The True Size of Africa

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NEW WEBSITE

Hey guys! So for all of you that enjoyed my language learning post, I have a really awesome announcement! 

https://mickybyrd1996.wixsite.com/travelaltlife

Mysite

I MADE A WEBSITE!!

So I’ve decided to document all of my traveling and language learning on my website and on my brand new Facebook page! 

Please check it out and pass it around if you find it interesting; I’ve been working really hard on writing some new posts about all of the countries I visited last summer! <3 

throne94:

Hello,

My name is Yousef and I’m a transgender male from the Middle East. I decided to make a post on here since there are a lot of active people from the LGBT community that are willing to help those in need.

In the Middle East we suffer a lot from society and even “coming out” could get you in jail. There is a law in my country
(Kuwait) where you can get thrown in jail for simply breaking gender norms (Dressing up like the other gender).

We are a group of trans activits that are trying to spread the word on twitter since it is very popular in the Middle East and it proved to change things in other issues. We’ve managed to get the attention of the “Daily Dot” when we translated very violent tweets on an arab trans hashtag to show how much we are in danger in this part of the world

Link:http://www.dailydot.com/irl/twitter-arabic-transgender-threats/

Most people here threat to kill us with swords and even one said they would burn us like hitler burned jews.

What we are asking is your support on the twitter hashtags:

#HelpArabianTransgenders
#اليوم_العالمي_للترانسجندر

If you tweet enough and help us trend it and gain enough attention, it would make Arabs become aware of our existence and therefore demand respect and our right to exist. Many of us want the right to simply transition and we can’t because most Arabs think they have the right to tell us what we can and cant do to our bodies.

If you don’t have a twitter or have no desire to partcipate, reblogging this would be more than enough. We need as much help as we can get.

Thank you

The LGBT community in much of the Muslim world does not just suffer from discrimination, but they fear for their lives. While people here in the West would like to assume that those on the right side of the political spectrum are anti-LGBT, and sure in some cases that is very much true, it is in no way comparable to what the LGBT community suffers from in the Muslim world. In fact, most conservatives in Canada are actually very strongly in support of LGBT rights. Even in the United States there is a huge trend and shift in attitudes amongst Republicans. The hateful rhetoric that still remains and discriminates against the LGBT community in North America is shameful and sad dying cry of pathetic ignorance, and it is very minuscule in comparison to what they suffer from in the Muslims world. It is now time, more than ever, for all the LGBT rights activists to start focusing some of their attention to where the community suffers the most!

Culture Asks

Answer these questions about the culture you grew up in.

1. What is your favourite holiday?
2. Does your country have traditional clothes that are still worn? (Show image if possible)
3. What is your favourite song in your native language (made in your country)?
4. Mention a cool fact about your country.
5. What is a stereotype about your country that you hate?
6. What place in your country should people visit?
7. What is a famous snack in your country?
8. What is your favourite dish?
9. What do you miss about your country whenever you’re in another country?
10. What sports is most popular in your country?
11. What’s the weather like in your country?
12. Was something important invented or discovered in your country?
13. Describe your country in 3 words.
14. What spices are most often used in your native cuisine?
15. What is your favourite expression in your native language?
16. Which country is your country’s “rival” (in a funny way, not a war kinda way)?
17. What does an average house look like in your country? (E.g. outside appearance, interior, anything unique?)
18. What is the most common mode of transport in your country beside a car?
19. What is currently the most popular TV show?
20. If you could change one thing about your culture, what would it be?
21. How would you describe an average person of your country?
22. What is the most common way to greet someone/ask how someone’s doing in your native language?
23. What is the school system like in your country?

Chinese: 谢谢!
English: Thank you!
German: Danke!
French: Merci!
Spanish: ¡Gracias!
Portuguese: Obrigado!
Italian:Grazie!
Dutch: Dank u!
Swedish: Tack!
Denmark: Tak!
Japanese: ありがとう!
Korean: 감사합니다!
Russian & Ukrainian: Cпасибо!
Georgian: დიდი მადლობა!
Turkish: Teşekkür ederim!
Polish: Dziękuję!
Czech: Děkuji!
Hungarian: Köszönöm!
Romanian: Mulțumesc!
Slovakian: Ďakujem vám!
Latvian: Paldies!
Lithuanian: Ačiū!
Estonian: Aitäh!
Finnish: Kiitos!
Greek: Σας ευχαριστώ!

They just happened to find 50,000 ballots late last night. The USA is embarrassed by fools. Our Election Process is worse than that of third world countries!

-President Donald J. Trump

Our Analysis

There is a 80% chance that Donald Trump wrote this tweet himself.

Word probabilities: 84/15 (Trump/Staff)
Time probabilities: 77/22 (Trump/Staff)
Metadata probabilities: 79/20 (Trump/Staff)
Posted at: Wed Jan 6 09:00:12 2021 EST [Link]
Tweet Source: Twitter for iPhone

The most informative terms in this tweet were:
happened (Trump, 6.1:1), find (Other, 1.2:1), last (Trump, 1.8:1), night (Trump, 2.8:1), usa (Trump, 1.4:1), election (Trump, 6.6:1), worse (Trump, 2.9:1), third (Other, 1.2:1), world (Trump, 1.4:1), countries (Trump, 4.2:1), ! (Trump, 1.3:1)

A computer sees the following emotions in this tweet (NRC):
{‘anticipation’: 1, 'positive’: 1, 'trust’: 1, 'negative’: 3, 'sadness’: 2, 'disgust’: 1, 'fear’: 1}

Grade level of this tweet (Flesch-Kincaid): 2.1

European countries

Abstract Advent Week 3 + 2

Abstract Advent Week 3 + 2

Final week (plus 2 days) of Abstract Advent challenge, which I completed on Christmas Eve – it’s been a blast, writing this on Christmas Day – hope you all are having a good one however your celebrate it (or not). First up was Day 15, with a shape like a hole (rather than a head) which I did an ink painting and a wax resist painting on opposite pages as a two page piece. Sadly this got nuked by…

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Apotheosis of War, Vasily Vereshchagin in 1871.

Vasily Vereshchagin depicted war atrocities in many of his paintings. He illustrated many wars including the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-88, 1857 Indian War of Independence titled ‘Blowing from Guns in British India’. His painting “The State Procession of the Prince of Wales into Jaipur.” , inside Kolkata’s Victoria Memorial is the third largest painting in the world. Vasily always depicted real side of war despite the rising propaganda of obscuring failures and highlighting glories. Due to this, he experienced opposition from Russian Empire, some countries of western Europe and British rule in India. He painted ‘Apotheosis of War’ in 1871. The painting depicts a pyramid of human skulls on the background of the ruined city and denuded trees among the red hot plain. Flocks of hungry birds of prey fluttering over the pyramid, picking at their remains. Death and destruction are conveyed with extreme detail through skulls. The denuded trees represent a civilisation without humanity. The leaves of kindness and compassion have fallen. The ravens symbolises irrationality. People driven by their self interest and insatiable thirst for power, iniate wars that leads to people becoming victim of their insanity. In the background, we can see ruined remains of a fortress, conveying grief and destruction that war brings on their families. Vasily used yellow and light brown colour for the barren plain and background, juxtaposing the horrors of war. Contrasting the dull plain, clear blue sky and shining sun only emphasizes the dreadness of the picture and present us a world where we don’t want to live in. Vasily not only portrays the abhorrent nature of mass death but also emphasizes a single lost life. The pyramid of skulls shows a fragile social and political strucure built on the foundation of mistrust, self interest and hate.

Vasily is trying to show the realistic picture of war to poets and prophets who dreamt of a utopia in which war will not exist and peace will reign on earth. It can be misunderstood by some as glorification of war, but he condemns the war by showing us its brutal nature. He tries to show that men are dynamic creatures who can’t live contended merely with peace. These men don’t think about the post calamities of war but are guided by their accumulated energy filled with ignorance and hate. The tendency of modern wars becoming global is pretty disturbing to us. The fact that radical difference in policies and abhorrent political ideologies of countries cannot always be settled by mere discussion, puts us as a civilisation into a bleak and uncertain future. I do not know how many wars could be prevented by art, but i do know that any stable, lasting peace depends on creating societies with a richness of opportunity and variety that can meet human needs.

Ukraine and Russia - History on Maps

“Dollie’s go ‘round the world” published by James and Jonathan in 1971.