Stephen D. Shenfield | Author and Translator
Beware: cell phones!
- Published on 16 August 2021
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Just look at that photo! How cute! Do a search on 'kid' and 'phone' and you'll find lots of equally cute photos of little children using cell phones. Many brands are specifically designed for the toddler market. The average age at which children now get their first cell phone is six, but clearly many get one earlier. It is common to amuse babies by showing them moving images on a cell phone.
Observe that in these photos the kids are holding the phone right up against the ear, where radiation will do the most damage to their vulnerable young brains. It would be somewhat less harmful if they left a gap of an inch between ear and phone, but neither they nor their parents even realize that there is any cause for concern -- that 'children absorb more microwave radiation than adults because they are smaller, their brain tissues are more absorbent, and their skulls are thinner' (L. Lloyd Morgan, Santosh Kesari, and Devra Lee Davis, Journal of Microscopy and Ultrastructure, December 2014).
Captives of Coca-Cola
- Published on 14 October 2021
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In July 2018 the attention of The New York Times and then Esquire magazine was somehow drawn to a mountain town in southern Mexico and the truly remarkable amount of Coca-Cola drunk by its residents. The British Broadcasting Corporation has produced a documentary on the same topic.
The town is San Cristobal, in the Central Highlands of Chiapas, Mexico’s poorest and southernmost state. A third of its quarter-million or so residents are of Mayan descent. Their average per capita daily consumption of ‘the friendliest drink on earth’ is a gallon – the whole of a two-liter bottle and most of a second, delivered to numerous local convenience stores from a bottling plant on the town’s outskirts.
How to resolve the dispute over the South China Sea?
- Published on 12 September 2021
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I have read quite a few expert analyses of the dispute over the South China Sea. None of them even raise this question, let alone attempt to answer it. Isn’t it the responsibility of experts not only to analyze such disputes but also to search for means to resolve them? After all, world peace is at stake – perhaps even human survival, China and the United States both being nuclear powers.
Israeli teens refuse to join army
- Published on 08 September 2022
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Introduction from the Refuser Solidarity Network
| Conscientious objector Einat Gerlitz, 19, is currently serving a 7 day prison sentence for her refusal to enlist in the Israeli army and take part in the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. Two other conscientious objectors, Nave Shabtay Levin (18) and Evyatar Moshe Rubin (19), are currently imprisoned and another, Shahar Schwartz (18) is awaiting trial for the second time after he was jailed for 10 days. Below is Einat’s refusal statement. |
Hi,
My name is Einat Gerlitz, I am 19 years old, and I just completed one year of civil service. At the age of 16, when the enlisting process started and discussions turned to what would be a “meaningful army service”. I asked myself what a meaningful service might mean.
In high school I was a youth activist on issues of climate change, and through this activism I met youth from all over Israel. I met Palestinian youth from Sakhnin, and together we thought about the future of our generation in the reality of the climate crisis. Through my connection with them I learned about the experience of Palestinians who live in Israel and that encouraged me to learn about the hard life of Palestinians who are under Israeli occupation. I knew there is a violent regime in the west bank, but I did not know how that statement translated into an everyday reality. The acquaintance with the Palestinian activists led me to start asking questions and to wonder about the connection between serving in the Israeli army and the violent regime of the occupation.
I wondered how I could work in solidarity with Palestinians, while at the same time being part of the army that violently controls them. As time went by, I was exposed to the hidden realities of the occupation. To the reality of hundreds of children being arrested by the army every year, and by the effect of these arrests on the children’s future; the reality of soldiers who prevent Palestinians from accessing their land and limit their ability to earn a living; the reality of the support that the army gives settlers’ violence against Palestinians. I realized that to serve in the army is a political choice, and I chose to refuse.
My friends say that serving in the army is a lifetime opportunity. But I think that the act of refusing is my chance to use my privilege as an Israeli Jew in order to actively change our cruel reality. This reality hides behind the one-sided Zionist narrative that we learned. The generations before built the nation not on empty lands but on top of Palestinians who lived there before. We are not better than the Palestinians. They deserve the same basic democratic rights, the same independence, the same access to water, freedom of movement, education, and a secure life.
Therefore, I choose to refuse to take part of an army that control the Palestinian people and deprive them of their freedom.
In my act of refusal, I take responsibility for the society I live in. I want to live in a society whose people do not surrender to silencing. I want to live in society that knows how to acknowledge the experiences of different people even if it destabilizes its official narrative.
I call on my age group to open their eyes and ask questions – does violent control over civilian population can bring security? Do not weapons and violence increase hatred and desire for revenge? Who would you be if you grew up with the threat of guns and with nightly searching operations in your neighborhood? I refuse because I want to remind you that there are children living there, on the other side of the wall. Children like you and like me.
In solidarity
Einat
See also here: Oren Ziv, ‘Refusing is the minimum’: Why these Israeli teens are objecting to army service, +972, September 2, 2022 (https://www.972mag.com/four-conscientious-objectors-israel-army/)
Afghanistan: revolutionary women on the Taliban takeover
- Published on 21 August 2021
- Hits: 1633
Below I repost a statement in response to the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan from the website of the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). It highlights aspects of the current situation ignored by the Western mass media.
