Mary Rizzo

The World Economic Forum at Davos had an incredible moment of truth… After Shimon Peres was allowed to justify the wanton killing that the Jewish State engaged in over the territory they have strangled with their inhumane blockade, (and received applause for it by the men and women waiting for their champaign glasses to be filled after the dinner that of course was more important to them than hearing the words of the Prime Minister of the largest European State with a Muslim majority and one of the most strategic areas on the face of the earth), Tayyip Erdogan begins to respond to the barrage of filth poured out by Peres.

Read more »

PulseMedia This first-hand field report and analysis comes direct from the tireless UK physicians Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah and Dr Swee Ang in Gaza, 30 January 2009. Please consider supporting their indispensable medical efforts through any designated charities or through MAP. Forthcoming dispatches will be published here as received; here is the first which provides background to the situation as well as important medical and political details often directly garnered on the situation at hand. The wounds of Gaza are deep. Dr Ghassan describes it as multi-layered. Are we talking about the Khan Younis massacre of 5,000 in 1956 or the execution of 35,000 prisoners of war by Israel in 1967? Yet more wounds of the First Intifada, when civil disobedience by an occupied people against the occupiers resulted in massive wounded and hundreds dead? We also cannot discount the 5,420 wounded in southern Gaza alone since 2000. Hence what we are referring to below are only that of the invasion as of 27 December 2008.

Read more »

Khalid Amayreh

It is really difficult to take seriously those who think that the new American envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, has a real chance of getting Israel, the Nazi-like entity, to end its occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, and therefore achieve a just and lasting peace in this tortured part of the world.

True, Mitchell succeeded in resolving the 800-year-old conflict in Northern Ireland. However, with Israel in tight control of the American Congress, media and public discourse, it is unlikely that Mitchell will be able to do much in terms of pressuring the apartheid state to take a strategic decision to end its 40-year-old colonialist occupation of Palestinian territories. The factors militating against Mitchell’s mission are numerous and overwhelming.

Read more »

Truth is Beauty

As I observe the vilification of Bishop Williamson occurring in the Catholic blogosphere, I can’t help but recall the gospel account of the crucifixion of Christ Himself. For with the exception of the Blessed Mother and St. John, the rest of His apostles had abandoned Him, quaking in their boots “for fear of the Jews” (John 19:38).

Fast forward 20 centuries and something eerily similar seems to be happening again. Only this time, the person being abandoned and crucified is Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of St. Pius X. And what was his crime, pray tell? It seems His Excellency has a penchant for speaking the truth to power, something Our Lord Himself was not afraid to do, including the following flamer - right to the Pharisees’ faces (John 8:44):

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it.

Read more »

Walter Brasch

My wife is a smoker. Except for one year when she quit, she's been a smoker since she was about 18. But she's cut back, from as many as three packs a day to just three cigarettes. And, she now smokes outside the house.

At various times, she was asked to show an ID. When in her 20s she saw it as an annoyance. By her 30s and 40s, it was a compliment. Now it's just downright annoying.

The law restricts persons under 18 years of age from buying or smoking cigarettes. My wife understands why she must be "carded."

Yesterday she was carded when she wanted to buy two lighters. The sweet lady at the grocery checkout counter said that the chain store is carding everyone who buys lighters. Something about a juvenile who used a lighter and accidentally set his house on fire.

Read more »