Segacs’s World I Know

AP has a story about how FOX edited part of Kobe Bryant’s acceptance speech at the Teen Choice Awards that might tangentially relate to the sexual assault charge against him.

That’s not the part that concerns me though. Am I the only one who thinks that it’s highly disturbing that Kobe Bryant is such a role model to teenagers that they voted him Favourite Male Athlete?

Charles Krauthammer on the Security Fence in Israel:

The State Department is proposing that the United States play hardball with Israel — reducing badly needed loan guarantees — if it proceeds with the barrier it is erecting between Israeli and Palestinian populations. With this, the State Department joins the latest Palestinian propaganda ploy — inverting cause and effect, and making the fence the issue, rather than the terrorism that made the fence necessary.

The Israelis are not happy with the fence. They love the land as much as the Palestinians, and scarring it with any barrier is so painful to Israelis that for years they resisted the idea. The reason they finally decided to build it is that they could no longer in good conscience refrain from taking the one step that could prevent Palestinian suicide bombers from sneaking into Israel to blow up innocents.

This is not speculation. There have been nearly 100 Palestinian suicide bombings. All the terrorists came from the West Bank, where the barrier is being built. Not a single one has come from Gaza. Why? Because there already is a fence separating Gaza from Israel.

[ . . . ]

The State Department is ignoring, indeed excusing, Palestinian violation of their central obligation under Phase I of the road map. At the very same time, State is threatening Israel with sanctions over a fence that is nowhere mentioned in the road map.

He hits the nail on the head in this column. (Hat tip: Damian Penny).

The proposed legislation to legalize same-sex marriage may not pass due to a large number of opposed and undecided MPs. And the big debate these days seems to miss the point. A recent poll on the Globe and Mail’s site asked people whether they thought MPs should rely on their personal or religious views, or the views of constituents, when deciding on an issue like gay marriage. 84% said their constituents. But the truth is, neither of these options is right.

What if the issue was whether black people should have the right to attend the same schools as white people? What about a vote on whether women should have equal rights under the law to men? Would it make sense to have politicians adopt law in these cases based on personal views, religious blackmail, or angry groups of racist or sexist constituents? Of course not. Equality under the law is a basic right guaranteed in the Canadian Charter of Rights. And even if an MP lived in a riding where there was a high level of racism and opposition to minority rights, he or she should still do the right thing.

Incidentally, there is a listing at the bottom of this article on where various MPs stand on the vote. And at least one MP is outspoken about her views that rights aren’t decided by a show of hands:

Others who endorse same-sex marriage say it is not a matter of public opinion.

“It is a fundamental issue of human rights,” Montreal MP Marlene Jennings said.

When human rights are decided by popular vote, then the whole notion of equality falls apart. A lot of people say that the supreme court has no place redefining marriage. But I disagree. This is an issue of law. It’s the most basic law we have. As stated in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, section 15, article 1:

Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

Even if sexual orientation isn’t specifically listed as an “in particular” category, neither is it precluded from the definition. Every individual is equal before and under the law. It’s a right we cherish as Canadians. It’s time we started applying that like we mean it, even to people we may disagree with.

Palestinian Media Watch has published a report, entitled “Ask For Death”, on the methods used within the Palestinian Authority to glorify suicide among children and encourage them to achieve death through “Shahada” (via Israpundit:

“Ask for death” is the message that the Palestinian Authority [PA] has been conveying to its children since the start of violence in October 2000. In June 2002, two articulate 11-year-old girls were interviewed in the studio of official Palestinian Authority TV. Among other topics, they spoke of their personal yearning to achieve death through Shahada — Death for Allah — and of a similar desire they said exists in “every Palestinian child.” It is striking that their desire for death was expressed as a personal goal, not related to the conflict with Israel. Having been convinced that dying for Allah is preferable to life, their goal in living is not to experience a good life, but to achieve the proper death — Shahada

There’s a video that goes along with it, and it’s scary as anything. Whoever said that the goal of all people is for their children to live happy, productive, secure lives should spend a few minutes looking at this.

The bombing of the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad that killed 11 people this morning and wounded about 65 others is horrible and sad, and I mourn for the victims and their families. Who exactly carried out this attack and why is still unclear:

Tensions between Iraq and Jordan have been high since Jordan’s support for the U.S.-led war on Iraq.

Brahimi said some Iraqi newspapers had been critical of Jordan but the precise motives for the attack were unclear.

Jordan is a major entry point into Iraq and remains a large trading partner. But some Iraqis are resentful that Jordan dropped its support for Saddam Hussein after the 1991 Gulf War, and allowed U.S. troops to use its soil as a base during the latest war.

Jordan, for its part, has been desperately trying to balance itself on its fence-sitting act: gain credibility in the West by creating a lasting peace with Israel and supporting the U.S., while at the same time hold credibility in the middle east by paying lip service to Saddam, offering asylum to his relatives, and channeling the frustrations of its population (including a large Palestinian minority) through riots and rallies in support of suicide bombings and Saddam’s old regime.

Is this another morally-corrupt “root cause” argument that I’m drawing here? Probably. Jordan has always been juggling too many balls in the air, and so far has managed not to drop too many. And I don’t think that Jordan deserved to have its embassy bombed. Likely, the bombing was the work of an extremist rebel group in a still largely-lawless Iraq.

The cynic in me says that the track record of peacekeeping efforts in the past few decades has been so abysmal, that the peacekeeping mission in Liberia has very little chance of success. But the optimist in me really really hopes it does.

My latest thoughts on the dangers of labels were a bit long for a blog entry, so I used it as motivation to update my main website and post them up there. Yes, I do actually update the site once in a blue moon.

The world’s been a pretty messed-up place lately. We’ve got fires, we’ve got floods. There are unusual heat waves and cold spells. We’ve got SARS epidemics and mad cow disease. Not to mention the pervasive threat of terrorism.

Okay, that last one is caused by people, not nature. But the rest of the occurrences – while some argue that global warming can account for the more extreme weather – all seem to be just a coincidence. And probably no worse than the kind of things that happen all the time.

But if I were a religious person, I might start to get a bit suspicious. Some of the stuff in the headlines lately has been way too biblical for my taste. I think I’d start wondering whether G-d was punishing us for something or other.

And that, to me, gives considerable insight into the psychological roots of religion in the first place. It must have just seemed too weird to people to think that natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, or floods, would happen naturally and coincidentally. It was easier, perhaps, to attribute them to the greater plan of some supreme being. Because belief in G-d – like natural disasters – has the effect of making us feel small. I can see how it would be comforting to people – especially centuries ago when even less was known about these things than we know now – to think that someone was holding the controls upstairs, and that there was some rhyme or reason to the whole thing.

So then, the next thing to question would be, what exactly are we being punished for? That’s where it all began, I bet – finding targets. I can just see the allegations now:

“We’re being punished because of of the witches!”

*Killing spree with ‘witches’ burned at the stake*

“We’re being punished because of the nonbelievers!”

*Crusades, inquisitions, torture and forced conversions*

“We’re being punished because of the infidels!”

*Planes crash into buildings*

Hmmmm. So maybe we can’t relegate this kind of irrational behaviour into the dark ages. Or maybe the dark ages are threatening to swallow us up again. Certainly, if groups like Al Qa’eda are allowed to win this war against society, then that’s what will happen.

Is that what is at the root of it all? Simple human fear? It seems so simple, doesn’t it? I mean, it has to be more complicated than that. Doesn’t it? The explanation for centuries of war and religious persecution has to be based on more than the search for a scapegoat for G-d’s wrath.

But the bible is full of it. The ancient Israelites would lose a battle and a prophet would tell them it was because they had “displeased G-d” in one of many ways. Perhaps by not being religious enough, or united enough, or by assimilating too much into the surrounding population. It’s a common theme throughout the whole book that is the root of the major monotheistic religions.

Even today, the Vatican is threatening Catholic politicians with eternity in Hell if they don’t push forth a political agenda that continues the legalized discrimination against gays and lesbians. I somehow don’t find it so far-fetched to see the religious right campaigning on the basis that the SARS epidemic or the Mad Cow scare were “punishments from G-d” because of homosexuality. Or abortion. Or any of the other things they get all up in arms about.

We need to take a collective deep breath and use our brains before jumping to conclusions. Let’s recognize these events for what they are – either natural disasters, or man-made problems with reasonable cause-and-effect explanations.

And, more importantly, let’s recognize that, just because we can’t explain it yet doesn’t mean it can’t be explained. Human knowledge is progressing every single day. What made no sense whatsoever 1000 or 100 years ago can today be explained using modern science, technology, or understanding. Imagine how much more knowledge is still out there, waiting to be discovered! And isn’t it time to stop blaming religious vengeance for anything that we simply have yet to discover?

Update 08/07: It’s gotta be just a coincidence that the Gazette’s Mike Boone was thinking along the same lines when he wrote his column.

Michael J. Radwin has an interactive Jewish calendar on his site . . . for all those times when you’re trying to figure out if that dentist appointment you’re about to schedule coincides with Yom Kippur. He’s also got a candlelighting time tool and a date converter.

I dunno, stuff like this amuses me. Because it’s so incongruous with the notion of how they used to look at the moon to tell what day it was in ancient times. I really wonder what the sages in the time of the Talmud would have thought of interactive web calendars.