Ha’aretz has a good column by Ze’ev Sternhell on the original basis for Zionism — “an answer to an existential danger that threatened the Jewish people during the first half of the 20th century” — and the danger of having it become mere colonialism regarding the lands siezed in 1967.

For everyone who talks about how the Arabs teach their children to hate Jews, we should also remember what’s happening in the settlements:

Indeed, this fanatical nationalism, which is brutal not out of necessity but out of deliberate choice and rational decision, is already beginning to sprout noxious weeds that arouse disgust. I am referring to the settler mentality in its latest manifestation in the form of letters that students at schools in the territories wrote to fighters in Operation Defensive Shield. These children did not ask the soldiers to wipe out terror and strike at the terrorists, but “to kill as many Arabs as possible.” One asked: “For me, kill at least 10”; another made an even simpler suggestion: “Ignore the laws and spray them.”

Interesting item from my web statistics…

Given that I’m very unhappy about the behavior of Israel towards the Palestinians and the Occupied Territories, it’s funny that my site shows up first on a Google search of sexy israelis.

The NY Times has a beautiful story about “The Castle” — a new 59-bed center on the western edge of Harlem, run by the Fortune Society. They are a pretty fabulous organization that provides services to people that have served time in jail to help them re-join society. I heard about them after they helped the brother of a friend, and I highly recommend supporting them.

The place is the first of its kind in the country to accept men and women leaving prison with no strings attached, its owners say — the jobless, the homeless, drug addicts and AIDS patients, those with no family or no prospects, those with nowhere else to go.

…

“We’ve known for years that housing was a desperate need,” said JoAnne Page, the executive director of the Fortune Society, an inmate advocacy group that owns and operates the Castle. “People are coming home, and the question is whether they’ll come as a resource or a risk.”

…

Now, the neo-Gothic facade has been restored and the rooms are furnished with captain’s beds and blond wood dressers. Pass-card locks have been installed on every door. The interior color scheme is a palette of whites and soft, pale greens. It was selected by an expert in feng shui, the Chinese art of design.

“We tried to do this beautiful because beautiful matters,” Ms. Page said. “Beautiful tells people they matter.”

Mike Batt, a British composer and producer, heard from the royalties police after doing a “cover” of John Cage’s 4’33". Story courtesy of The Blackwood Channel.

NY Diocese Made $997,500 Sex Abuse Settlement

The confidential $997,500 settlement, the latest revelation in the sex-abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church, fell just short of the $1 million ceiling above which the Albany diocese would have been required to get consent of its finance council, the New York Times reported on Thursday.

Cool… Anthony Goicolea has a web site. I love his work, and I seem to keep seeing him in the neighborhood lately.

In These Times has a good essay on 100 years of Japanese film — Popcorn and Sake. The online version is missing his list of eight films to start with:

• Rashomon
• Floating Weeds
• An Actor’s Revenge
• Double Suicide
• The Funeral
• Ran
• Princess Mononoke
• After Life</p>

B’Tselem, the Israeli rights group, has issued an informative report on the settlements in the Occupied Territories — titled “Land Grab: Israel’s Settlement Policy in the West Bank”.

The research reveals that while the built-up areas of the settlements constitute only 1.7% of the land in the West Bank, the municipal boundaries are over three times as large: 6.8%. Regional councils constitute an additional 35.1%. Thus, a total of 41.9% of the area in the West Bank is controlled by the settlements.

Washington Post article:

The FBI is visiting libraries nationwide and checking the reading records of people it suspects of having ties to terrorists or plotting an attack, library officials say.

The FBI effort, authorized by the antiterrorism law enacted after the Sept. 11 attacks, is the first broad government check of library records since the 1970s when prosecutors reined in the practice for fear of abuses.

Note that it is illegal under the Patriot Act for a librarian to state that they have turned over records to the FBI. The FBI has to obtain a search warrant from a secret court and must only “show it has reason to suspect that a person is involved with a terrorist or a terrorist plot – far less difficult than meeting the tougher legal standards of probable cause, required for traditional search warrants or reasonable doubt, required for convictions.”

This country is becoming a police state.

After a court ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance containing the phrase “under God” (added in 1954) is unconstitutional, our elected leaders all rushed to proclaim their support for God:

House members gathered on the front steps of the Capitol to recite the Pledge of Allegiance en masse. The Senate unanimously approved a resolution sponsored by its Democratic and Republican leaders that expressed support for the reference to God in the pledge, and instructed the Senate’s legal counsel to intervene in the case. The vote was 99 to 0, with Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) absent.

Unanimous.

When the phrase “Under God” was added in 1954, Eisenhower said the change was being made “to recognize a Supreme Being” and advance religion at a time “when the government was publicly inveighing against atheistic communism”.