As I said before, this graph is appropriate, since what is expected is that, with less surface area, less CO2 will be emmitted. But this is not the case in various regions. This can be used to limit countries like Qatar and reduce carbon dioxide emmissions. This graph can be used to battle global warming. For example, a country can be sanctioned if it passes the limit the UN, for example, puts on them.

Although this graph is justified, some factors have to be kept in mind. The US, China, Brazil, Canada and Australia continue Russia´s path. They are big countries with smaller emmissions than other places. As well, Russia only is included in the graph since 1993, and in the last years its emmissions have been growing. So, according to the previous years, Russia´s emmissions will keep growing. Russia can´t be 100% depended on in this case since it is ¨fresh¨.

This is the pyramid:

In the first layer, all crucial activities are included. This level has what is needed to survive. The next layer includes all activities and needs for the safety of one’s self and property. Love, friendship and any other interactions with other people make the third layer. The fourth one takes care of all needs one has to have in a personal level. Lastly, the fifth level is the one that includes logic, intelligence, and all related factors.

This makes sense, because it includes all factors that should stay in mind when trying to figure out how happy is someone. For example, when a man who won the lotery is compared with a man that lost the ability to move his legs, after a year, scientists found out both were in the same level of happiness. When I saw this, I questioned it immediately, but then I thought of the pyramid, and how much sense it made. Although the rich man had a reason to be happier, maybe he missed one of the needs that the man who couldn’t walk had. The first thing I thought of was sex, or maybe friends and family.

            In my opinion, I believe it is needed to observe something in the first whole paragraph of page 227. It talks about a Jewish man from Brooklyn who entered a part of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron with an M-16, killing twenty-nine praying Palestinians. In response, Hamas abandoned its policy of only killing militants and began to kill civilians. The thing is, that Baruch Goldstein, the American killer, was not a member of any organization, and was not representing any part of the Israeli authority. But, Hamas, a terrorist/political organization, does represent someone.

The mentioning of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin reminded me of my school in Israel. The date of his assassination, every year, all the schools in Israel remember him and show pictures of him. I remember that, one year; my dad showed me a picture and told me to bring it to class. It was a picture taken right before the shot, where Yigal Amir and Yitzhak Rabin are clearly seen.

The elections between Ehud Barak and Benyamin Netanyahu for the position of Prime Minister of Israel, mentioned in the story, are very meaningful for me. One reason is the fact that these are the first political elections I remember. Also, these elections showed me the first political jokes I can remember. Because of these, and many other reasons, these elections are very important for me, and that is why I think they should be mentioned in this section.

One quote that called my attention was the one that said “Palestinians seek ‘moral high ground by deploying children to stand in front of men with machine guns who fire at Israelis.’” The first thing this reminded me of was the Arab kids throwing stones at Israeli tanks and soldiers while their parents don’t even try to make them stop. Then it also reminded me of a picture:

            Although not of much importance, I would like to mention the great hospital of Sha’are Tzedek of Jerusalem, where Israel Gefen, the survivor of the supermarket bomb attack, was treated after the incident (page 165). This hospital is known worldwide for its high technology, high quality medical treatment, etc. People go to this hospital from all over the globe, because they know of its efficiency. There is a sentence, in page 193, which is really significant, interesting and meaningful. It explains: “Israel, long portrayed in the West as a David in a hostile Arab sea, was suddenly cast as Goliath.” “This is so true” I thought. I also liked the metaphor, since it was so appropriate and showed exactly what Sandy Tolan meant to state. It also made me think of the perspectives of other people in the world. For example, on the other side of the Mediterrenean Sea, in Spain, Catalunya is willing to independ itself from the rest of Spain since always, even before Israel existed. That is why, in the past, the Catalans were in favor of the creation of Israel, because they saw themselves reflected in that conflict. But, currently, most Catalans, the new generations, are in favor of the Palestinians to form a state, for the same reason the past Catalan generations were in favor of Israel. The younger generations see themselves reflected in Gaza, how a small part of a country wants to be heard. Another paragraph that needs to be mentioned is the second in page 198, which brings me even more nostalgia. It described “the shoreline of the Mediterranean snaked north from Jaffa and Tel Aviv toward Haifa and Acca…the Jordan River trickled south from the Sea of Galilee toward the Dead Sea.”

            These chapters also included words and expressions that brought me back to the land where I was born. Some would be the mentioning of the sabra fruit in page 112, the song that says “David the king of Israel is alive. Alive and present. David is alive…” in page 141, the newspaper Ma’ariv in page 115 (that apparently was running for always, though I thought it was more recent), or the Sabra man in page 119, referring to the symbolic Israeli man, with a specific personality looked up to by everyone. I found it pretty funny that the author of the book thought it was appropriate or even needed to include the physical description of this Sabra in page 119: “They wore the Sabra ‘uniform’-khaki shorts and a khaki or faded blue work shirt and ‘biblical sandals.’” This actually became the way to represent a “traditional” Israeli.

            A line that I found significant because of its meaning, not because of what it said, was: “Almost no Arab lawyers would come to court. A general strike had rendered the new Israelicourts virtually silent and empty. The strike had been organized, the Israeli authorities would soon learn, by a young West Bank lawyer named Bashir Khairi.” This shows that some conscious members of the “rebel” population in the West Bank used legal insurgencies through civil disobedience, unlike the guerrilla members that acted in violence, just putting more wood into the fire.

            I found many parts of the text in these chapters interesting, since I learned a lot of some Muslim cultural activities that were not known to mẹ. One of these was the fourth paragraph of page 44, which says: “His [Bashir] hair was cut and weighed; the family would give to the poor the value of that weight in gold. Sheep were slaughtered, and two-thirds of the meat would again be given to the poor. The clan had a feast with the rest.” This called my attention because it reminded me of the five pilgrims of Islam, more specifically the one that involves charity. I found this an interesting tradition. A question rose to my mind: Why does the family give the amount of gold according to the wight of the baby’s hair instead of having a specific and independent amount like the two-thirds of the sheep to be given to the poor?

            The most important text included in these three chapters, for me, is Hatikva, found in pages 84 and 85. It meant a lot for me in the moment I began reading it. I remember that, before I began, I sang it to myself in the head. I believe Sandy Tolan did a pretty accurate translation, with maybe only one or two errors. I recognize that most people, when reading the book, just read through it, but I stayed and starred at it for some seconds, remembering many ceremonies in which it was sand, some happy, many sad. It woke a feeling in me that I can’t explain in a simple blog, mostly because none of the readers would actually care or understand.

There were some significant and some simple parts of the texts that meant a lot to me. First, I feel obligated to mention the two paragraphs in page 2. I remember how I just started reading the book and I was already able to perceive the taste of Israel, the land in which I was born and raised. These paragraphs contain little details that are only in Israel, like the group taxi the cousins took. Other things that were described were the characteristic descriptions, from which the most significant for me, surprisingly was simply the word “heat,” since it’s one of the most common nouns to hear when someone describes this territory. But, from the entire page, I liked the fact that the cousins take in all of these characteristics as I do, with love and nostalgia. Another part of the text that called my attention was on page 6, where it said “most of the old buildings were covered with brightly colored signs in blocky, indecipherable Hebrew lettering.” This was enough significant for me to include it here because, when I finished reading this, I felt confused and immediately disagreed with it. This is because, since always, ALL the signs in Israel are written first in Hebrew, then in Arabic, and then in English, even the street names, as shown in the image attached. To clarify this, I will use the example of the buses in Barcelona

, where it is first  written in Catalan, then in Spanish and then, most of the times, in English.

This is a very serious case of disobedience of the freedom of speech. Although I believe the Vatican should allow people to criticize them, I think the father did not make the best choice in starting what could be a movement in the Vatican. In my opinion, he should have started in a small church and afterwards progress till reaching higher and higher. In this case, the small and meaningless individual tries to defeat the big, powerful, with a big amount of members, authoritative and influential Vatican. He would have more possibilities of winning and probably more self esteem if he would wait till creating a movement or something similar. Since always, the Christian Church, or any other religious power, was effective in making people not try to criticize them or to go against them. Only slight changes were able to happen, like in the case of Protestantism, in which many people, in many parts of Europe revolted against the Catholic Church. Most ways were similar to this one, or to the more famous Galileo Galilei’s case, in which he demonstrated, with proofs, the fact that the planets orbit around the Sun, and not around Earth. The church punished him with home imprisonment till he took back his comment, to survive. It was only many years later that Copernicus was able to make society accept this fact, so maybe ordination of women still have hope.

            In my opinion, this is a delicate issue. As a monarchy, Thailand had to imprison the writer, since everything is controlled by the king. As an ally of Thailand, with good relations, Australia can’t act too aggressively against that country. Also, Australia has even more problems because Harry’s family is reasonably pressuring the government to take action. I believe Thailand shouldn’t have imprisoned the writer, since his novel was fictional and, as it said in the article, out of the 50 published copies, only 10 were sold. On the other hand, I do understand why Thailand would arrest this writer, since it’s a country with a long tradition and where most people adore their king. This case reminded me of the monarchy in Spain, which could fine you or even arrest you if you take any action in anything against their members or if you even helped a little bit. I think these cases are terrible because Spain can’t be known as a modern nation if these things still happen, and it is not like such a big percentage in the population even likes the monarchy.

Responding to this case, some people started a site called “Free Kareem”. For the second “anniversary” of the period Kareem was in jail, this group of people, which has expanded, started protests in many different parts of the world, including Paris, San Francisco, Rome, London, Brussels, Stockholm, Berlin, Bucharest, Washington DC, New York, Berne, Rhode Island, etc. In these places, groups of people gathered together around the Egyptian embassies to protest in favor of Kareem’s freedom.

This article touches many subjects. In my opinion, when the Muslims arrest or kill someone for criticizing them, they just bring their reputation even lower and cause others to express their opinions about this religion. This is what happened in this case, where a Muslim government arrests someone for saying something bad about Islam, in order to not hurt their reputation. But, by doing that, they hurt it even more.

In my opinion, it is not fair that such a big group of people protest only for one prisoner that is an example of the violation of freedom of speech, when there are thousands of other prisoners that were in jail for much longer and not for only four years, like in Russia, China, or Turkey.