“This internal fighting that is taking place in Gaza is undermining the whole future of the Palestinian people,” said Mustafa Barghouti, the Palestinian information minister. ctv
The Palestinian situation grows more miserable by the day. The Troll of Ramallah tm created the conditions of corruption such that Hamas - violent as it is - was an appealing alternative. The proliferation of “security forces” aka EU funded militias ensured that civil society can be disrupted by gunmen at any instant. Decent people, of which there are hundreds of thousands, are afraid to speak simply because one Martyrs brigade or another will shoot them or hang them from the nearest lamppost. Meanwhile the “militant wing” of Hamas (which you must understand) has nothing whatsoever to do with the political wing (hey, it worked for the Troll) is firing, or trying to fire, rockets into Israel in a vain attempt to pretend that the Palestinians have some sort of military capacity.
Were the Israelis the Machiavellians they are painted as, they would be pushing for Palestinian statehood right now. About all the Palis are capable of is civil war and, so long as the wall holds the “Palestinian state” would spend the next couple of decades tearing itself into ever smaller factions.
Which, while it would be just deserts, is not at all the solution. What is needed is the creation of a third force within Palestine which will actually break the cycle of violence. And the place to start that is with a) jobs, b) women. While the boys are out playing Rambo, the wives and mothers in Palestine - always excepting those who are stupid enough to be raising their children for martyrdom - are trying to get by. It might not be a bad idea to help them. Simple things like micro loans, old computers and a willingness to buy their products could begin a shift in the Palestinian dilemma.
It is certainly worth a try. But it has to be done so that any money or stuff goes directly to the women without ever flowing through the bloody hands of the Palestinian Authority.
Best of all, it would undermine the disgustingly corrupt secularists and the vile death cult “Islamists” by eliminating their grip on the meager funds which arrive in Palestine.
Written by jay on May 15th, 2007 with no comments.
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Apparently some poor children in Saskatchewan have been reading Timothy Findley’s “The Wars”. A parent writes, citing chapter and rather mild verse, of the horror of Findley’s porn being given to 17 year olds.
You know, the ones who are playing first person shooters, listening to hip hop, joining the Canadian Army, sneaking into bars, and surfing myspace. Hello, socons, the horse has bolted, the milk has spilt: the 50’s are over. Everything, and I do mean everything, is available online. Including homoerotic porn - and go and check out the selections - Tif is barely the stuff of today’s Harlequin romances.
What is even sadder are the lamers in Kate’s comments who, apparently, have not heard about the new fangled internet and the mainstreaming of the most tawdry sorts of porn. It’s over folks. There are naked boobies everywhere. Vibes are being sold over the counter in drugstores. Naughty lingerie is featured in Flare. Cosmo offers 75 sex secrets this month and I am pretty willing to bet most of them are a bit raunchier than Tif ever contemplated in his fiction. (And check out the Cosmo bedroom blog which is freely accessible to your ten year old should she choose to pop by.)
One of the reasons I am constantly amused by socons is that they seem entirely oblivious to the cultural reality that sex is no longer even a tiny bit taboo. Now it is all about technique.
Having said that, I cannot imagine why all these commentors are even sending their kids to public schools. Teach them yourselves. Now, my own homeschooled kids will be reading “The Wars” in about ten years as part of a year we will be spending on WWI. Tif, and Sabastian Faulks will be on the curriculum simply because they have written modern novels about that war. So will Ford Maddox Ford’s entirely brilliant “Parade’s End” as well as the war poets. It is possible that the boys will ask a few questions about the prostitute, and they will get a few answers. But more to the point, we will talk about Tif’s rather beautiful use of horse imagery throughout the novel.
Whoever the teacher is in this story deserves a pat on the back for introducing young adults to a challenging, rather well written, Canadian novel rather than the retarded, knee jerk socon blathering about “porn”. And, hey, if you don’t like it, pull your kids out of school? It is still a parent’s option to have their children grow up on a pure diet of the Bible or the Koran and not much else. But they have only themselves to blame if their kids turn out pig ignorant.
Written by jay on May 15th, 2007 with 4 comments.
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