four colors and newsprint

So, I've been kinda busy lately, in good ways. But right now I just want to mention that I really like reading comic books. Especially, it seems, comic books from the 1980s. Really, though, I like lots of different comics (I read Waltz With Bashir not long ago--it's pretty moving). But the colors, the newsprint, the letter columns of the '80s--ahhh! With that in mind, I present to you a scanned image of the cover of Starriors issue #1. How do you like that? The quest begins, eh!

begin

begin

it is day zero
and i am trying to hear the insects

a horizon is not distance
but a place becoming

when i was thirsty
i knew what to do
now that i am here
what signs am i to expect?
now that i am here
how will i arrive?
again i listen for the insects
where is their tongue
and do we know how to meet?

it is day zero
perhaps i need a creed

it is the cool underside of stones
it is the talk between water bugs
on the surface of the drainage ditch
it is my cheekbones that hunger
for the itch of spruce
and the shadow of your hand

righteous

i'm making some vegan gravy and rocking out to sweet child o' mine. yeah!

...in bed

I was having a shitty afternoon and evening. I finally left the house and biked a bit in the dark and felt so much better. I was reminded of being outside, walking down sidewalks, during college and feeling very much alive. I remember leaving a building on campus after an evening class and walking under the old trees; everything felt large and expansive and possible and unknown.

This bike ride was just a little bit like that.

And now I am home and drinking a beer after eating beans and toast. Am I in the Britain?

And I remember something that I read that a musician said after a motorcycle accident--something about how if he hurt his hands, he'd figure out something else to do.

Maybe that's in some fortune cookie in another world. In much more eloquent prose, of course.

drinking in fall

It's been a great weekend--well, I guess it's Monday now, and no longer the weekend--but it was really excellent. Jen and I were able to spend a lot of time together, we had fun with some friends, ate some great meals, went to a free wind symphony concert, and a lot of books-to-prisoners stuff got done.

I went swimming today and it really felt good. Now it's afternoon and a cool autumn day. Perfect for flannels and hooded sweatshirts.

I was in Pittsburgh a little more than a week ago for resistance to the G20 summit. Did you hear anything about that? I'm guessing there wasn't much national coverage of it. I've been to mass mobilizations before; a common criticism is that resistance/protests are practically scripted and end up being a drain on the local communities which, afterward, often end up having to deal with increased police repression. Well, this particular mass mobilization really felt different. I'm not going to get into it here, but it felt like a success. There are several narratives that can be found elsewhere if folks are interested in reading about what happened (like here, for example).

Are people excited about the changing seasons? Anyone? It's nice weather for coffee and beer and hot cider. Maybe even all in the same sitting.

one hundred eighty eight

the future is here.

that's what i am realizing this moment. i feel like when i was a child reading science fiction comics that came in toy packages. four colors and infinite worlds. we speak like this. and every moment a beginning. sandbars. rivers.

in the fall we had journeys in the yard; we were thieves eating from gardens; we sat in trees and felt the winds of a changing season. everything is real.

the wood is soft from the weather--winters of snow and thaw and summers of sun, heat, and rain. the wood is grey; i lie beneath a tree in the summer, remembering a book from the library. we know it so well--the grass, the trees, the spaces left to move through. i am digging up a message i left for myself in the past. it's too bad the buried note is a thousand miles away and in someone else's backyard. everything is near and no one owns the land.

we are whispering to be heard. we speak through leaves and we touch when we are able. listen--it is the sound of a world turning inside out like a paper bag. it is the sound of the wings of insects. it is the sound of a season changing. we sit beside the creek and listen to the wind moving through leaves.

flannel shirts

It's been so long since I've written here that I thought I might forget my password, kinda like in high school after a long winter break when you come back and can't quite recall the combination for your locker...at least, that happened to me once.

Summer has been a good experience. I guess it's gone pretty fast but when I look back over the last few months, it seems like it's been awhile.

Lots of time together with Jen, which has been wonderful. That's been one of the best parts of this summer. And I got to visit family for a couple of weeks; Jen and I went up to Minnesota and visited both of our families. My siblings were able to get home during the same time, so it was a big time family get-together. We went up to Duluth and visited my uncle and Gramma; she had just moved up there from Bismarck a couple of weeks previous. At my folks place there was some swimming in the river and the lake, lots of hanging out, some bike riding, and even a golf tournament (even though I've only played golf a handful of times it was a lot of fun...my dad works a bit during the summers at a local course; he teaches golf lessons (he's a pro) and gets to golf a lot of games).

What else...I stabbed my leg with a shard of glass. While washing dishes, a canning jar fell off the drying rack and I tried to catch it between my thigh and the cupboards below the sink. It shattered and a piece punctured my thigh. Jen took me to the hospital and a doctor dug out some little fragments of glass and also brushed a nerve with the tweezers. That resulted in a couple of weeks of nerve sensations in my leg and knee, but it's cleared up now.

Speaking of legs, the cyst in my leg was aspirated. That seemed to relieve the pain for a bit but it has since began refilling. I go back to the hospital next Friday to try the procedure again.

And now fall is coming. It's such a beautiful time of the year. When it's the middle of summer, I love the weather and the feel of the season and autumn seems so far off. And then, when this time comes, I am ready for it and wanting the cool weather, the smell of it and the feel of it. And there is that sense of change in autumn. I suppose it's wrapped up, at least in part, with memories and impressions from school--a sense of something new--experiences, people, thoughts. I would like to come across a quilted flannel shirt. I used to wear those all the time (so did some other people I know!). And they remind me of fall.

So, I'm very much feeling this change of weather, this season rolling in. Along with fresh starts and newness come feelings of personal change and understanding. It's exciting to think about all the spheres of one's life that can change and grow--relationships are a big one and there are lots of relationships--intimate, self, family, friends, worldview, ideas, and on and on.

This idea of change, growth, transformation...I guess it depends on how you look at it. As the weather cools and dusk comes more quickly, some other things seem to be static or, really, status quo. People are still imprisoned indefinitely at Guantanamo. The occupation and war in Iraq continues, while the US government broadens the war in Afghanistan and increasingly spreads it into Pakistan. Gaza is still under siege, blockaded on all borders, while Palestine in general is still under military occupation and Israeli settlements in the West Bank continue to increase. The popular uprisings in Honduras and Peru are ignored. Surveillance and harassment of activists by various government agencies, including the military, continues and seems to be growing (check out the recent case in Washington state, where a US military spy infiltrated an anti-war group in Olympia and Tacoma, which had been organizing actions disrupting the shipment of military vehicles from the ports in the area). And of course, to borrow a lyric, "the workers slave and the rich get more"--that doesn't seem to be changing with the season.

That list could go on and on as well. So could this blog post, it seems! Maybe I'll just write four long posts a year--one for every season...that's about how it worked this summer.

Ronaldo to appear in film about Palestinian refugee

heya. i'm not gonna write much right now, but i did want to post the following article. i thought a few people--you soccer fans know who you are--might find this interesting.

07/24/2009
Brazil's Ronaldo to Star in Film about Palestinian Girl

Brazilian football star Ronaldo will star as himself in an Iranian movie based on the true story of a Palestinian girl who was killed before realizing her dream of meeting him, according to press reports Wednesday.

The film is based on the true story of 13-year-old Alneyrab who dreamed of meeting the sport superstar during his 2005 humanitarian mission to the region but was only able to watch him from a distance.

She dies in a refugee camp in Southern Lebanon after losing a leg to an anti-personnel mine without ever meeting her idol.

The three-time world player of the year has signed a pre-contract for the Iranian-directed film, his agent Fabiano Farah told the Brazilian sports website Globo website, though he still has to get permission from his club to act in it.

The 32-year-old two-time World Cup champion will appear in some dream scenes, said Farrokh Faradji Chadan, president of the Brazil-Iran chamber of commerce.

The film does not yet have a name.

The movie could start filming as early as September in Lebanon, where Ronoldo would only need to spend a few days shooting, he said, though he did not say how much the all-time leading World Cup scorer would be paid for his role in what Chadan called a “humanitarian” production.

He is set to be in Palestine September with his club Corinithians to play a friendly against another Brazilian club, the Fluminese. The teams rejected requests to play in Israel as well.

Ronaldo had previously visited Israel and the West Bank in 2005 as a U.N. Development Program goodwill ambassador on a campaign against poverty.

(Alarabiya.net)

concerning the offal of capitalism and other happenings

Here I am in front of a computer again. I got back from swimming a little bit ago and now I'm drinking a cup of coffee. I didn't sit down to write anything at all in particular, so it looks like it's another focus-less post, consisting mostly of personal narratives and updates.

Summer is going pretty well. It feels like it began with the official end-of-school dumpster extravaganza. When students move away for the summer, out of the dorms and out of off-campus student housing, there's a bonanza of the detritus, of the dross, of the mounds of the throw-away, cast-off, easily-replaceable-if-you-have-the-money excess of our glorious industrial capitalist system.

An even partial list of items to be found in the dank depths of roll-off dumpsters could easily take longer to read or write than either of us wants to invest here. It's sufficient to say that after spending time in just a handful of dumpsters, little would surprise you. I was thinking that I might come across a car in one of them, but that hasn't happened yet.

Even in June, there's still some residual move-out dumpster treasures--not on campus, of course, but in apartment complex dumpsters. I guess summer is just all-around a big move-out/throw-out season. At least in places where privelege is manifested as, among other things, consumption and waste.

On quite a different note, I found out I have a cyst in my calf that is likely responsible for the pain I've been having for the last year and a half or so. It's about 8.2 cm long and extends from the tibia/fibula joint in my right leg. And it's nestled deep in among muscles and nerves and is pushing out on all of that, which is what is probably causing the pain, even in my foot. I had a consultation this week with some doctors and surgeons, who showed me the images of the cyst and told me what they wanted to do. They said they'd prefer to cut it out but that it's in a bad place for that, being very close to nerves. They'd have to cut through muscle which would leave scar tissue and they're worried about the possibility of hitting a nerve. So, they decided that the best thing to try is an ultrasound-guided aspiration with a big needle. That way they said they can miss all the stuff they don't want to hit and try sucking the fluid, which is joint fluid, out of the cyst. That should relieve the pressure on the nerves and eliminate the pain. The cyst may refill, at which point surgery would be reconsidered. Or, it may not fill up again or, if it does form again, it may be smaller and not cause pain.

So, that is super exciting for me! Probably more detail than is needed, but that's okay--it comes from my excitement and, in a sense, relief to know what is going on with this pain and that there is hopefully a way to change it.

I was sorta writing about summer....hail comes to mind. I mentioned earlier, I think, about our garden getting thrashed by hail. And then again on Monday, while I was biking to that consultation, it hailed and rained like mad. I was drenched when I finally got there, with welts from the hail. I rang my socks out in the bathroom sink and my feet weren't squishing too much after that.

Jen spent the last few days in the mountains with fellow teachers in her department; they decided to get together to plan and co-plan for next semester and it sounds like they were able to get a lot done.

....

Jen actually just came home, a bit early, while I was typing the above. I stopped writing this post and ended up doing various things with the rest of the day. Now it's evening, which really feels like late afternoon since it's summer. And this post feels long already, so I think it'll end with this--!

go to bed

It's one thirty in the morning and I would like to have already been asleep for a couple of hours. Instead, I am sitting here. At least I have the song "She's a Refugee" stuck in my head. Still. All day. But it went away for awhile, while I was doing nothing that I wanted to be doing. So, maybe it's a good sign that it's back.

Summer, so far, has been surprisingly rainy. Rainy and inundated with cats. Well, two, anyway. One in particular. It comes around, sometimes just walks right inside our house. She's a cool cat, even if she does use the strawberries as a toilet. The strawberries were planted after she'd already begun using the corner where the porch meets the house, so it's not really on purpose. There's nobody to blame. And she's, like I said, a very cool cat. Likes to rub up against your foot and rolls on her back to be scratched.

So, there's puddles in the alley and we already know what's in the strawberries. And even at this hour, I hear cars on the street. I'm sleepy and my body is tired from swimming and working in the yard. That's my story. What's yours?

finally

finally

when it all comes
it’s fiery like the sun
it’s burning like our rage
it’s cold as the darkest glacier
it’s silent as a star

when it all comes
we are sleeping
our breasts rise and fall
we are running
breathing hard in the fields

when it all comes
i am alone
whispering secrets to myself
listening to your lips
we are close
and in the darkness
we touch

a song

looking for a way

you’re working in one of them booths
taking people’s money as they drive their shiny cars
and it’s summer and the sun is bright and hot
it’s summer and the clouds fled a long time ago

you’re a long way from home living in a city
feel like you’re living in a hole in the ground
the street lights make you lonely
and the chatter makes you cold

i want to take your hand and hold it in mine
i want to take your hand and hold it close
your eyes tell your story more than words can say
i know what you're singing
i know where you been

i know how you're feeling that you just want to finish
where you began

b. smith

perspective

“All of us have a choice--to make our children safe in the world or to make the world safe for our children..."
Ken Wiwa

floors

I just finished scrubbing the living room floor. And now I must let the floor dry for awhile, so I'm sitting in the back room where this computer is. Why not write a bit here?

It's another beautiful spring day here. It's been alternating between spring rain and sunny days. The garden is growing and it's been fun watching the plants come up. There are a ton of things growing that we didn't plant this year; they came up from seeds from plants that went to seed last fall--lots of lettuce, spinach, and sunflowers. One half of the main area in front of the house is planted in rows--spinach, onions, peas, radishes, beans, carrots, plus the random seedlings from last years plants. The other half hasn't been planted yet but has lots of unexpected seedlings. Today, I think I might transplant the kohlrabi and pok choi that we've been growing inside.

Jen and I had a great weekend together. We didn't do anything really exciting but just spent some time together and enjoyed it. And ate really great food, including a wonderful cake that Jen made.

I've been missing my family a lot lately. We talk on the phone, which is nice, but it's of course not the same as face-to-face time together.

That's about the extent of this post. I'm gonna do some stretching and get outside.

......................

para todos todo

a tale

He began life living on a chondrite meteor. How he came to be born, no one knows. But there he was one day, astride a meteor deep in space.

What is the nature of my existence, he asked. Here I am, one day awake and aware. I know not from where I came or what it is I am to do.

Looking around the meteor, he saw what he had always seen. The same landscape; the same ridges, valleys, and shadows. True, the distant scenery changed a little. Stars faded past into obscurity. New celestial bodies slowly came into view. The pinpoints of light changed their patterns, their positions altered, their brightness oscillated. And always he was beneath their brilliance and awed.

Time went on. His name was Alethe. He ate and drank and lived and grew and aged. His dreams were beautiful, terrible, meaningless, trivial, and vital. His fingers were his own, as were his thoughts. In his isolation he created friends, companions. With them he sought communion. In the valleys between the crested, stony ridges lived small insects. With them, too, he sought communion. Gazing into the multifaceted eyes of a dragonfly, he felt his spirit moving between his body and that of the winged insect and he felt the presence of the dragonfly moving in that same space.

He drank water from shallow, shaded pools and was thankful for his thirst. Once for a reason he could not name, he built a low wall of metallic stone. It stood for two days, a short, squat shadow on the landscape. He awoke during the night and walked out to where he had built the wall. Looking at it through the starlight, he suddenly felt regret and anger and remembered a dream he had tried to forget. He slowly took apart the wall, stone by stone. The stones were smooth and angular, like ice or some kind of deep hued glass or steel. A few were rough and full of conglomerates. They felt good on the skin of his hands. He tumbled the stones down the slope, where they scattered and nestled among other rocks.

Alethe slept and dreamed, ate, and drank the cool water from shadowy pools. His life went on. And then one day, for no apparent reason, he died.

The meteor still travels through space, on some uncalculated trajectory. The stars are bright and the nights cool.

-sw

brewing coffee over a gipsy fire

Under the open sky the light was clear, with a reflection of cold red on the eastern hills. The clumps of trees in the snow seemed to draw together in ruffled lumps, like birds with their heads under their wings; and the sky, as it paled, rose higher, leaving the earth more alone.

--Edith Wharton, from Ethan Frome

You be the Soccer Judge!

A very interesting question, indeed. Here are the choices, folks. Choose wisely--it's quite possible that the fate of smoking soccer players lies in your decision.

A. Of course a player can smoke during a match, so long as they keep the cigarette away from other players' eyes.

B. No. The referee is required to caution the player for an act of ungentlemanly conduct.

C. Yes, provided the player has enough smokes to share with everyone on the field.

D. It depends upon the legality of the substance being smoked. The referee must use personal judgment based on a sound understanding of current drug laws pertaining to the region in which the match is being played.

E. No. If the player does not voluntarily throw out the smoke, the team captain must physically stop the player from smoking to avoid a forfeit (see illustration below).

rambling update

The snow is really coming down. It's heavy, big flakes right now and I can see the neighbor's roof thick with snow. It's a beautiful day!

I've been gone from home a bit, beginning with a trip with Jen out to the northwest for a wedding and hanging out with old friends. We had a great time with friends and it's always wonderful to see people happy and in love.

We took our time coming back, camping on the Olympic Peninsula in the rain and driving with a storm just about the entire trip. Rock Springs, Wyoming became an unexpected destination--all the roads were closed because of the snow storm and ice and we ended up staying there for two nights. So, we didn't end up getting to the canyons and cottonwoods near Dinosaur and camping like we had hoped, but we had a really fun time anyway. The Cody Motel was the spot to be--it even advertises color tv! And on the last day of the trip, we found a free hot spring--it was hot and wonderful and something we had wanted to do on our trip.

The day we got back, Jen roasted an eggplant in the oven to make some babaganoush. When she took it out the eggplant exploded, with pieces of it hitting her face. Jen got second degree burns on her cheeks, chin, and nose. It was really scary. We went to the emergency room, where she got cold compresses and anti-bacterial cream put on the burns. Jen had gotten the eggplant off her face almost immediately and also flushed her face with cold water until we left for the emergency room and that all seemed to help a lot. After the emergency room, she continued at home with the cold compresses and anti-bacterial cream and then saw a burn specialist a few days later. The blisters looked pretty painful. But they started healing quickly, and by the time I got back to town a couple of days ago, they were healed well and very difficult to even see. Jen has pointed out that she probably has a mutant healing factor, which is pretty cool.

A few days after Jen's encounter with exploding, burning eggplant (the remains of which are still pasted on the walls and ceiling of the kitchen), I left for Chicago to meet up with my brother. We hung out for a day there and then headed for Tennessee with my brother's daughter and a rented car. My folks are living there now, in a cabin by a little creek. We stayed for about a week and I had a lot of fun hanging out together with family. Our folks showed us around and took us to some beautiful places, we played with the dogs, and just spent time talking and being together. My brother's daughter made a great treasure hunt for us, too!

My brother, his daughter, and I headed back for Chicago and got into the city late at night. I ended up staying there for a few more days, hanging out, playing dice with my brother and niece, walking through Chicago alleys, and playing darts in the bar downstairs one night (where my brother's dog joined us!), before getting a train to Denver. And then it was a quick ride with an electrician who had just gotten out of Sterling prison and then with a guy who worked for a vehicle rental company and I was home.

And now it's snowing beautifully. Which is a lot more interesting than this post. But that's okay. Besides, I'm gonna post something here soon that will ask a very important question, so be sure to check back.

resistance

lukewarm coffee
lots of roads
birds under stars
dark shapes against a sky

with a pencil and scrap of paper
you record your thoughts
like a grocery list

it's like a spring in my heart
these days
i'm so in love
how do you like that?
sounding like some record
with a needle on a lovesong
it's true
even though it's not a commercial
it's like a spring
and i'm so in love

it's not just love that this
culture kills
but, surely, it is one victim
so love and be warmed in the knowledge
of resistance
so love
and feel the echo in the cedar trees
up and down the cottonwoods along
the drainage ditch
within the sand and gravel
so love and know and unknow

beneath the stars at night
i hear the movement of wings
as birds fly out across the field

B.E. Rasir

i broke the law and i used a gun

I met Kenny Rogers last night. I was at some kind of junior high or high school event/reunion. I saw old friends and acquaintances. It had the feel of some sort of ceremony; we were in a big hall with lots of seating. The lights were low.

At some point Kenny Rogers got up on stage. I was standing nearby and heard him start a really terrible song but it was great because it was classic Kenny Rogers and everyone, including Kenny, knew it. And he sang a beautiful song; I listened to the lyrics floating in the big, darkened hall. I went up to him and told him that I listened to the Gambler album a lot with my folks when I was a kid. I mentioned one of my favorite songs “Tennessee Bottle” and about how I brought my parents’ tape with me when I went to college and listened to it all the time in the dorms. He was handsome and very kind. I got his autograph after we talked for a few moments. Then I realized how cool it would be if he’d sign something to my mom. A small line had begun and, as I looked around, I saw my mom there, already planning on asking for an autograph.

Later, we were in some sort of hallway, it seemed like a hotel, but I think it was still a part of whatever place we’d been at for the school event. I was walking with two other people from school and Kenny. One of the other people was my old friend Damien, I’m pretty sure. I was dressed in puffy red pants and a puffy blue grey jacket and I wondered why the hell I was wearing such stupid clothes.

We reached some sort of opening in the hallway, a lobby of some kind, with two beds in it. Kenny got ready to lay down in one—apparently, he didn’t have a room for the night. We all talked some more and I gave Kenny a hug and I thought again, why the hell am I wearing this puffy jacket and these red puffy pants? We weren’t all celebrity-worship, we were just chatting but then Kenny said “You’re all starting to hang out,” which, it was obvious, meant “I’m trying to go to sleep now and have had enough.” So, we took off.

I exited some doors from Hughes Junior High and went outside to get my bike. It was dark with a big night sky. Once I got to my bike, there was a combination bike lock around it and I couldn’t remember the combination. So, I went to my grandparents’ place, thinking that if I could just find a calculator, I’d be able to recall the combination. I went into my grandpa’s office and tried to use his computer but I couldn’t remember the password for it. I was a bit frustrated until I picked up the keyboard and a calculator fell out from it. I tried using it but the batteries were dead. The computer had batteries, too, so I took those out and tried them in the calculator, but it still wasn’t working. My grandpa, who was out in the kitchen, heard some noise as I was changing out the batteries and yelled “what the hell are you doing?” He was really mad. I yelled back “all these fucking batteries are dead!” Then he came storming in, really irate. I got up and we yelled a bit as I was leaving. Getting out into the garage, I noticed his black pickup truck was dirty, so I found a hose and started washing it off. I heard my dad’s voice say “I’ll ask Papa tomorrow who cleaned his truck.”

2009 (ode to never having the answer)

an apple
when sliced
and we are bleeding
the ambulance is far away
and will not arrive

so i look at the slices
of apples which in all of creation
are perfect
hard flesh, black
seeds

so, i wrap them up in tinfoil
and gunpowder with a
homemade fuse
"light fuse and get away"
always made me laugh in
the heat of summer alleys
but its for real with these
seeds. i light fuse
and get away

i know my physics, engineering is
all bad
it'll never make it out of the
atmosphere but the shiny package
of life will make it high above, there
to be caught in some continental jet
stream

someday depositing, gently,
the seeds

i don't know what's with the tinfoil
i guess it's all i had in my pocket
during those dark hours
it won't get in the way
nothing does

apartheid and palestine

Gaza is again out of the headlines. However, the struggles in Palestine continue, regardless of corporate media’s silence.

Days after the “end” of the invasion of Gaza, Israel seized 425 acres of the West Bank of Palestine to expand Israeli settlements. Then, on March 2, Israel’s Construction and Housing Ministry’s plans to double the size of settlements in the West Bank, by appropriating more Palestinian land and demolishing Palestinian homes, became public; construction has already begun.

There are over 200 Israeli settlements with 400,000 settlers throughout the occupied West Bank. The settlements are clearly and overtly illegal under international law, and blatantly aimed at making Palestinian independence impossible. The current expansions intensify Israel’s practice of creating isolated pockets of Palestinian communities. The wall Israel is building far into Palestinian territory and Israeli-only roads that dissect the West Bank further separate and cut-off Palestinian communities from one another. The wall, roads, and settlements—tools of colonization—function to create what many identify as Bantustans. This term, which originated in apartheid South Africa, refers to forcibly segregated, unconnected enclaves of subjugated people.

This historical apartheid parallel is why the Congress of South African Trade Unions, representing 1.2 million workers, has called for a boycott of Israeli goods until the situation is justly addressed. Likewise, the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union has announced it will stand in solidarity with Palestinians. These dockworkers, many having experienced apartheid in their own lives, took action on February 8, refusing to offload a ship carrying Israeli goods. During apartheid South Africa, this tactic was part of the success of the anti-apartheid movement. In 1963, Danish dockworkers refused to unload a ship carrying South African goods. Workers repeated this action when the ship tried offloading in Sweden. Eventually, British and American dockworkers adopted the tactic, adding to an increasingly powerful movement.

It will take more than courageous South African dockworkers to end the occupation of Palestine. The occupation is alive and well-funded, beyond the use of settlements to destroy prospects for Palestinian autonomy. Gaza is still, after almost two years, under siege. All borders are blockaded; food is scarce; hospitals, schools, water and sewage systems are destroyed. 11,000 Palestinians, hundreds of them children, are in Israeli prisons. The West Bank is still under direct military occupation. Settlements, Israeli-only roads, checkpoints, sniper towers, Israeli military bases, and tanks cover the landscape. Between February 26 and March 4, in events that occur with stark regularity, two Palestinians were killed; another died of an earlier gunshot to the head; 12 were wounded, several by Israeli missiles—including five children and a journalist; and 31 were abducted by the Israeli military. Nonviolent resistance to the occupation continues, as it always has. Last month in Jayyous, a farming village that’s had 75% of its agricultural land stolen by the wall, a Palestinian was shot by Israeli military during a nonviolent protest. In similar protests against the wall in Jayyous, the Israeli military killed two children in December and shot a Swedish activist in January.

Reciting this litany of murders doesn’t adequately explain the devastation of the occupation, nor does it bring about its end. However, as with South Africa, an international movement using diverse tactics in solidarity with liberation movements in Palestine can end this system of death and oppression.