And definitely not as a farce, sorry Mr Marx. Some 100 killed as Syria tanks storm city of Hama
Hama is used to massacres by the Assad family, but we tell this tyrant the more you kill us the more we are determined to oust you.Let's hope so. Meanwhile, does Baby Assad plan to beat the record his daddy left in Hama?
This Haaretz piece by someone named Elka Looks is so remarkable that I've decided to keep a snapshot for posterity (click to embiggen):
From 7/29 Fox News on-line edition:
Blames CNN that caused the rumors by publishing the two articles simultaneously:
Obama on US debt crisis: 'we are almost out of time'
and
Apple now has more cash than the U.S. government
Overheard mumbling to self: "Why do I need that headache, anyway I was going for Monaco or whatsitsname... er... Luxemburg... On the other hand... firesale... mumble mumble mumble..."
So here I was perusing a steamy pile of virtual excrement titled Israel, Dinosaurs, and Amy Winehouse. The link to it was sent by a friend (thanks, friend!), who added a sentence mentioning pathetic shits or something in that vein. Indeed, it was a fitting tribute to this opus and much too kind, as far as I am concerned.
The author calls her/him/them-selves "I4P Writers Group" and declares "We are a team of bloggers we comprise a group of 5 writers in Ireland and 1 in Israel...".Whatever they comprise, even to my amateur eye English doesn't look like their mother tongue - notice "over indulgence", "cause it's ultimate destruction", "exept", starting every second paragraph with "So", etc. Read this if you are still unconvinced:
So, this brings me to the evil rogue state of israel, which, funnily enough, as it turns out, has quite a lot in common with Amy Winehouse, exept she had a great voice and didnt kill people constantly, they both suffered from the same affliction.I have seen many a "How I spent my summer" work penned by a better hand. But style, atrocious as it is, takes its hat off and bows deeply to the heinousness of the contents.
There's cowardice in an opinion piece that uses the dead to sell hatred to the living. The dead deserve better. So do the living.Yep. Too true, the cheap way of rushing to score a political point or two and dancing on the graves is a popular pastime of cheap scribes. Torrents of propaganda unleashed by the Norway massacre are despicable. And Bradley is right comparing the "I4P Writers Group" opus and its use of Amy Winehouse' name and fate to the JP editorial (I suspect I could guess its author's name in a pinch). The editorial, in its more polished way, does its own bit of dancing on the graves, and the impression is not much less ghoulish.
But, guess what? Israel is not 'God' and ultimately what killed Amy Winehouse will also kill off Israel as well. All we have to do is wait, and just keep on chip, chip, chipping away at the out of control, over excessive, over indulgent, spoilt brat killer bully that we now know as Israel.Emphasis mine.
Nothing, however, can excuse the widespread condoning of an anti-Muslim racism once reserved for the Jews of Europe. Not on the weekend when Amy Winehouse, a Jewish girl from East London whose artistry would once have been dismissed by a racist and murderous European right as degenerate “cosmopolitan” trash, died. A good way to remember her is finally to confront the latest iteration of a European bigotry that kills.Amazing, ain't it? First of all, that "anti-Muslim racism" idiocy - from a luminary of NYT, no less. And then poor Amy Winehouse again - will the point scorers leave her alone, I wonder?
A recent survey of about 3,000 consumers showed that 35 percent of them plan to buy Apple's next phone when it hits the market -- despite not knowing anything about it yet.Oh boy, oh boy...
Good. What kind of comics will follow, I would like to know. Actually, scratch this: I wouldn't.
Well, it's one way to do it.
On the other hand...
Introductory afterword
This really should have been an afterword, but I had to put it in the beginning, otherwise the meaning of all these footnotes will be lost on the reader. You see, my dear reader, while writing this post I have been high*, that without ingesting or inhaling any mind-altering substances. The cause of my exalted state shall be explained later, in the body of that post. But, while re-reading the post, I have discovered that several statements in it require a footnote. So there.
(*) After yet more R and
Main part
You may remember a run-in that Andrew Ian Dodge (AID), a candidate for senate from Main, had with one Steve Martin (SM) - not the comedian. SM, being a man of strict principles (but so many of them that he gets confused trying to stick to) and impeccable moral position (which he lost in the Maine woods and can't find since), "outed" AID as: Libertarian, libertine, closet Marxist-Leninist, non-citizen, Wiccan warlock, sexual deviant, barfly, lounge lizard, running lackey dog of the world government - all that simultaneously (1). If we add to this list hard rock, writing and other AID's favorite occupations, the list as a whole certainly witnesses a stellar activity level and a unique variety of talents.
I have been looking lately at SM, being interested in the life according to this, definitely unorthodox and turbulent person. Life according to SM is a deadly maze of conspiracies, starting with the main one: the "bankers" (if you are with it, you know who is meant):
The "system" isn't broken. We just don't use it anymore. We've allowed our Constitutional Republic to be taken over by a corporate criminal syndicate, working at the behest of the Rockefellers and the oilogarchy that they control.If I were a scion of Rothschild family, I would be insulted by this modification of the ancient formula, but let's leave this alone for now. SM, of course is also concerned about the black helicopters of the world government (It is certain that he suspects AID of being able to fly one of these, although he didn't mention it publicly - add another one to the list of AID's talents).
On the 9/11 terrorist attacks: The official story is a “fairy tale,” perpetrated by “the obvious winners of 9/11: the globalists, people who want to form a world government.” (3/15/2011) “Al-Qaeda is a CIA creation.” (11/1/2010)(Emphasis mine - getting high is a key point in this post)
On Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: “He’s going to be on the ark when the flood comes. He’s a bought and paid for new world order stooge, just like the ones at the U.N., just like the ones inside the beltway. And he definitely knows. You don’t get that high without knowing.” (10/4/2010)
On Aroostook Watchmen’s role in the media: “Really the point that we’re trying to make with this program is that there truly is a cosmic struggle between good and evil and we’re merely pointing out to you how that struggle is playing out locally and in America. The conspiracy that is seeking to bring down this nation, because it was the only nation founded on Christian values, through and through, is the Devil’s conspiracy.” (12/15/2010)Indeed - you don’t get that high without knowing. Or vice versa, both versions are applicable where SM is concerned, I hope you understand it by now.
If you are willing to die for your country are you willing to kill for it(3)? It is easy to die but it is a very different thing to fight for the preservation of our country and sad to say there may be a time when you will have to kill to save our country.Sad to say? The author of this text sounds rather willing and even kind of happy to me(4). Meanwhile, before all that dying and killing starts, Aroostook Watchmen try to make the best of it, sponsoring some strange products, such as (but not limited to):
Ganoderma Healthy Coffee - Healthy Coffee For LifeTM. This coffee contains Ganoderma Lucidum (Red Mushroom)... oops, this could be it! I shall certainly order some, to get to that highest level of awareness.
OXYSILVER™ pioneers a new class of mineral waters (sic!). Must be good after (or during) partaking of the Ganoderma Healthy Coffee, I guess.
ZeroPoint Red NaturaLaser Pointer. This one is special for me, since it is supported by extra-strong scientific evidence: "...light has been shown to be one of the most efficient conduits of energy ever harnessed. It’s why fiber optic wire was chosen for the world’s most critical communications platforms, sending pulses of information-laden light around the world in milliseconds." Mmm... not clear where one should stick that pointer before activating it, but I gather it's good against every malady.
Educating the people of Maine about the threat of world government as represented by the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderburg Group, and the Council on Foreign Relations and the close ties between our two Democratic senators and these treasonous groups.Yes, SM is aiming high, but then we have established to our satisfaction that he is flying high. High as kite doesn't even start to describe it - he is somewhere close to the Moon (Luna may be the more suitable term in this case, I suggest) (6). My exploration of his teachings got me only slightly elevated (6), and even this was enough of a revelation to me. A few days after this event I still have mercifully short but still powerful relapses - thus I am trying not to blink, so don't get spooked if you see me this side of 2011.
Martin: Right now, of course, everything’s mandatory and you have all of this false pursuit of people for political reasons. You have the IRS ‘siced’ on people for political reasons.
D’Amboise: Right.
Martin: We could talk about our good friend Eric Hoven who went to jail because he was so good at exposing the fallacies of the evolutionists.
D’Amboise: Right.
Martin: Well, the vice chairman who served with him, a guy named Kaufman, has now come out as a queer and joined the Democrats, so that should tell you something about where the Republican Party has been recently.
D’Amboise: Exactly, exactly.
Martin: I’ve had people like best-selling author John Perkins come on the show here recently telling me that there’s probably only, Scott, 6,000 total in the so-called Anglo-American elite and they call the shots for the other 6 billion people on the planet.
D’Amboise: They do, they do. And it’s sad that we’ve allowed it to get to that situation.
The most prominent Republican challenging Olympia Snowe in the Senate GOP primary in Maine says President Obama is “exercising a lot of Muslim faith” and doesn’t believe he is a Christian.Or this:
It isn’t about the birth, it’s about the birth certificate, and whether they can prove it or not, I think we can take our energy and use it in different areas of trying to get this country back.(Is there such thing as a half-birther, I wonder? After all, there are halfwits.) Anyhow, I fear that the brain damage caused by the mysterious influence of SM and his Aroostook Watchers to be irreparable.
Also:
Danon affirmed that Israel is “a strong democracy” but that implementing limits is a necessary evil.Much more of that in the article and in the clip.
Oi... that it should have come to this... I shall soon start suspecting myself of being a Zionist agent.
Wait a minute... but I am... gosh I am getting dizzy.
You should read it to a) educate yourself and b) to learn how not to jump into the fray with all the wrong battle cries.
The fog thickens. Looks like whoever done the deed has to take some Farsi lessons urgently. Otherwise, we may soon see a lot of erroneously slain people called Mahmoud Ahmadi.
And the buggers are doing it subtly this time:
Larijani blames Israel, US for death of Iran physicist
Difficult really to count the prongs in this attack. To start with: if the wet job was a joint exercise, then there were two people on that bike. So who was the driver and who was the shooter? Does it mean, for instance, that Americans are better bikers and Israelis are better shooters or what? Potential rivalry is brewing, I can see it.
Now to the prize money split: who gets more - the biker or the shooter?
Then the issue of related expense reports. Iranians are devilishly using the two respective bureaucracies - that of CIA and that of Mossad - that would forever withhold paying the chits, pointing to the other side and thus paralyzing the system.
Tough play, that...
In this statement:
You may think that there is a bug in the logic of that headline: how can a man be both named and declared unknown in the same sentence? Well, it's a paraphrase of an old joke I wouldn't go into right now, but it's still not exactly a mistake, you see:
Gov't minister says unclear whether Darioush Rezaie, a university teacher, was a nuclear scientist...So, let's concentrate on what is known so far:
An Iranian physicist was shot dead by a motorcyclist in Tehran on Saturday and Iran's student news agency ISNA quoted an unnamed police official as saying he was a nuclear scientist.Looks like a trend:
Last year, an Iranian scientist was killed and another was wounded in Tehran.Or like a plague... guess who will be blamed?
I have just watched that pitiful appearance today:
And here it comes:
The Back To Black singer was apparently found at the property by emergency services at 3.54pm this afternoon, according to sources, and her death is being treated as 'unexplained' by police.
In the ongoing saga of idiotic legislation activities the authors of one of such ill-conceived babies: the proposal to probe Israeli NGOs remained with a stillborn cadaver on their sweaty hands.
The bill fell short by a large margin – 57 to 28 – due to the opposition of Netanyahu and Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin as well as Likud ministers Gideon Sa’ar, Michael Eitan, Dan Meridor, Yuval Steinitz, Moshe Kahlon, and Bennie Begin.Good. As for the grieving father and mother of that baby: Likud MK Danny Dannon and Yisrael Beiteinu MK Faina Kirschenbaum: I am confident that this worthy tandem will produce new babies of the kind in the near future. At least this time, unlike the one with the BDS supporters bill (more about it later), common sense and sanity prevailed.
A Justice Ministry memorandum could empower courts to order Internet service providers to disclose the identity of online commenters accused of defamation or copyright violations.Of course, the precise definition of the term "defamation" is not forthcoming as part of the deal, and why should it? If this idea gets accepted, we are on a slippery road. Who knows whether a commenter who falsely accuses a VIP of theft or rape will be treated differently from one who declares another (or same) VIP a moron (frequently with good justification)?
I am somewhat unhappy with the anti-boycott law - and not because the hysterical far Left screams that it undermines Israeli democracy. I am concerned that if it is not adequately comprehended, it enables demonizers of the Jewish state to pose as bogus martyrs in the cause of freedom of expression.First of all, let's take the sweeping statement according to which it's only the "hysterical far Left" that objects to that law. Yours truly, hardly expected to sympathize with the extreme left (or extreme right) objects to that law too, and so do many other Israelis that don't have time for any extremes.
Here are this week’s full results:
I cannot express how shocked I am by this news:
The Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee will hold another hearing on Muslim radicalization. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., plans the third in a series of controversial hearings for July 27. It will focus on the Somalia-based al-Shabaab terrorist organization and its recruiting tactics in the U.S.So, why the shock, you may ask? Because some civic-minded people have noticed something you and I have missed:
King has been widely criticized by Muslim groups and some Democratic members of the Homeland Security Committee for holding hearings that focus strictly on Muslim radicalization rather than all types of radicalization.Now, do you see what I do, namely: racism, bigotry and Islamophobia combined in one huge affront to PC thinking? I unanimously condemn these proceedings and call for expansion of the hearings in the following directions (in parallel, of course):
Think again:
The story appears to be true:
The official examination didn't reveal signs of editing in the video, which captured a police colonel urinating outside his office.Still:
However, the head of directorate requested additional and comprehensive verification, since the reported results do not provide complete and objective picture of what happened and, besides, causes and conditions that contributed to the emergence of controversial video, which caused great public interest, have not been established.The name of the perpetrator, who was obviously blotto, is revealed: Colonel Alexei Isakov.
In fact, the person who sent me this shot titled it "When a man loses patience", but gender determination in birds could be tricky, so:
And so I'll be for a few more days. Then, hopefully, normal services will resume.
Meanwhile, enjoy this saga.
Here are this week’s full results:
Sean Linnane aka Stormbringer reports:
Last year, the U.S. Navy bought 59,000 microchips for use in everything from missiles to transponders and all of them turned out to be counterfeits from China.And how about the regular, quite mundane stuff in your house, like your phones, your TV set, your computers?
Wired reports the chips weren't only low-quality fakes, they had been made with a "back-door" and could have been remotely shut down at any time.
Judeopundit describes two appalling cases of cruelty to animals in this post.
And now I ask y'all: is... oh, I have asked it already in the post title. Fine.
Here is an example:
To avoid unnecessary explanations later: this here blog has no time for the BDS creepy-crawly activists. However, saying this, I have to add that this here blog doesn't have any time for tsunamis, bubonic plague, droughts and many other wonders of nature as well. It will be safe to guess that most of the citizens share most of the above mentioned sentiments.
But what I don't understand and even take an exception to is the steadily increasing tendency of our lawmakers (or Knesset in other words) to cope with any phenomenon that is not to their liking by promoting a law that will forbid it. Such was the fate of the infamous BDS.
The bill makes publicly calling for a boycott that could harm Israel “economically, culturally or academically” a civil violation, which may carry a fine.Do you get it? BDS, a campaign upheld by all kinds of foreign folks and causing some minor economic harm and heartburn, is outlawed now. In Israel itself, of all places. Unless, of course, our Knesset, in its infinite wisdom, has found a way to fine Naomi Klein (to take one example) and/or deny her some tax breaks.
Additionally, anyone who calls for a boycott can be rejected from working for the state, and an organization that boycotts the state may not be considered a public institution for purposes of receiving state funding or tax breaks.
A temporary solution was achieved in the commencing war between Lebanon and Israel regarding the issue of maritime borders. According to the solution, FM Lieberman - bouncer par excellence - and Hezbollah chief underground/underwater expert Hassan Nasrallah will settle the issue, meeting underwater close to disputed area. Here is a recording of the preliminary meeting. Warning: adult content, please don't let your kids watch beyond first 35 seconds!
The decisive meeting of the two is set for next week. Bets are accepted by all major betting enterprises and bookies. At the moment the rate is 7:1, favoring Nasrallah due to his outstanding underground experience. However, Lieberman is issuing war cries at an impressive pitch and volume, so there is no telling...
These searches dominate the interwebs today. Not mutually exclusive, this bunch is, mind you.
Regarding the first: Gonorrhea strain H041 - going in without my reading glasses, I thought at first it's some new kind of the famous 401K program. Apparently it's about a new strain of the bug, resistant to the class of antibiotics called cephalosporins, commonly used to treat the STD. Can't say I'm unduly worried. Too late for me.
As for Kremlin, which is in Moscow, the news that "Vladimir Putin was sent to Russia by God" is really not a shocker. As far as I understand theology, which is not very far, everything was sent by the above mentioned, including tomatoes, bedbugs, grisly bears and prime ministers. So be it.
So what is left? Oh, Bill Maher, the conspicuous stain on the otherwise healthy and fit body of the media. Why is he so popular today, I really don't know. Don't care, too. So there.
One wishes to be fair and balanced, like some other people. So, without further ado:
Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino has ordered an investigation against producers of a YouTube video that compares police special forces to Nazis.Nope, the authors are not left wing do-gooders in the frenzy of... er... do-gooding. Because:
The video shows footage taped at a number of right-wing protests, combining the footage with scenes from Nazi Germany showing soldiers beating prisoners.So, yes, to be fair and balanced: why don't we put these ones in the same detention cells where these ones are kept? For fairness sake. And without undue emotions and, deity forbid, rancor or summat other in this vein.
With all the hype you hear about the miraculous successes of Cuban medicine, it was kinda surprising to read this:
Chavez has referred to his illness as “one of life’s ambushes,” and he has spoken about the “very difficult” hours after Fidel Castro told him in Havana last month that he had a malignant tumor.
The details of the story are here. The author is well known and popular in France and has more ideas in this direction.
Well, I wouldn't tell what exactly and where Dieudonné should suck on. And that donkey doesn't have to be Jewish, but for the purpose it better be a dead one.
The following quotes need a bit of introduction. Israeli rabbinical authorities, being (sometimes justly, as you shall see) somewhat suspicious of Jewishness of some new repatriates, question them to establish their roots. The results are frequently hilarious. So here we go. If you feel confused by some quotes, feel free to ask.
- A young man invited me to dinner at a restaurant. After dinner I found out that I ate a piece of pork. My mood was spoiled, and I went home. At home I told all to my grandfather, a rabbi. Poor grandfather stood all night on his knees, praying for me.
- Every day I went to synagogue. In Riga there were two synagogues: one Catholic, the other Orthodox.
- My grandmother was very religious woman and has always taught us kids not to mix kosher and non-kosher.
- I know that if a woman is in her "critical" days, no one will shake her hand.
- My parents are very pious people. Father never starts fire on Saturday and lights up his cigarette from a candle that my mother lit on Friday. Mom generally doesn't smoke.
- Frankly, I was a party member over there, but on all Soviet Holidays I've attended the synagogue.
- The Lord invited Moses on Mount Sinai to hand him the Torah in intimate atmosphere.
- Of all four brothers of my mother only one wasn't Jewish.
- On Saturday we didn't even ride deers.
- When our grandson was born, we Christened him by a Jewish name.
- The first time I was jailed for Trotskyism, and the second for Zionism. So I always remained a religious Jew.
- My father's second wife was Jewish. I was born by his second wife. This can be confirmed by my father and his first and third wife, who hadn't given birth to me.
- When I grew up, my mother told me that we are Jews. I myself would have never thought of it.
- Since we are from Ukraine, the family suffered a great deal while others ate bacon.
- Often my grandmother fried gefilte fish for dinner.
- At Judgement Day in our family we were not given something to eat. But we were told why.
- Yes, I broke several glasses at my wedding.
- Abraham is considered to be the first Jew, because he was kicked out of the house.
- We have two sets of dishes, one for fish dishes and the other one for meat.
- My grandmother Evdokiya Nikiforovna, earned a living doing laundry for a Jewish family. Subsequently, she had an intimate relationship with the head of the family, Iosif Davidovich. From this connection, my mother Antonina Iosifovna was born. Since age seventeen she did laundry for a Jewish family. From my mother's cohabitation with the head of household Yakov Moiseevich, I, Ekaterina Yakovlevna, was born. At present I do laundry for a Jewish family and have a daughter Alice bat Maimon from the head of the family, Maimon Ben Alush.
Hat tip: Y.Z.
Cross-posted on Yourish.com
The poisoned fruit of frustration:
It was very chaotic. They protested near the gate of a Lufthansa flight and yelled "collaborators" at the French and called us 'Nazis'Whatever gets them off...
Of course, overabundance of political correctness could screw up more that just an innocent text, but... anyway, tee hee.
This one is a real gem: I mean, talk about cats that supposedly get 9 lives to spend, and here comes a man:
Melvin Roberts of South Carolina has been struck by lightning an unbelievable six times.Let's do the uncomplicated math right: five (or six) times struck by lightning and is currently on his sixth marriage. That makes it eleven or twelve lives already spent, depending on whose report you consider more reliable.
He believes that his record with lightning is connected to his record with marriage: "I've married five time and I've been hit by lightning five times. But [his sixth wife] says this is the sixth time and I'm not leaving my wife, so I'm going to have to do something different."
Never be it said that we are perfect here in our neck of the woods. I will be first to... and all that, but this?
According to the latest research by team of psychologists from MIT, men spend their evenings in bars for two main reasons:
The suspect walked into the bank handing a teller a note advising her to give him money. He fled on foot with approximately $900 where witnesses observed him running east across Utica Road. There was a fresh coat of snow on the ground and officers were able to follow his footprints to an apartment complex just east of Utica where they recovered some of the money on the ground. They found additional footprints that led to a different building in the complex.The robbery MO doesn't leave many doubts about Kyle's intellectual abilities, but the follow-up topped the robbery:
Kyle Richards thinks that the ban on pornography and erotica enforced by the Macomb County Jail—and, to a lesser extent, the absence of video games in individual cells—amounts to "cruel and unusual punishment," and is therefore unconstitutional.So Kyle has decided to become a prison lawyer, and:
21-year-old Richards—who's coping with "chronic masturbation syndrome and severe sexual discomfort," and apparently needs porn to treat these medical conditions—wants to explore this legal issue in court. To that end, he's filed a "five-page handwritten lawsuit" in the U.S. Court in Detroit against Gov. Rick Snyder and the state of Michigan, in which he demands that prisoners at the jail (located near Detroit) be allowed to "possess erotic/pornographic materials along with personal televisions, video game consoles and radios."And thus he states:
Sexual deprivation has been used against plaintiff in a way as to both sexually frustrate the plaintiff, deprive the plaintiff of any sort of sexual gratification, and deny the plaintiff his right to sexual reproduction.I don't know: didn't someone explain to Kyle the true story of bees and flowers? And did he skip the sex education lessons in school. It's a good thing he isn't married.
According to this AOL News article. Here is the snapshot (click to enlarge):
Mastermind of the Century (the last one) decided to spice the current century. The story is simply delicious. It starts with an article by Rory Carroll where Chomsky criticizes Comical Hugo for his inhuman treatment of judge María Lourdes Afiuni, for his dictatorship, including hardly believable (for Chomsky) sentences like "Concentration of executive power, unless it's very temporary and for specific circumstances, such as fighting world war two, is an assault on democracy."
One might want to ask the Mastermind where has he been for the last twelve years, when Caudillo stripped Venezuela of its democratic institutions, building up his ersatz socialism. Weren't Chavez' intentions clear from the day one?
But let's go back to the story. Guardian, you see, was very excited for some reason about the rift opening between the hitherto best buddies: Noam and Hugo. So excited that the headline they've chosen says Noam Chomsky denounces old friend Hugo Chávez for 'assault' on democracy. Which is a bit of exaggeration indeed: whatever Mastermind said is not such a scalding denunciation of Comical Hugo, rather a liver-spotted finger shaken in his general direction. Of course, our Mastermind, hilariously egged on by a blogger, blames the hapless Guardian in "extreme dishonesty". A classic case of pot calling kettle.
Well, the next act of the drama follows: The Guardian, hurt to its bone marrow by the accusations of the Mastermind (but also mindful of their previous clash with the latter) produces a transcript of Rory Carroll's interview. It's quite a boring reading and, to be frank, still doesn't support the headline that so riled the Mastermind.
So, we have here not only a rift opening between Chaves and Chomsky but also one opening between two important disinformation sources of the free world. Two birds and no stone wasted. Cool.
And, of course, as a bonus, the priceless correspondence between the Mastermind and Alek Boyd - the blogger mentioned already. Here is the second part of it. There are quite a few interesting passages in both parts, but I shall quote only a sentence:
The world needs to understand just how unhinged you, those you admire, and those who admire you, are, and these exchanges are just the perfect way to do it.Indeed. I would suggest adding " and those who admire those who admire you" for completeness, but it's excellent as it is.
I wondered, reading this story: usually decision mills in the army (any army) grind very slow. Why such haste in this case?
I really don't know which one to choose. Both lack... er... some meat, I would say. But this one is definitely worth watching:
I have spent some time since reading Alice Walker's article in The Guardian Why I'm joining the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza attempting to get my head around it. I was trying to understand her motives and her justification in joining the travesty of what, in effect, was unabashedly confirmed by its leaders to be a political provocation, having nothing to do with the mythical and largely unnecessary "humanitarian assistance". The problem with Ms Walker's article is that, filled by so many slogans and buzzwords, it's a veritable jumble of frequently contradictory emotions, bereft of logic and, eventually, of common sense. To borrow from a much better writer than I, Howard Jacobson:
That Alice Walker believes it is right to join the Freedom Flotilla II to Gaza I do not have the slightest doubt. But beyond associating her decision with Gandhi, Martin Luther King and very nearly, when she talks about the preciousness of children, Jesus Christ, she fails to give a single convincing reason for it.It is easy to dismiss Alice Walker's stance as a case of useful idiocy, as my good friends of CiF Watch rightly diagnose. And, especially when you read the full version of Walker's article on her blog, her obsession with Israelis=Nazis imagery certainly justifies what they say:
To equate the democratic Jewish state with Nazi Germany is more than stupid, its unimaginably cruel – a simply grotesque moral inversion of the worst order.But somehow it wasn't satisfactory. Here we have a case of a supposedly very intelligent person, author of highly esteemed books, champion of many worthy causes. A black woman who suffered from both the racial injustice and male chauvinism, who knows a lot about Jews, being herself married to one: how could a person like this display some traits that rightfully belong to someone stupid and bigoted? How could she be so blind and deaf to suffering of one of the warring sides, choosing not only to support so ferociously the other side, but going over the top when blaming one side only? When saying "One child must never be set above another child", how could she then totally dismiss one child and focus on suffering of another in the same breath? How, to continue this line of questioning, could a person lay a claim to sanity of her thought process, after producing what she calls "a small book: OVERCOMING SPEECHLESSNESS: A POET ENCOUNTERS THE HORROR IN RWANDA, EASTERN CONGO, AND PALESTINE/ISRAEL" (capitals by Ms Walker)?
You see, my mum taught me that children enslave women. I grew up believing that children are millstones around your neck, and the idea that motherhood can make you blissfully happy is a complete fairytale.
I was raised to believe that women need men like a fish needs a bicycle.
As a little girl, I wasn't even allowed to play with dolls or stuffed toys in case they brought out a maternal instinct. It was drummed into me that being a mother, raising children and running a home were a form of slavery.
I love my mother very much, but I haven't seen her or spoken to her since I became pregnant. She has never seen my son - her only grandchild. My crime? Daring to question her ideology.
Ironically, my mother regards herself as a hugely maternal woman. Believing that women are suppressed, she has campaigned for their rights around the world and set up organisations to aid women abandoned in Africa - offering herself up as a mother figure.
I was 16 when I found a now-famous poem she wrote comparing me to various calamities that struck and impeded the lives of other women writers.And I don't know what can top this:
Although I knew what my mother felt about babies, I still hoped that when I told her I was pregnant, she would be excited for me. Instead, when I called her one morning in the spring of 2004, while I was at one of her homes housesitting, and told her my news and that I'd never been happier, she went very quiet. All she could say was that she was shocked. Then she asked if I could check on her garden.After reading this, I believe that Rebecca put her finger on the central point of Ms Walker "activism". Yes, Ms Walker is a fanatic of any cause she chooses to support, and this explains all and answers the questions I have tried to ask in the beginning of this post. Her selective blindness and deafness, her black and white vision, her inability to face objections, her Nazi=Israeli tune, her extremism - all this and more becomes clear when you consider the way of life and behavior patterns of any out-of-the-box fanatic.
Why am I going on the Freedom Flotilla II to Gaza? I ask myself this, even though the answer is: what else would I do? I am in my 67th year, having lived already a long and fruitful life, one with which I am content.I cannot be an adviser to Ms Walker, of course. But I know what I would do in her situation. To start with, I would do my best to heal the rift with my kid. And to do this, I would want to examine myself - just to see what are the root causes of the unbearable situation I brought myself to, my blindness to my own follies and my fanaticism.
