May 18, 1978

uh so i never do this but maui is quite literally on fire and there isn't nearly enough care or consideration for. you know. Native Hawaiians who live here being displaced and the land (and cultural relevance) that's being eaten up by the fire. so if ya'll wanna help, here's some links:

maui food bank: https://mauifoodbank.org/

maui humane society: https://www.mauihumanesociety.org/

center for native hawaiian advancement: https://www.memberplanet.com/campaign/cnhamembers/kakoomaui

hawai'i red cross: https://www.redcross.org/local/hawaii/ways-to-donate.html

please reblog and spread the word if you can't donate.

(Article is dated for a few years ago, dated by the missionary ending up as a pincushion.)

ft.com

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End of Assad-era restrictions on dollars, exorbitant duties and extortion leads to boom in foreign goods

Finally, freedom! [13 Jan 25]

Takashi Kawashima

O Lord, the stars of Your sky have set, the eyes of Your creation have closed to rest, and kings have locked their gates, Yet, Your gate is always open to those who ask.

— Imam al-Sajjad (ع)

The Cold Mountain Poems

Always it’s cold on this mountain!

Every year, and not just this.

Dense peaks, thick with snow.

Black pine-trees breathing mist.

It’s summer before the grass grows,

Not yet autumn when the leaves fall.

Full of illusions, I roam here,

Gaze and gaze, but can’t see the sky. Hanshan

… And I – weak, languid, obscene, digesting, tossing about dismal thoughts – I too was superfluous. Fortunately I didn’t feel this, above all I didn’t understand it, but I was uneasy because I was afraid of feeling it (even now I am afraid of that – I’m afraid that it might take me by the back of my head and lift me up like a ground-swell). I dreamed vaguely of killing myself, do destroy at least one of these superfluous existences. But my death itself would have been superfluous. Superfluous, my corpse, my blood on these pebbles, between these plants, in the depths of this charming park. And the decomposed flesh would have been superfluous in the earth which would have received it, and my bones, finally, cleaned, stripped, neat and clean as teeth, would also have been superfluous; i was superfluous for all time.

Nausea, Jean-Paul Sartre

god bless the martyrs and those who love them

Doctor, that is kind of you

– Nothing is harmless anymore. The small joys, the expressions of life, which seemed to be exempt from the responsibility of thought, not only have a moment of defiant silliness, of the cold-hearted turning of a blind eye, but immediately enter the service of their most extreme opposite. Even the tree which blooms, lies, the moment that one perceives its bloom without the shadow of horror; even the innocent “How beautiful” becomes an excuse for the ignominy of existence, which is otherwise, and there is no longer any beauty or any consolation, except in the gaze which goes straight to the horror, withstands it, and in the undiminished consciousness of negativity, holds fast to the possibility of that which is better. •Minima Moralia: Reflections From Damaged Life, Theodor Adorno