All right. I remember how one of Hasidic Rebbele's joke's went like this: "G-d must love idiots, He made so many of them!".
But I think this is taking it a little far, don't you?
LONDON - Nearly half of Britons in a poll said they had never heard of Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp in southern Poland that became a symbol of the Holocaust and the attempted genocide of the Jews.
The results of the survey conducted by the BBC were released Thursday, as Britain's public broadcaster announced it will show a new series next January to mark the 60th anniversary of the concentration camp's liberation.
"We were amazed by the results of our audience research," said Laurence Rees, a producer on the series, "Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution."
"It's easy to presume that the horrors of Auschwitz are engrained in the nation's collective memory, but obviously this is not the case," Rees said.
The survey found that 45 percent of those surveyed had not heard of Auschwitz. Historians estimate that anywhere from one million to three million people, about 90 percent of them Jews, were killed there.
Among women and people younger than 35, 60 percent had never heard of Auschwitz, despite the recent popularity of films such as "Schindler's List," "Life is Beautiful" and "The Pianist," which depict the atrocities of the Holocaust.
"The name Auschwitz is quite rightly a byword for horror, but the problem with thinking about horror is that we naturally turn away from it," Rees said.
The BBC said the research was based on a nationally representative postal survey of 4,000 adults 16 and older.
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I'm sorry for what I am about to say but there is only so much my tolerance can stand.. Those idiots, those fools! I mean, I realised a very long time ago that the average person is very ignorant when it comes to history, geography and just basically facts concerning science and the world, but this is too much, just too much. I'm lost for words.
Okay, so good news, and bad news.
The good news is that a found another Scandinavian friend of Israel. Again, a Swede. A blogger called Simulev. The bad news is the fact that this blog tackles biases is Swedish media. And why is this bad? Well, because it's.. necessary...
Okay so here's a question for my beloved readers, since you guys are sooo intelligent.
I was born on April 10th 1979. What is the date in the Hebrew calendar?
I tried searching online, but all I came up with were dating services, go figure.
Well, this was in a way predictable. Marwan Barghouti has changed his twisted little murderous mind, and has decided to enter the race for palestinian presidency. (Yes! I still write "palestinian" with a small "p", despite the complaints I've received).
Imprisoned Palestinian Enters Presidential Race
ERUSALEM, Dec. 1 - Marwan Barghouti, the fiery Palestinian leader imprisoned in Israel, reversed an earlier decision and entered the race for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority tonight. The surprise move instantly transformed the Jan. 9 vote into a competitive election that is potentially divisive for the Palestinians.
Mahmoud Abbas, 69, is the official candidate of the dominant Fatah movement, and it appeared he would face only token opposition in the campaign to replace Yasir Arafat, who died on Nov. 11.
But with the window for the registration of candidates closing at midnight, Mr. Barghouti's wife, Fadwa, returned from a prison visit and announced that her husband would run for president despite his incarceration in the southern Israeli town of Beersheva.
"After receiving hundreds of letters of support from cadres and ordinary people, he authorized me to register him," said Mrs. Barghouti, who spoke at 9 p.m. outside the Central Elections Commission in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "Marwan is running in solidarity with the uprising and out of loyalty to President Arafat."
Israel has made it clear it has no intention of releasing Mr. Barghouti, who was convicted in May of involvement in the killings of five Israelis, and received five life sentences.
His candidacy raises a host of complications at a time when the Palestinians are attempting to establish a new leadership and both Israelis and Palestinians are reassessing their tortured relationship after four years of almost daily violence.
"Barghouti is a charismatic leader and many Palestinians see him as the man who orchestrated the current intifada," or uprising, said Mokhaimer Abusada, a political science professor at Al Azhar University in Gaza City. "But what will happen if he wins the election while he's in prison? I don't think anyone really knows the answer to that."
Marwan Barghouti's wife, Fadwa, filed papers today for the fiery Palestinian leader to enter the race for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority. (Making a woman do it? Oh wait he can't do it himself.. Or anything else, for that matter...).
(Look how elegantly she wears that keffiah! Dashing!)
One of my greatest weaknesses is curiosity. It has now taken over, once again, and this time in our blogoverse. I found an amazing blog called "Ice Viking". At first I found that a little offensive. I thought to myself: Hey that's me, how dare he...! But then I got over it. Ice Viking is the blog of a pro-Israel man/woman (it remains a mystery) from Sweden. It's a very good, direct and informative blog. And well, the blogger is from Sweden. That's pretty unique. Swedes are generally anti-Israel.
The trouble the with Ice Viking is that he has no contact info, no personal info, no comment system, nothing, so I am not able to find out more about this person.
So Ice Viking, who are you, and how do I get in touch with you? Does anybody know?
My exam period starts tomorrow, when a 3 day "home exam" in "The ethnography of Oceania" begins. I had a shock in today's class when I realised how I've been neglecting the reading for the much discussed 'Theories in anthropology II'. This is why I've been reading like a maniac today (like every other day these days). The good thing about having read Bourdieu is that it makes you capable of reading and comprehending everything else really fast.
Blogging will be a little more limited for the next 2 weeks, since I won't have time to pay attention to what is happening in the world outside of anthropology. So please keep me informed, and wish me luck! :-)
I was delighted to find an interesting website called Catholic Friends of Israel. More of those, please!!
Another thing I'm wondering about right now (and a question for the academic reader) is the following:
Did Bourdieu actually understand his own work himself, or did he just take drugs, write a bunch of nonsense, and then end up having scholars worldwide pretend to make sense of what he's saying?
Or have I just not understood him yet?
November 29, 2004: Anniversary of the UN vote on Resolution 181
Today is the anniversary of the UN vote on resolution 181, which approved the partition of the western part Palestine into a predominately Jewish state and a predominately Arab state. (It is vital to recall that the UN partition plan referred to western Palestine, to underscore that in 1921 the eastern part was ripped off the Jewish National Home by the British Government and handed over to the then Emir Abdullah.)
The partition plan was approved by 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions.
The 33 countries that cast the “Yes” vote were: Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Byelorussia, Canada, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, Liberia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Sweden, Ukraine, Union of South Africa, USSR, USA, Uruguay, Venezuela. (Among other countries, the list includes the US, the three British Dominions, all the European countries except for Greece and the UK, but including all the Soviet-block countries.)
The 13 countries that chose the Hall of Shame and voted “No” were: Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Yemen. (Ten of these are Moslem countries; Greece has the special distinction of being the only European country to have joined the Hall of Shame.)
The ten countries that abstained are: Argentina, Chile, China, Colombia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Honduras, Mexico, United Kingdom, Yugoslavia.
On November 30, 1947, the day following the vote, the Palestinian Arabs murdered six Jews in a bus making its way to Jerusalem, and proceeded to murder another Jew in the Tel-Aviv - Jaffa area. This was a prelude to a war that claimed the lives of 6,000 Jews, or 1% of the total Jewish population in 1948. This toll is the per capita equivalent of today’s Canada losing 300,000 lives, or the US losing 3,000,000. The object of the war, launched by the Arabs in the former Palestine and the armies of Egypt, Tansjordan, Syria and Lebanon (with help from other Arab countries), was to "throw the Jews into the sea". In addition, immediately after the UN vote, Arabs attacked their Jewish neighbours in a number of Arab countries, the murders in Syria’s Aleppo being the best known.
Bruised and bleeding, Israel prevailed nonetheless. May our sister-democracy thrive and flourish
All right. Can anybody tell me what the word "hexis" means?
This is not a trick question. It's in an article I'm reading, and no online dictionary appears to recognise it.
ERUSALEM, Dec. 1 - Marwan Barghouti, the fiery Palestinian leader imprisoned in 
