Horror again in Gaza and Israel

Uri Avnery decribes in detail the harrowing sequence of events that have happened in Israel recently, starting with the murder of three Israeli youth, an atrocity that ignited a fire that was fanned by Israeli politicians to create massive anti-Arab anger that then led to the horrific burning alive of a Palestinian teenager and the vicious beating of his American cousin by Israeli security forces (video), the launching of missiles at Israel by Hamas, and then the massive assault by Israel on Gaza, the latest in a long series, resulting in over one hundred deaths of Palestinians and the numbers still increasing, with even a hospital and a home for the disabled being bombed.
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Greasing the revolving door

I have written before that one of the biggest sources of government corruption is the revolving door that takes people from the private sector that serves big business and puts them into government agencies that are supposed to monitor and prosecute those businesses and then those people return to the grateful arms of that sector. The revolving door between the Treasury Department and Wall Street is the most notorious but it goes on at all levels.
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For the blind, darkness is not a prison

Journalist H. L. Mencken was no friend of religion or its apologists and took every opportunity to savage them with his biting wit. There is a great line of his that I have used on many occasions where he expressed his contempt for theologians, saying: “A theologian is like a blind man in a dark room searching for a black cat which isn’t there – and finding it!”
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Seeing Cleveland through fresh eyes

The Republican National Committee has selected Cleveland to host the 2016 party nominating convention. This was not an obvious choice. For one thing, while Ohio is a swing state and somewhat conservative in general, the Cleveland area is one that is a liberal Democratic stronghold in which minorities dominate. The only competitive elections here are those in the Democratic primaries.
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Whom the NSA is spying on

Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain have published an article that identifies five individuals whose emails were intercepted by the NSA, out of 7,485 listed on a spreadsheet. This is the first time that the targets of the NSA spying have been identified by name. All of them were people who, as far as anyone can tell, had led lives that were free from any suspicion of being involved in wrongdoing. Their main ‘crime’ seems to have been that they are all Muslims.
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Another Great Decision

Some of you may recall the absurd situation that arose in 2010 when basketball player LeBron James’s contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers expired and there was speculation as to whether he would re-sign with the team or go elsewhere. James made himself a laughing stock by arranging a 75-minute TV special on ESPN grandiosely titled The Decision where he was interviewed, during which he announced that he was ‘taking his talents’ to Miami.
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I’m back!

After taking a week off from blogging, I am now back.

My daughter’s wedding on Saturday went off without any hitch and everyone seemed to have a good time. Weddings are a good time to meet with family and old friends and to meet and make new friends from among the in-laws. We had a lot of houseguests and the last of them left yesterday. I come from a close-knit extended family and many relatives came from all over the world and we had a wonderful time together.
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