in favor of music in public schools

a kiss in Paris

From "Paris 2e, one of my favorite blogs.

(When can I go back, and will the D'orsay be open this time?)

Israel: Reflecting on Israeli-Palestinian Relations

On Global Voices today are several Israeli bloggers contemplating the relationships between Israelis and Palestinians.

All of them have interesting things to say, but the one that really caught my eye was Bernard Avishai's entry on Israeli soldiers (can I hate the effects that Israel's policies have, can I abhor especially its military policies, can I hate what individual soldiers do, and still have empathy?):

Let me get this straight. We take tens of thousands of 18 and 19-year-olds, young people who are little more than children themselves, and at a time of life when showing the utmost cool is a kind of sexual ante; a time when ideas about the world are largely received wisdoms; when bodies are at their utmost strength but so is the fear of death, which only reinforces the fear of displaying cowardice; when the people from whom wisdoms are received are parents or mentors loved to the utmost; when minds are just intimidated enough about life's scrum to feel utmost gratitude for family and commonwealth--when the desire to prove one's loyalty is at its most intense.

Then we take these youth--for God's sake, kids who can barely even remember the time of Rabin's assassination--and tell them that the Arabs, deep down, will never want a Jewish state in the neighborhood; that, in any case, the land is sacred, and giving ground is an utmost sin of Jewish law, as is showing mercy to those who would kill you; that "Oslo" offered Palestinians a deal with utmost generosity, but that they came back with terrorism nevertheless; that (though this much has been obvious) terrorism can come in any form, male and female, young and old; that protecting our civilians from random cruelties is the reason they are there.


We tell them, moreover, that the civilians they are facing at least tolerated, or even encouraged, the terrorism they must now root out, which is why terrorists are allowed to blend in; that these Arabs are secretly all waiting and hoping for Iran, the new Amalek, to incinerate Tel-Aviv; that if the world had not flinched from hitting at Hitler in 1938, the utmost tragedy would have been prevented; that, anyway, the strategic goal is to reestablish deterrence, which means scaring the shit out of Arabs, so that they will finally accept the fact that, as former chief of staff Moshe Yaalon put it, they are a "defeated" people; oh, and that our great friends in the Bush administration are about to leave office, so time is of the utmost importance, too.

Then, after our children have killed and killed for us, we turn around and tell them they did not take the utmost care in trying to save civilian lives; that "this involves taking some risk"--that if they were braver, more willing to risk their own or their buddies' deaths, they would not have violated the "norm" of combat--in effect, that if they were more worthy, they would not be war criminals.

We know all of the things; time to party, bro

My friend put on her website (like her, it is whimsical and clever and comes with- for what it is worth- my stamp of approval) this explodingdog:

She said it made her smile, but it did not make me smile. Actually it made me sad.

It also made me wonder if these deeply painful personal conflicts...are a luxury. And that made me sad, too.

I am just a poor boy though my story's seldom told

How poverty passes from generation to generation is now becoming clearer. The answer lies in the effect of stress on two particular parts of the brain

One of the best songs ever, which addresses poverty passing from generation to generation:

Shootings at Binghamton immigration clinic

I was on AIM with my aunt as this story unfolded and sirens went whizzing by. She grew up there, and she, my mom, cousin, and grandfather live there now. In fact my grandfather used to go to this building a lot (I can only assume to teach IRish dance classes =) ). My first thought, upon hearing that the nearby high school was on lockdown, was...wait where does Nathaniel (my cousin) go to school? Oh please let him be ok. Please let everyone be ok.

I also think my dad couldn't help but think, as he alerted me to the story, that this is the type of place I will be working this summer. Of course parents tend to worry about their kids. But there is no way I would not work with my immigration clinic this summer. I love that job, I love the people, I love the work, I love the clients.

Why, Mr. Wong? The story says he was upset over his unemployment and frustration over being unable to speak English. Only God knows what drove him to do this.

My heart especially breaks for the immigrants who were there.

A Kurdish woman turned to Ms. Gruss and said, “They fire in Iraq. They fire in the United States.”

“She was almost defeated in a way,” Ms. Gruss said. “She couldn’t find a safe haven. She was one of those who had to walk over the mountains from Iraq to Turkey to escape Saddam. Then they’re shooting at her.”

And then, the touching determination...

Ms. Thach said she would return to [the citizenship] classes. On Saturday morning, in the living room of her small house on Baxter Street, she went to her purse. Her hands shook as she reached for her citizenship manual.

Taliban publicly lashes a woman in Pakistan; women's rights take a hit in Afghanistan

Part of me does not want to post this, because part of what makes this so horrible is the public element of it, meant to humiliate this woman.

Part of me wants to post this, because I feel like we should know, be reminded, and maybe see it with our own eyes to reinforce it. This is the part that wins today.



From Deadpan Thoughts via Global Voices

In other disheartening news for women's rights, New-Yok based Egyptian journalist and blogger Mona Eltahawy has a post decribing her disappointment with the Afghan president having signed a new law in February that will apparently legalize rape within marriage and bar women from leaving their homes without their husbands' permission.

Of course Islam as a religion is beautiful and respectful of women; it is extremists and perverters of the religion who feed into the idea that it is otherwise.

The Daily Show takes on border control

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