All posts by nedhamson

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

Legal opinion finds Erodgan ‘smear poem’ not criminal

There was good news for satirist Jan Böhmermann on Thursday, as broadcaster ZDF published a legal opinion claiming a “smear poem” he directed at Turkey’s President was within the bounds of the law.Original enclosures:

Source: Legal opinion finds Erodgan ‘smear poem’ not criminal

Humans of New York

Source: Humans of New York

“I’m graduating from Columbia with a Masters’ in Public Health. I want to stay in New York for another few years, but then I want to go back to Texas. My family is from a ‘drive-through’ town off Route 66. It’s tempting to stay here in New York because there are better opportunities. The Department of Health is very developed, and there’s so much funding from the government, and the services are so extensive. I feel like there’s so much I can learn here. But then I feel like I need to bring it back home. Texas is a big ole place. People are spread out. And so many of them don’t have access to the services they need.”

a good palestinian is a dead palestinian

نادية حرحش

It is not just another killing

Of another young life that the occupation decided to perish

In cold blood

In a ceremony of hate and despise

It is the way life is under the Zionist fascist state of hate

It is the way they intend to uproot the Palestinian hearts

A Palestinian chest facing a state of horror

A state of terror

A state where a dead Palestinian is a victory

Where a Palestinian blood is nothing but a fertilizer to their soil

A state where a human is considered by his race

His ethnicity

His religion

His language

Where every other is a sacrifice to their existence

The scene of the shooting of the young Palestinian man (Fadi Allon, 19) escaping from a savagely settler Israeli mob to be shot in cold blood by an Israeli policeman who instead of saving the young man shoots him without hesitation, while…

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Beaches #atozchallenge

There is no other way but going forward, catching the wave and riding it as best you can.

Silvia Writes

07Few everyday moments equal those spent at the beach in their  serenity. In Southern California, there’s a beach every two miles along the coast. My quick research produced quite the find: over one hundred beaches in our side of the state.

There is a certain connection between the beach — the ocean — and creativity. The serenity helps; but the vastness of the ocean, I think, taps into the risk-taking side of the creative.

In Einstein at the Beach, Steven Kotler makes a connection between risk taking and creativity. Spending time at the beach, better yet in the ocean, offers a risk-taking snap shot. Einstein, as the article indicates, couldn’t swim, so venturing into the water came at a risk. Still, the ocean is vastly unpredictable.

Creativity is the act of making something from nothing. It requires making public those bets first placed by imagination. ~ Einstein at the Beach

Beach-Awesome-Wallpapers-HD[1]If true…

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Preserving Language Key to Overcoming Native Suicide Epidemic – Intercontinental Cry

“The data reported above indicate that, at least in the case of BC, those bands in which a majority of members reported a conversational knowledge of an Aboriginal language also experienced low to absent youth suicide rates. By contrast, those bands in which less than half of the members reported conversational knowledge suicide rates were six times greater.” It is important to drive this point home. In the First Nation communities where native language retention was above 50 per cent (with at least half of the community retaining or acquiring conversational fluency) suicide rates were virtually null, zero. Yet in the bands where less than half of community members demonstrated conversational fluency in their native tongue, suicide rates spiked upwards of 6 times the rates of surrounding settler communities. It is also worth noting how overall spikes in suicide prevalence found in Indigenous communities around the world indicate a strong correlation with the socio-political marginalization brought on by colonization. In other words, the suicide epidemic – which is at heart a crisis of mental health – is directly related to, if not directly caused by, the loss of culture and identity set in motion by colonialism.

Source: Preserving Language Key to Overcoming Native Suicide Epidemic – Intercontinental Cry

IRIN | Western Sahara’s moment in the sun

Part of the problem is that it’s an easy place for major powers to ignore. “Looked at from Washington, Morocco and Algeria fighting over the Western Sahara is like two bald men fighting over a comb,” said Ottoway.It’s true that the conflict is usually low in intensity. But there are occasional flare-ups: at least five people were killed in 2010 when Moroccan security forces broke up a Saharawi protest camp.From another perspective, Western Sahara is left on the sidelines not because it is small and remote, but because it has in fact become a pawn in global politics.As Jacob Mundy, an assistant professor at Colgate University and an expert on the conflict pointed out, Morocco has positioned itself as a key ally of Saudi Arabia and the West in North Africa, sharing intelligence with the United States and even playing host to at least one of the CIA’s controversial black sites. This brings the US closely into line with France, already staunchly on Morocco’s in the dispute.“Anytime Morocco is feeling the pressure on Western Sahara, they probably find ways of making themselves very useful to the United States,” Mundy explained.On Algeria’s side, three current UN Security Council members have officially recognised the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, the Polisario Front’s government-in-exile: Angola, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Source: IRIN | Western Sahara’s moment in the sun

CDC analysis concludes Zika causes microcephaly | CIDRAP

Despite urgent pleas from top federal health officials for Congress to approve Obama’s $1.9 billion emergency request to battle Zika virus earlier this week, House Republicans said they’ll probably grant part of it, but perhaps not until September, the Associated Press reported today. Federal health officials have said the money is needed to help states boost mosquito surveillance and control, to assist efforts in Puerto Rico and other US territories where the disease is already spreading, and to follow through on countermeasure development.

Source: CDC analysis concludes Zika causes microcephaly | CIDRAP

Germany to support training of Mexican police and army in repressive techniques.

Following her talks yesterday with Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto in Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that Germany will strengthen its partnership with Mexico. It will train members of the police and armed forces and enhance economic cooperation with that country. Mexico, traditionally, has been one of the German companies’ two most important trading partners in Latin America. Particularly German automobile companies use Mexico as a low-wage production site for the lucrative US market. Cooperation now will also be strengthened with the military and in the field of domestic repression.

Source: www.german-foreign-policy.com

Meet the outspoken critic of Israel who is Bernie Sanders’ new Jewish outreach director – US Elections – Jerusalem Post

Zimmerman is hardly an anti-Semite. A native of Los Angeles born in 1990 and the great-granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, Zimmerman grew up in a Conservative Jewish household, went to Jewish day school and Jewish camp and was active in United Synagogue Youth, the Conservative movement’s youth organization, according to a biography of Zimmerman on the website of the American Jewish Peace Archive. The bio is based on an interview with Zimmerman last May. Zimmerman said she visited Israel a number of times during her childhood.When she started college at the University of California, Berkeley, Zimmerman initially gravitated toward the traditional pro-Israel camp. She joined Berkeley’s Israel Action Committee, protested a divestment bill in the student senate and went to Washington in the spring to attend AIPAC’s annual policy conference.But Zimmerman’s political views changed as she learned more from advocates of divestment and witnessed Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians during a visit to Israel, she said. She soon joined her campus chapter of J Street, the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobbying group that supports US pressure on Israel to support a two-state solution. She spent the summer after her sophomore year studying colloquial Arabic at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In 2012, Zimmerman was elected president of the national student board of J Street U, the group’s campus arm.

Source: Meet the outspoken critic of Israel who is Bernie Sanders’ new Jewish outreach director – US Elections – Jerusalem Post