Good luck with the future, was the last thing Margaret Atwood said to me, after Id shaken her hand and stammered profusely over what an honor it was to talk with her. She didnt mean my personal future; she meant the future of the planet and of the human race, the same future shes imagined so grimly in The Handmaids Tale and in her MaddAddam trilogy. She meant, basically, Good luck not dying because of global warming.

It was an oddly touching sentiment.

For Atwood herself, the future doesnt look too bad. Hulu has announced its plans to develop a second season of its critically acclaimed adaptation of The Handmaids Tale, Atwoods dystopian classic. Netflix recently announced that it would be getting in on the game with an adaptation of Alias Grace, Atwoods 1996 novel of murder and witchcraft. Earlier this year, she won the National Book Critic Circles Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, and its widely expected shell only rack up more lifetime achievement awards over the next few years.

At New York Citys BookCon last Saturday, I sat down with Atwood to discuss her work, the changing political landscape of North America, and of course the future. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Your work has been getting snapped up into all kinds of prestige TV outlets for the past little while. Why do you think that people are reacting to your work so strongly at this particular moment?

First of all, we have a new platform, which is streamed television series, and that has allowed a lot of complex and longer novels to be adapted for screen that probably would have been harder to do as feature films. That is something that started in the 80s, with British television doing classics, but originally they would just be on television, and you would have to watch them on the night, whereas now you can catch up on things and binge watch and all of the new behaviors that we have seen. That means that a lot of people are interested in making these things. So once upon a time, they would have found it much more difficult to make, for instance, Alias Grace, which is quite complex, into a 90-minute film. As a six-part miniseries, theres a lot more amplitude.

So why are people interested in them right now? In both cases, its people who got very attached to the books when they were 19. And then time passed, and it became possible for them to make these things, which otherwise it wouldnt have been. Sarah Polley made Alias Grace, and she has wanted to do that for 20 years.

As for why people are interested in watching them now, that would be another question. But I think these things go in cycles. So, the first wave womens movement resulted in getting the vote. Then there was a pause while other things happened.

Then the second wave came along at the end of the 60s, partly as a result of the various protest movements that had gone on in the 60s. Their interests were in quite a few things, but included job parity and legal entitlements and property settlements; body image kinds of things; equal pay for work of equal value; a whole cluster of those things.

And then there was another pause. People get burnt out; they get tired; generations succeed each other; people dont want to be their mothers. And then along comes another wave. By that time, the people having done the second wave are their grandmothers rather than their mothers, and thats cooler.

And now we have another wave, which I think kicked off sometime in the late 90s, and gathered steam in recent years, I would say the past five to eight. Lets call it third wave. Third wave has been very energized by the election of Donald Trump, as we saw in the extremely large and widespread Womens March.

It is a coincidence of sorts that these novels are coming along just at this time. Nobody could have predicted this exact kind of thing. But it may explain why the amount of attention has been extreme. It would have been a good show anyway, but it would have been a more hypothetical show. People feel now that its a few steps closer to reality, and a few steps closer than they are comfortable with. So its not just entertainment.

Does it feel to you as though its a few steps closer to reality?

Theres no question. Its going state by state, and part of the interest of the federal government in devolving health care onto states is exactly that. Some states will never do such a thing, and other states will do it in a flash.

Part of the narrative about your work recently has been that you examine power in a very literary way that not many other novelists do. Do you agree with that reading?

A literary way, what does that mean?

This is a different writers take, so Im paraphrasing, but her argument was that the preoccupation of a lot of literary novelists tends to be on an individual, familial level, and that you take the beautiful sentences and the careful character-building and apply it to larger social questions.

Well, we all live in the middle of larger social questions. Everything that goes on is actually affecting us in some way.

One thing I do for my characters is I write down the year of their birth, and then I write the months down the side and the years across the top, and that means that I know exactly how old they are when larger things happen. So, if youre born in 1932, youre born into the Depression. Thats going to have an effect on you. If youre born in 1939, youre born into the Second World War. Particularly if you were born in Canada, as I was, because thats when we went in I was born two months after the Second World War began. My joke is that I would have been taller if it hadnt been for rationing, but thats just my joke.

Everything that you experience as a child is related to when you were born, and that happens to every single human being on the planet. Its different depending on where you are, but for instance, if you were born today in Syria, you are going to be born into a certain set of social conditions, and that is going to have an effect on your entire life: Whats possible for you, what social class youre in, what location youre in, which of the factions you belong to. It cannot help but affect you.

So when we have literary novels that dont do those kinds of things, its because were taking the social milieu for granted. This is normality. The milieu thats being described is the way life is.

But then all of a sudden it isnt. Then all of a sudden it changes. So there are people alive today How old are you?

Im 28.

28. So we subtract from today you were born around 1990.

I was born at the end of 88.

You were born one year before the Berlin Wall went down. So you have no experience of the Cold War. This is what I mean. You dont remember it. So seeing a series like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, thats ancient history to you. To me, its very contemporary, because I remember it. [Old lady voice] I remember those Cold War days

Handmaids Tale is a what if book, but its a what if a lot of things that have already happened happen again, only in a different place.

Moving back a little bit, I know that one of the first books you published was about survivalism within nature being fundamental to Canadian literature as a field.

Survivalism and my book Survival are two quite different things. I wrote Survival because at that time there was no general understanding of Canadian literature, and most people were told there wasnt any, which wasnt true. Or they were told that there was Canadian literature, but it was just a pale imitation of English literature or American literature. And I didnt think that was true, so my book is about how those three things are different from one another.

I examine that question by taking certain motifs and seeing how they are handled differently in classical American literature, classical English literature, and Canadian literature. And why should they not be different, because the geographical location and the demographic mix are quite different in all three places. That was a 1972 book, the first of its kind.

I wondered if you feel that the idea of I want to put this correctly is it survival within the frontier, per se, or survival within an unforgiving natural world?

Classical Canadian literature is survival within an unforgiving natural world for sure. People get trees falling on them, lost in blizzards, drown in large bodies of water.

And thats definitely something thats really operative in a book like Surfacing. Do you see that as still being present in your work, or have you moved away from that in later years?

One of the arguments in Survival is not that Canadian literature should be that way. Its just that it was that way. But that was in 1972. How many years have since intervened? 45 years. A lot has happened in 45 years, and we can go into what some of those things are, but that would be a whole other college paper. A lot of people have written a lot of books since 1972, and a lot of people have written a lot of different kinds of books.

One of the most noteworthy things that has happened since 1972, which really didnt start happening until the 80s, is that indigenous writers have appeared. In 1972, people wrote about indigenous people, but indigenous people were not telling their own stories, and now they are. That would be a whole other chapter, just for instance.

1972 was about year two of the second-wave womens movement, so the depiction of women has radically changed since that time. Different immigrant groups have come in, and Canadian politics has always been different from American politics anyway, and now its even more different. One of the big issues in 1972 was the Quebec separatist movement, and we dont seem to have that with us much anymore.

So all of those things have changed around. And countries are always changing. The vision the United States had of itself in, say, 1960 is radically different than the vision it has of itself now.

One of the things that has happened in the United States is that the gap between poor people and rich people has become huge, whereas the 50s were a decade of the middle class, in which children expected to do better than their parents and in large part did do better. Thats no longer true.

So, land of opportunity not anymore. Not letting people in, not seeing itself as a world leader anymore, abdicating from its role as world leader. Going back to the 20s, an isolationist time. What happened in 1928? The last time there was a Republican Congress, a Republican Senate, a Republican president. They put in isolation policies and what did that produce? The Great Depression.

One of the repeated tropes across a lot of your books is the presence of a character who functions as a shadow self to the protagonist. In your criticism, youve sometimes read that kind of character as a metaphor for the relationship between the writer as a person and the writer whos doing the writing. How would you apply that reading to, for instance, the character of Zenia in The Robber Bride?

Zenia is the shadow self of all three of the characters, but she functions in a different way for each one, because each one of them is different. But if you know anything about supernatural creatures like that, youll know that they cant come into the house unless you invite them over the threshold.

But novels are often constructed in that way. Not just my novels, but anybodys novels. They have various characters in them. You have to be able to tell one character apart from the other one, so we usually give them different names, different hair colors, they look different from one another. Otherwise you cant tell them apart. Theyre usually counterparts in some way, and that goes for everybodys roles.

Theres a structural principle at work somewhere. Thats just something that has to do with works of art: You have a basic rhythm and then you have syncopation. Its true of music and its true of painting, and its true of anything that involves any sort of pattern.

Youve written in one of your essays on the dystopia that every dystopia contains

a little utopia, and every utopia contains a little dystopia. Its very true.

What do you think are the little utopias hidden within Handmaids Tale and the MaddAddam books?

In the MaddAddam books, the little utopia of course is the Gods Gardeners. In The Handmaids Tale, it is the life before. The flashbacks to the previous life, which of course nobody recognizes as a happy place until its gone.

Its the same in 1984. In 1984, its the paperweight that contains the beautiful little thing, and its the rather unpleasant piece of the forest, the piece of nature that they go to. Its about the only thing that remains, because that 1984 dystopia is so pervasive. Thats us grasping at something better.

In any dystopia, the utopian part is the something better, and in a utopia, the dystopian part is the something worse. It quite frequently has to do with, What are we going to do with those people?

What are we going to say about Brave New World? Well, as it turns out, theres this other part of Brave New World that is unregenerate. The interesting thing about that book is that from the point of view of John the Savage, Brave New World is a dystopia. From the point of the people in that brave new world, the previous arrangement is the dystopia.

Partially, probably, because of the focus on your dystopias, theres been a narrative that youre a somewhat pessimistic writer.

Oh, Im hideously optimistic. I havent killed everybody off at the end. Some people do.

Very true! One of the projects you did a few years ago was the Future Library.

A very optimistic project.

Do you think that there will still be people around, ready and willing to read your book in a hundred years?

The project assumes that there will be; thats why people liked it so much. It assumes that there will be people alive in a hundred years, that they will be interested in reading, that the Future Library in Norway will survive, and that it will all come to fruition as the inventor of it has supposed. That would be Katie Paterson. They just had the third handover in the Norwegian forest. An Icelandic writer called Sjn handed over his manuscript. And who will it be next year? Well soon find out!

The project assumes optimism, but do you agree with its optimistic take on the future?

There is no the future. There is an infinite number of possible futures. Which one will actually become the future? Its going to depend on how we behave now. So its not actually going to be up to me, what sort of future we are going to have. Its going to be much more up to you. Youre going to be around for it, whereas Im actually not.

I would say, should we manage to solve the crisis of the oceans, therefore securing ourselves a supply of oxygen, other problems are solvable. Should we not manage to solve that one, theres no point thinking about any of the others. Womens rights will actually be irrelevant, because there wont be any women, or men either.

Continued here:

Margaret Atwood on the utopias hiding inside her dystopias and why there is no the future - Vox

Last week's ** announcement of Far Cry 5 wasn't itself a surprise. Over the past 13 years, the series has evolved from a playground of first-person shooter mayhem to something far more distinctive: A collection of deep, difficult, often political games that served as meditations on violence as much as enactments of violence itself. They've gone from a tropical island to an African warzone, to an even more dangerous tropical island, to an imaginary version of Tibetand in doing so, have sold more than 20 million copies, making a new installment a formality. What is a surprise is the new game's focus. While the series has long concerned itself with terror and instability, now it's planning to do so with a homegrown brand of extremism.

When it arrives next February, Far Cry 5 will unfold in a small town in Montana, where a religious cult tinged with American survivalism has emerged. (Think the Bundys, though no shortage of legalese will doubtless back away from that comparison.) You'll play a young police officer, a man or a woman, depending on your decision, and you'll be tasked with (ugh) taking this slice of America back.

That's a promising premisebut if the past is any indication, Far Cry is going to blow it.

From its first game, the Far Cry series has been thick with action and lifethe wildlife hunts, your enemies have their own concerns, and combat starts raging fires that transform the space around you. But more interestingly, the franchise lingers in that instability: it's earnestly interested in violence and colonialism as forces in the world, and is at least moderately aware of its own complicity in those forces. Its villains are arms dealers and conquerors, and you are a destroyer pitted against destroyers.

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That mission, coupled with an insistence on far-flung locales and societies, has produced mixed results. Far Cry 2 was the best title of the bunch, but it couldn't shake an Orientialist attitude toward its African setting. The later games leaned into the fun factor, which made their critiques feel absurdly half-hearted. It has been, at times, a contradictory disaster of a franchise.

Now, instead of exoticizing a foreign nation for a Western audience, the franchise going right to the heartland. This is Far Cry at its most deliberately provocativethe closest it's gotten to touching on issues it might actually have something worth saying about. It touches on the slow rise of reactionary conservativism in the United States, along with the survivalist and prepper cultures that have been growing in the margins since at least the 1990s. Combine that with the choice to have you play as a police officer in a small American town, and you're looking at a premise that's already incredibly politicized from the mainstream American perspective. Yet, the series' history shows no indication that its writers or developers know how to handle the games' political overtones, no matter how earnestly they engage with them.

But, to be honest with you, I don't really care. That's the thing about Far Cry: Even at its messiest, it's always remained interesting. The games attempt ambitious things, and when they fail, there's something fascinating about the way the pieces fall apart. In the gaps of design logic and bad writing, you can see illuminating frictions. You can learn things about the way colonialism works and doesn'tnot from the games themselves, but by watching how each subsequent game fails to respond to the criticisms levied at its predecessor. There's magic in the dashed ambitions of high-budget productions; you can practically see the incompatible ideas spattered on the walls like giant inkblots.

Far Cry 5 , when it launches, probably won't be goodat least in the sense of being a coherent game that executives its best ideas competently, let alone doing justice to its subject matter. But it will be fun, and it will interesting. Montana's got a big, big skythere's room for all kinds of stuff under there.

Excerpt from:

You'll Find Far Cry 5 ProvocativeEven if It's a Mess - WIRED

Would it shock you to know that by reading this article, you are presently interfacing with artificial intelligence to enhance personal cognitive brain function?

Lets be clear. Technology is a form of external artificial intelligence or AI. That ship has sailed.

As science pushes forward in its quest to upgrade the human experience, what will it mean for human consciousnessand for you?

Self-Actualization, the pinnacle of Maslows five-level human needs pyramid is close at hand for a larger segment of the population than ever before.

Basic needs met, you have the ability to move far beyond survivalism toward discovering your inner genius, thus reaching your highest potential as a human being.

Yet, lurking somewhere in the darkness, the fear persists that artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence in an AI arms race as publicly warned by Elon Musk, Dr. Stephen Hawking, and Bill Gates.

Lets first look at how technology has played a part in advancing the evolution of human consciousness.

Try to imagine going back to a world without a www in front of it. Even if youre old enough, its difficult.

The 5 a.m. thud of the local newspaper hitting the pavement outside your window;

Reaching for an encyclopedia that hadnt been appended since the current editions printing a decade earlier;

Waiting until 6 p.m. for world news;

Community gossip . . . It was a small, small, world after allbut only in the last half century. Prior, it was much smaller. Access to external stimuli i.e. education, ideas, and information was a lot more precarious.

Additionally, cultural and religious conditioning did a bang-up job of programming you to take your lumps and like em. There was little to no incentive to change the status quo.

You were highly likely to be born, live, and die nearly similarly to the way your parents did.

Innovation, rebellion, and revolution came at a steep price for those who dared buck society and its institutions even from the inside. Things have improvedslightly.

Hence, except for a handful of time-honored geniuses ahead of the curve willing to take the blows for the rest of us, the collective evolution of human consciousness was tedious, cumbersome, and SLOW.

Then came August 6th, 1991. The world wide web became publicly available without fanfare by global media.

English CERN scientist, Tim Berners-Lee, had developed the first web browser computer program in response to his desire to make it easier for scientists around the world to share information, thus ushering in the Information Age.

(It should be noted that before then, an Internet of networked computers existed originating with the U.S. federal government back in the 1960s to link supercomputers in the event one was destroyed in a nuclear blastalso for communications/storagethe data made safe through redundancy.)

Before we fast forward to today, lets establish a simplified definition of consciousness as self-awareness.

In reality, scientists are still attempting to quantify the unquantifiable previously contemplated throughout the last millennia by philosophers such as Plato, Socrates, Thomas Aquinas, Bertrand Russell, Einstein, and many more.

Research is struggling to move beyond theory to answer rudimentary questions such as whether consciousness originates within the brain, or if the brain acts like a receiver that processes non-physical signals.

A Harvard team of researchers think theyve pinpointed the brainstem regions that are the physical source of consciousness. Whether its the origin of consciousness remains unanswered.

Dr. Lucien Hardy from the Perimeter Institute in Ontario, Canada recently proposed a quantum entanglement experiment to determine if consciousness is local or non-local that could even throw previous interpretations of quantum mechanics and free will into question.

What we do know is consciousness is the individuated subjective experience. I (subject) see an (object); therefore, I know I exist.

Theoretical physicist, Dr. Michio Kaku sums up consciousness as, ... the process of creating multiple feedback loops to create a model of yourself in space with regard to others, and in time...

In the linked video, Dr. Kaku goes on to state he believes beings embody varying levels of consciousness similar to what Eastern traditions call levels of sentience.

(Interesting Note: Years ago, I met Dr. Kaku at a book signing at Wright State University. I gave him a copy of my book, What Is God? Rolling Back the Veil, explaining sentience and levels.)

Christine Horner

Feedback loop . . . Think back to those old dusty Britannicas sitting in your parents basement. Human consciousness drafted their content that went on to inform human consciousness as a feedback loop.

Consciousness was recognized in 1918 by Nobel Prize winner and one of the founding fathers of Quantum Theory, Max Planck, as fundamental to all aspects of life.

I regard matter as derivative from consciousness . . . Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing postulates consciousness. Max Planck, Theoretical Physicist

In other words, Planck is stating his yet unproven belief that feedback loops exist within nature. Matter is derived from consciousness recycling back to consciousness.

A modern-day pioneer in the field of unified physics is Nassim Haramein, Director of Research at the Resonance Science Foundation where he leads a team of physicists, mathematicians, and engineers.

Everything emerges and returns to a fundamental field of information that connects us all. Nassim Haramein

Again, information is a form or byproduct of consciousness; consciousness is information.

That all life is inseparable and interdependent will be one of the most important revelations in modern physics.

At this years SXSW Conference in Austin, Texas Ray Kurzweil, Google Director of Engineering and futurist boasting an 86% prediction accuracy rate, forecast: 2029 is the consistent date I have predicted for when an AI will pass a valid Turing test and therefore achieve human levels of intelligence. I have set the date 2045 for the Singularity which is when we will multiply our effective intelligence a billion fold by merging with the intelligence we have created.

(The Turing Test, developed by Alan Turning in 1950, is when machine can exhibit intelligent behavior indistinguishable from human behavior. Technological Singularity is when AI results in exponential runaway superintelligence that would continue to exponentially upgrade itself. Becoming self-aware, it could possibly render humanity obsolete.)

Knowledge is just one byproduct of many feedback loops that run the gamut of five physical senses, or sentience, that makes us human. We might begin to call feedback loops dimensions.

Knowledge by itself becomes a limitation. This is key.

In the same way you look in a mirror and see a living, breathing copy of you, the mirror is only a two-dimensional representation of the you that occupies the 11 dimensions theorized by Dr. Kaku.

Buddhists also recognize a sixth sensethe subjective experience of the mind. Doesnt it reason that the sixth sense also arises as a byproduct (along with knowledge) of the combination of the first five senses? Now were getting into the fractal, multi-dimensional nature of Creation.

Chemical processes in the mind/body feedback loop then create feelings in the body, and so on. If the Universe is indeed unified, then human senses continue beyond six into the sublime and yet undetectable.

Do you see the complex layering of feedback loops/dimensions and processes involved?

Technology/AI are tools that can enhance consciousness, aiding in its evolution, but represent only a fractional part of the whole.

If the question for our times is: when does technology (AI) become self-aware and surpass biology (human beings) in delivering Singularity as a constant, the answer is AI can only mimic a partial experience.

If all life is One, there is no line of demarcation where consciousness begins and where consciousness ends. Consciousness endures, and like the Universe, it expands and evolves.

From another Vanguard 20th century scientist: A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. Albert Einstein

So far, weve mostly explored consciousness and its evolution via external forces from the perspective of separation consciousness.

When you experience yourself as separate from the rest of life, you experience death in the physical world.

What happens when we explore consciousness by tapping into our internal world as taught by the Masters, accessing unseen forces or higher dimensions of consciousness?

What the Masters knew and todays awakening collective mass is realizing comes from a sense (level of consciousness/dimension) no machine will ever experience.

Recognizing the oneness of the Cosmo, your personal experience miraculously transfigures into one where you transcend death for eternal life as extolled by Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Yogananda, Maharshi, and many others.

Spontaneously evolution is the transmutation of separation consciousness to unity consciousness.

Aided by technology or not, the self-realized human being is a new species

Your brilliant future here now is Singularity as holistic self-awareness in the now moment that you are mind, body, and spirit capable of miracles.

Boundaries removed, you become fearless.

Suffering and hardship end replaced by peaceful, abundant living.

Death conquered, immortality becomes your new reality.

Are you ready to become a Human 2.0? If so, check out my free Your Brilliant Future Here Now Guide, e-books and reading guides, and Your Brilliant Future Here Now blog.

Start your workday the right way with the news that matters most.

Go here to read the rest:

Humanity 2.0: The Unstoppability of Singularity - HuffPost

BILLINGS -

The latest release of the popular "Far Cry" video game series will feature a Montana setting, and promoted with video shot near Poplar.

A press release from the Montana Department of Commerce says that Far Cry 5 takes place in fictional Hope County, Montana. Although usually set in exotic, foreign locations such as the Himalayas and a fictional African country, Far Cry 5 is the first entry set in America. Its scheduled to be released in February 2018.Since 2004, sales of Far Cry games have reached more than 42 million.

The press release states:Players will have a large game world to explore while fighting off a hostile occupation of the county. In between the action, players will get a taste of Montanas outdoor recreation with hunting and fishing challenges. We know from the film industry that movies can be some of the best tools available for promoting a destination, but the interactive nature of video games represents an exciting opportunity weve never quite had before, said Montana Film Commissioner Allison Whitmer. Audiences around the globe not only will see Montana, theyll experience it virtually.

The officialFar Cry 5 websiteprovides this overview:Welcome to Hope County, Montana, land of the free and the brave, but also home to a fanatical doomsday cult known as The Project at Edens Gate that is threatening the community's freedom. Stand up to the cults leader, Joseph Seed and the Heralds, and spark the fires of resistance that will liberate the besieged community. In this expansive world, your limits and creativity will be tested against the biggest and most ruthless baddest enemy Far Cry has ever seen. Itll be wild and itll get weird, but as long as you keep your wits about you, the residents of Hope County can rest assured knowing youre their beacon of hope.

A spokesperson for Ubisoft said Montana was a natural fit for the series because of its diverse landscape and the do-it-yourself attitude of its people. The developers visited several times to shoot thousands of photos and interview residents.

A location scout identified a church near Poplar where promotional video for the game was shot. The crew employed three people from Montana. Between labor and other expenditures related to the production, the shoot is estimated to have generated $20,000 for the Poplar economy.

While the Montana Department of Commerce is focused on the promotion of Montana, many gaming sites and reviews are focused on the actual premise and game-play.

An article atKotakunotes:Its about blasting through a section of modern Montana controlled by a Bible-thumping madman who runs a heavily-armed militia. Youre up against The Father, Joseph Seed, who along with his family has spent the last dozen years sinking deep roots into the fictional Hope County while establishing a cult called The Project at Edens Gate.

Sam Machkovech, writing forArsTechnica, said:"The 13-year-old Far Cry gaming series returns once more in February 2018, and, at least conceptually, this might be its most intense entry yet. While Far Cry games traditionally drop players into exotic, international locales with only a gun and a prayer, this year's entry, Far Cry 5, lands in the U-S-of-A. Specifically, the open, rural wilds of Montana. Your mission: invade a militarized cult's massive compound and take down its gun-toting, Jesus-invoking leader."

FromWired:When it arrives next February,Far Cry 5will unfold in a small town in Montana, where a religious cult tinged with American survivalism has emerged. (Think the Bundys, though no shortage of legalese will doubtless back away from that comparison.) Youll play a young police officer, a man or a woman, depending on your decision, and youll be tasked with (ugh) taking this slice of America back.

The Montana setting and choice of villains in the game has even sparked anonline petition, which has garnered nearly 2,000 signatures.

See original here:

Upcoming "Far Cry" video game is set in Montana - KTVQ.com | Q2 ... - KTVQ Billings News

HARKER HEIGHTS In front of retired veteran Sergio Martinez sat a green bag no bigger than the carry-on a passenger on an airplane would stow in the overhead storage bin. What he kept inside of it was not to be used for a family vacation though, and a number of the items probably wouldnt be permitted on an airplane.

Martinez, an extreme survivalist, gave a presentation to a dozen people at the Stewart C. Meyer Harker Heights Public Library on Saturday morning. He talked about what kind of items to pack away in case of emergency, and how to prepare for a disaster situation.

It was toward the end of summer 2005 when Martinez first became aware of disaster preparation. He had family members who lived in Houston that were coming to stay with him during Hurricane Katrina. There wasnt enough food in the pantry, so he decided to head to H-E-B to stock up on some more groceries. When he walked out of the store, the only thing he had was a couple of loaves a bread and some cans of food. Thats when it dawned on him he wasnt nearly enough prepared for survival.

Sometimes you need to trip and fall, and then youre going to learn, he said.

Soon enough, Martinez began teaching himself about survivalism. He read books, talked to experts and watched Youtube videos, and eventually got the chance to compete for a survivalist show that airs on the History Channel.

Martinez recommended preparing meals ready to eat MREs long in advance. His prepackaged MREs included peanut butter crackers, bottles of water, freeze dried food and protein bars. Canned foods including soups and beans are good to pack, too, but in moderation. Too many cans can weigh down a bag, and depending on the situation, you might have to walk for long periods of time. In those situations, any reduction in weight can help.

There were typical items found in Martinezs survival bag, such as an extra pair of clothes, a sleeping bag and a hammock. But there were also nifty tools such as a crank-up flashlight that triples as a cellphone charger and an AM/FM radio. He also pulled out a miniature propane stove and a water filter. At one point, he removed a Bible in a plastic bag.

Staying calm is good when youre out there, he said. Like it or not, everyone is going to get religious at some point. Why not have a Bible?

Much like he was prepared for any potential disaster, Martinez was ready to answer questions from the audience. One person asked him about the difficulty of catching your own food through hunting and fishing, and preparing it while in the wild.

Martinez said that with a little practice, it wasnt that difficult.

But dont expect it to taste good, he said. Once you kill the game, how do you prepare it? We dont have chefs out there.

Excerpt from:

Survivalist shares experience in Harker Heights | Local News ... - The Killeen Daily Herald

Like The Witch, It Comes at Night is an object lesson in how to stylize asceticism. Writer-director Trey Edward Shultss second film is a survivalist parable, and though it aggressively traffics in the iconography of pop horror and sci-fi, it subverts the world-building impulses of those genres. It Comes at Night is set in a cabin in the woods with a menacing red door, and its post-apocalyptic near-future is imperiled by some kind of bacterial plague, but all of the films suspense derives from how little the audience knows about the circumstances its characters are trying to survive. Something is going to come knocking on the heavily secured red door, but not knowing what form the titular it will take is terrifying and, at least for a little while, liberating.

Whats even more exciting is how Shults leads us to that door. He and DP Drew Daniels make perfect use of widescreen: The cabins narrow hallway feels squat and cramped, but the frames extra width allows us to scan the family photos on the walls on a search for clues about the home in which were trapped. There are none, so maybe those distractions just help to relieve the uncanny tension of the cameras movement, which is aloft and gliding, headed slowly but surely to whatever is banging the hell out of the door. Shults and Daniels use this trick repeatedly, inside and in exterior scenes, in a motif that essentially flips the script on a horror film with a similar title. In It Follows, death and (sexually transmitted) disease can take the shape of any human being, and it comes for us unrelentingly; the finest shots in Shultss film suggest that were inexorably drawn toward this very thing.

If only the edifice surrounding this precocious mastery of the camera could support such a reading, or any reading at all. The films minimalism is rigorous, but its every moment of barebones craftsmanship is accompanied by plodding drama and an unsustainable heap of unanswered questions. The film begins with a mercy killing: Husband Paul (Joel Edgerton), wife Sarah (Carmen Ejogo), and teenage son Travis (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) move cautiously through the cabin, rifle at the ready, their path lit by a flashlight attached to the barrel. Theyre wearing gas masks and their dialogue is hard to parse, but after they haul an old man (David Pendleton) branded with icky lesions out of the house and into a ditch, their distress is evident. The man, immolated to curb the spread of infection, was the family patriarch, and Edgertons stern but loving father is left as the leader and protector of his clan.

How is it that a film so beholden to dull, unnecessary exposition can be so eager to avoid explaining itself?

Maybe this is life after wartime, or maybe its a boilerplate zombie apocalypse, but a few shots of a Bruegel painting get at the films general vibe: a civilization surrounded by fire and beset by disarray. Vigilance and the primacy of family relationships are paramount, a solemn state of affairs distilled at nightly dinners, where sad plates of peas and carrots are illuminated by a harsh campers lantern. The disquiet is punctured both by Traviss nightmareseerily nested images of future portentand by an intruder named Will (Christopher Abbott), who breaks into the boarded-up cabin assuming its empty and seeking provisions for his wife, Kim (Riley Keough), and young child, Andrew (Griffin Robert Faulkner). The two families cautiously decide to combine their resources: Paul is enticed by Wills livestock, and Will craves Pauls access to water and safe shelter. Their negotiations are rigorously practical, but its from this moment that the film starts to feel less like a crafty exercise in moderation than an early chapter of Survivalism for Dummies, or a particularly morose round of Settlers of Catan.

Though it prides itself on skeletal thrills and sparse dialogue, It Comes at Night is stacked with exposition. In its contradictory layers of emotional transparency, Shultss debut, Krisha, got to the fraught heart of familial relationships in a manner reminiscent of HBOs The Leftovers. But here the conversations are rote: As Shults develops the heightening distrust between the two families, he undermines the naturalism of his actors by having them punctuate tense scenes of rule-making and negotiation with obvious sentiments. Some variation of My familys all that matters and We have to be smart; we cant be emotional arrives with metronomic regularity, and its not long before these insipid statements become suffocating. (Edgertons natural mix of stoicism and warmth nearly redeem a thin character, but Abbott may as well be auditioning for a hunky antihero role on The Walking Dead.) The only character in the film who seems to imagine an alternative life or even convey any sense of interiority is the haunted teen Travis, robbed off his youth and creeping on Will and Kims nocturnal encounters.

What this frustration and unease add up to is left to the audiences imagination. How is it that a film so beholden to dull, unnecessary exposition can be so eager to avoid explaining itself? Just as he withholds the it of the title, Shults never attempts to justify the escalating paranoia of his characters. This is a sensitive decision, and an interesting one for a film that documents a failure of empathy, in which a mixed-race family offers a white family respite from encroaching doom. Every film about societal collapse is, in part, a political allegory; the causes of civilizational decline are nearly always a result of human decisions, and if theyre not, human nature reveals itself in the aftermath of said decline. But Shults so assiduously strips elements of politics and history from It Comes at Nights characters that they come to seem like empty husks. Whats left is a strangely hollow genre exercise, at once distinctive and utterly bereft of identity or interiority.

Originally posted here:

It Comes at Night | Film Review | Slant Magazine - slantmagazine

Who knew so many organically-grown apple trees shouldered the Yellow Brick Road?

Camping, more than often, can be an exploration in the mundane minutiae of survivalism. We pitch tents in order to shelter ourselves from Mother Nature's elemental fury; bonfires are lit to keep our core temperatures in a homeostatic balance. Water canteens, mulishly straddled to our waistlines, batter and bruise our hips with each pressing hike. Needless to say, such existential odysseys aren't exactly everyone's cup of Early Grey tea. That's, however, when the wonderful witches and wizards of Oz Farm come into frame to help us experience the softer, gentler edges of the great outdoors

One-hundred-thirty miles north of the Presidio in Mendocino County, Oz Farma 240-acre span of redwood forests, snaked through by the Garcia Riveraims to enchant all those who stay within its eco-chic confines. Completely off the grid, Oz Farm is self-sustained entirely by a network of solar panels and a single Bergey wind generator. (You won't find a PG&E electrical line for miles.)

Working in tandem with one another, they not only light up each of Oz Farm's nine rentable structures, they also provide the necessary amount of water to maintain the 72-acres of organically grown crops that sprout up from the heart of the property. From Pink Pearls to White Winter Pearmains, some 14 different varieties of trellis-grown apples are cultivated here; the farm is also well known for pressing some of the best all-natural apple juice anywhere in the state.

So, who's helping maintain all this sweet natural splendor? Well, Oz Farm is far from a one-man (or woman) show.

Above all other recreational endeavors, Oz Farm is a place where aspiring agriculturists can get their hands dirty andin a very literal and metaphorical senseplant the fruit-bearing seeds for their future ambitions as sustainable farmers. Through apprenticeship programs, Oz Farm aims to educate and provide the intellectual capital and real-life experience necessary to create the next generation of sustainable farmers.

Regardless if you want to hone your green thumb or just want to spend a weekend under the trees, Oz Farm will take you back to your minimalistic, pre-smartphone roots. All you have to do is follow the 65 MPH Yellow Brick Road (the 101) up there to get out of Dodge for a bit.

Reserve your next foray into the Wonderful World of Oz, courtesy of Hipcamp.

Location: 41601 Mountain View Rd. (Manchester)

Bedrooms: 9 rentable cabins, with a community house located at the front of the property; cooking supplies, hot tubs, and killer views are all included.

Bathrooms: 9-plus bathrooms; hot showers can be taken at the main community house.

Pet Friendly: There's already a gaggle of welcoming canines and somewhat aloof felines on the property, forewarning. (So, in short: yes.)

Extras: Fresh produce as far as the eye can see, friendly staff to help you navigate all the farm's hidden treasures, bonfire pits, and serene hiking trails! Also, Oz Farm may just be the perfect place to have your future wedding...just saying.

Emerald City's never looked more green or eco-friendly.

(Photo courtesy of Hipcamp)

Books don't need batteries to enjoy.

(Photo courtesy of Hipcamp)

Outdoor patio vibes for day on end.

(Photo courtesy of Hipcamp)

Livin' the lush life.

(Photo courtesy of Hipcamp)

Who needs spring board when you've can just lay your mattress on a bed of mulch?

(Photo courtesy of Hipcamp)

Deep breaths and chill.

(Photo courtesy of Hipcamp)

Airplane Modeor else.

(Photo courtesy of Hipcamp)

So gang, let's all click our heels thriceand celebrate the homecoming songs of summer over Oz Farm bonfires.

(Photo courtesy of Rice Paper Scissors)

Read more:

Click Your Hiking Boots Together: Oz Farm Is NorCal's Eco ... - 7x7

Last week, two of the breakout stars of the Cannes Film Festival were looking to take a breather after a grueling session of interviews, press roundtables and photo shoots. They decided to mark the moment with a toast.

"To a great drink," said Brooklynn Prince, who is 7.

"To a great trip," said Valeria Cotto, who is 6. The two clinked glasses, filled with Italian sodas of various fruity provenance, as the Mediterranean lapped at the beachside restaurant behind them.

The festival, which ended Sunday, often revels in and renews existing stars. Nicole Kidman, with four works in the official selection, became an adored fixture this year. But the gathering also has the ability to mint young personalities.

Even, in the case of the Florida natives Brooklynn and Valeria, really young personalities.

The girls are the stars of "The Florida Project," the new film from Sean Baker, writer-director of the indie sensation "Tangerine. Florida centers on the so-called hidden homeless members of the underclass who live in motels and other makeshift spaces. Its set in a part of America rarely seen on screen: Baker cast from and shot in Orlando, in the counterpoising shadow of Walt Disney World. Though thousands of miles away, in distance and sensibility, from the Wonder Woman enthusiasm going on back home, the girls were nonetheless very much of the same shatter-the-ceiling mind-set.

Brooklynn plays the outgoing and at times obnoxious Moonee, who with her mother (Bria Vinaite) and best friend (Valerias Jancey) finds joy amid the bleak survivalism of the Magic Castle Motel and Futureland Inn they respectively call home. Moonee, Jancey and a third friend, Christopher, are often getting into trouble with pranks that can border on the delinquent. But they do it with winning mischief, thus remaining endearing throughout.

In its willingness to see the world radically from young peoples point of view, The Florida Project takes its cues from movies as varied as E.T. and Kids, and exists spiritually somewhere in between. Unlike the children in more burnished Hollywood enterprises, they act like, well, kids. The girls form alliances, act out with exuberance (and, sometimes, petulance), and follow their curiosity into trouble. They remain joyfully oblivious to the hardships of the adult world around them while occasionally just occasionally signaling a bracing awareness. Interested in character moments and episodes more than narrative arcs, the film wowed critics with its lived-in naturalism.

Driving that naturalism are the two young leads. As they fielded a barrage of questions from a table of a dozen reporters, Brooklynn and Valeria showed uncommon poise.

What do your parents do? a European reporter at a roundtable asked them.

In the movie or in real life? Valeria asked.

Real life.

My mom sells tickets for events and my dads job is, hes in a position, where he makes furniture, Valeria said, before clarifying it was upholstery.

My dads a scientist and my mom's an acting coach, Brooklynn said with practiced aplomb.

You never told us your age, a reporter said to Valeria.

You never asked, she replied, reasonably.

The tendency with actors this young is to assume they are merely playing themselves. But the characters and many moments in the film are carefully scripted, and the girls are legitimately acting.

Theyre doing what adult actors do, which is listening closely, Baker said in an interview. Even in improvisation, theyre receiving lines, and digesting them and spitting them out as character. Both girls easily memorized the script, a point that will resonate for any parent whos ever had a 6-year-old try to prepare for a spelling test.

Their polish came in part from on-set guidance, both from Baker and his partner, actress Samantha Quan, who worked with the children for a month before shooting, using a variety of kid-specific workshopping techniques. Quan would do things like bring the girls into a room and have them describe objects as though they were giving a museum tour, all with an eye toward preparing them to react spontaneously to their surroundings during shooting.

Finding the young actors wasnt easy. Baker was ready to scrap the whole project for lack of a lead until Brooklynn came along, via a local casting agency. He was immediately taken with her confidence and her loose-limbed intelligence. Valeria was found in a less likely place: Target. Baker was doing a walk-through in the hope of locating a non-pro; when he spotted Valeria, he approached her mother and asked if shed like to bring her daughter in for an audition.

Despite their closeness, the two girls are very different. Brooklynn is a natural extrovert, taking the hand of adults she just met, dropping in a French phrase she knows will impress, and describing her favorite Cannes activity as going for a swim in the Mediterranean Sea.

Valeria has a more studied and if this can be said of a 6-year-old darker personality, with a preternatural wisdom; several journalists who talked to her thought she was at least several years older.

Shes a quirky kid, said her mother, Ivelisse Rijos, as her kindergartner daughter name-checked books she liked, including the Junie B. Jones series, the standard-bearer for go-your-own-way childhood thinking.

Since making the movie a year ago, the girls have bonded and now regularly make the 40-minute trip across the Orlando suburbs for play dates.

At Cannes, they sat at a restaurant between photo shoots, hugging each other and talking about matters of the day.

I like Daisy Ridley and Britney Spears, and Cara Devello, or whatever her name is, Brooklynn said, as she gave her costar a big squeeze.

Britney Spears isnt an actress, Valeria coolly replied.

Thats true but I still like her. And Elle Fanning, of course, Brooklynn said.

A handler told her Fanning had several movies at the festival.

Shes here? Brooklyn said, her eyes widening. We need to leave right now and find her. No, really, lets find her.

Rijos wasnt looking for a role for her daughter when Baker approached her in the Target; she in fact thought it was weird when the director handed her a card emblazoned with two chihuahuas, the logo of his production company. She was about to disregard it when an Internet search showed her it was the real deal.

Brooklynns parents were skeptical too, for a different reason: Theyre people of faith and thought some of the profanities Moonee had to utter in the film werent in keeping with their values.

There was some choice words and tumultuous language, and we were going to turn it down for that reason, father Justin Prince said. It was Brooklynn who convinced us she should do it. The elder Prince, who works as an environmental scientist, grew up in a world not unlike that of the movie, living for a time in a trailer in a backyard behind his grandfathers trailer in Ohio.

"I think she was happy to say some of those words because she doesn't get to say them at home, said a laughing Vinaite, herself a non-actor who Baker found on Instagram, to a reporter.

Also of the grown-up world: a Cannes premiere. Nearly a thousand people the night before had watched in the hallowed theater of the Directors Fortnight section, where both girls had tears in their eyes as they acknowledged the crowd.

I did cry last night, potentially, Brooklynn admitted.

I cried because there are some sad scenes and it brought back lots of memories of me and my friends, Valeria added. At the after-party, both girls had taken over the dance floor, well past the fashionable Cannes hour of midnight. Dance like nobodys watching, Valeria said and shrugged the following day.

Someone on a roundtable asked Vinaite what it was like to have such an important role in a movie as a first-timer.

I was definitely nerve-wracked because Id never acted, Vinaite said.

You were very good, Valeria reassured her.

Though the word precocious comes to mind when talking to the girls, Baker was intent in the film on avoiding the trap of the old-soul young person. Indeed, much of The Florida Project feels a lot like peeking in on everyday children who think no adults are watching impressive, given that on a set many dozens were.

Weve always had a very strong reaction to the kids you usually see in Hollywood films, Baker said. It always feels fake; it always feels stilted. We wanted to do the opposite of that.

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour

That goal becomes more difficult circa 2017. As kids have cameras on them more than at any point in human history never mind dreams of stardom drilled into their minds a naturalistic portrayal becomes that much more difficult. Young people have more tools to star in a movie than ever before, but fewer ways to seem like real kids when they do.

A lot of people asked us how we got Brooklynn to reach certain places, Baker said of critical dramatic points in the film. But most of the time she would just do it herself. Before [a big crying scene], someone on the crew came over to her and started talking. And Brooklynn says, I have to focus right now because Im about to cry.

Brooklynn is probably the youngest Method actor youve ever met, Quan added, laughing.

As the girls sipped on their Italian sodas at Cannes, they began debating not the craft but a more important subject: their favorite movies.

Star Wars, Harry Potter all the Harry Potters, obviously, Brooklynn said. She ticked off some genre fare her family saw during a Halloween movie marathon.

I watch the Disney Channel, Valeria said.

A24 bought Florida at Cannes and is weighing when to release it. Brooklynn could well garner awards buzz if the Moonlight studio decides to put it out during the competitive heat of the fall. If she were to be recognized by Oscar voters, she would shatter by several years the record for youngest lead actress nominee, currently held by Quvenzhan Wallis, who was nearly 9 when she was shortlisted for her turn in Beasts of the Southern Wild in 2013.

Though Justin Prince said he was both intrigued and daunted by Oscar hullabaloo, his daughter was none the wiser.

In between interviews, the young girl walked up to a chalkboard at the restaurant that held the messages from film luminaries and put her own stamp on it. Bonjour. I love Cannes. I am in France, she wrote in a mixture of green and white lettering.

Brooklynn had put her entry right under one from the French director Claire Denis, another female trailblazer at the festival.

When the juxtaposition was pointed out, Brooklynn gave a curious look. "That's cool," the 7-year-old said, and maybe what was most cool was that she didn't realize how cool it was.

steve.zeitchik@latimes.com

Twitter: @ZeitchikLAT

Continued here:

Via 'The Florida Project,' meet two of the youngest stars in Cannes Film Festival history - Los Angeles Times

The modern survivalist movement has been influenced by a number of people. But a select group of influential authors and speakers have virtually shaped or perhaps created the modern survivalist movement. This article is dedicated those special people, those founding fathers of survivalism.

*Note, this list is in no particular order

Mel Tappan began his career collaborating with other members of the survivalist movement. Co-authoring a book and writing a small column for Guns & Ammo magazine in the 70s. He is best known for his book Survival Guns which is still in print today, 32 years later. However, despite his popularity we couldnt manage to find a single image, video or audio clip of Mel. Mel encouraged his readers to relocate away from metropolitan areas as a part of their survival strategy. Mel was once quoted by the Associated Press as saying:

The concept most fundamental to long term disaster preparedness, in retreating, is having a safe place to go to avoid the concentrated violence destined to erupt in the cities. When you have a growing apprehensive awareness that the time grows short for you to relocate away from areas of greatest danger, then choose [where you will live] carefully.

Unfortunately Mel passed away in 1988 but his legacy will continue to live on with the admiration and weight his name currently carries. His wife, Nancy Mack was one of his biggest supporters and continued his work for a number of years.

Books written by Mel Tappan:

Source

Howard Ruff is another one of the original Survivalists who entered the scene in the 1970s. Drawing on his experience in financial advising, he has written several books focusing on financial preparedness topics. He has been known to encourage investing in precious metals and food storage, rather than traditional stocks and bonds. Although he may not have a household name, Ruff has been fighting for sound economics for a lifetime. He recently appeared on MSNBC to speak about the fragility and possible threats to the current US economy in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Through his books, speaking and other engagements, Howard has become one of the foremost pioneers of sound economic principles as related to self sufficiency.

It wasnt raining when Noah built the ark. Howard Ruff

Books written by Howard Ruff:

Source

Don Stephens entered the Survivalist scene in the 1960s with concerns about a possible financial collapse (which seemed to be the trend at the time). H A strong proponent of relocation, Don used the knowledge gained studying architecture at University of Idaho Don has written many great books on eco friendly, self sustaining home designs and living as well as contributing to many others works (including working with Mel Tappan). An influcencer, a thought leader and an innovator are just a few ways to describe Don Stephens.

Books written by Don Stephens:

Source

Joel Skousen is a political commentator, former Marine and survivalist author. His non-fiction books mainly focus around homes, land and security. Joel has been a huge preparedness advocate since his early adulthood and hes still fighting the good fight today, appearing on many major news stations.Joel tows the line between generations, helping spread wisdom from past generations to the newer generations.

Books Written By Joel Skousen:

Source

Cresson was a popular survivalist author, writing most notably Nuclear War Survival Skills. Cresson server in military and government positions for his entire life, which gave him incredible expertise in military and technical aspects of survival. His works have been a staple of survivalist reading and have hugely impacted the education level of survivalists (especially with nuclear information). Sadly Cresson passed away in 2003. His daughter commented

Throughout his life he believed in being prepared for trouble.

Books written by Cresson Kearny:

Source

Ragnar Benson is actually the pen name of an author who has written some of the most dangerous books available. Ragnar was considered dangerous because of his exposing works on munitions, explosives, mantrapping, creating new identities and more. Despite the controversies associated with his work, his writings had a powerful impact in the survivalism movement. Much of his work is focused around living an independent life and escaping the trapping of modern government/society. If you dont own at least one Ragnar book your survival library is incomplete!

To this day at age 72, Ragnar is still active in Survivalism, recently writing the book Long-Term Survival in the Coming Dark Age: Preparing to Live After Society Crumbles.

Books written by Ragnar Benson:

Source

Bruce D. Clayton, Ph.D., a black belt in the sixth degree, is a scientist, writer, and teacher who gained popularity with his book Life After Doomsday in the 1980s. He is the author of over a dozen books on survival and self-defense, including the revolutionary Shotokans Secret from Black Belt Books. Shotokans Secret has been called a

manifesto for a modern revolution in the way martial arts are learned and taught.

Books written by Bruce Clayton:

Source

Colonel Cooper was an actual Colonel who pioneered many shooting techniques, especially for small arms. In his life Cooper was a gun advocate, helping teach others how to use guns and even creating the American Pistol Institute located in Arizona. Additionally, Cooper invented The Combat Color Code (mentioned here), a code based upon situational awareness.

The will to survive is not as important as the will to prevail the answer to criminal aggression is retaliation. Jeff Cooper

As of 2006 Cooper is no longer with us RIP.

Books written by Jeff Cooper:

From His Books Source

Kurt Saxon is one of the first survivalists, so much so he claims to have invented the term survivalist. Gaining fame in the 1970s with his popular book The Poor Mans James Bond, Kurt has had an impact on the modern survivalist movement in ways most of us dont realize. Having grown up during the Great Depression, Kurt was somewhat of an expert on surviving on a budget. Many of his publications offer various tips and do-it-yourself guides on topics ranging from home medicines to home made self-defense weapons. If you are interested in survival and preparedness, chances are you have most likely read something reflecting the views and knowledge of Kurt Saxon. Kurt was in many ways a philosopher, speaking loudly his ideals of societal structure and its inevitable failure. To really get a feel for who Kurt Saxon is, read A Philosophy For Survivalists.

Kurt is still active and teaching survivalism in Alpena, Arkansas.

Books written by Kurt Saxon:

Source

**Disclaimer, We know that Rawles isnt a founding father of survivalism and is instead a significant figure in the movement. However his impact cannot be ignored and deserves an honorable mention from us.

James Wesley Rawles is perhaps the most famous Survivalist of our time. He is the author and editor of http://www.survivablog.com, which has become a staple in the online survivalist community. His blog offers a plethora of information on survival topics from food storage and gardening to do-it-yourself survival shelters. He has set himself apart in the industry by offering a comprehensive guide on the best places to relocate to avoid disaster, and offering private retreat consulting by phone from his North Idaho home. His book Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse was one of my personal favorites and interestingly enough, some of the scenarios Rawles sets forward in his book are beginning to come to pass today. Many of us who currently know Rawles would say that he has become, in many ways, the modern archetype for survivalists. He has been one of the major players in the modern survivalist movement for the last several years, drawing fans and readers from varying backgrounds and demographics.

Books written by James Rawles:

Source

Additional Resources:

Top 100 Items to Disappear in a National Emergency

9 Unique Alternative Housing Ideas

Top 10 Survival Movies

120 Useful Books for Your Survival Library

Cody Lundin Interview When All Hell Breaks Loose

11 Survival TV Shows Worth Watching

Collapse Documentary (2010)

10 Bad A** Sniper Rifles

More:

The Founding Fathers Of Survivalism - Survive Tomorrow

Pick almost any indicator, and Brazilian President Michel Temer comes up short. Job approval? 10 percent. Jobs creation? Brazil has 13.5 million out of work, a five-year high. Office ethics? All but one of Temer's most trusted aides has fallen to corruption scandals, and conceivably Temer himself may go if the electoral court that convened briefly in Brasilia this week finds that dirty money financed the presidential ticket he was elected on in 2014. Put it all together and the conclusion is inescapable: Michel Temer is the worst Brazilian president since Dilma Rousseff.

OK, so there's plenty to disdain in the former vice president, who assumed office last year when Rousseff was impeached for fiscal crimes. A furtive political operator who turned on his commander, he has a tin ear for public opinion, indulges scoundrels in high office and pens embarrassing poetry. And those are just a few of the sins fueling the popular refrain "Fora Temer" ("Be gone, Temer!") trending on the street and the web. For all his shortcomings, however, crisis-addled Brazil is better off with Temer than without. It's not just that he's the constitutional leader, and that a working constitution is the firewall that safeguards Brazil from the convulsions roiling its dysfunctional neighbors in Venezuela and Paraguay. It's also because Temer's stand-in government may be the country's last best opportunity to reverse colossal errors that have sabotaged Latin America's biggest economy and disgraced its governing establishment.

Overhauling a country would be daunting even for a crowd-pleasing leader in the most prosperous times. Temer, for his part, has an economic emergency, a confidence-sapping corruption scandal, and half a mandate to work with. In his favor is Brazil's dubious tradition of brinkmanship: Think Plan Real, which snatched the country from hyperinflation and economic calamity in 1994, or President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva circa 2002, the former union man who lost the lefty act and led the chronically underachieving nation on an eight-year growth jag. Improbable as it seems, Brazil faces a similar defining moment today.

Less than a year after taking over from Rousseff, Temer has mustered legislative majorities to open ultra-deepwater "pre-salt" oil fields to foreign drillers and drop the protectionist rule obliging Petrobras to lead the risky pre-salt operations. Last year, he marshaled congress to impose a 20-year cap on government spending, and now is pushing to overhaul the rigid labor laws, the chaotic political party system, taxes and -- most critically -- the loss-making pension system that is turning into a national fiscal millstone.

What's propelling the Temer agenda is not some spasm of civic enlightenment, but rank survivalism, as the fallout from the ever-widening, three-year Carwash probe into political payola and graft continues to spread. "The center-right coalition backing reforms is heavily implicated in the Carwash case," political scientist Octavio Amorim Neto, of the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Rio de Janeiro, told me. "They know their best bet for reelection is for the economy to start growing again, and that leaves them little choice but to fall in line behind the Temer agenda."

Of course, such a fragile compact could come undone. If the economy languishes and protesters return en bloc to the streets, or if the taint from Carwash seeps even higher into Brazil's ruling circle, the legislative ardor for reform will be tested. The suspense will build as the electoral court deliberates whether Temer should stay or go. It's a measure of the tension in Brasilia that the court's decision on Tuesday to postpone the trial until later this year, in order to hear more witnesses, was seen as a political win for the embattled Temer government. Whether it's also a win for Brazil will be clear in the months to come.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story: Mac Margolis at mmargolis14@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Gibney at jgibney5@bloomberg.net

More here:

Brazil Really Needs Its Most Hated Politician - Bloomberg

Yesterday, ProPublica published a massive list of Trump administration officials, including over 400 names. Among the individuals it highlighted is a man named Jon Perdue, a special assistant at the Treasury Department. Perdue is the author of a book on the nexus of Latin American radicalism and Middle Eastern terrorism and a member of a relatively obscure think tank. Hes also a self-described expert in guerrilla warfare who invented a survivalist gadget bow to use after the apocalypse.

The product in question is called the Pack Bow, and it was apparently featured on CNBCs Make Me a Millionaire Inventor in 2015. Its site is currently accepting preorders in the form of mailing list signups, and yes, thats the only shot we could find of the Pack Bow in action above. The sites ad copy is like the start of a D&D session set in Cormac McCarthys The Road.

The worst has occurred. You always knew it was possible, but never dreamed it would happen so soon. The power grid is down, and you are surrounded by chaos. Theres not much time you can only grab a handful of things, so as you head out the door, you grab the Pack Bow.

Not only is it a bow (with a self-containing quiver), its a compass, adjustable hanging rod, tent pole, walking stick, fishing pole, spearfishing rig and is wrapped in paracord. It also holds emergency supplies like bandages, matches, and water purification tablets so that when you need them, and you likely will, youll be prepared.

You never know whats ahead. With the Pack Bow you have a better chance of surviving it.

Theres also a helpful diagram.

Few of us at The Verge would describe ourselves as experts on survivalism, guerrilla warfare, and archery. But we do love gadgets, and we have questions.

While were pondering these, you can enjoy some of the incredible feats of archer Lars Anderson, a man who unlike this bow we would 100 percent pick for our apocalyptic RPG party.

Read this article:

One of Trump's treasury assistants is a survivalist who invented a bizarre techno-bow - The Verge

Ahead of their single launch show at MOTH Club on March 13th with Dead Pretties, South London's Phobophobes have shared a mesmerising new video, led by interpretive dance, for their forthcoming 7" 'The Never Never', due for release this March 24th via Ra-Ra Rok Records.

Featuring "threatening interpretive dance, petrifying purple smoke and a solid dose of primordial goo" according to Notion Magazine, 'The Never Never' director Tuixn Benet explains:

"Jamie [Taylor, guitar/vocals] asked me to do a video for 'The Never Never'. He said he imagined choreography in it, even though no-one else did, and I guess that's why he chose me. I agreed with him instantly, it's the kind of beat I like to dance to, not too fast, not too slow, and it allows the kind of weird, punky moves I love. We shot everything in a day and a half in Imagina-Mediapro studios in Barcelona with a wonderful team that did a great job."

Watch 'The Never Never' on YouTube - https://youtu.be/qQnwpiwjMM8

Following previous single 'Human Baby', an elegy to Phobophobes' late guitarist George Russell that was played every day for a week on BBC 6Music, 'The Never Never' arrives an ode to the precarious survivalism of society's most disenfranchised. Swirling through repetitive slogans, rubbishing the adverts that promise a life we can't really afford as pastiche, and asking earnestly, "what separates those treading water to survive from the religious idols who struggled so similarly?"

In the wake of a tumultuous 2016, Phobophobes continue to forge their own path, taking whatever's thrown at them and squeezing every ounce of inspiration from it. It's the only way they know. Frontman Jamie Taylor has built studio space wherever he's roamed, from Paris to Peckham to Primrose Hill. Even Pittsburgh, Iowa, Palm Beach and New York whilst working on a touring art exhibition across America, setting up a studio in each hotel room to work on new tracks. Even when invited to Abbey Road Studios to record with Ken Scott (Bowie, Lennon, the list goes on), bass player at the time, Elliot, took swabs of their oldest microphone and grew bacteria in petri dishes, the results of which are immortalised in Phobophobes' artwork and in the centre of their 7"s.

This boundless DIY mentality echoes through Phobophobes' every move. Having now found home in the basement of The Brixton Windmill, the nucleus of South London's gig circuit where Phobophobes record, rehearse and also put on their own shows, playing alongside Shame, Goat Girl, Meatraffle, The Fat White Family, Childhood and countless others, they remain progenitors of the scene.

Following a single launch show at London's MOTH Club, Phobophobes will tour the UK with LIFE through April on the dates below. The band are currently readying their debut full-length album and will release 'The Never Never' on 7" vinyl this March 24th via Ra-Ra Rok Records.

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South London's Phobophobes Share Sinister New Music Video - Broadway World

Natalie Behring

To me, flying is the hurdle you jump to get somewhere fun. Ive never had an attraction to planes. Airplanes are inconvenient sky buses accessed only through soul-crushing security lines we have to share with tacky people and business dicks. Airplanes are the journey; Im more of a destination gal.

That may have changed a few weeks ago when I walked up the dusty wing of a retired 727, through the emergency door, and into a 1,000 square foot home. With a cockpit.

Owner Bruce Campbell has been living in this bird (he calls planes birds) in the suburbs of Portland for the better part of 18 years, and hopes his passion project can turn into a movement to salvage what are still functional, weatherproof structures, while providing some cool housing options to boot.

And if youre thinking this sounds like just the gimmicky style of housing that Portland drools over, youre right.

I began corresponding with Campbell over a year ago, after Id heard about his airplane home project and approached him for a story. Hes always happy to meet with press, or just about any other snoopy looky-loo, and not only did he agree, he regularly replied with 1000-word emails. Bruce was overseas, and had a return ticket booked, but hey, maybe I could pick him up from the airport and drive him to Hillsboro?

Of course I could pick up this stranger from the airport and drive him to Hillsboro. After all, I did need a story. Besides, Id never done plane-to-plane transport before. When else could I pretend I was a big airport monorail?

It was a long drive to Hillsboro, and the big highways turned into suburban boulevards and smaller and smaller country roads until eventually Bruce pointed to a steep dirt driveway, telling me wed need to get some speed to make it up. It would be getting dark soon. There had been damage to the trees during our winter storms, and nothing had been cleared yet. I backed up my Honda and let her fly (not literally) up a muddy hill, dodging branches, at dusk. It was a tense couple of minutes that paid off when the road flattened out and the trees cleared enough to reveal the giant nose of an airplane peeking out of the forest, like a sneaky, huge, aerodynamic wolf. With the setting sun, the drizzle, and the trees, youd think it was a movie. It was so beautiful.

And weird. Airplanes go in the sky and in hangars, not on some private acreage in the suburbs.

But they can.

Natalie Behring

According to Bruce, an average of three jetliners are retired on a daily basis. When an old plane gets the boot, the engines are removed, because those stay valuable, but the rest of the plane isnt so precious. Bruce describes the process as shredding, where this giant metal flying tube made by millions of dollars of brain and labor power is reduced to piles of metal and loose wires.

Bruceand a couple of other ambitious nerds like himbelieve that empty planes have much more potential. They are weatherproof, soundproof buildings on wheels that only get junked because thats what happens. Bruce envisions a future where the planes are driven off a runway or out of a hangar and into a housing park for a quiet second life.

Because get this: Airlines dont have to sell the planes to scrappers. Anyone can buy one, you just have to put up one more dollar than the scrappers would pay, which can be less than $100,000. A decked-out tiny house can run upwards of $50,000, and those dont have more than a thousand square feet of living space, multiple bathrooms, a ton of free chairs, and a freakin cockpit. Then, all you need is some land thats zoned residentialwhich I guess is easy enough. THEN you need to know how to attach plumbing for a septic tank and fresh well water, and run electricity. There have got to be people in this dweeby city who can do that, right? Arent we always complaining about all the techies whove moved here?

Natalie Behring

The Boeing 727 is a commercial jetliner thats been around since the 1960s. It was designed for regional flights and smaller airports, so Boeing gave it its own set of stairs. The stairs fold out of the plane in the back, below the tail, accessed by a door between the two back bathrooms with an exit sign over it. It didnt initially occur to Boeing that people might want to use the exit mid-flight, so they didnt put in a locking mechanism, which was a design flaw (or feature!) that enabled one D.B. Cooper to parachute out of a 727 with a bag of money in 1971. Boeing later added a locking mechanism called the Cooper vane, so dont get any ideas.

Besides, not a lot of 727s are still in use. They have three engines, which makes it sound like a noisy birdsay a crow, or a mean goose. Also, the 727 needed a flight engineer, which called for a third person in the cockpit (and another paycheck to write). The engineer sat at his or her own desk in the cockpit (behind where Chewbacca sits), with lots of dials and buttons. Quieter, more self-sufficient jets came onto the scene, and I dont understand how you could go from needing three engines and three people in the cockpit to only needing two, but it happened, making the 727 less desirable. Bye-bye, airstairs. Bye-bye, flight engineer.

This specific 727 is a castaway from Olympic Air, a Greek airline. A cool claim to fame: Its the last plane Aristotle Onassis ever rode in! Bruce pointed to the floor, where we could see through some plexiglass and into the cargo hold. He was down there. Poor old Ari didnt appreciate the flight because he was dead and in a casket. However, Jackie Kennedy Onassis and some rich Greeks sat in these very seats, which are now softened and greyed by years of use in the days when people still smoked in planes. (Bruce said the ashtrays were still loaded with butts when he got her. Remember smoking?)

It was retired at some point in the mid-90s, and the airline was willing to unload it for cheap right around the time that Bruce got this twinkle in his eye. He bought it for $100,000 in cash in 1999. It was flown to the Hillsboro airport intact, then driven to the fairgrounds across the street to be stripped.

This is the part of the story where Bruce gets sad. Hed hired scrappers to unload what he didnt want in his plane, but he very much wanted all the visuals to remain. Unfortunately, due to some miscommunication and rookie mistakes, the plane got torn up pretty good. The cockpit now drips with ends of orphaned wires and is missing more knobs than its got. Bruce has had to improvise wiring because what could have been usable was irreparably damaged. The salvage crew is the villain in this story. Stupid salvage jerks.

Bruce got the plane to his property by removing the wings and tail and having it hauled in pieces. (Apparently you cant just drive a jet through downtown Hillsborowhich is the second villain in this story.) He put it back together on his land, then settled in.

Natalie Behring

I liked visiting Campbells airplane home because I could envision how Id lay out my furniture if I had the money and time and patience and diligence and technical savvy to buy one of my own. Other peoplesmarter peoplewould love to visit the home to see all those knobs and wires. I asked about cable TV (none) and pooping (septic tank).

The carpet inside the cabin has been taken out and the flooring is now clear plexiglass so you can see down into the cargo areas. This also reveals a lot of technology. As a person with only a rudimentary understanding of how planes fly in the first place, I was not surprised to see so many cranks and knobs and wires. This does ________, Bruce would say. Ahhh, I nodded, as if it made sense.

He has the interior divided into two rooms by a Styrofoam wall. The front area is open, with the planes seats lining one wall, and the cockpit in front. Since it was stripped of a lot of the cool stuff by the scrappers, its got a post-apocalyptic vibe. Bruce was patient to let me conduct most of my interview up there, beneath the buttons and gears and wires, in front of big windows staring out at the forest.

The backexcuse me, the aftarea is his living space. There he has two working bathrooms in their original orientation. Off to the side, hes made a small shower enclosure, with a drain on the floor. Its not super private, but he lives alone, and doesnt have neighbors peeking through one of his 100 tiny windows. Theres a washing machine, a refrigerator, a tiny sink, and a microwave. He doesnt have a stove but I couldnt figure out if that was because he couldnt have one (ventilation?) or doesnt want one. Apart from being a metal tube, it was your basic single guys studio apartment.

Theres no wood in the plane, and without gasoline and moving parts, its pretty much fireproof. However, this also means that humidity is an issue. Boogers must be an issue, too.

Bruce pointed out that in addition to being perfectly insulated, planes are pretty much 100 percent earthquake proof. No earthquake would ever be as powerful as a hard landing, which the planes landing gear is made to withstand. Bruces plane also has other jostle-proof safety features, as well as hundreds of cans of food. This project didnt start as survivalism, but it sure could survive a lot.

Natalie Behring

As it started to get dark, Bruce and I made our way around the outside of the plane while he turned on water and performed other tasks one does when one owns a plane house and returns from overseas. When we got back inside, water was pouring out of the ceiling, back by where the flight attendants used to make coffee. Bruce was completely stress-free as water poured all over the floor and he started pulling things apart. An easy fix! he exclaimed. I dumbly offered to help, and when he smartly refused, I let him know it was time for me to go.

Planes have manuals, and houses have Home Depot, but theres no guide for how to combine the two. There are a couple of other people with airplane home projects in the United States, and they can bounce ideas off one another, but everybody is pretty much winging it. (HA HA, WING.) I asked Bruce how often yahoos with wild dreams ask for advice on how to get their own planes. He said it happens fairly regularly, but people give up when they realize they cant get housing basics like conventional mortgages or insurance.

On the long drive home, I wondered if I could do it. IF I had the money, IF I had the patience, IF I had the technical savvy, and IF I had the time, could I live in an airplane home? Probably, once there were systems in place for them to be comfortable and not drafty and if we could retrofit the bathroom sinks so I could get my hands all the way under the faucet. Also Id probably get nervous about falling off the wing while walking in with groceries during a rain.

But this silly city is a smart one, and I wouldnt be surprised if some nerds exhausted by the tiny home movement didnt try starting an airplane home movement instead. Bruce would certainly love that. Hed even talk you through some DIY plumbing. And maybe it could become a home where even a flying hater like me could get warm and comfy.

Continued here:

Wingin' It - The Portland Mercury

Say Yes

This weeks episode of The Walking Dead once again reliedon the shows evergreen premise scavenging for supplies. The primary focus is Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) combing the Georgia countryside for weapons so they have a chance at taking down The Saviors.

Its vaguely reminiscent of the season three episode Clear, which was the same basic premise, if you add Carl (Chandler Riggs) and replace The Saviors with Woodbury. The similarity of these two episodes that seems to bring upthe larger issue: Rick is a terrible leader.

For the shows first five seasons, the groups survival depended on the plot device that a group of people had to leave their camp, venture out into the unknown, score some canned goods and a few rounds of ammo, then make it back without getting eaten by a horde (or hordes) of zombies. Aside from the season-and-a-half where the group was occupyingthe abandoned prison, the closest they got to be semi-sustaining was when they attempted to raise pigs for slaughter, which mostly just gave a bunch of people a brain-exploding case of the flu.

That aside, it was the closest Rick and company had come to rebuilding a community before being led to Alexandria by Aaron (Ross Marquand). Of course, Ricks assimilation into what was then an idyllic, suburban normalcy was a rocky one, with his bearded survivalism at odds with the grossly unprepared and inexplicably sheltered residents holed up behind a wall.

Then, after asudden uptick in death by both zombie bite and fellow residents, Rick resumed a leadership position, but one that was still predicated on a hunter/gatherer mentality. All of this led up to the groups clash with The Saviors, who had done far more with their time in the apocalypse than Rick had ever managed.

Sure, their methods may be brutal, constantly threatening communities with death (or worse) while these smaller communities dutifully turn over supplies at regular intervals, the simple act of scheduling was all but a lost art in Ricks world unless you countDale (Jeffrey DeMunn) regularly winding his watch, a conversation that goes all the way back to a pitifully vulnerable collection of RVs around a campfire.

Now, with Rick preparing to go to war with The Saviors, he and Michonne once again raid the countryside for any available weapons,part of their agreement with the membersof Rhythm Nation to join their fight.

After gleefully grinning their way from one piecemeal acquisition to the next, they run across the apocalypse jackpot: an abandoned amusement park, complete with several undead, but still well-armed, members of the military. While this entire sequence was (I assume) meant to showcase the effortless zombie-killing proficiency of the Richonne the power-couple, it quickly turned into a slapstick-laden fiasco, capped off with the worst CGI deer imaginable.

Seriously, that fucking deer only existed for a momentary fake-out of Ricks death after he fell from his his vantage point on a Ferris wheel. A fake-out where Michonne sees a horde gathered around, tearing away at newly killed flesh, withthe thought of her newfound love rendering her completely helpless to the point she dropped her sword.

Of course, Rick was fine. Everyone watching knew Rick was fine (although I cant begin to explain how much I wouldve lovedhim dyingin such anunceremonious matter), and he leapt out of his hiding place in just enough time to valiantly toss Michonne her sword so the two can finish up the episodes requisite zombie-killing quota.

The scene, just like the episode that surrounded it, was little more than tensionless filler, culminating with his return to the junkyard to further negotiate the terms of the alliance with Rhythm Nation throughtheir leaders use of modified baby-talk (just why?)

It isnt until the shows final moments that has Rosita (Christian Serratos), still spouting off her bad attitude to anyone wholl listen including a scene with Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) that made no sense whatsoever who takes off to the Hilltop.

Looking past the fact that every community seems to be a 40-minute walk from the other, Rosita recruits Sasha (Sonequa Martin) for their one-way ticket mission to take out Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).Hopefully they know better than to just try it with one fucking bullet this time. Though given these characters, thats in no way a guarantee.

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'The Walking Dead' Reminds Us That Rick Is Terrible At What He Does - Glide Magazine

Rally for #BlackLivesMatter in New York City on February 13, 2017. Credit: Erik McGregor/PA Images

When some white women celebrate the non-violence of womens marches against Trump and then pose for photographs with police officers while police violence specifically targets people of colour, when Nazi-punchers are accused of being no different from fascists, when feminists in relative safety accuse militant women in the Middle East facing sex slavery under ISIS of militarism, we must problematize the liberal notion of non-violence which disregards intersecting power systems and mechanisms of structural violence. By dogmatically clinging onto a pacifism (or passive-ism?) that has a classed and racial character, and demonising violent anti-system rage, feminists exclude themselves from a much needed debate on alternative forms of self-defence whose objective and aesthetic serve liberationist politics. In a global era of femicide, sexual violence and rape culture, who can afford not to think about womens self-defence?

Feminism has played an important role in anti-war movements and achieved political victories in peace-building. The feminist critique of militarism as a patriarchal instrument renders understandable the rejection of womens participation in state-armies as being empowering. But liberal feminists blanket rejection of womens violence, no matter the objective, fails to qualitatively distinguish between statist, colonialist, imperialist, interventionist militarism and necessary, legitimate self-defence.

Police fire riot control munitions to disperse Black Lives Matter protesters on July 9, 2016 in Saint Paul to protest the police murder of Philando Castile. Credit: Annabelle Marcovici/PA Images

The monopoly on violence as a fundamental characteristic of the state protects the latter from accusations of injustice, while criminalising peoples basic attempts at self-preservation. Depending on strategies and politics, non-state actors are labelled as disruptive to public order at best, or terrorists at worst. The tendency to uphold examples like Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King to make the case for non-violent resistance often blurs historical facts to the point of sanitising the radical and sometimes violent elements of legitimate anti-colonial or anti-racist resistance.

Simultaneously, the traditional association of violence with masculinity and the systematic exclusion of women from politics, economy, war, and peace, reproduce patriarchy through a sexual division of roles in the realm of power. The feminist critique of violence is based in well-intentioned, yet deeply essentialist, reasoning of a gender-based morality, which can also reproduce portrayals of women as passive, inherently apolitical, and in need of protection. Such gender-reductionism fails to understand that inclination to violence is not inherently gender-specific but determined by interconnected systems of hierarchy and power as the case of white American women torturing Iraqi men in Abu Ghraib prison demonstrates.

Kurdish women have a tradition of resistance; their philosophy of self-defence ranges from autonomous guerrilla womens armies to the development of self-managed womens cooperatives. In recent years, the victories of the Womens Defence Units (YPJ) in Rojava-Northern Syria and the YJA Star Guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) against ISIS have been inspiring. Kurdish women, along with their Arab and Syriac Christian sisters, liberated thousands of square miles from ISIS, creating scenes of beauty of women liberating women. At the same time, they were also building the foundations of a womans revolution inside society. However, some western feminists questioned its legitimacy and dismissed it as militarism or co-optation by political groups. Western media narratives have portrayed this struggle in a de-politicised, exotic way, or by making generalised assumptions about womens natural disinclination to violence. If the media reporting was dominated by a male gaze, it was partly due to feminists refusal to engage with this relevant topic. One cannot help but think that militant women taking matters into their own hands impairs western feminists ability to speak on behalf of women in the Middle East, projected as helpless victims, may be one of the reasons for this hostility. Credit: YPJ Media Team

The Kurdish womens struggle developed a woman-centred philosophy of self-defence and is situated in an intersectional analysis of colonialism, racism, nation-statism, capitalism, and patriarchy. The Rose Theory is a part of the unapologetically women-liberationist political thought of PKK leader Abdullah calan. He suggests that in order to come up with non-statist forms of self-defence, we need to look no further than nature itself. Every living organism, a rose, a bee, has its mechanisms of self-defence in order to protect and express its existence with thorns, stings, teeth, claws, etc. not to dominate, exploit or unnecessarily destroy another creature but to preserve itself and meet its vital needs. Among humans, entire systems of exploitation and domination perpetuate violence beyond necessary physical survival. Against this abuse of power, legitimate self-defence must be based on social justice and communal ethics with particular respect to womens autonomy. If we let go of social Darwinist notions of survivalism and competition which under capitalist modernity have reached deadly dimensions and focus on the interplay of life within ecological systems, we can learn from natures ways of resistance and formulate a self-defence philosophy. In order to fight the system, self-defence must embrace direct action, participatory radical democracy, and self-managed social, political and economic structures.

Alongside Democratic Confederalism led by the Kurdish freedom movement, an autonomous Womens Democratic Confederalist system has been built up through thousands of communes, councils, cooperatives, academies and defence units in Kurdistan and beyond. Through the creation of an autonomous womens commune in a rural village, the identity, existence, and will of its members find their expression in practice and challenge the authority of the patriarchal, capitalist state. Furthermore, economic autonomy and communal economy based on solidarity through the establishment of cooperatives are crucial to societys self-defence as they guarantee self-sustenance through mutualism and shared responsibility, rejecting dependence on states and men. Care for water, lands, forests, historic and natural heritage are vital parts of self-defence against the nation-state and profit-oriented environmental destruction.

Defending oneself also means to be and know oneself. This implies the overcoming of sexist, racist knowledge production that capitalist modernity advocates and which excludes the oppressed from history. Political consciousness constitutes a fight against assimilation, alienation from nature, and genocidal state policies. The answer to positivist, male-centred, colonialist history-writing and social science is thus the establishment of grassroots womens academies promoting liberationist epistemologies.

A fight without ethics cannot protect society. In the eyes of Kurdish women fighters, ISIS cannot be defeated by weapons only but by a social revolution. This is why Yazidi women, after experiencing a traumatic genocide under ISIS, formed an autonomous womens council for the first time in their history with the slogan The organization of Yazidi women will be the answer to all massacres, alongside womens military organisations. In Rojava, alongside the YPJ, even grandmothers learn how to handle AK47s and rotate among themselves the responsibility to protect their communities within the Self-Defence Forces (HPC), while thousands of womens centres, cooperatives, communes, and academies aim to dismantle male domination. Against the Turkish states hyper-masculine war, Kurdish women constitute one of the main challenges to Erdogans one-man rule through their autonomous mobilisation. Crucially, women from different communities have joined them in constructing womens alternatives to male domination in all spheres of life. An alternative self-defence concept which does not reproduce statist militarism must of course be anti-nationalist.

YJ is an all-women militia formed in Iraq in 2015 to protect the Yazidi community in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. Credit: Wikicommons

Unlike violence which aims to subjugate the other, self-defence is a complete dedication and responsibility to life. To exist means to resist. And in order to exist meaningfully and freely, one must be politically autonomous. Put bluntly, in an international system of sexual and racial violence, legitimised by capitalist nation-states, the cry for non-violence is a luxury for those in privileged positions of relative safety, believing that they will never end up in a situation where violence will become necessary to survive. While theoretically sound, pacifism does not speak to the reality of masses of women and thus assumes a rather elitist first world character.

If our claims to social justice are genuine, in a world system of intersecting forms of violence, we have to fight back.

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Feminist pacifism or passive-ism? - Open Democracy

For 27 years, the North Pond Hermit was to rural Maine what the Loch Ness Monster is to Scotland: lore, myth, legend, a perverse point of local pride. Those convinced of his existence regarded him with admiration and fear, the latter more common among his victims.

The hermit, also known as the Mountain Man and the Hungry Man, was believed responsible for decades-long break-ins in North Pond cabins. These crimes had a pattern, spiking before Memorial Day and after Labor Day, and the items stolen ranged from batteries to packaged food to skillets to paperback novels. The hermit loved back issues of National Geographic and Playboy and preferred Bud to Bud Light, peanut butter over tuna. He rarely stole anything of real value, save for the couple who returned for the summer to find a mattress stolen from a bunk bed the passports theyd stashed under it left, in view, in a closet.

He was considerate that way. If the hermit had to remove a door from its hinges to get in, hed reattach it before leaving. Hed never break a window to gain entry, never rifle through belongings, always leave a cabin as clean as he found it. When the local police made their reports, they filed the suspects name as Hermit Hermit. One noted a crime scenes unusual neatness, and even law enforcement had to give him credit.

The level of discipline he showed while he broke into houses is beyond what any of us can remotely imagine, said Sgt. Terry Hughes. The legwork, the reconnaissance, the talent with locks, his ability to get in and out without being detected.

As the years passed, residents installed alarm systems and surveillance cameras. In 2013, the Pine Tree summer camp added motion sensors and floodlights a plan devised by an increasingly frustrated Hughes, who obtained new technologies developed by Homeland Security and had the camps alarm signal silently routed to his home.

On an early April morning in 2011, Hughes was finally woken by that alarm and raced to the camp. He prepared himself to encounter a military veteran or a hardened criminal and was surprised to find himself face-to-face with a pale, bespectacled man, clean-shaven and well-dressed in a Columbia jacket, new jeans and quality work boots, 6-feet tall and well-fed.

He said nothing, but Hughes knew: Here, finally, was the elusive North Pond Hermit.

In The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit, author Michael Finkel investigates the ways Christopher Knight, who disappeared in 1986 at age 20, was able to survive on his own in the forest physically, emotionally and psychologically. By his own account, Knight went 27 years without ever talking to another human being. Upon his arrest, Knight became a national media story.

Capturing Knight, Finkel writes, was the human equivalent of netting a giant squid. Fascinated, Finkel began a jailhouse correspondence with Knight and eventually surprised him with an unannounced visit. Knight agreed to talk as long as the two were separated by a plastic partition; hed always been averse to physical contact and was struggling with his shared cell. He may have been the only prisoner in North America to beg for solitary.

Some people want me to be this warm and fuzzy person, Knight said. All filled with friendly hermit wisdom. He told Finkel he was afraid the media would depict him as a freak show, and so told his story as best he could.

Knight grew up in the tiny village of Albion, Maine, where cows outnumber people by half. He was the youngest of five in a family of brainiacs who lived off the land; their father studied thermodynamics and built a greenhouse that fed the family through all seasons. His parents werent affectionate with the children, and Knight said his family was obsessed with privacy. His father taught him to hunt; he took a course in survivalism. Knight did fine in high school, though he felt invisible, and shortly after graduating took what little money he had and drove his 1985 Subaru Brat all the way up to Moosehead Lake, one of the most remote places in Maine. Once there, it was like the decision had been made for him. He knew what he was going to do but told no one, not even his mother. His family never filed a missing persons report; they just assumed Knight went off on an adventure. When his father died 15 years after Knight vanished, he was listed as a survivor.

As to why he chose to live on his own, alone, Knight says he still doesnt know. Its a mystery, he told Finkel. I just did it.

He wasnt trying to hide anything, Finkel writes, to cover a wrongdoing, to evade confusion about his sexuality.

Knight found a clearing in the woods, set up a tent and devoted himself to the Greek philosophy of Stoicism. His pre- and post-holiday crime sprees, Knight said, were about harvest time. A very ancient instinct. He would plump himself up for Maines incipient brutal winters by gorging on booze and sugar-filled junk food. He stole barbecue tanks to melt snow for drinking water. He hunkered down in his lair for about six months, October through April, to avoid leaving so much as a footprint in the snow.

He said he slept 6 / hours in winter, from 7:30 p.m. to 2 a.m., wrapped in multiple sleeping bags. Knight slept no more than that, fearing that his own sweat would turn to condensation and hed freeze to death.

If you try and sleep through that kind of cold, Knight said, you might never wake up. He had a two-burner camp stove, a gas line, a wash area, a bathroom consisting of two logs and a hole in the ground, and a bed (that stolen mattress!) with a fitted sheet and Tommy Hilfiger pillowcases. He painted his coolers and garbage cans in camouflage. He spent his days eating, cleaning and thinking, and his nights breaking and entering.

He wasnt proud of the latter, and agreed that he deserved arrest and trial. Every time, I was conscious that I was doing wrong, he told Finkel. I took no pleasure in it, none at all.

Knight saw himself as a hermit in the grand literary tradition of Emerson, Dickinson and fellow Mainer Edna St. Vincent Millay. He quoted one of her most famous lines to Finkel: My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night, then said, I tried candles in my camp for a number of years. Not worth it to steal them.

Finkel also spoke to many of Knights victims some amused, others traumatized. David and Louise Proulxs home had been broken into at least 50 times over many years, and they initially believed one of their own children was the culprit before wondering if they themselves were going crazy. Debbie Bakers small children were terrified that the hermit would come for them.

Garry Hollands filled a bag of food and slung it over his doorknob as an offering for the hermit, whom he thought of as harmless. (Other residents followed Hollands lead, but Knight never took any food left for him; he feared it was poisoned.)

Neal Patterson stayed up all night for two weeks straight, sitting in the dark, gun at the ready, hoping hed be the one to capture the hermit.

Knight claims little knowledge of how deeply he terrorized the town. He never wanted to steal, but hunger, he says, forced him. It took a while to overcome my scruples, he told Finkel. First he filched from outdoor gardens, then graduated to breaking into homes. He once spent a restless night in an empty cabin. The stress of that, the sleepless worry about getting caught, programmed me to never do that again.

Knight makes the semi-convincing argument that it is mainstream society in need of help, not him. He was confounded by the idea that passing the prime of your life in a cubicle, spending hours a day at a computer in exchange for money was considered acceptable, but relaxing in a tent in the woods was disturbed, Finkel writes.

He spent most of his time in the woods reading, and told Finkel he considered Henry David Thoreau, who took to a cabin in the woods for two years and emerged with Walden, to be a dilettante. Unlike Thoreau, Knight never threw a dinner party, never wrote, never painted a picture or took a photo. His back was fully turned to the world, Finkel writes. Knight loved two works best: Very Special People, an anthology of unusual figures such as the Elephant Man and Siamese twins Chang and Eng, and Dostoyevskys Notes from Underground.

I recognize myself in the main character, he told Finkel.

Knight emerged from the woods with no grand epiphany, no guiding philosophy. He longed solely for all the quiet I can take, consume, eat, dine upon, savor, relish, feast.

Knight spent seven months in jail, paid $1,500 in restitution, yet his greatest punishment is ongoing: re-entering society and adhering to its mores. He moved back in with his mother, and his brother gave him a job at his scrap-metal recycling plant. He knows to return to the woods would be to return to crime, but his longing is visceral and spiritual: Youre just there, he says. You are.

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How a mythical 'hermit' criminal hid in the woods for decades - New York Post

A Re-Wilding Camp for Adults !

20 days. 20 acres. 30 people. In a secret natural location in North-East Victoria. Daily challenges, activities and adventures. Take a break from society and create your own world together.

DATES:

Autumn Camp 23rd April 12th May 2017

Spring Camp 5th 24th October 2017

APPLICATIONS NOW OPEN CLICK HERE TO APPLY!

LOCATION:A secretnatural landscape in North-East Victoria. Just 3 hours from Melbourne & Canberra. Public transport pick up available at Wangaratta Train Station or Albury Airport. Exact location and directions sent once application is complete.

WHO:Wolf Pack is for anyone looking for a unique adventure, bush craft skill-building, nature time, camping and community. We have applicants coming in from all ages from 16 65 (or older). Spaces for kids under 16 may be accepted, but are limited, if you would like to bring your kids along please mention them in your description on your own application.

DEVELOPa deeper understanding of nature by delving into its intrigues through observation and participations.

LEARNnew skills daily. With guest teachers in re-wilding, bush craft, shelter building, natural health, simple living, wild life, traditional crafts, ancient and recent local traditions, adventures, creativity, exploration, self-development and community living.

CONNECTwith yourself, nature and your new tribe through daily activities, games, challenges and freedoms unavailable in day-to-day life.

TAKE A BREAKfrom reality to discover something new. This program will give you the time and space to break down the layers, melt into nature & community, and hone new skills.

Come together and enjoy life, living and learning on a secret clearing amidst a beautiful national park ofNorth-East Victoria (3 hours from Melbourne).

This will be an amazing opportunity to experiencesomething genuine, unique and possibly lifechanging.You will have a chance to slow down for 20whole days, live in a magical location, breath deeply and enjoy the daily challenges, nature based workshops and your new tribe.

HAVING A PEOPLE EXPERIENCE:Special Guests & Your Tribe

Each day we will explore a new topic together with guest teachers who have incredible experience, knowledge and passion in their unique and interesting fields. You will meet people from all walks of life from survivalists, bush dwellers & story tellers toartists and craftsmen & wild women, soaking up inspiration and knowledge with each experience. And this will only be a small portion of your PEOPLE experience during the program, getting to know your tribe will be half the adventure and learning how you fit into a communal environment will be enlightening and often surprising. Weve found that the new friendships and daily camaraderie is an unexpected highlight of this experience for many participants and something to really look forward to.

HAVING A NATURE EXPERIENCE:Location & Surrounding

This fantastic program could only take place in a fantastic location to match. Were very excited to be offering up a stunningclearing set amidst anational park, an incredible natural location that you can call HOME for 20 magnificent days.

The spaceincludes cleared paddocks where you will have theopportunity to build your own communal shelters, participate in workshops and soak up the surroundings. You will also be free to explore the lush valleys, grassy nooks, near-by watering holes and find your own secret spots to contemplate, observe and relax in between activities and conversation.

WORKSHOPS & SKILL-BUILDING FUN:

Learn new skills daily. This is a jammed pack program of guest teachers and activities.

Workshops vary for each Wolf Pack but will generally cover:

..moreworkshops to be announced as we get closer to the date. You will also receive a workshoptimetablewith your information pack closer to the program start date.

Visitors (family & friends) welcome to visit on weekends.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION

How rough / difficult will it be?

This isnt a program for the ultra-survivalist gurus, its an opportunity to experience and practice methods of re-wilding and survivalism and to do it in a fun communal environment giving each task the time needed to really refine eachskill (All people are very welcome here, from beginners up).

We hope that the participants will feel that they are living somewhere between a retreat and an adventure camp for adults.

As accommodation is BYO camping it will be up to you howluxurious or simplistic that will be in the last group we had many people in tents, one guy who bought no tent and challenged himself in making a cool little shelter in the camping area, and a couple who bought their van for a bit more comfort.

Throughout the 20 days we will be practising making shelters from the natural materials that surround us and participants will have the option to test out sleeping in them. The weather in Autumn and Spring is generally gorgeous so sleeping under the stars or by the fire some nights will also be recommended as an experience.

HOW TO JOIN WOLF PACK

APPLICATIONSNOW OPEN ONLY 30 POSITIONS for each camp so please send in you form asap.

Diversity is the key to any great tribe and we want to make sure this temporary community is made up of people from all walks of life. If you would like to participate please fill in the APPLICATION FORM HERE.

Once your application has been received you will be contacted within 15 days letting you know if your adventure awaits you.

PROGRAM COST

TICKETS INCLUDE:

This program will leave you feeling spoilt, nourished, enriched, energised and highly inspired. We look forward to seeing you grow, learn, laugh and smile together.

A 40% deposit will be requested to finalise your booking, this can be paid any time within 2weeks of your application approval. The final amount will be due1 month before the eventand a request for final payment will be emailed to all participants. Apayment plan can be arranged if this is too much for you in 2payments, just send us an email request and will set something up that suits.

CancellationsCancellations requested less than 1 month in advance: No refund, but ticket name can be changed. Cancellation requests with more than1 month inadvance: Refunds will be granted with a 12% fee of total ticket price.

WHAT TO BRING This is just the basics, a more thorough list will be sent out with the info pack.

Camping Gear: Any camping gear that you need to be comfortable for 20 days. The weather is generally beautiful in Autumn & Spring, but if you get particularly cold at night a really good sleeping bag and/or hot water bottle might be good.

Average Autumn Weather: Days 15 25*C. Nights 4 10*C

Average SpringWeather:Days 20 35*C. Nights 5 14*C

Your own knife/s A good knife or two will be needed and used most days for many purposes (carving, whittling, cutting rope, building, weaving etc.). There is a huge array of knives to choose from, I recommend one that is large enough for cutting down small trees (small machete or hunting knife) and a smaller one for whittling (something very small and sharp).

Other fun stuff: Musical instruments, any tools youd like to use or practice using, games, creative stuff, hand crafts, books and anything youd like to share with the tribe.

For more information feel free to contact me:EMAIL KATE

FEEDBACK FROM THE 2015 WOLF PACK

L.Tharby Wolfpack was as much a chance to learn about community, family and ourselves; as it was about physical survival skills and bush-craft. A perfect balance!

******

Rebekah.M Wolf pack was an experience in close community living, learning, playing and truly living together. Learningnew skills and bonding over shared tasks and experiences in the beautiful hidden valley.

******

A rare opportunity to reconnect with yourself , slow down, reveal your gifts & work on your challenges. An emporium of surprises, fascinating folks, generosity and plenty of laughter.

******

Wolf Pack is fun, amazing, encouraging and life changing.

Wolf Pack was a place where I arrived expecting to learn new and useful skills. What I found was so much moreThe beautiful family we became, the challenges overcome and the profound self-discovery are all things that combined with the awesome practical skills leave one with an all-round confidence that could not be achieved by focusing on just practical or spiritual workshops.

******

Mother Earth is calling you! Challenge yourself to live in the world you want.

******

Wolf Pack is a nurturing space for a bunch of people to learn new skills, reflect on who they are and experience living in community. It involves a series of workshops that explore survival , place and tribal living but it is so much more when you open your heart.

******

Wolf Pack 2015 was an adventure. It was an enriching, challenging and beautifully rewarding immersion in slowing down in nature. Come to wolf pack with a clear intention to enrich your life. Come to Wolf Pack if you want to connect with an ancient truth. That is, people are the great riches of life. It is with them, alongside them, and through their wonderfulness and courage that you will grow and become your wonderful self.

******

A reality check for the civilised mind. A heart-opener for the under-expressed. Wolf Pack has the potential to transform lives.

For more experienced Re-Wilders.

APPLY TO BE A TEACHER:

If you have knowledge, skills or a passion that you would like to share at Wolf Pack, please send through an application form CLICK HERE TO APPLY. Were open to all types of rewilding and nature based workshops and look forward to hearing what youre all about. Workshops can be hands-on, demonstration or lecture style. Teachers are paid and also invited to stay for the whole eventas a participant in other workshops and join in all the communal fun.

or CHECK OUT The Primitive Skills Gathering for more Re-Wilding Fun:

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Wolf Pack 2017 - Creative Collectives Australia

The Balenciaga effect proves its staying power for yet another season.

Puffer coats were abundant during UBM Fashions MAGIC and PROJECT trade shows for fall. Ath-leisure inspirations leaned into the coat category resulting in skiwear influences and slope-friendly pieces. Sportswear and generally casual looks dominated the tone of exhibitors collections despite their brand identity outerwear was no exception.

The best versions boasted updates to late-Eighties and early-Nineties styles that featured bold colors and shorter lengths that emphasized the puff factor. Especially of note was Biannuals neon pink number that channeled the 1991 flick Ski School. Also of note was Zadig &Voltaires army green coat that channeled Nineties hip-hop staples, refreshed by medallion-shaped quilting details that elevated the overall appearance.

Puffers have dominated the runways in recent seasons. Perhaps most distinctly at Demna Gvasalias fall 2016 Balenciaga collection his first as artistic director for the French fashion house. Of course, puffers were also present in the fall and spring 2017 collections for Vetements, the line forwhich he serves as head designer. Gvasalias collections werent the only ones that introduced puffers for fall 2016 Stella McCartney, MSGM, DKNY and Acne Studios all included versions.

The prevalence of puffer coats marks a new phase for outerwear in which utilitarian components and functionality reign as top priority over less performance-friendly counterparts. An undertone of survivalism is invading shoppers mind frames, urging the necessity to be prepared for any climate weather or otherwise.

This sentiment also dovetails with the rise of fitness and wellness as key areas of individuals investments. Compared to impulse buys on an accessory or two in the past, consumers are now splurging on juice cleanses and spin classes. Designers have wisely aligned themselves with the shifting paradigm of shopper priorities to align with newfound activities and values.

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MAGIC Fall 2017 Fashion Trend: Puffer Jackets WWD - WWD

Books Witness/Kashmir 1986-2016, whichfeatures nine Kashmiri photographers from different eras, is about the personal as well as the collective memory of a people and their relation to their homeland.

After the fire, Frislan, 2012. Credit: Javed Dar

In a country in conflict, there are journalists who arrive with the rapacious speed of breaking news: they land, they grab what they need, they leave. There are also those who come and stay a little longer, who want to get the story straight and see it unfold. And then there are those who call that place home, those who are there to stay and are part of the story. The different temporality of these presences produces different narratives that have varying degrees of amplification. The voracious appetite for fresh news often turns the shouted headline into the whole story, leaving the whispered expressions of the local people on the ground almost unheard.

Sanjay Kak. Source: Author provided

On the fringe of this race, there are increasingly significant experiences of the autochthonous voices who reclaim the right to their own version of the story. The discourse around daily life in a country in conflict is, in fact, often tinged with a rhetoric of survivalism and resilience, hence placing the observers point of view within the framework of aid and development.

The locals are at the receiving end; they are the objects of attention and of charitable projects, hardly ever the narrators or the active subjects of their own story.

In 2008, I had the privilege of being a part of the initial steps of Metrography, the first independent Iraqi photo agency based in Kurdistan. The aim was to provide a platform to Iraqi photographers irrespective of religion, sect or ethnicity to respond to the omnipresent image of Iraq as a country on the brink.

Focussing on reportage rather than spot news, stories of ordinary life beyond ones of roadside bombs began to emerge. From pilgrimages and community celebrations to fashion trends, from street photography to the documentation of an incipient corporate life, Metrography managed to reveal the simple truth that in spite of war, life goes on.

Editedby SanjayKak Witness/Kashmir 1986-2016 Yarbal Press, 2017

Over the years I saw the same kind of yearning in Palestine and Afghanistan, where artists, photographers and writers have started building a solid and credible counterpoint to the standardised and stereotypical representations.

Witness/Kashmir 1986-2016: Nine Photographers embodies a similar desire emerging from Kashmir.Witness is a book edited and conceived by Sanjay Kak. It is a 30-year-long journey in the history of Kashmir through two hundred images taken by nine Kashmiri photographers Meraj Ud din, Javeed Shah, Dar Yasin, Javed Dar, Altaf Qadri, Sumit Dayal, Showkat Nanda, Syed Shahriyar and Azaan Shah.

The book is an immersive experience, one that takes days to fully savour and digest. It is comprehensive, yet not encyclopaedic. It gives no explanationbut makes a request to allow for time to look and listen, and thus it opens a window to the backstage of the complex reality of Kashmir. Witness is a project as intricate and elaborate as a piece of kashidakari, an elegant embroidery where each stitch is perfectly calibrated and contains several layers and messages within itself.

There is no single definition that can fully encompass the book: it is a photography book, a history book and a book of personal stories. In its assemblage, Kak produces multiple chronologies and orchestrates a variety of registers. The passing of time is marked by the generational history that organises the sequence of photographers: from the oldest, Meraj Ud Din, to the youngest, Azaan Shah, who is only 19 years old.

Another timeline comes at the end of the book, where the captioned photographs are ordered chronologically. The (political) history of the last 30 years in Kashmir is reconstructed visually, one painful step at a time: ordinary life is inextricably mixed with the struggle for azadi, the shadows of the passer-by mingle with the strive for self-determination. Interspersed among the captions is a glossary of the vernacular of war that characterises the daily life in the Valley counterinsurgency, massacre, militant, stone thrower words that have come to indicate the perpetual state of exception that has become ordinary in Kashmir.

Brothers, Boniyar, 2015. Credit: Showkat Nanda

In this endeavour to build what Kak calls an introduction to public memory, the individual life stories of the nine photographers emerge intimately, as unique and singular, but also as part of a collective and shared inheritance of customs, trauma, anger and defiance. With a subtle but incredibly powerful shift, Witness reveals itself as a book about Kashmiris as much as about Kashmir about the personal as much as about the collective memory of a people and their relation to their homeland. This is no little change in perspective, considering that the official rhetoric around Kashmir oscillates between a pristine paradise and a restive land a disputed territory where its people are either invisible or troublemakers to be tamed.

As it was withUntil My Freedom Has Come:The New Intifada in Kashmir (2011) the previous book edited by Kak Witness comes as a timely insiders reflection on a dramatic season of unrest.

Pellet-gun injuries, Srinagar, 2016. AP Images / Dar Yasin

In an ongoing conversation with Kashmiri poet and academic Ather Zia, we have come to refer to the 2016 upheaval as the summer of the eye. After the killing of the young rebel commander Burhan Wani in early July 2016, Kashmir erupted and its people took to the streets. This was by no means unannounced as rage had been simmering beneath the surface, but no one could predict that things would escalate to such a level. The Indian military and paramilitary responded to protests and kaeni jang(stone pelting) with an iron fist. Over the course of almost four months, at least 6,000 people were injured, more than 1,000 were hit in the eyes by the infamous pellet shotguns and over 100 of them were left totally or partially blind.

Beyond the metaphor, by hitting people in the eye, the security forces tried to kill the vision of a different future. They tried to remove the possibility to look beyond the present in a fashion that differs from what is envisaged by those in power. Witness is somehow an indirect response to this attempt. It brings to the table a corpus of visual evidence that tells the other side of the story, with its nuances of affection, commitment, mourning and resistance.

In the wealth of imagery that the book offers to the reader, two photographs have caught my attention. The first is a photo taken by Javed Dar in 2015 in a recently vacated paramilitary camp at Kawdor, in Srinagar. In the middle of the debris, children play with the remnants of military equipment; smiling to the camera, a young boy carries a cargo net knotted to a stick as a trailing flag. Three generations have grown up in Kashmir forced to come to terms with the normality of an extraordinary military presence in their daily life in their schools, on the streets, outside their homes, in their playgrounds.

The second photo, taken by Sumit Danyal in 2009, is a dreamlike black and white image of a tree. The tree is blurred and ungraspable and its branches seem to have captured a passing cloud. The caption reads: In the tales of ghosts who want to be set free, what often holds them back is memory.

Witness/Kashmir 1986-2016: Nine Photographers resides in that space of memory. Kak calls it a marker, a flag planted in contested ground. It is certainly a milestone in the journey towards a recognisable, autonomous Kashmiri voice. It is a testimony to the ghosts of the past and the struggles of the future, it is a testament to what Kashmir is and has been for those children who grew up playing in the leftovers of military camps.

Francesca Recchia is a researcher and writer based in Kabul. Her work focuses on intangible heritage and cultural practices in countries in conflict.

Categories: Books

Tagged as: Afghanistan, Ather Zia, Azaan Shah, Francesca Recchia, Kashmir, Kurdistan, Meraj Ud din, Metrography, military equipment, Palestine, Sanjay Kak, Witness/Kashmir 1986-2016

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Witnessing the Ghosts Of the Past and the Struggles Of the Future in Kashmir - The Wire

Instead of taking a week off while the Oscars aired on another channel, The Walking Dead went ahead and showed a new episode Sunday. So it was power vs. power, the worlds most glamorous movie stars vs. its scruffiest cast, TV entertainment reporters patrolling the red carpet vs. soulless bloodsucking zombies.

I was not able to see enough of the Academy Awards to proclaim a winner, but I can say that this weeks TWD was potent for a slice-of-life episode and did not include Justin Timberlake making me eager to go back to Bill Withers original recording of Lovely Day.

It was -- spoiler alert -- a simple Walking Dead, a look at life inside the Saviors camp after hostage Daryl escaped, evidently with help from inside. Eugene, hostage No. 2 from Ricks crew, had to prove his worth to the Saviors. Dwight had to prove he wasnt complicit in Daryls getaway. And at no point did AMC's post-apocalyptic serial drama abruptly change its mind about who the week's winners and losers were.

MOST READ ENTERTAINMENT NEWS THIS HOUR

Well now take the correct envelope, please. In it are 5 thoughts recapping The Walking Dead Season 7 Episode 11, the One in Which Negan Repealed But Did Not Replace Saviorcare.

1. Okay, so that was pretty much the end of Eugene. When we first met this apparent savant, he was lying to his traveling mates about knowing of a cure for the apocalypse-causing plague in Washington, D.C. He survived the discovery of his mendacity and became a somewhat cherished member of the shows central band. Although not the warmest soul in this hellscape, he knew things, like how to make bullets, and he was funny, although not intentionally so.

But this week he moves from fearthat Negan, the Saviors leader, will punish him to a chilling understanding and execution of what it will take to survive. He makes up some credentials to convince Negan not to kill him. He comes up with a solution to help keep zombie perimeter guards from, literally, falling apart. And while he at first seems willing to help two of Negans wives concoct a suicide capsule for another of their lot, he pulls back, saying he knows the pills are actually intended to kill Negan.

By episodes end, he is proclaiming, as all Saviors must do, I am Negan. But he gets kind of gleeful about it: Im utterly, completely, stone-cold Negan, he says to Negan. I was Negan before I even met you. Maybe, just maybe, hes playing the long game, but craven survivalism seems more true to his naturethan cunning. No longer will we be charmed by the character's formal diction, the odd affect, or the mad rushes of language. He's now a nerd for the enemy.

2. Dwight remains a potential player in the downfall of Negan. The shows No. 1 refugee from a Civil War reenactment brigade is at first terrified, thinking the Saviors leader will blame him or his ex-wife Sherry, now a Negan wife, for Daryls departure. But he rallies and makes a series of canny moves to A) stay alive and B) stay close to Negan.

Dwight gets set on the trail of Sherry, who has, like Daryl, run away. And he frames the camps loyal doctor as an accomplice inSherry and Daryls escape, although he has learnedit was Sherry who set the captive free. Meantime, a really extended voiceover from Sherry -- he finds a letter shes left him at their old meeting place -- tries to remind Dwight of himself. Youve become everything you didnt want to be, she says.

So, yes, maybe Dwight, still toting around their wedding rings, will bust out of his quietly resentful but outwardly obedient work as a Savior to prove something to Sherry, wherever she may be. Either that or he picks up a guitar and finally starts the Southern rock band that his look screams for him to be in.

3. Negans leadership skills are fraying. Something about the arrival of Ricks crew in his life seems to have thrown him off his sadistic game. He toyed with Daryl, clearly among the most dangerous potential opponents, instead of eliminating him. He took pity rather than revenge on Ricks son Carl for killing some of his men in an attempted assassination.

And this week, he accepts some flimsy evidence from Dwight that the camp medic was behind the departure of Sherry. Instead of the usual facial sear as punishment, he throws the healer into the fire. This horrifies his followers even more than they are usually horrified by him, which perhaps may fuel rebellion. And it eliminates the doctor, leaving the Saviors health insurance coverage to be very much a free-market system. This seems unlikely to be a popular move.

4. I kind of like Sherry as a philosopher. Yes, the letter-by-voiceover is a clumsy dramatic tactic, but her sentiments in it are a reminder that this new world cheapens life and forces hard choices. I dont think Im going to make it out here, she tells Dwight, but youre wrong, being (with the Saviors) isnt better than being dead. Its worse. I hope you realize that.

5. If Negan were producing the Oscars, whoevers responsible for envelope security would be a bloody pulp by now. Thankfully, thats not how ourworld works, and therell just be embarrassment and modest recriminations over a pretty profound foul-up. But Id like to thank the Academy for reminding us why live TV can still be exciting -- and for giving us something to talk about for a day or two that doesnt rhyme with lump.

sajohnson@chicagotribune.com

Twitter: @StevenKJohnson

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At home with the Saviors: Recapping 'The Walking Dead' Season 7 Episode 11 - Chicago Tribune