Gandhi, his Grandson, Israel, and the Jews --

... what did Mahatma Gandhi actually think of the idea of Israel, and of the fate of the Jews of his time?

As it turns out, M.K. Gandhi engaged in sustained conversation with Jewish intellectuals of his day—many of whom were dismayed by the great man's insistence, for example, that Jews in Germany should have willingly "offered themselves to the butcher's knife."

In this essay, Shalom Goldman sketches out the little-known background to a contemporary controversy. ...

My only question: why is it when brown people come together and take some kind of action to help themselves when the state has failed them, they are "gangs?" White people who do this are called "mavericks" and "pioneers" and "elite club members." Anyway, this is totally cool. Out of a fucking shack in a ditch, people. Amazing.

Under a scorching summer sun, a swarm of 400 furious women engulfed the scruffy electricity office of Banda district in north India. They were all dressed identically in fluorescent pink saris. For more than a fortnight they and their families had had no electricity, plunged into darkness at dusk and stewed in sweat at dawn. But they had all been sent bills demanding payment for power they had never received.

It was at noon one day last May that the group, brandishing sticks, first surrounded and then charged into the office, punching the air and shouting slogans of solidarity. They wanted to confront the officer in charge but met instead his cowering juniors, at whom they bawled to telephone the boss. When the man refused to come to the office, the women became incensed. They snatched the office key, roughed up the terrified staff and, after herding them outside, locked the door and ran away, vowing to return the key only when they had electricity again.

 Read more…