visual laurel

The Ontario Health Coalition is a volunteer organization that has been fighting to preserve Universal Health Care in Ontario. Right now they are asking Ontario and Canadian residents to sign the federal Petition e-6811. Unlike the many petition websites all over the web, federal e-Petitions actually fo before the government, and the government must at least answer it. They have to be sponsored by…

My son went out for Halloween as Harry Potter before there were movies or store-bought costumes, so we worked out what his costume ought to be from the books. Can you imagine: he had to explain who he was supposed to be at a lot of the doors he trick-or-treated. He loved the fact Harry Potter wore glasses like he did. I've been organizing my photos and it bothers me how important Harry Potter was in my son's childhood.

The first I heard of the book series was that some parents wanted the books banned from the school library. Nothing could have inspired me to run out and buy the first one any faster than that. It was clear that one way or another, Harry Potter was going to be an important part of the culture of my son's generation, so had the book turned out to be satanic junk, when I read it to him, we could have talked about it. And if it was half as good as advertised, we wouldn't have wanted to miss any of it.

It was good, and the themes were powerful. It was interesting that the books matured with their readers. And my son grew up, learning some good lessons therein, and by the time the final book came out, I had to pre-order two copies because I didn't want to wait the day it would take him to devour the thing before I could read it. And of course, my son grew up and moved on. But as great as the Harry Potter experience was, the whole thing has been soiled by Ms Rowling'' virulent anti-trans advocacy. I might say it was on par with Frank L. Baum's racism, but at the time Baum made his splash, he wasn't out of step with his times. So much in the Harry Potter books seemed to support inclusion, this seemed to be out in left field.

We ought to know better. Jo Rowling ought to know better. The excuse for this "activism" is supposedly meant as "protection" for women. (Funny, that was/is often the excuse for racism.) Attacking anyone for being different is never self protection. It certainly doesn't protect *any* women. Such anti-trans nonsense has actually caused a lot of problems for a cis women who have been hassled and attacked because misogynists decided they weren't real women either. People who buy into this mindset are justifying judging all women based on what they look like. Women who you don't look womanly enough might be banned from using the appropriate toilet. Worse, people, women, real women, not the mythological boogymen pretending to be women so they can more easily attack women that Ms Rowling is afraid of. Real women come in many shapes and sizes. Biology has long outstripped the binary worldview Ms Rowling cherishes.

One of the reasons I became a writer was to help make sense of the world. To help me understand other people's points of view. But what I've never understood what kind of privileged arrogance makes anyone believe themselves entitled to tell other people who or what they should be.

In her persistent crusade to erase the identities of trans people, what Ms Rowling is doing with the outsized platform and insane amount of privilege she wields as Harry Potter's creator, she is effectively doing the same thing her Lord Voldemort did in attacking "mud bloods."

So while we still have the books in my house, and the first few movies, but they've not been re-read or watched again. There are so many good books and movies that haven't been tainted by hate speech. Why bother? We certainly haven't (and won't) been passing them along to any children.

It is lovely that so many of the actors and others involved with the Harry Potter phenomenon have stood up against Ms Rowling's unfeeling crusade.

https://variety.com/2020/film/news/emma-watson-daniel-radcliffe-sarah-paulson-condemn-jk-rowling-anti-trans-tweets-1234630870/ If I were to write a character who was a Rowling-like children's author who engaged in anti-trans activism, I could imagine a number of reasons, all bad or sad, as to why such a wildly successful author character might persist in their hate based crusade against a group of innocent people. But that would be fiction.

In reality, I don't know why, and truth be told, I don't actually care. People often lie to themselves to justify their fear based hate. I am probably more offended by Mr Rowling when they claim to "love trans people" with one side of their mouth, then proceed to try to erase them with the other.

What Ms Rowling is doing here is hurting trans people. Ans well as their friends, families and communities.

Propaganda. Media. Israel. Genocide. Weaponized starvation.

"Malnutrition in Gaza: Today questions Israeli Government https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0ls8s6l

"The Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer speaks to Today's presenter Nick Robinson following reports of malnutrition in Gaza.

"Mr Mencer is asked by Nick Robinson whether he accepts there is malnutrition in Gaza, and whether the US-backed aid distribution system set up by Israel is failing.

"Listen to Today on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds: 6-9am on weekdays and 7-9am on Saturdays.

"Release date: 25 July 2025 "Duration: 14 minutes

The above image and text remains online, except when you try too click the link, it takes you to a BBC page that says:

"Sorry, the page you are looking for cannot be found!" https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002g52f?partner=uk.co.bbc

The problem is BBC has apparently taken it down. Internet Archive can't display it, because the Wayback Machine has not archived that URL since "This page is available on the web!"

BUT ALL IS NOT LOST. The Times of Israel's blogger Stephen Games blogged about it under the title "Want to wreck Israel’s case? Send in a spokesman" https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/want-to-wreck-israels-case-send-in-a-spokesman/

Mr Games has very helpfully transcribed the hard to find interview as follows:

"I have written about this topic more than once before. On this occasion, I think it best to provide my own transcript of the conversation, which can be found here https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002g52f and starts at 2 hours 10 minutes in.

THE INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

Nick Robinson: There are few images more distressing to look at than those of starving children, day after day. That is what we are seeing coming out of Gaza. At another time, in another place, they would trigger international appeals for aid—a mass mobilisation to distribute it. 

But what makes this tragedy so much much worse is the fact that all sides agree there is no shortage of food waiting to supply Gaza. What there is, like so much else since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, is a bitter and angry row about who and what is to blame. 

In May Israel dismantled the system for distributing aid in Gaza run by the UN in conjunction with international aid agencies, arguing that the food and medicines were being highjacked by Hamas and sold at vast profits. They set up in its place a new system to distribute aid along with the United States. The UN and a hundred international aid agencies say the system is failing and the proof of that is in the images we are now seeing.

Hamas, remember, still holds twenty Israeli hostages and the bodies of many others. Thousands of Israeli protesters gathered in Tel Aviv last night to call for an end to the war in Gaza. Following the main demonstration protesters blocked several streets across the city before they were dispersed by police.

That is the background conversation we now want to have with a spokesperson for the Israeli government, David Mencer, who joins us on the programme once again. Good morning to you, Mr Mencer.

David Mencer: Good morning Nick, good to be with you.

NR: I hope to take you stage by stage through this argument, because it is an argument that produces passion, it produces emotion, it produces anger and I hope you agree that it’s going to be valuable for everybody if we can take it a step at a time, to try and understand your case, to try and put to you the arguments that people put to Israel. Can we begin with a simple fact? Do you agree, do you accept, does Israel accept, there is malnutrition in Gaza, it is getting worse and at its extreme some people are starving?

DM: [long pause] Good to be with you, Nick. Yes of course; the facts are very important and I do appreciate the sentiment you were saying about having a civilised conversation, talking specifically about the facts. So the facts are important, not the fiction. In Gaza today, today there are shortages but they are shortages which have been engineered by a terrorist organisation. It is certainly not Israel’s fault that Hamas are frustrating the distribution process of aid and I’ll give you the best example of that—

NR: If you wouldn’t mind, can you just answer the first question? I was going to come to distribution, I promise you I’ll give you the chance to do that. I wanted to start with where people are starting. Do you accept there is malnutrition in Gaza, it’s getting worse and some people are starving?

DM: I will certainly say that there is—

NR: [talking over] Why is that a difficult question? Why is that a difficult question?

DM: I’m answering it, Nick, if you’ll allow me. There’s a man-made shortage but it’s been engineered by Hamas, the terrorist organisation.

NR: But I didn’t ask you whether there was a shortage, Mr Mencer, I asked you whether there was malnutrition, whether it was getting worse and whether some people are starving.

DM: Yes, there is malnutrition—and I’ll answer your question very, very clearly—but there is malnutrition engineered by the terrorist organisation. The images you show of hungry people—you don’t extend the sentence and say the words that matter: Hamas stole their food and Hamas have caused their suffering. From Israel’s point of view there is literally no restriction to the amount of aid we want to send in. There is literally no restriction. Indeed, right now, there are a thousand trucks of aid waiting on the Gazan side of the Gaza–Israel border for that aid to go in, to get to hungry people. Now—

NR: Now let’s take this a stage at a time, Mr Mencer, because you’ve just made an important point. Clearly you accuse Hamas of hijacking the aid. The problem with that argument is this, isn’t it? You’ve changed the distribution of aid, you’ve cancelled the original system of aid, you’ve set up your own system of aid, in order to stop Hamas doing what you say they’re doing. So it seems to me that you are accepting that the system that you have created is currently failing.

DM: [pause] Look, Hamas have turned this charity, aid which should go to the ordinary Gazans, they’ve turned it into a billion-dollar racket. They steal the aid—

NR: Is your system failing, Mr Manser? 

DM: No, our system—we developed a new system precisely to cut Hamas out of the picture. That’s the key point.

NR: Well, it’s the key point but is it working or isn’t it working?

DM: It is working, it is working, simply on the facts, that 90 million meals have gone in with the new system, but Hamas—you know what they’re doing— 

NR: That doesn’t prove it’s working, Mr Mencer. You’ve just acknowledged at the beginning of this conversation, there is malnutrition, it’s getting worse and there’s starvation. So just putting a large number on the amount of food distributed doesn’t prove the system is working. The evidence is whether people are getting fed or not: some are and many are not and malnutrition is getting worse and the system is not working, surely.

DM: Look, there are two parts to the aid distribution process. There is the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation where millions of meals are delivered directly to civilians, but there are also UN-coordinated shipments of food, medicine, raw materials, and flour for bakeries. Now it’s a two-pronged approach—

NR: Sure—

DM: —We haven’t shut one down in favour of the other. But we have opened an alternative—

NR: [talking across, and DM continuing to talk underneath] But you restrict access to the United Nations, don’t you? 

DM: [breaking through] But that’s not true—

NR: In order for those trucks that you—let me just put the question to you and then you can respond—

DM: But that is false, Nick. You must not say lies. You must not say falsehoods.

NR: [sneering] Don’t accuse me of lying, Mr Manser. It’s cheap and it’s unhelpful. I’ll put some facts to you. If you think they’re only a partial version, I’ll give you a chance to answer them. But at a time when people are dying of malnutrition, and hostages are languishing in tunnels, it really does not help for you to shout abuse over a line. I am not lying. I am putting a question to you. Here is the question. [DM tries to break in.] You’ll get the chance to answer the question.

DM: You ARE lying. You ARE lying. [continues]

NR: Well, listen to the question—

DM: I will answer the question now, Nick. You’ve had your chance. You invited me, indeed your producers begged me to come on and I will now give you the fact. That’s my job, as the Spokesman for the Office of the Prime Minister—to give you the facts. There are one thousand trucks of aid waiting on the Gazan side. The UN unfortunately, the US ambassador said this morning, are working in cooperation with Hamas, the terrorist organisation—that’s right: you know, you guys never report this stuff but the UN is working in cooperation with Hamas to restrict the amount of aid to their own people. They’re causing these shortages—

NR: Can I be clear about this? You’re saying that the UN is deliberately stopping the supply of food? They say—let me put this to you, this is what I wanted to put to you, to give you the chance to respond: the United Nations say that they are limited in their ability to deliver food by what the UN described to us this morning as tremendous bureaucratic impediments, tremendous security impediments, that means although they agree with you that there are trucks that could deliver aid, those trucks could not do so. To give you one example, yesterday out of sixteen attempts to coordinate humanitarian movements, only eight with facilitated by the Israeli authorities.

DM: [pause] Let me give you a better example.

NR: No, don’t give me a better example, please address that example and [DM talking underneath] and—

DM: If you could stop interrupting me, then we could get something from this interview rather than your—

NR: [talking over] Well, I think we’re getting quite a lot from the interview.

DM: You do not perceive Hamas to be a terrorist organisation, which leads to all of us in Israel with—

NR: You have no idea what I perceive, you’ve no idea what I perceive, Mr Manser.

DM: Well then, Nick, tell us all. Do you believe Hamas is a terrorist organisation?

NR: No, you’re not interviewing me; I’m interviewing you—

DM: Do you believe that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, yes or no?

NR: [DM continuing to talk under] I am interviewing you about aid, Mr Manser—

DM: They are a jihadi death cult. Do you believe? Do you believe there are a terrorist organisation? Stake yourself off from the mistaken ideas which those executives upstairs have ordered you to say, and tell me now, right now, that you believe Hamas to be a terrorist organisation.

NR: Mr Manser, every interview you do this, you try … it’s very tedious for listeners. It’s very tedious for me. 

DM: Israelis are exasperated that—

NR: [DM talking under] Shall we focus on the questions of the day? Do you accept that—

DM: —Israelis are exasperated that you do not believe that this jihadi death cult is a terrorist organisation.

NR: Good. [DM talking under] You’ve made that point three times so let’s move onto another question.

DM: Let me give you some of the facts. 

NR: No. 

DM: There are a thousand trucks waiting—

NR: You’ve said that three times! I’m asking you a question. 

DM: [persisting] Yesterday, when forty journalists went to see those thousand trucks waiting, in the sunshine, languishing in the sunshine, waiting to be distributed, lo and behold, suddenly the UN pull their finger out and start distributing aid.

NR: Okay.

DM: Israel has offered them security to deliver the aid [continues to talk].

NR: Okay, Mr Manser. You’ve made that point. Can I ask you another question? 

DM: Israel has offered them security to deliver the aid but it is unfortunately the UN which is working in cooperation which is seeking to continue this billion-dollar racket.

NR: Okay, who—

DM: The purpose of our war—

NR: Mr Manser, please stop talking so I can ask a question, please.

DM: No, the purpose of our war in Gaza is to end Hamas’s control of— 

NR: Yes. 

DM: —of, of, of the strip of land, to free Gazans from Hamas.

NR: Right.

DM: That is the purpose.

NR: Okay—

DM: We cannot leave Hamas in power. 

NR: No.

DM: There is no scenario—

NR: David Manser, I am going to ask: Mencer—I do apologise for getting your name wrong. Just allow me to ask a question, it’s just a courtesy to do that. I think you’ll agree that we have—

DM: Go ahead.

NR: —a chance. Thank you very much indeed. Okay, so you made clear you think the UN is not cooperating, they think you’re not cooperating with them. 

DM: It’s not [interrupting]—

NR: No, no, I’m going to ask a question, Mr. Mencer. 

DM: It’s a terrorist organisation.

NR: I am going to ask a question.

DM: It’s not about not cooperating. It’s working in cahoots with a terrorist organisation. 

NR: Whose responsibility is it under international law to ensure that people in the Gaza Strip are fed? 

DM: [long pause] We have a duty as human beings, as a Jewish state, to ensure there’s no starvation in Gaza. 

NR: Whose responsibility is it in international law?

DM: We don’t need to be responsive to international law. It is our duty as a country, as a Jewish state, the only Jewish state in the world, to make sure there is no starvation in Gaza, which is why we’re making it clear that there is no restriction on the amount of aid which can go in.

NR: No, but it is your responsibility to make sure that aid is distributed and currently you are failing to do that.

DM: And we have made that offer. We have made precisely that offer. Let me tell you the facts, Nick.

NR: Under the Geneva Convention Article 55 [DM continues to talk under]—trying isn’t the point. It is doing that is the point.

DM: —Hamas. Did I tell you that clearly? The Israeli army has offered the United Nations all the security it needs to deliver the aid but the United Nations say, “No, no, no, we want to be protected by the terrorist organisation.” So—and I must tell you that there is not an option where Hamas remain in power and thinking to prop up this regime of jihadi—this jihadi death cult—is simply not an option—

NR: [DM continues to talk under] So let me just bring our conversation to a conclusion, if I could. So are you saying to the audience listening to this, are you saying to those viewing images of starving people, that nothing will change? That Israel has set up a new system, you blame others for the failure of that new system, you blame Hamas, you blame the UN, you blame the international organisations, you blame the BBC and other global broadcasters for reporting it. This is all someone else’s fault and as I understand what you’re saying, there’s no intention for Israel to change anything. 

DM: [long pause] No one wants to see Gazans suffering, certainly not people in this country. It is an outrage that anyone, that any ordinary Gazan, should suffer. What’s been happening right now is that while we’ve been facilitating every single day, Hamas is the problem. They loot truck, they block distribution, they weaponise hunger and they deliberately endanger their own people, and right now there are a thousand truck which Israel wants to provide security which could provide at least twelve or two weeks’ worth of food for every single person in Gaza but the UN are telling us, “No, no, no, no, we don’t want Israeli security”—

NR: Yes.

DM: —“we want Hamas to”—

NR: I’d hoped to take you through some more arguments, Mr Manser, but forgive me, you’re often repeating points you’ve made, so if you’ll forgive me, we’ve probably got as far as we’re going to get to.

DM: Well, if you ask me a decent question, I’ll give you some new information.

NR: Well, if you’d like to apply for a job at the BBC, do give it a try, but for the moment, thank you for joining us to tell us what the Israeli government is currently thinking. David Mencer, joining us there.

CREDITS: BBC Channel 4 [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0ls8s6l] David Games Blog, The Times of Israel "Want to wreck Israel’s case? Send in a spokesman" [https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/want-to-wreck-israels-case-send-in-a-spokesman]

Image Source/Credits: BBC Radio 4 David Mencer photo (1) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0ls8s6l DAILY EXPRESS cover Wednesday July 23, 2025: The suffering of little Muhammad clinging on to life in Gaza hell shames us all [https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2085539/gaza-palestine-muhammad-israel-hamas-war] Photo Credit: Anadolu via Getty Images

CBC: Israel bans Palestinian relief agency UNRWA from operating in the country [https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-bans-unrwa-1.7365957] Photo Credit: Ramadan Abed/Reuters

Al Jazeera: Israelis protest to end Gaza war as anger over fate of captives boils over | Israeli police make dozens of arrests, use water cannons on protesters who gathered for the nationwide demonstration. [https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/8/17/israelis-hold-nationwide-protest-to-end-gaza-war-bring-back-the-hostages] Photo Credit: AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean

BBC Radio 4 Today video clip on Twitter/X https://x.com/BBCr4today/status/1948665551426932762/video/1

Nick Robinson photo (1) The Independent https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/nick-robinson-cancels-today-programme-appearance-after-concerns-over-strength-of-his-voice-a6738366.html David Mencer photo (2) Telegram: QudsNEN https://x.com/QudsNen/status/1786392213116649947/photo/1

David Mencer photo (3) screen cap from BBC video clip h ttps://x.com/BBCr4today/status/1948665551426932762/video/1

"We are fighting for the security of our people and for our living space."

—Adolph Hitler, 17 December 1939 Wochenspruch der NSDAP poster

June is National Indigenous History Month in Canada.

Human beings owe it to ourselves to watch the brilliant documentary hosted by TV Ontario: