Israel’s minister wants to name new train station in Jerusalem after Trump | Toronto Star

The transportation minister proposed naming the station after Trump "for his brave and historic decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital" earlier this month.

A view of the bridge in construction for the planned high speed train between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, near Latrun, Israel, is seen in this file photo from Nov. 2010. Israel's transportation minister is pushing ahead with a plan to extend Jerusalem's soon-to-open high speed rail line to the Western Wall, where he wants to name a future station after U.S. President Donald Trump  (Sebastian Scheiner / The Associated Press) 

By Ilan Ben ZionThe Associated Press

Wed., Dec. 27, 2017

JERUSALEM—Israel's transportation minister is pushing ahead with a plan to dig a railway tunnel under Jerusalem's Old City, passing near sites holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims — and ending at the Western Wall with a station named after U.S. President Donald Trump.

Yisrael Katz's plan, currently in the initial stages, involves constructing two underground stations and excavating over three kilometres of tunnel beneath downtown Jerusalem and under the politically sensitive Old City. The project would extend Jerusalem's soon-to-open high-speed rail line from Tel Aviv to the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray.

The route will run close to — but not directly under — the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where tradition holds that Jesus was crucified and buried, and a contested holy site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. Previous excavations by Israel near the holy site — the spiritual epicentre of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — have sparked violent Palestinian protests.

Because of those sensitivities, the proposal will likely meet with heavy resistance from the Palestinians, neighbouring Arab countries and the international community.

Katz, a senior Cabinet official who also serves as Israel's intelligence minister, is a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is seen by many as his likely eventual successor as head of the Likud party.

Transportation Ministry spokesperson Avner Ovadia said Wednesday the project is estimated to cost more than $700 million and, if approved, would take four years to complete.

Katz's office said the minister advanced the plan in a recent meeting with Israel Railways executives, and has fast-tracked it in the planning committees.

Katz said a high-speed rail station would allow visitors to reach "the beating heart of the Jewish people — the Western Wall and the Temple Mount." He proposed naming the station after Trump "for his brave and historic decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital" earlier this month.
Trump's announcement has enraged the Palestinians and much of the Muslim world. The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a resolution last week condemning the move, with several traditional American allies breaking with Washington to vote in favour of the motion.

Israel captured east Jerusalem, which includes the Old City, in 1967, and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally. The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, and a long-standing international consensus holds that the fate of the city should be decided through direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

Ikrema Sabri, a senior Muslim cleric in Jerusalem, denounced the planned train line extension, saying that Palestinians won't accept "any change or act in the occupied territories."

He said that "giving the name of Trump to this project will not give it any legitimacy. It would be just another implementation of the unacceptable decision of President Trump to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel."

Digging railway tunnels to the Western Wall would also entail excavating in Jerusalem's Old City, where religious and political sensitivities — as well as layers of archaeological remains from the city's 3,000-year history — could make for a logistical and legal quagmire.

Last year an initiative to convert an already excavated area abutting the Western Wall into an egalitarian Jewish prayer section was hotly contested by Israeli archaeologists, who said such a move would cause irreparable damage to the historic remains of the ancient city.

The Israel Antiquities Authority declined to comment on the planned train extension.
Despite the likely opposition to the project, Ovadia said he expects the plans to be approved in the coming year, barring major complications. The Tel Aviv-Jerusalem high-speed line is expected to open next spring.

"There's no reason why this train won't be built," he said. "We already know how to deal with no less difficult opposition."

Katz has previously proposed other ambitious infrastructure projects, including an artificial island off the coast of the Gaza Strip that would serve as an air and seaport for the Palestinian territory, and a railway connecting Israel with Saudi Arabia and other Arab states.

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Justin Long Goes Undercover at Canada Goose Store

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PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals)

Published on Mar 1, 2017

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Justin Long loves Canada. He loves geese. He doesn't like Canada Goose, and this is why. Cruelty can be found in every stitch of Canada Goose jackets. Wild coyotes trapped for the company’s fur-trimmed jackets are often strangled, stomped on, or bludgeoned to death. PETA's mission statement is that animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way:

Boricuas Distinguidos 2.0

Boricuas Distinguidos 2.0

October 10 · 

I would like to clear a few things in relation to our Island of Puerto Rico!!

There is a huge misconception that Puerto Rico is being maintained by the USA!

1) USA sends Puerto Rico $4.6 billion a year. For welfare, Pell Grant, roads, etc. This supports 42% of the population. This amount is not enough to support this population.

2) They send $13 billion a year for social security, this is not unilateral! This is money that is retained from our paychecks!! Yet the USA reports this as help and money they send.

3) Puerto Rico buys from the US $22.6 Billion a year in goods; Making PR a huge customer for the USA.

4) Jones Act is 100 years old! We do not have the freedom to choose who ships to Puerto Rico! We have to ship in US Flag ships, which happens to be the most expensive in the world! This act 100 years ago was implanted with logic, to patrol the seas! But today it’s just an abuse and Puerto Ricans suffer by it adding huge costs to our products. We spend $1.5 billion a year on this added cost. We are 90% of the business of US ships!!!

5) Out of the business done in Puerto Rico, $34 billion leaves the island toward bank account for US businesses. No other territory in the world permits that much money to leave.

6) Summarizing: USA to PR $4.7 Billion and PR to USA $72 Billion. 🤔

7) So, when Puerto Rico gets hit by a Hurricane and needs help, USA should send the help. They cannot act as they are doing us a favor, but in reality, it is in their best interest. If you have a gold mine that produces $72 billion dollars a year and it gets hit by a hurricane, you need to get that gold mine up and running again!!!

😎 So when Donald Trump states that we "are taking his budget into whack!!" It should be because this year that 72 billion will be short!

As for our $72 Billion-dollar debt:

1) This debt starts with the removal of the 936 law that granted tax exemptions to Companies in USA, it was done to keep these companies from leaving USA to a foreign land and keeping them in US Territory!! Puerto Rico

2) Puerto Rico flourished and then the law was taken away way before it expired!

3) Unemployment raised and Puerto Rico started borrowing.

4) Puerto Rico has borrowed nothing near 72 billion!! But interest and foul play by Brokers in the US have raised the debt to a unpayable figure.

5) Brokers selling stocks to subsidiaries ( something illegal in the USA) but since it's Puerto Rico, it is allowed!

6) Vulture funds now bought the debt at pennies to the dollar and now want the dollar!!! Not willing to negotiate even though they would make huge profits if they cut the debt in half!

7) They want to cut funds for our kids education, and food!

😎 Donald Trump should be the person to tell Puerto Rico to pay our debt!! Have him pay the 32 million he took from Puerto Rico taxpayers to build a golf course, bankrupt it and leave the taxpayers paying the 32 million!!!

9) Puerto Rican politicians are also to blame! But the island was preyed upon by a corrupt system.

Puerto Ricans are US Citizens!! That have contributed to the USA for close to 100 years.

1) They have volunteered in every war for the USA in that time

2) 65th Infantry is all Puerto Rican volunteers.

3) The 65th where the first to fire against Japan in World war II. Why? Because they where always the first ones to be sent in. The Torres’s, the Rodriguez’s, Morales, etc. first guys in, clearing the path for the Smith’s, Johnson’s and Captain America.

4) USA will not grant Puerto Rico statehood!!! To many business interests that would lose money! Puerto Rico would have a huge voice in congress and Presidential vote! Not everybody wants that.

So in summary, Puerto Rico contributes greatly to the USA, we have astronauts, engineers, scientists, researchers, musicians, artists, and many other professionals that all contribute.

Our parents, grandparents and great grandparents paved the way for us to be US Citizens! So now we have the right to live in USA and vote (if you live on mainland!) and be an American!!! Let us not forget where we come from. Let us not be disrespected and that our perception be that we are maintained, lazy or being helped because of the good heartedness of the USA.

It's is our right as US citizens!

Let us not speak ill of our island even if you don’t live there!! If you do, you're disrespecting yourself!

"Aquel que no está orgulloso de su origen no valdrá nunca nada, pues comienza a despreciarse a sí mismo."- Pedro Albizu Campos

#BoricuasDistinguidos

The Book of Genesis According to St. Miguelito
By Miguel Pinero

Before the beginning
God created God
In the beginning
God created the ghettos & slums
and God saw this was good.
So God said,
"Let there be more ghettos & slums"
and there were more ghettos & slums.
But God saw this was plain
so
to decorate it
God created leadbase paint and then
God commanded the rivers of garbage & filth
to flow gracefully through the ghettos.
On the third day
because on the second day God was out of town
On the third day
God's nose was running
& his jones was coming down and God
in his all knowing wisdom
knew he was sick
he needed a fix
so God
created the backyards of the ghettos
& the alleys of the slums
in heroin & cocaine
and
with his divine wisdom & grace
God created hepatitis
who begat lockjaw
who begat malaria
who begat degradation
who begat
GENOCIDE
and God knew this was good
in fact God knew things couldn't git better
but he decided to try anyway
On the fourth day
God was riding around Harlem in a gypsy cab
when he created the people
and he created these beings in ethnic proportion
but he saw the people lonely & hungry
and from his eminent rectum
he created a companion for these people
and he called this companion
capitalism
who begat racism
who begat exploitation
who begat male chauvinism
who begat machismo
who begat imperialism
who begat colonialism
who begat wall street
who begat foreign wars
and God knew
and God saw
and God felt this was extra good
and God said
VAYAAAAAAA
On the fifth day
the people kneeled
the people prayed
the people begged
and this manifested itself in a petition
a letter to the editor
to know why? WHY? WHY? qué pasa babyyyyy?????
and God said,
"My fellow subjects
let me make one thing perfectly clear
by saying this about that:
NO . . .. . .. . ..COMMENT!"
but on the sixth day God spoke to the people
he said . . . "PEOPLE!!!
the ghettos & the slums
& all the other great things I've created
will have dominion over thee
and then
he commanded the ghettos & slums
and all the other great things he created
to multiply
and they multiplied
On the seventh day God was tired
so he called in sick
collected his overtime pay
a paid vacation included
But before God got on that t. w. a.
for the sunny beaches of Puerto Rico
He noticed his main man Satan
planting the learning trees of consciousness
around his ghetto edens
so God called a news conference
on a state of the heavens address
on a coast to coast national t. v. hook up
and God told the people
to be
COOL
and the people were cool
and the people kept cool
and the people are cool....

The Book of Genesis According to St. Miguelito

Conflict is inherent in any relationship...

Conflict is inherent in any relationship...

A relationship without conflict is one without honesty...

No one is perfect, we all have egos and should express them honestly even if it leads to contest between the parties involved...the honesty should go further and include discussions to establish the causes and the corrections necessary to stabilize the contention... let go...don't assume you're right and the only one that is right

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Cash Might Be King, but They Don’t Care

Photo

A patron tries to pay with cash at the West 40th Street location of Dos Toros Taqueria, only to learn that only credit or debit cards are accepted. Credit Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

The other day at Dig Inn, a just-opened lunch spot on Broadway and 38th Street in Midtown Manhattan, Shania Bryant committed a consumer faux pas. She placed her order for chicken and brown rice and yams, and when she got to the register, she held out a $50 bill.

"Sorry," the cashier told her. "We don't take cash." Not, "We don't take $50s." No cash. Period.
"What?" Ms. Bryant asked.

The cashier patiently explained. Credit and debit cards were fine, as was the easy-to-download Dig Inn phone app. But the almighty dollar was powerless.

"I've never experienced that before," said Ms. Bryant, 20, an assistant to a designer. "I guess we're in new times."

Indeed. Cashless businesses were once an isolated phenomenon, but now, similarly jarring experiences can be had across the street at Sweetgreen, or two blocks up at Two Forks, or next door to Two Forks at Dos Toros, or over on 41st Street at Bluestone Lane coffee. In Midtown and some other neighborhoods across New York City, cashless is fast on its way to becoming normal.

Photo

The Two Forks chain also does not take cash. Visa recently offered select merchants a $10,000 reward to switch away from cash transactions. Credit Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

But it is not quite normal yet. So the cashier at Dig Inn cut Ms. Bryant a break.

"Just this one time, we'll give it to you on the house," she said, handing over the bag. "But just so you know, in the future."

Ah, the future. In the future, when dollar bills are found only in museum display cases, we will look back on this moment of transition and confusion with the same head-shaking smile with which we regard customs on the Isle of Yap in Micronesia, where giant stone discs are still accepted as payment for particularly big-ticket items.

Some people already live in this cashless future. They find nothing strange about paying for a pack of gum with a swipe of a card. If you are one of these people and you are still somehow reading this article, you may be thinking, "What on earth is the big deal?"

At Two Forks on 40th Street, where the lunch offerings have cheery names like Squash Goals, Kristin Junco, a 34-year-old auditor for the state Education Department, said she had not used cash for about a week and much prefers a cashless establishment to its opposite. "We travel a lot for work," she said, gesturing to a colleague, "and if they don't take credit cards that makes things difficult."

On the other side are those who were raised to equate credit card spending with taking on debt — something to be avoided whenever possible, and reserved in any case for major expenditures. Those people do things like grab a $5 bill from their purse and run down from their office to the place on the corner thinking that they can buy a snack with it. They will catch on eventually.

"I was shocked," said David, a 66-year-old accountant who popped into Dig Inn for lunch a few hours before Ms. Bryant. (He declined to give his surname because "I'm a private person.") "This is very unusual to me."

Photo

A patron at Two Forks said that she prefers a cashless establishment to one that does not take credit cards. Credit Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

Tim McLoughlin, 59, a writer in Brooklyn, did a double-take when he walked into a Bluestone Lane branch in Dumbo, Brooklyn. "My reaction was 'Jesus, a New York City restaurant that records all its revenue? How can they stay in business?' "

They can, and do. At Pokee, a poke-salad place in Greenwich Village, cash is treated like a quarantinable substance. "If you have exact change, we'll take it," said the woman behind the counter. "We give it to the manager and he puts it in a safe. Because we don't have a register."

Not surprisingly, the credit card companies, who make a commission on every credit card purchase, applaud the trend. Visa recently offered select merchants a $10,000 reward for depriving customers of their right to pay by the method of their choice. A Visa executive described this practice to CNN as offering shoppers "freedom from carrying cash."

At Dos Toros, a Mexican chain that is in the process of going cashless at its 13 New York City locations, the co-chief executive Leo Kremer said that cash took up precious time: the time of the general manager of the location, who spent a couple of hours a day counting (and recounting) cash drawers that could have been spent coaching new employees and making sure customers have a great experience. "There's something fundamentally demoralizing when you have the leader of the restaurant back in the office, counting, instead of out on the floor," he said. And it took up the time of the customer: Cash causes bottlenecks at the register, he said.

Mr. Kremer said that only a minuscule portion of customers complained about the cashless policy, but there are enough of them for the employees to notice.

Photo

The Federal Reserve declined to explain how establishments could not accept dollar bills, but a law professor said that a meal is not generally considered a debt. Credit Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

"Every day I have an argument with somebody about it," said a cashier at the Dos Toros on 40th Street, who said she could not give her name because she was not authorized to speak without permission from the company. "I don't make these rules, you know."

But wait, how is this even allowed? Doesn't the dollar bill say it's "legal tender for all debts, public and private." The Federal Reserve's website says that notwithstanding that language, there is no federal law compelling a business "to accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services."
Asked why the $8.71 a customer owes for that Turmeric Sweet Potato Hummus Toast she just ordered is not considered a debt, the Federal Reserve offered a partial explanation, but it begins with the words "for purposes of illustration, and not for attribution to the Fed," so we cannot share the rest. But a professor at the New York University School of Law who teaches contract and commercial law, Clayton Gillette, laid it out.

First of all, he said, you do not have a debt until after you receive a good or a service. What about at a sit-down restaurant, where you pay after you eat? "Assuming the restaurant lets you know up front that they don't take cash, they're offering to serve you a meal, but they are offering it on their terms," Professor Gillette said. "If you consume the meal, you've accepted the terms of the contract."

Still, occasionally, the Luddites win. A couple of weeks ago, Lisa Gaytan, 60, and a friend walked into a Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream store in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. Her friend ordered a vegan chocolate cone. He was told he could not pay with cash. He handed over his credit card. There was a problem with the card reader, or maybe the Wi-Fi. In any case, the machine was down. The cashier apologized and said the ice cream was on the house.

"My thought was, sometimes the analog world works better than the digital," Ms. Gaytan said. "We both walked out of there saying 'That was crazy.' "

Correction: December 25, 2017
An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of Dos Toros's chief executive. He is Leo 

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Ahed and Nariman Tamimi's detentions extended

The mother-and-daughter duo's legal fate has attracted global attention [Jaclynn Ashly/Al Jazeera]

Bethlehem, occupied West Bank - On a day when millions of people around the world spent time with their families, laughing and exchanging gifts, Bassem Tamimi sat for hours in an Israeli court anticipating the fate of his daughter, wife and niece.

For the second time in less than a week, the Tamimi women's detentions were extended for another four days as the police prosecution continues an investigation into a case that has attracted worldwide attention.

Bassem told Al Jazeera that the court sessions, held in Israel's Ofer detention centre in Ramallah, went on for more than six hours on Monday.

"Ahed looked so tired," he said, referring to his jailed 16-year-old daughter, and expressed worry concerning her treatment in Israeli jail.

Three Israeli officials stood in front of Bassem the entire court proceeding, blocking his view of Ahed.

"I wasn't even allowed to see her," he said. Bassem attempted to speak to his daughter, eager to hear her familiar voice that could assure him she was continuing with the strength the teenager is famous for.

However, "any time I tried to speak to her, the Israeli officers would tell me to shut up and would threaten to kick me out of the court", he explained.

"They just want to show us that Israel controls everything."

Multiple arrests

Ahed was detained by Israeli forces on Tuesday following a raid on the family's home in the village of Nabi Saleh in the occupied West Bank during pre-dawn hours.

Hours later, his wife Nariman travelled to the Binyamin detention centre where Ahed was being held in order to check on her condition and insist on her presence during interrogations.
She too was arrested upon arrival. Israeli authorities are accusing Nariman of "incitement" for filming the video.

Ahed's 21-year-old cousin Nour, who studies journalism at Al Quds University, was also arrested during a raid on her home the following morning.

An Israeli army spokesperson previously told Al Jazeera that Ahed was suspected of "assaulting a soldier and an IDF officer" in a video showing Ahed slapping and kicking two Israeli officials outside her home.

Tear-gas canisters collected by residents of Nabi Saleh village [Jaclynn Ashly/Al Jazeera]

The video went viral and spurred an Israeli social-media campaign demanding the arrest of the teen, who has remained an icon for the village's longstanding resistance since she was 13.
Nour also appeared in the video later. Following the arrests, Israeli authorities summoned Bassem for interrogations, and questioned him for two hours about the video.

According to Bassem, Ahed and Nour were attempting to push the soldiers away from their home in the video after their 15-year-old cousin Mohammad was struck point-blank in the face with a rubber bullet, which left him in a coma for 72 hours.

The Tamimi women have not yet officially been charged with a crime.

According to Gabi Laski, Ahed's lawyer, the women are also being investigated for other incidents unrelated to the recent video.

Laski said the teen is being held in the first section of Israel's HaSharon prison in Israel, consisting of child "security prisoners".

No change of clothes

Nariman and Nour are being held together at HaSharon in the third section designated for Palestinian women prisoners, Laski said.
Ahed has not been provided a change of clothes since she was detained almost a week ago, Laski told Al Jazeera.

Since her detention, Ahed has also been transferred between several prisons in Israel.
According to Laski, such Israeli policies are meant to "break your spirit".
Palestinian detainees are typically handcuffed and their feet are shackled during prison transfers.

Since her detention, Ahed has been transferred between several prisons [Jaclynn Ashly/Al Jazeera]

The trip between prisons is often uncomfortable and can result in serious physical and emotional exhaustion.

These prison transfers occur despite being a violation of international law, which prohibits the transfer of Palestinians from the occupied territory into Israeli territory.
Nevertheless, 60 percent of Palestinian child detainees are transferred into Israel from the occupied territory, according to prisoners' rights group Addameer.

Addameer has reported that many Palestinian children are interrogated while "sleep deprived and often bruised and scared", and called the process "coercive".

'Abuse and humiliation'

According to the group, Palestinian children are often "shown, or made to sign, documentation written in Hebrew", despite most Palestinians in the occupied territory not understanding the language.

Defense for Children International - Palestine noted in a new report that out of 520 cases of Palestinian children being detained by Israel between 2012 and 2016, 72 percent faced physical violence and 66 percent experienced "verbal abuse and humiliation".

Nour's father Naji told Al Jazeera that the threats his family has received from Israelis have left him anxious and concerned about Nour's safety in the prison.

According to Naji, Israelis have demanded that the Tamimi women be held in the "darkest cell" of Israel's prisons and have expressed their hope that the women "get raped".
"What if some rightwing Israeli is working in the prison, and they actually follow through with these threats?" he said.

In the early morning hours on Monday, as the Tamimi families were resting before another long day at an Israeli court, Israeli forces crept into the village once again and raided Naji's home.
Manal Tamimi, a relative of the women, told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces broke into Naji's home and ransacked the place, before raiding two more homes in the village.

Izz al-Din and Mutasim Tamimi, both 20-years-old, were detained during the raid.
Both had previously spent time in Israeli prison between five to eight months, according to Manal.
Neither of the youths were involved in the case that Ahed, Nariman, and Nour are being held for.

Residents interrogated

Manal said that for the past two weeks, Israeli forces stationed at the checkpoint positioned at the entrance of Nabi Saleh have been stopping the young residents of the village and interrogating them for hours.

"This has nothing to do with anyone breaking the law. This is just harassment and collective punishment on the village," she said.

Bassem agrees, telling Al Jazeera that the Tamimi women's court proceedings are a form of Israeli "propaganda".

Bassem says the court proceedings are a form of Israeli 'propaganda' [Jaclynn Ashly/Al Jazeera]

"Israel wants to show the world that they have a trial, a court, and a legal system. They want people to believe they have laws and a democracy," Bassem said.

Bassem said that the village did not see Israel's courts as "legitimate".
"It's all fake. The courts are just another component of the occupation. There's no difference between this court and an Israeli settlement," he told Al Jazeera.

"They are targeting us because we are Palestinian and we resist Israeli occupation and its colonization of Palestinian lands. They want to break Nabi Saleh."

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Ahed Tamimi's father writes about his daughter's arrest by Israeli forces | Opinion

By On Sunday, December 24, 2017 - 13:21

Palestinian Ahed Tamimi (R), 17, a well-known campaigner against Israel's occupation, appears at a military court at the Israeli-run Ofer prison in the West Bank village of Betunia on December 20, 2017.

Last week, a video of my 16-year-old daughter Ahed resisting an Israeli soldier who was trespassing on our land in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh went viral. The contrast could not have been clearer and was on display for the entire world to see: a heavily armed soldier from Israel's army of occupation and a young Palestinian woman armed with nothing but her courage and a righteous desire for justice and freedom. And for that reason, she had to be punished by Israel. 

Less than half an hour earlier, a soldier shot Ahed's 14-year-old cousin in the face at close distance with a rubber coated steel bullet, causing severe injuries and leaving him in a coma. Then, two soldiers had jumped the wall of our backyard and forced their way on to our property when Ahed confronted them in an effort to make them leave.

A few days later, after the video caused an uproar in Israel, the army raided our home in the middle of the night and took Ahed. The next day, they arrested my wife Nariman when she went to see Ahed in jail. They have also arrested Ahed's 21-year-old cousin, Nour. They remain imprisoned inside Israel, in violation of international law, with Ahed being held in a jail with Israeli criminals. One senior member of the Israeli government has even called for Ahed to be imprisoned for life for her act of defiance.

Meanwhile, my son Mohammed is in shock. The cousin who was shot is also his best friend, and now his sister and mother have been taken away and imprisoned.The problems we face in Nabi Saleh today started several years ago, when Israel stole a large part of our village's land to establish the illegal Jewish settlement of Halamish. The settlers then took our fresh water spring for their own use, preventing us from accessing it. We have refused to accept these abuses of our rights, and so every Friday for the last five years, we gather to march in protest.

Under Israel's now 50-year-old military occupation over Palestinians in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, we have no rights, including the right to protest peacefully. And so the Israeli army meets our marches, which frequently include Israelis and internationals, with tear gas, stun grenades, "skunk water," and rubber coated steel bullets. Often, people are injured. Sometimes, they are killed.

Earlier this year, a 20-year-old young man was shot in the stomach and killed during a demonstration in support of Palestinians on hunger strike inside Israeli prisons. Five years ago, my wife's brother Rushdie was shot in the back and killed by a soldier during a demonstration against Israel's bombing of Gaza. Two years later, on the anniversary of his death, my wife was shot in the leg. Nariman has also developed asthma as a result of breathing tear gas.

Ahed is a strong, fearless girl, and I am proud of my daughter's steadfastness, but when I saw her sitting in the Israeli military court I felt helpless and scared for her. I am a parent and everything I do is to protect my children and to make sure they can live happily and freely one day. No matter what I believe about perseverance and pride, in the end, I'm a father and it pains me greatly to see my beautiful child imprisoned in a military court that sees and treats Palestinians as less than human.

Each year, Israel imprisons hundreds of Palestinian children like Ahed in its military court system. As human rights groups like UNICEF have documented, Palestinian children are subject to systematic abuse by the Israeli army. Like my Ahed, they are often taken from their homes in the middle of the night by armed soldiers, torn from their beds and parents' arms. They suffer threats and physical violence.

They are interrogated without a lawyer or their parents present, and pressured to sign confessions in Hebrew, which most don't understand. Even members of the U.S. Congress recognize the seriousness of the problem and are currently sponsoring a bill urging the U.S. government to make sure the aid it gives to Israel isn't used to abuse the rights of Palestinian children.

Israel's military occupation is in contrast to all that is just and humane, from the abuse of our children to the abuse of our land. As parents, we try to shelter our children against the occupation and all its violence, inequality, and lack of freedom, but there is only so much we can do to protect them.
But despite the traumatic moments that we experience, I will always believe in justice and in our right to continue our peaceful resistance against Israel's brutal military rule and theft of our land. We will continue to resist as a family, and as a community. Together we carry the torch of freedom and equality towards our dream of a better life for our children.

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We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads | Zeynep Tufekci

We're building an artificial intelligence-powered dystopia, one click at a time, says technosociologist Zeynep Tufecki. In an eye-opening talk, she details how the same algorithms companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon use to get you to click on ads are also used to organize your access to political and social information. And the machines aren't even the real threat. What we need to understand is how the powerful might use AI to control us -- and what we can do in response. Check out more TED Talks: http://www.ted.com The TED Talks channel features the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and more.

Mr. Fixit; The alt-right would have loathed brown-skinned Jewish handyman Jesus Christ

A composite image of what 'Galilean Semite' Jesus Christ would have looked like (image via Popular Mechanics) and a Latino construction worker (image via Shutterstock).

In the Bible, Jesus Christ is referred to as a "tekton," which has most been translated to "carpenter" in English. But an alternate translation by a Jesuit priest shows that Christ's profession may have been more lowly.

As priest James Martin wrote in the Los Angeles Times, "today many scholars translate tekton not as carpenter, but as handyman or day laborer." If that were indeed the case, a reader wrote to the L.A. Times' editor following Martin's editorial, "the alt-right is at permanent odds with true Christianity" given both the nature of Christ's work and of his passion for social justice — a term "strangely tarnished" by the Internet-savvy cabal of right-wingers.

While many schools of Christianity, including Roman Catholicism, promote social justice, the term has been co-opted and mocked by many on 4chan and Reddit, the birthplaces of the alt-right. "Social justice warriors," shortened to "SJWs" in their parlance, are heartily loathed — despite the fact that many who benefit from their constituency, like President Donald Trump, purport to be Christians.
Christ, furthermore, was a Galilean Semite, and contrary to popular Western depictions was likely dark-skinned. Add the more modern understanding of his profession into the mix and you've got a dark-skinned, social justice-oriented Jewish day laborer — the type of person the anti-Semitic alt-right and others who oppose undocumented immigration appear to hate.

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Blessed

I have been blessed, am blessed

And not...

I often wonder about myself and question why I'm still alive and wonder, consider the crazy things I've done, many without warrant, many of a fool, so many to make a statement without purpose so many to show the uninterested there is purpose, many to ask why and know why, to have done many things to question, to test myself and question existence and no concern that no one cares or notices, knowing that I will end my life having had no presence...even though there is...

we have no presence, no singular presence, then we do if we notice if we are notice we mean nothing...

do me matter? are we...or one of many streams of consciousness vying for relevance and yet we can never make me relevant to others but ourselves and we wonder why we're no more than white noise when we listen and take note of the silence and become aware we are black noise

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