Check the weather report in Israel according to the radio news broadcasts.
This is a cross-post; normally I’d be putting posts on the Middle East on my other blog, Hadofeq (“the pulse” in Hebrew).
I was reminded of the children’s book “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” listening to the news on Israeli radio this morning (18ooZ). “The frequency of missile strikes seems to be on the upswing,” he said. “Missiles landed in…” and he rattled off a list of twenty villages and towns. That Tiberias was hit speaks to the continued existence of longer-range bottle rockets in Hizballah’s hands.
“Residents are advised,” he continued, “to stay away from torn or down electrical lines. Also, keep away from electrical substations if they have been hit by missiles.” All delivered in calm, mid-alto tones.
“Two sailors killed have been identified,” he said earlier in the broadcast. “For the information of Sailors, seas will be fairly rough,” ended the weather report.
A postscript: in the three minutes it’s taken me to write this, two more missiles have hit Tveria. At this point reporters and witnesses alike seem more calm, reporting damage and continued ‘kor ru’ach’ — mental calm, in the target zones that were my home.
Events are moving faster than reporting can adequately analyze, and I’ve been in full-time media feeding since
Politics are not a factor at this time. Israel’s response is not a function of Kadima, or Labor, or the Likud. I trained for ‘yom k’rav’ — a day of war — twenty years ago, and this, so far, is scarily close to what I practiced then. I knew then how it would end, and I am glad that the battle plan has been updated.
The IDF, with the missile strike in Haifa, will ‘peel back’ Lebanon’s technological state decade by decade, until the barbarians within will be left with only a barbarian’s standard of life and living. Airports, seaports, long-haul transportation have already been affected. Stand by for loss of all power, water and sewage treatment, and destruction of the transportation infrastructure.
It’s up to ‘brave’ Hizballah, funded by Iran and illegal activities in the US and run by Iran, and ‘fearless’ Hamas, funded by Iran and Arab extremists and run from Syria, to return our soldiers. Only then, perhaps, will they be able to stop cowering behind and within their own civilian populations, and parley for their lives with Israel.
… and not see incoming rockets.
Sun fire patiently touch
planents
a rain lights clouds
hopes
the silky moon
beyond
desired love
Poetry.com has a daily ‘
beneath paint-brushed golden summer days
I found silky
sunrise
filagree
in my last harvest rain.
| Copyright © 2006 Da Shlom. All Rights Reserved. |
I was perusing Yahoo’s question engine. That’s a service where users submit questions, and then people at large answer them. Stephen Hawking posed a question recently, and I answered it as best I could. Afterwards I trolled for other questions to answer. One in particular caught my eye: “Why are there some many mean people?”
There wasn’t any context for the question, but it got me thinking. There are a lot of people that act selfishly or inconsiderately. I get cut off on the highway daily. People–even my children–leave their messes for me to clean up. I get calls from people that clearly don’t care how insulting they are in tone and/or language.
The question brought me up short, though. Are there so many mean people? What’s our gauge? After all, this site showcases a positive side to news on the planet. To act as a foil for all the negative news.
Bad news sells. Mean people are obvious. A customer support axiom says that if you help someone with a problem, that person will tell one other person about their great experience. But if you irritate or upset a person, that person will tell at least ten more people. Perhaps that’s why there’s a presumption that there are a lot of mean people.
Perhaps, however, there is another side to this. Our brains are wired for survival, to be wary of danger. Scientists know we can tell the difference in lighting of a single lumen. Movement spotted by a single rod or cone in the eye can trigger ‘catching’ our attention. On a lower rung of Maslow’s hierarchy, this is a survival factor.
I believe spotting the mean people around us is an equally important survival factor. Mean people, stories of meanness and the visual and aural cues to mean activity flag us. We want to know about these people, because They. Are. Trouble. In the Maslow structure, recognizing mean people is just a step above making sure you’ve got fresh water and shelter.
So, there may seem to be a lot of mean people out there, but that’s just your survival instinct looking out for you. The nice ones don’t catch your eye, and I’m betting they are in the majority!
Yes, Tom DeLay has exited. As he said, ‘stage right.’ As in ‘conservative?’ Yes. As in, correct? No, I think. Like Richard Nixon, the appearance of honor in the face of retreat is no different. He may wave the peace sign, may declare his innocence, but just because he’s left on his own power doesn’t mean the handcuffs and ignominities of a body cavity search are not far behind.
He has shown us the depths to which politicians will sink to delieve the depravity of peer pressure. And his eventual contributions to the underpaid prison labor of our Great State of Texas will bear the final truth to his mealymouthed exhortations of honesty in the face of Truth.
JPost fans, stand fast. This is critical of your power base.
Israel, yet again, has screwed up. We have shown that we are willing to count innocent Palestinian dead as more important than Israelis.
Sure, the women and children that died in the last 12 hours were innocent, victims of artilllery shells that would have better served in hitting farther inland. But they didn’t, and their relatives’ nightmares, and mine, will reflect that horrific, tragic loss.
When Israelis die, there’s a flurry of candy distribution on the Gaza street. Yesterday, there was sorrow.
Their celebration is ignored; their sorrow is a cause for our reflection.
Whenever innocents are lost, on either side, it is a time for sorrow and mourning.
Israel would do well to mourn with their Palestinian enemies, just as it would mourn the loss of a family brutally cut own by a Passover bomber who devestated a family during their holiday celebration. And then turn back, with tears and resolution both writ large upon their faces, to cut out the cancer of terrorism from the face of the grieving, Palestinian face.
I’m watching Liz Taylor’s discussion with Larry King Live, hearing all the horrible things said about Elizabeth Taylor, and being bombarded by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s new baby.
It’s amazing, with the millions being killed in Congo, the many hundreds of thousands in Darfur, AIDS, hunger, poverty and reality, that a sleazy photographer can make over a million dollars by taking a picture of a newborn baby and its parents against the family’s wishes. Or that a movie star, whatever her history, is declared dead, insane, or demented.
In the NPR-sponsored project, “This, I Believe,” people, famous and plebian, talk about what moves them, what is at the core of their belief. I believe in the baselessness of the commercial media, their ability to search for the paying story, no matter how base, so long as it sells.
Fortunately, I also believe in the concept of ‘Tikkun Olam,’ the fixing of the world. I believe that for every despicable, amoral, money-grubbing person, there is at least one person trying to solve an important problem facing the world.
I hope the good guys win. And I hope Elizabeth gets to enjoy her new career, and Angelina and Brad their new son, without having to deal with vultures masquerading as ‘the press.’
I’ve been appearing recently in a column by a rather engaging reporter named James Rogers. It’s nice to have one’s opinions solicited. It’s not as if I’ve been lacking in that respect. I suggest checking out his blog; he’s got a lot of crisp things to say.
