Corinnahasofferett's Xanga

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Wed, 28 Jul 2004 21:21:45 GMT

On Lynch

I know none of the protagonists. I do not identify with their populistic ideas.
Still when everybody screams righteously in one voice, a bell rings warning that maybe, maybe, something is wrong with the indignant screamers.

A most unpleasant story is being unraveled (and magnified) here for the last two days.
An Israeli Minister was taped by a private detective as enthusiastically encouraging that guy to "sew a file" on another senior member of his Party.

The expression is an Israeli slang for smearing one's reputation with false or demeaning mis/information. More or Less.

The Party, a new one, "Shinuy" (which stands for "Change"), has surprised everybody at the last elections when it won 6 seats, 5% of the 120 Knesset seats.

The tape is two years old. Wednesday night on prime-time it was played with the guilty Minister online.
A modern version of lynch.
The man has since apologised. His party is kicking him out most brutally.
A newspaper wrote in huge letters on it's first page:
"In Japan a Minister will commit Harakiri and here the Minister refuses to step down."

Why was the tape brought out right now?

The private detective was hired by the Workers Guild at the Electricity Company. A most powerful guild.

The Shinuy Party has disappointed them somehow, or so it seems.

Now the story here is called, ShinuyGate.

Years ago we had a similar story, with the Labor Party. One of it's top members was accused of some mischief. The same pattern occured: All his former buddies left him alone and lonely as a mouse.
He committed suicide.

I hope we won't have a replay here.
--------
(c) all rights to the picture owned by Jung von Matt, ad agency.

Their honest motto is: "Advertising is Desire and Deception."
shown at Heiko Hebig's excellent blog.

Monday, July 26, 2004

Mon, 26 Jul 2004 18:17:30 GMT

A new Brave USA?

Linda Ronstadt dared to speak in favor of Michael Moore, the creator of Fahrenheit 9/11.
At a casino in USA, her own country.
The owner of the casino acted bravely. He threw her out.
Some commentors at BlogCritics are of the opinion that it was merely a Financial Decision...
I cannot but disagree.

The Financial is Political, the Political is Financial.
There is not a single instance in a human's life that is not Political.

It is a complete inversion of Values to consider Money and Business as exterritories of Freedom of Speech.

Gambling is Escapism from this crushing revelation: Humans are supposed to use their brains.
There is a long continuous line from Hitler's Willing Collaborators to all Willing Collaborators wherever and whenever. Step by step, minute by minute they scratch their foreheads until you find yourself with the universal challenge: Join the Rhinoceros or fight back.

Sunday, July 25, 2004

Sun, 25 Jul 2004 14:00:49 GMT

Listen well! This is a historic moment, globally.

To-day we are witnessing here in Tel-Aviv the birth of the first, of the very very first rally...

Don't cut me, I know that rallies are as old as the cave aboriginal, if I'm not mistaken.

But this one, brothers and sisters, is a rally unheard of and unseen yet:

http://www.miftah.org/

The Geneve Accord Interactive Rally On the Net.
"Say Yes to Peace!"
Sorry, not yet an English version, and to the best of my knowledge, not an Arabic version yet either - hopefully they're on their way.

The people you see waving placards are not that anonymous. You can choose an image (no cosmetic operation involved) and Hop! it is there waving the placard you've chosen.
"Talk Peace!"
"We Agree - for our children!"
"Come Say Shalom!"
"Sharon, Get out of Gazza - Fly to Geneve!"

But, unlike the snail-rally, here you can post a comment and, by now. close to one hundred thousand people might read you and respond fiercely/lovingly, etc.

Each 15 minutes you may view and listen to another speaker/singer/performer, like in a real rally.

Perfectly safe, safely organized, no expenses incurred upon the police and the municipality, no papers and trash left all over the piazza - Go For the Geneve Agreement!

Who says War and Peace cannot be real fun?!

Aren't we brilliant?

http://www.heskem.org.il/Heskem_en.asp

Monday, April 05, 2004

Mon, 05 Apr 2004 22:19:34 GMT

Hebrew modern literature at its best
Encounters with international women writers
The Israeli Reality & The Middle East

Sunday, February 29, 2004

Sun, 29 Feb 2004 20:25:30 GMT

Sun, such a luxurios treat, is here to stay. Smells like Spring.
Together with the birds outside my windows, I'm arranging the nest. Winter clothes up, light ones back to the lower shelves. Time to go back to wintering manuscripts. Hard to believe, yet my meeting with Liana Badr took place in Jerusalem back in 1995.

"... Liana means, in Arabic, something gentle and delicate.
My father borrowed the name from an Arab poem from the thirteen century. A love poem.
My father was very interested in the heritage of Arabic literature. He knew all the masterpieces of ancient Arabic poetry by heart. He chose this name because Liana was a rare name back then.
The name tells me that I have been lucky, that I have to make good use of this luck of mine: to work and write about reality in the best way.

My father tried to induce me to learn Arabic poetry by heart, encouraged me, gave me prizes - also for knowledge in astronomy.
My father was interested in ancient Arab astronomy, he was a real scientist, one of the great astronomers in the Arab world. He built a telescope with his own hands, in 1963, here, in Jericho.
Worked six months just on polishing the lenses.
He was a doctor. He opened a people's clinic, especially for the poor, especially to serve the refugees after 1948. He would treat them most of the time for free. And my mother was an impressive woman. She was an intellectual and worked as a school principal.

My father's name was Abdel Rakhim Badr, and my mother's name was Khayat.
The family name, Badr, means - full moon. This name is also connected to Arabic heritage. Badr was a famous name in our culture, a name for heroes. Now it's the name of my father's family in Hebron.
True, my father was an astronomer - and the family name means, Full Moon...
There is also the meaning of completeness, wholeness.

I was born in Jerusalem. We lived in a very big house. There were my aunts, and their children.
Later my parents rented another house in Jerusalem, to be on their own - but I have deep connections to both houses.

Now that I'm back after twenty seven years, I went to the house we used to rent and I met the landlords. I told them that I remembered the furniture, the trees.
They told me that when I was two or three years old I used to ask them on the Ramadan holiday, "Is this your holiday? Are you celebrating your holiday?"
At that time I considered myself a communist, like my father and mother.

I tried to absorb the political reality then.
Once I asked my mother - we were walking on the street, to the shops, here, not far from the American Colony, to buy some chocolate for me, that's what she told me later, and I asked her: "Where is my daddy?"
She said, "He's in prison."
I asked her, "Why is he in prison? All the time you say, prison, prison, Who are the people who took him to prison?"
She said, "Colonialsm took him to prison.
I said, "Oh, bring me this man, Colonialism. I will lock him in the bathroom, you'll give me a stick and I'll beat him up!..."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

excerpt from the "Oh Jerusalem!" manuscript.
At the time of Liana's early childhood, East Jerusalem was under Jordanian rule.

Saturday, September 20, 2003

Sat, 20 Sep 2003 16:54:56 GMT

an article at the Tel-Aviv weekly Ha-ir

A Conversation with Offri Ilani

18.9.03

Saturday, August 30, 2003

Sat, 30 Aug 2003 01:19:08 GMT

my third book of fiction: Sodot (A Minyan of Lovers)

an excerpt from the opening chapter:

INTIFADA

1.

A Cyclopean eye blinking on the electric machine: This is Shlomi speaking. I'm in your son's unit. You can call me at my parents' house, I'll be there later tonight. Call us, we have a message for you.

Call me, this is Shlomi. This is a second message. Call me.

Pressing on switches, mechanically, with efficiency borrowed from the world of actions. Light and soul focused on the telephone. Leafing through the diary, to find the father's home phone number.

"Yes, I know. I let Robin take care of it. They told her not to make a big stir. Alright, alright, I'll come to the lawyer's."

She punches the pillow like a face; he knew and didn't tell her and she hasn't been told all day. Quickly, she washes the tears off her face, to focus on the actions.

The telephone rings.

"Robin. I want to come to the meeting with the lawyer."

Why such force, as if pushing a foot in through an open door.

From the taxi the street seems full of noisy carefree people, whole families, rushing to get to the shops before closing time. Head leaning forward, like someone swimming with a child on her back, she answers the driver, who wants to know who he's got in his car, this job is always such a danger, who doesn't come into this car, drugs, criminals, whores, I could write a book. And this one, what's the matter with her. Running out of the taxi, disappearing into a stairwell. On drugs?

The lawyer Mr. Fields sees a woman with uncombed hair, burning blue eyes, a body carrying a sign, Mined Area. The woman slides her hand over the counter's polished wooden surface: "A new office? Nice carpets."

"Yes, after a long service. Know the system well. Still have fresh connections, can exchange informal opinions, leap over the hurdles of military bureaucracy. I can call a friend in the middle of the night, and ask for something. I would be answered. You don't know why he was arrested? We've just spoken to somebody from his unit. They picked him up at a demonstration, because he was wearing his army boots."

"Yes, they picked him up at a demonstration because he left his army boots on," she says in the same voice with which she used to recount how when he was two years old he once spread cinnamon on the new upholstery when she was speaking on the phone for too long, and how she hugged him for his cleverness and innocence.

"Not a wise thing to do." The lawyer puts on a judicial robe.

Ah, if we always acted with wisdom, we wouldn't need lawyers.

"If such a smart person acts this way - he must be in distress," she cries, and the main thing, he mustn't stay there for even one night. He must be got out of there immediately."

The lawyer nods.

"At this hour there's no one to talk to. Are you the father?" he rises to shake hands with a heavyset man with whitening hair, who has just entered the room. The carpets swallow the sound of the steps, and suddenly there's a slender woman with a boyish haircut who holds out her hand and smiles, "I'm Robin."

Now they must learn the rules, and fast. Like immigrants in a foreign country they are scared among the possibilities, what instrument will save, and how will we know if this leads to a country of refuge or to an even greater catastrophe. In such cases people turn each to his or her private arsenal of weapons, which they had accumulated through life, and cling. The one freezes, head bent, to be absorbed into the landscape until the danger passes. She runs.

Sunday, August 17, 2003

Sun, 17 Aug 2003 22:22:00 GMT

A CALL TO ARMS: HOW TO FIGHT SPAM

How many times can you see again and again these criminal intruders asking, as if we come from the same kindergarten or family:

"Do you know what Women like best?"

(No. Tell me. And since I'm empty-headed, repeat, repeat, don't give up.)

"Do you know at all what Men like best?"

(No. And why should I care? What am I, a welfare officer?)

"Enlarge, Enlarge the Holly Name, more and more!"

(What is it, a Bible contest?)

It has reached the magnitude of Chinese torture, endless dripping, dirt, dirt. How to kick them out when they see and are not seen in person.

So many rules I've laid down, more than the rules of any Parliament wherever - yet these horrible creatures, they are transparent, come in with the air.

While those rules affected only my correspondents!

So I closed both my e-mail addresses.

No mail came in.

The silence scared more than the previous noise of the trash trucks.

I reinstalled my e-mail addresses.

The trash smoothly returned.

My correspondents disappeared, assuming that the addresses are no more valid.

I called my server.

The man says, "Nothing to be done."

Sent me a link to a "MailWasher".

The software blocked indeed the content and attachments, yet the subject line continued to show up.

The Enemy couldn't care less.

I wrote the Company:

"A server is like a hotel. I've rented a room. At a hotel the contract is clear: I am the only one who gets the key. No hotel allows strangers to intrude and invade my room, or throw heaps of trash whenever I open the door. The hotel shoulders this responsibility as a matter of fact."

The laconic answer was to the point indeed: "Nothing to be done."

In an interview at an North American newspaper, one of these criminals says: "What's the big deal, all it takes is one click on Delete. But thanks to my ad someone in need for a mortgage is saved!"

Really? I have to read carefully the Subject line of over one hundred e-mails, so as to pick out my mail, not to lose any.

Can you imagine a Post Office offering this kind of service: Go to the trash bin and look through the dirty paper to find your own mail.

It turns out that only 1 in 100.000 is tricked into the Lords of Trash bait.

The rest of us should altruistically suffer, for the benefit of this bunch of no-goods.

I learn, especially from some of Eric Olsen's posts on Blogcritics, that large companies like Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo, EarthLink, are suing the trash mailers, and winning in court.

Not enough. The problem is still with us, daily.

While we've been reduced to discussing the problem as we discuss Climate.

What happens to the money won in court? It should go to each one of us. And: apart from the monetary compensation, each court should decree this punishment on the guilty invaders:

Have them seated at a computer for twenty years, and click endlessly on Delete.

Behind a glass wall.

In a Zoo.

Let's raise our voice to demand worldwide Fully defined Laws, Comprehensive action.

We need laws to pronounce the servers as responsible toward their clients. Then and only then we'll see servers unite globally to fight trash mail everywhere.

Before the whole system collapses in dust.

Here is my suggestion:

Let's make one day into our Day of Protest, and on this day let's close down our e-mail boxes : No mail sent, no mail received. Worldwide.

One single day of complete Silence, to exemplify the danger, to express our Just Demand.

Let's make it the 31^st of December.

As in the Hebrew proverb: "Let the old year leave with it's Curses, Let the New Year arrive with it's Blessings."

Let the Law Makers, the Servers and the No-Goods come up with some Resolutions.

Don't accept, "Nothing to be done". Don't say, No chance for change, ever.

We can see this action as an experiment in Protest.

Do join, and pass the call on.

Wednesday, April 30, 2003

Wed, 30 Apr 2003 20:34:20 GMT

If you knew that only death penalty will stop spam, will you still say no no?
I am supposed to be a sweet peace loving human being, but honestly, how many additional times can I find these burglers' questioning me, Do you know what women like best, and Grow your ... etc. It gets to the proportions of Chinese water torture and nothing nothing can delete them or stop downloading them.
If I find one of those criminals, hold me tight or I'll claim not guilty.
And you know what, Somewhere (New York Times?) I found a photo and interview with one of those, from California she was and she says: "What's the problem? Does it hurt your finger to click Delete?"
So, my suggested punishment is to have her and her beloved do just this clicking as a life sentence.
Behind a glass wall in a zoo.
Oh, and you know what? The statistics are that only one in one hundred thousand fall prey to their ads and buy.
Please all of you the 99,999 people, do write to your Congress people. It's high time for Revolution!

Saturday, April 26, 2003

Sat, 26 Apr 2003 20:06:49 GMT

Below is the first release of the cover for my upcoming Noffey Haneffesh, designed by the top Israeli designer Studio Tartakover.