Sunday, November 12, 2023

Tattoos


60% of hate crimes last year targeted Jews. 9% targeted Muslims.

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The UN General Assembly elected Albania, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burundi, China, Côte d'Ivoire, Cuba, Dominican Republic, France, Ghana, Indonesia, Japan, Kuwait, Malawi and the Netherlands to the Human Rights Council (HRC) for the 2024-2026 term. The Chair of the council currently is...Iran.

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In a late 2022 survey, some 40% of corporate respondents said they were concerned about the “reputational risk” raised by public criticisms of carbon offset projects.
In recent months, corporations including Shell, Nestlé, EasyJet, and Fortescue Metals Group all announced they were backing away from offsets or the claims of carbon neutrality that relied upon them.

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Tattoos

The oldest preserved tattoos found belonged to a person today known as Ötzi, a resident of the Italian Alps some 5,300 years ago. The guy had 61 tattoos, including bracelets on his wrists and black dashes all over his body. Lars Krutak, an anthropologist who studies tattoos, says that the cultural practice of tattooing almost certainly goes back further, developing independently in many places around the globe. For generations, the Māori people used miniature chisels to create stunning facial tattoos, a practice that has come back in popularity in recent decades. One third-century Roman described the barbarians of Britain as “marked by local artists with various figures and images of animals,” the dye in their skin growing and changing along with their bodies.--from the Atlantic

It seems these old and ancient practices did not, as they do today, reflect personal preference or expression. They were usually connected to cultural or mythic milestones, like a gang tattoo; one got 'the battle tattoo,' 'the fatherhood tattoo' or 'the hunter tattoo.' So ancient tattooing was a joining, a merging into the community, rather than an individual statement or personal expression.

Apparently.

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