Israeli television has shown shocking cellphone video of the October, 2007, actions at Ketziot Prison, against unarmed Palestinian prisoners, by Israeli security forces. The thousand or so prisoners there revolted at a provocative search abruptly conducted by “Control and Restraint” units or Metzada. Far from being menacing, the Palestinian prisoners are shown cringing and obeying […]
Informed Comment & Big Blog on Campus
Pamela Paul includes Informed Comment in her Sunday NYT piece, “Big Blog on Campus.” Favorite line from her interview with me: “Good blogging involves attitude and snark.” Now if only I finally got that sweater with the letter on it. —- PS: It is already a little dated, especially on developments in Egypt, but my […]
Saving What’s Left of the Constitution
Hmm. Somehow I missed this one. The American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit against the US government under George W. Bush regarding surveillance of phone calls made and emails sent overseas by US citizens was reinstated last month by an appeals court. The suit began because of the revelation that the National Security Agency had been […]
Egypt’s Ruling Party Dissolved
A special administrative high court in charge of ruling on Egyptian political party affairs on Saturday declared the former ruling party, the National Democratic Party, to be defunct. For Egypt, a major opinion leader in the Arab world and a country with a fourth of all Arabs, to move to multi-party democracy is a world-historic […]
Yemeni Women: “We Will not be Silent!”
Oh no he di’n’t! Thousands of Yemeni women demonstrated against President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Saturday in Sanaa and Taizz, saying “We will not be silent!” They were protesting his complaint on Friday that there was gender mixing in the public rallies, which he said was contrary to Muslim culture, and his call for them […]
The Music of the Libyan Resistance
Libyan rock guitarist Massoud Abu Assir is entertaining Free Libya forces and volunteers not far from the front lines, says AP. I couldn’t find Abu Assir’s video clips, but here are is Benghazi liberation rap via Russia Today : See also this PRI report on the music of the Libyan uprising.
Arab Spring Protests Continue
1. Syria: In the biggest day of protests in Syria so far, tens of thousands of Syrians demonstrated against the Baathist state of Bashar al-Asad on Friday. Large crowds came out in the Douma suburb of Damascus, but were prevented by the tear-gas and the batons of the Syrian police from reaching the center of […]
Qaddafi Using Cluster bombs on Civilian Areas
The NYT has confirmed that the pro-Qaddafi military in Misrata is using cluster bombs and other forms of indiscriminate anti-personnel weapon in the middle of a city full of non-combatants. Indiscriminate fire endangering civilian non-combatants is a war crime. Human Rights Watch has also confirmed the crime, saying in a press release: ‘ Government forces […]
African Languages origins of the Rest?
Quentin Atkinson of the University of Auckland, New Zealand, has done a computer analysis of certain sounds (phonemes) in about 500 languages, and concludes that all of them likely descended from African tongues. African languages, like African human genetic endowments, are the richest in diversity. A greater diversity of phonemes in African languages and less […]
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