A Man In Transition
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Helen Thomas, Lynne Stewart, a vat of anchovies and me ... indeed!
-Glenn Reynolds
Don't believe for a second that the War on Islamism is only being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and other far-away places. It's being waged right in your back yard. Brooklyn, for example. There, the Saudi Government, perhaps America's most dangerous single enemy, is distributing Wahhabi hate literature. And it's not just your run of the mill hate-the Jews stuff, either. Saudi Arabia is getting plenty brave with the anti-Americanism as well:
According to a press release and to the center's director, Nina Shea, the 89-page report, which was issued Friday, finds that the materials incite violence, inform Muslims that it is their religious duty to hate Jews and Christians, and even give specific instructions on how properly to express that hatred to one's infidel neighbors.
The Saudi-produced and -distributed materials denounce democracy - and democratic America - as un-Islamic. Ms. Shea said the materials are directed toward recent immigrants. According to the report, Muslim newcomers are told that, while in America, they should think of themselves as operating behind enemy lines and should use their time in America either to acquire information and resources for jihad or to convert the infidels to Islam.
The literature also promotes Wahhabism, the version of Islam officially embraced by the Saudi kingdom and adhered to by several of the September 11 hijackers, as the only true Islam, and it denounces more moderate Muslims who advocate tolerance as apostates. In Saudi Arabia, Ms. Shea said, apostasy is a capital crime. "If you're a Muslim and you become an infidel," she said, "you're put to death."
According to the report, one of the strongest denunciations of so-called apostasy was issued in Brooklyn's Al-Farooq mosque, on Atlantic Avenue.
"In a book published by the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs, and collected from the Al-Farouq Mosque in Brooklyn, New York, Saudi Arabia's official religious leader, the late Bin Baz, authorizes Muslims to kill converts to Islam who violate sexual mores on adultery and homosexuality," the report said.
. . .
The government of Saudi Arabia is, in essence, calling for the overthrow of the American government. This is NOT a small thing. This is damned near an act of war.
Those "freedom fighters," those heroes of Ted Rall and DU and Michael Moore, who famously compared them to the American Minutemen, those scum, find a way. Their latest tactic? Using a child with down's syndrome as a suicide bomber. It's as if they sit around and think "what's the most sadistically depraved and evil thing we can do" and then do it.
Do you have a question on clothing or cuisine or dating or theatre or the Superbowl or just about anything other than politics (which is Rummy's bailiwick)? Esquire and GQ have nothing on the cool kitty who's in the know, so if you have a question Bogie's sure to have your answer.
Howard Dean can really feel the hate and that's why he thinks he should be the next DNC chairman. Here's what the Vermont Screamer had to say yesterday in Manhattan:
"I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for, but I admire their discipline and their organization."
Let's take a look at that again: "I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for . . . ." Now, where I come from "hate" is a strong word. I don't know that I could use it in reference to any American political party (with the exception of The American Nazi Party and their likewise marginal ilk). In fact, if you can picture a ven diagram, the people I hate would pretty much coincide with the people that I wouldn't mind seeing dead. Dr. Dean, however, doesn't seem to share my limitations in this regard and feels free to express his hate, even if it's for roughly half of this country (some of who's votes they're going to need if they ever hope to see the inside of the White House without a tour guide or an invitation). You gotta hand it to Dean, though. If they're one thing he knows and understands, it's his target audience. They'll love the hate. They're all about hate.
Update: Here's a video clip of the Dean hate quip.
These are courtesy of Stefania, our Italian friend over at Free Thoughts:
Men and women standing in separate lines to vote in Basra:
Women standing in line to vote in Suleimanyia:
Victory:
The quote that puts the Left Wing (including Kerry, Kennedy, etc.) mindset in a nutshell:
I want peace for the Iraqis, but not at the cost of further empowering the Bush regime.
Well, except for the first part. By and large, they don't give a damn about tthe Iraqis, Bush or no Bush. Just look how concerned they were with Iraq during 8 years of Clinton when hundreds of thousands were dying of preventable disease and malnutrition due to sanctions and corruption.
Zuniga also weighs in:
This must have been an especially rough day for ol' "Screw 'Em." Reliable as always, Chris Muir, who writes the absolutely outstanding "Day By Day" has the perfect retort:
The insurgents, the DUers, Zuniga, Kerry, Kennedy ... the stained finger of freedom for all of them.
By trying to smother the infant Iraqi democracy in its crib:
"It is hard to say that something is legitimate when whole portions of the country can't vote and doesn't vote," Sen. John Kerry D(u)-M(b)ass., said on NBC's "Meet The Press."
Better a nation should fail than Bush succeed, huh, Johnny?
Honestly, I can't tell if this is sincere or a put-on. With DU, it's often hard to tell. One thing I do know is that "ShinerTX" speaks for lots and lots of DUers:
ShinerTX (95 posts) Sun Jan-30-05 05:31 PM Original message
The Iraq vote is making me sick this morning
All the media keeps talking about is how happy the Iraqis are, how high turnout was, and how "freedom" has spread to Iraq. I had to turn off CNN because they kept focusing on the so-called "voters" and barely mentioned the resistance movements at all. Where are the freedom fighters today? Are their voices silenced because some American puppets cast a few ballots?
I can't believe the Iraqis are buying into this "democracy" bullshit. They have to know that the Americans don't want them to have power, because they know that Bush is in this for the oil, and now that he finally has it he's not going to let it go. This election is a charade. The fact is that the Iraqis have suffered during the past two years more than any people on earth at the hands of the American gestapo. Maybe they're afraid and felt they had to vote. That's the only way I can explain it to myself.
OR--I just thought of this--maybe they're smiling because they're using the Americans own game to defeat them. They're voting in candidates who they know will widen the resistance, take the fight to the streets, and finally drive the occupying forces out of their country. Perhaps they're smiling because--right under the American's noses--they're planting the seeds of a bigger and more effective resistance movement. Wouldn't that be fitting? Use *'s own tools against them?
We can only pray that this is the case. Becuase if it's not--and if the Iraq vote is seen as a success that spread "freedom"--the world is screwed. Bush's inaugural speech left little doubt that he has other countries on his list to spread "freedom" to. They will be his next targets, and the world will burn because of it.
Let's hope the resistance got voted in, or if not, they only increase the fight and take down those who betrayed their country today by voting in this fraud election.
DU, as a whole, is pretty much apoplectic today. Clearly, many were hoping for hundreds of deaths, 15% turnout and pictures of empty, bombarded polling stations. The apparently successful elections are like some sort of horrible 11/2/04 flashback for them and they are trying to figure out how to deride the elections and bash Bush without sounding like the pro-terrorist, anti-democratic idiots that so many of them truly are. They haven't figured it out yet. Some are starting to truly despair, wondering what can they do if nothing goes wrong for Bush?
Number four in a series of old personals. Just looking back at who I was a few years ago:
Fourth Glimpse; ContentmentThere's a word for people who pull stupid stunts like this to increase their traffic but, for the sake of my PG-13 rating, I'll just call them jerks.
The recent U.S. election was perhaps one of the most important in history. It defined the direction of the world's sole super-power at a pivotal time in history. That said, the elections in Iraq that are now going on are nearly as important. They are the first great litmus test for our bold experiment in spreading democracy. A few people are covering the elections from an insider's perspective. so I thought I'd give you the links. First, there's Kurdo's World, who, unsurprisingly, gives you the view (complete with lots of great pictures) from Kurdistan. He also has a lot of great links to others covering the election. Of course, Omar of Iraq the Model has some thoughts on the matter as does Hammorabi. In fact, allow me to quote Hammorabi directly:
No more 99.99 % in Iraq!
This is the figure of the Arabs' dictators except Saddam!
He used to get 100%!Surprisingly those who voted for the master of the mass graves are abstaining now!
Our voting is:
No to the terrorists!
No to the dictatorships!
No to hate and racism!
No to the fascists!
No to the Nazis!
No to the mentally retarded tyrants!
No to the ossified, narrow-minded and intolerants!
The Iraqis are voting in few hours time for the new Iraq.
We are going to create our future by ourselves not by dictators.
We are going to say:
Yes for the freedom and democracy!
Yes for the civilized Iraq!
Yes for peace and prosperity!
Yes for coexistence!
Yes for the New Iraq!
Let them bomb and kill us. It will not deter us!
Let them send their dogs to suck our bones. We care not!
Let them bark. It will not frighten us.
Let them see how civilised to be free and democratic!
Let them die by our vote tomorrow! It is the magic bullet which will kill them!
Welcome New Iraq.
Welcome freedom and democracy.
Welcome peace and prosperity for all nations with out exception but terrorists!
Neurotic Iraqi Wife tells about the voting experience and Baghdad Dweller also has some interesting comments, as well as a great story about Iraqis in Egypt whose votes won't count but who came out to vote anyway. Money quote: "Asked who he wanted to win, Massoud simply said: 'Iraqis'." Of course, Husayn of Democracy in Iraq has posted. An excerpt:
I am happy to report...no I am honored to report that I have cast my ballot in our election. It is such an amazing feeling to be able to have some control over the destiny of my nation, a feeling I have not known before! I was one of the first ones to report to our local voting station, and I placed my vote, my stained finger is proof (The authorities are using such a system to make sure people do not vote twice). I was not the only one to show up at the opening of the voting area, there were at least a dozen other Iraqis waiting to take part in this momentus event, and as I left, I saw tens more file in.
Ali of Free Iraqi has also voted today in Baghdad. By the way, I love his blog tagline: "I was not living before the 9th of April and now I am, so let me speak!" He spoke today. Lastly, check out Jeff of Iraq Election Wire. I leave you with some pictures:
Good luck, Iraq.
Christian Jequel: Pétanque au village
Remember all of those horrible stories about babies being born with AIDS? Well, it looks like they'll soon be a thing of the past, in this country at least:
AIDS among infants, which only a decade ago took the lives of hundreds of babies a year and left doctors in despair, may be on the verge of being eliminated in the United States, public health officials say.
In 1990, as many as 2,000 babies were born infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS; now, that number has been reduced to a bit more than 200 a year, according to health officials. In New York City, the center of the epidemic, there were 321 newborns infected with H.I.V. in 1990, the year the virus peaked among newborns in the city. In 2003, five babies were born with the virus.
...
And if we can beat it here, it can be beat elsewhere.
Got an odd one today:
Just learn to enjoy jew watch like everyone else. I cannot believe a jew such as yourself would have anything to hide. Being able to threaten people with your M.E.N.S.A. typing abilities, I'm sure your way too smart for the rest of us. Just do what you do best, file a lawsuit.
p.s. I bet you don't feel so complex right about now, don't worry about it, just keep telling yourself how feared and smart you are.
To which I said: Huh? Obviously, I don't mind taunting the occasional anti-Semite but I haven't written about Jew-Watch ... not recently, at least. And "M.E.N.S.A. typing abilities?" What was up with that? I didn't even know Mensa (no periods ... it's Latin for "table") gave a typing test ... maybe there's hope for me yet. For a moment I thought that my stalker was back. So I googled "jheka" and "jew-watch" and suddenly it all became clear. This moron, whoever it is, is responding to something my stalker wrote in a thread on another site nearly a year ago. This genius posted a comment in that long-dead thread TODAY. My goodness. So yes, I suppose I am too smart for him. You probably are as well. Just check to see if your knuckles are bleeding after a long walk.
A strange, sad story. There were two Jews in Afghanistan ... and they hated each other (and lived together in the only synagogue). Now one has died and the other is there alone ... trying to retrieve Afghanistan's one torah.
All over the world, people are pissing their freedom away. In an unrelated story, people are killing themselves with alcohol and binge drinking. Well, in Slovakia, one freedom-loving drinker binged and pissed his way to freedom and let booze, sweet booze save his life. Ah, beer ... is there anything it can't do?
This is part three in that series of essays/personals that I wrote what seems like a long time ago. Here's part one and here's part two.
Third Glimpse; Specificity
A thought has been bothering me.
There are two times during each weekday when I get to
just think. First thing in the morning, I stand in the
shower with the hot water flowing down my back,
knowing that I'm late. It doesn't matter because I
need those few minutes to reason out how it came to
pass that Pauly Shore is not employed gluing little
reflectors onto the middle of highway 281 somewhere
between Topeka and Junction City or why you never hear
about gruntled employees or why, in the entire English
language, there is not a single good female equivalent
for the word "guy." In the evenings, I walk home and
decompress, using the rhythm of walking to help me
think about most anything other than work.
Today, walking home, I was thought about my Glimpses,
which were bothering me a little, like an itch at the
back of my brain. Then I saw it. The problem, right
there in what I called them. Glimpses.
There are two ways in which people describe
themselves. By telling or by showing. In the world
outside of personals, job interviews and other
contrived settings, we learn a little about the people
in our lives by what they tell us and everything else
by what they show us. We all know people who are
honest or generous or sensual or funny. We know these
things about them not because they told us that they
are any of these things but because we see how they
act and react in different situations and with
different people.
It was when I understood this, as I finished my walk,
that I saw a flaw in my Glimpses. I tried to show and,
for the most part, eschewed telling. Interesting,
maybe, but not especially helpful to someone who wants
to know what they're getting themselves into. Not
especially fair, if I want telling in return. This is
my compromise.
Every now and again you can look at where a person has
spent his life, and, if you give it a moment's
thought, get a picture in your mind about how those
places, or the transitions between them, might have
molded him. In three decades I have had five homes, of
a sort.
The first of these is far away from where I am now, in
every way, but closer than it used to be. It gave me
my first language and marked my English with an
accent, or at least a certain cultural intonation. A
dozen years ago, I went back for the first time since
we'd left for what we thought was surely forever. I
discovered roots that I didn't realize I missed and a
family that knew me, both of which are a part of me
now.
My second home is the place that still feels like home
to me. Gotham is my metronome, still setting the
rhythm by which I walk, think and feel, no matter
where I am. It's where I learned to climb fences and
shoot pool. I learned to fight in New York and, before
I left, I learned how not to fight. It's the only
place that I miss.
I lived on the fringes of Dixie for a time and had the
best low paying job on earth, even if I didn't really
know it at the time. I learned two lessons. I
discovered and understood what it was to truly be an
outsider and then, eventually, found the ways to make
that place and, by extension, any place my own. Some
time during my years in that town I became a man or,
at least, stopped being a boy. Falling in love, that
first time, was a shove in the right direction.
When I talk about my time in an industrial city in the
midwest, I sometimes joke that I must have committed a
truly heinous sin in a past life to have wound up
there. It's not fair of me, really, because outside of
the occasionally brutal weather, it wasn't a bad
place. Well, objectively it wasn't a bad place. This
was the place that burned my shyness out of me. I
understood, finally, that real loneliness could be
far, far worse than even the most brutal rejections
concocted by that part of our brains that seeks to
shield the ego by frightening us into inaction. No one
who meets me today believes me when I tell them that I
used to be shy. They think that I'm joking and, in a
way, I am.
I spent three years within a few blocks of the White
House, learning my trade, and, in spite of the fact
that neither Bill nor Hillary ever invited me over to
play bridge or discuss what "is" means, I had a great
time. Between discovering Ethiopian food and meeting
the friend whose future son would be my future godson,
I learned to relax. This is where I was when I finally
settled into my skin, becoming a very close
approximation of the man that I will always be.
And now I am here, the downtown skyline over my right
shoulder. This is where I have found my family again.
The two who were with me, that day in December when
the plane took us to Vienna, on the first leg of our
journey west, and the rest, who have followed since.
This is where I have realized some professional
success and learned to match my shirts and ties (even
though some who know me would laugh and say that I'm
still learning). I am making my stand. A man
needs to plant his flag somewhere, and this seems a
good place. I feel that there is real happiness to be
found here. This is me telling and me searching.
Big Dan, who got the big hat-tip for the Tabby Tote horror below, runs Popping Culture which is, without question, one of the very best blogs on the web. Poetry, art, cultural commentary and more wit than any ten typical blogs, it's a place where decent people from the left, the right and everywhere else get together. I had left the blogosphere for a while and, when I returned, Popping Culture was one of my first stops. When I got there, I discovered a new topic ... cancer. It seems that about 2 months ago, Dan was diagnosed with Cancer ... again. You see, he'd already beaten it once, as a youth and you know what? I have every faith that he'll beat it again. That said, there should be a rule, damn it. If you whup the Big C, you should have a lifetime exemption from ever having to deal with it again. And yet, here's Dan, a good man who deserves better than this, fighting for his life again (and blogging all the while). So tonight my thoughts are with Dan and Mrs. Dan and the whole Dan Clan. Get better Dan. You don't have to cheer up or buck up or perk up. But get better. My thoughts are with you.
Where do I get one? No, seriously, I'd never do that to the kitties ... I mean, $16.49? I'm not made of money, you know. The big hat-tip for this goes to Big Dan of Popping Culture send outraged e-mails to him 
.
This is the second part of the series that I started re-posting yesterday:
Another Glimpse, on a Lighter Note
Sun May 6th
I looked in the mirror this morning and forced my eyes
to open in spite of the white glare of the too-bright
light above the mirror. Things slowly began to focus
my brain shifted into gear. Thoughts, first thing in
the morning, can something less than organized. This
morning, these came to mind:
Good God man, no one should have to look at you first
thing in the morning. I've looked at you first thing
in the morning for almost thirty years and I think
that your ugly mug will be the root of therapy in my
future. I posted a personal last night, didn't I ... I
wonder if anyone responded. Maybe it was too serious.
Note to self: If you find her, be especially nice to
the woman that has to look at you before either of you
has had a cup of coffee; she'll have earned it. Second
note to self: consider looking for a really
nearsighted woman.
Then, a second or a minute later, but sometime between
brushing teeth and finding socks that match, I
remembered yesterday's mail. I needed to RSVP to Gary
and Nancy. Oh, they know that I'll be flying in for
the wedding, but it's their stamp and, knowing them,
they will save my reply. Gary has known that I'd be at
his wedding, if he ever had one, for at least fifteen
years. He and I both knew this shortly after we met in
ninth grade biology, as surely as we knew that the sun
would rise or the Red Sox would blow it or that the
subway that we took to school every morning would be
delayed at least a couple of times during midterms.
Some things have an inevitability about them. So, come
June, I will be wearing a tuxedo that Nancy picked out
and, between the salad and the main course, I will get
up and toast my friend and his new bride, much the
same way that Gary and I have exchanged toasts since
before it was legal for us to do so. It's a tradition
between us. When we're together, we don't take our
first drink without saying a word or two. Gary knows that it may
be his turn one day.
And then, while trying to figure out if this tie can
possibly go with that shirt, it occurs to me. Gary is
a glimpse at me, and vice versa. When he and I are
together, we rattle off our stories like they were
adventures on the high seas. And to us, they were.
Running out of gas in the middle of the night in
Connecticut, only to discover later that we were
within trip and fall distance of a gas station.
Getting caught in a blizzard in the mountains of West
Virginia. Spending nights in a twenty four hour pool
hall in the Village, just catching up, or running with
our backpacks through Genoa, like crazed hunchbacks,
trying to make it on to a train to Monte Carlo. I pull
on my socks and think about Gary. And Robert and Jeff
and Janine and Liz and Lauren and Ivan and others,
without whom I would not have witnesses. Without whom
I might not have the stories that I have, and that I
will have.
Every now and again you can look at a person's friends
and, if you give it a moment's thought, get a picture
in your mind about where they've been and who they
must be, to be among these people. There is little
about a person that is less a matter of happenstance
than the people who decide to take that person into
their lives. So I consider my friends and, when I get
over the moment and a half of narcissistic pride, I
wonder a little, and count myself fortunate.
I understood this, as I walked to work: the woman that
I am looking for has stories and tells them freely.
She has friends that she loves and is proud of. The
woman who would put up with my
first-thing-in-the-morning stubble and hair that looks
like electroshock therapy by Vidal Sassoon already has
people who love her and who know that they can rely on
her no matter what. She needs no lessons in
friendship. She is like me, looking for a constant
partner to write new stories with. She already knows
the how of it.
Ah, terrible modesty ... it is my curse as well ...
True Diffidence
My boy, you may take it from me,
That of all the afflictions accurst
With which a man's saddled
And hampered and addled,
A diffident nature's the worst.
Though clever as clever can be -
A Crichton of early romance -
You must stir it and stump it,
And blow your own trumpet,
Or, trust me, you haven't a chance.
Now take, for example, MY case:
I've a bright intellectual brain -
In all London city
There's no one so witty -
I've thought so again and again.
I've a highly intelligent face -
My features cannot be denied -
But, whatever I try, sir,
I fail in - and why, sir?
I'm modesty personified!
As a poet, I'm tender and quaint -
I've passion and fervour and grace -
From Ovid and Horace
To Swinburne and Morris,
They all of them take a back place.
Then I sing and I play and I paint;
Though none are accomplished as I,
To say so were treason:
You ask me the reason?
I'm diffident, modest, and shy!
William S. Gilbert (of Gilbert & Sullivan fame)
But let's not forget that we live our lives surrounded by amazing, wonderful people, whether we know it or not.
So what does a U.S. Senator looking to lock up the moonbat vote (and the moonbat money) do in her spare time? Why, she posts over at Daily "Screw 'Em" Kos, of course. In case you don't know, Daily Kos is a popular far-left wing blog run by Markos Zuniga who famously said of the Americans murdered, burned and hung from a bridge in Fallujah: "Screw them" (Zuniga, as is the habit of such people, has tried his best to hide this comment and all evidence of it).
After Zuniga made his repellant comments Democratic candidates who were advertising on his site left him and John Kerry's site delinked him. Still, he's apparently plenty good enough for Barbara Boxer.
One thing to keep in mind, Barbara. After Zuniga's advertisers left him, other politicians still felt that he was worth associating with. Each and every one of them lost their election in 2004. Fifteen Candidates, fifteen losers. And that doesn't count the BIG LOSER, Howard Dean, who's campaign was paying Kos under the table to promote Dean. Hook your wagon to that star, Barbara.
A crook. And a thug. More here. Even Detroit deserves better than this.
If you've been reading this blog or msbhivin's blog you might know that we had been dating for a long time and that we recently broke up. Well, What you might not know is that we met right here on the internet. For all those who doubt the possibility of internet romance, I present you with a relationship of nearly 4 years and a friend for life. Not bad, I'd say. Anyway, we met as a result of a series of personal ads that I placed on Craigslist (where I have found, in addition to a girlfriend, roommates, computer equipment, office furniture and playoff tickets ... I love that site). That series of ads was sort of an impromptu bit of writing that I did at a transitional time in my life. Moreover, it wasn't really done when msbhivin and I met but, since I wasn't looking for a girlfriend anymore, I stopped writing my "Glimpses." At some point I lost them entirely but, luckily, a nice young lady had actually saved them on her blog and was able to retrieve them for me (thank you again, Kristan). Anyway, here I am at transition point again and I think I'll look into what I wrote and who I was 4 years ago and maybe, if I can, continue writing from where I left off then.
Here, then, is my first "Glimpse," posted in the Craigslist Men Seeking Women section late at night on May 8, 2001:
I have been on a journey...A Glimpse
Tue May 8th
Every now and again you can look at a person and, if
you give it a moment's thought, get a picture in your
mind of what they'll be like in twenty or thirty
years. You can see in your mind's eye how their laugh
lines might deepen and extend, how their hands or
posture or voice might change. Sometimes you can even
make a good guess at whether they'll be happy or
crotchety or lighthearted or moody or ambitious or
resigned or any number of other broad character traits
that develop slowly in a person until they are as much
a part of that person and as deeply ingrained as their
bones.
Every now and again you can look at a person and get a
picture in your mind of what they were like twenty or
thirty years ago. You can see in your mind's eye the
daily joy that must have been responsible for carving
the laugh lines that point like arrows at eyes that
continue to sparkle, or the daily loneliness that left
smooth features and a dulled gaze in its wake. You can
imagine what kind of life caused callused palms or
fat, soft hands. A moment's thought is all it takes to
understand what might have caused a shuffling gate and
a bent spine or added timber to a voice that makes it
fill a room.
When I look in the mirror now, at thirty, I can see
how I got here. I understand the mixed history of my
hands and know that my eyes still sparkle, even though
the laugh lines which will make their mark one day
haven't begun to appear in earnest. I know what I did
to earn the silver in my hair and why I can make my
voice heard to the near deaf old lady at the back of
the room where once it was barely a squeak.
I know who I want to see years from now. He was
slippery for a time, but I have him now, after all of
these years. The man who is a subtle variation of the
man I saw this morning. He is more settled, yet more
adventurous. Less anxious, yet with more
responsibility. Broader in his horizons and yet more
focused. He has learned to enjoy mornings. He is not
much different, but the differences are important.
I understand this: I will not coax that man into my
mirror on my own. What I can do is there now. I want
for a partner. A comrade, a lover, a steadying
influence who will disturb my foundation; a friend
that I can learn from and teach, who will listen to my
plans and stories, both real and dreamed and who will
share her stories and dreams with me. A confidant and
a co-conspirator who will plot adventures and strive
to not waste a day or an hour. I want for a brilliant
mind and a ready smile, an artistic savant with an
abundance of courage and generosity for friends and
strangers. I want for a woman who, in looking in her
mirror this morning, saw a woman that she likes and
admires and trusts but who is capable of more. I want
for an accomplice in all things who has flourished to
this point and will now flourish with me.
There were a total of five glimpses. I'll post one a day, or so, just as I did back then. Then we'll see if there are any more in me.
I was invited to do this by Joseph but I was out of action at the time and didn't respond, so the Daily Blitz is jumping into the blogburst without a reservation. If you see this and have a blog, I think that you should do the same:
This post is part of a “blogburst” coordinated by Joseph Alexander Norland at Israpundit, to commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz. The full list of participants is here.
The Holocaust, symbolized by Auschwitz, the worst of the death camps, occurred in the wake of consistent, systematic, unrelenting anti-Jewish propaganda campaigns. As a result, the elimination of the Jews from German society was accepted as axiomatic, leaving open only two questions: when and how.
As Germany expanded its domination and occupation of Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, the Low Countries, Yugoslavia, Poland, parts of the USSR, Greece, Romania, Hungary, Italy and others countries, the way was open for Hitler to realize his well-publicized plan of destroying the Jewish people.
After experimentation, the use of Zyklon B on unsuspecting victim was adopted by the Nazis as the means of choice, and Auschwitz was selected as the main factory of death (more accurately, one should refer to the “Auschwitz-Birkenau complex”). The green light for mass annihilation was given at the Wannsee Conference, January 20, 1942.
The Wannsee Conference formalized “the final solution” - the plan to transport Europe’s Jews to eastern labour and death camps. Ever efficient and bureaucratic, the Nazi kept a record of the meeting, which were discovered in 1947 in the files of the German Foreign Office. The record represents a summary made by Adolf Eichmann at the time, even though they are sometime referred to as “minutes”.
Several of the Conference participants survived the war to be convicted at Nuremberg. One notorious participant, Adolf Eichmann, was tried and convicted in Jerusalem, and executed in 1962 in Ramlah prison.
The mass gassings of Europe’s took place in Auschwitz between 1942 and the end of 1944, when the Nazis retreated before the advancing Red Army. Jews were transported to Auschwitz from all over Nazi-occupied or Nazi-dominated Europe and most were slaughtered in Auschwitz upon arrival, sometimes as many as 12,000 in one day. Some victims were selected for slave labour or “medical” experimentation before they were murdered or allowed to die. All were subject to brutal treatment.
In all, between three and four million people, mostly Jews, but also Poles and Red Army POWs, were slaughtered in Auschwitz alone (though some authors put the number at 1.3 million). Other death camps were located at Sobibor, Chelmno, Belzec (Belzek), Majdanek and Treblinka. Adding the toll of these and other camps, as well as the mass executions and the starvation im the Ghettos, six million Jews, men, women, the elderly and children lost their lives as a consequence of the Nazi atrocities.
Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army on 27 January 1945, sixty years ago, after most of the prisoners were forced into a Death March westwards. The Red Army found in Auschwitz about 7,600 survivors, but not all could be saved.
For a long time, the Allies were well aware of the mass murder, but deliberately refused to bomb the camp or the railways leading to it. Ironically, during the Polish uprising, the Allies had no hesitation in flying aid to Warsaw, sometimes flying right over Auschwitz.
There are troubling parallels between the systematic vilification of Jews before the Holocaust and the current vilification of the Jewish people and Israel. Suffice it to note the annual flood of anti-Israel resolutions at the UN; or the public opinion polls taken in Europe, which single out Israel as a danger to world peace; or the divestment campaigns being waged in the US against Israel; or the attempts to delegitimize Israel’s very existence. The complicity of the Allies in WW II is mirrored by the support the PLO has been receiving from Europe, China and Russia to this very day.
If remembering Auschwitz should teach us anything, it is that we must all support Israel and the Jewish people against the vilification and the complicity we are witnessing, knowing where it inevitably leads.
Edit: The original picture in this thread was posted by so many bloggers that it exceeded Photobucket's bandwith allowance, so everyone now has an error message. I replaced it with two photographs from today's Auschwitz. The first is the entrance, as it looks today. The second is from the museum. It's one day's pile of shoes from victims who will never walk again. One day. About 25,000 pairs of shoes.
Some people have the Ted Rall disease. They will say anything to get themselves some attention. Well, you win, Professor Ward L. Churchill. You got my attention. And not simply because you are a lunatic, a moron and an all-around waste of skin and organs but because you are the chairman of the CU Ethnic Studies Department. Now, I don't care if it's the department of boll-weevil research. This man is the head of a department at a major national university and here is what this man, who teaches and influences America's youth, had to say with respect to the victims of 9-11 in a recent essay:
"As for those in the World Trade Center, well, really, let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break."
He also called the World Trade Center victims "little Eichmanns" (some people just can't resist a nazi reference) and justified the 9-11 mass murder. Again, morons like him are quite a bit cheaper than a dime a dozen these days. They have their dribblings posted at Rense, they post on DU and Indymedia and they worship (or are) Ted Rall and Michael Moore. And yet, I get back to the fact that he is thr HEAD OF A DEPARTMENT at CU. That one of his books is REQUIRED READING at an undergrad CU course. The administration of CU, which has known about this idiot (who, by the way, is featured speaker at American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee presentations and a leader of the Colorado Native American Movement who generally refers to the US as "occupied territories") for some time, should be ashamed. Hell. They should be fired.
First, there was spider-goat (sing it with me kids ...
spider-goat
spider-goat
friendly neighborhood spider-goat
spins a web
from its teats
in its milk
ain't that neat?
look out
here comes the spider-goat!)
Then there was hope for a mouse-man or pig-lad. Now, we may soon have bunny-man (don't ask me what happened to Echo or the rest of the Bunnymen ... I just don't know) and some "people" don't like it. Well, I'm not with the 100%ers. Nope, I'm with my part-human brethren on this one. I say, bring on walrus-boy and pelican-girl. Don't shun armadillo-man and the oddly erotic (but clingy) anaconda-woman! If we are heading to a world where illegal aliens can vote and Arnold can be President, then why not rights for our three or four legged or flippered friends? Judge not by the color of their scales, my friends!! I mean, Arnold put enough horse hormone into himself to grow a tail and we love him, right?
All I'm saying is, don't pre-judge ... a little tolerance and an open mind today may get you some of that sweet, sweet dolphin lovin' that you've been secretly craving or that giant rabbit-man massage that you need.
I've actually blogged on this before when Chirac proposed a global anti-poverty tax. Now he wants an international tax to fight AIDS. Let me say it again. Not just no but HELL NO. I don't care what the cause is or if the tax is one cent every other decade. NO FOREIGN GOVERNMENT GETS TO TAX U.S. CITIZENS. Not the French, not the EU, not the UN or NATO or anyone else. This has nothing to do with poverty or AIDS and everything to do with sovereignty. Chirac wants to try to tax non-French citizens? Let him and his do what the Germans did when they wanted to tax the French. Let them come and take it. Otherwise, let him fill his pockets with euros and take a leisurely swim across the Channel.
Yup, I like the sound of that. And for all of the bluster and time wasting, the vote among Democrats was 30-12 in favor of confirmation
