All posts by nedhamson

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

Last native tribal speaker dies in U.S. state | News , International | THE DAILY STAR

The last person to have spoken the Klallam language from birth and the eldest member among the Klallam tribes of the Pacific Northwest has died in Washington state at the age of 103, family and tribal members said.

Hazel M. Sampson was the last person who first learned Klallam, then learned English as a second language, said Lower Elwha Klallam tribal member Jamie Valadez, who teaches the Klallam language and culture at Port Angeles High School.

Her death on Tuesday changes the dynamics of the culture, Valadez told the Peninsula Daily News in a story Thursday.

“In the U.S., this is happening all over Indian Country,” Valadez said. “They carry so much knowledge of our culture and traditions. Then it’s gone.”

via Last native tribal speaker dies in U.S. state | News , International | THE DAILY STAR.

Rebel with a Cause: Question Everything. | Rebelle Society

This is how the world must be changed, by questioning everything. We dismantle our ideas about ourselves so that we may understand others more fully. We honor ourselves by honoring each other. We question our thoughts to access the truth. We can change the world by opening up and letting go.

Perhaps you don’t believe me, perhaps you believe things are fine the way they are, that your life is as it needs to be. True, the present moment is perfect as it is, we must learn to be with things as they appear — but how many moments are you using to celebrate being alive?

For peace to exist, we must first practice peace with ourselves, we must be peaceful. For love to exist, we must first practice love with ourselves, we must be loving. If you really want to overthrow the system, put on your motorcycle jacket and start meditating.

Decide, commit, manifest. Rebel with a cause.

via Rebel with a Cause: Question Everything. | Rebelle Society.

The document which proves the UK government is censoring on-line criticism

1984 – a little later than predicted but today’s Tories are definitely better than everyone else and want to keep it that way.

Pride's Purge

(not satire – it’s the UK today!)

UPDATE – Good news. Perhaps as a result of all the negative publicity, Twitter has decided to reinstate the @UKJCP account. A failure for the DWP and a triumph for satire and freedom of speech.

After a FOI request, a DWP official has released a copy of the official complaint it made to Twitter which resulted in closing down a parody account on Twitter of the Department for Work and Pensions.

In the remarkable document, an official at the Department (Jon Woodcock, Brand Manager at Department for Work and Pensions) openly gives the reason for wanting to close down the account as “deliberate and malicious intent to devalue and criticise the work of Jobcentre Plus ….. UK government, elected politicians and the heads of large private sector organisations”.

Here’s the relevant section of the document, in which Mr Woodcock explains why the…

View original post 98 more words

The Gun Report: February 6, 2014 – NYTimes.com

Curtis Reeves, the 71-year-old retired police captain who shot and killed a man who was texting in a Florida movie theater on Jan. 13, attended his bail hearing yesterday, and more details about the shooting came to light.

A witness who overheard the fight testified that after Reeves complained about the texting, the victim, 43-year-old Chad Oulson, said, “Do you mind? I’ve got a voicemail from my babysitter. I’d like to check to see that my daughter is okay.” After more requests to stop using his phone, Oulson got up and threw a small bag of popcorn at Reeves, who immediately grabbed his gun and opened fire.

Alan Hamilton, an off-duty police officer who also attended the screening, testified that after the shooting, Reeves’s wife said to her husband, “That was no cause to shoot anyone,” to which he was heard to respond, “You shut your [expletive] mouth and don’t say another word.” But when Oulson made gurgling sounds and it became apparent he might not survive, Reeves reportedly exclaimed, “I can’t believe what I’ve done.”

Reeves’s lawyer suggested that his client was defending himself from Oulson, who invaded his personal space. Hamilton told the court that Reeves approached him after the shooting and said, “I just got hit by something. Look at my eye,” but he saw no injury on Reeves’s face.

Oulson’s widow, Nicole, was present in the courtroom, and sobbed into a handkerchief. Reeves officially pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.

Here is today’s report.

—Jennifer Mascia

via The Gun Report: February 6, 2014 – NYTimes.com.

500 Gardens in Madisonville | Sidestreams Foundation, Inc. – Urban Farming

(My old neighborhood) Madisonville is a neighborhood of Cincinnati that has a lot going for it, especially for a gardening project.  There are large lots, generations of garden tradition, active community partners in the Madisonville Community Council, the Madisonville Community Urban Redevelopment Council, and local churches, and we have two years of partnership with Lighthouse Community School and success in building gardens on the school parking lot and nearby vacant lot with the students.  The neighborhood has a vibrant mixture of ages, ethnicities, incomes, and family origins, and carries a USDA Food Desert designation.

For two years we have worked with the Lighthouse Community School in Madisonville.  We have built gardens on a parking lots and a vacant lot.  We have facilitated job training for young people and provide fresh food to our gardens neighbors.

Through the Lighthouse work we have learned that there is a desire for fresh vegetables in the neighborhood.

via 500 Gardens in Madisonville | Sidestreams Foundation, Inc. – Urban Farming.

ASIA/LEBANON – The victims of the Armenian Genocide will be canonized – Fides News Agency

ASIA/LEBANON – The victims of the Armenian Genocide will be canonized

 

Antelias (Agenzia Fides) – Almost a century since the Armenian genocide – carried out in the territories of Turkey in 1915 – the Armenian Apostolic Church firmly and definitively confirms its intention to proceed with the canonization for martyrdom of the victims of what the Armenians call the “Great Evil”. The confirmation came from the meeting of the Committee for the canonization set up ad hoc and held from January 27 to 29 in Antelias, Lebanon, at the Cathedral of the Armenian Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia.

via ASIA/LEBANON – The victims of the Armenian Genocide will be canonized – Fides News Agency.

Iran, Israel and the politics of gesture – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

“Tehran considers Saudi Arabia its primary enemy, not Israel or the United States.” According to al-Rai, Hof was told this by Iranian officials in a closed-door meeting. According to Hof, he was also told that Saudi Arabia’s “intervention in the Syrian civil war on the side of the rebels poses a strategic threat to Tehran.”

The current proxy war in Syria which Iran is fighting against Saudi Arabia could have persuaded Iranian decision-makers that they should place their focus on the more immediate enemy, which in this case is the Saudis. To do this, Iran should at least try to reduce tensions, not only with the United States, but also with Israel, which, as I noted in a previous Al-Monitor article, has a number of common interests with Iran in Syria.

via Iran, Israel and the politics of gesture – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.