Saturday, July 29, 2006

Lebanon: What Was Accomplished?

New Headline;
"Israel pulls out of Hezbollah stronghold"
By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer
10 minutes ago

TYRE, Lebanon - Israeli troops pulled back from a key Lebanese border town Saturday where it battled Hezbollah for a week, claiming to have finished its mission after the bloodiest ground fight of the 18-day war. Israeli warplanes blasted bridges and demolished houses in southern Lebanon, killing seven people, including a woman and her five children


Articles like these are popping up all over the net, the print media, and on tv screen in millions of homes around the world on a nightly basis. Tel-Aviv's still as-of-yet unclear war has left hundreds of Lebanese men, women, and children displaced, terrorized, living in ruin, maimed, and/or dead. Despite the cowardly attacks of Hezbollah on innocent Israeli citizens, we have now come to the day when an internationally-recognized government openly uses its military to crush the civilian infrastructure of a rival nation, where troops of a Western-backed break into sovereign nations and as opposed to using their military superiority to pacify a region, they use it to overpower it. We have seen the political castration of Egypt, a once mighty Arab state wind up as a pitiful satellite of U.S. & British interests delving even lower down the spiral state-whoring to the West than even perhaps Saudi Arabia.

This "war" fought between the IDF and Hezbollah has been an act of terrorism if there ever was one. The IDF have used their fighter jets to pound Lebanese targets in a way that goes far and beyond anything expected. The IDF sent in its best fighters to attack a nation that had no air force, that meager-at-best anti-air defenses, whose army had not engaged to the IDF, and whose citizens clearly guilty of being alive...and the IAF fighters soared into action and destroyed bridges, power stations, roads, and lives with reckless abandon.

Today...we read about the UN Security Council is giving Iran one more month's time (thanks to Russia & China), we continue to read reports involving U.S. Foreign Policy to pull Syria away from Tehran, we continue to hear U.S. President George W. Bush & the U.K.'s PM Tony Blair continue to rally against the democratically-elected Hamas government of Palestine...once again milking the memory of the 3,000+ dead of 9-11 to serve their own mutated political aims.

I for one wish there were more Americas and Britains....but also....more Russia & Chinas. The idea that two nations can have their run of the world is frightening. With foreign policy continuously re-inventing itself, I would hope that we would live in a world where at least two sides exist, if anything to keep things in a balance. Iran deserves nuclear energy (the evidence is sizeable that no plans to enrich uranium for bomb-making purposes exist in Iran's nuclear program); Syria should not be intimidated to follow a political course other than its own; Lebanon and its 18 diverse ethnic and religious communities should have the right to co-exist and rebuild their nation however they see fit (and without Israeli/Western intervention); and lastly, if the West truly wants peace in the region, then they should be just as willing to accept the fruits of democracy when they lose (i.e. to a Hamas or a Hezbollah) as to when the voters elect Western-friendly leaders (i.e. Abbas, Malaki).

Friday, July 28, 2006

Hear Me Out


AUDIO



***Just a theory, but still worth some thought.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

The Irony: How The UF Bureaucracy Operates



So...it took Katyushas to fall on Haifa and IDF tanks to battle it out with Hezbollah commandos on the Littany River for DSO to finally come out and not only support a Panel on the Middle East, but host it!

Some of you may remember a similar project put together some two years ago by one very radikal student senator, one very radikal cabinet director, and their fraternity brother, called the Filibuster Series.

Filibuster was a serious attempt to have a representative from each of six groups: Nakba 48, Islam On Campus, the Arabic Cultural Association, Gators For Israel, the Israel Project, & the Jewish Student Union at a roundtable discussion, moderated and funded by Filibuster Series. We were to rent out a portion of the Reitz Union ballroom, we were going to use funds from the Student Advocacy Cabinet (funds that had been approved) and we organized the event professionally. Once everything was falling into place, the Jewish side boycotted, DSO (allegedly proven in documents obtained and heavily redacted by the Independent Florida Alligator) ordered then SB Vice President Jennifer Puckett to fire the cabinet director, and the group fell apart. Even though a smaller version of the event was held defiantly at the CMC, DSO destroyed movement that it seems today, they are trying to create.

Monday, July 17, 2006

For Appearance's Sake?




Well I'm not going to comment on this year's Growl, except to say it's absolutely pathetic that SG has done nothing to strip this elite organization of it's rampant double-standard-benefitting-status..however the guilt is shared as no one was able stop it during my day either. Not looking to play the blame game, just reiterate for 2006 just how blatantly corrupt both the UF administration and the highest echelons of UF's Studnet Government are for not blocking this 'tradition' yet another year. When you hear people tell you that FBK's power is waning or that the Good Ole Boy network is no longer today what it once was years ago, sigh & roll your eyes, because as long as FBK benefits unlawfully from A&S Funding with the blessing of the UF Administration and taps its foot to the songs of praise from elected SG officials, then NOTHING has changed.

Now what's really caught my eye is this:

Sororities warn potential recruits of Facebook pitfalls
http://www.alligator.org/pt2/060713facebook.php

Just what the hell has come over the Pi Chi & Panhellenic people recently?

"Facebook is dangerous," Crenshaw said. "It's like you're in a house with all the windows open, and anyone can look in and see everything."

This article basically states that sororities are going to start profiling...sure...most of the Greeks on campus do it down racial lines (and don't tell me otherwise: Whites - PC/IFC, Blacks - NPHC, Hispanics/Asians - MGC, some exceptions but I can literally count them on my right hand), so know Greek organizations are going add another criteria: "morality."

Strangely enough their new criteria isn't discreetly sought after, in fact, this article does a great job of blowing it up. So, will the organization's draw out 'better' candidates? No. The organizations have essentially stated what they are looking for and what they are not, so in turn, the potential recruits may make their profiles private or simply alter them to better cater to this year's sorority profile

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Hey There!


Well for the first time in a long time, I don't know what's going on in SG and don't really care either (well maybe a little but not enough to find out). Mainly I'm working a crappy job and taking my sweet time completing my law school application, meeting with profesors for letters of rec, working out, and trying to cling onto living in Gainesville as long as possible before moving to a major city. Yes, I'll probably be done with school by the time most of you are married, have kids, and are paying off your mortgages, but then to each his own. I take longer, but you only get one chance to live and while I believe in heaven and all that, who really wants to gamble?

A few weeks ago I was leaving Orion Fitness (my new gym) and saw the Alligator with Mike Patrone on the cover. I was so proud of him to see as the new Senate President. I felt a feeling of solidarity when he said he was doing this because he cared about Senate and not for presidential hopes (it's early yet, but nonetheless it's nice to see that at least one SG bigwhig values the Legislature and will not milk it or put his/her footmarks on it as yet another stepping stone office). I also got to read a letter from Josh Weiss explaining his role, both the letter from Weiss and the article on Mike were both pretty generic but nonetheless, I was really happy to see some kids with backbone in office.

I think next I'll write about how the State of Israel is committing war crimes on the Palestinian people in their invasion of Gaza or perhaps I'll discuss the waning influence of the Progessive Caucus of the DNC. I'm not sure, but I had to update the blog. I hope everyone is doing well and that Gavin Baker remains the true leader of the independents...I hope that kid runs for SB president.

Peace,
Christian Duque