Lesson learned

For any of you with a shiny new digital camera, please heed this advice: Don't put it in your back pocket! Crack-crack-crack...

Now I go pack for my move. Ugh.

Jackfruit and Anat

I have a new camera! You know what that means: I can take photos of random boring things in my life and inflict them on y'all!

Like the other day when I went to Jackson Heights ("Little India") for dinner. I stepped into a total dive where the food comes in disposable dishes. But while I usually think of Indian food as okay but nothing special, this chana masala was great, it melted in my mouth like butter. I don't know what that analogy means, sticking butter in my mouth sounds gross, but this was good. And on my way home, I saw a hella huge jackfruit -- I've never seen the actual whole fruit, only eaten stuff from a can. Too big to buy, though.

Last night I met Anat, a coworker of my aunt's from Israel who's visiting New York. We went to Cafe Wha? which has great music, but she got tired and left near midnight, only halfway through the set. I thought of going back for the music by myself, but there was a sign on the door that said "Unaccompanied males not allowed". Hm. Here's a really cute picture of Anat.

Net neutrality

You may have heard that internet neutrality is under attack. Currently, any person or website is equally accessible by everyone. The telecommunications companies over whose network the internet run want to start charging companies for preferential treatment. That way big corporations can pay for fast connections, while everyone else with stuff for the web will run slower. Profitable for the telecoms, but an end to the neutral, democratic nature of the internet.

I bring this up not just because you should tell your senators to support net neutrality, but because Moby is funny. While you'd think he could get better actors and editors than what looks like a couple of high school friends, he remains quite funny when paired with a tree. See what I mean for yourself.

(By the way, 350 people died in Lebanon and the whole world is freaking out. Where were they as four million people died in Congo, more than in any war since World War 2? How many readers of this blog even know what happened in Congo?)

Who is in Abu Ghraib?

From The Washington Post:

The unit... was known for "grabbing whole villages, because combat soldiers [were] unable to figure out who was of value and who was not"... Its indiscriminate detention of Iraqis filled Abu Ghraib prison...

A member of a psychological operations... filed a formal complaint about how its soldiers treated Iraqis. He said detention practices were capricious, sometimes based on the whim of the commander or because more than $100 in Iraqi dinars had been found in someone's possession.

A few months later... the staff sergeant overseeing the interrogation section... was reprimanded after an Iraqi was beaten with a baton while being questioned. [The seargent's superior responded that the seargent] took the actions he did, partially, due to his perception of the command climate of the division as a whole." He noted, for example, that division leaders had made comments such as, "They are terrorists, and will be treated as such."

"Personnel at the ICE regularly see detainees who are, in essence, hostages," he charged. "They are normally arrested by coalition forces because they are family of individuals who have been targeted by a brigade based on accusations that may or may not be true, to be released, supposedly, when and if the targeted individual surrenders to coalition forces." In fact, he said, the U.S. military tended not to keep its end of the bargain because the detention system was so badly operated: "In reality, these detainees are transferred to Abu Ghraib prison and become lost in the coalition detention system regardless of whether the targeted individual surrenders himself."

A later review by the office of the Army inspector general said interrogators reported "detainees arriving at the cage badly beaten. Many beatings occurred after the detainees were zip-tied."

(The article also talks about a detainee that was murdered after voluntarily turning himself in, but the murderer was not charged because "He was a cook, he didn't get proper training, and this detainee was very aggressive, a bad guy." The article also talks about an officer who, in revenge for the killing of a solider, stopped a random pickup truck, handcuffed the people, and threw them into a river, where at least one of them drowned. The officer was not charged.)

Moving, but not far

I am moving at the end of the month. Goodbye, gross roommates! Goodbye, evil roommate who just can't stop lying, you big liar, you keep lying to my face but I don't call you on it because what's the point? Selfish bastard, not to mention involved in a criminal enterprise.

Yeah, it's like three blocks away. But it's way better for the same price. I feel a little like a sucker for staying here, and feel like whoever I get to replace me is also a sucker. How honest should I be about people who come to see it? I don't want to be a shmuck, but if I start saying that this place is awful then I'll probably be stuck paying for two rents for a month. Ok, stream-of-consciousness ends here.

I saw A Scanner Darkly. Interesting idea, but not well executed. First, why'd they make it into a cartoon? I know, he's on drugs so it's supposed to be trippy or make you wonder about what's real, but it's more distracting that anything, it would be much better to see the actual people. Another big problem was that Keanu Reeves kind of looks confused in all his movies, so I never really got the feel that he was on drugs and losing touch with reality. He was just... Keanu. Plus, there was no momentum, no tension, always felt like it was going nowhere, and even when plot twists happened there was no sense of shock, it just didn't come together right. A shame, really, because the underlying story is pretty good. Woody Harrelson and Morton Downey Junior were funny though. Would have been funnier live than as a cartoon.

Speaking of live vs. cartoon, for any Simpson's fans...

Moving! Also Hezbollah. And commitment issues.

Ok, here's a question for you. If you're dating someone for a long time, but that person just can't commit, doesn't know if you're the one for them, what do you do? How long do you keep going until you give up? How do you make the determination?

At the end of the month, I'm moving. Fed up with my conniving, lying, using roommate who takes advantage of others but never shows the slightest but of consideration for anyone other than herself, I'm outta here. Did I mention that she let someone else stay in my locked room while I was on vacation, and refused to pay for the mirror that person broke? She also won't give me contact info for that person. Or the copy of my room key. She is just bad. Ok, enough venting, the point is I have a new place, just a block away but way better, the room is huge and the roommates (just one) are not disgusting. Makes me think I was a sucker for thinking I was getting a deal here.

The flip-side is that I need to find someone to take my room, and finding another sucker may be tough. Also, who's going to help me move? Any takers? Just a block or two away?

The heat is deadly. After working all day yesterday and today on some investigation that broke in Missouri (which is why I didn't have a chance to blog), too busy to leave the house, I finally had a breather and went to Flushing to work in the air-conditioned Starbucks (and tried the green tea latte, not bad). Had to come back to show the place and, again armed with a breather from work, installed the air conditioner. Finally, I am not covered in several layers of perspiration. Now the key is never to step out.

I also ordered a new camera, the Canon SD600.

Ok, all this is boring you, I'm starting to sound like my sister's blog. All this fighting in Lebanon is getting to me. On the one hand, it's clearly justified. Israel was attacked, and Hezbollah continues to rain missiles on its cities purposefully trying to kill innocent civillians. Of course Israel needs to fight them and weaken them militarily. Their demands are so reasonable -- release the kidnapped soldier and stop attacking. On the other hand, 200 Lebanese have died, mostly civilians, far Hezbollah's civilian toll in spite of the fact that they're trying to hit innocents. Is it really worth the cost? I'm beginning to wonder. Indeed, it's so looking like the kidnapping was a pretext for Israel to start a war with Hezbollah that's they've been ready to do for some time.

Then again, I look at those who support Hamas and Hezbollah and just marvel, the way I do at Bush supporters. What the hell is wrong with you? Are you just evil incarnate, or what? You look at the massacre of innocent people and smile? You right-wing freaks?

Anyway, the real question here is about the commitment thing, let me know what you think.

Blithe and Bonny

Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.

This song from Much Ado About Nothing has been in my head. So I looked up the complete song, and found it so very sexist.

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.

Sing no more ditties, sing no more,
Of dumps so dull and heavy;
The fraud of men was ever so,
Since summer first was leafy.

I guess it shouldn't surprise me, considering his virulently anti-Semitic themes, and such appalling sexism as in Taming of the Shrew where a man starves his wife into submission. By comparison, this song must seem tame, and I expect that sexism still runs so strong today that many people wouldn't have a problem with it. (Do you?)

Still, when you're feeling down, just remember to be you blithe and bonnie...

So, meat causes genital abnormalities...

Hm, interesting article: Artificial hormones in U.S. beef linked to breast cancer, prostate cancer

Here's a quote from Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collin, apparently several members of the band are veg: "It started freaking me out eating dead body parts. The whole Jeffrey Dahmer fridge concept of things was weird. It started when I was a kid, but you know, you have that whole parent propaganda when they say, 'Oh no, you got to eat this, and it’s OK,' and even when you go, 'Well, that chicken is kind of like ... a dog,' and they go, 'Come on, eat, eat, eat your meat,' and I always felt kind of uncomfortable." That so reminds me of being a kid and trying not to think about the fact that my food had veins and tendons in it.

Yum, strudel

You know the "at-sign", that little "@" used in email addresses? Where we say "at", in Israel they say "strudel"! They're not alone in having a more playful term for the symbol. In Taiwan they call it "little mouse" (小老鼠). The Czechs call it "zavináč" which is a rolled, pickled herring. Iceland, it's "earmuff". Greeks call it "little duck", Italians call it "snail", Russians call it "dog", and Hungarians call it "worm". The Dutch call it "little monkey tail". Other countries use various modifiers of "A" like "crazy A", "curly A", "fancy A", "lacy A", "circle A", or in Denmark and Sweden it's "snabel A", where "snabel" means "elephant's trunk". Boy, Americans are dull, I guess. Any suggestions for our own term of endearment? Tadpole? Sperm?

Speaking of sperm, one thing I couldn't get used to in Israel was the kissing on both cheeks to say hello. What's up with that? You want to kiss me, you should buy me dinner first :P Ok, I don't think I ever had to pay for my own dinner in Israel, but still...

Speaking of which, I went for hummus at The Hummus Place the other day, the only place in the city with great hummus. I found that, though good, it wasn't as good as Israel's. Oh, well.

Arabs

My memories of my trip to Israel are scattered with small vignettes, which I may sprinkle across the blog in lieu of a narrative travelogue. For example, there was the day visiting Jerusalem--probably the coolest place in Israel with its tiny windy ancient pedestrian streets of stone meandering between old buildings. We walked down one that formed a gentle staircase narrow as a hallway between a string of tourist shops on either side, and Shirley and her kids would go into the shops at the behest of the polite but aggressive shopowners. In one of them, my mother called from outside for them to come out and not buy anything there. She is a loud and bossy person by nature, and she didn't want them to buy something at the first shop they saw. The shopowner, however, became furious and said, "What, they're just looking? Fine, you guys get out, I'm going to eat you. Go, there are Arabs here! We're Arabs here!" I just stared at him. He must have thought that my mother didn't want them shopping at an Arab store, he must have thought she was racist. Sheesh. We didn't even know he was an Arab -- is there a way to tell?

Along a similar thread, I was talking to my uncle one about the conflict with the Palestinians, and he said that peace was hopeless, that the Arabs had been trying to kill the Jews forever and they always would. He said that Raful, a former general and far right-wing politician, once said "A good Arab is a dead Arab." I was shocked at this kind of prejudice and angrily noted that people once spoke like that about Jews, and that like any other group, there are good Arabs and bad Arabs. He said that Arabs are always fighting, and I pointed out that Israeli Arabs don't cause any problems, but he said that once there was a riot among Israeli Arabs. Ugh, come on! It was horrible to hear this kind of hate, and I know it's not representative of Israelis, but it sucks.

Otherwise, Arabs were largely invisible during the trip. Occasionally we'd be driving somewhere and the driver would point and say, that's an Arab village. Or we'd walk by a house being built and hear the workers talking in Arabic.

Back from the holy land

I'm back from Israel, and for those wondering what I saw and did, it's kind of hard to catch up. It was definitely a family trip, with all the annoyances and obligations that go with that. I didn't see anything new or exciting -- the Western Wall, the Dead Sea, Jaffa -- and for most of the trip was without my luggage (poor Shirley never got hers) and had to shop for clothes. Plus I was sick, and with a damaged contact lense was squinting much of the time out of one eye. And, having lost my camera, have no photos to show for it. While on my last trip, 9 years ago, I was struck by the diversity, this time I was struck by the homogeneity: everyone was white! But the food was really good. I even made a new culinary discovery, fatoot, which is cut up malawach (which is like paratha bread) stir-fried with other stuff, like chocolate. Also, the desert was quite beautiful. Amazingly, the kids loved Israel, and never wanted to come back to Columbia. Why the heat, foreign language, blandness, and lack of Taco Bell didn't get to them I can't say.

While there I did two demonstrations against KFC. There were photogrophers from Israel Sun and Ma'ariv, and a writer from Yedioth Aharonoth. There's an article about us in English in the Jerusalem Post, and in Hebrew in NRG and Nana.

It's great to be back in NYC. The energy, the people, the sheer grandeur. We even have hummus and falafel to rival Israel's.