"More than 60 years ago, the #French government rented a stately mansion in #Baghdad from a #Jewish #Iraqi family and set up its #embassy there. #France still uses the building as its embassy, but it has not paid rent to the family in decades.

Now, the family is suing France for $22 million, arguing that the country profited from an Iraqi government campaign of #antisemitism. The family says France unilaterally abandoned its contract with it, benefiting from a much cheaper deal offered by the Iraqi government, which #expropriated the house under a law that #dispossessed Jewish owners."

France 🙄

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/18/world/middleeast/jewish-family-iraq-embassy-.html?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

“You put another lock on the door and call it democracy.”

—Ursula K Le Guin, The Dispossessed

#Reading #SciFi #ScienceFiction #Dispossessed #UrsulaKLeGuin #LeGuin

“Privacy, in fact, was almost as desirable for physics as it was for sex.”

—Ursula K Le Guin, The Dispossessed

#Reading #SciFi #ScienceFiction #Dispossessed #UrsulaKLeGuin #LeGuin

“Oh, I see...But what do working people do on Anarres for a bit of jollity, to escape the woes of the world together for a night?”

Shevek looked blank. “Well, we ...I don’t know. Perhaps our woes are inescapable?”

“Quaint,” Pae said, and smiled disarmingly.

—Ursula K Le Guin, The Dispossessed

#Reading #LeGuin #Dispossessed #UrsulaKLeGuin #Quotes

There's no disambiguity of any kind here when it comes to genre - goes straight to @lpl's #SaturDoom:

#Dispossessed: Dêmocide

https://album.link/i/1842588834

#DeathDoom

FFO #BodyVoid #Egregore #Solothus

Very good, very nice and very interesting #SciFi novel:

#UrsulaLeGuin #Dispossessed

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dispossessed

#FactCheck:
Are #White #SouthAfrican ‘#refugees’ fleeing #racialpersecution?

#Afrikaners, a #Whiteminority who ruled #SouthAfrica with an #oppressive grip, #dispossessed the #Black majority during the #colonialera and #apartheid.

https://theemancipator.org/2025/05/20/sections/politics-and-policy/fact-check-white-south-african-refugees-fleeing-racial-persecution/

It's not how it's generally used, but In my head canon #eutopia is distinguished from a #utopia by the dynamic change. As a utopia is stagnant unchanging, perfect and final, the eutopia keeps changing. I'm calling #UsrulaLeGuin #dispossessed an eutopia because it was defined by the infinitely burning #revolution within a revolution.

An eutopia might be easier to write because it can have its own 'character arc'. I think this approach can unlock a lot of the #solarpunk creativity. Writing utopia is hard.