Photo Fibs

Hey-- Check this out. Thought it was pretty interesting.

http://www.mivzakon.co.il/fun/flash/video.aspx?v=430

Naturally, this is a media posting like any other. As much as I might want to believe it I guess you can never really know how honest it is. What I don't like about it is his tone of voice-- it's very cynical, don't you think?

One thing I can say is that I saw that picture from the cover of that magazing-- the one with the tires burning-- in a recent Time magazine, captioned:

"BLACK AND BLUE The wreckage of a downed israeli jet that was targeting Hizballah trucks billows smoke behind a Hizballah gunman in Kfar Chima, near Beirut. Jet fuel set the surrounding area ablaze"

See, that video thing quoted the magazine saying that it was a picture of an Israeli jet, but the actual Time article clearly stated that it's the "surrounding area", so it does make sense for it to be a garbage dump. On the other hand, Time said that the smoke was from the jet-- does anyone know if fuel smoke is really that black? Because I know that tire smoke is...

Anyway, no Israeli jets were downed.

Local Knowledge

I saw an ad in a National Geographic magazine a few months ago that had two identical pictures of pills, and two identical pictures of herbs of some sort. One of the pill pictures said "useful" and the other "useless", ditto with the herbs. My question is: which would you go for? The pills or the herbs? All the amazing miracle-medication of today might just have the same results as the those healing herb-thingys people used a thousand years ago.
Why do I feel like people assume that you can't really know something unless you study it for years?
Here's a funny story: Not herbs, exactly, but whatever. My dad was working at his jobsite a few weeks ago, when he stepped on a nail. It went right through his shoe into his foot. Ouch. My dad says one of his suppliers or something-- I think his name's Miki-- told him to take off his shoe, and then Miki took a piece of wood and started whacking my dad's foot right where the nail had cut it. He says he put his shoe back on a didn't feel a thing.
No university, no painkiller. Just a bit of helpful random knowledge. So there.

Comments

I really hope there's someone out there who's bored enough to read this entire post. It's a good option if you're fasting, you know. Might even serve as a little reminder as to why it's so important that we pray on this Tisha'a Be'av.

On the Yahoo homepage they have links to really random articles sometimes. I found this one pretty interesting:

http://hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hotzone/blogs8044

After the article there were comments that people have left in the past couple of days, so I read through a whole bunch, and I guess you could say I'm a little LIVID. OK, there are over 1000 comments and they keep coming, so don't bother reading them all-- I just picked out my favourites (most of them are the same thing, really). Here they are (with my comments in between):

First-- most comments were like "God bless you Kevin for doing the right thing".

As a once PROUD JEW, I am now ASHAMED TO BE A JEW. I read Kevin's columns and I cannot believe that my fellow countrymen have committed this devastation. Our arab neighbors want to live in peace just like us jews. Its the right wing fanatics who must stop stealing the arab's lands, stop occupying them, stop taking their dignity - it is the only way that we jews will ever feel safe again. All this bombing will only bring the world's and our neighbors wrath down upon us for more generations to come....... why? why? why? this violence has never worked before and it will never work to accomplish anything of value. Shame on us....
Posted by hurwitz_don on Mon, Jul 31, 2006 11:48 PM ET


TO hurwitz_don - YES you should be ashamed, but jus for a different reason! "Stop demonizing of Israel for merely defending itself". (said by a way smarter man than me) By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, a Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C. What other country, when attacked in an unprovoked aggression across a recognized international frontier, is then put on a countdown clock by the world, given a limited time window in which to fight back, regardless of whether it has restored its own security? What other country sustains 1,500 indiscriminate rocket attacks into its cities ­ every one designed to kill, maim and terrorize civilians ­ and is then vilified by the world when it tries to destroy the enemy's infrastructure and strongholds with precision-guided munitions that sometimes have the unintended but unavoidable consequence of collateral civilian death and suffering? Hearing the world pass judgment on the Israel-Hezbollah war as it unfolds is to live in an Orwellian moral univer se. With a few significant exceptions (the leadership of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and a very few others), the world ­ governments, the media, U.N. bureaucrats ­ has completely lost its moral bearings. The word that obviates all thinking and magically inverts victim into aggressor is "disproportionate," as in the universally decried "disproportionate Israeli response." When the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor, it did not respond with a parallel "proportionate" attack on a Japanese naval base. It launched a four-year campaign that killed millions of Japanese, reduced Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki to a cinder, and turned the Japanese home islands to rubble and ruin. Disproportionate? No. When one is wantonly attacked by an aggressor, one has every right ­ legal and moral ­ to carry the fight until the aggressor is disarmed and so disabled that it cannot threaten one's security again. That's what it took with Japan. Britain was never invaded by Germany in World War II. Did it respond to the blitz and V-1 and V-2 rockets with "proportionate" aerial bombardment of Germany? Of course not. Churchill orchestrated the greatest land invasion in history that flattened and utterly destroyed Germany, killing untold innocent German women and children in the process. The perversity of today's international outcry lies in the fact that there is indeed a disproportion in this war, a radical moral asymmetry between Hezbollah and Israel: Hezbollah is deliberately trying to create civilian casualties on both sides while Israel is deliberately trying to minimize civilian casualties, also on both sides. In perhaps the most blatant terror campaign from the air since the London blitz, Hezbollah is raining rockets on Israeli cities and villages. These rockets are packed with ball bearings that can penetrate automobiles and shred human flesh. They are meant to kill and maim. And they do. But it is a dual campaign. Israeli innocents must die in order for Israel to be terrorized. But Lebanese innocents must also die in order for Israel to be demonized, which is why Hezbollah hides its fighters, its rockets, its launchers, its entire infrastructure among civilians. Creating human shields is a war crime. It is also a Hezbollah specialty.
On Wednesday, CNN cameras showed destruction in Tyre. What does Israel have against Tyre and its inhabitants ? Nothing. But the long-range Hezbollah rockets that have been raining terror on Haifa are based in Tyre. What is Israel to do? Leave untouched the launch sites that are deliberately placed in built-up areas? Had Israel wanted to destroy Lebanese civilian infrastructure, it would have turned out the lights in Beirut in the first hour of the war, destroying the billion-dollar power grid and setting back Lebanon 20 years. It did not do that. Instead, it attacked dual-use infrastructure ­ bridges, roads , airport runways ­ and blockaded Lebanon's ports to prevent the reinforcement and resupply of Hezbollah. Ten-thousand Katyusha rockets are enough. Israel was not going to allow Hezbollah 10,000 more. Israel's response to Hezbollah has been to use the most precise weaponry and targeting it can. It has no interest, no desire to kill Lebanese civilians. Does anyone imagine that it could not have leveled south Lebanon, to say nothing of Beirut ? Instead, in the bitter fight against Hezbollah in south Lebanon, it has repeatedly dropped leaflets, issued warnings, sent messages by radio and even phone text to Lebanese villagers to evacuate so that they would not be harmed. Israel knows that these leaflets and warnings give the Hezbollah fighters time to escape and regroup. The advance notification as to where the next attack is coming has allow ed Hezbollah to set up elaborate ambushes. The result ? Unexpectedly high Israeli infantry casualties. Moral scrupulousness paid in blood. Israeli soldiers die so that Lebanese civilians will not, and who does the international community condemn for disregarding civilian life?
Posted by belomor_2000 on Tue, Aug 1, 2006 2:09 AM ET

(I think that was a recent article from the NY Times, actually)

belomor_2000...."hezbollah that uses women and kids as a human shield".....So do the Israelis..Haven't you ever heard of settlers in the occupied territories?...How's that any different?...You're just playing semantics.....Israel wants UN 1559..but Israel won't comply with UN 242 or 338.......You want security...but you don't want others to have security....You want to be left alone.....but you don't want to leave others alone...you want to occupy...but you don't want to be occupied.....It's all so very curious....You want to be the master instead of an equal..
Posted by bigrubes2000 on Tue, Aug 1, 2006 3:27 AM ET

"Settlers in the occupied territories"??? As in my friends who live in areas captured by Israel in '67? If u say it like that, then of course it sounds bad! The Israeli government doesn't plant people into their homes in the territories, they even take them out! -but let's not get into that now. Anyway, do you have any clue what the world would say if we put soldiers into those "occupied territories" as a shield? Cuz I don't think they would believe the 'shield' part.

Why are we forgetting or I should say, being mislead, This war didnot start because 2 Israeili soldiers were kidnaped, This war started when Israeili shells killed 7 innocent Palestinians on the beach on june 9th. Excellent work Kevin...Stay safe bro. and for Jenn, You are a Zionist and this is the best one can expect from you. I think its time for all of us to wakeup and raise our voice to stop the violence all over the world before this fire destroys us all.
Posted by ali_california11 on Tue, Aug 1, 2006 4:45 AM ET

Oh, ok, but wait-- maybe it didn't start with the palestinians who were killed last month, maybe it started with that "martyr" who blew himself up in that restoraunt? Or maybe the whole Levanon business started in '82? Or '67? Or '48? Will we ever know?? And who do you think you are to decide, anyway?
I can see Zionists are the bad guys.

I fear that if the world suffers a nuclear war, it will begin in the Middle East and be precipitated by Isreal. Isreal may not don't the first bomb but their actions, such as the genocide in Lebanon, certainly will be the instigation. I have always supported Isreal, and know and like Isrealis, however I am beginning to think the world would be a less violent place if Isreal had never existed.
Posted by brvomero on Tue, Aug 1, 2006 6:32 AM ET

Truth be told, you're right. Maybe we shouldn't exist. Maybe it would be so much better if you could stick all the Jews in the world in gas chambers and kill them all fast. Hmm, sounds familiar, no?

See it all depends on what side youre on. if I was an Iraqi and sitting in my basement during shock and awe I would be like damn terrorists. bombing a city full of five million people. But I'm sitting in america watching israel bomb lebanon and im saying damn terrorists. and israel is getting bombed saying damn terrorists and lebanon is like oh crap. and england is like what what? and french is like everyone is a terrorist wee give me wine. and russia is like damn checks are terrorists and the checks are going russia dirty terrorists. and spain has some terrorists. and australia has some crocs. and north korea are just a bunch of wanks. and south korrea has to live next to a bunch of wanks. and africa is just hell. canada should rule the world.
Posted by ambrose2124 on Wed, Aug 2, 2006 2:43 AM ET

"sitting in america watching israel bomb lebanon". There you go. ambrose2124 isn't at fault, it's all thanks to the objective news reports.

ambrose2124...the average Canadian has at least one gun and they have very few murders in Canada...What gives?....Here in the US at least 14,000 people a year die from gunshot wounds...the Canadians are some sick people they don't even know how to use thier guns apparently.
Posted by bigrubes2000 on Wed, Aug 2, 2006 2:48 AM ET

Woah! Talk about discrimination! Did you see that? DID YOU SEE THAT?? So there's a problem with Israel because they're violent, and Canadians are 'sick' because, apparently, they don't know how to use their guns. This is totally not fair.

You're right, Mr. Hurwitz...I'm not proud that you're a Jew either. To compare a country that is CONTINUOUSLY attacked for daring to exist with dickless cowards who deliberately place armaments alongside cribs, couches, and kitchens is beyond insanity straight into wickedness. You have chosen to be ashamed of people who warn the "innocent" they are going to be attacking that area--an unprecedented thing to do in a war, knowing that those you are trying to kill will also now be informed--who make strikes as surgically as possible, and who DON'T place ball bearings into the tips of weapons whose only purpose is to damage as much flesh as possible. You have chosen the side of those who have never once kept a treaty, promise, cease fire agreement, or covenant--not once, not ever, not even briefly--over a people who have kept EVERY SINGLE ONE, and who have repeatedly given up their meager land to murderers and even paid them money to behave as human beings. That you have allowed yourself to be so easily led and manipulated by PC--my readers know that I call that unholy of unholies POLITICAL CASTRATION, as there is nothing correct about it--belies your intelligence and leaves me wondering of your true identity. Mr. Sites, while tugging at people's heart strings, please remember to stroke their intelligence as well. Trying to tilt this in favor of the poor Lebanese is the same as blaming a rape victim for being in an area frequented by men. No one blames a victim for fighting for her life, even if she endured all of the other beatings for years. It was long past time for someone to screw their balls back on and say ENOUGH. We never should have tolerated this type of animalistic, evil behavior from the beginning. Well, we did, and now it's going to take a helluva lot to undo the beast we allowed to evolve. Your have an obligation, sir, to remind the world of that, too. Heartstrings earn the prize, sir, but intelligence wins the war...and this, sir, is a war. Who do you want to see win: those who have always kept their word, or those who never ever have? WARCHICK.COM--Read her and Heed her.
Posted by resalaru on Wed, Aug 2, 2006 3:02 AM ET

resalaru - american jew.
Posted by ambrose2124 on Wed, Aug 2, 2006 3:06 AM ET

Good observation. Leh. Hey, ambrose2124, if no one else will stick up for us, I guess the Jews will simply have to stick up for themselvs.

If anyone might manage to read to the end of this post-- I hope you can see why I'm livid right now.

Walking in Jerusalem

"Do u know how sexy it is to walk around holding your shoes? Cuz when they're on the ground no one can see them, and when ur holding them people can see them." --Hadas, while walking from the Old City to the Central Bus Station last night.
Shani's shoes are so nice!! ...But I'm not sure which hurts more: Wearing them or walking barefoot. I eventually chose the latter.
;-p