Stunning photo, isn’t it? Remarkable faces. Looks like an idealized portrayal of the three Magi from the Bible. In fact, this photo, which won second place in the 2015 National Geographic Photo Contest, is three gravel workmen in Chittagong, Bangladesh looking out the window of their workplace which is full of dust & sand.

“Full of dust & sand” in a gravel factory means silicosis, a chronic, irreversible, incurable lung disease caused by breathing tiny particles of silica dust. That means lung infections, tuberculosis, extreme shortness of breath, scarring & stiffening of lung tissue, swelling in the lungs & lymph nodes, respiratory failure.

Petrobangla is the state-owned national oil, gas, & mineral company in the country but unfortunately it makes subcontracting agreements with international companies for exploration & development. That would partially explain the massive oil spill last December in the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest lying roughly one-third in India & two-thirds in Bangladesh. When these ruthless companies are finished with Bangladesh, it will look like the Niger Delta & be as toxic as the Gulf of Mexico.

The government also owns all the mineral properties of the nation & long ago formulated policies & rules “to achieve sustainable development.” But as part of the neoliberal capitalist system, they’re also trying to attract foreign investment in the mineral sector & that means that sustainable development thing goes down the drain. Now there are proposals to amend those mines & mineral policies “to meet the demands of the present day” & to simplify “procedural obstacles” to attract foreign private investment. Of course the biggest procedural obstacle of all is labor rights, especially health & safety protections on the job, & any bans on child labor.

You don’t necessarily die young from silicosis; sometimes you just live a miserable, incapacitated life–especially if you live in a country with a neoliberal health care system making it unavailable to poor working people.

Media always refers to countries like Bangladesh as “developing” countries. That’s the deceitful language of neoliberalism, the barbaric phase of capitalism. As the Bangladeshi oligarchs & so-called “developed” countries see it, Bangladesh won’t ever be developed beyond a sweatshop economy because that’s where immense private wealth derives. The fight against this treachery is an international one. Because whither Bangladesh is whither workers in the so-called “developed” countries.

(Photo by Faisal Azim)

Pharrell Williams is turning out to be a whopping political disappointment. If he doesn’t smarten up he will be associated less with his song “Happy” than with his music to “Despicable Me.”

Despite appeals to him to honor the cultural boycott of Israel, he is still scheduled to perform in Tel Aviv in early September. There is still time to persuade him by going to his wall & leaving messages. But if our man–who operates a foundation with the mission to “change the world one kid at a time”–remains indifferent to the suffering of Palestinian children, he will be facing the music when he continues his tour in South Africa later in September.

Williams has a marketing collaboration with Woolworths, one of the largest retail chains in South Africa which trades with Israel & sells Israeli products. According to BDS South Africa activists, the marketing campaign called ‘Are You With Us?’ is an attempt to counter the boycott campaign initiated against Woolworths last year. Last month, BDS South Africa sent an appeal to Williams asking to meet with him & to honor the boycott by canceling his performances in Cape Town & Johannesburg.

BDS doesn’t like to give up on anyone prematurely & we hold out, hoping our appeals to their human decency & sense of justice will persuade. And if they don’t, muscle gets applied in the form of protests & rallies. According to BDS South Africa activist, Braam Hanekom, if Williams performs “He is about to face the biggest backlash any artist has faced in South Africa in over 30 years, since the days of apartheid….He is walking into a very angry, unhappy environment because he has chosen to walk with Woolworths.” Protesters won’t be chanting Happy patter; it’ll all be about Mr. Despicable.

The city of Cape Town denied an application to protest at William’s first concert on September 21. Hanekom said protesters may block roads leading to the casino where Williams will perform, delaying the performance, or may even rally inside the casino. Williams is taking quite a gamble with his reputation. But if he performs in Tel Aviv, it’ll be shot to hell by Cape Town anyway.

Pity for Williams. He won’t be the first to bite the dust. Give the man a chance & go to his wall to make appeals to ‘change the world one concert at a time.’

(Photo of Williams from Twitter)

This is Beit Hanoun, Gaza, where Israeli bombers took out a school serving as a UN refugee center in July 2014. There were 800 people in the school, mostly women, elderly, & children. The bombing attack killed 16 & wounded at least 150 others (probably more). “Wounded” is a vague term covering a multitude of Israeli war crimes. It means small children were punctured with shrapnel, suffered damage to internal organs & eyes, were psychologically terrified, & their mothers (if they survived) had to witness their suffering. All the while, Israel & its stooges like Elie Wiesel were claiming Palestinians use their children as human shields.

The water, sewage, & electrical systems in all of Gaza were badly damaged by Israeli bombers. The only power plant is operational again but because of irregular fuel supplies (controlled by Israel), there are only a few hours of power per day. Repairing sewage & water pipes & wells was prioritized because one of the main health concerns in Beit Hanoun was keeping sewage out of the drinking water–which would place 50,000 people at risk.

And of course, like the rest of Gaza, the housing in Beit Hanoun remains completely bombed out. One of the remnants of a cement wall is the site of a Banksy mural of a kitten.

Despite all the impediments to reconstruction put up by Israel, some repairs have been made–evidenced here by children in Beit Hanoun beating the heat by being hosed down in this makeshift pool.

Israel isn’t through with Gaza yet. And that makes the work of building the economic, cultural, & academic boycott (BDS) of Israel all the more urgent. The struggle against Israeli colonialism is one of the most important struggles in the world today because the unholy alliance of Israel with US, European, & Indian militarism threatens to turn the entire Middle East into a killing field–& because Palestinian Intifada stands as a beacon of resistance to suffering humanity around the world.

Build the hell out of BDS.

(Photo by Nidal Alwaheidi/Demotix/Corbis)

As if the European Union (EU) hasn’t already demonstrated sufficiently that it is run by cement-headed psychopaths–by letting thousands of people drown & feeding like vultures off retiree pensions–now they’ve opened a new front in Calais where thousands of refugees from Africa & the Middle East are attempting to cross to the UK.

EU officials offered England & France assistance to handle the refugee crisis; France has received its first installment of €20 million & England has received €27 million. The money is to build higher & more layers of razor wire fences; add a metal barrier; more French police & private security guards; extra CCTV, infra-red detectors, & floodlighting at the fence; technical assistance to identify & register refugees to speed up processing travel documents to deport them back to their countries of origin.

The always contemptible David Cameron, playing to the xenophobes, said the UK will not become a safe haven for a “swarm” of immigrants–& he isn’t the only English politician slobbering all over himself against immigrants. England has also changed its laws, now making it a criminal offense punishable with jail time for renting to undocumented immigrants. Landlords will be required to check immigration status when renting out a unit.

The photo is French workers constructing one of the new fences at Calais. If there’s one thing Karl Marx understood it’s the need for working people around the world to stand with each other. When socialists part from that principle, they end up like Francois Hollande, the nebbishy xenophobe who runs France. It is truly regrettable that the state of labor solidarity is in such a sorry-assed state that one group of workers are hired to erect the guillotine for others.

These workers should have called a work stoppage. Why not? Every other worker at Calais is on strike, including truckers & ferry workers. With tourists going back & forth, the place is a hell of a mess with traffic backed up on both sides. Until that solidarity thing is straightened out, workers from every country will be taking it in the neck in another demonstration of chickens coming home to roost.

(Photo by Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images)

Some photos don’t need explanation. This man is a refugee who has come thousands of miles & is now camped in Calais–unable to move forward because of police violence & razor wire fences & unwilling to go back. His eyes mirror trauma. No one has a right to make other human beings go through hell just to survive.

Our fullest respect & solidarity with him.
Immigration is a human right. Open the damn borders.

(Photo is screenshot from BBC video)

People often complain about Jehovah’s Witnesses knocking on doors to evangelize–like it’s an imposition to answer the damn door. Teams of them fan out in my neighborhood at least once a month. Every Jehovah Witness I’ve known in my life was an exceptionally kind person so I don’t get bent out of shape when they knock.

Someone recently asked me if I consider them a religion or a cult.Well of course they’re a religion–& they take it very seriously whether anybody else likes it or not. The religion is austere & authoritarian & has many problems, not unlike those of Catholicism (including their handling of sexual abuse cases). But what you cannot take away from them is their steadfast refusal to participate in the military or swear nationalist loyalty.

Their persecution under Hitler & German fascism included expulsion from jobs & school, torture, execution, imprisonment, & concentration camps for refusing to perform military duty, join Nazi organizations, or do the “Seig Heil” to the Hitler regime. All of which they could have avoided if they just renounced their religion.

One could imagine the administration of their religion is as nefarious as the Vatican because there’s big money involved. But the average Jehovah’s Witness is sincerely committed to an evangelistic religion & I see no reason to impugn them even for beliefs I don’t share & dislike. If they enter the political arena & contest human rights, that’s another matter altogether.

Call me soft in the head but I think humanity gets along better if you leave people the hell alone & stop deriding them. Unless they’re politicians. It’s always open season on those dumb-asses. My own personal target is leftists who very much resemble cultists. But that’s another story.