Melancholy & Missing Lighters

(Source) Light the smudge, breathe deep, from this sacred tobacco, cedar, sweeatgrass, and sage, burn all jealousy and hatred from this earth. O sacred smoke, make the world and us whole again; we women, this is what we do: sew and smudge, make the ugly beautiful.  --" Mending the Violence of Men " aria, Li Keur: Riel's Heart of the North, by S.M. Steele Extracted from: Porter, Michelle. A Grandmother Begins the Story. Chapel Hill, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2023.

Apparently, The Israeli Foreign Ministry is reducing the Freedom Flotilla Coalition's Madleen to nothing more than a publicity stunt. I'm not delving into the whole interception and kidnapping for this. There are plenty of articles discussing it. I'll link some of them at the end if you need to be caught up. But we already know that yes, Thunberg being a part of the Madleen's voyage was likely intended to garner more media attention. If you're just now hearing about the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, they are not something new. They were formed in 2010 in order to continue the work of the Free Gaza Movement which had been sending ships of humanitarian aide since 2008. Around the first five missions, all in 2008, had been successful. But then December of 2008, Israel began interfering with these missions. Ten missions, including the Madleen, have been unsuccessful due to being attacked, intercepted, or threatened with attack. The attack on the Mavi Marmara in 2010 is ...