Op-Ed

The six Arab scientists who were mysteriously murdered

Dr. Samia Abdel Rahim Maimani was Saudi Arabia’s first female neurosurgeon. She was ambitious to serve as a neurosurgeon as her father had died from a skull fracture that resulted from a car accident. Her greatest achievement was finding a procedure that helps in accessing the brain without the bone flap being removed. Samia was born in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on August 8, 1955. She enrolled in the College of Medicine at King Faisal University, after being affected by the tragic death of her father, Abdul Rahim Maimani. However, she faced other scientific challenges, as there are no advanced studies in neurosurgery in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Later, she attended the renowned Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in the United States. The University has a research center that provides rigorous clinical training and cutting-edge research opportunities. During her study, she was able to achieve her goals and made astonishing scientific achievements and inventions in her field of study. The Saudi doctor obtained patents in several medical fields. The three inventions of Dr.

An open letter to Texas Senator Ted Cruz

Dear Senator Cruz, 

While millions of people across the world were marching to demand the end of the Gaza genocide, you were shaking hands with Crime Minister Netanyahu and busy criticizing a kid rapper at a foreign festival that we have never heard of in a country which is on the other side of the ocean since they dared to criticize a third country (Israel) that is thousands of miles away!

While your home state of Texas was going through a catastrophic flood where over 100 people were dead, injured, and missing, you were busy criticizing a rapper in the U.K. who dared to criticize a third country (Israel) for killing women and children every day during the last 20 months. How does that benefit the people of Texas?

How can an American Senator condone and defend Israel's genocide killing Palestinian civilians including children, babies and starve the rest... where are your American values gone?

(1) Facebook

Ayla, Buddha and Me: Yes, We Matter

Eye-yii-yii! I’m trying to tell myself that I’m still learning about life, not drifting into doesn’t-matterness. You know, asleep on the couch in the middle of the day.

Cataract surgery on my second eye (the rightie) was almost a week ago now and it went well. my vision seems slightly more enthusiastic. Biggest noticeable change: I can read captions on the TV screen without my glasses, which suddenly don’t help with that at all, though I still need them for ordinary reading.

What’s going on with my life right now feels larger than post-cataract-surgery recovery . . . so much larger that I don’t want to write about it, but feel I must do so because I want to write about something. As I cuddle myself at my sister’s kitchen table with this notebook, feeling lost and subjectless, I nonetheless sense a return of emotional energy – simply because I’m doing something . . . so I hope, so I pray . . . that matters.

When that sense vanishes from my life, what happens isn’t just an emotional crash. The crash I feel is also physical. I start losing the will to stay awake! This is a phenomenon I’ve never experienced before in my life, or read about anywhere.

There is nothing wrong with singing the National Anthem in Spanish

People get upset over the smallest, most inconsequential things in America. That is what happened last month when singer Nezza performed the US national anthem in Spanish at the Dodger Stadium. It was the same words but in a different language. Yes, the majority of people in the US speak English and we are supposed to be a melting pot of cultures. So, people should stop being butthurt over every single little thing and we will be all much happier. Nezza explained later that her decision to perform it in Spanish was a response to the current atmosphere in Los Angeles where recent ICE raids against immigrants and international students that have sparked public outcry and protests. Besides, it should be noted here that the Spanish-language version she performed was originally commissioned by the U.S. State Department in 1945 during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration. Nezza, who is a 30-year-old artist whose full name is Vanessa, sang the Spanish version on the field before the Dodgers faced the San Franciso Giants. I doubt if some of her critics would have freaked out had someone else performed the national anthem in German or Italian.

Let’s Get Child Labor off Our Dinner Plates

When deciding what to make for dinner, many of us think about how to balance making something affordable, delicious, and healthy. And we might consider ethical questions, like whether our food is locally sourced, our meat is humanely raised, or our meals have a low climate impact..

We probably don’t wonder whether child labor is involved. But unfortunately, that’s increasingly likely. In recent years, federal investigations have uncovered children working in dangerous conditions to create the food we eat.

'New Middle East': This is Netanyahu's Real Goal in the Region

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu persistently declares his ambition to "change the face of the Middle East". Yet, his repeated assertions seem to clash with the unfolding reality on the ground.

 Netanyahu's opportunistic relationship with language is now proving detrimental to his country. The Israeli leader undoubtedly grasps fundamental marketing principles, particularly the power of strong branding and consistent messaging. However, for any product to succeed over time, clever branding alone is insufficient; the product itself must live up to at least a minimum degree of expectation.

 Netanyahu's "product," however, has proven utterly defective, yet the 75-year-old Israeli Prime Minister stubbornly refuses to abandon his outdated marketing techniques.

 But what exactly is Netanyahu selling?

The Real Winners: The Strategic Fallout of the Israel-Iran War

On June 24, US President Donald Trump announced a truce between Israel and Iran following nearly two weeks of open warfare.

Israel began the war, launching a surprise offensive on June 13, with airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, missile installations, and senior military and scientific personnel, in addition to numerous civilian targets. 

In response, Iran launched a wave of ballistic missiles and drones deep into Israeli territory, triggering air raid sirens across Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Beersheba and numerous other locations, causing unprecedented destruction in the country. 

What began as a bilateral escalation quickly spiraled into something far more consequential: a direct confrontation between the United States and Iran.

On June 22, the United States Air Force and Navy carried out a full-scale assault on three Iranian nuclear sites—Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan—in a coordinated strike dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer. Seven B-2 bombers of the 509th Bomb Wing allegedly flew nonstop from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri to deliver the strikes. 

Some Nations Become Concentration Camps — And Stay That Way

The belief that all people are equal and want peace is comforting. But comfort does not make it true.

The 20th century offered a brutal lesson: whole nations can be reshaped by totalitarian rule until their populations lose the moral instincts of free societies. And unless force intervenes, they do not return to normal on their own.

We see this in the starkest form in North Korea. One bloodline, one culture, and one language split in two by ideology. The result? One half of Korea became a global democracy; the other became a dynastic death cult. Over decades, North Koreans have been deprived not just of material comforts, but of history, truth, even selfhood.

They have not simply been ruled by terror. They have been reprogrammed.

Protest From the Soul

Shouts and cheers, honking horns, people banging on drums. Oshkosh! No kings – at least not today. I’m with my si  ster and great nephew, attending the nearest national rally, about twenty miles south of their home in Appleton, Wisconsin. I’m up here with them because I’m getting cataract surgery (left eye tomorrow), but what the heck, Saturday is open. Let’s go to the No Kings rally.
   One of multi-thousands of rallies across the country. Oh, yes!
   More than a thousand people are crowded in the park in the center of town. Most of them are holding signs. The collective vibration is enormous. Honk! Honk! Save the country! But as we walk among them, as the cheers and claps reverberate, I can’t stop feeling small and cynical – by myself, a spectator among the participants. Does creating change amount to nothing more than joining the cheers?

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