Your iPhone Questions Answered

Will the new iPhone get me laid?

No.

Will the new iPhone make my enemies’ heads explode with the touch of a button?

No.

If I hold the new iPhone up to a mirror while using video chat, will I be zapped into a cosmic vortex?

Singularity Transposition is only available in Europe; standard data rates apply.

Will the new iPhone get me laid?

We said no.

Will the new iPhone get me laid if I look like Jon Hamm?

A stapler will get you laid if you look like Jon Hamm.

How does the new iPhone compare to the new Droid?

The Droid won’t get you laid, either.

If I went back in time with the new iPhone, could I save JFK?

Maybe if you tied it to the back of his head.

How long does the battery last on the new iPhone?

Long enough to execute a three-quarters transform into a DeLorean; full transforms require the optional 1.21-gigawatt adapter.

Will the new iPhone get me laid?

No, no, no. But the new high-resolution Retina display might help in a pinch.

Will the new iPhone allow me to tether my laptop on the go without rooting it and installing a custom-coded wifi networking app with 256-bit AES encryption over SSL to prevent man-in-the-middle session hijacking?

And you wonder why the new iPhone won’t get you laid.

67 Comments

I think Steve Jobs hates sex. The new iPhone can’t get you laid and it won’t play iPorn so what’s the ipoint?

Wait a minute. The iPhone won’t get me laid. The Droid won’t get me laid. What the fuck am I doing with this iWank app in my pants?

@IanJ: Try iStroke. And yes we want pictures.

Hmm. Guess I’ll wait for the next model.

It depends on what your definition of laid is. Tonight I have wifi in the tropics. Which means I could get “laid” even with my current phone.

If you were to purchase an iPhone (or Droid or Blackberry) for a beautiful, brilliant but unemployed young lady, it might get you laid.

@Dodgerblue: You’ll all be happy to know that I’m not above pimping out my friends.

have we had a Helen Thomas post? I am curious what we think of that here.

@Capt Howdy: Mixed. She was great for years, went off on a mental walkabout lately.

@TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ: I knew there was something missing yet in our Stinque world: offers to trade sexual favors for high-tech gadgetry. Thanks for closing that loop!

@TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ: I’d make that lovely lady pretty unhappy if I bought her a phone and then left her with the $100+ per month fees. It’s not the purchase price, it’s the maintenance.

@IanJ: I thought the expression was: “it’s not the meat, it’s the mo-oh-shun.”

@IanJ: I believe you have identified the difference between a prostitute and a concubine: maintenance costs.

@Mistress Cynica: The world suddenly makes so much more sense to me. Although I already had a fair sense of what a “sugar daddy” was, and this sounds like that kind of a situation.

@Capt Howdy:

howdy, you have made me very happy by asking that. no one here seems to care that an iconic glass ceiling smasher, an american journalist , and a woman, when women weren’t fashionable in politics, not afraid to ask the questions where others feared to tread. i greatly admired her for a very long time.
her remark was so ignorant and outrageous she sounded like a sound bite from a sarah palin supporter. or an aryan. pick your idiot.
to suggest the jews “go back to germany and poland?” this from a respected worldly informed source?
i’ve been steaming at you stinquers for treating this as a throw away, and not the monumental tell this woman let loose about her anti-semitism.
even jon stewart gave this story his opening 10 minutes.
israel bashing is common, hell–much of it by me. but i defy anyone to walk through the childrens holocaust memorial in jerusalem and not go insane by her remark. you know what they said to me at the brief meeting after all my “aliyah” papers were approved? no, not mazel tov.
they said “Welcome Home.” whatever clusterfuck it may be, i can assure you, the israeli’s will literally all die–Fighting– before they give up that land.
fuck you helen thomas. and thank you howdy, had you not brought it up, i had nothing to say. i thought i knew ya’ll. i thought you wouldn’t let the gestapo cart me off. but i see, racism applies to everyone else, because the teeny weeny handful of jews on the planet who have contributed more to the betterment of society and culture than any group on the planet, inspire jealousy, not pity.. i am able to write this by happy accident of my grandparents leaving berlin when they did. my grandfather invented surgical tools and procedures still being used today. and for this he was doomed to a gas chamber. and now, surrounded by enemies who want them all dead, they continue to bring enlightenment to the world from the little strip of sand where it blooms with agriculture, medicine, technology, the arts, etc. how many billion arabs and iranians and helen thomas’? lots. and all together they haven’t done anything as useful as one tiny hated ancient tribe, hated.
for what? for what? for what?

@baked: They killed Christ.

Don’t you throw things at me. Christianity isolated Jews as the Roman Empire morphed into the Holy Roman Empire. Of course, factually it’s nonsense but that was the church’s position. Then it was found that Jews could be used to do things Christians couldn’t because of religious prohibition: aka credit. Sidebar: the OH remembers being a schoolboy in Manchester and how the jewish boys (Manchester had at the time a large jewish population) would all walk home together because the Christian kids, while yelling ‘Christ killer’ would beat up singletons.

I don’t understand the Helen Thomas thing. I don’t understand how she could think something so stupid and if she’s thought that all along. Aren’t her parents Lebanese? But still. You really would hope she’d know better. The condemnation has been swift and severe; this will be her legacy. Interestingly, when Ann Coulter declares that Jews are merely broken Christians and they should all convert she gets away with it. But of course what Thomas said was revolting. The aspect of it I don’t understand is its stupidity.

We’re sephardim here which is different in accent. My sister-in-law is Viennese who escaped because of her mother’s resourcefulness. My father-in-law was in the process of moving the family back to England from Jamaica when he didn’t like the way things were shaping up and got everyone out, which is why the OH grew up in the West Indies. When I was in Prague recently I was very moved by the way the five synagogues have been turned into one large memorial to the Jews of Prague, a very ancient and in its time very honored population. I didn’t know that the jewish quarter became autonomous and had its own government and laws. Or that it had been founded around 900. Worth a visit. Most of that population were taken to Terezienstadt. In one of the synagogues they created a memorial to the children which is heartbreaking because of the very ordinariness of the items exhibited. The paintings that today would have been stuck on a fridge with a magnet become overwhelmingly meaningful because of circumstance.

If I haven’t remarked on Thomas it’s because I take it seriously not that I don’t care about it or its significance. My last bout of indignation here caused me to be rude to people I had no right to be rude to – we’re only casual acquaintances after all, though there are nights when noje fills my dreams – since when I am avoiding topics, like oil spills and HT, which might provoke outbursts of harshness on my part.

Sorry you have been given the impression that I, for one, don’t care about it. I do. We have family in Israel. The OH’s parents are buried there. When I lost most of my own family his were quick to include me and I love them very much. You are of course right about the astonishing contributions made by what has only ever been a small population.

@Benedick:
benedick dear. part of my rage is caused by the fact i truly admired her, and am more shaken than i was by mel gibson.
thanks for weighing in, i just wanted dialogue for such a disgrace.

re christ killer. one last time, the rabbi’s and the romans were in cahoots and both wanted the hippie rabblerouser whacked. but that’s only if you want to go with historical and scientific evidence.

i love your post as usual. kisses and bewbie hugs.

i apologize for the harshest thing i ever posted. i love you guys.
was feeling dis–A—POINTED !!!!

@baked: I actually read the gospels for the first time a few years back and was very struck by the way that Matthew and, I think John, put Jesus in perspective. J declares repeatedly that his mission is to temper the harshness of the mosaic law with love, he is aware that this is blasphemous, and predicts that the religious establishment will go after him for blasphemy. Which they do. He plays a very risky game of daring them to try to outwit him – reason for woman taken in adultery when he dares them to commit blasphemy (punishable by death) by claiming to be without sin. Finally, the Romans need to get rid of J and want the Jews to take him down. In a very surprising scene, the chief rabbi says to his colleagues in effect that if they go along with the Romans and sacrifice J the troublemaker they can save a hundred others. So they give in. I was very surprised when I read this having never been taught anything like it when a choirboy (banned from church for laughing and dopping hymnals off the balcony).

She sort of hit everyone in the face with what she said. I agree, the shock factor is high. I do wonder if perhaps she’s all there. She is 90, after all. I think it took everyone by surprise and really it’s so incomprehensible it’s hard to know what to make of it. Orly Taitz is more comforting. One can despise her quite easily. HT was someone admired, particularly through the Bush years when she asked questions no one else would. Makes it a little too close to the sudden failings and inexplicable blind-spots one experiences in one’s own life. So I’m told.

@Benedick:

i’m also disappointed to learn that i have to cross off YOUR attic.

the history is fascinating.
people really can’t handle the truth.

i’ve been so bummed, i couldn’t even get excited about my favorite lawyer/dentist. thanks for the tip: when outraged, it’s best to STFU here.
geez, i was carrying on. the filter between brain and mouth needs changing. it’s always faulty anyway.

@Benedick: I think that there is a lot of casual anti-semitism here, in the land of the free, home of the brave. “Casual” in the sense that people have it tucked away in their minds somewhere and tend not to be overt about it. Not that Members of the Tribe are immune from racism, for example, my late aunt talking about Black people.

@baked: I think you need to take a step back and breathe a bit before flying off the handle and accusing all of us here of being racists and anti-Semites because we didn’t respond strongly enough in your opinion to Helen Thomas and her idiotic rantings and ravings. You can say what you want and rant and rave all you want, but I find it rude for you to tell us that our failure to instantly rant and rave for you doesn’t mean we don’t care or that we are all a bunch of racists and anti-Semites. And if it’s any consolation, there has been discussion of her comment upstream a few days ago. Dig around if you want to find them.

The woman is old and senile, she lost her job over it, and it’s going to forever taint her legacy and her achievements. Her age doesn’t in the least excuse the breathtakingly obnoxious comment, nor does it explain it. But I think that Benedick’s point is well-taken, that it makes it hurt all the more given she was one of the few brave journalists willing to talk truth to power as Shrub set off in his Mideast misadventure and war.

And her comments are just as bad as crazy pants neo-Nazis and scumbags running around with Confederate flags. We could do five posts a day on nothing but the latest offensive racist comment by these outside-the-mainstream yahoos. She has trashed her legacy and put herself in the company of those thugs for the rest of her life.

Racism and anti-Semitism, like Dodger said, exists everywhere. We’re not ignoring it. I think we all call it out when it rears its ugly head. But we could spend 100% of our waking hours and our dreams fixating on it and becoming filled with fear, despair, and paranoia, or we can broaden our horizons and keep it in proper context and talk about other topics as well. I’d want to slit my wrists and give up on the world if I thought about nothing but the racism, sexism, inequality, and suffering in the world. When I have bouts of depression, I do slide into fixating on these things and that is not good. I spend enough time working on and seeing how fucked up this world is, as it is. Taking a break from thinking about it and talking about something else, or thinking about something else, or playing with a puppy or drinking a glass of wine doesn’t mean you don’t care. It means you’re human and need balance in your life.

So I apologize if my failure to comment more vociferously on Thomas or failure to create a dedicated thread to pissing on her makes you think that I’m an antiSemite or that I’m going to load you on the trains to Treblinka. I do care and I was offended and disgusted by what she said, but almost didn’t want to dignify it with more than the response I’d give to a guy driving around in a pick up truck with a confederate flag. Fucking scary morons are what they are.

When you are wondering what was in Helen Thomas’ mind, maybe it would help to consider that she’s a person who is almost twice the age of the nation of Israel. So, like, to her, Israel is some new innovation, an experiment which can still be halted. Not to mention, I mean, she’s old and batty.

It can get you laid if you have one of these these, a USB port and a power supply.

@SanFranLefty:
post partum depression?
i’m truly sorry for flying off the handle and saying ridiculous things to people i know in my heart to be on the side of the angels.
it’s hard being .01% of the world and knowing lunatics have wanted to kill me from the beginning of time. i’m truly sorry for being offensive, and i was. helen thomas’ age does not excuse her. her age is what allows her to say what she really thinks.
that helen thomas turns out to be a crazy moron is very disheartening.

@baked: As recently as a couple of weeks ago when the Catholic Church celebrated the Feast of the Pentecost, the following was part of the gospel during mass: “So when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.'” John 20:19.

@baked: I need to know about Bella. I’m just going to sit here and wait till there’s news.

Jeez! How bout dem Yanks! I never saw nothin like it. And such as.

@redmanlaw: Wonder where and when that detail was added and by whom.

@baked: “that helen thomas turns out to be a crazy moron is very disheartening.”

Agree 100%. And it makes you wonder what lurks in the minds of other seemingly rational or even progressive people.

On the other hand, I have some innate hope and belief (though people like her give me major pause) that as humans we are not just our worst action or our worst statement, that there still is some sort of shred of humanity within us and that except for the sickest of sociopaths, we are capable of rehabilitation. Then again, it seems society does its god damn best day in and day out to disabuse me of that sliver of hope that we’re better than our worse action. And of course some people do or say things that are so fucking terrible and egregious that I throw my hands up.

Me, I just try to live my life by the mantra of “Be the person your dog thinks you are.” If more people did that, I think this would be a way better place.

xoxo

and another time, we need to discuss how/what I should be doing to learn about our shared culture of the tribe, as it is only in the past year that I learned that my great-grandfather changed his name and changed and hid his religion due to terrible anti-Semitism and never told any of his family here in the states that he was Jewish, thus denying us of learning of or living in that culture. It knocked a lot of my family members for a loop, the only thing I could compare their reaction to is that of adoptees who find their biological parents. A little piece of you lands in your lap and explains things but is full of mystery…

@SanFranLefty:

i want to explain myself better.
we live to laugh at powerful people felled by their stupidity. much of your post rightly explains why we don’t spend 24 hours a day wringing our wrists. but what sent me off the charts was the fact that it wasn’t a yahoo with a confederate flag on his pick-up. it was helen fucking thomas. to learn this about someone so respected, and to let THAT go so casually unremarked is what set me off.
the part about stinquers not caring was crazy talk that i deeply regret.

@SanFranLefty:

well there goes your attic too.

xoxoxoxo

@baked:

When I hear stuff like that, it’s like hearing “they aughtta put all you homos on an island.” Well they did–it’s called Manhattan.

I’ve trained myself over the years to just ignore it.

@baked: but what sent me off the charts was the fact that it wasn’t a yahoo with a confederate flag on his pick-up. it was helen fucking thomas. It’s that very aspect that so appalls me about the very real anti-semitism that pollutes the UK.

@baked: I’m so sorry you felt we weren’t being supportive and that we didn’t care. Like everyone else, I was just too appalled and depressed that yet another idol turned out to have feet of clay.
it wasn’t a yahoo with a confederate flag on his pick-up. it was helen fucking thomas. sums it up perfectly. That’s when I get overwhelmed with the idea that ALL people suck, and then I see the poor doomed birdies covered with oil and I start crying and lose the will to live. Sorry we weren’t there for you.
xoxo

@Capt Howdy: have we had a Helen Thomas post?

Ummm, yes.

@nojo: When are you going to have an Andrew Sullivan post? Here: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/06/was-israel-a-mistake.html

He doesn’t precisely agree with what Helen Thomas said, but after restating her point more intellectually and politely, he certainly credits it as a reasonable one and not necessarily anti-semitic. And if you actually go view the entire Helen Thomas “interview” which produced the outrageous money quote “go back to germany,” you might find that she was led down that road, fed the suggestion of going back to germany and poland, and was not quite all that horrifying as described.

But here is Sullivan, and this brings up why I mentioned that Thomas is older than the Nation of Israel, not simply because her age is an excuse, but because there is a perspective, the existence of Isreal is not a constant phenomenon for her, the same point is made by Sullivan here:

” it is prudentially idiotic for Israel to act as if Arab resentment has no legitimacy or no justification. It is tone-deaf to create a Jewish state in the middle of the Middle East and then behave as if it had been there for ever. Israel is not France or Egypt, or even Canada. It is a young and contested idea on ancient, contested land, whose original inhabitants did not all just disappear in a biological holocaust, as in America.”

@Prommie: I was literally just about to link to that same post.

Also, point of information: the title of the post is a nod to a 2006 article by, of all people, Richard Cohen, and the article is — to my mind, anyway — in no way inflammatory, despite what that question might suggest.

The Richard Cohen column from 2006 which Sullivan quotes and discusses, that one, well, here is the “anti semitism,” as all criticism of zionism is now called:

“The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now. Israel fights Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, but its most formidable enemy is history itself.”

Richard Cohen, another well known anti-Semite.

My interpretation of what Thomas said was that, well, she agreed with Richard Cohen, and perhaps too simplistically and stupidly followed a line of reasoning that says “well, if its a mistake, why not un-do it?”

I don’t interpret it as a way of saying “I hate jews and I am insultingly suggesting that they return to the scene of the worst crime against them.” She did after all, also mention the US and South America, simply stating all the places that the jews if Israel came from.

@Prommie:

Wow, are we going to go here? I’ve always had some rules about discussing both abortion and Israel: I don’t offer opinions on either, for I am neither Jewish nor a woman. Not saying we shouldn’t discuss it, but, you know, tread lightly.

@Tommmcat Still Gets Carly Confused With Meg: Definitely. It’s the kind of issue that, argumentative as I am, I tend to treat with kid gloves. I will go so far as to say that, regardless of whether you agree with him, Sullivan’s post shows a thoughtful way of talking about something that is almost peerless in its ability to sow discord among even the most well-meaning people.

Yes, I like that rule, lets not discuss Israel. But I must know, is this a content nuetral rule, or is praise of Israel always acceptable, with anything less than complete agreement and piling on further praise and praising the praiser for praising, and confessions of being remiss for not praising often and loudly enough, being whats really prohibited under the rule?

@mellbell: As thoughtful as he was, it will still sow discord. The topic itself, whether handled crudely, or finessed magnificently, sows discord.

@Prommie: Yeah, like I’m going anywhere near the Stinque Third Rail.

But hey, have some Balloon Juice if you want more ammo either way.

@nojo: The entire world’s third rail.

@Prommie: Certainly we can discuss Israel, but if you start by denying its right to exist, you’re not going to get far.

You can certainly discuss the Irgun. Or the treatment of Palestinians. Or the Ottomans. Or Balfour. Or even Gaza, which slipped under the radar while the neocons were happily trashing Helen last week.

But, y’know, be careful out there. Plenty of heinousness to go around.

@Prommie: Darling, Sullivan is not reliable as regards anything having to do with the chosen people. He is a Limey of the most parochial sort; snobbish, racist and gracefully intelligent. Because they know what fork or lube to use does not make them trustworthy. Apart from that– champers all round!

@Prommie: Memo to Sully: We’re not all dead.

Fuck – my awesome post on why we should not shy away from discussing Israel disappeared. There goes half an hour.

@redmanlaw: Nothing in the Spam Queue, alas. It’s dead, RML.

@nojo: Fuck it. I just should have left for the day after getting back from the court house. Tomorrow: sit through Day 1 of two-day CLE for the Navajo Bar Association, then fly fishing for bass that evening at the tribal lakes across from the conference site, the newly rebranded Hard Rock Albuquerque* at Isleta Pueblo.

*/rolls eyes

@redmanlaw:
and i really would have liked to hear what you have to say.
i hate when that happens !

howdy said, “i’m curious what we think of that here”
that’s all i wanted. dialogue. i didn’t bat an eye when mel gibson slured slurs at the jewish cop, but helen? i was shaken.
thanks cyn and OA, lefty, ‘catt, benedick, nojo, et al, for engaging.
i don’t even know what to feel about israel, but now i know what to feel about helen. and i’m very sad about that.

and yes nojo, where the hell do you go from, “israel has no right to exist.”

@Prommie:
you know nothing of history.
israel a mistake? i’d like to take you there, you’d cry like a baby and become a raging zionist.
now, for me, no mas.

@baked: It had burning bushes, sunday school and everything.

@Prommie:

I cannot praise the recent actions of Israel, but neither will I condemn them. I have no dog in that fight,m and will not insult those who do with my abstractions. Incidentally, I cannot be praising the Palestinians for many of their actions either, and find fault with their murder of innocents. However, I universally condemn the murder of innocents, and look at such murder neither quantitatively (for the murder of one innocent is as terrible as the murder of a thousand) nor qualitatively (for each and every death is ultimately the “most” terrible for those who must experience it). So I am not singling out the Palestinians for censure either.

I have tried to have these conversations and they get ugly fast, for some reason. Possibly because I have no dog in that fight, and people that want to talk about it usually do, I think.

Also.

@redmanlaw: SoCal has burning bushes, too. Our Vengeful God shows up every year like clockwork.

@Tommmcat Still Gets Carly Confused With Meg: No, honey, burning bushes aren’t good, that’s what the Valtrex is for.

@SanFranLefty:

Most of the boys I used to do were very, ah, manicured. I remember one even shaved his into the shape of a heart, as a joke, I think. He was a complicated individual.

What were we talking about? Leviticus, right?

@SanFranLefty: @Tommmcat Still Gets Carly Confused With Meg:
hehehehe! thanks, i needed that! i think the oily birds have driven me insane. and having to go back to israel, where my stoner musician friends turn into wolf people when you bring up iran, hezbollah, hamas, etc etc. before i lived there, i thought they should move the whole damn country to the caribbean. now i get it.

also, i want to clarify that i wasn’t rude to prom. we are good friends in real life and talk that way. i haven’t gone off the rails yet entirely.
thanks guys for talking me off the ledge.

i have manicured topiaries in the past. hasn’t everyone? no? ok……

@baked:

In the end, everything around this joint always comes back to the ass-fucking.

Or the skull-fucking.

Or the fucking-fucking.

@redmanlaw: Hey, spirit dad. I am following the trails here in our great cloud country: Onteora. I find the paths of those who came before. Hunting dachshunds go off shrieking in the woods but will not descend the sharp cut to the lake. So we walk into a wilderness untouched since the Limey’s packed up their kit to go home. The trails follow old paths through the woods. Haven’t found timber rattlers yet but the woods are quiet in the early morning.

@baked:

In the shape of things, though? Like, fuzzy bunnies whatever?

@nojo: Did I deny its right to exist? I didn’t think I did. I pointed out that reasonable and intelligent people without a shred of anti-semitism in them, could hold the opinion that the creation of Israel in a land populated by people who had been there for 2,000 years, which creation involved displacing those people, might have been a mistake. Thats all I pointed out.

I would never suggest that Israel does not have a right to exist. I would, if I felt free to do so without being accused of anti-semitism, say that I disagree with some of the things the existing government in Israel is doing. I’d go further, and say that Israel was harmed worse by Reaganism than the US was, and continues to follow a self-destructive right wing path, encouraged by the right wing in the US, today. The hopeful path that was started by Begin and Saddat was derailed and thwarted by right wing politics in the US and Israel since that hopeful time. And even when the US has a democratic president who tries to encourage a change, and some progress, in dealing with Israeli-palestinian relations and policies, these efforts are undermined by US right wingers, who encourage the right wing Israeli politicians to resist working with democratic presidents, and just wait till we elect another right-wing warhawk who will support them wholeheartedly.

Am I denying Israel’s right to exist? Are these anti-semitic statements?

@baked: I appreciate very much that you have not struck back at me, I hope its because you understand what I am saying.

I understand what Israel means to you, personally, emotionally, I so truly do understand. I know, because I know that despite being from privilege and being wealthy, you are a jew, and all your life you have lived as a minority in a culture which still has tons of anti-semitism in it, here in the US, I have seen our domestic anti-semitism. Anti-semitism disgusts me more than any other form of racial prejudice, you know. You know why? Because I perceive anti-semitism as stemming from a whole different place, different, and more evil, in its origins, than all other prejudices. I regard anti-semitism as stemming from the resentment of an inferior culture for a superior culture. Jews are inordinately represented in every single one of the higher aspects of western art, culture, and science. In business, science, the arts, in every aspect of enlightened culture, Jews achieve success, hell, they lead, in every aspect, in amazingly disproportionate numbers. And it is because the Jews have a culture based on true and right values, family, education and learning, science, artistic achievement, and community. And beyondd that, I hold an amazing respect, an almost romantic, silly, idealization of Jewish culture, for its sheer tenacity, its ability to maintain its identity without a homeland and suffering amazing prejudice and hatred everywhere Jews have been forced to roam, for 2,000 years, and yet this culture tenaciously survives, and remains true to its roots over such a vast expanse of time, through persecution and displacement.

But also, I know, that every jew, in even the most tolerant society, still always is aware of being a minority, still remembers that this time of acceptance might not last, that every jew sees examples and signs of anti-semitism all the time, even here in the US.

So I know, what it must have felt like for you, to be in Israel, where, well, its home, its home, and its the one place on this earth, where Jews are free to be Jews, without being “other” and without being a minority. Do you remember the material Richard Pryor did after he visited Africa, one little line he said, it struck me, he said, “there are no niggers in Africa.” And in Israel, there are no kikes or hebes or any other of those horrid epithets.

But still, I think I should be able to criticize the policies and actions of the current right wing government of Israel, and that I can believe these policies are counter-productive, that they are harming the future of Israel by enflaming, rather than reducing, the anti-semitism of the surrounding arab countries. I feel a frustrated rage, at the way the US right wing encourages the bellicosity of the Likud, even when the republicans are out of power in the US, telling them “hold on, we will be back in power soon, and then we will Nuke Iran for you,” and that is what they are saying, just listen to the Cheneys and read the National review, its all right there.

I hope I can say those things, without being thought an anti-semite.

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