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Ground Zero Barriers

2011-09-11T16:01:00.000-07:00

Taken on 9.9.11:

The Dangers of Objective Journalism Within The Age of Terrorism

2011-08-29T04:56:00.000-07:00

The Dangers of Objective Journalism Within

The Age of Terrorism

Jared Feldschreiber

“Anna Politkovskaya brought more damage to Russia by her death than by her work”

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Terrorism is the unlawful uses of a threat of violence against society to further a political or social objective. It is generally accepted as a means to intimidate and coerce governments and its officials to modify behavior and its policies. According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one “cannot bring an end to terror around a negotiating table, because the motive of terror is to exact a surrender by terrorizing the other side.”# To fight terrorism, according to Netanyahu, one should never surrender, have an elaborate intelligence system apparatus in play, and maintain a well-organized early warning system.#

Numerous journalists and commentators often cite the difficult role objectivity plays while covering terrorism, since the nature and genesis of media coverage is often prone to sensationalism. Yet, if exercised with professionalism and integrity, the freedom of press ought to be one of the most cherished rights in all democracies. Columnist Charles Krauthammer warns that “terrorists are rather resourceful about creating new theatrical productions; every year or two they come up with a new variant that captures the media’s imagination… we should remember that not all terrorism is dependent on the media. When we discuss terrorism we are really talking about four different kinds of political violence.”#

As this essay will demonstrate, Chechen rebels in Russia infused the specter of terrorism to their operations in the 1990s, forcing the Russian government to employ a counter-terrorism strategy. While covering one of its operations, the 2nd Chechen War, Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya objectively gave voice to the country’s enemies, which in turn made her an enemy in the “war on terror” approach employed by President Vladimir Putin. This essay will also show how the Russian government, specifically Putin, compromised the international tenets of journalism through accepted draconian policies, and the effective moral dilemmas created by a quest for “ultimate” security, resulting in the suppression of freedom. As Alain Besancon said, “perhaps our real problem here is not so much defining terrorism as understanding the effect that terrorism publicized by the media can have on society. After all, most terrorism is undertaken in order to arouse the sympathy of society.”

The media’s role in covering terrorism is a societal difficulty since the media is often prone to sensationalism, whilst negating objectivity. It is the journalist’s job to be objective, and yet some governments often suppress the free press for fear of compromising security. In democratic countries, the free press is a right, which should be protected, and yet in Russians, journalists are often prohibited from openly unmasking the underbelly of government in order to uncover terrorism objectively. As terrorism is often morphed by the military apparatus at play, this is where the objectivity of journalism can be construed as contradictory to its lofty ideals of seeking truth. This makes it extremely difficult for journalists effectively do their jobs, and even has journalists often fearing their lives.

Anna Politkovskaya, who spent her career covering the war in Chechnya, Chechen terrorists, and flawed counter-terrorist operations conducted by Russia, was killed in a shroud of mystery. Many believe Russian authorities were behind her murder. It has yet been proven, as she had “enemies” on both sides of the conflict, yet many fear that her murder had been covered up by Russian authorities. Journalists in free societies must be objective, and yet in the post 9/11 world of modern societies fighting Islamic terrorism, the dangers are more acute for journalists, as they are often accused of aiding, or at least attempting to create sympathy for them.

Poltkovskaya had covered the rise and reign of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and became a virulent critic to his counter-terror methods against Chechen rebels. Putin’s consolidated rule had been condemned by Politkovskaya as using his “dirty little war,” against the Chechens to create a front of security. Journalists often are unwittingly complicit with the enemy, and as Krauthammer titles his article “partners in crime.” Ironically, in this essay Krauthammer says “the media are not entirely at fault. They do what comes naturally, covering the unusual, the dramatic; and the new terrorist exploits this to get his message out. The media cannot help being enlisted… One is not asking the media to ignore terrorism, simply not to celebrate it. They can report the occurrence of political theater without disseminating the production, through the intelligent exercise of some restraint… nor is self-restraint the enemy of press freedom… the second modest proposal since the media cannot totally prevent themselves from being used by terrorists, they should at least avoid rationalizing or apologizing for them…”# Although Politkovskaya did not apologize for “terrorists,” she was certainly condemned for it.

Politkovskaya covered the Chechen war between 2002-2004 in her newspaper Novaya Gazeta and later chronicled in her book, A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya. She recorded the unlawfulness committed by Russian soldiers, who sought to obliterate Chechen fighters. This was the message that came directly from Putin. Since Chechen rebels are linked with Al Qaeda, branded as terrorists, aptly as their actions suggest, Putin has been validated to fight them under “just war” principles. Nonetheless, the objectivity of the job of the journalist to unmask truths about organizations, however the subject matter, Politkovskaya’s candid account likely riled Russian authorities, who were waging a “war on terror.” Putin set up a counter-terrorist apparatus in place against the Chechens when he became President in 2000, and his methods were meant to disrupt their capabilities.

In the 21st century, Islamic terrorism is the gravest threat facing Western countries, including the United States, Europe and Israel. The Russians have been seeking to dismantle Chechen rebels for two decades, waging two bitter wars. Chechens continue to attack inside Russia. As a columnist, Politkovskaya was at odds with Putin’s “war on terror” methods, depicting a ruthless former KGB officer and head of the Federal Security Service (FSB) as a hybrid system, in which democracy in Russia was impeded.# Politkovskaya’s work with the newspaper Novaya Gazeta investigated the crimes and human rights abuses of the federal and Moscow- installed authorities in Chechnya and in Russia. She was an outspoken critic of the war in Chechnya, and often gave illuminating insights. When Putin launched an overwhelming military campaign in Chechnya, it was conducted under the label of an anti-terrorist operation but it was as reported: “the start of a second brutal war killed as many as one-hundred thousand people.”# In 2000, President Putin set in motion a counterterrorism initiative against Islamists seeking a separate state. He centralized his power to conduct the battle of international terrorism and religious fanatics. Some feared this was merely a ploy to prove he was a stalwart buttress against Islamic extremism, absolving himself and his military apparatus from violations of torture and other questionable tactics. It is true that during his tenure, Chechen terrorist attacks in Russia were rampant, underscoring the need for heightened security measures.

Once Russia established direct rule of Chechnya in May 2000, Chechen militant resistance throughout the North Caucasus region continued to inflict heavy Russian casualties, and the number of terrorist attacks increased. As a result, both Chechen terrorism as well as widespread human rights violations by Russian and separatist forces, equally drew international condemnation. It is possible to view the blurring of the lines between the needs for security with open and transparent reporting.

President Putin built his career as a proponent of security as the backbone of his presidency, positioning himself in the global fight against terrorism, aligning himself with US President Bush in the post-September 11th era. Putin used his experience as an officer in the Committee for State Security (better known as KGB), controlling all federal politics. “The President’s explicitly stated jurisdiction for all of these changes was to fight terrorism.”#

Putin’s rationale for fighting radical Islamists could be reasoned by the principles of “Just War Theory.” Just War Theory has two sets of criteria: jus ad bellum and jus in bello. The former enables for just cause, the reason for going to war needs to be just, and this case Putin had reason to eradicate terror threats to his homeland by Chechnya. Jus in bello also deals with distinction, proportion and military necessity.”#

Politkovskaya’s career as a war correspondent in Chechnya, and her reportage on Russia’s counter-terrorist methods did not win her any government friends. By the time of her mysterious murder, according to Russian newspapers, Putin was quoted as saying, that she “brought more damage to Russia by her death than by her work,”# raising the question evermore about who killed her. It was universally accepted that her expose of the crisis in Chechnya was a threat to Putin’s view of homeland security.

Putin’s answer may have contributed to the inadequate investigation of her murder, but also to the subsequent killings of two of Politkovksa’s close colleagues, Natalya Estemirova and Stanslav Markelov. Markelov was a lawyer working on Chechen cases in Moscow where he was killed in January, 2009. Estemirova worked as a human rights activist and journalist in Grozny until July 2009 when she was killed. Terrorists consider most free nations and its people as their enemies. Thus, countermeasures, in the name of security must be coordinated by its government apparatus, perhaps alleviating some blame toward Putin from possible implications in their deaths. However, the role of an objective journalist should be protected by that very same system, which is seeking to secure all of its population. Thus, murder, always inexcusable, is amplified by a skewed political agenda in the face of a terrorist threat. Objective journalism finds the difficulty in meshing with this political apparatus in the age of terror. It is almost more of an indictment that Islamists did not claim responsible for Politkovskaya’s murder.

In light of this specter of terrorism, journalists have not been protected. More than a dozen Russian journalists have been killed during the tenure of Putin. Oksana Chelysheva, who is both a journalist and human rights activist, mostly seeking to carry on Politkovskaya’s memory describes the milieu in Russia: “There is a lot of evidence that Russia has moved toward autocracy and few signs of real democracy survive. Anna Politkovskaya was one of the toughest critics of the current state of things here in Russia and the situation in the North Caucuses. She revealed a lot of crimes, in which both pro-Moscow Chechen armed forces and federal agents were involved. “#

Chelysheva says that the Chechen conflict is quite difficult, mainly due to its unpopularity, even in a post 9-11 mindset. There is a government dictate, as an “attempt of the Russian authorities to silence the situation in Chechnya… you see it’s a real mockery to expect that people who became victims of human rights abuses and war crimes would speak openly to foreign journalists when they are surrounded with the Russian military.”# Clearly, non-foreign journalists in Russia are just as vulnerable.

In A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya, Politkovskaya highlights the brutality of the Russian invasion into Chechnya, as Putin’s guise, waging an anti-terror campaign. In reality, Politovskaya exposes the face of the nature of the war as merely a battleground of torture and war crimes perpetrated by Russian authorities. She blames Putin head-on for allowing these atrocities: “Life in Grozny (Chechnya) falls into two categories: ‘free and ‘blockaded,’ she writes. “There has been a disproportionately large military contingent of nearly one hundred thousand, opposing the Chechen population of six hundred thousand through murders, torture, and kidnapping… the purges continue, the commerce in living and dead bodies by soldiers as the principal military operation in Chechnya hasn’t ended, and thousands of people search for their kidnapped relatives and, in the best case, ransom, their corpses from those who defend the Motherland from terrorism.”#

Putin’s war against Chechen Islamists in Chechnya was seen as understandable, even sympathetic to most Western countries, defending Russia’s security, and in defense of Article 51, the right of self-defense. The United States aligned itself with Putin against an asymmetrical enemy. Politkovskaya depicts a different story:

“There is only one principle guiding the birth of these fighters: the more people get humiliated and hurt, the more units are formed. These units were born in the war, recruiting from Chechens who never thought of fighting before and were even hoping for the Russian troops to come and liberate them from the Wahhabis. Small units are supported mostly by the army inside Chechnya. Of course there is more precise description of the situation: its secret financing of the Chechen civil war is in connection with antiterrorist needs. Any secret service in the world would verify that it is better to destroy the enemy by someone else’s hands than your own. This idyllic coexistence is, of course, quite unique in Chechnya… Kremlin’s control of the smoldering conflict in Northern Caucasus is its main governmental policy… there are more and more corpses every day.”#

Politkovskaya depicts a ruthless dictator Putin as manipulating his role as leader, and in effect forsaking his country’s democracy, in support of a consolidation of power. Putin was elected president in 2000, after serving as a vital officer in the KGB. At the same time, the Federal Security Service (FSB) rose to prominence. He then had rested his candidacy on security, to thwart terrorist attacks by Chechens. At the time, the FSB hunted down foreign spies with any links to Chechen terrorists. This would soon get murkier, and more corrupt as “the rule of law remains a distant goal in today’s Russia, where the security services have concluded that their interests, and those of the state they are guarding, remain above the law. The mindset of Russia’s security services has undeniably been shaped by tsarist and Soviet history: they are suspicious, inward looking, and clannish…”#

As an objective journalist Politkovskaya demonstrated that Russia prioritized national security over civil rights. In 2002, Chechen rebels took a theater in Moscow and held its audience hostage. By the time the Russian unit was called in, it became a botched rescue attempt, as Russian Special Forces pumped an unknown gas into the theater’s ventilation system. Most of the hostage-takers died in the incident, but so too many of the hostages. Not only had this been viewed as a counter-terrorism failure for Russia, but also a case of excessive recklessness. The authorities were accused of lack of concern for the ultimate well-being of the hostages, but more as a Machiavellian demonstration that the ends justify the means, in which case the hostage-takers were exterminated. The difficulty for an objective journalist in this case is honestly surveying and reporting the motive, and outcome, on both sides.

To his credit, Putin put into place various laws to broaden the powers of law enforcement officials, but simultaneously diminished freedoms of the press. Human rights campaigners have long decried this situation, and estimate that since September 1999; as many as five thousand people have disappeared and are feared dead. In 2005, according to Amnesty International, Russian officials state that approximately two thousand as the official figure for disappearances since late 1999. There remains a mystery how and why Politkovskaya, both an enemy of Putin and of Chechen rebels, was shot dead in her apartment building on October 7, 2006. Chechen separatists have wanted independence for more than a decade, and she had her enemies there, but the Kremlin remains both silent, and threateningly evasive about this tragedy.

The murder of Anna Politkovskaya remains a tragedy, riddled with mystery, begging the question whether journalists can be objective and protected by democracies in an age of terrorism. As demonstrated in this essay, Putin put into motion a series of steps to counter terrorism within his country, all the while silencing potential critics. There remains a sensationalist approach to covering terrorism, as the Munich Olympic Games in 1972 demonstrate, which captured its riveting -- albeit painful seconds--- live on television for the first time. Herein remains the difficulties, and ethics, of journalists covering terrorism. Democratic governments must uphold the right of free-press; yet it did not protect Anna Politovskaya. Her death remains a painful blight on Russia, even as it understandably wages its “war on terror.” Suppression of the rights of journalists, in quest of documenting true events must not be allowed to exist in the modern age of international terrorism.

Sources:

1. Chelysheva, Oksana: “The Killing of Russian Journalists”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOqTEtV5JMM

2. Chelysheva, Oksana. Anna Politkovskaya. One Voice Amid Silence:”

3. Kahn, Jeffrey: “Vladimir Putin and the Rule of Law in Russia”

4. Kahn, Jeffrey. “Russia’s Dictatorship of Law and the European Court of Human Rights

5. Krauthammer, Charles “Partners in Crime”

6. Lipman, Maria http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalizationinstitutions_government/politkovskay a_3993.jsp

7. Netanyahu, Benjamin “Terrorism and the Media.” How the West Can Win

8. O‘Sullivan, John “Deny Them Publicity”

9. Politkovska, Anna. A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya

10. Soldatov, Andrei, Borogan, Irina “Russia’s New Nobility”

11. http://russiaprofile.org/politics/a1213293768.html

Don't Forget Gilad

2011-05-22T16:37:00.000-07:00

Don’t Forget Gilad

The lingering issue ignored by the world community, particularly in light of this new diplomatic impasse between the US and Israel is the kidnapping of Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit. The subject of Israeli boundaries are of course paramount to the country’s security, but harsher criticism should be directed at the world’s silence to international law violations perpetrated by Hamas against Shalit. This terror group has broken all international norms to this prisoner of war, denying him access to meet with the Red Cross.. This is both an abomination and a blight to the international community, which often prides itself on being humane, committed and compassionate to the world’s problems.

The bigger issue of whether or not to release thousands of potential terrorists seems to be a moot point now, as Israel has done it before in the past. Many Israelis are exasperated with its government, which obstinately refuses to comply with a swap (but as Golda Meir once articulated, it would be “blackmail of the worst kind.“) By the middle of next month, it will be five years since Shalit was kidnapped.

“Not a day goes past when we don’t hope for news that our son will be retuned to us and we as a family can begin rebuilding our lives together,” says his father Noam.

Amidst this new rift between Israel and United States over border disputes, the inhumanity of the kidnapping, and sheer indifference by the world community remains sickening. It is as if we have lost our values, cynically believing that this is merely a tactic by an asymmetrical enemy of Israel. No, this is a war crime.

Shalit, who will be 25 in August, was kidnapped by Hamas in June 2006, just prior to the Lebanon War. His capture and Hamas’s refusal to allow any independent humanitarian organization to visit him, is in strict defiance of the Geneva Conventions and to Red Cross policy. Even today, the IRC continues to send assistance to Hamas, and yet it cannot gain access to him. They have not been vocal enough about its inability to contact him and alerting the world. Shalit deserves to have his basic rights to meet with the IRC, and to enable communication with Gilad with his family. They still grieve for him, as do all Israelis; some continue to meet with other supporters, outside the Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem, demanding the government to ensure his release.

Hamas plays this cynical game, and the world community buys into it, believing it is at war with a morally equivalent adversary in Israel. Just recently, at the Yom Hatzmaot (Independence Day) ceremony in Jerusalem, Gilad’s brother interrupted it, holding a sign reading, “my father is a bereaved brother- I don’t want to be one too.”

This is all quite depressing, but reality here in Israel. Everything is not as celebratory like in the US, after a “victory,“ like scenes of euphoria on the streets of New York and D.C. following Osama Bin Laden’s death. Israel continues to battle its enemies through a series of “rounds,” as Ben Gurion once analyzed it would have to in order to survive. The Middle East is about survival and stability, and nothing more.

One should not be distracted by this current diplomatic division between Israel and US; it is a ruse, merely a sideshow to boost political points; it can be smoothed over. Corporal Shalit, who continues to rot in Gaza, remains inhumanely treated and forgotten by the world community, focusing on “settlements.” While the interim Egyptian government has allegedly put together a draft agreement for some kind of prisoner-exchange, nothing has yet been finalized, and the waiting game continues to persist.

One should never forget the cynical, and sickening games employed by terrorists like Hamas.

Obama and Libya in February

2011-02-24T04:25:00.001-08:00

Jared Feldschreiber

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/02/obamas_libya_silence.html

I give US President Obama credit: he does not bomb his own citizens. For reasons only he and his advisers know for sure, Obama remains muted, and indifferent, to the current genocide in Tripoli, Libya in which Libyan Dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi has unleashed a violent crackdown on his citizens. In 1986, Libya was bombed by Ronald Reagan because the then US President correctly deemed the Maghreb country’s dictator as a rogue, and a terrorist. This current US President remains reticent to respond, after a week of bloodshed in Tripoli's streets. This is the 3AM “wake up call” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chided him about 3 years ago.
As Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer accurately said of Obama’s silence on Tuesday's Bret Baier’s Fox News Program: “This is a President who went around the world in the first year in office saying he would he was raising the moral standard of the United States in the world after the travesties as he saw it or the Bush Administration. Here he is, he has nothing on what’s happening in Libya which is a case of brutality and mere genocide to use the word of one of Gaddafi's own diplomats. The shooting of demonstrators from helicopter gunships, the strafing of demonstrators from bombers astonishing.”
Yes, it is astonishing that the leader of the Free World can prove so weak in the face of this carnage. No it is not surprising to see this kind of behavior from an unpredictable despot who has been openly anti-American and violently oppressive for decades.
Obama was quick to abandon his ally, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak two weeks ago, as the “political winds" blew toward the protesters at Tahrir Square in Cairo. Now, Obama refuses to castigate Gaddaffi, a dangerous man who remains unchallenged in his 42 years of dictatorship. The man who led a bloodless Nasserist-style coup in in 1969, is currently basking in the total destruction of his own country-- all by his own doing. We are bearing witness to a genocide. Gaddafi refuses to relinquish power, and this week, simultaneously ordered strategic bombing of his own citizens, who he and his son, deem as” dogs.” This is something Saddam Hussein once ordered against the Kurds. Some of Ghaddafi's bombardiers heroically refused to execute their orders and fled to Malta.
The rest of the world community also is turning a “blind eye” to this soon-to-be- all-out civil war. The self-congratulatory United Nations, laughably had appointed Gaddafi as a member of the Human Rights Council and has merely given lip service. There are news clips of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s sharing smiles with Gaddafi. I believe these images will haunt the Italian Premier's legacy long after his sexual liaisons subside. He is a complicit partner to a madman who seeks “total war,” even against his people. Berlusconi ‘s country had been the colony of this North African country, and like other European countries, their attitude toward the Mid East remains one of collective guilt, deceiving themselves into believing they can now rationalize with evil despots. It is both a farce and shameful that the West refuses, and with impunity forget their values.
Does the United States and the Europeans stay reticent today because they fear an oil-rich country, like Libya, will not provide "vital" resources in the future?
If the answer is “yes,” it’ is both inexcusable and unconscionable. The West should remember its roots, one built on democracy, liberty and inalienable rights to stand up for justice and equality. The Obama Administration is afraid of stepping on the toes of an evil tyrant who remains hell-bent on spitting on these hallowed principles.
If there is something to be learned it is that Arab politics remains a convoluted game of ‘strong man politics,’ antithetical to everything the West is supposed to espouse; Arab Politics has always been, and will always be an anarchic and violent system. Hello World!: we are all bearing witness to its naked ugliness.
As a leader of the Free World, Obama’s reticence to this rogue regime is sickening, and his baffling silence remains deafening.

richie havens sad eyed lady of the low lands.wmv

2011-02-22T14:30:00.000-08:00

Natasha Estemirova remembered in Israel

2010-12-31T06:31:00.001-08:00

Natasha Estemirova remembered in Israel

: mirror_wolfe; December 28th, 14:52

Recently received a letter. Israeli journalist Jared Feldshreyber. Origin - USA. He now lives in Tel Aviv. At university.

We corresponded for about freedom of speech and journalists' rights, when Jared had sent his dedication Natalia Estemirova.

I asked him why he started writing poems about a woman who has never seen. Jared: "My poem merely is one voice seeking to raise awareness of brave truth-tellers unfairly gunned down for speaking out". "If poetry needs to be political, then so be it". ("My poem - it's just a lone voice who tries to tell about brave, not afraid to tell the truth, the price for what is a bullet. If poetry must be political, so it has to be.")

For Natalya

For I didn't know you
Until you died a callous murder;
Though your integrity lay intact.
For the bravery you humbly hid
Beneath the countless souls you helped to protect
Somewhere near the perilous Caucasus Mountains

Natalya:

I marvel at your courage
And I've never met you
Though I would have wanted.
You met the tragic irony of your own courage:
You met the same fate of others you sought to protect.

Natalya:
For we remember you by your first name alone;
You were murdered for your cause
And your cause had you murdered.

Natalya:
You were in a line of other needless deaths
Like Anna, Stanislav, Umar, Sulim, Ruslan: bludgeoned in cold blood.
The convoluted Russian spy games reduced to sheer chicanery
Masking the simplicity of shrouding the truth.

Natalya:
You did not die in vain;
Your enemies thought you were a robber of truth
And they will be punished.
You are somewhere amongst us
Beyond the withering trees.

2010-12-24T13:49:00.001-08:00

http://www.reut-institute.org/Data/Uploads/PDFVer/20100310%20Delegitimacy%20Eng.pdf

Golan Heights: TAU International MA in Security and Diplomacy

2010-11-18T10:53:00.000-08:00

Remembering the Past, Shaping the Future

2010-11-14T00:48:00.000-08:00

Remembering the Past, Shaping the Future American Thinker November 14, 2010

by Jared Feldschreiber

The Malicious Media Maligns Israel

2010-11-11T10:23:00.000-08:00

The Malicious Media Maligns Israel American Thinker November 10, 2010

by Jared Feldschreiber

Performing at Open Mic Night in Jerusalem

2010-11-08T13:46:00.002-08:00

Here I am performing my poems

"Ethereal" and "Resisting the Abyss"

at Association of Americans & Canadians in Israel (AACI) Open Mic Night in Jerusalem

November 6, 2010

Ethereal

Israel is a place to observe
An endless sea.
A limitless oasis of our dreams.
Where were you when I was seeking these desires?
Why has the world swallowed me whole?

To see the Divine in the ordinary
The Sacred in the routine -
The Holy in the present.

Love hasn't a face
Yet yearns to stare back at you
The pageantry of experience
Leaves you clinging
Seeking Infinite Wisdom from your Creator
Of a world we know
And one we cannot see.

Dreams of tomorrow patiently in waiting
Visions of a future anticipating your arrival
For the green pastures dissolve to mere silt.

Love in your heart
Love in your soul
Love which provides the engine
Even keeping our vindictive tempests in tow.

To see the Holy in everything
Merely leaves you clinging
Just like me.

Resisting the Abyss

The world remains unbending
Encircling like a snake
It ceases to find its ends
Hunting for the tranquil lake.

A comedian takes to the stage
Seeking his final laugh
As if the wind growls with little meaning
With hardly time to retract.

For sincerity lies in a soldier’s eyes
Who gazes toward the sun
Ruminating beside the window-glass
Toward the heaven’s unknown.

For angels are formed in his sleep
Designed by his most forlorn dreams
Like a child’s toy now since grown old
Or a poet’s vision now unforeseen.

True joy in the world
Only meant when shared
For all the sights to be seen
Grow restless by a vacant stare.

A bus continues to wind
And a passenger impatiently flees
Fading deep to the abyss
To the withering trees.

Each role we are given
Becomes our mere part to play
Some are destined to wilt to the silt
Others bloom like flowers in May.

Russians Hold Memorials for Politkovskaya’s Death

2010-10-07T14:48:00.000-07:00

http://www.theotherrussia.org/2010/10/07/russians-hold-memorials-for-politkovskayas-death/

Russians Hold Memorials for Politkovskaya’s Death

October 7th, 2010 • Related • Filed Under

Thursday marks the fourth anniversary of the unsolved murder of crusading journalist Anna Politkovskaya, shot dead in the entrance to her building on Moscow’s Lesnaya Street. Famous for her searing criticism of then-President of Russia Vladimir Putin and her exposure of human rights abuses by the Russian authorities in Chechnya, Politkovskaya’s murder brought worldwide attention to the staggering number of journalists murdered in her country. The Committee to Protect Journalists says that 52 journalists have been killed in Russia since 1992 – 30 of whose cases remain unsolved – making it the fourth most deadly country in the world for that profession.

In honor of Politkovskaya, memorial events were held on Thursday throughout Russia. At a rally in Moscow, more than 500 people gathered with candles and photographs of the murdered journalist to pay their respects. A variety of journalists, editors, oppositionists, human rights activists, and cultural figures spoke at the event. Among them were rights activists Lev Ponomarev and Sergei Kovalev, journalist Natella Boltyanskaya, Solidarity opposition movement co-leaders Garry Kasparov and Boris Nemtsov, and Editor-in-Chief Dmitri Muratov of Novaya Gazeta, where Politkovskaya used to work.

During his speech at the rally, Novaya Gazeta journalist Oleg Khlebnikov proposed renaming Lesnaya Street in honor of his murdered colleague.

Garry Kasparov told the crowd that the Russian government was doing everything possible to prevent the country from having real journalists. As an example, he cited a scandalous calendar released earlier this week by female journalism students from the prestigious Moscow State University, Politkovskaya’s alma mater. The calendar was presented as a birthday gift for Prime Minister Putin, featuring the scantily-clad students coupled with suggestive phrases. The government, Kasparov asserted, has no use for professionals of Politkovskaya’s caliber.

“We know the answer to the rhetorical question of who orchestrated Anya’s murder,” he said.

Literary scholar Marietta Chudakova reminded those gathered of Putin’s remark that the journalist’s murder brought more harm upon the government than her publications had.

“He lacked the cultural understanding to realize that he’ll go down in history with precisely these words,” she said.

Memorials were also held in the cities of St. Petersburg, Voronezh, Tomsk, Kurgan, and elsewhere.

Russian state investigators said on Wednesday that they were extending an already long-standing probe into Politkovskaya’s death, but her colleagues doubted that the effort was genuine.

“How on earth is it possible to have not found Anna’s killers after four years?” alleged Muratov. “Perhaps political will is missing.”

A Discussion of Leadership with Israeli Premiership by Jared Feldschreiber

2010-10-04T08:20:00.000-07:00

34 Days by HaAretz journalists Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff and Warrior: The Autobiography of Ariel Sharon are inseparably linked as both chronicle different approaches to leadership. The former is an account of the Lebanon War of 2006, as told by two journalists, showing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as passive and indecisive, while the latter proved to be aggressive and decisive, and is the real-life heroic story of one of the Jewish people’s most lionhearted generals.

Sharon's 556 page account in Warrior is about his personal and military travails. Losing his wife and son early in his adult life, his military leadership skills were constantly put to the test by arduous Arab-Israeli wars. I was struck by Sharon's understanding of the geography of Israel, the birthplace of Judaism, and his almost mythical role to help lead them. It is staggering to digest his expertise, detailing every minutiae of land within Israel proper, and also in the disputed territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Sharon is one of the most controversial figures of Israel's history. His virulent detractors still contend he is a war criminal, particularly for his complicity in the Sabra and Shatilla killings at the end of the war in Lebanon in 1982. It must be underscored that it was the Christian Phalingists, not the IDF, who went ahead and massacred Muslim civilians in these refugee camps. The Palestinian Liberation Organization had used these various camps throughout Lebanon as their launching sites to kill Israelis living in northern Israel. Hezbollah also would use these very same tactics 20 years later. Sharon was implicitly blamed for the Phalingists' operations of “revenge“ towards these Muslim civilians. As a result, Sharon resigned as Defense Minister.

Despite this episode, it is hard to find anyone within Israeli society who has ever denied Sharon's brilliance as a military general, and to his commitment to protect Israel. Still, many events as Israel's prime minister find great fault for his bold moves. While not chronicled in his 1989 book, as Warrior was written well before he became prime minister, the evacuation of Gush Katif created Jewish enemies for Sharon. Feeling betrayed, these evacuees have never forgiven him and yet, this was a monumental step towards peace. Some of these radicals even suggest his comatose state today is G-D's punishment for the act. Others criticize his decision to fortify a fence between Jerusalem and the West Bank. “The Wall” was meant to prevent terrorists from carrying out raids entering Israeli towns and cities. His transformation from Likud into Kadima, the centrist-moderate party he formed also took political courage. These actions are illustrative of a proud and gutsy leader who devoted his life to peace and security for the Jews.

After reading 34 Days, it is clear the war in Lebanon in the summer of 2006 would have gone much differently had Ariel Sharon been prime minister. The book illustrates a division in command between the Israeli Defense Force’s Chief of Staff Dan Halutz and Olmert, creating a palpable sense of uncertainty internally as to how to navigate the direction of the war. Olmert insisted on strictly an air-campaign as the best means to eliminate Hezbollah’s operatives throughout the sprawling targets in Lebanon. Much like the war in 1982, Halutz thought it necessary to take it to the enemy head-on, even when confronting an enemy of fighters willing to blow themselves up, as long as Israeli soldiers were also killed. With positive world opinion, even the United Nations supporting Israel’s right to self-defense in the first week of the war, Olmert felt somewhat omnipotent, and that time was also on his side. Ironically, it was even then that he began to show indecisiveness with his military strategy-- opting to not use ground forces until three days before the UN ceasefire was signed.

After the 2006 War in Lebanon ended, Hezbollah’s spiritual leader Hasan Nasrallah admitted he would not have ordered the abduction --and subsequent killing-- of Udi Goldwasser and Eldad Regev had he known the Israelis' response would prove so severe. This was Israel’s rationale for engaging in the war. Israel's reasoned self defense of a sovereign country was not only criticized by the world's leaders as the operation dragged on throughout the summer, but its approach was also met with anger and hostility by its own military's top brass, directed toward Olmert. This would not have happened under Sharon's watch, and it was Olmert's inexperience that led to this blatant mistrust of the army toward him and to his command, particularly from Halutz.

It is hard to determine if Israel could ever receive credit for "winning" the war against a guerrilla terrorist group like Hezbollah, as "victory" seems obtuse. Hezbollah’s very survival is seen as a “victory” against Israel's organized and disciplined army. Nonetheless, nobody disputes that Ariel Sharon would ever be mistaken as anything other than the indisputable leader. Olmert, to his credit, tried to assure his chief ally, America, that Israel was winning its war against terrorism. While outcries from the UN and the Europeans were inevitable, a somewhat chilly US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice implored the Israelis to wrap up the war quickly, even criticizing Israel‘s aerial assaults on neighboring villages. Israel also had lost the media war in its own country; Olmert seemed sensitive to opinion-polls even as Israeli planes pounded Hezbollah targets throughout Lebanon. Sharon likely would not have cared about this public relations war; he certainly would not have shown any kind of hesitation--- to his enemies, he is known as "the bulldozer."

It is one of history’s cruel ironies that Ariel Sharon, the symbol of Jewish heroism, has spent his late years on a respirator in a coma. Even those who are not military theorists like Carl von Clausewitz, or Sun Tzu, when analyzing the role of military strategists and their motivation, it is easy to understand that indecisiveness can cripple world leaders and their legacies. Today, Israel yearns for an undaunted hero again-- like Ariel Sharon-- a true leader who is both universally feared and admired.

CUBAN'S DILEMMA: A Moral Script (2003)

2010-10-02T14:12:00.000-07:00

CUBAN'S DILEMMA: A Moral Script

by Jared Feldschreiber

Characters: (Order of Appearance)

Rebecca Cuban: Protagonist

Denise: Secretary

Dr. Sigfield Glass: Head Boss of AFRICOM

Gray Malone: Employee of AFRICOM

Mary: Employee of AFRICOM

Soundtrack:

"Money," Pink Floyd

"Dignity" by Bob Dylan

"Mood Indigo" Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington

Enter a 24 year old, blonde, studious woman with oracle glasses, sitting outside an office waiting. Her lifelong dream is to work at this firm, a place she wanted since graduation. She just finished her years at Columbia University; her only job had been by teaching Montessori through a work-study program.

Rebecca Cuban was always drawn to International Law, believing justice meant something significant. She looked forward to getting a chance to work for a lobby group that would helping the refugee crisis that continued to ravage West Africa.

AFRICOM, the place of employment where she had fancied since a sophomore in college, is where she had awaited her interview.

Position her sitting on a bench outside Dr. Sigfield Glass' door, looking pensive and nervous; her face suggests she NEEDS the job. She is reading USA TODAY.

Cuban had often read about Sigfield Glass' s portfolio and was a bit perplexed by his credentials. Nowhere in the dossier did it suggest that he spent anytime in West Africa, let alone reading of, nor hearing, any kind of good-will actions, despite his name which was in all the newspapers; one of the greatest philanthropists of the new millennium.

She nonetheless wanted the position dearly.

A haughty, though nonetheless attractive woman, Denise, interrupted her pensive moment of thought.

Denise: "Dr. Glass will see you now, Ms. Cuban."

Rebecca Cuban politely followed the secretary through the doorway and showed her to Dr. Glass's lavish office.

Glass's secretary smiled to her superior, like countless other times.

Glass: ""Thanks Denise, I'll see you in a bit,"

He offers her a wink of an eye, which seemed a bit out of place as Glass was married for a good 15-years.

Denise, seemingly accepting Dr. Glass' wink, gave a little smile back to her boss, then slamming the door, in obvious jadedness.

Glass: "So, Ms. Cuban... What brings you to AFRICOM?"

Rebecca: "Well, Dr. Glass, I am mostly drawn to your commitment to humanitarian…"

Glass: "Reputation? Yes we do have a fine reputation! Did you read the article about us in Forbes or was it Business Week, The Economist, Money, Fortune, or Entrepreneur? I can't ever remember. We keep those magazines in business," eliciting a chuckle for his own amusement.

Rebecca did not get the joke, and felt offended but kept it inside, suggesting that she couldn't understand that a man like him could have money on the mind, or worse, advertisers, over the concept of AFRICOM, which was supposed to be a multi-million dollar company sponsoring relief-development programs for those in need.

Glass (sipping coffee): "I'm sorry Mrs. Cuban; you were alluding to a humanitarian concern that drew you to AFRICOM?"

Rebecca: "Yes, Dr. Glass. Having done relief development work through UNICEF, which I received money through Columbia and working as an English teacher, I've seen the poorest of the poor…"

Glass (interrupting) "It can be a bitch, huh?"

This insensitive remark hurt Rebecca, "Excuse me sir???"

Glass: "I'm sorry to be so crass and rude, it's against my character. What I am saying is it is so difficult to feel accomplished at the end of the day to know that there are people in this world who are suffering and starving, and yet, we continue to live freely. But, you know that's where ethics step in!"

Rebecca, drawn to Dr. Glass' comments until the last statement, asked, "I don't follow! We all have ethics, don't we?"

Glass, charmed by Rebecca's naiveté about the business world.

Glass: "How long have you've been out of school, honey?"

Rebecca: "2 ½ months!"

Glass, nodded, suggesting that he was ready to teach her a thing or two about the business world.:

"You know, Ms. Cuban. I think you are a bit young emotionally, and I think that it is a wonderful trait. It is apart from this jaded commercial world we live in. We live in an age when Martha Stewart commits insider trading! — indicted on charges of securities fraud. D'you hear that joke, I think it was on Jay Leno, Martha Stewart had an interesting show this morning – she showed how to make bail. Did you see that?"

Rebecca concurred, as if waiting for Glass to welcome her aboard to AFRICOM or accept rejection.

Glass: "I can tell you're very much attracted to AFRICOM, and can see you have humanistic traits that are very much admired around here."

Again, Glass gives her a wink, the same one he earlier gave his secretary.

"I'm going to offer you a job! What do you think of that?"

Cuban was overwhelmed though still a bit unsure of what she would be doing.

Glass: "I want you to meet up with a fellow named Gray Malone who's worked here for 4 ½ years. Here is his building number and he'll offer you some friendly advice. Don't worry. Are you OK dear, would you like some water?" as if suggesting that he solved all of her issues."

Rebecca: "But, Mr. Dr... Glass. What will I be…?"

Glass: "Doing? Ah… Well, Mr. Malone will show all you need! Just meet him in the morning. Here's his address. Meet him tomorrow at 7:00, before you come into work, by 8! Look forward to seeing you." Again, he offers her the same condescending smile that was qualified by her excitement toward working at AFRICOM. Strange though, she never needed to mention her reason for applying.

(Place on back of business card his photograph address & time, as if he already planned the gesture)

Exit scene with a puzzled smirk on Rebecca's face.

Cut to Gray Malone's house.

Place camera up to Rebecca, suggesting that she had been fumbling for directions.

Malone tending his garden.

Malone, a quiet, non-descript and unassuming personality, sees her.

Gray (as friendly as can be): "You must be Rebecca, Howdy."

Rebecca: "So you're Mr. Ma…"

Gray: "Mr. Malone. Pleasure. 'Need some water, juice or anything?"

Rebecca shakes her head.

"So, what brings you to AFRICOM?" Mr. Malone kindly asked.

Rebecca: "The need to do good, I guess. I mean, so many of us take things for granted."

"...Like Dr. Glass," Malone answered wryly.

Rebecca: "I'm sorry, sir. Something about Dr. Glass."

Gray: "No, do continue," amazed at the woman's desire to "do well," but shocked by her naiveté.

Rebecca: "I'm just drawn to working for a company which is basically aligned with groups like UNICEF and so on. I'm just blessed to have this position."

Gray: "Well, I'm sure Dr… uh, Sigfield, mentioned, 'Corporate Responsibility?"

Rebecca: "How do you mean?" answering as if she had not known of it.

Gray: "Recent administration implemented a guideline to all corporations to…"

Rebecca: "Wait, we're a corporation?"

Malone chuckles.

Gray: "What'd you think? I don't mean to make fun, but you ask it so innocently? Anyway, this administration put Corporate Responsibility..."

Rebecca: "Wow, this is like Swimming with Sharks!' ---Oh, did you see that movie with Kevin Spacey?"

(Malone just shakes his head).

Gray: "I just work for Sigfield. I don't work at the office. This is my job. Have a nice day, dear, and enjoy your time at AFRICOM"

Unsure what to make of this, again, Rebecca smiled and took the pamphlet from Gray and got into her car.

Scene shifts to inside Rebecca's car. The radio player is tuned into BBC radio about the events in Sub-Saharan Africa. Rebecca's hope is that her job will be able to influence the unjust governments to reform.

Scene then shifts to outside a deli where Rebecca stops in to grab a snack. She notices her boss, Glass, flirting with his assistant, Mary. They all make contact with one another.

Glass (to Rebecca ): "How long you've been waiting there sweetie? Oh, uh, Mary!"

Mary: "Yes, Dr. Glass."

"This is Jen Cuban, our new member!"

Rebecca: "It's Rebecca. Rebecca Cuban."

Both exchange pleasantries.

Glass:"Mary, hon; you know the drill... show her ropes. Maybe take her for some coffee. Show her why AFRICOM is the most exciting, most pioneering,"

(and in unison with Mary,) "there may be a war on terror but never a war on AFRICOM"

Mary, despite her jadedness, looks noticeably annoyed by Dr. Glass response. His offer of a kiss is not met with resistance, rather resigned acceptance.

Glass exits.

Mary and Rebecca proceed to sit down at the cafe adjacent to the deli.

Mary: "So, you're new in town. An intern or something? I've been here 8 years and they call me an "assistant manager. But, you know, I haven't done more than our janitor, Sal"

Rebecca: "I don't follow. You were promoted for your hard work… you're... commitment to excellence?... It says it all over the board. And you must have it on your bumper sticker!"

Mary: "That's so I can stay in a job! The market's tough out there. You think it's easy to keep a good job? I have to provide for my family. That's all... I mean... You've seen Dr. Glass?"

Rebecca: "I know!... He's a little, uh, sleazy.. But AFRICOM has been something I have been striving' for.

Mary: "I admire your idealism, I really do! However, can you picture those corporate suits to visit a refugee camp in Rwanda or Somalia? I admire why you are here, but frankly: We are a corporation! (Taking a deep breath) Dr. Glass, likely hired you because…I am sorry what did you want to grab to drink?

Rebecca: "Just some milk, please... He hired me because why?

Mary: "Never mind."

Rebecca: "Mary, please tell me..."

Mary: I am still here for people like you. For people who see the injustices of the world and want to fight it… We are not an NGO. I figured I could move up the ranks and modify this place, someday, in some capacity. I enjoy the tea parties... and enjoy all the benefits. But I did come here here, like you, and, frankly, I'm greatly disillusioned by it all. As you might tell!" Take Simon...You know Simon? Our Congolese representative. You think AFRICOM has helped his people back home?"

Rebecca shakes her head sheepishly.

Mary: Of course the company pretends they pay him well, but they really just use him. They call it just an Embargo. He's just a spokesman for AFRICOM."

Mary: "I'm not telling you not to work here. All I'm saying is I just think you should see the way the system works from within and then you could then decide if it's right for you. Me? I'm getting too old for this; I'm only here because I need the money. (Takes a sip of her drink); Have you seen Swimming with Sharks?"

Rebecca: "That's funny you should ask me. I just asked Mr. Malone…

Mary: "Gray,"

Rebecca (liking her informality): "Yes, Gray."

Mary: "Well, Gray's a good man. He's a bit jaded by the way things are. I make mention of the part in Swimming with Sharks where the Spacey character says, "Before you go out and change the world, you have to ask yourself, 'What do you really want?' So... I pose you the question...

(Takes a breath): Boy, you could learn so much from films"

Mary then breaks the 4th wall, looking directly at the camera, to the audience, with a knowing smile.

The two smile, shake hands and Mary waves good-bye to Rebecca. Rebecca is now in her goes back in her car.

The final shot concludes with Rebecca Cuban driving, looking pensively, and realizing she needs to work locally, and be honest with herself, before tackling such an organization. She is back on the road, driving back to New York with Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington bellowing in the background.

THE END

2010-09-30T10:46:00.000-07:00

Money Can Buy You Lots of Things, But Can It Buy Back Your Soul?

"Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps"

Film Review

http://dublinzine.wordpress.com/2010/10/01/review-wall-street-money-never-sleeps/

'Someone reminded me I once said "Greed is good."Now it seems it's legal. Because everyone is drinking the same Kool Aid.'
-Gordon Gekko

Michael Douglas once said that Oliver Stone has an insatiable ability to make actors unearth things within the deepest recesses of their souls.
The actor also recalled the director once quipped to him while shooting the original Wall Street: “Are you ok? Is everything fine? Are you on drugs?”
To which the actor responded, “No, Oliver. I’m fine.”
“Because you’re acting like you never acted before in your life,” Stone mocked.
His politics aside, Oliver Stone--- as the consummate film director--- is a brilliant artist, and often a thorn in the side of many known actors. James Woods and Stone, for instance, had memorable duels on set, even once when the actor stormed off the set of “Salvador” (in a guerilla-controlled area of Mexico!), only for Stone to comb the town looking for him. Also, Stone and Sean Penn have apparently yet to reconcile with one another since he directed “U-Turn“ in 1997, though Stone does contend they are now amicable.
Even if Stone is known to pester, provoke and irritate many of his famous talent on his films, performances are often some of the best of their careers. Douglas’s performance as Gordon Gekko garnered an Oscar win. Other leading, mostly male, performances in other Stone films, like Val Kilmer in “The Doors,” Kevin Costner in “JFK” and Tom Cruise in “Born on the Fourth of July,” are so memorable, and iconic that his abilities as a director often overshadow his reputation as being a hard-ass. In fact, it demonstrates the mark of a relentless artist.
Which brings me to “Wall St: Money Never Sleeps,” Stone’s sequel to the 1987 film. Unlike taking center-stage as Gordon Gekko in the first film, Douglas chews up the scenery playing his role mostly from the periphery. As the film opens, Gekko is just released from prison for a host of white-collar crimes. Stone presents Gekko as the embodiment of a character whose vision has seeped into the core of jaded insiders and their greedy instincts. “I used to say greed is good,” Gekko lectures. “Now it seems that it’s legal.“
Interestingly, much of Gekko’s dialogue echoes Douglas’s real-life, notably that the unquenchable thirst to make more money is like a “cancer,” something Douglas literally is battling today. That makes the performance most remarkable. Douglas is now undergoing Stage 4 throat cancer treatment. Also, true to his own life, his character exhibits that he also has demons involving his son. In real life, Cameron Douglas, Michael’s son, is serving five years in jail for drug-related charges. It seems to me that only Oliver Stone can unearth these fiendish qualities to generate a maximum artistic performance from his protagonist.
Like the original aspires to be, “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” is a morality tale of a young and naïve upstart who learns how to swim with the sharks of corporate America. Perhaps not as angry and hard-hitting as some have come to expect from an Oliver Stone picture, he’s known for his conspiracy theories after all, the film offers witty insights, jokes and above all an intriguing lens into a post 9-11 and yet just as flashy and gaudy world. The film surprisingly does not veer towards its excesses. As Gekko advises the young Jake, “It's not about the money - it's about the game."
Jake, as played by Shia LeBeouf, is the young Wall Street trader, who is engaged to Gekko’s daughter. Jake must also choose to which world he wants belong: taking up a business relationship with Gekko or working for rival Bretton James, whose name in itself seems allegorical, to perhaps another well- known symbol of greed.
Plot is secondary to Stone’s sweeping sequel as the zeitgeist of today’s corporate Wall Street. The vernacular is just as hard-hitting, insideresque and perhaps just a bit foreign to those not so accustomed to this world of money-laundering and racketeering. From a film perspective, it is comfortable in its own form--- as a sequel. Stone throws in surprises, and cameos aplenty, that surely underscore the joys he must have had while making this movie. Despite the lighter tone of the picture, Stone still brings out the best, and most visceral in his performers; no one else could get Douglas to address things so true to his own life.
Though “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” never aspires to serve as a critique of modern day avarice, ignoring the Madoff scandal entirely, it does give the audience a perceptive lens into the powerbrokers’ wheeling and dealing ways. Perhaps as filmmaker, Stone suggests that power-hungriness and avariciousness have always lurked around all of us, and that the term “greed” while may not being good is perhaps necessary to fulfill the American Dream. Fortunately, Frank Langella’s character serves as the guiding moral conscience for young LeBeouf, and for us. He reminds “to rise above it” --”it” being the lure of the corruptive side of wealth. "It" could punish the soul.
Ultimately, the film is about redemption, as Gekko seeks to redeem his own soul, but is unable to do so fully as his urges get the better of him. After serving time in prison, he is forced to choose between family and more personal gain.
"Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" is a fine-- and fun--- film that educates, entertains and above all reminds, “the mother of all evil is speculation” and “idealism kills every deal.”

The Beginnings of Something...

2010-09-29T13:20:00.000-07:00

Lingering Sadness of Its Finality

It's a lonely time, rather solitude to be more precise. Not trying to pass judgment nor am I trying to write a novel. Well, actually, I am trying to write a novel... A novel that affects our very core and serves as merely a template of our dreams: a template of our waking memories and lasting remembrances. What were we looking for when we least expected? Who is scared to take a bus to work? Who wants a good job from 9-5?

Sex shows up at your doorstep, even as you grow hungrier and hungrier for love. The music plays in your mind a million times to be sure.

The Lingering Sadness of its finality feels like a dagger with its piercing slick blade.

Her voice, her pet-names, her incessant teasing, her affection, her energies, her generosity, her discipline, her criticisms, her toughness, her command, her presence; it as though seeing the same woman lingering there no matter the time of the day made you long for her so much more.

Silence equaled deep-seated confusion. Visions of self-improvement often questioned purpose.

Do you even remember your dreams?

Yeah, this has kept me up the month and while I value of sharing these anecdotes I tend to be on the side of skepticism when it comes to those of authorities who seek to write their own reports about the value of your soul without feeling it, nor caring about the very core. We’re all confused to be sure, but keeping it all intact proves futile to the bottom line. Can you make profit from putting your words on the page? Well, Mailer, Hemingway and Joyce seemed to find some solace in violent strokes of genius and their integrity lay intact. Did they love the same things so many of us take for granted?

You know interiority of a woman's soul lay within the eyes, deeply and introspectively, and sometimes only it’s skin-deep.

Fighting that urge to resist temptation.

The Lingering Sadness of Its Finality feels like a dagger with its piercing slick blade.

Educating yourself to the rigors of reality is the hardest fight of all. You’re alone here thinking about the girl you loved who really was the engine to your soul’s insatiability for living. She just wanted you to move on, but you hardly could believe it. Too wrapped up in your own thoughts, perhaps thinking about your own ambition and dreams. She loved you and you were too blind to see it; your career and silly creativity made you evermore obsessed with your own vision.

Today, I am merely worried about personal gain. It's the inane personal success and yet the heart lingers for her to tickle my ear once more, to shake away the pain, which lies deep within.

Editorial: Russia’s dangerous sale

2010-09-27T14:38:00.000-07:00

Editorial: Russia’s dangerous sale

Eulogy to Professor Joseph Kostiner

2010-09-20T16:36:00.000-07:00

Joseph Kostiner:
1949-2010

This piece below was written by my fellow classmate and colleague Tessa Harings.
She was a close friend and one of Tel Aviv University Professor Joseph Kostiner's brightest students. Professor Kostiner died of complications of various ailments this past August.

I asked her if she would write her thoughts about him. I am grateful she accepted.

I can only say that I had been empowered by Professor Kostiner'vast knowledge of the Middle East; his contributions were invaluable, serving as the foremost scholar of Saudi Arabia and the roles of tribes within this region of the world. He will be sorely missed.

I received the phone call I’d been dreading: Yosi Kostiner, my professor, adviser, and friend, was dead. Yosi was a father to me, but I wasn’t special: he was a father to all of his students who cared about learning. He was one of the few professors that I could say fully listened to what I had to say, and advised me based on the direction that I, not he, wanted to go in. He believed in me more than I believed in myself. Whenever we’d talk about the future, I’d say, “Well…I am not used to this field (history). It’s fun, it’s interesting, but I’m still not sure about … (fill-in-the-blank),” to which he’d wave a hand and reply, “I’m sure.”
He was working on three books regarding the Gulf states when he unexpectedly left us. I’ve got a chapter from one with his hand-written notes all over it, just a month old. I find it hard to believe that he won’t be here to look over my shoulder and make corrections or crack rude jokes. He was a wonderful person. A mensch.
I miss him already.

Martin Luther King "I have a dream"

2010-08-28T03:23:00.000-07:00

August 28, 1963

athens-crete-video

2010-08-21T04:15:00.000-07:00

So Grateful to Mary

2010-07-12T04:52:00.000-07:00

Thanks again for posting my film on your page:

http://visionsbobdylan.wordpress.com/blog/page/25

My Film Reviews Published

2010-07-09T14:05:00.000-07:00

My 3 Film Reviews of Persepolis, A Serious Man and Inglorious Basterds are now published with Culture Wrap:

Thank you Gerrie for this.

Please Go to:

http://www.culturewrap.org/CINEMA/For_Audiences/Film_reviews/film_reviews.html

thanks,
Jared Moshe

Reflections on Neda and the Green Movement by Jared Feldschreiber

2010-06-29T00:51:00.000-07:00

2010-03-11T13:15:00.000-08:00

The media do the public a great disservice by implying settlements are holding up the current stalled Israeli Palestinian peace talks.
Let’s start with the word “settlement.” Do we even know what that means? Illegal East Jerusalem-- Last time, I checked Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. It is the capital for regional, economic and spiritual purposes. There are places throughout Jerusalem that are unsafe, surely, and there are neighborhoods like Gilo (perceived as a settlement but in reality, a mere 7 miles from the central bus station) housing Muslim and Jews. But Israelis could live there if they choose. In the future, it may be a part of a viable Palestinian state, but until such time, it is a part of Israel. It is a part of the capital!
Security is always at the forefront. Gaza was forfeited, and in return, Hamas sent rockets into southern towns of Ashkelon, Ashdod and Sderot, hellbent on killing Israelis. An evacuation from Southern Lebanon led to the rise of Hezbollah's rockets raining down on northern cities, and a war in 2006.
The media pretend that a few more thousand homes in Jerusalem will produce more division while neglecting that terrorism, by shootings, bombings and other methods seem to be remiss by mainstream press. Insisting that the problems would abate if Israel evacuated families out of Jerusalem, neglecting the fact that terrorists have routinely struck Israelis on roads, like 443 connecting Jerusalem with Modiin, is a reckless assertion. Someday, Modiin will be seen as a settlement, and so will other sleepy, suburban towns throughout the the 280 square miles of Israel.
According to Honest Reporting, which monitors media bias in the mid east, “the media's new frontline has moved to Israel's capital city. The media have, in many cases, played into the hands of those on the Palestinian side who need little excuse to stoke existing tensions or creates new ones.”
If Obama wants to be loved by all sides, meaning to the historically hostile Muslim side and to radically divergent Jewish voices, then he runs the risk of alienating and having Israelis distrust him even more. That is the root of the skepticism toward him here.
Before the media throw out words like ‘settlements’ or occupation, know its context and history first.

U.S.-Israeli Basketball Program Helps Those Less Fortunate

2010-02-22T03:17:00.000-08:00

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/03/03/israeli-basketball-program-helps-fortunate/

U.S.-Israeli Basketball Program Helps Those Less Fortunate
By Jared Feldschreiber
Published March 03, 2010
FOXNews.com
JERUSALEM

A joint U.S.-Israeli basketball initiative has been helping sick and underprivileged Israeli kids realize their hoop dreams.

Haifa Hoops for Kids is a joint project between the Maccabi Haifa professional basketball team of the Israel Super League and United Jewish Communities of MetroWest New Jersey. Its mission is help lift the hearts of those far less fortunate.

Founded in October, 2008, the program has provided over 1,500 free basketball game tickets for Israel’s most needy children --some sick, disabled or from under-privileged backgrounds.
"North American and Israeli organizations, businesses, and individuals have supported the program over the past two seasons," says Andrew Wilson, director of marketing for Triangle Sports, a sports and entertainment investment firm based in Florida.

Triangle Sports works with Maccabi Haifa to acquire the rights to broadcast their basketball games to America on the Yes Network, and other networks throughout the season.

"Haifa Hoops for Kids has had a positive impact on the Israeli and North American community as many of the children have never had the opportunity to attend a professional sporting event, and are able to meet their sports heroes," Wilson said.

At the center of Haifa Hoops for Kids is Tamir Goodman, the 28-year-old was a standout high school player and an Orthodox Jew. He was on the Sports Illustrated cover a decade ago, being famously ordained as the "Jewish Jordan."

Over a decade ago, Goodman averaged 35.4 points a game in one high school year, and became the first player to play Division I Basketball without playing on Saturday, the Jewish day of rest.

After serving in the Israeli Defense Force, earning the "Outstanding Soldier Award," he played for four Israeli teams in five years, including Maccabi Tel Aviv and Maccabi Haifa.

Goodman always valued humility in the face of his success. "We knew Tamir was very talented on the court and we were inspired by his involvement throughout his career for assisting children in need both in Israel and in North America," says Wilson.

In his career, Goodman reached the Israeli Cup finals and Israeli Premier League Semifinals in 2003. Injuries plagued the latter stages of his career leading to his retirement in September, 2009. After Goodman’s professional basketball retirement, he was named Haifa Hoops for Kids Director, which includes responsibility for raising funds for the organization.

As a player with Maccabi Haifa, Goodman met Jeffrey Rosen, a meeting of "divine providence," he says. Rosen is Chairman of Triangle Financial Services and Maccabi Haifa’s basketball team owner. "To every physical thing, there is a spiritual side of basketball; what good can you do? How can we give back?" asks Goodman. "The first part of my career, I experienced so much success, and [much of the 2nd part], I experienced injuries, setbacks, and realized that it’s more than just playing."

Just this past Valentine’s Day, Goodman organized a 3-on-3 tournament for Jewish and African-American kids in Cleveland to help raise funds for Haifa Hoops for Kids, exhibiting how the program has transformed since its inception.

Goodman arranges fundraising events throughout the United States, including charity exhibition games against NBA teams, 3-on-3 charity basketball tournaments on college campuses, and local basketball clinics both in Israel and in the U.S.

He also performs motivational speaking engagements.

"I am blessed with a personal story; I knew it was never about me. It was about what I could do for others. Since my second day as a basketball player in Israel, I went to visit victims of terror, to give attention to inspiring others. My mission is to love every single day—to pray hard, work and see how to help," said Goodman.

On a crisp February evening in northern Israel, the final outcome may have been the home team, Maccabi Haifa's defeat over Gilboa Galil 80-78, but for the over five hundred kids in attendance, many of whom are underprivileged and in some cases ill, and who had been given free VIP access and transportation to the game courtesy of Haifa Hoops for Kids, it became yet another special night.

"This is meant to give two hours of fun and excitement to those who are not as fortunate [as we are]," says Maccabi Haifa’s office and community relations manager, Merav Beeri.
"We invite 150-200 kids usually for each home game until yesterday's game. Yesterday we invited about 500 kids. Now that we received new donations, we can invite, on average, 200-250 for the next home game and home playoff games."

Corporate and personal donations made it possible for a chartered bus from a hospital in nearby Haifa, Maon Hod to attend the evening’s game. This bus carried children with Down Syndrome. Haifa Hoops for Kids ensured them a fun evening and free access to watch their favorite athletes in person.

Goodman actively communicates with his friends via Facebook and other social networking sites, as well as through speaking engagements and basketball programs with the intent "to give a light to the world, to have those better connect people with Israel," he says.

"It’s meaningful to take a kid, who may never have played basketball before and bring him on the court, with guidance, and [in terms of kids going to games in Haifa] give him or her instant fun. Its great fun to bring them to professional players, and to see their heroes take the time," said Goodman.

You are one sick, brilliant movie-loving 'basterd,' Quentin.

2010-01-30T09:45:00.000-08:00

Quentin Tarantino is an arrogant filmmaker. He is arrogant yet a film genius who brashly reinvents; he knows what can get away with, and his fearlessness is awe-inspiring.

After watching 'Inglorious Basterds,' we digest Nazis getting their heads scalped, their crainiums being clubbed with baseball bats and brains blown off by all sorts of weapons.

Why?

"BECAUSE IT'S SO MUCH FUN," he once quipped in a TV interview when asked why he makes such gratuitously violent movies.

Is "Inglorious Basterds" a "FUN" film? It is a brilliant, funky, brash and amoral picture that reminds us we are there to be entertained, but occasionally unnerved. We are a part of the action. He is the film world's equivalent to Berthold Brecht.

Tarantino clearly is having so much fun, but he is also a film scholar. His understanding of the antecedent film directors from various countries are apparent in his interviews, and his films. There are movie references aplenty througout the film, some subtle and others not so. He even interplays actors acting within the film itself. He proves he also knows basic tenets of theatre; they are characters in search of an author. Where is Pirandello when you need him?

Tarantino's film company "A Bande Apart" steals its name frm Jean Luc Godard's 2nd film. "Inglorious Basterds" is clearly a sensationalized "European" film, interestingly juxtaposing highbrow art (German and French Cinema of the 1920s-1940s) with low brow exploitation films that Tarantino often cites as his favorites.

I read that only 30% of the dialogue in "Inglorious Basterds" is in English, as French, Italian and German dominate and are employed in the varying European countries whom partook in World War II. It seems that as a purist, Tarantino resents certain American filmmakers who shot their period-pieces like Germany or France for instance, often in English, with a slight accent, suggesting they are from these countries. He finds this inauthentic.

I write Tarantino is arrogant because he would be the first to tell and show his audience what he is doing as wholly innovative. But, unlike arrogant directors who are clueless, Tarantino navigates the film canvas effortlessly. And without apology.

I'm sure when Picasso employed Cubism or Max Beckmann employed German Expressionism, both were mindful that their art was expressed loudly to the world. Tarantino, though, seems to resents American filmmakers who merely try to make an art-house international films in countenance only, lacking whole research. This film took over ten years to make.

Tarantino chose French as the dialogue in Vichy, France not solely due to its mileu, but he sought his own "Bande a Parte," an homage to other great European cinema he often idolizes and cites, surely worthier than recent films. The fact that a crucial aspect of the film deals with a French moviehouse, and European plot points involving European cinema are no small coincidences to Tarantino's world cinema obsession.

To discuss the film's plot points would be tiresome. See it for yourself. But the cinematography by the brilliant Robert Richardson (who often works with Tarantino, Scorsese and Oliver Stone), is worth noting. The man who brought us "JFK" and "The Aviator" knows film stock better than anyone I know, as I can recognize his photography immediately.

Tarantino is arrogant because he wants the audience to remember it is his film. That is not bad per say, as Truffaut noted the auteur (writer-director) must be the patriarch of his film, in tone and in style. Tarantino sought to revise history with this demented and brilliant fable, and by the film's outrageous (too miniscule a word) finale, he is in fact, toying with the medium and all its tricks.

As a Jewish person I hardly perceived this the ultimate revenge story against the Nazis. In fact, I thought the film worked as a fable alone and one should not lose focus that the "characters" Goebbels and Hitler are mere just that in the fable. Clearly, though, Tarantino wants us to believe it is in our subconscious.

Christoph Waltz is memorable for his goofy and manaical performance; Melanie Laurent seems to capture Jean Seburg of yesteryear French cinema. His other leads are authentic, and if you were like me, in a moviehouse with Hebrew subtitles with predominantly German and French dialogue, the visceral and cerebral impact is not the least bit diminished.

I could have done without heads being scalped, but perhaps Tarantino sought to comment on "the horrors of war."

Nah, probably as he once said, he left it in, "BECAUSE IT'S SO MUCH FUN."

He may be right.

Response to Stephanie Gutmann's "satirical" piece "Israel Builds a Field Hospital, anti-Zionists, Don't be Fooled"

2010-01-27T04:09:00.000-08:00

re:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/stephaniegutmann/100022827/israel-builds-a-field-hospital-in-haiti-anti-zionists-not-fooled/

Dear Editor, January 27, 2010

Last week I had the regret of reading Stephanie Gutmann's "satirical" piece called "Israel Builds a Field Hospital, anti Zionists Don't be Fooled" in the Telegraph about the Israeli Defence Force's involvement of saving lives following the Haitian earthquake.

While reading this intentional drivel, which farcially writes to those whom deny anything positive coming out of Israel, I feel it still gives added incentive to potential and existing Israel haters.

Clearly, Gutmann is self-aware enough (and oh so pithy) to know the article's consequences. If she meant it as satire, she failed, as many of her talk-backs were outraged with her. She seemed to lampoon the very things that anti Zionists often do, like the Israelis acted "disproportionately," (a clear reference of Operation Cast Lead in Gaza) and her inclusion of old anti-Semitic adages, like "clever, those Jews."

Gutmann is writing to us from a London-based newspaper; as we know, this city is a seedbed for homegrown Islamists who seek to eradicate the Jews. It takes this attempt of a modern-day's "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" to be another catalyst to incite more acts of terrorism. And yet, she cynically devotes wasteful space to her reader playing. Ultimately, it becomes apparent it is we realize it is merely farce.

Too late, I believe.

While clearly meant to disparage those whom write such nonsense on discussion boards with nothing better to do, (going after a blogger in Los Angeles who hides behind a pseduonym for instance, "Smart Alex:" "a clever fellow and brave too! It takes guts to make such a deduction and publish it from behind the cover of a moniker like ‘Smart Alex" ), Gutmann should know she is also just as culpable being such an arrogant, and even worse a cynic. She is indifferent or oblivious to the fact that her piece is the perfect generator for virulent anti-Semites. They never care that they are perpetuating lies.

As a writer, she is misunderstood here; one can only deduce future writings will also be, and why should we ever take her seriously? Strangely, in the past, she has even written a book about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In the wake of over 100,000 potential deaths by the Haitian earthquake, I find Gutmann's "satire" so distasteful and ineffective. To many, if you tell a lie long enough, it ultimately is true.

Either Gutmann is too cynical or in her mind, too brilliant to care.

Jared Feldschreiber

Tel Aviv, Israel

Drawn to deeper, unanswerable questions

2010-01-24T05:16:00.000-08:00

In Annie Hall, Woody Allen said he cheated on his existentialism exam at NYU when he "looked into the soul of the person sitting next to him." I've come to the conclusion it is worth looking into life's biggest questions. It's a humbling experience, and yes also conversely a bit intellectually selfish.
I recently watched Crimes and Misdemeanours (C & M) and A Serious Man, feeling compelled to compare the two, but just wasn't sure how. Both films ask the big questions, and gives us the freedom and versatility to rush to the philosophy departments of our libraries and bookstores for back-up research.
Most of us want to perfect ourselves and we want to know that we're a part of something greater than ourselves. When we think we're beyond our limits, life has a funny way of morphing us to remind we are all still imperfect and human. Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. The Book of Job reminded us that, as have countless works of literary and cinematic masterpieces.
C & M seems to have all of the makings of brilliant allegory: a blind rabbi, an immoral wealthy "philanthropic" doctor, a superficial and mean spirited blowhart, a truth-seeking documentarian forced to compromise his integrity. I love this movie, but always feel disheartened by its conclusion. Bad things shouldn't happen to good people and good things shouldn't happen to bad people; it just isn't fair. But realistic? Absolutely.

In the film, Woody's character says the perfect tragedy would be for the supposed evildoer (a murderer for instance) ultimately turns himself to the authorities because in a world absent of a god, this act is seen as even more tragic; it would be always be in his conscience any way, and the tragedy lies in him knowing he always has wronged and sinned, regardless of his fate. Knowing you are wicked is a form of human tragedy. And yet, our villain doesn't and is culpable with an even worse crime of never feeling any sort of guilt at all.
A Serious Man gives us pause when the end credits roll; most of us want to be a serious, good hearted person, but life works in unpredictable ways. We're meant to never know our impending fate, or what happens to our soul, but we trudge along with our own code and logic. It's funny that the Coen Brothers never allow our protagonist to utter the words "I am a Serious man" clearly; he fumbles it time and time again, perhaps suggesting we all strive to be a serious person, but we don't know how. Also, we do not know our fate, and that being moral and "serious" are even arbitrary, as we allow ourselves believing we are doing the right thing. Our greatest teachers (Rabbis, etc), are merely foils to our own tragedies in life, be it small ones or big ones because they are also imperfect. Being ethically Jewish doesn't always translate to living a serious or even blankedly ethical life.
I'm curious about the various facets of life, but I know my fate is unknowable. I seek for a better world, but I do know brave angels with the Red Cross or Doctors without Borders whom perform their heroic deeds have thus far trumped me.

Being human, to me, though, is the most wonderful thing.

Hmm, 10 Months Later here in Israel

2009-12-31T09:36:00.000-08:00

I think the best way to summarize the last 10 months in Israel, with the New Year befalling us in a couple of hours is to realize that the country seems to be a microcosm of the universe. On the verge of becoming somewhat abstract and cosmological, it still amazes me a country of "undeniable beauty and grain can produce such division, hate and pain."
I wrote those words 9 years ago in a poem for Israel before I knew this is where I wanted to be- at least for a good chunk of my life. The country undergoes scrutiny like no other, accused of war crimes here, accused of colonialism there. It stuns and annoys me that there is a public perception of the country, an idea that it is a warlike nation, without those who really know nor seek to come and find out; in the end, it is a country still finding its place in the world. It is much like us, individually; hounded by our past, unsure of our future, and always seeking to rectify ourselves.
Many of my family friends are still here, often questioning why they had stayed so long; I believe I am understanding their gripes, as the culture has often made it difficult to feel proud, if you look deeply in its society. Unemployment has skyrocketed, unsafe neighborhoods, and the government climate seems more corrupt than ever. It's hardly like the advertisement on Nefesh B Nefesh or Jewish Agency web sites.
Yet, Israel amazes insofar as morphing you into an individual, a distinct person who knows the dangers and coldness (despite the very temperate weather) of humanity. Don't be fooled; you may be duped by the next person, and the person sitting next to you home from Jerusalem, may not be what he seemed to be before you sat next to him.
Israel still makes you realize the very finer things of how you need to understand the value of the shekel (worth nearly 4 to the US dollar), and every Agora (chump change) will decide your fate of whether you'll eat or be able to go to and from home, work or school that night. Work is scarce.
And yet, individuality is encouraged, but oh-so-hard to believe in a country that needs every solider to protect its society.
Israel is built on the backs of socialists, with an intent to be a capitalist democracy.
Sex is liberated in some places and yet excoriated by others; we're meant to be amazed by the plurality of a government that espouses freedom of expression, and yet preserves tradition.
You don't need to be Jewish, don't need to be religious, but you need to know why it is you came; it couldn't be for wealth, but it could be for a sense of tolerance and acceptance. There are those you freely deem as "illegals," but sooner or later you humbly discover you are just that very very thing that all everyone here doesn't know they are: a Zionist.

Sorta felt displaced

2009-12-17T10:33:00.000-08:00

Felt like a mere stranger in a strange land today displaced in the deep sea. It's funny being in your own rented apartment, and feeling the weight all on your shoulders. Not that it was necessary a bad feeling, but it was a bit awkward, after all, I'M NOT ISRAELI. I may be cultivating an ISRAELI personality, learning the language, and understanding all of the nuances of what it means to live here, but to have the temerity to call myself ISRAELI is way too presumptuous. Pompous really.
I'm listening to my landlord and new housemate explaining all of the details in the deftly phrased Israeli way, where clinging to each word can never be too easy. Just recently a Hebrew teacher asked the class why we all had come to Israel. I sheepishly, or perhaps proudly stated, "Jewish ideology." But really, could that be ever more vague? Is life just too vague, too vacuous.
But I felt like someone noble on the world stage, but in reality just a small cog in the universe. I think when we see "our leaders," we know they are merely our reflections, for good or bad, by hook or by crook.
These are cliches, but we are mere little goldfish in the deep blue sea, the vast abyss that leads to heaven.
I mean, I'm not sure where I'm going necessarily, but the love in my heart for those I love, and those I'm lucky enough to have love me really does sustain us.
I may not have communicated precisely what it was I wanted to, but I knew the value in this experiene, and it goes to show that one can be an expatriate and still feel a citizen, as our world continually spins, whether we're always in tune or not.

Torn between the Sacred and the Profane

2009-11-21T05:01:00.000-08:00

When you're torn between the sacred and the profane, and you're not sure which is what then you feel like you're at the crossroads. I know what it is I want, I can see the end zone, the end game if you will. I am at the crossroads of whether to continue to trudge along the parts that may seem easier, even profane, rather than pursue an unusual, bold step forward. I'm well aware of the consequences, but feel compelled to follow what is right in my heart, my soul, to lead. In the end, it is predestined, right or wrong. Some go to the Scriptures for inspiration, often leaving the heavens to determine, but mine is done by freewill alone.
I'm considering moving to something that is accomodating and nearer to my heart, if it all could come together and gel nicely. I want to spend more time closer to the action, closer to the belly of the beast, shall we say, and I can get indispensible experience as a result, or I can continue following my dream, but in a bit more foreign sort of way.
I don't pretend to have the answers, I don't pretend to prejudge the future, but this crossroads leads to me deciding based on my heart, my soul and my gumption. There is little to fear but a sense of deciding the sacred or the profane, and to decide on one, and to dismiss the other is very arbitrary. In the end, I'm already Blessed, so neither is profane.
I want to be where the action is, and that much is clear.
Thank you for all those I've spoken to about this decision.

idle

2009-11-15T04:33:00.000-08:00

writer's block is not for the weak of heart
memories fading as swift as the waves
as the ingeniousness of memory
of feelings in waiting
sex is there for the taking
with love patient in waiting
meaning lies in your freewill
lying within the depths of loneliness
and too much idle time
too little to surmise in words
like empty memories of primal instincts
for all is meant to be culminated
consumed by the incomprehensibility
of absysmal repetition

scattered...

2009-08-22T02:22:00.000-07:00

Never realized how fun, yet rewarding to revamp your life in a foreign country; in the end, you realize people look out for themselves and their family; that's why seeking these important people out seems to be already predestined. It's important to be cognizant of those you love, and to never turn a blind eye, nor burn a bridge---
Life is too unpredictable, and should never be distracted by life's pitfalls, by those who don't have your best intentions at heart....
Can't wait to have my poetry published sometime soon

A7 Radio's "The Beat" with Ben Bresky (My 2 Poems Included)

2009-07-21T09:18:00.000-07:00

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Radio/News.aspx/1211

Audio: Your Jewish Poetry on the Air!7/21/2009 11:49:00 PM

A7 Radio's "The Beat" with Ben Bresky

Part 1 of our listener submitted poetry slam, including poems on Israeli politics, Judaism, the Holocaust, the 3 Weeks, Tisha B'Av and more. Amazing talent for listeners just like you from Israel and around the world. Including Ashira Malka, Yehezkel Laing, Andrea Kamens, James Van Zijl, Shifra Hoffman, Grant David Newman, Jared Feldschreiber, Malka Grunauer, Daniel Pinner, Crocket Cox, Brandon Marlon, Shmuel Eliyahoo Newman, Josiah Nachshon Vermont and Talia Applebaum.
Discuss this topic in the new Forums Section

Joyce in the Evening

2009-07-04T01:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.helium.com/items/1505016-how-to-try-to-write-like-joyce-and-pick-up-a-girl-without-really-trying

One aspect he could not get over was how mothers- single and happily married- were so perfectly fit; usually there may be one or two that caught his eye, but he was amazed by the influx of women were not only beautiful, but pulsating sexuality in every which way. Yet, he was set focused on one this evening he had been eying for a long time.
Sure, he may have had impure thoughts and purposely lingered hopefully with her for the sole intent of being her knight in shining armor, her Romeo.
He had not felt the urge to push any boundaries necessarily, though clearly did not feel the aridness of summer supplanted the joys of spring; the roses were still in bloom. He hoped his wiles would be met with a sudden jolt of spontaneity by her, a kind of knee-jerk reaction to the rustle-bustle craziness and superficial glances consuming his otherwise banal life. He longed to be with her, particularly this evening, this golden opportunity, and felt he would have to earn his stripes to achieve it. The forbidden seemed to be the possible, in his mind anyway. The perilous nature of his actions would mean less than fulfilling such a bold journey. Sex was merely a ruse, an end game to his twisted logic.
"All of my desires, senses have been dried up, nothing makes sense to me anymore," he murmured to himself. The various distractions leading up to this rendezvous were unhelpful at best; from the snide bank tellers who refused to cash his checks to the travel agents who had lost his itineraries, and to the litany of sellers of all levels of social strata.
He felt so within his own thoughts, trapped by his own meaningless banter with himself and to his conscience. He was his own worst enemy, enslaved by his demons. He never experimented with drugs, hard ones any way, didn't like to parlay with alcohol or to plaster tattoos. on his body either.
Fortunately, he was hardly a virgin, often finding his dalliances with those he would soon regrettably soon to forget; it made him even more melancholic than if he had none at all. He cynically convinced himself it was sex alone was what led people to succeed or maybe it was vice versa.
Either way, he always felt comforted by the sense he was in reasonably good health; he was young, giving him the impetus to keep him optimistic about tomorrow. Whatever rut he was in, and there were grounds for feeling less than stellar, he knew he'd hope to find love in this the most of arid of seasons. He was imprisoned yes, but certainly liberated by his sincerest visions and ideals, how ever cracked. Feeling stuffy internally made him ever more clear-sighted (than ever before, really) about his unchecked sexual desires. He was his own brand of a romantic, an intellectual renegade outlaw who hadn't a real place in contemporary culture when poetry is relegated to esoteric college classrooms. In his way, he felt helpless in the ugly face of oppression, for no matter how it sought change, he knew the price of his freedom. This time it was well worth it. Yet, he knew his freedom would be suppressed anyway, and yet he felt the reverse was true about his his sexual awakening, and this he hoped to achieve with this lover.
He adored her smooth, Mediterranean-tanned skin making him feel at peace and also curious about her own desires. Did she want him just as badly? He adored how she exuded confidence in the most self-effacing of ways; it was like she knew what she wanted, but kept it gracefully hidden. So, the anxiety of understanding she was married hardly phased him, if only in the subconscious. In reality, he was a wreck. Nonetheless, he was ready to make his move.

Learn more about this author, Jared Feldschreiber.

some thoughts after reading Warrior: Autobiography of Ariel Sharon

2009-06-27T05:11:00.000-07:00

It is easy to think there is no way we can live in an age of great men; too often we are told how to think and to feel, making us feel good momentarily, until we realize we're just being manipulated for personal gain. This may sound cynical, but in reality, are you really going to argue?
I finally finished Warrior: The Autobiography of Ariel Sharon and reevaluated this dire approach. Sharon's definitive account in such stark detail I found most incredible in his 556 page autobiography. Every map-making strategy, every nuanced detail of the region I found both staggering and innovative. It made me realize I basically know nothing about the region; this little swath of land, which extends for a good 280 square miles (can you imagine?) has the holiest of all things; it is also something Ariel Sharon has given his life through war, with hopes of peace and security. I think he is a living King David with epic battles and triumphs, and also someone feared by his enemies and ---even--- by his friends alike.
His bravery is unrivaled and what's remarkable about the book is everything is laid out in such specificity the reader feels as though he is brought along, like a travelogue.
I guess most will say it is the duty for Israelis to go through with what Ariel Sharon has described--- he just happens to be really good at it.
His vile detractors say he is a 'war criminal' even though it was the Christian Arabs (Phalingists) who went ahead to kill Muslims at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps during the 1982 Lebanon War (the PLO had used cities in Lebanon as their playground, and hid behind civilians- sound familiar?); it was Sharon who was implicity blamed for the operations after his commanders told him that the Christians had 'gone too far.' Sharon decided to resign as an an effort to clear the situation and absolve the crimes perpetrated by others. If anything I felt like he was betrayed by these same Lebanese Christians who may have been undermining him all along while he was busy leading the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in hopes to eradicate PLO terror from Beirut, after President Bachir Gemayel's assassination.
Still with me?
Everything in the book is so complex and yet while reading the book it is amazing to consider how it is elucidated so clearly; this is the consummate Zionist and also, amazingly to his critics, as a true man of peace.

He knows his commitment to his family, to his religion and to his country. This is a man who lost his first wife to a car crash (winding up marrying her sister) and lost one of his sons to an accidental suicide, while losing so many of his men as a general.
I look to Ariel Sharon and see the spiritual guiding light of the Jewish people and to Israel; he knows Jews in the Diaspora can't survive without Israel and acknowledges the other way around is just as true.
GBOR, Hebrew for HERO, doesn't really cut it with Sharon; to me he is more like SABA, Hebrew for Grandfather, and Israel will best be served to follow in his tradition. In his epilogue (bear in mind this was written in 1989) he saw the rockets would be reigning down in Ashkelon and Sderot 15-20 years before it happened--- even though it was him remarkably who ordered Israelis out of Gaza in hopes of peace.
I understand how Ariel Sharon, the politician, is seen as a controversial figure for a powerful man holds the burden of failure, but his unquestioned bravery and prescient qualities to protect the Jews and all Israelis, including Arabs from her enemies is witness to greatness.

initial thoughts on the protest in iran

2009-06-22T09:43:00.000-07:00

it's very inspiring and tremendous to see this solidarity of a john-lennon style movement--- what I love about it is that it has nothing to do with one candidate or the other--- it's about human freedom, being freed from bondage, a la harriet tubman, frederick douglass, john lennon, martin luther king---it isn't about mussavi or ahmedinijahd any more---
those animals who seek to destroy open and fair protests 'unmasks,' the true nature of the tyrannical relgious regime of the supreme leader;
there is that glimmer of hope, we need to express our solidarity with iranian demonstrators who are yearning to be free

Tehran Protest Pics

2009-06-15T16:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/06/irans_disputed_election.html

"Democracy don't rule the world/you better get that in your head/the world is run by violence/but I guess that's better left unsaid" --B. Dylan

Culminating Love

2009-06-09T10:21:00.000-07:00

Culminating Love

Love is not merely a ruse
coaxing us to believe
nor is it meant to feel wistful
to how we should be received;
You do not know me
as I seek to know you
as my arms are outstretched
under the shining moon.
Your eyes give yourself away,
your skin seemingly so soft,
for I've yet to feel something ever so deliciate
as gentle as a tear drop.
Love feels like a culminated dream
within the deepest recesses of our souls
sauntering through the passages of time
completing to its natural whole.
The green pastures of yore
where the poets had wailed
remains hidden behind every tree
enslaved by the barren jails.
Beauty and love remains our last vestiges
to a world unchanged by births, deaths and growth
amid tempers restrained.
I write this poem as a man
with love as the ends
to a world too cold
to seethe purity of innocence.

Crossroads: A Jared Feldschreiber Film

2009-05-23T07:53:00.000-07:00

Inside the Lair: The Making of Dr. Chopper

2009-05-22T19:10:00.000-07:00

Inside the Lair: The Making of Dr. Chopper

4+years ago:

When Israeli Reality Sets In By, Jared Feldschreiber

2009-05-07T07:27:00.000-07:00

When Israeli Reality Sets In…
By, Jared Feldschreiber

Today at 5:04pm

Since I moved to Israel in early March, the motif in many discussions I’ve had with Israelis has been whether the country will survive the next 100 years. Yes, the existential question of Iran’s Islamization of the region, and using whatever proxy be it Hamas, Hezbollah or other terrorist threats from all her adversaries to destroy her notwithstanding, there seems to be a recurring debate as to whether the Jewish State (with other religions and nationalities smushed together) can actually survive.“

All about politics my friend,” my journalist friend-colleague here at the bureau, reminds me of what makes everything tick and in fact, it is politics that often allow these democratic societies to splinter into pieces. I’m not sure if it’s merely politics alone,though, since there is a growing claustrophobic aura that permeates Israeli society now, which is not just political, but rather psychological. This perhaps illuminates some of Ben-Gurion’s concerns when the country was founded.

An idealistic outsider will say a pluralistic democracy invites chaos since from the periphery it seems like a testament to democracy to have such disagreements as a mere guise as “openness of varied opinions.” But an insider and pragmatist here will realize it really is crippling to have such ‘doom and gloom’ pervasive in so many Israelis’ attitudes. Sure, Israelis may dismiss me as not understanding the root of their nihilism; I’m not Israeli after all, since corruption remains rampant in ‘the revolving door at the Knesset.” I still sense this growing internal sadness here often dismisses the compassion many Jews in the Diaspora feel for the country.I love that I’m here and refuse to be brought down by their occasional reflective pessimism, always with its hint of sarcasm, but I sincerely sympathize as to why many feel this way. If GD really had blessed Jews as righteous in the Biblical era, and if Israel served to be a “light onto other nations,” then it’s understandable why many want things to be better for it to be more perfect union---even if the country is only 61 years old.

Unlike Obama’s decision to apologize to America’s adversaries as a mode of naive self-improvement for America, Israeli government officials nor its citizens will ever partake in such asinine apologies to their sworn enemies. The strength of Israel continues to be to seek internal betterment, and to strengthen their tenuous relationships abroad, as well its salute to honor their heroes who have given their lives and risked so much to continue the Jewish brethren. Sometimes their dreary cynicism grows on you, certainly, like when one Israeli told me that he hardly feels anything in common with some of his Russian or Ethiopian country-men here---“why should I defend them??? Because they are Jewish?” he asks me.

Look, Israel continues to look gorgeous with its bustling city life in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and everyone should come. Its business in the streets is coupled with the sincere reflections of pious people within the Holy of Holy sites atop Mount Hermon and Mount Herzl. I can sympathize why so many Israelis are always annoyed with their boisterous politicians, but have yet to crack why the cynicism is at such a feverish pitch.The country is still very 'sexy,' to use a journalistic phrase, and Israelis often smile when a film like ‘Waltz with Bashir’ nearly wins an Oscar, or Bar Rafaeli has her spread on a Sports Illustrated cover. But, alas, reality often sets in by their top-of the hour- news broadcasts blaring on the radio.

Personally, it’s sort of strange when Israelis say things like, “you can explain to me a lot better about the history of Zionism than I can,” or “once you live here for a while, you’ll see why I’m so cynical.” While both may be true, I can sense that Israelis are a tough, defiant bunch who are still searching as to why G-D gave Moshe and the Jews the Torah on Mount Sinai; I am also discovering as well.

Breaking Faith With Israel (WASHINGTON TIMES EDITORIAL)

2009-05-06T08:21:00.000-07:00

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/06/breaking-faith-with-israel/

EDITORIAL: Breaking faith with Israel
Not the time to change a policy that produced four decades of stability
By Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Will the United States sell out its strongest ally in the Middle East to cozy up to its worst enemy? The Washington Times reports today that the Israeli government is increasingly worried that the Obama administration will break a 40-year understanding between Washington and Tel Aviv to keep Israel's clandestine nuclear program a secret.
Iran has long complained that Israel is given a pass on the nuclear issue. The Jewish state is suspected of possessing a small atomic arsenal, but it has never officially admitted to having a nuclear-weapons program and is not a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (nuclear states India, Pakistan and North Korea have also declined to sign). The United States has officially remained silent. Iran says it is a double standard.
On the contrary, we say it shows the United States has standards. America treats Israel and Iran differently because they are fundamentally different. Israel is a dependable U.S. ally and a free liberal democracy. Iran is a long-standing enemy of the United States, is directly or indirectly responsible via Iraqi insurgents and others for more deaths of U.S. service members than any country since the Vietnam War. Its people suffer under an oppressive theocracy. We approve of an Israeli nuclear force for the same reason we approve of a British, French or American nuclear force: We know it will serve peaceful purposes. We oppose an Iranian nuclear force for the same reason we oppose a North Korean nuclear force: We know it will not serve a peaceful purpose. Any attempt to establish parity between Israel and Iran on the nuclear issue is dangerous and naive.
The United States has adopted a policy of strategic ambiguity on the issue, which is a useful tool in the hands of skilled diplomats. Our fear is that the current romantic fascination with the notion of a Grand Bargain - a comprehensive diplomatic agreement that will solve all outstanding issues in the Middle East - will push the Obama administration toward opening the question of the Israeli nuclear force. Pressing Israel to make its suspected nuclear arsenal into a bargaining chip only weakens our allies without defanging our foes.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration sounds Iran's talking points. Last month during his European trip, President Obama pledged to "seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons." In 2006, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad demanded that "the Middle East be free of nuclear weapons, not only the Middle East, but the whole world should be free of nuclear weapons." In 2005, the Gulf Cooperation Council called for a Middle East nuclear-free zone and urged Israel to "adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to open all its nuclear installations for international inspection."
Prince Turki al-Faisal, former Saudi ambassador to the United States, recently told The Washington Times that, ideally, the U.N. Security Council would enforce such a nuclear-free zone and authorize military action against states that refused to denuclearize. Noting that Israel would never agree to such a framework, he shrugged: "So what? It's still a good idea."
We respectfully disagree. The notion that a nuclear-free world would be peaceful and secure is fatuous. The world was certainly not a nonviolent paradise before the advent of nuclear weapons. If anything, the Israeli nuclear arsenal has been a force for peace in the region. Arab conventional armies attacked Israel four times between 1948 and 1973. Since the suspected arrival of an Israeli nuclear capability, no country in the region has mounted another such invasion and Egypt and Jordan have made peace with Israel.
Meanwhile, Iran has underwritten continued terrorist attacks and pledged to wipe Israel off the map. For this reason alone, Tel Aviv should never be asked to give up its nuclear deterrent. It is a matter of national survival. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told then-President Clinton in the 1990s when asked to sign a treaty that would restrict Israel's access to fissile material, "We will not sign the treaty because we will not commit suicide."
If the Obama administration is genuinely interested in achieving durable peace in the Middle East, it will renew the policy of strategic ambiguity. Now is not the time to hit the reset button on one of the most successful strategies in U.S. diplomatic history.
var addthis_pub="washingtontimes";

A Musical Expeditionary Disguised as a Master of Song

2009-04-30T07:54:00.000-07:00

http://visionsofdylan.co.uk/2009/04/27/together-through-life-a-rumination/

Together Through Life: A Rumination

A Musical Expeditionary Disguised as a Master of Song; Ruminating on Bob Dylan’s 46th album “Together Through Life”

by Jared Feldschreiber

1. Beyond Here Lies Nothin’
2. Life Is Hard
3. My Wife’s Home Town
4. If You Ever Go To Houston
5. Forgetful Heart
6. Jolene
7. This Dream Of You
8. Shake Shake Mama
9. I Feel A Change Is Comin’ On
10. It’s All Good

I’m not a musical historian, nor a musician, but I do know a lot about Bob Dylan’s immeasurably varied influence on musical genres and his cultural impact. Refusing to be pinned down and modestly obstinate to the role as ‘lyrical genius’ or ‘poet; - Dylan once said something along the lines of, ‘poets don’t go to P.T.A. meetings,’ insisting he is merely a regular guy with real-life concerns. Often in Dylan interviews, I am reminded of D.H.Lawrence’s “never trust the artist, trust the tale.” But in Martin Scorsese’s “No Direction Home” (2005), Dylan does say something that he has consistently proven to be, as he celebrates his 46th album, “Together Through Life.” He says he always had seen himself as merely a ‘musical expeditionary.’ This has proven to be ever so true within him: a purveyor of American roots music.
In 1961 he sang in his “Song to Woody:”
Here’s to Cisco an’ Sonny an’ Leadbelly too, An’ to all good people that traveled with you.Here’s to the hearts and the hands of the menthat come with the dust and are gone with the wind.
This song refers to Cisco Houston, Sonny Boy Williamson and Huddie William Ledbetter as the three standard-bearers of American folk music, who were also musical compatriots of Woody Guthrie, Dylan’s lifelong musical idol. It seems that whenever Mr. Dylan is misinterpreted or even worse, misunderstood for his graveling, he reminds us that his artistry displays a remarkably seeking musical wisdom. “Those old songs are my lexicon and prayer book,” Bob Dylan said in 1997. “All my beliefs come out of those old songs… You can find all my philosophy in those old songs. I believe in a God of time and space, but if people ask me about that, my impulse is to point them back toward those songs.”
Upon listening to the first few tracks, like “Behind Lies Nothin’,” “Life is Hard” or “If You Ever Go to Houston,” the audience realizes that Dylan does not just possess rich musical taste; he idolizes and seeks to render them to fit his own style. He brings his listener to the sounds of a late night soiree at a Parisian café or a 1950s hamburger joint or even to New Orleans Zydeco nightclub one has always fancied to go.
Together Through Life is accompanied by a vintage 50s Beatnik style jacket with the main photograph of lovers in a car by Bruce Davidson. Everything about the album seems to be so defiantly unique, yet wholly good-natured. Each song has that distinct Dylan twang and lyrical irony, which makes him such a great musical artist. “Life is for love/and they say that love is blind,” sings Dylan. “If you wanna live easy/Baby, pack your clothes with mine.” The album is much breezier than his previous album, “Modern Times,” which does not mean it is better per say, but it is just as compelling and all the while, a curious listen. This is an album to cherish as if listening to someone who is a master (and yet also a life-long student) of his trade.
Together Through Life is homage to the varied singers who played on Chess Records, the record label based in Chicago, which specialized in rhythm and blues, gospel, and early rock and roll. Laced throughout it is Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo who plays the Zydeco-induced accordion. With his graveling voice, Dylan often sounds like Muddy Waters and like the Mississippi Delta bluesmen he always idolized, as he has sounded for about 15 years now. This is clearly Dylan probing deeper in the foundation of Americana music, too— ‘Good as I been to You” (1992) and “World Gone Wrong” (which won a Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album in 1994) were albums in which he only sang Americana cover songs, the likes of Blind Willie McTell, Tom Paley and Doc Watson. Ever since then, it seems as though Dylan is manifesting his personal pledge to emulate those Americana musical artists, while constructing new tracks that are also remarkably personal. It's also apparent Dylan, in one his 9th track on the album is self-aware of his own image as the 'master of song,' deftly interweaving, "I’m listening to Billy Joe Shaver/And I’m reading James Joyce/Some people tell me I got the blood of the land in my voice.”
Sure, Dylan has the reputation to be mysterious, often giving cryptic interviews (having once said, “some people work in gas stations and they’re poets. I don’t call myself a poet because I don’t like the word. I’m a trapeze artist,”) therein lies in his art that he continually seeks and often finds his infinite wisdom. As he continues to tour with other voices of Americana, like Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson, ‘this musical expeditionary,’ as he always claims he’s been, also proves him worthy as the master of song.

Remembering the Past: Shaping the Future: Notes from Yad Vashem; April 20 & April 21, 2009- Written by and Photos by Jared Feldschreiber

2009-04-25T09:04:00.000-07:00

“Remembering the Past Shaping the Future”
Notes from Yad Vashem: April 20 & April 21, 2009–

By,

Jared Feldschreiber

"Six million of the Jewish people were slaughtered in the Holocaust. Not everyone has learned the lesson, unfortunately," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Monday night April 20, at the Yom HaShoah ceremony at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, which was broadcast throughout Israeli TV. Israeli President Shimon Peres and other dignitaries alike joined Holocaust survivors and others, who memorialized the extermination of European Jewry by the Nazis.

As the number of Holocaust survivors dwindle due to old age, there is an imminent need to share their testimony. This is what made this year’s Yom HaShoah in Jerusalem ever so paramount. The need to recall their stories whether in person or via visual presentation, as well as learning about all the specific details of the Holocaust, are in very high demand. Many of these survivors still travel to schools worldwide to educate as a means to combat ignorance as well as Holocaust denial, a prevalent threat to today’s modern world, illustrated clearly by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who deems it as mere ‘myth.’

Education, remembrance, honor, as well as defiance were the integral themes during the evening’s ceremony, which carried over to the following day, as is custom of the Jewish calendar. Yom Hashoah brought sirens at 10am, in which the entire nation paused in tribute.

At Yad Vashem, the morning brought many students and servicemen and women, as well as visitors from all ages- paying tribute to the victims of the Shoah, as it is known in Hebrew and universally deemed.

While covering both events, I was touched not only by the throngs of international visitors and Israeli servicemen and women who came atop Mount Herzl, but also by their overall interest to all of the varied and comprehensive exhibitions.

“It’s a moving, emotional and busy day,” Yad Vashem’s Foreign Media Liaison Estee Yaari said. “The importance to talk about the Holocaust is even higher than in years past.” In fact, over the last two days, Yaari said, “there has been a spike” of hits on Yad Vashem’s web site, which includes a list database of names of those who perished accompanied by various testimony videos, provided by the Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation in Los Angeles.

Ms. Yaari said the number of web surfers grew to 260,000, an increase of 43% from 2008. For many of the survivors who attended the ceremony as well as for those who came to the exhibits on Yom HaShoah, while being already educated about the plight of the Jews by the Nazis, the impetus to come served to remind them and their ilk to honor the fallen victims, mostly their family members. Their presence also meant to remember how lucky they were to survive, not to mention to accept the fragility of human existence.

Steven Spielberg once said he made “Schindler’s List” to try to fathom the ineffable, which was the Holocaust; it was inspiring to see so many were compelled to be in such a poignant place. As the banner on the stage podium reads, one needs to be,”remembering the past, [as a means to be] shaping the future.”

Ethereal

2009-04-01T04:57:00.000-07:00

cultural, political, fanatical, allegorical, sociological, metaphorical, hypothetical, philosophical, identifiable, kinetical, diabolical

The world to observe
is an endless ocean;
a limitless oasis
of our dreams;
where were you
when I was seeking these desires?
why had the the world
swallowed me whole;
To see the Divine
in the ordinary,
to see the Sacred
in the routine;
the Holy in the present;
love hasn't a face
but always yearns to stare back at you;
the pageantry of experience
leaves you clinging,
seeking Infinite Wisdom
from your Creator
of a world we know
and one we cannot see;
dreams of tomorrow
patiently in waiting;
dreams of a future
anticipating your arrival
for the green pastures
dissolve to mere silt.
Love in your heart,
love in your soul;
love, which provides the engine,
love which accelerates our passions
and even keeps our vindictive
tempests in tow;
to see the Holy in everything,
merely leaves you clinging,
just like me.

Umm Al Fahm and More

2009-03-31T06:42:00.000-07:00

re: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1073724.html

So here I was in Umm-Al Fahm, a predominantly Arab town in Israel, northeast of Hadera with the Fox News crew on March 24. This town experienced some duress as Baruch Marzel, a rightist Israeli settler marched with about 100 supporters, all sharing a hardened - perhaps extremist- Israeli Zionist view, which opposes a 2-state solution with the Palestinians. Their demonstration meant to exercise their might of ultranationalist views, all within legalities of the Israeli Supreme Court.

This march was delayed by a few weeks, in lieu of the Israeli Elections; it was flanked by about 2500 Israeli Police.

The extremist position continues to illustrate a new dynamic, even disconcerning development within Israel. This off-shoot of the banned- Kach Movement now garners some political clout in the country and it's growing. They are no longer merely viewed as a religious merely getting a cut of the national budget; some are not even religious, rather ultranationalist, and many now serve in the military and hold other important posts there.

Today's demonstration was clearly provocation to demonstrate Israel's right as a Jewish state, even if a town, like Umm Al Fahm is predominately Arab. Interestingly, most of believe these kinds of bullying cause more harm than good for the existence of Israel since Baruch Marzel's behavior illustrates potential violence and divisiveness. Marzel had been a part of the now banned Kach Movement, a fervent supporter of Yigal Amir and Baruch Goldstein, two Jewish terrorists.

"Israel Beitinyu" is the name of a political party that did very well in the elections, led by Avigdor Lieberman, who now serves as Foreign Minister under the new Binyamin Netanyahu coalition.

So what might be easily dismissed as a minor 'confrontation,' as 28 people were injured and 13 people were arrested, relatively small numbers for this kind of an event, it still seems to be vital as perhaps sadly a precursor to a march larger threat to Israel. Hopefully, the divisiveness that has always permeated Israeli society will not dissolve into chaos, as the country veers more to the right.

news bureau jerusalem

2009-03-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

whether the golan was offered to assad by olmert in the last few days...and the sad news that the schalit deal fell through -- those are the headlines from my 1st day as an intern w fox news in jerusalem... ooh, wow, just writing those words make me proud; is it proud or is it excited? illuminating about the world, and being the change I want to see in my world; an element of the surreal coupled with the realities on the ground so I guess this make us find our niche...
from the bureau chief to the desk manager to the cameramen to the field producers to the soundmen to the editors; this is the real deal; no presuppositons, no hoodwinking, no misleading; just sheer live coverage, live reality; one talked about her recent marriage, another joked 'join the club...' been showed the bulky camera soon to be replaced by digital memory cards, I am staring at 2 clocks one saying 4:20 (Israel time)... and a clock below writing 10:20; been taught terms like 'live opening,' 'insert package' and 'live tag...' terms that are meant to go at such a fast pace--- and always to seek to the 'look ahead...'
so here I am in Israel, here I am in Jerusalem, here I am at a hard-news division;
in---and--- out...
great for first day; will illuminate via pics and specifics soon

No Need for Talking: My Pinter Tribute

2008-12-26T14:13:00.000-08:00

please click on photo for link to helium.com

No Need for Talking

By, Jared Feldschreiber

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions

won’t be nothing nothing you can measure anymore –

“The Future” L. Cohen

On a Red couch with magazines spread around on an end table at the casting agency

SOPHIE (muttering to agent):
I’m always willing to push boundaries though I need some depth. What’s in my head; maybe I just need to be pushed; I need to slide in all directions… I need to push myself; totally free to work on anything. I want to be an artist.
LEONARD: Ha. An artist. A quarter for every time I heard that.
Sophie (raising her voice): Can’t you look beyond the service of being an advertiser and see ME. You get countless actresses at your door, countless blondes, brunettes, whites, blacks; it doesn’t matter. I don’t think it ever mattered unless it brought you business… ya.
Leonard: Now wait.
Sophie: No you wait, I pay you well. I pay you better than any of the ones you sleep around with... Stacy? You bang until 7.
Leonard: I don’t mix business with pleasure. What’s your point? What are you driving at? What’s your goal in life?
Sophie: I am unable to accept mediocrity; unable to be sucked into this abyss, a vacant and sunken feeling that you’ve accepted. You don’t represent those models that do anything to get ahead. Do you have a conscience? Do you enjoy being hollow? Enjoying the glitz and glamour without accountability?
Leonard: Do you want me to give you up? I love you.
Sophie: You love me?
Leonard: I love you; I need you.
Sophie: Love and need are vastly different things. You know that. A difference that maybe you can’t accept. I’ll play this game.
(Beat) Do you even enjoy sex?
Leonard: What the hell do you mean?
Sophie: Well?
Leonard: Yeah… I like where you’re going with this.
Sophie: Are you in love with the woman when you have sex or do you need her intimacy?
Leonard: Don’t get heady, Sophie.
Sophie: Just answer the question
Leonard: Pleasure, pure pleasure. Enjoy that.
Sophie: I feel the opposition about acting, about human contact. I’m in love with acting. See it’s nomenclature. You know what that means?
Leonard: No, do tell; educate your agent.
Sophie: Nomenclature; it’s classification, it’s sorting.
Leonard: So.
Sophie (Pacing): Can’t you get it? You’re set, man. There’s no human connection in your agency. You churn out crap for exploitation. I don’t pity you, I don’t even care. But, can’t you see why I’d love to do what I do. I love what I do. You’ve given up sometime ago like a prize fighter throwing in the towel.
Leonard: What do you know about boxing?
Sophie: Enough to know it’s rigged… like life.
Leonard: Would you make love to me?
Sophie: I pity you.
Leonard: Would you?
Sophie: Good luck Leonard.
(Walks out)--

Are you serious, Quentin?? Inglorious Bastards?

2008-12-21T14:56:00.000-08:00

Is this a joke? I love looking on IMDB.COM for upcoming films; this is what I noticed for Tarantino's soon-to-be film:

"In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as "The Basterds" are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis. The Basterds soon cross paths with a French-Jewish teenage girl who runs a movie theater in Paris which is targeted by the soldiers"

3 letters: "WTF!" People will waste their money on this drivel. I don't know about you but I'm offended; I read somewhere he wanted to title it, "once upon a time in vichy;" no joke.

Our lives will be further revisioned (is that a word?) by perhaps the most asinine plot in the history of Hollywood. I guess he got me riled up about it, so it'll help generate good ratings, buzz, et al!

My lineage has had a history of overcoming the odds, defeating, slaying our adversaries; the Macabees, Bar Kochba's Revolt and when we overwhelmed Haman.

This film doesn't seem sensitive; it seems like crass bull-shit. Any other way to describe it?

untouched

2008-12-11T00:16:00.000-08:00

untouched

if only we can begin anew

to hold our tempests in tow

you are purer to me

so much as we postulate

like the vinegar off your breasts

the scent of your breath

all give my life purpose

as to celebrate the virginality of experience

discovering, awakening

love serves to quell futility

desire supplants tears, tumult

judiciously, without legality

nixed by sudden pharoh-like slaves

castigated by sinful nuns

gorged in the pastoral times

destiny stares

glares, frightens, belittles

suckered by a vacuous universe citing

all is meant to be discovered

Hebron Settlers

2008-12-10T15:52:00.001-08:00

Dear Editor,

As an American Jew, I'm saddened and angered by the settlers' actions in Hebron last week in which they were responsible for opening fire on Palestinians and deeming IDF soldiers as 'Nazis.'

The Palestinian Authority are comprised of mostly thugs and some have funded terrorists. Many splintered groups have become terrorists themselves, and sadly have also become political entities, like Hamas and Hezbollah. Their leadership are a bunch of vile anti-Semites who want to throw Israelis, Jews into the sea and to wipe Judaism off the globe.

I am upset by the settlers' actions since as Jews, we must recognize the errs and perils of extremism. The notion that Jews recognize the settlers' actions as deplorable and must not be tolerated is vital. We can not allow them to undermine the government and destroy the tenuous precariousness of democracy. We were once deemed 'righteous' people by G-D.
What 'high ground' could we have now?

Yizhak Rabin, who was killed by a settler's bullet once warned about these "Jewish Hamas" extremists, after one, Baruch Goldstein- a Jewish Defense League and Kahane zealot- had indiscriminately killed 33 Muslims praying in early morning near Hebron.

"The legitimate rights of the Palestinian people' that Arafat used to espouse is of course a sham and a crock since he never denounced terrorism himself, and continued to seek Israel's destruction until his dying days.

If there are those that seek to wipe Jews off the map, and there are, and will continue to do so, Jews must be cognizant of these threat but not resort to their enemies' lack of education and lack of morality. G-D chose the Jewish people to be righteous.

I am very right of center when it comes to Israel's security, however. If they know that Hezbollah is setting up shop in Beirut, or like when the PA did just that in 1982, Israelis will and must protect their citizens and dismantle their weaponry.

I'm only emphasizing that there is a need for us to be righteous and the settlers' behaviors were wrong in this instance on many fronts.

The U.N. is a farce; the Arab "leadership" to fight terror is also a farce.

I'm not blind to that; I do know however that Jews should not call fellow Jews "Nazis" and spit in the face of them, as well as indiscriminately fire at Palestinians, like many of these rioters did.

Jared Feldschreiber
West L.A.

Paul Newman's Legacy (His Foundation and Philanthropy)

2008-09-27T11:49:00.000-07:00

Highlights from my BDAY

2008-09-22T14:40:00.001-07:00

Where my U.S. Political Views Lay Now...

2008-09-04T13:30:00.000-07:00

End of the day: I can't vote for B. Obama. His affiliations, his pro-Arab sentiment in a time of dangerous threats from all sides -particularly in the Arab world- and his lack of leadership (at any level!) give me no confidence in him. He doesn't offer me confidence with innovation either, merely emotionalism.
I do like Joe Biden, but think he's merely being used as a prop to assuage my fears, and he's not winning it.
I just wonder why the media has been so myopic in their pro-Obama sentiment, though. I just hope as a young person, I'll continue getting my views freely, too.
The 'cultural conservatism' of McCain/Palin is a bit unnerving, and as a Jewish American with a yearning for a more progressive world a lot seem desired but something I'll need to sacrifice for the protection of the U.S.
~Jared Moshe~

Favorite Word

2008-08-14T12:00:00.001-07:00

If ever I'm on the Actor's Studio and I need to play that Bernard Pivot game, this will be the answer to the question: "what is your favorite word:"

"schadenfreude."

Main Entry:

scha·den·freu·de
Pronunciation:: \ˈshä-d^ən-ˌfrȯi-də\
Function:: noun
Usage:: often capitalized
Etymology:: German, from Schaden damage + Freude joy
Date:: 1895

: enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others

Where is Gilad?

2008-08-12T14:21:00.000-07:00

The life of this brave Israeli soldier, Gilad Schalit is still in peril and mostly unknown. His kidnapping, along with Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser incited the Lebanon War 2 years ago. This is months after Hamas took control of Gaza and Hezbollah is seeking to monopolize the Lebanese government.
The horrific prisoner swap last month between Hezbollah and Israel sealed the tragic fates of Goldwasser and Regev. Their families, and Jewish people worldwide, awoke to the tragic news that their children were in coffins, as the Palestinians greeted Samir Qantar, who has been in jail since 1979 for his part in a deadly guerrilla raid had been released. He was among the five Lebanese prisoners handed over by Israel. Quantar is a convicted murderer, slaying three Israelis, among them a policeman and a young girl.

There are campaigns throughout the world to aid Israel rescue her citizen. French President Sarkozy has been instrumental in the fight to rescue him. Speaking in a press conference following the release of politician Ingrid Betancourt by Colombian rebels, the French president said, "I would like to direct my last words to Gilad Schalit and his parents. We have not forgotten. France is always ready to be recruited for a person held unjustly. As it appears violence has stopped for several days in Gaza, I would like to express my hope that Gilad Schalit, my countryman, will be released soon," Sarkozy said. He met with Mr. Schalit's father. "We spoke about a number of concrete issues, and briefed him on the information we have on Gilad. The president promised to do everything in his power to help advance Gilad's quick release."

There are editorials on the web concerning Schalit, but too often the tragedy continually is ignored by mainstream media.

Please read:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/994601.html

and

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=91734205

and just today Ehud Barak mentioned Israel will pay a 'heavy price' for return of Schalit:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1218446181703&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

~Jared Moshe~

Inspired by Change

2008-08-12T01:00:00.001-07:00

Inspired by Change

I was born without a cent in my pocket

and still feel broke

Years without love, nor understanding

Always brow-beaten

Always distraught by a hazing

Non-committal suicidal linking of pain and beauty

It walks along the earth seeking freedom

And all that's left is idleness

After all, it's Yours---

Jared Feldschreiber