Humanitarian Texts

2011-08-01: After Norway: EU Declares Fight Against Right-Wing Extremism;
2011-08-02: CIA FORCED TO RELEASE LONG SECRET OFFICIAL HISTORY OF BAY OF PIGS INVASION;
2011-08-03: JJ Abrams: I called Spielberg and he said yes;
2011-08-04: Ramadan offensive threatens Somalia’s starving;
2011-08-05: Neoliberalism’s Newest Product: The Modern Slave Trade;
2011-08-06: ZIMBABWE: Women Seeking Justice Face Archaic Rules and Discrimination;
2011-08-07: Polyculturalism and Norway: Getting Culture Right;
2011-08-08: Freedom Rider: Ruling class victory;
2011-08-09: Central Falls: RI residents denounce social cuts following city’s bankruptcy filing;
2011-08-10: New Publication: Contemporary Issues in Human Rights Education;
2011-08-11: Special forces conducting exercises in Boston area;
2011-08-12: Arab vs UK unrest: spot the difference;
2011-08-12: forgotten how Govs have to be run?
2011-08-13: Going Godless: Does Secularism Make People More Ethical?
2011-08-14: Racism 101 … I would say: this is Racism endless … ;
2011-08-15: DO-GOODING AND BURNOUT;
2011-08-16: We need an (academic) revolution;
2011-08-17: Rights not Copyrights;
2011-08-18: When the revolution comes;
2011-08-19: Foodborne Illnesses in America;
2011-08-20: Rise of the Planet of the Apes;
2011-08-21: Somalia: Global war on terror and the humanitarian crisis;
2011-08-22: Damn it or fear it, the forbidden truth is an insurrection in Britain;
2011-08-23: Darfur genocide had no legal consequences for U.S.;
2011-08-24: Representatives of the People! What is Your Stance on the Fundamental Values of our Country?
2011-08-25: 10 Pivotal Moments in the U.S. Labor Movement;
2011-08-26: Amitav Acharya on the Relevance of Regions, ASEAN, and Western IR’s false universalisms;
2011-08-27: Germany’s records of repression;
2011-08-28: Loriot alias Vicco von Bülow Passes Away at 87;
2011-08-29: American Decline: Causes and Consequences;
2011-08-30: A Warm Grave in a Cold War;
2011-08-31: Slum population in urban Africa;
2011-08-31: how women’s privat sex behavior is answered – a real story.

an expat women living in the United Arab Emirates made a trip in Europe for shoppings and found a nice sex toy for her personal use. Coming back to the UAE, the customs made her open bags, the toy was found and confiscated. No right to enter this in the UAE, even not for personal use. Even not for expats.

Explanation: not compatible with UAE’s rules.

The difference between Europe and UAE is – in fact – not only in the use of sex toys, but mainly that a state, a nation, a so called governement dominated by a ruling family can decide about privat lifes inside the own house – even of (westeners) expats.

Don’t be mystified by the so called modernity of Scheik led countries: they are deeply dominating your privat life, even if actually no arab spring is happening there. They are still deeply dictatorial about all your life.
Heidi.

Watch online the chart on these two good blogs:

• on Urban Demographics, August 29, 2011,
• and on The Global Sociology Blog, by SocProf, August 29, 2011.

More links about Slums:  Continue Reading…

East German Nuclear Bunker Opens to Tourists – Published on Spiegel Online International /english, by Siegfried Wittenburg, August 26, 2011.

A massive bunker built in the late 1960s to house East German naval operations in the event of nuclear attack has opened to visitors for the first time this summer. The Cold War time capsule reveals volumes about how the communists planned for nuclear Armageddon … //

… Don’t Look at the Atomic Flash:  Continue Reading…

Published on ZNet, by Noam Chomsky, August 27, 2011.

… In the past 30 years, the “masters of mankind,” as Smith called them, have abandoned any sentimental concern for the welfare of their own society, concentrating instead on short-term gain and huge bonuses, the country be damned – as long as the powerful nanny state remains intact to serve their interests.In parallel, the cost of elections skyrocketed, driving both parties even deeper into corporate pockets. What remains of political democracy has been undermined further as both parties have turned to auctioning congressional leadership positions. Political economist Thomas Ferguson observes that “uniquely among legislatures in the developed world, U.S. congressional parties now post prices for key slots in the lawmaking process.” The legislators who fund the party get the posts, virtually compelling them to become servants of private capital even beyond the norm.   Continue Reading…

Germany Mourns the Death of its Best Comedian – Published on Spiegel Online International /Zeitgeist, August 23, 2011.

… Generations of German Comics:

He made fun of the small-mindedness, the fussiness and the excessive formality of the German post-war middle classes. Those traits may now seem a tad dated — though not completely unrecognizable. But the humor with which he exposed them remains fresh and funny to this day, and ensured Loriot enduring popularity.

In 2007, aged 83, he was voted as Germany’s best comedian, which says as much about Loriot’s unique talent as it does about the generations of German comics that have followed him.  Continue Reading…

Fifty years after the Berlin Wall was erected, the spectre of the Stasi continues to loom over Germany – Published on Al Jazeera, by Mei-Ling McNamara, August 23, 2011.

… Piecing together the past:

After reunification, a new government came to power and the Stasi files were reopened again in 1992. Over the next two decades, tens of thousands of people have requested access to the files on them in order to piece together a past that was shrouded in secrecy and subterfuge. Many apply in order to prove they were unjustly imprisoned, to clear their criminal record and claim compensation for any time spent in jail.  Continue Reading…

Published on Theory Talk #42, August 10, 2011.

Today’s IR in its many variants is still, very much, a western social science. The claims it makes are however of universal purport. Amitav Acharya challenges western IR as predicated upon a false universalism. In his work, Acharya tries to undercut this problem by amending western IR theorizing with subaltern views on international politics. If IR theory is to remain relevant throughout the 21st century, Acharya argues, it needs to draw in the variety of pathways and experiences from outside the western world. In this Talk, amongst others, he discusses ‘subaltern universalisms’, how we can understand the international politics of ASEAN, and the importance of the Bhagavad Gita for IR theory.   Continue Reading…

Published on Business Insurance.

Our nation’s immense growth in a relatively short period of time is due to the incredible work ethic of our citizens. The strides that were made beginning in the Industrial Revolution, however, came at a high cost, as the physical and mental health of many Americans deteriorated due to unreasonably long hours and little or no time off. A centuries-long labor battle ensued, bringing forth all of the rights we’re afforded today as workers. As Labor Day approaches — and you anticipate that much-needed rest — remember these pivotal moments in the U.S. labor movement … (full terxt: the 10 pivotal moments in the US Labour Movement).

Published on Current Concerns /no. 13, by Dr iur Marianne Wüthrich, August 9, 2011.

Behind the back of both the cantons and the Conference of the Cantonal Ministers of Education (EDK), the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) commissioned a study which intends to secretly palm off mandatory sex education with outrageous contents on elementary schools and even nursery schools all over the country, even against the parents’ will! Fortunately, there is a number of politicians in Switzerland, whose concern is a value-oriented education in family and school. They resisted by launching a petition “Against the Sexualization of Elementary Schools” followed by a motion in the National Council.  Continue Reading…

… according to 2004 State Department Memo – this article contrasts Darfur memo with 1994 finding that application of term to Rwanda would force U.S. to actually do something

Published on The National Security Archives /NSA Electronic Briefing Book No. 356, by Archive Fellow Rebecca Hamilton 202/994-7000, August 17, 2011.

Washington, DC, August 17, 2011 – A secret June 25, 2004 Department of State memo entitled “Genocide and Darfur”, written by William Taft IV (4 pdf-pages), the legal advisor to Secretary of State Colin Powell, stated that “a determination that genocide has occurred in Darfur would have no immediate legal–as opposed to moral, political or policy–consequences for the United States.”  Continue Reading…

Linked on our blogs with John Pilger, Australia and England. – Published on Global Research.ca, by John Pilger, August 20, 2011.

On a warm spring day, strolling in south London, I heard demanding voices behind me. A police van disgorged a posse of six or more, who waved me aside. They surrounded a young  black man who, like me, was ambling along. They appropriated him; they rifled his pockets, looked in his shoes, inspected his teeth. Their thuggery affirmed, they let him go with the barked warning there would be a next time.

For the young at the bottom of the pyramid of wealth and patronage and poverty that is modern Britain, mostly the black, the marginalised and resentful, the envious and hopeless, there is never surprise. Their relationship with authority is integral to their obsolescence as young adults. Half of all black British youth between the ages of 18 and 24 are unemployed, the result of deliberate policies since Margaret Thatcher oversaw the greatest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top in British history. Forget plasma TVs, this was panoramic looting … //  Continue Reading…

Published on Pambazuka News (also on allAfrica.com and on Horace Campbell.net), by Horace Campbell, August 18, 2011.

The US government’s counterterrorism activities and ‘humanitarian’ assistance in Somalia and the Horn of Africa go a long way towards explaining the region’s entrenched problems, writes Horace Campbell.

In Somalia, half of the population is at risk of famine. This famine endangers the lives of over 11 million people in the Horn of Africa. The scale of this crisis makes one raise questions. What is famine today? How is it possible to have famine today in the midst of plenty? How is it possible that nearly 20 years since Operation Restore Hope, the ‘development secretary’ of the United Kingdom Andrew Mitchell is warning that ‘humanity is in a race against time’ in Somalia? The famine is one wake-up call for us to realise that some of our priorities are wrong.  Continue Reading…

Published on Intrepid Report, by Jerry Mazza, August 19, 2011.

… This is an analogy of social engineers of the Right, the Koch Brothers, the forces of Wall Street, the rich, the Fed, the whole mechanism that is starving the world’s nations at will and turning their people to rioters, depriving them of pensions, medical care, social safety nets, and leaving them to the dogs of fate, making once peaceful humans into rebellious apes, hungry to bring down or kill their oppressors. Does that strike a chord?

Beneath those faces you see in the crowd scenes of the Egyptian Spring, the Libyan War, the Pakistan drone protests, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars are the young militia faces, too, denying the starving children of Somalia food and life. And there are faces of young people on the streets of England tearing apart shops because they lack jobs, money, futures, but most of all, respect.  Continue Reading…

Complex Factory Foods pose the Highest Risk – Published on Global Research.ca, by Rady Ananda, August 14, 2011.

A close look at the people behind the raw milk scare, and the actual numbers of foodborne illness, reveals that politics more than science drives the food safety agenda in the U.S. … //

… Yet, in a single case of contaminated pasteurized milk, over 16,000 people became ill in Illinois and several other Midwest states. Later, up to 5 of them died. That 1985 calamity was called the “worst outbreak of Salmonella food poisoning in U.S. history.” [11]  It even beats last year’s half-billion egg recall with just over1,900 confirmed cases of salmonella poisoning.  Continue Reading…

The historic Gastonia textile mill strikes are not forgotten

Linked on our blogs with Gaither Stewart, USA. – Published on Intrepid Report (first on Countercurrent), by Gaither Stewart, August 17, 2011.

ROME—When in the early part of this millennium I was writing a rather surrealistic novel, ASHEVILLE, about the town in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina where I started out my life, I ran into the story of the Asheville-based self-professed Communist writer, Olive Tilford Dargan, of whom I had never heard before. Visiting then her gravesite in the little known Green Hills Cemetery in West Asheville and researching her and her activities I fell into a gossamer review of early 19th century labor struggles in the good old U.S. South … //

… Though those masses once personified by the term proletariat constitute a class, they themselves are seldom aware of it. To become a class of action the proletariat, i.e., wage earners, require leadership, something those furious, hungry, striking textile workers did not have.  Continue Reading…

Received by e-mail, From: AccessNow, Date: 12/08/2011

Can you imagine having your internet cut off? That is exactly what is being proposed in Colombia for any person who is twice accused of copyright infringement. It’s madness, but this type of law is being supported all over the world by the entertainment industry lobbies, and Colombia is the latest battle where the line must be drawn.

Besides containing a “two strikes” provision, the bill is being fastracked in the Colombian Congress, denying the users who it will affect a voice. That is why we need to move fast. Let’s send the Colombian government and the copyrights lobby a message that they cannot ignore: our internet is our right and cannot be taken away by them or anyone else. Continue Reading…

Published on Knowledge to Wisdom, by website owner, not dated /introduction to his Homepage.

We need a revolution in the aims and methods of academic inquiry. Instead of giving priority to the search for knowledge, academia needs to devote itself to seeking and promoting wisdom by rational means, wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others, wisdom thus including knowledge but much else besides. A basic task ought to be to help humanity learn how to create a better world.

Acquiring scientific knowledge dissociated from a more basic concern for wisdom, as we do at present, is dangerously and damagingly irrational.  Continue Reading…

Published on View on Buddhism.org, by Chagdud Tulku, from: Change of Heart: The Bodhisattva Peace Training.

… (Rinpoche): Ideally, we serve others with pure heart, not expecting gratitude, payment or recognition. We accept complaints with equanimity and patiently continue, knowing that people don’t always see the purpose of what we’re doing. Though our actions may seem insignificant or unproductive, if our motivation is pure and we dedicate the merit expansively, we generate great virtue. Though we may not accomplish what we set out to do, auspicious conditions and our ability to benefit others in the future will only increase. No effort is wasted; when someone witnesses our loving kindness, he sees a new way of responding to anger or aggression. This becomes a reference point in his mind that, like a seed, will eventually flower when conditions ripen. Then when we dedicate the virtue, our loving kindness will extend to all beings.  Continue Reading…

Published on The Global Sociology Blog, by SocProf, August 12, 2011.

If you can bear it, listen to this British historian bloviate about how Whites (respectable and civilized) have become black (savages!) and count the racist statements and stereotypes: … (full video, 10.20 min).

Non-believers are often more educated, more tolerant and know more about God than the pious. A new wave of research is trying to figure out what goes on in the minds of an ever-growing group of people known as the Nones

Published on SPIEGEL online, by Hilmar Schmundt, August 11, 2011.

… But the most significant target of Kosmin’s research is the consumer group most likely to shy away from such commercial products: secularists. “The non-religious, or Nones, hold the fastest-growing world view in the market,” says Kosmin. “In the past 20 years, their numbers in the United States have doubled to 15 percent.”  Continue Reading…

to all those complaining Obama’s unability to save the world:

• Hey guys, do you forget that it is up to the US-people, means up to YOU to force a president what has to be done!
• Instead you are waiting that any poor president may perform miracles to save your A…, regardless all blackmailings of this naughty US-oligarchy and AGAINST a congress YOU had elected?

Published on The World/blogs.ft.com, by Roula Khalaf, August 10, 2011.

Middle Eastern autocrats are having a field day with the UK riots, taking pleasure at the mayhem in a western capital and interpreting it the way that suits their propaganda … //

… There is, of course, a sea of difference between what’s going on in the UK and the events in the Middle East, in both the actions of the youth and the response of the authorities. Autocratic regimes should pay attention to the fact that there is plenty of free reporting on the events; that police officers are not going around shooting at the rioters, and that the government is fully mobilised to deal with the unrest.  Continue Reading…

Published on BBCnews, Live text /Reporters: Emma Griffiths and Justin Parkinson, LIVE video …

Key points:

• Prime Minister David Cameron to address Parliament at 1130 BST
• MPs to debate rioting in English cities from about 1330 BST
• Huge police operation and heavy rain helps prevent fifth night of disorder
• Magistrates courts work through the night to deal with those arrested
• Vigil held in Birmingham for three men who died after being hit with a car while protecting property

… follow the LIVE text …

Published on The Boston Globe, by Amanda Cedrone, August 4, 20911.

Some Boston residents have been surprised to see helicopters making unusual maneuvers around the city in recent days. No worries, according to officials. It’s only a drill. Special forces have been conducting “urban environment training” exercises in and around Boston in the past two weeks, said Kimberly Tiscione, a military spokesman.

The training is for the U.S. Special Operations Command, based in MacDill, Fla., which includes units such as the Army’s Green Berets and the Navy SEALs. The training began July 25 and will end Friday and is meant to challenge military personnel by exposing them to an area they are unfamiliar with – such as a city.  Continue Reading…