Athena's Blog

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much better footage of the haka that shut down parliament today

@endless-demon thank you so much for asking! it's a little complicated but I think simplification does a disservice to the issue and is exactly what people like David Seymour rely on to spread lies about historical context and current consequences. I'm putting this in a reblog because it's long, and I'm putting it on this post because I'd rather this video be the one to get seen. as always I'm pakeha and also not an expert, so I'm very open to corrections on details but im confident of the broad strokes.

so when the English first arrived to build settlements in aotearoa, they formed a treaty with Māori (te Tiriti o Waitangi), the people already living there, that the English can govern their own settlements, as long as they allowed for continued māori sovereignty (tino rangatiratanga). there exist two versions of the text, English and te reo Māori, which do not perfectly match. after this, the English settlers began acquiring massive swathes of land by legally questionable means, and asserting absolute sovereignty over these areas. these culminated in the land wars, which then lead to massive land confiscation as a form of both political punishment and colonization. the end result is that now the crown own nearly all land in aotearoa and claim absolute sovereignty over it.

now, the Māori text does not claim sovereignty over the property that the crown recognizes Māori own. the text promises, among other things, self determination for Māori, which is essentially impossible under a westminster system of government because they are currently a demographic minority. it's only very recent in our history that the crown has acknowledged the legitimacy of the te reo Māori text, and even more recently that we began to actually implement any of its principles. one of the biggest ways the treaty is used in modern day is to guarantee Māori have an opportunity at the table for major national decisions (particular those of environmental significance), and to defer organizational power for Māori issues to Māori communities.

the treaty principles bill seeks to water down these promises by allowing these rights to all new zealanders, "democratising" the treaty and removing those guarantees that have been so hard fought for by Māori. but, more importantly, it seeks to seed division and racism within this country to gather more support for the ACT party who are sponsoring this bill.

this bill was part of the coalition agreement by our current 3 party right wing government. the national party agreed to sponsor this bill to first reading (allowing public submission on the bill) but no further. I personally believe, along with many others, that when the time comes to vote for the second reading the act party will threaten to pull out of the coalition if the bill is not passed again, and our prime minister will not have the strength of character to stand up to his deputy. regardless, the relationship between the crown and Māori has already been damaged, both by the simple introduction of the bill as well as all the changes our current government has implemented.

as Paul Goldsmith, Minister for Treaty Negotiations outlined in his speech during the bill, the National party believe that te Tiriti must be killed, not in a single action, but by a thousand cuts, like the removal of references to the treaty from our legislation and curriculums, and the disestablishment of agencies like the Māori Health Authority, cuts to Māori advisors to govt departments, removing māori seats from local government, etc.

there's so much more to this issue, like the centuries of abuse and mistreatment of Māori by the crown authorities, how this abuse is ongoing to Māori children and adults today in state care, how iwi voices are our last line of defence against environmental and ecological damage by industry, the unilateral natural of the treaty reparation settlement process... but this is why this protest was staged in parliament today.

(in fact, there is a much larger protest taking place nationwide, scheduled to arrive the day the bill was supposed to be introduced. the bill was in fact introduced a week earlier, in a move many suspect was done to prevent exactly this kind of protest.)

as far as I'm concerned though? I think te pāti Māori achieved exactly what they wanted by this protest. they forced the government to drop the mask of civility, and force the protestors out of the building. and they showed their supporters that their protests are working - they felt threatened enough by this that they lashed out, felt a need to retaliate by suspending hana-rawhiti maipi-clarke from the house for 24 hours. the coalition are getting nervous

Bear Fishing by Olga Burmistrova

"This is a real photo, not artificial intelligence. Archie is a retired former circus performer. He was born and raised with people. This bear is very inquisitive and loves the attention of the public. "

Obsessed by this statue I saw today in Le Havre (France) from the Italian sculptor Fabio Viale. The design isn't painted on... The ink is injected inside the marble like a real tattoo. And if I remember correctly what the guide said, it took the artist three weeks to do just that.

How stunning is this

So I looked this guy up because I wanted to know if he was contemporary or not because I'd heard that no one was really able to work marble in the ways of the 'old masters', but this guy is incredible! He's only 47, and beyond these incredible pigment tattoo sculptures, he's done some wack stuff with marble!

Yes this is marble.

Yes these are marble.

Hey did you guess, this is marble.

This is just a giant dong (made from marble). Titled, 'souvenir David'. 😁

More info and image sources here :

youtube that is a big question

Apropos of (almost) nothing: I'm the kind of pedant who dislikes calling tentacle porn "tentacle porn" not because I think it's aberrant but because, 98% of the time, what's being depicted are octoform arms or tendrils, not tentacles. Tentacles are defined by the clubbed ends, which are the only part that have suckers. If it's tapered and has suckers all the way down, it's an octoform arm; if it has no suckers at all, it's a tendril.

You're welcome.

This site has gotta be the weirdest way to learn things

new knowledge for me and all my fellow mobster fuckers dropped

Eh, boss. We nose you and Tony are ya know, badda boom, but I thinks ya made a typo dar.

Gawd damn it, Frankie. This is what I get for trying to type with these tentacle thumbs.

heart - shaped scallion found In pho . reblog for good luck & yummy soup 500000 forwver

Can't risk passing this up <3

First ever recorded snowball fight (1897)

Happy Holidays And Merry Christmas To All!

Colorized!

Guy On Bicycle gets so smeared he leaves his hat behind to escape!

All Victorian ADULTS. Awesome.

I love this so much. Someone slowed it down so it's not the old-fashioned herky-jerky of old films, now someone colorized it…the past feels like the present because, well, people. Lookit them having fun! *beams at everyone*

also please note that the women are running around and having fun! in long skirts! probably in corsets! their clothing did not necessarily prevent this!

fair trade

Hana-Rawhiti Kareariki Maipi-Clarke, the youngest MP in Aotearoa, starts a haka to protest the first vote on a bill reinterpreting the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi

Hey, the ACLU is getting people to send letters to your Reps to have Congress pass the No Kings Act.

This act would make constitutional amendments to ensure that even sitting presidents are held liable for their actions. That NOBODY is above the law.

Their goal is 150k messages sent and at the time of writing this they're about 2.1k off from that goal!

ACLU gives you a prefilled message that you can edit to send to make the process easier, and will send it out for you.

This only takes a few minutes!

To correct some confusion in the notes, this is a legislative act and not a constitutional amendment. You can read it here, if you'd like. It reverses the Supreme Court ruling that granted the president broad immunity to prosecution for "official acts," and also, crucially, removes the Supreme Court's jurisdiction to hear challenges to the No Kings Act's constitutionality (Section 4, subsection b). Congress has the authority to restrict the Supreme Court's jurisdiction under the Constitution's Exceptions Clause. The bill's authors have chosen to instead extend that jurisdiction to the DC District Court and/or the DC Appeals Court, which prevents SCOTUS from simply throwing out this law because they don't like it and/or Trump pressures them to do so.

Even if you're not optimistic about this bill passing the House under GOP control, we can make it well known enough with enough traction that these fuckers are forced to say, publicly and on the record, "No, I don't support the No Kings Act."