Chris, as Mohammed El-Gharani was called in Guantanamo, was taken prisoner as a 14 year old pupil while learning English and IT with his friend’s uncle in Karachi. Since he had come from Medina the Pakistani authorities sold him for a ransom as a potential Arab terrorist to the American military right after 9/11 – who took him to Guantanamo. There he became the most unruly and obtuse inmate of the camp, organizing a defiant struggle for justice and fairness against the brutalizing, torturing guards. His weapon was truth and independence of the mind which he kept up against all Read More
Category: Politics
Paving the Way
Following is a quote from an article by George Monbiot in The Guardian. What happens happens? t.a. “I understand that, in a sentimental nation, bromides like Biden’s might be considered necessary. But I fear he believes what he says. When he spoke to wealthy donors at the Carlyle hotel in Manhattan last year, he told them not only that “no one’s standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change”, but also that “you have to be able to reach consensus under our system”. In this context, consensus looks like appeasement. Obama’s attempt to reconcile irreconcilable forces, to paper over Read More
Courage and Trust
What about trust and UN leadership? While the publication says plenty about courage, trust, on the other hand, is far less cited. When it is, it is mainly in conventional terms of building and creating trust, between parties or within a team. Similarly, many references speak to a second trust dimension, defined as “being trustworthy”, with people trusting you to do the right thing, to exercise courage, and so forth. The emphasis on creating or building trust ignores a third and equally fundamental dimension of trust: the trust in others, and in them doing what is right. This dimension is harder Read More
Who do you think this is!
by Robert Friedland Who do you think this is? He has: “A keen appreciation of the value of slogans, catchwords, dramatic phrases, and happy epigrams in penetrating the deeper levels of the psyche.” He has said: “ There is only so much room in a brain, so much wall space, as it were, and if you furnish it with your slogans, the opposition has no place to put up pictures later on, because the apartment of the brain is really crowded with your furniture” “He is a master of the art of propaganda…. He has a matchless instinct for taking Read More
A Really Bad Rhyme
by John Grahan and Ann Medlock, Founders of the Giraffe Heroes Project, Sept. 17th, 2020 …. We write this piece as seasoned political observers whose politics are just left of center; we are not far-left radicals. And what we’re observing is that, with just weeks left until what could be the most important election in US history, the evidence from Donald Trump’s four years in office is now incontrovertible: He is set on destroying this constitutional republic and replacing it with a fascist state with himself as its head. His moves are a clear and present danger to this nation, Read More
The Great Divide and the Giraffe Heroes Foundation – An Appeal –
We are living in an age of divisions, growing ever more extreme. The technical divide, yes; but not only. Increasingly, in the technically well advanced society the wealth and welfare divide is gaining dramatically ground and has reached absolute, historical proportions. In parallel there is a less noted and less accepted divide creeping in: the intellectual divide. The new Big Brother, China, is leading the lot, followed by a maniac American president who wishes to erase the intellectual discourse in the name of fake news and alternative facts. The so called scientific community, powered by big pharma and power hungry, Read More
Scallion Dutch Baby, by Shen Lu, June 2020
The dishes I make myself flavor my moods, and season my experience of the news. As my birth country and my host country cast blame on one another, I eat four-cheese pizza with a side dish of blanched cauliflower seasoned with soy sauce, vinegar, and extra chili oil. The day Trump moved to halt legal immigration into the U.S., I poured osmanthus-infused syrup over a steamed Chinese yam, tingeing the edges of my rage and despair with its bright floral sweetness. When police detained volunteers who archived censored articles about coronavirus, I threw too many bird’s eye chilies into a Read More
Words from a World Past?
… Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research…. Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society’s future, we — you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, Read More
Freedom of Fear
The chapter in Samantha Power’s recent book “The Education of an Idealist” (William Collins, 2019) on the impressive response to the 2015 Ebola outbreak by the Obama administration – with so many lessons not taken to tackle the present Covid crisis under a maniacs regime….. Power finishes her writing with the following lines: “Looking back, I now see all that the scoreboard could not capture: The relief of a father who has been reunited with his son, newly free of a deadly disease. The look on a government minister’s face as he traverses a rainbow crosswalk. The insistence of diplomats Read More
Human Beings are Capable of New Departures
Giraffe D.S. lecture on the evolving situation and it’s uniqueness…..