Saturday Miscellany

First, from Nellie Bowles at the Free Press, an interesting detail about translation:

At the pro-Palestine/anti-Israel protests and in various “We Will Not Condemn Hamas” letters from academia, there are a lot of Arabic phrases bandied about. A lot of Arabic words showing up on posters. And those words are a translation, of a sort. So, when it says Free Palestine in English, in Arabic it often says Palestine Is Arab. The phrase Free Palestine sounds nebulous and nice. And sure! Free Everyone, I say! In Arabic, it’s a little less subtle: Palestine Is Arab. Palestine is not Jewish. It’s a call for the end of Jews in the area. (H/t Matt Yglesias for pointing this out.) You see, the same translation in the big “Academics and Intellectuals for a Free Palestine” letter. There, in English, it says Free Palestine. In Arabic: Palestine Is Arab.

I suspect that the protesters do not know what they are really saying. 

Second, while the Israeli Army tries to open corridors that will allow Gazans to move to the South, Hamas is shooting at those who are trying to leave. 

They refuse to give up their human shields.

As noted previously, using human shields is a war crime.

Third,  from Lyman Stone’s Twitter:

Canadian pro-Palestine activists planned an event on the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht and advertised it with posters showing people smashing windows. It's just anti-Semitism all the way down. 

Fourth, remember Paul Kessler, a Jewish man who was murdered by a Palestinian activist. We will see how long it takes for this murder to be erased from the public consciousness. 

Fifth, Daniel Greenfield reports on what happened in Los Angeles when actress Gal Gadot held a screening of Hamas atrocities at the Museum of Tolerance:

What really happened at the Museum of Tolerance Islamists and leftists invaded a Jewish neighborhood in Los Angeles and threatened a Holocaust museum that was going to screen uncensored images and videos of the Hamas atrocities carried out on Oct 7. 

It happened on the eve of the anniversary of Kristallnacht.

Sixth, in other news, South Korea. A robot mistook a man for a box of vegetables and killed him. 

The New York Post has the story:

A South Korean worker was crushed to death by an industrial robot that mistook him for a box of vegetables, local authorities said Thursday.

The unidentified worker in Goseong succumbed to head and chest injuries Tuesday evening after he was snatched up by the robot and shoved onto a conveyor belt, police said.

He reportedly worked for the company that installs the robot, and was sent to the vegetable plant to make sure the model was operating correctly.

Seventh, it's the fiftieth anniversary of Erica Jong’s feminist classic: Fear of Flying. To commemorate the occasion publishers are bringing out new editions.

Now, Jane Kamensky asks whether women have fulfilled the book’s promise of unbridled liberated sexuality. The main character is named Isadora Wing. 

Kamensky wrote this in The New York Times:

Today every woman is Isadora. Or maybe none is. Americans are lonely — marrying less, partnering less, even having less intercourse than ever. Women’s self-determination is found nowhere in the Constitution. Pay equity has barely budged in 50 years.

The marriage plot, the abortion plot, the screw-me-sideways-without-a-zipper plot: Each has run its course without effecting the longed-for revolution. Many of today’s feminist narratives wallow in pain more than pleasure. 

Cast a cold eye on feminism. Parse blame as you wish, but feminism seems largely to have failed.

Eighth, Laura Powell calls it a win for sanity. This, from Florida:

A federal judge dismisses a lawsuit challenging Florida's ban on boys in girls sports, rejecting arguments that the law violates Title IX, equal protection, and the due process right to privacy.

Ninth, the Biden administration is now divided against itself. While the president has been mostly doing the right thing about the Israel/Hamas fight, many members of the administration are much more sympathetic to the Palestinians.

Tyler Durden explains on the Zero Hedge blog:

A revolt is brewing within the Biden administration over how the White House is handling the Israel-Gaza war, as the civilian death toll and mass Palestinian displacement soars, and as Biden's top officials continue to say "no conditions" have been placed on how Israel uses US-supplied weapons. Pressure from the press pool is also piling on, with near daily spats and antagonistic back-and-forth exchanges on display in the State Department and White House briefing rooms.

This week there have emerged reports of scathing 'dissent memos' criticizing White House Israel policy being circulated, collecting many hundreds of signatures chiefly from among State Department and USAID staff. A primary theme of the pushback and pressure is that President Biden must change course on the Gaza crisis.

Surely, it tells you something about the people who are working in the federal bureaucracy.

It also explains why Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared that too many Palestinians have been killed. He did not call for Hamas to put down their arms and their rockets-- and surrender.

Tenth, on the therapy front, Henry Winkler, aka, the Fonz, has offered a testimonial to therapy. In his words:

I started off being who I thought I should be. I am now becoming who I am.

At the least, he has learned how to traffic in gibberish while imagining that he is a philosopher.

Eleventh, psychiatrist Emily Willow has been seeing patients who are torqued about climate change. This is obviously inconvenient for a discipline that tends to see everything in interpersonal terms. 

For reasons that make no sense, Dr. Willow now believes that psychedelics can alleviate her patients' anxiety.

As often happens in the field, this reads like a lesson in advanced bullshit:

In my clinical practice, patients using oral ketamine plus psychotherapy have experienced breakthroughs and new insights when working with the intention of navigating eco-anxiety. Many patients said they felt connected to a sense of oceanic oneness, reminding them of the meaningful interconnectedness of their lives with others and offering context for their personal narrative.

Imagine being an editor at the Washington Post and trying to edit that nonsense.

At the least, a psychiatrist named “Willow” must be attuned to the green agenda. Unless, of course, she is a weeping willow. Then we can say that she is in touch with her feelings.

Twelfth, Princeton Professor and notable vegan Peter Singer said that zoophilia, that is, human beings having sex with animals, was “thought provoking.” Assuming that that is all it provokes.

Thirteenth, for those who might have missed reading the comments section on my blog. Walt left this note on my Thursday post. Speaking of the Nuremberg trials after World War II:

Nuremberg enforced a fundamental distinction. All civilian lives are equal, but not so all ways of taking them. The deliberate and purposeful killing of civilians is a crime; not so the taking of civilian lives that is undesired, unintended, but unavoidable. The errors made by a bomber squadron cannot be deducted from the murders committed by a death squad. It’s a difference compounded many times over when those civilian men, women, and children are subjected to torture, rape, and mutilation before their murder. 

Fourteenth, from the mouth of our mentally challenged vice president, Kamala Harris:

"Well, the press is here. Ha ha ha! I got some words, though! I got the vocabulary and my pronunciation is perfect! Ha ha ha ha."

Fifteenth, on a more personal note, my new book Can’t We All Get Along is looking for a literary agent/publisher. Please forward any recommendations or suggestions to my email, StuartSchneiderman@gmail.com

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