Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Oy Vey!

Isn't it nice to see Israel and Palestine fighting again? I'm all for change, but there is a certain level of comfort in a routine, too. What with Obama's inauguration coming up, the Blagojevich scandal and Rick Warren persecuting homosexuals, it seems that the world is changing at a rapid pace. The last time in American history that the country experienced this much change this quickly was the late 1950's/1960's. And we all remember how that turned out, right? Equal rights for blacks, women left the kitchen, a Catholic was elected to the presidency- it was horrible.

Thanks to those fiery-tempered Middle Easterners and those I'm gonna tell you I'm not a terrorist but I really am Israelis, a resemblance of normalcy has been restored. Now, I don't care whether Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays hide the erection with 11 year olds or whether Tom Cruise plays dress up with the Third Reich, real life drama is always just a tad more exciting than Hollywood. That's why I could never get into those shoot-em-up movies. Give me the nightly news or a snuff film, because red dye #23 doesn't hold a candle to human suffering.

One can only assume that this is why the Israelis and Palestinians continue to fight. It can't be over religion, because their religions clearly dictate to them that killing is a sin. And it certainly isn't over land or some large scale, historical family feud, because I'm sure those would both be classified as the "sinful ways of the world". So it must be that both sides just have an honest penchant for violence. And that's something I can live with.

2 comments:

quin browne said...

i always wonder if some long term fighting factions just wake up and think, "what can i do today that doesn't involve going to walmart?"


i have a magazine i used as a prop for a play... it's from 1968. the front cover? little boys from the gaza strip, decked out in guns.

change the date, and you have today's news.

Peter Varvel said...

Ya gotta read "Skinny Legs And All" by Tom Robbins, a novel that uses the historic Arab vs. Jew conflict as part of the background, and manages to be one of the funniest damn things I ever read.