text:
The world is a complex place and any simple description of it will be incomplete, but I think it is fair to say we are the subjects of an artificial system of theft and oppression that continues to make the world harder to live in.
Look at the sources of power in the world. Look at government, corporations and the media. Laws written for rich people have created a system where it is necessary for us all to sell our labour to the owners of businesses. They own the land, the factories, the offices, the infrastructure. We need to earn money to survive and the best and sometimes only way to make money is to work for a large corporation. We make money for the people who own and run the corporation and they give us back some of it. Next, the government takes its share, claiming it needs it for roads, schools, hospitals, pensions and security, and gives as much as it can (for example through contracts) to corporations. It does not give people a choice to keep that money, decide what to do with it themselves and get what they need through mutual aid (helping each other) like they used to. Some people work their whole lives making others rich and still end up penniless. Why? Because they didn't work hard enough? Because they were evil in a past life?
The media tell us to consume. The remaining money we have earned, the last bones we have been thrown, we are encouraged to spend on things that make us feel rich: nice houses, cars, furniture, decorations, restaurants, two-week vacations and fancy coffee. Consumers spend their lives working for corporations and giving most of their money back to them. Instead of pursuing their dreams, they work hard in order to spend hard.
I understand people who do not do anything about it. Politics can be pretty boring. I disagree with people who say you should pay attention to politics even if you are not interested in it. You should not be compelled to pay attention to the news and what it tells you the people in power are doing. If they do not have your consent, they should not spend your money or pass laws over you. Moreover, most of the people who expect you to follow politics pay attention to the wrong things. They watch party nominations and election results and contribute to political parties and candidates who never make any real changes. But the media tell us those are the important things. That is how we can make a difference. There are no alternatives, except competing warlords or some USSR/North Korea nightmare. The system works. Stop questioning the system.
Enormous power is thus concentrated in the hands of only a few thousand people, most of whose names you and I have never heard before. A few million or so more wield power on the national level in different parts of the world with some autonomy (think the generals in Egypt) but they have mutually beneficial relationships with members of the upper ranks of the global elite. Look at what the elite do with their power. In the old days, a king would send soldiers somewhere and thousands of people would die. They had power over small parts of the world. Nowadays, power has become global, and as such the crises it leads to have gone global as well. Look at all the (supposedly unintended) consequences of all the wars the US government has been leading, all the people who have been tortured and killed, or who lost their homes and their livelihoods, and continue to do so even after the foreign militaries have left. And yet, consider who has got rich from those wars. Look at the economic carnage from the last financial crisis. Look how many people lost their jobs, homes and all their money, all around the world. And yet, the people who caused it actually made more money from it. And they tell you not to worry, because there will be an economic recovery. Do you believe them? Where is the justice?
Finally, "education" tells us what to think. I'm sure you can think of reasons why the system we live under is the best possible system. You learned it in school, and if you learned it in university like I did (political science major), you have even more reasons why it works best. We need leaders because without people making our decisions for us, society would collapse. We need rich people because without them, who would start businesses for us to work in? We need police to protect us from all the bad people around us. We need hierarchy: all societies have hierarchy, right? All other ways of living go against human nature. Don't think too much about it: watch TV instead.
As far as I can tell, most people are neither interested in understanding the system nor willing to take the risk of fighting it. Again, I understand and I don't judge. I just think they should understand it better than they do. If they choose to do something to change it or to change their circumstances, that is their choice and I will support them. I warn you, however, if we do not fight back, one day it will be too late.
Posted in Economics, Politics. Tags: capitalism, elite, globalisation, government, media, politics. 1 Comment »
Two essays on Occupy Wall Street
For my master's programme at the American University in Cairo, I have just completed two essays on Occupy Wall Street. The first describes America's ruling class using elitist theories of political science.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/74265960/The-Elitists-The-Ruling-Class-and-Occupy-Wall-Street
The second describes the crisis many Americans face and how it gave rise to the movement.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/75060739/The-Crisis-of-the-99-and-the-%E2%80%9COccupy%E2%80%9D-Response
Posted in Culture and Civil Society, Economics, Politics. Tags: elite, Occupy Wall Street, OWS, power, social movement, United States. Leave a Comment »
Egyptians demand an end to military rule
"Down with the field marshal!" yell the protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square. Thousands have been there since Friday, with many more spread out along the side streets. Most protesters are peacefully gathered, sometimes marching in groups of one or two hundred, but some are tackling the security forces head on.
A makeshift hospital in Tahrir
Down the side streets, protesters are throwing rocks and molotov cocktails and security forces respond with tear gas and rubber bullets. When one person is hit, others haul him back to the square where ambulances are running back and forth. There are a few makeshift hospitals in the square where people are getting treated for injuries. Many have been shot in the eyes; and a photo circulating the internet shows one of the lions adorning Qasr al-Nil Bridge, which leads to Tahrir, sporting a bandage over one of its eyes as well.
Thirty-three people are estimated killed around the country with thousands more injured or arrested. Among those arrested were three American students accused of throwing Molotov cocktails although they were actually delivering medical supplies. Fortunately, many Egyptians have become inured to the lies of their government from the roughly twelve thousand civilians sentenced in military kangaroo courts since the fall of the Mubarak regime in February. Most of them were peaceful protesters, bloggers and other activists charged with crimes such as "insulting the regime."
The focus of their anger is the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Egypt's military interim government, and its head, Field Marshal Mohammed Tantawi.
Monday's news that Egypt's cabinet, which many Egyptians consider puppets of the military council, resigned did not lead protesters to disperse. The basic demand is to end rule by the generals and turn power over to an elected, civilian government. The military has repeatedly postponed elections and it is not yet clear if it is about to relent.
At the moment, the violence appears to have subsided although protesters are marching in ever greater numbers.
Posted in Culture and Civil Society, Politics. Tags: Egypt, revolution, Tantawi. 1 Comment »
Why war is wrong, part 4: why do we still go to war?
"Necessity is the excuse for every infringement of human freedom." – William Pitt
Because some people have a strong interest in war, because people are so easily manipulated by flags and photos, wars continue. We are given all manner of reasons why we should go to war, from the self-preservation motive and the argument from fear, to the humanitarian ideal that speaks to our highest morals. We even think that we have to go to war because humans are a warlike species. Let us look at some of these arguments in greater depth.
First, defense of the realm. Who is trying to attack you and your country? Most enemies are manufactured, like the "radical Muslim" spectre champing at the bit to kill as many Americans as it can. The CIA consistently overestimated the threat from the Soviet Union. They used the threat to con the public into approving of taxes and debt to pay for huge military and intelligence budgets, and until the late 1960s had people scared to dissent. By then, they had already killed thousands of Vietnamese (who also posed no threat to anyone outside Vietnam), and were in too deep to get out without killing a million more. Hundreds of thousands of young men were drafted—a euphemism for military enslavement—to fight this war, and tens of thousands of them died or went crazy. If anyone is trying to use force against you, it is your own government.
But perhaps a foreign government wants to attack you and steal your oil supplies. The existence of government in the past has not prevented imperialism, as any kingdom that is stronger than the next one might attack it and take its resources. (No less significant is that national governments take those resources just like foreign ones.) Governments can be subdued if more powerful ones want to do so. Imperialism is an option for enrichment in the absence of free trade. When there is free trade, however, the costs of maintaining a war machine are likely to be greater than the costs of simply buying the resource in question. Wars like Iraqi Freedom are good to ensure that a select few corporations with connections in the government of the invading power do not have to pay premiums for access to resources that were previously in the hands of a despotic government, and thus the costs are passed on to the taxpayers instead, but after their cowardly army ran away, Iraqis still put up a fight. And in a place like the US, where every second house has a couple of guns in it, the people could put up that much bigger a fight. There is no reason to believe people would not willingly come to each other's rescue if they were being victimised; unless of course some powerful government with a persuasive tone had taken away their means to defend each other. If they owned an oil field, they could hire private security to protect it. Again, a big military could break through, but it would impose big costs on the aggressors when they could just buy it at market prices.
Moreover, as Stefan Molyneux points out in Everyday Anarchy, one reason to invade another country is to control its state functions. If there is a state apparatus there to take over, an invader can just move in, like a new president moving into the White House. Everything is already set up to take from people and control them through police and intelligence services. But in the absence of a state, how could they tax and control people? Go door to door? They would have to start from scratch to recreate something that took years to develop and this time the population would be hostile. An anarchist society would also probably be far richer, because there would be no parasite class to appropriate and destroy wealth. They would not need the enormous military forces large states have, because most of those forces have offensive capabilities an anarchist society, which would be purely defensive, would not need (think stealth bombers and missile-launching submarines).
Control of territory and resources for the sake of power to rulers or profit for well-connected corporations is one reason we are familiar with. That includes imposing neoliberal policies, or forcing open markets on behalf of large corporations. The military-industrial complex has always benefited from war, since before Smedley Butler. I wonder why people get so upset when the military outsources its functions to corporations. People complain that corporations only do things for profit, ignoring the human side of things. Right. Like governments at war are so concerned about people. Would it somehow be better if governments took the reins? How about we just don't go to war at all?
Elites have non-monetary reasons to start wars as well. Since people who are interested solely in attaining power (usually psychopaths) can be found in abundance at the top of governments, we should not be surprised how often wars are caused by lust for power. Many wars have something to do with maintaining the balance of power. Do you care about the balance of power? Does it matter to you if another government has more power than your own? Does it affect your life if Iraq is more powerful than Israel? But to those who view the world as a playground, relative power is everything. No one can control the sandbox but me.
Arms races lead to war as well. When one state builds its military, whether surreptitiously or overtly, other states feel threatened they will be invaded. They might fight preemptive wars, going to war when they believe an attack is imminent; or preventive wars, initiating force when they believe the other party will be more powerful in the future. Military build ups are again the prerogative of the elite and the ignorant nationalist. Strong militaries do not make nations strong. They invite suspicion, fear and preventive war.
Massive military buildup did not prevent the world wars; in fact, they enabled deadlier killing than the world has ever known. Whenever you read history about the World Wars, the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide and the Cold War, just remember that none of those things would have been possible without the state. Then you have Costa Rica, Panama and Iceland with virtually no armies, and no one is attacking them. So why do we need bigger, stronger militaries? To project the government's power beyond its borders.
These days, saving others is a popular reason to invade. Humanitarian intervention has a mixed record, from Bosnia and Kosovo to Afghanistan and Libya. In its modern form, it is quite new and admittedly has some promise. Unfortunately, given the promise it does hold and the successes its followers claim for it, humanitarian intervention can easily be abused. It is the fool who forgets that military intervention of any kind will leave innocent casualties in its wake. It will cost money that taxpayers should be allowed to control as they see fit, no matter what the outcomes of the war. And any successful humanitarian operation might be followed by ten that use the first as a pretext for more violence. With government, the temptation for abuse is too great. People who want to engage in humanitarianism of any kind should take such matters into their own hands, without forcing others to pay and die for their utopian dreams.
Two reasons to retain some helicopters and planes are first perhaps for self defense, depending how people perceive threats from outside, and second probably for search and rescue missions. But in both cases, the free market could find a solution. If there are people who want to rescue hikers trapped on mountains, no question a noble profession, and hikers who might get trapped who are willing to pay for their services, we have a market. It could be required to buy insurance to enter the privately- or communally-owned mountain. And why would they refuse service to people who somehow had no insurance? Doctors take a hippocratic oath; let the search and rescue teams discuss if they want do something similar.
It is not out of the question to maintain a military of some form. I am a strong believer in the effectively unlimited potential of humans. It is possible we could reach a stage where we could maintain constructive militaries who work solely to protect the innocent. Indeed, such militaries may already exist, in a few small countries no one will ever invade without becoming a global pariah. But where governments with coercive power exist, the potential for abuse exists.
Now, this problem might still exist in the stateless society, as communities might arm themselves threateningly in the manner of small, native villages, and the cycle of violence may rage. However, there are a few reasons to believe that would not happen in a modern, stateless society. First, communities would not live in isolation. Residents would continue to live and work next to each other, with little distinction between them. Not only would they be friends and family, they have economic interests in maintaining friendly relations. Second, our world has made great strides in communication. If one group feels threatened by another, its members could visit the other and discussing things. Third, if communities make the choice to become stateless, it will be because they realise aggression is wrong and counter productive. They would have made choices based on moral principles to never attack innocents for personal gain.
Many make the claim that war is deeply embedded in human nature and is an unavoidable constant. The evidence is not as clear as they believe, though. Ashley Montagu says war can be traced to social factors and childhood socialisation. Judith Hand says hyper alpha males are the instigators of most wars, and that war only emerges when cultural conditions enable it. If we could elminate the conditions of war, we could eliminate war. If we are not at war all the time, then human nature is probably just as useful for explaining peace as war. The widespread (not universal) occurrence of warfare does not mean engaging in warfare is adaptive or provides reproductive benefits. Moreover, it seems to have occurred only very recently in human history, and was not present hundreds of thousands of years ago.
The media distort our perceptions of the amount of violence in society because so much of what we watch features violence. And yet, most adults spend almost every day without purposefully inflicting injury on others, being the victim of aggression or even witnessing someone else's victimisation. Not only is this true of us in our culture, but the same holds even for the most statistically violent cultures in the world. The cross-cultural data show that violence is the exception among the countless peaceful solutions we find to our conflicts such as negotiating, agreeing to provide compensation for damages, reaching compromises, forgiving and reconciling with friends and strangers alike. Douglas Fry reminds us that "[h]umans have a solid capacity for getting along with each other peacefully, preventing physical aggression, limiting the scope and spread of violence, and restoring peace following aggression." These findings should not only change our understanding of war but our ideas about the necessity of standing armies, the purpose of military intervention and the possibility for non-violent conflict resolution.
Studies show that nonwarring societies do exist. The very fact that they exist seems to disprove, or at least call into question, the idea that man is naturally warlike. All human societies have believers in the supernatural, music and property, as well as rape, revenge and murder. Not all societies have warfare. In fact, at least 70 cultural groups do not engage in war at all. Apart from many smaller groups such as the Semai of Malaysia or the Amish, one could cite Sweden and Switzerland, having gone many years without war, Iceland, 800 years without war, and Costa Rica.
Since male aggressivity is flexible, and can manifest itself in sports, business, and so on, it is the environmental conditions under which violence and war occur that need to be taken into account when considering human nature and violence. Saying that we are inherently warlike means there is no point trying to reduce or eliminate war. Why attempt the impossible? But these are simply cultural beliefs that we are socialised to hold.
Fry suggests war can be replaced by "more effective, less brutal ways of seeking security, defending rights and providing justice for the people of this planet." All humans seek justice, though their methods vary. Some favour violence and some don't. Much of the violence humans inflict on each other, which may have been called "senseless" or "evil", is a consequence of the desire to right wrongs.
Not only is war unnecessary and lethal, it is possible to change our behaviour. Humans are so flexible that they can do various jobs in all kinds of societies and cultures. As long as we know it is possible to end war and make peace, we are capable of it.
The fact is, governments may at one time or another have a reason to go to war, and when they find that reason, they have a powerful, modern military to use in it. They will spend millions in taxpayer dollars to sell the war, using so many lies that are uncovered too late that there is little reason to consider what governments say about their wars much more than propaganda.
But if you really believe so strongly in military intervention, if you actually believe politicians' and generals' reasons for killing thousands of people, wounding and displacing thousands more, destroying houses and the natural environment, go do it yourself. I don't, so I won't be joining you, and I won't be financing your war either. War is built on lies, theft and muder. I urge everyone to join me in rejecting and resisting all wars.
(See more on libertarian theory of war here.)
Posted in Causes of War, Foreign Policy, Politics. Tags: intervention, invasion, peace, war. Leave a Comment »
The Egyptian army is no friend of the people
August 1, 2011 — Chris
Today, the Egyptian army showed its true colours. Today, on the first day of Ramadan, a day of celebration and peace if ever there was one, the army cleared Tahrir Square of the tent city that had controlled the Square since July 8 and arrested some of its occupants. This overt use of force against the revolution should persuade the people that the army is not their friend.
Hosni Mubarak stepped down on February 11 under somewhat mysterious circumstances. After claiming he would remain in power the night before, Mubarak quickly disappeared to the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh. The Supreme Council of Egyptian Armed Forces stepped in. It is possible that the army persuaded him to leave, and equally possible that the power elites had planned this move to make the new government popular.
The army has paid lip service to the demands of the protesters, but has done little to satisfy them.
-First, the families of the martyrs of the revolution, many of them camped out in Tahrir, have seen no justice. They are demanding restitution, and they are getting the strongarm.
-Second, as many as twenty thousand of the peaceful revolutionaries jailed since the beginning of the revolution received trials lasting a few minutes and sentences lasting several years. The jailed youth, such as blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad, a 26 year-old blogger sentenced to three years in prison for criticising the military, usually have had no access to proper legal counsel. The people have been calling desperately for their release, and the military has not been forthcoming. "Egypt's military leadership has not explained why young protesters are being tried before unfair military courts while former Mubarak officials are being tried for corruption and killing protesters before regular criminal courts," said Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch. "The generals' reliance on military trials threatens the rule of law by creating a parallel system that undermines Egypt's judiciary."
-Third, instead of trying the peaceful and innocent, Egyptians expected trials of the police, the thugs and the ancien regime. The police were the repressive hand of the government while Mubarak was in power, and have lost most of their power since the revolution. Police and interior ministry snipers are responsible for the deaths of many of the protesters killed in the early days of the revolution. The youth fought back and repelled the police, but the government had other tricks up its long sleeve. During the 18-day demonstrations that brought down Mubarak, the government released a number of thugs from prison to attack the people. They burst into Tahrir Square on the Day of the Camels, riding camels and horses into the Square and wielding swords and sticks. After the police fled, the thugs went to every neighbourhood to terrorise the people into begging the police to come back. Instead, the people banded together to protect their neighbourhoods. The corrupt ministers of the old government, too, are perceived to have been protected since the fall of Mubarak. Demonstrators have demanded a complete overhaul of the interior ministry, and have been given a shuffle. The people want justice, which to them means the trial and sentencing of the police, the thugs and the thieves, and they want their money back. Thus far, they have not found it.
-Fourth, the ever-present Palestinian question was supposedly answered when Egypt's government announced in May that it would open the Rafah crossing to the Gaza Strip, giving at least some freedom and humanitarian aid to the Palestinians trapped in the prison camp of Gaza. Both Israel and Egypt have imposed a strict blockade of Gaza since 2007, when Hamas took it over. Restrictions on movement in and out of Gaza have eased slightly, but progress has been disappointing at best. All the real demands of the protesters have gone unheeded.
The army will do its best to ensure that the privileged position beyond the control of civilian government it has always maintained remains protected. For the past few months, volunteers have stood at every entrance to Tahrir Square, checking passports for anyone who might be a known thug. They have entered the Square once or twice nonetheless, with violent results. Today, the army seems to have ushered them in with the soldiers. Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm stated that "[m]ilitary police, Central Security Forces and civilian supporters" destroyed the sit-in that has characterised the heart of Cairo for the past few weeks. Perhaps the paper does not want to editorialise, but it is probable that the "civilian supporters" are the same thugs that have been trying to wreck the revolution since the Day of Camels.
At last count, the military and its supreme leader, Gen. Mohamed Tantawi, enjoy wide support among Egyptians. This move may sour the belief that the army is a friend of the revolution. Either way, Egyptians have no reason to continue to trust the government or end the demonstrations of the ongoing Egyptian Revolution.
Posted in Politics. Tags: corruption, Egypt, Gaza, Mubarak, Palestine, revolution. Leave a Comment »
The PA, the UN, Egypt and the flotilla: no help for the Palestinians
July 8, 2011 — Chris
Two states?
In September of 2011, the Palestinian Authority will approach the United Nations for a resolution recognising Palestine as a new member state. Against the backdrop of what are still hopefully being called the Arab revolutions, much of the world believes that UN recognition will force Israel to follow suit and recognise, and thus leave in peace, a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
The government of Israel often warns that a sovereign Palestine would mean Hamas' taking power, probably violently, and then using a new state as a launching pad for the destruction of Israel. However, one must doubt that Hamas is so irrational. Its leaders are well aware that they would be blown to dust if they initiated a war with Israel. Their being religious does not change that. Religious governments are not crazy, and are as likely as non-religious ones to make war. Iran, for all the Israeli and US rhetoric attacking it, seems to have no intention of starting wars. Why would a poorly-armed, dishevelled group like Hamas?
However, with a state, a legitimate government would set up legitimate defense forces against Israeli aggression. It would enable Palestine's acceptance as a member of the UN. It would also mean the possibility of self-reliance for its citizens, instead of depending on foreign aid under the constant threat of land expropriation and housing demolitions. Finally, it could end the Palestinian refugee issue (though not satisfactorily, as many insist on the "right of return" of all refugees to their previous homes and parents' and grandparents' homes, which could be anywhere in Israel or the Palestinian territories). Of course, given Israeli government interests in the status quo in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, and its continual proving its ruthlessness in pursuing those interests, all these hopes are mere hopes. After all, asked one West Bank resident, "who cares if we get recognised as a state if the Israelis can still block the roads?"
If Palestinians want a state, international law states that certain conditions must be met. First, it must have a stable population. Check. Second, it must have a government. The Palestinian Authority is not great, but it has the necessary institutions of a government. Check. Third, it must have a defined territory. This issue is contentious, to say the least. It is hard to know exactly where Israel begins and Palestine ends; but the hope is that a Palestinian state would be built on the pre-1967 lines: the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. More recent negotiations (not to mention the settlements) have reduced the size of the West Bank that could belong to Palestine but have partly compensated for the loss of territory with the idea of land swaps between the two states. The solutions are on the table, though the current Israeli government continues to require conditions that make reaching those solutions all but impossible. Fourth, it must have the capacity to enter into relations with other states. That requires recognition by other states. Most of the world's states now recognise Palestine as sovereign, with the exception of the most powerful ones. But some governments do not recognise Israel as a state either, and some of its territory is considered illegal (the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem were annexed and settled—an unequivocal violation of international law) and yet it is obviously sovereign. But getting and holding a state will not be easy for anyone.
First, the Security Council needs to recommend statehood to the General Assembly, which might not happen. The US government, which can veto any Security Council resolution, has always vetoed resolutions that are not in the Israeli right wing's self interest, and has done so recently. In doing so, it goes against the international consensus; but the powerful are not constrained by others' opinions. Despite its posturing for decades, the US government has done little to promote peace and allow the recognition of a Palestinian state. It is possible that the PA can use General Assembly Resolution 377, which can be invoked to bypass the Security Council when it fails to act to maintain international peace and security (its main function), though it may not be valid for the purpose of recognising a new member state. Second, Israel's diplomats are flying around the world to drum up support for the Netanyahu government's Bantustan vision for Palestine. The US, of course, supports Israel in this endeavour, as does Germany.
Third, if somehow Palestine is recognised, the US government will not be its friend. The US senate voted unanimously last week that statehood should (a non-binding resolution) be obtained through negotiations and not unilateral declaration. In fact, not only will the US not negotiate with Hamas, whose participation in talks is just as legitimate as that of any other party, the PA opted to approach the UN because there was no peace process to speak of. The resolution consists entirely of conditions directed at the Palestinians (eg. "any Palestinian unity government must publicly and formally forswear
terrorism, accept Israel's right to exist, and reaffirm previous agreements made with the Government of Israel", including, presumably the humiliating Oslo Accords), as the US government never puts any pressure on Israel. Susan Rice, White House ambassador to the UN, has also threatened to suspend all aid to the PA if it gains statehood. Though much of that aid goes into the pockets of the corrupt PA, some of it is nonetheless recycled back into the economy. If a sovereign state will lead to rapid growth in the private sector, Palestine has a chance for self-sufficiency. If not, the Palestinians might be worse off than before. Do the Palestinians have any powerful friends?
Egypt's revolution held promise not only for Egyptians, but for Palestinians as well. In 2007, at Israel's behest, Egypt blocked all access to the crossing at the town of Rafah that straddles the Sinai and the Gaza Strip. In post-(or mid-) revolutionary Egypt, under pressure from the people, the transitional government promised it would open the crossing. A legitimate Israeli fear was that the crossing would become the transfer point for masses of weapons, but it was to be screened for such things like a normal national border. But since the Egyptian junta's announcement, little has changed. Palestinians applying to leave Gaza—some 20,000—are being told to come back in September. Aside from a few hundred travelers (on a good day) and a mere two truckloads of exports a day, mostly only journalists and ambulances can leave the Strip. One official said it might take months for the Egyptian government to send enough personnel to man the border. Perhaps they are walking there. It has also been reported that, despite pledges of independence from the US and Israeli governments, these two have been reportedly pressuring Egypt not to ease restrictions. Disappointing, to say the least.
The flotilla
The Freedom Flotilla of over a dozen ships is headed for Gaza. The purpose of the flotilla is partly to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza but mainly to bring international attention to the terrible plight faced by the Strip's inhabitants. It is carrying three thousand tons of aid and its members are from dozens of countries. It is easy to understand why so many people feel strongly about Gaza. Gaza is the most crowded area on earth, with 1.5m people crammed into 360km2. Four out of five Gazans rely on humanitarian aid; 40% of Gazans are unemployed; 80% live in poverty.
Given the impossibility of legitimate trade with the outside world, Gazans long ago resorted to transporting goods by tunnels, which are sometimes bombed by Israel (see here and here for two articles on the latest such attack). Middle East Online says that "[p]rior to Israel's 'easing' of the blockade in 2010 [following the first flotilla debacle], an estimated 80 percent of goods in Gaza's stores were smuggled through the border with Egypt. Now most consumer goods in the markets and corner shops come from Israel." Gazans are as enterprising and rugged as anyone else. They do not really need humanitarian aid; they need the ability to trade. According to deputy head of the ICRC in Gaza Mathilde De Riedmatten (and everyone else who has been there), the Strip, essentially a large prison camp, continues to experience crises in health care, water and sanitation. Agriculture has suffered, not only because fertilizers are on the long list of items banned under the blockade, but also because the IDF periodically levels the land and uproots trees. Construction materials cannot enter the Strip, and since Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9, they have been needed to repair all manner of buildings. God knows what would happen if Israel repeated its indiscriminate slaughter of Gazans from two years ago, with Gazans still unable to leave. But despite implausible claims that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the powerful do not want the flotilla to continue.
Professor Stephen Zunes said in a recent piece on the flotilla that "nothing frightens a militaristic state more than the power of nonviolent action." Israeli newspapers have printed the foreboding words of many Israeli officials that Hamas is involved in the organisation of the flotilla, that its intent is to smuggle arms, and that its members plan to attack Israeli soldiers, while others have ridiculed such claims. In his inimitably clever way, Christopher Hitchens attempts to take apart the members of the flotilla. He assumes that the humanitarian convoys will bolster Hamas, rather than help the people; and he questions the motives of the organisers by implying they are associated with the regime of Bashar al Assad of Syria and Hezbollah, which seems, I think any reasonable reader can agree, a stretch. Then he mentions al Qaeda, having learned from George Bush that saying two words in the same speech ("Saddam" and "al Qaeda") forces listeners to associate the two mentally, when of course they have nothing to do with each other. Despite their use of words such as "proof", there is little reason to take anything these people say seriously.
The only argument they have worth considering is that any feeding of the people of Gaza bolsters the Hamas government. However, that is only true if the blockade of Gaza had any hope of turning the people against Hamas, and so far it has not worked. How could it? History suggests that people punished collectively for supporting a certain group do not turn on the group but on their punishers. It is obvious that the true oppressors are the ones turning the screws on Gaza: Israel, and to a lesser extent the US and Egypt. The stated goal of the siege of Gaza has not and will not work. The inhumanity of punishing 1.5m people for 44.45% of voters' electing a terrorist group when their alternative was a corrupt, unresponsive, collaborator party also escapes those who insist on maintaining the blockade.
All manner of coercion is taking place to prevent the flotilla from reaching Gaza. The Greek government, in a move that presumably will not make it any more endearing to its people, banned all ships in the freedom flotilla from leaving its ports. When a Canadian ship left Crete, Greek authorities intercepted it and took all 50 people on board into custody. Israel's government threatened to jail any journalists found covering the flotilla for up to ten years. It dropped the ban not long after, though having changed their minds so quickly, one wonders if they might change them back. There is evidence that Israelis had sabotaged some of the flotilla ships.
However, there is no evidence any of the ships that are attempting to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza have been found to contain weapons or materials that could be used for military purposes. No evidence was found for the claim that the flotilla organisers have links to Hamas or other terrorists. In fact, flotilla organisers have likely done everything they can to assure there is no legitimate cause for Israel to attack any of its members, as it did last year when nine activists died in a confused fracas. Their non-violent resistance seems in line with the thinking that produced the phrase "If you want to beat Mike Tyson, you don't invite him into the ring, you invite him to the chessboard."
Though there is no real evidence the flotilla poses any threat to Israel, the US government has stated it is not willing to protect the US citizens on board against an Israeli attack, and that such an attack is well within Israel's right. The ships will not be passing into Israeli waters but international waters, followed by the coast of Gaza, which is only blockaded by Israel. It seems unlikely any state has the right to attack unarmed people in international waters; either way, it leaves the Palestinians and those who want to help them find justice without a friend or saviour.
How about one state?
Does all this mean the only hope for a Palestinian state for the PA to take matters into its own hands? Much has been made of the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation agreement, with its possibility of integrating Hamas into a new PA. But not only will such a government be rejected by Israel and the US, Palestinians do not seem to hold out much hope for it either. The PA, set up by the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, is seen by many in the West Bank as collaborators: the police of the occupation. The two parties presumably feel the need to work together to obtain statehood, but where would they go from there?
Another question that others have asked is, is a Palestinian state the best way to achieve freedom? Again, if Israel is still in the neighbourhood, still wary to the point of paranoia about any Arab provocation, still hungry for land based on ancient myths of an Eretz (Greater) Israel, an independent Palestine will mean little. One often hears the phrase "facts on the ground", usually used to imply that settlements have changed Israel's requirements since 1967, but which obfuscate the issue by making the settlements of the West Bank and East Jerusalem seem irreversible, when the settlements of the Sinai and Gaza were not. In spite of the mess on the ground, it has been said since the beginning of the Arab Spring that Israel will have to make peace sooner rather than later. I do not share this optimism; but since many of the people who do are people who know the issue better than I, let us consider an audacious, less realistic but vastly improved possibility: the one-state solution.
Ali Abunimah, founder of the Electronic Intifada, writes in his book One Country: a Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse, "There is no credible 'peace process' to provide hope that the misery on the ground is merely a transitionary phase on the way to deliverance, and the one big idea that is supposed to save us—the Palestinian state—lies in tatters." His thesis is that, if the inhabitants of the Holy Land can just learn to share, they would all be far better off. It is hard to escape his logic. Jews and Palestinians boast roughly equal numbers in Israel and the territories (6m each). They both claim ownership of the land on which they live. The fact that the West Bank and Jerusalem are so important to both Palestinians and Jews alike provides legitimacy to the claim that they should be shared. One state could mean the true right of return that gives all Palestinian refugees a place to live outside the squalid camps so many still inhabit. The two-state solution may in fact be the movement of the old guard. Fatah and Hamas may become (even more) irrelevant as the one-state cause picks up steam among young people in the Palestinian territories.
Israelis would need to abandon their unswerving claims to a purebred Jewish state in all the land of Israel/Palestine, which at the moment seems more distant than ever. Hamas would need to permanently abandon its rhetoric and violence. But if the flotilla achieves its PR goal, if non-violent Palestinian resistance continues to succeed, if the two-state bid fails and if international pressure on Israel increases, one state for Jews and Arabs might be the answer to the question of peace that everyone claims to want.
Posted in Foreign Policy, International Law, Politics. Tags: corruption, Egypt, Fatah, flotilla, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Jerusalem, Netanyahu, occupied territories, Operation Cast Lead, Palestine, Palestinian Authority, peace, refugee, Security Council, settlements, terrorism, United Nations, United States, West Bank. Leave a Comment »


CU Records is a student-run recording studio at Columbia University. Our goal is to foster the campus music scene by serving individual musicians and acts that do not possess the resources to record or showcase their own music.
We train students to become engineers and match artists with people who can record them. If you are interested in becoming an engineer, join the mailing list here.
We aim to let everyone on campus be able to record. However, if your project is a recurring one, or requires many sessions, we ask that you go through the training process and become an engineer so that you can record yourself - this helps us and you.
How do I know whether I'm officially booked for a recording slot?
After you have filled out the form above, we'll reach out to you by email in order to send you the details of when your slot will be. However, to ensure your session is booked, you should check the calendar above. If your session isn't there, send an email to our board and we'll be sure to sort things out ASAP.
CU Records provides studio engineering training every semester. This primarily involves attending two training sessions and then two shadow sessions. Sign up here.
Do you provide mixing and mastering services?
Can I get a large chunk of time to record a large project I'm working on?
Although we'd love to give everyone as much studio time as possible, there are only so many studio engineers for the many different people who want their audio recorded. Therefore, CU Records cannot offer large chunks of time for non-engineers to record. However, if you do want to record more extensively, we recommend becoming a studio engineer, because studio engineers can record whenever the studio is free and open.
Can I get a consistent spot every week to record a project I'm working on?
See above. Because there are many different people who need their music recorded, we cannot offer consistent weekly spots to non-engineers. However, all studio engineers can record themselves, so we recommend becoming a studio engineer if you want to consistently record.
Although we'd love to let you record yourself, part of our deal with Columbia says that there must be a certified CU Records engineer in the room any time the room is in use. Therefore, if you want to record yourself become a certified studio engineer.
I have no recording/music experience. Can I still come and record / can I still train to become an engineer?
No experience is required to record. Just tell the engineer you're working with what you plan to do and they'll help you carry it out. The same goes for training to become an engineer; we hope to train you so no experience is necessary.
Can you advertise my music/program?
CU Records is a studio space not an advertisement platform, and thus, we do not advertise anything.
Can I borrow equipment from CU Records?
None of CU Records' equipment may be removed from the studio. However, don't lose hope; IMATS and WBAR provide equipment loaning so contact them if there is a certain equipment that you need.
Can I leave my equipment in CU Records?
Yes, you can keep your equipment in CU Records if it doesn't take up too much space. However, if you do leave your equipment in CU Records, you must be okay with other members of the CU Records community using it as well.
Can I donate to CU Records?
What happens if I break something in CU Records?
If you break something owned by CU Records, you must compensate us for the damaged item so that we can replace it. If you broke something owned by someone else, you should contact them and figure out how to pay them back. More details will be provided contextually.
Can I use this place as a practice space?
CU Records is not meant to be a practice space, but rather a place to record pre-made music. However, if you do want to play around, we have weekly jam sessions, on Saturdays 4-6 PM, where you can practice with other musicians on campus.


text:
Q: bash script that reads a text file, stores the numbers within the file and then compare these numbers with a specific value defined by me I have a text file with the following information:
Filesystem Use%
/dev/sda1 44%
/dev/sda7 35%
/dev/sda3 2%
/dev/sda2 5%
/dev/sda5 47%
tmpfs 0%

Now, I want to make a batch file that reads this text file, store the numbers of the lines 2,3,4,5 e 6 into some variables and then compare these numbers  with a specific value set by me. The comparison would be something like this:
variable = 44
if variable > 90

then it presents a console message whith the all the line of the variable stored.
variabletwo =35
if variabletwo > 90

then it presents a console message whith the all the line of the variable stored.
and so on...
Can someone help me please?

A: awk will ignore the % when converting the field to a scalar, so you can just do:
awk 'NR > 1 && NR < 7 && $2 > 90' input-file

to print each line (restricted to lines 2 thru 6) in which the second field is greater than 90.  You probably want a better way to restrict the lines, though.  Possibly
awk '$1 ~ /^\/dev/ && $2 > 90' input-file

If you want to include more text, do something like:
awk '$1 ~ /^\/dev/ && $2 > 90 { print "$1 is over the limit: $2" }

A: A regular script in pure bash:
#!/bin/bash

THRESHOLD=20
FILE_TO_TEST="/your/inputfile/here"
{
    read
    while read DISK USED
    do
        [[ ${USED/'%'/} -gt ${THRESHOLD} ]] && echo "$DISK" "$USED"
    done
} < "$FILE_TO_TEST"

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Q: How to show current user name in a cell? In most of the online resource I can find usually show me how to retrieve this information in VBA. Is there any direct way to get this information in a cell?
For example as simple as =ENVIRON('User') (which did not work)

A: Example: to view the Windows User Name on Cell C5, you can use this script:
Range("C5").Value = ": " & Environ("USERNAME")

A: if you don't want to create a UDF in VBA or you can't, this could be an alternative.
=Cell("Filename",A1) this will give you the full file name, and from this you could get the user name with something like this:
=Mid(A1,Find("\",A1,4)+1;Find("\";A1;Find("\";A1;4))-2)

This Formula runs only from a workbook saved earlier.
You must start from 4th position because of the first slash from the drive.

A: This displays the name of the current user:
Function Username() As String
    Username = Application.Username
End Function

The property Application.Username holds the name entered with the installation of MS Office.
Enter this formula in a cell:
=Username()

A: Based on the instructions at the link below, do the following.
In VBA insert a new module and paste in this code:
Public Function UserName()
    UserName = Environ$("UserName")
End Function

Call the function using the formula:
=Username()

Based on instructions at:
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Create-Custom-Functions-in-Excel-2007-2f06c10b-3622-40d6-a1b2-b6748ae8231f

A: The simplest way is to create a VBA macro that wraps that function, like so:
Function UserNameWindows() As String
    UserName = Environ("USERNAME")
End Function

Then call it from the cell:
=UserNameWindows()

See this article for more details, and other ways.

A: Without VBA macro, you can use this tips to get the username from the path :
=MID(INFO("DIRECTORY"),10,LEN(INFO("DIRECTORY"))-LEN(MID(INFO("DIRECTORY"),FIND("\",INFO("DIRECTORY"),10),1000))-LEN("C:\Users\"))


Dark Green Flower Thick Tibetan Brocade Fabric, Sold By the Yard - Mandala Crafts, Inc.
Click the button below to add the Dark Green Flower Thick Tibetan Brocade Fabric, Sold By the Yard to your wish list.
This is premium quality Tibetan fabric with flower designs. The material is thick. It is sold by the yard. Tibetans use this kind of fabric to decorate their houses, altars, and temples. It can be a very unique find for you to make it into a tapestry, a tablecloth or altar cloth, or other art objects. This is also very unique designer fabric or upholstery fabric. The material is thick and durable.
This has an amazing sheen that I wasn't aware of buy the picture. I'd love to buy more!


text:
Halfway Into 2022 and These Are the Best Nigerian Albums We've Heard
Is it me, or is 2022 running? Just yesterday, we were all shouting, "Happy New Year", and now we're in June looking through some of the albums that have gotten us through the year so far. From big comebacks to long-awaited debuts, this year has definitely given us incredible music (and small fuel scarcity too sha).
V — Asa
If someone had told me in 2021 that I'd be dancing to an Asa song in the club this year, I'd have called them a detty liar. But here we are. After creating a blueprint for many alternative artists we listen to today with her self-titled debut album, Asa decided to surprise us this year with a new sound on V. With features from Wizkid, The Cavemen and Amaarae, Asa shows us that she refuses to be boxed. We're witnessing the evolution of Asa in real time, and we're here for the ride.
Raves and Roses — Rema
Three years after he had the world (including former President Barack Obama) dancing to his debut self-titled EP, Rema kicked off 2022 with his debut album, Rave & Roses. On songs like Soundgasm and Dirty, Rema shows that he's fully mastered how to make music for people who like sex but just haven't had it yet. However, he truly shines when he lets go of the premature sex icon image on songs like Addicted, Divine and Are You There?.
Outlaw — Victony
Mayourkun's Holy Father was one of the defining tracks of 2021, thanks to Victony's smooth vocals. Stepping into the new year and on everybody's radar as the artist to watch, Victony delivered again with his kickass EP, Outlaw. With songs like Apollo, Outlaw, Kolomental, Soweto, Jolene, and my favourite, Ole, aka "all power belong to your bumbum", Victony has successfully created an EP with zero skips.
Catch Me If You Can — Adekunle Gold
If you thought Adekunle Gold's rebrand ahead of Afropop Vol. 1 was a phase, then his new album, Catch Me If You Can, is what you need to remind you that AG Baby is here to stay. Pulling out the big guns (Fatoumata Diawara, Davido, Lucky Daye and Ty Dolla $ign) for this album, Adekunle solidifies his spot as one of the most exciting voices of new school Afrobeats.
RECOMMENDED: These New Rappers Show Us That Rap in Nigeria Is Far From Dead
Some Nights I Dream of Doors — Obongjayar
Listening to Obongjayar feels like you're reading someone's diary. His music is personal, yet the themes and the stories he tells feel universal because we've all lived them. On Some Nights I Dream of Doors, he urges us to keep hustling in Try and Sugar, while also reminding us that we deserve better with Tinko Tinko (Don't Play Me for a Fool). This album feels real because the artist behind it is honest with his emotions.
Bahd — Falz
Falz is all about being a baby boy in 2022 and I can't even be mad at it. The rapper/actor/activist/all-the-other-things-he-does makes a comeback with Bahd, an album that sounds totally different from 2019's Moral Instruction. With Bahd, Falz is more concerned with having a good time than telling you the difference between right and wrong. Songs like All Night, Another Me, Knee Down, Parampe and Inside will follow you everywhere because they're just that good.
Riddim 5 — Fave
It's hard to remember musical moments from 2021 and not think of Fave's Baby Riddim. It was that song everyone sang till it became annoying. While Fave might not have been able to recreate the magic of Baby Riddim, her EP, Riddim 5, shows us that she's here for the long haul, with compelling love songs like Obsessed and Mr. Man..
SUBARU WORLD: FINAL HEAVEN — Cruel Santino
Saying you know what to expect from a Cruel Santino record sets you up for disappointment. SUBARU WORLD: FINAL HEAVEN shows a side of Cruel Santino we didn't get on Mandy & The Jungle (to be fair, even his name was different back then). This album is more daring, more cohesive and louder than anything he's put out. But there's one big problem, though, 21-tracks? Cruel, who has time for alladat?
ALSO READ: We Listened and These Are the Biggest Songs of 2022 So Far
Who Will Be Nigerian Music's Breakout Star of 2019?
Benin's trapping in a submarine for real.
I Watched The Season Finale of The Real Housewives of Lagos So You Don't Have To
In this week's #ZikokoSYDHT, we recapped the season finale of the Real Housewives of Lagos, including the epic fight between Chioma and Carolyna. #RHOLagos
10 Nigerian Songs That Are Yoruba Men's Anthems
Ibukun
Ask the Yoruba men in your life if we're right about this list or not. If you look hard enough, you'd find one or two of these songs on their sex playlist too.
8 African Artists Make Rolling Stone's "200 Greatest Singers of All Time" List
The publication expanded the 2023 version of the Greatest Singers of All Time to 200 from the original 100 count, and for the first time, eight Africans, including Miriam Makeba, Fela Kuti, Tabu Ley and Burna Boy, have made the list.
QUIZ: How Many People Did You Sleep With In 2020?
2020 is almost over, and while we spent most of the year indoors, we are sure that didn't stop y'all from increasing your body count. So, we've created a quiz that knows how many people you slept with this year. Take to find out:
QUIZ: Can We Guess How Many Hearts You've Broken?
Are you a professional Yoruba demon? Are you walking around in search of whose life you can wreck at any given time? Well, this quiz knows exactly how many hearts you've shattered to date, and before you lie that your result is inaccurate, just remember that Zikoko is never wrong. Now, take it and be […]
10 of the Most Viral Zikoko Quizzes of 2021
A new year is right around the corner. Before we go into 2022, enjoy some of our top quizzes from this year. 1. QUIZ: Only Nigerian Gen Z'ers Can Make It To The End Of This Musicians Quiz Forget about your age. If you can make it to the end of this quiz, you're definitely […]
QUIZ: Can We Guess Your Age?
While we know that a lot of the best Nigerian artists deservedly have fans across generations, that won't stop us from attempting to guess how old you are based on your taste in Nigerian music. So, take this quiz to see if we got it right:

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Home football shirt JERSEY ADIDAS RARE VINTAGE bayern fan club FAIR DYNAMITE. If you have any questions - write, I will answer them within 24 hours!! The item "Bayern Munich GERMANY 1976-1978 Home football shirt JERSEY ADIDAS RARE VINTAGE" is in sale since Wednesday, January 11, 2017. This item is in the category "Sports Mem, Cards & Fan Shop\Fan Apparel & Souvenirs\Soccer-International Clubs". The seller is "viktoripelu_0" and is located in Lutsk, Volun. This item can be shipped worldwide.


I've posted my feelings about Pixar's seventeen-year run of male protagonists before. Basic summary: my love of Pixar and my huge frustration with Pixar's apparent inability to write female characters who are not relegated to secondary roles have been at war with each other for the last decade or so. The frustration peaked around about the time of Ratatouille and Up, both of which I adored and both of which could easily–easily–have been written with female leads. The writers wouldn't have had to change anything but the pronouns. As far as I am concerned, the substitution of female characters here wouldn't have affected the meaning of either film at all, but (as I am sure everybody is tired of hearing me reiterate) we have this maddening way of seeing "male" as the default and "female" as a special category that automatically limits a work to a special audience.
Oh, Pixar, I do love you so. I appreciate your fresh, innovative, character-driven plots; I delight in the way you surprise me almost every time (the Cars franchise doesn't count). I'm just kind of tired of the dudes. I realise that all of you are dudes, but if you genuinely believe that you are incapable of writing female characters, even though I fail to see why this is the case because women are, in fact, human beings too, you do have the power to hire female writers. It isn't hard. Do you know how many female writers would gnaw off their own limbs to have a chance to work for Pixar? Would you like my freaking phone number?
At any rate, Pixar has, at long last, produced a film with a female protagonist. It actually has more than one prominent female character and is probably the second Pixar film to pass the Bechdel Test (with The Incredibles being the first). I recall reading something somewhere on the Internet about men complaining that Brave relegates the male characters to the background. Welcome to our world, gentlemen.
Brave has been treated quite harshly by critics, who usually fall over themselves to praise Pixar films.* When I say "treated quite harshly," I mean that it's at 77% on Rotten Tomatoes instead of Pixar's usual twenty kazillion percent. Personally, I really enjoyed it. Sure, Pixar has chosen to make its first female protagonist a damn princess. Sure, the film offers us the tired old "I'm a tomboy who just wants to be as good as a man!" theme. Yet it manages both these elements well. Merida is, to my absolute delight, a fallible character who creates her own dilemma and takes the bulk of the film to realise that what has happened is, in fact, her fault. This may seem a strange thing to be delighted over, but let me explain.
There is a fundamental difference between a "strong person" and a "strong character." Some writers and filmmakers set on creating strong female characters–not all, but a good portion–apparently subscribe to the belief that strength is equivalent to an absence of all but the most superficial faults. Last year, for instance, I read a young-adult novel that I won't name because I really don't want to go around slagging it without doing so in a proper review. The female protagonist is beautiful, kind, and intelligent; she also has magical powers. A hunky young man is in love with her, and her only fault seems to be that she doesn't realise this until he spells it out for her. She ends up in terrible danger through no fault of her own. Frankly, she's boring as hell. I've already forgotten her name. The beauty, kindness, intelligence, and magical powers serve only to make her appear fundamentally unreal.
Merida's faults seem, at first, a little too typical of a teenage girl as imagined by Hollywood. However, then they land her in hot water, and instead of instantly learning her lesson and vowing to change, she just keeps on screwing up in the same way. She's appealing not because she's a woman fighting to belong in a man's world but because she's an individual, a smart kid who does stupid things sometimes. Her main conflict is not with some sneering baddie–unlike Ariel from Disney's The Little Mermaid, whose arc is also predicated on a boneheaded choice–but with her mother, who is neither saintly nor villainous but just as stubborn as Merida, and just as in need of a shift in perspective.
Brave is not Pixar's best film. It's less original than many of its predecessors, and it lacks my favourite Pixar ingredient: those heart-smashing moments of silence in which character development happens without a word being spoken. However, I can forgive it its lack of originality because it takes its atmosphere from fairy tales, which do not need to be original to be meaningful. In fact, it's in the lack of originality that a fairy tale's meaning is often found. The familiar motifs of Brave raise echoes, especially in the treatment of otherworldly spaces not as realms of evil (as in some Disney films) but as places in which both danger and knowledge can be found, sometimes simultaneously. I won't tell you about my favourite bit player, as that would be a major spoiler, but let's just say that this bit player does an excellent job of embodying what the Other World means.
All in all, then, I am happy with Brave; I don't agree with a certain friend of mine who places it just above Cars 2, which he hasn't seen, on the Pixar spectrum. I would say it's quite respectably situated.
Now that Pixar's got its feet wet, however, I hope it will consider creating a film in which the whole point is not that OH MY GOD, SHE'S A GIRL. Just give us a character who happens to be female and is allowed, in true Pixar fashion, to be not a type but a unique individual trying to make her way in the world.
*Let us just take it as a given that when I say nice things about Pixar, I am never ever ever including Cars or Cars 2.
This is exactly how I felt about Brave, though I couldn't put it down in words as eloquently as you did here. Loved it, saw it twice.
A friend just pointed me towards this and I thought of you.
Thanks, Rebecca. I've seen a few of those rules (someone made a little comic out of them), but not all of them together. Go, Pixar.


text:
<?php

namespace ZQ\SunSearchBundle\Tests\Doctrine\Annotation\Entities;

use ZQ\SunSearchBundle\Doctrine\Annotation as Sun;

/**
 *
 * @Sun\Document
 * @Sun\SynchronizationFilter(callback="shouldBeIndex")
 */
class ValidTestEntityNumericFields
{

    /**
     *
     * @Sun\Field(type="integer")
     */
    private $integer;

    /**
     *
     * @Sun\Field(type="double")
     */
    private $double;

    /**
     *
     * @Sun\Field(type="float")
     */
    private $float;

    /**
     *
     * @Sun\Field(type="long")
     */
    private $long;
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub