callieischatty

2006-10-18T18:40:00.000-05:00

A sad Story of our Times

2006-02-19T14:55:00.000-05:00

France arrests gang suspected in killing of Parisian Jew

By Assaf Uni, Haaretz Correspondent

PARIS - The French police arrested late Thursday night most of the members of the gang that abducted, tortured and murdered Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old Jew from Paris.

Hundreds of SWAT officers raided apartments in Bagneux and arrested 12 people. Another suspect was arrested in Belgium.

"They acted with indescribable cruelty," the judiciary police chief leading the investigation said. "They kept him naked and tied up for weeks. They cut him and in the end poured flammable liquid on him and set him alight."

Advertisement

While the citizens of France were shocked by the unbridled violence of the gang, Halimi's family claims that the murder was motivated by anti-Semitism.

"We think there is anti-Semitism in this affair," Rafi Halimi, Ilan's uncle, told the press.

"First, because the killers tried to kidnap at least two other Jews, and second, because of what they said on the phone," Rafi Halimi added. "When we said we didn't have 500,000 euros to give them they told us to go to the synagogue and get it," Rafi said. "They also recited verses from the Koran."

But the Paris public prosecutor, Jean-Claude Marin, told Parisian Jewish radio on Thursday that "no element of the current investigation could link this murder to an anti-Semitic declaration or action." The umbrella group of French Jewish secular organizations, CRIF, issued a statement Friday calling on the Jewish community "to keep calm, cautious and wait for developments in the investigation."

Ilan Halimi's family points to the behavior of the kidnappers in their ransom negotiations, which began a few days after Ilan disappeared. Halimi was abducted on January 21 after a woman came into the mobile phone store where he worked and charmed him into a dinner date. The woman had been sent by the gang, which calls itself "The Barbarians." A police source said the gang is a group of childhood friends who grew up in Bagneux, a suburb south of Paris. The gang includes Muslims of North African descent and is headed by Youssef Fofana, who has escaped police capture so far. According to Marin, the gang had made six similar abduction attempts in the past.

After overpowering Halimi, the gang brought him to an apartment in a high-rise in Bagneux. They contacted Halimi's family and over the next three weeks demanded ransoms ranging from 300,000 to 500,000 euros. According to reports, at one point they agreed upon a deal and set a meeting place but the kidnappers backed out and eventually ended contact.

A source in the Jewish community said the gang's behavior suggested that the motive behind the kidnapping was violence for its own sake, particularly against Jews.

"Why didn't they release him when the realized the family couldn't pay ransom?" asked Sami Gazlan, who is responsible for security in the Jewish community.

Last Monday, a few days after the kidnappers ended contact with the family, Ilan was found near a suburban train station south of Paris, naked, handcuffed and gagged, with burns covering 80 percent of his body. He died on the way to the hospital.

The first break in the case came on Thursday after the police released an Identikit image of the woman suspected of "baiting" Halimi. The woman turned herself in out of fears that neighbors would identify her, and identified the apartment where Halimi had been kept.

The store where Halimi had worked was closed Saturday. Several shops in the area, the 11th arondissement, were closed on Friday, with signs explaining that it was a gesture of sympathy for Halimi's family. Many of the shopkeepers were among the 1,000 or so people who attended Ilan Halimi's funeral in the Pantin cemetery.

Dozens of family members returned home, in the 12th arondissement, to begin sitting shiva after the funeral. Walking back, accompanied by police officers, relatives expressed their shock at the murder.

"We are in total shock," a close friend of Ilan's said Saturday. "All of us, Ilan's mother especially, have not yet begun to comprehend what happened

The meeting

2006-01-06T20:28:00.000-05:00

The word Vayigash literally means "and he met." To meet someone is to be introduced to a person, not having previously known them. In this Parasha, there is only a reuniting of a family, not a "meeting" as the name of the parasha implies. Why then would the title of the parasha mislead us? These brothers and their father have been separated for many years. All of Jacob's sons had families of their own and time had definately made changes in their lives. All of Joseph's brothers had obviously matured since that fateful day of selling their brother and felt bad for what they had done. But Joseph was the one who made the most drastic changes in his life. When he was sold as a slave by his brothers, he was an immature and pompous child, a braggert of his father's favoritism. But now, as Joseph sees his brothers again, he has metamorphosed into a forgiving and caring man. He choses to see his painful past as inevitable and a part of his fate so he could help his family survive through the famine as he works directly with the Pharaoh of Egypt. Joseph displays characteristics of a true tzaddik in this parasha as he is forgiving and then some to his brothers despite the harsh way they treated him when they were younger. In this sense, Joseph became a new, respectable, and righteous person and the reunification of himself and his family was indeed a meeting. Everyone had grown apart, and in Vayigash, a new and transformed family meets each other as if for the first time.

All about moi

2006-01-06T10:42:00.000-05:00

My good pal Elder of Ziyon honored me with a tag to do this post and so here goes!
Four jobs I have had
Management Consultant
Hebrew School Teacher
Parenting Educator
Stay Home Mom

Four Movies I could watch over and over
Ground Hog Day ( same as Elder!)
The Gods Must be Crazy
You Can Count on Me
Desk Set

Four Places I have lived
Rochester NY
Los Angeles
San Diego
Ogdensburg NY

Four TV Shows
Sex in the City
Jon Stewart
stuff with my kids
those crazy weather shows with my husband

Four Places I have vacationed
Paris
London
Rome
Hawaii

Four Websites I visit daily
Google
Yahoo
thats about it and thats cuz I have been busy with work

Four Foods
Eggplant anything
coconut anything
Dark chocolate
Real Popcorn

Four Places I would rather be?
I am home with my family, no place is better
ok except maybe the steam room at the gym

Four Books
The Book of Jewish Values
How to Run a Jewish Home
A River Runs Thru It
Anything by Bill Bryson

Four to tag??
How about Misfitoy
Exseno
Diamondkt
and ummmm
Maybe I can get Dag to do it even.

Ok!

And the Band Plays On

2006-01-06T07:40:00.000-05:00

One of the advantages of doing business in NYC is the chance to hear from the cities wide variety of cab drivers. It seems all of them have strong political views and are happy to regale anyone willing to listen.

One thing about me, I consider myself a student of human nature and find the cab drivers, from all around the world to have some interesting stories. One I met on my last visit was from the Congo. I remember vaguely hearing about it there in school but couldn't say much more than at one time it was a French (or maybe Belgian?} colony.

This man told me there was a terrible war there that most people here had no idea about. He was an elderly gentleman in his 70's and was driving a cab to make enough money to send for the rest of his family.

Today I saw this news story and thought of him.

LONDON (Reuters) - The Congo conflict is the deadliest humanitarian crisis of the last 60 years but the world is still not doing enough to save lives, according to a survey on Friday.

ADVERTISEMENT

Its authors pleaded urgently for more aid and tougher security in the wake of a war estimated to have killed nearly four million people, mainly through hunger and disease.

"Congo is the deadliest crisis anywhere in the world over the past 60 years," said Richard Brennan, health director of the New York-based International Rescue Committee that counted the human cost of the conflict.

"Ignorance about its scale and impact is almost universal and international engagement remains completely out of proportion to humanitarian need," Brennan said after the survey findings were published in the Lancet medical journal.

The U.N.'s 17,000-strong Congo peacekeeping force -- its biggest in the world -- is trying to establish order across Africa's third largest country in the wake of the war which began in 1998 and officially ended in 2003.

Bands of gunmen still intimidate civilians in large areas, particularly in the east whose mineral riches are believed to have fueled a conflict that at one point drew in six foreign armies and was dubbed Africa's first world war.

Brennan said improved security is vital to lower the death toll and argued that aid must be dramatically increased.

The survey showed that the death toll in the Congo conflict so far was higher than the numbers killed in Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo and Darfur.

After surveying 19,500 households across the former Belgian colony, the survey calculated that the mortality rate was 40 percent higher than that of Sub-Saharan Africa, with more than 1,200 people dying every day.

Up to 20 percent of children are malnourished. Most deaths, especially in children, occur from easily preventable illnesses.

"National and international efforts to address the crisis remain grossly inadequate," the survey concluded, arguing that more, better trained peacekeeping troops were speedily needed.

The survey authors' outrage was echoed by Evelyn Depoortere of the Paris-based aid agency Epicentre who said "Rich donor nations are miserably failing the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo."

"Every few months the mortality equivalent of two southeast Asian tsunamis ploughs through its territory," Depoortere said in a commentary to accompany the survey findings.

"We can no longer claim ignorance about this and other wars' profound and protracted effect on human health," she said.

Another Merry Christmas

2005-12-31T12:13:00.000-05:00

in Indonesian some 2000 people have been killed (including three Christian teenage girls who were beheaded for not wearing veils) in Muslim violence.

Why may I ask, since Indonesia is a recipiant of US aid, US tourist money and more doesn't the Church try to boycott Indonesia? They have all kinds of meetings about how horrible life is in Israel, who is just trying to defend itself and yet from Christians nothing is ever heard about this atrocity.

Read it for yourself. Its crazy. I wonder if this suicide bombing would be 'understandable' to the Christian left.

PALU, Indonesia (Reuters) - A bomb packed with nails exploded in a crowded Christian market selling pork ahead of New Year celebrations in eastern Indonesia on Saturday, killing at least seven people and wounding 53, police said.

ADVERTISEMENT

The early morning blast in Palu, capital of volatile Central Sulawesi province, came after warnings of militant violence during the Christmas and New Year season in Indonesia. But it appeared to be linked to regional tensions, not international Islamic militancy.

Indonesia is predominantly Muslim but its east has large pockets of Christians, to whom pork is not forbidden.

Bystanders carried bleeding shoppers from the makeshift market to a road, putting them in passing cars to be taken to hospital. One man screamed as he held up his bloodied arms.

"Suddenly there was a flash of light and a really loud bang. We were all thrown to the ground," one wounded pork seller told El Shinta radio from his hospital bed.

"I saw many buyers who had lost their legs. We just tried to save ourselves by fleeing the market."

"It was a homemade bomb. It was full of nails," said police spokesman Major-General Paulus Purwoko in Jakarta.

Central Sulawesi police said seven of the 60 people reported injured had died, and that security was being tightened, especially in places of worship.

The official Antara news agency said another bomb had been found and defused near the market in Palu, 1,650 km (1,030 miles) northeast of Jakarta.

"This was done by outside perpetrators to create an unstable situation in Palu," Rusdi Masura, mayor of South Palu regency, told Metro television.

HISTORY OF VIOLENCE

Intercommunal violence has killed thousands since the downfall of longtime autocrat Suharto in 1998.

Fighting between Muslims and Christians in central Sulawesi from 1998-2001 killed 2,000 people, mainly around the Muslim town of Poso. Since then, violence has been sporadic.

Last October three teenage Christian girls were beheaded near Poso. Bomb attacks last May in the Christian town of Tentena killed 22 people.

Happy Chanuka to all?

2005-12-29T13:11:00.000-05:00

I have seen alot of bloggers say how the checkpoints in Israel are such a waste of time and so terrible.
What could have happened today if this person had been able to get where he planned to go? What would have happened in a mall busy with shoppers for Chanuka and full of teenagers?

This suicide bomber was there to go after families. Is this peace? Is this co existance? What do people expect the Israils to do just allow bombers into the country so that the Christian Left can be happy?

By NASSER ISHTAYEH, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 1 minute ago

TULKAREM, West Bank - A Palestinian suicide bomber trying to enter Israel blew himself up Thursday at a military checkpoint set up to foil attackers, killing an Israeli soldier and two other Palestinians.

ADVERTISEMENT

The army said it set up the checkpoint in the West Bank shortly after receiving warnings that a suicide bomber was headed toward Israel. The bomber was traveling in a taxi that stopped at the roadblock for a security check.

Three occupants got out, including a man wearing a large overcoat. When soldiers ordered him to remove the coat, he detonated a concealed explosives belt, the army said.

The suicide bombing took place just south of the Palestinian town of Tulkarem, about two miles inside the West Bank.

The army said the bomber, an accomplice and the taxi driver were killed. One Israeli officer died and three soldiers were wounded, one seriously, the army added. Seven Palestinians were wounded, Palestinian medical officials said.

The bombing came hours after Israeli warplanes and artillery pounded the northern Gaza Strip, beginning an aggressive new campaign to stop Palestinian rocket fire. The army has threatened to shoot anyone who approaches the border.

Meanwhile, Palestinian officials imposed a series of roadblocks in southern Gaza as they searched for a British aid worker and her parents kidnapped a day earlier by Palestinian gunmen.

The Arabic satellite station Al-Arabiya reported that Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the suicide attack. The claim could not immediately be confirmed.

The army imposed closures on the West Bank towns of Tulkarem and Qalqiliya.

Israel's deputy defense minister, Zeev Boim, said Thursday's attack was carried out by Islamic Jihad operatives in the northern West Bank, with direct support from the group's leadership in Syria.

"Their efforts to put suicide bombers in the center of Israel are always ongoing," he told Israel Radio, praising the army for foiling what could have been a far worse attack if the attackers had reached an Israeli city.

David Baker, an official in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office, noted the attacker aimed to strike inside Israel during the Hanukkah holiday — a time when many families are outside because of school vacation.

Islamic Jihad has carried out a series of suicide attacks since Israel and the Palestinians declared a cease-fire last February. It also has been responsible for most of the rocket fire out of Gaza aimed at southern Israeli towns, which has continued despite Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in September.

Ummm Is this Christianity?

2005-12-27T14:42:00.000-05:00

I have been talking to some interesting folks over on a progressive theology blog.

The blog author like the 'church' he belongs to claims to be against violence yet acts as a mouthpiece for Hamas and Hezbollah.

Isn't it weird to anyone but me that someone who claims to be Christian supports groups that call for genocide? Isn't killing people supposed to be against Christianity?

A quote from a link on this guys blog in which Hamas suicide bombers are called 'freedom fighters': And I quote!

When my friends and I approached the checkpoint, we were split into men and women. I was the only man in our group so I had to enter the line for men who fit the age profile for Palestinian freedom fighters. I asked if I could enter the line for women and older men, since I was carrying an American passport.

I mean is it any wonder Jewish people are paranoid of Christians these days???

Here is the link, from the Palestine summer blog this guy did if you can stomach it read on:

http://hlttravel.blogspot.com/

Another nice quote from our Christian friends:

They have taken many traditional Christmas Carols and re-arranged them, so
that these well-known songs can become the vehicle for widespread awareness about the unfolding genocide, ethnic cleansing and dispossession of the Palestinian people by the Zionist entity - and also to impart some understanding of the legitimate right of all Palestinians to resist.

This is from the blog of a theology student no less.
You can't make this stuff up.

Now for anyone not familiar with Hamas and Hezbollah or with the fanatics in Iran, the "Zionist entity' in question is Israel.
How can such terrible bigotry go unquestioned in the Christian world? Why doesn't anyone speak out about this stuff?

Finding Lourdes

2005-12-08T09:13:00.000-05:00

For anyone who doesn't know, Lourdes is a famous place in France where people go to be healed, a place where many people believe one can find miracles.

One part of my work, that I find is very common is that people bring in some consultants and expect you to just wave your magic want, sprinkle fairy dust and 'fix' this long list of problems no one on the inside has been able to figure out. Of course all of this must occur in three days. Or less.

OK.

One thing I sometimes say in a joking way is that 'This isn't Lourdes sorry, I can't do miracles but thanks for your optimism...' and explain to them the reality as I see it anyhow.

My business partner, a brilliant woman of many talents, said that line in a seminar we were giving for on Strategic Planning for a large government agency. Turns out the real problem was that everyone there in charge really really hated each other....and I mean hate.

When someone in the room asked her about fixing that, she replyed of course that it would take a miracle to solve such a problem as 30 adults who couldn't get along well enough to make their agency function, and pointed out in jest that 'it wasn't Lourdes".

People laughed, we moved on.

One evaluation we got, and they were mostly glowing, was very troubled that she had joked about a sacred place like Lourdes. She felt religion was being mocked. My partner and I tried to brush it off, but all the way home in the car something troubled me about that. Life being what it is, so long as the client was happy, and the evalutions ran at 4.8 out of 5, I got into our next project and just tried to put it out of my mind. I reminded myself never to say that to a client again. Things being the way that they are, I never tell my partner what to say or not say, but in my mind, if someone was offended, I take that seriously.

Then, out of the blue I ran into a woman I know thru my youngest daughter. Her little girl had been in second grade with mine last year. Her husband had been sick and a number of times I had watched Anna so she could visit him at the hospital. I wasn't sure what he had exactly but I assumed he was going to recover, I mean the guy was in his 30's seemed fine before and was at a good hospital right?

Wrong. He died the woman said just the mounth before. It was a terrible moment. I just hugged her and of course offered to help her with Anna if she needed it.

She told me she had just come back from someplace far away with her children and she was feeling better and would be ok.

You won't believe where she went.

To Lourdes.

She wanted to ask God to help her recover from her beloved husbands death. I was stunned.

I think one can never underestimate the power of Belief. Whether you call it faith, or simply the 'Placebo Effect' when people *believe* something is going to happen, its more likely to occur.

Amita, Anna's mothers face looked sad and resigned at the same time. She told me again, she would be fine. And I believe her.

Things are not important

2005-11-29T12:09:00.000-05:00

To the nice people who stop in here. I hope you had a great holiday. Don't get stressed out about the holidays that are coming up! Remember to take time for yourself...I see so many people who get nuts this time of year.
Just chill out and enjoy your family. Hang out with your friends. Kiss the people you care about.
Don't get hung up on presents and all that stuff.....people don't care!
Do YOU remember what on earth people gave you last year? If you are like most people, probably not.
People are more important than any material possesion.
Don't get so caught up in finding perfect gifts that you wear yourself out.
And don't spend so much money as last year....its not a time to spend but to celebrate and be happy.
So however you celebrate, accept good wishes from my family to yours.
And take care, be well, count your blessings and kiss kiss!

An Amazing Blog

2005-11-29T11:42:00.000-05:00

I found this amazing blog. I have actually been kicked off it I think but still its just facinating to read like little else I have run across in the blogworld.
The guy who writes it calls it a stripclubbing chronicle and on the surface at least it chronciles his experiences in these places over a period of like ten years.
That seems like it would be dull but believe me its anything but.
When I first read it I felt really sorry for him and suggested he start dating and look for someone nice that was his own speed and stop all this silliness.
He said that he was already with 'the one' and that he was just a 'dishonorable person' or something. That made me so mad! I thought 'holy shit'! His poor wife!
I scolded him and said what a horrible cretin he was of course, but I still kept reading the blog, facinated at how utterly and completely self deluded this guy was, plus the blog has an actual plot line, unlike others and believe me you get so sucked into whether or not he can convince one of these poor girls to fall in love with him. (so far no luck but close)
I mean when you read his writing, you realize that alot of people have this 'other life' in a way that no one knows about but them. I mean this guy could be anyone.
While his thing is more extreme than most peoples I think everyone has a certain wish for fantasy and acceptance. People like this guy are able to suspend disbelief to the point where they actually believe the girls have a thing for them. That its so fun for them. I mean, he points out that on some level he realizes this is not true but still, this is the point isn't it?
It gives a profound insight into the reptile brains of men, that really what they want on some level is a harem, a big screen TV with ESPN on and a nice glass of wine.
:+}
Of course, most men( at least the ones in my family and friends circle) are able to contain themselves, raise a family, be good husbands and good people and so this whole cheating thing gets on the way way way back burner.
But as this guy on the blog shows, you can be in your forties, have a family, money, a good career, a liberal arts education whatever and STILL spend your time looking for something.
I mean on some level in some way don't we all do that?
You know that U2 song, 'I Still Haven't Found What I am Looking For?" I love that song and it always struck a chord with me.
Of course in my case, I have a happy home life, I love my husband and my family and no way in a million fucking years would I ever ever do anything to endanger that.
I have to say tho, marriage isn't always easy and fun and exciting. People are different, people disagree, no marriage is without painful episodes and unfufilled hopes.
When you come right down to it, we all struggle with the same exact issue that this strip club junkee guy is haunted by.
For him, he can cough up a few hundred dollars, go upstairs with a women half his age who tells him how thrilled she is to see him and how facinating it all is ( I mean they even pretend to have orgasms and the guys believe it!) and bingo! He gets to have his boredom taken away and his problem at least for the moment solved.
At first, I thought, wow I am like SOOOOooooooo much better than this puek. But wait, am I really?
How can anyone say with certainty that they are better than someone else? Just because I am faithful, and honest with my spouce does that really make me a superior being?
This blog begs another question too, how well do we really know each other? This guys wife and family probably have no idea that he is carrying on with other women.
How can it be possible to live with someone have thier kids and not even really know them?
If you want to read this blog here is the address

sixtysplace@blogspot.com

Don't be put off by the title of it, its not about stripclubbing even tho the guy who writes it thinks it is.
I am telling you the stories are so sad in a way, but really true to life and enlightening.
There is some sexual content but not gross.
If you have some time, really go and read it you won't believe it.
Don't be put off by the

What a beautiful day

2005-11-28T19:57:00.000-05:00

It was just so wonderful and warm and it felt so great. I took my dog and we walked seven miles. I loved it.

Things are so busy with the business I needed time to clear my head. At the gym I always have on my headphones and its harder to think somehow. Today was a good way to sort of just let out the cobwebs.

My family and I had a wonderful holiday together. It worked out great for us that the snow prevented us from going to the catskills. We had so much fun just chilling out. Life is so hectic I just never get to really stop and enjoy how beautiful my daughters really are at these ages. Nine and Fourteen.

And anyhow, for my husband it was good to just not have to go anyplace or really do anything. We are planning a trip alone this winter. I would like to see Lake Placid again. I just think its so romantic in the winter. Like some fairy tale of wonderland or something.

My business partner and i are over our brief hump. I just figured whatever, its not worth it to argue. We are making more money than I would have ever thought so fast and we both have very very different ways of dealing with pressure and stress. I tend to remain calm and just pound away and be optimistic and she is totally type A and gets nuts. But I spoke with a good friend of mine who is a partner in a firm that is similar and she said I have a great deal and I have to suck it up and just let it roll off me. Two people who are alike are less suitable as a team than people so different as Valerie and I.

I am starting to think about the holidays and friends and presents and all that stuff now. I can't believe its here already.

I just feel so thankful for the life I have and for my family. I couldn't ask for more really. Lets all hope that at least for now my luck doesn't change.

ok lets catch up

2005-11-20T21:26:00.000-05:00

I have been super busy lately.
Business has been great and tomorrow I finish up this huge project and we bill em like the wind. Rainmaker Callie here.
Didn't know I had the touch I must say I can pat myself on the back.
Being a great bullshitter comes in handy when you are a consultant. Never ever underestimate the power of a knowing smile.
My daughter had her ninth birthday party we had a blast.
My husband is having some kind of weird mid life crisis thing.
He does this every so often.
He starts to worry that he isn't 'really liveing'.
OK
I just say go and get some therapy. He is going to.
This is what happens to people that have too much money and time to think about stupid crap like whether or not they are 'really ' living.
Please.
Spare me.
But I act concerned and try to help.
Men are so fragile.

I am going to my cool brothers for Turkey day. Whooo whoo
We are turning into a nice little holiday. Holtel with pool fancy smancy...

Then a weekend in December to go away alone with my husband and just chill out.
I think I have maybe been ignoring him a bit since work and kid stuff has been keeping me busy.

Over all tho, life is good.
Busy, in a good way. but good.
Its nice to come back to my blog.
I missed it.

I missed it alot.

My friend is mad at me!

2005-10-14T09:32:00.000-05:00

I have a cold.
I am so overworked I cannot possibly do it all.
I hate traveling and I am booked solid for the next two mthes.
That means I have to be goen three days a week.
I have no idea what risk management is and I have to write this presentation on it.
My clothes all are ugly.
My hair is totally wrong.
The new shoes I bought don't feel at all the way they did in the store.
My husband bought a new car on Ebay to surprise me and I don't even like it but I have to act like I do.
I don't feel like sleeping at my friends tonight but I have to since I already said I would.
My laundry is totally backed up and the cleaning lady is no where to be seen.
Either my scale is wrong or gained two pounds this week.
Why did I eat those potatoe chips?
I have 6800 hundred dollars in recievables and no idea when they are coming in.
Next week I have to travel doing these stupid focus groups on something I have no idea about.
I have to stay in weird hotels in places in the middle of no place with no room service and what if I have to go to a restaurant alone???
What if I get lost????
What if my kids grow up and hate me for working?
What if they miss me too much?
Or worse what if they don't miss me at all?
What if Elder is mad at me?
What if he hates me now?
What if I forget something important in the focus groups next week?
What if I wear the wrong outfit?
What if I gain two MORE pounds????
HELP!

I don't know what to say

2005-10-14T07:01:00.000-05:00

sometimes.

I have been under so much pressure latey that I started to get tummy aches.

I wanted my business to go well but its just so busy that I feel like I can't keep up.

I can't keep track of everything I am supposed to be doing it seems.

There are all these nice fresh vegtables in my frid and I haven't been here to cook them!

I haven't been able to even get all my work done let alone spend the normal two hours prepping an incredible dinner of ttwo cooked vegtables, roast chicken, salad and nice rice pilaf.

I feel like I am getting a cold. We have totally slipped in our eating habits as a family.

Now that Yom Yippor is done, I want to spend the day sleeping. But work calls.

This weekend my daughter turns nine! What fun we will have.

Havea good weekend.

I had a great holiday

2005-10-05T22:07:00.000-05:00

This was RoshShashona, or the Jewish New Year. It was really fun! My kids were home from school and we had the best most wonderful two days you can imagine.
Our friends came over last night and we had this great dinner with an apple theme, apples and honey, apple crisp, apples in the roast beef suffing, and all kinds of cool salads, Kugel, honey cake, Matza Ball soup and my girlfriends brought over this nice red wine and it was all just perfect.
The sermon at temple was very inspiring too, we saw a bunch of people we don't get to see very often and that was nice also.
I got some great news about work today, and all around life for me is very good.
Yippee.
Many kisses and hugs to you all.
Here have some honey cake, its good for you.

Holy Shit!

2005-10-03T06:56:00.000-05:00

'Up to 150m people could die in avian flue pandemic'
(Filed: 30/09/2005)

Q&A on bird flu

Up to 150 million people could die in a global avian flu pandemic if action is not taken to prevent it being transferred from human to human, the United Nations has warned.

Dozens have died from the flu in Asia
Dr David Nabarro of the Geneva-based World Health Organisation said preparations for an expected mutation of the virus enabling it to spread from human to human must be carried out.

"I am almost certain there will be another pandemic soon," Mr Nabarro added.

Dozens of people have died from the virus, mainly in Asia, after it was transferred from birds to humans. So far, there have been no reports of it spreading between humans.

UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has asked Mr Nabarro to head up a worldwide drive to contain the current bird flu pandemic and prepare for its possible jump to humans.

If the virus spreads among humans, the quality of the world response will determine whether it ends up killing five million or as many as 150 million, Mr Nabarro added.

The last flu pandemic, which broke in 1918 at the end of the First World War, killed more than 40 million people.

Mr Nabarro warned it seemed very likely the H5N1 bird flu virus will soon change into a variant able to be transmitted among humans and it would be a big mistake to ignore that danger.

Some governments and international organizations have already started joining forces to begin preparations.

Millions of birds have been destroyed, mainly in Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia, but the virus has also been found in birds in Russia and Europe.

But once humans have caught it, the virus has shown it has the power to kill one out of every two people it infects.

Until now, the effort to contain the spread of the virus among birds and prepare for a possible shift to humans has been led by the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health, the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation and the WHO.

Mr Nabarro said he would head a new UN system-wide office in New York that would begin mobilising governments, international agencies, health workers and the pharmaceutical industry.

Once the virus began spreading among humans, it would be only a matter of weeks before a pandemic was underway, so a rapid response would be crucial, he said.

Two challenges will be governments' traditional desire to ignore threats until they become real dangers, and their reluctance to publicly admit they have a problem once the disease starts spreading, he added.

A vaccine would be the best way to counter the virus and several drug firms around the world are working on one. But production is slow and the immunisation must match the strain that is actually infecting people, so it is not possible to make them up before a new strain emerges.

Next story: Emergency talks to save Turkey EU entry

In light of the bombings today

2005-10-02T20:01:00.000-05:00

I thought this was very interesting.
From a blog I give the URL to:
so what did rice say about hamas

Sunday, October 02, 2005 So What Did Rice Say About Hamas? http://daledamos.blogspot.com/2005/10/so-what-did-rice-say-about-hamas.html
When Secretarty of State Condoleezza Rice speaks about the Middle East, we pay attention.

Now if we could just figure out what she said...

On September 30, Rice spoke at Princeton. After she spoke, Rice answered some questions. Here is the first question, with her response:

QUESTION: I'd like to thank you for coming, first off. I've just been curious -- seems to me that there's been some sort of disconnect with a lot of the rhetoric that you've been presenting here today and with a lot of our actions in the Middle East. One example is that it seems that we've started to take a lot of a softer line with Hamas in Palestine, which is an organization that I think really doesn't fare with the ideals that you've been promoting here. I was wondering if you could try and explain that disconnect we've been seeing.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you. It's a very good question. We've been very clear that Hamas is a terrorist group and it has to be disbanded, both for peace and security and in the Middle East and for the proper functioning of the Palestinian Authority. After all, it is a roadmap obligation of the Palestinian Authority to disband militias and armed resistance groups. There are periods of time of transition in which one has to give some space to the participants, in this case the Palestinians, to begin to come to a new national compact. But I cannot imagine, in the final analysis, a new national compact that leaves an armed resistance group within the political space. You cannot simultaneously keep an option on politics and an option on violence. There simply isn't a case that I can think of internationally where that's been permitted to happen.

For instance, in the Good Friday Agreement it was understood that when Sinn Fein came into politics and eventually the IRA would disarm and perhaps, hopefully, that process is now underway. We did not permit the Afghan warlords to keep their weapons and participate as candidates in politics. They had to make a choice. And so it is absolutely the case that you cannot have armed groups ultimately participating in politics with no expectation that they're going to disarm. But we are very clearheaded about Hamas.

Hamas stands for one-state solution, not a two-state solution. Hamas, therefore, stands for the destruction of Israel. Hamas is an organization that asks Palestinian mothers and fathers to give their children up to make themselves suicide bombers. And it is a real detriment and block to further peace in the Middle East, so we're not at all confused by this. We do, I think, need to give the Palestinians some space to try and reconcile their national politics, but they're going to eventually have to disarm these groups. They can't have it both ways.

So what did she say?

Well, she said that--
a) Hamas is a terrorist group
b) Hamas seeks the destruction of Israel
c) Hamas promotes suicide bombings
d) Hamas is a detriment to peace
e) Hamas must be disarmed

Pretty good, no? So what didn't she say?

Well, according to Arutz7:

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday that Hamas "eventually" will be disarmed but did not state that the terrorist group should be banned from running in the elections. The U.S. has outlawed Hamas, and one of its principles is the destruction of the State of Israel and replacing it with an Islamic state.

Rice, in a major address, told a questioner that it is clear that Hamas "stands for the destruction of Israel...and is a real detriment and block to further peace." But she used the Sinn Fein party, linked to the Irish Republican Army terrorist group, as an example of terrorists agreeing to disarm in order to win political acceptance. "We do, I think, need to give the Palestinians some space to try and reconcile their national politics," she explained.

The upshot of what Rice seems to have left out leaves the door open for Hamas to take part in elections, as long as it disarms. How many different definitions there are of "disarms" in the Middle East is anyone's guess, but here's one I found that I like:

"To deprive of the means of attack or defense; render harmless. "

Getting back to reality though, Rice did seem to contradict herself. While she did talk about disarming Hamas, that's not what she said at first. The very first thing she said was not that Hamas should be disarmed, but that Hamas has to go altogether:

Hamas is a terrorist group and it has to be disbanded, both for peace and security and in the Middle East and for the proper functioning of the Palestinian Authority. After all, it is a roadmap obligation of the Palestinian Authority to disband militias and armed resistance groups.

So according to Rice, in the interests of following the same roadmap that she says Israel must follow, Hamas must be dissolved and cease to exist. After all, one would assume if that applies to militias and resistance groups, it should also apply to terrorists. That being the case, then there is no question that Hamas would not take part in the elections. What could be simpler than that?
Then why did Rice change course in the middle of a single question, changing tracks from calling for dissolving Hamas to merely 'disarming' them--and leaving open the possibility for Hamas to take part in elections after they 'disarm'?

So what is called for, disarming or disbanding?

According to the Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, which by its own admission, "is a performance-based and goal-driven roadmap, with clear phases, timelines, target dates, and benchmarks," the roadmap requires:

Rebuilt and refocused Palestinian Authority security apparatus begins sustained, targeted, and effective operations aimed at confronting all those engaged in terror and dismantlement of terrorist capabilities and infrastructure. This includes commencing confiscation of illegal weapons and consolidation of security authority, free of association with terror and corruption. [emphasis added]

Let's face it, perhaps you could assume "dismantle" means "disband", but you could easily read just 'disarm' into this--all that is required is dismantling the 'capabilities' and 'infrastructure', but the group called Hamas would still exist. And who knows what would pass for 'disarm.'

Rice, on behalf of the US, claims "we are very clearheaded about Hamas."

Maybe they could let the rest of us in on just exactly the US--and the roadmap, for that matter--expects to do about Hamas?

Technorati Tag: Israel.

Link
posted by Daled Amos at 2:44 PM

Written by copaigue . (Link to this entry) This entry has 0 comments: (Add your own)

The War at Home

2005-10-02T18:48:00.000-05:00

Ok there is a biblical concept called shalom bayit, or peace in the home.

This is something I really try to achieve and for the most part I have to say I have done a pretty good job of it. The most important thing in my life, hands down, is my family and there is nothing that can ever change that as my priority.

That said being married is not an easy thing all the time, there is not a magic fairy of love who prances about sprinkling a love potion on everyone when things get tense.

To me, children have a right to a stable loving family.

Sometimes we have to come up with some creative solutions on how to stay married, and sane all at the same time. This is not always as simple as it looks.

One thing I realized is that telecommuting is not really working out that well. See, when I was a stay home mom in the day I was never home, I took the kids out to museums and playgroups, I went to the gym, I was always well out and about.

My husband telecommutes and what he actually did during the day was something I didnt really know about too much.
Now that I really am working all the time, I am home at my computer most of the time. Since my husband also telecommutes this has led to too much time together.

I have considered bopping him on the head with a two by four and telling him to stop asking me to make him lunch or read this funny email he wrote. But that just seems too well, harsh.

I have come to the conclusion that I will start to go to the gym in the morning again and bring my notebook to work at. I write in pen on paper alot anyhow that should help. Then I can always zip over to the university library to answer my email and stuff.

I can buzz the kids to school and be off to work myself. Simple.

See, marriage needs some nurturing. You can't just take it for granted. Someone has to adjust and tweek things that are going badly.

Its not that its SO terrible. My husband just thinks I have been a bit cranky. Anyhow, anyone who knows me should realize I am cranky alot so thats not a big deal. I just find I can't concentrate when he keeps doing the stuff he does all day.

He isn't all that busy as I thought, he has a ton of time to frog around. I really don't actually. His job is more rote I think, mine is more creative, and plus I am only just starting so stuff takes me a long time.

Last night I had dinner with two of my girlfriends and I told them what was bothering me. It was a huge relief. They said they could tell this all was bothering me but thought when I was ready to open up and discuss it I would. What a huge blessing it is to have close and supportive friends.

And today I had dinner with my aunt and uncle. ( Husband has been away closing up the cottage) They cheered me up so much too.

I can't imagine how people live without friends and family to help them with they are a little down.

Now that I have a plan I have this whole feeling of relief...whew.

I don't mean to imply I don't love my husband, I really do love him. I just can't be with him all day and all night! He is aggravating the daylights out of me!

So in the interest of shalom bayit, I am starting a new routine. If you see Mr Callie, don't tell him why the real reason is. I would never hurt his feelings and say " I am going to work at the library since you are irritating me with your nonsense all day"!

I am just going to say I am working on stuff I need books for . And party its true so I won't be lieing or anything.

People say honesty in relationship is best, but thats not always true.

A little white fib for peace and harmony at home isn't a bad thing.

Its not!

Detachment and Insanity

2005-09-28T12:45:00.000-05:00

I am writing this thing for work on Dealing With Angry People.

I lived with crazy angry people pretty much my whole life so this is a topic I feel very qualified to cover. When it comes to this subject I know my stuff.

Detachment is the way to go with it in my opinion.
Just to sort of cosmically unplug without seeming to be unplugged.
The interesting thing I have noticed from my extensive life experience of living with insane people is that they never know they are insane. They always think its everyone else.
The capacity for self delusion is remarkable.
Plus, its astounding how much an insane person can accomplish and still be stark raving certifiable.

Never ever tell a crazy angry person they are crazy. Its like pouring gas on a fire. It just makes them worse.

In my research on this I discovered this article that I thought was very insightful.

Threaten to make things difficult if you don't do what they want.

Constantly threaten to end the relationship if you don't give in.

Regularly ignore or discount your feelings and wants.

Tell you or imply that they will neglect, hurt themselves, or become depressed if you don't do what they want.

Shower you with approval when you give into them and take it away when you don't.

Use money as a weapon to get their own way.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Emotional blackmail is a powerful form of manipulation in which people close to us threaten (either directly or indirectly) to punish us if we don't do what they want. At the heart of any kind of blackmail is one basic threat, which can be expressed in many different ways: If you don't behave the way I want you to, you will suffer. A criminal blackmailer might threaten to use knowledge about a person's past to ruin her reputation, or ask to be paid off in cash to hide a secret. Emotional blackmail hits closer to home. Emotional blackmailers know how much we value our relationship with them. They know our vulnerabilities. Often they know our deepest secret. And no matter how much they care about us, when they fear they won't go their way, they use this intimate knowledge to shape the threats that give them the payoff they want: our compliance. Knowing that we want love or approval, our blackmailers threaten to withhold it or take it away altogether, or make feel we must earn it. For example, if you pride yourself being generous and caring, the blackmailer might label you selfish or inconsiderate if you don't accede to his wishes. If you value money and security, the blackmailer might attach conditions to providing them or threaten to take them away. And if you believe the blackmailer, you could fall into a pattern of letting him control your decisions and behavior. We get locked into a dance with blackmail, a dance with myriad steps, shapes and partners.

Emotional blackmailers hate to lose. They take the old adage "It doesn't matter if you win or lose, it's how you play the game", and turn it on its head to read "It doesn't matter how you play the game as long as you do not lose." To an emotional blackmailer, keeping your trust doesn't count, respecting your feelings doesn't count, being fair doesn't count. The ground rules that allow for healthy give-and-take go out the window. In the midst of what we thought was a solid relationship it's as though someone yelled "Everyone for himself!" and the other person lumped to take advantage of us while our guard was down. Why is winning so important to blackmailers, we ask ourselves. Why are they doing this to us? Why do they need to get their way so badly that they'll punish us if they don't?

Below are some specific ways to answer the most common types of responses. It can't emphasize too strongly how important it is to practice saying these statements until they feel natural to you. How to respond to the other person's catastrophic predictions and threats. Punishers and self-punishers may try pressuring you to change your decision by bombarding you with visions of the extreme negative consequences of doing what you've decided to do. It's never easy to resist the fear that their bleak vision will come to pass, especially when the theme they're pounding home is "Bad things will happen - and it'll be your fault." But hold your ground.

When they say: Then you say:
If you don't take care of me, I'll wind up in the hospital/on the street/unable to work.
* You'll never see your kids again.
* You'll destroy this family.
* You're not my child anymore.
* I'm cutting you out of my will.
* I'll get sick.
* I can't make it without you.
* I'll make you suffer.
* You'll be sorry.
{answers are below}

* That's your choice.
* I hope you won't do that, but I've made my decision.
* I know you're very angry right now. When you've had a chance to think about this, maybe you'll change your mind.
* Why don't we talk about this again when you're less upset.
* Threats/suffering/tears aren't going to work anymore.
* I'm sorry you're upset.

Back to Callie, I liked this article. But I think that emotional detachment is critical to really coping with angry verbally abuseive people.

Changes Changes Changes

2005-09-27T21:37:00.000-05:00

Ok so when I was in grad scool I didn't finsih. I got pregnant and the last two classes I had to take were impossible for me to attend. I was getting a Masters in Ed and one of the classes waas called "Mainstreaming Exceptional Students".

Harmless title right?

The class was all movies of kids who had had these tragic birth defects. I was so flipped out after the first two classes I went and dropped it. It made me have nightmares and I would have to get up all the time to go and throw up.

I just couldn't deal.

The other one was Technology in the Classroom. I had no idea what anyone was talking about and would just burst out crying for some weird reason since I couldn't get the subject matter at all.

It was just this crazy time for me. My husband really didn't want me to be pregnant, I was without any family in CA, I was living in LA, I just was having this really really bad time with myself then.

I just sorta stopped working for a while when the baby came. I did some part time stuff as a grad student and worked with kids at the university, I got this job doing parent ed workshops three mornings a week, you know I did stuff here and there but nothing really approaching a real job.

I had another baby.

My husband traveled for his work all the time so it was just me doing the kid thing and I wanted to be there for them and I didn't need the money so I just back burnered working.

I had lost confidence totally in that part of my self and wasn't sure at all what I would do when my youngest went to school all day.

A close friend of mine has a consulting business and asked me to come and join her. Her old partner left after nine eleven when business went thru a slow cycle and she wanted someone new to hook up with.

She offered me a nice deal, she keeps twenty percent of my fees and I keep 80....I bill out at 1800 a day, and charge thru the nose to write programs, do focus groups, attend conferences to rep different organizations and generally have done very well at it, much to my overwhelming amazement.

I bought a couple of nice 700 suits, I figured out how to use spell check and Outlook fairly well and I managed to overcome my fear of gong into the real world and talking in front of people.

Last week I did a key note to 250 people.

But thats not really what surprised me. Thats not what I wanted to tell you.

I wrote this program on Time Management. I pretty much just pulled it out of the top of my head. The stuff I read I thought was stupid so I just made up new things.

I hate when people just talk and talk during a class so I came up with about 7 activities. People can do them in groups.

Well one of them says that you should imagine yourself getting a beautiful important award. I tell people to picture the trophy. Everyone you love has come to honor you. And thank you.

Two people, one from work and one from your family are giving speaches about your achievements and what you mean to them.

Write the speaches. Tell me what you want them to say about you.

Well one guy looked like he was going to cry and he got up and left.

He later told me that he was thinking of his college aged daughter from whom he was estraged and he got up and called her to apologize.

I didn't know what to say.

THe father thing is a painful place for me and it was all I could do not to just throw down my Coach briefcase and run out of his office sobbing.

Anyhow, I am going back to meet with these guys on the 7th of october to write more programs for them.

When I got back from NY I cried myself to sleep thinking about my father. During my adult life he and I have been very close, but I have to say that his death has really come between us.

For a number of years I didn't speak to him at all. The details aren't important but lets just say three of my siblings didn't speak to him either.

One day he apologized to me and I accepted.

It changed my whole life in a way I can never do justice to in words.

This is a work thing so I can never tell this man what happened to me. I never ever tell them about me, I always let it be about them. When for Petes sake does it ever get to be about them?

They all have these horrible boring jobs, they sit in cubicles, they sit on trains and buses for hours every day just to go to some stupid fucking job they hate. I figure one person for a little while can just let it be about them for a while.

I know I am rambling. As I sit here at my desk I feel like crying about the whole thing with my Dad.

What I find so odd about death is the permanance of it. People don't stop being dead. They stay that way forever.

You never ever get to see or talk to them again no matter what.

Its a hard concept to grasp for mere mortals but thats the way it is.

Sorry I have fallen behind so much

2005-09-27T12:55:00.000-05:00

on my blogging.
I am very busy with work and have to write and write all the day long and I have nothing left in my foolish head to put on my blog.
All of my ideas are gone.

I am sure I will get them back soon, but hugs to everyone who stops by and I will come back to leave nice comments on your blogs soon. I am just takeing a break right now.
Hugs hugs hugs.

Look Elder! A movie about your book!

2005-09-25T11:27:00.000-05:00

Documentary examines anti-Semitism of 'Protocols of Zion'

Thursday, September 15, 2005

By ANDREA GURWITT
HERALD NEWS

Protocols of Zion

Opens in New York on Oct. 21.

Directed by: Marc Levin

Running time: 93 minutes

Not rated

Paterson's own Walid Rabah has made the big time, appearing in a new documentary with some of the top anti-Semites of the last century.

There's Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad; there's George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party; there's Henry Ford, the car manufacturer; Father Charles Coughlin, a Roman Catholic priest; and then Rabah, in his Main Street office, talking about why he published "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in 2002.

Director Marc Levin sought out Rabah for the film "Protocols of Zion," an energetic 93-minute journey into the world of Jew hatred.

Levin, who was raised in Elizabeth and Maplewood and now lives in New York City, uses as the film's jumping-off point the belief by some that Jews were responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center.

An Egyptian taxi driver told Levin soon after Sept. 11, 2001, that no Jews died that day, linking his assertion to a book, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." The book has long been a favorite of those wanting to stir up anti-Semitic hatred in their communities, including, but not limited to, Russian police in the late 1800s, Adolf Hitler and modern-day white supremacist groups.

"The Protocols" is a fake document purporting to be the minutes of a secret meeting of Jewish leaders in the late 19th century, in which they lay out a plan for world domination. Historians have long denounced "The Protocols" as fake, the product not of a secret conclave of Jews but of the Tsarist secret police, who wanted to justify the Jews' persecution.

The documentary is an account of Levin's search to understand why "The Protocols" have had such staying power, why, even after they have been widely debunked, people persist in distributing and reading them. It is also about why anti-Semitism has been on the rise since Sept. 11.

"I was sensitive to it because I hadn't heard it before. Or if I had heard it before, it was so much on the fringe," Levin says. "Who would have thought that at the dawn of the 21st century we'd wake up in the Middle Ages?" He was referring to an age of renewed religious fanaticism in which secular people are often the targets.

Levin frequently appears in his film, interviewing and sometimes arguing with a variety of anti-Semites, philo-Semites, Jewish Semites and non-Jews who do not necessarily announce which side of the fence they're on, even after it becomes clear.

Enter Rabah.

A little history here. Rabah, publisher of the free Arab-language weekly The Arab Voice, printed excerpts of "The Protocols" in August and October 2002. He told the Herald News in 2002 that he published the fake document because a reporter submitted it and Rabah thought it would be educational for the newspaper's readers.

Several years later, he tells Levin in the film that he believes "The Protocols" are fake. "The problem is I don't write it, I just publish it to educate the people," Rabah says.

Rabah wrote a note at the bottom of the newspaper page on which the excerpts were printed, he says, stating they weren't true.

"I don't think that hate is just from the Muslims," he says in the film. "Many people in Europe and United States, they all believe in that."

At the end of the interview he says, "The Jews, they control everything."

Reached for comment about his words in the film, Rabah drew a distinction between Judaism, the religion, and Zionism, the political philosophy. He complained that Zionists "control" politicians, corporations and the media.

But let's not dwell just on our local guy, because the film is about much more than one publisher.

Levin, often donning a hip black leather jacket, also goes to the headquarters of the hate group the National Alliance, where he is told "The Protocols" will always sell. He's a guest on a radio show hosted by a white supremacist and gamely responds to callers.

He interviews inmates at New Jersey State Prison and tries to convince black prisoners that Jews were not responsible for the slave trade. He talks to Christian evangelists about Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ." He visits a gathering of Muslims in Sunset Park mourning the assassination of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, founder and leader of the militant Palestinian group Hamas.

He also talks to a Holocaust survivor; a Kabbalah scholar; Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League; and Matisyahu, a Hasidic reggae singer.

There is no dearth of people who have something to say on the subject. The film includes clips from an Arabic-language movie version of "The Protocols" broadcast on Arab television, and from an interview with an Egyptian girl, 3 or 4 years old, who without pause recites slurs against Jews.

What worries Levin is the new shape of anti-Semitism, spread widely and easily by the Internet.

"It has blossomed in a way that is frightening," he says.

And not just anti-Semitism but all religious zealotry.

"Violence is blessed and sacred and hate can be holy. That is what scares me more," he says.

The documentary is well edited by Ken Eluto, and John Zorn's score alternates between serious and subtle tracks and what might pass for Middle Eastern lounge music.

Although Levin was shocked by the apparent flare-up of anti-Semitism after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, some might argue that hatred of Jews in some of its various permutations never went away, even in this country.

Levin is sometimes accompanied by his filmmaker father Al Levin, who appears almost like Virgil to his son's Dante, leading Marc through the family's past and accompanying him on interviews.

"Certainly what we talked about when we were putting the film together was it could be interesting to people to see two different generations dealing with the social reality," Al Levin says.

That is not how his son originally intended it. In fact, Marc Levin filmed his father more for personal reasons than to include him in the movie. But after the urging of colleagues to include other emotions besides hatred - because hatred and only hatred is too much to watch - Levin decided to insert scenes with his father, to show, in essence, a Jewish elder and his son.

This is his way of responding to the virulent anti-Semitism of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

"The Jewish elders, they've got the secret and it's passed on from elder to son," Levin says about the document. "My father is my elder. What secrets is he passing to me? What are the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the end?"

For Levin the secrets are the love between father and son. And without giving away too much, they are about what his grandfather used to say: "Go do good."

Reach Andrea Gurwitt at (973) 569-7159 or gurwitt@northjersey.com.

6769529

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Black bean & turkey chili ---------------- Chopstick chicken ---------------- Italian beef dinner salad ---------------- Pork chops in orchard gravy ---------------- Scallop and apple stir-fry ---------------- Sea bass in salsa verde ---------------- Shrimp with garlic & lemon ---------------- Southwestern sweet & sour chicken ---------------- Tomato-tomato linguine

PR Newswire

THE RECORD:
Odyssey of help
Offshore storm
Turning point
Passaic River
The sound of hate
Pay to play
Fighting for air
Diverse and divided
Journey Through Shadow
Reports archive

HERALD NEWS:
Ukraine Elections
24 On Main
Dominican Republic
Disability City
Burning through millions
Peace by piece
Shadowed Motherhood
Reports archive

I thought this was thoughtful

2005-09-25T10:36:00.000-05:00

I agree with the author of this.

US Anti-Semitism: Could the Unthinkable Occur?
By Caleb Corbin

The shores of the United States have been a historical anomaly for the Jewish people. America is one of only a handful of nations on earth in which Jews have been accepted as equals, and accorded all of the rights, privileges and freedoms of her citizens.

America's first president, George Washington, wrote a letter in 1790 to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island: "May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants, while every one shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid."

The words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty's pedestal echo the sated hunger of Jews in America after more than 17 centuries of unending global persecution and wandering:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
The poem's author, Emma Lazarus, was Jewish. Fittingly, America's most visible symbol of freedom is wreathed with words breathed from a Jewish heart.

But despite America's pure foundations, the disease of anti-Semitism has surfaced from time to time throughout our history.

In 1862, General Ulysses S Grant, commander of the Union forces and later 18th president of the United States, issued General Order No. 11, which expelled all Jews from Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi. Upon receiving news of such order, President Abraham Lincoln immediately wrote to Grant, ordering him to revoke the order. Grant revoked the order three days later.

And Henry Ford, the American industrial icon and automotive baron of the early 20th century, was a rabid anti-Semite. He authored an infamous four-volume work entitled The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem, which portrayed world Jewry as scheming together to take over the world.

Because it carried the Ford name, the work gained immediate notoriety and credibility in the eyes of many, spreading like wildfire and sowing the seeds for future anti-Semitism in the American consciousness. Today, The International Jew is one of the holy books of the American anti-Semitic population.

And what of today? How successfully has America fended off societal decay, of which widespread anti-Semitism is but a symptom?

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) conducts an annual survey entitled "Survey of American Attitudes Towards Jews in America". Its 2005 findings were striking: a full 14% of the American citizenry, or 35 million people, hold beliefs that are "unquestioningly anti-Semitic". This is down from its 1992 survey, which categorized a full 20% of Americans as strongly anti-Semitic. The ADL's 2005 "Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents" recorded a total of 1,821 events in the US - a spike of 17% from the previous year.

As the annual survey shows, a resilient and hard-core base of Jew-haters reside in the US, with evidence suggesting a large part of this core is actively working to spread their poison across this nation.

One trend is of particular concern. Militant Islam is rapidly spreading its tentacles across America. One of the few Islamic moderates in this country, Muhammad Hisham Kabbani of the Islamic Supreme Council of America, estimated that "extremists" have taken over 80% of the mosques in the US. These extremists are working single-mindedly to turn America into an Islamic state, with the Koran as its foundation.

The campaign is being coordinated by both foreign and domestic elements. It is no coincidence that Libyan strongman Moammar Gaddafi pledged to Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam, an American militant Black Islamic group, one billion dollars in aid and support. Also, the Saudis are bankrolling the construction and staffing of dozens of mosques throughout the US. These mosques are exclusively propagating the militant Wahabbi form of Islam, the very religion which inspired the 9/11 attacks.

The campaign is not limited to mosques. It also includes Islamic community centers, newspapers, schools, youth groups, political organizations, professional associations and business activities - all involved in recruiting, training, supporting and coordinating its members.

Substantial segments within the Black American community are converting to militant Islam or have fallen under its influence. This is creating a real and present danger to American Jews. In late August, Los Angeles police discovered a major terror plot by three Black Islamic Americans affiliated with the Jamat-E-Masjidul Islam mosque. A list was found in their possession containing the addresses of several Los Angeles synagogues and the Israeli consulate. Police speculate the men were part of a network planning to attack these targets during the upcoming Jewish High Holy Days.

One week later, possibly in response to the arrests, the Nation of Islam called for a "jihad" against the Los Angeles Police Department.

Gravely, militant Islam has entered into and is directing much of mainstream Black America. The Millions More March (MMM) on Washington DC, scheduled for October 14-16 of this year, was created by Farrakhan to further the Black militant's agenda. Farrakhan appointed Malik Zulu Shabazz, the virulent anti-Semitic leader of the New Black Panther Party, as co-organizer of the event. Among many other anti-Semitic diatribes, Shabazz claims it was the Jews who enslaved Blacks and brought them to America. He also asserts the "Zionists control America, lock, stock and barrel."

Farrakhan and Shabazz have successfully courted and enlisted several mainstream Black organizations and political groups in the MMM campaign, including the 43 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, NAACP, National Council of Negro Women, National Progressive Baptist Convention, National Urban Coalition, Black Entertainment Television, the African American Leadership Institute, Rainbow PUSH Coalition and dozens of others.

A second trend of concern is the millions of illegal immigrants flowing into the US from Mexico and Central and South America. It is estimated approximately one million immigrants illegally slipped into the US from Mexico in 2004. As the 2005 ADL survey shows, 35% of foreign born Hispanics hold hard-core anti-Semitic beliefs, as do 19% of US-born Hispanics. Illegal immigration and high birth rates make Hispanics the fastest growing segment of the American population.

Hispanics, heavily influenced by the historically anti-Semitic Catholic Church, are quickly becoming a major force in America's political, cultural, judicial and social landscape. Hispanics already out-number whites in America's eighth largest city, San Antonio, Texas.

Please note that Hispanics and Blacks themselves are not, as a group, anti-Semitic, but the numerical quantity of individuals within these two groups has an increased tendency towards anti-Semitic beliefs.

American white supremacists are also seeing an explosion in growth. Mike McQueeney, a Ku Klux Klan leader in Wisconsin, said that since the 9/11 attacks, "Recruitment has definitely been up. That's not just with the Klan. It's with every white organization."

Throughout history, outbreaks of Jewish persecution would often follow on the heels of catastrophe. During the European Black Death, Jews were fingered as causing the pestilence by poisoning the wells. Thousands were massacred.

Ominously, in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, rumors that a visiting Israeli delegation stayed away from the World Trade Center were immediately picked up by the Associated Press and other mainstream media outlets and broadcast nationally. The implication, at best, was the Israelis knew in advance of the attacks. At worse, that the Israelis, or domestic or international clandestine Jewish groups, had perpetrated the attacks. The Internet is full of American anti-Semitic literature "proving" the Jews carried out the 9/11 attacks.

Many Americans are also buying the Islamic/anti-Semitic subterfuge that Islamic terror attacks against America are the result of America's support of Israel. By extension, the Jews are responsible for Islamic terror attacks against the US. Remove the Jews, the logic goes, and remove the cause of Islamic terrorism.

The great concern for American Jews should be whether history will repeat itself. Will the Jews, as they have in almost every other nation on earth, be held as the scapegoats for whatever future disaster befalls this land? And what will the reaction be if future terror attacks employ WMDs in one or more American cities?

As 9/11 shows, even the mainstream American media is not immune from singling out Jews in the immediate aftermath of a major terrorist event.

The trends in America are disturbing. History has an irritating way of repeating itself. America has been an anomaly, but anomalies are just that: temporary, isolated events, which eventually conform to pattern.

The question remains: Will America forever defy the historical pattern?

Don't bet on it.

Ok more on the stupid nature of word verification

2005-09-21T19:13:00.000-05:00

Why would I want to inconvience the few nice people who stop in and say hi by maing them type some idiotic word they can barely see. Like who cares what is on my blog really? Is this THAT big a deal that people have to worry that some moron might spam them? Why really bother with it?
Like our blogs are so so so significant that some fiend may somehow spoil the beauty?????

No Word Verification for me

2005-09-15T21:52:00.000-05:00

I don't mind a bit of spam. A small mess is ok. I don't want to be bothered reading silly letters and I won't make you do it.

Just post away, ignore the spam! I don't mind it. everyone has to make a living I suppose. I pay the spammers no mind.

bye for now

2005-09-11T10:51:00.000-05:00

Bloggin Break

2005-09-11T10:47:00.000-05:00

I am so busy with work and stuff at home I don't have time for blogging!

I will stay in touch so those of you who I love I will stop in and say hi!

I will be back once I get caught up....

hugs!

What do you like to eat after school?

2005-09-07T14:24:00.000-05:00

Or after work?

Ok I made nice pumpkin pie for my kiddies to eat when they hop off the bus. I think smell is super important don't you? And to smell that nice fall aroma fill up your house and be all nice and yummy there for you when you hop off the bus is a good thing.

School is this big scarey world in a way and its so nice to have this sanctuary where people just think you are great no matter what and where you can always have a nice snack with someone who loves you.

I telecommute most days so I can watch them hop off the bus and run up the driveway into the house all excited to be home.

Its nice to have the routine of school back again, and plus fall is my favorite season.

Its so wonderful to have the leaves and the crisp air, and relative warm weather still with us.

Back to School!!

2005-09-07T08:26:00.000-05:00

my kiddies went back to school today!!!!

Whooo hooo!

yippee!

*****happy dance*******

More on the Army Corps and their nonsense

2005-09-06T22:16:00.000-05:00

I was at this meeting.

River residents lambaste study
Citizens to Army Corps: go home
by M.B. Pell, Watertown Daily Times Staff Writer
First published: Wednesday, July 7, 2004

CLAYTON - St. Lawrence River lovers had a simple message for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: you represent a great danger to our way of life, we don't trust you, and we would like you to leave.

"Please gentleman, pick up your tools, pack your bags and go away," said Bea Schermerhorn, of Save the River, to officials from the Corps, Transport Canada and the Great Lakes Commission, at Tuesday night's meeting in the Clayton Opera House, which was packed to the balconies.

The Great Lakes Commission organized the meeting to gather public input on the $20 million Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River navigation study that Congress called for last year after the Corps' analysis of expansion was criticized for being incomplete and misleading. The study will examine the transportation system's aging infrastructure, such as the locks, and the environmental and economic conditions that affect the system, focusing on improvements that might be needed to keep it competitive with other trade routes.

Speaker after speaker hammered away at the Corps' representatives, criticizing the failure of the Corps to include community concerns in its initial study and pointing out numerous areas of the initial study that they believe are badly flawed.

Daniel C. Churchill, a Grindstone Island resident, said the Corps could make great strides with the community if it stopped avoiding an open dialogue. He said refusing to comment on the study commissioned by Save the River last year that challenged the Corps' claim that the regional economy will benefit from widening and deepening the shipping channel is a perfect example of dodging input.

"I think, if you guys are interested in public comment, when you receive a serious report like this, you should comment on it," Mr. Churchill said.

Wayne F. Schloop, the Corps' project manager for the study that was conducted in 2002 and the current study, agreed that he has not commented on the Save the River report.

Thousand Islands Land Trust President G. Theodore Mascott called for a study of shipping that takes into account the cost of damage caused by commercial traffic.

Invasive species are of immediate concern. Zebra mussels, which were brought to the Great Lakes in ships' bilge water, clog municipal sewer and water pipes and have to be removed from private and public docks on a yearly basis.

Mr. Mascott also said the benefits of commercial shipping should be detailed, as the last study assumed economic success for an expanded shipping system without explanation.

"Your study needs to be changed," Mr. Mascott said.

Mrs. Schermerhorn suggested that the Corps invite members of Save the River and representatives of the Thousand Islands tourism industry to participate in the study.

And Carol Clemenhagen, a Save the River board member from Rockport, Ontario, called for a better explanation of what the current study is supposed to examine and how the study came about.

"If they think the objective is clear, then there is something wrong with today's engineering schools," she said. "What are they really trying to do?"

Stephanie G. Weiss, executive director of Save the River, said that even though many participants didn't believe the Corps would listen to their concerns, she thinks the meeting will have a positive effect.

"I do think they'll take the public input into account," she said. "But the question remains, what happens in 2005?"

The study will be completed in the fall of 2005, when, Mr. Schloop said, politicians will take the report he provides and make a policy. He said the study could change to reflect comments from the public and insisted that the study's goal is not expansion.

"It's certainly not part of the study effort now," he said. "We're not looking at it; I don't know what else to say."
Johanna Lawrenson, co-organizer of Save the River and activist Abbie Hoffman's widow, said she's concerned the Corps will use its current study to justify expanding the Seaway.

"We don't want you studying future navigation on our majestic river," she said.

Richard M. Spencer, the National Wildlife Federation's Mid-Atlantic Regional Organizer and an original Save the River board member, said he is skeptical of the study's true aim because the money for the current examination came from the same Congressional appropriation that pays for all of the other Corps projects.

"Even some of the study teams are confused," Mr. Spencer said. "The Seaway in its newsletter referred to this as another "phase of the study."'

Assemblyman Darrel J. Aubertine, D-Cape Vincent, and representatives of U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rep. John M. McHugh, R-Pierrepont Manor, attended the meeting.

E-mail: mpell@wdt.net

Editorial from the Watertown Daily Times: Seaway study
North country rejects Corps plan
First published: Thursday, July 8, 2004

North country residents delivered an unmistakable message Tuesday night to the Army Corps of Engineers: Leave the St. Lawrence Seaway alone.

The crowd at the Clayton Opera House was solidly opposed to a $20 million study of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River navigation system. The study is meant to examine the Seaway's infrastructure as well as the costs and environmental concerns associated with improvements.

However, skeptical of the motives for the study, opponents view it as a step toward deepening the channel and enlarging the Seaway to accommodate larger ships.

The current study is a follow-up to an earlier one by the Corps which drew criticism for being incomplete and misleading. Officials from the Corps, Transport Canada and the Great Lakes Commission, which are involved in study, were looking for public input.

If they were listening, they should have left with a clear message, one fueled by distrust of the Corps and summed up by Bea Schermerhorn of Save the River: "Please gentleman, pick up your tools, pack your bags and go away."

A multibillion dollar, long-range expansion of the Seaway will primarily benefit shipping concerns and the western Great Lakes, where the study is also generating attention.

A recent editorial in The Times in Munster, Ind., near Chicago, supports moving ahead cautiously with the study. It urges readers to attend a July 14 hearing in Chicago to make their views known on upgrading the system.

While recognizing environmental objections, the Indiana paper said, "Adapting to change is necessary to be competitive in the global economy. That is just part of the cost of doing business."

Yet, Northern New York will pay the cost in ecological damage done to shoreline property and fisheries from larger ships traversing the Seaway.

The irreversible changes to the river could affect the tourism so vital to the north country economy as well as power generation at the St. Lawrence-FDR Power project.

The economic benefits will bypass the river communities of Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties.

Contrary to claims by the Corps' and expansion supporters, the north country will bear the burden of expansion. And there is unease that any improvements will lead eventually to harmful winter navigation.

Tuesday's speakers showed restraint and kept to the point. However, they demonstrated the intensity of north country opposition to the flawed study.

The Army Corps of Engineers is Horrible

2005-09-06T21:58:00.000-05:00

These are the people who are a government agency that is supposed to take care of dams and waterways, and these huge projects like the Mississippi Delta and fixing the flood wall in New Orleans. It wasn't the levees that busted it was the flood wall.....and that would require the army corp of engineers to step in since that is their thing.

I have met with these guys many many times. They go by ACE and believe me are the worst most corrupt bueracracy you can imagine. The reason I have had so much contact with them is that I have worked to get them broken up and put under closer watch of other less Fellini like groups since they are SO horrible.

One thing they are trying to do, that is actually their number one priority at the moment is to blast out the islands in the St Lawrence to make it easier for ships to go from Chicago to the Atlantic down the Lakes and thru the 'seaway'.

In case you didn't know from my blog, I LIVE on one of the islands those cretins want to blow up and for no good reason. The St Lawrence River doesn't need to have the islands blown up nor do they need to ruin the water of the Great Lakes by introduing more shipping.

Its not something the economy will benefit from and all research says it. Yet they keep trying to do it.

Why?

Because of cronyism and because they get to bid on their own jobs, hire their own buddies and if they do a feasibility study that gets under the radar they get to give themselves the job. Sweet huh? They all go from running the Army Corp of Engineers to have fun jobs like running shipping companies.....for huge money...so of course their priorities have like nothing to do with the national interest any more than they people at the FDA who go to work for pharmacutical companies they used to 'regulate'. Its all BS.

All BS.

Now so far for some reason we have been lucky in stopping them. Turns out the blasting would resuspend the mercury at the bottom of the Lake Ontario and the St Lawrence and pollute the water table. The largest fresh water source in North America could very well be ruined because of them if people stop screaming about this.

You never read about it in the news right? These stealth guys are under the radar, its more fun to watch Cindy Sheehan and Donald Trump and Survivor I know but this is what really makes things tick.

So, if they had been doing what the fuck they were SUPPOSED to do and fixed the flood wall in New Orleans instead of stupid crap like spending enormous sums to 'study' blasting my house up this would have never happened.

So google the Army Corps of Engineers. It is sickening.

On Stopping the "Finger Pointing"

2005-09-06T21:38:00.000-05:00

I noted that on Elders blog he wrote an interesting piece on how come people were playing the 'blame game" on Katrina.

It was very interesting and it got me to thinking.

I mean, ok, what is it that has our leaders so upset about the natural curiosity of those of us who work and have families as to weather or not these highly paid people are DOING what they are supposed to do.

Now we all have a level of trust in government or at least I do. I mean, if we have an emergency at work my partner gets me on my cell phone and for the most part I stop what I am doing and get on it. For us an emergency involves stuff like a client hating the graphics I did on a power point presentation for the next day.

I may have to stop surfing blogs, getting my hair done and driving my kids around to change it. And people expect stuff to happen and happen fast when there is a problem.

If not, someone has to pay.

Now lets see here. I have a nice cozy summer house and once this summer I had to give up my holiday and go to NYC and see these retards about a stupid project they thought was important. I didn't want to end my vacation to do that but hey, life is life.

Well unless you are President, or head of Homeland Security that is, in which case you get to do pretty much whatever stupid shit you feel like doing and if it costs innocent people to die a horrible gruesome death one can only imagine in their darkest nightmares while the folks we pay to run things just fuck off, then you can do what you want and if you wait FIVE HOURS to send in a REQUEST for help then hey, maybe he had important stuff like blog surfing to do huh?

Read this, and think of the stories of the people who watched their babies die of dehydration or worse.

From the AP Yahoo News

WASHINGTON - The government's disaster chief waited until hours after Hurricane Katrina had already struck the Gulf Coast before asking his boss to dispatch 1,000 Homeland Security employees to the region — and gave them two days ( WHEN I HAVE SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO DO I DON"T GET TWO DAYS DO YOU?) to arrive, according to internal documents.

Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sought the approval from Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff roughly five hours after Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29. Brown said that among duties of these employees was to "convey a positive image" about the government's response for victims.

Before then, FEMA had positioned smaller rescue and communications teams across the Gulf Coast. But officials acknowledged Tuesday the first department-wide appeal for help came only as the storm raged. ( WHY DO YOU SUPPOSE THAT MIGHT BE?)

Brown's memo to Chertoff described Katrina as "this near catastrophic event" but otherwise lacked any urgent language. The memo politely ended, "Thank you for your consideration in helping us to meet our responsibilities."

The initial responses of the government and Brown came under escalating criticism as the breadth of destruction and death grew. President Bush and Congress on Tuesday pledged separate investigations into the federal response to Katrina. "Governments at all levels failed," said Sen. Susan Collins (news, bio, voting record), R-Maine.

Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said Brown had positioned front-line rescue teams and Coast Guard helicopters before the storm. Brown's memo on Aug. 29 aimed to assemble the necessary federal work force to support the rescues, establish communications and coordinate with victims and community groups, Knocke said.

Instead of rescuing people or recovering bodies, these employees would focus on helping victims find the help they needed, he said.

"There will be plenty of time to assess what worked and what didn't work," Knocke said. "Clearly there will be time for blame to be assigned and to learn from some of the successful efforts."

Brown's memo told employees that among their duties, they would be expected to "convey a positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community organizations and the general public.""

OMG!!!! Can you imagine what would happen to most people if they screwed up this badly at work????? Who do these people answer to anyhow???
If people just let this one go, we get what we deserve when we have another terror attack or bad disaster.

Somehow the leaders have to get to the bottom of this on all sides and make sure the idiots responsible pay for what they didn't do.

Did you ever wonder why you didn't see it before?

2005-09-06T17:05:00.000-05:00

I realized something this weekend that hit me so hard it took my breath away.

One of my sisters was talking about maybe having an anniversary party for our older brother and his wife...

I didn't really get involved and if it actually happened I didn't go.

I got a message on my machine to call one sister and I didn't.

For pretty much all of my adult life I have put alot of effort into my relationships with my sisters. It was really important to me.

My youngest sister actually lived with me off and on and I was pretty invested in that relationship.

Let me point out here that my youngest sister really doesn't like me much at all. Actually she dislikes me from what I can hear and see.

My whole boring "Suzie Homemaker" routine along with my normal middle class life thing irks her and my other two sisters and they actively express their disdain. Of course this has never stopped any of them from dropping their kids off with me, asking me for money for a down payment on a house or generally taking anything they can from me.

Its not that I am so perfect or anything but my house is clean, dinner is on the table, my kids can put a napkin in their laps and eat with some decorum and my husband and I get along pretty well for the most part. I don't have crap all over my floors, or three days of dishes in my sink and my kids don't have obesity issues or drug problems. ( so far anyhow)

I only say nice things to and about their children.

Yet, when I am with them its pretty much one mocking comment after the next towards me and to be honest. I am done with it.

Its hard to say when it happened for me. I think it was the last time the four of us got together. My sister left me this voicemail message on how glad she was she could be 'honest' with me.

Well you know what? Fuck that.

I have really nice friends, and two great kids a husband, a business of my own I like, I don't need their stupid petty aggravation anymore.

Why do I spend time with them when its just so not fun?

Its not like I am going to like stop speaking to them or anything, I am just done trying to get them to like me.

If it hasn't happened by now its not going to happen.

Its sad. I know I am not perfect either, I blurt stuff out and say things I shouldn't too.

But at least I apologise and I try to be nice. I don't make fun of them.

So this is it, I am done with this now, no more.

Poof!

So I have alot to tell you guys

2005-09-06T00:27:00.000-05:00

I was gone all weekend and so many things happened!

I saw Bill Clinton and Hillary in person for one thing.

No kidding for real, they have friends on the same island as we are on and I saw them. I met Hilllary before thru this environmental group I work on but never saw Bill before.

He is just like how you would picture him.

Holding court and having fun.

I had a long drive home with my two neices and daughter...it was nice to be in teen land with them in the car and talk.

My neice rescued this huge dog Budda from the animal shelter and he came too.

No I have to sleep but I will tell you all about my adventures tomorrow. I can't find my glasses so I can't see to type.

Tomorrow we can get caught up. I hope you had a nice weekend too!

From the European Press

2005-09-02T11:14:00.000-05:00

World stunned as US struggles with Katrina By Andrew Gray
1 hour, 50 minutes ago

LONDON (Reuters) - The world has watched amazed as the planet's only superpower struggles with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, with some saying the chaos has exposed flaws and deep divisions in American society.

ADVERTISEMENT

World leaders and ordinary citizens have expressed sympathy with the people of the southern United States whose lives were devastated by the hurricane and the flooding that followed.

But many have also been shocked by the images of disorder beamed around the world -- looters roaming the debris-strewn streets and thousands of people gathered in New Orleans waiting for the authorities to provide food, water and other aid.

"Anarchy in the USA" declared Britain's best-selling newspaper The Sun.

"Apocalypse Now" headlined Germany's Handelsblatt daily.

The pictures of the catastrophe -- which has killed hundreds and possibly thousands -- have evoked memories of crises in the world's poorest nations such as last year's tsunami in Asia, which left more than 230,000 people dead or missing.

But some view the response to those disasters more favorably than the lawless aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

"I am absolutely disgusted. After the tsunami our people, even the ones who lost everything, wanted to help the others who were suffering," said Sajeewa Chinthaka, 36, as he watched a cricket match in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

"Not a single tourist caught in the tsunami was mugged. Now with all this happening in the U.S. we can easily see where the civilized part of the world's population is."

SINKING INTO ANARCHY

Many newspapers highlighted criticism of local and state authorities and of President Bush. Some compared the sputtering relief effort with the massive amounts of money and resources poured into the war in Iraq.

"A modern metropolis sinking in water and into anarchy -- it is a really cruel spectacle for a champion of security like Bush," France's left-leaning Liberation newspaper said.

"(Al Qaeda leader Osama) bin Laden, nice and dry in his hideaway, must be killing himself laughing."

A female employee at a multinational firm in South Korea said it may have been no accident the U.S. was hit.

"Maybe it was punishment for what it did to Iraq, which has a man-made disaster, not a natural disaster," said the woman, who did not want to be named as she has an American manager.

"A lot of the people I work with think this way."

From the European Press

2005-09-02T11:12:00.000-05:00

Can't you picture Bush?

2005-09-02T11:04:00.000-05:00

I saw this on a MB about the hurricane and it made me smile.

(Bush to chopper pilot): Put us down there on the Dome, boy, I think these folks need good 'ole fashion Texasssss pep talk.
(Pilot): Who the fvck you callin' boy?
(Bush): Easy there, Sparky. I'm just trying to hang.
(Advisor): Mr. President! I must advise against this! The roof of the Dome is ready to collapse any minute. So is your approval rating!
(Bush): Bullshite!! I'm the President. My words will be soothing music to those poor folks down there. Errrr, where is my speech writer?
(Advisor): But Mr. President, New Orleans is predominately Democrat!
(Bush): Well, why the hell didn't you say that before? Take me back to Texas, boy, I've got two days of vaction owed me and the barn door still needs fixin'

New Orleans Mayor is "Pissed"

2005-09-02T10:54:00.000-05:00

from Yahoo News
United States (AFP) - Local officials stepped up their criticism of Washington's response to the killer Hurricane Katrina, branding its failure to speed troops and relief a "national disgrace."

ADVERTISEMENT

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said he "talked to everybody under the sun," including President George W. Bush, but had little success accelerating the dispatch of troops and buses to his flooded city terrorized by armed gangs.

"They think small. This is a major, major, major deal," he told CNN television. He earlier told a local radio station, "every day we delay, people are dying and they're dying in the hundreds, I'm willing to bet you."

Nagin said he told Bush, who was to visit the disaster zone on Friday, that "his flying over in Air Force One does not do it justice."

"I have been all over this city and I am very frustrated because we are not able to marshall resources and we are outmanned in just about every respect. ... I am pissed."

Administration officials say they are doing their utmost to rush manpower and supplies to help survivors of Katrina, which lashed the US Gulf Coast on Monday, leaving thousands feared dead.

But they said they were hampered by the fetid waters inundating 80 percent of the city which have left tens of thousands of people stranded in squalid, sweltering and increasingly dangerous conditions.

Terry Ebbert, the head of New Orleans' emergency operations, was unimpressed by the explanations offered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other departments.

"This is a national disgrace," he said. "FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to (Asian) tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans."

With more than 4,000 National Guardsmen already in New Orleans, US authorities said they expected to have 22,000 on the ground in affected areas of the state of Louisiana by Friday.

But Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco insisted she told Bush earlier in the week that she needed 40,000 federal troops.

"We just did not have enough resources in a timely fashion," the Democrat told CNN. "The ramp-up was not as rapid as we needed."

Amid reports of survivors falling dead in shelters, rotting corpses piling up and gunfights and fistfights erupting, Blanco said situation was ripe for further disaster.

"When your whole network of civilization falls apart, when you have no communications capacity, when you don't have power, you don't have water ... anything can happen. And it has happened," she said.

Bush has been accused of being slow to break off his month-long holiday at his Texas ranch to crank up the federal response to one of the country's worst national disasters.

A poll published Thursday found that 59 percent of Americans felt the federal government was not doing enough to help hurricane victims. Leading US newspapers Friday also blasted the tardy response.

"How could the government have been so unready for a crisis that was so widely predicted," asked The Washington Post.

"The sluggish, initial response ... has embittered and inflamed tens of thousands of people awaiting relief, most of them poor and black and many of them old and sick," the Post said in an editorial.

Neo Nzi's and Radical Islam

2005-09-02T10:19:00.000-05:00

So recently I read a commenter here say that you can't be Muslim and be a terrorist since Islam is against this.

I can see the logic in that idea since it would seem that no religion would ever say its a good idea to go out and kill people.

That said, there are som ereally worrisome new developments in terms of violence being done by people who are at least claiming it to be for Islam.

For example, a tape just came out that was done by one of the suicide bombers in London in which he says he did this for Jihad. Also, the head of Al Queda in Iraq is on the tape as welll. This connection between Al Queda and those bombings is very plain now that this film has come out.

For many years now, people on the far right including KKK supporter David Duke have been on speaking tours thru the Arab world promoting an anti semitic version of world events straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. If you don't know what that is its the most anti semitic book ever written and it claims stuff like how Jews control the world blah blah blah. Actually this horrid book was just made into a mini series on official Egyptian television. Thats how much they like it there!

So, the connection between the origianl Nazi's in the 20th century and the extreme elements in the Arab world was a tight one. They agreed on just about everything and were allies then even tho Nazi's view Arabs as inferior. Basically they had anti semeitism and a huge dislike of the US and the UK in common.

This pot is brewing up again! yuk!

The Peculiar Alliance
Islamists and neo-Nazis find common ground by hating the Jews.
by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
09/01/2005 12:00:00 AM

THERE HAVE BEEN rumblings of late about the developing alliance between Islamic radicals and neo-Nazis. In late May, Israeli president Moshe Katzav gave a speech before the German parliament in which he warned, "Let's not be surprised if terror organizations use neo-Nazis for carrying out terror attacks." And on August 5, WorldNetDaily reported, "Neo-Nazi skinheads are working with radical Islamists in a growing unholy alliance that has European law enforcement officials concerned about a new front in the war on terrorism."

Such an alliance seems unlikely on its face; after all, neo-Nazis view most Muslims as racially inferior, while Islamic extremists believe that neo-Nazis are just another flavor of infidel. However, a closer examination reveals that many white-supremacist groups have expressed solidarity with Islamic terrorists recently, and in turn some white supremacists and far-right Holocaust deniers have found newfound supporters among the Islamists.

THE MOST PROMINENT recent example of white supremacists' vocal support for Islamic terrorism came from August Kreis, the new head of Aryan Nations. In an interview with CNN earlier this year, Kreis said of al Qaeda, "You say they're terrorists, I say they're freedom fighters. And I want to instill the same jihadic feeling in our peoples' heart, in the Aryan race, that they have for their father, who they call Allah." Going a step further, Kreis told CNN that he had a message for Osama bin Laden: "The message is, the cells are out here and they are already in place. They

might not be cells of Islamic people, but they are here and they are ready to fight."

The Aryan Nations website reflects Kreis's desire to instill a "jihadic feeling" in his followers. For example, it features an article purporting to show that the idea of jihad can be found not only in Islam but also in the Bible. The article concludes with a battle cry: "All the sons of Abraham, all descendants of his three wives, Sarah, Hagar and Ketourah, the parties of the Islamic and Aryan World, all need to understand their duty to enact Holy Jihad, we need to live this Jihad; total war, death to our enemy, the insidious, poisonous and rabid satanic jEw." [sic]

Aryan Nations also boasts a quote on its main page further reflecting its support for radical Muslims. Attributed to Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger, the quote states that "a link is created between Islam and National-Socialism on an open, honest basis. It will be directed in terms of blood and race from the North, and in the ideological-spiritual sphere from the East." The main page also touches on other issues of importance to Muslim radicals. It demands immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Middle East, and under the headline "Ariel Sharon: your typical domineering jew," the website features a picture of the Israeli prime minister with fire coming out of his mouth that ends in a mushroom cloud. Underneath, the website proclaims the photograph to be Sharon's "plan for Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc . . . "

I got this from Elders blog

Ok so this is very bad news don't you think? I mean isn't it totally creepy that these groups are working together again??? Why do you suppose this would take place in this day and age?

This made my heart just sink

2005-09-01T08:39:00.000-05:00

I was at a committee meeting at our temple last night and people were talking about security for the Jewish holidays. Do you think anyone at church has to think of hiring gaurds so people can go to church on Easter?

No!

Yet stupid horrible things like this seem to go on all the time.

LOS ANGELES -- The head of a radical Islamic prison gang and three others were indicted Wednesday on federal charges of planning terrorist attacks against U.S. military facilities, the Israeli Consulate and other Los Angeles-area targets.

The four conspired to wage war against the U.S. government through terrorism, kill armed service members and murder foreign officials, among other charges, according to the indictment.

Named in the indictment were Levar Haley Washington, 25, Gregory Vernon Patterson, 21, Hammad Riaz Samana, 21, and Kevin James, 29.

Washington, Patterson and Samana _ who attended the same Inglewood mosque _ allegedly conducted surveillance of military facilities, the Israeli Consulate and synagogues in the Los Angeles area as well as Internet research on Jewish holidays. Law enforcement officials have previously said that the military facilities included National Guard sites, though the indictment does not specify.

The attacks were to be carried out with firearms and other weapons at synagogues during Jewish holidays "to maximize the number of casualties," authorities said. Patterson allegedly bought a .223-caliber rifle in July.

In Los Angeles, authorities said the suspects could have attacked as soon as the Yom Kippur Jewish holiday in October.

"Make no mistake about it _ we dodged a bullet here, perhaps many bullets," Los Angeles police Chief William Bratton said at a news conference

this is from Elders blog.

The World is Flat

2005-09-01T08:33:00.000-05:00

I underupt my daily nonsense to say that there is someone who reads my blog that does not believe there is any evidence that the storms we see now are linked to climate change.
He asked me for some evidence here it is:
from a yahoo news article:

There are people looking for the connections," Kossin said. "As far as connections to frequency, no one has uncovered that. The instrument records just don't go back that far."

But research published just last month in the science journal Nature did, for the first time, show a statistical link between increasing sea surface temperatures due to climate change and the power of recent hurricanes.

Kerry Emanuel, an atmospheric researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, showed in his studies that the increases in storm intensity are directly related to increases in the average surface temperature of the world's tropical oceans.

In terms of monetary damage, the Insurance Information Institute reports that, of the five most costly hurricanes before Katrina in the history of the United States, three happened last year. Part of the destruction can be explained by more people living in coastal areas. The National Oceanic and Atomspheric Administration estimates that 53 percent of the nation's population now lives along a coastline.

But Emmanuel found that hurricane wind speeds have increased by about 50 percent since 1949. Hurricane duration has increased by roughly 60 percent over that period, Emmanuel said.

oy its like there are still people saying the world is flat. We have to take some action on this and stop letting idiots clog up the efforts of rational people.

What can we do about Katrina?

2005-08-31T20:55:00.000-05:00

Alot of people feel helpless in the face of this terrible thing that has happened in our country.

We all wonder how this could have happened with all we know about storms today. And how in a country as advanced as the US we had such great loss of life.

I don't know what the answers to that ate, I have no idea why so many people died, its so sad.

But I know from what I have been reading we can expect many more severe storms like this to come. Climate change is the reason.

There is indesputable evidence that the balance between carbon dioxide and oxegen has been thrown out of wack.

We have to act now to do something. We need to stop wars and fighting and stupidity and get to work on this problem as a human family if we hope to leave a world behind that our children can live in.

Why is everyone so busy shooting each other and fighting, everywhere all over the world this is happening.

I am going to go tomorrow and get four trees from the nursery and plant them.

If everyone on earth would plant a tree for each member in their house think of how many more trees we would have on earth.

One tree makes so much oxegen you would be amazed I am telling you guys you should read about this its incredible.

I hope everyone who reads this will be inspired to do something and plant some trees.

And get a low milage car, turn off the lights and stuff.

We have to stop this while we still have the time.

I say we all tell everyone we know to plant trees.

Don't you think this is a good idea?

Fun things to get you thru to Sept 7

2005-08-31T12:44:00.000-05:00

People are home with the kids for another week....a number of fellow bloggers are about to snap.

Here are some suggestions for how to keep those summer vacation fun seeking kids happy. And in the process you and your family sane.

**Remember an army travels on its stomach. Go to the market and stock right up on all the healthy easy fun things your kids and their twenty closest friends like to eat. Really go for it. Get ice cream and cones and sprinkles. Life is short.

** Get your calendar out and do one cool activity a day. It should always be followed up with a thing that can only be done in summer like running thru the sprinklers. Go ahead. Put your suit and and run too. Remember one day they will be all grown up all too soon. They will be living in LA or London or Vancouver and you will talk to them once a week if you are lucky. Go in the sprinkler with them while you can.

** Rent a bunch of old movies. Get Topper and Gentleman's Agreement and Desk Set. Throw in a least one Tracey Hepburn flick. Kids don't watch old Jimmy Cagney movies anymore. They will resist, stand firm. Make popcorn. Put extra butter on it. Make a real root beer float and watch it with them under a blanket. Tell them their were actually movies before Lucas did special effects and see how amazed they are.

** Go to a planatarium. No one will want to go at first. They will ask you to take them to the mall or to their friends. Make them go. No one can see a good plantarium and not be blown away with wonderment.

** Take a hike thru a park or a trail....walking is free and you can really talk after a few minutes. Or just be quiet and be together.

** Play a game like Cranium or Scattagories and get them to call their friends to come over. Play with them. Have snacks. Insist they play for a least a half hour before they resist and want to play on the computer. I garentee you will be surprised at how much fun you all have.

Alot of it has to do with focus and planning. More than any sort of structured or expensive activity kids want to be with other kids. A friend is better than any toy or new video game you can buy. Call them up some friends from school or temple. Talk to the moms and make plans.

I like to take kids bowling on rainy days. I love it when another Mom will come too, we all laugh so hard at how the kids are so much better than us.

If your kids are busy and happy they are way easier to live with. Don't let them get off scheduale with meals and healthy sleeping. You are the adult, make rules and expect compliance.

One fun activity a day is plenty. You don't have to run yourself ragged.

But plan stuff, relax and remember, these times with your kids will be a memory before you can say boo! Hug them and tell them you love them whenever they leave the house.

Never hang up the phone without saying, 'love you!'

Don't criticise them or make them feel like a burden for being home on summer vacation.

You have a job to do, so do it. Anything worth doing, is always worth doing right.

End of lecture. Love you!

Lets all say a prayer for the storm victims

2005-08-30T19:52:00.000-05:00

Its a sad day.

Carlos who has a nice blog asked me to do this

2005-08-30T19:50:00.000-05:00

question thing so here goes.

Number of books you have owned.

A zillion I love love love books. All kinds of books.

Last book you bought?

Wicked for my daughter

Last book you finished?

The Speckled Beast, a history of Smallpox ( I love non fiction best)

Five Books that Mean Alot to me?

The Book of Jewish Values

How to Run a Jewish Home

The Lessons of a Skinned Knee, a book of Jewish parenting

A River Runs thru It and anything by Bill Bryson cuz he makes me laugh

Love Medicine and Miracles

What books are you currently reading?

I am working on a program on Time Management for work so everything on that is what I am reading.

What five bloggers are you gonna pass this onto?

No one ever does on thing I say so what is the point? Sigh. Oh well no one will I bet but let me try:

Ok here goes, Elder I know you won't do it on your blog but maybe here?
Exenso you are so sweet maybe you can do it?
Mojo, also a good egg..
and Abbas?
And Aaron? You can do it! Its simple and book related so come on and take a shot.

Cyberspies

2005-08-30T12:59:00.000-05:00

This is an incredible story from Time Magazine, I am shocked it isn't getting wider play ....its a very important piece of news.
I wonder if like in the pre nine eleven world of government mistakes this one will get shuffled under the rug too.

Here it is:

It was another routine night for Shawn Carpenter. After a long day analyzing computer-network security for Sandia National Laboratories, where much of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is designed, Carpenter, 36, retreated to his ranch house in the hills overlooking Albuquerque, N.M., for a quick dinner and an early bedtime. He set his alarm for 2 a.m. Waking in the dark, he took a thermos of coffee and a pack of Nicorette gum to the cluster of computer terminals in his home office. As he had almost every night for the previous four months, he worked at his secret volunteer job until dawn, not as Shawn Carpenter, mid-level analyst, but as Spiderman--the apt nickname his military-intelligence handlers gave him--tirelessly pursuing a group of suspected Chinese cyberspies all over the world. Inside the machines, on a mission he believed the U.S. government supported, he clung unseen to the walls of their chat rooms and servers, secretly recording every move the snoopers made, passing the information to the Army and later to the FBI.

The hackers he was stalking, part of a cyberespionage ring that federal investigators code-named Titan Rain, first caught Carpenter's eye a year earlier when he helped investigate a network break-in at Lockheed Martin in September 2003. A strikingly similar attack hit Sandia several months later, but it wasn't until Carpenter compared notes with a counterpart in Army cyberintelligence that he suspected the scope of the threat. Methodical and voracious, these hackers wanted all the files they could find, and they were getting them by penetrating secure computer networks at the country's most sensitive military bases, defense contractors and aerospace companies.

Carpenter had never seen hackers work so quickly, with such a sense of purpose. They would commandeer a hidden section of a hard drive, zip up as many files as possible and immediately transmit the data to way stations in South Korea, Hong Kong or Taiwan before sending them to mainland China. They always made a silent escape, wiping their electronic fingerprints clean and leaving behind an almost undetectable beacon allowing them to re-enter the machine at will. An entire attack took 10 to 30 minutes. "Most hackers, if they actually get into a government network, get excited and make mistakes," says Carpenter. "Not these guys. They never hit a wrong key."

Goaded by curiosity and a sense that he could help the U.S. defend itself against a new breed of enemy, Carpenter gave chase to the attackers. He hopped just as stealthily from computer to computer across the globe, chasing the spies as they hijacked a web of far-flung computers. Eventually he followed the trail to its apparent end, in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong. He found that the attacks emanated from just three Chinese routers that acted as the first connection point from a local network to the Internet.

It was a stunning breakthrough. In the world of cyberspying, locating the attackers' country of origin is rare. China, in particular, is known for having poorly defended servers that outsiders from around the world commandeer as their unwitting launchpads. Now Chinese computers appeared to be the aggressors.

Ok so its me callie again, long story short, the Chinese seem to have stolen files from all sorts of military and nuclear installations. No shit.
And umm, why isn't this bigger news we have to wonder.....I guess there isn't a picture of a crying mother to video.
So no picture, no news.

Why is it that Sorrow Unites Us

2005-08-29T20:08:00.000-05:00

and so often happy occasions have the opposite affect?

How many times have we been to a Wedding, Bar or Bat Mitsvah a supposedly happy birthday or anniversary party only to hear people quarrel or say unkind things.

Yet at tragic times, people join together.

I wonder why this is?

In my own personal experience I have found this to be true.

On the one hand, my father died suddenly a few years ago after falling from a ladder in his garage. I had just spoken to him earlier in the day and a number of my siblings made a habit of speaking to him daily since many of us live far away.

It was a terrible shock to hear he had died.

We sat together in the house and were so very very sad. I started to cry and I remember my sister in law who has always seemed to dislike me before then, offered my a tissue and patted my shoulder.

We all hugged each other and cried and no one said one thing negative to each other.

That same year my sister was married, the youngest of eight, to a wonderful husband.

Instead of being happy for her a number of people in my family were really mean about it, since it was in a unitarian church my Catholic sister refused to allow her sons to attend.

Since she had it in a park, others were critical of the rather unusual reception and how casual it was.

Of course everyone should have been happy for her, but people carped and were as so often happens at weddings simply standing around bickering.

I have seen this time and time again.

I dont know why!

Now what?

2005-08-28T11:03:00.000-05:00

So now what?

Its actually hard to say don't you think?

It seems that Iraq is actually going to come up with some kind of plan.

Who knows if they can make it work, its not really our call on that.

Sharon bagged Gaza, and they are finishing up that wall....

There was a suicide bombing today, some guy from Hebron blew himself up, he was stopped from getting on the bus he was trying to blow up during rush hour by two security gaurds that now have third degree burns over most of their bodies and are in intensive care.

The media is still following camp Casey like its the only story around, its so weird how these non stories take on a life of thier own.

Meanwhile, not much of anything seems to have been resolved anyplace.

It makes me wonder if Al Queda will come out of Iraq stronger than ever after some practice playing real war.

Now that they have been able to congeal themselves into some kind of cohesive military operatioin what if they take that nasty show on the show someplace?

Don't you wish sometimes that we all of us people on earth could just get together and kick out all the people who run things and let someone with some common sense take over?

when I hear Bush or Condi Rice or any of these people talk I can't help it, I wonder holy shit! Is THIS the best we can do?

And how come people in Iraq don't have the right armour? Can't they manage that? How hard can that be to get done?

And while we are on the subject how come they can't fix foster care?

Why do kids still get killed and starved by state approved foster parents in this day and age?

And why do we STILL have to have gas powered cars? Why?

Who is runninng things?

As for me, I have a ton of laundry to get done, closets to organize for back to school and a four mile walk to embark on.

Ranting on how the leaders of the world are idiots does make me feel better about that basket of socks I don't feel like pairing up tho.

It really does.

Ok so time to gear up

2005-08-26T17:16:00.000-05:00

Summer is over, back to work.

Got my office straight, got my house straight got it all on track here.

Whew!

I hope this makes the fall go more smooth.....its a huge juggleing act to keep the kids, the house the business and that whole thing on track............................

I apologize to Rebecca

2005-08-26T09:14:00.000-05:00

I should not have said that.

At times I open my mouth without thinking and this was one of those times.

Again, my apologies and best wishes on your marriage.

Three Sisters Four Brothers

2005-08-26T08:45:00.000-05:00

So I come from a big family as I have said.

One of the things I am most thankful of in my life is the relationships I have with my siblings and their wonderful kids....all 21 of them....!er

Yesterday all four of us 'girls' got together and went to this nice farm and made these wildflower wreaths together at this class. I normally hate that kind of stuff. To be honest I loathe classes involving crafts! yuk!

But in this case I went with it and I actually had a good time.

Something weird happened tho.

One of my sisters came to this party I had last summer and and she said that she hated the party and had a horrible time and that two people said something snobby to her and that no one knew she was my sister.

I couldn't imagine this.

I was shocked.

Now this sister likes to stir the pot and stuff so I just let it go.

I mean its not worth getting all worked up about something like that.

She told me she would never come to another party I had again, and that was a bit off the wall but I figure hey whatever.

Everyone else said they had a great time, and my friends are not snobby maybe she just felt insecure.

Oh well who knows, we had a good time and I enjoyed the ride home with my youngest sister too.

I was up at our camp all summer so I didnt really get to hang out with her that much the last couple mthes so we got caught up.

She was telling me about some of the problems in her marriage, her husband gets really on her nerves.

Now this sister is a quiet person who really like solitude. She was the youngest and we were all mostly out and away by the time she was born so she got to be to herself alot.

In our family people support each other and I listened and told her what ever she does I am on her side in whatever happens. I think she and her husband are a good match and that this will pass but she has to decide that for herself.

I hope it works out, but sometimes you just never know what is in the future.

Lets stop killing people

2005-08-23T23:36:00.000-05:00

I head about Pat Robertsons call to 'take out' Chavez, the nut who is running Venezuala.

Ok the guy is a nut. But he can't be any worse than the other nit wits who have run that place. Venezuala is a country with a small group of hugely rich people from oil, and vast vast slums. My husband and I almost moved there a few years ago, and I said no way.

Ok, so, lets make this clear. Roberstson doesn't speak for the US government but many people view him as symble of the Christian Right.

As such he has a responsibility to uphold certain Christian beliefs. I don't know about Pat but in my Bible is a thing about 'thou shall not kill'.

I have a sign up by my door that my niece gave me that says the Ten Commandments and that was is there for sure.

No question.

So that in itself I hope will close any further debate about killing anyone at all.

We don't do that.

Its wrong and immoral.

Its bad even to talk about it so I will stop.

I am now done.

2005-08-23T15:31:00.000-05:00

"Chris said...
If people believe that the US went to Iraq because of Israel... they are pretty diluted. King Bush holds hands with King of Saud.. er President of Saud... oh man... I forget who thinks their king anymore. Aka. its all about the oil, and revenge.

I guess I just dont see the all anti-semitism that you do. Maybe its because I dont look for it, or maybe its because I am not a victim of it. I was raised to believe ......

I don't think most people really intend to be bigoted or mean.

I will list some of my own personal experiences with anti semitism, some others may have come to a different conclusion but here it is:

The temple I belonged to in San Diego, Adat Shalom was spray painted with Nazi symblems all over. And the name of the rabbi and the local ADL guy were used. They even spray painted the play ground for the nursery school, its was beyond fucked up to see the slide where my daughter played covered with slogans like "Die Jew" ....it was surreal. The police barely investigated even tho it cose 1000's of dollars in damage. Plus much mental pain from the 600 families who were members. The police promised to 'look into it'.

The temple in the next town over Syracuse was burned down a couple years ago by a Palestinian who came from Canada. I went to a wedding there, people were really upset. Thanks to God no one was hurt....things like that leave a mark on peoples minds tho.

The neighbors out summer told their kids not to play with our because they are Jew and they are at fault for Christs death. When I went to ask the Dad about it (My husband wanted to go but I wouldn't let him because our little girls were crying and he wanted to punch the guy) he said that he would see what happened and that he coudl n't imagine this.
Of course neither of his kids, who live NEXT door ever spoke to my kids or us again/ that was four years ago. They tried to get me kicked off an activiites group at the island but didn't get away with it. If you read the ADL.org site you will see millions of Americans still believe this stupid crap.

Ok, when my daughter was in kindergarden in San Diego they do this huge huge Christmas thing for a mth straight. Santa comes the works. I have no problem with this out of hand. I asked her teacher if I could come and read a Hannuka book and have a little talk about that to go with Christmas. The teacher said no. She said she never had a Jewish kid in her class before ( I believe her) and that she was surprised my kid was a Jew since she didn't act like one. ( NO I didn't ask how she thought Jewish kids would act different).... I justried to be polite and asked her why not, was there a way we can comprimize? She said no, and said she didn't know why I didn't want Christmas and why I wanted to ruin it for everyone and said I was mistreated my daughter for denying her fun. I just gave up and went home and didn't try again. Most schools are like that. Very very few allow any explanation of Jewish holidays to go with Easter etc...some do, most don't.

The complex we lived in LA its a condo thing had the pool spray painted with Swastikas. It took maintanace weeks to remove it. Weeks.

Ok thats a few examples I could go on.

We live in a diverse nieghborhood here. Its a college town and no one bothers anyone. At my kids school girls wear a head scarf (hijab?) if they want no one says anything, boys wear yamakles or whatever and its fine. o

This place is rare tho.

I think all the stupid crap about other peoples religion, whatever it is is just stupid.

Thats why people get upset about anti semitism, I bet other Jews have had these experiences.

Probably lots of groups who are minorities have them.

The Serial Killer Across the Street

2005-08-22T15:17:00.000-05:00

OK let me tell you a story that is all true.

I lived for 7 years in a beautiful neighborhood in San Diego.....one of those lovely new devolpments of white stucco houses with red tile roofs and backyards full of bougenvilla and palm trees.

It was a semi gated community and like everyone else we bought our house brand spankin new. People came from all over the world to work at Qualcomm, Intel, Cisco and Nokia and thought nothing of dropping 650k for a house in a neighborhood with its own elementary school, play ground and pristine well groomed bike paths. It had that Pleasantville feeling of affuent suburban happiness. It never rained, the people were rich and beautiful and the sidewalks were always full of roller skating, scootering, bike rideing children.

Across the street from me, and right there was a guy named David Westerfield. David sits on death row now for the murder of seven year old Danielle Van Dam. I knew him pretty well and he was a computer guy of some sort just like everything else. Only two things set him apart from the rest of us. He was divorced, and had grown kids, and he liked camping and had this enormous 500k Airstream moter home parked at his house.

I used to dislke the camper being there, it blocked the view of cars for my kids as they went across the street. It was a cul de sac and so I really didn't like to see this super huge camper there all the time and I used to complain to him about it in a joking way.

It was against the many rules of the community to have the thing there and had we moms wanted to we could have had it booted. But, we didn't. Thats has haunted alot of us.

OK so long story short, he used to take this thing 'camping' every weekend. He would go to Mexico he said, and to the beaches and deserts and stuff. He had this tow thingy he kept these off road things you drive in and it had a bumper sticker that said " SANDTOYZ" on it.

He was often in his driveway working on old cars, a porche and a souped up VW were two I remember.

The Dads on the block would check out what he was up to as the families walked to the playground next to his house every evening. THat was where we met Danielle, she was a nice little girl and lived two houses down from us with her Mom and Dad and two brothers.

When David came back from his 'camping trips' on Sunday night he would meticulously clean the RV. I mean it was weird. He would take out the rugs, the furniture and wash it all down with bleach and water. It used to take him a whole day. My youngest is full of mischief and when we would see him with the hose she would ask to hold it and want to squirt the RV. I never let her since I was afraid she would turn it on David! Thank God!

I wish to God I could tell you there was something that creeped me out about him but honest to goodness there wasn't one thing.

He had two nice kids he saw alot of, his house was really nice, he put a pool in and everything, it all seemed very normal to me. He was even nice, once when my husband was in Venezuala he helped me jump my van when my kid left the light on in the back.

I have nightmares about that sometimes.

He knew both my nice little girls by name.

We walked by his house every day. I gave a deposition in his trial. About the camper that is.

Anyhow, one night he snapped and went to the neighbors house when little Danielle was up in her bed. It was the middle of the night and everyone was asleep.

He took her out of her bed and brought her to the desert in the camper and killed her and left her body in this ditch.

They figured out it was him because they found traces of her blood in his house and a strand of her hair in the camper.

He had had a number of brushes with the law regarding kids and nothing ever happened.

They know for sure he killed that one kid and have been trying to get him to help solve a number of other cases but so far he isn't talking.

We moved a few mthes before this happened thankfully but it has made me very paranoid about some things like who my kids talk to and letting them go out alone and locking my doors at night.

He went and found his way to the house thru an unlocked garage. Lots of people left doors unlocked there, I know I did.

Now I lock up my house but good. And I check and check the doors are locked. Always.

I have the answer

2005-08-21T22:44:00.000-05:00

to what I was thinking about this morning.

Its not that I don't like blogging! I love you guys!

I just saw some really creepy blogs and it weirded me out there for a sec.

Wow.

Like really, you guys have NO idea how weird some people are.

A good thing about blogging is that it exposes you to people and to ideas you would not find in your actual carbon based life.

Look at the brilliant ideas for my time management presentation you guys gave me! On my own, I would never have thought of all that stuff.

At look at how altruistic you all are to have taken the time to think and post such detailed advise to a perfect stranger.

From now on I am keeping my blog life like my real one, I stay close to home, with people I know, and hang out with them and my family.

Once I get to know someone thats different.

I just don't like all the strage things out there in the blogasphere.

Its well, shocking.

Shocking can be good. But for me, its very very small doses.

Very small.

Why Blog?

2005-08-21T12:14:00.000-05:00

I get discouraged with blogging sometimes.

When I post something people disagree with, and they start to point that out it gets on my nerves something terrible. Like most people I suppose, I prefer everyone to tell me how brilliant and insightful I am.

When I get a list of comments telling me I have my head up my ass, well, it stings.

This doesn't happen often but hey, its happened enough.

Anyone recall my racial profiling post?

help!

2005-08-18T17:56:00.000-05:00

To my half dozen or so blogging friends.

I have to give a big all day presentation on time management next mth. It has to be good. It has to be great.
ey
Ok, so I have never really had a 'real job'.

I tought school for a bit, and then I had my kids and stayed home. I did wait tables in college like everyone else, but thats much use in something like this.

So I am not sure what people who DO have 'real jobs' use to get the time management thing under control

Do you all use blackbetties? palm pilots? how do those work?

Don't tell me to ask my husband, he has no problem managening time. Its easy for him, it comes natural.

Did you ever do any time management programs at work? Did you ever do the Covey thing? Any suggestions for me from you brilliant folks?

I love Canada

2005-08-17T14:09:00.000-05:00

Did I ever mention that?

I spent alot of time there this summer and its a wonderful place.

I just wanted to point that out.

Our House DIvided

2005-08-17T14:08:00.000-05:00

We all know on some level that a house divided against itself cannot stand. At least not for long.

I see it over and over.

Does this mean that we must now allow the level of public discource to decend into a ghoulish carnival the like of which surrounded the passing of Terry Schiavo ot this poor woman camping out at the Presidents Ranch, but, unlike in Gaza, Americans haven't started shooting at one another.

Yet.

Not yet.

But when was the last time you heard a civil debate between someone on the left and someone on the right?

Really think about it.

When Michael Moore represents the left, ( and I loved his early films) and Pat Buchanen is welcomed on every TV channel to speak for the right, I ask you what does that say about what kind of idiocy has taken over politics in America?

If you listen closely to Moore and Buchanen they sound alot alike.

Our leaders are evil and in the pockets of various dark and evil forces.

The elections have been stolen.

The real problems if you listen to them are Zionism, Communism, Liberalism, Capitalism, whatever, its always someone, something other than the practical problems at hand.

The band, it just plays on.

The ship may sink, but who is there to bail?

The real issues, climate change, oil dependancy, an increasing threat from Islamic fundamentalism, a widening polarity between the left and right, the bitter Red State, Blue State family fued that threatens us all, how we are going to solve the quagmire of Iraq who cares about that when a woman camps out at the Presidents Ranch who lost her son and wants to ask Bush why? Who cares when we can all lear at the grieveing family of Terri Schiavo? What difference does it make to have reasoned logical analysis when we can just drown this out with one stupid media circus after the next?

Its sickening.

Just sickening.

You Guys have GOT to see this blog!

2005-08-16T16:54:00.000-05:00

there is this amazing artist and poet in Islamabad, Pakistan who has the best blog I have seen. No kidding, its awesome! And what is even more incredible is that the author is only 18. And already her work is stunning.

If you haven't been there go and check it out, its great!

http://silverosiris.blogspot.com/

On Cindy Sheehan

2005-08-16T15:18:00.000-05:00

Joel Greeburg wrote this. I love it. Its great. so is his blog. Once I figure out how to do hyperlinks I will link to it.

The Constitution allows me to make a very long list of statements. I can say George W. Bush is in the pocket of Zionists and oil interests, as a certain woman hanging out in Crawford, Texas does. I can also say that George W. Bush is little bunny fru-fru hopping through the forest. I can say that the difference between him and a duck is ice cream because, after all, a vest has no sleeves. Or I can say that the Stifler dance scene in American Wedding made complete sense. In other words, I can say any crazy old thing I want. I can say America is a racist, sexist, homophobic country of hate with mean icing and a bigoted cherry on top. Or I can say that I have armadillos in my trousers.

In fact, I can actually put armadillos in my trousers (though I suspect there's barely room for one) and then say all of the above. Because, you see, I can make statements almost anywhere I like about almost anything I like. I can say it in Texas, I can say it in front of the White House. I can say it dressed like a mouse, I can say it like a souse.

Okay I hate rhymes. So enough of that.

Of course, I can't say any of this inside the White House unless I've been invited inside. Otherwise, I'd be arrested for trespassing, not for presidential sassing.

Okay, I'm really done now.

Where is the tipping point?

2005-08-16T11:33:00.000-05:00

Ok so everything has a place where a the momentum starts to build to a point when it really starts to take on a life of its own.

With AIDS it was the Red Cross's refusal to test the blood supply...once the virus was there, it spread like wide fire thru the general population. With everything there is a place where things tip to a point of no return.

One social movement we have seen throughout history is anti semitism. There is always some of it floating around....like dust or pollen it just takes up space in a mosly inert manner.

Right now the ADL studies say that only about 15 percent of Americans really hate Jews and think they deserved the holocoust...funny thing is most of them also thing the Jews made the Holocaust up so go figure. Then again anti semitism doesn't really pretend to be logical. In places like Germany and France, and Italy those numbers run about 50 percent. No surprise there, so long as it doesn't get incorportated into some master plan things are ok.

Well sort of Ok.

See even tho only 15 percent of Americans are 'hard core' anti semites, that is still millions of people. The percentage is oddly enough pretty much exactly the number who voted for perenial talking head Pat Buchanen, our very own pundit and holocaust denier.

So what does this stuff mean these days?

What has been shown to prevent these millions of people from actually rounding folks up and gasing them ( after performing numerous 'medical experiments' on them first) is that this kind of bigotry is pretty much taboo in mainstream society. Go to a party and start ranting how you hate Jews and mostly people will be shocked.

Or pretend to be shocked anyhow.

Really malignant jew-hatred involves three key components. The Simon Weisenthal Center figured this out and they oughta know. Ok one is the belief that Jews have some sort of special powers and influence over the world at large. This helps to justify the boycotts, the round ups, the property seizures and eventually the death camps or wars.

The second one is the idea that Jews are some how at fault for Jesus's death and somehow to blame for the ills in the world that come from this. Jews are seen as Judas, one who would betray the son of God for some pieces of silver. This is an ancient and very strong belief, it was rejuvenated recently in the huge hit film, The Passion of the Christ.

The third piece is the notion that Jews are somehow fundamentally less human that other people. This kind is common in the Arab world, preachers at mosques, imans, leaders, kings, and the guy selling falafel all claim on a regular basis that Jews are the sons of pigs and monkeys and must all be killed.

What is uniquely troubling is the divestment move of the Prostestant churches has taken up the first tenant, that Jews ( they say Isreal but they mean Jews) have special control that they must stop thru this boycott.

Sad, and a bit scarey. We will have to wait and see if indeed this is some sort of tipping point, when hate becomes cool and in the best interest of justice. It has happened before and sure it will happen again. The question is just when, and of course how.

This is another blog round up

2005-08-16T11:13:00.001-05:00

A great post from wideawake.com

I love the way he spells Jooos, reminds me of the nuts on news groups.

Forget about Cindy Sheehan…for a moment anyway. Let’s talk about the Joooos.

You know, the Jooooos. They’re the people who ordered George Bush to invade Iraq. The people who are oppressing those poor, benighted women and children in Palestine. And if you can’t find Palestine on a map, don’t fret. It’s located in the very same place that some country called “Israel” currently occupies. Not to worry because that’s just a typo. The map makers of the world are simply waiting for the heroic Palestinian people to throw off the yoke of oppression encircling their waists like the bomb belts worn by their children. It’s simply a matter of time. There are apparently an endless number of Palestinian children willing to blow themselves to smithereens - and take as many of those evil, occupying Joooos with them as possible. And since there are a helluva lot more Palestinian Arabs than there are Joooos, logic dictates that eventually, the devout wish of those peace loving, misunderstood, day-care-starting-hospital-administering-food-bank-donaters from Hamas will be realized; i.e. the Jooos will cease to exist.

Why, to hear some people talk, it’s a matter of justice, a question of hoooomun rights. The freedom fighters who wear the, er uniform of Hamas aren’t really that violent. Did you know that a grenade launcher has a dual use utility? That’s right. It also makes a great martini shaker.

I bring all this up because the mainstream press refuses to bring the embarrassing truth about Cindy Sheehan and the company she keeps to the attention of the droolers, the half-wits, and Ritalin guzzlers who make up her starry eyed and swooning Greek chorus here in the Shadow Media. I’m talking about Kos, the DU, and the Huff ‘n Puffers who think the nauseating anti-semite camped out in front of the President’s ranch in Crawford is either the second coming of Rosa Parks, or the catalyst to morph the current anti-war movement into a resurrected manifestation of some 1960’s flower-child protest party.

This is why the left is so anxious to bring back those heady days of Viet Nam; they miss the guilt-free, consequenceless sex that made being a hippie so rewarding. In the age of AIDS and other epidemic sexually transmitted diseases, who doesn’t long for those sexually charged times when men were men and women were…well, easy. One would hope that the greying group of long haired, sandal wearing, Viagra swilling ancients would have taken a bath at least once since 1968. Otherwise, the new age youngsters who’ve joined them in the trenches may be a little put off by the aroma.

I did a post a few days ago asking that when opposing Mrs. Sheehan, we understand that she is so stricken with grief that it has warped her judgement. But really, there’s no excuse for this:

“9/11 was Pearl Harbor for the neo-conservatives’ agenda” and declared the U.S. government a “morally repugnant system.” Then she raged:

“We have no Constitution. We’re the only country with no checks and balances. We want our country back if we have to impeach George Bush down to the person who picks up the dog sh-t in Washington! Let George Bush send his two little party animals to die in Iraq. It’s OK for Israel to have nuclear weapons but we are waging nuclear war in Iraq, we have contaminated the entire country. It’s not OK for Syria to be in Lebanon. Hypocrites! But Israel can occupy Palestine? Stop the slaughter!”

This is a mild outburst. And for those who say advocating the Palestinian cause is not anti-semitic, I will accuse you also of being a hater of the Jews. You cannot exist on this planet and not know that the “Palestinian cause” is annihilation of not just the Jewish state but all Jews everywhere. By making common cause with the genocidal thugs of Hamas, you reveal yourself to be as bad as any run-of-the-mill goober chewing, goose-stepping neo-Nazi skin head thug in this country. No difference.

Which brings us back to Mrs. Sheehan and her friends. For the media to glorify this paranoid is beyond belief. She thinks America would be a fascist state if not for the internet:

“This is something that can’t be ignored,” Sheehan said during a conference call with bloggers representing sites like democrats.com, codepink4peace.org, and crooksandliars.com. “They can’t ignore us, and they can’t put us down. Thank God for the Internet, or we wouldn’t know anything, and we would already be a fascist state.”

And again, here’s that mythical place called “Palestine:”

“You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you’ll stop the terrorism,” Sheehan declares.

Sheehan, who is asking for a second meeting with President Bush, says defiantly: “My son was killed in 2004. I am not paying my taxes for 2004. You killed my son, George Bush, and I don’t owe you a penny…you give my son back and I’ll pay my taxes. Come after me (for back taxes) and we’ll put this war on trial.”

“And now I’m going to use another ‘I’ word - impeachment - because we cannot have these people pardoned. They need to be tried on war crimes and go to jail.”

And Powerline links to some interesting information on her “host” in Crawford; the Crawford House:

Cindy Sheehan has tied her cart to, the Crawford Peace House [Note: The CPH people have deleted the material mentioned in this post from their page, but I have the original. Here is the Google cache. See the update at the bottom of this post.]. They claim to be a house of peace, and Cindy Sheehan’s agenda would seem to be centered on the War in Iraq, but even a cursory look at the CPH’s web page shows a clearly different agenda. As I write this, the word “Iraq” appears on CPH’s front page a total of ONE time. The number of times a certain eastern Mediterranean country’s name appears? Seventeen times. And the single essay on the page is about…Iraq? No. It is about the world’s true demon, root of all evil, Israel.

The probable reason Crawford House took down their Jew-baiting material was the intervention of one of the slickest PR firms around - Fenton Communications - who recently came on board as a hireling of Ben Cohen’s group Truemajority. Mr. Cohen is the moonbat who helped start Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream and who famously used to give a part of his profit to “world peace” including donations to the National Council of Churches which acted as a front organization (unwittingly) for KGB donations in the United States in the 1980’s.

Fenton has their work cut out for them. The ragamuffins attending to the Queen of Grief need to be “handled” so that their anti-semitic rhetoric doesn’t get out of hand. And the fact is, since Fenton came on board, Mrs. Sheehan’s rhetoric has moderated to the point that she just seems a little kooky rather than a frothing at the mouth Jew hater.

Hindrocket at Powerline wonders if she’s “a poor, benighted woman unhinged and rendered irrational by grief, or is she a calculating, vicious anti-Semite and anti-American like the extremists with whom she associates?”

I’m really not sure. But I know in order for her to avoid self-destruction, she’s going to have to be managed by her handlers like a candidate in a political campaign.

Which, of course, is exactly what her little one act play is all about - politics. Her “crusade” has gone beyond grief, beyond anger and has entered the high-tech digitial world of a media campaign. The danger is that word will get out about this, that the MSM will actually start reporting the spin just like they do for a political campaign. Once that happens, her little charade will lose it’s drama value for the nets and Cindy Sheehan will be left with 15-30 second sound bites to spout her hatred.

The closer one looks at Mrs. Sheehan the less attractive she becomes. This is why the big lefty blogs are steering clear of her. They sympathize with her goals but recognize a charlatan when they see one. But as long as Kos and his minions are on board, she won’t lack for internet coverage.

That is, unless she really starts saying what she thinks about the Joooos and how their evil influence is the cause of all the problems in the world.

I could not have said it better

2005-08-16T10:59:00.000-05:00

This is from another blog called the Bull Moose

The Moose salutes the peace activists of the Israel Defense Forces.

There is much talk of peace in the world, but little action. That is why it is so significant when a state takes concrete steps to attempt to bring reconciliation. Israel is doing just that this week as her troops remove their fellow citizens from Gaza settlements.

The significance of this move are profound for the soldiers and their leader. The Los Angeles Times reports,

"Sharon has already paid a heavy political price for the pullout, which was set in motion early Monday as soldiers began knocking at settlers' doors and telling them they had 48 hours to leave. In the year and a half since he unveiled the withdrawal plan, Sharon has been reviled as a dictator and a traitor, subjected to death threats by Jewish extremists. He now stands in real danger of losing the leadership of the Likud Party he helped found."

Don't expect, however, for Sharon and Israel to get credit for this courageous move from the world's capitals or from their carping critics. They will only be satisfied when Israel completely succumbs to the demands of Islamic extremism. While tyranny and exploitation reign from North Korea to Syria to Saudia Arabia to the Sudan, it is always Israel who is the target of the ire of groups like the Mainstream Protestant divestment movement or even a grieving mother in Crawford.

Those on the left who lionize Cindy Sheehan should realize that they are promoting someone who apparently subscribes to the most odious notion that a cabal of Jews who were defending Israel's interests led us to war. While we can sympathize with her profound loss, progressives should reject her extremist arguments.

There was once a time that the progressive movement championed Israel as a bastion of democracy in the tyrannical Middle East. That changed in the aftermath of the 67 war when Israel was victorious against the Arab armies that sought to eliminate her existence. Then the left turned their sympathies to the Palestinians who were never welcomed in the Arab world. Meanwhile, Israel integrated hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Arab lands into the fabric of society. Arabs have used Palestinians as tools in a public relations war against Israel and to divert attention from their corrupt rulers.

This week, Israelis begin the painful process of sacrificing for peace. Will the world's peace movement celebrate their courage? The Moose is not holding his breath.

this is from a site called the Bull Moose.

I think this guy is dead on

2005-08-12T14:13:00.000-05:00

by Vicotr Hansen

First the terrorists of the Middle East went after the Israelis. From 1967 we witnessed 40 years of bombers, child murdering, airline hijacking, suicide murdering, and gratuitous shooting. We in the West usually cried crocodile tears, and then came up with all sorts of reasons to allow such Middle Eastern killers a pass.

Yasser Arafat, replete with holster and rants at the U.N., had become a “moderate” and was thus free to steal millions of his good-behavior money. If Hamas got European cash, it would become reasonable, ostracize its “military wing,” and cease its lynching and vigilantism.

When some tried to explain that Wars 1-3 (1947, 1956, 1967) had nothing to do with the West Bank, such bothersome details fell on deaf ears.

When it was pointed out that Germans were not blowing up Poles to get back lost parts of East Prussia nor were Tibetans sending suicide bombers into Chinese cities to recover their country, such analogies were caricatured.

When the call for a “Right of Return” was making the rounds, few cared to listen that over a half-million forgotten Jews had been cleansed from Syria, Iraq, and Egypt, and lost billions in property.

When the U.N. and the EU talked about “refugee camps,” none asked why for a half-century the Arab world could not build decent housing for its victimized brethren, or why 1 million Arabs voted in Israel, but not one freely in any Arab country.

The security fence became “The Wall,” and evoked slurs that it was analogous to barriers in Korea or Berlin that more often kept people in than out. Few wondered why Arabs who wished to destroy Israel would mind not being able to live or visit Israel.

In any case, anti-Semitism, oil, fear of terrorism — all that and more fooled us into believing that Israel’s problems were confined to Israel. So we ended up with a utopian Europe favoring a pre-modern, terrorist-run, Palestinian thugocracy over the liberal democracy in Israel. The Jews, it was thought, stirred up a hornet’s nest, and so let them get stung on their own.

We in the United States preened that we were the “honest broker.” After the Camp David accords we tried to be an intermediary to both sides, ignoring that one party had created a liberal and democratic society, while the other remained under the thrall of a tribal gang.

Billions of dollars poured into frontline states like Jordan and Egypt. Arafat himself got tens of millions, though none of it ever seemed to show up in good housing, roads, or power plants for his people. The terror continued, enhanced rather than arrested, by Western largess and Israeli concessions.

Then the Islamists declared war on the United States. A quarter century of mass murdering of Americans followed in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, East Africa, the first effort to topple the World Trade Center, and the attack on the USS Cole.

We gave billions to Jordan, the Palestinians, and the Egyptians. Afghanistan was saved from the Soviets through U.S. aid. Kuwait was restored after Saddam’s annexation, and the holocaust of Bosnians and Kosovars halted by the American Air Force. Americans welcomed thousands of Arabs to our shores and allowed hundreds of madrassas and mosques to preach zealotry, anti-Semitism, and jihad without much scrutiny.

Then came September 11 and the almost instant canonization of bin Laden.

Suddenly, the prior cheap shots at Israel under siege weren’t so cheap. It proved easy to castigate Israelis who went into Jenin, but not so when we needed to do the same in Fallujah.

It was easy to slander the Israelis’ scrutiny of Arabs in their midst, but then suddenly a few residents in our own country were found to be engaging in bomb making, taking up jihadist pilgrimages to Afghanistan, and mapping out terrorist operations.

Apparently, the hatred of radical Islam was not just predicated on the “occupation” of the West Bank. Instead it involved the pretexts of Americans protecting Saudi Arabia from another Iraqi attack, the United Nations boycott of Iraq, the removal of the Taliban and Saddam, and always as well as the Crusades and the Reconquista.

But Europe was supposedly different. Unlike the United States, it was correct on the Middle East, and disarmed after the Cold War. Indeed, the European Union was pacifistic, socialist, and guilt-ridden about former colonialism.

Hundreds of thousands of Muslims were left alone in unassimilated European ghettoes and allowed to preach or promulgate any particular hatred of the day they wished. Conspire to kill a Salmon Rushdie, talk of liquidating the “apes and pigs,” distribute Mein Kampf and the Protocols, or plot in the cities of France and Germany to blow up the Pentagon and the World Trade Center — all that was about things “over there” and in a strange way was thought to ensure that Europe got a pass at home.

But the trump card was always triangulation against the United States. Most recently anti-Americanism was good street theater in Rome, Paris, London, and the capitals of the “good” West.

But then came Madrid — and the disturbing fact that after the shameful appeasement of its withdrawal from Iraq, further plots were hatched against Spanish justices and passenger trains.

Surely a Holland would be exempt — Holland of wide-open Amsterdam fame where anything goes and Muslim radicals could hate in peace. Then came the butchering of Theo Van Gogh and the death threats against parliamentarian Hirsi Ali — and always defiance and promises of more to come rather than apologies for their hatred.

Yet was not Britain different? After all, its capital was dubbed Londonistan for its hospitality to Muslims across the globe. Radical imams openly preached jihad against the United States to their flock as thanks for being given generous welfare subsidies from her majesty’s government. But it was the United States, not liberal Britain, that evoked such understandable hatred.

But now?

After Holland, Madrid, and London, European operatives go to Israel not to harangue Jews about the West Bank, but to receive tips about preventing suicide bombings. And the cowboy Patriot Act to now-panicked European parliaments perhaps seems not so illiberal after all.

So it is was becoming clear that butchery by radical Muslims in Bali, Darfur, Iraq, the Philippines Thailand, Turkey, Tunisia, and Iraq was not so tied to particular and “understandable” Islamic grievances.

Perhaps the jihadist killing was not over the West Bank or U.S. hegemony after all, but rather symptoms of a global pathology of young male Islamic radicals blaming all others for their own self-inflicted miseries, convinced that attacks on the infidel would win political concessions, restore pride, and prove to Israelis, Europeans, Americans — and about everybody else on the globe — that Middle Eastern warriors were full of confidence and pride after all.

Meanwhile an odd thing happened. It turns out that the jihadists were cowards and bullies, and thus selective in their targets of hatred. A billion Chinese were left alone by radical Islam — even though the Chinese were secularists and mostly godless, as well as ruthless to their own Uighur Muslim minorities. Had bin Laden issued a fatwa against Beijing and slammed an airliner into a skyscraper in Shanghai, there is no telling what a nuclear China might have done.

India too got mostly a pass, other than the occasional murdering by Pakistani zealots. Yet India makes no effort to apologize to Muslims. When extremists occasionally riot and kill, they usually cease quickly before the response of a much more unpredictable angry populace.

What can we learn from all this?

Jihadists hardly target particular countries for their “unfair” foreign policies, since nations on five continents suffer jihadist attacks and thus all apparently must embrace an unfair foreign policy of some sort.

Typical after the London bombing is the ubiquitous Muslim spokesman who when asked to condemn terrorism, starts out by deploring such killing, assuring that it has nothing to do with Islam, yet then ending by inserting the infamous “but” — as he closes with references about the West Bank, Israel, and all sorts of mitigating factors. Almost no secular Middle Easterners or religious officials write or state flatly, “Islamic terrorism is murder, pure and simple evil. End of story, no ifs or buts about it.”

Second, thinking that the jihadists will target only Israel eventually leads to emboldened attacks on the United States. Assuming America is the only target assures terrorism against Europe. Civilizations will either hang separately or triumph over barbarism together. It is that simple — and past time for Europe and the United States to rediscover their common heritage and shared aims in eradicating this plague of Islamic fascism.

Third, Islamicists are selective in their attacks and hatred. So far global jihad avoids two billion Indians and Chinese, despite the fact that their countries are far tougher on Muslims than is the United States or Europe. In other words, the Islamicists target those whom they think they can intimidate and blackmail.

Unfettered immigration, billions in cash grants to Arab autocracies, alliances of convenience with dictatorships, triangulation with Middle Eastern patrons of terror, blaming the Jews — civilization has tried all that.

It is time to relearn the lessons from the Cold War, when we saw millions of noble Poles, Romanians, Hungarians, and Czechs as enslaved under autocracy and a hateful ideology, and in need of democracy before they could confront the Communist terror in their midst.

But until the Wall fell, we did not send billions in aid to their Eastern European dictatorships nor travel freely to Prague or Warsaw nor admit millions of Communist-ruled Bulgarians and Albanians onto our shores.

— Victor Davis Hanson is a military historian and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His website is victorhanson.com.

* * *

Sometimes the lucky ones are dead

2005-08-10T13:21:00.000-05:00

Where we hear in the news about the numbers of people killed in terror attacks sometimes this can be misleading. While 25 people may actually be killed, many many more suffer serious injuries.

The bombers intend this and so they use nails in the bomb to maim as many bystanders as possible.

Here is a list of people who have been identified as needing help and prayers.

The following were injured in the December 12th 2001 bus attack near Emanuel:
ELIEZER CHAIM BEN DVORA, who was in a coma, is now able to drive. He has begun working around his house as a preparation to return to work. He is a plumber.
YOSEF YEHUDA BEN SULTANA, from Emanuel, is going through outpatient therapy for short term memory loss. He has not returned to work.
Some of the names from the Dec. 1st '01Ben Yehuda bombing:
ERAN BEN SIMA, injured in the BEN YEHUDA bombing, is still in outpatient rehab with improvements. He has some more head surgery ahead of him.
ADI BAT MOLLY, injured in the BEN YEHUDA bombing, is preparing to do a Seudat Hodayah soon but my source says she does not know how well Adi is functioning.
SHARON CHAIM BEN GILA is "celebrating" his 23rd birthday, today at Hadassah HAR HATZOFIM Hospital, still completely paralyzed except for his right hand. He asks almost without respite where he is, why he's there and what happened. (He has nail lodged in his brain that is inoperable.) His mother is opening a special account for the bed he needs. Meantime, all welcome donations can be sent to him at Sharon Chaim Mamon, 14 Sirotzkin Street, Romema, Jerusalem 94423.
MATANEL YECHEIL BEN ORNA, age 21, was shot in his hand in Hebron on August 23rd. I received the following message: Matanel got married last month, in a very joyous wedding! His hand however, is still in a special bandage/brace, with more therapy to go. I know that you take people off the list who are surely more injured than he is. In Hebron, our custom is to continue to pray for people until they have a complete recovery. Unfortunately, Matanel is still far from that point.
CHANA TOVA CHAYA BAT PESCHA, the 31 year old mother of a young girl, who was seriously injured in the Sbarro bomb blast the summer of '01 has passed a year of being unconscious. She is now staying off the respirator most of the time, except when there are complications like when she had pneumonia recently. She passed that but had fever last SHABBAT. Her body is still fighting though and we need to keep praying.
TZIPPORAH BAT TECHIYA, age 14 (now15), was seriously injured in a driveby shooting on August 5th, '01 when her mother was murdered, suffered a spinal injury, is back in school with a wheelchair.
Her father, SHIMON DAVID BEN CHANA GITTEL is now working. I received the following message about both of them: they are learning to go about their routines in their respective wheelchairs and are continuing to attend out-patient therapy. There is still room for improvement, and therefore, I would suggest keeping up the prayers for them.
NOA BAT ILANA's, the third of three women soldiers who were seriously injured when the Arab bus driver rammed into them at the bus stop, still suffers from her memory loss. Her father says that she is doing OK but not much improvement.
*ARIEL BEN LIA RIVKA, the baby from Atzmona who was attacked with mortar shells before PESACH '01, is now home and going to nursery school with an aide. He is no longer doing therapy in Jerusalem, rather in Sdederot and Beersheva, which is much closer and easier on him and the family.
SHLOMO BEN SHLOMIT, of Nerya (Tel Mon Bet), the father of three, was shot in the arm causing nerve damage is continuing to improve slowly.
*YOSEF BEN ESTHER, of Nerya (Tel Mon Bet), who was shot almost two years ago, is paralyzed. He is married and now living in Kfar Saba. He STILL needs our prayers.
DOVID HOVAV BEN DAGANIT, the soldier who was seriously injured in Alei Sinia is getting stronger all the time but his intestine has still not been taken care of. He won't have the surgery for another six months or so.

breathe breathe

2005-08-09T19:32:00.000-05:00

everything is ok callie
everything is ok callie.

I am still so rattled from today and that poor baby

2005-08-09T19:28:00.000-05:00

A terrible story

2005-08-09T15:48:00.000-05:00

I didn't sleep well since I was sort of worryed about my meeting today. Its an important client and I was on the spot.

The meeting itself went well, the client seemed happy enough and I had the right outfit on but I think I was having a really bad hair day. I don't think anyone noticed tho.

And plus I had a lovely lunch with my friend who is from here and I saw nice pics of his family who are so cute. And we ate at this cool Kosher place but I was so paniced about my meeting that I hardly even really knew what I was doing or saying.

Then something really alarming and upsetting happened. Very very upsetting.

I came out of my meeting on Church street and I was trying to get my bearings. I left everyone go a bit early so it was a total fluke that I was even there in the first place.

I heard a baby schrieking and screaming and crying at the top of its lungs. I turned to look at see, since it was a pain scream and I know that sound so well. I mean just as a Mother I know it. So I went on 'red alert' to see if the baby needed help and I went to look behind the train entrance and then I saw the most horrible site you can imagine. This young woman was punching and beating her 2 year old boy as hard as she could and she was screaming at him at the same time!

Myself and another woman ran over to her and physically made her stop. Then I dialed 911 and told her I was going to have the police come right there and arrest her.

I mean it I did just that.

And then she started crying and crying and she said she was sorry and I saw she was about 15 years old. The baby was hysterical and I told her to pick up the baby. I said it in a calm way and I tried to soothe her and the baby and I hung up from the 911 and asked her what happened.

She said the baby had been lost in the store and she was scared to death and that she had gone to the dentist today and they wouldn't take off her braces! She cried and cried and said , ' you don't know what I have been thru! please don't call the cops on me".

The other woman said to her, that she must not beat her baby, that she will hurt him and it solves nothing.

She scolded her and talked to her about it.

I rubbed the babies back a bit and tryed to calm him down and calm the mother down too. I could sense that she wasn't a bad person she had just snapped and been overwhelmed. Poor thing. Poor baby, both so young.

So I didn't know what to do, I just let the other lady finish and I said, ok ok, you have to get some rest and go home. You have to take a bath and sit down when you get home and collect yourself so things like this won't happen again.

And she said ok, and she was crying and crying but she was calming down and the baby stopped crying.

I didn't know how else to help her so I reached in my purse and gave her 20 dollars and told her to get a sitter for her son and get some time to rest.

I didn't know what else to do.

I hugged her and told her to take care of herself and then I walked with the lady to the next corner and we just were agast about what happened. She was a nice lady. She is a teacher so she loves children.

I don't know if I did the right thing, I don't think the police will solve it. I just hope and pray for the baby to be ok and for the two of them to work this out.

If you pray and you believe in that please say a prayer for them for me.

Thanks.

There are a few blogs I read and not

2005-08-08T19:01:00.000-05:00

all of them agree with my point of view.

But what can you learn from people who all agree with you?

What is to be gained by that?

One of the best things about blogging is to learn from other people what they REALLY think not what they pretend to be thinking.

This is what I think is interesting about it.

I have learned alot.

I am scared to leave my hotel! lol

2005-08-08T15:14:00.000-05:00

Imust get up my nerve and walk around NYC!

Its so loud and scarey and strange!

I know I can do it!

I am going!

Here I go!

Bye

Have fun!

2005-08-08T14:22:00.000-05:00

Ok I am in NYC.

At a really nice hotel that I love with amazing service and wonderful people and this wacky lobby built by Trump that looks like something out of a travel magazine.

I spent the last 6 weeks on a little island with no cars or TV basically just swimming, hanging out with my kids, riding my bike and having fun in nature.

So this is a major culture shock to say the least.

Anyhow, people are walking around here screaming into their cell phones a mile a freaking minute. Who are they talking to? Who are they screaming at I should say. Its such a bizarre life that people here live. They all seem so isloated and tense.

No cedar trees, no docks with herons on them, no groups of kids running around chasing each other, wow, how can people DO this?

Anyhow, my friend who lives here said to go and enjoy and see stuff and have fun so that is what I am gonna do.

I have never gone on a trip alone before but so far so good.

Its actually sort of fun to have some independence. In my life I never really am by myself just doing what I feel like, I am always, taking someone someplace, watching my kids while they swim to keep them safe, cooking, something always has to be done it seems.

Now I am going to explore the greatest People Museum on earth! The streets of Manhatten!

Wish me luck!

Ok I am away on a trip

2005-08-07T23:10:00.000-05:00

but will leave you with this.

I think Dr King was absolutely right.

After reading the ( very troubling) blogs of some of the people I have bumped into on line I think this is pertinent.

Anyhow, see you guys when I get back!

MARTIN LUTHER KING ON ZIONISM
"... You declare, my friend; that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely 'anti-Zionist'. And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of G-d's green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews -- this is G-d's own truth.

"Anti-Semitism, the hatred of the Jewish people, has been and remains a blot on the soul of mankind. In this we are in full agreement. So know also this: anti-Zionist is inherently anti-Semitic, and ever will be so.

"Why is this? You know that Zionism is nothing less than the dream and ideal of the Jewish people returning to live in their own land. The Jewish people, the Scriptures tell us, once enjoyed a flourishing Commonwealth in the Holy Land. Fromtthis they were expelled by the Roman tryant, the same Romans who cruelly murdered our L-rd. Driven from their homeland, their nation in ashes, forced to wander the globe, the Jewish people time and again suffered the lash of whichever tyrant happened to rule over them.

"The Negro people, my friend, know what it is to suffer the torment of tyranny under rulers not of our choosing. Our brothers in Africa have begged, pleaded, requested -- DEMANDED -- the recognition and realization of our inborn right to live in peace under our own sovereignty in our own country.

"How easy it should be, for anyone who holds dear this inalienable right of all mankind, to understand and support the right of the Jewish People to live in their ancient Land of Israel. All men of good will exult in the fulfillment of G-d's promise, that His people should return in joy to rebuild their plundered land. This is Zionism, nothing more, nothing less.

"And what is anti-Zionist? It is the denial to the Jewish people of a fundamental right that we justly claim for the people of Africa and freely accord all other nations of the Globe. It is discrimination against Jews, my friend, because they are Jews. In short, it is anti-Semitism.

"The anti-Semite rejoices at any opportunity to vent his malice. The times have made it unpopular, in the West, to proclaim openly a hatred of the Jews. This being the case, the anti-Semite must constantly seek new forms and forums for his poison. How he must revel in the new masquerrade! He does not hate the Jews, he is just 'anti-Zionist'!

"My friend, I do not accuse you of deliberate anti-Semitism. I know you feel, as I do, a deep love of truth and justice and revulsion for racism, prejudice, and discrimination. But I know you have been misled -- as others have been -- into thinking you can be 'anti-Zionist' and yet remain true to those heartfelt principles that you and I share. Let my words echo in the depths of your soul: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews -- make no mistake about it."
Return to Studies Page
From M.L. King Jr., "Letter to an Anti-Zionist Friend,"
Saturday Review XLVII (August 1967), pg. 76
Reprinted in M.L. King Jr., "This I Believe: Selections from the Writings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.")
Return to Eretz Yisrael Page

Top Ten Ways Jews can Fight Jewish Boycott

2005-08-07T22:02:00.000-05:00

( I found this and it cracked me up! Very funny)

by Jake Novak
10) Begin counter-boycott of Hellmann's Mayonnaise and Wonder Bread

9) Stop supporting all the Presbyterian comedians... oh wait, there aren't any!

8) Wear white shoes after Labor Day

7) Stop serving watercress sandwiches at Shabbat Kiddush

6) Replace Muzak in Jewish doctor's offices with Klezmer CD's

5) Secretly replace all references to John Calvin in Presbyterian doctrine with "Calvin Klein"

4) Initiate hostile takeover of L.L. Bean

3) Crash the next party at the country club

2) Water down the booze in junior's sippy cup

1) Let them do their own damn taxes!

The "Top 10" above was published in my Jewish Week column last month (May, 2005). And I did get some hate mail for it. Of course, I shrugged it off because if anyone doesn't see the humor in a church group that said nothing during the Holocaust deciding it can make moral pronouncements against Jews anywhere... than I don't see where you're going to see it. I'm no fan of moral relativisim, but if you're going to bash another group moral activities, check your own balance sheet first.

packing packing paicking

2005-08-07T12:35:00.000-05:00

I gotta go on my trip and so time to take off my wet bathing suit and get off the dock and go to NYC.

This is gonna be a huge culture shock.

To say the least.

Be back later in the week, to anyone who stops by make yourself a cup of tea and relax.

Bye, bye!

Fear and Loathing in New York

2005-08-05T10:42:00.000-05:00

Ok I have to go to NYC for a business trip soon

I love love love NYC but feel a little nervous about traveling by myself....I mean I was going to just go for the day and now I find myelf having to spend the night at a hotel.

That seems a little scarey in a way.

Mostly its going to be fun and exciting too since I will get to walk around the city and see stuff and all that....I love to people watch in NY.

But I am not really used to traveling alone! It has to be simpler than flying with kids the way I normally do but I know its going to seem bizare at first to be on a plane without my family.

This project is a fun one, so I am looking forward to that but in a way still I feel very apprehensive.

Its a bit of a new horizen I suppose. A new life phase for me.

In her own words

2005-08-05T00:27:00.000-05:00

Ok here is an example of what this woman who came here cursing me said on her foolish blog.

If you think this kind of thinking which in my personal opinion seems to excuse the actions of Bin Ladin as brought about by the US and Saudi Royal family then please understand this post had some 86 comments, mostly from other Muslims saying they agree with her....no shit.

I doubt that all Muslims hold this view, but it sure does seem like it got a round of applause that was pretty loud, and pretty chilling. In her own words here goes:

The question that disturbs me is why in the world did he allow the U.S troops on the Saudi land? I believe that was the major reason why Bin Laden turned against them all because his question was, what the hell are you letting the U.S soldiers on our land for?! In ka yahan kya kaam hai bhaee? This is a Muslim country, why do we need these Americans here?

Makes me so mad.

I mean I know and it's no hidden fact that it is America's old habit to try and invade land that doesn't belong to them and somehow meddle into everyone's affairs but why was this King Fahd so stupid?

End quote

DO YOU SEE THE LINE THAT SAYS THIS IS A MUSLIM COUNTRY WHY DO WE NEED THESE AMERICANS HERE??? Yikes!

I was trying to discuss racial profiling, I would never say 'this is a christian country we don't need these muslims here"! I was wondering if this new policy is a violation of civil liberties or just a new reality we have to accept. This is very very different that what was said by Shaima on her blog.

Very different. Why does someone who seeminly justifies bin Laden and wonder why Americans would be in a Muslim country then act so outraged by profiling? Christianity is illegal in Saudi Arabia. Pakistan is a very intolerant place for minority religions. In America at least we are trying to work it out so we can all live together in harmony. Thats the goal.

What is her goal? I find this disturbing. In fairness a few Muslims did point out that her comments were off the wall. But not too many.

And this is not someone living in Pakistan guys, this woman is right here in Connecticut and working at Harvard.

As I said, no way do I think her views are universal, but its alarming to see anyone justify the terrible actions of al Queda. Those kids in Bali, the workers at the Twin Towers, the innocent people on the trains in Madrid what did they have to do with the troops in Saudi Arabia? Nothing.

And yet to alot of people that stuff makes sense.

What a world we live in....

The Pakistani's are Coming

2005-08-04T16:08:00.000-05:00

It seems I have incured the wrath of some very troubled souls. EEEEKS

there are some very crazy folks out there

you can find them from any country, the US being no exception.

It was actually pretty humourous to hear them call me names....one woman from Pakistan who lives in Montreal can curse better than any construction worker I have ever heard.

I have to give her credit, curse words in your second language are not that east to banter about I would imagine!

callie deletes her blogs

2005-08-04T08:48:00.000-05:00

I don't know why. I just seem to do that for whatever reason. Odd quirk I guess.