Across the US today, in the tradition of the indigenous people of North America, people gathered and shared food and memories. This tradition predates north America and the native Americans. MIDDLE EAST MONITOR reports:
An excavation at a Neanderthal site in northern Iraq has led to the discovery of the oldest food remains discovered, so far.
Archaeologists have unearthed what is believed to be the burnt remains of a 70,000 year-old flatbread from the Shanidar Cave, 500 miles north of Baghdad in the Zagros Mountains of the Kurdistan region. The find challenges the long-held belief that Neanderthals survived on a primitive diet of raw meat or uncooked plants but were, in fact, foodies.
"The old stereotype is that Neanderthals were less intelligent than modern humans and that they had a largely meat-based diet. Our findings are the first real indication of complex cooking – and thus of food culture – amongst Neanderthals," explained Chris Hunt, a Professor of Cultural Paleoecology at Liverpool John Moores University, who coordinated the excavation.
"Because the Neanderthals had no pots, we presume that they soaked their seeds in a fold of an animal skin," he added.
According to the findings published in Cambridge University's Antiquity journal, one of the four fragments of the food remains "strongly resembles experimental preparations and archaeobotanical examples of charred bread-like foods or finely ground cereal meals".
Charred food remains were also recovered from Franchthi Cave in southern Greece, which was occupied by early modern humans about 12,000 years ago.
What we eat, what we're able to share with others, depends upon what we have access to. Climate change is putting food security into doubt. Iraq is thought to be one of the countries that will be hit worst by climate change and the effects are already being felt. ARAB WEEKLY reports:
Every morning at sunrise, Iraqi fisherman Ahmad Hassan Lelo emerges from his shack on the banks of the Tigris River in the heart of Baghdad, and every morning his heart breaks at the sight before him.
The once mighty river that meandered past his home is a shadow of its former self. Its flowing waters – depleted by a devastating drought and dams, and polluted by sewage and industrial waste – have become muddy and listless.
Lelo started to learn his trade by his father’s side as an 8-year-old boy, but today his main source of income comes not from fishing but from ferrying people from one side of the river to the other in his small boat.
“This has been the worst year of my life,” the 56-year-old said. “The river is dead, and our livelihoods are dead with it.”
Iraq, which is experiencing its worst drought in decades, is among the top five countries most affected by climate change around the world and is the 39th most water-stressed country globally, according to the United Nations.
Earlier this week, Samya Kulab (AP) reported:
Abbas Hashem fixed his worried gaze on the horizon — the day was almost gone and still, there was no sign of the last of his water buffaloes. He knows that when his animals don’t come back from roaming the marshes of this part of Iraq, they must be dead.
The dry earth is cracked beneath his feet and thick layers of salt coat shriveled reeds in the Chibayish wetlands amid this year’s dire shortages in fresh water flows from the Tigris River.
Hashem already lost five buffaloes from his herd of 20 since May, weakened with hunger and poisoned by the salty water seeping into the low-lying marshes. Other buffalo herders in the area say their animals have died too, or produce milk that’s unfit to sell.
“This place used to be full of life,” he said. “Now it’s a desert, a graveyard.”
If you were fortunate enough today to have shared food with loved ones, try to picture how climate change could impact that and how it is already impacting lives in Iraq.
Back to the US, Jacob Crosse reflects at WSWS:
As families gather to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday today, American society faces a profound social, economic and political crisis. In contrast to the inevitable bromides and homilies that will be uttered by Biden and other politicians, the United States is in an advanced state of decay.
Perhaps the most toxic expression of the crisis is the phenomenon of mass shootings, a near-daily occurrence in the United States. Thanksgiving 2022 takes place in the midst of a wave of homicidal violence.
On Tuesday night, Walmart night manager Andre Bing, 31, walked into the Chesapeake, Virginia supercenter and killed at least six people before taking his own life.
Two days earlier, on Sunday November 20, Chen Wu, 45, “executed” three men and one woman, all Chinese immigrants working and living on a marijuana grow farm in rural Kingfisher County, Oklahoma, according to police. A fifth person was shot and remains in critical condition.
Last Saturday, at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich opened fire with an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle, killing five and wounding dozens more within minutes.
These shootings occurred in cities and in the countryside, in states governed by Democrats and Republicans alike, resulting in at least 22 fatalities and over 35 severe injuries.
While each mass shooting has its own particular circumstances, the pervasiveness of such acts is not fundamentally rooted in the individual psychology of the killers. These tragedies, in the final analysis, are expressions of the profound social crisis that exists in the United States.
What is the reality of social life in America?
The United States is the most unequal major capitalist country on the planet. Soaring inflation has led to a 10 percent increase in annual food prices, contributing to increased malnourishment and hunger.
According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Urban Institute, one in five adults in the US reported food insecurity in 2022, double the one in 10 figure reported by the White House in 2020.
The American Farm Bureau Federation reported this week that it will cost the average American household 20 percent more than it did last year to feed a family of 10 a traditional Thanksgiving meal.
Even if workers can afford a meal today, many will not be able to afford a roof over their heads tomorrow. The Zumper National Rent Report, released on Tuesday, found that already sky-high rent prices continued to increase in many major cites, leading to more evictions.
On the Colorado Springs tragedy, Brandon Tensley (CNN) offers:
Last weekend’s mass shooting at a beloved LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, was the stuff of nightmares. Late on Saturday – the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance – a 22-year-old walked into Club Q and opened fire, killing five and wounding more than a dozen others, police and witnesses say. The suspect faces five counts of first-degree murder and five counts of a bias-motivated crime causing bodily injury, court records show.
The attack wasn’t surprising. It came at a moment rife with anti-LGBTQ animus. Across dozens of mostly Republican-controlled states, lawmakers have passed or introduced a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills this year. Further, this legislative assault has been accompanied by widespread discourse on the political right demonizing LGBTQ people and by physical harassment of the community by far-right paramilitary groups.
“We’re experiencing a crisis,” Kelley Robinson, the incoming president of the Human Rights Campaign, told Jim Sciutto on CNN Newsroom. “We’re seeing a range of political attacks and violent rhetoric against our community. All of that is fueling real-life violence. We’ve seen this play out at Club Q in a devastating way. But the larger context is that we’re seeing threats against Drag Queen Story Hours. We’re seeing attacks on trans youth. We’re seeing bomb scares at children’s hospitals.”
But the tragedy that shattered Colorado Springs fits into another pattern, too – an enduring US pattern of inflicting violence on or intimidating members of vulnerable groups, including Jewish Americans and Black Americans, at the places where they congregate.
After all, Club Q was no standard-issue hangout joint. In an interview with CNN, Tiana Nicole Dykes, a lifelong Colorado Springs resident, referred to the joyous haven as “a second home full of chosen family” where LGBTQ people could find escape and egress in a city that’s routinely been hostile to them – where revelers could celebrate life itself.
The Colorado Springs shooting is one recent illustration of how violence – or the threat of violence – can turn a place that was once a source of comfort for a particular vulnerable group into a site of fear, even anguish.
Sunday, Colorado Governor Jared Polis issued the following:
“This is horrific, sickening, and devastating. My heart breaks for the family and friends of those lost, injured, and traumatized in this horrific shooting. I have spoken with Mayor Suthers and made it clear that every state resource is available to local law enforcement in Colorado Springs. We are eternally grateful for the brave individuals who blocked the gunman likely saving lives in the process and for the first responders who responded swiftly to this horrific shooting. Colorado stands with our LGTBQ community and everyone impacted by this tragedy as we mourn together."
For those who may have forgotten or never knew, when Nouri al-Maliki declared war (in his second term) on gay men and men suspected of being gay -- distributing materials to schools comparing them to vampires and calling for students to attack -- physically attack -- anyone suspected of being gay, Jared, then in the US Congress, was one of the few politicians to stand up and speak out for Iraq's gay community.
Elaine's "F**ck Homophobe Jonathan Turley" went up tonight. For anyone foolish enough to wonder, I stand with Elaine. And it's not just what he's not writing about. I was accused in an e-mail for noting that Turley's going to have problems with his bosses. That's not me plotting something. That's me responding to complaints I'm getting from his students -- a few of whom I sadly recommended him as an instructor to. I loved Jonathan to this day but, yes, F**CK him. The LGBTQ+ community is under attack and he's said nothing all damn year. DOBBS' concurring opinion by Clarry Thomas didn't prompt an exploration or defense of LGBTQ+ rights from Jonathan. The shooting didn't prompt it. Intentionally or not, he's taken a stand. Love you but f**k you. Don't have time for you. Can't afford you. And his students have noticed this as well from his courses. I've told everyone to put it into an end of semester complaint/review.
I've shared the review I did that got a professor fired when I was in college -- Jonathan won't be fired, he has tenure. He was a disgusting man and anti-woman. He made the mistake of, among other attacks on women, declaring in class -- I attached my classroom notes to my typed review of him -- that the WACS were just "whores" who were paid to sleep with men in the military -- paid by the government. And that was one of his kinder remarks (lies) about women. He was up for tenure back when I did my review of the semester -- which also documented lies in the recommended text for the class -- that he had co-written -- and he didn't get it and was dropped. His dean had a sister who had been a WAC, that probably helped him to be shown the door.
Point being, students always have more powers than they're aware of.
"Is it wrong not to rip him apart to his face?" one student asked me. No, it's not. He's not being rationale and he's over your grade in a class that costing you a fortune. Address it at the end of the semester with the department.
As Elaine points out, he's got a false equivalency going on in a piece of writing this week -- no link to homophobic trash today -- which demonstrates just how against LGBTQ+ people he is. He's comparing comments that they shouldn't have rights, comments that they're grooming children, comments calling for physical attacks against them -- which he defends for free speech reasons, he claims -- to criticism of Republican politicians.
The following sites updated:
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