Peace be upon you
Thank you for your interest. My father needs an urgent operation, but the capabilities in Gaza do not allow for this operation because it is delicate and dangerous. We are waiting for him to be transferred outside Gaza through the World Health Organization, as he has a narrowing in the artery that connects to the brain. Until we are able to do that, the doctors are giving him intensive medications so that he does not have a stroke. These medications are expensive and rare due to the siege on Gaza. He needs treatment every week with no less than 700 US dollars. The problem is that the donation money does not reach us in full. There are commissions paid that are not less than 30% of the transferred amount [end image/translation].
Dear Esteemed Donors,
My name is Ahmad, and I am a 16-year-old from northern Gaza… Ahmad family needs your support for Support Ahmad’s Fami
Corporate Glossary: every Friday, learn the secret meaning of common corporate words
“They’re trying to discharge her constructively. Do you know what Constructive Discharge means?” She asked.
As soon as I heard the term ‘Constructive Discharge,’ I knew I’d never seen it on a vocabulary quiz.
“No. What does it mean?” I asked.
She explained.
“Constructive discharge is a fancy way of saying “being forced out.” It’s not good. And if you’re not a lawyer or in human resources, you’ll probably learn what it means when it’s happening to you.”
“Oh my God. I’ve seen this my entire career and never knew it even had a name.” I thought.
You’ve seen constructive Discharge too. You may have experienced it. We’ve all made choices to avoid it.
Constructive discharge defined
“We can’t fire you, but we’ll make you so miserable you’ll quit, and then we won’t have to pay your unemployment.”
Then there’s the textbook definition:
“A constructive discharge occurs when your employer has made working conditions unbearable, forcing you to resign.”
Or as one person put it.
“I didn’t get handed a pink slip, but when you’re not wanted, people have a way of letting you know.”
HR isn’t always the secret police.
Employees aren’t always victims of evil-doers.
However, employers push employees out all the time to maintain and protect the, “We didn’t do anything wrong, YOU did,” power structure.
Constructive Discharge looks like this:
— Meeting invitations slow to a trickle, and you’re excluded from emails and generally looped out of what’s going on.
— People stop talking to you or stop talking when you walk in.
— Your emails don’t get answers, or they arrive too late to be of value.
— Suddenly, your work is not good enough, though nothing about your work has changed.
— Reviews, once good or even glowing, are now mediocre or bad.
— Instead of a bonus, you get a Performance Improvement Plan.
— Warnings and write-ups start so they can justify your eventual termination with documentation of your “poor performance”
— Your work, clients, assignments go away, or they overwhelm you with work.
— The words “Set up to fail” were practically invented to describe this scenario.
Constructive Discharge is illegal
It isn’t easy to prove you’re a target, and it’s even more challenging if you don’t even know constructive discharge is a real thing.
If you’ve ever experienced this and don’t fully understand what’s happening to you beyond knowing you’re in the process of being excommunicated, it can be hell. It’s not uncommon for the experience to leave long-lasting scars.
Talk to anyone who’s ever been through it. They’ll tell you.
Knowing constructive discharge exists and how it’s used gives you power to predict what’s coming and to protect yourself.
Seeing the endgame helps you in two ways.
You know what to expect. Having a sense of what’s coming next is enormously empowering.
You can go on the offensive and protect yourself. Constructive discharge works to crush your ego, making you feel you did something wrong and deserve this treatment.
Without strategy, you end up being a miserable pawn in your employer’s endgame.
Remember, they’re almost certainly building a case to fire you in the event the hellscape they create for you doesn’t persuade you to quit.
If you’re getting pushed out, and you know what to look for you can prove constructive discharge and you can get unemployment benefits, be released from payback obligations on a signing bonus, and protect your mental health.
You’re not crazy, incompetent, or a failure. This is real and it’s carefully executed to leave you holding the bag and feeling like you did something wrong.
If they force you out, in addition to feeling horrible, you lose your paycheck, benefits health insurance, and possibly owe them money.
another huge piece of advice: separate out 'tidying', 'cleaning' and 'organising' in your head. they're not the same thing and a lot of paralysis and overload comes from either misidentifying what your space needs, or trying to do all of them at once with conflicting goals.
TIDYING means clearing space, making your environment orderly and inviting. it usually entails removing clutter from surfaces, clearing the floor so you can move around easily, and creating psychological ease by putting everything visibly in its place. It's very visual, and can also involve things like straightening picture frames, squaring pillows, folding blankets on the couch, etc. It reduces chaos and noise and makes a space comfortable.
ORGANISING means sifting through belongings, ensuring that what doesn't need to be kept is thrown out and what does need to be kept is kept well. This often means categorising by room and function – teaspoons go in the teaspoon drawer, and the teaspoon drawer stays in the kitchen. It can also mean indexing things so you can find them easily (markers sorted by colour, paperwork divided into topical folders, books alphabetised) and preserving things (moving photos out of direct sunlight, keeping open flour in a sealed container, sleeving trading cards).
CLEANING means removing built up dirt, dust and grime, reducing the level of environmental contaminants and making your space sanitary. Bacteria are a fact of life, they love to hang out in dust and cling to pet hair and multiply on any given surface. Cleaning is how you keep that stuff in check, preventing it from building up to the point it affects your health. This means wiping frequently touched surfaces with disinfectant, sanitising utensils (doing the dishes), washing bedding and clothes (and yourself), and sweeping/vacuuming and taking out the trash to physically remove dirt from your home.
Tidying is not the same thing as organising – shove the mail, bills, dirty teaspoons and your gardening gloves in a drawer, and you've tidied the table. Sort the paperwork into piles by deadline, put the teaspoons in a cup, and roll the gloves together so they don't get separated, and the table is untidy but organised.
Similarly, a tidy or organised space can still be filthy. Just because all the yellowed newspapers and trash bags are sorted by date in the basement, out of sight, doesn't mean they're clean. A chaotic, cluttered space can still be very sanitary if it's being kept clear of refuse, and wiped and dusted often.
Sometimes tidying makes your space less organised, and vice versa. Organising often shakes out a lot of dust and makes the space dirtier. The classic "it's even worse than when I started" feeling is often the result of going into a room with the intent of tidying, then actually starting the task of organising instead. It's a lot easier to tidy an organised space, and organising first is usually the right instinct, but the distinction isn't intuitive so the sudden cluttering effect can be really demoralising. Remember they're three different things with different goals. Sometimes they overlap, but sometimes they conflict. That doesn't mean you're doing it wrong.
really really really detest it when (usually older millennial and genX) cis women say shit like "welcome to being a woman!" or "that's how you know trans women are women!" and so on in response to hearing about instances of catcalling, sexual assault, workplace chauvinism etc. directed at trans women. in the first place it's blisteringly patronising, as if transfems are not and have not been constantly subject to misogyny throughout their lives both pre and post transition, but in the second it perpetuates this vile mindset that somehow receiving misogynistic abuse is validating of your womanhood. it's a head on the very same hydra that makes girls shamefully privately feel that they must ugly and undesirable if they're not catcalled or objectified or 'chosen' by sexual assaulters.
your identity, your dignity and your worth as a woman have absolutely nothing to do with how or why abusive people lash out at you. the insidious narrative that survivors should feel special on some level for having been worthy of their abuse is battered wife rhetoric. it's the perpetrator-system of violence grooming you to accept, and even shamefully yearn for, violence it always intended to inflict. and women are so often complicit in repeating the narrative back to each other. sometimes it's very well meaning and springs up out of the solidarity of shared experience, trying to reclaim power from situations where power was wielded against you, but sometimes it's lana del rey sadgirl coquette I need a man who'll slap me around so I know he cares. sometimes it's eating disorders and self harm. the twinning of femininity and female worthiness with suffering, associating the scars of misogynistic violence with acceptance of one's femininity by somebody who hates you, is profoundly unhealthy and profoundly unfair.
bottom line: trans women have never needed to be identifiable by their abusers at a glance to be subject to misogynistic violence. they have never even needed to be out. remember the early days of the internet when online culture was so outspokenly misogynistic as a baseline that most women just never disclosed their gender, never went on mic, never posted pictures? would anyone ever seriously argue that women weren't subject to misogynistic abuse online until they broke anonymity? and that being the case, would it ever ever seem appropriate to hear someone had been doxxed or sexually harassed for disclosing her gender and respond "heh, proves you really are a woman"?
womanhood is not contingent on suffering. womanhood is not contingent on suffering. womanhood is not contingent on suffering. the cart does not define the horse.
trans poc, please i beg of you get transition inspo of people with your ethnicity
i was incredibly dysphoric about my round face and softer features until i started looking at the faces of hispanic men and realized that those features weren’t feminine at all, they were ethnic features white supremacy had conditioned me to see as less masculine
your ethnic features are beautiful, and you do not need to look european to look masculine or feminine
If you are in Victoria, do NOT vote for the party named "Free Palestine" at the November Elections.
I repeat:
DO NOT VOTE FOR THE PARTY NAMED "FREE PALESTINE" AT THE NOVEMBER ELECTIONS.
This is NOT a legit party.
Avi Yemini, an Australian Isra*li commentator who served in the IOF registered the party name and has stated over the last few months of his intent to use this name to "trick" people into voting for it so he can redirect votes to the far right.
"From researching historic twill patterns in museum collections to dyeing wool with Kool-Aid, Diné (Navajo) weaver and instructor Venancio Aragón interlocks research and experimentation to expand the visual and technical vocabularies of Diné weaving. Working on the Diné upright loom, Aragón is part of a generation of Diné weavers who reinterpret ancestral knowledge through experimentation, carrying the medium forward on their own terms. As he stated in our interview with him, “I am not a purist.”
Based in Farmington, New Mexico, Aragón is trained in cultural anthropology and Native American and Indigenous studies, currently teaching at Diné College, the Navajo Nation’s tribal college. Before transitioning to full-time weaving and teaching, Aragón worked as an interpretive park ranger at the Mesa Verde, Aztec Ruins, Bandelier, and Petroglyph National Monuments, where he led tours and developed public education initiatives. He was born to the Tó’aheedlíinii (The Water Flow Together People) clan and born for the Naakaii (Mexican people). His maternal grandfather is of the Tsénahabiłnii (Sleeping Rock) clan, and his paternal grandfather is of the Naakaii (Mexican people)."
Autumn Hill left a Prairieland ICE facility protest before it turned violent. She was still sentenced to 50 years as part of Trump's war on
They're sending a trans woman to prison for life over the fact that she attended an anti-ICE protest where a cop died (she had already left the protest when the 'violence' started)
i mean "posts about Black people" in a broad sense, that can mean anything from struggles to Black joy, and when you see the notes, most of the time it’s double digits, three if I'm being generous.
start being comfortable posting Black people's words in your blogs, the same way you'll reblog posts about transness, gayness, disability, because these specific topics can affect you
start actually giving a fuck about Black folks and reblogging our words is the barest minimum
Sooooo now if you’re North African or Black you cannot wear a long dress at school anymore which extend to public servants jobs.
France really said “Wait we need to remind everyone of our Islamophobia”.
Basically the Abaya has been declared to be a religious garnement and as such it is now not allowed to wear it in schools. Given that they cannot differentiate a abaya from a long dress (because there’s no fucking difference) they will have to pick when it’s a abaya and when it’s just a long dress… and as everyone can already see it they will pick by deciding that Arab, Amazigh, North African and Black girls are automatically wearing a abaya.
Earlier this year a Muslim girl went to high school as usual. She was wearing a “kimono” on top of her clothes and a teacher started disagreeing with her about her clothes. The girl told him it was a “kimono” which is not religious and targeting her specifically for wearing one was an Islamophobic bias.
She was expelled from class and then expelled from school until her hearing with the school board to confirm her definitive (or not) expulsion.
Before and during the hearing teachers largely agreed that her clothes were not religious at all. The problem was that she called the teacher Islamophobic for targeting her specifically. The teacher then said that he couldn’t sleep anymore that he was just scared and it reminded him Samuel Paty. I won’t stay too long on the fact that it’s a piece of shit far right move to mention an actual victim of terrorism as a way to pass yourself as a victim when the situations have nothing to do with each other. This teacher put on the same level a Muslim girl wearing a kimono and an actual terror attack.
Just because the teacher mentioned Samuel Paty the girl was put in FUCKING POLICE CUSTODY and an investigation was open.
This is a kimono
Imagine ending in police custody because you wore this on top of your clothes and called out the teacher who made racists comments about what you were wearing.
The girl ended up being humiliated and being deprived of weeks of school the same year she was supposed to pass her high school exam.
Most “Educational professionals” need no training to be racist pieces of shit and to target young girl they perceive as Muslims.
They tried to ban freaking headbands. HEADBANDS. Saying that Muslim girls were wearing them to replace the hijab.
For french readers, this op-ed was published yesterday by Jean Baubérot, emeritus Professor of the “History and Sociology of Laïcité” Chair at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes.
C’est la rentrée scolaire : les médias causent sur l’école et le ministre de l’Education Nationale s’exprime. A les écouter ou à les lire, l
He is the best French academic on this question of the interpretation of the law of 1905 which created the concept of Laïcité and separated the Church from the State. He has written many books that are definitely worth reading to understand how every government since 2004 (and the law that banned students from wearing religious symbols in school when neutrality was until then required only of teachers), whether they are right-wing governments or left-wing governments, have distorted this notion due to their drift to the far right.
Some important points that he raised in this article :
Le ministre a annoncé l’interdiction des abayas à l’échelle nationale. Certes, ainsi, il est mis fin aux incertitudes mais le périmètre établi en 2004 se trouve de nouveau élargie par décision du prince. Et une autre tenue risque de ne pas tarder pas à devenir problématique ! Rappelons que la plupart des autorités musulmanes, notamment les instances comme le CFCM et la Fondation pour l’islam de France (censée conseiller le gouvernement en la matière) ne considèrent pas l’abaya comme étant un « vêtement religieux ». Pour l’institution scolaire, en revanche, elle le devient. L’école, au nom de la laïcité, s’institue donc en instance qui fabrique du religieux ! Elle gémit, se plaint que des prédicateurs extrémistes en profitent. Ceux-ci « testeraient » l’école républicaine et Attal a repris cet argument. Mais c’est l’institution elle-même qui décide qu’il s’agit d’un « test ».
The minister (of Education : Gabriel Attal) announced a nationwide ban on abayas. Admittedly, this puts an end to the uncertainties, but the perimeter established in 2004 is once again widened by the act of the Prince (norms that are purely arbitrary). And another outfit might soon become problematic! Remember that most Muslim authorities, including organisations such as the CFCM and the Foundation for Islam in France (which is supposed to advise the government on the matter) do not consider the abaya to be a "religious garment". For the school institution, on the other hand, it becomes so. The school, in the name of Laïcité (separation of the Church and the State), therefore establishes itself as an authority that manufactures religion! It moans, complains that extremist preachers are taking advantage of it. These would "test" the Republican school and Attal took up this argument. But it is the institution itself that decides that it is a "test".
Actuellement, quand on demande aux élèves une définition de la laïcité, ceux-ci vous donnent un catalogue d’interdits et, sauf très rares exceptions, ils ne mentionnent pas la liberté de conscience. Pourtant celle-ci constitue la finalité primordiale de la laïcité. Significativement et volontairement, la loi de 1905 débute par : « La République assure la liberté de conscience ». Le reste en découle : le « libre exercice des cultes » dans le cadre d’un ordre public démocratique, le fait que « la République ne reconnait, ne salarie et ne subventionne aucun culte », sauf dans le cadre « de services d’aumôneries » pour garantir, précisément, dans des lieux fermés (prisons, hôpitaux, armée, …), « le libre exercice des cultes », qui est inclus (sans être exclusif) dans la liberté de conscience (suite de l’article 1 et article 2 de la loi).
Currently, when students are asked for a definition of laïcité, they give you a catalog of prohibitions and, with very few exceptions, they do not mention freedom of conscience. Yet this constitutes the primary purpose of laïcité. Significantly and intentionally, the 1905 law begins with: "The Republic assures freedom of conscience". The rest follows from this: the "free exercise of worship" within the framework of a democratic public order, the fact that "the Republic does not recognize, pay or subsidize any worship", except within the framework of "services of chaplaincies to guarantee, precisely, in closed places (prisons, hospitals, army, …), "the free exercise of worship", which is included (without being exclusive) in the freedom of conscience (continuation of article 1 and article 2 of the law).
Je propose que l’on étudie dans les différentes classes, dès la journée de rentrée, les deux premiers articles de la loi de 1905 et les propos d’Aristide Briand, rapporteur de la Commission parlementaire, présentant cette loi : il s’agit, indiquait-il, de proclamer « solennellement que, non seulement la République ne saurait opprimer les consciences ou gêner dans ses formes multiples l’expression extérieure des sentiments religieux, mais encore qu’elle entend respecter et faire respecter la liberté de conscience et la liberté des cultes. »
I suggest that we study in the different classes, from the first day of school, the first two articles of the law of 1905 and the words of Aristide Briand, rapporteur for the Parliamentary Commission, presenting this law: it is a question, he indicated, to proclaim "solemnly that, not only can the Republic not oppress consciences or hamper in its multiple forms the outward expression of religious sentiments, but also that it intends to respect and ensure respect for freedom of conscience and freedom of worship."
Quand au vêtement, Briand s’est montré, à ce sujet, on ne peut plus clair : il a refusé l’interdiction du port de la soutane pour deux raisons : d’abord, fondamentalement, parce que la loi de 1905 est une « loi de liberté » et qu’en conséquence, elle ne doit pas « interdire à un citoyen de s’habiller de telle ou telle manière » ; ensuite, parce que le résultat serait « plus que problématique » : la soutane interdite, on pourrait compter sur « l’ingéniosité combinée des prêtres et des tailleurs » pour créer un « vêtement nouveau ». La loi de 1905 = la liberté de conscience + le refus de jouer au chat et à la souris. Intelligence des principes et intelligence de la stratégie.
When it comes to clothing, Briand was very clear on this subject: he refused the ban on the wearing of the cassock for two reasons: first, fundamentally, because the law of 1905 is a " law of freedom" and that, consequently, it should not "prohibit a citizen from dressing in such and such a way"; second, because the result would be "more than problematic": once the cassock was banned, one could rely on "the combined ingenuity of priests and tailors" to create a "new garment". The law of 1905 = freedom of conscience + the refusal to play cat and mouse. Intelligence of principles and intelligence of strategy.
It's interesting to see how differently authoritarian pricks justify themselves between France and the USA.
One similarity is the bizarre reversal of power, where teachers, who can expel you for wearing the wrong clothes, see you as the one with power because you complain when they impose something on you.
be hilarious if a french student were to wear one of those "islamic" dresses that had catholic liturgical print on it. do they get expelled because it's islamic? is it fine because it's clearly not islamic and it's an american rap thing?
To answer your question as a French person: yes, Jewish kids have to take off their hats. I don't know that they police modesty in Jewish girls the way they do for Muslim girls, but I'm neither Muslim nor Jewish and I was last in highschool 15 years ago.
I think small jewelry showing your religion is ok? I remember people wearing those.
Burqas have been banned on a flimsy premise of safety as opposed to religious neutrality (you can't know who's hiding under there!1!! Maybe a criminal!! - and I think one or two robberies were committed by men in burqas around the time they were banned), so idk that you wouldn't get in trouble even as an atheist man.
I have to say I am continuously shocked at how overtly awful these laws are. I feel like after the, um, unpleasantness in the early 20th century we western powers probably shouldn't be forcing Jews to act less Jewish on the grounds that doing so conflicts with national values.
Also the stuff about small jewelry marking out your faith makes the bigotry more clear, because Christians usually aren't religiously required to dress a certain way so they're being allowed to continue to show their religion in a manner that they are accustomed to while other groups are singled out.
Reviving this because I just saw this last two reblogs. Technically the law does apply to Jewish boys as well that being said it wasn’t meant for them and they are almost never affected by it for one simple reason.
France doesn’t have a vendetta against Jewish private schools (or Christian private schools) so pretty much all practicing Jews send their kids to Jewish private schools. Meanwhile the same government make up excuses to close Muslim private schools leaving practicing Muslims with no option but public schools. Even homeschooling used to be allowed with exams and regulation to make sure the kids were still learning what they had to. But they ended up making it almost illegal it’s super hard to be allowed to homeschool your kids nowadays. To keep these anti Muslim modesty laws within the French constitution they always have to word it as targeting all religion but the debates on the media at the National Assembly everything is about policing how women can and cannot dress and then they word it to be about religious sign in general…
A Kashmiri activist from Pakistan-administered Kashmir on their struggle for self-determination.
H: How does the class composition of AJK shape the protests?
A: In AJK, the class structure is that of a periphery. The local population does not control its resources. There is no big industry. It has been kept de-industrialized. In the small cottage industries in Mirpur and Kotri, workers are usually from Punjab. This means there is no Kashmiri industrial working class.
There is a strong small merchant class. Traders get goods from Pakistan and sell them in Kashmir. Traders have had a very important role in shutter down strikes and building economic pressure. In the last five-ten years, there has been a big influx of brands in Kashmir. This has impacted local trade since they cannot compete. They have been feeling disempowered.
There is also a large migrant working class in Kashmir. One or two people from each family work in Pakistan, the Gulf, or the United Kingdsom. There is a class and ideological differentiation between them. The Mirpur working class became connected to British working class politics and Labor Party activism, which has an influence in AJK. Some of them became elite, but most of them are still working class there. There are connections between the Kashmiri migrant workers and JAAC around nationalist and indigenous politics.
Locally, the heart of the resistance is in the Poonch district, which is a periphery within AJK. Moreover, the movement is stronger in the peripheries of each major city in AJK, where there is no agricultural development. People practice small-scale agriculture with some feudal remnants, and can barely run their household expenses. Someone from each family has to become a migrant worker. Moreover, there remain food shortages in AJK since local agriculture is not sufficient. There is some bigger agriculture downstream from Mangla Dam, which only supplies part of the local diet, but even then, food has to be imported.
Things are tense in Pakistani administered Kashmir right now and also the state is repressing any discussion on this in the country.
Things have gotten way worse over the 50 days since the June protests in Pakistani occupied Kashmir. Innocent Kashmiris protesting for their rights, against economic inequality and lack of political representation are being killed by the Pakistani forces. Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) has also now been deemed a proscribed organisation. The Pakistani state has imposed severe communication shutdown and internet blackout and has carried out mass arrests.
One of the main demands of the protest organised by JAAC is the removal of the 12 reserved seats in AJK Legislative Assembly. These seats are weaponised by Pakistani politicians to have more power in AJK. It increases Pakistani influence and interference in Kashmir.
This is a little bit of the history of the 12 seats:
407 likes, 9 comments - azadkashmirtimes on June 11, 2026: "References on the last slides.".
Himal also did a piece on AJK politics in 2024 and how 'Free Jammu and Kashmir' as the Pakistani side is known as, is in reality not free at all. Good for some historical and current context.
Mass protests and seething local resentment show that Islamabad continues to control and exploit the nominally autonomous region it calls Az
It's really important to understand what is going on in Kashmir, please raise your voice for Kashmiris suffering under the brutal Pakistani regime.
Emergency services, residents and environmental groups say military dropping flares to destroy forests and crops
Firefighters and residents of south Lebanon have accused the Israeli military of lighting wildfires in the region, as forested areas burned down in blazes sparked by Israeli bombing.
Environmental groups said the fires in recent weeks were part of a longstanding Israeli practice of targeting Lebanon’s natural environment.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military dropped flares in a wooded area outside Khiam, in south Lebanon, sparking blazes. When firefighters attempted to extinguish the flames, a drone struck close by, forcing them to withdraw, said the head of the civil defence in the Nabatieh region, Hussein Fakih.
“Most of our missions are now related to fires,” Fakih said. “There are enormous areas of woodland that have burned, I don’t have the exact figures, but in the areas close to the [frontline], around 30-40% of the land has been affected by fires.”
