The Department of Homeland Security is coming out with regulations that would mandate that all Americans have a standarized (e.g. national) drivers license or state ID in order to go into any federal building or fly in a commercial airline. This would mean that the government would be able to easily track Americans, and would violate our most basic right “to be left alone”. Please call your congressman to tell them you oppose the national ID (for those in San Leandor, Pete Stark already opposes it), but also turn in your comments against the standarized ID to the Department of Homeland Security. The url below – an ACLU action – tells you how to go about it on easy steps. Thanks so much!
American Civil Liberties Union:
Author: marga (Page 104 of 158)
One of Camila’s favorite dolls has long blond hair in a braid, eyes that open and close. It has a soft body, but a plastic head, hands and shoes. It’s pretty nice all in all. We bought it at the dollar store for, you guessed it, one dollar.
I can’t but wonder at the person or persons who made this doll. How little must they be paid, if after the cost of materials, transportation, and several levels of profit, they can sell the doll for only $1. Was it made by a child who doesn’t even have her own doll? Was it made by a woman who must work countless hours to make ends meet? Whatever the answer, I’m sure it’s not pretty. And yet I bought the doll.
I17 April 2007
Blogger arrested and held for reporting on torture of detainees
SOURCE: Reporters sans frontières (RSF), Paris
**Updates IFEX alert of 16 April 2007; please note that in the previous
alert, the journalist’s name was spelled “Mahmoud”**
(RSF/IFEX) – Voicing concern about increasingly repressive policies towards
online dissent, Reporters Without Borders has called for the release of
blogger Abdul-Moneim Mahmud, who was arrested on 14 April 2007 at Cairo
airport. He has been charged with membership of an “illegal organisation”
(the Muslim Brotherhood), but his arrest seems to be linked to the photos
and reports about the torture of detainees that he has posted online.
When Napoleon visited/conquered Egypt back in the 18th century his intentions were not just to plunder, but also to learn. He took with him a team of scientists and scholars to study as much as the country as they could. The result was Description de l’Egypte, a multi-volume work that basically describes Egypt from tip to toe. It’s also beautifully, beautifully illustrated.
They have a copy of the work at the American University in Cairo – which they keep under lock and key – but now you can also access it on the web, and for free. The effect is not the same as touching those ancient pages with your fingers, and the website is quite slow, but it’s pretty cool nonetheless.
You can find it at:
http://descegy.bibalex.org/
Below is the press release I got, God knows why.
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