A post about my father,

World War II, and Vietnam is currently offline because I think it still needs a little tweaking.

This is a very important subject for me and I want to be sure i get it right. Stay tuned.

The Next Generation ...

... has just earned his yellow belt in Tae Kwon Do. Just got the word from his mom, down in California. And he'll be coming up here to visit over Thanksgiving weekend - that's going to be fun!

I did it!

Just got back from the Multnomah County, Oregon election office, where I placed my votes in favor of President Bush, in favor of Goli Ameri, and against Oregon Measure 36.

On the cab ride (both there and back) I had to endure Al Franken on the radio, which I suppose somehow balances out the time I had to listen to Dr. Laura *spit* Schlessinger.

Now, having done my patriotic duty as a citizen of the United States, I must move on to other things. Like paying the rent. I know I left that checkbook around here ... somewhere ....................

Update

So there it is, just to your right, appearing in honor of Election Day: my spiffy new sidebar. I've added quite a few new links, and organized it just a bit, so please feel free to explore.

The sidebar reflects most of my major interests: current events, feminism, human rights, gender, science. I've also added some internal links, reflecting the fact that Dreams Into Lightning is now six months old and has accumulated a modest amount of material.

THE PORTLAND MUKHABARAT (thanks to MJT for that great phrase) includes: Michael J. Totten himself; Emily at Strangechord, who was among a class at Portland State that I was invited to address (thank you Prof. Liebman); Auntie Cracker, who sent me some words of encouragement on my blog; and Alas, a Blog and Jason Holliston, both of whom I owe to MJT.

WOMEN now includes links to Curve and Girlfriends magazines, and also to the We'Moon homepage. Of the numerous women's communes that flourished in Oregon since the late 1970s, We'Moon has been one of the most successful, and their famous datebook calendars are now available in color.

ACTIVIST AND HUMANITARIAN will be getting more links soon; keep an eye out.

POLITICAL AND NON-POLITICAL BLOGS is just that, and in no particular order. (A few of the links aren't technically "blogs".) I've added a few, some new and some long-overdue.

GYPSIES, QUEERS, AND DAVID'S STARS takes its title from a line in Amy Ray's wonderfully twisted version of the folk classic, "This Train Revised", performed by The Indigo Girls. (It's the last track on the Indigo Girls' utterly sublime album "Swamp Ophelia".)

Skipping down to MISSED OPPORTUNITIES, these are some of my more important posts from Dreams Into Lightning. ORIGINAL FICTION is just that; I'm hoping to get some new pieces going after the election is over. And for those who just can't get ENOUGH OF ME, I'm collecting my longer posts and series at "Dreams Into Lightning Amalgamated" (thanks to Canadian Headhunter Michael for that great word). Currently playing at DiL Amalgamated: complete "New Republican" series.

I'll continue to update and upgrade my sidebar as time permits. Stay tuned.

The Blogging Will Continue Until Morale Improves

Well, let me try to move on to a positive note. A very dear friend of mine in San Francisco recently announced that she is voting for Bush. B. and I have known each other for about seven years, and we've had many incredible conversations. She's a highly intelligent, independent-minded person. I had told her that I was voting for Bush, and why, but never pushed her to agree with me. But once she got internet access, she started reading this site and others, and chose to become better informed. What finally changed her mind was a TV interview with Michael DeLong, author of "Inside CENTCOM", which explained a lot about the Iraq war and put things in perspective for her. She has also begun noticing the media bias! Like me, B. disagrees with President Bush on many issues, but she understands that he is the only candidate with the will, the character, the resolve, and the ideas to see America and the world through this difficult time.

Here in Portland, my friend G. hasn't changed her pro-Kerry position (again, I've never pushed her to) but she has shown a genuine interest in learning more about what's happening. This, for me, is the most important thing. I wish more people had this attitude. If you are reading this blog, I hope you feel the same way.

A Few Final Thoughts

... before the election.

I'm tired of writing about politics, but we're not done yet. It ain't over 'til Fat Boy howls in anguish, which, G-d and the American people willing, will be very soon.

I received a last-minute pro-Kerry e-mail from some well-meaning friends in San Francisco. They sent me editorials by Alan Dershowitz and Rabbi Avi Wikonur. I spent the morning composing a lengthy rebuttal in my head, but at this point, frankly, I haven't got the energy.

Let me say what I really mean. I haven't got the patience to plod through the same arguments again and again. I sit in front of this computer every day, sometimes for 6 or 8 hours at a stretch, and I've heard every argument there is. There isn't anything Dershowitz or Wikonur can say that I haven't heard already.

There is only one candidate who cares about making the Mideast, and the world, a better place. Perhaps Kerry actually believes his own insane claims that the Iranian mullahs will be induced, through gentle persuasion, to give up their nuclear ambitions. Kerry, in fact, seems to have a hard time distinguishing between fantasy and reality, which is the single thing about him that disturbs me the most.

I'm rambling. I don't know what else to say right now. I feel like I should have some profound thoughts on the eve of the election, but I'm just numb. I'm numb, and I don't know what to say.

Update

My blogroll is now in some remote semblance of order, although it still needs a lot of work. But please take a look, I've sorted out my links a bit, and, even more important, added some new ones.

I don't have time to post this morning, got to get to class. (M/W/F: Calculus and Women's Studies. Tu/Th: Early American Literature.) Hope to post a little this afternoon if time permits.

And BTW, thanks to everyone who has taken time out of their busy schedule (even if just 2 seconds!) to visit Dreams Into Lightning over the past six months. Feel free to post a comment here, if you have any questions or if there's something you'd like to see more/less of, or if you just want to chat.

Catch you later ...

Michael J. Totten returns ...

... to his homepage after helping to hold down the fort at Instapundit. If you scroll down on his current screen, you'll find his impressions from his stint in the upper realms of the blognoscenti, plus his sailing trip up north to Washington, and observations on the experiences of those annoying "liberals for Bush" like Christopher Hitchens and Marc (Armed Liberal) Danziger. MJT - who also wants you to know that he still reads Andrew Sullivan - speaks succinctly for many of us when he says, "despite the fact that I’ve been pushed toward to the right, I haven’t joined the right." Go read his blog.

UPDATE: Don't miss the new guest post by Danziger, The Struggle of Ideas.

Rabin Remembered

Reflections on Yitzhak Rabin (1922-1995)

Israelis recently marked the ninth anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist named Yigal Amir.

Alison Kaplan Sommer writes:

Mommy, Yitzhak Rabin was killed in Tel Aviv, right? By a bad guy with a gun named Yigal Amir. And he was Jewish, too. Mommy, tell me again, why did the bad guy kill Yitzhak Rabin?”

It’s that time of year again.

As November rolls around, the questions begin flying thick and fast from my son Eitan — questions about Rabin’s assassination, exactly how he was killed, where he was killed, who killed him, and the hardest question to answer — why?

Eitan is seven years old — he was born in September 1996, 10 months after Rabin’s assassination in November 1995. He never lived at the same time as Rabin.

Yet — with all the ceremonies, memorial rallies, and class lessons about his life, through the ever-growing number of schools, parks, roads, and buildings named after him — Yitzhak Rabin is vivid and real and familiar to my son — much more so than today’s politicians.

Eitan can regale you with stories about Rabin’s childhood, where he went to school, his army career. But mainly, he can tell you the details of the assassination — the date it happened, the location — how Rabin was approached, how many shots were fired. He knows that the man who killed him was named Yigal Amir, and that he was Israeli and Jewish. He knows that Amir was angry at Rabin for signing a peace agreement with the Arabs. He knows that Amir is in jail and will never get out. And yet, every year, he wants to know more.

All of this feels eerily familiar. I was born in September 1964, 10 months after the assassination of John F. Kennedy — an event now being marked with 40th anniversary commemorations. At Eitan’s age, I, too, could rattle off stories of the Kennedy clan, recount the drama of Oswald and Ruby, describe where the grassy knoll was located and the color of the suit Jackie Kennedy was wearing that was splashed with her husband’s blood. ...

- An Unsealed Room: Rabin

Sharon's Gaza Plan Moves Ahead

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon scored a major political victory on October 26, with the Knesset's passage (by 67 votes to 45) of his controversial Gaza withdrawal plan. An earlier post on the subject can be found here: Disengagement.

I haven't blogged a lot on Israel/Palestine issues, mostly because Iraq and Iran have been occupying the geopolitical center stage at Dreams Into Lightning. Also, I don't believe the Palestinian/Israeli issue will be resolved in Jerusalem or Ramallah, because the problem really lies in Tehran, Damascus, and Cairo. As long as these foreign regimes are in power, they will do everything they can to make peace between Israelis and Palestinians impossible.

Also, my opinions on Palestine and Israel are not quite as clear-cut as they are on Iran and Iraq. But I feel I can say a few things with confidence, so I'll say them here.

I think President Bush is on the right track. People who see Sharon and Bush as being ideological twins, and those who see Sharon as Bush's "lapdog" (or, depending on how anti-Semitic they are, who see Bush as Sharon's lapdog), simply don't know what they are talking about. Sharon is traditionally a hardliner, and he has come toward an accommodation with the Palestinians after a long, hard struggle. President Bush - the first US President to explicitly call for the recognition of a Palestinian state - has also been leaning very hard on Sharon to plan for a withdrawal from Gaza, and to evacuate unauthorized Jewish settlements.

Both Sharon and Bush have been facing stiff opposition from hardliners on the Right. By pursuing his disengagement plan, Ariel Sharon is risking his political career - and, as the ninth anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination reminds us, perhaps more than that. Sharon cannot act without his government's consent, which often has not been forthcoming. President Bush, too, faces opposition from conservatives who accuse him of being "soft on the Palestinians".

Bush isn't going to get everything he wants from Sharon, and Sharon isn't going to get everything he wants from his government. There are no lapdogs in this picture - just a collectioin of factions with different goals and occasionally overlapping interests.

The folks at Debka have made no secret of their opposition to Gaza withdrawal and settlement evacuation. Now I don't claim to be a Mideast expert and I don't have to worry about Qassam missiles hitting Oregon, but I do understand the Israelis' concerns about a militarized Palestinian state in either the West Bank or Gaza.

Still, Israel can only be Israel. The goal of statehood - and I mean Israeli statehood - must be to secure borders: In here, it is our land; out there, it is your land. Any Palestinian-Israeli agreement must work concretely toward that end.

Danny at The Head Heeb offers some helpful comments. I'll quote the central paragraph of his reflection on Rabin:

On Rabin’s Jahrzeit, one talks a lot of “Rabin’s legacy” which usually means the Oslo agreements. How do those agreements look from retrospect? Overall the outcome cannot be positive. It was a bold gamble, and it was largely unsuccessful. The agreements attempted to reverse drastically the way in which Israel, and beforehand the Zionist movement, approached the Arabs since the 1920s; reverse the logic of Jabotinsky’s “Iron Wall”, which though serving Israel well in the past, was now proving harmful. This change has been very hard to implement. It turns out that certain elements of “Iron Wall” thinking has remained sound; as I mentioned above, the jury is still out about whether ‘land-for-peace’ is a workable formula (the jury should always be out on this issue as long as Israel is in the OT. What else is there?). What Oslo did make clear is that the “Iron Wall” which controlled the lives of millions of Palestinians, could simply not be maintained (indeed another way of looking at Oslo is as an acknowledgement of defeat in the first Intifada posing as a peace agreement – it was a shame that it relied on Arafat). The moderate Right has also come around to this point of view, which is why Sharon is promoting disengagement.

Go read the whole post at The Head Heeb: Rabin's Legacy.

Belmont Club: What Arafat Forgot

'Palestine was cursed by the example of Algeria, which after evicting the French, could spend the next three decades cleansing itself of the poisons of terrorism. Arafat forgot that the Jews, unlike the French in Algeria, were as much a part of region as themselves. In place of protracted war, which at all events ends, Arafat embarked upon an eternal war with the eternal Jew. He would enter Algeria's tunnel of terror with no light at the end of it.

The Intifada may have hurt Israel, but it consumed Palestine...'

Read Wretchard's full post "The Noonday Train" at Belmont Club.

Afghan Women Lead the Way

Hat tip: Rickvid in Seattle, at the Healing Iraq comments.

Barbara Walters of 20/20 did a story on gender roles in Kabul several years before the Afghan conflict. She noted that women customarily walked about 5 paces behind their husbands.

She returned to Kabul recently and observed that women still walk behind their husbands, but now seem to walk even further back and are happy with the old custom.

Ms. Walters approached one of the Afghani women and asked, "Why do you now seem happy with the old custom that you used to try and change?"

"Land mines," whispered the woman.

MORAL: BEHIND EVERY MAN -- WAY BEHIND -- IS A SMART WOMAN!!!!