h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The "battle" between the Israeli's and the Palestinians does not go back to antiquity. The Jewish people originate in Israel/Palestine buit long since left that region during the Roman and Middle-ages period to settle throughout Europe. The Arabs (Palestinians) invaded the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire), including Palestine, in the Seventh and Eight Centuries. They stayed there. Following the anti-Jewish and genocidal actions of the German Fascist government, the Jewish peoples of the world (who were always minority people in their own countries) returned to the "Motherland" which was, unfortunately, now populated by Arabs who now regarded it as "their" country (as it had been for centuries) and were unwilling to see what they saw as Jonny-com-latelys claim it as their own. This lead to the current Jewish-Arab standoff/murderous war which look likes never ending.

Personally I think the UN should march into Israel/Palestine, give both sides a slap in the face and refuse to leave until both sides grow up and recognise each other's right to exist. Sadly, my view is a minority one. Mass-murder by State/Terrorist Group in the Middle East, anyone?

The Samaritan and Gallilean Jews might take exception to being ignored. They were there when the Zionists showed up in the late 1880s. To build and refarm. The current Palestinian debate began in 1917...but the Palaetinians as a political 'idea' did not become convenient for the Israeli's detractors until the mid-sixties.
Also, many of their enemy's countries did not exist until the turn of the century or just after WWII...kingdoms cookie-cuttered out of many disparate tribal territories for the diplomatic and trade convenience of the Germans, French and British. The Ottoman Empire had kindly gone toes-up (anyone remember the Armenian Genocide?) and the younger empires were welcome to fill in the gaps...
So, historically speaking, that territory belongs to anyone who can hold it.
And, apparently, many of the fruitcakes who found it easy to convict the Jews of a conspiracy when they were buried in other populations and vulnerable because of their relative weakness, now find Israel to be proof of the World Zionist Conspiracy because they believe that the country would not exist without help...How much fun is that? They were strong enough to rule the world in secret but they are not strong enough to rule their own country in plain sight...and defend themselves, what is it now, eight times against superior forces...

I am no angel, but the Palestinian/Israeli conflict is definitely somewhere I fear to tread...

Testosterone vs Oestrogen as the aggresive imperative in evolutionary terms?

No contest tr.

The female of the species may be more deadly than the male in defensive inter-species situations, but from fighting cocks to bower-birds, from sea-lions to rutting stags, for intra-species agression across all kinds and class of vertebrates, the guys have it time and time again.

How many mamals have the pattern of a single adult male, a large number of females, adolescents and infants of both sexes, and separately - out there in the wilderness, troupes or individual young males waiting to take over? Lions, horses, wolves, gorillas, chimps, urban street gangs, viking raiders. The pattern is found again and again, because - in evolutionary terms - it is one of the patterns that works.

The troupes of amazonian warriors - when they are not the result of sexual fantasy (either dressed up as anthropology by the Victorians, or dressed up as religion by the ancient Greeks) - are so far and few between to actually demonstrate my argument better than yours. Yes - they may happen, but look how many times they do NOT happen. Interestingly, insects and arachnids are pretty tough on the guys too. Maybe it is a vertebrate thing.



On another strand to this thread - Lucinda got it right when he mentioned Buddhism.

It is corny, but it is true that we will have world peace only when the majority of us are at peace with ourselves individually, and at peace with whatever the world flings at us.

I went to hear the Dalai Lama speak some years ago. He was over 2 hours late. Normally waiting in a seated audience of 5000+ people for 2 hours would be stressful. People would fidget, and get impatient and start snapping at each other. But these were 5000+ meditators, many of whom practiced 'sitting' each day.

For the first time in my life I was aware of peace as a palpable thing, not a vacuum, not the absence of conflict. But a presense of something else. A force to be reckoned with.

Unfortunately we are spiritually so young as a species, that it will be a while yet before we evolve into peacefulness. As I have already said, our physical evoloution is the nub of the challenge.

Ben

I said (he repeated gently) Matriarchal societies. Not amazons.
Do a little research into the White Feather madness that occurred during the Great War...

It is in the politics, not the military jingoism, that we have to look for the interlocking silliness that produces some wars.

There is no peace in the corridors of 'power'. It's like playing a game to them, chess or go. But that is not where the real power lies.

Let me introduce you to Lady Bird Johnson. Remember her? She is still alive. And active. Just as she was during Lyndon's life and more.
Do I know everything she's doing? No. Probably never will. But she can and has gotten things done in months that no legislature could do in years.

Look to the women behind the thrones... They may not have started it, but they certainly aren't stopping it.

The brain is the most dangerous part of the body.

Mmmm, the vilest sort of emotional blackmail, 'I know that I am a woman, and therefore safe, but I have contempt for you as a man because you will not go out and get killed, you filthy coward you'.

Unfortunately that is still something my sex does particularly well. We have choices, (for example: working or lunching, motherhood or not), of a range and luxury which are not available to men. This has struck me as unfair for a while. And men will pay for our pleasures, and we will exploit that, both of which astonish me. Mind you, I find it hard not to split the check on a date.

I am not sure what drove the blackmail though, and I want to think about it a bit more. And WW1 was an extraordinary war, initially driven by emotional excess, and turning into extreme physical excess, and backing the participants into holes too deep to come out of; (literally in many cases, though the thought started out as a metaphor).

Women behind the thrones: One of the most extraordinary images to come out of the middle of last September was Mrs Dubya beaming up at her man in the most inappropriate moments; in the service in the cathederal for example. And on the subject of first ladies I guess there is Hilary, and Eleanor Rosevelt for that matter.

Food for thought (tr) - let me think...

Ben

No problem.

What is the difference between a high class whore and a businessman?
Not a joke. Just asking.

None that I can think of - which is probably why I cannot work out which category I come into.

B

I assume that you know it is taken from a lyric?
http://www.purelyrics.com/index.php?lyrics=sgpwvjae

B

ooo...leaving that one alone...

Simulposts, again.
Um, no, I never listened to that album...I kinda lost track of Mark after Communique. I heard the singles and watched the videos, but in confusion... I do have an album he made with Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed, though...

I'm afraid the only lyrics I can remember at the moment are David Bowie and Iggy Pop's "Night clubbin" and Lou Reed's "Satellite Song".

Mark Knopfler has a sharp understanding of the connections between sex and money.

He wrote Private Dancer for Tina Turner:
http://www.purelyrics.com/index.php?lyrics=itmlldqz

And he came up with the best two line description of the benefits of being a rock star:
'Get your money for nothin' get your chicks for free'
http://www.davemcnally.com/lyrics/DireStraits/MoneyforNothing.asp

The difference between high class whores and business men? The business men probably pay more tax, the high class whores probably take better precautions.

B

Knopfler wrote the lyrics for 'Money for Nothing' after watching, and listening to, two workmen watching Sting on MTV (whicjh is why he was on the track).
Not strictly speaking *his* keen understanding then...

Interesting; and it makes one of the best summaries of Sting that I have ever come across in that case. Mind you I think Trudy makes him work for his sex these days.

B

I liked him better as a guitar player than as a pop star.

Of course, "Money For Nothing" also took the mickey out of MTV, too.
For more on that score and a funnier song, check out Frank Zappa's "Be In My Video".

It is interesting that Sting and Knopfler, if I remember correctly, were both once teachers.

Both from Newcastle as well. Sting's first band was a jazz band of some sort, and Knopfler's painfully tasteful guitar playing tends towards jazz noodling, so I'd guess they were old mates, truth be told.

'Noodling'?
yeah, I guess so, but I've always thought that "Sultans of Swing" was a magnificent guitar tune, with "Once upon a time in the west" as a close second. Before the deluge. I won't say he sold out, but he definitely became more self-indulgent.

I read an interview the other day with Fripp & Summers during the glory days of that mutual appreciation society. They grew up in the same town...and even succeeded each other at the same hotel playing weddings and bar mitzvahs!

And John Paul Jones arranged horns for Donovan, which is funny because
Robert Plant used to be a folkie...oddly enough, so did Donovan...

Sultans of Swing , and I have a strange soft spot for Telegraph Road. (Which is very odd as the *only* band that should be allowed to make songs longer than 4 minutes BY LAW are the magnificent Kraftwerk).
Money for Nothing is of course, the riff from ZZ Top's Sharp Dressed Man played at half speed...

But at least Knopfler keeps his political commentary to his songs; and I like his particular brand of cynicism, as you may have noticed.

I saw him last summer, and the boy can still play. In fact he had more crowd control in the tips of three fingers than many people have their whole bodies. Literally. He got us clapping on the beat by clicking his fingers three times as he turned round to say something to one of the other guitarists.

And at least he doesn't want to be a tree...

Maybe it is just that I find him more fanciable than Sting, who's ego and self-conscious artistic angst are more noticable. I haven't heard much of Sting's stuff post 1988 anyway.

B