http://frontpagemag.com/2013/steven-plaut/time-to-annex-judea-and-samaria-2/ In a few months it will be the twentieth anniversary of the signing of the “Oslo Accord” on the White House lawn. In that signing, Yassir Arafat, on behalf of the so-called “Palestinian Liberation Organization,” committed himself and his “people” to conduct negotiations with Israel that would lead to a peaceful resolution of the […]
http://www.jidaily.com/23282?utm_source=Jewish+Ideas+Daily+Insider&utm_campaign=26a8d6e12e-Insider&utm_medium=email Shut out of prestigious colleges in north-east America, Jewish academics fleeing wartime Europe found refuge in black colleges—as a forthcoming exhibit in Philadelphia reveals. In Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, an exhibition aptly opening on Martin Luther King Day will highlight a historical moment of mutual respect and cooperation between the African […]
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2376/The-Fox-Effect-Pt-4.aspx Last night, Bill O’Reilly devoted his “Impact Segment” to the Silence of the Non-Fox Media on the Gore-Al Jazeera deal. As noted in the past week of coverage at this website, Fox has been covering the deal with righteous, if micro-targeted indignation (Al Gore, Hypocrite) while overlooking choice hypocrisy (and worse) on its own […]
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=7080&hp=1
WHERE DOES A SPITTING CONTEST GET ISRAEL OR THE US? ISRAELIS HAVE WEIGHED IN HEAVILY ON HAGEL ON OBAMA ETC. I SAY “JUST SHUT UP AND KEEP BUILDING’…..RSK
Likud politicians attack U.S. President Barack Obama over his remarks to journalist Jeffrey Goldberg • “This has the fingerprints of the Left all over it, Obama is blatantly meddling in the elections” • According to the article, Obama believes “Netanyahu is moving his country down a path toward near-total isolation.”
The White House is not denying a report that President Barack Obama repeatedly said that “Israel doesn’t know what its own best interests are,” POLITICO reported Tuesday.
White House spokesman Tommy Vietor, in a statement to POLITICO on Tuesday, did not confirm or deny that Obama made the comment “or what was allegedly discussed in private meetings.”
“The president has been clear in stating what he believes is a realistic basis for successful negotiations, and we will continue to base our efforts on that approach,” Vietor said. “He has also consistently stated that the U.S. commitment to Israel’s security is unwavering, and he has backed up this commitment with tangible action.”
Sources close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday brushed off Obama’s critical remarks, as published in an article by Jeffrey Goldberg on Bloomberg News.
“The prime minister will continue to protect the national interests of the State of Israel, and will not make any compromises that will undermine the security of Israeli citizens,” one Netanyahu associate said.
http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/novelists-view-world/2013/jan/16/salinger-roth-hemingway-and-wilderness-writing/#.UPc42p3yzX0.facebook
WASHINGTON, DC, January 16, 2013 – Philip Roth has quit writing and nobody knows exactly why though I can guess. Salinger wrote only for himself, for his own pleasure, and considered getting published a nuisance, a bother and an intrusion. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s last royalty check amounted to something like six dollars and change. He said, “Why am I doing all this writing. No one’s reading me.”
Hemingway was so unimpressed with his Pulitzer, his Nobel, his wine, his women, his fame, his books waiting to get written, that he committed suicide.
John Kennedy Toole (“A Confederacy of Dunces”) won his Pulitzer too late. He kept getting rejected and answered right back with his own suicide.
Dear world…How’s that for rejection!
Both a doctor and an auto mechanic (people I admire) marveled at the fact that some of us can turn emotions into prose.
I explained that we are all geniuses at something. The trick is to find out what it is.
Writing novels, as I do, is fun, and more than that, once the inspiration kicks in there is nothing compared to the exhilaration when the words begin to flow, and there is no stopping us once we get started. There is no choice but to write and as I have said plenty of times, you don’t choose writing, writing chooses you.
But that’s the writing itself that I’m talking about, and in that period when the going is good and the words (from above?) keep coming so fast that even the keyboard can’t keep up – in that period we are charmed and blessed. At these moments, as we write and lose track of time, we create a universe and discover continents. We become gods and kings.
In the publishing we turn ourselves over to our readers and trust that we will get a fair hearing. We don’t ask our readers to love us, only to understand that a novel is tender and precious and easily broken when trashed. We worked long and hard to get it done and deserve leniency for the effort alone – and for having the guts to stick our necks out where there may be multitudes waiting to do us harm.
This is an especially tricky time for writers. We find ourselves squarely into the teeth of a technology that permits anyone to comment on our work without telling us who they are, so that by remaining anonymous they enjoy a tyranny. Bygone writers faced their accusers.
All around I have been lucky with reviews though we don’t know what a new day will bring, but on getting published it has been a drag from day one, and yet there have been some astonishing successes, which only recently I have come to appreciate. I keep saying that every work of art is a failure because we never get it exactly right, but even so, sometimes we click and our books get praised, become bestsellers and get made into movies…and for that much I can vouch.
But generally all true writers – all true artists – are failures. We are dependant on the mercy of strangers.
I even wrote a novel about a novelist, his triumphs yes, but oh brother the rejections, the hardships, the bills. I knew what I was talking about.
I am reading the biography of David Lean the great director of “Lawrence of Arabia” and am astonished at his feelings of inadequacy even after scoring success after success. Even at the height of his fame Hemingway had trouble getting a press pass to cover World War II. Even after “The Catcher in the Rye” Salinger had to keep proving himself at The New Yorker. (Read Kenneth Slawenski’s fabulous bio on this.)
Today I have begun writing a new novel and I wonder if it’s worth the trouble. I keep hesitating as I consider my predecessors and about their weariness and despair and the uselessness of it all. Fitzgerald in “The Crack-Up” extended King Solomon’s despair in Ecclesiastes. All is futile and futility.
Readers will misunderstand, as is to be expected, but some will misunderstand the work purposely and viciously.
Once the work has been done and is out of your hands you have no say. Onward your readers become gods and kings. They, not you, interpret your work, and this is their duty in this, the final act of intimacy, more intimate than sex, this give-and-take between writer and reader.
Israel’s Response to Obama’s Criticism? Keep on Building by Annie Lubin http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/164253 It seems like the Israeli government responded in kind to a scathing report which circulated Tuesday about Washington’s frustration over construction in Judea and Samaria. The message they sent – keep on building. Sources close to Binyamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that the Prime […]
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3545/al-jazeera-extremism The Emir of Qatar, an absolute ruler, and Al Jazeera, have not covered the “Arab Spring” to advance democracy, but to support the Muslim Brotherhood, which is aligned with the Qatari regime. Al Jazeera has as its chief goal Muslim Brotherhood domination. Many Arab liberals and reformers were shocked by the sale of former […]
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/15/a-world-without-america/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly declared that “a world without America is not only desirable, it is achievable.” While that sentiment won’t be embraced in President Obama’s inaugural address next week, all other things being equal, it seems likely to be the practical effect of his second term. Of course, Iran’s regime seeks […]
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/john-perazzo/people-for-the-american-way-smears-michele-bachmann/print/
To read and order Frank Gaffney’s pamphlet, The Muslim Brotherhood in the Obama Administration, click here.
Last June, Rep. Michele Bachmann and four Republican colleagues sent letters to the Inspectors General at the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and State, asking them to investigate whether the Muslim Brotherhood—the ideological wellspring from which such terrorist outfits as al Qaeda and Hamas first emerged—might be gaining undue influence over high-level U.S. government officials. One letter, for instance, noted that Hillary Clinton‘s closest aide, her deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin, “has three family members … connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations.”
A few days ago, when Bachmann was reassigned to the House Select Committee on Intelligence, the left-wing activist group, People For the American Way (PFAW)—which had originally launched an unsuccessful petition drive to have the congresswoman removed from that Committee last year—decided to revive that effort. By PFAW’s telling, some 178,000 people have signed the petition thus far.
According to PFAW president Michael Keegan, Rep. Bachmann’s warnings amount to nothing more than a “smear campaign” of “baseless conspiracy theories” designed to ruin “the reputations of honorable public servants.” PFAW spokesman Drew Courtney accuses Bachmann of engaging in “reckless extremism” aimed chiefly at “making headlines and pandering to the Tea Party.” And PFAW’s online strategy manager, Ben Betz, derides Bachmann’s “Islamaphobic fear mongering” and her “disregard for honesty.” These accusations are entirely consistent with PFAW’s previous claims that “right-wing anti-Muslim activists,” filled with “anti-Muslim paranoia,” routinely “demoniz[e]” and “vilif[y]” members of the Islamic faith in an effort to stoke Americans’ “irrational fears.” Such conservative activists, says PFAW, “sanction and encourage [the] persecution” of Muslims while aiming to “prevent” them from “freely worshiping and practicing their religion.”
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/oliver-stones-distortion-of-the-eisenhower-era/print/
Editor’s note: The following is the fifth installment of a series of articles Frontpage is running in response to Oliver Stone’s revisionist documentary series, “The Untold History of the United States.” Frontpage will be reviewing each episode of the Stone series, exposing the leftist hateful lies about America and setting the record straight. Below is a review of Part 5 of the series.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower is responsible for transforming America into the imperialist global bully it supposedly is today, according to radical Hollywood fabulist Oliver Stone.
In the fifth episode of his multi-part revisionist assault on modern American history, Untold History of the United States, Stone argues that Eisenhower was a willing tool of greedy U.S. corporations and a warmonger who refused to make deals with a Soviet Union that was suing for peace.
Stone blames Eisenhower, the popular former five-star general who led the U.S. and its allies to victory in World War Two, for creating “a permanent war economy.” Essentially, Ike turned America into a high-tech modern-day Sparta, Stone claims, by permanently ramping up military expenditures. Of course to the extent that Eisenhower promoted high levels of defense spending he was only carrying on the policies of President Franklin Roosevelt. The Communist-loving director, known for palling around with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, could never forgive Eisenhower for deploying nuclear weapons that were aimed at Stone’s beloved USSR.
“Nuclear bombs were now the foundation of America’s empire and provided the new emperor, its president, with a mystical power that required more and more suffocating secrecy even if those powers went far beyond the original limits of executive power defined in the Constitution,” Stone says.
Of course the United States has never been an empire, but Stone’s Marxist worldview clouds his perception. Apart perhaps from its pursuit of “manifest destiny” and a few military adventures in the 1800s, when the U.S. has projected its power beyond its home territory it has eventually pulled back.
The U.S., unlike so many world powers, does not conquer other countries: it liberates them and then goes home. This has, understandably, given the U.S. a special moral standing in the community of nations and it certainly does not make the American president an emperor.
But Stone’s unpatriotic rant continues. America’s nuclear arsenal and the pricey infrastructure supporting it allowed the imperialistic U.S. to dominate the world for decades, he insists. “And although the bombs themselves were not expensive, the huge infrastructure was, requiring bases in the U.S. and abroad and enormous delivery systems by bomber, missile, aircraft carrier, and submarine.”
