Sunday Serendipity

thanks, jack.

ms petri’s Opinion | Bird species are being renamed to drop racist links. Here are my suggestions! – Washington Post was a bit of silly fun yesterday.  here’s the intro with an excerpt of her take on cardinals (not that univ of louisville mascot kind btw)

Birds. They’re getting renamed, and I say, wonderful! Finally, bird names for birds! As long as we are renaming dozens of birds to make them more readily identifiable and ensure no one has to give shout-outs to enslavers or the man responsible for the Trail of Tears when, say, trying to point out an oriole, I have some thoughts to share! Should you listen to me about bird naming? Absolutely not. “I only know two tunes,” Ulysses S. Grant reportedly said. “One of them is ‘Yankee Doodle,’ and the other isn’t.” That is how I am about birds. If you’re not a pigeon, duck, sparrow or Canada goose, I don’t know what you are. But that has not stopped me from forming opinions. Here, in no particular order, are all my thoughts about bird names and suggestions for improving them:
[…]
Pyrrhuloxia: This is an actual name for a bird, a type of cardinal. To that, I say, “No, it isn’t.” This sequence of letters is what happens when your cat jumps onto the keyboard. This is not the kind of thing anyone should be expected to say out loud, least of all when pointing out a bird. By the time you have successfully pronounced this word, that bird is gone. This could be a prescription drug with an annoying commercial, but what it isn’t is a bird.

with all the news coverage of israeli hostages by hamas, here’s a story from today’s Wapo that also needs attention: Russia held these Ukrainian teens captive. Now they could testify against Putin. – The Washington Post The Russian missing child poster went up in Crimea soon after Rostyslav Lavrov escaped last month. “HELP FIND,” it read. “17 years old, born 2006 … Height 160 cm, thin build, dark hair, blue eyes.” “Anyone who knows anything about the whereabouts of the teenager is asked to report this.” The attached photo — which Lavrov said was taken several months ago when Russian authorities holding him against his will tried to issue him a Russian ID card — showed the Ukrainian teen sullen in a white shirt and tie. He is one of three Ukrainian teenagers who fled Russia or Russian-occupied Crimea this summer and shared their experiences with The Washington Post in lengthy interviews in Kyiv and Kherson. They each described systematic efforts by Russian officials to keep them in Russian-controlled territory. Ukraine says there are thousands of Ukrainian children like Lavrov who were forced to move to Russia or Russian-occupied territory, including Crimea, since Russia’s February 2022 invasion. What makes Lavrov exceptional is that he got out, carrying with him memories of his experience that could one day be used in court to prove Russia committed war crimes by relocating children. On March 17, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, which accused them of war crimes for unlawfully deporting and transferring Ukrainian children. Lvova-Belova herself adopted a Ukrainian teen from the occupied city of Mariupol. The Kremlin has denounced the warrants and said they have no legal validity in Russia. Some of the Ukrainian children in Russia are too young to know their own names or citizenship. Others may be too scared to speak up. Some have already been adopted into Russian families — including by Russian government officials — or issued Russian identity documents. But accounts from teenagers, who are capable of describing their forced removal and detention by Russian authorities,… Read more »

bink, loved the joe pass piece.  bet he could play a mean lute.  speaking of lutes and other things musically medieval

I am very delighted to introduce to you my second medieval music video. Saltarello is a medieval Italian dance from XIV century. This music and video is purely filmed and edited by miself. Here I play bouzouki , recorder, whistle, jeews harp, djembe, harp, vielle, viola da gamba, hummelchen bagpipe, dudelsack bagpipe, rauschpfeife, tambourin, and self made staff with bells. Clothes I am wearing is an early medieval viking/Rus clothes, and also I am using a rucksack made of birch bark (in Russia it is called Пестерь). I hope you enjoy my video and music. If you like it , please subscribe to my channel and leave a comment. You can also follow me on VK https://vk.com/EgoriyVeshniy

sturge, yeah but ole il duce’s eagle has only one head. puti’s has two heads. then there are those with 3 …. next thing you know those eagles will look like medusa.  loser guy’s symbol = chicken running around headless. 

wiki:

The double-headed eagle is an iconographic symbol originating in the Bronze Age. A heraldic charge, it is used with the concept of an empire. Most modern uses of the emblem are directly or indirectly associated with its use by the late Byzantine Empire, originally a dynastic emblem of the Palaiologoi. It was adopted during the Late Medieval to Early Modern period in the Holy Roman Empire, Albania and in Orthodox principalities (Serbia and Russia), representing an augmentation of the (single-headed) eagle or Aquila associated with the Roman Empire. In a few places, among them the Holy Roman Empire and Russia, the motif was further augmented to create the less prominent triple-headed eagle.

Qatari PM says efforts to free Ukrainian children in Russia ‘ongoing’ | The Hill

Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani said in an interview on Sunday that the effort to free Ukrainian children from Russia is “ongoing” and that they hope more children will be released before the holidays.
“Qatar has been mediating in different conflicts that not only exclusive to the region. But even beyond that. And this is something that’s been in the foundation of the country foreign policy. And it’s a core element that we are focusing on,” he said.
“These efforts are, has been ongoing and still continuing. And we are hoping also for another group to come back to their families before the holidays, hopefully,” Al Thani added.
Qatar has played a critical role in securing the release of Israeli and foreign hostages from Gaza in recent days and Biden has praised Qatari leaders for their partnership in the process.
Hamas, a US-designated terrorist organization, used similar tactics in its attack against Israel as Russia, which has been publicly denounced for abducting Ukrainian children from their families as it wages war against the democratic country.
Qatar helped secure the return of Ukrainian children recently and the prime minister said he is in constant communication with Ukrainians and Russians to secure more results.
“We see that this is a contribution of such a small country to international peace and security. We carried out this role based on the request at the beginning, from the Ukrainian in our constant exchange and communication with them, how we are able to help and we use the channels of communication and the relationship that we have with Russia to secure those four kids,” the prime minister said.  

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