Survival and Beyond Eliad Moreh survived the July 31 bombing of the Hebrew University cafeteria. The friend she was sitting with, Diego Ladowski, perished in the blast. Diego was my father's student and was in the process of wrapping up his graduation requirements when he was killed. The faculty awarded his degree posthumously. Moreh's essay on terrorism, which honors Diego, appears in the current issue of the Harvard Israel Review
Some people in Israel and abroad place terrorism in the context of the political conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. To place terrorism in any context is to avoid confronting its horror and inexcusable nature. What cause can justify the deliberate murder of as many human beings as possible? What kind of a people could officially appeal to terrorism as a legitimate weapon in their desire for statehood? And this is all the more repugnant given that the Palestinians were offered an independent state in the frame of the Oslo agreement.Read the whole thingThere is no explanation for terrorism. I tell you out of my crying body, out of my screaming heart and my wounded mind, I tell you that nothing, absolutely nothing justifies such pain. And no reason in the world can excuse the criminals who perpetrate such inhuman deeds. There are times in history when one has to condemn evil. The facts are so horrible that they do not leave a place for understanding, because to understand means to justify. And I have to warn you, trying to justify such barbarous acts makes you become morally complicit in them.
The BBC has a story today on indicted terrorist Marwan Barghouti, with the perhaps unintentionally ironic headline "Popular Palestinian calls for change". The Beeb doesn't say why Barghouti might be popular (among Palestinians). But one can only assume that it has something to do with the 26 murders he has been charged with organizing and with the fact that unlike many other Palestinian leaders who are reevaluating the diplomatic value of terrorism, Barghouti wants to continue the "military" struggle.
Osama Bin Laden is also openly popular in some parts of the world, including in Mombasa. Add Mombasa to the list of formerly popular Islamic vacation hotspots, along with Bali and Egypt
Who can really sort out the He said / She said story of Berkeley law dean John Dwyer's alleged sexual harassment incident. But there's a revealing quote in today's San Francisco Chronicle story
Boalt law professor Linda Hamilton Krieger, who teaches employment discrimination including sexual harassment, said the California Education Code requires a university to take "affirmative steps to prevent harassment."You know what, Prof. Krieger, by the time you get to be a professor of employment law, "Nobody spoon-fed me the answer" is no longer a valid excuse. If you don't have the initiative to obtain your own employer's sexual harassment policy for yourself, then you're obviously so much of a whiny helpless loser that you shouldn't bother to leave the house in the morning, let alone pretend to train the nation's future employment lawyers. And in case you still need help with this, the document you're looking for is available on the web, right here."There are some pretty specific requirements. I have never received any training at all. I've never gotten a document that contains the university's policy," said Krieger, who has been at Boalt since 1996.
Certain stingy and economics challenged commuters continue to complain about BART's new paid reserved parking system
"Where are the poor people supposed to park?" asked one woman in a maroon Acura Integra in the Orinda lot.Uh, poor people don't drive Acura Integras, nor do they live in Orinda. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 03, 2002 01:02 PM
There's nobody but white people in Lafayette and the Lamorinda area. I was there with my friend one day, I saw only one minority, and he was an Asian, and he was wearing a bright orange vest, and he was picking up trash by the side of the road.
She lives out in the boonies in a white city and pays taxes to support the excellent high schools in the area for the white kids to attend. Because of her decision to live away from minorities, their children are denied her tax dollars.
She sounds like a typical American "progressive." Liberals are always concerned about something, but their actions are 180 degrees away from what they think is right. They want government to force people to be good, because that's the only way they'll do the right thing.
Posted by: Michael Levy on December 4, 2002 09:21 PMInteresting set of posts, and I've commented a bit on the pricing policy at Cold Spring Shops (use link). Your fear that the permit area will have empty spaces is relatively minor, if the sellers overbook. But the coexistence of a permit with a free area is a subsidy to people who regularly catch the early trains. They have no incentive to buy permits. Chicago's Metra does it a bit differently.
Posted by: Stephen Hopkins Karlson on December 5, 2002 09:32 PM