Year Six; Issue 40
1. Actions
2. Copenhagen: The Debates inside
3. Copenhagen: The Demos Outside
4. Pressure on Israel Increases
5. Stuck in Afghanistan
6. The Politics of the Internet
7. The Speed of Travel
8. The Unnatural World
9. Eyecandy: The Natural World
10. Quote of the Week
1. Actions
* Avaaz: This weekend will see one of the largest global climate actions in history. Thousands of towns and cities will light up with climate vigils with one united message -- The World Wants a Real Deal! In just a few days we have created over 3000 events in 110 countries! Click to find if there’s a event near you, or how to host one.
2. Copenhagen: The Debates Inside
Context: As the debates go on this coming week and the details change too fast to note, Tikkunista! looks at the overview. Proof there is Climate Change, arguments against the deniers, why “cap and trade” won’t work, and the big question at the end of every meal: who’s going to pick up the bill?
* Top Ten Questions about Climate Change Juan Cole Informed Comment
Is the earth’s climate warming? Indisputably. Has the pumping of vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by human beings since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution contributed to global climate change? Also, indisputably.
* Seven Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense Scientific American
What follows is only a partial list of the contrarians’ bad arguments and some brief rebuttals of them.
* Cap and Trade Scam
Two EPA lawyers with more than 40 years of cumulative experience say... that cap and trade for climate is a scam which only benefits the financial players....Cap and trade was tried in Europe, but ended up raising energy prices, creating volatility, produced few greenhouse gas reductions, but made billions for the financial players....Carbon offsets - which are part of the cap and trade plan - increase pollution
Open Borders for Climate Refugees Guardian
Up to 20 million Bangladeshis may be forced to leave the country in the next 40 years because of climate change, one of the country’s most senior politicians has said. Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, Bangladesh’s finance minister, called on Britain and other wealthy countries to accept millions of displaced people.
In a clear signal to the US and Europe that developing countries are not prepared to accept a weak deal at next week’s Copenhagen climate summit, Abdul Muhith said Bangladesh wanted hosts for managed migration as people began to abandon flooded and storm-damaged coastal areas.
“Twenty million people could be displaced [in Bangladesh] by the middle of the century,” Abdul Muhith told the Guardian. “We are asking all our development partners to honour the natural right of persons to migrate. We can’t accommodate all these people – this is already the densest [populated] country in the world,” he said.
3. Copenhagen: The Demos Outside
Context: "Nothing important ever happens unless someone is willing to kill somebody if it does not happen." - George Bernard Shaw. There are a lot of people outside the locked rooms of Copenhagen who want important things to happen. An opening look at the actions they’re doing to encourage that.
* Pushing for Leadership rabble.ca
“Politicians talk, leaders act” read the sign outside the Bella Center in Copenhagen on the opening day of the United Nations climate summit. Inside the convention centre, the official delegations from 192 countries, hundreds of NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) -- an estimated 15,000 people in all -- are engaging in two weeks of meetings aiming for a global agreement to stave off catastrophic global climate change. Five thousand journalists are covering the event.
Outside, Copenhagen has been transformed into a vibrant, global hub of climate-change activism, forums and protest planning. In one square, an ice sculpture of a polar bear melts day by day, and an open-air exhibit of towering photos displays “100 places to remember that will disappear.
* Escalating Protests
Echoing the words of Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed (We will not die quietly!) and the African negotiator Ambassador Lumumba, (No to climate colonialism!) hundreds of youth created a loud and energetic “climate storm” today inside the Copenhagen climate talks at the UN. It was the largest demonstration at COP15 yet -- and was just a taste of the storm to come. Youth from every continent clapped, snapped, and pounded their feet to make the sounds of a rainstorm in a representation of the typhoons and hurricanes that have ravaged communities around the world this year.
* “We’re Very Lucky it was Just Greenpeace”
The security of Parliament Hill was called into question Monday as 19 Greenpeace activists pulled off an audacious stunt that one senior Liberal senator called “hugely embarrassing” for the government. The activists, wearing blue coveralls, climbing harnesses and hardhats, made it to the roofs of both West Block and Centre Block and unfurled protest banners in a high-wire demonstration designed to grab the attention of federal politicians on the opening day of the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen....“We’re very lucky it was just Greenpeace,” [Colin Kenny] said. “If there were 19 people arriving with AK-47s, you could have a hell of a mess on your hands.”
* Dying To Protest Climate Change (Thanks, Elizabeth!)
4. Pressure on Israel Increases
Context: Whether one celebrates it or mourns it, one can’t deny that the pressure on Israel is building. The EU comes out in favour of a divided Jerusalem, Ali Abunimah, makes a major speech on how BDS works to increase non-violent pressure on Israel, and the Council of Foreign Relations questions US support for Israel.
* EU Backs Jerusalem as Joint Capital Al Jazeera
European Union foreign ministers have agreed that Jerusalem should be the capital of both Israel and a future Palestinian state following two days of talks in Brussels....The text talks of a “contiguous” as well as viable Palestinian state, something which would require the inclusion of part of Jerusalem, and also states that the EU “has never recognised the annexation of East Jerusalem”.
* Brussels & Jerusalem Bernard Avishai
Today, European foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels to consider a Swedish draft document, recognizing, among other things, East Jerusalem as the future capital of a Palestinian state and promising to recognize such a state in advance, based on the 1967 borders, unless changes are agreed to by both sides. The document adopts, in effect, the lines of the Clinton parameters, and seeks to advance an international consensus regarding the outline of a final deal.
Enough is enough, the document seems to be saying: a new round of negotiation would be fine, but old rounds have produced plenty to work with. The deal is not so mysterious; the problem, now that the Fayyad government has reasonably stabilized Palestine’s security and economy, is to force Israelis to face down its ersatz Judeans while they still can; to get Israelis used to the idea that Jerusalem is not just an Israeli city, Palestine is not just Israel’s internal problem, and that down the road is diplomatic isolation and possibly economic sanctions. When you consider that more than a third of Israel’s exports (and a higher proportion of high technology exports) go to Europe, the idea that the EU has no leverage here is increasingly preposterous.
* Forcing Israeli Change Ali Abunimah (who’s he?) Mondoweiss
As long as whites felt immune to the effects of apartheid, as long as they could get away with it, they had no incentive to read the Freedom Charter, and they could demonize Africans as much as they wanted and say these people are barbarians, and if we were to let them get their hands on the levers of power they would slaughter us in our beds, whites would be thrown into the sea. It was costless for them to say that. Once internal resistance and international solidarity in the form of boycott, divestment, and sanctions raised the cost of the status quo for the apartheid regime and those who benefited from it, then they said, OK, let’s talk, let’s hear what you have to say, what your vision is for the future of South Africa. So BDS created the conditions for dialogue and ultimately for the end to the conflict that were impossible as long as that balance of power was unchallenged.
I would argue that we are beginning to see, I don’t think it’s yet at full speed, but we’re beginning to see a similar loss of legitimacy for Zionism and for the practices that Israel has engaged in. And many Israelis worry about this very openly. I am convinced that the loss of legitimacy of the Zionist idea, of the idea of a special state for a special people, is irreversible, that that cannot be resurrected in the 21st century, a time when we at least preach if not practice universal rights and equality. Israel’s self image as a liberal Jewish and democratic state is impossible to maintain against the reality of a militarized, ultranationalist, sectarian Jewish settler colony that has to carry out regular massacres of indigenous civilians in order to maintain its control. Zionism simply cannot bomb, kidnap, assassinate, expel, demolish, settle, and lie its way to legitimacy and acceptance, and 62 years of Palestinian steadfastness,sumud, resistance have proven that time and again.
* What the US Elite Thinks About Israel counterpunch
The Council on Foreign Relations is always near the top of the Left’s list of bogeymen that stand accused of pulling the strings of US foreign policy. It is right up there with the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission, right? Wrong. If that was the case, those arguing that US support for Israel is based on it being a “strategic asset” will have a hard time explaining a Pew Research Center survey on America’s Place in the World, taken of 642 CFR members between October 2 and November 16. The Pew poll not only reveals that the overwhelming majority, two-thirds of the members of this elite foreign policy institution, believes that the United States has gone overboard in favoring Israel, it doesn’t consider Israel to have have much importance to the US in the first place.
5. O’ Bama, Can This Really Be the End, to be Stuck in Afghanistan with the Escalator Blues Again?
Context: With POTUS sounding depressingly like Big Brother in Oslo (“War is Peace”), what do we say? If we persist in ignoring the lessons of history, all that’s left is dark humour, of which there are a couple of examples here.
* Afghanistan: the Roach Motel of Empires counterpunch
Afghanistan is the “roach motel”of empires. They check in, but they don’t check out. They get lured into battle, and then get bogged down in a quagmire they cannot win. British soldiers barely escaped with their lives from three colonial wars in Afghanistan, before their global empire finally collapsed.
The Russians withdrew in defeat only a few years before the Soviet Union and its Afghan allies collapsed. In 1979, President Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski had consciously lured the Soviets into invading Afghanistan by arming Islamist mujahedin fighting a pro-Soviet revolutionary government..... Two days after 9/11, Fisk published an article warning that “Retaliation is a Trap,” but few Americans listened to his prediction. After the U.S. quickly drove the Taliban from Kabul with a high-tech war, it seemed that his prediction was even ludicrous. Now, Fisk looks downright prophetic, as the Americans are blindly following the path toward eventual stalemate and defeat.
* Karzai Vows to Crack Down on Self Onion
In his first major policy speech since being sworn in for a second term, Afghan president Hamid Karzai made a solemn pledge Wednesday to combat the rampant corruption of Afghan president Hamid Karzai. “Let me be clear: I will not rest until I bring an end to my graft and backroom deal-making,” said Karzai, later adding that he will personally head up an investigation into allegations that he authorized massive voter fraud in order to secure his own victory in August’s presidential election. “The blind eye that I continue to turn to drug trafficking, embezzlement, and human rights violations will no longer be tolerated, and I will do everything in my power to finally bring myself to justice.” Karzai also announced the appointment of several relatives to a new commission that will tackle the problem of nepotism within his administration.
* Greetings To Obama Toronto Star Editorial Cartoon
6. The Politics of the Internet
Context: The net makes protests possible by allowing direct non-censored communication, as a fine article by an Iranian student points out. It makes communication networks and social networks function, as a fascinating piece about how MIT won the 12 balloon competition shows. There’s an interesting contrast between TV and the Internet (grab it, media teachers!) and a funny short film about EULAs for your friends.
* Iranian Students Route Around Censorship The Telegraph
The Iranian government may have banned foreign journalists from reporting at rallies, restricted internet access and shut down mobile networks in an attempt to block the protests. But shaky video footage of the rallies is still making its way to YouTube. The regime knows that it’s the global dimension of these protests that have sustained them. Members of the Iranian diaspora are now blogging, twittering and facebooking for the Iranian students in Iran, while Iranians are finding ways to communicate back. Even silence holds a message; I know that something’s going to happen when Iranian facebook friends stop posting online.
* Citizen Uprising Maisonneuve
Thirty-seven seconds long, it opens with the cameraphone swooping in on a man trying to stanch a young woman’s chest wound. She’s lying on her back, wearing jeans, blood streaming from her nose and mouth. In her last moments, she seems to stare straight at the viewer.
Filmed on a Tehran street on Saturday June 20, 2009, and posted to the Internet within minutes, the grisly video quickly spread from site to site. .... Back in the US, the talking head on CNN was excited. Working at breakneck speed and in run-on sentences, he realized the technology that allowed the images he was seeing—fires in the street, stones hurled at helmeted police, tear gas—was a very big deal, almost as big as the story itself.
… and we’re going to keep following these things and pretty much before I pop on air we grab things that have come on literally within seconds, grab them, put them into a format that you can see them and share them with you on air because the Twitter universe I’ll tell you, is playing an historic and amazing role in what’s been going on …
* MIT Team Wins Red Balloon Hunt
The MIT team used an elegant and rather simple means of recruiting its large nation-wide network of spotters. Every person registering with the team was given a unique link, which they could then propagate via e-mail, Web page, social network, or any other means they saw fit. New people could then click on this link and register with the MIT team, and in turn be given their own unique links with which to recruit others. The MIT database would thus know who had recruited whom.
On Saturday, a spotter managing to be first to get a correct location and balloon number to MIT came in line for a $2,000 payout from the team. The rest of the $4,000 prize money per balloon was assigned asymptotically (that is, all the money would be handed out only in the case of an infinite number of people in the chain) to the chain of people who found the spotter: $1,000 to the person who recruited the spotter him/herself, $500 to the person who recruited the recruiter, $250 to the person who recruited them, and so on until everyone in the chain was paid off. The money remaining from each $4,000, probably a small amount, will be donated to charity.
Page notes that the method is clever because it makes it worth someone’s while to join the MIT team, even though there is only a vanishingly small chance of actually finding a balloon oneself.
* Velocity of Media Consumption: TV versus The Web
| Audience |
Mass: everybody watches the same basic channels, so the programming has to be bland |
Niche: everybody seeks out their own special interests the moment they want something |
| Usability |
Turn it on |
Figure it out |
| Technology |
Weak: can't do anything except show pictures; offers no features |
Powerful: can do almost anything; offers plenty of features |
| Main access UI |
"Same time, same channel" next week |
Search and navigation |
| User experience |
Passive: sit back and let it happen the way the program director decided |
Active: lean forward and decide where you want to go at any time |
7. The Speed of Travel
Context: Three ways of symbolically showing the speed of travel: a stop action walk down Yonge Street; a stop action view of Vietnamese traffic patterns; a real time diagram of a light beam going from Earth to moon. All that in under five minutes!
* Walk Down Yonge Street boingboing
Atiev and D.J. Pataeve walked the a long length of Ontario’s Yonge Street, that originates at Lake Ontario and stretches all the way up to the Arctic Circle (depending on how you define the street), taking stop motion images all the way. It’s a really lovely bit of video.
* Nguyen Trai Street Traffic youtube
The view from my window last night. Music is “Flight of the Bumblebee” performed by Rockapella.
* From Earth to Moon Wikipedia
Scale model of the Earth and the Moon, with a beam of light travelling between them at the speed of light. It takes approximately 1.26 seconds.
8. The Unnatural World
Context: Mixed group of unnatural things in this section: wonderful surreal pictures by the talented Maggie Taylor, photoshopped sharks with human teeth, and unnatural foods that even a shark shouldn’t eat.
* Maggie Taylor (Thanks, Diana!)
* Sharks with Human Teeth
* The Six Weirdest Scariest Processed Foods alternet
9. Eyecandy: The Natural World
* Snowflakes
* Insects
* Glass Images of Flora and Fauna Dark Roasted Blend
10. Quote of the Week
“I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait 'til oil and coal run out before we tackle that.” Thomas Edison (1847–1931) (Thanks, Gabe!)
=====================================
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
The Talmud
=====================================
Year Six; Issue 39
1. Actions
2. Coping with Copenhagen
3. Bad Week for Canada
4. Swiss Go Cuckoo Over Minarets
5. Wade Davis: The Massey Lectures
6. Right Winguts
7. Over the Edge Recreation
8. Do You Know What Good Clean Fun Is?
9. Eyecandy: In and Out of the World
10. Quote of the Week
1. Actions
* Avaaz: The weekend of Saturday December 12 will be one of the largest global climate actions in history. Thousands of towns and cities will light up with climate vigils with one united message -- The World Wants a Real Deal! In just a few days we have created over 1450 vigils in 110 countries! Click to find if there’s a event near you, or how to host one.
* Sign-up now and say “Yes, I’m Writing for Rights” with Amnesty International on International Human Rights Day. You can sign-up to write on your own on December 10th, organize your own event, or join a Write for Rights event in your community.
2. Coping With Copenhagan
Context: We start with a program for you, so you’ll know who the players are, and what positions they play. Hari wishes he could believe the deniers, the world’s pre-eminent climate scientist explains why the talks MUST fail, and Naomi Klein introduces us to Climate Debt. Haven’t heard of that? You will, a lot, but we got it to you first.
* Copenhagen conference: The countries to watch (The Guardian)
America and China are the big hitters, but other nations also punch above their weight
Canada... In stark contrast to its cuddly international image, Canada is the dirty old man of the climate world – missing its Kyoto emissions reduction target by a country mile (by 2007, it was 34% above its target) and showing no signs of reigning in its profligacy.
Friends and foes Roundly criticized by developing countries for being way off the pace, now there are calls to suspend it from the Commonwealth.
* How I Wish That The Global Warming Deniers Were Right - Johann Hari, - The Independent
Every day, I pine for the global warming deniers to be proved right. I loved the old world – of flying to beaches wherever we want, growing to the skies, and burning whatever source of energy came our way. I hate the world to come that I’ve seen in my reporting from continent after continent - of falling Arctic ice shelves, of countries being swallowed by the sea, of vicious wars for the water and land that remains. When I read the works of global warming deniers like Nigel Lawson or Ian Plimer, I feel a sense of calm washing over me. The nightmare is gone; nothing has to change; the world can stay as it was.
But then I go back to the facts. However much I want them to be different, they sit there, hard and immovable....
* Why The Talks Must Fail The Guardian
The scientist who convinced the world to take notice of the looming danger of global warming says it would be better for the planet and for future generations if next week’s Copenhagen climate change summit ended in collapse. In an interview with the Guardian, James Hansen, the world’s pre-eminent climate scientist, said any agreement likely to emerge from the negotiations would be so deeply flawed that it would be better to start again from scratch.
... “The whole approach is so fundamentally wrong that it is better to reassess the situation. If it is going to be the Kyoto-type thing then [people] will spend years trying to determine exactly what that means.” He was speaking as progress towards a deal in Copenhagen received a boost today, with India revealing a target to curb its carbon emissions. All four of the major emitters – the US, China, EU and India – have now tabled offers on emissions, although the equally vexed issue of funding for developing nations to deal with global warming remains deadlocked.
* Climate Debt Naomi Klein rabble.ca
Among the smartest and most promising -- not to mention controversial -- proposals is “climate debt,” the idea that rich countries should pay reparations to poor countries for the climate crisis. In the world of climate-change activism, this marks a dramatic shift in both tone and content. American environmentalism tends to treat global warming as a force that transcends difference: We all share this fragile blue planet, so we all need to work together to save it. But the coalition of Latin American and African governments making the case for climate debt actually stresses difference, zeroing in on the cruel contrast between those who caused the climate crisis (the developed world) and those who are suffering its worst effects (the developing world). Justin Lin, chief economist at the World Bank, puts the equation bluntly: “About 75 to 80 per cent” of the damages caused by global warming “will be suffered by developing countries, although they only contribute about one-third of greenhouse gases.”
Climate debt is about who will pick up the bill.
3. A Bad Week For Canada
Context: Remember when Americans used to sew Canadian flags on their backpacks? Things Have Changed. George Monbiot cuts strips up and down Canada’s climate inaction in the most recommended piece (five submissions) Tikkunista! has ever had. Dobbin explains how the CPCCA is quietly removing free speech from the Charter of Rights; a trailer of an anti-tar sands film has horrific images of the untrue North, weak and polluted; and Fred Wilson sums it up. Some days it hardly seems worth chewing through the leather straps.
* Canada's image lies in tatters. It is now to climate what Japan is to whaling George Monbiot (Thanks, everyone)
When you think of Canada, which qualities come to mind? The world’s peacekeeper, the friendly nation, a liberal counterweight to the harsher pieties of its southern neighbour, decent, civilised, fair, well-governed? Think again. This country’s government is now behaving with all the sophistication of a chimpanzee’s tea party.... here I am, watching the astonishing spectacle of a beautiful, cultured nation turning itself into a corrupt petro-state. Canada is slipping down the development ladder, retreating from a complex, diverse economy towards dependence on a single primary resource, which happens to be the dirtiest commodity known to man. The price of this transition is the brutalisation of the country, and a government campaign against multilateralism as savage as any waged by George Bush.
Until now I believed that the nation that has done most to sabotage a new climate change agreement was the United States. I was wrong. The real villain is Canada. Unless we can stop it, the harm done by Canada in December 2009 will outweigh a century of good works.
* Criticizing Israel May Become Hate Speech Murray Dobbin Tyee
One of the most recent -- but almost totally unreported -- developments in Canada is something called the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism (CPCCA)... a multi-party, voluntary association of 13 MPs. It is currently holding an inquiry into anti-Semitism because, it says, "The extent and severity of antisemitism is widely regarded as at its worst level since the end of the Second World War." In fact, antisemitic attitudes in the U.S. are at an all-time low according to Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, whose mandate is to monitor and expose anti-Semitism. Statistics Canada reports the number of hate crimes against Jews has been dropping since 2001-2002.
...It remains to be seen what the recommendations of the coalition will be, but its conclusions regarding a sweeping redefinition of anti-Semitism have already been drawn and incorporated into their inquiry process -- mortally damaging its credibility. The likelihood that the Harper government is working in lock-step with the coalition is high and the CPCCA's purpose may well be to prepare the ground for criminalizing criticism of Israel. Petition to defend Canadian Free speech against CPCCA here
* H2Oil Trailer (2 minutes)
A powerful glimpse of life downstream from the tar sands.
* Way To Go, Team Canada Fred Wilson, rabble.ca
All together, a particularly bad week for Canada that makes us and our country look paranoid, vindictive, hypocritical, obsequious and villainous.
4. The Swiss Anti-Minaret Vote and fallout
Context: The Swiss voted to ban minarets. We start with a look at the horrifically racist poster that carried the day, and follow with a look at the impact on Europe. The only good thing is that some Jewish organizations are recognizing that those who would ban minarets are their enemies too, and fighting this absurdity. The official Swiss government quote? “A ban on minarets was not a rejection of the Muslim community, religion or culture". So that’s all okay then, eh?
* The Poster That Convinced Switzerland to Ban Minarets boingboing
* The Swiss and the Muslims Victor Grossman, portside (Thanks, Amy!)
This shameful episode, though most other countries at that time were equally guilty, makes the decision by over half of Swiss voters especially disturbing, and not only because it was a victory for the far-right Swiss People's Party. Like cheese and watches, such intolerance promises to be an export product whose political effects recall the crippling medical effects of thalidomide, or Contergan. And far too many in other countries are overly willing to buy this poison....
* Rabbis for Minarets Jerusalem Post
Swiss voters this week approved by a strong majority a referendum outlawing the construction of minarets. The measure, pushed by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), was supported by 57 percent of the population.
However, Jewish organizations, realizing that a crackdown on Islam could have repercussions for Jews as well, have come to the defense of Muslim worshipers, arguing that the Swiss’s move was unjustifiable.
* Don’t Be Fooled by Islamophobia cst
A small Islamophobic group, called Stop Islamisation Of Europe (SIOE), has called for 1,000 Jews to attend its forthcoming demonstration at Harrow mosque; and for each Jew to bring an Israeli flag. A demonstration against Harrow mosque under the banner “Stop the Islamisation of Europe”, is as stupid and offensive as a demonstration against Harrow synagogue, under the banner “Stop the Zionisation of Europe”.
This has nothing to do with the necessary and legitimate work to counter extremism and antisemitism wherever and whenever it genuinely occurs. CST has raised awareness of the activities of extreme Islamist groups in the UK for many years. But to demonise an entire community, every Muslim and every mosque, in the way that SIOE does, shows exactly the kind of bigotry from which Jews have suffered so often in our history. For SIOE to appeal to Jews to support them shows a complete ignorance of the Jewish experience of being on the receiving end of exactly this type of politics.
5. The Massey Lectures, 2009: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World
Context: Anthropologist Wade Davis gives a series of five lectures for CBC radio. Extraordinary in breadth, and breathtakingly deep, the lectures explore the different ways that traditional cultures have made sense of the world. Staring with current ethnobiological discovery that disproves the existence of races, Davis works on the principle that genius in alternative cultural adaptations are all worth exploring – and are they ever! A must listen.
* The Wayfinders: Wade Davis
In The Wayfinders anthropologist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Wade Davis reveals the significance of what may be lost through a wild and thrilling exploration of what remains with us and very much alive. Travel to Polynesia and celebrate the art of navigation that allowed the Wayfinders to infuse the entire Pacific Ocean with their imagination and genius. In the Amazon await the descendants of a true Lost Civilization, the People of the Anaconda, a complex of cultures inspired by mythological ancestors who even today dictate how humans must live in the forest. In the Andean Cordillera and the mountains of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta of Colombia discover that the Earth really is alive, pulsing, responsive in a thousand ways to the spiritual readiness of humankind. Dreamtime and the Songlines will lead to the melaleuca forests of Arnhem Land, and an understanding the subtle philosophy of the first humans to walk out of Africa, the Aboriginal peoples of Australia. In Nepal a stone path leads to a door opening to reveal the radiant face of a wisdom hero, a Bodhisattva, Tsetsam Ani, a Buddhist nun who forty-five years ago entered lifelong retreat. The flight of a hornbill, like a cursive script of nature, will let us know that we have arrived at last amongst the nomadic Penan in the upland forests of Borneo.
5. Rightwing Nuts: Flying on a Wing and a Prayer
Context: It’s not just Sarah Palin (though her tribute to the Cheyenne who killed Custer (Why does she hate our military?) is worth a look). But the rise of lunatics is driving real conservatives, people who believe in rational discourse and evidence, out of the Republican tent. This week, two major elephants slipped out... and we have their farewell notes.
* The New Wave Of Female Firebrands Striking Fear Into Liberal America The Observer
She is a striking brunette with a decidedly outspoken attitude. She lambasts President Barack Obama as a socialist and has become the darling of America’s right-wing activists who flock to her appearances. She is hated by liberals and loved by conservatives. Sarah Palin? Not quite. Meet Michele Bachmann, a Republican congresswoman from Minnesota who is being hailed as a new and increasingly powerful voice in American politics.
Bachmann, at 53, is a darling of the so-called Tea Party movement, which has campaigned vociferously against healthcare reform, the economic stimulus package and legislation to combat climate change. Her followers have been behind mass rallies in Washington and smaller ones all over the country. She has emerged as one of the most visible politicians in America, frequently appearing on the conservative Fox News channel, whose hosts often champion her causes.
* Leaving the Right Andrew Sullivan The Daily Dish
I cannot support a movement that criminalizes private behavior in the war on drugs.
I cannot support a movement that would back a vice-presidential candidate manifestly unqualified and duplicitous because of identity politics and electoral cynicism.
I cannot support a movement that regards gay people as threats to their own families.
I cannot support a movement that does not accept evolution as a fact.
I cannot support a movement that sees climate change as a hoax and offers domestic oil exploration as the core plank of an energy policy.
I cannot support a movement that refuses ever to raise taxes, while proposing no meaningful reductions in government spending.
* Why I Parted Ways With The Right Little Green Footballs
1. Support for fascists, both in America (see: Pat Buchanan, Robert Stacy McCain, etc.) and in Europe (see: Vlaams Belang, BNP, SIOE, Pat Buchanan, etc.)
2. Support for bigotry, hatred, and white supremacism (see: Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Robert Stacy McCain, Lew Rockwell, etc.)
3. Support for throwing women back into the Dark Ages, and general religious fanaticism (see: Operation Rescue, anti-abortion groups, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, the entire religious right, etc.)
4. Support for anti-science bad craziness (see: creationism, climate change denialism, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, James Inhofe, etc.)
7. Over the Edge Recreation
Context: "I don't want to sanction stupidity as our national sport, but I have to admire this little man's dogged nerve and rubber determination." -- The Firesign Theatre, in Everything You Know Is Wrong. Watch three videos of people doing utterly crazy things for fun, things that Tikkunista! warns you not to try. Ever!
* Fifth Gear Loops the Loop
* French Skier Parasails Avalanche (Thanks, Dave!)
* Snowboarders Grinding
8. Do You Know What Good Clean Fun Is? (No. What good is it?) (thanks, 1960s!)
Context: Tikkunista! keeps accumulating dangerously cute animal videos and silly fun puzzles. And now they are being shared with you, so you can forward it to those people who are always forwarding such things to you.
* Fun Mind Puzzles (Thanks, Elizabeth!)
* Elkcalf Gambolling
* Surprised Kitten
* Kiss My Ass
* Dumpster Diving
9. Eyecandy: Unrelated Pictures
* 100 Days in Glacier National Park
* The Olympic Torch (Big Picture)
* The World’s Biggest Cruise Ship
* The Solar System (Smithsonian)
10. Quote of the Week
“ It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.” -William G. McAdoo (Thanks, Lief!)
=====================================
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
The Talmud
=====================================
Year Six; Issue 38
1. Toronto: Upcoming Events
2. The Sun is Setting on the Two-State Solution
3. Life on the Front Lines in Palestine
4. The Politics of Gender
5. Religion, Spirituality, and Metaphor
6. Ancient Predictions of Doom
7. Finetuning Your Brain
8. Photos of Places You Don’t Want to Live
9. Eyecandy: Natural Beauty
10. Quote of the Week
1. Toronto News and Actions
* Gaza Freedom March: promises to be “a fun evening of middle-eastern food, entertainment, and fundraising for the people of Gaza”. Friday, December 4, 2009, 7pm, Ryerson University, Student Centre
* Sign-up now and say “Yes, I’m Writing for Rights” with Amnesty International on International Human Rights Day. You can sign-up to write on your own on December 10th, organize your own event, or join a Write for Rights event in your community.
2. The Sun is Setting on the Two-State Solution
Context: A long piece I wrote for the Tikkun Daily Blog this week, this integrates views from Jewish, Muslim, and other perspectives to argue that the time when a two-state solution was possible has passed. Currently has about 80 comments debating the views, both in the TDB and in Mondoweiss which also ran the piece. Your comments, reactions, flames, etc. welcome!
* Perhaps recent leaders of Israel might made better choices had they spent more time reading Sherlock Holmes. Of particular use to them might have been The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet in which Holmes says, “It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Then they might have realized that the result of making a two-state solution impossible was to make a one-state solution inevitable. Having worked to weaken Palestine, to undermine all Palestinian leaders, to create – in Sharon’s memorable phrase for the settlements – facts on the ground they are now like a go player who having focused exclusively on a specific battle over territory suddenly looks at the bigger picture and realizes he’s lost the game.
We are now at that point of realization. Almost 10% of Israeli Jews now live in the Territories or in East Jerusalem. It would be impossible for any Israeli government to make a peace offer to Palestinians that would give up those homes and settlements: in Israeli politics, their coalition would instantly disappear. (And it’s unlikely they could do it militarily: the BBC reports that , “An increasing number of Israeli soldiers are publicly objecting, on religious and political grounds, to their role in the evacuation of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.”) Similarly, it would not be possible for any Palestinian leader to accept the kind of offer any Israeli leader might realistically make: his support would also disappear. The handful of bantustans offered as a Palestinian country at Oslo might have been the closest to a joint solution ever reached. And if a two-state solution is impossible,as seems increasingly clear, then the only alternative, however improbable, is a one-state solution.
3. Life on the Front Lines in Palestine
Context: Three pieces explore what’s currently happening: the first a long New Yorker piece that gives a deep sense of the experience of living in Gaza, the second a useful explication of what this week’s settlement freeze is (and isn’t), the third a powerful speech by Amira Hass on receipt of a lifetime achievement award for her reportage in Israel and Palestine.
* Gaza, Gilad Shalit, Hamas, and Israel The New Yorker
In southwest Israel, at the border of Egypt and the Gaza Strip, there is a small crossing station not far from a kibbutz named Kerem Shalom. A guard tower looms over the flat, scrubby buffer zone. Gaza never extends more than seven miles wide, and the guards in the tower can see the Mediterranean Sea, to the north. The main street in Gaza, Salah El-Deen Road, runs along the entire twenty-five-mile span of the territory, and on a clear night the guards can watch a car make the slow journey from the ruins of the Yasir Arafat International Airport, near the Egyptian border, toward the lights of Gaza City, on the Strip’s northeastern side. Observation balloons hover just outside Gaza, and pilotless drones freely cross its airspace. Israeli patrols tightly enforce a three-mile limit in the Mediterranean and fire on boats that approach the line. Between the sea and the security fence that surrounds the hundred and forty square miles of Gaza live a million and a half Palestinians
* Netanyahu and the Settlements Daniel Levy, Huffington Post
The only apparent restraint in the Israeli cabinet decision was to suspend issuing of new permits or beginning new construction in the West Bank for ten months. The less restrained side of the equation is this: 3000 units already under construction will continue; all public buildings and security infrastructure will continue to be built; no restrictions would apply to occupied East Jerusalem; and construction would resume after ten months.
Netanyahu also repeated the totally (meaningless)commitment of no new settlements or land confiscations (meaningless because since 1993, the official policy is no new settlements yet via expansion, new neighbourhoods and outposts, the West Bank settler population has grown from 111,000 then to over 300,000 today, and because although the built-up area of settlements constitutes only 2% of West Bank land, double that amount is slated for growth,
* Amira Hass’ Speech
Allow me to start with a correction. How impolite, you’d rightly think, but anyway, we Israelis are being forgiven for much worse than impoliteness.What is so generously termed today by the International Women’s Media Foundation as my lifetime achievement needs to be corrected. Because it is Failure. Nothing more than a failure. A lifetime failure. ...
What am I doing? I’m generally defined as a reporter on Palestinian issues. But, in fact, my reports are about the Israeli society and policies, about domination and intoxications. My sources are not secret documents and leaked-out minutes which were taken out of meetings of people with power and in power; my sources are the open ways by which the subjugated are being dispossessed of their equal rights as human beings.
4. Gender and Politics
Context: There was a time when it all seemed binary, but increasingly issues of gender are complex multifaceted. The lead is an amazing New Yorker piece on Caster Semenya, the South African woman runner whose gender has been debated. The piece looks at what gender means, and what our definitions mean, and what weight those carry in South Africa. We continue followup piece that will make any male ashamed, and a political cartoon on the struggle for gay marriage rights in the US.
* Sports, sex, and the runner Caster Semenya The New Yorker
South Africans have been appalled by the idea of a person who thinks she is one thing suddenly being told that she is something else. The classification and reclassification of human beings has a haunted history in this country. Starting with the Population Registration Act of 1950, teams of white people were engaged as census-takers. They usually had no training, but they had the power to decide a person’s race, and race determined where and with whom you could live, whether you could get a decent education, whether you had political representation, whether you were even free to walk in certain areas at certain hours. The categories were fickle. In 1985, according to the census, more than a thousand people somehow changed race: nineteen whites turned Colored (as South Africans call people of mixed heritage); seven hundred and two Coloreds turned white, fifty Indians turned Colored, eleven Colored turned Chinese, and so on. (No blacks turned white, or vice versa.) Taxonomy is an acutely sensitive subject, and its history is probably one of the reasons that South Africans—particularly black South Africans—have rallied behind their runner with such fervor. The government has decreed that Semenya can continue running with women in her own country, regardless of what the I.A.A.F. decides.
.... Unfortunately for I.A.A.F. officials, they are faced with a question that no one has ever been able to answer: what is the ultimate difference between a man and a woman? “This is not a solvable problem,” Alice Dreger said. “People always press me: ‘Isn’t there one marker we can use?’ No. We couldn’t then and we can’t now, and science is making it more difficult and not less, because it ends up showing us how much blending there is and how many nuances, and it becomes impossible to point to one thing, or even a set of things, and say that’s what it means to be male.”
* Divorce Risk Higher When Wife Gets Sick New York Times
....The results were surprising. Women in the study who were told they had a serious illness were seven times as likely to become separated or divorced as men with similar health problems, according to the report published in the journal Cancer.... When the man became ill, only 3 percent experienced the end of a marriage. But among women, about 21 percent ended up separated or divorced. ... “All these patients were couples when we met them, but we don’t know about pre-diagnosis marital conflicts that had been festering,” Dr. Chamberlain said. “But the striking part is with life-threatening illness, how often women are abandoned compared to men. That does not speak very well of my gender.”
* One More Setback to Gay Marriage This Week
5. Religion, Spirituality and Metaphor
Context: Religion too is becoming a greyer area, a more subtle distinction. Three pieces here explore the nature of spirituality or religion that doesn’t start with a sacred text that is God-given and always right, but all three find deep and profound value in what is still there.
* What if People Actually Treated Religion as Just a Metaphor? AlterNet Greta Christina (Thanks, Amy!)
For plenty of Jews, Judaism is much more of a cultural/ historical/ familial identity than a religious one. In fact, for many Jews, Judaism is entirely a cultural and historical and familial identity, and not a religious one at all. The phrase “atheist Jew” has a non-absurd, readily – comprehensible meaning... in a way that “atheist Baptist” doesn’t. Many Jews cherrypick the Jewish rituals and stories that they like, and reject the ones they don’t...exactly the way “Star Trek” fans ignore and reject “Spock’s Brain.”
Now, there is, of course, an important difference between secular Judaism and Trekkies. And that’s the deep, intense connection many secular Jews have with family and history. It’s not just about being invested in the story, and the rituals connected with it. It’s about the fact that the story and the rituals are ones that their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents and so on were invested in.
And of course, much of that investment has to do with how Jews and Judaism have historically been treated by the rest of the world. As a friend pointed out when I ran this piece by her: Plenty of Jews in Germany were very secular, didn’t even particularly think of themselves as Jewish... but that didn’t change how the Nazis saw them. Practicing the rituals of Judaism is a way of acknowledging this reality. And it’s a way of defying it, a way of saying “Fuck you” to it: to Nazis, to pogroms, to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, to ghettos, to forced conversions, to being barred from all professions except money-lending and then being vilified as money-grubbing usurers, to expulsions and massacres, to the blood libel, to the Spanish Inquisition. Secular Judaism isn’t just about the fact that your great-grandmother practiced these rituals. It’s about the fact that she was put in a concentration camp because of them.
* Spirituality, Not Religion, Makes Kids Happy, Say Psychologists
To make children happier, we may need to encourage them to develop a strong sense of ‘personal worth’, according to Dr. Mark Holder, Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia, Visiting Assistant Professor Dr. Ben Coleman and graduate student Judi Wallace. Their research says that children who feel that their lives have meaning and value and who develop deep, quality relationships – what they term measures of spirituality – are happier. But according to their paper in the Journal of Happiness Studies, actual religious practices have little effect on that happiness.
Both spirituality, what they call an inner belief system that a person relies on for strength and comfort, and religiousness, what they term institutional religious rituals, practices and beliefs, have been linked to increased happiness in adults and adolescents.
* God is Becoming Rabbi Bradley Artson Tikkun
The universe unfolds according to its own inner logic; the laws of physics operate, and God cannot/does not suspend them based on moral standards. As Rabbi Harold Kushner says, asking the universe to treat you better because you are moral is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian. I believe that God did irrevocable tzimtzum (withdrawal), creating the reality of our own autonomy and agency, along with all creation.
I believe that people misunderstand the nature of divine "power" as coercive, as omnipotence, which I regard as a philosophical mistake, a religious disaster, and a source of emotional and ethical torment. Thinking of God as having all the power leaves us rightly feeling betrayed and abandoned (“Was I not good enough for God to intervene?").
6. Ancient Prophets of Doom
Context: The end is coming...a few strange predictions to amuse and beguile, and a clear summary of what believers and non-believers do and don’t believe about 2012.
* Tiny Tim Predicts Global Warming (1969) Youtube
Truly, there are no words that can adequately prepare you for the strangeness of this video. Tiny Tim performs ”The Other Side“ before a group of children. Lyric excerpt:
The ice caps are melting, oh ho ho ho. All the world is drowning, ho ho ho ho ho. The ice caps are melting, The tide is rushing in. All the world is drowning, To wash away the sin.
* Humble Oil Predicts Global Warming (1962) ad
* 2012: The End of the World Graphic informationisbeautiful.com
7. Finetuning Your Brain
Context: If we knew how our brains worked, we’d know how to make them better, wouldn’t we? That’s the theory behind “Study Hacks: Demystifying Student Success” from which our first link comes. The NY Times proves that nonsense makes your brain work better, Wikipedia supplies a useful new term, and Bart Simpson reminds us that the real way to improve yourself is to write out lines over and over and over....
* Accomplishing a Lot of Work in a Limited Time
You could fill any arbitrary number of hours with what feels to be productive work. Between e-mail, and “crucial” web surfing, and to-do lists that, in the age of David Allen, grow to lengths that rival the bible, there is always something you could be doing. At some point, however, you have to put a stake in the ground and say: I know I have a never-ending stream of work, but this is when I’m going to face it. If you don’t do this, you let the never-ending stream of work push you around like a bully. It will force you into tiring, inefficient schedules. And you’ll end up more stressed and no more accomplished.
Fix the schedule you want. Then make everything else fit around your needs. Be flexible. Be efficient. If you can’t make it fit: change your work. But in the end, don’t compromise. No one really cares about your schedule except for yourself. So make it right.
* How Nonsense Strengthens the Intellect New York Times
In the most recent paper, published last month, Dr. Proulx and Dr. Heine described having 20 college students read an absurd short story based on “The Country Doctor,” by Franz Kafka. The doctor of the title has to make a house call on a boy with a terrible toothache. He makes the journey and finds that the boy has no teeth at all. The horses who have pulled his carriage begin to act up; the boy’s family becomes annoyed; then the doctor discovers the boy has teeth after all. And so on. The story is urgent, vivid and nonsensical — Kafkaesque. After the story, the students studied a series of 45 strings of 6 to 9 letters, like “X, M, X, R, T, V.” They later took a test on the letter strings, choosing those they thought they had seen before from a list of 60 such strings. In fact the letters were related, in a very subtle way, with some more likely to appear before or after others.
The test is a standard measure of what researchers call implicit learning: knowledge gained without awareness. The students had no idea what patterns their brain was sensing or how well they were performing. But perform they did. They chose about 30 percent more of the letter strings, and were almost twice as accurate in their choices, than a comparison group of 20 students who had read a different short story, a coherent one.
* Placebo Button Definition Wikipedia
* Bart’s Blackboard (the first six seasons in pictures...)
Adding “just kidding” doesn’t make it okay to insult the Principal
Adding “just kidding” doesn’t make it okay to insult the Principal
Adding “just kidding” doesn’t make it okay to insult the Principal...
8. Places you Don’t Want To Live
* Cairo’s Trash City
Most of the garbage for Cairo’s 8 million people is collected by an unofficial labor force which has been acting of its own volition for nearly 100 years -- the “Zabbaleen” -- who live at the foot of the Muqqattam Hills. Photographer Alexander Heilner followed his nose.
* Hong Kong 100 X 100 Michael Wolf
100 pictures of people living in 10’ X 10’ apartments
* From Sanctuary to Snake Pit New Scientist
Most people associate the word "asylum" with squalor and brutality – an impression strengthened by portrayals in books and films like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest – but they were originally designed to be places of sanctuary. Christopher Payne visited and photographed 70 such institutions across the US for his book Asylum: Inside the closed world of state mental hospitals, which documents how their fall from grace reflects changing attitudes to mental illness
9. Eyecandy: Natural Beauty
* National Geographic Photography Contest 2009 The Big Picture
* On the Shoreline The Big Picture
* Amazing Exotic Animals
* 25 pictures of Bora-Bora
10. Quote of the Week
“He not busy being born is busy dying” Bob Dylan
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“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
The Talmud
=====================================
Year Six; Issue 37
1. Toronto: Upcoming Events
2. Drug Law Overview: From the Spartans to the Future
3. One State to Rule Them All
4. Fundamentalism from the Inside
5. Strange Sounds
6. Small Change (Short Films)
7. Mindgames
8. Eyecandy: Inhuman Photography
9. Quote of the Week
1. Toronto News and Actions
* Upcoming Tikkun meetings: Thursday, Nov 26th at Peter’s.
* Speaking Out: Jewish Artists Uncensored is a panel discussion at the Winchevsky Centre, with Reena Katz, David Buchbinder, Kate Lushington, and b.h. yael. It’s on Tues, Nov 24th, and full details are here.
2. Drug Law Overview
Context: I’ve cited about a half dozen pieces in the past month in Tikkunista! on the battles world-wide over drug laws, and of course I had more than that number of articles I didn’t use. So this week I put them all together into a single long piece that looks at the past, present and future of drug use and/or prohibition. Comments are at the bottom, and are also worth reading for some fascinating – and tragic – stories.
* Dispatches From the Front Lines: The War on Drugs Peter Marmorek Tikkun Daily Blog
If the war on drugs needed a spokesperson, it could hardly do better than select Chico Marx in Duck Soup, saying “Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?” Sadly for the drug war effort, increasing numbers of both people and governments are starting to believe their own eyes. And what they see is that the war has been futile and counterproductive, causing over half the incarcerations in the US, with no measurable decrease in the amount of drugs consumed. But the war fights back, shooting messengers who speak truth to power. It’s enough to make you reach for a …. whatever.
3. One State to Rule Them All
Context: By making a two state solution impossible, Israel is making a one state solution inevitable. So say voices on both sides of the issue, from Stephen Walt to a fascinating debate between Stephen Weiss and Bernard Avishai. Over at the Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah looks at the view among Israelis about a single state, comparing in great detail how Israelis feel now, with how white South Africans felt then.
* A “New Era” in the Middle East? Uh-oh Stephen Walt
Having dithered, delayed and dissembled ever since the Oslo Accords -- while the number of settlers more than doubled -- we are about to face an entirely different problem. The sun is now setting on the “two-state solution” -- if it is not already well below the horizon -- and pretty soon everyone will have to admit that they are sitting around in the dark and pretending they see daylight.
Be careful what you wish for. Israel is going to get what it has long sought: permanent control of the West Bank (along with de facto control over Gaza). The Palestinian Authority is increasingly irrelevant and may soon collapse, General Keith Dayton’s mission to train reliable and professional Palestinian security forces will end, and Israel will once again have full responsibility for some 5.2 million Palestinian Arabs under its control. And the issue will gradually shift from the creation of a viable Palestinian state -- which was the central idea behind the Oslo process and the subsequent “Road Map” -- to a struggle for civil and political rights within an Israel that controls all of mandate Palestine.
* Avishai and Weiss on Palestinians, Israel and the “Demographic Threat” Mondoweiss
BA: The reason why I would like to live in a democratic state with a Jewish character is my attachment to the Hebrew language, the challenges of Jewish history, the grandeur of the Torah, the excitement of modern Israel poetry and popular culture—in other words, the same reasons why French Quebecers want a democratic province with a Quebecois character. ... For me, Yehuda Amichai’s poetry is Israel’s justification. Imagine Swedish liberals who’ve heard of Abu Ghraib, but not Bruce Springsteen, deciding the worth of America. (Come to think of it, isn’t this the Nobel committee for literature?)
SW: You suggest that Israeli culture is misrepresented in the international view of Israel as purely an occupier. (As the U.S. is misrepresented as solely the perpetrator of Abu Ghraib). And that it would be "inhumane" to overwhelm the grand achievements of Hebrew culture in undoing those political problems. My response is that certain injustices in history cross a line and demand an international moral response. There was a lot to be said for Southern culture in the 1960s. I know that for a fact. But Jim Crow vitiated that larger understanding, as it should have. Similarly, whatever the achievements of South Africa in the 70s and 80s, they were undone suddenly by the world’s view of apartheid.
* Israeli Jews and the One-State Solution Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada
What did change for South Africa, and what all the weapons in the world were not able to prevent, was the complete loss of legitimacy of the apartheid regime and its practices. Once this legitimacy was gone, whites lost the will to maintain a system that relied on repression and violence and rendered them international pariahs; they negotiated a way out and lived to tell the tale. It all happened much more quickly and with considerably less violence than even the most optimistic predictions of the time. But this outcome could not have been predicted based on what whites said they were willing to accept, and it would not have occurred had the ANC been guided by opinion polls rather than the democratic principles of the Freedom Charter.
Zionism -- as many Israelis openly worry -- is suffering a similar, terminal loss of legitimacy as Israel is ever more isolated as a result of its actions. Israel’s self-image as a liberal “Jewish and democratic state” is proving impossible to maintain against the reality of a militarized, ultra-nationalist Jewish sectarian settler-colony that must carry out frequent and escalating massacres of “enemy” civilians (Lebanon and Gaza 2006, Gaza 2009) in a losing effort to check the resistance of the region’s indigenous people. Zionism cannot bomb, kidnap, assassinate, expel, demolish, settle and lie its way to legitimacy and acceptance.
4. Inside the Other Side of Islam
Context: Understanding those with whom you disagree is always the first step towards any solution. The more we fail to understand how people feel and why they feel that way, the less we are able to communicate with them. This week we look at Johann Hari’s powerful interview with former Jihadists, Moshin Hamid’s fascinating Booker-nominated “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” and the passions (and politics) of the debate over what day Eid starts on.
* Former Jihadists Speak Out Johann Hari Alternet
Seventeen former radical Islamists have “come out” in the past 12 months and have begun to fight back. Would they be able to tell me the reasons that pulled them into jihadism, and out again? Could they be the key to understanding – and defusing – Western jihadism? I have spent three months exploring their world and befriending their leading figures. Their story sprawls from forgotten English seaside towns to the jails of Egypt’s dictatorship and the icy mountains of Afghanistan – and back again.
My journey began when, sitting in one of the grotty greasy spoon cafés that fill the East End, I heard a young woman in hijab mention that the imam of one of the local mosques was a jihadi who had fought in Afghanistan, but is now facing death threats from the very men he once fought alongside. His “crime”? To renounce his past and call for “a secular Islam.”
* The Reluctant Fundamentalist Moshin Hamid
Link above takes you to the opening chapter: here’s a summary of the plot
At a café table in Lahore, a bearded Pakistani man converses with an uneasy American stranger. As dusk deepens to night, he begins the tale that has brought them to this fateful encounter . . .
Changez is living an immigrant’s dream of America. At the top of his class at Princeton, he is snapped up by the elite valuation firm of Underwood Samson. He thrives on the energy of New York, and his budding romance with elegant, beautiful Erica promises entry into Manhattan society at the same exalted level once occupied by his own family back in Lahore. But in the wake of September 11, Changez finds his position in his adopted city suddenly overturned and his relationship with Erica eclipsed by the reawakened ghosts of her past. And Changez’s own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and maybe even love.
* Blood On the Moon China Matters
Disputes about the timing of Eid al Fitr—the fast-breaking festival concluding the Muslim holy month of Ramadan—provide a vivid illustration of the sectarian and factional fissures undermining Islamic unity.
In Pakistan, the opportunistic insertion of the North West Frontier Province’s ruling party—the Awami National Party or ANP--into the dispute offers a perspective on the immense dangers that Islamic sectarianism can present to a vulnerable nation.
In 2009, uncertainty about when the holiday should occur provided dissidents in three geopolitical hotspots—Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan—with the opportunity to question the orthodoxy and legitimacy of the leaders charged with fixing the holy date.
5. Strange Sounds
Context: Most of what people choose to listen to is other people, either talking, singing, or playing instruments. Here are three other choices: a 1000 year long mechanically created music piece, a wind powered musical device that looks a lot like nothing you’ve ever seen, and recordings of vanishing natural habitats
* Longplayer (Full disclosure: I like the parts I’ve heard, but haven’t made it all the way through)
Longplayer is a one thousand year long musical composition. It began playing at midnight on the 31st of December 1999, and will continue to play without repetition until the last moment of 2999, at which point it will complete its cycle and begin again. Conceived and composed by Jem Finer.. Listen to Longplayer here
* The Singing Ringing Tree
Looking like the wreckage of an alien space craft, this Futuristic Sculpture is Art, but not as we know it. Commissioned by a forward thinking Burnley Council, the collection of tubes makes the strangest sounds when the wind blows, which is often round the location at Crown Point, on the moorland overlooking Burnley.
* Recordings of Vanishing Habitats Wired
He’s not in the business of recording vanishing animals, which are only the most mediagenic manifestations of a larger disappearance. Krause records vanishing habitats....There are many ways to look at life, from single individuals up to whole populations, their interactions with each other and their surroundings. I thought of my own favorite natural places: northern pine forests at the edge of remote ponds, where at night frogs call and loons wail and moose crash through the reeds, and you can literally track wind through the trees. These spaces have a character, a balance and composition, as distinct as the markings on any animal. And they can be changed: wetlands drained, roads built, properties developed, altering the terrain and species balances in ways that may be hidden to the eye, but not the ear.
6. Small Change: Short Video Clips
Context: Five short videos, all of which show changes from one thing to another
* Amazing Footage Of An Elephant Giving Birth 6 minutes (Thanks, Diana!)
* Balancing Act 1 minute
* Unbalancing Act 1 minute (jwalk)
* Spike Jonez’ Ikea Ad 1 minute
* 10 Years in 7 minutes Newsweek
7. “We’re Playing Those Mind Games Together....”
Context: Lots of short quick Mindcandy, links that all involve a shift in perception. Fun for all sides of the brain....
* Find the Man in the Coffee Beans (thanks, Dave!)
* Circoripopolo
* Timetravel
* 6 Products Designed Solely to Make You a Worse Person Cracked
* The “Blog” of Unnecessary “Quotation” Marks
9. Eyecandy: Inhuman Photography
* Mandelbulb (3d Mandelbrot fractals)
* Best Microphotography (Thanks, Diana!)
* Street Pix by Google
* Kirlian Photography
10. Quote of the Week
“He was the kind of revolutionary who liked his firing squads arranged in a circle." Cory Doctorow, Makers (Free download here)
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See who we are and what we’re about to do.
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
The Talmud
=====================================
Year Six; Issue 36
1. Toronto: Upcoming Events
2. Pakistan, China, and the Dalai Lama
3. Palestinian Politics
4. Coping with Copenhagen
5. Fall of the Wall
6. Drug Change Update
7. Coffee
8. Life by Numbers
9. Eyecandy: Animals
10. Quote of the Week
1. Toronto News and Actions
* PFEX, a group fighting for freedom of speech about Israel and Palestine, are meeting Sunday 11/15 from 3-5. Full details (address, etc) and a powerful statement of their principles can be found here.
* Speaking Out: Jewish Artists Uncensored is a panel discussion at the Winchevsky Centre, with Reena Katz, David Buchbinder, Kate Lushington, and b.h. yael. It’s on Tues, Nov 24th, and full details are here.
* Upcoming Tikkun meetings: Thursday, Nov 26th at Peter’s.
2. Pakistan, China, and the Dalai Lama
Context: Seymour Hersh has been breaking stories for 40 years, since My Lai. We lead with his latest a long and dispiriting piece about the safety of nukes as Pakistan is increasingly challenged by internal revolt. And that affects China, and its conflict with India, as Pakistan is no longer a strong ally (they aren’t going to do anything in Kashmir with the NW collapsing). And the Dalai Lama gets political in the China-India fight... but who knows what will happen in Tibet after his death?
* Are Nuclear Weapons Safe in Pakistan? Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker
A senior Pakistani official who has close ties to Zardari exploded with anger during an interview when the subject turned to the American demands for more information about the arsenal. After the September 11th attacks, he said, there had been an understanding between the Bush Administration and then President Pervez Musharraf “over what Pakistan had and did not have.” Today, he said, “you’d like control of our day-to-day deployment. But why should we give it to you? Even if there was a military coup d’état in Pakistan, no one is going to give up total control of our nuclear weapons. Never. Why are you not afraid of India’s nuclear weapons?” the official asked. “Because India is your friend, and the longtime policies of America and India converge. Between you and the Indians, you will fuck us in every way. The truth is that our weapons are less of a problem for the Obama Administration than finding a respectable way out of Afghanistan.”
... The former high-level Bush Administration official was just as blunt. “If a Pakistani general is talking to you about nuclear issues, and his lips are moving, he’s lying,” he said. “The Pakistanis wouldn’t share their secrets with anybody, and certainly not with a country that, from their point of view, used them like a Dixie cup and then threw them away.”
* Tension Between China and India, Exacerbated by Dalai Lama China Matters
China wants to secure its borders and also increase its ability to project power into adjoining areas in order to deter potential shenanigans by the Tibetans with Indian connivance. India, on the other hand, wants border conditions favorable to a possible play of the “Tibet Card”. The slow-motion collapse of Pakistan, China’s closest ally in the region and India’s major military antagonist, has deprived Beijing of its most important asset. The idea that, if India messed with Tibet, Pakistan would unleash hell in Kashmir with Chinese support, is a vain hope today.
With this geostrategic deterrent out of the picture, the focus has shifted to securing the physical space at the borders. Both China and India are pouring money and troops into the border region and arguing over the status of a little town in Arunachal Pradesh called Tawang. Tawang is in the news because the Dalai Lama is visiting there on November 8 to visit old friends and figuratively stick his thumb in the dragon’s eye. The Dalai Lama already made some serious waves last year when he reportedly departed from his usual apolitical stance and said that Tawang—within the contested territory in Arunachal Pradesh—was part of India.
* The Last Great Dalai Lama The Grope and Flail
Time, he said, is likely already too short. Even if Chinese President Hu Jintao suddenly had a change of heart and committed himself to resolving the Tibet problem, it would likely take months or years to hammer out the details of any deal that would allow Tenzin Gyatso to go home to Lhasa. No one knows if this incarnation of the Dalai Lama has that much time left. It seems more likely that a time of great opportunity is about to pass the Chinese leadership by, to be followed by something potentially more volatile and much more difficult to bring to a conclusion.
“One day the Chinese people are going to say, ‘My God, our leaders let this opportunity go, and we’re stuck in a quagmire. This is China’s Vietnam, and we could have solved this,’” Prof. Bennett said. “Historically, the Dalai Lama is going to win this argument, but perhaps not in his lifetime.”
3. Palestinian Politics
Context: Abbas trusted Obama, so he’s left with no honourable recourse but to fall on his political sword after the debacle the US has made of the past year. What are the Palestinian choices now? Perhaps a declaration of independence? Omar Barghouti talks about the BDS movement as having potential. Politics beyond the Wall....
* Abbas Must Stand by His Decision Al-Jazeera
For the sake of the Palestinians and for the sake of a just peace, Abbas should not budge. The man who believed the most among Palestinians in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, should step down even if elections, due to be held in January, are postponed. This is not about Abbas’ credibility but about his responsibility.
As the co-architect of the Oslo process, Abbas should signal to Washington and Tel Aviv that there is no Palestinian - “whether moderate or extremist” - who could continue in negotiations that have only served to deflect attention from continued Israeli territorial expansion and the dispossession of the Palestinians.
* Is Israel Too Strong for Barack Obama? The Economist
FIVE months after Barack Obama went to Cairo and persuaded most of the Arab world, in a ringing declaration of even-handedness, that he would face down Israel in his quest for a Palestinian state, American policy seems to have run into the sand. The American president’s mediating hand is weaker, his charisma damagingly faded. From the Palestinian and Arab point of view, his administration—after grandly setting out to force the Jewish state to stop the building of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land as an early token of good faith, intended to bring Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiation—has meekly capitulated to Israel.
The upshot is that hopes for an early resumption of talks between the main protagonists seem to have been dashed. Indeed, no one seems to know how they can be restarted. The mood among moderates on both sides is as glum as ever.
* Threat of Palestinian Statehood Declaration Haaretz
Concerns are growing in Israel’s government over the possibility of a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence within the 1967 borders, a move which could potentially be recognized by the United Nations Security Council. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently asked the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama to veto any such proposal, after reports reached Jerusalem of support for such a declaration from major European Union countries, and apparently also certain U.S. officials.
The reports indicated that Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has reached a secret understanding with the Obama administration over U.S. recognition of an independent Palestinian state. Such recognition would likely transform any Israeli presence across the Green Line, even in Jerusalem, into an illegal incursion to which the Palestinians would be entitled to engage in measures of self-defense.
* Barghouti on the BDS Movement Philip Weiss, mondoweiss
The impression I carried away was a simple one. You don’t often meet such committed and articulate people. Barghouti personifies the idea that Ali Abunimah and Nadia Hijab have both expressed: BDS is essential because it is the most powerful weapon Palestinians have in seeking to fashion their destiny.
I’m stunned, too, by the fact that Barghouti has gotten so little media coverage here. As another friend told me, Barghouti is the future. He is intelligent, empowered and non-violent. He is completely impressive.... Some day they will know him.
4. Coping With Copenhagen
Context: At a time when respected writers (Steve Levitt) are publishing nonsense on climate change, the scientific consensus is firmer than ever, and the political consensus is weaker. So where does that leave us in Copenhagen, now less than a month away? Protesting in the streets... in every possible way, says Naomi Klein.
* One Simple and Crushing Fact for Debates on Climate Change Wikipedia
No remaining scientific body of national or international standing is known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate change.
* Levitt Gets it Wrong (Two articles, each too good to be omitted)
The New Yorker
To be skeptical of climate models and credulous about things like carbon-eating trees and cloudmaking machinery and hoses that shoot sulfur into the sky is to replace a faith in science with a belief in science fiction. This is the turn that “SuperFreakonomics” takes, even as its authors repeatedly extoll their hard-headedness. All of which goes to show that, while some forms of horseshit are no longer a problem, others will always be with us
An Open Letter to Steve Levitt realclimate
By now there have been many detailed dissections of everything that is wrong with the treatment of climate in Superfreakonomics , but what has been lost amidst all that extensive discussion is how really simple it would have been to get this stuff right. The problem wasn’t necessarily that you talked to the wrong experts or talked to too few of them. The problem was that you failed to do the most elementary thinking needed to see if what they were saying (or what you thought they were saying) in fact made any sense. If you were stupid, it wouldn’t be so bad to have messed up such elementary reasoning, but I don’t by any means think you are stupid. That makes the failure to do the thinking all the more disappointing. I will take Nathan Myhrvold’s claim about solar cells, which you quoted prominently in your book, as an example....
* Lessons that Will Be Learned From Copenhagen PlanetRestart
Anyone who follows PlanetRestart knows that our hopes for a good outcome from the Copenhagen talks have never been all that great. Why? Because we live in a world dominated by nation-states, a world where global institutions are still in their infancy. Quite simply, we don't know how to work together as a global community.
In the end, exhausted ministers from the three great power blocks, the US, the EU and China, will probably make a deal of sorts between themselves in the small hours of 17 December in Copenhagen. By then, the world's really poor countries will have long been diplomatically blown away from the negotiations with promises of cash soon and greater reward later. The G77 and its negotiators like Bernarditas will congratulate themselves for obtaining the best possible deal in the circumstances and the rich countries will insist the world is on a new, cleaner, greener development path....Whether it is anywhere like enough, fast enough, to prevent a climate catastrophe, or is just or equitable, is another matter.
* Coming of Age in Copenhagen Naomi Klein, The Guardian
The big criticism of the movement the media insisted on calling “anti- globalisation” was always that it had a laundry-list of grievances and few concrete alternatives. The movement converging on Copenhagen, in contrast, is about a single issue – climate change – but it weaves a coherent narrative about its causes, and its cures, that incorporates virtually every issue on the planet.
In this narrative, the climate is changing not only because of particular polluting practices but because of the underlying logic of capitalism, which values short-term profit and perpetual growth above all else. Our governments would have us believe the same logic can be harnessed to solve the climate crisis – by creating a tradable commodity called “carbon” and by transforming forests and farmland into “sinks” that will supposedly offset runaway emissions.
Activists in Copenhagen will argue that, far from solving the climate crisis, carbon trading represents an unprecedented privatisation of the atmosphere, and that offsets and sinks threaten to become a resource grab of colonial proportions. Not only will these “market-based solutions” fail to solve the climate crisis, but this failure will dramatically deepen poverty and inequality because the poorest and most vulnerable are the primary victims of climate change – as well as the primary guinea pigs for these emissions trading schemes.
5. Fall of the Wall
Context: Hit the play button on the Pink Floyd list: it’s the XXth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The NY Times explores the rise of nostalgia for the security of communism, the state reaction to that, and the lack of linkage between democracy and Capitalism. Then on the a film of the 1000 dominoes falling, and a Big Picture collection of Berlin Wall images, past and present.
* 20 Years of Collapse New York Times
No wonder that, in Slovenia, the main reproach of the populist right to the left is that it is the “force of continuity” with the old Communist regime. In such a suffocating atmosphere, new problems and challenges are reduced to the repetition of old struggles, up to the absurd claim (which sometimes arises in Poland and in Slovenia) that the advocacy of gay rights and legal abortion is part of a dark Communist plot to demoralize the nation. Where does this resurrection of anti-Communism draw its strength from? Why were the old ghosts resuscitated in nations where many young people don’t even remember the Communist times? The new anti-Communism provides a simple answer to the question: “If capitalism is really so much better than Socialism, why are our lives still miserable?”
...This is why today’s China is so unsettling: capitalism has always seemed inextricably linked to democracy, and faced with the explosion of capitalism in the People’s Republic, many analysts still assume that political democracy will inevitably asser t itself. But what if this strain of authoritarian capitalism proves itself to be more efficient, more profitable, than our liberal capitalism? What if democracy is no longer the necessary and natural accompaniment of economic development, but its impediment?
* All the Dominoes Fall 2 minute youtube video
* The Berlin Wall, 20 Years Gone The Big Picture
6. Drug Followup
Context: The war against reality drugs continues: in the UK advisors continue to resign after the government makes clear they only want an advisory committee that supports them. In the US, the AMA comes on board, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition gains traction, and a new book explores the history of drug use through the ages. And we have pictures!
* Three More Government Advisors Resign The Guardian
Three more government drug advisers resign over the home secretary’s sacking of Professor David Nutt as chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). The three all resigned after a face-to-face meeting with Alan Johnson, the home secretary, which was called in an attempt to heal the rift between the scientists and the government over Nutt’s sacking.
The loss of three more members of the council brings the total who have gone to six out of an original membership of 31 the home secretary appointed to advise him on drugs policy. Many of those remaining, who include police officers and judges, are there as representatives of organisations and are unlikely to tender personal resignations.
* AMA Advocates Change in Marihuana Classification Scientific American
Yesterday, the influential AMA (American Medical Association) announced that it would cease its opposition to the concept of medical marijuana and instead advocate for a change in federal classification of the drug....In changing its policy, the group said its goal was to clear the way to conduct clinical research, develop cannabis-based medicines and devise alternative ways to deliver the drug.
* Everybody Musta Got Stoned the daily page
Hillman’s new book, The Chemical Muse: Drug Use and the Roots of Western Civilization, takes a closer look at the use of drugs by the ancient Greeks and Romans.
“The early Greek philosophers who inspired the mental revolution that influenced the birth of democracy were the biggest drug-using lunatics of them all,” attests Hillman. “Seriously, they were much more like medicine men than philosophers. So not only did democracy spring up in a drug-using culture, but its roots lie in a drug-using, shamanistic, intellectual movement. I think it’s perfectly safe to say: ‘No drugs, no democracy.’” But Hillman says this tradition of drug use has largely been written out of history by scholars and historians, who have brought their own moral perspectives to the texts. ....An example from Hillman’s own research is a text by Thucydides where brave slaves are sneaking supplies to besieged Spartan soldiers. They carry with them skins of “poppy mixed with honey and pounded linseed.” The original text uses the Greek word for poppy (mekon), which is another word for opium, but in this passage the English version is translated as “poppy seed.” “You don’t send poppy seeds to wounded soldiers,” chides Hillman. “You send them opium.”
* World of Drugs Big Picture
7. “One More Cup of Coffee before I Go...”
Context: A special pictorial feature on the world’s favourite drug (full disclosure: Tikkunista! is largely cappucchino powered).
* 15 Things Worth Knowing About Coffee
* Coffee with Awesome Foam
* A Coffee Bean Compared to an Atom (use scroll bar below picture)
8. Life by Numbers
* 10 Open Problems in Physics
What is the ultimate purpose of my work as theoretical physicist and, if you want, my existence itself? Is it serving the community of other physicists like organizing and participating in conferences? Nop. Then, maybe teaching future physicists in the University, encourage young people to enter the exciting field of physics? Not quite. Writing good papers? Ei. Maybe blogging? Sorry but nein. I think… the ultimate purpose of my work is solving unsolved mysteries in physics. I am afraid, this and only this makes my work enjoyable for me, makes it fun. For the sake of future reference, let me enlist here the most important (from my point of view), hard and interesting unsolved problems in physics
* 11 Myths of Decluttering
“I might get that gizmo fixed.” Face it. If you’ve had something for more than six months, and it’s still not repaired, it’s clutter.
“I might learn how to use that gizmo.” Again, face it. If you’ve had a gizmo on the shelf for a year, and you’ve never used it to make gelato or label a sugar jar, it’s clutter.
* 16 Ways to Survive in a Stephen King Novel
Accept that you’ll never be cool.
Like most popular authors, King has an affection for the underdog, but that affection is often undone by a deep, unsettling antipathy toward the social outcasts in his fiction. Carrie White of Carrie is to be pitied, but not entirely liked, and while her tragic fall is precipitated by an undeserved act of cruelty committed by her peers, the subtext is unmistakable: Know your place. Carrie pretends she’s a normal girl and goes to the prom, where she gets doused in pig’s blood. Arnie Cunningham, the awkward, nerdy loser at the heart of Christine, finds that the self-confidence and hot girlfriend he gets from having his own wheels means losing himself to the ghost in the machine. Ed Hamner in “I Know What You Need” seems like the perfect mate, in spite of being a dork with a crappy job and a crappy life—so clearly he’s using evil magic to improve his odds with the ladies. Then there’s Harold Lauder, the most miserable bastard in King’s The Stand; he’s a zit-covered, fat-assed freak who has the temerity to fantasize about one of the book’s heroines. Lauder gains some measure of acceptance with the good guys, but his self-hatred leads to a seething resentment of those around him, as well as a fatal pact with the Walking Dude. Had Harold just made peace with his geekiness, he might’ve found salvation along with the rest of his so-called friends, instead of winding up dead in a ditch, a victim of his own insecurities.
9. Eyecandy: Animals
* Ashes and Snow
* Cutest in the Animal Kingdom
* World Animal Day
* All Power to the Hypnotoad!
* Bird on Stones
10. Quote of the Week
“If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." Friedrich Nietzche
=====================================
See who we are and what we’re about to do.
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
The Talmud
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Year Six; Issue 35
1. Toronto: Upcoming Events
2. Pyramids of Denial
3. Good News
4. On Being Coloured Outside the Lines
5. “A Flea and a Fly in a Flu....
6. Mind Power
7. Capitalism Eats Its Dead
8. Music
9. Eyecandy: Festivals
10. Quote of the Week
1. Toronto News and Actions
* Walk the Labyrinth of Compassion: Noon, Thursday Nov. 12th in High Park. An action in support of the Charter for Compassion. Details and map here.
* Upcoming Tikkun meetings: Thursday, Nov 26th at Peter’s.
* Marc Ellis, Prof of Jewish studies, speaks on “Does Judaism Equals Israel?” on Nov 13th. Tikkunista! sponsored.
* Zero Nuclear Weapons public forum at Toronto City Hall Nov 13th and 14th. Free, with David Miller, Anthony Cary, and many more
2. Pyramids of Denial
Context: What do these stories have in common? They all involve a powerful government who prefers to ignore critical issues, rather than deal with them, and an individual who dares to point out the reality. This is the most vital aspect of the new media: to help us recognize that Hey! the emperor really isn’t wearing any clothes.
* Breaking the Great Australian Silence John Pilger’s acceptance speech on receiving the Sydney Peace Foundation Prize
One of my favourite Harold Pinter plays is Party Time. It’s set in an apartment in a city like Sydney. A party is in progress. People are drinking good wine and eating canapés. They seem happy. They are chatting and affirming and smiling. They are stylish and very self aware. But something is happening outside in the street, something terrible and oppressive and unjust, for which the people at the party share responsibility. There’s a fleeting sense of discomfort, a silence, before the chatting and laughing resumes.
How many of us live in that apartment? Let me put it another way. I know a very fine Israeli journalist called Amira Hass. She went to live in and report from Gaza. I asked her why she did that. She explained how her mother, Hannah, was being marched from a cattle train to the Nazi concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen when she saw a group of German women looking at the prisoners, just looking, saying nothing, silent. Her mother never forgot what she called this despicable “looking from the side”.
I believe that if we apply justice and courage to human affairs, we begin to make sense of our world. Then, and only then, can we make progress. However, if we apply justice in Australia, it’s tricky, isn’t it? Because we are then obliged to break our greatest silence - to no longer “look from the side” in our own country.
* Turkey PM: If you don't want Iran to have nukes, give yours up
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that countries opposed to Iran's atomic program should give up their own nuclear weapons, and attacked as "arrogant" the sanctions imposed on Ankara's neighbor.
"... those who criticize Iran's nuclear program continue to possess the same weapons," said Erdogan,..."I think that those who take this stance, who want these arrogant sanctions, need to first give these [weapons] up.“
* Sacked – For Telling The Truth About Drugs The Independent
Professor Nutt had become a thorn in the side of ministers with his criticisms of drugs policy. He clashed with former home secretary Jacqui Smith when he suggested ecstasy, which causes 30 deaths a year, was less dangerous than horse-riding, which causes 100 deaths a year. He also argued that, to prevent one episode of schizophrenia linked to cannabis use, it would be necessary to “stop 5,000 men aged 20 to 25 from ever using” the drug. Most drugs experts believe his analysis is right. But ministers did not want to hear the truth or at least to be reminded of it repeatedly.
* Fix Global Warming? We Can’t Fix Katrina! Counterpunch
The vast Mississippi Delta in Louisiana is sinking as sea water from the Gulf of Mexico seeps in to destroy its fresh water marshlands. The Army’s Corps of Engineers says it cannot protect New Orleans from the inevitable storm surges caused by hurricanes. ... If we can not muster the will to tackle the human, ecological, and economic detritus left over from Katrina in some way (perhaps the only choice would be to abandon/move New Orleans and redesign the energy infrastructure), it is patently absurd to imagine our political system will tackle global warming in any substantive way. That is why the grim reality of Katrina, when compared to the intractable political reality MICC and the political fantasy of mustering meaningful action on global warming, becomes a metaphor for the emptiness of contemporary American politics.
3. Good News
Context: It’s not all bad news out there, (editor checks window: sees dog happily chewing bone) and believing it is harms our hearts and the world. Some good news stories, in politics, in science, in actions.
* The Little Coup that Couldn’t
On Oct. 29, Honduras’ de facto regime finally agreed to allow Congress to vote on whether to “return executive power to its state prior to June 28”--a convoluted way of saying “reinstate President Manuel Zelaya.” Conceding to international and national pressure, the Honduran coup appears to be facing its final days.
June 28 was the date when the Armed Forces kidnapped the elected president, Manuel Zelaya, and forcibly exiled him to Costa Rica. If the agreement brokered this week holds, Honduran society will have turned the ugly precedent of a modern-day military coup d’etat into an example of the strength of nonviolent grassroots resistance.
* Cheaper Desalination The Economist
There is a lot of water on Earth, but more than 97% of it is salty and over half of the remainder is frozen at the poles or in glaciers. Meanwhile, around a fifth of the world’s population suffers from a shortage of drinking water and that fraction is expected to grow. One answer is desalination—but it is an expensive answer because it requires a lot of energy. Now, though, a pair of Canadian engineers have come up with an ingenious way of using the heat of the sun to drive the process. Such heat, in many places that have a shortage of fresh water, is one thing that is in abundant supply. Ben Sparrow and Joshua Zoshi met at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, while completing their MBAs. Their company, Saltworks Technologies, has set up a test plant beside the sea in Vancouver and will open for business in November.
* Plumpynut: Feeding the World on 85p The Guardian
Fatima Ibrahim was having two of her children weighed, measured and fussed over when we found her with 30 other mums and more than 50 hungry kids at an emergency feeding centre in northern Kenya. Barwaco came in at 12.8kg and her brother Mohamed at 8.1, and both were crying lustily as people crowded round Dida Jirma, a young community doctor. Jirma noted the children’s weights and height and measured the circumference of their left upper arms. Some were ominously quiet and clearly ill, others playful. When it was Fatima’s turn, the doctor dived into a big cardboard box and counted out two dozen silver foil sachets of Plumpy’nut – one of the 21st century’s true superfoods.
Barwaco and Mohamed come from Nana, a small village way up on the stony Kenyan Ethiopian border. But like millions more children around the world, they owe their lives to this brand of food which is never advertised and is unknown outside disaster spots. The sweet paste, invented by a French scientist, is made under licence to UN children’s charity Unesco on an industrial estate outside Le Havre, and its mix of peanut butter, vegetable oils, powdered milk, sugar, vitamins and minerals is the equivalent of royal jelly, açaí berries and chocolate all wrapped into one for malnourished children. It’s cheap – a sachet costs about 85p – and because it needs no cooking or added water, children can safely feed themselves on it at home. In just a few years “ready-to-use therapeutic foods” (RUTF) like Plumpy’nut have revolutionised the treatment of severe malnutrition.
4. Voices from Outside the Lines
Context: It’s the oldest trick in the book (as the Snake in Genesis would tell you). First, you define a group you don’t like, and then you demonize them. A few voices here from those who find themselves in such groups.
* Doth I Protest Too Much? Mark Thomas The Guardian
I was sent the now notorious “police spotter card” through the post. It’s an official laminated card for “police eyes only” and labelled as coming from “CO11 Public Order Intelligence Unit”. The card contained the photographs of 24 anti-arms trade protesters, unnamed but lettered A to X. My picture appeared as photo H. You can imagine my reaction at finding I was the subject of a secret police surveillance process … I was delighted. I phoned my agent and told him I was suspect H. He replied: “Next year we’ll get you top billing … suspect A.”
.... A police spokesman has said that anyone who finds themselves on a database “should not worry at all”. When a spokesman for the three secret units will not disclose a breakdown of their budgets, and two of the three will not even name who heads their operations (even MI6 gave us an initial, for God’s sake), then the words “should not worry at all” are meaningless. Indeed, when the police admit that someone could end up on a secret police database merely for attending a demonstration, it is exactly the time to worry.
* Muslim in Texas
Leaders of the vibrant Muslim community here expressed outrage on Friday at the shooting rampage being laid to one of their members, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who had become a regular attendee of prayers at the local mosque.
But some of the men who had befriended Major Hasan at the mosque said the military should examine the policies that might have caused him to snap. “When a white guy shoots up a post office, they call that going postal,” said Victor Benjamin II, 30, a former member of the Army. “But when a Muslim does it, they call it jihad.”
* Memo: The Middle Ages Are Over Haaretz
Isi Leibler wrote an article in The Jerusalem Post that used truly frightening language. Referring to Jews who criticize Israel, Leibler writes: “Such odious Jews can be traced back to apostates during the Middle Ages who fabricated blood libels and vile distortions of Jewish religious practice for Christian anti-Semites to incite hatred which culminated in massacres. It was in response to these renegades that the herem (excommunication) was introduced.” ....
Leibler explicitly evokes the Middle Ages in advocating excommunication. Does he really want the current disputes about Israeli policy to be conducted in the language of the Middle Ages? Does he really think that excommunication is the way to deal with Jewish Liberals who believe that Israel is often making tragic mistakes? I want to remind him that the heremhas not always been used to the greater glory of the Jewish people. The greatest work of Jewish philosophy, Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed, was banned at certain times, and one of the greatest philosophers that ever lived, Baruch Spinoza, was excommunicated for apostasy by the Jewish community of Amsterdam.
5. I Got Those Old Swine Flu Blues Again, Mama
Context: As the swine flu spreads with increasing rapidity people still fight the vaccine. Rabble looks at the psychology of the refuseniks, Common Ground is a still small voice of sanity, and Dilbert puts it all into perspective
* Epidemic in the Ukraine
An epidemic of flu and respiratory infections raging through Ukriane has claimed 109 lives, with 14 of the deaths confirmed as linked to swine flu, health officials said on Friday.....A total of 763,000 people have fallen ill with flu and acute respiratory infections in the epidemic in recent weeks, with 34,000 of them hospitalised, the country’s top sanitary doctor Olexander Bilovol told reporters.
* Rage Against the Vaccine rabble.ca
Here’s my theory. Deep down, it’s about a growing collective mistrust in authority as much as it’s about the vaccine. It’s about challenging authority in one of the few ways people have left these days. They are exercising their right to refuse when it comes to their health.
They didn’t have time for a well-orchestrated protest when authorities came for their jobs, their taxes, their homes and so on. Now they are saying NO to that powerful wave of government, media, medical, church and other authority figures who are saying get the shot; it’s good for you.
* What You Should Know About H1N1 Alan Cassels Common Ground
Is the vaccine ‘safe’? Adjuvanted vaccine or non-adjuvanted? Again, depends on what you mean by ‘safe’. Within the bounds in which it was studied, the H1N1 vaccine doesn’t appear to have much of a tendency to produce adverse effects. I don’t think anyone can say with certainty that the adjuvanted vaccines are more dangerous than the other. And no one on the planet has any answers about the long-term safety of the current flu vaccines. No one.
Any last words?
My final recommendation: lighten up folks; it’s only the flu. Let’s see a government policy of calmness coupled with accurate information for both professionals and public. Hype can make us all ill.
* Dilbert Pandemic
6. Mind Power
Context: More Social Science/Psychology sections said your Tikkunista! surveys. So learn to be lucky...it’s trainable! Your bad moods make you less gullible (but you don’t believe that, do you?), more from those smart dolphins, and fear and trembling in Korean schools.
* Learn To Be Lucky Richard Wiseman The Telegraph (Editor’s Note: Read this one!)
A decade ago, I set out to investigate luck...After many experiments, I believe that I now understand why some people are luckier than others and that it is possible to become luckier.
To launch my study, I placed advertisements in national newspapers and magazines, asking for people who felt consistently lucky or unlucky to contact me. I gave both lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and asked them to look through it and tell me how many photographs were inside. On average, the unlucky people took about two minutes to count the photographs, whereas the lucky people took just seconds. Why? Because the second page of the newspaper contained the message: “Stop counting. There are 43 photographs in this newspaper.” This message took up half of the page and was written in type that was more than 2 in high. It was staring everyone straight in the face, but the unlucky people tended to miss it and the lucky people tended to spot it....
* The Power of Negative Thinking
Bad moods can actually be good for you, with an Australian study finding that being sad make people less gullible, improves their ability to judge others and also boosts memory.
The study, authored by psychology professor Joseph Forgas at the University of New South Wales, showed that people in a negative mood were more critical of, and paid more attention to, their surroundings than happier people, who were more likely to believe anything they were told.
* “... and Thanks for All the Fish” The Guardian
At the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Mississippi, Kelly the dolphin has built up quite a reputation. All the dolphins at the institute are trained to hold onto any litter that falls into their pools until they see a trainer, when they can trade the litter for fish. In this way, the dolphins help to keep their pools clean.
Kelly has taken this task one step further. When people drop paper into the water she hides it under a rock at the bottom of the pool. The next time a trainer passes, she goes down to the rock and tears off a piece of paper to give to the trainer. After a fish reward, she goes back down, tears off another piece of paper, gets another fish, and so on. This behaviour is interesting because it shows that Kelly has a sense of the future and delays gratification. She has realised that a big piece of paper gets the same reward as a small piece and so delivers only small pieces to keep the extra food coming. She has, in effect, trained the humans.
* Sign on School Desks in South Korea
7. Capitalism Runs Amok
Context: Some cartoons and light-hearted looks at how eager capitalism is to make a buck on anything, life or death included.
* The Classic New Yorker Cartoon
* Critics Blast Kellogg's Claim That Cereals Can Boost Immunity
Kellogg, the nation’s largest cereal maker, is being called to task by critics who object to the swine flu-conscious claim now bannered in bold lettering on the front of Cocoa Krispies cereal boxes: “Now helps support your child’s IMMUNITY.” Of all claims on cereal boxes, “this one belongs in the hall of fame,” says Kelly Brownell, director of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. “By their logic, you can spray vitamins on a pile of leaves, and it will boost immunity.”
* Dr National and Mr. Transnational
* Save on All Jackets!
8. O Brave New Music!
Context: As the BBC points out, there’s more music available than ever before in our world. But now you can download a new Beatles album from a parallel world in which they didn’t break up. Or use Jango, and set up a free internet jukebox, basing its playlist on musicians of your choice.
* The Golden Age of Infinite Music BBC
Not long ago, if you wanted music, you had to save up your pocket money, take a trip to the local record shop and lovingly leaf through its racks. Now, it’s almost all free, instant and infinite. And our relationship with music has changed forever.
We all know what the alleged future of music will look like. The record industry will be reduced to a smouldering ruin, the album replaced by endless individual songs and music rendered pretty much worthless by the fact that it’s universally free. Empty record shops will be overrun with weeds and old CDs will be used as coasters. Your Madonnas, U2s and Coldplays will prosper, but for anyone further down the hierarchy, the idea of making much of a living will be a non-starter.
That’s the accepted wisdom, at least. Some of it will probably prove to be true.
* Listen to A Beatles’ Tape From Another Dimension! (Editor’s note: A clever mashup of solo releases)
On Sept. 9, 2009 I experienced something that I still am having trouble believing happened to me. I came into the possession of a cassette tape containing a Beatles album that was never released. I don’t expect you to believe what happened to me, I sure wouldn’t, but thats why I grabbed the tape as proof that my experience was real....
* Jango! (Thanks, Cline!)
Jango is all about making online music easy, fun and social. Just type in an artist - and your first station starts playing right away. You'll get the music you want, along with similar favorites of Jango users who share your taste. Customizing your stations further is just as easy. Just add more artists and rate songs that you want to play more or less.
9. Eyecandy: Recent Festivals
* Pushkar Camel Festival
* Diwali
* Days of the Dead
* Guy Fawkes Night
10. Quote of the Week (Thanks, Oriah!)
“Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith.”
Margaret Shepherd
=====================================
See who we are and what we’re about to do.
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
The Talmud
=====================================
Year Six; Issue 35
1. Toronto: Upcoming Events
2. J Street Conference Wrapup
3. Israel: Not Just a Jewish Problem
4. Food Illuminates Everything
5. Coping with Copenhagen
6. Drug Law Movement
7. Live! In Front of Your Disbelieving Eyes!
8. Macabre Humour
9. Eyecandy: At the Museum
10. Quote of the Week
1. Toronto News and Actions
* Upcoming Tikkun meetings: Wed, Nov 4th at Sharon’s and Thursday, Nov 26th at Peter’s.
* Marc Ellis, Prof of Jewish studies, speaks on “Does Judaism Equals Israel?” on Nov 13th. Tikkunista! sponsored.
* Zero Nuclear Weapons public forum at Toronto City Hall Nov 13th and 14th. Free, with David Miller, Anthony Cary, and many more
2. J Street: It's a Wrap
Context: The first J Street Conference has ended. Despite cold shoulders from Israel (Dovish Jews? Excommunicate them!) the conference marks a major change in the voice from the center of American Jewry. We have an interview with J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami which makes it clear where J Street is politically, and two positive assessments of what the conference accomplished, from a perspective well to the left of Ben-Ami's.
*J Street's Ben-Ami On Zionism and Politics The Atlantic
"There is no question that over the last 40 to 50 years, the American Jewish community has developed a very sophisticated lobbying mechanism to promote its views and its interests, and I am in awe of that as a student of politics. I also happen to respect and value much of what has been achieved. For instance, the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel, the essential security guarantee that the U.S. provides, the notion that Israel should always have a qualitative military edge -- those are things that have been achieved by lobbying, by what some people would call the "Israel lobby." J Street is very happy with these achievements, and we support those ends, and we respect and admire much of what groups like AIPAC and others have done over the years....
I hope that we have a very strong left flank that attacks us, that Jewish Voices for Peace and other groups that are consistently upset with us for backing Howard Berman's sanctions plan and for refusing to embrace the Goldstone report and for standing up for the right of Israel to defend itself or for its military aid -- I hope we get attacked from the left because I would characterize J Street as the mainstream of the American Jewish community."
* J Street May Move the Templates of American Policy McConnell, mondoweiss
Listening to Ben Ami and Schwarz, it struck me that the singular achievement of J Street may be to marry the Jewish social-justice narrative to Israel/Palestine, the most important foreign policy issue facing the United States. This is almost never done, at least in official “mainstream” political circles. ... J Street’s role, it seems to me, is to say, yes, it is our duty as Jews to care about injustice and try to overcome it, and that means, explicitly, caring not only about Jewish children but about Palestinian children too. Yes, there are many Israeli individuals and groups who take this to heart, and who struggle valiantly to document and oppose the injustice Israel imposes upon the Palestinians. But J Street brings this sentiment to Washington, to the Congress, to the very center of American debate.
* Praise for J Street Philip Weiss
It only seems appropriate to me to begin my posts post-J Street in a celebratory spirit. The ways the organization falls short I will come to, but I must tip my cap to a new Jewish group that filled a hall in Washington with 1500 people, including many congressmen and senators, and these people did not boo Zbig Brzezinski, even as his name was mentioned again and again, and did not cheer sanctions for Iran, and broke into applause whenever Palestinian human rights were mentioned. In the realms of Jewish history and American power politics, this was a huge development. It is little wonder that I ran into Dan Fleshler looking stunned and starry-eyed, marveling that such a day had finally come to pass. Or that I saw Jonathan Chait of the New Republic glowering as if he had just been forced to dine on porcupine. The institutions that Chait is engaged with, the New Republic and AIPAC, had just taken a giant hit. Celebration. The status quo Israel lobby is under assault from within the Jewish community, the battle has begun in earnest. Whether it will have any effect on Palestinian freedom is yet to be determined.
3. Israel: Not Just A Jewish Problem
Context: This week was a first! A moderate Palestinian leader got to speak on US TV. A toast to the host, Jon Stewart, for bravely going where no one has previously dared go. Listen to Anna Baltzer's and Mustafa Barghouti, and marvel at how the real news comes via comedy. They talk about how cooperation is needed, as does Ahmed Moor, at the J Street conference. And in Israel, the Shministim draw inspiration from talking to South Africans about the anti-apartheid struggle.
* Mustapha Barghouti on Jon Stewart
For Canadians
For Americans
* A Jewish Focus won't End a More than Jewish Problem Ahmed Moor
While I believe that the soul searching is positive, I want to emphasize to the Jewish community that the crisis at hand is not one of Jewish humanist values versus Jewish nationalism. While that is a very real struggle for the Jewish people, it must be remembered that the real struggle in Palestine/Israel is for the rights of the individual irrespective of creed or communal identification in the face of ethnocentric chauvinism. The focus ought to be shifted from “Where have we gone as Jews?” to “What is happening to other human beings in Israel/Palestine?” Frankly, human beings are suffering at the hands of Zionists while well-meaning Jews engage in handwringing over Jewish identity and what that means in the context of Zionism. There is a right time to reflect on that question, but the more pressing issue is the humanitarian one. There is nothing ambiguous about the fact that all people are created equally and ought to be treated equally under the law.
* Israeli Refusers Follow South African Footsteps
Shministim are conscientious objectors. We are Israeli high-school graduates who refuse conscription into the military, and are repeatedly imprisoned as a result. We will not take part of the occupation of another people, the Palestinians, particularly when doing so goes against human values and cannot be explained on grounds of security. I am now 19 and have been jailed three times for my refusal, usually in solitary confinement because I refuse to wear military uniform in prison.
My friends and I have been conducting speaking tours through the United States and South Africa. Our South African hosts are the End Conscription Campaign [ECC], as they celebrate 25 years since the launch of their campaign against apartheid military conscription.
4. Food Illuminates Everything
Context: Jonathan Safran Foer's article may be the best essay I have ever read. period. It touches on food, family, identity, the Holocaust: it is a bravura piece of writing. And Michael Pollan, from Ted Talks gives a political perspective in his glorious fashion.
* Why Jonathan Safran Foer Chose to Give Up Meat NYTimes.com (Thanks, Wilder!)
More stories could be told about my grandmother than about anyone else I’ve ever met — her otherwordly childhood, the hairline margin of her survival, the totality of her loss, her immigration and further loss, the triumph and tragedy of her assimilation — and while I will one day try to tell them to my children, we almost never told them to one another. Nor did we call her by any of the obvious and earned titles. We called her the Greatest Chef.
The story of her relationship to food holds all of the other stories that could be told about her. Food, for her, is not food. It is terror, dignity, gratitude, vengeance, joy, humiliation, religion, history and, of course, love. It was as if the fruits she always offered us were picked from the destroyed branches of our family tree.
* The Omnivore's Next Dilemma Michael Pollan Ted Talks
What if human consciousness isn't the end-all and be-all of Darwinism? What if we are all just pawns in corn's clever strategy game, the ultimate prize of which is world domination? Michael Pollan asks us to see things from a plant's-eye view -- to consider the possibility that nature isn't opposed to culture, that biochemistry rivals intellect as a survival tool. By merely shifting our perspective, he argues, we can heal the Earth. Who's the more sophisticated species now?
5. Coping-Hagen
Context: We start with a BBC Q & A on what will be happening at Copenhagen, and why it matters. Then follows a piece from Mother Jones, that venerable battler for the environment gives an excellent summary of where the battle lines will be. And we end with a rare piece of good news from the environmental wasteland of Canada's Harper government.
* Q&A: The Copenhagen climate summit BBC
Q: Why are the Copenhagen talks happening?
A: The majority of the world's governments believe that climate change poses a threat to human society and to the natural world.
* Copenhagen: Too Hot to Handle Mother Jones
This time the developing world has its own demands—and that will make a Copenhagen treaty far, far more complicated to arrive at than Kyoto was. For the developing world would like to...develop. And the most obvious way to do it is to burn coal. And they have an unimpeachable moral case, which goes like this: You got rich by burning coal, so why shouldn't we?
You can imagine the game of multilevel chess that ensues: Everyone is under pressure from everyone else, and it all comes down to the final days, and most likely drags on into 2010 as the negotiators lurch toward some kind of middle ground. Which could mean, in the end, a treaty that at least moves us in the direction of the target that most people have been talking about for the last five years: holding temperature increases under two degrees Celsius and an atmospheric concentration of 450 parts per million (ppm) CO2. ...a failure would be so embarrassing that there's real pressure to agree to something.
SO THAT ABOUT COVERS all the factors. Except for two. Physics and chemistry, they're called—and they're throwing a serious monkey wrench into the proceedings. It started in the summer of 2007 when the Arctic melted with sudden and unexpected haste, 30 years ahead of what even the more pessimistic scientists were forecasting....
* Canada Sets Aside Its Boreal Forest As Giant Carbon Vault The Guardian
In a series of initiatives, Canadian provincial governments and aboriginal leaders have set aside vast tracts of coniferous woods, wetlands, and peat. The conservation drive bans logging, mining, and oil drilling on some 250m acres – an area more than twice the size of California.
The sheer scale of the forest conservation drive is somewhat of an anomaly for Canada, whose government has been accused of sabotaging the global climate change talks by its development of theAlberta tar sands and its refusal to make deep cuts in its greenhouse gas emissions
6. The Drug Laws They Are A Changin'
Context: Stupidity, they say, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Governments and leaders are recognizing this, at last, and there are signs of change on the drug law front.
* Latin American countries decriminalize marijuana, drugs
Almost two months after Mexico decriminalized the possession of small amounts all major narcotics — including marijuana, cocaine and heroin — the most notable thing is how little has changed. Drug users and addicts still smoke, snort and inject quietly in their homes; drug dealers are still regularly arrested in stash houses and on street corners; and major cartels carry on battling police to smuggle huge loads to the United States.
But while the law has yet to have a measurable impact on the Mexican streets, it has sent waves across the Americas to groups campaigning to change drug laws in their own countries.
* Nuts to Nutt The Guardian
Professor David Nutt, the government's chief drug adviser, has been sacked a day after claiming that ecstasy and LSD were less dangerous than alcohol. Nutt incurred the wrath of the government when he claimed in a paper that alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than many illegal drugs, including LSD, ecstasy and cannabis.
* Drug Czar Slams Harper The Province
The author of Vancouver's ground-breaking Four Pillars drug strategy criticized the federal government's "utterly failed" approach to drug use in his resignation notice this week. Donald MacPherson said in an e-mail Tuesday to city staff: "[T]he approach to the drug problem that we have in Canada . . . [a] war-on-drugs approach has utterly failed over the past 40 years and must come to an end.
"The emperor truly has no clothes in this case," said his e-mail.
7. I See It... But I don't Believe it!
Context: Thanks to the ubiquity of portable film cameras we're seeing more amazing footage than ever before. We start with a parking lot in Thornhill, just north of Toronto, and an amazing 60 seconds that has it all: comedy, pathos, and the knife-edge tension of a profound human moral dilemma. Then on to the Yes Men, and a brilliant hoax press conference they held this week. And we wind up with a salute to a heroic newscaster, downed in brutal snowtubing action.
* Epic Parking Fail
* Yes Men Thanks, Dave!
* Snowtubes Take Their Toll
8. Macabre Humour Pictures
Context: Hey, it's Halloween!
* When Halloween Overlaps Christmas
* On The Golden Gate Bridge
* Irony is Defined
9. Eyecandy: At The Museum
* Art Institute of Chicago
* Museum of Kitsch
* 50 Stunning Wall Murals
* Japan's "Superflat" Art Movement
10. Quote of the Week
"Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul." Edward Abbey
=====================================
See who we are and what we’re about to do.
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
The Talmud
=====================================
Year Six; Issue 34
1. Tikkun Toronto: Upcoming Events
2. Israel Isolationists in the Middle East
3. Playing in the J Street Banned
4. The Swine Flu Vaccine Debate
5. Olympics: BC, and Rio
6. The Rise of Compassion
7. Cool New Toys (for kids of all ages)
8. Halloween Ideas
9. Eyecandy: Industrial Pollution
10. Quote of the Week
1. Tikkun News
* Upcoming Tikkun meetings: Wed, Nov 4th at Sharon’s and Thursday, Nov 26th at Peter’s.
* Marc Ellis, Prof of Jewish studies, speaks on “Does Judaism Equals Israel?” on Nov 13th. Tikkunista! sponsored.
* Voices Forward has a free exhibit (opening today) Off the Wall: A photographic chronicle of the wall separating Israel and Palestine in 2004, at the Arta Gallery in the Distillery District
2. Israel, Turkey, and the Sound of No Hands Clapping
Context: Turkey is the latest country to criticize Israel, and to suffer a boycott. But if all your friends start to criticize you, and you react by boycotting all of them... just – maybe – you have denial issues? Perspectives from the UK, US, and Israel...
* Israel in Denial Over Turkish Rage (The Guardian)
The apparent inability of Israeli leaders to see their actions as others see them – that is to say, to put themselves in other people’s shoes – may partly explain the depth of the outrage with which they greeted the Goldstone report on last January’s Gaza conflict.... An unexpected move by Turkey last week to postpone military exercises with Israel suddenly channelled conflicting versions of reality into a direct, head-on crash. Ankara’s decision was its way of expressing its continuing displeasure over Gaza. Prime minister Tayyip Erdogan fell out publicly with Shimon Peres, Israel’s president, over the issue at Davos in January. The row has been simmering ever since. But by dramatically wrecking the flagship exercises, which also involved the US and other Nato members, Turkey effectively forced Israel’s leadership to look at things from the other side’s perspective. The picture thus produced is both instructive and discouraging.
* Why Turkey Got Excised by Israel Stephen Walt
Now step back and consider how we got here. A good relationship with Turkey has been a major asset for Israel and strong Israeli-Turkish relations are good for the United States (which is an ally of both countries). The United States, Turkey, Israel, and other NATO countries benefit from joint military exercises.... Israel’s defenders often claim that it is a major strategic asset for the United States, but Israel’s pariah status within the region reduces its strategic value significantly. It explains why Israel could not participate in the 1991 or 2003 wars with Iraq, and why it is difficult for Arab governments who share Israel’s concerns about Iran to openly collaborate with Israel or United States to address that issue. And make no mistake: The occupation is now the main barrier to Israel’s full acceptance within the region, as the 2007 Arab League peace plan makes clear
* Israel Isolates Itself Gideon Levy Haaretz
Israel has been dealing one blow after another to the rest of the world. ... China, France and J Street will somehow get by despite these boycotts, Turkey will also recover from the great vacationers’ revolt, and we can expect that even the Swedes and Norwegians will recover from Israel’s loud reprimands. But a country that attacks and boycotts everyone who does not exactly agree with its official positions will become isolated, forsaken and detestable: North Korea of today or Albania of yesterday. It’s actually quite strange for Israel to use this weapon, as it is about to turn into the victim of boycotts itself.
Israel strikes and strikes again. It strikes its enemies, and now it strikes out at its friends who dare not fall exactly in line with its official policies. The J Street case is a particularly serious example. This Jewish organization rose in America along with Barack Obama. Its members want a fair and peace-seeking Israel. That’s their sin, and their punishment is a boycott.
3. The Wild, The Innocent, and the J Street Banned
Context: J Street is the new kid in Washington, gaining power as a Jewish alternative to AIPAC. The politics of this are fascinating: some older players are welcome (Brit Tzedek) but some are personae non gratae (Tikkun, and Michael Lerner among others). Meanwhile AIPAC attacks J Street, and Israel boycotts their conference. Can the new centre hold? Read on and find out...
* J-Street Overview New York Times
J Street maintains that most American Jews share its views on the Middle East. They are reliably liberal on questions of war and peace; three-quarters of Jewish respondents to a 2007 Gallup poll, for example, opposed the war in Iraq. The question is how much of an exception they make for Israel. J Street sought to answer this question by commissioning an extensive poll of Jewish opinion on Middle East issues. The survey, taken in July 2008 and repeated with almost identical findings in March, found that American Jews opposed further Israeli settlements (60 percent to 40 percent), that they overwhelmingly supported the proposition that the U.S. should be actively engaged in the peace process even if that entailed “publicly stating its disagreements with both the Israelis and the Arabs” and that they strongly supported doing so even when the premise was revised to “publicly stating its disagreements with Israel.” Strikingly, the average respondent placed Israel eighth among a list of concerns; only 8 percent placed it first or second.
* Why is the pro-Israel right so afraid of J Street? - MJ Rosenberg
Here is the ironic part. In recent years, several books and articles have been published that argue that the pro-Israel lobby effectively stifles debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the halls of Congress, in academia and even in the media. Every time that claim is made, the lobby goes ballistic, with virtually every organization identified with the lobby arguing that such charges amount to libel. The organizations claim they would never try to stifle dissent. But now those tactics are being employed against J Street by the very people who insist that no such tactics have ever been used.
* J Street Attacked for Accepting Money From Arab Americans!
Ben-David (AIPAC — editor) and his supporters are now attacking J Street for accepting contributions from Americans of Arab descent. The donations in question are largely symbolic, many of them in amounts between $30-$100, but his point is loud and clear -- an organization that receives Arab-American support must, by definition, be suspect.
But why on earth should J Street be ashamed to have the support of Arab-Americans like me? And why should Arab-Americans worry that participating in the political life of their country and exercising their freedom of speech might -- simply because of their ethnicity -- harm the candidates and causes they hold dear?...
It is possible to be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, not out of some blanket support for either government, but out of a sincere belief that peace is in both people’s best interests. I hold that belief as a result of years of work within the Arab and Jewish American communities, working in partnerships not just with J Street but also with such groups as Americans for Peace Now, Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, and Israel Policy Forum. I have traveled to the region and remain humbled and inspired by the courage and tenacity of those Israelis and Palestinians who refuse to submit to the cynicism or pessimism this conflict so often demands.
4. H1N1 Vaccine: Better Safe than Sorry— But What is Safe?
Context: From the tin foil hat crowd (Tikkunista! recently got an email claiming Swine Flu was a racially motivated government plot!) to rational medical folks, the debate on the danger of H1N1 vaccine rages on. Tikkunista presents articles from both perspectives. (Full disclosure: we believe there is an 80% chance that this section is 65% accurate).
* Swine Flu Rumors and Fears The New Yorker
A national poll conducted by the University of Michigan found that only forty per cent of American parents plan to vaccinate their children against H1N1. The news is all the more distressing because the virus affects children and young adults far more powerfully than it does older people. (With most strains of seasonal flu, the elderly are especially at risk.)
Why would a parent decline to vaccinate his child against a virus that has already infected a million Americans? Half of those who participated in the poll expressed concern about possible side effects. Vaccines do cause side effects, and, in rare instances, the side effects can be serious. In particular, people who are already ill with another infection should avoid vaccines. But the odds that a flu vaccine would cause more harm than the illness itself are practically zero. Nearly half of those polled said that they weren’t worried about their children getting the flu. (There have even been reports of “swine-flu parties,’’ where parents can bring children in the hope that they will contract a potentially fatal disease.)
* Suspended Mercury Restrictions for Swine Flu Vaccine Thanks, Murray!
In preparation for swine-flu vaccinations next month, the state of Washington’s Health Department has temporarily suspended a rule that limits the amount of a mercury preservative in vaccines given to pregnant women and children under the age of 3. Thimerosal has been eliminated from most vaccines in the United States, and the compound may be linked to autism. But it will be added to the bulk of swine-flu vaccines.
Thimerosal will be added to the vaccine because it is being produced in vials that contain enough medication for 10 shots. The mercury compound kills bacteria, lowering the risk that the drug will be contaminated by needles used to withdraw separate doses.
* How To Win An Argument About Vaccines Wired Magazine
MYTH 1: Vaccines cause autism. FACT:Until 2001, some childhood vaccines included thimerosal, a preservative containing ethylmercury. (Thimerosal isn’t gone from all vaccines — it’s still present in some influenza formulations. But none of the vaccines routinely required for school admission contains thimerosal as a preservative.)1 Mercury, of course, can cause neurological damage. But there’s scientific consensus that the amount once used in vaccines — around 50 micrograms per 0.5-ml dose — was far short of toxic. And autism rates have continued to climb, suggesting that there’s either a different cause or, more likely, that a better understanding of the condition has increased diagnoses. A comprehensive review of the research, conducted in 2004 by the prestigious Institute of Medicine, found no evidence of a connection between vaccines and autism. None.
5. Whistling Down To Rio: You Think Our Olympics Have Problems?
Context: Behind schedule and over budget, amidst phoney bonhomie and criticism crackdowns: the BC Olympics staggers to its starting line. But in Rio, the police are just another drug gang, and they shoot down helicopters. Brazil is beautiful, but we’d rather be skiing.
* The Fake 2010 Olympics rabble.ca
For a colossal event that is centred around “the Olympic and Paralympic journey and creating everyday champions,” there’s plenty of falsification occurring behind the opulence of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. Who can forget the fake fireworks and child lip-syncher during the opening ceremonies of the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics, along with fake cheer squads and fake blue skies? It appears that the “fake” factor is alive and well in Vancouver and Whistler...
* Anti-Olympic Signs? $10,000 a Day, and 6 Months in Prison CBC
A proposed B.C. law would allow municipal officials to enter homes to seize unauthorized and possibly anti-Olympic signs on short notice, civil libertarians say. Violators could be fined up to $10,000 a day and jailed up to six months, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association said Friday.The proposed law was introduced Thursday as a bill to amend the Municipalities Enabling and Validating Act.
* Brazillian Favellas: “I’ve Seen Two of my Friends Killed” The Guardian
I’ve seen two of my friends killed. They had killed someone in a gang, so one Saturday night at about 6.30pm a death squad came from Conto to the rival street of Quiti. I was in bed having a rest when it happened. I was woken up by the sound of firearms. My friends had been stopped on the side of the street, pushed up against a wall and killed with a gun. When I went out to the street I saw them lying on the ground. That marked me for life.
I found out later they had been killed by four people. Three were from the Conto area, the fourth was a policeman. Most of the death squads are financed by gangs and the police are often involved. There was no way I could go to the police for justice and tell them that one of them helped kill my friends too. It’s a repressive system. Open your mouth and they’ll kill you too. You can’t really tell anyone – if you’re not talking to the policeman involved in the crime, you could be talking to his colleague.
* Through Rio’s Favelas, Guns Drawn The New Yorker News Desk
Last weekend, a fortnight after the International Olympic Committee’s decision to give Rio de Janeiro the 2016 Olympics, there was a dramatic upsurge in the city’s gangland violence. On Saturday, October 17th, a prolonged gun battle between rival gangs over control of a favela, Morro dos Macacos (Monkey Hill), led to a police raid in which a police helicopter was shot down. In the end, at least twenty-one people were killed, and a number of civilians, including children, were wounded. In apparent protest over the government’s temerity in raiding their turf, the gangsters went into the streets of the city to wreak havoc; they burned ten city buses and other vehicles. On Sunday, after an emotional funeral ceremony held for the dead officers, Rio’s military police launched an intensive search operation for the weapon that brought down their helicopter. It was believed to be a .30-calibre anti-aircraft gun, a powerful weapon normally used by armies in war zones like Afghanistan.
6. The Rise of Compassion
Context: It’s not all bad news: there are wonderful people working to heal this wounded planet. Tikkunista! looks at Karen Armstrong’s “Charter for Compassion”, a wonderful new story by Canadian Ivan Coyote, and a reclaiming of the traditions of Judaism. Read on, and be cheered.
* The Charter for Compassion
Bringing together voices from all cultures and religions, the Charter seeks to remind the world we already share the core principles of compassion. (Excellent 2 minute video here)
* Some of My Best Friends Are Rednecks Ivan Coyote Xtra
A friend of mine stopped me in the street the other day to tell me a story. This is not uncommon, in fact I consider random story stoppings to be a job benefit, kind of like healthcare for storytellers, or at least heartcare.
Except I didn’t like the story he told me. Didn’t like it at all.
I guess I should start by describing what this friend looks like, not because it matters at all to me, but because it matters to the story. My friend has long brown hair and a kind of bushy beard. He is from a working-class coal mining town in the southern US. He looks a bit like a good old boy. Like a redneck straight white guy, to use his words, not mine.
* Laying Claim to Judaism Antony Loewenstein (who’s he?)
So, you cross any line in order to speak out about the degradation of others: this is a rule in the Judaism to which I lay claim. You do not infringe this rule to support a state, whatever your attachment to that state. ...And, starting with the Hebrew prophets, there is a long straggling line of Judeans and Jews, of ancient Israelites and modern Israelis, of rabbis and writers and activists, who have followed suit. Some call themselves secular, others religious, others just plain Jewish.
Between them, these two principles, the one positive (respect for human dignity), the other negative (rejection of idolatry), lay the substantive basis for a Jewish case for outspokenness. On the one hand, they motivate, on the other hand they limit, free expression of opinion about anything whatsoever. To which we can add a third – essentially procedural – principle: commitment to argument....In the argument over Israel, there are no ‘no go’ areas except as determined by the first two principles, applied via the third. Anything goes, even discussion of the most sensitive issues, even its existence as ‘the Jewish state’. And if this causes offence, tough: no political entity, no state, no object: nothing is above and beyond the reach of argument in the interests of peace, justice and truth.
7. Cool New Toys
Context: New tools, so cool that they’re clearly toys. Aren’t they?
* OLPC: First we Take Uruguay, then... BBC
Uruguay has become the first country to provide a laptop for every child attending state primary school....Uruguay is part of the One Laptop Per Child scheme, an organisation set up by internet pioneer Nicholas Negroponte. ...The Uruguay programme has cost the state $260 (£159) per child, including maintenance costs, equipment repairs, training for the teachers and internet connection. The total figure represents less than 5% of the country’s education budget. Around 70% of the XO model laptops handed out by the government were given to children who did not have computers at home.
* The Wikireader: No Internet Connection Needed
With 3 simple buttons and 3 million topics, WikiReader brings the iconic Wikipedia to all generations. For $99
* What Problems Does Google Wave Solve?
I believe that people who don’t see what Google Wave is for are simply looking at it from the wrong angle. Wave is not a social tool....Wave is built for the corporate environment. It’s a tool for getting work done. And as far as those go, it’s an excellent tool, even at this very early stage.
It will probably take years before Wave fully penetrates large corporations and replaces the email systems everyone is used to. But it solves so many thorny problems with email that it might well manage to do so, where so many other tentative “email fixes” have failed.
* Firescreens (not Firewalls!)
BBM sent us their new fireplace screens: 1666 AND DCCCXVII A.U.C., commemorating the great fires of London and Rome, respectively. Made of lasercut cor-ten steel plate, each screen is produced in the image of the present-day skylines of Rome and London—the background of the fireplace evokes the “fires that signed their history.”
8. Halloween Ideas
Context: There’s a macabre section coming in next week’s Halloween issue of Tikkunista! But this is a selection of new ideas to prepare for the festival: things to cook or to costume yourself (or your dog).
* Creepy Halloween Party Food
* Best Dog Costume
* Best Human Costume
9. Eyecandy: Industrial Pollution
* Edward Burtynsky’s Oil
* Infernal Landscapes
* Object Graveyards
10. Quote of the Week
“You can't test courage cautiously.” Anne Dillard
=====================================
See who we are and what we’re about to do.
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
The Talmud
=====================================
Year Six; Issue 33
Tikkunista! Survey results here. Many thanks to all respondents.
1. Tikkun Toronto: Upcoming Meetings
2. Afghanistan
3. GLBTT Issues, and the Media
4. The Food Section
5. The Sports Section
6. Dave Eggers
7. Appearance and Reality
8. Mind Games
9. Eyecandy: Mediative Nature
10. Quote of the Week
1. Tikkun News
* Upcoming Tikkun meetings: Wed, Nov 4th at Sharon’s and Thursday, Nov 26th at Peter’s. Write them down now, before you forget ;-)
2. Afghanistan
Context: It’s getting clearer that the fantasy that the West could defeat an indigenous Taliban is as unfounded as were the similar beliefs of the Russians, the UK, and Alexander the Great. So there are only two real questions: how do we get out, and how many more have to die before we do? Obama is obviously (and fairly) afraid of the “cut and run” sign Republicans would love to hang about his neck— but if the war is unwinnable, so what else can be done? Some useful data and thoughts on that issue follow.
* Obama Turns on the Stalemate Machine Stephen Walt
Imagine that the situation in Afghanistan were exactly what it is today -- a corrupt government in Kabul with dubious legitimacy, the Taliban gaining strength, al Qaeda’s leaders still hiding out in northwest Pakistan, etc. -- except that the U.S. military wasn’t there. And then ask yourself: would you be in favor of sending 100,000 or so American soldiers to fight and die there?... And notice that the scenario I’ve posited is actually more favorable than the one we are actually in. In this counterfactual, Kabul is losing on its own, whereas in reality, Kabul is losing even though there are 100,000 or so foreign troops already trying to help, at a cost that far exceeds the entire GDP of the country.
* The Taliban Claim They Pose No Threat to the West The Guardian
The Taliban have issued an English-language statement claiming they pose no international threat – a move that will fuel the debate among US and European policymakers over whether the hardline Afghan insurgent group can be split away from the international militants of al-Qaida. The statement came amid reports that Barack Obama’s military advisers are shifting the focus of US operations to target al-Qaida in Pakistan while downplaying the threat posed to America by the Taliban.... “We did not have any agenda to harm other countries including Europe nor we have such agenda today,” said the statement, which was posted on a known Taliban website. “Still, if you want to turn the country of the proud and pious Afghans into a colony, then know that we have an unwavering determination and have braced for a prolonged war.”
* More Reasons to question Afghanistan Stephen Walt
"I'm not sure that if the Taliban took over in Afghanistan that they would necessarily welcome al-Qaida back in great forces, particularly if al-Qaida was going back there to set up camps to train people to mount attacks against other countries. I think the Taliban must calculate that had it not been for 9/11 they'd still be empowering Kabul now today, that no one would have come to kick them out. It was only 9/11 that caused them to lose power. So you know, they lost all that time, and if they get back they perhaps don't want to make that same mistake again."
I watched the Frontline documentary on Afghanistan, ... and even the on-screen advocates of a continued U.S. effort (Gen. Stanley McChrystal, AfPak envoy Richard Holbrooke, CNAS President John Nagl, etc.) didn’t sound very encouraging. I think McChrystal and maybe even Holbrooke know they’ve got a loser on their hands, and were operating in damage-limitation mode. As others have noted, the on-screen interviews with Pakistani officials made it clear that they are playing a double-game here; they’ve been in bed with the Afghan Taliban for years and are even less reliable partners than the Karzai government, no matter how much aid we dump on them. To believe we can eke out something resembling “victory” in these circumstances is like believing one could drain the Atlantic Ocean with a teaspoon.
* GLBTT and Media
Context: One of the requested topics: as you ask, so Tikkunista covers. We start with a wonderful talk: Dan Choi on The Moth talks about his coming out in the military, which has been getting huge press coverage. Go and listen: it’s a 15 minute talk, and one of the most powerful Moth’s of the past few months. Two interesting studies on Gaydar confirm that we all have it. John Stewart looks at Faux News’ “coverage” of the recent Washington rally, and the Onion weighs in, but lightly.
* Dan Choi The Moth
An Iraq veteran is surprised to find himself suddenly at odds with a military law. Lt. Dan Choi is a West Point graduate and Iraq veteran fluent in Arabic.
* Gaydar, and Social Networks
At MIT: Two students partnered up to take on the latest Internet fad: the online social networks that were exploding into the mainstream. ...Using data from the social network Facebook, they made a striking discovery: just by looking at a person’s online friends, they could predict whether the person was gay. They did this with a software program that looked at the gender and sexuality of a person’s friends and, using statistical analysis, made a prediction.... People may be effectively “outing” themselves just by the virtual company they keep.
At Tufts: Given at least 1/20th of a second to look at a man, you can probably guess whether he’s gay — and be correct at least 70 percent of the time. Remarkably, your first split-second assessment would be as accurate as your impression after a full minute. That was the case, at least, in a study by Tufts University psychologists Nalini Ambady and Nicholas Rule when they asked male and female judges to guess the sexual orientation of 90 faces of gay and straight men (without facial hair or piercings). Regardless of their own sexual orientation, the judges were astoundingly swift and accurate when it came to identifying most men’s sexual orientation.\
* Jon Stewart on Faux News (see Dan Choi in the news clip)
US Readers Click here
Canadian Readers Click Here
* It’s God’s Fault I’m Homophobic The Onion
If it were part of God’s plan for me to stop viciously condemning others based solely on their sexual preference, He would have seen fit—in His infinite wisdom and all—to have given me the tiniest bit of human empathy necessary to do so. It’s a simple matter of logic, really. God made me who I am, and who I am is a cold, anti-gay zealot. Thus, I abhor gay people because God made me that way. Why is that so hard to understand?
Here, let’s start with the basic facts: I hate and fear gay people. The way they feel is different from how I feel, and that causes me a lot of confusion and anger. Everyone knows God is all-powerful. He could easily have given me the capacity to investigate what’s behind those feelings rather than tell strangers in the park they’re going to hell for holding hands. But God clearly has another path for me. And who am I to question His divine will?
4. The Food Section
Context: The foods, they are a changin’. The personal decision of what you eat is a political decision these days. Tikkunista! explores some of the battlegrounds, starting with Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defence of Food) offering some food rules. Then it’s on to veggie Thursdays, locavore power, and Ireland’s banning GMOs.
* Pollan’s Top Twenty Food Rules
In March, the best-selling author Michael Pollan asked readers of the Well blog for help. He wanted your food rules — the folklore, wisdom and common sense that guide your family eating habits. Well readers rose to the challenge, offering more than 2,600 rules (and counting) for healthful eating. Mr. Pollan, who is soon releasing a book on the topic, this week offers a preview in The New York Times Magazine of 20 of his favorite rules.
* Veggie Thursdays in Ghent The Guardian
You’ve probably heard of fish Fridays. Well, the Flemish university town of some 200,000 people has now introduced a weekly “Veggie Thursday” .So, what does Ghent – a picturesque town where cycling is a pleasure and not a death-defying gamble – hope to achieve? By encouraging public officials, school children and ordinary citizens to go voluntarily veggie one day a week, the city hopes to improve public health, reduce our impact on the environment and enhance animal welfare. In fact, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation(FAO): “The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.”
* Local Food is a Necessity rabble.ca
Farmers’ markets are cropping up everywhere; the big grocery chains are getting in on the act; there are programs for schools; some towns and cities have local food guides, local food co-ops, even local food social networks. In some places, there’s research and training, local food restaurants and local food online services.
Some of the usual suspects think this is all a fad, and at worst another socialist plot led by Al Gore and the Hollywood fashionistas; but in fact, it’s not only real but arguably the prelude to a dire necessity. Simply, the industrial agriculture that has fed increasing numbers of people for 60 years, thanks to more and more chemical fertilizers and advances in technology, is hitting several brick walls.
* Ireland: “No GMO Crops in this Country”
Prince Charles has called it the “biggest environmental disaster of all time,” whileMonsanto and others maintain it’s safe for humans and the environment. Genetically modified foods are a contentious issue, but Ireland is erring on the side of caution, placing a ban on growing any genetically modified crops. Ireland will ban growing of GM crops, and a voluntary GM-free label can be placed on all animal products--such as meat, poultry, eggs, fish, crustaceans, and dairy--that are raised with GM-free feed, according to a GM-Free Ireland press release. Ireland joinsJapan and Egypt as one of the few but growing number of countries that have banned the cultivation of GM crops.
5. The Sports Section
Context: Enough of the World Serious... on to the world series. First we settle the argument of what sports are the most physically demanding (hockey’s number 2!) , then look at Big Picture on gymnastics, and conclude with miraculous soccer shots by amateurs. So where’s the World Series? Sorry, as a Red Sox fan, I can’t bear to talk about baseball.
* Ranked: from the Toughest Sport to the Easiest ESPN
We sized them up. We measured them, top to bottom. We’ve done our own Tale of the Tape, and we’ve come to a surprising conclusion. Pound for pound, the toughest sport in the world is . . .We identified 10 categories, or skills, that go into athleticism, and then asked our eight panelists to assign a number from 1 to 10 to the demands each sport makes of each of those 10 skills. By totalling and averaging their responses, we arrived at a degree-of-difficulty number for each sport on a 1 to 100 scale. That number places the difficulty of performing each sport in context with the other sports we rated.
* Gymnastics (Big Picture)
* Soccer Shots
6. Dave Eggers
Context: Who is Dave Eggers? Writer extraordinaire, man of letters, winner of the TED prize in 2008, selected by UTNE Reader as one of "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing the World”. Listen to his acceptance speech at TED, as inspiring a speech about the potential of educational involvement as you’ll find anywhere. Read Peter Marmorek’s appreciation of Eggers’ most recent novel, Zeitoun in the Tikkun Daily Blog, and visit “Voice of Witness” which Eggers co-founded and to which he contributed all profits from Zeitoun.
* Once Upon a School TED
Accepting his 2008 TED Prize, author Dave Eggers asks the TED community to personally, creatively engage with local public schools. With spellbinding eagerness, he talks about how his 826 Valencia tutoring center inspired others around the world to open.
* Zeitoun Tikkun Daily Blog
The read of the summer for me is the new Dave Eggers book, Zeitoun. It is non-fiction, and traces the story of Syrian-born Abdulrahman Zeitoun and his wife Kathy, a married Muslim couple with children who own a contracting business and a number of houses in New Orleans. As hurricane Katrina approaches, Kathy and the kids flee, but Zeitoun stays to look after their business. After the flood he paddles his aluminum canoe around, distributing water and food to the stranded, until he is picked up by armed FEMA guards, to whom it is abundantly clear that a Syrian must be a terrorist. He is disappeared, and the story of his and Kathy’s struggles to save him is riveting.
* Voice of Witness: Illuminating Human Rights Crises Through Oral History
Voice of Witness is a non-profit book series that empowers those most closely affected by contemporary social injustice. Using oral history as a foundation, the series depicts human rights crises around the world through the stories of the men and women who experience them.
7. Appearance and Reality
Context: Making things look like what they’re not can be a matter of survival in nature, a form of art, or a heart-rending attempt to keep children’s magic alive during war. They’re all in this section.
* Gaza Donkeys Given Zebra Makeover Reuters
Two white donkeys dyed with black stripes delighted Palestinian kids at a small Gaza zoo on Thursday who had never seen a zebra in the flesh. With their long ears, drooping heads and sleepy eyes, the impostors probably would not have fooled the zoo's only lioness. But the effect achieved by the zoo owners' dye job looks not so bad -- to the unpractised eye, and from a distance....A genuine zebra would have been too expensive to bring into Israel-blockaded Gaza via smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt, said owner Mohammed Bargouthi. "It would have cost me $40,000 to get a real one." Watch video of the makeover
* The Invisible Man
The camouflage series by young and talented Liu Bolin. He’s 35, from Shandong in China. He puts himself into a scene, painted so as to blend with the decor. No retouching, no Photoshop.
* The Satanic Leaf-Tailed Gecko
* The Swimming Pool Illusion
8. Mindgames
Context: Something for your ears: Incredibox lets you combine nine vocal tracks to create your own doo-wop soundtrack. Then something for your ears: the Eyeballing game challenges you to arrange angles, lines circles by eye, and compares your results to everyone else’s. And finally the Terminatrix explains the real reason why Obama won the Nobel Prize for Peace. Trust us, it’s a mindgame.
* Incredibox
* The Eyeballing Game
* The Terminatrix (Thanks, Linda!)
9. Eyecandy: Meditative Nature
* Autumn (Big Picture)
* Michael Levin “Meditative Photography” (Thanks, Dave!)
* Clark Little: Wave Photos
10. Quote of the Week
“The big print giveth and the small print taketh away” Tom Waits
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See who we are and what we’re about to do.
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
The Talmud
=====================================
Year Six; Issue 32
Thanks for the 10% returned Tikkunista! surveys...one more week for the rest of you!
1. Tikkun Toronto: Next Meeting, Facts on the Ground
2. That ‘Who’s a Jew?’ Juju
3. Our Changing World: Past, Present, Future
4. Money Makes the World Go Round
5. Women’s Images
6. Working for Good
7. A Case for Books
8. Information: Just a Click Away
9. Eyecandy: Traveling Through Beauty
10. Quote of the Week
1. Tikkun News
* Our next Tikkun meeting is Thursday October 15th, at Lydia’s. Map here.
* Facts on the Ground: Friday Oct. 16. noon - 2pm, OISE In May 2009, the Haivens and their two sons participated in a study tour of Israel and the West Bank. The Haivens will report on the treatment of Palestinians under occupation on the West Bank and the lesser known situation of Palestinian citizens of Israel.
2. Drawing Jewish Lines
Context: This week the hot story was that Ahmadinejad had Jewish roots, which turned out, alas, to be untrue. But in Israel, a Jerusalem Post suggested excommunicating anti-Israeli Jews, the Haredim (ultra-orthodox) continued their growth, and the label “self-hating anti-Semitic Jew” continues to be used for anyone who is critical of any Israeli action.
* We’re Here, We’re Jewish: Get Used to It Mondoweiss/ J Post
The battle is joined. Scary excommunication article in the Jerusalem Post by Isi Liebler. So scary it’s funny. “Marginalize the renegades” is the big idea: purge the bad Jews. Get rid of “the rot in the Diaspora.” Includes attacks on TIFF declaration, the IJV, “radical” Rabbi Michael Lerner, etc.
* The Tropes of Anti-Semitism The Guardian
The charge is so popular these days that people who use it must have felt as though they had won the lottery when they were presented with such a high-profile target like Goldstone. They were probably still savouring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s outburst in August when he railed against the two senior and Jewish aides of President Obama, Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, calling them “self-hating Jews”.
If anything finally shows up the concept as bogus and bankrupt, it should be the use of it against Goldstone. Jewish self-hatred means rejecting everything about yourself that is Jewish because it is so hateful to you. As a description of Goldstone, nothing could be further from the truth. Alife-long Zionist and a Governor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Goldstone believes bringing war criminals to justice stems from the lessons of the Holocaust and that the creation of Israel symbolised what the postwar human rights movement was all about. But to those who level the accusation, the real degree of Jewish affiliation of the accused is irrelevant.
* A Hostile Takeover of Judaism Globe and Mail
Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community has come a long way. No longer are they the inward-looking anti-Zionists who only cared that the government provide them with money for their separate schools, welfare and exemptions from military service. These days, many of the Haredim – the word means “those who tremble” in awe of God” – have joined with right-wing religious Zionists to become a powerful political force.
...Rabbi Eliyahu had his greatest impact as spiritual leader of Israel’s National Religious Party. He believed that the line separating the Orthodox from the Haredim was artificial and that many Haredim could be brought into the nationalist camp. The rabbi has an exclusive view of who really is a Jew, having denounced Reform and Conservative synagogues as “reeking of hell.” And he has often said that democracy has no place in Judaism.
3. Looking at the Future, Understanding the Present, Remembering the Past
Context: Mostly Tikkunista! looks at specific issues. But here are three interesting wide focus articles that look at where cities are going, what the current decade is really about, and things some of us grew up with that are history.
* Is Chaotic 21st-Century Lagos a Blueprint For the Cities Of The Future? The Guardian
The rate at which Nigeria’s population has increased, and continues to increase, is staggering. In 1950, 10 years before it gained independence from Britain, 34 million people lived here. The UN believes there are now almost 150 million Nigerians; it has become the world’s eighth most populous country, bigger than Russia or Japan....If you want to see what it means to live in the middle of a population explosion - the kind of generational leap in size that happened in London in the 19th century and New York in the 20th - Lagos is the ideal place. Where, I wondered, do all the extra people go? [...And] it is not only the developing world megacities - Mumbai, Dhaka, Calcutta, Karachi, Kinshasa, Cairo and Lagos - that are experiencing the same problems and groping for solutions. There are hundreds of vast cities, little known outside their own countries, expanding out of the global eye. China has close to 100 cities with more than a million inhabitants; India has 40. Medan, Surabaya, Semarang, Palembang and Ujung Pandang - chances are you haven’t heard of all or any of them, but each is an Indonesian city with more than a million people. Nigeria itself has seven more million-plus cities after Lagos. They are being built by capitalism, corruption and class warfare, rather than by planners; by forces deeper and older than market forces - family forces.
* The Master Narrative of the Decade Momus Click Opera
Geopolitics: The big picture I see this decade is the decline of Western self-confidence. If the 90s witnessed plenty of “irrational exuberance” in a “New World Order” following the West’s triumph over its Cold War opponents, the 00s saw feeble attempts to define Islam as a worthy opponent, and a spate of misguided wars “justified” by the “wake-up call” of 9/11. But a cave somewhere in Afghanistan isn’t the Kremlin, and Bin Laden isn’t Stalin. Despite a naked neo-imperialism posited on an unholy alliance between Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilisations and the right-wing appropriation of liberal ideas like human rights and democracy, the neo-cons’ New American Century lasted about five years. It was rapidly replaced by a more powerful meme: the rise of the rest, and particularly India and China... (and a half dozen more categories!)
* 50 Things that are Being Killed by the Internet The Telegraph
1) The art of polite disagreement
While the inane spats of YouTube commencers may not be representative, the internet has certainly sharpened the tone of debate. The most raucous sections of the blogworld seem incapable of accepting sincerely held differences of opinion; all opponents must have “agendas”.
3) Listening to an album all the way through
The single is one of the unlikely beneficiaries of the internet – a development which can be looked at in two ways. There’s no longer any need to endure eight tracks of filler for a couple of decent tunes, but will “album albums” like Radiohead’s Amnesiac get the widespread hearing they deserve?
5) Punctuality
Before mobile phones, people actually had to keep their appointments and turn up to the pub on time. Texting friends to warn them of your tardiness five minutes before you are due to meet has become one of throwaway rudenesses of the connected age.
11) Music stores
In a world where people don’t want to pay anything for music, charging them £16.99 for 12 songs in a flimsy plastic case is no business model.
4. Money
Context: As the US dollar continues its death spiral (two articles) some people are noticing that Islamic banking systems work better than ours... and a classic Dilbert cartoon brings that point home.
* The Demise of the Dollar Robert Fisk The Independent
In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.
Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.
* Europe Richer than North America Forbes
North America’s wealth has now fallen the most out of any other region in the world, allowing Europe to step up to the plate as the world’s richest continent. North America, defined as the United States and Canada, had $29.3 trillion in assets under management in 2008, while Europe had $32.7 trillion, according to a survey by the Boston Consulting Group.
* Learning God’s Economy from Muslim Friends Tikkun Daily Blog
A January 2008 study conducted by United for a Fair Economy estimated that the sub-prime mortgage crisis we were beginning to experience at that time would ultimately result in a net loss of $164-213 billion in assets for people of color. A friend pointed out to me that this was, in market terms, almost certainly the largest transfer of wealth away from black people in a very long history of economic injustice. By all accounts, the subprime crisis was the result of bad lending policies by banks who wanted to capitalize on a lucrative securities market.
... Islamic banks, however, reported almost no loss at all. Because sharia law (like the Bible) forbids usury, Islamic banks do not charge interest or trade debt. “Many of these conventional products that have been under stress lately are very complex and need special risk management tools,” explained Rasheed al-Maraj, the governor of Bahrain’s central bank. “In Islamic banking you will not have this kind of thing. Some of these products would not be sharia accepted.” This got me interested in Islamic banking, so I did a little research....
* Dogbert Goes Into Financial Services Dilbert
5. Women, Ads, Photoshop
Context: After an unbelievably hideous Ralph Lauren ad drew derision, RL tried to silence its critics, taking on boingboing. Bad mistake! Meanwhile a popular German magazine announces they’re dropping models for real women, and France floats a label-required Photoshop touchup law.
* The Criticism Ralph Lauren Doesn’t Want You To See Cory Doctorow, boingboing
Last month, Xeni blogged about the photoshop disaster that is this Ralph Lauren advertisement, in which a model’s proportions appear to have been altered to give her an impossibly skinny body (“Dude, her head’s bigger than her pelvis”). Naturally, Xeni reproduced the ad in question. This is classic fair use: a reproduction “for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting,” etc.
However, Ralph Lauren’s marketing arm and its law firm don’t see it that way. According to them, this is an “infringing image,” and they thoughtfully took the time to send a DMCA takedown notice....So, to Ralph Lauren, GreenbergTraurig, and PRL Holdings, Inc: sue and be damned. Copyright law doesn’t give you the right to threaten your critics for pointing out the problems with your offerings. You should know better. And every time you threaten to sue us over stuff like this, we will:
a) Reproduce the original criticism, making damned sure that all our readers get a good, long look at it, and;
b) Publish your spurious legal threat along with copious mockery, so that it becomes highly ranked in search engines where other people you threaten can find it and take heart; and
c) Offer nourishing soup and sandwiches to your models.
* Brigitte, Germany's most popular women's mag, bans professional models The Guardian
Germany’s most popular women’s magazine is banning professional models from its pages and replacing them with images of “real life” women instead. In what is seen as the latest attempt to stamp out the “size zero” model, the editors of Brigitte said it would in future only use women with “normal figures”.
“From 2010 we will not work with professional models any more,” said Andreas Lebert, editor-in-chief, adding that he was “fed up” with having to retouch pictures of underweight models who bore no resemblance to ordinary women. “For years we’ve had to use Photoshop to fatten the girls up,” he said. “Especially their thighs, and decolletage. But this is disturbing and perverse and what has it got to do with our real reader?”
* France floats law requiring Photoshopped images carry a warning Christopher Null : Yahoo! Tech
Ever look at a picture of a model and think, “Man, those lips can’t be real. That skin can’t be that smooth.” Of course you have. That’s because they aren’t. And it can’t.
Sure looks good, though. That’s because literally every commercial image published today goes through some level of Photoshop manipulation. Sometimes it’s just a light tweaking of colors, but far more often it’s a wholesale digital evisceration from top to bottom.
Now French lawmakers are beginning to worry that this rampant Photoshop abuse is causing problems for the psyches of its citizens, particularly teens who are especially susceptible to developing unhealthy body image obsessions. The solution: Warning labels on manipulated images.
6. It’s Good News Week
Context: Sometimes there’s good news, when people and companies do the right thing — a lovely piece from Haaretz’s Bradley Burston, who never leaves one neutral, and two pieces of good corporate citizenship, one from us and one from them. (You get to choose which is which!)
* Working For Peace is a Form of Prayer Bradley Burston, Haaretz
Working for peace is itself a form of prayer. Bearing the taunts, the frustration, the abuse from your own side and the distrust of the other, and yet retaining the faith and the power to keep on, is worship at its core. Working for peace is doing God’s work.
Especially now. Now that extremism has corrupted two of the world’s great religions. It has distorted them, taken them over, driven them as tools and engines of fanaticism. It has taken the two religions most zealous in their opposition to idolatry, and commanded them to hold certain collections of stones, certain parcels of soil, sacred beyond human life. It has taken two peoples descended from one man, and turned them into mortal enemies. It has taken two peoples schooled and skilled as no others in the art of bargaining, negotiation, and reaching agreements, and has forbidden compromise, openness, creativity, compassion, accommodation, as forms of treason and mortal sin....
Working for peace is a form of reclaiming holiness lost. Like prayer, working for peace is a way of meeting, at long last, and often in surprise, our own hearts. The heart, that fist of muscle which appears from the outside to be in a continual fight with itself. Working for peace is a way to find out what that fight is really for.
* Apple Quits Chamber of Commerce Over Climate Change huffpo
Apple is the latest corporation to exit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, citing its opposition to climate change legislation. The New York Times reports that Apple's resignation is effective immediately. Catherine Novelli, vice president of worldwide government affairs at Apple, called the chamber's stance on climate change issues "frustrating" in a letter addressed to its president and CEO.
"We strongly object to the chamber's recent comments opposing the E.P.A.'s effort to limit greenhouse gases. ... We would prefer that the chamber take a more progressive stance on this critical issue and play a constructive role in addressing the climate crisis.”
* Microsoft Gives $100,000 to Uphold Gay Rights
Microsoft has given $100,000 to the effort to uphold a state law that expands gay rights – the campaign’s largest single donation. According to a filing (PDF) with the state’s Public Disclosure Commission, Microsoft donated the money Friday to Washington Families Standing Together, which is working to approve Referendum 71. The measure will ask voters to confirm a law Gov. Chris Gregoire signed in May that gives registered same-sex couples the same benefits as married couples.
7. A Case for Books
Context: Sure a few of us still read books...but the real challenge is storing them. We look at bookcases, book art, and (like everyone) we start with Billy.
* Billy: What Your Bookcase Says About You BBC
It has held books upright in millions of rooms around the world for 30 years. As Ikea’s Billy bookcase enters its fourth decade, why do we display our reading material rather than just store it away? Billy is a behemoth of the bookcase world. Designed by only the fourth employee for Ikea, 41 million have been sold since 1979. The factory where the bookcases are made knocks out 15 Billys a minute; 3.1 million a year
* Bookcases Modern Home and Interior Design
* Bookman (art!)
* Book Sculptures (A bookcase alternative?)
8. Information at your Mousetips
Context: The net does let us access information we would never have been able to see before. Three examples: all fascinating, at least one useful.
* An Influenza Primer Science Based Medicine
The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology recently submitted its report to the president in which they stated that this influenza season might kill 30-90,000 people in the US. This forecast of the upcoming season caught the media’s attention and appears to have stoked the public interest in influenza. We have had many requests for more information about influenza here at SBM, and so in this post I am going to discuss the basics of influenza and try to put the current pandemic and upcoming season in perspective.
I find it is best to start at the beginning....
* Live Shipping Map
Live map that shows all of the shipping all over the world in real time. Click on specific ship icons to see details of that ship, and course. Now if they’d only add the icebergs....
* Students Experiment With Open Source Journalism via rabble.ca
This semester I’m teaching an Online Reporting Workshop at Ryerson University in Toronto and an MA class in Online Journalism at the University of Western Ontario, in London. I’m predicating the courses on the principles of transparency, abundance, collaboration and conversation -- notions, I think, that resonate with the harmonics of the online audience. Let me explain. The two classes are collaborating on a multi-part, multimedia project called MakerCulture -- Taking Things Into Our Own Hands. It’s a deep, wide exploration of the world of artists, hackers, fabricators, activists and citizens who have decided that a DIY (do-it-yourself) approach to government, software, art, music and hardware is a valid response to global consumerism. It’s a fascinating feature full of astonishing gimcrackery and a sideshow tent full of characters. Great stories, no question.
...The students at the two universities come together online using a collaborative website called a wiki. Each member of the team can edit, comment on, alter or erase any page of the wiki. It is a read-write medium with no central command and control. All the writing teams are responsible for updating their progress, their contact diaries, links, research notes and drafts. If you want, you can look at it here. If you like you can see all the levers gears, false starts and progress we’re making. And so can anyone else.
9. Eyecandy: Travelling Through Beauty
* Buddha Park (Peter and Diana!)
* Antelope Canyon
* Been There (Guardian photo contest winners)
10. Quote of the Week
"Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." -- Howard Thurman
=====================================
See who we are and what we’re about to do.
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
The Talmud
=====================================
Year Six; Issue 31
1. Tikkun Toronto: Next Meeting, Abdelrazik
2. Obama vs Netanyahu: At the End of Round One
3. The Goldstone Report, the Hague, and Realpolitik
4. Protecting the Health Industry
5. The Greening of the Future
6. Evolution, and Devolution
7. One of These is Real
8. Eyecandy1: In Our World
9. Eyecandy2: Out of Our World
10. Quote of the Week
1. Tikkun News
* Our next Tikkun meeting is Thursday October 15th, at Lydia’s. Map here.
* See and hear Abdelrazik in Toronto this coming Thursday, Oct 8th.
2. Obama vs Netanyahu
Context: Tikkunista! takes you directly to our special correspondent, Peter Marmorek, and his in-depth report on this subject over at the Tikkun Daily Blog. Peter?
* At the End of Round One
We’re nine months into Obama, and perhaps at the end of the first round of his attempt to make peace in the Middle East. That started with his generally well received speech in Cairo, and his attempt to halt any new Israeli settlements on the West Bank, an attempt whose failure was underlined when last week he issued a call for “restraint” rather than a “freeze”. The US notably failed to offer any support to the Goldstone report, a failure that is generally seen in the blogosphere as a necessary step for self-defence: if Israel could be hauled to the Hague for Gaza, so could the US for some of its soldiers’ actions in Iraq or Afghanistan. Reading reactions to the Middle East is a lot like reading tea leaves: you can always find just what you’re looking for. But it is most instructive to see the difference in the perceptions between Israeli and US commentators....
3. Goldstone, The Hague, and Realpolitik
Context: Last week we ran reactions to the Goldstone report; this week we have something different. Read the interview between Rabbis Michael Lerner and Brian Walt with Justice Richard Goldstone about his experience in creating the report, and two pieces that together demonstrate exactly how effectively Israel pressured the Palestinian Authority to drop any charges arising from the report at the international court at the Hague.
* Justice Goldstone Interviewed (Tikkun Magazine)
BW: What happened when you saw what you saw on the ground?
RG: I was shocked at the number of buildings that had been razed. Particularly private homes. And I wasn’t prepared for the stories that were told by witnesses we considered to be credible. As to the way the Israeli Army treated them. I felt a great deal of shame and embarrassment particularly as a Jew, but also as a human being.
ML: Maybe you could cite one such story?
RG: Well, the one that really upset me was the shelling of a full Mosque during the afternoon service. And we didn’t look at other Mosques. We accepted the idea that maybe some Mosques were used to give shelter to fighters and militants. They may also have been used to store weapons, but even if that was true (and we found that it wasn’t in respect to this particular Mosque), but even if it was, it is completely unacceptable and a war crime to shell the Mosque during a service. There were hundreds of people in that Mosque, and 15 people were killed and many more were injured. It is that sort of conduct that is absolutely unacceptable. That was one of the incidents that caught me in particular. And it is a particular concern because of the reaction of people who were there. I put myself in the position how Jews would feel if they were attacked on a synagogue when it was full of worshipers.
* Israel demands PA drop war crimes suit at The Hague (Haaretz)
Tensions are mounting between Israel and the Palestinian Authority following Ramallah’s call on the International Court at The Hague to examine claims of “war crimes” that the IDF allegedly committed during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip. The issue is already weighing in on the relations between the leadership of Israel’s defense and security establishment with their counterparts in the West Bank, and is part of a growing list of Israeli complaints about the behavior of PA officials. Meanwhile, Israel has warned the Palestinian Authority that it would condition permission for a second cellular telephone provider to operate in the West Bank - an economic issue of critical importance to the PA leadership - on the Palestinians withdrawing their request at the International Court.
* Palestinians drop support for war crimes report (Associated Press)
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas drew scathing criticism at home Friday for his decision to suspend a campaign to have Israeli officials prosecuted for war crimes over last winter’s military offensive against Hamas in Gaza. Abbas’ reversal came under heavy U.S. pressure and means no further international action is likely for at least six months.
4. Making America Safe for the Health Industry
Context: We all knew it was happening, but The Guardian this week broke the story of exactly how much the health companies are behind the fight against Obama’s proposed health reforms. And we include two more stories about just how profitable and honest the companies behind our health really are.
* Millions Spent on Lobbyists to Fight Health Care (The Guardian)
America’s healthcare industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to block the introduction of public medical insurance and stall other reforms promised by Barack Obama. The campaign against the president has been waged in part through substantial donations to key politicians.
Supporters of radical reform of healthcare say legislation emerging from the US Senate reflects the financial power of vested interests ‑ principally insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms and hospitals ‑ that have worked to stop far-reaching changes threatening their profits.
* Blowing the Whistle on Pfizer (BBC)
US drug-maker Pfizer has agreed to pay $2.3bn in the largest healthcare fraud settlement in the history of the Department of Justice. It comes after the firm was found to have illegally promoted four drugs for uses for which they had not been approved by medical regulators.
* Health Care Profiteering (Vanity Fair)
With median annual compensation of more than $12.4 million, C.E.O.’s at the big health-care companies make two-thirds more than their counterparts in finance and are the highest paid of any industry. The health-care industry’s total annual profit has grown to an estimated $200 billion, and it doled out nearly $170 million in campaign contributions in 2007 and 2008. It now spends more than any other industry lobbying the federal government—$3.5 billion over the past decade and a record $263 million in the first six months of this year. That’s six lobbyists and nearly half a million dollars for each member of Congress.
5. The Greening of the Future
Context: While the implications of not acting to slow climate change continue to make headlines, there are an increasing number of places where such action is being taken. Some good news stories to help you make it through to the Eyecandy.
* Spain’s Answer to Unemployment: Go Greener (The Washington Post) Thanks, Dave!
How do you begin to replace the millions of jobs destroyed by the Great Recession, now that the worst of the crisis has potentially passed? Here on the sun-drenched and windy Iberian Peninsula, Spain thinks it has an answer: create new jobs and save the Earth at the same time.
Green jobs have become a mantra for many governments, including that of the United States. But few nations are better positioned -- or motivated -- to fuse the fight against recession and global warming than Spain. The country is already a leader in renewable fuels through $30 billion in public support and has been cited by the Obama administration as a model for the creation of a green economy. Spain generates about 24.5 percent of its electricity through renewable sources, compared with about 7 percent in the United States.
* The Growth of ‘De-Growth’ in France (rabble.ca and Le Monde)
In a world marked by capitalism’s twin crises -- economic and ecological -- there is an increasing amount of discussion, thinking, writing and activism that seeks to fuse greens and the left (broadly defined). ... In France, the discussion of these ideas has been gaining prominence in recent years.
The August issue of Le Monde Diplomatique (LMD) has an interesting two-page spread (editor’s warning: en Français!) on the growth of the "de-growth" (décroissance) movement: "an influential but unorganized trend" that rejects the dogmas of economic growth and productivism: the term "décroissance" covers a wide-range of ecological and green perspectives, but boils down to the notion of 'living better with less.' Its supporters reject economic growth as it is measured today by indicators such as GDP, and propose different ways of measuring and assessing a society's well being. Although there are some neo-Malthusians and anti-immigration types who share these views, the article gives the impression that the much stronger trend stresses social justice and economic equality.
* Tear Down The Highways
Human beings are innately fascinated by counter-intuitive effects. Most examples you hear about on teevee–”Rock-hard abs without getting off your couch!”–are malarkey, of course. But in certain charmed cases, it is possible to get thin by eating lard, so to speak....One example is reducing traffic congestion by eliminating roads. ... Sound dubious? Here are several examples of how three cities (and their drivers) have fared better after highways that should never have been built in the first place were taken down.
6. Evolution and Devolution
Context: No more missing link! The National Geographic does a wonderful job reporting the major discovery this week of the last common ancestor between our primate cousins and us. The Council of Europe issued a scathing report on the teaching of Creationism in schools ... and in the US a major biopic on Darwin is dropped because of fear of the popular reaction.
* Move over, Lucy. And kiss the missing link goodbye. (National Geographic)
Scientists today announced the discovery of the oldest fossil skeleton of a humanancestor. The find reveals that our forebears underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution more than a million years before Lucy, the iconic early human ancestor specimen that walked the Earth 3.2 million years ago. The centerpiece of a treasure trove of new fossils, the skeleton—assigned to a species called Ardipithecus ramidus—belonged to a small-brained, 110-pound (50-kilogram) female nicknamed “Ardi.” (See pictures ofArdipithecus ramidus.)
The fossil puts to rest the notion, popular since Darwin’s time, that a chimpanzee-like missing link—resembling something between humans and today’s apes—would eventually be found at the root of the human family tree. Indeed, the new evidence suggests that the study of chimpanzee anatomy and behavior—long used to infer the nature of the earliest human ancestors—is largely irrelevant to understanding our beginnings. Ardi instead shows an unexpected mix of advanced characteristics and of primitive traits seen in much older apes that were unlike chimps or gorillas (interactive: Ardi’s key features). As such, the skeleton offers a window on what the last common ancestor of humans and living apes might have been like
* The Dangers of Creationism in Education (Council of Europe)
Creationism in any of its forms, such as “intelligent design”, is not based on facts, does not use any scientific reasoning and its contents are pathetically inadequate for science classes. The Assembly calls on education authorities in member States to promote scientific knowledge and the teaching of evolution and to oppose firmly any attempts at teaching creationism as a scientific discipline.
* Charles Darwin Film ‘Too Controversial for America’ (The Telegraph)
Creation, starring Paul Bettany, details Darwin’s “struggle between faith and reason” as he wrote On The Origin of Species. It depicts him as a man who loses faith in God following the death of his beloved 10-year-old daughter, Annie. The film ... has been sold in almost every territory around the world, from Australia to Scandinavia. However, US distributors have resolutely passed on a film which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution.
7. One of These Absurd Stories is Real
Context: Don’t you find a certain joy in the shifting moment when you can’t tell the real from the unreal. Which of these stories is true?
* Melting Ice Caps Expose Hundreds Of Secret Arctic Lairs
* Picture of Traffic Warden Flattened by Steamroller
* Hooded Jedi Banned in Tesco Store
8. Eyecandy 1: In Our World
* China at 60 (Big Picture)
* Recent Hindu Festivals (Big Picture)
* Ten Strange Places
9. Eyecandy 2: Out of Our World
Context: This is truly worth a category unto itself: an entire gallery of the best pictures taken by the Hubble telescope, in high resolution, available for download, sortable by topic. Wow!
* The Hubble Motherlode
10. Quote of the Week (Thanks, Oriah!)
“It's not that there are so many paths to God, it's that God is willing to take so many paths to get to you.” William Young
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See who we are and what we’re about to do.
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
The Talmud
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1. Tikkun Toronto: New meeting time, lots of other meetings
2. The Goldstone Report
3. Israel and the Jews
4. Wither Canada?
5. Protecting Kids Online...(from the protectors)
6. Dan Brown’s Writing Lies A-moldering in Its Grave
7. Online Divertissements
8. Playing with Your Food
9. Eyecandy: Nature Strikes Back
10. Quote of the Week
1. Tikkun News
* Change! Next Tikkun Meeting Thursday October 15th, at Lydia’s. Map here. This allows people to see and hear Abdelrazik in Toronto.
* TPFF! Toronto Palestinian Film Festival, Sept 29—> Oct 2nd. So many exciting events... go read the program.
* The Katz came back! Reena is both curating at TPFF, and presenting the long awaited (& Koffler delayed) “each hand as they are called” in and around Kensington market.
2. The Goldstone Report
Context: The Goldstone Report on war crimes in the Gaza war is out, and we’ve winnowed a dozen insightful comments down to three: The Guardian’s summary, Uri Avnery’s analysis of the Israeli response, and Daniel Levy’s analysis of the media and personal responses the report evokes.
* “Damning Report of Hamas and Israel Conduct” The Guardian
A detailed and damning UN inquiry into January's war in Gaza has found evidence that war crimes and possible crimes against humanity were committed by Israel and Hamas.
The investigation, led by the former South African judge Richard Goldstone, is the most serious international inquiry into the three-week war in which 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died, and which triggered criticism across the world. It presses for prosecutions.
Goldstone and his three colleagues said in their 575-page report, released today , that their work was based on an "independent and impartial analysis". The findings are among the most serious ever against Israel, with its policies towards the Palestinians and its conduct of the war highlighted for extensive criticism.
* UM-Shmum, UM-Boom Uri Avnery Gush Shalom
The instinctive reaction in such a situation is denial. It’s just not true. It never happened. It’s all a pack of lies.
By itself, that is a natural reaction. When a human being is faced with a situation which he cannot handle, denial is the first refuge. If things did not happen, there is no need to cope. Basically, there is no difference between the deniers of the Armenian genocide, the deniers of the annihilation of the Native Americans and the deniers of the atrocities of all wars.
From this point of view, it can be said that denial is almost “normal”. But with us it has been developed into an art form.
* Israel Must Now Heal Itself Daniel Levy (who’s he?)
There exist two extreme poles of response to a report such as this: one, of the reflexive Israel-haters for whom this is a gotcha moment extraordinaire, and they gleefully wave the latest proof that Israel is a world pariah without parallel. Their mirror image is the pavlovian and delusional Israel-can-do-no-wrong crowd, for whom behind any serious critique of Israel lays the nefarious machinations of age-old anti-semitism, singling out the Jewish state and to hell with the facts. But for the vast majority of non- or only mildly partisan individuals with a capacity for cognitive reflection, the Goldstone report should be treated seriously and even perhaps as a wake-up call.
3. Israel and the Jews
Context: In political discussions most people don’t distinguish between Jews and Israelis. But now they’re starting to, and diaspora Jews are leading the way. Jay Michaelson writes his painful and personal Israel Story in the Jewish daily Forward; Rabbi Michael Lerner identifies Israel as a false idol on the Tikkun Daily Blog; and Cecile Surasky, from the Jewish Voice for Peace, looks at the protests at TIFF as a watershed moment.
* How I’m Losing My Love for Israel Jay Michaelson (who is he?) Forward
To paraphrase a recent Jewish organizational tagline, I’ve “hugged and wrestled with Israel” for 20 years now. At first, it was all embrace: Zionist songs and culture nourished me like mother’s milk, and on my first trip to Israel I kissed the tarmac at Ben Gurion, as did the other USY (United Synagogue Youth) kids.
Eventually, the wrestling came to the fore, particularly as I became more conscious of Palestinians, settlements and religious-secular divides. In 2002, I wrote about being “a leftist and a Zionist” and how difficult it was to maintain those dual political identities. And for several years, I’ve argued for a more nuanced approach to Israel advocacy and education than the hail of falafel balls and the bludgeon of Taglit-Birthright.
But lately I’ve noticed that I’m becoming a candidate for advocacy myself. I’ve loved Israel for decades, lived there for three years, and studied in detail the subtleties of its society and conflicts. And so it is with the sadness that accompanies the end of any affair that I notice my love is starting to wane.
Why? There are four primary reasons....
* Israel as Idolatry Rabbi Michael Lerner Tikkun Daily Blog
Blind loyalty to Israel is the primary form of idolatry today in the Jewish world.
Go into any synagogue in the US or Israel and you can tell people that you don’t believe in God, don’t observe the commands of Torah, don’t observe the Sabbath, or even that you plan to be eating a pig sandwich on Yom Kippur and the majority of people will shrug their shoulders, and welcome you in. But dare to say that you think that Israel is violating human rights or, worse, that it really is just a political entity like all other political entities and does not have any particular claim on your loyalties, and you will be treated as though you had just spoken the greatest of Jewish heresies.
And that is what it means to be the god of a particular people — when critiquing it is seen as the one belief that you cannot critique without being dismissed as hurtful, evil or perverse... Israel is the new idolatry.
* “The Issue is the Product, Not the Marketing” Cecile Surasky Mondoweiss
This has been a watershed moment in the movement.
The people who drafted the Toronto Declaration were all volunteers and they had no budget, yet they managed to put a huge monkeywrench into the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs utterly ridiculous and pathetic Brand Israel campaign, a campaign which the Ministry hoped could “improve Israel’s political stand” by diverting attention from Gaza and the West Bank to, say, the Israeli film industry. But in the end, as the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported, “… the buzz this week in Toronto has centered on the one thing Israeli officials had sought to avoid: the conflict with the Palestinians.”
4. Wither Canada?
Context: How can Canada fly into the future when it has only a right wing and no left wing? Two articles explore the horrors of Canada’s current political scene, a petition begs the media to let Elizabeth May speak, and Subnormality welcomes hockey season back. So then it’s all okay now, eh?
* Jack and Gilles Went Up the Hill James Laxer rabble.ca
Anyone who has regard for the Canadian political tradition or the great things we have done together in the past as a nation should avert his or her glance today as the NDP and the Bloc vote to keep the Harper government in office on a confidence motion. There is no glory on this day for anyone. ... Canadians grow cynical as they watch. Last year, a smaller proportion of Canadians than Americans voted in their countries’ respective elections, and that was unprecedented. At a time when Canadians need political leadership to cope with a broken economic system, they get this.
* The Sad Plight of the Left-Wing Canadian The Straight
Do you ever feel like you’re a rock ‘n’ roll fan stuck in the Eighties? Or a science teacher at a Republican education convention down in the southern U.S.? Or an environmentalist in oil sands-ravaged Alberta?
Well, if so, then you’re quite possibly a left-wing Canadian voter. Because feeling discouraged, depressed, dejected, and downhearted is all part and parcel of being a progressive voter here in this country these days.
In fact, this must be what it feels like to be a Toronto Maple Leafs fan after a while.
* VirusComix: Hockey Night in Canada
And as the season starts, my favourite Canadian webcomic explores what if your brain were a person....
5. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who will guard the Guardians? Juvenal)
Context: While an MPP calls for mandatory porn filters in all schools and libraries, it turns out that some such filtering software is selling the data it acquires on kids to marketers behind the screen. Fortunately the Onion is at hand, with a lesson for parents on how to use Facebook to monitor their kids themselves.
* Web-monitoring Software Sells Data on Children’s Chats
Parents who install a leading brand of software to monitor their kids’ online activities may be unwittingly allowing the company to read their children’s chat messages — and sell the marketing data gathered.
Software sold under the Sentry and FamilySafe brands can read private chats conducted through Yahoo, MSN, AOL and other services, and send back data on what kids are saying about such things as movies, music or video games. The information is then offered to businesses seeking ways to tailor their marketing messages to kids.
“This scares me more than anything I have seen using monitoring technology,” said Parry Aftab, a child-safety advocate. “You don’t put children’s personal information at risk.”
* Facebook Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their Kids The Onion
6. Dan Brown’s “Writing” Lies A-moldering In Its Grave
Context: He’s back! “The Lost Symbol” is his new best seller, and while making fun of Brown’s “writing” is like shooting fish in a barrel, there are a lot of us who can’t resist.
* Dan Brown’s 20 worst Sentences The Telegraph
16. The Da Vinci Code, chapter 4: A voice spoke, chillingly close. “Do not move.” On his hands and knees, the curator froze, turning his head slowly. Only fifteen feet away, outside the sealed gate, the mountainous silhouette of his attacker stared through the iron bars. He was broad and tall, with ghost-pale skin and thinning white hair. His irises were pink with dark red pupils.
A silhouette with white hair and pink irises stood chillingly close but 15 feet away. Freezing and moving? What’s wrong with this picture?
* Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol” Adam Gopnik The New Yorker
Brown’s long occult-mystery novels, featuring the intrepid Dr. Robert Langdon, a tenured Harvard professor of something called symbology—a field unknown to both Harvard and spell-check (try it)—are the welcome if improbable million-and-beyond best-sellers of our time, with the latest episode, “The Lost Symbol,” now upon us. The new book is, as every speed-reading reviewer has noted, the same package as before—the wise if wooden professor, the cagey babe-scientist, the oft-naked assassin, and the ancient conspiracy newly brought to life in familiar tourist destinations, this time in Washington, D.C., rather than Paris, and turning on elusive Masonic mystics, rather than secretive Merovingian dynasts. But what, exactly, is inside the package? What spell does it cast and how does it cast it? Books are not so widely read without a reason. Surely future historians will look to Brown as an index of What We Were Really Thinking, and, turning the dense and loaded pages of his books, they may well ask, This they read for fun?
* Vulture Reading Room — “The Lost Symbol” by Dan Brown New York Magazine
E. B. White (among others) was quite wrong to claim that it is simply bad writing to use adjectives. It isn’t. (How can we even talk about bad writing without putting the adjective bad before the noun writing?) It was never about that. It isn’t the adjectives or the adverbs themselves. What’s awful about Dan’s overuse of pre-posed modifiers is that he is treating us as if we were about as intellectually well equipped as a sack of potting soil. He steers us around with his modifiers because he dare not leave us alone to form our own mental pictures of what is happening....Dan yearns to be a teacher. But not like a teacher of linguistics to independent and intelligent students... It is kindergarten that he teaches: We are as little children, and it is story time, and he must tell us everything about what happened. He’s a control freak, and he doesn’t trust us.
7. Online Divertissements
Context: After Dan Brown, I think we all need a drink, and fortunately there’s a website to tell you how just many you can have. And then there’s a website that lets you draw eight tracks of music, and wow! another with one of those simple I’ll just try it one more time games. There goes your day too.
* How Much Booze Would It Take To Kill You?
* Music Generator
* Red Remover
Your goal is to remove the red shapes without letting any green shapes fall off the screen. This starts out simple but things get a bit more interesting after level 10.
8. Playing With Your Food
* National Flags Made With National Food
* Appetizing Architecture
* Real Food?
| 9. Eyecandy: Nature Strikes Back * Feral Houses in Detroit * Determined Trees * Flooding in the SE US (Big Picture) * Australian Dust Storms (Big Picture) |
“Go to bed early, get up early- this is wise. Some authorities say get up with the sun; some say get up with one thing, others with another. But a lark is really the best thing to get up with. It gives you a splendid reputation with everybody to know that you get up with the lark; and if you get the right kind of lark, and work at him right, you can easily train him to get up at half past nine, every time-it's no trick at all.” Mark Twain Advice to Youth
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See who we are and what we’re about to do.
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
The Talmud
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Year Six; Issue 29
1. Tikkun Toronto: Upcoming meeting
2. Tiff in Toronto
3. Finding the Middle Ground
4. Afghanistan: Men, Women, and Disaster
5. Islamophobia is Sadly Alive
6. Climate Change: Time for Action
7. Science Quickies
8. Empty Space, Negative Space
9. Eyecandy: Creative Images
10. Quote of the Week
1. Tikkun News
* Next Tikkun Meeting October 8th, at Lydia’s. Map here. You can read our developing thoughts on future actions and plans here.
2. A Tiff @ TIFF
Context: Each day the news on TIFF rolls in, like hockey scores. Yesterday Jane Fonda unsigned... but today Roger Ebert apologized for his earlier statement and signed. Are the signees merely opposing “Brand Israel” or calling for the destruction of Israel? The best overview I’ve found, interestingly, is from Al Jazeera, and we follow with a personal reactions from the Star and Tikun Olam, Richard Silverstein’s prestigious and excellent blog.
* Film Festival Courts Controversy (Al-Jazeera) Thanks, Gabe!
| Moviegoers who were hoping for world class cinema at this week's Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) may find themselves at the centre of a growing controversy steeped in international politics. Considered to be one of the five most prestigious film festivals, the TIFF this year introduced the City to City programme, a new theme to its traditional programming grid, "that will explore the evolving urban experience while presenting the best documentary and fiction films from and about a selected city." Festival organisers say they have chosen Tel Aviv to be the focus of the inaugural edition of the programme.....But by delving into a city that evokes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, organisers have walked headfirst into a global debate that has shifted the spotlight away from the festival's films. * On Criticizing Israel in Canada Kathy Wazana, Toronto Star Two days ago, I came home to a message from my mother asking: "Why are you attacking Israel?" Once again, I am being tried for treason in the family court, my mother having read the headlines equating the protest letter I signed against TIFF's City to City spotlight on Tel Aviv with a call for the destruction of Israel. "It is clear that the script they are reading from might as well have been written by Hamas," wrote Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre. Toronto is built on destroyed indigenous villages. By saying this I am not saying Toronto should not exist or calling for its extinguishment....In the week since the publication of the letter, the authors of the letter have been called hypocrites, censors and, worse, anti-Semites. A ludicrous charge: five of the eight are Jewish and one is an Israeli. These accusations seek to intimidate us into silence and shut down substantive discussion. This, ironically, is the very charge that is being levelled at us. * J Street Gets It Dead Wrong on Toronto Film Festival Tikun Olam I’ve been an admirer of J Street with a few exceptions since it began, and written often about its work here. But an Israeli friend has sent me a message of protest sent to J Street by a fellow Israeli peace activist. He was criticizing the Jewish peace group’s attack on Israeli filmmaker Udi Aloni and others, who asked fellow Israeli filmmakers to withdraw their films from the Toronto Film Festival because the Israeli government turned Tel Aviv’s 100th anniversary celebration into the centerpiece of this year’s artistic event. Thus the Film Festival was transformed into a venue for pro-Israel hasbara....While I am sensitive to the predicament in which J Street finds itself, I remind them that when you constantly compromise your values in order to prove your centrist bona fides to the Jewish doubters, you may not convince them and you may alienate those who’ve been with you from the beginning. * Just In...Mayor of Tel Aviv Says City-to-City IS part of Brand Israel [Ron Huldai] said that while the City to City program was initiated by the festival, the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs was involved as part of its Brand Israel media and advertising campaign, which was launched last year. 3. Finding the Middle Ground Context: Particularly for those of us involved in politics (and if you’re reading this, you probably are) the most dangerous trap may be demonizing our enemies. And nowhere, perhaps, does that happen more than in the Middle East. Here are three voices trying to avoid that: a profound and insightful piece on the boycott movement by Uri Avnery, founder of Gush Shalom; a number of Jewish leaders in Atlanta writing about the tiff at TIFF; and Jordan Halewi, writing in Mondoweiss about where we go from here. * The Boycott Revisited Uri Avnery Gush Shalom Peace is made between enemies, after war, in which awful things invariably happen. Peace can be made and maintained between peoples who are prepared to live with each other, respect each other, recognize the humanity of each other. They don’t have to love each other. Describing the other side as monsters may be useful in waging war, but singularly unhelpful in waging peace. When I receive a missive that is dripping with hatred of Israel, that portrays all Israelis (including myself, of course) as monsters, I fail to envision how the writer imagines peace. Peace with monsters? Angels and monsters living side by side in peace and harmony in one state, hating each other’s guts? * Atlanta Jews Reject Vilification Huffington Post There are many strong supporters and friends of Israel who both agree and disagree with the decision of the Toronto International Film Festival (“TIFF”) to launch a celebratory spotlight on the city of Tel Aviv which ignores the issues surrounding the treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. But all of us, regardless of how we feel about TIFF, should condemn the outrageous misrepresentations and accusations that have been leveled against Jane Fonda, a long-time supporter of Israel, who, along with nearly 1,000 others -- including many Israelis -- recently signed a letter protesting the decision. * Let’s Stop Deifying the Nation-State Mondoweiss In contrast, before the First World War, what’s today called the ‘Middle East’ was then the Ottoman empire. At that time, the region was governed by the ‘millet‘ system, whereby a central imperial aribter (the Turkish-speaking Ottomans) ruled over multiple ethnic and religious communities at arm’s length, maintaining a fairly stable status quo. Under this system—and completely unlike neighbouring Europe—each ethno-religious community was entitled to its own set of devolved cultural and legal authorities, so long as it paid tribute to the imperial peacekeepers via local landed-elites.... So, what would a functional, non-nation-state polity in Israel-Palestine look like? What kind of institutional characteristics could it feature in order to fit the job description above? To recap, however the system’s structured, its number-one requirement would be to provide a long-term, robust sense of justice, resilient to demographic change and other systemic shocks. With that in mind, I suggest a non-nation-state framework combining the following features.... 4. Afghanistan Context: Public support drops everywhere in Europe, in the US, in Canada for the disastrous war in Afghanistan, with the two bottom lines being that Karzai is no better than the Taliban, and than fighting for him only increases the support for both terrorists and the Taliban. Here’s how it looks.... * Afghanistan: Dig in or Walk Away? Simon Tisdall The Guardian Hopes that a successful Afghan presidential election would assist western efforts to secure, stabilise and develop the country recede with every percentage point that is added to Hamid Karzai’s tally. Karzai is said to have obtained 48.6% of the vote against 31.7% for his nearest rival with about 25% of ballots still to count. Only a small miracle or a massive counter-fraud can now stop him surpassing the 50% threshold required for re-election. Karzai’s looming “victory” is viewed with gloom in western capitals. It is believed, and not only by his opponents, to have been achieved via blatant, systematic, indefensible vote-rigging, bribery and intimidation. It was already tainted by pre-poll pacts between Karzai and notorious warlords and drug-traffickers. It was facilitated by the collusion of corrupt provincial officials afraid of losing their jobs. And it followed US and British failure to find a viable alternative candidate, or to install an Afghan “chief executive” or a western diplomatic satrap, to curb Karzai’s powers. The election debacle has thus increased, rather than eased, the crushing weight of intractable problems besetting western policymakers and soldiers struggling to make sense of Afghanistan. * Men with Guns, in Kabul and Washington Norman Soloman, Znet For those who believe in making war, Kabul is a notable work product. After 30 years, the results are in: a devastated city. A stale witticism calls Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai "the mayor of Kabul." Now, not even. On block after block in the Afghan capital, AK-47s are conspicuous in the hands of men on guard against a near future. Widely seen as corrupt, inept and -- with massive election fraud -- now illegitimate, Karzai's government is losing its grip along with its credibility. Meanwhile, a war-stoking mindset is replicating itself at the highest reaches of official Washington -- even while polls tell us that the pro-war spin has been losing ground. For the U.S. public, dwindling support for the war in Afghanistan has reached a tipping point. But, as you've probably heard, the war must go on. * Malala Joya Johann Hari, Znet “I am not sure how many more days I will be alive,” Malalai Joya says quietly. The warlords who make up the new “democratic” government in Afghanistan have been sending bullets and bombs to kill this tiny 30-year-old from the refugee camps for years - and they seem to be getting closer with every attempt. Her enemies call her a “dead woman walking”. “But I don’t fear death, I fear remaining silent in the face of injustice,” she says plainly. “I am young and I want to live. But I say to those who would eliminate my voice: ‘I am ready, wherever and whenever you might strike. You can cut down the flower, but nothing can stop the coming of the spring.’” The story of Malalai Joya turns everything we have been told about Afghanistan inside out. In the official rhetoric, she is what we have been fighting for. Here is a young Afghan woman who set up a secret underground school for girls under the Taliban and - when they were toppled - cast off the burka, ran for parliament, and took on the religious fundamentalists. But she says: “Dust has been thrown into the eyes of the world by your governments. You have not been told the truth. The situation now is as catastrophic as it was under the Taliban for women. Your governments have replaced the fundamentalist rule of the Taliban with another fundamentalist regime of warlords. (That is) what your soldiers are dying for.” 5. The Rise and Rise of Islamophobia Context: As the media searches for a simple black and white narrative, and politicians search for scapegoats, the racism in Western culture continues to increase. We lead with a wonderful Guardian review of recent books on the situation in Europe, and follow with two horrific examples of the beast. * A Culture of Fear The Guardian Is Europe about to be overrun by Muslims? A number of prominent European and American politicians and journalists seem to think so. The historian Niall Ferguson has predicted that “a youthful Muslim society to the south and east of the Mediterranean is poised to colonise - the term is not too strong - a senescent Europe”. And according to Christopher Caldwell, an American columnist with the Financial Times, whom the Observer recently described as a “bracing, clear-eyed analyst of European pieties”, Muslims are already “conquering Europe’s cities, street by street”. So what if Muslims account for only 3% to 4% of the EU’s total population of 493 million? ... what explains the rash of bestsellers with histrionic titles - While Europe Slept, America Alone, The Last Days of Europe? None of their mostly neocon American authors was previously known for their knowledge of Muslim societies; all of them suffer the handicaps of what the philosopher Charles Taylor, in his introduction to a new collection of scholarly essays entitled Secularism, Religion and Multicultural Citizenship, calls “block thinking”, which “fuses a very varied reality into one indissoluble unity”. Certainly, the idea of a monolithic “Islam” in Europe appears an especially pitiable bogey when you regard the varying national origins, linguistic and legal backgrounds, and cultural and religious practices of European Muslims. * The “Hijab Martyrs” Among Us Tikkun Daily Blog Last August, Marwa el-Sherbini, an Egyptian pharmacist living in Germany since 2003, was with her toddler son at a playground in the Dresden suburb of Johannstadt. A dispute transpired between her and a man now referred to by public records as “Axel W.” about whether it was her son’s or his niece’s turn to go on the swings. In the course of the argument, W. called el-Sherbini, who wore a headscarf, an “Islamist”, a “terrorist” and “slut”. Angered by the incident, el-Sherbini filed a formal complaint against W.... As el-Sherbini prepared to testify, W. attacked her inside the courtroom, stabbing her 18 times. El-Sherbini’s husband, Eliv Ali Okaz, intervened during the attack, only to be stabbed by W. and shot by courtroom security, which unexplainably mistook him as the attacker. Okaz is in critical condition. El-Sherbini died on the courtroom floor. Their three-year-old son witnessed the entire episode. * British Anti-Muslim Yobs Riot, with Israeli Flag Richard Silverstein, Tikun Olam John Dickerson forwarded a Daily Mail story about a race riot in Birmingham featuring rioting drunken anti-Muslim nativists who have appropriated the title of Meir Kahane’s Jewish Defense League in their own group’s name, English Defense League. The coverage features a picture of the lily-white demonstrators proudly waving an Israeli flag. With ‘friends’ like this does Israel need enemies? Let me be clear about what I’m saying and not saying. Very few advocates of Israel, no matter their ideology, would embrace such support. I’m not saying any of Israel’s defenders have made common cause with scum like this. Nevertheless, it is important to understand how the racist nativists throughout Europe and the west see Israel. They see it as their bulwark against the hated dark Muslim hordes. 6. Climate Change: Time for Action Context: As we approach the Copenhagen Conference, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that climate change is happening faster than we’d dared to fear. This coming Monday is a Global Climate Wake Up Call: click here to join one of over 2000 actions world wide (16 in Toronto alone) * Why Climate Change is Even Worse Than We’d Feared Newsweek Among the phrases you really, really do not want to hear from climate scientists are: “that really shocked us,” “we had no idea how bad it was,” and “reality is well ahead of the climate models.” Yet in speaking to researchers who focus on the Arctic, you hear comments like these so regularly they begin to sound like the thumping refrain from Jaws: annoying harbingers of something that you really, really wish would go away. Let me deconstruct the phrases above. ... The loss of Arctic sea ice “is well ahead of” what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecast, largely because emissions of carbon dioxide have topped what the panel—which foolishly expected nations to care enough about global warming to do something about it—projected. “The models just aren’t keeping up” with the reality of CO2 emissions, says the IPY’s David Carlson. Although policymakers hoped climate models would prove to be alarmist, the opposite is true, particularly in the Arctic. * Greenland is Melting The Guardian, via Taipei Times The wall of ice that rises behind Sermilik fjord stretches for 2,400km from north to south and covers 80 percent of this country. It has been frozen for 3 million years. Now it is melting, far faster than the climate models predicted and far more decisively than any political action to combat our changing climate. If the Greenland ice sheet disappeared, sea levels around the world would rise by 7m, as 10 percent of the world’s fresh water is frozen here. * Find Tomorrow’s Oceanfront Property Today! Handy interactive map lets you set the ocean rise (3 meters, 7 meters, 10 meters....) and see what gets flooded. 7. Quantum Science Quickies Context: People spend years studying quantum science, the branch of physics concerned with the very small and very weird. Here are three simple pieces that actually do a good job of communicating some very interesting ideas. All three are very short, too. * Black Holes (and the Schwarzschild Radius) 6 minute video Since the media is covering black holes more frequently, we figured many of you might like to understand more about the phenomenon. Today, we have an absolutely fascinating video explaining the principle behind the Schwarzschild Radius. The Schwarzschild radius (Rs = 2GM/c2) is defined as the size at which a spherical astronomical object has been so compressed on itself, it becomes a black hole, generating an absolutely incredible gravitational pull on everything around it, including light. Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a physics geek to understand this, and we’re sure that after watching the video, you’ll get that warm, fuzzy, I-learned-something-new feeling. * Time is Running Out A decade ago, measurements of the light from distant exploding stars showed the universe to be expanding at an accelerating rate. Physicists assumed that a kind of anti-gravitational force must be driving the galaxies apart, and gave it the name “dark energy”. However, to this day no-one has been able to say what dark energy is or where it comes from. The new theory from Professor Jose Senovilla, at the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, Spain, offers a radical alternative idea. He believes there is no such thing as dark energy. Instead, he says we have been fooled into thinking the expansion of the universe is accelerating because time itself is slowing down. * Video Explaining the Big Bang (via boingboing) 2 minutes 8. Negative Space, Empty Space Context: First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is. A collection of images of things disappearing, some of which reappear, some of which don’t. * A Year After Hurricane Ike (The Big Picture) Collected here are a series of before-and-after photographs - which (starting with the second one below) will fade between “before” and “after” when clicked. This effect requires javascript to be enabled. * Brilliant Negative Spaces Images * He Made 1000 Men from Ice * Videos of Building Demolitions The best is a coordinated fireworks show from atop a building, culminating with the building been blown up 9. Eyecandy: Creative Images |
* 2009 World Human Statues Competition (Thanks Josh!)
* Sergey Maximishin Photos
10. Quote of the Week
“Fear is the cheapest room in the house./ I would like to see you living in better conditions.” Hafiz
11. Tikkunista! welcomes your comment here (at the bottom of the page)
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See who we are and what we’re about to do.
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
The Talmud
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Year Six; Issue 26
Two weeks to next issue : Sept 19th
1. Tikkun Toronto: Upcoming meeting
2. The US Health Debate
3. Exploring the US Far Right
4. Selling the Israel Brand
5. The Oldies Are Coming!
6. Three Writers on Political Writing
7. Political Art
8. Onion Tears
9. Eyecandy: The Big Picture
10. Quote of the Week
1. Tikkun News
* Next Tikkun Meeting September 15th, at Peter’s. Last meeting’s minutes and plans for the September meeting are here.
* Followup to Issue 25: 63 major media figures protest Toronto Film Festival’s celebration of Tel-Aviv. And while your editor supports them, fellow Tikkunista Avi Zer-Aviv writes a powerful and moving denunciation of them here. As the old Jewish saying goes, “The dispute of scholars increases wisdom”.
2. The US Health Debate
Context: The New Yorker piece is vital enough in gaining an understanding of the US situation that Obama required everyone in the White House working on the issue to read it. So how can I do less with you? Long, but absolutely worth it. Meanwhile Timothy Noah explores the horrific process of rescinding, and Al Franken gives a lesson in how to persuade folks that health change is worth fighting for
* McAllen, Texas, and the High Cost of Health Care The New Yorker
Americans like to believe that, with most things, more is better. But research suggests that where medicine is concerned it may actually be worse. For example, Rochester, Minnesota, where the Mayo Clinic dominates the scene, has fantastically high levels of technological capability and quality, but its Medicare spending is in the lowest fifteen per cent of the country—$6,688 per enrollee in 2006, which is eight thousand dollars less than the figure for McAllen. Two economists working at Dartmouth, Katherine Baicker and Amitabh Chandra, found that the more money Medicare spent per person in a given state the lower that state’s quality ranking tended to be. In fact, the four states with the highest levels of spending—Louisiana, Texas, California, and Florida—were near the bottom of the national rankings on the quality of patient care....Health-care costs ultimately arise from the accumulation of individual decisions doctors make about which services and treatments to write an order for. The most expensive piece of medical equipment, as the saying goes, is a doctor’s pen. And, as a rule, hospital executives don’t own the pen caps. Doctors do.
* Why You Can’t Trust Your Health Insurer Timothy Noah Slate Magazine
Rescission (also known as “post-claims underwriting”) is the process whereby health insurers avoid paying out benefits to treat cancer and other serious illnesses by seeking and often finding chickenshit errors in the policyholder’s paperwork that can justify canceling the policy. In one job evaluation, the health insurer WellPoint actually scored a director of group underwriting on a scale of 1 to 5 based on the dollar amount she had managed to deny through rescission. (The director had saved the company nearly $10 million, earning a score of 3. WellPoint’s president, Brian A. Sassi, insists this is not routine company practice.) Rescission’s victims tend typically to be less-educated people who are more likely to make an error in filling out their insurance forms and lack the means to challenge a rescission in court—a path in which success is, at any rate, not guaranteed, because under state law the practice is perfectly legal if done within the allowable time frame (typically up to two years after a policy is issued).
The health crisis doesn’t get more gothic than this. Robin Beaton, a retired nurse in Texas, was rescinded last year by Blue Cross and Blue Shield after she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Blue Cross said this was because she had neglected to state on her forms that she had been treated previously … for acne. Beaton eventually persuaded her congressman, Rep. Joe Barton, to twist Blue Cross’ arm, but the delay meant it was five months before she could receive her operation.
* Al Franken, and Reasoned Discourse Youtube, via boingboing
3. The Far Right
Context: All the Americans I know – quite a few, really – are sane and rational people. I disagree with many of them on political issues, but we can talk. But public discourse gives huge space to lunatics, people who believe Obama isn’t an American, that Death Panels in Canada decide who gets health care, etc. Here’s how they seem to the Guardian, how people are fighting back against the outrageous Glenn Beck, and how a KKK leader got stopped by a wise black pastor
* The Republican Dystopia Michael Tomasky The Guardian
American conservatism does not believe healthcare for all or most is a desired outcome at all. Conservatives believe people are responsible for their own healthcare, and that people who don’t have it just aren’t showing enough pluck and initiative. Last Thursday, one Republican congressman announced that the party wouldn’t even offer its own version of healthcare legislation – and this man runs the party’s so-called Solutions Group! And on climate change, of course, most deny its existence, and all deny that human activity has played any role in it whatsoever. I could give you 50 examples, but you get the idea. We have a party that lives in an alternate universe
* Is Glenn Beck Finished? Alternet
In his eight months at Fox, Glenn Beck has repeatedly prophesied the advent of both Socialism and Fascism. He’s wished for Osama bin Laden to attack America. He’s hosted 911 truther Alex Jones on his show, and helped fan the bizarre conspiracy theory that FEMA plans to imprison dissidents in internment camps. He paces, rants and cries on the air like a crazy person. Once, he pretended to set someone on fire....
But a Color of Change campaign urging advertisers to drop Beck has already been so successful that Fox may have to reconsider whether Beck is worth it, despite his popularity with the right-wing fringe. At last count, 36 advertisers have pulled their advertising from Beck’s show. These include: GEICO, Radio Shack, SC Johnson, Progressive Insurance and Sprint. Last Monday Wal Mart – hardly a poster-child for progressive politics – also dropped Beck’s program.
* Former Ku Klux Klan leader On Moving From Hate To Tolerance youtube via boingboing
4. Selling the Israel Brand
Context: While the supporters of BDS seem to have the momentum (see Issue 25) Israel is certainly fighting back, in a variety of ways. An Israeli hotline has just opened should you know any Jew who might be thinking of marrying a non-Jew. A battalion of bloggers have been sent out to argue in online forums worldwide. And Bibi comes under fire from Haaretz for accepting Auschwitz blueprints as a gift from Germany
* Israel to Diaspora Inter-Marriers: You’ve Been Abducted.
| The Israeli government is running a television ad that compares Jews who marry non-Jews -- and the children of intermarriage -- to victims of kidnapping. According to a translation from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the narrator says, “More than 50 percent of young Jews assimilate,” a statistic that refers to the rate of intermarriage. “We are losing them,” she continues. The ad then asks Israelis who know a young Jew living abroad to tell them to apply to MASA, a study-in-Israel program. The narrator concludes, “Together, we will strengthen his or her bond to Israel, so that we don’t lose them.” ... and the reaction a day later |
* Leading Online Debates to the Right Conclusions ynetnews
The Foreign Ministry unveiled a new plan this week: Paying talkbackers to post pro-Israel responses on websites worldwide. A total of NIS 600,000 (roughly $150,000) will be earmarked to the establishment of an “Internet warfare” squad. The Foreign Ministry intends to hire young people who speak at least one language and who study communication, political science, or law – or alternately, Israelis with military experience gained at units dealing with information analysis.... “Where do I submit a CV?” wrote one respondent. “I’m fluent in several languages and I’m able to spew forth bullshit for hours on end.”
* Bibi, Blueprints, and Berlin Haaretz
During his in-and-out trip to Germany, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took a precious hour to collect a present from Bild Zeitung, a tabloid of the Axel Springer Group, which traditionally has been very friendly to Israel. The gift was a ghastly one - a set of architectural blueprints of Auschwitz, which will be deposited at Yad Vashem. ....Unwittingly, Netanyahu has played into the hands of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his comrades-in-hate. Their line is: No Holocaust, no Israel. Hence it is perfectly logical for them to deny the cause (the Shoah) to delegitimize the effect (Israel). But by accepting the Auschwitz blueprints as an almost sacred gift, and doing so as the head of government, Netanyahu has actually scored one for Israel’s sworn enemies. He has walked into the Holocaust-equals-Israel trap, as if the state were indeed a posthumous gift of Adolf Hitler.
It is not, and the country’s founding fathers would have recoiled from such a ceremony
5. “Things They Don’t Look Awful Fun, Hope I Die Before I Get Young”
Context: How will an older population strain our society? How will it liberate our society? It seems we’re going to be finding out in the coming decades. But there is some hope if we extrapolate from our canine companions.
* World’s Elderly Overtaking Number of Infants The Telegraph
Global ageing is changing the social and economic nature of the planet. The fact that, within 10 years, for the first time in human history there will be more people 65 and older than children under five in the world underlines the extent of this change.
* When the Old Overtake the Young The Hindu
The report, An Ageing World: 2008, shows that within ten years older people will outnumber children for the first time. It forecasts that over the next 30 years the number of over-65s is expected to almost double, from 506 million in 2008 to 1.3 billion — a leap from 7 per cent of the world’s population to 14 per cent.
Already, the number of people in the world 65 and over is increasing at an average of 8,70,000 each month. The rate of growth will shoot up in the next couple of years, with both overall numbers and proportions of older people rising rapidly.
* Why Old Dogs are the Best Dogs theweek
It’s no big deal to love a dog; they make it so easy for you. They find you brilliant, even if you are a witling. You fascinate them, even if you are as dull as a butter knife. They are fond of you, even if you are a genocidal maniac. Hitler loved his dogs, and they loved him.
Puppies are incomparably cute and incomparably entertaining, and, best of all, they smell exactly like puppies. At middle age, a dog has settled into the knuckleheaded matrix of behavior we find so appealing—his unquestioning loyalty, his irrepressible willingness to please, his infectious happiness. But it is not until a dog gets old that his most important virtues ripen and coalesce. Old dogs can be cloudy-eyed and grouchy, gray of muzzle, graceless of gait, odd of habit, hard of hearing, pimply, wheezy, lazy, and lumpy. But to anyone who has ever known an old dog, these flaws are of little consequence. Old dogs are vulnerable. They show exorbitant gratitude and limitless trust. They are without artifice. They are funny in new and unexpected ways. But, above all, they seem at peace.
6. Three Writers Who Get it Right
Context: As a writer, I have come to believe writers are the deep truth tellers of our world. To be a great writer means to see deeply, and to speak your truth. Here are interviews that touch on the political implications in recent works by three great writers: Canada’s incompatible Margaret Atwood, India’s Booker-winning Arundhati Roy, and Dave Eggers, whose “Zeitoun” is unquestionably my best read this year.
* Margaret Atwood on the Environment The Telegraph
Some of the most beguiling passages in the new novel involve moments when characters feel themselves to be communicating, in some form, with bees. Of course, at the moment, there is much concern about why hives are dying off in such numbers. But for Atwood, bees have a greater symbolic meaning we have lost sight of.
‘‘The communion between humans and bees is an old belief, folklore, that predates the advent of sugar cane and sugar beet,’’ she says. ‘‘Because before that, bees were the source of sweetness, with honey, and also the source of light, with wax.
‘‘They became symbolic, metamorphosed into mythology. They were studied by their keepers, studies were made of what made them happy. They were a source of fascination because they appeared to live in a society. My father did a lot of work on bees. And there is a lot of literature on the subject. The way that bees are treated now will not be making them happy. Herbicides. Pesticides.’’
Also running throughout the novel are rather brilliant God’s Gardeners green hymns that Atwood wrote, the rhythms of which were inspired by Emily Dickinson and William Blake. Her agent’s partner has set them to music and they will be performed as part of a series of fund-raising events.
* Arundhati Roy About Global Politics The Independent
She imagined when [The God of Small Things] was published that it would sell “maybe 500 copies in Delhi.” In fact, it sold 6m copies worldwide and won her the Booker Prize. “The prize,” she says now, “was actually responsible in many ways for my political activism. I won this thing and I was suddenly the darling of the new emerging Indian middle class - they needed a princess. They had the wrong woman. I had this light shining on me at the time, and I knew that I had the stage to say something about what was happening in my country. What is exciting about what I have done since is that writing has become a weapon, some kind of ammunition.”
The essays in Listening to Grasshoppers are her collected hand grenades from the last eight years. Roy says the process of putting them together has been “totally sad for me in a way - to see that six years ago you said something was going to happen and then it happened. It is not as though I am a genius or a witch. When you start seeing the way the whole machine works, the structure of what is happening is so clear.” That machine is the engine of free market “progress” that politicians in Delhi call “Indian Shining”. Roy sees it as the destruction for multinational corporate profit of everything that her nation should care about.
* Dave Eggers: Zeitoun – An American Muslim Hero
GOATMILK: Abdulrahman and the Zeitoun family seem like very devout, practicing Muslims, whose faith inspires them to do much good. Yet, it is also their Muslim last name and features that cause the father, Abdulrahman, to be called “Taliban” and “Al Qaeda,” and then later falsely incarcerated. Do you believe stories like this lay a bridge of understanding... Do you think storytelling is the medium to convey this message?
EGGERS: I think stories are the way we do it. I don’t think these things usually come out as well in reading a short story in a newspaper, or seeing a mug shot, or reading a statistic. In the first 70 or so pages of the book – before the storm, before we the first feel the winds of Katrina – I was seeking to just tell a story about an all-American family that happens to be a Muslim. I wanted to sort of “de-exoticize” the idea of the Muslim-American family – to allow readers to learn about Kathy’s conversion [to Islam] and see the functioning of a family that is exactly like their own. So, a Christian reader can say, “Pretty much everything about that family is exactly like mine except I go to church and they go to a mosque.”
7. Political Art
Context: I love political art, which is ultimately what we try to do in Tikkun Toronto. So it’s not surprising that one of this week’s pieces comes from the Tikkun Daily Blog. It’s a wonderful exploration of Jewish assimilation. Then Urban Coyote Teevee, an attempt to create art everyday about the experience of being an aboriginal in Canada. And finally an amazing installation at the Vienna zoo, which I won’t spoil by description.
* What Kinda Name is That?
What does it mean to be a “real American?” Artist Beverly Naidus reworks ads from the mid-twentieth-century to tell her own [Jewish] family’s story of immigration and uneasy assimilation. Naidus describes this series, “What Kinda Name Is That,” as a form of culture jamming, which she understands as “an aesthetic which transforms an image from popular culture, in this case an advertisement, so that it breaks the trance of the image; acts as an antidote to that trope.”
* Urban Coyote TeeVee
* Zoo’s Fascinating Art Installation
8. Onion Tears (Humour)
Context: You all know the Onion, right? The (often) wonderful satirical magazine, that offers adults today what Mad did to kids in my youth? An example, and two amazing references, showing that some people weren’t as familiar with it as they wish they had been.
*Afterbirthers Demand To See Obama's Placenta (The Onion)
In the continuing controversy surrounding the president's U.S. citizenship, a new fringe group informally known as "Afterbirthers" demanded Monday the authentication of Barack Obama's placenta from his time inside his mother's womb. "All we are asking is that the president produce a sample of his fetal membranes and vessels—preferably along with a photo of the crowning and delivery—and this will all be over,"
* Huckabee Offers Palestinians their Own State “Somewhere Else”
In a move sure to antagonize the Onion for not having come up with it first, former U.S. presidential candidate Mike Huckabee endorsed Israeli control over the occupied West Bank and rejected the "two-state solution." Instead, the Southern Baptist preacher suggested that Palestinians should "have a place of their own" some place else.
* One Giant Slip In Bangladesh News BBC
| Two Bangladeshi newspapers have apologised after publishing an article taken from a satirical US website which claimed the Moon landings were faked. The Daily Manab Zamin said US astronaut Neil Armstrong had shocked a news conference by saying he now knew it had been an “elaborate hoax”..... “We thought it was true so we printed it without checking,” associate editor Hasanuzzuman Khan told the AFP news agency. “We didn’t know the Onion was not a real news site.” |
* Ramadan 2009
* LA in Flames
* In Flight
10. Quote of the Week
“The idea is to die young as late as possible.” Ashley Montagu
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See who we are and what we’re about to do.
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
The Talmud
=====================================
Year Six; Issue 25
1. Tikkun Toronto: Upcoming meeting
2. BDS: The Israeli Sanctions Movement is Growing
3. Afghanistan: An Ongoing Disaster
4. Critique of “The New Atheists”, and Alternatives
5. Mind Over Matter
6. Remaking History
7. How Things Work
8. Eyecandy Colours Outside the Lines
9. Quote of the Week
1. Tikkun News
* Next Tikkun Meeting September 15th, at Peter’s. Last meeting’s minutes and plans for the September meeting are here.
2. Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions
Context: Modelled on the successful campaign against South Africa, the movement to impose a boycott, divest investments, and have sanctions against Israel is gaining momentum. Readers of Tikkunista! are on both sides of this issue, but a deeper understanding of why people are now calling for BDS can only be useful. Naomi Klein, arguable the most eminent non-governmental speaker today, Neve Gordon, 3rd generation Israeli, IDF veteran, lecturer at Ben-Gurion University, and John Greyson, a leading Canadian filmaker, offer their views.
* Naomi Klein, Talking in Ramallah
I wanted to start by letting you in on a little secret. There is a debate among Jews. I used to say “the Jewish community” but then I got excommunicated. So there is a debate among Jews - I’m a Jew by the way - about whether the lesson of the Holocaust should be “never again to anyone”, or “never again to us.” That’s what it pretty much boils down to. And there are a lot of people who believe that the lessons of the Holocaust was “never again to us, never again to the Jews.” Because we suffered this tremendous crime against humanity, we have the right to do whatever it takes to keep ourselves safe. In fact we even think we get a kind of get one genocide free card out of this. [...] There is another strain in the Jewish tradition that says that the lessons of the Holocaust is “never again to anyone”, and that it is precisely because of what we experienced as Jews that we must denounce racism, denounce systems of segregation wherever they crop up, even and especially when they crop up amongst our own. I am proud to put myself - and I thank my parents for this - in that second tradition. That’s why I’m proud to join in here tonight.... I don’t think it’s brave that I supported the BDS call in 2008 when Gaza was being attacked and children were dying. The call was made in 2005. I am ashamed that it took me this long. I am not being humble when I say that I am sorry. [..] It was nothing but cowardice. But I ask all of you who are on the fence to please join. “
* Neve Gordon, Writing for the L.A. Times
It is indeed not a simple matter for me as an Israeli citizen to call on foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organizations, unions and citizens to suspend cooperation with Israel. But today, as I watch my two boys playing in the yard, I am convinced that it is the only way that Israel can be saved from itself. I say this because Israel has reached a historic crossroads, and times of crisis call for dramatic measures. I say this as a Jew who has chosen to raise his children in Israel, who has been a member of the Israeli peace camp for almost 30 years and who is deeply anxious about the country’s future.
The most accurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state. For more than 42 years, Israel has controlled the land between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean Sea. Within this region about 6 million Jews and close to 5 million Palestinians reside. Out of this population, 3.5 million Palestinians and almost half a million Jews live in the areas Israel occupied in 1967, and yet while these two groups live in the same area, they are subjected to totally different legal systems. The Palestinians are stateless and lack many of the most basic human rights. By sharp contrast, all Jews -- whether they live in the occupied territories or in Israel -- are citizens of the state of Israel.
* John Greyson, on Withdrawal from TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival)
I've come to a very difficult decision -- I'm withdrawing my film Covered from TIFF, in protest against your inaugural City-to-City Spotlight on Tel Aviv. In the Canadian Jewish News, Israeli Consul General Amir Gissin described how this Spotlight is the culmination of his year-long Brand Israel campaign ... "We've got a real product to sell to Canadians... The lessons learned from Toronto will inform the worldwide launch of Brand Israel in the coming years, Gissin said."
This past year has also seen: the devastating Gaza massacre of eight months ago, resulting in over 1000 civilian deaths; the election of a Prime Minister accused of war crimes; the aggressive extension of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands; the accelerated destruction of Palestinian homes and orchards; the viral growth of the totalitarian security wall, and the further enshrining of the check-point system. Such state policies have led diverse figures such as John Berger, Jimmy Carter, and Bishop Desmond Tutu to characterize this 'brand' as apartheid. Your TIFF program book may describe Tel Aviv as a "vibrant young city... of beaches, cafes and cultural ferment... that celebrates its diversity," but it's also been called "a kind of alter-Gaza, the smiling face of Israeli apartheid" (Naomi Klein) and "the only city in the west without Arab residents" (Tel Aviv filmmaker Udi Aloni). To my mind, this isn't the right year to celebrate Brand Israel, or to demonstrate an ostrich-like indifference to the realities (cinematic and otherwise) of the region, or to pointedly ignore the international economic boycott campaign against Israel.
3. Afghanistan: Worse and Worse
Context: About all that is clear about the Afghan mess is that there is no definition of “winning” for which Western intervention qualifies. Afghan democracy is a sham, women’s rights are worse, support for the Taliban increases, as does the area controlled by the Taliban. Meanwhile Afghani civilians and soldiers on both sides continue to die. Tikkunista! looks at the increasing gap between what people in the west want (Out! Now!) and what their governments offer them (More In! Forever!)
* The Afghan Gap Norman Solomon counterpunch
This month, a lot of media stories have compared President Johnson’s war in Vietnam and President Obama’s war in Afghanistan. The comparisons are often valid, but a key parallel rarely gets mentioned -- the media’s insistent support for the war even after most of the public has turned against it.
This omission relies on the mythology that the U.S. news media functioned as tough critics of the Vietnam War in real time, a fairy tale so widespread that it routinely masquerades as truth. In fact, overall, the default position of the corporate media is to bond with war policymakers in Washington -- insisting for the longest time that the war must go on....Today, the gap between mainline big media and the grassroots is just as wide. Top policymakers for what has become Obama’s Afghanistan war can find their assumptions mirrored in the editorials of the nation’s mighty newspapers -- at the same time that opinion polls are showing a dramatic trend against the war.
While a recent ABC News-Washington Post poll found that 51 percent of the public says the war in Afghanistan isn’t worth fighting, the savants who determine big media’s editorial positions insist on staying the course.
* Who’ll Be the Last to Die for this Mistake? Pankaj Mishra The Guardian
Later in Kabul, and then in eastern Afghanistan, where I saw the bigger and more heavily armed Nato and US convoys from the fearful perspective of a pedestrian, it was even clearer that a single patrol could lose hearts and minds arduously won over many months. The daily humiliations of a prolonged military occupation, among which aggressive driving ranked well below the destruction of entire villages from the air, had become as intolerable as the oppressions of the Taliban to ordinary Afghans; and the western politicians who claimed to be making progress by sending out soldiers to distribute candy and footballs to Afghan children had themselves turned into political infants.
Four years later, as a resurgent Taliban mounts daring operations in Kabul itself, the western mission in Afghanistan looks more doomed than ever. ...When ill-conceived military adventures look doomed, their advocates tend to grow more strident about honour, especially if it can be upheld to the last drop of other people's blood. Richard Nixon's "peace with honour" primarily consisted of devastating Cambodia in addition to Vietnam; for some years now, maintaining honour in Afghanistan has amounted to little more than the Talibanisation of nuclear-armed Pakistan.
* The Afghan Rubik’s Cube Conn Hallinan Counterpunch
Afghanistan is a gatherer of metaphors: “crossroads of Asia,” “graveyard of empires,” and the “Great Game,” to name a few, although it might be more accurate to think of it as a Rubik’s Cube, that frustrating puzzle of intersecting blocks that only works when everything fits perfectly. The trick for the Obama Administration is to figure out how to solve the puzzle in a time frame rapidly squeezed by events both internal and external to that war-torn central Asian nation.
4. The New Atheists
Context: The unholy triumvirate of Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris have dominated recent debate about the existence of G_d till intelligent discussion has seemed impossible. But the pendulum always swings, (whether or not He set it in motion originally) and recently much criticism of their over-simplified positions as well as more sophisticated views of the Big Question are being published. Here are two critiques, and a brief excerpt from (the most intellectually exciting book I’ve read this year,) Robert Wright’s “The Evolution of God”
* Errors of an Old Atheist Andrew Brown The Guardian
I have been reading Freud, for the first time in decades: Civilisation and its Discontents, which I have in a nice Dover paperback....the thing that really caught my eye was his attack on religion, because it states very clearly one of the central New Atheist rhetorical moves. This is to define religion as the belief system of ignorant fools, the people whom Freud, writing in a much less democratic age, did not hesitate to call “the common man”....Having set up a system in which only fools could believe, he then points out that only fools could believe in it....I really don't see this. Intelligent, cultured and brave believers do pose a real problem for atheists, but it's not one we honourably solve by simply denying their existence.
* God and the New Atheists The New Yorker
Nothing more clearly shows that atheism belongs to religious belief, as the candlesnuffer does to the candle, than the rise of the so-called “new atheism.” In recent years, a resurgent evangelical Christianity has been contested by a resurgent atheism. For Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, among others, the God most worth fighting against seems to be a hybrid of a cheaply understood Old Testament, a prejudicially scanned Koran, and the sentimentalities of contemporary evangelicalism....
* The Evolution of God Robert Wright
Editor’s note: Wright’s website offers the first 3000 words of each of the book’s 21 chapters...an evolutionary history of both pre-Abrahamic and Abrahamic religions. Here’s a sample...
Physicists sometimes find it useful to think of electrons as particles, but sometimes it’s more useful to think of them as waves. Conceiving of them as either is incomplete, yet conceiving of them as both is … well, inconceivable. (Try it!) And electrons are just the tip of the iceberg. ...At least, some physicists believe electrons are things. The fact that nobody’s actually seen an electron, and that trying to imagine one ties our minds in knots, has led some physicists and philosophers of science to wonder whether it’s even accurate to say that electrons do exist. You could say that with electrons, as with God, there are believers and there are skeptics.
The believers believe there’s something out there—some “thing” in some sense of the word “thing”—that corresponds to the word “electron”; and that, though the best we can do is conceive of this “thing” imperfectly, even misleadingly, conceiving of it that way makes more sense than not conceiving of it at all. They believe in electrons while professing their inability to really “know” what an electron is. You might say they believe in electrons even while lacking proof that electrons per se exist.
Many of these physicists, while holding that imperfectly conceiving subatomic reality is a valid form of knowledge, wouldn’t approve if you tried to perform a similar maneuver in a theological context. If you said you believe in God, even while acknowledging that you have no clear idea what God is—and that you can’t even really prove God per se exists—they would say your belief has no foundation. Yet what exactly is the difference between the logic of their belief in electrons and the logic of a belief in God? They perceive patterns in the physical world—such as the behavior of electricity—and posit a source of these patterns and call that source the “electron.” A believer in God perceives patterns in the moral world (or, at least, moral patterns in the physical world) and posits a source of these patterns and calls the source “God.”
5. Mind over Matter, or Reality, or Anything Else
Context: Starting with the fascinating fact that placebos are getting more effective (and a great Onion take on that!) we look at the extent to which our ability to see what we want to see blinds us to seeing what’s actually in front of us.
* Placebos Are Getting Stronger
Merck’s foray into the antidepressant market failed. In subsequent tests, MK-869 turned out to be no more effective than a placebo. In the jargon of the industry, the trials crossed the futility boundary. MK-869 wasn’t the only highly anticipated medical breakthrough to be undone in recent years by the placebo effect. From 2001 to 2006, the percentage of new products cut from development after Phase II clinical trials, when drugs are first tested against placebo, rose by 20 percent. The failure rate in more extensive Phase III trials increased by 11 percent, mainly due to surprisingly poor showings against placebo. ...Half of all drugs that fail in late-stage trials drop out of the pipeline due to their inability to beat sugar pills....It’s not only trials of new drugs that are crossing the futility boundary. Some products that have been on the market for decades, like Prozac, are faltering in more recent follow-up tests. ...It’s not that the old meds are getting weaker, drug developers say. It’s as if the placebo effect is somehow getting stronger.
* FDA Approves Sale of Prescription Placebo The Onion
WASHINGTON, DC—After more than four decades of testing in tandem with other drugs, placebo gained approval for prescription use from the Food and Drug Administration Monday. “For years, scientists have been aware of the effectiveness of placebo in treating a surprisingly wide range of conditions,” said Dr. Jonathan Bergen of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “It was time to provide doctors with this often highly effective option.”...The long-awaited approval will allow pharmaceutical companies to market placebo in pill and liquid form. Eleven major drug companies have developed placebo tablets, the first of which, AstraZeneca’s Sucrosa, hits shelves Sept. 24. “We couldn’t be more thrilled to finally get this wonder drug out of the labs and into consumers’ medicine cabinets,” said Tami Erickson, a spokeswoman for AstraZeneca. “Studies show placebo to be effective in the treatment of many ailments and disorders, ranging from lower-back pain to erectile dysfunction to nausea.”
* Psychic for a Day: How I Learned Tarot Cards, Palm Reading, and Astrology...in 24 Hours
The statement “You are wise in the ways of the world, a wisdom gained through hard experience rather than book learning” was flattery gold. Every one of my subjects nodded furiously in agreement and said that this statement really summed them up to a tee.
* UFO Over Rocky Mountains The Denver Post
In the kitchen I found our 10-year-old with a cheap plastic digital camera and our 4-year-old with a circular LED light purchased from Wal-Mart for $4.88. The younger boy was reflecting the light off the kitchen window while the older boy shot a pixilated video clip. I have to admit: The reflection did look a little like a weird flying saucer, but the narration by my son sealed the deal. “It’s an alien!” he exclaimed in his most dramatic, breathless voice. “Oh my God, look at that!”.
It all seemed so sweet and funny — two would-be Steven Spielbergs, one in pre-school and the other in elementary school, together serving up a Close Encounter of the Fraudulent Kind. Mostly, I was grateful that they were entertaining themselves indoors, without bloodshed, on a rainy summer day. And then they posted their video on YouTube....
* Psychic xkcd (xkcd is a very popular web comic, in geek circles anyway)
6. Remaking History
Context: “Whoever controls the present controls the past” (Orwell, 1984) And whoever controls Photoshop, controls the present...
* “Some E-Books are More Equal than Others” David Pogue, NY Times
This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for—thought they owned. But no, apparently the publisher changed its mind about offering an electronic edition, and apparently Amazon, whose business lives and dies by publisher happiness, caved. It electronically deleted all books by this author from people’s Kindles and credited their accounts for the price. You want to know the best part? The juicy, plump, dripping irony? The author who was the victim of this Big Brotherish plot was none other than George Orwell. And the books were “1984” and “Animal Farm.”
* Eleven Photos Where Black People Were Either Photoshopped In or Out
* Microsoft Poland Doesn’t Like Blacks
Also of note is the Apple iBook on the desk (with its logo removed!) and a computer monitor that has no cable.
7. How Things Work
Context: Sometimes graphics really illustrate in a way words can’t. Three proofs of this thesis follow...
* How Sewing Machines Work Wikimedia
* How the Pentatonic Scale Works Bobby McFerrin
* 650 Million Years of Continental Drift in 80 Seconds
8. Eyecandy: Outside the Lines
* 70 “Out-of-Bounds” Photos
* Paper Art
* Off the Wall
10. Quote of the Week
“When Jesus said, ‘Love your enemies’, I think he probably meant don't kill them”
bumpersticker
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See who we are and what we’re about to do.
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
The Talmud
=====================================
Year Six; Issue 24
1. Tikkun Toronto: Upcoming meetings, last meeting, other meetings
2. A US Primer on Canadian Health Care
3. Israelis, Jews, and Peace-Making
4. Prejudice and Privilege
5. Opting out of Traditional Religions
6. Successful Protests with Simple Supplies
7. Useful Summer Numbers
8. Animal Images
9. Eyecandy: Big Picture on Summer
10. Quote of the Week
1. Tikkun News
* Next Tikkun Meeting September 15th, at Peter’s. Last meeting’s minutes and plans for the September meeting are here. A “Train the Trainers” workshop on “Defending the Right to Freedom of Expression about Palestine/Israel” is on Wed, August 26th. Details and Registration
2. Yanking on the Canuk Health Chain
Context: Reality check time. As Americans debate the pros and the cons of a new health care system, the prose gets overwhelmed by some very sneaky cons about the single payer system we enjoy in Canada. So, some real views from Jack Layton, background on Shona Holmes and her actual medical experience, and a fine series of comments from Reddit.
* Truth and Lies Jack Layton (Jack is the head of Canada’s NDP party)
Last week a new study showed that 92% of Canadians would recommend their doctor to friends and family. Two-thirds have had their doctor for over five years and 85% of Canadians have a regular doctor. Does that sound like the health care system depicted in the right-wing Republican-backed smear campaign against Canada? No care for life-threatening conditions, no choice, exorbitant costs, bureaucrat control, poor outcomes -- these are the bogeymen of the right-wing smear campaign. And like all bogeymen, once you look under the bed they don’t exist.
* Reality Check on a Reality Check
Shona Holmes, an Ontario woman... claims that in 2005 delays in access to treatment at home made it necessary to go to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona and pay $97,000 for her care.... On the Mayo Clinic’s website, Shona Holmes is a success story. But it’s somewhat different story than all the headlines might have implied. Holmes’ “brain tumour” was actually a Rathke’s Cleft Cyst on her pituitary gland. To quote an American source, the John Wayne Cancer Center, “Rathke’s Cleft Cysts are not true tumors or neoplasms; instead they are benign cysts.” There’s no doubt Holmes had a problem that needed treatment, and she was given appointments with the appropriate specialists in Ontario. She chose not to wait the few months to see them. But it’s a far cry from the life-or-death picture portrayed by Holmes on the TV ads or by McConnell in his attacks.
* My Wife Recently Had a Baby: Here is the Bill (Reddit)
Two contrasting stories (followed by more comments than any of us need to read)
3. Israelis, Jews and Peace-Making
Context: A look at how close Israel and Palestine were to peace before the last election, and some powerful and differing perspectives on what is needed to work towards peace.
* Close, But. The Economist
Back in the autumn of last year, Ehud Olmert, then Israel’s fading prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinians’ more durable president, were astonishingly close to a peace deal. Judging by an interview with Mr Olmert published in Newsweek in June, after he had given up his post, they appeared to have been only a whisker apart—though Mr Abbas has since called the gap “wide”. But it is worth spelling out what Mr Olmert says he offered, in an account that other senior Palestinians have pretty much verified. For it starkly shows what both sides need to do to clinch the deal—and how feasible it is.
* Susan Nathan on “The Other Side of Israel”
There’s a huge division now coming between Jews who’ve understood the reality of Israel and what’s going on here and those who’ve yet to understand the reality of what’s going on here, who can’t accept it and find it very frightening and threatening...My own position has started to evolve to understand you can’t frighten people into accepting the reality here...I’ve changed how I present (my argument): I’m far less aggressive but at the same time I’m far more dangerous...I’m very fiercely critical but I’m also very compassionate. It’s very difficult for people to accept that everything they’ve based their life on has been based on a sandcastle which is now being swept away by a wave.
* Weiss and Weiss on Jews who are Anti-Zionist
Some good background on the Jewish anti-Zionist movement, and a radio interview. My guests for this Tidings radio program (July 2, 2009) were both Jewish, curiously both with the family name Weiss and both self-described anti-Zionists. They have arrived at this self-description from two radically distinct starting points--one secular and one deeply religious. Philip Weiss is a 53-year old New York journalist, author of two books and articles in several leading magazines. For the past three and a half years he has blogged on the Middle East and Jewish identity on Mondoweiss, his increasingly influential blog not least because it provides a gathering place, a safe haven for "secret sharing," for Jews [and]...Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss is a member of the Neturei Karta organization, a world-wide group of deeply orthodox Jews who believe that Zionism is "a terrible stain on Judaism", a corruption of the fundamental tenets of the Jewish religion.
4. Privilege and Prejudice
Context: Like many people, I am deeply indebted to Peggy McIntosh’s classic essay on White Privilege for helping me to see how much I benefit from a racism from which I once thought myself separate. Here are some other stories about privilege: white and black, straight and gay, living and dying.
* Teachable moments require willing learners Robert Jensen, Zspace
In lectures about the United States' system of white supremacy and the privileges that white people have in that system, I have sometimes told a story about being stopped by police in Austin, TX....[story comes here] ...I still tell that story when I lecture, now emphasizing that the man's comments had reminded me no one with privilege ever fully "gets it." It doesn't mean we whites -- or men, or heterosexuals, or the well off, or citizens -- are consigned to perpetual stupidity, but rather that we should never think we have it all figured out.
*A Straight's Prayer For Young Israelis Shot For Being Gay Bradley Burston Haaretz
Lord, teach me to stand naked before you
And, in so doing, learn the meaning of modesty.
Let me stand naked, which is to say, stripped to my humanity,
And mourn these young people shot
For having chosen to practice
Their own humanity.
Cause me, Lord, to shed this defective armor,
Which we call clothing, respectability, convention,
The mask which we mistake for loyalty to tribe.
The mask which keeps me from seeing the face behind the mask of the tribe we have come to call enemy.
* “I’ll Die Before the Endgame” Terry Pratchett (Who’s he?)
Sir Terry Pratchett has made an emotional plea for the right to take his own life, saying: ‘I live in hope I can jump before I am pushed.’...Sir Terry, 61, author of the hugely successful Discworld books, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2007. [and] said in an article in the Mail on Sunday: ‘I intend, before the endgame looms, to die sitting in a chair in my own garden with a glass of brandy in my hand and Thomas Tallis on the iPod. ‘Oh, and since this is England, I had better add, “If wet, in the library”. Who could say that this is bad?’
5. Opting Out From Tradition in Religions
Context: Part of how religions evolve (more on this next week!) is when people find that the traditions no longer fit and opt out. Three different stories here.
* Jimmy Carter Severs Ties with Southern Baptists
I have been a practising Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world.
So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention’s leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be “subservient” to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service. This was in conflict with my belief - confirmed in the holy scriptures - that we are all equal in the eyes of God.
This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. It is widespread. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths.
* Boy Chosen By Dalai Lama Opts Out Of Buddhism Guardian
As a toddler, he was put on a throne and worshipped by monks who treated him like a god. But the boy chosen by the Dalai Lama as a reincarnation of a spiritual leader has caused consternation – and some embarrassment – for Tibetan Buddhists by turning his back on the order that had such high hopes for him. Instead of leading a monastic life, Osel Hita Torres now sports baggy trousers and long hair, and is more likely to quote Jimi Hendrix than Buddha. Yesterday he bemoaned the misery of a youth deprived of television, football and girls. Movies were also forbidden – except for a sanctioned screening of The Golden Child starring Eddie Murphy, about a kidnapped child lama with magical powers. “I never felt like that boy,” he said.
* Albania, a Muslim State, Allows Same-Sex Weddings
Albania’s governing Democrats have proposed a law allowing same-sex civil weddings in the small, predominantly Muslim country. An announcement on the government Web site Thursday said the bill “may spark debate” but was needed to stop discrimination against gay couples. Current law only recognizes heterosexual marriages. Prime Minister Sali Berisha said the move followed requests from rights groups. His Democrats, who control 74 of parliament’s 140 seats, are expected to easily pass the law.
6. Successful Protests (with simple supplies)
Context: We often opt out of protesting; our opponents have more money, media, military. Herewith three counter examples, successful protests with the simplest of weapons: water, rocks, bodies.
* Dow Runs Scared from “B’eau Pal” Water
A new, beautifully-designed line of bottled water - this time not from the melting Alps, nor from faraway, clean-water-deprived Fiji, but rather from the contaminated ground near the site of the 1984 Bhopal catastrophe - scared Dow Chemical’s London management team into hiding today....Had they not fled, Dow employees could have read on the bottles’ elegant labels: The unique qualities of B’eau Pal water come from 25 years of slow-leaching toxins at the site of the world’s largest industrial accident. To this day, Dow Chemical (who bought Union Carbide) has refused to clean up, and whole new generations have been poisoned.
* Greenpeace Rocks
I’m often on the fence regarding Greenpeace’s methods, which can cross the line from activism to radicalism. But I can’t help but love a recent approach the organization took to dealing with a tangled net of European politics. Last Monday, Greenpeace activists dumped about 180 massive boulders (0.5 to 3 tons each) into the waters off of Sweden. Why? It’s simple: Big boulders make bottom trawling impossible.
Bottom trawling involves dragging chained nets over the sea floor to scoop up the catch. It’s a devastating practice that can yield as much as 80 percent bycatch--unwanted marine life, which is then thrown back into the water, often dead or in grave health.
The granite rocks were dumped in two areas, Fladen and Lilla Middelgrund in the Kattegat, that are Natura 2000 sites, meaning they are designated as needing protection under the European Union’s Habitats Directive. Both areas are home to unique and rich sea life that is being destroyed by the fisheries.
* Nakedness and Power
7. Useful Summer Numbers
Context: Before the summer’s done, some simple salad recipes, a list of non-fiction adventure books (perhaps not for you, but great gift ideas!) and common first aid errors you really want to avoid.
* 101 Simple Summer Salads
14. A classic Moroccan thing: Thinly slice carrots, or grate or shred them (the food processor makes quick work of this). Toss with toasted cumin seeds, olive oil, lemon juice and cilantro. Raisins are good in here, too. There is no better use of raw carrots.
15. Cut cherry or grape tomatoes in half; toss with soy sauce, a bit of dark sesame oil and basil or cilantro. I love this — the tomato juice-soy thing is incredible.
* 50 Non-fiction Adventure Books
Touching My Father’s Soul: A Sherpa’s Journey to the Top of Everest by Jamling Tenzing Norgay
Another account of the 1996 Everest disaster (see Krakauer’s Into Thin Air) as told by the leader of the IMAX expedition on the mountain at the time, Jamling Tenzing Norgay. Norgay, son of the legendary Tenzing Norgay who first conquered Everest with Hillary, offers his own account of the disaster while simultaneously sharing intimate stories of his father’s legendary climbing career.
Death in the Long Grass by Peter Hathaway Capstick
In this, his first book, Capstick shows us why he became a legend in the world of big game hunting. Capstick makes a field of ten foot high grass (and the angry fauna that no doubt reside there) the most terrifying thing on planet earth, but also the most exciting.
“If 12,000 pounds of screaming, screeching, infuriated elephant bearing down on you has somehow rattled your nerves to the point that you miss the six-by-four inch spot on his forehead…then you may as well forget it. The most talented mortuary cosmetician in the world couldn’t rewire you so your own mother would know if you were face up or down.”
* 8 Common First Aid Mistakes
Emergencies do not come with warning bells. They strike at unexpected moments and your response or lack thereof could be the determinant in how things come out in the end. How much do you think you know about first aid and proper emergency response? Most people think they know quite a lot, but most of what they have learned consists of myths that could actually do more harm than good. Put yourself to the test and seriously ask yourself: what would you do in these situations?
8. Animal Images
* Animal Sand Sculptures
* Sleeping Jewel Wasp
* Mongolian Girl With Baby Goat (cuteness warning!)
9. Eyecandy: The Big Picture’s Summer Pix
* Greenland
* Diving
* Fires Around the Mediterranean
10. Quote of the Week: Brave New World Dept.
“In the Orientation to Management section, Interpersonal Dynamics will be replaced with a course called Decisionmaking with Spreadsheets”
From the web site of the Yale School of Management (via The NYer)
=====================================
See who we are and what we’re about to do.
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
The Talmud
=====================================
Year Six; Issue 23
No more Tikkunista! until August 22nd.
First a writing retreat, then off to the annual family meeting.
Have a wonderful meantime, all you fine people.
1. Tikkun Toronto: Upcoming meeting
2. Politics of Peace Part 1: Israel
3. Politics of Peace Part 2: the US
4. Palin-ontology
5. How We Change
6. Our Amusing Culture
7. Monster Chiller Horror Theatre
8. Free Stuff...Money Saving Stuff!
9. Eyecandy: Home
10. Quote of the Week
1. Tikkun News
* Next Tikkun Meeting August 18th, at Edie’s.
2. Politics of Peace: Israel
Context: We start with a powerful piece on why Israel doesn’t want peace. Written by Amira Hass for Haaretz it’s a perspective which would never be published in a North American newspaper. Then an exploration of the implications of Netanyahu’s demand Israel be “a state for Jewish People”, then the NY Times view on the implications of the settlements, and we conclude with that rarest of things: a genuinely new idea on how to end the conflict. From Tikkun.
* Israel Knows Peace Doesn’t Pay Amira Hass, Haaretz
| Successive Israeli governments since 1993 certainly must have known what they were doing, being in no hurry to make peace with the Palestinians. As representatives of Israeli society, these governments understood that peace would involve serious damage to national interests (in four areas) economic damage; damage to careers; damage to quality of life; damage to welfare: |
The demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as “the state of the Jewish people” has at least three layers to it: The first is symbolic, without practical significance, and understandable. The second is partly symbolic, is meant to have future practical significance, and is contentious (though resolvable). The third, however, is legal, has great practical significance, and is, for any Palestinian (or democrat, for that matter) unacceptable. It is time to stop working through symbols and start saying what we mean.
* Fictions on the Ground New York Times Tony Judt (Who’s he?)
Many of the people who move to these houses don’t even think of themselves as settlers. Newly arrived from Russia and elsewhere, they simply take up the offer of subsidized accommodation, move into the occupied areas and become — like peasants in southern Italy freshly supplied with roads and electricity — the grateful clients of their political patrons. Like American settlers heading west, Israeli colonists in the West Bank are the beneficiaries of their very own Homestead Act, and they will be equally difficult to uproot.
Despite all the diplomatic talk of disbanding the settlements as a condition for peace, no one seriously believes that these communities — with their half a million residents, their urban installations, their privileged access to fertile land and water — will ever be removed. The Israeli authorities, whether left, right or center, have no intention of removing them, and neither Palestinians nor informed Americans harbor illusions on this score.
* The Marriage of a One-State and a Two-State Solution Tikkun Magazine
Both Palestinians and Jews under the condominial proposal would be granted the right to settle anywhere within the territory of either state. Together the two states would thus form a single, binational settlement community. Palestinians would have the right to settle anywhere within Israel, just as Jews would have the right to settle anywhere within the territory of the Palestinian state. Regardless of which of the two states they live in, all Palestinians would be citizens of the Palestinian state, and all Jews would be citizens of Israel.
3. Politics of Peace: US (cue music: The times, they are a changin’)
Context: Obama holds a meeting with 16 top US Jewish Leaders. New invitees: J-Street, Americans for Peace Now. Not invited: Bnai Brith, and the American Jewish Congress! We look at what happened at the meeting, at what that means, and at how popular support is behind Obama on this move. (Thanks to Mondoweiss for links and insights, as always!)
* Obama Assuages Jewish Leaders NYTimes
President Obama, seeking to assuage the concerns of Jewish leaders who worry he is being too tough on Israel and too soft on Iran, said during a private meeting at the White House on Monday that he is committed to Israel’s security but does not believe it is essential for him to avoid all disagreement with the Jewish state. Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street,..said Mr. Obama argued that he is the right man, at the right time, to press for a lasting Middle East peace agreement.“He was very humble about it, not bragging, not talking himself up, but just being clear that there’s a set of assets that he brings,’’ Mr. Ben-Ami said. “That somebody with his ability to speak to the Muslim world, the political capital that he brings internationally as well as domestically – that isn’t going to come around all that often, and we have a narrow window before time runs out. He was very clear that this is a moment that has to be seized and he intends to seize it.’’
* From the J Street Blog on the Meeting Ben-Ami
He recognized that the United States isn’t going to see eye-to-eye with either the Israelis or the other parties in the region on every issue. When some Jewish leaders argued (as they did in the meeting) that progress toward peace is only made when there is no daylight between Israel and the United States, the President responded correctly that for eight years - when there was no daylight between us and Israel - there was no progress toward peace. The hard decisions weren’t made on either side - and the prospects for peace only diminished.
* Obama's Voters Support His Getting Tougher with Israel Alternet
If Obama is serious about putting the squeeze on the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu, does he have the political backing to make it stick? On the last point, the answer would seem to be “yes.” According to a recent Zogby International poll, 50 percent of Americans think that the U.S. should “get tough” with Israel. Some 32 percent were “not sure,” and only 19 percent said, “do nothing.” But once the partisan gap is factored in, Obama supporters overwhelmingly favor “getting tough” by 71 to 18. The poll shows strong support for Israel -- 71 percent to 21 percent -- and a negative view of Palestinians -- 25 to 66 -- but again, there were strong differences between Obama and McCain supporters. Asked if Israeli and U.S. interests were identical, Obama voters said “no” 59 to 28, while McCain voters said they were identical 78 to 15. Obama backers had a largely negative view of Netanyahu -- 49 to 29 -- while McCain supporters favored the Israeli prime minister 82 to 9.
4. Palin: Retiring, But Not Shy
Context: A hilarious annotated video of her speech from Bateman, a cartoon from Time, and conservative Peggy Noonan recognizing what a disaster Palin is for Republicans.
* Don’t Call Sarah Palin a Quitter Bateman Salon
* Palin and Republicans cartoon, Time Magazine
* A Farewell Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal
In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn’t say what she read because she didn’t read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She experienced criticism as both partisan and cruel because she could see no truth in any of it. She wasn’t thoughtful enough to know she wasn’t thoughtful enough. Her presentation up to the end has been scattered, illogical, manipulative and self-referential to the point of self-reverence. “I’m not wired that way,” “I’m not a quitter,” “I’m standing up for our values.” I’m, I’m, I’m.
...Here’s why all this matters. The world is a dangerous place. It has never been more so, or more complicated, more straining of the reasoning powers of those with actual genius and true judgment. This is a time for conservative leaders who know how to think.... The era we face, that is soon upon us, will require a great deal from our leaders. They had better be sturdy. They will have to be gifted. There will be many who cannot, and should not, make the cut. Now is the time to look for those who can. And so the Republican Party should get serious, as serious as the age, because that is what a grown-up, responsible party—a party that deserves to lead—would do.
5. Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
Context: It’s hard to get a sense of how one’s own culture is changing. After all, the present has been this way as long as it has existed. Three essays explore how our view of parenting has changed, how and why our bodies have changed, and how we’ve become a more peaceful and less violent species.
* Parents Magazine And The Fuss About Parenthood The New Yorker
... I once bought one of those little mirrors you Velcro to the back seat of your car so that, when your baby has to ride facing backward, you can keep an eye on him. I could tell that story, I guess, but only two things about it are worth knowing: (1) those little mirrors, while in all other respects useless, make a pretty good ice-skating rink for Lego people and (2) it’s more important to mind the road.
Meanwhile, the changes of the past two centuries have created actual problems, structural problems that affect everyone, not just the demographic that reads Parents, problems that can be very hard to see when you’re driving while looking in a baby-view mirror. Most jobs are made for people who aren’t taking care of children. The sharper the division between parenthood and adulthood, the worse those jobs fit, and the less well people who aren’t rearing children understand the hardships of people who are. Employers are seldom asked to accommodate family life in any meaningful way; employees do all the accommodating, which mainly involves, especially for women, pretending that we don’t actually have families. Everyone has a story about how painful that is. It’s also crazy, and maddening, and unfair. We’ve all got stories to tell, but stories aren’t going to rewrite employment law. Neither are cute books about parenthood as an exclusive club whose initiation rites include confessions of ineptitude, though it’s easy to see why people write them....
* XXXL The New Yorker
During the next decade, Americans kept right on gaining. Men are now on average seventeen pounds heavier than they were in the late seventies, and for women that figure is even higher: nineteen pounds. The proportion of overweight children, age six to eleven, has more than doubled, while the proportion of overweight adolescents, age twelve to nineteen, has more than tripled. (According to the standards of the United States military, forty per cent of young women and twenty-five per cent of young men weigh too much to enlist.) As the average person became heavier, the very heavy became heavier still; more than twelve million Americans now have a body-mass index greater than forty, which, for someone who is five feet nine, entails weighing more than two hundred and seventy pounds. ... Such a broad social development seems to require an explanation on the same scale. Something big must have changed in America to cause so many people to gain so much weight so quickly. But what, exactly, is unclear—a mystery batter-dipped in an enigma.
* Why Is There Peace? Greater Good Magazine (Thanks, Rick!)
Now that social scientists have started to count bodies in different historical periods, they have discovered that the romantic theory gets it backward: Far from causing us to become more violent, something in modernity and its cultural institutions has made us nobler. In fact, our ancestors were far more violent than we are today. Indeed, violence has been in decline over long stretches of history, and today we are probably living in the most peaceful moment of our species’ time on earth.
6. Our Culture, Our Selves
Context: This section starts with a wonderful short cartoon summary of Neil Postman’s contrast, in Amusing Ourselves to Death, between Orwellian and Huxleyian dystopias. A look at this week’s Newsweek covers in different parts of the world supports Postman’s view of America, but the meta-list of the 100 most important books ever lets you reassure yourself that you’re an exception (editor’s score: 68/100 read)
* Amusing Ourselves to Death (click on picture to enlarge)
* Newsweek Covers around the World
* Top 100 Books Meta-list Newsweek
Who's to say what the best is? We went one step further: we crunched the numbers from 10 top books lists (Modern Library, the New York Public Library, St. John's College reading list, Oprah's, and more) to come up with The Top 100 Books of All Time. It's a list of lists — a meta-list.
7. Monster Chiller Horror Theatre
Context: Why do we love movies about horrific hideously evil monsters whose memory wakes us up in a cold sweat at midnight? We explore two examples of the species: zombies, and Brüno.
* The Return of the Zombie Horror Film The Guardian
Zombies, even more than vampires, are symbols of so many of today’s subconscious fears. They stand for any section of society that can be easily depersonalised for social or political reasons. They represent the great unwashed, that fearsome underclass of knife-wielding hoodies certain newspapers are always warning us about. Or they’re metaphors for poverty, influxes of immigrants or refugees who (we’re told) will steal our housing and jobs. They could be gangs of feral children, football hooligans or those anonymous carriers of swine flu, at first kept at a safe distance but spreading infection ever closer to home to threaten us and our communities....Take a look at the footage of the G20 demos in London, which shows crowds of people herded, clubbed and beaten back by heavily armoured police. The establishment is treating people like the zombies in Romero’s films - as a faceless mass, less than human, a tide of contagion to be stemmed at all cost. They are no longer just reminders of our mortality. They are us. We are all zombies now.
* Mein Camp Anthony Lane, The New Yorker
I’m afraid that “Brüno” feels hopelessly complicit in the prejudices that it presumes to deride. You can’t honestly defend your principled lampooning of homophobia when nine out of every ten images that you project onscreen comply with the most threadbare cartoons of gay behavior. A schoolboy who watches a pirated DVD of this film will look at the prancing Austrian and find more, not fewer, reasons to beat up the kid on the playground who doesn’t like girls. There is, on the evidence of this movie, no such thing as gay love; there is only gay sex, a superheated substitute for love, with its own code of vulcanized calisthenics whose aim is not so much to sate the participants as to embarrass onlookers from the straight—and therefore straitlaced—society beyond....
* I Am Not Bruno Pam’s House Blend
I don't recall ever being called "faggot" to my face. And, I seriously doubt that these young men would engage in that kind of behavior. This is just one of those unfortunate cases when you hear what people are saying about you behind your back....I guess it doesn't really matter that I don't dress flamboyantly and giggle like a schoolgirl. Some people see me as a deviant anyway. I may as well put on bright yellow lederhosen and act like a big queen. It is going to take me a few days to get over this. Thank you, Sasha Baron Cohen for making my life just a little more difficult.
(also statement from incoming Glaad President Jarrett Barrios On Brüno)
8. Free Stuff, and More!
* Webcam on the Plinth in Trafalgar Square
Every hour, 24 hours a day, for 100 days without a break, a different person will make the Plinth their own. If you’re selected, you can use your time on the plinth as you like. One & Other is open to anyone and everyone from any corner of the UK. As long as you’re 16 or over and are living or staying in the UK, you can apply to be part of this unforgettable artistic experiment.
* Free Animated Gifs
Is your website loading too fast? Need some cute animated gifs to slow it down? Do we have the site for you... a sample check of “witches” counted 98 dancing gifs. All free, and some worth it.
* Huge List Of Common Sense Money Saving Ideas
What frugality blog would be complete without a list of money-saving ideas? This list comes mainly from personal experience and is certainly not complete. I really enjoyed making it, and I’d like to add more. If you see anything missing or have any questions or complaints, just let me know.
9. Eyecandy: Where We Live
* Toronto-the Garbage Strike
* Gaza Mud Huts BBC
* ISS (International Space Station) Big Picture
10. Quote of the Week
“I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers.”
Fry and Laurie
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See who we are and what we're about to do.
"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."
The Talmud
=====================================
Year Six; Issue 22
1. Tikkun: Upcoming meeting, New Tikkun Magazine Blog
2. Coup in Honduras
3. G8: Fiddling Around While the Planet Burns
4. Iran in Perspective
5. Thinking About Food
6. Big Brother Is Watching...VERY CLOSELY
7. Loonies on the Right
8. Things that are Broken
9. 30 Eagles, 5 Hedgehogs, and a Cat Catching a Bat
10. Eyecandy: Sculpture
11. Quote of the Week
1. Tikkun News
* Many thanks to all who helped make Writing Towards Peace so successful. Next Tikkun Meeting August 18th, at Edie’s.
* Tikkun Magazine’s Daily Blog is worth checking out for interesting news and perspectives, such as this fascinating post by Ottawa’s Reb Arie on his ambiguity at the annual meeting of Independent Jewish Voices. (Full disclosure: I’ll be blogging for the Daily Blog as well.)
2. Coup in Honduras, and the Curious Incident
Context: We start with what happened in Honduras, and the impeccable Big Picture supplies images of the coup. But Noam Chomsky points out the curious fact that this is not a US supported coup (unlike so many predecessors in the Americas.) But Harper stands alone in supporting it, alas.
* Target Left? counterpunch (Thanks, Gabe)
The coup against Manuel Zelaya of Honduras represents a last ditch effort by Honduras’ entrenched economic and political interests to stave off the advance of the new left governments that have taken hold in Latin America over the past decade... [Zelaya] ran for president as the head of the center-right Liberal Party on a fairly conservative platform, promising to be tough on crime and to cut the budget. Inaugurated in January, 2006, he supported the US-backed Central American Free Trade Agreement, which been signed two years earlier, and continued the economic policies of neo-liberalism, privatizing state held enterprises.
But about half way into his four year term, the winds of change blowing from the south caught his imagination, particularly those coming from Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, the largest regional power fronting on the Caribbean. With no petroleum resources, Honduras signed a generous oil subsidy deal with Venezuela, and then last year joined the emergent regional trade bloc, ALBA, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas. Inspired by Venezuela it now has Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Dominica and Ecuador as members. Simultaneously, Zelaya implemented domestic reform policies, significantly increasing the minimum wage of workers and teachers’ salaries, while stepping up spending in health care and education.
* Images from Honduras (Big Picture)
* Elections and Freedom in 2009 (Noam Chomsky)
His article covers Iran, Lebanon, and Honduras... each with good insights
Mainstream commentary described the coup as an unfortunate return to the bad days of decades ago. But that is mistaken. This is the third military coup in the past decade, all conforming to the “recurrent story.” The first, in Venezuela in 2002, was supported by the Bush administration, which, however, backed down after sharp Latin American condemnation and restoration of the elected government by a popular uprising. The second, in Haiti in 2004, was carried out by Haiti’s traditional torturers, France and the US. The elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was spirited to Central Africa and kept at a safe distance from Haiti by the master of the hemisphere. What is novel in the Honduras coup is that the US has not lent it support. Rather, the US joined with the Organization of American States in opposing the coup, though with a more reserved condemnation than others, and without any action, unlike the neighboring states and much of the rest of Latin America.
* Harper Gov’t Isolated in Support of Coup (rabble.ca)
Canada, reports Notimex, is the only country in the hemisphere that did not explicitly call for Zelaya’s return to power. Unlike the World Bank and others, Ottawa has not announced plans to suspend aid to Honduras, which is the largest recipient of Canadian assistance in Central America. Nor has Ottawa mentioned that it will exclude the Honduran military from its Military Training Assistance Programme. Ottawa’s hostility towards Zelaya is likely motivated by particular corporate interests and his support for the social transformation taking place across Latin America.
3. G8 Takes a Small Step
Context: As the evidence rises (or melts), the G8 makes some progress, while Canada signs with its fingers crossed.
* Rising Ocean Temperatures
The ocean is warming about 50 per cent faster than reported two years ago, according to an update of the latest climate science.A report compiling research presented at a science congress in Copenhagen in March says recent observations are near the worst-case predictions of the 2007 report by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
* Melting Arctic Ice (Daily Kos)
A new joint study by NASA and the University of Washington in Seattle spanning several years paints a grim picture that a phenomenon known to climatologist as polar amplification is well underway at the top of the world:
In 2003, 62 percent of the ocean’s ice cover was older, thicker ice, with 38 percent in seasonal layers, the researchers found. Five years later, 68 percent of the ice cap was made up of seasonal ice. The amount of ice replaced in the winter hasn’t been enough in recent years to compensate for the loss in the summer, which leads to more open water, which in turn absorbs heat, warming the ocean and further melting the ice, the researchers said.
* G8 Agrees to Climate Targets The Guardian
The Group of Eight industrialised economies, including America, today agreed for the first time that they must limit worldwide temperature rises to no more than 2C, but failed to reach agreement with developing nations on how that should be achieved – a disappointment to those expecting Barack Obama to break a decade long deadlock.
* Prentice Says Canada Won’t Match G-8 Emission Cuts (Bloomberg.com)
Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice ...speaking to reporters in L’Aquila, Italy, said Canada won’t change its emission plans even after the country signed on to a Group of Eight pledge for stronger cuts. “Amongst the developed countries, some countries will undertake targets that are higher than that and some will have targets that are less than that,” Prentice said.
4. Iran Election Conflict Not Over
Context: There are ongoing interesting developments, some noted in the Chomsky article above. Iranian clerics are certainly not a monolithic block...and Znet offers a good Q and A on the election.
* Iran Clerics Declare Election Invalid Times Online
Iran’s biggest group of clerics has declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election to be illegitimate and condemned the subsequent crackdown. “It’s a clerical mutiny,” said one Iranian analyst. “This is the first time ever you have all these big clerics openly challenging the leader’s decision.” Another, in Tehran, said: “We are seeing the birth of a new political front.”
* Iran Crisis Q & A (Znet)
Below are the questions we take up. ...And we should say at the outset that our support for the protest movement is not determined by the technicalities of electoral manipulation, as important as they are. What is decisive is that huge masses of Iranians are convinced that the election was rigged and that they went into the streets, at great personal risk, to demand democracy and an end to theocratic repression.
1. Was the June 12, 2009 election fair?
2. Isn’t it true that the Guardian Council is indirectly elected by the Iranian people?
3. Was there fraud, and was it on a scale to alter the outcome?
5. Environmental Food
Context: It is increasingly clear that the reason that people starve is not that our planet can’t feed current populations. Some articles about the evidence for this...and some humour too.
* Street Farming (NY Times) Thanks, Gabe!
With seeds planted at quadruple density and nearly every inch of space maximized to generate exceptional bounty, Growing Power is an agricultural Mumbai, a supercity of upward-thrusting tendrils and duct-taped infrastructure. Allen pointed to five tiers of planters brimming with salad greens. “We’re growing in 25,000 pots,” he said. Ducking his 6-foot-7 frame under one of them, he pussyfooted down a leaf-crammed aisle. “We grow a thousand trays of sprouts a week; every square foot brings in $30.” He headed toward the in-ground fish tanks stocked with tens of thousands of tilapia and perch. Pumps send the dirty fish water up into beds of watercress, which filter pollutants and trickle the cleaner water back down to the fish — a symbiotic system called aquaponics. The watercress sells for $16 a pound; the fish fetch $6 apiece.
* Africa Could Feed the World (New Scientist)
DOOM-MONGERS have got it wrong - there is enough space in the world to produce the extra food needed to feed a growing population. And contrary to expectation, most of it can be grown in Africa, say two international reports published this week. The first, projecting 10 years into the future from last year’s food crisis, which saw the price of food soar, says that there is plenty of unused, fertile land available to grow more crops.
* Taco-Bell’s New Menu Takes NO Materials From Nature (Onion)
6. Not So Free Speech
Context: That line between being protected, and being stifled is a tricky one, but it seems that there are increasing numbers of places proposing cures which are worse than the disease
* Ireland Makes Blasphemy Illegal (Paliban Daily)
Irish atheists are horrified by new legislation making blasphemy illegal, and punishable by a 25,000-Euro fine...As part of a revision to defamation legislation, the Dail (Irish Parliament) passed legislation creating a new crime of blasphemy.
▪ Atheists can be prosecuted for saying that God is imaginary. That causes outrage.
- ▪Pagans can be prosecuted for saying they left Christianity because God is violent and bloodthirsty, promotes genocide, and permits slavery.
- ▪Christians can be prosecuted for saying that Allah is a moon god, or for drawing a picture of Mohammed, or for saying that Islam is a violent religion which breeds terrorists.
- ▪Jews can be prosecuted for saying Jesus isn’t the Messiah.
Parents of children at a primary school have been banned from taking pictures of their own children at the annual sports day. Parents criticised the move and said they felt there was no legal reason why they cannot take photos for personal use. Mrs Ethelston’s Church of England Primary School, in Uplyme, Devon, prohibited photos and video filming, claiming it was due to changes in child protection and images legislation.
* UN Adopts Policy On Religious Defamation
A United Nations forum... passed a resolution condemning “defamation of religion” as a human rights violation, despite wide concerns that it could be used to justify curbs on free speech in Muslim countries. The U.N. Human Rights Council adopted the non-binding text, proposed by Pakistan on behalf of Islamic states, with a vote of 23 states in favor and 11 against, with 13 abstentions. Earlier this week, 180 secular, religious and media groups from around the world urged diplomats to reject the resolution which they said “may be used in certain countries to silence and intimidate human rights activists, religious dissenters and other independent voices” and ultimately restrict freedoms.
7. The US Right Goes Rabid
Context: Calling for murder, hoping for attacks by other countries...the US Right is probably a greater terrorist threat to the US these days than is Al Quada.
* Glenn Beck and Michael Scheuer Call for Terrorists to Attack US (Fox News, via youtube)
* Far Right Shootings Raise Fears of Violence Guardian
A series of attacks by rightwing extremists has raised fears of a new wave of violence triggered by the economic crisis and the election of the country’s first black president. Since the inauguration of Barack Obama this year a series of shootings have taken place, with targets ranging from an abortion clinic to a liberal church and police officers. The attacks have often been fuelled by a potent mix of race hate and conspiracy theories.
* On the Front Lines in the Abortion Wars (Guardian)
Neal Horsley wants to kill abortion doctors. He publishes what is widely regarded as a hit list of medics and openly advocates the execution of women who have terminations. But he is torn over this week’s murder of one of the country’s prominent abortion doctors. On the one hand, Horsley regards George Tiller’s killing as “justifiable homicide” on behalf of the unborn and the man who shot him in the head at a church as a “soldier in a war”.
“Tiller was a terrorist and I speak as a spokesman for those unborn who have been killed,” said Horsley under posters of aborted foetuses at his office on the edge of Carrollton, Georgia. “The thing about Tiller’s assassination that was really appropriate is that they killed him in church. While he was there collecting the money, counting the money, his blood poured in to those thick carpets in that church. That was a fitting send off.”
8. “Everything is Broken”
Context: The smashed guitar video went viral since we first saw it...but if you’ve missed it, it’s worth watching. And a train wreck in slow motion, roads that end in mid air...where else but Tikkunista!
* Smashed Guitar LA Times
Here, without rhythm, harmony or rhyme, is Dave Carroll’s problem: Last year, while he was flying from Nova Scotia to Nebraska on United Airlines, somebody broke his $3,500 guitar....Carroll and his band, Sons of Maxwell, have told their tale with rhythm, harmony, rhyme, not to mention some wicked humor, and their four-minute, 37-second complaint, “United Breaks Guitars,” above, is racking up views on YouTube.
* Train Wreck (via J-Walk)
* “We’re on a Road to Nowhere”
9. Animals
* 30 Bald Eagles in Back Yard
* 5 Baby Hedgehogs
* Cat Catches Bat
10. Eyecandy: Sculpture
* 2009 Venice Biennale (Big Picture)
* Out of Wood (marvellous sped up youtube)
* In Ireland
My name is Victor Langheld. In 1989 I had a dream, here in Roundwood. In it I saw a strange and wonderful sculpture park. The sculptures symbolized the stages of the pilgrimage from un-wholeness to wholeness, to awakening, enlightenment, fulfilment and the boundless happiness that is the reward for complete fulfilment....It took 20 years for that dream to become reality. Now it’s done. So, if you’re up for it, why not come and wander about in my twilight zone … for an hour. Here you can enjoy some truly outstanding sculptures in the midst of beautiful and serene Co Wicklow countryside; or you can ponder your very personal quest for fulfilment and perhaps savour the joy that flows from the anticipation of its attainment.
Read the full story, see the stages of enlightenment, or the visions of Ganesh
11. Quote of the Week
"When we want the rich to work harder, we pay them more. When we want the poor to work harder, we pay them less." John Kenneth Galbraith
=====================================
See who we are and what we're about to do.
"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."
The Talmud
=====================================
Year Six; Issue 21
1. Tikkun: Writing to Peace, a summer meeting, a wedding, and a birth
2. The Clean Energy Act (in the US)
3. The Dirty Energy Actions (in Canada)
4. Drugs: Solutions, and Real Issues
5. Michael Jackson
6. Psychiatry and Reality
7. It’s Online- Right Now!
8. Musical Interlude
9. Eyecandy: Dancing
10. Quote of the Week
1. Tikkun News
* 4 places left for Writing Towards Peace. Three skilled teachers guide you through a ceremonially structured written exploration of what peace means to you: internally and externally, as both a positive force and a repressive one. Come and join us on Thursday July 9th from 7–9 pm (Note of warning: you reserve by paying $10, not by writing us that you’re intending to come) More details, and Booking here.
* Next Tikkun Meeting August 18th, at Edie’s
* Currently on at Toronto Fringe, My Mother's Lesbian Jewish-Wiccan Wedding a musical based on Tikkunista veterans Diana and Jean’s story, written by Diana’s son. A wonderful play...do catch it if you can (8 performances left).
* Tikkun (the US magazine) now has a daily blog. Same fine politics as Tikkunista! (but less eye-candy, so far) “Tikkun Daily aims to serve as a central hub on the Web where people interested in a spiritual progressive perspective on politics, art, religion, and activism can go”
2. When ACES Aren’t Enough
Context: The House of Representatives narrowly passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act this week. Environmentalists say it’s so weak already as to be useless...but how could we politically get more? An environmentalist, an honest politician (!) and a columnist give their views
* We Need More Than Aces Ted Glick Znet
Yesterday morning, on the day that the House of Representatives very narrowly passed a very problematic-a bad-climate bill, I finally became clear in my mind what I was hoping for....Having been in the midst of the campaign to get a good bill out of the House for the last seven or so months-a campaign that failed, we have to honestly acknowledge-these are the four things I would see as essential to the possibility of getting something out of the Senate that comes much closer to what the climate science says is needed....
* “On Passing a Weak Bill....” Dennis Kucinich
“I oppose H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The reason is simple. It won’t address the problem. In fact, it might make the problem worse.“It sets targets that are too weak, especially in the short term, and sets about meeting those targets through Enron-style accounting methods. It gives new life to one of the primary sources of the problem that should be on its way out [coal] by giving it record subsidies. And it is rounded out with massive corporate giveaways at taxpayer expense. There is $60 billion for a single technology which may or may not work, but which enables coal power plants to keep warming the planet at least another 20 years.”
* Betraying the Planet Paul Krugman New York Times
So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement. But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases. And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.
To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate research. The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected: ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying rate. And according to a number of recent studies, catastrophe — a rise in temperature so large as to be almost unthinkable — can no longer be considered a mere possibility. It is, instead, the most likely outcome if we continue along our present course.
3. Oh! Canada!
Context: Aces may be weak, but Canada may be the last country to actively follow the GWBush mantra of claiming there is no problem deserving a solution that might adversely hurt the bottom line. Some horror stories and a debatable piece on the tar sands (that we don’t fully agree with, but thought) worth including
* Canada Last among G8 On Climate (CBC)
Canada has been ranked last among the G8 nations in an annual climate change report funded by the World Wildlife Fund and the insurance firm Allianz SE. “Nowhere else on Earth do fewer people steward more resources, yet Canada now stands dead last amongst the G8 nations in protecting our shared home from the threat of dangerous climate change,” said Keith Steward, director of WWF-Canada’s climate change campaign, in a statement Wednesday.
* Canada and Japan Block Deal Times Online
Canada and Japan were blocking a possible deal on climate change at the Copenhagen summit, Sir David King, the former Chief Scientific Adviser, warned yesterday. Speaking at the World Conference of Science Journalists, Sir David said that the two countries had stepped into the breach left by the Bush Administration, which had strongly resisted cutting CO2 emissions. “Copenhagen is faltering at the moment,” said Sir David. “The Americans are now fully engaged. But several countries are blocking the process.”...Canada’s position is widely believed to be driven by its powerful industry lobby, which is keen to exploit oil reserves in the country’s tar sands. “These people are very outspoken, aggressive lobbyists,” said Dr Robert Falkner, a specialist in international relations at the London School of Economics. “They are gung-ho about rising oil prices and want to exploit that.” The low profile of science in the Canadian and Japanese governments — both countries have recently scrapped the role of chief scientist — is also contributing to their stances, according to Sir David.
* 65% Of “Clean Energy Fund” Goes To Tar Sands
Canada’s Conservative government is funneling two-thirds of its $860 million “clean energy” fund into carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. Most of that $580 million is headed to Alberta to clean up the province’s dirty tar sands operations, which emit more global warming gases than the entire nation of New Zealand. If it sounds like hogwash, or rather greenwash, it is. The tarry bitumen of the oil sands is one of the world’s filthiest hydrocarbons. Mining it produces two to six times more greenhouse gases than light oil
* A Second Look at the Tar Sands
Several months ago I decided to take a careful look at the oil sands (sometimes called “tar sands”) to see how the security benefits of extracting oil there might be reconciled with the risks posed to the climate. After interviewing scientists, policymakers, industry insiders, and environmentalists, scouring reams of studies, and doing some of my own calculations, I concluded that both the security upsides and climate downsides of oil-sands exploitation have been overblown. Ramping up oil-sands production would indeed make it easier to live with our addiction to oil, even as we work to break ourselves of it. It would also be worse for the climate than exploiting most other sources of crude. But there’s no need to make this a stark choice between the safety of the United States and the salvation of the planet.
Michael Levi is the David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of The Canadian Oil Sands: Energy Security vs. Climate Change.
4. “Is there a dope problem? Definitely, we have too many dopes,” George Carlin
Context: Half of US federal prisoners are in jail for drug offenses. The war on drugs clearly is a failure. So what are the alternatives? Who are the real drug abusers? And what drugs are they using now?
* Five Years of Drug Decriminalization (Scientific American)
In the face of a growing number of deaths and cases of HIV linked to drug abuse, the Portuguese government in 2001 tried a new tack to get a handle on the problem—it decriminalized the use and possession ofheroin, cocaine, marijuana, LSD and other illicit street drugs. The theory: focusing on treatment and prevention instead of jailing users would decrease the number of deaths and infections. Five years later, the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006,
* Phony Teen Drug Crisis
The fact is that teenagers, the eternal whipping-decoys trotted out by anti-drug forces, have not been a major part of the national drug problem for more than 15 years. In California and the U.S. as a whole, teens are the least likely of any age group except children to die from drug abuse....But there is indeed a major, exploding drug problem in the U.S. -- one inconvenient for anti-drug warriors. In the last dozen years, drug deaths have risen 8 percent among adults, primarily middle aged men of all races, and today stand at record-high levels....Overdose deaths and drug murder are not the totality of drug abuse, but they’re good indices of where the most serious problems lie. The stark figure point to a tough, simple question the media should be asking: Given that the rationale for the drug war is to curb drug abuse and crime, how can officials claim success when drug abuse deaths have doubled and drug murders tripled?
* Get Smarter: the Use of Drugs to Improve Performance The Atlantic
If the next several decades are as bad as some of us fear they could be, we can respond, and survive, the way our species has done time and again: by getting smarter. But this time, we don’t have to rely solely on natural evolutionary processes to boost our intelligence. We can do it ourselves. Most people don’t realize that this process is already under way. In fact, it’s happening all around us, across the full spectrum of how we understand intelligence. It’s visible in the hive mind of the Internet, in the powerful tools for simulation and visualization that are jump-starting new scientific disciplines, and in the development of drugs that some people (myself included) have discovered let them study harder, focus better, and stay awake longer with full clarity.
5. Michael, We Hardly Knew You
Context: Did you hear that Michael Jackson died this week? A look at his history and pill regimen.
* Goodnight, Moonwalk (A Slate Magazine slide show)
* King of Pop Dead at 12 (Onion, half funny, half heartbreakingly true)
* His Pill Regimen J-Walk
6. Twenty-First Century Schizoid Man
Context: Increasingly physicians prescribe pills for psychiatric disorders. Do they help? Do the diagnoses measure anything real? Or is it just a way to cure the income statements for Big Pharma?
* "Psychiatric diagnoses are less reliable than star signs " Times Online
Complain to your doctor about a mental health problem and you will probably leave the surgery with a prescription for drugs, despite increasing doubts about their effectiveness and fears about side-effects. The prevailing wisdom is that psychiatric disorders are genetically based brain diseases, biological abnormalities that can be controlled with medication. Every year, doctors in England dole out 31 million prescriptions for antidepressants alone.
It is a state of affairs that makes Richard Bentall furious....“I am committed to the scientific world-view,” the 53-year-old says, his urgent voice rising above the rush-hour clatter of the station café in which we meet. “But the evidence doesn’t support the hardline biomedical view behind most psychiatric practice.” He takes a sip of coffee, then continues. “More alarmingly, the treatments based on it are not very effective. Outcomes for psychiatric disorders are no better than in the Victorian period.”
* Schizophrenia and Bi-Polar once Again the Same Disease? The Independent
Scientists have discovered a remarkable similarity between the genetic faults behind both schizophrenia and manic depression in a breakthrough that is expected to open the way to new treatments for two of the most common mental illnesses, affecting millions of people. Previously doctors had assumed that the two conditions were quite separate. But new research shows for the first time that both have a common genetic basis that leads people to develop one or other of the two illnesses.
* Search For Self Called Off After 38 Years (The Onion)
The longtime search for self conducted by area man Andrew Speth was called off this week, the 38-year-old said Monday. “I always thought that if I kept searching and exploring, I’d discover who I truly was,” said Speth from his Wrigleyville efficiency. “Well, I looked deep into the innermost recesses of my soul, I plumbed the depths of my subconscious, and you know what I found? An empty, windowless room the size of an aircraft hangar. From now on, if anybody needs me, I’ll be sprawled out on this couch drinking black-cherry soda and watching Law & Order like everybody else.”
7. This Happening World
* Lowest Gas Prices in your Neighbourhood (US, Canada only)
* Dating 2.0
* Weird Al singing about Craigslist (Ray Manzarek on keyboards)
8. Musical Interlude (youtube videos)
* Language is a Virus From Outer Space (Laurie Anderson)
* Life During Wartime (The Talking Heads, from Demme’s film)
* Log Roller’s Waltz (McGarrigles, on NFB film
9. Eyecandy: Dancing...
* Colors Gary Wolinsky, for Nat. Geo.
* At Glastonbury, 2009 (Big Picture)
* Dancing (Big Picture)
10. Quote of the Week on the Burkha Debate, Sarkozy Position
a) We find it appalling that your religion dictates what you may and may not wear.
b) We therefore propose to dictate what you may and may not wear.
(from Balbulican, stageleft.info)
=====================================
See who we are and what we're about to do.
"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."
The Talmud
=====================================
Year Six; Issue 20
1. Tikkun: Writing to Peace, summer meeting
2. Looking at the US Looking at Iran
3. Diaspora Jews Increasingly Not Supporting Israel
4. Good Political News!
5. Pride Celebrations
6. Spacey Images
7. Doonesbury
8. You Can’t Believe Your Eyes!
9. Over the Edge Moves
10. Eyecandy: Art from Household Objects
11. Quote of the Week
1. Tikkun News
* Only 8 places left for Writing Towards Peace, an upcoming Tikkun creative event. Three skilled teachers guide you through a ceremonially structured written exploration of what peace means to you: internally and externally, as both a positive force and a repressive one. Come and join us on Thursday July 9th from 7–9 pm More details, and Booking here.
* Next Tikkun Meeting August 18th, at Edie’s
2. US and Them
Context: What happened in Iran couldn’t happen here. Juan Cole , (whose Webby-winning Informed Comment Blog has the best Iranian coverage) explores why; Glenn Greenwald explores the implications of Helen Thomas challenging Obama, and Jon Stewart is at his best on the closeted US gov’t.
* Would the Protests Be Allowed in the US? Juan Cole, Informed Comment
The kind of unlicensed, city-wide demonstrations being held in Tehran last week would not be allowed to be held in the United States. Senator John McCain led the charge against Obama for not having sufficiently intervened in Iran. At the Republican National Committee convention in St. Paul, 250 protesters were arrested shortly before John McCain took the podium. Most were innocent activists and even journalists. Amy Goodman and her staff were assaulted. In New York in 2004, ‘protest zones’ were assigned, and 1800 protesters were arrested, who have now been awarded civil damages by the courts. Spontaneous, city-wide demonstrations outside designated ‘protest zones’ would be illegal in New York City, apparently. ...The number of demonstrators arrested in Tehran on Saturday is estimated at 550 or so, which is less than those arrested by the NYPD for protesting Bush policies in 2004.
I applaud the Iranian public’s protests against a clearly fraudulent election, and deplore the jackboot tactics that the regime is using to quell them. But it is important to remember that the US itself was moved by Bush and McCain toward a ‘Homeland Security’ national security state that is intolerant of public protest and throws the word ‘terrorist’ around about dissidents. Obama and the Democrats have not addressed this creeping desecration of the Bill of Rights, and until they do, the pronouncements of self-righteous US senators and congressmen on the travesty in Tehran will be nothing more that imperialist hypocrisy of the most abject sort.
* The "Neda video," torture, and the truth-revealing power of images - Glenn Greenwald Salon.com
For the last question at his press conference yesterday, Obama was asked by CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux about his reaction to that video and to reports that Iranians are refraining from protesting due to fear of such violence. As Obama was answering -- attesting to how “heartbreaking” he found the video; how “anybody who sees it knows that there’s something fundamentally unjust” about the violence; and paying homage to “certain international norms of freedom of speech, freedom of expression” -- Helen Thomas, who hadn’t been called on, interrupted to ask Obama to reconcile those statements about the Iranian images with his efforts at home to suppress America’s own torture photos.
* Jon Stewart on Obama and Open Government
Click here for Canada, and here for the US. (Sorry, everyone else...)
3. US Jews No Longer Lining Up for Israel
Context: When Obama took office, many people said he couldn’t do anything in the Middle East because of AIPAC, and the power of the US Jewish community. But with Netanyahu in power AIPAC is losing its sway, and a lot of anti-AIPAC folks are suddenly having their voices heard. The wonderful Philip Weiss has some fine insights in here.
* Number of Americans who say U.S. should support Israel drops from 71% to 44% in one year (Mondoweiss)
...the Israel lobby as we know it is over. Gaza and Netanyahu shattered it. Obama gave his speech in Cairo because he knew he would have political cover from American Jews to reach out to the Muslim world. Marty Peretz and Charles Krauthammer didn’t like the speech, but Jeffrey Goldberg and Roger Cohen (and Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod) did. That’s the ballgame. ...., there is a steep decline in the percentage of Americans who say that the U.S. should support Israel. That has dropped from 71% in March 2008 (at the time of the Annapolis process) to only 44% now.
* AIPAC’s Role in Current Politics (The Agonist)
At a recent conclave held by AIPAC, unease arose, reasonably enough, over eroding American support for Israel. What apparently did not arise was any indication of understanding of why support is eroding.
In Haaretz I find the following account of a speech by Howard Kohr, the executive director of AIPAC: “‘These voices [not hostile to Islam] are laying the predicate for an abandonment [by the US of Israel]…The stakes in that battle are nothing less than the survival of Israel, linked inexorably to the relationship between Israel and the United States. In this battle we are the firewall, the last rampart.’” This sort of shrieking-dental-drill end-of-worldism is of course the boiler plate of alarmed extremists, and extremists are congenitally alarmed. Eeek, we must stop the (blacks, Moslems, commies, Mexicans, Jews, secular humanists) before they destroy (Western Civilization, America, Israel or, you know, something Really Important.)
Haaretz goes on to speak of AIPAC’s loosening hold on America, of what I call Israel fatigue, which seems to be growing. Not long ago, criticism of AIPAC was a firing offense at newspapers. Today, less so, probably because the internet has outflanked the print media.However, it seems to me that AIPAC is not the firewall defending Israel that it believes itself to be, but rather the carpenter putting the first nails in Israel’s coffin
* Obama Defeating the Israel Lobby From Inside (Mondoweiss)
Obama's game is to defeat the Israel lobby from within. He could not defeat the lobby from outside it; because Jews are simply too important in the American power structure. That is why he could not run against the lobby; he promised to try not to pander to it, and then he did pander. But now he is cracking it like a nut, and counting on Jews to do the cracking... The media exposure will happen at last, for a simple reason: The Israel lobby is no longer congruent with the Jewish community. In the past to attack the Israel lobby meant to attack Jewish power. Jews became extremely defensive, they had seen that before, they said Never again. That is why Walt and Mearsheimer were smeared, because they had made the terrible mistake of not being Jewish. The Washington Post described them as Nazis, and whenever respected Jews in the media dared criticize elements of the lobby, they all hastened to add, “Not that I believe what Walt and Mearsheimer said.”
The big change politically, and it is J Street’s achievement, and Walt and Mearsheimer’s too, is that Some Jews are taking on Other Jews. This has made it kosher to criticize the lobby. It’s just a matter of time before one of Obama’s Jewish surrogates takes on the Israel lobby publicly (Obama won’t do it himself; George Bush I made that mistake, when he had his fight over settlements in ‘91; and he believed that it helped cost him the next election, wisdom he passed on to his stupid and credulous son, who took it to heart).
4. Good Political News!
Context: The old news adage, “If it bleeds, it leads” seems as true here as anywhere, which is why some of you read Tikkunista! from the bottom up. But here are some good news stories from this week.
* Abdelrazik Comes Home Today
“We did it! He will arrive in Toronto on Saturday, June 27 at 4.40 PM. We're hoping that as many people as possible can come and welcome him at the airport. With flowers, signs, smiles, tears, prayers and good wishes, musical instruments....” James Loney
* Victory in the Amazon (Counterpunch)
Thousands of indigenous people from the Amazon jungle of Peru accomplished the unthinkable last week. Their movement to save the Amazon and their communities forced the Peruvian government to roll back implementing legislation for the U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement that would have opened up the vast jungle to transnational oil and gas, mining and timber companies.
* Gay Synagogue Turns Hate Rally into Fund-Raising Event (Haaretz)
When a predominantly gay synagogue in Manhattan learned that a group of ultra-Evangelical Christians were planning a protest outside their building, the congregation decided to turn the hate rally into a fundraising event. Parishoners from (Fred Phelps’) Westboro Baptist Church, a Kansas-based institution, gathered on Sunday outside Congregation Beth Simchat Torah with signs reading “God hates fags” and “Jews stole the land.”
The synagogue heard several days in advance of the church’s planned demonstration and decided to counter the protesters’ publicity drive with one of their own, rather than pursuing legal action. The congregation encouraged its supporters to donate at least $1 for every six minutes that the demonstration lasted. Following the 51-minute protest, the synagogue was able to raise more than $10,000 in donations.
5. Pride Celebration
Context: It’s Pride Week in Toronto, and over a million people will be out (sic) for parades today and tomorrow. So to show support, here are a few related stories, and useful links...and pictures from the world’s largest Pride event, the three million who celebrated two weeks ago in Sao Paulo.
* Best 100 LGBT Blogs (The Lesbian and Gay Foundation)
We take a look at the most informative, entertaining and inspirational LGBT blogs from around the world. LGF online have scoured the internet to bring you the most informative, entertaining and inspiring blogs from around the world. The blogs we've chosen cover diverse issues from all sides of the LGBT equation. There's blogs from gay parents, gay conservatives, gay activists, young people coming out, older people coming out, and gay asylum seekers to name but a few.
* Top Hot Butches (Editor’s note: Great Canadian writer Ivan Coyote is #6! Yay!)
The 100 hottest butch, masculine, androgynous, genderqueer, transmasculine, studs, AGs, dykes, queers, and transguys
* Sao Paulo Pride Pictures (Flickr)
6. Images From Space
* Moon Phases animated gif
* Rotating Jupiter animated gif
* Close-ups of Mercury (Big Picture)
7. Doonesbury: Still Cutting After All These Years
* On Banks
* On Condi
* On Afghanistan
8. You Can’t Believe Your Eyes!
* The Absolute Best Colour Illusion Ever
* Faux News (Labelling shamed republicans as Democrats since 1998!)
* Civilization Elevation
Civilization is a video installation we created with artist/director Marco Brambilla for the Standard Hotel in NYC. It’s comprised of over 400 video clips and it takes elevator passengers on a trip from hell to heaven as they go up or from heaven to hell as they go down
9. Over the Edge Physicality
* Basketball
* Surfing
* Truck Driving
10. Eyecandy: Art, made from...
* Crumpled Paper
* Books
* Plants
* Umbrellas
10. Quote of the Week
* “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars” Oscar Wilde
=====================================
See who we are and what we're about to do.
"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."
The Talmud
=====================================
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