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By Dimi Reider
|Published April 11, 2013
Rightists say bring down the Wall, leftists say let's keep it
Noted right-wingers call to demolish the separation wall. True, they are driven by a desire for annexation, but the Left finds itself in an unseemly position – defending one of the great injustices of the occupation in the name of the distant prospect of two states.
Former Defense Minister Moshe Arens yesterday told Ma'ariv he thinks the separation wall – which snakes its way around the West Bank and has been responsible for cutting tens of thousands of people from their livelihoods and from each other – should be torn down. "The wall is no longer of any use and it's only doing Israel harm," he told the website. "It's obvious today that the separation wall [sic] is completely useless. It's damaging Israel in the international arena and it causes hardship for the Palestinians in their day-to-day lives." Arens, a noted hawk who has served as defense minister in three different Likud cabinets (Begin, Shamir and Netanyahu), attributed construction of the wall to hysteria rather than strategic thinking. "There was panic. When terror attacks occur almost every day, sometimes twice a day, and the Shin Bet comes to you and tells you it's impossible to block terrorism without a wall, you get convinced. I was also convinced, but today it's clear there is no connection between the wall and the cessation of attacks."
The former defense minister instead attributed the slump in Palestinian political violence to IDF activity within Palestinian areas and the collaboration of Palestinian police forces, adding that "the wall is ugly. It's like a scar on the face of the Land of Israel. There have been walls before and they fell down." Finally, he said, "we should remember many Jews live beyond the wall," and some fear the wall might someday become a political border.
In my mind, the last argument is the most important – both for Arens himself and for the settler politicians who rallied to his support. MK Yoni Chetboun of Habayit Hayehudi party (led by annexationist Naftali Bennett) argued to Ma'ariv that "the wall actually increases motivation for terrorism among the Palestinians by projecting a message of weakness, defensiveness and entrenchment." Chetboun, who sits on the pivotal Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, credited the wall with a "short term" role in stopping waves of attacks, but said, "what Israel needs is freedom of action within the Palestinian cities, not walls and fences… in some places there's no operational logic to the wall, and it seems the considerations driving the planners of the wall were made with political motives and with regard for the future border line."
Orit Strock, possibly the most notorious right-wing hardliner on the Habyait Hayehudi list, said that "building the fence was a mistake that should be mended… Israel spent a fortune on a wall that, according to all the reports by the IDF and the Shin Bet, is not what prevented the terror attacks. Terrorism prevention was made possible and is still made possible today through the presence and activity of the IDF in the Arab cities of Judea and Samaria."
There are some political subtexts here that indicate shades of opinion within the Right, and are therefore worth highlighting. Arens himself is a noted supporter of the one-state solution and has written and spoken in support of annexing the West Bank and granting full civil rights (including the right to vote) to its Palestinian residents on many occasions (this op-ed from 2010 is particularly worth a read). As a result, he has no problem referring to the barrier by the derisive and highly accurate moniker, "the separation wall." Of the three, Arens also is the only one who explicitly refers to the hardships the wall causes to Palestinians (which, if nothing else, obviously generates a security liability in the long run) and offers some credit to the Palestinian Authority's security forces for clamping down on Palestinian armed groups. Chetboun, the next to the right, doesn't mention Palestinian needs or contributions, but at least refers to them by their proper name. Strock, finally, doesn't even recognise the Palestinians as a nation – to her, they are mere residents of "Arab" cities within [Jewish] Judea and Samaria and what's needed is not only "freedom of action," but actual "presence" of the IDF within those cities. In short, she is advocating a straightforward resumption of complete, direct military control over the West Bank, without even the fig leaf of the Palestinian Authority.
What all three have in common, however, is the concern that the wall might one day demarcate a political border with a Palestinian state, thus affecting the "Jews beyond the wall" (step forth, Jon Snowowitz) and the IDF's freedom of action there. Considering that the wall, built entirely on the increasingly vacant pretext of "security," already eats up much of the miserly territory afforded to Palestinians under the two-state solution paradigm, this reluctance to give up even the little that's left might seem appalling to two-staters. But the comments of the left wingers quoted in the piece paint the two-state camp in Israel in an even more depressing light.
The Left clings to the wall
MK Eitan Cabel (Labor) paid tribute to Arens' achievements, but lamented the "wrong" motivations for his desire to bring down the wall. "It's actually another step towards the bi-national state in which he believes. It's not the wall that makes us look bad across the world, but the profound diplomatic deadlock caused by Netanyahu. The only thing that will bring down the wall is an agreement with the Palestinians. The wall is a terrible thing from a humanitarian point of view, but that's not the reason why Arens wants to remove it." Chairman of Peace Now, Yariv Oppenheimer, also chips in: "Those who want to completely dismantle the fence seek to create the reality of a single, bi-national state, either non-Jewish or non-democratic. The fence must be moved to the future border based on the 1967 lines and the land taken away from Palestinians from its construction must be returned to them."
The wall and the entire separation paradigm ("we're here, they're there," as Ehud Barak once put it ) is first and foremost a center-left construct; it's not for nothing that the most avid champions of the wall were Barak himself and Ehud Olmert. Both progressive public figures seemed more threatened by the remote prospect of a bi-national state than concerned with anything like equality or justice, even in the short-term – otherwise there should have been no problem for them to demand both the immediate demolition of the wall and a return to two-state negotiations.
Oppenheimer's desire to rebuild the wall on the 1967 border is particularly bizarre, considering he advocates a peace agreement with the Palestinians that would make such a gargantuan fortification superfluous, and considering such reconstruction would necessitate the confiscation of yet more land, causing further hardship.
But it is Cabel's comments that shed the starkest light on the current condition of the center-left's two-state project. With the rise of the annexationist Right, the Left, which should have been demanding the demolition of the wall forthwith has now come to hinge upon the wall as its last hope for preserving a nation-state through separation. The size, viability and contiguity of the Palestinian state that will result from this can go to hell, as can the immediate needs of the Palestinians who are catastrophically affected by the wall. Eventual separation is now such an urgent priority that everything and everyone else can wait – let the wall stay where it is, so long as we get two separate states in the long run.
New room for manoeuvre
The division of opinion here indicates once again the slow redrawing of the political map in Israel: The Right is emerging as the more politically daring and flexible, ready to radically challenge the status quo and offer significant changes, up to and including enfranchisement of Palestinians and/or bi-national power-sharing, even if it is unlikely to offer or accept full individual and collective rights from the get-go. The old Left is becoming more entrenched and conservative-nationalist, determined to preserve the status quo without any profound or systemic changes.
For better or worse, it seems the agenda in the next few years will be set by Arens, Bennett and co., and if the wall is indeed brought down, it won't be through the efforts of the mainstream Left. The more interesting question is how Palestinians will respond to this change: will they continue to ally themselves broadly with the partitionist, fading Left, which is happy to drive them into ever narrower confines (with friends like these…), or will they utilize and push to expand the much broader room for maneuver inadvertently being created by the annexationist Right.
bi-national state
ehud barak
Ehud Olmert
Eitan Cabel
Israeli right wing
Moshe Arens
naftali bennett
Palestinian state
peace now
two state solution
Yoni Chetboun
The right wing in Israel is in a deep crisis
rsgengland
The wall/fence has almost become the de facto border.
There would need to be some alterations, but it is very much a reality on the ground.
Despite all comments that the 'barrier' has not been effective, feet on the ground control in Judea and Samaria [called the West Bank after Jordan invaded, occupied and annexed the area after 1948] has been made more simple, by mostly keeping the 'enemy' outside.
It's as much a reality on the ground as the Berlin wall was. It wasn't there before, it's there for a while and once it's gone it's as though it never was. The only realities on the ground are rivers, mountains and the ocean. Nor, as +972 has shown in articles by Haggai Matar, has anyone who really wanted to get in (whatever "in" is) been permanently deterred by the wall.
Kolumn9
One can ford rivers and cross mountains. The ability to cross the wall for those willing to put in an effort does not make it any less a reality on the ground which changes perceptions about what is 'out' and what is 'in'. Additionally the ability for people to enter at a relatively quiet time doesn't properly reflect what the wall can do when the army and shin bet are fully deployed to prevent someone from crossing.
Greg Pollock
K9's conditional statement is right. If bombers come from the east in waves, the Wall would be effective. It won't stop a handful of bombers. But many–yes, for the deployment reasons K9 states. If we want to live in a world where that seems plausible if not likely, then K9 is right. The question is whether the assumption of a wave has to be plausible–and that depends on the social order.
The Trespasser
>It won't stop a handful of bombers.
Wall combined with checkpoints and network of collaborators has proven to be rather efficient to stop even one single bomber.
De facto for Israel, not for anyone else. Once Palestine gains worldwide recognition based on the June 4th 1967 borders, Israel will be in violation of said borders, with all the repercussions and potential sanctions associated with it. The wall will then have to "move" to the internationally-recognized border, or Israel will face sanctions.
Aaron Gross
Actually, Israel would not be in violation of those borders. The normal case of belligerent occupation is to occupy an enemy's sovereign territory. Palestine is atypical in that the occupied territory is not under anyone's sovereignty. Granting Palestinian sovereignty would just make the occupation more normal, like that of the Golan. Legal, in any case.
The settlements would not be in violation, either. Even granting that some or even all were established illegally, their continued existence is not illegal.
aristeides
They obviously breed for sophistry in Israel.
Piotr Berman
Such scant appreciation!
I am planning a book on oxymoron and I am putting the finishing chapter on "Mature content" (which involves jokes that may capture the imagination of pre-schoolers).
"The normal case of belligerent occupation" has a nice ring to it.
Piotr, here's a nice quote for your entry on normal occupations in your upcoming book on oxymorons: "The most persistent myth is that the occurrence of belligerent occupation is an anomaly or even an aberration." That's from the very first paragraph of Yoram Dinstein, The International Law of Belligerent Occupation. The point being that occupation is a normal situation in war.
So, you're welcome. Best of luck with your book, and I'll be looking for my name in the Acknowledgements.
David T.
"Actually, Israel would not be in violation of those borders. The normal case of belligerent occupation is to occupy an enemy's sovereign territory.
Palestine is atypical in that the occupied territory is not under anyone's sovereignty. Granting Palestinian sovereignty would just make the occupation more normal, like that of the Golan. Legal, in any case.
It's no surprise that supporters of colonialism are stuck in an interpretation of international (customary) law pre 1919.
Since the establishment of the mandate system – which prohibited annexation of these territories – the inhabatants/citizens of a country are its rightful souvereign and have the right to self determination. It doesn't matter if the exercise of their souvereignity is limited or surpressed by mandate or occupation.
Israel occupied land beyond the borders in which it legally binding declared independence. It has no right to allow the colonialization of this land by its citizens, wether they are Jewish or not. It has not title to any part of this land at all. Even Israel itself was not established in accordance with the right to self determination of all citizens of Palestine.
The so-called right to self-determination was a right to national self-determination. (Hence the debate over whether the Palestinians are a nation.) It applied to the breakup of the Ottoman and Habsburg empires. What you're talking about – self-determination of residents of a territory, with no regard to nationhood – is much more recent.
There's no contradiction between a right to self-determination, in the current sense of the word, and occupation by a foreign power. As I said, the normal, legal situation is occupation of another state's sovereign territory, where the sovereign rights are even clearer.
Also, just to correct another of your obvious mistakes: I'm not a defender "colonialism," of Israeli settlement of Judea and Samaria.
Palestinians (citizens of Palestine) became a nation after Palestines detachment of Turkey and the term was legally defined in 1925. Ottoman Jews and Arabs habitually residing in Palestine became "Palestinians". The right so self determination in Palestine was a right of its citizens and not of Arabs or Jews living anywhere else. And more than half of the Jews in Palestine hadn't even acquire citizenship in 1948 and had not right to self determination in Palestine at all.
"There's no contradiction between a right to self-determination, in the current sense of the word, and occupation by a foreign power."
Occupation is the ultimate contradition to the right of self determination.
"As I said, the normal, legal situation is occupation of another state's sovereign territory, where the sovereign rights are even clearer."
Palestine was a state even during Britain's occupation before mandate times (allthough Palestine was recognized as a state ex tunc when receiving the mandate). A state is a state even when its souvereignity is exercised by others because of occupation, mandate or protection. It might not be a "normal" case, but nothing about Israel's occupation is or its establishment was "normal" anyway. The clear majority of the citizens of Palestine were against partition and because the rights of Jewish Palestinians were not fundamentally violated they couldn't even make the case for a remedial secession. A Zionist paramilitary Junta just took over the territory and it was clear to the Meirs and Ben Gurions that there was not other way to get a state after Britain's White Book of 1939.
Than why do you – like Israel – use ancient Hebrew terms for this region and argue that it is not occupied, its borders not violated and the settlements not illegal? Would it be different if you were talking about "Bohemia and Moravia"?
>Palestinians (citizens of Palestine) became a nation after Palestine's detachment of Turkey and the term was legally defined in 1925. Ottoman Jews and Arabs habitually residing in Palestine became "Palestinians". The right so self determination in Palestine was a right of its citizens and not of Arabs or Jews living anywhere else.
From Treaty of Lausanne, art. 30:
"Turkish subjects habitually resident in territory which in accordance with the provisions of the present Treaty is detached from Turkey will become ipsofacto, in the conditions laid down by the local law, nationals of the State to which such territory is transferred."
At the time the only local law was the British mandate, meaning that Palestinian Arabs had no legal right to deny Jews equal rights and homeland.
>And more than half of the Jews in Palestine hadn't even acquire citizenship in 1948 and had not right to self determination in Palestine at all.
Acquired citizenship from who? Palestinian Arab congress?
>Occupation is the ultimate contradition to the right of self determination.
If the right of self-determination of any given (pseudo-)nation is based on discrimination of minorities, there is nothing wrong with occupation, as it enforces peace and equality.
>Palestine was a state even during Britain's occupation before mandate times
>A state is a state even when its souvereignity is exercised by others because of occupation, mandate or protection.
More nonsense.
>The clear majority of the citizens of Palestine were against partition
The clear majority of citizens of Palestine were for oppression of Jewish minority.
>and because the rights of Jewish Palestinians were not fundamentally violated they couldn't even make the case for a remedial secession.
Denial of right to have a homeland is not fundamental violation. Right.
Denial of right to seat by the Western Wall is not violation either.
>A Zionist paramilitary Junta just took over the territory and it was clear to the Meirs and Ben Gurions that there was not other way to get a state after Britain's White Book of 1939.
After the racist Palestinian Arab congress of 1919 it was clear to Haims, Moishes and Itzhaks that Arabs won't let Jews to have a homeland.
The nationality law of Palestine dealt only with the question of citizenship. And there is not a single document confirming any rights to a homeland. But if equality is so important for you: The majority of the country had the right to rule immigration like in any other country. And Britain had not right to enforce immigrants upon a country it never posessed.
It was the mandatory who stopped immigration. And it should have been majority rule to decide upon it.
Oh, so the occupation of Israel wouldn't be wrong? After all it keeps a large amounts of Nonjews expelled and denationalized.
Very sophisticated arguments! But all class A mandates were states. The Permanent International Court of Justice ruled in the Mavrommatis case that Palestine was a successor state. The chairman of the Permanent Mandate Commission of the League of Nation declared that Palestine was a state and Palestinians formed a nation. And there where many states (inluding the USA) who had bi- or multilateral state contracts with Palestine which were concluded by the Mandatory on its behalf.
The Arab delegation to the UN in 1947 proposed a secular democratic state with minority rights. The Jewish Agency rejected this proposal, because it wanted its own state. But what to do with the majority of Nonjews who didn't want to live under Jewish oppression? Until 1966 they even ruled the Nonjewish citizens of their state under military law.
A right to a "homeland" does not exist in international law. And the homeland was allready established by 1939 – see the White Book of '39. But wouldn't you say that the majoritry of citizens of a country have a right to decide their future goverment? Or is it different, when they are not Jewish?
It doesn't justify a remedial secession.
So Jews have a right to takeover any country by force, if the majority of its inhabitants don't want them to do what is decided by Jewish foreigners on a "racist" congress in Switzerland in 1897? ROFL.
'Keeping the enemy outside'? Despite the cherished belief that Arrabeh and Tamra and Nazareth are populated by some species of unicorn, quite unrelated to those people living on the other side of the wall, the fact remains that they are very much related and they comprise 20% of Israel's population. Even if people try to start viewing the wall as a border (and a strange kind of border it is, considering that when drawn on a map it would more closely resemble a mad woman's knitting than anything else) the mere existence of those people and their community connections gives the lie to any effort to split Palestine.
Why would the presence of an ethnic minority give lie to an effort to partition a territory? The world is full of countries with minorities and if we don't partition the territory then wouldn't there be a minority in either case?
As for 'keeping the enemy outside'. Were the suicide bombers to come from Tamra then you might have an argument, but they don't. The suicide bombers come overwhelmingly from the other side of the wall.
Wrong tense, K9.
You can stand out there all day and night, and odds are you won't spot a single suicide bomber climbing over the wall.
The construction of the security barrier started in 2002 when suicide bombers were coming into Israel on a weekly basis.
Whether the tense I used was correct or not is entirely dependent on events that neither you nor I can foretell.
Only if you can't tell the difference between present and future.
Aristeides, you post comments on 972mag. The only way that my tense is wrong is if you stop posting on 972mag permanently.
This isn't quite the point I was making. The language that is commonly used for Palestinian Israelis – 'demographic threat' – does suggest that there are enemies within When people talk about borders, security from suicide bombers isn't the issue: preservation of Israel's Jewish character is. For proponents of two states, this can be achieved in the same way as solving a Rubik's cube: a line must be created that leaves most of the Arabs on one side and most of the Jews on the other. But even if this feat of engineering could be managed physically (doubtful, given the number of settlers in the WB and the distribution of Palestinian communities in Israel), human geography wouldn't easily permit it.
This is what I was getting at. Palestinians living in Bethlehem share a connection with Palestinians living in Galilee, whether that is through something as basic as blood/familial relationships, a common history and culture, or simply contact with a certain church in a certain village. The same can be said for the relationships between Israeli Jews living within the Green Line and those living in settlements. These relationships would go on existing in spite of partition, with Israel's Palestinian minority serving as a constant unpleasant and unwanted reminder of Palestine. The disquiet that this causes is already obvious in the contradictory claims that are made about them ("They're a fifth column" and "They aren't Palestinians, they're Israeli Arabs"). Safeguarding the Jewishness of the state doesn't just mean limiting their number, but minimising their connection with the wider Palestinian community.
For their part, Palestinian nationalists have to similarly downplay Jewish (and especially Ashkenazi) connections with places and people in the OT. This is the result of an approach that defines the conflict in purely territorial terms and attempts to solve it by cutting up the land like a cake. I don't see how it can achieve anything except to generate further trouble.
>The language that is commonly used for Palestinian Israelis…
What "Palestinian Israelis", exactly?
Druze? Bedouin? Samaritans? Armenians? Jews?
You are operating with some extremely generalized category which does not actually exist.
Yeah, by the way, the inability of Palestinian Arabs to reach any kind of national unity is due to the fact that there are numerous tribes, clans and ethnicities, but no "Palestinian People" or anything similar.
This is pretty much exactly what I was referring to when I wrote about attempts to expunge or at least minimise relationships between Palestinian communities on both sides of the Green Line. Replacing the name 'Palestinian' with the more blandly palatable 'Israeli Arab' makes Palestinian presence within the Green Line easier to swallow, as it's less threatening to the idea of a Jewish state.
Secondly, a community can be like a patchwork, containing multiple subgroups (e.g. Druze and various Bedouin tribes). Those patches may also overlap significantly, with people being comfortable describing themselves as both Druze and Palestinian and Bedouin and Palestinian – or, God forbid, maybe even Bedouin and Palestinian and Israeli. These aren't mutually exclusive. (You can see this from looking at your own society – there are enough Jewish subcommunities in Israel.)
Go and ask around Nazareth and you will find plenty of people who call themselves Palestinian Israeli or Palestinians of Israeli citizenship. You insisting that this category doesn't exist won't change the fact that they feel it's a good descriptive fit for their experience. All this identity politicking is just a way of trying to demarcate and then police borders of the twin nationalisms. People and their lives are far too messy for this approach. It doesn't work and eats up time and energy that could probably be better spent elsewhere.
So what does "Palestinian" means?
Tribe? No.
Ethnicity? No.
Nationality? No.
Until 1948 everyone who resided in Palestine was called a Palestinian.
Now Jews are excluded from the list. On what basis?
Nationality. Until 1948 according to the nationality law all citizens including all Jews, who became citizens during the mandate (half of them in 1948 hadn't). After 1948 according to PLO definition not including Jews who became citizens during the mandate. It's still a national term – unlike "Jewish" which was never a nation in the sence of citizenship. So what does "Jew" mean, if you even can convert to become one?
Not Jews as such, see PLO definitition. And on the base that most of them are Israeli citizens.
When people talk about the wall, security from suicide bombers was the primary driver.
In the case of partition there would be an Israeli Arab community in Israel and possibly a Palestinian Jewish community in Palestine. Human geography is not set in stone. All the borders in this region have had the effect of creating borders to human geography and over time these become real and the human geography changes. Culture changes, identities change, etc.. In 1965 you are unlikely to find a Palestinian who didn't say that his primary identification is as an Arab. Now the primary identification is as a Palestinian and in the future it might be as a Muslim or a Christian. These identities and the human geography they spawn are somewhat arbitrary and fleeting. The same is true for family ties and points of cultural significance. None of this forms any particular barrier to partition.
There are already cultural barriers between the Arabs of Gaza and the West Bank and between Israel and these territories. There isn't anything particularly unusual here since there are fundamental differences in the lifestyles and cultural influences of these groups. In the case of partition and a permanent peace agreement these differences will likely only grow. Absent the fear of a persistent demand from Palestinian nationalists to overturn the state of Israel (which should lessen with partition and a peace agreement) there would be no particular barrier for a more full integration of Israeli Arabs in Israel. Will that come at the expense of their Palestinian identity? Almost certainly. Is this particularly a bad thing? Nope.
I was talking about the wall as a potential border, as the article does.
I agree that human geography isn't set in stone. (Another reason why I'm sceptical of the 2SS, as it presents 'Jew' and 'Palestinian' as two rigidly immutable categories.) But there is a significant difference between organic change that occurs gradually over time (e.g. through increased exposure to other cultures, loan words in language, etc.) and deliberately trying to engineer a sharp change in how a community lives and the way it sees itself. A Gaza friend has often said to me that she worries the day will come when Gaza 'won't even look Palestinian any more'. This doesn't make her keen to embrace a new Gazan identity. It makes her frustrated, angry, and profoundly conscious of loss. This is what happens when you attempt to forcibly reorganise the pieces of a fractured community into a different puzzle. It doesn't create peace. That was the theory behind the treatment of Palestinian refugees – they'll be absorbed into the tissue of neighbouring countries, they'll forget, their kids won't grow up Palestinian, and there will be peace. It beggars belief that this argument could be made with a straight face by individuals who come from a community that has retained a particular sense of peoplehood in spite of undergoing numerous forced displacements and assimilating into multiple different societies over the course of millennia. So while partition might bring about the change you describe, I wouldn't bank on it.
Vicky, I support cutting up the land like a cake, so here's what I think it can achieve: peace. The idea is that while Israel would still be polyethnic, the Jews would still be the clear Staatvolk, by numbers if nothing else, so Jewish-Arab relations would not degrade into civil war.
A similar situation would exist in Palestine, if Jewish settlers were allowed to stay. The Jews would be powerless, so again, no civil war. Ideally, the Jews would move into the State of Israel when a Palestinian entity is established, which would make that entity entirely Arab.
Obviously, neither Arabs in Israel nor Jews in Palestine would feel entirely part of their state or whatever. Contrary to many here, I don't see that as a horrible thing at all.
Aaron, this vision of peace rests on the idea that the minority community would pose a threat to that peace – and must therefore be kept at a manageable number. In short, the same suspicion and mistrust that have contributed to the conflict are now to be embedded in the solution. This isn't peace in any meaningful sense of the word.
This isn't to say that a two-state solution couldn't achieve a just peace (supposing two states were possible on a practical level). But the axiom on which that argument rests does need to change significantly. When Peace Now released its infamous cartoon in support of Palestinian statehood, the Muslim call to prayer was played in the background by way of sinister mood music as the narrator darkly intoned the demographic risk incurred by the occupation. How do I explain this to the kids who come to our centre, kids who have already been treated as though they're dangerous? 'This is how they still see you, this is what they think of you even now, but try not to mind, at least they'll give you Nablus and we can go and get some decent knafeh'? It is not possible to have peace while people are still looking at each other like that – and what's more, not seeing anything wrong with it.
My final problem with the usual arguments for the 2SS is the way they reduce the conflict to a simple territorial question that can be answered by straightforward territorial division. It's an escapist approach. There is a lot more to the conflict than this and the resolution needs to take that into account.
Aaron, you are describing a negative-peace, a peace that is not long-term. It is similar to the Balkan states. They 'might' have peace… for now with their own respective states, but no one would bat an eyelid if it errupted in a bloody war again.
So all these right-wingers are out to destroy Israel, by advocating annexation to create a single state.
Good to know.
Roberto K
Next step would be to fight for voting rights, right to elect and be elected to the Knesset for all inhabitants of West Bank and Gaza. That would be good.
There are a few mavericks on the right who've been talking for years about a single democratic state west of the Jordan. Only a fool would confuse them with "the right." All the more foolish to see in them some future direction in Israeli opinion. Mainstream Israel still firmly believes in "us here, them there," as it has for the last twenty years.
The separation barrier – "wall" is not an accurate term for the whole thing, sorry – was always resisted by the settlers and their friends on the right. Sharon finally gave in only reluctantly. As I remember, it was Haim Ramon on the center-left, more than Barak or Olmert, who was really pushing for the separation barrier.
The Zionist Left is Zionist; they want a Jewish State. They know that is ultimately impossible in one binational State, so want to keep the wall precisely because the hard nationalist/religious right wants to subjugate and/or dwindle the resident Bank population, returning the land once associated with the Jewish monarchy. Monarchy–there can be no democracy in the hard right dream, and the Zionist Left neither wants that nor the subjugation. The only operational problem is the PA is needed for security, and the PA will ultimately diwndile itself in the forward motion towards One State.
berl
This article is misleading: a journalistic simplification. No one among leftwing voters – whatever leftwing means to you – wants to keep the wall. They simply support Palestinian self-determination; they want a Palestinian state that will cooperate with their neighbours.
Moreover, Judea is the name for the Kingdom of Judea and for the Roman Province of Judea, and those extended way beyond the West Bank, and included Jerusalem and went as far west as to the Mediterranean Sea. In Biblical times, Samaria "reached from the [Mediterranean] sea to the Jordan Valley"
Don't you think that the name Judea should connote a swath of land that extends far beyond just the West Bank, to include the Hasmonean Kingdom of Judea and the Roman Province of Judea?
What is the ideological basis for separating the "Judea" of the West Bank from what Judea actually means- the ancient province extending to the sea?
Finally, Jews, according to they mythology, descend from Judah, and not Ephraim, Manasseh etc. who were ancestors of Samaritans. Most Samaritans converted to other religions after VI-th century, and the largest number of both Samaritans and their descendants is in area of Nablus.
Samaritans were not affected by the expulsion of Jewish rebels by Romans and their population was large enough that they rebelled when Byzantines tries to forcibly convert them to Christianity in VI-th century.
"Terrorism [snip] was made possible and is still made possible today through the presence and activity of the IDF in the Arab cities of Judea and Samaria"
The hard truth is that if Palestinians were determined to sacrifice themelves wholesale then the wall would not stop them. The suicide missions have stopped because armed Palestinian groups have decided that they serve little positive purpose.
But hey, believe anything you would rather.
The hard truth is that Palestinian terrorist groups were rooted out wholesale from the West Bank while the Palestinian Authority realized that the pain that was being caused by continued suicide bombings to its own population was unproductive and started cooperating with Israel.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad didn't stop the suicide bombings until they were stopped by a combination of IDF/Shabak military action and PA cooperation. Basically the wall and checkpoints drained the swamp and the attacks on terrorist leaders decreased the effectiveness of the terrorist groups. At that point the PA and Shabak can concentrate on those that remain and round them up or kill them.
No evidence of that at all Kolumn9. You are deceiving yourself.
>The suicide missions have stopped because armed Palestinian groups have decided that they serve little positive purpose.
Rubbish.
Suicide missions had stopped *solely* because bombers could not get to their targets due to checkpoints, walls and intelligence.
The objective fact is that the suicide bombings stopped. The objective fact is that in places where the fence was built attacks stopped and was redirected towards places where the wall had yet to be constructed. The objective fact is that the PA didn't resume security cooperation with Israel until 2005 while Fatah's own people carried out suicide bombings after 2005. At the same time and without PA security cooperation Israeli security measured drastically cut the number of suicide bombings. It wasn't that the number of attempts to carry out the bombings went down over this time, but the number of successful attacks that dropped vastly. That demonstrates that, no, the Palestinian groups did not stop trying to attack, and that, yes, Israel was able to interdict or prevent more and more attacks over the time period. So, neither the argument that the militant groups stopped the attacks out of their free will nor the argument that it was cooperation with the PA that caused them to stop makes any sense whatsoever.
I have little doubt K9 is right. Stopping bombers is a distinct question than the genesis of bombers. I think, however, saying the PA "realized" is had to cooperate is a bit unclear. Network competition within the PA lead to dominance by the cooperation faction, but a single PA mind did not change.
However, the Wall is not complete, with I think 1000's of workers moving across the line daily. There has been no new genesis of active bombers, and I do not think that solely for the reasons K9 states.
occupation is a form of violence and terrorism, Kolumn.
un2here
I actually never thought of Labor as being "Leftist"
I think it's worth pointing out here that it's not only those on the right that prefer a one-state solution – it's not a clear divide between one-state/two-state and right/left, I think that's an unhelpful distinction that's made in this article.
The difference is, one state proponents on the left would suggest one state involving equal civil rights to all citizens, the right of return for refugees, and a shared Jerusalem – a Democratic Republic of Israel and Palestine, if you will. Whereas the one state solution from a rightist perspective is simply annexing Palestinian land and making it all Israel – they're very different things.
To sum up, I don't think the Left is uniformly "partitionist" (in fact, it's unhelpful to label them so), in the same way that not all on the right are calling for a binational solution.
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Dimi Reider
Dimi Reider is an Israeli journalist and an Associate Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). His work has appeared in The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, Haaretz, Daily Beast, Jerusalem Post and Index on Censorship. Over the past two years, Dimi's blog on +972 has also been quoted and referenced by the following publications:
array(5) { [142302]=> int(7) [142316]=> int(2) [142154]=> int(2) [142260]=> int(1) [142340]=> int(1) }
More from Dimi Reider
Anti-Semitic, white supremacist slogans at Exeter University event
Don't call it a comeback: Really, please don't come back
By flexing his muscles, Liberman gives Gaza's radicals a boost
Israeli intel minister: Brussels was attacked because of chocolate


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You are here: Home / Science / Medical
LightAware receives personal accounts from around the world telling us that people are experiencing pain and ill health when exposed to new forms of lighting.
Some people with pre-existing health issues find their conditions exacerbated: including migraine and light-sensitive skin conditions.
Others with no previous health issues also experience problems under new forms of lighting. Some experience severe symptoms, including searing eye pain, debilitating headaches, skin burning and rashes, dizziness, fainting and vomiting.
For others, the symptoms are milder: anxiety, eczema, edginess or just a sensation of discomfort or 'wrongness' that is hard to locate. Senior medics are expressing deep concern about the affect of new lighting on human eyes, skin, circadian rhythm and nervous system.
But there are many questions still unanswered.
How does artificial lighting affect human health and wellbeing?
How many people are adversely affected by new forms of lighting?
How does one type of light bulb cause different problems in different people?
Why are some people affected by some forms of light and not others?
LightAware believes these questions, and many more, urgently need addressing. We seek to stimulate research and investigation into the affect of artificial lighting on human health, and to compile the information currently available.
LightAware is compiling a selection of published medical papers on how artificial light affects human health and wellbeing.
May 11, 2019 | Analysis of Compact Fluorescent Lights for Use by Patients with Photosensitive Conditions | US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health
Ultraviolet radiation (UVR) is hazardous to patients with photosensitive skin disorders, such as lupus erythematosus, xeroderma pigmentosum and skin cancer. As such, these patients are advised to minimize their exposure to UVR. Classically, this is accomplished through careful avoidance of sun exposure and artificial tanning booths.
January 1, 2019 | Colour in the treatment of visual stress | Essex University - Professor Wilkins
The use of colour to treat visual discomfort and perceptual distortions (visual stress) has been the subject of recent controversy.
December 5, 2018 | Outdoor Artificial Nighttime Light and Use of Hypnotic Medications in Older Adults: A Population-Based Cohort Study | Journal of Sleep Medicine
The inappropriate or excessive use of outdoor artificial nighttime light, referred to as light pollution, has emerged as a novel environmental issue linked to human health.
October 11, 2018 | Color-selective photophobia in ictal vs interictal migraineurs and in healthy controls | US National Library of Medicine
Aversion to light is common among migraineurs undergoing acute attacks. Using psychophysical assessments in patients with episodic migraine, we reported that white, blue, amber, and red lights exacerbate migraine headache in a significantly larger percentage of patients and to a greater extent compared with green light.
April 23, 2018 | Evaluating the Association between Artificial Light-at-Night Exposure and Breast and Prostate Cancer Risk in Spain (MCC-Spain Study) | Environmental Health Perspectives
In 2007, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) concluded that shift work that involves circadian disruption is "probably carcinogenic to humans"
August 17, 2017 | Outdoor light at night linked with increased breast cancer risk in women | Harvard University
Boston, MA – Women who live in areas with higher levels of outdoor light at night may be at higher risk for breast cancer than those living in areas with lower levels, according to a large long-term study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The link was stronger among women who worked night shifts.
February 1, 2016 | Light pollution: the possible consequences of excessive illumination on retina. | Eye, Nature Publishing Group
Light pollution may have a strong impact on people's health
February 2, 2015 | Blue Light has a Dark Side | Harvard Health Publications
Exposure to blue light at night, emitted by electronics and energy-efficient lightbulbs, harmful to your health.
March 1, 2014 | Hidden Blue Hazard? LED Lighting and Retinal Damage in Rats | Environmental Health Perspectives
The Canadian government greeted 2014 with the first tier of its new energy-efficiency standards for light bulbs,1 which will effectively ban incandescent light bulbs by next year.2 But efficient lighting can have its own drawbacks. For instance, although devoid of the mercury used in compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), some white light-emitting diodes (LEDs) emit a wavelength of light associated with adverse human health effects. In this issue of EHP, researchers study retinal changes in rats exposed to white LEDs like those sometimes used in household lighting.3
October 11, 2013 | Energy-saving lamps and their impact on photosensitive and normal individuals | US National Library of Medicine
A preliminary investigation showed that ultraviolet radiation (UVR) emissions from compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) can pose a risk to the skin of photosensitive individuals.
January 2, 2013 | Photosensitivity in cutaneous lupus erythematosus | Wiley Online Library
Ultraviolet radiation (UVR) is a well‐known exacerbating factor for cutaneous lupus erythematosus (CLE), with photosensitivity comprising one of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) diagnostic criteria for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). However, discerning true photosensitivity in this population is difficult due to the broad language utilized by the ACR and the delayed‐onset nature of photosensitive lupus lesions.
August 24, 2012 | Climate Change | American Journal of Public Health
Climate Change, Fluorescent Lighting, and Eye Disease: A Little Too Light on the Science
June 13, 2012 | The Effects of UV Emission from CFL Exposure on Human Dermal Fibroblasts and Keratinocytes in Vitro. | The American Society of Photobiology
Taken together, our results confirm that UV radiation emanating from CFL bulbs (randomly selected from different suppliers) as a result of defects or damage in the phosphorus coating is potentially harmful to human skin.
January 24, 2012 | Flicker can be perceived during saccades at frequencies in excess of 1kHz | University of Essex
When driving at night behind a car with LED tail lights it is possible to experience a trail of lights with each rapid movement of the eyes (saccade).
December 1, 2011 | Eye Disease Resulting From Increased Use of Fluorescent Lighting as a Climate Change Mitigation Strategy | American Journal of Public Health
We advocate for the use of incandescent and warm-white lamps instead of cool-white fluorescent lamps, as well as for further research into improving lighting from such sources.
November 24, 2011 | The Lightest Touch | NHS Quarterly
Raising Awareness on Protecting Patients with Light Sensitivity
October 24, 2011 | Migraine and Light Sensitivity | Migraine Action Report
Flickering light can trigger a migraine attack for some individuals
May 11, 2011 | The risk to normal and photosensitive individuals from exposure to lightfrom compact fluorescent lamps | Photobiology Unit, Department of Dermatology, Ninewells Hospital & Medical School, Dundee, UK
Light is a basic requirement for life on earth. The sun sustains life and is still the major source of lighting for humankind. It is an atomic furnace that turns mass into energy. Each second, four million tons of mass is discharged into space as energy, although, the earth receives only about two billionths of this.
July 24, 2010 | LED Lighting Flicker and Potential Health Concerns: IEEE Standard PAR1789 Update | 2010 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition
The paper represents on-going work in IEEE PAR1789 that is vital to designing safe LED lamp drivers.
April 11, 1981 | Mechanism of photosensitivity in systemic lupus erythematosus patients | US National Library of Medicine
Patients who have systemic lupus erythematosus have increased numbers of chromosome breaks and rearrangements correlated with a low molecular weight chromosome-damaging agent that is released from their lymphocytes into the serum.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
module Approved
  module ActionViewExtentions
    module AuthenticationDecision
      include Approved::Authentication

      # option setting
      # example
      # url[:controller] = "myhomes"
      # url[:action] = "index"
      # get "myhomes#index"
      def decision?(url = {}, user_id = nil)
        if url[:controller].present? && url[:action].present?
          judgment("#{url[:controller]}##{url[:action]}", user_id)
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

ActionView::Base.send :include, Approved::ActionViewExtentions::AuthenticationDecision

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Updates / The Gravity-Defying Acrobatic Troupe Who Are Redefining Circus
The Gravity-Defying Acrobatic Troupe Who Are Redefining Circus
This article was originally published in Populous Magazine, our biannual publication featuring news and trends from the worlds of sport, entertainment, and major public events. Find out more, and sign up to receive a free copy, here.
They call it circus, but you won't find lion-tamers, clowns or trapeze artists here. Circa, a contemporary circus troupe based in Australia and now touring internationally, specialises in immaculately choreographed group acrobatics. In stark contrast to the glitz and whimsy of traditional circus shows, the performances are raw and stripped back, marrying elements of gymnastics, contemporary dance, theatre, live music and visual storytelling.
"We try to make art out of circus," says Yaron Lifschitz, the creative director. "We try to make work that is authentic; that speaks from the heart; that is artistically vigorous and fearless."
The troupe was set up in Brisbane in 2004. Since then it has performed in 40-odd countries around the world to over a million people. It's the way the acrobats combine their bodies which is so intriguing. In one of their shows, En Masse, an ensemble of six performers appears in monochrome dress on a bare stage, accompanied by two singers and four musicians.
The acrobats twist, contort and tumble across the performance space, coming together as intricate constellations, balancing on each other's bodies, muscles quivering, one on top of another on top of another. For one of the moves, a single performer supports three others on his shoulders, one standing and the other two balanced in a precarious handstand, creating a reverse-pyramid formation. Another move sees a three-person-tall human tower come crashing down from a seemingly dangerous height. The acrobats roll skilfully as they hit the ground and spring away unhurt.
Even amongst professional acrobats, very few possess the levels of athleticism and theatrical artistry needed to make it as a Circa performer. "Our performers have to be able to move," explains Lifschitz. "They have to be able to think and feel simultaneously. It's not an easy job. Last season we put out a casting call and about 500 people responded. Out of all those, we're still searching for the right two or three to work with."
For the few that make the cut, the rehearsal process is gruelling. Circa's performers train for six to eight hours a day, five or six days a week. A tour typically spans six months, with seven performances a week. "It's hard work," says Lifschitz. "We're pretty good at managing the acrobats but there is definitely a risk with injury. We're able to maximise the time they work for us because we're careful with them; they're very precious assets to us."
Suffering for Their Art: Ballet Turns to Cutting-Edge Sports Science
This article was originally published in Populous Magazine, our biannual publication featuring news and trends from the worlds of sport, entertainment, and major public events. Find out more, and sign up to ...
Green & Pleasant Land: 11 of the Most Beautiful and Quintessentially English Cricket Grounds
This article was originally published in Populous Magazine, our biannual publication featuring news, information, and trends from the worlds of sport, entertainment, and major public events. Find out more, and sign up ...
The new Icaruses
Get in touch with the Populous Magazine team


text:
Q: What if script tag has both "src" and inline script? I am wondering what if one script tag has both "src" and inline script. I tried below code.
<script src="http://yui.yahooapis.com/2.8.1/build/yahoo/yahoo-min.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">
         alert('hello');
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">
         alert(YAHOO);
</script>

It the "alert('hello')" seems never executed in Firefox and Chrome. I tried to change the src to point to non-existent URI. The "alert('hello')" is also not executed.
So, inline script is always ignored if there is src attribute in script tag?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Posts tagged 'Buddha's'
Buddha's Wife (Excerpt)
Excerpt from novel Buddha's Wife. Told in the first person by Yasodhara who has left the order and is dying. Ambapali was one of the first women Bhikkhunis (nuns), as was Pajapati (Siddhartha's step-mother) and Yasodhara (Siddhartha's wife).
Ambapali was in secluded meditation at the vihara of Jetavana. She was bald, having cut off her silky black hair when she joined the Sangha. She wore a simple brown robe, with a single sash to tie at the waist. In her early seventies, her arthritic knees were acting up far more often then she liked to admit. She had to sit on a small stool or recline completely to meditate for long periods of time. Her once sensuous hands; hands that had caressed and brought hundreds of men pleasure in her younger years; were now knotted and swollen like her knees. The skin around her eyes were lined with wrinkles, but her cheeks and lips retained the soft, alluring quality she had had when she first gazed upon her future mentor and lover, Siddhartha. It was in those dark brown pools, of her now enlightened eyes, that The Buddha, Siddhartha of Gotama, had temporarily strayed, allowing his senses to define his consciousness.
It was one of Ambapli's nuns, who brought her one bowl of food per day, who told her of my failing health. Without explanation or hesitation she picked up her shoulder bag and begging bowl and informed the other nuns, who were also on retreat, that she was going south to see me in Rajagaha.
"But she's not even a follower!" Bishaka, one of her younger disciples, exclaimed. "What about us, your devotees? We need you here."
Ambapali put her hand gently on Bishaka's shoulder. "Yasodhara is my friend. There is nothing greater than the love of friends."
"But she no longer follows The Way or practices the precepts."
Ambapali smiled. "She lives The Way. She is as much a Buddha as you or I." She bowed to Bishaka, turned and walked away, leaving her devoted devotee staring at her backside pondering how an old woman who had left the order a decade ago could be compared to her beloved, enlightened Ambapali.
As Ambapali left the protected encampment a torrent of emotions, thoughts and images assaulted her memory. With relentless ferocity they took her into the past, provoking anxiety and doubt about seeing her friend, the woman whose husband she had laid with, consuming his body and his mind.
Shortly after Siddhartha's death Ambapali had tried to bridge the unspoken gap of misunderstanding. I had told her there was no need to talk of the past. "We both loved the same man," I'd proclaimed, tears streaming down my face,"There is nothing wrong with love."
"No," Ambapali had insisted, "I loved what he stood for, what he had become."
"I loved him as a man and as a teacher," I'd replied. "He was my first love and my last."
We had embraced as sisters.
Her expression of sympathy and attempt to take down the fence that had been erected between us while we lived together as nuns, were heartfelt. We had finally acknowledged that the fence existed and agreed to open the gate to forgiveness.
She knew that she and Siddhartha had been seen together several times. When she first joined the order she had taken every opportunity to seduce him, to find out what he was made off. For some time she had been successful. Even though they were painfully discreet she had felt the eyes of others in the night; the eyes of those who would not and could not understand her need to discover if this was The Buddha, The Enlightened One or simply a man with human needs like all the rest.
She stumbled on a root and stopped from falling by grabbing onto a knotted branch that looked like her hands. As she found her balance and told her self to pay more attention to what was in front of her, an image of her mother, who had also been a courtesan, came upon her.
Her mother was thirty and she was fifteen when she realized what her mother did to survive. She had promised that she would never follow in her footsteps. Her mother promised to find her a respectable husband to marry. How she could fulfill that promise was a mystery, but one her mother had tenaciously held to her death.
They had been walking along a path, like the one she was on now, when her mother stopped dead in her tracks and fell to the ground convulsing, phlegm oozing from the corner of her mouth. She remembered screaming, "Mother . . . mother!" Her mother's eyes had rolled back in her head as her jaw clamped shut. Her breath came in spurts. She shook her again and again crying, "Please . . . somebody!" but no one could hear her cries. It was soon over.
It had been quick; without warning. She'd lept from her mother's side and ran. She ran and ran, as fast as she could. She ran to her uncle Sikhura's house and told him what had happened. In spite of his wife's lamentations to not get involved with "that woman", he followed Ambapali back to his sister's body and brought her home for cremation and religious services.
After the funeral Sikhura offered to take in Ambapali, but his wife would have no part in it. "I won't let a woman like that in my house!" she insisted.
"She's just a kid," Sikhura replied. "She needs a home."
"She's old enough to know what to do with you," she'd said venomously.
"Don't be ridiculous," he said. "Where's she supposed to go?"
"She can stay with her mother's people," his wife spat, "they'll take care of her."
"Take care of her?" Sikhura surmised. "You know what they'll do."
"It's where she belongs," his wife concluded. "I won't allow a whore in this house!"
Ambapali overheard their conversation. She was ashamed and left in the middle of the night. Not knowing where else to turn, she found her way back to her previous residence, the House of Yoniatma. After several lonesome months of mourning she was "put to use" and "taught a trade". She began her training in the art of Kama Sutra, the art of "making" love and was taught how to minister too and please men.
"I'm sorry Mother," she said out loud, as she walked towards Rajagaha, being careful to not stumble again and fall on her face. "I did what I had to do."
She had been very successful at her vocation. It had given her access to many powerful and wealthy men, but had never brought her happiness or peace. She soon realized why her mother had wanted her to take a different path.
It wasn't until she had encountered Siddhartha in her mango grove that she had ever entertained the thought that there was something more, something beyond the known, the physical. His words had sparked a smoldering fire that lit her curiosity. She became determined to see if his words were real or more false promises. She vowed to find the truth, even if it cost her some clients or ironically, sullied her reputation.
Five years after following The Buddha's teachings and meditation practices from the time she opened her eyes in the morning until she fell asleep in the night, Ambapali discovered that she knew so little and wanted to experiencing everything. She left her courtesan life, took her vows to follow the precepts and lived as a nun.
There had been a particularly long winter when the brothers and sisters of the Sangha (believers of the Buddha's teachings) had been in retreat throughout the rainy season. Ambapali had finished eating her only meal of the day and was mindfully washing out her bowl, contemplating its emptiness, when she awakened to something beyond her self, something that was greater than her ego or self-consciousness. It was indescribable, yet she had tried.
"It felt like a rush of air filling a gigantic void inside my heart," she told me and Pajapati. "It is as though 'I' do not exist, yet here I am. Everywhere I look I see one heart, one love."
We listened rapturously, trying to absorb some of the peace and wisdom she radiated. "It's not something I can hold on to. If I try to contain it, it blows through my fingers like the wind. If I try to grasp for it or label it, it melts like dew drops in the sun." She looked fervently into my eyes. "I wish I could give you this joy, this happiness and peace."
"Oh, but you have," I had said. "We can feel it."
"You're like a warm fire," Pajapati smiled. "We are basking in the glow of your compassion."
Thirty-eight years later the glow remained. She had become so unselfconscious that she was often not aware of herself as a separate entity. As long as she was in her physical body, thoughts, emotions and sensations would continue, but her compassionate nature was so ingrained that people wanted to be around her, to touch her, to bask in her presence.
Now, if her knees would allow it and the rest of her aging body permit, she would see me once again. The woman who had shared her intimacies, fears and joys; the one she had unintentionally hurt beyond comprehension.
"Hold on sister," Ambapali whispered between her labored breath, as she walked towards Rajagaha. "Hold on sister of my heart."
Ambapali
Buddha's
Gotama
mindfully
Pajapati
vihara
Yasodhara
Ashita (Tomorrow) – Part 3
Excerpt from children's story collection Solar Girl and Lunar Boy.
Ashita (Tomorrow) – Part 3 (Conclusion)
Whether it had been divine providence, coincidence or random luck, I'll never know; but my faith in Buddha and the precepts were instantly restored. I attended the temple weekly and diligently started reciting my sutras. I even entertained the idea of becoming a nun, until a wonderfully romantic dream convinced me I'd never make it as a recluse.
Reverend Tsukiyama brought the application later that week, as well as some phone numbers of other families who had daughters in the program. Haha knew one or two and called them that evening. I walked into the kitchen as she was finishing her last call.
She hung up solemnly and said we'd talk about it in the morning.
"OK," I replied, acting as if it didn't concern me in the least. "I think I'll call it a day. Goodnight Haha."
I figured the sooner I went to bed, the earlier the sun would rise. I brushed my teeth, put on my nightclothes and snuggled in for the hopefully brief darkness, but the night crawled by like a sleepwalking sloth.
Sleep deprived and blurry eyed, I was waiting anxiously at the breakfast table when Haha, Chichi and Soba (grandmother) straggled into the kitchen.
"Well?" I exclaimed, almost lifting off my seat.
"Well what?" Haha replied.
"You know what!"
"Oh, that," she said.
They sat and stared down at the table. Haha was the first to break. She glanced my way with a brilliant grin.
"I can! I can!" I jumped up and down and kissed them all. "You won't be sorry! I'll make you proud! Thank you. Thank you. I love you all!" I bowed so many times I thought I'd surely broken my back!
Chichi turned away and went outside without saying a word.
Haha and Soba were crying. "I'll be all right. Don't cry," I said.
Chichi left for work without speaking to me.
That night Haha followed me to bed and sat on the side as I got under the covers.
"I'm sorry Hon, I didn't mean to bring a cloud on your head."
"We weren't crying because we were sad. Well, we are sad to see you go, but it's more than that."
"You don't have to say anything," I cautioned, feeling a bit uneasy.
She continued as if she hadn't heard me. "Soba and I are happier for you than you'll ever know. We're so proud of you." She smiled and started crying again.
"Haha." I put my arms around her. "What's wrong?"
She wiped her wet cheek on the sleeve of her silk kimono; the one Soba had given her back in the fifties. "Nothing's wrong," she sighed. "Everything's right. You're doing something Soba and I never had the chance to do." Her eyes watered again. "I think we're feeling a little sorry for ourselves. I didn't want to be a nurse, but I did want to write and play music." She paused, gently caressing the blanket with her callused fingers. "Who knows, I might have been pretty good at it too."
"What stopped you?"
"It just wasn't something women were 'supposed to do'. Our duty was to home and family, but I can't blame it all on that." She looked away. "I was scared. I'd never lived apart from my family. I knew what to do at home. I'd seen it done all my life. It was safe. I did what was expected."
I started feeling guilty. "If only we hadn't come along," I thought.
Seeming to have read my mind she quickly added, "It's not your fault! I couldn't imagine life without you. When you're a mother you'll know how much I love you. No, I don't regret having children." She smiled and shook her head. "It's hard sometimes and tiring as hell . . ."
"Haha!" I exclaimed. I'd never heard her swear before.
"There's something special about each and every one of you." She stopped, as if she'd just realized something profound. "I wish I wasn't such a scared-y-cat."
"Well?" I asked.
"Well what?"
"Why don't you do something about it?"
She blushed. "It's too late for that."
"Too late?!" I exclaimed. "Remember that poem you wrote a couple years ago about the farm?" She nodded bashfully. "It was great! Everyone said so. Why don't you start writing again?"
"I wish there was time, between chores and kids I barely get any sleep as is," she said justifiably.
"Make time," I insisted. "Basho and Yutaka are old enough to help out. You could practice your music too."
"You're so sweet." She gave me a big hug. "I'll think about it."
"I love you Haha."
"And I you." Our necks were damp with tears. "I miss you already," she cried.
I sat back smiling. "I'm only going to be two hours away."
"I know." She laughed.
"Chichi acts like I stuck a knife in his back," I said sadly, looking at the floor. "It's not like I'm going to Europe or something."
Haha brushed the hair from my forehead. "He'll come around. You are like the rising sun to him. He can't imagine not having you here."
"You don't understand," I said, feeling my cheeks getting wet once again. "He had me promise . . . I promised that I'd never leave Hamatombetsu." I hid my shame behind my hands.
"Yuki," Haha whispered. "Yuki. Look at me."
I looked through blurry eyes.
"He never told me about that and you know why?" Haha asked. I shook my head. "Because he knows it was a foolish thing to ask a little girl to promise. How old were you . . . nine, ten?"
I stopped crying. "I was nine. It was on our way back from visiting Shogi in Sapporo."
Haha shook her head. "He had no right to have you make such a promise." Haha looked out the window. "He knows you can't hold on to joy or try to put it in a chicken pen. You have to find your own way Musume, with your own heart." She held my hand. "I'll speak with him. He only wants your happiness."
In less than a month I was informed of my acceptance, but it wasn't until my crying Chichi and I got in his old beat up truck, waved goodbye and drove down the familiar, pot-marked dirt road, that it seemed real.
Haha had been right. Chichi came back to me the morning after they'd given me their blessing to go. He told me they would visit as often as they could. He helped me pack, gave me what little money they had and said he'd always be my "Number one fan."
I wondered if my prayers had helped push my wish to the top of the karmic pile or the Bodhisattva's had just taken a nap and knocked it off by accident. Then again, perhaps Sapporo wasn't the land of honey and happiness after all. I looked back at my shrinking family and sobbing friend Kiri, who were waving in the distance. Through my bittersweet tears I realized that my ashita had become imadoki (today).
Ashita
Homatombetsu
imadoki
Lunar Boy
Morther
Musume
Solar Girl
Solar Girl and Lunar Boy
Now I was being pulled, like an obsessive magnet, towards Sapporo's alluring illusion of happiness. I was infected with a virulent virus known as TRISSES (The Rice Is Sweeter Somewhere Else Syndrome).
I wasn't sure how to make my break – work, elope, runaway or hijack a bus? My teenage desire contradicted all financial logic. Our family had no savings account, wealthy relatives or hidden cash to save me from the purgatory in which I wallowed. My parents had no inkling of my nightly anguish and I wasn't about to let them in on the secret. If they discovered my desire to go to Sapporo, their fears about "that depraved city of immorality" would descend upon me like a swarm of locusts. I had never forgotten the promise I'd made my father and neither had he.
When times were tough, I'd always been harangued into attending the local temple and praying for understanding and humility. After awhile I discovered that the prayers and priests divination's often coincided with the will of my parents, teachers, and other illustrious icons of the community, but I figured I might as well give it one last try.
On a sunny Saturday in July, I decided to attend temple on a personal quest. I was turning eighteen in two weeks and could see the tiny grains of sand falling through the hourglass at the speed of light.
I wasn't the kind of girl to stay home and play house or get married. Having grown up with six younger siblings, I was certain I'd rather be tortured and hanged then ever marry and have children! I didn't mind if other women want to live that life, but it wasn't my cup of tea or so I thought at the time.
I entertained the thought, rather briefly, about being a teacher. There were a few teachers I admired, respected and even fell in love with. Mr. Sato was my favorite. He had the nicest smile and always complimented my papers. Simple comments like, "Nice work." would send Kiri and I into spasms of joy and late night talks about how one of us would make Mr. Sato our boyfriend. The fact that he was married, with children and twenty years our senior, seemed irrelevant at the time. Why should that matter when he was "so nice and cute"?
With somewhat more mature reflection, I doubted I could stand in front of thirty pairs of beady little eyes to impart any semblance of knowledge or words of wisdom. I'd surely wilt on the spot from fright.
Then the thought of working as a nurse embedded its tentacles in my skimming mind. That was something I knew absolutely nothing about. What could be so hard about that, I reasoned, handing doctors instruments, putting on bandages and saving people's lives? I didn't know about the ugly stuff, the pictures you don't see on television – people throwing up on your newly washed uniform; exhausted interns screaming obscenities at your "incompetence"; wiping the bottom of a smelly old drunk dying from liver disease.
Haha (Mother) couldn't believe how anxious I was to go to temple that day. "What's gotten into you? I've never seen you so fired up."
"Nothing special, I just want to recite sutras and pray for Buddha's compassion."
She looked me up and down, smiling with a look that said, "Yeah, sure."
We arrived ten minutes early, dressed in our finest attire. I didn't even mind wearing the totally embarrassing dress Haha had made for me to wear on special occasions. She had hand-stitched it from some strange fabric my aunt had given her. She gave it to me on my sixteenth birthday. You could see the pride she had felt when she handed me the package and bowed. Internally I had moaned. "I wouldn't be caught dead wearing that old-fashioned fake-flower monstrosity!" But all she heard was my dutiful reply, "Thank you Haha. It's beautiful."
I rushed inside and sat on the mat. The rest of my bewildered family soon caught up and joined me, looking around nervously, ill at ease to be sitting so close to the altars.
Reverend Tsukiyama recited his ancient incantations, the followers paraded there off key voices with theatrical vengeance and everyone responded with stifled coughs and yawns. Silently, I plunged the depths of my imagination and begged the Ancestors and Buddha's to reward me for all my good karma. "Please, please!" I begged. "Take me away from these endless fields of wheat, barley and chickens and deliver me to the Pure Land – Sapporo!"
"Get up child," Haha whispered. "Service is over."
The priests were shuffling down the corridor towards the hall entrance.
"Over?" I said in shock. "It can't be! Nothing happened!"
"What are you talking about?" She felt my head. "You feeling OK Musume (daughter)?"
"I'm fine," I mumbled, as we formally bowed and headed out. Haha kept eyeing me like a suspicious inspector.
What went wrong? I'd done everything! I helped take care of my brothers and sisters, seldom argued with my parents and never even thought about sex or drugs – well, not about taking drugs anyway. I said my nightly prayers and didn't even hit Sashi Mutsui when she called me a "stupid little pig".
I was a good girl. Why was I being singled out for punishment? Who were these dead priests and Bodhisattvas anyway . . . the farmers of suffering . . . the divine bean keepers? "This one's good. That one's bad. You deserve pleasure. You deserve pain. And you, Yuki, you have to live in Hamatombetsu until you shrivel up and die!"
I swore I'd never set foot on temple grounds again. "You call this a temple?" I admonished, looking at the empty space between the high, engraved ceiling and polished floor. "If I'm going to be stuck here the rest of my life, I might as well jump into the funeral pyre now and let my ashes blow away with the wind!"
As we reached the entrance, Reverend Tsukiyama motioned our family aside. The Reverend was somewhat of a village icon. In his forty years of service he had initiated, married and/or buried almost everyone in town. He'd known me since I was a wailing little bundle of flesh. He was a creaky, robust, silver-haired representative of communal devotion and tradition. Seeing his face reminded me of the day he caught Kiri and I orange-handed, sort of speak, on these very grounds.
We had snuck into the temple courtyard one day after school, like teenage fruit-stealing ninjas and devoured some delicious temple persimmons. They had been hanging invitingly on the lowest branch when we'd first eyed them after service the previous week. We had gleefully conspired then and their to stop by, when we thought the reverend was out making house calls and help ourselves to one of our favorite treats. Everything had gone according to plan, until we'd turned to leave and Reverend Tsukiyama entered the courtyard.
What could we say? We had orange persimmon juice all over our hands and faces. At first, it looked like he was about to laugh, but then his face turned very stern and he admonished us severely, naming every hideous realm of suffering we would end up in if we continued our lives of crime. We hadn't known that after we'd gone running home that it had taken every ounce of control he had to not break out laughing when he'd discovered our shocked, setting-sun colored faces.
"Yuki," the Reverend whispered. "Have you thought about your future?"
"What?" I said, still in a belligerent, melancholy daze.
"Your future. Have you thought about your future?"
"My future? It's all I think about."
"Well," he chuckled mischievously. "If you don't want to be a teacher or politician, I heard about a hospital in Sapporo that trains young girls to be nurses" his eyes sparkled, "and it doesn't cost a single yen."
I was stunned. He smiled a rapturous grin, then put on his stern, fatherly face. "Of course, it's not entirely free. There is a catch." My eyes were as big as saucers. "Once you finish their two-year program you have to work at their hospital for another two years. They provide room and board."
I felt like I'd just been hit in the head with a large rock. "I thought you knew about this," he said. "I've been telling all the girls about it." My mouth hung open like a hungry carp.
I managed a few syllables, "No. I never . . ."
"If your parents don't mind," he continued, "I'd be glad to stop by later this week with the application and phone num . . ."
My shouting drowned out the good reverend before he finished his sentence.
"Yes, yes, yes! How do I apply? When does it start?"
He didn't have time to answer. I turned to Haha and Chichi and pleaded shamelessly, "Please, please say yes!" I was jumping up and down like a kid who wanted a sweetened dumpling.
They hesitated, then Haha anxiously asked, "You want to be a nurse?"
"Yes!" I shouted. "With all my heart."
"You never mentioned this before."
"I thought it was impossible."
Chichi turned stoically towards my black-robed savior and stated calmly, "We'll think about it Reverend. It's most kind of you to consider Yuki worthy of such a program. You know you are always welcome in our home."
"They'd think about it?!" I screamed in my head. The answer to my prayers had just been delivered like a divine telegram and all they could say was, "they'd think about it!" I took a deep breath, put on my best face and managed a feeble semblance of control. At least they were considering it. In my vocabulary, that was as good as a yes!
At that moment my little girls promise to my Chichi to never leave our village had been washed away in a flood of excitement, but he hadn't forgotten. Caught up in the moment, I didn't allow myself to see the pain and sense of betrayal that was boiling under my father's skin.


"Thanks so much for your effort in all this...we are still amazed at the simplicity and usefulness of your system. As a client I probably should not say this but after reviewing all MSM can do, you should charge more..."
MySaleManager.NET is a service that provides your consignment event with easy to use online consignor registration, drop-off appointment scheduling, volunteer worker registration & scheduling, item entry & tag printing, pre-sale registration, and online mailing list signup. Sale Owners are provided with their own unique, secure Administration Portal, where they can manage all aspects of their sale related data and their MSM account. Each MSM client is provided with an unlimited license for "Sale Manager", the Point-of-Sale software which is loaded on computers at your sale and handles all shopper checkout functions quickly and easily. Utilizing the MySaleManager.NET service for your consignment event will drastically reduce the amount of time you spend handling consignor and volunteer registrations before your sale because everything is "self-serve" for your consignors and volunteers. After your sale is over you can perform lightning fast seller reconciliation and have your consignor checks printed in less than an hour. You can give your consignors an itemized list of what sold, so there is no longer any need for resorting tags after your sale is over.
Feature-rich, easy to use Administration Portal for Sale Owners to manage all aspects of their MSM account and sale-related data.
Feature-rich Point of Sale (POS) application designed specifically for a seasonal consignment event. Allows you to perform all Point-of-Sale functions as well as manage all other aspects of your sale data directly from your sale computers during your sale. Internet Access is NOT required.
Your MSM account pages are matched to the look-and-feel of your website (logo, background colors/graphics, website colors, etc.) so it appears your consignor has never left your website.
You are not required to acknowledge or mention MySaleManager.NET in any way on your website or your documentation.
MSM clients have private access to the MSM Knowledge Base, which is full of helpful hints and tips for getting the most out of your MSM account.
Easy seller reconciliation after your sale is over, including printing of itemized seller reports and checks. Your seller reports can be uploaded to your MSM account so your consignors can view them online.
Most reports from the MSM system can be easily copied and pasted into Excel (or extracted as a .csv file) for any other analysis you may want to perform with the data.
We can easily import your existing consignors into your account, so they can keep their existing consignor numbers after you implement MSM.
Allows you to register NEW or RETURNING consignors. A "returning consignor" is someone that has already received a consignor number for your sale at a past sale.
Returning consignors can login to their "Consignor Homepage" which allows them to see critical information for their account as well as access all MSM features from one place, with only one login required.
Sale Owners can receive an email for each consignor that registers, and consignors are sent an automated email (which sale owner can add custom information to) confirming their registration.
Sale Owners can choose different methods of how consignor numbers are assigned to new consignors, and they can choose to allow a consignor to "request" a specific number when they sign up (this is optional).
There are many different reports available in the Admin Portal to help you see who is/is not registered, etc.
Sale Owners can require their consignors to pay their consignor fee up-front using Paypal or other methods. Consignor will be unable to access other areas of MSM (drop off appointment signup, item entry, etc.) until they have paid their consignor fee.
Sale Owners can require registering consignors to view and electronically accept their Seller Agreement before being allowed to register.
Sale Owners can place a limit on the number of consignors that area allowed to register for each sale.
Sale Owners can add "problem" consignors to a Prohibited Consignor List, which prohibits those consignors from registering for future events.
Sale Owners can send customized email messages (full HTML formatting!) to their consignors (registered, unregistered, all consignors, etc.) or other types of contacts at any time from the admin portal.
Sale Owners can download their consignor data anytime, as often as they want from the admin portal.
Consignors can be designated as "restock consignors" so that they can be assigned to special restocker only drop-off times.
Easy to use online system for inventory entry and tag printing. Inventory entry screens are optimized to allow for fast entry and there are even options for allowing consignors to enter items using their voice. The inventory entry system has mobile options available so that consignors can easily work with inventory from their phone or tablet.
Item categories and size listings can be customized by the Sale Owner to accomodate whatever items are allowed at their particular consignment event.
Sale Owner can place limits on the number of items a consignor is allowed to have in their inventory for each sale.
Sale Owner can place limits on the number of items allowed on a per category (ie boys clothes, girls clothes, shoes, maternity, etc.) so that consignors can only enter a certain number of items for a particular item category.
A quantity field allows your consignors to easily enter multiple "like" items without having to enter each one individually.
The MSM system allows consignors to differentiate between items for your current sale or past sales, meaning that your inventory reports, etc. pertain only to items that are ACTUALLY coming to your upcoming sale.
Sale Owners have access to reports that show how many items are in inventory and the value of those items on an overall, per consignor, or per category/size basis.
Consignors print fully barcoded, easy to read tags on thier home computer, at their convenience.
Consignors can print all their tags at once, or just a select group of tags. Consignors can re-print tags anytime. There are no tag printing fees, and no limit on the amount of tags that can be printed (unless set by the sale owner).
Consignors can choose to print their tags in either HTML or .PDF format.
Consignors can print an inventory list and pick from several different sorting options.
Barcoded tags are printing directly from what exists in consignor inventory to reduce errors.
Many different tag formats available for Sale Owners to choose from.
Consignors can easily transfer inventory between different sales that use MSM. Each sale owner has the ability to allow or restrict this functionality.
Consignors can easily re-use tags from items that did not sell at a past sale, no re-tagging needed.
Although item tags are all printed with barcodes, you can still manual enter the tags into the Sale Manager POS during your sale if you need/want to. All the information for manual entry is printed right on the tag.
Consignors can view a list of sold items during your sale, so they can keep up with how they are doing. Consignors love this feature and it keeps them engaged with your sale and visiting your website often during your event.
Sale Owners can enter inventory and print tags for a consignor via the admin portal if necessary.
Sale Owners can enter inventory and print tags for a consignor via the Sale Manager POS during their sale.
Sale Owners can create their drop-off schedule quickly and easily by basing it off a prior sale's drop off schedule.
Send emails to consignors who have not yet signed to for a drop-off appointment, and send automated reminder emails to consignors who have signed up, reminding them of their drop off time.
Special appointments can be created that only restock consignors can see so that they choose appointments during your restock time rather than your normal drop-off time.
Sale Owners can choose to receive notifications when consignors signup for drop-off appointments.
Allow consignors to register for pick-up appointments which allows you to even-out the load on your pick-up days when consignors come back to pick up their unsold items.
Sale Owners have complete control of their pick-up appointment schedule and can change it at anytime, in real-time.
Sale Owners can create their pick-up schedule quickly and easily by basing it off a prior sale's pick up appointment schedule.
Generate reports to help you view your overall pick-up schedule and manage your pick-up schedule.
Send emails to consignors who have not yet signed up for a pick-up appointment, and send automated reminder emails to consignors that have signed up, reminding them of their pick up time.
Sale Owners can choose to receive email notifications when consignors sign up for a pick up appointment.
Simple "one-click" registration for a volunteer shift. Sale owner can place a limit on how many shifts any one person is allowed to sign up for.
Volunteer shifts automatically "close" when all positions are filled, and automatically "re-open" when a position is added or one becomes available.
Sale Owner can add a description to each volunteer position to better clarify the duties for that shift.
Public or Private volunteer shifts can be created. Public shifts are viewable and available to everyone. Private shifts are not viewable to the public so Sale Owners can "hand-pick" the volunteers to place on private shifts.
Sale Owners have complete control over their volunteer schedule. No limit to the number of volunteer shifts that can be created. Sale Owners can modify their volunteer positions at anytime, with those changes viewable by the public as soon as they are made.
Sale Owners can quickly and easily create thier volunteer shift schedule by basing it off a prior sale's volunteer schedule.
Sale Owners can print a Volunteer "Status Report" which shows them all of their volunteer shifts, how many positions are open on each shift, and details about which volunteers are working which shifts - all on one report!
Sale Owners can print reports showing who has and has not signed up for volunteer positions, how many positions each volunteer has signed up for, etc.
Sale Owners can place a link to a "read only" version of their volunteer schedule, so they do not have to keep a separate schedule up to date on their sale website.
Easily send "reminder emails" to your volunteers to remind them of their assigned volunteer shift details.
Troublesome volunteers can be placed on a "Prohibited Worker List". The system will not allow a worker on the prohibited list to sign up for volunteer positions.
Sale Owner can receive automatic notifications when someone signs up for a volunteer shift. Volunteers receive an automated email (customizable by the sale owner) when they sign up for a volunteer position.
Allow the public to sign up on your mailing list easily!
We can import your existing mailing list into your account when we set it up!
Consignors, Volunteers, pre-sale registrants, etc. are automatically added to your mailing list.
Easily extract and download your entire mailing list, or portions of your mailing list (consignors, volunteers, etc.) in Excel format.
Schedule emails to send automatically at a future date/time.
Several different reports available to help you review and manage your mailing list.
Ability to charge for pre-sale passes and have the fee collected via paypal at the time of pre-sale registration.
Sale Owner has the ability to add additional text to the automated email that goes to a pre-sale attendee when they register.
Sale Owner has the ability to limit the number of pre-sale registrations that will be accepted.
Several different reports available to help you manage your pre-sale registrations.
pre-sale registrants are automatically added to your mailing list and you can email them as a unique group easily.
The Admin Portal is a special area of MSM where a sale owner manages all aspects of their MSM account in real-time.
In the Admin Portal you can work with consignors, volunteers, volunteer schedules, drop off appointments, consignor inventory/tags, mailing list and many other aspects of your MSM account, and do it all from one place with easy to use tools!
Download all of your sale related data easily, anytime.
Your admin portal and the data it contains in secure. No one can access your admin portal or the data contained in your account unless you give them the credentials.
Email your consignors, volunteers, pre-sale attendees, mailing list, or a subset of those easily with full HTML editing capability.
Consignor Reports (registered, unregistered, all): Easily see a detailed list of how is registered/not registered. Email addresses are visible and hyperlinked so you can easily send a consignor an email with just a mouse click, directly from the report!
Consignor Inventory Report: Print an itemized list of the items contained in a consignors inventory anytime, with multiple sorting options.
Drop Off Appointment Schedule: Print an easy to read overall drop-off schedule so you can easily see who is coming to drop off and when they are coming.
Volunteer Schedule Status Report: Print an easy to read volunteer schedule showing who has signed up for what positions. Report also lets you see what shifts still have open positions, and which shifts are full.
Volunteer Sign-in Sheet: Prints a volunteer sign-in sheet sorted and grouped by shift, with the volunteers name pre-printed and a place for signature. Great for helping you keep track of who has and has not shown up for thier shifts during your sale.
Inventory Reports: Print reports that show you the total number of items and value of those items, sorted and grouped by category and size. Great for floor planning!
Referrals Reports: Print reports that detail the referral options selected by consignors, pre-sale attendees, and the mailing list to help you see which advertising options are getting the most response.
You can keep "notes" on any consignor which helps you keep a running record of good experiences, bad experiences, or other pertinent information about consignors from sale to sale.
Keep up with your inventory in REAL-TIME. As soon as any consignor enters a new inventory item, it is immediately viewable by you in the admin portal. You can watch you inventory grow as it is being entered!
Tracks all transactions during your sale and gives you the ability to go back and review any transaction at any time.
Allows for up to 3 different payment types per transaction (if a customer wants to pay with cash and credit card for example).
Ability to register new or returning consignors on the spot, enter or edit inventory and print tags for them right on your sale computers during your sale.
Ability to search inventory during your sale - especially helpful to re-tagging items that have lost their tags.
Perform all seller reconciliation activities right on your sale computers immediately after you have sold your last item. No uploading needed and no internet connection required!
Print seller reports and checks for multiple consignors at one time with just the click of a button, and upload those seller reports to MSM so that your consignors can view them online.
Print donation reports for multiple consignors at one time with just the click of a button, and upload those donation reports to MSM so that consignors can view them online.
Administrative login to protect sensitive data from curious eyes.
Ability to scan in your consignors inventory during drop-off so you will know EXACTLY what they brought to your sale, giving you the ability to ACCURATELY guarantee items if you choose to (optional).
Runs in a simple network environment so you view data about your sale that is up to the second accurate anytime, from any workstation. You can install Sale Manager on as many workstations as you wish.
Automatically discounts any "discountable" item on your discount day. You do not have to manually specify.
View/edit "consignor notes" so that you can make/view notes about consignors as events happen at your sale.


text:
Again The Beginner
Spin Spin Dizzy
Sad Go Lucky
My First Posthumous Release
Gravity of Crow
Pigeon's Throat
Naked In A trailer
Al Rose Music
See Al Rose Next at...
2nd Damn Sunday of The Fucking Month
Sunday, February 12 @ 7:00PM Sun, Feb 12 @ 7:00PM
Montrose Saloon, 2933 W Montrose Ave, Chicago
Sunday, March 12 @ 7:00PM Sun, Mar 12 @ 7:00PM
Sunday, April 9 @ 7:00PM Sun, Apr 9 @ 7:00PM
Sunday, May 14 @ 7:00PM Sun, May 14 @ 7:00PM
Sunday, June 11 @ 7:00PM Sun, Jun 11 @ 7:00PM
Sunday, July 9 @ 7:00PM Sun, Jul 9 @ 7:00PM
Sunday, August 13 @ 7:00PM Sun, Aug 13 @ 7:00PM
Sunday, September 10 @ 7:00PM Sun, Sep 10 @ 7:00PM
Sunday, October 8 @ 7:00PM Sun, Oct 8 @ 7:00PM
Sunday, November 12 @ 7:00PM Sun, Nov 12 @ 7:00PM
Listen to this here. There's more to hear at hear.
Again The Beginner 3:19
Humiliation's Little Friend 3:54
Any Fool Will Tell You 4:12
Watch this here. There's more to watch at watch.
Somehow You're Here...
NEW ALBUM! "Again The Beginner"
... and now it's 2023. You're checking things out and you find yourself wondering (maybe to yourself) what is Al Rose's music like? What are Al Rose's songs for? Why is more than one spin needed before dizziness sets in? Excellent questions.
Imagine (if you will) your favorite café. Maybe it's Kopi Café on Clark Street in Chicago, or some place in Paris, or Rome, or Bali, or New York, or some out of the way place in your head. It's late afternoon… or morning (if you've just gotten up). Either way, it's still a touch lighter outside than inside. You step in and your eyes adjust to the warm colors. Some of the tables are worn wood. Some are worn marble. All of the chairs are different and somewhat solid, but you have your favorites and you grab a seat.
Over by the wall, Bob Dylan is playing scrabble with either Allen Ginsberg or Serge Gainsbourg. It's tough to tell because bartender Richard Thompson makes sure to pour a shot of absinthe into every drink. Groucho Marx is over in the corner, chair back on two legs, playing ukulele and swapping songs with William Burroughs in a scene out of a Chagall painting. Henry Miller sits at a table littered with empty glasses and full ashtrays. Lucinda Williams sits on his lap, while under the table he tries, unsuccessfully to work his hand up Emmylou Harris's dress.
Neil Young sits at a table by himself eating popcorn and watching a movie that's playing in his head. While from the outside front window, Greg Brown looks in taking notes and sketching pictures.
All Al Rose albums available to people outside of Chicago via various internet sources such as CD Baby, and digitally from Bandcamp,iTunes and Amazon. Al stores some physical copies in his satchel and will be happy to engage in commerce with you before and after any gig.
Studio Shots


text:
Q: GoDaddy, changing dns from another hosting just for the website I have a domain registered in Godaddy, and a hosting plan in a website called AspNix. Right now, the dns in Godaddy is showing the dns for aspnix, and i am hosting a website and email accounts in aspnix without a problem. What i want to do is to host the website in godaddy(created one with their website builder), but keep the emails in aspnix. I have really very few knowledge in dns and related subjects, so started googling. I found out that i should change the A zone dns for just the website, and by  keeping MX same, the emails should work.
My question is do i change the A Zone DNS record in Aspnix (where my hosting is), or change it in godaddy (where the domain name is registered, and shows aspnix nameservers).
Thanks

A: Your records should be changed at SOA (Start Of Authority) NS (nameserver), as all queries for your domain name will start from there.

A: If aspnix is set to be your active name servers, you'd have to make the changes on their side.
Oftentimes the MX record will be set to something like mail.mydomain.com - if so, it's important not to change the 'A' record for 'mail' - just change your 'www' A record and possibly the wildcard * A record if that one is set now.