THE SAD STATE OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL (JUST LIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD)

Many months before the recent election in Israel, before Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu gave his speech to the U.S. Congress, I had in mind writting a post about Israeli politics. The title would have been something like: "Why does Benjamin Netsanyahu Keep Stabbing Me in the Back?" It seemed that every time I posted my thoughts supporting the right of Israel to defend itself against terrorists (e.g. Hamas in Gaza), Mr. Netanyahu slipped a knife between my ribs by announcing more settlement building. It got to the point of being predictable, and infuriating.

In the runup to the Israeli elections, Netanyahu collaborated with the worst elements of the congressional Republican right wing in the U.S. to bolster his cred with the Israeli right wing by dissing our President and our very serious negotiations with Iran concerning nuclear weapons. This was blatant electioneering supported and abetted by the Republicans in the U.S. Congress. Senate Republicans (47 of them) then sent an amazingly stupid and embarrassing letter to the leadership of Iran, further endangering the success of the negotiations between a coalition of world governments and Iran. (Although a clear evidentiary path has yet to be illuminated, some analysts think that the letter was the idea of Netanyahu's Likud Party and possibly written by the American lobby group AIPAC (see Note 1) In any event, the concept and execution of The Letter remains a very interesting political maneuver.). 

In the final days of the campaigning in Israel, Netanyahu took the low road to bolster his support by the Israeli right wing and ultra religious groups and stated that if elected, he would ensure that there would not be a Palestinian State, the elusive two-state solution. 

Netanyahu has now won what was supposed to be a very close election. This is a very big problem for liberal and progressive Jews and other people who support the existance of Israel as a democracy in which Jews have the national security they lack in many other parts of the world. The reaffirmation of Netanyahu and his policies is a blow to the open support of Israel, which is now clearly dominated by right wing, nationalistic politics. The election result fans the flames of anti-Israel sentiment and activities, and, by association, bolsters anti-semitism world-wide. 

I swore loudly when I woke up this morning to the radio news that Netanyahu had won the election. I had hoped that more moderate political forces would gain control of the Israel government and try something new regarding relationships and peace negotiations with Palestinians. This election result is a disaster for the Israeli peace movement and the Israeli left. It is also a disaster for support of Israel in the rest of the world. It continues the disaster for Palestinians who want peace,  political and economic power. 

I have, for several years, stated that I believe the conflict between Palestinains and Israel has no end point in sight, but that the two peoples are locked in a cycle of violence that is self-perpetuating. Based on history, I don't believe that Israeli political leadership of the past couple of decades, or more, have any real interest in peace and the creation of a Palestinian State. They have been two-faced, talking peace out of one side, while continuing the occupation and the illegal land grabs out of the other side. (see Note 2) Yes, the Israel-Palestine situation is very, very complex, and simple answers do not exist. But smart and serious people on both sides can certainly find a way to interrupt the cycle of violence and find solutions. Benjamin Netanyahu, and the interests he represents, are not these people. 

I am more disappointed than upset by the Israel election result. The state of politics in Israel is, after all, not much different than the state of politics in the United States and the rest of the world. Have we Americans already forgotten George W. Bush? We elected that dangerous politician twice! And we are still dealing with the result of those elections. Our House and Senate are now controlled by the Republican right wing. America is dancing with fascism. What about Europe, China, Russia, the Arab states, Africa, South America? Israel absolutely has no lock on right wing politics. 

Does the election really mean that a two-state solution is out of reach? Maybe; maybe not. After all, above all else, Benjamin Netanyahu is a politician. And politicians very often say one thing during a campaign, and another thing once elected. But maybe this is a good turn of events. Maybe the clear admission by Netanyahu that he and his backers will not endorse a two-state solution is a way to move the discussion to a different level. Join fact, it appears that there were some very important gains in the Israel election for women, Arab Israelis and other groups.

The real losers here are the Palestinians, such as those in the West Bank, who are faced with a continuation of an illegal and often brutal occupation.

It might be that the world has entered a period of human right-wingism that will last for some time until it plays itself out. In that case, we progressives and other left-of-center folk need to hunker down for the long-term, and do all we can to fight back (and drink more red wine).

What we don't need to do is bash Israel alone for it's right-wingedness; after all, this seems to be the    sad state of affairs of most of the world.

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Notes:

1. The article is here. It first appeared in Middle East Eye, and this is a link to the "who is" Middle East Eye. I am not certain yet about the credibility of this source; however, the link described would not surprise me.  
2. There are some notable exceptions to this conclusion, such as the efforts of Ehud Barak, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin.  

WHY IS PADDLING IN PORTLAND SO PROBLEMATIC?

View downstream, north, from the tip of Ross Island.

Portland, Oregon is a river city, or so it is said by some. Yes, the Willamette River runs through the middle of Portland on its way to the Columbia River. The meeting of these two rivers is also in Portland. One would think that Portlanders are river people, by which I mean they use their river for many different activities and consider it one of the most important parts of the Portland identity. Well, that is not the case.

Like so many other American cities, Portland was developed along the river, but the river was considered only a place of business between land and water, and a place to dump things people wanted to get rid of. In the past few decades, however, Portland has changed its mind about the river in many ways, and the land along the river is now seen as an amenity and a public and natural resource.

But there are still problems in regards to Portland truly becoming River City. One of those problems is access to the river, not visual access, but physical access. This is especially true for people who want to put a small, human-powered water craft in the river in the downtown area (I'll call these people paddlers). I am a paddler, and the portion of the river that flows through downtown Portland offers a variety of interesting experiences, if I can get to it.

The new Tilikum Crossing transit bridge behind the Ross Island Bridge,
viewed from Ross Island.

This morning Dry Bag Dave and Paddlin' Paul (that's me) loaded our kayaks and gear and headed off to do an easy and relatively short paddling trip. Our goal was to paddle under the new transit bridge, a cable-stayed beauty named Tilikum Crossing, Bridge of the People. The new bridge, that will open in September, will only have light rail trains, buses, cycles and pedestrians; no automobiles or trucks.

So we decided to launch on the east side of the Hawthorne Bridge in Portland and paddle a short distance upstream and under the Tilikum Crossing. There is a low floating public dock just upstream of the Hawthorne Bridge designed for use by rowing and paddle craft where we have launched before. When we arrived there, we found that there are some visitor spots in the parking lot, but parking is limited to 2 hours; not enough for a paddling trip. Parking there used to be for as long as desired. So we got back in the car and drove to the downstream side of the Hawthorne Bridge because it seemed to me we could launch from the dirt beach under the bridge. I know that the Human Access Project has cleared a lot of rocks from that beach so people can get into the river. There were some parking spots in the lot near the Eastbank Esplanade (pay parking, of course), so we figured we could carry the boats to the beach under the bridge. Well, the river was high, and that spot did not have a safe or easy place to launch kayaks.

We had spent a lot of time trying to find a place to put into the river. Our fallback was Willamette Park on the other side of the river and a few miles south of the Tilikum Crossing bridge. We arrived at Willamette Park and found an almost empty large parking lot. I went to buy the parking tag, and it was $1 per hour, or $6 for all day; pretty reasonable. I figured I would put in $4 for 4 hours - plenty of time for our paddling. But as I pushed the time button on the meter, the dollars kept going up, but the hours stayed at 3. Hmmm; well I read the fine print, which informed me that after 3 hours, a full-day fee would be charged. Really? OK, well the Park Bureau needs the money to maintain the park, so I was kind of OK with this scheme.

I went over to the restroom building at the park to get rid of some excess liquid - and the restrooms were "closed for the season." What? No bushes nearby, either. Luckily for us, there were 2 porta-potties on the other side of the parking lot, probably related to work going on in the park. OK, problem solved, but still, I paid my $6, what did I get for it?

We had a terrific paddle of about 7 miles round trip and spent about 3 hours total. But I was disgruntled about the experience of paddling in Portland.

Why isn't there access for paddlers to the Willamette River in the downtown area of Portland? The public dock on the east side and just upstream of the Hawthorne Bridge is a convenient location, but parking is limited to 2 hours. (I later found out that after 3PM parking time is unlimited, but that really only works in the summer when days are longer.) The only places to launch from close to and south of downtown are Willamette Park and Sellwood Park. Going north from downtown, I can only think of Swan Island Lagoon and Cathedral Park, both very far from the downtown area. These four launching opportunities are shown on the map below.

The only four formal and convenient launching spots for paddlers in Portland are shown as red stars.

And by the way, Willamette Park, operated by the Portland Bureau of Parks and Recreation, is set up for power boats. The parking lot is mostly long spaces for trucks and trailers, with a much smaller number of spots for cars (and you get ticketed if you park a car in a truck-trailer spot, even if there are very few truck-trailers in the lot). The ramp into the river is concrete that is deeply ribbed for tire traction - real hell for the hull of my wood kayak. There should be a gravel ramp into the river for canoes, kayaks and other paddle craft to make this facility truly convenient for paddlers.

There is a new ramp that is being described as a kayak launch in the South Waterfront Central District immediately south of downtown; it will be open later this year. It is a narrow concrete sidewalk that I consider to be a tricky launch spot at best, and a dangerous spot especially when the river is low in the summer. Because there is no way to drive a car close to the ramp, and public parking is not located nearby, it will likely be used mostly by people who live in the condos in the South Waterfront who can cart their boat to the ramp without a motor vehicle. This does not solve the problem for the rest of us.

City planners know that river access is a problem, and they are working on ideas to create more and better access. They will need to change some city codes, figure out access and parking for motor vehicles, and also deal with federal agencies that discourage river access because of alleged issues with fish habitat. In the meantime, I'll paddle the downtown stretch of the Willamette once in a great while, and drive to other places on the edges of or away from Portland that are more welcoming to paddlers.

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WHY I AM CONSIDERING ENDING MY (DIGITAL) LIFE

I am a 70 year old man who tries to keep up with the digital age in which I live. I have a smartphone (Android OS), a tablet (iPad) and a laptop  (MacBook). I spend a lot of my time using these marvelous devices in a variety of ways. And it has truly ruined my real life.

My digital life is dominated by the apps on my smartphone, the apps on my tablet, and the software on my laptop. All of my devices are synced in various ways, mostly in the cloud. The apps shared by me and my wife, such as google calendar, enable us to keep track of our individual as well as shared schedules, as long as we don't make any mistakes when entering data (which we sometimes do). My consulting business relies on my devices, apps and software to communicate, coordinate, collect information, create reports and letters and memoranda.

I have 92 apps on my smartphone (probably a small number compared to many people), including apps to: measure the amount of propane in the tank of my outdoor grill, measure the inclination of a hill, do mathematics, magnify and take photos of things, measure sound level, convert units, convert money, translate languages, record sounds, check the river level, check the weather, buy movie tickets, waste time on facebook, check email, send and receive text messages, take photos. And cables and chargers and dongles - a boatload of them because Apple cables don't fit Android devices and visa-versa, and every device has it's own charger, and I carry a travel-size extension cord when we travel because most hotel rooms don't have enough outlets for the phones and computers we carry.

Photos - I have taken uncountable thousands of pictures with various cell phones and digital cameras. I have these scattered throughout the cloud in various free storage services, most of which I've maxed out without paying an annual fee. This is why I now have a flickr account - they give me 1 terabyte free! But what do I do with all of these photos? Nobody else can see them unless I post them somewhere like facebook or google+ (has anyone heard of google+?). But there are so many photos I don't even remember what they are, or how to find the ones I do remember.

And the convenience of my digital life. I don't have to leave the coach to go shopping - Amazon.com is all I need. (Does anyone else remember when Amazon was just a book seller?) And books - I read on my iPad. I have a banking app on my smartphone, so I can deposit checks and pay bills and all of that from - yes - the couch.

My digital life is becoming more of who I am than my biological life. I have a lot of friends - digital. A lot of people "like" me - digital. I go to exotic places in the world - digital. I read a lot of books, newspapers, magazines and technical journals - digital. I map out where I am driving or cycling - digital. I write to people and have nice chats with them - digital. I have discussions with people who see me and I see them - digital. I write about life and politics - digital. I schedule events and appointments on a calendar - digital. I watch movies, TV shows and listen to music - digital. I keep notes and journal items - digital. I print labels and postage on packages and have them picked up by the postal service - digital. I explore new digital applications for my digital devices - digital!

My digital me is always afraid. My digital being is constantly threatened by hackers who want to steal my identity and rob me of my credit and money. To defend my digital self I need passwords - lots and lots and lots of passwords and user names and secret questions with answers I'm supposed to remember. And the passwords can't be simple, they need to be complex. And I am told to change every password frequently. My digital self is so nervous about safety that I think I need digital drugs to calm me down!

I am no more than 0's and 1's, a vessel of data harvested every nanosecond of my digital life. Minions of madmen ad men algorize my digital being non-stop looking for clues and patterns so they can sell me to those who push advertisements at me. I have no secrets. My own government tracks my digital self everywhere I go, every key stroke I make, every search I google, every email, text and chat I have is harvested and analyzed and stored for the future in vast server farms scattered around the planet. My digital self consists of billions of fragments.

I grow flabby from lack of exercise because more and more of my shopping, banking, communicating and everyday activities are as a digital being rather than a biological being. How will this end?

Can I end my digital life? Is it possible to commit digital suicide - digicide? Is there life after the digital life? After all, my jillions of on-line posts and photos and messages will still be in the cloud even after I've pulled the plug.

If I do commit digicide, how will you know? Maybe you will notice that I haven't posted stupid things on facebook for awhile, or posted to this blog, or tweeted or tooted. Will you notice? Will anyone?  Especially once I install this new DigitalMe app; you know, the one that analyzes everything I have ever done on-line and then starts to generate posts from the digital me, without the biological me having to do anything. The ultimate app for digital immortality!

In fact, how do you know if the digital me or the biological me wrote this blog post?

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RACISM, COPS AND COMMUNITY - WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

I would say that this is like a bad movie, but that would make light of a very serious and real situation in America. If you didn't live here and were reading the headlines every day, you might think that being a Black man or boy is a crime in America, punishable by death on the spot. Michael Brown in Ferguson, Eric Garner in New York, 12-year old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, and Rumain Brisbon in Phoenix are the most recent Black men and boys killed by police, but certainly not the only ones.

"Nearly two times a week in the United States, a white police officer killed a black person during a seven-year period ending in 2012, according to the most recent accounts of justifiable homicide reported to the FBI" (USA Today). This statement is based on data submitted to the FBI by police departments, and it is a very incomplete and, some think, very flawed database. However, the stark reality is clear, young Black men are killed by police at a disproportionate rate compared to young white men killed.

Propublica has a good summary of these data in a recent article. The graphic below is from the Propublica article.

But rather than get lost in the data, which is readily available on the internet, I want to stick to my opinion, which is, after all, what you are reading.

Racism is alive and well today in America; however, in my opinion the core issue is not racism of individuals but racism inherent in our institutions. A lot has been written on this topic, and should be required reading for every US citizen, not as a guilt trip for white readers, but for the sake of educating all of us. 

There is a lot of justified anger in minority communities, as well as in a large proportion of society in general, concerning the treatment of Black men and boys in law enforcement and the judicial system. (Note that this is true in the Latino community as well.) Some of this anger spills over as rage, and mob mentality has taken over in some places resulting in destruction of property and looting. These actions are not by the majority of protesters and demonstrators, no matter how often the media shows us video and photos of the flames. 

There is a growing movement nationwide focused on police brutality and judicial indifference. Some commentators predict it is a new phase of the civil rights movement, and could grow into a major movement. I hope this is true, and I also hope that leaders emerge who can coordinate strategies, put forward a consistent message, distance the movement from the fringe groups and individuals who favor violence, and organize support for change by a majority of Americans. 

I don't condone war against the police; this is not productive and is a losing campaign. Nor do I condone blaming and labeling all cops as racist. There are many statements and interviews in the media right now by active and former police officers who admit that there is a problem, and state that some small percentage of police officers are "bad cops" who do bad things, and should not be in these positions. They also admit that the majority of cops typically don't speak out when they know what the bad apples are doing, either because they don't want to get involved, or they are concerned about their own careers. This obviously needs to change.

It is not just the bad cops that are the problem, however; it is the system, the institutions of law enforcement and justice, that not only allow these individuals to be in positions of authority, but protect them when they do bad things. The death of Eric Garner by policemen, ruled a homicide by the coroner and seen by millions in a video on the internet, was not considered worthy of a trial. This is the outrage. A policeman killed a citizen whose potential crime was selling cigarettes, and the cop was not indicted.  Would Eric Garner be alive today if he was white? Would the cop be on trial if Mr. Garner had been killed and was white? It is not OK for a cop to kill someone without justification; but it is even more egregious that the justice system takes a pass on it. 

I have been working closely with the Portland Police Bureau over the past year to address issues in our neighborhood. The police formed a special unit, based on what they are calling relationship policing, to conduct daily walking patrols in a few neighborhoods. This has been a pilot project, and has been very successful. The officers assigned to the unit were selected using a set of criteria, including their communication skills. Many cops feel that the public hates them, and they are reluctant to get out of their cars and walk around. But the community response to these walking patrols has been overwhelmingly favorable, including many "street people" who are afraid of the bad elements on the street. The goal of this pilot project is to have cops and people in the community get to know each other, on a first name basis, and to have the cops out there to help people who need assistance, diffuse tense situations, address issues of behavior in public places, and help build a greater sense of community. As Ric, the Sergeant in charge of the unit often says, good parenting is not ignoring your kids until they do something wrong and then punishing them, but that is how policing has worked for too long (and he is quick to point out that police are not your parents!). The situation in our neighborhood has improved greatly, and by the way, this special unit of officers made very few arrests and issued very few citations, not because they weren't doing their job, but because they were doing their job in a different way.

I am hopeful that, working together, we can make needed changes in our society. I'm not yet delusional enough to think that this will be a slam dunk; it will be hard work. Institutionalized racism is buried deep in the core structures of our public institutions, and there is a tremendous amount of inertia to keep it that way. We need to change laws, we need new legal precedent, we need individuals inside federal, state and local governments, including police forces, to push from the inside, we need citizens to participate in public discourse and to vote. 

Next time you see a cop walking around your neighborhood, stop and say hello. Introduce yourself, get into a conversation, talk about what's going on. Build community. 

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REALLY? PRESIDENT OBAMA IS "POISONING THE WELL?"

AAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!! Driving home today I was listening to a local talk show (Think Out Loud) on our NPR affiliate, Oregon Public Broadcasting. In the news roundtable segment the host asked three guests (journalists) what the top story of the week was for each of them. One of the two men said that his top story was wondering why President Obama is reportedly going to "poison the well" in Congress by acting on immigration reform through Executive Order. 

WHAT? First of all, why is a journalist using the Republican playbook term of the month? Almost immediately following his reelection to the Senate, Mitch McConnell used the term "poison the well" in his acceptance speech: "In an ambitious speech hours after his party gained control of both houses of Congress, McConnell warned Obama not to “poison the well” by pushing forward with unilateral action on immigration reform...." (source). 
Two days later House Speaker John Boehner warned that "the president will "poison the well" for the new Congress if he takes executive action to address the deportation of undocumented immigrants" (source). The floodgates were open, and every news outlet repeated the term "poison the well" over, and over, and over ad nauseum. 

And so, once again, the popular media are following the playbook of a political party by parroting a catchy phrase designed to stick in the heads of the public and sway their opinion. Some consultant to the Republican Party earned her or his pay for that one. 

But there is another, even more important aspect to this discussion; the assertion is false! For the past 6 years the publicly stated goal of the Republican Party has been to thwart every effort by Barak Obama to get things accomplished. McConnell and Boehner each are on record with this message. The Congress during Obama's term will go down as one of the most do-nothing Congresses in the history of the United States, to date. If anyone has poisoned the political well, it is the Republican Party.

And let us not forget the liberal Democrats who have very loudly criticized Obama for not getting tough, going toe-to-toe with the obstructionist Republicans in Congress. What a wimp! What a dish rag! What a disappointment! As if President Obama is the reason the Republicans have stymied every effort by the administration and the Democrats to move things forward. 

The Republican Party is The Poison in the well that all Americans drink from. Name any social issue in this country, and the Republicans are on the front lines to stop any progress. I salute President Obama for his patience and his persistence. He has accomplished a mountain of important things, and yet, for some strange reason, the American public and the popular media allow the Republican Party to write the script and coin the phrases.

I truly hope our President uses his executive authorities to make long-overdue and much needed changes to immigration policies, environmental policies, energy policies, and many more. And truly, if there is poison in the well, we can only hope that the Republicans in Congress drink from it soon! 
---
P. Fishman - November 14, 2014 

MEANWHILE, 44 YEARS LATER, HAS ANYTHING CHANGED?

I have two books of political cartoons by Ron Cobb published in 1970 that I probably bought within a couple of years of publication (my copies were 2nd printings in 1971).  Raw Sewage is about the environment (remember, the first Earth Day was in 1970). My Fellow Americans is about politics in this country at the time.  I took these books off the shelf a few days ago and paged through Ron's cartoons, truly a trip down memory lane. I expected to laugh again, the way I did 40 some years ago. I was dismayed, however, that it seems things have not changed very much in the past 44 years. And I didn't laugh this time around.

Below are a few of my favorites from these cartoon books, with some commentary.

from Raw Sewage

This was always one of my favorite ecology cartoons by Ron. The grin on the old man's face is perfect. I have to say that in many cities, such as Portland, OR, there has been a push to incorporate plants into the urban landscape. So perhaps there has been progress on this item over the past 44 years. 

from Raw Sewage

Does anything ring a bell here? I think more people know the word "ecology" now than in 1970. We also are very familiar with the term "climate change" because it is in the news media so much. But we are experiencing more severe storms and other major changes in climate patterns than we did then. Katrina and Sandy were not beautiful women but horrific storms that destroyed and killed. Where are the changes needed to slow down this human-induced process? So far, it looks like we will all be sitting on the roof of the car wondering why these things are happening. 

from My Fellow Americans

How true, and how sad. The Civil Rights Movement - the one fought for racial equality - forced numerous positive changes in our society. And yet, 44 years after this cartoon was inked, it seems that beatings and killings (and incarceration) of young men of color by police is more normal than ever. The numbers are chilling; the stories are mind-numbing. How is it that here, in America, racism has become more institutionalized than it was 44 years ago? Didn't we fix this already? Sadly, we didn't. 

from My Fellow Americans

How did Ron know? Thanks to Edgar Snowden and others, we now know so much more about the surveillance state in which we live. How many of us knew what NSA meant just a couple of years ago? We now have surveillance cameras proliferating everywhere, police departments have weapons and vehicles designed for the military (thanks to grants and gifts by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security). What Ron didn't know then was that we would all have smart phones that know where we are all the time, as well as Google, Facebook, email, Twitter and millions of other internet data collectors that the government can hack into (or simply demand from the providers). 

from My Fellow Americans

Do I even need to comment on this one? The most reliable numbers are that more than 30,000 Americans are killed by guns every year! This insanity is perpetuated by organizations like the National Rifle Association that have a strange stranglehold on our elected legislators. This is nuts! 

And so, sadly, I must conclude that many important issues in our society have not improved since 44 years ago. I continually ask myself what went wrong, why we haven't collectively improved these egregious facets of human community. Is this really the world we want to inhabit, and leave for our children? 

And I'm still not laughing. 

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Sources:

My Fellow Americans 1970. Ron Cobb. Price/Stern/Sloan Publishers, Inc. - Sawyer Press
Raw Sewage  1970. Ron Cobb. Price/Stern/Sloan Publishers, Inc. - Sawyer Press 

AND JUSTICE FOR ALL (EXCEPT THOSE WHO DON'T HAPPEN TO BE WHITE AND HAVE MONEY)

Many people in Europe, America, and Iran are upset and protesting over the jailing of a young woman in Iran for political activism. Ghoncheh Ghavami, a British-Iranian law student in London, has been in jail for 100 days without trial, and she has started a hunger strike. Support for her cause is growing.

Meanwhile, right here in the U.S. of A., a large number of people are incarcerated and awaiting trial under circumstances that are beyond belief. Take the case of Kalief Browder, recently released from prison in New York after spending 3 years (yes, three) in jail without a trial for something he claimed he had not done. Kalief was stopped and arrested when he was 16 years old. Someone had identified him as a person who had stolen his backpack several weeks prior to Kalief's arrest. Because his family could not raise the $3,000 bail, he went to jail awaiting trial. The nightmare of his incarceration for three years without trial is detailed in an article in the New Yorker magazine, and it will make your blood boil. You should read the article; it is infuriating.

Kalief missed his last two years of high school. He missed his prom and being graduated from high school. He missed developing skills for life as a teen because he spent three years behind bars, a major percentage of the time in solitary confinement. The court system in New York has a process for speedy trial if one is requested. Once the request is made to a judge, the trial must take place within 6 weeks. There is a major catch, however, which is played to the hilt by the public prosecutors: if the prosecution asks for a delay (typically because they "aren't ready"), the judge will usually grant a delay of a couple of days. The courts are so overloaded, however, that the new date is usually 6, 8 or more weeks out. But because the judge granted let's say a 2-day delay, the time until the new date is only counted as 2 days towards the 6-week limit. By doing this repeatedly, Kalief spent 3 years of his teenage years behind bars, in very poor, and dangerous, living conditions. 

Kalief was offered plea deals during the three years. If he plead guilty, he would only get something like a 3 to 5 years sentence and his time already spent in jail would count against it. If he didn't take the plea, he was advised that he might lose at trial and get 15 years. Kalief insisted on his innocence, and refused the plea bargain deals. 

Kalief was finally released after a new judge on his case pressed the prosecution when they asked for yet another delay. The reason for this delay was that the accuser had gone back to Mexico and they could not find him. The judge finally said "enough" and dismissed the case against Kalief; he was released.

The life of this young man has been irrevocably changed. He suffers from depression and has contemplated suicide. He has few friends, is awkward socially, is fearful of crowded places (like prison, where people were often beaten, by inmates and guards, or stabbed), and has trouble finding work. He now has an attorney and is suing the City of New York and the New York Police Department.

The case of Kalief Browder is beyond sad, and one has to wonder how this could happen in America. But his case is symptomatic of a common trend in the justice system in this country.  The studies and statistics are chilling; people who are not black or Hispanic and have money generally do not have these experiences. And once in the legal system, it is often difficult to get out or, as in Kalief's case, even get a trial. The plea deals offered to inmates waiting for a trial are too attractive, compared to languishing in jail for an uncertain outcome. "In 2011, in the Bronx, only a hundred and sixty-five felony cases went to trial; in 3,991 cases, the defendant pleaded guilty." I don't know about New York, but in many states a conviction for a felony (i.e. guilty plea) results in the felon not having the right to vote, cannot get public housing, often cannot find a job and faces other social and financial restrictions. Keep in mind, many people take a guilty plea deal even if they are innocent, just to get out of jail and back to some semblance of normalcy.

Racism in America is institutionalized. It is inherent in policing, in the justice system, in the financial system and many other areas of our society. It is often hard to get a grasp on racism and hold it up for scrutiny because many individual acts are not on their face intentionally racist. But taken as a whole, too many parts of our democracy have inherent bias against poor and minority people. 

We need to shine a bright light on the cases like Kalief Browder. There need to be severe consequences for people in the system who perpetrate these outrages. There need to be major changes in how the machinery of "democracy" works in order to guarantee justice for all. 

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WASHINGTON D.C. FOOTBALL TEAM OWNER ANNOUNCES NAME CHANGE FROM "REDSKINS"

The owner of the Washington Redskins football team, Dan Snider, has announced a name change for the NFL team. Snider's statement referred to the controversy surrounding the name, for which one poll found that 9 percent of Native Americans polled found the name offensive (90 percent did not).

Snider was very circumspect when he announced that the new name of the football team will be the Washington Foreskins. He remarked that the name change is very sensitive to non-majority populations. Polling and focus groups found a 50:50 split about whether the new name is offensive or pride-inducing among Jewish people, particularly men.

The Foreskins management is proud about the way the team rose to the occasion, explaining that it was a hard decision.

The new team mascot is still shrouded in secrecy; however, an announcement is expected soon. Insiders, speaking anonymously, have identified several possibilities being considered, including a mohel, kalamari, or four people wearing SCUBA gear.*

With this name-changing decision, team management is hopeful that the public will focus on the team's dismal record rather than their dismal name.

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* It is well known that the method of circumcising a whale involves four skin divers.

TIME FOR SOME MOVIE REVIEWS: "LUCY" and "GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY"

OK kids, this is a new feature for readmyopinion, a movie review! I will warn you when there is a potential spoiler.

Lucy had the potential to be interesting science fiction, but I will say up front - don't waste your time and money. I don't love Lucy. Lucy is a predictable how-many-guns-can-we-shoot, how-many-cars-can we-crash overly loud so-called action film with a pseudo-intellectual premise, and a handful of big stars to try to recoup the cost of making it. They could have saved a lot of money, and saved the audience by throwing the script in the trash bin.

Let's start with those damned car chase scenes, shall we. There is really only one question that needs to be asked - why? The car chase scene has absolutely nothing to do with the story (to be fair, these gratuitous scenes of car derby destruction almost always have no relationship to the story). Where is it written that every movie has to have a car chase scene where hundreds of people are likely injured or killed, cars go flying through the air - usually the cars of the hapless police (see below) - and the heroes walk away unscratched. This scene in Lucy was totally absurd and a major distasteful distraction from the tiny shred of story line.

Oh yes, there was a story line, posed as a scientific theory lectured about by renowned Professor Morgan Freeman: what would happen if humans used more than the 10 percent of their brains that is actually used (and this number, by the way, is not scientific fact)?

Another very bothersome device used by these film makers is stereotyping. The police are hapless. They never seem to be around when people are being killed. When they are called to protect the university building where Professor Freeman and company are located, they walk right by and don't notice a fleet of big black SUVs across the street with a mob of Asian thugs dressed in all black unloading enough assault rifles and bazookas to fight a war! And of course, the army of thugs walks right in to the building and starts killing people. Oy.

Want some violence? Want some blood - lots and lots of blood? Blood squirting all over peoples faces who happen to be too close to the butchering? Random and senseless shootings, stabbings, and other truly gruesome forms of death? Lucy has a lot of it, go for it! We truly don't know why so many people are simply murdered in such seemingly casual ways. The bad guys are really bad guys, and to prove it, each one must have a quota of senseless murders to pull off per hour. The story thread involving the horrifically terrible bad-ass killer gang lord has nothing much to do with the plot of the film, except as a device in the beginning that creates the Lucy character. The rest of that thread is nothing more than gratuitous blood and guts violence for the sake of showing a lot of blood and guts violence. Meh!  

And then there are the scientists. Professor Freeman is dressed in university tweed. His lecture to a university audience (we have to assume) is one of the high points of the film; it is actually educational as well as entertaining, with terrific slide-show graphics and animations and simply beautiful nature video. The group of colleagues he gathers to meet Lucy (Scarlett Johansson)  are all in long white laboratory coats (and dark-rimmed glasses?). Why? They all look like Gene Barry's Dr. Clayton Forrester in the 1953 War of the Worlds! They are just there to talk to someone named Lucy. They stand in a group, in their white lab coats, and simply look incredulous as Lucy performs a bunch of magic tricks for them. "Ooh," "Aah," "What is she doing?" they say in science-geek unison. Ridiculous!

This movie actually goes nowhere in the 89 minutes of ridiculousness the audience has to endure. [POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT] The ending is a poor copy of the ending in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968 Stanley Kubrick), and made me want to yell out to director Luc Besson, in as much pain as I could, the immortal words of the HAL 9000 computer:  I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Luc. Luc, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm a... fraid.

I guess if I need to say at least one positive thing, it would be that Ms. Johansson does a good job with her character, and she is, of course, pleasant to look at. 


OK, so the supposed sci-fi film wasn't worth the time and money (we were in beautiful downtown Burbank, where matinee movies were very expensive compared to my small town of Portland - and no senior discount!). But a few nights ago I walked down the street with a grandson and my favorite granddaughter to the Bagdad Theater, got some pizza and beer (they had pizza without beer), and settled in for Guardians of the Galaxy. 

First, you have to understand that this is a Marvel comic book movie. You have to say this to yourself before you walk in; it's a movie based on a comic book. If you don't like comic books, well, I suggest you go anyway.

I LOVE THIS MOVIE! I will see it again at least once. I laughed my ass off, loudly and frequently. The writing is brilliant, the characters are sublime, the actors, including those doing voice-overs, nail their roles spot on. A lot of the actors looked and sounded familiar, but I'm sure most of you readers know them better than I. Chris Pratt, as Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord, brings it with perfect comic timing. That's correct, he brings the "comic" to the "comic book." Quill is instantly lovable due to his preference in music - a 1980's mix tape; however, his boy-as-man manner, complete with puppy dog eyes when needed, his rapid quips, his seeming nonchalance with a hair-trigger violence switch all add up to one very likable character indeed. 

The script is replete with one-liners that almost made me pee my pants from laughter, they are that good. One reason I need to go again is to catch all of these sometimes obtuse historic lines and references to previous movies. Usually when the film makers mix a bunch of beings from different places in the universe into one crew, we ignore not only that they all speak English, but that they all understand everything each is saying. Not so in Guardians. Star Lord Quill uses a lot of Earth colloquialisms, which cause various other characters to stop and ask the obvious question. When Quill mentions that someone has a stick up his ass, Gamora (beautifully played by Zoe Saldana) stops, and asks with a puzzled look: "who put a stick up his ass, and why?"  

The Guardians is a group of sketchy characters who are thrown together despite their desires to kill each other. They are an interesting crew; an Earthling, a blue-skinned warrior lady, a kind-of tattood hulk of a humanoid, a raccoonish animal named Rocket (not Rocky), and a very talented tree named Groot that has a 3-word vocabulary. It turns out that, in spite of all the dislike between them, they actually work well together when they need to.

Yes, there are chase scenes in this movie, using spacecraft instead of cars. But the chases fit the story perfectly, good guys running from bad guys for a reason. 

The five Guardians have a knack for getting into and out of a lot of tricky situations, and gradually grow to respect and trust each other. And maybe that's the big take-away of this movie. We see each character learning some lesson about him- or herself, and also about the value of having comrades you can rely on. It actually gets a bit sappy (no, not dripping from the tree creature) at the end, but in a good way. How great is it that you can watch, and be sucked into, a comic book movie with absolutely terrific action sequences, dialogue, character development, cinematography and special effects, and walk out thinking about the lessons the characters learned? Lessons that we Earthlings better learn ourselves, and soon! 

The setups in this movie for sequels and prequels are obvious, and I can't wait, if they are as well done as this one.

All thumbs up for Guardians of the Galaxy. We are Groot! 

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LET'S MAKE IRAQ THE 51ST STATE IN THE UNION

The United States has shipped gobs of money, people, equipment, and building materials to Iraq. And we've lost way too many people fighting a prolonged war there. We pulled out a couple of years ago, but are now being drawn back in to fight an even more barbaric enemy than before, if such a thing is possible. What should we do?

I propose that we make Iraq the 51st state of the United States of America. Here are 10 good reasons:

1. We won't continue to spend money and resources and lives in another country; it will all be spent at home; and it can be in the form of federal payments to the state for health care, education, other so-called entitlements, transportation, environmental regulation, agriculture, natural resource development and management, and defense in the form of National Guard;
2. Iraqis who want to fight other people can join the Armed Forces of the United States and find their dream career firing guns, throwing grenades and launching rockets all over the world;
3. The domestic production of oil in the United States will increase to a level at which we will no longer need to import the stuff, and we can even spurn the environmentally unfriendly tar sand oil from Canada;
4. The President of Iraq will become the Governor of the State of Iraq;
5. The President of Iraq, Mr. Maliki, will be a perfect candidate for the US Congress: he is experienced in crony capitalism, is fiercely loyal to his tribe (aka political party), and can get Absolutely Nothing accomplished as well as or better than the best of our people in Congress;
6. Candidates in federal elections will spend more time in the State of Iraq than in other states because the turnout in their last election was greater than 60 percent, compared to less than 60 percent in the USA for the 2012 elections;
7. The Tea Party can open field offices in Iraq to help focus Iraqi voters on which government they should hate;
8. The National Rifle Association will move their headquarters to Baghdad, where they will be so much more appreciated;
9. American vacationers will have a new domestic vacation destination, and tourism will boost the State of Iraq economy;
10. The US President can appoint Sarah Palin to a special State of Iraq post in the mountains near the far-eastern Iraqi town of Penjwen, where she can keep an eye on the Iranian Supreme Leader from her kitchen window.

I'm going to start a petition campaign, please sign on. 

THE ISRAEL-GAZA WAR, PHASE 2 (following the script)

OK, so here we are in Phase 2 of the Israel-Gaza War, as usual. Phase 1 was when Israel got tired, again, of  having hundreds of rockets and missiles lobbed into it's territory by the Gazan extremists and started lobbing bombs and missiles the other way. And guess what happened? People in Gaza were being wounded or killed, and property was being destroyed.

The usual anti-Israelis trotted out their tired arguments that Israel was killing too many people and it was a lopsided fight. Right, it is. There is no way Hamas, Islamic Jihad or any of the other criminally crazy extremists in Gaza (let's call them Hamas and Company) are going to beat Israel in a fight; they are totally outgunned, and they have always known it.  And so they try to protect themselves and their weapons with human shields, and do you know why they do this? Because they know very well that the Israeli forces will try as much as they can to avoid civilian casualties. They know that the Israeli forces try to warn people that a specific building is going to be blown up, and they should get out. The only logical conclusions during Phase 1 are that: 1) Hamas and Company will start a fight they can't possibly win, and 2) Hamas and Company know that many of their own innocent civilians will be killed, which they want because it builds global hatred for Israel, and Jews.

And now Phase 2. The war has gone on for more than a few days, Israel has invaded Gaza on the ground, and hundreds of Gazans are dead, compared to "only" dozens of Israelis. Well meaning people who decry war start posting photos and articles about all the children who have been killed. Propagandists post these items, too, as well as outright lies and misinformation about Israeli actions. And the Jew Haters world-wide swing into action. Jews are attacked on the streets of France and Germany. Jewish buildings and sites are bombed, vandalized, desecrated. Suddenly Israelis and Jews are guilty of genocide and are labeled worse than Hitler himself! What Holocaust? The Jews are bringing a holocaust down on the Gazans! And oh yes, not wanting to be left out, the United Nations members start piling on Israel, too. (I have to say that it took a lot longer this time around for the U.N. to get to the condemnations of Israel; they were actually very critical of Hamas from the beginning of this go-around.)

In Phase 1, many Jews (and I'm thinking of Americans) start to feel guilty as the body count increases. "But Israel has a right to defend itself, doesn't it?" they say to their friends. In Phase 2, Jews start to feel less defensive and start to take the offense, calling bullshit bullshit every time they see it. This is because Jews understand that anti-semitism is alive and well in the world, including in the good old U. S. of A.

Look, when the USA invaded Iraq and killed probably more than 100,000 Iraqis, were there anti-Christian riots in the streets of Europe and the Arab countries? The US is, after all, a Christian country. No, the riots were anti-USA. But every time the Israel-Gaza War gets to Phase 2, the anti Jew riots start.

Do you want to talk about disproportionality? How about the fact that I have never heard about any demonstrations or riots,  and I have never seen a word on Facebook from those who weep bitterly over dead children in Gaza about the thousands and thousands of innocent Muslim civilians - women, men and children - being indiscriminantly killed by....Muslims, in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and others.

What is happening in Gaza is horrible, and very few Jews anywhere, including or especially in Israel, are dancing in the streets over the bodies of dead children. This just doesn't happen, except maybe for a very small minority of sick, crazy Jewish extremists. This is war, and war is neither a party nor pretty.  It is horrible, on all sides. And yes, it is, and has been for many years, horrible for children in Israel who have never known a time when normal wasn't having to run for shelter many times a day or week when the air raid sirens wail.

The behavior of Israel during war, and this is war, has to be considered differently than the behavior of Israel during peace (a relative term). I defend the right of ANY country to defend itself when attacked. And yes, I guess that means any country whether I consider it "good" or "bad." That's how the animal world works.

I have a different view of Israels behavior during more peaceful times. Israel has negotiated with Palestinians a number of times over the years trying to find a peace agreement. This has never been successful, and yes, the blame game goes both ways. The more moderate Palestinians have sat down with Israelis at these negotiations; the extremists like Hamas and Company want no part of it (and to be fair, the Israelis won't negotiate with terrorists anyway).

I remain very critical of Israel during the more peaceful interludes of the war. While I don't expect Hamas and Company to change their mission of destroying Israel, killing all the Jews, and installing an Islamic Caliphate across all of Israel-Palestine, I do expect Israel to be capable of changing their tactics. Instead of fighting Hamas and Company every day at a low level, and every few years in an outright huge battle, they should instead use diplomacy and politics to work with the moderate Palestinians to marginalize Hamas and Company and get Hamas out of power in Gaza. Instead, what I have seen is Israel purposefully blow off or sabotage these opportunities, while continuing to do the things that fan the flames of Palestinian resentment, namely settlement building, check points, mass incarcerations, racism towards Israeli Arabs, and other institutionalized actions.

Is there a hope for peace in Israel and the Palestinian Territories? I don't think so, unless there is a radical paradigm shift in Israeli politics, and the chance of this is greatly diminished with every major outbreak of the Israel-Gaza War. A paradigm shift on the Palestinian side would also go a great way towards making peace, but I think this is even less likely. The outlook is grim. Fewer Israelis and Palestinians know each other than was the case a decade ago, and this also dehumanizes attitudes on both sides.

I don't have the right to tell the government of Israel what to do; I'm not an Israeli citizen. Although I have a connection to Israel, I don't consider it my country. There are very smart Palestinians and Israelis, and if both sides wanted to make peace, had the will to do so, and most importantly had the leadership to do so, it could happen.

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MY ISSUES WITH THE ANTI-ISRAEL CROWD

A few statements before I start:

1. This post is, as usual, my opinion, and mine alone. My family and friends might not agree with me, but that's how I roll.
2. This post is NOT simply a defense of Israel; I have been publicly very critical of the Israel government on numerous posts here and elsewhere.
3. It is NOT my intent to insult or anger anyone, and I will not get into on-line arguments about this topic. I would, however, gladly have an objective discussion about this topic, preferably in person rather than on-line. 
4. This post is NOT faith-based. Yes, I am Jewish. I am also an atheist and what I call a progressive realist. The faith issues in the Middle East, and the world, are very real, but I prefer not to be part of any discussions labeled as "inter-faith" because I prefer to leave these labels outside the door, and, well, that's not how I roll.

Every time there is an inflammation of violence in Israel-Palestine (more precisely Israel and Gaza) many people start posting about how horrible Israel is to be bombing and killing the Palestinian population in Gaza. There are demonstrations, such as the one here in Portland yesterday, in support of the Palestinians and calling for Israel to end the occupation, end the violence, stop killing innocent women and children, and etc. Muslim, Christian and even some Jewish friends post these things and go to these demonstrations. 

I also see posts (Facebook) by family and friends who are very protective of Israel, and try to convey information in support of the right of Israel, like any other country, to defend itself. 

All of the above actions are OK; this is what we call democracy. 

I am greatly bothered by the extremes on both sides, even by what I know to be well-meaning people. My greatest issue is with the pro-Palestinian side, and this is what I'll mostly talk about here.

To put it simply, I think the anti-Israel posts and demonstrations feed hatred for Jews, whether intentional or not. There is a resurgence of anti-Semitism world-wide, including here in the USA. This is a fact, supported by data of hate-motivated attacks on Jews and Jewish sites. The anti-Israel movements, such as the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement, and the recent decision by the Presbyterians to divest of stocks in companies doing business in or with Israel, all feed this hatred. 

Read this short piece in the New York Times today about one of the hate sites on the internet, Stormfront.org.  It is interesting and chilling. The author's analysis of the site users concludes that 75 percent of the site users are younger than 30. The group most often mentioned as hated is Jews, at 39%, followed by Blacks 33%, Hispanics 13%, Muslims 11%. Surprised? Gee, certainly racists hate Blacks or Hispanics or Muslims more than they hate Jews, right? A lot of Jew-hatred is based on the misperception that we Jews are behind all the societal changes these folks hate because we are so powerful and clever. We control everything. 

There is, and for some reason always has been a hatred of the Jewish people in the world; this has been true throughout the history of the Jews. When I see anti-Israel stuff, it is very easy for me to find that it is not very far from outright anti-Semitism, or a gateway to hatred of Jews. This is certainly true for many people in the Middle East, where many maps used in schools don't even show Israel, and that country is called things like "the Zionist Entity," and children's cartoons on TV show devil-looking Jews eating babies and drinking the blood of children for rituals. If you don't believe me, spend 2 minutes on google. 

So what about the fact that in this present conflict, as in the past battles between Gaza and Israel, more than 100 Palestinians have been killed, and zero Jews have died? Doesn't that prove that Israel is evil and the Palestinians are simply innocent victims? Well, no it does not. The numbers are real, but the facts behind the numbers are the real story.

The elected government of Gaza is Hamas. Hamas is a Sunni Islamist militant organization, and has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, a source I think is objective, "Hamas combines Palestinian nationalism with Islamic fundamentalism. Its founding charter commits the group to the destruction of Israel, the replacement of the PA [Palestinian Authority] with an Islamist state on the West Bank and Gaza, and to raising "the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine."" 

To carry out their goal of the destruction of Israel, Hamas, as well as other extremist groups such as Islamic Jihad, has waged a campaign of terror against Israel and its citizens, including suicide bombings, attacking Israeli civilians, including busloads of children, and launching thousands of rockets and missiles from Gaza into Israel over the course of many years. 

I have asked a simple question numerous times in Facebook posts: What would you expect, or demand that your government do if a neighboring community was launching explosives into your neighborhood, and after how many such bombs would you demand action? I have never received an answer to this simple question from any one of my Facebook friends. My answer is simple: go find them after the very first missile is launched and stop them, even if it means killing them! Can anyone say that this is unreasonable? Can anyone say that Israel has not tolerated thousands of rockets before responding at a scale designed to eliminate the threat?

Let's get back to those numbers of people killed. The reason for the disparity is simple: Israel protects its citizens; Hamas purposely puts its citizens in danger. Israel carefully selects its targets and uses extraordinary measures to avoid and minimize civilian casualties. Hamas does not seem to select targets, they launch rockets in the hope that they will kill Israelis - Jews. Hamas (and the other militant groups) stores their weapons and sets up their rocket launchers in heavily populated areas, knowing full well that once they provoke Israel to attack, many non-combatants will be injured and killed, giving their cause a terrific PR boost. 

OK, you say, Israel needs to end The Occupation and everything will be fine; peace will break out. I strongly agree that Israel needs to end the illegal occupation of the West Bank, and the isolation of Gaza. But I don't agree that this will solve the problem. Remember, the goal of Hamas is not to end the occupation, it is the destruction of Israel and the establishment of a fundamentalist Islamic state. Does anyone really believe that if Israel ends the occupation, removes the West Bank settlements and tears down the separation barrier that the extremist Islamists will dismantle their missiles and bombs, lay down their arms, and accept Israel with open arms? Yeah, right. 

 I am also very bothered by the fact that so many well-meaning liberal friends are quick to post about how awful Israel is when Palestinians are being killed, but are silent on all the other atrocities in the world. Where are all the posts and demonstrations about the thousands of civilians, mostly Muslim, killed by the Syrian regime? How about the hundreds of school girls kidnapped by the Islamic group Boko Haram in Nigeria? And where are the bleeding hearts about the thousands of civilians murdered in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries - Muslims killed by Muslims? From my perspective, it's only when Jews kill Palestinians that we see such an outpouring of concern - and hatred. When Muslims kill Jews I don't see any comments by non-Jewish Facebook friends. I do see reports of people in Muslim countries dancing in the streets and hailing their martyrs. When Jews kill Muslims that seems to be all anyone talks about. And I never see Jews dancing in the street to celebrate the killing of innocent people.  Am I missing something here? I'd like to know if I am.

I'll end this by saying a bit about the extremists on the other side of the coin. I sometimes see posts defending Israel that at their core are hate-based. Some of these repeat ridiculous statements, such as that there is no such thing as a "Palestinian," or that every Arab or Muslim wants only one thing, to destroy Israel and kill every Jew. To these people the entirety of what is now Israel, Gaza and the West Bank is part of ancient Israel, and the Arabs have no legitimate claim to any of it. These are people who are in or support the settlement movement that is rapidly converting Arab-owned lands into Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The existence of these hundreds of settlements is an impediment to any peace process, and has fragmented the West Bank into a jig-saw puzzle that will make any future two-state agreement very difficult.    

Israel is a country that exists within the legal framework of every other recognized nation on the planet. The history of the formation of Israel is not very different than the history of many other countries. We Americans, especially, should not be too quick to criticize the actions of Israel without thinking about the very often horrendous history of our nation. Israel has been forced by its neighbors to become a very highly militarized nation, knowing full well that the day after they become weaker militarily than their Arab and Persian neighbors will be the day Israel ceases to exist. Israel has been condemned more often by the United Nations than any other nation. Israel is condemned by the international community whenever it defends itself. It is no wonder that the government of Israel does what it thinks it needs to do to defend itself in spite of the international criticism and scorn it knows it will get. Israel has a very well equipped and modern military, with all the latest technologies developed by their own and the military industries of the United States and some other western nations. And they use their military when they are attacked. 

I would rather see Israel make peace than war. I fault the Israel government for not doing everything possible to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority and yes, even Hamas. Yes, I know, they have tried, in their own way, without success. But they have not set a goal of making peace even if it means giving up certain concessions to the other side. They have not tried to think outside the box of the same old worn out positions both sides have bolted their boots to. 

I would prefer that concerned people work to achieve peace in Israel-Palestine by waging peace on both sides of the conflict. If you feel that you need to criticize the way Israel responds, please also criticize the Palestinians who constantly attack Israel with bombs and missiles and put their own people at risk. Pay attention to anti-Semitism here at home and abroad (it might surprise you to see in the NY Times article that Oregon has one of the highest levels of users of the internet hate site I discussed earlier). Let your elected representatives, including the President, know how you feel about US support of Israel, but keep in mind that if Israel did not have modern weapons of war, millions of innocent people in that country would have been slaughtered years ago by neighboring countries. 

This is an extremely complex issue, and "truth" and "fact" are hard to find. Each side has a narrative, and every narrative is valid and should be learned and understood by the other sides. But one basic fact remains: every nation has a right to defend itself when attacked, even the tiny nation of Israel. The US was attacked by three airplanes and responded by going to war with two countries for over 10 years. The illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq by the United States probably killed more than 100,000 people in that country, yet only a small minority of Americans protested that invasion. 

Let's continue to express our opinions, but let's be careful what we say.  

ISRAEL-PALESTINE: DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN

A lot of what I want to say is in the post from 2012, the last time the Israel-Gaza War flared up. Here's the link.

So rather than repeat myself, I want to share an excerpt from an important book by a Palestinian scholar we have sat and talked with a couple of times in Jerusalem, Sari Nusseibeh. The book is titled "What is a Palestinian State Worth?" and is a philosophical look at the conflict, it's roots, and the workings of the human mind. In a chapter titled "How can we move the World?",  Professor Nusseibeh discusses the example of Gandhi changing the way of thinking about freedom and violence.

Ghandi here clearly refers to India and its civilization not as race or religion but primarily as a system of moral values or a humane order.  Patriotism is not racial chauvinism or self-love and self-adulation, but "the welfare of the whole people."  Thus if Palestinians were to take their cue from Gandhi, they would cease looking upon their own patriotism as a religious or national cul-de-sac, and begin viewing it instead as an overarching affinity with the land and its multifaceted racial as well as religious history.  They would have to transform their vision of a free Palestine from that of a princedom to be ruled by Arab Palestinian "princes" to that of a land of a free people living by moral values.  In such a land, an Israeli could be just as patriotic a Palestinian as could an Arab Palestinian!  Indeed, to adopt such a perspective on patriotism is to see the political landscape in a radically new light.  The chasm in that landscape is suddenly no longer between "us" and "them"; rather, it is between "us" in the currently prevailing system of values and "us" in the new one.  More particularly, in this light, a philosophy of renouncing the use of force means more than simply restoring to nonviolent action: more significantly, it means renouncing our underlying assumptions of what the conflict is about, and replacing them with new assumptions which will henceforth guide our pursuit of a moral order.  

This is what is missing in Israel and Gaza and the West Bank and the surrounding region. The existing conflict, part of which I consider to be war between the governments of Gaza and Israel, the only accepted course of action is violence against violence. This has not worked now for 66 years, and will never work as a solution unless one side completely obliterates the other (spawning different endless cycles of violence, of course). 

I would also add my own view of the religious bases for this conflict. The stated struggle for The Land is not really about land, it is about the location of the religious myths of Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Every piece of dirt has some religious, i.e. mythical importance as the place where so-and-so walked, slept, died, was buried, rose up, ate lunch, took a nap and etc. and etc. Really? All this killing over mythologies? Even if some of these mythical persons existed at some distant time in history, so what? What is so important that people kill each other to defend it? 

So yes, as our Cousin-neice Erin said so eloquently on her blog, there are two (I would say at least two) narratives operative in Israel-Palestine, and each has validity that needs to be recognized by the other(s). There are options different than war, there have to be. Human history is not just made by war, it is made by people to people interactions, mostly positive and peaceful. And it is often, in fact it probably has to be driven forward by new and different ideas that break societies out of endless cycles of business-as-usual. 

Let us hope for a quick end to the bloodshed in Gaza and Israel. Let us also hope, and work for a different way of conflict resolution that moves towards a new moral order. I think the majority of people in the world would be happier with that. 

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What is a Palestinian State Worth? Sari Nusseibeh. 2011. Harvard University Press. (also available on Kindle) [I highly recommend it.]

THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN...THE TIMES THEY HAVE A-CHANGED.

I was born in 1944. Yeah, old. The lines from a Dylan song are a constant ear-worm:

Come gather round people where ever you roam,

and admit that the waters around you have grown.

And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone,

If your time to you is worth savin',

Than you better start swimming' or you'll sink like a stone,

For the times they are a-changin'!

Every generation sees great changes during their lifetimes. My generation is no different, and yet I somehow feel that the pace of change has been so much greater than before. 

Computer-information technology, for example, has progressed light years from my first computer, a Times-Sinclair box hooked to a cassette tape recorder and a black & white TV - in the late 1970's. Now we have the internet, on which people in every corner of the world can read this blog, and every word I enter on this blog will be harvested, aggregated and my profile will be sold to marketeers. 

Climate change. It is no longer a matter of when but a matter of how quickly and how severe. We humans have finally pushed the climate of our planet past a tipping point, and there is no going back. 

I also think that the chasm between the older and younger generations is wider than ever before. The Millennials are not a generation I completely understand. Unlike previous younger generations, they are not just about different clothing and hair length and rebelliousness. They understand things intuitively that we older folk have to struggle to understand just a little bit. It's not just that they can pick up and instantly use a remote control or smartphone, it's that the technology is part of who they are. Another way to say it is that what my generation tends to call gadgets are integral to young people's lives and personnas. 

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land,

And don't criticize what you can't understand.

Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command,

Your old road is rapidly agin',

Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand,

For the times they are a-changin'.

When I look at the news every day, I see a struggle between these old and new generations that continues building towards a series of tipping points. The Congress of the United States is primarily old, white men and some newly elected younger but old-minded white men who are waging what to them must seem like a holy battle to save the old order of their generation. The battles are being fought on the holy battlegrounds of marriage, immigration, petroleum hydrocarbon energy, corporate profits, and free-market greed. The old guard will lose these battles, that much is clear. What the new order will be is anyone's guess. President Obama, in my view, stands in the middle between these generations. He is old enough to understand the old guard and young enough to understand that things are very different now. 

Come senators, congressmen please heed the call,

Don't stand in the doorway don't block up the hall.

For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled,

There's a battle outside and it's raging',

It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls

For the times they are a-changin'! 

The world is aflame with terrorism, something we older generation folks never saw much of in our lifetimes. These terrorists, mostly Islamic extremists, are a manifestation of the struggle between the old and the new. The jihadists want to keep, or go back to an extremely fundamental view of Islam in which their religion is the controlling force over every life. Those who don't agree are to be killed. End of conversation! What these old-minded extremists understand is that the world has changed, and they don't like it. 

The never-ending war between Israel and Hamas is another example of the struggle between the old and new. Hamas has a very clear goal: get rid of Israel (and all the Jews, too) and implement a fundamentalist Islamic state. Israel, faced with never-ending terror and missile attacks, maintains a strong defense-offense to periodically knock Hamas back to a tolerable nuisance. Many people on all sides (Israel, Gaza, West Bank) would prefer peace; however, the old men in charge of all sides can't get past the old hatreds, the old resentments, the old injuries to body and psyche and find a way to make peace. Imagine what it would be like if the young generations of Israelis and Palestinians lived side-by-side and were free of the conflict that keeps them from realizing their true potential. 

The young people who took to the streets during the Arab Spring revolts clearly know that they are trapped in the old world while the new world goes on without them. In most cases, the outcomes of these revolutions have been a retrenchment of the old order, with associated imprisonment, torture and death for the rebellious young generation. But the old order can't stay in power forever; they will die and hopefully be replaced by a new order sown by the seeds of revolt in the 2010's. 

We Americans are at a turning point, both internally and externally. We seem to have lost our way, our identity, our ability to be One Nation, united. We have become mean - to the old, the poor, the immigrant, women, and the "other." We are divided by a wide chasm of intolerance based on politics, gender, sexual orientation, race and religion. 

America's standing in the world has also taken a downturn. We remain the lone - and lonely - superpower, but that might not last. We are still looked up to, but our recent political history, at home and abroad, has dimmed the shiny patina of America, Land of the Free. The world is changing rapidly, but we seem not able to stay in step with those changes. 

The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast,

The slow one now will later be fast.

As the present now will later be past,

The order is rapidly fadin',

And the first one now will later be last

For the times they are a-changin'. 

To the generations that follow mine I can only say "good luck, we did our best and we know that we failed you in many ways." This is not glibness, it is actually said with an aching sadness. If only we had heeded the Prophet Dylan's words when he wrote them a half-century ago. 

---

The Times They Are A-Changin' words and music by Bob Dylan

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE HOBBY LOBBY DECISION TO MY CORPORATION

Dear United States government:

The recent decision by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) in the case brought by Hobby Lobby has important implications for all privately held corporations. In their decision, the SCOTUS ruled that a privately held corporation could decline to provide certain benefits to it's employees if said benefits violate the religious beliefs of the corporation owners.

I am the sole Director and owner of a privately held corporation. I have long believed that certain actions by the government of the United States violate my religious beliefs. I am an atheist. Religion has several definitions, including : A pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance. I ascribe supreme importance to my pursuit and interest in atheism, and therefore atheism can be described as my religion. 

The government of the United States violates my religion in many ways. The money printed by the government includes the words "In God We Trust." The pledge of allegiance to the United States flag includes the words "One Nation, Under God." Elected officials, from the President down, end their speeches with the words "God Bless the United States of America." I find all of this insulting and a violation of my religious beliefs. 

Based on the recent Hobby Lobby ruling and the examples above, my corporation requests an exemption, on religious grounds, from having to pay taxes for it's employee (me). These taxes support a government that violates my religious, i.e. atheist beliefs, and therefore my corporation should not have to pay them. 

I want to thank the Supreme Court Justices, fine Republican-appointed men all, for establishing this important principle asserting the rights of corporations and the religious people who own them. You have greatly increased our privately-held profits.

American corporations thank you, Supreme Court Republicans of the Unites States (SCROTUS)!