Israel continues to bulldoze Palestinian homes in West Bank: it’s called colonialism

West Bank home destruction (Photograph- Hazem Bader:AFP:Getty Images) Aug 9 2016

This is one of those photos worth a thousand lies. There’s little reason to elaborate on what’s going on here: the older man on the ground is Suleiman al-Hadhalin being held back by Israeli police as he tries to prevent Israeli bulldozers from destroying his house in a West Bank village which Israeli authorities claim was built without permission.

We can elaborate all the traitorous provisions in the Oslo Accords that allow Israel to preempt international law by expropriating private property in occupied territory. But why treat the betrayal of the Oslo Accords with anything but contempt? It doesn’t matter who the hell signed them for Palestinians, no one had the right to horse-trade & surrender the Palestinian right to self-determination. Not even Yasser Arafat.

Build BDS & screw the Oslo Accords.

(Photo by Hazem Bader/AFP/Getty Images)

India arresting hundreds in Kashmir

India's illegal....3

Al Jazeera is reporting that more than 1,000 Kashmiris have been arrested in the past two weeks. Others estimate over 1,500. How many were arrested in the other 18 days of this murderous siege?

Arrested for what? Resisting arrest like this man? Marching against the use of pellet guns, live ammo, tear gas against unarmed protesters? Objecting when their kids are manhandled? Trying to get to a pharmacy during curfew to buy medicine for a sick family member? Driving their bikes home from work?

End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmiris.

On money-grubbing veterinarians who let rescue animals die

Last November, I rescued a mother dog & her 5 or 6 month old puppy. They were malnourished & sickly & soon the baby girl became deathly ill. It was four days before my Social Security check came so I was broke. I took Beezle (my regrettable nickname related to Beelzebub because she is so impish) to the vet I have gone to for years with dozens of sick feral cats & all of my rescue dogs.

The vet refused to treat Beezle unless I had money up front & wouldn’t wait four days for payment. I pleaded since they well knew me & I had spent hundreds for vet services there but they absolutely refused. The little girl had symptoms of Parvo which is epidemic in this area & which is a gruesome & fatal thing to suffer. She told me to go home, feed Beezle Pedialite for dehydration & come back in four days. In four days, she would have been dead.

I threw a hissy fit & foul words might have escaped my mouth. Beezle only survived because a rescue friend found me a nurse who rescues dogs who would treat her, including with IVs & several medications. Another little rescue named Merley also got sick & did not survive because it was one day before my check came. Suffice it to say the vet clinic & I have parted ways un-amicably.

Now Beezle & her mom have been diagnosed with Ehrlichia, a fatal infection, & I called our new vet for meds. They told me there is an outstanding bill of $150 for Franky (Francisco) who had his leg amputated a few months ago for $650–which the vet told us was a discounted rate paid in full by one of my remarkable rescue friends. Until that is paid (even though it’s in error) they will not provide meds to my little ones.

Necessity is the mother of invention. And having friends who value animals is one of life’s great gifts. I phoned a wonderful rescuer who works with a vet as part of rescuing animals & she is getting me the meds at discount just because it’s the right thing to do.

This isn’t an appeal for money; my dogs are safe now. It’s really a sustained rant about the character of veterinary medicine that can turn away sick animals on the basis of delayed payment. Even if I stiffed them for a couple hundred bucks to save a dog’s life, what’s the big damn deal?

Saudi bombers take out snack food factory in Yemen

Yemen snack food factory (REUTERS:Khaled Abdullah) Aug 9 2016

Some call the nearly year-&-a-half Saudi-led, UK & US-backed carpet bombing of Yemen ‘the forgotten war.’ But it is not so much forgotten as almost completely unreported by media–just like India in Kashmir & like the wars & bombing in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, Somalia, or the deployment of US troops to central African & Central American countries. What news we get from Syria is a garbled medley of deceits & propaganda.

This rare photo is a snack food factory in Sana’a, Yemen taken out by Saudi coalition bombers because junk food is such a threat to military & political hegemony in the region. They aren’t showing the homes, hospitals, mosques, schools taken out by bombers.

There is no political mission more imperative for our generation than to rebuild the international antiwar movement demanding the withdrawal of all foreign militaries & the grounding of every drone & warplane. The future of the human race depends upon that movement.

Our fullest solidarity with the people of Yemen. May we make that solidarity an active one before the country is bombed to smithereens.

(Photo by Khaled Abdullah/Reuters)

Valentina Valestockovich, aka Mary Scully, agent of an unknown land out to take over the world for somebody, somewhere, somehow

Came to FB today with a message from a rightwing nationalist: “Mary Scully” your true identity pl…..why are you hiding behind an American Name…?” Wish I could tell him I was Agent 007 representing a secret government from outer space sent to take over the world but Mary Scully is my real name. Though my family has wanted to disown me for my politics many times.

So unglamorous, so pedestrian since every Scully family from Tipperary to Melbourne to the Caribbean to Minnesota has a Mary dedicated to Jesus’ mother. Wouldn’t it be so much more credible if it had a Russian twang like Valentina Valestockovich dedicated to Lenin, but more’s the pity for reality. At least it’s a vast improvement over James Bond Pussy Galore crap.

Far less amusing, the same nationalist took me to task for glorifying Kashmiri & Palestinian Intifada among children & teens & chided their parents for failing to guide them toward righteousness & for putting them in harm’s way. Being a boneheaded rightwing supporter of the occupation in Kashmir, he doesn’t understand that none more than Kashmiri parents deplore, not glorify, that children have youth stolen from them & are placed in harm’s way by live ammo, pellet guns, tear gas, & the loss of family members to torture, rape, disappearance, summary execution.

Valentina Valestockovich, aka Mary Scully, is going to continue reporting about the children of Kashmir until a new generation have their childhood returned to them. So suck it, nationalists.