• Student-visa terror plot foiled.
• Sen. Al Franken – it could happen.
• Hollywood goes wild for Obama.
• Children’s book causes climate “hysteria.”
• Russia says “nyet” to space race with China.
• Haditha: What really happened.
• Michael Savage mulls candidacy.
• States rebel against national ID.
• NRA fires warning shot on gun control.
• Celebrity rehab: The healing game.
• Muslims accuse Glenn Beck of bias.
• Jim Cramer: Media guilty of “fakery.”
• Michael Jackson may convert to Islam.
• Reverse mortgages are often a smart choice.
• Chertoff: Nuke terror threat will “get worse.”
• Lawmakers seek pardon for border patrol agents.
• Ohio may draft poll workers.
• New plug-in Wi-Fi device is affordable.
• China bans adoptions to the obese.
• Are you a “trysumer”?
• Rich Little: Don’t knock Bush.
• IRS change brings capital-gains cut.
• Life-saving foods.
• Dr. Laura: A great marriage isn’t hard work.

A picture of al-Manarah Square in the middle of Ramallah. Not really directly related to this particular post, but whatever.

“Website: ‘Execute’ Global Warming Deniers” (article below)

And this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as crazy shit from Newsmax.com goes. But it’s funny, in a way. And funny is what the internet is for! Heaven forfend it’d feature real information. More crazy Newsmax bullshit about the imminent War With Iran.

In other news, I had a less than stellar day for a variety of reasons. Basically the accumulated effect of a series of setbacks involving a broken camera and awkward exchanges with a restaurant manager in Ramallah who chided me loudly and sternly for bumming a cigarette from one of his customers.

“You do not ask my customers for any cigarettes!” the owner said.

“Sorry,” I said, taken aback.

“Thank you,” the owner said.

I’m going to go back with a whole pack on Wednesday and say that these cigarettes will serve as a fund for future people in need of tobacco. This was unnerving because it stands as the sole incidence of Palestinian anti-hospitality (though an argument could be made that I shouldn’t be bumming cigarettes in the first place) I’ve encountered in two months here. Sometimes, the hospitality can be overwhelming. For instance, once at the Palestinian Water Authority, I asked if there was wireless internet available when the available networks didn’t work. In response to my casual request an IT type got scrambled to help me connect via a DSL chord to the internet. Eventually, I delicately and politely declined this aid, as I didn’t really even need to check my email in the first place.

But back to cigarette etiquette in Ramallah. The general rule is that cigarettes are for sharing, sometimes whether you ask for them or not. And sometimes whether or not you’ve agreed to give them. A young man once came into the internet cafe, a sort of acquaintance of mine just rolled up and took a cigarette from my pack. I didn’t say anything. This guy was sort of off the wall though, a definite undiagnosed case of ADD. But it’s not like people guard their cigarettes jealously. Indeed, at the internet cafe earlier that day my friend Adel, the cafe manager on duty and dear friend (thrice he’s refused payment for letting me connect to wireless via this here laptop), gave me a cigarette when I asked and then, a few minutes later, gave me another one unsolicited after he’d lit one up. So the chiding I got deviated unnervingly from the norm. I think it has to do with the fact that the place is all richy rich, as I describe in the previous post below. It’s to the point where the waiters seem slightly offended if you start speaking to them in Arabic and not English. The coffee’s really strong and good but the atmosphere is a little too colonial expat, frankly. Still, I’m going to make reparations on Wednesday with that pack.

(OH Damn, and the lights just went out in this Tel Aviv Segafredo cafe! OH shit and now they’re back on)

Then, in Tel Aviv just now, I made a glib joke in response to what I thought was a sarcastic comment, with subtly awkward results. Essentially, these two sisters from Pittsburgh and these two Italian guys were at this sandwich (really an amazing sandwich place named The Crazy Shark on Dizengoff Street near the fountain (if ever in Tel Aviv, just ask, this fountain is huge and prominent and considered by some to be an architectural atrocity)) and I rolled up and ordered a sandwich and they asked me where I was from and what I was doing here. We made chit-chat about the current Red Wings-Penguins Stanley Cup battle and I said I preferred the Penguins despite their being the Capitals’ arch-rivals, just because the Red Wings actually did indeed beat D.C. in the Stanley Cup in 1998. My logic is unshakable.

Then I asked them the same thing and one of them said “We’re getting married,” referring to the Italian, but it appeared she was joking, saying that she and her sister were going to marry each Italian. The Italians, for their part, when I’d asked them what they were up to in Tel Aviv, told me “partying.” And this was before I queried the chicks from Pittsburgh, the bride-to-be looking about 21 or so. So I said: “Is this like a Facebook marriage?” But no, they’re really getting married, to which I offered an obligatory “congratulations.” This didn’t provoke any outright hostility or anything, but I wish I hadn’t said it, as the two Americans obviously silently didn’t appreciate this characterization of what of course is supposed to be the most happy day of that girl’s life. But seriously, what girl fucking flies from Pittsburgh to Tel Aviv to marry an Italian guy? And, moreover, maybe I’m just going to have to get used to the disturbing reality of people my age and younger getting married to one another.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better. I get to take a trip to Tel Aviv University, where I have an interview with a dude at 3. I should probably go to sleep at some reasonable time instead of fooling around with this new toy I made myself. I’m probably going to spend tomorrow night in Ramallah as well, since I have to be there before at 8 in the morning to get up to Qalqilya, right in the most productive part of the Western Aquifer, squeezed between fingers of the wall, and, according to the latest news reports of various shoot-em-ups, a hotbed of Hamas activity. But I didn’t call the thesis “Climate Change and Water CONFLICT in Israel and Palestine” for nothing.

Oh yeah, that reminds me, and my fucking camera broke and a refund or exchange the store’s owner refused. He said he’d send it to Israel and it would be back in two weeks. Well, in two weeks I’m going to be in Columbus, Ohio, starting classes and beginning to write this thesis, which looks like it’s going to be around 70 pages, including all photos and graphs. I bought a couple disposable Kodak cameras today in East Jerusalem and plan to use them in Qalqiliya and when I go up to the Sea of Galilee* on Thursday. I just wish I had a digital camera at my disposal

Well, without, further adieu, here’s the

Web Site: ‘Execute’ Global Warming Deniers

Environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in 2007 declared that skeptics of global warming hysteria are guilty of “treason.”

Then NASA’s James Hansen said climate skeptics should be put on trial for “high crimes against humanity.”

And Kennedy recently called coal companies “criminal enterprises” and said their CEO’s should be jailed “for all of eternity.”

Now a global warming alarmist has taken the vitriol to new heights, calling for the execution of global warming deniers.

The alarmist, identified only as “The Insolent Braggart,” posted an entry on Talking Points Memo, an often-cited Web site. TPM removed the entry from the site, but not before it came to the attention of Marc Morano of Climate Depot.

He reproduced the entry on his Web site:

“At what point do we jail or execute global warming deniers? . . . The vast majority of the scientific minds in the world agree and understand it’s a very serious problem that can do an untold amount of damage to life on Earth.

“So when the right-wing [expletive deleted] have caused it to be too late to fix the problem, and we start seeing the devastating consequences and we start seeing end of the world type events — how will we punish those responsible? It will be too late. So shouldn’t we start punishing them now?”

The Washington Examiner cited the TPM poster in an editorial headlined, “Is American politics becoming a hate sport?”

The editorial likened the poster to Scott Roeder, who is charged with killing abortion doctor George Tiller, and John Brown, the abolitionist who led a murderous raid on a federal facility shortly before the Civil War.

“Are Brown, Roeder, and the TPM poster simply lone fanatics,” the Examiner asked, “isolated illustrations of what happens when political concerns become warped beyond reason and combine with unstable personality characteristics to produce gruesome results?

*There are three names for this body of water, which is really a lake. There’s the “Sea of Galilee” and “Lake Kinneret” (pronounced KinAIRet) and then “Lake Tiberias.” From what I can tell, Palestinians prefer “Tiberias” and Israelis “Kinneret.” That’s why I try to stick in certain situations to calling this place the Sea of Galilee, at least when in mixed company (which doesn’t happen that often, as you might imagine), as I am a “Christian,” more or less, and Sea of Galilee seems to be the Christian designation. Actually, when you go into the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, the guards ask you what your religion is and you have to respond somehow. For the Synagogue Section, there are only two things you can’t be: a) Muslim and b) Arab, of any religion or none. Yeah, it’s like that.

Right now I’m in a cafe in the rich part of Ramallah, drinking a ten shekel coffee in order to break a 200 shekel (50 bucks) note. Usually, I stick to the two shekel stuff from the street, but this more expensive coffee really packs a high octane punch indeed.

One problem with this place though is that even though it’s right next to the HSBC (the only place that produces money from a Mastercard in Ramallah) it’s also at the bottom of a hill. Moreover, getting change for even a 100 shekel note (25 bucks) can be somewhat of a burdensome ordeal for its more modest residents not sucking on the tit of European tourist money like these cats with the quality coffee are. They’re good folks, for the most part, but somewhat more dismissive and less welcoming than their counterparts in cafes just up the hill in the center of Ramallah. Finally, another problem with this place is that once you get the money you’re far from any place that supplies cigarettes, so today on this expedition I’ve bummed a couple smokes from other patrons and a waiter. But there’s free wireless, so that’s a plus.

I ate one of my final meals in Ramallah today (I wasn’t even supposed to be here today, but that’s a whole other story related to a malfunctioning camera) at The Chicago Cheesesteak Company, which has all the food available at its other two restaurants in Chicago, which I do indeed need to visit some day. The Ramallah branch also has schnitzel, but I’m almost positive Chicago wouldn’t. Though I could be wrong.

The Company is actually a pretty popular place. One time when I was eating there I ran into my friend Ahmed from the ‘Amid Shwarma, my favorite shwarma place here just downstairs from the internet cafe. I apologized and promised I’d be back at the shwarma place that same night. “It’s okay,” Ahmed said. “I’m here everyday.”

Lots of Palestinians, from what I can tell, have a relationship with Chicago. There’s a pretty big Palestinian community there I once saw on a trip with Ohio State’s International Affairs Scholars Program all the way back in 2005. That’s another story. I bought a kafeeya and some loose tea. I never wore the kafeeya just because, I dunno, I don’t really feel comfortable advertising my politics in such an ostentatious way. Never have, really. It’s better to ambush those with whom you disagree. Sporting a kafeeya announces your position from a mile away.

Also, another thing is that Palestinians in Ramallah don’t really wear the kafeeya unless there’s some national holiday (like Nakba) or if Fatah has won an election (say at Bir Zeit University). But it’s not really an everyday thing, from what I can tell. Wearing one all the time would be like donning a tuxedo everyday. And who would do that? I drank all the excellent tea, however, which I was told came direct from Palestine.

So where was I? I don’t know. This swanky cafe? There’s a semi-stout, pink-faced Australian or British ex pat NGO type in a suit drinking a big beer and eating something or other. Might be a quesadilla. He’s taking stock of whatever’s on his netbook right now. I heard him speaking with a Palestinian a minutes ago and all I caught as I went to the bathroom was “…the Palestinian people have a right to exist.” So he’s on the right team and not that atavistic Golda Meir faction that denies Palestinian national rights on the basis of the technicality that before Israel’s founding in 1948 people living in Palestine (And it was called Palestine. The rightist Jerusalem Post itself, founded in 1932, used to be called The Palestine Post for chrissakes) wouldn’t have considered themselves to be Palestinians. But guess what Golda? The foundation of Israel created the Palestinian national identity. The two peoples are essentially twins, born at the same second. The only difference is that one gets an allowance of 10 billion dollars a year and the other, well, gets some money from the international community (i.e. Mom and Dad) when it’s on very good behavior and very sorry for any mischief but most of the time just gets locked in the basement after a swift and stern beating from its brother.

Now the ex-pat’s reading Haaretz. Good man. Little does he know his appearance is being evaluated and his behavior broadcast to billions. Or, well, whoever might be reading this blog at least. And that’s you, dear reader.

Alright, enough of this nonsense, kicking the tires on this new blog here. I should get on the bus to Jerusalem. Probably won’t get back to Tel Aviv until 9 or so. I’m going to miss Ramallah.

Sincerely,

Will Dizard