Eupraxsophy

Secular humanist, freethinker, progressive, and bibliophile. I love living life, learning things, and meeting people.
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, often called the the “Muslim Gandhi,” was an Afghan political and spiritual leader known for his nonviolent opposition to British Rule in India. A devout Muslim and dedicated pacifist, he worked with Gandhi to put an end to the British Raj and bring unity among the divided people of South Asia. A man of great integrity, he once declared that it is “better [to] be poisoned in one’s own blood then to be poisoned in one’s principle.” Khan was also a reformer and social activist who sought to alleviate the poverty, violence, and hatred of his society. To that end, he formed the Khudai Khidmatgar (Servants of God) movement, in which members would take an oath of honesty, integrity, self-sacrifice, and the serving of others without regard to faith or ethnicity. The success of this group led to a harsh crackdown by the British, though Khan remained committed to nonviolence. He opposed the partition of India, and because of this – as well as his lifelong opposition to authoritarian rule – he was frequently arrested, exiled, and harassed by the Pakistani authorities. Despite this, he never wavered in his values and remained a pacifist for the rest of his life.

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, often called the the “Muslim Gandhi,” was an Afghan political and spiritual leader known for his nonviolent opposition to British Rule in India. A devout Muslim and dedicated pacifist, he worked with Gandhi to put an end to the British Raj and bring unity among the divided people of South Asia. A man of great integrity, he once declared that it is “better [to] be poisoned in one’s own blood then to be poisoned in one’s principle.”

Khan was also a reformer and social activist who sought to alleviate the poverty, violence, and hatred of his society. To that end, he formed the Khudai Khidmatgar (Servants of God) movement, in which members would take an oath of honesty, integrity, self-sacrifice, and the serving of others without regard to faith or ethnicity. The success of this group led to a harsh crackdown by the British, though Khan remained committed to nonviolence.

He opposed the partition of India, and because of this – as well as his lifelong opposition to authoritarian rule – he was frequently arrested, exiled, and harassed by the Pakistani authorities. Despite this, he never wavered in his values and remained a pacifist for the rest of his life.

2 days ago - 16
Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez was a Chilean teacher, theatre director, poet, singer-songwriter, political activist and member of the Communist Party of Chile. A distinguished theatre director, he devoted himself to the development of Chilean theatre, directing a broad array of works from locally produced Chilean plays, to the classics of the world stage, to the experimental work of Ann Jellicoe. Simultaneously he developed in the field of music and played a pivotal role among neo-folkloric artists who established the Nueva Canción Chilena (New Chilean Song) movement which led to a revolution in the popular music of his country under the Salvador Allende government. Shortly after the Chilean coup of September 11, 1973, he was arrested. In the hours and days that followed, Jara was repeatedly beaten and tortured; the bones in his hands were broken, as were his ribs. Fellow political prisoners have testified that his captors mockingly suggested that he play guitar for them as he lay on the ground with broken hands. Defiantly, he sang part of “Venceremos” (We Will Win), a song supporting the Popular Unity coalition.[6] After further beatings, he was machine-gunned on September 16, his body dumped on a road on the outskirts of Santiago and then taken to a city morgue where 44 bullets were found in his body. The contrast between the themes of his songs, on love, peace and social justice and the brutal way in which he was murdered transformed Jara into a symbol of struggle for human rights and justice worldwide. On December 3, 2009, a massive funeral took place in the “Galpón Víctor Jara” across from “Plaza Brazil”. Jara’s remains were honoured by thousands. His remains were re-buried in the same place he was buried in 1973. On December 28, 2012 a judge in Chile ordered the arrest of eight former army officers for alleged involvement in the murder of Victor Jara. (Source: Wikipedia)

Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez was a Chilean teacher, theatre director, poet, singer-songwriter, political activist and member of the Communist Party of Chile.

A distinguished theatre director, he devoted himself to the development of Chilean theatre, directing a broad array of works from locally produced Chilean plays, to the classics of the world stage, to the experimental work of Ann Jellicoe.

Simultaneously he developed in the field of music and played a pivotal role among neo-folkloric artists who established the Nueva Canción Chilena (New Chilean Song) movement which led to a revolution in the popular music of his country under the Salvador Allende government.

Shortly after the Chilean coup of September 11, 1973, he was arrested. In the hours and days that followed, Jara was repeatedly beaten and tortured; the bones in his hands were broken, as were his ribs. Fellow political prisoners have testified that his captors mockingly suggested that he play guitar for them as he lay on the ground with broken hands. Defiantly, he sang part of “Venceremos” (We Will Win), a song supporting the Popular Unity coalition.[6] After further beatings, he was machine-gunned on September 16, his body dumped on a road on the outskirts of Santiago and then taken to a city morgue where 44 bullets were found in his body.

The contrast between the themes of his songs, on love, peace and social justice and the brutal way in which he was murdered transformed Jara into a symbol of struggle for human rights and justice worldwide.

On December 3, 2009, a massive funeral took place in the “Galpón Víctor Jara” across from “Plaza Brazil”. Jara’s remains were honoured by thousands. His remains were re-buried in the same place he was buried in 1973. On December 28, 2012 a judge in Chile ordered the arrest of eight former army officers for alleged involvement in the murder of Victor Jara.

(Source: Wikipedia)

1 month ago - 1
Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, born in Germany in the 19th century, is considered the father of gay rights, as well as the first recorded person to publicly “come out” as a homosexual. Ulrichs recalled that as a young child he wore girls’ clothes,  preferred playing with girls, and wanted to be a girl. He had his first homosexual experience at age 14 with a riding instructor, and subsequently struggled with the loneliness and guilt of his “deviancy.” Indeed, he was dismissed from his job as a legal adviser to a state court because of his homosexuality. In 1862, a time when non-heterosexuality was very much tabooo, Ulrichs took the momentous step of telling his family and friends that he was, in his own words, an Urning, a term he coined to describe men who love other men. He began writing under the pseudonym of “Numa Numantius,” and his first five essays, “Researches on the Riddle of Male-Male Love,” explained such love as natural and biological, summed up with the Latin phrase anima muliebris virili corpore inclusa - “a female psyche confined in a male body.”Throughout his life, Ulrichs continued to move around Germany (which was gradually unifying), continuing to write and publish, and getting into legal trouble for it. His books were confiscated and banned by police in Saxony and Berlin, and his works were eventually banned throughout Prussia.Ulrichs stated: Until my dying day I will look back with pride that I found the courage to come face to face in battle against the spectre which for time immemorial has been injecting poison into me and into men of my nature. Many have been driven to suicide because all their happiness in life was tainted. Indeed, I am proud that I found the courage to deal the initial blow to the hydra of public contempt.

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, born in Germany in the 19th century, is considered the father of gay rights, as well as the first recorded person to publicly “come out” as a homosexual. Ulrichs recalled that as a young child he wore girls’ clothes, 

preferred playing with girls, and wanted to be a girl. He had his first homosexual experience at age 14 with a riding instructor, and subsequently struggled with the loneliness and guilt of his “deviancy.” Indeed, he was dismissed from his job as a legal adviser to a state court because of his homosexuality. 

In 1862, a time when non-heterosexuality was very much tabooo, Ulrichs took the momentous step of telling his family and friends that he was, in his own words, an Urning, a term he coined to describe men who love other men. He began writing under the pseudonym of “Numa Numantius,” and his first five essays, “Researches on the Riddle of Male-Male Love,” explained such love as natural and biological, summed up with the Latin phrase anima muliebris virili corpore inclusa - “a female psyche confined in a male body.”

Throughout his life, Ulrichs continued to move around Germany (which was gradually unifying), continuing to write and publish, and getting into legal trouble for it. His books were confiscated and banned by police in Saxony and Berlin, and his works were eventually banned throughout Prussia.

Ulrichs stated:
Until my dying day I will look back with pride that I found the courage to come face to face in battle against the spectre which for time immemorial has been injecting poison into me and into men of my nature. Many have been driven to suicide because all their happiness in life was tainted. Indeed, I am proud that I found the courage to deal the initial blow to the hydra of public contempt.
5 months ago - 1
Chien-Shiung Wu was a Chinese-American physicist who specialized in experimental physics and radioactivity, at a time when few women were in the field. She worked on the Manhattan Project, where she helped to develop the process for separating uranium metal into the U-235 and U-238 isotopes by gaseous diffusion. She later performed experiments that helped further our understanding of physics. She was also the first: Chinese-American to be elected into the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Female instructor in the Physics Department of Princeton University Woman with an honorary doctorate from Princeton University Female President of the American Physical Society, elected in 1975 Person selected to receive the Wolf Prize in Physics in its inaugural year of 1978. Her honorary nicknames include the “First Lady of Physics,” the “Chinese Marie Curie,” and “Madame Wu.”

Chien-Shiung Wu was a Chinese-American physicist who specialized in experimental physics and radioactivity, at a time when few women were in the field. She worked on the Manhattan Project, where she helped to develop the process for separating uranium metal into the U-235 and U-238 isotopes by gaseous diffusion. She later performed experiments that helped further our understanding of physics.

She was also the first:

  • Chinese-American to be elected into the U.S. National Academy of Sciences
  • Female instructor in the Physics Department of Princeton University
  • Woman with an honorary doctorate from Princeton University
  • Female President of the American Physical Society, elected in 1975
  • Person selected to receive the Wolf Prize in Physics in its inaugural year of 1978.

Her honorary nicknames include the “First Lady of Physics,” the “Chinese Marie Curie,” and “Madame Wu.”

9 months ago - 3
Sally Ride, the first American woman to fly in space, died on Monday, July 23, at her home in San Diego. She was 61. As it would turn out, she was also the first lesbian in space as well, although this was kept secret from the public for decades.  Read more about this pioneer here. 

Sally Ride, the first American woman to fly in space, died on Monday, July 23, at her home in San Diego. She was 61. As it would turn out, she was also the first lesbian in space as well, although this was kept secret from the public for decades. 

Read more about this pioneer here. 

9 months ago - 77
Abdus Salam was a Pakistani theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in Physics known for his work on the electroweak unification of the electromagnetic and weak forces, for which he (along with Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg) won the Nobel Prize in 1979, becoming the first Pakistani and the first Muslim scientist to receive a Nobel prize in Physics (as well as the first Ahmadiyya). His work was instrumental to laying the groundwork for the discovery of the Higgs-Boson. It’s a shame that his contributions are barely acknowledged today. 

Abdus Salam was a Pakistani theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in Physics known for his work on the electroweak unification of the electromagnetic and weak forces, for which he (along with Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg) won the Nobel Prize in 1979, becoming the first Pakistani and the first Muslim scientist to receive a Nobel prize in Physics (as well as the first Ahmadiyya). His work was instrumental to laying the groundwork for the discovery of the Higgs-Boson. It’s a shame that his contributions are barely acknowledged today. 

10 months ago - 7
A man provided with paper, pencil, and rubber, and subject to strict discipline, is in effect a universal machine Alan Turing, who would have been 100 today (June 21), was a visionary mathematician and computer scientist who helped cracked Germany’s military code during World War II, and who developed algorithms and concepts that would eventually lead to the creation of the modern computer. Indeed, he regarded as the father of computer and artificial intelligence, and the “Turing test” is used to this day for determining a machine’s intelligence. Unfortunately, Turing was also subject to persecution for his homosexuality, which during his time was a crime in the UK. He was subject to chemical castration, public humiliation, and stripped of his job with the UK’s intelligence agency (where he had pioneered a lot of computer and cryptanalytical work).  He died two years later from cyanide poisoning, in what is widely considered to have been a suicide (the government has since offered a posthumous apology for the legal actions levied against him). It’s a shame Turing would die so relatively young, given what more he could’ve provided us. In his brief time on this Earth, he made  instrumental contributions to what is now one of the most important technological developments in human history. Despite his tragic and untimely death, he left quite a legacy.

A man provided with paper, pencil, and rubber, and subject to strict discipline, is in effect a universal machine

Alan Turing, who would have been 100 today (June 21), was a visionary mathematician and computer scientist who helped cracked Germany’s military code during World War II, and who developed algorithms and concepts that would eventually lead to the creation of the modern computer. Indeed, he regarded as the father of computer and artificial intelligence, and the “Turing test” is used to this day for determining a machine’s intelligence.

Unfortunately, Turing was also subject to persecution for his homosexuality, which during his time was a crime in the UK. He was subject to chemical castration, public humiliation, and stripped of his job with the UK’s intelligence agency (where he had pioneered a lot of computer and cryptanalytical work).  He died two years later from cyanide poisoning, in what is widely considered to have been a suicide (the government has since offered a posthumous apology for the legal actions levied against him).

It’s a shame Turing would die so relatively young, given what more he could’ve provided us. In his brief time on this Earth, he made  instrumental contributions to what is now one of the most important technological developments in human history. Despite his tragic and untimely death, he left quite a legacy.

11 months ago - 9
theseasonofthewitch: checkmateprolifer: This is Gisella Perl, a  a successful Jewish gynaecologist in Sighet, Romania in the 1930s and 40s. She was taken to Auschwitz in 1944, where she treated women with kindness and compassion. She was asked to report all pregnant women to Josef Mengele- better known as the Angel of Death. When she discovered what was done to them (medical experimentation and torture, ending with often being thrown alive into the crematoriums) she vowed that there would never again be a pregnant woman in Aschwitz. So she began the abortions.  In her time in Aschwitz, Dr. Perl performed over 3,000 abortions in spite of her professional and religious beliefs as a doctor and an observant Jew. Any babies born alive in Aschwitz were usually drowned, despite Mengele’s orders to allow them to starve to death. Because of Dr. Perl’s brave actions in performing these abortions, many women made it out of Aschwitz alive, able to go on and have families after the war.  Although she was vilified by many for her actions, there is no doubt that she is not the monster abortionists are made out to be. This woman, this doctor, this abortionist was a hero. Despite her personal beliefs, she understood what had to be done. If you click the photo, you can go to a more extensive biography of her- she was a true hero.  This brought tears to my eyes. Kol HaKavod. It’s horrific what people must do in the face of these circumstances. Adapting to your ethics for the greater good is one of the most painful things you can do.

theseasonofthewitch:

checkmateprolifer:

This is Gisella Perl, a  a successful Jewish gynaecologist in Sighet, Romania in the 1930s and 40s. She was taken to Auschwitz in 1944, where she treated women with kindness and compassion. She was asked to report all pregnant women to Josef Mengele- better known as the Angel of Death. When she discovered what was done to them (medical experimentation and torture, ending with often being thrown alive into the crematoriums) she vowed that there would never again be a pregnant woman in Aschwitz. So she began the abortions. 

In her time in Aschwitz, Dr. Perl performed over 3,000 abortions in spite of her professional and religious beliefs as a doctor and an observant Jew. Any babies born alive in Aschwitz were usually drowned, despite Mengele’s orders to allow them to starve to death. Because of Dr. Perl’s brave actions in performing these abortions, many women made it out of Aschwitz alive, able to go on and have families after the war. 

Although she was vilified by many for her actions, there is no doubt that she is not the monster abortionists are made out to be. This woman, this doctor, this abortionist was a hero. Despite her personal beliefs, she understood what had to be done. If you click the photo, you can go to a more extensive biography of her- she was a true hero. 

This brought tears to my eyes. Kol HaKavod.

It’s horrific what people must do in the face of these circumstances. Adapting to your ethics for the greater good is one of the most painful things you can do.

(via companythatmakesmisery)

11 months ago - 15735

A Cruel World

A car crash in Cape Cod this holiday weekend claimed the life of Marina Keegan, a 22-year-old woman from Wayland, Mass. who graduated from Yale University last week, with plans to pursue a writing career, the New York Daily News reports.

Keegan was killed around 2 p.m. Saturday afternoon in a single-vehicle rollover that occurred when her boyfriend Michael Gocksch, also 22, lost control of his Lexus and hit the right-side guarding rail, according to a press release from police in Dennis, Mass.

Keegan was pronounced dead at the scene while Gocksch, a fellow Yale alum who graduated with Keegan last Monday, was transported to Cape Cod Hospital in stable condition. Police said both passengers were wearing seatbelts and speed did not appear to be a factor in the crash.

According to Yale Daily News, Keegan was “a prolific writer, actress and activist” who graduated magna cum laude from the university with a concentration in writing. She had just landed a job at The New Yorker as an editorial assistant and was scheduled to move to Brooklyn with friends in June.

In addition to acting, writing plays and serving as President of the Yale College Democrats, Keegan was a member of OccupyYale who sparked debate on campus with a feature story in Yale’s WEEKEND Magazine called “Even artichokes have doubts,” which discussed the high percentage of Yale graduates who enter the consulting and finance industry. National Public Radio highlighted the story in a February episode of the program “All Things Considered.”

During Memorial Day weekend, Keegan had planned to workshop her folk musical “Independents,” which was slated to appear in the New York International Fringe Festival in August.

“[Marina] was just one of those amazing, wise souls that was given to us as a gift. She had an unbelievable, beyond-her-years way of looking at the world, and her passion was to try and use her words to explore the human condition,” Keegan’s mother told the New York Daily News. “[The musical] is one of her legacies that she will leave behind.”

In her last piece as a staff writer for the Yale Daily News, an editorial called “The Opposite of Loneliness” published Sunday following her death, Keegan wrote about her hopes and anxieties as she looked toward the future.

“What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time,” Keegan wrote. “The notion that it’s too late to do anything is comical. It’s hilarious. We’re graduating college. We’re so young. We can’t, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it’s all we have.”

Source: Huffington Post

This is yet another reminder of the horrific randomness and indiscrimination of death. By all accounts, this girl did not deserve to die. Nor should she have: she was wearing her seatbelt, and the car was not going particularly fast. Many people have survived far worse. That could just as easily have been me in her place. There’s just no telling how death will work its arbitrary ways.

Think about what this young woman could’ve given this world. She had talent, intelligent, and ambition. She was already a leader among her generation. And now she’s gone forever due to the most unexpected scenario (though we’ve yet to know what really caused the crash).

I feel especially bad for her boyfriend, who will wake up to hear the most horrific news imaginable. He’ll no doubt blame himself, too, given that he was the driver. Losing someone like that is hard enough, but feeling some level of responsibility for it is even worse. It’s an awful feeling, and I had a close-call like that myself (sparing the details, at one point I thought my girlfriend had died in a car accident; the horror remains indescribable).

The world is such a cruel place. Even if you remove all our capacity for evil and foolishness, there are still terrible occurrences like this going on all the time (an earthquake recently struck Italy for example). As long as we have the intellectual capacity to be self-aware of our mortality, we’ll always suffer for some reason or another. Even a “natural” death is no less painful to loved ones. Distress is an inseparable component of life. All the good in the world is just a band-aid.

 
11 months ago

A Cruel World

A car crash in Cape Cod this holiday weekend claimed the life of Marina Keegan, a 22-year-old woman from Wayland, Mass. who graduated from Yale University last week, with plans to pursue a writing career, the New York Daily News reports.

Keegan was killed around 2 p.m. Saturday afternoon in a single-vehicle rollover that occurred when her boyfriend Michael Gocksch, also 22, lost control of his Lexus and hit the right-side guarding rail, according to a press release from police in Dennis, Mass.

Keegan was pronounced dead at the scene while Gocksch, a fellow Yale alum who graduated with Keegan last Monday, was transported to Cape Cod Hospital in stable condition. Police said both passengers were wearing seatbelts and speed did not appear to be a factor in the crash.

According to Yale Daily News, Keegan was “a prolific writer, actress and activist” who graduated magna cum laude from the university with a concentration in writing. She had just landed a job at The New Yorker as an editorial assistant and was scheduled to move to Brooklyn with friends in June.

In addition to acting, writing plays and serving as President of the Yale College Democrats, Keegan was a member of OccupyYale who sparked debate on campus with a feature story in Yale’s WEEKEND Magazine called “Even artichokes have doubts,” which discussed the high percentage of Yale graduates who enter the consulting and finance industry. National Public Radio highlighted the story in a February episode of the program “All Things Considered.”

During Memorial Day weekend, Keegan had planned to workshop her folk musical “Independents,” which was slated to appear in the New York International Fringe Festival in August.

“[Marina] was just one of those amazing, wise souls that was given to us as a gift. She had an unbelievable, beyond-her-years way of looking at the world, and her passion was to try and use her words to explore the human condition,” Keegan’s mother told the New York Daily News. “[The musical] is one of her legacies that she will leave behind.”

In her last piece as a staff writer for the Yale Daily News, an editorial called “The Opposite of Loneliness” published Sunday following her death, Keegan wrote about her hopes and anxieties as she looked toward the future.

“What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time,” Keegan wrote. “The notion that it’s too late to do anything is comical. It’s hilarious. We’re graduating college. We’re so young. We can’t, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it’s all we have.”

Source: Huffington Post

This is yet another reminder of the horrific randomness and indiscrimination of death. By all accounts, this girl did not deserve to die. Nor should she have: she was wearing her seatbelt, and the car was not going particularly fast. Many people have survived far worse. That could just as easily have been me in her place. There’s just no telling how death will work its arbitrary ways.

Think about what this young woman could’ve given this world. She had talent, intelligent, and ambition. She was already a leader among her generation. And now she’s gone forever due to the most unexpected scenario (though we’ve yet to know what really caused the crash).

I feel especially bad for her boyfriend, who will wake up to hear the most horrific news imaginable. He’ll no doubt blame himself, too, given that he was the driver. Losing someone like that is hard enough, but feeling some level of responsibility for it is even worse. It’s an awful feeling, and I had a close-call like that myself (sparing the details, at one point I thought my girlfriend had died in a car accident; the horror remains indescribable).

The world is such a cruel place. Even if you remove all our capacity for evil and foolishness, there are still terrible occurrences like this going on all the time (an earthquake recently struck Italy for example). As long as we have the intellectual capacity to be self-aware of our mortality, we’ll always suffer for some reason or another. Even a “natural” death is no less painful to loved ones. Distress is an inseparable component of life. All the good in the world is just a band-aid.

 
11 months ago - 2

It’s not my victory. It’s yours and yours and yours. If a gay can win, it means there is hope that the system can work for all minorities if we fight. We’ve given them hope.

Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the United States, and one of the most popular politicians of his time. Today is his birthday. He was an integral part of the LGBT movement, but also a great man and politician in general. Milk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009, the highest civilian honor.

12 months ago - 3

Rest in peace Adam “MCA” Yauch, a brilliant musician, progressive activist, and humanitarian. Not only was he talented - and thankfully, he left quite a legacy before passing away - but he was an all-around good human being. As Alternet notes: 

Adam “MCA” Yauch, founding member of pioneering rap trio the Beastie Boys, passed away Friday after battling throat cancer. The Brooklyn-born rapper and producer was 47. The Beastie Boys were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year, but Yauch accepted his award in absentia, owing to his illness. The other members, Mike D and Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz, accepted his award for him. The Beasties have released an obituary for MCA at their website, writing that he’s survived by his wife, activist Dechen Wangdu, his daughter, and his parents. 

Yauch was a practicing Buddhist, and was largely responsible for the plight of Tibet becoming part of American pop culture in the 1990s. In 1996, along with the other Beastie Boys, Yauch organized the Tibetan Freedom Concerts, which ran until 2003; over that time, Yauch helped raise over $2 million for the cause of Tibetan independence, and sparked the international organization Students for a Free Tibet. Additionally, via the Beastie Boys’ website:

In the wake of September 11, 2001, Milarepa organized New Yorkers Against Violence, a benefit headlined by Beastie Boys at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom, with net proceeds disbursed to the New York Women’s Foundation Disaster Relief Fund and the New York Association for New Americans (NYANA) September 11th Fund for New Americans–each chosen for their efforts on behalf of 9/11 victims least likely to receive help from other sources.

The Beastie Boys emerged in 1979 as a teenage punk band running around Manhattan and raising hell, but by 1984 they had transitioned into hip-hop. Initially signed to Def Jam Records in its early, legendary stages, the Beasties have released eight full albums since then, including the groundbreaking License to Illand Paul’s Boutique. In recent years, MCA opened Oscilloscope, a recording studio, through which he not only produced albums but distributed films. He directed many of the Beasties’ videos, and in 2008 released Gunnin for that #1 Spot, a documentary about high school basketball champs.

In “Sure Shot,” one of the Beastie’s biggest songs, MCA rapped, “I wanna say a little something that’s long overdue/ This disrespect to women has got to be through/ To all the mothers and the sisters and the wives and friends/ I want to offer my love and respect to the end.” Back at ya, MCA. Rest in peace.

1 year ago - 1

Mourners carry the body of activist Nour Hatem Zahra, 23, during his funeral procession, in Damascus, Syria, on Monday. Friends and fellow activists say Zahra, who posted anti-government graffiti all around the Syrian capital, bled to death after being shot by Syrian security forces on Sunday.

Thousands of kids like him have died protesting against the Syrian regime, or merely for being in the way of their indiscriminate terror attacks meant to pacify the population. Think of the many more who die bravely facing down other monstrous autocracies around the world. Think of how many young people risk their lives for something we take for granted.

Read a bit more about this young man’s story here. No matter how brutal and dispiriting the attacks, the Syrian people continue to be as courageous and unrelenting as ever. Assad is only making things worse for himself.

1 year ago - 8
whyexistence: “I know how to control the Universe. Why would I run to get a million, tell me?” — Grigori Perelman, Russian mathematician who was awarded—and declined—the Fields Medal in 2006 for his work on the Poincaré conjecture Indeed, and he also added: “I’m not interested in money or fame, I don’t want to be on display like an animal in a zoo.” Now that’s integrity, hard-nosed or not.  

whyexistence:

“I know how to control the Universe. Why would I run to get a million, tell me?”

— Grigori Perelman, Russian mathematician who was awarded—and declined—the Fields Medal in 2006 for his work on the Poincaré conjecture

Indeed, and he also added: “I’m not interested in money or fame, I don’t want to be on display like an animal in a zoo.” Now that’s integrity, hard-nosed or not.  

(Source: poeticsofdeath, via facelessinblack)

1 year ago - 25
Chiune Sugihara was a Japanese diplomat who served as Vice-Consul for the Japanese Empire in Lithuania. During World War II, he helped several thousand Jews leave the country by issuing transit visas to Jewish refugees so that they could travel to Japan. Most of the Jews who escaped were refugees from German-occupied Poland and residents of Lithuania. Sugihara wrote travel visas that facilitated the escape of more than 6,000 Jewish refugees to Japanese territory, risking his career and his family’s lives.

Chiune Sugihara was a Japanese diplomat who served as Vice-Consul for the Japanese Empire in Lithuania. During World War II, he helped several thousand Jews leave the country by issuing transit visas to Jewish refugees so that they could travel to Japan. Most of the Jews who escaped were refugees from German-occupied Poland and residents of Lithuania. Sugihara wrote travel visas that facilitated the escape of more than 6,000 Jewish refugees to Japanese territory, risking his career and his family’s lives.

1 year ago - 3

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