“When you’re travelling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” - William L.H. Moon
You may have read my post on the Not a mosque that's not at ground zero. I'm still equally upset, but I'll leave the talking to a few brilliant people whose contribution to the discussion should be as widely disseminated as possible.
With no exaggeration whatsoever, I am playing this repeatedly. I am trying to convince myself that there still is hope in America. I am. Trying. Hard.
* In case you're curious about the Jacksonville,Florida mosque bombing that Olbermann is referring to, see this.
Then you have the unavoidable, the brilliant - * Jon Stewart - Extremist Makeover - Homeland Edition on why guilt by association is a ridiculous and dangerous game to play.
The US is becoming an unsavoury place for Muslims. Now Muslims are forced to cancel public celebrations in fear for their safety, are subject to direct threats from elected officials and representatives, and have to endure constant insults from all directions in what has become a free-for-all 'curse the Muslim' fest.
My family feared for my safety when I first went to the US years ago: "they hate us there", said my mother. (yes, like Americans have their travel warnings about the Middle East, so do we about America..) Her fears were unfounded; few event of Muslim-hating violence were recorded. But now, her warning seems prophetic. It seems that half the population does hate us there.
Today however we're witnessing a post 9/11 redux - the levels of Anti-Muslim public hatred are unprecedented. And it's embarrassing to say that GW Bush did a better job calming things down and stressing that Islam and Muslims were peaceful than Barack Obama who, as usual, stands there watching. He was even prompt to de-facto retract the lukewarm speech he gave over the White House-hosted iftar last week.
It feels we're two inches away from anti-Muslim pogroms. They're already organizing public bonfires of Qurans. I fear the day will come when a KKK-like group will organize a burning at the stake of a Muslim family. I truly do.
The latest spark that's inflaming the right-wing Americans' inner-racist? The "Ground Zero Mosque". You'd think it's a plan to build a Mosque where the World Trade Center stood. It isn't. (Though, if it were, it wouldn't be a crime either.)
But It's NOT at Ground Zero. And it's NOT a Mosque.
See the map below to see where the Cordoba House will actually stand - I'm fairly sure it's not even visible if you stand in Ground Zero:
As for the second part - that it's not a Mosque - the Cordoba House is actually a cultural centre, will will host lecture halls, a ballroom/conference rooms, a swimming pool (yep!), and a prayer room - a mosque, yes. A large part of their work has to do with community outreach and interfaith dialogue.
The have a goddamn website. Check it before going on about what it is or is not.
How this has not been hammered in the media is a crying shame. If anything, it points out at the incredible bias of US mainstream media; but it also proves that, once again, Muslim organizations prove incapable of mounting a decent PR campaign in the face of the many, many Muslim-haters out there.
Addendum - an excellent read: The New Anti-Semitism, in Tablet Magazine.
I'm not sure how the new "More like..." recommendation functionality on twitter works, but it sure gives odd associations. Because, see what Twitter thinks is "Like TravellerW":
Apparently I'm like news organizations? Apart from occasionally making up random stuff and passing it for real information...
That one just proves they've REALLY never looked at my twitter stream (though I'm mildly flattered):
That one.. well, I'm funny, bitter and Irish? Huh.
I was walking past the Presidential palace in Cairo the other day and my phone caught Mubarak's wifi network.. But the network was password protected! Not being able to figure it the password on my own, I put the question to my friends on Twitter and Facebook.
These are all the responses I received!
A few suggested that it's necessarily going to be very simple: (the man is, after all, borderline senile) 123123 1234567 Password 1234 OR 0000
Then there are the ones that he probably chose while his wife was looking over his shoulder: suzana i'm crazy lovin yoooooo Suzanne1928 iluvsuzy2much apoualaa or apougamal
There's the stuff that was probably chosen by his chief of security:
SilenceOfTheLambs screw_you شايفك ...Or by the techie who didn't like him too much
LaVacheQuiRit1928 Fromage 3amo jaja There's the stuff he must've chosen while no one was looking over his shoulder:
anakingkong ana _mesh_khorong_ana_king _kong samia-gamal-sex Nadia El Gendy Eygept Notting Hill Twilight _New_Moon TeamJacob sweetie-cutie-muba-28 elnegmelkebeer elham-shaheen El-Prez Elbrinzzzzzzzzzzzzz Iampharoahhearmeroar el-tal3a-el-gawweyya mubarak2011 krazymuba2000 mubarak4ever Qathafisux Elrayess
And then there's the password he thought no one would ever guess:
ElBaradei
Next blog post: I'll be guessing the wifi password in the Tora prison.
*** What do you think Mubarak's wifi password would be? Write your suggestion in the comments!
Thanks to Osama, Tova, Renata, Maggie, Shmoponga, Ilknur, Omar, Naheed, Zeinab, Nawal, Nadina, Inji, Nesrine, Youmna, Tamer, Mais, Nizo, and most of all, Bassem, for playing along!
They could've been the Jewish Will & Grace, but they just had to go romantic, didn't they!#fail!
Okay, a couple of months late but eh, ma laasot. Lots of work + no translation on most episodes meant for slower viewing. But it’s finally here, youhou!
Mind you, no reason to be upset about the delay, for my verdict is the following:
Season 2 ranks far below season 1 (which I had reviewed HERE and which, if I may brag, is on the first page of Google results for 'srugim' and which you should read! And all my other reviews of Israeli TV and cinema are here).
A little repetitive, with the characters following a rather uneven, erratic development path, as if the writers would just remember, after 4 or 5 episodes, that they’ve got this lame duck character they need to work on and give a storyline to, work on for two episodes, then forget about again!
Meet Yif'at (right), and her wife Amir. That's their facial expressions for most of the show.
Amir is the same whiny little bitch from the first season. He’s not evil, he’s not jealous, he’s not particularly bright or stupid, he’s not a bad man or husband or anything: he’s just... painfully lame. The season begins with him marrying Yif’at, which I had described as the meeting of two second-choice people, and I’m standing by my description.
The routine they settle into so damn rapidly makes me wonder whether, for religious Jews, marriage is the same ‘end of the road’, the purpose in itself that it is for many dimwit Muslims. Marry to get laid. Then to have children. Why? Because somehow you’re somehow supposed to. Because God said so, apparently? Because there’s an intrinsic value into spreading our Jewish [Muslim] genetic material all over?
Need I be phased out because we, as 21st century intelligent religious people have taken the argument for granted or because so many people actually follow those arguments to the letter?
And speaking of which, the couple is so eager to procreate that after barely a few months without getting pregnant, they’re stressing to death and Yif’at sends Amir to take a fertility test. Guy was married twice, never had children, but seems to be shocked at the mere thought that he may be infertile. The episode where he goes to the hospital to give a semen sample is so lamentable it’s funny.
(And, as this blog points out - check them out, they have nice episode-by-episode reviews - they don't even mention the religious problem about masturbating to give a sample... even though it could be hi-la-ri-ous! Apparently, a religiously acceptable solution would be to have sex with a condom and then hand in the condom - and not just any condom: one with a hole in it. Because God condones defective condoms. I just cannot stop giggling :)
Hey Amir, that one would work!
Anyways. So Amir and whatsherface are married, it’s fucking boring, etc. Then whatsherface gets a cool job [which she back-stabs someone to get, very classy] and while their relationship unravels, she’s growing as a person and a professional.
(come to think of it, she’s rather cool. He’s an idiot. Yif’at now regains her name; Amir will be hereafter be referred to as whatshisface).
So Yif’at is doing alright, occasionally sleeping in the office to avoid coming home to her slug of a husband. And whatshisface, watching idly as his second marriage falls apart in less than 15 episodes - again - (they never elaborated on why the first one crashed but I’ll bet you a kosher beer that it was him) does what he does best:
He whines.
Can someone peuh-lease get this guy off the show?
Hodaya is probably still - by elimination, though - the most interesting character. A recovering religious - or datlash[it], the contraction of ‘dati lashéavar’, formerly religious [yes, I’m totally bragging about my Heeb even though there’s a 90% chance I made a mistake there] - and dating another datlash.
She’s being very stubborn holding onto her areligious choice (a little too much - you don't need to be a jerk to make a point really), while refusing to completely cut ties with her old life and friends as is the case for many datlashim. (even though, logically, someone who’s being so militantly secular probably would cut ties with the religious community, but we can let that slide).
She even goes to get a small tattoo of a dove [this is where you go ‘Oh my G-d!’]: apparently tattoos are strictly forbidden in orthodox Judaism: screwing with the body that God gave you means that you’re not allowed to get a Jewish burial, so no soup heaven for you, so that’s really serious stuff!
Got a tattoo? You’re going to hell. Tough shit, dear.
The interesting twist is that her formerly-religious boyfriend Assaf turns out to have ‘relapsed’ or something - and the scene where she surprises him in a skullcap praying before Shabbat dinner is the same kind of twist that you’d get if she had found him in bed with a guy or something.
Which is sad, because if your partner is having a crisis of faith - well, in this case regaining it instead of losing it, but same difference - you stand by them, not kick them out. That's just low.
But she’s finding some balance in her life - she’s accepting that she can be an evil disbeliever as much as she wants, whom she once was will always be part of her - and that’s actually okay: the experiences we’ve been through give us strength, not weaken us.
Nati’s storyline is very separate from the group of friends - you could cut off all scenes he appears in and you’d probably barely notice. I don’t quite get the purpose of this, it’s not like he was added last minute! Aaaanywho. He's less of a dick than he was in season one and that's a welcome development.
So Nati’s into this romance with a colleague with a kid. Okay, 'aha' moment, introducing a real issue here: marrying people with children, which is a bit of a swept-under-the-rug problem in some communities, including the religious one. (I suspect, both Jewish and Muslim).
Over the course of like 8 episodes, Nati and Dafna's relationship:
goes way down,
then up,
then really up,
then he breaks up with her,
then they’re ignoring each other,
then just she is ignoring him,
then they’re back together,
then she breaks up,
and that’s it.
Sadly, not particularly interesting - actually I was betting myself peanuts on when they’d break up (or get back together) at the beginning of every episode. I won, hmm, half the time.
[but her kid is a very cute little fellow though.]
The introduction of Roi, Nati’s gay brother to the show, was a very welcome addition. Second“Aha, finally something controversial!” I thought.
But rather disappointed I was. So he struggles a wee bit, comes out to his brother, then dates - dates! - the hottie of the show, Reut, whose gaydar if off for the first few episodes.
After a while, he tells her he’s, ehemm, into penises (but has never done it with a bloke). Yet she somehow decides to hang around. After a few episodes more he tries to break up (again): "Anachnou zoug tov", she answers: “we’re a good couple”. Never mind the fact that she knows he’ll probably have to conjure thoughts of a naked Hugh Jackman whenever he sleeps with her out of religious duty; she still thinks, smart successful woman that she is, that he’s a good mate for a lifelong relationship. I am befuddled.
Morale of the story: Religion + horniness = seriously opaque blinds.
Then at the end she goes out and buys a million shekels apartment. Wtf?
So, recap: Reut is hot, will date anyone who's not a complete dick, owns an apartment in Jerusalem (West, but I'll do with), and is willing to overlook all possible flaws [even if he's gay, or, as in season 1, a religious schmuck]. Hmm. I wonder if she'd do an Ay-rab.
Reut, coffee at Cafe b'Gina?
Hmm... whom else. Ah, Nati and Roi’s dad was an interesting character, I liked him. They should’ve developed him more.
Politics:
Like the previous season, there's a little bit of politics. Amir does reserve duty at a checkpoint; there are no Arabs in the scene, only a car of nice settlers who give him a lift. There's a cute settler chick whom Nati goes on a date with - a pointless addition to the show really. In case you didn't get the point, let me spell it out: "settlers are nice normal folks". Shame that they'd want to spread this message, but okay.
What struck me however was this.
I just noticed this a minute ago, actually, as I was looking for screenshots for this entry: in episode 4, the only book visible in Roi and Nati's flat is by Lt.Gen. Moshe 'Bogie' Yaalon, notorious Israeli state terrorist/current Deputy Prime Minister and minister of strategic affairs.
Yaalon is an extremist within the extremist Likud faction, calling peace groups 'a virus' and openly supporting criminal settlers. Ayalon, you may remember, cancelled a trip to Britain last year for fear of being arrested for crimes against humanity.
Now why would this unsavoury character be the only author visible on the shelves of our friendly bachelors? What is the message? I am a little more than upset.
Overall, the show is still very enjoyable and I had fun. For the next season though I REALLY wish they’d start including more side characters: other Israelis, that is - secular Jews, new olim or something, and of course, Arabs!
Srugim without Arabs is like Friends without Black people… [oh wait. Were there any Black people in Friends? Huh. :-]
Sometime last year, after I watched Season One I wrote to series director Laizy Shapira and we had a friendly exchange - basically:
“I liked Srugim, good job!”
“Cool, thanks! I didn’t know Arabs watched the show!”
“well guess what, a few apparently do!”
“Great! If I knew before shooting season 2 I’d have included an Arab character!”
So, there. Laizy Shapira - you know what to do. And please, enough with the mediocre political hints already!
Durian is a fairly disgusting fruit from East/South-East Asia. I've had it in Indonesia (and I have a photo to prove it!) - it's incredibly smelly. The taste is actually okay, but the aftertaste really is the killer!
that was a billboard in Phnom Penh. I never knew what 'expose yourself outdoor' really referred to.
Anyways. So someone in Indonesia thought it was an interesting flavour enough to create.. a durian-flavoured condom. We found those in Jakarta (Depok, to be precise) - not far from the University of Indonesia..
I'm an economic consultant, perpetual expat, often lost, curious, religious, secular, illogical and hesitant.
This blog is somewhat of a travelogue, a political and economic commentary board.
Your comments and emails are both welcome and encouraged; this blog is meant to be read and it's nice to know that it is! Agree, disagree, object, discuss...
Thank you for wasting your working hours here.
