Finales. I liked one, hated the other.

Twenty-two episodes into the seventh season, they finally get the spirit of Gilmore Girls right—just as it ends. Which makes about two or three shows worth watching the entire year. (One of the others was when Emily got arrested. That was a hoot.)

Stupid WB. Stupid CW. They never should have fired Amy Sherman-Palladino. If they hadn’t, the Gilmore Girls would still be going strong, and would not have been the show that I taped for a month before finally getting around to watching the episodes prior to the series finale.

Well, at least they got rid of Logan and gave Rory a spine again. And almost turned Luke back into Luke, instead of that wuss he’s been for over a year. But still, every time I see an old episode, I notice the vast chasm between the show-that-was and the show that it became. Wow, this season sucked. Black-hole level sucking.

I need a new show to fill the gap. Something good better come up next season. A good chick-flick for TV, like Men in Trees. Only better.

I seriously doubt it’s going to be the Grey’s Anatomy spinoff. If that pilot episode had been any more boring, I would have taped it and prescribed it to myself for insomnia.

And while I’m on the subject of Grey’s Anatomy:

Hi. Do you know me? I’m Shonda Rhimes. I’m the creator and executive producer of one of the most popular shows on the air. It’s about these doctors, see, and their lives, loves, and laments. Only this season, it’s been all about the laments. I decided that this season, everybody suffers. It’s not bad enough that Meredith is all dark and twisty, what with her having the most awful onscreen mother since Mommie Dearest. This season, we had to make her choose between McDreamy and McVet, turn down (again!) McSteamy, give her mother heart problems, have her mother become lucid long enough to tell Meredith what a disappointment she was, is, and forever will be, drown her, kill her mother, make Meredith pull herself back from some limbo-like dream fantasy, and then, when we finally give her something good (getting closer to her stepmother and father), we take that away from her by having her stepmother die of an infection caused by the procedures that Meredith suggests. (Incidentally, that rule about physicians not treating family members doesn’t seem to be in effect here.) Then her father hates here again. Oh, and now her boyfriend is about to break up with her.

But that’s not enough. We also took George the Steadfast and made him drunk and unfaithful (the drunk we believe, the unfaithful? No.) and in love with Izzy, who is in love with him. Sorry. Haven’t bought it all season. Still not buying it. Izzy attaching herself to George, sure, because she’s still devastated that Denny’s gone (and aren’t we all?). But wait! We get to torture even more people! We have Burke leave Cristina at the altar, then walk out of her life, because this man, who has been dating her for three years, suddenly doesn’t get that Cristina freaks out before all things major. Addison can’t have a baby, McSteamy can’t have Addison, Alex can’t have Ava, nobody gets the Chief of Surgery position because the Chief isn’t leaving (we knew that all along). The Chief’s wife loses their baby (say what?!), the damned writers cheat us and make us think she’d died (she didn’t), and, let’s see, have we forgotten anyone? Oh, right. Callie knows that Izzy and George have a thing going on. George flunks out. Bailey doesn’t get Chief Resident. And all of this happened in the last two episodes.

The only ones who ended the year happy are Joe and Walter, the two gay guys who adopt twins at the end of the episode, making them, once again, the only happy couple on the show. Maybe she has something against heteros.

I don’t think Shonda Rhimes likes her characters. She sure was mean as hell to them this season.

If things don’t pick up, I’ll be dropping this show, too. Come on. There’s only so much angst a viewer can take. We like the happy. Really. We really, really do.

I’m guessing I’m going to hate the Lost finale just as much.

Then again, there’s always the Heroes finale. If they don’t blow up New York—especially if they don’t leave us with a cliffhanger where New York is about to blow—I’ll probably like it.

No way it can be worse than Grey’s Anatomy. Even if they blow up New York, it can’t be.

Just occurred.

Meryl: “WAH-CHOO!” [lets out big sneeze]
Gracie: “Mrowr-rowr?”
Meryl: “Thank you.”
Gracie: “Mrowr.”

Yeah, she does the kitty version of gesundheit all the time.

No other country would allow this to go on. Six years. Thousands of rockets. Daily barrages. Never knowing when you’re going to finally be safe.

A half hour later, two reporters from Tel Aviv arrived. They asked Natasha if she could take them to the places that were hit by Kassams. I asked to go along, and we shortly arrived to the first location – a house which was hit directly. I followed the gaze of the crowds of people outside, and saw that the kassam had completely demolished one side of the house. A man emerged from inside, and we all rushed over to him. I was surprised by how calm he was, until someone shown a light over his face. I had to hold my breath to keep from gasping when I saw his bleeding eyes. Or, what I thought was bleeding – red welts had formed across them, he seemed unable to focus on anything. He stared at nothing for a few moments, and then said seemingly to no one – “If you hear tseva adom, you can go here” and pointed, without averting his blank gaze, to a small cement wall behind him. We were eventually able to gently coax some answers out of him. It was not his house, it was his sister’s. “She was standing in the kitchen” he paused “her body was completely torn by shrapnels…I don’t know how she is.” Natasha probed further about the children. “Three of them were in the basement – baruch hashem – but the fourth, I think he may have been with her. The ambulance took them both away - I don’t know how they are,” he repeated. Another man pulled me aside to show me where a woman had been standing, only a few meters from the house. She had witnessed the entire scene, and had collapsed in shock. He then pointed to a truck parked nearby, with a large hole in the back windshield where a shrapnel had flown through. The shrapnel had missed the woman’s face by mere centimeters.

Six years of bombardments. More than 1,300 missiles were fired after Israel left Gaza.

Perhaps Israel needs a missile-proof buffer zone.

Were you thinking that the Israeli press was making a big deal out of “shock” and “trauma” victims? I have to admit: I was. Until I read this account by an American in Sderot.

The first ‘TSEVA ADOM’ alarm went off as I was across the street from my office, borrowing a friend’s computer on the fourth floor of an apartment building. Like usual, we stepped into the corridor – the safest place in the house – and waited. 15…14…13…I had gotten to twelve when I heard the screaming. A type of scream I couldn’t recognize, half laughter, half terror, complete madness. 11…10…it fell. Maybe a block away at most. Everyone in the apartment raced outside, and it wasn’t until 30 seconds later – when I woke from my daze - that I realized the screaming hadn’t stopped. I was about to step outside to join the rest when, ‘TSEVA ADOM’. Again. 15…14…I had barely reached 13 when it crashed, shaking my entire body – half a block away.

My phone rang: it was my boss Natasha, telling me to immediately come back to the office, as the fourth floor of any building was not safe. I grabbed my roommate Jackie who had come with me for the day, curious about my work in Sderot, and together we ran back across the street, as quickly as we could – into the office. Natasha looked us over, then asked if we had heard the scream. She explained that a young mother was pushing her child in a stroller, when the first ‘tseva adom’ alarm went off. Rationally speaking, she would have had enough time to pick up her child and rush with him into a nearby basement. But instead, she toppled over the stroller, child inside, and herself fell to the ground – screaming. She did not cease until Natasha and the others who ran out of the apartment lifted her and her child, and carried her into a neighbor’s apartment. How often have you read about Sderot’s ‘anxiety victims’? What do you picture – heightened blood pressure, breathing at a faster pace? No – it is this woman’s body, convulsing, flailing. It is her inability to think or move rationally – to protect her child. She was only able to collapse, hitting the ground, as if the tremor of her beating fists would keep away the Kassam.

Natasha, Jackie, and I sat in the office – trying to keep working. That’s what you do in Sderot. Stop. Go. Stop. Go. We didn’t get through much as every few minutes we would get phone calls from hysterical parents. It was 7 o’clock, parents were still at work – their children alone at home. All I could hear was Natasha screaming, “Calm down…CALM DOWN. LISTEN TO ME, BREATHE! I WON’T TALK TO YOU UNTIL YOU BREATHE. Listen, your children are fine. No, I don’t know why they’re not picking up the phone. They probably ran downstairs. I SAID CALM DOWN.” Every few minutes another parent would call, having heard that a Kassam fell by their home – unable to reach their children.

Read it all.

The IDF says they won’t stop going after Hamas until Hamas says “stop.” That will never happen, unless the IDF kills every last member of Hamas. Then they have to kill every last member of PIJ, which also launches kassams. Then they have to kill Fatah and Al-Aqsa. Mind you, I’m all for killing terrorists. But I’m not in favor of making obviously untrue statements.

“We’ll shoot till they say ’stop’!” a defense establishment source told Ynet on Thursday after IDF activity in the Gaza Strip was expanded.

“We plan to operate against those who are guilty, not around them; they will be the ones to pay the price. We are aware of their Qassam launching abilities, but the more they launch, the more they will get back,” the source said.

Sorry, but I no longer believe the Israeli leadership when they say things like that. Terrorists have been launching kassams at Sderot for six years. Six years. Hamas still exists. The launches continue.

But at least the IDF is doing more than just talking. Five more terrorists will no longer launch rockets at kindergartens.

The Israeli Air Force on Friday launched an airstrike on a building in northeast Gaza which serves as a Hamas headquarters, killing five members of the terror group, Palestinian sources said.

Palestinian medical officials noted that six more people were wounded.

The strike occurred at around 1:30 am Friday. The IDF said the building that was targeted served as a meeting place for Hamas, “and it was suspected that a tunnel was being dug there into Israeli territory.”

Palestinian sources, however, claimed that the air force fired missiles at Hamas members standing in an olive grove.

And why would they be standing in an olive grove? That would be to launch kassams, so who cares where they were?

Shortly after the strike the IAF hit another nearby target, Palestinian sources said. The IDF has not yet confirmed those reports.

Defense Minister Amir Peretz, IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and other defense establishment officials held a meeting Thursday to evaluate the developments in Gaza. During the meeting it was decided that activity in the Strip should be expanded and that preparations for extensive, long-term activity be made.

At this point however, there were still no plans to send ground forces into Palestinian territory. “We are not going to do anything unnecessary,” a military official told Ynet, “but we will certainly demand payback from those who hurt civilians.”

And again, I’ll believe that statement when we see how this ends. As long as rockets are falling on Sderot and Ashkelon, those are empty words.

Here, go read this Ynet article, which says all of the things I usually say about the worldwide media.

WASHINGTON – Qassam attacks on Sderot have received very little coverage in world media, despite the heavy barrages that have been going on for the past three days.

Only when Israel began to respond to the attacks by aerial bombings, cannons and tanks did this part of the world receive attention from the American media.

Except they get quotes from producers with lame explanations.

American networks have also been reporting on the internal Gaza clashes, while only mentioning the Qassam attacks in passing.

Israel’s complaints to the United Nations Security Council were simply not reported.

[...] An American television producer explained to Ynet, that as sad as it may sound, Sderot is a story that has been going on for years, and is no longer news.

The producer added that there are very few injuries in Sderot, and images of shock victims do not sell.

And the Europeans.

In Europe the issue also received very little coverage, especially compared to the factional fighting that has been going on in the Gaza Strip between.

The Europeans claim the reason for this is that most of the airtime in the past few days has been dedicated to the change of leadership in France, and the little airtime left was set aside for the difficult images from Gaza, and not Sderot.

Whereas I simply blame the anti-Israel bias of the world media.

Israeli Airstrikes Kill 10 in Gaza
Israel pounded more Hamas targets with airstrikes, killing 10 people and wounding dozens as it stepped deeper into fighting between the Islamic militants and the rival Fatah fighters of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The latest attack came early Friday morning as Israeli aircraft fired missiles east of Gaza City, killing four Palestinians, at least three of them Hamas militants, and wounding six people, Hamas and Palestinian doctors said. There was no immediate Israeli comment. Two other strikes followed but there was no word of any casualties, the doctors said.

The strikes, a series of Israeli attacks Thursday, and the reported movement of a handful of tanks a few hundred yards into the northern Gaza Strip, followed days of Hamas rocket barrages into Israel.

Street fighting between the Palestinian factions that has gripped Gaza since the weekend calmed under a truce agreement, but clashes still killed at least four people a day after 22 died in the worst battles during a year of factional bloodshed.

How is it, again, that the headline for that AP piece isn’t “Israel Airstrikes Kill 10 in Gaza; Palestinian Infighting Kills 22″? Or “22 Palestinians Killed in Worst Factional Fighting of Year”?

Oh, that’s right. They weren’t killed by Jews.