5am, 1.31.08
i want to live in an airport where everyone leaves their shoes off!
i want an airport with bare feet and free davidoff cigarettes!
i want an airport where the advertised string men become eunuchs at the metal detector!
carrying their dead genitals in fanny packs, or man purses, or dwarf shopping carts!
i want an airport with abandoned luggage and genitalia everywhere!
cherry bombing GW red white and blue in every bathroom stall!
smoking colorful shirts in my airport!
if you're caught wearing a scarf in the t-shirt climate control corridor, looking but acting like you're not looking at the barefoot sailors puffing fine tobacco, if you push your duty free cart with one hand because it is too dwarfishly quaint but your duty is too ghoulishly heavy for fine perfumed hands, my airport has a bucket of fishheads in a dunking stall, and we hope you vomit!
i want an airport where the kids play soccer on the conveyor belts!
a goal up the down wins!
show off your travel stamps in my airport and we'll sodder your ass cheeks together!
no phone calls!
talk to the children and try a salad!
if kids tire of soccer then welcome automatic disco karokee floor!
you must sing satisfacation, especially if you don't know english, you can pick the next song!
there is no prayer room between hugo boss and burger king, pick between your consumption and your god already!
no you may not talk about when you're going to invest or about how things hopefully turn for us as if by us you didn't just mean you, not on the disco floor, especially not there, you'll get your knee caps pulverized with a cricket stick, snotty pine-muck!
everyone salutes to those who mop the floors, and not cause they have to!
we lose your bags and strip search you for your own good!
.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
addiction
.
admitting an addiction is hard. but i was thinking i'd have at it here, since i haven't found anything else worth writing about, and i want to keep up the blog, even while i toy with the idea of ending it here, focusing on writing in other forums.
so here is where i admit that last night, walking to my office, i was arguing with Lou Pinella about his lineup. how can last year's manager of the year still put Soriano in the lead off spot? Soriano has to adapt to being where he belongs in the order--somewhere 3-5. he strikes out too much and his reocurring leg injuries limit his stolen bases. mentally he says he likes leading off, but that will change after his first first-inning grand slam and his better RBI production, no doubt. so, why can't you just get with it Lou!
and i stop myself. why can't i think of something more productive. why do i care about the acquisition of Milton Bradly, the release of Kerry Wood, and whether or not Ramirez has an adequate back-up at 3rd?
i nag my mother for reading so much people magazine and caring about Brad and Angelina and their stange-named children. but what's the difference. here i am with my own meaningless bits of knowledge, checking out Aaron Miles' OBP in my free time.
i watch basketball less often, but might justify it by saying that i participate in the sport. but i haven't played baseball since 8th grade and even then i could barely make contact. and at one time my addicition to the Chicago Cubs was much more social. i was around friends who could debate lineups and talk about yesterday's game, but why am i looking up the box score for spring training in a country where noone know the rules of the sport? i haven't had a baseball discussion since i've been here.
and that's why it's an addiction. i know it's bad for me. i might as well be checking up on individual congressional votes, learning in time more representatives than baseball players. but there has always been a consitency to my Cubs fandom. no matter what a year or day brings, i could be content with a Cubs victory. i could stay hopefull for the next year, watching for trades and free-agent signings. perhaps i'm keeping my knowledge up for the day i come back, something that, despite the different directions our lives take, i can always talk about with friends back home.
but at the end of the season, at the end of a cubs game, and when i shut down the computer after researching the Cubs, i'm always let-down, disapointed, a bit shameful. i'm disgusted by the player's huge contracts and the time and money everyday people sacrifice for the sport. i wish we had the same commitment to things that really mattered. but maybe that's the point of entertainment in our lives, an escape, a competition that has no significance.
and here i am not knowing why i wrote about it. maybe this is a call for an intervention. maybe i'm just bored. maybe i'm ashamed that i just looked up the latest spring training game online. maybe i'm reminiscent of a summer day, dozing off in the middle innings at home. or maybe it's because as soon as i can suck it up and post something stupid, i have the motivation to write something interesting on the blog.
admitting an addiction is hard. but i was thinking i'd have at it here, since i haven't found anything else worth writing about, and i want to keep up the blog, even while i toy with the idea of ending it here, focusing on writing in other forums.
so here is where i admit that last night, walking to my office, i was arguing with Lou Pinella about his lineup. how can last year's manager of the year still put Soriano in the lead off spot? Soriano has to adapt to being where he belongs in the order--somewhere 3-5. he strikes out too much and his reocurring leg injuries limit his stolen bases. mentally he says he likes leading off, but that will change after his first first-inning grand slam and his better RBI production, no doubt. so, why can't you just get with it Lou!
and i stop myself. why can't i think of something more productive. why do i care about the acquisition of Milton Bradly, the release of Kerry Wood, and whether or not Ramirez has an adequate back-up at 3rd?
i nag my mother for reading so much people magazine and caring about Brad and Angelina and their stange-named children. but what's the difference. here i am with my own meaningless bits of knowledge, checking out Aaron Miles' OBP in my free time.
i watch basketball less often, but might justify it by saying that i participate in the sport. but i haven't played baseball since 8th grade and even then i could barely make contact. and at one time my addicition to the Chicago Cubs was much more social. i was around friends who could debate lineups and talk about yesterday's game, but why am i looking up the box score for spring training in a country where noone know the rules of the sport? i haven't had a baseball discussion since i've been here.
and that's why it's an addiction. i know it's bad for me. i might as well be checking up on individual congressional votes, learning in time more representatives than baseball players. but there has always been a consitency to my Cubs fandom. no matter what a year or day brings, i could be content with a Cubs victory. i could stay hopefull for the next year, watching for trades and free-agent signings. perhaps i'm keeping my knowledge up for the day i come back, something that, despite the different directions our lives take, i can always talk about with friends back home.
but at the end of the season, at the end of a cubs game, and when i shut down the computer after researching the Cubs, i'm always let-down, disapointed, a bit shameful. i'm disgusted by the player's huge contracts and the time and money everyday people sacrifice for the sport. i wish we had the same commitment to things that really mattered. but maybe that's the point of entertainment in our lives, an escape, a competition that has no significance.
and here i am not knowing why i wrote about it. maybe this is a call for an intervention. maybe i'm just bored. maybe i'm ashamed that i just looked up the latest spring training game online. maybe i'm reminiscent of a summer day, dozing off in the middle innings at home. or maybe it's because as soon as i can suck it up and post something stupid, i have the motivation to write something interesting on the blog.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
back
.i just noticed that i haven't posted anything in over 20 days.
excuse me for that.
in the meantime i had other forms of contact with most the people this blog was originally intended for. and i thought of posting different things at home but didn't have much time or desire to be up here writing. and now, still a bit jet lagged and needing to prep for a new semester, i don't have the will to produce interesting writing.
if i was writing though, this is what it might be about:
- uncollected airport musings
- this semester's goals
- pork as strange meat
- take back nyu and liberal youth response to activism
- why John Yoo, David Addington, Alberto Gonzalez, and Dick Cheney should be in jail with life sentences
- mass participation pillow fights
Friday, January 30, 2009
final trip journal-long train home
.maybe it's fitting to post this just before leaving the country to another home, maybe an expression of my lack of home or multiple homes.
12.14.08
sunday, 6pm
-just stepped onto the train and into my seat- happy to know that my body will make its way back from where it came. i'm sitting across from 2 young men- right across- in seats facing each other- two sets of legs for each quantity of leg room- hardly developed for the comfort of international strangers on a 23hr ride. to go with it a strange and maddening frequency is present all around me and my new friends look around curiously for its source. if nothing else, the company proves that i am not the only one. i'm eyeing the seats around me. i need an upgrade in comfort.
630pm
on my way- ripped ticket, some thousand km of crawling transportation behind me. a new friend arrived in the meantime, making this a tight fitting foursome. no seatback table to write on, i'm cramped up- 2 books, a notebook, and a manuscript in my lap, my camcorder around my neck, the only thing i can't bear to lose. the young man in front of me, Mustafa, speaks some English and so our physical situation has become slightly more comfortable in conversation. something hit me in the stomach, the throat, hearing his phone call, hearing the verb for eat, thinking he is talking to his mother at home, in Sivas, some 15hrs away, talking about what he would eat after his travel. and the feeling was the memory of me doing something similar once upon a time, on trips back from Ohio or Southern Illinois. the feeling's amelioration came with a familiar face, the çay man i spent 34 hrs with on the way to Istanbul, strolling through the aisle again, seeing me and sharing a moment of confusion- you, again, you can't be serious.
645pm
w/ the lack of leg room, i'm resigned to let them lay in the aisle and being right next to the bathroom and exit, they interrupt a steady stream of passengers. passengers interrupt my recline. the possibility of sleep or comfort on this trip dims, although i might just walk back to Ray's cafe (that moving diner) throw down something and pass out in that relatively comfortable booth.
810pm
warm after soup and çay in Ray's restaurant car where i'll stay as long as i feel welcome. my nails are longer than they've been in years. my beard overgrown, my hair a mess like always, as i look at myself and the darkness beyond the window. its only been 10 days of travel, but the distance and time spent on the move make it feel like a month.
12.15.08
monday, 515am
i'm growing impatient with this terrible ride.
635am
Sivas all covered in snow, moons and stars fading. the best and worst of a country down the train line.
715am
when i was young- a boy's age- a school day snowed out- i'd think of it all and create my next monster- he carried himself from one white object to another with a small but critical ability to leap. it could lead him anywhere on a snow day- here, especially in my living room, next to the fire- all that snow on the porch, through the window, the porcelain snowman on the mantle, the whiteness of the pages lying in front of me. in me, this skin a whiter shade.
425pm
i'm not sure if that sound is the train car rubbing against the packed snow or a dog being beaten to death in the car ahead of mine. neither would surprise me. almost home.
12.14.08
sunday, 6pm
-just stepped onto the train and into my seat- happy to know that my body will make its way back from where it came. i'm sitting across from 2 young men- right across- in seats facing each other- two sets of legs for each quantity of leg room- hardly developed for the comfort of international strangers on a 23hr ride. to go with it a strange and maddening frequency is present all around me and my new friends look around curiously for its source. if nothing else, the company proves that i am not the only one. i'm eyeing the seats around me. i need an upgrade in comfort.
630pm
on my way- ripped ticket, some thousand km of crawling transportation behind me. a new friend arrived in the meantime, making this a tight fitting foursome. no seatback table to write on, i'm cramped up- 2 books, a notebook, and a manuscript in my lap, my camcorder around my neck, the only thing i can't bear to lose. the young man in front of me, Mustafa, speaks some English and so our physical situation has become slightly more comfortable in conversation. something hit me in the stomach, the throat, hearing his phone call, hearing the verb for eat, thinking he is talking to his mother at home, in Sivas, some 15hrs away, talking about what he would eat after his travel. and the feeling was the memory of me doing something similar once upon a time, on trips back from Ohio or Southern Illinois. the feeling's amelioration came with a familiar face, the çay man i spent 34 hrs with on the way to Istanbul, strolling through the aisle again, seeing me and sharing a moment of confusion- you, again, you can't be serious.
645pm
w/ the lack of leg room, i'm resigned to let them lay in the aisle and being right next to the bathroom and exit, they interrupt a steady stream of passengers. passengers interrupt my recline. the possibility of sleep or comfort on this trip dims, although i might just walk back to Ray's cafe (that moving diner) throw down something and pass out in that relatively comfortable booth.
810pm
warm after soup and çay in Ray's restaurant car where i'll stay as long as i feel welcome. my nails are longer than they've been in years. my beard overgrown, my hair a mess like always, as i look at myself and the darkness beyond the window. its only been 10 days of travel, but the distance and time spent on the move make it feel like a month.
12.15.08
monday, 515am
i'm growing impatient with this terrible ride.
635am
Sivas all covered in snow, moons and stars fading. the best and worst of a country down the train line.
715am
when i was young- a boy's age- a school day snowed out- i'd think of it all and create my next monster- he carried himself from one white object to another with a small but critical ability to leap. it could lead him anywhere on a snow day- here, especially in my living room, next to the fire- all that snow on the porch, through the window, the porcelain snowman on the mantle, the whiteness of the pages lying in front of me. in me, this skin a whiter shade.
425pm
i'm not sure if that sound is the train car rubbing against the packed snow or a dog being beaten to death in the car ahead of mine. neither would surprise me. almost home.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
my last class of the semester
-
the key for the computer cabinet is missing again, 5 minutes to class, an hour of presentations with power point to get to. some panicked students, i try my best to stay calm. the key finds itself, probably in a student's bag or pocket from last week. now the projector isn't working again, it flickers out and shows a blue screen, then it's back again. it looks stable, but fusses out, and then back. we start class hoping it stays up.
a student i call the spokesperson because he's a bit older and speaks for the class enters the room, clicks off the light, and presents a candle-lit cake. the class sings happy birthday to a student who sits at the back of the classroom. i can't remember if it was in english or turkish. cake and pastries are passed around. the students are taking pictures. after 5 minutes or so i quiet them down, relatively quiet, and we start.
the same presentations, some good, some could use work. i'm glad it is the last week. this class has been a student-centered experiment that failed in most ways. the 4th presentation of the night, a student brings a friend up to play McCartney's Yesterday, turning down the lights first, a slide show of hippies young and old playing in the background. the spokesperson clicks on his lighter and sways with the music. some students sing along. everyone cheers after the final line. the presentation is about 60's counterculture.
now 2 students in hippie garb come to the front of the class, and when the presenter starts talking about drug culture the spokesperson comes up with a bag of goods. some herb as fake pot, orbitz gum as fake hits of acid. he is the dealer, rolling joints and distributing. later the presenter talks about the symbolism of flower power while handing out flowers to the class. at the end of the night, we take class pictures. and i realize how much i'm going to miss these classes when i'm gone. the element of surprise each class brings, the ability for certain students to rise above the monotony and really get into a topic, and how much my mood can swing in a class.
-
the key for the computer cabinet is missing again, 5 minutes to class, an hour of presentations with power point to get to. some panicked students, i try my best to stay calm. the key finds itself, probably in a student's bag or pocket from last week. now the projector isn't working again, it flickers out and shows a blue screen, then it's back again. it looks stable, but fusses out, and then back. we start class hoping it stays up.
a student i call the spokesperson because he's a bit older and speaks for the class enters the room, clicks off the light, and presents a candle-lit cake. the class sings happy birthday to a student who sits at the back of the classroom. i can't remember if it was in english or turkish. cake and pastries are passed around. the students are taking pictures. after 5 minutes or so i quiet them down, relatively quiet, and we start.
the same presentations, some good, some could use work. i'm glad it is the last week. this class has been a student-centered experiment that failed in most ways. the 4th presentation of the night, a student brings a friend up to play McCartney's Yesterday, turning down the lights first, a slide show of hippies young and old playing in the background. the spokesperson clicks on his lighter and sways with the music. some students sing along. everyone cheers after the final line. the presentation is about 60's counterculture.
now 2 students in hippie garb come to the front of the class, and when the presenter starts talking about drug culture the spokesperson comes up with a bag of goods. some herb as fake pot, orbitz gum as fake hits of acid. he is the dealer, rolling joints and distributing. later the presenter talks about the symbolism of flower power while handing out flowers to the class. at the end of the night, we take class pictures. and i realize how much i'm going to miss these classes when i'm gone. the element of surprise each class brings, the ability for certain students to rise above the monotony and really get into a topic, and how much my mood can swing in a class.
-
Monday, January 19, 2009
MLK
Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
i want to post some bits of his speech "Beyond Vietnam- Time to Break the Silence" for its relevance to our times:
As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.
...
This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls "enemy," for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.
...
It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
...
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
i want to post some bits of his speech "Beyond Vietnam- Time to Break the Silence" for its relevance to our times:
As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.
...
This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls "enemy," for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.
...
It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
...
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
war scenes
--
For the last 23 days I've come home every night for more news on Israel's war on Gaza and the Palestinian people. Burnt into my memory are the white phosphorus blasts, like upside down fireworks, shot over Gaza households; children and old women, blood streaming down their faces, treated in the hallways of hospitals with no free beds or rooms; Israel's military spoke people and their mechanical chain of responses: "Hamas is a terrorist organization. Hamas fired rockets. Hamas hides under civilians."
The numbers tell part of the story. Since Dec. 27th: at least 1,300 Palestinians killed, at least 850 of them civilians (civilians are women and children in these numbers- every male over 18 is cynically labeled non-civilian), at least 400 Palestinian children killed. While the cease fire is officially called, they continue to pull more bodies from the rubble of Gaza's 4,000 destroyed buildings. In the same amount of time, 13 Israelis have been killed. 3 civilians, 10 military, and of those 10 military 4 were killed by their own tank fire. Hamas rockets accounted for only 4 deaths, 3 civilians and one soldier, meaning Israel's own tank fire has killed as many Israelis as Hamas rockets since Dec. 27th, the start of this so-called war.
Hamas rockets can't justify this death toll, which includes the bombing of hospitals, UN schools, and UN humanitarian storage facilities in Gaza (the later 2 sites both presenting clear evidence that no Palestinian combatants were using them).
The role of the United States in these events has been shameful. In the first week of Israel's campaign, the U.S. blocked security council resolutions calling for a ceasefire. Then on January 8th the U.S. was the only security council member to abstain from the vote. Afterwards, now in clear defiance of the U.N., Israel increased the intensity of its warfare, counting on U.S. approval against international opinion and international law.
On January 11th the U.S. House passed resolutions (390 to 5) supporting Israel's right to defend itself. That is, for the 4th largest military force in the world (Israel) to carry out war in one of the most densly populated areas of the world with a civilian population of 1.5 million, 55% of which is children, in search of homemade rockets. Defense indeed.
Real defense of Israel would mean calling for an immediate ceasefire, one that Hamas had been observing at least as well as Israel before the beginning of Israel's recent campaign. Before the July 2008 ceasfire, Hamas had shot 179 rockets per month into Israel. After the ceasfire, in the four months before Israel sparked agressions again, Hamas was shooting an average of 3 rockets a month.
Both Hamas and Israel deserve our condemnation, not only for their lack of regard against civilian populations (they both are and have been committing war crimes), but also for their short-sighted politics. If the goal of Israel was to weaken Hamas, they've done the opposite. If the goal of Hamas has ever been to represent or protect the Palistinian people, then their tactics have failed and continue to fail.
But the international community and the U.S. (they are distinct here because they have been more seperate than ever on this issue in particular) already agree on the condemnation of Hamas. Meanwhile the list of Israel's atrocities are covered in U.S. media and politics (this seemingly includes Obama) by the words "Hamas, terror, rockets." More than just the civilian death toll, they gloss over the barring of international journalists to the Gaza strip by Israel and Israel threatining the safety of international aide workers on multiple occasions.
Now we have a cease fire. And for peace the U.S. needs to be involved in rational humanitarian dialogue. This includes moving as far as possible from Bush's simple proclamations, like his Jan 15th farewell nod to Israel and Iraq: "Good and Evil exist in this world, and between the two, there can be no compromise."
Against that quote I want to end with Fares Akram, a Palestinain journalist whose father, an unmarked civillian, was killed on January 3rd:
"My grief carries no desire for revenge, which I know to be always in vain. But, in truth, as a grieving son, I am finding it hard to distinguish between what the Israelis call terrorists and the Israeli pilots and tank crews who are invading Gaza. What is the difference between the pilot who blew my father to pieces and the militant who fires a small rocket? I have no answers but, just as I am to become a father, I have lost my father."
--
For the last 23 days I've come home every night for more news on Israel's war on Gaza and the Palestinian people. Burnt into my memory are the white phosphorus blasts, like upside down fireworks, shot over Gaza households; children and old women, blood streaming down their faces, treated in the hallways of hospitals with no free beds or rooms; Israel's military spoke people and their mechanical chain of responses: "Hamas is a terrorist organization. Hamas fired rockets. Hamas hides under civilians."
The numbers tell part of the story. Since Dec. 27th: at least 1,300 Palestinians killed, at least 850 of them civilians (civilians are women and children in these numbers- every male over 18 is cynically labeled non-civilian), at least 400 Palestinian children killed. While the cease fire is officially called, they continue to pull more bodies from the rubble of Gaza's 4,000 destroyed buildings. In the same amount of time, 13 Israelis have been killed. 3 civilians, 10 military, and of those 10 military 4 were killed by their own tank fire. Hamas rockets accounted for only 4 deaths, 3 civilians and one soldier, meaning Israel's own tank fire has killed as many Israelis as Hamas rockets since Dec. 27th, the start of this so-called war.
Hamas rockets can't justify this death toll, which includes the bombing of hospitals, UN schools, and UN humanitarian storage facilities in Gaza (the later 2 sites both presenting clear evidence that no Palestinian combatants were using them).
The role of the United States in these events has been shameful. In the first week of Israel's campaign, the U.S. blocked security council resolutions calling for a ceasefire. Then on January 8th the U.S. was the only security council member to abstain from the vote. Afterwards, now in clear defiance of the U.N., Israel increased the intensity of its warfare, counting on U.S. approval against international opinion and international law.
On January 11th the U.S. House passed resolutions (390 to 5) supporting Israel's right to defend itself. That is, for the 4th largest military force in the world (Israel) to carry out war in one of the most densly populated areas of the world with a civilian population of 1.5 million, 55% of which is children, in search of homemade rockets. Defense indeed.
Real defense of Israel would mean calling for an immediate ceasefire, one that Hamas had been observing at least as well as Israel before the beginning of Israel's recent campaign. Before the July 2008 ceasfire, Hamas had shot 179 rockets per month into Israel. After the ceasfire, in the four months before Israel sparked agressions again, Hamas was shooting an average of 3 rockets a month.
Both Hamas and Israel deserve our condemnation, not only for their lack of regard against civilian populations (they both are and have been committing war crimes), but also for their short-sighted politics. If the goal of Israel was to weaken Hamas, they've done the opposite. If the goal of Hamas has ever been to represent or protect the Palistinian people, then their tactics have failed and continue to fail.
But the international community and the U.S. (they are distinct here because they have been more seperate than ever on this issue in particular) already agree on the condemnation of Hamas. Meanwhile the list of Israel's atrocities are covered in U.S. media and politics (this seemingly includes Obama) by the words "Hamas, terror, rockets." More than just the civilian death toll, they gloss over the barring of international journalists to the Gaza strip by Israel and Israel threatining the safety of international aide workers on multiple occasions.
Now we have a cease fire. And for peace the U.S. needs to be involved in rational humanitarian dialogue. This includes moving as far as possible from Bush's simple proclamations, like his Jan 15th farewell nod to Israel and Iraq: "Good and Evil exist in this world, and between the two, there can be no compromise."
Against that quote I want to end with Fares Akram, a Palestinain journalist whose father, an unmarked civillian, was killed on January 3rd:
"My grief carries no desire for revenge, which I know to be always in vain. But, in truth, as a grieving son, I am finding it hard to distinguish between what the Israelis call terrorists and the Israeli pilots and tank crews who are invading Gaza. What is the difference between the pilot who blew my father to pieces and the militant who fires a small rocket? I have no answers but, just as I am to become a father, I have lost my father."
--
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
pardon
.
sorry for those who check that i haven't posted much new in a while. i changed some of the news stories on the side bar, did you see that?
well, i've been busy, grading papers, dealing with some student problems, sleeping, that sort of thing. and i tried to write something new for a newspaper, but i couldn't get it to come out right, or didn't feel like it was safe for me to publish it. some things are sensitive. oh vague.
on dec. 25th i woke up at 8am to scold students about plagiarism again and then give a test. had to teach another night class too and to scold a student there. but my christmas was saved by 70 students who watched A Christmas Story with me, laughing with me, at the movie and at the other american man T's laughing.
and i'm coming back soon. back home for a short time. i wonder what it will be like, hearing english in public places, eating pork, driving a car, seeing family and friends again.
dahası var
sorry for those who check that i haven't posted much new in a while. i changed some of the news stories on the side bar, did you see that?
well, i've been busy, grading papers, dealing with some student problems, sleeping, that sort of thing. and i tried to write something new for a newspaper, but i couldn't get it to come out right, or didn't feel like it was safe for me to publish it. some things are sensitive. oh vague.
on dec. 25th i woke up at 8am to scold students about plagiarism again and then give a test. had to teach another night class too and to scold a student there. but my christmas was saved by 70 students who watched A Christmas Story with me, laughing with me, at the movie and at the other american man T's laughing.
and i'm coming back soon. back home for a short time. i wonder what it will be like, hearing english in public places, eating pork, driving a car, seeing family and friends again.
dahası var
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