All posts by nedhamson

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

Some Brilliant Satirical mind-blowing art by Pawel Kuczynski// Quelques illustrations satiriques éblouissantes de Pawel Kuczynski

hat tip to JoAnn Chateau

Observer of the Near East

Polish artist and illustrator Paweł Kuczyński is famous for his political and satirical take on world events filled with thought provoking messages ( in some of them )as his works  specialize in satirical illustration. He’s one of the most influential contemporary artists in his field.Take a look at the gallery below for some more of his satirical illustrations and make sure to check out Paweł Kuczyński’s Facebook.

Was Born in 1976 in Szczecin, Poland, he graduated with a graphics degree from the Fine Arts Academy in Poznan. Pawel has been focusing on satire since 2004 and has garnered nearly a hundred prizes and distinctions since then.Let’s take a look on some of them.

Much of his artwork deals with serious themes such as poverty, greed, politics and mortality. While his subject matter is stark, his illustrative style is whimsical and cartoonish. This provides great contrast and makes…

View original post 537 more words

Ghazala Khan: Trump criticized my silence. He knows nothing about true sacrifice. – The Washington Post

Donald Trump said that maybe I wasn’t allowed to say anything. That is not true. My husband asked me if I wanted to speak, but I told him I could not. My religion teaches me that all human beings are equal in God’s eyes. Husband and wife are part of each other; you should love and respect each other so you can take care of the family.When Donald Trump is talking about Islam, he is ignorant. If he studied the real Islam and Koran, all the ideas he gets from terrorists would change, because terrorism is a different religion.Donald Trump said he has made a lot of sacrifices. He doesn’t know what the word sacrifice means.

Source: Ghazala Khan: Trump criticized my silence. He knows nothing about true sacrifice. – The Washington Post

Pope Francis tells ‘drowsy and dull’ children to get off the sofa | World news | The Guardian

For many people it is easier and better to have drowsy and dull kids who confuse happiness with a sofa,” he told an estimated one million people gathered at a vigil in a vast plain near Kraków.“Dear young people, we didn’t come into the world to vegetate … We came for another reason: to leave a mark,” he said.“The times we live in do not call for young couch potatoes but for young people with shoes, or better, boots laced.”Francis, 79, said being constantly glued to screens – where the terrible events of the world become just another story on the evening news – numbed youngsters to the suffering of others.

Source: Pope Francis tells ‘drowsy and dull’ children to get off the sofa | World news | The Guardian

Donald Trump’s slander of Captain Humayun Khan’s family is horrifying, even for Trump – Vox

Trump’s actual response, though, wasn’t fine.”If you look at his wife, she was standing there,” he said, on national television. “She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me.”This wasn’t a slip of the tongue. In an interview with Maureen Dowd, Trump took the same tack. “I’d like to hear his wife say something,” he said.Let’s be very clear about what Trump is doing here: as ABC wrote, he’s suggesting “Khan’s wife didn’t speak because she was forbidden to as a Muslim.” This is bullshit. It is flatly, verifiably, false. But that’s almost beside the point.Trump listened to a speech by the bereaved father of a fallen Muslim soldier and used it to slander the fallen soldier’s family. That was his response. That is his character.At this point, I honestly don’t know what to say. I don’t have new language for this, I haven’t found another way of saying this isn’t okay, this isn’t kind, this isn’t decent. Instead, I’ll note James Fallows’s response. He quotes Joseph Welch, speaking to Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954.”Until this moment,” he said, “I think I never really gauged your cruelty.”If you would like to see Ghazala Khan speak, you can do so in this interview she gave to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. As Fallows writes, she breaks down sobbing while speaking of her son. It suggests she let her husband give the DNC speech for a simple reason: she remains overwhelmed by grief.This is the woman Trump decided to slander. This is the gauge of his cruelty.This isn’t partisan. This isn’t left vs. right. Mitt Romney never would have said this. John McCain never would have said this. George W. Bush never would have said this. John Kerry never would have said this. This is what I mean when I write that the 2016 election isn’t simply Democrat vs. Republican, but normal vs. abnormal.Trump also wanted the Khans to know that, like them, he had sacrificed for this country.”I’ve made a lot of sacrifices,” Trump said. “I work very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I’ve had tremendous success. I think I’ve done a lot.”I honestly do not understand how a human being can respond to a family that lost their son for this country by saying that he has sacrificed too, he’s worked really hard, he’s built “great structures,” he’s had “tremendous success.”This is not a question that needs to be asked in most elections, but it needs to be asked in this one: what kind of person is Donald Trump? What kind of person says these things? And is that really the kind of person we want to be president?

Source: Donald Trump’s slander of Captain Humayun Khan’s family is horrifying, even for Trump – Vox

Putin enjoys early Christmas presents | Europe | DW.COM | 29.07.2016

‘Die for Danzig. No!’And Republican Trump ally and former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, has explained exactly how this will happen – just as it did in Crimea. Speaking on the CBS This Morning programme he said “Estonia is in the suburbs of St Petersburg. The Russians aren’t going to necessarily come across the [Estonian] border militarily. The Russians will do what they did in Ukraine. 40 percent of Estonia is Russian. They’re suddenly going to say they’re being mistreated. They’re going to have a militia. I’m not sure I would risk a nuclear war over some place which is the suburbs of St Petersburg.”The comments are reminiscent of the French neo-socialist writer Marcel Déat, who wrote an article in 1939 urging further appeasement of Hilter by giving back to Germany the former Prussian region of Danzig, which was within Polish territory and administered by the League of Nations. Déat coined the phrase “Die for Danzig. No!”Shortly afterwards Hitler – followed by the Soviet Union which had been promised the territories of the Baltics, Finland and a swath of Poland under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact – invaded Poland and all hell broke out in Europe for the second time. Let’s hope there won’t be a third.

Source: Putin enjoys early Christmas presents | Europe | DW.COM | 29.07.2016