Like-y link-y?
Once again, my links post is insanely long, so I broke it into chunks in the hopes that doing so makes for easier reading. The sections are "Israeli Politics and the Occupied Territories", "World", "U.S. Election", "Other" and "Fun Stuff" (that last one is mostly cooking stuff rather than links).
ISRAELI POLITICS AND THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
WORLD
US ELECTION
Obama's campaign had a conference call about transgender issues! And my friend Julian (angrychihuahua ) was on it!
Younger Jews are less inclined to vote for Obama than older Jews. What's wrong with my generation?
Trust Jon Stewart to make me actually vaguely proud of being from northern Virginia (aka "fake America").
EDIT: And then I remember why I don't: "New VA pharmacy won't sell any contraceptives".
OTHER
Interesting (US-centric) opinion piece about the economic crisis.
Um, Israel, isn't this effectively your penal system discriminating based on physical ability?
FUN STUFF
Last night I went to my friend Mary Ann's for Shabbat dinner. I made some more tabouleh to bring, and rather than get a bag of mint to put in it, I bought a mint plant. I'd intended to get some herbs for my new apartment ever since I walked around the neighborhood before signing my housing contract and saw a plant store a couple blocks away. So now I'm the proud honor of a mint plant and a sage plant. The latter is freaking huge, so I want to use some of it (though for the most part I intend to use it just for tea). At the same time, I accidentally soaked more bulghur than I needed for the tabouleh. Suggestions? I'm thinking of something like these stuffed red peppers, and this squash recipe looks good, too.
The plant store also had seeds, including spinach, and I was seriously tempted to get some because one of the main items I've missed not being in the U.S. is greens - I don't think I've seen fresh spinach, kale, or collard greens since July 2007. That being said, I don't really have a place to grow spinach, and besides that, while my preferred greens aren't available, the situation isn't quite as "dire" as I'm making out. Last week, actually, I made a stir-fry with eggplant, mushroom, carrots, and what I think are mustard greens (plus garlic, ginger, and soy sauce) that came out quite nicely (and I still have more left-overs than I know what to do with, particularly because I made an equal volume of brown rice to go with it).
I'm not sure if I ever mentioned that my sister is now officially only working one job - the school hired another math teacher so she's "just" the librarian, not also teaching. And last but not least, you can read about her band!
ISRAELI POLITICS AND THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
- I'd mentioned that I was going to be helping with the olive harvest of Palestinian farmers on the "seam line" (the area of the West Bank outside the green line but still under Israeli military control), and Wednesday did so. I don't really know enough about the particular areas to have known this ahead of time, but where the group went Wednesday, the issue isn't settler harassment. Instead, Mahmoud, the guy we visited, is an old man with 200 olive trees whose permit to enter the area (you know, the land he owns) is only for himself and not for his family. One person can't physically harvest 200 trees, and other Palestinians, including his family, aren't allowed into the area, so left-wing Israelis come out to provide brute labor so the guy doesn't lose his whole crop. As a result, it was really quite a nice day - the weather was gorgeous, I met some pretty cool people, one of his trees was absolutely picture-perfect (really, the olives were gorgeous), and while olive harvesting is surprisingly hard work, I got to climb a tree, so my (not-so-)inner child is happy :). I also left being seriously impressed by Mahmoud. He's walks with a cane, his thumb was under a bandage such that I wouldn't be surprised if he has to get it amputated at some point, and yet when he got to his trees none of that seemed to matter; one of the other volunteers described him as an olive-harvesting ninja. Many of the volunteers were from the youth group of Meretz, one of Israel's left-wing political parties; they put up some pictures of their folks and one has Mahmoud (somewhere I'm sure there are also pictures of me, but I don't feel like tracking them down).
- The last thought from the day that I care to share is that I don't know if I'll ever get used to people who are sitting outside feeling a raindrop and being happy. Of course, on the east coast of the U.S. if you feel a raindrop it's likely that if you stay outside much longer you'll get a couple hours of a free, but cold, shower, whereas we had extremely light drizzle for maybe 20 minutes. And I will say that the first time it rained I got at least as excited as all the Israelis. But still...if you're outside and a couple of kilometers from any kind of accessible shelter, I know the country needs rain, but you really get excited that it's coming at that particular point in time?
- While my day Wednesday was rather pastoral, this week an Israeli soldier guarding Palestinian farmers was hurt by Israeli rightists. The ongoing problems caused by settlers gave me (what's probably) a (bad) idea for dealing with the issue of the expansion of West Bank settlements. Convince diaspora Jews in the U.S., France, etc. that instead of buying up real estate in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, etc., and then leaving it empty 11 months out of the year, they should do so in the West Bank. The housing costs will rise, and soon, the settlements will become ghost towns (like certain sections of Jerusalem) and it'll be way easier politically to pull off an "evacuation". Hey, even without the absentee landlords (hmm...I seem to recall them having an impact earlier in Zionist history, too...), prices are already starting to rise significantly for property within Israel for partly that reason. I dunno, maybe they can start with places like Gilo, which despite being outside the green line are described as "Jerusalem neighborhoods" in even more left-leaning mainstream Isareli discourse? I somehow doubt that's going to happen/work, but at least this week Palestinian security forces deployed in Hebron/al-Khalil. While somehow I doubt that they'll ever be in charge of the part of Hebron from which almost all Palestinians are currently banned, it's a step in the right direction.
- I probably should write about the struggle to create a parliamentary coalition, but I figure Livni and Shas will either figure something out or won't, so when we know who the government will be maybe I'll say something.
- Lastly, I have so many issues with the topic of this article, "Israel military rabbi under fire for 'brainwashing' soldiers.
WORLD
- Austrian facists don't know what to do when their leaders come out of the closet. This story just makes me laugh!
- A rapidly spreading cholera outbreak in Guinea-Bissau has sickened more than 12,000 people and is infecting 1,000 people per month; so far, 200 people have died.
- Congo, known for the prevalence and brutality of its rapists, is increasingly prosecuting them. Okay, I'm glad that they're reducing the number of rapes and keeping some rapists from attacking potential future victims, but wow is this article/approach paternalistic/Orientalist. Only when the Belgians or lots of westerns are in Congo are the number of rapes reduced (because the legacy of colonialism has nothing to do with the culture of violence that has lead to such high levels of assaults on women)? Also, it totally assumes that punitive justice is the best way of dealing with rapists, despite mentioning a couple of the reasons (many of the perpetrators are themselves victims of war violence, poverty is rampant so imprisoning someone does neither boday any good) that some type of restorative justice would be a much better idea.
- The United States has slapped a handful of foreign companies with punitive sanctions for sales of technologies that it says could help Iran, Syria, and North Korea develop nuclear weapons. Seriously? Seriously? I know, nukes are a totally different level than conventional arms, so nuclear technology is different from selling conventional weapons. But seriously, the U.S., which grants "aid" with the stipulation that the funds must be used to purchase arms from its companies, is fining people in other countries for arms proliferation?
US ELECTION
Obama's campaign had a conference call about transgender issues! And my friend Julian (angrychihuahua ) was on it!
Younger Jews are less inclined to vote for Obama than older Jews. What's wrong with my generation?
Trust Jon Stewart to make me actually vaguely proud of being from northern Virginia (aka "fake America").
EDIT: And then I remember why I don't: "New VA pharmacy won't sell any contraceptives".
OTHER
Interesting (US-centric) opinion piece about the economic crisis.
Um, Israel, isn't this effectively your penal system discriminating based on physical ability?
FUN STUFF
Last night I went to my friend Mary Ann's for Shabbat dinner. I made some more tabouleh to bring, and rather than get a bag of mint to put in it, I bought a mint plant. I'd intended to get some herbs for my new apartment ever since I walked around the neighborhood before signing my housing contract and saw a plant store a couple blocks away. So now I'm the proud honor of a mint plant and a sage plant. The latter is freaking huge, so I want to use some of it (though for the most part I intend to use it just for tea). At the same time, I accidentally soaked more bulghur than I needed for the tabouleh. Suggestions? I'm thinking of something like these stuffed red peppers, and this squash recipe looks good, too.
The plant store also had seeds, including spinach, and I was seriously tempted to get some because one of the main items I've missed not being in the U.S. is greens - I don't think I've seen fresh spinach, kale, or collard greens since July 2007. That being said, I don't really have a place to grow spinach, and besides that, while my preferred greens aren't available, the situation isn't quite as "dire" as I'm making out. Last week, actually, I made a stir-fry with eggplant, mushroom, carrots, and what I think are mustard greens (plus garlic, ginger, and soy sauce) that came out quite nicely (and I still have more left-overs than I know what to do with, particularly because I made an equal volume of brown rice to go with it).
I'm not sure if I ever mentioned that my sister is now officially only working one job - the school hired another math teacher so she's "just" the librarian, not also teaching. And last but not least, you can read about her band!