@lovetoburn / lovetoburn.tumblr.com
From the beginning scifi has been used to examine society’s issues. Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” asked of people to take responsibility for their actions, to consider the impact of one’s legacy, and to have compassion for one’s fellow human.
it’s always so funny to me when people in positions of power who had actual influence over historical events take to twitter like “okay i think we’re ALL a bit responsible for this” like?? no?? not really?? i was in my first week of first grade on 9/11 and you were an editor for the new york times. while you can argue that with the length and reach of the wars in iraq and afghanistan every american has in some way impacted what is now happening in afghanistan let’s not spread equal blame here, liz cheney.
oh to lay on someone’s chest as they read to you
Kabul has fallen, Afghanistan is almost completely under Taliban rule now, and President Ashraf Ghani has fled. I wasn't alive during the Vietnam war, but having seen the images of Saigon at the end of it, it's impossible not to think of them when seeing the footage of Chinooks airlifting US embassy workers to Kabul airport. l cannot tell you how surreal it is to be watching the news from neighboring Pakistan, sitting next to my grandfather who has been alive for every change of government since the Brits left after the war.
History repeats and repeats and repeats, nobody learns a damn thing, and innocent civilians are the ones that suffer.
250 000 Afghans have left their homes. Many more are going to do so. And that's just the ones who flee. Those who don't will live under a conservative rule that is going to commit crimes against humanity on a daily basis, that is going to ruin the lives of generations to come.
The worst part is, I don't know what else there is to be done at this point. I can only pray that my country will accommodate the incoming refugees, though I fear they won't.
All I ask is that international community keep Afghanistan in their thoughts, and that everyone raises their voice against what is happening, both in terms of what the Taliban is doing, and how the actions of foreign powers led us to this point. The US, the UK, Pakistan, are all at fault, and must be held accountable
The War in Afghanistan did not “fail” or show that the US is “bad” at imperialism because the objective of the War in Afghanistan was never to defeat the Taliban or bring “stability” to Afghans or even to install a lasting puppet regime/client state for the US. The goal was to, among other things, secure Afghanistan’s opium supply (which sources >90% of the heroin currently being trafficked worldwide), establish US military bases on the borders of Iran and China and within proximity to Russia, and generate profit for the military-industrial complex by justifying supermassive “defence” budgets and arms sales. When the costs outweighed the benefits of staying in Afghanistan the US cut its losses and left. The people of Afghanistan, the Taliban, the US-backed regime etc. are/were simply all pawns at best or hindrances/collateral damage at worst. Do not allow yourself to be duped into thinking anything more or less of this situation.
STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE + (letterboxd review)
aren't we all
Studio Ghibli + Holding Hands
Sappho - Translation from Anne Carson’s “If not, Winter”
Rene Magritte (Belgian, 1898-1967)
Melusine’s Window, 1953
The Golden Ring, n.d.
Anne went to the little Avonlea graveyard the next evening to put fresh flowers on Matthew’s grave and water the Scotch rosebush. She lingered there until dusk, liking the peace and calm of the little place, with its poplars whose rustle was like low, friendly speech, and its whispering grasses growing at will among the graves. When she finally left it and walked down the long hill that sloped to the Lake of Shining Waters it was past sunset and all Avonlea lay before her in dreamlike afterlight - “a haunt of ancient peace.” There was a freshness in the air as of a wind that had blown over honey-sweet fields of clover. Home lights twinkled out here and there among the homestead trees. Beyond lay the sea, misty and purple, with its haunting unceasing murmur. The west was glory of soft mingled hues, and the pond reflected them all in still softer shadings. The beauty of it all thrilled Anne’s heart, and she gratefully opened the gates of her soul to it.
“Dear old World”, she murmured, “you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.”
Chapter XXXVIII {The Bend in the Road} Anne of Green Gables
TOP HAT (1935) dir. Mark Sandrich
“It [Top Hat] offers you an idea of an exciting physical encounter with a member of the opposite sex that is pleasurable. And the dance to a certain extent is a kind of seduction. So you get these dance sequences where at the beginning she’s slightly resistant, [but then] he does a few taps and she sort of moves forward [and] she sort of mirrors him a bit. But by the end of a number like Cheek to Cheek […], she’s completely submissive to him; she’s striking poses, she’s doing all of those jumps where she’s actually supported by him [and] she physically couldn’t do them if he wasn’t there supporting her in those dance moves. You could think of the dance as a kind of metaphor for sex. […] There’s that bit where she swoons […], and we all know what’s happened there.” (Lucy Worsley and Lawrence Napper, A Very British Romance with Lucy Worsley BBC)
the question 'what's your favorite color' is so hard cause like. i go to the beach and look at the ocean so my favorite color is blue. it's sunset and the sky is pink so my favorite color is pink. a pretty girl in a bright yellow dress walks past so my favorite color is yellow. i see a tree so my favorite color is green except it's fall so my favorite color is orange. i see a pair of brown eyes so my favorite color is brown. i see the sky when it's raining so my favorite color is gray.
Carefree (1938)
