All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Poem for the end of a war

Pacific Paratrooper

B-29 air raid damage in Hachioji, Japan, 1 Aug. 1945

The End and the Beginning

After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won’t
straighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble
to the side of the road,
so the corpse-filled wagons
can pass.

GI hooks a tow rope to a Type 97 Te-Ke tank during cleanup of the Okinawa battlefields at the end of WWII in 1945.

Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.

Someone has to drag in a girder
to prop up a wall,
Someone has to glaze a window,
rehang a door.

Photogenic it’s not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.

We’ll need the bridges back,
and new railway stations.
Sleeves will go ragged
from rolling them up.

U.S. and Japanese soldiers collaborate to rebuild Japan

Someone, broom…

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Just Being Silly

yaskhan

Home is..... Where your __ss is sat The coat hung in the rack Where you hook up your hat. The rude nude... When naked truth Looks you in the eye From truth you can't shy That's life's way of saying Your sanity I certify. When hunger becomes mean.... My toaster burnt to a char To me, looked like coal tar Microwave waved a finger Asking if I wanted dinner So I gassed my foot in the car Hunger gave me that much power. (This happened on the way to the diner) Labour room mayhem.... The gynaecologist swooned When Mary had a little lamb The doctor needed dopamine Seeing the four legged bloodline. Ba ba bopeep... When ba ba black sheep Hit a favourite note The flutist began to weep The sheep had gotten his goat That became an irritation in the throat. Mirror, mirror on the wall....... With my broken…

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No-show high school students reject COVID reopening rules – Los Angeles Times

A Times review of many of the state’s largest school districts revealed a range of approaches to reopening high schools:

  • In Elk Grove, the largest district in Northern California, students who opted for in-person instruction are allowed to come to campus four days a week or twice weekly, for five hours per day. They move from class to class, with teachers simultaneously instructing in-person and online students. About 22% of students opted to return — a little over half chose the two-day schedule.
  • In Fresno, students can attend classes two days a week for four hours of in-person instruction. About 49% returned to campus, the rest remain online.
  • In San Diego Unified, the state’s second-largest district, students can be on campus two to four days a week — depending on space  and move from class to class for up to three periods per day. About 40% of high school students have returned.
  • In Corona-Norco, where three in four students are on campus, students chose at the start of the school year whether they would return in person when campuses reopened and were assigned to online or in-person teachers based on that. Changing the decision meant getting a new teacher.

Source: No-show high school students reject COVID reopening rules – Los Angeles Times

2nd Police Officer Indicted in BLM Flag Vandalism Case

Teets was off-duty when he allegedly came across the BLM flag displayed at the residence and his little fragile blue feeling couldn’t take the (well earned) disrespect so he reportedly walked into the driveway, set off the car alarm on the residents’ truck, beat up the flag like it was an actual Black life and kicked and pounded on the front door of the home.

The owners of the home called the police and an unnamed officer arrived and identified Teets as the vandal. Schuetz apparently got wind of the situation and arrived at the scene to drive Teets home instead of taking his ass to jail like he would any civilian who had committed the same crime.

Source: 2nd Police Officer Indicted in BLM Flag Vandalism Case

Facebook removes Ukrainian pro-government and opposition networks for ‘coordinated inauthentic behaviour’ · Global Voices

In its report, Facebook indicated it had removed two different networks of accounts that had engaged in coordinated inauthentic behaviour. The first one consisted of “105 Facebook accounts, 24 pages and five Instagram accounts that originated in and targeted Ukraine”. Facebook said the suspicious activity came to their attention through an investigation by Bukvy, an independent news media outlet in Ukraine.

The people running the network combined fake and authentic accounts to share a mix of legitimate news and their own content with their 23,000 followers and also managed what looked like news pages to drive traffic to websites posing as legitimate media sources. Although the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities and the coordinated actions, Facebook’s investigation found links to individuals associated with Sluha Narodu (Servant of the People), the ruling political party in Ukraine on whose ticket President Zelenskyy was elected and whole title mirrors the TV series which propelled him to fame.

Another, significantly larger group of accounts was identified and removed by Facebook on a tip from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations. A total of 477 Facebook accounts, 363 pages, 35 groups (followed by 2.37 million people) and 29 Instagram accounts (with a following of less than 30,000) that originated in and targeted Ukraine were taken down. The accounts also spent close to 0.5 million dollars in advertising on Facebook to promote their posts.

Facebook’s investigation attributed this network to “entities and individuals sanctioned by the US Treasury Department” in January 2021 — namely, politicians Andrii Derkach, Petro Zhuravel, and media companies linked to the sanctioned Begemot Media, as well as political consultants associated with two other political actors: Volodymyr Groysman and Oleg Kulinich.

While Derkach and others were sanctioned for alleged interference in the U.S. elections, their Facebook activity in this case focused solely on Ukrainian audiences and themes and was part of a larger “deceptive influence operation” encompassing different social media platforms and websites.

 

Source: Facebook removes Ukrainian pro-government and opposition networks for ‘coordinated inauthentic behaviour’ · Global Voices

Cairo la înălțime

(Saladin) He waged a sustained military campaign against the Crusaders and thus reached Cairo, on his way to the Levant from his native Mesopotamia.

ore de drum

2018

Iarna, soarele matinal cairot te încălzește dacă-l întâmpini pe creasta dealului unde se întinde falnica citadelă.

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Este unul din marile obiective ale capitalei egiptene și te provoacă la o plimbare destul de lungă.

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Istoric vorbind, plecăm la întâlnirea cu eroul de etnie kurdă Saladin, întemeietorul unei dinastii, primul sultan al Egiptului și Siriei.

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A dus o campanie militară susținută împotriva cruciaților și așa a ajuns la Cairo, în drumul către Levant din Mesopotamia natală.

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Citadela lui Saladin arată ca o picătură de istorie nealterată în marea metropolă.

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Suntem însoțiți de ghidul nostru Karim, cu profesionalism și umor.

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Aflăm că sultanul a ridicat în secolul 12 o cetate regală ale cărei metereze au fost inspirate de construcțiile cruciaților.

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Să avem în vedere că scopul citadelei era chiar să apere orașul de cruciați.

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Urcăm în cartierul care, timp de șapte secole, a fost sediul puterii unde au locuit demnitarii și acoliții…

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The Week’s Best Cartoons 5/8

Filosofa's Word

Yesterday, our friend TokyoSand published her weekly roundup of political cartoons and there is just to much material right now that I don’t know how she can even decide which ones to choose!  She does always manage, though, to pick the best of the lot, and this week is no exception.  Most of them, you’ll notice, feature the Republican Party as the brunt of the joke … a position they have worked hard to earn!  Thank you, TS, for your hard work on these ‘toon posts!

Source: The Week’s Best Cartoons 5/8

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