February 10, 2008 archive

I’m going back and looking at the last few years, and like many others here, I’m bringing back past posts because they are still relevant.

This is from July of ’06:

This song has been driving me crazy all night… won’t go away:

GentillyGirl

LAND OF CONFUSION- Genesis 1977

This is the world we live in

And these are the names we’re given

Stand up and let’s start showing

Just where our lives are going to.”

In a stunning display of shameless political calculation, President Harry Truman angrily threatened a Washington Post music critic for panning a performance by Truman’s daughter, Margaret. As reported by the New York Times, Margaret Truman Daniel openly admitted that her father’s fame helped get her concert gigs, and she had already performed before audiences of more than ten thousand, while millions had listened to her on the radio. When she performed at Washington’s Constitution Hall, in December 1950, she thought she had performed well.

But Paul Hume, the music critic of The Washington Post, while praising her personality, wrote that “she cannot sing very well.”

“She is flat a good deal of the time,” Mr. Hume added, concluding that she had no “professional finish.”

Incensed, President Truman dispatched a combative note to Mr. Hume, who released it to the press.

“I have just read your lousy review,” it said in part, adding: “Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you’ll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!”

In the ensuing uproar, reporters pressed Mrs. Daniel for her reaction to her father’s letter. “I’m glad to see that chivalry is not dead,” she told them.

Because it’s well-known that President Truman lacked basic human emotions, his attempt to use his daughter to score political points based on sympathy was much criticized in Democratic blogs.

Straight from the pages of Haaretz, Israel’s oldest daily newspaper.

Twilight Zone / Cut short By Gideon Levy

Here’s a short excerpt:

And to all Israelis, al-Adam says: “Our neighbors are not the Europeans or the Americans. You are our neighbors and we have to watch out for one another. We’re living here and not hurting anyone. For years I brought up my children to live together [with Israelis], telling them we have to live together, and now they don’t believe me anymore.” The farmer says these things while standing amid the ruins of his land, which he had worked and nurtured for two years, having transformed the rocky ground into fruit orchards and fields of vegetables and grains. But it was short-lived: A few weeks ago, bulldozers dispatched by the Civil Administration showed up and destroyed all of his fields and his neighbors’. There went the grapevines and the young fruit trees – all uprooted. The magnificent terraces al-Adam had built were destroyed along with the wells they had dug. Just a few days before Tu Bishvat, Jewish Arbor Day, Israel showed them just how much regard it really has for trees.

The European Union had provided generous aid to these farmers in Beit Ula as part of an extensive development project covering almost 100 dunams (25 acres). The farmers invested their own money and much toil in the project, but in the end, all it took was a few hours of work by the Civil Administration’s bulldozers – accompanied by foreign workers hired as an auxiliary destructive force for Israel – to trample it into oblivion.

It’s not your average Israel vs. Palestine story and it’s heartbreaking.

Just go read it. You’ll understand.

(hat’tip Cranky Old Bitch)