Two young women I know are working their way through college doing pizza delivery. Little did I know that they must pay for their own gas & so rely on tips. Worse yet, little could I imagine that many people order pizza delivery & don’t give a dime in tips. I told the two women that I would post an appeal to tip the pizza delivery person & not be cheap about it. But then I cannot imagine that any of my friends would even consider not being generous.

Many are circulating a news report that an Israeli general is behind the military coup that ousted Morsi & replaced him with direct military rule under General Sisi. This is nothing but anti-Semitic rubbish & conspiracy mongering. The article was written by a leading fascist named Whitney Webb (who comes from the LaRouche network), was published by the pro-Iranian theocracy & Assadist propaganda site Mint Press, & circulated by Alison Weir on her If Americans Knew blog. Weir is deeply problematic politically because she attended the New Horizons conference in Iran which is a gathering of the world’s leading fascists, holocaust deniers & other anti-Semites, 9/11 truthers & other conspiracy whack jobs. She is either anti-Semitic or has a massive cognitive disconnect. Who of us could convene for days with such political trash?

To my mind, the coup against Morsi is one of the most misunderstood events in the Egyptian Arab Spring & signals its defeat. It divides those who understood the military character of rule behind the Morsi regime from those who fetishize rigged elections as the highest expression of popular rule. The military pulled an end run around the Egyptian revolution which at the time of the coup saw an estimated 30 million people in the streets demanding Morsi’s removal. Most analyses treat those protesters as of no consequence compared to the rigged elections which put Morsi in power.

We should debate this event to bring clarity to it. But it is not necessary to render anything but contempt to Webb’s rabid hatred that sees evil Jews hiding behind everything. What makes his assertion even more repugnant is that he & his ilk opposed all of the Arab Spring uprisings as orchestrated by the CIA & Mossad. We see the full fruition of their political derangement in their support for the Assad regime against the Arab Spring.

Ilhan Omar reports that death threats against her have increased a lot since Trump spread a video purporting to show her dismissive of 9/11. Trump’s tweets against Omar are called incitement to murder & we would like to ask the US Congress to explain why criminal proceedings against him have not begun?

Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails are on a hunger strike. Throughout the history of their freedom struggles against British & Israeli colonial rule, Palestinian & Irish political prisoners (who have also used hunger strikes) have expressed mutual solidarity with each other. ‘From Ireland to Palestine, we stand together against colonialism, racism & occupation, & for justice, freedom & liberation for all political prisoners & for all occupied peoples.’

Fact sheet about Palestinian political prisoners from Ireland Palestine Solidarity Committee:

https://www.ipsc.ie/press-releases/faq-why-are-over-1500-palestinian-prisoners-on-hunger-strike?

Fact that should make Islamophobes & misogynists alike choke on their own hate: Muslims gave the concept of university to the world. An Arab Muslim woman, Fatima Al-Fihri, is credited with founding the University of al-Qarawiyyin, the first degree-granting university, in Fes, Morocco in 859 CE.

(Photo of al-Qarawiyyin mosque & university)

On the Indian Army closing down the major highway to civilian traffic in Kashmir on Sundays & Wednesdays for the movement of military convoys.

Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave
and eats a bread it does not harvest.

Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero,
and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.

Pity a nation that despises a passion in its dream,
yet submits in its awakening.

Pity the nation that raises not its voice
save when it walks in a funeral,
boasts not except among its ruins,
and will rebel not save when its neck is laid
between the sword and the block.

Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox,
whose philosopher is a juggler,
and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking

Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpeting,
and farewells him with hooting,
only to welcome another with trumpeting again.

Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years
and whose strongmen are yet in the cradle.

Pity the nation divided into fragments,
each fragment deeming itself a nation.

–Khalil Gibran