#misconceptions about colombia

[tropes-and-tales]

Sick Day

December 30:  Scarf/Flu - Hurt or comfort (Horacio Carrillo x F!reader)

(From the winter prompts found here)

CW:  Sickness (flu); convoluted plot; nothing by typos; not edited

Word Count:  1649

AN:  Requested by anon!

There’s always misunderstandings along cultural lines between the Americans and the Colombians.  Most of the time, it’s not even malicious.  It’s just ignorance; the reliance of media and pre-conceived notions to inform one’s ideas about a country they’ve never been to before.

Like some of the younger women of the Search Bloc, the secretaries and those that transcribe the tapes from the listening posts…a group of them cornered you once, asked you excitedly if you knew Madonna.

Colonel Carrillo had almost chuckled at that, the bewildered look on your face.  “No,” you had stammered, confused by their question.  “I’m from Maine.  I don’t know anyone famous.”

Which turned into questions about where Maine was.

Which turned into questions about the different states.

Which turned into the size of the United States, and how Maine was nowhere near Disneyland (or Disney World, of which there was a difference), and how Maine was different than California or Texas.

Which had finally pulled Carrillo out of his office to rescue you, for which he was rewarded by a grateful smile.

-----

Your own notions about Colombia are charming enough—coffee and arapas, though Carrillo eventually learns that all of your notions about other countries can be boiled down to foodstuffs—but there’s one misconception, revealed a year into your assignment in Medellín.  

A year in:  by then, you and Carrillo are friendly.  He gets along with the other agents, will often share a drink with Steve or Javier, but with you, it’s different.  He’s more protective of you, and while he could dismiss that as a consequence of you being a woman, he knows it’s more than that.  He doesn’t like to dwell on it—any distraction from the hunt for Escobar is needless—but he knows that his feelings for you extend beyond a friendly working relationship.  

There is a Friday afternoon, a year into your time in Colombia.  The day is almost over, and Carrillo realizes that he hasn’t seen you at all.  He’s been buried in paperwork, but when he finally takes a breath and lifts his head, when he finally goes out into the bullpen, he sees that your desk is untouched.

“Where is she?” he asks Javier, who stubs out his cigarette before answering.

“Sick day.”

“She’s sick?”

“She actually thought she was poisoned,” Steve interjects.  Carrillo turns and looks at the blond man who’s grinning and shaking his head.  “Called Connie to her apartment late last night convinced she’d been poisoned.”

Carrillo’s stomach sinks despite Steve’s casual tone.  Escobar is inelegant in his brutality—prefers explosions, gunshots, big messy killings—but that doesn’t mean he or one of his associates wouldn’t turn to more subtle forms of death-dealing…

“Is she okay?” he asks, and he tries to keep his voice level.

“Sure.  She’s not poisoned, obviously.  It’s just the flu.”

“She didn’t believe Connie at first,” Javier interjects.  “She thought the flu didn’t exist in Colombia.”

“Yeah.”  Steve chuckles, then lights his own cigarette.  “She thought the flu was a cold weather ailment.  Connie said she seemed offended that she caught the bug here.”

-----

It’s different with you, so Carrillo visits you after work.  If were Steve or Javier, he wouldn’t bother (after all, the former has a wife and the latter has an entire bevy of women at the local brothels to care for him), but it’s different with you.  With you, Carrillo’s heart hammers so hard that he swears others can hear it.

He’s never been to your apartment before.  It feels like he’s crossing a line that he won’t be able to uncross.  Seeing you at work or at the local bar after work…that’s one thing.  That’s a friendly working relationship.  This is a step towards intimacy:  seeing where you live, seeing you sick.

Taking you food and drink to help nurse you back to health.

He feels ridiculous the moment he rings your intercom, but it’s already too late to turn back because you answer.  You ask who it is, and you sound so weak and forlorn, Carrillo forgets to feel stupid.  His protectiveness flares up, and he takes the steps two at a time when you let him in.

*****

The Carrillo you know turns up at your door—his usual crisp fatigues, his usual stern face.  The sight of him sets a lick of heat low in your belly, like usual, but you’re sick so it’s a weak little flicker.

The Carrillo you know marches into your apartment like he owns the place, his arms laden with paper bags.

The Carrillo you know gives you a cursory sweep with his dark eyes, studies you from head to toe, and you wish you could die then and there.  You look awful, and the Carrillo you know—blunt, unable to mince words—tells you so.

“You look terrible,” he says.

“Thanks,” you grumble hoarsely.  “’preciate it.”

The Carrillo you know gives you orders even now, even when you are sick with the alleged flu.  “Go sit down,” he tells you.  “Let me unpack this.”

“What is it?”

He gives you that look he has, his patented displeased look.  “I said, go sit down.”

You grumble, but you do, and that tiny little flicker of low-burning desire you carry for him…it makes you wonder, seeing him moving around your apartment—what other things he might order you to do with that dark glare of his…

It’s an interesting line of thought, but you’re seized with a sudden wave of fever that makes you shiver, so you move to your couch and burrow yourself back in the nest of blankets there.

You hear him rustling around in your kitchen, but you can’t even summon up the energy to be embarrassed or horrified.  It all may be just a fever dream anyway, some apparition conjured up by your fevered brain while it slowly melts from the flu.

You must nod off because he appears in front of you suddenly (like an apparition), but then he’s putting gently putting his hand on your back, coaxing you into an upright position.

Very much not the Carrillo you know.  He’s still in his fatigues, but his stern face is softened by the concern writ across his features.

“You need to eat,” he says softly.  He reaches over to the coffee table and takes a bowl there.  Holds it, and when you reach for it, he shakes his head.  Digs a spoon into the soup, and holds it out to you.

Very much not your Carrillo at all.  Trying to feed you, like a baby.  It feels so strangely intimate that you’d blush if you weren’t already flushed from the fever.

“I can feed myself,” you mutter, and he gives you a look like he doesn’t quite believe you…but he hands you the bowl and hovers anxiously over you while you stir its contents.

“It’s aijaco.  Chicken and potatoes.  Good for when you’re sick.”  A beat, and the corner of his mouth twitches into his version of a smile.  “Or if you’re poisoned.”

“Alright, smartass.”  You take a tentative spoonful of soup, test the spice level.  A lesson you learned early on in Colombia—innocuous looking food could be as hot as the flames of hell.  The aijaco is good, so you take another bite.  “I guess you talked to Steve.”

Carrillo nods, watches you intently as you eat.  “I did, yes.”

“I honestly never considered the flu as anything but a cold weather disease.”  You can’t be bothered to feel embarrassed about that either.  Growing up in Maine, the flu was simply a winter ailment, linked inexorably in your head with snow and scarves and heavy parkas.

“It’s no worse than assuming every American knows Madonna.”  There’s a teasing edge to his voice…definitely not the Carrillo you know.

And because you have no energy to fight the questions bubbling at the top of your febrile brain, you blurt out the biggest one.

“Why are you here?” you ask.

He gestures at the bowl in your hands.  “To bring you stuff.  To help you feel better.”

You narrow your eyes, try to suss him out.  There’s more there, you’re certain of it, but you’re too tired to get to the meaning behind his visit.  You finish your soup, and you note how pleased he looks at your appetite.  He takes your empty bowl, disappears into your kitchen, then returns with a tall glass of green juice.

“Lalo juice,” he says.  “Lots of vitamins.”

It’s tart enough to make your eyes glassy, but it’s cold and hits your parched throat just right.  You’re also easily tricked by placebos and suggestion, so his mention of vitamins makes your flagging immune system snap to attention and get to work.  You feel better instantly.  Or at least, you feel better in the moment.  You’ll probably pass out later and sleep for long hours over the weekend, but this visit—from a very un-Carrillo sort of Carrillo—feels like the pivot point of the entire illness.

“You’re a pretty good nurse,” you joke as you hunker down in your pile of blankets.  “Too bad you’re a colonel.”

“I wouldn’t have the patience for this every day.  Sick people, whining?  I’ll stay with the Search Bloc.”

“I haven’t whined at all.”

“No.”  He pauses, then reaches out a hand.  He tugs at the corner of one blanket, tucks it more firmly under your knee.  “You’re a model patient.”

There’s something foreign in his expression, a blatant softness you’ve never seen before.  You would have never thought him capable of even looking that soft—the tension melted from his face and jaw, his dark eyes almost dreamy.  

Very much not your Carrillo.  At all.

You clear your throat.  “I appreciate this.  You stopping by, bringing me stuff.  I know you’re busy.”

The softness leaves his face, but he balances its loss by smiling.  “You’re welcome.”

#horacio carrillo #horacio carrillo imagine #horacio carrillo x reader #colonel horacio carrillo #colonel horacio carrillo x reader #colonel Carrillo #colonel carrillo x reader #colonel carrillo imagine #narcos #tropes-and-tales #winter prompts 2022

[adventures-of-argyle]

Chapter 3 [part 3]

Argyle span around like a sim from the sims 12 to change their outfit. They admired their new appearence for a moment before realising that their plane was about to leave in 4 minutes and 13 seconds. Argyle began to sprint rapidly towards the departure gate and even used their super rare ultra turbo the snail from TURBO Clip - "Your Driver Is A Snail" (2013) Ryan Reynolds to give them a Speed Boost TM. Luckily, Ryan Reynolds is'nt real (this is a common misconception,) so neither of his two older brothers who work in law enforcement in british colombia could catch Argyle as they sped off to catch the aeroplane. Finally, just in the nick of time, with only zero point twelve seconds to spare, Argyle zoomed through the gate and hurtled over the passengers straight into seat number 17c (this was not the seat that Argyle had booked and there was, in fact, someone already sitting there, but argyle used their mega-strength to compress them into a small cube before storing them in their pocket for later.) Just then, the pilot annonced that due to unforseen circumstances, France was Fine and Normal. this was a shame because Argyle was actually hoping to participate in some chaos. However, they resolved that would simly create the chaos instead.

#adventures of argyle #argyles adventures

[mydemonsdrivealimo]

(mc intro post :)

Jensen Mateo Alejandro Valentine-Smith is my lovely mc who has developed mostly into an oc, both in changes to his physical appearance as well as his interests.

Birthday: January 21st

Personality: He’s just as fiery as the mc is written (i took every chance possible to have him yell at ethan ofc), but he’s definitely more patient when it comes to his temper. He can take a lot of shit but he will absolutely put someone in their place if they need it. Work Jensen follows pretty closely to the story, but regular Jensen can come off as more…cold? He doesn’t go out of his way to be overly friendly, and his “chronic resting bitch face” (as Bryce calls it) doesn't help much. He’s most certainly not a mean person, just rougher around the edges. He has a bit darker of a sense of humor, and is a damn good liar (though he doesn’t do it often). Generally he’s more willing to go the “socially unacceptable” route quicker than most.

Physical appearance:

(^^this is the design i play with/am referring to) He’s definitely grown his hair out more, a little bit longer on the sides and top. He has 6 ear piercings, 2 on each lobe, helix on his right, and industrial on his left. He had most of them before med school, but got the industrial just before graduation. Sometimes I draw him with an eyebrow piercing but he would’ve taken it out by the time he’s at Edenbrook, I just add it for fun. He also has a tongue piercing and nipple piercings (so 9 total, 10 including the eybrow one). He has 2 tattoos, a large one across his shoulder blades with a sun and moon, and two bands around his right bicep. Also a few scars here and there, nothing too bad. Lastly his build is a little wider, and he’s definitely got muscle but his stomach and chest aren’t super defined and are generally more soft. 

some more updates pics:

Backstory: Jensen was born in Colombia, living with his mom and dad until his mom moved back to Chicago when he was around 5, taking him with. It took them about a year of bouncing from couch to couch to finally find their footing and get a place of their own. His mom worked a lot, and Jensen had never been too passionate about school or hobbies which led him into more trouble than anything else. 

He has a sealed record because of a few particularly unflattering incidents in his younger years, but it was always with the best intention for him and his mom. She was declared unfit to take care of him after the court got involved, as she was months behind on rent, could barely afford new clothes, and clearly had no way to supervise Jensen. Eventually, around sophomore year of high school, he was living with a foster family and visited his mom (at least) one weekend every month. 

He really started to enjoy school as he was able to take more classes he wanted, and has a passion for psychology and sociology. His grades were never horrible, but he averaged a high c or low b up to that point. He definitely was told he needed to “apply himself” by many teachers, because he had the brains to get through school, he just never cared to. He was more concerned with real-world problems, whether that be what went on at his own kitchen table, money issues, or what was happening in the news.

Psychology was what had him considering the medical field in the first place. He loved and still actively keeps up with psychological studies and papers, but it was more of a slow-working remedy. It was almost too hopeless, seeing how long it took to get proper diagnosis and ongoing misconceptions about mental health. But if he became a doctor, he could see the results and make a visible change. Of course there’s always brick walls he’s going to hit his head against, but it definitely made him feel a lot more accomplished. 

Family: His foster family, who he still is in contact with, had a daughter a few years older than him. He doesn’t see them often, maybe a visit during the holidays and a few texts here and there. His mom got married when he was away at college, and Jensen barely met the guy (maybe a half a dinner once?). He still talks to his mom whenever possible but they’re busy with their own lives and they know that. He doesn’t visit her much, both because she moved over to Oregon and Jensen wouldn't click well with her new family.

Fun facts: 

Jensen was in a band in his senior year of high school and first 3 years of college. Nothing too exciting, mostly just for shits, and the biggest show they played was probably at a bar just off campus. He played bass (still does for fun if he has time) and backing vocals

Jensen’s been boxing since he was in middle school, and while it’s mostly a hobby, he occasionally teaches newcomers at the gym where he trains (he doesn’t go easy on them though which is why they don’t train with him a lot)

Jensen swears an unflattering amount. At work, he can pretty much just turn it off, but anywhere else it doesn’t work so easily. He really tries to censor himself, especially around Keiki or his niece and nephew, but usually something slips out

He's pretty horrible with most children (he just doesn’t know what to do with them), but he absolutely loves his niece and nephew. He has no problem once he gets to know them, and loves hanging out with them and hearing what they have to say. Once he has a little more time in his schedule, they come and visit him for a weekend or two every year

He absolutely loves not having to talk when he's with Bryce. A lot of people would think it's annoying to have their partner talking constantly. Jensen isn't bothered by it at all though, and is happy to just listen to Bryce ramble about whatever and participate in the conversation when necessary.

please ask any questions if you have them <3

~~~ edit ~~~

coming back much later than i posted this, ik, but now that im more familiar w the fandom im going to tag @choicesficwriterscreations to add jensen to the mcs :)

#jensen valentine #open heart mc #open heart choices #open heart #bryce lahela #choices game #choices open heart

[linguisticscamilovergara]

Blog # 2 Entry 1 - Text- -Teacher ¿Puedo hablar en Español?-

In this article we see the clear intention to place the students as social beings, in order for them to learn about their own culture while exploring the other countries culture, we are also going to talk about two main concepts along with their branches that will helps us to asses the student’s cultural background.

In Colombia as in different countries around the globe, the EFL is taught in order to give more opportunities to the students, but an undeniable fact is that the use of several languages, not only the English, can support the learning of a segond language; A misconception that some programs of EFL education have in Colombia is that those programs deny other languages in the classroom that are not English, when if made in a different and more inclusive way, the native and indigenous languages could be encouraged while archiving English literacy skills.

This text relies on two main concepts, the first one being the Plurilingualism, this concept concerns the use of several languages in order to give meaning, the use of several languages has been used for millennia and it was also used by indigenous communities in order to perform different actions that required different languages or variations of these languages; This short description can give us a clue about how our mother tongue or our main language is part of a bigger structure that our community, city or country uses in order to work and give sense to all the activities that we perform. The other concept that is used is the Translanguaging, this concept refers to the situations where, for example: we read a document in English and we share our thoughts in Spanish; Those situations where we switch the language that we are using in order to find the meaning of something.

According to Williams (1994), the diary entry is the most interesting activity because students need to read and understand the Welsh text as well as the English ones to complete the task. Williams (1994, p. 262). In this case the use of the texts in English in a Welsh context helped the students to use of both codes can be an advantage at the moment of learning more that one language and the writing systems of those languages to acquire and to recognize that the languages do not exit isolated.

The use of different didactic methods usually forgets about the main tool that we use in our daily life, the language as a source of knowledge needs to be used in order to show other languages to the students, and to connect with the interpretations of reality that those languages give to all of us that are able to comprehend a language in its four main skills, here is where interesting topics as the linguistic relativity theory of Sapir & Whorf can be look upon and considered not as document to study with the more elder minds but with the youth that needs to realize about what surround them and to acknowledge that the language that they speak is more that a simple code to express different emotions, but a link that even connects us with those who do not speak our own language or our own variation of a language.

[surrogacycare]

In the following sections of this blog, we will talk in detail about these misconceptions. Besides, we will take a detailed look at whether or not IVF treatment in Colombia may trigger the risk of cancer in the patients undergoing the treatment.                  Read more: https://surrogacy.care/does-ivf-or-fertility-medications-triggers-the-risk-of-cancer/

#ivf #surrogacy

[peepintothewild]

Into the webs

Introduction: 

From 8 to the 80s, almost everyone knows about spider man. And when we hear this WORD, probably what comes first to mind – is a fictional character of the movie wearing a red and blue suit, gloves, boots, and mask. But that does not come to mind what exists in this nature – a generally dark or sometimes light-complexioned small creature with several eyes and legs having the tag of the most feared animal among the public, especially girls, jokes apart  it is none other than – “ SPIDER.”

So, this blog highlights some of the intriguing aspects of Parasteatoda tepidariorum, commonly known as Spider.

Characteristics

First of all, let me clear the most common misconception that it is an insect. But in reality, a spider is the most significant order of arachnids. They differ from insects in having only two segments of the body, eight legs, not six or eight eyes (generally two in insects). Unlike insects, spiders do not have any antennae.

Spiders occur in an extensive range of sizes. The smallest, Patu digua from Colombia, are less than 0.37 mm in body length. The largest and heaviest spiders occur among tarantulas, with body lengths up to 90 mm and leg spans up to 250 mm. While in many spiders, color is fixed throughout their life, in some groups, color may vary in response to environmental, internal conditions, and preying circumstances. Some spiders’ diets include nectar, flies, mosquitos, moths, ants, and other small insects. Most spiders are solitary animals and meet each other during mating by various methods – pheromones, tactile and complex courtship displays through dance (by jumping spider), and visual.

Web – 5x stronger than steel:

 Spider uses its proteinaceous silk to produce its webs, generally for capturing prey or, in some cases, the web acts as an auditory sensor. Various types of webs are –                                                             

Orb webs

Cobwebs

Tubular webs                                                

Funnel webs

Sheet webs

Human uses of webs:

 In traditional European medicines, it was used for wound healing aid. It is also used in cobweb painting, for reticles in telescopes, other medical devices, and consumer goods.

Prey: 

Have you ever wondered how this tiny creature captures its prey? Crab spiders are sit-and-wait predators. They are often seen perched on garden flowers with their long front legs held out, crablike, to seize insects visiting the plant. Wolf spiders are brown and furry; on sunny days, large numbers can be seen running through vegetation to hunt prey. On bright walls, black-and-white striped jumping spiders can be seen stalking and pouncing on prey. The distinctive nocturnal woodlouse spider hunts woodlice under stones and flower pots.

Some interesting facts you would wish you had known earlier

A few species of spiders (Jumping spiders)  can see UVA and UVB light and other spectrums which we can’t see.

There are over 100 species of spiders that mimic ants by having similar appearances and even similar pheromones. Most do it to evade predators and also help them prey on ants.

Some spiders eat their own webs.  Abandoning one web and building a new one every night would be pretty wasteful. Instead, some orb-web spinners recycle the amino acids that make up the silk proteins by ingesting the silk as they systematically dismantle their damaged webs.

Spider inspired a dance locally known as “ Tarantella.” During the 16th and 17th centuries, it was believed that a bite from a species of wolf spider (named tarantula) would be fatal unless the victim engaged in frenzied dancing to a specific piece of music.

Spider cannibalism - Many spiders can happily eat other spiders, and many can even cannibalize individuals of their species. The nursery web spider's mating session is a clear example of spider cannibalism. When courting a female nursery web spider, he should present a silk-wrapped fly to his prospective mate. If he doesn't, he will be rejected outright; according to new research, he won’t have anything to defend himself with if she tries to eat him. Female nursery webs rarely attack suitors. But when they do, the male loses everything. In the case of a red widow, the male force feeds himself to the female by placing himself into her mandibles. If she ‘spits him out,’ so to speak, he will keep putting himself there until she eventually eats him.

Historical & Mythological significance:

Spiders have been the focus of stories and mythologies of various cultures for centuries. In a story told by the Roman poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses, Arachne was a Lydian girl who challenged Athena to a weaving contest. Arachne won, but Athena destroyed her tapestry out of jealousy, causing Arachne to hang herself. In the act of mercy, Athena brought Arachne back to life as the first spider. Stories about the trickster-spider Anansi are prominent in the folktales of West Africa and the Caribbean. Dreamcatchers are depictions of spiderwebs. The Moche community in Peru depicted spiders in their art.

Spiders play a crucial role in the ecosystem, which makes them an essential part of the natural world. Whether you love them or fear them, there is no denying the incredible abilities of these eight-legged creatures. Hope you will not see it as a havoc during an encounter.

By,

Souronil

[solatgif]

TGIF: Roundup for December 2, 2022

Advent is here! This holiday season, join SOLA Network on Substack. I’ll send you a free daily devotion to help prepare your heart for Christmas. We shared two classics: Tim St. John’s Advent Calendar for Couples and What is a Fitting Response to the Advent Season? by Daniel K. Eng.

We have over 30 videos in our Author Interviews YouTube playlist, with more coming soon. In case you missed it, check out over 30 videos in our newest YouTube playlist on The Asian American Church.

This newsletter is one of the many ways you can keep in touch with us. Find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. For more, check out my Asian American Worship Leaders Facebook group and TGIF Playlist on Spotify. You can reach me on Twitter and Instagram.

Enter to win this excellent book! Read my review. Thanks to Crown & Covenant for providing this book, in partnership with my newsletters for @diveindigdeep and FCBC Walnut.

Articles From Around The Web

Isbael Ong: 3 Popular Misconceptions About Advent

Christian leaders from Brazil, Colombia, France, and the Philippines weigh in on mistaken beliefs about the season.

Soojin Chung: The Seed of Korean Christianity Grew in the Soil of Shamanism

An awareness of the spirit world was a crucial component in missionary efforts to spread the gospel.

Geoff Chang: Lectures to My Students: A Reader’s Guide to a Christian Classic

“Spurgeon presents to us a vision of the pastorate that is sober, self-controlled, and centered on Christ.”

Advent is here! This holiday season, join SOLA Network on Substack. I’ll send you a free daily devotion to help prepare your heart for Christmas.

Books, Podcasts, Music, And More

TGC: Leviticus: A Commentary by Peter Lee

Peter Lee: “I’m excited to share that my commentary on Leviticus is now available at TGC’s Concise Commentary series. This was a labor of love and look forward to more projects like it in the future.”

FCBC Walnut: Self-Control, Godly Zeal, and Gen Z

I talk with my friend Leslie about the connection between self-control and self-care, what we were zealous for in our youth, and how we are encouraged by the younger generations.

Aaron Lee: Related Works

Book Reviews (Reformation Heritage Books): A Puritan Theology by Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones, The Lives of the Puritans by Benjamin Brook, Ore from the Puritans’ Mine by Dale Smith, Commentary on the Old and New Testaments by John Trapp, Meet the Puritans by Joel R. Beeke and Randall J. Pederson. Listen to our TGIF playlist on Spotify. Join my Asian American Worship Leaders Facebook group.

Subscribe to our podcast for our interviews, messages, and article reads! Available for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.

Featured This Week On SOLA Network

Andrew H. Kim: Is My Culture a Product of Sin?: Reexamining the Tower of Babel

“Instead of having one common language, a diversity of languages, cultures, ethnicities, and nations ultimately resulted from the Babel narrative. So, is it true that different ethnicities and cultures are a result of sin? I will explain how they are not only a result of God’s intended plan but will also continue into eternity.”

Ben Khong: Alzheimer’s: Help and Hope for Caregivers & the Church

“Alzheimer’s is a tragic disease, one that allows us to witness the brokenness of the curse. It progressively destroys a person’s mind until that person dies. And, where the world’s solutions end with the grief and loss that comes with the experience of this disease, the believer’s experience roots them in eternal life.”

Ken Carlson: Observing Advent as a Family

So much of the Christmas season in our culture has nothing to do with Jesus. Family Advent provides one way to remind ourselves of the true meaning of Christmas and to pass our faith on to the next generation.

TGIF: Roundup for November 25, 2022

God or Money / Redeeming Babel / The Embattled Pastor: How to Navigate Conflict and Criticism / The Church Behind Barbed Wire / Ekstasis Autumn Collection

General disclaimer: Our link roundups are not endorsements of the positions or lives of the authors.

[jakeparalta90]

Stabilized Starch Market Market Overview, Cost, Application, by Type, Segment Market Forecast 2030

Stabilized Starch Market Overview:

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Impact of covid 19

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The major players included in the report are Emsland Group Grain Processing Agrana Avebe Cargill Samyang Holdings BENEO SMS Corporation Blattmann Schweiz AG

Based on the type of product, the global Stabilized Starch market segmented into Conventional Stabilized Starch Organic Stabilized Starch

Based on the end-use, the global Stabilized Starch market classified into Food & Beverage Industrial Animal Feed

Based on geography, the global Stabilized Starch market segmented into North America (United States, Canada and Mexico) Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia and Spain etc.) Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia and Southeast Asia etc.) South America (Brazil, Argentina and Colombia etc.) Middle East & Africa (South Africa, UAE and Saudi Arabia etc.)

Table of Contents

1 RESEARCH SCOPE 1.1 Research Product Definition 1.2 Research Segmentation 1.2.1 Product Type 1.2.2 Main product Type of Major Players 1.3 Demand Overview 1.4 Research Methodology

2 GLOBAL Stabilized Starch INDUSTRY 2.1 Summary about Stabilized Starch Industry

2.2 Stabilized Starch Market Trends 2.2.1 Stabilized Starch Production & Consumption Trends 2.2.2 Stabilized Starch Demand Structure Trends 2.3 Stabilized Starch Cost & Price

3 MARKET DYNAMICS 3.1 Manufacturing & Purchasing Behavior in 2020 3.2 Market Development under the Impact of COVID-19 3.2.1 Drivers 3.2.2 Restraints 3.2.3 Opportunity 3.2.4 Risk

4 GLOBAL MARKET SEGMENTATION 4.1 Region Segmentation (2017 to 2021f) 4.1.1 North America (U.S., Canada and Mexico) 4.1.2 Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Rest of Europe) 4.1.3 Asia-Pacific (China, India, Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia, Rest of Asia Pacific) 4.1.4 South America (Brazil,, Argentina, Rest of Latin America) 4.1.5 Middle East and Africa (GCC, North Africa, South Africa, Rest of Middle East and Africa) 4.2 Product Type Segmentation (2017 to 2021f) 4.2.1 Conventional Stabilized Starch 4.2.2 Organic Stabilized Starch 4.3 Consumption Segmentation (2017 to 2021f) 4.3.1 Food & Beverage 4.3.2 Industrial 4.3.3 Animal Feed

5 NORTH AMERICA MARKET SEGMENT 5.1 Region Segmentation (2017 to 2021f) 5.1.1 U.S. 5.1.2 Canada 5.1.3 Mexico 5.2 Product Type Segmentation (2017 to 2021f) 5.2.1 Conventional Stabilized Starch 5.2.2 Organic Stabilized Starch 5.3 Consumption Segmentation (2017 to 2021f) 5.3.1 Food & Beverage 5.3.2 Industrial 5.3.3 Animal Feed 5.4 Impact of COVID-19 in North America

What our report offers: – Market share assessments for the regional and country-level segments – Strategic recommendations for the new entrants – Covers Market data for the years 2020, 2021, 2022, 2025, and 2030 – Market Trends (Drivers, Constraints, Opportunities, Threats, Challenges, Investment Opportunities, and recommendations) – Strategic recommendations in key business segments based on the market estimations – Competitive landscaping mapping the key common trends – Company profiling with detailed strategies, financials, and recent developments – Supply chain trends mapping the latest technological advancements

Free Customization Offerings:       All the customers of this report will be entitled to receive one of the following free customization options: • Company Profiling o Comprehensive profiling of additional market players (up to 3) o SWOT Analysis of key players (up to 3) • Regional Segmentation o Market estimations, Forecasts and CAGR of any prominent country as per the client’s interest (Note: Depends on feasibility check) • Competitive Benchmarking o Benchmarking of key players based on product portfolio, geographical presence, and strategic alliances

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#Stabilized Starch Market Stabilized Starch Market Size USA Stabilized Starch Market Europe Stabilized Starch Market North America Stabilized

[baekk-hhyun]

what makes you feel uncomfortable about leftist ideologies such as socialism and communism?

Okay this is great question and I have a lot to say even though right now my mind is a bit scattered due to personal reasons but I will try my best to explain. This is gonna be long. I study finance and international commerce and all of this I've learned from my professors, reading on my own and history. First we must define what communism is:

It's hard to agree with most ideologies out there, since it's normal to find things that don't align with our way of thinking, but there are problems with socialism and communism. First, I am a big believer in having a free market. Corporations are definitely evil however we cannot deny the wealth of a country is due thanks to them. A free market is healthy and it follows the basic economic principles which show what happens in an economy. A market functions with the consumers and companies and the prices are determined by these two agents. But in a socialist and communist government, it's the government who dictates this. That's not normal.

Governments can try and help intervene sometimes when there are failures in the market, which I agree with. however, we need capitalism. A big misconception is that there is only one type of capitalism. Capitalism comes in different shapes and sizes and varies depending on the country. Last semester I had a reading about capitalism which was really eye opening, since there could be a better way of organizing the economical part of a country but it's hard to achieve. It's by Harvard Business and it talks about to create shared value for everyone, employees and the environment. A lot of people value democracy and liberty, and so do I, but democracy isn't working as it should. We're supposed to be equal under it but we're not all truly equal in any country. This doesn't mean democracy is bad, just that it needs to be better. The same goes for capitalism. It's not working as it should. but the doesn't mean the idea of it is bad.

Another problem with socialism and communism is that historically it has led to dictatorships. And communism and socialism have made it seem as if capitalism is all to blame for everything. During this pandemic my government tried to pass a tax reform to help the people but communist leaders paid low income people to cause violence and make the president seem bad. Now our new socialist president wants a tax reform that's even bigger and there are no violent protests as before. Economic crisis and inflation and poverty have happened due to war and other factors. Countries with free or affordable healthcare are also capitalist, including my country which was primarily capitalist for decades until today with our new president. We have free/affordable healthcare. And one of our new president's elected official has tweeted recently how they want to get rid of free healthcare, which is scary. Our problem is corruption. And this corruption doesn't stem from private companies but rather the government. For history corrupt politicians have stolen public funds and made a lot of money from contracts. Especially here in Colombia.

We can see European countries with a high quality of life and good economies that function as capitalistic. There are experts that explain the dangers of communism and socialism much better so I will link this article here. There is also a brilliant Argentinean economist that explains it in a Ted talk (it's in Spanish but the auto-translate seems accurate imo). Communism is scary because there is no economic growth since there is no competition which is key for a health economy so people can get jobs and buy things. It's what happened to Venezuela. They were the most successful for a long time in Latin America but were ruined. So many companies closed and the government took people's properties and they were left with nothing.

In a socialist and communist economy, the power goes to the government and the people end up in losing freedom and free speech. Looking at what happened to Venezuela is incredibly sad, and how in China people are disappeared when they speak up. There was a celebrity who was r*ped by someone in the Communist Party and shortly was disappeared. Cuba also had a communist president that turned into a dictator made the country starve. And Americans go to Cuba and glamorize it but they are privileged because their currency is worth way more and also they are able to get jobs and have a better economy.

In my country, we were in conflict for more than fifty years due to communist guerrillas who did terrible things to the people and invaded their farms where they fed their family and grew crops. Under our own capitalist economy we have built a better free/affordable healthcare for people and made a lot of progress. I can't deny that the government has ignored many poor parts of the country, but that's exactly my point. We can't allow the power to be centered in few hands. It's dangerous for democracy.

In conclusion, a communist economy just doesn't work. It would be great but it's not possible and it's scary looking at history. It's done more damage than good.

#asks #ask #capitalism #communism #socialism #thoughts #writing

[backdraft-bimbo]

PSA for non-Colombians in the Encanto fandom

Like many folks here, Bruno is my favorite character. I thought he was brilliantly written and his introduction was really endearing—not to mention Lin Manuel's banger dedicated to the town's misconceptions of him. Honestly, I think many fans who aren't from Colombia relate to Bruno and Mirabel most because of the universal theme of not feeling accepted in the family. But villainizing the Madrigal family—especially Alma—to focus solely on Bruno and Mirabel is disingenuous to the real story, which is about the whole family.

Personally, I could relate to Bruno because of his feelings of self-doubt and anxiety and feeling out of place. And so do many others, clearly. But what I'm seeing people subconsciously do is take ONLY what they relate to and then brush everything they don't relate to under the rug. AKA, the Colombia-ness—which is the heart of the movie.

So here is a reminder to the non-Colombians who are out making Encanto content (yes, including myself). Don't erase the heart of the film. Don't Americanize it for "relatability." Stay true to the themes and, before dishing out your hot takes, step back for a second and think deeply.

#encanto #mirabel madrigal #bruno madrigal #alma madrigal #mine

[thatsonemorbidcorvid]

Plan International warns myths and erroneous information about periods leads to women and girls being excluded from day-to-day activities, which in turn “limits their life opportunities”.

Ahead of Menstrual Hygiene Day later in the week, the charity probed girls and their staff located in different nations around the world about some of the common myths and false information which persist in their respective countries.

In Brazil, they found having your period is seen to be a dirty phenomenon, with people wrongly thinking if you cook food while on your period, it can get soiled. It is also incorrectly believed that people can die if they eat mangoes, lemons or shrimps while menstruating.

While in Colombia, the charity found menstruation is viewed as an illness, with people thinking you should “stay home, touch nothing”, and try not to ever let anyone know you are on your period. On top of this, periods are apportioned "powers" that stop women from doing particular activities such as cooking, cleaning, harvesting, carrying babies, touching plants, or doing sports.

In Guinea, some people bar girls from attending school or from talking to boys while they are on their periods, while others ban women from cooking or going in the near vicinity of a collective meal.

Whereas in Cameroon, it is deemed that those on their periods should not wash in rivers, go fishing, eat meat, or go near fresh crops such as lemon, groundnut or corn otherwise a fire will erupt there. Women can sometimes be barred from holding a baby who is up to three-months-old while menstruating. While some think women on their periods must enter or leave the house via the window rather than walking in through the front door.

In Guatemala, some consider periods to be an illness, assuming women should not exercise, as well as not take baths or showers, or go to agricultural places. Some buy into the idea women who are on their periods should remain at home due to wrongly thinking it is possible to discern if a woman is on her period from the way she walks.

On the other hand, tampons and menstrual cups in Indonesia are rarely used and stigmatised due to the notion that placing any item in the vagina is taboo if you are not married as it is equivalent to “breaking” one’s virginity.

Meanwhile, in the Philippines people believe sour food reduces menstrual flow and if you jump up and down three times when you first get your period it will only happen for three days. Two other myths in the country include the groundless notion that having a bath while menstruating will lead to insanity, infertility and losing hair, or that periods cause anaemia.

In Ghana, people think period blood can damage the productivity of men and a married woman cannot be in the same room as her husband while menstruating.

While in Honduras, some assume women are now ready to have sex and become mothers after having their first period.

But in Senegal, people are forced to conceal their period products due to the misconception that those who see such items can be cursed - especially if they are stained. What’s more, those who are menstruating are blocked from utilising open wells as the well could dry out or instead be filled with blood.

—

Please add period/menstruation myths you’ve heard, along with the culture they are associated with.

#period poverty #period discrimination #radfems please interact #radfem #radfems do interact #radical feminism #radfems please touch #menstruation

[scottymcgeesterwrites]

Ambiguous

There has been something I need to write about and shout into the void. It has been tearing me apart, and I don’t know how people will react elsewhere, so I figured this was the safest place. This will be the soft reveal before even speaking about it to my friends. Or maybe I will never speak about it ever again. Maybe I will feel fine after writing it this way.  For my entire life, people have mistaken me for being Indian, to the point where actual Indians walk up to me and start speaking in their dialect. My mile-long blank stare makes them realize that I am not Indian, and one of two things happen - they either apologize and explain they mistook me for Indian, or they exclaim, “You’re NOT Indian?”

I’m Cuban and Colombian. I grew up in New Jersey. I am an American citizen but it gets confusing when you take into account that my mother flew to Santiago, Chile to have me there because of a clinic that specialized in geriatric pregnancy at the time, so my “birthplace” reads Chile on my passport. That’s always a mouthful to have to explain and it further confuses people, so I end up saying, “I was born in New Jersey”.  My skin tone is best described as ambiguous. I could be many things. I’ve gotten Middle Eastern, Indian, and specifically “Egyptian”. I have no idea why “Egyptian” but. Whatever.  I have always lived in some liminal space where people ask the dreaded question, “What are you?” Now here’s the most frustrating thing of all - not everyone who has asked me that was white. Growing up, I thought that I could relate to someone who wasn’t white to understand how I feel. Black people have asked me that. Indian people have asked me that. Middle Eastern people have asked me that. Cubans and Colombians have asked me that.  Throughout my youth, I was paranoid that maybe I was adopted or something, given how people didn’t seem to connect me with my parents. I was told that my Cuban side hails from Spain, but my Colombian side is shrouded in mystery. My dad never liked to talk about my family. I never knew anyone past my grandparents. Well, I did meet my great-grandmother once when I was seven, but she had practically turned back into a baby at that point, banging on the table demanding food and needing to be spoon-fed. My own people don’t recognize me, and they often say things like, “You don’t LOOK Latino!” or “What? You’re LATINO?” and the best one yet “You don’t SOUND Spanish!” The worst offenders, however, would laugh and say, “¡Pareces Hindu!” which means “You look Hindu!” Hindu is the religion, dumbass. Anyone, and I mean anyone, can be racist and slip some “micro-aggression”. I am not fluent in Spanish, but I can write and understand every word in Spanish. I often inadvertently offend Spanish-speaking people when I reply to them in English when they thought they were being sneaky by talking in Spanish around me.  The reason I don’t speak Spanish as fast as my peers is because of two reasons:  1. My parents at the time when I grew up believed in the misconception and pseudoscientific belief that children will be “confused” if two or more languages are spoken in the house.  2. Central New Jersey, where I grew up, hadn’t yet seen many Hispanic people, so locals at the time often leered at people who spoke Spanish in public.  When my mother took me to our local Gymboree, I spotted a butterfly and shouted in Spanish, “¡Mariposa! ¡Mariposa!”. The other mothers kept staring at me, and then distanced themselves from us.  The weirdest thing ever was experiencing white people who studied the Spanish language better than me and making fun of me for actually being Spanish but being unable to speak it fluently. I had a crush on this girl whom I’ll call “Anjy” in freshman year of college. It took me until now to realize that I think she had a Latino fetish. Anjy only exclusively went out with Latino men, but never seemed to openly admit it. The only thing she did admit was that, “I can only be with a man who speaks Spanish. It’s so important to me.” So obviously I wasn’t a contender, despite being Latino. Anjy doesn’t have an ounce of Spanish in her. None. But she studied it since high school and fell in love with it and became Spanish’s #1 fan. I was so jealous of how fluent she was. She could roll her r’s and speak it beautifully. Since we became friends, I said to her, “Oh, I can finally practice my Spanish with someone!” We tried, but she laughed at me and said, “I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore. You sound like a gringo.” It’s a very topsy-turvy world where some white girl uses a derogatory term on me, a derogatory term from my culture that describes an outsider, used to describe me. She went to Costa Rica after we graduated, lived there for a few years, and came back home with a husband.  (That’s when I fully realized just how much she fetishized us.) A few years ago, my now-fiancée gifted me a DNA test for my birthday. That came out of left field for me, and opened up a range of emotions that I wasn’t ready for. She said she remembered how I wondered aloud why I looked the way I looked and about my ancestry.  I sat on the DNA test for a while. 

I stared at it. 

I held the kit in my hands. 

I opened it and closed it.  What if I really was Indian? What if I found out something that made me feel so much worse? But how bad could it be? I was also wary about the company keeping my DNA for nefarious reasons. However, luckily enough, my fiancée had bought the kit from AncestryDNA - the one DNA company that has responded to people saying they would delete their DNA at their request. I bit the bullet and sent my sample.  When the test came back, I opened it up and everything made sense. It made so much sense that I laughed out loud. It’s so funny how nobody has guessed the only other possibility for my skin tone that is what I actually am.  I am pretty much half native to the Americas.  I’m not sure what that’s called. Native American seems to be associated exclusively to North America. So Native South American? Native to the Americas? Native American (et al)? The Colombian side can be traced through turmoil in South America, up through Mesoamerica, and into North America. So many spots lit up all over the Americas. And like the Cuban side said, I was indeed from Spain as well.  I was split right down the middle. 50/50. The native side and the European side were practically screaming at each other in my genes. I felt as though a great weight had been lifted from me that I didn’t even know was there. I knew for a fact that I was my parents’ son. I had an explanation for why I look the way I look, and it made sense and it was obvious. It didn’t end there though.  I didn’t feel Native American. I had no cultural connection to anything “native”. I tried thinking in terms of my personality though. I always had a strong belief in saving the land and respecting the dead. I did vandalize a construction site back in my high school days to preserve farmland. My family did like to decorate the house with Aztec and Mayan statues. Aside from that though, I had about as much personal connection to native culture as Olive Garden does to Italy. The thing about my parents being from Cuba and Colombia is that those were two very violent and turbulent places in the past century. After I tell people where my families hail from, they always asked me with wide-eyes, “Oh have you been there???” Well, I dunno man. If you have any inkling of what’s going on the world you would know the awkward relationship that the United States has had with Cuba, and what it means to be a fucking exile. And the fact that Colombia has seen gang wars for the entirety of my life. So no. I haven’t. When I was a little boy I asked my parents if we would ever visit Colombia or Cuba, but they told me we shouldn’t go back. Colombia was violent, and Cuba’s government watched everyone. My mother was afraid of what would happen if she tried going back. Maybe they wouldn’t let her, or us. Maybe they’d let us through but I wouldn’t even be allowed to return if they knew I was the son of an exile. Worse yet, they might detain my mother. You never know when your family had beef with the government and was told to leave.  And what really drives a knife in my heart is hearing people ask that really annoying question. “Have you visited???” As if they were hot and exotic touristy locales. No. Because my parents were forced to flee, because they needed a better life.  “Wouldn’t your mom love it if you got married in Cuba? She would get to visit her home!”  You don’t get the trauma she has. You don’t understand how much of a toll it would take on her to return home and see all the things she once knew and love gone or tarnished. She received word recently that the farmhouse she grew up in now became a restaurant. The house that my grandfather built by hand. Strangers now sit and eat there. Maybe tourists. The hotel that my great-grandfather used to own now doesn’t belong to us anymore - the government said it was theirs. There is nothing for her to go back to but loss.  I felt distraught when I saw a former college classmate who has become an Instagram influencer immediately visit Cuba once travel restrictions were eased. She posted all about it and acted as if she were an expert about it. She used to be a lawyer in Washington D.C. until she decided to “take hold of her life” and “follow her dream” and go to Bali and now lives everyday in tropical paradise. It seemed like some people were pointing out the hypocrisy in her posts about life given the lifestyle she leads, since she felt the need to say something about it. She made a video where she tried to relate to her followers. She said how “it’s still hard” for her, that she “has to work every day”, and meanwhile literally the next fucking day she posts a picture of her having lunch by a waterfall, or napping in her hammock by the beach. But when she visited Cuba, and took pictures and wrote a long post about the country, I just lost it. She met up with some other white Instagram influencer friend, and they took selfies at a café and lectured about the region and--- That’s supposed to be my country, my culture. I’m supposed to feel that way about my people, not you. I went to a wedding recently in July. This black man slapped me on the back after I cracked a joke and said, “Hey, where you from?”

“New Jersey.” He laughed. “No, but really though. Where are you from?” “New Jersey.” “I mean originally. Your background. What are you?” It was the first time I had been asked that question since I got back my DNA test results, and for some reason it hit me so much differently.

I really wanted to say, “I don’t know.” It’s ironic how knowing what I am made me feel more confused, more alone and more isolated than ever before. I am bad at speaking Spanish, and when I try to practice with other Spanish-speaking people they laugh at me and say, “You sound like a gringo” and say they can’t bear to practice with me. I don’t look Latino. I might look Indian or I might look Middle Eastern. With me, everyone assumes things about me, no matter what they are. Some people have the luxury of automatic and unspoken assumptions about their background. Then there’s me. Not quite tan, not quite white. I don’t raise enough suspicion at the airport to warrant a search but at the same time I have to jump over one extra hurdle when they ask me one extra question: “Where are you from?” or “How long are you staying here?” or “What are you here for?” It’s very subtle and deceptively innocent. Nobody else who is pasty white gets asked any questions. They just stamp their passport and wave them away. I’m just ambiguous enough to warrant that extra step - just in case, you know? I envy people so much who can have a clear culture and place to point and say, “I’ve been there. I’ve been where I come from.” I envy people who can recognize all the idiosyncrasies of their family’s region. I don’t belong to any country or culture or identity. There are only a few scant pieces of culture that my parents passed on to me. “Oh, on Christmas we do this” or “We say this once and a while. That was a common expression there.” I envy people with huge families who have not been estranged by government and bloodshed or lost to time. I envy people who can trace their families back to their grandfathers and great-grandfathers and great-great-grandmothers. As a kid I wish I was able to say something like, “My great-granddaddy fought Nazis in the war!” I will never know anyone beyond that one old great-grandmother who no longer recognized anyone’s face. Everyone else is a name on a tombstone, or a whisper in vague oral history. I envy people who can firmly say, “I am *insert nationality here*” Because I always mumble at that phrase.  I am. . .a. . . I am from. . . . uh I am. . .  I am. 

#onlife #culture #racism #ethnic minorities #ethnicity #cuba #cuban #colombia #colombian #spanish #hispanic #latino #spain #race #personal #identity #brown skin #tan skin #black #white #ambiguous #india #indian #english #language #native american #native #aztec #mayan #maya

[docsnotes]

Views on Cancel Culture, Woke-ness, Political Correctness & Other Related Issues From The Perspective of an Irrelevant Nobody: Why People Think it Helps & Why it Does Not. By Bradley “Holliday” Rozier I had hoped this first post would be a lot more light-hearted, but after an article and the related tweets I read yesterday, I had to write and share this. So, it is roughly November 2017, I decided to join Greenpeace because I felt it would be a great way to put my mind and anxiety to good use.  Through the connections I made, I ended up with some really good friends and some people who I thought would be a positive asset to my growth and recovery, but ended up not being so.  However, we will get to THAT part later.  First I want to say, generally speaking, I am against most everything the “Woke” movement is against, I simply feel that, tactically speaking, it could and should be handled differently.I was born September 9, 1984 at 10 something PM at what was then “University of Florida Medical Center”, but is now called “UF Health Shands” (Named so after William Augustine Shands, fun fact, W. Shands was not a Doctor, but a politician)  on 8th street in Jacksonville, Florida.  I grew up in culturally and ethnically diverse neighborhood on the northside of town called “Highlands” (named so because it is at a slightly higher elevation than most of the rest of the city) as well as various other places (my biological mother moved, A LOT) so, from an early age, I was presented a multitude of other cultures and backgrounds to embrace and learn from.  The most important factor in this point is my Grandmother, Geraldine Rozier, and my Aunt, Donna Ogle.  Both of whom drilled two very important lessons. Love your neighbor as yourself. (Mark 12:31) Treat others as you want to be treated. (‎Matthew 7:12) Now, as many of you know, I have particular disdain for organized religion, as more often than not I see it bring out the worst in people, if you doubt my words, wait for the next thing I post.  Yet, even I can find value in these teachings.  These teachings also come into play with the topic at hand and I feel that this was a necessary preface for what may come out as being exceptionally harsh.  I need you to understand: this is all coming from a place of love and compassion, though I understand how this may be hard to believe as this is my first blog post. This morning, as I drank my coffee and smoked my first cigarette of the day, I was reading a Revolver article about Glenn Danzig (who is easily one of my favorite musicians).  The article was basically him talking about how punk rock could have never have happened in today’s sociopolitical climate. It received A LOT of hate, but the simple fact is, he was right.  Think about this: The Ramones, New York Dolls, The Clash and The Sex Pistols all put out songs that were offencive to some people, however, that was kind of the point.  In 1976 the Ramones put out their self titled debut, on this album was a song called “Beat on The Brat” the 6 repeated lines from this song involve beating some annoying kid with a baseball bat.  On the 1973 self titled New York Dolls debut there is a track called “Looking For A Kiss” which is about pressuring someone to be intimate with the singer.  The Clash, in 1977,again with the self titled debut, has a song called “Protex Blue” which is a song shaming a girl for not being “wholesome” enough.  Finally, The Sex Pistols, who’s name alone may be enough to get them cancelled these days, finally straying from the “self titled” trend with their 1977 debut album “Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols” had a song called “God Save the Queen” which was about anything except saving the Queen.  In today’s world, these bands would have been stopped dead in their tracks and with them, almost 50 years of other artists. Which brings me to what led me to start this and with it, I hope, a dialogue.

The reason people THINK that cancel culture, woke-ness and political correctness works is because it makes THEM feel warm and fuzzy inside.  They got to “stand up” for the “little guy”.  The reality is these people do this for themselves and that is what I am going to illustrate in the next part. The first point I want to make, which I almost didn’t because I didn’t want to seem nationalist, is the Freedom of Speech.  Now, this is often something people mention when trying to explain how “America is the greatest nation on earth.” However, this is not strictly an American right, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations General Assembly Resolution 217A - 10DEC1948 Code-A/RES/3/217A) which was voted for by 48 Nations, and 8 nations abstained1 states that Freedom of Expression as a fundamental human right.  So, I say this with the full certainty that it is absolutely imperative that ALL people should be allowed to express themselves.

My second point, it is insanely important that we teach ourselves that reality is sometimes offensive.  The world does not walk on eggshells and people will be insensitive, it is a simple fact.  Preparing our children (and ourselves) for this fact is a quintessential part of life.  Now, it would be great if everyone was nice and perfectly well mannered all the time.  If you prepare your children for a flat tire you should prepare them for hurt feelings, conversely, it is also a useful tool in teaching children how they should behave by showing them how they should not act.  Using a negative to teach a positive can be a very effective method.  

Third, let’s talk about being “woke” which will bring us back to one of the people I met through my Greenpeace affiliation who was a negative influence on my life. I have no desire to smear this person, so I will simply refer to her by her initials D.H. I met her at a coffee shop where we met to discuss racism in general, but, primarily in Jacksonville. Our introduction was uneventful, but informative for me.  Over the next few months, we would communicate multiple times and meet up at multiple events. At one point she would call me “one of the most ‘woke’ white guys she ever met” which, at the time, I took as a great compliment.  As time would pass we would start to disagree on certain things, mostly things of basic morality. The final straw was when a mutual “friend” of ours decided that it was morally acceptable to lie to someone who was going through a catastrophic period in her life. She made a comment that I completely agreed with in the general context, however in this exact situation it was incorrect.  She said “He didn’t owe her anything”, which is correct, except for the fact that he broke a promise.  I was raised that if you give your word, you honor it. So, yes, he owed her his word, if not,at least an answer as to why he broke it (which was all she wanted). I mention this to say the biggest problem/misconception with ”woke culture” and it is simply this: Being “woke” does not make you a good person.  I also would like to point out that being “woke” 75% of the time does not undo the 25% that you are an asshole.In conclusion, the idea that “wokeness” and Cancel Culture will fix the problems of our society is absolute garbage.  I feel that the only way we can actually fix things is with a dialogue, not by simply throwing people out when they say things that we don’t agree with. Alienation is not fixing anything, in fact, I would argue that it makes things worse.  It is better to extend a hand than slam a door. Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to read this, I hope to see you next time.

1- For (48) - Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Burma, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, France, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Liberia, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Siam, Sweden, Syria, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Against (0) - Zero

Abstained (8) - Byelorussian SSR, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Ukrainian SSR, South Africa, Soviet Union and Yugoslavia ( artwork is by marisa deroma @marisa_deroma on instagram)

#politically incorrect #cancel culture #woke #politics #law #free speech

[tlatollotl]

A ballgame scene painted on a cylindrical, ceramic vessel that dates to between A.D. 682 and 701.

Credit: Courtesy of the Dallas Museum of Art

Imagine a crowd roaring as royalty take to the ball court, rubber ball in hand in a sport so spectacular, it symbolized good versus evil. The ballgame played by the Maya, Aztec and neighboring cultures is famous for its ubiquity in Mesoamerica before interloping Europeans shut it down. But many mysteries and misconceptions continue to dog people's understanding of the game.

For instance, did the game's winners or losers get sacrificed at the end of the game? And were the hoops on the ball courts treated like modern-day basketball nets?

The answer to both questions is no; the players were most likely not sacrificed, and the ball wasn't meant to go through the hoop, although it likely happened from time to time, said Christophe Helmke, an associate professor at the Institute of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen.

This relief on limestone dating to A.D. 700-800 shows two Maya men, dressed in elaborate costumes, playing a ritual ballgame.

Credit: Ada Turnbull Hertle Fund

What is the ballgame?

Archaeologists have pieced together information about the ballgame from different sources: excavations of historic ballcourts, documents from the colonial period (written either by Europeans or indigenous peoples who learned to write in English or Spanish) and from iconography — that is, indigenous glyphs depicting the game and its players.

Even today, some Mesoamerican cultures play the ballgame, although it's unclear how similar these games are to the ancient predecessor, Helmke said.

These various sources show that the ballgame was widespread and extremely important in the Pre-Columbian Americas, where it was played as far north as the American Southwest, in Arizona and New Mexico. It was also played throughout Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, and even in northern South America, in Colombia.

Just like dialects, the rules likely varied in different places, Helmke said. But the ballgames had this in common: The sport was played on a capital I-shaped field known as a playing alley. Usually, the playing alley was adobe or smooth polished plaster, made from limestone. In other words, it would hurt if you fell on it, he said.

A Maya ballcourt in Copan, Honduras.

Credit: Shutterstock

The top and bottom of the "I" marked the end zones where players could score. On either side of the long alley were sloped terraces, which would help keep the ball in play if it landed outside the court. "You can play the ball game without those [sloping] structures, but it's much more difficult because it just goes out of field," Helmke said.

"We've tried doing re-creations of the game," he added. "We found that the slope dictates how much the ball bounces. The more steeply angled the slope, the faster the pace of the game, the quicker the ball bounces back. The more obtuse the angle [was], the more easygoing it is."

The roughly 1,500 known ball courts vary in size. One at Chichen Itza in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula is 316 feet long and 98 feet wide (96.5 meters by 30 m), "but it's more of a showpiece," Helmke said. "You can't actually play it in" because the distance is too great to return the ball without it bouncing on the ground. Most standard-size ball courts are about 65 feet (20 m) long, or about five times shorter than a football field, he said.

The Rules

The Dominican friar Diego Durán never saw the ballgame in person, but he interviewed indigenous elders about it. Based on Durán's writings about the game from the early 1570s, the Aztecs would have tried to keep the ball in constant motion. Two teams would compete against each other, hitting the ball with their bodies, but not their hands or feet. Maya artwork shows ballplayers waiting to smack the ball with their hips, according to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. In other regions, players used wooden paddles to strike the ball.

Teams could earn points if they drove the ball into the end zone or if the opposing team made a mistake or touched a teammate, Helmke said.

A Maya vessel, dating from about A.D. 600-1000, that shows a Maya ballplayer wearing a thick protector to shield his torso from injury. The ballplayer dives to intercept the ball, which hovers in front of his face.

Credit: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. James C. Gruener

Sometimes royalty would play, in some cases inviting leaders of neighboring polities to compete in a show of allegiance, Helmke said. But regardless of whether royalty or regular athletes were on the playing alley, the games were heavily attended, with some people losing large sums, even their clothes, because they made big bets, Durán wrote.

In fact, the game served many purposes. For the Aztecs, it was seen as a sandlot sport for youth; a public game attended by spectators; a gladiatorial ritual, in which prisoners might be killed; a reenactment of cosmic conflict between the planets; and as a game the gods might play, according to a 1987 study in the journal Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics.

As for the hoops, Durán wrote that sometimes the ball would go through a hoop, located at the alley's midpoint. "If that happened, the whole game would stop and the person who put the ball through the hoop would be hailed a victor," Helmke said. "But he [Durán] didn't say that was the point of the game. He says that might happen once in a while and that it was truly exceptional."

Moreover, the vast majority of ball courts in the Maya area do not have hoops, Helmke added.

A ballgame hoop from the court in Chichen Itza, Mexico.

Credit: Shutterstock

he earliest known ball court was found in Paso de la Amada, Guatemala,and dates to about 1400 B.C. However, rubber balls from the Gulf Coast of Mexico dating to 1600 B.C. may be the oldest artifacts of the game, the Met reported.

When they landed in the New World, the Spanish had never seen a ballgame, let alone a rubber ball. The Europeans were so intrigued, they sent a team of indigenous players to Spain to show the game to Charles V, according to the Met. But as the Spanish began conquering Mesoamerica in 1519, they stamped out the game, forbidding anyone from playing it because of its associations with human sacrifice and "idolatrous" religious practices, according to the study in Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics.

Human sacrifice

Given how popular and well-attended the ballgames were, sometimes a captive might be executed at the game, Helmke said. "But [these sacrifices] weren't an integral part of the game. That person would have been expedited [executed] anyway."

The full illustration, as well as the vessel, showing the ballgame scene.

Credit: Courtesy of the Dallas Museum of Art

Despite this, it's hard to shed the modern perception that ballgame players were often sacrificed, Helmke said. Part of this misconception stems from the Popol Vuh — an epic that tells the creation myth of one of the Maya peoples. The Popol Vuh began as an oral tradition that was later written down by an indigenous leader, and then recopied by Dominican friar Francisco Ximénez in the early 1700s.

In the Popol Vuh (which means "Book of the People" — you can read the full text here), underworld deities battle and use trickery to triumph in a ballgame against humans, whom the deities then decapitate. Then, the twin sons of one of the murdered heroes face off against the underworld deities, and this time the humans win and dismember the underworld lords.

In addition to the association between the game and the gory Popol Vuh, this "human sacrifice" myth stems from artwork on some ball courts featuring skulls and bones. "But the question is, 'Are those references to the underworld and that mythical event? Are they supposed to be taken literally?' I think it's an open question," Helmke said.

#maya #mesoamerica #archaeology #arqueologia #history #historia

[cafeology]

From a spontaneous trip to the coffee farms in Colombia to working at Cafeology HQ

Almost a year ago I was in London queuing to vote for our new President in Colombia when I got a phone call that was going to change a lot of my plans for the week. I was being invited to visit my home country Colombia with this UK coffee called Cafeology and the University of Sheffield (where I was finalising my master studies). What I didn’t know what the trip was in the next 48 hours, as I was covering for someone that for some personal circumstances couldn’t make it. Without giving much thought into what was about to come, I decided to take the opportunity and the next day we were on a flight to Bogota.

(Popayan from above)

I met Bryan, the managing director of Cafeology during this trip and we visited the farms were this company sourced some of its coffee. Cafeology works with two farms in my home country, and I had the chance to meet both of the Head farmers Pacho and Elisabeth. It was interesting for me, as both of them come from completely different backgrounds. On the one hand Pacho, is the stereotypical coffee farmer, wearing his lovely hat all day, born and raised in the coffee region of Pereira. But then, you have Elisabeth, which is from the indigenous region of Popayan, Cauca. A region that was hardly hit by violence and is slowly trying to build up creating opportunities for their community. We had the unique opportunity to visit the farms and the families that work there.

(With Pacho & Norma from ASOAPIA coffee in Pereira)

For me, born and raised in Colombia, it was an eye-opening experience. Sometimes we have the misconceptions of the ‘coffee companies abroad’ buying coffee from our country but not knowing who the farmers are, where they come from or the stores behind each family. But this was different. Cafeology has made a massive effort to know and understand where their coffee comes from and it was clearly visible for me during this visit.

(Visiting the coffee farms of Cencoic in Popayan)

The trip happened quite quickly and before we knew it, I was back to the University of Sheffield to hand in my dissertation. Bryan and I kept in contact and I was always admiring the work they were doing in my home country. The opportunity came along at the beginning of 2019 for me to start working part-time with Cafeology as the International Producer Development. My role consists on strengthen the links between the farmers and the consumers here in the UK. I want to work closely with the people in Colombia to show the people in the UK and everyone where a Cafeology coffee comes from. I want to show people that behind every cup of coffee there’s a story of a farm and a family that has worked for generations cultivating and producing the best coffee of the world.

I am really excited to work for a company that is constantly trying to make great coffee while maintaining suitable and lasting relationships! Keep an eye on all our platforms as I will be showing the different journeys our Cafeology and the stories behind each cup of coffee!

#colombia #coffee #cafeology #Popayan #Cauca #roastology #university of sheffield #arabica #Asoapia #pereira #cencoic

[baotos-blog]

There Is More To Literacy Success Than Meets The Eye

In a world where literacy success is measured through academic background and letter grades, it is hard to remember that there is a variety of contributors to one’s literacy development. Although most things learned through formal education is applicable outside of the classroom, institutions lack focus on the nontechnical aspects of literacy. Students often feel compelled to memorize countless grammar and punctuation rules. Because of this practice, they often forget to analyze content rather than to focus on the technicality of a text. Literacy success does not only depend on formal education. Many skills that enhance one’s literacy also originate from experiences and persons unique to one’s life.

Imagine a child, among other children who are approximately the same age. The playing field seems leveled with children in the same room learning the same thing. They first start with their ABCs and gradually progress to grammatical rules, an essential to understanding basic text. Placing children in an environment with other children their age is beneficial in the sense that students feel less intimidated. Furthermore, progressively teaching literacy in an orderly manner helps students easily comprehend information. This method of teaching helps create a firm foundation for students to further build on.  

Photo credit: Eric Cuthbert, http://tinyurl.com/y48d52wh 

Although institutions are often praised for their approach on literacy, their methods can also have counterintuitive results. In order to install a concrete literacy foundation, institutions primarily focus on the technical aspects of literacy such as grammatics and text structure. It is popular and, in an extent, mandatory for students to take standardized tests in order to gauge their literacy development. Of course, many children adapt their skills to satisfy the demands of the standardized tests which dominantly assess comprehension of literacy rules. However, some do struggle with learning, understanding, and applying these rules and structures which negatively affects their perception on literacy. An exaggerated focus on one genre of writing creates a misconception that there is only one viable way to write. Depending on how a student may preform, this idea could either hinder or support their writing journey. Although the ability to apply these rules is critical for literacy development, students lack practice to develop other important abilities such as comprehension skills.

Photo credit: Forenex Summer Camps, http://tinyurl.com/y2txm6rr  

In addition to the literacy abilities that institutions establish, there are other literacy skills that institutional methods sometimes fail to consistently develop. Surprisingly, Malcolm X, a man who greatly impacted American history, only completed eighth grade of his formal education. Many may not believe that a man of his intelligence and leadership originated from mere middle school education. Although Malcolm X had some background with literacy through his formal education, he chose to continue his literacy journey through other means of learning.

Before Malcolm Little became Malcolm X, he had found himself imprisoned at Norfolk Prison Colony. At this point of his life, he had struggled with writing and communicating. Though this dilemma may seem minute, it inspired Malcolm X to become the leader that he was. When Malcolm X ended his eighth grade career, he stopped learning from a traditional teacher and classroom; instead, many contributors such as leaders, experiences, and places helped Malcolm continue his literacy journey.

While in Norfolk Prison Colony, Malcolm X enlarged his vocabulary as he painstakingly wrote down each and every definition from a dictionary. The library at that very prison also impacted the future leader’s literacy development. There, literature helped shape the very core of who Malcolm X was. Furthermore, many people like minister Elijah Muhammad of Norfolk Prison Colony took part in guiding Malcolm X’s literacy development. Each of these literacy sponsors provided critical pieces to Malcolm X’s literacy development; however, none were the means of traditional education.

In addition to Malcolm X, many others enhanced their ability to read and write using methods other than conventional schooling; Dora Lopez was one of them. In Deborah Brandt’s Sponsors of Literacy, she compared two individuals, one of which was an individual named Dora Lopez. Though she was of Mexican American descent, she lacked the skills to communicate in spanish. Because of this, she aspired to learn Spanish literacy.

At a young age, Lopez and her family moved from a Texas border town to a university town where there was a deficit of a Mexican American population. The scarcity of formal resources pushed Lopez to divert her methods of learning towards other tools such as magazines and books. Furthermore, she practiced her skills by writing letters in spanish to her family members in Colombia. Through her biliteracy, Lopez gained many employment opportunities. Though she did not receive much formal education to learn Spanish, Lopez’s literacy sponsors made it possible for her to become literate in her pursued language.

Often, one’s literacy is assessed by judging their achievements through the means of formal education. Through formal education, students develop an understanding of literacy rules. These developed skills help students gain recognition through the use of standard tests such as the ACT and SAT. Though there may be some significance in these accomplishments, it does not accurately consider one’s literacy background. Often, one’s experiences are taken for granted which brings forth bias judgement, especially in the workforce. By increasing consideration towards other sources of literacy, people’s true potential can be more accurately measured. Perhaps by embracing this concept of literacy success and its contributors, people will be given more credit for something other than just an oversimplified score on a piece of paper. 

Photo credit: George Ammar, http://tinyurl.com/yyvq4owr

Bibliography

X, Malcolm. “Malcolm X.” Writing About Writing, edited by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2017, pp. 106-114.

Brandt, Deborah. “Sponsors of Literacy.” Writing About Writing, edited by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2017, pp. 68-99.