[ Text ID: I also remember that the smallest gesture of affection would bring a lump to my throat, whether it was directed at me or at someone else. ]

Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish reciting his Poem of the Land

I came up with a new saying:

"You wouldn't bake a cat just because it jumped into the oven."

It means that just having a really, really good opportunity to do something awful is not an excuse to do it. That it isn't enough that you never go out of your way to do evil, you're also supposed to go out of your way to do the right thing, even in situations where the wrong thing to do would be extremely easy and profitable, and passively allowing it to happen would be easier than going out of your way to do better than that.

YOU HAVE TO WALK THROUGH THE DOORS YOU BEG TO HAVE OPEN!!!!! THE CHANGE CANNOT HAPPEN SIMPLY BY THE OPPORTUNITY PRESENTING ITSELF!!!! YOU NEED TO BE OPEN TO SEE IT, CHOOSE IT, AND ACTUALLY MOVE!!!!!

- Nizar Qabbani

Faye Wong Fashion's 90s

There’s a sort of bell curve of how good journal writing is for you

Paintings that scream "a lesbian and gay man who are best friends in a lavender marriage"

[Image 1: Untitled by Haddon Sundblom, Image 2: Evening on the River by Michael Malm, Image 3: Playing Their Song by Joseph Lorusso, Image 4: On the river by Puteiko Vladimir Grigorievich]

sabr; the power of suffering with fortitude.

a love so nice its echoed in dreams!!

people reblogging this n tagging their lovers.....im holding u gently in my hands n kissing ur little heads

source

Interview with Lee Yong-soo, victim of Japanese sexual violence.

(via @irenesolosxx on Tiktok)

Between 1932 and the end of World War II in 1945, an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 women served as "comfort women" (sex slaves) for Japanese soldiers in huge Japanese-run brothels. The majority came from Korea. Most of the others came from the Philippines and China. The remainder came from Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand and Burma. Even some Dutch women in Indonesia were forced to participate. The Japanese claim there were fewer than 20,000 women in brothels used by Japanese soldiers. No definitive records have surfaced.

Comfort women is a euphemism for prostitutes enslaved to service members of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. According to Columbia University’s Asia for Educators: The so-called “comfort women” (the term is a translation of a Japanese/Korean euphemism) were sexual slaves who were often recruited by trickery and forced to serve the Japanese military in the field in Asia and the Pacific during the Pacific War. These women were drawn from throughout the Japanese empire, though many were Korean. [Source:Asia for Educators Columbia University]

Some 2,000 "comfort stations" were set up in Manchuria, Burma, Borneo and other places in Asia, where Japanese soldiers were stationed. As of late 2015, 46 known comfort the women were still alive in South Korea. Japan’s first comfort station, Dai Salon in Shanghai, was established in 1932. A typical “comfort station” serviced 10 to 100 soldiers a day. A typical room was simply furnished with a tatami mat, futon, a washbowl and plaques with the Japanese name given to the comfort woman kept there. Outside, welcome banners for soldiers were sometimes hung. Korean-born, New York-based Lee Chang-jin, creator of the “Comfort Women Wanted” art exhibit, said: “One of the women said they used to get raped by 50 soldiers a day.”

Full interview on Koreanow:

can't talk thinking about malcolm liepke paintings