Selves and Others

"The gore of metaphor trumps the explicit similie. But it’s hard to beat a name at times." — Blaise Cendrars, shortly after losing his arm in WWI; immediately after telling a story about a another fellow who’d lost a limb...without a word about himself.

"That which we call a rose/By any other word would smell as sweet." — Shakespeare (in the play about the very young youngsters, II,ii,43.)

This person I know has a son who recently went before a local judge to be sentenced for violating parole. At only 20, he’d already managed to have physical confrontations with his sado/masochistic girlfriend registered twice. A week before the court appearance —while he was rotting away ’midst a row of incarcerated bunk beds, right on the edge of his skinny ass becoming someone’s personal property— those concerned with him got together to prepare his defense. That included me.

"Keeping our men clean is a matter of the highest importance."

 General Pershing

"For God’s sake...don’t show this to the President or he’ll stop the war."

 Secretary Baker responding to (head of the CTCA) Raymond Fosdick’s handing him French Premier Clemenceau’s magnanimous offer to establish licensed houses of prostitution for sexually-suffering American doughboys.

(Swans - March 28, 2005) As we approach the end of March we can observe many frightful anniversaries associated with what Teddy Roosevelt lovingly referred to as the "Great Adventure" — highlights which carry heavy parallels with current abominations, and hark to the Hell that is our future.

The virulent strain that is our history continues to spread...disease. (...)

A look at Sharon’s policies before he meets President Bush next month.

As Israeli Arabs mark Land Day this week, Ariel Sharon’s government announced what everybody already knew since last summer. The Israeli government is going to expand the Maaleh Adumim settlement bloc in the West Bank by 3,500 housing units. With other development measures in place, it will effectively separate the West Bank and leave any open corridor under Israeli control as well as redraw the boundaries of Jerusalem. Other policies such as the construction of the Separation Wall will continue unabated. (...)

Sharon is sacrificing Gush Katif and risking domestic strife to achieve two goals: strengthening his power at home with the promise to "quit" the hated Gaza, and setting Israel’s eastern border on the ridge lines that will expand the "narrow waist" around the Dan region and Jerusalem.

On April 11, Ariel Sharon will go to a victory party at U.S. President George W. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. There is nothing politicians enjoy more than to gloat, and Sharon has a lot of reasons for celebrating his victory over the "rebels" who tried to stop his disengagement plan and failed; his victory over the doubters who eulogized his reign over and over; his victory over the left, which once haunted him and now organizes demonstrations in his honor; his victory over Tommy Lapid, who tried to leverage his political power and crashed twice.

But more than anything in Texas, Sharon will celebrate the victory of the bulldozer. At the heart of his conversation with the president will be strengthening the understandings regarding Israel preserving for itself the settlement blocs in the West Bank. Bush already accepted the principle last year. Now Sharon wants to make sure the American promise for an annexation of the blocs in the future is turned into permission to build, in exchange for the evacuation of settlers from Gaza and northern Samaria. (...)

More and more Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem who return home from the Bethlehem and southern West Bank area through the so-called "Container" checkpoint east of Abu Dis are being called in for questioning by police for violating a military order, according to MachsomWatch, a human rights organization that monitors Israel Defense Forces checkpoints.

MachsomWatch puts down the change in the IDF’s policy at the checkpoint to the preparations ahead of completing the construction of the separation fence in the Jerusalem area. (...)

The fatal flaw in most analyses of the Israel-Palestine conflict is the assumption that if the Palestinians can just get a state of their own, then all will be fine. A state on all the Occupied Territories (UN Resolution 242), on most of the Occupied Territories (Oslo and the Road Map to the Geneva Initiative), on even on half the Occupied Territories (Sharon’s notion) - it doesn’t matter. Once there’s a Palestinian state the conflict is over and we can all move on to the next item on the agenda. (...)

Recently, the US announced it would be selling F-16 planes to Pakistan as a part of its five year $3 billion assistance program. The F-16 is one of the most advanced and powerful planes in the world, and only 4,500 such planes are in commission in the entire world. By agreeing to sell the planes to Pakistan, the US risks instigating a new arms race between India and Pakistan, long time rivals, and further agitating the conflict over the Kashmir region. The US indicated that it may strike a similar arms deal with India soon.

Kashmir is one of the most strategically important areas in the world. The region boarders two major powers, China and India, the first and second fastest growing economies of the world respectively, as well as two Islamic countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan, one of which is directly occupied by US military and run by an American puppet, the other of which is one of the US’ greatest allies in the war on terrorism who is a major recipient of American military aid.