• • • google suggested • • •
• • • some of the things I read in antisocial isolation • • •
What the Color ‘Haint Blue’ Means to the Descendants of Enslaved Africans
In the Lowcountry, the unique shade is both protective talisman and source of unspeakable suffering.
At this Gullah Geechee home on Daufuskie Island, South Carolina, painted doors and shutters keep out evil spirits called “haints.”
BEAUFORT COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA, A marshy world of low-lying coastal islands, is awash in blue. The cerulean of the skies that darken to shades of cobalt in storm-kissed summers. The blue-gray of the churning Atlantic. The sapphire waters of the rivers and saline estuaries that account for almost 40 percent of the county’s 923 square miles.
But while the color blue dominates Lowcountry skies and waters, for centuries it was nearly impossible for human hands to reproduce. Only indigo—a leggy green plant that emerges from the soil in bushy, tangled clumps—can generate the elusive jewel tones.
In Beaufort County and elsewhere in the Lowcountry of South Carolina and Georgia, blue had the power to protect enslaved Africans and their descendants, known as the Gullah Geechee, from evil spirits. But the color was also the source of incomparable suffering. Indigo helped spur the 18th-century transatlantic trade, resulting in the enslavement of thousands.
The town of Beaufort, the county seat of the eponymous Lowcountry district, is accented in blue. The elegant riverside town was one of the South’s wealthiest before the Civil War, and one of the few left standing by the Union Army, which set up a base of operations here after its residents skipped town in the Great Skedaddle of 1861. …
I Cannot Remain Silent
Our fellow citizens are not the enemy, and must never become so.
It sickened me yesterday to see security personnel—including members of the National Guard—forcibly and violently clear a path through Lafayette Square to accommodate the president’s visit outside St. John’s Church. I have to date been reticent to speak out on issues surrounding President Trump’s leadership, but we are at an inflection point, and the events of the past few weeks have made it impossible to remain silent.
Whatever Trump’s goal in conducting his visit, he laid bare his disdain for the rights of peaceful protest in this country, gave succor to the leaders of other countries who take comfort in our domestic strife, and risked further politicizing the men and women of our armed forces.
There was little good in the stunt.
While no one should ever condone the violence, vandalism, and looting that has exploded across our city streets, neither should anyone lose sight of the larger and deeper concerns about institutional racism that have ignited this rage.
As a white man, I cannot claim perfect understanding of the fear and anger that African Americans feel today. But as someone who has been around for a while, I know enough—and I’ve seen enough—to understand that those feelings are real and that they are all too painfully founded. …
‘How did we get here?’: Trump has normalised mayhem and the US is paying the price
More than 100,000 have died in a pandemic and troops are on the streets. The rate of fresh affronts has outpaced the ability to digest them.
Teargas rises during a demonstration outside the White House over the death of George Floyd, on Sunday.
The sheer tumult of the Trump era, the unceasing torrent of events that were unthinkable even hours before, has left a nation constantly off balance, unable to find its bearing and grasp how far it has traveled.
The developments of the past 24 hours were a reminder of how slippery the downward slope has been.
More than a hundred thousand Americans are dead from a pandemic after the government’s botched response; there are armoured cars and troops outside Washington metro stations; men in combat gear carrying sniper rifles were seen perched in the open door of a helicopter flying low over the commercial district. A military chopper buzzed a crowd of demonstrators so close to the ground they were buffeted around by the wind from the rotor, a dispersal technique learned in counter-insurgencies abroad.
On Monday, an entirely peaceful protest was driven out of a city square in front of the White House with teargas, baton charges and mounted police, so Trump could pose in front of a church with a Bible.
A priest and a seminarian, who had been distributing water and hand sanitizer to protesters from the steps of St John’s Episcopal, were driven away by police with helmets and riot shields to create an uncluttered tableau. A Bible was procured for Trump from inside the church for him to hold aloft. Journalists asked if it was his Bible. “It’s a Bible,” he replied. …
How Bizarre (Or Great) Will The 2020 Election Be?
On this week’s episode, Alex Schmidt is joined by Sarah Pappalardo (Reductress) and Dave Weigel (The Washington Post) for a look ahead at an election that’s practically happening tomorrow. Could one party take both houses of Congress? How is the Presidential race shaping up? And will American voters have to jack up their pandemic risk just to plunk down a ballot? …
RELATED: Darkly Funny Moments That It’s OK To Laugh At
Yes, this is a time of unprecedented tragedy. It is also accompanied by, as tends to happen in these situations, moments of unprecedented comedy.
Let us tell you about some of those moments:
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Trump Has Delivered Only Chaos
If this is what a law-and-order presidency looks like, what is the alternative?
“When I take the oath of office next year, I will restore law and order to our country,” Donald Trump said four summers ago in Cleveland, as he accepted the nomination at the Republican National Convention. “In this race for the White House, I am the law-and-order candidate.”
On Monday in the Rose Garden, he echoed those words.
“I am your president of law and order, and an ally of all peaceful protesters,” Trump said, as police teargassed and corralled peaceful protesters just outside the White House. “But where there is no law, there is no opportunity. Where there is no justice, there is no liberty. Where there is no safety, there is no future.”
These words ring hollow today. After nearly a full term in office, Trump has delivered only chaos. Violent protests sweep the streets of cities across the nation, from large to small. Police are rioting, dealing with complaints about brutalizing civilians by brutalizing civilians. Heavily armed militias have invaded state legislatures. Nazis have marched in the streets of a bucolic college town. Mass shootings haunt the nation’s high schools and Walmarts and churches and commercial districts and music festivals and fairs. (To say nothing of more than 100,000 dead from COVID-19 and millions out of work.) If this is what a law-and-order presidency looks like, what is the alternative? …
Who killed Berta Cáceres? Behind the brutal murder of an environment crusader
Could there ever be justice for someone like Berta in a country like Honduras, where impunity reigns supreme?
Berta Cáceres at the banks of the Gualcarque River in the Rio Blanco region of western Honduras.
The final few months of Berta Cáceres’s life were filled with ominous signs. Just before Christmas 2015, she confided in her sister Agustina that her life was in danger. “The messages never stop, the harassment never stops, they have me under surveillance. They don’t care that I have children. Those sons of bitches are going to kill me.”
Berta was involved in numerous land and water struggles alongside indigenous Lenca communities across western Honduras. But the battle to stop construction of a hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque river, in the community of Río Blanco, had her more worried than usual. Berta told her children she was scared, and that they should take the threats seriously. “Mum said there was a group of dangerous sicarios [hitmen] attacking the Río Blanco community and asking about us, her daughters,” said Laura, 23, the youngest, home from midwifery college for the Christmas break. “I knew the threats were serious because she wouldn’t leave me alone in the house, not even for a night.”
Berta had reasons to suspect the hitmen were hired by Desa, the dam construction company. Desa’s trumped-up criminal charges against her and other leaders of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (Copinh) had failed to silence them. Was it now it pursuing other means to stop the opposition?
Her sense of unease intensified on 12 February 2016. Douglas Bustillo, a thuggish former army lieutenant and Desa’s ex-security chief, messaged her Copinh deputy, Tomás Gómez, out of the blue, accusing Berta of cashing in on the Río Blanco struggle to win the prestigious Goldman environmental prize.
Four days later, driving out of Río Blanco, Berta’s car was shadowed by two SUVs carrying armed locals she knew were linked to Desa. …
Video Goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
During Trump’s photo op in front of the St. John’s Episcopal Church, God pops in to let Donald know he’s not on board with tear-gassing peaceful protesters. Watch the full segment on CBS All Access.
On Monday, the President of the United States ordered military police to fire on peaceful demonstrators assembled outside the White House, including church clergy members, so he could walk to St. John’s Church to pose with a Bible for the most bizarre and pointless photo op of this presidency to date.
THANKS to CBS and A Late Show with Stephen Colbert for making this program available on YouTube.
Seth takes a closer look at President Trump threatening to unleash the military on American citizens protesting the brutal police murder of George Floyd.
FINALLY . . .
Find a Moment of Calm in These Cumulonimbus Clouds
A time-lapse shows that, before they unleash storms, the clouds look pretty soothing. (At least from space.)
To paraphrase the late, great Bob Ross: From high above, it’s happy little clouds as far as the eye can see. Embiggenable.
CUMULONIMBUS CLOUDS OFTEN PORTEND GNARLY weather—but when spotted from satellites as they swell, the white, puffy, towering clouds look incredibly soothing. NASA’s Earth Observatory recently shared this image and time-lapse gif of the clouds building above China’s Hainan Island in May 2020. Consider it a few seconds of solace for world-weary eyes.
Hainan Island sits off China’s southeast coast. Its waters appear tropical and turquoise, and its ground is thick with rainforest and stippled with mountains that rise above plains. The humid climate and steep landscape make storm clouds right at home—and as a result, the sky frequently crackles with lightning.
The clouds build over the course of the day. Embiggenable.
A few types of clouds are typically associated with such rugged terrain. Lenticular clouds, for instance, often sit downwind of slopes; one also often hovers above Lítla Dímun, a tiny Faroe Island that looks as though it has been topped with a dollop of crème fraîche.
Cumulonimbus clouds build on sticky days, NASA notes, when hot, wet air rises. On Hainan Island, this convection process is dialed up as humid sea air rolls across the plains and smacks into the mountains, where it’s forced skyward and then condenses into clouds. …
href=”https://www.birdjanitor.com/pointlessness.html”>nothing more barely uninteresting at all to do.
