Today is International Blogging for Disaster Relief day..

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It's a month before Ramadan starts and that means it's around the time people think about giving to those in need ..and since it was the anniversary of horrors like Beslan this week, and it was also a terrible week for Iraq (more terrible than usual that is) and also is a time of suffering for those in the Southern US..I will just put down a couple of links that might be helpful..

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As I mentioned in my previous posts on Katrina the most dependable place to donate money for that disaster is The American Red Cross...There is also the Salvation Army...Save the Children has a children's fund...and if you want advice and info there is FEMA

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To help in Iraq where the recent tragedy is just the latest in their years of suffering you can go to:

Red Cross/Red Crecent

Save the Children

Oxfam

Ockenden International

Women for Women

CARE: They closed down operations in Iraq in 2004 so that Margaret Hassan would be released by her hostage takers..she was murdered.

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To help the victims of Beslan:

UNICEF Russia

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Many areas in Africa need our help:

Niger Crisis:

CARE

Doctors Without Borders

Southern Africa Food Shortages:

Oxfam

Sudan (Darfur)

CARE

DR Congo

Women For Women

The Tsunami hit areas still need our help:

Habitat For Humanity

UNICEF

Red Cross/Red Crecent

Ricky Martin Foundation

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Doctors Without Borders is a good place to help out because they provide medical assistance to places where some other charities will not go.

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In Kuwait there is the charity Shop Artisana which is in Zahra Center...You can find out what their next charity event is if you pass by there..

Also there is the Kuwait Society for the Handicapped

and there is KACCH ,for children in hospitals.

The Katrina disgrace just gets worse and worse...and now to deflect attention away from the money that was diverted away from protecting the city...to deflect attention away from the lack of preparedness exhibited by the gov't....to deflect attention away from the fact that with all the money and resources that went into 'homeland security' now it's clear that if there had been an attack on the country the gov't would not have been able to handle the injured and the refugees and the damage...because an attack would have been much worse than slowly rising water..to make you forget all that and that victims are still dying in the flooded waters, the biggest story is suddenly 'looting'??
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A station reporter also posted a message saying: "Stories of armed, roving gangs going around town looting every business they come across have been exaggerated by the national media."Science Daily
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When people who have had everything they own sink and disappear the national guard is told to SHOOT TO KILL people who are taking things from stores...these people have been hungry for 4 days now...have we forgotten that when Iraqis were looting and going into museums and hospitals and taking tv sets and fridges and cultural artifacts etc...that the administration said that that 'stuff happens'
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"Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things," Rumsfeld said."CNN
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What are the hurricane victims supposed to do, start eating their own arms?? How 'bout a shoot to kill policy for white collar criminals who stole billions of dollars from the American People.. Is a bottle of water for a thirsty victim more of a crime than a fat cat getting millions more than he needs..pffft
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Of course there will be people who take advantage of the situation and commit robbery and theft...but poverty in America is a cruel thing...and remember when the Rodney King riots took place? The press kept focusing in the 'looting', so you would forget the bigger story which is the disgrace of the LAPD and the racism and the poverty and bitterness that holds huge numbers of American citizens hostage..

Airamericaradio.com this morning quoted a survivor who said she walked up to a cop and asked for help and he told her to 'go to hell'...Of course many rescue workers and police are also doing a damn fine job considering their lack of funding, lack of staff and lack of preparedness..
Bush is finally touring the region today..
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"A year ago the US army corps of engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken" Sidney Blumenthal
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"On Thursday, President Bush told Diane Sawyer, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." Not true, at least according to a pre-9/11 FEMA assessment listing a hurricane hitting New Orleans as one of the three biggest threats facing the United States. "
The Rachel Maddow Show
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Be sure to visit DailyKos--The Gurdian's Photos--Democracy Now

And if you watch anything watch Anderson Cooper lose his temper at the Senator Landrieu who shamed herself in these desperate times for the victims by using the interview to thank other politicians and the president as if she were at the Oscars..

Katrina

Mississippi counts over 100 dead, Louisiana stopped counting because they have too many people left to rescue...They expect the dead to be in the thousands though...The beautiful Big Easy is still under waters which are still rising...thanks to levees that broke and let water come in from the river..New Orleans is a city that lies below sea level..Photos

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From the Rachel maddow Show:
"New Orleans didn't have the financial means to reinforce the levees before Katrina hit because that money was taken to fund the war in Iraq. "
read the link, you will want to tear your hair out.
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Over 20,000 people are sheltered in the Superdome, which is hot, has broken toilets, and rising water...they are to be evacuated to the Astrodrome in Texas...where they might stay TILL DECEMBER...

The national guard have been trying to plug up the levees and help save people..but they are short handed thanks to their people having been sent to fight and die in Iraq..
"Speaking for the Mississippi National Guard, Lt. Andy Thaggard said: “Missing the personnel is the big thing in this particular event. We need our people.” According to the Washington Post, the Mississippi National Guard “has a brigade of more than 4,000 troops in central Iraq” while “Louisiana also has about 3,000 Guard troops in Baghdad.” Norman Solomon
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Imagine the disease causing mix of bodies, building material, chemicals, gas, dead animals, rotting food from supermarkets and homes, all the electric equipment in all the buildings, toxic waste and medicines from the flooding hospitals and the hot summer New Orleans weather...all that is wrapping itself around every piece of furniture every wall or every house..every person that is walking through it..

City prepares itself for health crisis as floodwater becomes 'toxic soup'
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UK's Chief Scientific Advisor: Global Warming May Be to Blame
Sea temperatures rise, and Hurricanes become more powerful..so yeah smart idea to keep burning fossil fuels and all that stuff..nature is just waiting to get back at us..
Hamish McRae: Hurricane Katrina gives us a taste of things to come in an oil-hungry world

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Tax paying, working men and women, citizens of the richest country in the world...with all that money having been spent on weapons and wars and champagne dinners and Bush still has the audacity to smirk (watch BBC) when he tells the victims that they will get over this and "new communities will flourish"...the old communities didn't have to be destroyed did they??
People have had their lives ruined, have lost their homes, probably their jobs...they won't be able to go home for months, if ever...what the hell is there to smile about?..
Please read this eyewitness account from a rescue worker linked from Wonkette..
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Watch Democracy Now's report on Katrina..
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The Red Cross is the place to donate money if you want to help out...

Iraq

Over 500 dead in a stampede on a Shia pilgrimage in Baghdad today...A rumour spread that a suicide bomber was about to blow himself up and the crowd started to flee the bridge they were crossing...just before the rumour 3 mortar rounds landed near the Khadimiya mosque..

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Who started the rumour?

500 Shi'ites dead on a Shia holy day...as if the situation in the country weren't bad enough...

Especially since the past weeks have been filled with these headlines:

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CIA Officers Warn of Iraq Civil War, Contradicting Bush's Optimism

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Why the US Is Supporting Civil War

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Civil war looms in Iraq as constitution talks end in disarray

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A fiction as powerful as WMD
It is not withdrawal that threatens Iraq with civil war, but occupation

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Seymour Hersh: Iraq "Moving Towards Open Civil War"

Listen to this report

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Iraq's sectarian myth
The sectarian forces drafting the new Iraqi constitution do not reflect grassroots sentiment

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Unfortunately some people would like to see the previously non-existent divisions between sects in Iraq sink into a world of double, double toil and trouble....

Blog Day

So it's Blog Day...August 31st...and I have found 5 blogs i had never read before and am offering them up for your enjoyment...since I can't pick any Kuwaiti blogs due to the 'new to me' rule I will just direct everyone to Kuwait Blogs to take a look for themselves..

Here are the new blogs I found in no particular order..

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A Woman Without and Man (is like a fish without a bicycle)

-lady in Iceland...fun layout..funny posts..

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The Poison Kitchen

- A Canadian Blogger..Nice peaceful colours for reading a blog, I like the writing..you can navigate through the diferent topics like politics, film, music, philosophy and the list goes on..Learn a lot..

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The Accidental Hedonist

A food blog--fun info, nice layout, lovely pictures..

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IranScan

Set up by a group of Iranian bloggers (blogging is a huge, huge phenomenon in Iran) to blog the recent elections--It continues to be a source of information about politics and other things in Iran-has a lot of links..

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Blonde Sense

A group of politically minded ladies giving us the news with a bite of humour..

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And go visit Sabbah's Blog...the one who invited me to join Blog Day..

Photo of the Hayatt Regency hotel in New Orleans after Katrina's attack...haunting like a war photo..

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More Photos at the BBC and Air America

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Over 90 people dead...perhaps many more unaccounted for..bodies floating in the flood water..people's homes destroyed..a lot of the people in the area can't afford to lose their homes and their livelihoods..Martial law might be imposed, to add insult to injury...good luck to everyone in the path of the storm..

If you want to help the victims go to The American Red Cross

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Another fire in Paris in immigrant housing units...what is going on?

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I've been tagged by Sabbah's Blog to join the Blog Day bonanza..the brainchild of the Israeli blogger Nir Ofir...this means I have to look for 5 new blogs that I have never read before and offer them up on blog day which is tomorrow..the 31st of August..that date was picked because 3108 looks like the word Blog..

You don't have to be tagged to join in...its a day for you to discover and share new and interesting blogs with the world..

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A woman tried to commit harakiri in front of the Japanese Prime Minister's office..

I like to see newspapers with a sense of humour...
In Saturday's The Daily Star, on page 19 we have two main stories... when you stare at the page for a few minutes and compare them you will either want to laugh or bang your head on the nearest solid object..

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One is about the Palestinian mountaineer Suzanne al-Houby who has managed to climb the highest peak in Europe (Mount Elbrus) and also Africa's Highest peak Mt. Kilimanjaro, France's Mont Blanc and Everest Base camp..She is the first Palestenian woman to do all that and she uses her fame to spread a message of peace...She also plans to start a charity program for children in the Occupied Territories...She is also the Director of the Dubai Bone and Joint Center...an example of what women are capable of..

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The second story and one which has the blurb "I call for women's rights" and then kinda smacks you with: "their right to get married, even to a married man"...where do you even begin...This woman, who was too busy or too uninterested to be a partner and I suspect other things to her husband is encouraging him to take another wife..not only that but she has also founded an organisation that promotes and facilitates polygamy...Just because she doesnt feel like being married or would rather someone else did all the chores (idea:how bout ask hubby to cook, instead of buying him a new wife) doesn't mean other women want her helping their husbands to fool around...

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The Snows of Kilimanjaro is a Hemingway short story which I felt like recommending after reading these two stories together...it's about a couple stranded on safari...about the resentment that can build up in a marriage ...about wasted talent..about excuses we make for what we settle for in life..

Obviously, the only link this has to the first news item is the location...the burden of the rest of the sad story lies on people with pretend marriages and lame excuses..

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I remember after I got that marriage license I went across from the license bureau to a bar for a drink. The bartender said, "What will you have, sir?" And I said, "A glass of hemlock."
Hemingway

For anyone that has been to beautiful Kerala, the news last week that the Coca Cola factory there is being ordered to shut down will sound like music to your ears...

You are sure to have seen signs all over the place and especially in restaurants saying that they will not serve Coke because the company has polluted the land and also denied people access to clean water..water which it takes in large amounts, from land with water shortages, to make it's soft drinks...

Finally the court has found it guilty of offering the locals sludge waste contaminated by poisonous cadmium to use as fertiliser...that's poisonous sludge for their veggies and fruits..very nice of Coke, non?

Not only that, now a member of the pollution board is being investigated for corruption and for accepting bribes when he said that the Coca Cola plant was not polluting beyond acceptable limits...except that it was and everyone knows it..

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The poisonous sludge was once sold !! to the locals...before it got given out for free..or just dumped on the roadsides..

For photos of protests against the company go here, and notice that unarmed men and women were beaten with sticks by officers protecting the factory..

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How Coca-Cola Gave BackTo Plachimada
By Alexander Cockburn

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Other not so nice things Coca Cola does

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Coca - Cola Admits That Dasani is Nothing But Tap Water

by Trevor Datson

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Coca Cola has been accused of involvement in the murder of ten union leaders in Colombia... see American Prospect and the Guardian for more info..

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Coke and other soft drinks manufactured in India were found to contain pesticides:

lindane, DDT, malathion and chlorpyrifos

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The diet versions of Coke and other soft drinks contain the neurotoxin Aspartame..which when it is kind gives you joint pain, eye pain, dizziness, confusion, headaches,irritability, nausea..etc..

and when it is in the mood to play with you it causes death, brain damage, ulcers, severe depression,alzheimers, multiple sclerosis, non-hodgkin's lymphoma..all in all it causes over 92 side effects..

I know someone who's chronic pain and symptoms of senility vanished when she stopped taking anything containing Aspartame..do yourself a favour and don't order the diet versions of soft drinks..aspartame also causes gradual weight gain..so you're doing nothing useful..

Also if you are pregnant stay away from aspartame because it can affect fetal brain development..

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The phosphorous in coke and other soft drinks dissolves bones..by leaching calcium out...leading to osteoporosis...and the risk of obesity becomes 1.6 times stronger...read more here..

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So next time you reach for that coke, and especially when you take a look at where it was bottled..give a thought to the poisoned land, poisoned farmers, your own beautiful body and maybe go for the fresh juice instead..

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When it comes to boycotts...Coke is it article in Enough Fanzine

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Coke: The New Nike- Michael Blanding

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KARMA BANQUE

"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it"

Mahatma Gandhi

By a lie a man throws away and, as it were, annihilates his dignity as a man. -

Immanuel Kant

Just an update on the last post..Robertson is now saying he didn't say 'assassinate' the president of Venezuela, he only said 'take him out'..stupidity is in fact limitless, because he said it on air, so we can all watch him utter the very words he insists he didn't...

A religious fundamentalist is on the airwaves calling for the president of a country to be assassinated...A president that was elected by a majority of his people I might add...except this fanatic preacher of death is not being pursued by the authorities, shut down, put on the terrorist list, kicked out of the country...The US State department is only saying these comments were 'inappropriate'.... Is it because it comes from Pat Robertson, one of the major figures of the Evangelical movement, 9 out of 10 of whom voted for Bush? And is it because the President that Robertson wants killed is the democratically elected leader of a Latin American country that has been critical of US policy in the region?

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``We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability,'' Robertson said. ``We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator.'' Guardian

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"For five centuries, Venezuela has been run by a minority of very white people, pure-blood descendants of the Spanish conquistadors. To most of the 80 percent of Venezuelans who are brown, Hugo Chavez is their Nelson Mandela, the man who will smash the economic and social apartheid that has kept the dark-skinned millions stacked in cardboard houses in the hills above Caracas while the whites live in high-rise splendor in the city center. Chavez, as one white Caracas reporter told me with a sneer, gives them bricks and milk, and so they vote for him.
Why am I explaining the basics of Venezuela to you? If you watched BBC TV, or Canadian Broadcasting, you'd know all this stuff. But if you read the New York Times, you'll only know that President Chavez is an "autocrat," a "ruinous demagogue," and a "would-be dictator," who resigned when he recognized his unpopularity." Alternet

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Some Americans who were upset by the remarks made by Robertson flooded the Venezuelan embassy with messages of support---Chavez has long been saying that the US is trying to kill him---the US is known to have helped military forces in Latin America take out (read assassinate, kidnap, torture) people for their political ideas---This site simply lets Pat Robertson's own words hoist him with his own petard---

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Just to cheer you up here's a quote by the very same Robertson, about feminism:

"It encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."

Wait sorry, I thought that would make you laugh...no don't cry...it's ok, stupid people can't stay in power forever..uhm..wait..yes they can...

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"Calling for violence has become common among Christian extremists such as Robertson. Jimmy Swaggert said he would kill any gay man who looked at him "that way" (in his dreams). The remark was followed by applause from his congregation. James Dobson advocates the harsh physical punishment of children and brags about beating his dog. Christian extremists picketed Matthew Shephard's funeral with signs that read AIDS Cures Fags. Women's health clinics are bombed. In a community twenty miles from my home, a cross was burned in front of a yoga clinic. Christians gave comfort and shelter to Eric Rudolph." MoJo Blog

• Blame Vulture Capitalism, not God, for Pat Robertson! Media Monitors
• Why Hugo Chavez Won a Landslide Victory Medea Benjamin

What the hell to watch or read to figure out what the hell the fuss is about:

Open Veins of Latin America: An excellent writer, and excellent book..

Venezuelan Politics in the Chavez Era: Class, Polarization, and Conflict by Daniel Hellinger, Steve Ellner

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Revolutionary Songs of Latin America ~ Soledad Bravo ...Something to listen to while you read...

The Eyes of Tammy Faye...Darkly humorous and true tale of the rise and fall of one of the biggest televangelist industries in the US..even if it had nothing to do with the topic I'd still tell you to watch this.

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The Most Dangerous Man in America?: Pat Robertson and the Rise of the Christian Coalition by Rob Boston Haven't read it, but it looks interesting..

Interesting films to look out for:

The Constant Gardener

Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz

Fiennes is a diplomat in kenya who uncovers a huge Phamaceutical conspiracy when his activist wife is murdered. The acting should be impressive... Love topics like this. For real life Pharmaceutical scandals going on right now see here and here.

The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till

Documentary by Keith A. Beauchamp

Emmett Till was the 14 year old African-American boy who was murdered in Mississipi,1955, for whistling at a white woman. His murder helped to mobilise the civil rights movement, but his murderers got away thanks to an all white jury. This new documentary is forcing the case back on the table. Maybe after all these years Emmett will finally get a little justice.

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The Aristocrats

Documentary in which a hundred comedians all tell the same filthy joke, and the art is in the telling...

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News of sorts

Credit card sized battery powered by urine has been created in Singapore---ExxonMobil is funding ($40 Million) think tanks and media outlets to convince us that global warming is not caused by human consumption---Some organic food is not really organic

And last but not least, from Harpers:

Percentage of the 651 fatal or wounding terrorist attacks worldwide last year that took place in Iraq: 32 [National Counterterrorism Center (Washington)]

Percentage that took place in India: 44

The Cindy Sheehan protest is still on and also gaining steam...all these women and men are driving miles and miles to stand by her...it's like she has somehow given people a valve to let off their pent up frustration with everything that is going on..watch this..

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Something called freeway blogging is also going on where anti-war messages are being 'blogged' or hung on the highways all over the States...

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A nun is staging her own protest...against the Da Vinci Code being filmed at Lincoln Cathedral...she says the book is heretical...

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Famine in Niger...if you want to help out go to Doctors Without Borders

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Christopher Walken is running for Prez in 2008...Is he?

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Heathrow Airport got a taste of what happens when workers' rights aren't as important as the bottom line...

70,000 people were stranded in one way or another because of the strikes at Heathrow...this came after Gate Gourmet, a catering company, sacked hundreds of employees over a megaphone when they had staged a walkout...Gate Gourmet has been trying to slash pay, and bust the unions...It is also in a dispute with unions in the US because it's trying to cut pay and benefits...the company is losing money, and now it is losing much more than that...thousands of check-in staff and baggage handlers at Heathrow went on unnofficial strike in solidarity with the fired Gate Gourmet staff...
The 70,000 stranded passengers are innocent victims of this industrial battle...and we can all disagree on who went too far...the company that sacked over 600 employees over a megaphone or the workers that unofficially walked off the job paralysing the airport...but underneath it all is the same old story of profit over people...

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Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

Abraham Lincoln

With all their faults, trade unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in men, than any other association of men. Clarence Darrow (Famous civil rights lawyer)
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Films about Labor Struggles:

Norma Rae: Great film with Sally Field (won an Oscar for her part) about a woman working at a textile factory discovering the power of union work..and it has an Oscar winning song that always makes me cry: "It Goes Like it Goes"..

Matewan: The wonderful John Sayles directs this movie about mine workers trying to unionize...a true story of unions and a masacre.

Harlan County USA: A famous documentary about a coal miners' strike in Kentucky.

Roger and Me: The film that put Michael Moore on the map......over 30,000 jobs were lost in his home town of Flint, MI when GM closed its plant...a funny and powerful glance at how out of tune workers' lives and company profits are...

Bas Ya Bahar: The Kuwaiti film that shows how some divers were at the mercy of some of the ship owners who bought their lives with loans divers could never repay...It was about more than that, but the age old struggle between business and labor is interesting to note.

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Music

Woodie Guthrie anything by him... he sang one called Ludlow Massacre which was about striking coal miners who wanted to join the union, the company guards shot at them and burned their tents killing 20 people, 13 of whom were children.

Bruce Springsteen-Long time supporter of workers' rights, the haunting title song from The Ghost of Tom Joad is taken from the character from Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath:

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Wherever there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand
Or decent job or a helpin' hand
Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes Mom you'll see me."

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Check out these Singer-Songwriters: Pete Seeger, Ani Difranco, Rachid Taha, Billy Bragg, Bob Dylan...

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Bless the child of the workin' man
She knows too soon who she is
And bless the hands of a workin' man
He knows his soul is his

So it goes like it goes and the river flows
And time it rolls right on
And maybe what's good gets a little bit better
And maybe what's bad gets gone

It Goes Like it Goes from Norma Rae

Just a reminder that there is an organisation in Kuwait that rescues and resettles animals in need of a home... If you are looking for a new friend or have the space to give a kitty or pup a home, go to PAWS...their website is full of info you will need and has pictures of the animals that are available for adoption...And if anyone wants to volunteer to help out or donate funds let them know..they are doing a good thing..we should help them continue...

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"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

Gandhi

I can't take anymore of this dust....there is mud coming out of my eyes...when is it going to end...all the idiotic weather reports on line say we have clear skies....

At 8:15am Japanese time, on August 6, 1945...exactly 60 years ago today...a bomb called Little Boy found its mark in a city called Hiroshima......three days later on August 9th...Nagasaki was treated to the same fate...

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"Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."

Einstein

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It took an instant for 200,000 people to be incinerated...then it took hours, days, weeks and months for burnt flapping flesh to peel and boil over and fill the nightmares of the survivors...it took years for them to sicken and then die....and it has taken since the begining of time for everyone else to try to try fathom man's inhumanity to fellow man...

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"I am Constantly amazed by man's inhumanity to man"

Primo Levi

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This watch stopped at exactly the moment Hiroshima was obliterated

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"The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."

Einstein (Discovered atomic theory)

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When the news of the Hiroshima bombing reached Los Alamos, the scientists rejoiced. Some raced to the telephone and booked tables at La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe. Others stayed at Los Alamos and celebrated. They substituted dynamite for fireworks and snaked through the streets banging garbage-can lids. "Everybody had parties, we all ran around. I sat on the end of a jeep and beat drums and so on," recalled Richard Feynman, a math wizard and future Nobel laureate.

Quoted from The Plutonium Files, an amazing book by Eileen Welsome which chronicles the story of the bomb and also the secret experiments carried out on unsuspecting civilians..like injecting radioactive substances into pregnant women and telling them they were vitamins...only to have the children develop violent forms of cancer...pick up the book and you won't be able to put it down...the writing is magic and the story savage to the extreme..Welsome's reporting on these facts got her the Pulitzer prize..

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I saw an exhibition called none other than Little Boy, of Japanese art organised by the Japan Society in NYC... it included Godzilla and other apocalyptic artistic visions that were born of the horror of the atomic age...

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Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St Paul
Give me Christ
or give me Hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now
We don't like children anyhowI've seen the future, baby:
it is murder.Leonard Cohen

On this day it is common to see Peace Cranes made of folded paper...this tradition comes from the story of a young girl called Sadako Sasaki who was two years old when Hiroshima was hit...at the age of 11 she developed Leaukemia...her friend told her that there was a Japanese legend that said that anyone who made 1,000 paper cranes would have their wish granted...she died at the age of 12 having folded over 1,000 cranes...since then the cranes have been a symbol of peace, and a reminder of the senseless destruction of war...

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" This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."

Einstein

Where to look:

A haunting site with photographs taken the day after Nagasaki...put together for the 50th anniversary of the attack..
Hiroshima Mon Amour...the screenplay by Marguerite Duras and the film by Alain Resnais...haunting tale of the experience of war and the healing power of human relationships..
Hiroshima: Was it necessary- A site that deals with the idea of its necessity...and tears it apart.
The Day After- An 80's film that gave me nightmares and had me spend sleepless nights calculating how to get everyone in my house to safety and how we were going to survive in a shelter...we had to watch it when we were in junior high school here...
Recent Articles:
The myths of Hiroshima L.A. Times
Hiroshima health effects linger BBC

The Hiroshima Cover-Up Mother Jones Magazine

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"As the bomb fell over Hiroshima and exploded, we saw an entire city disappear. I wrote in my log the words: 'My God, what have we done?'"

Capt Robert Lewis (Co-Pilot of the Enola Gay that dropped Little boy)

'I kept saying, "Help me, help me." But no one did'

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The Guardian had a very sad article today about people on a London bus doing nothing to help a stabbing victim...they just watched or walked away...I understand the shock or fear that you might get hurt, but after the threat is gone and a man lies bleeding his life out on the floor, what is it that makes you not want to get involved?

We slow down on the highway to stare at accidents, we tune in to news about disasters and watch like addicts but how often do we actually shift from voyeurs relishing the adrenalin of these horrible scenes to actually helping those in need?

How many of the people who witnessed the bus stabbing added the experience to their list of 'stories to tell'...how many were honest in these stories about how they just slinked away and left a man bleeding in the arms of the only young lady tending to him who was asking for their help?

If we can walk away from people who are obviously in need of help while someone looks us in the eye and asks for it...how easy is it for us to turn our backs on people who don't know we are watching? People in a newspaper headline, people on the news people beyond the dark curtained windows we are staring from...

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One of the most famous instances of witnesses doing nothing to help a victim is the Kitty Genovese case in 1964...38 people witnessed Genovese get raped and murdered over a half hour to 45 minute period of time and did nothing to intervene...most of the witnesses did not see the entire attack which happened later in her apartment, but many had seen the initial attack in the street in front of her building in NYC... the case was hyped in the media at the time and it was famous for furthering the study of the 'bystander effect/apathy' where the more witnesses there are to a crime, the less likely individuals are to do anything....

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One of my favourite comic books/graphic novels is The Watchmen, By Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons...In it, one of the characters called Rorschach is transformed by the news about Kitty Genovese into a masked vigilante/superhero, avenging powerless victims...but his version of justice is absolute..there are no grey areas...wrongdoing is punished with no mercy...which makes him a mirror image of his opposites, the criminals...but his code comes from an outrage at the crimes people commit and the unwillingness of anyone to do anything to help the victims...

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"This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces, It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It's us. Only us."

Rorschach, p.26 Chap VI, The Watchmen

A new planet is found in our solar system and they want to call it Xena ...yes after that Xena, bless the astronomers...

A company called BioBling in the US is connecting people to flashy 70's and 80's cars that run on biodiesel, the clean fuel...

The space missions were grounded for two years after the Columbia disaster was caused by a piece of foam breaking off and hitting the wing on launch (which made the Columbia break apart and overheat on re-entry), the Discovery is up in space now trying to deal with a the effects of a launch problem that left the craft vulnerable to overheating on re-entry..glad they took those two years to improve the shuttle...good luck to the souls on that mission...

Bush played a little constitutional trick and went round the Senate and stuck John Bolton up the U.N's ass against most of the world's (and Congress') wishes. Isn't democracy just sparkling these days?

A board member at Harvard University is resigning in protest over a salary increase for prez. Larry Summers ...you know, Larry Summers, the guy who said women aren't as smart as men in science and math and the guy who insisted that toxic materials from developed countries should be dumped on the third world...

Atkins Nutritionals Inc, the company that makes the low carb foods for Atkins fanatics is filing for bancruptcy...is it because Mr Atkins was found to weigh over 18 stone (114 Kilos) and had a diseased heart when he passed away, or because the diet gives you bad breath ...or because like all fads it's day must come---

The prez of Pakistan is trying to stop a new law in a conservative province which would create a new morality police there: "The province's hisbah (accountability) bill would empower an Islamist police force with draconian powers to close down cinemas and businesses at prayer time, interrogate couples about their relationships, and arrest beggars. Offenders could be jailed for up to six months." Guardian

To take a moment away from the hopelessness that is engulfing people these days...I was trying to come up with stories that give me hope, and I remembered the introduction to a book I read years ago, called Is There No Other Way: The Search for a Nonviolent Future (a book I would recommend to all the cynics out there who think that nonviolence doesn't work...it is full of stories about how it has overcome even the most brutal oppression and violence)...anyway, the introduction starts with a reference to a town called Gaviotas...which I had never heard of...and after reading about it I am surprised that it isn't on the syllabus for a every classroom...the story starts like this:

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In the 60's a man called Paolo Lugari Castrillon flew over an uninviting section of the Colombian LLanos (barren plains in Eastern Colombia) and thought to himself, so the story goes, that if people could live there, they could live anywhere...so in 1971 a group of inventors, laborers and researchers set up what some have called "a village to reinvent the world"....it is now home to artists, scientists, former street children and the Guahibo Indians...200 in all...the United Nations has called Gaviotas the model for sustainable development and Gabriel Garcia Marquez has called Paolo Lugari the "inventor of the world"...

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So what is so special about Gaviotas?

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Gaviotas runs on wind, solar and hydro energy...the seesaw that the children play on is actually an efficient water pump invented in Gaviotas which can draw water out of extremely deep sources with the minimum of effort...so the children play and the village is supplied with water..

The wind turbines (windmills that supply energy) were designed to best suit the type of wind found in the area...so as you approach the village you are greeted with huge metal sunflowers turning in the breeze...

The hospital treats both the army and the guerillas (they don't ask for ID's, they just treat whoever needs help and so they are respected by both sides)... This hospital houses the patients' families in hammocks and they spend the day tending to the hydroponic vegetables in the adjacent greenhouse...(the government has asked that the hospital be closed down because they didn't have a resident surgeon, hopefully that has been or will be reversed)

The methane that comes from the waste generated by the cattle runs through air ducts to the hospital kitchen where it fires up the stove burners...nothing is wasted.

They planted a particular type of pine tree that was the only one that could grow in the harsh soil...what they now have is over a million trees which in their turn have created the right type of shelter for plants and trees that had disappeared ages ago to grow again from seeds that lay dormant in the soil...so they have given birth to a forest with over 40 spieces of plants...

The village has no prison, no police, no mayor and no laws but common sense...if anyone does something innappropriate (like an example of a store owner who addmitted to overcharging) that person is shunned until he/she makes up for the wrong..they have no locks no weapons ...and all this in the middle of one of the worst ongoing conflicts in the region..

While the US supplies the Colombian army with weapons to fight 'the war on drugs' it is actually the right wing groups and the military who are running the drug trade, and it is left wing guerrillas that are being targetted...the civilians and the country suffer in the most savege civil conflicts..and in the middle of it all is Gaviotas...

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The dream is real, my friends. The failure to make it work is the unreality. Toni Cade Bambara

Groundless hope, like unconditional love, is the only kind worth having. John Perry Barlow
(quoted from Znet)
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Gaviotas Rising: An NPR documentary

Gaviotas – ‘Reinventing the World’ in Colombia

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For more on Colombia:

The Open Veins of Latin America Eduardo Galeano

Colombia Watch

Colombia's civil conflict BBC

Colombia: Our Other War Thomas Oliphant

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Just to add another little story that I love from the same book...it is the story of a civil rights activist called David Hartsough...he was sitting with other activists at a lunch counter in Virginia in the 60's, peacefully protesting against segregation...an angry man stuck a knife to his chest and told him that if he didn't leave he would run it through his heart...David looked the man in the face and said "Well, brother, you do what you feel you have to; and I'm going to try to love you all the same"...the attacker took a moment and then dropped the knife and left crying...and that is the power of nonviolence...(p. 90-91 in Is There No Other Way by Michael Nagler)

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Off in the morning to the city of recent sorrows...stay safe and beautiful everyone..see ya in a few days...

Just when we thought that FOX News couldn't get more distasteful...the reporters topped themselves...here is their reaction to the London bombings..as well as contact details in case you want to ask them why their brains misfire so often..

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Al-Qabas on Friday described the London events as a 'Baghdadi Day'...Did they mean to remind us that every day Baghdad experiences a 'London 7/7'?

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One of the world's most air polluted cities is allowing its taxis to finally go hybrid...NYC getting clean...may we say the same about Kwt soon...

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9,000 Univ. of California nurses are going to go on strike on July 21st, thanks to the policies of one Terminator...He has managed to cut their retirement plans in addition to cutting benefits for teachers and firefighters in favour of private businesses....good job Arnie..cutting the benefits of the hardest working and necessary members of society is a sign of true business genius...and your friends in privatized America will be sure to tell you that ,through their fangs, over drinks by the pool.

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us: With the thoughts you'd be thinkin'
You could be another Lincoln,
If you only had a brain.

him: And yet I'm torn apart
Just because I'm presumin'
That I could be kind-a human
If I only had a heart.

.
The Wizard of OZ

The Day after and what else was happening on thursday..

Let the Olympics be a memorial

Polly Toynbee Friday July 8, 2005 The Guardian

"How barbaric, Tony Blair rightly said, that the terrorists should strike just as the G8 at least strives to do better on Africa and climate change. Yes indeed. But then barbarism is in the eye of the beholder and every act of war is justified in the warped minds of its perpetrators. Barbaric might also be 30,000 children a day dying in Africa while a mere 25,000 US cotton farmers keep their trade-denying subsidies. Or Bangladesh soon to be washed away in global-warming floods. Or arms sold to those who will force them upon child soldiers, or any number of worldwide atrocities."

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How could we have forgotten that this was always going to happen? Ian McEwan

It is unlikely that London will claim to have been transformed in an instant, to have lost its innocence in the course of a morning. It is hard to knock a huge city like this off its course. It has survived many attacks in the past. But once we have counted up our dead, and the numbness turns to anger and grief, we will see that our lives here will be difficult. We have been savagely woken from a pleasant dream. The city will not recover Wednesday's confidence and joy in a very long time. Who will want to travel on the tube, once it has been cleared? How will we sit at our ease in a restaurant, cinema or theatre? And we will face again that deal we must constantly make and remake with the state - how much power must we grant Leviathan, how much freedom will we be asked to trade for our security?

::::::

London After the Bombing
Maria Margaronis

It's not yet clear whether we'll hate Blair less or blame him more for putting us at greater risk by following Bush to Iraq. After the Live 8 concert last weekend and the Olympic bid's success, London was in a carnival mood. The bombs could not have been better timed to whiplash our emotions; their careful coordination seemed designed to maximize fear, not casualties. But so far there's no sign of demonstrations in the rain à la Madrid. Nor is this Britain's 9/11. It hasn't come out of the blue--there is no blue for it to come from anymore. It feels more like the other shoe dropping, which brings a kind of relief: Though this was terrible and there may be more to come, everyone knows it could have been much worse. After the lies that took us into war and their long-drawn-out exposure, it won't be easy for Blair to use the attacks to whip up another crusade--though they will probably speed the government's identity-card legislation. It's a cliché, but the British really are a pretty stoic lot. We've coped with bombs before, though the IRA generally issued warnings and set them off one at a time. With any luck we'll meet this with cool heads and sharp eyes--on people carrying suspicious bags, but also on our leaders.

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As up to 40 people lost their precious lives and over 1,000 were injured in the twisted blasts in London on 7/7...

Yesterday, another 1,000 lives were claimed in the humanitarian crisis in the D.R. Congo ( 3.5 million souls since 1998)....

Yesterday, somewhere in America, a different woman was raped every 90 seconds ....

Yesterday, every 2.43 seconds a child died of preventable starvation somewhere in the world....

Yesterday, AIDS had claimed"up to 22 million lives and infected over 60 million persons" since the 80's....

Yesterday, Civilian deaths in the Iraq war had reached 22,787 souls, at least....

Yesterday, one and a half acres of rainforest were lost every second...

Yesterday, the Arms trade continued to help make sure that every minute someone lost their life to armed violence...

Yesterday, 35-150 species of life became extinct....

Yesterday, someone somewhere every moment became a racist...an extremist.... a widow ....an orphan...homeless...sick...a victim... a statistic.

How are we making tomorrow a better day? Does anyone know?

I have been Book tagged by Valiant Contender...and it took me while before I figured out what that meant.. :) so here goes...

Number of Books I Have Read:
No idea..can't even guess ...but I will admit that there are a lot of books that have pieces of tissue or pencils in then to remind me of where I strayed and got distracted and started reading something else...not monogamous with the books i'm sorry to say.

Last book I read:
Persepolis By Marjane Satrapi...like i said before..go get it folks, really.

Number of Books i Own:
I think just under 2,000.

Books that mean a lot to me:
Conference of the Books
Khaled Abou El Fadhl
This book and his writing really helped me make my peace with the faith we were raised in but which got twisted and brutalised by the reigning orthodoxy. He wrestles Islam out of the ugly tangle of prejudices and anger and hatred and ignorance and fear that has plagued it and presents an evolving and very loving relationship with the text and the faith.

Upside Down : A Primer for the Looking-Glass World
Eduardo Galeano
This book made me laugh out loud in the subway, which is where I read most of it, and also got me so riled up about and interested in topics that had passed below the radar before. His Open Veins of Latin America is also great...and what a title.

Anything by Graham Greene...I don't know why but his writing manages to break my heart every single time..and it's so simple..

The Gift
Daniel Ladinsky's translations of short pieces by Hafiz...this was a lifesaver whenever I had nightmares or when things got icky...I would just open up a page and whatever I read made it all seem ok.

Arundhati Roy in general..her one leap into fiction and what a leap...and her essays...articles...
earthquakes. whatever you want to call them..just stuff that makes you sit up and say 'damn, that was sharp!'

The book I have been reading for a ages but could not finish:
The Corrections
J. Franzen
I have no idea why I am so slow with this..it keeps going back on the shelf and I keep pulling it back out...it has taken a tour of every tabletop and surface in the house...it will be finished someday..

I am currently reading:
Fiction: Snow by Orhan Pamuk... haunting tale about extremism, love and contradictions...
Non-Fiction: Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice-Geoffrey Robertson- I like the way this is written, it tells the story of the rise of Human rights law and problems with the systems in place in a very engaging way...only 60 or so pages into it..have a ways to go.
Arabic: Samarqand- Amin Maalouf(translated from the French)- I know I'm late in the game for this one...but better than never eh..

Supposed to tag people now...so if you just read this..you are tagged..I can't list all the bloggers' bookshelves I am interested in..

Superstars and everyday folks were out in the millions on July 2nd for a cause...yes people were also there to see stars, to dance and to say they were part of history...and celebrities were there to maybe boost sales, be in front of 2 billion people watching worldwide and to say they were part of history...but that's not all...the fact that poverty is a preventable cause of death and suffering on this wealthy beautiful planet is something that should keep us up for more than one single night of star gazing and should not leave us feeling like signing a list is all we can do and therefore all we should do...It should, for one, make us wonder how we have contributed to the silence about this disgusting fact...how we contribute with the things we choose to value and seek above sharing and justice and plain brotherly sisterly love for every person on this planet...and i think, if my sister were starving, what would I do... If my brother were hungry would I sleep peacefully every night...Consume like it had no consequence...not think about my choices...not try to do something...but that's just what is happening...every minute of the day...and something that tastes of hot copper or ash suddenly hits you...and makes you stop and stare... not when you're listening to music, and not when you're watching sick and starving Africans, in photographic montages that lean and dip into mawkish paternalism...and not when you sign that list...it happens much less dramatically, in mundane seconds of your life.... something floats by very quick..like the world calling out to you, to your short time in it, to your voice and what's left of your strength... to realise that nothing is what it has to be...and if you support live 8 or not, that's not the issue...because all kinds of roads lead to justice, if that's where you're headed...so get going, read, learn, reach out and take those steps..because as ugly as it gets on this planet...it's damn beautiful too and don't you want to share that with people?

All the old talk about having to help Africa has passed.. that's not what it's about after all...The whole developing world is as much a lion and a survivor as any other region...but our system...the one that has been set up to keep the priveledged in their place and make sure it's a private party they're throwing for each other on this planet we all live on...that's what needs billions of hands together to bring down and reshape...and of course we all know, don't we, that it doesn't have to be this way...which is why people were out on the grass, in their sweat and their smiles...on a summer day all holding their hands up together and saying that they.. you ..me...we are the people of the planet and we have a voice...voices in fact..that I am sure sounded pretty lovely all singing together..in or out of tune..on one day in July...saying that billions of this planet's citizens do matter more than eight men in suits playing footsie with each other in a sealed room at a private party.

*****

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded

Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed

Everybody knows that the war is over

Everybody knows the good guys lost

Everybody knows the fight was fixed

The poor stay poor, the rich get rich

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

Leonard Cohen

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I am one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do.

— Edward Everett Hale

What the hell is the G8?

G8 Overview-STWR

What the hell is the problem?

G8 (Fiction and) Fact Sheet-from 50 Years is Enough

Causes of Poverty/ Third World Debt-from Global Issues

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What the hell are we going to do about it?

Make Poverty History

Jeffrey Sachs: 'Don't Let the G8 Leaders Leave Scotland Without a Serious Plan for Ending Poverty'-Johann Hari

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Rather Watch Something and learn?

Life and Debt: film by Stephanie Black

Rich World, Poor Women: NOW with Bill Moyers/PBS

"Banking on Life and Debt"

GLOBAL VILLAGE OR GLOBAL PILLAGE?

This is What Democacy Looks Like

Live 8

Updated:I watched an hour of the live feed of the live 8 concerts on MBC4 before I was actually moved..and who did it? Greenday...they kicked some behind...fired up, unafraid, angry, out there to get the people to feel something about why they happen to be there on this Saturday in July...the crowd reacted a lot more passionately to them than some of the more subdued swaying that some of the other crowds were displaying..and Berlin, where they were playing, looked like it was baking hot too..a lot of red faced people in the crowd, bless them...they actually made me pull out the blank vhs and tape and record this for history (oh memories of Live Aid... and why do I even have memories of being excited about and taping Live Aid?...I was too young to understand this stuff I would have thought) Think you remember Live Aid? Here's a quiz.

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Make Poverty History Site

Take part in the Virtual March on Edinburgh/G8

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Do you think if they had any Arabic popstars it would be a more popular event in the Middle East? Are a lot of people watching around here?

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Did it seem inappropriate to anyone that people were cheering the stars they liked the most during the 'every three seconds' ad about a child dying of poverty every 3 seconds?(opening of the Philadelphia concert)...Instead of being stung and silent by the horrible fact..the crowd screamed and clapped for Brad Pitt when he snapped his finger...or for someone else they thought was dreamy...is it that hard to separate entertainment from more serious matters?

******

Bless the Black Eyed Peas for the song they decided to open with, Where is The Love, and when they had everyone raise one finger and repeat "one love, one world"..yup, I got teary...

*****

If you don't like what's showing up on the global feed on MBC4, you can watch a specific city online..

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Prize for most heartfelt song by 8:30pm Kwt time- Annie Lennox: "Why"...She is one dedicated lady...go Annie!

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9:12 pm Kwt time-Madonna wakes the crowd up... and her dancers are fantastic...but not before Geldof tells the viewers not to give into cynicism, because a survivor of the famine in the 80's is on stage to prove the cynics wrong..and that beautiful lady stays on stage for a while when Madonna starts singing and she has the most bitter-sweet expression on her face...the cynic in me is alive and well, but is capable of appreciating all views and possibilities..

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9:50 Kanye West is on our screens and I saw him on the Philadelphia online feed two hours ago...

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Wowzers...it's like the past came and kicked me in the face...A-Ha are on at 10:10pm here singing Take on Me ...part of me wants to giggle, another part of me says "what are you laughing about, remember the 80's? you were there"...and then Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff come on to remind me once again...

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Where the hell did Celine Dion come from? Suddenly her Vegas show is on in the middle of this all at 11pm...I need a good night's sleep people, it's cruel to suddenly put scary things like that on without a safety warning...(sorry to the many Dion fans I know we have in this country, I just can't handle it)ok ok..nice of her to contribute and all...

*****

live8

Sign your name HERE to tell the G8 that you think we should make poverty

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history

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A few hundred millionaires now own as much wealth as the world’s poorest 2.5 billion people.

Global priorities in spending in 1998
Global Priority
$U.S. Billions

Basic education for everyone in the world 6/ Cosmetics in the United States 8 /Water and sanitation for everyone in the world 9 /Ice cream in Europe 11 /Reproductive health for all women in the world 12 /Perfumes in Europe and the US 12 /Basic health and nutrition for everyone in the world 13 /Pet foods in Europe and the US 17/ Business entertainment in Japan 35/ Cigarettes in Europe 50 /Alcoholic drinks in Europe 105/ Narcotics drugs in the world 400/ Military spending in the world 780

globalissues.org