THE GAZA SAGA

Israel has admittedly dropped over 6000 bombs in two weeks in Gaza over
an area of 345 sq. km. which is 16 bombs/ sq. km. This kind of bombing
goes beyond the intent of getting at Hamas who are hiding in the
underground tunnels for the most part, and one cannot but entertain the
suspicion that Israel may also have genocidal intent as over 10,000 people
have been killed, including over 4000 children, with many still not removed
from the rubble. A million people have been displaced and under siege with
no food or water or fuel. The Gazan people are not Hamas. They want to
live in peace, but they have been the victims of several wars, often initiated
by others: Egypt Syria, Jordan, and Iraq.
These Arab countries were guilty of aggression against Israel and thought
they could destroy it and I recall that I joined protests against them at the
University of Michigan during the 6-day war in 1967, the Yom-Kippur war in
1972, and the 1982 Lebanon war.
But did these countries suffer? Hell No!….. It was the Palestinians who had
to bear the brunt of Israeli response and they became the political football
to be kicked around by everybody including their own weak leaders.
Hamas terrorizes their own people who have no means to fight its
dictatorship. Their launching of rockets near residential areas demonstrates
their insensitivity to the deadly repercussions that such strategies invite on
their own people.
But Gutierrez is right. Hamas’ action was provoked by Israel’s settler
colonization, its apartheid treatment of Palestinians, and the fact that over
the course of the conflict 13 Palestinians have been killed for every 2
Israelis. I certainly condemn Hamas fiercely for its brutality and fanaticism,
but I understand that it gives voice to long simmering Palestinian rage that
only needs a spark to explode.
Israel lost about 1400 people. Gaza lost 10,000 including about 4000
children in about 3 weeks Of course, the US and Israel will say the Hamas
figures cannot be trusted, but the Red Cross has indicated that in previous
conflicts, their own statistics were not dissimilar to what was provided by
the Gaza ministry of health.
To understand how intense this bombing was, by comparison the US
dropped about 7500 bombs in all of Afghanistan in 2019 with an area of
650,000 sq. km. The bombing density was 0.011 bombs/sq km. in  Afghanistan compared to 16 bombs/sq. km. in Gaza, a factor of 1450
higher. Even if we assume that only a quarter of Afghanistan was bombed,
it still is higher by a factor of 360. Over 50% of civilian homes were
destroyed. Worse yet the Afghan figure is for a whole year, the Gaza
figures are just for only two weeks.
Israel may insist that this is a one-sided view as Hamas has also fired 7000
rockets into Israel in the same amount of time. The difference is that
Israel’s Iron Dome of missile defense has intercepted 90% of these rockets,
with only about 15 people killed and minimal structural damage. The
contrast is about as stark as it gets.
Make your own conclusions about the statement that Israel is only going
after Hamas. It appears they are going to keep killing Palestinian people
until the hostages are released by Hamas. Basically, they are saying every
day you keep the hostages, we are going to kill x number of Palestinians
and are actually doing it. In support, Israel cites the false claim that Hamas
slit Israeli children’s throats, and that claim was eagerly and luridly spread
across the Western Media without any authentication. The blood of
Palestinian citizens is on both Hamas and Israel.
Given the limited target area of Gaza and the intensity of bombing, and
comparing this effort to what is happening in Ukraine, these Israelis make
the Russians look like Boy Scouts. I cannot recall in recent history where
the “collateral” damage/sq. km. in a conflict is so high.
Don’t blame Hamas because you, Israel, went to sleep on security, with a
massive intelligence failure, focusing instead on removing the authority of
your supreme court, and on subverting democracy, and were militarily
unprepared, despite you being light years ahead of Hamas in military
capability. Accept part of the responsibility for Hamas’ rise, because you,
Israel, funded it in the beginning as a countervailing force to the Palestinian
Authority, and that decision to sustain instability in that region has come
back to bite you in spades.
US has paved the way for Israel to follow its own historically destructive
path. It destroyed 110,000 civilians in minutes in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
in action against Japan, and decimated the Native American population by
85% in the land they have taken over, and then also enslaved over 4
million Black people, all in the period between 1700 and 1948. Killing and starving civilians is the game that it has played in that time with the excuse
that such action has prevented casualties in their own ranks.
Hamas does not look at its people in the same protective way that Hirohito
did when he surrendered to prevent further civilian bloodshed. In his culture
that surrender was the ultimate shame, and he had to experience it and
embrace it for his people. Don’t expect that from Hamas.
US…...Land of the Free they say? Home of the Brave they say? Please!
Love it or Leave it they say?
I say stay and devote your life to make it live up to its stated ideals instead
of making a mockery of it and expose those who are making a mockery of
it, and getting unthinking people to swallow their lies. People, like myself,
dearly want to make it so, but we are still a long way from getting there.
Want peace Israel? No way will you get it by destroying the Gazan people.
They have long memories and have suffered far far more than your people.
The proud legacy of your struggle to survive and thrive in a hostile
environment will be stained by the carnage recently caused. Hamas, who
has been sadistically brutal in its own right at times, has to be defanged
and decommissioned, without, or with far far less civilian collateral
damage, no matter they are being used as shields. You don’t bomb a
school bus with children because a terrorist Hamas person is in with
them, and you take him out along with the children, and then absolve
yourself of your own brutality.
I believe the Israelis know they can take out Hamas without the collateral
civilian damage if they really wanted to by focusing on the tunnels and a
slowly moving ground war, especially given their superior weaponry and
resources, but chose not to, and even though carpet bombing was the best
way to minimize Israeli military casualties, the price of killing over 4000
children in the process ends up making Israel look no less brutal than
Hamas.
Get rid of ultraright wing, bribery charged Netanyahu who has invited
genocide on the Palestinians with a quote from the Old Testament
"Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and
spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and
sheep, camel and ass," Samuel 15:3 before the party with the upper hand has reached significant
strategic military milestones.
The irony is that the fox is guarding the chicken coop in the U.N. Security
council, as most of the players there, China, France, Russia, Great Britain,
and the US have had current or past imperial designs. They are more
concerned about using their vetoes to jockey for more power, than in
promoting world peace.
How and when can we rid the Security Council of these U.N. oligarchs that
hold the entire U.N. hostage, and find a way to enforce the will of the
General Assembly.
So, tell me folks, who is under the greater existential threat, Israel of Gaza?
It's a slam dunk answer. Power keeps on trumping Justice and it is time we
all woke up simultaneously and decided it was time to turn the tide. I am
heartened that many of the Jewish children of people killed in the holocaust
,and now much aged themselves have protested vociferously and said to
Israel “Enough”!
Despite my stand on Israel in the current conflict, be sure my sympathies
are not with the surrounding Arab countries. They have used the
Palestinian people as a political football to kick around, as, and when they
like, and I don't have the same respect for them as I do the Palestinian
people who will lament and tell you, as did eloquent Palestinian leader
Hanan Ashrawi, "May you never be sold out by your friends”. The Israelis
are tough people and have the fortitude to stand up to anything that comes
in their way. They knew they had to be so, in order to survive, and I have
serious admiration for their guts, their smarts, and their achievements.
My deepest sympathies however are with the vulnerable people of Gaza
who keep relentlessly suffering for the sins of others no matter in which
direction they turn. They do not deserve it. But we have much deeper philosophical issues to confront that are
underpinning such recurring conflicts. Much historical brutal violence has
been orchestrated not merely to gain resources, but to demonstrate the
superiority of one belief system over another. These memories do not die,
especially for the vanquished, and the simmering desire for revenge can
explode at any time.
The religious institutions that ostensibly promote the teachings of their
original inspiring spiritual founders, with few exceptions, are actually
focused on expanding their own power, wealth and influence, and often
feed the strong undercurrents of ideological conflict that permeate the world
today, and that erupt from time to time into militarily expressed ones.
The hold that these institutions have on the social structures in which they
function, and in which they transmit their pitch, even as we are barely out of
the womb, makes it very isolating if one insists that we return to the actual
teachings of the original founders sans the institutional lens to guide us,
and it becomes challenging to bring even our own loved ones, totally
entrenched in the religious/social status quo, with us and embrace deeper
truths.
Humanity cannot afford to continue to move in this direction and it is
imperative that the leaders of competing religious belief systems with
genuine spiritual heft, create a forum to examine how they may infuse
natural law into their ideology/spiritual practices where respect for all living
things, and doing unto others as others do unto you, becomes the core of
the moral compass that they all are willing to embrace to guide us through
the most turbulent and menacing period in human history where one false
step can explode in a global military conflict that annihilates us all, or in the
case of climate change, where we respond as unaware frogs dumped into
cold, but slowly heating water, not noticing that we are being slowly cooked
to death until it is too late.
The paralyzed response to climate change and multiple localized conflicts
between neighbors makes it clear that we seriously lack political leaders
globally who have both a vision and a concrete plan to move us towards
global peace and/or reversing climate change. They are too seriously bent
on obtaining power and becoming as authoritarian as necessary, (and we
find them increasingly so across the world), to retain it as their main focus.
Sadly, their brainwashed fevered sycophants scream so loudly in support, that opposed voices of reason that point that the Emperor has no clothes
can barely be heard, because the rest have already gone blind.
We also lack a global body that can intervene effectively in conflicts
between states as the historical imperialists have, through the U.N.
Security Council maneuvered themselves into being the U.N.’s puppeteers.
It should have long been more appropriately named as the U.N. Insecurity
Council. We need to create a body where justice trumps power and
everyone has an equal vote and we also need to support systems in nation
states that can remove incompetent leaders without violent repercussions.
Lastly, we need to have global institutions that can swiftly and effectively
intervene in conflicts internal to a country directed against the powerless
and especially when genocidal intent rears its ugly head.
We have the tools to reach people globally with our message of peace. We
need those of us who have a better idea of where we are headed to be far
more activist than we currently are, if only to spread the message far and
wide. Until we are ALL ready, despite the ascent of multiple divisive forces,
to embrace our interconnectedness with one another, and with all living
things, and are focused on the preservation of nature, instead of having
dominion over it to do anything we arrogantly please, and we realize that
doing unto others should be modeled after our expectation of what should
be done to us in the same circumstances, we will not escape from
inevitable fate.

 

THE MEASURE OF THE MAN By Mitali Saran

An accurate portrayal of Narendra Modi. A must read.

The trouble with  manufacturing a larger-than-life persona for a man of averagely limited personality is that he will forever after be on the run from his own reputation. He must dodge and weave endlessly to avoid exposing his true measure, else people might begin to question the outsize shadow it casts. That is why Narendra Modi doesn’t risk open press conferences, it is why he won’t face questions in Parliament, why his speech is jealously controlled one-way monologue, why all his ministers’ primary responsibility is to defend the PM at all costs, and why he’s so much happier preening on the election-free foreign stage than on the domestic one that comes with scrutiny—or would do, if most of the Indian media weren’t such enthusiastic cogs in his image-building machinery.

And the trouble with constantly running and hiding is that eventually people will see that as his true measure: he is not much more than a man incredibly determined to gain and hold on to power, devoted to his image at the cost of actually doing the job.

The blood-drenched crisis in Manipur, and the Prime Minister’s tone-deaf and cowardly refusal to face, address, and answer the Indian public, his inexplicable refusal to speak in Parliament about the nightmare unfolding in the state, is only the latest instance of his dereliction of duty, but it is the worst. 

His image has allowed him to weather what many democratic leaders would not have: holding massive election rallies as covid ravaged India (suck on that, Partygate Johnson!), denying Chinese intrusion as the Chinese built villages in Arunachal Pradesh, and the worst unemployment numbers in half a century to name just a few. He’s weathered the death of all his vaunted promises—achchhe din, 50 days to end corruption, maximum governance, minimum government, sabka saath, sabka vikas. Lately it seems that the public is becoming more watchful. but old habits die hard, so with Manipur on fire, Modi is still brazening it out. His silence has been punctuated by just one, brief, mealy-mouthed comment comprised of hollow whataboutery. It is the most devastating instance of his contempt for democratic accountability.

Democratic leaders around the world possess varying degrees of actual relatability and empathy, but they have learned to at least be seen to be trying. When a domestic crisis blooms, they drop what they’re doing, cut short whatever trip they’re on, and show up for their people. They hold and comfort the suffering, wipe tears, listen, understand, talk, offer aid—and make sure it’s on camera, because they have to at least be seen to be trying. The people gave them power, and can just as easily take it back. That’s democracy. 

Narendra Modi has substituted accountability—the bedrock of democracy—with the projection of unassailability. Perhaps he has bought into his own myth so far that he experiences his own tone-deafness as strength, and his remoteness as splendour. But people mired in blood and terror want empathy, dialogue, and sensitive action. They will remember that the prime minister said and did nothing. 

In Manipur, in Haryana, in minority communities, in the barbaric sexual terrorism of women—in every instance of violence that flares along the seams of ethnic or religious or sexual chauvinism, the PM’s echoing silence looks like incompetence at best, indifference, or complicity at worst. People will remember that the man whose X (previously Twitter) handle is on a permanent hair-trigger to tweet birthday greetings and sympathy for the most distant troubles in the most distant countries, the man posturing as the wise and peaceable world leader of democracy, has publicly ignored a months-long civil war raging in his own country. 

Trying to figure out whether he’s complicit or indifferent or incompetent is just nitpicking. 

*The bottom line is, he’s not fit to be the Prime Minister of India.*

BUDDY BENCH

A friend recently told me, "Walking through my son's schoolyard, I noticed a bench painted bright red.

I asked my son, 

"Is that the only place to sit around here?"

He said, "No, that's the Buddy Bench. ..When someone feels lonely or they have nobody to play with, they sit there, and kids ask them to play." 

What an inspiring idea ..!!

I then told him how wonderful that was and asked him if he ever used it.

 He said, "Yeah. When I was new I sat there and someone came and asked me to play. I felt happy. And now, when I see kids on it, I ask them to play with me. We all do."

This simple anecdote teaches so many things*.

1. Don't hesitate to ask people to give you company if you are feeling lonely. 

2. Don't be immersed in your own self so much, that you don't notice another's silent cry for help. Look around. 

3. Everyone needs someone at some point in life. Step up and help someone when you can.

4. Appreciate life giving you new friends. For that to happen, you need to welcome new experiences.

5. Be childlike and innocent, and don't overthink. Ask for what you want. Life has a way of giving you what you want when you help yourself. 

6. What you give comes back to you, manifold. Give someone love and a little of your time. You will be blessed. 

The Best Helping Hand is at the end of Your own Arm... Help Others, and You Help Yourself .. We all need a Buddy .. Let's keep a Buddy bench for All* ...!!!

REMEMBER ..

KIDS AND SENIORS ARE THE SAME  

DO MEDICINES REALLY EXPIRE OR ARE WE BEING TAKEN FOR A RIDE?*

DO MEDICINES REALLY EXPIRE OR ARE WE BEING TAKEN FOR A RIDE?*

A Family of Doctors in England & in  Mumbai* have been hammering the point that *medicines don’t expire....*

By Richard Altschuler

If a bottle of Tylenol, (Paracetamol) for example, says something like "Do not use after June 1998," and it is August 2002, should you take the Tylenol? Should you discard it? Can you get hurt if you take it? Will it simply have lost its potency and do you no good?

In other words, are drug manufacturers being honest with us when they put an expiration date on their medications, or is the practice of dating just another drug industry scam, to get us to buy new medications when the old ones that purportedly have *expired* are still perfectly good?

These☝ are the pressing points I wanted to investigate.

I immediately scoured the medical databases & general literature for the answer to my question about drug expiration labelling. And voila, no sooner than I could say *Screwed again by the pharmaceutical industry,* I had my answer.

*Here are the simple facts:*👇🏻
FIRST, the *Expiration date, required by law in the United States, beginning in 1979, specifies only the date the manufacturer guarantees the full potency and safety of the drug -- it does not mean how long the drug is actually "good" or safe to use.*

SECOND, *medical authorities uniformly say it is safe to take drugs past their expiration date -- no matter how "expired" the drugs purportedly are*

*Studies show that expired drugs may lose some of their potency over time*

*Even 10 years after the "expiration date," most drugs have a good deal of their original potency*.

*One of the largest studies ever conducted that supports the above points about "expired drug" was done by the US military nearly 18 years ago, according to a feature story inThe Wall Street Journal (March 29, 2000), reported by Laurie P. Cohen*

"The military was sitting on a $1 billion stockpile of drugs and facing the daunting process of destroying and replacing its supply every 2 to 3 years. So it began a testing programme to see if it could extend the life of its inventory.

*The testing, conducted by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), ultimately covered more than 100 drugs*, prescription and over-the-counter."

The *results showed, about 90% of them were safe and effective “even 15 years past their expiration date...”*

In the light of these results, a former *director of the testing programme, Francis Flaherty, said he concluded that expiration dates put on by manufacturers typically have no bearing on whether a drug is usable for longer period.*

*The expiration date doesn't mean, or even suggest, that the drug will stop being effective after that, nor that it will become harmful*.

*"Manufacturers put expiration dates for marketing, rather than scientific reasons," said Mr. Flaherty, a pharmacist at the FDA until his retirement in 1999* "It's not profitable for them to have products on a shelf for 10 years. They want turnover."

The FDA cautioned there isn't enough evidence from the programme, which is weighed towards drugs used during combat, to conclude most drugs in consumers' medicine cabinets are potent beyond the expiration date.

However, *Joel Davis, a former FDA expiration-date compliance chief, said that* with a handful of exceptions -- notably nitroglycerin, insulin and some liquid antibiotics -- *most drugs are probably as durable as those the agency has tested for the military*.

"Most drugs degrade very slowly," he said. "In all likelihood, you can take a product you have at home for many years."
*when Bayer had tested 4-year-old aspirin, it remained 100% effective*,

Bayer has never tested aspirin beyond 4 years, Mr. Allen said. But Jens Carstensen has.

*Dr. Carstensen, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin's (US) pharmacy school*, who wrote what is considered the main text on drug stability, *said, "I did a study of different aspirins, and after 5 years, Bayer was still excellent.” Aspirin, if made correctly, is very stable.*

Now I think I'll take a swig of the 10-year dead package of Alka Seltzer in my medicine chest to ease the nausea I'm feeling from calculating how many billions of dollars the pharmaceutical industry milks out of unknowing consumers every year who discard perfectly good drugs and buy new ones because they trust the industry.

THE GUJARAT STORY

The Gujarat Story

SYNOPSIS: 

The state of Gujarat has reported over 40,000 missing women over a span of five years, says the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data. In 2016, 7105 women went missing; 7712 in 2017; 9246 in 2018; 9268 in 2019; and 8290 in 2020. In the NCRB data (2022), the total missing report amounts to 41,621 in Gujarat alone.

LINK: 

https://youtu.be/QdJt5fBLo64  

https://www.siasat.com/over-40k-women-reported-missing-in-gujarat-in-last-5-years-ncrb-data-2584068/