Politico: A tale of two Slavic strongmen

The calculating ex-KGB Russian has dismissed his Belarusian counterpart — who was the director of a state pig farm during the Soviet era — as a treacherous buffoon. And he hasn’t forgiven Lukashenko for his refusal to fall in line with other ex-Soviet leaders and recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. (Lukashenko called it a “bad precedent” instead.)

The Belarusian has also turned down Russian requests for an air force base in Belarus and closer military cooperation, and has increasingly tilted to the West to diversify the country’s economy, which has suffered from the economic downturn in sanctions-hit Russia, its main trading partner.

Putin didn’t take well to Lukashenko’s decision to grant visa-free travel to Europeans and Americans. He recently reintroduced border controls between the two nations, even though they’re part of a “Union State,” and cut back on supplies of subsidized gas and oil that power the Belarusian economy — an agreement known as “gas for kisses” — thus jeopardizing the country’s fragile recovery. [...]

Meanwhile, the Belarusian leader’s showdown with Moscow has escalated. In an emotional seven-and-a-half-hour speech during his annual press conference in Minsk in February, Lukashenko claimed the Kremlin had “Belarus by the throat” over concerns that the country “would move closer to the West.” He even threatened to give up cheap Russian gas if necessary. Lukashenko’s message to Putin was clear: I’m no lapdog and I’m willing to risk confrontation to safeguard my independence.

read the article 

Broadly: Witches Allegedly Stole Penises and Kept Them as Pets in the Middle Ages

In the Middle Ages, witches were thought to have various magical dick-ruining capabilities, the most sinister of which is the ability to make the sex organ vanish entirely. According to Smith, the Malleus Maleficarum details three specific case studies in which witches were said to have magically deprived men of their penises. The first two simply involve men having their genitals hidden by some magical illusion—witches "can take away the male organ," Heinrich Kramer writes, "not indeed by despoiling the human body of it, but by concealing it with some glamour." [...]

Gonad-bearing flora were not uncommon in the Middle Ages. In a 2010 article published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, historian Johan J. Mattelaer states, "Between the end of the 13th century and the early 16th century, the phallus tree was quite a phenomenon." Penis trees flourished throughout Europe, according to his research: A 14th century French manuscript contains two images of nuns harvesting penises from trees and tucking them into their robes; a wood carving from the early 15th century currently kept at a museum in Germany depicts a woman casually plucking penises while her lover peruses a vulva tree; and a decorative badge found in the Netherlands "shows a couple making love under a phallus tree, possibly being watched by a voyeur."

In 2000, archaeologists uncovered a particularly impressive penis tree specimen: a massive mural from the 13th century, located in Tuscany. It depicts a tree covered in male sex organs ("It is indeed a phallus tree!" Mattelaer notes jovially), all of which were "disproportionately large and... clearly in an aroused state." By the noble plant's roots stand eight women, two of whom appear to be fighting over a penis and one of whom is trying to knock one off a branch using a stick. Beside them is another woman who appears to be mostly uninvolved—but who, upon closer inspection, as Mattelaer notes, "has one of the fruits of the tree protruding from her bottom." George Ferzoco, the director of the Center for Tuscan studies, has argued that the mural constitutes "the earliest depiction in art of women acting as witches," citing ancient Tuscan folklore about witches keeping penises captive in nests.

read the article 

Haaretz: Advice From 770 Eastern Parkway

Menachem Begin was the perfect leader for the last Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem M. Schneerson, who died in 1994. Schneerson, who settled in Brooklyn after escaping from France during the Holocaust, waited 29 years for an Israeli candidate for prime minister who, instead of asking “what will the goyim say?” said “we strive to do what is good and right for the Jews.” Begin consulted Schneerson frequently, even after becoming premier. However, Schneerson took issue with Begin’s decision to return the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, in exchange for a peace treaty. Without blinking an eye, the rebbe demanded that Begin resign if he was unable to withstand the pressure to sign a peace treaty. [...]

They were all his followers. Sometimes rebuking, sometimes advising, the faces change but the path to 770 Eastern Parkway — the world headquarters of the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic movement — continues to be well-worn. When Jacob Perry, now a Knesset member for Yesh Atid, was the head of the Shin Bet security service, he held a long meeting with Schneerson. The rebbe sent Joseph Ciechanover, the legal adviser for the defense establishment, to Moshe Dayan to tell him to conquer Damascus during the Yom Kippur War. The head of military intelligence, Aharon Yariv, shared classified army plans with Schneerson. When Netanyahu was Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, he was a regular guest in the rebbe’s court and consulted with him many times. “I see the rebbe as a modern-day prophet. ... the things the rebbe told me about the need to stand up for the truth guide me everywhere,” Netanyahu said in an interview for the book. [...]

The Lubavitcher rebbe believed he could do more for the Jewish people from Brooklyn than he could if he were in Israel. He had a right to his opinion, of course, but the Zionist idea argued that the greatest benefit to Jews is to be found here. People living in Israel, not Chabad emissaries in Alaska, paid the terrible price of the wars with Egypt. It is easy to sit in New York and demand war. Chabad is a wonderful movement. If it wants to be part of life in Israel, the place to do it is Kfar Chabad. Let the advice from New York go to Bill De Blasio.

read more

Haaretz: Israel Places Palestinian Leader Marwan Barghouti in Solitary Over Prisoners' Hunger Strike

The prisoners are demanding improved conditions, a change to visiting policies and specific requests such as the installation of public telephones in the cell blocks. Some of the demands involve a return to policies that were in effect before the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit in 2006 and the abduction and murder of three Jewish teens in the West Bank in 2014, when Israel withdrew prisoner privileges as a way of increasing pressure on Hamas. Most of the demands, however, are new, such as the closure of the Israel Prison Service clinic in favor of bringing prisoners who need medical care to a hospital. The prisoners are also demanding an end to detention without trial and of solitary confinement.  [...]

In an op-ed published in The New York Times, Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences for murder in Israel, explained why they have gone on hunger strike. Barghouti accused Israel of conducting "mass arbitrary arrests and ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners," and said that a hunger strike is "the most peaceful form of resistance available" against these abuses. [...]

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas published a statement supporting the hunger-striking prisoners and called on the international community to intervene before their medical condition deteriorates. The prisoners are at the top of the Palestinian leader's agenda, the statement said.

read the article 

Geoawesomeness: Map showing 500 years of Virgin Mary sightings

According to the text Virgin Mary barely speaks in the New Testament, but her image and legacy are found and celebrated around the world. The Cult of Mary is often linked to supernatural apparitions and miracle healings. There were over 2,000 sightings of the Virgin Mary claimed since A.D. 40. In the 16th century, the Roman Catholic Church instituted a strict verification process of miracles. The process of investigation covers many aspects of each apparition, including the ‘authenticity’ and mental stability of the seer. To be worthy of belief and church support, apparitions must be deemed miraculous with a high degree of certainty and in line with church doctrine, and found to have had a positive impact. In fact only 16 of them have being sanctioned as true miracles.

The article is summarised with this cool infographic showing where the sightings have been reported, and how they’ve been classified by the church. The map is nicely designed and complemented by a timeline were each apparition has been marked.

see the graphs