Hong Kong was always a favorite city, one that offered multiple adventures and my first close-up view of a great mix of East and West.

In the last offering in this Traveling Boy group effort, https://travelingboy.com/travel/favorite-airports-of-our-past/, I described one of my earlier landings in the city, via the old Kai Tak Airport, a legend of passenger terror.

But Kai Tak is long gone now, replaced in 1998 by Kong Kong International Airport on Chen Lap Kok Island in Lantau.

The handover of Hong Kong from British colonial rule to Chinese sovereignty, after 156 years of British rule that began after the first Opium War, was completed the prior year.

I had not been to Hong Kong since several years prior to the transfer, a second honeymoon of sorts, with a still relatively new bride.

An opportunity to again darken the door of the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club on Hong Kong Island recently presented itself.

It was one of the few bright spots in a cascading travel hell. I left Washington, DC on January 24th, heading to the ASEAN Travel Conference on Cebu Island in the Philippines. The trip, with short layovers, was 25 hours long. That seemed onerous, particularly in today’s Economy Class.

That was nothing.

No short story, but with record winter storms, cancelled flights, plane malfunctions like a wing flap not working, etc., I landed in Cebu, mostly sleepless, on the 29th. That included two frozen days in Boston, fortunately at a hotel, after which another blizzard came in and my flight was again cancelled just as I got to the gate. Not wanting to be snowed in again, which would have deep-sixed my trip, I pleaded with an experienced old hand agent to get me into the air. He put me on the last plane out, at midnight, on Qatar Airways. After two hours of deicing it finally departed, slowly down the snowy runway for what seemed a very long time and then, with ample suspense, lifted off on the way to Doha. After a long sleepless night in Doha’s admittedly striking airport, I flew to Hong Kong. How best to survive a long layover there?

An old buddy, a longtime journalist in Hong Kong, met me at the airport and, as I had reciprocity with Hong Kong’s press club, we enjoyed dinner and drinks there until the club shut down, chatting away with the eclectic crowd that club always attracted, including criminal barristers and people involved in ocean freight, and diminishing journalists.

The last time I was in the club was New Year’s Eve to usher in 1993. Just before midnight, my wife and I had just returned to the club from the Lan Kwai Fong district located a ways down the hill from the club. The New Year’s Eve crowd was huge, shoulder to shoulder in the bars. The crowds gave us a bad feeling and we retreated up the hill to the club for the countdown.

Lucky break for us. Just before midnight the crowd of twenty or so thousand stampeded out of the district’s plentiful bars to cheer in the new year. Many rushed onto a narrow cobblestone street we had just walked up. There were ample spilled drinks mixing with string in a can and foam on a very steep grade. Revelers started sliding down, and panicked. People fell down and were trampled. At the bottom of the mayhem, bodies piled on bodies. Twenty people were crushed to death and scores injured.

Avoid large places, keep to small, the lesson of a Japanese folk tale, The Boy Who Drew Cats, came to mind.

But most memories of Hong Kong were far happier than that tragedy. They included the gone and sorely missed old Hong Kong Hilton, which before sunrise would put guests in a antique Bentley or antique Rolls and drop them halfway up the mountain, letting the joggers get acquainted with the island as they found their way back as the city and harbor below came to life. I’d missed Hong Kong and was thrilled to be back, catching a second wind that travel excitement can bring.

Enjoying the balmy air, we did a long walkabout on Hong Kong island. It was the first chance I had to try out a wide angle lens that arrived just before I left DC. Glad I kept my main camera with me when traveling, as the airlines lost my suitcase for another eight days, damaging it to boot. By the time it caught up to me on the island of Bohol (Philippines) my clothes were carrying me around.

The enclosed snaps are of urban landscapes that caught my eye as we walked to Hong Kong’s Star Ferry, and a couple from the subway as I made my way back to the airport. Throughout my trip in the Philippines the 9mm F2.8 APS-C prime lens by Viltrox prove to be a lot of fun, well worth the 200 beans it cost.

Pictures from Cebu Airport, Philippines

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Long overdue for a return, last fall I was offered a chance to attend Peru’s first eco-travel conference, with side explorations of northeast and northern Peru, including the world’s highest tropical mountain range and ancient ruins far older than Machu Picchu. Those locales proved an embarrassment of riches, well-worth recounting. But I’ll do that down the road. For now I’ll describe my return to the lower elevation of Lima. I had to kill a day awaiting a midnight flight to the States. At the baggage claim, I overheard a couple fellow travelers setting up passage on a boat to islands off the coast of Lima. They aimed to swim with the sea lions that ruled those seas. That sounded terrific. I quickly signed on. 

First though, a mild panic. Stepping outside Jorge Chávez International Airport, I entered a giant snow globe filled with dirty snow. I looked about for a fire spewing ashes. None was seen. I closed one eye. Nothing. Switched. Uh oh. Only one eye could see the drifting ashes. Nothing to be done then.

We proceeded to find the taxis that waited to take us on a fifteen minute ride northwest to the port of Callao. No time to explore the port environs founded by Spain in 1537. Others also founded it, over the prior 10,000 years, focused on fishing its waters. English and Dutch pirates were fond of attacking the settlement, stimulating the construction of high defensive walls. Pirates were nothing compared to the earthquakes and tsunamis that in the mid-1700’s wiped out most of the population. The sea’s ample fishing continued to attract those willing to press their luck.

Leaving our luggage in the office of the water excursion company, Ecocruceros, we walked to a small boat that ferried us out to a larger one, holding a dozen or so eager tourists from a wide swath of the globe, and several crew. The time at sea was predicted to be between three and four hours, bringing the S.S. Minnow to mind.

Along the way to Palamino Islets at which eight to ten thousand sea lions hang, one passes several other islands. These include El Camotal, the Peruvian Atlantis. It’s mostly submerged except during low tide between December and March. Once a vibrant agricultural community growing the sweet potatoes prized in Peru, it sank in 1746 when the earthquake and tsunami reshaped the coastline. Much more visible is San Lorenzo Island, the largest and tallest on Peru’s coast. It houses a naval base that occasionally shells part of the island for target practice. Another island is El Frontón, earlier known as Dead Man’s Island when inhabited by pirates. It became a maximum security penal colony in the 1900’s, including for political prisoners, never in short supply in 20th Century Peru.

El Frontón was shut down after a Shining Path uprising in the 1980’s over prison conditions. An explosive military attack killed hundreds of prisoners. Sea lions and Humbolt penguins now come and go freely. More birds, including boobies, cormorants and pelicans join the penguins on the Cavinzas Islands, a nature reserve. There was some mining of once valuable guano for fertilizer in these islands, but nothing significant compared to the islands much farther south. Plenty of guano is apparent on the cliffs. A bucket and rope indicates someone still snitches some for a local crop.

An impressive escape from El Frontón was managed by Guillermo Portugal Delgado, aka La Gringa, who used a blonde wig to disguise himself as a woman. He killed a sea lion and used it for buoyancy and disguise, and maybe the fat to coat his body, as he swam the 7km to the port. An award-winning film on the noted criminal and escape artist, Alias “La Gringa” (1991) tells the tale, elevating Portugal to folk hero status while using his life to illustrate the turbulent ’80’s in Peru. 

What eventually happened to Portugal? One AI oracle says he was later killed in a shootout with police. Another says he was disillusioned that the criminal world, violent and ruined by drugs, had lost its former codes. Living with his mother, he sought and lived a peaceful life. He even worked as a security guard at the film studio, and at a cevichería seafood restaurant. Other searches yielded variations. There are no reports of his death other than the AI entity claiming the lethal shootout. And there, in a nutshell, is the reliability of AI. 

The waves in Peru’s winter, June to September, are especially rough.  Most passengers accepted the offer of a seasick pill. I spurned it, staying in the strong breeze at the bow, avoiding diesel fumes, and I was fine taking my snaps.

After indulging in the fragrance of eight to ten thousand sea lions and of the bird guano waves splash into the water, on the way back I accepted a pill. Gratefully. I wouldn’t guess at the water quality but one should keep one’s mouth firmly closed. And not miss the chance to shower back at the port at the Ecocruceros facilities. Otherwise one might feel a bit ripe on a long plane ride.

Here’s a good tip. There are wet suits aboard that cover most of one’s limbs. And suits quite short of that. Get the best coverage you can grab. The waters last October were 60 degrees F, via the Humboldt Current and upwelling from the denser deep that speeds one’s body heat away. I was late to the pile of wetsuits, and got less coverage. When I hit the water, the cold took my breath away. But no matter the size suit, those waters will always be…bracing. I heard that in Peru’s summer, December to March, the water is calmer and warmer, warmer being relative.

I’d never imagined seeing so many sea lions, tucked onto the rock formations and quite high on the sides of cliffs, seeming to defy gravity. Higher up and far to the side, penguins have their own private berths, both in caves and burrowed into guano, though many stand outside like sentries. Given the opportunity, sea lions will prey on the penguins, who worry most when getting in and out of the water.

After reckoning with the shock of the cold, I swam off from the boat. In moments I was surrounded by cheeky sea lions who barked their amusement as they robbed me of my comb-over. Their cacophony reminded me of relentless taxi horns early morning in downtown Manhattan. Eager to warm up by swimming fast, I swam a bit too close to the island and had to backpedal hard to keep strong waves from tossing me onto the rocks where masses of sea lions sunbathed a foot away. An alpha male with a huge head suddenly leveled his gaze at me. I quickly looked away. No offense intended, sir.

Many years back when snorkeling in the Galapagos, I caught the local alpha male’s attention by clapping my hands, not seeing a guide on a boat frantically waving for me not to. Suddenly the alpha dove in and beelined to me. He brushed my face as he sped by with his sizable teeth barred. Lesson learned.

You can’t touch the sea lions but they can touch you. Leaning back onto my life preserver I lifted my feet. Curious young sea lions approached and nibbled gently on my toes. Counting them afterwards, I retained my allotted amount.

The whole experience was one of the best encounters with wildlife I’ve had. It was like being fire-hosed by nature.

Even better, I honestly felt the participating sea lions enjoyed us as much as we enjoyed them.

Upon my return to Washington, DC, I quickly contacted the eye surgeon who’d ridden me of cataracts and put in lenses that had me exchanging waves with the man in the moon. His urgent exam revealed a detached retina. He then rushed me to another surgeon who blasted away with a laser for half an hour. The inflamed scar tissue sealed the rip before liquid could enter and bubble up the retina like water under wallpaper. The eye is now well on its way back to normal, the darting imaginary mosquitos in my peripheral diminishing. At least until summer, when DC’s Asian tiger mosquitos will prove authenticity.

====================

Given the quality of the experience, the costs are quite reasonable. $69 US for adults, $59 for students, $49 for children 12 and under, plus a tax to the environment ministry and a five buck boarding fee. The guides are professional and amiable. Given the length of the cruise and how fast you’ll burn calories in the water, eat before going and maybe bring some candy bars or protein bars. Before departing to the boat, street vendors will pitch transparent waterproof coverings for cell phones that allow the phone cameras to work in water. I don’t use a cell phone, but I saw buyers argue them down to half-price, ($10?) and they appeared to work fine.

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I write this from the Philippines, reflecting on our intrepid traveler who has traveled on. Perhaps Howie is revisiting the Hippie Trail from London to New Delhi and other routes of the far flung days of his youth.

I didn’t know Howie during his impressive career in music, and wasn’t aware of all the amazing musicians and bands he helped gain a foothold, from his DJ days to his years successfully shepherding Reprise Records, the venerable label created by Frank Sinatra.

I didn’t know the accolades that found him as a champion of free speech and an advocate for progressive voices. Those can be partially surveyed in obits by Variety: “Howie Klein, Top Executive at Sire and Reprise Records, DJ and Political Activist, Dies at 77“, and Billboard: “Howie Klein, Longtime Reprise President and Free Speech Advocate, Dies at 77“.

I stumbled across Howie’s wild and free-roaming blog, DOWNWithTYRANNY!, with its intriguing offerings on everything under the political sun. A slow writer, I was stunned at how Howie fired words like a Gatling gun, one topic falling after another. When I reached out to him pitching a piece promoting Bernie in the 2016 primaries, Howie was welcoming. For better or worse, his encouragement was what got me scribbling on politics again, which I will always appreciate. Even better, Howie allowed me to murder the elements of style. No prosecutions thus far.

Here’s my first piece for Howie: “Reflections on an Election Year When It Finally Hit the Fan“. Like the majority of my offerings, it appeared in his older DWT format, now mostly lost to the Internet’s UpsideDown.

I didn’t always agree with Howie on every point. For example, I never really bought Russiagate. I couldn’t swear Howie did, it might have been just too good a needle for him to resist. That doesn’t mean I was above having fun while hinting at my skepticism. It’s touched on in this scribble on the first inauguration of Cheeto Caligula: “Inauguration Day Weather Forecast: 54 Decrees, Cloudy, Light Wind, Chance of Golden Showers“.

I was frustrated that Russiagate was such a focus for many Democrats at the expense of time better spent explaining to the public the real damage and corruption underway behind the scenes. Not Howie’s sole focus, I hasten to say. His Gatling gun strafed the waterfront.

But for Democrats like Schiff and Schumer and their media support dogs, so earnestly repeating their recycled talking points, one couldn’t help but wonder if they were running interference for a different culprit of foreign influence. Certainly I believed in Israelgate. Howie let me fire away. With the horror we all see every day, that corruption is as painfully obvious as stepping on a nail. Unless you’re in the bought and paid for bleachers of Congress, or in media intimidated by the billionaire bullies.

The great irony of Russiagate, one Howie would appreciate, is that Cheeto Caligula couldn’t be doing any more damage to Americans and their freedoms, or to the world at large, than if Putin had a walkie-talkie under Cheeto’s pillow, suggesting, “Why don’t you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?” The demented grifter has already set in motion measures that, unchecked, will speed the deaths of millions around the globe.

Early on, I also quibbled over the play of Trump as Hitler, thinking it over the top. How quaint of me that is now. Howie knew the likes of Trump, and of the Steve Miller ilk, and what they’d get away with if allowed.

To paraphrase Sun Tzu, you know people by their enemies. Howie’s rogues’ gallery was unsurpassed. Fearless as his road trips in the dicey far flung, he happily alienated the purveyors of bipartisan hypocrisy, assailing the corporate Dems who foisted GOP-lite candidates on us, selling us out to the Big Money.

As I’d missed much of his writing of late, I wondered what Howie most wanted to impart as he raged against the dying of the light. Going back and reading Howie’s posts of the last half year, the distillation of the values he prioritized, the importance of his uncorrupted voice was clear. I appreciated the insights into his life, the around-the-corner correlations that Howie shared toward the end.

• This piece from September 29th, which starts “Although the first time I went to Morocco I was hanging out with Jimi Hendrix…”
• His Cancer Diaries, natch, which show how to rage, rage against the dying light, but do so with class and humor. They’re for anyone who has already struggled, personally or with the helplessness of a loved one’s struggle.
• In particular, this, from August 29th: “Cancer Diaries: Agency In The Face Of The Unthinkable— Negotiating With My Own New Body“. [I strongly recommend reading this; it’s one of Howie’s best pieces. –TN (Writer Thomas Neuburger, a long-time colleague of Howie’s and author of God’s Spies @ Substack)]
• Reading the comments to his work, it’s clear his personal revelations touched many as we inevitably contemplate mortality, allegedly a unique human enterprise. (But I wonder, what of elephant graveyards?)
• There are also his settled opinions on musical meanderings, like this one from Sept. 13, “Sorry To Say So But The Beatles Built Cathedrals, While The Stones Built… Bonfires“. [Another great read. –TN]
• Howie’s August series on failed republics and their comparisons to America, were among his warnings on hitching a ride in a handcart to Hell.
• Recent columns stepped up his revulsion at our forced complicity with genocide. From July 30th, “AIPAC Is A Reverse Litmus Test Now— No Progressives For Genocide“.
• He personalized his own situation on Sept. 9th: “Living on Edge— And Thinking About Gaza’s Endless Siege“. [From the piece: “My own suffering feels small by comparison. And yet, in some tiny way, it connects me to theirs.” –TN]

No doubt Howie realized early on that once a country covers for and enables genocide, it has tumbled into anything-goes territory. As we now see, in Trump’s America anything goes.

• His jabs against bipartisan hypocrisy on this matter showed no quarter. Knives out for Schumer and Jeffries were extra rusty. From Sept. 14th, “How Is Hakeem Jeffries’ Silence On Gaza Genocide Any Less Complicit Than Trump’s And The GOP’s?”
• From August 11th, “America’s Real Enemy Isn’t Just Trump… It’s Also The Democratic Party Establishment’s Cowardice“.

Where would Howie be training his gatling gun now? Perhaps he’d be reminding us of the warnings of George Orwell as billionaire bullies like Larry Ellison purchase legacy media.

His targets would likely include the despicable among Democrats and their Big Money contributors who can claim big credits for Israel’s success in getting America’s political structure to mirror Israel’s — one page after another copied from the authoritarian’s handbook.

I’ve read recently that Rahm Emanuel is testing the waters for a run for President. Do a search on him at DWT for an idea of what Howie would do to him now to warn the Democrats.

Gavin Newsom wouldn’t fare much better under Howie’s gun. Do we really need any more political leaders who say, at this late stage, they’re confused over what genocide is?

Howie was a master at connecting the dots. He reminded me of the late artist Mark Lombardi, whose intricate drawings bewildered viewers, including law enforcement, as he made connections to the farthest reaches of the political and economic scandals of his day, providing substance to conspiracy. Lombardi is well worth a search.

My best offering to Howie was introducing him to the amazing artist Nancy Ohanian, NancyOhanian.com. Her tribute to Howie appears at the top of this piece.

We surely need an army of Howies now.

Footnote: “Game of solitaire” refers to the brainwashing trigger sentence in The Manchurian Candidate. 

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It’s 2025. There’s an Internet. Who can now pretend they have no idea what Israel has done, is doing, aims to do?

It’s obvious to the entire world that the Biden and Trump administrations have run cover for Israel while enabling the horrors before us.

But for those seeking a deeper understanding, or perhaps sources to encourage others to understand what is taking place, many important documentaries stand ready to enlighten.

One, Who Killed Shireen?, was recently viewed at the National Press Club. In 2022 Shireen Abu Akleh, a renowned Palestinian-American journalist for Al Jazerra, was clearly marked as press in blue body armor yet fatally shot in the back of the head by an Israeli sniper, and her producer wounded.

Israel made fanciful claims such as Abu Akleh being killed by fire from Palestinian militants. After Israeli explanations eventually turned to wet tissue, Israel refused to identify even the unit responsible, denying the Biden administration access, while refusing changes to rules of engagement that might protect innocents in the future. The desire to know the perpetrators was widely shared by Abu Akleh’s family and colleagues and by many in the Middle East who respected the journalist as a trusted and valued source interpreting what was happening around them.

The press club ballroom was at capacity, mostly with members of the general public who bought tickets to view the 40-minute investigative film and a panel discussion afterwards. The documentary was backed by Zeteo, a news outlet owned by Mehdi Hassan. The investigation, akin to a detective story, was headed by Dion Nissenbaum, an American journalist with experience in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

The investigative team established that Israel knew at the outset its soldiers were culpable. Initial American assessments determined the shooting intentional, and that the shooter could be convicted of murder in an American courtroom. The Biden administration then flipped, concluding there was no reason to believe the killing was intentional, laying the cause on “tragic circumstances.”

Nissenbaum’s crew believes they have pinpointed the shooter, including from comments from an unidentified Israeli official and IDF soldiers who spoke anonymously. There were no consequences for anyone. The alleged shooter, 20-year-old Alon Scagio, was made a captain in another unit and died in combat. Soldiers angry at Scagio being identified used pictures of Abu Akleh for target practice. The cost of the Biden Administration’s failure to dent Israel’s impunity over the Abu Akleh murder have been high. It sent a signal that Israel had no worries about declaring open season on the press to damp down coverage of Israel’s actions. Over two hundred media workers have been killed, many with their family members.

The Biden administration’s softballing the matter, even running cover for Israel’s crime, is a major takeaway from the film. Hassan hopes that Biden is haunted by his lack of action in the case. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) sent a video stating that the impunity Israel has enjoyed since the Abu Akleh killing likely paved the way for killing at least a half dozen Americans and other civilians.

An Israeli colonel tweeted “Wearing a vest that says ‘press’ doesn’t turn a terrorist into a journalist.” This writer has been shocked to hear similar sentiments from US journalists asked to stand up for Palestinian journalists.

CLICK HERE. for a preview of Who Killed Shireen?

A massive database of documentaries on Palestinians and their plight can be found at Palestinecinema. com, many of them brief yet poignant, most within the past two decades. Brief is sometimes a welcome alternative. Although longer films are well-done and effective, the sheer injustice over decades can overwhelm one’s sensibilities. Four minutes worth every moment are in a Brief Animated History of the Question of Palestine, put out by the UN Palestinian Rights Committee, accessible on You- Tube. This is a quick shot to fire at those nonsensically denying Palestinians are a real people, or that there’s an occupation.

One coming to mind is US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, a pastor whose enterprises include decades of taking Christian evangelical tourists to Israeli settlements. Of late Huckabee is bewildered by reports of harassment of Christians, and by arson attacks on an ancient church near Jerusalem.

He says he’s troubled by the recent brutal beating death of a US citizen at the hands of West Bank Israeli settlers. Who knows, perhaps one day he’ll end up getting religion.

Naw. Huckabee recently infuriated the Irish by telling them to “sober up” and asking if they’d “fallen into a vat of Guinness” after Ireland explored legislation banning goods from settlements in occupied territories.

Among other animated films Huckabee would benefit from is one done in 2022 by a West Bank human rights organization, viewable at AlHaq.org and on YouTube. The nine minute Israel’s Settler Colonial Apartheid Regime: Segregating the Palestinian People, succinctly explains the history of Israeli apartheid.

A great exposé of the threat Israeli spyware poses to privacy, including in America and dozens of other countries, arrived via Surveilled, a 2024 HBO documentary by Ronan Farrow. It carefully examines an NSO Group product called Pegasus which can turn a cell phone into “a spy in your pocket.” It’s also another instance of Palestine as a proving ground for such technology.

Not just for Israeli companies. According to the Business and Human Rights Resource Center, American companies are exploring AI and other technical abilities in synch with Israel, including Google, Meta and Microsoft, which quickly penalize or fire employees who protest their employers’ involvement.

Intelligence expert James Bamford has written in The Nation on Palantir Technologies supplying powerful targeting capabilities. He says US tech companies have provided AI that targets thousands of Palestinians, often slaying their families with them. Many targets are not even alleged militants. Some are also cultural pillars. Even poets.

This is how culture is erased. The Farrow film delving deep into Pegasus is an excellent start on understanding how tech companies put the Orwell in Orwellian. If you’re not on HBO, DemocracyNow.org has excellent segments on Surveilled.

For those tired of hearing the de rigueur preface that the slaughter before us began on October 7th, 2023, the 2019 documentary Gaza Fights for Freedom, by Abby Martin, provides excellent ammo.

Available on YouTube, it uses archival footage to examine what happened during peaceful demonstrations in Gaza during the Great March of Return, in which 200 unarmed civilians were killed and many maimed. Doctors Without Borders puts the number of demonstrators injured in the weekly protests by the fence that pens Palestinians into Gaza, held over a 636- day period starting in March of 2018, at over 35,600.

Often they were hit by bone-shattering gunshots in the quest to inflict the worst and longest-lasting injuries possible.

The gleeful depravity of the Israeli euphemism “mowing the lawn” – code for terrorizing Palestinians – was on clear display. Israeli snipers’ targeting of medics who responded, as well as of journalists and children, was a warmup for what everyone not in a self-induced coma sees they have now wrought.

If one slides about the Internet, one will soon come across the film being attacked as biased and supporting terrorism. Such claims nicely illustrate Israel’s public relations machine as they try to tear down critics of Israel’s occupation and subjugation of Palestinians.

But the footage in the film is bulletproof.

Related is a 14-minute film The Waiting Room, about three of the patients who were injured in those demonstrations and how their lives changed. It’s available at msf.org, the site of Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), which works in over seventy countries to save lives and ease the suffering of those in crisis.

There is a more recent film exploring attacks on medical workers. Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, is a BBC project that the BBC later cancelled the showing of, to wide condemnation. It’s not for nothing that last year over 230 members of the British media industry, including 100 BBC staff members, signed a letter accusing the BBC of favoring Israel in its news broadcasts and lacking fair and accurate evidence-based journalism in its coverage of Gaza.

The five and a half minute trailer for the film, which can be seen at zeteo.com, begins with the murder of fifteen medics on a rescue mission. IDF soldiers subsequently buried them in a mass grave with their vehicles.

After the grave was found, the discovered cell phone of a slain medic who was recording the operation put the lie to Israel’s explanations of the deaths. The film contrasts the brutality to medical workers, in violation of international law, with their perseverance trying to maintain a semblance of care in impossible situations as medical centers are bombed and Israel methodically robs Gaza of irreplaceable medical expertise and training.

The media firm Zeteo acquired the film. Alas, it is only available to subscribers as an incentive to sign up.

Given the power of this film, and the dire timing as malnutrition and starvation take hold in Gaza and medical workers pass out from hunger and exhaustion, it would be a public service for Zeteo to make it freely available to the public.

Viewers could then widely distribute it via the Internet throughout the world, including to members of Congress. The film might change even hardened minds. The need for that is immediate.

The subject of methodical assaults on medical workers and facilities can be pursued at DemocracyNow.org, which has multiple filmed interviews with doctors in Gaza and with volunteer medical workers from abroad who’ve provided services. Their morality and courage are stunning. Their undeniable testimony proving IDF solders deliberately and frequently target children and infants in the head is a stain Israel’s enablers can never erase.

What is one to make of the mentality of encroaching settlers in illegal settlements who don’t just claim but believe they have divine real estate deeds, solid as the tablets handed Moses? British-American Louis Theroux has done scores of documentaries, many for the BBC, winning multiple awards.

He spent a great deal of time getting to know these religious-nationalist settlers, including Daniella Weiss, the movement’s “Godmother.” Theroux also spends time with Palestinians, learning how their lives have been impacted by the settlers entering their communities.

His new film, The Settlers, can be viewed at the Films for Action site, FilmsforAction.org, as can his 2011 film The Ultra Zionists.

One is struck by how these settlers surround themselves in a religious echo chamber that reinforces justification of the indefensible. The dehumanization of those whose land they covet is a required building block for this chamber.

Another exploration is done in the 2016 film The Settlers (inside the Jewish settlements), by Israeli film director Shimon Dotan, who looked at both religious and secular settlers. It is also accessible at Films for Action, as are scores of other films showing diverse aspects of the lives of those in the region and also people impacted back in America.

An example of the latter is Inside Meta’s Palestine Censorship on the internal censorship of pro-Palestine content and intimidation of Meta employees, owing to the massive media company’s ties to Israel, can be seen here: CLICK HERE.

Such ties by many companies profiting from the destruction of Palestinians are exposed in the report Global Economy of Genocide. The author, UN special rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese, is interviewed here: CLICK HERE.

Inside Occupied Palestine offers the combined perspectives of Veterans for Peace, US activists and a former Israeli Air Force Blackhawk pilot. They convey the impossible circumstances for Palestinians living under Israel’s occupation, also at FilmsforAction.org. The flip side of what Israel is doing is not just the horror the US government enables on its path to pariah status, but the harm it inflicts on American society.

The Chris Hedges Report, available on several sites including Scheerpost.com, often fleshes out related themes in front of a camera. Recently Hedges discusses The End of Academic Freedom with Dr. Maura Finkelstein, an academic fired for speaking out in defense of Palestinians, detractors awarding her the slur “self-hating jew.”

Such filmed reports are critical to include alongside discussion of documentaries on Palestinians. Even though that level of brutality inflicted by Israel is not widely apparent here, our rights and academic freedoms are being brutalized and careers damaged. This is inseparable from what America enables Israel to do, as it is motivated by Israel’s desire to crush public scrutiny of what it does and to destroy critics.

And, of course, there’s 2024’s No Other Land, a joint Palestinian-Israeli documentary showing the forced displacement of Palestinians in Masafer Yaata in the West Bank after it was declared an Israeli “firing zone.”

It won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature Film. It has yet to find a distributor for North America.

On March 24th, Hamdan Ballal, a Palestinian co-director of the film, was severely beaten by Israeli West Bank settlers. No consequences. On July 28th, Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian consultant on the film, was shot dead by Yinon Levi, an Israeli settler who’d been under US sanctions for violent attacks on Palestinians until Trump removed them. No consequences.

Delving into these filmed offerings will provide insight into what a diminishing American morality means not just for America but for lowering the bar for morality around the world. If Americans fail to understand and stop what we’re enabling in Israel, the reverberations will come to haunt them like banshees.

Don’t look away.

Netanyahu’s Cone of Shame
by Nancy Ohanian

“…there is no starvation in Gaza…”

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When daughter Katie (aka Kat), was eight she lucked into being the US representative when Turkey brought in kids from a number of nations at XMAS to explore the origins of Santa Claus.  I lucked into being her sidekick. Festive understates the enthusiasm of a bakers dozen of mostly Muslim Santa Claus stand-ins. They joyfully guided the kids about the Mediterranean city Antalya and throughout ancient ruins on the way to the church of St. Nicholas in Myra, about 142 km away, south and west along the coast. Hip-hopping Santa Clauses, conga line Santa Clauses, break dancing Santa Clauses. These Santas had great moves.

The celebration of St. Nicholas is actually on December 6th, the day of his death in 343.

Myra endured through cascading empires — Lycian, ancient Greek, Roman Greek, Byzantine Greek and Ottoman Greek, with many overlapping influences from Hittite to Persian to Egyptian. The Greeks departed in 1923, in the population exchange between Greece and Turkey. The local ruins are impressive, though much of what would be great to still have about didn’t outlast Santa Claus’s distaste for pagan reminders, alas.

Santas summoning the children of the countries they’re assigned to show around Antalya

What he lacked in historical preservation, St. Nicholas made up for with a charitable heart. Losing his parents to a plague that wiped out a large swath of the population, he acquired a great inheritance. He joined the church and used his fortune to serve the poor and sick, becoming the bishop for Myra. One famous legend is that he knew a man on hard times was so in debt he might have to sell his three daughters into prostitution. One night Nicholas threw a sock filled with gold coins through the older daughter’s window, allowing the man to pay his debt.

Under one emperor, Diocletian, who was notorious for persecuting and killing Christians, he spent time in prison. St. Nicholas became the patron saint of those unjustly imprisoned, as well as of Greece, Russia, sailors, merchants, and scholars.

St. Nicholas is also the patron saint of prostitutes and of travelers.

No word on traveling salesmen, but I bet they’re covered.

When we were at the church in Myra/Demre for the service honoring St. Nicholas, it was thought that his bones had long ago departed for Italy. But right beneath where we were turns out to be his intact tomb.

It’s been sixteen or so years since Katie searched for Santa in Turkey. After serving in Americorps, she’s in a masters program in social work at Catholic U. Perhaps St. Nicholas gave her a nudge.

In any case, that stretch of Turkey’s southern coast is a grand place to spend the Christmas season, or muse about.

Here’s a bit more information and some nifty legends

Jolly Merry, toward a more fortunate year!

The post XMAS Card from Santa in Turkey appeared first on Traveling Boy.

When daughter Katie (aka Kat), was eight she lucked into being the US representative when Turkey brought in kids from a number of nations at XMAS to explore the origins of Santa Claus.  I lucked into being her sidekick. Festive understates the enthusiasm of a bakers dozen of mostly Muslim Santa Claus stand-ins. They joyfully guided the kids about the Mediterranean city Antalya and throughout ancient ruins on the way to the church of St. Nicholas in Myra, about 142 km away, south and west along the coast. Hip-hopping Santa Clauses, conga line Santa Clauses, break dancing Santa Clauses. These Santas had great moves.

The celebration of St. Nicholas is actually on December 6th, the day of his death in 343.

Myra endured through cascading empires — Lycian, ancient Greek, Roman Greek, Byzantine Greek and Ottoman Greek, with many overlapping influences from Hittite to Persian to Egyptian. The Greeks departed in 1923, in the population exchange between Greece and Turkey. The local ruins are impressive, though much of what would be great to still have about didn’t outlast Santa Claus’s distaste for pagan reminders, alas.

What he lacked in historical preservation, St. Nicholas made up for with a charitable heart. Losing his parents to a plague that wiped out a large swath of the population, he acquired a great inheritance. He joined the church and used his fortune to serve the poor and sick, becoming the bishop for Myra. One famous legend is that he knew a man on hard times was so in debt he might have to sell his three daughters into prostitution. One night Nicholas threw a sock filled with gold coins through the older daughter’s window, allowing the man to pay his debt.

Under one emperor, Diocletian, who was notorious for persecuting and killing Christians, he spent time in prison. St. Nicholas became the patron saint of those unjustly imprisoned, as well as of Greece, Russia, sailors, merchants, and scholars.

St. Nicholas is also the patron saint of prostitutes and of travelers.

No word on traveling salesmen, but I bet they’re covered.

When we were at the church in Myra/Demre for the service honoring St. Nicholas, it was thought that his bones had long ago departed for Italy. But right beneath where we were turns out to be his intact tomb.

It’s been sixteen or so years since Katie searched for Santa in Turkey. After serving in Americorps, she’s in a masters program in social work at Catholic U. Perhaps St. Nicholas gave her a nudge.

In any case, that stretch of Turkey’s southern coast is a grand place to spend the Christmas season, or muse about.

Here’s a bit more information and some nifty legends

Jolly Merry, toward a more fortunate year!

The post A Late-Delivery XMAS Card from Santa in Turkey, Patron Saint of Travelers appeared first on Traveling Boy.