Tag Archives: October 7

Sadness, Confusion, Possibilities

Posted on by
Reply

Too many stories, not enough time.

Sadness

Sadness is the only word I can come up with on this second anniversary of the pogrom that shocked us all on October 7, 2023. Horror is the only word that conveys my feelings about the celebration of that massacre that erupted that same day. Please, may the people who have been calling for a ceasefire recognize that Israel has accepted Trump’s proposal; Hamas has not. Hamas needs to release the remaining hostages and relinquish power.

Confusion

Congratulations to trans activists who have conflated gay conversion therapy with exploratory therapy that is not sanctioned as “gender affirming therapy.” These are not equivalent, but now the Supreme Court is being pulled into this quagmire. The result is likely to be the resurrection of gay conversion therapy – despite its proven harms – with exploratory therapy, which is what confused young people need in this era of trans madness. Perhaps states should stop trying to legislate solutions to LGB and TQ matters? I don’t know. I feel for gay people who have been harmed and confused young people who are being harmed. Sure, guarantee rights to housing, jobs, education. Then let medical professionals get their heads straight about treatments that are based on actual evidence rather than ideologies.

Possibilities

In the war between cancel culture and billionaires, the latest battle has the billionaires coming out on top, again. Remember when Musk bought Twitter and reinstated accounts that Jack Dorsey had cancelled? That was a good day for free speech. (No, I don’t love everything that Musk has done, but undoing censorship was a good deed.) The thread now is David Ellison… Skydance Media… CBS… The Free Press (aka Bari Weiss)… free speech?

I know that most of my friends paid little attention when Bari Weiss left her position as an opinion columnist at The New York Times in the summer of 2020. Wasting little time, Weiss began publishing “Common Sense” on the Substack platform in January of 2021. Common Sense rebranded as The Free Press in 2022. It now boasts 1.5 million paid subscribers who want a source of information that is neither far right not far left.

I’ve read/watched/listened to The Free Press since its Common Sense days. It has published voices that were shunned by the MSM (mainstream media), voices that I appreciated. Yes, there’s a pro-Israel bias (that mirrors my own), but otherwise, it offers viewpoints that I don’t find elsewhere. Actually, I don’t find pro-Israel voices elsewhere much either. Why is that?

Well, good news for the curious: The Free Press has dropped its paywall this week. Go to thefp.com. Spend some time there and see what you think. Then tune in to CBS News once Bari has had an opportunity to bring in some balanced coverage. Let’s pound cancel culture into dust!

NYT: Screams Without Words: Sexual Violence on October 7

Posted on by
Reply

There are times when I need to write about something that concerns me, but my fingers won’t move. This has been one of those moments. Can I do this? To put yourself into my shoes for moment, read the article linked to above. Can you even finish it? Can you then compose a blog post about it? Or are you frozen as I am.

It’s not just the horrific descriptions of the violence of October 7. It’s the fact that the violence is being denied, that the NYT felt the need to send reporters to fact check the events. It’s the fact that even now there are people who will deny or excuse the actions of Hamas. So it’s not just the horror of that day, it’s the horror of reactions to it that I cannot comprehend.

The Hamas terrorists who invaded Israel and carried out these unthinkable acts are not martyrs or heroes. They are not even animals. Are they even human in any way? Animals kill for food or to protect their young. They do not commit sexual atrocities. In fact the word atrocities can only be applied to humans behaving outside the bounds of any actions necessary for survival. Perhaps it’s the ability to commit atrocities that sets humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. 

People wonder how we’re special. Is it art? Is it language? Is it our problem solving abilities? Yet there are many animals that encroach on our sense of uniqueness in remarkable ways. So perhaps it’s our ability to horrify each other with hideous acts of violence, often, but not only, against women, and then brag about it that really sets us apart. Or our ability to subject people to the sight of family members being raped and tortured and dismembered. Or our ability to deny that these events took place. Or our ability to celebrate the men who commit these hideous acts. 

I should be excited about a new year, but I am in a state of despair. I don’t know how we fix this.