Society's ChildS


People

Free Speech: Inducing people's employers to fire them should be a civil wrong

Katy Barnett
Quillette
Sat, 28 Jul 2018 00:00 UTC
Australians
If you aren't from Australia or New Zealand you may be tempted to think of Anzac (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) Day as simply a variation of Veteran's Day or Remembrance Day-but for many Aussies (and Kiwis), it's a little bit like Veteran's Day combined with the Fourth of July or St. Patrick's Day. It is a deeply patriotic holiday that many regard as a semi-sacred, particularly because we celebrate it on April 25 to mark the anniversary of the day in 1915 when Anzacs arrived on the shores of Gallipoli, Turkey to fight in a battle that would result in over ten thousand soldiers losing their lives. Like it or not, Anzac Day has become patriotic mythology.

To mark Anzac Day in 2015, Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) reporter Scott McIntyre took to Twitter and wrote: "Remembering the summary execution, widespread rape and theft committed by these 'brave' Anzacs in Egypt, Palestine and Japan." To make matters worse, he also asked "if the poorly-read, largely white, nationalist drinkers and gamblers pause today to consider the horror that all mankind suffered." Then to round things off he added that Australia and its allies perpetrated the largest single-day "terrorist attacks in history" by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki.
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Hiliter

European Federation of Journalists chief: Belgium disrespects information access laws, charges fees


RT
Fri, 03 Aug 2018 10:34 UTC
Reporters Brussels
© Eric Vidal/ReuterReporters covering an EU event in Brussels.
The head of the largest journalist organization in Europe told RT that Belgium doesn't respect the basic rules on access to information, blasting nation's decision to charge the press with 'security fees' at the EU events.

The Benelux country is under fire for wanting to force local journalists and reporters into paying €50 ($ 60) every six months for mandatory security screenings if they wish to cover the EU summits. The move was widely blasted by the media organizations as "discriminatory," and denounced by the European Commission.

"Belgium is not respecting the standard laws with regards to access to information," Ricardo Gutierrez, the general secretary of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) told RT. "Access to information is a fundamental right in Europe. The decision [to charge the media with security fees] goes against it."


Comment: The latest form of writer's block?

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Star of David

Israel's policies in Gaza are categorically genocidal

Haidar Eid
Mondoweiss
Fri, 03 Aug 2018 00:00 UTC
Razan al Najjar, Gaza medic
© TwitterRazan al-Najjar, the 21 year old Gaza medic killed by an Israeli sniper on June 1, treating an injured man.
The 1948 Genocide Convention clearly states that one instance of genocide is "the deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of a people in whole or in part." No matter whether this happens at a fast rate, or in "slow motion." That is what has been done to Gaza since the imposition of the blockade by Israel, and the subsequent massacres which led to the death of more than 4000 Palestinians in three successive genocidal wars.

Palestinians of Gaza live an ongoing, illegal, crippling Israeli siege that has shattered all spheres of life, prompting the former UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights, Richard Falk, to describe it as "a prelude to genocide". In 2009, the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, headed by the highly respected South African judge, Richard Goldstone, found Israel guilty of "war crimes and possible crimes against humanity," as did major international human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The Goldstone report, for example, concludes that Israel's war on Gaza was
"designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability."
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Star of David

Gaza border protest: 25 Palestinians injured by IDF's live fire and tear gas


RT
Fri, 03 Aug 2018 17:07 UTC
protesters Gaza
© Mohammed Salem/ReutersTear gas canisters are fired by Israeli troops towards Palestinian demonstrators during a protest demanding the right to return to their homeland at the Israel-Gaza border, east of Gaza City August 3.
Some 25 Palestinians have been injured, mostly by gunfire from the Israeli army, during violent clashes at the Gaza border, Gaza Health Ministry reports. The injured demonstrators have been evacuated. Their condition is unknown.

At least 12 injured Palestinians were shot, while dozens of others suffered breathing and suffocation issues due to tear gas inhalation.

Friday's violent outburst comes as an Israel-Hamas deal on Gaza's future is understood to be nearing a possible breakthrough, which would see an end to protests, shootings and the use of firebomb kites along the Gaza-Israel fence. In exchange, two crossing points would be opened.


Comment: The video claims 1 Palestinian was killed, 220 injured, 8000 participated at 5 locations.

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2 + 2 = 4

Hundreds of North Carolina teachers flunk math exams, probably not their fault

Ann Doss Helms
The Charlotte Observer
Wed, 01 Aug 2018 12:58 UTC
Hand Wave Math
© Adam Hayes
Almost 2,400 North Carolina elementary school teachers have failed the math portion of their licensing exams, which puts their careers in jeopardy, since the state hired Pearson publishing company to give the exam in 2013, according to a report presented to the state Board of Education Wednesday.

Failure rates have spiked as schools around the state struggle to find teachers for the youngest children. Education officials are now echoing what frustrated teachers have been saying: The problem may lie with the exams rather than the educators.

Teachers in Florida and Indiana have also seen mass failures when their states adopted Pearson testing, according to news reports from those states. Concern about the validity of the Pearson licensing exams is so pervasive that it was discussed at this year's National Education Association conference, said North Carolina Association of Educators President Mark Jewell.

Comment: Adding it all up, Pearson Publishing Co. is making money on retesting.

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Георгиевская ленточка

Moscow appoints action star Steven Seagal special envoy on Russia-US humanitarian relations


RT
Sat, 04 Aug 2018 19:17 UTC
Steven Seagal
© Maxim Shemetov / Reuters
Hollywood star Steven Seagal, who was granted Russian citizenship back in 2016, is going to be Moscow's special representative on humanitarian relations with the US.

The veteran actor's task will be "to contribute to the further development of Russian-American relations in the humanitarian sphere, including interactions in the fields of culture, art, public and youth exchanges, among other things," the Russian Foreign Ministry said on its Facebook page.

Seagal won't be receiving any payment for doing the job, which the ministry described as "the case of people's diplomacy meeting with traditional diplomacy."

Comment: See also: Steven Seagal interview with Piers Morgan, "Russia and America should be great allies"

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Stormtrooper

Highly guarded US secret base near Iran borders disclosed by Turkish newspaper


Fars News Agency
Sat, 04 Aug 2018 21:10 UTC
Highly Guarded US Secret Base Near Iran Borders
© FNAA leading Turkish newspaper disclosed that the US has established a secret base in Turkey near the borders with Iran which is heavily guarded
The Turkish-language Milli Gazete newspaper wrote that the base is located in Eastern Turkey, 450km away from Iran's borders, where dozens of US commanders have deployed and are strongly protected.

"The US has allocated a heavy budget in 2018 to improve the situation of its military bases in Turkey, specially the air force budget," it added.

"The military structure of the base and the type of military equipment and ammunition existing in there are still unknown," the paper said.
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Stop

Scuffle breaks out in shopping center as first woman fined for flaunting Denmark's 'burqa ban'


RT
Sat, 04 Aug 2018 14:23 UTC
Burqa
© Andrew Kelly/Reuters
A 28-year-old woman wearing a niqab has become the first person to be fined for flaunting Denmark's contentious face-covering ban, which came into effect on Wednesday.

The incident happened in a shopping center in the Danish city of Horsholm on Friday, after police were called to a public disturbance upon the outbreak of a scuffle after another woman attempted to forcefully remove the woman's niqab, according to local media.

"During the fight her niqab came off, but by the time we arrived she had put it back on again," police officer David Borchersen told the Ritzau news agency. They took a photograph of the woman and obtained security camera footage of the incident.

Borchersen added that the woman was informed she would receive a fine of 1,000 kroner ($156) in the post for wearing the facial covering, and that she would need to remove the veil or leave the public space.
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Cut

Brexit and the 'United' Kingdom

Martin Kettle
The Guardian
Thu, 02 Aug 2018 10:29 UTC
uk map flag ireland
© Eva Bee
As you drive south from Derry and turn right to cross the Foyle river by the Asda outside Strabane, nothing tells you that you are about to leave one country and enter another. There are no signs, no flags, no police and, though I may have missed them, no security cameras either. It's only when you see the words Bus Éireann on the stop on the far side of the bridge that you get any inkling that you have left the United Kingdom and are now in the Irish Republic.

A couple of weeks ago I took a road trip around the British Isles. We went from London up to southwest Scotland, then on through Northern Ireland - via Derry and Strabane - to County Sligo, before returning via Dublin and Holyhead and home through north Wales. We took in five countries in six days, crossed five borders, and I never once had to show my passport at any of them. I hadn't expected to do so. But for how much longer will this be so?

Though the countries of these islands are very different in many ways, and all are assertive about their identities, we are all used to the boundaries between them being more cultural than political. Only Scotland had even erected a road sign that announced that here was a different place from the one we had just been. The others simply merged into one another. I increasingly came to suspect that this is because, in spite of their differences and their histories, all five countries of these islands still have at least as much in common as they do that separates and divides them.

Comment: It seems that as the established (and thoroughly corrupt) order begins to fade questions of what the new one should like are being asked: Also check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: What's The Problem With Nationalism?

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Broom

Work as a virtue

Nyunggai Warren Mundine
Quillette
Sat, 04 Aug 2018 17:21 UTC
aboriginals
My father taught me a simple lesson: when the alarm clock goes off, you get out of bed, have a shave, wash yourself, put your clothes on and go to work. You've got to be resilient and you've got to be focused on what you want to achieve.

Dad believed the measure of a person was whether or not they were a worker. He believed that working was a virtue. So do I.
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