Watch something short…

This one minute video is very cute, and thanks to Nora Loreto for posting, here it is:  How to walk down a New York Street as a Jew.

For a quick 4 minute explanation of why Israel’s massacre of Palestinians is a “test case” for genocide by powerful nations on the non-powerful, watch The Lab Theory here explained by Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British-Palestinian surgeon who spent 43 days in Gaza operating on dozens of victims of Israel’s terror. Thanks to my friend Jim for this tip.

To see a brief video about “the world’s most adorable ferry” (the Halifax to Dartmouth ferry!) watch this mini-travelogue here .

Watch something longer…

Zone of Interest on Prime Video is worth watching; it’s a meditation on power, the powerful and fascism. It’s unmistakable the similarities between the nice, honest, God-fearing family in 1940s Auschwitz who pays no attention to what is going on literally in their backyard, and the vast majority of Jews in Israel who don’t know, and don’t want to know, what is going on in their backyard of the West Bank or Gaza – only 71 km from Tel Aviv.  Of course, the late writer Martin Amis, who published the novel Zone of Interest a decade ago, didn’t foresee the comparison.  He was looking at the powerful commandant, Rudolph Höss and his cronies versus the Jews in the nearby death-camp.  One part of the film that intrigued me was the visit of Höss‘ mother-in-law, Hedwig’s mother, who doted on the Höss‘ five children, and wanted to be closer to Hedwig. Within two days the grandmother was gone – she left secretly before dawn. Was it because of the shootings and screams she heard from the concentration camp? Was it Hedwig’s adamant support of the Nazi regime or was it her grandchildren’s lack of empathy—we viewers do not know why she left in such a hurry.  Here’s the trailer.

Below: single man is Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, surgeon; threesome are the stars of London Kills; and the woman in the mink coat is Hedwig in Zone of Interest.

Jonathan Glazer, a British Jew, is the film’s writer, director and now winner of a 2024 Academy Award. He has been receiving threats (no doubt by Jews who love and support Israel) because of his speech critical of Israel and in support of a ceasefire at the Awards ceremony.  You can listen to it here .  More than 1,000 Hollywood moguls have signed an open letter meant to eviscerate Glazer for his comments at the Academy Awards.  Of particular note was Hollywood actor Julianna Margulies who went overboard about how Jews supported Blacks and Lesbians –yet, she had these unbelievably nasty words to say about about Blacks and Lesbians:

 “I want to say to them, ‘You fucking idiots, you don’t exist [to Hamas]. You’re even lower than the Jews [to Hamas]. A. You’re Black. B. You’re gay, and you’re turning your back against the people who support you.’ Because Jews, they rally around everybody.” 

This is the last time I watch anything with Margulies in any role.  In order to watch Zone, you can get a 30 day free trial of Amazon Prime, watch Zone and then cancel if you like.

A Criminal Affair, from Quebec

There are two good seasons of A Criminal Affair, a good Quebec series on Crave.  They feature female detectives, and I think the second season is better than the first.  It’s incredible that police shows from Québec are way better than typical American crime programs, and the Québec series rival the British series. Here’s the trailer.

I recently watched the 1949 classic The Third Man.  Of course I’d read the book of the same title by Graham Greene long ago, and must have seen the film – but there are some very nice touches in this film about the post-World War II underworld and underclass in Vienna.  The overacting by Joseph Cotten and the female lead, Alida Valli, I could have done without. Orson Welles plays the eminence grise. But the script is good and it certainly moves along as a thriller. There is a very nice bit that features a four-year-old neighbourhood boy pointing to the real murderer – which is eery to say the least.  Anton Karl Karas, composer and zither player did the soundtrack for The Third Man; he’s wonderful and the film is worth watching if only to hear it. You can watch it on Kanopy, free with your library card.  Here’s the trailer

I watched the series Hidden, on Britbox. The acting is rather good.  A sketchy lawyer, who started life as a small time gangster in east end London, is pressured to find a witness in a murder case.  Of course in trying to find that person, his former (and secret) life starts to unravel.  It’s a mystery and political thriller. Here’s a 1.5 minute interview with the star.

London Kills is a series on AcornTV, I think on other platforms too.  An experienced Scottish woman detective often locks horns with the English top cop who is a chauvinist, set in his ways and has a rather troubled past.  It’s she who has insights and nerve, he has other issues.  The plots are a bit static but worth watching if you have nothing else to do at night. Here’s the trailer.

What to Read…

The March/April 2024 issue of Briarpatch Magazine has a good article by Palestinian-Canadian journalist Zahraa Al-Akhrass about her being censored and terrorized in the newsroom and ultimately fired by Global-TV in October 2023. for her “pro-Palestinian” views. As she notes,

“When it comes to Palestine, journalists are told to remain silent in the name of fairness and balance and not to hold Israel accountable for its recent war crimes in Gaza or 76 years of occupation and apartheid against Palestinians.”

Al-Akhrass cites example after example of times that her superiors ordered her to tone down comments, not report facts on the ground in Palestine and demanded that she pander to pro-Israel lobby groups such as the inexorable right-wing Honest Reporting Canada. The Briarpatch article is an eyeopener: it’s well-written and the reader gets the impression that all is not well in Canada’s news rooms. Here’s the article.

Al-Akhrass’s experience is borne out by a recent game-changing article by an anonymous former CBC producer, “CBC has white-washed Israel’s crimes in Gaza, I saw it firsthand“. The woman who wrote the article in The Breach, was pushed out of the job she held for six years because she dared to question the pro-Israel slant of the crown corporation, and she tried (unsuccessfully) to invite expert guests to explain the Palestinian perspective on CBC-TV’s flagship show, The National. She jumped (quit) before she was fired. But not before she stashed away her detailed diary of the daily humiliations and objections to her work by some fellow newsroom staff and by her higher-ups. By the way, the woman producer is white, half-Jewish, and her father was a Holocaust survivor — but even that didn’t keep her “safe” from the CBC’s penchant for kissing up to the pro-Israel lobby and kicking down to staff who fight it.

I used to be a big fan of Tana French, the US thriller writer who lives in Dublin. Not so fast I’d say after I put in what seemed like a hundred hours gnawing through her latest novel, The Hunter.  I’d say it is terrible, overplayed, and ordinary.  The characters come out of central casting; they are dull and predictable. After I spent about $20 for the e-book, I was disappointed.  If you want to read something good, check out her novel The Witch Elm or any of her other books.  Don’t read The Hunter.  Here’s the plot: two gold-diggers come to a village in Ireland– one is a local man who left his family years before to try to “make it” in London, the other is a no-good confidence trickster who sees the villagers as easy marks. The main “good” guy is a former Chicago police detective who retired to the village to do wood-working, and a 15-year-old school girl who during the summer holiday works as his carpentry apprentice. The murder happens three-quarters of the way into the book. And it’s hard slogging to get to that point– let alone beyond.

Just finishing John Grisham’s The Broker.  It was published 20 years ago, but I like the descriptions of Bologna, Italy where I spent time on two sabbaticals.  Grisham is a thriller writer to read if you want to immerse yourself, smile a bit and almost instantly forget what the book was about.   In The Broker, Marco is a former Washington DC lawyer who was a well-connected lobbyist and earned millions of dollars every year.  A series of bad decisions and worse luck, all while playing fast and loose, ends him in a jail cell sentenced to 20 years.  Unexpectedly, the day before the US president leaves office, he grants Marco a full pardon —why exactly we don’t find out till later. Marco is a free man — or is he? This starts a series of rather incredible events and the plot certainly draws the reader in. The characters are a bit wooden. Actually, I’d say the murder victims are crafted more finely than Marco, the protagonist and his henchmen.

I subscribe to Nice News.  This site has a great article and photos of buildings 3, 5, and more storeys that used to be offices now converted to schools, farmers’ markets, greenhouses and even bourbon-tasting bars.  Worth reading and seeing the photos here.

What podcasts to listen to…

Al Jazeera’s The Take is worth a 19-minute listen every day.  It covers events of the day and on-the- ground commentary especially about Palestine and Gaza.  I especially liked the episode: “The US funding behind illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank“.  Very lively and informative, listen here. I just heard The Take episode, “Inside the Journey across the Darien Gap“. This is a must-hear — a British reporter followed a family of six from Colombia through the very dangerous Darien Gap which is the only land connection between South America and North America. Listen here, Brilliant.

My Saskatoon friend Liz recommended Campus Uproar, interviews about the pro-Palestine encampments across the US.  Very interesting and worth an hour of listening pleasure here. 

Turns out not even Trump’s criminal trial is making Joe Biden look good–that’s according to Patrick Healy at The Opinions, on the New York Times site here.  According to Healy, moderate and centrist Democrats no longer want Biden — they are thinking of voting for RFK Junior!! Or they want to sit out the US election altogether. In four minutes you can hear all about it.  On the site you can hear 4-10 minute chats about all kinds of topics – unfortunately all of it to do with the rather parochial interests of the US.  

This is a great short story

Thomas McGuane reads “Thataway”, his new short story published by The New Yorker magazine.  You can listen to it here well worth 40 min., when you are cleaning, cooking, sunning or walking.

I listened to the series on Wondery called “The Shrink Next Door” which is fascinating.  A man who is an engineer with a decent job and income ends up as the dog’s body for 30 years to a prominent New York psychologist Dr Isaac Herschkopf. In 2021, New York’s Department of Health said that Dr Ike (as he is known) had violated “minimal acceptable standards of care in the psychotherapeutic relationship”.  I know there was a film made about this case, but I listened to the 6-part podcast.  Here it is, you can listen on Wondery or on Apple.

The RedEye podcast from Vancouver’s Co-op radio has an interview with Maya Wind on her new book Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom.  The book “reveals just how deeply Israeli universities are entangled with the Israeli state’s systems of oppression.” It’s a great interview; author Wind is a scholar of military expertise (!) at the University of British Columbia and explains things very well.  Listen to the podcast here

The Good Food Podcast from the BBC is wonderful because for 4 or 5 minutes as the podcast runs, you can cook along with a chef in the UK and make wonderful things.  Listen to this one for a taste of how to use leftover chocolate, if there is such a thing.

Featured painting at the top: Guernica, the iconic painting by Pablo Picasso (Spanish), displayed in the colours of Palestine to commemorate the Palestinian resistance against Israeli terrorism in Oct. 2023.  

Guernica witnesses the fight against fascism during Spanish Civil War (1937-39). Some say Guernica is a 20th century version of Goya’s The Third of May, right down to the martyr figure’s outstretched arms. Here’s Francisco Goya’s The Third of May (Spanish, 1808).