This video says about itself:
10 December 2015
Weekend, Dutch island Texel with stormy weather, Herring Gull, Sanderling, Green Sandpiper, Turnstone, Pheasant, Brent Goose and Buzzard.
Today, warden Erik van der Spek reports there is a sand martin colony of fifteen nests in the Slufter nature reserve on Texel island .
That is more nests than last year in the Slufter.
This photo shows beautiful flowers on a tree on the hill in Casablanca, a suburb of the Cuban capital Havana; where we were on 15 March 2017. As I wrote, after Casablanca we went to the old city center.
This video says about itself:
La Habana Vieja is the proper name for the central neighborhood Old Havana in Havana, Cuba. If you visit Havana for the first time, this is where need to go. If you’ve visited before, you probably still want to return – even if only to sip a cold beer in the shade and watch the hustle and bustle of the streets.
Everything was filmed in April 2016.
Major sights in this video:
Castillo del Morro Castle and Lighthouse (seen from our balcony)
La Cabaña Fortress (seen from La Habana Vieja)
El Templete
Basilica Menor de San Francisco de Asis on Plaza de San Francisco
Catedral de San Cristobal
Plaza Vieja (including Factoria Plaza Vieja, Cervezas y Maltas)
Hotel Ambos Mundos (Hemingway Hotel) on Calle Obispo
Plaza de Armas (where I got the Obama poster for my birthday)
La Floridita (where Hemingway and us had delicious daiquiris)
La Bodeguita del Medio (where Hemingway hung out, but we didn’t)
Parque Central
Payret Cinema and Capitolio
Prado (Paseo de Marti) street
Museo de la Revolucion
Memorial Granma
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de la Habana
The song in the video is “El Pescador” by Bruno Bassi of Los Hermanos – from the royalty-free music website http://GoSoundtrack.com. Their collection is available via a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
This photo from the city center shows a sign, celebrating Havana’s 497th birthday. Still three years until the big 500 years celebration.
In old Havana, there are several means of transport.
From these vintage cars …
to these bike taxis…
to these boats.
This video says about itself:
26 August 2014
In this film you will get an impression of what there is to see in the Calle Obispo.
It`s the number one shopping street of Havana Vieja. This is the place where girls are shopping and meet their friends. You can buy a lot of things here, eat something or go to the hairdresser. … The street has dilapidated buildings but also well maintained and beautifully decorated houses.
Clothes hang out to dry from various windows in old Havana.
People are at work putting new drainpipes underground.
While the pipes are still above ground, Havana children use them in play.
This video from the USA says about itself:
Report Details New Facts About CIA Torture
Read more here.
This 23 August 2016 video is called China destroys seized ivory in illegal trade crackdown.
From the African Wildlife Foundation:
Stop ivory sales: Protect elephants
Africa’s elephants are in crisis, with the number lost to poaching exceeding 30,000 a year. Sadly, these majestic animals are killed to feed the demand for unnecessary ivory trinkets.
This is driving a beloved species toward extinction and undermining the African economy as one of its primary tourism drivers disappears.
The African Wildlife Foundation, our followers and the worldwide conservation community, have already persuaded numerous governments to ban their domestic ivory trade.
Now it’s Taiwan’s turn. A total ban would support the resolution reached by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) COP 17 to prohibit all ivory trade. It would also prevent wildlife traffickers from using Taiwan’s legal ivory trade as cover for transporting other wildlife contraband.
Sign the pledge telling Taiwan to join the worldwide movement to protect elephants and set an example for others in the region to follow.
Africa’s elephants are in serious trouble. Sign the pledge so our children and our children’s children will be able to appreciate healthy populations of wild elephants long in the future.
Add your name to AWF’s petition.
DNA from seized elephant ivory unmasks 3 big trafficking cartels in Africa. Such scientific sleuthing can aid efforts to curb wildlife crime. By Laurel Hamers, 2:00pm, September 19, 2018.
This video from Britain says about itself:
Save the Birds #PeckishCat
9 December 2013
Up to 55 million birds are killed by cats every year in the UK. So whether you are a cat lover or just want to protect your garden birds from cats, you can do your bit to help as well as having a little fun with our #PeckishCat video.
From BirdLife:
17 May 2017
Five neat tricks to keep your cat from attacking birds
In Canada, as in many countries, domestic cats are a major cause of garden bird mortality. But with a little adjustment, it’s possible to create an environment that is safer and healthier for felines and finches alike. BirdLife Partner Nature Canada’s Cats & Birds campaign shows you how.
By Alex Dale
For cat owners, is there a more comforting sound in the entire world than the satisfying ‘ker-chunk’ of the cat flap?
After hours of worrying what Tiddles has been up to while she roams around the neighbourhood, that reassuring clack-clack indicates that your beloved has finally returned to the warmth and safety of your home. But sometimes, she doesn’t return alone. Sometimes, to the horror of the owner, Tiddles bears in her teeth an unwanted gift – a dead (or worse, half-dead) garden bird.
Cats are born predators, so there’s no point in chastising them for doing something that comes naturally for them. Instead, owners have to accept that they are responsible for bringing a domesticated animal into their home and feeding it, and thus they are responsible for its actions.
Putting a bell on your cat’s collar is a simple and well-known way to limit the mischief your pet gets up to while it frolics outside, but Nature Canada (BirdLife Partner) suggests that cat owners should consider going further still, and wean their cats away from roaming around outdoors unsupervised altogether.
Sacrilege? To many cat owners, putting limits on their pets’ freedom will seem exactly that. But, as Nature Canada’s Cats & Birds campaign is keen to impress on the Canadian public, reigning in your cat doesn’t just saves birds’ lives – it also helps keep your pet safe and healthy, too. “We partner with organizations such as the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies,” says Project Manager Sarah Cooper, “precisely because they’ve been recommending keeping cats from roaming unsupervised for years, purely for the well-being of the cats.”
The Cats & Birds initiative was set up to increase public awareness of the risks to cats and birds of the common practice of allowing cats to roam unsupervised. Outdoor cats are exposed to disease, vehicle collisions and scraps with other cats and wildlife, not to mention the risk of getting lost. Cats are more often abandoned by their owners, and there are twice as many cats as dogs in Canada’s shelters. While an estimated 30% of dogs are reclaimed by owners, the same can be said of less than 5% of cats. More than 17,000 cats were euthanized in Canada in 2015 because they could not find homes.
And that’s just the toll in the shelters. In 2012 alone, more than 1,300 dead cats were collected from the streets of Toronto, Ontario. That’s why author Margaret Atwood, (former co-chair of BirdLife’s Rare Birds Committee) published a graphic novel series in tandem with Nature Canada’s campaign. Atwood describes Angel Catbird as a “walking, talking carnivore’s dilemma” whose conflict – “do I save this baby robin, or do I eat it?” — illuminates both sides of the issue.’
All things considered, preventing your cat from going outside unsupervised seems a win-win situation – saving the lives of both birds and, potentially, Tiddles. But cats are notorious free spirits. Can they ever be convinced to embrace the indoor life? The answer is yes, and Nature Canada has five tips to help you get started.
This 7 June 2019 British TV video says about itself:
Starvation, disease and death in Libyan migrant detention centre
Channel 4 News has obtained shocking pictures from inside the camp, showing just how perilous the situation has become.
The UN describe the conditions as inhuman and degrading. There’s little water, food is scarce and disease is rampant.
This is the Zintan detention centre in Libya, where things have got so desperate that the migrants from across Africa being held there are organising protests.
Warning: there are distressing images in this report.
Another video used to say about itself:
24 January 2017
Shocking torture of Ethiopian and Eritrean immigrants in Libyan prison.
Dutch NOS TV reports today about talks about forming a new coalition government.
To form a government with a majority in parliament, because of recent general election results in the Netherlands there needs to be a coalition of at least four political parties.
Two months ago, four parties started negotiating about forming such a coalition government: the VVD (pro-Big Business); CDA (Christian conservatives); D66 (centrist) and GroenLinks (GL; Green Left).
This week, these negotiations failed. The parties involved were secretive why. They only said there was disagreement about immigration. VVD and CDA wanted to make immigration policies harsher; D66 and GroenLinks not.
What exactly in immigration policy led to the break up of the negotiations? NOS TV today claims it was about a possible European Union deal with Libya (and other dictatorially ruled African countries) to send refugees back. See also here.
The model for such an agreement would be the dodgy anti-refugee deal between the European Union and the Erdogan regime in Turkey. After the European Union sends refugees back to Turkey, the Turkish government sends refugees, forced back by the European Union, further to the wars in Syria, Afghanistan, wherever the refugees fled from.
European Union boss Juncker wants such an anti-refugee deal with Libya. In the coalition negotiations, according to the NOS, VVD and CDA said that the new Dutch government should agree with that. GroenLinks and D66 thought that might conflict with international treaties, signed by the Netherlands, about refugees’ rights.
The deal with Turkey is still just acceptable under international law, according to GroenLinks,
Really, GroenLinks? Jurists deny that.
because Turkey can be regarded as a safe country …
Really, GroenLinks? Courts of justice, and the Obama administration in the USA deny that.
But that is not the case for Libya and other North African countries.
Indeed, GroenLinks. There are at least three governments in Libya, killing each other’s fighters and many civilians. With whom in Libya would an anti-refugee deal be?
D66 is said to have agreed with GL on this point, but they did not want it to cause a break [with CDA and VVD].
So, probably, there will now be more negotiations, between VVD, CDA, D66 and another fourth party.
Some sources of the NOS news item say the Libya deal was not the only issue between the four negotiating parties. There were also other points, on immigration and on other issues.
GL had electoral reasons not to give in to the hard-line anti-refugee policies of VVD and CDA. A few years ago, when they were an opposition party, they helped the then VVD-CDA minority coalition government to a parliamentary majority to send Dutch soldiers to the Afghan war. Many GroenLinks voters did not like that militarism. GroenLinks lost many votes and MPs at the next election.
Later, the social democrat PvdA party became the junior partner in a coalition government with the VVD (which at the moment is still the post-election caretaker government). So many leftist voters became so sick of the PvdA ministers enabling VVD austerity and militarism policies that the recent elections were catastrophic for the PvdA: from 38 to 9 MPS.
If GroenLinks would have joined now the proposed four party coalition, agreeing with the Libyan anti-refugee deal and other right-wing policies, then the next elections would probably have been very catastrophic for GL.
This video says about itself:
Frauke and Nina collecting Cambay Amber in Vastan, India in 2012. Video by Keith Luzzi.
From ScienceDaily:
Time flies: Insect fossils in amber shed light on India’s geological history
A new species of fungus gnat in Indian amber closely resembles its fossil relatives from Europe, disproving the concept of a strongly isolated Indian subcontinent
May 17, 2017
Summary: Researchers have identified three new species of insects encased in Cambay amber dating from over 54 million years ago. Researchers describe the new species of fungus gnats, which provide further clues to understanding India’s past diversity and geological history.
A new species of fungus gnat in Indian amber closely resembles its fossil relatives from Europe, disproving the concept of a strongly isolated Indian subcontinent.
Researchers have identified three new species of insects encased in Cambay amber dating from over 54 million years ago. In a new study published by PeerJ, researchers describe the new species of fungus gnats, which provide further clues to understanding India’s past diversity and geological history.
The most interesting finding from the discovery of these new gnat species is related to India´s plate tectonic history: Palaeognoriste orientale in Cambay amber belongs to a group that has previously been reported from slightly younger Baltic amber only. The species in Indian amber closely resembles its fossil relatives from Europe and therefore adds further evidence to regular faunal exchange between India and Europe while disproving the concept of a strongly isolated Indian subcontinent.
India, which was one part of the ancient supercontinent, Gondwana, started separating and heading north about 130 million years ago, finally collided with Asia some 59 million years ago, resulting in the Himalayan mountains. The time of formation of this amber (or at least its burial) is most likely around the time of collision of the Indian subcontinent with Asia.
The fossils of long beaked fungus gnats (Lygistorrhinidae) found in the Cambay amber are an exciting discovery. The name of this group refers to one of their most conspicuous characters: an elongated proboscis, which is presumably for feeding from flowers. This small family of tropical flies is known by only seven fossil and eight living genera. Given the rareness of this group Indian amber has revealed a surprising diversity with three species in three different fossil and modern genera. This even exceeds the number of known species in the well-studied Baltic amber, from which only two species are reported.
Cambay amber from India has only been studied for a few years, but is already providing an important role in uncovering secrets regarding the origins of India´s fauna. For many years, the well-established theory stated that India formed an isolated continent during its drift, allowing a highly endemic biota to develop. However, flies and other insects entrapped in Indian amber continue to reveal faunal connections to different epochs and regions of the world.
Though the exact mechanisms of faunal exchange remain unclear so far, dispersal might have been facilitated by an island chain system between India and Europe, as has already been suggested for biting midges.
This video from the USA says about itself:
Chelsea Manning Finally Free! Whistleblower’s Prison Sentence Commuted
18 January 2017
Barack Obama commutes Chelsea Manning‘s 35 year prison sentence for whistleblowing.
Jimmy Dore breaks it down.
Glenn Greenwald: Ever since Chelsea Manning was revealed as the whistleblower responsible for one of the most important journalistic archives in history, her heroism has been manifest. She was the classic leaker of conscience, someone who went at the age of 20 to fight in the Iraq War believing it was noble, only to discover the dark reality not only of that war but of the U.S. government’s actions in the world generally: war crimes, indiscriminate slaughter, complicity with high-level official corruption, and systematic deceit of the public: here.
By Kate Allen in Britain:
Chelsea Manning is free at last
Wednesday 17th May 2017
The release of this honourable whistleblower closes a disturbing chapter, writes KATE ALLEN
CHELSEA MANNING has said that when she’s released today she’s looking forward to “breathing the warm spring air again.”
In fact, the weather in Leavenworth County in Kansas is topping 30 degrees celsius this week, so after seven years in military detention, this now famous whistleblower will finally step out of the disciplinary barracks at the US army’s Fort Leavenworth base on a rather hot and sultry day.
The 29-year-old will be free at last, closing a painful chapter on what has been an extraordinary and thoroughly disturbing saga. This brave, principled — but also vulnerable — person has been put through the wringer.
While Manning is “fortunate” enough to have received a commutation of her crushing 35-year jail sentence, she has still spent seven long years behind bars, with extended periods of solitary confinement so harsh that the UN’s torture expert Juan Mendez considered it tantamount to torture.
Manning has been branded a traitor — not least by current president Donald Trump. There were calls for her to receive the death sentence. As it was, she was charged with numerous serious offences, including the extremely grave “aiding the enemy” (of which she was acquitted).
Yet despite all of the vitriol poured over her by members of the US military and political Establishments, Manning is nothing less than an honourable whistleblower who felt compelled to tell the world about apparent US wrongdoing in its military conduct in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Working as a US intelligence analyst in Iraq, Manning began to see documents that convinced her that the US military was committing war crimes overseas and doing nothing to bring the perpetrators to justice. Worse, it may well have been deliberately covering up such conduct.
The best-known example was the attack by two US Apache helicopters on a group of civilians in the al-Amin al-Thaniyah district of Baghdad on July 12 2007.
At least 12 people were killed, including two Reuters reporters, Saeed Chmagh and Namir NoorEldeen.
While it was far from the only occasion when US military conduct in Iraq was highly dubious, here was vivid cockpit video and audio laying bare the callous behaviour of the US pilots. Some of their cockpit commentary includes language like: “Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards … nice. Nice. Good shootin’.”
Was this disclosure in the public interest? Like the Abu Ghraib torture photos or the Pentagon Papers on the Vietnam war, it’s hard to see how it wouldn’t be.
Reuters had previously tried — and failed — to obtain the helicopter footage through a freedom of information request. Manning — via WikiLeaks — provided the material.
What happened to Manning as a result of her whistleblowing is well-known.
The revelations over wrongdoing (including the Baghdad helicopter attack) went un-investigated, while Manning herself was court-martialled and given the longest sentence in US history for leaking information.
This low-ranking, twenty-something was punished in such a way as to send an unmistakable message to other would-be whistleblowers.
Ahead of Manning’s court martial in the summer of 2013, Edward Snowden had exposed a previously unknown global apparatus of surveillance being run by the US’s National Security Agency.
If the US authorities couldn’t get Snowden (who was granted asylum in Russia), they could certainly punish Manning.
You might think the US military authorities wouldn’t stoop to vindictiveness when punishing one of their own, but you’d be wrong.
During eight months of pre-trial solitary confinement at the US marine corps base Quantico in Virginia, Manning was kept in a windowless 12-feet-by-six-feet cell containing only a bed, a toilet and a sink.
After putting Manning on suicide watch, the Quantico authorities subjected her to a regime of draconian and demeaning rules: clothing and glasses confiscated, required to observe strict verbal commands and replies, even at one point having to sleep and stand to attention completely naked.
In an Amnesty podcast from last year, Manning recounts how: “The conditions in my cell were far beyond what is normally associated with solitary confinement. I needed permission to do anything in my cell. I was not allowed to move around the cell to exercise. I was not allowed to sit down with my back against the wall.”
It was all clearly designed to break Manning down ahead of her court martial, and the UN believed it was part of “an effort to coerce her into ‘co-operation’ with the authorities,” possibly to pressure her into implicating others.
Post-conviction the vindictiveness continued. Having announced immediately after receiving her swingeing sentence an intention to transition to a female identity, Manning has had to fight a long and arduous battle for recognition of her right to do this.
On top of being an embattled military whistleblower, she’s had to become an embattled trans campaigner struggling within a rigid and deeply unsympathetic environment.
Despite bleak periods, Manning has come through. Against the odds, she’s survived. And now she’ll regain her freedom on a warm summer’s day in Kansas.
In so many ways Manning is the epitome of a human rights defender — someone who takes personal risks to stand up for the rights of others. At Amnesty we have a word for people like that.
It’s called being brave.
Kate Allen is Amnesty International UK director.
This video from the USA says about itself:
OBAMA WILL FREE CHELSEA MANNING IN MAY: Big Win for WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and Whistleblowers
7 January 2017
My name is H. A. Goodman and I’m an author, columnist, and journalist.
Obama Will Free Chelsea Manning, a Final Ceasefire in His War on Leakers.
By Genevieve Leigh in the USA:
Whistleblower Chelsea Manning to be released from prison today
17 May 2017
Army private Chelsea Manning, the military intelligence analyst who made public evidence of US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, is scheduled to be released from military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, today after completing more than 7 years of her 35-year prison sentence.
Chelsea Manning was arrested by the Army in 2010 after providing WikiLeaks with hundreds of thousands of internal Army “incident logs” and about 250,000 diplomatic cables from American embassies around the world. In August 2013, she pleaded guilty to 20 of 22 charges against her and was sentenced to 35 years in prison, a sentence 10 times longer than any previous punishment imposed on a federal employee, military or civilian, for leaking classified information.
After receiving the sentence, Manning announced that she was transgendered and took the name Chelsea Manning (previously she had identified as a man and was known by the name of Bradley Manning). She later began hormone therapy and requested gender reassignment surgery, which the Army repeatedly denied.
The release of Chelsea Manning is a politically significant event. Manning is rightfully a hero in the eyes of millions of workers and young people around the world who recognize what extraordinary courage it took to inform the American public about the criminal actions being carried out by the US military.
The number of crimes exposed by the material provided by Manning is staggering. Included in the leaked material was the infamous video that went on to be published on the Internet by WikiLeaks under the title “Collateral Murder,” showing an American helicopter attack on civilians in Baghdad that killed 16 people, including two Reuters journalists.
Other documents including “after-action reports” describing US soldiers’ experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, proving that civilian deaths were far higher than officially acknowledged. The cables revealed damning evidence of official US lying, including dossiers on the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay proving that most of them had no significant role in terrorist operations.
Despite the massive evidence provided, not a single person was jailed, arrested, or even charged for any of the documented crimes. Instead, the military brass together with the Obama administration ruthlessly persecuted Manning for what is a far greater “crime” in the eyes of the ruling class: exposing the murderous nature of the US war machine. The US political and military establishment, seething with anger, used Chelsea Manning to set an example for any other potential whistleblowers.
The retaliation was merciless. Immediately following the revelations, Manning was forcibly detained in an outdoor cage in an attempt to break her psychologically. From July 2010 to April 2011, she was held under atrocious conditions at Quantico Marine brig in Virginia, much of that time stripped naked as a “security” measure. All told, Chelsea Manning spent nearly a year and a half in solitary confinement, 23 hours a day, a form of detention classified as torture by human rights groups.
After sentencing, conditions would continue to worsen for Manning, leading to two separate attempts to take her own life, for which she was threatened with more severe treatment. Just last year, the Army considered sentencing Manning to indefinite solitary confinement for possessing unauthorized reading material and an expired tube of toothpaste.
President Obama commuted Manning’s sentence to just over seven years, in one of his final actions before leaving office January 20. This was no great humanitarian action, as some sought to characterize it at the time, but rather a calculation that the global image of US imperialism would suffer if, as appeared likely, Manning had been driven by her ordeal to carry out a third and successful suicide attempt.
It was Obama and Hillary Clinton, in particular, who spearheaded the persecution of Manning and other whistleblowers. The class hatred of the Democratic Party toward Manning is demonstrated by their silence as she reaches her final day in prison. Moreover, under conditions where the Democratic Party is lining up with the military-intelligence apparatus to indict the Trump administration for handing over “secrets” to Russian envoys, the Democrats wish to distance themselves as much as possible from the example of Chelsea Manning, who offended the CIA and Pentagon by handing over evidence of their crimes to the American people.
Manning has kept in touch with her supporters and the outside world throughout her experience mainly through Twitter. Recently, she wrote of her pending release: “I want that indescribable feeling of connection with people and nature again, without razor wire or a visitation booth. I want to be able to hug my family and friends again. And swimming—I want to go swimming!”
It has recently been reported that Manning, who is now 29, will remain an active duty soldier in the U.S. Army after today’s release. She will be placed on voluntary excess leave rather than being discharged. While it is technically possible, it is highly unlikely that she will be called to actual military service. Under this status she will be unpaid, but will have access to health care and other benefits that will allow her to complete her gender reassignment surgery. It should be noted that these benefits are not guaranteed. If Manning’s appeal of her court-martial conviction is denied, she could be dishonorably discharged and lose her health benefits.
Manning has not publicly announced any plans for what she will do after today beyond her surgery. Her ACLU attorney, Chase Strangio, told NBC News, “She is waiting to experience life outside of prison before declaring any future plans. … After so many years of government control over her body and gender, I know she is eager to grow her hair, express her gender and negotiate decisions on her own terms.”
While Manning’s release from prison will grant her physical freedom, she will still be restricted in many ways. One important aspect of the voluntary excess leave status is that it makes her vulnerable to new military retribution if she “steps out of line” in the eyes of the military establishment. Manning’s military defense counsel, David Coombs, told NBC News that “Chelsea is still subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). … She wouldn’t be charged again for the same offenses, but if she committed a new crime, the military would still have jurisdiction over her.”
An offense warranting military action includes things such as a fistfight, speaking or writing critically of the political or military establishment, or revealing previously unreleased classified information. “You would want to be careful in terms of what you want to write or say if you’re still under military control,” Coombs warned. “Let’s say you write something critical, now you run the real chance of being called on the carpet for that.”
Nonetheless, Manning has voiced some critical political views through Twitter since her commutation. In a guest column in Britain’s Guardian, Manning wrote that “after eight years of attempted compromise and relentless disrespect in return, we are moving into darker times.” Additionally, Manning has said former president Barack Obama left a “vulnerable legacy,” noting that he had achieved “very few permanent accomplishments.”
The persecution of more whistleblowers than all other administrations combined, including Chelsea Manning, will forever be a hallmark of the Obama administration. This policy was embraced by all prominent members of the Democratic party, including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who in December 2011, while Manning was being tortured and persecuted, defended the campaign against her on the grounds that “some information which is sensitive, which does affect the security of individuals and relationships, deserves to be protected and we will continue to take necessary steps to do so.”
For its part, the Trump administration, determined to outdo the reactionary policies of the Obama administration in every way, has recently escalated the witch-hunt and persecution of other prominent whistleblowers—Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, and Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower now in forced exile in Russia.
Snowden, in a recent comment, expressed his solidarity with Manning’s ongoing struggle, saying, “I’m grateful that Chelsea will finally have a chance to enjoy the freedoms she gave so much to defend. Courage to her—and volume to her voice.”
The increasingly vicious crackdown on whistleblowers reveals most openly the immense fear within the ruling establishment of growing opposition within the working class. The true face of US imperialism has again and again been exposed with the help of brave individuals like Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden. The defense of these individuals, and an end to the crimes that they have risked their lives to expose, can only come from the mobilization of the international working class.
A 25-year-old contractor for the National Security Agency, Reality Leigh Winner, was arrested Monday and charged with leaking a top-secret NSA document to the Intercept. The arrest came barely an hour after the on-line publication posted an account of an NSA report sent in anonymously, summarizing NSA findings about alleged Russian hacking during the 2016 US elections: here.
This video says about itself:
International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia 2015
15 mei 2015
A short film celebrating the work Diversity Role Models has done to challenge homophobia, biphobia and transphobia in schools since IDAHOBIT [International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia] 2014.
By Peter Frost in Britain:
Polari: the language born from prejudice
Wednesday 17th May 2017
On International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, PETER FROST remembers a once secret gay dialect
HOMOSEXUALITY was illegal in Britain until 1967. No wonder many gay men chose to avoid making public their sexual orientation.
One way was to adopt a secret language with which to communicate with other gay men. It’s what linguistic scholars call an anti-language.
Over history many stigmatised subcultures have developed their own secret languages. Examples of this are the rhyming slang and backslang of Cockney London.
Gay men and some lesbians adopted their own anti-language. It was called Polari. Strong influences in the language were Parlyaree, the Italian-derived language used by travelling entertainers, fairground people, costermongers and beggars.
Polari drew on many other tongues including Italian; Spanish; Yiddish; Occitan — a language in its own right, spoken in southern France and now almost killed off by the French government language police — various Gypsy languages; backslang; Cockney rhyming slang as well as various slangs used by circus folk, canal boaters and sailors.
Other strong input came from Cant, the secret age-old language of thieves and outlaws and an ancient pidgin language of Mediterranean traders and seafarers played its part too.
Before we take a closer look at the Polari language, let’s look at one word that isn’t actually Polari at all.
How did the use of the word “gay” for homosexual become so ubiquitous?
Some claim it has its origins around the 12th century in England, derived from the Old French word “gai” meaning happy, joyful, carefree.
By the mid-17th century, the word had gained an additional meaning — addicted to pleasures and dissipations. Still its main meaning was happy.
By the 19th century, the word “gay” was being used for a female prostitute or a man who used prostitutes. The phrase “gay it” meant to have sex.
Even with these new meanings, the original definitions of happy still remained widespread.
Around the 1920s and 1930s, however, the word started to gain a new meaning.
“Gay man” no longer just meant a man who had sex with a lot of women, but now described men who had sex with other men.
By 1920 gay men were using the word to describe themselves and by the 1950s it was so widely used that it started to drive out the other uses of the word gay.
Now let’s get back to Polari. It flourished in the years between the 1895 trial of Oscar Wilde and the 1967 Sexual Offences Act.
It was a kind of code which enabled one gay man to identify another, allowing them to express themselves publicly without fear of arrest or reprisal and providing a vocabulary for talking about gay sex and sexuality.
It was particularly well known in London and was often associated with chorus boys who danced and sang in West End theatres, and among male prostitutes who worked around Piccadilly and Soho.
Another Polari stronghold was among merchant navy sailors, particularly those working as stewards on liners and cruise ships. Gradually Polari spread to the wider gay community.
Polari was a necessity in a world where homosexuality was stigmatised by law, medicine and religion. It was a way to express yourself without making your sexual orientation too public. Dropping the odd Polari word into a conversation was one way of working out if another man might also be gay.
One indication of Polari’s value in a world where homosexuality was illegal was the number of names for the police. They included “Betty bracelets,” “charpering omi,” “sharpy” and “Hilda handcuffs.”
By the 1970s, the much healthier atmosphere of gay liberation politics encouraged many gay men and lesbians to come out and be proud of their sexuality.
Polari was popularised in the 1960s by the BBC radio comedy show Round the Horne. In sketches two gay actors, Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams, played Julian and Sandy, two camp out-of-work actors who used Polari.
BBC brass either missed the point or, more likely, looked the other way. Today Polari is experiencing a minirevival due to recent stage shows of Round the Horne.
You can find entire films on the internet with Polari dialogue. There is a Polari app for mobile phones that gives instant translation.
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have even published a Polari translation of the Bible on the internet.
Here are a few examples of Polari with translations. Try them for yourself.
Bona to varda your dolly old eek! (How good to see your dear old face!)
Vada the dolly dish, shame about his bijou lallies. (Look at the attractive man, shame about his short legs.)
Can I troll round your lally? (Can I have a look around your house?)
Here is one from the folk who produce the Oxford English Dictionary: Nellyarda, zhoosh the riah, titivate, schlumph your Vera down, and palare that omee for the bevvies because I’ve nanti dinarli.
Here is a translation if you need it: Listen, style your hair, make yourself look pretty, drink up your gin, and talk to that man to get a drink because I’m skint.
A few Polari words have entered mainstream English but I’m not sure how people would react if they knew the origins. “Camp” meaning effeminate comes from the abbreviation Kamp: Known As Male Prostitute.
Even better is the popular “naff,” meaning rubbish. Gay men first used it to judge and then reject a potential partner. It is well-known as Princess Anne’s favourite judgement.
I wonder if she realises it is an abbreviation for “not available for fucking.” Sorry, Your Royal Highness.
Here is a short glossary of Polari words so that you can start to speak it yourself:
– Bona: good.
– Cake the eke in slap: apply makeup.
– Carsey or khazi: toilet.
– Dolly: pretty, nice, pleasant.
– Drag: women’s clothes.
– Fantabulosa: wonderful.
– Jarry: food.
– Joggering omee: an entertainer.
– Kaffies: trousers.
– Lallies: legs.
– Lattie: room, house or flat.
– Lattie on wheels: a taxi.
– Mary-Ann: a gay Catholic man.
– Naff: bad, drab.
– Oglefakes: glasses.
– Omi-polone: homosexual.
– Polone: woman.
– Palone-omee: a lesbian.
– Riah shusher: hairdresser.
– Zhoosh the riah: style your hair.
– Strillers omee: a pianist.
– Shietel: a wig.
– Schlumph your Vera down: drink up your gin.
– Vada/varda: see.
If you practise a bit I am sure you will turn your spoken Polari from naff to fantabulosa.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 