Peace in the Middle East - A Solution !!

What could inspire the leaders in the Middle East to put aside their anger and resentment to reach a lasting peace accord? Besides long-term self-interest, that is?

They would need to overcome their previous commitments to hatred and nasty rhetoric, push aside the screams for blood from their countrymen, be able to figure out solutions where none were visible before - what would do this? What would work?

Apparently, pictures of women in bikinis causes men to act impulsively.

"It wasn't that the men were simply distracted by their sexual arousal, which caused them to choose more impulsively. On the contrary, they exhibited improved cognition and creativity after exposure to sexy stimuli." (see linked article)

So it's even better - pictures of women in bikinis cause men to act impulsively and better.

So this is the plan: get a bunch of Middle-Eastern women in bikinis decorated in the flags of the region to frolic in an adjoining conference room while peace negotiations are going on.

Miss Israel could braid the hair of Miss Egypt. Miss Syria could give Miss Lebanon a pedicure. You get the idea. And it would work.

It already has. When the leader of Argentina visited the UK after the Falklands Island war with his daughter Zulema Menem, much of the jingoistic opposition to the visit died down. She was dressed very elegantly and wore a miniskirt to the memorial honoring the British war dead from the Falklands war and shed a tear. That was enough to turn public opinion.

And she wasn't even wearing a bikini.

As a newspaper at the time put it: There's nothing that British punters like more than to wrap themselves in the flag and sing jingoistic songs except the sight of a pretty girl in a miniskirt. The quote is not exact, it is from memory and I couldn't find it on the web. But you get the idea.

We all like to compliment ourselves about how deep and sophisticated we are, but we aren't that complicated really.

An antidote to this tactic is a sense of financial security. So making these guys feel broke first would be an important part of the plan. Hard to do for Arab millionaires. Feeding them stale bread would make us look poor. I'd say a solid gold car, but any of these guys could do that if they wanted.

Aha! We could tell them that we have discovered an alternative to oil-derived fuel. And on top of that, we have discovered a huge ocean of oil in the U.S. Which goes back to what people have been hinting at for a while: without oil, we don't care if they all kill each other or not. Except Israel. So they need Israel, because that's the only country that Americans care about over there.

Note to Ari Fleischer

Ari Fleischer has it wrong. The criticism of the press corps for failing to properly investigate the claims made to justify this war is not limited to the uncomfortable questions they asked him while he was Press Secretary.

It is the failure to investigate and report.

So Mr. Fleischer was asked questions he found tough. So what. It probably would have been easier on him if he wasn't a part of the campaign of deception in the White House that talked people and countries into a war that wasn't justified.

Gaza Scholars

Thank you, Secretary Rice.

Thank you for having a common sense head on your shoulders and restoring the Fulbright scholarships to the Gaza winners. There will be a long-term ramification of being reasonable in this matter. I call it the "payoff of reasonableness." None of these future Palestinian leaders will forget your compassion for them. They are going to be around a long time and the benefit may not be immediately apparent, but it will be there.

Thank you again.

The Gaza Scholars

It is hard to think of a better example of what is wrong with Israel's policy towards the Palestinians than not allowing Fulbright scholars to leave the country to pursue their studies.

What exactly does this accomplish? To date, there is no indication that the Gaza scholars are involved with terrorism. What would acting decently and humanely cost you?

People who win Fulbright scholarships tend to be leaders in their society. Israel's decision to deny these people a very prestigious scholarship by not letting them out of the country is going to cause long-term resentment. Considering the other ways the Palestinians are being treated by Israel, it is probably nominal in its impact.

Not letting people use their Fulbright scholarships is wrong and not strategic. The people in question are not going away. It would be just a little thing to let some scholars accept their scholarships. But for some reason, that is too much for Israel.

10 REASONS TO SPEND THE HOLIDAYS WITH SYLVIA PLATH

10 REASONS TO SPEND THE HOLIDAYS WITH SYLVIA PLATH by Stephen Russell


reason number 10:

admit it.
we’re as greedy as children.
we take, take & take.
soon there’ll be nothing left.
we’ll take it.


reason number 9:

same journey, Sylvia.
intolerable winter weather-
infants more demanding than God-
& death, a tacky souvenir.
Atrocity of birthdays.


reason number 8:

revenge is sweet,
sweeter still is guilt.
we’re at Danny’s bar & grill
in Devonshire, England.
we’re finishing up our pints.
aren’t all bartender’s fascist?
tip him.
we tip well.


reason number 7:

because it’s the 50s
and we’re not hip to manic d
we’ll stay inside.
read dull books.
feed the birds of gossip.


reason number 6:

feeling better?
i am.
shouldn’t we take Ariel for a romp?
man, beast & muse:
the natural order,
things falling into place.


reason number 5:

& we’ll decorate those winter trees.
no. we’ll chop them down.
it’s cold & we’re out of wood.


reason number 4:

or go a little crazy.
what I mean is we’re so uptight.
our holiday refinements,
despair dressed as a villanelle.
shun Robert Lowell.
i mean it, Sylvia.
shun him.


reason number 3:

Goddammit,
i hate the holidays.
New Years, Christmas,
November Pilgrim’s day of thanks.
December, a filthy blur of lights.
& look at bloated Santa,
a 90s thing.

reason number2:

temperature dropping.
don’t believe me?
go outside.


Reason number 1:

we’re as greedy as children,
no better than most adults.

Mortgages, Defaults, Refinancing, Bankruptcy, Prison - Meltdown

Hell hath no fury like a politician looking for a scapegoat. Mortgage companies that lie, steal, and encourage others to do the same are just fine until their actions lead to economic instability. Then the FBI is sent after them.

Where was the special FBI task force when all of this lying was being done openly? Why was no one concerned then? This is not a case of sneaky documents being signed in the Cayman Islands. Mortgage companies competed for business by creating "liar loans" that required no income verification.

Now that there is political pressure from someone in Congress, the FBI springs into action. Where were they before? Why is it a crime worthy of their focus at this time, and not when the practice started to happen? And why does it take a crisis for anyone in Congress to decide there's a problem?

The financial interests of the mortgage companies put pressure on Congress such that they didn't want to see an obvious problem. Mortgage companies donate to political campaigns, after all. And they hire constituents who vote for politicians. So Congress was content to turn a blind eye towards a systemic problem.

But wait! The entire system is melting down! I might get thrown out of office! Let's get an investigation going so people associate me with vengeance instead of greed.

And that delivers us to where we are today: hunting down the mortgage lenders and giving the cowardly national leaders a pass.

Food Crisis: One Billion Hungry Asians

The prospect is frightening. The political instability that a food crisis on a continent-wide scale could cause is really beyond our comprehension. As a species, we've never faced it before.

Expensive food is one thing when there are cheaper alternatives. When the cheap food is your only nutrient staple and you can't even afford to eat that, the situation becomes dangerous. Widespread violence is going to be the result.

Remember, that's one billion people. If even a fraction decide that they're going to gate-crash another part of the globe, we'll be severely overwhelmed and looking back with fondness when it was only the Mexicans we had to worry about.

McCain and the Oil Wars

Presidential candidate McCain promises to end U.S. dependence on Middle Eastern oil "so we never have to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East." The implication is that once we are energy-independent they can all kill each other for all we care. (The Arabs. Not Israel.) And it's an appealing thought. Without oil, the United States would never have defended Kuwait and Saudi Arabia against Saddam Hussein. As much as Osama bin Laden hates Western influences in his country, let's see how much he likes complete indifference.

With the United States relying on other means of fueling our vehicles and our economy, it would be a welcome relief to not care about placating religious crazies in Saudi Arabia. After all, we have enough of them here.

My position has always been that the excessive focus on Israel by other Middle Eastern nations is only to distract its citizenry from internal conflicts that would otherwise lead to civil war. And let's face it, none of them want the Palestinians.

Would You Rather Be Wright or Be Happy?

The Rev. Wright's problem is that he wants to maintain the divisions of race, not because he wants to eliminate them. As these racial barriers he complains about are watered down, he is going to start having white people ask him about what he has said in a sermon and to justify it. It's part of the racial integration of Sunday morning he likes to talk about.

The uniquely Black religious experience Rev. Wright talks about is getting attention. He doesn't like that, it seems.

When Your Husband Says "Don't Go in the Basement" ...

It is never a good sign. Take that guy in Austria, for example. He told his family not to go into the basement. So did a few American serial killers.

Personally, I have a hard time imagining that the wife of Josef Fritzl had no idea of what was going on. The man had to buy food, cook it, and deliver it downstairs. What the hell did she think was going on? That her husband ate enough for four people?

Mrs. Fritzl is a passive party to what happened to her child. And let's not forget the years of sexual abuse the daughter endured before being held in the basement. Where was the mother then?

So if your husband tells you never to go into the basement, makes tons of food to bring down there, spends hours there, you have a problem. And you can't say you had no idea. Not anymore.