got here, huh?” I said, and laughed.   “Yes,” he said brusquely. Then he bent to look at my head again.

#the secret history #henry winter #richard papen #christmas reading #christmas #dark academia #donna tartt

[meltorights]

What are your favorite hymns?

i love hymnody so this is too hard.... i have to break it up by season and even then i feel like im leaving things out

ordinary time/general O God Beyond All Praising - just a perfect hymn... and whether our tomorrows be filled with good or ill / we'll triumph through our sorrows and rise to bless you still!!!!! this arrangement is a bit overdone imo but it still brings me to tears.

advent - tossup here! one of my favorite seasons for music so it's hard to pick only two.

People Look East - such a fun hymn.... this is what gives me the excitement of advent every year.

Lo! He Comes With Clouds Descending - INSANELY fun to sing. gives me chills.

christmas - another place where it's impossible to pick only 1 and painful to limit myself to two.

O Little Town of Bethlehem (Forest Green) - forest green is the correct tune. perfect piece of music. i sang the descant as a kid and it changed my life.

What Child Is This? - catholic hymnals Butcher this hymn by cutting the bits about nails and spears piercing him through. brings me to tears every time.

lent

Crux Fidelis / Sing My Tongue, The Glorious Battle - I can't find a recording of the english translations set to the tune PICCARDY which fits perfectly. but the chant tune is wonderful. venetius fortunatus went off when he personified the cross, saying, "and the king of earth and heaven / gently on your bosom tend"

Vexila Regis / The Royal Banners Forward Go - the cross of defeat is also a banner of triumph.......

easter

ad cenam angi providi / the lamb's high banquet we await - this is one of the few chant hymns that i think you should really speed through and none of the recordings get it right. really exciting hymn.

christ is alive! - perfect hymn. perfect summation of easter. "christ is alive, no longer bound / to distant years in palestine"

come ye faithful raise the strain - another perfect hymn

at the lambs high feast we sing - popular but worthy of it

ascension

crown him with many crowns - CROWN HIM THE LORD OF LOVE BEHOLD HIS HANDS AND SIDE RICH WOUNDS STILL VISIBLE ABOVE IN BEAUTY GLORIFIED

alleluia sing to jesus - not as orphans are we left in sorrow now...

hail the day that sees him rise - see he lifts his hands above. see he shows the prints of love.

pentecost

come down o live divine THE pentecost hymn.

not a season but eucharistic devotional hymns slap

jesus my lord my god my all

#this is a hugely incomplete list but. #it's long enough now. #tep.txt #de profundis

[vavoom-sorted-art]

Of Kings And Kids: Chapter two!

@gaiaseyes451 and me present: Chapter 2 is live on Ao3!

A little excerpt from Chapter 2:

Crowley's eyes were determinedly fixed on the road below as he sipped the wine. “That them?”

Aziraphale followed his gaze and spotted figures on the road, approaching the town’s entrance. A young man was leading a donkey at a gentle pace, he was tall but slight and wore the plain roughspun garments of a tradesman. The animal, burdened with the standard saddlebags, was also carrying a young woman, even from this distance she was visibly pregnant and swayed with the donkey’s movements.

A quiet fell over them, the playfulness of the moment had passed. ”Yes, that’s them.”

“Look pretty normal to me.”

Aziraphale nodded, “that’s part of the point, I think. Humble beginnings, nothing outwardly to indicate they’re particularly special.”

“Then why them? What’s so special?”

Aziraphale could feel Crowley’s eyes on him but he continued watching the party’s slow progress toward town. “Well, they fulfill the prophecy that the Messiah will come from the line of King David. They’re both descendents – distant cousins, not that it matters, in this case. She – Mary – is pure of heart and deeply faithful. Joseph understands his role, the importance of the child he will adopt.”

“Hardly seems fair,” Crowley gruffed.

“In what way? She is showing them tremendous favor. Entrusting them with Her only son, to be the Earthly guardians of the Messiah.” Aziraphale’s voice was steady but it lost some of its conviction as he met Crowley’s gaze. “They are the most favored humans to have ever lived – who will ever live.”

“Sure, they’re favored. But…but, they’re people. Humans.” His voice was intense even though it was barely above a whisper. “Musta had some idea for their lives, some hope for what it’d be like, being married, being parents. Now what? Caught up in Her plan, but what about theirs? And the kid, his entire purpose is set before he’s even born!”

This wasn’t the first time Crowley had questioned Her plan to Aziraphale; he knew his answer would be wholly insufficient. “It’s ineffable.”

The demon snorted. “It’s unfair.”

The sun was sinking into the late afternoon as they watched Mary and Joseph finally arrive in Bethlehem

*~*~*

Read the full chapter on Ao3

Find all related posts here.

#good omens #crowley #good omens fanart #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #good omens 2 #goodomens #christmas story #ineffable christmas #good omens fanwork #good omens fanfiction #first christmas #Of Kings and Kids #art #vavoomart

[lemonlyman-dotcom]

hi lemon! for nice ask day i wanted to know if you could suggest five books that everyone should read, what would they be, and why?

Hi Neha! Thank you for this lovely ask. I’m sorry if my answer is a little more in depth than you were expecting 🤓

1. Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion - I’ve heard it said that Joan Didion is to certain young women as Taylor Swift is to others. Now, I’m no Swifty so I don’t 100% understand the comparison, but I believe there is truth that one of the reasons for Didion’s enduring relevance and almost-universal adoration is because she reminds us of who we used to be — the girl we were when we read our first Didion essay. I remember it vividly. But she’s also just an incredible writer, she inspired an entire generation of journalists. Her perspective is so sharp in her writing, she’s witty without trying to be funny, her prose is cool and aloof, but you feel like you’re right there with her. In the Haight Ashbury, in the studio with Jim Morrison, at Joan Baez’s school for enlightenment. Slouching Towards Bethlehem is her most popular book of essays, for good reason, but I’ve read them all and you really can’t go wrong.

2. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez - Gabriel García Márquez basically invented magical realism. His descriptions of Colombia — the almond trees, the rivers, the lush greenery of the jungles— really sparked my desire to travel there. One Hundred Years of Solitude is widely accepted as one of the greatest novels ever written, and I agree!! The book spans generations of the Buendía family in the riverside town founded by their patriarch. One of the things I love most about Márquez’s writing is the way he plays with time. He doesn’t necessarily follow a straight timeline, and in this story he really explores the ways history repeats through generations, and how much our present is controlled by our pasts. Also it contains possibly one of the best quotes in literature: Cease, cows! Life is short!

3. White Teeth by Zadie Smith - One thing Zadie Smith does really well is tell stories of life in London and England in a way that don’t necessarily get told in movies. She explores the intersection of race, culture and class, poking holes in austerity and political norms. And she does it with a sharp wit and detailed imagery. This beautifully expansive story follows two men who served in the military together, who reunite in London and form a friendship that unites their two families. We watch their kids grow up, and observe The real differences in their lives growing up, two in London and one in Iran.

4. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende - Here we follow three generations of the Trueba family living in a South American country (based on Chile), from the patriarch Esteban who is a vicious landowner to his daughter who falls in love with a man Esteban hates through his granddaughter, who he adores. In her young adulthood she joins the rebellion against the brutal military dictatorship, and he has …feelings about that. It’s just a really beautiful, sweeping story that, again, plays with the complexity of time and idea of the past influencing our present and future, and no matter how badly we want to control it sometimes the future is inevitable.

5. The Autobiography of Malcolm X by As Told to Alex Haley - I learned so much from this book! They don’t teach us this perspective in school, guys! This man taught himself to read in prison, he has some really wild stories about life in Harlem in the 40s (spoiler alert: not great), he goes into great detail of the cost, time and pain of having his hair straightened as was expected of black people in that time. Just getting into his head and understanding the psyche, why so many young Black people were drawn to the Nation of Islam, his experience going on a pilgrimage. I think Malcom X has been really misrepresented in history, to this day Black people who speak up are labeled as angry and violent. So this book is really important in that it gives us a chance to see America from his perspective, and really understand his philosophy. A lot of it is, unfortunately, still very relevant.

#nice ask day #BOOKS

[chicago-geniza]

Hey @horrid-little-pedant I can make you a Boy Scouts/international Scouting movement imperialism/colonialism/not-so-crypto-fascism syllabus if you’d like but for a first tantalizing taste here is:

Fig 1) Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts and the Scouting movement, on the swastika symbol, from his 1917 sequel to the classic manual Scouting For Boys, entitled Young Knights of The Empire. Its companion book, for Girl Guides/Girl Scouts, authored by his sister Agnes, was called How Girls Can Help Build Up the Empire. The Baden-Powell family, prominent British military aristocrats, were instrumental in the British colonial expansion re: South Africa. Baden-Powell’s inspiration for the Boy Scouts was the Mafeking Cadet Corps, a group of child soldiers formed by Lord Edward Cecil shortly before the Siege of Mafeking that secured Robert’s place in annals of imperial military history. His niece Betty later became--I am choking and wheezing and coughing up a hairball getting this phrase out--Scoutmaster for the. Girl Guides of North Rhodesia. Do not even get me STARTED on, uh. The Peace Light of Bethlehem (tl;dr it’s a program inaugurated in Austria circa 1986 nominally to help ~handicapped children, but of course. In 2005. The International Commissioner of Austria symbolically passed the Peace Light to a delegation of Scouts and Guides from the Palestinian National Authority, comma, just after the Oslo Accords. And then in 2007 a delegation of Guides and Scouts from Austria, Germany, France, Jordan, Israel, and the PNA--by the way, all but Jordan and Israel are part of the Catholic international Scouting branch that generally, depending on region, ‘pledges allegiance’ to “[country], God, Church, and Christian Europe”--they symbolically lit the ~*~Peace Light together. In. Bethlehem. Scouting is the most fucked-up Bad Internationalism movement in the world.)

Fig 2) The Rodlo symbol was designed by a woman who was part of the Polish minority population in Germany, she went to a Sokol (also Scouting!!!) gymnasium, she got a scholarship to study with Wladyslaw Skyoczylas and other modernist naive folk-revival painters at the school of fine arts in Warsaw, she survived the war, she got into this bizarre movement of neo-pagan anti-clerical pan-Slavist ‘nationalism’ that confirms every single thing I said in my undergrad thesis, she wants to take these symbols back from Hitler and stress the uniqueness of the Polish-German border regions that are neither like, fashy Catholic nationalist Poland nor fashy-flavor Germany, unfortunately that’s not how history or visual semantics work. She says it’s ‘rod’ plus ‘godlo’ (pretend it’s a liquid l) but it’s rodnoverie, we know what you’re about, Joasia--or rather, if you have to give a paragraph-long disclaimer every time you present your lovingly-rendered symbol, you gotta just let it go once it reaches critical mass and recognize that that your defensive disclaimers come across as “my t-shirt is raising a lot of questions that are answered by the shirt.” Anyway. This Harcerstwo troupe named after...the Harcerstwo movement that became a WWII paramilitary and subsequently Catholic anticommunist movement adopted it as their symbol. They’re from a small town in the Katowice region and they are. Well. If you don’t want everyone to think you’re fascists then maybe don’t be a paramilitary organization with a Hitler Youth lite flag (if you put the Rodlo on the Polish flag...it’s...it scans as the swastika on the...they know! They’re not oblivious, they do 500 WWII memorial actions per year!). And don’t have your scouts swear fealty in military fatigues while doing the seig heil to the Slavic Hitlerjugend flag in the woods. Ya dig. Their website is like “why are our enrollments declining :(” 

idk man maybe your town’s teens want to smoke weed under the bridge and not be put through boot camp after school 

#NISHT REBAGELN #i have so much autism about scouting and it is extremely embarrassing but if you have questions about it. i have Answers #also did you know the UU church got in a huge fight with boy scouts of america #and boy scouts of america got in a huge fight with baden-powell about being allowed to say god #i do not need to explain the context of the PNA & the oslo accords for tumblr user horrid-little-pedant but can if other people are not awar #*aware. Scouting: Bad Internationalism #OH. wanna hear about the officially recognized Boy Scouts Displaced Persons DIvision after WWII dissolved c. 1950 #or Mury: Harcerki Troupe of Ravensbruck #did you know krupskaya once used komsomol and 'boyskautizm' as synonyms and that #ok i got distracted but again. rudyard kipling. he just tweeted it out. there are also 800000 examples in this book about Helping Police #and how scouts are like bees: serve their Queen & DISPOSE OF THE UNEMPLOYED #also baden-powell's sister agnes was great friends with marconi you know the long-distance radio transmission inventor who #joined the italian fascist party in 1923 like years before mussolini came to power and #used his authority as director of the science institute to mark all jewish applicants' papers with an E (italian word for jew starts with E) #& none were admitted during his tenure. before this became state policy & before this pressure was even. you know. subtly dispersed by #mussolini. just of his own initiative! #he has so many quotes praising fascism i couldn't fit them in one document #the british monarchy & aristocracy will see continental european fascism and especially german & go 'Tell Me More...' #the polish nobility AND endecja will see various permutations of fascism & say 'tell me more...' for different reasons #the polish intelligentsia will see ITALIAN fascism & say 'tell me more [eyes emoji] while condemning german fascism bc one has #better aesthetics #meanwhile stefania zahorska & bruno schulz are having stress-induced heart disease #pilsudski wants to be england so bad it makes him look stupid. & dmowski hates england & germany on paper but also #wants to be them so bad it makes them look stupid if he can do it with the slavophile side of the slavophile vs. westernizer debate #comma american industry and isolationism comma good old WWI 'ethnographic borders' comma #and solve The Jewish Question (threat)

[felagund-fiollaigean]

Felagund's recollections of November 5th, 2020.

This time last year, I was completely bogged down and overwhelmed by college work. Fearful and uncertain of the future because of covid, fearful and uncertain of the future because our country was teetering on the edge of four more years of fascism. Checking the news every couple minutes - are the votes in yet? Will we see any relief to make this horrible year mean anything but death? To get away from the stress of papers and assignments and the world at large I go for a walk. Come back. Go to the bathroom and check Tumblr from the toilet (as you do) and I see... huh. that's weird. that's two consecutive posts abou- no, make that three consecutive posts about destiel. That's odd. I have some supernatural mutuals but this is unprecedented. Why is everyone talking about this. Let me see....

It's trending. Destiel is trending. There was a new episode airing tonight and now everyone's talking about it. I frantically send an ask to a supernatural mutual of mine. "Hey why is destiel trending are you guys doing okay over there?"

No. They are very much not doing okay over there. Slowly, it sinks in. I got confirmation. Destiel is canon. Destiel is canon. Destiel is canon.

Cas said, "I love you" to dean.

You know in that Christmas carol the little town of Bethlehem where it goes, "the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight?"

The hopes and fears of the last twelve years were met in that moment. every gay little bastard on this site who ever wished for something to come to pass we all knew deep down would never happen. the thing thousands of fanworks have been created in the name of despite the canon making no official concessions. the thing we stared at (and even if you weren't actually into supernatural, you know you did too) like a cat stalking a laser dot too high up on the wall to reach. the thing reveled in and talked about with the unspoken acknowledgement that it would only ever be a lovely dream.

That dream was real.

It sunk in.

Then I saw a clip of the scene itself. Dean is just staring at him with the stupidest non-expression I've ever seen. Cas gets dragged to hell immediately after the confession. The show did the one thing we always thought they would be too craven to do and immediately backtracked in the worst way possible. Or was it the best way possible? There is a strange kind of comfort in the awful-but-predictable, is there not?

We have, what. A minute? To absorb all this?

Then the rumor about Putin breaks, and that's when things actually start to get interesting.

That was the first time anyone learned about world events (albeit false ones) through the "I love you" meme. Destiel killed Putin. "I'll see you in hell you stupid fruit." Holy shit georgia's still blue. The term "superhell" is coined and infects the site's collective idiolect. Tumblr user is-destiel-canon-yet must be shooting rainbows out of their asshole. Sherlock series 5 and dashcon 2: electric boogaloo. This isn't even a fraction of everything that started happening that evening but its what I remember hitting the hardest. Destiel killed Putin. Could the world get any more weird? Destiel killed Putin.

It's at this point my mom knocks on the bathroom door and asks if I'm okay.

It's a fair question, bless her. I was making these awful, uncontrollable noises; wheezing and squeaking with laughter that was this (🤏🏻) close to tears. I assure her I'm fine. She doesn't 100% buy it (fair), but leaves me to it.

Cause how could I possibly explain any of this? "Well you see mom back in 2008 there was this show called supernatural and this one guy was in hell..." Like, no. Even if I could recount every event that lead up to this moment with perfect accuracy and coherence it still wouldn't make any sense. It was too big. There was too much. Hell, I lived it and I'm still not sure it makes any sense.

But I know what I was feeling. I know my face was bright red and my eyes were streaming, I know I couldn't stop giggling and occasionally going "oh my god" in utter disbelief. I had never been drunk or high before but I wondered if that's what it felt like. I felt like a participant in a Dionysian mystery. I was giddy. I was euphoric. If I could bottle the exact combination of hormones coursing through my bloodstream that night, I'd make a goddamn fortune. I knew there was no fucking chance of me focusing on school again for the rest of the night and we still don't know who's going to be leading our country for the next four years.

And the best thing about this, I think, is that I know the rest of you were feeling it too. I've seen countless posts and replies and memes talking about experiencing this night and how utterly insane everything was. How utterly insane we felt. And that has engendered a deep, compelling fondness for my fellow hellsite users in me, one that will never be forgotten.

Cause even if I can't explain that night to anyone I know, I know you get it.

That's special.

#november 5th #destiel

[nerdygaymormon]

Judges 19-21 – Murder of the Levite’s Concubine

Judges 19 is one of the clobber passages from the Bible regularly used against gay people. Those who use it in this way misunderstand the purpose of the story.

—————————————————————

This story in Judges has many parallels to the story about Sodom, namely a stranger comes to town, a resident offers to host & shelter them overnight, a mob of men shows up and demands to rape the stranger, the host begs the mob not to do this and offers his virgin daughter instead to the mob.

As with the story of Sodom, in order for this story to be used against queer people, the reader has to assume the mob of men are acting on gay instincts.  

—————————————————————

As with the story of the attempted rape in Sodom, this story emphasizes the rules and expectations of hospitality and the social requirement of helping visitors

This story also seems, along with other stories in the book of Judges, to show the depravity and lawlessness of the times as a way to justify Israel getting a king.

To use this story as an excuse to preach against homosexuality and against gay people is to miss the point of the story.

—————————

Something interesting in the book of Judges is the number of times a person did what was right in their own eyes (17:6; 21:25; 18:1; 19:1). Perhaps this phrase means that doing right in their own eyes also means doing wrong in the eyes of God.

—————————————————————

I feel bad for the woman in this story, and also for the women in this culture. There’s several stories in Judges of women being given away to men, this seems to happen regularly and without concern for the desires of the women. The women in this society seem to have little control over their life.

—————————

This story begins with a Levite male taking himself a concubine, this language suggests she had little say in the matter. The fact he took a wife from Bethlehem, which is part of Judah, is viewed negatively as he chose a non-Israelite woman. Maybe this is why she’s called “concubine” despite there being no mention that this Levite has any other wife, or maybe she is indeed a 2nd wife as that term “concubine” implies he has at least 1 other wife.

The woman leaves the Levite and flees to her father’s home. The Hebrew version of this story uses the verb zanah, which tells us she committed adultery or acted as a harlot. The Greek uses the verb orgizomai, which indicates that she ‘became angry with him.’ In the culture of the time, a woman leaving her marriage was viewed as being unfaithful and equivalent to committing adultery. Modern scholars think it’s unlikely she was guilty of actual adultery or prostitution because her husband the Levite travels to her father’s home and speaks kindly to her.

The Levite reaches Bethlehem, he and his father-in-law enjoy each other’s company. Her father is happy to hand her back over to the Levite. The two men get along so well that they spend several days drinking and eating together. Nowhere in this tale are we told of the concubine’s desire, whether to stay at her father’s home or to return with the Levite.

Eventually the Levite insists he really does need to leave, but gets off to a late start, which means as evening falls he hasn’t reached Israel. He decides to wait to seek shelter until he reaches the land of Israel, then he’ll find a place to sleep.

He finally reaches the town Gibeah which belongs to the tribe of Benjamin. He goes to the city square and waits and waits. Finally a farmer enters the city gates and finds the Levite, his concubine, his male servant, and their donkeys waiting in the square. The farmer invites them to sleep in his home.

Already something seems off. The townsfolk did not offer shelter to the Levite. The farmer is described as being of Ephraim but “sojourned in Gibeah.” In other words, even while he lives there, this farmer is seen as an outsider, a stranger.

The farmer and the Levite are “making merry” when the men of the city surround the house, beat on the door, and demand the Levite be turned over so that they can rape him. The farmer tells the townsfolk not to do this and he will turn over his virgin daughter and the Levite’s concubine if they’ll leave the Levite alone.

The men of the city don’t leave, so “the man” flung the concubine out of the house. It’s unclear if “the man” is the farmer or the Levite, but given how the story plays out, I think it was the Levite. The men of Gibeah proceed to rape this woman all night, letting her go at dawn. She makes her way to the farmer’s home and collapses in the doorway.

When the Levite is ready to leave to continue on to his home, he opens the door and finds his concubine laying there, and says, “Get up. Let’s get going.” She didn’t answer him, so he picked her up and put her on a donkey and traveled to his home. Absolutely no concern or empathy is conveyed.

By the time the Levite gets home, she’s dead. The Levite then takes a knife, cuts her into 12 pieces and sends those pieces to the different tribes of Israel. The shock of this story and the outrage it generated led to demands of vengeance, a civil war among the Israelites, and the near genocide of the tribe of Benjamin by the rest of Israel. There’s many atrocities committed as a result of this war.

This story was used to illustrate that a king is needed to mete out punishment and keep the tribes of Israel united and to maintain social order.

—————————————————————

It's a horrific story.

We don’t know why the men of the city decided the Levite was a threat, perhaps it would’ve been understood to readers of the time and thus wasn’t recorded, but we have no reasons in the text to explain this reaction.

Why did the men of Gibeah want to rape the Levite? Why did they rape the Levite’s concubine?

Studies show the culture of the time placed importance on a man’s reputation, prestige and honor. Another aspect of this culture is a man is expected to protect his women. 

Sex by men with other men wasn’t prohibited, but it was important not to be the person penetrated as this was seen as emasculating. The person being penetrated should be a younger, inferior male.

—————————

One way to dishonor a male rival is rape, forcing him to be penetrated. This reduces the man’s status by showing he’s the inferior of the men raping him. They’d see it as a loss of masculinity.

If they couldn’t get to the Levite, they still could dishonor him by abusing the woman who is supposed to be in his care and protection. Notice the virgin daughter of the farmer is left alone, raping her would do nothing to dishonor the Levite.

There is no concern or empathy shown to the concubine, not even by her husband. I think because she asserted her autonomy and challenged her husband’s ownership and control, she is viewed as deserving of punishment. 

Leaving her husband was viewed as equal to sexual misconduct, and so perhaps being sexually abused was viewed as an appropriate punishment. It also serves to emphasize that women need the protection of men, and the cost of that protection is dutifully fulfilling their role and showing deference to her father or husband.

The book of Judges laments that there is no king to make this right and to deliver punishment to the men of Gibeah who did such a horrible thing.

—————————————————————

To blame “homosexuals” for what happens is a misuse of the story. Don’t tell me that the morals of this story apply to me, for the “morality” displayed is repulsive and offensive.

—————————

This isn’t a story of unbridled gay lust. These are the regular menfolk of the town, men who have families, and they gathered together to commit mob violence against a particular individual.

—————————

It’s interesting to see that 2 stories (this one and Sodom) where men threatened to rape men are used to condemn gay men and call being gay a sin. Yet in this story, men raped a woman and nobody thinks to condemn all straight men or to label heterosexuality a sin. It’s not fair how people use the Bible to condemn homosexuality while giving a pass to heterosexuality.  

—————————

We also can’t unsee the patriarchal nature of this society which robs women of their voice, doesn’t consider their opinions as important, and strips women of their autonomy.

—————————

Rather than using this story to condemn gay people, it makes much more sense to use this story to condemn mob violence, to condemn punishment without trial, to condemn the way strangers are viewed with suspicion, to condemn the mistreatment of foreigners, to condemn sexual abuse, to condemn the lower status of women, and to condemn patriarchy.

#clobber verse #cw rape #long post