Fake voters exist only in Boris Johnson’s fevered imagination | Nick Cohen | The Guardian

British Conservatives and the US Republicans have added a modern game to the demagogic playbook. They are creating an imaginary fear that elections are being rigged in order to rig elections. They will protect democracy by removing the right to vote.

Boris Johnson’s hobgoblin is a fake voter, almost certainly from an ethnic minority. These masters of disguise steal honest citizens’ ballots by pretending to be them at polling stations. When the honest citizens arrive, election officials tell them that they have already voted and call the police.

Fake voters are a fake. If they weren’t, you would have read hundreds of articles about people whose identities had been stolen. The government’s own research found that personation fraud at the polling station accounted for just eight of the allegations of electoral fraud made in 2018. When Lutfur Rahman, the corrupt mayor of Tower Hamlets, was found guilty in the biggest electoral fraud trial of recent times, the fraud consisted of funnelling bribes to Bengali organisations that were “totally ineligible” for public money, not for arranging for body doubles to flood polling stations.

Source: Fake voters exist only in Boris Johnson’s fevered imagination | Nick Cohen | The Guardian

Why Canada is reforming indigenous foster care – BBC News

Christine Miskonoodinkwe-Smith, from Peguis First Nation in Manitoba, was taken by child services when she was about a year old, along with her sister, and adopted by a non-indigenous family in the province of Ontario.

The loss of family and cultural connections can be devastating to children in care.

“Not knowing your culture just drives an anger inside you,” says Miskonoodinkwe-Smith, who is of Saulteaux descent. “It separates you from your very own identity in a way, because you have to live in two worlds. You’re living in a non-indigenous world, but then you know there’s another worldview, which is your culture.”

Her adoptive parents eventually became emotionally and physically abusive and gave her up when she was 10, but kept her biological sister. She spent the rest of her youth with other non-indigenous foster families and in group homes.

She didn’t get a chance to learn about her culture until her 20s.

“Once I started going to pow-wows and cultural events, it really made me change inside,” said Miskonoodinkwe-Smith, now a writer living in Toronto.

“It made me more aware of the issues around what indigenous people have been through.”

Source: Why Canada is reforming indigenous foster care – BBC News

Il basilico: pianta regale e maestosa

Vivaldi translation of title: Basil: royal and majestic plant

le pagine dei nostri libri

La Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Il basilico(Ocimum basilicum) è una pianta erbacea annuale, appartenente alla famiglia delleLamiaceae, che viene coltivata comepianta aromatica . È nativa e cresce selvatica nell’Asia tropicale e inIndia e si diffuse dalMedio Oriente inAntica Grecia e inItalia dai tempi diAlessandro Magno, intorno al 350 a.C.. Solo dal XVI secolo iniziò a essere coltivata anche inInghilterra e, con le prime spedizioni migratorie, nelleAmeriche .

Il basilico è utilizzato nellacucina italiana e nelle cucine asiatiche per via del marcato profumo delle sue foglie che, a seconda della varietà, può essere più o meno dolce o pungente. Il suo nome deriva dal latino “basilicum” e dal greco “basilikon phyton” che significa “pianta regale e maestosa” e inoltre “basileus” significa re.

Questa pianta è ricca di vitamine, sali minerali, flavonoidi e antiossidanti utili per proteggere il corpo dall’invecchiamento e per contrastare l’azione dei radicali liberi ma lemaggiori proprietà…

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Charlottesville Removes Robert E. Lee Statue at Center of White Nationalist Rally – The New York Times

“The Lee and Jackson statues embodied the Lost Cause interpretation of the Civil War, which romanticized the Confederate past and suppressed the horrors of slavery and slavery’s role as the fundamental cause of the war while affirming the enduring role of white supremacy,” the commission wrote.

The Lost Cause mythology, the commission added, helped justify segregation in housing, employment and education and the disenfranchisement of Black voters.

the rose

yaskhan

The rose wows me with its brilliant color
An ambrosial sparkle dispenses
Transporting sensations spectacular
As its fragrance intoxicates senses.

Satiny soft petals, delight to touch
As I tenderly brush its dewy docile
Bloom that sways shyly in a perfumed clutch.
Nature’s redolent gift sent to beguile.

Sentiments expressed with noble token
Kindling emotions to yield, surrender
Even as blood spills amid sighs unspoken
Sensiblities spill rose’s splendor.

A sense of comfort prevails at its sight
Uneasiness fades as I bask in its
Beauty, as birds and bees glide into flight
Seeking its sweetness in nectary bits.

Graceful warmth unfolds in blossoming whorls
Sadness creeps into heart as life fades fast
Ephermeral emblem of love unfurls
A universality unsurpassed.

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Boris Johnson is leading the UK into an even greater COVID catastrophe | openDemocracy

The top priority in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic is global vaccination. The second is changing the behaviour of many countries that have still not learnt to prioritise disease control over wealth creation and economic growth. In both respects, the virus is winning, even if we are being told that we are well over the worst of it.

Take the UK, for example, where the free market believers exert increased influence in the cabinet and the government is about to end the great majority of restrictions. This is just as the Delta variant is expanding rapidly across the population, the new Lambda variant has arrived, and England is experiencing thousands of repeated mini-spreader events because of the impressive performance of its football team.

Prime minister Boris Johnson is either taking a necessary risk to achieve herd immunity or playing with fire. The current global experience, where the pandemic is not remotely under control, points strongly to the latter. As Dr Jack Ryan, head of emergencies at the World Health Organization (WHO), put it, the UK’s COVID-19 policy is a matter of “moral emptiness and epidemiological stupidity”.

Source: Boris Johnson is leading the UK into an even greater COVID catastrophe | openDemocracy

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