Quasi-Castaway

What if you had just over 10 million dollars?

And then you lost it?

What would you do?

Cry? Rage? Turn your back on civilization & move to a deserted island?

That’s what David Glasheen did, making himself a modern-day Robinson Caruso.

As reported by Daily Mail, twenty-five years ago, Glasheen lost his 10 million dollar (6.5 British pounds) fortune in the 1987 stock market crash. Five years later, the Aussie business tycoon ditched civilization to become a castaway on a tiny island along the north-eastern coast of Australia.

His sole companion? His dog, Quasi.

Abuse on Palestinians Not Limited to West Bank

Israeli occupation of Palestine: Israeli soldier holds frightened Palestinian mother and young children at gunpoint.

In ever-increasing documentation of violent assaults demonstrating that attacks on Palestinians are not limited to the occupied West Bank, Israeli police repeatedly shot a Palestinian father and Good Samaritan with electric stun guns in front of his 5 young children in an East Jerusalem park.

As reported by mainstream Israeli news outlet Haaretz, the victim, 42-year-old Talal Siad, was having a celebratory Eid al-Fitr family day with his wife and 5 children at Meymadion Water Park on Thursday, when they witnessed Tel Aviv police repeatedly spraying pepper into the eyes of a teenager on the ground.

The teen victim had been involved in an altercation which occurred between some families at the park. Israeli police intervened, but witnesses say the officers used “unnecessary force.”

RT News reports that Siad, who was not involved in the altercation but was alarmed by the excessive police pepper-spraying into the eyes of the teenager on the ground, called out, “What are you doing? You’re killing those kids! You’re being unreasonable!”

Israeli police responded by aggressively threatening Siad, who was holding his 3-year old in his arms.

Says YNet News, when Siad put his child down to attempt to help the pepper-sprayed teen, police attacked Siad with stun guns.

Transforming Violence

 

Can you see guns as works of art?

Their sleek, iron beauty glinting in the light…

…invoking feelings of hope rather than fear?

No?

Well, read on. You may just change your mind.

 

As reported by Al Jazeera, thousands of weapons are seized by L.A. Police every year. In a joint effort between local businesses and the LAPD, these weapons are destroyed, melted down for more productive, less dangerous use in roads, buildings and bridges.

It’s called Project Isaiah, named for the biblical passage which instructs men to “beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.”

However, one industrious Mexican artist, Victor Hugo Zayas, has found a new use for confiscated weapons.

Art.

American Muslims Under Fire

“F*ck u rag head.”

“Mohamad is a liar & a fagit.”

This graffiti is scrawled across the tomb of a Palestinian-American’s father’s grave in Chicago’s Evergreen Park cemetery.

It’s one of many such Islamophobic acts being carried out by groups of Americans – including attacks on seven mosques across the U.S. in the past two weeks alone.

 

As reported by CNN, Muslims are being forced to celebrate their holiest month, the month of Ramadan, away from their places of worship.

“I think there are a few people who don’t like anybody,” says Iftikhar Ali, president of a Joplin, Missouri mosque which was attacked and burned to the ground last week. “They don’t like a different color than their color, or different religions.”

Ali, along with countless American Muslims, are being pushed by violent hate crimes to steer clear of mosques, worshipping instead in convention centers guarded by law enforcement officers.

“So, what?” a portion of Americans may think. “Small price to pay, compared to 9-11!”

Blade Runner

Oscar Pistorius

Does a runner with no legs have an advantage over other runners?

Hang on.

Runner with no legs?

Isn’t that an oxymoron?

Not if you’re Oscar Pistorius, the world’s first double-amputee athlete to compete at the Olympics.

But if you do happen to be Oscar Pistorius, don’t expect everyone to cheer you on. And don’t count on prosthetics to be your saving grace in the 2012 London games. Those life-altering prosthetics may turn out to be your downfall.

Says Rick Morrissey of the Chicago Sun Times, “I think those blades give the South African runner a competitive advantage, and that he shouldn’t have been allowed to participate in the Olympics.”

Morrissey is not alone in his criticism of the use of prosthetics in the Olympics.

Coca-Cola: Not “The Real Thing” in India

Ah, Coca-Cola.

Refreshing, thirst-quenching, delicious.

As American as baseball and apple pie.

Right?

Not in India.

Although Western mainstream media headlined Coca-Cola’s plans to increase its market share in India by $5 billion, what it failed to mention is that communities located near the beverage giant’s India bottling plants are not exactly rolling out the red carpet.

According to the India Resource Center (IRC), “Communities across India living around Coca-Cola’s bottling plants are experiencing severe water shortages, directly as a result of Coca-Cola’s massive extraction of water from the common groundwater resource. The wells have run dry and the hand water pumps do not work any more.”

As detailed by the IRC, further impingements upon Indian communities by Coca-Cola include:

• polluting groundwater & soil with waste from its plants, rendering the community’s drinking water “unfit for human consumption“
• selling toxic waste to Indian farmers as “fertilizer“
• selling its product in unregulated form (as outlined by the IRC, the Coca-Cola sold in India  contains arsenic and “high levels of pesticides…that could never be sold in the US or the EU”)  

Empowerment Shopping

Your closet has become “smart.”

Your clothes talk to you, tell you when last they were worn, which accessories you wore with them, and when they’re feeling wounded (time for an alteration) or a little grubby (time for a trip to the cleaners).

Your wardrobe speaks to you via microchips or bar codes, which you scan with a small device that informs you of exactly what it is feeling.

But your wardrobe is not the only thing that talks.

In fact, everything you own now speaks.

Your coffeemaker commiserates about internal issues it may be having. Your refrigerator tattles when certain perishables are entertaining mold. Your portable devices nudge you about a plethora of extraneous apps which can be consolidated, then shows you exactly how it plans to do that upon your approval.

Every aspect of your daily life has become “smart.”

Uninformed Electorate (aka Thanks, Corporate News!)

Remember the Federal Law detailed in Title 5’s U.S.C. 2302 that prevents employers from discriminating against applicants & employees due to a person’s “race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, handicapping condition, marital status, or political affiliation.”?

Well, Newt Gingrich wanted to forget about it.

This week’s double-Smackdown goes to a man who just months ago came frighteningly close to being a serious contender for President, [cue horror film screams] AND to our corporate mainstream news media for failing, once again, to inform us about potential threats to our democracy – especially during a presidential primary – that crucial period in which the electorate must be well-informed.

Income Gender Role Reversal

Love or money?

Historically, a question posed only about women marrying male breadwinners.

But now, this same question applies to men, as well.

Why?

 

Because, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 40% of American women are now the breadwinners of the family. And this, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, creates a new strain of marital tension between “an alpha woman and a beta man.”

Arizona Immigration Law: Damning Pearce Emails Uncovered

The American Civil Liberties Union has uncovered a sheath of damning emails to and from former Arizona state senator Russell Pearce – author of the state’s controversial immigration law.

As reported in The Arizona Republic, the exposed emails – dating as far back as 2006 – contain overtly racist language and references to the state’s Latino population, prompting the ACLU to conclude that Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration law was “racially motivated.”

The uncovered emails contain such statements as: “Last week, Denver’s illegal aliens sang our national anthem in Spanish and bastardized the words of OUR country’s most sacred song.”