Nicholas Kristof writing from Hebron

I was going to refrain from posting more NYT links, but I read this immediately after seeing John Hagee on television preaching about how much God loves the state of Israel. I've always found Evangelical Zionism more than a little strange, but I wonder what causes the blind approval of anything the Israeli state does. Is it ignorance of the social and political realities in the Middle East, or does ideological commitment outweigh the facts? And would that ideology be religious ("God's chosen people") cynically political (condemning Israel's imperialism would indict the US) or some mix of the two? Is it a perverted reaction to the terrors of 20th century antisemitism and the Shoah? I ask because the motivation that lies behind this uncritical support of Israel determines how (and even whether) we can profitably engage with Evangelicals about Israel's human rights record (a damning history that we, as Americans, have funded economically and supported politically for decades). Any thoughts?

Kristof's piece:

The Two Israels

A sample:
"It is here in the Palestinian territories that you see the worst side of Israel: Jewish settlers stealing land from Palestinians (almost one-third of settlement land is actually privately owned by Palestinians); Palestinian women giving birth at checkpoints because Israeli soldiers won’t let them through (four documented cases last year); the diversion of water from Palestinians. (Israelis get almost five times as much water per capita as Palestinians.)

Yet it is also here that you see the very best side of Israel. Israeli human rights groups relentlessly stand up for Palestinians. Israeli women volunteer at checkpoints to help Palestinians through. Israeli courts periodically rule in favor of Palestinians. Israeli scholars have published research that undermines their own nation’s mythologies. Many Israeli journalists have been fair-minded toward Palestinians in a way that Arab journalists have rarely reciprocated.

All told, the most persuasive indictments of Israeli actions come from Israelis themselves. This scrupulous honesty and fairness toward Israel’s historic enemies is a triumph of humanity.

In short, there are many Israels. When American presidential candidates compete this year to be “pro-Israeli,” let’s hope that they clarify that the one they support is not the oppressor that lets settlers steal land and club women but the one that is a paragon of justice, decency, fairness — and peace."

Gitmo

It's strange that such a small place should simultaneously house what is best and what is worst about the US military. It's unfortunate that the "worst" is the side taken by both military and civilian authorities. I'm grateful for individual men and women of integrity that represent the rule of law at the risk of their own careers and even their personal liberty. I anxiously await a time when justice and the rule of law are characteristic of the system and not the exceptions.

From the Times:

"Commander Kuebler (pronounced KEEB-ler) is the latest example of a lawyer in uniform attacking the Pentagon’s legal system.

He is no natural agitator. At 37, he is in some ways deeply conventional. Married to the first girl he ever dated in high school, he is a self-described born-again Christian and conservative who has 'never voted for a Democrat.' Tom Fleener, a former Guantánamo military defense lawyer, described Commander Kuebler, saying, 'Take the average conservative guy in the street and multiply that by a million.'”

NYT interview w/ Obama

From the Times online


I like a lot of the NYT's video features online. Since they don't have commercial breaks, they can do longer interviews (this one is about 17 min.), and they bring some of the detail of print journalism to a video format that often works better than print for interviews (or at least works differently). Actually, it's a lot of the same things I like about the News Hour (and do I ever like the News Hour!).

Maybe this will be the year that evangelical voters take seriously the gospel's injunction to care for the poor and not show favoratism to the rich. Probably not, but I can pretend to hope.

OK. I should get back to working on the syllabus for my summer class. I get a fresh crop of summer freshmen on Monday morning. (Can you imagine your first college instructor being ME?!?)

Peace.

Thanksgiving

Hey T6ers, with it being Memorial Day, I just wanted to give thanks for the fact that Adam, Abe, and Dusty are all back in the US safe and sound after serving time in Iraq. Does anybody know anything about Rudy? Thanks for the service guys.

I'll up YOUR date

Despite the running commentary of my own personal blog, I have no way to know who is reading it, so I thought I'd try to keep the freight train moving through 611 Online Depot here by revealing a personal update™ of my own.

Unfortunately enough, nothing really "happens" to me, as I am still unemployed, virtually friendless, and an eccentric recluse.

I am starting to try to put together some plans to move forward, though, so I thought I'd run them by you, as you're all highly intelligent people with perspective on many things.

As you may know from my blog or other updates here, I've found myself at odds with the general customs of adult life in the western world. The idea of changing myself to fit in to a job is not appealing, so I'm trying to figure out how to design a income-generating lifestyle that suits me the way I am.

I've done some research and one thing that seems to be promising would be to create multiple free-lance sort of income/profit-centers that involve my interests and passions.

So for instance, at any given time I could:

Be selling articles to publications...
Be Licensing my music compositions to companies...
Do consultant work on music projects involving LA groups in the mid-60s, particularly the Beach Boys...
Design clothing...
Be a landlord of some rental property...
Own a restaurant...

Etc.

The idea is, if you have enough little enterprises, money trickling in from the different things, it will add up to be a real income. And then I wouldn't get bored and would be doing things I like that I might not be able to make a career out of by themselves.

Anybody have any thoughts, practical advice, on this?

And of course, I'm constantly looking to get out of Bland Crapids, Pissigan. Yes, people here call it that.

Response to Coye's Appeal for a Personal Update

An announcement this important deserves one of those cool author pastiche things that I sometimes do, but sadly I just don't have the time to do it right. I'll settle for this: on Friday, I was offered my first tenure track job. This morning, I accepted. It's at Gordon College, a school that's like Wheaton in most of the good ways, and unlike Wheaton in many of the bad ways. (As I was talking to the dean about the Gramm situation at Wheaton, her first response was, can we hire him?) Several core faculty are retiring in the next couple of years, so the department is transitioning from older to much younger--there'll be ample opportunity to teach literary theory and other classes of interest. The hardest part will be starting to think of myself as a professor, and not just a graduate student. So that's the short version.

Since I'll be working 5 minutes from Dave's house, chances are good that the T6 ECLAD (hmmm... what did that stand for? Experiment in Communal Living and Discipleship... that sounds like it might be right. At least I hit all the letters.) will be in Boston. Coye can work at Harvard (or Boston College, in a pinch), and the rest of you can find work doing the things that you do. So, that's the new plan. Feel free to join us (it's way better than LA, or so I've been told).

Progeny-less Update (Life in Austin)

It's been awhile since we've had a personal update that didn't involve offspring. Here goes.

I am currently (this week) finishing up my last semester of course work. Beginning this summer, I will be working full-time on developing my prospectus and composing that magical document, the dissertation. I may have more to say about this later, but, for now, in short, I will be writing about the troubled relationships between seemingly mimetic works of art and "unrepresentable" historical violence (World War, Holocaust, the Bomb, the WTC attacks).

I spent the last four days at the 2008 International Narrative Conference. I have been working off and on for about a year as conference staff, and I chaired a couple of panels over the weekend (and attended what seems like hundreds). I heard some great panels, met some academic heros (and got a couple of business cards), but what was most impressive was seeing the "invisible acadamy" made at least temporarily visible. It made the direction of my life seem less obscure and evanescent.

I continue to teach, and am looking forward to teaching a course of my own creation in the fall. It will be, perhaps unsurprisingly, a course on violence.

I've been watching a lot of Top Chef on Bravo (my one televised guilty pleasure) and cooking quasi-elaborate meals whenever time and budget allow (and sometimes when they don't). My exercise regimine has slacked off, but I'm hoping to change that with the return of Friday basketball over the summer. Hopefully I can get back to regular running as well (I can feel my legs crying out for a good run even as I type).

The life-long pursuit of good coffee and good beer continues, as does a very rewarding playing at domestic bliss. The heat and humidity of an Austin summer are beginning to creep into the background of the everyday, and I'm trying (not terribly sucessfully) to ignore the democratic primary. I'm still at the same parish, doing the same sorts of parish-y things.

Alright. Back to writing about Civil War photography. Be well, my friends.

Andrewisms

For your reading pleasure: a few smatterings of Andrew's latest:

"Look! A brush tooth!" (Translation: Look! A toothbrush)
"I am a man with a tree on my head" (Indeed, he had a plastic tree on his head)
"Look! A man!" (A bit awkward, since the person is usually standing within earshot).
"Look! A girdle!" ("Look, a girl")
"I'll have a Little Mac!" (Yelled up toward the front of the car after Dad ordered a Big Mac).
"Three minutes, OK? Say sure!" (His typical stall tactic)

I'm sure these are more funny to me than to you...

Wheaton and Not So Quiet Firings

There's been another one related to the pledge/community covenant.

This time it has nothing to do with Catholicism or evolution. I hate divorce.

Politics and Food?

Beyond the demonization of a good cup of coffee.

What's for Dinner?

Here's a taste: "In last summer’s polling, the latest available, Mrs. Clinton scored high among voters who also had favorable views of McDonalds, Wal-Mart and Starbucks."

And why don't republicans like her...?

The Physics of Half Life

Steve, all I can say is that if you are not reading the blog, I am wasting a lot of my efforts. Some graduate students at McMaster created a half-life mod to study video game physics. You can see their write up here. Knowing you to be an aficionado of video game physics, I felt compelled to post it. Apparently, you can download it and run their experiments in your own version of Half Life. If you want.

Very Strange Moment Right Now

They're singing "Shout to the Lord"--the Worship song, the very definitely explicit Christian worship song--on American Idol right now.

Now it's over, and the Coke/Coke Zero legal shtick commercial is on...and I'm left thinking to myself: did that just happen? That was strange. I don't know what to make of that.

Now you can call 1-877-IDOL-AID.

The Cult of Sincerity

Support the film; Adam Browne is a good friend of mine all the way back from my growing up days in VT.

Poem for the Day

On the Birth of a Son

Families when a child is born
Hope it will turn out intelligent.
I, through intelligence
Having wrecked my whole life,
Only hope that the baby will prove
Ignorant and stupid.
Then he'll be happy all his days
And grow into a Cabinet Minister.

Su Shih, Eleventh Century

Manga Bible

Steve, I don't know if you're reading our little blog these days, but if you are, this video is for you.

Mythbusting the Moon Landing

It was many years ago now that Aeijtzsche and I sat in Dave the goalie's room on Traber 6 (you know, the guy who mostly watched tv that year) watching a (surprisingly compelling) documentary on how the government faked the moon landings. This hour-long expose walked through the evidence, arguing that we had never been to the moon. You can actually watch the entire show here on Google Video.



Most of the show's claims are explored and debunked here (Wow, the internet is a cool thing!)

Just in case there are questions lingering in our minds about these matters, the good people at Mythbusters have taken on the mystery. The show airs April 25th (and will hopefully show up on YouTube or some other internet venue sometime thereafter). I wonder what their findings will be... Do you think the government has gotten to them, too? No, not the Mythbusters!

FYI

Just so you guys know this is out there:

Options

Anything You Can Do, I Can Do ... Better?

My boys can swim!

conversion

I've become a Mac guy.  Best decision ever.  Period.