Dove's Eye View

Greatest Hits (so far)

I've been blogging for more than five years at Dove's Eye View. You can see a list of my favorite recipes on the sidebar, but I've never bothered to collect my favorite posts. Herewith a few I remember or that were called to my attention:

Forgiveness, Cluster Bombs and Cancer
More on Forgiveness
My Father's Life
Parking Meters of Sidon
A tribute to Anne Grozdins Lipow, with musings on illness

Dang, a bunch of heavy stuff. In fact I *think* I have a pretty good sense of humor, with a strong touch of the gallows and chemo lounge. If you can't laugh on the cancer ward, you can't really laugh. However, it doesn't much show on the blog, does it? I will work on this.

There was that post during the Lebanon war, 2006, documenting Lebanese war jokes...

And of course the unofficial subtitle of the blog is: "when there's no hope left, you can always make dinner."

Good thing my beloved husband was a comic in his earlier life. He still mugs and cracks jokes, keeping the atmosphere light.

UPDATE long time reader John Ballard of Hootsbuddy reminds me of the positive message in Hello Kind World. He even linked to that one last October. Thanks for the reminder John. I do have chemo brain and I have forgotten much of what I've written in the last five years.

Grandchildren of Holocaust Victim Demand: Remove Grandmother's Name from Yad Vashem

Michael Neumann and Osha Neumann: Remove Our Grandmother's Name from the Wall at Yad Vashem.

I join my brother, Michael Neumann, in asking that any reference to our grandmother be removed from Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial.

I have been to this memorial. Its buildings, paved courtyards and plazas spread themselves authoritatively over many landscaped acres. It frames the Holocaust as a prelude to the creation of the state of Israel. It embalms memorabilia of the death camps and preserves them as national treasures. That treasure does not belong to Israel. It is a treasure only if it serves as a reminder never to permit any nation to claim an exemption for its chosen people from the bounds of morality and decency.

Arabs must study the Nazi Holocaust in order to understand what drives the fears of Israelis and their Jewish supporters around the world. And Jews must re-study the Holocaust in order to ask themselves: is my community re-enacting the trauma visited upon our grandparents by inflicting trauma upon Arabs?

What if I ask the same question of myself and my various communities?

I have been reading the history of Lebanon (Fawwaz Traboulsi) and it all sounds the same as the current news, down to the same names of leaders and factions. Christians in Lebanon are also guilty of inflicting trauma upon their adversaries out of fear, resentment and unresolved trauma over the sufferings of our great-great-grandparents. Oppression blossoms into violence with boring regularity in Lebanon . Lebanese Christians have a duty to see clearly and quit inflicting pain and suffering upon weaker communities around them. They must also stop collaborating with those who wish to kill or oppress Muslims and Palestinian refugees within Lebanon's borders.

And let me also say this: Muslims and Christians in Lebanon treat Palestinian refugees in their midst not a whole lot better than the Israelis do. Lebanese do not at the moment kill Palestinians in such numbers, and do not actively starve them the way Israel is starving Gaza. But the system of refugee camps, the work laws, the denial of rights to citizenship, are all similar to Israeli oppression of Arabs inside Israel and in the territories. The attack on Nahr-al-Barid of 2007 was chillingly familiar. It's not good for Lebanese society, and I can no longer keep quiet about it. I also have to look in the mirror.

If you want me to criticize my own country, America, where I live and pay taxes - I'll do it, but in a different post. This one is getting long enough. But the list of our injustices is long.

We all have to take responsibility for the toxic consequences of the actions of our representatives. Our leaders and military sometimes do terrible things in our name, which bring harm upon us. Maybe we cannot make them stop, but we have a duty to look to our part in the mayhem before we condemn our adversaries for being evil, violent, terroristic, barbaric and so forth.

US Congressman Calls For Immediate Relief For Gaza

Two US Congressmen went to Gaza and are horrified at what they saw.

Congressman Brian Baird Views Destruction in Gaza – Calls for Immediate Relief and Change in Policy.

I get comments all the time from well-meaning Americans, telling me not to trouble myself over Gaza. I get comments from ill-meaning trolls saying either the destruction is not so bad, or it's completely justified, and in either case, I should shut up.

Brian Baird and Keith Ellison went to Gaza and saw for themselves. No wonder those Arabs are all so angry. If it happened in America, Baird says, we would be outraged.

This small change is a sign of hope. Gaza and the Palestinians do not deserve the treatment they're getting at the hands of the Israelis, and peace and justice will never prevail under such onslaught. The Israeli government, military and popular opinion have gone crazy, and need saner heads outside the country to stabilize them before they do more harm to others and themselves.

Local Food Blogging

I've been busy in my neighborhood here in Oakland, CA, gossiping, agitating and planning. The school board is on notice: they had better not close my son's elementary school! Making waves and causing trouble, like generations of pushy mothers before me. Grace Paley would be proud.  She wrote countless stories while noodging the powers-that-be in New York City in the 20th century.

Am also running a new blog devoted to local food and sustainable living. We're organizing parties to preserve citrus and cabbage. Marmalade, Moroccan preserved lemons, and sauerkraut! Plum jam in the summer, pear butter and olives in the fall. Here in Oakland the fruit falls off the trees and goes to waste - many of us want to do something about it, while building community ties.

Introducing: Think Global, Eat Laurel.

Hampshire College Students Speak For Divestiment

Thanks to Philip Weiss for this YouTube link.
Mondoweiss: Why do YOU support divestment?.

California in peril from warming

I cannot sleep tonight. I took a pill at 2 a.m. - first one in months - and I'm still awake. Why? because I read this article:

California farms, vineyards in peril from warming, U.S. energy secretary warns - Los Angeles Times.

The man warning us is a Nobel Prize winner in Physics, former director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where I used to teach software. He doesn't deal in hysteria. This is serious.

I finally had a talk with my husband about my fears, and the things I wish we would do to prepare, to cope, to prevent.

Like what? he said.

Like:

• Install compost toilet
• Set up grey water system for recycling bath water into garden
• Rig large cisterns to capture rainwater from our roof

My husband said he would read the article - in the morning - and keep an open mind about these possibilities. We don't think we can move to Wisconsin or Ohio at the moment. If I were free of family ties I would buy a nice house on some land in a decent-sized town with a college, a library, a hospital and a few alternative health practitioners. The area should have good soil and plenty of rainfall. Railroad and canal would help.

If I were in my 20s I would look at recolonizing Detroit. So much empty, cheap space there, and still so much culture (universities, museums). You could buy a big house surrounded by prairie in the middle of town, if you were feeling like a pioneer. You'd have to homeschool your children, keep livestock and protection animals (dogs? Geese?), grow your own food and network assiduously with the few neighbors remaining. It could be done. Plenty of good Arabic food in Detroit...

'Jews Say No' all-night protest outside World Zionist Organization

Up all night, outside in the bitter cold, 800 American Jews protesting Zionism:

Mondoweiss: 'Jews Say No' is holding all-night protest outside World Zionist Organization on Third Avenue right now!.

Read the previous post, as well, about Mustapha Barghouti's talk at Columbia last night.

Random Links

I'm twittering random links, none of which have to do with the Middle East. I do have other interests (although reading Bolano's 2666 makes me think I need to write Gaza 2006 into this novel, along with Ain el-Hilweh 1982)

Food security in your town, by Bob Waldrop via Sharon Astyk.

You don't need a million to retire well.

Procrastination hack: (10+2)*5. I did this today, wrote 1,400 words or so (more, but I'm counting fiction only, not bitching, kvetching and moodling).

Fifty writing tools. The later ones look really good.

Not linked: Family storytelling night at my kid's public school. Hokey magic show, free pizza and raw veggies and juice, book giveaways. The kids were SO EXCITED. I really savor these simple down-home pleasures with the children at the public schools: the fall harvest festival with goofy games and costumes, the winter concerts with singing and poems, these family nights.

 
Writing group after storytelling (I didn't bring my kids, natch). We finished talking about Bolano's 2666, then read to each other from our latest work. Our host made a Mediterranean soup with feta cheese; others brought bread, salad, cheese and fruit. And CHOCOLATE. I am so fortunate.

Carnality, Gutsiness, Shamelessness, Messy Hair

In The Oscars Issue - Penelope Cruz - NYTimes.com, Pedro Almodovar lauds

the Mediterranean school of acting, a style that is characterized by its carnality, gutsiness, shamelessness, messy hair, generous cleavage and shouting as a natural form of communication.

YES! YES! YES!

Thank you Randa Jarrar for alerting me to this.

Arab Film Festival SF Calls for Entries

The Arab Film Festival of the San Francisco Bay Area (now expanded to Los Angeles) is calling for film entries for its October 2009 season. Click on the link for more information.