My friend Dave came over last night and we watched some of the Sunday night football game and I opened a pomegranate. I ate my half carefully, but neither of us had a plate. My wife came out from her computer at 9:30 to find a lot of pomegranate seeds on the runner she has on the table. This was not a good thing. In the morning my wife reminded me that I have to get a lot of boxes of books out of the house before her feng shui friend comes to visit next week. Also I had failed to forward an email to her from a friend who's a screenwriter who had offered to help my nephew, who is interested in writing screenplays, and who my wife is helping. That had been days–my fault. I told her I'd had bad dreams last night involving anxiety over a piece I was writing, and then cashiered, thinking it would damage my reputation (!). I am also finishing a novel and fretting over that. I went over these concerns while my wife was in the bathtub. As she left for work, she said, You really need to get out of the house.
So you're saying Arafat was killed by your wife's nephew?
That's worse than a conspiracy theory. That's crazy!
Geeze– I hope you and your wife are doing ok, Phil, and that your relationship is holding up. I know times are tough– they must be especially tough for journalists at present, with ad revenues plumetting. I've been looking at media stocks– only one that I know of, Scripps News Interactive, is holding up, and who knows how long that will last?
Then, there are companies like McClatchy, that, despite having reporters that got everything right with the war and everything else, are in terrible shape. Hope the McClatchy people get bought out by someone, but who has the money to do so in this market?
In any case, hang in there.
The Adalah website makes the point that the Hebron settler group is a tax deductible charity. That means that about a third of every dollar it spends is subsidized by the American taxpayer.
They link to this Reuters story which deserves more attention–
US Tax Breaks Help Jewish Settlers in West Bank
(I see Charles already mentioned the tax issue in another thread. Thanks.)
As a liberal American-Israeli-French Zionist Jew, I applaud and see no problem with protesting settlement fundraising.
This reminds me of a segment in "From Beirut …" where Friedman describes a debate between a secular Israeli and one of the religous settlers in front of an American crowd. The crowd absolutely tore the settler apart in the argument. I believe it's in the last chapter of the book.
The night before last I had a number of 'vivid' dreams. I remember chugging several beers in one or more of them. When I finally got out of the bed, I felt like I had a moderate hangover.
It's like those Orthodox Jews in Iowa, with their kosher meat plant. Look, see, what else do you need to know?
Let's compare the OP of the Christian sect who make fake fireplace
units with the Agriproccesors.
here's some massively self-indulgent and narcissistic rubbish about 'new jewish voices':
Joel Schalit: A time to speak out for British Jews.
Anyone would think they were unjustly-discriminated-against opera singers.
world zionist nazi jews apply hitlerian-nazi tactics to palestinian ghettos.
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/cook.php?articleid=13780
The latest tightening of Israel's chokehold on Gaza – ending all supplies into the Strip for more than a week – has produced immediate and shocking consequences for Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants.
The refusal to allow in fuel has forced the shutting down of Gaza's only power station, creating a blackout that pushed Palestinians bearing candles on to the streets in protest last week. A water and sanitation crisis are expected to follow.
And on Thursday, the United Nations announced it had run out of the food essentials it supplies to 750,000 desperately needy Gazans. "This has become a blockade against the United Nations itself," a spokesman said.
In a further blow, Israel's large Bank Hapoalim said it would refuse all transactions with Gaza by the end of the month, effectively imposing a financial blockade on an economy dependent on the Israeli shekel. Other banks are planning to follow suit, forced into a corner by Israel's declaration in September 2007 of Gaza as an "enemy entity."
There are likely to be few witnesses to Gaza's descent into a dark and hungry winter. In the past week, all journalists were refused access to Gaza, as were a group of senior European diplomats. Days earlier, dozens of academics and doctors due to attend a conference to assess the damage done to Gazans' mental health were also turned back.