I’m very tired. you probably heard that Russia destroyed the Kakhovka Dam to slow Ukraine’s counter offensive. here’s something I didn’t quite realize: since this February, the Russians operated the dam in juuuuust the right way so that as much water would build up as possible when the snow melted and spring showers started. and then they blew the whole thing up.

40,000 people may need to be evacuated. I don’t really have the energy to say anything else right now.

Hospitallers Medical Battalion: actual angels can confirm. they’re combat-zone medical services - you know how humanitarian groups like MFS and Red Cross have to pause operations due to the Russians fucking shooting at humanitarian zones? yeah, these guys don’t pause for bullets, they fucking walk into them and they bring out anyone they can.

Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation: you can choose from a number of various fundraiser projects here, if you’re feeling particularly picky. for those of you who balk at the idea of supporting anything military just please remember that things like vehicles and drones aren’t just for military use, they’re also for evacuation and finding the wounded and they’re fucking vital.

KSE Foundation: similar to the above, KSE has multiple projects you can choose from to donate to. looking at it right now, one of the projects with the lowest amounts of money raised thus far - despite being started in April - is Seeds for Ukraine, which will help Ukraine recover from the ecological devastation Russia has been wreaking (and with Ukraine, the countries that rely on Ukraine’s grain exports that Russia keeps trying to steal).

Come Back Alive: do these guys even need the introduction? they’re Come Back Alive. I’m kissing all of them.

United24: Zelenskyy’s brain child, and the official fundraising platform of Ukraine. Mark Hamill recommends the fundraisers for drones in particular.

UAnimals: Nova Kakhovka’s zoo got… pretty much completely swept away. all zoo residents except the birds have drowned. UAnimals has tried throughout the occupation to keep the animals safe, and they’ve been reporting on the status of the zoo. I don’t really know what to say except that I hope they’re able to save the pets and strays in the towns along the river.

You can find NGOs specific to evacuation efforts in this post; please signal boost it as well. I’ve listed them but am leaving the links for the op post.

when ur fave is one dimensional or treated poorly by the writer but as a writer you can see how much potential they have for interesting and engaging storytelling

idk remember ten years ago when re*dit banned fatpeoplehate and the users flooded the front page with sexually demeaning photoshops of the female ceo and now that it's a male ceo gleefully and willfully fucking up I'm not seeing any sexual violence anywhere

Petticoat ( mid-18th century ). American (Vermont).

Linen with wool embroidery.

Image and text courtesy MFA Boston.

Someone colored it red and white lmao! France gotta be so mad

A Ukrainian woman with her 8-year-old son appeared in my work. She told me that when they came to Poland and he saw Polish houses (which also have basements like in Ukrainian houses), he asked her if Poles build basements because they are preparing for war? (the boy and his family survived bombardments- they were hiding in the basement at that time).

Wow. This is like a chess move. Check. Can attack Mariupol or donetsk or go diagonal & strike Melitopol… (a bit far of course) but depends on what’s in the way.

What if when we were born we were each assigned a Wikipedia page like a social security number would that be fucked up or what

do you mean a wikipedia page about us? or do you mean some baby is arbitrarily given the rights and responsibilities to update the paramecium article?

ok I did mean a Wikipedia page about us. But keep talking I like where you’re headed

What's your government-assigned Wikipedia page? (No rerolls. I am in charge of "1929 in Wales" now. Not a great year, some bad floods in November.)

I'll be looking after Enrico Benzing, an Italian man who designs race cars.

Mine is Micrechites! boy do I need to work on it.

From Al-Araqib to Susiya Forced Displacement on Both Sides of the Green Line Adalah captures the stories of two Palestinian villages, Al-Araqib and Susiya – one in Israel, one in the West Bank – that share a single story of struggle against forced displacement.

my own little addition

Autobiographies by Romani women

Ceija Stojka’s bibliography

Ceija Stojka (1933-2013) was an Austrian romani writer, painter, activist and musician. She published three autobiographies: We Live in Seclusion (1988), Travelers on This World (1992) and I Dream That I am Alive - Liberated From Bergen-Belsen (2005), in which she describes the persecution of Austrian Roma by the Nazis and the time she spent in Auschwitz, Ravensbrück and Bergen-Belsen, from her perspective as a romani girl.

“A Gypsy Dreaming in Jerusalem,” Amoun Sleem

Amoun Sleem is a Palestinian Domari* woman living in Jerusalem. At 16 years old, she founded the first and only Domari rights organization in the Middle East, which aims to support the Dom people, and especially Domari women. The Dom have been facing intense racism and persecution from the Israeli State for decades.

“I write this book to show the difficulties of being Gypsy, but also to show the creativity and beauty in the Gypsy culture. I write it to thank the people who were placed in my life as helpers and encouragers. Many of them have passed away. I hope the readers will enjoy my story as I have enjoyed living it. I give thanks to God for what He has given me in these years.” (x)

“A False Dawn: My Life as a Gypsy Woman in Slovakia”, Elena Lacková

“The book recounts Lacková’s life story from her childhood in the Romani settlement until her retirement in 1980 told through the lens of an extraordinarily gifted and strong-minded Romani woman against the background of developments in the second half of the twentieth century in the former Czechoslovakia. Lacková´s fate is testimony to the fate of the Roma as a group in that country.

The text describes the frictions between, on the one hand, Lacková´s position as a Communist and a civil servant taking part in the implementation of state policies towards Roma as citizens of socialist Czechoslovakia and, on the other hand, her approach to life, her attitudes and her way of thinking, which reflect her immersion in Romani tradition and values as well as the hierarchies of rural Slovakia. Also reflected is her determination to help improve the situation of local Romani communities, which had suffered war-time persecution and isolation, and from the ignorance of the post-war local authorities. The book describes her motivation and willingness to take part in the Romani emancipation movement.” (x)

“American Gypsy,” Oksana Marafioti

Oksana Marafioti is a Russian Romani and Armenian writer, naturalized American citizen. “Marafioti’s book, American Gypsy: A Memoir, published this month, is a humorously honest story of growing up Gypsy, touring Europe with her family of performers, dealing with racism in Russia, then adapting to the U.S., where she was caught between the old world and new amid teenage angst, high school and her musician father’s psychic/exorcism business.” (x)

“Zwischen Liebe und Haß”, Philomena Franz (only in German)

Philomena Franz is a Sinti Auschwitz survivor. Her “autobiographical narrative, Zwischen Liebe und Haß: ein Zigeunerleben (1985), is significant as the first survivor account of the atrocities that were inflicted on Roma during the Second World War. For the past forty years, Franz has been active as a speaker at schools, universities, and community meetings, emphasizing the importance of remembering the Holocaust and its victims.“ (x)

“Never Enough Time in the Day: Memoir of a proud Romani woman”, Olga Fečová (only in Czech)

Olga Fečová (1942-2022) was a respected member of the Czech romani community. In her book, she “captures the idiosyncratic inhabitants of a disappeared world, one of Romani settlements where life was lived traditionally, of tenement houses with balcony hallways in the Old Town of Prague, of “colonies” housing the working class, and sincerely shares her life experience and opinions about it all” (x)

“Our Settlement”, Irena Eliášová (only in Slovak)

“Irena Eliášová was born on 3 May 1953 in the Roma settlement of Novésa (Nová Dedina u Levic) in Slovakia. Her father made a living as a musician. In the 1960s the family went to seek work in Czechia. They stayed at numerous places both in Southern and Northern Bohemia. She only finished elementary school because following her father becoming ill she had to take a job and help provide for the family as a seamstress. After getting to know her future husband the couple moved to Liberec. When her three children grew up, she finally became fully invested in her beloved writing. In 2008, she published the first book of memories called “Our Settlement”.” (x)

“Zigenerska,” Katarina Taikon (only in Swedish)

Katarina Taikon was a famous Swedish Romani rights activist, nicknamed “the Martin Luther King of Sweden.” In her autobiography, she criticizes the living conditions Roma are forced to live under in Sweden. Her book had a tremendous impact in Sweden and in the lives of Swedish Roma, as it drew attention to the poverty and the racism they face from the larger society, leading to the first social mobilizations aiming at improving the lives of Roma in Swedish society.

“Sur ces chemins où nos pas se sont effacés,” Pisla Helmstetter (only in French)

Pisla Helmstetter (1926-2013) was an Alsacian Sinti (romani) woman. In her autobiography, she reminisces about her childhood, spent travelling among French landscapes, in the 1930s, and about her teenage years, during which her family was persecuted by the Nazis, who ethnically cleansed Alsace of all its Roma, deporting them to concentration camps or forcing them to internment camps.

* whether or not the Dom should be considered Romani is debated, but since we share a common ancestry, language and history, and since the Dom identify with Romani cultural elements (like our flag) or with the term “Gypsy”, I’m including them in this post

Israeli Forces demolish a school in Masafer Yatta

Activists leave this message behind

“The Israeli occupation forces demolished a school while it was in session and students were inside,” the head of Masafer Yatta’s local council, Nidal Younis, told Al Jazeera.

“They used sound bombs to scare the children and get them out of the school,” he added.

“This occupation targets everything – it targets our homes, education, our water, solar panels,” said Younis, the council head. “They think this will pressure people to leave so that they can displace them, so that they can ethnically cleanse Masafer Yatta.”

Yusra (pictured left) was a Palestinian woman who worked under Dorothy Garrod, a British paleoarchaeologist (pictured right), at Mt. Carmel caves in Israel from 1929 to 1935. 

Yusra was not a professionally trained archaeologist, but one of many local villagers hired by Garrod and her team to conduct the bulk of the work in the excavation.  Such practices were common at the time, and still are in some regions of the Middle East. Many of these villagers, despite having no formal education on the subject, were skilled excavators who had decades of experience. Yusra was the most skilled of all the village women employed under Garrod. 

Yusra’s job during the excavations was picking out items before the excavated soil was sieved, and she became immensely skilled in recognizing lithics, fauna, and human remains. One day she found a tooth, then a series of skull fragments which turned out to be part of a crushed but mostly complete skull of a Neanderthal woman. The skull, now known as Tabun-1, dates to 120,000 years ago. It is of the most ancient human skeletal remains found in the Levant.

Although she was a prominent member of Dorothy Garrod’s excavation team and  responsible for the discovery of one of the most significant samples of neanderthal remains ever found, very little is known about Yusra’s life except for what is written about her in Garrod’s notes. She wanted to study at Cambridge at the encouragement of Garrod, but was unable to do so for a number of reasons. It is unknown what happened to her after the Mt. Carmel excavations because her village was abandoned and destroyed during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. 

Yusra is an example of a woman and a class of skilled laborers whose contributions to early archaeology went unacknowledged and largely forgotten. 

Ana Hortides - Fundação (concrete), 2020-21