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Life as a Jailhouse Lawyer
"What defines us are our greatest highs and lowest lows. And in prison, there's certainly lots of both."
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The Hour

mitalpatelphoto posted a photo:

The hour approaches ~ Westminster Abbey, and the Tower of Big Ben. Take me back to London!

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science

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Jovial NASA says Juno flyby a success

Downloads will take days

It was a hats-in-the-air weekend at NASA, with the agency announcing its Juno probe's first close-up Jupiter fly-by was a success.…

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Bacteria in smokeless tobacco products may be a health concern
Several species of bacteria found in smokeless tobacco products have been associated with opportunistic infections, according to a new paper. An estimated 8 million people use smokeless tobacco products in the US. But there has been little data on the microbial populations that exist within these products.
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Personality; Not Just For People Anymore - Part I

Elephant-watching, Kenya, 2013. Credit: Carl Safina

We are watching "elephants," true enough. But I realize, embarrassed, that I know nothing of how these beings live, of who they are. I scarcely know what it means to be "watching elephants."
Cynthia Moss knows, because she's been here, watching, for forty years--more time than any other human has ever watched elephants. "When you look any animals around here--lions, zebras, elephants," Cynthia offers, "you're seeing just two flat dimensions. But once you know them individually--their personalities, who their mother was, who their kids are--you see added dimensions."

One elephant in a family, she explains, might seem regal, dignified. Another will seem shy, perhaps gentle. Another a bully who will be pushy to get food in sparse times. Another as "flamboyantly playful."

I watch the elephants. Their rumbles roll through the air like approaching thunder, rallying families and friends from the hills and rivers, sending among themselves greetings and recognitions and news of where they have been.

"The realization of how complex they are took me about twenty years," Cynthia continues. "While we were following Echo's family--she was about forty-five years old at the time--I saw that Enid was incredibly loyal to her, Eliot was the playful one, Eudora was flaky, Edwina was unpopular, and so on. And slowly I realized that I'd begun knowing what would happen next. I was taking my cues from Echo herself. I was understanding her leadership--as her family was understanding it! It made me realize how totally super aware they are of what we're doing."

Super aware? They seem oblivious to our presence.

Does this baby elephant notice us? Credit: Carl Safina

"Elephants don't seem aware of details," Cynthia explains, "until something familiar changes."
One day a cameraman decided that he'd position himself underneath the vehicle for a different angle. The oncoming elephants, who usually just passed that familiar research vehicle, immediately stopped and stared. Why was a human under the car? A male named Mr. Nick snaked his sniffing trunk under there to investigate. He was not aggressive, just curious. Another day, when the vehicle appeared with a special door for filming, elephants touched the new door with their trunks.

In the late 1960s, a few years before Cynthia Moss arrived in Kenya, another pioneer, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, first realized that the basic unit of elephant society is a family composed of an older female, her sisters, their adult daughters, and all their children. The family is the foundation for shared infant care and child rearing. Usually the oldest, the "matriarch," decides where the family will go, and when. She's the family's main holder of living history and knowledge. And her personality--whether calm, nervous, indecisive, or bold--sets the whole family's tone.

Forty years later, Iain recalled the extraordinary impression this made on him--at a time when everyone had assumed that males led everything in the world. "When I first realized that elephants were organized by families headed by a matriarch," Iain told me, "I saw in them an undaunted female intelligence."

Elephant family. Credit: Carl Safina

In droughts when food gets scarce, a family's size can affect its dominance, thus access to food and water and how well its members survive. Again personality matters. The matriarch Slit Ear was so aggressive toward other families on behalf of her own that Cynthia Moss remembers her as, "a real bitch. But--spirited!"

We usually see "elephants"--or "wolves" or "killer whales" or "chimps" or "ravens" and so on--as interchangeable representatives of their kind. But the instant we focus on individuals, we see an elephant named Echo with exceptional leadership qualities; we see wolf 755 struggling to survive the death of his mate and exile from his family; we see a lost and lonely killer whale named Luna who is humorous and stunningly gentle. We see individuality. It's a fact of life. And it runs deep. Very deep.

Individuality is the frontier of understanding non-human animals. But for decades, the idea was forbidden territory. Scientists who stepped out of bounds faced withering scorn from colleagues. Jane Goodall experienced just that. After her first studies of chimpanzees, she enrolled as a doctoral student at Cambridge. There, as she later recalled in National Geographic, "It was a bit shocking to be told I'd done everything wrong. Everything. I shouldn't have given them names. I couldn't talk about their personalities, their minds or their feelings." The orthodoxy was: those qualities are unique to humans.

But these decades later we are realizing that Goodall was right; humans are not unique in having personalities, minds and feelings. And if she'd given the chimpanzees numbers instead of names?--their individual personalities would still have shined.

"If ever there was a perfect wolf," says Yellowstone biologist Rick McIntyre, "It was Twenty-one. He was like a fictional character. But real." Like Cynthia Moss watching elephants, McIntyre has watched free-living wolves for more hours than anyone, ever.

Rick McIntyre. Credit: Carl Safina

Even from a distance Twenty-one's big-shouldered profile was recognizable. Utterly fearless in defense of his family, Twenty-one had the size, strength, and agility to win against overwhelming odds. "On two occasions, I saw Twenty-one take on six attacking wolves--and rout them all," Rick says. "Watching him felt like seeing something that looked supernatural. Like watching a Bruce Lee movie. I'd be thinking, 'A wolf can't do what I am watching this wolf do.'" Watching Twenty-one, Rick elaborates, "was like watching Muhammad Ali or Michael Jordan--a one-of-a-kind talent outside of 'normal.'"

Twenty-one was a superwolf. Uniquely, he never lost a fight and he never killed any defeated opponent. And yet Twenty-one was "remarkably gentle" with the members of his pack. Immediately after making a kill he would often walk away and nap, allowing family members who'd had nothing to do with the hunt eat their fill.

One of Twenty-one's favorite things was to wrestle little pups. "And what he really loved to do," Rick adds, "was pretend to lose. He just got a huge kick out of it." Here was this great big male wolf. And he'd let some little wolf jump on him and bite his fur. "He'd just fall on his back with his paws in the air," Rick half-mimes. "And the triumphant-looking little one would be standing over him with his tail wagging.

"The ability to pretend," Rick adds, "shows that you understand how your actions are perceived by others. I'm sure the pups knew what was going on, but it was a way for them to learn how it feels to conquer something much bigger than you. And that kind of confidence is what wolves need every day of their hunting lives."

In Twenty-one's life, there was a particular male, a sort of roving Casanova, a continual annoyance. He was strikingly good-looking, had a big personality, and was always doing something interesting. "The best single word is 'charisma,'" says Rick. "Female wolves were happy to mate with him. People absolutely loved him. Women would take one look at him--they didn't want you to say anything bad about him. His irresponsibility and infidelity; it didn't matter."

A wolf with charisma. Credit: Carl Safina

One day, Twenty-one discovered this Casanova among his daughters. Twenty-one ran in, caught him, biting and pinning him to the ground. Other pack members piled in, beating Casanova up. "Casanova was also big," Rick says, "but he was a bad fighter." Now he was totally overwhelmed; the pack was finally killing him.

"Suddenly Twenty-one steps back. Everything stops. The pack members are looking at Twenty-one as if saying, 'Why has Dad stopped?'" The Casanova wolf jumped up and--as always--ran away.

After Twenty-one's death, Casanova briefly became the Druid pack's alpha male. But, Rick recalled: "He doesn't know what to do, just not a leader personality." And although it's very rare, his year-younger brother deposed him. "His brother had a much more natural alpha personality." Casanova didn't mind; it meant he was free to wander and meet other females. Eventually Casanova and several young Druid males met some females and they all formed the Blacktail pack. "With them," Rick remembers, "he finally became the model of a responsible alpha male and a great father."

Similar to elephants, the personality of a wolf 'matriarch' also helps shape the whole pack. Wolf Seven was the dominant female in her pack. But you could watch Seven for days and say, 'I think she's in charge,' because she led subtly, by example. Wolf Forty, totally different; she led with an iron fist. Exceptionally aggressive, Forty had done something unheard of: actually deposed her own mother.

For three years, Forty ruled the Druid pack tyrannically. A pack member who stared a moment too long would find herself slammed to the ground, Forty's bared canines poised above her neck. Yellowstone research director Doug Smith recalls, "Throughout her life she was fiercely committed to always having the upper hand, far more so than any other wolf we've observed."
Forty heaped her worst abuse on her same-age sister. Because this sister lived under Forty's brutal oppression, she earned the name Cinderella.

One year Cinderella split from the main pack and dug a den to give birth. Shortly after she finished the den, her sister arrived and delivered one of her infamous beatings. Cinderella just took it, as always. No one ever saw any pups at that den.

The next year, Cinderella, Forty, and a low-ranking sister all gave birth in dens dug several miles apart. New wolf mothers nurse and guard constantly; they rely on pack members for food. That year, few pack members visited the bad-tempered alpha. Cinderella, though, found herself well assisted at her den by several sisters.

Six weeks after giving birth, Cinderella and several attending pack members headed out, away from her den--and stumbled into the queen herself. Forty immediately attacked Cinderella with was, even for her, exceptional ferocity. She then turned her fury onto another of her sisters who'd been accompanying Cinderella, giving her a beating too. Then as dusk settled in, Forty headed toward Cinderella's den. Only the wolves saw what happened next, but Doug Smith and Rick McIntyre pieced together what went down.

Unlike the previous year, this time Cinderella wasn't about to remain passive or let her sister reach her den and her six-week-old pups. Near the den a fight erupted. There were at least four wolves, and Forty had earned no allies among them.

Wolf fight. Credit: Carl Safina

At dawn, Forty was down by the road covered in blood, and her wounds included a neck bite so bad that her spine was visible. Her long-suffering sisters had, in effect, cut her throat. She died. It was the only time researchers have ever known a pack to kill its own alpha. Forty was an extraordinarily abusive individual. The sisters' decision, outside the box of wolf norms, was: mutiny. Remarkable.

But Cinderella was just getting started. She adopted her dead sister's entire brood. And she also welcomed her low-ranking sister and her pups. And so that was the summer that the Druid Peak pack raised an unheard-of twenty-one wolf pups together in a single den.
Out from under Forty's brutal reign, Cinderella developed into the pack's finest hunter. She later went on to become the benevolent matriarch of the Geode Creek pack. Goes to show: a wolf, as many a human, may have talents and abilities that wither or flower depending on which way their luck breaks.

"Cinderella was the finest kind of alpha female," Rick McIntyre says. "Cooperative, returning favors by sharing with the other adult females, inviting her sister to bring her pups together with her own while also raising her vanquished sister's pups--. She set a policy of acceptance and cohesion." She was, Rick says, "perfect for helping everyone get along really well."

# # #

This piece is adapted from Carl Safina's most recent book, Beyond Words; What Animals Think and Feel, which will is newly out in paperback.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Jill Stein Tweeted About Harambe, Which Is The Most 2016 Thing Possible
Non human primates should have the legal right to live freely or, when necessary, in sanctuaries only for medical rehabilitation or ecological assistance for endangered species.
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astronomy

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"Into the Unknown" --NASA's Juno Spacecraft Makes Final Approach Towards Jupiter (VIDEO)

‘This is our first opportunity to really take a close-up look at the king of our solar system,' says Scott Bolton, an investigator for the Juno probe, as the spacecraft orbited closer to the giant planet than any man-made object before it, in a record-breaking approach on Saturday by soaring around 2,600 miles above the planet at a speed of 130,000 mph. Juno is expected to capture astonishing images and important scientific data about Jupiter's composition, gravity, magnetic field, and the source of its 384 mph winds, say mission controllers at NASA.

Bolton, a principle investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio in Texas, said Juno would have its whole suite of nine instruments activated as it soars above Jupiter's swirling cloud tops. The instruments had previously been switched off so as to survive the entry into the planet's dangerous radiation belts.

"This is the first time we will be close to Jupiter since we entered orbit on 4 July. Back then we turned all our instruments off to focus on the rocket burn to get Juno into orbit around Jupiter," said Bolton. "Since then, we have checked Juno from stem to stern and back again. We still have more testing to do, but we are confident that everything is working great, so for this upcoming flyby Juno's eyes and ears, our science instruments, will all be open. This is our first opportunity to really take a close-up look at the king of our solar system and begin to figure out how he works."

NASA says they hope to release some of the first detailed pictures of Jupiter's north and south poles. It could take some days for the images to be downloaded on Earth.

The Daily Galaxy via NASA/Juno Mission and The Independent.

Destination: Jupiter! --One Year Left Till Juno Expedition's Capture Orbit

Two-Faces of Pluto --"Dark Mysteries of the Unexplored Planet"

NASA/Kepler Mission Mystery --"We Have No Idea Why Our Solar System is So Unusual"

Enormous Volcanoes Detected on Pluto that Spew Ice, Not Lava --"Nothing Like This Has Been Seen in the Deep Outer Solar System”

NASA Observes Pluto's 'Tail' --"A Complex and Fascinating World"

NASA Scientists --"Vast Ocean of Saturn's Moon Enceladus Could Be the Site of a Second Genesis"

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NASA: Earth is Vulnerable to Invisible, Microscopic Black Holes --"Universe is Filled with Primordial Black Holes Speeding Through Space Like Bullets"

Earlier this year, NASA scientists predicted that it's possible that the universe is filled with microscopic black holes that formed before our universe's existed. The NASA study reported that these black holes could speed through space like cosmic bullets every 1,000 years. Astrophysicists are proposing that our Universe is surrounded by infinite number of black holes that have formed 13.8 billion years ago.

"Asteroid-mass black holes, if they were all of the dark matter, might pass through the Earth once a millennium or so, but would be very, very hard to detect," Alexander Kashlinsky, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, told Business Insider. "We certainly would notice if one passed near the Earth, since it would affect the orbits of all of our satellites. Kashlinsky says the heaviest of them would weigh less than the Moon, yet would be shrunken down to about 0.25 millimeters in diameter, or about the width of a human hair.

Kashlinsky and the NASA team propose the intriguing view that dark matter is made of black holes formed during the first second of our universe's existence.

Timothy Brandt, an astrophysicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, said the very lightest, asteroid-size holes would have an apparent size of less than an atom, beyond a certain point, any matter in the Universe squeezed tightly enough will collapse beyond gravitational destruction. "Asteroid-mass black holes, if they were all of the dark matter, might pass through Earth once a millennium or so, but would be very, very hard to detect," Brandt said. "If you had somebody right there, they might be able to observe one."

According to Brandt, asteroid-sized black holes would pass Earth approximately every 1,000 years, but they would be difficult to detect because they're so small. Moon-sized black holes, on the other hand, he says would have a measurable effect on our communications: "We certainly would notice if one passed near Earth, since it would affect the orbits of all of our satellites," Brandt told Science Alert.

Luckily, this will probably never happen. These black holes would only pass between the Earth and Sun every 100 million years or so, and would statistically take longer than the age of the Universe to pass through Earth. "Though such an event is absurdly unlikely ... It would cause some havoc," Brandt said.

"On the dark matter particle side of the spectrum, the range of possibilities is narrowing down quickly," Kashlinsky explained. "If nothing is found there, and nothing is found in the black hole theater, then we may be in a crisis of science."

Meanwhile, some physicists challenge the study, saying are not entirely sure that these microscopic black holes exists. Although there have been several reports that they do, the search to prove they exist has been more difficult than what was previously expected. Those scientists, who are seeking out ancient black holes, including Kashlinsky, think they're pretty heavy (probably between 20 and 100 times the mass of the Sun).

Supermassive black holes, like one indicated by the blue dot in the NASA X-ray image of the Andromeda Galaxy at the top of the page, are the opposite of the notion of tiny primordial black holes.

The Daily Galaxy via NASA, Science Alert, scienceworldreport, Mail OnlineMail, Business Insider

Image credits: With thanks to i.imgur.com and NASA

Unique Population of Galaxies Discovered

Image of the Day: Galaxies in Collision --Preview of the Milky Way/Andromeda Destiny

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Immense Halo Discovered Enveloping the Andromeda Galaxy --1,000 Times Greater Than Anticipated

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Fishing lodges on th

Fishing lodges on the Tree River in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut, Canada (© Jason Pineau/Getty Images) 2016-08-28 [www.bing.com/search]
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n-lite: “ ミスタークール ”

n-lite: “ ミスタークール ”
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Amazing sauropod line up
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Julieta review Almodóvar's five-star return to form
Told in flashback over 30 years of guilt and grief, this tender melodrama based on three Alice Munro short stories is Pedro Almodóvar's best film in a decade

Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar's latest, his most moving and entrancing work since 2006's Volver, is a sumptuous and heartbreaking study of the viral nature of guilt, the mystery of memory and the often unendurable power of love. At times, the emotional intrigue plays more like a Hitchcock thriller than a romantic melodrama, with Alberto Iglesias's superb Herrmannesque score (the director cites Toru Takemitsu, Mahler and Alban Berg as influential) heightening the noir elements, darkening the bold splashes of red, blue and white. Three short stories from the Canadian author Alice Munro's 2004 volume Runaway provide the source material, but the spirit of Patricia Highsmith looms large as strangers on a train fuel the circling narrative (one character even observes that he is becoming a Highsmith obsessive). I was also startled to find echoes of George Sluizer's Dutch-French 1988 chiller Spoorloos in the depiction of a life defined by the disappearance of a loved one, although there is a tenderness here wholly lacking from Sluizer's altogether more unforgiving work.

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A 19th-century wartime bunker on the Dutch waterways might not sound like the most obvious holiday rental, but two years ago it was turned into exactly that. Inspired by Le Corbusier's holiday home in the south of France, architects B-ILD came up with inventive ways to make the most of the small space, from custom-made wooden furniture that could be stowed away when it's not in use to beds that fold up against the wall.

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The opening gallery is empty of objects but filled with visions. Richard Long's drawing in pale clay spreads out across the floor before you like a furrowed field or a corn maze, twisting back on itself in rectilinear patterns. The line forms a labyrinth, and you cannot help walking the line, taking a turn through this invisible harvest.

Then a storm by the sound artist Hannah Rickards reverberates through the air, sudden and violent as summer thunder. This cacophonous weather is somehow created with woodwind and brass. And high on the far wall burns a black sun or is it a dark moon? that catches the shifting light as if it were in motion in itself. This disc turns out to be nothing more than a graphite drawing, vast but humble, ideal punctuation to this abstract landscape.

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coctelo: (via One Minute Ago | Atelier Biagetti)

coctelo:

(via One Minute Ago | Atelier Biagetti)

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The September night sky

What to look out for during the month of the equinox, with a solar eclipse over Africa, followed by a lunar eclipse

The month of our autumnal equinox opens with an annular or “ring” solar eclipse on 1 September which is visible along a path that sweeps across Southern Central Africa from Gabon to Madagascar. The surrounding area, where a partial solar eclipse is seen, does not extend as far north as Europe.

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https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/aug/28/nasa-spacecraft-juno-skims-jupiters-clouds-in-record-breaking-mission
Nasa spacecraft Juno skims Jupiter's clouds in record-breaking mission

The probe soared 2,600 miles above Jupiter at 130,000mph, five years after leaving Earth to survey the giant planet

A spacecraft has skimmed the clouds of Jupiter in a record-breaking close approach to the giant planet. Juno activated its whole suite of nine instruments as it soared 2,600 miles above Jupiter's swirling cloudtops, travelling at 130,000mph, on Saturday.

Nasa tweeted that Juno had successfully completed its closest ever fly-by to the planet right on schedule. It is the first of 36 such passes that the craft is scheduled to make over the next 18 months.

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366As i sayd, I'm gonna keep going :)

366

As i sayd, I'm gonna keep going :)

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Småland

felixhelgesson posted a photo:

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Photos of the Day: August 28, 2016

Explore the news of the day with these images from around the world.
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Magical fishing at 尖顶部

Englepip posted a photo:

I was intrigued by this red headed fisherman who seemed to juggle fishing rods like an elfish character out of a Disney fairy story, while sitting in the sunset light, next to the Feng Shang Princess floating restaurant on the Regents Canal, London.

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The couple from the Woodstock album cover are still together, 46 years later!!

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skyline 2

lesley1556 posted a photo:

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lady in clouds

lesley1556 posted a photo:

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lighting up 2

lesley1556 posted a photo:

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Sunset over Worlds End

Jack McCarthy posted a photo:

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The Things You Might Be Doing That Will Force Your IT Department To Spy On You
The people who work in IT really don't want to snoop around your computer, but if you give them a reason there's little you can hide from them.
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London at Sunset

Waterford_Man posted a photo:

From Greenwich

Thanks for all the views, Please check out my other photos and albums.

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London at Sunset

Waterford_Man posted a photo:

From Greenwich

Thanks for all the views, Please check out my other photos and albums.

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Thames Dawn

MBartlettphotography posted a photo:

sunrise along the Thames

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P1490992

Richard Gladstone posted a photo:

Sunset by the Thames

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P1490981

Richard Gladstone posted a photo:

Sunset by the Thames

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Richard Gladstone posted a photo:

Admiring the View

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P1490897

Richard Gladstone posted a photo:

Hanging Around by the Thames

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Spirit Wins and Media Lies Lose at Standing Rock Protest
"We are tipis going up to see the stars. Enjoying the campfire with drums in the distance. Who can ask for more this very blessed night." ~~An Elder at the Standing Rock Main Camp, Cannon Ball ND

Smells of sweet burning sage linger in the late evening and drift over the main camp on Highway 1806 at Cannon Ball North Dakota. Junior Cuero of the San Diego Campo Reservation chants the Bird Song, a mesmerizing, meditative and repetitive song of respect and honor to the Standing Rock people. A gourd rattle accompanies this ancient chant; a message given to the people by the Creator. Creator sent a bird to teach the People how to sing and dance and treat each other with empathy and not indifference. The sun is setting, bathing the campsite in warm light as the prairie winds begin to calm, and people gather around the campfire, feet tapping in rhythm.

There are two camps. One is located within the "official" reservation boundary and the second "main camp" with the majority of the protesters is located on U.S. Army Corps of Engineer's land just north of the Cannon Ball River. The North Dakota Department of Emergency Services says it is not on tribal property, but the original treaty line was moved in 1889, so if you support broken treaties, you could call it illegal. In this case legality is in the eye of the beholder.

The Dawes Act and the Allotment Act opened the reservations throughout the United States to settlement by non-Indians. The tribe maintains jurisdiction on all reservation lands, "including rights-of-way, waterways, and streams running through the reservation." On paper, that is.

See the history of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and learn more about the broken Fort Laramie Treaty that arbitrarily moved boundaries and tried to divide the Sioux Nation.

Standing Rock lies just south of the pipeline's path under the Missouri River. How do you stop an oil spill at a boundary drawn on a map? Ask the people of Saskatchewan, who are facing 66,000 gallons of heavy crude from a broken pipeline owned by Husky Energy, Inc. It is making its way downstream and threatening the drinking water of several communities.

Despite local media accounts to the contrary, this gathering of Nations to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline are Spirit Camps of thoughtful prayer. There is no need to prolong the misinformation and outright lies perpetuated by the North Dakota Forum News Service. A governor steeped in the sticky flow of oil and money that has all but ruined portions of the North Dakota landscape feeds the news cycle with threats and lies about behavior at the encampments and issues emergency orders.

Truth about what fuels the reactions of authorities can be found in the discarded detritus of the failed oil boom. Abandoned RVs form small mountains in salvage yards, wells are shut down, man camps are ghost towns, and the promises of great wealth are only memory. The loss of oil revenue dollars provokes great fear in the offices of politicians. The Dakota Access Pipeline is really another name for the "abandoned" Keystone XL Pipeline and the goal is to wring every last drop of Bakken crude from North Dakota.

Authorities are reacting with anxiety that the pipeline will be compromised, and believe that concrete barricades along the main road to Standing Rock will stop the people from coming to protect their life source; water flowing from the mighty Missouri river.

But people continue to come, taking the long detour meant to complicate their journey to the Spirit Camp and reduce business at the Prairie Knights Casino and Hotel. But the authorities, despite the show of force at a "safety checkpoint" and rerouting of traffic on 1806 from Bismarck to Standing Rock, have failed. The hotel is almost full and the diversion along Highway 6 is spectacularly beautiful. Those who have purpose and appreciate the land and all it has to offer do not mind this "detour."

Descendants of the Massacre at Wounded Knee by the Seventh Cavalry come. Young riders, many teenagers, come on their horses--they are some of the Big Foot Riders who travel 300 miles every year to Wounded Knee to pay respect to the ancestors who were massacred by the U.S. 7th Calvary Regiment. They, along with tribes from across the continent, do not want this pipeline that would involve 200 water crossings and pass through 300 sacred sites. They come. They come by car.

They come by horse.

They come on foot.

They are still coming.

Read Winona LaDuke's excellent analysis of all that is at stake, "What Would Sitting Bull Do?"

I am not sure how badly North Dakota wants this pipeline. If there is to be a battle over the pipeline, it will be here. For a people with nothing else but a land and a river, I would not bet against them. The great Lakota leader Mathew King once said, " the only thing sadder than an Indian who is not free, is an Indian who does not remember what it is to be free."

Let's for a moment reject the profane response of North Dakota authorities and focus instead on the sacred.

So many have traveled great distances to stand in solidarity. Many Nations now united as one.

An Elder from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe talks of raising his granddaughter in the old ways. Seeing the tipis fills him with "cante waste"-- "heart felt good." M. Jay Cook is a member of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) School Board and says that sometimes raising his granddaughter "is my only motivation to live." I receive a text from him one morning and a photo that is incredibly evocative of what is at stake here. He writes of the campfires and "hearing memories of growing up in iron lightning" as the stars speak to him of days gone by. He intends to "face the storm (oil) like the Tatanka (Buffalo) Nation."

"2016-08-28-1472392353-5402601-FullSizeRender.jpg"

Photo by M. Jay Cook

Hazel Red Bird is 91 years old and a regal presence around the campfire. Many stop to greet her and share stories of growing up in Fort Yates. Red Bird is now back home at Standing Rock after living a good part of her life in Wisconsin. She is a true warrior woman, having enlisted in the Army Air Corps during World War II to train as a nurse at St. Mary's School of Nursing in Pierre, South Dakota. The Great War ended just as her training did, and she began her working life as a registered nurse in the civilian white world.

Hazel Red Bird by Georgianne Nienaber

Red Bird surveys the gathering and says she is "amazed, thankful and humbled." Then she glances down at the writer's notepad to make certain those three words are written accurately.

"I am amazed because I didn't think I would live long enough to witness this unity and resiliency among the Nations."

Red Bird is quiet for a moment as her eyes narrow and she surveys the movement of the people who have gathered around the green tent that serves as a food and information center.

"I am thankful that I have lived 91 winters and humbled that prayers have been answered."

At 91, this elegant Lakota woman still projects a warrior's stance. There is more to learn about this fascinating woman who is also a repository of the Lakota language, and you can read more here.

There are other spiritual warriors who have gathered in joyful celebration and unity. Several young women from the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe wanted to make it very clear that they "are standing for our water." Their ancestors fought and died along the northern and eastern shores of the Missouri River.

The Crow Creek Indian Reservation was established by executive order following what was known as the Minnesota Uprising, as a prison camp for the exiled Isanti Dakota and Winnebago people. These were the survivors, mostly women and children, of the largest known public execution in American History, "The Hanging of 38 Dakota Men at Mankato Minnesota." From 1863 to 1866 approximately 300 died at Fort Thompson suffering from starvation, sickness, disease, exposure, hardship, and heartache.

A federal judge will rule on the legality of the Dakota Access Pipeline on September 9. It remains to be seen whether the traumatic past will be repeated and define the present. How much can be endured; how much more can be stolen? This is a spiritual battle for generations to come. Clean water and air is a right, not an option.

The bird song says this is true.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Industrial DJ booth

marco18678 posted a photo:

For more info and stories behind my pictures follow me on facebook .... www.facebook.com/mbontenbal

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Distorted City Re-Edit

calumccampbell posted a photo:

Brightened up and so on, hopefully a bit punchier, perhaps it's overdone now...

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Sunset with The Shard

auroracesarini posted a photo:

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An Explorer's Ode to America's National Parks (20 photos)

Mark Burns spent five years visiting all 59 of the United States' national parks. Captured in stirring black and white images, his landscape photography project was completed just in time for the National Park Service's centennial celebration. “It's a time to reflect on the rich history of our national parks,” Burns said of his 160,000-mile journey, “but it's also a time to plan wisely for the next 100 years.” Glacier Bay's wild coastline, Death Valley's parched terrain, and Yellowstone's surging geysers are all pictured in searing detail. One image from each park is currently being exhibited at the Houston Museum of Natural Science until September 5th. A selection can be found below.

"Topeka Glacier," Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska (Mark Burns)

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New UN S-G Must Realize That Climate Change Threatens Our World
The task facing the next United Nations Secretary-General will not be an easy one. The world seems to be teetering on the edge of multiple, interconnected crises including conflict in Syria, tensions around Ukraine, and disputes over water and land resource issues. All of this at a time when we are seeing the biggest movement of people since World War II.

In the public debates the candidates for the next UN Secretary-General have participated in, they've shown that they can list what will be in their in-tray, but few have acknowledged the common thread running through many of these crises and challenges: the impact of a changing climate. Any analysis that fails to acknowledge this as one of the key drivers to current and future global instability is a flawed one.

The evidence of this impact is becoming increasingly apparent. Whilst very few are saying that climate change is a direct cause of conflict, it is certainly increasing the likelihood. Last month research published by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research found climate disasters increase the chance of armed conflict, particularly in ethnically-divided nations. Climate change is already contributing to social upheaval and even violent conflict by making bad situations worse. In 2015, the National Academy of Sciences linked a prolonged drought in Syria in 2011 to climate change, and suggested the drought may have contributed to the start of the conflict and subsequent migrant crisis: The 2006-2011 drought was particularly severe and led to widespread crop failures, which in turn forced people to move within Syria into cities in search of work, increasing the tension and chance of conflict in urban areas. As always, there will be alternative views and whilst other analysis suggests the link may not be so straightforward, the new additions have certainly added momentum to the debate.

Unlike her fellow candidates, Christiana Figueres -- a Costa Rican diplomat and former head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change -- not only recognises that climate change is increasingly one of the biggest threats that we face, she also understands that the security implications need to be addressed along with all the other threats to global stability and prosperity, rather than in isolation. She knows that without such an approach climate change promises to make many of our most complex crises -- from migration to conflict, food shortages to terrorism -- much harder to solve.

A Secretary-General prepared to integrate a response to the risk posed by climate change across the UN will have the best chance at delivering peace during these turbulent times. International security today is dependent on understanding the effects of climate change on people's prosperity within states and relations between states.

Figueres has demonstrated that she is a shrewd diplomat and coalition builder at the top of her game. She picked up a broken UN climate talks after the failure of the Copenhagen Summit in 2009, and proved she could help states work together to achieve the Paris Agreement, the first of its kind to commit all countries to reduce their carbon emissions and transition to economies based on renewable energy. States that once saw little to agree on have, through her skill and dedication, found common ground and agreed a deal which was previously seen as impossible.

What's more, as was often repeated at the World Humanitarian Summit in May, the scale and frequency of the crises that are hitting home have stretched the UN and the humanitarian apparatus to the breaking point. The UN needs reform. It needs to treat these crises holistically and not remain beholden to a siloed approach that gives rise to internal demarcation disputes. The UN has shown it can deliver multilateral deals -- not just on climate but also the Sustainable Development Agenda, and the Sendai Risk Reduction Framework.

The 21st century is proving extremely challenging, with many threats to our global prosperity and well-being. Under the new Secretary-General, the UN will have to adapt to meet these challenges and the candidate the members of the Security Council choose to recommend to the General Assembly must be capable of delivering; Christiana Figueres is that candidate.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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New UN S-G Must Realize That Climate Change Threatens Our World
The task facing the next United Nations Secretary-General will not be an easy one. The world seems to be teetering on the edge of multiple, interconnected crises including conflict in Syria, tensions around Ukraine, and disputes over water and land resource issues. All of this at a time when we are seeing the biggest movement of people since World War II.

In the public debates the candidates for the next UN Secretary-General have participated in, they've shown that they can list what will be in their in-tray, but few have acknowledged the common thread running through many of these crises and challenges: the impact of a changing climate. Any analysis that fails to acknowledge this as one of the key drivers to current and future global instability is a flawed one.

The evidence of this impact is becoming increasingly apparent. Whilst very few are saying that climate change is a direct cause of conflict, it is certainly increasing the likelihood. Last month research published by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research found climate disasters increase the chance of armed conflict, particularly in ethnically-divided nations. Climate change is already contributing to social upheaval and even violent conflict by making bad situations worse. In 2015, the National Academy of Sciences linked a prolonged drought in Syria in 2011 to climate change, and suggested the drought may have contributed to the start of the conflict and subsequent migrant crisis: The 2006-2011 drought was particularly severe and led to widespread crop failures, which in turn forced people to move within Syria into cities in search of work, increasing the tension and chance of conflict in urban areas. As always, there will be alternative views and whilst other analysis suggests the link may not be so straightforward, the new additions have certainly added momentum to the debate.

Unlike her fellow candidates, Christiana Figueres -- a Costa Rican diplomat and former head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change -- not only recognises that climate change is increasingly one of the biggest threats that we face, she also understands that the security implications need to be addressed along with all the other threats to global stability and prosperity, rather than in isolation. She knows that without such an approach climate change promises to make many of our most complex crises -- from migration to conflict, food shortages to terrorism -- much harder to solve.

A Secretary-General prepared to integrate a response to the risk posed by climate change across the UN will have the best chance at delivering peace during these turbulent times. International security today is dependent on understanding the effects of climate change on people's prosperity within states and relations between states.

Figueres has demonstrated that she is a shrewd diplomat and coalition builder at the top of her game. She picked up a broken UN climate talks after the failure of the Copenhagen Summit in 2009, and proved she could help states work together to achieve the Paris Agreement, the first of its kind to commit all countries to reduce their carbon emissions and transition to economies based on renewable energy. States that once saw little to agree on have, through her skill and dedication, found common ground and agreed a deal which was previously seen as impossible.

What's more, as was often repeated at the World Humanitarian Summit in May, the scale and frequency of the crises that are hitting home have stretched the UN and the humanitarian apparatus to the breaking point. The UN needs reform. It needs to treat these crises holistically and not remain beholden to a siloed approach that gives rise to internal demarcation disputes. The UN has shown it can deliver multilateral deals -- not just on climate but also the Sustainable Development Agenda, and the Sendai Risk Reduction Framework.

The 21st century is proving extremely challenging, with many threats to our global prosperity and well-being. Under the new Secretary-General, the UN will have to adapt to meet these challenges and the candidate the members of the Security Council choose to recommend to the General Assembly must be capable of delivering; Christiana Figueres is that candidate.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Iranian breakfast by Raimonda Sidaraite

Iranian breakfast by Raimonda Sidaraite

Flat bread for breakfast

Raimonda Sidaraite: Photos

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Twister Stairway

Kieran Williams Photography posted a photo:

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Kirsten by Beate Knappe

Kirsten by Beate Knappe

Kirsten, 41, married, 3 daughters. For her the second time was diagnosed with breast cancer http://fuck-you-cancer.net/kirsten/ http://beateknappe.de/

Beate Knappe: Photos

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London Eye at Dusk

James Neeley posted a photo:

View the entire - Shapes and Forms Set.
View the entire Design/Abstract Set
View the entire London Set
View my - Most Interesting according to Flickr

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Barracuda Shoal by Noemie Lang

Barracuda Shoal by Noemie Lang

Noemie Lang: Photos

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general

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Australia's Political Gambler and His Uncertain Future
Australia's Malcolm Turnbull survived a tight election, but he might not be able to get anything done.
general

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