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#Post#: 1205--------------------------------------------------
Bessie had a message for me. Bessie was speaking through her
silence, through her loneliness, through her confusion and
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: July 28, 2023, 6:26 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
July 27, 2023 by EDWIN LEAP
[center][glow=teal,2,300]😇 Bessie's[/glow] Life had
[glow=teal,2,300]🕊️ Meaning
☝🏻[/glow]
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422145344-560693.png[/center]
[center]A reminder for us all[/center]
Bessie, some three score and ten years old, lay on the backboard
motionless. Her old, gray head was surrounded by great orange
blocks of foam; her neck encased in a hard plastic collar.
Straps criss-crossed her body, as if she might make some
miraculous attempt to escape. As if we strapped her body down
so it wouldn’t float away, though she was already floating, I
suspect. Oxygen passed into her lungs from the tube that
protruded from her dry mouth.
She was found slumped in the floor of her nursing home. God
bless those paramedics, whose skill revived her dying heart and
who, with strong hands bound her top to bottom for her ride to
the emergency room. They snatched her from something; from
death a while, from life a while. But she arrived and she was
ours.
Standard stuff. No one knows quite what happened. But we knew
a few things. She did not breath. She did not wince from any
pain. She did not startle with any sound. And she appeared as
old as Methuselah. Older than her years. ‘Older than her stated
age,’ as we delicately say in medical charts.
I did have some information. She was a long-time resident of a
local assisted living center. She was profoundly retarded and
always had been. She was blind. And all she would do was suck
her fingers and try to sing some hymns. Maybe she mumbled
‘Amazing Grace’, or ‘On Christ The Solid Rock’, slurring words
and verses, annoying some passersby, inspiring others.
It suddenly seemed so easy! She had a cardiac arrest. She was
probably a ‘no code’. She was going to die with no one around.
The nursing home would tell me, ‘she has no family. Some old
friends stop by sometimes, but no one checks on her. Do what
you think is best’. All so easy.
Until they gave me that cussed (two syllables, please) phone
number, and told me she was a ‘full code.’ No one had ever
filled out the ‘blessed’ paperwork for this little old lady.
Fine. I called her sister. I expected more ease. ‘No, I’m her
only family. I don’t want you to do anything. I can’t come
over. Just call me when she passes’.
But to her credit, Bessie would not leave me alone. Bessie had
a message for me. Bessie was speaking through her silence,
through her loneliness, through her confusion and into my busy
day. Bessie was standing with one food in heaven’s gate,
looking back and talking to me. And laughing! What her sister
actually said was, ‘I’ll come right over. I’m calling her other
sister, her brothers and her nieces. We’ll be there as soon as
we can.’
And they filed in, slowly, until they were all there. All of
her siblings were older. All of them seemed weary, like this
was just one more piece of sadness in a long sad story. Any of
them could have been lying on that backboard that day. But they
sat in assorted chairs and touched one another. Their eyes
swollen and red, tears on their sagging, age lined faces. They
sat there and looked at her. They looked at her like she
mattered.
I told them the score. What I knew, by the time they arrived,
was this: she appeared to be having a large MI, or heart attack.
But she also had experienced a large cerebral hemorrhage and
her brain was already ‘herniating’; it was being pushed down
through the base of her skull where her spinal cord and blood
vessels traveled. This was a death sentence. I wondered in
physician fashion, ‘is it really an MI, or are the EKG changes
from her brain bleed? Or did she have an arrhythmia and then
fall, hitting her head?’ And then I thought, ‘who really
cares?’ Her family certainly couldn’t have cared less about
the fascinating cause and effect of medical science, that thing
that makes doctors call terrible events ‘interesting’. I really
didn’t care either. It’s hard to care about things you can’t
change. I knew what had to be done. I knew I would be her
doctor, start to finish.
We took her off of the backboard. I told her people everything.
I told them she was going to die as soon as we stopped breathing
for her. They understood and waited for everyone to arrive.
They told me she was their baby sister. They said it like they
remembered how precious she was, simplicity, drooling, singing
and all. They said it like she was worthwhile. They all wanted
to be with their old baby sister and hold her hand as she fell
asleep the last time.
Finally, it was time to put an end to the futile. With all her
local kin at the bedside, I deflated that cuff and pulled out
that tube and we put a little oxygen over her face and watched.
Tuned in to modern medical drama, her brothers and sisters and
nieces and nephews watched the green blip of the monitor until I
turned it off. People have watched death far longer than there
have been heart monitors. None of us needed to see the
plummeting oxygen saturations or the transformation of heart
beats into flat lines.
Bessie never drew another breath. Some three or four hours
after she arrived, we let her walk on through the door to glory,
where the hymns’ final verses are all written down. She walked
through smiling, blowing kisses at her family. Baby sister, all
grown up at last. She walked from confused infirmity into
forever perfection, waiting and hoping for them all to come to
her in due time.
At least that’s what I believe. I think it’s what they
believed. She left behind a place where some might have
considered her pathetic, her life meaningless. But in her years
of hymns mumbled in the dark of her blindness, she focused the
love of a family into rare clarity, and helped to teach us that
what is worthless to some is a treasure to others.
[glow=teal,2,300]She[/glow] sang as she looked back, sang in a
clear voice, eyes clear. Maybe that last verse of
‘[glow=teal,2,300]Amazing Grace[/glow]’, ‘When we’ve been there
ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun…’.
And we covered her old house in plastic and went our separate
ways.
HTML https://open.substack.com/pub/edwinleap/p/bessies-life-had-meaning
AGelbert COMMENT:
--- Quote ---
> "She walked through smiling, blowing kisses at her family.
Baby sister, all grown up at last. She walked from confused
infirmity into forever perfection, waiting and hoping for them
all to come to her in due time.
>
> At least that’s what I believe."
--- End Quote ---
I too firmly believe it with every fiber of my being.
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-100323192442-23112008.gif
[center]
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-230922131603.jpeg[/center]
--- Quote ---
> “Every event which might claim to be a miracle is, in the last
resort, something presented to our senses, something seen,
heard, touched, smelled, or tasted. And our senses are not
infallible. If anything extraordinary seems to have happened, we
can always say that we have been the victims of an illusion. If
we hold a philosophy which excludes the supernatural, this is
what we always shall say.
>
> What we learn from experience depends on the kind of
philosophy we bring to experience.”[glow=teal,2,300] C.S.
Lewis[/glow]
--- End Quote ---
[center]
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-170422173132-7871023.png[/center]
#Post#: 1212--------------------------------------------------
😬 On their tenth day at sea, the four stowaways ran out
of food and drink.
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: August 2, 2023, 12:22 pm
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HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-180822134328.png
August 1, 2023 Reuters
[center]Four Nigerians, Rescued
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422133034.gif<br
/>in Brazil, Survived 14 Days on a Ship’s Rudder
😲[/center]
[center]
HTML https://gcaptain.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/2023-08-01T110104Z_1289529942_RC24B2ANV2NV_RTRMADP_3_BRAZIL-MIGRANTS-1536x1024.jpg[/center]
Nigerian refugees Thankgod Matthew and Roman Ebimene pose for a
photo during an interview, after being rescued from a ship
rudder on the Brazilian coast, in Sao Paulo, Brazil July 26,
2023. REUTERS/Carla Carniel
SNIPPET:
AO PAULO, Aug 1 (Reuters) – On their tenth day at sea, the four
Nigerian stowaways crossing the Atlantic in a tiny space above
the rudder of a cargo ship ran out of food and drink.
They survived another four days, according to their account, by
drinking the sea water crashing just meters below them, before
being rescued by Brazilian federal police in the southeastern
port of Vitoria.
[center]
HTML https://gcaptain.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Brazilian-Federal-Police.jpg[/center]
Photo courtesy Brazilian Federal Police
Their remarkable, death-defying journey across some 5,600
kilometers (3,500 miles) of ocean underlines the risks some
migrants are prepared to take for a shot at a better life.
“It was a terrible experience for me,” said 38-year-old
[color=teal]Thankgod Opemipo Matthew Yeye
🕊️[/color], one of the four Nigerians, in an
interview at a Sao Paulo church shelter. “On board it is not
easy. I was shaking, so scared. But I’m here.”
Their relief at being rescued soon gave way to surprise.
Stowaways Rescued After 13 Days On Ship’s Rudder
HTML https://gcaptain.com/stowaways-rescued-after-13-days-on-ships-rudder/
The four men said they had hoped to reach Europe and were
shocked to learn they had in fact landed on the other side of
the Atlantic, in Brazil. Two of the men have since been returned
to Nigeria upon their request, while Yeye and Roman Ebimene
Friday, a 35-year-old from Bayelsa state, have applied for
asylum in Brazil.
“I pray the government of Brazil will have pity on me,” said
Friday, who had already attempted to flee Nigeria by ship once
before but was arrested by authorities there.
Both men said economic hardship, political instability and crime
had left them with little option but to abandon their native
Nigeria. Africa’s most populous country has longstanding issues
of violence and poverty, and kidnappings are endemic.
Yeye, a ☝🏻 [glow=blue,2,300]pentecostal
minister[/glow] 🕊️ from Lagos state, said his
peanut and palm oil farm was destroyed by floods this year,
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-110422141413-626465.png<br
/>leaving him and his family homeless. He hopes they can now
join
him in Brazil.
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-070422155202.jpeg
Full article:
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040422164613-5332481.jpeg
HTML https://gcaptain.com/four-nigerians-rescued-in-brazil-survived-14-days-on-a-ships-rudder/
#Post#: 1369--------------------------------------------------
Avoiding Violence
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: October 17, 2023, 3:11 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
October 17, 2023 by EDWIN LEAP
For those readers who follow me at the SC Baptist Courier, this
is my October column
HTML https://baptistcourier.com/2023/10/wholly-healthy-avoiding-violence/.<br
/>I thought it was worth sharing widely.
[center]Avoiding [glow=red,2,300]Violence[/glow][/center]
[move][size=18pt]Suggestions for
[glow=teal,2,300]navigating[/glow] a
[glow=red,2,300]dangerous[/glow] world[/move]
Over the years I have seen treated many individuals who had been
involved in violence. Most had violence inflicted upon them. But
it was not uncommon for me to meet the alleged perpetrators, who
sat on the ER stretcher in handcuffs.
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-070822230414-163943.png
Unfortunately, in these contentious times violence is not rare.
So it’s probably good for us all to think about ways to avoid
being involved in dangerous interactions. This is especially
true for young men, who seem to find themselves in these
situations more than other groups.
When my sons were young I gave them one of the most important
bits of wisdom I could think of when it came to dealing with
possible violence. “Boys, learn
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-110422205132-6472099.gif<br
/>to keep your mouths shut.”
That is, don’t provoke angry, potentially dangerous people
(particularly other men) and don’t give them reasons to stay
angry. It’s all too easy to face off with another man and say,
‘oh, yeah, and what are you gonna do about it?’ Or ‘do you have
a problem? Let’s take this outside!’
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-310323152852.png
Things like 💣 [glow=red,2,300]that[/glow] might feel
empowering in the moment but in the end, one never knows when
💥 a gun or knife will appear, or when the unarmed
individual turns out to be a dangerous person who has no
restraint. (Or when all of his friends decide to join in the
assault.)
By the way, it doesn’t take a weapon to create life-altering
injuries. It’s not like the movies where everyone squares off
and has a fair fight. There are no fair fights in the end.
The other thing I would say to a young man now is that it’s
always best, when misunderstandings and
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422135315.png<br
/>anger [glow=red,2,300]arise[/glow], to simply say ‘hey, I’m
sorry, I didn’t mean anything,’ or ‘I apologize if I insulted
you.’ 🕊️
Along the same lines, road rage incidents can lead to terrible
injuries or death. It’s really wise to learn not to honk, make
hand gestures, scream or try to speed past others or cut them
off. We can never know which person is simply annoyed and which
is fleeing from the police; who is using drugs and who is simply
late for work. And the potential danger to uninvolved bystanders
is a very real threat, as cars crash into other cars or
pedestrians.
Another reality of violence, little discussed, is that alcohol
is associated with half of all
[glow=maroon,2,300]violence[/glow] (including half of
☠️ [glow=red,2,300]murders[/glow]) worldwide.
People who are intoxicated are disinhibited and more prone to
violence.
There’s a lot written on this topic, but I’ll close with this.
When trouble is brewing, at a party or even on a city street,
the best possible path is to find a safe exit and leave the
area. Call the police along the way. But staying to watch, and
film, the ‘festivities’ is dangerous. Bullets don’t care who is
in their path. This is even more true when a man is responsible
for the safety of his wife, girlfriend, a date or a child.
I’ve seen people [glow=maroon,2,300]die[/glow] of violent
injuries and it’s always a horrible thing, between the wounds,
the blood and the weeping of family members. The less of it we
all experience, the better.
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-110822211615-18511577.gif
PS: For further reading, The Gift of Fear,
HTML https://www.amazon.com/Gift-Fear-Survival-Signals-Violence/dp/B09LVT7W18/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2A0I4URF5TX1R&keywords=gift+of+fear&qid=1697570115&sprefix=gift+of+fe%2Caps%2C154&sr=8-1<br
/>by Gavin De Becker, is an interesting book on learning to
identify dangerous people and behaviors.
HTML https://edwinleap.substack.com/p/avoiding-violence
AGelbert COMMENT: Well said. I believe that almost ALL later
regreted negative verbalizations by humans, that trigger more
violence instead of calming things down, are caused by Pride
overcoming common sense and reason, within both the victim and
the perpetrator of physically injurious violence.
[glow=blue,2,300]C.S. Lewis[/glow] 🕊️ wrote, and
I agree, that
--- Quote ---
> "... it is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in
every nation and every family since the world began. Other vices
may sometimes bring people together: you may find good
fellowship and jokes and friendliness among drunken people or
unchaste people. But Pride always means enmity—it is enmity. And
not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God."
--- End Quote ---
-- Quote from Mere Christianity
HTML https://www.dacc.edu/assets/pdfs/PCM/merechristianitylewis.pdf<br
/>by C. S. Lewis.
[center]Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit
before a fall. -- Proverbs 16:18
HTML https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs%2016%3A18&version=KJV[/center]
[center]What the ☝🏻 Bible REALLY Says About
Alcohol[/center]
[center]
HTML https://youtu.be/MRpA4njHF64[/center]
#Post#: 1615--------------------------------------------------
Creativity 🕯️ Still Shines Amid a
☠️🥵 Genocide
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: January 10, 2024, 12:01 am
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-221223123856-2623900.png
21 December 2023 by [glow=blue,2,300]🕊️ Wedad
Jalal Yousef Al-Hallaq[/glow]
[center]Creativity
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-261123133256.gif<br
/>Still Shines Amid a
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422182057.gif<br
/>
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-310822143514.png<br
/>[glow=maroon,2,300]Genocide[/glow] [/center]
[center][img
width=640]
HTML https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2023-12/171223_nusairat_pt_1_0018.jpg?itok=cxrbYNt6×tamp=1703172534[/img][/center]
People are doing their best to continue with their daily lives.
Bashar TalebAPA images
I never imagined the [glow=maroon,2,300]horrible
situation[/glow] in which we find ourselves.
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-110422141413-627726.png
We cannot enjoy the sunrise because of the bombings and the
destruction.
Basic necessities like food, water and electricity are in short
supply. Crossings through which goods are supposed to flow have
been closed.
For two and a half months, Israel has been waging a genocidal
war against us. Our living conditions are miserable.
Yet we remain creative in the face of adversity.
I heard my father say to my mother, “Did the electricity come
back? We need it to make bread.”
“Sorry, it didn’t,” my mother replied.
Here is where my father’s creativity shone.
Our pressure cooker usually needs electricity to function. But
my dad transformed it so that it could run on coal.
He was fully aware that coal can be harmful, especially for
people like my mother, who has health issues. But we have to be
flexible so that we can survive.
What choice do we have? 🤷‍♂️ We just
want to live.
Baking bread should only take about an hour. Now it takes four
or five hours.
Everyone involved in the process gets a back ache.
My brothers Younes and Nader travel long distances to schools
and hospitals so that they can fetch water.
Unfortunately, some children end up drinking polluted water,
which makes them ill.
People living in makeshift tents endure harsh conditions,
especially when it rains.
Making
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040422164520-5301778.gif<br
/>coffee with a [size=18pt]🕯️ candle[/size]
👍
I have heard about a man who did not have any food for his
children. What did he do?
He slaughtered a donkey, so they could have some meat. It is the
worst crisis this man has ever faced, watching his children go
hungry without being able to do anything for them.
During these wintry nights, my family gathers around a
🕯️ candle. Lighting a fire is not an option.
There is a concern that Israel might mistake any fire as a
resistance operation and bomb the home where the fire has been
lit.
Despite our fears, my family has shown some ingenuity in
ensuring that we have hot drinks at night.
My brother came up with the idea of breaking a candle and
placing it in a dish. We then put a coffee maker on top of the
dish.
This is how we warm our hearts.
We miss sleeping peacefully in our own beds. Instead, we now use
blankets provided by refugee agencies.
Two of us share the same bed. It is a challenging situation but
we will never give up.
Never!
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040622202629-14022441.gif
Most vegetables are unavailable in shops. So we have bought
seeds and are trying to grow our own food.
We have waited weeks for it to 🌱 grow. How can we cope
with the 😦 uncertainty?
I was taken aback when I saw a man picking up some dough from
the remains of a house that had been bombed.
“What are you doing?” someone asked him.
“I am taking the dough for my family,” he said.
[glow=teal,2,300]Honor[/glow]
We are exhausted. 😞
Yes, we are resilient. But we cannot endure seeing our families
starve to death.
My sister-in-law is pregnant and she really wants sweets. Sadly,
there are none in the markets.
I have made her some, using sugar, water and sesame.
I crave cheese. The shops have none of it, either.
Thankfully, my grandmother made some at home. It was delicious.
Despite our misery, we are still alive. If we die, it will be
with honor.
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422133908.gif
This horrible war causes particular health problems for women.
😟
Sanitary pads are unavailable, so we use diapers – for babies –
as a substitute. Others cut pieces of cloth from tents.
These are the kind of makeshift solutions we have to find. It is
an extraordinarily difficult and tragic situation.
Can you empathize with our plight?
We encountered major hardships previously.
During Israel’s war against Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009,
our family also gathered around a 🕯️ candle.
We couldn’t find a sewing machine then, so we 🤠 designed
one using bicycle wheels. That’s how we knitted clothes.
Gazans often invent remarkable things from practically nothing
as we strive to stay alive.
It feels like Israel aims to wipe us out. Please do not turn
your eyes away from the [glow=maroon,2,300]horrors[/glow] we are
going through. 🥺
Israel [glow=maroon,2,300]massacres [/glow]and humiliates us and
demolishes our homes. But Gazans will never lose. 🗽
Clever people will emerge victorious, leaving the entire world
astonished.
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422133332.gif
Wedad Jalal Yousef Al-Hallaq is a teacher in Gaza.
HTML https://electronicintifada.net/content/creativity-still-shines-amid-genocide/43046
#Post#: 1851--------------------------------------------------
Children are starving 🥵 at the fastest rate the world
has ever known. 😱 😡
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: March 8, 2024, 12:48 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-020224131328.png[/center]
[center]
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-080422121109.gif[/center]
COUNTERPUNCH
MARCH 8, 2024 BY RALPH NADER
[center]
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422133654.gif<br
/>Stop the Worsening UNDERCOUNT of Palestinian
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-310822143514.png<br
/>Casualties in Gaza[/center]
[center]
HTML https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/nikolas-gannon-wlAzDbfVSIg-unsplash-1536x1152.jpg[/center]
Image by Nikolas Gannon.
SNIPPETS:
The extreme right-wing Netanyahu regime has enforced its
declared siege of, in its genocidal words, “no food, no water,
no electricity, no fuel, no medicine.”
The relentless bombing has destroyed apartment buildings,
marketplaces, refugee camps, hospitals, clinics, ambulances,
bakeries, schools, mosques, churches, roads, electricity
networks, critical water mains – just about everything.
The U.S.-equipped Israeli war machine has even uprooted
agricultural fields, including thousands of olive trees on one
farm, bulldozed many cemeteries and bombed civilians fleeing on
Israeli orders, while obstructing the few trucks carrying
humanitarian aid from Egypt.
With virtually no healthcare left, no medications, and
infectious diseases spreading especially among infants,
children, the infirm and the elderly, can anybody believe that
the fatalities have just gone over 30,000? With five thousand
babies born every month into the rubble, their mothers wounded
and without food, healthcare, medicine and clean water for any
of their children, severe skepticism about the Hamas Health
Ministry’s official count is warranted. ... ...
In recent days, the situation has become more dire. In the March
2, 2024, Washington Post, reporter, Ishaan Tharoor writes: “The
bulk of Gaza’s more than 2 million people face the prospect of
famine — a state of affairs that constitutes the fastest decline
in a population’s nutrition status ever recorded, according to
aid workers. Children are [glow=red,2,300]starving[/glow]
🥵 at the [glow=maroon,2,300]fastest[/glow] rate the
world has ever known. 😱 ... ...
Just like the entire mass media, many governments, even the
independent media and critics of the war would have us accept
that between 98% and 99% of Gaza’s entire population has
survived – albeit the sick, injured and more Palestinians about
to die. This is lethally improbable!
From accounts of people on the ground, videos and photographs of
deadly episode after episode, plus the resultant mortalities
from blocking or smashing the crucial necessities of life, a
more likely estimate, in my appraisal, is that at least
[glow=red,2,300] 200,000
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-310822143514.png<br
/>Palestinians[/glow] must have perished by now and the toll is
[glow=red,2,300]accelerating[/glow] by the hour.
Full article: 🕯️😵
HTML https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/03/08/stop-the-worsening-undercount-of-palestinian-casualties-in-gaza/
#Post#: 2011--------------------------------------------------
My 4-year-old started stashing away bread in his pocket for
later. I was shocked.
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: May 3, 2024, 12:36 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-221223123856-2623900.png
3 May 2024 By 🕯️ Malak Hijazi
[center]
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-100124125138.png[img<br
/>width=354]
HTML https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2024-05/schoolrefugerafah.jpeg?itok=1WT-ZQZG×tamp=1714678114[/img][/center]
[move]😬 🥺 😦 😞 😖
😵 😱 🥵 In Gaza’s overcrowded schools,
there is little privacy or hygiene for displaced people. Here,
women pray in Rafah. Ahmed IbrahimAPA images[/move]
[center]
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-010723181622.png<br
/>Gaza’s mothers are going through
[glow=maroon,2,300]hell[/glow]
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422145352-5611428.gif[/center]
SNIPPET:
Um Amin, a mother with a few children, confronted with the harsh
reality of displacement, recounted her family’s struggles during
Israel’s aggression. As bombs relentlessly fell on their
neighborhood, reducing their home to rubble, Um Amin had to seek
refuge at a school run by the UN agency for Palestine refugees
(UNRWA) in the northern Gaza Strip taking only very few
belongings.
She was pregnant. And in the school there was little by way of
basic necessities such as clean water, food or even clothes for
her children.
Stay or go?
She considered moving south, where food might be a little more
accessible. Her husband refused, causing conflict between them.
He feared not being able to return. And while she believed that
the Israeli army was attempting to force them to leave, she also
felt it was a matter of life and death for her children.
“It was heart-wrenching to witness my kids fighting over scraps
of bread. My 4-year-old started stashing away bread in his
pocket for later. I was shocked. Before the war, I never slept
without knowing my children were fed. Now, most of the time, I
am certain they never feel satisfied.”
Her entire motivation to carry on became a matter of feeding her
children She denied herself food for their sake, but had also to
remind herself of the child within her.
“The baby inside me is also a priority, so I had to eat too.”
She found the balancing act incredibly challenging, an
unbearable burden of motherhood.
“I am going to share something I’ve never told anyone I know: I
contemplated suicide to escape the weight of this
responsibility.”
After the Israeli army unexpectedly stormed al-Rimal, a Gaza
City neighborhood, for a second time, Um Amin panicked and fled
again, this time going from the UNRWA school to a relative’s
house.
But her fear caused her to enter preterm labor. A doctor, at the
nearby al-Sahaba medical center, had to resort to a cesarean
section.
It was hell, Um Amin said. There was insufficient anesthesia and
she could feel the scalpel cutting 🥵 into her body.
There was no electricity; the doctor had to use a handheld
flashlight to see.
[move]Um Amin’s cries of pain could not drown out the
[glow=red,2,300]
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/>
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422182057.gif<br
/>
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-310822143514.png<br
/>crashing of shells[/glow] around her.
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-100323192454-23192252.gif[/move]
The operation left her utterly drained. She couldn’t believe she
was still alive.
She needed nourishment to recover what she had lost during the
bleeding and to breastfeed her son. But hunger was stalking
Gaza.
Food was scarce, there was no white flour in the markets, and
Israel was blocking aid trucks from entering the north.
“All I had to eat was bread made from animal feed and water.
When I had my other children, I relied on foods rich in animal
proteins, but it was impossible this time. The price of meat was
five times higher than normal.”
The
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-150224164602.png<br
/>[glow=red,2,300]stone[/glow] age
Read more:
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-201222142942.png
HTML https://electronicintifada.net/content/gazas-mothers-are-going-through-hell/46111
[center]
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-110822205742-1802655.jpeg[/center]
#Post#: 2525--------------------------------------------------
"In real life, nothing is ever exceptionally morally
complex. Contrary to colonial thinking, morality is simple,
..."
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: October 31, 2024, 9:14 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
👉 Graphics and emojies by AGelbert. 👈
[center]
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[center]
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-100124125138.png[/center]
[center]
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/2881-7754-Childfuneral.png[/center]
[center]
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/2881-8798-GazaBeforeAfter.png[/center]
October 30, 2024 By [glow=blue,2,300]🕯️🗽
Alon Mizrahi[/glow]
[center]A Time of [glow=blue,2,300]Piercing, Absolute
Truths[/glow][/center]
SNIPPETS:
You see, it becomes very simple once you deconstruct fake
complexity, created and constantly fueled by media outlets and
political structures that benefit from the status quo, namely
all the ills stated above.
In real life, nothing is ever exceptionally morally complex.
Contrary to colonial thinking, morality is simple, intuitive,
and clear. You do not molest and abuse children (or anyone). You
do not harm innocent people. You do not use authority
unethically. You do not sit comfortably in public transportation
when someone who needs a seat more than you do can’t find a
place to sit.
You never act, with people of any group, like they are less
human than you or your group. If you do, you deserve to be
shunned and punished by the rest of humanity. It is exceedingly
simple.
So once you understand what’s going on, and what basic
principles of humanity and morality have been breached, all you
have to do as a political being, is to make your voice and
judgment heard. And the greater the breach of humanity, the
louder and more fierce your voice should be, as the outcry needs
to match the [glow=red,2,300]severity[/glow] of the
[glow=red,2,300]crime[/glow]. It is not complicated at all.
[glow=red,2,300]Israel is mass
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-310822143514.png<br
/>murdering[/glow] the 🥵 Palestinian and 🥵
Lebanese people because it is a [glow=red,2,300]sick, demented,
psychopathic society[/glow].
The [glow=red,2,300]US is helping Israel[/glow] because it is
willing to sacrifice Palestinian children for its
[glow=red,2,300][b]deranged[/glow]
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-231122131214.gif<br
/>quest for 🦍 world domination and because it is
occupied
by
[glow=red,2,300]
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-120422122619-6812456.gif<br
/>Zionists[/glow][/b]. Period. It is all as simple as that.
There is no need to argue, no need to engage. We only need to
make this truth heard everywhere, all the time, unequivocally,
unapologetically, without any regard for acceptable norms and
narratives.
Be a
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040622202540-1395150.gif<br
/>[glow=limegreen,2,300]fanatic[/glow] for children and
humanity.
Yes. If you can’t do that, go to [glow=red,2,300]hell[/glow]. I
have nothing to say to you, and there is nothing you have to say
to me.
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-090422150144.png
Read more:
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422133654.gifhttps://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-120422122257-657398.png
HTML https://alonmizrahi.substack.com/p/a-time-of-piercing-absolute-truths
[center]
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-010422145028.jpeg[/center]
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