light and darkness
And Hu knows whatever has been treasured by mother-of-pearls, and covered under the waves of ocean.
All that which is concealed under the darkness of night, and all that on which the light of day is shining.
And all that on which at times darkness prevails, and at times light shines (Imam Ali AS))
the condemnation game – ADC
From: Jeff Blankfort
Subject: The ADC’s shameful press release
Date: 29 Jun 2006 02:48:20 -0000Dear Mary Rose Oakar
As someone who has been working for justice for the Palestinians for the past 35 years (including having been a founding member of the ADC Chapter in San Francisco) I was stunned to read the press release issued by the ADC, which I assume you approved, concerning the capture of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian fighters on Sunday and Israel’s decision to once again apply “collective punishment” to the people of Gaza when the militants refused to surrender their prisoner as demanded by Prime Minister Olmert.
If this was any other liberation struggle, the Palestinians’ daring commando raid would by cheered by its supporters, particularly after the repeated deadly attacks by the Israeli military on Gaza in the last few weeks, but the leading organization in the Arab- American community appears, like the pathetic collaborator Mahmoud Abbas, to be more interested in getting the approval of the White House and the American Jewish community, than in serving the Palestinian cause.
First, the Israeli soldier was captured in military operation that is considered legitimate under international law, both from the right of an occupied people to take arms against an occupying army, as well as the inherent right of self-defense which is also part of international law. Your reference to the soldier having been “abducted,” and furthermore, abducted by “gunmen” would lead one to think this Israeli corporal, who has been participating in the shelling of Gaza, was like some innocent child who had been seized by gangsters on his way home from school. This is apparently the case since in the next sentence you join the Israelis and the White House in condemning the attack and adopting “Israelispeak” in doing so. Israeli officials and its media have used both “kidnapped” and “abducted” to describe what in any other situation would be properly described as “captured.”
greenland going going… .
By all accounts, the glaciers of Greenland are melting twice as fast as they were five years ago, even as the ice sheets of Antarctica — the world’s largest reservoir of fresh water — also are shrinking, researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Kansas reported in February.
By 2005, Greenland was beginning to lose more ice volume than anyone had anticipated — an annual loss of up to 52 cubic miles a year — according to more recent satellite gravity measurements released by JPL. The volume of freshwater ice dumped into the Atlantic Ocean has almost tripled in a decade.
“We are clearly seeing the effects of climate change starting to kick in,” Zwally said.
light
They put on rugged clothes, and ate little, and preferred nobility. They became friends for God’s sake or became enemies for the sake of God. These people are guiding lights in this world, and will be surrounded by blessings in the Hereafter. Peace be upon you!” (Imam Ali, attributed in Mishkat ul-Anwar)
Wizard of Oz author, and Native Americans
L. Frank Baum’s call for the slaughter of the Lakota people was no better than Adolph Hitler’s call for the elimination of the Jewish people and yet Baum is honored on his 150th birthday. Are any newspapers in the state of Washington protesting this outrage?
Notes from Indian Country
Gonzaga honors an editor who called for genocide of the Lakota
By Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji) 6/5/2006
I am often confounded by the antics of mainstream newspapers located in cities with large Indian populations that are so prompt in picking up Indian related news articles from newspapers as far away as California without checking them for facts or by not including the concerns of local Indians in the news releases.
Last Saturday the local daily in Rapid City, SD published an article from the LA Times concerning an exhibit to honor the 150th birthday of L. Frank Baum, the infamous (at least in Indian country) author of the Wizard of Oz.
The Foley Center Library at Gonzaga University opened the exhibit in the eastern Washington city of Spokane called, “Oz and Beyond: Highlights from the L. Frank Baum Collection of Currie Corbin.” Of course, every American knows about the characters in the book from the movie with Judy Garland that featured the Tin Man, The Cowardly Lion, The Scare Crow and the Wicked Witch of the West. The song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” by Garland that was almost cut from the film has become an American standard.
On the occasion of Baum’s 150th birthday anniversary I would like to point out a few little known facts that I hope will take some of the glitter from this exhibit.
Most Americans know about one horrible day, at least horrible to Native Americans, that occurred on December 29, 1890. It was the day when the officers and enlisted men of the 7th Cavalry, General George Armstrong Custer’s old outfit, turned their Hotchkiss guns, their rifles and pistols on the nearly 300 Lakota men, women and children at a creek called Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and slaughtered them in an orgy of bloodletting that was dreadful to behold.
My grandmother, Sophie, was a teenage student at Holy Rosary Indian Mission, a school about 10 miles from Wounded Knee, on that day of the bloody massacre. She recounted how soldiers rode on to the grounds of the mission school visibly excited by their actions and talking loudly about their wonderful victory. The Jesuit priests at the mission school made the children bring water and hay to feed the hungry horses of the troopers.
