1000th anniversary of the baptism of Poland; 1966, Lublin, Poland.

Rafael Romero Barros (Spanish, 1832-1895) Still life with oranges, 1863

I found a letter that I had to write for my latin classes. I am surprised how much I forgot, seriously.

"After its first-ever left-wing presidential administration took charge of negotiating permanent peace with the socialist FARC rebels, Colombia’s forests are feeling the effects with a 26% reduction in deforestation in the conflict areas.

These dense, biodiverse rainforests that are a part of the Amazon in places, and independent of it in others, have been one of the many victims of the country’s civil war.

However, President Gustavo Petro is conducting peace negotiations that put the environment first with around 20 splinter factions of the FARC guerillas, who have responded positively.

De-facto leadership in the conflict areas in the forested state of Gauviare has instituted its own deforestation moratorium, and an estimated 50,000 hectares of rainforest have been saved as a result.

“This is really dramatic,” conservationist Rodrigo Botero told The Guardian. “It’s the highest reduction in deforestation and forest fires that there has been in two decades.”

The Guardian recently covered these peace negotiations alongside a delegation from Norway which included that country’s environment minister, Espen Barth Eide.

“What I’m hearing, seeing, and feeling in these meetings is that there is an enhanced understanding that you cannot build a new Colombia on the basis of the further deterioration of nature, so you have to find an economic, social, political, inclusive process that is more respectful towards nature than before,” Barth told the English paper.

Often flying under the radar when compared to its neighbor Brazil, Colombia is the second-most biodiverse country on Earth, and the most biodiverse in terms of bird life.

It’s the 25th-highest country in the world for Forest Integrity Index score (8.26) and boasts twice as many square miles of highly-intact forest than of poorly-intact forest, almost all of which resides in the conflicted states of Amazonia, Caquetá, and Putumayo.

If the Petro government can really put the brakes on the conversion of forests into pastureland for cattle, it would be helping to save one of the most valuable tropical forest ecosystems on Earth."

-via Good News Network, 7/14/23

Pancho Villa with his elite cavalry detachment "los Dorados" just prior to the Battle of Ojinaga -January 1914- during the Mexican Revolution.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Thursday in Chile that it was imperative for the United States to declassify documents that could shed light on Washington’s involvement in the South American country’s 1973 coup.

“The transparency of the United States could present an opportunity for a new phase in our relationship between the United States and Chile,” Ocasio-Cortez said in Spanish in a video posted on Instagram alongside Camila Vallejo, the spokesperson for the left-leaning government of President Gabriel Boric.

The Democratic congresswoman from New York is part of a delegation of lawmakers who traveled to the capital of Santiago ahead of the 50th anniversary of the coup against President Salvador Allende on Sept. 11, 1973.

The delegation had first traveled to Brazil and will now go to Colombia, both of which are also ruled by left-leaning governments.

The goal of the trip was to “start to change … the relationships between the United States and Chile and the region, Latin America as a whole,” Ocasio-Cortez said outside the Museum of Memory and Human Rights that remembers the victims of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, who ruled from 1973 to 1990.

“It’s very important to frame the history of what happened here in Chile with Pinochet’s dictatorship. And also to acknowledge and reflect on the role of the United States in those events,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Ocasio-Cortez said she has introduced legislation to declassify documents related to Chile’s coup and Vallejo said a similar request had been made by the Chilean government.

“In Chile as well, a similar request was made … that aims to declassify documents from the Nixon administration, particularly certain testimonies from the CIA director. This is to attain a clearer understanding of what transpired and how the United States was involved in the planning of the civil and military coup, and the subsequent years that followed,” Vallejo said. “This is very important for our history.”

U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, a Democrat from Texas, said after the delegation’s approximately hourlong visit to the museum in Santiago that it was important to recognize the “truth” that “the United States was involved with the dictatorship and the coup.”

“So that’s why we’re here,” Casar said in Spanish to journalists, “to acknowledge the truth, to begin a new future.”

U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro from Texas said the visit to the museum was a reminder that it was important “to make sure that a tragedy and a horror like this never, ever happens again in Chile or in Latin America or anywhere else around the world.”

Earlier in the day, the delegation also met with Santiago Mayor Irací Hassler.

Reps. Nydia Velázquez of New York and Maxwell Frost of Florida also traveled to South America as part of the delegation sponsored by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington-based think tank.

western women get a lot of flak for being too independent or "masculine" but it always makes me think of spartan women. i think about that quote: "why are spartan women the only women who rule their men" and queen gorgo says it's because "spartan women are the only women who give birth to real men." i think plutarch also mentions that spartan men were always obedient to their wives.

or as socrates put it (quoted by xenophon): "It is the example of the rider who wishes to become an expert horseman: 'None of your soft-mouthed, docile animals for me,' he says; 'the horse for me to own must show some spirit' in the belief, no doubt, if he can manage such an animal, it will be easy enough to deal with every other horse besides. And that is just my case. I wish to deal with human beings, to associate with man in general; hence my choice of wife. I know full well, if I can tolerate her spirit, I can with ease attach myself to every human being else."

and i think there's a lot of truth to this. i think cultures with spirited, independent women are made stronger by it, for a number of reasons. and i think it actually plays a major role in western civilization's success. a strong-willed man and a strong-willed woman working together in union is an incredibly strong foundation for a family and a civilization.

and i don't want to give the impression that the west was ever some kind of gender-egalitarian utopia. but i do think a significant degree of respect for women is a common feature in western civilization (and i'd say broader indo-european culture too). at least compared to other civilizations. and especially in the prechristian and, now, the postchristian eras (though i'd say it even bleeds through in the christian era in some ways too). i mean there's a reason why feminism first blossomed in the west and not elsewhere.

but yeah, this desire for some docile, obedient slave-wife seems to be very contrary to the spirit of western civilization. i mean, it seemed like the default view of women in prechristian europe, for better or worse, was that women were these wild, powerful, passionate, promiscuous creatures who needed to be tamed. and yes, women were expected to be loyal and amenable/agreeable to their husbands but this is hardly unreasonable and is a far cry from the obedient slave-wife some people propose as an ideal (namely traditional christians and muslims and the like).

"women should be banned from doing manual labor" -- traditionally, women did all sorts of manual labor. medieval peasant women would be working in the fields just like the men. and even if they weren't working a field there would be plenty of other physically taxing jobs they'd be doing. not saying that women should be encouraged to do extremely dangerous or physically taxing jobs, but if they're able to more power to them. and i kinda detest this desire to portray women as frail and incapable. they are the weaker sex but they're not weak. let's not infantilize them.

also, western women generally marry out of love and commitment and view themselves (rightfully) as partners in union with their husbands. whereas these types of women (the woman who made this post) believe women's sole purpose is to be obedient little decorations who do nothing but sit around and look pretty (and maybe have babies if she's very traditional -- but often you won't even get that!) while the man just gives her money. it's transactional and superficial. there's no real love or partnership. it's not a good foundation for a family or a civilization.

anyway, belated happy women's day.

Plutarch- Lives of Alexander the Great and Caesar

id win in a chase against grievous

if i had a sesterius for every time a plague was made out of revenge. if i had a sesterius for every time a plague was made out of revenge and also there was an intestine conflict

rip pompey u will be missed :’(

 1000th anniversary of the baptism of Poland; 1966, Warsaw, Poland.

Te Deum laudamus

Germán Hernández Amores (Spanish, 1823-1894) Eve, 1854 Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando

**sighs…** Okay this definitely is too complicated for me to simplify or even explain properly, but there’s a current theme around how first-world countries always villainize people and governments from the Global South. Over the years, due to the proliferation of this mindset in the media, it's become very cruel and mainstream: the dichotomy between the “civilized” against the “savages” has always been present; yet now, that times have changed and POC issues are more present and discussed, this division is brought back by the use of “weaponized progressivism”. In short, countries that colonized, enslaved, stole, and dehumanized indigenous people of Latin America turn around and point an accusatory finger toward countries with huge ethnic gaps and prejudiced-based policies for not fixing the racist problem they installed in the first place. Most of these countries are still coming to terms with their stolen/downgraded indigenous identity and heritage as they were built upon the idea that this cultural identification of them is inherently negative against the “purity of white identity" that they should aspire to espouse.

Now, first-world people even deny the latinoamerican status of countries they perceive as “mostly white populated”, not only denying the historical background and baggage these lands possess but also reproducing the exact same racist rhetoric they claim to be against: "most indigenous tribes no longer exist, and POC aren’t part of the population."

These communities are very present (and in need of reparations) inside their own country and some aspects of their culture are integrated into the immigrant-based culture that some spaces of these countries have; people who claim that they don’t exist are simply giving tools to the governments that want to exterminate them and say they harmed no one as these communities “no longer live”.

Hell, this speech is completely dangerous as its main objective is to alienate Latin American countries and turn them against each other to prevent their union (it isn’t a coincidence that these arguments always resurface whenever new policies or trading agreements are designed). Racism inside Latin American countries needs to be discussed as does the revindication of indigenous cultures and people; yet first-world countries (government and, sorry, people alike) need to stay out of this mess and hand over their platforms to actual POC Latinos to speak on these matters; otherwise, they’re doing their (still racist and white supremacist) governments a favor by contributing to Latino-America’s lack of union.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcìa Màrquez has some magic in it. (Apart from the magic realism part)

Many people find it hard to read. But when you want something you do it, and specifically in this book, as you start reading it with interest you get to see how properly structured the book is.

Well yes indeed, the author does not sugar-coat or romanticise anything. (Everything is blunt,not like encanto) He presents the lives of the people in Macondo and of the Colonel and that's the beauty of the book. I have read the English version of the book and well, it actually is poetic in many aspects.

And the character, Colonel Aureliano Buendia....Gosh....The arc is just so big. He grows up as a quiet little boy who never leaves his house, very timid unlike his brother Arcadio Buendia who was built and looked as if he was birthed for war. He used to be the perfect example of a geek. He never left the lab. Dude made golden fishes. And then he marries a very young girl and she dies. Heartbreak. And boom. Man suddenly got ideas to go to the war against the conservatives with the liberals. He gets promoted. Becomes Colonel. Literally led the revolt at a point. With great power comes great responsibility and our brother took that lightly. He had the audacity to kill anybody who goes against him. At a point he wonders where his heart actually is and then he Attempts suicide. He then realizes "oh I used to make golden fishes" and he got back to it. And well......the number of children he had from different women happens to be 17.

There's a lot more i can say, I've just given bits and pieces about a single character...and y'all whine about how boring this book is? Seriously?

How? Like how?

10 août 1539 : ordonnance faisant notamment du français la langue officielle du droit et de l’administration ➽ http://bit.ly/Ordonnance-Villers-Cotterets Signée par François Ier à Villers-Cotterêts, cette « ordonnance générale sur le fait de la justice, police et finances » est destinée à réformer justice et fisc, interdit l’usage du latin dans les procès au profit du « langage maternel français », et marque les débuts de l’état civil en imposant la tenue de registres par les curés