#Just saw a post that did 'Isra*l'

[deadinarussianelevator]

Imagine being so anti-semetic you can't even type the word Israel

[doberbutts]

not the prev anon but re: "Israel has a right to exist" not being a Zionist statement and saying otherwise us antisemitic. - that's a bad faith reading because we're not talking about Israelis, we're talking about the state of Israel. The settler colonial state Israel doesn't have a right to exist. That doesn't mean that people have to leave, it just means that Palestinians need to have a say in how to use their land again and expelled families need to be able to return to where their homes once were. That in itself is not an antisemitic point of view unless you conflate the state of Israel with Jewish people, against the wishes of antizionist Jews everywhere.

I wish I could say it was a bad faith reading but I have unfortunately literally seen people uncritically posting that Israel as a state should be dissolved and as part of it all Israelis should be sent back where they came from because they're all settlers and not a single one of them can consider themselves indigenous to the land. I'm not making that up. I'm not reading ill intent into anything. It's not a strawman. I've genuinely seen people saying this.

That's ethnic cleansing too. And anyone protesting this gets called a Zionist and a colonizer and a settler- often by Americans who are not indigenous and are living stolen land themselves. Though, recently, I even saw an indigenous person saying exactly this, and like... did you see the asks I was sent immediately after saying "I don't like that people are saying go back where you came from" because that anon absolutely did directly state that they are of the opinion that as part of the dissolution of the Israeli state and land back, Israelis should be expelled from the area en mass whether they want to leave or not.

So there are, absolutely, people conflating the two. And people are calling for genocide to answer for genocide.

Also, as said before, it becomes very difficult to say who the land "belongs to" (idk this might be the Native in me but land does not belong to anyone, how self-centered to think that the Earth can be divided into pieces by humans who have been here only a short time compared to its whole lifespan, but w/e that's a point for a different day) when both Arabic Israelis and Arabic Palestinians are indigenous to the land. Do they not get a say? They also trace their roots to that area. They are indigenous too- so how can giving "their land" to the other indigenous group be considered "land back"?

It's not like in the US, where most of the colonial efforts are being driven by people who never originated here in the first place. It's way more complicated than that.

Do I think "the state of Israel" has the right to exist? Personally I think that the entire area needs a serious policy re-write and constitution put in place to equalize rights between Israelis and Palestinians and ensure that it stays equal, a ceasefire needs to happen, the genocide of the Palestinians needs to stop, and a peaceful solution with both Israelis and Palestinians living together in harmony needs to be reached. People need to be able to move back into their homes, people need to be able to be free of displacement and constant fear, and without relying on segregation because we all know how "separate but equal" turns out. Would that dissolve the state of Israel? I mean, as it currently stands, probably by definition yes.

Do I think "Israel" itself has the right to exist? The word "Israel" has existed since about 13th century BC. The word "Palestine" has existed since about 5th century BC. Those are the earliest known mentions of these names and not even within those borders (Israel's document was found in Egypt, Palestine's in Greece) so who knows how long the area itself was calling itself one thing or the other or who the scholars of the time talked to to get that name in the first place. The exact borders of these have shifted since then and exactly who controls those borders have largely traded hands back and forth for literal millennia, which is why I'm saying it's way more complicated than that and that both of these people have a claim to the land that stretches back thousands of years. I think it's a little haughty of me to say that something that's existed for the past roughly 3000 years doesn't have the right to exist.

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

What on earth is going on & more inside info from Colonel Douglas Macgregor

We are alive to witness this family's last horrific moments together. 💔💔💔💔💔

Hamas: (your sister) went to heaven

Girl: it is much better for her there (heaven)

Boy: I wanted her to live

Did Hamas murder Yarden? 💔💔💔

This is Shiri Bibas and her children, Ariel (4) and Kfir (9 mos.) from Kibbutz Nir Oz. They were kidnapped Saturday morning along with 100+ Israelis. This is what terrorism looks like. Pray for their safety. Bring them home.

Shiri Silberman-Bibas, 30, was hiding in a safe room with her husband Yarden, their nine-month-old Kfir and three-year-old Ariel when Israel was invaded by the militants on Saturday,” noted the Daily Mail.

“Armed with just a small pistol, Yarden hoped to defend his family and their home in in Kibbutz Nir Oz as villages were raided – in an attack which saw hundreds of Israelis killed and over 100 taken hostage,” it added.

“The father texted relatives ‘I love you all’ as they sheltered, with militants firing semi-automatic weapons outside their window, according to reports. Half an hour later, he ominously wrote ‘they’re coming in’, before communication ceased.”

The family has disappeared and Shiri’s parents, Yosi and Margit Silberman, have also disappeared.

Video later emerged of Shiri holding her two children before they were kidnapped.

https://x.com/IldemocracyHQ/status/1711314337405505976?s=20

A young Israeli couple was able to hide their ten-month-old twins before Hamas terrorists broke into their home and murdered them, the New York Post reported.

Itai and Hadar Berdichevsky, both 30, were attacked in their home in Kfar Gaza, a kibbutz in southern Israel located roughly three miles east of Gaza, the Post reported, citing the Israeli outlet Walla. The parents reportedly hid the infants in a bomb shelter before being murdered trying to fight off the terrorists.

“Israeli troops rescued the unharmed babies about 14 hours later and handed them to their grandmother,” according to the report.

Israeli Ambassador to Colombia Gali Dagan has hailed the parents as “heroes” who did “everything they could to save their children,” the Daily Mail reported.

“They hid their 10-month-old twin children in the shelter while terrorists infiltrated their home,” Dagan wrote on Twitter. “Itay and Hadar were brutally murdered after bravely fighting the terrorists.”

“The babies were left alone for more than 12 hours until they were rescued. Imagine the horror. Two terrified parents doing everything they can to save their children, who are now orphaned. Blessed be the memory of these heroes,” he continued.

The Palestinian terror group Hamas launched an attack early Saturday on Israel, which has thus far killed more than 900 people and wounded 2,500, according to reports. The attack occurred on the Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret, the last festival of the High Holy Day cycle.

More than 100 Israelis were also kidnapped to Gaza — including women, children, and the elderly, many of whom were abused during their abductions. In response to the attack, the Israeli Airforce has struck at least 1,000 terror targets in Gaza. Israel has also mobilized 300,000 reservists in the past 48 hours as its forces continue strikes against Hamas terror targets in Gaza.

The Palestinian terror attack against Israel has been referred to as the “worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.”

The New York Post:

An Israeli family of five, including twin 6-year–old girls and their 4-year-old brother, were killed by Hamas – a short time after their mom messaged friends that they took refuge in a bomb shelter.

Tamar Kedem-Siman Tov and her husband Yonatan (Johnny) rushed into the bunker on Saturday with their daughters Shachar and Arbel and son Omer at their home in Nir Oz, a kibbutz on the outskirts of Gaza.

The 35-year-old woman sent her friends in Sydney, Australia, a WhatsApp message to let them know that they were safe amid rockets fired by the terrorists, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

“Hi guys, we got into the shelter in our house, we’re all going (SIC) okay,” the message sent at 2:45 p.m. local time read, according to the outlet.

But when Tamar stopped responding later, her friends Yishai and Mor Lacob began to panic.

“It started to get really scary. We’re trying to call her, message her. We were trying to speak with people there … people we might know in this area, we were harassing everyone,” Mor told the Morning Herald.

The friends Down Under eventually got the shattering news that the entire family had been wiped out in the deadliest attack on the Jewish state since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

The terrorists had breached the safe room and slaughtered the family in cold blood.

CNBC:

Israel bombarded the Gaza Strip with airstrikes Monday, as it continued its response to a surprise offensive by the Palestinian militant group Hamas that began Saturday morning. Israeli ministers have ordered a “complete siege” of the already blockaded and impoverished Gaza Strip, cutting off supplies of food, water and electricity to its roughly two million residents.

The Hamas attack, unprecedented in scale and scope, is the deadliest offensive that Israel has experienced in 50 years.

More than 700 Israelis have been killed in what Hamas is calling Operation Al Aqsa Flood, with at least 560 Palestinians killed in retaliatory Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip. The total number of deaths has surpassed 1,300, including foreign nationals.

Kyle Becker:

NEW: Hamas is now threatening to execute civilian hostages and air each execution via live television.

Abu Obeida, the spokesman for Hamas’ armed wing, issued the warning in an audio recording.

“We have decided to put an end to this… we declare that any targeting of our people in their homes without prior warning will be regrettably faced with the execution of one of the hostages we are holding,” he said.

https://x.com/kylenabecker/status/1711435308657426434?s=20

NO WORDS: Hamas Savages Cutting Off the Heads of BABIES and Gunning Down Families In their Beds (VIDEO)

By Cullen Linebarger Oct. 10, 2023

The Gateway Pundit previously reported that Hamas has committed multiple horrific atrocities, including gunning down peaceful Israelis at a dance party, raping and abducting young Israeli women, and beheading Israeli soldiers. Hamas has even desecrated the bodies of their victims.

Now we have confirmation the terrorist group has sunk even lower. i24 news correspondent Nicole Zedek reported that she spoke to Israeli soldiers, and they revealed to her that Hamas terrorists are chopping off the heads of babies and gunning down families in their homes.

Yes, Hamas is literally beheading babies.

Zedek: It’s hard to even explain just the mass casualties that happened right here. Israel military officials say they still don’t have a clear number but I am talking to some of the soldiers and what they witnessed walking through these different houses, these different communities.

Babies, with their heads cut off…families gunned down in their beds. You can see some of these soldiers comforting each other. .. many of them reserves as they left their own families behind not knowing the sheer horror they were about to come to. They say they have never experienced anything like this.

Zedek goes on to say 40 babies so far have been taken out on gurneys.

Famous conservative writer, activist, and radio host Ben Shapiro shared a horrifying picture released by an Israeli artist showing a blood-ridden crib.

The reality of evil is sickening. Look at it, understanding it, and fight it. This is a picture released by Israeli artist Tomer Peretz, from a crib in Kibbutz Be’eri.

This is what Hamas did to babies. Children.

Sunnyside Baptist Church in TN prays for their pastor and family members who are currently traveling in Israel.

[thefirsthogokage]

Thank you for making this list!

I have some additions:

Melissa O'Neil has also posted a video by an anti-zionist Israeli. So I'd list her as Pro-Palestine.

Jodie Sweetin posted something very simple and beautiful that someone else actually sent her. I don't remember it exactly, but it was also about not liking any loss of life of Jews, israelis (which marked a distinction between the two to me, which is good), and Palestinians. I think it was anti-israeli government too. She is quitely a very active activist and was assaulted by a cop during the BLM protests .

Lesley-Ann Brandt has not liked any loss of innocent life, particularly Children. I'm not sure on what she's said about Israel, but she had been speaking up about Palestinians. She's South African, so that makes sense. But she's also conflated zionism and Judaism, so...

When I was regularly on twitter the only writer I saw say anything in any direction was Pro-Palestine. I wish I knew his last name, but his first name was James. Of what I've seen from the other writers I personally follow they have kept their mouths shut. Probably to keep their relationships with studios and actors, but at least they aren't spouting bullshit so it could be worse. I posted an article recently about a writer of a show that I can't remember at the moment but considered watching at one point, who echoed Julianna Margulies's comments (I talk about it below), But that's the only crap I've seen from zionist writers.

It's amazing how many "Jewish" celebs are so ignorant to to what the illegal state of israel is doing to the innocent Palestinians, especially when there are Palestinian Jews too. It's racist and antisemitic.

Julianna Margulies was saying very Pro-israel things and conflating zionism with Judaism. I recently posted the article.

I don't know if Tara Strong is a zionist, but she's at least a zionist defender and chose some really fucking disgusting things to retweet.

Charisma Carpenter blasted the lies about 40 dead babies and raped women and the like and basically said "I don't want to hear any excuses, just unfollow me". Very zionist or pro-zionist propaganda. Joss Whedon couldn't ruin Cordelia for me, but she did.

Tyler Astin is already up there but that son of a bitch made a post a lot like Charisma Carpenter. Really sad since I loved So Help Me Todd, so I won't be watching that again.

Gina Bellman is a zionist. She believes we need the state of israel (I believe it was 2021 I caught her saying that) and she can fuck right off. But she's also proved herself an airhead and thought a poster she had for 20+ years was pro-Queen Elizabeth instead of anti-Queen Elizabeth, so, that.

L*nda C*rter said and reposted somethings that were iffy but I don't remember in what capacity. She does seem pro-state of israel though. Sorry.

Jeri Ryan reposed a "you can and should only talk about israeli victims today" post on the day of the attack and then a post re: israeli and Palestinian victims the day after, and then radio silence.

Joshua Malina I think is anti-israel government, but not anti-israel. I haven't been looking at his posts and quite frankly don't want to. But I know in the past, zionists have gone after him. Don't know if he's changed his tune in any capacity lately. I personally said fuck him when he said was happy Sherri Shepard(spelling?) got COVID because he thought she was a scab and wouldn't take the correcting that by SAG-AFTRA and WGA rules she was not. Take that as you will.

Insane how zionists in Hollywood want more Jewish representation when they don't even know they aren't Jewish. Standing up and fighting for Palestinians is what's actually Jewish. And none of them are willing to take correction and close their comments.

Sorry for that last addition I'm just so pissed at the ignorance and the inhumanity.

I found an absolutely massive 70-page list of all the people in Hollywood who've supported Israel (they signed the “Israel Must Defend Itself” pro-genocide IDF letter, showed support only for Israel, spread IDF propaganda, used “Palestinians are terrorists” language, etc) — but it included tons of people I've never heard of and, like, talent agents and lawyers and non-celebrities... so I went through it and got all the recognizable names + made them into a list (below the cut), because it's important to name exactly who's supporting Israel's genocide of Palestinians.

Additionally, I searched for all the celebrities who've supported Palestine (not liking one post while sharing nothing, not saying something vague about both sides, but actually using language like "genocide" and "apartheid" while talking about what Israel is doing to Palestine), and that's below the cut too — because these people are risking their careers speaking about this, and they actually have a spine and morals.

PRO-ISRAEL:

(I tried to include big names + people I know are popular on Tumblr)

Paula Abdul

Jason Alexander

Judd Apatow

Skylar Astin

Ben Barnes

Lance Bass

Victoria Beckham

Mayim Bialik

Hailey Bieber

Justin Bieber

Jack Black

Selma Blair

Rachel Bloom

Tom Brady

Gemma Chan

Choi Siwon (Super Junior)

Ciara

Lana Condor

Jamie Lee Curtis

Ariana DeBose

Zooey Deschanel

Zoey Deutch

Nina Dobrev

Michael Douglas

Fran Drescher

Chris Evans

Oded Fehr

Stephen Fry

Karol G

Josh Gad

Gal Gadot

Neil Gaiman

Danielle Galligan

Aiden R Gallagher

Andy Garcia

Sarah Michelle Gellar

Jack Dylan Grazer

Harvey Guillén

Grant Gustin

Mark Hamill

Jennifer Love Hewitt

Vanessa Hudgins

Sarah Hyland

Lebron James

Lily James

Kris Jenner

Kylie Jenner

Scarlett Johansson

Dwayne Johnson

Mindy Kaling

Kim Kardashian

Joey King

Ashton Kutcher

Mila Kunis

Taylor Lautner

Zachary Levi

Sam Levinson

Eva Longoria

George Lopez

Demi Lovato

Madonna

Howie Mandel

Katie Marovitch (Dropout)

Debra Messing

Alfred Molina

Mandy Moore

Ryan Murphy

Eric Nam

BJ Novak

Con O'Neil

Rita Ora

Chord Overstreet

Gwyneth Paltrow

Danielle Panabaker

Sarah Paulson

Josh Peck

Chris Pine

Jonah Platt

Billy Porter

Natalie Portman

Florence Pugh

Josh Radnor

Addison Rae

Eli Roth

JK Rowling

Adam Sandler

Ben Savage

Noah Schnapp (Mr. "You either stand with Israel or you stand with terrorism" himself)

Leiv Schreiber

Amy Schumer

David Schwimmer

Jerry Seinfield

Sarah Silverman

Ian Somerhalder

Song Seung-hyun

Regina Spektor

Tara Strong

Harry Styles

Bella Thorne

Phoebe Tonkin

Ashley Tisdale

Usher

Taika Waititi

Paul Wesley

Reese Witherspoon

Elijah Wood

PEOPLE WHO SPOKE OUT IN SUPPORT OF PALESTINE:

This includes people who've spoken out this week, as well as people who've spoken out in the past.

Bella Hadid — "This is not about spewing hate on one or the other. This is about Israeli colonization, ethnic cleansing, military occupation, and apartheid over the Palestinian people that has been going on for YEARS!" + she got blacklisted and lost brand deals for saying this and much more

Gigi Hadid — currently being targeted by Israel's official state social media pages for her support of Palestinian civilians

Dua Lipa — support going back years, frequently mentioning Free Palestine + "The ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people must come to an end. NO MORE!! This is a human rights issue!! WAKE UP PEOPLE!!"

Mia Khalifa — "If you can look at the situation in Palestine and not be on the side of the Palestinians, then you are on the wrong side of apartheid and history will show that in time" + more about Israel's attacks on Gaza + she lost her podcast deal for showing support

Kehlani — shared stories about Israel's attacks on Gaza + attended a pro-Palestine protest + said: "To my peers and people that are in the spaces I’m in, what the f*ck is wrong with y’all? You’re being silent for the sake of money and business… there’s an insane amount of unchecked privilege.” and much more

Jenna Ortega — was targeted by a far-right Israeli site for her repeated support of Palestine, the site attempted to blacklist her, and she continued supporting anyway

Guz Khan — said "What the enforcers of apartheid and their enablers have failed to realise is that the plight of the Palestinians is an issue that resonates with the PEOPLE. You can hide behind weapons of war and have the most powerful resources known to man, the PEOPLE will demand justice" + it's strongly rumored he was fired from Our Fl*g Means Death specifically because of his open support of Palestine

Lauren Jauregui (Fifth Harmony) — said "My heart is with the innocent lives lost to the perpetuation of the vile legacy of imperialism, colonization, apartheid and ignorance. [...] Those who were once the victims of persecution becoming the oppressor and being so cognitively dissonant about the hypocrisy. [...] I deeply condemn the violation of human rights and the violence of the genocidal ethnic cleansing we are witnessing in real time of the Palestinian people." + "Propaganda is a bitch and is the most well oiled tool of the empire." (read her whole post, it's great)

Riz Ahmed — said "If we are on the side of humanity we must urgently speak up to try and avert the loss of innocent life. This means calling for an end to the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza's civilians and vital infrastructure, the denial of food, water, and electricity, and the forced displacement of people from their homes. Thesee are morally indefensible war crimes."

Chance the Rapper — said "Fucking disgusting. This is an American funded genocide. #gazaunderattack #palestinianlivesmatter"

Zayn Malik — said "I stand with the Palestinian people and support their resistance to colonization and protection of their human rights."

Michael B. Jordan — shared the quote: "One cannot advocate for racial equality, LGBT & women's rights, condemn corrupt & abusive regimes and other injustices yet choose to ignore the Palestinian oppression." + more about Israel's attacks on Gaza

Will Poulter — support going back years, including attempting to protest against the UK government for supporting Israel and not condemning the violence in Sheikh Jarrah in 2021, and said: "Will the UK government condemn these appalling attacks, which have resulted in the death of civilians, including children?"

Hozier — when sharing a petition about standing with Palestinians: "The Irish experience is all too aware of the centuries long shadow that can be cast by legacies of settler colonialism, illegal displacement and violence."

Zara Larsson — support going back years + "We must call out a state upholding apartheid and KILLING civilians, funded by American dollars." + much more about Israel's attacks on Gaza

(Tumblr wouldn't let me have a list this big, so I'm breaking it up here in the middle with this:)

Celebrities who signed the open letter calling for a ceasefire: Tilda Swinton, Charles Dance, Steve Coogan, Miriam Margolyes, Liam Cunningham, Khalid Abdalla, and over 2,000 more people.

Their joint statement said: "Gaza is already a society of refugees and the children of refugees. Now, in their hundreds of thousands, bombarded from air, sea and land, Palestinians whose grandparents were forced out of their homes at the barrel of a gun are again being told to flee – or face collective punishment on an unimaginable scale.  Dispossessed of rights, described by Israel’s minister of defence as “human animals”, they have become people to whom almost anything can be done. Our governments are not only tolerating war crimes but aiding and abetting them."

Susan Sarandon — said “Being against the occupation of Palestine does not make one anti-Semitic.” + shared multiple posts about Israel's war crimes this week, including Israel's use of white phosphorous in Gaza

Halsey — shared the quote: "Solidarity with Palestinians means little if it only exists when they appear as victims but disappears when they resist. Those who aren't under occupation or refugees from ethnic cleansing have no right to dictate how those who are resist those responsible for their suffering." + more about Israel's attacks on Gaza

John Cusack — attended a pro-Palestine protest + said "We must free Palestine from a brutal occupation - people concerned for their loved ones, in a hell zone, stuck without food, water and power. Deep anguish over people being told to leave and bombed as they left. I heard people share personal accounts of family members who have been jailed, humiliated, harassed, persecuted, targeted and killed for generations."

Nicola Coughlan — shared the quote: "We may be witnessing the total obliteration of Gaza. Political leaders refusing to speak out should feel eternal shame over the horror they are allowing to unfold. Those of us who believe in peace cannot stay silent. We must say to the Palestinian people: you are not alone."

Lucy Dacus (boygenius) — repeated support in the past + openly calling Obama a war criminal + sharing humanitarian fundraisers for Palestinians + said Free Palestine must be the part of all global liberation movements

Aabria Iyengar — shared "You SHOULD be watching the Genocide that's happening, BUT while spreading awareness is good but it's NOT the full picture. Work. Get on the phone with your local reps and pressure them. If you give money to any political parties? Pull it and tell them why." + more about Israel's attacks on Gaza, Israel committing war crimes, etc

Izzy Roland — shared "We cannot and will not say today's actions by Palestinian militants are unprovoked. Every day under Israel's system of apartheid is a provocation. The strangling siege of Gaza is a provocation. Settlers terrorizing entire Palestinian villages, soldiers raiding and demolishing Palestinian homes, murdering Palestinians in the streets, Israeli ministers calling for genocide and expulsion." + more about Israel's attacks on Gaza

Normani — sharing firsthand accounts from Palestinian families in Gaza during Israel's current attack

Emma Watson — shared a quote about showing solidarity with Palestinians from activist Sarah Ahmed, who was harassed by C*nary M*ssion. Watson was then targeted in the media by Israel, and in response, celebrities including Mark Ruffalo, Susan Sarandon, Viggo Mortensen, Peter Capaldi, Steve Coogan, Gael García Bernal, Liam Cunningham, Matt McGorry, Ramy Youssef, and Miriam Margolyes released a joint statement in support of Watson and Palestinians, saying: “We recognize the underlying power imbalance between Israel, the occupying power, and the Palestinians, the people under a system of military occupation and apartheid."

Ziwe Fumudoh — shared resources about calling US Congresspeople about pressuring them to de-escalate, with "SAY NO TO GENOCIDE CALL CONGRESS NOW"

Dylan O'Brien — shared a video of a young Palestinian girl talking about how Israel bombed her whole street, along with "10 years old. Heart wrenching. #FreePalestine"

DJ Snake — shared "Stop the genocide of Palestinians, stop the massacre, end the apartheid" + more about Israel's attack on Gaza

Liam Cunningham — shared videos of himself at the protest in support of Palestine in Dublin + more about Israel's attack on Gaza

Kim Namjoon (BTS) — attended multiple art exhibitions by Palestinians in diaspora who made art about Free Palestine, and shared pictures of these exhibitions publicly + he owns a piece of art about Free Palestine and, in the past, has posted this art to IG ~coincidentally~ on days when Israel bombed civilians — NOTE: I would not normally include something like this, but I'm choosing to do so specifically because he's doing all this BEFORE serving his mandatory enlistment in the South Korean military, which is aggressively pro-Israel and known for violent bullying, being full of far-right incels, and abuse from superior officers (and harassment towards enlisted celebrities, who are isolated and cut off from all protection). Him risking his support being made known to the general public (especially since BTS fans are known for noticing stuff like this and blowing it up on social media) has much higher risks than the average Western celebrity.

And lastly, I wanted to share this one as well — I'm not sure how real this is, but given Israel's foreign propaganda machine, it wouldn't even surprise me a little:

the tiktoker @/thewizardliz (who has 4.8 million followers and is a beauty influencer originally from Chechnya) — made several pro-Palestine posts, but then deleted them all and said: "Guys I didn't want to delete my posts. But I was just called and told that I'm playing with my life by speaking on these things and that I should delete, I shouldn't involve myself in politics, but I stand with what I said."

Please add more if you know of any, but NOT if it's something along the lines of them just liking a post or trying to say both sides are bad. Please also include what they said/shared — now is the time when speaking out is most important.

Feel free to add any pro-Israel people as well.

[betweenthetimeandsound]

Three Minutes to Eternity: My ESC 250 (#230-221)

#230: Dschinghis Khan -- Dschinghis Khan (Germany 1979)

"Die Hufe ihrer Pferde, die peitschten im Sand Sie trugen Angst und Schrecken in jedes Land Und weder Blitz noch Donner hielt sie auf"

"The hoofs of their horses, they lashed in the sand They carried fear and horror in every country And neither flash nor thunder stopped them"

One of my favorite songs to jam to is Boney M's "Rasputin". A disco-influenced song about the life of "Russia's greatest love machine", it's energetic while telling that of a myth. I mention this because Dschinghis Khan is compared to this often, in all the ways.

Only this time, it's about the great conqueror Chinghis Khan, who took over the whole universe (and lasted for a very long time). From how he struck fear across the steppe to fathering seven children in one night, he is seen as the embodiment of masculinity.

While entertaining, sometimes I'm put off by the gimmickry. It can be argued that it wouldn't age that well today, because it can be seen as culturally appropriative or mocking Mongolian culture. But for what it's worth, it's enjoyable and still a classic today.

Personal and actual ranking: 4th/19 in Jerusalem

#229: Louisa Baïleche -- Monts et Merveilles (France 2003)

“Oh, mon amour Où es-tu, mon amour?” “Oh, my love Where are you, my love?”

A definite case of love at first listen for me—Monts et Merveilles is a calming ballad, albeit with sad lyrics about the end of a relationship. The instrumentation is quite nice; it reminds me of songs that stood out on the charts during that time. It also had the "ethnic style" percussion in the bridge, which made me think that France Televisions wanted to mix what worked in the last two years (ballads) with the ethnic sounds from the 1990s (as Louisa is half Kablye, an Algerian ethnic group)

Despite it, it got a pretty low result—though it may be because 2003 was a stronger year songwise compared to the two years that came before it. Or it maybe because of the hair getting into her face that took away from the experience...

Personal ranking: 5th/26 Actual ranking: 18th/26 in Riga

#228: Hakol Over Habibi -- Halayla (Israel 1981)

"הלילה, הלילה, יהיה זה הלילה נאמר דברים שלא אמרנו מעולם"

"Tonight, tonight, it will be the night We’ll say things we’ve never said before"

On a random note, whenever I would search up Idan Raichel's "Hakol Over", Hakol Over Habibi would be one of the first search items that pop up. I would completely ignore it until now, when they actually participated in Eurovision!

That said, Halayla is very groovy song which plays with the disco vibe of the 1970s and the highly energetic choreography that would define 1980s Israeli Eurovision entries. The instrumentation is quite awesome, with the mix of piano, strings, and I think accordion setting up the vibe. (And it switches well from minor to major and back again , which can go awry when done wrong).

The members seem to have a ball on stage, and Kikki looks beautiful in her dress, which was fitted that way because she was pregnant at the time!

Personal ranking: 5th/20 (though it jumps around often...) Actual ranking: 7th/20 in Dublin

#227: Wind -- Laß die Sonne in dein Herz (Germany 1987)

"Manchmal bist du traurig und weißt nicht warum Tausend kleine Kleinigkeiten machen dich ganz stumm Du hast fast vergessen wie das ist, ein Mensch zu sein Doch du bist nicht allein"

"Sometimes you feel sad and you don’t know why Thousands of little reasons are making you dumb You nearly forgot what it’s like to be a human being But you are not alone"

Wind has the interesting distinction of participating three times and coming in second twice out of those three. The first one, "Fur Alle" was seen as such as a big contender that there were bets made against it winning. And then it didn't.

Laß die Sonne in dein Herz didn't come that close to winning in 1987, but I can argue it's the better song of the the three.

It catches you right away with the reggae influences, which creates a relaxed vibe throughout the song. It builds up well with every key change--it does get repetitive at times (especially with the choruses), but never boring. And while it shares a similar theme to Fur Alle, it doesn't come off as either derivative or charitys-single like.

(That said, I did grow to like Fur Alle eventually, but this one was more instantaneous.)

Personal ranking: 7th/22 Actual ranking: 2nd/22 in Brussels

#226: Charlotte Perrelli -- Hero (Sweden 2008)

“This is a story of love and compassion Only heroes can tell.”

The better Charlotte song, in my opinion. The song she won with, “Take Me to Your Heaven” is a complete vintage track, almost influenced by ABBA-nostalgia going on at the time. “Hero” , while still on the same schlager vein, modernizes the production a little bit, to the point I imagine it would be a good pop song of that era.

Alongside that, Hero has some compelling lyrics, one which could summarize the hero's journey in general. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody were to write a Eurovision jukebox musical, they would use this in some format.

That may be the case on why l like it better, but it could also be because it should’ve done better in the contest. The fact the jury wildcard saved Charlotte is a reason why they're around, but the fact there was a wildcard which kicked out the actual tenth placer (North Macedonia's Let Me Love You) could be totally flawed too.

Personal ranking: 6th/43 Actual ranking: =18th/25 (with France) in Belgrade

#225: Carlos Paião -- Playback (Portugal 1981)

“Podes não saber cantar nem sequer assobiar, Com certeza que não vais desafinar, Em play-back, em play-back, em play-back,”

“Maybe you don't know how to sing or even how to whistle But you won't sing out of tune for sure, In playback, in playback, in playback”

This is so modern and infectious it’s unbelievable. From the introduction to Carlos’ biting lyrics to the choreography, it makes one wonder why it got neglected in the voting. 1981 was a strong year, sure, but this song is definitely one of the best of that field.

Playback, as the title suggests, is about the pervasiveness of lip-synching in the music industry. One day, nobody will have to learn how to sing because the playback will save them. They can all focus on the performance without taking note of the song.

It's eerily relevant to Eurovision today, considering we don't use live music anymore and backing vocals can be mimed. I have mixed feelings about the latter, because one side argues it allows different genres of music to appear, but the other argues it reduces artistic credibility. I prefer having live vocals; if a delegation wants to use them on the track (e.g. looping), it should be on a case-by-case basis.

Maybe that's why it somehow made the ESC250 the last two years...

Personal ranking: 4th/20 Actual ranking: =18th/20 (with Turkey) in Dublin

#224: Emma -- La mia città (Italy 2014)

“E dimmi se c’è davvero una meta O dovrò correre per la felicità”

“And tell me if there really is a destination Or I have to run for happiness”

The black sheep of Italy’s post-comeback output, and coincidentally the only song completely chosen internally. That being said, La mia citta is still a good song, and for me it’s better than some of the fan-favorites out there.

Admittedly, I prefer the punchy verses to the chorus, with the latter reminding me of something out of P!nk's discography, but I revel on Emma’s energy and her letter to the city of Rome. We have struggles about the place we are from, but still try to sing its praises when we can!

The staging was a bit tacky at times, but I did like the aesthetics of it—particularly her laurel wreath. Her costume had a good concept also, but is also overdone it in terms of the bejeweled top.

(As for the Sanremo winner that year, Contravento, it feels like a bit of a grower. The clarinet intro really takes one in, but there has to be a whimsical, sweet staging to accompany the hopeful song. Had they done so, a left-side finish would've waited for them)

Personal ranking: 6th/37 Actual ranking: 21st/26 in Copenhagen

#223: Brigitta -- Open Your Heart (Iceland 2003)

“Everything you share with me Turns a little darkness into light And that is how we’re meant to be Truth will keep the light shining brighter”

Also known as, the woman who originally came from Husavik! The difference is that Birgitta was the lead singer of the group Irafar. Open Your Heart reminds me of songs that end up on DCOM (Disney Channel Original Movie) soundtracks—it can actually work in the end, but also in the beginning to introduce the characters and/or their circumstances. The random running order really helped it with being first, haha! Beyond that, it's an optimistic song, helped with the guitar influences which ground it in the era. Plus, the production and lyrics add to this feel, encouraging even the shiest to open up their feelings. Also, I like the flowery aesthetic that Birgitta has, from one in her hair to the larger one (which I think is real?) on her microphone. Personal ranking: 4th/26 Actual ranking: 8th/26 in Riga

#222: Tomas Ledlin -- Just nu! (Sweden 1980)

“Han vill dra iväg, kanske ner till Paris Och hitta äventyret på något vis Inte sitta här på stans konditori Och låta tankarna, bara fladdra förbi” “He wants to go away, perhaps down to Paris And find adventure somehow And not just sitting here at the local café Just letting the thoughts flutter by” The 1980s saw the genre New Wave come to vogue, and Just Nu was a valiant attempt on the genre, especially considering the direction Eurovision would go later. From the opening notes, I got the punkish notes from the instrumentation, and the lyrics definitely add to the feeling of being free from societal expectations, crying out "right now"! (which is funny, because I learned Romanian at one point and nu means no in the language. So I keep thinking it's "just no!" against conformity) Tomas also shows quite the attitude on stage--he just struts into the stage with a boyish charm and kickstarts the song. With his looks and usage of the microphone stand, he portrays this rebellious character well, though the orchestration could’ve been improved with the strings and flute. Personal ranking: 2nd/19 Actual ranking: 10th/19 in Den Haag

#221: Lea Sirk -- Hvala, ne! (Slovenia 2018)

“Moje ime je Lea in/Za vas imam nov lik!” “My name is Lea/ And I have a new character for you!”

I love the opening lines for this song—it immediately sets the tone and has a strong statement alongside it. She's Lea, and she won't let anything down on She asserts that she can’t be sold out, and has a great attitude to accompany the trap beat, which reminds me of a K-pop song for some reason. The staging fits the song to a T--though it didn't need any changes from the NF, haha. As for the fake break, I don't have any strong opinions on it, but it definitely kept up interest for the song. A nicer touch was the Portuguese line in the end. Either way, it was a surprise qualifier in its semi that year, and it was one surprise that I greatly welcomed. Hvala da!

Personal ranking: 8th/43 Actual ranking: 22nd/26 GF in Lisbon

[superbatson]

I didn’t save the post so I can’t send it to you but theres the whole situation with G*l G*dot being in the IDF, the new movie is racist by showing a middle Eastern man wishing for more nuclear weapons, and the scene where she saves boys playing soccer is something that actually occured some years ago so it’s problematic to jokingly add it to a film. that’s just the tip of the iceberg so go do your own research even if it’s just on tumblr.

gal was in the israeli army by law and never saw combat. i believe she served as a trainer in the army gyms, actually? so you can't use that as a knock against her. refusing to serve would have made her a criminal, so she didn't really have a choice. and even then, it's not like she ever said she agreed with the actions of the israeli military.

you have to understand that defending israel doesn't always imply that someone is anti-palestine. anyone with an ounce of common sense would realize that, ideally, the two nations should be able to co-exist and would wish for that to become a reality. it's a pipe dream, for sure, but it's the only logical outcome for the whole situation. any resolution that includes wiping out either nation as a whole is just gonna cause more problems (and i know that's basically how it all began, but even reversing that is not an ideal solution either; jews deserve a territory where they can safely practice their religion, which is why israel was found to begin with).

somehow i don't remember the egyptian leader wishing for more nuclear weapons. i know his wish wound up being destructive with the wall, but i thought it had something to do with restoring sacred land back to the way it once was, which wound up slowly wiping out an entire city in the process. maybe he did wish for weapons too and i just missed it, or you're referring to a different character.

who ever said that soccer thing was included as a joke? it was a serious part of the movie, the end of an intense action sequence. i gasped when the camera showed kids in the street. yes, it meant diana couldn't succeed in stopping the villain, but obviously such a side rescue eventually lead to the intense final confrontation against maxwell lord.

so, again, i believe you're making a false claim here about the movie, in regards to the part about the kids in the street. but generally speaking, i would advise you to do your research when saying anything negative about a person/movie/etc. 'cause making claims with no evidence invalidates your argument. that's debate 101.

[bountyofbeads]

Pelosi leads a surprise delegation to Jordan for ‘vital discussions’ on Syria crisis ( Being the true leader and public servant that Nancy Pelosi is, trying to solve disasters that Trump has created and while overseas her older brother has died😢. His obituary is below and Speaker Pelosi’s statement below.)

By Steve Hendrix | Published October 20 at 1:15 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 20, 2019 |

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a surprise congressional visit to Jordan over the weekend, highlighting her sharp disagreement with President Trump over policy in a Middle East roiled by Trump’s abrupt removal of U.S. troops from northern Syria and Turkey’s subsequent attacks on Kurdish enclaves.

“With the deepening crisis in Syria after Turkey’s incursion, our delegation has engaged in vital discussions about the impact to regional stability, increased flow of refugees, and the dangerous opening that has been provided to ISIS, Iran and Russia,” Pelosi said after meeting with King Abdullah II and senior Jordanian officials Saturday night.

Neither country released details of the talks before the delegation departed for the United States on Sunday morning. The trip came as a hastily brokered five-day cease-fire in Syria was struggling to take hold entering its third day.

[Trump’s withdrawal from Syria prompts rare public criticism from current, former military officials]

Pelosi had earlier called the cease-fire deal “a sham” that gave a pass to Turkey’s offensive at the expense of the Kurds, a key ally in the recent fight against the Islamic State in Syria. Coverage of Pelosi’s “middle of the night” meetings in the Jordanian press focused largely on concerns that Turkey’s assault will result in the release of thousands of Islamic State fighters, many of them from Jordan, from Syrian prisons.

“This visit comes at a crucial time of threats to stability in the region and the control of Isis,” said the daily paper Al Ghad.

Pelosi has been harshly critical of Trump’s move in Syria, which was greeted with dismay by governments throughout the region. Israeli security experts called it a “betrayal” of the Kurds, and many saw Pelosi’s sudden appearance in Amman as a globe-hopping slap at the president.

“I don’t think it matters what they talked about, what matters is that she came here to draw a line under his abandonment of the Kurds and the outrage it has caused,” said a former Israeli general, who asked not to be named because of his ties to the military.

Congressional visits, especially to conflict zones, are often kept secret for security reasons. The trips by congressional delegations, known in Washington as codels, have been known to create political waves.

Pelosi has made other international stops that underscored her differences with Trump, including a visit to the Irish border to decry possible damage to the country from Brexit, which the president has supported enthusiastically. In January, during the government shutdown, Trump revoked the speaker’s access to a military plane just as her delegation was preparing to depart for Afghanistan.

In Jordan, the state-run Petra news said Abdullah thanked the speaker for making the trip and for Congress’s long-standing support of his country. He “urged a political solution that safeguards Syria’s territorial integrity and the unity of its people, while guaranteeing the safe and voluntary return of refugees.”

Trump has faced a rare bipartisan backlash for his Syria move, and one Republican lawmaker, Mac Thornberry, traveled with Pelosi to Jordan. Thornberry (Tex.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, announced in September that he would retire at the end of his term.

The other members of the nine-person delegation included Rep. Susan A. Davis (D-Calif.), a member of the Armed Services Committee; Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.); and Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), the head of the Intelligence Committee who is leading the impeachment inquiry against the president.

Congress is expected to vote on proposed sanctions against Turkey in coming days.

*********

"My brother Tommy was the finest public servant I have ever known. All his life, Tommy worked on the side of the angels. Now, he is with them." Speaker Nancy Pelosi @SpeakerPelosi

Pelosi Statement on the Passing of Thomas D’Alesandro III

OCTOBER 20, 2019 

PRESS RELEASE

Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement on the passing of her brother, former Baltimore Mayor Thomas D’Alesandro III:

“My husband Paul and our entire family are devastated by the loss of our patriarch, my beloved brother, Thomas D’Alesandro III.

“Tommy was the finest public servant I have ever known.  His life and leadership were a tribute to the Catholic values with which we were raised: faith, family, patriotism.  He profoundly believed, as did our parents, that public service was a noble calling and that we all had a responsibility to help others.

“Tommy dedicated his life to our city.  A champion of civil rights, he worked tirelessly for all who called Baltimore home.  Tommy was a leader of dignity, compassion and extraordinary courage, whose presence radiated hope upon our city during times of struggle and conflict.

“All his life, Tommy worked on the side of the angels.  Now, he is with them.  With his commitment to his family and public service, his life has truly blessed America.

“All who were blessed to know and to love Tommy mourn with his wife Margaret, his children Thomas, Dominic, Nicholas, Patricia and Gregory, and his grandchildren whom he adored, and are praying for them at this sad time.”

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Thomas D’Alesandro III, Maryland political prince who gave up the throne, dies at 90

By Bart Barnes | Published October 20, 2019 2:40 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 20, 2019 |

Thomas J. D’Alesandro III, the scion of a Maryland political dynasty who led Baltimore as mayor during the 1968 riots after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., left politics and decades later saw his sister, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, pick up the family mantle, died Oct. 20 at his home in Baltimore. He was 90.

The cause was complications from a stroke, according to a spokesman in Pelosi’s office. In a statement, the speaker called her brother “the finest public servant I have ever known.”

Known as “Young Tommy,” Mr. D’Alesandro was the oldest son of Thomas J. “Big Tommy” D’Alesandro Jr., who had been one of Maryland’s dominant civic leaders in the mid-20th century as a state delegate, congressman and, from 1947 to 1959, the mayor of Baltimore. Pelosi, Mr. D’Alesandro’s youngest sibling and only sister, grew up to become a California congresswoman and twice the nation’s most powerful female elected official.

When Mr. D’Alesandro took the oath of office as Baltimore mayor on Dec. 5, 1967, it seemed like the fulfillment of a political prophecy that he might take over the Democratic fiefdom that his father had stitched together over three decades.

Mr. D’Alesandro’s four years as mayor began at a wrenching time for U.S. cities with large African American populations. Violent civil unrest had unfolded from the Watts neighborhood in Los Angeles to Newark. Baltimore, Mr. D’Alesandro later reflected to NPR, was “a segregated city  . . . a Southern city,” but he held out hope that its long-established black middle and professional class would help his metropolis avoid upheaval.

He had been in office only four months when King’s assassination in Memphis on April 4, 1968, triggered rioting in more than 100 cities. During that brief period, Mr. D’Alesandro had appointed African Americans to several city commissions and boards where none had previously served, and he took stands in favor of civil rights and integration that led to him getting booed at “I Am an American Day” parades.

He had a track record of personal commitment “to equality and civil rights,” said Matthew Crenson, a Johns Hopkins University scholar of Maryland politics.

In the early days after the assassination, Baltimore remained quiet while Washington, Chicago and other cities erupted in violence. “I was starting to feel it was too calm,” he told the Baltimore Sun years later, recalling the preparations that he began making for potential unrest, including meeting with police and local African American leaders.

But then, on April 6, late in the afternoon of a warm spring Saturday, someone tossed a brick through a plate-glass store window in a black neighborhood. Within hours, the city was engulfed in rioting, burning and looting.

It took all of Baltimore’s police force, 500 Maryland State Police officers, thousands of members of the Maryland National Guard and 5,000 soldiers from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to restore order.

The riots left six dead and 700 injured. There were 1,032 fires, 4,500 arrests and 1,075 businesses looted; many of the stores never reopened.

After the riots, Mr. D’Alesandro presided over the enactment of a Baltimore civil rights bill guaranteeing access to public accommodations, won approval of an $80 million bond issue to build schools and created summer recreation programs that included mobile swimming pools and day camps for city youths.

Baltimore also suffered from loss of manufacturing jobs, labor strife and white flight, but, for years, observers speculated that the riots were principally responsible for driving Mr. D’Alesandro out of politics, an interpretation that he rejected. He told the Sun decades later that, while in office, he continued to map out his political trajectory, including a possible run for governor, before deciding against it.

He cited financial concerns among the chief reasons that kept him from seeking another term in 1971. He had five children to support, he said, and couldn’t do it on the mayor’s salary. “I was clearing only $695 every two weeks,” he told the Sun in 1998. “I couldn’t make ends meet.

Mr. D’Alesandro began to hint in the final year of his mayoralty that he would serve only one term. The decision still came as a shock when he made it official. “My father was devastated,” he told the Sun. “He thought I was crazy.”

He went into legal practice in Baltimore, away from the public spotlight, specializing in workers’ compensation and personal injury cases. He retired in 1994.

Thomas Ludwig John D’Alesandro III was born in Baltimore on July 24, 1929, and grew up in the Little Italy neighborhood near the city’s Inner Harbor. His mother, the former Annunciata “Nancy” Lombardi, was born in Naples, grew up in Baltimore and became a devoted political wife, helping organize her husband’s campaigns and representing him when he was unavailable to constituents.

In 1952, when Mr. D’Alesandro married Margaret “Margie” Piracci at the Baltimore Basilica, the Sun called it “Baltimore’s equivalent of a royal wedding,” and more than 5,000 people were present. The city fire department had to turn some away.

Big Tommy was his son’s best man. The pope sent his blessing, and President Harry S. Truman sent a silver tray. Little sister Nancy was a bridesmaid.

In addition to his wife and his sister, survivors include five children; a brother; 10 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Mr. D’Alesandro graduated from Baltimore’s Loyola College in 1949 and from the University of Maryland law school in 1952. He served four years in the Army, won a seat on the city Board of Elections Supervisors and then, in 1962, on the City Council, where he served the next year as president. In his 1967 race for mayor, he crushed the opposition — lawyer and future Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos — in the Democratic primary. Mr. D’Alesandro easily won the general election in November. He was 38.

In addition to financial pressures, the social imperatives of politics weighed on him, Mr. D’Alesandro told the Sun.

“I never liked the social aspect of politics. I loved government. My father loved it all. He loved the people. He loved everything about it. Not me,” he said.

“My father would go into a funeral establishment,” he said, “visit the party of the deceased he had known. Then he’d visit every other alcove in the funeral home. He’d turn his visit into a political rally. I’d go into a funeral home, pay my respects to the one person I knew there, sign the book and leave. Nobody would know I was there.”

Mr. D’Alesandro toyed with the idea of running for governor, mostly because the job came with a bigger salary, but other Democrats stood in his way. Maryland House Speaker Marvin Mandel had been elevated in 1969 to finished the term of Gov. Spiro T. Agnew, who resigned to become Richard M. Nixon’s vice president. Kennedy in-law R. Sargent Shriver, a Maryland native, former Peace Corps director and U.S. ambassador to France, was also exploring a run.

“Mandel had the advantage of incumbency,” Mr. D’Alesandro recalled to the Sun in 1998. “He had a political base in Baltimore. Shriver had all that Kennedy money.” Mandel went on to serve as the state’s chief executive for much of the 1970s.

Mr. D’Alesandro became an occasional adviser to his sister, 11 years his junior, who carried the family’s political ambitions to a national level. Often asked to comment on the environment that shaped her, he spoke with admiration about her decision to start a political career in San Francisco, across the country from her home city. And he offered a bit of personal insight about her drive toward public service. “It’s not a choice,” he once told the Orlando Sentinel. “It’s just innate in her.”

*********

[biofunmy]

Watching ‘Euphoria,’ Two Young Recovering Addicts Saw Themselves

The two young women see themselves in Rue, the stumbling, manipulative teenage drug addict that Zendaya plays in “Euphoria,” the new HBO show.

They see themselves in Rue when she coughs and flushes the toilet so her mom won’t hear her rummaging through the medicine cabinet for Xanax. They see themselves when Rue cops clean urine from a high school friend to pass a drug test. They see themselves when Rue convinces a new friend that getting high first thing in the morning is a good idea; when she threatens her mother with a piece of broken glass; when she aspirates her own vomit after overdosing. They see themselves in Rue’s pain, her messiness, her unslakable need to obliterate all the bad feelings, no matter the cost.

And the women, who agreed to be identified by their first initials, N. and M., to protect their anonymity, also see themselves in Rue’s blissed out, druggy glory.

If there is one thing that makes M. nervous about “Euphoria,” it is this: That it might entice kids to be like she was not so long ago, looking for reflective surfaces that mirrored everything her addiction needed back to her.

Shot in luscious saturated colors, the young characters in HBO’s “Euphoria” sext, copulate, record themselves copulating, endlessly shame each other and ingest loads of pornography, alcohol and drugs. Sam Levinson, the creator of “Euphoria,” based the show on an Israeli mini-series set in the 1990s and on his own battles with addiction as a teen.

[The Upshot: Unlike in ‘Euphoria,’ most real teenagers are tame]

Research suggests that in contrast to the vice-a-minute portrayal on “Euphoria,” today’s real-life teenagers are having sex and using drugs less often than teenagers of the past did. But if teens, on the whole, are far less wild, N. and M., who were both addicted to drugs and alcohol throughout their teen years, said that they still saw a representation of their lives in the show.

In fact, they said, their experiences were worse than what Rue goes through.

“When I was using,” said N., “literally every move I made was to get high.”

N., who is 23, and M., 24, have been clean about two years after using every drug they could buy, swindle, steal and sell sex for. They are both residents at Dynamic Youth Community, a half-century-old rehabilitation center for young people deep in Brooklyn. Dynamic also has an upstate center where they each spent around a year and a half learning how to live clean before moving down to Brooklyn. M. is an inpatient resident at the Brooklyn site now, and N. is an outpatient and lives nearby in Sheepshead Bay with her sister and her mother.

They had not seen “Euphoria” but were amped to learn that Drake was one of its producers, and agreed to watch a few episodes and share their thoughts after the Dynamic’s executive director, William Fusco, watched the pilot and surmised their sobriety was strong enough for them not to get triggered. Drugs and alcohol are promoted in ads, on television, in movies, in music, on Instagram. For N. and M., living clean and sober meant learning to not get tripped up by all of that.

The two women first met at Dynamic, their lives having followed parallel trajectories.

N. and her parents are from Turkey, and M.’s parents are from the former Soviet Union. M. grew up in suburban New Jersey, where she never felt like she fit in. N.’s family lived in Connecticut and was undocumented; her father was deported when she was in the fifth grade. Both girls started smoking and drinking when they were 13, and fell in love with the escape. “I was unstoppable,” N. said.

For both, alcohol and marijuana gave way to benzodiazepines, prescription opiates and heroin. Then came the consequences. N. got kicked out of her home and two schools for using and fighting, and ended up in the hospital a few times to get her stomach pumped. By the time M. turned 17, she was shooting heroin in her high school bathroom and selling drugs. Both went to rehab and relapsed; both suffered drug-induced psychosis — N. from crystal methamphetamine, M. from meth and crack cocaine. Both traded sex for drugs, or for money to buy more drugs. “It destroyed my life slowly and casually,” M. said.

M. kept moving around and disappearing as her frantic parents scoured the state and posted missing ads. They brought her to Dynamic in Brooklyn after she showed up at their doorstep barefoot, skeletal and disoriented. N.’s mother brought her to Dynamic under the guise of a doctor’s visit. Neither young woman has left since (Karen Carlini, the associate director of Dynamic, said the staff felt that both young women’s accounts of their drug use were accurate).

We watched the first two episodes of the show in Dynamic’s fourth-floor residence.

The young women’s first reaction was that the show felt real in its depiction of how Rue felt so amazing on drugs but looked like a wreck. We watched as her character kept slipping into the bathroom to steal pills as her sister and mother hovered outside, and then assured them she was clean afterward. “She doesn’t want to stop for herself,” N. said.

We watched as Rue hit up her drug dealer straight after she got out of rehab, and as she had flashbacks to the hell she had put her mother and sister through, a montage M. found so intense that goose bumps appeared on her arm.

“Usually people that care about you the most become your worst enemies, because they stand in the way of you destroying yourself,” she said.

And we watched a menacing drug dealer with a tattooed face force Rue to lick liquid fentanyl off a knife. As Rue slipped into the drug’s coma-like high, it looked liked the dealer was going to demand repayment with sex, until a good-guy drug dealer offered up the cash.

N. and M. exchanged a look.

“This is the part that shows it’s a TV show,” N. said. “That’s what people think: ‘They will look after me.’ I’ve been sold out for drugs and money so many times” — sometimes, she said, after she had passed out.

“Realistically,” added M., “that would’ve ended so badly.”

Set against the national opiate epidemic, the amount of drugs used by the show’s youngsters is eye-popping.

M. felt that even though “Euphoria” showed addiction’s consequences, it still fed the idea that heavy drug use was normal and exposed it to people who otherwise might not have been exposed. She hated the idea of, say, her younger sister watching it. On the other hand, it was accurately displaying something that, for her at least, rang true. “Maybe having just gone through a lot of that stuff, I don’t want other people to,” she said. “It’s a delicate balance.”

Levinson, the show’s creator, said in an email that the show was “not a cure or solution,” and that if someone struggling with addiction might find it triggering, they should not watch. “My ultimate hope is to inspire compassion and empathy for those battling addiction,” Levinson wrote.

N. said that not everyone would see the show the way she did: as an addict. Growing up, she took drug cues from every show that depicted drug use, be it “Skins” or “Nurse Jackie” or “Degrassi: The Next Generation.” Even when the characters lost everything, N. said, the shows still made her want to get high, because she felt invincible, and like there was no tomorrow.

And though she sees a drug culture “everywhere” these days, she believes that not everyone who uses drugs is susceptible to getting hooked. She pointed to one of her cousins — a 16-year-old who worships trap music and all its drug references — who smokes marijuana and thinks that Lean, the high-inducing cough-medicine concoction, is the best thing ever. But, unlike the teenage N., her cousin does not do drugs all the time. Unlike N., N. said, her cousin does not seem to be an addict.

“If you’re going to get influenced, you’re going to get influenced,” N. said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a show or an ad for beer. It’s all about the kind of person you are.”

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[newsnigeria]

Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on http://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/russian-5th-generation-fighters/

Making sense of the Russian 5th generation fighters in Syria

[This article was written for the Unz Review]

When I got an email from a friend telling me that a pair of Su-57s was seen landing at the Russian Aerospace Forces base in Kheimim, Syria, I immediately dismissed it as a fake. The list of reasons why this could not be true would run for pages. I knew that, so I simply replied: “that’s a fake” and forgot about it. Over the next couple of days, however, this story was picked up by various websites and bloggers, but it still made no sense. Still, what kept me feeling really puzzled was that the Russian official sources did not dismiss the story, but chose to remain silent. Then another two Su-57s were reported. And then, suddenly, the Russian media was flooded with stories about how the Su-57s were sent to Syria as an act of “revenge” for the killing of Russian PMCs by the US; that the Su-57s had basically flattened eastern Ghouta while killing about “2000 Americans“. This was truly some crazy nonsense so I decided to find out what really happened and, so far, here is what I found out.

First, amazingly enough, the reports of the Su-57 in Syria are true. Some say 2 aircraft, some say 4 (out of a current total of 13). It doesn’t really matter, what matters is that the deployment of a few Su-57s in Syria is a fact and that this represents a dramatic departure from normal Russian (and Soviet) practice.

Introducing the Sukhoi 57 5th generation multi-role fighter

The Su-57 (aka “PAK-FA” aka “T-50”) is the first real 5th generation multi-role aircraft produced by Russia. All the other Russian multi-role and air superiority aircraft previously deployed in Syria (such as the Su-30SM and the Su-35S) are 4++ aircraft, not true 5th generation. One might be forgiven for thinking that 4++ is awfully close to 5, but it really is not. 4++ generation aircraft are really 4th generation aircraft upgraded with a number of systems and capabilities typically associated with a 5th generation, but they all lack several key components of a true 5th generation aircraft such as:

a low radar cross-section (“stealth”),

the capability to fly at supersonic speeds without using afterburners,

the ability to carry weapons inside a special weapons bay (as opposed to outside, under its wings or body)

an advanced “situational awareness” (network-centric) capability (sensor and external data fusion).

To make a long story short, the difference between 4th and 5th generation aircraft is really huge and requires not one, but several very complex “technological jumps” especially in the integrations of numerous complex systems.

The only country which currently has a deployed real 5th generation fighter is the USA with its F-22. In theory, the USA also has another 5th generation fighter, the F-35, but the latter is such a terrible design and has such immense problems that for our purposes we can pretty much dismiss it. As for now, the F-22 is the only “real deal”: thoroughly tested and fully deployed in substantial numbers. The Russian Su-57 is still years away from being able to make such a claim as it has not been thoroughly tested or deployed in substantial numbers. That is not to say that the Russians are not catching up really fast, they are, but as of right now, the Su-57 has only completed the first phase of testing. The normal Soviet/Russian procedure should have been at this time to send a few aircraft to the Russian Aerospace Forces (RAF) base in Lipetsk to familiarize the military crews with the aircraft and continue the testing while getting the feedback, not from test pilots but from actual air combat instructors. This second phase of testing could easily last 6 months or more and reveal a very large number of “minor” problems many of which could actually have very severe consequences in an actual combat deployment. In other words, the Su-57 is still very “raw” and probably needs a lot of tuning before it can be deployed in combat. How “raw”? Just one example: as of today, only one of the currently existing Su-57 flies with the new supercruise-capable engines, all the others use a 4th generation type engine. This is no big deal, but it goes to show that a lot of work still needs to be done on this aircraft before it becomes fully operational.

The notion that the Russians sent the Su-57 to Syria to somehow compete with the F-22s or otherwise participate in actual combat is ludicrous. While, on paper, the Su-57 is even more advanced and capable than the F-22, in reality, the Su-57 presents no credible threat to the US forces in Syria (if the Russians really wanted to freak out the Americans, they could have, for example, decided to keep a pair of MiG-31BMs on 24/7 combat air patrol over Syria). The Russian reports about these aircraft flattening Ghouta or killing thousands of Americans are nothing more than cheap and inflammatory propaganda from ignorant Russian nationalists who don’t seem to realize that flattening urban centers is not even the theoretical mission of the Su-57. In fact, as soon as these crazy reports surfaced, Russians analysts immediately dismissed them as nonsense.

Utter nonsense is hardly the monopoly of Russian nationalists, however. The folks at the National Interest reposted an article (initially posted on the blog The War is Boring) which basically dismissed the Su-57 as a failed and dead project and its deployment in Syria as a “farce” (I should tip my hat off to the commentators at the National Interest who immediately saw through the total ridiculous nature of this article and wondered if Lockheed had paid for it). On the other hand, in the western insanity spectrum, we have the UK’s Daily Express which wrote about Vladimir Putin sending his “fearsome new state-of-the-art Su-57” into the Syrian war zone. Just like with the Kuznetsov, the Ziomedia can’t decide if the Russian hardware is an antiquated, useless pile of scrap metal or a terrifying threat which ought to keep the entire world up at night. Maybe both at the same time? With paranoid narcissists, you can’t tell. Finally, the notion that Putin (personally?) sent these 4 aircraft to Syria to help him in his re-election campaign (peddled by the Russophobes at Ha’aretz) is also devoid of all truth and makes me wonder if those who write that kind of crap are even aware of Putin’s popularity numbers.

So what is really going on?

Well, frankly, that is hard to say, and Russian officials are being tight-lipped about it. Still, various well informed Russian analysts have offered some educated guesses as to what is taking place. The short version is this: the Su-57s were only sent to Syria to test their avionics in a rich combat-like electromagnetic environment. The more detailed version would be something like this:

The Su-57 features an extremely complex and fully integrated avionics suite which will include three X band active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar (one main, two side-looking), another two L band active electronically scanned array radars in the wing’s leading edge extensions, plus an integrated electro-optical system location system (working in infra-red, visible and ultra-violet frequencies). All these sensors are fused (5 radars, 2 bands, plus passive optics) and they are then combined with the data received by the Su-57’s advanced electronic warfare suite and a high-speed encrypted datalink, connecting the aircraft to other airborne, space, as well as ground-based sensors. This is not unlike what the USA is trying to achieve with the F-35, but on an even more complex level (even in theory, the F-35 is a comparatively simpler, and much less capable, aircraft). One could see how it would be interesting to test all this gear in a radiation-rich environment like the Syrian skies where the Russians have advanced systems (S-400, A-50U, etc.) and where the USA and Israel also provide a lot of very interesting signals (including US and Israeli AWACS, F-22s and F-35s, etc.). To re-create such a radiation-rich environment in Russia would be very hard and maybe even impossible. The question whether this is worth the risk?

The risks of this deployment in Syria are very real and very serious. As far as I know, there are still no bombproof shelters built (yet) and Russia recently lost a number of aircraft (some not totally, some totally) when the “good terrorists” used mortars against the Khmeimim base. So now we have FOUR Su-57s (out of how many total, maybe 12 or 13?!), each worth 50-100 million dollars under an open sky in a war zone?! What about operational security? What about base security?

There is also a political risk. It is well known that the USA has been putting an immense political pressure on India to withdraw from the joint development between Russia and India of the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) or Perspective Multi-role Fighter (PMF) program. To make things worse, India currently has too many parallel aircraft programs and there are, reportedly, disagreements between the Russians and the Indians on design features. With the apparently never-ending disaster of the F-35, the very last thing the USA needs is a successful Russian 5th generation competitor showing up anywhere on the planet (especially one which has the clear potential to far outclass both the successful F-22 and the disastrous F-35). One can easily imagine what the AngloZionist propaganda machine will do should even a minor problem happen to the Su-57 while in Syria (just read the National Interest article quoted above to see what the mindset is in the West)!

The Su-57 also has formidable competitors inside Russia: the 4++ generation aircraft mentioned above, especially the Su-35S. Here we have a similar dynamic as with the F-22: while on paper the Su-57 is clearly superior to the Su-35S, in the real world the Su-35S is a well tested and deployed system which, unlike the F-22, also happens to be much cheaper than the Su-57 (the F-22 being at least twice as expensive than the Su-57). This issue is especially relevant for the internal, Russian market. So the real question for the RAF is simple: does Russia really need the Su-57 and, if yes, in what numbers?

This is a very complex question, both technically and politically and to even attempt to answer it, a lot of very debatable assumptions have to be made about what kind of threats the RAF will face in the future and what kind of missions it will be given. The biggest problem for the Russians is that they already have an array of extremely successful combat aircraft, especially the Su-35S and the formidable Su-34. Should Russia deploy more of these or should she place huge resources into a new very complex and advanced aircraft? Most Russian analysts would probably agree that Russia needs to be able to deploy some minimal number of real 5th generation combat aircraft, but they would probably disagree on what exactly that minimal number ought to be. The current 4++ generation aircraft are very successful and more than a match for their western counterparts, with the possible exception of the F-22. But how likely is it that Russians and US Americans will really start a shooting war?

Furthermore, the real outcome from a theoretical Su-35S vs F-22 (which so many bloggers love to speculate about) would most likely depend much more on tactics and engagement scenarios than on the actual capabilities of these aircraft. Besides, should the Su-35s and F-22s even be used in anger against each other, a lot would also depend on what else is actually happening around them and where exactly this engagement would take place. Furthermore, to even look at this issue theoretically, we would need to compare not only the actual aircraft but also their weapons. I submit that the outcome of any Su-35S vs F-22 engagement would be impossible to predict (unless you are a flag-waving patriot, in which case you will, of course, be absolutely certain that “your” side will win). If I am correct, then this means that there is no compelling case to be made that Russia needs to deploy Su-57s in large numbers and that the Su-30SM+Su-35S air superiority combo is more than enough to deter the Americans.

[Sidebar: this is a recurrent problem for Russian weapons and weapon systems: being so good that there is little incentive to produce something new. The best example of that is the famous AK-47 Kalashnikov which was modernized a few times, such as the AKM-74, but which has yet to be replaced with a fundamentally new and truly different assault rifle. There are plenty of good candidates out there, but each time one has to wonder if the difference in price is worth the effort. The original Su-27 (introduced in 1985) was such an immense success that it served as a basis for a long series of immensely successful variants including the ones we now see in Syria, the Su-30SM, the Su-35S and even the amazing Su-34 (which still has no equivalent anywhere in the world). Sometimes a weapon, or weapon system, can be even “too successful” and create a problem for future modernization efforts.]

Whatever may be the case, the future of the Su-57 is far from being secured and this might also, in part, explain the decision to send a few of them to Syria: not only to test its avionics suite, but also to score a PR success by raising the visibility and, especially, the symbolical role of the aircraft. Russian officials admitted that the deployment to Syria was scheduled to coincide with the celebration of the “Defender of the Fatherland” day. This kind of move breaks with normal Soviet/Russian procedures and I have to admit that I am most uncomfortable with this development and while I would not go as far as to call it a “farce” (like the article in the National Interest did), it does look like a PR stunt to me. And I wonder: if the Russians are taking such a risk, what is it that drives such a sense of urgency? I don’t believe that anybody in Russia seriously thinks that the US will be deterred, or even be impressed by this, frankly, hasty deployment. So I suspect that this development is linked to the uncertainty of the future of the Su-57 procurement program. Hopefully, the risks will pay-off and the Su-57 will get all the avionics testing it requires and all the funding and export contracts it needs.

Addendum:

Just as I was writing these words, the Russians have announced (see here and here) that the Israeli satellite images were fakes, that the the Su-57 stayed only two days in Syria and that they have been flown back to Russia. Two days? Frankly, I don’t buy it. What this looks like to me is that what looks like a PR stunt has now backfired, including in the Russian social media, and that Russia decided to bring these aircraft back home. Now *that* sounds like a good idea to me.

The Saker

[israel-jewish-news]

Netanyahu: Why Aren't They Investigating Lapid on Favors?

New Post has been published on http://hamodia.com/2018/02/14/netanyahu-arent-investigating-lapid-favors/

Netanyahu: Why Aren't They Investigating Lapid on Favors?

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (L.) and Yair Lapid. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

Among the offenses police say Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu should be prosecuted for are the favors he allegedly did for his friend, millionaire Arnon Milchin. It emerged from the recommendations that the star witness in Case 1000, involving the favor-trading with Milchin, is none other than Yair Lapid, head of Yesh Atid and Netanyahu’s chief rival for the prime minister’s seat. Coalition MKs slammed Lapid, saying that if Netanyahu was guilty of something, he was just as guilty – as Milchin was a friend of his, as well.

Speaking Wednesday morning in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu made that same point. “Lapid said that he was questioned about this for an hour, but when I was questioned by police they barely brought the point up,” Netanyahu said to local authority officials at the Tel Aviv Exhibition Grounds. “And I responded that I did not do any favors for Milchin. And this major charge against me is based on one hour of questioning of Lapid, in a year and a half of investigation, and now it turns out that Lapid is a key witness. That says a great deal about the whole investigation. This, of course, is the same Lapid who said he would do whatever it takes to end my political career. This is the same Lapid who is a good friend of Milchin, and worked for him in the past, and who discussed many issues with him when he was finance minister. They investigate me but not others – this is absurd,” he said.

Among other things, Netanyahu is accused of trying to help Milchin by encouraging the passage of a law that allows new immigrants and returning residents to bring assets with them from abroad and avoid reporting on them to Israeli tax authorities for 10 years. This was attributed as a favor by Netanyahu to Milchin, part of the quid pro quo between the two. It emerged that a key witness in this aspect of the case was none other than Lapid, who was Netanyahu’s finance minister in the last government.

In a speech Tuesday night after police released the recommendations, Netanyahu said that the law, which was actually known as the Milchin Law, “was passed in the government of Ehud Olmert. It was handled by the Finance Ministry,” which was run by Lapid in Netanyahu’s previous government, “and was supported by then-State Attorney Yaakov Ne’eman, and many ministers who saw it as a way to increase investments in Israel. The fact that I was asked just a few questions about this by police says a great deal.”

Lapid, said Tourism Minister Yariv Levin, “is responsible for a disgusting attempt at a coup, against the will of the people. Lapid lost twice in the elections, and now he is trying to take over the prime minister’s job with unsubstantiated testimony. The truth will definitely emerge, and Netanyahu will continue to lead the country.”

Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev slammed Lapid as well, saying that “the only thing that was revealed Tuesday night was the true face of Yair Lapid, a failed politician who prefers to join the Rothschild Boulevard protesters and their guillotines threatening the prime minister with death as the way to throw Netanyahu out of office, as opposed to doing so by democratic means. The revelation of Lapid as a star witness is the last nail in his political coffin.”

Speaking in the Knesset Tuesday night, and reflecting comments by other Likud MKs, Coalition chairperson David Amsalem called Lapid a “tattletale” who skipped out on IDF service (Lapid served in the army newspaper Bamachane during his stint). “You get NIS 40,000 a month and are barely ever here in the Knesset, you take the people’s money and travel the world, staying in fancy hotels and making yourself out to be Israel’s foreign minister. Who would even join a government you ran, given the science fiction scenario that you would win an election?”

It wasn’t just Likud members who gave it to Lapid. Deputy Health Minister Rabbi Yaakov Litzman (United Torah Jewry) said that “Lapid has been revealed in his full shame to the public, continuing the coup attempt he began in 2014, when he was thrown out of office as a failed finance minister.”

In a statement, Lapid said Tuesday that “police asked me to testify in Case 1000, and like any good citizen I responded. They asked me about attempts to extend the Milchin Law from 10 years of tax exemption to 20 years, a process I completely opposed, despite pressures put on me to do so. In this instance, as in many others, Yesh Atid was the last bastion against corruption, against politicians seeking to serve themselves. Even if the plain, dry law does not require Netanyahu to resign, a leader with such serious accusations hanging in the air against him should, in an advanced country, resign. There is no way to run the county when you are faced with such accusations,” he said.

[djgblogger-blog]

The penny may be worthless, but let's keep it anyway

http://bit.ly/2wpTOd0

The 16th U.S. president has graced the penny since 1909. AP Photo/David Zalubowski

Governments have long waged a war on cash in an attempt to curb terrorism and tax evasion. Their focus has typically been on eliminating large denominations, like Europe’s €500 bill or India’s 1,000 rupee note.

Two U.S. lawmakers have a much smaller target in mind: the lowly penny, perhaps most commonly found in jars and underneath couch cushions but rarely used to actually pay for things.

Their complaint is that the cost to mint billions of these one-cent coins every year is costing taxpayers a small fortune.

So is it time to end the coin’s 230-year run?

A one-cent history

The penny, the first currency of any type authorized by the U.S. government, was initially struck in 1787, though it didn’t become legal tender until 1856. Since then, more than 300 billion one-cent coins with 11 different designs have been minted.

Abraham Lincoln became the first U.S. president to adorn a coin when he was put on the penny in 1909 on the 100th anniversary of his birth (he wasn’t added to the $5 until 1914). The Lincoln penny was also the first to include the inscription, “In God We Trust.”

Arizona Rep. Jim Hayes first tried to get rid of the penny in 1989, under the Price Rounding Act, and many others have urged its elimination since, leading the TV series “The West Wing” even to mock the debate in one of its episodes.

Former President Barack Obama lent his voice to the cause in a 2013 interview, in which he called the penny a metaphor for the government’s difficulty in getting rid of wasteful services.

The latest salvo came in March, when Sens. John McCain and Mike Enzi introduced legislation to eliminate the minting of pennies. The bill also proposes switching the paper one dollar bill to a coin and changing the composition of the nickel in order to bring down its cost. They said it would lead to an estimated $16 billion in savings.

The penny wouldn’t be the first form of currency the U.S. has eliminated. We got rid of the half-cent in 1857.

Why eliminate the penny

One of the most compelling reasons cited for getting rid of the penny is the fact that it’s become unprofitable due to inflation and the rising cost of metals. The U.S. Mint has been losing money on every penny it’s produced since 2006.

Last year, it cost the Mint 1.5 cents to produce a penny, creating what in the coin world is known as negative seigniorage. That amounted to a loss of almost $46 million on the production of more than nine billion pennies.

The primary reason is the soaring cost of metals. The price of zinc, which currently composes 97.5 percent of a penny, has tripled over the past 15 years. Copper, which makes up the other 2.5 percent (and once was the sole ingredient), has risen almost fourfold.

The penny isn’t the only coin that’s underwater. The nickel, comprised of three-quarters copper and a quarter nickel, currently costs 6.3 cents to make – which is practically a steal compared with the 11 cents it cost in 2011.

Parts of the U.S. government have already stopped using pennies. The Army and Air Force, for example, have banned pennies since 1980 in all overseas military exchanges, where soldiers and their families can shop, because they were too heavy to transport.

Some countries have already banned one-cent and other low-value coins entirely. On a fairly recent trip to Canada, I bought a bottle of wine with cash and expected to get a few pennies back in change. Instead, the retailer simply rounded the price of my purchase up to the nearest nickel – pocketing the difference, which became the norm after Canada eliminated its penny in February 2013.

Australia got rid of its penny in 1992 and is expected to axe its nickel soon.

Penny opponents have other reasons besides cost as well. Some are concerned about the environmental damage caused by mining minerals for coins that are so little used.

Others, like physicist Jeff Gore, head of the advocacy group Citizens to Retire the Penny, are simply annoyed that we carry around pocketfuls of low-value coins, calling it “a big, horrible waste of time.”

Walgreen’s and the National Association of Convenience Stores tried to quantify that lost time in 2006, when it estimated that handling pennies adds 2 to 2.5 seconds to every cash transaction. If every U.S. adult made just one transaction a day, that adds up to more than 60 million in hours spent fiddling with change.

A German artist found one way to use a penny (well, around 2,500). AP Photo/Bernd Kammerer

For the love of pennies

While killing off the penny may seem like a slam-dunk case, the reason we haven’t is pretty straightfoward: people love their Lincolns, as President Obama alluded to in a 2013 interview.

When polled about their feelings in 2014, the majority of U.S. individuals oppose the elimination of either the penny or the nickel. In fact, more than two-thirds said if they saw a penny on the ground they’d stop to pick it up (which the New Yorker estimated in 2006 would take 6.15 seconds and pay less than the federal minimum wage).

Beyond sentimentality, however, there are a number of practical reasons to keep these coins. Retailers in countries that have banned the penny like Canada are required to round cash purchases up or down to the nearest 5 cents. This means if a purchase is $1.01 or $1.02, then the merchant only charges you $1. If the price is $1.03 or $1.04, then the merchant charges $1.05.

This rounding algorithm is perfectly fair if prices are spread out evenly across the board. However, merchants usually set the price. This means that merchants who strategically set prices could make one or two extra pennies on every cash transaction.

Chipotle Mexican Grill tried this rounding method at some of its locations in 2012 to speed up lines. It faced customer backlash at the register when people were given less change than they expected.

Economists call this strategic price setting a “rounding tax.” Penn State’s Raymond Lombra estimated that eliminating the penny and rounding purchases could cost U.S. consumers at least $600 million a year. Moreover, since the poor and disadvantaged use cash more than the rich, the rounding tax would fall disproportionately on them.

Others contend that sales tax and other variables lead to an even distribution of final digits that couldn’t be easily manipulated by a retailer. And some businesses, such as a drug store chain in Israel, avoided the problem altogether by voluntarily always rounding down rather than up after the country killed off its lowest-value coin.

Bribes work better than bans

So where does that leave our dear, beloved penny?

I believe opponents’ primary argument, that we’re losing money on them, is unconvincing since the government squanders taxpayer dollars on many of its activities, such as the U.S. Post Office (which lost $5.6 billion in 2016) and countless billion-dollar pork barrel projects.

In addition, banning pennies is poor public policy because so many U.S. individuals adore the coins.

Rather than passing an unpopular ban, a smarter way to gradually reduce the use of low-value coins is to persuade a few major retail chains that do a lot of business in cash to round down purchases to the nearest 5 cents, like the Israeli drug store did.

Why would they do this? If the above estimate that handling pennies adds several seconds to every transaction is correct, then by rounding down companies would increase the number of customers each cashier can handle and also make patrons happier. The increased productivity might even be enough to pay for the lost revenue.

Inducing people to transition away from pennies with small monetary bribes will be a far more successful strategy than forcing people to give up coins they like.

Jay L. Zagorsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

[sociologyquotes]

President Clinton’s role in the Iraqi Genocide

from the essay Clinton’s Worst Crimes by David L. Harten (2001)

“The day before the House impeachment vote, [President] Clinton bombed Iraq, delaying the impeachment vote. He continued the bombing throughout all the days of the impeachment vote.

[...] Clinton gave several excuses for bombing Iraq on the eve of the impeachment vote, especially the (bogus, but unquestioned) claim that Iraq had stopped cooperating with UNSCOM inspectors. In reality, Iraq’s cooperation with UNSCOM inspectors had actually been increasing, despite U.S. attempts to provoke a confrontation. However, knowing the impeachment schedule, Clinton had directed UNSCOM chief Richard Butler to write a report that Iraq was not cooperating. Even Scott Ritter, the former chief UNSCOM weapons inspector who quit because he thought the weapons inspectors were not tough enough, said that the White House had been on the phone with UNSCOM "shaping" the report to make sure it would justify bombing Iraq during the impeachment trial.

[...]  because of Clinton's December 1998 bombing, Iraq began challenging the U.S. and British "no-fly zones," which they had not been doing before. The risk to U.S. pilots is negligible (no U.S. plane has ever been hit), but it has given the U.S. and Britain an excuse for nearly daily bombing of Iraq (not just radar sites, but cities, towns, shepherd's camps, etc.). Since December 1998, this illegal bombing has killed about two hundred Iraqis, including shepherds with their flocks, families in their houses, and small children, and injured many more.

[...] Bombs are merciful compared to what Clinton has done to the innocent children of Iraq, the most vulnerable of all, by maintaining ten years of the harshest sanctions in the history of mankind, begun on August 6, 1990, and kept in place at the insistence of the United States. On May 12, 1996, television’s "Sixty Minutes" interviewed Madeleine Albright (then U.S. ambassador to the UN, now Secretary of State). Leslie Stahl asked Albright, "We have heard half a million children have died [from economic sanctions in Iraq]. That's more children than died in Hiroshima. Is the price worth it?"

Albright replied, "I think this is a very hard choice. But the price, we think, is worth it."

[...]  Yes, even four and a half years ago, 500,000 Iraqi children had already died as a direct result of economic sanctions. Over one million Iraqi civilians have died from the sanctions, mostly children under age five. Those are not Iraqi figures -- those figures come from Unicef, the World Health Organization, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN’s Department of Humanitarian Affairs, and other international sources. The "oil-for-food" program is so ineffectual that two consecutive UN directors of that program (Denis Haliday and Hans Von Sponeck) resigned, out of protest that they were presiding over a humanitarian disaster which can only be called genocide.

[...] Embargoes during peacetime are tough enough, but after a devastating war, they are disastrous. During the Gulf War, U.S. forces deliberately targeted Iraqi water treatment plants, dams, and electric generating facilities (in violation of the Geneva Convention), later admitting they did it in order to cause disease (which was biological warfare by the United States). Iraq has not been allowed to rebuild its water treatment plants since then. Chlorine, and water chlorinators, are prohibited under sanctions. Disease is at epidemic levels, especially among babies and children under five. Nobel Peace prize winners have visited Iraq and described the sanctions as genocide. Iraqi children are dying from starvation, malnutrition, tainted water, lack of basic medicines, and diseases that were once rare but now epidemic.

Iraqis are also suffering horrible birth defects and cancers caused by the 350 tons of depleted uranium (DU) fired into Iraq by U.S. forces during the 1991 Gulf War. DU, used for armor-piercing shells, becomes on impact an dust that drifts on the desert winds until inhaled. DU is not only toxic, but has a radioactive half-life in the billions of years.

U.S. sanctions law is so tough that even shipping food or medicine to Iraq is punishable by a one million dollar fine and 12 years in prison. I have personally tried to send baby formula, but the U.S. post office refuses, due to sanctions. Many items are specifically banned (pencils, books including medical textbooks, chlorine, etc.), while all other items are prohibited without a U.S. Treasury Department license that is almost impossible to obtain.

Fifty-five years ago, people asked, "Where were the good Germans? Why didn't they act to prevent the Holocaust?" History will judge America the same way over the current genocide against Iraqi civilians, the genocide by sanctions.

[...]  Contrary to Clinton Administration propaganda, the small amount of food and medicines that are allowed into Iraq under the "oil-for-food" program (UN Res. 986) are distributed extremely efficiently by the Iraqi government. The U.S. constantly places long holds on shipments of food and medicine, or refusing to allow shipment of essential items altogether. Food and medicines spoil because of lack of refrigeration, or rot in warehouses because the forklifts and trucks to transport them are banned by sanctions. An American who visited an Iraqi hospital that lacked basic medicines and equipment due to sanctions said, "I know what this place is now. It's a death row for children." The doctors try their best, but there is little they can do without medicine, equipment, electricity, or even medical textbooks.

Those who agree with sanctions on Iraq act as if only one person lives there, Saddam Hussein. Yes, Saddam is a cruel dictator who does not allow freedom of speech and has executed hundreds of his political opponents, but that number pales compared to the million or more the Clinton administration has killed through sanctions. Admittedly, Saddam is a brutal and cruel dictator (although he was just as brutal and cruel when the U.S. was arming him and supporting him, under Reagan and Bush, while he gassed his people with U.S. support).

[...]  When I spoke about Iraq in my church, tears came to my eyes telling of the father who had to hold his young daughter while her leg was sawed off without anesthesia, because of sanctions. Thinking of my own young son, I also cried describing the mother who, unable to sufficiently breastfeed her baby due to her own malnourishment (the meager food ration under sanctions has no fruits, vegetables, meat, or dairy), gave him sugar water, but the water was polluted. The baby developed diarrhea, and for lack of a five dollar medicine, he died. I know my own young son and unborn baby could never survive in Iraq under UN sanctions, which have been kept in place for over ten years at the insistence of the U.S. We are killing an entire generation, body and soul, destroying a civilization.

[...]  "What about weapons of mass destruction?" some may ask. Ex-weapons inspector Scott Ritter wrote in the Boston Globe (3/9/00) that, "...from a qualitative standpoint, Iraq has in fact been disarmed... The chemical, biological, nuclear and long-range ballistic missile programs that were a real threat in 1991 had, by 1998, been destroyed or rendered harmless." The true weapons of mass destruction are the sanctions themselves. It is ironic that sanctions began on August 6, 1990, the 45th anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, because it would be more humane for the U.S. to drop a Hiroshima-sized atomic bomb on Iraq every year than to continue the sanctions. In fact, as an article in the May/June 1999 issue of Foreign Affairs shows, the sanctions against Iraq have killed more people than all "weapons of mass destruction" in history, combined! The same UN resolution used to justify sanctions on Iraq also declared the Middle East a nuclear-free zone. Israel is in blatant violation of that same resolution, yet we do not starve the Israeli people to coerce their leader (nor should we).

There is no doubt that sanctions actually strengthen Saddam Hussein politically. Sanctions strengthen Saddam's grip on Iraq and weaken all opposition, as the struggle to survive, to keep one's children alive, supercedes all thought of rebellion. Sanctions also cause anti-Americanism, as the Arab world knows what we are doing to Iraq, killing over a million innocent people to get revenge on their leader.

The United States used international law to justify the 1991 Gulf War. However, the U.S. and British "no-fly zones" and the continuing bombing of Iraq violate international law. The sanctions themselves violate international law as enshrined in the Genocide Convention (Article II, "…deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring its physical destruction, in whole or in part"), the Geneva Conventions (Geneva Protocol 1, Article 54 outlaws "starvation of civilians as a method of warfare"), the World Declaration on Nutrition ("food must not be used as a tool for political pressure"), and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”