The Distant Ocean

Smoking gun

Interesting:

A smoking ban in one Colorado city led to a dramatic drop in heart attack hospitalizations within three years, a sign of just how serious a health threat secondhand smoke is, government researchers said Wednesday. The study, the longest-running of its kind, showed the rate of hospitalized cases dropped 41 percent in the three years after the ban of workplace smoking in Pueblo, Colo., took effect. There was no such drop in two neighboring areas, and researchers believe it's a clear sign the ban was responsible.

The study suggests that secondhand smoke may be a terrible and under-recognized cause of heart attack deaths in this country, said one of its authors, Terry Pechacek of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Thanks, reality, for providing more justification for my admittedly pungent yet very precise smoking analogy (which irked at least one smoker so much that he stopped reading the site...not my intention at all, since I actually have a lot of sympathy for smokers these days).

Good riddance, 2008

Remember when I said there'd be light posting here for a while?  And you thought I meant then?  Well, clearly I meant now.  See how confusing these things can be?

Here's hoping you enjoy your arbitrary time-cycle holiday, and that the next solar circuit brings us all no end of zippity-doo-dah.

Views on the rape of Gaza

Philosophical and wide-ranging, from Nir Rosen:

Normative rules are determined by power relations. Those with power determine what is legal and illegal. They besiege the weak in legal prohibitions to prevent the weak from resisting. For the weak to resist is illegal by definition. Concepts like terrorism are invented and used normatively as if a neutral court had produced them, instead of the oppressors. The danger in this excessive use of legality actually undermines legality, diminishing the credibility of international institutions such as the United Nations. It becomes apparent that the powerful, those who make the rules, insist on legality merely to preserve the power relations that serve them or to maintain their occupation and colonialism.

And visceral, from Jennifer Loewenstein (who's lived and worked in Gaza for long stretches):

The sound of F-16s flying overhead dropping bombs is not a sound one ever forgets. In other words, 750,000 children – or half the population of Gaza—have it ingrained in their memories for the rest of their lives. Another equally unacceptable percentage of this group will have had images burned into their minds’ eyes of the devastation and death wrought by these sounds as well, a factor that partially explains why more than 50 per cent of Gaza’s three-quarters of a million children suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: it isn’t easy to see piles of the dead or their blown apart body parts without some kind of reaction. ...

"HAMAS"...the word that, in this case, renders any action taken by the other side, no matter how barbaric or sadistic, legitimate. Couple any noun with the preceding adjective "Hamas" and it will be immediately quarantined as if tainted by some infectious bacteria. This is how to dehumanize a million and a half people overnight; how to render them different from us and dangerous to us.

More from the always perceptive and eloquent Loewenstein here.

Germany attacks Warsaw Ghetto

Illustrating the merciless power of the Luftwaffe:

Israeli aircraft attacked police and security installations across the Gaza Strip, killing scores of people in the deadliest raid in the coastal region since the 1967 War, security and medical officials said.

As many as 200 people were killed and 750 injured, including women and children, Mu’awia Hassanein, a Palestinian medical-services official in Gaza, said today. Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, called the air strike a massacre and said it would retaliate.

Meanwhile, Vidkun Quisling does his best to ensure the Wermacht isn't unduly inconvenienced:

In sending forces to block anti-Israel protests Saturday, Abbas' government signaled that it is determined to prevent the unrest from spreading. Abbas coordinates some security with Israel and has held peace talks with Israel for the past year. ...

In the West Bank town of Ramallah, just a few hundred meters from Abbas' home, club-wielding Palestinian policemen in white helmets formed a cordon to keep back about 200 Palestinians throwing rocks at an Israeli checkpoint.

And this is just one of the groups of Untermenschen—friends of mine—for whom they've switched from siege warfare and psychological torture to bombing:

It's been six years since I took this picture, and I can only hope they're all still alive and in good health after the hell they've been subjected to by this vicious colonial power.

Sharing is caring

Steve Burns generously offered me a holiday gift of the following article by Beau Friedlander, which he calls "pure comedy gold," though for the life of me I can't find anything the smallest bit objectionable about it:

Here's what's missing from the grouch and brainstorm so rife among the dyspeptic tide of liberal resentment: a coherent thought. Obama is precisely who we wanted. He's going to deliver the promised change, and we just can't see it. And that's how it should be, folks, because if we could see what Obama sees, we wouldn't need a transformative leader. Remember, we elected him because he had the vision thing. ...

Rick Warren was the perfect choice. Obama is not throwing the LGBT community under Rosa Parks's bus. He's doing what Markos Moulitsas and Jerome Armstrong advocated in their book Crashing the Gate. He's saying to the lefty throng: I'll take care of your needs later. Right now, let's get everyone on the same page. The page we want everyone on right now is the one that says the president-elect can do no wrong. Once we're there, he can be an incredible ally to the LGBT community and realize the many promises he made during the election cycle.

See what I mean?  Nothing interesting there, right?  Steve offered this commentary, which I believe is meant to explain the joke:

At first, I thought it was a parody, but now I think the guy's really serious. Three phrases I expect to hear more often in the future:

1) if we could see what Obama sees, we wouldn't need a transformative leader.

2) I'll take care of your needs later

and:

3) The page we want everyone on right now is the one that says the president-elect can do no wrong.

Huh.  I'm still not sure what he felt was so funny about this article—something about parody and maybe Obama, I guess?  "Dyspeptic" is an amusing word, and "lgbt" is pretty crazy-looking and has no vowels at all (Polish?) so I suppose that's kind of funny.  Maybe that's it.  Anyway, Steve's a smart guy, so I'm sure it must be something.  And gifts should be shared, right?  So, enjoy!

And a Merry Christmas, Chappy Chanukah, and Kool Kwanzaa to y'all.

Media thesaurus

The media informs us that holiday travelers are both stymied and vexed.  No word yet as to whether they're also nettled, irked, or flummoxed.  Let's just hope they don't feel bamboozled.

77 percent of Americans are total goobs

According to CNN, that is:

Twenty-three percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday say that Cheney is the country's worst vice president, when compared with his predecessors.

Or maybe I've got it all wrong and the rest were thinking of Aaron Burr or Spiro Agnew.

"A force of freedom and a force for peace"

Here's what George Bush said at his press conference last week in Iraq, shortly before Muntadhar al-Zaidi humiliated him in front of the entire world:

This is a future of what we've been fighting for -- a strong and capable democratic Iraq that will be a force of freedom and a force for peace ...

And this is what's happened to al-Zaidi since he was brutally beaten by Iraqi security forces and taken into custody:

One of Zaidi's brothers, Uday, told AFP he had been able to visit him in custody for the first time on Sunday and charged that the journalist had been tortured by his captors "for 36 hours continuously" and forced to sign a statement.

"He has been hit with iron rods and cables," the brother said.

"There is very severe bleeding in his eye, and he has bruises on his feet and nose, and he was also tortured with electric shocks.

"He was forced to sign a statement confessing to receiving money from different groups and saying that he did not throw his shoes for the honor of Iraq."

Yes, thank goodness we've been fighting for a strong and capable democratic Iraq that will be a force of freedom and a force for peace.  You can only imagine what might have happened to al-Zaidi otherwise.

NEW YORK TIMES POWER-SERVICING BONUS: If anyone can reconcile these two consecutive paragraphs from the New York Times article about al-Zaidi's torture, I'd love to hear how:

Uday al-Zaidi said his brother had said: "After the torture and the cold-water shower, I told them to bring me a blank sheet of paper and I would sign it, and they could write whatever they wanted. I am ready to say I am a terrorist or whatever you want."

But Muntader al-Zaidi told his brother that the men had stopped beating him and did not force him to write or sign anything. The journalist said that a letter to the prime minister written by him from jail expressing regret for the attack had not been coerced, his brother said. It was unclear if this was the same letter Mr. Maliki referred to.

I'm always impressed at how far the Times will go to pass along official spin, but this is really above and beyond the call of duty, like they just allowed the Iraqi government to insert a paragraph into the article wherever they wanted.

On the importance of thrown shoes

I've spent far more time this weekend considering the import of a brief comment by Rick Perlstein than I ever have in the past, or ever want to again.  If you haven't already seen what I'm talking about and are feeling masochistic, you can take a look here.  I warn you, though, it could be painful.

You may be astonished or even horrified to hear that what I wrote there only scratches the surface of what I was thinking about this issue, which I feel is actually worth some serious thought.  If my fragile psyche recovers, I may write it up at greater length here (and possibly cross-post it at ATR to give people there a chance to gnaw on me some more).

Why do bad things happen to good people

Carol Chomsky, Noam's wife of 59 years, died on Friday.  All love, respect, condolences, and strength to him and the rest of their family.

I've thought many times of the personal sacrifices Noam Chomsky has made over the years to give so much of himself to all of us.  But they weren't his alone—they were in large part his family's as well, and in particular his wife's.  So to Carol, too late: thank you so much for making those sacrifices for millions of complete strangers, like me.  It's made a real difference.

The Boston Globe has a good obituary, with a look at both her remarkable personal and professional life.

ADDING: My grandparents were married for 70 years.  In the last few years of her life, my grandmother had Alzheimer's.  My grandfather was the last person she could recognize...and even after she no longer seemed to, he'd go to her bedside and hold her hand, and call her his sweetheart, and beam at her like they were still 18, not in their 90's.  She was so much a part of him that when she finally died we knew he wouldn't be with us very much longer either, and it was true.

I can only imagine what it must be like to wake up that first morning and know that your companion of 70 years, or 59, is no longer there with you and never will be again.

Light posting

It's, like, the holidays, man, and I'm feeling the need for some vacating, so posting will probably be light around here for the next week or so.

(Of course the last time I said this I ended up doing three postings a day, so who knows?  But that's the plan right now.)

Support the Shministim

December 18th is the day of action for the Shministim—Israeli high school students who've been imprisoned multiple times for refusing to serve in the Israeli army.  In the words of one of them, "I will not lend my own hand to the occupation and to acts that contradict my most basic values: human rights, democracy and the personal responsibility each and every human being bears towards fellow human beings."

Please take a minute to send a letter to the Israeli government telling them that people with this kind of courage and integrity should be honored, not thrown in jail.

The hits just keep coming

I didn't know much about Obama's choice for Interior Secretary (Ken Salazar), but all the information I needed was contained in these two paragraphs from the New York Times article about the appointment ("Environmentalists Wary of Obama's Interior Pick"):

Oil and mining interests praised Mr. Salazar’s performance as a state official and as a senator, saying that he was not doctrinaire about the use of public lands. "Nothing in his record suggests he’s an ideologue," said Luke Popovich, spokesman for the National Mining Association. "Here’s a man who understands the issues, is open-minded and can see at least two sides of an issue." ...

"He is a right-of-center Democrat who often favors industry and big agriculture in battles over global warming, fuel efficiency and endangered species," said Kieran Suckling, executive director of Center for Biological Diversity, which tracks endangered species and habitat issues. "He is very unlikely to bring significant change to the scandal-plagued Department of Interior. It’s a very disappointing choice for a presidency which promised visionary change."

Oil and mining interests happy?  Check.  Environmentalists unhappy?  Check.  Yes, I believe I get the picture.  The usual translation applies, by the way: "ideologue" = someone insufficiently dedicated to advancing corporate interests.  I'm sure Suckling, as an actual environmentalist, qualifies.

But this is the most important paragraph in the article:

Mr. Salazar, wearing his customary ten-gallon hat and bolo tie, said that his job entails helping the nation address climate change through a "moon shot" on energy independence. But that would include not just the development of "green" energy sources like wind power, but also the continued domestic development of coal, oil and natural gas, fossil fuels that generate greenhouse gases when they are burned.

Addressing climate change through the continued development of coal is like addressing drug addiction through the continued freebasing of heroin.  Handwaving about the unicorn of "clean coal" aside, though, Obama has done nothing but genuflect to coal and mining interests, and this is just one more bow.  But why should we worry?  It's not like the fate of the entire planet hangs in the balance.  Oh, wait.

So Obama's record of flipping off his liberal supporters remains unbroken.  You've got to admire him; it takes real talent to pull off such a thoroughgoing bait-and-switch, and Obama not only did it but made it look easy.  The guy's a pro—in every sense of the word.

Separated at birth

      

Scary, isn't it?

Hedges on Gaza

Here's Chris Hedges on Israel's 'Crime Against Humanity' in Gaza.  As I mentioned a few days ago, the quote is from the UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, Richard Falk.  Israel's response to Falk's criticism was to expel him from the country; Falk himself is Jewish, but apparently in Israel blood isn't thicker than keeping your damn mouth shut.

For another example of what Falk has done to so anger the Sparta of the Middle East, see this article of his ("Slouching toward a Palestinian Holocaust").

I sometimes feel bad for Israel because it was unfortunate enough to have its colonial period overlap with a tremendous awakening in the world to the primacy of human rights. But as much as Israelis might want to turn the clock back so they can kill and steal in peace, it's just not going to happen—and Israel will remain a pariah (and the primary source of anti-Semitism) until it finally gives up on its decades-long project of ethnic cleansing.

"Here is your goodbye kiss, dog!"

You've probably already seen it by now, but I don't mind—this is just too wonderful to pass up:

Thank you, Iraqi hero.

But the best part: moments later Bush suffered the even greater humiliation of signing the Status of Forces agreement that he'd fought against tooth and nail for the past eleven months, which may well finally release Iraq from the deadly embrace of the United States.  For a walk down memory lane, here's what Bush wanted and here's what he got (pdf).

An Israeli hero speaks

Here's Jeff Halper, the founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, talking about the welcome he received from Palestinians in Gaza when he arrived there with the Free Gaza movement:

We all received a tremendous welcome from the Palestinian Gazans – 40,000 came out to greet us as we entered the port! As, unfortunately, the only Israeli Jew (two more have since sailed to Gaza), I was sought out by Gazans who wanted to communicate with me – in Hebrew – how much they yearned for a just peace in which all the inhabitants of the country could live together in peace. I was struck by how non-political their discourse was. No accusations, no political programs, just a deep desire to get beyond this superfluous conflict to a life good for everyone. This, it seems to me, is a solid foundation upon which a just peace can be built.

This is exactly the kind of thing I heard in Gaza (and the West Bank) as well, over and over, from nearly everyone I met.  It couldn't possibly have been a greater contrast to the stereotype of Palestinians we're inundated with here, and I'm very happy (but not at all surprised) to hear they've held on to this spirit of almost unimaginable generosity despite Israel's every effort to destroy it.  This is why I not only believe but know without a doubt that the Israelis could have peace right now if they really wanted it.

The entire interview is worth reading.  I have enormous respect for Halper, both for this action (illegal, for an Israeli) and for what he's done with ICAHD over the past decade.  If I ever feel myself succumbing even slightly to the urge to paint all Israelis with the same brush, all it takes to snap me out of it is to think about the thousands of people like Halper who work tirelessly to stop their country's crimes.

But what about Martian invasion?

Barack Obama is apparently developing a fondness for his future Secretary of State's threat to totally obliterate Iran, if this is to be believed:

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's administration will offer Israel a "nuclear umbrella" against the threat of a nuclear attack by Iran, a well-placed American source said earlier this week. The source, who is close to the new administration, said the U.S. will declare that an attack on Israel by Tehran would result in a devastating U.S. nuclear response against Iran.

Of course you'd think it wouldn't be quite so critical to put this warning out there until Iran actually a) you know, developed nuclear weapons and b) showed any indication whatsoever that it's suicidal enough to use them against a nation that has 200 nuclear weapons of its own.  But when you're about to assume control of the most powerful nation on earth, it's never too early to declare your willingness to commit genocide, no matter how ludicrous the premise.

So why stop with a "nuclear umbrella"? I can think of plenty of equally likely threats against Israel that deserve, nay, demand preemptive security vows from the Obama administration:

• Airdrop of plague-infested wombats by Australia
• Intense Ukrainian slingshot fusillade
• Poisoning of entire gefilte fish supply by Brazil
• Amphibious deployment of very unfriendly dogs by Malaysia

Call me an idealist, but if our nation can provide a "wombat condom" for poor defenseless Israel then I think it's our moral responsibility to do so.

[ Thanks to Erin for the pointer to the original article. ]

And the award for the day's best quote goes to...

...Dennis Perrin, for this instant classic: "Whining is the sound liberals make before they submit to their rulers."

Inside the mind of Tzipi Livni

Here's Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni discussing the situation in Gaza:

"A [military] response is important; even if it doesn't automatically end the Palestinian rocket fire, there is something important in the impression, and Israel's deterrence ability," she said during a conference in Tel Aviv. ...

"If Hamas knows that Israel won't be quiet when missiles fall on Ashkelon, they will feel the responsibility on their shoulders," she said, adding that she is "ashamed to call what is currently happening a ceasefire."

And just what is Israel doing in Gaza?

The former high commissioner for human rights, Mary Robinson has said that in Gaza, nothing short of a "civilisation" is being destroyed. Desmond Tutu has called it "an abomination". The humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, Maxwell Gaylard, said that in Gaza there was a "massive assault" on human rights. Most recently, the European commissioner, Louis Michel, described the blockade of Gaza as a "form of collective punishment against Palestinian civilians, which is a violation of international humanitarian law".

To which we can add the UN Special Rapporteur's accurate characterization of Israel's actions as a "crime against humanity."

So to recap, things that make Tzipi Livni feel ashamed: Israel's cease-fire with Hamas.  Things that don't make Tzipi Livni feel ashamed: practicing vicious siege warfare on 1.4 million men, women, and children.

A guy who has the uncanny ability to express my innermost thoughts once wrote something that seems particularly appropriate in this case:

[O]ne of the worst things about Israel is the corrosive effect it has on those who claim to support it (both Jewish and otherwise).  It exerts an irresistible magnetic pull on the moral compass of those who embrace its self-aggrandizing mythology, rendering them capable of depths of ethical blindness or outright malevolence that are all the more repellent for the self-righteousness in which they're so typically couched.

SHAME BONUS: Ehud Olmert talks about rampaging Israeli colonists in Hebron:

[Olmert] went on to say, "We are the children of a people whose historic ethos is built on the memory of pogroms. The sight of Jews firing at innocent Palestinians has no other name than pogrom. Even when Jews do this, it is a pogrom. As a Jew, I am ashamed that Jews could do such a thing."

Which qualifies him as slightly more of a human being than Livni.  But here's Olmert on Gaza:

"We haven't done anything in Gaza that we should be ashamed of. If anything, Hamas should be ashamed. There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza."

If only the Jews had an historic ethos built on the memory of collective punishment, so he could also feel ashamed about what he's inflicting on innocent Palestinians in Gaza—you know, something that could make him see why threatening an entire people with a bigger holocaust is wrong.  But without this critical historical referent, Olmert is sadly incapable of feeling any shame for turning Gaza into a huge "ghetto."