“You Don’t Have To Burn Down Everything In Your Past To Have A Happy Life.”

Maaloul is a Palestinian village in Galilee. In 1948, it was destroyed by the Israeli armed forces and its people were expelled, so they headed either to Lebanon or to the neighboring town of Nazareth. Since then, the former residents of Maaloul were only allowed to visit it once a year on the anniversary of the occupation, so it became a tradition to organize a picnic in the same place on that day.

The people of Maaloul village fled from it under the fire of Zionist gangs in 1948. This is a wound that will not heal. The people of the wound cling to it because it may one day chart the way back. The villagers visit the ruins of their village once a year to celebrate over them. It is an amazing insistence on clinging to the land and its memory. We were able to carry our wounds in our bags because the wound prevents forgetting. That memory, which was written in blood, is more lasting than all the ruins and all the artificial countries.

Via itszaynalarbi

I have a folder called Time is a Flat Circle in which I collect evidence of humanity. Here is most of them.

DO NOT, AND I BEG OF YOU, DO NOT STAY SILENT. ISRAELI HAVE MASSACRED INNOCENT PALESTINIANS IN RAFAH, THEIR SAFE SPACE, THEIR CAMPS WHERE THEY WERE RESIDING. ITS A FUCKING MASSACRE. INNOCENT LIVES HAVE BEEN TAKEN, JUST LIKE THAT. MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN HAVE LOST THEIR LOVED ONES JUST LIKE THAT. AND IF YOURE STILL SILENT, SHAME ON YOU. SERIOUSLY.

Good news, fellow artists! Nightshade has finally been released by the UChicago team! If you aren't aware of what Nightshade is, it's a tool that helps poison AI datasets so that the model "sees" something different from what an image actually depicts. It's the same team that released Glaze, which helps protect art against style mimicry (aka those finetuned models that try to rip off a specific artist). As they show in their paper, even a hundred poisoned concepts make a huge difference.

(Reminder that glazing your art is more important than nighshading it, as they mention in their tweets above, so when you're uploading your art, try to glaze it at the very least.)

Can you imagine that I haven't had a drop of water since yesterday?

Today, in the intense heat, I walked more than 3 km to find water but couldn't.

Unfortunately, we don't have the most basic rights in life.

reminder that donating just a few $ to gofundme campaigns actually helps, you don't have to donate huge amounts if you don't have the funds, every little bit is useful.

gofundme.com

Donate to Support Mahmoud's Family in Their Struggle, organized by Mahmoud Ziad

I am Mahmoud, I am 24 years old, but in the last 7 months, I have become like … Mahmoud Ziad needs your support for Support Mahmoud's Family

In case you lost it - a link to the eSIM donation guide. Even if you feel sick and powerless, you can at least do this. And even if you really, really can't donate, you can always at least share this and remind others.

https://gazaesims.com/esim-purchase-tutorial/

I do not have the energy to make this look nicer but i felt i needed to get this out or it would consume me.

I have been feeling an immense amount of rage and grief lately and this only encapsulates some of my thoughts