Do what you have to do - for Gilad

Days of Our Lives [1]. It’s a marathon US TV soapie. It began in 1965, and it’s still going. I can’t recall seeing even one episode of it, but I must have because its sombre opening voiceover’s imprinted in my memory: ‘Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives’ [2]. Indeed. It’s easy to forget that for each of us the sand runs down; and once down it doesn’t go back up. Absorbed in the hurly-burly hustle of whatever it is we do, it often takes birthdays, anniversaries and other life milestones to bring us back to reality. To make us realise what’s important. The coming Saturday is Gilad Shalit’s 24th birthday [3]. When he was kidnapped by Hamas 1,523 days ago, on 25 June 2006, he was aged 19. So this is his fifth birthday in captivity. For every single one of these 1,523 days Hamas has held him incommunicado. Totally illegally. Inhumanely. Abhorrently. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations has launched a global campaign asking people to send Gilad greetings for his 24th birthday. The greetings will be presented to the International Committee of the Red Cross for delivery to Gilad [4]. I normally avoid online campaigns. But this one’s exceptional. If you also identify with Gilad, click here [5] and do what you have to do. None of us knows how much sand’s left to run through our hourglass. Gilad knows even less of his.

No Laughing Matter! Or is it?

Sometimes, indeed often, things are such that you feel like crying. They’re so absurd and irrational. And stupid. But then the thought occurs to you: crying won’t help. How can it? Wallowing in self-pity’s equally absurd and irrational. And stupid. So what do you do then? Well you could try laughing. Yes – laughing. Because humour can cut right to the core of things. To help us see things more clearly. It often takes silliness here to highlight silliness there.

Enter No Laughing Matter! It’s a shadowy comedy outfit. A google search turns up precious little information about it. I can’t find out when it started, where it’s based, or how big it is. And the ‘about us’ page of its website’s not very enlightening [1]. Though it shows us its motto/credo: ‘Laugh and the world laughs with you’. And its logo: (I think) a finger with hair and a smiley drawn on it. So far NLM!’s put out three short videos – ‘The One About Iran’, The One About Hamas’ and ‘The One About The UN’ – each with the same format: a woman interviewing a man. You can see the videos here [2] and the annotated scripts here [3]. They’re hilarious. And incisive. Satire’s indeed a powerful tool.

I wish you success, NLM! What you’re doing can’t hurt. And it just might help. It just might. I for one hope it does.

This week's compendium

Here’s this week’s compendium. This week…

1. and indeed yesterday marked four years that Hamas has illegally held Gilad Shalit incommunicado after kidnapping him [1]. And still the world tolerates the Hamas terrorists and denies Israel its legitimate right of self-defence against them. Shame.

2. the BMJ published research showing no association between the risk of early childhood cancers and mothers’ exposure to mobile phone base stations during pregnancy [2]. Hmmm. Interesting.

3. the Invasive Species Council told us that in the Concord woods made famous by Thoreau, weeds are responding to climate change faster than native plants [3]. Ho hum.

4. another warning was published about the hearing effects of listening to risk to MP3 players [4]. Not one study’s shown that listening to MP3 players improves hearing.

5. treehugger put out a ranked list of Australia’s most sustainable cities [5]. Does anyone care?

6. I came across this compendium of pet care and welfare topics [6]. I’ll read some when I have time.

7. I read this Grammar Girl piece about when to use ‘which’ versus ‘that’ [7]. It’s something that’s always puzzled me.

8. the Media Department of Daylesford Organics triumphed again [8]. Oh, that photograph!

Finally, I wish you, dear Farmdoc’s Blog readers, a wonderful week.

More flotilla thoughts

All day yesterday I felt down. Lethargic. Uninterested. Blah. It’s the Gaza flotilla miasma. I can’t stop thinking about it.

Partly about it itself: The racist hatred and inhumanity of the subhumans masquerading as humanitarians. Their premeditated violence. The bleeding heart naiveté of those Mavi Marmara’s passengers who were hoodwinked by the barbaric islamist savages. The duplicity of the flotilla’s organisers who professed non-violent passivity that eventually morphed into their denial of any blame at all despite ample footage that contradicts them on both counts. The sheer bravery of the Israeli navy commandos who landed on the Mavi Marmara, and despite mortal fear didn’t fire live ammunition for many minutes.

And partly about world reaction. Knee-jerk. Pure anti-Israel reflex. Brain not in the loop. Not concerned with the facts. In many cases not bothering to learn the facts. Hyperbolic political drum banging. Strategic blindness. And deafness. Wondering what these armchair admirals would do if they faced armed and murderous maniacs. Or if their sons did. Musing about left-wingers aligning with islamofascists.

As usual I’m disappointed by, and furious with, prime minister Rudd. Unquestioning. Cringing. Sanctimonious. Judgemental. Unstatesmanlike. No presumption of innocence. In an election year, too. That’s confidence for you. He makes me sick. Literally, almost.

Flotilla thoughts

Here are my personal thoughts on the so-called Gaza aid flotilla situation that unfolded in the eastern Mediterranean earlier today:

1. I wasn’t there. So I’ve no first-hand knowledge of what happened.

2. The people on the six boats weren’t, and aren’t, concerned with human rights. Noam Shalit asked them to take something to Gilad. But they refused. As they refused to request Hamas to allow the Red Cross access to Gilad. So now we know what sort of people they are.

3. Israel and Hamas are at war. Anyone knowingly entering a war zone following multiple warnings, must face the consequences.

4. Those on the boats weren’t peaceable. Apparently they were armed with knives, clubs, bars, rods, slingshots, petrol bombs and stun grenades. And maybe guns too. Further, seizing soldiers’ weapons and opening fire on them is an aggressive and violent act.

5. Israel’s only ‘provocation’ is to exist.

6. I’ll bet you anything you like that the world’s media won’t report the situation with any reasonable degree of fairness and balance. (So far I’m correct.)

7. And if it gets to the UN, that august body won’t be fair and balanced either.

8. I await with interest the USA’s response.

9. This story’s by no means finished.

10. I feel terrible about it all. Like there’s no hope for humanity on this screwed-up planet.

Why Farmdoc's voting Liberal

Last Monday Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith (pictured) announced Australia’s expelling an Israeli diplomat in retaliation for Israel’s alleged forgery of four Australian passports in connection with the murder of Hamas terrorist and arms dealer Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh [1]. Here are my responses:

A. The federal opposition Liberal Party says Australia’s action was aimed at currying favour with Arab countries because Australia’s seeking a UN Security Council seat [2].

B. Liberal Party Deputy Leader and Shadow Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Australia has used and forged foreign passports in intelligence and other covert activities [3].

C. Prime Minister Rudd’s rebuke of Ms Bishop in the interests of national security [4] is tacit confirmation. Why wouldn’t he deny it if he could truthfully do so?

D. A federal election’s due later in 2010. Though I’m ideologically more aligned with Labor than the Liberals, due to this expulsion I’m voting Liberal. For me all else is background music.

E. In his blog Steve Lieblich asks three pertinent questions: If Australia could have prevented the Bali bombing by forging some passports and killing a terrorist, would it have done so? What protest has the Australian government made to the Dubai and other governments openly allowing terrorist activity? And if that protest is weaker than this action against Israel, why [5]? Indeed, Steve.

F. In the battle against the rising tide of Islamist terrorism, Israel’s the gold mine canary. If Israel can’t hold the line then heaven help the rest of the so-called civilised world – including Australia. But Messrs Smith and Rudd can’t see past their noses – which currently are distinctly brown.

G. Screw them. At times like this I’m ashamed of my country’s Prime Minister and Government.

Malcolm Fraser - shouldn't be seen or heard

In the 1950s when I was a nipper, my parents told me that ‘children should be seen and not heard’. Over fifty years later that’s anachronistic. But I think an adaption of that saying, i.e. ‘previous prime ministers should not be seen or heard’, still applies. Two years ago I wrote of it here. In that post I wrote: ‘…Malcolm Fraser, that Hamas praiser, bleeding-heartedly yabbering on about why Australia’s Middle East policy should be even-handed’. But Fraser (pictured), whose 80th birthday’s next month, and who exited parliament in 1983 (yes, 27 years ago) still yabbers on. Last week he publicly called for expulsion of Israeli diplomats from Australia because Israel forged Australian passports. The Australian Federal Police’s still investigating the matter. But Fraser, ever omniscient, said the diplomats should be ejected before the AFP reports. Why? Because in his venerable view, only a nation state could have produced such high quality forgeries. What horse shit. And what a contrast to the view of current Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott who said: ‘We can never forget that Israel is a country under existential threat in a way Australians find difficult to understand’. The late mother of one of Sweetheart Vivienne’s friends had a saying: ‘If you weren’t there, you don’t know’. This applies to you, Mr Fraser. If you’re listening – which I doubt. And, adjunctively, shame on the media for giving this pathetic has been (or never was) coverage.

farmdoc's blog post number 682

Apartheid. It’s an Afrikaans word (from apart apart + -heid –hood) dating from 1947, and defined as a former policy of segregation and discrimination against non-Europeans in South Africa. Now it’s being extrapolated to Israel. Welcome to Israeli Apartheid Week [IAW]. But hold your horses: Israel’s Arab citizens have full rights including full voting rights. Thirteen Arabs sit in the current 120-member Knesset. But factual evidence of non-apartheid in Israel doesn’t stop the lunatic fringe continuing their bleeding heart support of totalitarian theocracies. If these myopic halfwits were genuinely concerned about apartheid, they need look no further than their darling Palestinian Authority [PA] and Hamas. Are there Jews living in Gaza? (That’s a rhetorical question, folks.) The PA’s called Jewish West Bank settlements an obstacle to peace. To them Jews shouldn’t be citizens of a possible future Arab West Bank state. Well if that’s not apartheid, I hop to hell on a toothpick. This is the sixth IAW. Starting in Canada, it’s metastasised like the evil malignant cancer it is. It’s university-based. The responsible (pun intended) student morons should go to more classes – because IAW (N.B. Week) spans two weeks (from 1-14 March). And the prize-winning poster (above left) gives its dates as 1-7 March. Recently Ontario’s legislature condemned it. Unanimously. A legislator said ‘If you're going to label Israel as Apartheid, then you are also... attacking Canadian values…The use of the phrase IAW is about as close to hate speech as one can get without being arrested, and I’m not certain it doesn't actually cross over that line’. Yes sir.

farmdoc's blog post number 650

Here’s this week’s compendium. This week…

Wednesday – being the anniversary of the day in 1945 when Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated – was 'International Holocaust Remembrance Day' (in the UK, 'Holocaust Memorial Day') [1]. Never forgotten. Never again.

in its response to the Goldstone report, Hamas said it didn’t target civilians while firing hundreds of rockets at Israeli towns; it’s just that its rockets are unguided and they hit civilians by mistake [2]. I’m not surprised or disappointed by this. It’s what I expected from that lot.

Steve Jobs launched the iPad [3]. Some of the iJournalists and iTechies thought it’s the greatest thing since sliced iBread. Others looked down their iNoses at it and labelled it an iDud.

I came across this Queensland Health pdf file titled ‘Tooth friendly foods and tooth enemies’ [4]. It’s worth a quick read.

yesterday the Age published this article titled ‘How to deal with flight delays and travel hassles’ [5]. As it says, in the world of air travel, this is an age of lowered-expectations.

treehugger.com published this superb slideshow of the Passivhaus – which it calls ‘The Real Standard for a Real Green House’ [6]. I think they mean ‘a Really Green House’. But the pics are mouthwatering.

the Lancet published research concluding that in Type 2 diabetes, the most intensive glucose control is associated with increased risk for death [7]. I love research results that are counter-intuitive.

on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday Sweetheart Vivienne and I had our annual State of the Union discussions. In diplomatic speak, they were cordial and fruitful. On Wednesday a certain Mr Obama borrowed our idea and gave his State of the Union Address [8a, 8b].

Finally, I wish you, dear Farmdoc’s Blog readers, a wonderful week.

farmdoc's blog post number 622

Here’s this week’s compendium. This week…

1. the F1 blogosphere was awash (can a blogosphere be awash?) with posts about the Australian Grand Prix being without a naming rights sponsor 2½ months before this year’s event [1]. All indicators point to the event being moribund – if not dead. But the government continues its life support. Why?

2. in last Sunday’s Sunday Age, its production editor, a Mr Coulter, wrote an article advocating buses to replace Melbourne’s trams [2]. As you didn’t mention the buses’ fuel, your view is not worth the paper it’s written on, sir.

3. this Age piece confirmed the benefit of businesses having easy-to-remember phone numbers [3]. They’re useful for individuals too. Mine ends in 1230.

4. Nutrition Diva wrote that frozen vegetables lose little nutritional value during freezing; and in the off-season they may be more nutritious than fresh vegies from far away [4]. What about the packaging?

5. this ABC News item tells of 1,300 people – labelling them ‘peace activists’ – who are in Egypt hoping to cross into Gaza to protest against Israel’ economic blockade of Gaza [5]. What – no mention of Gilad Shalit? How very convenient of these bleeding heart do-gooders to overlook the Hamas’s barbarian treatment of him, let alone its stated aim of eliminating a UN member state. A pox on all 1,300 of them.

6. treehugger.com put up an item about San Francisco offering free water to the public [6]. It’s happening, PJ. Not yet at the global tipping point, but every step’s one step towards it. Roll on, GlobalTap.

7. also in treehugger was a story of a group of girls in northern England who’ve started a campaign to make bicycling stylish for girls – who are under represented among cyclists [7]. This is one for you, Meg. Roll on, BikeBeauty.

8. yesterday my fellow Mole Creek resident Pete the Maremma [8] turned seven years old. Happy birthday, Petey Boy. Mate.

Finally, I wish you, dear Farmdoc’s Blog readers, a wonderful week – and year.

farmdoc's blog post number 552

Here’s this week’s compendium. This week…
1. Sweetheart Vivienne’s wonderful book Alzheimers: A Love Story went into the book shops [1] and she began a round of promotional media engagements. I am so excited and pleased for, and proud of, her.
2. actress Mia Farrow, a UNICEF goodwill ambassador, was more impressed by the plight of Gaza’s children than Sderot’s children [2]. She has an inverted sense of morality. Plainly and unequivocally, the aggressor’s Hamas. The Gazan men should’ve considered the likely consequences before they fired their rockets. I doubt they care.
3. Microsoft launched Windows 7 [3]. My intuition tells me Microsoft’s best and most profitable days are in the past.
4. I learned that tea contains catechins, i.e. natural compounds which help prevent high blood pressure. And adding milk to tea renders the catechins inactive [4]. My blood pressure’s okay, so I’ll continue to add milk to my cuppa.
5. for the first time I heard about elder abuse. Each year some 4,000 Tasmanians aged over 65 experience some form of physical, emotional, financial or sexual abuse – usually at home. Tasmania’s the only Australian state without a prevention strategy for, and dedicated resources to treat, it [5]. Shame, Tasmania.
6. an opinion poll showed 2% of Palestinians still consider Yasser Arafat the Palestinian personality they trust most [6]. He died a mere five years ago – in November 2004. What else do you need to know?
7. the UN Human Rights Council endorsed the biased and fatally flawed Goldstone report. The UNHRC’s condemned Israel 26 separate times [7]. Human rights are vital, but only when they're unadulterated by politics.
8. is darling Pepper’s second birthday [8]. She's so sweet and gorgeous, and she has a wicked sense of humour. I wish her a happy day – and life.
Finally, I wish you, dear Farmdoc’s Blog readers, a wonderful week.

farmdoc's blog post number 450

You’d think that as a man whose father died 40 years ago today, I’d be old and wise enough to have things sorted, and to know why things happen. But I don’t. For example, I don’t know…

why prime minister Rudd, having said Sorry so eloquently on 13 February 2008, thinks tourists should be allowed to climb Uluru against the traditional owners’ wishes. [1]

why Tasmanians drive like there’s no tomorrow, having no regard for weather and road conditions. Six deaths last Thursday brought Tasmania’s road toll so far this year to 45 compared with 40 for the whole of 2008. [2]

why governments persist is supporting clean coal rather than genuine clean renewable energy. Clean coal’s the mother of oxymorons. [3]

why left wing liberals support Hamas which is, no doubt, a regime of fundamentalist religious totalitarianism. Yet Israel, which is a parliamentary democracy with a free press, is their knee-jerk nemesis. [4]

who exactly ex-footballers Rex Hunt and John Newman think they are. Hunt was recently convicted for road rage; and last Friday police interviewed Newman about an alleged road rage incident. Did I just use the word ‘think’? Oops. Sorry. [5]

In Paul Simon’s Kathy’s Song, there’s a line:

‘And so you see I have come to doubt all that I once held as true.’

I don’t know if I’d understand these things any better if I talked about them with my Dad. But I’d give everything I own to find out.

farmdoc's blog post number 431

It’s well known that as we get older, time seems to pass faster. The explanation’s given in The Brain That Changes Itself. (Yes, I’m learning much from that book.) Essentially when we’re young and our brain memory banks are fairly empty, experiences flood in and gradually fill them up. Then as we age and our memory banks fill, there’s less free space for new memories and so (subconsciously) we’re choosier about what we remember. So to me as an old guy, the last three years have flashed by. Not so, I’m certain, for Gilad Shalit (pictured). Hamas kidnapped him three years ago today. Three years; 1,096 six days; 26,304 hours; 1,578,240 minutes; 94,694,400 seconds. I think of him often. I wonder what conditions he’s being kept under. What food he eats. What he does all day. What he thinks about. And how his parents cope. I couldn't bear not seeing any of my children for three years, let alone if they were held incommunicado by an inhuman terrorist mob. Last Thursday the Red Cross issued this statement. But to no avail, judging by this response from Hamas. However things are changing in the Middle East, e.g. Hezbollah’s unexpected Lebanese election loss; and the Iranian post-election protests. Israeli news sources believe Hamas is softening its demands for Shalit’s release. I’ve mentioned Shalit in three previous posts [1, 2, 3]. I wish and hope his next mention will be about his release. And that it’ll be soon.

farmdoc's blog post number 326

I’ve previously written of my aversion to authority. Faced with an authoritarian person or institution, my initial response’s somewhere between scepticism and cynicism. The United Nations, founded in 1945 after World War II to stop future wars and promote dialogue, is arguably the only institution with global participation and authority. I’d love to believe in the UN, its ideals, and its activities which should transcend politics. But alas, I cannot. For example following the 2006 Second Lebanon War, the Security Council, in Resolution 1701 (2006) ‘created a buffer zone free of “any armed personnel” – both Hizbollah militants and Israeli troops – between the United Nations-drawn Blue Line in southern Lebanon and the Litani River’. This hasn’t occurred; Hizbollah’s re-armed under the very nose of UNIFIL. And in Gaza UNRWA openly collaborates with Hamas: its workers aren’t security screened; they double as Hamas combatants; Hamas uses its refugee camps and schools as training bases and missile launch-sites; and as UNRWA’s attempt to transfer a letter from Hamas to US Senator John Kerry during his recent visit to Gaza demonstrated, UNRWA’s also willing to be Hamas’s surrogate. And what about UNRWA’s deliberately false claim during Operation Cast Lead, of Israel shelling its school, killing dozens. The moral? The UN’s not apolitical, not disinterested, not principled and not trustworthy. It may have been a great idea once. But no longer. More’s the pity.

farmdoc's blog post number 317

It’s 44 days since Operation Cast Lead ended on 18 January. No permanent ceasefire’s in place, Hamas’s resumed rocketing southern Israel, Israel’s Air Force’s responding, Gilad Shalit’s captivity’s in it’s 33rd month, tortuous Israeli post-election coalition jostling grinds on, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas flirt with betrothal overtures, and POTUS Obama and SecState Clinton ponder what to do. Maybe the only progress since 18 January is information from Israel confirming the adage: ‘Truth is the first casualty of war’ – of uncertain origin but nonetheless valid. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights reported that two thirds of 1,338 fatalities were civilians. But Colonel Moshe Levi, head of the Israel Defence Forces’ Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA), has painstakingly analysed every single fatality, and in a 200-page report concluded civilians comprised no more than one third of deaths. And regarding the 6 January UN school incident in which initial Palestinian reports claimed IDF shells had hit the school and killed 40 or more people, many of them civilians, the CLA’s investigation revealed no school hits, and 12 fatalities including nine combatants. To those bleeding-heart liberals in the media and the public-at-large who protested the number of civilian deaths, during the Operation, without waiting for the truth to out, I say this: ‘Those who know, don’t talk. Those who talk, don’t know’.

farmdoc's blog post number 274

It’s strange how once I get a thought in my mind, it somehow sticks there. For a while. Two days ago I wrote of censorship. Today I do it again. Seeing as censorship’s a recurring theme here, looking at a definition’s worthwhile. Here are some [1,2,3,4] which show it involves suppressing, excluding, restraining, inhibiting, and distorting. Thus it has negative, and pejorative, connotations. Twelve days ago, the Age apparently published an op-ed piece by Khalid Meshaal, the official leader of Hamas – which is on the Australian government’s list of terrorist organisations. Therefore should Meshaal be afforded space in a newspaper in a nation that lists Hamas as a terrorist organisation? Yuval Rotem, the Israeli ambassador to Australia, in a piece published last Friday, pointedly in the same newspaper, argues he shouldn’t. I'm less sure. Free speech is important – nay, paramount – in a vibrant, robust democracy. And media censorship, whether self-administered or imposed, clearly limits free speech. Because censorship is negative and pejorative, it’d be nice if it wasn’t needed. My inclination is that the Age was correct in publishing Meshaal's piece, so its readers can judge him for what he is and what he stands for. However this runs counter to my view that terrorists must be denied the media coverage they yearn for. In short, censorship's not an easy issue. And the closer you look, the harder it gets.

farmdoc's blog post number 268

A fortnight ago I wrote of Israel’s response to Hamas’s rocket fire from Gaza. The true situation on the ground there remains unclear to everyone except the senior ranks of the Israel Defence Forces and the Government of Israel. But that hasn’t stopped the media, bleeding-heart liberals, Arab apologists, and even United Nations’ staff from copious public outpourings of self-righteous indignation. I wonder how these people would react if rockets were being indiscriminately fired at them and theirs. Anyway today I write of two documents. The first is Hamas’s Charter which you can read here. Inter alia, it says ‘Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it…(and)…There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad’. And it cites the disgusting, anti-semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Hamas’s Charter speaks for itself. The second document is United Nations Security Council Resolution 1860 (2009) which you can read here. Its 10 points all sound fine. But they must be read in conjunction with the part of Hamas’s Charter that says: ‘Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors’. So good luck with your resolution, UN. Oh, one final thing: What about Gilad Shalit (pictured), who was abducted by Hamas on 25 June 2006. Why Resolution 1860 (2009) doesn’t mention him, is beyond me. 

farmdoc's blog post number 253

These days, my main web browser is Google Chrome. When I open it, it shows thumbnails of my nine most frequently visited web pages. Since last Saturday night, the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz ones have been rapidly climbing the frequency ranking. Israel had no realistic alternative but to attack Hamas in the Gaza Strip: Diplomacy wasn’t working. Hamas was raining rockets and mortar shells on Israeli villages near Israel’s Gaza Strip border as well as more distant towns and cities. Especially since the negotiated 6-month lull ended on 19 December. No country on earth would’ve tolerated that insult to its sovereignty. And Israel, try as she did, ultimately couldn’t either. Undoubtedly the continued captivity of Gilad Shalit deterred Israel from moving sooner. But ultimately a military response to Hamas was inevitable. An entire nation can’t be blackmailed so. Currently the Israeli operation’s in its early days. Already the international community’s reflex responses of disproportionate response and collective punishment have been dusted off and wheeled out. Where were these responses last week when hundreds of rockets and shells were hitting southern Israel? I don’t know how long the current campaign will last, how it’ll play out, how it’ll end, whether its objectives will be achieved, and if so at what cost. But I hope it’ll ultimately be worthwhile – for both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.