There is now also a scandal with an anti-gay bakery in Northern Ireland. I’m started to get scared of bakeries. Who knew that they were so politicized and opinionated? I always used to see bakeries as warm and fuzzy but it turns out there was a lot of anger and resentment brewing under the pink frosting surface.
“Being a woman is kind of like being a cyclist in a city where all the cars represent men. You’re supposed to be able to share the road equally with cars, but that’s not how it works. The roads are built for cars and you spend a great deal of physical and mental energy being defensive and trying not to get hurt. Some of the cars WANT you to get hurt. They think you don’t have any place on the road at all. And if you do get hurt by a car, everyone makes excuses that it’s your fault.” Of course, one could solve the psychological problems that produce this unhealthy worldview but then there would be no backlinks and rebloggings of one’s writing.
I knew a time would come when somebody would try to quantify their genitals. I just didn’t know it would come so soon.
I hate, hate, hate this kind of idiot administrator: “In past discussions with my dean and provost about my salary and my appalling raises, both of them have said, as if in lockstep, “I’m not a person who is motivated by money.” This phrase, I think, has to be programmed into administrators. Its rhetorical effectiveness is almost perfect. “I’m not motivated by money” implies a moral judgment against a person who is motivated by money. If you are someone who is motivated by money, then you are not a person who is passionate about your job.”
This is all true about abusive families with only two children.
“Working 9-To-5 Becoming a Less Popular Way to Make a Living.”
And adding to my collection of freakdom: “Where the states of California, Nevada and Arizona. among others, are toast in the summer sun, their snow packs long gone, their lakes and streams withering away, their crops crisping in the merciless heat. How long will it be before lines of desperate people begin trudging along Interstate 5 into Oregon (nobody in their right mind is going to trudge south, or straight east).”
And just one more stupid freakazoid: “Women could use a little of the shameless confidence men take for granted.” It is heart-breaking what the discourse on gender has been reduced to.
Keep God off your LinkedIn profile!
American Red Cross really disappoints.
Mexican drug industry is turning away form marijuana and turns towards heroin.
Arizona fights for the right of being the freakiest state in the union with its fake reverse abortions.
How a professor can be productive during the summer.
A great cheat sheet on the presidential candidates.
Is fibromyalgia a fake illness?
Russia’s humiliation syndrome: “Russia today is a country trying to retain its great power status not by dint of success or dynamism or progress, but by cultivating a sense of grievance and resentment.”
Clarissa's Blog 
I always used to see bakeries as warm and fuzzy but it turns out there was a lot of anger and resentment brewing under the pink frosting surface.
This reminds me of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake The protagonist finds peace as a baker. You might find it ok beach reading.
A Brief Guide to Gender in India I still remember this post, but I can’t decide whether it’s just because it deploys second person, which is rare.
As for the links about teachers, I’m always surprised when free market doyens think the rules of capitalism don’t affect teachers and who chooses to go into those professions. It’s an odd blindness.
As for the fitbit, people have been quantifying their genitals ever since they’ve been counting the number of partners and measuring them. Now people are just adding their electronic devices to it.
LikeLike
“Being a woman is kind of like being a cyclist in a city where all the cars represent men. You’re supposed to be able to share the road equally with cars, but that’s not how it works. The roads…”
This depends upon where one lives. Both my daughters and my former wife can move through crowded places much faster than I can. In the areas where I have lived, people instinctively move out of women’s way if they are moving purposely, but definitely not men’s. I have often found it frustrating that I cannot keep up with them in a crowd.
LikeLike
I think this is meant as a metaphor, the road standing for the road of life, or whatever. But it’s pretty meaningless either way.
LikeLike
I am currently reading “Little Failure” – a memoir by Gary Shteyngart, a Russian Jew who immigrated in his childhood to USA and became a writer. Haven’t read any other books by him, but “Little Failure” is a great book and I think you would love it too.
I read this book and simply feel how we come from the same culture, even if our families are very different in many aspects. Also, his descriptions of Russians in America and of his family, reminded me of some things you’ve written about.
Quite a few things were painful to read about (to me), but there are many humorous parts too. F.e. his first novel, inspired by “Nils and the Wild Geese,” was called “Lenin and His Magical Goose.” In it, Lenin and the goose decide to invade Finland and bombard “the hapless Finns with our thick Soviet cheese.” Grandmother Galya, who raised herself up from the shtetl to Leningrad, paid him in cheese to encourage the author in his efforts. 🙂
LikeLike
[we’ve secretly replaced your Naughty Bits Fitbit with a remote-controlled miniature blood pressure cuff, let’s see if anyone notices …]
🙂
LikeLike
“In past discussions with my dean and provost about my salary and my appalling raises, both of them have said, as if in lockstep, “I’m not a person who is motivated by money.” This phrase, I think, has to be programmed into administrators. Its rhetorical effectiveness is almost perfect.”
The problem isn’t the administrator who is doing their job (keeping down certain types of expenses) the problem is that the writer has almost no verbal self-defense skills.
“I’m not a person who is motivated by money” is not devastating verbal kung fu – it’s a baby trick that is super easy to counter.
The simplest and easiest and safest is to completely ignore it and repeat what you had just said until they respond to it in a more relevant manner. Their motivations are utterly irrelevant to the discussion.
If you do want to derail the conversaion then the following have to be delivered in an absolutely calm, polite, even charming manner and then the person who says them must shut up and wait for the response, which might take a while.
“It must be a comfort to not have any financial worries, it’s a shame that not all of us are so lucky”
“Well… I am”
“Fascinating!”
“And what relevance do your finances have to my compensation?”
Slightly more risky…
“What does motivate you?” (with polite interest)
“That’s nice…” (with exactly the same tone as you would greet a drawing by a not very talented child)
{say nothing, make eye contact and raise your eyebrows as is that was the stupidest thing you’d ever heard and wait for the administrator to say something no matter how long it takes}
“As much as I would love to talk about different human motivations, I have bills to pay and such a discussion is not going to help me in that endeavour”
LikeLike
Whenever people try to do something like this to me, I always respond with “Interesting!” or “Ok, then”, delivered in the tone and with a facial expression that screams, “Aren’t you a crazy little weirdo?” And then just continue with whatever I was saying.
“{say nothing, make eye contact and raise your eyebrows as is that was the stupidest thing you’d ever heard and wait for the administrator to say something no matter how long it takes}”
LikeLike
I began reading articles’ names at “The American Interest” and then saw something which made me use 1 out of 3 free articles per month:
Return or Die?
ALEXANDER JOFFE & ASAF ROMIROWSKY
Palestinians in Syria have been swept up in the horrific violence. What is the response of the Palestinian Authority?
Faced with the suffering of their own people, the Palestinians recently decided not to help. Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas rejected a deal with Israel brokered by the United Nations that would allow Palestinian refugees living in Syria to resettle in the West Bank and Gaza. Abbas stated unequivocally that “we rejected that and said it’s better they die in Syria than give up their right of return.” The Palestine Liberation Organization has also ruled out any military action to help the 18,000 or more refugees who are trapped in the Yarmouk camp near Damascus.
Abbas’s cold-blooded response reveals something fundamental about Palestinian society and identity. Far more than territory, the key Israeli-Palestinian issue is the idea of a Palestinian “right of return”—the belief in a legal and moral right of Palestinian refugees, and more importantly their descendants from around the world, to return to ancestral homes in what was once Mandatory Palestine. This belief is so vital to Palestinian national identity that their leaders would rather they die than give it up and have a chance to live.
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 (III) of December 1948 supposedly codifies this “right.” However, a closer look reveals it to be conditional
LikeLike
“Abbas stated unequivocally that “we rejected that and said it’s better they die in Syria than give up their right of return.”
LikeLike
Some interesting finds:
Nearly three quarters of Israeli Jews feel that the ‘whole world is against us’
A monthly report released by IDI and Tel Aviv University shows Israelis feeling more isolated and that peace is more distant.
[…]
According to the survey over half of the Jewish public (52 percent) currently supports separating Jewish and Palestinian passengers on buses in the territories, in line with the experiment announced by Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, as opposed to 42 percent who oppose it.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4666517,00.html
As I understood, the separation plan was proposed for security reasons, but was stopped because of “it won’t look good internationally.” The buses in question are in the territories, and the Palestinians on them aren’t Israeli citizens but exactly the population from which terrorists come. The Jews are those who live in settlements and are protected by IDF from being murdered by their Palestinian neighbors.
LikeLike
My neighbors are doing what they can to prevent the black people from St Louis from coming to our suburb. And they are being very open about it. So who am I to criticize, you know?
It’s easy to be a hypocrite. It might even be pleasing. But it’s quite shameful. I’ve been to an actual gated community the other day. It’s super chic. And its goal is just the same as the one you describe.
LikeLike
Interesting what would happen if Israel simply formally annexed Golan Heights? I read that:
// During United States–brokered negotiations in 1999–2000, Israel and Syria discussed a peace deal that would include Israeli withdrawal in return for a comprehensive peace structure, recognition and full normalization of relations. The disagreement in the final stages of the talks was on access to the Sea of Galilee.
I am so glad those negotiations failed and we don’t have ISIS there now.
Began thinking on the topic after reading in news (btw, I think comparing Golan Heights with the West Bank was a mistake):
Bennett to world: Recognize Golan Heights as Israeli territory
Bayit Yehudi Chairman says Jews in the Golan should number 100,000 in five years; ‘ISIS would be swimming in the Sea of Galilee’ if Israel gave up Golan.
Bayit Yehudi Chairman Naftali Bennett reopened a long-forgotten front in Israel’s campaign for international legitimization Sunday, when he called on the world to officially recognize the Golan, captured from Syria during the Six-Day War in 1967, as Israeli territory.
[…]
Bennett continued to call for the expansion of Jewish presence in the area to 100,000 in the next five years. Some 20,000 Jews reside in the Golan Heights today.
“In 1981 the Golan Heights law was passed, applying Israeli law in the area,” said Bennett. “The world in that time shouted and sharply criticized Israel, and no country has recognized the Golan as part of the State of Israel up to this day, but that didn’t stop Begin who understood that the Golan Heights is ours and that we can’t give land to our enemies.”
The Bayit Yehudi leader then compared the Golan Heights to the West Bank where he said he “understood” the disagreements between Israel and the rest of the world.
“I understand that we agree to disagree there. It’s obvious to me that there is a disagreement there; the world is still trying to promote fantastical plans. But let’s put that aside. Unfortunately, the world isn’t implementing any plan for Judea and Samaria, but for the Golan? Prohibiting agricultural products from the Golan Heights? What’s the logic?
“Who do they want us to give the Golan to? To Assad? Today, it’s clear that if we listened to the world we would give up the Golan and ISIS would be swimming in the Sea of Galilee. Enough with the hypocrisy.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4665886,00.html
LikeLike
French Islamic group goes on trial after Jewish ‘target list’ found
Members of ‘Forsane Alizza’ planned attacks in series of Jewish stores in France, including 5 Hyper Cacher supermarkets, as well as kidnapping of Jewish judge.
[…]
The group was created in 2010 with the official goal of stopping the spread of Islamophobia. However it was banned by the government in March 2012 after jihadist propaganda appeared on its website. Searches carried out after the arrests of Achamlane and his associates that month unearthed three AK-47 assault rifles, a grenade and a pistol, and the list of Jewish stores. Achamlane also had manuals on how to carry out terrorist attacks using explosives.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4667157,00.html
Thousands call on Israel to save Syrian Druze in mass protest
Israel’s Druze accepting donations to send to family, friends in Syria who face threat of massacres; ‘We are all ready to take them into our homes.’
VS
Israel must not get involved in Syria
Op-ed: An Israeli intervention in favor of Syria’s Druze will only push the enemy to attack us; therefore, it cannot take place under any circumstances.
[…]
Former Prime Minister Menachem Begin saw Lebanon’s Christians as a massacred minority, and began to help them – first by secretly supplying weapons all the way to a complete invasion by Israel, also in order to remove the Palestinian terrorists. It ended in a lost generation with 18 years of war, and 1,000 dead IDF soldiers. And all that for what? For the Christians who quickly betrayed us and moved on to their next ally? We learned our lesson – this is the communal swamp of the Arab world, we are definitely not part of it, and won’t be either.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4667505,00.html
LikeLike
Gov’t backs bill to force-feed jailed Palestinians on hunger strike
Israel’s Medical Association opposes measure, saying it is a form of torture and medically risky, urging doctors not to abide by such a law, if it passes.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4668405,00.html
LikeLike
In Israel ‘culture’ is ruling the news sites now –
Documentary about Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin is scheduled to be shown at film festival, causing Culture Minister Miri Regev to reevaluate financial support.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4668467,00.html
AND
Bennett on Tuesday called an emergency meeting of the Repertoire Committee, which approves the performances made available to schoolchildren through the culture basket, in order to remove the play, A Parallel Time.
The Repertoire Committee did not take the play out of the culture basket during the emergency meeting, which prompted Bennett to override its decision in his capacity as education minister The play is based on the story of Walid Daka, a convicted terrorist serving a life sentence for his part in the abduction, torture and murder of soldier Moshe Tamam in 1984.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Bennet-and-Regev-bashed-for-questioning-state-funding-of-theater-405635
LikeLike
I thought you would be interested in the following news. But first a short explanation:
Haredi or ultra-Orthodox are people who wear black clothes, often men don’t work but study Torah and usually don’t serve in the army.
Religious Zionist movement are people who work, men serve in the army, etc.
There is an unpleasant development:
FROM 2013 opinion column
The Council of Higher Education has allowed 12 institutions to separate the sexes while teaching ultra-Orthodox students, including the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Haifa Technion and Bar-Ilan University.
…
In order to gain the advantages that stem from acquiring higher education by the ultra-Orthodox, their studies should take place within ultra-Orthodox educational institutions that in any case implement separation of the sexes in all areas of life. Only this way will the ultra-Orthodox be able to acquire higher education while still preserving the fundamental principles of the university and liberal civil society.
FROM 2015 news article
Initiative for gender segregated higher education puts universities on the defensive
An initiative for gender-segregated tracks at universities is gaining momentum among the religious Zionist movement, but the academic authorities are vehemently opposed. Will it prevail over their protests?
http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/.premium-1.660618
The latter article is not beyond a wall in Hebrew and in it is written that currently there are
“ten tracks that divide between men and women , but they are only designed for the ultra-Orthodox . According to the CHE , the policy is to prohibit gender segregation , with the exception of ultra-Orthodox programs.
[…]
But if you have separate tracks for Haredim , why not open this route also to national-religious? According to CHE , ” the higher education system should be equal, without sectarian segregation . However, in light of the national need to integrate Haredi population in Israel into the workforce, the Council of Higher Education Planning and Budgets Committee allowed, as an exception, separate academic tracks for ultra-Orthodox population , because of their way of life and knowledge gaps (because of not studying secular subjects at high school ) . This is only for the programs for the first-degree. “
LikeLike
Coddling the religious fanatics never ends well. First, you think you are making concessions to them. But then very very soon, they think they are making concessions to you by allowing you to live the way you want. And then they take over the political process and for the rest you can always see the history of the Tea Party in the US.
LikeLike
\ Coddling the religious fanatics never ends well.
What if the religious fanatics become more numerous than you and me?
For instance, the article mentions that in the national-religious elementary schools: in 2000 40% of students studied in gender-segregated classrooms, but in 2013 – already 57% did so.
I am sure that the earlier gender-segregation begins, the more those future university students will be for continued segregation. It will look natural and right to them.
LikeLike
I’d outlaw such schools and end all handouts to these creatures. Somehow, they are affording to do nothing but the bunny thing all day long.
LikeLike
I think it’s unhelpful to label people as “fanatics” thus. One person’s “fanaticism” can seem to another person perfectly normal and legitimate observance, and it is the first whose views are problematic. Obviously not all beliefs or points of view can be absolutely right, but I do not see ridiculous levels of harm associated simply with gender segregation (which within living memory was quite normal practice for schools in parts of the West) and certainly not with headscarves (it’s a quite harmless piece of clothing, and unlike say a full-face veil which limits the ability to read facial expressions and thereby limits the ability to communicate, hardly seems problematic). Obviously there comes a point where, in a society which tries to accept or tolerate multiple forms of belief must draw the line, but drawing that line at an overly cautious point is not helpful (and could be seen as a form of secular fanaticism!)
A particular belief system or point of view does not to my mind automatically make one a “fanatic” over any other. It at most makes one right or wrong. Even the zealousness with which a person holds their views is not automatically wrong. Zealousness plus “wrong”, maybe, depending upon the circumstances.
Israel is one thing, but surely calling France’s ban on headscarves a good thing is taking things a bit too far?
LikeLike
Do you also consider racial segregation not very harmful? If not, then how do you explain the difference in your approach to these forms of segregation?
LikeLike
I think here we are talking about two different things. Segregation between genders in this context is mostly about preventing what they would deem to be inappropriate sexual desires, and doesn’t necessarily extend to one’s spouse or close relatives; whereas racial segregation seems to be about little more than marginalizing people who aren’t like the group in power and/or keeping people who you imagine are inferior from associating with you. Sure, the former is to our eyes somewhat paranoid, but if it’s what they believe, then there should be nothing to stop them doing that as long as they do not enforce it on those who do not observe such practices. It’s not like this is extended, in the context, to forbidding women from having any education at all as might be the case with the Taliban or whoever. Having single-sex environments within an educational context in and of itself seems hardly dangerous, though as an academic I’m sure you could tell me more about how true that is.
At the same time, I suppose (but am not entirely sure) these people are likely to think it wrong for Jews to associate with or intermarry with non-Jews also, a form of racial segregation- again that is their choice I suppose, as long as they don’t force it on more liberal Jews.
Ulitmately I believe both are wrong to a great extent, but it’s not my business to dictat what people cannot do.
The point I am making is where you draw the line. You seem to be suggesting a sort of “give them an inch, and they’ll take a mile” approach, I’m suggesting more a “give them an inch, just as long as you make darned sure they don’t get more” approach.
LikeLike
\ At the same time, I suppose (but am not entirely sure) these people are likely to think it wrong for Jews to associate with or intermarry with non-Jews also,
You are not entirely sure about Haredi Jews? 🙂 Then I have news for you: even most secular Israeli Jews are against assimilation and want to marry only Jews. There is real fear of Jewish people disappearing, especially considering the % of intermarriage among American Jews. You can say this fear is unfounded (I am unsure about the matter), but many have it.
In practice, secular Jews accept non-Jewish spouses of other Jews, as long as those spouses aren’t Arab / Muslim. The latter isn’t because of racism, but because of Middle East conflict. Think f.e. how much ‘love’ Germans and French had for each other during and post-WW1. When two peoples are at war for more than 100 years already, there isn’t much love between them.
Also, what usually happens in the few Jewish-Muslim marriages that exist is that a Jewish woman marries a Muslim man (not the opposite!), converts to Islam and raises her children as Arabs. As I heard, those children aren’t accepted neither in Jewish nor in Muslim society. Of course, their Arab father wouldn’t let his daughters from a (previously) Jewish mother to marry Jews and they won’t f.e. serve in the IDF.
One case I’ve seen with my own eyes: a Jewish woman married an Arab, had a daughter and then divorced him. The result? The daughter called her Arab grandmother ‘a mother’, went to Arab school, etc. As I understood, the Arab relatives had zero problem to cut the girl from her Jewish mother. I wasn’t close enough to know more details, but in newspapers too one reads about cases of children staying with an Arab father and a Jewish mother being completely cut off, if she leaves.
LikeLike
According to this logic, my friend from Ukraine should spit into my husband’s face when we visit her on Sunday.
LikeLike
Thelyniezian, you make an impression of a thoughtful, intelligent and kind human being. I have no doubt that you would never tell a black person that Jim Crow is OK because nobody meant anything that bad by it. Yet it is ok to say to a woman that gender segregation ( which has been used to control women and castrate their existences for millennia) is not a big deal.
I don’t blame you for this, of course. Most people have absolutely no idea that about the history of gender segregation and the horrible damage it has done to women and men.
In those societies where women are shrouded and hidden from view, everybody is extraordinarily miserable, believe me. Have you wondered why the Haredim or the fanatical Muslims are so angry all of the time? It’s because they are so damn miserable.
LikeLike
Malik wrote about Turkey and India here:
disaffection in a fragmented world
https://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2015/06/14/disaffection-in-a-fragmented-world/
// I’d outlaw such schools and end all handouts to these creatures. Somehow, they are affording to do nothing but the bunny thing all day long.
The last sentence is true for some Haredi, but very untrue for national-religious. As I said, they work, serve in IDF, are Zionists … and some of them are for separate universities. One of Hebrew commentors said it was a small, extreme group of national-religious who began demanding such for political reasons. However, 57% of elementary school national-religious students already being gender-segregated at their age sounds bad.
LikeLike
Have you been following the story about the migrants to EU, which ended with what I quoted below? What should EU do with all illegal migrants? You previously said that today because of human rights one can’t send people back to war-torn / failed countries, if I remember correctly. If EU won’t stop the flow of migrants, it’ll fall apart, imo.
The people at the French border were “mostly from Sudan and Eritrea,” and below I linked an article about Israel’s policy on the matter. Don’t remember you writing about this important issue and would love to hear your opinion, if the topic interests you.
Ending (in EU):
” Police on Italy’s border with France have forcibly removed about a hundred migrants who were stranded in the Italian city of Ventimiglia and denied entry into France, escalating tensions between the two countries over the free movement of migrants to northern Europe.”
Previously in EU:
“Mediterranean migrant crisis: Italy threatens to let tens of thousands of refugees loose across the EU as France closes its border
[…]
France and Germany proposed what they called a “compromise” deal on how to distribute asylum seekers around the EU. […] But doubts remained over whether all EU countries would accept quotas. Earlier proposals to redistribute across the EU the 24,000 asylum seekers currently in Italy and 16,000 in Greece appear to have collapsed as one EU member after another backed away from the plan. The UK has said in no uncertain terms that it will not accept migrant quotas from southern Europe.
Britain’s Home Secretary, Theresa May, who attended the meeting with her European counterparts, instead called for action to tackle the human traffickers who brought migrants to Europe on rickety boats.”
In Israel:
Israel will deport Eritrean, Sudanese refugees to Africa under new policy
Authorities believe there is no legal barrier to forcing Eritrean and Sudanese citizens to leave Israel for a third country that is not their native country – even if this is done against their will.
[…]
There are currently about 42,000 citizens of Eritrea and Sudan in Israel, of which some 2,000 are being held in the Holot detention facility in the Negev. According to data the state provided the High Court, 5,803 citizens of Sudan and Eritrea left Israel last year, 1,093 of them to third countries. Until now, Israel has not revealed the names of the third countries or the nature of the agreements, if any, reached with them, but it is known that asylum seekers have been sent to Rwanda and Uganda.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.649688
LikeLike
Obviously, tensions over a hundred (or even 12,000) migrants are about something very different than the migrants. There is a very long-standing resentment in Southern Europe over being displaced from the concept of Europeanness. This resentment is about 250 years old. It is now being awakened by the economic crisis.
It’s simply wrong to blame these poor migrants for a conflict that’s been brewing for centuries. Southern Europe is tired of eating Northern Europe’s shit. And by shit I obviously don’t mean the migrants but the constant paranoid blaming and contempt.
LikeLike
Interesting results about Haredi in Israel:
Survey commissioned by Kol Chai Radio reveals only 46% of ultra-Orthodox men work for a living compared to 76% of women
[…]
In 42% of the families, the woman is the only breadwinner, in 34% both the husband and the wife work, in 12% both don’t work, and in the remaining 12% only the man works.
[…]
The survey was conducted by the Seker Kahalacha research institute led by Dr. Ron Kedem and included 1,000 haredi respondents, men and women, in more than 50 communities – all adult and married. The sample included respondents from the three main haredi factions: Hasidic, Lithuanian and Sephardic. The maximal sampling error was 2.5%.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4669156,00.html
LikeLike
The infantilization of Jewish men seems to be a reality that withstands all sorts of divides. 🙂 Have you met any Jewish families where the woman is not an undisputed head of the household? I haven’t.
LikeLike
Как поселить двух черепашек на своём дачном участке
http://www.livejournal.com/magazine/779117.html
LikeLike
Rich Californians balk at limits: ‘We’re not all equal when it comes to water’
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/rich-californians-youll-have-to-pry-the-hoses-from-our-cold-dead-hands/2015/06/13/fac6f998-0e39-11e5-9726-49d6fa26a8c6_story.html?wpisrc=nl_p1wemost&wpmm=1
LikeLike
Yes, this article has seen a million angry posts dedicated to it this week. Totally reminds me of, “If there is no water in the tap, the Jews must have drank it.”
LikeLike
It was on the front page of major Israeli newspaper:
Louvre Museum, other French sites refuse to book Israeli students’ visit
French governor asks prosecution office to probe the incident over suspicions of illegal discrimination.
Jean-Francois Carenco, the governor of the Ile-de-France region with includes Paris and its environs, has asked the prosecutor’s office to launch an investigation over suspicions of illegal discrimination against a group of Tel Aviv University art-history students, France’s Liberation newspaper has reported.
[…]
After being turned down, Hendler attempted to make arrangements for a visit on the same dates and times, using names of fictitious educational institutions from Italy and Abu Dhabi in the Persian Gulf – and was told that space was available.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.661256
LikeLike
You surely heard about the shooting in the church. At the same time, I read:
Fire guts part of Church of Loaves and Fishes on Sea of Galilee
Police suspect arson at Galilee church where Jesus performed miracle of multiplication of the loaves and the fishes.
[…]
The [Hebrew] graffiti, on a limestone wall in clear red spray paint denounced the worship of idols.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4669896,00.html
LikeLike
What shooting in what church?
LikeLike
\ What shooting in what church?
Nine people have been shot dead at a historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina, and a hunt is under way for a white gunman.
Police described the attack at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church as a “hate crime”.
They issued surveillance images of the suspect and said he had sat in the church for an hour before opening fire.
The church’s pastor, state Senator Clementa Pinckney, is reported to be among the dead.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33179019
LikeLike
Oh God. This is just unrelenting.
LikeLike
Have seen the attempt to compare between American Jews and Israeli Palestinians for the 1st time in my life, unsure whether it works though but historical facts about Jews in America were interesting:
Hyphenated Israelism
Op-ed: The civil right movement ushered in a wave of tolerance throughout America that has largely stifled suspicions of dual loyalty. American Jews have reaped the benefits. What will it take for Palestinian citizens of Israel to experience a similar revolution?
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4670151,00.html
I don’t think I’ll live to see this revolution, unfortunately. If it’ll ever be at all.
And inside this article one sees a link to another article titled
“When Jews become a minority in Israel.
Op-ed: The right, which went out in droves to vote for Netanyahu for fear of the Arabs, brought the hope of Jewish independence to an end and laid the foundations for the development of a different entity – an Arab state.”
Supports my earlier words about huge fear of disappearing, of becoming a minority, and marrying non-Jews brings those fears to mind of many in Israel.
LikeLike
Hey, we’ve been a minority everywhere forever, and the culture is still as strong as anything. The question is whether it’s the genetic code or the culture that we want to preserve. The genetic code is not that amazing, to be honest, given the genetic diseases it carries. The culture, though , is wonderful. I’d definitely go the route of preserving the culture but for that we all have to abandon the idiotic concept of “cultural appropriation.”
Look at the culture of Rome, for instance. The Roman Empire has been dead forever, yet the intellectual and cultural prestige it still has is unparalleled.
LikeLike