Adonis Diaries

Tidbits and comments. Part 401

James Hamblin asks why millions of people are so eager to celebrate fake holidays created by corporations (Like National Fajita Day, National Cheese Toast Day) , and tries to register a day of his own.

Israel conducted a major suicide drone attack on Lebanon in Hezbollah Da7iyat stronghold. The two drones were to detonate, one after another, to insure success of the operation. Israel Natanyaho, trailing in the pole for September election, wished a major propaganda result, as Obama did with assassination of Ben Laden in Pakistan.

The Great White Male’s combination of good education, manners, charm, confidence and sexual attractiveness (or “money”) means he has a strong grip on the keys to power. Of course, the main reason he has those qualities in the first place is what he is, not what he has achieved.

Lebanon State survival, so far, is due to its extreme fragility, in its social fabrics. No colonial powers or emerging countries can dominate this semi-state by any means. Same for its internal organizations.

Over 90 Amazon tribes have disappeared in the last century. This current gigantic fire is meant to eradicate the remnant tribes, barely numbered in 100,000 individuals.

If the Amazon burning is meant to transfer the aborigine tribes to make space for US multinational agribusinesses, would I burning my ugly garden make any difference?

Last century, Brazil constructed 5,000 km route in the Amazon to clear the space for the white settlers. Quickly, this route was transformed into a mud river at the first torrential rain.

Currently, war battles are in pictures and videos. As for the sound, it is a reserved right for the people close to the battle fields.

Vigilantes without weapons are the rage in England, Scandinavian States and Germany. The risk is to be transformed into a militia mentality and imposing own judgmental rules and laws

Are there any meaningful purposes for people to accept sweatshop jobs other than basic economic necessities? George Orwell in his “Down and out in Paris and London” tried to explain why people insist on working long hours, over 17 hours, everyday in mines and as plunger “plongeur” in hotels and restaurants.

A lawsuit filed earlier this week in the US shows it in chilling detail: The dehumanization of asylum seekers and migrants is routine in detention camps—and it doesn’t spare children. According to these children, guards shout at and threaten toddlers and babies; there is often not enough to eat, and clean water is harshly rationed.

Children are crammed in sleeping areas too small for everyone to lie down, without blankets, in cold rooms where lights blare 24 hours a day, and frequent check-ins interrupt what little sleep they manage. Girls receive one sanitary pad per day during their periods, left to bleed through their pants and wear soiled clothes.

This suffering of refugee children, in camps and on seas, cannot be blamed on politics alone. There’s a silent majority that is allowing it to continue—not protesting, not calling our representatives, not taking to the streets. Hundreds of millions of us who keep going about our days as if children weren’t being treated as less than humans in our own countries. There’s a word for this: complicity. —Annalisa Merelli and Annaliese Griffin

Invisible ink stamps could fix Japan’s subway groping. The “anti-groping” stamps—which allow victims to secretly mark their assailants—sold out in minutes.

The US Space Command gets off the ground. Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence will attend a White House ceremony marking the launch of SPACECOM, the first new armed forces branch in a decade. But the command, intended to boost US military capabilities in space, has yet to decide on the location of its headquarters.

China’s investment in Africa over the past two decades has been both unprecedented and unparalleled.