All posts by nedhamson

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

Israel’s Arab leaders join forces in attempt to oust Benjamin Netanyahu and influence future government – Middle East – World – The Independent

“Time has come today!”

For years Arabs have been effectively marginalized in Israel’s political life. But at the weekend leaders of the country’s substantial Arab minority launched an alliance which puts them on course to become a powerful force in next month’s general election – with the potential to tip the outcome against the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Five previously fractious political groupings that divided the Arab vote between them agreed to field a single “Joint List” with the aim of toppling the Israeli leader, whom they blame for a further deterioration in their own standing and conditions, and for harming fellow Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

There was standing room only in a Nazareth hall on Saturday night, as 1,500 supporters gave their backing to the combined list of Arab candidates under Israel’s system of proportional representation.

“We are no longer investing our energy in defeating each other; on the contrary we are joining our forces to grow bigger and bigger,” said Aida Touma, a socialist and feminist from the Hadash party who shares prominence on the list alongside such others as Masoud Ganaim, an Islamic fundamentalist.

via Israel’s Arab leaders join forces in attempt to oust Benjamin Netanyahu and influence future government – Middle East – World – The Independent.

BBC News – Turkey rallies over murder of woman who ‘resisted rape’

Thousands of women in Turkey have protested at the murder of a young woman who allegedly resisted an attempt by a bus driver to rape her.

Police discovered the burnt body of Ozgecan Aslan, 20, in a riverbed in the city of Mersin, on Friday.

They have arrested three men in connection with her death – a minibus driver, his father and a friend.

The Turkish president and prime minister called Ms Aslan’s family to offer their condolences.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu promised the family to hunt those responsible for the crime and punish them.

Ms Aslan, a psychology student, was kidnapped on Wednesday on her way home.

The driver allegedly tried to rape her. She reportedly fought him off with pepper spray, but was then stabbed to death. She was also hit on the head with an iron pipe.

The brutality of the murder caused an outcry across Turkey.

via BBC News – Turkey rallies over murder of woman who ‘resisted rape’.

The Link Brigade –

✫ How can I find a great job when I have no time?

✫ 7 cultural concepts the US lacks. Yeeesss to all of them!!! Hygge is probly my favourite -as hard as it is to choose a favourite cause all of them are essential to my days.

✫ OMG! Waaaant!!!

✫ Gala shares 3 ways to create a regular gratitude practice.

✫ Do you want to learn a foreign language? Use Duolingo, it’s awesome and free!

✫ The incredibly high human cost of fast fashion.

✫ I like what Ember has to share about her No Buy January.

✫ This interview with Lena Dunham is absolutely fascinating.

✫ Blue eyes originated from a single ancestor.

✫ 13 reasons to live with less.

✫ 9 intentional ways to challenge consumerism in your life.

via The Link Brigade –.

With the Serra Canonization: Franciscans need to apologize for mistreating the Mission Indians | La Prensa San Diego

In one of the more moving essays, Deborah Miranda of Esselen / Chumash responds to a fourth grader named Sonora who wants to know if the Indians liked the missions and if the priests were good. Miranda writes that although some Indians believe the missions brought them Catholicism and agriculture, others insist that anything that kills about 80 percent of your people can’t be all that good.

Miranda explains to Sonora that once the Franciscans baptized the Indians, they refused to let them leave the missions. Nor could their family members visit them unless they were baptized. Girls under seven were locked up in dirty rooms at the missions (called monjerios) and got sick from the lack of sanitation. Meanwhile their parents were forced to work on the mission’s farms.

The Indians were beaten frequently for not obeying the rules of the missions, for reverting to their native religious practices, gathering wild food, hunting, or visiting their families.

Moreover, the friars made changes to the Indian’s diet, supplanting it with European foods that weakened their immune systems and made them prey to diseases such as smallpox, measles and tuberculosis.

The mission system, Miranda explains to Sonora, was a disaster. The Indian population was decimated because of European diseases, and the Indians lost their land, their religion, their language and their communities. And after the mission period ended in 1833, the remaining land was taken over by non-Indians and later by Anglo settlers who arrived with the Gold Rush.

via With the Serra Canonization: Franciscans need to apologize for mistreating the Mission Indians | La Prensa San Diego.

Justice Moore in Alabama needs to follow court’s order on same-sex marriage, not publicity’s dictates: editorial | cleveland.com

Today, if America’s anti-gay bigots and diehards aren’t thanking God for Roy Moore, perhaps they should, given Moore’s attempted defiance of a federal judge’s order clearing the way for same-sex marriage in Alabama. By ordering Alabama probate judges (who, incidentally, need not be lawyers) to refuse marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Moore is demonstrating contempt for the rule of law, something he’s sworn to uphold. That is, Moore is treating as a nullity a ruling by a U.S. District judge for Southern Alabama (an appointee of George W. Bush) that cleared the way for same-sex marriage in Alabama.

via Justice Moore in Alabama needs to follow court’s order on same-sex marriage, not publicity’s dictates: editorial | cleveland.com.