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From Harper's....Sept. 2009

8/18/2009

     Wednesday's make Americans twice as likely to kill themselves.
    Body Mass Index calculations were found to be biased against African Americans, who were found to be less likely to survive certain cancers even if they receive equal treatment.
     Building castles in the sand may lead to diarreha......watch for those sand mites.
     Domestic cats use special "soliciting purrs", which contain urgent high-speed cries,to get humans to do their biddings.......oh, those felines.
     The Indian government have come up with a new birth control device to lower birth-rate.....increase access to television......those wily Indians who gave us the Kamasutra are so innovative......
     British scientists have created sperm from human stem cells, which may make it possible for women to conceive without men........Ah, those cold Brits, have all but eliminate men as "human fertilizers", making them irrelevant, if not expendable. Long oppressed women are not "ululating".
     Dogs can predict diabetic attacks in humans.......one less need for men (male doctors)
    .

    Here are some more interesting facts from Harper's Index....Sept. 2009.
    Health Care.......Since 2002, average premiums paid to U.S. health insurance companies increased by 87% and the profits of the top 10 companies increased by 428%, while the chances that an American bankrupted by medical bills has health insurance is 7 in 10. No wonder the health insurance companies and their friends in Congress are fighting so hard to kill Obama's plan.......20,000 die each year because they cannot afford to see a doctor, and 700,000 go bankrupt each year because of medical bills. ( Time,Aug.31, 2009)
   Every developed country except the U.S. HAS CONCLUDED THAT GOVERNMENT HAS A MORAL OBLIGATION TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE FOR ALL ITS CITIZENS.
   The obscene, heinous and distorted attacks on Obama's health care plan has been led by Sarah Palin (who started the whole "death panel" issue) and Rush Limbaugh (who compared Obama to Hitler) and the other "nutters" who have taken over the Republican Party. Their sole agenda is to not give Obama a victory and thus prevent him from consolidating his hold on the 2012 election. Playing on fear, ignorance AND THE CRAVENNESS AND COWARDICE OF SUCH LEADING REPUBLICANS AS SENATORS CHARLES GRASSLEY (WHO REPEATED PALIN'S DISTORTION)  AND JOHNNY ISAKSON (WHO AUTHORED "END-OF LIFE" COUNSELLING PROVISIONS) AND GOV. MITT ROMNEY (WHO CREATED A UNIVERSAL HEALTH-CARE PLAN IN MASSACHUSETTS, VERY MUCH LIKE THE OBAMA ONE), THEY HAVE HIJACKED THE DEATE AND ARE FILLING IT WITH HATRED AND VENOM.

   THE SO-CALLED "DEATH-PANEL", IS MERELY AN INDEPENDENT, PROFESSIONAL BODY TO GIVE FREE COUNSELING TO FAMILY MEMBERS, IF THEY NEED IT. Palin's obscene lie, coupled with Limbaugh's loud trumpeting and the refusal of the more prominent Republicans to set the record straight, has revealed their tactic. Defeat Obama now, even if it means that millions of Americans will continue to be denied access to health care. The Republican Party has allowed itself to become an extremist shell.


   Illinois has stopped paying to bury corpses of indigents, since July and 16 states have run out of money to pay unemployment insurance and have had to borrow $11,743,613,200 from the federal government. This expected to get worse with umemploymeny continuing to rise.. Meanwhile, in 2008, according to the Bank of Korea in Seoul, the GDP of North Korea went up by 37%.

   According to the 2009 Global Peace Index, the United States is ranked 83 among the world's most peaceful countries.

      Study by The Center for Research on Education Outcomes (Stanford, Calif.), found that the chances that a Charter school outperformed comparable public school in Math. is 1 in 6, and the chances that it lagged behind is 1 in 3. Let's stop the subsidies and give more money to public schools.

   Now for some really interesting stuff.......Since 1785, the average body size of a Western European has increased by 50%.........Chances are 1 in 6 that both members of a married couple are obese in the U.S. but only 1 in 13 for both members of an unmarried couple and according to United Nations Population Division, there are 76 countries where fertility level is below replacement levels.......Coincidence???

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Vile attacks on Pres .Obama and on Jewish critics of Israeli policies.

8/14/2009

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has according to the newspaper, Haaretz, called two top aides of Obama “self-hating Jews”, for pushing for a freeze on settlements’ building, and New York Times, Jerusalem bureau chief, Ethan Bronner, last week quoted Rabbi Yigael Shandorfi, leader of a religious academy at the settlement of Nahliel, calling Obama “ that Arab they call a president”.

     Thomas Friedman, of the New York Times, has referred to this as “the untouchable arrogance of the settlers”. Why this arrogance? Why this vituperation? It is a combination of fear that Israel’s vaunted position is eroding and also, because of the years of attitude that have been building in the United States, that Israel could do no wrong   According to Friedman (a self-hating Jew?), for 40 years, a succession of Israeli governments has misled, manipulated or persuaded naïve U.S. presidents that since Israeli was negotiating to give up significant territory, there was no need to fight over “insignificant” settlements on some territory. Behind this charade, Israeli settlers bit off more and more of the West Bank, creating a huge moral, security and economic burden for Israel and its friends.”

     Friedman is right and it took courage for him to state it so bluntly. Since its creation, Israel has tugged at the heart- strings of America and Europe, for the guilt felt for the deaths of 6 million Jews, while they did nothing ( in Canada the official policy on Jewish refugees was “ none is one too many”). The support for the creation of a “homeland” for the dispersed, displaced and desperate survivors was the West’s answer, even though it meant the dispersal, displacement and desperation of hundred of thousands of Palestinians. Some morality!!!

     The state of Israel struggled mightily to secure itself from its enemies. The Six Days War gave Israel its biggest security boost, but the consequences would lead, to the erosion of the founding principles of democracy, pluralism and secularism. The erosion of democracy, began when more and more powers was ceded to the military for “national security reasons”. It continued with the treatment of Arab- Israelis (those who did not flee). While they are Israelis citizens, they received less and less from the state for health, education and other services (the arguments by some that they were better off than their Arab cousins was disingenuous, they are citizens entitled to equal rights or it is undemocratic). Yes, they could vote, but were doomed to be in a minority position…..isn’t the measure of a democracy, is how the majority treats the minority? As the years went by, suspicions grew that they were a “fifth column”, not to be trusted. The building of settlements started slowly and was ignored, but it picked up speed after the 1973 war and after religious zealots started to refer to the captured land as Judea and Samaria, the Holy land of ancient Israel. Tens of thousands flocked to the area, subsidized and protected by the government Here is how, Bradley Burston, a columnist with Haaretz put it “ the double standard which for decades has favored settlers with inexpensive housing, heavily subsidized social services, and blind-eye building permits has long been accompanied by a kid-gloves approach regarding settler violence against Palestinians and their property…..Settlers and settlement planners have covertly bent and distorted zoning procedures, military directives and government decrees to boost settlement, block Palestinian construction and access to employment and effectively neutralize measures intended to foster Israeli-Palestinian peace progress”. Subsidy, blind-eye, distortion, violence, and double-standard, all these and more have created an internal threat to Israel’s security, greater than any threat ( even Iran, but which is good for Netanyahu to use to try and deflect attention from the settlements issue), posed by external enemies. He should heed the teachings of the Talmud, which advises that the leader must not tell the people what they cannot hear.., in other words, do not lie to them or mislead them.

     The settlements are a threat to Israel and a setback to peace talks, for they are an insidious threat to the economic and security well-being of Israel. It is a giant mill-stone around its neck. It drains not only the economic resources of the state but it depletes the collective will. Young soldiers returning from serving in the OccupiedTerritories are psychologically damaged and bring the violence into their homes. You cannot ask young men and women to degrade, discriminate, dehumanize and in other ways ill-treat men, women and children and not be affected. For years there have been warnings from health officials about the harm being done to these young people. Is it worth it? For how long can this continue?

     A solution out of this nightmare, for both Israelis and Palestinians must be found. Obama and his team offer a new beginning. Rather than vicious name-calling, which is a sign of weakness, constructive offers must be made. It has to be understood, that no one wants to show weakness, and that both sides would use bluster and that is how it is. This does not mean that the seemingly intractable is undoable. You do not make peace with friends, you do so with enemies. It will be tough and at times acrimonious. There will be walk-outs and other forms of grand-standing, but it’s all part of the game. The Israelis and the Palestinians must understand, that compromises, no matter how difficult, must be made, that as the Mahatma noted “an eye for an eye would leave the whole world blind”.

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fig 2-b My Father and Mother to whom I owe everything

"Ecce Homo" ("Behold the Man"), Antonio Ciseri's depiction of Pontius Pilate presenting a scourged Jesus to the people of Jerusalem.

fig 1-b

figure 1-a

F. Goya
Two men fighting with clubs
circa 1819-1823

The Black Paintings Period

(Fig 2a) The Death of Innocents

Author

Ishwar R. Prashad recently retired from over 47 years of teaching.

He taught Political Science variously at Dawson College, Loyola College, Algoma University College, Sir George Williams University, Concordia University and Vanier College.

Previously, he taught for nine years in Port Mourant, Guyana.

He became Principal of Corentyne Comprehensive High School at the tender age of 21. During this time he turned down Scholarship offers to study overseas in England and the U.S.S.R.

He chose Canada and after graduating from Sir George Williams with a B.A Honours with Distinction, he accepted a Fellowship to complete his graduate work at McMaster University. He completed his first two degrees-Bachelors and Masters- in three years.

His last position was as Co-Ordinator of Political Science and Economics at Vanier College and Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Concordia University.

He is married to the former Juliet Ramcharan (Library Supervisor, McGill University) and together they have three children – Indra R. Prashad, P.Eng. ,McGill (Presently Manager, Ontario Safe Water Drinking Agency), Ishwar R. Prashad Jr., B.A ,McGill (Presently, President, Kismit Gear Inc.) and Rabindra Y. Prashad, (Presently, Artist and Chef).They are the proud Grandparents of eight grandchildren-Miranda, Kamal, Ayesha, Élan, Anĵa , Étienne, Chloé, and Jasmine.

From Harper's....Sept. 2009

Vile attacks on Pres .Obama and on Jewish critics of Israeli policies.

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