Of ocurse I am going to take the opportunity to talk about the Hamas attack on Israel. First, I'd like to talk about my background, or baggage, regarding the country. I have lived in Israel, some years ago. This was not for religious reasons; I spent several months there working on a movie. During pre-production, weeks of location scouting and shooting the movie, I was all over the country, and spent a fair amount of time in the West Bank, where we also shot. This included a lot of places that normal tourists would not see, including predominantly Arab areas such as East Jerusalem, the Arab quarter of the old city, Ramla and the southern part of Jaffa, which is predominantly Arab. It also included heavily Orthodox areas like Mea Shearim. I dealt with Israeli Arabs, Palestinians and Bedouins. Here are a few things I believe I learned there: First of all, the Palestinians I knew were perfectly normal people with the same interest in living a safe, secure
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I wouldn't bet on it, but I think they are losing steam. We'll see.
This is the problem with building your movement with geezers instead of college students. They just don't have enough energy to turn cop cars over and run away from tear gas. Pretty soon, they're ready to go back to their canasta games.
About the current healthcare debate, here is a brief vignette to share with you:
“Last weekend, the healthcare controversy came to my door when friends from South Florida arrived for a visit (…) My former neighbors and now dear friends had an appointment at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville. Her cancer is treatable and manageable, but she suffers from fatigue and takes mega doses of Percocet and morphine to relieve pain. Last week, she and her husband checked into a Marriot Inn near the clinic for days of blood tests, X-Rays, MRIs, and consultations (…) On Monday morning, just before their return trip to Jacksonville for more diagnostics, the hospital called their cell phone: Their insurance carrier had not “pre-authorized” the tests.”
The full story here.
Those SEIU folks sure are insane.
Thanks for the comment. I fully agree with you, and I have stated numerous times here that I am deeply afraid that, before this is over, we are going to see some truly ugly incidents growing out of the current conservative sense of entitlement to violence.
I feel, however, that these tantrums are already starting to bore the mainstream press, and they are too obviously out of any real proportion to their alleged causes; consequently, what seemed to be having a massive effect on political decisions just a few days ago is already fading.
Sad to say, if and when a real health care bill is passed, it will only serve to further inflame the wingnuts' deep sense of injury, and although their behavior may prove politically impotent, it might continue to build until some really horrible violent confrontations are inevitable.