10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #130 – Content Catnip

Source: 10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #130 – Content Catnip

Voter Apathy — Part II (A Reprisal from 2018) | Filosofa’s Word

Yesterday morning I reprised Part I of a three-part post I wrote in 2018 about voter apathy.  Now, you might think that I should write a new one, rather than reprise one from six years ago, but as I read over it to refresh my memory, I find that these posts are every bit as relevant today as they were in 2018.  Today’s is less critical than Part I, more of an assessment of who is more likely to vote and why, some of the obstacles to people voting, etc.  I will post Part III sometime next week. 

One thing I’d like to say that I don’t say nearly often enough is “Thank You” all for your support, for putting up with my sometimes harsh views, and for your thoughtful and insightful comments.  These are tough times for us all and it helps a lot to have a blogging family like all of you.  I really do appreciate you guys!


Earlier today, I wrote a piece about young people, millennials if you wish, and their reasons excuses for not voting in next week’s election.  I also noted that according to the article in New York Magazine’s Intelligencer, just over half of adults plan to vote.  I did a bit of research and found that the last time more than half of eligible voters actually turned out to vote in a mid-term election was 1914, just after the beginning of World War I!  According to the PEW Research Center …

The United States’ turnout in national elections lags behind other democratic countries with developed economies, ranking 26th out of 32 among peers in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Folks … this is pathetic!  Just under 56% of eligible voters in the U.S. cast ballots in the 2016 election!…

Source: Voter Apathy — Part II (A Reprisal from 2018) | Filosofa’s Word

July 8-9 2024: as the assaulted communities of Khalet a-Dab’e and Umm al-Kheir regroup, Settlers vandalize water supply again. | The Villages Group: Cooperation in Israel-Palestine

A. lay on a bed at the end of the room. His right leg fractured, his left leg cracked, his right eye bleeding, and he can hardly breathe for the pains in his back and chest. All these are results of the blows he received from settlers who held the pogrom in the village, on the night between last Wednesday and Thursday. When the villagers ran for their lives to the ravine , A. stayed behind for a moment because his little son was asleep. The settlers shackled him, beat him up, brought him to the army base near Sussya and continued to beat him up there. Then, the hospital. Now at home.

His gaze and ours met for a long moment. He told us a lot without words during those moments. Irene, a veteran nurse in our group, checked his temperature with a soft hand. My own hand gave him a pill against body pains. There is no known medication for heart pain yet… Not far from him, on a mattress, sat S. The vandals burnt his home to the ground, with all its contents. He stared, as though trying to find out anything that might be there beyond the abysmal despair that floods his soul. Next to him sits A., from whom the vandals stole 45 sheep on the night of the pogrom. His brother’s 40 sheep were stolen as well. He says that now, as there is no work, they live from those sheep. Milk, cheese, and once in a while sheep sold to cover health expenses.

Next to me sits J., who always has a healing smile, a smile that understands. Today, only remnants of that smile are seen in the corners of his wise eyes. S.’s wife L. sits with her friends outside the diwan. She told us her story in a choking voice. “Everything was burnt”, she said, “the house, the walls, and everything inside. Life, too. Even my medication went up in flames.” I promised to bring her medication. But how does one repair such a loss?  How does one bring solace to people who have nothing except for the meager bit they had managed to build in their stormy lives? “And now there is no work, either”, she said. “And they have burnt our fruit trees, and the tended fields”. We only listened, hugged, said nothing. We promised to be back.

Many more details were told, and no room to describe all of them in this short space. The day that follows the days of mourning is so hard…

Masafer Yatta’s primeval landscape accompanied us as we took leave. Behind us, one of the houses destined for demolition sported the following inscription:

This is my north my south my east and west

My working day and evening rest.

We continued to Umm al-Kheir.

Umm-Al-Kheir is in the northeast corner of Massafer Yatta. Even in “ordinary” Occupation times, it is more exposed than other villages to settler and military harassment, due to its location right under Carmel – the region’s first Israeli settlement established on expropriated Umm-Al-Kheir lands – and near a major regional junction. 

No more guests there either. We sat in the sheep pen that was made into the residence of local artist Eid, his wife N. and their five daughters, after the military’s fraudulently-named “Civil Administration” officials – demolished their home two weeks ago at the settlers’ bidding. “Sometimes I seem to be living in a film”, N. tells us. I see the abyss of despair in her  eyes. N. and Eid have been our friends for many years. We accompanied them on the rough road of building a life in the shadow of occupation. They managed to build a home. For them and their five daughters. Now they are seated at the entrance of the sheep pen and look at the rubble of their home. Occasionally, Eid manages to rescue a doll from that rubble. And demolitions continue.

Eid went documenting again, as he did before his own home was demolished. What holds these people together? I mailed them a meditation practice I had put together, in order to fortify the wondrous connections they have with their own heart.

Thus, too, with the women in another part of Umm al-Kheir. There, too, a pogrom was held less than a week ago, on July 3rd. The journalists and interviewers were already gone. There, too, sadness reaches the deepest parts of this earth. “I don’t want to raise my children this way”, says H. whom I had raised as my own daughter since she was seven years old. Fear does not let go, 24 hours a day. They [settlers, soldiers] might be back any time. (And, indeed, they were back the next morning July 9. The settlers, in their overbearing depravity and their bottomless pits of cruelty, severed again the main water pipe that supplies water to 250 villagers of Umm al-Kheir, after having already cut it once a few days ago as part of the pogrom.)

As we made our way from one group of mourners to another, from one loss to another, Sh. made her way from Maghayir al-‘Abeed to Tuba on a donkey, in order to complete in summer the studies she missed in the lost school year. She is only 14 years old.

These children want to live, to study, to belong to this world. We support them even if just a wee bit…

Erella, on behalf of the Villages Group [translated by Tal Haran and Assaf Oron]

Lächelnde Gesichter Asiens – Senioren um die Welt

Lächeln ist ein universelles Signal unter Menschen. Es wird überall auf der Welt verstanden, kann gedeutet und gelesen werden. Egal, in welcher Kultur und Gesellschaft die Menschen angehören: das Lächeln steht in der Regel für Freude, für gute Laune und zeugt von Offenheit und Vertrauen anderen gegenüber.

 

Südkorea

Vietnam

Vietnam

China

Source: Lächelnde Gesichter Asiens – Senioren um die Welt

♫ Do It Again ♫ | Filosofa’s Word

Following all the esoteric sounds the Beach Boys had pursued on Pet Sounds, the band’s popularity had waned in the US and this song only peaked at #20. However, their support had held up well in the UK and it topped the chart for one week thus becoming the band’s second hit there after “Good Vibrations” two years earlier. It also became the band’s first hit in Australia.

Do It Again

The Beach Boys

Source: ♫ Do It Again ♫ | Filosofa’s Word

Old, how much aging is old? – Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

Source: Old, how much aging is old? – Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

Gesehen in … / … Seen in … – Stella, oh, Stella

Silkeborg, etwas Streetart, die mir ins Auge fiel.

Silkeborg, some streetart that caught my eye.

Als wir in einem Strassencafé sassen, kam dieses Gefährt vorbei. Es erinnerte mich an „le petit train“ in Euro-Disney.

… While sitting in a street café, this conveyance passed by. It reminded me of „le petit train“ at Euro-Disney.

Der Juli ist immer noch regenreich bis mindestens zum 21.7., so weit die Vorhersage. Der 80 mm Regen, den wir heute bekommen sollten, wurde jedoch abgeblasen. Stattdessen haben wir einen sanften, andauernden Sommerregen … bis jetzt.

… July still is wet and will be until at least the 21st, that is how far the forecast goes. However, the 3 inches of rain that were supposed to fall today have been canceled. Instead we have a soft, continuous summer rain … so far.

Source: Gesehen in … / … Seen in … – Stella, oh, Stella

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