The invention of the Jewish nose.
Do you remember the scientist with a crazy shirt? And here is a response to the scandal with the shirted scientist. The whole thing is beyond hilarious.
And here is another post on the shirt debacle. This will soon become the most important shirt in the history of humanity.
A really disgusting way to serve a cappuccino. (Work-friendly photo, in case you are wondering.)
Gosh, wouldn’t people tell themselves to rationalize their miserable lives. Here is a guy who blames his sucky personal life on. . . his upward social mobility. Yeah, making money and moving up is a total no-no if you want to get a date.
An important observation: “Not only is your work addiction way more similar to a drug habit than you’re probably comfortable admitting, it’s probably also distressing the rest of your life just like any other addiction would.” Just like alcoholism and drug addiction, workaholism is a way to disconnect from personal pain and numb oneself to it. It’s more socially acceptable to work one self into an early grave than drink oneself into it but that’s where the differences end.
“When I think of a man being effeminate, I think of a man being the total opposite of manly. Actually, I consider him taking on all those things that should be relegated to womanhood. . . Let the women dress like women.” And how is it that “women” dress, I wonder?
“The only reason you should ever not date someone is if you are not attracted to them.” Great point! And if you are over the age of 11 and you are not attracted to anybody for more than a short period of time, it’s a reason to see a doctor.
The countries that face the highest and the lowest climate change threat.
A new product that empowers women’s vaginas. Somebody needs to empower the creators of the product with a bucket of cold urine poured over their idiot heads.
Clarissa's Blog 
The shirt thing is getting really annoying. It’s kinda like activist ADHD. ‘After waiting for 10 years for this project to come to frutition, we are about to witness the first time humanity lands.. OH LOOK A SHIRT WITH BARELY DRESSED WOMEN ON IT!’.
In other ridiculous news on the internet, this person thinks insisting on proper grammar is oppressive. My favorite quote is ‘ any time we create a hierarchy by positioning one thing as “better” than another, we’re being oppressive’.
http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/05/grammar-snobbery/
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The grammar article just slaughtered.
I can’t stand these self-righteous, idiotic, endlessly chirping freaks who do nothing but self-flagellate, yelping with delight.
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And that, ladies and gentlemen, provides a perfect example of what *I* call the consumer mentality. You can see there is a guy that goes out there and does something pretty fucking important. It takes a lot of time, a lot of care and a lot of precision. And then some ladies who do not and cannot do such a thing come along and want to consume a better version of his shirt. It’s not a perfect shirt for their eyes to consume on television. They want a different one or they will cry to the Internet and the TV Board. Waaah.
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I have no idea what this loser did that was so “important. ” But I do know that there is no “importance” that makes this sort of militant immaturity cute. The guy is a disgusting freak and needs to hear about it as often as possible.
But it’s still not even remotely a feminist issue.
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The guy who wore the weird shirt on TV when the rosetta mission was completed? Are we talking about the same thing?
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Yes, the unkempt ugly freak dressed like a total idiot. I have no patience with this kind of thing.
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Maybe his mommy forgot to dress him that morning.
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Oh. It doesn’t bother me either way.
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To my eyes, the male scientist in the trashy shirt looks unprofessional, given that he undoubtedly knew that someone might be photographing him for news stories. You’d think that NASA would have a PR officer with the authority to yank the guy aside and put a business shirt and tie, or a NASA logo polo shirt, on him before he saw the press.
Men in STEM field academic jobs are allowed to look “any way they please”, as long as they look “straight”. It is OK for straight men to be eccentric. Women (and effeminate gay men) in STEM fields must police their appearance and mannerisms in order to even get to the point where they are allowed significant responsibilities in a project. Until very recently, lesbians and gays in competitive STEM departments or at national society meetings (which are job-hunting venues, just as MLA is for academics in English and other languages) were about as deeply closeted as grade school teachers in the Bible belt.
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“To my eyes, the male scientist in the trashy shirt looks unprofessional, given that he undoubtedly knew that someone might be photographing him for news stories. You’d think that NASA would have a PR officer with the authority to yank the guy aside and put a business shirt and tie, or a NASA logo polo shirt, on him before he saw the press.”
– Exactly.
“Men in STEM field academic jobs are allowed to look “any way they please”, as long as they look “straight”. It is OK for straight men to be eccentric.”
– Allowed by whom? Who is the allowing authority? It is up to us, the entire civil society, to create our norms of behavior and uphold them.
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Like I said on this blog in another message, my own situation has been so disadvantaged compared to this, that I don’t care to buy into these arguments about who wears what.
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“Like I said on this blog in another message, my own situation has been so disadvantaged compared to this, that I don’t care to buy into these arguments about who wears what.”
– I never know when you are being sarcastic and when you are serious.
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Don’t get me wrong. I’m a very happy and personally successful person, but I have faced incredible amounts of structural discrimination and have no expectation, at this age I am now, that something significant will change for me. Things are what they are.
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“It’s kinda like activist ADHD”
“Activist ADHD” is a perfect term for the twitter/tumblrsphere in general.
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–I am bored with the shirt. Yes, the dude is tacky, let’s move on, I’m going to wear a Tom of Finland inspired dress to the next interview I conduct.
–I guess I need to see a doctor, “Doctor every dude I see on dating sites is boring and has the personality of paste. That’s before I get into checking their zip code and whether they can write a complete sentence. What can I say? I don’t want to be the tall one in the relationship because I’m only five-feet-one-inch tall and nobody’s hot enough for me to try to get my vulva to smell like peaches. ;p”
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““Doctor every dude I see on dating sites is boring and has the personality of paste. That’s before I get into checking their zip code and whether they can write a complete sentence. What can I say? I don’t want to be the tall one in the relationship because I’m only five-feet-one-inch tall and nobody’s hot enough for me to try to get my vulva to smell like peaches”
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
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You should totally do the Tom of Finland dress. And if you do, please aim for maximum tackiness. Mustage and Police Hat and all.
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As a jew with a nose that takes up roughly 90% of my face, I would dearly love my Jewish nose to be a myth. 😛
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As someone with a Jewish nose without any Jewish roots I happily assure you that it is a myth. 😀
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I wanted to link that Jewish nose article today, but thought I link a lot about Jews as it is. 🙂
I will ask your opinion about the latest Israeli happening.
CONTEXT:
1. “In the midst of the growing wave of terror attacks, Sheikh Raed Salah, head of the Islamic Movement in Israel, has called on Arab residents of Judea and Samaria to go forth in an intifada terror war and declared that the “Third Intifada” has already started.”
2. Several days ago two terrorists entered during prayer and killed 4 rabbis in a Jerusalem synagogue. I heard that our government decided to release the photos to show the world what’s happening here. Fifth victim was Druze police officer Zidan Nahad Seif. All 5 men together left 25 orphans.
3. The recent wave of terror attacks perpetrated by Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem appears to be influenced by the Islamic State and its vitriolic religious hatred, said Haaretz military analyst Amos Harel.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/video/.premium-1.627336
RESULT:
Ashkelon Mayor Itamar Shimoni on Thursday decided to bar Arab construction workers from three kindergartens in the city during school hours, prompting outraged responses from across the Israeli political spectrum.
Shimoni deflected criticism of his decision on Thursday, saying, “I have nothing against Arab Israelis, they work with us throughout the year and do construction for us.”
However, he said, when tensions are high, just as Jews should be prevented from entering the Temple Mount, “by the same measure, I think it is wrong to allow Arab workers into the kindergartens.”
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/1.627441
Former MK Dr. Michael Ben-Ari has weighed in on the “hypocritical” MKs condemning Ashkelon Mayor Itamar Shimoni […] “in the Knesset where they work there are no Arabs. There are a few Arab MKs and aides of Arab MKs, but if an Arab comes to work as a building contractor or for flooring work… they have no chance of being accepted.”
“Not a single Arab contractor or Arab laborer can work in the Knesset. It’s a fact. I was there for four years, all of the contractors are Jews and there are no Arab laborers. Not in flooring, not in carpentry, not in cleaning,” said Ben-Ari. “The blood of MKs isn’t more red than that of kindergarten children in Ashkelon.”
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If you really want my opinion: apply to graduate school overseas. These intifadas will come more and more often, and you only have one life.
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\\ If you really want my opinion: apply to graduate school overseas.
Europe doesn’t seem all that great either. Only USA, Canada and Australia seem better. Am I right?
Funny:
Video: Who is more dangerous, Israel or Islamic State?
In social experiment, filmmaker waves Islamic State and Israeli flags at UC Berkeley campus, to see who draws the ire of the students.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4594434,00.html
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“Europe doesn’t seem all that great either. Only USA, Canada and Australia seem better. ”
– Depends on the program of study.
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\\ Only USA, Canada and Australia seem better. Am I right?
By “better” I mean “normal for Jews to live in.”
Btw, what if somebody is f.e. a school teacher and not a graduate school student? Not everybody goes to graduate school and/or succeeds there. 🙂
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“Btw, what if somebody is f.e. a school teacher and not a graduate school student? Not everybody goes to graduate school and/or succeeds there. ”
– There are many positions one could apply for with good knowledge of English, such as, for instance, ESL.
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“By “better” I mean “normal for Jews to live in.”
– After the news you’ve been linking, I’m guessing anywhere is more normal for Jews than one intifada after another.
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Something nice for a change – my most favorite Israeli city, Tel Aviv (our most secular city and a cultural and economic capital) was in the world and Israeli news lately and not because of terror:
It’s official: Tel Aviv is a top, global foodie capital
Prestigious U.S. gourmet magazine ranks Tel Aviv-Jaffa, the city that never stops, among the world’s most serious culinary destinations.
[…] Tel Aviv was again ranked “outstanding,” alongside Barcelona and Paris.
http://www.haaretz.com/life/culture/food-wine/.premium-1.623199
Tel Aviv Municipality wins World Smart City award as part of Smart City Expo in Barcelona; beats 250 competitors.
[…] Tel Aviv was nominated for the adoption of assistive technology such as Wi-Fi throughout the city, location-based technology tools, adaptation for smart phones, and the activation of public round tables, discussions and a collaborative budget.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4594114,00.html
So, if you love good food, you are welcome to visit!
Another thing, just because after all the bad news, I want to brag a bit 🙂 –
[article from 2013] U.S. Life Expectancy Ranks 26th In The World, OECD Report Shows […] For U.S. men, the average life expectancy is 76, while it’s 81 for U.S. women.
VS
In Israel – Average life expectancy in 2013 was 80.3 years among men and 83.9 among women […]
The gap in life expectancy between men and women in Israel is among the lowest in the world. The average gap across OECD countries is 5.3, and Iceland is the only country with a lower gap than Israel. In The Netherlands, Sweden and Britain, the gap is similar to Israel.
[…]
Israel ranks eighth among OECD countries in life expectancy of the general population. Japan tops the list.
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“In Israel – Average life expectancy in 2013 was 80.3 years among men and 83.9 among women […]
The gap in life expectancy between men and women in Israel is among the lowest in the world. The average gap across OECD countries is 5.3, and Iceland is the only country with a lower gap than Israel. In The Netherlands, Sweden and Britain, the gap is similar to Israel.”
– Explanation: a great contribution to life expectancy rates is infant mortality, which is still more difficult to control than mortality at, say, 5 or 15 or 30 years of age. Since Israel is a country of intense immigration, everybody who comes there has already survived the dangerous period of early infancy. As a result: Israel’s life expectancy is deeply skewed. Any comparison with less immigration-intensive countries is a waste of time.
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\\ – Explanation: a great contribution to life expectancy rates is infant mortality. […] Since Israel is a country of intense immigration, everybody who comes there has already survived the dangerous period of early infancy. As a result: Israel’s life expectancy is deeply skewed.
You are completely wrong here.
First of all, last wave of intense immigration ended in the 90ies after my family immigrated. “Israel welcomed approximately 16,884 new Jewish immigrants during 2013” – very little, imo.
// Israel’s total migration balance was negative in 2013, with a net loss of 7,100 members of the Israeli population. This number represents the difference between the number of residents living more than one year abroad, versus the number of Israelis who had returned to Israel after spending a year or more abroad. //
Second, unlike in Europe, “Israel has the highest birth rate in the developed world. As opposed to the international average of 1.7 children per woman, Israel’s rate stands at 3 children per woman because of Israel’s large Orthodox population.”
“Israel’s population is considered young relative to the populations of other Western countries.[…] 28.% of the population was aged 0-14 while only 10.3% were older than 65 years of age. OECD average is 18.5% (0-14) and 15% (65+).”
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/newpop.html
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“You are completely wrong here.”
– I don’t want to argue about this. I discussed this subject with people who have been studying it professionally for decades and are eminently qualified. I’m going to trust them over some online link.
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\\ – I don’t want to argue about this. I discussed this subject with people who have been studying it professionally for decades and are eminently qualified. I’m going to trust them over some online link.
Have they mentioned Israel?
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Israel was the subject of discussion.
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I don’t want to argue for arguing’s sake. If I am wrong, I want to understand where. Have they claimed that, despite high number of children, Israel has so many adult immigrants that they are more influential?
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As I said, I’m not interested in debating this.
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Last bit: the article says
// “Life expectancy in Israel is on the rise, according to figures released Wednesday by the Central Bureau of Statistics. In 2013, the average life expectancy was 80.3 years among men and 83.9 among women – an increase of 0.4 (nearly five months) for males and 0.3 (about three and a half months) for females from 2012.
In the past decade, life expectancy in Israel has gone up by 2.9 years for men and 2.4 years for women. In the past 35 years, life expectancy has increased by 8.7 years for men and 8.9 years for women.” //
However, in the past decade we have already been after the large immigration. And % of immigrants has decreased since 2012 since more new citizens are born than immigrate to Israel. I try to understand the math. 🙂
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I find this insistence on the subject very disturbing after I said I trusted my sources and wasn’t interested in a debate. I think it would make sense for you to wonder why this topic is so important to you.
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This whole shirt thing pisses me off *so hard*. For one. STEM fields have traditionally had less wardrobe policing than the “normal world” and it’s one of the things that make the social side of STEM welcoming for women like me. Introducing more wardrobe policing will most likely result to it being disproportionately applied on women rather than men, so the whole thing is self-defeating on the getting-women-in-STEM anyway.
On top of that, this is the perfect example of feminism (as practice rather than theory) becoming a vehicle for fools to play out their own neuroses by deciding, for example, that a silly shirt is the symbol of everything that’s wrong with women in STEM rather than figuring out how they’re contributing to the shitty status quo. I don’t remember where I’ve read this right now, but, while women on average have worse careers in STEM than men do, single women, whether they have children or not, do as well as men do, so this is clearly a case of degrees-of-housewifery being tolerated in women combined with the fact that many women think it’s OK to sacrifice their own careers for the sake of a man’s.
An interesting article I’ve read on women in STEM (although it doesn’t get into the whole single vs married women thing and instead blames it all on having children) http://uberfeminist.blogspot.ca/2014/11/woman-up.html
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I think the weird-shirt guy should definitely be ridiculed and shamed all day and every day. Maybe that will do the work his parents failed to do and finally socialize him. But this is not a feminist issue. It is the issue of people thinking it’s OK to hang the dirty rags of their diseased soul on other people. It’s not OK to be an infantile, overgrown slob. Self-infantilization is not an issue of feminism. It’s an issue of personal psychopathology. And people who are coddling this fellow and not telling him that he is seriously fucked up ate not doing him any favors.
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This article made me laugh this week:
German village plays prank on neo-Nazis
Residents of Wunsiedel, where Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess is buried, are tired of yearly invasion of neo Nazis to their village, so they decide neo-Nazis can march for a good cause.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4592903,00.html
My favorite bit was:
Even food was provided for the neo-Nazi protesters, who tried to ignore the prank as much as possible. Under a banner saying “Mein Mampf” (“My food”) instead of “Mein Kampf” (the title of Hitler’s book), the village offered bananas to the demonstrators.
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Btw, why is Life Expectancy in USA relatively low compared with EU and Israel? Since many Americans don’t have good health insurance, if they have it at all? Or are there other reasons?
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This guy: “Or maybe not. What I’m suggesting here is that there are, in the words of Sennett and Cobb’s great book, hidden injuries of class which social mobility cannot cure. From my perspective, mobility is no substitute for social equality.”
Well of course there are always fucking hidden injuries in all sorts of facets of human life. We go along and we get battle scarred. My battle scars are a reminder of my triumphs and what I’ve been through.
I think we need to be more critical of the modern ideal that we can and should go through life without ever having to suffer any scarring.
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And this brilliant comment is the reason why I adore you. 🙂
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You ARE kidding right?
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No, that was a brilliant comment about battle scars.
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It comes from my Spartan culture. With good reason, most people do not like a warlike consciousness or culture, because it is not easy — it does not go easy on them.
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https://www.facebook.com/groups/124280565850/?fref=ts
spartans spartans spartans
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Also don’t blame me for inventing the jewish nose. It’s not my fault.
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I know the following article has many bad places, but does it contain a grain of truth too?
The rise of the Stepford students
Student unions’ ‘no platform’ policy is expanding to cover pretty much anyone whose views don’t fit prevailing groupthink
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9376232/free-speech-is-so-last-century-todays-students-want-the-right-to-be-comfortable/
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The author is grievously uneducated and doesn’t understand the concept of the freedom of speech. If I insist on speechifying about topology and students protest because I’m eminently unqualified, that’s not an assault on my freedom of speech. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean anybody should provide you with opportunities to speak. If people don’t want to listen to your speech, that’s their right. This author reminds me of all those freaks who whined that if I kick them off my blog, I trample on their right to free speech. Which is an egregiously ignorant statement.
The right to free speech places obligations only on the government. It doesn’t place any obligation on any individual to listen to your speech.
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I thought the idea was interesting:
The Islamic State and the left’s secret love affair with misogyny
The way they treat women is not the catch – it’s the unspoken main attraction
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9374832/for-some-left-wing-men-the-misogyny-of-the-islamic-state-is-part-of-the-appeal/
QUOTE
// There are other reasons, of course. The western left has been a busted flush for so long, caught up in its own eternal infighting, that it must feel good to be on a side apparently winning with old-fashioned brute force. Then there’s our old mate paint-chart politics: choose the side with the darkest skin on principle, no matter how their belief systems actually treat people […] In Darfur, of course, the left were thrown a curveball when it turned out that the Arab Muslims were terrorising the black Christians. Um, Islam good, Christianity bad but hang on, Christians darker here! DOES NOT COMPUTE!
But, to get all Freudian, I think a lot of the reason that some left-wing men seem to have so much time for Islamism is to do not with race but sex — specifically, with suppressed feelings of resentment towards the march of feminism, which they could never in a million years admit to. //
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Thought you would be interested since it’s about creating / changing one’s identity and discovering your roots.
// When Lacey Schwartz was accepted to Georgetown University, the school saw her photo and passed her name along to the black student association. The organization contacted her.
The only issue: Schwartz had grown up in a Jewish household in Woodstock New York, and had always — despite occasional questions about the source of her brown skin and curly hair — identified as white. //
http://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/11/19/7242791/white-lie-film-black
Documentary about her journey of self-discovery “Little White Lie” will be aired soon. There is a trailer in the article you can watch. I was surprised by:
// Schwartz says. “I wasn’t pretending I was something I wasn’t. I actually grew up believing I was white.” //
Began thinking about race vs Judaism: would it have mattered less in Israel? (I think, yes.) Why is she tagged as “black”, when she is equally black and white from biological pov and was raised in a Jewish subculture, not in an African-American subculture?
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“Why is she tagged as “black”, when she is equally black and white from biological pov and was raised in a Jewish subculture, not in an African-American subculture?”
– Because that’s how American racism works. Until quite recently (in historical terms), Americans were counting “drops of blood” needed for one to “count as”, etc.
I recommend Faulkner’s greatest novel Absalom, Absalom!. It helps understand American racism. It also inspired pretty much the entire Latin American literature of the XXth century.
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\\ I recommend Faulkner’s greatest novel Absalom, Absalom!. It helps understand American racism. It also inspired pretty much the entire Latin American literature of the XXth century.
Thank you, I will try it later when I have time.
Lately, I have stopped contributing any comments / thoughts of my own because of being very busy. Hope it’ll change soon.
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“Lately, I have stopped contributing any comments / thoughts of my own because of being very busy. Hope it’ll change soon.”
– Yeah, I know the feeling. This has been one bad semester.
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Want to clarify that, of course, Lacey Schwartz’s mother’s hiding information about her father would’ve been wrong in any culture, both in USA and in Israel.
What seemed strange in a way to me was “”I look at bi-racial as a category of being black.” Is it only because of racists seeing her as black or for some other reason too? She is both white and black genetically and Jewish culturally, but it seems the attitude is “I am not white at all, only black.” Hurrying now, so haven’t had time to word it better.
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I’m curious why you think the “shirt” has _nothing_ to do with misogyny and/or troubling gender dynamics. I think that the reaction was overblown and it sadly overshadowed the wonder of what was accomplished. (And he seemed so honestly remorseful later that I do feel bad for him.)
Like Nancy P, I’m surprised that nobody advised him to dress differently when he was about to make a statement to the press. And, like you, I think the shirt was unprofessional. But it wasn’t just unprofessional: it also it prominently featured highly sexualized, nearly naked women. How is this not about gender– at least to some degree?
As a side note, there are very real issues with women in the STEM fields. I have a good friend who got her PhD in Mathematics and the gender discrimination she faced was quite profound. So I think women in STEM fields are particularly sensitive to any troubling or insensitive gender dynamics.
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If the shirt depicted pink bunnies in red bows, that would still be a completely inappropriate form of attire for any public occasion. People who underwent the normal process of socialization are capable of dressing themselves appropriately by the age of 10 at the latest. The whole situation is devolving into yet another round of “humorless feminists can’t take a joke” when in reality it is an instance of somebody who is acting disrespectfully towards everybody. I have no idea what his “great achievement” is and I don’t care. “Great achievements” don’t mean one is somehow excluded from society. The extent of one’s achievements doesn’t allow one to defecate on the floor or pick one’s nose in public.
Unfortunately, it is all too often that such overgrown infantile creatures make public spaces nearly uninhabitable to the rest of us. Adult people stink up public spaces because they can’t control their basic hygiene. They can’t control their wardrobe and strangers become exposed to all sorts of body parts that should remain hidden from public view. For instance, both of my Latin profs (one female and one male) had extreme difficulty with preventing their body parts from falling out of clothes in class. She couldn’t keep her breasts in place and he couldn’t keep his testicles fully hidden from view. And then there was also a colleague with stinky feet. And a male student who would come to class half naked. And a colleague who would walk in sandals through the snow and then create ugly, dirty puddles all over our floor. All of these behaviors are obnoxious, infantile, and wrong.
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I agree with most of what you are saying. But isn’t there a difference between wearing a shirt with pink bunnies and a shirt that prominently displays scantily-clad, big- breasted women? That is to say, you don’t see problematic gender dynamics _on top_ of the poor hygiene/unprofessional dress?
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“That is to say, you don’t see problematic gender dynamics _on top_ of the poor hygiene/unprofessional dress?”
– Seeing it as a road to nowhere because then the conversation devolves to “you are a humorless feminist, the shirt is a work of art.” When people start denouncing the shirt as a symbol of oppression, they make themselves sound ridiculous because that is an argument nobody can win. I believe it is more productive to shame this guy as an infantile freak.
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If the shirt had pink bunnies then people might think for a second or two “hmmm what an odd / awful choice of shirt” but there wouldn’t be the strident and very odd moral outrage on both sides.
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“If the shirt had pink bunnies then people might think for a second or two “hmmm what an odd / awful choice of shirt” but there wouldn’t be the strident and very odd moral outrage on both sides.”
– And that’s wrong! There should be outrage because this is not OK.
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“I believe it is more productive to shame this guy as an infantile freak”
And the project he was a part of? That counts for……?
As far as unwelcoming environments and the like, my own idea is very roughly “those who can do, those who can’t obsess about imaginary obstacles”
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If Obama appeared at a press conference dressed in pink bunnies, would the importance of his project – which is being the leader of one of the world’s superpowers – make the bunnies more or less acceptable?
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Loved to learn more about Pavlov’s work and relationships with tsarist and communist regimes:
DROOL
Ivan Pavlov’s real quest.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/24/drool
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I found a blog of Bernard Avishai, Adjunct Professor of Business, a former journalist and “the author of three books on Israel, including the widely read The Tragedy of Zionism, and the recently published The Hebrew Republic.”
Was interested in his vision of the two states in this post:
http://bernardavishai.blogspot.co.il/2013/06/two-states-starved-for-vision.html
QUOTE
When most people envision, however skeptically, a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, they imagine adding a Palestinian state to the Jewish one […] statehood, yes; but independence as in 1948? On the contrary, only infrastructural integration and political interdependence — regionally and globally — will enable Palestine and Israel to grow fast enough to outpace their respective social problems and inequalities.[…] A confederative solution could also establish an international commission to resolve the right of return of Palestinian refugees.[…] confederative institutions should not be thought of as a stroke of optimism but the reverse: a way of offering two despairing peoples a chance to slip the traps of the immediate past, and move together into the new political economy that awaits them.
Does it seem possible to you?
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Uri’s latest column:
http://www.avnery-news.co.il/english/
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Attorney General Chris Koster of Missouri, a Democrat whose plans to run for governor in 2016 have been hurt by reports that his office may have given preferential treatment to campaign contributors and lobbyists, announced a new policy Wednesday banning donations from any company that he had targeted for investigation.
“These new restrictions are the strictest conflict-of-interest provisions of any elected attorney general in the United States,” Mr. Koster said in a statement.
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I read this inspirational story at morreth’s lj, and then found it in English:
The Inspirational Story of Dr. Mary Hobson, Who Received Her Ph.D in Russian When She Was 74 Years Old
http://markrwayne.blogspot.co.il/2013/03/the-inspirational-story-of-dr-mary.html
Mark R. Wayne’s Russian Review: A collection of articles, book reviews, and other thoughts on the Russian language, as well as language learning and linguistics in general.
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Today is Holodomor Remembrance Day and I saw this article in English:
“SOVIET GENOCIDE IN THE UKRAINE”
By Raphael Lemkin (1953)
Click to access SOVIET_GENOCIDE_IN_THE_UKRAINE.pdf
Raphael Lemkin (June 24, 1900 – August 28, 1959) was a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent, who emigrated to the United States in 1941. He is best known for his work against genocide, a word he coined in 1943 from the rooted words genos (Greek for family, tribe, or race) and -cide (Latin for killing).
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You have written a lot about post-nation state world and I suddenly saw it in Israeli article too! Would love to hear your thoughts – is he realistic? The article in Hebrew is here, I translated a relevant part below:
http://www.mako.co.il/video-blogs-specials/Article-d5f45092cbbd941006.htm?sCh=3d385dd2dd5d4110&pId=1943416319
CONTEXT
(article in English) New legislation which will designate Israel as official nation state of Jewish people tearing at gov’t coalition, pitting centrists against rightists, in legal fight over Israel’s character.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4595070,00.html
QUOTE (from a Hebrew article)
National Law – the silver platter on which the Jewish state will fall.
Those who oppose Israel’s existence receive a gift from Zeev Elkin and his Patriots, who want to show the state of Israel as an isolated nation state. What is it good for?
It’s better to understand that the nation state is an archaic concept. It is as antiquated as colonialism and imperialism, the population exchange and annexation. This does not mean we need to give it up. Under no circumstances it means that. We should, however, exercise restraint and wisdom in order to allow the impossible: to obtain the world’s consent of the idea which time has passed.
Israel was born as a nation state at the last minute. Ten years later, there would not have been the majority at the UN General Assembly. Twenty years later, Britain would be required to hand over power to the non-Jewish majority. 50 years later, international military intervention would return Jaffa refugees to their homes in real time.
[…]
These arguments don’t try to persuade readers to give up the idea of a Jewish state. They invite them, however, to take into account the changing values, without attributing [world’s reactions] automatically to anti-Semitism. A lot of people, who have no preconceived view on the Arab-Israeli conflict, have strong reservations about the nation-state, because they live in a post-national states and do not accept the morality of a system that favors one group of citizens over another.
A conflict’s resolution will have to include acceptance of the nation state. It will be very difficult, because every definition – including Tzipi Livni’s – will be much less liberal than “the state of all citizens “. Such formula – individual rights for all, collective rights for Jews only – will be part of a historic compromise: a fair division of the land into two states in return for the international recognition of the Jewish nation-state, within the 1967 borders or something similar.
Until then, the less is said – the better, unless they are eager to tighten the siege; Unless they believe that Israel will benefit from delegitimization; Unless they believe their short-term political interests outweigh the difficult and complicated strategy of preservation of the Jewish state.
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// to obtain the world’s consent of the idea which time has passed.
Sorry, a mistake:
“to obtain the world’s consent TO the idea which time has passed.”
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“A lot of people, who have no preconceived view on the Arab-Israeli conflict, have strong reservations about the nation-state, because they live in a post-national states and do not accept the morality of a system that favors one group of citizens over another.”
– Exactly. The US or France or Spain or Great Britain, etc. went through the nation-building process that Israel is going through centuries ago. So the citizens of these countries see this process – that they have left in the past – as barbaric.
“It’s better to understand that the nation state is an archaic concept. It is as antiquated as colonialism and imperialism, the population exchange and annexation. This does not mean we need to give it up. Under no circumstances it means that. We should, however, exercise restraint and wisdom in order to allow the impossible: to obtain the world’s consent of the idea which time has passed.”
– Nobody’s consent will be more powerful than technology and individualism. The borders will continue to get eroded and identities will continue getting more and more fluid. We can consent to whatever we want but, save for a major catastrophe that will send us all back to caves, nothing will stop these developments.
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Нам нет преград – и США тут не поможет
[…]
Вот один комментарий к моими ощущениям. Газета ЗЕРКАЛО НЕДЕЛИ опубликовала прелюбопытный материал:
Американский журналист в рамках эксперимента испробовал на себе действие российской пропаганды
http://trim-c.livejournal.com/267363.html#comments
And this case is about USA:
Колесо вращается быстрей – история о пишущей машинке киллиана
http://avva.livejournal.com/2821784.html
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LOVED this comment from the second link (Колесо вращается быстрей):
Роль математики интересно сформулировал Михаил Цфасман на публичной лекции 5 лет назад:
…Ну и, наконец, есть некоторая роль математики для общества. Про роль математики для общества я сказал бы несколько необычную вещь. Конечно, надо знать математику, чтобы посчитать деньги в своем кармане (и особенно в чужом) и чтобы спроектировать какую-нибудь машину. Но это – мир низких истин. Есть и другая сторона. Вот то, чему я бы учил в школе, и для чего математика максимально приспособлена, но только ее преподавать нужно немножко не так. Это – отличать верное от неверного, доказанное от недоказанного, правдоподобное от неправдоподобного. И вещь, которая, несмотря на все это правдоподобие, может быть верной, – от явной лжи. Это – часть математической культуры, которой существенно не хватает обществу в целом.
From:
http://polit.ru/article/2009/01/30/matematika/
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It’s is strange that mathematics is being isolated here from scholarship at large.
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Haven’t read it yet, since you write a lot on the topic, decided to link :
Почему расползается национальное государство?
Дмитрий Травин, профессор Европейского университета в Санкт-Петербурге
http://www.rosbalt.ru/blogs/2014/11/15/1336998.html
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The collapse of the nation-state will be the main topic of the near future. But remember that you heard it first here. 🙂
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Both funny and sad picture in Russian:
You are against Jesus if …
http://marko19511.livejournal.com/1270674.html
What if American communists have been smart enough to use that during the Cold War?
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The funniest thing is that the crazy protesters are right. Jesus would so have not approved of capitalism.
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American Communists or at least the CPUSA (pro-Soviet) and other Marxist-Leninist organizations were all officially atheist by definition. Some like the RCP and other Maoist groups of the 1970s were strongly pro-Albanian, the only country to officially claim to have completely eliminated religion at the time. The fact is atheism was an integral part of 19th and 20th century communist movements. Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hoxha, etc. all completely rejected religion and especially Christianity.
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Stalin, not so much. He had a very good relationship with the Patriarch (the leader of the Orthodox Church, had the Holy Image of Our Lady of Kazan carried around Moscow to protect it from Hitler, and started returning places of worship to the church. In return, every Orthodox priest conducted services “for the health and well – being of our God – given leader Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin. ”
Soviet atheism retained the structures and the rituals of the Russian Orthodox Church.
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The Russian Orthodox Church and Islam were treated better than most religions in the USSR especially after the start of WWII. But, many Christian sects like Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists, Pentacostals, and Mennonites were heavily persecuted as were Buddhists under Stalin. However, even in the case of orthodoxy it should be noted that Old Believers, members of the autocephalous churches in places like Ukraine, and other groups that rejected the authority of the patriarch in Moscow were repressed heavily under Stalin.
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They were repressed before Stalin, too. 🙂
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That’s funny: Erdogan “attended a women’s justice summit in Istanbul” … to declare that “women aren’t equal to men.” There are other funny bits about feminists and his mother’s feet too.
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/11/24/erdogan_tells_feminist_summit_that_women_aren_t_equal_to_men
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Poor guy. There is an abused boy underneath every woman-hater. Imagine what “the coy momma” is doing to him at the inside.
Which doesn’t remove his personal responsibility for being a dick, of course.
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I thought this was funny:
“Google Israel poll finds 72% of Israelis would rather give up sex for a month than not have Internet access; 47% of women and 25% of men would give up sex for a whole year in order to stay online.”
But this is insane:
“59% of men and 47% of women would rather not see their mother for a whole year than give up their Internet connection. […] about 20% would bid farewell to their sight – as long as they can stay online.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4594338,00.html
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Many things in this interview of Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz by a German newspaper rang true:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-sociologist-eva-illouz-about-gaza-and-israeli-society-a-984536.html
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Great interview. But I’m surprised to hear that you like it.
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\\ Great interview. But I’m surprised to hear that you like it.
I like parts of it. However, I also disagree with many others. For instance, she says
“I’m not in favor of this operation because there was no political process beforehand. Netanyahu gave such obvious sings that he was not interested in a political process.”
I am very sceptical there could’ve been a real political process. Abu Mazen doesn’t have enough power, Hamas would not support any process since it would demand to give up quite a few things like a Right of Return for Palestinians. You could claim “Israelis aren’t ready for peace” (some are, others aren’t), but imo not less Palestinians aren’t ready for peace either.
Also, I hate when people use the word “racism” as she did in “rabid anti-Arab racism in Israel.” First, both (most) Jews and Arabs are of the same race – a white one. Second, things like racism against blacks in America aren’t the same as ethnic conflict between two peoples. When French and Germans hated and slaughtered each other, would she call that “racism” too? I have a feeling that not. There is hatred, but hatred isn’t the same as racism.
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I agree with the point on racism. I’m very bothered by this carelessness in terminology. I also believe that the need to see the differences between the two semitic peoples as racial is in itself based on racism. Your point about the French and the Germans is important here. We could also talk about Russians and Ukrainians in this context. There is a very current conflict going on but nobody sees it as based on race.
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Another point I disagree with is
“creating deep ethnic inequalities between different ethnic groups such Jews of Arab countries vs. Jews of European descent; Arabs vs. Jews; Jews vs. non-Jews.”
The last two are true, but “Jews of Arab countries vs. Jews of European descent” is less true and can’t be compared to Arabs vs. Jews at all. Israel was created for all Jews, and after a few generations everybody is a bit Ashkenazi and a bit Mizrahi. Initially, Jews who immigrated from less developed countries were in a worse condition. As time passes, the differences diminish.
And I still don’t fully understand what she offers to do, if one lets go of “a tunnel vision.” For full analysis, one must look at Palestinians and other Israeli neighbors too, not only at Israel. I am sure that even if Israel had made an effort to improve situation in Gaza, Hamas would have begun shooting again anyway, leading to the next operation.
A not connected thing I noticed:
“But it is also a democracy, which grants rights to gays and makes it possible for a citizen to sue the state.”
Gay rights have become The Thing to measure democracy with, but I don’t think it has to be so inherently. One could be almost fascistic and be for gay rights nowadays imo.
To explain myself, I am for gay rights. What I dislike is some people adopting “triggers” which they react to without thinking, as opposed to developing personal system of morality. Sometimes it’s downright ridiculous how one can advocate beating infants, “breaking” children’s wills and keeping women as 3rd class uneducated servants and be liked, but the moment the person deletes pictures of kissing gay couples from own Facebook – only then their fans see something is wrong.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2014/11/on-the-duggars-and-the-locus-of-outrage.html
Btw, an interesting article showing how being for gay rights means only that:
A couple of years ago, right-wing foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman’s troops decided to use the boistrous, proud Israeli LGBT community as a vehicle to show the world that Israel is an advanced liberal democracy.
Gays, in their minds, are the clearest proof possible that Israel is the only modern, open oasis in an ever-more extreme Muslim desert.
Suddenly, the conservative Right was not only okay with LGBT, it was promoting it.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Left-and-gay-in-Israel
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El, you are on a roll today. Great point about the trivialization of gay rights as a defense of right – wing positions.
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In case you read the “Israeli gays” article, I want to say the following is untrue:
“The Russian immigrants who form the base of Lieberman’s constituency are in general the most homophobic part of Israeli society, even more than Shas’s ultra-Orthodox Jews.”
My guess is that you would tend to believe this because of the low opinion about the Russian immigrants, but it’s completely untrue. Shas’s ultra-Orthodox Jews are much more homophobic. I tell this as somebody who lives in Israel.
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I’m not delusional, so I would never assume that the degree of homophobia amongst secular immigrants could ever rise to the level of religious fanatics’.
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\\ Great point about the trivialization of gay rights as a defense of right – wing positions.
Are you sure it’s trivialization? Rather than “to cause to appear unimportant, trifling,” here people pretend it’s more important (shows more) than it is for political reasons. As if “gay rights = democracy.”
Seems similar to “hatred and/or discrimination = racism” equation, which is also often used for political reasons.
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When the entire complex and crucial subject of gay rights is reduced to posting photos of kissing gay couples in an attempt to prove one’s tolerance, I call that trivialization.
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Pope: Don’t shut door to dialogue with ISIS […] “It is difficult, one could say almost impossible, but the door is always open,” he said in response to a question about whether it would be possible to communicate with the militants.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2014/Nov-25/278875-pope-dont-shut-door-to-dialogue-with-isis.ashx#axzz3K6sRJU1q
What is the Pope talking about? Is it Christian “never say never, forgive your enemies” thing? Something to say to demonstrate one’s morality or good to say politically?
Rivlin: What is the point of the ‘Nationality Law’?
President says rather than cement Jewish nature of state, the proposal ‘encourage us to seek contradiction between the Jewish and democratic characters of the state.’
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4596228,00.html
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I’ve stopped trying to figure out what this Pope was trying to say a long time ago.
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