Acclaiming what amounts to a ceasefire in Gaza as potentially (or definitively) worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize before it becomes a signed-by-all-sides peace agreement, is premature. It also threatens to subsume what the very suggestion makes clear should be awarded: an Ignoble Indifference-to-Peace Prize.… Read the rest
Sliding quietly along the shoreline of a lake created 12,000 years ago, when the last Ice Age retreated, brings the difference between change caused by natural process, and that wreaked by human folly, into baffling focus.… Read the rest
Railing against the idiocy and iniquities of pusillanimous media barons, shameless political opportunists and the perpetrators of the abomination of the war in Gaza having had little to no effect, it’s time to deploy what they fear most — mockery.… Read the rest
Known to psychologists as “the illusion of truth”, the propaganda law “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”, is used so often, blatantly and cynically by Israeli spokespersons that anything they say must be taken with not a pinch, but the pillar of salt the Bible says Lot’s wife turned into for looking back at Sodom and Gomorrah.… Read the rest
The killing of five journalists in a tent in Gaza this week is a cruel lesson for world leaders who have played along far too long with Israel’s “righteous victim” shield: what you do out of fear is what you become.… Read the rest
A few days ago I spent some time with the loon family I wrote about last week. The parents called out twice, to help the two chicks find them in the choppy waves, which prompted the thought that my exasperation with news coverage, and the world in general, is directly related to the excessive use of pointless words.… Read the rest
Those who “speak truth to power” by calling out injustice and demanding change are exalted as courageous. So what word shall we apply to those with power who speak weasel words instead of acting?… Read the rest
If you find putting the seemingly endless welter of news about suffering and deprivation into perspective daunting, to the point where ignoring it is easier, try looking at it through the prism of a glass of water.… Read the rest
There is considerable dispute over who coined the phrase: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” What is indisputable, is that anyone who ignores or manipulates statistics to diminish violence and human suffering, is a liar of unforgiveable proportion.… Read the rest
The New York-set movie to which the headline of this post owes a nod, romped its way to a predictable happy ending. The Middle East-based horror show to which the headline refers is relentlessly lurching its way towards unhappiness that shows no sign of ending.… Read the rest