2007 December «

Haste Ye Back

December 17, 2007 at 6:26 am | In Miscellaneous | Leave a Comment

I saw this sign on a lodge’s gate in the Highlands on my most recent visit to Scotland.

I’m now heading to places even further afield, where a blog simply cannot follow. I’ll be gone for a few weeks, and The Contrary Son will go silent.

I’ll be back on Monday, January 7th, and posting will resume at that point. 2008 is going to be a big year around here, so do make sure you find your way back.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Haste Ye Back.

Rat Island Revisited

December 14, 2007 at 5:54 am | In Miscellaneous | Leave a Comment

Remember Rat Island? The gorgeous little vacation hotspot I mentioned a few months ago, where the lucky vacationer can be completely secluded with nothing around for miles in any direction — except for thousands and thousands of rats?

Well, if we don’t act to save it, Rat Island might be about to lose its charm. Alaskan scientists are apparently angry about the fact that the rats have killed all the birds on Rat Island (and probably suspect that the rats are now plotting something). The scientists are planning to introduce a poison to Rat Island that will cause the entire population to bleed to death. Another part of the plan is to give free “gummi rats” to anyone who reports rat sightings in Alaska in places other than those already known. Seriously.

And to prove that they mean business, these anti-ratists even have a blog. So far there is just one post, which begins with the incredible sentence, “I am looking forward to hearing about your experiences with rats.”

I think I can safely say that that is true for us all.

It is quite possible that soon the rats will have a blog of their own, but until then, Connecticut’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Waterbury Republican-American, which cares about this for some reason, seems to be standing up for them. In a recent editorial, the paper declared:

We suspect most Americans wouldn’t mind leaving Rat Island to the rats, but government biologists looking for inventive ways to justify their jobs and waste your tax dollars are plotting a rat holocaust for an undisclosed but no doubt princely sum.

There you have it. A rat holocaust. Let’s leave Rat Island to the Rats — and send the government biologists to “Government Biologist Island.”

Image by Flickr user gruntzooki used under a Creative Commons License

Something Completely Different

December 13, 2007 at 1:25 pm | In Books, Miscellaneous | Leave a Comment

Since my new Salon piece ran this morning, I’ve been getting emails along the lines of “Hey, is all you can write about right wing Washington lobby groups?” Well, no. I can also write about finding stray eyeballs in movie theaters.

Let me explain: Along with a bunch of other folks, I’ve become involved with an ongoing project called The Good Book, where various people contribute different installments to a continuing story. Some do it in prose, some in comic strip form, and others will use other mediums in the future. There is a new installment every week and a half or so, and I did the third one. You can see it all here.

And yes, this sort of thing has been done before – but never with such love.

The Right Wing’s Jerusalem Gambit

December 13, 2007 at 5:19 am | In American Politics, Middle East | Leave a Comment

I have a new short feature article up over at Salon today, called “The Right Wing’s Jerusalem Gambit.” It’s about those hardline groups in the United States who are pushing back at the peace process nominally renewed a few weeks ago at Annapolis, because they are anxious about the possibility that it will lead to a division of Jerusalem.

The article actually started as a much more ambitious project that would have looked at a bunch of different groups pulling different ways, and I did interviews with many other people whose views and activities were not included in this piece – as I mentioned here.

We decided to scale it down to a more manageable size, and to possibly break off the other parts into other articles, at least one of which I will likely be writing for Salon in early 2008.

Whenever I have a Salon piece I tend to read the first few comments at the bottom and then stop, because very quickly, they become completely unhinged. My hope is that the Salon readers who are visiting this blog today as a result of the piece are mostly the sane, rational ones, and not the ones who send me completely crazy emails or those always getting into lunatic and irrelevant shouting matches at any mention of the Middle East.

So let’s see some comments. Riddle me this: After reading the piece, do you think Jerusalem is going to be divided? Do you think it should be?

Related:

Two Nations Divided By A Common Language

December 12, 2007 at 1:02 pm | In Books, Culture, Europe | Leave a Comment

I’m now in Scotland, but on my way here I made a very quick stop in London, where I was invited to a friend’s Christmas party.

At one point, I was making awkward small talk with someone I had been introduced to, when he asked, “So what’s the title of your book?”

“It’s called Shut Up, I’m Talking,” I told him.

He considered that for a moment.

Then he said, “That’s such an American title! In Britain, it would be called, ‘Excuse me, can you please be quiet? I’m speaking at the moment.”

Should there ever be a British edition, I guess we’ll have to consider that.

If A Man Is Tired Of London, He Is Tired Of Life

December 11, 2007 at 5:40 am | In Culture, Europe, Middle East, Miscellaneous | Leave a Comment

I’m in London on a quick stopover on my way to Scotland, where I am going to be doing some research for the long-term writing project I mentioned when I was there a while ago. This time, though, I will try not to offend the fiery Scottish separatists.

Blogging will continue this week, but because of the time difference, posts may appear at odd times.

In any case, a few quick observations from this side of the ocean:

1. There is now an Israeli version of Survivor. Participants are sent to a Caribbean island — but doesn’t that seem easier than just staying in Israel?

2. Everyone here in London is talking about last night’s Led Zeppelin’s reunion show. But, mostly because of the name, I was far more interested in Arlo Guthrie’s recent “Solo Reunion Tour,” which had the theme, “Together At Last.”

3. Finally! A place where you can eat lunch on top of dead people.

Image by Flickr user Berto used under a Creative Commons License

One Reason Why Nothing Ever Gets Solved in the Middle East

December 10, 2007 at 9:58 am | In Middle East | Leave a Comment

One of the many, many, many infuriating aspects of Israeli politics (the potential list of all of them seems endless, but I think this might be a decent start) is that political leaders have to deal with intra-party primaries when there isn’t even a general election coming. This is, in technical political science terminology, insane.

Gil Hoffman, a sharp political reporter for the Jerusalem Post, who I know from my time in the Prime Minister’s Office, reports that Transportation Minister — and former Defense bigshot — Shaul Mofaz is launching a campaign against Prime Minister Olmert for the leadership of the ruling Kadima Party.

What this means is that over the coming year, Olmert is going to have to:

1. Fight off Mofaz politically

2. Continue pushing hard against Iran despite the face that everyone now believes Iran is just a sweet and gentle country that would never harm a (non-Jewish) fly

3. Deal with the constant stream of corruption allegations leveled against him

AND…one other thing that is slipping my mind…

4. Oh yeah, that little finally-make-peace-with-the-Palestinians-because-the-whole-world-is-demanding-it thing.

Good luck with all that. It’s a wonder nothing ever gets done!

Photo of the Israeli Parliament by Flickr user Pikus used under a Creative Commons License.

Maccabees and “Motherfuckers”

December 7, 2007 at 9:51 am | In Culture, Miscellaneous | Leave a Comment

A bunch of you have recently sent me Christopher Hitchens’ Hanukkah smackdown in Slate, “Bah, Hanukkah,” rightfully thinking that I would pretty much agree with him that this holiday is in its roots just a pageant to horrible things. Thank you, and — agreed.

But even Hitchens, the king contrarian himself, can be on the receiving end of contrarianism. For that, check out the always illuminating Daniel Radosh’s response, “Bah, Hitchens.“

Or if, because it’s Friday, you’re not so much into the reading thing and kind of just want to look at pictures, take a look at my friend Eli Valley’s latest cartoon in Jewcy, from which the title of this blog post derived.

UPDATE: Kindly linking to this post, TAPPED, the group blog of The American Prospect, brings up the possibility that maybe the real miracle of Hanukkah was the defeat of “the homosexual agenda.”

Battle of Intelligence Estimates

December 6, 2007 at 8:19 am | In International Relations, Middle East | Leave a Comment

My editor at Salon, Mark Follman, did a great job interviewing Flynt Leverett, a former senior director on Bush’s National Security Council, on what the coming months will bring in the wake of the revelation that Iran was trying to make butterscotch brownies, not bombs.

He predicts “a kind of battle of intelligence estimates,” which I think is right on the money.

Meanwhile, the Israeli security establishment, which works tightly with certain sectors of the U.S. Government, does not seem to be fully convinced by the new intelligence, and it will be interesting to see how they interact with the Americans.

Read the interview here.

Now There Will Be A War With Iran

December 5, 2007 at 11:08 am | In International Relations, Middle East | Leave a Comment

Here’s some contrarianism for you:

Now that everyone knows that making nuclear weapons was the furthest thing from poor old Iran’s mind, and the only reason they keep bragging about their nuclear program is because they want to use it to make Mahmoud Ahmadinjead’s Famous Atomic Butterscotch Brownies, which they plan to share with all their neighbors (except the Jews, because of the recent awkwardness), everyone can just relax, right?

I think there is actually the possibility that this new development might lead to war. This new intelligence report will make it almost impossible for the U.S. to pull other countries into being tougher on Iran, and will make it extremely difficult for the Bush Administration to sell war domestically, or for a candidate to run on a let’s-all-bomb-Iran platform.

What this might do: make Israel feel like it’s on its own in terms of taking action (though not in dealing with the aftermath). Especially since, from my understanding, Israeli intelligence disagrees with the U.S. estimate, or at least says that it does.

And it’s never a good idea to make Israel feel like it’s being pushed into a corner.

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