https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/feb/26/not-hate-gaza-doctor-abuelaish-review

“Not everyone will share his conclusion that friendly dialogue with the enemy is the best course. A vogue for such dialogue between Jews and Palestinians grew up during the 1990s, after the Oslo Accords. The argument went that it was the leaders on both sides who were at fault, not their people, who just wanted peace. Many were hopeful of this approach to solving the conflict. All these attempts were flawed, however, by the assumption of equivalence between the two sides, and by the failure to acknowledge that understanding and friendship come after the end of conflict, not before. But the individuals engaged in dialogue certainly felt better and made friends. Abuelaish himself has numerous close friendships with Israelis, who have supported him. His extensive travel and wide experience have made him into an exceptional doctor, but a rarity in Gaza, where deprivation has stunted people’s educational and social development. And, sadly, such a valiant attempt to bridge the divide has failed to stop Israel’s colonisation and oppression of the Palestinians.”

https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5275703,00.html

If you can donate,I believe it is a reliable Charity to give to unlike a few we heard of lately in the News.Whoever these people are. they need help especially those who are losing limbs or require more than one surgery [ which many do] While we may understand tensions  I myself wonder why they use such lethal bullets.[Apparently they explode once inside the body and destroy  all the organs.If they enter the abdomen, you die.If it’s your leg  surgeons might save your life but not the limb]

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-donne

‘No Man is an Island’

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 
well as any manor of thy friends or of thine 
own were; any man's death diminishes me, 
because I am involved in mankind. 
And therefore never send to know for whom 
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. 


Olde English Version
No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man
is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine;
if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe
is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as
well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine
owne were; any mans death diminishes me,
because I am involved in Mankinde;
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

MEDITATION XVII
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
John Donne 

Mary stood in her kitchen admiring the white flowers on her huge mock orange.She looked down at the floor where half a tin of  instant coffee she had spilled had become a large  black mark.She tried mopping it with her squeegee mop after pouring some floor cleaner onto the mark.Alas, this did not work much
Mary was lost in wonder at the chemicals  in coffee which make it more intractable to remove.She was once more lost in dreams and thoughts as she had been so many years ago giving lectures on Relatativistic Quantum Fairies.
The back door opened and in dashed Annie ,her neighbour.
Dressed today in purple and mauve, she was the picture of  ripe female seductiveness achieved by artifice and art.Her mauvey grey eye shadow was bought on line from “Images of Wigan and West Mersea” a well known source of startling new colours for women’s faces.
Her smokey pink lipstick was glued to her lips by a special formula known only in the Wigan factory.Even nail varnish remover did not get it off so Annie made sure it was what she needed…. along with her 48 hour antiperspirant from Boots and her Channel 9 perfume  which came with her  new television set.

In fact, that was why she had bought the television.She already had 5 of them in her  home so she was never without the chance  to watch some Palestinians enjoying themselves on a sandy beach by the  lovely wire Fence which divided them from their  former homes in Israel  provided free by the government or on HP for those who wanted to contribute
Now and then one might see an ambulance.Possibly, like Mary’s mother did in New Brighton in 1948 ,someone had stepped on  a piece  of broken glass and the  paramedics always enjoyed a trip to the sandy picnic spot.It was too far for Dave to go from Knittingham.He was also following on TV to learn new methods of treatment
A Palestinian nurse/paramedic was always  there ecquipped with her sewing box to stitch people up right where they were, enjoying their day out without a care in the world.
Now and then one was targeted by some loon nearby who had somehow got hold of a gun and some wonderful butterfly bullets so much safer than plastic ones.Still even butterflies cause storms.
We all  need some risk in our life.Otherwise we would get terribly bored or if Spanish, gored.Even in the USA, there are often accidents like this or much worse.It is a real part of their culture unlike Britain, the calmest country in the West apart from a few teenage boys stabbing each other and a few more committing suicide for no valid reason.Not to mention a woman killed once a fortnight by her male partner

Mary got out a brillo pad and tried to scrape the marks off the kitchen floor.Annie found a wire wool scourer and they  bent over scrubbing away as women always have loved to do after breast feeding  their husbands and smacking the baby.Or is that the other way round? Or both?
Now it’s time for tea.Let’s ring 999 and ask for Dave to help  out.Emile will do it with his paw if he is not asleep in a pan on a low heat.Luckily he can’t get inside the kettle yet

Wait for the rest   tomorrow

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-44069889

Aethelflaed: The warrior queen who broke the glass ceiling

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

How does a ruler defeat bloodthirsty invaders, secure a kingdom and lay the foundations for England – and then almost get written out of history? Be a woman, that’s how. Exactly 1,100 years after her death Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, is emerging from the shadows.

Born into a tooth-and-nail war for survival against Viking invaders, Aethelflaed, daughter of Alfred the Great, grew up in a realm teetering on the brink of disaster.

In 878 the royal family was forced to flee to the swamps of Somerset – just months before Alfred turned the tables and won a stunning victory over the Vikings at the Battle of Edington.

Married at 16 to Aethelred, Lord of Mercia, Aethelflaed’s new lands were the front line as an uneasy and fitful peace came to a fiery end with Alfred’s death in 899.

Dr Clare Downham, from the University of Liverpool, said: “She must have had quite a force of personality to overcome the assumptions of her time.

“It is a mark of her success in male-dominated times she was accepted as a ruler and achieved incredible – even unique – things.”

My alarm went off  early so I gave the clock a beta blocker.Next time I’ll give it an overdose
I didn’t want to get up today but,on the other hand,I didn’t want to be down
I  threw my clock at the wall and it hit my neighbour on the bed
I use my phone as an alarm.Well it already is.
I keep reading the News  to see when we leave Europe.I am worried we have no anchors strong enough.Still, the Atlantic is very blue.And so am I
I don’t know why I want to read poetry on my Android Device.Some incompatibility  of genres.
My Windows phone  is always a day behind with email.That’s why I love it.
If I don’t answer the phone please don’t leave a message as hearing them often offends.
Like borrowing my hairdryer? I will sell it for £24  free to first arrival
My hair  is so short I look like I’ve had chemo.Solidarity is the game
My sunscreen is full of chemicals and so am I.
What is a chemical? Don’t go there
I have to go up stairs even when there are none.I have a ladder in my tights

“Our Father, Our King.”

What does a father do
when his children are orphans and he
is still alive? What will a father do
when his children have died and he becomes
a bereaved father for all eternity?

Yehuda Amichai

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/jun/26/guardianobituaries.israel

“To his adversaries Kimmerling was a tendentious polemicist who let ideological bias overrule academic sobriety and gave succour to Israel’s foes. Yet he called himself a patriot, and while decrying the “monstrous practices of Zionism” he valued Israel’s “islands of marvellous humanism and creativity”. He feared that a one-state solution to the Israel-Palestine dilemma would just cause further Balkanisation and bloodshed in the Middle East, and he opposed boycotts of Israeli universities.

Kimmerling lectured for nearly 40 years at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He also held a chair at Toronto University, and compiled textbooks for Israel’s Open University. All his life he suffered the effects of childhood cerebral palsy. He was repeatedly hospitalised, had extreme difficulty speaking and spent his last three decades in a wheelchair. Despite his ailments, he enjoyed attending conferences and mentoring students. He wrote nine books, hundreds of essays and numerous newspaper articles.”

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/wallace-stevens-problems-painters-and-poets

Between the world and how we represent
The nameless by a name and  even  place,
There is a space or void in our intent.

What mother saw, what father really meant
How love and hate might intertwine in space?
In our own world, what can we represent?

In writing, there is lack and letters bent
For  ancient writing often  scholars traced
There is a space or void in our intent.

Today the sun is golden,  gods descend.
With love, for moments, we are all embraced
Of the felt, what can we represent?

Our willingness unblinds the heart so rent
And then we see the face within his face
The space or void lights for this sacrament

I cross my eyes with fingers interlaced:
The crucifix, the love, the death of Christ
Between the world and what we may attempt
There is a space or void where he was sent.

http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/report/132

（ Hengyang Foxconn factory）

Executive Summary

From August 2017 to April 2018, China Labor Watch dispatched several investigators into Hengyang Foxconn, a factory that predominantly manufactures products for Amazon. CLW’s investigation revealed a number of rights violations at the Hengyang Foxconn factory, which manufactures Amazon’s Kindle, Echo Dots and tablets. This is CLW’s first investigation into an Amazon supplier factory.

The investigation revealed that dispatch workers made up more than 40% of the workforce, a clear violation of the legally mandated 10%. Furthermore, the working conditions between dispatch workers and regular workers were markedly different despite working the same positions.

Whilst regular workers receive five days of training, dispatch workers only receive eight hours of training, which is well below the legal stipulation of 24 hours of pre-job safety training. Dispatch workers are also required to pay the physical examination fees, whereas some regular workers reported not having to pay any fees for the physical examination.

In addition, sick leave is unpaid for dispatch workers, and they are regularly sent on leave during the factory’s off season. During this time, they do not receive any wages. Dispatch workers also do not receive any social insurance, nor are contributions made to their housing provident fund. According to the Interim Provisions on Labor Dispatch, dispatch workers are to be registered for social insurance and employers are to make social insurance contributions.

Regular workers are also paid overtime wages, however, dispatch workers earn 14.5 RMB/hour ($2.26 USD) and are paid the same rate for normal hours and overtime hours. The hourly rate includes an attendance bonus, and workers who take more than two days off or are late more than twice a month would receive wages calculated by a 13.5 RMB/hour ($2.11 USD) standard for the month.

When the windows shattered
And the splinters flew in
He just made for the back door
And left me
not knowing where to begin.

When the shards of glass hit me
And pierced my vulnerable skin
He was  already going
Leaving me
feeling he was an inhuman being.

When I fell down covered in glass and bleeding,
And the storm raged on,
I didn’t look round because
I knew,I knew,I knew,
I knew  he would be gone.
Gone.

Suddenly peace came,storm had quite
disappeared..
It was all over so quickly
Not as terrible as I feared.

My wounds were bad,I have to confess.
I had no bandage
Nothing with which to dress.
With an old towel I cleaned my blood
Then I lay me down
Just to have a rest.

Since that day,no storms come this way.
My wounds are healing
I have just one thing to say.
When the storm was so bad
He left me all alone…
but strangely since then
all is peace and calm.
His absence has become
almost a balm.

But I hear stories of fierce storms rising up
In towns and villages
Not too far from here, where a wandering man appears.

Seems like he’s running to get away
From some storm
But the storm’s inside him…
He gives it form

So when the windows crashed in

And glass flew at my face
left me all alone
In what, he thought,
was a very dangerous place.

Did he not pick me up
and carry me outside?
No,my daughter, he left me alone;
I might have died.

But since then
I lost a great burden…
And I lost a great feeling of shame.

Rise up,you women,bleeding and torn.
For on days like this,a new resolve is born.
While you live don’t accept all the blame.
Don’t live so long as I did,in fear and in shame.
Rise up and find that calm
In the eye of the storm…
On days like this
a new woman is born.

I will lift up mine eyes to the hills, from whence cometh  my strength

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/06/20/steer-your-way-by-leonard-cohen

We were so poor we six children had to eat our dinner off a cricket bat.
Well,it made you good at grammar!Us six had to eat off a cricket!
Did the cricket mind?
Yes,it hated being licked.
What a shame!
What a catastrophe.
Just think,we have no English crickets now.
We just have foreign crickets.
How can you tell?
They speak Dutch!
What do they say?
Festina lente.
That’s not Dutch?
Well,we had a Dutch priest in the fifties and he used to say,
Adveniat Regnum tuam;festina lente.
Your Kingdom should have come but the Mail has been privatised.
That’s English.
I know.Strange is it not?
Who are you?Prince William of Orange
Don’t be that way.I talk proper because I passed the 11 plus.
I’d have thought it’d be the other way round?
You seem quite bright.
I belong to Mensa.
I don’t see what sex has to do with it….
I left my tart in Canned Fran’s Disco.
That was an error.
No,I was right.They had no cream.
Do you ever eat off a bat now?
No,it’s not hygienic;we eat off the Times.
After you have read it?
Oh, we never read it!
Why buy it?
It makes us feel superior.
Why not get some China?
Why is it called china?
I suppose that’s what was on the map when they looked.
That’s ridiculous.
I know.I agree.
I mean,you are ridiculous.
Some people like to insult others when they are in a bad mood
I can do it in a good mood.
You are balmy
Bedankt!
I mean barmy!
Off with ihre briefke!
Now he speaks French.
I want a letter!.
A French letter?
No,a Greek letter.
Here you are… it’s an apple pi.
Is it natural?
Ask Euclid!
He’s dead.
No he’s in a Platonic realm
Making Platonic love?
I am sure he could make a Teutonic love!
Why so?
His tongue is enchanted.His lips are fluorescent.
How about his nose?
It’s quite perfect.
And his eyes?
Like cat’s eyes in winter,glowing and amber.
Have you got his phone number?
Yes,it 4478733333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333…………..
It’s irrational.
Don’t tell him,he thinks it’s infinite.
Aleph null?
Is that your phone number?Where is aleph on a phone
Je ne sais Aleph Faux pas.
That is the end of
Thoughts at play for today

Queen Matte Hilda… our new lipstick created in our factories in Wigan  and Paris,In three colours, Pink fantasy,Red Rose and Purple Death.And  who liked it?
Ask the husband?
Richard   felt lust
Richard, she beckoned?
Richard ,I’m bared, she murmured
That’s bad grammar, he replied
For God’s sake Richard, is grammar more important than love?
So Lacan thinks.
Who is Mr. Lacan?
He’s dead.
So why bother what he thinks?
Well, how about Jesus, he’s dead too,in  the human sense.St Paul  is dead as well but people still read his letters!
They won’t read mine.
You have not written any.
That’s why
I can’t even remember what a pen is
That’s what they all say

Photo 2018 Copyright PL

The Jewish Cantors in Montreal on Leonard Cohen’s last album make a sound very  like plainsong which is sung by Catholic monks here and elsewhere.
Such close links,such sad experiences

Waxy flowers poking through
Snow so white
Flowers bright.
Made me think of you.

I see once more your dark brown hair,
Soft as snow,
On pillow.
Now my bed is bleak and bare

,
Face alight,flower to sun,
I loved you.
Love so  true.
Fear by love,overcome.

Cyclamen in  the snow,
Pink and red,
Now frozen,dead.
Love was,oh,so long ago.

But never gone from in my mind.
Thoughts so deep,
Upwards seep.
Love was gentle,love was kind
And always in my mind