AG Birthday Report

Just what we needed: an excuse to get together and over indulge in the booze. We started at AG’s in a proper grown-up manner, with supper and wine out in the garden. AG had done the cooking herself and everything was delicious. Then it rained so we were inside for opening presents and coffee and cake. But enough of the civilised stuff, let’s get on to the after-party at U Zpěváčků.

There were 8 of us who went on from AG’s: AG, Dr Bellarina, J, Delicia, Delicia’s brothers: the card-carrying Republican and Bubba, the beautiful kd and Max. Mike was there to look after us, and Monkey showed up at midnight (kind of a post-modern whacked-out Cinderella).

AG lamented making it to 60: “I always wanted to live fast, die young and be a good-looking corpse, and it’s already too late.” Hey ho.

Conversation was all over the place, of course, from what is wrong with corporate America to the problem with Dutch men to Delicia not understanding ebonics and Max not understanding American, that there is not enough drive for new knowledge in the US, etc.

Monkey and I learned that the card-carrying Republican had assumed that we must be CIA “because of your language skills and intellect”. Weird. Delicia said we were the “bar version of the NSA”, listening intently to everyone and gathering information and knowledge. Weird again.

We discussed the re-branding of the global war on terror as the “global struggle against extremism” – you know, Bush’s Kampf. And that the FBI is watching all of us look at each other’s blogs.

http://tinyurl.com/chorz

Back to the card-carrying Republican mentalist. There was a discussion about Karl Rove going on and the Republican once again refused to accept anything. I couldn’t believe that he was so completely towing the party line. As J said to him, “You sound like the fucking White House.” The Republican claimed that the media were “manipulating your interpretation of the facts,” which caused us to burst out laughing. As I had said to the Republican earlier in the week, he is so naïve, he sounds like bloody Francis.

Then weird limey tourist drunk Howard popped into the back room to announce to us that he would be off home to Yorkshire tomorrow, and that his favourite band is the Beatles. Random.

Mike: “People with red asses shouldn’t be so rude.”

Monkey: “I’m not a baboon, I’m a monkey.”

Happy Birthday, AG!!!

Happy Birthday querida Página!!!

May all of your dreams come true this year, especially the one about visiting me and Monkey in Prague.
Don't get too too too drunk tonight.
Make sure Jono gives you a big kiss for me.
Love you.
Max

Rapper Name Vote

DD, Monkey and yours truly have been trying to come up with a rapper name for Max. DD’s, by the way is Snoop Dave Flava Flav. If Monkey has one, he has not admitted to it. So far, these were the two best the lads could come up with for me:

Ghetto-Momma Maxima

and

Maxima DeBeauvoir-DeGhetto.

Before we make a final decision with which I will have to live for the rest of my life, I would like to ask the rest of my blog homies to tell me your preference or, if you are so inspired, to submit other ideas.

Thanking you.

Max x

Women, Be Wary

They are writing their new constitution in Liberated Iraq. Islam is to be the official religion of the country and “a main source” of law. All well and good except that women will be deprived of certain rights.

As the draft constitution reads now, a Shiite woman will not be able to marry without the permission of her family, no matter what her age. Women will also be adversely affected with respect to divorce and inheritance laws.

Meanwhile, back in the Land of the Free, Attorney General Alberto “Torture” Gonzales has announced that a Supreme Court Justice does not have to follow a previous ruling “if you believe it’s wrong.” Fair enough: different interpretations of the law are possible and that is why we have a Supreme Court. Except that of course his remarks were in reference to Roe v Wade. Sorry, it’s an issue that just won’t go away.

Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, as we all know by now, served as deputy solicitor general in Daddy Bush’s administration. In that capacity he co-wrote a brief for a Supreme Court case in which he argued that Roe v Wade “was wrongly decided and should be overruled.” I know some of you would disagree with me, but I see Roe v Wade strictly as an issue of women’s rights.

Has anyone read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale? The novel depicts a society where women have lost their rights and have to be dependent on and subservient to men in order to survive. It’s a frightening picture. Think about the Christian Conservatives’ “traditional family values” and try to imagine what their ultimate goals are (assuming Armageddon and the Rapture don't actually happen, I mean).

Rights are never lost all at once. Rights are lost one at a time or by one group at a time. Even the Nazis started off in a relatively subtle manner. Our government has started with the Patriot Act and the Department of Fatherland Security. Don’t bother pointing out to me that I have written/bitched about losing my rights before, I am perfectly well aware. I am currently trying to figure out what else I need to do about it.

Israel: Myths & Facts

“The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive and repeated.” – JFK

I tend to avoid the topic of Israel because I simply do not have the energy for it. I mentioned it once before in a post entitled “The Fashion of Politics” – 17 June 2005. When discussing Israel-Palestine issues with almost anyone, the first thing I notice is that they do not have any idea what they are talking about. Almost everyone I have ever met has been duped by propaganda without even realising it. The Israel-Palestine conflict is extremely complicated and to really understand it a person has to have extensive knowledge of the history of the Near East, as well as an understanding of the cultures, religions, politics and ways of life that have prevailed there.

But thanks to the “anonymous” commenter on my previous post, I feel I am forced into writing about Israel. The first thing I will say is that if you really want to learn about the history, the best book I know, touted as one of the most thoroughly researched and objective books ever written on the subject, is Joan Peters’ From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine, 1984.

The second thing I will say is that “anonymous” knows the history and politics of Israel and the Arab-Jewish conflict better than anyone else I know. I just wish he could express himself in a less offensive manner, i.e. without being a total asshole.

I am pro-Israel, meaning that I believe that Israel should and must exist.

I am pro-Palestinian, meaning that I think the Palestinians should also have their own state.

I am against a lot of the policies of the current Israeli administration, analogous to how I feel about the Bush administration.

I have lived in Israel and most recently visited there last Christmas; I probably know better than any of my regular blog mates what the day-to-day reality is there.

What I am going to offer you today is just a few historical points that most people have wrong. Again, I would like to emphasise that you must know the history before you can understand anything that is going on in that part of the world, just like anywhere else.

Myth: The Palestinians have always been in, and had an identity with, the land of Palestine.

Fact: In the late 1800s/early 1900s, Arabic-speaking migrants were wandering in search of subsistence all over the Middle East. Palestine was a wasteland. The Arabic-speakers who did end up in Palestine thought of themselves as Ottomans, Turks, Southern Syrians or simply Arabs, even despite the attempts of the Mufti and TE Lawrence to imbue them with nationalism.

Myth: Jews returned after 2000 years to displace the Palestinian Arabs.

Fact: Jews never left the land, even after the Roman conquest in 70 CE (AD).

Myth: In the 70 years or so leading up to the establishment of the modern state of Israel, the Jews stole the Arabs’ land.

Fact: Most of the Arab land in Palestine was owned by absentee landlords; the people that worked the land were penniless peasants. Jews tried to avoid purchasing land in areas where Arabs might be displaced. They sought land that was largely uncultivated, swampy, cheap and without tenants.

Myth: Palestine = Israel

Fact: The Palestine Mandate included areas both east and west of the Jordan River, i.e. all of Israel and all of the modern country of Jordan.

Myth: Only Jews immigrated to Palestine; Arabs have been there for millennia.

Fact: As an example, between WWI and WWII, the Jewish population increased by 470,000 while the non-Jewish population increased by 588,000.

Myth: Upon the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the Arabs were expelled from the country.

Fact: Israel asked the Arabs to stay as full citizens with full rights. Some Arabs left earlier in anticipation of a war, the neighbouring Arab countries told the Arabs to flee so as not to be in the way of the invading Arab armies, and many Arabs simply left to avoid being caught in a war zone.

I know this is not much, but as I said before, this subject exhausts me. If you do have any specific questions, please ask. I will try to answer and do the research if I don't know something straight off the top of my head.

The Pope is Still a Nazi

Terrorism is wrong, no matter what your politics or your religion. What is the pope playing at?

"On Sunday the pontiff prayed for God to stop the 'murderous hand' of terrorists, during his noontime blessing delivered from his Alpine retreat in Italy's northwestern Valle d'Aosta region, where he is vacationing.Benedict referred to the recent 'abhorrent terrorist attacks' in Egypt, Britain, Turkey and Iraq but did not mention attacks in Israel.

"'The pope deliberately failed to condemn the terrible terror attack that occurred in Israel last week,' a[n Israeli] Foreign Ministry statement said."

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/604536.html

Team Metropolitan Police – fuck yeah!

Shooting victim had expired visa – BBC News. Oh well, better dead than deported.

And the whole thing suddenly reminded me of Team America – Woo! Yeah! We saved Paris from the terrorists! Unfortunately in the process, the Eiffel Tower has been toppled, the Louvre has been blown up, the Arc de Triomphe flattened and all the rest of it. So here is one man that was killed, not by terrorists, but by police who were, ironically, trying to protect him (as an innocent member of the public) from terrorists. How many more?

On the Subject of Motives

In his post of 12th July, Devastatin’ Dave introduced the subject of motives in respect of the orchestration of acts of war or terrorism by governments.

Today the US House of Representatives voted to extend indefinitely the Patriot Act. I find it very interesting that the vote came up today, just one day after the four acts of terrorism that happened, and yet did not quite happen, in London.

At the same time, New York City has decided to initiate “random” searches within its subway system. The NY Police Department’s chief spokesman, Paul Browne, said that they had been considering bag searches for the past three years, and now the events in London have “forced their hand.”

It would seem that most people in New York are not objecting to the searches because of their desire for some semblance of security, but then again, most Americans do not object to anything. At least the New York Civil Liberties Union is speaking up against the searches, rightly comparing them to a search for “a needle in a haystack”. The rule right now is bag searches only; what about in winter when someone can easily conceal a bomb under his or her coat?

Rep. Martin Meehan (D-Mass) described the Patriot Act as “an effort to answer the most difficult question a democracy faces: How much freedom are we willing to give up to feel safe?”

It is a valid question, but here is the answer, as previously quoted somewhere on these blogs:
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
– Benjamin Franklin

(Thanks, DD.)

Live free or die

There are some weird state mottos. Now that I have signed up to move to the state with the best motto, I decided to research what some of the other states had to say for themselves.

Best motto
New Hampshire: Live free or die

Good mottos
Alabama: Audemus jura nostra defendere - We dare defend our rights
Delaware: Liberty and independence
Iowa: Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain

Mottos that somehow missed the mark
Indiana: The crossroads of America
- sorry, sounds like a shopping mall
Kansas: Ad astra per aspera – To the stars through difficulty
- 1950s advert or communist slogan
New Mexico: Crescit eundo - It grows as it goes
- what the fuck does that mean?
Oklahoma: Labor vincit omnia – Work conquers all
- my favourite - Arbeit macht frei
Washington: Al-ki (Chinook) - By and by
- mañana?

Why I never feel guilty when I shag a married man

I just had an e-mail from a friend in Edinburgh, to whom I happened to have been engaged at one time. Since I left Scotland in 1990, I have seen him only twice, once in 1999 and once in 2004. We had planned to meet again in March of this year, but Hamish came down with the flu so we cancelled.

Of course Hamish is not his real name, but it’s just so over-the-top Scottish that it makes me laugh.

Hamish and I both got married in 1995. When we had our first tryst in 1999, I had already filed for divorce and he was still married. When we had our second tryst 5 years later, I was single and he was still married. After we cancelled our March meeting, we agreed that we should not see each other again. I had lost interest, frankly, and Hamish said he had been feeling guilty.

Today I e-mailed Hamish to tell him about Jarda’s death and we subsequently exchanged a couple of e-mails. In Hamish’s last e-mail he told me how happy he was with his wife, how he loved her to bits, and that he was seeing someone regularly for sex on the side.

My conclusion: if a man is going to cheat, he is going to cheat - if not with me, then with someone else. If I do not even know the wife or the girlfriend involved, there is absolutely no reason for me to feel guilty. If I betray a relationship of my own, I am at fault, but I am never responsible for someone else’s betrayal of his relationship.