From Kengi, a gorgeous Red-winged Blackbird. Generally, I don’t get to see these guys unless I get out and about, here, they like to be close to water. Agelaius phoeniceus, male. Photo is 1600 x 1200, click for full size. Such a happy boy!
© Kengi. All rights reserved.
Members of the transgender community will be given Below Poverty Line (BPL) cards that will allow them to access benefits under various government welfare programmes. (Representational Image)
Bhubaneswar: Odisha is the first region in the country to give transgender people social welfare benefits – such as a pension, housing and food grains – usually allocated for only the most impoverished, an official said Today.
Niten Chandra, principal secretary of Odisha’s Department of Social Security, said the move to give the transgender community the same benefits as those living below the poverty line was aimed at improving their overall social and economic status.
“Most transgender people are in a very bad condition because of social exclusion. For example, they very often do not get employment easily,” Mr Chandra told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“The government had a consultation with transgender people in April, and they had raised their problems and issues. On that basis, we are now taking many decisions to help them – giving them the Below Poverty Line status is one of them.”
There are no official figures, but activists say there are hundreds of thousands of transgender people in India, many of whom face ostracism and discrimination, as well as verbal, physical and sexual abuse.
A lack of access to education and employment opportunities has meant many male-to-female transgender people – also known as “hijras” – end up forced into sex work or moving around in organised groups, begging or demanding money.In a landmark judgment in April 2014, Supreme Court recognised transgender as a legal third gender and called on the government to ensure their equal treatment.
The court recognised the community as a marginalised group and directed authorities to implement policies to improve their socio-economic status.
Identity documents such as birth certificates, driving licenses and passports must now recognise the third gender, and a certain number of public sector jobs, seats in schools and colleges must be allocated to third-gender applicants.
Full Story at NDTV and Reuters.
Gosh, it sure would be nice if the ‘greatest country in the world’ could play catch up.
Stacey Dash.
Get ready for a whole lot of Stacey Dash.
I had a “who?” moment here, I’m terribly clueless when it comes to entertainment personalities. It seems Ms. Dash is an actress, who plays the mayor of Chicago in the upcoming “Sharknado” sequel “The 4th Awakens.” Golly. I’m not surprised at being clueless in this case. Ms. Dash is also a rabid conservative who loves guns and has a whole lot of hate to share.
When asked on Wednesday about a passage in her book that criticizes Caitlyn Jenner, a fellow conservative, for using women’s bathrooms, Dash — who supports a North Carolinalaw that requires transgender people to use bathrooms that correspond with their birth sex — didn’t hold back.
“It’s tyranny by the minority,” she told Entertainment Tonight. “Why do I have to suffer because you can’t decide what you wanna be that day?” Dash said.
“OK, then go in the bushes,” she continued. “I don’t know what to tell you, but I’m not gonna put my child’s life at risk because you want to change a law. So that you can be comfortable with your beliefs — which means I have to change my beliefs and my rights? No.”
I’m not comfortable with your beliefs, Ms. Dash. They are ugly, hate-filled, bigoted beliefs. No one is putting your child at risk, either. If you’re so worried about that, though, I have an idea – when you and your child have to pee, I suggest you find a convenient bush.
The Best Twitter Takes on Gay Captain America, Lesbian Elsa. I think Captain Hello Kitty is lookin’ good…
Getty Images.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards signed the country’s first “Blue Lives Matter” law last week, a piece of legislation that makes a civilian attack on a veteran, police officer, emergency responder, or firefighter a possible hate crime. Louisianans convicted of misdemeanor hate crimes against officers will be slapped with a $500 fine and possibly an additional sentence of up to six months.
Fusion has a very good look at why this legislation was unnecessary, and how it can be used to further crush those already deeply marginalized and poor. As most people know, across uStates, there’s an automatic add on to any interaction with a cop. Punch someone, it’s assault. Punch a cop, it’s assault of a police officer, and cops do love taking advantage of that little add on. Everything is worse if it’s directed towards a cop, it’s always been that way, so why this legislation? How would Ferguson have played out under such legislation? I think maybe there wouldn’t have been a Ferguson at all with such a law in place. This simply adds yet more weight on the side of authoritarianism, more protections for any tale a cop might spin.
Julie Baxter Payer, the governor’s deputy chief of staff, told Fusion in an email that the governor does not view this law as targeting communities of color. In the statement about the bill, Governor Edwards said “coming from a family of law enforcement officers, I have great respect for the work that they do and the risks they take to ensure our safety.”
Anneke Dunbar-Gronke, part of BYP’s leadership in New Orleans, told me the law is redundant and that she sees “no existing precedent that can trust this [law] will be used in a way that will protect citizens,” adding “when it’s a police officer’s word against civilians we see how that’s played out specifically when it’s a black person or a person from a community of color.”
“The danger in that redundancy is that it further criminalizes black people, poor people, and those with the least access,” she said.
The vague language of the law, Moore-O’Neal said, also leaves communities more susceptible to legal trouble. “The purpose of these sorts of legislation is not public safety for the public but safety for the elite,” she said. “The purpose of this is to quell social unrest.” Moore-O’Neal, who is black, explained that the law can be easily interpreted to quell free speech.
“Who is to say if I am protesting or having direct action against cops?” she said. “Who is to say that isn’t a hate crime?” In late May, BYP helped organize the “National Day of Action to End State Violence Against All Black Women and Girls,” with actions that took place in at least 21 cities across the country.
James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, has decided to add yet another terrifying screed to the growing pile of Christian hate and panic over transgender rights. It’s tempting to simply poke at such rhetoric, and while it is ripe for mockery, too many people actually listen to people like Dobson, and Dobson thinks a gun might be the answer. There’s always someone willing to pick a gun up here in uStates.
…Obama, acting like a king, is wielding dictatorial powers never envisioned in the law. He is determined to change the way males and females relate to one another, and worse, how children perceive themselves. If you are a married man with any gumption, surely you will defend your wife’s privacy and security in restroom facilities. Would you remain passive after knowing that a strange-looking man, dressed like a woman, has been peering over toilet cubicles to watch your wife in a private moment? What should be done to the pervert who was using mirrors to watch women and girls in their stalls? If you are a dad, I pray you will protect your little girls from men who walk in unannounced, unzip their pants and urinate in front of them. If this had happened 100 years ago, someone might have been shot. Where is today’s manhood? God help us!…
Dobson has the sense to frame the gun part as a lament, “oh, if this were in the past, we could just kill the varmints!”, a way to cover himself when some committed Christian out there decides packin’ a pistol in a pee station is a great idea, and finds reason to use it. This is highly inflammatory rhetoric, and it’s being shouted from all sides.
Mummy brown, Egyptian brown, or caput mortuum (literally, “dead head” in medieval Latin) was a rich pigment varying in hue from burnt to raw umber, made primarily from white pitch, myrrh, and ground-up ancient Egyptians and their pets.
Someone, at some point in history, thought, hey, here’s an idea—let’s make paint out of crushed up mummies. Mummy, or Egyptian Brown, peaked in usage during the 18th century, in British painting especially. The “raw materials,” however, were a hot commodity long before that, as mummy powder was believed to have all kinds of magical healing properties and were a mainstay in 16th century European apothecaries. “In the course of at least 300 years of trade, an unrecorded number of archaeological objects was destroyed in order to make pigment,” says Khandekar of the highly unethical practice, whose popularity finally petered out in the early 1900s.
The Creators Project has an excellent article, along with some wonderful photos, about Harvard’s vast collection of rare pigments in their conservation lab. I was aware of all the pigments except for Mummy. That one left me rather stunned.
A planet and moon made from glasses filled with water, food colouring and coconut milk. The stars are made of salt, cinnamon and baking powder.
Hat tip to Marcus for sharing this amazing art by Navid Baraty.
From cinnamon galaxies and floury superclusters to coconut planets and sugary stars, photographer Navid Baraty has cooked up an entire universe out of the contents of his kitchen cupboard. Baraty has said the ‘fictional space scenes’ are inspired by Nasa and Hubble space telescope images. Here are a few of his otherworldly confections.
For his Wander Space Probe series, Navid Baraty made a planet by scanning the bottom of a glass containing water and food colouring, and conjured stars from salt, cinnamon and baking powder. Photographs: Navid Baraty.
You can see much more of this beautiful work at The Guardian, Navid Baraty’s Gallery, and the Wander Space Probe.
From Lofty. All photos are 1500 x 996, click for full size. Such a beautiful bird! This is a Red wattlebird, (Anthochaera carunculata).
Sitting at the window this morning I heard the “chirrup! chirrup” of the a wattle bird attacking its image in the driveway mirror on top of the woodshed. Once its mate arrived to watch its hero attacking the interloper the wattle bird had a quick preen and then rushed off.
© Lofty. All rights reserved.
From Lofty. Daisy, Grevillea (wow, wow, wow!), and old and new berries. All photos are 1500 x 996, click for full size.
© Lofty. All rights reserved.
Black-headed Grosbeak (Pheucticus melanocephalus), the distaff side. All photos are 1500 x 996, click for full size.
© C. Ford. All rights reserved.
Photographer Philip Overbuary.
Usually CGI is used to fake reality, but Copenhagen-based artist Philip Overbuary uses reality to fake digital images, using magnets and magnetic ferrofluid for an experimental photo series called Ferro. “I wanted to create something that didn’t look like photography,” Overbuary tells The Creators Project. “I wanted to do something people wouldn’t believe was actually real. Like a dream, or a psychedelic trip—but it actually happened and could be captured.”
Ferro stems from Overbuary’s work as commercial photographer where an overwhelming number of his commissions request heavily Photoshopped and 3D-rendered images. He enjoys using analog technology, like oscilloscopes and TVs with antennas, so it’s immensely satisfying for the artist to use mediums like ferrofluids to create images that look computer-generated but aren’t.
Photographer Philip Overbuary.
You can check out two photos from Ferro in The Censored Exhibition at this week’s Copenhagen Photo Festival, or see the full set at The Creators Project.
Lincoln Samuelsen, 8, from left, Alex Blair, 8, Michael Vukich, 8, Sophia Rygiol, 8 and Sarah Powers, 8 sing a song to end Bible class in Kim Kihm’s classroom at Capistrano Valley Christian School at San Juan Capistrano. Ana Venegas, staff photographer.
Some religious schools in southern California are using technology to prepare students to defend their faith against the scourge of “secular roommates” they might encounter in college.
Two Orange County families who wish to remain anonymous have donated $1.5 million to set up an Internet-based program to teach Christian apologetics — a field of theology that uses logic to defend faith — starting in elementary school, reported The Orange County Register.
“Our goal is to revolutionize the way the Bible is taught in Christian schools so kids will be firm in their faith,” said Kim Van Vlear, director of Bible curriculum development at Capistrano Valley Christian Schools. “We want to show why the Bible is true with proven evidence like science, archeology and history.”
They are worried about kids meeting an evil secular student in college. Is ‘paranoid’ an adequate description here? Serious shades of the notorious Jesus Camp here.
The program uses a variety of activities to teach students about scripture and biblical philosophies, including salvation, truth and knowledge, and the origins of the universe.
“The curriculum will give students the opportunity to learn, understand and compare and contrast the claims of Neo-Darwinism and the claims of the intelligent design thesis,” said program editor Catherine Waller. “We invite students to follow the evidence where it leads.”
Christian teens are becoming less engaged with their faith as they grow older and encounter tough questions about their beliefs, studies have shown.
“There are so many kids going to college and having their faith rocked by a secular roommate,” Van Vlear said.
[…]
The theology depends on confirmation bias, the tendency to seek out or interpret evidence to confirm a particular worldview, but school officials say the curriculum is necessary “to maintain cultural relevance.”