Homer Going Blind - 9/08

we all wear our masks
to the charade

played or made
cheated or paid

we all wear our masks
in this charade...

"My Angel Is The Centerforld..." 2/03

"my blood runs cold...
yeah!
my memory has just been sold,
my angel is the centerfold!"

-J. Geils Band

first song I ever stayed up all night listening to my brother's radio for..
my brother's radio was red and mounted onto the handle bars of his bike.
the radio had a yellow button in the center, and if you pushed it, it sounded like a baby bull horn.
on the side of his bike was written "the silver fox," and that's what he made me call it.
i'd steal the radio off the bike, take it into my bedroom, and listen to it after everyone was asleep in the house, waiting for the song, thinking about "taking them off in private."
98.1 WCAU FM Hot Hits!
i must have been, I dunno, six...

Peter Pan

The fearless mistakes of tonight,
the shameless facts of tomorrow.

9/26/07

"Speak Like Rain..."

7/09

Playing Dead

I'm supposed to go to London, but they don't want to see me until the day after tomorrow, so I'm just going to tell them...Actually, I'm not going to tell them anything, I'm just going to miss my flight and deal with it later, I guess. I don't want to go to the stupid meeting anyway. They want to see me they can come here and see me. To sit through all the meetings and go through all the bullshit again after such a long trip to just go right back out into the world? I could have stayed downtown at the airport at the hotel, but I don't want to go all the way back there, and I wanted to see you. It just seems too silly and too daunting. Maybe after I get up. Maybe after I get up. I can't imagine ever getting up again. I like it here. I like it with you. It's quiet. How do you make it so quiet here when it's so loud outside? Have you been outside recently? It's not raining. I don't think it's ever going to rain again. What's your secret anyway? It's quiet. It's not loud like life. It's quiet. Like my childhood, here, with you. How quiet it is here. Stop looking at me like that.

Don't you ever get sad that you don't have any stories?

I mean, sometimes I think the only reason I do what I do is because I need stories. I get bored without stories. It's like a secret drawer, isn't it? This place. It's like a secret drawer for me.

But having stories. Having things to look back on. Having things to look forward to. Things you once looked forward to but didn't work out the way you planned. Proof of life. It's kind of like the secret, isn't it? The secret of life.

But I'd rather be here, with you, with not stories and not living.

I'd rather be here with you for a while.

Can I stay a little longer and play dead in your arms for a while?

-2/08

Cave Man Sentences

These days, no matter what I do or think, everything coming out in sentences like this. Short and terse. Primal. Declarative. Cave man sentences. This. That. The other. Assume others know. Like talking this way, writing this way. Direct. No imagination. Space. Anyway. Poetry in this kind of...laziness. Don't know. World spins too fast for language. World so fast. World too fast for me. Maybe I need to just sit still until someone calls to tell me where to meet for lunch.

10/30/07

Wanna Play?

11/26/08

New Start

new start?

everthing over,
and
there's nothing you can do.

that's what
"new start"
means
these days.

11/16/07

Memories Of Guerilla Warfare - 1/09

Neighbors

We were falling apart,
they were showering together.

We were falling apart,
he was practicing golf swings
at dawn.

We were falling apart,
I was staring at her naked body
through the window
and imagining...

We were falling apart,
you were remembering,
and
doing your own
imagining.

We were falling apart,
they were having a
sunday morning yard sale,
getting rid
of all the extraneous
shit.

We were falling apart,
they were moving out,
never knowing our names
and we never knowing their's.

We were falling apart.

It was spring,
the dog was sick,

then the beautiful neighbors
next store to us
were gone
for forever.

Every once in a while
we'd stare at each other
wondering
where they had gone
and
how long
this could go on.

2/6/06

The Promises of Summer - 5/09

The Cassandra Syndrome

It's rarely pretty, although occasionally so, but a writer's responsibility is to be a kind of Cassandra, and to accept the consequence from society, government, even family and friends, no matter what may come, for playing that part; otherwise they're probably not really a writer.

7/07

cut and paste:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra_(metaphor)

Boy In His Apartment In A Heat Wave - 8/09

Camouflage(d)

hide the blankets in the closet
hide the blankets in the closet

hide the dust beneath the bed
hide the dust beneath the bed

hide the breath behind the toothpaste
hide the breath behind the toothpaste

hide the eyes beneath a mask
hide the eyes beneath a mask

hide the memory with the moment
hide the memory with desire

hide yourself on a key chain
forgotten in the drawer

exhale

now brush your smoke stained hair.

~Los Angeles - 5/30/01

The Platonic Theory

Maybe I'm wrong
but
I think it was
Plato who once said

that if

one is beautiful
on the outside
it's because
they're beautiful
on the inside,

and if

one is beautiful
on the inside
it's because
they're beautiful
on the outside...

Plato was
a pretty smart guy,
but Plato
never lived in
Los Angeles.

-7/2/07

You Can Go But Be Back Soon...

Busy summer...
But I did quit smoking...
So the impossible seems, after all, possible.

Catch up in the fall, y'all.

L

Watching your entire I Photo library import onto your new computer at 4 a.m. is as close as you can get to watching your life flash before your eyes until your life really flashes before your eyes.

By the way, to the asshole(s) who stole my old and trusty 2004 powerbook out of the back of my car, three things:

1. Thanks for not breaking my windows.
2. Joke's on you, the harddrive is fried.
3. I'll never forgive you for robbing me of the opportunity to go all "office space" on that little fucker, just the way I always dreamed. I'll never forgive you for that.

We Are All Neda

http://weareallneda.com

I have no idea what is or isn't getting through to Iran right now, but the kids in the streets and on the barricades getting their heads bashed in need to hear your voices of support.

Tell them you're with them.

Also, Nico Pitney, of the Huffington Post, who is live blogging the uprising, is doing the best, most vivid and visceral reporting of any major news outlet out there. Follow Nico at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Notes On Dinner Conversation (In Times of "War")

When someone with power (contacts, influence, money, etc. etc...) calls your argument "reductionist," don't take it personal, it just means that the truth is a pain in the ass.

~12/22/08

I Was 10...

when this was painted.

I didn't see it until I was 25.

It took me slightly longer to begin to know what it meant, truthfully, and not as some childrens' game.

I see new things in it (the painting and the words) all the time, about people I know and people I don't, or don't anymore.

All of this is for better and worse simultaneously, which is what makes it (the painting, the words, the idea) alive, I think.

"Where is the most intense realm of the heart, the soul, the faculties? In passion or in reason? Everything is logical in this world. Age of passions first; the age of reason next.

He who has not gone through these phases has only half-lived.

The person who has had only passions knows but one side of life; he who has had only reason is no better off; and he who upsets the natural order of the two periods has been nothing but a fool from beginning to end...

And I should see you again as I saw you, and I should love you again as I loved you, you of whom I try in vain to say nothing here, although my thoughts are all filled with you--you who appear to me still young and beautiful and charming as in other days..."

~From the Journal of Baron Philippe Regis de Trobriand
December 31, 1867
Dakota Territory

When The Angels Picked The White Rose

Sophia Magdalena Scholl (9 May 1921 – 22 February 1943) was active within the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. She was convicted of high treason after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich with her brother Hans. As a result, they were both executed by guillotine.

Since the 1970s, Scholl has been celebrated as one of the great German heroes who actively opposed the Third Reich during the Second World War.[1]

Sophie's father was the mayor of Forchtenberg am Kocher when she was born. Sophie was the fourth of six children:

1. Inge Aicher-Scholl (1917-1998)[2][3]
2. Hans Scholl (1918-1943)
3. Elisabeth Hartnagel (* 1920), married Sophie's long-term boyfriend, Fritz Hartnagel.
4. Sophie (1921-1943)
5. Werner Scholl (1922, missing in action since June 1944)
6. Thilde (born 1925, died 1926)

Sophie was brought up a Lutheran. She entered junior/grade school at the age of seven, learned easily and had a carefree childhood. In 1930 the family moved to Ludwigsburg and then two years later to Ulm where her father had a business consulting office.

In 1932, Scholl started attending a secondary school for girls. At the age of twelve, she was required to join the Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of German Girls), like most of her classmates, but her initial enthusiasm gradually gave way to criticism. She was aware of the dissenting political views of her father, of friends, and also of some teachers. Political attitude had become an essential criterion in her choice of friends. The arrest of her brothers and friends in 1937 for participating in the German Youth Movement left a strong impression on her.

She had a talent for drawing and painting and for the first time came into contact with a few so-called 'degenerate' artists. An avid reader, she developed a growing interest in philosophy and theology. This was her alternative world to fascist National Socialism.

In the spring of 1940, she graduated from secondary school. The subject of her essay was 'The Hand that Moved the Cradle, Moved the World.' Being fond of children, she became a kindergarten teacher at the Fröbel Institute in Ulm-Söflingen. She had also chosen this kindergarten job hoping that it would be recognized as an alternate service to Reichsarbeitsdienst (National Labor Service), a prerequisite to be admitted to the University. This was not the case, though, and in the spring of 1941 she began a six month stint in the auxiliary war service as a nursery teacher in Blumberg. The military-like regimen of the Labor Service caused her to think very hard about the political situation as well as to begin practising passive resistance.

After her six months in the National Labor Service, in May 1942, she enrolled at the University of Munich as a student of biology and philosophy. Her brother Hans, who was studying medicine there, introduced her to his friends. Although this group of friends was eventually known for their political views, they were initially drawn together by a shared love of art, music, literature, philosophy and theology. Hiking in the mountains, skiing and swimming were also of importance. They often attended concerts, plays and lectures together.

In Munich, Scholl met a number of artists, writers and philosophers, particularly Carl Muth and Theodor Haecker, who were important contacts for her. The question that they pondered the most was how the individual must act under a dictatorship. During the summer vacation in 1942, Scholl had to do war service in a metallurgical plant in Ulm. At the same time, her father was serving time in prison for a critical remark about Hitler to an employee.

Based upon letters between her and her boyfriend, Fritz Hartnagel (reported and analyzed by Gunter Biemer and Jakob Knab in the journal, Newman Studien) she had given two volumes of Cardinal John Henry Newman's sermons to Hartnagel when he was deployed to the eastern front in May 1942. This new important discovery by Jakob Knab shows the importance of religion in Sophie's Life and was highlighted in an article in the Catholic Herald in the UK and the British biographer of Sophie Scholl, Dr. Frank McDonough, commented on BBC Radio Merseyside 'Knab's discovery is very important as it has highlighted how important her religious faith was in her life and as a key factor in her decision to oppose the Nazi regime' Though raised Lutheran by her mother, the formation of The White Rose was initiated by Sophie Scholl's reception of a typically stern anti-Nazi sermon by Cardinal Blessed Clemens August Graf von Galen (the "Lion of Münster"), Roman Catholic Bishop of Münster.

She reprinted and circulated this anti-Nazi sermon on her own before the group formally organized. This inspired her brother Hans Scholl to enlarge the effort with others by her example. She and they had been horrified by Hartnagel's reports of the behavior of the Germans on the Eastern Front where Hartnagel witnessed Soviet soldiers shot in a pit, and learned of the mass killings of Jews. Her correspondence with Hartnagel deeply discussed the "theology of conscience" developed in Newman's writings. This is seen as her primary defense in her transcribed interrogations leading to her "trial" and execution. Those transcripts became the basis for a 2005 film treatment of her final days, Sophie Scholl – The Final Days.

The core members initially included — Sophie's brother, Hans Scholl, Willi Graf and Christoph Probst —. In the early summer of 1942, this group of young men co-authored six anti-Nazi political resistance leaflets. Contrary to popular belief, Sophie Scholl was not a co-author of the articles. Her brother had been initially keen to keep her ignorant of their activities, but once she discovered his activities, she joined him and proved highly valuable to the group: as a woman, her chances of being randomly stopped by the SS were much smaller. Calling themselves The White Rose, they instructed Germans to passively resist the Nazis. She and the rest of the White Rose were arrested for distributing the sixth leaflet at the University of Munich on February 18, 1943.

In the People's Court before the notorious Judge Roland Freisler on February 21, 1943, Scholl was recorded as saying "Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just do not dare express themselves as we did." Scholl's and her brother's defiance, in the face of terrifying consequences, gained them enormous admiration among their contemporary supporters and the post-war German public to the present.[weasel words]
Grave of Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, and Christoph Probst, in the Perlacher Friedhof, next to the Stadelheim prison in Munich.

On February 22, 1943, Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans and their friend Christoph Probst were found guilty of treason and condemned to death. They were all beheaded by executioner Johann Reichhart in Munich's Stadelheim Prison only a few hours later at 17:00hrs. The execution was supervised by Dr. Walter Roemer who was the enforcement chief of the Munich district court. Prison officials, in later describing the scene, emphasized the courage with which she walked to her execution. Her last words were "How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause. Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?"[4][5]

Fritz Hartnagel was evacuated from Stalingrad in January 1943, but did not return to Germany before Sophie was already dead. He later married Sophie's sister Elizabeth.

Following her death, a copy of the sixth leaflet was smuggled out of Germany through Scandinavia to the UK by German jurist Helmuth von Moltke, where it was utilized by the Allied Forces. In mid-1943, they dropped millions of propaganda copies over Germany of the tract, now retitled The Manifesto of the Students of Munich.

The White Rose's legacy has, for many commentators, an intangible quality. Playwright Lillian Garrett-Groag stated in Newsday on February 22, 1993, that "It is possibly the most spectacular moment of resistance that I can think of in the 20th century... The fact that five little kids, in the mouth of the wolf, where it really counted, had the tremendous courage to do what they did, is spectacular to me. I know that the world is better for them having been there, but I do not know why."

In the same issue of Newsday, Holocaust historian Jud Newborn noted that "You cannot really measure the effect of this kind of resistance in whether or not X number of bridges were blown up or a regime fell... The White Rose really has a more symbolic value, but that's a very important value."

On February 22, 2003, a bust of Sophie Scholl was placed by the government of Bavaria in the Walhalla temple in her honour.

The Geschwister-Scholl-Institut for Political Science at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich is named in honour of Sophie and her brother Hans. The institute is home to the university's political science and communication departments, and is housed in the former Radio Free Europe building close to the city's Englischer Garten. There is also an ongoing effort to rename the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich into "Geschwister Scholl University of Munich" by the LMU Students' Committee (AStA).

Over the last four decades many local schools as well as countless streets and squares in Germany have been named after Sophie Scholl and her brother.

In 2003, Germans were invited by ZDF Television to participate in a nation-wide competition to choose the top ten most important Germans of all time. Voters under the age of 40 helped catapult Sophie and her brother Hans Scholl into fourth place, winning over Bach, Goethe, Gutenberg, Bismarck, Willy Brandt and Albert Einstein. If the votes of young viewers alone had been counted, Sophie and Hans Scholl would have been ranked first. Several years earlier, readers of Brigitte Magazine, one of Germany's leading magazines for young women, voted Sophie Scholl "the greatest woman of the twentieth century," winning over such figures as Madeleine Albright and Madonna.

Mural

This is my favorite mural in Los Angeles.
You win 500.00 if you can find it.

Accidental Masterpiece

These oxidized, 100 foot pieces of canvas appeared on the horizon a couple mornings ago while I was driving the backstreets of Beverly Hills trying to get to an appointment. They were like a huge, beautiful, iconic diptych stretched the length of a half built parking garage on a backstreet in Beverly Hills.

Drove by.
Couldn't believe it.
Drove back.
Parked.
Snapped these photos.

Two days later, following the same streets, they were gone.

It's everywhere, if you just keep your eyes open to it.

Click on the images for a better look.

"Live every day like it's your last. One day you're going to be right."

~My Zeyda - June 30, 1993

Chapter and Verse

Words

Truth is,
I like the words that
I don't write down,
forget to write down,
for one reason or another,
will never write down

best.

I like the words that have never been set in
newspapers, literature, magazines,
propaganda pamphlets, film scripts, translations,
encyclopedias and self-help books.

I like the random words that don't make sense.
I like the amateur words that will never get paid.
I like the gibberish words my niece mumbles
as she grabs for my nose and

twistsssssssssssss.

I'm in love
with the snowflakes of words
I'm too lazy and too slow
to catch; they evaporate
just as they hit the ground
anyway.

I have a grudging respect
for the syllables that laugh
at my vanity when I sit
at this computer,
ignoring the ringing phone
while trying to recall them
hours later.

I can only gaze
at the words that

swim in circles,
float in schools,
dive so freely
over my head
as I lay in bed

for that one last moment
before rising to face
another day
in a world
that has

a serious word
for just about
everything
and everyone,

every action
and inaction
that goes on
or will go on
anywhere
ever.

Yes,
I like the words best
that are just there
for no reason at all,
and with no other purpose
but to amuse me

in that
unnamed
place

between awake
and dream.


Los Angeles - 3/16/06

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

~W.B. Yeats

First Payntn' - September, 2003
Collection of Hurricane J.B.

...we now return you to your regular programming.

Lovers At The Window

Call of The Wild

"The mysterious voice of blood, which is silent for generations, or only utters a confused murmur, speaks, at rare intervals, a more intelligible language. In the general confusion race claims its own, and some forgotten ancestor asserts his rights...The great migrations from the tablelands of India, the descents of the Northern races, the Roman and Arab invasions have all left their marks. Instincts which appear bizarre have sprang forth from these confused memories, these echoes of distant countries and peoples...Hence, the impulses that causes a man to leave his luxurious life to bury himself in the steppes, the desert, the Pampas, the Sahara. A man goes to seek his brothers, even if the search brings him closer to only death."

~Theophile Gautier

Samantha's Ocean Text

That feeling,
that knowing,
that tingling,
almost a thought;

once or twice, maybe, yeah,
you get it once or twice -

you know the one:

I've just met you,
but
I've known you
my entire life...

From the second I first opened my eyes,
to wandering aimlessly across my allotted time,
through names and school hallways,
through motivations, ambitions and angles
that could never be mine,
through the elephant grass of my ancestors' land,
through the fallen trees eaten by the red mites of my memories of summer,
through asphalt oceans I wanted in all seasons only for myself,
through trying to tell the stories, all different stories, my stories that are not mine but I stole from open and sewn mouths, dead and alive eyes, and me to dumb to be anything but fearless as I attempted languages made of those tongues;

and all these endlessly unquiet nights of history that never once bowed
to your loneliness or mine.

This feeling,
this knowing,
this sensation
almost a clear thought:

I've just met you,
yet I've somehow
known you
my entire life.

And to think we were simply tired from the week all day?

No one explain this moment that is writing this ever,
please, for I have my own answers, and you yours,
so let them be that way,
beautifully unexplainable
up here
on this forgotten rooftop
staring out over the world.

6/15/08

The Nature Of The Beast

It's well known that when people venture into the far reaches of consciousness, they do so at the peril of their sanity, that is, of their humanity. But the "human scale" or humanistic standard proper to ordinary life and conduct seems misplaced when applied to "art". If within the last century art concieved as an autonomous activity has come to be invested with an unprecedented stature - the nearest thing to sacramental human activity acknowledged by secular society - it is because one of the tasks of art has assumed is making forays into and taking up positions on the frontiers of consciousness (often very dangerous to the artist as a person) and reporting back what's there...The exemplary "modern" artist is a broker in madness.

~Susan Sontag "The Pornographic Imagination"

"Ding Dong! The Witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.
Wake up - sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead. HE's gone where the goblins go,
Below - below - below. Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong' the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know
The Wicked Witch is dead!"

The Cycle That Must End

I received this email today. Below you will find my response to that email which I felt was my responsibility to write. Please forgive the formatting, for some reason blogger did not translate well and I don't have time to correct.

> Subject:
>
> It's Our Land by Benjamin Netanyahu
>
> Date:
>
> Tue, 30 Dec 2008 7:54:04 PM Eastern Standard Time
>
> It's our land...By: Benjamin Netanyahu
>
> Apparently, Benjamin Netanyahu gave an interview and was asked about
> Israel's occupation of Arab lands.
>
> His response was "It's our land". The reporter (CNN or the like) was stunned
> - read below "It's our land..." It's important information since we don't
> get fair and accurate reporting from the media and facts tend to get lost in
> the jumble of daily events.
>
> "Crash Course on the Arab Israeli Conflict."
>
> Here are overlooked facts in the current Middle East situation.
>
> These were compiled by a Christian university professor:
>
> 1. Nationhood and Jerusalem. Israel became a nation in 1312 BCE, Two
> thousand years before the rise of Islam.
>
> 2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a
> Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the
> modern State of Israel.
>
> 3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 BCE, the Jews have had dominion over
> the land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for
> the past 3,300 years.
>
> 4. The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 CE lasted no more than
> 22 years.
>
> 5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital Jerusalem has
> never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the
> Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital,
> and Arab leaders did not come to visit.
>
> 6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy
> Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran.
>
> 7. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to
> Jerusalem.
>
> 8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with their backs toward
> Jerusalem.
>
> 9. Arab and Jewish Refugees: in 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to
> leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews.
> Sixty-eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.
>
> 10 The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab
> brutality, persecution and pogroms.
>
> 11. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be
> around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is
> estimated to be the same.
>
> 12. Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the
> Arab la nds to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the
> 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in
> the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own people's
> lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no
> larger than the state of New Jersey .
>
> 13. The Arab-Israeli Conflict: the Arabs are represented by eight separate
> nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation.
> The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself
> each time and won.
>
> 14. The PLO's Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of
> Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land,
> autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them.
>
> 15. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews
> were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and
> Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all
> faiths.
>
> 16. The UN Record on Israel and the Arabs: of the 175 Security Council
> resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.
>
> 17. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were
> directed against Israel.
>
> 18. The UN was silent while 58 Jerusalem Synagogues were destroyed by the
> Jordanians.
>
> 19. The UN was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the
> ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.
>
> 20. The UN was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like a
> policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western
> Wall.
>
> These are incredible times. We have to ask what our role should be. What
> will we tell our grandchildren about we did when there was a turning point
> in Jewish destiny, an opportunity to make a difference?
>
> START NOW- Send this to 18 other people you know and ask them to send it to
> eighteen others, Jew and non-Jew--it doesn't really matter.


--------------------------------------------

My response:

As Jews and Arabs begin to fight here on the streets in Los Angeles,
if you'll allow me, I must respond:

I find this list to be full of ridiculous and out of date arguments
for a claim on a piece of land, just as the Palestinians have their
own ridiculous and out of date arguments to claim that same piece of
land. One can easily Google more than enough of them on both sides
and all they prove is that just about anyone anywhere can make a
historical claim on a piece of land, and then, using that biased
historical claim, justify taking a life to keep that land as opposed
to sharing it and living peacefully side by side. These arguments
from both sides, and they are on both sides, they get us and the world
nowhere, but they do drag us further into a dispute that history
proves will never be solved by a bomb, a gun or a missile for either
side. History does prove that these arguments will kill a lot of
young men and women at the beginning of their lives, with all their
unrealized hopes and potential never given a chance to breathe, let
alone bloom; young men and women who haven't had the time to mature
and think for themselves yet, to have children, to build lives and
families, and is this not how it has always been?

Haven't we seen enough of this violence over the last eight years to
at least begin to question all of these out of date arguments and
so-called facts by "hawks" on both sides who would lead us into their
blood feud stretching back over 2000 years with no end in sight? Can
we not finally begin to attempt to "dream" ourselves out of this with
the best of ourselves and realize that this dreaming for a better
world is not a betrayal of those lost in the past, but an honoring of
them?

As I believe in our hearts we would all like to be responsible and
loving humanists, kind and giving to our friends, family, neighbors,
and they in turn to us, we need to acknowledge each others' history
and our historical claims insofar as an understanding of the pain and
suffering both sides have endured and suffered throughout history can
be achieved. If we cannot come to a forgiveness, at least we can try
for an understanding of why there is so much misunderstanding and hate
passed down from generation to generation to generation on both sides.

Why?

Because we are responsible for passing down this hate to our children,
just as those facing us on the other side are responsible when they do
not see through their own lists of arguments to something greater and
more meaningful.

Now I am not writing this naive enough to believe this hate can ever
be fully quelled on either side, it seems man is born with a certain
part of his nature bent on destroying each other and ourselves over
superficialities like land, looks, beliefs, etc. in the name of God or
some other ideal, but as sane, educated and priviledged individuals
living in the West in the Twenty First Century, with all the benefits
and possibilities of freedom, spiritual and material wealth our world
has to offer, isn't it our duty to try to lead the way through and
past those who would keep us living by old and out of date codes and
arguments, making their old and out of date arguments that seem to
serve as no more than rationalizations for the absolutely and
unequivocally unjustifiable crime of killing children and innocents on
both sides by any means at their disposal?

Haven't we seen enough of this old out of date cycle on both sides
throughout our shared history to finally, as a people, a human tribe
of people, say, "enough" to those who would continually lead us back
to this place. This statement, "enough," is not a denial of the
reality of the world as it is; it is not a denial of the threats and
violence that face us, nor is it a sign of weakness, but it is at
least the attempt to look beyond the current turmoil and into the
future, so that upon all that has been destroyed, and continues to be
destroyed, something lasting can finally be built for future
generations who must share an ever shrinking world. Don't we have a
responsibility to at least try to begin to defy history and break this
pattern, or are we doomed to continue to repeat the mistakes of past
generations because it is simply easier to fall into these old
arguments? If we don't move beyond old arguments, if we don't begin
to look to this future, if those on both sides who have the capacity
and dreams to do so do not begin to do this, and to do it loudly and
publicly, that future can never be built. Is this the world we want
for our children and grandchildren? Isn't it our dream, the human
dream, to leave the world a better place for those who carry our name
and spirit into the future long after we are gone? Isn't that the
real dream, American, Jewish, Arab, everyone? I believe it is. If we
do not dream, if we fall into the black hole of cynicism about the way
the world is, the way it is always going to be, then we have truly
lost ourselves.

Defense of one's home and family is a right, but at some point we, as
strong but caring individuals, must ask ourselves when that defense
becomes outright cruelty and murder. And for those that won't, we
must have courage to do the questioning for them, to lead them to this
questioning. If we do not do this we become all that we hate, all
that would try to kill us, eliminate us, all that once did only a
short time ago. If this happens to us, if we lose our humanity, then
there is no home or land or culture worth defending let alone
preserving.

We must no longer allow ourselves to be driven to war and endless bloodshed by those
on any side carrying lists of "facts" like the ones in the email above.