please take everything you read with a grain of salt. misinformation spreads everywhere like wildfire, and i've been having major trouble wading through false journalism to get actual updates on everything. some resources i've compiled for myself and anyone who's interested:
fact sheet: israel and palestine conflict (october 2023)
live updates - intense israeli bombardments strike gaza as the war rages on
live updates - israel plans to step up attacks on the gaza strip
little light, no beds, not enough anesthesia: a view from the 'nightmare' of gaza's hospitals
what international law has to say about the israel-hamas war
a dangerous new phase in the israeli-palestinian conflict - expert commentary by the foreign policy research institute (FPRI)
the global conflict tracker (israeli-palestinian conflict)
the arab-israeli war of 1948
the 1967 arab-israeli war
the 1973 arab-israeli war
dr. ghassan abu sitta is a doctor on-site who's also been reporting about the atrocities transpiring in gaza.
also some palestinian aid orgs to donate to. if you have some money to spare/know anyone who does, please consider donating/spreading the word:
palestine children's relief fund
palestine red crescent society
medical aid for palestine
gaza emergency appeal
donate to arab.org with one click
the middle east children's alliance gaza emergency fund
help UNRWA USA reach their palestinian aid fundraiser goal
— workflow —
1. you send me a detailed description of your idea and all references;
2. i make a few sketches and send them to you for approval. after you choose & approve one final sketch, you send me full payment;
3. payment via service Hipolink — i'll explain you the nuances but there's nothing complicated, believe me!
4. i finish the art (consulting with you during the whole process, of course) and send it out in any way that is convenient for you
if you're interested or have any questions you can DM me here or on telegram! (you can also donate me if you want 🙏)
have a nice day yall!
since i'll pin this post here are some links that are important in my eyes (donation related)
artsakh / palestine / clicks
This is Amal and her family. My children are living under bombardment in the war 😭 Please consider them your children and help them 🙏🙏 Stand by my side to save and protect my children. They haven't gone to school for a year 🙏😢😢 Donate to save my children's lives 🍉 🙏🇵🇸 We live in very difficult and desperate circumstances, and what is worst of all is that the fear that haunts me increases day by day. Help me provide them with basic life needs. @gazavetters is verified, my verified number in the list is (#55)
Hello, my name is Brooke Cole and I am organizing this fundra… Brooke Cole needs your support for Support the family of little Amal to get a
This is Amal and her family. My children are living under bombardment in the war 😭 Please consider them your children and help them 🙏🙏 Stand by my side to save and protect my children. They haven't gone to school for a year 🙏😢😢 Donate to save my children's lives 🍉 🙏🇵🇸 We live in very difficult and desperate circumstances, and what is worst of all is that the fear that haunts me increases day by day. Help me provide them with basic life needs. @gazavetters is verified, my verified number in the list is (#55)
Hello, my name is Brooke Cole and I am organizing this fundraiser o… Brooke Cole needs your support for Support Amal's Family in War-Torn Ga
Hi 👋, My name is Mohammad, and I’m reaching out in a moment of desperate need. I’m a father of three young children living in Gaza, and we are caught in the midst of a catastrophic war. Our home is no longer a safe haven, and the future here seems increasingly uncertain. 💔
I’ve launched a fundraising campaign with the goal of raising $60,000 to relocate my family to a safer place where my children can grow up in peace and have a chance at a brighter future.
Unfortunately, my previous fundraising efforts were abruptly halted when my account was terminated without explanation. However, I remain determined to keep fighting for my family’s safety and well-being. 🫶
If you could take a moment to read our story, consider donating, or simply share our campaign with others, it would make an incredible difference. Every act of kindness, no matter how small, brings us one step closer to safety and a new beginning. 🙏
Thank you for your time, compassion, and support. ❤️🩹
https://gofund.me/fd1faea2 🔗
My name is Mohammad Salem Abu Swierh, a husband and father of… Mohammed Abu Swierh needs your support for Help Mohammed's Family From Gaza R
Oday and his family, including his 7 year old sister, witnessed the unspeakable. His sister's husband's family was bombed in their tent, and they witnessed the bodies torn apart when they went to rescue possible survivors. The shock overtook him completely. I don't think any one of us could survive such a sight, finding our family members torn to pieces by the world's apathy and complicity.
Oday and his family deserve better. Please do not hesitate to donate.
We raised funds for Oday and his family who have been displaced severa… adiy alanqer needs your support for Help Oday And Family Evacuate Ga
So I have a headcannon that Crutchie's birthday is 6th of September (today) so I wanna post about him. I associate him with the beginning of autumn in general.
I also have a headcannon that in summer he tans easily and his freckles are more visible, so people who didn't notice them before are always surprised about that.
So here's a sketch of how I imagine Crutchie looks in summer :]]
(And also to be honest I forgot to draw his crutch because I was too focused on his face so let's imagine he's sitting okay)
“If I’ve done my job right, it makes a statement that’s bigger than the newsies,” [Fierstein] said. “It’s about a bunch of kids changing the world, about handing over the world to a new generation.”
[source]
i find this quote fascinating because fierstein seems to imply that the 92 film didn’t “[make] a statement that's bigger than the newsies,” which is why he changed the framing of the strike from being about the rich vs the poor to the young vs the old. from a class struggle to a generational divide. and i really want to take this opportunity to think through newsies through a politically nihilist lens, keeping in mind that a) i don't think the film is a perfect political text either, nor do i believe such a thing is possible, and b) this is a springboard of sorts to critique a broader pattern of how leftist movements and history are represented and talked about.
katherine often unfairly catches a lot of flak when this thematic overhaul is critiqued, but the issue doesn’t lie in katherine’s inclusion. it’s more about how she was written to say things like “their mistake is they got old,” in conjunction with how the writers cut out every adult ally who wasn’t medda and roosevelt (and slotted in hannah to replace seitz as the sole advisor who pushes back against the price hike). denton was cut, of course. and sure, the trolley workers still serve as inspiration for the newsie strike, but we don’t actually see them like we did in 92. mayer, who is similarly used as a reason to strike (“if your father had a union, you wouldn’t be out here sellin’ papes right now”) but isn’t shown. the mention of his overwhelming support for the strike was also cut.
it’s even in the little things. compare and contrast the small moment in which, after denton bails the newsies out, a waiter tries to refuse when denton gives him money to cover their food expenses, to how on broadway, jacobi still charges two cents for seltzer, then shoos the newsies away to make room for paying customers.
(also i would be remiss if i didn’t at least briefly talk about how sarah was cut entirely, not even a passing mention reserved for her. and while her potential was never fully realized in 92, the fact that sarah, a child laborer who worked in the garment industry, helped produce and distribute the newsies banner feels significant to me in further marking the transition from a purely newsie strike to a more generalized children’s strike.)
additionally, more dialogue and lyrics that criticize adults were written in. and to be fair, there’s a trace of this in 92, as they sing, “and the torch is passed,” as well as “and the old will fall / and the young stand tall” in twwk (i believe these are the only instances of this). but on broadway, it is wayyy more recurring and explicit. i’m not going to list them all out because the only instance i actually want to talk about in depth is this —
ROOSEVELT: (recognizing this historical moment) Each generation must, at the height of its power, step aside and invite the young to share the day. You have laid claim to our world and I believe the future, in your hands, will be bright and prosperous.
— which is a deeply revealing line, one that shows the progressivist heart of the broadway production. and by progressivism, i mean the myth that history is a linear story of progress, and no matter what, we are always marching towards a brighter future. as bædan argues, politics revolve around futurity, which revolves around the image of the Child — think of how often children are evoked in politics as an unassuming, blank slate that deserve unique protection from evil. in left wing spaces, this is often expressed in the desire to improve the world for future generations; “the future is kid stuff,” as lee edelman claims.
but the Child, futurity, and progressivism are all problematic — it's a kind of cruel optimism. these ideas ask people to be content with horrifying conditions today, and with bitterly disappointing reformism, because progress is slow while simultaneously being certain. and yet the future, and the utopia it promises, is always hovering on the horizon… but never within reach. all of this points to a general “[misrecognition of] promise as an achievement.”
i would also argue that anything that uncritically valorizes youth movements, or the Youth more generally, plays into this. and don’t get me wrong, youth liberation is a real thing, and the age of the newsies and katherine does play a role in how they’re perceived (“i'm young, i ain't stupid”). but resistance is always delegitimized, most often by discounting them as violent, illegal, or outside agitators... and flatly rendering the conflict of newsies into a matter of age obfuscates precisely what they are struggling against — complex power structures that privilege the upper class and men. as mayer and the trolley workers show, it doesn’t really matter if they’re kids or adults, the newsies would still be crushed under the heel of the boss because they’re workers, doubly so because they’re poor.
and being young, just like the future, doesn’t guarantee anything, least of all a kind of politic. young people aren’t exempt from engaging in and replicating harmful dynamics. many are privileged in some way — because of their whiteness, class, gender, etc — or they’re desperate to attain privilege. and as a result, they have a vested interest in the uninterrupted existence of varying systems of domination, rather than its abolition. take the delanceys, who are around jack’s age, and yet they’re actively involved in breaking the strike. their age doesn’t automatically guarantee their allyship; as hired muscle, or “rent a cops,” they act in favor of protecting capital and the state, as all cops do.
too often movements populated by young faces are turned into feel good spectacles of how “the kids are alright,” that these so called revolutionaries are going to be the leaders of tomorrow, and how the future therefore looks “bright and prosperous,” to borrow roosevelt’s words. but implicit in this messaging is not only the continuance of the current social order, which is fucked and rotten to the core and needs to be destroyed, but the Youth assimilating and integrating into these systems.
take a look at how the skills jack used to rebel (his charisma and art) were met with repression at first but praised and rewarded at the end.
PULITZER: (to JACK) I can’t help thinking… if one of your drawings convinced the governor to close The Refuge, what might a daily political cartoon do to expose the dealings in our own government back rooms?
it’s worth noting the framing of this job offer — jack is not only being given a chance to climb the professional ladder, but he's specifically being hired to use his artistic skills for what essentially amounts to activism. and i use the term activism critically; it packages resistance, something anyone can do, into a specialized/professionalized role, a class of people separate from ordinary people. this makes it similar to a job, or, in jack's case, an actual salaried position. and as “give up activism” points out, all of this renders activism an “accepted form of dissent.”
additionally, jack using the world as an outlet for his discontent with the current state of affairs automatically defangs him. after all, how much social change can jack really push for in the inherently exploitative context of a worker-boss relationship? how effective can jack really be when his ideas are mediated to the public via a company like the world, which ordered a news blackout of the strike and used its wealth and power to violently crackdown on the newsies? that concerns itself with whether or not its papers are marketable to the masses and therefore profitable? anything jack publishes will have to go through a process of approval, filtered through a boss who derisively calls roosevelt a socialist, then a communist. this means jack can continue to publish his drawings, continue his activism, so long as he’s not threatening the interests of the world. what a huge constraint!
more broadly speaking, integration and assimilation can be seen in the recurring idea of power being transferred throughout newsies — from “just look around at the world we’re inheriting / and think of the one we’ll create,” to “you’re getting too old, too weak to keep holding on / a new world is gunning for you, and joe, we is too.” and finally, roosevelt claiming that the future “in your hands,” as in, under your leadership, is bright. but i take issue with the very notion of power, of leadership itself. as katherine quotes, “power tends to corrupt,” and while she proposes that corruption can be avoided so long as “[we] stay young forever,” having youthful, friendly faces in positions of power is meaningless when the very systems that facilitated any abuse of power are allowed to persist.
i want to close this out with an excerpt from serafinski's blessed is the flame:
The “progress of society” might be better described as the “evolution of systems of power,” and as Bædan reminds us: “any progressive development can only mean a more sophisticated system of misery and exploitation.”
think of the differences and similarities between the 1899 that newsies portrays and where we stand now. how history has been an unceasing transfer of power between generations, by virtue of the previous one dying out. and yet misogyny still prevails in the workforce and in everyday life, workers remain exploited, police continue to be employed against any social unrest, and the prison industrial complex has only expanded. have we really improved?
Marcelat Sakobi of Democratic Republic of Congo, at the end of the women’s round of 32 boxing match against Uzbekistan's Sitora Turdibekova, made a strong gesture to raise awareness of the ongoing genocide in the DR Congo by placing her hand in front of her mouth and pointing two fingers at her temple.
Resources for Congo:
Friends of Congo
Panzi Foundation
War Child
CammeDRCongo
Genocide Watch
A guide to the decades-long conflict in DR Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo: Industrial mining of cobalt and copper for rechargeable batteries is leading to grievous human rights abuses.
An explanation thread from 2019.
Books on Congo.
Feel free to let me know of other resources to add.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
David doesn't know that he has a crush on Bumlets, and proceeds to deal with it in the most roundabout way possible- via an itemised list. Bumlets is just here for the ride.
Am I really a part of the newsies fandom if I haven’t let at least one rarepair ruin my life???
