Soup

Posted on 12/01/2010 by Meryl Yourish

Tonight is a good night for soup.

Chicken soup.

Defrosting as I type this.

I am off to see Slashtipher Coleman in his latest one-man show. If you’ve never seen “The Neon Man and Me,” you missed a great show.

Posted in Life | Comments Off on Soup

First night video

Posted on 12/01/2010 by Meryl Yourish

Eric J. contributed this one. It’s got a great beat, it’s a fun song, but it is lacking something very important.

Where are the women?

Why is there not a single woman in this video? Why are they not at the Hanukkah celebration?

As a result of there being not a single woman in the vid, I give it a B-. Maybe a C+.

And, as usual, my Virtual Menorah:

First light

Posted in Holidays, Music, Religion | Tagged | 9 Comments

The State Dept. gets something right

Posted on 12/01/2010 by Meryl Yourish

Check the sky for flying porkers: The State Dept. condemned the Palestinian “study” that said the Western Wall is Islamic.

But regarding a claim by a senior Palestinian official that the Western Wall is an Islamic Waqf, we strongly condemn these comments and fully reject them as factually incorrect, insensitive, and highly provocative. We have repeatedly raised with the Palestinian Authority leadership the need to consistently combat all forms of delegitimization of Israel, including denying historic Jewish connections to the land.

And get this from the so-called objective media (I have no idea who asked this question, but I sure would love to find out):

MR. CROWLEY: I was only noncommittal in the sense of before commenting to affirm that we had, in fact, raised our concerns with the Israeli Government as we have in the past. We have raised our concerns with the Israeli Government, as we’ve said many times. This Jerusalem, in all of its dimensions, must be part of a negotiated settlement. But I would be (inaudible) caution that there’s not necessarily an equivalence, that the kind of statements that we heard the other day, we think deserve strong condemnation.

QUESTION: Well, you’re right. There’s absolutely no equivalence between some guy mouthing off and giving his opinion, whether you agree with it or not, and actual bricks and mortar going up in an area that’s disputed. I mean, the equivalent – you come out and denounce this statement, which is mere – simply words, and it took a question from a reporter to get you to say anything about the actual, physical, on-the-ground construction there. So I don’t understand the equivalence that you’re – your idea of equivalence here. One seems to be much more serious than another.

That’s a member of the media who like to pretend they’re objective, and who like to blast Fox News as being biased. Read the rest, and it’s someone with a clear anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian bias asking the above. I thought Helen Thomas was off the job.

Posted in Israel, Media Bias, palestinian politics | Tagged , | Comments Off on The State Dept. gets something right

Chanukah Should Mean More To Us

Posted on 12/01/2010 by Rabbi Kaufman

I posted this on my own personal blog, but I thought those readers here would appreciate it as well. Happy Chanukah!

Chanukah is known as the Festival of Lights. It is of course the holiday during which we light candles so that makes sense in and of itself, but there is something more that most of us are missing.

There are several stories told of the origin of Chanukah and there are even some interesting discussions among the rabbis as to how many candles to kindle each night and why.

In very ancient times, it may well have been a solar calendar based holiday. I had a professor at Hebrew Union College who argued that the holiday should be celebrated during the last eight nights of the year. You might recognize those dates: Dec. 24 through Dec. 31 with the days being Dec. 25 through Jan. 1.

This holiday has had its religious and spiritual significance largely ignored. For children today, it is a story about oil lamps lasting longer than they should have. Yet, few of the children have ever even seen an oil lamp and virtually no one today has any idea how long one should normally last. The story of the miracle is a story about something to which today’s children, with microwaves and ultra-long lasting neon bulbs, cannot connect. One can imagine the question, “Daddy, why didn’t they use environmentally friendly neon bulbs? They last a lot longer than eight nights.” With that thought process, even if the cruse of oil lasted eight nights instead of one, it isn’t much of a miracle.

There are stories about the festival as celebration of victory over tyranny, of the restoration of sacrifices in the Temple, of combating assimilation. At different times each of these stories has helped some of our people connect to Chanukah, but do they speak to us today, here and now?

I think that few adults who are not among the more religiously observant give a thought to Chanukah. Most consider it a holiday for the children, even among the more observant. If they know the less fantastic stories of the origin of Chanukah, they feel little connection to them and Chanukah slips by without much notice beyond a few latkes and some indigestion.

It should not be so. Sometimes friends, we miss the forest looking through the trees. Chanukah is a Festival of Light at the darkest time of the year. Chanukah is a festival of hope. The word “Chanukah” literally means “Dedication”. It is possible that this name comes from the story about the rededication of the Temple by the Hasmoneans (a.k.a. Maccabees) as Josephus suggests or perhaps that Chanukah was a festival during which the Temple was rededicated every year, possibly long before Judah Maccabee’s day.

However, setting all of the above explanations aside, take a moment to consider this: at times when things are dark, not just absent light but bitterly cold, that time of year when we may easily become sad, and gray days seem to lead on to gray days; how vital could Chanukah be for us as adults, a Festival of Light, a time of rededication, of remembrance of the good, of hope and light in our lives.

It is said that the miracle increased from night to night. May the hope and joy in our hearts so increase. May this Chanukah be one that brings more light into our homes and our lives.

Posted in Israel | 3 Comments

On the eight days of Hanukkah…

Posted on 11/30/2010 by Meryl Yourish

I’ve been putting up videos for the past couple of years. If anyone has any new ones to link, let me know. I’ve been pretty busy with work and other things this week, and Hanukkah starts tomorrow(!).

Posted in Holidays | 2 Comments

Wikileaks and the Arab Perspective

Posted on 11/30/2010 by Rabbi Kaufman

Barry Rubin and the GLORIA Center noted that the Wikileaks documents confirm what they have been saying about the Middle East. Among other things, what the Wikileaks docs show is that what the administration has been saying about a “linkage” between solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and obtaining Arab world support for strong action, including military attacks, against Iran is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. In fact, the Arab nations have all been urging the US to act against Iran.

From the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi:

Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ) said he would be surprised if Iran accepted the P5+1/IAEA proposal and warned that Iran was already acting like a nuclear power. Further, and more dangerously, Iran is establishing “emirates” across the Muslim world, including South Lebanon and Gaza, sleeper “emirates” in Kuwait, Bahrain, and the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, the mother of all “emirates” in Southern Iraq, and now Saada in Yemen. MbZ suggested that the U.S. is misreading the situation in Yemen and failing to recognize strong evidence of Iranian support.

In response to the US State Department briefing on the nuclear enrichment deal with Iran, MbZ responded:

The Crown Prince said he would be “very surprised” if a deal was possible, as Iran’s nuclear program is not an issue of internal conflict but rather one of national pride for the vast majority of Iranians. He stressed that Iran is not North Korea, because 1) it is looking to reestablish a Persian empire in the 21st century, 2) Iran has resources and lacks neighbors, including the UAE, who can pressure it, 3) the leadership has not changed (it is the same people who seized Embassy Tehran in 1979) , and 4) Iran believes itself to be a superpower.

This is among the milder arguments made by Arab diplomats. The King of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly urged, practically begged, the United States to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and leaders of many other Arab nations have as well.

What these documents reveal is that US policy vis-a-vis Iran is not supported by our allies in the region, any of them. The United States is going it alone in its belief that sanctions will work. Wasn’t this administration supposed to be one seeking to work with our allies? As far as Syria is concerned, again our Arab friends completely reject the narrative put forth that Syria may be swayed from association with Iran as did Asad himself in discussions with American diplomats.

This leak of documents does three things:

  1. It greatly harms our ability as a nation to have candid conversations in secret with foreign leaders, something that does immeasurable harm to our ability to conduct diplomacy going forward and
  2. It proves that the United States is not only becoming weaker diplomatically (no few of these cables involved the US attempting to pressure foreign governments only to fail to accomplish goals) but also
  3. It demonstrates that US policy for some years regarding the Middle East has been conducted without allies in the region, across administrations, and continues to be conducted in that manner.

All of these points demonstrate what amounts to a crisis level problem that has been exacerbated in the past few years, both at the end of the Bush administration and during the Obama administration thus far. The US has been and continues to be going it alone in the Middle East, focusing way too much attention on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and way too little on Iran, radical Islam which seeks to expel Western influence from the region, and, as noted by at least several Arab leaders, North Korea, which is shipping arms into the region while aiding Iran and Syria in nuclear aspirations.

We can only hope that the recent leak of documents does not do massive harm to our ability to alter this situation by disrupting candid discussions about how Arab leaders really feel. Then again, if we are going to ignore their opinions offhand, it doesn’t really matter whether or not we hear them. It also does not matter if we find an insane amount of evidence (an earlier Wikileaks release) that Iran is actively supporting and supplying those who are fighting against the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, if we have no intention of ever threatening Iran over that evidence. The Wikileaks documents exposed that we have evidence of exactly that, a profound and significant presence of Iranian military intervention against the United States likely resulting in the deaths of scores of American troops and countless deaths among our allies. Our government has never mentioned it: not during this administration or during the previous one.

There are no few who believe that the Bush administration was war hungry. Yet, the only possible excuse for the failure to respond strongly to the evidence presented in countless places against Iran is an absolute desire to avoid confronting it. The Great LIE (the 2007 NIE concerning Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons) has done immeasurable harm to the region. It may well go down as the worst foreign policy decision made by a US administration regarding the region in decades. One can only believe that the US government at the time was so opposed to confronting Iran that it refused to see the truth as demonstrated by ample evidence, refused to listen to our allies in the region, and refused to consider the consequences of being wrong in its assessment. Meanwhile, that LIE was promulgated in direct contradiction to evidence provided by at least two of our allies with profound knowledge of Iran’s nuclear program, both Israel and Germany. The link to Israel’s perspective comes from December 10, 2007.

Meanwhile, in addition to exposing that America’s current policy regarding Iran is supported by not a single ally in the region, it also confirms my contentions concerning the absence of Palestinian leverage in the peace process regarding the Arab world. Israel is on the same side vis-a-vis Iran as most of the Arab world, the part that does not support Iran, Syria, Hizballah and Hamas. There is no linkage between support for strong action against Iran and any settlement of the peace process. In fact, Arab leaders are urging immediate action against Iran while only making scant or passing references to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at all. Having seen the diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks, it is abundantly clear that any suggestion of linkage is an outright fiction.

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J Street’s Call to End Oslo

Posted on 11/30/2010 by Rabbi Kaufman

This week J Street sent out a petition to its membership urging them to sign on to a letter urging the Obama Administration as follows:

Mr. President — You have inspired me with your commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I urge you to take the next step toward realizing that goal by focusing on a “Borders and Security First” approach to ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that moves beyond just talk towards tangible progress in defining and implementing a two-state solution.

My good friend, Rabbi Micky Boyden from Hod Hasharon, Israel, gave an excellent response to the petition on the We Are For Israel website here. However, he did not comment on J Street’s full policy position upon which this petition is based. This plea to the President is based upon J Street’s misguided policy, found here, in which J Street calls for the United States to impose a solution on borders and security!!! The J Street policy document argues that the two sides must meet their “internationally recognized obligations,” a term by which they seem to mean all prior negotiations and potentially include UN resolutions (they do not explicitly exclude them for certain):

However, the time has come for the United States to put forward a proposal to establish a border and security arrangements.  With a border established, there will be no further need to negotiate over settlement construction. Both Israel and the Palestinians will be able to build where they please within their borders and not beyond.

This is both naive and harmful. It is irresponsible for those who desire peace to go in this direction. In essence, the US would have to

  1. Insist on the 1967 lines with some minor territorial changes,
  2. Create an international zone in Jerusalem that only the US could possibly police for the indefinite future and could not possibly wish to do so,
  3. Ratify Israeli control over territory that the UN doesn’t recognize and the Arab world would vehemently, if not violently, oppose, or
  4. Do all three of the the above.

J Street’s position here would result in the complete collapse of the peace process and potentially the Palestinian Authority itself. Functionally, J Street calling for an end to Oslo. Some of us might not like Oslo. Some among us may say that bringing the PLO back was a bad idea. However, I cannot imagine that J Street itself would wish to end Oslo and collapse the Palestinian Authority. They keep arguing how wonderful Abbas is? See here. Yet J Street’s policy would bring about just that end:

  • The end of the Oslo process,
  • Potentially the collapse of the Palestinian Authority,
  • A new intifada, this time against the United States as well as Israel (the US would have sided with Israel in granting Israel more than the 1967 border as such and in not granting all of pre-1967 Jerusalem to the Palestinians), and
  • No gains on the peace front either between Israel and the Palestinians, Israel and the Arab world, or the US and the Arab world. Things might even significantly worsen because the United States would take a position opposed by the Arab world and even by the broader Muslim world.

What would the Palestinians and broader Arab world say if the United States proposed to allow Israel to control the Old City? What would the Arab world say if the United States proposed to control the Old City itself? Can you imagine the conflicts in law that would occur between US law, international law, Sharia and the Halakhah over the holy sites? Are you kidding me??? The last foreign power that tried to govern these sites, Britain during the Mandatory Period, was attacked by both Jews and Arabs. I cannot imagine that this solution would prove to be any different. If Amir was willing to kill Rabin, how many crazies would carry out attacks against US soldiers? How many Hamas attacks, especially now that Hamas is allied with Iran, would take place? How many more Muslim radicals would target Americans around the world? For the US to grant Israel control over the Old City or to claim control over the Old City itself would be an utter nightmare and would destroy US-Israel relations as well as significantly harm US-Arab and US-Muslim relations. To call this a horrible policy would not begin to scratch the surface.

I assume to this point that the US would not simply grant the Palestinians control over the Old City, but let us assume that such an idea were to be proposed by the US. A US proposal that removed access to the Jewish holy sites in the Old City or in any way restricted them would likely end discussions between the US and Israel until a President more favorable to Israeli control of those sites took office. Should the US try to force through a solution in the UN that is opposed by Israel, it would destroy the US-Israel relationship and would do so with limited or no political gain. Would Saudi Arabia be a closer ally of America if America went that route? No. Would Egypt? No. Jordan? No. So why even consider it?

J Street makes sure to exclude the Old City from these initial border discussions probably because of the very problems discussed above, but if one must resort to settling the far easier disagreement through US intervention, surely the Old City and the holiest sites must be addressed that way as well, namely through an imposed solution.

Should the Obama Administration go this route, it will not only fail to bring peace but will wreak havoc in the region. The US would be far better off letting go of the peace process entirely, totally ignoring it, rather than going this route. J Street’s policy here is terrible in the extreme.

Posted in Israel | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Tuesday morning news roundup

Posted on 11/30/2010 by Meryl Yourish

Who’s got Wikileaks? We’ve got Wikileaks: Here’s one on Netanyahu. Here’s John Kerry telling Qatar that the Golan has to go back to Syria. (Qatar? WTF?) Here’s one on Egypt being “stubborn and recalcitrant” (and yet, no 42-minute dressing-down by Hillary over that, go figure). Here’s one that calls Kenya “a swamp of graft,” for which Kenya demands an apology and one million dollars. And oh yeah—Shimon Peres told that Oslo was based on a mistaken process—one that created the begocracy that is the PA today.

Denial is a river in Egypt: One Wikileak cable says that the PA and Egypt were asked to assume control of Gaza if Israel cleared out Hamas. Both refused. Now, of course, both are denying that any such talks occurred. But I’m thinking if they’re denying, they’re surely lying.

Goldberg v. Sullivan, again: Jeffrey Goldberg points out that the Wikileaks cable prove that it isn’t just Israel that wants to bomb bomb bomb Iran. Typically, Andrew Sullivan then slams Goldberg, who hits back (and scores!). Advantage: Goldblog.

And the Keen Grasp of the Obvious Award goes to: Mad Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for finally admitting that saboteurs are affecting the Iranian drive to nukes.

“They had been successful in making problems for a limited number of our centrifuges, with software they had installed in electronic devices,” Ahmadinejad told a news conference, referring to Iran’s enemies. He said the sabotage has been solved.

Shyeah. Solved. That’s why one of the top Iranian Stuxnet experts got blowed up real good just the other day. Because Iran didn’t need him anymore.

His acknowledgment came after a report Tuesday by the International Atomic Energy Agency said that as of Nov. 16, Iran had stopped feeding hot uranium gas into its thousands of centrifuges and that the shutdown could have lasted as long as seven days.

When asked specifically, Ahmadinejad refused to comment on whether a computer worm known as Stuxnet had been responsible.

“Write this down,” Ahmadinejad said. “The Iranian president’s answer to this question is: silence. That’s it.”

Posted in Gaza, Iran, Israel, News Briefs | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Monday briefly briefs

Posted on 11/29/2010 by Meryl Yourish

Don’t call him Shirley: A moment of silence for the incomparable Leslie Nielsen.

Oh, we can stop the investigation now: Islamist Prime Minister Erdogan says that Hezbollah had nothing to do with Rafik Hariri’s death. Everybody go home, nothing to see here. Wow, what an epic fail on the Obama administration’s outreach to Turkey. The EU, too. Could it get any worse? Sure. The private diplomatic cables and messages could be released to the world so that everyone knows what is the inside thinking of the administration.

Repeat after me: Barry Rubin is the best Middle East analyst in the world. Hey, here’s a great big toldja so from a guy who doesn’t use those words (but I will). (He does the Far East, too. Plus, he’s a very entertaining dinner companion.)

We hope it’s true: Wikileaks documents say Ayatollah Khameini has cancer. Here’s hoping. That would be one less Jew-hating tyrant in the world. Plus, a war for succession in Iran is nothing but good for the rest of the world, at least until it’s over. Then we have to see who won.

Speaking of Wikileaks: Here’s a synopsis of the ones about Israel. No big deal.

Another mysterious Iranian scientist death: Hm. If it’s Mossad, the Mossad is deep inside Iran. Although color me a bit skeptical:

According to the report, the assassination took place at 7:45 am when two men mounted on motorcycles attached a bomb to Dr. Majid Shahriari’s vehicle; he was killed instantly by the blast, and his wife was injured.

I’m thinking it’s not so easy to attach a bomb to a moving vehicle. In any case, the dead man was pretty high up in the Iranian enrichment program. Another setback for Iranian nukes.

Posted in Iran, Israel, News Briefs, Turkey, World | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Lori Berenson: a nice Jewish girl from a nice Jewish family? You bet…

Posted on 11/29/2010 by SnoopyTheGoon

The CNN article Peruvian court grants parole to imprisoned U.S. citizen caused me to do some surfing. I didn’t know anything about Lori Berenson. The mere fact that a US citizen was imprisoned for 20 years in Peru – not for some drug-related mayhem and not for some domestic murder or anything of the sort – was sufficient to get me interested.

So, Lori Berenson: a nice girl, born to two professors: Rhoda and Mark Berenson. She is obviously talented, being accepted to MIT. She is big-hearted, volunteered for soup kitchens and blood banks, has done more volunteering work during her studies and later, in a big way:

Later she went to El Salvador and became secretary and translator for Leonel González, a leader of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), during negotiations that achieved peace in 1992.

All these good deeds were not enough for Lori and, after peace settled in El Salvador, she moved to Peru. Clearly Peru of the time wasn’t a model democracy, far from it. Corrupt, torn apart by violence, predominantly poor and governed by a semi-dictator Alberto Fujimori, Peru was indeed a nation to do some good for. And then a nightmare strikes. Let’s hear Lori telling her story by herself:

So, 20 years of jail by a secret military court is what a nice Jewish girl gets for wanting to change the corrupt and cruel system. Is there any doubt in your mind or in your heart that after 15 years of jail time, with a baby born in jail (in spite of a serious back problem which complicated her pregnancy), Lori deserves to go home and be free?

There is no doubt in my mind. Enough is enough, and it’s past time for Lori to go home, to see her parents and friends. Only…
Continue reading →

Posted in American Scene, Politics, Terrorism | 37 Comments

Amazing sales at Amazon

Posted on 11/28/2010 by Meryl Yourish

I have refused to buy Battlestar Galactica’s season 4 because they were charging full-season prices for each half-season DVD set. It irked me. I don’t mind paying $40 for a full season, but I will absolutely not pay twice what I think 20 episodes are worth. But I’m patient. I can wait, even though I was warned I’d not see the discount I wanted for a long, long time.

Well. Amazon’s Black Friday sale has them at $34 for the two sets. There are some amazing sales going on; keep an eye on Amazon.com for the rest of the shopping season. That link above is for Glenn Reynolds’ associate info; I dumped mine ages ago because the bookkeeping is more trouble than the few bucks I might make on it.

Season Four will be arriving on Tuesday or Wednesday. I have Amazon Prime shipping. It’s worth it if you order from Amazon regularly throughout the year. I think they have their free 30-day trial going on now, too. If you live in some areas, the two-day shipping is actually overnight. I’ve gotten my packages the next morning.

There are full seasons of TV shows for $13 (The Big Bang Theory, for one), and movies for six bucks. Check out the list of deals for Black Friday, as they are quite good.

Posted in Life, Television | Comments Off on Amazing sales at Amazon

Sunday long weekend briefs

Posted on 11/28/2010 by Meryl Yourish

Yeah, that outreach is really working: Iran is now practically declaring that Lebanon is its client state: They’re not even trying to hide it anymore, so the big question is: Will Iran go to war with Israel if there is another war between Israel and Hezbollah?

Fatah to Israel: How’d you like a new version of the Three No’s? No negotiation (without a building freeze), no land swaps, and no recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Yep, that’s the Three No’s of Fatah, signed on by Mahmoud Abbas, Israel’s “partner in peace.” Barack Obama is not just dreaming if he thinks he can get a peace deal during his term—he’s on drugs. By the way, is there a sign of this conference in the mainstream media? Can you find an AP version of this report? I can’t. Found a UPI report that carried the refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, but that conveniently leaves out the “no land swaps” part regarding settlements. But outside the Jewish press? Nada. Report the truth? Shyeah.

Muslim ERA Watch: The Saudis, who are now on the UN’s Women’s Rights Council, are currently undergoing an interesting set of lawsuits. Women are suing their guardians for refusing to allow them to marry. The joke that is the UN is letting this medieval society sit in judgment on adherence to women’s rights by other nations. You can’t make this up. Money quote from the article?

“A Saudi woman can’t even buy a phone without the guardian’s permission,” said al-Hawaidar, who has been banned from writing or appearing on Saudi television networks because of her vocal support of women’s rights.

Hey, Israeli women: How many phones have you each bought in the last ten years? (I’ve bought new landline phones, extra handsets, and four cell phones in the past ten years.) The UN is an utter joke.

Posted in Feminism, Israel, Lebanon, Media Bias, News Briefs, palestinian politics, United Nations | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

All right, let’s have the battle of the sexes again

Posted on 11/28/2010 by Meryl Yourish

On my way into my fitness club, the woman behind the desk asked me “What was the worst present you ever got?” It took only a second to refer to the $16 gift certificate for a CD from the music store that was on the way from my boyfriend’s house to mine. (Yes, he really did give me a gift certificate for exactly the price of one CD in 1989. And yes, women really do remember these things for a long, long time.)

Her manager, a man, was utterly astonished, but not by the stories. He could not get over that it took most women only a second to answer the question. He kept saying he wanted to get a stopwatch and time women as they answered the question. However, a few of the older women didn’t have a “worst gift” story at all, so we decided that it started with us selfish baby boomers and continued through the next generations.

In any case, what was the worst gift you ever received, ladies? And was it from a man? Guys, do you even have a worst-gift story? (The guys behind the counter said they couldn’t even think of one.) Worst gifts I heard were: A mop bucket, a ferret cage for a one-year anniversary(!), and dishtowels. I think they rather beat my CD gift certificate.

Posted in Life | 9 Comments

I knew I forgot something

Posted on 11/27/2010 by Meryl Yourish

I forgot to post today.

Fixed now.

Discuss among yourselves.

Observations for the day:

  • The Big Bang Theory is a show I should have given a bit longer to make me laugh. Cougar Town, too. Now I’m playing catch-up.
  • Hot flashes in the winter suck even more than they do in the summer. I don’t see the point in keeping the heat on much, so I’m alternating between feeling like I just ran a mile and feeling like I just got the flu. Although, my heating bills are going to be lower for sure this year.
  • I don’t think we should defund NPR or PBS. I like watching Great Performances. I would otherwise never have seen the Sondheim 80th birthday celebration. Loved the diva scene: Six Broadway divas, including Elaine Stritch, Bernadette Peters, and Donna Murphy. Donna Murphy won, IMHO. Saw her in Passions years ago (or, as I liked to call it, “Stalking.”) The show wasn’t that good, but she was. By the way, I calculated, and Gracie is older than Sondheim. But I’m not going to sing to her on her birthday.

There. A post for the day. Now I can get one more episode of The Big Bang Theory in and go to bed. Though I may try to calculate the likelihood of getting TV-oriented spam now that I’ve put those keywords into this post. (I so don’t even bother trying to follow the pseudo-scientific jargon. It’s like trying to read all the Chuck Lorre cards at once. Don’t do it. You’ll regret it.)

Posted in Life | 2 Comments

Black Friday briefs

Posted on 11/26/2010 by Meryl Yourish

Compare and contrast: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians have been arrested and charged with serious crimes, dutifully reported by the AP as a riot (as opposed to “protest”—their standard word for Palestinian riots in Israel). When Muslims rioted against Christians and murdered nearly a dozen? Only the drive-by shooters faced long jail terms, if I recall correctly. The reason behind the riot? Egypt stopped Copts from building a church. I eagerly await the UNHRC’s condemnation of this violation of Egyptian Christians’ human rights. The AP boilerplate keeps on chugging along.

Coptic Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s population of 80 million. They complain frequently of discrimination, though they generally live in peace with the Muslim majority despite occasional flare-ups of violence, especially over limits on church building.

They generally live in peace, except when Muslims kill them over rumors that a Christian woman, who supposedly converted to Islam, was “forcibly” converted back to Christianity. Or build churches. Or have the entire Coptic community blamed for one man’s crime (see previous reason for Muslim riot against Christians).

The irony is so thick you can cut it with a sword: Libya gives out human rights awards. Yes, Libya. Yes, Libya! And who is getting the award this year? Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the man who is moving Turkey into the Islamist orbit, who is making up charges against the military so he can jail his foes and further his Islamist aims. But don’t be too shocked: Previous winners include Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez.

Um… what’s the point of this article? I read this NY Times piece and tried to figure out exactly what its point was. Isabel Kirshner calls the Palestinian “study” that says the Western Wall was never Jewish a “feud” over the Wall. A “feud.” As if the Palestinians had any legitimacy with their lies. Oh, wait. I think I’ve found the point. It’s yet another case of advancing the Palestinian side as if it contains any truth, kind of like the Jenin fable. Now I get it.

Oh, Canada! Liking the Canadians more and more on their Israel policy. They’re boycotting Durban III. Betcha Obama won’t have the balls to do it.

Posted in Media Bias, Religion, World | Tagged , , | 6 Comments