Back to Normal Life, sort of...April 26, 2010

Jerusalem and Sheikh Jarrah

Most of the fake holidays are behind us and we can gear up for a real

  holiday Shavuot and the last  phony one of this season,

  Jerusalem Day, in which we celebrate the unification (sic!)
  of the Holy City.  Apropos Jerusalem, I went last Friday  to
  demonstrate in Sheikh Jarrah.  There was quite a good turnout as you may note from the

picture 

 

Goldstone Grandson Bar Mitzva

The flap over the attendance of Justice Richard Goldstone at the bar mtizva of his grandson appears to have been resolved-amicably.

The South African Zionist Federation has much to answer for and we must acknowledge the central role of bloggers, in particular Richard Silverstein who blogs Tikkun Olam and brings us a prayer of Bishop Tutu that was broadcast in a musical program on NPR.  The music is reviewed on NPR also.

Here is the text:

Goodness is stronger than evil
    Love is stronger than hate
    Light is stronger than darkness
    Life is stronger than death
    Victory is ours through Him who loves us.

 

Argentine Justice

There is much truth to the saying that justice delayed is justice denied.  Nonetheless, better late than never as General Bignone, the monster of the dirty war in Argentina is finally sentenced by a court to 25 years imprisonemnt.  

At age 82 this amounts to a life sentence and it is only unfortunate that it took over  30 years to bring this criminal to justice.

A Few Science Issues are worthy of our attention this week.  Bob Park weighs in again on the cell phone danger 

scare and there is some common sense coming out on mercury and the consumption of fish.

The synthesis of element 117 has some interesting background.

Tom Toles of the Washington Post gave us a cartoon this week that puts things in our part of the world in the sorry perspective they deserve.  

 

This week Armenians all over the world joined hearts for their Holocaust Day as they marked the 95th anniversary of their genocide  at the hand of the Ottoman Empire.  Alas we all share the shame of denial for the sake of so-called Realpolitik.  

As you are aware and as I mentioned last week, Elie Weisel put out some sentimental claptrap about Jerusalem in a full page ad in the New York Times and Washington Post (paid for my someone...).  A reasoned response  was published this week in Haaretz.  It is worth the read.

 Welcome to the J Street delegation that arrived in Israel this week.  Their leader, Jeremy Ben-Ami tells us that Obama must engage with the Israeli people.   It is worthy of note that for Lag B'Omer, burning of Obama in effigy will be popular, thanks to our good folk on the right.  In my time, we burned Hitler, but villians have been downgraded badly.

As a gedanke experiment imagine what might happen if President Obama were to nominate Jesus Christ  for the vacancy coming up on the Supreme Court.  Here are some speculations.  It has been said that He may not be as strong an opponent of capital punishment as expected since it only cost Him a lost weekend...

All of us labor under the burden of the paper spam that still comes to our snail mail boxes.  I recall that I once had a mail box in the office of the local Amnesty Section when I served on the board and would only empty it when threatened with mayhem by Malka the secretary.  It is interesting to see what happens when Gene Weingarten opens his snail mail at the Washington Post.