Segacs’s World I Know

President Bush has announced that he plans to support a law that would define marriage as the union between a man and a woman, thus thwarting efforts to legalize gay marriage:

While Bush said people must be tolerant and “respect each individual,” that “does not mean that someone like me needs to compromise on the issue of marriage.”

Of all the stupid Bush quotes I’ve heard, that one’s one of the stupidest. Does Bush actually think that legalizing gay marriage would force him to divorce Laura and marry Dick Cheney?

This is a shining example of the problems that occur when governments try to play morals police and impose their religiously-derived code of morality on everyone. And is a main reason why, despite agreeing with them on many issues of foreign and economic policy, I could never vote for the right.

Gay marriage can’t be a “majority rules” decision, because the majority of us are straight. Put it to a popular vote and minorities usually get shafted. Instead, it’s time for us to recognize – as Canadian society is finally realizing – that we’re not abdicating any of our own rights by granting them to others. And that denying rights to minorities is something that history – and morality by any kind of secular definition – cannot tolerate or forgive.

Bruce Balfour, a Canadian from Alberta who was arrested in Lebanon for the “crime” of having been to Israel, is being placed on trial for “collaborating with the enemy”:

A Canadian diplomat told AFP earlier Wednesday that Balfour was arrested on arrival in Beirut on July 10 and thrown into Rumiyeh central prison, northeast of the capital, for reasons that were not then clear.

Prison authorities failed to inform the Canadian consul until several days later, contrary to the Geneva Convention, which stipulates a maximum 48-hour period for consuls to be informed of the arrest of one of their nationals.

A Canadian diplomat has visited Balfour in jail and he has been given food, money and clean laundry.

Balfour told the Canadian diplomat who visited him he was arrested after showing his passport to officials at Beirut airport, and believed he was imprisoned “because he’d gone to a neighbouring country”.

Foreigners who have visited Israel and have Israeli stamps in their passport are not allowed to enter Lebanon, which is technically still at war with the Jewish state. Normally, they are deported.

The National Post reported only two days ago that the Lebanese Government still had not confirmed the reason for Balfour’s detention, but that Balfour himself had written a letter to the Canadian Embassy claiming that he was being held because he once visited Israel (via Damian Penny):

“I was arrested because a computer entry said that I have been in Israel at one time, which is true,” Balfour said in his letter. ” But please tell me where the crime in this is. My freedom has been taken away and I have been treated horribly,” wrote Balfour.

[ . . . ]

She said her brother was informed at the Beirut airport that it is illegal to enter Lebanon if a person has already visited Israel and their records showed that he had been to the neighboring country. She says if that is the case, then he should be simply charged and fined, as the law apparently provides, and subsequently released.

But he wasn’t simply fined and deported, he was locked up for nearly three weeks already and is now apparently going to be put on trial for some bogus, trumped-up charge. This sham of a “trial” is sure to be another shining example of the “transparent and democratic justice system” in Lebanon.

Nearly half a million people are expected to descend on Toronto for the big Rolling Stones concert tomorrow. And they’re lining up already.

Also on the bill are the Guess Who, AC/DC, Rush, Blue Rodeo, the Tea Party, the Flaming Lips, Montrealers Sass Jordan and Sam Roberts, and . . . Justin Timberlake? (Yeah, seems a bit out of place doesn’t he? Can you picture all the 50+ concert-goers dancing to his brand of pop?)

Anyway, all of these bands for only $21.50 seems like a pretty decent deal, which is probably why they’re flocking from all directions and filling up Toronto’s hotels and restaurants, which have been standing pretty empty since the SARS epidemic.

All good news for Toronto. And a pretty spectacular music event if I do say so myself, even if it did cost the government a fortune and Ticketmaster is going to reap most of the profits. I’m sure it’ll be lots of fun.

But Justin Timberlake???

Is it just me, or does that new much-hyped Ben and J.Lo movie, Gigli, look really dumb?

Can’t wait for the new American Pie movie, American Wedding, though.

Okay, okay, fine, it’s fluff. But I’m getting really sick of this stupid mudslinging that the mideast debate has degenerated into around here lately. Aren’t you?

Protesters Hooligans are at it again on the streets of downtown Montreal:

A handful of protesters, lofting wooden boards and metal dustbins, took out their frustrations on the windows of a Burger King restaurant, the American clothing chain The Gap and Canadian clothing store Jacob.

The demonstrators, 200-strong at one point, also smashed the windshields of two cars, a Porsche and a BMW, which had been parked on the street, and shattered windows at a building occupied by Canada’s armed forces.

This protest, against the World Trade Organization meetings taking place downtown this week, was billed as “child-friendly” and organizers renounced the use of violence.

Yeah right.

About five city blocks of downtown are shut to traffic because of the security concerns associated with these demonstrations, inconveniencing people who work downtown and virtually shutting down retailers and businesses. Not to mention the damages that the rioting and destruction are incurring.

How much do you wanna bet that the protesters, a la Netanyahu-riot, will blame the WTO for “provoking” their actions and renounce all responsibility? I’d say it’s pretty much a sure thing.

Update: Well, that didn’t take long. Organizers are defending the violence:

Another organizer, Stefan Christoff, defended the violence against the stores, saying the Gap is a multinational corporation that runs sweatshops.

“These are very legitimate targets, as the WTO is a legitimate target,” said Christoff, who denounced the police presence in downtown Montreal as a militarization of the city.

Police have arrested 100 people already, including Jaggi Singh, one of Canada’s most high-profile shit-disturbers.

I swear, these news stories could’ve been written weeks in advance.

More reflections on why I think it’s so important to support Magen David Adom:

Magen David Adom has been a cause rather close to my heart, ever since my dad got food poisoning on a flight to Israel about 6 years ago and was rushed to a Jerusalem hospital . . . in an ambulance donated by the Canadian MDA.

That day in 1997, while we were in the air, a terrorist bomb exploded in Mahaneh Yehuda in Jerusalem. And when we arrived in the hospital, the injured victims of this bombing were being brought in.

In between ducking the news cameras so as not to scare our friends and relatives back home by showing up on the 6 o’ clock news, my mom and I had time to reflect on this crazy, wonderful country we were in. My dad was, thankfully, not seriously ill, but the doctors and nurses took excellent care of him. At the same time, they were treating the victims of senseless terrorism with expert skill and compassion.

The ambulances that are first on the scene when disaster strikes are not political. MDA ambulances are staffed almost entirely by trained volunteers. They treat all victims, be they Jewish or Arab, living on either side of the so-called “green line”, and no matter their background or political affiliation. Ambulance drivers have to brave enormous difficulties to make their way to these horrific scenes, often putting themselves at risk of delayed second attacks designed to target rescue efforts. They also fulfil the role of any other ambulance service, rushing to the scenes of car accidents, to the aid of heart attack patients, and the like.

Magen David Adom is the victim of a senseless campaign itself, to keep it out of International Red Cross/Red Crescent for purely arbitrary reasons – namely that the Jewish magen david is not an “acceptable” symbol, unlike the Christian cross or the Muslim crescent. Recently, the American Red Cross has come out in support of MDA and hopefully this isolation will end soon. On the Canadian side, a spat between CMDA and the CCRA has been resolved, allowing the organisation to keep its much-deserved charitable status in Canda.

So please mosey on over to Meryl Yourish and donate to Blogathon 2003. Israel desperately needs ambulances. Let’s help get them one.

The incomparable Meryl Yourish is raising money for Magen David Adom. Her goal – along with bloggers Lair and Michele – is to raise $60,000 to donate a brand-new ambulance to Israel. Check it out and give generously!

Pettigrew to communists: you’re wrong, I’m right:

The stubborn opponents of globalization are living in the past while governments fight to remove barriers that punish the poor, International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew said Friday.

Protesters are planning to conduct several marches in an attempt to disrupt a three-day World Trade Organization meeting that begins in Montreal on Monday.

But Pettigrew warned them they won’t succeed against tight security.

“If they want to stop us, fine, good luck,” Pettigrew told a news conference.

“I trust the police of Montreal but they (protesters) should bear the responsibility that what they’re trying to do is really to screw the African cotton farmers and the African HIV victims as well.”

Somehow I doubt the WTO protestors will be scared off by that.

Mike Silverman recalled a post he wrote about a year ago about the difference between legitimate criticism of Israel and antisemitism. I agree with him that it’s “pretty damn good”.