Dreampepper

Copied from spiderfarmer via James Grant:

Israeli TV broadcast a father's heartbreak Friday night when a Palestinian doctor living in Gaza made a frantic phone call to a newscaster saying an Israeli tank had shelled his home, killing three of his daughters and injuring other family members.

Izz el-Deen Aboul Aish, who speaks Hebrew, worked as a gynecologist in an Israeli hospital. Even as the crossings between the Gaza Strip and Israel had largely been closed in recent months, he had traveled frequently from one place to the other. But he had remained in Gaza since the Israeli offensive began 21 days ago. He gave frequent interviews to the Israeli media on living conditions in the seaside enclave. He spoke of having tanks around his house and of passing through checkpoints; he told Israelis what it was like to be Palestinian.

Minutes away from a scheduled phone interview on Israeli TV 10 with newscaster Shlomi Eldar, Aboul Aish called Eldar's cellphone, screaming and weeping in Arabic and Hebrew. The doctor's home had been struck by a shell:

"Oh God, oh my God, my daughters have been killed. They've killed my children. . . . Could somebody please come to us?"

Sitting at his news desk for one of Israel's main evening news broadcasts, Eldar held his phone up. For three minutes and 26 seconds, Aboul Aish's wailing was broadcast across the country.

Eldar welled up. He put his head down. He looked at the camera. He looked at his phone. He made pleas for helpfor the family, but the doctor kept crying, his voice scratchy, like sand on paper, until Eldar took out his earpiece and walked off the set to try to arrange for help. The newscaster's bewildered face seemed to capture a bit of pause in a nation that has largely supported its military campaign and prefers not to question its course.

News reports said there had been shooting in the area of the doctor's house before the shelling. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

Israeli officials permitted ambulances carrying members of the doctor's family to cross the border to a hospital.

Aboul Aish was a single father. His wife had died of cancer. He made his daughters sleep close to the walls of their home in hopes that would keep them safe if airstrikes or artillery collapsed the ceiling.

"I don't know how this man will stand on his feet again after this tragedy," Dr. Liat Lerner-Geya, an Israeli who worked with Aboul Aish, told the Hebrew-language news website Ynet. "He would come to Israel and sleep at friends' houses for three nights. Even though he had all the necessary permits, they always gave him trouble at the crossings. But he believed there should be coexistence and practiced this in his work."

After the newscast, Eldar met with reporters. He said the doctor told him that evening "that since his wife's passing, the girls had been his entire life. He said his eldest daughter wanted to study at Haifa University. Just today another one of his daughters had told him she had gotten her period. 'In the middle of a war you get your period. You are a woman now.' "

She and her sisters are dead. The news spread across Israel's websites; the video of the doctor’s broadcast quickly made it to YouTube.

Eldar said of Aboul Aish: "It is simply surreal. He is part of this place yet not of it, belonging and not belonging."

Even so, across Israel the doctor's anguished voice kept playing over and over.

jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com Sobelman works in The Times' Jerusalem Bureau.

"Joy. Let’s start there. No, here. Joy is here and we’re a part of it. Let’s start here.

For those of us who have lived through eight years of incompetent and malfeasant American leadership, Joy has now earned a capital J, if for no other reason than to signify the celebration we’re all holding in our tired little American hearts for its return: Joy, the prodigal daughter of the American dream. Slaughter the fatted calf and fire up the barbeque pit, because Joy is back and she’s bigger than life.

President Elect, Barack Hussein Obama. I’m going to say it again, because I want to: President Elect, Barack Hussein Obama. And when I say it, I put my hand on my heart and goes dum-dum-ditty like it did back in grade school when the teachers told us that we lived in the best country in the world, the country that forges past prejudices, the great melting pot, the land with her arm raised in unison with Lady Liberty, enlightening the world; a bright, shining beacon of blazing hope on the horizon of humanity.

My belief in that beacon had been stressed and tapped; it flickered and sputtered under Bush’s administration, a feeble candle in the wind of blind bravado. And now that wind has changed direction. It’s fanning my flame. That candle is glowing bright this morning and my hand feels my heart burning with it. With this new president comes more than the hope he’s promised, more than his clear sobriety of judgment, more than his seasoned and stalwart thoughtfulness, and more than his stunningly inspiring charisma. This new president, as impressive and transformational as he is, will not be the animus that transforms this nation.

We will be.

And we already have been. Barack is the right person, in the right place at the right time. Americans, throat-scratchingly thirsty for change, crawled their way past the oasis of John Kerry, and kept crawling until they found him, the perfect prism through which to focus their newfound resolve to not only remake the country they once loved so dearly, but in doing so, to remake themselves and possibly the world in the bargain.

Yes, this is about political change and it’s about repairing the damage done by the (alas, for now) current administration. But this is also about individuals and communities, and if you live in America, you must have experienced what I have over the last few weeks: Unity from diversity, happening organically, in the most mundane and surprising of places.

Everywhere I went recently was abuzz with excitement and people from all walks of life, gushing with nervous, cautious optimism. My little Obama button earned me hugs from old white ladies, fist bumps from young black kids, high fives from blond cheerleaders, thumbs up from construction workers, and friendly waves from church pastors. More than all of that, I got to TALK to people. Really talk. Get right into it. Smear it around on the table and see what its guts look like. If you don’t live in America, maybe that seems commonplace to you. It isn’t that way here. It wasn’t. It hasn’t been until now.

Until recently, my neighbors kept to themselves. We might have given a friendly nod whilst passing on the street, at best. Americans had become very insular, letting their lawns and cars and averted glances protect them from one another. No longer. Now, when I stop by the bodega to get a candy bar or a bottle of juice, this little gay white boy and the big muscle-bound black clerk have shit to discuss, and it’s not just “Hey, it’s a beautiful day,” or “What did you think of Iron Man?” We get to talk about our country. Ours. Together. We’re Americans, and together, we changed the face of America. Implicit in all of these interactions, especially now between black and white Americans is the understanding that neither of these groups could have done this alone.

Barack Obama would never have been elected without the support of all of us, and it wasn’t half-assed, better-than-the-horrific-alternative Kerry-type support. It was full-on cheering and flag-waving support from people of all colors and backgrounds. And we all realize it. It’s hit home. It’s hit the gas station and the supermarket check-out. It’s hit our offices and schools and now we’re all looking at one another, ourselves, and our country with fresh eyes, wide open and sparkling with wonder and possibility. We as a people; Black, White, Asian, Latino, Native American, Arab American, and every other American variant you can imagine, faced seemingly insurmountable odds.

We did the most American thing you can do: We took a very, very big risk in the hopes of a very, very big pay-off. Had our gamble of electing the first African American president failed, look at what we would have had knocking on the White House door, come January. We can’t deny that we took a big, big gamble, but we did it as one united people and that unity won last night more than President Obama did. He knows it, and we should all be glad that he does.

Of course, this does not mean that racism is dead in America. It does not mean that all of our wounds are miraculously healed. It does not mean that we’ve made amends for our bloody and brutal past. It does not mean that Dr. King’s dream is 100 percent realized. But it does mean that we’re closer. Much closer. America made a giant leap last night, and from that springboard, may we steer her through the Obama prism into 8 long and glorious years of reconstituted faith in America, progress toward lasting peace in the world, and a reconciliation with a world that we desperately need and that has desperately missed the gleaming beacon of hope and progress that we once were.

Americans, and the world, should take gleeful solace in the implications made manifest by the clear contrast in the political camps last night. On Obama’s side were massive, scintillating, undulating throngs of hopeful and energized Americans; ready, willing and able to pull up their sleeves and make whatever sacrifice they must to bring back our standing as a force for good in the world. On the McCain side, a relatively tiny and inconsequential blob of bitter, squabbling haters. McCain himself took the opportunity to show those few, those willfully ignorant, those paragons of paranoia, what a true statesman is.

He conceded gracefully, eloquently, powerfully and beautifully. Unlike his hellmouth of a running mate, he fervently endorsed unity and embraced the ideals of democracy by booming out the message that the people had chosen, and chosen decisively. Gracious winners are a dime a dozen. Gracious losers are preciously rare, and we should all applaud Senator McCain for truly putting country first and refocusing his energy on helping Obama do what needs to be done.

So now the work begins, and as Obama warned us, it won’t be easy. But we Americans have already shown our power, a power that we’ve only just discovered at this late, but not too late hour. It’s the power of unity within diversity. It’s the power of acknowledging our brutal past so that we might some day firmly place it in history, next to other travesties that we now consider unimaginable. It’s the power of seeing communities in American transformed into something greater, literally overnight. It’s the power of seeing a world of billions celebrate that little silly thing we did, when we waited in line, checked off a box, and went home to sleep and wake up to a bright, brilliant, beautiful American Dawn."

"Something to keep in mind: when I hit the record button, I hadn’t said a single word to anyone, or interfered in the rally any way. I stood a fair distance away from all of the sign-wavers (remaining at least four feet away from all of them…until they approached me). But as soon as they noticed me filming them, I was greeted with curses and threats of violence. "Get that shit out of here. I’ll knock it out of your hand." None of these folks knew me, yet they instantly knew they hated me …"

Jared von Hindman's alphabet of excuses.

So who is this woman anyway, and what do we know about her?
Well, let’s see.

She tries to force abstinence-only education, because apparently her daughter is more special than everybody else’s; and she crows about the “decision” her daughter has made to keep an unexpected/unwanted child — even while bracing herself to strip the decision-making ability from other women (even in case of rape). Speaking of rape, when Palin was in charge in Wasilla, victimized women had to pay for their own rape kits in order to “save money.” What a feminist!

She doesn’t believe in global warming; she advocates the hunting of Alaskan wolves via the sportsmanlike activity of exhausting them with low-flying airplanes and then shooting them to death with high-powered rifles.* She’s fought tooth and nail to keep polar bears off the endangered species list. What an environmentalist!

In a real fit of pique, this “fiscally responsible” “maverick” who bleeds integrity billed the state of Alaska for 312 nights which she spent in her own home. She advocates the banning of books from public libraries, and once threatened to fire a librarian who vigorously opposed attempts to do so. But that’s not so surprising, considering there’s ample evidence to suggest that she also tried to get her ex-brother-in-law fired, too. What an upstanding public servant who would never abuse power!

Left to her own devices, she’d just as soon take her state and mount a secession from the union. That whole “Bridge to Nowhere” thing? Yeah, she’s a rather mistaken when she sings about her virtue in refusing it. She’s also been known to fudge her travel/diplomacy credentials. And oh, wait. There’s that whole malarkey about the jet she so cavalierly sold. That didn’t happen like she said it did, either. But maybe she was just confused. The record will reflect that she’s not much of a businessperson. What a qualified leader!

Gosh. She sounds like a real peach.
(And all this with just a >2-year stint as governor and a 7-year run as a small-town mayor.)

Here it is, folks, at long last: Industry Canada Minister Jim Prentice is about to introduce his Canadian version of America's disastrous Digital Millennium Copyright Act tomorrow. In so doing, he is violating his own party's promise to seek public consultation on all treaty accession bills, he's ignoring the cries of rightsholders, industry, educators, artists, librarians, citizens' rights groups, legal scholars and pretty much everyone with a stake in this, except the US Trade Representative and the US Ambassador, who, apparently, have had ample opportunity to chat with the Minister and give him his marching orders.

Watch this space [the bOINGbOING post - jh] -- we'll have all kinds of ways for you to call your MP, the Minister's office, and everyone else with a say in this sordid, ugly sellout. In 1998, the US bill criminalized the majority of American net-users at the stroke of a pen with a bill that cost tens of thousands of downloaders their life's savings, allowed the entertainment industry to destroy innovative companies and devices, and did not reduced infringement or pay a single artist. Ten years of this misery and absurdity, ten years of trying to make the Internet worse at copying, and all it's done is drive a rift between customers and musicians and allowed the music industry to piss away the business opportunity of a lifetime with lawsuits and saber-rattling.

Canada can do better. Certainly, it can't possibly do any worse -- unless men like Prentice continue to make law without allowing Canadians to get a say in it.