RUTHFULLY YOURS

Let’s talk about phobias. Not about phobias such as arachnophobia, and ophidiophobia, and acrophobia, or even gynophobia.

A phobia, after all, is an intense, terrifying, and often debilitating, but legitimate or unreasoning fear of something or of doing something. An object is perceived, sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly, as something that poses a threat to one’s life or values. A phobia freezes one’s rational faculties and capacity for action; however, the suspension of one’s mind or capacity to act itself can prove to be genuinely perilous. A phobia is rooted in a fear or hatred of the thing.

A friend remarked when I let her know the subject of this column:

The hallmark of phobias is that they are impervious to rational examination. That’s one reason it’s used as a pejorative by manipulators, to convey the idea of an irrational hatred and aversion. For a Muslim to acknowledge that there might be reasons for such dislike opens the door to questions of what it is about Islam that might cause it. Even “bigotry” invites debate. But phobia — there’s nothing to be done but for the blameless victim to be protected from such inexplicable malice. The “phobe” must be silenced and immobilized like a raving maniac in a Victorian madhouse.

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Preventing hospital infections. Another Israeli company is countering the risk of contracting infections in hospital. Nano-Textiles coats hospital textiles (bed linen and clothing) with nano-particles of Zinc and Copper oxides that kill even antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Nano-Textiles plans to raise $3 million on Wall Street.
http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-nano-textile-files-to-raise-3m-on-wall-street-1001007812
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16xT2BW-bpw

More good news for brain tumor patients. (Thanks to Israel21c) Here is a new report about the TTFields scalp device from Israel’s Novocure that slows the growth of brain tumors. (Previously reported in Nov 2014).
http://www.israel21c.org/headlines/wearable-device-slows-brain-tumor-growth/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL-3JkQOsPg

New devices to diagnose pneumonia. (Thanks to Israel21c) Two Israeli startups have received Israeli Government grants to develop their products for diagnosing pneumonia. RespiDX’s Respimometer has sensors to measure breathing. NanoVation-GS’s stick-on patch has a film with a nano-sensor to measure respiration.
http://www.israel21c.org/headlines/catching-pneumonia-before-it-kills/

Accurate injections. Israeli biotech SteadyMed has developed a disposable patch pump delivery system to administer medicines safely and accurately into the body. SteadyMed plans to raise $55 million on NASDAQ.
http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-steadymed-therapeutics-files-for-55m-nasdaq-ipo-1001007954
http://www.steadymed.com/technology/

Crowdfunding helps solve rare disease mystery. Crowdfunding – funds from a large number of individuals over the Internet – have enabled researchers at Tel Aviv University to conduct Whole Exome Sequencing and identify the genetic mutation responsible for mental retardation and severe developmental delays in children.
https://www.aftau.org/weblog-medicine–health?=storyid4704=2160ncs4704=3
http://raregenomics.org/#httpraregenomicsorg

Joint medical research with UK. The Britain Israel Research and Academic Exchange partnership (BIRAX) has pledged £3.2 million of funding for eight joint stem cell research projects to develop therapies for diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson’s disease, liver disease and Multiple Sclerosis. UK Prime Minister David Cameron said the research “has the potential to change the lives of hundreds of millions of people.”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/a-boost-for-israel-uk-tech-ties/#

The BBC’s Malcolm Brabant says police tracked the gunman down using CCTV
Police in Copenhagen say they have shot dead a man they believe was behind two deadly attacks in the Danish capital hours earlier.

Police say they killed the man in the Norrebro district after he opened fire on them.

It came after one person was killed and three police officers injured at a free speech debate in a cafe on Saturday.

In the second attack, a Jewish man was killed and two police officers wounded near the city’s main synagogue.

Police say video surveillance suggested the same man carried out both attacks. They do not believe any other people were involved.

Today’s deadly assault by a masked gunman who sprayed more than 200 rounds of automatic fire into a Café in Northern Copenhagen. The exchange of gunfire by the gunmen with Danish security police took the life of one 40 year old man at the Free Speech, Blasphemy and Islam event where both Swedish Artist Lars Vilks the honoree and the French Ambassador were present. They were unhurt in the attack. Three security police were injured in the shootout at the Krudttønden Café. :Listen to this BBC recording of a speaker at the Krudttønden Café when gunfire sent everyone to the floor. According to a later reports from AFP, Reuters and BBC:

A second ,perhaps related, incident, close to Copenhagen’s main synagogue in the city center, saw a 55 year old Jewish man shot in the head, who subsequently died of wounds, and two policemen were injured, police said in a statement early Sunday. The BBC reported “early on Sunday, police said they had shot dead a man who opened fire on them near a railway station in the neighbourhood of Noerrebro where they had been keeping an address under observation.”

If you are a student of ancient military history — or actually an action movie buff — you know the significance of the number 300. It is a number associated with a brave stand made by Spartan warriors led by their king, Leonidas. They stood against a numerically superior force but wrought much violence and death against the invading Persian Army of Xerxes, until they were betrayed. Could it be a modern day episode of the brave 300 playing out before our eyes?

In case you haven’t heard, unlike the characterization of President Obama on Wednesday, ISIS is not on the defense and their morale is certainly not low. ISIS has taken a western Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi not far from Ramadi. Nearby al-Baghdadi is an Iraqi base, al-Asad, where 300 Marines are training Iraqi forces.

It’s an appealing delusion, the notion that the much vaunted, but little seen, Religion of Peace might transform itself from within. Alas, both history and contemporary context say all the West can do is smile at those who would coexist while standing ready to smite those who do not.

In a generally excellent article in The Spectator Theo Hobson tackled the jarring new tagline of the center-right: “Islam needs a Protestant Reformation.” Hobson is exactly right in pointing out that this narrative “implies that, once upon a time, Christianity was in conflict with healthy political values, but learned to change its ways,” and points out how “Christianity didn’t [in fact] adapt to modernity: it inadvertently made modernity, by trying to purify itself.”

But Mr. Hobson loses the plot when he expresses doubt that Islam could do the same:

… liberal values already exist, and are firmly seen as external, or alien, to Islam. To say that freedom of religion and freedom of speech are central principles of Islam just doesn’t ring true: we all know that they have been most fully formulated and institutionalized, over centuries, in the West.

Now hold on a minute. Are we saying that political liberalism was inherent in Christianity, and only in the process of reformation did that come to the fore? Unlike most American conservatives I don’t use the “L-word” as an insult – a habit I probably picked up in Australia, like wearing sunscreen in the middle of winter. But this reading is inextricably bound up with a Protestant interpretation of Christian history. As an Anglican, that doesn’t particularly irk me. But it doesn’t make for an objective exercise in comparative religions.

Israel-bashing conference is due to take place from 17-19 April, organised by the Law School at the University of Southampton.
The conference is entitled “International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism”.
A look at the Law School’s website here reveals that the organising committee of the conference includes Professor Oren Ben-Dor (an ex-pat Israeli who has a history of Israel-bashing pro-BDS activity), Professor Professor Suleiman Sharkh (whose speciality is evidently not law but electrical engineering), and Ms. Juman Asmail (a Palestinian student activist). American Professor George Bisharat is also seminally involved.

Announces the website:
‘This conference will be the first of its kind and constitutes a ground-breaking historical event on the road towards justice and enduring peace in historic Palestine. It is unique because it concerns the legitimacy in International Law of the Jewish state of Israel. Rather than focusing on Israeli actions in the 1967 Occupied Territories, the conference will focus on exploring themes of Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism; all of which are posed by Israel’s very nature. The conference aims to explore the relatedness of the suffering and injustice in Palestine to the foundation and protection of a state of such nature and asks what role International Law should play in the situation. It will take place over a whole weekend and will involve leading thinkers: scholars from law, politics, philosophy, theology, anthropology, cultural studies history and other connected disciplines Key speakers and various panels will diagnose the legal position with regard to the nature of Israel thus enabling a much needed platform for scholarly debate and disagreement.’

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2015/02/on-south-african-campus-evil-call-for.htmlWell might Cape Town author and columnist Max du Preez tweet the message at left.

Well might others share his outrage.
From the Durban University of Technology in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, comes a grotesque example of apartheid with a twist.
Reports a South African newspaper:

Jewish students at the Durban University of Technology (DUT) who supported the State of Israel should be kicked out, the Students Representative Council (SRC) has demanded.

And this applies to students who are sponsored by the Israeli government. The demands, sent to the DUT management, have shocked and angered Jewish organisations.

The vice-chancellor of the university, Professor Ahmed Bawa, said the demand by the SRC and the Progressive Youth Alliance that the DUT deregister all Jewish students “is totally unacceptable”.

The Secretary of the SRC, Mqondisi Duma, said: “As the SRC, we had a meeting and analysed international politics. We took the decision that Jewish students, especially those who do not support the Palestinian struggle, should deregister.”

We live in a free country and cherish the free press. And yes it’s OK for the media to ask whatever they want, unless your name is Obama and then you get a pass on all of those tricky questions from your past.

Governor Scott Walker was in London on some Wisconsin trade mission. It’s the kind of trip that a lot of governors make, especially when you are running a state that is suddenly very appealing to investors.

During the trip, Gov Walker got a question about “evolution” and everyone seems to have an opinion about it.

This is what Byron York wrote about it:

“Up until that moment, the story of the London trip might have been Walker’s deference to Obama.

Instead, it became, in the words of an Associated Press headline, “Wisconsin Gov. Walker Refuses to Answer Evolution Question.”

Walker’s political team back home scrambled to fix things, releasing a statement saying he believes “faith and science are compatible.” But remarkably, for a man who has run for high office, Walker didn’t have a ready-to-repeat answer on evolution. His staff didn’t even know his views before drafting the statement.

WASHINGTON—Iran’s paramount political figure, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has responded to overtures from President Barack Obama seeking better relations by sending secret communications of his own to the White House.

The Iranian cleric wrote to Mr. Obama in recent weeks in response to an October presidential letter that raised the possibility of U.S.-Iranian cooperation in fighting Islamic State if a nuclear deal is secured, according to an Iranian diplomat. The supreme leader’s response was “respectful” but noncommittal, the diplomat said.

A senior White House official declined to confirm the existence of that letter. But it comes as the first details emerge about another letter Mr. Khamenei sent to the president early in his first term.

That letter outlined a string of abuses that in the supreme leader’s view the U.S. had committed against the Iranian people over the past 60 years, according to current and former U.S. officials who viewed the correspondence.

The White House official confirmed that the president received that letter in 2009, but declined to comment on the content of any presidential correspondence.

Neither the White House nor the Iranian government has officially confirmed any correspondence between the two. Iranian officials, in recent months, though, have told Tehran’s state media that some of Mr. Obama’s letters were answered, without specifying by whom.