Hi readers. If that death penalty fiasco in Arizona didn’t teach anything else worth knowing, it taught that. If Arizona State Department of Corrections took over the animal killing from the Humane Society the animals would all be dying of old age, getting healthier while everyone waited with bated breath for the final solution.
Thank goodness it was a human being they did that to instead of a cat.
Old Jules
Tagged animals, cats, culture, death penalty, dogs, euthanasia, Human Behavior, humane society, humor, Life, lifestyle, society, sociology
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
Most of you have declared among yourselves you’d never trust an Arab, which is prudent. And Israel’s certainly made it plain over the past few decades that it, also can’t be trusted. Which shouldn’t come as any surprise now that DNA proves they’re all the same folks, Israelis and Arabs.
But surely, you might be saying to yourself, there’s SOMEONE over there who can be trusted.
Well, in fact there might be people with a more trustworthy gene pool than that found among the Palestinians, Israelis, Syrians, Jordanians, Egyptians, etc. In Lebanon. People more European genetically. Probably descendants of Crusaders who occupied a bit of the region for a couple of centuries.
That is to say, if you’d trust a descendant of a Frenchman, Italian, or Englishman. Or German, Spaniard, any of those bastards as far as you could throw them. Trade a headache for an upset stomach, I suppose, and trust the Lebanese. Send them a few thousand tanks and helicopters, artillery. Flack jackets and M16s.
Pat them on the back and tell them to bring some European style honor, justice, compassion and ethics into the region. Crusader style.
There’s not enough confusion going on over there at the moment. Even with Syrians running amok with weaponry, Israelis grabbing every inch of territory they can see and killing anyone standing in the way of it, chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Russia forgetting what WWII felt like, there’s room for US diplomacy. US leadership that’s proved itself time and again in Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans, you name it.
Time for the US to either get behind Lebanon or get out of that entire part of the world the way we got out of Vietnam when the going got tough. Hanging off helicopters while the getting was good.
Besides, those Lebanese are probably headed for hard times when the cousins quit fighting long enough to notice Lebanon’s not family. Bunch of dirty Europeans occupying territory which rightfully ought to belong to Israel or Palestinians.
Old Jules
Why Jews oppose Israel’s occupation of Palestine and attack on Gaza
AS ISRAEL showers a condensed civilian population with bombs, the world shows its disgust. When thousands march in London this Saturday among them will be supporters of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network and others.
We will be proud to march alongside people from all backgrounds as partners in the long struggle to free Palestine.
The actions of the Israeli state are symptomatic of a sense of unassailable fear; in the view of Netanyahu and his supporters the lesson of the Holocaust is that Jews are destined to a fate as eternal outsiders and must close ranks to look after their own.
Thus Israel’s far-reaching operation to recover the three recently kidnapped teenagers was codenamed ‘Operation Brother’s Keeper’ while the murder of at least five young Palestinian civilians by the Israeli army in the first days of that operation barely caused a flutter of concern in Israel. For Zionism, as for all nationalism, Jewish life exists above Arab life in a hierarchy of priorities.
There is, however, a long and proud alternative Jewish history, which opens up a space for a different reading of the Holocaust. From Jewish participation in trade union and socialist movements in Europe in the nineteenth century to the prominent Jewish role in the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa a century later, this is a politics of solidarity rather than national particularism. It generalises from the Jewish experience of suffering to oppose injustice everywhere. It sees in pogroms and Nazism the horrors implicit in distinguishing between people on the basis of their ethnic origin, and refuses ever to play that game.
This is the politics that leads Jews like myself to oppose Israeli state violence. Some of us are firm anti-Zionists. Others long considered themselves supporters of Israel but cannot abide the barbarism of its latest killing spasm. All of us refuse the Israeli framing that sees a conflict between Jews and Arabs.
That framing can only give rise to anti-Semitism. Instead, we insist that this is a battle between an occupying army and an occupied people seeking to live in freedom, and the religion of each side is totally irrelevant to the conclusions we should draw. Tapping into a profound collective memory of discrimination and dispossession, we can feel no solidarity with Israel’s occupation. Our solidarity is firmly with the Palestinian people.
http://worldobserveronline.com/2014/07/18/jews-oppose-israels-occupation-palestine-attack-gaza/
Hi readers. If you’ve been noticing the Hamas terrorists and the Israel government sponsored terrorists composing their military all seem similar, there’s a reason. They’re all genetically identical.
Israel is behaving the way the fanatics in the countries around them behave because they’re all just kinfolks. There’s no difference in them aside from a sprinkling of religion, mainly Judaic in nature. All going back to the ancient Abraham who was ready to sacrifice his son with a knife on an altar. Because he thought he heard God tell him to do it. Is it any mystery Muslims and Jews have a lot of issues with THAT seething down underneath it all?
Hell, there are probably legions of modern-day self-proclaimed holy men over there on both sides declaring God’s telling them they have to sacrifice their genetic cousins. And legions of others on both sides listening and believing.
It sure as hell wouldn’t surprise me.
And I should mention, legions of people in the church-houses all over Europe and the US are cheering for Israel. Because there’s a trophy if Israel land-grabs the temple mount and builds a new temple where the Mosque sits.
Got that? Tears down the Mosque on the temple mount which doesn’t belong to them. And rebuilds the Hebrew temple that used to sit there.
The prize, Christians believe, is the Second Coming of Christ. As predicted by John the Divine or someone. When Solomon’s temple is rebuilt Christ will return.
Well jeeze. No wonder everyone’s ignoring these temporary acts of savagery Israel’s doing on the cousins. It’s only temporary because everything will be set straight when Christ comes back. According to the Bible or something, I reckons.
Need to read through this again, or have you got it tucked together in your minds in ways you can understand it?
Old Jules
Posted in 2013, 2014, Christians, History
Tagged Christians, culture, History, Human Behavior, humor, Israel, Jews, Life, lifestyle, Muslims, Palestine, philosophy, religion, society, sociology
Hi readers. When I saw this in The Onion I realized it was probably true because I’ve been guilty of it myself. Old Jules
News With Video• doctors• Science & Technology• health• ISSUE 50•29• Jul 24, 2014
DALLAS—According to the results of a study published Thursday by the American Heart Association, most heart attack victims do not freeze up and grab at their chests with sufficient measures of theatrics when suffering a cardiac arrest.
“After analyzing data from the past 30 years, we found that when someone experiences heart failure, the most common reaction is fairly mundane; there’s unfortunately no stumbling around the room or frantic straining to enunciate the words ‘having…heart…attack.’
Typically, the person merely winces and slumps over in place until paramedics arrive,” said AHA spokesman Dr. Phillip Trainor, who also noted with disappointment that it is extremely rare for victims seated at dinner tables or restaurants to gasp loudly before falling face-first into a plate of food.
“As few as one in 10 victims even rigidly extend one arm out in front of them, much less reach out for support and accidentally knock several books and framed photos from a shelf or mantle before falling to the ground themselves.” Trainor went on to compare heart attack sufferers to electrocution victims, stating that in most cases, such individuals do not levitate with their limbs fully splayed and their skeletons visible to onlookers for nearly long enough
Posted in 2014
Tagged culture, Education, Health, heart attack, Human Behavior, humor, Life, lifestyle, senior citizens, society, sociology, symptoms, the onion
Hi readers. I posted this ersatz salt catsup substitute recipe a while back because it’s so almost perfect I figured you’d love it if you tried it. But today I trumped that recipe. I added three large green onions into the blender with the rest. Watched them get liquified with everything, then added about half a bundle of fresh cilantro.
I believe with some jalapeno in the mix this might provide the best salsa I’ve ever eaten. And not one speck of salt added anywhere in the equation.
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read. I’m sitting here dipping home-made no sodium catsup substitute in Art’s & Mary’s no salt homestyle potato chips.
So shoot me. Fact is, this catsup substitute tastes so much better than catsup a person might as well call catsup a substitute for whatever this como se llama delicious concoction is. And it’s so damned easy to make they ought to put grocers in jail for carrying the original salt-bomb Hunts, Heinz, you name it catsups on the shelves. Killing people slowly.
What you need to make Como Se Llama? Sweet peppers and/or Bell peppers of various colors. A blender. 3/4 cup apple cider vinegar. A cup of sugar, or however much less you prefer. A tablespoon of black pepper.
Blend it until it’s all liquid, adding the sugar and vinegar while it’s blending. I use unground peppercorn and let the blending reduce the grain size with everything else.
Once that’s done all you need to do is put it over medium heat and bring it to a boil, then let it simmer until it’s reduced approximately 1/3, but mainly is the thickness you prefer in a Como se Llama. Keep it in mind you’re using it for a dip.
If it gets so you’re on the road or for come other reason can’t make Como se Llama, you can always stop into a grocery store and buy a bottle of catsup for a temporary substitute.
Old Jules
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
Back during the Yom Kipper War, Six Days War, one of those, I recall a friend named Victor Sturm, an atheist, commenting the Israeli military prowess was almost enough to make him believe in God. I think that was true for most of us, whether we were atheists, or not. Israel’s always been easy to support.
During all those years everyone I was acquainted with felt badly about what was done to the Jews in Germany, and supporting the secular state of Israel seemed one of the ways to compensate. In those days television would play a German Holocaust movie at the drop of a hat to keep it fresh on the minds. I recall during the Cambodian killing fields times the only thing competing on television was constant reminders of the German camps. Same was true when millions of Biafra folks were dying like flies. It was always “Yeah, but look what happened in Germany to Jews!”
Well, we’re a lot more informed these days. Germany was one of the places where one hell of a lot of people were systematically persecuted and killed. One of the places, and Jews were one of the targets.
Fact is nobody cares about all that. Nobody cares about atrocities and genocides. Including Israel. Nobody lifted a finger to stop Cambodia, Biafra, and a dozen other places where the death counts got into six figures or higher. And WWII sure as hell wasn’t fought about what Germans were doing in those camps to Jews and Gypsies. Nor what the Japanese were doing to the Chinese and other countries they occupied.
Justifying US involvement in WWII because of Hitler’s camps is pure fabrication by hindsight. Nobody before Pearl Harbor gave a popcorn fart what Hitler was doing to Jews. And the Jews fleeing Germany were having one hell of a time finding any country willing to take them. They were stacking up like cordwood in Spain and Portugal because Britain, the US and almost everyone else didn’t want any more than they had already.
So when the dust settled Israel was formed to assuage the guilt feelings of the US population, the British, everyone who sat by with their thumbs up their butts at a time when they might have saved a lot of lives. Christian religious fanatics in all the civilized countries loved the idea. It carried the undertone suggesting somehow God was involved in all this, letting his Chosen People return to the Promised Land.
It might have worked out fairly well. If Israel hadn’t turned out to be as savage, greedy and lacking in human compassion as the rest of humanity, it could have worked out. Likely as not they could have settled in, shaken hands with the new neighbors and worked together to make the world a better place.
But that couldn’t happen. Israel was won by terrorism and terrorists, and it’s continued to indulge in State terrorism from the day it was founded. The Israeli government continues to grab land outside the boundaries established by the United Nations, continues to slaughter the neighbors without conscience, and blames everything on the people they’re robbing and slaughtering.
And nobody’s quicker on the draw with playing the race card than Israeli supporters. Anyone who tries to examine the behavior of Israel critically is immediately accused of hating Jews, being an anti-Semite. It’s happened right here in the comments of blog posts whenever Israel received critical examination. Or even in response to pleas that they resort to peace occasionally just for the novelty.
Savagery and blaming the victims, same as the US has done countless times in countless places. Same as the Russians, the Japanese, the Chinese, the British, the French.
Hell, the contagion of being Chosen People must have been awfully damned infectious to have infected so much of humanity with Hebrew Biblical behavior.
Israel has passed the Modern Civilization 101 course in greed, aggression, brutality, callous disregard for human suffering and tedious self-aggrandizement. It’s time to put them up there with the Great Nations and let them sink or swim among the sharks.
I think they might make it for a while. Because when we have to get along with our neighbors to survive, we tend to become circumspect and reasonable in ways we’d never thought of when we were being mollycoddled and pampered as though we could do no wrong.
The US is bankrupt, though it doesn’t admit it. Our industry’s all gone to Asia. Our weaponry’s all designed and manufactured by Asians. A time is coming when US foreign aid will be a footnote in history. Along with US military prowess.
But we can be confident Israel will probably be the recipient of the last US foreign aid dollar to be sent anywhere, despite famines and disease where they really need it.
Old Jules
Posted in 2014, America, Government
Tagged culture, economy, Events, foreign aid, History, Human Behavior, humor, Israel, military, politics, psychology, society, sociology
Hi readers. Watching Black Rock and finding it intriguing and thought provoking inspired me to watch a movie that seemed to rhyme with it. A movie I’d normally have avoided. The Mooring was right there where a person could watch it stream on Netflix.
The Mooring 2012 R 89 minutes A group of teen girls gathered in the Idaho wilderness for a program to help them lose dependency on technology become victims of a murderous rampage. More Info Starring: Hallie Todd, Thomas Wilson Brown Director: Glenn Withrow
But all it managed was a lot of gratuitous violence, screaming hysterical females, lousy judgement, misplaced confidence, and grounds for paranoia for people who weren’t scared enough already.
Otherwise it was a pretty good movie.
Old Jules
Posted in 2014, Adventure, America, Movies
Tagged culture, entertainment, fear, gratuitous violence, horror, movies, netflix, psychology, society, sociology, streaming video, terror, the mooring
Hi readers. When a movie rattles the eye teeth enough to cause a person to think about it longer than a minute afterward, it’s probably rare. If it causes thought for a duration longer than it took to watch it, even rarer. Black Rock, streaming on Netflix, is one such movie and for unanticipated reasons.
Black Rock 2012 R 79 minutes, Three life-long-friend women’s vacation on a remote island turns into a nightmare. Three guys 18 days home from Afghanistan and Dishonorable Discharges are chilling. One of them is the younger brother of a childhood friend of the three. More Info Starring: Katie Aselton, Lake Bell Director: Katie Aselton
So here’s a tiny island with three guys capable of being badasses when provoked, and three 30ish women, one of whom is horny enough to seduce-to-the-edge one of the badasses, then try to interrupt biology with the word, “No!”
Badass doesn’t think no means no, so she kills him with a rock upside the head.
And thoroughly pisses off the other two previously only potential badasses who saw her saying too many yeses and not enough no when the whole thing could have been just a friendly interlude.
So the first potential badass is dead. The girls have been beat around considerably before escaping to the woods. Angry badasses 2 and 3 are stalking them with guns with the stated purpose of murdering them. Shivering huddled together crying the seducer/coitus interrupter weeps, “Oh God! This is all my fault!”
“No,” her friends assure her. “It was just an accident. You didn’t intend to kill him. It wasn’t your fault.”
Well. Um. Lessee now. Reality has an inconvenient way of trying to elbow into life sometimes. Women have rightfully attacked the old “She was asking for it,” male predisposition when rape not involving racial issues was discussed. It generally works in town and something called ‘date rape’ is frequently prosecuted.
But maybe there’s a larger issue here. Maybe females owe it to themselves to recognize at some fundamental level there’s a such thing as angry, angry men who aren’t out looking for trouble, but who don’t need any female genitals rubbed up against them just to give a girl a thrill.
But hell, I liked these guys. Jeeze, they were Dishonorably Discharged! I’ve never known anyone who was Dishonorably Discharged I didn’t like fairly well. Although my step-brother, Bobby Jack Nelson, did have some character flaws to recommend against him over the long haul. I liked him anyway.
If any of you watch this movie I hope you’ll come back and comment on the post. I’d like to hear whether you find the flick as thought provoking as I do.
Old Jules
Posted in 2014, America, Movies
Tagged culture, dishonorable discharge, entertainment, Human Behavior, humor, Life, lifestyle, military, movies, philosophy, rape, society, sociology
Hi readers. It’s time you younger readers hoisted your overalls up by the straps and increase the amount of geography the US owns. You can easily tell we don’t have enough land, that the US needs more geography, by the screaming everyone’s doing about aliens. The ones who don’t have PHDs and Asian surnames, I mean.
In 1849 our troops protected our freedom by invading Mexico, and Mexico does have a lot of ground with nothing on it but Mexicans, so that’s a possibility. Last time we protected our freedom by invading Mexico we got California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and maybe some other places.
But there are also some Indian reservations with nothing much but Indians on them. The only way we’re ever going to protect our freedom from those Indians is to invade the reservations and put them up for real estate development. There’s some good hunting and fishing country in some of those, along with potential for ski slopes and other tourism. Gambling casinos.
But Canada’s also a place been threatening our freedom too long and it has plenty of real estate with nothing on it but Canadians. If we ever expect to solidify our security with Alaska we need the Pacific Northwestern Canada real estate. And for all practical purposes it’s empty. Nobody much from the US lives there at the moment, which is one hell of a provocation.
The truth is though, we’re never going to feel safe invading Guatemala until we’ve got our freedoms protected in Mexico. We need International Boundaries that connect to places connected to somewhere else where there’s more growth potential.
We acquired Puerto Rico protecting our freedom in the Spanish American War, but what the hell did we get for protecting our freedom during WWI? Guam? How’d we get Hawaii? I’m trying to remember which freedom it was we were protecting when we got the US Virgin Islands, and US Samoa.
Fact is, the US has really dropped the ball. US veterans of WWII hardly gained us any real estate at all to savor our freedoms in. And we lost our freedom in Vietnam and North Korea. And all the freedom our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan protected didn’t gain one inch of new territory with nothing on it except Arabs.
Sheeze. It’s fairly clear we need to be protecting our freedoms closer to home. Starting with those damned tribal lands nobody’s been able to build condominiums on. Finish the job on the damned Indians before having a closer look at Canada and Mexico and the freedoms we need to protect involving them.
Old Jules
Tagged culture, Human Behavior, humor, Life, lifestyle, philosophy, politics, psychology, senior citizens, society, sociology
74 years old, a resident of Leavenworth, KS, in an apartment located on the VA campus. Partnered with a black shorthaired cat named Mister Midnight. (1943-2020)
Since April, 2020, this blog is maintained by Jeanne Kasten (See "About" page for further information).
https://sofarfromheaven.com/2020/04/21/au-revoir-old-jules-jack-purcell/
So Far From Heaven 