Here is Titan again

Titan is a bit late this week, mainly because of the Shavuot holiday that disrupted normal schedules. He would like to show you a bit of his internal structure. You may ignore the artist's conception of Huygens on its way down to the surface..

For starters, as usual, we refer you to our Miriam Shlesinger Human Rights Action blog. As the weeks and months go by without Miriam, we continue to realize what we have lost. She got us into the human rights struggle.Please open it and help the people who are so much in need of support in their trials and tribulations at the hands of oppressive regimes and corporations.

This time around, we do not have a real coherent thread, but instead are going to rant about a number of unrelated matters. What they have in common is that most of them are bad.

GAY LIFE IN EUROPE
We start with a salute to President Hollande and France in general for the new law, just signed, that legalizes gay marriage.

The first gay wedding can be held on 28 May - 10 days after Mr Hollande signed the bill

It makes France the ninth country in Europe to pass such a law, not, of course, without opposition from the self-appointed guardians of our morals, such as the Church and the right wing political class. This comes in contrast to a recent survey that shows the high prevalence of homophobia is some EU countries. It implies that the struggle for human rights never ends and that there will always be enemies of liberty who try to impose their mores on all of us. We see it everywhere. Thousands of people, led by priests,  attacked a gay pride event in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Thousands of counter-demonstrators attacked LGBTI activists at a rally in Tbilisi, Georgia.

© VANO SHLAMOV/AFP/Getty Images

INDIGENOUS TRIBES 
There are many indigenous tribes around the world who have no desire to join our industrialized society and wish for nothing more than to be left alone to pursue their traditional way of life. This usually fails when it turns out that their ancestral lands contain resources to which the corporations who feed on the planet  want access. The First Nations of Alberta are such a case. We ask you to take action on behalf of the Awa tribe, the most threatened at the moment. The pillaging of the rain forests and the resources of Brazil constitutes a scandal unto itself, but the tribes of the jungle add a human aspect to the atrocity. Please call upon the government of Brazil to do the right thing.

HUMAN RIGHTS IN ERITREA
This African country has been independent for 20 years, but it has not evolved into anything resembling a democracy. The dictatorial government has thrown thousands of people into prison without charge or trial in order to suppress all dissent. Titan asks all to join the protest by Amnesty International and to call upon the government to put a stop to this brutal repression.

Eritrea prisoners composite image.© Private

ORANGUTANS NEED YOUR HELP
In Indonesia, there is a place where orangutans, tigers, rhinos and elephants roam free together. It is the last such place. Now big corporations are set to wipe this place off the planet for the sake of short-term profits. Please sign this petition to the President of Indonesia asking him to scupper this nefarious plan.


MEDIA TAKEOVER 
The Koch brothers are not content with using money to control journalists. They are now intent on buying the Tribune Company that runs newspapers across the United States. The thought that they could be the owners of the LA Times, for example, makes Titan shudder in his orbit. Greenpeace asks all to sign a petition to the CEO of the company calling upon him to reject their offer. The environmental implications alone are shattering. This call is aimed not only at our US readers, but to everyone in the Solar System. Do you hear us Mercury?

CREATIONISM BAH HUMBUG! 
Phil Blait of Bad Astronomy fame has come up with a blatant case of creationism taught in schools. It is, as he says, not only wrong, but it is the worst type of wrong. It plants anti-science in young minds and the pupils grow up to be ignorant and misguided citizens. Here is an example of an exam given in the fourth grade at a so-called Christian school.
 

Unfortunately, this type of obscurantism is not confined to Christians. In ultra-orthodox Jewish schools and in Muslim madressas, similar garbage is promulgated. A Saudi Arabian imam Shaykh Abd al-Aziz Bin Baaz, one of Saudi Arabia's most respected scholars of Islam, once declared the earth to be flat and said it was blasphemy to claim otherwise. This is presumably based on the Quran.

"The earth is flat. Whoever claims it is round is an atheist deserving
of punishment. That is a well-known religious edict, or fatwa, issued
two years ago by Sheik Abdel-Aziz Ibn Baaz, the supreme religious
authority of Saudi Arabia."
[Youssef M. Ibrahim, "Muslim Edicts Take on New Force," The New York
Times, February 12, 1995, Sunday, p. 14]

It is up to all enlightened people as well as parents of school children to be aware of the creeping danger of creationism in our schools.

OK, enough ranting around the world, let us take a look at HOME SWEET HOME

BEWARE THE ARMY--KOWTOW AND SHUT UP 
The libel laws in Israel are designed to protect individuals from slander. Criticism of any anonymous group that does not constitute an incorporated entity is immune from litigation. Instead, a criminal indictment can be filed, but only by the attorney general or with his consent. If we wish to declare that the bureaucrats at Social Security are a bunch of lazy insensitive jerks or that we hold all Orthodox rabbis accountable for the assassination of Rabin, no single bureaucrat nor rabbi can sue us. This is about to be changed and the most sacred of sacred cows, the all-powerful Army, is going to be given special protection. It all started with Mohammed Bakri’s film, Jenin Jenin  (that has now had a law named after it, no small matter?) and the vociferous criticism of a handful of reservists. This is another link in the chain of repression of civil rights by the right wing. Not the first and not the last, it outlines the new Israel: one that will try to spread an atmosphere of fear, to discourage journalists, to strangle non-profit organizations and weaken the courts. It is hard to imagine anything worse, but the Knesset session is just starting, so stay tuned for more attacks on our freedoms.

BEDOUIN AS VICTIMS OF RACISM 
The Bedouin population of Southern Israel is being subjected by the government to a racist campaign to destroy their home villages and to steal their land. The Jewish National Fund is a major co-culprit and is using the stolen land to plant forests. It is naked racism of the worst kind. Titan asks you to respond to  the call of Rabbis for Human Rights to send letters of protest.
 
If any of you think of donating money to the JNF, we recommend that you think again. 

FAYED AND THE HOPE FOR PEACE 
For a long time Salem Fayed, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority did his best to help his people and move the peace process along.
 
He cleaned up corruption, stopped terrorism and set a new standard in Palestinian leadership. He has now given up and resigned, to some extent because it has become patently clear that Israel has no interest in peace. The Arab League initiative, as modified recently in Washington, has been gathering dust for a decade with no substantive Israeli response. Roger Cohen recently  interviewed Fayed for the New York Times. Titan strongly recommends reading the interview.

HISTORY REWRITTEN 
The art of rewriting history is common to all political leaders. We recall the old Encyclopedia Sovietica that was in the form of a loose-leaf notebook so that pages could be replaced as needed by the regime. What has come out recently is the rewriting of the history of the 1948 war to make it appear that the Arab population fled and became refugees of their own free will or by command of their leaders.

Arab refugees from villages near Tulkarm. Most historians say Ben-Gurion knew in real time about the expulsion of Palestinians. Photo by Bettmann/CORBIS

This myth has long been apart of the Israeli narrative. Information indicating otherwise is strictly hidden. Shai Hazkani, writing in Haaretz this week, had a stroke of luck. We quote: 
 "The Israeli censor’s observant eye had missed file number GL-18/17028 in the State Archives. Most files relating to the 1948 Palestinian exodus remain sealed in the Israeli archives, despite the fact that their period as classified files - according to Israeli law - expired long ago. Even files that were previously declassified are no longer available to researchers. In the past two decades, following the powerful reverberations triggered by the publication of books written by those dubbed the “New Historians,” the Israeli archives revoked access to much of the explosive material. Archived Israeli documents that reported the expulsion of Palestinians, massacres or rapes perpetrated by Israeli soldiers, along with other events considered embarrassing by the establishment, were reclassified as “top secret.” Researchers who sought to track down the files cited in books by Benny Morris, Avi Shlaim or Tom Segev often hit a dead end. Hence the surprise that file GL-18/17028, titled “The Flight in 1948” is still available today."
What comes out of the file is that the official version that is taught to our children was fabricated by establishment "historians" under the orders of Ben-Gurion, then Prime Minister, during the early 1960's. Most historians of any integrity believe that the Arabs were expelled and that Ben Gurion knew about it in real time.

NATAN BLANC CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR 
Natan Blanc is a 19 year old Israeli who refuse to serve in the Army because of his belief that the actions of the Army are unconscionable. He has been jailed by an Israeli military court for the tenth time in six months for refusing to enlist for compulsory military service. Ten consecutive prison sentences for being a conscientious objector is thought to be a record in Israel. As he told the Guardian, he is willing to undertake national service in lieu of a stint in the army, but his refusal is a matter of principle.

"I have no idea how long this will go on for," he said. "The bad scenario is that I will be put in front of a military court and sentenced to something like a year in prison. The better scenario is that they'll get tired of this, and will let me do national service instead."

What we are witnessing here is a struggle over the soul of the nation. Natan Blanc, whose grandfather, the late Prof. Haim Blanc (1926-1984) lost his sight by being wounded in Israel's War of Independence, refuses to take the easy route that the Army offers to conscientious objectors, namely the status of "psychologically unfit for service." This establishes an Israeli norm that anyone who objects to war crimes etc. must be insane, since it is a matter of common knowledge that the Israeli Army is as pure as the driven snow and never commits criminal actions. For example, during the infamous Cast Lead operation, a soldier gunned down three Gazan women who were carrying a white flag. He was tried by a court-martial for "improper use of weapons" and sentenced to 45 days in prison. A battalion commander who ordered a soldier to shoot a prisoner who was handcuffed and blindfolded was given a mild reprimand. An anonymous soldier shot and killed a ten year old girl, but the Army refused to even investigate the case. If the Army were to admit that Natan Blanc is correct in his refusal, it would be an admission of guilt for actions that are beyond the pale of any kind of decency.
Cheers to Natan Blanc and let him be followed by thousands of other young people who might embarrass the criminals who lead the Israeli military hierarchy.


THE LIGHTER SIDE
Andy Borowitz has some great news--President Obama announces that he has no role in government and will deal harshly with any members of his administration who deal in governing. Hooray!! We are all so relieved. When we voted for him, we were really afraid that he would try to govern.

What If is too silly even for us this week. If you want to read it, do it on your own nickel. We would like to share some insights about philosophy from Clyde and his friend.

You may have noticed that Titan was a bit acerbic above about our glorious military establishment, the kind of people who think it is fun to abuse ten year old kids etc. Note that Dilbert has come up with something in the corporate world that is certainly relevant to the military.

You thought you were rid of Titan?

As was announced by sister Pollyanna last week, we have returned to blogging after a bit of a vacation in Canada and France with our amanuensis and our imaginary playmates YandA. Details of the ceremony in France in which we participated can be found on last week's Pollyanna blog.

For starters, let us refer you to the Miriam Shlesinger Human Rights action blog. As the weeks and months go by without Miriam, we continue to realize what we have lost. She got us into the human rights struggle.  Please act on behalf of people who are so much in need of support in their trials and tribulations at the hands of oppressive regimes and corporations. We also note sadly the death of Moshe, Miriam's husband. May they both Rest in Peace.

IN PERDITUM ET OBLIVIUM 
The quality of the beings inhabiting the third planet from the Sun took a quantum jump for the better with the death of Margaret Thatcher, the former PM of Britain and one of humanity's major apostles of evil. She was not a true sociopath in the usual sense because she did not really acknowledge the existence of society, much less something similar to a social compact. She lacked a single positive trait--she hated everything that was good for people, for the planet, for anyone except the coterie of plutocrats that she served. As the singer Morrissey writes in the Daily Beast, "Thatcher was a terror without an atom of humanity". She belongs according to Dante on the seventh level of hell, reserved for tyrants and the like.

Durer: Thatcher is third from left

It is no accident that champagne corks popped all over Britain (to say nothing of Argentina)when her death was announced. Frankly, Titan thinks she was worth no more than weak beer. We append the anti-eulogy by Glenda Jackson in Parliament.




CHEERS QUEEN BEATRIX
The Queen of the Netherlands is stepping down and passing the crown on to her son Willem-Alexander who has now become the country's first king since 1890. She has served her people well and we wish her long life and a happy retirement.

Right on Princess Beatrix

Writing about her helps us get the foul Thatcher taste out and encourages us in our faith in humanity. Yes, there is such a thing, even in orbit about Saturn.

POACHING OF ELEPHANTS
As government collapses in the Central African Republic, poachers are entering parks and preserves to prey on elephants. These magnificent animals are being hunted with impunity,their meat sold in markets and their tusks marketed in Thailand and China. We note, incidentally, that the only European leader who opposed the ban on the ivory trade was the Thatcher monster described above. The poaching is costing the lives of 20,000 to 30,000 animals per year.

 The rhinoceros was hunted to extinction because of the demand for its horn, superstitiously believed in China to have medicinal value. The Asian ivory market that drives the poaching needs to be stopped. Many people in China believe that elephants grow replacement tusks and do not understand the butchery that is going on. We hope that the governments of Africa and Asia will confront these issues honestly and with courage. The poachers are not just single hunters, but armed soldiers from the various wild militias of Africa that hunt the herds down with helicopters and will be a formidable force for law enforcement to confront.

LION BONES AS MEDICAL SUPERSTITION 
The impact of Chinese medical superstition on wildlife continues to expand. Tiger bones are thought to be of value for various medical conditions such as rheumatism and as a result tigers have been hunted nearly to extinction. With tiger bones in short supply, lion bones have been invoked by the quacks and now South African lions are being poached and their skeletons exported. This is still legal, but it must be stopped. Please sign the petition.

MEASLES AND THE ANTI-VACCINATION MOVEMENT
Phil Plait in Bad Astronomy (alongside this blog) calls our attention to the measles epidemic in Wales that has already claimed a victim. Wales has a low rate of vaccination and the blame for that can be apportioned between Andrew Wakefield the bogus scientist who published a connection, as it were, between vaccination and autism in children, the Lancet journal that betrayed its standards by publishing this garbage which it eventually withdrew, politicians who pussy-footed, media that let the rating urge overcome ethics, just to name a few. Last week Pollyanna described an Italian quack who claims vaccination causes homosexuality. There appears to be no bottom to the pit of pseudoscience, with all its pernicious consequences..

DEMAND JUSTICE FOR NOXOLO NOGWAZA 
A 24 year old South African lesbian Noxolo Nogwaza was raped and murdered in 1911. No real efforts have been made to find, apprehend and punish the perpetrators. Her attacker(s) raped, repeatedly beat and stabbed her, apparently because of her sexual orientation, before dumping her body in a drainage ditch. Taunts and insults against LGBTI individuals in South Africa are common, as are hate crimes like sexual assault and other physical attacks – particularly in rural areas. The authorities’ inaction leads to a greater sense of fear and insecurity for the LGBTI community. Please join the demand for justice.

TRAGEDY IN DHAKA 
The death toll from the collapse of an eight story building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, could reach as high as 1300. The owner of the building is in custody and certainly will be held to account for the disaster.

Rescue workers attempt to rescue garment workers from the rubble of the collapsed Rana Plaza building, in Savar, outside Dhaka Photo: REUTERS

Titan  calls your attention to a call from Eric Lee and the IUF to demand better labor laws, work conditions and the possibility of worker organization. We also ask about the accountability of the corporations in the world garment industry that exploit the cheap labor and the savings from lack of investment in workplace safety for profit. British and Canadian companies in the supply chain are now talking about compensation. We hope this is not a feeble attempt at damage control. The problem of exploitation of Third World workers is not unique to Bangladesh. Anyone who has seen the film China Blue by M.X. Peled knows how pervasive this practice is and to what extent we, the consuming public in the West, as well as the importers and the Chinese and other Asian systems are responsible for these abuses. A fashion designer speaking on BBC-TV estimated that the labor cost of a pair of jeans in Bangladesh is about six cents. Titan hopes that this cataclysmic event might precipitate some change in the system.

ON MORAL COURAGE 
The recent failure of the US Senate to pass gun control legislation caused by the fear of certain Senators that the gun lobby would bring about their defeat in the next election raises the issue of moral courage of political leaders. In 1848 Abraham Lincoln lost his seat in Congress because of his opposition to the jingoist, imperialist war against Mexico. Times have indeed changed. We tend to become cynical about our leaders, possibly with good cause. We no longer see statesmen in the spirit of Ghandi or Mandela or many academics in the image of the Gottingen Seven. We see principles being sold out, e.g. when a cabinet member will oppose something and then vote for it to please the PM and then be suitably rewarded. During the Second Lebanon War, Shimon Peres opposed a stupid ground operation and then voted for it. He received PM Olmert's support in his bid to be President and 33 soldiers paid for it with their lives. There are countless such cases to be found. Salman Rushdie in an essay on moral courage urges us in the end to continue the struggle, to demonstrate, to sign the petition, not to give up. Titan will continue to rant and support ranters such as Yossi Gurevich and the +972 group.

SATIRE REQUIRES COURAGE 
We have long noted that politicians of an authoritarian stripe are very thin-skinned and do not take kindly to satire and ridicule. In the US, Borowitz, Stewart and Colbert can fire their arrows with no fear of retribution, under First Amendment protection. Elsewhere, things are very different. The Palestinian cartoonist Mohammed Sabanah was sentenced to five months in prison for "contact with hostile elements" which is a ridiculous excuse for persecution for his cartoons. The hostile elements were not specified. His colleagues have rallied to his defense. Perhaps something will penetrate the rhinoceros skin of the Israeli establishment.
It is equally dangerous to be a satirist or cartoonist in post-Chavez Venezuela. A year ago, Rayma Suprani found herself facing up to 30 years imprisonment for threatening to undermine the Venezuelan government, and labelled one of a group of terrorists whose subversive activity was harmful to the future of the nation. Yet Suprani had not detonated a single bomb, nor was she a member of any militant group. Rather, Suprani’s alleged terrorism sprang from her work as a satirical cartoonist.

"Crime doesn't exist! I've been wounded by a caricaturist. . . . " Cartoon by Rayma Suprani

 People have been arrested for tweeting about politicos. Reporters without Borders has spoken up and we all need to be aware of the dangers. Pussy Riot can happen here or anywhere.

MAYDAY 
We present you with Labor Start for May Day 2013. Hit the links and think a bit about the rights of working people around the world.

HOME SWEET HOME 

FIRST THE GOOD NEWS
Here in Israel so much has happened during Titan's holiday that he hardly knows where to start. He is as pleased as a tick on a fat dog about the judicial victory of Women of the Wall.

Women of the Wall director Lesley Sachs is detained by police for wearing a prayer shawl at the Western Wall on April 11 (photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90)

 They should now stick to their guns and reject the Sharansky compromise since the verdict has rendered it irrelevant. Titan is also pleased that the Supreme Court has ruled that Ben Gurion University has no right to limit political freedom of expression of students on its campus. Cheers to Judge Sobel for the former case  and Chief Justice Grunis in the latter,  who caused the University to concede its case five minutes into the hearing.

HUNGER STRIKER WINS 
Samer Issawi has been released from prison after being at the gates of death because  of his hunger strike against his return to prison. Eventually the public outcry had its effect. Please read the long but important blog by Adam Keller on the saga of Samer Issawi. It gives you an insight into the occupation and how it works. It helps you understand how our border police can use a handcuffed child as a human shield.




Yes we know, police in the US handcuff small children as a matter of routine, but we would like to think that we have different standards.

Wilson Reyes' mom snapped this photo of him handcuffed in a Bronx precinct.

YOUR EMAIL IS IMPORTANT TO THE STATE 

If you hold opinions that might be considered subversive, such as a belief in human rights, opposition to the occupation of the West Bank and other seditious ideas and plan to visit Israel, you would do well to leave your laptop computer at home. The Attorney General has just confirmed that the security gorillas at the airport or border crossing have the right to read your emails. One might imagine that your extra-marital affair or the address of your pot supplier could be of great interest to the establishment and make you an undesirable tourist. Israel is supposed to be a Jewish and democratic state. As MK Ahmed Tibi puts it so well, it is democratic to Jews and Jewish to Arabs. For Arabs read all others. In the eyes of our leaders, there is no such thing as humanity. There are Jews and there are others. Period

OK, Titan is feeling long-winded and would now like to relax with you a bit. Start off with a nutty WhatIf? and then we will go on from there. This week we went out with Murphy to the local dune where he picked up a turtle and then vanished. We went home without him nursing the hope the the dog catcher would get him. He showed up for breakfast eventually with the turtle, which once released made tracks for home. It led us to the thought of why people need dogs, as we are assured constantly.We present a few models for this.


Then the dog is good for our health:

We are also aware of how we as good citizens contribute to the building up of canine egos.

We have long enjoyed the resourcefulness of our beloved little Cynthia. Today she invokes no other than the great 19th century mathematician and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss. Right on Cynthia. Once, when visiting Gottingen we devoted our morning run to a pilgrimage to his grave.



We often wonder about social media and how much harm they bring us. We have been endorsed on Linkedin for every skill one might imagine and the energy expended on clicking on delete is beginning to add up. We note that Doonesbury has addressed this issue quite cogently.

Titan marks International Women's Day

Dawn at Saturn greets Venus, the speck just off the limb

Titan will devote his efforts this week to the War on Women in honor of International Women's Day that comes fell Friday, March 8. If, as it is said, women are from Venus and men from Mars, let us give you a peek at Venus as it appears to Titan. The Cassini cameras picked up the above  image of the "twin" of Earth.  Note the tiny speck in the fork of the "Y" created by the limb of the planet and the gossamer g ring. As Carolyn Porco of the Cassini Imaging team says "Along with Mercury, Earth, and Mars, Venus is one of the rocky "terrestrial" planets in the solar system that orbit relatively close to the sun. It has an atmosphere of carbon dioxide that reaches nearly 900 degrees Fahrenheit (500 degrees Celsius), a surface pressure 100 times that of Earth's, and is covered in thick, white sulfuric acid clouds, making it very bright. Despite a thoroughly hellish environment that would melt lead, Venus is considered a twin of our planet because of their similar sizes, masses, rocky compositions and close orbits. Think about Venus the next time you find yourself reveling in the thriving flora, balmy breezes, and temperate climate of a lovely day on Earth, and remember: you could be somewhere else!"

Yes, Carolyn and Titan, nice to gaze upon Venus from afar. Recall, however, that our friend and colleague, Pioneer Venus Orbiter, got a much closer look, as you can see:

In 1482, Lorenzo d' Medici wanted an even closer image and commissioned Sandro Botticelli to paint the Birth of Venus, rising from the sea.

Go to Florence as we did, go to the Uffizi museum and marvel. For an appreciation of the painting, see Jonathan Jones' blog in the Guardian.

 For starters, let us refer you to the Miriam Shlesinger Human Rights action blog. As the weeks and months go by without Miriam, we continue to realize what we have lost. She got us into the human rights struggle. Please act on behalf of people who are so much in need of support in their trials and tribulations at the hands of oppressive regimes and corporations.


IN MEMORIAM 
VAN CLIBURN,pianist, born 12 July 1934, died 27 February 2013 in his Fort Worth mansion after fighting bone cancer.

He became a national hero after winning the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958. His victory came at the height of the Cold War, and helped thaw relations between the United States and Soviet Union. Cliburn then became an internationally famous concert pianist, performing for every U.S. president since Harry Truman. We refer you to the obituary in the Guardian.


HUGO CHAVEZ, the controversial and flamboyant president of Venezuela, died this week at age 58 after a long struggle with cancer.

In this July 21, 2006 file photo, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, left, gestures as Cuba's President Fidel Castro looks on during an event in Cordoba, Argentina. (Roberto Candia/AP, file)

He was in many ways the man who turned Venezuela into a real country and did many good things for the impoverished masses. His anti-USA stance was part of his modeling himself on Simon Bolivar who liberated Latin America from Spanish imperialism. He regarded it as his duty to fight the "empire." As  pointed out in the Daily Beast by Michael Moynihan, he chose his friends accordingly. We note that he buddied Mahmoud Ahmedinajad,(Senior Iranian clerics have criticized  Ahmadinejad for saying  Hugo Chavez will be resurrected alongside Jesus Christ and the hidden 12th  imam who Shi'ite Muslims believe will rise up to bring world peace.), believed that Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe was a freedom fighter and that Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko presided over a model of a social state. In his view, Saddam Hussein was a brother and Bashar al-Assad had the same political vision as the Bolivarian revolutionaries in Venezuela. He saw in the madness of Col. Gaddafi an often overlooked brilliance ("I ask God to protect the life of our brother Muammar Gaddafi"). The brutal terrorist Carlos the Jackal, who praised the 9/11 attacks from his French jail cell, was a good friend. He praised and supported FARC, the terrorist organization operating in neighboring Colombia. The list is endless. On the other hand,  he traded cheap oil for doctors with Castro and thus did improve the lot of many poor people in his country. We await the results of the forthcoming election. The anointed successor has already blamed the US for the cancer. Let us hope someone more rational will be elected. For a more balanced obituary, we refer you to the Guardian.

RIGHTS OF WOMEN
This week Titan will devote the rant blog to International Women's Day that falls on Friday March 8. For quite a long time both Titan and sister Pollyanna have been ranting about the ongoing War on Women that is happening around the world. Much of it is connected with religion or rather the abuse of religion, other aspects are political and it is all a function of a patriarchal male backlash against the advances in the status and rights of women attained by the feminist movement over recent decades. We can see that the war is far from over. Let us start with a discussion of the role of men in dealing with violence against women. Soyara Chemaly, blogging in the HuffPost, points our attention at White Ribbon Day, March 7. It is a day devoted to persuading men to get off the sidelines and take an active role in putting an end to the abuse and persecution of women. Actor Patrick Stewart, who grew up in a home riven by domestic violence and writes and speaks often on the topic, is headlining a new global initiative, Ring the Bell: One million men. One million promises, being launched this year by the pioneering social innovation movement Breakthrough. Their viral Bell Bajao movement (Bell Bajao means "ring the bell") engages men in preventing and eliminating violence against women. Stewart movingly explains why men's participation is so crucial: video in the link.

Credit: NOWCastSA on Flickr, under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

There are things that men and boys can do to be real allies in this struggle for women.Women and girls  will never achieve gender justice and close the safety gap without boys and men standing beside them. There are four major things that all boys and men can do, regardless of where they live:

1) STOP Stop, especially those in media and government, saying and thinking the words "women's issue." There is nothing that isn't a "women's issue," which is to say that in this case, as in every other, everyone is affected.

2) SHARE Share culture, real power and full rights. This is a hard one. First, it requires acknowledging sexism and misogyny exist and, second, that boys and men benefit, in intersecting ways, from patriarchal structures. We all know that 99 percent of men are not running around feeling privileged, powerful and entitled, in terms of how most of us think of those words. But, here is a simple test: how many boys do you know who would willingly and gleefully trade genders or want to grow up to be like a woman? How many ways, in how many languages, is it acceptable to insult a person by calling them some variation of "girl" or "woman"? Gender-based inequality and violence are about power and men, by virtue of birthright, have power, including the power to stop violence and change systems.

3) SPEAK Bystander intervention is something every boy and man can engage in. When men, especially those with visibility, status and respect speak up, people listen. When they don skirts to protest rape and wear heels to "walk in a mile in her shoes," it is significant. When they take a role in using violence prevention apps like Circle of Six or they ridicule "Man Cards" issued by gun companies, it changes cultures. We need people to stop asking for rape jokes. To stop thinking revenge porn is okay and about free speech. We need men to create affirming fraternities, based on respecting women and girls instead of shaming, humiliating and hurting them.  It is essential to build public spaces and cultures that aren't designed to intimidate females and make life difficult, but are open to them as equals. We chose our legacies.

4) SIGN UP Breakthrough's Bell Bajao is an excellent example of a successful global initiative introducing programs in the U.S. Bell Bajao, which means "Ring the Bell," is a innovative social change effort that teaches boys and men to intervene when they encounter violence. Launched in 2008, the initiative's award-winning series of PSAs, have been viewed by over 130 million people. This year  Breakthrough is launching Ring the Bell: One million men. One million promises(link above), a campaign calling on people and institutions to make specific promises to bring about change. (@breakthrough is tweeting using the hashtag #ringthebell and they are live-streaming events.) We need to stand up to men who who claim that women enjoy abusive relationships or deny that rape is rampant on university campuses in the US and elsewhere. The suggestion to arm women is hardly the answer. The truth is that the US Centers for Disease Control estimate that as many as 1 in 4 women in college have reported being the target of an attempted or completed rape while in school; Violence Policy Center research showed that in 1998, the year they studied, "for every time a woman used a handgun to kill an intimate acquaintance in self-defense, 101 women were murdered by an intimate acquaintance with a handgun." More relevant stats here.

In Israel, there are at least 140,000 known cases of battered women, some of whom are being helped by organizations such as Meir Panim,; women are marginalized by religious zealots, sent to sit in the back of the bus, told how to dress, excluded from public space etc.

It reads, "Women are asked not to loiter in front of the synagogue."

The recent resignation of the Pope and the outcry over the participation in the Conclave of Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles, both of whom covered up child abuse and protected perpetrators, leads us to the issue of the veil of secrecy that is drawn over these matters. Larry Cohen blogs about this in the HuffPost and points out that it is not only the Church, but the institutions of sport, the military, colleges--all more interested in protecting the institution than in the well being of child victims--that create this atmosphere of secrecy and shaming the victim. In Israel, an 11 year old girl whose family lived on an Air Force base was sexually  abused by soldiers and when it blew up, the Air Force tried first to protect the commander of the base. Only a threat of court action got him to be removed and one may safely assume that his fellow mafiosi found him a cushy job. The Air Force spokeswoman was not ashamed to say that there had been a conspiracy of silence that kept the commander from knowing what was happening. If that is the loyalty of his officers to him, he should not be the commander of anything. As Larry Cohen writes, "Institutions need codes of conduct, where responsibility for prevention of violence and protection of children is primary, and not something that can be shuttled aside. We're not saying that any particular person is guilty, that is a matter for the courts to decide; but we are saying there is a responsibility to report, whether we are talking about individual reporting, or organizations setting up environments that protect children." Amen.

Titan will not let you get away without an action item on behalf of women. Take a look at the abuse of female workers in the banana plantations of Honduras.


Women were fired for being union activists and organizers. Please act on their behalf.

What If? has an amusing discussion.

Despite all the above, we know that women and girls like to be courted by men (or other women). Unfortunately some guys are shy and inept at this such as our friend Rajesh in the Big Bang Series, so it is very helpful that there are men of the world, such as Duane, to give useful advice to geeks.



This is analogous to the episode in which Amy gets the hots for a hunk of a guy. After she and Sheldon analyze the symptoms (we shall spare you the details), she approaches her target in a bar and asks him to have coitus with her. You can imagine his response.

Our granddaughter Maya was great at good questions.  She asked why the sky was red after the Pinatubo eruption. 


The kid has a good question. Part of the answer lies in the fact that atmospheric absorption takes out more of the even shorter wavelengths, but that is not the whole story since we get tanned or burnt at the beach by ultraviolet that gets through. The main reason is the spectrum of sensitivity of our eyes and how we detect color.

Titan and his friends wish you a Happy Purim

The good guys won

Titan wishes all a Happy Purim, the minor festival during which we Jews celebrate the thwarting of the plot of the bad guy Haman to kill all the Jews in the Persian Empire sometime in the 5th century BCE. A smart Jewish girl who happened to be the Queen turned things around with feminine wiles, the Jews got to kill a lot of people and the story ends well for the good guys. We have no idea if this really happened, but it serves as an excuse to dress up in costumes and we are commanded by God to get drunk. In the synagogue we read the Book of Esther and also have special readings of the Torah and Prophets in which genocide of the Amalek people for something they did in their past is given as a divine command. Cool stuff all around.

Titan calls your attention to the Miriam Shlesinger Human Rights action update blog. Please click and write as called upon for people whose basic rights are being denied and violated.

Titan and Pollyanna sometimes wonder why they bother to blog. Now and then our Clustermaps tell us that someone in Tasmania, Laos or Italy has given us a hit, but it is not clear that we are doing anything except to blow off our own steam.  Murphy, the dog who owns us, was quick to point out the implications of quitting, as shown in The New Yorker, thank you.

 
BIG TIME BIRTHDAYS
This past week marked the birthdays of Copernicus (1473), Galileo (1564) and Boltzmann (1844), three great stars in the firmament of science.  For background, see our blog of two years ago for the first two and the Pollyanna of a week earlier for Boltzmann.

THE WAR AGAINST WOMEN

Titan and Pollyanna will continue to rant and rave about what is happening to women around the world whether or not you get tired of it. If it really bores you, then go out and do something about it in your environment. This week Titan takes us to India where three sisters aged five, nine and 11 were raped and murdered and the police did nothing until people blocked a highway and raised a ruckus. This follows the December rape and murder of a student in a bus. In this case, in a village a thousand kilometers from Delhi, the police shrugged the deaths off as an accident. The police inspector has been suspended, but much needs to be done to get the police and establishment to take violence against women in India seriously.

Women arrive near Indian parliament in Dehli to protest against sexual violence. Photograph: Altaf Qadri/AP

 PUSSY RIOT ANNIVERSARY 

A year after the punk band Pussy Riot performed a protest song in Moscow's main Orthodox cathedral, the situation for freedom of expression has only worsened in Russia, Amnesty International said.

Members of Pussy Riot were jailed for two years in August 2012

© AFP/Getty Images

The war against human rights organizations and against criticism of the government has intensified and a process of intimidation has sorely crippled free speech. This is not unique to Russia; we see a similar tendency in Israel, driven in part by the political culture imported from Russia over the past few decades. More on this below in the HOME SWEET HOME section.
MYANMAR IN PAINFUL TRANSITION 

We had all hoped that the transition to democracy in Myanmar with the release of Aung San Suu Kye and the opening of the country would lead to a true Burma Spring. Alas, this does not seem to be the case and the struggles, human rights violations and bloodshed continue apace. The country's  position as a client state that fears China has exacerbated tensions since the Chinese are using their clout to exploit natural resources while the people of Myanmar languish in poverty.

This village in northwest Myanmar has the besieged air of a refugee camp. It is clogged with people living in wooden shacks laid out on a grid of trash-strewn lanes. Its children are pot-bellied with malnutrition. (photo: The International News

The  situation is complicated and it is not clear how these tensions will be resolved.

In addition, the complex ethnic makeup of the population has caused internal strife and fighting and no end seems to be in sight. It is very sad, for this rich country could be prosperous and thriving with proper governance. The military dictatorship that ruled for so long left a dire legacy and the regime has not yet evolved into a functional liberal democracy.

FIVE BROKEN CAMERAS AND THE US PASSPORT CONTROL

The Academy Awards ceremony will make history this year with the first-ever nomination of a feature documentary made by a Palestinian. “5 Broken Cameras” was filmed and directed by Emad Burnat, a resident of the occupied Palestinian West Bank town of Bil’in, along with his Israeli filmmaking partner Guy Davidi. It is in competition at the Oscars with an Israeli documentary, “The Gatekeepers,” a film that features interviews with the six surviving former directors of Israel’s Shin Bet. This  the country’s secret internal security service, which functions as a sort of hybrid of the U.S. FBI and CIA.  En route to the ceremony and the dinner of nominees, Burnat and his family were held up at LAX airport and almost deported because the idiot inspectors did not believe his reason for coming to the US. It took Michael Moore and lawyers from the Academy to get him and his family out of the airport. Shame!!

CLIMATE CHANGE 

We rant and rave in the wake of a posting from Jim Hansen on climate change, how dangerous it is and what can and must be done about it. Politicians have a way of ignoring the elephant in the salon. The US election campaign ignored climate change just as the election campaign in Israel ignored the conflict with the Palestinians and the occupation. It seems incredible that people can develop such an effective means of screening out reality.

SEQUESTER HUMANITY? 

Congressman Alan Grayson, whose campaign in Florida enjoyed support from us, has called our attention to the implications of the unconscionable budget antics of the Republicans in the US Congress. We quote his summary--"So here is one argument against The Sequester that you're not hearing elsewhere - it will cause a lot of pain. A lot of hunger, a lot of disease, a lot of death. I understand that this argument is hopelessly unfashionable, and completely contrary to the zeitgeist of fear and hatred that dominates our political discourse. But there it is, nevertheless. I sure see it. Maybe you do, too." We suggest you read the entire post.

HORSE AND DONKEY MEAT IN EUROPE 

Romania recently banned a very common form of transportation which included horse-drawn carts. As a result of the ban, struggling citizens sent their horses to be slaughtered which led to the fraudulent sale of horsemeat that has permeated the European beef market. The scandal has enveloped the continent--vid. a Guardian timeline on it.  It now appears that donkey meat has made its way to Burger King. Oh the joy of fast food. 

Poor Eyore

Of course, the issue is really mislabeling and the historic taboo.

RACISM IN THE NEONATE ICU

This story is difficult to believe. In the US state of Michigan a nurse was taken off the case of a neonate baby girl in ICU because the father, who had a swastika tattoo, demanded that no African-American nurses be allowed to treat his baby. We shudder to think how that child is going to be educated as she grows up in a neo-Nazi home. Titan thinks the hospital should not have given in since the patient's bill of rights certainly does not condone racism of this type. The nurse is suing the hospital for discrimination.

ELEPHANT POACHING AND ODD PACHYDERMS 

The killing of elephants to provide ivory for frivolous purposes such as jewelry etc. is on its way to driving this magnificent species to extinction.  The World Wildlife Fund has announced an international campaign against the increasing poaching of elephants in central Africa. In the Central African Republic elephant numbers have plummeted from 80,000 in the early 1980s to just a few thousand.  The  same is true for the Democratic Republic of Congo.

While discussing elephants, we call your attention to something unusual, red elephants in Kenya. Of course,

Image Credit Flickr User Fagasam

elephants are not born red, but the soil of a particular habitat in which the animals love to wallow is red. The story is most interesting.

HOME SWEET HOME
Here in Israel the news is dominated by the fumbling efforts of our politicians to put together a government and the shocking revelation that thr disappearance of a person was engineered by the security services and eventually led to the suicide of the victim. The coverup would have been successful were it not for an Australian journalist who dug up the story. Here is some background from CNN:


What is particularly troubling is that the security forces have the ability to cause anyone to disappear. Of course, they go through some legal charades to create an impression of legitimacy and get some compliant judge to approve their actions and to issue gag orders to keep everything under wraps. The victim Ben  Zygier who committed suicide in December 2010 was a native of Australia who had emigrated to Israel. He changed his name to Ben Allen and with an Australian passport could go to places where no visible Israeli could go and must have been useful. We will stop with this now since Titan does not want to run afoul of the blogger police in Israel. It is too easy here, as in some countries, to disappear into a black hole with all the associated astrophysical implications.


RESTART DEMOCRACY
Democracy, as we noted above, is not popular with the powers that be anywhere. In Egypt a new decree is reported by Amnesty International. In a letter to the NGO the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, Egypt’s Ministry of Insurance and Social Affairs stated that no “local entity” is permitted to engage with “international entities” in any way without the permission of the “security bodies”, referring to instructions issued by the Prime Minister. This is appalling and the implications bode ill for the future of democracy in Egypt. In Israel, the New Israel Fund and other bodies are starting a counterattack against the antidemocratic initiative driven by a political culture that derives from Putin.  A Restart Democracy event was held recently in Tel Aviv and we attended. Here is the video touting the event.

 When the brief speeches (seven minutes each) of the people who spoke there are on YouTube we shall present them (in Hebrew).

LOOTING BY ISRAELI SOLDIERS 
One of the most corrupting aspects of the Occupation is the decline in moral accountability of the armed forces. In the Book of Esther which we shall read in synagogue on Saturday night, we are told that the brave Jews who were fighting the Persians in defense of their lives killed huge numbers, 'But on the spoil, laid they not their hand' which is considered praiseworthy. We suggest you read a blog by Yossi Gurevich in which he describes the level of looting and theft and the complacency of the public towards the phenomenon.

IDF raids a home in Nabi Saleh on November 24, 2011 [illustrative photo] (Photo: Tamimi Press)

We recall how the property of the prisoners taken off the Mavi Marmora was stolen by Israeli soldiers. Indeed, there was some prosecution of thieves, but the fact that it could happen says much.

BETTY FREDAN 50 YEARS ON 
The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan was published 50 years ago this week.

(Image: Penguin Books)

 It was a blockbuster that started the first counterattack in the eternal war against women.  It is hard to remember how things were for women then. Many things that we take for granted today were considered revolutionary then. To mention a few, corporations, law firms, the media, universities, advertising, the military, sports and other core institutions can no longer exercise blatant sex discrimination without facing scrutiny and the risk of protest and lawsuits. The Obama administration has just recently  lifted the ban on women in combat. Women are now running corporations, newspapers and TV stations, universities and major labor unions. In 1960, only about six percent of medical students were women. Today women comprise about half of all medical students and have a stronger foothold in other formerly all-male professions and occupations.  Nonetheless, the struggle for equality and women's rights goes on, as we mentioned above. We salute Betty Friedan and the other pioneers of this struggle.

BOOK REVIEW Richard called our attention to a book review by  Adam Kirsch in Tablet Magazine of the new book
Anti-JudaismThe Western Tradition by David Nirenberg.
    Hardcover
    February 2013
    ISBN 978-0-393-05824-6
    6.5 × 9.6 in / 624 pages
    Territory Rights: Worldwide including Canada, but excluding the British Commonwealth.

The review indicates that this is a most important and interesting study of how anti-Judaism, which he differentiates from anti-Semitism is a phenomenon embedded in Western culture. To quote the review
"What is the difference, then, between anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism? The answer, as it unfolds in Nirenberg’s scholarly tour de force, could be summarized this way: Anti-Semitism needs actual Jews to persecute; anti-Judaism can flourish perfectly well without them, since its target is not a group of people but an idea." It seems that the task of living as a Jew in a culture whose foundations are inimical to your existence is by no means easy.

SWEET ORIGINAL CYN OR WHY TWITTER IS A PLAGUE



What If explores an amusing question and gives a not surprising answer.

Last week we had a close flyby of an asteroid. People have speculated how we might deal with an asteroid due to hit us. Fortunately Dilbert, his company and his boss have the answers.

Titan wishes all a Happy New Year of the Snake

Welcome Year of the Snake in Kuala Lumpur (AP Photo/Lai Seng Sin) Source: AP

Titan wishes all a Happy Chinese New Year of the Snake  that falls this year on February 10, Rosh Hodesh Adar for us Jews. He also is here again with his usual complement of rants and raves about the world. You had a nice time with sister Pollyanna last week, so now get back to the real world. As you can see, even Titan has a hard life, cut in half by the rings of Saturn in this Cassini image.

Saturn's rings, made dark in part as the planet casts its shadow across them, cut a striking figure before Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute:: note little Mimas

First Titan calls your attention to the Miriam Shlesinger Human Rights action update blog. Please click and write as called upon for people whose basic rights are being denied and violated.

 IN MEMORIAM  
 Ed Koch, the former mayor of New York died this week at the age of 88. As the Daily News put it:" In a city of outsized egos and giant personalities, Koch loomed large, forging a remarkable public career that played out in two unforgettable acts. And like the Sinatra song, Koch often did it, “My Way.”

Across 12 colorful and tumultuous years as mayor, from 1978 to 1989, Koch helped to put a near-broke city back on its feet, leaving a legacy that includes more than 150,000 units of affordable housing, landmark campaign finance and judicial reform — and even a bridge, formerly the Queensboro, that’s now named after him.

And when voters grew weary of the corruption scandals and racial strife of his final term and sent him packing, Koch forged a new life as a lawyer, author, talk-show host, celebrity pitchman and movie reviewer.
Ed Koch picked up a despondent city and put it on the path to recovery. He was eulogized by the great at his funeral and will be remembered as a quintessential New Yorker and mayor of the Big Apple. Rest in Peace Ed.

Andre Cassagnes, the inventor of the classic toy Etch A Sketch died in Paris on 16 January. He saw the potential for the toy when he noticed, while working with metal powders, that marks in a coating of aluminium powder could be seen from the other side of a translucent plate.

The Ohio Art Company spotted the invention at the Nuremberg Toy Fair in 1959, and the next year it became the top-selling toy in the United States. We have all enjoyed it with our children and, after they were abed, quietly on our own.  Even today, in the age of smart phones at nursery school, it is still selling. Etch A Sketch has been named by the American Toy Industry Association as one of the most memorable toys of the 20th century. Dilbert and Wally found a good use for it.

Richard III Plantagenet 1452-1485, King of England 1483-1485, was  killed at the battle of Bosworth that ended the Wars of the Roses. Archaeologists announced on Feb.  4 that bones excavated from underneath a parking lot in Leicester, "beyond reasonable doubt," belong to the medieval king.
 
He was much vilified as a bloody usurper, killer of his nephews, one of whom was the rightful heir of Edward IV, and has had an evil reputation cemented by Shakespeare's play Richard III. One might well argue that Shakespeare was a loyal Tudor propagandist. Today he has supporters in the English public. The New Yorker has an interesting write up, which, in contrast to the poor style of Live Science, is written in good English. For reference we also give you the Plantagenet family tree. Richard III was the last English king to die in battle, in fact the last to lead his troops in combat. The Tudors, Stuarts and the others were much more prudent. Andy Borowitz warns us against what might happen if Richard III and Rupert Murdoch join forces against us.

THE WAR AGAINST WOMEN 
Titan and Pollyanna will continue to rant and rave about what is happening to women around the world whether or not you get tired of it. If it really bores you, then go out and do something about it in your environment. This week, we call your attention to the violence against women in Egypt.  Almost every girl and woman – regardless of age, social status or choice of attire – who has walked the streets or taken public transport in Cairo, has experienced some form of verbal or physical sexual harassment.  Amnesty International has put out a detailed blog on the topic and we suggest that you read it carefully.

ROSA PARKS.
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an African-American civil rights activist. This week we marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of this great lady. On Dec. 1, 1955, Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

 Her act of resistance led to a 13-month boycott of the Montgomery bus system that would help spark the civil rights movement. We link you to an interview in Nation of Change with the historian Jeanne Theoharis, author of the new book, "The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks."  The link contains both video and a transcript along with audio of Rosa Parks herself.

WHITE PHOSPHORUS 
White phosphorus is a nasty compound that is used in military combat.In general, incendiary weapons, of which napalm is the most famous or infamous, became a major international issue during the Vietnam war.

Children flee napalm dropped by US planes, Vietnam 1972, photo Nick Ut

 The famous picture of 9-year old Kim Phuc fleeing napalm played a role in bringing about the the adoption of  a new international law restricting the use of some incendiary weapons, Protocol III to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW). According to Human Rights Watch, this law has failed to live up to its promise and the use of white phosphorus, which is legal for smokescreens and against armor, has expanded to general battlefield use. It is even more shocking, if possible, to learn that it has been used by police in Myanmar against civilian demonstrators.

Nyein Chan Naing/European Pressphoto Agency

A monk was treated in November after being hurt in the crackdown on a protest outside a mine.

We hope that the investigating committee headed by Aung San Suu Kyi will find out who is responsible for this atrocity and will bring them to account.
  
FORCED LABOR
When we think of forced labor, what amounts to slavery, we usually get an image of a Third World country or a coffee plantation in Brazil or Colombia. We do not usually think of Sweden in such a context. It is, therefore, a major shock to learn that it is happening there. A TV program last week revealed that 47 workers from Cameroon have been forced to work under slave like conditions in the Swedish forest, lured by an attractive job offer. This is one of many cases that in recent years have highlighted the loopholes in the country's labor immigration policy. Whereas the companies are required to offer job conditions compatible with Swedish norms while recruiting, the offers are not legally binding and when the workers arrive in Sweden, they are forced to sign contracts to work under greatly inferior conditions. Since the workers from Cameroon are unlikely to have the resources to return home, the system amounts to entrapment into slavery. Shame on the Swedish parliament that has consistently refused the demands of organized labor to amend the law.



IRANIAN STEALTH or BLUFF?

Probably mostly cardboard and paint

We are told that Iran has come up with a stealth military aircraft. It is indeed quite an achievement if real, but the consensus of experts is that this is just a mockup designed to impress someone, possibly the population of Iran itself.


THE SUPER BOWL 
We stayed up all night to watch the Super Bowl. Baltimore won over San Francisco 34-31. We saw a great but failed comeback, a record kickoff return, an intentional safety at the end and a 34 minute power outage in the third period. Slate Magazine as well as many others came down heavily on CBS for a major professional failure as a network that is supposed to be good at news.  The handling of the power failure was at the level of a high school paper. To think that Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather once worked there is a sad indication of how far news television has sunk in this era of news as entertainment. We recall with disgust the background music as CNN covered the Mumbai massacre. In the movie Bananas, Woody Allen has Howard Cosell the sports commentator come in to cover the assassination of a Central American dictator. Woody was prescient.


 HOME SWEET HOME
A NIGHT AT THE MOVIES
We went to the Cinematheque in Tel Aviv to see a movie.

The Gatekeepers
Written and directed by Dror Moreh; director of photography, Avner Shahaf; edited by Oron Adar; music by Ab Ovo and Jérôme Chassagnard – Régis Baillet; production design by Doron Koren; produced by Mr. Moreh, Estelle Fialon and Philippa Kowarsky; released by Sony Pictures Classics. 

We think everyone should see it. It consists of interviews with all six living retired directors of the Shin Bet, the security service of Israel. We quote from the review in the New York Times: "It is guaranteed to trouble any one, left, right, center or head in the sand, with confidence or certainly in his or her own opinions. If you need reassurance or grounds for optimism about the Middle East, you will not find it here. What you will find is rare, welcome and almost unbearable clarity."
We also refer you to an excellent review by Roger Cohen in the Washington Post.

POLITICAL MURDER
On February 10, 1983, a peace activist, Emil Grunzweig, was murdered by means of a a grenade thrown by a right wing killer named Avrushmi during a Peace Now demonstration.

Emil at demonstration against Lebanon War whitewash

Avrushmi was convicted and served 27 years in prison before being released by a misguided parole board that bought his fake expressions of remorse. Upon his release, he boasted that he had killed the Israeli left. Richard Silverstein brings an English translation of the Maariv  interview with Avrushmi that is chilling. He claims that people are kissing the hand that threw the grenade. Indeed, the willingness of the right in Israel to kill to attain its aims shows up in the film described above. In our country, where people who call themselves religious admire Goldstein and Avrushmi and the government supports them  as in the amnesty granted to the Jewish terrorists who attacked the mayors of Arab cities and were convicted, there is little reason to hope for peace, democracy and the rule of law. The writer Amos Oz gave an interview to Roger Cohen that was published in the NYTimes. Oz is realistic, but yet has not given up on hopes for the future and none of us should. He delivered a comment at the end of the interview:
“The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a clash of right and right. Tragedies are resolved in one of two ways: The Shakespearian way or the Anton Chekhov way. In a tragedy by Shakespeare, the stage at the end is littered with dead bodies. In a tragedy by Chekhov everyone is unhappy, bitter, disillusioned and melancholy but they are alive. My colleagues in the peace movement and I are working for a Chekhovian not a Shakespearian conclusion.” 

POST ELECTION BLUES 
We are now at the stage of horse trading between the political parties to set up a coalition government. The power broker (besides the real one, Sara Natanyahu who runs the country from bed) is Yair Lapid who got enough votes to force the hand of Natanyahu (male), but is like Groucho Marx ("these are my principles, but if you do not like them I have others").   Asaf Romirowsky writing in Forbes gives us a nickel's worth of psychological analysis of the two jousters, but falls into the Likud propaganda trap.

Illustration Photo by Amos Biderman

Uri Avnery, on the other hand,  gives us an insightful analysis of the new Knesset, the political scene, the dramatis personae and what we should expect from the looming Obama visit. We think Uri has it right.

What If asks the interesting question about the comparative bandwidths of the Internet and FedEx, i.e. just FedEx the disk and it is faster than file transfer. The prediction is that by 2040 the Internet will catch up. The calculation is interesting.




Have you ever tried to argue with a guardhouse lawyer teenager?




or a smartass one: