Not Anonymous

I am ill.

I was pretty incapacitated with fatigue yesterday, mainly sleeping and staring bleary into either space or tumblr (that was what my brain was capable of yesterday).

I took the day off work today and seeing as I am writing this at about a syllable a minute (with typos) I'll be taking a sick day tomorrow as well.

What I hate most about the diseases that give one a heavy head and miserable overall feeling is that that I regress so badly.

It's like, I just want my parents to feel sorry for me and take care of me.

So right now I am nibbling on pretzels (trying not to suffocate because I'm coughing and I don't want to inhale the crunchy things), drinking weak coffee, and hugging a hot water bottle.

I really miss my cat.

And yeah, I've been all weepy for the past two days due to malady and menstruation.

I think I'll take a nap now.

But we celebrated anyway.

My birthday is actually this coming Monday, but life being what it is, it was celebrated today and much fun was had.

My siblings got me exactly what I wanted. The "Hawaii Five-0" first season box set! Which, omg, yay!

This is especially good, because I've gotten my parents to watch the show and it will bu much easier to watch the episodes through the DVD machine, rather than hooking up my computer to the big tv screen every time we want to watch an episode.

So much fun.

Speaking of my parents, they got me a tablet.

A tablet.

With a touch screen.

It's 7" of goodness, on which I'll be able to read e-books, fanfiction, watch television and take my computerised life with me wherever I go.

I honestly can't believe they got me a tablet. It's currently charging and it doesn't have a name (I name all my computers), but tomorrow once I've played with it for a while I'll know what's what with this little machine.

I have H50 and a tablet!

I can't believe I have these things now!

The parental units have returned from abroad and I've returned to my flat up north.

I'm very worried about Wish, because my mother ordered cleaners for the rooms and hallway that had been flooded and just before I left I heard him cough.

The cough was not as bad as it had been, he wasn't hacking or sounded like he was losing a lung, but he hadn't coughed since he came back from the vet and now he's starting again? I'm concerned about that.

Happy things though, due to my taking care of everything while my parents were away I received many presents of material worth! Like shirts and earrings (I love earrings!), I now have so many that I need another stand to hang them on.

Spending time at my childhood home really feels like a holiday, because I'm now heading out to shop for things like milk, eggs and other groceries on which [Sexy!Roommate] and I need to live.

I still have a beta reading to do, write my own fics and get ahead for a lecture I am probably going to be giving at the end of may.

And get a job.

SNAFU.

My dear New York siblings, congratulations, it's about fucking time.

My own misgivings about using marriage as a strategy, we shouldn't be treated as second class citizens, the ability to marry is one way to assert humanity on paper.

Big hugs!

Tangential to this, I was driving with my father this afternoon. He's buying a laptop for himself and he took me along as the most tech-savvy person living at home at the moment.

Which is saying something. But hey, I can read commercial laptop specs and make sure no one's pulling the wool over the eyes of an older man who's command of Hebrew frustrates him.

On the way, we started talking about Amy Winehouse and he mentioned that she was Jewish, I said "yep, I know."

And he said, "Not that it's in any way relevant."

I replied saying that I think it is important to have that sort of thing known, because Judaism is more than just a religion and he asked if I'd want to have "Jewish" mentioned as part of my biography.

I said that it should be mentioned somewhere, but not like "Melody [Pond], Jewish". I'd much rather have "Feminist" or "Queer".

I asked him, "Isn't being Jewish important to you? You immigrated here because of that."

To which he grimaced and said: "I hate what the religious have done to this country, it makes me resent the religion."

It made me think, that I must have really freaked my parents out when I was going through my exploration of Neopaganism, which came and went quite a bit for the better part of a decade, but which was laid to rest at some point a couple of years ago, and during my emotional break down after the Second Lebanon War, during which I thought I should get closer to... well... something, G-d seemed like a good choice.

I replied to him, regarding his resentment, that being Jewish is more than religion, it's a history and a sense of connection and the whole spiel.

Regardless, he said unfortunately religion was the reason Israel existed, which I refuted in a way he found both amusing and horrifying, most likely. But that's what happens when Godwin is invoked.

He said religion was one of the biggest disaster to ever happen to humanity.

And I said, "At least I come by my atheism honestly."

And he asked, out of nowhere, "And your heterosexuality?"

I gave him a side-eye, "I come by my non-heterosexuality honestly, too,"

To which he laughed and said I should start dating again, because he wants me to be happy and that he and my Mom reacted badly to my relationship at the time (no shit, Sherlock).

It was gratifying to hear him say, though the timing was slightly bizarre.

Then again, the car is the time to have a heart to heart. No one can escape.

How was your Sunday?!

I come from a family of history nuts.

We all adore history, we have different ideas of what history means, but we all love it, learn it and think memory is one of the more important things in life.

I recall the one time I looked my history in the face, when I was 17 and went on the class trip to Poland. I don't think I would have gone without my mother, who insisted, because I seriously hated my peers.
It was an odd time, of false camaraderie and a whole lot of national zeal. I still feel weird thinking about those ten days in Poland, in which the only time we saw something "fun" was in Krakow - where we went shopping in the square and travelled down the salt mines (which is used as a wedding hall, these days... or at least back in 2002).

In Majdanek, which is the concentration-death camp next to Lublin and has a fucking huge ash mound - yeah, seriously, there are reconstructions of the housing blocks, which have been converted into museums. There is a block that has nothing but shoes in it, there's a red high heeled shoe there that I'll never forget.

One of the blocks is an information archive, it has documents, SS uniforms, prisoner uniforms (those stripy "pyjama" things), ID cards for the well known Nazi commanders who did their duty there and a wall with badges.

Badges explaining what each one meant and who wore them.

I had only ever heard of the yellow star of David. When I saw the pink triangle I was shocked. What was a symbol I associated with Gay Pride doing here!?
I read the info and discovered what it meant and why it was reclaimed by gay people.
(I was 17, in a relationship with a boy and was only beginning to understand my own queerness).
I saw the black triangle and saw that it was given to Anti-Socials - which included gypsies, anarchists, the mentally ill and Lesbians.

This confused me.

Surely the Lesbians should be with the pink triangle.

Lesbian women were "Anti-Social", not because they had sex with women, but because they refused to marry and "breed" for the Reich. This I discovered not long afterwards when I realised that my country only counts the 6 million as victims and the rest as incidental - never mind that there are, you know, Jewish queers. So I read up on the other victims of the Holocaust.

Why am I writing this?

Because history continued to rely on the fact that men are more important than women.

As many of you know, Berlin has Holocaust Memorial instillations. A huge Jewish one and across the road from it, a Gay one. It was installed in 2008 to commemorate the gay victims of the Nazi regime. It includes a continued video of two men embracing and kissing. Very sweet.
I remember back when it was installed how happy I was that this piece of history, general and gay, was being recognised and promised myself that when I was in Berlin I'd go (as though I wouldn't any way). It was also stated that every two years the image would be replaced and this year it would be two women embracing and kissing.

Woe.

This, some say, is not historically accurate:

[..]Alexander Zinn, a board member of the foundation that maintains the former Nazi concentration camps near Berlin, said such a move would distort history as there were no known Holocaust victims targeted for being lesbian.

"Historical truth must remain the focus," Zinn told AFP.

He has banded together with other Holocaust experts and fired off a letter of protest to Culture Minister Michael Neumann and Berlin's openly gay mayor, Klaus Wowereit.

Neumann defended the plans as true to the original concept of the memorial in addressing present-day discrimination against lesbians and gays as well as the plight of homosexuals at the hands of the Nazis.

"The option of using a lesbian film motif in the memorial is in no way meant to put on the same level the persecution of homosexual men and women under the Nazi regime," he said in a statement.

Yeah, gay women didn't suffer enough under the Reich.
That's basically what's being said.

I'm not saying that Lesbian women were persecuted in the same way. Obviously, they were not. Mainly because, women's sexuality doesn't exist without the presence of a penis. That's the crux, these "anti-social" women refused to marry, continued to wreak havoc on the ultra-masculine, misogynistic and fetishistic society that had managed to infect Germany during Weimar.

Regardless, Lesbian women were persecuted for being gay, just, as mentioned, not in the same way. To deny this, is to erase an important part of War World 2 history, the history of the Holocaust and the history of queer women, who are erased from history with fervour any way!

Lesbians Locking Lips on the memorial for the persecution of gay people during the Nazi Regime is just as important as gay men doing so. It is different. The outcome may have also been different, but the motivation was not.
How could it be historically inaccurate?

This is what happens when I read the news on Peach eve.

I just got back from the Leonard Cohen concert.

He (and his band and back-up singers) was amazing.

I love him more than ever.

Tomorrow, some cognizant thoughts and the song list (yeah, I wrote it down).

He dedicated the concert (and probably a portion of the proceedings) to The Parents Circle - Israeli and Palestinian Bereaved Families for Peace, which made me emotional to a degree that is really indecent. Crying at an announcement, good going Mel.

I'm also happy I went with my dad to this, he's loved Cohen since the 70's (how crazy is that) and we love so many of the same songs, almost all of them got an emotional response out of me.

It was mad, brilliant... I could have listened to him forever.

Things are tense.

[Southern!Girl] came up from Beer Sheba for the night and ended up crying in my arms as we snuggled.
She said (I paraphrase) that there people suffering more than her in this situation.
She's right of course, but she's the one crying in my arms.

Add to that, I feel as though my family has gone 'round the bend.
Living with my parents give me ample opportunity to discuss the war with them and how one sided the media is (towards the Palestinians, of course).

My mother said she doesn't agree with me on the suffering of the Palestinians as compares to the suffering of the Israelis. I had an argument on the phone with my older Jerusalem-residing sister who ended up saying (again, paraphrasing) that she agrees with everything I'm saying, but bottom line, the lives of the people of Sderot and the other towns and villages surrounding Gaza are of more value than the lives of Palestinians in Gaza.

And again there was the dropping of Hamas' immoral tactics: human shields and using the civilian populations and housing for their weapons and their headquarters. That all they want is the destruction of Israel and that they get money from Iran and only use it to fight and not create infrastructure for... well, anything.

Thing is... when you're talking specifically about Hamas these are facts. Question is how you're going to put them in context.
Context being... the Occupation.
There is no separating that from the situation.
The whole "we left Gaza and they let everything go to waste", is just so moronic I can't even articulate it properly.
Being of South African heritage, maybe I should begin using the term Bantustan.

One sentence I can't get out of my head and really can't believe I've been hearing, not from anyone specific, but in general:
"We [Israel] haven't hurt too many innocent people".
What does that even mean?
That collateral damage is swept under the bloody rug?

Israel is so ethical, the defence ministry calls houses that are about to be bombed and tell them to evacuate a head of time:

We just received a phone call on our land line. It was the Israeli Defence Ministry, and they said that any house that has guns or weapons will be targeted next, without warning and without any announcement. Just to let you know, we don't have any weapons in our house. If we die please defend my family.
[...]
For the last year and a half the Israeli government has intensified the economic blockade of Gaza by closing all the border crossings that allow aid and essential supplies to reach Palestinians in Gaza. This forced Palestinians to dig tunnels to Egypt to survive. Israel continued to threaten a military operation in the Gaza Strip, until the madness of war became inevitable for both sides. And since it began, hundreds of Gazans have been killed.

I don't know how other people around the globe think. Did you think to be honest with yourself once to understand the truth? A handmade Palestinian rocket jeopardizes Israeli security, but Israel's deadly F-16s, rockets, missiles, and tanks don't jeopardize Palestinian security?

Emphasis mine. Quoted from Electronic Intifada.

Hamas was elected democratically, by the people of Gaza. They then went on to kill all Fatah activists and their families in the strip.
This is despicable, bad and terrible and certainly shows Hamas to be "bad guys".
In my home's political discourse they've been compared to Robert Mugabe of Zimbambwe as to how Evil they are and how cheap they view life to be.

But see, I don't care how Hamas view human life, because this kind of discourse just dehumanizes them more and more, and it's not as though Israel has that much better an opinion on Human Life, which is categorized very nicely into religious and ethnic criterion.

The traumatised children of Sderot are also human shields, but that's dehumanizing them isn't it.

I've been accused of hating Israel. Why do I not remember the history of my people's persecution, how can I prefer the Palestinians over my own Israeli brethren?

I don't hate Israel, that would mean hating the people that make the country, I think the way the power is structured prevents the people to actually be a part of the governing body and thus have very little influence in any sphere of influence.
I remember my people's history very well, I'm very much living in the paranoid fantasy that my own Jew-Ways will get me killed.
I've been to Warsaw (and imagined the Uprising) and to Auschwitz (and breathed in the Ashes). That isn't our entire history, reducing it to that, defining our Jewish-Israeli identity in that way diminishes our own subjectivity and the using of that history to oppress and dehumanize an Other People is the ugliest kind of narrative exploitation.

Thus endeth the spiel.

Free Palestine, Gaza, Rafah, Beit Hanoun, Ramallah and the rest of us. Bring hope to Sderot, Beer Sheba, Ashkelon, Ashdod and the rest of all of us.
Peace with our enemies.

Today on the News I watched an Economic Commentator compare the bailout plan to a defibrillator shock.
That comparison really scared me, because after reading The Shock Doctrine, which was one of the first economic commentaries/exposes I'd ever read, I've been trying to keep a keener eye and ear out for the language used by pundits, politicians and sound bite economists.

The worst thing about this is that the really wealthy won't notice this, those whose entire capital was invested in stock will get benefits from this bailout and thus will be able to go on their merry way, while inflation goes over board and unemployment abounds.

I'm parroting the News and I can't help but wonder, do these people understand who inflation and unemployment hurts most? Are they aware that small businesses (like my father's) can go under simply by employing people, because prices soar and no one can pay a salary because no one can afford because the customers themselves lose their job and are forced to go onto welfare and social security... which in my little Hell Hole is dwindling and dwindling.

I myself am also thinking about my future. What I'm to do with my degree in Useless studies Lit. and Gender studies.
I once thought of getting an MA or Certificate in Information/Library studies.
But when I think about what I really want to do and considering what I'd like to use my degree for, I always think of my mother, who is a teacher.
And this week a friend of the family who runs a chapter of an organization that tries to encourage education/literacy among the Indigenous people in Australia. She and her Significant Other (who also works at this NGO) were telling me about some of the projects and the young teachers that work at the organization and all I could think was "yes, yes... this is what makes the difference".
I'm still young enough to remember that I thought teachers were idiots and that I almost all of them.
Except my literature teachers in Junior High and High School.
And my Drama teacher from when I was 11 'till 14.
And sometimes I fantasize about being that kind of influence, if that one awkward weird kid can look back and think... I'd like to be like that.

Real world cynicism (and having a parent as a teacher) lets me know that fantasy aside, being a teacher is a thankless job in today's economic reality, especially in Israel where if you don't have tenure you barely get enough pay to make ends meet.

So... yeah.
This is what I think about when I have time. And I get memory streams, but that's the subject of a different entry.

Per request of eldest sibling I am now going to tell you all what it is like to have four children (as the Jerusalem Nephews will be spending time with us while their Parental Units are away) in one house.

One word.

Crazy.

A few more words.

Very happy, though tears have been shed and jet lag is still par for the course when it comes to the America Family to be renamed the Local Fam/Nephew & Niece as they are now staying in my parents house, which happens to be where I live and they will be living in my town.

I predict a melt down in the coming hours due to pure exhaustion.
I predict a melt down of this kind every day while there are four children between the age of seven and two.

As a devoted Auntie I will be helping the Granny and the other parents who are staying with us.

So, yeah...

Will be reporting more insanity no doubt.

I'm also renaming the house we are living in Arkham Asylum - with the accompanying tag.

Mother unit is learning to play Bridge with a bunch of friends, while Moi is blogging about it in the corner of the living room, having been moved away from my regular spot behind the couch because the whole furniture arrangement had to be changed.

I dunno why.

Mummy is on a bit of a moving around spree because we're going to get the whole house (my room not included as it was painted less than two years ago) so there is a cleaning frenzy because this is an opportunity to get rid of things she had been trying to for years.
Personally, this is a chance to, um, attain more books from the old bookshelves in the various (every single one of the) rooms that contain books.

There is something to be said about "Summer Cleaning".

For instance, I found a book I forgot I had and got another in, oddly, the same subject: Nonie Darwish's "Now They Call Me Infidel" and Ayaan Hirsi-Ali's "Infidel", respectively.
I have issues with some of their politics, but as women from "Muslim" countries now living in the "West" they have a unique perspective of those countries and I think a lot of people on the Left choose to ignore what these women say because they're used (and enable) certain aspects of media to use their (valid, in their experience) criticisms of Islam and the cultures they come from to show Islam as entirely anti-Woman and incapable of evolving from the "Barabrism" it's currently in - yeah, I know, *vomit*.
None the less, if you can, it's important to read what they have to say, even if I disagree with a lot of their politics.

And here's something interesting; it would appear that British Muslims feel like European Jews. This was said by First British Muslim Minister Shahid Malik who is basically saying that Muslims are targets of prejudice and discrimination, etc. etc.
Links to the articles in The Independent and Reuters.

Now, while no doubt Minister Malik has legitimate claims of discrimination towards Muslims, I mean, duh. I have a problem with the comparison to Jews. I mean, the Jews of Europe were and are treated like European Jews, just because there was an eradication attempt doesn't mean there aren't any left and in England there are quite a few Jews.
I'm sorry to say that antisemitism really isn't gone and to compare the rise in anti-Muslim and anti-Islam sentiment to the fact that antisemitism in it's current (racial) form has been around for nearly 200 years.
The anti-Muslim and anti-Islam is on the rise and has risen because of the West's (re: the USA since the Second World War and became the planet's most destructive butt-insky) constant need of an Evil Enemy.

It's West bloc vs. East bloc.

What I'm saying is, like a lot of things to do with Jews, Antisemitism is uniqe and to try and pretend it doesn't exist anymore by trying to say that Jews have been replaced by a new scapegoat doesn't sit well with me.

Huh.
This entry turned much longer than I intended... forgive me folks, my rants tend to get the better of me.