Segacs’s World I Know

Watch for the newest craze to hit the blogosphere: Prisonblogging:

The prison blog of a New Zealand political activist jailed for the rare crime of sedition has outraged opposition politicians but corrections officials say it’s within the law.

After being jailed this month, Timothy Selwyn begun publishing the internet diary via an outside supporter and his latest entry gives an account of a jail-yard assault by prisoners on a fellow inmate.

He has also criticised the judge who sentenced him.

Something tells me this will wear thin pretty quickly. After all, once the novelty wears off, who will want to read about the daily life of a guy who spends most of his time locked in a cell?

Probably the same people who watch Big Brother.

Montreal’s hosting the first-ever OutGames. And Pauline has the scoop on the only people who seem to be offended, and on why:

Quebec agency offended by “Outgames”

Not by the existence of the event, a sort of gay and lesbian Olympics, but by the fact that organizers didn’t bother to give the name “Outgames” a French translation.

People unfamiliar with Quebec society might think I am making this up.

I am not.

Nope, not surprised at all. Pauline continues with a rant about the OLF that is pretty much what I would say about them. (Oh wait, I think I did. Yep.)

But what really gets me is this tidbit, linked to by Pauline at the end of her post:

But what IS news, and what brought this to my attention today, was this report:

Iranian Leader Bans Usage of Foreign Words

Way to go, Ahmadinejad, your repressive tactics have finally caught up with those of the Province of Quebec.

It’s refreshing to see that this language nonsense is the only controversy that the OutGames seem to be generating. Just another reason why I love Montreal so much. When I consider the very real problems of the rest of the world, I love how petty ours are in comparison.

By the way, I haven’t actually attended any of the OutGames events just yet, but it will be going on for a couple of weeks so I hope to make it to something-or-other. Downtown has been a lot of fun, though, in the leadup to the event. This is big from a tourism point of view, and it’s nice to see so many businesses getting into the spirit of things and flying rainbow flags or otherwise rolling out the welcome mat.

It’s also nice to see the influx of extremely fit, good-looking men, in town for the event… in particular, the three guys in Finland shirts walking down St-Denis this afternoon. (No, the point of the OutGames isn’t lost on me. But hey, a girl can look, right? No harm in a little eye candy.)

The Israeli blogosphere is already reacting to the Qana strike. Here is some of what is being said:

Allison smells a rat, sensing that not all is as it may seem:

I am waiting patiently for a logical explanation of how a building gets bombed between 12 midnight and 1 AM, remains full of people and then 7-8 hours later, collapses the next morning.

Dave asks the same question:

An IDF investigation has so far found that the building in Qana fell approximately eight hours after being hit by the IAF. Some possibilities being examined are:

Hizbullah explosives in the building were behind the explosion that caused the collapse

The rickety building remained standing for a few hours, but eventually collapsed.

And for something a little different, Sarah talks about what it’s like to mingle at a singles event during a war:

Just before the meal started, someone dropped a box with something heavy, such as silverware, and it came down with a crash. Everyone from the north jumped about six feet. Talk about being on edge. I felt so bad for them.

Then, as the meal began . . . well, normally the conversation between singles goes like this:
What’s your name?
Where do you live?
What do you do?

But this time, it was:
What’s your name?
Where do you live?
How many rockets have you been getting?
How many minutes of warning do you get?

Talk about surreal.

Well, Sarah, you know what they say about relationships that begin under tense circumstances…

Israel has agreed to temporarily suspend aerial bombardment of Lebanon for 48 hours, to permit “investigation” of today’s strike that killed dozens of civilians, including an estimated 37 children:

“Israel deeply regrets, is greatly saddened, by this attack on innocent civilians in Lebanon. Israel takes full responsibility and is going to start an open investigation to find out how this happened,” government spokeswoman Miri Eisin said.

Of course, this is a unilateral move. And Hezbollah will merely use the respite to re-arm and re-group.

But never mind all that. Never mind that Hezbollah deliberately targets civilians, while Israelis do their best to avoid doing so. Never mind that Hezbollah’s tactics of using civilians as human shields are designed to lead to exactly this kind of disaster.

The point is, it happened. And Israel must hold itself to a higher standard than a terrorist group. The fact that most of the criticism of Israel is unfounded or exaggerated can’t allow us to hide from the fact that no nation is infallible.

The general sentiment in reaction to what happened in Qana is understandably defensive. After all, the Israeli army had dropped leaflets warning civilians to leave. Hezbollah was using the spot as a missile launch site. There is no doubt that there ought to be ample justification. And yet… none of that matters. And the sooner the spin doctors realize that images of dead children will negate all their efforts, the sooner everyone can get past denial and onto reality. Israel is going to take more of a punishment on this one than it deserves… but to claim that it did nothing wrong is to walk around with blinders.

I wish to G-d that this had never happened. But it did. And it frightens me, because when Israel is right, it already pays too heavy a price. But when Israel is wrong, her enemies have long memories. And while my support for Israel is unwavering as ever, I – along with most Israelis – will not try to justify this one. And I am scared that the price Israel will have to pay for this blunder will be wholly “disproportionate” in the true sense of the word.

Israel’s attack on the UN Observer Post in Lebanon wasn’t – despite what Kofi Annan thinks – deliberate. But these attacks sure were:

Palestinian protesters stormed the main U.N. compound in Gaza City on Sunday during a demonstration against Israel’s bombing of southern Lebanon that killed around 60 civilians, witnesses and U.N. staff said.

Hundreds of members of the Islamic Jihad militant group, some throwing stones and others firing assault rifles, attacked the compound at the end of a rally, witnesses said.

At least five people were wounded, police said.

[ . . . ]

Witnesses in Gaza said extensive damage had been caused to the U.N. compound, from where the world body directs its relief and aid operations for the Gaza Strip’s 1.4 million people.

The attack came hours after thousands of Lebanese demonstrators attacked the U.N. headquarters in Beirut, smashing windows and ransacking offices.

Several thousand people massed outside the building in the center of the capital chanting “Death to Israel, death to America. We sacrifice our blood and souls for Lebanon.”

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!

Don’t count on a condemnation from Kofi Annan, though.

For those of you reading me through an aggregator, I finally got around to fixing my template tags. Post titles should show up properly from here on out.

I’ve read a lot of nonsensical analogies and analyses about the Israel-Lebanon war in the past couple of weeks. But I just had to highlight this editorial, written by a certain Marie Choi of Toronto, because it’s so ridiculous that it actually succeeded in making me laugh aloud:

I think the actions of Stephen Harper’s government leave Canadian children confused and bewildered when they compare political actions against the educational principles taught in this country.

The Canadian education system encourages our children to become citizens who respect justice, equity and multiculturalism. School boards place much importance on non-violence and co-operation.

My son tells me that school kids aren’t allowed to respond with physical violence even if other kids hit them – instead they are told to get a teacher or adult to intervene in these incidents. In the end, the troubled kids pay the consequences, but in a non-violent way.

In a similar vein, Harper’s views on the current crisis in the Middle East are completely contrary to school polices which emphasize avoiding violence and encouraging dialogue and discussion.

Because everyone knows that if Israel just complains to the teacher instead of hitting back, the teacher will send Hezbollah to the corner and then force it to apologize. </Sarcasm>

Something tells me that the problem lies not so much with Harper’s position on Israel, but with the policy of the schoolboards that – apparently – not only fail to teach any context whatsoever in their history classes, but also seemingly fail to teach kids anything about how the world really works.

This is the first tiny sliver of potentially good news to come out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in longer than I can remember:

From the crumbling riverside capital Kinshasa through to the thick jungles of the Congo river basin and the mist-shrouded peaks of the east, Democratic Republic of Congo was holding its first democratic polls in more than 40 years.

Over 4 million people have been killed in the DRC in the last decade alone in the deadliest war since World War II, amidst chaos and horrors unimaginable to most of us. It’s the world’s most criminally underreported mess, and is symptomatic of the Western press’s tendency to “write off” some regions of the world while focusing excessively on others.

Nobody who has been paying even cursory attention to the DRC lately will be naive enough to think that today’s elections will magically solve everything and usher in stability, peace and prosperity. But it’s a first step.

What on earth is there to say about this:

A woman was killed and five other women were wounded on Friday when a gunman opened fire at a Jewish organization in downtown Seattle that last weekend organized a rally in support of Israel.

A Seattle police spokesman said the gunman, who was thought to be acting alone, had been taken into custody but that authorities were “taking every precaution” in searching for explosives and additional suspects.

Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle Vice President Amy Wasser-Simpson told the Seattle Times in a story on its Web site that a man got through security at the building and shouted, “I’m a Muslim American; I’m angry at Israel,” then began shooting.

Police did not confirm the report and offered no immediate motive for the shooting. It was not clear if the shooter was specifically targeting women.

The whole thing is absolutely sickening.

There’s going to be a lot of talk about how this was “terrorism”, which, I suppose technically it was, but it doesn’t appear to be the work of any organized terror cell. Rather, it looks like it was a deranged lone gunman using politics as an excuse. Won’t make a difference to any of the shooting victims, of course. But before the facts of the story get lost in the coming media frenzy, let’s just take a deep breath and remember that.

Sadly, there will be those who celebrate this nutjob as a hero. That’s the sickest part of all.