ZIAD IN GAZA

In my culture we have a superstition that says if you get an itch on the bottom of your feet then you will travel soon; an itch on your right hand and you will shake hands with someone important; left hand, you will get money; your nose, you will hear bad news.

After another sleepless night, I look at my sister, who was telling me minutes ago how much she misses a good night’s sleep, and I tell her: “I have an itch on the bottom of my feet and on my left hand, do you think I will travel soon and get money?”

She says: “I think your body is telling you that you need to take a shower.”

We laugh. Hygiene remains a big challenge, especially bathing. Having a bath has become, in the last three months, a luxury few people have. Most of the time we depend on medical alcohol and wet wipes to clean our bodies. Both are very difficult to find and, when you do, they are expensive.

A couple of days ago, my sister’s friend invited her to take a bath at her house. They heated some water for her and put it in a bucket – something we never thought any of us would do in our lives. My sister came back happy. But she told me: “I forgot how to take a shower. Has it been this long?”

Speaking of hygiene, the list of challenges goes on and on. Laundry, for example. We have been manually cleaning clothes when there is available water. Due to the number of people in the place we are in, there is laundry everywhere: in the normal places like balconies, and in abnormal ones like chairs in the middle of the hallway, or on laundry threads (threads that are hung from one side to the other one) in the bedrooms.

I wonder when it will be the turn of our hearts to be cleaned

 

 

Minhas fotos mais interessantes postadas em 2023 (24)

 

Melanie - Lay Down - 1970 - IN MEMORIAM

So, raise the candles high
'Cause if you don't we could stay black against the night
Oh, raise them higher again
And if you do we could stay dry against the rain

Um Bravo a Motaz Azaiza

GILMAR

 

 

 

 

GENIN

 

 

PAULO BATISTA

 

 

PALAVRAS

O poder do cinema não está em contar histórias ou filmar atores, mas na capacidade de gerar ideias através da justaposição de elementos numa tomada ou entre tomadas.

- Jacques Rivette

Elvis Presley ~ Too Much Monkey Business (Chuck Berry)

Salesman talking to me tried to run me up a creek
Says you can buy it, go on try it, you can pay me next week
Uh-uh, too much monkey business, too much monkey business
Too much monkey business for me to be involved in

Graphic novelist Posy Simmonds wins prestigious French comics award

 

 

 

Simmonds’s satirical observations on modern British society, interweaving detailed illustration with long literary texts, are held to have redefined the graphic novel genre.

Her graphic work stands out not just for its piercing take on contemporary life, but also for the narrative and literary element in her texts, which have reworked female characters from 19th century literature. She has been described as an artist who “enjoys writing as much as drawing”.

 

re a d more》》

 Graphic novelist Posy Simmonds wins prestigious French comics award | Comics and graphic novels | The Guardian

Minhas fotos mais interessantes postadas em 2023 (23)

 

Lacrimosa - Requiem em ré menor (K. 626) - W.A Mozart

Lacrimosa dies illa
Qua resurget ex favilla
Judicandus homo reus

The futility of governments in dealing with climate change

 

Jeffrey St. Clair

 + A new study in Nature estimates that even under an optimistic scenario “the global North would overshoot its share of the 1.5 °C carbon budget by a factor of three, appropriating half of the global South’s share in the process.”

+ The Great Lakes typically have an ice coverage of 55% during the winter months, causing at least half of their surfaces to freeze. As of January 1, they had a combined ice cover of just 0.2%. Lake Superior 0.5%, Lake Michigan 0%, Lake Huron 0%, Lake Erie 0%, Lake Ontario 0%…

+ James Hansen: “When our children and grandchildren look back at the history of human-made climate change, this year and next will be seen as the turning point at which the futility of governments in dealing with climate change was finally exposed.”

ZIAD IN GAZA

 

For the past almost three months, I have realised new depths and meanings of the different feelings.

It turned out that sadness is even sadder than we used to think it was. Grief has many more other aspects than we thought. Happiness is way more difficult to feel or achieve.

And there are various new feelings that till now I cannot even put a name too.

Right now, all I want is to get out of this alive. To survive.

 

Minhas fotos mais interessantes postadas em 2023 (22)

 

Sam Cooke - A Change Is Gonna Come

I was born by the river

In a little tent

Oh, and just like the river, I've been running

Ever since

It's been a long

A long time coming, but I know

A change gon' come

Oh yes, it will

LCD Soundsystem - call the police

The old guys are frightened and frightening to behold
The kids come out fighting and still doing what they're told
But you're waking a monster that will drive you from your hoary holes of gold
And your body will get cold

And we don't waste time with love
It's just death from above

ZIAD IN GAZA

 

I was able to get a weak internet connection, and a series of WhatsApp messages on my building’s group showed up. I found out that a relative of one of the attendants was able to go and check on our building. He said that the building is still standing, yet in a horrible situation.

The damage is severe, and it might take a year just to fix it to be able to stay there if we go back. All the glass is broken and everything is damaged. He also said that displaced people from other areas have gotten into the apartments and took the clothes, mattresses and wood items to survive and burn for warmth. They took anything edible.

We have a proverb that says: “A loss is better in money than in souls” – meaning that as long as you are alive, any tangible loss is less awful. But I have to admit that this wasn’t what I felt at that moment. I shared the news with my sister, who was devastated.

I couldn’t stay in my place, I couldn’t breathe well. I found myself going out and heading towards a friend of mine, who has evacuated to a family far from where we are staying. But I did not care.

I was walking so fast that I was surprised by the short time it took me to reach there. I found his relative downstairs and asked him to go call my friend. He came down and saw my face and knew something was wrong.

“Is everything OK? Are you OK?”

“I want to walk.”

We started walking. I told him everything that I’d heard while tears were falling down from my eyes. People in the street looked at me without surprise. These days it has become very usual to see people crying in the street; no one even needs to ask you about the reason. My friend did his best to calm me down.

In that hour I grew 20 years older. My fast-paced steps turned into very slow ones. I was not able to breathe well. I could feel the skin over my face and body wilt like a sunflower that decided to give up after its sun disappeared and it was left in darkness for a very long time. I knew for sure at that moment that I will not be the same person again.

 

 

Yesterday, my sister showed Ahmad some photos and video from the apartment. She wanted to show him how small the cats were compared with now. When I saw them, my heart ached. I saw the tiles, I saw the walls, I saw the Christmas tree we put up, I saw the windows, the furniture and many other details.

After a while, I couldn’t stop moving, so I forced myself to sit down. Right in the middle of the street. My friend, who was calming me down, sat next to me and started crying.

He told me about the news of several family members of his dying; he told me about his parents and brothers who stayed in the north and after many days of trying to reach them he knew that they are still alive yet suffering.

His mother told him that they are OK, but when he talked to his young niece, she told him they haven’t had drinking water in a very long time and there is little food left.

I tried to calm him down. I just couldn’t comprehend the amount of misery we are surrounded by.

No Endgame in Gaza

 

 

 "Bombs and tanks do not answer questions. Who is to govern Gaza if not Hamas or Israel itself? Does Israel really think that somebody else—either an international consortium or a Palestinian puppet regime—will sail into a blood-soaked hellscape of rubble and dust, inhabited by traumatized survivors, and take responsibility for rebuilding, policing, and governing it? How is Israel going to make the kind of peace with its immediate neighbors without which the security of its citizens cannot be rebuilt?

While these political questions go unanswered, so do the moral ones. How many deaths are too many? How are obligations to international law and common decency going to be fulfilled in dense streets crowded with children, women, the elderly, and the sick? What is the “self” in Israel’s “self-defense”? Does it see its true image in this bloodletting? Can it imagine a life beyond revenge"

READ ARTICLE BY FINTAN O'TOOLE

 

Minhas fotos mais interessantes postadas em 2023 (21)

 

In Arms

 JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

+ A Wall Street Journal piece on the ravenous global demand for weapons profiles a missile manufacturer in Kongsberg, Norway, that is running its factories around the clock—and wait times for its NASAMS interceptor missile remain years long. “I’ve never seen anywhere near so much demand,” said Eirik Lie, president of the defense division of Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace.

+ Israel bombs Beirut and Biden bombs Baghdad in the same week–both illegal assassination strikes with collateral damage. It sure looks like the wider Middle East war Israel (and John Bolton) wanted has begun. Mike Knights of the Washington Institute: “If Iraqi PM Al Sudani doesn’t chuck the US out this time, I predict he’ll get a nice state visit to DC this quarter.”

+ Someone also bombed Iran, killing more than 100 people attending a memorial for Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the former leader of Iran’s Quds Force who was assassinated by a U.S. drone strike exactly four years ago.

+ Rep. Ilhan Omar has introduced legislation to block the Biden administration’s attempt to sell $582 million in arms to Saudi Arabia.

+  The combined defense budgets of the 54 countries supporting Ukraine far exceed $100 billion per month. However, the current level of support for Ukraine costs those states less than $6 billion monthly.

+ Provide ballistic missiles to countries that are waging war on civilian populations? Who would do such a thing?

Imposto dos Pastores

GALVÃO 

 

 

 

 

JORGE O MAU

THIAGO LUCAS 

 

 

Café com fascistas

 

Minhas fotos mais interessantes postadas em 2023 (20)

 

Cristina Buarque e Terreiro Grande - Cantam Candeia - Samba na tendinha ...

Batalha Naval

 

 

 
"Al-Deen insiste que os houthis
não serão dissuadidos pelos ataques
ocidentais, mas os verão como um
presente, até mesmo como um sargento
de recrutamento. “Eles passaram anos
na luta contra os sauditas, absorvendo
perdas. Não são um exército clássico com]

ases militares estáticas. As milícias mu-
dam as regras da guerra e, com o apoio
do Irã, têm agora capacidade e experiên-
cia para fabricar drones no país. Os Esta-
dos Unidos e o Reino Unido deram avisos
muito extensos de que isto estava pres-
tes a acontecer, por isso não houve ele-
mento-surpresa.” Os últimos dias, afir-
ma, “farão os houthis acreditarem que
já não são atores locais, mas atores re-
gionais legitimados por direito próprio
a confrontar diretamente a América”."

LEIA ANÁLISE DE PATRICK WINTOUR

.”

 

 

 

ZIAD IN GAZA

For the past three days, my sister and her friends have been out for hours searching for a place for her friend and her two daughters, who had no place to go. Finding a space to set up a tent is almost impossible these days, with the increasing numbers of displaced families from the surrounding areas. After a lot of searching, they were able to find a spot for them.

It was important that it is a place near to people we know in case they need help. My sister talked to the neighbours in nearby buildings and they promised to take good care of them. Also, they offered to let them in when they need to use the toilets.

When it was time to set up the tent, they found another family wanted the place. It took them hours of discussion until the space was divided between the two families. Another challenge was securing the wood, blankets and nylon for the tent. They bought some, and some was given by families who wanted to help.

The mother and daughters were terrified till the last minute. They have never stayed in a tent before. But there was no other way. They kept asking questions about safety and logistics. My sister and her friends were doing their best; the tent was set up and everyone helped. Hours later they heard that a distant family member had agreed to host them in their house. They told my sister they will go there.

My sister told me: “Literally minutes after they left, a new family showed up, looking for a place to stay after evacuating. They couldn’t believe that a tent was set and ready for them. The wife cried.”

 

 

Mateus Aleluia - Nganga Njila (part. Lenna Bahule)

Pensaste, pensou
Eu ainda amordaçado
Mas hoje eu vou cantar

Radiohead Palo Alto

But I'm okay, how are you?
Thanks for asking, thanks for asking
But I'm okay, how are you?
I hope you're okay, too

Mutia coisa vem à tona

KLEBER

 

MIGUEL PAIVA

 

 

 

 

AROEIRA

 

 

 

Jimi Hendrix - Spanish Castle Magic (Extended Version)

It's very far away, It takes about half a day, To get there, if we travel by my a.....dragonfly

In Strategic Bind, Israel Weighs Freeing Hostages Against Destroying Hamas

 

 

"Israel has established control over a smaller part of Gaza at this point in the war than it originally envisaged in battle plans from the start of the invasion, which were reviewed by The New York Times. That slower than expected pace has led some commanders to privately express their frustrations over the civilian government’s strategy for Gaza, and led them to conclude that the freedom of more than 100 Israeli hostages still in Gaza can be secured only through diplomatic rather than military means.

The dual objectives of freeing the hostages and destroying Hamas are now mutually incompatible, according to interviews with four senior military leaders, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to speak publicly about their personal opinions.

There is also a clash between how long Israel would need to fully eradicate Hamas — a time-consuming slog fought in the group’s warren of underground tunnels — and the pressure, applied by Israel’s allies, to wrap up the war quickly amid a spiraling civilian death toll.

The generals further said that a drawn-out battle intended to fully dismantle Hamas would most likely cost the lives of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza!"

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In Strategic Bind, Israel Weighs Freeing Hostages Against Destroying Hamas