I imagine I probably shot myself in the foot with the title of this piece. Over the years, health-related journalism has beaten the artificial sweetener horse so beyond dead that I doubt anyone even pays attention to the words anymore. I know that when I see the words 'Artificial Sweetener' in the title of an article, I'm thinking, "Oh good, another article about artificial sweeteners! I wonder if it will give me the exact same information as the last six articles I read about artificial sweeteners along with some sweet alternatives at the end like stevia and xylitol?" Sometimes I'll skim them to see if the author passes the acid test by not recommending honey or agave syrup (i.e., sugar and sugar).

Well this article is going to be a little different, and it's not because I'm going to annoyingly refer to sucralose by its chemical name 1,6-dichloro-1,6-dideoxy-BETA-D-fructofuranosyl-4-chloro-4-deoxy-alpha-D-galactopyranoside (does that sound delicious, or what?). What I'm more interested in exploring here is not whether these things are bad for you, since it's abundantly clear that they are, but the question of why. Why is it that, despite all the information about artificial sweeteners, the sheer number of 'health news' articles floating around the interwebs, and the total chemical shitstorm these abominations of nourishment inflict on your insides, people continue to guzzle this stuff like it's water?

Walking along the cracked sidewalk that charts my route home from college, my head was filled with thoughts of Gaza and the recent 'ceasefire' and the fact that 160 Gazans had been ruthlessly slaughtered in eight days. As I ambled along, constating how lucky I was not to have to fear the sound of F16's or a sudden missile strike or being burnt alive by white phosphorous, I was stopped dead in my tracks by an unusual sight. Scattered on the ground in front of me were many bloody feathers, and lying right in the middle of the sidewalk, as if placed there by someone, was the head of a pigeon. Blood still dripped from its severed spinal cord, right below the neck. Light still shined from its eye. I asked a girl who happened to be standing next to me if she'd ever seen a bad omen. She just shrugged and walked away.

I am ashamed to be an Israeli. There, I said it. And yes, I know better than most that there are many good and kind people in Israel. But what is happening right now in Gaza in the name of those good people CANNOT be tolerated, because it goes against everything humane and decent.

Yes, there are deaths on the Israeli side as well, but despite the heartbreak and tragedy experienced by the families of the victims, it's important to understand that the amount of pain and suffering experienced by the Palestinians is infinitely greater, and it's the responsibility of all of us to speak out against it!

We forgot the lessons of the past, and because of that, because of our lack of responsibility, ignorance and inaction, we allowed psychopathic leaders and their twisted ideologies to take hold of our own perception of reality. But if we could just stop for a moment and think, we would clearly see that this situation is not about "who fired first" and "how many rockets" (although, research shows that Israel was the aggressor in most past cases, including this one), but about the basics, like human decency, conscience, and not having blood on one's hands after our government ("oops, again") is murdering children and calling it 'self-defense'.

And that's the bottom line, that I, as an Israeli, even if I didn't pull the trigger, will still have blood on my hands if I see what is happening and stay silent.

Yesterday, Wed. 14th Nov. 2012 Israel launched the latest in a long line of "Operations" that stretch back over 60 years aimed at terrorizing the people of Palestine. By naming the attack 'Operation 'pillar of cloud" the Israeli military was unambiguous about its intent: to blow up as much of Gaza and as many Palestinians as they saw fit.

Why do Palestinians fire rockets into Israel? The vast majority of them, and I mean the VAST majority either miss their target or make a small hole in the ground far from their intended target. The rocket attacks appear to serve only as justification for the Israeli military to attack Gaza and murder Palestinians. So what's the point?

The point is that the rocket attacks are the Palestinians ONLY way of protesting against the 60 year long occupation of their land responding to unprovoked Israeli attacks against and murder of Palestinian civilians. Think about that. The Palestinians have no option to appeal to the international community because no one listens. They have zero chance of the Western media applying pressure to halt Israeli aggression and redress Palestinian grievances because the Western media is unashamedly biased towards Israel.

The Palestinians have two choices: they can sit quietly by and allow the IDF to arbitrarily and summarily murder them, or they can fire primitive rockets at the closest targets inside Israel and hope that they make the Israeli government think twice. But even here the Palestinians have a problem: the Israeli government welcomes the firing of Palestinian rockets into Israel, and they periodically provoke it.

Nothing has changed for soldiers since World War II, only now we try to drug away the terror, or train it away with video games, propaganda and even more lies.

We are a nation that utilizes preemptive war to accomplish our financial and political objectives. This is fact. We are a nation run by people so bereft of conscience and normal human empathy that we most damage those willing to live and die in service of our current society, or more accurately, in service of what they think our current society is. I read this article on the drugging of soldiers recently and realized that the men they are writing about represent a few tiny drops in the ocean of suffering that we as a society have created through war and the aftermath, through inhuman designs and inhuman acts. This ocean of suffering is all but ignored by the people in positions of power who have the resources to address it, those who run the very government organizations that design the wars. Pathological individuals in positions of power send young men and women to war. Pathological individuals in positions of power abandon these same young men and women to the streets or psychotropic medication, or both, when they return.

Over the last six weeks, the revelations that long-term BBC personality and 'household name' Sir Jimmy Savile was in fact a long-term child abuser have gripped and horrified the British public.

The vast majority of the British public knew Jimmy Savile as an eccentric, yet highly regarded, former TV children's show presenter and charity fundraiser. Savile's career began in the 1958 as a DJ for Radio Luxembourg. In 1968 he joined BBC Radio 1, where he presented Savile's Travels. From 1969 to 1973 he fronted Speakeasy, a discussion programme for teenagers. In 1964, he began presenting the first edition of the BBC music chart television programme Top of the Pops. Savile also hosted other BBC television programs, the most notable of which was children's show Jim'll Fix It, which he presented from 1975 to 1994. Because of the nature of the programs he hosted and his high-profile charity work, throughout his career, Savile was surrounded by children of different ages.

Mark Williams-Thomas is the detective-turned-reporter who first publicly exposed Jimmy Savile as a prolific sex offender in early October 2012 on the ITV program Exposure. William-Thomas, who is currently making a second program that will further investigate Savile's abuses, recently stated that the evidence he has gathered suggests that Savile engineered his entire career so that he could molest youngsters:

"In the previous programme it was unclear what came first," he said. "But I can very clearly tell you now that he created his television series as a vehicle for his offending.

"I believe he engineered his programmes within the BBC and Radio Luxembourg in order to gain access to children.

"The classic examples are Top of the Pops, Savile's Travels, Jim'll Fix It - all of them gave him access to young children. That's why there were so many victims."

I have to admit, as presidential acceptance speeches go, Obama's acceptance speech was impressive. It was emotionally provocative (for Americans and non-Americans alike). It was full of hope, calls to action and the collective responsibility of "we the people". It was all about pumping popular pride in the great United States of America, as the greatest nation on earth. It pushed all the right emotional buttons for Americans and reminded them about everything they have been programmed to believe, since childhood, about the country they live in. It was all about the American dream and the American myth. Obama claimed he has "never been more hopeful about our future, never been more hopeful about America" and proclaimed that "the best is yet to come." In short, it was a bunch of jingoistic nonsense that flew in the face of the reality of life in the USA and what it has done and continues to do to the rest of the world.

The myth of America and 'the American dream', as promoted by politicians and media pundits (among others), has been very effective in buffering the average American against the truth of what America has been and is today. But the grandiose words of politicians alone are never enough to keep the citizens content and obedient. To be truly effective, claims of American exceptionalism and superiority had to be backed up by evidence of it on the ground, and to that effect, America really has been the most prosperous and developed nation in the world for a long time.

The 'quality of life' of the average American over the last 100 years has been above that of other 'developed' nations and far above that of most of the rest of the world. This high level of living standard was provided, primarily, by access to modern technology and easy access to jobs and 'personal wealth'. But how did Americans get access to the technology, and why have jobs and personal wealth been so plentiful in the USA as compared to other nations?

That's where the American myth comes in.

Hurricane Sandy has come and gone, and the people of the US East Coast, in particular those living on the NY and NJ coastlines and the people of NYC itself, are left to pick up the pieces.

Right now, 250,000 people in lower Manhattan are without power. The prognosis for reconnection is not good. As the sea poured over the banks of the East River near the ConEd electricity substation on 13th Street, the transformer blew in spectacular fashion.


With the underground circuitry still under water, those 1/4 million people are looking at 10 days without power, despite promises that it would take just three days. Among the powerless are many elderly and disabled people on medication. Brooklyn resident Jonathan Maimon provided the following report on the situation in his area:

Virtually every retailer, restaurant and grocery store south of 38th street is CLOSED....There is no food, other than what you have in your refrigerator....

There is no running water or flushing toilets for people living in the Jacob Riis Houses and surrounding NYCHA buildings on the Lower East Side. In my estimate, this is roughly 20,000 people....

I did not witness a single Red Cross Truck or FEMA Vehicle or in lower Manhattan. Recall the assistance these agencies provided after 9/11 - this is NOT HAPPENING. There are bound to be hundreds of elderly people, rich and poor, who live on the upper floors of buildings with elevators that are now disabled. IF POWER IS NOT RESTORED, THIS WILL MOVE FROM BEING AN ECONOMIC DISASTER TO A HUMANITARIAN DISASTER.

At times like these, before, during and after a natural disaster, the most politicians seem able to do is to point out the obvious and try to create the impression that it is they who are mostly responsible for 'getting the country back on its feet'. Obviously, this is bullshit. It's the ordinary people of any society or country that drive the bulldozers, manually pick up the pieces, rebuild homes and fix damaged infrastructure. Yet politicians would like us all to believe that, without their leadership, nothing would get done. Obviously, this is more bullshit. Yet people believe it, mainly because the media provides them with images of presidents taking to the skies to survey the scenery and polls stating that x% of people think that the president or mayor "did a good job" in "dealing with the crisis". They do a good job at capitalizing on a crisis, but that's about it.

The truth of the matter is that, more often than not, in exercising their power in such situations, politicians tend to impede the most effective, efficient and humane response to a disaster. The reason is clear: politicians do not, and never have, worked in the public interest. They have their own vested interests and those of their corporate cronies that always come first.

When I lived in Vietnam I saw first hand the legacy of the use of Agent Orange the US forces had used for deforestation in the Vietnam war. 400,000 people were killed or maimed, and 500,000 children born with birth defects as a result of its use. I was teaching at a school that was supporting a local charity which cared for children still being born with horrific birth defects. They were the third generation to have their lives destroyed by these toxic chemicals. At the care home we visited the heroic nun in charge, who told us how she had first found the children abandoned by their parents in cages with chains around their arms. Many of those children still bore the scars on their wrists. Most would not live past 18. Their spines would curve as they grew until their organs could no longer function. They were there because they had been abandoned on the street by families too poor to look after them. I held a 4-month-old boy who had been found in a shopping bag behind a waste bin. He was deaf, blind and oblivious to the actions of others, and would be deprived of a life we take for granted.

I was recently reminded of that terrible scene after reading an article that stopped me in my tracks. It reminded me of just how horrifying, destructive and inhumane the actions of our world 'leaders' have been. And continue to be.

The news I'm referring to is a shocking revelation that is lost behind the backdrop of Halloween party costumes, the 24/7 coverage the US Presidential election circus and media hysteria of 'Frankenstom' Sandy.

A study recently published in the Environmental Contamination and Toxicology bulletin, found that the weapons and ammunition used by the US and its Imperial apparatus - NATO - in the illegal destruction and occupation of Iraq have led to significant rise in birth defects and unexplainable illnesses. In fact, there has been a five-fold increase in birth defects since the occupation began.

A couple of days ago I learned that Andrea Fornella Abbott, 41, was found guilty on Tuesday of disorderly conduct after being arrested in July 2011 at Nashville International Airport. She had faced up to 30 days in jail and a $50 fine, but the judge placed her on probation for a year because she has no criminal record. 'So what?', you may ask. The thing that bothered me was her alleged 'disorderly conduct'. Her 'crime' was to argue with TSA agents, insisting they don't touch her 14 year-old daughter's private parts during a 'routine pat-down', before refusing to go through with the invasive procedure herself. You see, the disorderly conduct did not come from a mother justifiably concerned about the privacy and intimacy of her daughter and herself, but from the agents and the TSA who have institutionalized 'disorderly' - let's be frank here - pathological conduct, all based on the Big Lie of the War on Terror.

Here is footage of the event. Although it has no audio, it is clear that Andrea Fornella was only arguing her point. So much for the illusion of free speech.


This case illustrates in micro-cosmos the situation in which we the people find ourselves at this point in time in relation to the holders of power and their agents. Things have gone far beyond basic management of the population you would expect from government. Similar to some of the darker moments in history, we are facing pathological extremes. Think of the systematic imprisonment and extermination of entire groups of people as "lice", to use Hitler's expression for Jews. Or the excesses of Roman Emperors. Or the Stazi in East Berlin suspicious of households which had their TV antennas facing west. Although the manifestations are not always the same, the nature and essence of the pathological conduct are. It is about treating people as objects. Nowadays, however, I think we are going through a particularly bad phase of the historical cycle of abuse. Some of the things being done to innocent people you would not even do to objects you value.