Vagabond

Too late now but a cooler full of ice would keep stuff cold for 2, 3 days. Of course then you have to keep buying ice and that adds up.

I've gotten back all my grades but one from the masters program I did and I can now say that I got a first, which is great because I really need something to make up for my poor college grades.

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The BBC has questions to answer on anti-Semitism

Our national broadcaster looks as though it is bending over backwards to find an equivalence between anti-Semites and their victims

Ian Austin 6 December 2021 • 5:10pm

If far-Right thugs attacked a bus of Muslim children in central London, I would hope and expect universal condemnation and wall-to-wall coverage, with mug shots of those responsible broadcast until they had been identified and prosecuted. That is not what happened when a group of Asian men on Oxford Street attacked a bus of Jewish children celebrating Chanukah. The men hit the bus, spat at and threatened the children, and made Nazi salutes.

The BBC called the anti-Semitism “alleged”, and claimed racial slurs from inside the bus could be heard on a recording of the incident. This was subsequently amended in its report to say that only one insult had been made, as if that made much difference. I have listened repeatedly and can’t hear any such thing – nor can fluent Hebrew speakers who have watched the footage. Instead, I’m told the terrified children, speaking in Hebrew, are calling for help. Did the BBC consult Hebrew speakers before arriving at its conclusions?

The BBC has questions to answer. Was it attempting to draw an equivalence between a group of men intimidating children and their victims? And why did it report the abuse from thugs on the street as “alleged” but present the disputed allegation of a slur inside the bus by children as a fact?

I have always defended the BBC, but can’t imagine an incident involving any other group being reported in this way. It needs to listen to people from the Jewish community and look at this very carefully. We can’t have people thinking that incidents of racism are handled differently depending on who the perpetrators and victims might be.

It is not as if the threat posed by anti-Semitism has lessened. According to the Community Security Trust, a charity that protects Jewish people, anti-Semitic incidents soared during the conflict caused by Hamas terrorism against Israel earlier this year. Synagogues were defaced and Jewish people attacked. Students reported racist abuse, including death threats.

A convoy of bigots drove hundreds of miles from Bradford to intimidate people in neighbourhoods with large numbers of Jewish residents. Some merely shouted “free Palestine”, as if people living in north London are responsible for a conflict thousands of miles away. Others screamed disgusting abuse and threats to rape Jewish women.

What is the difference between these bigots and the National Front targeting areas of London with large black communities in the 1980s? And what is going on in some of our communities that leads to this racist obsession?

Anti-Semitism has festered on campuses, and in the far-Right and hard-Left, but it became mainstream during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party. Israel became an obsession on the Left, held to standards never applied to other countries, and Jewish people in Britain were expected to account for a government of another country.

The demonisation of Israel leads to racist attacks against Britain’s Jewish community. Our national broadcaster should be shining a spotlight on that, exposing the racists and standing up for the victims, not bending over backwards seemingly to find an equivalence where none exists.

Further coverage in the Telegraph.

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The Board of Deputies of British Jews has called on the BBC to apologise after a report suggested victims of anti-Semitic abuse had responded with anti-Muslim slurs, when they were actually calling out for help in Hebrew, the group has said.

The incident occured last Monday evening when a group was filmed approaching a private bus on Oxford Street in central London.

Footage from the night shows men spitting at the bus, and directing anti-Semitic abuse towards Jewish passengers.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson described the video as “disturbing”.

The Metropolitan Police are treating the incident as a hate crime, and have released images of three men they wish to identify in connection with the incident.

In its original report, BBC News said that “racial slurs about muslims could be heard inside the bus”, an allegation that has been criticised by organisations including the Campaign Against Antisemitism and the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

BBC correction

On December 3, BBC News published a correction, stating that, “During the editing process a line was added to this article reporting that racial slurs about Muslims could be heard inside the bus."

“This line has been amended to make clear that 'a slur about Muslims' could be heard.”

However, the Board of Deputies of British Jews have questioned this assertion from the BBC, claiming that the journalist may have thought they heard an alleged anti-Muslim slur in English, but they say what can actually be heard is one of the passengers saying in Hebrew, “Call someone, it’s urgent.”

The organisation said on Twitter: “What they were actually hearing was a distressed Jewish man speaking in Hebrew appealing for help.”

I'm sure some will write this off as a conspiracy on the part of the Board of Deputies, the JC, and Chabad, but I'd like to think most people here are a bit more rational than that.

27 minutes ago, dogpoet said:

You don't give a shit about any bigotry that isn't aimed at Jewish people, and you made a point of stressing that the BBC hates Israel in your opening comments, so I'm obviously not the only bigot in this discussion.

But do show your working out that a newspaper having a long history of being sued for libel and false claims of antisemitism is a non sequitur in a discussion of how reliable they are as a news source because the most famous recent example of them being found guilty of defaming somebody involved a charity that works in Palestine.

I am extremely opposed to all forms of discrimination and prejudice you absolute asshole. That's a good deal more than can be said about you. Not that it matters but the charity you are referring to was banned from fundraising in the US in 2003 for its connections to a terrorism group and that decision has not been overturned decades later.

It's really quite revealing how when some Jewish people are harassed and threatened in Oxford St, London, it takes you all of 100 words to start throwing around non sequiturs about 'Palestine'. Are you claiming that the Jewish Chronicle has falsified this video? Are you claiming this is a hoax? You know what, don't answer. Your bigotry is apparent.

There is a large different between interpretation and falsification. I know you think it's our fault you don't have your messiah as PM but it's still pretty laughable that you're defending the BBC in this context. They're doing a fair bit more than interpreting. And I'd think the BBC would have higher standards for fact checking than a newspaper with a circulation in the low 5 figures. They certainly have the budget for it!

I'm surprised you think it constitutes a remotely appriopiate or professional journalistic practice to report on semantic content that a reporter can not understand, especially when this is used to attack the victims of a sectarian hate crime. The Hebrew that is heard in the video does not remotely sound like the slur that the BBC originally claimed was present--note that now they are claiming that a 'slur was heard' with no explanation. If the BBC reporters cannot understand a language, it seems like incredible poor practice to report on it as though it is something completely different. I cannot see how this possibly makes it past an editor, let alone sits up on their website for almost a week unretracted. Is there another minority group in the UK that the BBC libels for suffering from hate crimes? Haven't seen it. Hope this goes to court.

Ok I don't really talk about politics here, I think I have somewhat different views from most of the remaining posters and that's fine, not an issue. I want you guys to see this. I want to emphasize that this has nothing to do with Israel except inasmuch as this tells you quite a bit about the BBC's ability to report impartially about Israel.

So on Monday in London a group of Jewish teens were celebrating Chanukah on Oxford St. They're from this group called Chabad Lubavitch which does outreach stuff (not proselytizing)--in this case this meant they were dancing while dressed like dreidels and handing out free donuts. It looked something like this. Really part of the classic multicultural London mosaic.

A few minutes later this happened.

As is fairly obvious, the middle eastern gentlemen are yelling obscenties  and threats at the teenagers, banging on the bus, and making nazi salutes. Here is another video.

The BBC is claiming in their coverage of this story that 'A slur about Muslims can also be heard from inside the bus.' On air, they claimed that somebody said 'dirty muslims'. This is a complete falsehood. Charitably, they are mishearing someone say 'Tikro lmishu'---Hebrew for 'call for someone'. More likely, I think, they are simply lying.

I can't help but notice that the BBC never covered this seemingly fairly untrivial story in May either.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/london-cops-arrest-4-over-f-the-jews-rape-their-daughters-video/

Been going to this Prince Charles Cinema in London which does second runs of a lot of great movies so I have a lot to add:

Heat - 7/10---Very good genre movie, great cinemetography, script is a bit busy and cliche and falls short of greatness.

Days of Being Wild - 10/10---Hadn't seen this before but one of Wong Kar Wai's best. Really nails the nuances of selfish and self destructive people.

The Master - 10/10---Best performance of Philip Seymour Hoffman's career. Was he slipped a hot bag for it?

Inherent Vice - 8.75---An interesting mix of comedy and melancholy, great performance by Joaquin Phoenix

Dune, smashing, not quite as good as Blade Runner 2049 which was a near perfect movie but a great sci fi blockbuster without that marvel/joss whedon smarminess that's become endemic to high budget  hollywood stuff.

October's a good month for films what with Dune and the new Wes Anderson flick. I wasn't overly impressed with Isle of Dogs but Moonrise Kingdom was, I thought, one of his best.

Many Saints of Newark 

Is there anyone one would be less surprised was a sex pest?

Watched War Machine which was pretty funny, good use of two hours. This is the Brad Pitt movie about Stanley McChrystal, no connection to Iron Man.

I should note that she was released on January 29 and elections were on March 2. Also here is an interesting article about what Putin got out of this.

The trials are ongoing but less of a pressing matter now that he is no longer PM.

16 hours ago, dogpoet said:

Really? I'm surprised the Israeli government didn't just tell them to keep her.

There was a big public outcry over it because Israelis love going to India and weed so it was very relatable. Actually turned into a thing where the prime minister used it for political capital---her release was delayed by 2 weeks so that she would fly back on the government private jet with him to Israel, and later on her mother made a long facebook post saying thank you to the Chabad Rabbis in Russia, the Mayor of Tel Aviv, so and so government official, so and so people, and notably not the prime minister.

The main thing I remember with Israel and India is this Israeli girl flew back from India to Israel via Russia and they found a couple of grams of hash and her bag so she was arrested (really taken as a hostage) and ultimately released in exchange for some church in Jerusalem being transferred from....old believer (?) jurisdiction to that of the Russian gov.

I don't know about that but Israeli hippie backpackers in India are going to be much more laissez faire than our government. Think of it as something like Greece or Italy---there can be chaos or there can be an absurd amount of bureaucracy.

17 hours ago, Christian said:

Yeah, I am on a diet to try to lose weight I’ve put on too. 
I know it’s not good for my health condition to be fat again.

I was trying to stay active when the pandemic started, but as it continued, I gave up.

People think being a vegetarian is healthy? I’m not one because of any health benefits. You know what are vegetarian foods though?
Chocolate, potato chips, milk shakes, egg Mcmuffins…

In Israel for several months you weren't allowed to go more than 100 meters from your house and the cops were handing out tickets all the time. It was nuts.

Yeah, should be pretty good, just have to get through the next three weeks of this archeological dig to get my masters degree. We leave for the excavation site at 4:50 AM and don't get to go to sleep til 21:30. It's basically slave labor but frankly, I could use a bit of hard labor to take off some of this lockdown weight.

Speaking of work as a writer, my short story was just published! You can read it here.

In other news, we have signed on a flat in London and will be moving in around a month.

Turning 29 today . Bit of a shit feeling. At least my hairline's intact I guess.

Bodily mutilation, neopaganism, the occult

Saw Midsommar. Amazing, disturbing, reminds me a bit of early Vertigo. 10/10. Don't want to review in detail because it's much better to go into it not knowing any of the plot.