I’m more enraged today than I was last time when I wrote What to Watch and What to Read a month ago.   I’m enraged because the current narrative, eagerly swallowed and regurgitated by CBC news reporter Briar Stewart, is that the tunnels under Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City served as a “Hamas command post”– never mind the fact that according to several sources, Hamas does not have “command posts”. The White House demanded that “special care” be taken by Israeli troops raiding the hospital. Following suit, Prime Minister Trudeau urged Israel to “exercise maximum restraint” when it attacked the hospital today. (Reminder, I’m Jewish.)

Al-Shifa: the situation now

Voilà.  So now 11,000 murdered Palestinians in Gaza, plus about 30,000 severely injured – let’s not forget at least half of the murdered and injured are children – have been sacrificed so that Israel can sweep the Hamas “command post” under the hospital.  How does that make any sense? But the CBC is lapping it up—and repeating Israel’s line that doctors and other staff are allowed to continue their work in the hospital, but just not go to the basement. But this is absurd. According to Gareth Porter in Consortium News, the Hamas “command post” in the basement of Al-Shifa hospital is Israeli propaganda that has been circulating for 10 years.

Hello!  Surgeons at Al Shifa say no operations – and few other medical procedures — can take place because there is no power, and no fuel for generators to produce electricity.  Israel offered 300 litres of fuel for the generators  – but Al Shifa requires 12,000 L each day. Besides, as one surgeon put it, the hospital cannot allow porters or staff to fetch the fuel left nearby because the staff could be picked off and shot by Israeli snipers that surround the hospital day and night.  In fact one surgeon at the hospital said he spends much of his time moving people away from windows because of Israeli missile strikes and sharpshooters nearby. In addition, the hospital has no lights – except people’s cell phone lights.  There is no food.  There is no water – neither potable water nor water for cleaning. A little reminder: there are more than 650 patients still in Al-Shifa who are too sick or wounded to be moved.  At least 40 patients have died in the last several days. In addition, 5,000 to 7,000 women, children, and older men are camped in the hallways because Israel has destroyed their homes and the families had to flee.

Getting back to today at Al Shifa, know this: So what if there is a cache of weapons in the hospital basement!  Does that justify the murder of 11,000 civilians— in the weeks even before the cache was found!! If indeed the Israelis are telling the truth about the significance of the arms cache.

So again, it’s with a heavy heart that I give you what to read, and what to watch in November.

What to Read…

Let’s start with David Remnick’s long read  in The New Yorker about his recent trip to Israel, in mid-October.  Remnick, an American Jew, is the editor at The New Yorker and writes well.  Most of the article, “In the Cities of Killing”  is impressionistic.  He goes back and forth between how the “war” has affected Israeli Jews and Palestinians.  Unfortunately, he’s more sympathetic to the pressures and travails of the Israelis than the Palestinians.  He paints a picture of the ZAKA, an organisation of religious Jews who attend fatalities to collect skin, bones and even blood of Jews for a proper Jewish burial. Though Remnick interviews a couple of Palestinian friends – they don’t excoriate him  because of his politics and his proclivities.  Instead they are more measured, and try to show that Palestinians have suffered far more than Israelis over the last 75 years, since the state of Israel was founded.

I suppose the piece isn’t the worst, but I was surprised that Remnick still holds a candle for a two-state solution (how could that ever take place now?)  He has a fondness for brave Israeli military men such as Yair Golan, a retired Israeli army general, who is now being touted as Netanyahu’s replacement – when Israelis can finally get rid of him.   

“Mainstream media kills truth”

Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh is a Palestinian who lives in Bethlehem on the West Bank. He has a PhD in biology from a prestigious American university, and has taught many related courses.  He returned home to create and run the Palestine Museum of Natural History in Occupied Palestine. His blog, Popular Resistance, has a Nov. 7 posting “Mainstream Media Kills Truth” that is well worth reading.  The first paragraph states:

“What happened October 7 and after, as UN Chief Gutteres said ‘did not happen in a vacuum.’ “

In less than 1000 words, Qumsiyeh asks and answers eight excellent questions about the media which continues to evade, gloss over or falsely state what is going on.  This is a great short article. Here it is.

The Guardian Long-Read offers a very good look at how children fare under siege.  Afghani writer Zarlasht Halaimzai writes about her childhood in the early ‘90s ” ‘I remember the silence between the falling shells:’ the terror of living under siege as a child“.  Her experiences must be eerily similar to what Palestinian children in Gaza and the West Bank suffer. Israel has bombed and sent missiles that killed more than 5,000 children in Gaza, and 26 children killed out of more than 200 killed on the West Bank. 

Reading Canadian…

“Jane Doe”, a 21-year-old women, had to go through three trials before an experienced cop in the Newfoundland Constabulary was punish for raping her.  This article “How a Sexual Assault Case in St. John’s Exposed a Police Force’s Predatory Culture” by Lindsay Jones in Walrus paints a picture of St John’s at night and how protected cops really are.  Read it here.

Mayann Francis’ shocking account of her six years as Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia is in her 2019 autobiography, An Honourable Life. You will read about the metaphoric slaps, and the putdowns that Dr Francis (she has honorary doctorates from four universities) had to endure as the first African-Nova Scotian woman appointed as the Queen’s representative in Francis’ home province.  Dr Francis, born in 1946 in Sydney, Cape Breton, grew up in the working class and immigrant part of town — Whitney Pier.   Both her parents were Caribbean born and raised; her father was a well-respected clergyman. Her parents emphasized education, so Francis got a bachelor’s degree in arts from Saint Mary’s University, and years later — a Master’s degree in Public Management from New York University.  Dr Francis started her working career as an x-ray technologist in a Halifax hospital. With her experience and education, she leapt into a number of senior jobs in NS and Ontario.  Dr Francis advanced diversity and equity through her job in human resources at Dalhousie University. She also worked on diversity and equity issues at the District Attorney’s office in King’s County, New York.  Dr Francis is a former director and CEO of the NS Human Rights Commission. The book tells of the racism she faced while in office, and the fact it took her two and three times more time and effort to accomplish what she needed to because of intransigent officials, lack of government budget for her position and will, and no clear public policy. This is an incredible book.  I ran into Ms Francis twice on Spring Garden Rd. in Halifax this month when friends introduced us.  She is a magnetic and wonderful person

Here be monsters…

A long read in The Globe and Mail, “Here Be Monsters“ is well worth reading. In 2004, a fisherman in Badger Bay, NL came across a 12-ft long giant squid.  There is a history of giant squids found near shore on the east side of Newfoundland.  The most captivating story involved reverend and scientist Moses Harvey, a St John’s scientist, who had a 16-ft squid professionally photographed in 1873.   Here is the story from The Globe and Mail. But better than the article, is the wonderful recent podcast on CBC Radio’s Atlantic Voice “Squid in a Spongebath” here. 

Below: From left: Diagram of a giant squid from the Smithsonian Institution; a photo from the early 1900s shows the circles on this piece of sperm whale skin are giant squid sucker marks (In Smithsonian Report 1916); Dr Clyde Roper lies beside the giant squid to measure length (credit: Ingrid H Roper); giant squid’s tentacles (Smithsonian Ocean); 1870s photo of a squid draped over a bathtub (called a spongebath) was the first photo ever taken of a giant squid. The photo, and the squid, belonged to Reverend Moses Harvey, a scientist and biologist in St John’s, Newfoundland (From Verrill, A.E., 1882, Report on the Cephalopods of the Northeastern Coast of America).

One non-fiction, and one fiction book from the US

It’s only a few days from the 45th anniversary of more than 900 deaths in Jonestown, a religious community (sometimes called a cult) carved from the jungle in Guyana.  Implored by self-styled Rev. Jim Jones, Jonestown’s founder, nearly 1000 US-born adherents accepted drinking a cyanide-laced cocktail and died en masse Nov. 18, 1978. I read Jonestown Survivor: An Insider’s Look (2010) by Laura Johnston Kohl, who joined the forerunner of Jonestown, the Peoples Church, in the early 1970s.  She was deeply committed to fighting for civil rights and social justice. The Peoples Church was likely one of the first churches with a mission to integrate Blacks and whites in its thousands of members.  Started in the 1960s in Indiana, Jim Jones moved with hundreds of his adherents to northern California. It was there that Kohl, a social worker, began to work for the Peoples Church.  In the book her memories of life in Jonestown are particularly clear, as has been her painstaking work in trying to find the relatives of the people who died that night.  She evaded death as she was 150 miles away in Georgetown, Guyana’s capital, to buy food and supplies for Jonestown residents. She was staying that week in Georgetown. This article from the San Diego Tribune gives a useful context to what happened. 

The Cartographers: a novel (2022) by Peng Shepherd, sometimes strains credibility—but if you read to the end of the book– magically it comes together. Nell Young is a geographer and a map specialist. At the start of the book, we find out that seven years earlier, her father Dr Dan Young, a famous cartographer who spent his career in the map room of the New York Public Library, had got Nell fired. What did Nell and her then-boyfriend Felix (also a map specialist) do to deserve to lose their careers and be fired? The first 200 pages of the book are the best, the most feisty and inspiring.  They present as a thriller, or a mystery—with a touch of humour and pathos.  The next hundred pages are not bad either. It’s the last hundred pages that are more sentimental, and drag the plot down several dead ends.  We can finally see where the weird plot is taking us – to the “showdown” at the end of the book.  This is a typical American-style novel – in that ‘all’s well that ends well’.  But not before we learn something about map making, life and death bonds among graduate students, and a secret plot which falls into speculative fiction. 

What to watch

Gloria is a 10-part series made in Portugal.  Gloria do Ribatejo is a town just outside of Lisbon. In the 1960s it was home to a CIA spy base.  During the Cold War it broadcast Radio Free Europe programs, pushed out anti-Soviet propaganda and tried to target Russian spies.  One of the engineers is a spy for the KGB.  He also served three years as soldier in Portugal’s colonial war to hold on to its colonies of Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau (from 1961 to ’74). The series is excellent – and it’s fictionalised and well-scripted. It’s about loyalty, the Cold War, and the devastating colonial wars in Africa.  The repressive role of the Catholic Church, and the fascist government of Portugal (until the mid-70s) present a frightening yet very real backdrop to events in the series.  Highly recommended; it’s on Netflix. Here’s the trailer!

Bosch: Legacy, is the fourth series about Bosch, a Los Angeles cop – now retired – who does a better job rescuing people, solving murders and confronting bad guys than does the paid police force.  In this series, Harry Bosch’s 20-something year old daughter, a young constable with the LAPD, gets into some pretty hot water.  Her dad manages a knife-edge rescue.  You can watch the series on Amazon Prime.  You can also watch the first three seasons if you like action.  Here’s the trailer.

The Sixth Commandment is a new series (2023) on Britbox. At least one critic has called the writing and acting “immaculate”.    In a small town in southern England, a part-time university philosopher lecturer, Peter Farquhar, is on the verge of retirement.  He’s lonely, has never had a life-partner, so he takes in a lodger. One thing leads to another and the lodger’s mate, Ben, moves in and tells Peter he’s in love with him.  At first Peter can’t believe his luck that anyone– let alone the clever, erudite, handsome and much younger Ben—would be interested in an elderly, shy teacher.  But incidents start happening which frighten Peter’s brother and sister-in-law.  We begin to understand that Ben is a sexual predator.  After Peter, Ben jumps into a relationship with Ann Moore-Martin, Peter’s neighbour.  A former school teacher approaching her 80s, she too missed out on love and a life she had once wanted.  Intertwined with this thriller, is religion.  Ben is training to be a vicar.  Peter and then Ann are both church-goers and dedicated to their Christian faith.  Though the series starts out slowly, it is sharp and well scripted. Here’s the trailer — You’ll like it.   

The Shawshank Redemption is a 1994 film that’s worth watching.  I know there are virtually no women in the film – and no women in seriously talking parts—which usually means I won’t watch. But still Shawshank kept my attention for all 2 plus hours.  In 1947, a young accountant, Andy Dufresne (played by Tim Robbins), goes to jail for life for the murder of his wife and her boyfriend.  Andy insists he never did it.  Still the years drift by in prison, and no one knows the truth about him and his deceased wife. No one except Red Redding (played by Morgan Freeman), a Black jailhouse leader and self-styled ‘entrepreneur’ who is also a lifer. The relationship between the two men is kind, respectful but also distant – which proves to be a key element in the plot.  Nineteen years later, someone admits to killing Andy’s wife — but it’s too late. The jail’s crooked warden will not “allow” Andy’s case to be reopened, or for him to be freed. The plot thickens. Red, after being denied parole every previous decade, in his 30^th year is suddenly paroled.  What he does with his freedom, and what Andy does with his, will surprise you.  I saw Shawshank on a flight coming home from Berlin.  But you can watch it on DVD from the library or Netflix. Here’s the trailer

Ferry: this is the third part of a series that I gave a rave review to —  starting with Undercover here. Ferry is a criminal who decides to start a secret plant to manufacture Ecstasy pills and sell them (by the million) to major dealers across Europe. Much of the action takes place in a trailer camp in Brabant, just outside of Brussels, Belgium.  I thought the first series was great – and this one is not to be missed.  The Ferry series is on Netflix and here’s the trailer.

Shorter excellent films …

From a recent film festival in Montreal, I watched these two films online. Lethal Warning: The Killing of Luai Kahil and Amir al-Nimrah is an eight-minute film which details Israel’s use of “roof knocking” or warning strikes before major bombings. Israel contends these strikes are not letha, but B’tselem (the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) reveals that roof knocking in Gaza City in July 2018 was indeed deadly and it deliberately targeted civilians. Watch it here.

“You can be a deserter and be AWOL but in a war game it’s ‘afk’ –away from keyboard.”

from How to Disappear

The second film I watched, How to Disappear, is incredibly good.  In 21-minutes, Austrian filmmakers make a strong case against video war games. The film’s voice-over says “War cannot be played: by definition a game is played voluntarily.”  This is brilliant anti-war, anti-playing war games. The film notes, that in war,“You can be a deserter and be AWOL but in a war game it’s ‘afk’ –away from keyboard.” You can watch it here.

Self-help 😉

Do you need a friend? Well, capybaras are the most social, friendly and kindly four-legged pals there are, according to this Reel.  They are herbivores, populate every South American country (excluding Chile), and mate only in water.  Adorable.

We must have at least one cat-lover who reads this column.  You are in for a treat if you like Tuxedo cats – or better still own one (like me)! My cat is called Diego. Here’s Diego protecting his turf – a rubber cord and a new cloth-covered saguaro cactus scratching post. 

But if this is not enough for you, watch this nine-minute video—9 Facts You Didn’t Know About Tuxedo Cats here.  

What podcasts to listen to…

Canadaland’s podcast Backbench #76 is about Israel, Palestine and Canadian foreign policy—and it’s great. It features host Mattea Roach, Emily Nicolas from Le Devoir, Ethan Cox at Ricochet Media and Murtza Hussain, a reporter for The Intercept. Please listen to it here.

Shoot the Messenger: Espionage, Murder & Pegasus Spyware

is a new investigative podcast from the US. It’s first season, 10 episodes, focuses on Pegasus – the Israeli surveillance tool secretly attached to cell phones.  As Wikipedia reports,

“Pegasus is a  spyware developed by the Israeli cyber-arms company NSO Group that is designed to be covertly and remotely installed on mobile phones running iOS and Android. While NSO Group markets Pegasus as a product for fighting crime and terrorism, governments around the world have routinely used the spyware to surveil journalists, lawyers, political dissidents, and human rights activists.^” 

In the first episodes, we find out about what really happened to renowned journalist Jamal Kashoggi, and the role Pegasus and its inventors at the Israeli NSO group played in tracking him down. Pegasus tracked all of Kashoggi’s contacts from his cell phone.  The information was turned over to the Saudis who killed him. Listen to the podcast here.

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Arts gratia artis…

A new exhibit, Northwest Trolls: Way of the Bird King, is a public art project designed by Danish artist Thomas Dambo.  Each of these incredible statues is nearly 20-feet tall and made out of recycled material.  They are scattered at five sites in Washington state. Six are posted online here.

There’s a Substack blog called A Few Tasteful Snaps I’ve discovered recently.  It is written by Canadian political analyst and data journalist Glen McGregor. His blog is here.

The little video shows a wonderful piece of art entitled When the Rubber.  It’s a 5-metre long sculpture made of old car tires in the form of a crow.  The sculptor is PEI-based Gerard Beaulieu who crafted it in 2018.  The National Capital Commission (NCC) decided to rent it and display it alongside a road in the LeBreton Flats area of Ottawa.  The NCC paid to rent it for a year for just over $14,000, which includes shipping, installation and insurance. 

Image at the top: A photo of Where the Rubber, by artist Gerard Beaulieu, from PEI. (courtesy of the National Capital Commission, Ottawa)