As funky as a National Anthem can get

This is awesome. Check out especially the gospel-like choir towards the end.

Hatikva
by FranckyPerez

Do you want to learn the full truth about the Jews?

tatatata...look no further than www.jewwatch.com ....

Now, tell me this: how would you react if one of your best friends is reading this website and when you point out it's a lot of hateful garbage, he asks - albeit in different words - " how can you prove that? "

How do you begin? Do you begin at all? How do you deconstruct a monstrous library of lies put under the hideous tagline of 'scholarly research'? How, when I cannot even begin to understand what drives the people that created it to such levels of insanity?

It was probably the first time in my life when I just couldn't answer a question regarding Jewish identity and history. But I began to see more clearly how easy anti-Semitism can be spread, by simply carrying the message long and loud enough, through as many channels as possible, and, of more recent trend, also with an 'honest interest for scientific accuracy' makeup('oh, he's playing the anti-Semitism card, like they always do when asked uncomfortable questions'...raise your hand if you just thought that while reading the last sentence).

I sadly left the room.

Shameful !

I've been making this point to some of my friends for a while now, but today i have no doubt whatsoever: BBC is one of the most bias, one-sided, opinionated global media there is! Compared to BBC’s, even Al Jazeera's coverage of Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems as neutral as Pierluigi Colina' refereeing in a Champions League final.

If you spend some time on their website, you'll notice the pattern:

- any article that portrays either the suffering of the Gaza people (which I am NOT debating, as it's beyond doubt that they live in miserable conditions) or an attack of the Israeli army, gets full-day coverage - as the front article plus 3-4 other links in the page.

- any article that is discussing the plight of Israeli citizens continuously under rocket attacks (alas, BBC needs to keep the appearance of objectivity) is tucked away in maximum one of the subsections AND

- any article of this second type will no later than paragraph 2 (max3) immediately draw parallels with the problems in Gaza. The reciprocal never happens: article about the Palestinian suffering have, at the most, the last sentence as a reference to the Israeli side.

There's no point providing examples on the above points in this post, because any single example doesn't come as solid enough to prove the point. BUT, if you do want to test this, observe BBC's coverage on a longer period of time. It will come screaming in your face!

The perverted tango

One to the left, two to the right...Or something like that...

Read Singapore's media these days, regarding the Selamat Kastari escape: the one to the left - "we're almost critical of the authorities"...the two to the right: "only to praise them even stronger...for apologizing...for doing a vigorous search...."...

it's time Singaporeans are given a little bit of credit and assumption of intelligence....they won't start riots or become less-affectionate of a government that brough them such a good standard of living just because it was once strongly criticized, with no cushions, no random excuses...

I'd bet on the opposite...that maybe it would make people a bit more responsible, more aware that the authorities can't always keep the game straight on their own...

huge risks, yes, i see that. but wouldn't the reward be so sweet?

me, running?

hehe, in the 'breaking your limits/fears' cheesy stories corner, this could possibly be my best entry. In my pre 2000 part of life, while I always did some sports(soccer, basketball, ping-pong-if you count it for a sport), running was always an "off-limits" area, because of my f*ing spleen which, after more then 50 m of continous running would hurt beyond belief(luckily it didn't behave the same way during the run-stop-run rythim of the other sports).

Even after getting rid of the spleen in 00, I pretty much lived under the same assumption for quite a while...That is till 90% of my friends in SG became a bit of jogging-freaks and so I thought I'd at least give it a try...So, 6 months down the line, finishing(with a pretty decent time as well) a 12km race was a bit of a shocker, not in itself, but more when looking into my (non)running past...

Marathon races, here I come... ( Mom, I'm kidding, don't go having a panic attack on this :)...

Macedonian restaurants and Afghan interiors...

...and African artwork....and...

No, it's not New York ( never been there, though from my brother's stories I reckoned it's got to be the one place where such a wonderful mix of cultures exists), but....Newtown, a suburb of Sydney.

A "Wild West meets East End" type of place, Newtown was a great surprise, the highlight of my aussie trip last week, though I only spent about 45 minutes walking around (Sid, I still hold you personally responsible for not taking me there earlier)...It was enough though to witness an abundance of cultural and artistic forms of existence: theatres, dance studios, street painters, conservatory, ethnic art shops, music studios and stores, funky combinations of architectural styles....

Forget Darling Harbour; forget Circular Quay, the Rocks, King Cross....if I get to go to Sydney again, Newtown's definitely my home base...

You should check it out.

"I will do such things,--

...What they are, yet I kno'w not: but they shall be
The terrors of the earth."

While still not in Iago's (Othello) league, Edmund (King Lear) just made it in my top villains list...

Pretty hard not to come out with some strong emotions when you've just seen a Royal Shakespeare Company performance....oops, take that back, I meant 2 performances, because - probably to clarify that they're not just shakespearean nerds( if such thing exists) - they also pulled off an amazing performance of "Seagull" by Chekhov.

Many stagings of classic playwrights I've seen in the last few years were modernized versions...Some were horrendous, some were quite brilliant, but in most occasions modernizing a play meant stealing a bit(or more) from the original story and substance of the text.

The two performances I saw this week-end were, in my view, as close as it gets to what Shakespeare and Chekhov might have had in mind when writing the plays. This is not to say that they were merely a read-through of the text, with no artistic creation from the director's side. It's just that both shows had such a perfect flow and rhythm (smooth, subtle) that it made the stories as truthful, and touching as I guess they were meant to be...Nothing more, nothing less...

It’s been a week-end to remember....but, more importantly, to repeat....