Society's ChildS


Light Saber

Palestinian teacher living in Scotland pens open letter to JK Rowling over her support of Guardian's 'Culture for Coexistence' letter

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A music teacher from Dunfermline has crafted a Facebook post to one of her favourite authors, JK Rowling, calling her out over her support of the Guardian's "Culture for Coexistence" letter. Seeing the news on her Facebook of Rowling's support, 25-year-old Mia was shocked and upset, and posted her reaction on social media.

The open letter was written in the hope of JK Rowling spotting it and responding to her long-term fan.

Related: JK Rowling has responded to the letter by Mia. Click here to read it in full.

"I wanted to speak to her, because she had spoken to me and given me so much support over the years through her books that I needed to hear that she was still the same person who argued for freedom and peace in her novels," said Mia.

The letter so far has had over 3,000 shares, it can be read in full below.

Comment: The daily atrocities Israel commits against a defenseless population should outrage anyone who is paying attention. Calls for dialogue have been heard before, and yet today nothing has changed. To continue to blame both sides in the conflict is naive at best and propagandistic at worst. Until Israel is forced to treat Palestinians with respect and uphold international law, nothing can change.

See also: The "Middle Ground" Fallacy in Gaza


Stop

Italian college bans high heels over earthquake safety concerns

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© Stephen Hird / Reuters
An Italian college in the seismically active southern region of Abruzzo has decided that high heels are no longer safe to wear in the area, demanding that its students and staff to switch to more comfortable, plainer and flatter variants.

Heels higher than four centimeters, platform shoes and flip-flops are now outlawed in L'Instituto Technico Industriale in the city of Avezzano as college authorities issue a decree aimed at reducing the rate of accidents caused by footwear.

"The directive is not the fruit of some overly puritanical imagination, but comes down to the need to educate students about safety, especially in an area of high seismic activity." Anna Amanzi, head of L'Instituto Technico Industriale in Avezzano told Ansa.

Comment: It seems a little excessive to ban high heels over safety concerns, and could possibly be an excuse so that the school can prevent students and faculty from wearing provocative clothing, especially since it has already banned miniskirts and low-rise jeans.


Family

Majority of Russians believe EU should send migrants home after wars end

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© Yannis Behrakis / Reuters
According to latest opinion polls, most Russians maintain European nations shouldn't reject migrants from the Middle East and Africa, but also that the refugees should go back home after the end of wars and terrorist attacks in their countries.


Comment: One can only hope that the wars end and terrorists are eliminated so they can go home.


According to the All-Russian Center for Research of Public Opinion (VTSIOM) 60 percent of Russian citizens think that EU countries should grant asylum to migrants until the war in the Middle East is over. Seventy-one percent of respondents said they expect the Russian Federation to also open doors to people who flee the war and terrorism - 13 percent of them think that this scenario is inevitable.

Sixty percent of Russians think that European governments should provide refugees with lodging and allowances and pay for their return home after the end of war.

Only 9 percent of respondents believe migrants now arriving in Europe should be allowed to stay there forever. Fourteen percent say Europe should close its borders and stop accepting migrants no matter what.

Snowflake Cold

Winter is coming: EU leaders bicker and fight while the threat of refugees freezing to death looms high

Jean-Claude Juncker
© AFPLuxembourgish President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker
Migrants crossing the Balkans will begin freezing to death as winter approaches, the head of European Union has said, as leaders warned the continent was "falling apart" trying to deal with the biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War.


Comment: The biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War is the very crisis that Europe, along with the US and NATO helped to create.


As leaders of eastern European countries turned on each other at a foul-tempered emergency summit in Brussels, they said the Schengen visa-free zone and even the European Union itself could be pulled apart as states threw up borders to halt the influx.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, said a solution was urgently needed or thousands of refugee families facing winter temperature on the hillsides and freezing river-banks of Eastern Europe, would die.

Bizarro Earth

Not just the Third World: Disaster capitalism is a permanent state of life for too many Americans

homeless america
© Spencer Platt/Getty Images According to the Department of Homeless Services, the number of homeless people in New York City has risen by more than 20,000 over the past five years.
Hundreds of full-time New York City workers are homeless and in San Francisco bus drivers sleep in their cars to save money: this is a never-ending crisis

In the United States, disaster has become our most common mode of life. Proof that our daily existence was something other than a simmering, smoldering disaster has been historically held somewhat at bay by the myth that hard work equals some kind of subsistence living. For the more deluded amongst us, this 'American dream' even got us to believe we could be something called 'middle class'. We were deceived.

For those not yet woke, I don't see how y'all can stay asleep when story after story proves how screwed we are.

The New York Post, no bastion of bleeding heart liberalism, reported on Monday that "Hundreds of full-time city workers are homeless". These are people who clean our trash and make our city, the heart of American capitalism, safe and livable, including for those who plunder the globe from Wall Street. These are men and women, living in shelters and out of their cars, who have government jobs - the kind of workers conservatives love to paint as greedy, gluttonous pigs.

When a full time government worker can't "find four walls and a roof to call his own" in the city he serves, we are living in a perpetual state of disaster capitalism.

Comment: Disaster capitalism is a means of inducing transmarginal inhibition, breaking down the people's will to resist oppression.


Piggy Bank

Game of loans: Why are half of all 25-year-olds living with their parents? The Federal Reserve answers

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Back in 1999, a quarter of all 25-year-olds lived with their parents. By 2013 this number has doubled, and currently half of young adults live in their parents home.

While the troubling implications for the economy from this startling increase are self-evident, and have been extensively discussed both here and elsewhere (and are among the key factors pushing both the US and global economy into secular stagnation), a just as important question is why are increasingly more young adults still living at home.

While we admit there is something morbidly grotesque in none other than the Fed taking an active interest in this most devastating development (for the simple reason that it has been the Fed's own policies that have unleashed not only the $1.3 trillion wave of student debt but an army of Millennials in their parents' basement), it is the Fed itself that has been the latest to attempt an answer.

Comment: Yup, all is well in America, so we are told.

Goodbye middle class: Over half of all American workers make less than 30K a year


Stop

Criminalizing conscience: Student who filmed violent attack by cop at South Carolina school arrested for speaking out

Niya Kenny was arrested at Spring Valley High School following the altercation between her classmate and School Resource Officer Ben Fields
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© WLTXNiya Kenny
Niya Kenny, 18, is speaking out after she was taken into custody in her Spring Valley High School math class. She says she was standing up for her classmate who was being arrested by Student Resource Officer Ben Fields. "I was crying, screaming and crying like a baby," says Kenny. "I was in disbelief."

"I know this girl don't got nobody and I couldn't believe this was happening," Kenny explained. "I had never seen nothing like that in my life, a man use that much force on a little girl. A big man, like 300 pounds of full muscle. I was like 'no way, no way.' You can't do nothing like that to a little girl. I'm talking about she's like 5'6."

Kenny says her classmate was not participating and was asked to leave the room by her teacher. When she refused an administrator was called in and asked her to leave. She refused and Officer Fields was called in, asking her the same thing.

Kenny filmed a part of the altercation on her phone. The six second video shows Officer Fields arresting the student. "I was screaming 'What the f, what the f is this really happening?' I was praying out loud for the girl," says Kenny. "I just couldn't believe this was happening I was just crying and he said, 'since you have so much to say you are coming too'. I just put my hands behind my back."

Her mother Doris Kenny was shocked and upset when she saw the video. "My child, and I'm not mad at her, she was brave enough to speak out against what was going on and didn't back down and it resulted in her being arrested," says Doris Kenny. Her daughter was charged with disturbing schools." But, looking at the video, who was really disturbing schools? Was it my daughter or the officer who came in to the classroom and did that to the young girl?"



Comment: In our society, this young lady took a chance by taking a stand against what that cop was doing to that poor student. Hopefully, she'll find a savvy lawyer defend her and file suit of her own. Having a conscience is something that should be rewarded, not criminalized.

Unbelievable! School officer chokes and slams female student sitting at her desk


USA

'America First Not Israel': Detroit billboard wants US to block influence of Jewish Lobby

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© blog.deiryassin.org
A billboard in Detroit stating 'America First Not Israel' is causing controversy and accusations of anti-Semitism. The advertisement was paid for by the Deir Yassin Remembered group, which aims to make American's more aware of the plight of Palestinians.

The billboard can be seen 8 Mile Road in the city, and was placed there by Deir Yassin Remembered, which is based in New York. Detroit has one of the largest Arab populations in the United States, however it also has a sizable number of Jewish inhabitants.

"The strategy behind this billboard's statement, 'America First, Not Israel', is to drive a wedge between those who feel American interests are not served by fighting wars for Israel, and the Israel-firsters in this country who manipulate our leaders into the false premise that Israel is the ally of the United States," Henry Herskovitz wrote on the organization's website.

Comment: Read also:


Cult

Belgian branch of Scientology taken to court over fraud and extortion claims by former members

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© Mario Anzuoni / Reuters
The Belgian branch of the Church of Scientology is on trial, after 18 years of investigations following complaints from former members. If the accusations are proven, the international celebrity church could be banned in Belgium.

The initial investigation into the church's financial activities was opened by the Belgian authorities in 1997, after a number of complaints were submitted by former members. In 2008, it was followed by a second inquiry into the church allegedly offering fake jobs while recruiting new members.

Eleven members of the Belgian branch of the US-based organization have been charged with running a criminal organization and being involved in fraud, extortion and invading privacy.

Eye 1

Cop aims taser at man after pulling him over because of his neck tattoos

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© facebook.com/hvanny
A tourist couple accused Queensland Police of brutality after a cop drew her Taser on a heavily-tattooed man when he refused to hand over his cell phone. A video of the incident shot by the man has gone viral, generating over 2 million views on Facebook.

"We have legislation down here, if we identify a potential member of a criminal motorcycle gang we have the power to stop, detain and search you," the officer says in the footage.

When the man asks if his neck tattoos were the only reason for being pulled over, the woman admits: "Yep, absolutely."

According to Hayley Van Hostauyen's Facebook page, the pair had just arrived in Queensland for a holiday when they were pulled over by officers. Police thought for some reason that the man with tattoos could be involved in a motorcycle gang. The short video shows two officers approach the car and request the couple get out.