Map of the Day!

Last week, we gave Juan Cole's post "Quote of the Day", on the Israeli announcement of housing expansion on the day Vice President Joe Biden arrived to, hopefully, jump-start the stalled peace talks, and now, causing a good deal of tension.

Today, he follows up (with pointers to the blog flare-up, between Andrew Sullivan and Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, with additional commentary from Spencer Ackerman and Matthew Yglesias) with more;

The Map: The Story of Palestinian Nationhood Thwarted After the League of Nations Recognized It

As part of my original posting, I mirrored a map of modern Palestinian history that has the virtue of showing graphically what has happened to the Palestinians politically and territorially in the past century.



[snip]

The map attracted so much ire and controversy not because it is inaccurate but because it clearly shows what has been done to the Palestinians, which the League of Nations had recognized as not far from achieving statehood in its Covenant. Their statehood and their territory has been taken from them, and they have been left stateless, without citizenship and therefore without basic civil and human rights. The map makes it easy to see this process. The map had to be stigmatized and made taboo. But even if that marginalization of an image could be accomplished, the squalid reality of Palestinian statelessness would remain, and the children of Gaza would still be being malnourished by the deliberate Israeli policy of blockading civilians. The map just points to a powerful reality; banishing the map does not change that reality.

Phew!

You can almost look at that map and think it was shaken, like an Etch-A-Sketch.

Go read Juan Cole's "The Map: The Story of Palestinian Nationhood Thwarted After the League of Nations Recognized It", it's a good briefer on what's all the fuss going on.


Bonus Bonus

Steve Clemons, over on The Washington Note, has a bit of fun, creating some hijinks, reworking, tongue-in-cheek, an AIPAC press release;

The AIPAC Statement We Need But Have Not Gotten (Yet): Netanyahu Government Needs to Remove Daylight Between US & Israel

Oh God ... He's Back!!!

To those intrepid ones who went across the seas to be the eyes and ears of America ....To those forthright ones who saw the early clouds of war while many of us at home were seeing rainbows ....To those clear-headed ones who now stand like recording angels among the dead and dying ... To the Foreign Correspondents - this motion picture is dedicated ....

Foreign Correspondent-- (Movie Clip) Main Credits

Johnny Jones, aka Huntley Haverstock, must be rolling in his grave.

Word comes today, that the world's most famous non-working-plumber, aka, the Stumblin' Bumblin' John McKKKain campaign's mascot, Joe The Plumber, is going over to cover the conflict in Gaza, for PajamasMedia's, PajamasTV, as a journalist.

Jesus, who over at this "Pajamas Are Us" outlet thought up this earth-shattering idea?

To stay in JTP mode, was it Izzy, the Idea Idiot? ...

Are the Flying Monkeys so stressed out, that, with the worldwide coverage of Israel's bombardment of Gaza isn't capturing the essence of the story, they have to scrape the bottom-of-the-barrel and pull out this fame-seeking fool?

Couldn't they get The Wasilla Whiz Kid, Sarah Palin, to, I don't know, stand on a chair, and look beyond Russia, to see if she could focus in on Gaza and phone in some reports?

Jeff Gannon's gotta be pretty pissed off.

He's just as good as the next fake journalist at lobbing softballs.

And, softballs is what it will be ...

From Think Progress;

"I get to go over there and let their "Average Joes" share their story, what they think, how they feel -- especially with, you know, world opinion. Maybe get a real story out there."

There you go ...Professionals, with long careers, covering numerous wars and conflicts, they aren't able to get the "real story".

With the long, twisted history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, covering decades, it comes down to this alleged plumber from Ohio to jaunt over there and dig out the "real story".

And how is he going to do it?

From Steve Benen;

Asked if he's concerned about his personal safety, he added, "Being a Christian, I'm pretty well protected by God."

That's it, throw one out to the Jesus crowd ...

No doubt, the Flying Monkeys will be riveted.

And just who is Huntley Haverstock?

None other than the protagonist/hero (portrayed by the great Joel McCrea) of one of Alfred Hitchcock's best film's, 'Foreign Correspondent'.

Here's the trailer for 'Foreign Correspondent'

Here's a themed clip, "Hats"

And this, classic Hitchcock!

1940 - Foreign Correspondent: the assassination




Bonus Joe-The-Joke Riffs

Daniel Nasaw: Joe the War Correspondent ...The media's favourite campaign gimmick heads to Israel for a conservative website

Michael Calderone - Joe the Plumber: war correspondent

Josh Marshall: Don't Get No Respect

Spencer Ackerman: In Defense of Joe The Plumber’s Reporting Cred

Libby Spencer: Right wing assault on internets launched

No More Mister Nice Blog: WHAT -- DID THEY THINK JEFF GANNON WAS OVERQUALIFIED?

Michael J.W. Stickings: Sign of the Apocalypse #62: Joe the Plumber, war correspondent and pro-Israeli propagandist

I Won't Dance

I suppose, there's a number of items I could spin off the title of this post.

You have Israel pounding the shit out of the Palestinians, almost as a final fireworks salute to The Bush Grindhouse ("Shock and Awe" - Again!) ...

And there's Mitch McConnell already defiantly declaring he wants to be the Biggest Asshole in 2009 ...

But no, it's just that I am beat tired, another banner day on the homefront (only to get better, with, not one, but two snowstorms coming down the pike this week).

So, a little musical interlude, and a quite tasty one at that ...

Blossom Dearie - I Won't Dance