Have no friends not equal to yourself. (Confucius)

.....It was on August 6, 1945 that the United States dropped an atomic bomb called "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, Japan. It was carried on a B29, called Enola Gay, flown by Paul Tibbets.  This attack killed an estimated 80,000 people. By the end of the year, injury and radiation brought total casualties to 90,000–140,000. Approximately 69% of the city's buildings were completely destroyed, and another 7% severely damaged.  The bomb, of course, was dropped without concern about the civilian population, including women and children.  This was war, of course.  And we didn't start it.

 

......Now was there concern for these civilians?  Of course there was.  But did our President care about that?  No, he was protecting our country.  Is there concern about Israel bombing Gaza and killing, they say, about 1900 people, and also suffering a loss of many IDF soldiers?  Is Hamas sending rockets over Israel? Should "Bibi" care about bombing Gaza and killing civilians? No. It's a war. And that's why it is said war is hell.  And Israel didn't start it.

.....When WWII started and when I enlisted in 1943, I vowed that whatever I did, I did with a goal of excellence, whether it involved cleaning 50 caliber machine guns or a pot in the kitchen. When I went to college I vowed to go as far as I could and whatever I did I tried to excel.  When I taught high school and college, I told my students to work with ruthless personal standards of excellence.  And they tried. 

.....And now my good friends--if any are out there besides my "regulars" who comment with feedback about what I write, I can no longer write the way I once did. In fact, my writing sucks.  First, I cannot remember all the fine expressive English vocabulary, and secondly, I have a tremor in my fingers which holds me back from doing anything that excels.  If I can't excel with what I write, I no longer wish to write.  Just for the record, I've written almost 600 posts which have engendered almost 2000 comments. I know when the game is over.

 

.....

 

 

 

 

.....Perhaps you haven't seen this, but it says what I'd like to say...

 

Okay. Don’t Cry for Us Israelis
By Naomi Ragen

 

I’m sitting here in Jerusalem after a week of heartbreak over three murdered teens, followed by  two weeks of sirens, bomb blasts, and finally, the funerals of young IDF soldiers, of whom one-third are students who should be taking their final exams, instead of risking their lives.  I’m  reading on the internet
about what a horrible person I am as an Israeli and as a Jew, and what a terrible, immoral country I live in.

 

All this criticism comes mainly from the European press: The Guardian, the BBC, papers in Italy, Norway, France, and don’t forget America: The New York Times, CNN.  And I’m thinking: Gee, the British should understand.  After all, they lived through the blitz, Nazis raining bombs indiscriminately down on them, the
way Hamas is raining bombs down on us.  And when the brave pilots of the RAF aimed their bombs at Dresden killing 300,000 men, women and children, they didn’t throw down leaflets telling people to politely evacuate; didn’t send their soldiers to knock on doors to see if they’d followed the leaflets instructions ( as CNN complained Israel failed to do at an UNRWA school, which was probably hit by a Hamas bomb anyway.)

 

And I think of the rest of Europe, who rounded up our  grandparents and great-grandparents, and relatives –men, women and children—and sent them off to be gassed, no questions asked.  And I think:  They are now the moral arbiters of
the free world?  They are telling the descendants of the people they murdered how to behave when other anti-Semites want to kill them?

 

As for Americans, represented by the New York Times, that bastion of high-minded hypocrisy and mediocre journalism parading as the “newspaper of record,” one has only to read the article by Professor Auerbach in the New York Observer (Two
Weeks of Shallow, Facile Moral Equivalency From the New York Times) to see how Jodi Rudoren and other Times apparatchiks have learned to close their minds and love Hamas.  After all, there are CHILDREN DYING.  It doesn’t matter that the Palestinians have educated an entire generation to be little Nazi-wannabes, who worship death and hate Jews, murdering their  souls, and are now callously putting their bodies in harm’s way to use for touching photo ops.  We shouldn’t be shocked by this omission by the Times. After all,  The New York Times was one of the last news outlets to bring to the attention of the reading public the Nazi atrocities in Europe.  Read the Times during the nightmare years, and see if you can’t find a pattern here.

 

And so, as an Israeli, brought up with Jewish values, and an American, taught to love freedom, justice, democracy and fair play, I have to tell all of you- Europeans, Americans, and last of all Muslim terrorist sympathizers and barbarians,  that what you are saying no longer moves anyone of good moral judgment and intelligence. The current crisis in Gaza is so morally clear-cut,
so absolutely a case of self-defense, that I must say to you, as someone finally said to Senator McCarthy: “Sir, have you no shame?”

 

I prefer that you - writers of these lies and libels-- hate me and my country, if it means that you can save your tears for other peoples dead. We aren’t greedy for sympathy.  After all, we got so much after the Holocaust, we prefer other people to have their share now. These days, we prefer to live, rather than have people cry over us and the injustices done to us.

 

So by all means, cry for the Palestinian people - men women and children- whose duly elected leadership has callously left them without protection from just retribution for their terrorist crimes. Who took their aid money and are living in Qatar in five star hotels building shopping centers for themselves. Who built
terrorist tunnels under their homes, mosques, hospitals and schools, and recruited their sons to die for Allah, while they sit in bunkers waiting for the U.N. to rescue them.

 

Don’t cry for us, or our families, or our children, or grandchildren. Not  this time. Not ever.  Not  if we can help it. Because this time, thank God, we have a country.  We are armed.  This time, with God's help,  we know how to protect ourselves from Nazis and their high-minded media cheerleaders.

 

I would like to end this with an expletive and a hand gesture towards the people I’m addressing.  Please choose one you think would be fitting.  I can think of many.

Some unthoughtful thoughts; so sue me. Obama will keep me company.

    If any person, idiot, media, or country needs an excuse to exercise their need for anti-Semitism, they will seize upon it like a dog seizes a bone.  That involves all Europeans, many Englishmen, Fox News, New York Times, U.N, Turkey, Bolivia, and make no mistake, it goes on and on and everywhere.  There are now 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, and by 2030 there will be more than 2 billion, and about 250 million of them are Islamic radicals who are like an ebola visited upon the human race. 

     While thousands of Syrian civilians were dying in the war there, and now in Libya, Iraq and 298 civilians on the Malaysian plane shot down by Russian militants in Ukraine, where is the hue and cry and the ringing of hands to the extent Israel is being subjected to?  Where was the world's recognition of rockets inundating Israel? The answer is--nowhere.  What country would endure such an attack on their civilian population such as Israel was being subjected to by Hamas? The answer is--no country.  But for a Jewish state, what is so terrible? The answer is--why not?

     Now, when Israel was being attacked by rockets (no matter if it led to civilian deaths), and when Israel discovered tunnels into their country dug like gophers by Hamas for the sole purpose of invasion to kill Jews or to capture them, Israel went to war, and civilians do die in a war.  Ask England when the Nazi's V1s and V2s were launched at English civilians. Hamas knew this, and their hatred of Israel was such that they didn't give a damn if their people were dying. So much for pitying them. It's a war; get out of the f..g way! (Just a thought)

 

      Well, here is another thought; in all the newspapers and magazines that I buy, such as the Florida Sun-Sentinel, Time, and Sports Illustrated, I get very little news and unfinished articles.  So, why are they sending me pleas to renew my subscriptions? At the end of each news report and magazine story is the advice to go to the remainder by means of a link they kindly supply if you care to read the more of what they have written!  Too bad if you don't have a computer, or an iPod, or a PeaPod. (Just another thought)

 

     And then there's the Geek you call to come and fix the printer so that it prints whatever you have on the computer monitor.  RH+ had the same problem.  He fixed them all right--but not before he took RH+ to Office Depot to buy a "yellow cartridge"; what had that to do with fixing the computer, I don't know.  But then, for ten bucks he also bought a "flash drive" to back up my stuff.  He backed it up alright, but when I asked him to show me how to do it, he said, "Oh, that's the first lesson that I teach.  Sign up for my class."  So after an hour he gets for $55--but he stretches it out for more. I've been a victim of a dastard who ought to be blasted into Cyberspace! (Just a thought).

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The World is too much with us....(Wordsworth)

Sorry; I'm not up to it at the moment. Too much going on in this world, so cannot concentrate efficiently to write anything. Will be back though.  Baron