First independent survey of deaths in Gaza reports more than 80,000 fatalities Results align with other efforts to count the number of people killed amid the ongoing conflict.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...?

Earth’s 10 Hottest Years on Record Are the Last 10 A report from the World Meteorological Organization confirms that 2024 was the hottest year on record and the first year to be more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial era.

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/c...?

Mahmoud Khalil’s Letter from ICE Detention Mahmoud Khalil—a peace protestor who has committed no crime—has written a thoughtful, analytically sound, morally wrenching letter from ICE detention.

www.un-diplomatic.com/p/mahmoud-kh...

YouTube video by 日本相撲協会公式チャンネル 大相撲　髙安ー宇良　＜令和7年一月場所・四日目＞SUMO

Day 4 of the January tournament ＃正月場所: Maegashira 4 Ura ＃宇良 defeats Maegashira 6 Takayasu ＃髙安 with the rare technique tsutaezori 伝え反り. #大相撲　youtu.be/LjIJnrxfInI?...

Had they and their many comrades in the continuing struggle for freedom and equality come along even five or ten years later, I wonder whether I now might be spending my free evenings walking around with a sheet draped over my head. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart!

Sixty-five years ago today - and six months before I was born. Perhaps just in the nick of time for me. I feel deeply indebted to these true American heroes, Messrs. Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Jibreel Khazan, and David Richmond.

The Greensboro sit-ins began 65 years ago today.

Happy reading in 2025 everyone and, if you find yourself in NYC, let's get together! 😁

For non-fiction, I recommend Rashid Khalidi's The Hundred Years' War on Palestine, Rodrigo Nuñes' Neither Vertical Nor Horizontal - A Theory of Political Organization, and Ajay Singh Chaudhary's The Exhausted of the Earth - Politics in a Burning World. @materialistjew.bsky.social

For fiction, I particularly recommend NoViolet Bulawayo's We Need New Names, George Saunders' A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, @fjmozley.bsky.social 's Elmet, Ursula LeGuin's The Dispossessed (finally!) and Sunjeev Sahota's The Year of the Runaways.

I read 26 works of fiction, 14 of non-fiction, 15 issues of The New Yorker @newyorker.com, 11 of the New York Review of Books @nybooks.com, seven of Science @science.org, four of the Atlantic @theatlantic.com and one each of Harper's and New York Magazine.

One of my New Year's resolutions for 2024 was to read _less_ (and get together with friends face-to-face _more_). In that I succeeded.

Climb aboard the SS United States before it takes its final voyage The SS United States, a record-breaking American ocean liner from the 1950s, will take its final voyage from Philadelphia to the Gulf of Mexico this week.

www.npr.org/2024/11/11/n... #USA #FinalVoyage #Inauguration

Really great! :)

I hope you will read the articles I have shared, reflect upon them and share your own views not only through social media, but in one-on-one conversations with your family, friends and neighbors. That's the next step for me.

This must end. So long as the genocide in Gaza continues, I have, and I believe every U.S. citizen has, a moral obligation to oppose further arms shipments and all other forms of aid to Israel.

Israeli Air Force - Wikipedia

Every single warplane bombing the men, women and children of Gaza is of U.S. origin.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli...

The U.S. has provided at least $22 billion in weapons to Israel since October 7, 2023. Sixty-nine percent or more of Israel's arms purchases are from the U.S.

www.israelhayom.com/2025/01/01/r...

www.cnn.com/2024/10/16/m...

I am, however, complicit in my country's facilitation of Israeli war crimes, in that I have failed to stop my government from providing Israel with the weapons it is using to commit those crimes, as well as other forms of support.

Netanyahu: Money to Hamas part of strategy to keep Palestinians divided “Now that we are supervising, we know it’s going to humanitarian causes,” the source said, paraphrasing Netanyahu.

(Netanyahu, on the other hand, is.)

www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli...

I do not, of course, deny that Hamas's murder and kidnapping of civilians on October 7 was also a war crime, for which the responsible individuals should be prosecuted. Being a U.S. citizen though, I'm not complicit in funding or arming Hamas.

They have been charged with "the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts."

www.icc-cpi.int/taxonomy/ter...

Given the foregoing, I cannot avoid concluding that Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant - and probably a great many others - should indeed be arrested and tried before the International Criminal Court.

Former defense minister Ya'alon: 'We are being dragged into ethnic cleansing in Gaza' Ya'alon said a majority of Israelis don't want annexation in Gaza but rather separation and blamed the government for dragging the public down a path it doesn't favor.

I agree with Moshe Ya'alon, who was in the IDF for 37 years and was _formerly_Defence_Minister_under_Netanyahu_, that Israel is engaged in "ethnic cleansing" "right now" in Gaza, and that the IDF is "perpetrating war crimes."

www.jpost.com/israel-news/...
www.nytimes.com/2024/12/01/w...

Intentionally using starvation as a weapon of war is a war crime. As the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem has shown in great detail, that is precisely what Israel is doing, as evidenced, inter alia, by the public statements of numerous Israeli officials.

www.btselem.org/sites/defaul...

Is Israel Committing Genocide? | Aryeh Neier I have been engaged for six decades in the human rights movement, which has endeavored to restore peace by enforcing International Humanitarian Law. Can the law bring a measure of justice to the victi...

Like Aryeh Nyer, co-founder/former Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, I'm "persuaded that Israel is engaged in genocide against Palestinians in Gaza" because of its "sustained policy of obstructing the movement of humanitarian assistance into the territory."

www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

As a former IDF soldier and historian of genocide, I was deeply disturbed by my recent visit to Israel The long read: This summer, one of my lectures was protested by far-right students. Their rhetoric brought to mind some of the darkest moments of 20th-century history – and overlapped with mainstream ...

I agree with former IDF soldier and historian of genocide Omer Bartov that it is "no longer possible to deny that Israel [is] engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions."

www.theguardian.com/world/articl...

It isn't much but I suppose one must begin by speaking out. That is something I have thus far failed to do, despite knowing that I should. It's past time to remedy that.

It is difficult to be optimistic about the future of the Palestinian people. It is even more difficult to figure out what one can do to make a difference, particularly given the sorts of policies that the incoming U.S. administration is almost certain to adopt.