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Tag Archives: Israel

One year later: In search of Ayman

26 Aug
Ayman loved birds, keeping several for pets until the day he died.

By Yousef Aljamal, We are Not Numbers, Gaza, 24 August 2015

Palestinians are sentenced to sadness. Death haunts us as if it is our own shadow. Even when we want to celebrate, death infiltrates into our backyard, replacing our little joyful moments, which soon vanish in a twinkle of an eye—replacing smiley faces with tear-streaked cheeks. When someone is gone, things are never the same. With Ayman gone, Gaza has never been the same. Ayman’s birds stopped singing.

As bombs were falling on Gaza in the summer of 2014, I landed in Amman to celebrate my cousin’s wedding and meet my West Bank family there, whom I had not seen for nearly 15 years. My uncle and I were driving back from his sister’s house, after we paid her a short visit and distributed some wedding invitations, when I got a text message notification on my cell phone. It was from my sister in Gaza telling me, “your friend Ayman was killed by Israeli shelling just now.” It was so direct and blunt that I could not read it a second time. Silence fell. I had lost my childhood friend.

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Israel mulls task force to combat boycott campaign

24 Aug

PressTV report, 23 August, 2015

Israel is planning to set up a taskforce to cope with the boycott campaign against the regime that’s been gaining momentum across the globe.

Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan is expected to head the so-called taskforce. Erdan says he has studied the ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions’ movement and has met many individuals familiar with the campaign including Foreign Ministry officials. But it seems that the Foreign Ministry has given the cold shoulder to the anti-boycott plans, fearing that Erdan might do more harm than good as he isn’t familiar enough with such domains. The campaign, launched by Palestinian activists in 2005, calls for the boycott of Israel over its crimes against Palestinians. PressTV interviews Paul Larudee from the boycott (BDS) movement.

Gaza Fire – frontline documentary

20 Aug

Short video documentary: ‘Gaza Fire’

The Palestine Chronicle, 19 August 2015.

More than a year since Israel’s devastating war in Gaza, whole communities remain affected.

The conflict left more than 2,000 Palestinians and 71 Israelis dead, while Israel’s aerial bombardment of Gaza left 18,000 homes destroyed.

The Palestinian enclave’s fire service was on the front line – desperately trying to save people caught in the fighting. One year on, Gaza’s firefighters are battling not just flames – but politics, salary shortages and a chronic lack of equipment.

This is their story.

Gaza’s Reconstruction Plan: designed to fail

17 Aug

08-12-2014Palestinians_Gaza-629x420The rubble of twisted concrete and metal bakes in the hot Mediterranean sun of a regional heat wave. A year on from Israel’s 51-day military operation in 2014, not a single one of the 11,000 destroyed homes in Gaza has been rebuilt. Photo credit: UNRWA Archives/Shareef Sarhan

By Charlie Hoyle, Bethlehem, Palestine, Inter Press Service, 15 August 2015

“Palestinians need solutions for the crisis, not mechanisms that manage the crisis.”

Eight months ago, the infrastructural devastation in the Gaza Strip was the same, except floodwater and freezing winter temperatures swept over the heaped remnants of people’s homes and businesses.

A year on from Israel’s 51-day military operation – in which over 2,200 Palestinians were killed, including more than 500 children – not a single one of the 11,000 destroyed homes has been rebuilt.

The task of large-scale reconstruction work was entrusted to the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism (GRM), a United Nations-brokered agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority which would oversee the distribution of building materials entering Gaza.

“Most of the 100,000 Palestinians displaced by the [2014] war continue to live in makeshift shelters, often in the rubble of their former homes, and the landscape is littered with miles upon miles of apocalyptic decay where homes, shops, and restaurants once stood”

To date, only 5.5 percent of the building materials needed to repair and rebuild homes and other damaged infrastructure has entered the coastal enclave, according to Israeli rights group Gisha, founded in 2005 to protect the freedom of movement of Palestinians, especial Gaza residents.

Failed promises by donor countries which pledged 5.4 billion dollars last October, political tensions between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, and Israel’s continued restrictions on materials entering the territory have all impeded reconstruction efforts.

However, many hold the GRM directly responsible for the glacial pace of reconstruction, arguing that the terms of the agreement have entrenched Gaza’s underdevelopment by granting Israel control over nearly every aspect of the rebuilding process.

“Israel actually has deep power over every single house built in Gaza,” says Ghada Snunu, a reporting officer at Ma’an Development Centre in Gaza.

“We cannot build a house if Israel says no. Israel decides whether homes are built or not.”

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Saving Gaza’s medical services from collapse

17 Aug

mideast_israel_palestinians_axlp119_44530839A Palestinian youth carries a wounded child into the emergency clinic at Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya, Gaza, during Israel’s war on Gaza last year.

Gulf News report, 15 August 2015

At a time when the Middle East region is grappling with heightened volatility and ongoing conflicts from Syria to Iraq to Yemen, it is easy to ignore the harsh realities of Palestinians living in the open-air prison that is the Gaza Strip. It has been eight years since Israel imposed a land, air, and sea blockade on Palestinians living there following Hamas’s 2006 win in the legislative elections — depriving them of any possibility of leading normal lives. Coupled with this are Israel’s three full scale wars, which killed thousands of Palestinians including women and children and left swaths of ruins in the Strip. Yes, Palestinians are justified for feeling totally abandoned by the international community.

The latest news coming from Gaza is that its health care is on the verge of collapse. Dr Ashraf Al Qudra, spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry, told Gulf News, “People are dying in Gaza and we have nothing in hand to help them.” Gaza-based hospitals and primary medical centres lack 32 per cent of the medicines they need and the shortfall is greatest for drugs used to treat chronic diseases.

Moreover, the infant mortality rate in Gaza has risen for the first time in more than half a century, according to the United Nations. The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) says the number of babies dying in 2013, that is, before the last Israeli war on Gaza, before the age of one, rose to 22.4 per 1,000 live births.

Imagine watching your loved one suffer from a medical problem and, because of Israeli restrictions on movements in Gaza, you are unable to transport them to a hospital or get them any proper medical care. Such is the reality of living in Gaza and experiencing daily the inhuman and unjust blockade through which Israel contravenes international law with impunity. And there is no end in sight to the suffering of the people, especially given that there is no international pressure for change.

The Palestinian Israeli conflict urgently requires Arab and international attention. It remains at the centre of Arab issues and without addressing Israeli intransigence, this region will never enjoy long term stability.

Cleaning your teeth with white phosphorus?

14 Aug

Hamza-300-x-400Hamza Mus’ab Almadani, scarred for life by NZ SuperFund’s investment partners Israeli Chemicals

Dr Vacy Vlazna, gaza.scoop.ps, 13 August 2015

One year ago, on 15 August – 40 days into Israel’s 51 day monstrous assault on Gaza that was clocking up 1800 innocent Palestinian deaths – Adrian Orr, the CEO of the New Zealand Superfund (NZSF) took a cheap shot, a morally cheap low shot, at concerned young protesters who chained themselves in the NZSF office (Auckland) demanding that the NZSF immediately divest from Israel Chemicals (ICL) – a supplier of lethal white phosphorus to the US army for the manufacture of munitions sold back to Israel to barrage fire and death on Gaza.

In response to spokesperson Nadia Abu-Shanab’s passionate urging for divestment, Adrian Orr’s smug retort was,

“Do you brush your teeth? ( Nadia: “Sorry?) “Do you brush your teeth? White phosphorus is used in many places”

Orr is not stupid, paid NZ$800,000 p.a, he knows that phosphate is used in toothpaste whereas the pure evil of white phosphorus, derived from phosphate through an industrial process, is so highly reactive to oxygen it has to be stored under water. Exposed to air, it sears human flesh to the bone, damages the immune system and causes neurological damage.

Nadia then goes on to say, “Palestinians have actually identified the company” and Orr butts in with appalling callous flippancy, “I can identify lots of companies that annoy me in life.”

Annoy? Annoyance is not how I would describe Mus’ab Almadani’s attitude to Israeli Chemicals that supplied the white phosphorus that seared the innocent flesh of his little son Hamza, 3. The pain has branded horrific physical, emotional and psychological scars on Hamza for life. [Pictured above].

Orr admits that Israeli Chemicals (ICL): “sells some to the US defense force, the US defence force then sells some to the Israeli defense force.”

Orr’s offhand comment glosses over the evidence that ICL’s white phosphorus is integrated in munitions used in Gaza: “The Army contracting Command – Rock Island (ACC-RI) has awarded contract W52P1J-13-P-3004 for White Phosphorus to ICL Performance Products LP, used for the Ctg 155mm M110A2.”

Notwithstanding, Orr and NZSF have dug in, refusing to exclude Israeli Chemicals because they “draw a distinction between a company being directly and materially involved in an activity, versus being a supplier of materials or services in the normal course of business.”

That argument wouldn’t go down well with NZ drug enforcement regarding overseas suppliers exporting pseudoephedrine and ephedrine to NZ for methamphetamine manufacture.

NZSF is a government body and so Orr is dutifully following NZ government policy that goes easy on Israel’s genocidal assaults on Palestinian families. Prime Minister John Key, on July 22, 2014, two weeks into Gaza’s hell, parroted Israeli propaganda that Israel had ‘the right to defend itself’ [but not Palestinians, not Hamza] in a conflict between two equal sides. Seriously equal??? – high tech Israeli munitions against a people, the majority whom are children, cut off by land, sky and sea versus piddling rockets.

Key’s opportunistic reference to “the kidnapping of three Israeli teens on the West Bank in early June” pointedly lays false blame on the Palestinians boosted by his devious omission that Israel had killed 16 Palestinians,including 4 children, in the West Bank from January to June 2014.

Orr ends the encounter with the protesters, with bureaucratic pragmatism: “We need to get on with business, we heard you, I will be thinking hard about it”

In his hard thinking Orr must also consider Bank Leumi for divestment. It has an 18% stake in Israel Chemicals.

Orr has had exactly a year to think about it. One hoped in his contemplation he researched Mads Gilbert Night in Gaza or Mohammed Omer’s Shellshocked or Atef Abu Saif, The Drone Eats with Me or Max Blumenthal, The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza.

On August 3, 2015, sixty principled protesters rallied outside the NZSF building in Aukland to remind the NZSF that investment in Israel’s barbaric business of death was not to be done in their name.

Orr refused to meet with them. Seems NZSF staff have acquired the knack to sleep easy at night while working for a company, on behalf of the pro-Israel NZ government, that invests in Israeli war crimes.

Well, New Zealand, here’s a challenge for Adrian Orr – Brush your teeth with white phosphorus or divest from Israel Chemicals!

– Dr. Vacy Vlazna is Coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters, Sydney, Australia. She was Human Rights Advisor to the GAM team in the second round of the Acheh peace talks, Helsinki, February 2005 then withdrew on principle. Vacy was coordinator of the East Timor Justice Lobby as well as serving in East Timor with UNAMET and UNTAET from 1999-2001.

POST SCRIPT: In response to the above, a correspondent has made the following suggestion:

Ask folk to write to NZ SuperFund CEO Adrian Orr at enquiries@nzsuperfund.co.nz  and Cc john.key@national.org.nz
with just two sentences:

Adrian Orr
CEO, NZ Superfund

Brush your teeth with white phosphorus or divest from Israel Chemicals!
No war crimes investment in my name.

…and click resend every morning to maintain the rage and principle.

Aljazeera documentary – Gaza: Human shields

13 Aug

Aljazeera World video documentary, 13 August 2015

For 50 days, more than 6,000 air strikes, 14,500 tanks shells and 45,000 artillery shells were fired on Gaza as Israel decimated the Palestinian enclave in Operation protective edge.

More than 2,200 Palestinians, including 551 children were killed, as Israel attempted to end rocket attacks and destroy tunnels used by Hamas and other Palestinian groups.

As shells, bombs and rockets laid waste to Gaza, both sides were engaged in a propaganda battle as the civilian death toll continued to rise.

The Israeli government repeatedly claimed that Palestinian groups were to blame, accusing them of using women and children as human shields as they fired rockets into Israel.

In Gaza: Human Shields, we speak to civilians, academics and human rights advocates who have accused the Israeli military of employing the tactic as they battled Hamas.

We hear testimony from Palestinians being forcing them to walk in front of Israeli soldiers at gunpoint and enter potentially hostile buildings.

We examine evidence alleging Israel’s long-standing practice of human shields and explore whether Hamas used residential buildings and civilian areas to launch attacks.

“They [the Israeli army] took me and put me on top of a tank”, Anas Najjar, a resident of the battered southern town of Khuazaa says; while Ramy Abdu of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor says there is “enough files to condemn Israel and prove it’s committed war crimes by using civilians as human shields.”

Showing both Israeli and Palestinian perspectives on the use of human shields, Gaza: Human Shields follows on from a recently-published UN enquiry into war crimes during the July-August 2014 war.

Palestine: One state for all or a final Zionist ethnic cleansing?

13 Aug

By Alan Hart, Veterans Today, 12 August, 2015

 hartAlan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who has covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East.

Palestine: One state for all or a final Zionist ethnic cleansing?

The headline over a recent article in The Times of Israel by the paper’s Middle East analyst, Avi Issacharoff, was ‘The end of the two-state solution’. And the strapline (secondary headline) underneath that was a quote from the body of his article. “It’s time to say it out loud: The Israeli right has won – a temporary, pyrrhic victory that has set Israel on the path to becoming a Muslim-majority state.”

Issacharoff’s opening thoughts were the following.

Conditions are now such that an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank has already become impossible.

And here it must be said: The watershed line seems to have been crossed. The two-state solution is no more.

No Palestinian state will exist here beside the State of Israel.

He went on to ask if anyone believes that an evacuation of (illegal) Jewish settlers from the occupied West Bank is possible. His own answer was the following (my emphasis added).

During the disengagement, the Israeli army managed to evacuate the settlers from Gaza in just a few days. But there were fewer than 10,000 settlers then, and the army looked different as well. Does anyone seriously think that the army in its present form – an army that has undergone such significant social transformations over the past two decades, whose best officers are members of the religious Zionist movement and live in the settlements – can carry out a task of that nature? The idea seems so unrealistic as to be ludicrous.

What Issacharoff didn’t say is that the real reason for Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip was the need to do some defusing of the ticking demographic time-bomb of occupation.

In reality the two-state solution was never on from the moment the UN Security Council passed Resolution 242 on 22 November 1967.

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Gaza Flotilla activists to sue Israel at Int’l Criminal Court

12 Aug

MintPressNews report, Gaza, 11 August 2015

 Gaza Flotilla Activists to Sue Israel at International Criminal Court (ICC)

Mint Press News‘ “Behind the Headline” series hosted by Mnar Muhawesh conducted an exclusive interview with Kevin Neish, [see link above] survivor of the latest Freedom Flotilla aid ship. The Flotilla was headed to the besieged Gaza Strip when it was attacked and hijacked by Israeli soldiers in international waters.

It has been one year since Israel waged a war against the Gaza Strip in 2014 under Operation Protective Edge. Over 2,000 Palestinians were killed including over 500 children. The majority of victims were civilians and not Hamas fighters, whereas Israel’s casualties were mostly invading soldiers with less than five civilian casualties including the three kidnapped teens. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were left homeless and severe damage to essential infrastructure was damaged or destroyed. Gaza is often called the world’s largest open air prison.

Israeli soldiers of conscience anonymously blew the whistle on how they received order after order to deliberately target civilians without cause, challenging the mainstream media’s “human shields” myth. Israel had leveled entire towns and villages within Gaza. After all the bloodshed and destruction, Israel admitted that no one from Hamas were responsible for the 3 kidnapped Israeli teens after all. Netanyahu purposefully withheld the information from the grieving victims’ parents so that his government could mass murder Palestinians.

With estimates of rebuilding Gaza to its prior state being as high as 100 years, activists have taken it upon themselves to bring aid to Gaza since Israel’s blockade keeps out essential items for medicine, shelter, infrastructure, and food. A total of three Freedom Flotillas have set sail in attempts to break the blockade. Israel’s wanton, unprovoked and inhuman violence was exposed to the world. On the first voyage, 10 unarmed international aid workers did not return home as they were brutally murdered by IDF soldiers, some execution style.

Kevin Neish was on the 1st and 3rd Flotillas and helped to photograph the violence and many of the bodies of dead activists who just wanted to make life better for those who experience this type of violence on a daily basis for the past 60 years of the Israeli occupation.

In initial reports of the capture of the most recent Flotilla, the IDF lied and said they boarded the ship non-violently in an attempt to appear as if their behavior of non-violently breaking international law is a step up from murdering unarmed activists. Neish and other activists tell a different story of a hostile takeover of the ship, tasering, and illegal detention. This takeover occurred in international waters, proving Israel’s disregard for international law.

Like last time, Neish captured footage of the illegal raid and will once again present it to the International Criminal Court. He was detained in Israel for several days afterward and was abused by Israeli soldiers. IDF prison guards placed their own fecal matter on towels in the prison shower that Neish had hoped to use to dry himself.

Neish mentioned that the boat used for the Freedom Flotilla was of Swedish national origin, where the government recognized the state of Palestine. The ship did intend to legally enter the state of Palestine, instead of illegally entering Israel as the IDF claims. Also, Neish noted that Israel attacking the ship is tantamount to an act of war against Swedish soil.

The ICC dismissed the original case of the 10 murders on the first Flotilla, even though they admitted it was a war crime. The current appeal now has a much larger base of evidence including the legal equivalent of invading Swedish soil. If the ICC rejects it again, it will certainly bring up questions about the legitimacy & neutrality of the ICC, as if Israel’s blatant war crimes against Gaza aren’t sufficient grounds for international war crimes prosecution at The Hague.

Mavi_Marmara_side-400x268Image: MV Mavi Marmara

Mint Press News is an independent watchdog journalism organization that provides issue-based original reporting, in-depth investigations, and thoughtful analysis of the most pressing topics.

Witnessing Israel’s war and destruction of Gaza

11 Aug

AJ+ video

One year on: when Israel started its invasion of Gaza in the summer of 2014, the pictures of death and destruction were all over our screens. But Max Blumenthal travelled there to see for himself. So many of the stories he witnessed were never talked about in the news.

Chris Hedges: Why I support the boycott of Apartheid Israel

6 Aug

Chris Hedges: Why I support the boycott of Israel’s ‘Apartheid’ state

RT America – a recent interview with investigative journalist & author, Chris Hedges

In an exclusive interview, investigative journalist Chris Hedges talks about his experience during last year’s destructive Israeli siege of Gaza. He explains what he saw as an “apartheid regime” and how the violence on the ground pushed him to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against the state of Israel. Hedges also explores the fractured relationship between the US and Israel. Watch the full interview with RT’s Anya Parampil.

Israeli attacks create ‘a powder keg waiting to explode’

5 Aug

Ashraf Shannon reports from Gaza, PressTV, 5 August 2015

The Israeli army has made an incursion into the Gaza Strip forcing farmers and villagers out of the area.

The incursion happened in the east of the southern city of Khan Younis. Israeli tanks and bulldozers entered the area and dug trenches inside the so-called buffer zone. Israel occasionally launches limited raids into the Gaza Strip on security pretexts, often razing land near the so-called buffer zone. Such moves violate an agreement that ended Israel’s last summer war on the besieged enclave.

The Palestinian bubble and the burning of baby Ali Dawabsha

4 Aug

Relatives mourn the death of 18-month-old Ali Dawabsha, after he was killed in an arson attack by Jewish settlers. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org

By Ramzy Baroud, Politics for the People blog, 2 August 2015.

One-and-a-half year old Ali Saad Dawabsha became the latest victim of Israeli violence on July 31. He was burnt to death. Other members of his family were also severely burnt in a Jewish settlers’ attack on their home in the village of Duma, near Nablus, in the West Bank.

A spokesman for Rabbis for Human Rights told Al Jazeera Arabic that this is the tenth attack on Nablus by settlers in July. A statement issued by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) provided an even more alarming statistic, putting the number of Jewish settlers’ attacks, some of them lethal, at an estimated 11,000 since the end of 2014.

Ali Dawabsha is not the first Palestinian child to be burnt to death, although the story of Mohamed Abu Khdeir who was tortured and burnt alive by a group of Jewish extremists in July 2014 now serves as a hideous benchmark for Israeli settler violence, which is often conducted under the watchful eye of – or as part of larger violent campaign led by – the Israeli army.

Despite Israeli political theater and statements of condemnations following Abu Khdeir’s grisly murder, Israeli violence against Palestinians is part and parcel of Israel’s Occupation policy, draped in numerous crimes gone unpunished.

Little Ali is no different from the 490 Palestinians killed in Israel’s last summer war on Gaza, which killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians, mostly civilians. The Dawabsha family home, which was completely burnt, (while Ali’s mother, father and brother, Ahmed, all sustained serious burns) was no different from the 20,000 Gaza homes which, according to the UN, were destroyed during the Israeli carnage in the Strip.

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Protest demands NZ SuperFund withdraws Israeli investments

3 Aug

FullSizeRenderA lively lunchtime protest at the NZ SuperFund HQ in Downtown Auckland today (Photo: Kia Ora Gaza).

Although divesting from a few Israeli corporations under pressure, NZ SuperFund still retains an array of investments in Israel’s continued harsh occupation of Palestine and siege.

SuperFund CEO Adrian Orr met with an Auckland superannuitants group a few months ago, and agreed to ‘monitor’ their Israeli investments and discuss changes. However, Orr has recently refused any further dialogue and police barred a deputation from the group from entering their downtown headquarters after a lively protest today.

‘We are calling on the NZ SuperFund to continue to divest from companies …that profit off others’ suffering’ said the seniors’ group coordinator, Phil McNeale, at the 60-strong rally. ‘We demand our tax dollars are immediately withdrawn from companies which arm Israel and help maintain its brutal regime of occupation and siege.’

In 2012, Superfund divested from a number of companies which profit off Israel’s war crimes, such as Elbit Systems, a drone manufacturer. Last year NZ Super dropped armaments manufacturer, General Dynamics from their Israeli investment portfolio.

Today, however, NZ Superfund continues to invest in some 38 companies which supply Israel with the means to attack civilians, and in companies which profit from the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. These investments are an affront to international law and the principles of human rights.

‘NZ Superfund has taken an ethical stance on not investing with companies tied to nuclear weaponry and whaling. We want to see this same compassion afforded to Palestinians. As taxpayers we do not want to see our money invested in the suffering and murder of other human beings,’ said McNeale.

NZSF had $7,678,104 invested in some 38 Israeli corporations, plus $2,017,530 in Caterpillar, who supply huge armed bulldozers to the Israeli military. Here are some of them:

• G4S: a British-Danish private security company that provides services and equipment to Israeli prisons, checkpoints, the Apartheid Wall and the Israeli police.
• United Technologies: produces Blackhawk helicopters used to attack cities, refugee camps and villages.
• Boeing: sells Israel F-15A fighter jets and Apache AH 64 helicopters used in attacks on Gaza.
• Raytheon: produces bombs used in attacking Gaza.
• Caterpillar: produces militarised bulldozers used to destroy Palestinian homes.
• Israel Chemicals: produces white phosphorus.
• Hewlett-Packard Co: produces technologies for the Israeli military and profits from business in illegal settlements

Israel exploits Syrian chaos to plan looting of Golan oil

22 Jul

Israeli soldiers patrol near the occupied Syrian town of Majdal al-Shams in the Golan Heights in 2011. [Oren Ziv ActiveStills]

By Paul Fallon, The Electronic Intifada, 21 July 2015

According to Geoff Rochwarger, CEO of Afek, energy independence is the new Zionism.

The Afek oil and gas exploration company has almost completed its second drilling test in the Golan Heights, a part of Syria which Israel has occupied since 1967 and annexed in violation of international law.

The test is part of a three-year programme to see if hydrocarbons in the area could lead to oil or gas for Israel.

Israel is fuel-poor and its domestic energy woes could be eased in the interim if the government progresses on deals in relation to the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields in the Mediterranean Sea.

In addition, Israel is now taking advantage of the chaos in Syria to look for precious resources to extract from the occupied Golan Heights.

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Why Palestinians resist: The logic of life and death in Gaza

17 Jul

IMG_0696Gaza City graffiti, Nov 2012 (Photo: Kia Ora Gaza)

By Ramzy Baroud, Ma’an News Agency, 16 July 2015.

Another row is brewing between Israel and the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, over the release of Avraham Mengitsu, an Israeli citizen who, according to Israeli military sources, ‘slipped into Gaza’ on September 7, 2014.

The circumstances of Mengitsu’s entry into Gaza remain unclear, especially since Hamas’ political leader, Khaled Mashaal, denied that the military wing of Hamas is holding the Israeli citizen.

According to Israel’s Defense Ministry, another Israeli is also being held in Gaza. A gag order on Mengitsu’s disappearance was just lifted, but another remains in effect regarding the other, allegedly, detained Israeli.

Indirect negotiations for their release are yet to begin, according to Israeli officials.

For Hamas, who, according to Mashaal, has been approached by Israel via European interlocutors, no discussion will be possible until Israel releases 71 Palestinians. This is the number of Palestinians who were re-arrested soon after they were released in 2011 following a prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel. At the time, a prisoner swap secured the release of 1,027 Palestinians (477 reportedly affiliated with Hamas) and Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who was captured and held by Hamas fighters for five years.

The new prospect of negotiations will allow Hamas to raise the issue of Israel’s violation of the last prisoner exchange agreement. By re-arresting freed prisoners, future agreements with Israel would appear frivolous and seem like a temporary measure to secure Israel’s immediate interests, without full and unconditional commitment regarding the freedom of newly released Palestinian prisoners.

Being the occupying power with unhindered access to occupied Palestinian territories in Jerusalem and the West Bank, Israel can apprehend any Palestinian they accuse of ‘terrorism,’ without much proof or serious due process. The Israeli efforts at choking any form of resistance, armed or otherwise, is often supported by the Palestinian Authority, whose security goons are fully trained and equipped to crush any dissent in the West Bank. A recent foray of arrests, targeting mainly Hamas supporters and other dissenting voices, is the latest proof.

Many cynics questioned the prisoner exchange in 2011. Some asked, “What is the value of securing the release of hundreds of prisoners if they can be re-arrested by Israel at whim?”

Palestinians continue to face the same dilemma of every national liberation movement in modern times. Native Americans, too, haggled with the same dilemma as they faced genocide and annihilation.

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Israel allows increased trickle of goods into Gaza

16 Jul

Israel allows 650 truckloads of goods into Gaza (MaanImages/File)

Israel’s strict blockade has destroyed the economy in the Gaza Strip and has made it near impossible for the strip’s 1.8 million residents to recover from three wars over the last six years.

The vital Kerem Shalom crossing is regularly closed by Israeli authorities for alleged security reasons as well as during many national Israeli holidays according to Israeli watchdog Gisha.

As of June, UNOCHA reported that only 1 percent of the construction materials required to rebuild houses destroyed and damaged during hostilities last summer had entered Gaza so far – highlighting the urgent need to build international pressure to not merely ease Israel’s inhumane siege on Gaza, but to end it.

Ma’an News Agency report, Gaza City, 15 July 2015

Israeli authorities opened the Kerem Shalom crossing with Gaza on Wednesday enabling 650 truckloads of goods to enter, a Palestinian crossings official said.

Raed Fattouh, head of the Palestinian coordination committee for the entry of goods into the Gaza Strip, said that the Israeli authorities would allow the goods to enter for the commercial, agriculture and transportation sectors.

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‘Let me be blunt: Gaza is a huge concentration camp’

10 Jul

Amira Hass, Haaretz correspondent for the Occupied Territories, pictured during her speaking tour of New Zealand earlier this year (Photo: Kia Ora Gaza.)

by JULIE POUCHER HARBIN, Editor, ISLAMiCommentary 6 July, 2015:

This past Spring Amira Hass, correspondent for Haaretz, spoke at the Forum for Scholars and Publics at Duke University. Hass, an Israeli who has won numerous awards for her reporting, has been covering the region since the early 90s. She lived in Gaza for three years and currently lives in Ramallah in the West Bank. Originally from Jerusalem, she was educated at Hebrew University and wrote the well-known book Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land Under Siege as well as the forward and epilogue to the diary of her mother who survived the Bergen Belsen concentration camp.

She gave two public talks during her week-long residency at Duke — “The Israeli Occupation and Jewish-Israeli Dissent” and “Reporting from Ramallah: An Israeli Jew in an Occupied Land” — and also had the chance to meet with students.

Hass said she’s aware of the “contradiction of reporting about the Occupation,” while at the same time “profiting from” that Occupation as an Israeli.

“It’s a constant contradiction in my life. It is a bitter acknowledgment of a privilege and a contradiction,” she said during one of her talks. “It is especially bitter when I talk about Gaza.”

This week (July 8th) marks the one-year anniversary of “Operation Protective Edge” — also referred to as Israel’s invasion of Gaza — a seven-week operation in a long running conflict. According to a bleak new World Bank report, Israeli blockades, war and poor governance have left Gaza’s economy on the “verge of collapse.” It now has the highest unemployment rate in the world — 43 percent, and 60 percent among youth.

Here are some excerpts from Hass’s “Reporting from Ramallah” talk (re-ordered slightly for content continuity), which was audio-recorded in March 2015:

Hass on Freedom of Movement in the Occupied Territories: A Concentration Camp?

When I think of all my friends in Gaza … not only my friends…that haven’t been out of the Gaza Strip for the past 20 years … they are deprived of so many basic things, because Israel deprives them of peace, (the) basic right of freedom of movement.

I’m not talking about food. I’m not talking about even the water situation in Gaza, which is appalling and disastrous. I’m talking about the very basic need of people to travel, to move, to see other places, to have both the ability to plan or the ability to be spontaneous. The Palestinians are deprived of all this.

In practice, Gaza has become a huge, let me be blunt, concentration camp for right now 1, 800,000 people. This is not a novelty. This is not something new. This did not start, unlike what many people think, with the rise of Hamas, Hamas being elected in 2006, or Hamas taking over the security agencies and apparatus in Gaza in 2007 after the short civil war. We can almost trace it to the moment when it started, and this is the 15th of January 1991 — long before Oslo, long before Madrid, and of course long before the suicide attacks inside Israeli cities and against Israeli civilians.

This policy of sealing off Gaza, of making Gazans into prisoners, defacto prisoners, started then. I’ve written extensively about it and yet I know it always surprises.

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Has the world abandoned Gaza?

9 Jul

Democracy Now! report, 8 July 2015

As Gaza marks one year since the launch of Israel’s devastating 50-day assault, it remains in a state of crisis. The assault killed 2,200 Palestinians, including 550 children. On the Israeli side, 73 people were killed, all but six of them soldiers. A year later, none of the 12,000 homes destroyed in Gaza have been rebuilt, in part due to the ongoing Israeli blockade. The World Bank is warning the Gaza economy is on the verge of collapse. Overall unemployment now stands at 43 percent — the highest in the world.

We speak with Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer, author of “Shell-Shocked: On the Ground Under Israel’s Gaza Assault.”

Israel’s Army of Spin-Doctors is Doomed to Defeat

8 Jul

gaza_bombing_ahmad_dalloul_irin Aftermath of Israeli raid on Gaza. (Ahmed Dalloul, UN)

By Jonathan Cook, Nazareth, The Palestine Chronicle, 8 July 2015

The Israeli government believes it is locked in an epic struggle to save Israel from the growing movement calling for an international boycott. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu warns that Israel must quickly “rebrand” itself to avoid pariah status.

Ordinary Israelis are therefore being conscripted into an army of spin-doctors in a campaign termed “hasbara” – Hebrew for “public diplomacy”, or more literally “propaganda”.

In the latest offensive, the education ministry has launched a compulsory hasbara course for Israeli students travelling abroad. All youth delegations are now required to learn how to justify to outsiders Israel’s policies in the occupied territories. According to officials, the students must challenge those who “seek to delegitimize Israel”.

It is yet more evidence that hasbara has become a national obsession in Israel – and that the line between support for one’s country and support for the subjugation of another people has been erased. Some 85 per cent of Israelis tell pollsters they are keen to become hasbara ambassadors for the Netanyahu government.

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FIRST IMPRESSIONS Volume 29: Gallows – Grey Britain

Posted: March 5, 2013 by kingcrimsonprog in First Impressions Articles

FIRST IMPRESSIONS Volume 29: Gallows - Grey Britain

FIRST IMPRESSIONS Volume 29: Gallows – Grey Britain

This is the twenty-ninth entry of my blog series ‘First Impressions.’ In each entry of the series I write about discovering an influential or genre-classic album for the first time and then write about that experience in a semi-planned, semi-stream of consciousness manner that is less helpful than a traditional album-review, but which does contain more personal flavour.

I prefer my reviews to be serious and informative. ‘First Impressions’ allow for a more director’s commentary approach. I can be silly and talk bollox, or make points that only a handful of people will understand. Usually I will deliver insights into my history with similar music as well as into how my mind works and how both of these things change over time. You will have to either possess a fairly detailed understanding of Rock and Metal history and Subgenre conventions or have a second tab open at Wikipedia to fully follow every single point that I make, but don’t let that put you off…I’m not honestly expecting you to know every single riff or tone I’ll point out off by heart.

If you want me to do a First Impressions article about a specific album, just suggest it in the comments.

This entry will feature the sophomore studio album ‘Grey Britain’ from the British Hardcore Punk band Gallows.

I think anyone still relatively connected with the Rock and Metal music scene, who has read a music magazine in the past half a decade or who regularly uses the internet can agree that Gallows were a band with an abnormally large hype around them and that this album is and will be considered a classic record. If you disagree feel free to write down exactly why in the comments section. I’ll carry on in the mean time under the assumption that it is.

Before I go into the album though, as is customary in these articles, I’ll discuss my history with Hardcore and Punk.

I remember when I first got into music, I got into Green Day, in the next few years I also was interested in, and almost got into a bunch of pop punk bands including Blink 182, Sum 41, Rancid, The Distillers, The Donnas, The Offspring & The Dropkick Murphies (Ok, not strictly pop punk there).

I’ve been in a intrigue/love/hate relationship with The Sex Pistols since I first heard them, and am in a stalemate with Never Mind The Bollox as to whether or not we’ll ever be together. I don’t know if its my friend or my enemy. I liked watching the live videos from the reunion where Lydon was in a suit made out of newspapers, but I hate when bands like Megadeth and Anthrax cover their songs.

I almost got into them, intrigued by documentaries and stuff. I’ve always, even in primary school, been intrigued by Punk fashion and mohwaks, way before music even came into it. I was very susceptible to ending up a Punk. Even as an adult, when I saw Blackpool fill up with Punks for the Rebellion festival three years in a row, each time I’d look longingly at them like a child passing by a toyshop. I repeat I was very susceptible to ending up a Punk.

When I was about 11 my friend Magnum proposed that I was a Punk fan and he was a Metal fan. For a while it seemed to be heading that way. Then I got into Metal instead. Woops.

Still, when P-Rock TV was a TV channel here in the UK, I watched loads and loads of the Punk and Pop Punk videos there. Loads and Loads and Loads. I nearly got into a shedload of bands. But it never happened for some reason. Possibly because it seemed to challenge a sort of childish Metal-credibility half-notion that I hadn’t fully shaken off.

In the Hardcore side of things, I got into precisely Biohazard and no-one else for ages, until that extended to Hatebreed. I almost got into Sick Of It All and I heard a bit of Earth Crisis, but all that I actually enjoyed was very Metal orientated.

And then there’s Amen. But how do Amen fit into things? I dunno, I can’t be bothered trying to think about it.

I got into Thrash bands and Metalcore bands with a lot of Hardcore influences, but not the Hardcore itself. I stopped caring for ages, until in the last year or two I saw the excellent documentary (watch it!) American Hardcore. I’ve since tried four or five songs from just about every Hardcore Band worth mentioning. I’ve only so far bought and listened-to-the-fuck-out-of DOA’s ‘Fucked Up Ronnie’ though. Its not really my thing on the whole.

Often, Hardcore is just too messy, too badly produced, too unmusical, too grating to suit me, too chaotic. Its like the Thrash or The Metalcore that I like, but just that little bit outside my comfort zone. Like Black Metal is. Its not that I think that its crap or anything, it just doesn’t make my brain happy the way some other music does. Some of it actively upsets my brain. I’ve went on a few times about the part I hate in 90s metal being derived from Hardcore.

What you may or may not also know or not know about me (or not me?), is that I am a giant fan of The Metal Hammer Podcast (or not?). Though I don’t ever read the magazine anymore, the Podcast is immensely enjoyable, and I’ve listened to every single episode, numerous times. Sometimes upwards of seven times. It got me to try out bands like Bring Me The Horizon and Parkway Drive, who I ended up becoming a fan of.

One of the former presenters Terry Beezer in particular, as well as anyone else who every worked on it, seems to really like Gallows, and new UK Hardcore in general. To that end I’ve heard countless hours of recommendations and positive things about Gallows, Grey Britain and lots of UK Hardcore.

I’ve given quite a lot of it a listen, Feed The Rhino and Ghost Of A Thousand for example. It wasn’t necessarily for me, and I didn’t look into it any further. But recently I’ve been listening to old podcasts again, and suddenly become overwhelmingly interested in Grey Britain. The amount of excitement and positive things that I’ve heard about it just built up to an absolutely overwhelming level and I just finally had to give up my embargo on it and give it a chance.

Embargo? What Embargo.

Well. I avoided Gallows for a long time. Well, from they first broke up until right now. I did listen to ‘In The Belly Of A Shark’ all the way through on youtube once and a few audio samples of the new album just to see what their new Canadian singer sounded like, but other than that, any time I’ve heard or seen Gallows I’ve been overcome by an urge to instantly stop that situation, changing music video channels or turning off whatever was playing the music.

I felt a very strong, instinctual, almost primitive ‘yuk’ reaction. The kind of thing a chav might experience towards, say, Slipknot. Something about their singer Frank Carter’s hateful facial expressions, his accent, his Lydon-reincarnated press and the violent and potentially messy music just made me not want to listen. The music seemed like a bully, and I didn’t want to be bullied by music thank you very much. My brain just did not want me to even try to hear it or give it a fair chance.

Since however, my whole thing for the last few years has been about giving things a fair chance, and recognising the validity of each individual piece of art, I thought I’d give just that a go with this particularly challenging example.

If you are wondering what finally wore me down, after two years of constant podcast recommendations not working, it was hearing them cover Iron Maiden’s ‘Wrathchild’ recently in the most bombastic way you could imagine. After that entry point, it re-listening to the podcasts with a hole in my armour allowed the liquid-Beezer-constant-Gallows-love to seep in and eventually drown me.

It starts off Suspicously quiet. The song is called ‘The Riverbed’ and there’s samples of water. It opens with some ominous low strings. Like the start of a Vicorian era crime film where a body is being dumped into the water. It sounds evil as fuck. Like Deicide want to sound.

A big Doom riff kicks in, like the start of Lamb Of God’s new album. The vocals are very aggressive, like a bouncer who’s out being a football hooligan while he’s not at work… its kind of an intro, it turns into the next song via feedback and some bouncy drums.

The new song is called ‘London Is The Reason.’ Some trivia: The podcast questioned how a Canadian singer would fare singing ‘London Is The Reason.’ Its Chorus includes the Phrase ‘We Are The Rats’ and they’ve played a secret gig under the fake name of ‘The Rats.’ Relevant? not really… I just had it in my head, and I hoped writing it would move it along so I could concentrate.

Musically it has this riff that sounds like a sick robot. It’s the kind of thing Nirvana or The Melvins might use and logically some 80s hardcore I don’t know about too. There’s an album by a band called Jetplane Landing, called ‘Once Like A Spark’ that I absolutely love. It has a few noisy moments that come from a Punk sort of setting. It has riffs that sound like this, only nice-ified. This is quite off-putting on first pass, but I reframe it through a JPL prism and the yuk-factor is dulled. A bit.

I don’t like sloppy, harsh or noisy sounding music. I think Naplam Death’s Scum is a damn challenge to sit through more than five songs at a time. I’d be hopeless with Noise-core.

I like the bit where he sings the song’s title with a little lead guitar behind it, like Monster Magnet might do. Or someone else. It reminds me of something else but I can’t quite catch it. Bollox! Don’t you hate it hen that happens? I’ll be cleaning the dishes when I finally remember, and then I won’t be able to edit the article easily because wet hands makes my computer’s trackpad go unpredictable, and it’d be hard to navigate my way to the browser, correct site, tool bar and correct option to edit it. not with that damn cursor all a-slippin-and-a-slidin’

Anyway. When I think it’s ended at around two minutes however, it plays me for a fool and continues. It continues into a piece of music I’d swear I heard on Forbidden or Testament’s last album, possibly even on Metallica’s ‘All Nightmare Long.’ One of those bits where big arggressive chords slam down over relative quiet… DUN, DUN, DUNDUN………..DUHN!.

The next song ‘Leeches’ reminds me a bit of Entombed. It features the brilliant lyric ‘You have no redeeming features.’ It also has a brilliant riff that also sounds like a robot, but a more agitated and less broken one, it reminds me of Brent Hinds from Mastodon. It lasts for such a short time but its amazing. That turns a bit melodic afterwards which is also cool. Then it sucks into a brilliant bounce. There’s a stop start chord strike bit over a minimal, but very driving drum beat, its amazingly powerful. I bet its incredible live. That bit especially sounds like Jetplane Landing.

There’s a snare roll build up and then some actual music right out of Rage Against The Machine’s repetoire. I didn’t expect that. Then a more melodic version of an older riff, with some keyboard chord strikes underneath (like in QOTSA’s ‘Go With The Flow’). It ends very like how a lot of Testament songs end.

The guitar work was surprisingly intricate throughout.
The song was surprisingly catchy.
I recommend you listen to this song, so you can see what I mean. Especially about the robot bit and the bounce.

The next song barges its way in rudely, with a flompy (yes, flompy!) snare and bass only beat and some vocals. It reminds me a lot of Amen. Amen would do that. Amen have done that. I did it in a Bloodpuncher song, in tribute to Amen once, so Amen would definitely do it.

It’s a bit noisy guitarwise, a bit hard on the ears. Then he screams ‘I Know Where You Live’ and it takes an Arctic Monkeys turn and becomes very enjoyable. It sounds like an advertisement for a British show about Police car chases on an unpopular channel.

Halfway though the song, it breaks down a bit and reminds me of that Sick Of It All song with the subway dragon. The double speed drums remind me of recent Lars Ulrich. Like maybe ‘Shoot Me Again.’ The double kicks feel punishing though, they’re impressive.

Next up is ‘I Dread The Night.’ For some reason it sounds like a mixture between Arctic Monkey’s ‘The Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secure’ and Bring Me The Horizon’s ‘Death Breath.’ Possibly just because of lyrical content. The bit where he says ‘Trapped In The Body Of A Man Defeated’ is very catchy.

At 1.43 it sounds a bit like the intro to Red Hot Chilli Pepper’s ‘Can’t Stop’ for a millisecond before turning awesome. The vocals are really expressive in a way I wouldn’t expect from the band with my limited knowledge of them.

When it kicks into the next, fast punky riff, it reminds me of the bits in both Overkill and Napalm Death that you can tell are derived from Hardcore. Like even on the good Napalm Death albums. It really, really reminds me of bits I’ve heard both those bands play. Then it turns into a half-drum-speed hanging version that is like a thinner version of a Hatebreed bit. When the ‘man defeated’ bit comes back, its like a very evil version of the Arctic Monkeys. It ends with that bit sang with no music. Its cool. Reminds me of Gentle Giant. They do that sort of thing.

The next song is called ‘Death Voices.’ I’m not even skeptical about the band anymore after hearing half of this song. Its got some of the catchiest, most memorable vocals I’ve heard in ages. The bit where they sing ‘four riders, four horses, bring me famine and bring me death’ and especially ‘beat by beat as the blows rain down’ is just absolutely captivating.

Its got this riff in it, that if you sang it with your mouth, would sound exactly like Judas Priest’s ‘Breaking The Law’ – duhduhduhdehdeyhduhdedeyhduh – but on the track it doesn’t sound like it… if you get me. In the same way that if you sing a certain riff in Metallica’s ‘St Anger’ it sounds like you are actually singing Pantera’s ‘A New Level’ riff. Get me? No !?

When the floor tom comes in for the pre-chorus it really reminds me of Coheed And Cambria. They’d do that. All the music cuts out in the middle, like the end of that other song. It goes all Gentle Giant again. More so, because of the backing vocals. Then the music comes back and it ends properly. Then Instead of the end being the end, there’s some pianoy-violiny vintage sounding crackly music… like a Coheed And Cambria intro.

Then its ended. Apart from…. Nah, just kidding. It did end.

Then, rather than end, the next song begins. I know, crazy, right? – Its an acoustic song. As you do, on a Hardcore Punk album. His clean singing is really good. It reminds me of ‘France’ by The Libertines only with a dark tone. But not dark in an obvious way. Dark like a disappointing ending where you realize you’ve fucked up irrevocably and can’t fix it, like Gone Baby Gone dark as opposed to Tim Burton bullshit dark.
Its called The Vulture Act 1 and it turns into The Vulture Act 2 with some dramatic Doomy, funereal clanging.

Then Act 2 comes in with music lifted STRAIGHT OUT of a Gamma Ray song. I can hear, the bit exactly, at the end of the snare roll Kai shouts ‘Alright.’ Frank doesn’t though. Sly dog. I won’t tell them if you don’t… ok I DID technically tell them… but, …shit.

The lyrics and vocal patterns are the bits from Act 1 only over Act 2’s dark Gamma Ray music. What are a Hardcore Band doing playing Power Metal anyway? Being Awesome, that’s what.
There are so many cool little touches that only last about two bars. Its hard to go into all of them.
It ends with Train sound effects…because… you know, Trains, innit ?

The next song is The Riverbed. It reminds me a bit of the first song, The Riverbank. Doubtlessly intentional. The way the drums work are very both Jetplane Landing and Coheed in parts, and very Hatebreed in other parts. It’d be fun to play.

There’s a bass lead build up before the vocals come in. Its structurally very cool. It reminds me of Coheed and System Of A Down. They’re proggy as hell for a Hardcore band.

At 2.45 there’s a brilliant pure Thrash riff, over ‘Let It Rain On Me.’ Then some fun double kick patterns. Then that Hatebreed bit comes back only with phenomenally ‘real’ sounding fast double kicks.

‘The Great Forgiver’ nosily comes in next. It’s the noisiest, most violent thing on the record so far. It even interrupts itself a few times. Rude. Its bizarrely catchy for something that’s so obnoxious. It has this low stop start bit with a high watery flicking tail, that should sound nasty but doesn’t. It sounds like its changing its mind about quitting a job.

‘Graves’ burst in next, also fast and noisy. Maybe there’s a quota. Its good despite not clearly doing or containing anything I historically have liked. Apart from passion I guess. I don’t know what it means exactly, but it sounds like it means it!

Then it goes slow. It sounds like Biffy Clyro’s singer a bit. Wikipedia says it in fact IS Biffy Clyro’s singer. That seems an odd choice. The end of the song works the way an Amen song I can’t remember ends.

Next up is ‘Queensbury Rules’ which sounds Russian. It reminds me of both Iron Maiden’s ‘Mother Russia’ and Mastodon’s ‘The Czar.’ Then it goes into a bit that works along the same logic as Metallica’s ‘Hit The Lights’ complete with high pitched tom roll.

When it goes into a d-beat, its absolutely gigantic. Its gigantic because the drums are quieter and weaker than they just were, because that’s what actually happens in real rife. The production on the drums are so damn real I could just eat them. The guitar over the top of the d-beat, and the strangely melodic London bouncer vocals come together really well in a better than the sum of their parts union to create one of the most exciting little bits of music I’ve heard in a long time. The way the vocals carry on, over and into the neck riff, which doesn’t immediately start up since the last bit ended on a cymbal catch gives you the feeling of whiplash… the song was hurtling you forwards, and then the section changes and you’re dragged back to a stationary position against that momentum. Its brilliant. Brilliant structuring.

Everything that follows in the next bit is so strangely catchy, even though everything is all over the place, each bit is new and its own and you can’t stick it together. Then that fantastic quiet d-beat thing comes back and I love it so much.

Around three minutes, it brings the rhythm of the Russian bit back in as a lead over a few different backgrounds, its really well done. It sounds so mournful, like surveying a massive military defeat.

The next song comes on, called misery. It opens with Keys and Strings, and a quiet snare roll. It sounds like both Faith No More and Coheed. It SHOULD be out of place as hell on this album, but it somehow fits brilliantly. It goes on over a full minute and a half too. Then the song gets angry.

I’ve never heard a singer that actually sounds miserable before. But this is the best example I’ve heard. He sounds more upset than Jonathan Davis at least. Ok, actually, I thought of loads of examples…Claudio in ‘Carol Ann’ and Ollie in ‘Suicide Season.’ Ok, forget that. He wants to kill himself just for relief, or so he says. The drums make it sound so serious. The toms especially. There are tom based holding patterns between sections, and a bit of stuff that reminds me of Pearl Jam in no way I can explain.

Then a fantastic, Metalcore breakdown. It works like Parkway Drive, but then this dark lead comes over it and it seems more like Infection era Chimaira. It ends with squealing pigs… because, … pigs, innit.

The last song comes in all fast and heavy. ‘Crucifucks’ its called. A title I feel is stolen from Exodus, but probably isn’t. This reminds me of Hardcore from America in the 80s, the type Slayer listened to. Then this jangly bass bit comes in, from out of nowhere, cancelling the song that had been going on for the first minute altogether, and its a bit that wouldn’t be out of place coming out of Mike Dirnt.

After barely a few seconds of that it erupts into this amazing Mastodon bit that sounds like nothing else on the album. Its so triumphant. That was worth the price of the album right there. They go into a slower but equally powerful bit.

Then it has a snare build up with the Dirnt-bass over the top. It sounds so extremely serious. It sounds like a threatening political nightmare. Then instead of exploding back into the Mastodon bit, it just gives over to scary horror music.

Its kind of like the bit in This Is England, where they think they’re having a laugh and then it all turns nasty and psychopathic. It’s a dark and upsetting way to end an album I’ll tell you that much. Then luckily, a beautiful, prog era Anathema like, keyboard and strings (only happy for once!) bit kicks in, it sounds like the bit at the end of a thing, where there’s hope for the future. Like how Battlestar Gallactica SHOULD’VE ended with just those two on their grassy hill. Non of that other business.

Yup. Great Britain is fucking dead. It stays dead for a bit. Then a little Wall-E like sprout of green grows, and you can tell that everything will be OK in a few thousand years.

Its both happy and a bit sad at 6.57 though… I don’t know what that’s about. Maybe the greenery will grow back, but the earth is going to fly into the sun anyway shortly afterward.

Fuck me. What a bizzare song.

One minute of Hardcore. Gear change. Glory. Glory fade. Build wait, FEAR! Fear, evolving into hope…into bittersweet recognition of an unfair but inevitable future.

What the heck is all that about?

Luckily, I’ve engineered circumstances so that their absolutely ferocious cover of Maiden’s ‘Wrathchild’ comes on next. Because, if I had to dwell on that ending I might just go actually mad.

This ‘Wrathchild’ is so good it makes you think about saying really knobby sentences like ‘this is what it must have sounded like to people at the time’ in a “Dr. Who made my parents hide behind the sofa” kind of way, before you stop being a clichéd twat and instead DON’T say that.

Still. It’s a very good cover.

Ok. So what did I think of Grey Britain?

Beforehand I thought it would have been a jumped up NME-in-the-noughties era Sex Pistols clone’s dodgy anarchic and tuneless album for “cool people” with a token strings outro sellotaped onto the end by the producer as an afterthought.

Just goes to show you that you should give things a fair chance. I listened to the thing that I thought would be awful and well, it totally won me over… because, …Grey Britain, innit?

It’s a very powerful, and interesting album. Its sneakily catchy. Its surprisingly progressive and very musically accomplished for a band that could get away with just being violent instead of talented. The whole harsh-London vocal thing took A LOT of getting over for my personal tastes, but there are so many cool vocal bits that it kind of cancels out the bits I don’t like.

I can understand all the internet love for this record. Gallows fans would probably think I was a twat for comparing them to Arctic Monkeys though. Innit, because, innit, innit?

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text: Thank you for visiting Kiss My Cabbage, LLC, purveyors of small-batch, lacto-fermented Sauerkraut, Kimchi, Giardiniera, Curtido and seasonal inspirations. We use Certified Naturally Grown (CNG) produce from Burning River Farm in Frederic, WI, as well as from many neighboring farms using organic growing methods. Based in St. Croix Falls, WI, an hour north of the Twin Cities.


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and other stories, fashion, Joanie clothing, John Lewis, Marks and Spencer, metallics, Monki, office wear, ootd, summer, tropical, Work outfit

Treat yo’self: April Pay Day edition

Let me get real for a moment here readers. April was a gold plated turd of a month. Work was rough, my Mum broke her hip quite badly before Easter, I got stranded (ish) in London after a fire at Euston station and – to top it all off – I was treated to some chronic insomnia. It felt like I spent most of the month crying from exhaustion, stress, or both. Part of me is blaming it on Mercury in retrograde, and another part is just blaming it on a year which seems to be far too bloody keen on seeing how far it can push me before I finally snap (to which I say, ‘do your worst, bitch.’)

So, allow me to indulge in some good old fashioned capitalism in the form of payday retail therapy. Fashion brands have embraced spring big time, which means lots of pastels, pleats, flounces and frills (arguably Spring/Summer is the only season where we’ll let them off for their obsession with cold shoulders.) You don’t have to look far at the moment to find some really unique, fun, plus sized items. I’m particularly smitten with the mules shown above in that perfect shade of parma violet. They’d look fantastic when paired with a super cute nautical themed t-shirt from Joanie (just one piece in a sailor themed collection which manages to be cute without veering into the costumey) and a metallic pleated skirt from Marks and Spencer – an item which I could see myself flouncing around in on both an office floor and a dance floor. Just add this great 80s-esque Laura Slater designed leather clutch bag from Kin at John Lewis and Bob’s your drag queen.

Then there’s this kimono from Monki which appears to be the Twitter-cool-girl uniform item of choice at the moment. I’ve seen a remarkable amount of babes wearing it (and looking amazing while doing so) which means I’ll be forced to pick my own up soon – after all, I do hate to be left out of trends. And besides, just look at that print! Imagine how many selfies you could take wearing it while posing on a sandy beach next to a palm tree. Or, just in your bedroom standing next to a cheese plant if you’re on a budget.

Suede Cross Strap Mules (£65.00) – And Other Stories

Frankie French Nautical Tee (£18.00) – Joanie

Laura Slater Leather Clutch Bag (£55.20) Kin by John Lewis

Metallic Pleated A-Line Skirt (£49.50) – Marks and Spencer

Long Caftan Dress (£30.00) – Monki


text:
A cell wall is a structural layer surrounding some types of cells, situated outside the cell membrane. It can be tough, flexible, and sometimes rigid. It provides the cell with both structural support and protection, and also acts as a filtering mechanism. Cell walls are present in most prokaryotes (except mycoplasma bacteria), in algae, plants and fungi but rarely in other eukaryotes including animals. A major function is to act as pressure vessels, preventing over-expansion of the cell when water enters.

The composition of cell walls varies between species and may depend on cell type and developmental stage. The primary cell wall of land plants is composed of the polysaccharides cellulose, hemicellulose and pectin. Often, other polymers such as lignin, suberin or cutin are anchored to or embedded in plant cell walls. Algae possess cell walls made of glycoproteins and polysaccharides such as carrageenan and agar that are absent from land plants. In bacteria, the cell wall is composed of peptidoglycan. The cell walls of archaea have various compositions, and may be formed of glycoprotein S-layers, pseudopeptidoglycan, or polysaccharides. Fungi possess cell walls made of the glucosamine polymer chitin. Unusually, diatoms have a cell wall composed of biogenic silica.[១]

A plant cell wall was first observed and named (simply as a "wall") by Robert Hooke in 1665.[២] However, "the dead excrusion product of the living protoplast" was forgotten, for almost three centuries, being the subject of scientific interest mainly as a resource for industrial processing or in relation to animal or human health.[៣]

In 1804, Karl Rudolphi and J.H.F. Link proved that cells had independent cell walls.[៤][៥][៦] Before, it had been thought that cells shared walls and that fluid passed between them this way.

The mode of formation of the cell wall was controversial in the 19th century. Hugo von Mohl (1853, 1858) advocated the idea that the cell wall grows by apposition. Carl Nägeli (1858, 1862, 1863) believed that the growth of the wall in thickness and in area was due to a process termed intussusception. Each theory was improved in the following decades: the apposition (or lamination) theory by Eduard Strasburger (1882, 1889), and the intussusception theory by Julius Wiesner (1886).[៧]

In 1930, Ernst Münch coined the term apoplast in order to separate the "living" symplast from the "dead" plant region, the latter of which included the cell wall.[៨]

By the 1980s, some authors suggested replacing the term "cell wall", particularly as it was used for plants, with the more precise term "extracellular matrix", as used for animal cells,[៩][១០] but others preferred the older term.[១១]

Diagram of the plant cell, with the cell wall in green.

Cell walls serve similar purposes in those organisms that possess them. They may give cells rigidity and strength, offering protection against mechanical stress. In multicellular organisms, they permit the organism to build and hold a definite shape (morphogenesis). Cell walls also limit the entry of large molecules that may be toxic to the cell. They further permit the creation of stable osmotic environments by preventing osmotic lysis and helping to retain water. Their composition, properties, and form may change during the cell cycle and depend on growth conditions.

Rigidity of cell walls[កែប្រែ]

In most cells, the cell wall is flexible, meaning that it will bend rather than holding a fixed shape, but has considerable tensile strength. The apparent rigidity of primary plant tissues is enabled by cell walls, but is not due to the walls' stiffness. Hydraulic turgor pressure creates this rigidity, along with the wall structure. The flexibility of the cell walls is seen when plants wilt, so that the stems and leaves begin to droop, or in seaweeds that bend in water currents. As John Howland explains:

Think of the cell wall as a wicker basket in which a balloon has been inflated so that it exerts pressure from the inside. Such a basket is very rigid and resistant to mechanical damage. Thus does the prokaryote cell (and eukaryotic cell that possesses a cell wall) gain strength from a flexible plasma membrane pressing against a rigid cell wall.[១២]

The apparent rigidity of the cell wall thus results from inflation of the cell contained within. This inflation is a result of the passive uptake of water.

In plants, a secondary cell wall is a thicker additional layer of cellulose which increases wall rigidity. Additional layers may be formed by lignin in xylem cell walls, or suberin in cork cell walls. These compounds are rigid and waterproof, making the secondary wall stiff. Both wood and bark cells of trees have secondary walls. Other parts of plants such as the leaf stalk may acquire similar reinforcement to resist the strain of physical forces.

The primary cell wall of most plant cells is freely permeable to small molecules including small proteins, with size exclusion estimated to be 30-60 kDa.[ត្រូវការអំណះអំណាង] The pH is an important factor governing the transport of molecules through cell walls.[១៣]

Cell walls evolved independently in many groups, even in the photosynthetic eukaryotes. In these lineages, the cell wall is closely related to the evolution of multicellularity, terrestrialization and vascularization.[១៤]

Plant cell walls[កែប្រែ]

The walls of plant cells must have sufficient tensile strength to withstand internal osmotic pressures of several times atmospheric pressure that result from the difference in solute concentration between the cell interior and external solutions.[១៥] Plant cell walls vary from 0.1 to several µm in thickness.[១៦]

Molecular structure of the primary cell wall in plants.

Up to three strata or layers may be found in plant cell walls:[១៧]

  • The primary cell wall, generally a thin, flexible and extensible layer formed while the cell is growing.
  • The secondary cell wall, a thick layer formed inside the primary cell wall after the cell is fully grown. It is not found in all cell types. Some cells, such as the conducting cells in xylem, possess a secondary wall containing lignin, which strengthens and waterproofs the wall.
  • The middle lamella, a layer rich in pectins. This outermost layer forms the interface between adjacent plant cells and glues them together.

In the primary (growing) plant cell wall, the major carbohydrates are cellulose, hemicellulose and pectin. The cellulose microfibrils are linked via hemicellulosic tethers to form the cellulose-hemicellulose network, which is embedded in the pectin matrix. The most common hemicellulose in the primary cell wall is xyloglucan. In grass cell walls, xyloglucan and pectin are reduced in abundance and partially replaced by glucuronarabinoxylan, another type of hemicellulose. Primary cell walls characteristically extend (grow) by a mechanism called acid growth, which involves turgor-driven movement of the strong cellulose microfibrils within the weaker hemicellulose/pectin matrix, catalyzed by expansin proteins. The outer part of the primary cell wall of the plant epidermis is usually impregnated with cutin and wax, forming a permeability barrier known as the plant cuticle.

Secondary cell walls contain a wide range of additional compounds that modify their mechanical properties and permeability. The major polymers that make up wood (largely secondary cell walls) include:

  • cellulose, 35-50%
  • xylan, 20-35%, a type of hemicellulose
  • lignin, 10-25%, a complex phenolic polymer that penetrates the spaces in the cell wall between cellulose, hemicellulose and pectin components, driving out water and strengthening the wall.

Additionally, structural proteins (1-5%) are found in most plant cell walls; they are classified as hydroxyproline-rich glycoproteins (HRGP), arabinogalactan proteins (AGP), glycine-rich proteins (GRPs), and proline-rich proteins (PRPs). Each class of glycoprotein is defined by a characteristic, highly repetitive protein sequence. Most are glycosylated, contain hydroxyproline (Hyp) and become cross-linked in the cell wall. These proteins are often concentrated in specialized cells and in cell corners. Cell walls of the epidermis may contain cutin. The Casparian strip in the endodermis roots and cork cells of plant bark contain suberin. Both cutin and suberin are polyesters that function as permeability barriers to the movement of water.[១៨] The relative composition of carbohydrates, secondary compounds and proteins varies between plants and between the cell type and age. Plant cells walls also contain numerous enzymes, such as hydrolases, esterases, peroxidases, and transglycosylases, that cut, trim and cross-link wall polymers.

Secondary walls - especially in grasses - may also contain microscopic silica crystals, which may strengthen the wall and protect it from herbivores.

Cell walls in some plant tissues also function as storage deposits for carbohydrates that can be broken down and resorbed to supply the metabolic and growth needs of the plant. For example, endosperm cell walls in the seeds of cereal grasses, nasturtium[១៩]:228 and other species, are rich in glucans and other polysaccharides that are readily digested by enzymes during seed germination to form simple sugars that nourish the growing embryo.

Photomicrograph of onion root cells, showing the centrifugal development of new cell walls (phragmoplast).

The middle lamella is laid down first, formed from the cell plate during cytokinesis, and the primary cell wall is then deposited inside the middle lamella.[ត្រូវការបញ្ជាក់] The actual structure of the cell wall is not clearly defined and several models exist - the covalently linked cross model, the tether model, the diffuse layer model and the stratified layer model. However, the primary cell wall, can be defined as composed of cellulose microfibrils aligned at all angles. Cellulose microfibrils are produced at the plasma membrane by the cellulose synthase complex, which is proposed to be made of a hexameric rosette that contains three cellulose synthase catalytic subunits for each of the six units.[២០] Microfibrils are held together by hydrogen bonds to provide a high tensile strength. The cells are held together and share the gelatinous membrane called the middle lamella, which contains magnesium and calcium pectates (salts of pectic acid). Cells interact though plasmodesmata, which are inter-connecting channels of cytoplasm that connect to the protoplasts of adjacent cells across the cell wall.

In some plants and cell types, after a maximum size or point in development has been reached, a secondary wall is constructed between the plasma membrane and primary wall.[២១] Unlike the primary wall, the cellulose microfibrils are aligned parallel in layers, the orientation changing slightly with each additional layer so that the structure becomes helicoidal.[២២] Cells with secondary cell walls can be rigid, as in the gritty sclereid cells in pear and quince fruit. Cell to cell communication is possible through pits in the secondary cell wall that allow plasmodesmata to connect cells through the secondary cell walls.

Fungal cell walls[កែប្រែ]

Chemical structure of a unit from a chitin polymer chain.

There are several groups of organisms that have been called "fungi". Some of these groups (Oomycete and Myxogastria) have been transferred out of the Kingdom Fungi, in part because of fundamental biochemical differences in the composition of the cell wall. Most true fungi have a cell wall consisting largely of chitin and other polysaccharides.[២៣] True fungi do not have cellulose in their cell walls.[២៤]

True fungi[កែប្រែ]

In fungi, the cell wall is the outer-most layer, external to the plasma membrane. The fungal cell wall is a matrix of three main components:[២៥]

Other eukaryotic cell walls[កែប្រែ]

Scanning electron micrographs of diatoms showing the external appearance of the cell wall

Like plants, algae have cell walls.[២៦] Algal cell walls contain either polysaccharides (such as cellulose (a glucan)) or a variety of glycoproteins (Volvocales) or both. The inclusion of additional polysaccharides in algal cells walls is used as a feature for algal taxonomy.

  • Mannans: They form microfibrils in the cell walls of a number of marine green algae including those from the genera, Codium, Dasycladus, and Acetabularia as well as in the walls of some red algae, like Porphyra and Bangia.
  • Xylans:
  • Alginic acid: It is a common polysaccharide in the cell walls of brown algae.
  • Sulfonated polysaccharides: They occur in the cell walls of most algae; those common in red algae include agarose, carrageenan, porphyran, furcelleran and funoran.

Other compounds that may accumulate in algal cell walls include sporopollenin and calcium ions.

The group of algae known as the diatoms synthesize their cell walls (also known as frustules or valves) from silicic acid (specifically orthosilicic acid, H4SiO4). The acid is polymerised intra-cellularly, then the wall is extruded to protect the cell. Significantly, relative to the organic cell walls produced by other groups, silica frustules require less energy to synthesize (approximately 8%), potentially a major saving on the overall cell energy budget[២៧] and possibly an explanation for higher growth rates in diatoms.[២៨]

In brown algae, phlorotannins may be a constituent of the cell walls.[២៩]

Water molds[កែប្រែ]

The group Oomycetes, also known as water molds, are saprotrophic plant pathogens like fungi. Until recently they were widely believed to be fungi, but structural and molecular evidence[៣០] has led to their reclassification as heterokonts, related to autotrophic brown algae and diatoms. Unlike fungi, oomycetes typically possess cell walls of cellulose and glucans rather than chitin, although some genera (such as Achlya and Saprolegnia) do have chitin in their walls.[៣១] The fraction of cellulose in the walls is no more than 4 to 20%, far less than the fraction of glucans.[៣១] Oomycete cell walls also contain the amino acid hydroxyproline, which is not found in fungal cell walls.

Slime molds[កែប្រែ]

The dictyostelids are another group formerly classified among the fungi. They are slime molds that feed as unicellular amoebae, but aggregate into a reproductive stalk and sporangium under certain conditions. Cells of the reproductive stalk, as well as the spores formed at the apex, possess a cellulose wall.[៣២] The spore wall has been shown to possess three layers, the middle of which is composed primarily of cellulose, and the innermost is sensitive to cellulase and pronase.[៣២]

Prokaryotic cell walls[កែប្រែ]

Bacterial cell walls[កែប្រែ]

Diagram of a typical Gram-positive bacterium. The cell envelope comprises a plasma membrane, seen here in light brown, and a thick peptidoglycan-containing cell wall (the purple layer). No outer lipid membrane is present, as would be the case in Gram-negative bacteria. The red layer, known as the capsule, is distinct from the cell envelope.

Around the outside of the cell membrane is the bacterial cell wall. Bacterial cell walls are made of peptidoglycan (also called murein), which is made from polysaccharide chains cross-linked by unusual peptides containing D-amino acids.[៣៣] Bacterial cell walls are different from the cell walls of plants and fungi which are made of cellulose and chitin, respectively.[៣៤] The cell wall of bacteria is also distinct from that of Archaea, which do not contain peptidoglycan. The cell wall is essential to the survival of many bacteria, although L-form bacteria can be produced in the laboratory that lack a cell wall.[៣៥] The antibiotic penicillin is able to kill bacteria by preventing the cross-linking of peptidoglycan and this causes the cell wall to weaken and lyse.[៣៤] The lysozyme enzyme can also damage bacterial cell walls.

There are broadly speaking two different types of cell wall in bacteria, called Gram-positive and Gram-negative. The names originate from the reaction of cells to the Gram stain, a test long-employed for the classification of bacterial species.[៣៦]

Gram-positive bacteria possess a thick cell wall containing many layers of peptidoglycan and teichoic acids. In contrast, Gram-negative bacteria have a relatively thin cell wall consisting of a few layers of peptidoglycan surrounded by a second lipid membrane containing lipopolysaccharides and lipoproteins. Most bacteria have the Gram-negative cell wall and only the Firmicutes and Actinobacteria (previously known as the low G+C and high G+C Gram-positive bacteria, respectively) have the alternative Gram-positive arrangement.[៣៧] These differences in structure can produce differences in antibiotic susceptibility, for instance vancomycin can kill only Gram-positive bacteria and is ineffective against Gram-negative pathogens, such as Haemophilus influenzae or Pseudomonas aeruginosa.[៣៨]

Archaeal cell walls[កែប្រែ]

Although not truly unique, the cell walls of Archaea are unusual. Whereas peptidoglycan is a standard component of all bacterial cell walls, all archaeal cell walls lack peptidoglycan,[៣៩] with the exception of one group of methanogens.[១២] In that group, the peptidoglycan is a modified form very different from the kind found in bacteria.[៣៩] There are four types of cell wall currently known among the Archaea.

One type of archaeal cell wall is that composed of pseudopeptidoglycan (also called pseudomurein). This type of wall is found in some methanogens, such as Methanobacterium and Methanothermus.[៤០] While the overall structure of archaeal pseudopeptidoglycan superficially resembles that of bacterial peptidoglycan, there are a number of significant chemical differences. Like the peptidoglycan found in bacterial cell walls, pseudopeptidoglycan consists of polymer chains of glycan cross-linked by short peptide connections. However, unlike peptidoglycan, the sugar N-acetylmuramic acid is replaced by N-acetyltalosaminuronic acid,[៣៩] and the two sugars are bonded with a β,1-3 glycosidic linkage instead of β,1-4. Additionally, the cross-linking peptides are L-amino acids rather than D-amino acids as they are in bacteria.[៤០]

A second type of archaeal cell wall is found in Methanosarcina and Halococcus. This type of cell wall is composed entirely of a thick layer of polysaccharides, which may be sulfated in the case of Halococcus.[៤០] Structure in this type of wall is complex and not fully investigated.

A third type of wall among the Archaea consists of glycoprotein, and occurs in the hyperthermophiles, Halobacterium, and some methanogens. In Halobacterium, the proteins in the wall have a high content of acidic amino acids, giving the wall an overall negative charge. The result is an unstable structure that is stabilized by the presence of large quantities of positive sodium ions that neutralize the charge.[៤០] Consequently, Halobacterium thrives only under conditions with high salinity.

In other Archaea, such as Methanomicrobium and Desulfurococcus, the wall may be composed only of surface-layer proteins,[១២] known as an S-layer. S-layers are common in bacteria, where they serve as either the sole cell-wall component or an outer layer in conjunction with polysaccharides. Most Archaea are Gram-negative, though at least one Gram-positive member is known.[១២]

Other cell coverings[កែប្រែ]

Many protists and bacteria produce other cell surface structures apart from cell walls, external (extracellular matrix) or internal.[៤១][៤២][៤៣] Many algae have a sheath or envelope of mucilage outside the cell made of exopolysaccharides. Diatoms build a frustule from silica extracted from the surrounding water; radiolarians, foraminiferans, testate amoebae and silicoflagellates also produce a skeleton from minerals, called test in some groups. Many green algae, such as Halimeda and the Dasycladales, and some red algae, the Corallinales, encase their cells in a secreted skeleton of calcium carbonate. In each case, the wall is rigid and essentially inorganic. It is the non-living component of cell. Some golden algae, ciliates and choanoflagellates produces a shell-like protective outer covering called lorica. Some dinoflagellates have a theca of cellulose plates, and coccolithophorids have coccoliths.

An extracellular matrix is also present in metazoans. Its composition varies between cells, but collagens are the most abundant protein in the ECM.[៤៤][៤៥]

See also[កែប្រែ]

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External links[កែប្រែ]

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text:
Screaming spring greens

I’m so happy to finally blog about Marin. I finished this almost a month ago and should have taken pictures with it when we went on vacation in St. Louis, but I guess I was distracted by being on vacation. marinThe yarn is Hazel Knits Artisan sock in Euphorbia and I used all but a yard of the skein. For those that wish to knit Marin, do heed the numerous Ravelry project pages that speak about running out of yarn. On this post I wrote about how I ran out of yarn about 1.5″ from the end of the tip. I unravelled one of the full chart repeats and reknit with a size smaller needle because I didn’t want to wait for a new skein of yarn, and this was purchased so long ago that I would have to stripe in a second skein to blend skeins of different dye lots. The magic of hand dyed yarns can also be a downfall if you don’t have enough in the same dye lot! marin-2Reknitting with a smaller needle was not noticeable in my opinion. When looking at the whole piece I can’t even tell which side I did it on after blocking. If I knit this again I’d use a slightly larger skein of sock yarn. Hazel Knits has 400 yards. I’d just choose one that had even 10-15 more yards and that would be plenty. marin-3I adore this color. The shawl was fun to knit and is reversible. It was a pretty quick knit. Despite being one that has a chart to pay attention to, I finished it in about a week with the reknitting. marin-4It’s a fairly small shawl. I find those fit into my wardrobe better than large shawls. I will likely knit this pattern again. I love the scalloped edges and little bit of cabling.

Still bed resting away, despite my occasional sneaking out to take blog photos… Jude commented on my first post about bed rest that perhaps one of the reasons Z came early was due to the stress of us moving while I was pregnant last time. Well, apparently my being pregnant just coincides with us having to move because we found out from our landlord that we would have to move by the time our lease is up in July. My head exploded a little last week when I found this out and I was freaked, but we have some promising options that have come up in only a week that make me very hopeful. Moving with a newborn and a toddler would not be my first preference, but we will manage.

Any guesses on when this kid is going to make an appearance? My bet is the 17th or 19th or 23rd, simply because I like prime numbers.

30 thoughts on “Screaming spring greens

  1. Dear Cassy, my two kids came both exactly one week before the date but I heard that it often is really different between the kids of a family. You told us in which week Z came, so I guess my personal “wish-date” for you is more than optimistic, but I would prefer the first of may. 1. this is the first day of a new month, 2. it’s here in Germany a beautiful month of warmth but not too hot, 3. it’s a prime number as you prefer 😉 4. it’s my own birthday-month ;-p

    But in the end counts only that your kiddo is healthy! Wish you all the best for the coming weeks

  2. Oh NO Cassie! So sorry about mentioning moving! I just know things will work out for you though. One step at a time now. I admire your patience. And I vote for the 21st as delivery day.

  3. your Marin shawl is stunning, and I love that it is reversible! Great colour. That’s rough news about having to move, but it sounds like you’ve got the lead on some good places, so hopefully the absolutely perfect place for your family will appear and it’ll be better than you could have imagined in your old place. Send good home vibes your way!

  4. One of my best friends told me that her parents moved at Christmas with four kids under 7! No picnic, but they got through it (somehow). Moving is the worst, but at least the weather will be good? Sigh. Maybe you can turn packing into a game for Z.

    I love your Marin. I’ve had in my favourites for ages and every fall I look at it and hem and haw. I think I might have to just knit this lovely shawl now — yours is gorgeous!

    • I’m grateful this move doesn’t have to happen mere days (or a single day) before a baby arrives like last time. We have a little breathing room. I had the Marin pattern for over a year before I actually knit it and I can’t believe I waited that long. It’s a good one.

  5. Beautiful colors! I’m a loom knitter but am happy to say that I’ve taken up needle knitting as well. I’m very slow, but I practice in between my soap making! Congrats on your beautiful baby too!

  6. Pingback: Colorful beginnings – knit the hell out

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text:
You can call it Transformers: Fall of Cybertron all you want. This brief teaser for the trailer airing during the Spike TV Video Game Awards shows who the star of this show really is.

Starscream, Ironhide, Optimus, Bumblebee, and Cliffjumper are all well and good, but none of them stack up to a giant robot T-Rex in terms of pure entertainment power. We'll get our first glimpse of the new game in action on Saturday December 10 at 8PM Eastern on Spike TV.

Transformers: Fall of Cybertron
Get More: Transformers: Fall of Cybertron

You can contact Michael Fahey, the author of this post, at You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.