Saudi woman forced to have baby in prison

"Pregnant Saudi prisoner Arwa Baghdadi is about to give birth behind bars. In May 2011, the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA), an independent unlicensed human rights organization, published a formal letter [ar] on behalf of Arwa's mother, Huda al-Ahdl to the Bureau of Investigation and Public Prosecution."

The public is outraged:

"[Saudi] citizen Arwa Al-Baghdadi delivers her baby in the prison, while we treat criminal Ali Abdullah Saleh [Yamani president] in the best of hospitals. Damn tyranny."

"I have always loved my Kindle Fire, the content was perfect, lots of access made it perfect but the only real issue is that it was lacking in firepower. So here comes Google with help of Asus announcing the new Google Nexus 7, throwing its punches all around.

Powered by Android 4.1 (jellybean), this less-than-a-pound tablet features a 7-inch 1280×800 HD display, front-facing camera, the Tegra-3 chipset with a quad-core CPU and 12-core GPU, and comes in 8GB and 16GB flavors. It packs in all of the standard Google apps and works seamlessly with all of the Google Play content."

This is not some flippant choice to skip the circus because it is somewhat related to Israel. This blogger gives a well a articulated, point by point reason why boycotting Israel works:

"- Culture does not operate in some special, apolitical space – just like academic institutions in Israel are also not removed from complicity in systematic human rights abuses.

- The Israeli government and advocacy groups are deliberately seeking to use culture as a means of ‘rebranding’. In 2008, Israel’s Foreign Ministry hired a British firm to “craft” a “new image” for the country based on “Israel’s scientific and cultural achievements”. After the Gaza massacre in 2009, Israel announced more money for ‘cultural diplomacy’, with an official declaring a plan to “send well-known novelists and writers overseas, theater companies, exhibits” to “show Israel’s prettier face”.

- The cultural boycott of Israel is bringing about discourse, and discourse is good.

- The cultural boycott of Israel is “troubling” senior Israeli politicians: a law passed by the Knesset last year means that people who call for a boycott could be sued in court. The Israeli government has also set up a committee to look at how to compensate Israeli promoters in the cases of “politically motivated cancellations”.

and more:

The Arab in America learns the hard way how creeped out Americans get when you smile at their kids and touch their hair.