Wow. Wow! Israel loses its shit over the near-arrival of some activists on boats — and my blog views triple. John Cole at Balloon Juice front-pages me — and that tripled number, in turn, more than doubles. Wowie zowie!
Sooooooo, since you’re here, and handy-like….
I thought I’d offer up a few of my favorite old posts, to give new readers a sense of what I write about in addition to Israel/Palestine. I hope you like what you see, and will come back! (Not to mention talking me up to friends, loved ones, neighbors, enemies — anyone with eyes and an Internet connection, really).
To wit:
1) Things I love about America.
… #5. Poop scooping – I challenge you to find another country on earth in which bending down to pick up dog feces is such a regular, unquestioned feature of everyday civility. One! Name one!
2) Things that bug the crap out of me about America.
…#2. Reality TV – WTF? I mean, really: WTF? I know that we do not bear sole responsibility for this blight on civilization, but surely we consistently raise the blight to ever greater heights of blightiness. “Reality TV” is to reality what Tang is to orange juice, and humiliation-as-entertainment is bad for everybody. Bread and circuses, people — this is the sort of shit that brought down the Roman Empire.
3) Do tell.
…I also remember when DADT came about — it was one of those moments at which my faith in President Clinton died a little more. It was a terrible decision, premised on the notion that active, daily lying is less damaging to unit cohesion than who some soldiers might love….
This morning I saw an ad for Heineken Beer that told me in big, bold, confident letters: “You are who you are when no one is looking.”
And my mind went immediately — whoosh! — to nose-picking.
…quite aside from the fact that I always found him quite adorable in [Blues Clues], Mr. Burns also released a truly delightful popy-rocky-Flaming Lipsy-sorta album soon after leaving television, and I frankly love it.
In case you’re wondering, here’s a quick checklist to help you determine whether or not you have entered the middle years of your life.
…Our beloved American respect for all creeds is revealed as just that: for the creed-ed only. The creed-less need not apply. Even the separation of church and state becomes suspect, as it presupposes, by definition, a church.
All of the people who have tried to argue that Roman Polanski no longer deserves what he deserves are ignoring not only the truly heinous nature of his crime, but also the demands of a law-based society.
9) Community.
Once upon a time, I became an ardent member of an online community…. I speak, of course, of Jezebel.
10) Fragile.
…My absolute inability to keep them from harm takes my breath away. Limbs will break, hearts will break. Please God, not spirits. The maxim that joy is not complete without grief to shape it interests me not in the least – let their joy be shapeless, I think, but let it be joy.
11) Next time.
In my next life, I will be a singer/songwriter/pianist/guitarist who walks across the stage bare-footed, a small, warm smile of confidence and joy gracing my face as my voice fills the hall with aching sweetness, tangling close with others in harmony, my instrumental talent as easily worn as it is prodigious.
I will be Marketa Irglova.
12) Babies.
I find myself rifling through what amount to old muscle memories — my skin suddenly remembers theirs, or my arms feel their weight again — and I ache. I want to touch them. I don’t want new babies, strange babies, babies I have never known. I want my own.
Writer’s block – ten tons of fun, or twelve?
Emily L. Hauser - In My Head 