Mia’s Peace Plan II

But sometimes people can get together and talk about things without resorting to hostility. I am a member of such a message board. Nobody attacks anybody for having a different opinion and everybody seems genuinely interested in what others have to say. Is this not the point of a message board? Why participate if you are not interested in any voices besides your own? Places where everybody tries to yell the loudest make no sense to me. If you are yelling the loudest that only means that you cannot hear anything.

Obligatory 9/11 Post

In this case I think Americans can be forgiven for any dramatic hyperbole about this day and any ignorance of equal or greater tragedy in the rest of the world. When your house is on fire you are not worried about somebody else’s house on fire.

It is a date which will live in infamy probably more so than the attack on Pearl Harbor. That was a military attack on a military base. And the Americans were able to exact a horrific revenge. They will never be able to collectively punish the entire race or nationality of their enemy this time. It is easy to fight a war with another country. It is almost impossible to fight a war with a disparate group of anonymous people whose only common denominator is a lust for your destruction.

Fair and Balanced

I have been conducting my own informal and highly unscientific research since Friday. From what I have noticed CNN has reported on the American hurricane at least once an hour every day, sometimes in depth. They even interviewed local shop owners and some child with a dog. I only saw a brief mention of the super typhoon in the Philippines during the weather report. There were no interviews and no dogs.

How To Have a Riot

The two billion of us who grew up in current or former Commonwealth countries are told to see England as a bastion of all we are supposed to hope to be. Even Americans, who got out long before anybody thought to include Imperial subjects in the same sentence as British subjects, have an umbilical fascination with England. Even more so in some respects. I have never met an African, Indian, Australian who follows the goings on of the British royal family with as much vicarious interest as do some Americans. Africans have Mandela. Indians have Gandhi. Australians have the Bee Gees. I guess Americans need something to fill the void that TV simply cannot offer.

We Can’t Rewind, We’ve Gone Too Far

But there is plenty of nudity. If you record our video talks you will get to see more of us than most people would want to see. It started with a little peak of body parts here and there and escalated into something you might see on late night TV. The image quality is not very good so any thoughts of packaging and selling our show and tell time will have to wait until somebody makes a free high quality teleconference application. Many years ago somebody that I used to know threatened to sell pictures of me doing things that my mother would not want to see. But those pictures were all at low resolutions even by the standards of the day; something like 0.1 megapixels. Good luck selling them now. By the time high definition webcams are standard we will both be too old to make much money off of our prurient side. He will be back home long before that anyway.

This reminds me, I need to get more whipped cream.

The Many Fascinating Adventures of Electronica

Chinese has no alphabet. Every word is its own symbol, though there are many compound words. There are about 50 000 different characters with 215 basic root words. That simply will not fit on any reasonable keyboard. Typing in Chinese requires using the key which is most likely to have the word you want and scrolling down until you find what you are looking for. It is time consuming and easy to see why government agencies use pen and paper.

“Parks and other public spaces are full of mostly red lanterns” took me probably four seconds to type. “公園與大眾場所也會掛滿著紅色的燈籠” took over four seconds per word.

我会买明天新的厨房毛巾。

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

According to the pageviews by countries list, more people from the United States visit this blog than every other country combined. I know a few people in the US but not enough to explain that. I know far more people in Israel, South Afrika, China but they are much farther down the list. In fact, China is not on it at all but all the Chinese posts are among the most viewed. My friends in China have to work around the government’s efforts to keep its people offline and I guess keeping the reds out of your computer also keeps Blogger stats out as well.

What I find strange is that India and Saudi Arabia are high on the list. I seem to be fairly popular in southeast Asia and the European countries make sense to me but Saudi Arabia?

One of the higher keyword searches is “saudi arab nude” but given the complete lack of naked Saudis on this site you might expect people to stop looking. Unless it is a case of come for the nude Saudis, stay for the military Zionists.

Decent Exposure

Once we made our way from civilisation to nature we set up camp and Yoel and I put our clothes in bags where they belong. Yoel’s girlfriend was noticeably nervous so we decided to head straight for the water. Sometimes people need an excuse to strip off and swimming is as good as any. It is funny how people get when they are getting naked in front of others for the first time. It reminds me of watching people go off to war. Except that nudity is far less serious and almost never gets you killed. And war is a horribly unnatural invention of man. Also unlike war, we never pressured Yoel’s girlfriend into anything. She was free to remain as clothed as she wanted for as long as she wanted. She wanted to join us. She just needed the swimming excuse to help her along.

India, a Passage

But as anybody who has ever gone anywhere on business trips can tell you, it is the worst way to see a country. India is huge. I was never going to experience much of it in such a limited time. But spending most of that time at military bases is even worse. Add to that the fact that women in India’s military are few and far between. While Israel has been conscripting women since 1948 India’s military is entirely voluntary. And few women seem to want to volunteer. They are most likely not very welcome either.

Bibi Goes to Washington

I am deeply honored by your warm welcome. And I am deeply honored that you have given me the opportunity to address Congress a second time.

Mr Vice President, do you remember the time we were the new kids in town?

And I do see a lot of old friends here. And I do see a lot of new friends of Israel here. Democrats and Republicans alike.

Israel has no better friend than America. And America has no better friend than Israel. We stand together to defend democracy. We stand together to advance peace. We stand together to fight terrorism. Congratulations America. Congratulations, Mr President. You got bin Laden. Good riddance.

In an unstable Middle East, Israel is the one anchor of stability. In a region of shifting alliances, Israel is America’s unwavering ally. Israel has always been pro-American. Israel will always be pro-American.

My friends, you don’t need to do nation building in Israel. We’re already built. You don’t need to export democracy to Israel. We’ve already got it. You don’t need to send American troops to defend Israel. We defend ourselves. You’ve been very generous in giving us tools to do the job of defending Israel on our own. Thank you all, and thank you President Obama, for your steadfast commitment to Israel’s security. I know economic times are tough. I deeply appreciate this.

Support for Israel’s security is a wise investment in our common future. For an epic battle is now unfolding in the Middle East, between tyranny and freedom. A great convulsion is shaking the earth from the Khyber Pass to the Straits of Gibraltar. The tremors have shattered states and toppled governments.

And we can all see that the ground is still shifting. Now this historic moment holds the promise of a new dawn of freedom and opportunity. Millions of young people are determined to change their future. We all look at them. They muster courage. They risk their lives. They demand dignity. They desire liberty.

These extraordinary scenes in Tunis and Cairo, evoke those of Berlin and Prague in 1989. Yet as we share their hopes, but we also must also remember that those hopes could be snuffed out as they were in Tehran in 1979. You remember what happened then. The brief democratic spring in Iran was cut short by a ferocious and unforgiving tyranny. This same tyranny smothered Lebanon’s democratic Cedar Revolution, and inflicted on that long-suffering country, the medieval rule of Hezbollah.

So today, the Middle East stands at a fateful crossroads. Like all of you, I pray that the peoples of the region choose the path less travelled, the path of liberty. No one knows what this path consists of better than you. This path is not paved by elections alone. It is paved when governments permit protests in town squares, when limits are placed on the powers of rulers, when judges are beholden to laws and not men, and when human rights cannot be crushed by tribal loyalties or mob rule.

Israel has always embraced this path, in the Middle East has long rejected it. In a region where women are stoned, gays are hanged, Christians are persecuted, Israel stands out. It is different.

As the great English writer George Eliot predicted over a century ago, that once established, the Jewish state will “shine like a bright star of freedom amid the despotisms of the East.” Well, she was right. We have a free press, independent courts, an open economy, rambunctious parliamentary debates. You think you guys are tough on one another in Congress? Come spend a day in the Knesset. Be my guest.

Courageous Arab protesters, are now struggling to secure these very same rights for their peoples, for their societies. We’re proud that over one million Arab citizens of Israel have been enjoying these rights for decades. Of the 300 million Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, only Israel’s Arab citizens enjoy real democratic rights. I want you to stop for a second and think about that. Of those 300 million Arabs, less than one-half of one-percent are truly free, and they’re all citizens of Israel.

This startling fact reveals a basic truth: Israel is not what is wrong about the Middle East. Israel is what is right about the Middle East.

Israel fully supports the desire of Arab peoples in our region to live freely. We long for the day when Israel will be one of many real democracies in the Middle East.

Fifteen years ago, I stood at this very podium, and said that democracy must start to take root in the Arab World. Well, it’s begun to take root. This beginning holds the promise of a brilliant future of peace and prosperity. For I believe that a Middle East that is genuinely democratic will be a Middle East truly at peace.

But while we hope and work for the best, we must also recognize that powerful forces oppose this future. They oppose modernity. They oppose democracy. They oppose peace.

Foremost among these forces is Iran. The tyranny in Tehran brutalizes its own people. It supports attacks against American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. It subjugates Lebanon and Gaza. It sponsors terror worldwide.

When I last stood here, I spoke of the dire consequences of Iran developing nuclear weapons. Now time is running out, and the hinge of history may soon turn. For the greatest danger facing humanity could soon be upon us: A militant Islamic regime armed with nuclear weapons.

Militant Islam threatens the world. It threatens Islam. I have no doubt that it will ultimately be defeated. It will eventually succumb to the forces of freedom and progress. But like other fanaticisms that were doomed to fail, militant Islam could exact a horrific price from all of us before its inevitable demise.

A nuclear-armed Iran would ignite a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. It would give terrorists a nuclear umbrella. It would make the nightmare of nuclear terrorism a clear and present danger throughout the world. I want you to understand what this means. They could put the bomb anywhere. They could put it on a missile. It could be on a container ship in a port, or in a suitcase on a subway.

Now the threat to my country cannot be overstated. Those who dismiss it are sticking their heads in the sand. Less than seven decades after six million Jews were murdered, Iran’s leaders deny the Holocaust of the Jewish people, while calling for the annihilation of the Jewish state.

Leaders who spew such venom, should be banned from every respectable forum on the planet. But there is something that makes the outrage even greater: The lack of outrage. In much of the international community, the calls for our destruction are met with utter silence. It is even worse because there are many who rush to condemn Israel for defending itself against Iran’s terror proxies.

But not you. Not America. You have acted differently. You’ve condemned the Iranian regime for its genocidal aims. You’ve passed tough sanctions against Iran. History will salute you America.

President Obama has said that the United States is determined to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. He successfully led the Security Council to adopt sanctions against Iran. You in Congress passed even tougher sanctions. These words and deeds are vitally important.

Yet the Ayatollah regime briefly suspended its nuclear program only once, in 2003, when it feared the possibility of military action. That same year, Muammar Qadaffi gave up his nuclear weapons program, and for the same reason. The more Iran believes that all options are on the table, the less the chance of confrontation. This is why I ask you to continue to send an unequivocal message: That America will never permit Iran to develop nuclear weapons.

As for Israel, if history has taught the Jewish people anything, it is that we must take calls for our destruction seriously. We are a nation that rose from the ashes of the Holocaust. When we say never again, we mean never again. Israel always reserves the right to defend itself.

My friends, while Israel will be ever vigilant in its defense, we will never give up on our quest for peace. I guess we’ll give it up when we achieve it. Israel wants peace. Israel needs peace. We’ve achieved historic peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan that have held up for decades.

I remember what it was like before we had peace. I was nearly killed in a firefight inside the Suez Canal. I mean that literally. I battled terrorists along both banks of the Jordan River. Too many Israelis have lost loved ones. I know their grief. I lost my brother.

So no one in Israel wants a return to those terrible days. The peace with Egypt and Jordan has long served as an anchor of stability and peace in the heart of the Middle East.

This peace should be bolstered by economic and political support to all those who remain committed to peace.

The peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan are vital. But they’re not enough. We must also find a way to forge a lasting peace with the Palestinians. Two years ago, I publicly committed to a solution of two states for two peoples: A Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state.

I am willing to make painful compromises to achieve this historic peace. As the leader of Israel, it is my responsibility to lead my people to peace.

This is not easy for me. I recognize that in a genuine peace, we will be required to give up parts of the Jewish homeland. In Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers. We are not the British in India. We are not the Belgians in the Congo.

This is the land of our forefathers, the Land of Israel, to which Abraham brought the idea of one God, where David set out to confront Goliath, and where Isaiah saw a vision of eternal peace. No distortion of history can deny the four thousand year old bond, between the Jewish people and the Jewish land.

But there is another truth: The Palestinians share this small land with us. We seek a peace in which they will be neither Israel’s subjects nor its citizens. They should enjoy a national life of dignity as a free, viable and independent people in their own state. They should enjoy a prosperous economy, where their creativity and initiative can flourish.

We’ve already seen the beginnings of what is possible. In the last two years, the Palestinians have begun to build a better life for themselves. Prime Minister Fayad has led this effort. I wish him a speedy recovery from his recent operation.

We’ve helped the Palestinian economy by removing hundreds of barriers and roadblocks to the free flow of goods and people. The results have been nothing short of remarkable. The Palestinian economy is booming. It’s growing by more than 10% a year.

Palestinian cities look very different today than they did just a few years ago. They have shopping malls, movie theaters, restaurants, banks. They even have e-businesses. This is all happening without peace. Imagine what could happen with peace. Peace would herald a new day for both peoples. It would make the dream of a broader Arab-Israeli peace a realistic possibility.

So now here is the question. You have to ask it. If the benefits of peace with the Palestinians are so clear, why has peace eluded us? Because all six Israeli Prime Ministers since the signing of Oslo accords agreed to establish a Palestinian state. Myself included. So why has peace not been achieved? Because so far, the Palestinians have been unwilling to accept a Palestinian state, if it meant accepting a Jewish state alongside it.

You see, our conflict has never been about the establishment of a Palestinian state. It has always been about the existence of the Jewish state. This is what this conflict is about. In 1947, the United Nations voted to partition the land into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews said yes. The Palestinians said no. In recent years, the Palestinians twice refused generous offers by Israeli Prime Ministers, to establish a Palestinian state on virtually all the territory won by Israel in the Six Day War.

They were simply unwilling to end the conflict. And I regret to say this: They continue to educate their children to hate. They continue to name public squares after terrorists. And worst of all, they continue to perpetuate the fantasy that Israel will one day be flooded by the descendants of Palestinian refugees.

My friends, this must come to an end. President Abbas must do what I have done. I stood before my people, and I told you it wasn’t easy for me, and I said, “I will accept a Palestinian state.” It is time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say, “I will accept a Jewish state.”

Those six words will change history. They will make clear to the Palestinians that this conflict must come to an end. That they are not building a state to continue the conflict with Israel, but to end it. They will convince the people of Israel that they have a true partner for peace. With such a partner, the people of Israel will be prepared to make a far reaching compromise. I will be prepared to make a far reaching compromise.

This compromise must reflect the dramatic demographic changes that have occurred since 1967. The vast majority of the 650,000 Israelis who live beyond the 1967 lines, reside in neighborhoods and suburbs of Jerusalem and Greater Tel Aviv.

These areas are densely populated but geographically quite small. Under any realistic peace agreement, these areas, as well as other places of critical strategic and national importance, will be incorporated into the final borders of Israel.

The status of the settlements will be decided only in negotiations. But we must also be honest. So I am saying today something that should be said publicly by anyone serious about peace. In any peace agreement that ends the conflict, some settlements will end up beyond Israel’s borders. The precise delineation of those borders must be negotiated. We will be very generous on the size of a future Palestinian state. But as President Obama said, the border will be different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967. Israel will not return to the indefensible lines of 1967.

We recognize that a Palestinian state must be big enough to be viable, independent and prosperous. President Obama rightly referred to Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, just as he referred to the future Palestinian state as the homeland of the Palestinian people. Jews from around the world have a right to immigrate to the Jewish state. Palestinians from around the world should have a right to immigrate, if they so choose, to a Palestinian state. This means that the Palestinian refugee problem will be resolved outside the borders of Israel.

As for Jerusalem, only a democratic Israel has protected freedom of worship for all faiths in the city. Jerusalem must never again be divided. Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel. I know that this is a difficult issue for Palestinians. But I believe with creativity and goodwill a solution can be found.

This is the peace I plan to forge with a Palestinian partner committed to peace. But you know very well, that in the Middle East, the only peace that will hold is a peace you can defend.

So peace must be anchored in security. In recent years, Israel withdrew from South Lebanon and Gaza. But we didn’t get peace. Instead, we got 12,000 thousand rockets fired from those areas on our cities, on our children, by Hezbollah and Hamas. The UN peacekeepers in Lebanon failed to prevent the smuggling of this weaponry. The European observers in Gaza evaporated overnight.

So if Israel simply walked out of the territories, the flow of weapons into a future Palestinian state would be unchecked. Missiles fired from it could reach virtually every home in Israel in less than a minute. I want you to think about that too. Imagine that right now we all had less than 60 seconds to find shelter from an incoming rocket. Would you live that way? Would anyone live that way? Well, we aren’t going to live that way either.

The truth is that Israel needs unique security arrangements because of its unique size. Israel is one of the smallest countries in the world. Mr Vice President, I’ll grant you this. It’s bigger than Delaware. It’s even bigger than Rhode Island. But that’s about it. Israel on the 1967 lines would be half the width of the Washington Beltway.

Now here’s a bit of nostalgia. I first came to Washington thirty years ago as a young diplomat. It took me a while, but I finally figured it out: There is an America beyond the Beltway. But Israel on the 1967 lines would be only nine miles wide. So much for strategic depth.

So it is therefore absolutely vital for Israel’s security that a Palestinian state be fully demilitarized. And it is vital that Israel maintain a long-term military presence along the Jordan River. Solid security arrangements on the ground are necessary not only to protect the peace, they are necessary to protect Israel in case the peace unravels. For in our unstable region, no one can guarantee that our peace partners today will be there tomorrow.

And when I say tomorrow, I don’t mean some distant time in the future. I mean tomorrow. Peace can be achieved only around the negotiating table. The Palestinian attempt to impose a settlement through the United Nations will not bring peace. It should be forcefully opposed by all those who want to see this conflict end.

I appreciate the President’s clear position on this issue. Peace cannot be imposed. It must be negotiated. But it can only be negotiated with partners committed to peace.

And Hamas is not a partner for peace. Hamas remains committed to Israel’s destruction and to terrorism. They have a charter. That charter not only calls for the obliteration of Israel, but says ‘kill the Jews wherever you find them’. Hamas’ leader condemned the killing of Osama bin Laden and praised him as a holy warrior. Now again I want to make this clear. Israel is prepared to sit down today and negotiate peace with the Palestinian Authority. I believe we can fashion a brilliant future of peace for our children. But Israel will not negotiate with a Palestinian government backed by the Palestinian version of Al Qaeda.

So I say to President Abbas: Tear up your pact with Hamas. Sit down and negotiate. Make peace with the Jewish state. And if you do, I promise you this. Israel will not be the last country to welcome a Palestinian state as a new member of the United Nations. It will be the first to do so.

My friends, the momentous trials of the last century, and the unfolding events of this century, attest to the decisive role of the United States in advancing peace and defending freedom. Providence entrusted the United States to be the guardian of liberty. All peoples who cherish freedom owe a profound debt of gratitude to your great nation. Among the most grateful nations is my nation, the people of Israel, who have fought for their liberty and survival against impossible odds, in ancient and modern times alike.

I speak on behalf of the Jewish people and the Jewish state when I say to you, representatives of America, Thank you. Thank you for your unwavering support for Israel. Thank you for ensuring that the flame of freedom burns bright throughout the world. May God bless all of you. And may God forever bless the United States of America.

Benjamin Netanyahu
Washington, DC
24 May 2011

Copied from the Jerusalem Post website.

North to the Future

An interesting sequence was where Palin and the mother with eight children went to a firing range to practise shooting at bear targets. Just in case. As if their only line of defence was Sarah Palin and the mother with eight children.

The mother with eight children had never handled a firearm and made that fact perfectly clear. She genuinely seemed not to know what the instructor was talking about. But much has been made of Palin’s shooting at wolves from aircraft. Ignoring the fact that hunters generally consider this cowardly and point out that it is what poachers do, it takes a certain level of skill to hit a running animal from a moving aircraft. When Palin was at the firing range she could not hit the side of a bullet with a barn.

Worse than her aim was that she did not know the difference between a cartridge in the magazine or in the chamber. This is a very important safety distinction that everybody should know before they even touch a firearm. Every hunter in the world knows the difference. She also seemed overly concerned about recoil. This is something an experienced hunter would never worry about.

Happy Nakba Day

I’ve endless sympathy for the people of Palestine. They have been used as pawns by so many for so long. Hundreds of thousands of them were displaced when the Ottomans and the British decided to carve up the land. So were hundreds of thousands of Israelis. And I have never seen any Arab group anywhere advocate letting any of those Israelis and their descendants back in.

But Israelis have Israel. Do Arabs have any countries they can call their own? Obviously I’m missing the point. It is not enough to have Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Morocco, Qatar, Oman, Algeria, Tunisia, Somalia, Sudan, UAE. They are simply incomplete without Israel.

The Big News Stories

On the stranger side of the news, some kind of weird glitch in blogger made it impossible to post. Any time I tried I got this error message: “Illegal post time (format is: hh:mm AM/PM)” even though I always had it set to the proper 24 hour format and not that am/pm nonsense. Changing the time manually and setting it to am/pm did nothing. Then somebody told me that if your language is set to South African English this happens. Even though it has never happened to me before. Changing it to UK English has solved the problem. I’m sure there is some kind of international conspiracy afoot but I haven’t the time just now.

Full Frontal Nudity

I do not call myself a nudist or naturist or clothesfree lifestyle advocate or any of the accepted vernacular. I never use the terms they want me to use. I am antisemantic. But what really annoys the nudist community is my complete disregard for nudist organisations like AANR and TNS. I have never been a member and never will be. This alone means that I cannot be a real nudist according to the true believers. I do not bemoan their existence, and they do good things from time to time. They are a good resource for finding good beaches. But I do not think I should have to join some club to enjoy nature. Nature is free. Other than the fees you have to pay to get in. I do not want to pay money just to say I’m a card carrying member of some group. Especially when I’ve no pockets in which to carry the cards.


My new fully nude avatar.

It Took Off Into the Sky Leaving a Trail of Smoke Behind It

I don’t really understand the Christian obsession with virginity anyway. It seems to be based on the belief that God knocked up a virgin to make a demigod love child. I guess if you are a man and want to be like Jesus then you have to marry a virgin. But they really don’t like the suggestion that Jesus married anybody. It seems to me that if you want to be like Jesus then your mother has to be a virgin. Good luck with that.

The Muslim obsession with virginity makes a lot more sense. It is about power and control. Men can do what they want. Women cannot. It is completely sexist and rooted in a deeply inherent misogyny but it is easier to understand.

But that is why there is chocolate and vanilla. You believe in your rules and I will believe in mine. Fortunately, my rules don’t sentence me to an eternity in hell. Whoever eventually marries me is not getting a delicate, young unblossomed flower. I will be more like a drooping daisy by the time I’m wed. I rarely date anybody who is surprised by my lack of inexperience. I’m 31, I’ve had a few marriage proposals, I’ve dated polyandrously. It would be far more shocking if I were a dainty young thing.

How to Be Famous

The Beatles are unquestionably the most successful musical act in the entire history of the universe. It took years of playing questionable establishments and a lot of record company rejection before they made it big. That is how you did it back then. You played as much as you could wherever you could and your local following developed into a larger following.

Now all you have to do is go on one of the Pop Idol programmes and you are an instant superstar. Never mind the fact that none of the winners of any of those shows has ever become a pop idol. Britney Spears may be more well known for her public behaviour than her music but at least she went through years of auditions and rejections before she got the chance to make her first album. How did Justin Bieber earn his fame? As far as I know he put a video on Youtube and some record producers pushed him through marketing before he ever recorded anything. When did he pay his dues?

George and Ringo said it don’t come easy. They meant that it did not come easy back then.


Really?

Mother Courage

Lassie Come Home, Courage of Lassie, Jane Eyre, The White Cliffs of Dover, National Velvet, Life with Father, Cynthia, A Date with Judy, Julia Misbehaves, Little Women, Conspirator, The Big Hangover, Father of the Bride, Father’s Little Dividend, A Place in the Sun, Quo Vadis, Love is Better Than Ever, The Girl Who Had Everything, Rhapsody, Elephant Walk, Beau Brummell, The Last Time I Saw Paris, Raintree Country, Giant, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Suddenly Last Summer, Scent of Mystery, Butterfield 8, The Sandpiper, The VIPs, The Taming of the Shrew, Doctor Faustus, Reflections in a Golden Eye, The Comedians, Secret Ceremony, The Only Game in Town, Under Milk Wood, Hammersmith is Out, Divorce His Divorce Hers, Night Watch, Ash Wednesday, Identikit, The Blue Bird, Victory at Entebbe, A Little Night Music, Return Engagement, The Mirror Crack’d, Malice in Wonderland, Young Toscanini, Sweet Bird of Youth, These Old Broads

She was Shakespeare’s Katharina, Christopher Marlowe’s Helen of Troy, Louisa May Alcot’s Amy March, Carson McCullers’ Lenora Penderton, Theodore Dreiser’s Angela Vickers, Dylan Thomas’ Rosie Probert, Agatha Christie’s Marina Rudd, Carrie Fisher’s Beryl Mason [playing a character Debbie Reynolds’ character does not like because they fought over a man a long time ago], Tennessee Williams’ Maggie Pollitt, Tennessee Williams’ Catherine Holly, Tennessee Williams’ Alexandra Del Lago, Rebecca in Ivanhoe, Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Velvet Brown, Kay Banks, Leslie Benedict, Gloria Wandroud, Jimmie Jackson, Louella Parsons, Cleopatra, Maggie Simpson.

She was directed by Vincente Minnelli 3 times, George Stevens 3 times, Richard Brooks 3 times, Mervyn LeRoy twice, Joseph Mankiewicz twice, Michael Curtiz, Stanley Donen, Mike Nichols, John Huston, George Cukor.

She starred with Orson Welles, William Powell, Spencer Tracy, Margaret O’Brien, Joan Fontaine, Irene Dunne, Mickey Rooney, Jane Powell, Walter Pidgeon, Greer Garson, Robert Taylor, Montgomery Clift, Stewart Granger, Ava Gardner, Katherine Hepburn, Marlon Brando, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, Burt Lancaster, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Paul Newman, Rex Harrison, Peter O’Toole, Peter Ustinov, Alec Guinness, Roddy McDowell, Anthony Hopkins, Shirley MacLaine, Jane Fonda, Warren Beatty, Michael Caine, Angela Lansbury, Debbie Reynolds and more often than not Richard Burton.

Tainted Love

While partying, drinking, eating, singing I met up with a friend whom I used to date more than 2 years and 9 months ago. Not that I am keeping count. He was also partying, drinking, eating, singing. His group of partiers, drinkers, eaters, singers met up with my group of partiers, drinkers, eaters, singers and we all partied, drank, ate, sang together. The thing about life is that one thing almost always leads to another and so it did. I don’t want to get into any details but evil, sinful fornication was involved. Dirty, hot, sweaty, evil, sinful fornication. Body parts were aroused and put inside of each other. Repeatedly. Orgasms were contracted by all and fluids from some aroused body parts were thrust into other aroused body parts.

You think love is to pray
But I’m sorry
I don’t pray that way

Ed Cobb

Cook of the House

I grew up in a country with Wimpys and Steers. Junk food is nothing new to me. But it was not something we ate in my family. We spent more time digging in the garden and cooking what we dug up in the kitchen than waiting in the drive thru and sitting on the sofa in front of the TV. I grew up in a time and place where most dinners were cooked at home and eaten as a family. Most people saw junk food as an occasional snack. Today there are millions of people who eat nothing but fast food and frozen dinners.



A wholesome dinner like mother used to thaw.


This is a real thing.


All the essential food groups. Vegetable group [French fries], dairy group [chocolate milk, artificial cheese product], unidentifiable group [hot dog], bread group [hot dog bun], chili group.


The ketchup counts as a vegetable.
If a school fed this to my child I would alert the police.


What American school children call mystery meat.


At least there is corn.

Shaking the Tree

Most countries give preference to educating boys over girls. Sons are far more likely to inherit money, property, titles, power than daughters. Men are the head of the household while women are in charge of cleaning it. Women are far more likely to be victims of domestic violence than men. Too many countries still allow ritual genital mutilation of girls where the clitoris and/or labia are cut out. I know of no country in the world where it is acceptable for boys to have their penises cut off.

Most sexual assaults are by men against women. Men can be raped but it is either very rare or rarely reported. Probably both. Most women who are raped will not report it either. We have a very strange sense of shame on this planet. I think the attacker should be the one who gets all the shame, regardless of his gender or the gender of whomever he attacked.

If you live in a country where something like International Women’s Day is obsolete, as I do, then you are lucky. Most of the women on this planet do not.

My Second First Shidduch Date

Photoshop these two into one and that is Aram.

After our walk and talk we left the park and had an early supper. All went well and I told the shadchan that I am up for another date. I want to be optimistic about it all but I’m too old and too experienced not to be realistic. Could he be my bashert? I have no earthly idea. It seems unlikely. China is nice but it was only a few years of our lives. And I will stop feeling guilty about the car accident as soon as he does something stupid or pisses me off. Or next week. Whichever comes first. It is not like it was my fault.

My First Shidduch Date

I was told before the date that Aram is 38 years old, an urban planner, never married, no children of course. That is how I was told. “No children, of course.” I resisted the urge to point out that you can have children without ever being married. I had a vague idea of what an urban planner does but I’m no expert on the subject. At least we would have something to talk about for a few minutes. I’ve never met a man who does not want to educate people about what his job is really like as opposed to what people think it is like.

I was very specifically not told what Aram looks like. This is usually an enormous warning sign. But the shadchan explained that God wants us to merely look upon outward appearance as decoration. That is an even bigger warning. This guy must be ass to mouth ugly. But then I realised that the shadchan probably was not telling Aram what I looked like either. He was probably only told my age, job, never married, no children of course.

And Now a Brief Interruption in the Woe is Mia Show for a Clarification

I seem to have caused some confusion with the picture caption “Swimming naked as the day is short” accompanied by a picture where I am clearly not swimming and appear to have some kind of blue thing covering my naked. This is true. I was not swimming at the exact moment that particular picture was taken. However, the obviously wet hair and all that blue watery stuff in the background should be enough to lead the viewer to assume that swimming had recently taken place. The blue thing in the bottom corner is a towel. It is indeed covering my naked. It is also drying all the watery stuff on the naked. The uncropped version looks something like this:



All three of the posted pictures are cropped because I am thinking about changing my profile picture. What I have now has been up for a while and the picture itself is several years older. I highly doubt that I shall find a husband from blogging but I might as well put up a better face shot as long as I am at the market.

I’ve no idea who did the poster behind me in the first picture. It is not mine and I cannot remember seeing anything on the print. I would guess Edward Hopper. I’m probably not naked in that picture either.

A Girl Can Get Burnt Playing with Matches

My favourite aspect of the shidduch is that I can completely avoid all the messy parts of dating. I am not very good at rejecting people. I’ve never perfected a good “that was fun but I would rather never see your face again” speech. The shidduch takes care of all that. After the first date you are supposed to tell the shadchan whether you want a second date or not. He then tells the other person. All of that when will he call me, why didn’t he call me bullshit is gone. The shadchan lets everybody know where they stand and nobody has to deal with any confrontations. I used to call it dating for cowards. The shadchan remains the intermediary until both people mutually decide that he is no longer needed. Usually a proposal soon follows since the goal of Jewish dating is marriage. Supposedly.

The Bravery of Being Out of Range

I did not want to get married for a long time. I wanted to be married but always in some distant future. I’ve thrown away several possibly rewarding relationships because they were too serious for what I wanted at the time. I wanted to experience as much of life as I could before I settled down to washing dishes and changing nappies. It took me a long time to fully realise that having a husband and children are a major life experience. And there is no law that says I can’t travel to exotic places with children or have wild uninhibited sex with a husband. It just takes more effort.


With immodest shoulders.


Swimming naked as the day is short.


I would marry me.

Long Time Gone

I am flying the Sikorsky S-70, what the Americans call black hawk and we call yanshuf, best known for going down in a Ridley Scott movie. Fortunately I am a better pilot than Ewan McGregor. I went from the Education and Youth Corps under a ta’al to the Helicopter Air Group under an aluf. That the current branch is led by a higher rank should tell you something about what the people in charge think of my former department.


© Columbia Pictures

New Year’s Resolution

But this year I’m making a resolution. I will meet my future husband. Not necessarily get married. I know that it takes time to develop real relationships. It is unlikely that I will meet somebody tomorrow and be ready to marry by the end of the year. Especially with my schedule. And I’ve reason to believe that my sister might get married this year. I don’t want to take anything away from her. I have no tangible evidence to back up my claim. It is more a suspicion than anything else. But I am willing to put money on it. Any takers?

新年快樂

Before the festival begins, houses are supposed to be cleaned and doorways are decorated with red phrases and poems. Red is the luckiest color and symbolizes good fortune and happiness. During the festival, red envelopes with money are given to younger family members. It is supposed to be money for suppressing the evil spirits but it usually ends up spent at 7-11. The amount of money given in the red envelopes should be lucky. Odd numbers are bad. Even numbers are good. Except four. Four is very unlucky because 四 [four] sounds like 死 [death]. Children will literally beg for these red envelopes and it is unlucky for the parents, aunts, uncles to say no.

Walk Like an Egyptian

There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it; always.

Mahatma Gandhi

God Hates Sailors

Statement of Principles on the Place of Jews with a Homosexual Orientation in Our Community

We, the undersigned Orthodox rabbis, rashei yeshiva, ramim, Jewish educators and communal leaders affirm the following principles with regard to the place of Jews with a homosexual orientation in our community:

1. All human beings are created in the image of God and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect (kevod haberiyot). Every Jew is obligated to fulfill the entire range of mitzvot between person and person in relation to persons who are homosexual or have feelings of same sex attraction. Embarrassing, harassing or demeaning someone with a homosexual orientation or same-sex attraction is a violation of Torah prohibitions that embody the deepest values of Judaism.

2. The question of whether sexual orientation is primarily genetic, or rather environmentally generated, is irrelevant to our obligation to treat human beings with same-sex attractions and orientations with dignity and respect.

3. Halakhah sees heterosexual marriage as the ideal model and sole legitimate outlet for human sexual expression. The sensitivity and understanding we properly express for human beings with other sexual orientations does not diminish our commitment to that principle.

4. Halakhic Judaism views all male and female same-sex sexual interactions as prohibited. The question of whether sexual orientation is primarily genetic, or rather environmentally generated, is irrelevant to this prohibition. While halakha categorizes various homosexual acts with different degrees of severity and opprobrium, including toeivah, this does not in any way imply that lesser acts are permitted. But it is critical to emphasize that halakha only prohibits homosexual acts; it does not prohibit orientation or feelings of same-sex attraction, and nothing in the Torah devalues the human beings who struggle with them.

5. Whatever the origin or cause of homosexual orientation, many individuals believe that for most people this orientation cannot be changed. Others believe that for most people it is a matter of free will. Similarly, while some mental health professionals and rabbis in the community strongly believe in the efficacy of “change therapies”, most of the mental health community, many rabbis, and most people with a homosexual orientation feel that some of these therapies are either ineffective or potentially damaging psychologically for many patients.

We affirm the religious right of those with a homosexual orientation to reject therapeutic approaches they reasonably see as useless or dangerous.

6. Jews with a homosexual orientation who live in the Orthodox community confront serious emotional, communal and psychological challenges that cause them and their families great pain and suffering. For example, homosexual orientation may greatly increase the risk of suicide among teenagers in our community. Rabbis and communities need to be sensitive and empathetic to that reality. Rabbis and mental health professionals must provide responsible and ethical assistance to congregants and clients dealing with those human challenges.

7. Jews struggling to live their lives in accordance with halakhic values need and deserve our support. Accordingly, we believe that the decision as to whether to be open about one's sexual orientation should be left to such individuals, who should consider their own needs and those of the community. We are opposed on ethical and moral grounds to both the “outing” of individuals who want to remain private and to coercing those who desire to be open about their orientation to keep it hidden.

8. Accordingly, Jews with homosexual orientations or same sex-attractions should be welcomed as full members of the synagogue and school community. As appropriate with regard to gender and lineage, they should participate and count ritually, be eligible for ritual synagogue honors, and generally be treated in the same fashion and under the same halakhic and hashkafic framework as any other member of the synagogue they join. Conversely, they must accept and fulfill all the responsibilities of such membership, including those generated by communal norms or broad Jewish principles that go beyond formal halakha.

We do not here address what synagogues should do about accepting members who are openly practicing homosexuals and/or living with a same-sex partner. Each synagogue together with its rabbi must establish its own standard with regard to membership for open violators of halakha. Those standards should be applied fairly and objectively.

9. Halakha articulates very exacting criteria and standards of eligibility for particular religious offices, such as officially appointed cantor during the year or baal tefillah on the High Holidays. Among the most important of those criteria is that the entire congregation must be fully comfortable with having that person serve as its representative. This legitimately prevents even the most admirable individuals, who are otherwise perfectly fit halakhically, from serving in those roles. It is the responsibility of the lay and rabbinic leadership in each individual community to determine eligibility for those offices in line with those principles, the importance of maintaining communal harmony, and the unique context of its community culture.

10. Jews with a homosexual orientation or same sex attraction, even if they engage in same sex interactions, should be encouraged to fulfill mitzvot to the best of their ability. All Jews are challenged to fulfill mitzvot to the best of their ability, and the attitude of “all or nothing” was not the traditional approach adopted by the majority of halakhic thinkers and poskim throughout the ages.

11. Halakhic Judaism cannot give its blessing and imprimatur to Jewish religious same-sex commitment ceremonies and weddings, and halakhic values proscribe individuals and communities from encouraging practices that grant religious legitimacy to gay marriage and couplehood. But communities should display sensitivity, acceptance and full embrace of the adopted or biological children of homosexually active Jews in the synagogue and school setting, and we encourage parents and family of homosexually partnered Jews to make every effort to maintain harmonious family relations and connections.

12. Jews who have an exclusively homosexual orientation should, under most circumstances, not be encouraged to marry someone of the other gender, as this can lead to great tragedy, unrequited love, shame, dishonesty and ruined lives. They should be directed to contribute to Jewish and general society in other meaningful ways. Any such person who is planning to marry someone of the opposite gender is halakhically and ethically required to fully inform his or her potential spouse of their sexual orientation.

We hope and pray that by sharing these thoughts we will help the Orthodox community to fully live out its commitment to the principles and values of Torah and Halakha as practiced and cherished by the children of Abraham, who our sages teach us are recognized by the qualities of being merciful, modest, and engaging in acts of loving kindness.

Rabbi Nathaniel Helfgot
Chair, Departments of Bible and Jewish Thought at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, New York
Rabbinical Council of America

Rabbi Aryeh Klapper
Dean, Center for Modern Torah Leadership, Boston

Rabbi Yitzchak Blau
Rosh Kollel, Yeshivat Shvilei Hatorah, Jerusalem

Blast From My Past

Aside from all the pictures and masturbation, but not necessarily pictures of masturbation, it is very interesting to read what I had to say years ago. To me at least. Even reading these old posts from this blog is more interesting than anything I have posted lately. I wish there was some way to read all those old chat room conversations from university. It is also a great way to remember little stories I forgot about. It is like looking at a photo album. Not those folders on your computer. Back in the last century we had these big books filled with pictures. No electronics required. Does that show how old I am?

Another Decade Over and a New One Just Begun

2001
Zhang Xueliang (100), Anne Morrow Lindbergh (94), Balthus (92), Stanley Kramer (87). Laurent-Désiré Kabila (61), King Birendra of Nepal (55), Queen Aiswarya (51) were all assassinated. Prince Dipendra (29) killed himself after murdering his family. Sabiha Gökçen (88) and Douglas Adams (49) had heart attacks. Aaliyah (22) died in a plane crash.

Anthony Quinn (86), Harry Secombe (79), Jack Lemmon (76), Poul Anderson (74), Donald Woods (67), George Harrison (58), Joey Ramone (49) all died of cancer.

2002
Margaret Booth (104), Billy Wilder (95), Stanley Unwin (90). Spike Milligan (83) liver failure, George Roy Hill (81) Parkinson’s disease, Ian MacNaughton (76) car accident, John Frankenheimer (74) stroke, Dudley Moore (66) progressive supranuclear palsy, Linda Lovelace (53) car accident, Nozomi Momoi (24), stabbed and immolated. Chuck Jones (89), Antonio Margheriti (72), Lonnie Donegan (71), Erachaim ben Eliyahu (59), John Entwistle (57) all had heart attacks.

Milton Berle (93), Thor Heyerdahl (87), Rosemary Clooney (74), Richard Harris (72), Stephen Jay Gould (60) all died of cancer.

2003
Bob Hope (100), Katharine Hepburn (96), Elia Kazan (94), Wendy Hiller (91), Gregory Peck (87), Art Carney (85). Leon Uris (78) and Idi Amin (78) died of kidney failure, Noel Redding (57) liver failure, Maurice Gibb (53) bowel obstruction, Howie Epstein (47) drug overdose, Carlo Urbani, the doctor who discovered SARS (46) SARS, Elliott Smith (34) stabbed, Rachel Corrie (23) crushed by a bulldozer, Dolly (6) euthanized. John Schlesinger (77) and Michael Kamen (55) had heart attacks.

Leni Riefenstahl (101), Hume Cronyn (91), Conrad Hall (76), Alan Bates (69), Gregory Hines (57) all died of cancer.

Colonel Rick Husband (45), Commander William McCool (41), Lt Colonel Michael Anderson (43), Lt Ilan Ramon (48), Captain David Brown (46), Captain Laurel Clark (41), Kalpana Chawla (40) exploded on American space shuttle Columbia.

2004
Fay Wray (96), Donald Trumbull (95), Henri Cartier-Bresson (95), Ronald Reagan (93), Julia Child (91), Uta Hagen (84). Robert Lees (91) decapitated, William Manchester (82) stroke, Peter Ustinov (82) heart attack, Marlon Brando (80) heart attack from pulmonary fibrosis and cancer, Janet Leigh (77) vasculitis and peripheral neuropathy, Hans Gmür (77) surgical complications, Yasser Arafat (75) liver failure, Spalding Gray (62) suicide, Christopher Reeve (52) heart failure from septicemia, Neal Fredericks (35) drowned in plane crash while filming.

Elmer Bernstein (82), Jerry Goldsmith (75), Naomi Shemer (73), Ray Charles (73), Jerry Orbach (69), Johnny Ramone (55) all died of cancer.

2005
Simon Wiesenthal (96), Efraim Reuytenberg (91), Geraldine Fitzgerald (91), Saul Bellow (89), Ernest Lehman (89). Peter Malkin (77) stroke, Ismail Merchant (68) surgical complications, Hunter S Thompson (67) suicide. Robert Wise (91), Arthur Miller (89), Karol Wojtyła (John Paul II) (84), Dalene Matthee (67), Richard Pryor (65) all had heart attacks.

Anne Bancroft (73), Bob Denver (70), Cyril K Harris (68), Debra Hill (54) all died of cancer.

2006
Gerald Ford (93), Augusto Pinochet (91), Glenn Ford (90), Pieter Willem Botha (90), Richard Fleischer (89), Betty Friedan (85), Shoshana Damari (82). Maureen Stapleton (80) obstructive pulmonary disease, Saddam Hussein (69) hanged. Jeane Kirkpatrick (80), James Brown (73), Slobodan Milošević (64) all had heart attacks.

Robert Altman (81), Peter Boyle (71), Masumi Okada (70), Syd Barrett (60) all died of cancer.

2007
Michelangelo Antonioni (94), Avraham Shapira (93), Ingmar Bergman (89), Kurt Waldheim (88), Fernando Fernán Gómez (86), Norman Mailer (84), Marcel Marceau (84), László Kovács (74). Deborah Kerr (86) Parkinson’s disease, Kurt Vonnegut (84) brain injuries from a fall, Benazir Bhutto (54) assassinated.

Luciano Pavarotti (71), Michael Brecker (57), Dan Fogelberg (56) died of cancer.

2008
Richard Widmark (93), Kon Ichikawa (92), Jerry Wexler (91), Arthur C Clarke (90), Mel Ferrer (90), Edmund Hillary (88), Suharto (86), Cyd Charisse (86), Charlton Heston (84). Isaac Hayes (65) stroke, Bobby Fischer (64) kidney failure. Miriam Makeba (76) and George Carlin (71) had heart attacks.

Paul Newman (83), Harold Pinter (78), Sydney Pollack (73), Neil Aspinall (66), Michael Crichton (66), Dith Pran (65), Richard Wright (65), Stan Winston (62), Anthony Minghella (54), Jeff Healey (41) all died of cancer.

2009
Karl Malden (97), Jack Cardiff (94), Les Paul (94), Walter Cronkite (92), Helen Suzman (91). Allen Klein (77) Alzheimer's disease, Claude Berri (74) stroke, David Carradine (72) autoerotic asphyxiation, John Hughes (59) heart attack, Marilyn Chambers (56) cerebral hemorrhage, Michael Jackson (50) drug overdose, Natasha Richardson (45) skiing accident, Brittany Murphy (32) pneumonia and anaemia.

James Whitmore (87), Bea Arthur (86), Ted Kennedy (77), John Updike (76), Corazon Aquino (76), Dom DeLuise (75), Farrah Fawcett (62), Ron Silver (62), Patrick Swayze (57) all died of cancer.

2010
Hizkiah ben Nachum (93), Lena Horne (92), JD Salinger (91), Dino De Laurentiis (91), Éric Rohmer (89), Luis García Berlanga (89), Arthur Penn (88), Blake Edwards (88). Tony Curtis (85) heart attack, Claude Chabrol (80) anaemia, Qian Yunhui (53) crushed by a truck.

Patricia Neal (84), Jean Simmons (80), Dennis Hopper (74), Lynn Redgrave (67), Jamie Gillis (66) all died of cancer.

Progress

A man wakes up from a coma after 20 years.

Coma Man: So what’s changed in the last 20 years? What wondrous marvels are there for me to discover?
Doctor: Oh, you won’t believe it.
Coma Man: Are there flying cars?
Doctor: No.
Coma Man: Cars that run on water or air?
Doctor: No.
Coma Man: How about anything besides oil?
Doctor: No.
Coma Man: Have we cured cancer?
Doctor: No.
Coma Man: Alzheimer’s? Parkinson’s? Heart disease?
Doctor: No, no and no.
Coma Man: Is there peace on Earth?
Doctor: (Laughs) No.
Coma Man: Is the global environment better?
Doctor: Worse, actually.
Coma Man: Is the global economy better?
Doctor: Worse, actually.
Coma Man: Have we eradicated poverty?
Doctor: No.
Coma Man: How about racism?
Doctor: No.
Coma Man: Have we put a man on Mars?
Doctor: No.
Coma Man: Do we have stations on the moon?
Doctor: No.
Coma Man: Can we time travel?
Doctor: No.
Coma Man: Do people have robot servants?
Doctor: No.
Coma Man: Clones?
Doctor: No.
Coma Man: So what’s changed?
Doctor: There’s a website where you can tell everybody what you’re doing in 140 characters or less.

Mia’s Annual Christmas Message

Hanukkah has been around a lot longer and is observed by a lot more people but it is not nearly as important as Christmas. It is a minor festival. We light candles, say prayers, go about our business. There is no reason to artificially inflate its importance just because it is usually at around the same time as Christmas. Our most important days are usually around September or October. It is ok if you don’t know what they are. We do not need everybody to go crazy over them.

Profiles in Courage

American airports can have very long lines at the check in counter. If you want to kill Americans gathered in large groups then this would be a good target. The queues in Israel are spread out and staggered. It seems like nobody has to wait in a long line. And when you check in you are asked simple questions. They also do this at American airports. The difference is that the Israeli agents are actually paying attention to what you say and how you say it.

All luggage in Israel is scanned at the check in counter in a screening area that can withstand a large blast. There are also metal boxes that can house bombs if necessary and a decompression chamber. If something suspicious is found it is dealt with immediately. If something suspicious is found at an American check in counter they will evacuate the entire airport and wait for the bomb squad.

Imagine No Imagination

My parents enjoyed talking to their children. We were not seen as a distraction. But I’m sure we were more than annoying from time to time. There was a period of what seemed like forever when Ellie and Dara did nothing but argue. Dara’s voice especially could get very high when agitated. When I was old enough they would gang up on me. But from what I remember I always held my own. I was born with the ability to laugh at people who tried to insult me. This is almost never the reaction people hope for. Eventually Ria and I reached the stage where we argued a lot but our arguments were always silent so they never had any effect on whoever was driving.

How to Build a Mediocre News Outlet

[Picture © Yoko Ono]

A woman who once interviewed John inflated her own importance. She also said that the interview took place just minutes before he died, which goes against everything we know about his last day. And they played a snippet of the interview where John said that he will be turning 40 soon and Sean will be 5, future tense. John and Sean were both born on 9 October. If the interview took place on 8 December then they would already be 40 and 5, present tense. John may not have been the most educated person in the world but he knew English well enough to properly use verb tenses. Either the interviewer is full of kak or CNN played the wrong interview.

My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.
John Lennon

Haifa Fire

All is well here.

I’ll say more about it later as time permits.

How to Make a List

Kylie posted a list from the BBC of books they think everybody should read. They also claim that most people have only read 6. That seems a little pretentious to me but that’s the BBC for you. The list is also very anglocentric.

BBC List
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma -Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo



I prefer this list. It’s far more international and has more great literature than pop trends. They also don’t number it because only somebody with serious problems would put Da Vinci Code above Hamlet.

Norwegian Book Club’s 100 Best Books of All Time
Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
Fairy tales – Hans Christian Andersen
Epic of Gilgamesh – Anonymous
Book of Job – Anonymous
Mahabharata – Vyasa
Njal's Saga – Anonymous
One Thousand and One Nights – Anonymous
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
Le Père Goriot – Honoré de Balzac
Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, a trilogy – Samuel Beckett
The Decameron – Giovanni Boccaccio
Ficciones – Jorge Luis Borges
Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
The Stranger – Albert Camus
Poems – Paul Celan
Journey to the End of the Night – Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes
The Canterbury Tales – Geoffrey Chaucer
Stories – Anton Chekhov
Nostromo – Joseph Conrad
Divine Comedy – Dante Alighieri
Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
Jacques the Fatalist – Denis Diderot
Berlin Alexanderplatz – Alfred Döblin
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Possessed – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Middlemarch – George Eliot
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
Medea – Euripides
Absalom, Absalom! – William Faulkner
The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
Sentimental Education – Gustave Flaubert
Gypsy Ballads – Federico García Lorca
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel García Márquez
Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel García Márquez
Goethe's Faust – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Dead Souls – Nikolai Gogol
The Tin Drum – Günter Grass
The Devil to Pay in the Backlands – João Guimarães Rosa
Hunger – Knut Hamsun
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
Iliad – Homer
Odyssey – Homer
A Doll's House – Henrik Ibsen
Ulysses – James Joyce
Stories – Franz Kafka
The Trial – Franz Kafka
The Castle – Franz Kafka
Shakuntala – Kālidāsa
The Sound of the Mountain – Yasunari Kawabata
Zorba the Greek – Nikos Kazantzakis
Sons and Lovers – D. H. Lawrence
Independent People – Halldór Laxness
Poems – Giacomo Leopardi
The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing
Pippi Longstocking – Astrid Lindgren
A Madman's Diary – Lu Xun
Children of Gebelawi – Naguib Mahfouz
Buddenbrooks – Thomas Mann
The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann
Moby-Dick – Herman Melville
Essays – Michel de Montaigne
History – Elsa Morante
Beloved – Toni Morrison
The Tale of Genji – Murasaki Shikibu
The Man Without Qualities – Robert Musil
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
Metamorphoses – Ovid
The Book of Disquiet – Fernando Pessoa
Tales – Edgar Allan Poe
Remembrance of Things Past – Marcel Proust
The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel – François Rabelais
Pedro Páramo – Juan Rulfo
Masnavi – Rumi
Midnight's Children – Salman Rushdie
Bostan – Saadi
Season of Migration to the North – Tayeb Salih
Blindness – José Saramago
Hamlet – William Shakespeare
King Lear – William Shakespeare
Othello – William Shakespeare
Oedipus the King – Sophocles
The Red and the Black – Stendhal
Tristram Shandy – Laurence Sterne
Confessions of Zeno – Italo Svevo
Gulliver's Travels – Jonathan Swift
War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
Ramayana – Valmiki
Aeneid – Virgil
Leaves of Grass – Walt Whitman
Mrs Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
Memoirs of Hadrian – Marguerite Yourcenar



Then there is this list. Very French but it has some great books that the BBC thinks are worse than the Da Vinci Code.

Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
1 The Stranger – Albert Camus
2 Remembrance of Things Past – Marcel Proust
3 The Trial – Franz Kafka
4 The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
5 Man’s Fate – André Malraux
6 Journey to the End of the Night – Louis-Ferdinand Céline
7 The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
8 For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
9 Le Grand Meaulnes – Alain-Fournier
10 Froth on the Daydream – Boris Vian
11 The Second Sex – Simone de Beauvoir
12 Waiting for Godot – Samuel Beckett
13 Being and Nothingness – Jean-Paul Sartre
14 The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
15 The Gulag Archipelago – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
16 Paroles – Jacques Prévert
17 Alcools – Guillaume Apollinaire
18 The Blue Lotus – Hergé
19 The Diary of a Young Girl – Anne Frank
20 Tristes Tropiques – Claude Lévi-Strauss
21 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
22 Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
23 Asterix the Gaul – René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo
24 The Bald Soprano – Eugène Ionesco
25 Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality – Sigmund Freud
26 The Abyss – Marguerite Yourcenar
27 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
28 Ulysses – James Joyce
29 The Tartar Steppe – Dino Buzzati
30 The Counterfeiters – André Gide
31 The Horseman on the Roof – Jean Giono
32 Belle du Seigneur – Albert Cohen
33 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel García Márquez
34 The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
35 Thérèse Desqueyroux – François Mauriac
36 Zazie in the Metro – Raymond Queneau
37 Confusion of Feelings – Stefan Zweig
38 Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
39 Lady Chatterley's Lover – D. H. Lawrence
40 The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann
41 Bonjour Tristesse – Françoise Sagan
42 Le Silence de la mer – Vercors
43 Life: A User's Manual – Georges Perec
44 The Hound of the Baskervilles – Arthur Conan Doyle
45 Under the Sun of Satan – Georges Bernanos
46 The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
47 The Joke – Milan Kundera
48 A Ghost at Noon – Alberto Moravia
49 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie
50 Nadja – André Breton
51 Aurélien – Louis Aragon
52 The Satin Slipper – Paul Claudel
53 Six Characters in Search of an Author – Luigi Pirandello
54 The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui – Bertolt Brecht
55 Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique – Michel Tournier
56 The War of the Worlds – H. G. Wells
57 If This Is a Man – Primo Levi
58 The Lord of the Rings – J. R. R. Tolkien
59 Les Vrilles de la vigne – Colette
60 Capitale de la douleur – Paul Éluard
61 Martin Eden – Jack London
62 Ballad of the Salt Sea – Hugo Pratt
63 Writing Degree Zero – Roland Barthes
64 The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum – Heinrich Böll
65 The Opposing Shore – Julien Gracq
66 The Order of Things – Michel Foucault
67 On the Road – Jack Kerouac
68 The Wonderful Adventures of Nils – Selma Lagerlöf
69 A Room of One's Own – Virginia Woolf
70 The Martian Chronicles – Ray Bradbury
71 The Ravishing of Lol Stein – Marguerite Duras
72 The Interrogation – J. M. G. Le Clézio
73 Tropisms – Nathalie Sarraute
74 Journal, 1887–1910 – Jules Renard
75 Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad
76 Écrits – Jacques Lacan
77 The Theatre and its Double – Antonin Artaud
78 Manhattan Transfer – John Dos Passos
79 Ficciones – Jorge Luis Borges
80 Moravagine – Blaise Cendrars
81 The General of the Dead Army – Ismail Kadare
82 Sophie's Choice – William Styron
83 Gypsy Ballads – Federico García Lorca
84 The Strange Case of Peter the Lett – Georges Simenon
85 Our Lady of the Flowers – Jean Genet
86 The Man Without Qualities – Robert Musil
87 Fureur et mystère – René Char
88 The Catcher in the Rye – J. D. Salinger
89 No Orchids For Miss Blandish – James Hadley Chase
90 Blake and Mortimer – Edgar P. Jacobs
91 The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge – Rainer Maria Rilke
92 Second Thoughts – Michel Butor
93 The Origins of Totalitarianism – Hannah Arendt
94 The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
95 The Rosy Crucifixion – Henry Miller
96 The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
97 Amers – Saint-John Perse
98 Gaston – André Franquin
99 Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry
100 Midnight's Children – Salman Rushdie

The Degeneration of Toon Town

[All pictures copyright somebody]

It’s Gedding Bedder All thuh Time

All of my classes at university were in English. Though I had an Indian professor who was sometimes difficult to understand. English is the official language of California. Xenophobes say that most people in California speak Spanish but it is really something like 25%. English is the de facto language of the US. They have no official language though xenophobes will tell you that it is English. They also claim again that most people speak Spanish but it is closer to 10%. I am not sure what they have against the “Mexicans”. Anybody from anywhere south of the US is Mexican apparently.

What the World Should Know About Israel

The convoluted answer is that Israel is the big bad guy while Palestine is oppressed. If that is true then why don’t I ever see complaints against Jordan, Syria, Egypt and other countries that are oppressing Palestine? Why are there no protests against Egypt’s blockade against Gaza? Or even Palestine’s blockade against Gaza? If a blockade is a great humanitarian catastrophe, why is it not a catastrophe when other countries do it?

The International Community has complained many times that Israel has troops in Palestine but they have never complained that the Arab League will not let Palestine control itself. Iran and Syria have had troops in Lebanon and Palestine for decades. Why is that not on the BBC?

And even if the talking points were accurate it would not explain why Israel gets more coverage than China, Russia, Britain, Spain or other countries that oppress smaller neighbouring territories. In what parallel universe is Israel a bigger human rights violator than China?