Marikees - ________

Spanish, Turkish, Arabic, French & Kiswahili.

If you could instantly be granted fluency in 5 languages—not taking away your existing language proficiency in any way, solely a gain—what 5 would you choose?

“Each of us, I suspect, cherishes a particular landscape that outwardly reflects some all-too-invisible condition within. Its very topography gives colour, contour, dimension to otherwise inaccessible areas of inner reality. Endows them with palpable configuration.”

— Gustaf Sobin, from Luminous Debris: Reflecting on Vestige in Provence and Languedoc (University of California Press, 1999)

To live with precarity requires more than railing at those who put us here (although that seems useful too, and I’m not against it). We might look around to notice this strange new world, and we might stretch our imaginations to grasp its contours. This is where mushrooms help. Matsutake’s willingness to emerge in blasted landscapes allows us to explore the ruin that has become our collective home.

— Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World

We expect humans to live on Mars in the near future, yet we haven’t even dared to inhabit Antarctica

untitled by irana on Flickr.

The concept of assemblage—an open-ended entanglement of ways of being—is more useful. In an assemblage, varied trajectories gain a hold on each other, but indeterminacy matters. To learn about an assemblage, one unravels its knots.

The Mushroom at the End of the World - Anna Tsing

The economies of the US, Canada, and the European Union depend on immigrant labor. As Harsha Walia documents, the purpose of the border regime is not to stop immigration but to control and terrorize it. When Germany decided in 2015 to take in over a million refugees from the Syrian civil war, it was only because the largest association of German employers had just declared that the national economy faced a shortfall of millions of skilled laborers. But at no point did the German government allow direct flights from Turkey or Lebanon, where so many of the refugees were warehoused. Instead, they obligated refugees to make the expensive and perilous journey over the Aegean Sea, through the Balkans, under and over razor wire fences, through police truncheons and tear gas, past violent, xenophobic crowds, so that finally they would arrive with almost nothing, willing to accept any labor conditions and bureaucratic controls. It was a journey that cost on average several thousand euros, on top of the steep psychological price, effectively ensuring that primarily only members of the university-educated middle class would be able to make it.

Peter Gelderloos, The Solutions are Already Here

New York Focus

New York Prisons Just Blocked Journalism Behind Bars

A new policy prohibits incarcerated people from publishing writing or art without permission — and from getting paid.

this is insane and wildly unconstitutional and prisons are really really really evil

Hi,

I'm saraphil, a transgender queer refugee. I'm part of a group of LGBTIQ refugees facing extreme hardships. Life in the camp is incredibly tough—access to food, water, medication, and shelter is nearly nonexistent. Every day is a fight for survival, and despite our resilience, the lack of basic necessities is overwhelming.

Asking for help is never easy, but we are at a point where we have no other choice. Donations have been scarce, and we're reaching a critical stage. Without support, we face starvation and worsening conditions. Your contribution, no matter the amount, can make a difference between life and death for us. It helps provide the essentials we desperately need: food, clean water, medical care, and shelter.

Please consider donating to our GoFundMe fundraiser:

https://gofund.me/4d80b32c.

We are deeply grateful for any help you can offer. Thank you for reading and for your compassion.

With gratitude,

Saraphil

Donations! Donations!