Kanye West Can Save Face at Coachella and Bow Out By Blaming Billie Eilish for No Apology
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Update: The petition has crossed 30,000 at noon today and should be 35,000 Wed. am 3/23. This is the best day so far, and it’s because of online media coverage. We’re still plodding along in a turtle and the hare story. Multiple well-written, well-reasoned articles were written today. See lots of new outbound links below.
We have watched it very closely and this is an American signing audience [very few through the night] and AOC estimates 70% female of every skin color, BUT today looks like more guys — like 65/35%. It could move to 60/40% — as it’s more guys’ names we’re noticing. Yes, Kanye, I can tell.
Why We Are Signing This Petition to Have Kanye Not Perform at Coachella
People who are signing this petition don’t trust Kanye West not to hurt somebody or start a riot at Coachella. What we have witnessed from him in the last 90 days is totally frightening. I am so concerned that for weeks I got up and the first thing I checked at 6am was whether Ye had harmed his now ex-wife.
Kanye has taken me back to all of my 2008-2014 work in Sudan, to stop the brutal flogging of women in the name of Allah.
For a few years, those videos of Sudanese women being brutally flogged were smuggled out to me, as the government enforcers always took them down on Facebook due to violent content standards. The women knew they could count on me to keep the videos alive, working with a male editor at Bloomberg who then got the New York Times to write the articles also.
Today, we’re all supposed to sit here like morons while Kanye gets up on stage at Coachella, with a high probability of going on some crazy rant against women, against his ex-wife Kim Kardashian, against Planned Parenthood and Pete Davidson.
We say NO! I’m not cancelling you, Ye. I am worried that you might start a total riot. Or harm yourself. And you’ve got an easy out, Kanye. Blame Billie Eilish who didn’t apologize to Travis Scott for caring about fans at her concert.
You told the world that if Billie didn’t apologize, you weren’t coming to Coachella. Billie was, of course, as gracious as she could be about your accusations. Keep your word, Kanye.
You cannot be trusted ever to keep your mouth shut, because nobody tells Kanye West what to do.
Tonight March 22, the Kanye Petition Gets Significantly More Media Attention
Petition to remove Kanye West as Coachella headliner receives nearly 30,000 signatures FOX News
The Grammys Canceling Kanye’s Performance Is Just Glorified Self-Preservation: The Recording Academy couldn’t afford to risk a Kanye performance. MIC
Petition Calling for Kanye’s Removal From Coachella Passes 30,000 Signatures Complex
Petition to Remove Kanye West from Coachella Lineup Gets 26,000 Signatures Billboard
Petition to remove Kanye West from Coachella lineup gains traction The Independent London
Petition to drop Kanye West as Coachella headliner reaches 25,000 Signatures Page Six
Kanye West vs the world: when abusive behaviour is called out The Age [Australia]
Kim Kardashian doesn’t deserve this CNN
Should GAP continue to bet on Ye? The Grio
Kanye West’s Stormy Relationship With the Grammys Erupts Again New York Times
Kanye Faces Grammy Ban, Coachella Petition Over Online Behavior Newsweek
Petition to have Kanye West axed from Coachella line-up passes 26,000 signatures Newshub NZ
What To Do About Kanye West
What Should We Do About Kanye West? Maybe Nothing by Ineye Komonibo Refinery 29
AOC has read quite a lot of materials about the situation around Kanye West, and the events that prompted the creation of this petition to keep West from appearing at Coachella.
This think piece by Ineye Komonibo at Refinery 29 is excellent.
GLC Defends Kanye West, Criticizes ‘Disheartening’ Media Attention: ‘We Should Lift Him Up’ Complex
Kanye West Barred From Performing at Grammys Due to ‘Concerning Online Behavior,’ Rep Says Variety
KANYE WEST’S INSTAGRAM BAN IS AN ‘UNWANTED DISTRACTION’ FOR GAP Ad Age
Hadid Sisters Join Mica Arganaraz in Donating Fall 2022 Fashion Week Earnings to Humanity
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Bella Hadid announced on Thursday that she was joining sister Gigi Hadid and model Mica Argañaraz in creating ubuntu for the people of Ukraine and also Palestine.
Anne of Carversville is very committed to the concept of ubuntu as expressed by the great Nelson Mandela:
Read More“There is a word in South Africa — Ubuntu — a word that captures Mandela's greatest gift: his recognition that we are all bound together in ways that are invisible to the eye; that there is a oneness to humanity; that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others, and caring for those around us.”
Hopes are High for Release of Saudi Arabia Blogger Raif Badawi
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Update: March 7, 2022: There is no word on the release of Raif Badawi, even though he has served his sentence in Saudi Arabia. Amnesty urges release of blogger after sentence expires Middle East Eye
As Vladimir Putin launches an unprovoked assault on Ukraine — stunning global citizens who see Putin as a malevolent war criminal gone wild in his barbarity against the totally innocent people of Ukraine — there is hope that Saudi blogger Raif Badawi might be released.
Badawi was arrested in 2012 on accusations of insulting Islamic religious figures on his blog Free Saudi Liberals. In a 2014 court decision that stunned human-rights activists as unjust, Mr. Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The further sentence of 1,000 lashes for blasphemy — a sentence that would absolutely kill him — created gasps of horror worldwide, including on Anne of Carversville. The author was also fined $266,000.
Badawi received the first 50 lashes in April 2015 — which did nearly kill him — and was not subjected to further flogging scheduled in June of 2015, as his body hadn’t healed. In April 2020, Saudi Arabia bowed to international pressure and abolished flogging. The result was the cancellation of the remaining 950 lashes of Raif Badawi’s sentence.
Hopes are high that Raif Badawi may be released from jail in days. Badawi has spent almost ten years in prison, and often total isolation. The dissident was sentenced using the Islamic — or hijri — calendar. By that calendar's reckoning, on Rajab 26 1443, he will have spent 10 years in jail. The actual date on the Georgian calendar is February 28.
Human rights group Amnesty International has campaigned for Badawi’s release for years, along with other organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders. Amnesty International believes that the release could be imminent.
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Sotheby's Virgil Abloh Auction Raised $25.3 Million Off Louis Vuitton and Nike ‘Air Force 1’ Sneakers
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The recent Sotheby’s Louis Vuitton and Nike ‘Air Force 1’ by Virgil Abloh auction raised $25.3 million for the The Virgil Abloh™ “Post-Modern” Scholarship Fund. The tremendous response to the opportunity to own one of two hundred pairs of the limited-edition trainers made it the most valuable charitable sale at Sotheby’s in nearly a decade.
The auction house’s high estimate of the charity event was $3 million going into the event. Collectors from across Asia comprised 40% of the buyers, with bidding happening across 50 countries. Two-thirds of all bidders were under 40, as were more than half of the buyers.
Read MoreCharlottesville, VA Will Donate Robert E Lee Statue for Meltdown into New Art
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The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center is a cultural arts and history center whose mission is to honor and preserve the rich heritage and legacy of the African-American community of Charlottesville-Albemarle, Virginia. Additionally, the heritage center promotes a greater appreciation for and understanding of the contributions of African Americans and peoples of the Diaspora locally in Charlottesville, across America and globally as well.
In a modern-day Confederate statue cremation, the controversial statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee will be donated to the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center. Plans are for the statue, which lived at the center of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, to be melted down into materials for a new piece of public art.
Support Indie-GoGo Fundraising Campaign
An Indiegogo campaign page for the project said that its leaders wanted to “transform a national symbol of white supremacy into a new work of art that will reflect racial justice and inclusion.”
Related: Charlottesville’s Statue of Robert E. Lee Will Be Melted Down New York Times
Charlottesville’s Robert E. Lee statue will be melted down by city’s African American history museum Washington Post
Karlie Kloss Has Grand Plans for Life Purpose: Teaching Girls to Code and PIE
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Karlie Kloss Covers WSJ Magazine December/January 2022 Digital by Ethan James Green AOC Fashion
Supermodel, philanthropist, new mom and — adoring, best- buddy wife to Joshua Kushner — Karlie Kloss covers the December/January digital covers of WSJ Magazine. Who better than Karlie Kloss to launch the new year of 2022 in these turbulent times.
Karlie is styled by Charlotte Collet in images by Ethan James Green for Inside Karlie Kloss’s New Life. In Karlie’s own words: “I wanted to change how I was using my job and my platform as a model.”
Elisa Lipsky-Karasz conducts the interview, which is rich in new thinking about the modeling industry and Karlie’s desire to transform herself yet again by switching modeling agencies, joining The Society, which also represents Amber Valletta, Adut Akech and personalities such as musician Willow Smith and reality star–turned-model Kendall Jenner.
“I wanted to change how I was using my job and my platform as a model.”
Karlie Kloss Investments
Kloss has invested in W Magazine, as well as in companies including Therabody, a wellness via technology leader; Mirror, the New York-based startup known for selling interactive workout mirrors, with Lulelemon also an investor; and Reformation, the sustainable fashion brand that had a rocky 2020 in a post-George Floyd world.
Accusations of “traumatizing” racism from staff members and store management against Yael Aflalo, who founded Reformation in 2009, created deep division around the Reformation brand and general public resulting in Aflalo stepping down from her CEO role in June 2020.
Karlie Kloss Activist and Philanthropist
Kloss now works with Greg Propper, the co-founder of Propper Daley, a strategic social-impact and consulting agency that advises brands and philanthropists, including stars like John Legend.
Their joint objective is to develop Karlie and other clients as forces for progressive social change.
Through Propper, Kloss is now connected to philanthropies such as New Profit, an organization that puts together venture philanthropy funds—essentially donations that are granted to social-impact entrepreneurs.
I’m somebody who is not formally educated. I am a student of life.”
Karlie has openly discussed the reality that because she was scooped up at a young age into the modeling industry, she is not formally educated.
Today the superstar is working with New Profit on an ambitious new initiative, the Postsecondary Innovation for Equity (PIE), that creates career pathways for nontraditional job candidates via investments in organizations that provide skills training and mentorships. Kloss can relate: “I’m somebody who is not formally educated. I am a student of life.”
Kode With Klossy
AOC has followed the full trajectory of Kloss’s career and social activism, including her Kode With Klossy project —a program Kloss launched in 2015 offering free computer coding camps to female-identifying and nonbinary 13- to 18-year-olds.
This summer 2021, Kode With Klossy awarded 3,000 scholarships to students from 70 countries, and Karlie’s working to expand it further. “It is all interwoven… [even though] to somebody on the outside it might not make sense,” Kloss tells WSJ Magazine.
15 Years of of Karlie Kloss news and modeling work can be found in our extensive Karlie Kloss’ AOC Archives. And we pull out Karlie’s Kode with Karlie organization, whose work with girls in STEM benefits the entire world. There are Twitter activists and then there is Karlie Kloss.
Like her mentor Christy Turlington, Karlie Kloss puts a capital ‘A’ on the word activism. To think that Karlie moved from 20 scholarships when she launched in New York in summer 2015 to over 3000 scholarships in 2021 is a tribute to women who get things done.
Yes, Kode With Klossy, along with the Malala Fund, was honored by Apple on International Women’s Day 2020.
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Stacey Abrams Launches 2022 Georgia Governor's Rematch
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Prominent Democratic voting rights activist Stacey Abrams is stepping up for a rematch of her contentious 2018 race against Gov. Brian Kemp to hold Georgia’s highest office.
Ms. Abrams candidacy assures that voting rights will remain center stage in Georgia, where Republicans have further sought to restrict the vote. If she succeeds, Abrams would become the first Black governor of Georgia and the first Black woman to serve as governor of any state.
“Opportunity in our state shouldn’t be determined by ZIP code, background or access to power,” Ms. Abrams said on Twitter, posting an announcement video with the slogan “One Georgia.”
Stacey Abrams has broad-base appeal and not only among both moderate Democrats and the more progressive wing of the party. Abrams created a strong coalition of white women — including white Republican and independent voters.
Sign up to learn more about the Stacey Abrams campaign.
Media Reports on Stacey’s New Campaign
Stacey Abrams Says She’s Running for Georgia Governor New York Times
Breaking: Stacey Abrams is running for Georgia governor in 2022 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Stacey Abrams Announces 2022 Run for Governor of Georgia New York Magazine
Erdem Moralıoğlu Is Photographer of 'Vintage' for Vogue Poland November 2021
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Erdem Moralıoğlu Is Photographer of 'Vintage' for Vogue Poland November 2021 AOC Fashion
“It’s gone by extraordinarily quickly,” Erdem Moralıoğlu says about the 15th anniversary of his brand Erdem. “If I close my eyes, I can still imagine being a student at the Royal College putting together my graduate collection,” reflects the designer who has embraced a poetic femininity with deep roots in the strong, often renegade, women of history.
In fact, Erdem’s depth of historical context underpinning the collections — combined with an overarching respect or craftsmanship and artistry — is unmatched in the world of luxury fashion brands. A key element in the recent evolution of the Erdem brand vision is the extraordinary synergy emanating from Ibrahim Kamara, who has styled all of Erdem’s collections and shows since 2019.
New Vogue Poland editor-in-chief, photographer Ina Lekiewicz invited Erdem Moralıoğlu, accompanied by Ib Kamara, to create this visual masterpiece in the November issue. In a new role, the designer is the photographer for the fashion shoot on location at the 17th-century Southside House in London.
Models in ‘Vintage’ include Florence Hutchings, Lily Nova, Ngozi Anene, Sienna King and Wang Han./ Hair by Teiji Utsumi; makeup by Thom Walker
Celestial Grade Synergy
Now the Dazed editor-in-chief, Ib Kamara is extraordinary adept at upending reticence or plain ignorance in how to weave the visual narrative of race, colonialism and fashion together in a modern way. Gender and sexuality are also key undercurrents in Kamara’s work, but the visionary stylist’s brilliance is his emotional and intellectual willingness to take historical realities and weave them in a web of revised history.
The result is an unabashed modern and progressive vision of a better truth, if you think like we do. Others may shatter a mirror or two over the audacity of Erdem Moralıoğlu and Ibrahim Kamara revising colonial history in a shared vision. In another ironic twist, both talents admire strong women and they seek out unique and unconventional personalities as their seasonal muses.
Kamara makes no attempt to shun the often painful facts of history, being a son of the African continent. Rather, he reweaves them into new visual narratives that travel far beyond their original reality. This revised visual statement says “it didn’t have to be this way.”
Erdem Moralıoğlu is the beneficiary of Kamara’s insights and visual interpretations, and one imagines that the synergy between the two super-talents is nothing less than blinding at times. Born in war-torn Sierra Leone, Ibrahim Kamara benefits from Erdem’s insights as the son of a Turkish father and an English mother. Erdem was born in Montreal, Canada and shuttled between Montreal and Birmingham, England.
Ibrahim Kamara says about his relationship with Erdem Moralıoğlu:
“It’s very valuable to meet someone with whom you can perform a creative dance. “
To those of us watching, the tango is breathtaking. ~ Anne
Will American Bees Survive Pesticides, Government Dysfunction and Other Killers?
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Will American Bees Survive Pesticides, Government Dysfunction and Other Killers? AOC Fashion
American [species] Bumble Bees Could Gain ESA Protection
AOC has followed the problem of dwindling bee populations for almost a decade. But we were shocked to learn this week that the American bumble bee population has dropped nearly 90 percent. These vital pollinators for wildflowers and crops have vanished completely in eight states: Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wyoming.
Presently American bumble bees have no protection. But an August 2021 petition for protecting the American bumble bee under the Endangered Species Act [ESA] was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Bombus Pollinator Association of Law Students, an Albany Law School student group.
Sounds great you say. Finally we’re taking action to protect our bees. Yet the plight of another bee species shows us just how complicated it is to protect these precious pollinators. Passing a law or writing a new policy does not guarantee any improvement in bee deaths.
We must create spaces — land with controlled uses of pesticides — in which bees can thrive and regenerate their population. However, America still can’t agree on the science of pesticides. Any mandate meets countless political headwinds, as Democrats and Republicans generally loathe each other on plans — or no plans — to protect our environment.
Correlation Exists Between Lynching Events and Confederate Statues by US County
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A map [middle image’ highlights the correlation between lynchings and Confederate monuments in America. The darker, redder colors indicate higher numbers of lynching victims; with each dot representing a Confederate monument (courtesy of the University of Virginia)
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Large numbers of white southerners have long argued that Confederate monuments exist exclusively as symbols of southern pride and a proud history of rebellion against America’s federal government.
Led by United Daughters of the Confederacy, supporters of Confederate monuments refuse to acknowledge that there is any psychological damage to nonwhite people living their daily lives in the shadows of these relics to the days of slavery.
Former slave families should also celebrate the honor of the Old South, say white southerners while waving their Confederate flags in their faces. If people of color are bothered by these towering monuments of famed Confederate generals, they should praise God’s creation of an ideal society and way of life. Otherwise, people of color can hop the first boat back to Africa. Easy peasy.
A new study by researchers at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville challenges the noble premise of Confederate monuments.
Led by Kyshia Henderson of UVA’s Social Psychology Program, who worked with data scientist Samuel Powers and professors Sophie Trawalter, Michele Claibourn, and Jazmin Brown-Iannuzzi at the university’s Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, the researchers documented a significant correlation between the numbers of Confederate monuments in an area and the number of documented lynchings from 1832 to 1950.
Published by the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers do not assert that the existence of Confederate monuments causes or provokes lynching. Their private beliefs — and those of the majority of researchers working in this area of study — do believe that Confederate statues are symbols of hate and also dominant power. But this study only concludes that there is a positive correlation between the two data sets: lynchings by county and Confederate statues by country.
“We can’t pinpoint exactly the cause and effect. But the association is clearly there,” Trawalter wrote. “At a minimum, the data suggests that localities with attitudes and intentions that led to lynchings also had attitudes and intentions associated with the construction of Confederate memorials.”
The researchers referenced another study associated with dedication speeches for Confederate memorials, finding that nearly half of the 30 dedication speeches reviewed involved “explicit racist language,” including phrases like “love of race” and “your own race and blood.”
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Selma - Montgomery March #3 1965
A powerful and recently rediscovered film made during the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights. Stefan Sharff’s intimate documentary reflects his youthful work in the montage style under the great Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein. The film features moving spirituals. Marchers included Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King.
2015 Oscar Winning Best Song ‘Glory’ From Best Picture Nominated ‘Selma’
History of Selma to Montgomery Marches 1965
The Selma-to-Montgomery March for voting rights ended three weeks—and three events—that represented the political and emotional peak of the modern civil rights movement. On “Bloody Sunday,” March 7, 1965, some 600 civil rights marchers headed east out of Selma on U.S. Route 80. They got only as far as the Edmund Pettus Bridge six blocks away, where state and local lawmen attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas and drove them back into Selma. Two days later on March 9, Martin Luther King, Jr., led a “symbolic” march to the bridge. Then civil rights leaders sought court protection for a third, full-scale march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery.
Federal District Court Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr.,weighed the right of mobility against the right to march and ruled in favor of the demonstrators. “The law is clear that the right to petition one’s government for the redress of grievances may be exercised in large groups…,” said Judge Johnson, “and these rights may be exercised by marching, even along public highways.” On Sunday, March 21, about 3,200 marchers set out for Montgomery, walking 12 miles a day and sleeping in fields. By the time they reached the capitol on Thursday, March 25, they were 25,000-strong. Less than five months after the last of the three marches, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965—the best possible redress of grievances. Source: US Natl Park Service
President Barack Obama’s Address In Selma March 7, 2015
Photos March, 1965
President Barack Obama embraces Congressman John Lewis in Selma, March 7, 2015
March 7, 1965 march aborted at Edmund Pettus Bridge.It is a rare honor in this life to follow one of your heroes. And John Lewis is one of my heroes.
Now, I have to imagine that when a younger John Lewis woke up that morning fifty years ago and made his way to Brown Chapel, heroics were not on his mind. A day like this was not on his mind. Young folks with bedrolls and backpacks were milling about. Veterans of the movement trained newcomers in the tactics of non-violence; the right way to protect yourself when attacked. A doctor described what tear gas does to the body, while marchers scribbled down instructions for contacting their loved ones. The air was thick with doubt, anticipation, and fear. They comforted themselves with the final verse of the final hymn they sung:
No matter what may be the test, God will take care of you;
Lean, weary one, upon His breast, God will take care of you.
Then, his knapsack stocked with an apple, a toothbrush, a book on government – all you need for a night behind bars – John Lewis led them out of the church on a mission to change America.
There are places, and moments in America where this nation’s destiny has been decided. Many are sites of war – Concord and Lexington, Appomattox and Gettysburg. Others are sites that symbolize the daring of America’s character – Independence Hall and Seneca Falls, Kitty Hawk and Cape Canaveral.
Selma is such a place.
Congressman John Lewis lead the first Selma, March and was severely beaten in the head and body on March 7, 2965And because of men and women like John Lewis, Joseph Lowery, Hosea Williams, Amelia Boynton, Diane Nash, Ralph Abernathy, C.T. Vivian, Andrew Young, Fred Shuttlesworth, Dr. King, and so many more, the idea of a just America, a fair America, an inclusive America, a generous America – that idea ultimately triumphed.
As is true across the landscape of American history, we cannot examine this moment in isolation. The march on Selma was part of a broader campaign that spanned generations; the leaders that day part of a long line of heroes.
We gather here to celebrate them. We gather here to honor the courage of ordinary Americans willing to endure billy clubs and the chastening rod; tear gas and the trampling hoof; men and women who despite the gush of blood and splintered bone would stay true to their North Star and keep marching toward justice.
Tech Giant Amazon Rolls Out Amazon Rainforest Carbon Offset Project
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Read on: Tech Giant Amazon Rolls Out Amazon Rainforest Carbon Offset Project AOC Sustainability
By Juliana Ennes. First published on Mongabay.com
. First published on Mongabay.com AOC Sustainability
How do you get a small rancher to give up cutting trees for pasture and instead produce high-value and sustainable agricultural products without the requisite skills, money, or access to markets? A new initiative is trying to solve this problem in the Brazilian Amazon.
Called the Agroforestry and Restoration Accelerator, this nature-based carbon removal project aims to help small farmers diversify production and reach new markets, focusing on reforestation and regenerative agroforestry while also advancing economic development. The initiative, announced in early September by U.S-based tech giant Amazon in partnership with nonprofit The Nature Conservancy (TNC), will set up a project in Pará state, home to 9% of the world’s tropical forest area and 40% of Amazon deforestation — the highest rate of forest loss in Brazil.
But this isn’t a philanthropic movement. While Amazon will invest money and provide technical assistance to farmers — and TNC and other nonprofits will provide support on the ground — the tech colossus will receive carbon credits in exchange. Amazon executives and NGO representatives say this project is a win-win for forests, farmers, investors, and even for international carbon credit markets.
“The logic was to generate an alternative source of income so the small farmers wouldn’t have to expand their cattle production through deforestation. This logic, however, had always been philanthropic so far,” said TNC conservation director Rodrigo Spuri Tafner de Moraes in a phone interview.
Before the partnership with Amazon, TNC said it developed a pilot project in Pará over the last eight years named Cacau Floresta (“forest cocoa” in English) to help small farmers start producing sustainable crops of high market value, such as cocoa; Brazil is one of the world’s top cocoa-producing countries, but is still a net importer of the commodity.
According to TNC, this pilot project incentivized small farmers and ranchers to recover degraded or unproductive areas by planting cocoa trees in addition to other native species. This approach created low-carbon, small-scale agricultural production through agroforestry systems that recovered the forest while opening up a new income source for farmers, the nonprofit added.
Farmers peeling cocoa fruit in São Félix do Xingu municipality, Pará state. Image courtesy by © Kevin Arnold/The Nature Conservancy.
Now, through the partnership with Amazon, the investing model aims to generate carbon credits by scaling the project over time, with the possibility of bringing in other investors, the partners say. The goal for the first three years, they say, is to support 3,000 small farmers and restore around 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres), an area approximately the size of the city of Seattle. Amazon calculates that this would remove up to 10 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through 2050.
“We believe that there are more than 40,000 farmers who could benefit from a program like this in the region, and that would take a significant scale of investment,” James Mulligan, senior scientist at Amazon, told Mongabay in a phone interview. “We will set up the basic structure of the project and set up the program to scale. In order to scale, it needs additional investments which could come from different sources.”
To succeed, the project includes comprehensive steps, developers say, ranging from a platform to select eligible farmers, to training for the requisite skills, given that deforestation here is driven largely by cattle ranchers who don’t know how to produce cocoa. Smallholders will also have access to high-quality seeds, access to credit lines, logistics to support sales, and entryways to markets, they add.
Read on: Tech Giant Amazon Rolls Out Amazon Rainforest Carbon Offset Project AOC Sustainability
Farmer Deniston Dutra working on his family’s small farm in São Félix do Xingu municipality, Pará state. Image courtesy of © Kevin Arnold/The Nature Conservancy.
Mutts and Purebreds Both Can Save Us: America's COVID-Sniffing Dogs Arrive for Duty
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Coronavirus-sniffing Dogs Unleashed at Miami airport to Detect Virus in Employees Washington Post
Dogs have long been called "man's [human's] best friend." But their new role as COVID detectors is awesome. Some will surely be shot dead in the line of duty -- as men are not always dogs' best friend -- but this new role for our beautiful dogs is so inspiring.
AND there is no hierarchy from what I'm hearing. ALL dogs have the same capacity -- or at least pedigree dogs and mutt dogs -- have the awesome ability to detect COVID. They can also detect the variations among COVID strands and their accuracy rate is about 97%.
My mind works in unfettered ways. I think there's a lesson about race, humans and white nationalism to be learned from our beloved dogs. Can they heal America? Humans are failing.
Moving from helping veterans to the entire population of Americans, our dogs are stepping to show us how to roll under deadly pressure. ~ Anne
VA Supreme Court Says Dead White Men Do Not Rule: Remove the Damn Statue!
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The statue of Confederate military leader, anti-United States successionist General Robert E. Lee has loomed six stories tall over Virginia’s state government and its citizens in Richmond since 1890. After a never-ending series of court battles, the VA Supreme Court ruled definitively last Thursday that the state of Virginia may now begin to disassemble the infamous, 12-ton statue.
The court ruled that "restrictive covenants" in the 1887 and 1890 deeds that transferred the statue to the state no longer apply. In June 2021
Virginia Solicitor General Toby Heytens argued before the court for less than a minute last June, regarding one of two cases seeking to block removal of the Lee statue that “no court has ever recognized a personal, inheritable right to dictate the content of poor government speech about a matter of racial equality, and this court should not be the first one ever to do so.”
"Those restrictive covenants are unenforceable as contrary to public policy and for being unreasonable because their effect is to compel government speech, by forcing the Commonwealth to express, in perpetuity, a message with which it now disagrees," the justices wrote.
Gov. Ralph Northam said upon the announcement of the court’s ruling: “Today it is clear—the largest Confederate monument in the South is coming down.”
In its own legal documents before the court, the current state of Virginia wrote:
“Symbols matter, and the Virginia of today can no longer honor a racist system that enslaved millions of people. Installing a grandiose monument to the Lost Cause was wrong in 1890, and demanding that it stay up forever is wrong now.”
Related: Virginia Museum Will Lead Efforts to Reimagine Richmond Avenue Once Lined With Confederate Monuments Smithsonian Magazine
Dead Men's Property Heirs Argue Confederate Statue Rights in New VA Court Move AOC Eye
Black Cowboys From Inner-City Philly to Small Town Texas Continue to Ride
/‘Legends’ by Ron Tarver
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Black Cowboys From Inner-City Philly to Small Town Texas Continue to Ride AOC Blackness
Nick Lehr, Arts + Culture Editor interviews Ron Tarver, Associate Professor of Art, Swarthmore College. First published on The Conversation.
In an interview, which has been edited for length and clarity, Ron Tarver, who is now a professor at Swarthmore College, explains how his photographs of Philadelphia’s urban riding clubs ended up becoming a broader project on the Black cowboy experience in America.
How did these riding clubs operate?
Well, there are a lot of groups. The Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club has sort of become the one that everybody knows, because it’s the one that was featured in [G. Neri’s young adult novel] “Ghetto Cowboy,” and now the movie.
But the one that I spent most my time with was this big one in Brewerytown, the Western Wranglers. They occupied an abandoned building called the White House that had been turned into the stables. It was big, with something like 15 or 20 bays of horses, and it was an operation. They would hold these impromptu parades through the city. Eventually the White House got turned into condos.
A guy called Bumpsey – George Bullock was his real name – owned the White House with his sister. He seemed to sort of organize everything. He was so fit, and he looked like a cowboy, with the big bar mustache. Just an incredibly attractive guy.
I got a call from him last fall, completely out of the blue. I hadn’t talked to him in around 25 years. About a month later, he died of COVID.
Do you know the origins of the clubs?
A lot of [original club members] had grown up in the South and came up to Philadelphia, where there was already an infrastructure [for horses] in place.
Philadelphia used to have a lot of stables because there were food carts, and people would put the fruit and vegetables on the horse-drawn carts and then go through the street to sell their wares. That sort of tradition died out, but the stables were still there.
For those who joined the clubs, it was their life. Older members passed knowledge down to younger ones. I guess you could equate it to skateboarding. I mean, you look at skateboarding – there are older people that skateboard, there are young people that skateboard. It’s a lifestyle and a community, and it’s what they did, day in and day out.
‘The Basketball Game’ by Ron Tarver
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