Mick Hartley

Author: Mick Hartley

  • Armita Garavand

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    Now, on the anniversary of her killing, authorities have stationed guards outside her family’s home to prevent any memorial, even banning posts of flowers on her grave.

    Armita loved painting and dancing to K-pop. In Iran, a regime of absolute apartheid against women rules without mercy. Mahsa Amini and Armita Garavand were both killed in the 21st century for showing their hair—a testament to the cruel reality that, for Iran’s women, even the smallest freedoms come at the highest cost.

    Despite the threat of death for defying hijab laws, Iranian women are still resisting, walking unveiled in public to challenge the oppressive rule of the mullahs.

  • The Darlington Five go to Westminster

    le, who goes by the name Rose.

    According to the nurses, Streeting told them the issue of why single-sex spaces were important to women had not been “taken seriously enough” and that “we have created an unnecessary conflict”.

    He replied “yeah” when one of the women asked: “Do you recognise that sex is a protected characteristic and that sex is biological? We would like you to commit to and reflect that in the day to day running of the NHS?”…

    The five nurses have filed a claim against County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust with an employment tribunal. They say their employer has failed to protect staff from sexual harassment. The first pretrial hearing is expected next month.

    Rose, who works in the operating department, identifies as female. The nurses claim their colleague does not take female hormones, is sexually active and has said they were trying to get their girlfriend pregnant.

    The nurses said the colleague stared at their breasts as they were getting undressed and spent “a long time walking around the female dressing room”, sometimes wearing tight boxers that showed their genitalia.

    His genitalia. Is he non-binary now, this Rose?

    The group has said that 26 nurses wrote to HR and senior management outlining their concerns, but were told via HR that they needed to be “re-educated”, “broaden their mindset” and be more “inclusive”.

    Shades of the wretched Mridul Wadhwa of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre notoriety, who suggested that victims unhappy with trans (male) counsellors needed to "reframe their trauma" 

    Still, good for Wes Streeting.

     

  • Outraged by allegations of genocide in Gaza

    From the Times of Israel – Pioneering genocide researcher Father Desbois denounces mass murder charges against Israel:

    After a recent tour of Gaza border communities devastated by the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught, pioneering Holocaust researcher Father Patrick Desbois said the Jewish state should bring the terrorists to trial.

    “We have to show the crimes, but we [also] have to name the criminals,” said Desbois. “Without criminals, you have no crimes,” Desbois told The Times of Israel after returning home to France.

    An internationally acclaimed expert on identifying modern-day genocide, the French-Catholic priest was in Israel to commemorate the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023, in which 1,200 Israelis were murdered and 251 people taken into captivity.

    He is known for his innovative methods in bringing truth to light and seeking justice for victims of mass murder — from the Holocaust to Yazidis murdered by the Islamic State.

    In 2008, Desbois published, “The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest’s Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews.” Since then, historians have adopted the term “Holocaust by Bullets” to refer to hundreds of open-air massacres perpetrated by the Nazis in eastern Europe before the construction of extermination camps in 1942.

    Given his expertise in mass murder, Desbois said he is outraged by allegations that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza.

    “I think the accusation of genocide is [anti-Israel] propaganda. Why does nobody ask if Bashar Assad in Damascus has committed genocide against his own people,” said Desbois.

    Or, currently, the slaughter of black Africans by largely Arab groups in Sudan.

    One of his most disturbing visits in Israel, said Desbois, took place at Kibbutz Be’eri, where 132 Israelis were murdered. The priest walked through several homes that were burned to the ground by Hamas terrorists.

    Spray-painted onto a wall in Arabic, Desbois saw the words, “Death to the Zionists under the name of Abu Ali,” he said.

    “He signed it,” said Desbois, referring to the terrorist. “These people will be well-known in their families for generations for killing Jews,” he said.

    In part through deploying social media on October 7, Hamas “advertised a lot of what they did, and they showed it was easy to do it,” said Desbois.

    “There were large celebrations in Istanbul and Baghdad,” said Desbois. “Ideology is destroying the brains of people who do it. They think it’s a holy duty to kill Jews".

  • No diplomatic solution to a theological problem

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    Full text:

    Iran and Israel don’t have a border dispute, don’t compete over natural resources or trade, and don’t support rival sides in a civil war. It’s not even an “ideological rivalry” as some mistakenly assert.

    It’s a conflict resulting from the singular theological belief of Iranian clerics that Israel’s existence is an affront to god and must be destroyed.

    There is no “diplomatic solution” to a “theological problem.”

    Until the global community understands this, Iran will continue to be a highly destabilizing force in the world.

     

  • The UNRWA saviours

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  • New passages born of a deepening social responsibility

    efinitive advice". 

    And, as the LA Review of Books informs us, the 18th edition has just been published:

    The newest edition is billed as “the most extensive revision in a generation,” one that “balances tried-and-true editorial logic with an attention to real-world usage based on evidence that is easier than ever to find and evaluate.” This means (one shouldn’t give away the whole plot) that there are critically important new passages born of a deepening social responsibility in line with the times: how best to render text accessible to consumers with disabilities, a brand new section on inclusive language, guidance on Indigenous languages and sources (and rules advising that we capitalize Black, White, and Indigenous), and an endorsement of the singular “they” as a pronoun for an individual—“as needed,” the editors write, “to refer not only to someone who is nonbinary but also to anyone whose gender is unknown or irrelevant (or concealed for reasons of privacy).”

    Not just describing the use of the language, then, but pushing it along on the correct ideological path. "In line with the times" indeed.

  • Hit on a critical building used in Iran’s nuclear program

    etanyahu-says-us-does-not-tell-israel-what-to-do-hphhk9635″>reported  "the US does not tell Israel what to do" – please please don't hit Iran's nuclear sites – may have some point to it.

  • The erasure of women

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    "What is particularly astonishing to me is that like the rest of humanity, every single one of those issuing and enforcing these edicts came from a woman’s womb and has/had a mother at some point. To be so keen to mistreat the human beings that gave you life and live amongst you is as incomprehensible to anyone as it is outrageous.
    "We must put an end to this erasure of women."

  • Small worlds

    img-responsive” src=”http://mickhartley.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/mt_imported_image_1758239437.jpg” style=”width: 550px” title=”Nikon-small-5″ />
    Gerhard Vlcek, Maria Enzersdorf, Austria. Cross section of European beach grass (Ammophila arenaria) leaf

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    Paweł Błachowicz, Bedlno, Świętokrzyskie, Poland. Eyes of green crab spider (Diaea dorsata)

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    Alison Pollack, San Anselmo, California. Seed of a Silene plant

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    Zhang Chao, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. Beach sand

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    Dr. Robert Markus, University of Nottingham, School of Life Sciences, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, U.K. Dandelion (Traxacum officinale) cross section showing curved stigma with pollen
    [All images © the photographers, Nikon’s Small World]

  • Blue and white and red all over

    Whoops. From the JC:

    A New Jersey woman has been charged with bias and intimidation after tearing down Greek flags from a Greek restaurant in a fit of rage after she mistakenly took them to be Israeli flags.

    Amber Matthews, 23, who goes by “Ambamelia” on TikTok with over 12,000 followers, posted the video of her outrage at the restaurant’s supposed public display of support for Israel on October 15, several months after the incident took place.

    The embarrassing blunder quickly went viral, amassing over 9 million views across various social media platforms.

    In the video, Matthews approaches Efi’s Gyro restaurant in Montclair, New Jersey in broad daylight and proceeds to rip down Greek flag bunting and decorative lights from the establishment’s exterior while proclaiming “Free Palestine, b****”.

    Police launched an investigation in March after the restaurant’s owner reported than an unknown woman tore down their string of flags while screaming there’s a “genocide going on,” according to local media.

    For several months Police had no leads, until Matthews published her now-viral blunder online.

    In the video, titled “The time I mistakenly thought the flag for Greek (sic) was for Israel and took the restaurants flag down OMG”, Matthews can be heard saying, as she clutches the flag of Greece in her hand: “You see this s***? I don’t stand for it.”

    “What you looking at?” Matthews asks the confused-looking restaurant workers inside, “You know damn well there’s a genocide. You know there’s a genocide. Now stop it. I’m taking this s*** down,”

    “It’s nothing against people who are Jewish, but this is not okay,” she clarified to two employees who had come out to check on her. “Be proud of your heritage?” she asks them, “you understand there’s a genocide right?”

    After the pair politely informs the misguided Matthews that the flag represents Greece, not Israel, she asks in disbelief: “What? Really?

    “Oh, I thought it was Israel – my bad. Really? Oh s***, it looked like Israel.”…

    Matthews was charged on Tuesday with intimidation, according to the Montclair Police Department, and is due in court on December 3.

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