8/9/03

The battle of the sexes, continued

Dean Esmay has two pretty controversial posts over at his place, and both of them deal with, well, what I was doing offline since yesterday afternoon. The first one is on what women like about men, and I have a few bones to pick with the comments there. The second is about women's attitude towards women, and I have a lot of bones to pick with Kate and Dean. But, y'know, it's now getting late on Saturday night, and I spent about 28 hours with Heidi and her family, part of that time actually, like, exercising. I ran the dogs again, and supervised Heidi as she picked up dead branches around her property. (Hey, supervising's hard work!)

I'm too tired to write much, but I will say this: I'm going through a tough time right now, and part of the reason I spent the afternoon and the night and most of the next day with Heidi was to talk out my problems with someone who knows me really well, and who could help me figure out a way to solve the problems. My brother Dave knows me better than Heidi. We're extremely close. I could have called him and had a long talk with him about the same things.

I think you can figure out my point of view on Dean's posts. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things I like about men, and I'll get to them tomorrow. But I didn't go to a man for help this weekend. permalink

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8/8/03

The Protocols of the Professor of Berkeley

You can go here to read the letter from a Jewish student at Berkeley who says her Iraqi professor presented the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as fact. Or you can read it at Eugene Volokh's site, who emailed the professor and received a response.

Professor Volokh takes no side on the issue. He merely presents the below for our own information. So let's deconstruct a moment, shall we?

Dear Professor Volokh,

Thank you for your e-mail. I am encouraged that there are people who still check the facts before riding a wave.

Okay, I'm all for hearing the facts of the matter. Let's hear them.

The reference to the Protocols was not part of the core of the class material.

Not that it makes a difference, but nobody said it was. You are accused of saying that the Protocols are authentic.

It came about as a result of an un-invited monologue by Ms. Klein, as I was explaining the social of the "Iraqi oaths" for students. I was merely telling the students about the Iraqi conventional wisdom, as opposed to the other side.

So let's see. You're teaching a class in Arabic. The Protocols, as far as I know, do not have anything to do with the teaching of Arabic, but I can't find your class description in the Berkeley site, so you get a pass on that. On the other hand, you related in your class the fact that Iraqis believe the Protocols are authentic. Susanna Klein, who is Jewish, took offense. Whether or not you believe the Protocols is the issue here. She says you said you do. Well, do you?

As you know, this issue of authenticity and the identity of the author -- or authors -- of the Protocols has not been settled between the Middle Eastern disputants (that is to say, no one said to the other, "you are right.").

Yes, we know that the Arab world refuses to accept the facts. The Protocols are a proven anti-Semitic forgery. Simply because the anti-Semitic Middle Eastern "disputants" haven't agreed to this does not change the facts. And the facts are that the Protocols are untrue. (Who the hell are the "disputants"? The only nation in the Middle East that agrees they're forgeries is Israel). You are still not denying the charge.

The noise between Egypt and Israel about the TV show (A Knight without a Horse) recently is only one good example. The show presented the conventional wisdom which I mentioned. It was not endorsed by the government of Egypt, but by many Arab intellectuals and the masses.

Once again, you are offering an example but not disputing the charge that you also think the Protocols are real. Nothing gets put on Egyptian television that is not sanctioned by the government. Let us stop pretending otherwise. Oh, one little question: If the show was endorsed by "many intellectuals and the masses," who's left to believe that the Protocols are a fake? The six intellectuals jailed for suggesting Egypt forge a real relationship with Israel? (That was hyperbole, folks, don't go looking for their names.)

I am not in the business of endorsing one view over the other, at least in that debate that happened in the class.

Once again, a non-denial denial. All you have to do, Professor Kadhim, is say that Susanna Klein is dead wrong, and that you didn't say, or intend to say, the Protocols are authentic. All I'm finding in this letter is a whole lot of dancing around what you really think about the Protocols.

Being misunderstood is a frequent risk all of us, teachers, have to run. It is interesting however, that in a small room, only one student heard one thing and all other students heard another!!!

Indeed, being misunderstood is a risk. However, I'm still not seeing a word from you about how wrong your accuser is about your views on the Protocols. On the other hand, look at the way you end your letter to Eugene Volokh:

Also, please take a look at this article that has a reference to the student who made the claim (The last paragraphs). http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=2422

I read the article. If it's intending to portray Ms. Klein as a liar, it's not working. I know from reading many accounts that the liars tend to be the pro-palestinian demonstrators, and can frankly show you a dozen or more letters from the demonstrators at the SFSU hatefest last year, urging each other to be sure to, shall we say, emphasize events in their letters and testimony to officials so that the Jewish demonstrators can be brought up on charges.

Of course, it's very telling that you choose to try to defame Ms. Klein's character rather than answer the charge against you. By the way, if you read the comments on that page, you'll find that the charges against her were dropped, and that she was not escorted off campus by police. The article is filled with lies. Interesting.

The verdict here: Another anti-Semite blaming the Jews for getting upset with his anti-Semitism. Quel surprise. permalink

Lightening up

You have to read this post, if only for the comments. ii cummings, indeed. (Spit monitor warning included.)

Marduk is back from France, and pissing off, well, everyone on the left. No, really. Everyone on the left.

Allison, you've got an okay chick flick list, but you forgot "Cousins" (the American version where Ted Danson actually proves he can act) and "Practical Magic," (sorry, Lair) which is a chick flick extraordinaire. The "midnight margaritas" scene is a wonder to behold, and now I want to watch it again. (You put de lime in de coconut, you drink it all up.)

I think I'm going to make my own list of my all-time favorite chick flicks, which will doubtlessly include many 1940s films ("The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" comes to mind immediately. Rex Harrison in his prime. Sigh.) Boys, feel free to call the list sexist when I put it up. Because it will certainly be that.

Imshin writes about how lucky she—and we—really are. I told you the Israelis aren't afraid. Tom Delay is such an asshat. permalink

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8/7/03

Charles Lindbergh was no hero

J. Bowen thinks that because Lindy flew across the Atlantic in an airplane, he's a hero. I said he's a scumbag in Dean's comments, and J took issue with it.

I'm guessing he didn't start supporting WWII soon enough to suit her, but who knows?

Nothing like not letting the facts get in the way of an opinion, J. Lindbergh was an isolationist and a Jew-hater. Those things tend to remove the rose colors from my eyes when I look at his aviation accomplishments, and make me think he was rather a nasty human being overall.

But I'll let Lindbergh's words speak for him:

When this war started in Europe, it was clear that the American people were solidly opposed to entering it. Why shouldn't we be? We had the best defensive position in the world; we had a tradition of independence from Europe; and the one time we did take part in a European war left European problems unsolved, and debts to America unpaid.

National polls showed that when England and France declared war on Germany, in 1939, less than 10 percent of our population favored a similar course for America. But there were various groups of people, here and abroad, whose interests and beliefs necessitated the involvement of the United States in the war. I shall point out some of these groups tonight, and outline their methods of procedure. In doing this, I must speak with the utmost frankness, for in order to counteract their efforts, we must know exactly who they are.

The three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration.

Behind these groups, but of lesser importance, are a number of capitalists, Anglophiles, and intellectuals who believe that the future of mankind depends upon the domination of the British empire. Add to these the Communistic groups who were opposed to intervention until a few weeks ago, and I believe I have named the major war agitators in this country.

I am speaking here only of war agitators, not of those sincere but misguided men and women who, confused by misinformation and frightened by propaganda, follow the lead of the war agitators.

As I have said, these war agitators comprise only a small minority of our people; but they control a tremendous influence. Against the determination of the American people to stay out of war, they have marshaled the power of their propaganda, their money, their patronage.

[...] The second major group I mentioned is the Jewish.

It is not difficult to understand why Jewish people desire the overthrow of Nazi Germany. The persecution they suffered in Germany would be sufficient to make bitter enemies of any race.

No person with a sense of the dignity of mankind can condone the persecution of the Jewish race in Germany. But no person of honesty and vision can look on their pro-war policy here today without seeing the dangers involved in such a policy both for us and for them. Instead of agitating for war, the Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it in every possible way for they will be among the first to feel its consequences.

Tolerance is a virtue that depends upon peace and strength. History shows that it cannot survive war and devastations. A few far-sighted Jewish people realize this and stand opposed to intervention. But the majority still do not.

Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.

I am not attacking either the Jewish or the British people. Both races, I admire. But I am saying that the leaders of both the British and the Jewish races, for reasons which are as understandable from their viewpoint as they are inadvisable from ours, for reasons which are not American, wish to involve us in the war.

We cannot blame them for looking out for what they believe to be their own interests, but we also must look out for ours. We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to destruction.

And there you have it. The Jewish groups are too powerful in America. They control the media and the government. They are looking out for their own interests, which are not the interests of Americans—and certainly not the interests of the America Firsters, the most powerful isolationist group of which Lindbergh was a vocal member. (And what the hell was he talking about when he said that the Jewish people would be the first to feel the consequences of getting into the war? He lost me there.) Oh, and our pal Lindy was also extremely cozy with the Nazis.

In 1936, he inspected Germany's military aviation program on behalf of the U.S. government, and in August attended the Summer Olympic Games in Berlin as a guests of Nazi Hermann Goering, the head of the Luftwaffe. Impressed by German industry and society under Adolf Hitler, the Lindberghs considered moving to Berlin.

In 1938, Goering presented Lindbergh with the Service Cross of the German Eagle for his contributions to aviation. Returning to America in 1939, Lindbergh became an advocate of American isolationism, but was criticized for his Nazi sympathies and anti-Semitic beliefs.

Lookit that. He got to see the persecution of the Jews first-hand. And he got a medal from Hermann Goering himself. Whoa. Nice people he hung with in the late thirties, huh?

Hero, J? Because he flew across the Atlantic? No. Not when you take into account his isolationism and his anti-Semitism. The summary of this book is even more damning than the facts we already know about Lindbergh. Looks like I've got another book to add to my reading list. And yes, Lindbergh was a scumbag. He earned the title. You don't like it? Well, sometimes the truth hurts. permalink

Poof, there it is

Yesterday, I heard a thump on my front door, and figured it was just the neighborhood kids playing catch again. I looked outside, didn't see any kids, and opened the door to see what was making the noise. Tig ran in with his fur totally poofed out. Something had spooked him. I haven't seen him that frightened in years—he so rarely poofs out like that. So I grabbed the digital and got this shot:

Compare and contrast with this picture to see the normal Tig tail. That is some tail.

I'm tempted to Photoshop it into various pictures, like the Tourist Guy. Hm. Well, if anyone wants the original picture to play with, email me. I'll be happy to pass it on. permalink

BloggerCon: Rich Gentiles only, please

Okay, so the title is a little sensationalistic, considering the conference host is Jewish. But let me explain.

I've been invited to BloggerCon, being held at Harvard Law School in October.

Not to present. To take part in a one-day conference. To be a schlub listening to other bloggers tell me about blogging. Because, I suppose, I haven't read enough on other bloggers' blogs talking about blogging.

The cost? A mere $500. If I were a student, it would only cost me $250.

Then there's the matter of getting to Boston, and where to stay overnight, which adds a considerable amount to the conference fee. Figure double that. A grand to spend a weekend in Boston if I fly or train in, less if I drive, but that's an eleven-hour drive. Big pain. But that's not even the half of it.

From the letter I received:

6. It's a one-day Saturday conference, with an all-day open house on Sunday for impromptu meetings and discussions about anything you want to talk about. We did it this way because we're going to have so many creative minds, we wanted to make sure there was lots of time for people to create.

7. It's October, the most beautiful time of year in New England. Come see the beautiful trees and of course the beautiful young Harvard students.

Yes, and it's the weekend of Yom Kippur, which starts that Sunday night at sundown. So I'd have to beat it out of there very early Sunday morning and miss that day of impromptu meetings. Dave Winer may not be religious, but there are some Jews out there who are. And we even blog. Imagine that.

You know, where I come from, the only possible response to this invite can be: Stick it in your ear, Winer. Five hundred bucks? Tell Harvard to stick it in their ear. You have got to be kidding me. Five hundred bucks for a one-day conference about effing blogging?

Yeah. You might want to reconsider the costs and timing of your next blogging conference. Contact me when the rates are reasonable, and when it's not in the middle of the High Holy Days, and I'll consider it.

We're using the money (where needed) to get the talent in and out of the city, and to put on a few great parties so we can all mingle, share ideas, and learn a lot.

Not my money, you won't. And talent? I've got plenty of my own, thanks. It's a subjective consideration. But thanks for the unintended insult.

Way to keep on winning friends and influencing people, Dave. permalink

Blogathon update

There's no news; I haven't received another email lately. Our contacts are on vacation. However, the tally so far that Magen David Adom has received from Blogathon participants is $7,400. If you haven't yet sent in your pledge, here's the link with the instructions.

My local Jewish News ran an article and I've already gotten a phone call from a member of the Richmond Jewish community asking how to donate. If any of you out there are on mailing lists, send them the short details (we're trying to raise $60k to buy an ambulance) and the above link. I haven't given up on that ambulance yet. We have $15k in pledges. We're a quarter of the way there.

Come to think of it, I forgot to hit up my brothers. Gotta make some phone calls. permalink

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8/6/03

Arab hypocrisy watch

From the Egyptian Foreign Minister:

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher on Wednesday condemned Israel's morning raid into Jericho in which troops arrested 15 Palestinian Authority security personnel.

Maher said the move would not help the peace process. Maher added that the raid into Jericho, and the construction of the security fence in the West Bank, reflects Israel's negative intentions at a time when the Palestinian side is showing its goodwill.

Signs of the palestinians' goodwill:

Security forces caught a would-be suicide bomber in Nablus on the West Bank last Friday (August 1st), it was announced Wednesday evening.

The terrorist, Amid Touriki, is seventeen-years-old and was a member of the Tanzim militia.

Naif Abu Sharah, the Tanzim leader in Nablus, recruited Touriki to carry out a suicide bombing attack inside Israel, according to security officials.

According to the IDF, Sharah's name was handed over to the Palestinian Authority in the recent past in connection with terrorist activity, but the PA did not arrest him.

But wait, there's more.

Palestinians fired a mortar at the Gaza Strip settlement of Neveh Dekalim Wednesday, just minutes after several hundred Palestinian prisoners were released into the Palestinian Authority.

No injuries were reported in the incident.

Earlier Wednesday, IDF troops arrested 14 Palestinians in the West Bank city of Jericho on suspicion of involvement in terror activity.

Also Wednesday, an elite Border Police unit apprehended wanted Tanzim member, Mohammed Alawuni, in a village south of the West Bank city of Jenin.

The 14 are believed to be involved in planning terror attacks against Israel and the creation of weapons to be used in the attacks.

Alawuni escaped from the Ofer detention center near the West Bank city of Ramallah several months ago together with three other Palestinian detainees.

He is the second fugitive to be caught.

That might be why Israel is reluctant to release all the prisoners. Ya think? permalink

Dowd bashing

I generally don't read Maureen Dowd's column any more. And I don't get in on the Dowd bashing that goes on in the right side of the blogosphere. There's more than enough of it to go around, much of it boring, repetitive, and frankly, there are far more important things to get exercised about.

But Google News had her column, titled "Neocon coup at the Department d'Etat," featured prominently on its main page, so I clicked and read. My jaw hit the floor at what I saw there.

The New York Times now has a major Op-Ed columnist passing on the dual loyalty "neocon" (read: Jews) canard:

The move against the popular Powell had all the earmarks of the neocons' pre-emptive strike on Iraq.

[...]
6.) Make sure it's good for Ariel Sharon. Just as the neocons made their move on Mr. Powell, pro-Israel hawks scorned the secretary for not being on their team in the peace process. Israel's supporters scoffed at the new threat to cut loan guarantees as a State Department policy, not a White House policy.

In the Op-Ed page of the New York Times, a senior columnist accuses the Bush administration—no, just the "neocons" and "pro-Israel hawks"—of having started the war in Iraq because it was good for Ariel Sharon.

Disgusting.

Dowd has lost it. She had talent when she first started at the Times. Then again, I was a hard left liberal when she first started at the times. I'm a centrist now. She's a bigot.

See below. permalink

Rage

It's as simple as the title. Why I love the Hulk. Why I've been attracted to the Hulk even as an adult: Rage.

It's one of the reasons I continue to like new music, instead of getting stuck in a time warp like most people my age, paying money to see greying grandparents from the midst of potbellied crowds, thinking back on those nights in the seventies when we first saw the bands. Back when our stomachs were flat. Back in the days when you could smoke inside the Capitol Theater in Passaic.

The new bands are young, energetic, full of enraged twentysomethings telling the world how mad they are. Staind has made a trademark out of writing about how their families have screwed them up. Chevelle's got a song, "The Red," that mocks anger management courses in its video:

They say freak
When you're singled out
The red
It filters through
So lay down
The threat is real

The beat pulses and throbs like an angry man's veins. I heard it in concert with hundreds of young people while the bass from the speakers vibrated in my bones like the finale to a fireworks show. The song may be about an abusive boyfriend, it may be about someone who can't keep his temper, or it may be a bunch of words strung together because the writer thought it was cool. It doesn't matter. The rage is what matters.

The Hulk has a pool of rage that he taps when he gets angry. The angrier he gets, the stronger he gets. It's why the Hulk never loses a battle. The anger never truly dies.

Bruce Banner was depicted as a controlled, contained scientist. Logical. Rational. Impervious. Boring. The film died not because the CGI wasn't up to par (it was); it died because the movie had too much Bruce Banner and not enough Hulk. People weren't willing to pay eight bucks for the boring scientist. His alter-ego is his claim to fame. They had come to see the rampaging monster.

I have a pool of rage that simmers just below the surface. The single-word description that could best describe me in my twenties and thirties is "angry." Ask anyone who knew me then; they'd be astonished, I think, to see how I've mellowed. And in spite of what you may sometimes read on this weblog, I have mellowed.

I was well on my way to pushing the anger down forever, leaving it out of sight except during rare instances when anger is called for. And then 9/11 happened. And hard on its heels, the murder of Danny Pearl and the bloody, bloody spring of bombing after bombing after bombing in Israel last year. Concurrent with this was the rise of the new anti-Semitism in seemingly every aspect of life, from continent to continent, medium to medium. Echoes of the 1930s were rising in Europe, in Arabia, in Australia, Canada, the United States, all over the Internet. "The International Jew" suddenly became a valid theory once more, if it ever went out of style at all—which I doubt.

And everywhere I turn, the blame is on me and my fellow Jews for so much of what is wrong with the world.

And the rage appears.

A terrorist blows himself up on a bus in Israel, and the world shakes its head and tsk-tsks, saying those poor palestinians have no other way to make their case heard, and Israel must "show restraint" in any response to the murders.

And the rage appears.

A British journalist states that he will no longer read any letter about Israel if the name indicates it was written by Jews; the British Press Complaints Commission says that his position is legitimate and will take no action because he is an opinion columnist.

And the rage appears.

A famous editorial cartoonist depicts the separation fence that is being built to keep terrorists out of Israel in a hideous caricature of a Star of David separating palestinian families. It bears an eerie parallel to a Nazi cartoon that labeled the Star of David "The wall between nations," thus passing along the Nazi lie that Jews are responsible for the lack of world peace. I realize that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

And the rage appears.

The other side of the Hulk is even more appealing: The version I love is the simple and child-like Hulk. The world is easily categorized; black and white, right and wrong, friends and enemies. When I first wrote the Stan Lee Solution to the world's problems, it was with the yearning that those problems truly did have a simple answer, and a simple solution: Hulk smash! End of problem. As I said in the prologue, there is no problem so complex that you can't apply the Hulk perspective to it. It's true in its own way. But that way is rage.

There are some days when I turn on the television or go to my favorite websites, and it feels like the top of my head is going to blow off and put a hole in the ceiling. And I write my anger into rants against anti-Semitism, or the situation in various Arab nations, or disagreement with other bloggers on the topics of the day. Sometimes it even lessens the anger. Many times it just dulls it for a while. Until the next story about how the Jews are controlling the Bush Administration, or Tony Blair, or just the plain, unfettered Jew-hatred visible in so many places on Indymedia.

And the rage returns.

You truly have not seen me anywhere near my angriest here. I tend to stay out of personal blog fights. As a wise man used to ask me every time I was going to jump in, what's the upside? So I listened to him, for the most part. And I still think of Mike's question when I'm tempted to give in to the rage, and write a rant that would make a grown man curl into a ball, suck his thumb and cry for his mother.

Hulk smash. Meryl doesn't. But the rage remains. permalink

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8/5/03

Shudna watch: Iran's patronage

Here's a reason to support the Iranian student revolt:

Most terror attacks carried out since the cease-fire agreement between the Palestinian Authority and militant factions was signed in June were organized by Fatah members, who received orders and financing from Iran, security officials said Tuesday.

According to security sources, the militant organizations are also trying to send representatives abroad through the Rafah crossing in the Gaza Strip, which borders the Israel-Egypt frontier.

And here's an interesting statistic about the so-called cease fire that you do not see in the Reuters boilerplate:

Since the truce was declared, there have been 178 terror attacks in the territories, 118 of which were shooting attacks. The IDF and the Shin Bet security service have arrested 75 terrorists, and the Shin Bet says that 36 large-scale terror attacks have been foiled.

Three Israelis and one Bulgarian national have died in terror attacks since the agreement was signed.

That's some cease fire. permalink

Um, Brian, it's overall bias. Not Google bias.

Brian Carnell seems to have missed the point of my post from yesterday. I don't think Google's search function has any bearing on the fact that the world ignores palestinian violence that clearly violates the hudna, while dwelling on every instance of Israel's perceived wrong acts. Like shooting a terrorist who is planting a bomb. That gets played up as "IDF soldiers shoot dead" (fill in the blank). It doesn't even matter that the terrorist is caught in the act of planting a bomb; the headline and lead are "IDF soldiers killed blahblahblah."

The bias is also clear as the stories indicate that any wounding of a palestinian by the IDF "threatens the truce," while when Israeli civilians are shot, stabbed, and blown up by terrorists, there is no such remark. Although the stories generally include that any retaliatory action by the IDF "threatens the truce" or "sets back the Road Map."

In fact, this doesn't even raise an eyebrow, let alone world condemnation:

The leader of the Brigades in the West Bank city of Tul Karm said his group planned revenge for the killing of a man who the army said had been planting a bomb by a road near Tul Karm, but would otherwise stick to the truce.

Branches of the Brigades in other parts of the West Bank said they would continue to abide by the cease-fire announced on June 29.

"We in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades announce our withdrawal from the cease-fire," the Tul Karm branch said in a statement.

Asked to clarify the statement, Saleh Nassar, the leader of the Brigades in Tul Karm, said by telephone: "We are still committed to the truce, but every time they carry out an attack we will respond to that particular attack."

It astonishes me that the world ignores the perfectly clear intent of that statement: There is no truce. Al-Aqsa (which is one of Arafat's little terror groups) quite clearly says they're going to attack Israelis in revenge for the IDF killing a terrorist caught in the act, and they consider that sticking to the truce.

Once again, the world turns a blind eye to the killing of Jews. That, Brian, was the point of my post.

As far as I know, Google's search engine has no biases. But that wasn't what I was saying. permalink

Of course it's a sexist list

John Hawkins sent out a request for the 20 worst Americans this time. As I said last week, I think most lists are arbitrary and rather stupid. I declined to join in; once was enough.

Throughout the blogosphere, wherever there is the list, there seems to be at least one comment about how this list isn't sexist because it has two women on it. I even made that remark myself in Dean's comments.

Yes, it is sexist. The two women on the list are Ethel Rosenberg, who probably belongs on that list, and Hillary Clinton, who absolutely does not. Michele says the results of the poll make right wing bloggers look foolish and petty. I'm quite sure the results of a left wing poll would include Ronald Reagan, thus making left wingers look foolish and petty as well, but basically, she's right.

However: The list is as sexist as the last one, for several reasons. Hillary hatred goes beyond partisan-bashing. Hillary hatred has huge amounts of sexism involved. From the first moment it became clear that she was going to be an active First Lady, the howls from people who think that First Ladies should be seen and not heard came out. The screams about how she was not elected president, her husband was, rose to the heavens. Many of these objections came from the same people who ignored the fact that Nancy Reagan was an active part of Ronald Reagan's presidency. She prevented him from having meetings with world leaders because she believed his horoscope was bad for that particular time. This was documented in books afterwards, and whispered of while he was in office. And I have always felt that his Alzheimer's disease struck long before we knew about it, and questioned who exactly was running the Reagan presidency during those last years. Reagan's famous "I don't recall" answers during Iran-Contra may actually have been true, and not simply dodging the question.

But that's still only a small part of why the list is sexist. Right wing bloggers couldn't find a single woman to put on the Best American list. Some even came out and said that no woman "deserved" to be on that list (nicely refuted by Kate). Yet they've managed to find two women to go on the Worst Americans list, and threw in one for the honorable mention while they were at it.

Once again, your sexism is showing. permalink

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8/4/03

The crushing of dissent—on a soap opera

One Life to Live is my current favorite soap. Like all soap operas, it has its share of really stupid plotlines, and sometimes you just want to reach out and slap the writers upside the head. The past week or two has made me want to do a bit more, as the writers have decided to Make A Statement and have a Meaningful Plotline. Normally, we have to suffer through boring exposition on National Sickness-Of-The-Moment Awareness Day (AIDS is a huge cause of actors, and understandably so, as their industry has been devastated by it). My eyes generally glaze over and I hit the fast-forward button.

This time, though, there's both annoyance and irony. Annoyance, because The Cause Of The Month is how (gasp!) people who are in favor of peace—just peace—are having their points of view rebutted. Except their p.o.v. isn't being rebutted, it is being forcibly suppressed. Marcie, the token fat girl (most soaps have them now since Camryn Manheim made fat cool again), put a peace flag out her dorm window. It was ripped to shreds and her dorm room was trashed. She went to the dean, who told her to shut up and not hang inflammatory symbols from her dorm window. Then she was harassed as she was out on a date at a club. Then boyfriend Al, the campus DJ known as The Voice of The Night, lit into the jerks who harassed his girlfriend. Then he was fired as a campus DJ by the same evil dean, who simply doesn't want any trouble. All of this has given rise to expository scenes where they talk about the war, and how valuable freedom of speech is, and how nobody in his right mind can be against peace, and the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, and college students should have freedom of speech, and by the way, freedom of speech is a wonderful thing that this nation was built on. Just in case you don't get the point.

And to think, this drivel is delivered with righteous fury by five-time Emmy winner Erika Slezak, who has recently been made (surprise!) president of the university. I expect they did this so that she could stop those evil warmongers who are suppressing dissent.

I cannot wait for this pathetic plotline to end. But I have to add an extremely amusing bit of irony: Each time Marcie has been about to expound on her five minutes of why she is for peace, and why she has the right to express her opinion, WRIC, the ABC affiliate in Richmond, has cut into the soap for a news bulletin. The first time was to report the deaths of the Hussein Monster Spawn (and yes, the richness of that irony was almost too good to be true). The second time (today) was to announce news about a cop-killer's wherabouts.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say the news director over at WRIC is crushing dissent. Unless he just has a great sense of humor. permalink

Double Standard watch: the next day

So, it's been about 18 hours since Al-Aqsa terrorists shot a woman and her children outside Jerusalem. Let's check the headlines on Google News:

Haartez: Jordanian King: Besieging Arafat will make the Abbas ...
In a statement with the Israeli daily Haartez, the Jordanian King Abdullah II
warned that the besiege of the Palestinian President Yasser Arafat at the ...

Israel lists out prisoners for release
Sify, India - 32 minutes ago
Jerusalem: Israel published on Monday the names of hundreds of soon-to-be freed
Palestinian prisoners as it ruled out the immediate withdrawal of its troops ...

Prisoner release is a fraud: Arafat
Reuters, UK - 1 hour ago
By Jeffrey Heller. JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel published on Monday a
list of 342 Palestinian prisoners it plans to release on Wednesday ...

Israel Prisoner List Disappoints Palestinians
The Age, Australia - 1 hour ago
Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat dismissed the impending release
of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails as a "fraud". ...

Arafat: Will Move Militants Out of Compound
Reuters, UK - 3 hours ago
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said on Monday
he intends to send militants he has been sheltering in his headquarters to ...

Israel suspends further West Bank pullbacks, publishes list of ...
Albawaba Middle East News, Jordan - 4 hours ago
The Israeli army will not transfer control of any more cities in the West Bank to
the Palestinians until they act against gunmen behind a shooting attack near ...

Israeli Troops Kill Palestinian in West Bank
Voice of America - 5 hours ago
Israeli military officials say troops have killed a Palestinian man who
was planting a bomb on a West Bank road used by Israeli forces. ...

PALESTINIANS SHOOT FAMILY
Sky News, UK - 5 hours ago
A Palestinian militant group has said it carried out an attack in
which an Israeli woman and her three children were wounded. The ...

Oh, and you can't forget the main headline on the Google News front page:

Israeli Troops Kill Palestinian in West Bank<
Voice of America - 6 hours ago
Israeli military officials say troops have killed a Palestinian man who was planting a bomb on a West Bank road used by Israeli forces.
Haartez: Jordanian King: Besieging Arafat will make the Abbas mission complex Arabic News
Israel lists out prisoners for release Sify
Reuters - The Age - CNN - Winnipeg Sun - and 913 related »

No, there's no double standard for Israel at all. Why do you ask? permalink

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8/3/03

Shudna Watch: Double standard firmly at work

All the news this past week was how Israel's security fence "threatened peace" and "threatened to derail the Road Map."

Today, a woman and her children were shot by Al-Aqsa terrorists (that's one of Yasser's organizations). Here's the Reuters article. Do you think we're going to see anything about how this attack "threatens the truce" or "threatens to derail the Road Map"?

Army: Palestinians Fire at Israeli Car, Four Hurt
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Palestinian militants wounded an Israeli mother and her three children in a shooting at their car near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank on Sunday, the Israeli army and rescue workers said. The attack on a road connecting the settlement of Har Gilo to Jerusalem was a rare flare-up of violence since Palestinian militants waging a 34-month-old uprising against Israeli occupation declared a three-month truce on June 29.

A "rare" flare-up. There have been 4 deaths and 18 injuries since the hudna took affect. There have been attacks foiled every day. 170 attacks have been logged since June 29th.

Oh, there's also this charming headline from Reuters:

Palestinians Offer Truce Extension, Israel Says No

Wow, tough crowd. Why would Israel refuse to extend a truce?

Shaath called on Israel to withdraw its troops from Palestinian cities, release Palestinian prisoners, halt expansion of Jewish settlements on occupied land and take additional steps mandated by the road map.

Shaath said he and Shalom failed to agree on the idea because "the Israelis asked us to destroy the Palestinian organizations and arrest the leaders of the organizations." He declined to say for how long the truce would be extended.

Once again, Reuters lies about what the road map calls for. Prisoner releases aren't part of it.

Israel's Channel One television quoted Shalom as telling Shaath that Israel would not move to the next stage of the U.S.-backed road map, which envisages a Palestinian state by 2005, until the PA dismantled the "terror infrastructure."

Shalom told Army radio after the meeting that the Israeli government was determined to uphold the government of moderate Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to its "commitment to dismantle the terror infrastructure."

Oh, that's why. The Israelis are asking the pals to actually stick to the terms of the agreement, not some lame "truce" that isn't even holding. Because the pals are supposed to dismantle the terror groups as part of the road map, and nobody seems to be holding them to that. But hey, are the pals serious about that truce agreement?

Palestinian officials warn of a civil war if they crack down against militant groups and say the most effective way of halting violence in a 34-month-old uprising for independence is if Israel implements its part of the peace plan.

It was not immediately clear whether militant groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad would agree to extend the cease-fire. They have threatened to call off the truce unless Israel releases all 6,000 Palestinian prisoners in its jails.

No, I guess not. Because if they were serious, a woman wouldn't have a bullet hole in her chest today, and her teenaged children wouldn't have bullets in various parts of their bodies.

Effing liars, hypocrites, and murderers. The hudna is a means to an end, and they have maintained that end, in public, in English and Arabic, time and time again. Why is it that the West, and particularly the Left, can't understand that when Hamas says they will never agree to Israel's right to exist, they mean it? permalink

New Jews with news. Nu?

Some new additions to the Israeli and Jewish blogger ranks, and some news from old friends:

Eric Muller's bubbe, a German Jewish refugee from the Holocaust, turned 100 yesterday. Mazal tov! Eric, get those memories on tape or you'll regret not having done it one day. (Via Kesher Talk, which is a wealth of information lately. Go. Visit. They miss you.)

The Head Heeb wants to publicize Arrival Day, a holiday I must confess I knew nothing about prior to receving his email. I'm thinking publicizing it is a pretty good idea.

There's a new Israeli blogger in the neigbhorhood, and he thinks his blog Israellycool. (It is. Well, except for being on blogspot, but hey, lotsa fine blogs start out there and then move to better digs. Like Christopher Johnson, who is not Israeli or Jewish but who is a great guy with a great blog. Update your links accordingly.)

Zach and Chris of Exposing the Exposer do a truly wonderful thing: They expose the anti-Semitic lies of Jew-haters like Mikey Rivero and Justin Raimondo. As a result, they've been put on my links page in the section entitled "The Truth is In Here," the first weblog to have ever been placed in that section. Go get 'em, guys.

Marduk is back from France, and his vacation has not mellowed him in the least. There are two hilarious stories in between the usual moonbat-bashing. Marduk needs to stay out of cars, I think. And maybe even off bikes. (Or maybe he just needs to take an anger management course. You know, I think I'd pay money to see Marduk in one of those.)

And finally, he's not Jewish, either, but Tim Cavanaugh of Reason Online sent me to Ben Schwarz's article from the deceased Suck.com on the comedy of Bob Hope, and I present it for those of you who had the misfortune to read the Christopher Hitchens hatchet job in Slate. (I advise against following that link if you loved Bob Hope.) It'll take the awful taste out of your mouth, Chuck. permalink

The ISM: Terrorist tools

I've written about the ISM on several occasions. Each time, I get a response from someone who thinks the ISM is an organization filled with optimistic men and women who simply want peace and justice in the Middle East. (The fact that they don't include Israelis in their calls for peace and justice never seems to matter.)

Here's the last paragraph of a lengthy Jerusalem Post article about the security fence.

According to a senior security government source, the International Solidarity Movement receives funds from both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

I knew the ISM was funded by the PA. What I didn't know was that it receives money from Hamas.

If that's the case, the ISM is a terrorist organization, according to the laws of the United States. United States citizens are joining the organization unhampered.

Once again, the double standard is applied to Israel: Terrorist organizations are allowed to have "political" arms (like the Nazi Party in Germany, I suppose). Terrorist organizations are allowed to have "charitable" wings. (Osama bin Laden built roads, hospitals, and orphanages. So Al Qaeda has a good side to it, right?)

The message is clear: Anything goes when it comes to opposing Jews.

Damian Penny pointed me to this article in the National Review, titled "The new anti-Semitism," which says much the same thing. In Damian's comments, I pointed out that Jack Schwarz was merely preaching to the choir. Until we see articles like this one in The New York Times Magazine, they are, for the most part, ineffective.

Which is not to say he and I shouldn't keep on preaching. Every so often, I get a letter from someone who had thought s/he knew the score on the situation in Israel, and then found my blog and realized that s/he'd been lied to. But even if that never happened, I still wouldn't stop. I suspect there will never be an end either to anti-Semitism or double standards for Jews.

But one can always hope. permalink

Blogathon update

I received an email on Friday from the folks at Magen David Adom. So far, they've received $7,400 in donations from the Blogathon. They've also tracked some of Misha's donors, but don't have a total for me yet. We'll have the Emperor Misha Matching Fund data soon.

By my count, you folks have paid up about half the pledges in less than a week. That's wonderful. Thank you so much. I know it takes a while for them to get the checks and tally the amount to our cause, so I'm betting that more checks are sitting in their inbox.

If you missed the Blogathon but want to donate, take a look at this page and then go write that check or click on the online credit form to donate. And flip me an email if you'd like to be added to the donors list on the Blogathon page. permalink

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Last week's blogs are archived. Looking for the Buffy Blogburst Index? Here's Israel vs. the world. Here's the Blogathon. The Superhero Dating Ratings are here. If you're looking for something funny, try the Hulk's solution to the Middle East conflict, or Yasser Arafat Secret Phone Transcripts. Iseema bin Laden's diary and The Fudd Doctrine are also good bets if you've never been here before.