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: