on labeling food

last week i went to the downtown amman souq to go grocery shopping. i wanted some fresh fruits and vegetables and i loathe supermarkets. i thought that i mind find the market to be free of foreign goods, but i was wrong. and worse: much of the foreign imports were unmarked. i did find a [...]

on orange & other adventures in normalization

i love orange. it’s my favorite color. i even painted my office at boise state university orange a few years ago. but in this region colors always take on new meanings that destroy colors and what they mean. for instance, when i first moved to palestine in the summer of 2005 i discovered that orange [...]

on cultural theft: the kuffiyeh

there is a beautiful little documentary, “made in palestine,” about the last palestinian kuffiyeh factory in khalil and the meaning of this potent palestinian symbol. on rageh omaar’s witness on al jazeera you can watch this short film and also see just how zionist terrorist colonists steal even this highly political symbol. if you wish [...]

on why coca cola should be boycotted (and no pepsi, etc. is not any better)

there was a great article about bds by sousan hammad in counterpunch last month, which begins with a great fanon quote and engages in an important analysis of the psychological complications involved when trying to educate palestinians about bds: “An underdeveloped people must prove, by its fighting power, its ability to set itself up as [...]

los ziongeles

driving down ventura boulevard today, which is the main street near my grandma’s house, i was bombarded with cartoon images of what dear ayah calls the “fizz fizz” (personally i prefer the image that kabobfest posted last week of a fizz fizz being chased down the street). these images line a few miles with these [...]

on media manipulation and the coup in honduras

i’m still catching up on work and news while i was away at summer camp. one of the important developments was the military coup in hondoruas. john pilger was on democracy now! with amy goodman while i was away discussing this coup as well as the way the u.s. responded to honduras in comparison to [...]

“the genocide of the fta”

milagros salazar published an important report in ips with eyewitness accounts of the survivors of the massacre against indigenous awajun and wambis indians in peru: Sobbing, an indigenous woman dressed in black cries out as she sees us arrive: “My son, my son, they have killed my son!” She is Andrea Rocca, the mother of [...]

indigenous solidarity

today i held the second class about american indians at ibdaa cultural center in deheishe refugee camp. i have about 12 students in the class who are using it to both improve their english skills and learn more about indigenous history, rights, and resistance before an american indian solidarity group comes to visit here at [...]

guantanamo then and now

jeremy scahill’s report yesterday about bill clinton’s appointment as a un envoy to haiti is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how the united states continues to get away with murder with the complicity of the united nations: Former US President Bill Clinton has been named by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon [...]

letters from prisons

the other day a friend told me about a museum devoted to palestinian political prisoners at al quds university at abu dis. another friend who was at dinner with us at the time and who attends that university as an m.a. student had not heard of this museum. we decided to go there saturday morning [...]