Category Archives: human rights

Pinpointing Where the Lights Went Out in Puerto Rico : Image of the Day

After Hurricane Maria tore across Puerto Rico, it quickly became clear that the destruction would pose daunting challenges for first responders. Most of the electric power grid and telecommunications network was knocked offline. Flooding, downed trees, and toppled power lines made many roads impassable.In circumstances like this, quickly knowing where the power is out—and how long it has been out—allows first responders to better deploy rescue and repair crews and to distribute life-saving supplies. And that is exactly why teams of scientists at NASA are working long days to make sure that groups like the National Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) get high-quality satellite maps of power outages in Puerto Rico.These before-and-after images of Puerto Rico’s nighttime lights are based on data captured by the Suomi NPP satellite. The data was acquired by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) “day-night band,” which detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared, including reflected moonlight, light from fires and oil wells, lightning, and emissions from cities or other human activity.

Source: Pinpointing Where the Lights Went Out in Puerto Rico : Image of the Day

Inoreader – Put Some Knowledge in Your Pocket!

ChangeLab is grateful to our comrades at If You Don’t They Will for creating this awesome portable resource for understanding and defeating white nationalism. Download it, print it double-sided, and fold it into a pocket-sized guide! If You Don’t They Will is a collaboration that provides concrete and creative tools to counter white nationalism

Source: Inoreader – Put Some Knowledge in Your Pocket!

‘A white girl had to die for people to pay attention’: Heather Heyer’s mother on hate in the US | US news | The Guardian

“I think we’ve got to have some difficult, very difficult conversations about people’s beliefs and their anger and their hurt and what it is they need fixed to feel right again,” she said. “We’re not going to hug it out and be happy. That’s just not reality. But we can listen to one another.”“People are listening to me right now, so I’m talking right now,” she said. “When they stop listening, I might shut up, I might not. I’m not good at shutting up.”

Source: ‘A white girl had to die for people to pay attention’: Heather Heyer’s mother on hate in the US | US news | The Guardian

Trump ambassador to Israel goes rogue | The Electronic Intifada

Friedman, Trump’s longtime bankruptcy lawyer, was referring to a Security Council resolution which, in fact, emphasizes “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” and calls for Israel’s withdrawal from territory occupied in the 1967 War.Friedman’s interpretation directly contradicts numerous subsequent resolutions that explicitly reaffirm the illegality of Israel’s settlements in the West Bank.Israel’s transfer of its civilian population to territory it occupies is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and is thus a war crime.Friedman, incidentally, is a major bankroller of one such settlement.

Source: Trump ambassador to Israel goes rogue | The Electronic Intifada

President Trump the divider exploits another opportunity in NFL attacks: Brent Larkin | cleveland.com

Remember this about Trump: He’ll always be a divider, never a unifier. He owes his entire political existence to a strategy designed to tear the country apart by exploiting issues related to race, culture, religion and economic standing. Absent continuous chaos, his support crumbles. That need to constantly divide explains his newfound, and laughable, loyalty to our flag. When Vietnam came calling nearly 50 years ago, Trump pigeonholed his patriotism, seeking and receiving five draft deferments, allegedly for bone spurs in his feet.

Source: President Trump the divider exploits another opportunity in NFL attacks: Brent Larkin | cleveland.com

Hijab: Empowering or oppressive? – sister-hood magazine. A Fuuse production by Deeyah Khan.

My belief, that women should not be dictated to on what they should or shouldn’t wear by French or any other public policy, is grounded in the principles of free choice. Similarly, women should not be forced to cover up to satisfy a strict interpretation by men, based upon their patriarchal cultural framework, and little girls, absolutely not!

Source: Hijab: Empowering or oppressive? – sister-hood magazine. A Fuuse production by Deeyah Khan.

Oakland Raiders Follow A’s Maxwell, Kneel During National Anthem Sunday: SFist

As ABC 7 tells it, attendees at Sunday’s game cheered in support as the players moved to kneel or link arms during the anthem.But in talking about protesting the national anthem and the potential backlash that lies in doing so, it’s impossible to not bring up former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, whose career has been in limbo since he first sat during a 49ers preseason game last year.When he was asked what that demonstration meant back in 2016, Kaepernick told NFL.com, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”With Maxwell and the Raiders joining many other athletes across multiple professional sports leagues, it’s clear that Kaepernick’s message has not only spread, but expanded as well.

Source: Oakland Raiders Follow A’s Maxwell, Kneel During National Anthem Sunday: SFist

Charlottesville’s white awakening: ‘We were living in a bubble,’ say residents | World news | The Guardian

Charlottesville was definitely not the first time Trump had said something that made Cronk uncomfortable, and it was was not the first time friends had shared their fears with him about how their race might make them vulnerable. When it came to police brutality, Cronk said, he listened, but he also had his own relationship with the police as authority figures, and wanted to believe that most police officers would not simply racially profile people. “This was different,” he said. The white supremacists’ attitude towards other races was absolutely clear.Whether Trump was a white supremacist himself, he said, he did not know. But together with Trump’s “Rocket Man” jabs at North Korea, the president’s reaction to Charlottesville had convinced him that he would not be voting for Trump again, and that he needed to vet his candidates more carefully in the future.

Source: Charlottesville’s white awakening: ‘We were living in a bubble,’ say residents | World news | The Guardian

NBA champion coach whose dad was assassinated by terrorists destroys Trump’s fake patriotism – Shareblue

“We stand for the things we think our country should stand for — inclusiveness, equality, diversity, joy and love. It sounds corny, but that’s what we stand for.”Kerr does not come by his deep sense of patriotism and love of country lightly. His stance against Trump’s hateful rhetoric against athletes, just as his previous public opposition to the Muslim travel ban, is in part informed by personal tragedy.In 1984, when Kerr was just 18 years old, his father, Malcolm, was killed by Islamic extremists in a terror attack on the American University of Beirut, where Malcolm was president.With that painful part of history, Kerr was clear that Trump’s ban was exactly the wrong thing to do.“I would just say that as someone whose family member was a victim of terrorism, having lost my father, if we’re trying to combat terrorism by banishing people from coming to this country, by really going against the principles of what our country is about and creating fear, it’s the wrong way of going about it,” he said in January.The tragic loss of his father to hate-driven violence informed Kerr’s outspokenness on many thorny topics, from Middle East policy to gun control. Rather than turn him sour on other people, it gave him a broader outlook.It’s crucial to “put yourself in someone else’s shoes and look at it from a bigger perspective,” Kerr said.One person who could benefit mightily from such a worldview would be Trump. And the whole nation would be better off for it.

Source: NBA champion coach whose dad was assassinated by terrorists destroys Trump’s fake patriotism – Shareblue