Keeper Mohamed Doyo leans over to pat female northern white rhino Najin in her pen where she is being kept for observation at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, home to three of the last six northern white rhinos on Earth. Keepers say it is highly unlikely the three will ever reproduce naturally, meaning the species is doomed to extinction, unless science can help. One of the last six in the world has died in a San Diego safari park: photo by Ben Curtis/AP via the Guardian, 15 December 2014
Northern white rhino's death leaves just five in the world: Rare
rhinoceros dies in San Diego Zoo safari park, bringing species one stap
closer to extinction: Associated Press, 15 December 2014
A northern white rhinoceros that zoo officials said was only one of
six left in the world died on Sunday at the San Diego Zoo safari park.
Angalifu, who was about 44 years old, apparently died of old age.
“Angalifu’s death is a tremendous loss to all of us,” safari park
curator Randy Rieches said in a statement. “Not only because he was well
beloved here at the park but also because his death brings this
wonderful species one step closer to extinction.”
His death leaves only one northern white rhino at the zoo -- a female
named Nola -- one at a zoo in the Czech Republic and three in a preserve
in Kenya.
Rhino
horns are valued as dagger handles and are mistakenly seen as an
aphrodisiac. As a result, poaching has pushed the critically endangered
rhinos to the brink of extinction.
Attempts to mate Angalifu with Nola weren’t successful.
Just
last week, preservationists at the Ol Pejeta animal sanctuary in
Kenya conceded that their one male and two female northern white rhinos
will not reproduce naturally. The animals were flown from the Czech zoo
to the Kenyan conservancy in December 2009 in hopes the natural
environment could be easier for them to breed there than in captivity.
Efforts will now be made to keep the species alive through in vitro
fertilisation. That experiment could take place with a southern white
rhino surrogate mother. Southern white rhinos almost went extinct at the
end of the 19th century, plunging down to only 20 at one point. Decades
of conservation efforts gradually brought them back to life.
Orphaned baby rhino in Lewa
Wildlife Conservancy, Ngare Ndare forest, Kenya. The conservancy is
hand-raising three orphaned baby rhino: Nicky, Hope and Kilifi. Rhino
are becoming extinct as a result of the brutal poaching fuelled by an
illegal international market for their horns: photo by Luca Ghidoni/Barcroft Media via The Guardian, 12 September 2014
"Everything is everyone's fault"
-- from the film Leviathan by Andrey Zyagintsev, 2014
A billboard in Hanoi, Vietnam, reads: ‘Rhino horns are just like buffalo horns, human hair and nail. Do not waste your money,’ to mark the World Rhino Day on 22 September. This year’s theme was ‘Five rhino species forever.’: photo by Luong Thai Linh/EPA via The Guardian, 26 September 2014
Ah! far removed from all that glads the sense,
From all that softens or ennobles Man
The wretched Many! Bent beneath their loads
They gape at pageant Power, nor recognise
Their cots' transmuted plunder! From the tree
Of Knowledge, ere the vernal sap had risen
Rudely disbranched! Blessed Society!
Fitliest depictured by some sun-scorched waste,
Where oft majestic through the tainted noon
The Simoom sails, before whose purple pomp
Who falls not prostrate dies! And where by night,
Fast by each precious fountain on green herbs
The lion couches: or hyaena dips
Deep in the lucid stream his bloody jaws;
Or serpent plants his vast moon-glittering bulk,
Caught in whose monstrous twine Behemoth yells,
His bones loud-crashing!
Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772-1834): from Religious Musings: A Desultory Poem, written on the Christmas Even of 1794 (1796)
Behemoth and Leviathan: William Blake (1757-1827); image by soerfm, 23 March 2013
War of the Worlds: Behemoth vs. Leviathan: Get Ready for the Tomahawks
This is great. @SonyPictures, show #TheInterview: image via Tyler Cameron @THETylerCameron, 19 December 2014
Serving two masters
Sony Corp. CEO Kazuo Hirai had pushed hard for the studio to tone down "The Interview". "It's
been more than three weeks since you told us this would be taken care
of," [actor Seth Rogen] wrote to Doug Belgrad, president of the studio's motion picture
group [on 25 September]. "If amy won't go to kaz, then someone else has to, but this
complete lack of movement in any direction is not cool at all anymore.
Do something." [Amy] Pascal tried to do damage control. Hours later, she
wrote a lengthy email to Rogen on her cellphone from temple on Rosh
Hashana. She said she was trying to serve two masters in Hirai and
Rogen, but stressed the severity of the situation in Japan."I
have never gotten one note on anything from our parent company in the
entire 25 years that I have worked from [sic] them," she wrote. "And this
isn't some flunky it's the chairman of the entire sony corporation who I
am dealing. With." -- Sony CEO worried for months about 'The Interview', emails show -- Los Angeles Times, 19 September: photo by Toshifumi Kitamura / AFP via Los Angeles Times, 19 December 2014
Obama Administration Denies Advising on Decision to Pull #TheInterview: image via VarietyVerified account @Variety, 19 December 2014
Now showing at The Sunshine -- A Most Violent Year
A construction crew works in
front of the landmark Sunshine Cinema Wednesday in New York. The theatre
canceled the New York premiere of “The Interview” after threats were
made by a group of computer hackers calling itself Guardians of Peace: photo by Mark Lennihan/AP via the Guardian, 17 December 2014
Security guards guard entrance of United Artists theater during premiere of the film The Interview in Los Angeles, California: photo by Kevork Djansezian/Reuters via The Guardian, 12 December 2014
Sudden popularity
Kim Jong-un will visit Vladimir Putin in Moscow next year to mark the 70th anniversary of the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany: photos by AP, 19 December 2014
Secret Cinema to host screening in protest against censorship after #TheInterview cancellation: image via The Independent @Independent, 19 December 2014
Who really runs Hollywood? #KimJongUn #The Interview: image via Bipartisan report @Bipartisanism, 19 December 2014
And awful was the indignation of the mighty/Wounded Behemoth...
George Clooney: "We cannot be told we cannot see something by Kim Jong-un, of all f***ing people." #TheInterview #US: image via Esperanza Productions @EsperanzaDocs, 19 December 2014
RT @Bipartisanism: The last Hollywood big shot with cajones [sic]. #TheInterview #George Clooney: image by Winter_Thur @winterthur, 19 December 2014
All life is suffering
Still from the film Leviathan: Andrey Zyagintzev, 2014
George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin on a Venetian water taxi: photo by Andrea Merola/EPA via The Guardian, 26 September 2014
Stop Behemoth! This is like living in Nazi Russia!
Basically. White people love laughing at Asians and POC's suffering. #TheInterview: image via Aggressive Asian @JennLi123, 19 December 2014
People walk past a banner for The Interview at Arclight Cinemas in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles on Wednesday: photo by Damian Dovarganes/AP via The Guardian, 18 December 2014
.. and now the total impact of everything on everyone is beginning to have a
George Clooney pointing out facts on the #SonyHack: image via t$ @treysupreme, 19 December 2014
George Clooney, who has reacted angrily to the terrorist threats surrounding The Interview: photo by Guillaume Collet/Sipa/Rex via The Guardian, 19 December 2014
Kim Jong-un: not amused: photo by AP via the Guardian, 19 December 2014
A poster of The Interview outside a theater in New York: photo by Justin Lane/EPA via the Guardian, 19 December 2014
Feeling One Love Under the Rainbow in the Country of Behemoth
A group calling itself Guardians of Peace has said people should stay away from places where the Sony Pictures Entertainment film "The Interview" is playing, saying it will show "how bitter fate those who seek fun in terror should be doomed to": photo by Nick Ut / AP via LA Times, 16 December 2014
Angelina Jolie and Amy Pascal at the Women in Entertainment breakfast, 10 December: photo by Action Press/REX via the Guardian
Angelina Jolie branded 'seriously out of her mind'
in another leaked email from #SonyHack: image via The Independent
@Independent, 19 December 2014
Coming Soon -- Community
US calls #SonyHack attack a serious national security matter, considers 'proportional' response: image via TODAY @TODAYonline, 19 December 2014
Movie poster promoting #TheInterview being taken down on Sunset. Photo via @TheBertoMendez #SonyHack: image via Jennifer Thang @jenniferthang, 18 December 2014
From the Western Capitalist Pigs Who Brought You Neighbors, A Sound of Small Cloven Feet Scurrying Under Furniture In the Dark
Los Angeles, US. A banner advertises the film The Interview in Hollywood. Sony Pictures has cancelled all release plans for the film after it was at the centre of a cyberattack: photo by Damian Dovarganes/AP via The Guardian, 18 December 2014
A poster for The Interview is taken down by a worker after being pulled from a display case at a Carmike Cinemas movie theater in Atlanta: photo by David Goldman/AP via The Guardian,18 December 2014
The Interview: scrapped: photo by Damian Dovarganes/AP via The Guardian, 18 December 2014
Behemoth: "The experience -- over and over... as in a time-warp..."
Cette ambiance de dingue. #Behemoth: image via DESTYRE@Destyre, 15 December 2014 Paris, Ile-de-France
#BEHEMOTH were incredible last night, Won't be the last time I see them!: image via Beth @Bethgoesmoo, 14 December 2014
At the watery grave of Leviathan... forever
Perfect storm of poisoned destiny… Leviathan: image via the Guardian, 6 November 2014
Debris floating off Hawaii creates a home to fish and invertebrates. This week a study revealed the full amount of plastic floating in the world’s oceans for the first time: photo by Alamy via The Guardian, 12 December 2014
3 comments:
Leviathan: Everything is everyone's fault
BEHEMOTH IN THE MOUTH
“There’s a darkness in your mouth, and
beneath it a Behemoth.”
Where can I go from such a phrase, where
will it lead? Something about
resonant indicators, blue steam around
crystals of meaning, out of pitch
darkness, coming forward into true
presence from the wet human caverns of the
heart, larynx, the very
air we inhabit, place of angels hovering
just above beasts, their
concerned Blakean faces gazing long and
hard into the shaggy roughness such
hearts represent. A
deep-down darkness, not of ash, but of
the creative murk from which such things as
stars emerge, blown out into radiance.
Without that darkness no star would be, could be
born into spatial exuberance of being,
in the same way in that deep down darkness in your
mouth whole splendid illuminations
unscroll themselves, to ignite us, and
underneath that darkness dwells one of God’s
creatures of the deeps, who rears up, face of
tar, face of lava, wipes out whole
villages, riles up whole oceans if it’s riled,
then flutter of wings that cut across it, furtive
streaks across the dark,
wing-tips visible or felt, Their
inexplicable touch!
_________________________________________________
4/12/98 (from You Open a Door and it's a Starry Night)
Abdal-Hayy,
Beautiful poem.
You will want to see the Zyagintsev film Leviathan, a majestic and sombre updating of the story of Job, set in the far northwest of Russia -- a parable of contemporary power and corruption, approaching those murky symbolic depths.
One is made to feel fear and reverence and awe before the darkness which is enveloping us all.
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