The statue of Światowid, in all its penis-like glory, at the foot of the Wawel Hill. And finally some snow!
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The statue of Światowid, in all its penis-like glory, at the foot of the Wawel Hill. And finally some snow!

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In 1919, all along the Western Front, French authorities were taking stock of the devastation of World War I. From the border with Belgium at Lille to the border with Switzerland near Strasbourg, this most brutal of wars had torn a rupture through the land: It was ripped, cratered, pitted, charred by a billion artillery shells fired over four years. “Where there are no dead,” wrote Henri Barbusse, “the earth itself is corpselike.” A Frankenstein landscape, stitched and stapled together, which harbored in its flesh millions of tons of unexploded munitions and chemical weapons enough to kill an army, all over again.
After a period of uncertainty, it was decided to plant a shroud of trees over the war zone—a living sarcophagus that might stabilize the soil and contain the terrors within for a generation or more. A forest of forgetfulness. Where the land was worst affected—soil stripped almost to the bedrock—they planted black pines, one of the only hardy species that could thrive there. So it remains today. They call it the Zone Rouge.
For a hundred years a forest grew up across the land, tall and dark and impenetrable, whose undergrowth curled and snarled into a thicket of bramble and blackthorn. In the Zone Rouge, however, there is a place where the trees never grew back: a clearing in the woods, where the oaks and hornbeams part to reveal a small round pool of what appears to be gray gravel, or tar, or ash. A swatch of ground where nothing will grow.
The secret to this sterile wound lies also in the decisions made after the war. At armistice, millions of unused shells lay piled up, ready to be fired. It wasn’t clear what should be done with these surplus weapons of mass destruction. At Verdun, the decision was made to recover what ammunition they could at the military camps, but to gather chemical weapons—200,000 of them—at a farm near Gremilly. Here was mustered an array of the most unpleasant hexes one man can cast upon another: mustard gas, tear gas, phosgene—whose pleasant odor of freshly mown hay belies its deadly consequences—the sneezing gas diphenyl-chloroarsine, the garlic‑scented vomiting agent diphenylcyano-arsine. Then, finally, in 1928, they dug trenches as if for a mass grave, piled in the canisters, and set them ablaze. Hence the name: la Place à Gaz, the Place of Gas.
Many of the so-called heavy metals—in this case used as kind of a catch-all term for cobalt, copper, iron, nickel, zinc, and others—are essential to the fundamental processes of life, but in quantity they become toxic. When plants come into contact with metal‑tainted soil, strange things can happen.
[…]
Those plants that grow as a wan halo around the poison ashes of la Place à Gaz: It was those I was here to see. On first sight, they seemed disarmingly familiar: the haze of what is called tufted grass and the Americans call “velvet” grass for its peach-fuzz leaves—common to marshland, verges, neglected waste ground—and, hidden beneath, like an underfur, the powdered goblet lichen Cladonia fimbriata. Neither are exotic species. But plants like these are specially adapted to survive in what would be otherwise be a dangerous environment. They limit their intake of the metals, preventing a build‑up to toxic levels in their bodies.
Their neighbor, though, a soft and feathery moss known as Pohlia nutans (“nodding thread moss,” after their tiny, many-headed fronds), uses a more complex strategy: Rather than close itself off to the metals in the soil, it throws open the doors, transporting metal salts upward into its limbs and stashing them away. Magpie plants of this kind are known as “hyperaccumulators,” and it’s not totally understood why they do this.
[…]
Though metallophyte species like these have evolved naturally, finding toeholds in outcrops of metal ores and at sites like the Tantramar “copper swamp” of Canada’s New Brunswick, they are now much more likely to be found in human-impacted ones. Mine tailings, spoil heaps, slag tips, postindustrial sites of many kinds—and postconflict ones too, like la Place à Gaz. There has been an exponential growth in land despoiled by heavy metals over recent decades. Globally, more than five million such contaminated sites have been reported; more than 300,000 square miles of contaminated soil in China alone.
[…]
Because of their strange and beguiling qualities, metal hyperaccumulators—of which there are known to be around 500—are of enormous scientific interest. Thanks to their thirst for otherwise toxic materials, they have great potential as tools in the recovery of highly polluted sites. By sucking heavy metals from the earth and hoarding or redistributing them, they might prepare the ground for other, more sensitive organisms. In this way, nature begins to heal over her scars.
A field of study, phytoremediation, has grown up around hyperaccumulating plants. It seeks to harness their surreal kind of superpowers for the greater good. Other species include the brake fern, which removes arsenic from the soil and stores it in its fronds (and is being tested as a natural filter for contaminated water in Bangladesh, following a decades-long arsenic-poisoning crisis), and sunflowers, which accumulate a wide range of heavy metals and are grown on sites of former mines and smelters in Australia. It’s a slow process; the plants must grow and then be harvested—and their bodies, now containing high concentrations of the heavy metals, disposed of carefully—but it can be faster and certainly less environmentally damaging than current clean-up methods: excavation and reburial under a concrete cap.
—-
Source: Plants, Heavy Metals, and the Lingering Scars of World War I
source
i present: my extremely long and highly specific list of book recs for my fellow rings of power fans

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The most interesting tidbit from Sapkowski's latest interview (Magazyn Książki, December 2024 issue): apparently he doesn't visualize the things he writes about, words being the only matter he engages with. That would perhaps explain why he's considered such a skilled stylist, celebrated for his extremely rich and creative use of the Polish language.
Bonus content: Sapek being his usual off-putting self, barely restraining himself from insulting the interviewer and accusing him of asking dumb questions. Some things never change.
Wspólnie z Łukaszem Bokiem, autorem KiKŚ, rozpoczęliśmy kilka miesięcy temu zbiórkę dla mieszkańców Strefy Gazy. ❗️Dzięki wsparciu naszych d
Polska Misja Medyczna też pomaga w strefie Gazy! 🍉🇵🇸
Kolejna zbiórka, gdzie możecie zapłacić zwykłym przelewem w złotówkach czy blikiem. Zbierają na środki medyczne, ciepłą odzież oraz mleko dla noworodków.
Ludzie w Gazie nie tylko są prawie bezustannie ostrzeliwani. Brakuje im podstawowych środków do życia -- Izrael wpuszcza transporty z pomocą humanitarną na tyle rzadko, że po prostu nie wystarczają. Palestyńczykom i Palestynkom grozi śmierć z głodu i wyziębienia.
Dołóżcie się, a jeśli nie możecie, podajcie dalej. Nie ma zgody na milczenie o ludobójstwie!
There's a phenomenon in left-wing circles where initially reasonable statements and concepts get repeated ad nauseum until they not only lose their meaning but transform into deeply bigoted ideas.
The idea "there is no single white culture," is true because white is a concept created to describe the powerful position in Western societies. There are many different cultures, who's members are often white. But this idea became "white people have no culture" which is just not true, deeply dehumanizing, and harmful, especially to people who look white but experience marginalization because of their culture.
Another example might be cultural appropriation, which perhaps should be understood as a misrepresentation or exploitation of the cultural practices of another, especially where the person exploiting does so for personal gain, without acknowledgment. But now, people have basically transformed this into "when somebody does something from a culture they weren't raised in" or "when a particular race or ethnicity behaves in a way that's different from how they normally do" which promotes racial and cultural stereotypes and attempts to control the behaviors of people based on their race, ethnicity, and culture.
Adding to this, the sentiment that white people "have no culture" is based in the idea that culture is a deviation from whiteness. "Cultural" food, "cultural" dress, etc., is all shorthand for "things done by people who aren't white". To say that white people have no culture is to further other non-white people, making them the deviation from the "norm".
White people do have culture. Rich white people, poor white people, white people from Canada and the U.S. and Great Britain all have cultures that are different from one another. Claiming that they don't is a tool in the furthering of white supremacy and we (leftists) gotta knock it the fuck off.
what happens when people learn the buzzwords without unpacking the underlying ideology is that they take words designed to challenge the status quo that they don't understand & reinterpret them in the context of the white supremacist values they do understand.
Christmas Eve in Ukraine after russia targeted civilian building in Kryvyi Rih.
I thought today - the TV show I'd really like to see is one about a medieval monastery.
You could have all kinds of characters: the pious guy who joined because he wanted to serve God, the son born out of wedlock sent there to cover up his parents' shame, the geek who wanted to study Latin but couldn't afford to go into university, the former knight sick of violence and afraid for his soul... Plus monasteries were centres of pilgrimage and places where criminals could take refuge, so we can have a lot of characters who crop up for a few episodes and leave.
Some plotlines I thought of:
Our relics aren't bringing in the pilgrims the way they used to - what do we do?
A women fleeing an abusive marriage has taken shelter in the monastery - how will the brothers respond to having a women in their midst?
One of the monks wants to leave - will the abbot accept or not?
A murderer has taken refuge in the abbey, and the abbot decides to try and save his soul - what will happen?
People are coming to the monastery for food during the famine, but the monastery is itself short of food - how will this be dealt with?
War has broken out between two local lords, and the monks attempt to broker a treaty - will it work?
I've already mentioned some reasons why I think this setting would lend itself to television, but I'd also love to make it for two other reasons:
Get people to understand how weird medieval religion could get, but also that, within its own frame of reference, it was a reasonable and consistent belief system.
Show people that the Middle Ages consisted of more than just muddy people stabbing each other and burning scientists at the stake.

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[Greenman and Be My Druidess* by Type O Negative playing softly in the background]
Talonsister and Titanchild duology devoured in a week. I didn't love it as much as the Winnowing Flame trilogy (still not over that ending... 💔) but enjoyed it A LOT, especially the second book. Looking forward to anything the author puts out in the future.
Williams sure does love flying megafauna and weird nature. And this time the weird nature comes with a bonus in the shape of a grumpy, horny druid! Horned. I mean he has horns. Anyway.
If you're looking for epic, imaginative, character-driven fantasy with a heart and heaps of weirdness, this author is definitely worth checking out. Her books start slow but patience pays off handsomely.
*Cillian being the druidess obviously.
Robert Plant in The Song Remains The Same (1976)
Happy 6 year anniversary of whatever they had going on
Happy 7 year anniversary of whatever they had going on
Happy 8 year anniversary of whatever they had going on
GUYS I JUST SAW THIS ON TWITTER AND I AM DYING
I scrolled through the notes on this post and my favorite has to be one mockingly accusing Madeline Miller (a Latin and Greek teacher with a Masters in Classics) of needing to do research and she wasn’t a real writer like them.
Anyway when I read that line I immediately understood what she was trying to say.
Articles mentioned (I think, anyway…)
https://pharos.vassarspaces.net/2018/05/11/scholars-respond-to-racist-backlash-against-black-achilles-part-1-ancient-greek-attitudes-toward-africans/
https://aeon.co/essays/can-we-hope-to-understand-how-the-greeks-saw-their-world
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/true-colors-17888/
Archaeologist Vinzenz Brinkmann insists his eye-popping reproductions of ancient Greek sculptures are right on target
The Greek colour experience was made of movement and shimmer. Can we ever glimpse what they saw when gazing out to sea?
In February of 2018, the BBC broadcast an eight-part miniseries, Troy: Fall of a City, that told the story of the Trojan War. Netflix later
Honestly, the first time I saw this tweet, I laughed my tits straight into the ocean.
I know what ‘olive skinned’ (and thus variations on it) means, but the author taking the time to have a little laugh, acknowledge that it’s at least a bit funny, and drop some knowledge is appreciated.
And a double thanks to the person I reblogged from for linking the articles.
The thread is perfect as it is, but just in case
Left: traditional extraction using a capacho basket, right modern extraction using a cold press. One is greenish brown and the other is green.
In case you want to see what the author meant about that not beeing what she saw.
Jen Williams' Talonsister starts with two gay 'Scottish' griffins arguing about whether they should eat a human newborn or not.
I am... intrigued.

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THE WHEEL OF TIME | season 3 teaser + characters
I’m used to people from other countries having bad takes about the Witcher, proving time and time again that they failed to understand its message and politics. But seeing (some) fellow Poles embarrassing themselves with comments about “woke” and “DEI” with regards to the Witcher IV trailer is… something else.
I have to watch these idiots mindlessly parrot Western alt-right talking points because a woman – and an important canon character at that – is the new protagonist. How is this controversial in 2024? How is this “political”? I’m so fucking tired. Culturally, we are at a very weird place right now. Sometimes I feel like all the progress we’ve made in the recent decades has gone to shit.
These books were a formative experience for me when I was a teenager. Since the '90s, they have become a part of Polish (pop)cultural DNA for folks across many generations. It astounds me that there are still people who have read the same books as I and they somehow missed all the progressive themes or, I don’t know, rewrote them in their heads to mean something else entirely. Sapkowski wasn’t exactly subtle when writing this stuff, you know?
Right now the only thing this literacy crisis paired up with cultural alt-right backlash makes we want to do is seek refuge in good stories, old and new. I don't think there's any point in arguing with these people.