We returned last week from our travels (
YandA report on blog) and on Saturday night participated in a
demonstration against the siege of Gaza.
We were as effective as usual, i.e. not at all, but we continue to try. The demonstration in Tel Aviv
marked the anniversary of operation
Cast Lead.
Gush Shalom took an active part. Many people spoke, but in my humble opinion
Nurit Peled-Elhanan spoke most eloquently for all of us. In a similar context, I would like to present an article by the human rights lawyer Michael Sfard.on operation
Cast Lead. No one could have said it better.
Hebrew original
English translation
Before I go on with my rants (some people do not care for them, but they are important in my view), let me bring in some good news. Sometimes you read something that encourages you. I would like
to share this story of women in Colombia who are doing
something about the
world in which they live and are empowering
themselves as well.
Good news indeed that Aminatou Haidar, a Sahrawi human rights
activist who has spent the past month on hunger strike in
Lanzarote airport, has returned
home. This has to do with the
independence struggle of Western Morocco. Without going into the
merits of the arguments of both sides, it is clear that her human rights were
violated by the government of Morocco.
A landmark
treaty on enforced disappearances has moved a step
closer to entering into force after being ratified by two more
countries. The International Convention for the Protection of
All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (Disappearances
Convention) now needs just two more ratifications to become
binding after Burkina Faso and Chile became the 17th and 18th
states to ratify it last month.
Just as we thought that tolerance was winning and that
homophobia was a thing of the past, the parliament of Uganda is
coming up with a shocker. A bill before the house calls for the
death penalty for gays and lesbians.
The new fossil lady
Ardi is making waves in evolutionary
biology.
An update from the Planetary Society blog sums up 2009 and
tells us more of the sad plight of the Martian rover .
Spirit
A quadricentennial occasion is coming up this week.On the night of January 7, 1610, Galileo pointed his telescope at Jupiter and discovered the moons orbiting around it. Jupiter is bright in the sky now along with Mars.
Take out your binoculars and have a look.
Jupiter is easily located in the southwest just after sunset. Jupiter will be the most obvious object in this part of the sky since the constellations of this area are composed of very dim stars. Binoculars will reveal Jupiter’s four largest moons, the Galilean moons, named for their discoverer Galileo Galilei. A small telescope will reveal two dark bands in Jupiter’s atmosphere. A slightly larger telescope may reveal Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, but only if it is on the side of the planet facing Earth. Careful observation under dark skies will be necessary to pick out this elusive storm.
Turning toward the east, we find Mars rising around 6:30 p.m. Enjoy the sky.
In general, Galileo is a historical figure of eternal relevance. He founded empirical
science as we know it today. Galileo got funding for telescope development (he did not
invent it) from the Medici family. He sold them on the idea
that their merchant ship captains could spot pirates before the
pirates spotted them. He named the moons after the Medici
family, but Cassini in 1690 gave them the mythological names
that they bear today and the four of them are known collectively
as the Galilean moons. Venice had a speculative futures market
since no one knew what cargoes had escaped the pirates. Brokers
would send out fast pinnaces to see the flag codes by which the
captains would announce their cargo. Galileo took a telescope
to the top of the Campanile di San Marco obtained the
information at the speed of light and used it at the speed with which he
could send messengers with money to the market. He became quite
wealthy from this applied science. He also got into trouble
with the ecclesiastical establishment for his scientific achievements..
Four centuries ago, “heretics” who disagreed with Church
orthodoxy were burned at the stake. Many were the dissenting
views that could send offenders to a fiery end. As an example of
what could get you into such a hot spot, consider:
"Ignorance is the most delightful science in the world, because
it is acquired without pain and keeps the mind from melancholy"
– Giordano Bruno (1548–1600), Lo Spaccio de la Bestia
Trionfante (1584; translated as The Expulsion of the
Triumphant Beast) Bruno is best known as a proponent of
heliocentrism and the infinity of the universe. His cosmological theories went beyond the
Copernican model in identifying the
sun as just one of an infinite number of independently moving heavenly bodies: he is the first man to have conceptualized the universe as a continuum where the stars we see at night are of identical nature as the sun.
He was
burned at the stake by authorities in 1600 after the
Roman Inquisition found him guilty of
heresy. After his death he gained considerable fame; in the 19th and early 20th centuries; commentators focusing on his astronomical beliefs regarded him as a martyr for free thought and modern scientific ideas.
Galileo came
within a singed whisker of the same fate in 1633, for arguing
that the sun (and not the Earth) was at the center of the solar
system. He was saved only because he was already famous, had
good friends in high government places, and agreed to recant
his “heresy” (at least publicly) and submit to living under
house arrest until the end of his days. The speeches of his
accusers sound like those of climate change deniers of today. In
general, there is a conservative tendency to back away from
reality and honest dealing with the modern world. The generals who
rejected the tank in favor of the horse in World War I and the brass hats
who court-martialed
Billy Mitchell and thus led to the unprepared state
of the US at the beginning of World War II are only a few examples of this type
of rigid establishment thinking. The Catholic Church finally agreed that the
Earth moves around the Sun in 1822 and the last cavalry units in the US army
were mechanized in 1940. Polish cavalry actually charged German Panzer
units at the beginning if World War II. One can think of many other things that suffered a similar
fate. Let me include a quote from an article by someone named Mike Carlton
who writes in the National Times of Australia. "
Tr
ial by jury, universal suffrage,
Darwin's theory of the origin of species, an end to the employment of children in
coalmines, the abolition of debtors' prisons and the workhouse,
the establishment of trade unions, the invention of the
horseless carriage and the steam locomotive, the introduction
of the basic wage and the eight-hour working day and social
security and universal health insurance: all these things and
so many more were fought to the last ditch by the forces of
reaction.
In the present, the rabble of
climate-change deniers would have us believe that the science
is a fraud and that any agreement in Copenhagen on carbon
pollution reduction would be the thin edge of a communist plot
to rule the world. They know little and learn less. The march
of folly goes on."
In this context, we can understand the fight over health
insurance in the US. I am now reading a book called
The
Psychology of Military Incompetence by Norman Dixon.
Among the other lovely traits of the military caste, he deals with
resistance to innovation, such as the issues mentioned above.
In our army, one may be sure
that if ground penetrating radar had been used for detecting
tunnels, as it has been used in Korea for fifty years or more,
Gilead Shalit would not be in the hands of the Hamas. This is
not a rant, but a comment.
OK, let us get on to more pleasant things.
Gene Weingarten in
Below the Beltway
has resolved to become cool in his language this year and I
wish him luck. Indeed many of us use obsolete terms, especially
we elderly folks and I am twenty years older than Gene
Weingarten. Still, there are young uncool types as well. My
fancy touchy-feely cell phone tells me that it is dialling
(sic) a number although there is nothing like a dial around. It
also has a screen touch button for the "dial" command. The Hebrew word for
locomotive is derived from the word for steam although the last
steam locomotive here was junked over 50 years ago. Haim Hefer wrote
a song about the last journey from Beersheva to Haifa. Alas, it
was junked for scrap and I could not find it in the railway
museum, Now we have diesel-electric steam locomotives.
The
Darwin awards are given every year for people who improve our species
by removing themselves.
I append a set that Judy sent me --thanks Judy and on the site
you can find many more:
AND the winner is:
1. When his 38 caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended
victim during a hold-up in Provo, Utah, would-be robber Jason
Ellison did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered
down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it
worked.
And now, the honorable mentions:
2. The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat
cutting machine and after a little shopping around, submitted a
claim to his insurance company. The company expecting
negligence sent out one of its men to have a look for himself.
He tried the machine and he also lost a finger. The chef's
claim was approved.
3. A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his
car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to
find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.
4. After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean
bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to
be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped... Not
wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby
bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He
then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling
the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to
bizarre fantasies.. The deception wasn't discovered for 3 days.
5.. A teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head
wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he
received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply
trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train
before he was hit.
6. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on
the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the
cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in
the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took
the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the
counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer...
$15. [If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a
crime committed?]
7. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly.. He
decided that he'd just throw a cinder block through a liquor
store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder
block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder
block bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head,
knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was made of
Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape.
8. As a female shopper exited a South Carolina convenience
store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911
immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed
description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police
apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove
back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and
told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied,
"Yes, officer, that's her. That's the lady I stole the purse
from."
9.. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked
into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan at 5 A.M., flashed a
gun, and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he
said he couldn't open the cash register without a food order.
When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't
available for breakfast. The man, frustrated, walked away. [*A
5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER]
10. When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home
parked on an Atlanta street, he got much more than he bargained
for. Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled
up next to a motor home near spilled sewage. A police spokesman
said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline, but he
plugged his siphon hose into the motor home's sewage tank by
mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges
saying that it was the best laugh he'd ever had.
In the interest of bettering mankind, please share these with
friends and family....unless of course one of these individuals
by chance is a distant relative or long lost friend. In that
case, be glad they are distant and hope they remain lost.
Next week we shall sample
the Dilbert induhvidual populaton
and its brilliance.
For example, quotes such as:
"I've been running around like a chicken with my legs cut off!"
"The monkey is in their court."
"There's more than one way to screw a cat!"
"That really grinds my goat."
Have a nice week everyone.
.
