42 years ago, on July 24, 1983, , the Black July pogrom took place in Sri Lanka, the largest anti-Tamil pogrom in the island’s history.
The island-wide violence led to the killing of 5,638 Tamils. Around 18,000 homes were burned, 5,000 shops were destroyed, and horrific atrocities were committed, including massacres, prison riots, sexual violence, assassinations, and even reports of cannibalism. Hundreds of women were raped by the Sinhalese mobs.
This atrocity was not a spontaneous outbreak of violence, but a well-orchestrated plan executed by the Sri Lankan government, with the active participation and support of sections of the Sinhalese population. Many not only took part in the violence but aided and abetted the pogrom with the clear intent of exterminating the Tamil people. The Sri Lankan government provided the mobs with transportation and voter registration forms citing the addresses of Tamil citizens.
International Commission of Jurists, a globally respected NGO, concluded that the violence during Black July “amounted to acts of genocide” under international law.
“The evidence points clearly to the conclusion that the violence of the Sinhala rioters on the Tamils amounted to acts of genocide.” — International Commission of Jurists, December 1983
To this day, no justice has been delivered to the Eelam Tamils for the atrocities they endured, atrocities that continue in various forms even now.
Had the international community acted out of genuine concern for human rights rather than geopolitical interests, it could have prevented not only the 1983 pogrom but also the subsequent Tamil genocide that unfolded over the following decades, all the way up until 2009.
A "witch" burning tradition continues through the night in a Tatlich village. Only a few more tokens are deposited before the song begins.
Burning of the 'posilma' is an annual tradition found in many western slomen groups. While not all these groups burn the same symbolic beings or do it for the same exact reasons, the tradition is recognizable to a large majority of Western populations.
In some places, simple cloth/dry plant material figures are used to represent local spirits in mythology that haunt the season with illness and misfortune to ruin the upcoming spring. Causing infertility of man, soil and animal. The beings are very similar among all these cultures since most do have the same origin, but their name and behavior may differ.
To bring them into crafted bodies and set them on fire is to weaken their power over the future months. Often, it is accompanied by songs and melodic whispers of the families. To create a wall of connection around the fire so no demon escapes its heat.
The Tatlich word for a witch (a person who's perceived as capable of doing and seeing more than a regular person) is the same as for evil spirits, so when one doesn't specify which spirits, an outsider might think people are being sacrificed to nature.
The word started being used for outliers only after witches started being recognized as separate people when new families came to power in the sea's culture, looking for patterns to weaken communities. Thus, the concept of a witch in Tatlich is not identical to the concept in Ciwa.
Additionally, Tatlich people celebrate the tradition more as helping the body and soul, a personal ordeal to make sure demons don't find their way inside the homes and flesh of family members while still helping with the future season.
The posilma burned here is made of a thick root of a winter plant, formed into a shape of monstrous slomen with evil little grins. It is made to withstand the fire, unlike one of cloth. For bigger and longer fires, they may even be covered in fire-resistant materials. And that is to be a test of the maturing generation.
Tokens are made as a preparation for the event from wood or 'eddible clay' (cookies). Slomen either make their own or get community-made ones to symbolize a deed or aspect of themselves they want to burn away for the new year. One doesn't need to visualize their token's meaning onto it, but it's thought to be more effective that way. These aren't the same as sins, that isn't a known concept here, but it's similar in that often they are things a person is ashamed of or feels guilt over. Some choices for a token may be spreading a lie, spreading a sickness, carrying a child of another, losing an important fight, or even just an emotion that doesn't go away and hinders communication.
A token can stand for a worse crime, too. Criminals who don't get punished by exile are more than encouraged to join the tradition, so they don't become the weak point, carrying their guilt into people's homes. At this time, a cord cutter must be treated the same as an honoured herder.
When all tokens have been thrown into the flames, the fire is left to go, only sometimes it's killed purposefully if it's lasting into a working day.
If the figures are lost to the fire, there is sometimes a backup at the base of the stakes. If there's non left, the tradition has a pathetic end, and some misfortune in the next weeks can be blamed on the fire masters.
If at least some of the posilma remain, select brave young men and women, most often entering adulthood or anticipating their first parenthood, take on the task of eating the cooked/burned root. With that, the weight of the tokens is lifted, and the young prove their devotion to the collective. And yes, it definitely tastes disgusting.
(Some subregions are not as keen on having women eat the posilma since they "don't need to show anything", and them getting sick is worse for the family than when a man does. While others actually think young men can't be trusted with something so important, so only maturing women are allowed to eat the root. These conflicting ideas are more recent and change quite easily with the major matriarchal vote. Important is someone eats it.)
It's a new year! Time to take on moooore projects! Maybe we'll replace the FONA family with LTE modules this year. The First thing we need to do is get a good SIM card holder. We don't have a breakout for one already, so we're just going to whip this one up so we have it ready for when we need to prototype. We can put it in the shop, too.
The federal government is essentially embracing eugenics programming.
My letter to the editor, and to elected reps who are supposed to be overseeing healthcare and science, but Republicans seem to be embracing a new Dark Ages instead.
Cancer research and vaccines are indeed woke DEI because these people in charge at the federal government are in fact eugenicists who want some people to pay with their lives for the rich to appease the invisible hand of the market god or something.
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com July 27, 2025 at 9:37 AM TAPPER: 14 Republicans say you're risking undermining critical research by holding up NIH funding VOUGHT: If they were a company, their stock price would in shambles. They in some respects caused the pandemic. You have an entire institute that does nothing more than DEI research at the NIH.
Eugenics is not just a practice but also an ideology based in pseudoscience.
My letter to reps and also a Letter to the Editor:
If cancer research and vaccines are woke DEI, then we need more woke DEI. I am glad that the NIH has been funded all these years to develop treatments and vaccines for things that used to mean so many people, especially children, died needlessly; and thousands of years where most people didn't make it past 70. It's nonsensical that the current administration is defunding and dismantling U.S. medical research infrastructure just because that Russ Vought guy seems obsessed with stock prices, and RFKJr seems to prefer magical thinking over rational evidence, and I guess the president is too preoccupied with scandal and golf to even know what they're up to. Some of my favourite people are over 70, I don't want to lose them prematurely because of foolish cuts to medical science, Medicaid and Medicare. And I don't think younger generations should be denied the life saving and life improving medical technologies we have benefited from over the past century. But it seems like elected representatives who are supposed to be overseeing such things either take the medical standards we've become accustomed to for granted, or might subscribe to embracing a new Dark Ages for whatever reason. Elected politicians like you need to do better than this.
Please feel free to repurpose for your own letters to reps.
My LTE: Published in The Times-Tribune, The Citizens Voice, and The Republican Herald.
Here’s a link from the internet archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20250803071719/https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/2025/07/28/letter-federal-health-cuts-foolish/
NEW BTE UPDATE THAT YOU GUYS NEED TO BE AWARE OF IN THE RPC
something i've come to notice as of yesterday is that the TITLE section and the PARAGRAPH section of text posts are no longer two completely separate things in BTE. this is rather problematic and i'll explain why.
UPDATE: for some odd reason, throwing this under a READ MORE triggers it to not show up on the dash. so this is a relatively long post and i do sincerely apologize for it.
as you see in the images down below there is the TITLE and then there's the PARAGRAPH section ( which is currently empty ).
now let's say i decided to add some dummy text ( via lorem ipsum ) for shits and giggles. it now looks like this.
now, you see, there's a slight problem with this and i'll explain why ...
remember when i said that the TITLE and the PARAGRAPH sections aren't two separate things anymore?? i wasn't joking. the highlighted part down below his where the TITLE goes when you're in HTML mode:
this can be problematic if you're not paying attention to your formatting and whatnot when using BTE. want to know why?? because looks hella weird and make your initial posts will look like they're double spaced as these two starters i made which is definitely a no-go:
so the first thing you're gonna want to to when having a new text post open is completely hit the backspace until it goes from IMAGE A to IMAGE B to IMAGE C.
after you've done this you'll be able to insert your dividers, icons, and text. it'll end up looking perfectly normal like these two starters i made:
