Prop 8 – the Musical

This is brilliant, from Funnyordie: “Prop 8 – The Musical”

It’s on Youtube as well:

 

Everyday life is funny…

Lev Yilmaz is the creator of Tales of Mere Existence, he has the rare ability of putting what everyone goes through and has thought, at least once. Or maybe it’s just me, and a few other dozen people… you be the judge:

And if that didn’t do it for you, this should:

 

Like that? I am holding the book “Sunny Side Down”. If you liked those, you will LOVE the book.  I highly recommend it!

One more, enjoy!:

 

Designer Masks

I am seriously thinking it would be a great investment to make a line of designer Masks. With drawings, words, flags, etc. Somebody has to win with this outbreak, right?

 

“You are…”

“You are beautiful”

“You are so smart!”

“You are Jewish”

“You are MY daughter”

What if I don’t want to be those things? Do we even have a choice?

I woun’t keep you in suspense: Yes, we do.

True: at first we become alienated by that which the Others (our mother, our father, sitter, whoever takes the role of that significant Other) say we are, pointing at a seemingly unified image in the mirror, and we become that. That is a lovable image.

Or maybe not… maybe they tell us we are useless, ugly, etc. We can become alienated to that image as well. Even though it does not seem like a good thing, it still gives us a place in the world.

To make a long story short, we reside in that spot someone pointed out for us for  a while. Maybe forever if we are confortable. But some of us find that there’s something odd about it, that not everything about us fits into that image we built, or was built for us.

We might have, what they call “Panick attacks”, symptoms, etc. But we know womething doesn’t add up. That’s when that, ”I know who I am” we used to fall back on, turns into, “I don”t know who I am”, and then a question.

Some people answer it through psychoanalysis, some people do it by themselves through art, or other type of acts. But we come out of that process stronger, no dounbt about that, we might not get all the answers, but we know we can’t have them all. The fiction is over and we can just be.

 

We are here!

Hey everyone!

Long time no read… I know, school, work, exams. Things have been looking pretty good from here.

From where you ask?

HERE:

What? can’t you see me? That’s fine, I can’t see you either! ha!

SO I was just forwarded this amazing video by the great Carl Sagan:

Here’s a part from his speech:

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe:, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

He was pretty damn smart, wasn’t he?

Just something to think about… I’ll elaborate on that later, gotta run!(literally)

Thank you for reading, whoever you are… feel free to introduce yourself (please do!), so I know I’m not just some crazy person “talking to myself”, and I only a crazy person singing to myself.

 

We reap just what we sow

A friend forwarded this amazing 2003 documentary: Earthlings. Narrated by Joaquin Phoenix and featuring original score by musician and activist Moby.

As far back as I can remember, I wanted to be a vegetarian. I tried when I was around 8… but all members of my family are meat eaters, I had to wait. Almost 2 years ago I decided to go for it, and I couldn’t be happier with my decision. I keep having to answer this question over and over again: why? And it’s true, if I was to start explaining all my reasons to everyone, I would get the typical: “don’t, you’ll spoil my dinner”. Information is available, but most simply don’t want to know, and try to keep their conscience clean when they are dowing their juicy steak.

As the video states, there are 3 stages of truth: Ridicule, Violent Opposition and Acceptance. In order to get there, we first need to be willing to be exposed to the truth. Here is a big part of it:

No matter how many times I’ve heard and watched things of this sort, it never ceases to amaze and outrage me what our species does to others. The footage is uncensored and very hard to watch sometimes, if you are a meat eater, I suggest you don’t watch it after of before a meal… but I do think everyone should watch this, and make an informed decision about what they wear, eat and entertain theirselves with.

I particularly liked this quote, by Leo Tolstoy: “As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields”

You can also find the video and the download with subtitles HERE.

 

That always fashionable argument…

The following is a excerpt from Philip Roth’s 1990 novel Deception. I felt completely in sync with this dialogue, I could have taken part in it, except I am not an American writer living in London. It seems like there are not that many differences between being a Jew in Argentina today, and being an American Jew in England almost 20 years back…

‘Why does everybody around here hate Israel so much? Can you explain that to me? I have an argument every time I go out now. And I come home in a fury and can’t sleep all night. I am allied, in one way or another, with the planet’s two greatest scourges, Israel and America. let’s grant that Israel is a terrible country – ‘

‘But I won’t.’

‘But let’s grant it. Still, there are many countries that are far more terrible. Yet the hostility to Israel is almost universay among the people I meet’

‘I have never been able to understand it myself. It seems to me one of the most curious freaks of modern history. Because it’s just an article of faith among left and left of center, isn’t it?’

‘But why?’

‘I simply don’t understand it.’

‘Do you ever ask people?’

‘Yes, often.’

‘And what do they say? Because of the way they treat Arabs. That is the greatest crime in all human history.’

‘Oh, sure, that’s what they say. I don’t believe a word of it. I think it’s one of the most extraordinary pieces of hypocrisy in human history.’

‘Do they know Arabs?’

‘Of course they don’t. In English high culture, you could say it’s because of this Foreign Office fantasy about Arabs. and Lawrence of Arabia, all this, coupled with a serious knowledge of Arab interests, and families with all sorts of contacts with sheikhs and who still get watches for Christmas and all that rubbish. It’s a kind of feudal thing which the British quite like. You know, out boys and their boys. But that’s sort of establishment – the actual antagonism comes from the so-called intelligentsia of this country.’

‘And what do you think is at the root of it?’

‘I don’t think it’s anti-Semitism.’

‘No?’

‘Not in the main, no. It’s just the fashinable left. They’re very depressing. I can only come yo the conclusion that some people are do wedded to certain unrealistic ideas of human justice and human rights that they can’t make concessions to necessity of any kind. In other words, if you’re an Israeli you must live by the highest standards and therefore you can’t do anything really, just go back and turn the other cheek, like J.C. said. But also it seems to me an unspoken corollary that you criticize most harshly the people who actually behave best, or the least badly. It’s quite banal, isn’t it? These hotheaded people disapprove selectively and most strongly of the least reprehensible things. It’s just unreal, isn’t it? I think it has to do with the last gasp of romantic hatred of the twentieth century. But it’s not really as strong in this country as you may think.’

‘You think not.’

‘I’m sure not.’

‘Well I’d feel much better if that’s true. About this country, and about you too.’

Laughter.

 

The Whore of Mensa

The following is a story I find absolutely brilliant, by the most neurotic New Yorker: Woody Allen, from his book, Without Feathers (1975). Enjoy!:

The Whore of Mensa

One thing about being a private investigator, you’ve got to learn to go with your hunches. That’s why when a quivering pat of butter named Word Babcock walked into my office and laid his cards on the table, I should have trusted the cold chill that shot up my spine.

“Kaiser?” he said. “Kaiser Lupowitz?”

“That’s what it says on my license,” I owned up.

“You’ve got to help me. I’m being blackmailed. Please!”

He was shaking like the lead singer in a rumba band. I pushed a glass across the desk top and a bottle of rye I keep handy for nonmedicinal purposes. “Suppose you relax and tell me all about it.”

“You … you won’t tell my wife?”

“Level with me, Word. I can’t make any promises.”

He tried pouring a drink, but you could hear the clicking sound across the street, and most of the stuff wound up in his shoes.

“I’m a working guy,” he said. “Mechanical maintenance. I build and service joy buzzers. You know – those little fun gimmicks that give people a shock when they shake hands?”

“So?”

“A lot of your executives like ‘em. Particularly down on Wall Street.”

“Get to the point.”

“I’m on the road a lot. You know how it is – lonely. Oh, not what you’re thinking. See, Kaiser, I’m basically an intellectual. Sure, a guy can meet all the bimbos he wants. But the really brainy women – they’re not so easy to find on short notice.”

“Keep talking.”

“Well, I heard of this young girl. Eighteen years old. A Yassar student. For a price, she’ll come over and discuss any subject – Proust, Yeats, anthropology. Exchange of ideas. You see what I’m driving at?”

“Not exactly.”

“I mean my wife is great, don’t get me wrong. But she won’t discuss Pound with me. Or Eliot. I didn’t know that when I married her. See, I need a woman who’s mentally stimulating, Kaiser. And I’m willing to pay for it. I don’t want an involvement – I want a quick intellectual experience, then I want the girl to leave. Christ, Kaiser, I’m a happily married man.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“Six months. Whenever I have that craving, I call Flossie. She’s a madam, with a Master’s in Comparative Lit. She sends me over an intellectual, see?”

So he was one of those guys whose weakness was really bright women. I felt sorry for the poor sap. I figured there must be a lot of jokers in his position, who were starved for a little intellectual communication with the opposite sex and would pay through the nose for it.

“Now she’s threatening to tell my wife,” he said.

“Who is?”

“Flossie. They bugged the motel room. They got tapes of me discussing The Waste Land and Styles of Radical Will, and, well, really getting into some issues. They want ten grand or they go to Carla. Kaiser, you’ve got to help me! Carla would die if she knew she didn’t turn me on up here.”

The old call-girl racket. I had heard rumors that the boys at headquarters were on to something involving a group of educated women, but so far they were stymied.

“Get Flossie on the phone for me.”

“What?”

“I’ll take your case, Word. But I get fifty dollars a day, plus expenses. You’ll have to repair a lot of joy buzzers.”

“It won’t be ten G’s worth, I’m sure of that,” he said with a grin, and picked up the phone and dialed a number. I took it from him and winked. I was beginning to like him.

 

And she fights for her life… with elegance

I’ve been dealing with a much too serious subject lately. Considering it’s only the begining of the year and summer vacations here in Argentina, thought I’d change it up a bit and keep it lighter  - at least for a few posts.

I just love this video and the song, by Oren Lavie: I wish I could be that graceful in the mornings (or all day long for that matter):

Want to sing along?

Sun been down for days
A pretty flower in a vase
A slipper by the fireplace
A cello lying in its case

Soon she’s down the stairs
Her morning elegance she wears
The sound of water makes her dream
Awoken by a cloud of steam
She pours a daydream in a cup
A spoon of sugar sweetens up

And she fights for her life
as she puts on her coat
And she fights for her life on the train
She looks at the rain
as it pours
And she fights for her life
as she goes in a store
with a thought she has caught
by a thread
she pays for the bread
and she goes…
Nobody knows

Sun been down for days
A winter melody she plays
The thunder makes her contemplate
She hears a noise behind the gate
Perhaps a letter with a dove
Perhaps a stranger she could love

And she fights for her life
as she puts on her coat
And she fights for her life on the train
She looks at the rain
as it pours
And she fights for her life
as she goes in a store
where the people are pleasantly
strange
and counting the change
as she goes…
Nobody knows

 

Words are the most powerfull weapon

From Jpost, by Irwin Cotler:

The Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers – it began with words

On this United Nations International Holocaust Remembrance Day, words may ease the pain, but they may also dwarf the tragedy. For the Holocaust is uniquely evil in its genocidal singularity, where biology was inescapably destiny, a war against the Jews in which, as Nobel Peace Laureate Elie Wiesel put it, “not all victims were Jews, but all Jews were victims.”

This year, in the immediate aftermath of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the international Magna Carta of human rights born out of the ashes of the Holocaust, and the Genocide Convention – the “Never Again” Convention which has tragically been violated again and again – we should ask ourselves: What have we learned, and what must we do?

Lesson 1 – THE IMPORTANCE OF HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE

The first lesson is the importance of remembrance itself. For as we remember the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust – first defamed, demonized and dehumanized, as prologue or justification for genocide, then murdered – we have to understand that the mass murder of millions is not a matter of abstract statistics. For unto each person there is a name – unto each person there is an identity. Each person is a universe. As both the Talmud and Koran teach us, whoever saves a single life, it is as if he or she has saved an entire universe – just as whoever has killed a single person, it is as if they have destroyed an entire universe. And so the abiding imperative: that we are each, wherever we are, the guarantors of each other’s destiny.

Lesson 2 – THE DANGER OF STATE-SANCTIONED INCITEMENT TO HATRED AND GENOCIDE: THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PREVENT IT

The enduring lesson of the Holocaust and the genocides that followed is that they occurred not simply because of the machinery of death, but because of a state-sanctioned ideology of hate. This teaching of contempt, this demonizing of the other – this is where it all begins. As the Canadian Supreme Court recognized, in words echoed by the international criminal tribunals in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers – it began with words. These, as the courts put it, are the chilling facts of history. These are the catastrophic effects of racism.

Sixty years later, these lessons not only remained unlearned, but the tragedies have been repeated. For we were all bystanders during a growing state-sponsored hate in the Balkans, Rwanda and Darfur that took us down the road to genocide.

At present, we are witnessing yet another state-sanctioned incitement to hate and genocide, whose epicentre is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran – denying the Nazi Holocaust as it incites to a Middle Eastern one.

This constitutes a direct violation of the overriding prohibition in international law against the direct and public incitement to genocide, and a clear legal trigger for the international community to intervene in fulfilment of its obligation to prevent genocide, as established in the Genocide Convention.

As one involved as Minister of Justice in Canada in the prosecution of Rwandan incitement, I can state that the aggregate of precursors of incitement in the Iranian case are more threatening than were those in the Rwandan one.

Lesson 3 – THE DANGERS OF SILENCE, THE CONSEQUENCES OF INDIFFERENCE: THE DUTY TO PROTECT

Indeed, the genocide of European Jewry succeeded not only because of a culture of hate and an industry of death, but because of crimes of indifference and conspiracies of silence. And we have witnessed an appalling indifference and inaction in our own day which took us down the road to the unthinkable – ethnic cleansing in the Balkans – and down the road to the unspeakable – the preventable genocides in Rwanda and Darfur. No one can say that we did not know. We knew, but we did not act in Rwanda, just as we know and do not act in Darfur, ignoring thereby the lessons of history, betraying the people of Darfur, and mocking the Responsibility to Protect doctrine.

And so, it is our responsibility to break down these walls of indifference, to shatter these conspiracies of silence – to stand up and be counted and not look around to see who else is standing before we make a decision to do so; because in the world in which we live, there are few enough people prepared to stand, let alone be counted. Indifference always means coming down on the side of the victimizer, never on the side of the victim.

Let there be no mistake about it: indifference in the face of evil is acquiescence with evil itself – it is complicity with evil.

Lesson 4 – COMBATING MASS ATROCITY AND THE CULTURE OF IMPUNITY: THE RESPONSIBILITY TO BRING WAR CRIMINALS TO JUSTICE

If the last century – symbolized by the Holocaust – was the age of atrocity, it was also the age of impunity. Few of the perpetrators were brought to justice; and so, just as there must be no sanctuary for hate, no refuge for bigotry, there must be no base or sanctuary for these enemies of humankind. In this context, the establishment of the International Criminal Court must be seen as the most dramatic development in international criminal law since Nuremberg. But it requires active support to prevent it from being another opportunity for impunity.

One need look no further than the case of Ahmed Haroun, the Sudanese Minister of the Interior indicted for his direct role in the war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated in Darfur, who was then cynically rewarded for this indictment by being appointed Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs and made responsible for hearing the human rights complaints from the very victims he had assaulted.

LESSON 5 – THE TRAHISON DES CLERCS

Nazism succeeded, not only because of the “bureaucratization of genocide,” as Robert Lifton put it, but because of the trahison des clercs – the complicity of the elites: physicians, church leaders, judges, lawyers, engineers, architects, educators and the like. As Elie Wiesel put it: “Cold-blooded murder and culture did not exclude each other. If the Holocaust proved anything, it is that a person can both love poems and kill children.”

Those of us to who have been entrusted with the education and training of the elites should ensure that Elie Wiesel is studied in schools of law and not just in classes of literature; and that the double entendre of Nuremberg – of Nuremberg racism as well as the Nuremberg Principles – is as much a part of our learning as it is a part of our legacy.

CONCLUSION

We should reaffirm today that never again will we be indifferent to racism and hate; that never again will we be silent in the face of evil; that never again will we ignore the plight of the vulnerable; that never again will we acquiesce in the face of mass atrocity and impunity. We will speak and we will act against racism, against hate, against anti-Semitism, against mass atrocity, against injustice – and against the crime whose name we should shudder even to mention: genocide.

May this day be not only an act of remembrance, which it is, but a reminder to act, which it must be.