Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Solar panels are great sources of energy. We have them on our roof and they have saved us a lot of money, especially in spring-summer-fall. Some observers complain about their bulk compared to the energy they put out, though. I’ve had engineers argue to me that there just isn’t space […]
Archives for November 2024
Israel’s Crimes against Humanity in Gaza: Forced Displacement of Palestinians Leaves much of Area Uninhabitable
Human Rights Watch ) | – Israeli authorities have caused massive, deliberate forced displacement of Palestinian civilians in Gaza since October 2023 and are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity. There is no plausible imperative military reason to justify Israel’s mass displacement of nearly all of Gaza’s population, often multiple times. Rather than […]
A Democracy of Voices, If we can Keep It: Threats to Free Expression in the Trump Era
By Nan Levinson ( Tomdispatch.com ) – I thought I was done with free speech. For nearly two decades, I reported on it for the international magazine Index on Censorship. I wrote a book, Outspoken: Free Speech Stories, about controversies over it. I even sang “I Like to Be in America” at the top of my lungs […]
Israel’s War on Palestinian Health
Belfast (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Since the beginning of Israel’s latest offensive against the Palestinian people in Gaza in October of last year, Israel has targeted the healthcare sector, not only as part of its military strategy but also as a means of genocide. The deliberate destruction of hospitals means there is no […]
End of empathy: Did the Gaza Genocide render the UN Irrelevant?
( Middle East Monitor ) – Francesca Albanese did not mince her words. In a strongly worded speech at the United Nations General Assembly Third Committee on 29 October, the UN Special Rapporteur deviated from the typical line of other UN officials. She directed her statements to those in attendance. “Is it possible that after […]
“Orbital,” by Samantha Harvey – A Short but Powerful Story urging us to Save the Planet – Wins 2024 Book Prize
By Debra Benita Shaw, University of East London | – (The Conversation) – Samantha Harvey’s Orbital has won the 2024 Booker prize. What it so skilfully and ambitiously exposes is the human cost of space flight set against the urgency of the climate crisis. While a typhoon of life-threatening proportions gathers across south-east Asia, six […]
“I am your Retribution:” A Psychoanalyst’s Insight into the Male Rage fueled by Inequality that Propelled Trump to Victory
Los Angeles (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – In our post-election blues, many pundits have started a post-mortem exploration of what went wrong with the Democrats’ optimistic outlook of winning the election, by even the thinnest margins. Explanations of Trump’s and Republican’s sweeping victory range from the ravages of inflation on the working class to […]
North Gaza: Israel has blocked or delayed 85% of Humanitarian Aid Requests, says UN
( Middle East Monitor ) – The United Nations reported that 85 per cent of its requests to coordinate aid convoys and humanitarian access to northern Gaza were either blocked or delayed by Israeli authorities in the past month. According to UN spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) […]
Creating a Genuine Hell on Earth
( Tomdispatch.com ) – Honestly, what would George Orwell have written about this planet of ours, four decades after that ominous year 1984 passed from his fiction into history? And yes, in case you think that, as in his novel 1984, published in 1949, a year before his death and just as the Cold War […]