Society's ChildS


Cell Phone

The French school that banned mobiles: 'We don't really need phones'

French middle-school
© François Lepage for the GuardianMiddle-school pupils in Plousane, Brittany.


How pupils at La Gautrais rediscovered games, dance and the art of conversation


It's breaktime at a middle school in rural Brittany, and huddles of teenagers are chatting in the playground. Two 15-year-olds sit reading novels, while others kick footballs or play chase. One boy does some press-ups.

The hum of conversation and flurry of movement contrasts with most other French secondary schools, where playgrounds can be eerily silent as pupils stare at their mobile phones. In La Gautrais, no one looks at Instagram, Snapchat or YouTube. Here mobile phones have been banned. Few seem to miss them.

Comment: It's encouraging that there seem to be at least some schools that are aware of the problems media devices can cause for children and are taking steps to try to mitigate the issues. The kids at these schools likely don't know how lucky they are that they're avoiding the host of issues overuse of mobile technology would be doing to their growing brains. It's also encouraging to note that taking the phones away was not greeted with hostility from the students - maybe it's not too late for this generation.

See also:


Penis Pump

Theresa May's limbo-curtsy to Prince William reflects mindset of UK's ruling class

Prime Minister May bows to Prince William at last year's Pride of Britain awards
© I-Images/Global Look PressPrime Minister May bows to Prince William at last year's Pride of Britain awards
A tweeted picture of Prime Minister Theresa May curtseying to the duke of Cambridge was labelled "embarrassing" by the American journalist Glenn Greenwald, bringing forth a debate on the absurdity of the monarchy.

What more could you want for your birthday? Rather than kicking back with a beer and the World Cup, Prince William, who turns 36 today, is spending it on royal duties with none other than Prime Minister Theresa May.

Comment: And our personal favourite:

No offence to the Swastika.

Considering the rapidly deteriorating state of the UK these days, which Theresa May and the Royals are overseeing, this image encapsulates much of what's wrong with the country's ruling class. As they lose themselves in archaic fantasy, much of the UK slips below the poverty line, and they barely keep the country afloat by selling arms to genocidal regimes like Israel and Saudi Arabia:


Stop

Stopping 'Israelization': Syrians in Golan Heights to boycott municipal election by Israel

Israeli soldiers walk past tanks
© ReutersIsraeli soldiers walk past tanks near the border with Syria in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights
Syrian residents of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights will boycott the first municipal elections by Israel in the area.

Thousands of Syrian residents of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights are expected to boycott the first municipal elections imposed by Israel on the area, rejecting what they call the 'Israelization' of the territory.

Following a decision handed down by Israel's supreme court last year to hold, for the first time ever, municipal elections in October 2018 for the occupied Golan's 26,000 Syrian residents, local religious leaders and village elders are calling for a full rejection of the elections, calling it a "red line."

"With regards to the Golan Heights families, we are Syrian Arabs living under Israeli occupation and there is no possible way for us to accept these elections imposed on us," Abu Wadih, an elder from Majdal Shams, told Al Jazeera.

Comment: See also: Oil interests: Trump will recognize the occupied Golan Heights as Israeli territory


Pirates

167 bodies of Islamic State members found in Mosul

Bodies of members of the Islamic State group
Bodies of members of the Islamic State group
More than 100 bodies of Islamic State members, including leaders, were found in Nineveh, a security source from the province was quoted saying on Tuesday.

"Security troops found, today, 167 bodies of Islamic State members, including foreign and Arab leaders, who were killed by their leaders during the liberation battles of Mosul city," Cap. Amir Wathiq, of Nineveh police, told BasNews.

The bodies, according to Wathiq, "was found in al-Gazira region in Hatra, southwest of Mosul."

Gear

Lebanese army dismantles Israeli spying devices in southern Lebanon

Israeli spying device
© Photo by al-Manar television networkThis photo shows an Israeli spying device found by the Lebanese Hezbollah fighters on the outskirts of Barouk village, southwestern Lebanon, on August 13, 2017
Lebanese government forces have identified and dismantled a network of Israeli spying devices in the country's southern province of Nabatieh.

A security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told English-language the Daily Star newspaper that the devices were discovered on the outskirts of Kfarchouba village, located 130 kilometers south of the capital Beirut, on Friday.

On January 10, Lebanese troops uncovered an Israeli spying device near Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh (Western Zawtar) town, which lies just north of the Litani River.

Comment: See also: Israel confirms running spy networks in Lebanon


Eye 2

Palestinian Health Ministry spokesman: Dozens of Palestinians injured by Israeli forces during protest at Gaza border

Palestinians carry a protester injured by Israeli forces at the Gaza border
© Said Khatib / AFPPalestinians carry a protester injured by Israeli forces at the Gaza border on June 22, 2018
Dozens of Palestinian protesters have been injured by Israeli forces gathered at the Gaza border for the Great Return March, according to the Ministry of Health.

Friday's demonstration saw 206 cases of injury and gas asphyxiation, the Palestinian Health Ministry's spokesman wrote on Twitter. Of those injuries, 44 were live bullet wounds.


Comment: See also:


Arrow Up

Assets of the world's "high net wealth" millionaires ballooned to $70 trillion in 2017

wealth disparity
The concentration of the planet's wealth in the hands of a narrow financial elite is growing by leaps and bounds. A new report published Tuesday reveals that the wealth of the world's 18.1 million "high net worth individuals" - those having investable assets of $1 million or more-shot up by 10.6 percent last year to top $70 trillion for the first time ever.

The "World Wealth Report 2018," issued by the consulting firm Capgemini, revealed that the combined wealth of the world's millionaires rose for the sixth consecutive year in 2017 to reach $70.2 trillion. It is on target to surpass $100 trillion by 2025.

Capgemini defines a high net wealth individual (HNWI) as someone with assets above $1 million, excluding his or her primary residence, collectibles, consumables and consumer durables. This defines a wealthy elite that owns more than $1 million in stocks, bonds, real estate or other investments.

Cow Skull

Nutzoids are STILL jabbering on about a Putin-Trump-Nazi apocalypse

Trump Putin
I don't know about you, but I'm getting a little tired of waiting for the Hitlerian nightmare that the corporate media promised us was coming back in 2016. Frankly, I'm beginning to suspect that all their apocalyptic pronouncements were just parts of some elaborate cocktease. I mean, here we are, a year and half into the reign of the Trumpian Reich, and, well, where are all the concentration camps, the SS units with their death's head insignia, the Riefenstahlian parades and rallies? Trump hasn't even banned the Democratic Party, or annexed Canada, or invaded Mexico, or made anybody wear color-coded armbands. If he doesn't start Hitlering relatively soon, the oracles of the corporate media are going to have some serious explaining to do.

I don't think I'm overreacting. After all, back in 2016, The Guardian promised us an "Age of Darkness," and the end of "civilized order" as we know it. "Globalization is dead, and white supremacy has triumphed," one of its more hysterical pundits proclaimed. "Donald Trump is actually a fascist," Michael Kinsley assured us in The Washington Post. Charles Blow of The New York Times warned that Trump's election was "the beginning of the end," the descent of the republic into "racial Orwellianism," whatever that's supposed to mean. Thomas Friedman called it "a moral 911." Paul Krugman predicted nothing short of "a global recession with no end in sight." Jonathan Chait, after heroically vowing not to flee the country with his terrified family, but to stay and fight to the bitter end, guaranteed us that the "monster," Trump, would "shake the republic to its foundations."

Sheeple

The National Endowment for Democracy's useful idiots

Rachel Maddow
On Friday, June 8, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow augmented her nightly Russiagate fetish by extolling the merits of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), telling her huge audience that the NED, created in the 1980s by the Ronald Reagan administration, still does the "non-partisan hard work around the world, of promoting small D democracy and promoting the institutions of civil society that any culture needs in order to have a functioning democracy."

By Wednesday, June 13, at least one progressive writer, Bill Berkowitz, had challenged Maddow's viewpoint on NED as "naive". He wrote: "Whatever else can be said about the NED and its affiliated organizations, it is hard to back up Maddow's naive claim about its work re 'promoting small D democracy.' Because amid whatever success it may have had, the NED is also notable for supporting anti-democratic organizations, and contributing to the overthrow of democratically elected governments. Along the way, it has provided a glut of disinformation, misinformation, and downright fake news in pursuit of its mission." [1]

Arrow Up

Roger Waters performs in Munich despite mayor's anti-Semitism smear campaign

Roger Waters VS Israeli lobby Germany
© Carlos LatuffRoger Waters versus Israeli Lobby in Germany.
"I believe all people, all of us, all of our brothers and sisters, all of our fragile globe, whatever their ethnicity or religion or nationality, deserve the same basic human rights under the law," Roger Waters told the crowd at a Munich concert last week.

Waters performed in Munich following a campaign to cancel his concert backed by the city's mayor, Dieter Reiter, who accused Waters of anti-Semitism. An attorney for Waters asked Reiter to retract his statement, according to the Jerusalem Post, and Waters addressed the row himself from the stage at Munich's Olympic Hall and later posted to social media. The musician explained that the mayor was championing a petition that alleged Waters is anti-Semitic because he endorses the Palestinian movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.

Munich passed a law last year that prohibits the use of public facilities to persons who support the BDS movement.

Comment: Kudos to Roger Waters for his continuing efforts on behalf of the beleaguered Palestinians despite repeated attempts to curtail his influence: