It’s a Hump Day today (“Hrbový den” in Czech): Wednesday, December 13, 2023, and National Popcorn String Day. Be sure not to swallow the needle!
It’s also Ice Cream Day (beats Popcorn String Day by a mile), National Cocoa Day, National Day of the Horse, National Cream Cheese Frosting Day (best on carrot cake), Acadian Remembrance Day,Martial Law Victims Remembrance Day in Poland, and Nanking Massacre Memorial Day in China.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the December 13 Wikipedia page.
Oh, and there’s a Google Doodle today; click below to read about Agnès Varda (1928-2019, described by Wikipedia as
. . . a Belgian film director, screenwriter, photographer, and artist. Her pioneering work was central to the development of the widely influential French New Wave film movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Her films focused on achieving documentary realism, addressing women’s issues, and other social commentary, with a distinctive experimental style.
Have any cinemaphiles heard of her?
Da Nooz:
*To me this is good news. The WSJ reports that Netanyahu has rejected U.S. plans for what will happen to Gaza when the war is over. The U.S. solution is madness!
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday rejected the Biden administration’s postwar plan to have the Palestinian Authority take over Gaza, the sharpest sign of his pushback against the U.S. blueprint for administering the enclave after the invasion ends.
“After the great sacrifice of our civilians and our soldiers, I will not allow the entry into Gaza of those who educate for terrorism, support terrorism and finance terrorism,” Netanyahu said, referring to the Palestinian Authority, which currently oversees parts of the West Bank, in a statement Tuesday.
“I will not allow Israel to repeat the mistake of Oslo,” he added, a reference to the 1993 agreement that established the Palestinian Authority and which Netanyahu has long criticized.
His comments underscored the sharpening split between Netanyahu and the White House over postwar plans and it raised questions about the viability of the U.S. goal of having the Palestinian Authority take over from Hamas, the U.S.-designated terror group that has ruled Gaza and that Israel has vowed to destroy.
The plan was already facing opposition from Arab governments and from Palestinian Authority officials themselves, who say they want Israel to halt its offensive in Gaza and withdraw its troops before they will agree to serious talks about postwar planning.
I’m not a huge fan of Netanyahu, and he will be given the boot for being the person where the buck stopped on October 7, but in this case he’s right. The Palestinian Authority is corrupt as all get out, its head, Mahmoud Abbas, siphoned off millions of dollars of donation to Palestine for his own personal use (he has an expensive plane), he was elected in 2005 for a four-year term but hasn’t been willing to have an election since, he’s rejected peace offers from Israel, and his regime teaches the same kind of Jew hatred as does Gaza. And the PA not only promotes terrorism, but has just denied that Hamas is a terrorist organization, suggesting that the PA merge with Hamas. Finally, the Gazans don’t like the PA or Abbas! Nothing will change if his regime takes over Gaza. Other solutions may be possible (don’t ask me what they are), but putting Gaza under the present Palestinian authority is not going to lead to either the end of terrorism or a two-state solution (both are clearly connected). And why is it Israel’s problem to solve the governance of postwar Gaza?
The way the world is treating Israel is insane: they are acting (while saying that Israel has the right to defend itself), that Israel must not win this war. The UN nonbinding resolution for a cease-fire passed yesterday REJECTED a US amendment that the hostages be released and that Hamas’s attack be condemned The UN resjected that amendment! It has still not condemned Hamas or its launching of rockets at Israel (which continues), nor called for the release of the hostages. I can’t see any explanation other than that the world wants Israel to be defeated, which will be the situation if Hamas stays in power.
*A number of leaders of human-rights organizations argue, in the NYT, that “The U.S. must change course on Gaza today.” (I believe the title has now been changed.) Note that they’re not calling on Hamas to change, for the war would be over in a minute if Hamas agreed to surrender, give up its rule/oppression in Gaza, and release the hostages. Nor are they calling on Egypt to open its borders and permit refugees to flee the war, as I believe is mandated under international law. It’s only Israel which is taken to task. I suppose this reflects the bigotry of assuming that neither Hamas nor Egypt has agency to do anything on their own to help end the war.
From the piece:
The atrocities committed by Hamas on Oct. 7 were unconscionable and depraved, and the taking and holding of hostages is abhorrent. The calls for their release are urgent and justified. But the right to self-defense does not and cannot require unleashing this humanitarian nightmare on millions of civilians. It is not a path to accountability, healing or peace. In no other war we can think of in this century have civilians been so trapped, without any avenue or option to escape to save themselves and their children.
But of course Egypt could open its borders to refugees, or any other Arab country, like Jordan or Lebanon. The problem is that none of these countries want to take in Palestinians. Why aren’t they being chastised.? What kind of “self-defense” is Israel supposed to practice to get rid of Hamas? And how do these people propose to get rid of Hamas (the only viable option for Israel now) without civilian deaths? I know! Hamas can stop using human shields, surrender and give up the hostages. Wouldn’t that be something these groups should be calling for? Crickets.
Global leaders — and especially the United States government — must understand that we cannot save lives under these conditions. A significant change in approach from the U.S. government is needed today to pull Gaza back from this abyss.
For a start, the Biden administration must stop its diplomatic interference at the United Nations, blocking calls for a cease-fire.
Once again the U.S. is given sole responsibility to stop the war. Do the writers realize that a cease-fire (and make no mistake about it, they want a permanent one, which will leave Hamas in place), will spell the end of Israel, leading in the long term to even more deaths of civilians? And do they realize that the deaths of Gazan civilians would be much lower if Hamas stopped using human shields?
I don’t mean to imply that the deaths of civilians is irrelevant, because they’re not; I fully realize that Gazans are human beings neither want nor deserve to suffer. But the blame for these deaths falls not on Israel, but on Hamas. Hamas, and only Hamas, has the power to bring a quick end to this war. Why don’t NYT article call for them to do something? There are only two explanation: the paper, like other mainstream liberal media, has low expectations of “people of color”, or they’re anti-Israel. I know; I’m ranting, but the world reaction to Israel’s self-defense makes no sense—not if the world is okay with the goal or erasing Hams.
And it doesn’t help when Biden says stuff like this:
President Biden offered sharp criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government Tuesday, calling for a change to the approach embraced by Israel’s leadership — which Biden described as “the most conservative” in Israel’s history. The president said Israel was beginning to lose support around the world due to “indiscriminate bombing” in remarks made during a fundraiser in Washington, and urged Israel to seek a long-term solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He added that he warned Netanyahu about repeating mistakes made by the U.S. after 9/11, while reiterating his support for Israel’s mission to “take on Hamas.”
How, pray tell, President Biden, can Israel “take on Hamas”, which uses human shields and doesn’t give a hoot about Gazan civilian deaths, without having some of those civilians killed in the line of fire?
*This is now nothing unusual but still bizarre. Click on the headline to access the KTTH radio link (h/t Luana)
The details:
An activist history teacher failed a Seattle student on a quiz for saying only women can get pregnant and that only men have penises.
A 10th grade Ethnic Studies World History teacher at Chief Sealth International High School in Seattle gave students a quiz titled, “Understanding Gender vs. Sex.” The quiz provided a series of statements to label true or false, or questions with multiple choices.
Many of the questions focused on personal pronoun use (When someone uses ‘they/them’ pronouns, what does that mean about their gender identity?” or assumptions one may make around gender identity. (“True/false: Transgender people are gay.”) Two questions, however, are objectively false, but students are taught the opposite.
Question 4 was a true or false question with the statement, “All men have penises.” The student labeled the statement “true” since it is, in fact, true. But the teacher penalized the answer, marking it incorrect. The teacher claims women can have a penis.
Similarly, Question 7 was a true or false question with the statement, “Only women can get pregnant.” Again, the student marked the statement “true” because only women can get pregnant. Again, the teacher penalized the student, insisting the answer is false. The teacher believes men can get pregnant.
. . . Seattle Public Schools, through a spokesperson, defended the quiz as “inclusive,” arguing it was appropriate for an Ethnic Studies course.
No it’s not “inclusive”. It’s mendacious. Only women can get pregnant if “woman” is properly construed as “biological women.” And only biological men can have real penises, not faux phalluses constructed out of skin from the limbs. This whole mess comes from buying into the mantra that trans women are women in every sense of the word and trans men are, likewise, men in every sense of the word. Because of this, trans men, seen as simply “men,” can get pregnant because they are actually biological women. This kind of distortion of language offends me not just as a biologist, but also as one who realizes that language is being distorted here for ideological ends. It’s shameful to penalize students for giving the right answers to such questions.
*According to the BBC (h/t Gregory), a teacher in France got into trouble by showing his students a classical painting that included a nude woman. That apparently offended the sensibilities of Muslim students and their parents:
France’s education minister has visited a school where some pupils refused to look at a painting of nude women in class, sparking a teacher walkout.
The pupils also accused their teacher of making racist and Islamophobic remarks, which the school denies.
Teachers at the Jacques-Cartier school near Paris refused to work in response.
Tensions had apparently been high since the start of term, with officials citing repeated complaints by parents about coursework and punishments.
The row began when a teacher showed Diana and Actaeon, a Renaissance-era painting portraying a mythical scene from Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
Several first-year high school students, aged 11 and 12, said they were offended by the work by 17th-Century Italian painter Giuseppe Cesari, Sophie Venetitay from the Snes-FSU teachers union told AFP.
“Some students averted their gaze, felt offended, said they were shocked,” Ms Venetitay said, adding that “some also alleged the teacher made racist comments” during a class discussion.
The next day, according to French reports, a parent wrote to the head teacher claiming that his son had been prevented from expressing himself in a later class discussion.
And so the row began. You can’t go to school in a Western school and expect to impose your religious views on everyone else (remember the Muslim students at Hamline University who objected to seeing the depiction of the prophet in an old Muslim painting?) Bravo to the teachers for walking out, and bravo to France for enforcing laïcité:
Education Minister Gabriel Attal said the pupils behind the complaints at the Jacques-Cartier school would face disciplinary measures and a team would visit the school to make sure it adhered to “values of the republic”.
Here’s the painting, identified as one by Giuseppe Cesari (1568-1640). Really offensive, eh?
*I didn’t know that Mao signatures were this valuable. From the ever-intriguing AP “Oddity” section we learn how valuable.
An official menu for a state banquet that bears the signature of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong has been auctioned for $275,000.
Boston-based RR Auction said the menu auctioned Wednesday was for a banquet held in Beijing on October 19, 1956, and commemorated the first state visit to China by Pakistan’s Prime Minister Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy.
The menu was signed in fountain pen by six influential Chinese statesmen, including Mao and Premier Zhou Enlai. The banquet featured foods from both nations and included delicacies such as “Consommé of Swallow Nest and White Agaric,” “Shark’s Fin in Brown Sauce,” and “Roast Peking Duck.”
“To hold a menu signed by Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai is to hold a piece of the past – a piece that tells a story of diplomatic engagement, cultural exchange, and the forging of friendships that have endured through the decades,” Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction, said in a statement.
Other items auctioned off included a fully operational World War II-era Enigma coding machine for $206,253, a Thomas Edison-signed document for a light bulb patent for $22,154, and a check signed by Steve Jobs to Radio Shack was sold for $46,063.
The dinner sounds yummy, but the Edison document seems undervalued! Here’s the menu, which is in English. I’m not sure which signature is Mao’s:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili kvetches about winter, as she always does. Doesn’t she look sad?
Hili: It’s cold.A: Where?Hili: Outside the window.
Hili: Zimno.Ja: Gdzie?Hili: Za oknem.
*******************
An honest politician; a cartoon by Paul Noth:
A groaner from Stephen:
From the Elder of Ziyon:
From Masih; young or old, the women of Iran are incredibly brave. Here’s the mother of a murdered protester. Masih gives the award starting at 1:13.
Meet this brave mother, who I dedicated my International Journalism award to.
Nahid Shirpisheh’s son Pouya Bakhtiari was shot in the head in front of her eyes in Iran protests.
What did she do after and what’s her demand?
Please listen and be her voice.#TogetherWeAreStronger pic.twitter.com/ulVkItLtET— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) December 12, 2023
Someone who should know tells us what “globalize the intifada” means. They’re not talking about spreading comity throughout the world!
When you say, “Globalize the intifada,” this is what it actually means, courtesy of the people who do the intifada. https://t.co/PGrPsv9yFK
— Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) December 12, 2023
From Jez, who says, “It’s a d*g, but still a good tweet.”
Amazon proof of delivery photo. pic.twitter.com/RpJqvhWNgU
— Doug Aoki (@Nantanreikan) December 5, 2023
From Merilee, “look at my son!”:
— Why you should have a cat (@ShouldHaveCat) November 27, 2023
From my Twitter feed, a mean but informative experiment:
Run in opposite positions to see who your dog loves more.. 😅 pic.twitter.com/eT6ibyMHX9
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) December 12, 2023
From the Auschwitz Memorial: a mother and son gassed upon arrival
13 December 1943 | A French Jewish boy, Leon Herbstman, was born in Vichy.
On 13 April 1944, he was deported from #Drancy to #Auschwitz in a group of 1,500 Jews.
On 16 April 1944, he was murdered in a gas chamber together with his mom Frida and father Henri. pic.twitter.com/lIpew4okkJ
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) December 13, 2023
Two tweets from Matthew. First, this shows how big Lake Michigan is (I’m on the left):
Periodic reminder that there is NO rational argument against building a replica of Corsica in Lake Michigan
And yes, this is to scale. pic.twitter.com/JX9cQHMas3
— Puigde🐗🏞️🏗️🚄 (@ElGranSenglar) December 4, 2023
. . . and here’s the famous Jefferson Bible:
203 years ago – Thomas Jefferson took 4 translations of the New Testament & with a razor, cut-out all the sections that possessed no supernatural elements. He then pasted them into a jotter & re-arranged them to try to discover 'the true Jesus', shorn of divinity. pic.twitter.com/hqxyVNLyGZ
— Ewan Morrison (@MrEwanMorrison) March 14, 2023
On this day:
1577 – Sir Francis Drake sets sail from Plymouth, England, on his round-the-world voyage.
1623 – The Plymouth Colony establishes the system of trial by 12-men jury in the American colonies.
1642 – Abel Tasman is the first recorded European to sight New Zealand.
1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanking: The city of Nanjing, defended by the National Revolutionary Army under the command of General Tang Shengzhi, falls to the Japanese. This is followed by the Nanking Massacre, in which Japanese troops rape and slaughter hundreds of thousands of civilians.
1938 – The Holocaust: The Neuengamme concentration camp opens in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, Germany.
1939 – The Battle of the River Plate is fought off the coast of Uruguay; the first naval battle of World War II. The Kriegsmarine’s Deutschland-class cruiser (pocket battleship) Admiral Graf Spee engages with three Royal Navy cruisers: HMS Ajax, HMNZS Achilles and HMS Exeter.
1943 – World War II: The Massacre of Kalavryta by German occupying forces in Greece.
1949 – The Knesset votes to move the capital of Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
1962 – NASA launches Relay 1, the first active repeater communications satellite in orbit.
1972 – Apollo program: Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt begin the third and final extra-vehicular activity (EVA) or “Moonwalk” of Apollo 17. To date they are the last humans to set foot on the Moon.
1981 – General Wojciech Jaruzelski declares martial law in Poland, largely due to the actions by Solidarity.
1988 – PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat gives a speech at a UN General Assembly meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, after United States authorities refused to grant him a visa to visit UN headquarters in New York.
2001 – Sansad Bhavan, the building housing the Indian Parliament, is attacked by terrorists. Twelve people are killed, including the terrorists.
2002 – European Union enlargement: The EU announces that Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia will become members on May 1, 2004. [The Treaty of Lisbon was signed on this day in 2007, coming into effect on 1 December 2009.]
2003 – Iraq War: Operation Red Dawn: Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured near his home town of Tikrit.
Births:
1476 – Lucy Brocadelli, Dominican tertiary and stigmatic (d. 1544). [Her bio is bonkers. Perhaps appropriately, she was born in the town of Narnia (sadly, it’s now called Narni).]
1797 – Heinrich Heine, German journalist, poet, and critic (d. 1856).
1814 – Ana Néri, Brazilian nurse and philanthropist (d. 1880).
1816 – Werner von Siemens, German engineer and businessman, founded Siemens (d. 1892).
1830 – Mathilde Fibiger, Danish feminist, novelist and telegraphist (d. 1892).
1882 – Jane Edna Hunter, African-American social worker (d. 1971).
1885 – Annie Dale Biddle Andrews, American mathematician (d. 1940).
1895 – Lucía Sánchez Saornil, Spanish anarchist feminist (d. 1970).
1903 – Ella Baker, American activist (d. 1986).
1903 – Carlos Montoya, Spanish guitarist and composer (d. 1993).
1906 – Laurens van der Post, South African-English soldier and author (d. 1996).
1908 – Elizabeth Alexander, English geologist, academic, and physicist (d. 1958).
1915 – B. J. Vorster, South African lawyer and politician, 4th State President of South Africa (d. 1983). [Strongly adhered to South Africa’s policy of [actual!] apartheid, overseeing (as Minister of Justice) the Rivonia Trial, in which Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment for sabotage, (as Prime Minister) the Terrorism Act, the complete abolition of non-white political representation, the Soweto Riots and the Steve Biko crisis.]
1925 – Dick Van Dyke, American actor, singer, and dancer.
1929 – Christopher Plummer, Canadian actor and producer (d. 2021).
1948 – Ted Nugent, American musician.
1957 – Steve Buscemi, American actor and director.
1975 – Tom DeLonge, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, author, and filmmaker.
1989 – Taylor Swift, American singer-songwriter.
If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life – and only then will I be free to become myself.
1466 – Donatello, Italian painter and sculptor (b. 1386).
1565 – Conrad Gessner, Swiss botanist and physician (b. 1516).
1721 – Alexander Selkirk, Scottish sailor (b. 1676). [One of the sources of inspiration for the English writer Daniel Defoe’s fictional character Robinson Crusoe.]
1784 – Samuel Johnson, English poet and lexicographer (b. 1709).
1922 – Hannes Hafstein, Icelandic poet and politician, 1st Prime Minister of Iceland (b. 1861).
1950 – Abraham Wald, Hungarian mathematician and academic (b. 1902).
1955 – Egas Moniz, Portuguese psychiatrist and neurosurgeon, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1874).
1961 – Grandma Moses, American painter (b. 1860).
1998 – Lew Grade, Ukrainian-born British impresario and media proprietor (b. 1906).
2002 – Zal Yanovsky, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist who founded The Lovin’ Spoonful (b. 1944).
2006 – Lamar Hunt, American businessman, co-founded the American Football League and World Championship Tennis (b. 1932).
2018 – Noah Klieger, Holocaust survivor who became an award-winning Israeli journalist (b. 1926).
I was stopped at a checkpoint by a soldier who asked me (not in English) what I had in the dickey of the car. I replied that I was carrying tools. This was true. But the word for tools was the same as the one for weapons. The soldier smiled and let me pass.
I’m sorry, but I don’t know what and where you’re talking about here.
What is a dickey?
WEIT: For some obscure reason this was the story that popped into my mind when I saw the cartoon. I told it as it was. I realized right away that it might be construed as a threat. A silly one because he was armed.
For Merilee: dickey = boot = trunk of a car. I’ve used it all my life but didn’t bother checking its provenance. It might be more Indian (subcontinental) English than English English.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/dickey
In a vintage or 50s car in the UK, a dickey was what USians call a rumble seat. I don’t recall the term ever being used in the UK to refer to a boot (trunk). So I guess Indian English trather than British English.
I understood you were referring to that cartoon, and got the gist of the story.
One of the things I enjoy about this site is learning new things, and I now add dickey to the list. As opposed to dickie, worn most memorably by Cousin Eddie. (He is a character in the movie Christmas Vacation.)
The WSJ reports that Netanyahu has rejected U.S. plans for what will happen to Gaza when the war ends
I’d love to have been a fly on the wall when the US blueprint was being drawn up:
Note that they’re not calling on Hamas to change, for the war would be over in a minute if Hamas agreed to surrender, give up its rule/oppression in Gaza, and release the hostages.
Israel’s Ambassador to the UN offered just such a practical solution to bringing about a ceasefire to the Assembly yesterday: https://x.com/SouleFacts/status/1734768517281370313
“Have any cinemaphiles heard of her?”
By definition, a “True Cinephile” knows Agnes Varda. (In my opinion.)
Especially recommended: Lions Love (1969) and Sans Toi ni Loi (1985). She also collaborated with J-L Godard.
Of course I’ve heard of Agnès Varda and have seen several of her films – many moons ago.
I also have enjoyed and admired Varda for a long while. And I would agree in placing “Sans Toit ni Loi” (US English title “Vagabond”) in the forefront, perhaps with the related nonfiction “The Gleaners and Me”.
I also liked her early “Cléo from 5 to 7” with its quasi-realtime narration but running time of just 90 minutes!
Also noted is her friendship with Jane Birkin, and the film she made about her friend, “Jane B by Agnès V”.
At https://wpdemos.blog/2023/12/12/le-lion-volatil/ I have posted a pair of screencaps from her short “Le Lion Volatil”, with her cat replacing the lion sculpture of a monument.
Loved “Jane B by Agnés V”, but I admit that being a fan of Jane Birkin, Serge and Charlotte Gainsbourg it was almost impossible to not like that movie.
* I like Hili. She looks composed. Not Sad. What’s her secret?
* Love the Amazon “Proof of Delivery” photo. LOL.
* Israel must chart its own destiny (“ignore Biden”) regarding Gaza/Hamas. Here is a good discussion on the topic at the “Call me Back” podcast.
Quote: from the episode “The Day After”:
“In today’s weekly check-in with Haviv Rettig Gur of The Times of Israel, we discuss Israel’s current thinking about what a post-Hamas Gaza might look like – from a governance perspective and a security perspective. It’s a topic we’ll return to from time to time as the planning is fluid, but we are beginning to learn about early thinking from Israeli officials.”
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-day-after-in-gaza-with-haviv-rettig-gur/id1539292794?i=1000638140283
* The media’s reaction to Israel is insulting and dangerous. People of color (I am one – though don’t like ‘throwing’ that fact around exploitively or opportunistically; it’s unseemly) are capable of discernment and moral clarity. Also, being disenfranchised (or marginalized) does not automatically render the category sacrosanct. The media are lemmings; going along with the ‘proper’ narrative, scurrying along toward the cliff’s edge; hating on Israel is “proper”.
* Here is South Africa, where I am -temporarily- resident, I’ve never encountered a male African elephant who can get pregnant or who was -ever- pregnant. Just FYI. But who knows? The same elephant (if in Seattle) may experience a different “lived reality”. Biology is not a firewall. It’s constructed. Didn’t you know? The elephants in South Africa have a lot to learn. Shame on them.
On the controversy surrounding Harvard, free speech, and the alleged plagiarism of President Gay, first here is a tweet from Dr. Carol Swain, of the researchers Gay may have plagiarized:
Additionally, Harvard’s commitment to free speech last about two days. Harvard canceled a previously approved event after one of the planned speakers, Rep. Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts, criticized the University’s double-standard on free speech.
Thanks for this update. This story is a long way from being “done”.
DEI is a curse. It must be curbed, restrained, shackled; better if it dies a peaceful death.
“Have any cinemaphiles heard of [Agnès Varda]?” – J. Coyne
Yes, I have. I especially love her movie VAGABOND from 1985: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagabond_(1985_film)
It won the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival, and it’s also #41 in the Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time Directors’ Poll: https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/0e5de1b5-c858-516b-a5d1-010b4184fe50/vagabond
I took a film appreciation class at Virginia Commonwealth University back in the early 70s. Varda’s “Cléo from 5 to 7” (1961) was one of the first films we were shown. Good times. The class was held in the old Colonial Theater, so we got to see all the films on a real screen in comfy movie house seats.
The dog is Buridan’s Ass.
I think it’s obvious what will happen in a few months when Hamas is declared wiped out. Israel has already said they will not be supplying free water and electricity to Gaza. They said they will also stop Gazans from working in Israel during the day. The barrier between Israel and Gaza will be strengthened and actually monitored now. The rest of the world that proclaimed support for Palestinians in Gaza will be asked to show their support for them by allowing them to emigrate and by supplying allowed non military supplies to those who remain in Gaza.
And any aggression from Gaza or the West bank will be met swiftly and forcefully.
If one checks back in a year or two that will be the result.
Meanwhile on the West Bank more Israeli settlements will be created especially in strategic areas.
[ seen on eXtwitter ]:
TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN
[repeat about 10 times]
MY KIA IS A MERCEDES
[ repeat about 10 times]
… I’d have fine-tuned that, but the point is to illustrate Hermetic alchemy.
I’d note the activist who got the test question on pregnancy into the news is likely getting a lot of credit from their “social group” for advancing the Revolution.
How dare Biden cave in to opinion that IDF is engaging in “indiscriminate bombing.” He should tell the world to shove it. That’s what Elon Musk would do. Or Donald Trump. Are we Israel’s solid ally or not? Biden.Dem.Woke are undermining justice, the Jewish people, Israel, and The West.
Also …. the claim of children killed by IDF includes Hamas fighter.terrorists aged 14-17 killed by DELIBERATE BOMBING.
I don’t know about anybody else, but my take on this is that Israel is winning the war of hearts and minds, the war the pundits said they would lose. Sure the UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling for a cease-fire. Yawn. The world has been calling for a ceasefire since Day 1. Sure the antisemites are marching with their RTTS chants. Sure there remains international hand-wringing over the fate of Palestinians by countries who would rather see them all dead and hopes the IDF does the job for them. Sure other actors fire a few rockets at Israel which the US Navy shoots down. Sure Yemen is engaging in state piracy in the Red Sea. But still Israel soldiers on with the grim work of eliminating Hamas.
The talk now is what happens “after” — after Israel declares its war aims met. Not “how can we keep Israel from achieving its war aims?” In this light, the so-called “split” between Israel and America, the only two countries that matter, is actually good news. It means that Washington can (or will) no longer micro-manage Israeli war policy and Mr. Netanyahu knows it. He can publicly disagree with President Biden’s administration without risking vital military and economic support.
The rest of the world can pound sand.
I think and hope that you are right. It does seem that some of the calls for restraint are more performative than sincere. How many different ways can the US. administration tell Israel that it needs to try to avoid civilian casualties? It’s almost as if the U.S. strategy is to send the same message in as many different ways as possible for as long as it takes for Israel to destroy Hamas. That way we both support Israel and claim the high moral ground regarding civilian casualties. One can always hope that this is the case.
Of course it is quite true that Hamas is entirely at fault and can end civilian deaths immediately by surrendering and releasing the hostages.
“In no other war we can think of in this century have civilians been so trapped, without any avenue or option to escape to save themselves and their children. ”
Is this true, in the light of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? I’m not sure we can quibble over the word “trapped”. Those people had no clue of what was coming or what hit them. It was lights out.
I guess the operative phrase is “this century”. But even so,
I can’t imagine the many years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq never had a scenario where civilians were trapped…Falluja comes to mind. I’m sure America’s “Shock and Awe” tactic left many civilians trapped. The civilian casualties in those two wars were horrendous; the latest civilian death count is upwards of 432,000. Are you telling me none of those people felt trapped? And as far as my memory serves, I don’t think Americans cared at the time.
Thanks, Mark. That helps my brain to tease out the writer’s meaning. He must have meant the 21st century as opposed to the 20th century, whereas I took him to mean in the last 100 years (which is really a better time frame to use when it comes to geopolitical events).
I think you’re probably correct in the other things you wrote as well.
“Do the writers realize that a cease-fire (and make no mistake about it, they want a permanent one, which will leave Hamas in place), will spell the end of Israel, leading in the long term to even more deaths of civilians?”
I wonder about that, the “long term”, all the time. On the one hand, yes, Israel did have to do something after the horrific attack by Hamas on October 7th. On the other hand, other than revenge, what will eliminating Hamas (whatever that means) will accomplish? In the short term it will mean no more Hamas. But in the long term, will it increase the security of Israel? Or will a group, probably even more violent, arise shortly? I just can’t imagine that not happening. After going through what the people of Gaza are going through it is inconceivable to think that they will act as one and adopt some kind of non-violent resistance…
I honestly don’t know what the long term here is, but unfortunately I suspect it will not be anything that anyone, not Israel, not the people of Gaza, not people in the West bank, not the Arab world, not the world at large, would ever hope for.
The post-war Gazans can resist non-violently all they want. The important thing is that they come to realize, (sullenly or joyfully, who cares?), that violent resistance against Israel is futile and makes them worse off and so they stop doing it. Maybe they will finally turn themselves into Singapore. When they realize they do have something to lose other than their chains, they will work hard to preserve it from being destroyed by hate and foolishness. (That exposed the central lie of Marxist revolution, btw.).
Governing and feeding Gaza will be the world’s problem, not Israel’s. Israel’s state duty to its Jewish and non-Jewish citizens is to keep Gazans penned up until their docility can be trusted. Egypt’s duty to its citizens is the same. That is probably the least bad of the achievable outcomes.
“Israel’s state duty to its Jewish and non-Jewish citizens is to keep Gazans penned up until their docility can be trusted.”
Sadly, I suspect that means that Israel will have to keep the people in Gaza “penned up” forever… I just can’t see “docility” arising out of this, or any future war.
But if it wins them eternal life in paradise then they are not worse off, they are better off, however much they suffer here on Earth.
The basic problem underlying all of this is that they do actually believe their religion!.
What do religious jews believe in – they ‘go down into the pit’? Sheol?
Daniel Pipes, who knows more about this situation than most of us, believes that there are Gazans opposed to Hamas who could be entrusted with the peaceful administration of Gaza once Hamas is thoroughly defeated. See:
https://www.meforum.org/65225/daniel-pipes-israel-must-win .
The notion of the US (and presumably the UN) that Abbas’ Palestine Authority could be trusted to run Gaza is an example of the familiar delusion that any political structure that exists, no matter how terrible, should continue. Remember how the US and the UK, under Clinton and Major, kept insisting that Yugoslavia should be
maintained, even as it disintegrated? In 1990-91, the US, under the elder Bush,
did what little it could to keep the USSR in existence. Or, further back, recall how the world threw Biafra under the bus in order to keep Nigeria in existence. I suppose it was just luck that the world allowed the Czechs and Slovaks to separate.
“France’s education minister has visited a school where some pupils refused to look at a painting of nude women in class, sparking a teacher walkout . . . Teachers at the Jacques-Cartier school near Paris refused to work in response.”
So, teachers walk out because they are offended by offended students refusing to look at nude women.
“Several first-year high school students, aged 11 and 12, said they were offended . . . ‘Some students averted their gaze, felt offended, said they were shocked’ . . . Education Minister Gabriel Attal said the pupils behind the complaints at the Jacques-Cartier school would face disciplinary measures and a team would visit the school to make sure it adhered to “values of the republic”.
They don’t mean making sure the school adheres; they mean making sure the offended students adhere, don’t they? What are going to do – grab the students’ heads and prop their eyelids open to force them to look? I take it the students aren’t forcing any other students not to look.
Let’s say it’s age-appropriate (to) for(ce) 11 year-olds to view those images. Is there some lower age range where it is not age-appropriate?
I’m looking forward to the resulting kerfuffle of such an incident in the U.S.
Is nakedness offensive? If it is not, why do most countries stop people from being naked in public?
Example – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Gough
So – I would argue that anyone defending art that depicts naked people, should not be offended by naked people in the flesh. i think if people want to go around in public naked, they should be allowed to.
That pic of Hili looks like a corner from a Norman Rockwell.
Here’s the painting, identified as one by Giuseppe Cesari (1568-1640). Really offensive, eh?
Just as well it wasn’t a painting of what happened next… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_and_Actaeon
Remember that episode of The Simpson’s where Marge leads a protest against Itch & Scratchy and then defend Michaelangelo’s David?
A very interesting new poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research: https://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/961
“Wide public support for Hamas’ offensive on October the 7th, but the vast majority denies that Hamas has committed atrocities against Israeli civilians. The war increases Hamas’ popularity and greatly weakens the standing of the PA and its leadership; nonetheless, the majority of the Palestinians remains unsupportive of Hamas. Support for armed struggle rises, particularly in the West Bank and in response to settlers’ violence, but support for the two-state solution rises somewhat. The overwhelming majority condemns the positions taken by the US and the main European powers during the war and express the belief that they have lost their moral compass.…”
Recalling earlier in the week the mention of $5 eggs for half a dozen I assume, I got mine for all of £1.69, & these are free range not battery laid.