It’s CaturSaturday, November 25, and in five days I leave for a week’s R&R in Boston, or rather Cambridge. It’s also shabbos for Jewish cats until sundown, and, foodwise, it’s also National Parfait Day, Meh.
It’s also Blasé Day, National “Eat with a Friend Day”, and International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Not much of a day for celebrations.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the November 25 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*The terrorist/hostage exchange took place yesterday on the first day of a four-day cease-fire between Hamas and Israel.
After nearly seven weeks in captivity, 13 Israeli hostages abducted by Hamas and other groups during the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel were released on Friday as part of a deal that paused the fighting in the Gaza Strip.
The 13 — all women and children — were returned to Israel. Five other hostages had been released or rescued earlier in the fighting.
Twelve of those newly released were among the roughly 75 people who had been kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7. One of the 13 was among those taken from Kibbutz Nirim.
In addition, 10 Thais and one Filipino were freed, but details about their identities have not been released.
The NYT has a list of the 13 hostages; the youngest was 2 but there were many “seniors” in their 70s and 80s. The 11 Thai and Filipino hostages among the Israelis was a surprise for a single release, but Thailand made a deal with Iran (who pulls the strings) to get their people released.
The 11 Thais handed over to Israel by Hamas yesterday were released after the government of Thailand made undisclosed payments and other promises to the regime in Iran which then ordered the Hamas terrorists to release some of the Thais they had abducted.
Further Thais are expected to be released today. The Thais set free yesterday are being treated in Israel by Israeli doctors and psychologists.
39 Palestinian prisoners and detaines were exchanged in return for the 24 kidnapped hostages. There will be another exchange today:
Hamas was expected to release a new group of Israeli hostages held in Gaza on Saturday in exchange for the release of 42 Palestinians detained in Israeli jails, as a fragile temporary truce between the two sides entered its second day.
The Israeli authorities were prepared to release the 42 Palestinian prisoners and detainees once they received the Israeli hostages, Israel’s prison service said. According to Israeli and Hamas officials, one Israeli will be released for every three Palestinians in the exchanges, meaning roughly 14 Israeli hostages would most likely be freed. Israeli officials declined to comment further.
Finally, Biden has broached the possibility of a longer cease-fire, which, if long enough, would lead to the resurgence of Hamas and perhaps to the ultimate destruction of Israel:
Hamas was expected to release a new group of Israeli hostages held in Gaza on Saturday in exchange for the release of 42 Palestinians detained in Israeli jails, as a fragile temporary truce between the two sides entered its second day.
The Israeli authorities were prepared to release the 42 Palestinian prisoners and detainees once they received the Israeli hostages, Israel’s prison service said. According to Israeli and Hamas officials, one Israeli will be released for every three Palestinians in the exchanges, meaning roughly 14 Israeli hostages would most likely be freed. Israeli officials declined to comment further.
I sense that Biden is softening on his promise to let Israel go after Hamas, and most authorities think that a permanent cease-fire would be very bad for Israel. On the other hand, public pressure to release hostages is strong, and if Hamas plays its hand cleverly, as it’s doing, it could leverage the hostage release into at least a very long cease-fire.
*The Washington Post answers a few other questions about the hostages. Here are three:
Who are the hostages being released?
On Thursday, Israeli officials received the list of names of hostages who will be released in the first batch on Friday, and has contacted their families, they said.
The estimated 240 people held in Gaza are from a plurality of countries, many also with Israeli citizenship. Some 25 Thai workers were among those taken, the Thai Foreign Ministry said. They are hoped to be among the first released, it said Nov. 2, after talks with Iran, Egypt and Qatar before the hostage release deal. Not all hostages are believed to be held by Hamas; smaller militant groups such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad are potentially in control of some.
After the initial captives exchange is completed, there will still be about 190 remaining hostages in Gaza, though the deal leaves open the possibility of further exchanges. Israeli and U.S. officials believe there are at least another 25, and perhaps another 50 or more, women and children among the hostages, with the remaining including male civilians, female Israeli soldiers, and up to several dozen male members of the Israel Defense Forces, The Post reported Wednesday. Hamas has claimed that some hostages were killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, but verifying that information has not been possible.
Were other hostages released earlier?
Four hostages have been released by Hamas since the beginning of the war,in two batches of two about a month ago.
On Oct. 20, Americans Judith Raanan, 59, and her daughter Natalie, 17, were released. Hamas said that this was due to “humanitarian reasons,” without elaborating further. They had been staying with relatives at the Nahal Oz, a kibbutz near the border with Gaza, when they were taken captive during Hamas’s unprecedented attack Oct. 7 that killed at least 1,200 in Israel. More than 13,300 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war and 35,180 wounded, the Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday, adding that the number did not include figures from two major hospitals.
On Oct. 23, Yocheved Lifshitz and Nurit Cooper, Israeli women in their 70s and 80s, were released, for “crushing humanitarian reasons,” Hamas said. Their husbandsremain in captivity.
How many American hostages are there?
At least nine Americans and one legal permanent resident are believed to be among those held in Gaza, The Post reported previously. One is a 3-year-old child whose parents were killed in the Oct. 7 attack.
Biden said that Americans would be among those freed under the newlyannounced deal. “Today’s deal should bring home additional American hostages, and I will not stop until they are all released,” he said in his statement Wednesday.
*In a WSJ opinion piece, historian Michael Oren, who’s been an advisor to Israeli/Palestinian peace negotiations, explains why “The hostage deal means that Israel is fighting the clock.” Hamas has the upper hand with respect to time, and it’s worrying:
With a four-day cease-fire reportedly going into effect Friday, time isn’t on Israel’s side in its war with Hamas in Gaza. Israel already faces challenges unprecedented in the history of war. A terrorist enemy dedicated to its destruction holds hundreds of hostages in a complex tunnel network and uses civilians as human shields. Israeli society, already riven by political infighting, is traumatized by Hamas’s Oct. 7 assault and divided over how to handle the hostage crisis. Further cease-fires mean the recovery of more hostages, but this will slow and eventually halt Israel’s effort to break Hamas’s control over Gaza. That would be a strategic defeat for both Israel and the U.S.
Israel needs time to root out Hamas. But the longer the war goes on, the likelier it is to spiral into a regional conflict drawing in the U.S. Since Oct. 17, Iranian-supplied militias have hit U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria with more than 60 rocket attacks. If a rocket or drone kills American troops, the Biden administration will face a crisis of its own. It could either retaliate against Iran and risk unpredictable military, economic and electoral consequences, or retreat from the Mideast, abandoning Israel and ceding a crucial region in the U.S.’s great-power struggle with China.
Few observers are better placed to understand these dilemmas than Michael Oren. An Israeli-American historian of the U.S.’s relationship with the Middle East, Mr. Oren served in Gaza with the Israel Defense Forces, then advised on several rounds of peace negotiations with the Palestinians. He was Israel’s ambassador to Washington during the Obama years. He held the Gaza brief as Benjamin Netanyahu’s deputy prime minister.
Mr. Oren praises President Biden’s forthright support of Israel. He agrees with the president’s statement that “a ceasefire is not peace” as long as Hamas “clings to its ideology of destruction.” It is war by other means, allowing the terrorists to “rebuild their stockpile of rockets, reposition fighters and restart the killing by attacking innocents again.” Mr. Oren expects U.S. and international pressure for cease-fires to grow “exponentially” in the coming weeks.
A cease-fire deprives Israel of military momentum and transfers the initiative to Hamas. Now that Israel has agreed to a short cease-fire, the Biden administration and its Qatari interlocutors will expect longer cease-fires. Hamas will remain armed and dangerous in Gaza, despite Israel’s war aims and the U.S.’s stated goals, and will use this cease-fire to regroup. The cease-fire’s terms allow Hamas to extend the truce by releasing 10 hostages a day. As the possibility of a permanent truce nears, and as Hamas starts to trade adult, male and military hostages, the group’s demands will rise. The U.S. will pressure Israel to release hundreds of Palestinian terrorists.
The partial hostage release also increases pressure inside Israel for further cease-fires. . . . .
*CNN reports that 34 war-activist protestors disrupted Macy’s famous Thanksgiving Day Parade yesterday. Can you guess whether they were pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian protestors? It isn’t hard!
More than 30 people were arrested after pro-Palestinian demonstrators jumped police barricades and glued themselves to the street Thursday morning, interrupting the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, police say.
Of the 34 arrests, 30 demonstrators were issued a criminal summons for trespassing, and four people were arrested for resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, and obstructing governmental administration, according to the NYPD.
The protest broke out at Sixth Avenue and W. 45th Street at 10 a.m., around 90 minutes after the parade began, but there was no significant disruption to the parade, police said.
Oy! They glued themselves to the street! But wait—there’s more:
Earlier on Thursday, President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden called into the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade broadcast on NBC, where they urged unity.
Asked about his message given divisions in the country, Biden said: “We have to come together. You know, we can have different political views but we have one view. And the one view is that we are the finest, the greatest nation in the world. We should focus on that. We should focus on dealing with our problems and being together.”
I’m afraid that when two entities are at war with each other like this, there is no “one view” possible. Biden has tacitly accepted that but of course a message of division woudn’t fly on Thanksgiving. Here’s a photo:
I don’t think this kind of disruption would anybody much sympathy. Yes, it’s civil disobedience, and protestors got arrested, but somehow i can’t see this as a powerful form of civil disobedience like the dogs and fire hoses Bull Connor set on the Birmingham protestors of 1963. It was the moral justice of their cause, and the fact that the powers that be deliberately injured peaceful protestors, that made that form of civil disobedience so powerful. The protestors above had neither, and mere disruption just pisses people off.
*As usual, I’ll steal a few items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news column at the Free Press, called this week: “TGIF: Giving thanks“. Apparently her partner Bari Weiss prohibited Bowles from reading the news during the holiday, so her column is a bit thin. So here are three things that Nellie’s grateful for:
→ America: Every week we may look at the bad news, the strange news, the news that makes you think “okay, time to close my computer”—but only because America is worth it. Most Americans don’t think their children will have a better life than they did. Count me in the minority, then: America is great and poised to be even greater. Let’s look at the rest of the world briefly, which is all it requires: China? Communists. The Middle East? We’re getting off oil sooner rather than later, and there will come a day when a Saudi prince, without his precious oil allowance, suddenly has to work a real job, and it will be a disaster. Europe? A lovely museum to a special culture that decided it was done, stopped procreating and stopped inventing, and now has to be liquidated for sensitivity purposes (I’m hearing that the English language is Islamophobic colonialism). That leaves us with America. The US of A. Land of the free. Land of invention. Bastion of the world’s brightest minds and hardest workers. Despite the nuts wandering around—and yes, there are many—we’re still the best party on earth. I’m so thankful to have had the profound luck of being born here. I’m grateful for America.
→ John Fetterman: I judged Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman too quickly. I thought his insistence on wearing gym shorts and a hoodie on the Senate floor was weird, and I thought the progressive senator would be another Squad soldier, doing the predictable march against my beloved and weakened moderate Dems. But over the last few weeks, as his cohort has cheered on Hamas, baying for blood, Senator Fetterman has stayed strongly anti-Hamas. He put photos of the Israeli hostages on the wall of his office. At the Jewish solidarity march in D.C., he was there wearing an Israeli flag like a cape.
To a pro-Hamas protester chasing him with questions about why he wasn’t pushing for a cease-fire, Fetterman responded: “I think you should be protesting Hamas. Why don’t you do that and do protesting till we get the hostages back?” It was shocking to the protester, who assumed a good leftist like Fetterman would agree (certainly more, not fewer, Israeli children ought to be taken hostage, right, Senator?). Fetterman is a powerful example of someone who says, no, this ends with me. He is taking his political allies to task. It’s not easy. I was wrong about John Fetterman, and I’m grateful for him. Senator, I will fight for your right to wear shorts all year long.
And here’s an interesting take:
→ Social media: The other night I was at an event where I accidentally listened to a journalism school professor talk about the state of media today. He was talking about how dangerous social media is since it’s “pre-chewed” and “unverified,” but the legacy media, oh tower of goodness, that is Real Journalism. It’s funny because the truth is the exact opposite, of course. Social media, over the last six weeks, has shown me raw footage from the war, raw footage of Hamas taking hostages, raw footage of atrocities the legacy media downplayed or ignored or actively lied about. Over the last six weeks, legacy media has given me literal Hamas propaganda, quite proudly, on the front page, over and over again. And now we all know it. Which makes the legacy media very mad indeed. The screaming and thrashing about social media are the old world’s death throes. Don’t get me wrong; social media is a mess. Twitter?! It’s vile. It’s full of offensive lies and just offensive reality. It’s vile because the world contains vile things and people are monstrous and weird. I see images I shouldn’t. I see hedgehogs who seem too tame (is that legal?). I see Susan Sarandon retweeting MAGA accounts in ways that trouble my sleep. And yet. I would take the mess over my apportioned journalism-school-Hamas-propaganda-oatmeal any day. God bless this mess. I’m grateful for social media.
*If you’re a New Yorker, you’ll know what an “egg cream” is: a drink containing neither egg nor cream. It has only milk, carbonated water (seltzer) and flavored syrup, but a well made one is very good. It’s largely associated with Jewish food but has now become New York comestible, like a “slice” bought from the corner pizzeria. I’ve had a couple in NYC, and would have had more if I lived near a place that made good ones—a place like the Lexington Candy Shop.
“We are not a Greek coffee shop,” says John Philis, a tall, genial man with gray hair, glasses, a white work jacket and a blue ball cap. “We’re an American luncheonette. We’re proud of being Greek, but we just serve American and New York stuff.” With the exception, he adds, of a Greek omelet (feta cheese and spinach) and a Greek salad. Among the most prized “New York stuff” on offer are the egg creams, which Philis says are the best in the city. “We know how to do it right, using half-and-half as opposed to milk, and we make all our own syrups from scratch.” The 98-year-old restaurant also remains faithful to other venerable companies: The bread and muffins are from Orwashers Bakery (established in 1916), Bassetts (established in 1861) supplies the ice cream and the coffee is from Vassilaros & Sons (established in 1919).
Orwasher’s is fantastic. Many a Sunday when I lived in NYC, I’d hike uptown to 78th Street for a loaf of Orwasher’s pumpernickel raisin bread, tasty and loaded with tons of raisins. I’d pick up some cream cheese, head back to my dorm and would feast my head off. More from the article:
Opposite the row of booths in the long, narrow space are swivel stools in the same green set beside a Formica-topped counter. On it are pastry stands, one containing danishes, another a luscious coconut cake. Overhead, on the back wall, are the changeable letter boards, white on brown, listing the items on offer: shrimp salad; tuna melts (with Swiss, Cheddar, mozzarella or American); a roast beef club; cinnamon raisin toast; banana nut French toast; pancakes with bacon, ham or sausage. There’s the list of ice cream flavors, too, and sundaes, banana splits and the fountain drinks that people recall from their childhood, as if Proust had loved a Creamsicle frosted. I asked for a black-and-white ice cream soda (chocolate and vanilla ice cream). Philis obliged.
I’ve been to this place, and yes, the egg creams are fantastic. It hasn’t changed a whit in 75 years; here’s behind the counter:
And a Coke float:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili seems to be speaking to Ceiling Cat:
A: What are you doing?Hili: Let’s say that I’m praying for peace.
Ja: Co ty robisz?Hili: Powiedzmy, że modlę się o pokój.
*******************
From Facebook:
. . . and a groaner from Facebook:
. . . and a superfluous tire:
From Masih: Can you imagine killing this woman, full of life, for shouting an anti-regime slogan? And then to return her body to the balcony, put a gas hose in her mouth, and pretend it was a suicide? You can read about Atefeh Naami, a brave Iranian, here. A bit:
Atefeh Naami was an active participant in Iran’s 1401 Uprising protests. She distributed the slogan of woman, life, freedom and Mahsa Amini’s hashtag among the people in handwritten form. The approximate time of her death has been announced by the medical examiner as 21 November 2022. Her damaged body was found on the balcony of her apartment in Azimiyeh, Karaj after five days on 26 November. The government agents had staged suicide and placed her body under a blanket and left her on the balcony of her apartment in Karaj by putting a water heater gas hose in her mouth. Although the marks of injuries were evident on her body, the security agencies ordered her immediate burial. Naami’s family has denied suicide.[1][6] Finally, on 28 November 2022, the lifeless body of Atefeh Naami was buried by the security officers of the Islamic Republic, secretly and with deception and despite the opposition of the family members, in the Behesht Abaad cemetery of Ahvaz, plot 5, row 2.
Make sure the sound is up:
Atefeh, a mere 36, stood as a valiant voice in Iran’s #WomanLifeFreedom movement. Nightly, she boldly cried “Death to Khamenei” from her balcony. Tragically, the Islamic regime’s agents snatched her away, subjected her to brutal torture, and took her life. Her body was ruthlessly… pic.twitter.com/ZDnaBldKt6
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) November 24, 2023
Titania tweeted!
Unlike other mosques, Bristol Airport’s beautiful new multi-faith area allows Muslims to pray, smoke and wait for a bus all at the same time. 👏 🕌 ☪️ #Diversity #AllahuAkbar #Marlboro https://t.co/uqjWvjEhQd
— Titania McGrath (@TitaniaMcGrath) November 23, 2023
From Barry: Richard Dawkins tweeted (or “X”d) a quote from Aldous Huxley that is funny but oh so true:
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) November 24, 2023
What is up with Susan Sarandon? (I can’t remember who sent this or where I saw it):
.@SusanSarandon retweeting a far right antisemite who is posting a lie is where we are. pic.twitter.com/iVIKdjO7yf
— Ron Kampeas (@kampeas) November 19, 2023
From Jez, who says, “UNICEF should be ashamed”:
Israel 🇮🇱 Ambassador to the UN @giladerdan1:
“For 16 years Hamas teaches and trains children in Gaza to murder. How many reports did @UNICEF write about it? The children are born into a culture of hatred and educated to terror, and the @UN is silent!”
pic.twitter.com/EggpRN7f2y— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) November 22, 2023
From my “home” feed. be sure to read the whole thing. You can also read more about the “tennis racket” theorem, and see a video of it in action with a real tennis racket, at Wikipedia.
NASA astronaut demonstrating the Dzhanibekov effect. An astronaut noticed this physical behavior of a handle, that turned out to be the proof of a theorem: the tennis racket theorem (also dubbed the Dzhanibekov effect)
The Tennis Racket Theorem states that an object with three… pic.twitter.com/5blGNQRNtH
— Historic Vids (@historyinmemes) November 24, 2023
From the Auschwitz Memorial, a boy, age 3, gassed upon arrival:
25 November 1938 | A Dutch Jewish boy, Joseph Bremer, was born in Rotterdam.
In August 1942 he was deported to #Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber after the selection. pic.twitter.com/FgHRu3HioC
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) November 25, 2023
From Matthew, who cries, “The answer!”
— Mathieu Alain (@miniapeur) November 24, 2023
On this day
1491 – The siege of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, ends with the Treaty of Granada.
1510 – Portuguese conquest of Goa: Portuguese naval forces under the command of Afonso de Albuquerque, and local mercenaries working for privateer Timoji, seize Goa from the Bijapur Sultanate, resulting in 451 years of Portuguese colonial rule.
1759 – An earthquake hits the Mediterranean destroying Beirut and Damascus and killing 30,000–40,000.
1876 – American Indian Wars: In retaliation for the American defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, United States Army troops sack the sleeping village of Cheyenne Chief Dull Knife at the headwaters of the Powder River.
1915 – Albert Einstein presents the field equations of general relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences.
1947 – Red Scare: The “Hollywood Ten” are blacklisted by Hollywood movie studios.
1947 – New Zealand ratifies the Statute of Westminster and thus becomes independent of legislative control by the United Kingdom.
1952 – Agatha Christie’s murder-mystery play The Mousetrap opens at the Ambassadors Theatre in London’s West End after a premiere in Nottingham, UK. It will become the longest continuously running play in history.
1963 – State funeral of John F. Kennedy; after lying in state at the United States Capitol, a Requiem Mass takes place at Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle and the President is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
1984 – Thirty-six top musicians gather in a Notting Hill studio and record Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.
1986 – Iran–Contra affair: U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese announces that profits from covert weapons sales to Iran were illegally diverted to the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
1992 – The Federal Assembly of Czechoslovakia votes to split the country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, with effect from January 1, 1993.
1999 – A five-year-old Cuban boy, Elián González, is rescued by fishermen while floating in an inner tube off the Florida coast.
2009 – Jeddah floods: Freak rains swamp the city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, during an ongoing Hajj pilgrimage. Three thousand cars are swept away and 122 people perish in the torrents, with 350 others missing. [Allah moves in mysterious ways…]
Births:
1562 – Lope de Vega, Spanish playwright and poet (d. 1635).
1666 – Giuseppe Giovanni Battista Guarneri, Italian violin maker (d. 1740).
1778 – Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck, English author and activist (d. 1856). [Born into the Galton family, she was a British writer in the anti-slavery movement.]
1835 – Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1919).
1844 – Karl Benz, German engineer and businessman, founded Mercedes-Benz (d. 1929).
1846 – Carrie Nation, American activist (d. 1911).
1865 – Kate Gleason, American engineer, businesswoman, and philanthropist (d. 1933). [In 1914, she became the first woman elected to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.]
1890 – Isaac Rosenberg, English soldier and poet (d. 1918).
1904 – Lillian Copeland, American discus thrower and shot putter (d. 1964).
1906 – Alice Ambrose, American philosopher and logician (d. 2001).
1909 – P. D. Eastman, American author and illustrator (d. 1986). [When I was little I loved Go, Dog. Go!]
1914 – Joe DiMaggio, American baseball player and coach (d. 1999).
1915 – Augusto Pinochet, Chilean general and politician, 30th President of Chile (d. 2006).
1929 – Judy Crichton, American director and producer (d. 2007).
1940 – Percy Sledge, American singer (d. 2015).
Neither the sun nor death can be looked at with a steady eye:
1626 – Edward Alleyn, English actor, founded Dulwich College (b. 1566).
1934 – N. E. Brown, English plant taxonomist and authority on succulents (b. 1849).
1950 – Johannes V. Jensen, Danish author and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1873).
1965 – Myra Hess, English pianist and educator (b. 1890).
1968 – Upton Sinclair, American novelist, critic, and essayist (b. 1878).
1974 – Nick Drake, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1948).
1974 – U Thant, Burmese lawyer and diplomat, 3rd Secretary-General of the United Nations (b. 1909).
2005 – George Best, Northern Irish footballer (b. 1946).
2006 – Phyllis Fraser, American actress and publisher, co-founded Beginner Books (b. 1916). [Beginner Books published P. D. Eastman (born on this day) and Dr. Seuss.]
2008 – Leonard Goodwin, British protozoologist (b. 1915).
2010 – Bernard Matthews, English businessman, founded Bernard Matthews Farms (b. 1930).
2013 – Chico Hamilton, American drummer and bandleader (b. 1921).
2016 – Fidel Castro, Communist leader of Cuba, and revolutionary (b. 1926).
2020 – Diego Maradona, Argentinian football player (b. 1960).
Re Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap. I went to a local production here in Auckland NZ, not sure of the actual date but some 8yrs ago or more. I believe it was the first time the play had been given the rights to be staged outside of the UK. The audience are explicitly asked not to talk about the plot and it has never been granted film rights.
Bravo to Fetterman – and thanks, I hadn’t heard that but was afraid he might be headed in the other direction. Maybe he can teach Summer Lee something.
Meanwhile, last night I was listening to an NPR interview with an Egyptian woman who had been working to promote peace between Israelis and Arabs for well over a decade, who fretted that the Israeli invasion had quashed all the progress that had been made. But also mentioned at some point was that Egypt had been on the brink of letting Palestinians settle in Egypt. This is the first time I had heard anything more specific than that Egypt and Israel were about to conclude some sort of peace agreement.
If the resettlement part is correct, or even if it isn’t but was in the air, that of course would have done a lot to make Hamas obsolete, and therein would lie the real reason for the Oct 7 massacre. But nowhere in the conversation was this obvious point raised, by either interviewer or interviewee.
Did anyone else hear that interview?
No but I thought that I read it somewhere yesterday….and I was right! It was your comment #8 under the Coleman Hughes piece on weit yesterday. We DO pay attention…sometimes.
I was late to that post and nobody had commented on by this morning so I thought I’d try to get in early on this one.
Maybe this? I would guess it was after October 7, but no date given.
“In October, Egypt blocked Mada Masr’s website for reporting that the government was considering accepting Palestinian refugees from Gaza for resettlement in the Sinai Peninsula, something opposed here and seen as enabling Palestinian dispossession”
All Things Considered
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1215152762
Thanks, yes! That’s it!
(When WEHC, the Emory & Henry College station, isn’t playing the kind of music that I generally like via Alexa in my kitchen, they’re running the NPR stream. But since I’m in and out of the kitchen it’s like WKRP – fading in and fading out, so I often miss the beginnings/endings of programs and so I wasn’t sure which one I had been listening to.)
The Susan Sarandon info was also from Nellie Bowles.
Respecting the payments Thailand made to Iran to get Thai hostages released: doesn’t that just illustrate exactly who is pulling the strings in Gaza? Iran must be reformed before this issue can be solved.
Yes, many people have made that point, but it’s well known that Iran gives tons of money to Hamas as well as supplying them with weapons. I doubt, in fact, that Hamas could survive without Iranian support. This is another reason the U.S. should stop making nice to Iran, or at least use what leverage we have to get them to stop supporting terrorism against Israel.
Love the Huxley quote!
Me too; it reminded me of Walt Whitman’s quote about animals:
“I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d, I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.”
+1
No doubt! The Whitman quote is also a keeper.
The Macy’s protestors who were not arrested went on to vandalize the New York Public Library.
I think Biden is expressing wishful thinking about an extended ceasefire and trying to get the far-left off his case.
The demonstrators who graffitied the 42nd St. library were protesting against European colonialism, which, as we know, is associated with the use of written language.
Now that Hamas has released a few small children and elderly woman among its kidnapped hostages, the global Left’s enthusiasts will no doubt call for a Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded to Hamas.
I just can’t get excited about Blasé Day.
Yes, I went there.
Two pieces of good news:
1) Eleven people who vandalized a bookstore in Toronto, the flagship of a chain owned by a Jewish woman, have been arrested and charged with what we call “indictable offences” under the Criminal Code. (Indictable offences are roughly analogous to felonies in the U.S., although the procedural differences are large.) Charged are a professor at York University, a former public school teacher with the Toronto Board, and a senior administrator in the Canadian Union of Public Employees, all three being fetid cesspools of antisemitism. So laws against this sort of conduct can be enforced without resorting to hate speech provisions. That’s good news.
Particularly ugly in this incident was that the target of the vandalism was not “just” a Jewish symbol like a synagogue or the Israeli Consulate but a specific Jewish person, à la Kristallnacht. That’s not good news but the police response was encouraging.
2) Amazon Canada has sold out of lapel pins featuring crossed Israeli and Canadian flags.
Regarding egg creams…
My memories begin in the early 1950s while living at 4 St. Marks Place in New York City, near the corner of 3rd Avenue and at the beginning of the East Village, a few blocks north of the Lower East Side.
(I learned only much later that my childhood apartment building is a historic landmark, and some years back I got a screenshot of it in a nighttime scene from a Seinfeld episode.)
Down the block at the corner of 2nd Avenue was the famous soda fountain shop called GEM SPA, which some people credited with having the best egg creams. (Wikipedia says they were made with half-&-half instead of just milk.)
Being about 5 years old — plus & minus 1 or 2 — most things were new and wonderful to me, but I did especially love the vanilla egg creams that my Ukrainian father introduced to me at GEM SPA. (I also enjoyed their non-alcoholic lime rickeys, which were very refreshing during the hot New York City summers.)
Although GEM SPA had a long history that seemed largely immune to the churn of urban renewal, I was saddened to learn from my current West Coast vantage point that it closed permanently in 2020, and the shop sign was auctioned off.
But I still cherish the memories — hazy though they may now be — of drinking my GEM SPA egg creams, especially on my first adventurous forays down the block without adult supervision.
Thanks for your nice anecdote.
“(Wikipedia says they were made with half-&-half instead of just milk.)”
That is supposedly what the Lexington Candy Shop does as well, from the description above: “We know how to do it right, using half-and-half as opposed to milk…”
My moto is if milk will do, whole milk will do it better, and half-and-half will do it the best. Though I must admit I don’t drink much milk or half-and-half anymore.
I also don’t drink much milk anymore, though I use half-&-half liberally in my coffee. I drank my coffee black until I married, after which my wife’s habit of using cream eventually recalibrated my preference.
I used to like drinking a small glass of cold whole milk with spicy chili beans and whole wheat bread, but now I prefer to sip a small half-glass of cold half-&-half with my spicy chili beans. (I don’t do chili beans often, though.)
I had my last GEM SPA egg cream in 2013 when I visited the city with my wife. The egg cream wasn’t as good as I remembered, but I’m glad I made the pilgrimage before the shop closed.
If I go back to the city again, I’ll have to try the Lexington Candy Shop’s egg cream…
Cohomology…the study of silver salmon?
Actually, I looked it up and still don’t understand it; I never made it past Trig.
Orwasher’s Bakery appears to be at Amsterdam Ave. and 81st St. I never had
occasion to patronize it during my NYC childhood, but was a frequent and enthusiastic visitor at an institution a few blocks away, where, I was convinced, all the dioramas came to real life at night. That memory led me to tolerate a dopey Ben Stiller movie which, despite a pitifully unfunny script, had the virtue of building on that conception.
I love Nellie’s take on social media. To the extent it’s “vile” it’s because people can be vile, and who is vile at any given time is almost entirely subjective.
Big ups for the coke float a childhood favourite! Since coke is not something I do any more a childhood favorite it will remain.
The quote from the Ross and Toma article has set me up for the day.