October 13, 1492

Four years ago I read THE FOUR VOYAGES by Cristoforo Colombo translated by JM Cohen.

A great read of exploration, but disquieting as the early entries predicted the extermination of the Arawaks or Tainos who inhabited the Caribbean and Central America. For centuries western historians guiltcaped the extinction by blaming the disappearance of the egalitarian agro-culture on Smallpox, when in fact the reason for this genocide was the spread of disease through rape and Spanish not bathing, plus the old scourges of slavery, and brutality. The invaders worked the First People so hard, that by 1514 the population of Hispaniola, which had been originally estimated by the Church at between several hundred thousand to over a million people in 1492, had been reduced to a mere 35,000 thirty years later. 99% of the people according to Wikipedia. At present time approximately 15,000 Arawaks or Taino lived in Guyana, with smaller numbers present in Venezuela, Suriname, and French Guiana, although today many islanders identify as Taíno and many more have Taíno descent, most notably in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Dominica Their numbers are increasing, despite the countless attempts by the West to kill them off 100%.

The language lives on too.

Ayo.

FROM THE DIARY OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

SATURDAY OCTOBER 13, 1492

As soon as it dawned, many of these people came to the beach—all young, as I have said, and all of good stature—very handsome people, with their hair not curly but straight and coarse, like horsehair; and all of them very wide in-the forehead and head, more so than any other race that I have seen so far. And their eyes are very handsome and not small; and none of them are black, but of the color of the Canary Islanders. Nor should anything else be expected since this island is on an east-west line with the island of Hierro in the Canaries. All alike have very straight legs and no belly but are very well formed.

They came to the ship with dugouts [canoes] that are made from the trunk of one tree, like a long boat, and all of one piece, and worked marvelously in the fashion of the land, and so big that in some of them 40 and 45 men came. And others smaller, down to some in which one man came alone. They row with a paddle like that of a baker and go marvelously. And if it capsizes on them then they throw themselves in the water, and they right and empty it with calabashes [hollowed out gourds] that they carry.

They brought balls of spun cotton and parrots and javelins and other little things that it would be tiresome to write down, and they gave everything for anything that was given to them. I was attentive and labored to find out if there was any gold; and I saw that some of them wore a little piece hung in a hole that they have in their noses. And by signs I was able to understand that, going to the south or rounding the island to the south, there was there a king who had large vessels of it and had very much gold. I strove to get them to go there and later saw that they had no intention of going. I decided to wait until the afternoon of the morrow and then depart for the southwest, for, as many of them showed me, they said there was land to the south and to the southwest and to the northwest and that these people from the northwest came to fight them many times.

And so I will go to the southwest to seek gold and precious stones. This island is quite big and very flat and with very green trees and much water and a very large lake in the middle and without any mountains; and all of it so green that it is a pleasure to look at. And these people are very gentle, and because of their desire to have some of our things, and believing that nothing will be given to them without their giving something, and not having anything, they take what they can and then throw themselves into the water to swim.

But everything they have they give for anything given to them, for they traded even pieces for pieces of bowls and broken glass cups, and I even saw 16 balls of cotton given for three Portuguese ceotis [copper coins], which is a Castilian blanca [a copper coin worth half of a maravedi]. And in them there was probably more than an arroba [around 24 pounds] of spun cotton.

This I had forbidden and I did not let anyone take any of it, except that I had ordered it all taken for Your Highnesses if it were in quantity. It grows here on this island, but because of the short rime I could not declare this for sure. And also the gold that they wear hung in their noses originates here; but in order not to lose time I want to go see if I can find the island of Cipango.

Now, since night had come, all the Indians went ashore in their dugouts.

Much later he ran into the Caribs. Who were cannibals.

15 Minutes For A Nobody 2012

In 1968 Warhol wrote that "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." for a catalogue of his work in Sweden. Eleven years later Warhol crowed the triumph of his prediction by saying, "My prediction from the sixties finally came true: In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes." The statement is more true today than ever, as proven by Anderson Cooper's interview for CNN with Stacey, a member of Pastor Charles Worley's Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, North Carolina.

Stacey was unable to answer his questions other than to reiterate her pastor's belief that gay and lesbian people should be put in concentration camps.

"Build a great big large fence 50 or 100 miles long. Put all the lesbians in there. Fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals. Have that fence electrified so they can't get out. You know what, in a few years, they'll die out. You know why? They can't reproduce." Pastor Worley with his extermination plan for homosexuality word for word.

The young lady agreed with her pastor, but years ago the mainstream media would have never given legs to this story and certainly not wasted a penny interviewing such a stupid person.

The 24-hour news cycle force-feeds the American public this trash in order to sell Doritos or trucks or the rest of the Chinese-made bullshit that the corporations of America have convinced the masses to buy or else suffer deprivation.

I threw out my TV to be spare such abuse.

Not everyone deserves 15 minutes or 15 seconds of fame.

They are better left in the dust of ignorance.

Normally I'd give the URL to see Stacey speak, but I'm shunning her instead.

"I'm a nobody, are you a nobody too?" Emily Dickerson Lesbian Poet

As for the ever-faithful back to the cow fields of non-fame, where you and all the bible thumpers belong. ps fuck CNN too.

Cut Schurkes Loose

According to Wikipedia the etymology of the word "shark" might have been derived from the Yucatec Maya word xok, pronounced 'shok'. Evidence for this etymology comes from the Oxford English Dictionary, which notes shark first came into use after Sir John Hawkins' sailors exhibited one in London in 1569 and posted "sharke" to refer to the large sharks of the Caribbean Sea. However, the Middle English Dictionary records an isolated occurrence of the word shark in a letter written by Thomas Beckington in 1442, which rules out a New World etymology.

An alternate etymology states that the original sense of the word was that of "predator, one who preys on others" from the German Schorck, a variant of Schurke "villain, scoundrel" (cf. card shark, loan shark, etc.), which was later applied to the fish due to its predatory behaviour.

There are 470 species of shark in the ocean and their existence dates back to the Ordovician period 400 million years ago, however the expansion of the Chinese economy has led to a massive shark slaughter to satisfy the newly rich Chinese appetite for shark fin soup.

Last year over a 100 million sharks were harvested from the sea, which is estimated to be 6-8% of the global shark population meaning that there are 20 billion sharks roaming the ocean shallows and depths, although experts reckon that only 3500 Great Whites remainat large.

Ever hungry for prey, but not Man.

The only the reason we can venture into the surf without being gobbled by sharks is because we smell bad and taste worse.

This photo comes from my friend Alison in Palm Beach. The fisherman cut the shark loose and the Schurke fled to the safety of the deep, but the following photo shows how many sharks there are in the sea.

Countless, but not infinite.