Tabletop gaming has always had its share of women-hate and male toxicity.
Sexes were historically separated from playing together for thousands of years in order to avoid licentiousness. This was simply an extension of the general separation between the sexes. By the 19th and early 20th century, at least in Europe and the US, the sexes had found ways to mingle by means of parlor games, many of which we would consider overly racy today (a great many of them involved kissing and/or groping, for example).
The last hundred years of tabletop games saw women relegated to "women's divisions" (in Chess, for example), "girls" games (aka pink and/or about makeup and jewelry), or even the kitchen in the belief that they don't have what it takes to play at a man's level. They often don't, if you exclude them from serious training opportunities, exclude them from playing against top players, diminish their desires, goals, and accomplishments, require them to deal with unchecked harassment, and require from them a fanatical devotion to play for endless hours with unwashed, excruciatingly rude, and sexist jerks. Despite this, there are always a few women who are able and willing to complete with many of the top men in any game.
I had hope that in our little corner of the world, harassment would get no worse than that, and hopefully better. While anyone of any sex might get killed playing Dominoes in a Jamaica coffee shop or throwing dice on the streets of Taiwan, tabletop games remain a relatively safe, family-friendly, and gender-mixing activity. Chess, Go, and Bridge have women's divisions, but the majority of their competitions are mixed and relatively safe. Wargaming is a men's club, but it's not toxic to women as far as I know. CCG and RPG events are/were known to attract mostly young male jerks, which scared off some women (see above) but I hadn't thought that these jerks' behavior rose to level of toxicity associated with Gamergate. Unfortunately, I was wrong.
Women are not only harassed, but sexually assaulted at these conventions; the organizers and police are often unable or unwilling to help them. Apparently the CCG and RPG players who grew up in their little boys' club are now adult enough to feel entitled and powerful enough to join the ranks of the male toxics, white nationalists, and "pickup artists", just like the Gamergate folks. And just as in Gamergate, douches post harassing videos and posts claiming that woman who complain about harassment are lying for the attention, as a result of which teeming hordes of similarly minded jerks harass them more, and more seriously. And when called on it, of course, they post endlessly, harassing everyone with why they are right and everyone else is lying and "missing the point". Ho hum, how familiar.
Seems like this behavior is getting worse, not better, and I can think of a few reasons why. I just wish that they didn't infect my hobby.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
Monday, June 05, 2017
Hamas Has a Board Game: Reaching Jerusalem
 |
| Via MEMRI: The board of the "Reaching Jerusalem" game (image: Facebook.com/MaAmriti, April 4, 2017) |
According to the designer, who works at the Hamas Interior Ministry, the game is aimed at "strengthening children's military culture and love of jihad."
MEMRI got the information from a Facebook site which does not appear to be accessible, at least not by me.
Wednesday, November 07, 2012
7 Reasons the Republicans Lost and Deserved It
No one person or party represents all of my political views. I agree with Democrats on some issues, Republicans on others, and Libertarians on still others. On yet other issues, no one represents my views.
Nevertheless, my hatred for the political system doesn't blind me to the problems of the Republican party. Here are seven reasons why they lost this election.
1. They made religion center stage.
Official debates and stump speeches were mostly about the economy and jobs, but Republican talking points that made headlines were about God, God, and God. Many Republicans apparently believe that America is defined by its bible-thumping conservatives. It isn't.
America left Europe because they wanted to be free and independent from religion-based government. Over and over some Republicans want to shove Christianity down our throats, from public prayer, to restricted abortion, to who can marry, to the ten commandments, etc etc. Americans do not want religion mixed with government. They want religion to be personal choice.
2. They threatened abortion and contraception
A direct result of the first point, too many Republicans talked about abortion. The idea that 40 years after Roe v Wade American women could lose basic health and human rights was enough to scare millions of women into the Democrats' pocket.
I get that you honestly believe that a fetus is a human; but that's your belief, and it's a religious belief, it's not everyone's belief. If you restrict abortion because of your narrow view of the bible, you become like the fundamentalist Islamic nations that you so rail against.
3. They are out of touch regarding gay rights.
Also a direct result of the first point, the right for all people to consensual love or sex with whomever they want is inevitable and it's sacred. The argument that someone else's private life diminishes some so-called institution of marriage is simply insane. When all of your arguments are based on the bible, you should stay out of American politics.
The arguments against gay rights echo the arguments against civil rights for blacks, and they will not endure.
4. They cling to the trickle down economic model with no government oversight.
The notion that its good to have rich people because they give money to poor people has been proven wrong again and again, but that's still the core Republican economic philosophy. The wealth gap gets bigger and bigger every year.
Too many large companies drive out competition from struggling small companies using monopolistic practices rather than by out-competing. Too many companies practice short term gain without considering human consequences. Republicans push for an economy that acts like a "business", which perforce leaves some people cut adrift; that might work for a business, but it's not a moral position for a country.
5. They clung to made-up pictures of the economy and foreign policy.
Too many Republican talking points about the dire straights of the economy just weren't true. No single number defines the economy. Unemployment is up, but so are jobs. The debt is up but so is manufacturing. Poverty is up but so is consumer confidence.
The same argument applies to foreign relations. America was hated by some and the target of attacks under Bush; it was hated by some and targeted by less attacks under Obama. The Japanese and French now view the US more favorably, the Egyptians and Pakistanis less favorably. Obama is bad for Israel because he has unfriendly relations with Netanyahu and doesn't take the Islamic threat seriously enough; he's good for Israel because he provided record military support and technology like the Iron Dome. So it goes.
Republicans don't seem to be able to handle nuance. They drag out one number, sometimes a made up number, over and over, regardless of the complex reality.
6. They are more defined by what they're against than what they're for.
The Republicans congress is defined by the word "no". They are not seen as a party that unites America. They are seen as politicians who stubbornly cling to every policy, small or large, and never negotiate. They block progress, rather than govern.
We have a country where half the people feel one way and half feel the other way on many issues. It is wrong to insist that every policy go your way. Obama has shown flexibility by conceding some issues and negotiating others. Democrats appear as open to listening. Republicans appear to be intransigent.
Obamacare is perfect example: yeah, it's not great, but the point is not that it's not great, but that Americans want better health care. Republicans are known more for wanting to repeal Obamacare than for introducing something better to take its place; they missed the main point.
Romney was an exception, in that he flip flopped around, making it difficult to know just what to expect from him.
7. They violated Godwin's law.
Godwin's law says that, in any argument, the probability of one party comparing the other party to Hitler or a Nazi becomes more probable the longer the argument continues, and that the party that does so automatically loses the argument. When you come to that point, it means you've run out of the ability to work together to actually solve problems. And you've forgotten what Nazism and Hitler really were.
Sadly, both parties did this during the election campaigning. But the Republicans started all the way back when Obama first took office.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Why I Hate the Olympics
Once upon a time I enjoyed watching some Olympics events like gymnastics. Now I don't care.
1. The IOC has turned what was once grassroots and heartfelt into a moneymaking sponsor-driven ad fest.
They security firms were unable to find enough security personnel needed to secure the games, but they managed to find almost 300 brand enforcers to walk around taping over faucets at local establishments bearing company names that haven't sponsored the event.
Their corporate money-driven greed prevents anyone except NBC, who signed an exclusive contract for over $1 billion, from broadcasting the event so many people didn't get to see it and it wasn't live streamed on the Internet (what was, was plagued with delays and problems). Live events should not HAVE exclusivity contracts; they should be unenforceable. NBC wouldn't have covered the games otherwise?
The IOC has tried to geoblock social media reporting about the event. My ONLY choice for seeing the Olympics is via illegal download (simple, but not interested). Update: Turns out I can see the Olympics on IBA (thanks Bassie).
You can't even mention the word Olympics, the date 2012 and the word games, or any symbology associated with the games without being hit with a lawsuit. A 30 year old Greek restaurant named Olympic Gyro was forced to change its name to "protect the rights" of the corporate sponsors. An 81 year old grandmother making little teddy bears to sell for $1 was shut down.
The IOC went so far as to try to prevent anyone from linking to their site if the link was in a context that wasn't positive (to universal scorn and derision).
Ticket prices range from a mere 15 GBP for cheap seats at events that last 30 minutes to over 700 GBP for good seats in some events. Most seats are 50 GBP or up. (To be fair, there were some 20 GBP seats at the opening ceremony, with other seats ranging as high as 2000 GBP.)
So much for the games of the people.
2. The competition brings out the worst.
Winning is far more important than competing. The World Doping Agency is now an integral part of the IOC, and several athletes have already failed doping tests. Bizarrely, even the players in the mind sports games are subject to doping tests, as if someone playing Chess is ever going to take steroids to win a game!
Never heard of the World Mind Sports Games? They're part of the Olympics, but they don't televise well so no one seems to care.
As for the former humans who now complete, don't even think about it unless you have a ton of money for the computers and science that can analyze your every twitch to sculpt your body and movement into robotic perfection.
Does the competition break down stereotypes and increase world peace? Apparently not, if you consider the recent spate of athletes tossed out of the game for racist tweets. The Lebanese team refused to train near the Israelis and the Iranian team won't compete against them.
Does the competition at least bring pride to their nations? I don't know, but it sure doesn't do anything of importance for them. Did you know that Syria has an Olympic team? Has that registered yet? Who in Syria is going to benefit right now if their team wins or loses?
Does the competition even inspire anyone to exercise? Or do we just live vicariously through those who do?
Countries don't benefit internally from having their players win or lose, and countries don't make peace as a result of the competition.
3. It costs too many resources.
The UK taxpayer has spent more than $14 billion (Sky News reportedly thinks it may end up at over 24 billion GBP) to host the games, and the only one benefiting from that is the IOC and its sponsors. They spent $500,000 just on 17 sandstone toadstools. The people of England could have used that money at this particular time (when they are cutting pensions, sick pay, or simply firing public sector workers). The people lost a vast amount of public space, either destroyed or permanently turned over to corporate ownership. Other countries have spent millions to billions of dollars to send their athletes.
The UK assigned more armed forces to protect the Olympics than they deployed to Afghanistan. Don't these people have anything better to do?
4. It takes up too much media time.
7 rockets aimed at civilians have hit Israel since the start of the Olympics. These were not in response to any activity on Israel's part, just the daily fun time of Islamic militants. Did your news cover that?
The only English language radio I receive here is the BBC, whose reporters appear to be in a continuous state of climax over the games and believe that all their listeners are too.
Around the world, real things are happening; other than a great monetary, privacy, and human rights loss to UK taxpayers and the imaginary importance of winning some games, nothing is happening in London.
Yehuda
P.S. And I didn't even mention the minute of silence controversy. The IOC said that the minute of silence for the Israeli victims of massacre 40 years ago at the Olympics was not appropriate for an Olympic opening ceremony, but the 4 hour ceremony managed to include a minute of silence for people killed in WW1 and WWII. Past Olympics ceremonies have included minutes of silence for those killed on 9/11 and in London on 7/7.
Read: we don't want Arab countries to boycott the Olympics. How about this: tell any country that threatens to boycott the games that they are violating the spirit of the games and then throw them out? Oh right: money.
1. The IOC has turned what was once grassroots and heartfelt into a moneymaking sponsor-driven ad fest.
They security firms were unable to find enough security personnel needed to secure the games, but they managed to find almost 300 brand enforcers to walk around taping over faucets at local establishments bearing company names that haven't sponsored the event.
Their corporate money-driven greed prevents anyone except NBC, who signed an exclusive contract for over $1 billion, from broadcasting the event so many people didn't get to see it and it wasn't live streamed on the Internet (what was, was plagued with delays and problems). Live events should not HAVE exclusivity contracts; they should be unenforceable. NBC wouldn't have covered the games otherwise?
The IOC has tried to geoblock social media reporting about the event. My ONLY choice for seeing the Olympics is via illegal download (simple, but not interested). Update: Turns out I can see the Olympics on IBA (thanks Bassie).
You can't even mention the word Olympics, the date 2012 and the word games, or any symbology associated with the games without being hit with a lawsuit. A 30 year old Greek restaurant named Olympic Gyro was forced to change its name to "protect the rights" of the corporate sponsors. An 81 year old grandmother making little teddy bears to sell for $1 was shut down.
The IOC went so far as to try to prevent anyone from linking to their site if the link was in a context that wasn't positive (to universal scorn and derision).
Ticket prices range from a mere 15 GBP for cheap seats at events that last 30 minutes to over 700 GBP for good seats in some events. Most seats are 50 GBP or up. (To be fair, there were some 20 GBP seats at the opening ceremony, with other seats ranging as high as 2000 GBP.)
So much for the games of the people.
2. The competition brings out the worst.
Winning is far more important than competing. The World Doping Agency is now an integral part of the IOC, and several athletes have already failed doping tests. Bizarrely, even the players in the mind sports games are subject to doping tests, as if someone playing Chess is ever going to take steroids to win a game!
Never heard of the World Mind Sports Games? They're part of the Olympics, but they don't televise well so no one seems to care.
As for the former humans who now complete, don't even think about it unless you have a ton of money for the computers and science that can analyze your every twitch to sculpt your body and movement into robotic perfection.
Does the competition break down stereotypes and increase world peace? Apparently not, if you consider the recent spate of athletes tossed out of the game for racist tweets. The Lebanese team refused to train near the Israelis and the Iranian team won't compete against them.
Does the competition at least bring pride to their nations? I don't know, but it sure doesn't do anything of importance for them. Did you know that Syria has an Olympic team? Has that registered yet? Who in Syria is going to benefit right now if their team wins or loses?
Does the competition even inspire anyone to exercise? Or do we just live vicariously through those who do?
Countries don't benefit internally from having their players win or lose, and countries don't make peace as a result of the competition.
3. It costs too many resources.
The UK taxpayer has spent more than $14 billion (Sky News reportedly thinks it may end up at over 24 billion GBP) to host the games, and the only one benefiting from that is the IOC and its sponsors. They spent $500,000 just on 17 sandstone toadstools. The people of England could have used that money at this particular time (when they are cutting pensions, sick pay, or simply firing public sector workers). The people lost a vast amount of public space, either destroyed or permanently turned over to corporate ownership. Other countries have spent millions to billions of dollars to send their athletes.
The UK assigned more armed forces to protect the Olympics than they deployed to Afghanistan. Don't these people have anything better to do?
4. It takes up too much media time.
7 rockets aimed at civilians have hit Israel since the start of the Olympics. These were not in response to any activity on Israel's part, just the daily fun time of Islamic militants. Did your news cover that?
The only English language radio I receive here is the BBC, whose reporters appear to be in a continuous state of climax over the games and believe that all their listeners are too.
Around the world, real things are happening; other than a great monetary, privacy, and human rights loss to UK taxpayers and the imaginary importance of winning some games, nothing is happening in London.
Yehuda
P.S. And I didn't even mention the minute of silence controversy. The IOC said that the minute of silence for the Israeli victims of massacre 40 years ago at the Olympics was not appropriate for an Olympic opening ceremony, but the 4 hour ceremony managed to include a minute of silence for people killed in WW1 and WWII. Past Olympics ceremonies have included minutes of silence for those killed on 9/11 and in London on 7/7.
Read: we don't want Arab countries to boycott the Olympics. How about this: tell any country that threatens to boycott the games that they are violating the spirit of the games and then throw them out? Oh right: money.
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Last Night's World Have Your Say
A partial transcript, starting about 43:20 :
BBC Moderator: Some of your comments coming in. Actually this is one for, if we can get back through to the the guys in Homs, but maybe Zakar you can respond to this. Yehuda in Israel is listening on line. He says he's moved by the suffering in Syria, wishes he could help, but wondered if Syrians would accept it.
Zakar [some analyst or somthing]: (surprised) From Israel? Uh from the Israeli government? No. Of course not. After you know what they've done to the Palestinians for sixty years and the occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, so no. I don't think any help from Israel is wanted or required.
Moderator: Abu Amar you're back. Were you trying to come in now I think?
Abu Amar [hiding in a basement in Homs, currently under bombardment; trapped with many wounded people and no medicine]: Uh No I'm here right here.
Moderator: Maybe you just missed that uh those comments. A listener from Israel was just asking whether if Syrians would accept the Israeli government's help in this situation.
Abu Amar: N-Never at all. No no not even a single one in the whole Syrian people would agree to to the Israel to intervent in the Syrian uh problem. We we don't agree at all.
... [less than five minutes later, when asked if he would like intervention from the outside in Syria] ...
Abu Amar: [Desperately] The Syrian people is asking for intervention from outside, for example Turkey or Jordan. Anyone can help us now is useful.
BBC Moderator: Some of your comments coming in. Actually this is one for, if we can get back through to the the guys in Homs, but maybe Zakar you can respond to this. Yehuda in Israel is listening on line. He says he's moved by the suffering in Syria, wishes he could help, but wondered if Syrians would accept it.
Zakar [some analyst or somthing]: (surprised) From Israel? Uh from the Israeli government? No. Of course not. After you know what they've done to the Palestinians for sixty years and the occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, so no. I don't think any help from Israel is wanted or required.
Moderator: Abu Amar you're back. Were you trying to come in now I think?
Abu Amar [hiding in a basement in Homs, currently under bombardment; trapped with many wounded people and no medicine]: Uh No I'm here right here.
Moderator: Maybe you just missed that uh those comments. A listener from Israel was just asking whether if Syrians would accept the Israeli government's help in this situation.
Abu Amar: N-Never at all. No no not even a single one in the whole Syrian people would agree to to the Israel to intervent in the Syrian uh problem. We we don't agree at all.
... [less than five minutes later, when asked if he would like intervention from the outside in Syria] ...
Abu Amar: [Desperately] The Syrian people is asking for intervention from outside, for example Turkey or Jordan. Anyone can help us now is useful.
Monday, August 30, 2010
My Little Vacation in the Galil
Rachel organized a small vacation for us in the Galil this weekend. We stayed at the tzimmer (B&B) Ohr Hashachar in Moshav Goren, which is in the Western Galil very close to the Lebanon border. This place costs a bit more than your typical SPNI field school, but it comes with wine and cookies, a jacuzzi for two, free cable TV, privacy, and quiet.
What it did not come with is breakfast or any other meal. We brought our own food for the weekend.
Salient events:
Stopped at Caesarea beach on the way up. I already knew, but let me tell you so that you know: the beach at 12:30 pm on a hot August day in Israel is no fun for sane people. While Rachel frolicked, I found an umbrella at a nearby wedding hall and sat there until security kicked me out.
I needed a minyan to say kaddish, and there is one at Goren. It is Sepharadic, however, which means a siddur with the prayers ordered very differently than how I am used to, as well as continuous chanting in an accented slur, so that I couldn't figure out what prayer they were saying, anyway. Somehow I managed to say kaddish at about the right times, but my kaddish is missing a number of words and phrases that their kaddish has, so I had to keep readjusting my timing to match the other kaddish-sayers. I was tenth man for the minyan on Sunday morning.
Saturday we walked around the forested Park Goren, with a view of Montfort Castle. The experience was occasionally interrupted by people riding dune buggies (they make the engines loud on those things on purpose), but otherwise pleasant. And all while managing to stay within 2000 amot of Goren.
Sunday we visited Kibbutz Hanita, which was Rachel's first home in Israel 24 years ago. She learned Hebrew there for six months and then moved to Jerusalem, and she hadn't been back since she left it. Hanita is right on the border with Lebanon. Hanita, like many other kibbutzim is on the verge of losing its identity as a kibbutz: members now own their own homes and cars, and pretty soon they'll simply be stockholders in the kibbutz industries (contact lenses and plastic coatings, as well as some agriculture).
Hanita's main interest to outsiders is its tower and stockade museum. It holds stories and artifacts about the founding of Hanita and other kibbutzim like it, as well as movies with astoundingly well-preserved video from the time (pre-state). Most impressive is a) how egalitarian we Israelis are and were, with women and men pitching in to do the hard labor, b) how much work so many people put in to the founding of this country, while today we (well, at least me) are a bunch of whiners, and c) how violent and unaccepting the Arabs were then and still are today about this new country that formed in their midst - all the land upon which Hanita was founded was legally purchased, but that didn't seem to matter.
Oops. Forgot to warn you about politics.
What it did not come with is breakfast or any other meal. We brought our own food for the weekend.
Salient events:
Stopped at Caesarea beach on the way up. I already knew, but let me tell you so that you know: the beach at 12:30 pm on a hot August day in Israel is no fun for sane people. While Rachel frolicked, I found an umbrella at a nearby wedding hall and sat there until security kicked me out.
I needed a minyan to say kaddish, and there is one at Goren. It is Sepharadic, however, which means a siddur with the prayers ordered very differently than how I am used to, as well as continuous chanting in an accented slur, so that I couldn't figure out what prayer they were saying, anyway. Somehow I managed to say kaddish at about the right times, but my kaddish is missing a number of words and phrases that their kaddish has, so I had to keep readjusting my timing to match the other kaddish-sayers. I was tenth man for the minyan on Sunday morning.
Saturday we walked around the forested Park Goren, with a view of Montfort Castle. The experience was occasionally interrupted by people riding dune buggies (they make the engines loud on those things on purpose), but otherwise pleasant. And all while managing to stay within 2000 amot of Goren.
Sunday we visited Kibbutz Hanita, which was Rachel's first home in Israel 24 years ago. She learned Hebrew there for six months and then moved to Jerusalem, and she hadn't been back since she left it. Hanita is right on the border with Lebanon. Hanita, like many other kibbutzim is on the verge of losing its identity as a kibbutz: members now own their own homes and cars, and pretty soon they'll simply be stockholders in the kibbutz industries (contact lenses and plastic coatings, as well as some agriculture).
Hanita's main interest to outsiders is its tower and stockade museum. It holds stories and artifacts about the founding of Hanita and other kibbutzim like it, as well as movies with astoundingly well-preserved video from the time (pre-state). Most impressive is a) how egalitarian we Israelis are and were, with women and men pitching in to do the hard labor, b) how much work so many people put in to the founding of this country, while today we (well, at least me) are a bunch of whiners, and c) how violent and unaccepting the Arabs were then and still are today about this new country that formed in their midst - all the land upon which Hanita was founded was legally purchased, but that didn't seem to matter.
Oops. Forgot to warn you about politics.
Saturday, June 05, 2010
Why I Hate Politics, News, and the People Who Generally Talk About Them
Thousands of TV segments, news articles, and blog posts have been written about the Gaza flotilla disaster, and I've yet to see a single one - from the mainstream news to the personal blog - that is anything close to fair and balanced. And I'm not at all surprised.
OK, I'm a little surprised that Boing Boing's coverage is entirely one-sided. But Jon Stewart at the Daily Show is at his usual form, as were hundreds of similarly left-leaning talking heads. Fox news, Michelle Malkin, and hundreds of right-leaning talking heads were also at their usual form.
I'm fairly certain that very few people have seen or read opinions from both sides, except when those opinions are briefly quoted out of context in order to mock and ridicule them. But, even those who write the one-sided pieces, and therefore have read or seen in entirety the articles that they quote out of context in order to mock and ridicule, can not find a single thing with which they can agree on the other side. Isn't that odd?
How is it that a few million people see only cowering civilians, wooden clubs raised in self-defense, and a suffering ruins of a civilization that desperately needs relief, while an entirely different few million people see only trained terrorists using lethal weapons, and a well-fed population whose lack of certain amenities is purely political showmanship?
Isn't it odd that so many millions of people can dismiss EVERY statement, picture, video, argument, and piece of evidence as obviously wrong, completely unjustified, and so absurd that it is worthy of mocking and ridicule? Isn't it odd that these same millions believe every single piece of evidence that supports their own position, entirely support every argument on their side, and find not so much as a strain of credibility in their own positions?
Isn't there one thing you can see that your side did/does wrong, that should be acknowledged and corrected?
OK, I'm a little surprised that Boing Boing's coverage is entirely one-sided. But Jon Stewart at the Daily Show is at his usual form, as were hundreds of similarly left-leaning talking heads. Fox news, Michelle Malkin, and hundreds of right-leaning talking heads were also at their usual form.
I'm fairly certain that very few people have seen or read opinions from both sides, except when those opinions are briefly quoted out of context in order to mock and ridicule them. But, even those who write the one-sided pieces, and therefore have read or seen in entirety the articles that they quote out of context in order to mock and ridicule, can not find a single thing with which they can agree on the other side. Isn't that odd?
How is it that a few million people see only cowering civilians, wooden clubs raised in self-defense, and a suffering ruins of a civilization that desperately needs relief, while an entirely different few million people see only trained terrorists using lethal weapons, and a well-fed population whose lack of certain amenities is purely political showmanship?
Isn't it odd that so many millions of people can dismiss EVERY statement, picture, video, argument, and piece of evidence as obviously wrong, completely unjustified, and so absurd that it is worthy of mocking and ridicule? Isn't it odd that these same millions believe every single piece of evidence that supports their own position, entirely support every argument on their side, and find not so much as a strain of credibility in their own positions?
Isn't there one thing you can see that your side did/does wrong, that should be acknowledged and corrected?
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Scrabble with Rachel / The Gaza Flotilla
Rachel and I had our first Scrabble game since her return. I won by a few points. No bingoes.
Rachel played out her last four tiles to end the game, only to discover that there was a tile left in the bag. She wasn't going to win, anyway, so we just ended.
The Gaza Flotilla
I would write something about the Gaza flotilla, but what's the point? No one knows anything, except a few edited snippets of grainy videos and what the propagandists claim happened, and nobody wants to shut up about it long enough to hear.
Look at the thousands upon thousands of comments on Youtube videos, news articles, and blog posts. Every comment is some idiocy claiming to know exactly what the truth is ("it was international waters", "it was illegal", "it was unjustified", "it was terrorists", "it was a lynch", "it was a massacre", "it was humanitarian supplies", "it was a provocation") and all of them getting their information from one or another side of the propaganda machine, supplemented by their own personal bias.
International law is complicated. Terrorism is complicated. Combating terrorism is complicated. No one knows for sure who hit whom first, what was in the boats, or whether the actions or reactions were justified. Every staged conflict in this region has a history of deliberate media manipulation, photo and video distortion, and outright lies.
The only things we know for certain is that: some of, if not most of, the so-called humanitarian supplies could have been delivered without a floating flotilla, so this was about the blockade, not about the supplies; and that deadly, or potentially deadly, violence appears to have been committed by both parties.
And my saying so isn't going to make a damn bit of difference to anyone, because the anti-Israel machine is already running, and the narrative has already taken over. Soon it will be as much a part of myth as the shooting of Mohammed al-Dura (staged), the massacre in Jenin (didn't happen), or the starvation of the Palestinians in Gaza (they aren't).
Rachel played out her last four tiles to end the game, only to discover that there was a tile left in the bag. She wasn't going to win, anyway, so we just ended.
The Gaza Flotilla
I would write something about the Gaza flotilla, but what's the point? No one knows anything, except a few edited snippets of grainy videos and what the propagandists claim happened, and nobody wants to shut up about it long enough to hear.
Look at the thousands upon thousands of comments on Youtube videos, news articles, and blog posts. Every comment is some idiocy claiming to know exactly what the truth is ("it was international waters", "it was illegal", "it was unjustified", "it was terrorists", "it was a lynch", "it was a massacre", "it was humanitarian supplies", "it was a provocation") and all of them getting their information from one or another side of the propaganda machine, supplemented by their own personal bias.
International law is complicated. Terrorism is complicated. Combating terrorism is complicated. No one knows for sure who hit whom first, what was in the boats, or whether the actions or reactions were justified. Every staged conflict in this region has a history of deliberate media manipulation, photo and video distortion, and outright lies.
The only things we know for certain is that: some of, if not most of, the so-called humanitarian supplies could have been delivered without a floating flotilla, so this was about the blockade, not about the supplies; and that deadly, or potentially deadly, violence appears to have been committed by both parties.
And my saying so isn't going to make a damn bit of difference to anyone, because the anti-Israel machine is already running, and the narrative has already taken over. Soon it will be as much a part of myth as the shooting of Mohammed al-Dura (staged), the massacre in Jenin (didn't happen), or the starvation of the Palestinians in Gaza (they aren't).
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Up Close With Peter Yarrow (Peter, Paul, and Mary) in Concert
Tuesday night I went with my mother, daughter Tal, and her friend Josh to hear Peter Yarrow play and talk at a private concert at the ZOA House in Tel Aviv.
Who is Peter Yarrow?
Peter Yarrow is best known as the Peter in Peter, Paul, and Mary aka PPM. If you don't know their names, I pity you, but even so you probably know the music that they made famous: Puff the Magic Dragon (co-written by Peter), Blowing in the Wind, Leaving on a Jet Plane, Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, If I Had a Hammer, and so many more. Anyone who's ever been to camp must have sung their songs, even now that it's 50 years on from the time Peter stood up to sing.
Why Was He in Israel?
Peter was in Israel to promote a project he has been working on for ten years now called Operation Respect, an organization aimed at wiping out childhood bullying and fostering dialog and communication among children. Hundreds of thousands of children are afraid to go to schools for this reason, and suicide is the first or second highest cause of death in teenagers in the U.S., depending on where you look. And let's not forget the numerous massacres in schools in recent years.
Peter is hoping that a pilot project will begin in 4 to 6 Israeli schools in the near future, and that it will spread. He's not looking to impose solutions onto our national woes, just to provide one more possible tool.
So I expected a bit of a lecture along with the concert, and wouldn't even have been surprised to see slide show or video presentation (but we didn't get one).
Peter was supposed to be here with his daughter Bethany, a talented folk and blues performer in her own right, but she (or her son) suddenly developed a bad cold. He also told us that Mary Travers was in a wheelchair, still recovering from both a certain kind of leukemia and the chemotherapy needed to cure it. She's still singing, though.
The Concert
Peter looked pretty good. He's showing his years in his face, and his voice now wobbles a bit, but he's still charismatic, strong, determined, touching, and a joy to listen to. In an hour and a half, he performed 8 full-length songs and one verse from a ninth. He spoke passionately about his concerns for children, peace, and so on; a bit too long, actually. But there is nothing compared to hearing the original songs from the original singers.
I wondered how he was going to sing harmony without his co-singers, but, since everyone in the audience knew all the songs, he was able to sing harmony with the audience.
The Set
1. Puff the Magic Dragon
Peter cannot play a concert without playing this song, a lesson he learned at least thirty or forty years ago. In fact, he's now moved it up to the beginning of his concerts, so that if there are any wee ones in the audience, they won't miss it by the time they've fallen asleep.
Tal was already quite moved by the end of this first song.
2. Don't Laugh at Me
This is the song that inspired his new project. It's a country song about childhood bullying, and about the humanity in all of us. To tell you the truth, it's a great song, but not THAT great a song, or maybe Peter didn't quite capture it perfectly; I believe he forgot a verse. But the message is undeniable.
3. Leaving on a Jet Plane
He told an anecdote here about singing this at the Republican National Convention, or some similar Republican meeting. Given his colorful Democratic history, he was facing a crowd of crossed-arms and suspicious glances. So he gave extra oomph to the lines "There's so many times I've let you down / So many times I've played around / I tell you now, it don't mean a thing ..."
He won them over by the end of it.
4. Some Walls
Peter is a life-long Israel supporter, but it's not surprising to hear he's not happy about the security wall, in the difficulty it poses to Palestinians meeting Israelis and each other. I can agree to disagree with him on this one, and it didn't stop me from loving this song. This was Tal's favorite.
After "Some Walls", Peter invited up Shlomi Goldenberg, who played with him on all the remaining songs (using either alto or soprano saxophones).
5. 500 Miles
Played a little too slowly, with the sax a little too loud (but great sax).
6. Blowing in the Wind
Lovely. Peter cannot help but be sincere and passionate when he sings.
After the song, Tal's friend Josh had clapped so enthusiastically, that Peter singled him out by asking his age (15) and asking him to stand up as a representative of the absence of cynicism in today's youth, to audience applause.
7. Gospel and Folk Medley
A medley of: Trouble in Mind, This Little Light of Mine, Down By the Waterside, I Woke Up This Morning, This Land is Your Land, and This Little Light of Mine (reprise).
Encore
Peter related driving with an Arab taxi driver to an Israeli checkpoint and being met by a young Israeli soldier woman who looked a lot like his daughter. The woman made them open the taxi's trunk and then clutched her gun and tensed up when she saw a closed guitar case. She made them open it.
When Peter opened it, he took it out and played "Erev Shel Shoshanim" for her - while relating the story to us, he played the first verse and chorus for us, too.
He continued with the anecdote: The soldier said to him, "You play nice. Have you ever sung on stage?" Then she got a picture with him. Peter was struck by how quickly people can move from tensed for war to "Can I have a picture with you?"
8. If I Had a Hammer
It may be corny to sing this song with your friends at home, but there's nothing corny about singing it out loud with the guy who sang it 45 years ago at the March on Washington, before Martin Luther King, Jr gave his famous I Have a Dream speech.
Touching Peter
After the concert, we hung out a little until Peter came out, and I introduced him to my mom (who heard him live 50 years ago, before he was with Paul and Mary), Tal, and Josh. Peter was very warm and talked with us with his hand on my shoulder. He called Tal a sweetie-poop (I think it was a compliment).
And yes, I asked: No, Peter does not play any board or card games, claiming to be far too busy.
Who is Peter Yarrow?
Peter Yarrow is best known as the Peter in Peter, Paul, and Mary aka PPM. If you don't know their names, I pity you, but even so you probably know the music that they made famous: Puff the Magic Dragon (co-written by Peter), Blowing in the Wind, Leaving on a Jet Plane, Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, If I Had a Hammer, and so many more. Anyone who's ever been to camp must have sung their songs, even now that it's 50 years on from the time Peter stood up to sing.
Why Was He in Israel?
Peter was in Israel to promote a project he has been working on for ten years now called Operation Respect, an organization aimed at wiping out childhood bullying and fostering dialog and communication among children. Hundreds of thousands of children are afraid to go to schools for this reason, and suicide is the first or second highest cause of death in teenagers in the U.S., depending on where you look. And let's not forget the numerous massacres in schools in recent years.
Peter is hoping that a pilot project will begin in 4 to 6 Israeli schools in the near future, and that it will spread. He's not looking to impose solutions onto our national woes, just to provide one more possible tool.
So I expected a bit of a lecture along with the concert, and wouldn't even have been surprised to see slide show or video presentation (but we didn't get one).
Peter was supposed to be here with his daughter Bethany, a talented folk and blues performer in her own right, but she (or her son) suddenly developed a bad cold. He also told us that Mary Travers was in a wheelchair, still recovering from both a certain kind of leukemia and the chemotherapy needed to cure it. She's still singing, though.
The Concert
Peter looked pretty good. He's showing his years in his face, and his voice now wobbles a bit, but he's still charismatic, strong, determined, touching, and a joy to listen to. In an hour and a half, he performed 8 full-length songs and one verse from a ninth. He spoke passionately about his concerns for children, peace, and so on; a bit too long, actually. But there is nothing compared to hearing the original songs from the original singers.
I wondered how he was going to sing harmony without his co-singers, but, since everyone in the audience knew all the songs, he was able to sing harmony with the audience.
The Set
1. Puff the Magic Dragon
Peter cannot play a concert without playing this song, a lesson he learned at least thirty or forty years ago. In fact, he's now moved it up to the beginning of his concerts, so that if there are any wee ones in the audience, they won't miss it by the time they've fallen asleep.
Tal was already quite moved by the end of this first song.
2. Don't Laugh at Me
This is the song that inspired his new project. It's a country song about childhood bullying, and about the humanity in all of us. To tell you the truth, it's a great song, but not THAT great a song, or maybe Peter didn't quite capture it perfectly; I believe he forgot a verse. But the message is undeniable.
3. Leaving on a Jet Plane
He told an anecdote here about singing this at the Republican National Convention, or some similar Republican meeting. Given his colorful Democratic history, he was facing a crowd of crossed-arms and suspicious glances. So he gave extra oomph to the lines "There's so many times I've let you down / So many times I've played around / I tell you now, it don't mean a thing ..."
He won them over by the end of it.
4. Some Walls
Peter is a life-long Israel supporter, but it's not surprising to hear he's not happy about the security wall, in the difficulty it poses to Palestinians meeting Israelis and each other. I can agree to disagree with him on this one, and it didn't stop me from loving this song. This was Tal's favorite.
After "Some Walls", Peter invited up Shlomi Goldenberg, who played with him on all the remaining songs (using either alto or soprano saxophones).
5. 500 Miles
Played a little too slowly, with the sax a little too loud (but great sax).
6. Blowing in the Wind
Lovely. Peter cannot help but be sincere and passionate when he sings.
After the song, Tal's friend Josh had clapped so enthusiastically, that Peter singled him out by asking his age (15) and asking him to stand up as a representative of the absence of cynicism in today's youth, to audience applause.
7. Gospel and Folk Medley
A medley of: Trouble in Mind, This Little Light of Mine, Down By the Waterside, I Woke Up This Morning, This Land is Your Land, and This Little Light of Mine (reprise).
Encore
Peter related driving with an Arab taxi driver to an Israeli checkpoint and being met by a young Israeli soldier woman who looked a lot like his daughter. The woman made them open the taxi's trunk and then clutched her gun and tensed up when she saw a closed guitar case. She made them open it.
When Peter opened it, he took it out and played "Erev Shel Shoshanim" for her - while relating the story to us, he played the first verse and chorus for us, too.
He continued with the anecdote: The soldier said to him, "You play nice. Have you ever sung on stage?" Then she got a picture with him. Peter was struck by how quickly people can move from tensed for war to "Can I have a picture with you?"
8. If I Had a Hammer
It may be corny to sing this song with your friends at home, but there's nothing corny about singing it out loud with the guy who sang it 45 years ago at the March on Washington, before Martin Luther King, Jr gave his famous I Have a Dream speech.
Touching Peter
After the concert, we hung out a little until Peter came out, and I introduced him to my mom (who heard him live 50 years ago, before he was with Paul and Mary), Tal, and Josh. Peter was very warm and talked with us with his hand on my shoulder. He called Tal a sweetie-poop (I think it was a compliment).
And yes, I asked: No, Peter does not play any board or card games, claiming to be far too busy.
Monday, March 30, 2009
From Poland to Israel to Hip Hop Poetry
My son (second on the left, bushy red beard) just returned from a trip to Poland, a trip taken by thousands of Israeli students each year. Some unknown number of Diaspora Jewish kids also do the trip, though they combine it with a followup trip to Israel.
The trip is designed to make real the stories they already know about their heritage: the lost Jewish communities of Europe, and the sickening devastation caused by the Holocaust which occurred while so many others blamed the Jews or turned away. The trip to Poland is unforgettable, as is the return to a vibrant life that the Jews have miraculously built for themselves in Israel.
We're solidly into the second generation away from the Holocaust. My father and grandfather left Germany in 1939; my father was two years old. This is my son's grandfather and great-grandfather. The Poles who now live in Poland are similarly two or three generations away from the perpetrators of these events.
They may be removed from these events, but not from the possibility of their recurrence. The children making this trip were a knife's edge away from never having been born to make it. Many of them will be going into the Israeli army, facing enemies who are just as determined to end their own lives.
Various nations of the world, who still treat their own enemies with rape, torture, and wholesale slaughter, indiscriminately "softening" battlefields with shock and awe, razing remnants of enemy cultures to the ground with music and blood-lust, keep the media headlines busy with rumors of a few moral lapses done by one or two individual Israelis, ignoring the many thousands of acts by thousands of similar Israelis of charity and care to enemy civilians at the very real risk to their own lives, ignoring the deliberate efforts still being made to finish what was left unfinished. Doesn't surprise me much; keeps them from having to face the truth about themselves.
I haven't heard my son's story about his trip, yet, as he has gone up north to walk the land with friends of his who couldn't make the Poland trip. I don't think he's slept in a week.
But today's Jews are no longer found in the ghettos of Europe or the barbed wire of concentration and death camps. They're building businesses, making movies, making science, writing, singing, dancing, helping the poor and sick in every country around the world.
Vanessa Hidary says it:
Or catch a Taglit-Birthright Monologues show.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
A Moment of Politics
I guess I must, briefly, ...
For hundreds of posts on the current Gaza war, you can check out Jack's roundup posts.
If you want to read just one post as to what's really going on, read this (part 1).
Honestly, I experience no surprise that the entire world and its media can do nothing but worry about faked pictures, false news, and one-sided human tragedy stories as they come out of Gaza, all the while having ignored three years of rockets, shooting, bombings, and daily human tragedies endured on the Israeli side.
I find it bewildering that so many pro-Israeli bloggers are surprised by this, however. When did they think the world changed? Or grew memory cells? Or gained perspective?
That is all. Back to gaming.
Yehuda
For hundreds of posts on the current Gaza war, you can check out Jack's roundup posts.
If you want to read just one post as to what's really going on, read this (part 1).
Honestly, I experience no surprise that the entire world and its media can do nothing but worry about faked pictures, false news, and one-sided human tragedy stories as they come out of Gaza, all the while having ignored three years of rockets, shooting, bombings, and daily human tragedies endured on the Israeli side.
I find it bewildering that so many pro-Israeli bloggers are surprised by this, however. When did they think the world changed? Or grew memory cells? Or gained perspective?
That is all. Back to gaming.
Yehuda
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world
"I vow that we will avenge the deaths of Gabi and Rivki," announced Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, vice chairman of Chabad's educational arm, from New York, referring to Mumbai emissaries Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka.F#%ing Jews.
"But not with AK-47s, not with grenades and tanks. We will take revenge in a different way," Kotlarsky said.
"We will add light. We will add good deeds. We will make sure that there is not one Jewish man who does not put on tefillin. We will make sure that there is not one Jewish woman who does not light candles."
- at the funeral (source)
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Barack Obama Can't Do it Without You
Change isn't going to happen by watching the president to see if change happens. The change we wanted was change within ourselves. No president can do that. We have to do it. You have to do it.
Want politics to be different? Stop creating and listening to attacks on politicians.
Stop giving support to those that create unending steams of trash talk: from The Daily Kos on the left to Michelle Malkin on the right. They have many important and intelligent things to say, but they are hidden amid an endless stream of attacks on their opponents.
Want media to be different? Stop creating, watching, and passing around cruelty, pranks, bad taste, and embarrassment. Turn off those channels. Vote with your ear and eyes.
Want people to be different? Be different. Be kinder, listen more, help more. If Obama's government is going to make a difference, it needs 250,000,000 volunteers to make it different. Obama's not going to make the world different while you're sitting back to watch to see if it happens. You're the difference that you were voting for. He can't do it; you have to do it.
Clean your street up. Fix your leaky faucets. Walk or bike more. Buy less processed foods. Smile. Make charity a habit. Volunteer. Reduce, recycle, reuse, resell. Learn. Teach.
Be the example you've been waiting for.
Want politics to be different? Stop creating and listening to attacks on politicians.
Stop giving support to those that create unending steams of trash talk: from The Daily Kos on the left to Michelle Malkin on the right. They have many important and intelligent things to say, but they are hidden amid an endless stream of attacks on their opponents.
Want media to be different? Stop creating, watching, and passing around cruelty, pranks, bad taste, and embarrassment. Turn off those channels. Vote with your ear and eyes.
Want people to be different? Be different. Be kinder, listen more, help more. If Obama's government is going to make a difference, it needs 250,000,000 volunteers to make it different. Obama's not going to make the world different while you're sitting back to watch to see if it happens. You're the difference that you were voting for. He can't do it; you have to do it.
Clean your street up. Fix your leaky faucets. Walk or bike more. Buy less processed foods. Smile. Make charity a habit. Volunteer. Reduce, recycle, reuse, resell. Learn. Teach.
Be the example you've been waiting for.
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Downtown in Jerusalem
Here I am in downtown Jerusalem on Emek Refaim, leeching a connection outside of Masryk and listening to the bands tune up for an annual free concert / fair / food festival in honor of something or other.
I've never live-blogged, and I doubt I'll start now. I'm just waiting for my daughter to show up.
Applause Kills Conversation
I was listening to a BBC political discussion. Panel of five insiders across the political spectrum, and an audience of a hundred or so students. It was an hour long.
In the first five minutes, the questions were intelligent and the responses from the panel equally so; long and full of substance. Then the applause started.
It wasn't an immediate shift, but a few minutes after the first applause came the next applause. From then on, bouts of applause followed every thirty to forty seconds.
It wasn't that the panelists became more brilliant. Quite the opposite. As the applause became more frequent, the panelists became worse: more polarized, more sound bites, more extreme, less nuanced, more throwing down gauntlets. It was a feedback of descending value.
This is the death of political conversation: applause. This is why politics are the way they are: we are trying to win, rather than to inform. Impress rather than convince. Steal elections, rather than implement what the majority think is correct. The audience responds to simplistic sound bytes and fear, the politicians win by fortunately timed approval.
There are going to be a lot of people waking up on November 5 to find that the world hasn't changed much. Governments, problems, opinions, wars, and economies tend to move slowly, even with the occasional rapid descent into chaos. Save your applause for later.
I've never live-blogged, and I doubt I'll start now. I'm just waiting for my daughter to show up.
Applause Kills Conversation
I was listening to a BBC political discussion. Panel of five insiders across the political spectrum, and an audience of a hundred or so students. It was an hour long.
In the first five minutes, the questions were intelligent and the responses from the panel equally so; long and full of substance. Then the applause started.
It wasn't an immediate shift, but a few minutes after the first applause came the next applause. From then on, bouts of applause followed every thirty to forty seconds.
It wasn't that the panelists became more brilliant. Quite the opposite. As the applause became more frequent, the panelists became worse: more polarized, more sound bites, more extreme, less nuanced, more throwing down gauntlets. It was a feedback of descending value.
This is the death of political conversation: applause. This is why politics are the way they are: we are trying to win, rather than to inform. Impress rather than convince. Steal elections, rather than implement what the majority think is correct. The audience responds to simplistic sound bytes and fear, the politicians win by fortunately timed approval.
There are going to be a lot of people waking up on November 5 to find that the world hasn't changed much. Governments, problems, opinions, wars, and economies tend to move slowly, even with the occasional rapid descent into chaos. Save your applause for later.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Bloggers and Pundits: Stop Spreading Fear
A campaign must be about issues, not fear. It must be about what some guy or gal is going to do over the next four years.
Instead of comparing the facts about policies and issues, left bloggers spend pages and pages on every gaffe, mistake, bad association, lie, and so on that McCain or Palin does or did.
Instead of comparing the facts about policies and issues, right bloggers spend pages and pages on every gaffe, mistake, bad association, lie, and so on that Obama or Biden does or did.
What the hell is wrong with you people? Of course fear works. People are ignorant and fears prey on them. So do guns, blackmail and bribery. But civilized people are supposed to be above disgusting tactics such as these. If you're smart enough to read and write an opinion, you're smart enough not to resort to one-sided political coverage. You complain about the low level of political discourse, and you're the one continuing it.
In the words of Bob Newhart, Stop It. Just stop it.
Lefties, I can't stand Bush's foreign or domestic policies either, but most people in America aren't yet dead, sick or poor. Four more years of similar policies aren't going to "destroy the country". You may not like McCain's policies. But is he really going to run the country into the ground out of stubbornness? You think he hates America?
McCain is a gentleman and a decent man as far as I can tell. He has political experience - not that experience means much if I don't like the policies that he bases on this experience. When he speaks, he generally exceeds my expectations. I really don't care if he gave political favors to friends of his ten years ago.
Righties, you may not like Obama's policies, but for goodness sake. He's not in league with terrorists, he's not going to drive the country into the ground, and he's not going to let terrorism run wild. He loves America and he supports Israel, just like nearly every other member of the government does.
He has different policies which may not work, but they don't include watching the world go to pieces and doing nothing about it. If things get to crisis levels, even he can change course. I really don't care if he was friends with a Palestinian sympathizer five years ago.
Argue about the issues and elect the one with better policies. Stop harping on their bad friends and colleagues, slipups, mistakes, gaffes, and labels. Sure, most votes are going to be cast because one's black and the other's white, one's a socialist, one's a terrorist, one's an old guy, one's out of touch, one's this, or one's that. That's because most of the people writing or talking about the election are not doing their job.
Instead of comparing the facts about policies and issues, left bloggers spend pages and pages on every gaffe, mistake, bad association, lie, and so on that McCain or Palin does or did.
Instead of comparing the facts about policies and issues, right bloggers spend pages and pages on every gaffe, mistake, bad association, lie, and so on that Obama or Biden does or did.
What the hell is wrong with you people? Of course fear works. People are ignorant and fears prey on them. So do guns, blackmail and bribery. But civilized people are supposed to be above disgusting tactics such as these. If you're smart enough to read and write an opinion, you're smart enough not to resort to one-sided political coverage. You complain about the low level of political discourse, and you're the one continuing it.
In the words of Bob Newhart, Stop It. Just stop it.
Lefties, I can't stand Bush's foreign or domestic policies either, but most people in America aren't yet dead, sick or poor. Four more years of similar policies aren't going to "destroy the country". You may not like McCain's policies. But is he really going to run the country into the ground out of stubbornness? You think he hates America?
McCain is a gentleman and a decent man as far as I can tell. He has political experience - not that experience means much if I don't like the policies that he bases on this experience. When he speaks, he generally exceeds my expectations. I really don't care if he gave political favors to friends of his ten years ago.
Righties, you may not like Obama's policies, but for goodness sake. He's not in league with terrorists, he's not going to drive the country into the ground, and he's not going to let terrorism run wild. He loves America and he supports Israel, just like nearly every other member of the government does.
He has different policies which may not work, but they don't include watching the world go to pieces and doing nothing about it. If things get to crisis levels, even he can change course. I really don't care if he was friends with a Palestinian sympathizer five years ago.
Argue about the issues and elect the one with better policies. Stop harping on their bad friends and colleagues, slipups, mistakes, gaffes, and labels. Sure, most votes are going to be cast because one's black and the other's white, one's a socialist, one's a terrorist, one's an old guy, one's out of touch, one's this, or one's that. That's because most of the people writing or talking about the election are not doing their job.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Why Top Earners Earn More
I've always been fascinated with reports on how the top 1% or 10% of people earn as much as the bottom 10% or 50%. I don't see how this is news.
If you take 100 people, and each earns $1, $2, $3, ... $100, i.e. a perfectly flat distribution, then the top earner earns as much as the bottom 13. The top 10 earn as much the bottom 44.
This is because the top earner earns 100 times what the bottom one does. If the top earner earns only 5 times what the bottom one does, i.e. the salaries go from $100 to $500 in steps of $4 (and change), then the top earner earns as much as the bottom 4, and the top 10 as much as the bottom 29.
This assumes a flat distribution. With a natural bell curve, we end up somewhere back to something that looks more like the first case: the top earner is going to earn more than a boat load of people at the bottom. This makes sense.
This doesn't sit well with a lot of people. Either it's because the top earner is presumed to have acquired his wealth/income through unfairly distributed luck, childbirth, or access to resources, or because the top earner should be paying more to help society based on his income.
If everyone paid 10% of his income to taxes, then the top earner is paying 100, or 5, times more than the lowest earner. More is demanded, because even after this payment the richest should be able to afford more. Presumably, this more isn't so much so that, after paying, the richest earner takes home the same amount as the poorest.
So a "fair" amount is enough so that less well-to-do, less lucky, or less hard working people feel that the rich person has contributed more in both absolute and percentage terms, but not so much so that the rich person throws up his hands and says "why bother?" This "fair" amount is going to leave the rich person still richer than anyone else, by several multiples.
So if the highest earning person earns XXX% more than the lowest, or earns as much as X number of lowest earning people, does that mean that something is wrong? Is our goal to make the income of the highest and lowest earners as close as possible? Or to make the life of the lowest earners as good as possible?
Yehuda
If you take 100 people, and each earns $1, $2, $3, ... $100, i.e. a perfectly flat distribution, then the top earner earns as much as the bottom 13. The top 10 earn as much the bottom 44.
This is because the top earner earns 100 times what the bottom one does. If the top earner earns only 5 times what the bottom one does, i.e. the salaries go from $100 to $500 in steps of $4 (and change), then the top earner earns as much as the bottom 4, and the top 10 as much as the bottom 29.
This assumes a flat distribution. With a natural bell curve, we end up somewhere back to something that looks more like the first case: the top earner is going to earn more than a boat load of people at the bottom. This makes sense.
This doesn't sit well with a lot of people. Either it's because the top earner is presumed to have acquired his wealth/income through unfairly distributed luck, childbirth, or access to resources, or because the top earner should be paying more to help society based on his income.
If everyone paid 10% of his income to taxes, then the top earner is paying 100, or 5, times more than the lowest earner. More is demanded, because even after this payment the richest should be able to afford more. Presumably, this more isn't so much so that, after paying, the richest earner takes home the same amount as the poorest.
So a "fair" amount is enough so that less well-to-do, less lucky, or less hard working people feel that the rich person has contributed more in both absolute and percentage terms, but not so much so that the rich person throws up his hands and says "why bother?" This "fair" amount is going to leave the rich person still richer than anyone else, by several multiples.
So if the highest earning person earns XXX% more than the lowest, or earns as much as X number of lowest earning people, does that mean that something is wrong? Is our goal to make the income of the highest and lowest earners as close as possible? Or to make the life of the lowest earners as good as possible?
Yehuda
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Barack Obama on Board Games
The following is a guest post by Barack Obama:
We can accept games that breed division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can play games only as spectacle – as we did in the Halo 3 release – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did with Super Columbine Massacre - or as fodder for the nightly news, as we do with Bully. We can show these violent games on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that Grand Theft Auto has artistic content or sympathize with its publisher, Rockstar Games. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing Manhunt 2, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his past stance on Mortal Kombat.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other video game. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the new board games that are providing for the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn to sit around a table together and discuss strategy; that those kids who don’t look like us are in somebody else’s game group. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in the skills of placing the robber, managing the castillo, and choosing which cards to discard to settle a non-military world. Not this time.
Barack Obama
April 1, 2008
We can accept games that breed division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can play games only as spectacle – as we did in the Halo 3 release – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did with Super Columbine Massacre - or as fodder for the nightly news, as we do with Bully. We can show these violent games on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that Grand Theft Auto has artistic content or sympathize with its publisher, Rockstar Games. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing Manhunt 2, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his past stance on Mortal Kombat.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other video game. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the new board games that are providing for the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn to sit around a table together and discuss strategy; that those kids who don’t look like us are in somebody else’s game group. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in the skills of placing the robber, managing the castillo, and choosing which cards to discard to settle a non-military world. Not this time.
Barack Obama
April 1, 2008
Friday, November 30, 2007
Reading, Writing, and Hating
My step-son is in Toronto this year with my wife. He's smart and independent, and as a result, never quite fit in with the traditional educational system.
Last school year in Israel, in 11th grade, he simply had enough, quit school and became a goatherd out in the West Bank for several months. In truth, the most important criterion for him about school is a good social environment. He hates cliques, pretenders, politics, ... basically anything other than kids who are straightforwards and nice.
So it was a challenge for my wife to find him a school in Toronto for the year that he would be there. Rachel eventually settled on Toronto's The Student School.
The Student School is an alternative school stemming from the student-empowering school movement in the 1970s (and before) that included Summerhill (also in Toronto). Students get to vote on school policies, the curriculum has unusual courses, and it organizes some unusual activities, such as "Purchasing a goat for a Rwandan village". Wikipedia's entry on the school mysteriously lists the likes of Cher as former teachers, without any further information.
My step-son was excited about it until after the first week, at which point he realized that he wasn't making any friends. He just didn't have anything in common with them. After a month or so he was again beginning to resist going to school.
That's when the trouble began.
A Lebanese student thoughtfully brought to school a Palestinian propaganda video (sorry, I don't remember which one) which the entire class watched.
We heard a little bit about the video from our step-son, and it sounded like a distorted one-sided view of a complex situation. For instance, the video described how the Palestinians were living peacefully in their own country until the Jews came out of nowhere in 1948 and kicked them all off of their land. Ever since, it's been one Israeli atrocity after another aimed at helpless Palestinians. (This is a second-hand recounting of the film.)
After the video was shown, a proposal was made to introduce a pro-Palestinian campaign into the school activities list, alongside their campaign of letter writing regarding genocide in Darfur. The campaign would include hanging Palestinian flags around the school, letter writing, and so on.
My step-son is pretty shy, and he's only a high-school student, but even so he tried to say something about how there are alternate points of view to this story. His objections were dismissed.
When he asked the principal of the school if there was room to speak about an alternate point of view on the issue, he was informed that opposing points of view on this issue were considered last school year and dismissed; it's too bad he wasn't here last year, but the alternate point of view isn't going to be raised again.
Perhaps it may also be of interest to point out at this point that, according to my step-son, the principal keeps a Palestinian flag on his desk.
My step-son made us promise not to directly confront the school over the issue while he was still there. However, my wife has withdrawn him from the school and he now goes to CHAT, the Toronto Community Hebrew school. The social environment appears to be better, and so far he has more in common with the other students, at least.
Yehuda
Update: My wife would like to clarify and correct my omissions and errors in the above:
Trustee probing anti-Israel programs in Toronto schools (Feb 21, 2008)
Article misleading, trustee claims (Feb 27, 2008)
Last school year in Israel, in 11th grade, he simply had enough, quit school and became a goatherd out in the West Bank for several months. In truth, the most important criterion for him about school is a good social environment. He hates cliques, pretenders, politics, ... basically anything other than kids who are straightforwards and nice.
So it was a challenge for my wife to find him a school in Toronto for the year that he would be there. Rachel eventually settled on Toronto's The Student School.
The Student School is an alternative school stemming from the student-empowering school movement in the 1970s (and before) that included Summerhill (also in Toronto). Students get to vote on school policies, the curriculum has unusual courses, and it organizes some unusual activities, such as "Purchasing a goat for a Rwandan village". Wikipedia's entry on the school mysteriously lists the likes of Cher as former teachers, without any further information.
My step-son was excited about it until after the first week, at which point he realized that he wasn't making any friends. He just didn't have anything in common with them. After a month or so he was again beginning to resist going to school.
That's when the trouble began.
A Lebanese student thoughtfully brought to school a Palestinian propaganda video (sorry, I don't remember which one) which the entire class watched.
We heard a little bit about the video from our step-son, and it sounded like a distorted one-sided view of a complex situation. For instance, the video described how the Palestinians were living peacefully in their own country until the Jews came out of nowhere in 1948 and kicked them all off of their land. Ever since, it's been one Israeli atrocity after another aimed at helpless Palestinians. (This is a second-hand recounting of the film.)
After the video was shown, a proposal was made to introduce a pro-Palestinian campaign into the school activities list, alongside their campaign of letter writing regarding genocide in Darfur. The campaign would include hanging Palestinian flags around the school, letter writing, and so on.
My step-son is pretty shy, and he's only a high-school student, but even so he tried to say something about how there are alternate points of view to this story. His objections were dismissed.
When he asked the principal of the school if there was room to speak about an alternate point of view on the issue, he was informed that opposing points of view on this issue were considered last school year and dismissed; it's too bad he wasn't here last year, but the alternate point of view isn't going to be raised again.
Perhaps it may also be of interest to point out at this point that, according to my step-son, the principal keeps a Palestinian flag on his desk.
My step-son made us promise not to directly confront the school over the issue while he was still there. However, my wife has withdrawn him from the school and he now goes to CHAT, the Toronto Community Hebrew school. The social environment appears to be better, and so far he has more in common with the other students, at least.
Yehuda
Update: My wife would like to clarify and correct my omissions and errors in the above:
The issue is "Stop Israeli Apartheid Now" and it's about boycotting certain organizations/stores like Indigo/Chapters which send charity funds to organizations in Israel.Update: Two articles about this issue have now appeared in the Jewish Tribune:
The posters were all over the school when Eitan arrived. Eitan spoke up against "the cause" in front of all the staff and students of the school, in the monthly school meeting in October. That is when he was dismissed by the principal. In the second meeting in November, the film "Occupation 101" was shown and a movement forwarded to decorate the school with Palestinian flags.
The whole school saw the film but the "flag movement" was voted out. Another Jewish student voiced her discomfort and the policy was not adopted. The one Lebanese student who spear-heads this cause attends no classes at school (although she is registered) and has made it her full-time occupation to monopolize the political direction of the school. Many students and teachers are neutral or even critical.
The problem is that this is a public school, which tax payers are funding and it is a terrible misrepresentation of Israel without any redress. I am contacting the Board of Education in Toronto, even though Eitan is no longer in the school, to make sure they look into this affair and introduce some corrective.
Trustee probing anti-Israel programs in Toronto schools (Feb 21, 2008)
Article misleading, trustee claims (Feb 27, 2008)
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
The Disconnect Between Casual Game Sites and the Women Who Play at Them
Surveys that I've seen indicate that the majority of casual online game players are women. This article citing the Casual Games Association claims that women are an astonishing 74 percent of online casual game buyers.
Apparently, this fact hasn't yet reached the brains of those responsible for online gaming sites.
There are two serious and depressing realties about online gaming as it relates to women:
"Games for girls"
There's nothing inherently wrong with any type of game, whether it's combative, world-building, roleplaying, or makeup. But there's something seriously wrong with casual gaming sites - whose majority of players are women - if the builders think that "games for girls" means the following:
onlygirlsgames.com
games2girls.com
gogirlsonly.com
girlgames5.com
hotgamesforgirls.com
Among this fluff I found a few rays of hope:
girlgamezone.com notes that girls play more than makeup and dress up games, and even complains about the stereotyping. But most of the links are still to these sorts of games.
damegames.com and womengamers.com actually overcome the stereotypes and offer a complete assortment of games.
By the way, the only site labeled "games for boys" had a football game. And I think the label was an accident.
Game sites associated with porn
There are several strata of online gaming sites, each of which encompasses around a third of the sites:
As a result, the vast majority of all game sites lead to adult entertainment sites and either have, or directly link to, flashing pictures of cartoon breast closeups.
As a result, the online game industry is in close league with the online porn industry. I'm sure there are women interested in what the online porn industry has to offer, but I suspect that it is far less than the number interested in the online game industry.
Either the people who build the game portals are unaware of this. Or so much money is made from the links to the animated porn games that they can afford to lose nearly half of their potential audience.
Comparison to board games
A long time ago, board games had the same sexist divisions. There were once games What Shall I Be? for Girls and What Shall I Be? for Boys.
The cover of the game Battleship once pictured a father playing with his son while the wife and daughter cleaned up in the kitchen.
Those days are pretty much gone in board games. It's rather strange that this sexist division now exists in computer games.
Yehuda
Apparently, this fact hasn't yet reached the brains of those responsible for online gaming sites.
There are two serious and depressing realties about online gaming as it relates to women:
"Games for girls"
There's nothing inherently wrong with any type of game, whether it's combative, world-building, roleplaying, or makeup. But there's something seriously wrong with casual gaming sites - whose majority of players are women - if the builders think that "games for girls" means the following:
onlygirlsgames.com
games2girls.com
gogirlsonly.com
girlgames5.com
hotgamesforgirls.com
Among this fluff I found a few rays of hope:
girlgamezone.com notes that girls play more than makeup and dress up games, and even complains about the stereotyping. But most of the links are still to these sorts of games.
damegames.com and womengamers.com actually overcome the stereotypes and offer a complete assortment of games.
By the way, the only site labeled "games for boys" had a football game. And I think the label was an accident.
Game sites associated with porn
There are several strata of online gaming sites, each of which encompasses around a third of the sites:
- Strata one are the major and popular game sites with full communities, as well as publisher and distributor specific sites. These sites treat their visitors with respect.
- Strata two are the endless online game portals which exist only to bring in Google Ad revenue. Most of these are not offensive, although some link to the strata three sites.
- Strata three are the same as strata two, but for some reason a lot more skanky. These sites have flashing animated banners and boxes of barely dresses overdeveloped women. Clicking them leads to adult style animated game sites. Some of these sites also have banner ads for straight out adult entertainment.
As a result, the vast majority of all game sites lead to adult entertainment sites and either have, or directly link to, flashing pictures of cartoon breast closeups.
As a result, the online game industry is in close league with the online porn industry. I'm sure there are women interested in what the online porn industry has to offer, but I suspect that it is far less than the number interested in the online game industry.
Either the people who build the game portals are unaware of this. Or so much money is made from the links to the animated porn games that they can afford to lose nearly half of their potential audience.
Comparison to board games
A long time ago, board games had the same sexist divisions. There were once games What Shall I Be? for Girls and What Shall I Be? for Boys.
The cover of the game Battleship once pictured a father playing with his son while the wife and daughter cleaned up in the kitchen.
Those days are pretty much gone in board games. It's rather strange that this sexist division now exists in computer games.
Yehuda
Monday, September 03, 2007
Fraternizing with the Enemy: Israeli and Palestinian Bloggers Meet
As some of you may know, I sometimes contribute to the Good Neighbors blog. Good Neighbors is written jointly by Israelis, Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Egyptians, Jordanians, and Sudanese.
As everyone knows, many of the governments of each of these parties hates one another; in particular, they all hate Israel, more or less. Furthermore, it is fair to say that most of the citizens of each of these parties hates one another, based on what knowledge they get from their government influenced media.
Nevertheless, people are often like people everywhere, some smarter than others, and some more self-aware than others. In the Middle East's case, there exists an entire undercurrent of people who don't buy into the hate story. They may not like what some foreign government or army does to the citizens of their country, but they also don't get swept up in the fervor of militancy.
The bloggers in this group are one such group of people. Thankfully there are many others like us.
I may be a bit of an unusual example of someone to belong to such a group, as I actually still have quite a number of right-wing beliefs. The only thing that really separates me from a classical right-winger is that I don't believe that suffering on the "other side" is irrelevant. I believe that their own government, and fanatics on "their side", are hugely responsible for this suffering [however, see below], but I don't think it's irrelevant, just because "they're" still trying to kill us, and always will be.
The other Israeli's on the site are, I believe, far-left in one degree or another, which means that they believe that a two-state solution, enacted as soon as possible, has a decent chance of bringing about a peaceful resolution to our current Israeli crisis. I certainly don't believe that.
Anyhoo ...
For some reason or another, Dalia, one of the Palestinian bloggers, suddenly called for a get together yesterday. It was to be our first meeting. As such things go, we ran into a few difficulties.
Of course, anyone outside of the country wasn't going to be able to make it. We couldn't meet in Israel proper, because the Palestinians couldn't go there. There were many places in the PA that we couldn't meet, due to legal and safety concerns.
A meeting in or on the outskirts of Ramallah was suggested, but I refused to meet there, as I am still terrified of what happened to the two Israeli soldiers who were mutilated several years ago. This is despite the fact that I know some Israelis go into and out of Ramallah every day without much difficulty.
Instead, we decided to meet in a location near Har Gilo. But here the Palestinians were terrified to meet me if I was wearing a kippah, which I always wear, for fear of a) being in the crossfire if some crazed fanatic decides to kill me, or b) being assumed to be a collaborator. After some deliberation, I decided to wear a baseball cap. It irks me to have to hide that I'm Jewish. But a small amount of compromise on certain issues is doable.
The Israeli bloggers who were coming were Yael from Step by Step, Tzedek, and me. The Palestinian bloggers were Ramzi and Daliah. Ramzi is a Christian Arab living near Har Gilo in the outskirts of Bethlehem, while Daliah lives in the Ramallah area, I think.
Ramzi picked a cafe where Palestinians and occasionally Jews from Har Gilo congregate. I picked up Yael and Tzedek at the Jerusalem central bus station and took them back to my apartment. I started some chocolate chip muffins thinking they would be ready before we had to leave, but we ended up leaving before they were done.
I took some games with me, naturally, including Backgammon, Checkers, and cards. Only later I realized that I had forgotten the dice for Backgammon. In any case, we didn't end up playing.
Ramzi and Daliah were going to meet us in their car south of the tunnels to Gush Etzion. They couldn't just wait for us at the side of the road. Palestinians sitting in a car at the side of a road are considered suspicious. If soldiers come to check them out, they may get stuck waiting two or three hours, depending on the mood of the soldiers who check them.
So they drove up and down once or twice. With the magic of cellular phones, we eventually met and drove to the cafe.
Everyone else at the cafe was Palestinian. It was obvious that I wasn't, and especially that Yael wasn't, but no one bothered us. We chatted about world politics, blogging, health, and all sorts of things. We took some pictures. I had a coke, the others had coffee.
When it got dark, Ramzi told us that he had already paid, which Yael and I protested. But when we then went to his house, I no longer gave it any mind. I say house, but perhaps palace is more the right word. It was large, stylish, and gorgeous.
Here we met Ramzi's parents. Ramzi's father used to be a doctor in Jerusalem, but was no longer able to work there as of several years ago.
Ramzi's grandfather is an exile from Jerusalem. Ramzi's father still refers to his old house there in the present tense even after 40 years of exile. The house we were in was only built recently and was his way of reconciling to the fact that he knew that they weren't going back.
From Ramzi's parents, I expected and got the usual litany of complaints about the occupation and the wall, and even some conspiracy theories about how the Israelis use the bombings to their advantage, blah blah. So, there were many points about which we disagreed.
On the other hand, I heard some things which I didn't expect. Their complaints were less about the fact of security itself, which they grudgingly understood, but about the apparently senseless acts of humiliation that they suffer.
Palestinians may be stopped and checked, ok. But why for two or three hours? When they are searched, they may be subject to pushing and discourteous behavior for no reason. Their goods are sometimes ruined in the name of searching.
Ramzi's grandfather was held up for over an hour on the way to the hospital while suffering a heart attack because of lack of the proper papers, even though Ramzi's father had them for himself.
And so on and so on.
It was difficult to hear. I still blame the fanatical Muslims for the need for security and checkpoints and searches, but I can't blame them for insulting, rude, and devastating behavior from Israeli soldiers. And these soldiers are my children and brothers. Why would they do that? I guess I've always known that some soldiers act like that and I just dismissed it because I felt that the general guilt falls on the other side. But the issues are separable. You can have security, and not have ill-behavior. You can have checkpoints, and not make it impossible for innocent families to travel to each other when they're not passing anywhere near Jewish neighborhoods. And if you must check them, why not check them courteously and quickly?
My general attitude about the situation's ultimate resolution hasn't changed. Christianity had to undergo a Protestant Reformation in order to change from a fanatical militant religion to the one it is today. It took many many years of bloodshed and schism. The same thing has to happen to Islam. Moderate Islam has to wage war for the hearts and minds of the people against radical Islam. Much blood will have to be shed. It will take generations. There is nothing any Israeli can do - not right, not left - to make peace with radical Islam.
I don't believe in hope. I think hope is the cause of our suffering. So long as people hope that they can achieve victory, there will be no surrender to peace. I want more hopelessness and willingness to compromise. Instead of useless politics, I believe in getting to work. I can't make peace with every Muslim, but I can continue to treat well and courteously everyone who treats me with respect. I can't trust absolutely - one never knows when the friend you make will come into the hands of someone who threatens to kill his entire family unless he goes out and kills a Jew. But I don't have to let that possibility make me indifferent to the humanity that exists on the other side.
When all was said and done, Ramzi was just like any Israeli guy, and Daliah was like any Israeli woman. Except that they weren't Israeli.
It was also nice to meet Yael and Tzedek face to face finally. I ended up having to leave early to return to my daughter at home, while Yael and Tzedek stayed to look around Bethlehem some more.
Oh, by the way, Yael: the muffins were great. Really, really great.
Yehuda
Update: corrected Tzedek's name.
As everyone knows, many of the governments of each of these parties hates one another; in particular, they all hate Israel, more or less. Furthermore, it is fair to say that most of the citizens of each of these parties hates one another, based on what knowledge they get from their government influenced media.
Nevertheless, people are often like people everywhere, some smarter than others, and some more self-aware than others. In the Middle East's case, there exists an entire undercurrent of people who don't buy into the hate story. They may not like what some foreign government or army does to the citizens of their country, but they also don't get swept up in the fervor of militancy.
The bloggers in this group are one such group of people. Thankfully there are many others like us.
I may be a bit of an unusual example of someone to belong to such a group, as I actually still have quite a number of right-wing beliefs. The only thing that really separates me from a classical right-winger is that I don't believe that suffering on the "other side" is irrelevant. I believe that their own government, and fanatics on "their side", are hugely responsible for this suffering [however, see below], but I don't think it's irrelevant, just because "they're" still trying to kill us, and always will be.
The other Israeli's on the site are, I believe, far-left in one degree or another, which means that they believe that a two-state solution, enacted as soon as possible, has a decent chance of bringing about a peaceful resolution to our current Israeli crisis. I certainly don't believe that.
Anyhoo ...
For some reason or another, Dalia, one of the Palestinian bloggers, suddenly called for a get together yesterday. It was to be our first meeting. As such things go, we ran into a few difficulties.
Of course, anyone outside of the country wasn't going to be able to make it. We couldn't meet in Israel proper, because the Palestinians couldn't go there. There were many places in the PA that we couldn't meet, due to legal and safety concerns.
A meeting in or on the outskirts of Ramallah was suggested, but I refused to meet there, as I am still terrified of what happened to the two Israeli soldiers who were mutilated several years ago. This is despite the fact that I know some Israelis go into and out of Ramallah every day without much difficulty.
Instead, we decided to meet in a location near Har Gilo. But here the Palestinians were terrified to meet me if I was wearing a kippah, which I always wear, for fear of a) being in the crossfire if some crazed fanatic decides to kill me, or b) being assumed to be a collaborator. After some deliberation, I decided to wear a baseball cap. It irks me to have to hide that I'm Jewish. But a small amount of compromise on certain issues is doable.
The Israeli bloggers who were coming were Yael from Step by Step, Tzedek, and me. The Palestinian bloggers were Ramzi and Daliah. Ramzi is a Christian Arab living near Har Gilo in the outskirts of Bethlehem, while Daliah lives in the Ramallah area, I think.
Ramzi picked a cafe where Palestinians and occasionally Jews from Har Gilo congregate. I picked up Yael and Tzedek at the Jerusalem central bus station and took them back to my apartment. I started some chocolate chip muffins thinking they would be ready before we had to leave, but we ended up leaving before they were done.
I took some games with me, naturally, including Backgammon, Checkers, and cards. Only later I realized that I had forgotten the dice for Backgammon. In any case, we didn't end up playing.
Ramzi and Daliah were going to meet us in their car south of the tunnels to Gush Etzion. They couldn't just wait for us at the side of the road. Palestinians sitting in a car at the side of a road are considered suspicious. If soldiers come to check them out, they may get stuck waiting two or three hours, depending on the mood of the soldiers who check them.
So they drove up and down once or twice. With the magic of cellular phones, we eventually met and drove to the cafe.
Everyone else at the cafe was Palestinian. It was obvious that I wasn't, and especially that Yael wasn't, but no one bothered us. We chatted about world politics, blogging, health, and all sorts of things. We took some pictures. I had a coke, the others had coffee.
When it got dark, Ramzi told us that he had already paid, which Yael and I protested. But when we then went to his house, I no longer gave it any mind. I say house, but perhaps palace is more the right word. It was large, stylish, and gorgeous.
Here we met Ramzi's parents. Ramzi's father used to be a doctor in Jerusalem, but was no longer able to work there as of several years ago.
Ramzi's grandfather is an exile from Jerusalem. Ramzi's father still refers to his old house there in the present tense even after 40 years of exile. The house we were in was only built recently and was his way of reconciling to the fact that he knew that they weren't going back.
From Ramzi's parents, I expected and got the usual litany of complaints about the occupation and the wall, and even some conspiracy theories about how the Israelis use the bombings to their advantage, blah blah. So, there were many points about which we disagreed.
On the other hand, I heard some things which I didn't expect. Their complaints were less about the fact of security itself, which they grudgingly understood, but about the apparently senseless acts of humiliation that they suffer.
Palestinians may be stopped and checked, ok. But why for two or three hours? When they are searched, they may be subject to pushing and discourteous behavior for no reason. Their goods are sometimes ruined in the name of searching.
Ramzi's grandfather was held up for over an hour on the way to the hospital while suffering a heart attack because of lack of the proper papers, even though Ramzi's father had them for himself.
And so on and so on.
It was difficult to hear. I still blame the fanatical Muslims for the need for security and checkpoints and searches, but I can't blame them for insulting, rude, and devastating behavior from Israeli soldiers. And these soldiers are my children and brothers. Why would they do that? I guess I've always known that some soldiers act like that and I just dismissed it because I felt that the general guilt falls on the other side. But the issues are separable. You can have security, and not have ill-behavior. You can have checkpoints, and not make it impossible for innocent families to travel to each other when they're not passing anywhere near Jewish neighborhoods. And if you must check them, why not check them courteously and quickly?
My general attitude about the situation's ultimate resolution hasn't changed. Christianity had to undergo a Protestant Reformation in order to change from a fanatical militant religion to the one it is today. It took many many years of bloodshed and schism. The same thing has to happen to Islam. Moderate Islam has to wage war for the hearts and minds of the people against radical Islam. Much blood will have to be shed. It will take generations. There is nothing any Israeli can do - not right, not left - to make peace with radical Islam.
I don't believe in hope. I think hope is the cause of our suffering. So long as people hope that they can achieve victory, there will be no surrender to peace. I want more hopelessness and willingness to compromise. Instead of useless politics, I believe in getting to work. I can't make peace with every Muslim, but I can continue to treat well and courteously everyone who treats me with respect. I can't trust absolutely - one never knows when the friend you make will come into the hands of someone who threatens to kill his entire family unless he goes out and kills a Jew. But I don't have to let that possibility make me indifferent to the humanity that exists on the other side.
When all was said and done, Ramzi was just like any Israeli guy, and Daliah was like any Israeli woman. Except that they weren't Israeli.
It was also nice to meet Yael and Tzedek face to face finally. I ended up having to leave early to return to my daughter at home, while Yael and Tzedek stayed to look around Bethlehem some more.
Oh, by the way, Yael: the muffins were great. Really, really great.
Yehuda
Update: corrected Tzedek's name.
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