Human Rights Watch recently (March 26) produced this short documentary:
And Al-Jazeera English did this report (March 25) on Pine Bluff Arsenal, the source for the white phosphorus shells the Israel 'Defense' Forces used in/on Gaza.
Showing posts with label white phosphorus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label white phosphorus. Show all posts
Friday, April 24, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Random #4589
Items I've wanted to post about have been piling up. They need to get off my desk. Let's begin the cleanup!
1. Thanks to Wayne, I learned about this wonderful hip-hop mix, featuring many of the Arab world's top artists. I was particularly glad to see Algeria's MBS included. The song "Dunya" from Canadian-Palestinian rapper Belly is particularly revelatory. Plus there is Detroit's Invincible. It's courtesy the blog The Hairdryer Treatment, which we all should be following.
2. Last month Human Rights Watch released a report stating that Israel's military had used phosphorus in an indiscriminate manner during its three week assault on Gaza, result in deaths and injuries to Palestinian civilians, and constituting a war crime. Did you know that the phosphorus weapons Israel used are supplied by the US, and that the white phosphorus shells are produced, in their entirety, in my state, at the Pine Bluff Arsenal?
3. You need to read Jace Clayton's review of two recent rai compilations. And you need to purchase both of them. I've posted about one of the tracks Clayton writes about, "Un gaou oran," here, on my mepop blog. (The video is a must see.) One of the compilations, 1970s Algerian Proto-rai Underground, from Sublime Frequencies, is only available currently as a download, but I believe it is coming out very soon on CD.
4. Also essential is Clayton's recent article about the Master Musicians of Jajouka. (By the way, Clayton records and performs as dj/rupture, and he runs the essential music blog mudd up!, where I am constantly snagging amazing mp3s.) Or rather, it's about the rival groups, the Master Musicians of Jajouka and the Master Musicians of Joujouka, the emergence of the feud, the kif-laden legends surrounding the group(s), a critical assessment of Talvin Singh's production of a Jajouka album in 2000, and more. Very smart stuff. (For more, see Philip Schuyler's witty and erudite article, "Joujouka/Jajouka/Zahjoukah: Moroccan Music and Euro-American Imagination.") Despite all the myths that Jajouka/Joujouka is freighted with, the Jajouka group puts on quite a lively concert. And there is a new recording that proves it. Check out Live Vol. 1 by The Master Musicians of Jajouka with Bashir Attar.
5. RIP J.G. Ballard. Crash is one of the most shocking, subversive, disturbing, dangerous, and incisive novels I have ever read.
6. Then there is the sensational basketball player Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir, a high school star from Springfield Massachusetts, who plays wearing Islamic dress, including hijab. She just beat the state scoring record, for men or women, topping 3000 points during her career. I'm very excited that she will be playing at the University of Memphis next year, and hope that a game with the University of Arkansas is in the schedule. The Boston Globe produced an excellent article about Bilqis back in February. More recently she was covered by Sports Illustrated. Unfortunately but symptomatically, the author, Selena Roberts, manages to link Bilqis' struggle for acceptance as a devout Muslima basketball player in the US to the issue of Shahar Peer, the Israeli tennis star who was denied a visa to play at the WTA tournament in Dubai in February. Roberts makes the denial out to be a "religious" issue, when it was in fact political, and had to do with the groundswell of protest against Israel's aggression in Gaza (December 2008/January 2009).
...Desk cleaning will continue later. There is more to come.
1. Thanks to Wayne, I learned about this wonderful hip-hop mix, featuring many of the Arab world's top artists. I was particularly glad to see Algeria's MBS included. The song "Dunya" from Canadian-Palestinian rapper Belly is particularly revelatory. Plus there is Detroit's Invincible. It's courtesy the blog The Hairdryer Treatment, which we all should be following.
2. Last month Human Rights Watch released a report stating that Israel's military had used phosphorus in an indiscriminate manner during its three week assault on Gaza, result in deaths and injuries to Palestinian civilians, and constituting a war crime. Did you know that the phosphorus weapons Israel used are supplied by the US, and that the white phosphorus shells are produced, in their entirety, in my state, at the Pine Bluff Arsenal?
3. You need to read Jace Clayton's review of two recent rai compilations. And you need to purchase both of them. I've posted about one of the tracks Clayton writes about, "Un gaou oran," here, on my mepop blog. (The video is a must see.) One of the compilations, 1970s Algerian Proto-rai Underground, from Sublime Frequencies, is only available currently as a download, but I believe it is coming out very soon on CD.
4. Also essential is Clayton's recent article about the Master Musicians of Jajouka. (By the way, Clayton records and performs as dj/rupture, and he runs the essential music blog mudd up!, where I am constantly snagging amazing mp3s.) Or rather, it's about the rival groups, the Master Musicians of Jajouka and the Master Musicians of Joujouka, the emergence of the feud, the kif-laden legends surrounding the group(s), a critical assessment of Talvin Singh's production of a Jajouka album in 2000, and more. Very smart stuff. (For more, see Philip Schuyler's witty and erudite article, "Joujouka/Jajouka/Zahjoukah: Moroccan Music and Euro-American Imagination.") Despite all the myths that Jajouka/Joujouka is freighted with, the Jajouka group puts on quite a lively concert. And there is a new recording that proves it. Check out Live Vol. 1 by The Master Musicians of Jajouka with Bashir Attar.5. RIP J.G. Ballard. Crash is one of the most shocking, subversive, disturbing, dangerous, and incisive novels I have ever read.
6. Then there is the sensational basketball player Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir, a high school star from Springfield Massachusetts, who plays wearing Islamic dress, including hijab. She just beat the state scoring record, for men or women, topping 3000 points during her career. I'm very excited that she will be playing at the University of Memphis next year, and hope that a game with the University of Arkansas is in the schedule. The Boston Globe produced an excellent article about Bilqis back in February. More recently she was covered by Sports Illustrated. Unfortunately but symptomatically, the author, Selena Roberts, manages to link Bilqis' struggle for acceptance as a devout Muslima basketball player in the US to the issue of Shahar Peer, the Israeli tennis star who was denied a visa to play at the WTA tournament in Dubai in February. Roberts makes the denial out to be a "religious" issue, when it was in fact political, and had to do with the groundswell of protest against Israel's aggression in Gaza (December 2008/January 2009)....Desk cleaning will continue later. There is more to come.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Gaza Rally at University of Arkansas; Arkansas' Complicity in White Phosphorus Attacks on Gaza
Demonstrations in solidarity with the people of Gaza and against the deadly Israeli assault continue to occur all over the globe, including the Ozarks. Yesterday about 50 people braved the very cold weather (only slightly above freezing) to protest Israel's bloody attacks on Gaza.
Abel Tomlinson, Amjad Faur, and yours truly addressed the crowd.
Here's an excerpt from my remarks:
I want to add that as Americans, and as Arkansans, we have a special responsibility in this regard. Israel simply would not be able to carry out its murderous attacks without the F-16 jet fighters, the Apache Helicopters, and the high-tech bunker-busting missiles that we supply it. And then there are the bombs containing white phosphorus. White phosphorus is used as a weapon to create a smoke screen hide military operations. But if it hits humans, it can burn the flesh down to the bone.
Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of using white phosphorus in areas of Gaza heavily populated by civilians and it has demanded that Israel stop, as such use constitutes a violation of international law. Palestinian doctors treating burned patients in Gaza say that the burns they see are unlike anything they have seen previously. On Monday, medics in Gaza said at least 60 Palestinians, many of them children, had been burned by suspected phosphorus shells. I urge you to look for reports on the internet, to see what children burned by white phosphorus look like. You will be horrified. And yesterday, Israeli bombs started fires in a hospital and in a UN compound, and hospital and UN officials claimed these fires were started by phosphorus bombs.
Friends, we are complicit in these war crimes. Israel gets its white phosphorus shells from the US, and these come Pine Bluff Arsenal, in Arkansas, which is the only active site where such weapons are loaded. We need to demand that the US immediately cease supplying weapons to Israel, until it agrees to live in peace with its Palestinian neighbors, and we should put particular pressure on our elected representatives from the state of Arkansas, as well as President elect Obama and soon to be Secretary State. Please write to them and demand that we stop shipping weapons from our state, weapons that are burning children's flesh, to the bone.
Not in our name. In the words of Jeff Lebowski, this aggression will not stand, man. Peace.
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