Thank you, sir(s).

May I Have Another... ? Eh.
(Heh?)

One day after the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelming to upgrade the Palestinians' status, a senior Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the government would pursue "preliminary zoning and planning preparations" for a development that would separate the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem from Jerusalem -- preventing the possibility of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state.

The development, in an area known as E1, would connect the large settlement town of Maale Adumim to Jerusalem. It is one of the projects that appear aimed, or at least timed, to punish the Palestinians for moving ahead with their United Nations bid. Israel also authorized the construction of 3,000 new housing units in parts of East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The twin actions seemed to demonstrate that hard-liners in the government had prevailed after days of debate over how to respond to the United Nations action. The implications of such a move marked a surprising turnaround after a growing sense in recent days that Israeli leaders had acceded to pressure from Washington not to react quickly or harshly.

"This is a new act of defiance from the Israeli government," Saab Erekat, the Palestinians' chief negotiator, said in a statement. "At a moment where the Palestinian leadership is doing every single effort to save the two-state solution, the Israeli government does everything possible to destroy it."
The White House quickly condemned the move as unhelpful.

"We reiterate our longstanding opposition to settlements and East Jerusalem construction and announcements," said Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman.

A Worthy Hardcover in the Collection.

David Herbert Donald:

----------------------
A week ago Thursday, it was in the 50s Thanksgiving morning. 
The dog had taken to long walks that week, over at the fairgrounds.  After dinner though, a damp snow fell, and we changed over from autumn to winter here...

It was below freezing all week -- we got a dusting of dry precipitation Sunday -- and the spell finally broke yesterday, garnering a high of around 37.  The ice dripped, the bigger lakes showed waves in the open water, and our slight snow cover receded in grassy patches.

I was in Spooner yesterday (less than 30 miles north), where they must have gotten a few more inches than our one-and-a-half, in the Thanksgiving night snowfall.  Warmer this weekend, they tell us, but I'll make time to pull Lincoln off the shelf and find myself reading selections from the recent film, and the parts necessarily left untold...

Make it a great soupy-kinda weekend yourself?

Choose Peace, Dignity, Independence.

Congratulations to the Palestinian people, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, who today successfully negotiated the peaceful recognition by the United Nations of the State of Palestine.

If it was good enough for Israel's birth...

These people seek a better way of life for themselves and their families at home. They live essentially in a prison -- with overseers monitoring what comes and goes except for what can be smuggled in. Surely many families mourn their dead -- innocents and fighters -- in this horribly lop-sided and overreaching quest for justice.

It's too bad America has taken the backseat to Israel in these past decades. The answer, I still maintain, is that the American approach to justice is superb. Here, we don't bulldoze the family homes of criminals, or kill their mothers and brothers in revenge. We try murderers, give them an honest trial, and bring the perpetrators to justice.

We don't take revenge on innocent family members. We don't confiscate properties without the semblance of just takings. We don't treat our ethnics differently in terms of citizenship rights, or which streets and highways they are permitted to use.

Oh, I know, I know...
Poor little Israel was forced into these overbearing acts of collective punishment for survival purposes. They must show a false strength, bloodying innocents because they need to slam home the message: violence will not be tolerated...


It's too bad that the growing community of atheists is still too cowardly, it seems, to confront the whole false premise of an independent Jewish state because of something promised by G-d, some Biblical heritage, some set-aside "safe place" for the victims of the Holocaust. Look, if there is no God and Christians must be continually challenged on their personal beliefs, why not the religious Jews? Wouldn't free thinkers be more consistent in even-handedly promoting their non-beliefs, even to the point it conflicts with a potentially punishable backlash, in terms of employment or scholastic opportunities?

As more and more ethnic cleansing atrocities make headlines since World War II, the excuse that Israel has to take deadly pre-emptive action against innocents -- again and again and again -- lest their people be wiped off the map like their European ancestors in the 30s and 40s, rings more and more false.

Pretending Israel, or the Jewish people, are still history's victims in this day and age is laughable. Suck it up, and move on already. Much waste has been left in the trashbin of human history. Don't pull out America's slavery or tribal genocide to justify the killings in Palestine today. Don't try to justify the murders as necessary in pursuing justice.

Most of all, don't continue to finance this coming fight...

Today, U.N. ambassador Rice voted the way she was told, by the lobbyists, people with the money who increasingly pull the strings. She, and we, lost.

Today, make no mistake, the Palestinian people won. By pursuing a diplomatic means, by leading his people to fight back in ways other than simply firing crude rockets or blowing themselves up (or more commonly, committing suicide slowly inside), Mr. Abbas served up something hearty and promising...

He is weakened, certainly. Politically, a vanquished people often turns to the fighters, for protection perhaps, but out of frustration certainly. There's nothing inherently evil in the Palestinians that celebrates the flowing of Jewish blood. Just the very human desire to avenge what has been taken unjustly from one's own.

Like our own Constitutional forefathers who understood the justice and political system must be shaped so as to encourage people to adopt different procedures -- ones that respect individual rights at the forefront, the Palestinian people today are beginning their very long journey toward independence, self-reliance and the pursuit of happiness.

For those about to rock, we salute you!

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinians have erupted in wild cheers, hugging each other and honking car horns after the United Nations voted to grant them, at least formally, what they have long yearned for – a state of their own.

In the central celebration in the West Bank city of Ramallah, hundreds crowding into the main square waved Palestinian flags and chanted "God is great" after the U.N. General Assembly vote.

It accepted "Palestine" as a non-member observer state with a vote of 138 in favor, nine against and 41 abstentions.

The decision won't immediately change lives here, since much of what the world body is defining as the territory of that state – the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem – remains under Israeli control. Yet many Palestinians savored the global recognition.
-------------------------

ADDED: The war of words played out, as well:

"We have not heard one word from any Israeli official expressing any sincere concern to save the peace process,” Mr. Abbas said.

“On the contrary, our people have witnessed, and continue to witness, an unprecedented intensification of military assaults, the blockade, settlement activities and ethnic cleansing, particularly in occupied East Jerusalem, and mass arrests, attacks by settlers and other practices by which this Israeli occupation is becoming synonymous with an apartheid system of colonial occupation, which institutionalizes the plague of racism and entrenches hatred and incitement.”

“The moment has arrived for the world to say clearly: enough of aggression, settlements and occupation,” he said.  

...

In an indication of the bitterness of the blow to the Israelis, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement calling Mr. Abbas’s speech “defamatory and venomous” that was “full of mendacious propaganda against the IDF and the citizens of Israel.”

“Someone who wants peace does not talk in such a manner," the statement continued.
...
Susan Rice: “Today’s grand pronouncements will soon fade,” she said. “And the Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their lives has changed, save that the prospects of a durable peace have only receded.”

New Faces:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Old

 

 

Who Can Go the Distance? We'll Find Out...

... in the Looong Run...

Today's "Goes w/o Saying" quote of the day? Prolific link assembler, and Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds reveals this:

I enjoy sprinting, but I’m not built for distance.

Indeed.

Well, we're scared, but we ain't shaking,
Kinda bent, but we ain't breaking,
In the long run...
(Long, long, long, long run.)

Who can go the distance?
~Eagles.

Pray for Parity... People Everywhere.*

Do you see what I see?

Yes, it's the holiday season once again, kicked off here in Wisconsin's north woods last Saturday with the gun-deer season opening day. The bucks, and does, are being harvested for the meat, helping drivers avoid collisions in this population control.

Speaking of,
if it's the holidays, surely it's the time for the Middle East to erupt once again, with Israel and Hamas displaying the nifty new toys (Bang. Boom!) they've amassed over the year.

My wish?
Get it over with, already.
Pray for Parity, people everywhere.

Only when the women -- yep, I said women: the life bearers, the nurturers, the ones who perhaps grieve the losses most greatly -- on BOTH sides begin to understand their own are in grave danger will peace come.

Sadly, the US has only helped -- on our "rock solid" taxpayer support -- to artificially inflate Israel's fighting powers via superb technology.

Remember the last Gaza invasion? I'd like to see another, because this time, I think the Israeli army would rack up more losses in their ranks. Enough of the IDF sitting on the sidelines -- not present in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc. -- those Israeli boys surely are itching, just itching, to experience and understand prolonged combat, serious sacrifice, and a ... dirtier war. Where they rely less on technology and actually go in and get their hands dirty...

If the US is committed now to Israel -- no longer playing at this "neutral" peacebroker role -- I'd like to see a stronger player step up to match the Palestinians, to help sponsor them financially in taking a side, as America has done for Israel.

It's happening, I know.
Surely I'm not the only one who thinks that Iran getting the nuclear bomb would offset Israel's own artificial imbalance. Perhaps -- it sounds cold I know -- an effective strike on Tel aviv, on the scale of the minimal (relatively) casualties of our Sept. 11 here (say, a thousand Israeli civilians or so) might be what it takes to end this cycle once and for all...

You'd hate to see Gaza become a Dresden, or Tel aviv disrupted to the point that tourism and the economy are disrupted, but if nobody is willing to address the underlying grievances and think they will "win" militarily, let's make a game of it already?

We here at home are war weary enough already, accepting the huge numbers of our own sacrificial losses to the point we just tune it out: what are the odds that most of us will blink twice at seeing Israeli citizens as bombing victims this go around. To be honest, all those dark-haired, brown-eyed little babies seem beautiful to me; I don't really share Kissinger's assessment that some human lives are worth more than others, by dint of a religious story or superior breeding or some other such nonsense.

But then again, I'm a woman.
I see Binyamin Netanyahu as just another arrogant white man, who hasn't yet felt the roots of his own traditional powers dying out yet. He's so confident in his military superiority, so much seeming to be enjoying this ... "winning", I don't think he'd see a big loss coming at all.

Elections are on the horizon is Israel.
As always, it won't be the Palestinians who best them, but Israel who ultimately beats itself -- overreaching, grabbing for more, celebrating the seeming superiority until one day when it rains down bigtime, horrific losses that in their short-sightedness the leaders just never saw coming.

Nevermind Sec. of State Clinton temporarily buying off the parties to pursue "peace". Enough already, close the checkbook. Peace will only come with parity, a mutual respect born of a power equality: if you don't want it done to you, for God's sake, address the underlying grievances already and don't do it to others.

If it takes some innocent heads cracked open on the streets of Tel aviv, some charred baby bodies on the ... "other" team to show us the folly of thinking military diplomatic policy is working, so be it.

Enough already. Forward -- no matter how much bloodshed it takes this holiday season to teach the world it's better to address the conflicts honestly, and value the worth of men, women and children of all races and creeds.

Happy Holy Days, then,
to you and yours.
Let's get er done, and not just kick the Middle East can down the road, while busting up all the new "toys", cuz Santa Sam can always provide more.

---------------
or,
IF the Boys Wanna Fight, You Better Let Em...

Cheerleading Divisiveness and Stagnation?

Who would do that?
Law professor Ann Althouse listened to the President today:

"And I just want to point out, this was a central question during the election. It was debated over and over again. And on Tuesday night, we found out that the majority of Americans agree with my approach. And that includes Democrats, independents and a lot of Republicans across the country, as well as independent economists and budget experts."

But she still has trouble understanding:

Is that the way elections work? There's a struggle right now to impose an interpretation on the election. One man got more votes than the other. We were put in the position of having to vote for one man or other other [sic]. But how does that translate into what we want on particular issues? It translates through the power-holders insisting on the meaning they like. We still get to fight back. The interpretive process never ends.

Oh please...
I think the voters voted for it to end already, Professor. That much is loud and clear. No "translation" necessary.

When a problem comes along, you must whip it...

now whip it...
into shape.
shape it up.
get it straight.
go forward.
move ahead.
try to detect it
it's not too late...
to whip it
whip it good.

~Devo.

Wise Words.

From the inbox Wednesday.
My mother has both Democratic and Republican friends, and included me on her email letter. Maybe you can appreciate it too.

The day after..............
Hello,

Well, Romney looked as if he was almost in shock last night - what a blow to him. He did work hard and could almost taste presidency. Guess now he will have to go back to being "just a millionaire."
Maybe those rape comments did in the party - who knows. They sure didn't help.

I congratulate President Obama at winning , and hope that the next 4 years will be productive for America and he can get this country moving forward again.
.
As I looked at the faces of those in attendance at the repub. party - seems the majority were all white men in suits - well dressed .....hmmmmmm, the 1% ????? and at "O"'s party - a mixture of color, people of all races, and that is what America is - a melting pot. IF it were not for all our ancestors, we wouldn't even be here.

So, today, we must pray, for America, for all of us, for our leaders, for the two major parties to cross the aisle and work together for the betterment of America, and just remember no matter who is president, Jesus is still the KING !

A bright side of the election being over, all political TV, phone and emails will be finally over.

Love to all, Sheila

Say what you will,
it does feel like a new day in that at least we know now what we face going forward...

ADDED: Not too soon -- I'm selfish like that -- but here's a beautiful YouTube, which appears by the hairstyles and sweaters to be shot in the Cosby days, to accompany my mom's message*.

*Our home parish has been integrating in its pews for years...