Human Rights
Two years ago this month, the US State Department did the unthinkable. It has fired Devin Brooks, a security specialist who worked as an armed protection officer at the State Department. The reason? He grew a beard in compliance with his Islamic faith. His supervisors disregarded his Islamic beliefs and ordered him to shave. After he was left with no choice, he was forced to shave his beard. Subsequently, Brooks was fired. That is preposterous! Brooks then contacted the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for help. CAIR sued the State Department on his behalf.
LOS ANGELES (May 12, 2025) Housing advocates from AHF’s Housing Is A Human Right (HHR) division and National Coalition for the Homeless blasted California Governor Gavin Newsom for his call earlier today on cities and towns across the state to ban homeless encampments —criminalizing many of their unhoused occupants in the process.
After two terms in office and despite allocating $24 billion in state funding to address the homeless crisis, Governor Newsom has little to nothing to show that he has meaningfully addressed homelessness in California. Worse, state officials under his watch cannot even account for how the $24 billion may have been spent.
As Trump and friends claim control over the country, celebrating their war on migrants – “the enemy” of the moment, whom they’ve created and dehumanized – much of America writhes in shock and irony as it looks on.
The president who hates criminals is also our criminal-in-chief. But fortunately (for him), he’s above the law! Court rulings don’t apply to him – not when he’s busy keeping America safe from the boogeymen. To be an exalted leader, you need to keep a serious percentage of the populace in a state of simple-minded fear: The enemy are very, very bad people. They belong to gangs. They eat our pets. But I will protect you.
I’ll reopen Guantanamo. I’ll reopen Alcatraz. And the electorate can sigh with a sense of relief and safety. He’s bringing back our greatness – that is to say, our racist certainty. He’s recreating a country that real Americans can understand . . . one that’s like them.
"Rights are granted to those who align with power," Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student, eloquently wrote from his cell. This poignant statement came soon after a judge ruled that the government had met the legal threshold to deport the young activist on the nebulous ground of "foreign policy".
“We are Here to awaken from our Illusion of Separateness” Thich Nhat Hanh
[I have not posted much last week as I was traveling in protected areas in
Jordan to learn and collaborate on issues of conservation. Please excuse
the length of this but you can open links you like]
All Palestinian are saddened by the death of Pope Francis. He spoke
repeatedly against the ongoing genocide and destructionof our people and wa
attaked for this by te Zionist movement. He kept touch with the church
inGaza regularly even from his hospital bed. He cared for people regardless
of their religion and made peace a key feature of his tenure. He built
respectful and good relations between people of all faiths in a time when
right wing white fascists are taking control of governments around the
world (Orban, Netanyahu, Trump etc). We at Bethlehem University are also
especially sad because of the fact that this university was established by
the Vatican to serve the Palestinian people in 1973.
On Palm Sunday Israel bombed a church run hospital with U weapons amd US
taxpayer money. Western media was silent and money for the aparheid
My rewrite of the famous quote by Lord Palmerston regarding “interests” to have it reflect the reality of Israel and its powerful friends would go something like this: “I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that Israel is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual friend of the United States and of enlightened western values. By design, Israel has no eternal allies. Its interests are indeed perpetual but center on its own success at aggressively portraying itself always as the victim while also advancing its own tribal interests.” I admittedly tend to think often about the enemy we of the western Christian tradition have been nurturing at our breast for decades in a spirit of tolerance, a viper that is only setting out to corrupt and then destroy us, manifest particularly at this time of year, when the life and death of Jesus Christ ought to be rightly celebrated. Alas, in today’s Israel what is truly remarkable is the government’s open suppression of Christian identity and worship without any complaint coming from Washington or from the other nominally Christian nations of Europe.
