"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx
I blogged earlier about Iran and the problems they are causing. Today the BBC had a report about the reaction around the world. The lack of moral clarity is very disturbing.
“”If these comments are true, they are unacceptable. I condemn them with the greatest firmness,” French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said.”
What the hell is wrong with him. His suggestion that they may not be factual is reprehensible.
First it was Ken Livingstone and now these two events have me shaking my head.
“A poem which praises the murder of Jews by the Nazis has been included in a book of children’s poetry to be distributed amongst schools in the UK.
The publication, entitled Great Minds, features the work of school children aged 11 to 18 who won a nationwide literary competition.
But one poem has generated outrage amongst Jewish groups, politicians and Holocaust charities for its anti-Semitic content.
The entry by the 14-year-old Gideon Taylor is apparently written from the viewpoint of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
It includes the lines “Jews are here, Jews are there, Jews are almost everywhere, filling up the darkest places, evil looks upon their faces.”
Another part reads: “Make them take many paces for being one of the worst races, on their way to a gas chamber, where they will sleep in their manger… I’ll be happy Jews have died.”
Publisher defends poem
The book was produced by Forward Press who ran the Great Minds competition through its youngwriters.co.uk website.
Wining entries were rewarded with cash prizes of up to 20ukp for pupils and 1,000ukp for schools.
According to the Jewish Telegraph newspaper, the poem was the only entry in the entire book not to include the writer’s school or location.
Young Writers editor Steve Twelvetree, who also edited the book, said the poem was included as it illustrated how the writer was able to empathise with the infamous Nazi Fuehrer.
Twelvetree told the Telegraph: “From Gideon’s poem and my knowledge of the National Curriculum Key Stage 3 his poem shows a good use of technical writing and he has written his poem from the perspective of Adolf Hitler.†“
And then there is this little gem:
Piggy banks ‘offend UK Muslims‘
British banks are banning piggy banks because they may offend some Muslims.
Halifax and NatWest banks have led the move to scrap the time-honoured symbol of saving from being given to children or used in their advertising, the Daily Express/Daily Star group reports here.
Muslims do not eat pork, as Islamic culture deems the pig to be an impure animal.
Salim Mulla, secretary of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, backed the bank move.
“This is a sensitive issue and I think the banks are simply being courteous to their customers,” he said.
However, the move brought accusations of political correctness gone mad from critics.
“The next thing we will be banning Christmas trees and cribs and the logical result of that process is a bland uniformity,” the Dean of Blackburn, Reverend Christopher Armstrong, said.
“We should learn to celebrate our difference, not be fearful of them.”
Am I the only one shaking my head over this. Something is not right.
I need a new cellphone. I used to have one that I was very happy with. It was a Motorola V300 and it took care of most of my needs quite ably and capably. Unfortunately along with my car it was a casualty of the auto accident that took place a couple of weeks ago.
Even though the auto accident was not my fault my insurance company has said that they will not cover the replacement cost of the cellphone. I contacted the other party’s insurance carrier and have asked them to cover the cost of the replacement, but I have yet to hear back from them.
The adjuster who is handling things for them hasn’t returned a telephone call in three days. She has until noon today and if I have not heard from her I will go over her head and make life less comfortable for her. I hate having to do things like that, a simple telephone call would have satisfied me but now all she has done is aggravate me unnecessarily.
In case you are wondering my cellphone provider will not provide a replacement phone unless I chose to pay for it. At the time that I acquired my last phone they offered me a monthly insurance plan of $5.99. In ten years of cellphone ownership I had never lost or broken a phone so I thought that it was silly to pay $72 more each year for that service.
All this brings me back to the topic of the post, cell phone hell. I say hell because it feels like I am one of the damned. I have grown so accustomed or should I say addicted to having a phone I cannot help but notice that I really miss it.
And all around me I see all of the various cell phone service providers offering free phones, but there is a catch. Those phones are only available to new customers. The existing customers don’t get a free phone or any sort of free upgrade. They get the privilege of being able to purchase the phone at a discount and the discount is almost always tied into extending your contract for another year or more.
Somewhere I hear Satan laughing. I feel the heat of his breath and I know that he is taunting me because those new phones are better than what I had. They offer new features and bells and whistles that amaze and delight.
I cannot help but be irritated that T-Mobile wants me to pay $250 for a phone that they will give away as part of activation of a new line of service. Something in this relationship smells, it stinks. It is a rotten way of doing business and I have to admit that because of my frustration with it all I am tempted to pay the early termination fee and then just sign up with a new provider who will give me one of those free phones I see all around me.
Halloween is coming and instead of the thump thump of the tell-tale heart I hear the electronic ring of a phone. It haunts me yet.
Things in the Middle East appear to be getting a little warmer.
“TEHRAN, Iran – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared Wednesday that Israel is a “disgraceful blot” that should be “wiped off the map” — fiery words that Washington said underscores its concern over Iran’s nuclear program.
Ahmadinejad’s speech to thousands of students at a “World without Zionism” conference set a hard-line foreign policy course sharply at odds with that of his moderate predecessor, echoing the sentiments of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of Iran’s Islamic revolution.
The United States said Ahmadinejad’s remarks show that Washington’s fears about Iran’s nuclear program are accurate.
“I think it reconfirms what we have been saying about the regime in Iran,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters in Washington. “It underscores the concerns we have about Iran’s nuclear intentions.”
This is most troubling but sadly not surprising. There are so many little things that could be mentioned here. A conference called a World Without Zionism smacks of being more than Anti-Israel. How can I as a politically aware member of the world and a Jew not be concerned with this kind of rhetoric. How can I ignore it.
And consider that this takes place in light of the recent withdrawal from Gaza. After all of the pain and anguish there this is almost like salt in the wounds.
Did you notice his threat against countries that try to normalize relations with Israel.
“Ahmadinejad also condemned Iran’s neighbors which seek to break new ground in their relations with Israel. “Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation’s fury,” state-run television quoted him as saying.
Relations between Israel and several Persian Gulf states have been thawing amid Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Stripin September. Bahrain announced in September it was ending a decades-old law banning trade ties with Israel. In October, Qatar said it was donating $6 million to help build a soccer stadium for a mixed Arab-Jewish team, the first such financial assistance by an Arab state for any town inside Israel.”
It is hard to be optimistic when you read/hear about things like this.
Add to this the recent report that Iran is allowing Al-Qaeda agents to roam freely and you can see the beginning of the next battle forming.
BERLIN (Reuters) – Iran is permitting around 25 high-ranking al Qaeda members to roam free in the country’s capital, including three sons of Osama Bin Laden, a German monthly magazine reported on Wednesday.
Citing information from unnamed Western intelligence sources, the magazine Cicero said in a preview of an article appearing in its November edition that the individuals in question are from Egypt, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia and Europe.
They are living in houses belonging to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the report said.
“This is not incarceration or house arrest,” a Western intelligence agent was quoted as saying. “They can move around as they please.”
If this is true then we may very well see military action taken against Iran. Personally I suspect that it is more likely to happen than not. I am not pleased by that, but sometimes circumstances force your hand.
Tags:News and politics,Israel, Iran
There are some topics that are eternal such as Does Religion Matter any More , what is G-d, what is the meaning of life etc.
There are a few things in life that I just believe in. One of those is G-d. I believe in a higher power. I don’t need a burning bush or time on a mountain top to make me believe that there is something more powerful out there.
But I don’t need that belief to make me act ethically and morally. I don’t need the threat of punishment to make me do the right thing. Actually those of you who know me understand that telling me to do something is the fastest way to make me do the opposite, I have been known to cut my nose to spite my face.
It makes perfect sense to me to do the best I can to be moral and ethical in my life because it improves the world around me. When I am good it makes the world a nicer place. Generally when you smile at people they smile back at you. When you treat people well they treat you well.
It doesn’t translate this way 100% of the time. Some people will screw you every which way they can. Some people are going to take advantage of any situation. I recognize that and understand it.
The way I see things it doesn’t really matter if there is an afterlife because I don’t know any more than the next person if it exists. I suspect that it might and hope that it does, but in the end I live in the here and now and that makes somethings very clear.
One of those is that there is nothing lost by being good and much to be gained. If I die and that is the end of the story than what has happened? Nothing bad that I can see.
The most important task in my life is to make my children into good people of character and integrity and to teach them to make a difference in the world. Everything else is secondary to this.
Comments, questions, thoughts?
Call me a jerk, call me a snob but don’t call me late for dinner. Ha ha. As I surf the web I keep seeing posts in which people talk about their sorted past and or say that the point is mute.
The words that they really want to use are: sordid and moot. The following information was pulled from Answers.com.
sor·did (sôr‘dÄd) 
adj.
[Middle English sordide, festering, purulent, from Latin sordidus, dirty, from sordēre, to be dirty.]
moot (mūt)
n.
tr.v., moot·ed, moot·ing, moots.
adj.
[Middle English, meeting, from Old English mÅt, gemÅt.]
moot‘ness n.
USAGE NOTE The adjective moot is originally a legal term going back to the mid-16th century. It derives from the noun moot, in its sense of a hypothetical case argued as an exercise by law students. Consequently, a moot question is one that is arguable or open to debate. But in the mid-19th century people also began to look at the hypothetical side of moot as its essential meaning, and they started to use the word to mean “of no significance or relevance.†Thus, a moot point, however debatable, is one that has no practical value. A number of critics have objected to this use, but 59 percent of the Usage Panel accepts it in the sentence The nominee himself chastised the White House for failing to do more to support him, but his concerns became moot when a number of Republicans announced that they, too, would oppose the nomination. When using moot one should be sure that the context makes clear which sense is meant.