‘Cause no Sabra man would be caught dead in this – unless he was on active duty in the IDF and part of special commando mission in Lebanon.
There should be a dating rule or hazard warning for any female dating a man who would wear these clothes.
Amy Winehouse died yesterday and in the coming days no doubt TMZ will let the world know exactly how Amy died – probably in great graphic detail which is more than any of us need to know.
I was a fan, I still am. I mean how can you not like a voice as smooth as cognac or a woman who wears as much eyeliner as Winehouse did? Really now. Unlike others, ‘Rehab’ is not my favourite song. I doubt anyone will ever sing “Me and Mr. Jones” or “You know I am no Good’ like Winehouse did when she was on her mark. The young Winehouse even gave Dinah Washington a run for the money on her version of “Teach me Tonight’.
What surprises me in her death is those who seem compelled to make some cheap remark or express a kind of self-satisfied smugness that Winehouse is dead – presumably from the consequences of her own behaviour. One of the things which is so lost in all the eulogies is not her excesses or addictions but her bi-polarism. The personal excesses, additions and eating disorders are classic symptoms of mental illness and not the cause. I doubt there was a 12 step program in this world which could have saved her.
Modern pharmacology has come a long way since the days of Victorian Bedlam but it still falls so short of being the pancrea for a mind that ails. The body often develops tolerances for the stabilizing drugs used and dosages have to be constantly monitored and adjusted or medication changed with varying degrees of effectiveness. Not to mention the side effects of the drugs are often horrendous in their own right which lands the patient in a special kind of interior hell with little or no hope depending on the degree of affliction.
Mental illness is a terrible thing to behold. I know intimately the struggles people who deal with it in various forms on a daily basis. It touches my family and my friends. In fact, I live surrounded in the downtown core by the excesses of untreated mental illness. While I might smile at sight of an alleged Moses and Jesus duking it out at Dundas Square; there is a terrible battle taking place within the mind of those afflicted for which there is little to no escape – except perhaps in death.
As an artist, Winehouse was a blessing and a gift. Did she squander her gift? That is up to a higher power than me to decided. What I know to be true is simply this; she left two albums of incredible music to be savoured by us. This is two albums more than most of today’s wildly popular recording artists can be said to possess in their entire musical catalogues. The best eulogy of her that I have read to date is Skippy’s. Unlike most of Skippy’s, this time he has not overdosed on an excess of vulgarity.
Baruch Dayan Ha’Emeth
I really do believe I could build an entire blog around the stupidity and foolishness which is routinely published on a daily basis within just the two large Canadian daily papers. Take today and the Toronto Star’s “National Affairs Columnist, Thomas Wolkam’s column on the Gaza Flotilla foolishness. I suppose I have to start at the beginning.
Last year’s deadly Gaza flotilla was a clear win for the Palestinians in their long conflict with Israel. This year’s version is shaping up as another. Ostensibly, the flotillas are about breaking Israel’s blockade of Gaza and bringing needed aid to the 1.5 million people there. In reality they are about political pressure and public opinion.
As such, they are David and Goliath contests that Israel cannot easily win. For in the flotilla sagas, Israel is by definition Goliath. If it forcibly stops ships bearing aid, as it did last year at a cost of nine dead protesters, it risks being painted a bully.
The problem with Wolkam’s worldview is that it is not rooted in the reality. Last year’s flotilla was not a resounding political success for the Palestinians.
The images of Israeli marines boarding the ships armed with paintball guns and being senseless bludgeoned by armed thugs peace activists was not a win-win for the Palestinians or their public relation efforts. In fact, I am still humming Latma’s break out You Tube hit, ‘We Con the World’ by the Flotilla Choir.
The Israelis, for all their alleged ruthlessness, could not have staged a better photo-op than the reality – which was of armed peace activists running amuck with weapons. Of course, it does tend to tarnish your peace ‘creds’ when you harbour a convicted terrorist hijacker among your ranks. This is probably why this year’s flotilla stuck to a bona fide Hamas member instead.
And I wouldn’t risk throwing around the term ‘bully’ around so freely or someone might want to question the contingent of Dutch reporters who abandoned the opportunity of being embedded with the middle aged pacifists on board the flotilla and ask – ‘why?’. Of course, this also raises the sticky issue of what restrictions did the Toronto Star’s embedded journalist agree to for the ‘privilege’ of reporting live amongst the so-called Canadian contingent present on the Tahrir.
The danger of asking questions is how easily one question can easily spawn other equally uncomfortable questions. For example, someone might just resurrect this relatively current Jerusalem Post’s article and point out; if the Red Cross preventatives in the Gaza Strip do not believe there is a humanitarian crisis why does The Toronto Star and the flotilla organizers insist there is a need for humanitarian supplies….
Of course, Walkom – not being one to get bogged down by reality continues thus,
Israel says its Gaza blockade is meant to forestall rocket attacks. Palestinians call it collective punishment.
Now there are two possibilities why Walkom writes that the Israel blockade is ‘meant to forestall rocket attacks’. Either he doesn’t really know why the Israelis began the blockage or he is deliberately attempting to mislead the readership of the Toronto Star.
Simply put, the Israelis instituted the blockage of the Gaza Strip not because of rocket attacks launched by the Hamas government exclusively against Israeli civilians or even for the raid across the Israeli border by PRC members to abduct an Israeli solider in order to extort and blackmail the Israeli government into releasing duly convicted Palestinian terrorists. These acts alone are considered enough of a ‘casus belli’ for war among any normal nations; although, neither of these reasons are the cause of the Israeli blockage against the Gaza Strip.
The Israelis instituted the blockade against the Gaza Strip once Hamas successfully staged a violent bloody coup and overthrew the democratically elected leadership of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas has no legal democratically elected authority to legislate or govern the Gaza Strip and the blockade was instituted by the Israeli government because Hamas, as a political entity remains committed to the use of terrorism to achieve its political aim and the destruction of the Israeli state.
Meanwhile, Gaza’s economy has been virtually destroyed. The blockade has stifled exports, effectively killing what had been a flourishing fruit and vegetable sector. It has decimated the fishing industry.
I would suggest if anyone killed the flourishing fruit and vegetable sector of the Gaza Strip; the Palestinians should shoulder far more blame than the Israeli blockade.
When the Israeli blockade was instituted in June 2007; the agricultural industry of the Gaza Strip was already decimated. The Israelis had disengaged from the Gaza Strip in August 2005 and handed over to the Palestinian Authority a multi-million dollar agricultural industry with complete functioning infrastructure.
Instead of practicing good husbandry skills, the Palestinian Authority allowed the greenhouses of the Gaza Strip to be destroyed and looted. The Israelis had literally made the desert bloom but you cannot do so without the green houses and a complex irrigation system. I can’t speak with any authority on the fishing industry but I wouldn’t be surprised that to learn the Palestinians have mishandled their fishing industry much like they have mishandled and abused their own agricultural industry.
And finally,
As the Star’s Jim Rankin has reported, those aboard the Canadian ship, Tahrir, are by and large middle-aged pacifists. One may disagree with their politics. But they hardly seem dangerous.
The flotilla activist may present the visual optics of middle-aged pacifists but make no mistake – this group is most certainly dangerous since the flotilla is actively providing cover and offering political safe refuge to one of the more vicious and ruthless military dictatorships within the Mid-East neighborhood.
If the flotilla membership was seriously concerned with the welfare of ordinary Palestinians of the Gaza Strip; they should be protesting and demanding Hamas give up military control of the Gaza Strip. Of course, no fun would be had – since there would be no Jews Israelis to bully, malign or demonize.
What is more disturbing to me, is the fact that the editors of the Toronto Star should know all these same facts, and yet, they still published Wolkam’s dribble anyway.
I read Dr. Sherman’s response to an Irish colleague and I couldn’t resist posting an excerpt as it almost mimics my own experiences.
You admit that, “I am oft times condemned to being anti-Semitic…” Indeed, on reading your diatribes this is not difficult to understand.
For while it is undoubtedly true that criticism of Israel is not in itself evidence of anti-Semitism, the pervasive and enduring application of double standards against the nation-state of the Jewish people makes anti-Semitism an increasingly plausible explanation which cannot be perfunctorily dismissed.
This observation is highly pertinent to the attitude you adopt and the animosity you express – despite your protestations to the contrary.
You claim that you are, “passionately sympathetic to the plight of the people of Palestine”. Sadly however, your evident empathy for the Palestinians to seems to reflect your enduring enmity for the Jews; your compassion for them matched only by your callousness for us.
Thus, you portray the plight of the Palestinians as the incomprehensible consequence of mindless malice on the part of Israel, and all security measures undertaken by Israel as acts of arbitrary aggression against a peaceful, passive population.
Conspicuous by its absence is any reference to the brutality of Palestinian terror against Israeli civilians. You make no mention of the Arab assault on the Jewish state which began long before Israel held a square inch of territory now presented as “Palestinian”.
The worst kind of anti Semitism and can such omissions be anything but deliberate distortions?
Indeed, perhaps the worst kind of anti-Semitism is the expectation – as appears to be the case on your part – that Jews consent to die meekly.
The worst kind of anti-Semitism is to portray – which you appear to do – every coercive measure undertaken by the IDF to protect the lives of Jews against those striving to kill them, just because they are Jews, as “disproportionate war crimes”.
The worst kind of anti Semitism is to consider – as you appear to do – that preventing Palestinian inconvenience far more important than preventing the loss of Jewish lives (or limbs).
The worst kind of anti-Semitism is to decry, dismiss and delegitimize – which you appear to do – as callous cruelty or mindless malevolence, any action taken by Israel to defend itself and its civilians against manifestly Judeocidal assaults – whether these actions be defensive responses or offensive initiatives; whether preventative strikes or punitive retaliation.
The worst kind of anti-Semitism is to demand – as you seem to be suggesting – that the Jews should allow their attackers to assault them with absolute immunity from any reprisal, with total impunity from all retribution, and unhindered by any fear of unpleasant consequences at all.
Indeed. Read the rest here.
I’m still dealing with things but I read this today and I got to ask – -am I the only one who finds it a trifle schizoid that the official Harperite position is that the long form census documents are too intrusive and far too invasive for the government to ask the citizenry to fill in but it’s just okay-dokey for the federal government to provide a foreign government the name, gender and date of birth of every Canadian travelling through ‘US airspace’ -even though their plane is not landing on US soil.
And if I fly Air Canada or West Jet from Toronto to New Brunswick to visit my mother – why do I need to be vetted by the US government just because the wings of my plane may cruise above Maine for a few minutes?
What could possibly go wrong?
And how is it that the everyone and their grandmother can defy the wishes/desires and requests of the current White House Administration but the Harperites grovel to comply?
A standard Canadian performance of Romeo & Juliet brought out the censor vibe in Nashville to protest the bawdy sexuality of the play reports the Toronto Star. After much hullabaloo the play was performed as written and directed. A good time was had by all except for a few who squirmed. Toronto Star
After much discussion, they decided to present the show as planned and Monday’s audience was, by and large, enthusiastic.
Danielle Moffitt, 18, from Goodpasture Christian School, said, “The sexuality was a good thing, the way they addressed it openly back then, not like now.” On the flip side, a woman who identified herself as Val, a home-school teacher from Hermitage, “struggled being here with my son. The sexuality was too much. Our children need to be more pure.” Several other teachers echoed her opinion.
Too pure, uhm. In that case, better to ban their bibles as too racy for their ‘pure minds; otherwise who knows what might transpire if they got a hold of it and read about Lot and his daughters, Ruben’s fling with Bilhah, Amnon raping his half-sister Tamar! They read that, and before you know it; Tennessee will be a kind of ‘your father’s your uncle kind of place’…
A little over a week ago I had a post up with the video of a Moldovan Priest and his parishioners going postal over a Menorah put up by the local Jewish community in the public square for Chanukah.
It is not often we – the North American descendents of Eastern Europeans – get to see first hand the classic and apparently enduring face of Christian ‘Old European’ styled anti-Semitism in action. The Moldovan Orthodox Church has come in for some heavy criticism internationally and the Moldovan government has been embarrassed publicly among the community of nations for this form of Christian fascism and has promised a clampdown of sorts. Although, I suspect the government won’t easily be re-making the Moldovian Church hierarchy into a silk purse any time soon.
The Moldovan Orthodox Church on Wednesday blamed the local Jewish community for the recent rally in which a public menorah was torn down and a cross was put in its place. During the December 13th incident, dozens of people led by an Orthodox priest smashed a menorah in Moldova’s capital Chisinau, using hammers and iron bars to remove the candelabra during Hanukkah.
The 1.5 meter (5-foot)-tall ceremonial candelabrum was retrieved and reinstalled. The national government said in a statement that “hatred, intolerance and xenophobia” are unacceptable. According to a report, published Monday by the Russian Interfax news agency, the church said in a statement, “We believe that this unpleasant incident in the center of the capital could have been avoided if the menorah had been placed near a memorial for victims of the Holocaust.”
The church said it opposed the form of the protest, and that it respects “the feelings and belief of other cults that are legally registered on the territory of the Republic of Moldova, and expects a similar attitude from their side,” according to the report.
“At the same time,” the statement continued, “we think it inappropriate to put a symbol of the Jewish cult in a public place connected to the history and faith of our people, especially because Chanukah is classified by the cult books of Judaism as a ‘holiday of blessing’ that symbolizes the victory of Jews over non-Jews.”
‘Jewish cult, ‘cult books of Judaism’. Oy vey.
Modern anti-Semitism isn’t just for Muslims and it remains alive and well – in Moldova – among other places. An Orthodox Russian priest and his parishioners practice ‘inter-faith dialogue’ – circa Chanukah 2009. Ha’aretz:
Dozens of people led by an Orthodox priest smashed a menorah in Moldova’s capital, using hammers and iron bars to remove the candelabra during Hanukkah, officials said. The 1.5 meter(5-foot)-tall ceremonial candelabrum was retrieved, reinstalled and is now under police guard.
Police said they were investigating but there was no official reaction from Moldova’s Orthodox Church, which is part of the Russian Orthodox Church and counts 70 percent of Moldovans as members.
Let’s roll to the video before You Tube takes it down.
Have I mentioned lately how eternally grateful that I am for my ancestors leaving Eastern Europe decades ago?
An over abundance of paranoids. Ynet News on the Peres ‘death threat’ to Hugo Chavez’s regime:
Venezuela is accusing Israeli President Shimon Peres of threatening President Hugo Chavez.
Peres predicted last week during a visit to Argentina that the people of Venezuela and Iran would make their leaders disappear before long.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro called the remarks “a direct threat to the life and safety” of Chavez and Iran’s leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Maduro accused Peres of trying to disrupt Iran’s growing ties with Latin America. The foreign minister spoke Monday as Ahmadinejad began a regional tour in Brazil.
Oy vey. Too bad Venezuela is too far away to send the IAF to do a fly-by so Chavez’s could have something real to worry about for a change.
Frack if I know, but if I had a penny for every time someone told me the Jews got it wrong; I wouldn’t need to work for a living and neither would my children or their children until possibly the seventh generation. I am really, really, tempted to entitle this post ‘minu beneikhem min ha-higgayon’ or ‘keep your sons from learning scripture’. Now Rashi, one of the greatest of rabbincial scholars suggested this phrase meant it was more necessary for one’s sons to learn the oral torah (Talmud) in order to grasp the full implications of the written Torah. I surmise, he had a valid point. CBC
A Vancouver-area father has been found guilty of negligence causing bodily harm after botching a home-circumcision attempt on his four-year-old son as part of a spiritual quest to make things right with God. The bizarre case centred on a battle over the religious freedoms of the former Jehovah’s Witness, who was trying to follow a literal interpretation of the Bible after a series of misfortunes hit his family. During the trial, the B.C. Supreme Court heard that after a bad motorcycle accident in 2002 left both the man and his wife with brain injuries, he began the religious quest that eventually led him to believe that both he and son needed to be circumcised to celebrate Passover.The man, identified only as D.J.W. to protect the identity of his son, began researching home circumcision on the internet and in the Bible, and by listening to a radio show. His first attempt to circumcise himself ended up with his foreskin turning black and only part of it cut off. When he couldn’t stop the bleeding, he called an ambulance, and a doctor in a hospital emergency room ended up stitching up the bleeding wound.
The man later returned to the internet for more research and met some other religious fundamentalists, who were also dog breeders. They advised him they used a veterinary powder called BloodStop to halt any bleeding when they circumcised their 13-year-old son. At $30 a bottle, Blood Stop was too expensive for the man. But during a trip to Washington state to celebrate Passover with a friend, the man found another more affordable product, called Wonder Dust, meant for horses. The man also contacted several doctors and rabbis, all of whom refused to do the operation either because the boy was too young for a general anesthetic or because the family was not Jewish.
So after a trip to London Drugs to buy razor blades in January 2006, he asked his son if he could cut off his foreskin, so he could be just like dad. The man testified in court that, after the boy consented to the circumcision, he fed him some mead — a biblical beverage made from honey — lay him on the kitchen floor, stretched his penis across a cutting board and cut off part of the foreskin.
When asked in court whether the man used ice to ease the boy’s pain, he replied, “Where would the Israelites have found ice?” He then applied the Wonder Dust, gave the boy some ice cream and told him he could watch whatever movies he wanted that week, before heading off to church, leaving the boy in the care of his mother, who could not stand the sight of blood.
I know a wonderful woman, who when she was off her meds, believed she is the Canadian messiah and meant to lead Canada on the path of righteousness in the 21st century. She even joined the Liberal party and believed the forces of evil (eg Former Prime Minister John Chretien and his supporters) conspired to defeat her riding association candidacy. Mind you, there are some days when I think she might have made a better prime minister than the current one…
There is a man at the corner of Dundas & Yonge street who shouts randomly and indiscriminately at passerbyers to repent and accept Jesus as their personal sinner. Every time I go by him I try to steel myself for the inevitable shout near my ear but he always manages to make me jump. It just creeps me out. One day, an immediate ‘Fuck, No!” slipped out of my mouth and he followed me into the subway denouncing me as Jezebel until I lost him after I went through the turnstile. A short block east of Dundas & Yonge a group of ‘Black Hebrews’ have set up shop complete with their Israeli flags and browbeat passerbyers in an aggressive fashion to reject the white man’s bible. One day last summer I sat in Dundas Square sipping coffee and watched two men named “Moses” and “Jesus” argue so fiercely that it came to blows. Jesus was the first to go down before the police could successfully intervene.
Now as much as I would like to believe these kinds of things wouldn’t happen if we all followed Rashi’s wisdom, the truth remains – mental illness whether genetic or physically induced would still cast its pall and harm would still be done. The real challenge for our society is how we can help these people compassionately and humanely from doing harm to themselves or to others.
