saw some twitter replies stressing the fact that munawar faruqui is being targeted for his name, not because of his muslim identity. in other words, his muslim-sounding name is enough for his persecution. +

Chennakeshava Temple, Somanathapura, Karnataka.

This temple, not to be confused with the Belur Chennakeshava temple, was built during the Hoysala period by a Hoysala general named Dandanayaka Somanatha. The temple dedicated to lord Vishnu was consecrated in 1258.

Dandanayaka Somanatha established a village named Somanathapura on the banks of river Kaveri. He sought the permission of King Narasimha III, to begin construction of a grand temple dedicated to Lord Vishnu that would also showcase the might of Hoysalas.(1)

The temple rests on a high star shaped platform (jagati) with 3 sanctums (garbha griha) making it a trikuta, set in a square matrix oriented along the east west and north south axes.(2)

The western sanctum is dedicated to Kesava, the northern sanctum to Janardhana and the southern sanctum to Venugopala, all are forms of lord Vishnu.(3)

The sanctums share a common community hall (sabha mandapa) with many pillars. Above each of these sanctums rise the 16 pointed star shaped tower called vimana or shikara.(4)

Varahi Amman, Madurai, Tamilnadu

Vaarahi is one of the Saivite Shakti deities with the group of goddesses known as SAPTAMATAS.
They are: Brahmi, Maheshwari, Kaumari, Vaishnavi, Vaarahi, Mahendri and Chamundi. 1/n

They are the Shakti (female) equivalents of their male counterparts. Vaarahi is the Shakti of Bhairavar who is one of the Amsam of Bhairavar.Created from the boar avatara of Vishnu, Vaarahi is often associated with Goddess Kamala (one of the Mahavidyas). 2/n

She is also called Dandini (Lady Commander of the forces of the Mother-Goddess, symbolizing the might of SriVidya). As Vaarahi ("hog-faced" or "the great consumer") she destroys evil forces that obstructs the devotees' progress, paralyses the enemies 3/n

and led the devotees ultimately to SriVidyas. She is also called Panchami). With Kurukalla, she is accorded the parental status to Sri-Chakra (Lalita Tripura-Sundari). While Kurukalla represents the full moon, Vaarahi represents the new-moon. 4/4

Jai Maa Varahi 🙏

Tag for 📷 credit

Ok, I'll hop on this Elizabeth Warren/Native American testing bandwagon (gently and non-politically).

I've been a @23andMe customer for a while, and have followed their ancestry updates closely.

All is more or less as expected....except for this bit about Native American.

The family is almost completely composed of Spanish peasants (from various regions) who emigrated, along with a massive wave in the late 19th-cent./early 20th-cent., to Cuba back when it was a booming economy (richer than Spain's) and worth emigrating to (Communism killed that).

Also, the native population of Cuba was annihilated early on---was the first place the Spanish colonized after all. Having a native background in Cuba would be like having the same in, say, Massachusetts, particularly if you're (say) mostly Irish. Just really, really unlikely.

(Note: the North African/Arab background is less mysterious. The Iberian peninsula was part of the Muslim world for centuries. It would be odd *not* to have some Arab/Middle Eastern background coming from Spain. Given the family is mostly from Northern Spain, it's small though.)

I have a Spanish passport, have been back to the ancestral villages in Spain, seen the church where my grandmother was baptized, my grandfather told me stories about growing up as the child of Spanish colonists in rural Cuba. The native bit just clashes with all the family lore.

I got a Toshiba T1200, which has a bad screen, and a dead CMOS battery, and I thought the hard drive was broken too...

but I rebooted it and heard a KTHUNK and a really loud spin-up noise and holy shit, the hard drive works!

and it still has files on it. the newest date is January 1994.

It's a 21mb hard drive, with ~37k of bad sectors.

This fucker is never going to spin up again, so I better go find some serial cables and copy shit off now.

The backlight is fucked so I'm shining a flashlight on it.
without it, it looks like this.