"Ekhtiar’s volume is part of a wider How to Read series of handbooks produced by different departments at the Met, designed to equip readers with the essential tools and background to appreciate an entire class of materials ranging from Greek vases to Oceanic art. While the series in general promises to prepare its audience to “read” all kinds of art objects, the resulting title for this specific installment is particularly apt, because it points to the most fundamental (and fascinating) characteristic of Islamic calligraphy: that it is an art form meant to be seen as well as read." -- read more --
Border Bandits is a documentary and dramatization of the murder of two Hispanic USA citizens, Antonio Longoria and Jesus Bazan, by the Texas Rangers in 1915 in an area of the border with Mexico near the confluence of the Pecos and Rio Grande Rivers. While USA popular culture has glorified the Texas Rangers, the documentary notes its participation in two waves of violence directed at the people in the path of white supremacist settler colonialism in that region. The first wave was in the mid-19th century, and it was directed against the Apache and Comanche indigenous nations. The second took place under cover of the Bandit War and the Mexican Revolution in the 1910s, and it was conterminous with the dispossession of Hispanic landowners in favor of Anglos. The documentary places the 1915 murders in the context of this second wave of violence, where up to 5,000 Hispanics were murdered as corporate Anglo agricultural interests took over the region.
Kirby Warnock's grandfather related in an oral history project that his father, Roland Warnock, had known the two murder victims and had participated in their burial. You can read the transcript. The documentary explores the events of that day and the subsequent lives of the participants and their descendants. As such, it is a good example of social history.
When I watched the movie, I thought of the following:
1. The importance of oral history. If you have a relationship with an elderly person, ask that person about his or her childhood and record your conversation. Or get them to talk with StoryCorps.
2. The similarities in USA warfare from the original wars the Anglo colonists waged against the indigenous nations on the Atlantic coast of North America, through the Bandit War and now the Global War on Terror. The settler colonialists took advantage of divisions or acts of violence to mobilize its military and militias to seize resources from the indigenous or colonized peoples.
3. The wholescale violence employed in these wars & ethnic cleansings resulted in some blowback as murder replaced peaceful methods of conflict resolution. Roland Warnock, the great grandfather of the film's producer, was murdered in broad daylight in front of his son, who produced the testimony which forms the basis of the film.
4. The pressing need for every parent to read Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen and review their children's social studies curricula.
5. Uncle Karl (Marx) & Uncle Friedrich (Engles) were on the money when they said that police's purpose is to preserve the ruling class's control over the means of production.
#OTD on January 28, 1918, Texas Rangers massacred fifteen men and boys at the village of Porvenir, Texas, in what is perhaps the single most notorious and consequential event in the history of the Ranger Force. 1/ pic.twitter.com/HOAI1v7B20
With clear, borderless illustrations and large, recognizable script, this board book brings the basics of the Arabic alphabet to young Western audiences. Paired with each basic letter form, Wahab has included the transliterated sound, a common Arabic word in standard script, and the word’s transliteration. A simple illustration of that word brings understanding to the audience as well. -- read more --
