On Giving Money to Anti-Semities

So I was chatting over IM today with my friend Jason about the whole Mel Gibson thing.

“It’s too bad,” he said. “I really liked his Mad Max movies.”

The implication being, with Gibson’s anti-Semitism front and center, what Jew will want to watch his movies anymore, much less buy them on DVD or go to see any new works of his? That sounds about right to me.

I’ve enjoyed a number of Mel Gibson’s movies over the years. Mad Max isn’t my thing, but I have seen the entire Lethal Weapon franchise (#1 and #3 are the best), plus at least 8 or 9 other films he’s starred in. His Hamlet was excellent; so was Maverick. It’s not every actor who can do a good job in such wildly different roles. And until this past weekend, I was prepared to overlook any possible private beliefs Gibson had in favor of his obvious talent. Even during all the hubbub about The Passion… I was prepared to take him at face value and believe that he didn’t have any real deep-seated issues with Jews.

Now? Not so much. Alcohol can certainly encourage a person to say things that they wouldn’t have said when sober, but to launch into a full-out tirade against Jews; well, it had to have come from somewhere. The booze didn’t make him an anti-Semite, it just brought it out into the open. At least, that’s how it seems to me.

I’m not going to be able to enjoy looking at his face any time in the near future. It’s like when Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor; reality crowds in so much that it’s hard to suspend disbelief and enjoy the show. And why should I spend my time and my hard-earned money on someone who has so little good to say about people like me?

On the other hand, I like Wagner’s music too, and not only did he hate Jews, but he was also one of Hitler’s favorite composers. The difference being, Wagner is not around to get rich off the money I pay for his CDs, and Gibson is still very much alive and kicking.

Does that mean I’m in a self-imposed lifelong Gibson boycott? I don’t know. Maybe a few years from now, I’ll feel differently; we’ll see what happens. But for now, as much as I’ve been a fan, I’ll find other entertainers to spend my time and money on.

Double Or Nothing? I Hope Not

Well said, Josh:

And along those lines, I wanted to finish this post by flagging something ominous that keeps coming up in the Israeli press. There’s a mix of public and private communications going on between Jerusalem and Damascus. Israel is trying to assure Damascus that they don’t plan or want to expand the war to include Syria. Syria is clearly worried that they will and has their troops on full alert. Israel is also warning in no uncertain terms that Syria getting involved will spark massive retaliation.

But there are persistent signs that the US is egging Israel on to bring the war to Damascus.

…

The world has sat by for six years and let Hizbullah’s anamolous position in south Lebanon be Israel’s problem. Whether their response was wise or just, I’ll set aside for the moment. It’s not about totalitarianism or Afghanistan or Iraq, at least not in an operational sense, or dingbat fantasies about Freedom and Terror. But there do appear to be forces in Washington — seemingly the stronger ones, with Rice just a facade — who see this whole thing as an opportunity for a grand call of double or nothing to get out of the disaster they’ve created in the region. Go into Syria, maybe Iran. Try to roll the table once and for all. No failed war that a new war can’t solve.

I really hope Josh is wrong about the US’s motives, but I fear he just might be right.

A Bit of Schadenfreude

Heh:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Friday it plans to sell its 85 stores in Germany to rival Metro AG, a move that effectively ends a nearly decade-long effort by the world’s largest retailer to crack the market in Europe’s biggest economy.

Terms were not disclosed, but Wal-Mart said it expects to incur a loss before taxes of about $1 billion related to the deal in its second quarter.\

…

Sy Schlueter, chief executive of investment house Copernicus in Hamburg, said Wal-Mart had trouble winning over German consumers, who tend to be very price-focused and would rather drive to a different store if they know they can buy something cheaper. National discounters such as Lidl GmbH and Aldi Einkauf GmbH put the heat on Wal-Mart’s sales, he said, by offering the same products at competitive prices.

Furthermore, Schlueter said consumers rejected some of Wal-Mart’s signature features, like stores outside of town centers, employees required to smile and heartily greet customers, or baggers at checkouts.

A Sad Shabbat in Seattle

This makes me very sad.

One person was killed and five others were wounded, three critically, in a shooting at the Jewish Federation in downtown Seattle, Washington, police said.

Police have detained a suspect who is a U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent.

And yet, I’ve been debating internally if I should even post it, because some troll might come along and tell me thay they “deserved it” because of what’s going on in Israel.

To which I say, screw that.

Oh, and one thing more: I support Israel.

That does not mean I like or approve of everything that the Israeli government does, any more than being an American means that I like or approve of everything that this government does.

The way I see it, though, I can’t sit here in the relative safety of California and tell people who are sleeping every night in bomb shelters because of the rockets being dropped on their heads how they should be thinking, feeling, or reacting to being attacked. It’s not my ass that is on the line.

So because of that, when push comes to shove, Israel gets the benefit of the doubt from me. You can call that “dual loyalty” if you want to. Maybe it’s even true.

Frankly, I don’t care.

Two Kinds of Crazy

There’s two kinds of crazy in this world. Good crazy, and bad crazy.

This would be an example of the first kind (hat tip, Jason, and click through for the big version):

Who on earth thought this up and then spent the time to put it together? You’ve got to be a little bit crazy — the good kind. The world needs more of this.

And then, there’s the other kind of crazy. (No, I am not going to take a swipe at Ann Coulter, other people are doing a great job of that already). Who would have thought that a nominally neutral news station like CNN would broadcast something like this?

For the second time in three days, CNN featured a segment on the potential coming of the Apocalypse, as indicated by current conflicts in the Middle East. The July 26 edition of CNN’s Live From … featured a nine-minute segment in which anchor Kyra Phillips discussed the Apocalypse and the Middle East with Christian authors Jerry Jenkins and Joel C. Rosenberg — who share the view that the Rapture is nigh. At one point in the discussion, Phillips asked Rosenberg whether she needed “to start taking care of unfinished business and telling people that I love them and I’m sorry for all the evil things I’ve done,” to which Rosenberg replied: “Well, that would be a good start.”

There’s a large number of TV stations where this issue gets discussed regularly. But none of them (until recently) have been CNN, and that’s how it should be. The possible coming of the Apocalypse is NOT news, it’s a religious belief. It is in a completely different category from the rest of the news of the day and should be treated as such. It’s crazy to think otherwise. The bad kind of crazy.

Disclaimer: Yes, I am being very flip about the use of the word crazy in this post. Consider it a lame attempt to be funny and smash two very different topics into one unified blog post. Mental illness is a serious issue, I know. Don’t get your hate on.

Places to Not Live While Female

Peru. Here’s why:

More than half of all Peruvian women over the age of 15 say they have suffered sexual or physical violence by men during their lifetime — one of the world’s highest rates.

….

Some 51 percent of women in Lima and 69 percent of women in the southern Andean city of Cuzco said they have been victims of sexual or physical violence, [a study by Amnesty International and Peruvian organization Flora Tristan]added.

Indeed, the level of violence surges dramatically in Peru’s impoverished rural areas.

In the southern Huancavelica province where 90 percent of the population lives in extreme poverty, the rate of sexual and physical violence against women is ranked as one of the world’s worst in a recent study by the World Health Organization.

The good news is that Peru’s President-elect Alan Garcia has made it one of his stated goals to try to combat this pervasive violence against women, but it remains to be seen exactly what that will entail and whether it will actually help matters.