All posts by nedhamson

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

Woman fined for wearing headscarf on Cannes beach – The Local – French racism rules over idea that French are cosmopolitan and freedom loving.

A journalist for France 4, Mathilde Cusin, watched the incident unfold. “I felt like I was watching a pack of hounds attack a woman who was sitting down, in tears, with her young daughter,” she said.”Racist terms were used freely,” said Siam. “I was stunned. I heard things which no one had ever said to me, like ‘Go home!’ and ‘we’re Catholics here!'”While some people defended the 34-year-old, Siam says around three quarters of beachgoers took the side of the police and demanded that she remove the veil or leave the beach. In the end, she paid the €11 fine, and has since contacted the Collectif Contre l’Islamophobie, a French organization which protects Muslims’ rights.Siam said the incident left her feeling “humiliated” and that she felt she was fined simply for being a Muslim.The mayor of Cannes, David Lisnard, has supported the police officers, arguing that they were within their rights to fine anyone considered to be wearing an “ostentatious” symbol of faith, and that he had “no reason to doubt their judgment,”, according to La Depeche newspaper.

Source: Woman fined for wearing headscarf on Cannes beach – The Local

Merkel calls for ‘loyalty’ from Turkish-Germans – The Local

Chancellor Angela Merkel told Ruhr Nachrichten newspaper on Tuesday that people with Turkish roots living in Germany should be loyal to the country.”We expect that people of Turkish origin who have been living in Germany for a long time should develop a high level of loyalty to our nation,” Merkel said.”Therefore we are trying to have open ears to hear their concerns and to understand them. And for this we are also keeping in close contact with immigrant associations.”Merkel’s talk of loyalty comes as the government is considering new measures to combat terrorism, including getting rid of dual citizenship. Members of Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) have said that dual nationality poses a “huge obstacle to integration”.The Chancellor also commented on the current situation in Turkey where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been cracking down on suspected dissenters in the wake of a failed coup last month. She urged Germany’s Turkish community to remain calm despite the circumstances dividing the country.

Source: Merkel calls for ‘loyalty’ from Turkish-Germans – The Local

Quincy Jones: the day Michael Jackson’s pet snake got loose in the studio | Music | The Guardian

What does he make of the controversy surrounding recent deaths of African Americans at the hands of armed police? “Police and black kids? It’s been like that all the time. You should have seen it in the 30s, 40s and 50s. Racism? Are you kidding me? It was really bad then.” Jones got his start in the music business playing four dates a night with Ray Charles, gigging at whites-only country clubs and strip joints. When Jones was backing Frank Sinatra at the Sands casino in Las Vegas in 1964 as part of the Count Basie Orchestra, stars such as Harry Belafonte and Lena Horne were being served their meals in the kitchens, not the casinos, and had to stay at ’black’ hotels. Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Frank was tough, man’ … Jones with Sinatra in 1964. Photograph: John Dominis/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image“When we came in, Frank said, ‘We’re not going to have that.’ I was told that the old man wanted to see me by the slot machines. Basie’s whole band was lined up there with 18 goombahs.” Jones flattens his nose so he looks like a mobster’s mugshot. “Frank put one with each guy, like a bodyguard. And he said, ‘If anyone so much as looks at them funny, I want you to break both of their legs.’ Frank was tough, man. But he got rid of racism there.”

Source: Quincy Jones: the day Michael Jackson’s pet snake got loose in the studio | Music | The Guardian

Donald Trump Cues Up Another Conspiracy – The New York Times

Mr. Trump did not invent paranoia; he did not create the Republican meme of fraudulent minority voting. He just took it — as he so often does — to an extreme. Senator John McCain made similar warnings in 2008, and murmurings of cheating go back at least to 2000, a close national election, botched in Florida, decided for George W. Bush by the conservative majority of the Supreme Court. And long before Mr. Trump entered the presidential race, Republican legislators were busy passing voter ID laws based on the fallacy of widespread fraud.Mr. Trump’s brain is a pincushion for conspiracy theories, so maybe it’s no surprise that he thinks the Clinton campaign will be sending African-Americans and foreigners into booths across the country to fake their votes over and over, millions of times.Now, more than ever, the country needs responsible political leaders and the courts to defend and expand voting rights, rather than sitting silently while Mr. Trump further demolishes public confidence in the foundations of our government.

Source: Donald Trump Cues Up Another Conspiracy – The New York Times

Humans of New York

“I have professors at Columbia who view me as a terrorist for fighting in Iraq. But I believe that America is an example to be emulated, and I went over there to provide those people with basic human freedoms. But when you get over there you realize that you’re fighting kids. Everyone was kids. You see it when they’re dead. These weren’t the guys who were flying into towers. These were kids who grew up poor, stepped into the wrong madrasa, and were manipulated by people with a shit load of money into executing somebody else’s worldview. None of them came out of the womb hating. None of them came out of the womb thinking anything else but holy shit this is a bright beautiful world.”

Source: Humans of New York

The Right Not To Wear A Burkini

Excellent explanation of the double-bind that Muslim women find themselves in. Stop the silly Islamophobia and let women choose what they want to wear and work for their own freedom of choice within their community.

Nervana

TUNISIA-ISLAM-LEISURE Tunisian women, one (R) wearing a “burkini”, a full-body swimsuit designed for Muslim women. Photo credit should read FETHI BELAID/AFP/Getty Images)

The ban on the Islamic burkini, or full-body swimsuit, on the beaches of the French Riviera has triggered heated debates and controversies. For some, it is a ban on freedom of choice; for others, the ban is a symbol of Islamist extremism. For me, however, it triggers painful memories of another struggle by women in the Muslim world who were stripped of the right to make their own choice on the matter.

“Maybe it is not a good idea to swim on a public beach,” one of my mother’s friends once told me with a stern look on his face. He then added, “You would be harassed in such a conservative culture as ours.” I was only 11 at the time and was struggling to swim. To be honest…

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Dr. Donald A. Henderson, Who Helped End Smallpox, Dies at 87 – The New York Times

Smallpox, caused by the variola virus, was long one of mankind’s most terrifying scourges. Called the “red plague” or the “speckled monster,” it killed almost a third of its victims, often through pneumonia or brain inflammation. Many others were left blind from corneal ulcerations or severely disfigured by pockmarks.It is thought to have emerged from a rodent virus more than 10,000 years ago, and signs of it are found in the mummy of Pharaoh Ramses V of Egypt. Some terrified ancient civilizations worshiped it as a deity.It carried off many European monarchs and buried the lines of succession to thrones from England to China. Because it killed 80 percent of the American Indians who caught it, it was a major factor in the European conquest of the New World.Three American presidents survived it: George Washington, Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln. In the 20th century, before it was extinguished, it was blamed for at least 300 million deaths.The victory over smallpox proved the power of vaccine. Before the 18th century, some peoples, especially in Asia Minor and West Africa, inoculated themselves by piercing their skin with pus from victims or inhaling dried pox scabs. Although that sometimes produced a full-blown lethal infection, it killed much less often than epidemics did.In 1796, Dr. Edward Jenner, an English physician, infected a young boy with cowpox taken from a blister on a milkmaid’s hand. Cowpox, a mild disease, protected those who had it from smallpox, and the modern vaccine era began. The word “vaccine” come from the Latin for “cow.”

Source: Dr. Donald A. Henderson, Who Helped End Smallpox, Dies at 87 – The New York Times

Humans of New York

“ I don’t think it’s possible to be a medic in a conflict zone and not have something stay with you. Something that you didn’t have before you went. I have the hardest time forgetting this little girl. She was brought to our post one day. Two men ran toward us carrying a bundle of blankets. And they’re yelling in Pashtu. And at first all I can see are these bloody blankets, but then I peel them back, and there’s this little girl inside. She stepped on a landmine while playing soccer and she’s gone below the knee, gone below the elbow, gone below the hand. And everything is seething. And I can smell the flesh. And she’s screaming. But I’m trained to drown it out. I’m trained so well that I almost don’t hear the screaming. I focus on our interventions. Stop the bleeding. Apply tourniquets. Administer the IV. I overdosed her on morphine. I’ll never forget that. I just kept pushing until the screaming stopped. And then a helicopter came and got her. And she lived. And I was fine throughout the whole thing. I was just like a robot. I’d been trained for chaotic situations. But they don’t train you for the aftermath. They don’t train you for when the helicopter has lifted off, and suddenly everything is quiet.”

Source: Humans of New York