“I’m from Basra. In the seventies we were the economic capital of Iraq. It was beautiful once. The only city with two rivers. We had one million people but ten million palm trees. In those days everyone was optimistic. Our oil reserves were better than the Saudis. We assumed the oil would be invested, and that our lives would keep getting better. But our leaders failed us. It was war after war. Without all the fighting, things could have really been great. But the palm trees are gone now. There’s no potable water. We have a shortage of electricity. Healthcare is very poor, and cancer is everywhere because the Americans used radioactive bombs. Our whole land is contaminated. The food that comes from the soil is poison. But please visit, you’ll be welcome. The people are friendly. You’ll be met with hospitality. We understand that governments are the warmongers. You’re victims just like us.” (Cairo, Egypt)
“US forces fired depleted uranium (DU) weapons at civilian areas and troops in Iraq in breach of official advice meant to prevent unnecessary suffering in conflicts, a report has found.
Coordinates revealing where US jets and tanks fired nearly 10,000 DU rounds in Iraq during the war in 2003 have been obtained by the Dutch peace group Pax. This is the first time that any US DU firing coordinates have been released, despite previous requests by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Iraqi government.
According to PAX’s report, which is due to be published this week, the data shows that many of the DU rounds were fired in or near populated areas of Iraq, including As Samawah, Nasiriyah and Basrah. At least 1,500 rounds were also aimed at troops, the group says.
This conflicts with legal advice from the US Air Force in 1975 suggesting that DU weapons should only be used against hard targets like tanks and armoured vehicles, the report says. This advice, designed to comply with international law by minimising deaths and injuries to urban populations and troops, was largely ignored by US forces, it argues.”
[Hans] Von Sponeck [’former UN assistant secretary general and UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq’] said that US political pressure on WHO had scuppered previous investigations into the impact of DU on Iraq:
“I served in Baghdad and was confronted with the reality of the environmental impact of DU. In 2001, I saw in Geneva how a WHO mission to conduct on-spot assessments in Basra and southern Iraq, where depleted uranium had led to devastating environmental health problems, was aborted under US political pressure.”
I think the best piece of character design advice I ever received was actually from a band leadership camp I attended in june of 2017.
the speaker there gave lots of advice for leaders—obviously, it was a leadership camp—but his saying about personality flaws struck me as useful for writers too.
he said to us all “your curses are your blessings and your blessings are your curses” and went on to explain how because he was such a great speaker, it made him a terrible listener. he could give speeches for hours on end and inspire thousands of people, but as soon as someone wanted to talk to him one on one or vent to him, he struggled with it.
he had us write down our greatest weakness and relate it to our biggest strength (mine being that I am far too emotional, but I’m gentle with others because I can understand their emotions), and the whole time people are sharing theirs, my mind was running wild with all my characters and their flaws.
previously, I had added flaws as an after thought, as in “this character seems too perfect. how can I make them not-like-that?” but that’s not how people or personalities work. for every human alive, their flaws and their strengths are directly related to each other. you can’t have one without the other.
is your character strong-willed? that can easily turn into stubbornness. is your character compassionate? maybe they give too many chances. are they loyal? then they’ll destroy the world for the people they love.
it works the other way around too: maybe your villain only hates the protagonist’s people because they love their own and just have a twisted sense of how to protect them. maybe your antagonist is arrogant, but they’ll be confident in everything they do.
tl;dr “your curses are your blessings, and your blessings are your curses” there is no such thing as a character flaw, just a strength that has been stretched too far.
This is such a fabulous flip side of what I’ve always known about villians. That their biggest weakness is that they always assume their own motivations are the motives of others.
50 years ago this week, from the August 9, 1968 feature: “ASTRONAUTS ARE CUSTOM FITTED FOR THE MOON—THE $100,000 SUIT.” According to LIFE, “The (astronaut) suit costs $100,000 and the taxpayer is going to have to pay for dozens of them. But considering the work and material that goes into it and the unearthly wear and tear it is going to get, it may well be an off-the-gantry bargain for the astronaut who wears it when he goes to the moon.” This image ran with the following caption: “Gloves are made from plaster casts of astronaut’s hands and each bears an astronaut’s name.” (Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images) #thisweekinLIFE #astronauts #1968
peachtea’s Art Sales! I’m doing a lot more art lately and I figured I’d open the art shop back up!
RULES and NOTICES ——————————- I will not accept NSFW commissions. I will not accept commissions of characters or creatures that are blatantly over-detailed or “cluttered”, though my threshold for this is very high. I will not accept commissions that are offensive or insulting to other races, genders, sexualities, ideologies, etc. I do put my watermark on all of my pieces, a very minimalistic “pT” for peachtea, it is typically out of the way of the piece, but obviously, I do put it in places that are inconvenient to be cropped out to prevent theft. I also have a personal policy of trying to deliver pieces within a week of commission!
OTHER INFORMATION ——————————— If I am proud of a piece, I may post it to tumblr, instagram, or deviantart, so feel free to state whether or not you would be comfortable with this! I also encourage sending as many reference images as possible for your piece so that I can be as dynamic as possible. Thank you for your business!
screaming into the void since '89 