March 27th, 2007 §
Anybody who knows me well, knows that my favorites women in the world are Hungarian. Hungairan women are passionate and intelligent. Education in Hungary is first rate. It doesn't hurt that Hungarian cuisine is the best food in Europe east of France and north of Italy.
Beautiful Hungarian Women at the Budapest Parade
September 2006 - Photo: Alec Kinnear
It turns out that Hungarian women are not getting the professional opportunities they deserve:
According to an annual study published by the Central Statistics Office (KSH) and the ministry of social affairs and labor entitled "Women and Men in Hungary" ("Nők és férfiak Magyarországon"), while 54% of people participating in higher education are women, only 8% of university teachers are female. Men are also more successful at the workplace, as they still fill most leading positions. In addition, although women are better educated and speak more languages than their male counterparts, they find it more difficult to climb the career ladder, and only 35% of managers are women.
The percentage of women working part-time is much less in Hungary (4.6%) than the European average (25.9%) because of the lack of opportunities for part-time and remote employment.
In comparison to Slovakia and Bratislava where we have 0% unemployment (well probably 1% which is effectively 0%), the situation in Hungary looks promising. Oodles of energetic and intelligent people looking for challenging work. Hungarians have more get up and go than Slovaks (to put it mildly) so the chances of finding people who can really grow in an expanding company are much greater.
Hungarians have 1500 years of history and their capital is 700 years old. Budapest has been one of the top 10 cities in Europe for much of the last four hundred years.
While Hungarian politics are a mess, an underemployed and well-educated eager workforce of beautiful women in a fabulous city looks awfully good.
View of Buda from Iron Bridge
Delicious Hungarian Nouvelle Cuisine-
March 7th, 2007 §
It turns out that Joni Mitchell is back at work on an amazing antiwar production - The Fiddle and the Drum - of all things a ballet.
She is still highly motivated by politics:
“Humbly I hope we can make a difference with this ballet,” she told him, speaking of her outrage about the foreign and environmental policies of the United States. “It’s a red alert about the situation the world is in now. We’re wasting our time on this fairy tale war, when the real war is with God’s creation. Nobody’s fighting for God’s creation.”
Hopefully her message will get through. The polar ice caps are melting and we are bombing cities in Iraq and gearing up to begin a nuclear war with Iran. Sometimes one wonders if that dolt Bush isn't really the antichrist, send to bring an end to this earth.
Mitchell suggests a wonderful metaphor - modern civilisation as we know it is on a runaway train.
My heart is broken in the face of the stupidity of my species. I can’t cry about it. In a way I’m inoculated. I’ve suffered this pain for so long. We were expelled from Eden. What keeps us out of Eden?
Well, I’m being more specific now. The West has packed the whole world on a runaway train. We are on the road to extincting ourselves as a species. That’s what I meant when I said that we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.
So what is the ballet like?
With 9 songs and 27 dancers, the result is equal parts Busby Berkeley spectacle, political jeremiad and rock opera, a collection of songs that form an essay on war and incipient environmental apocalypse. Young, athletic bodies are sent off to kill and die. The earth is electronically set for destruction. Dire biblical prophecies and the grave warnings of Indian chiefs ring true.
The Fiddle and the Drum - Joni Mitchell, Alberta Ballet
“We’re going to open the curtain” Mr. Grand-Maître explained, “and people who are expecting a ballet will get something more like a rock concert.”
After yesterday's Tanzhommage an Queen, it appears we are no longer in the era of the rock opera but are entering the era of the rock ballet.
Is The Fiddle and the Drum any good as a ballet? The run was short and sweet February 8-10 and February 16-17.
Curiously, William Forsythe has also recently created a political ballet, Three Atmospheric Studies which has even been likened with Picasso's famous antiwar painting Guernica.
The New York Times dance critic questions whether choreographers should venture into political waters.
Mr. Forsythe is hardly the only modern choreographer to have put politics center stage. “The Green Table,” Kurt Jooss’s antiwar masterpiece, was created in 1932 as Hitler was rising to power and is in the repertories of both American Ballet Theater and the Joffrey Ballet. Last year Paul Taylor paid homage to Jooss’s work with “Banquet of Vultures,” with Death again a central figure, but this time he wore a suit and tie and was a stand-in, Mr. Taylor has said, for President Bush....
“There are exceptions,” said Joseph V. Melillo, the longtime executive producer of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, a leading showcase for progressive art. “But the majority of contemporary choreographers in the U.S. today do not think about their place as citizen-artists in response to the political atmosphere. That’s not to say they don’t talk about the war when they’re having a cup of coffee at Dean & Deluca, but they’re not doing that in their art. There’s a disconnect.”
What is striking about Mr. Forsythe, Mr. Melillo said, is that “an artist of his stature would so wholeheartedly and without reservation craft a work of art that is political in content and structure.”
Why are choreographers going political? First, the media are very heavily censored. Second, political leadership is so far in opposition to the will of a large part of the populations.
I've seen this phenomenon before, where theatre plays a huge role in politics. It was at the end of the Soviet Union. People were still hesitant to offer a straight critique of the regime. But via theatre the artists staged works into which an astute audience could read contemporary political allegory or analogy. Theatre na Taganke was famous for this kind of indirect political commentary.
In a totalitarian society, media is the first sacrifice. It is much harder to keep reign on the indirect speech of the world of theatre.
Totalitarianism seems to have a salutary effect on art, forcing it to ask harder questions about society. The late Soviet theatre was known for its quality and depth. Whether dance will successfully handle its new role as political critic is an open question. To my mind, dance is more about the personal and the internal than the societal. Dance longs to tell individual tales of love and loss. Yet Yuri Grigorovich was able to make a few majestic political ballets, notably Ivan the Terrible and Spartacus. Grigorovich's angle was to approach the general through the personal. Through Spartacus's and Ivan's own stories he touched wider issues.
Forsythe sees his work like a rising barometer:
"The fact that we are doing this changes fuck all," Forsythe concludes. "But if it contributes to the general feeling, if it is another drop in the stream of dissent that flows far to the places of power, then it is worth it, even if it is a little trickle. It's better to say something than to say nothing at all.
(The quote above comes from a very good historical précis of the relationship between dance and politics by John O'Mahony published in England's The Guardian.)
Three Atmospheric Studies - William Forsythe (photo Dieter Hartwig)
For the moment, thank you Mssrs. Bush and Cheney for making dance relevant again. It's a pity that it required over 100,000 casualties. No matter. While a single death is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.
February 19th, 2007 §
The BBC showed a new "exposé" of 9/11/2001 on Sunday.
Alas it was a set up - more a freak show than investigative reporting:
I found Thursday’s Jeremy Vine show on 9/11 utterly excruciating. Insane nonsensical bunk about "Lizard men running the planet" and "Holograms hitting the Towers" completely destroys the valid, fair and reasonable concerns of millions of people. There are literally hundreds of far more credible points that could have been discussed, namely the blatant and troubling omissions and distortions in the 9/11 Commission Report.
It seems the most ridiculous nonsense was selected for discussion yesterday, none of which is advocated by 99% of the people in the 9/11 Truth Movement. Madness about "no planes hitting the Towers" is actually regarded as something so ridiculous that it might even be something deliberately circulated to discredit everything else that’s credible. Also David Shayler is a very unpopular figure for spouting damaging nonsense. Why not have the people who are actually respected by the 9/11 Truth Movement like Michael Meacher MP or Tony Benn? Both of whom have called for a real investigation into the attacks.
Why indeed?
Discussion on the BBC weblogs even before the show aired was heated and fascinating.
Right at the beginning a bunch of hush-hush statusquoers stopped by:
4. At 02:24 PM on 14 Feb 2007, Mark wrote:
The biggest conspiracy question is why those in Parliament who oversee BBC have allowed it to degenerate from a respected news organization to the lowest level of tabloid press trash possible. The 9-11 attacks a conspiracy staged by the US government? There's only about fifty thousand reasons to not believe it. First there were the eyewitness accounts who saw the planes crash into the buildings. Then there were the eyewitness accounts of those on the plane which crashed in Pennsylvania, people who were on their cell phones to their relatives during the hijacking. And then there was Osama Bin Laden's admission and gloating over the plot on videotape broadcast around the world. BBC should be emptied of its entire staff and actual journalists should be hired to replace them. The janitorial staff can stay.
There were at least ten more such vitriolic postings in this vein. Somehow it all reads like right-wing hack and Bush speechwriter David Frum to me (I lived in Toronto for awhile while Frum was writing for Conrad Black's own wretched National Post so I became well-acquainted with Frum's tone).
After reading through the comments carefully, it's clear that there are media monitors out there in government offices, paid to slap down 9/11 discussion where it appears.
It’s a small thing but British spelling for organization should be organisation. An American really shouldn't permit him/herself an opinion on BBC funding and organisation, as he makes no contribution to their budget.
There were also a few wacko comments about lizard people. I can't make up my mind if they were made by the genuinely delusional or just more misinformation.
But later in the comments, cogent discussion took place. Intelligent consensus is this - that the 9/11 story just doesn't make sense.
Here is a small time capsule of what people were thinking about 9/11 in the middle of February in 2007.
82. At 06:42 AM on 16 Feb 2007, Sandman wrote:
Arthur Schopenhauer stated, "Truth passes through three stages; first, it is ridiculed; next, it is violently opposed; and finally, it is self evident."
The tipping point in regards to the 9/11 truth movement has risen to supernova status. We are in the second stage of of Schopenhauer's prophetic quote.
Cognitive dissonance is a necessary element in the awakening of society at large. The BBC, even in the happenstance of a "hit piece," has done its part. The advent of the internet with it's unfiltered news has caused this conspiracy to be exposed in quick fashion. This would not happen in China today.
My son was born on that fateful day. I spent duty time at Ground Zero shortly thereafter(state police). I want him to know that I did my part in restoring the Republic that this great nation once was.
Ralph Waldo Emerson stated, " There is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue. Commit a crime and the earth is made of glass. Commit a crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge, and fox, and squirrel,"
and
"Speak what you think today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today."
86. At 08:00 AM on 16 Feb 2007, Nick wrote:
It's amazing how by blowing up a couple of buildings you can deceive the whole world into believing that the attacks were instigated by someone operating out of a cave in Afghanistan. Perfect excuse to have a bogus War On Terror. It's like Hitler said the bigger the lie the more people will believe it! With any conspiracy ask yourself who benefits and also follow the money? Insider trading on 911 leads back to the CIA. Did anyone notice how they where blaming Osama before the second tower collapsed. This was a setup from the beginning. A psychological operation and the first great hoax of the 21st century! If you want proof the towers were demolished then just watch all the footage on that day. And the smoking gun is the time it took for the towers to fall which was at freefall speed, which requires explosives. And then there's building 7 just suddenly collapsing later that day. The wealth of evidence contradicting the official version is simply overwhelming! Im sure this program will be an attempt by the BBC to confuse and muddy the waters like all good counter intelligence intends and to label those that question the official conspiracy theory (which it is) as paranoid conspiracy nutters who dare to break loose from the herd and question our media guided reality? I will not be expecting anything new or good on the BBC this Sunday! Wake up to the truth people.
87. At 08:56 AM on 16 Feb 2007, Erika wrote:
I come from a country that largely suffered from a completely fabricated image CNN and BBC most than others portrayed in order to justify bombings and murderings of civilian population and years of economic sanctions in which thousands perished from sickness and famine. At the time, it was incredible to us to watch what was being said about us and yet know that it is a complete bag of lies and fabrications. The question we asked was "WHY?". After learning more about the NWO agenda which made me forcedly mature and open my eyes to exactly those "WHY?" there is no doubt in my mind and in my heart to who are the TRUE global terrorists. I don’t see why would killing a thousand people or so be an obstacle for earning billions out of a war alone. I just cant comprehend how can the rest of humanity refuse to acknowledge what is staring them right in the face. It is sickening but real and present and becoming more and more radical and more and more dangerous. We have to wake up.
88. At 08:58 AM on 16 Feb 2007, Smith wrote:
Ockham's razor
I initially was sceptical about the 9/11 Conspiracy crowd. I thought to my self how would it be possible for the government to cover this up something this big, I thought about how many people would be needed to cover up and execute the plan.... Then I thought about how How Harry S. Truman kept the Manhattan project secret from the entire nation for years, and even from his Vice president. That involved a heck of a lot more people.
To believe the official 9/11 Story you have to believe that on 9/11 Four civilian aircraft evaded the most secure and complex air defense in the history of mankind. You have to believe that three steel and concrete buildings fell down primarily from fire on the same day when it has never happend even once before. You have to believe that all three buildings fell at almost free fall speed meeting little to know resistance from the support structures on the way down. You have to believe that the Secret Service failed in executing routine procedure in protecting the President by letting him sit in a school reading my pet goat knowing the nation was under attack. You have to believe that a War game about the World Trade Center getting attacked by hijacked civilian aircraft just coincidentally happened to be being practised on 9/11 leading to massive amounts of confusion about real world problems or exercises. You have to believe that It was fluke George W. Bush ok'd Invasion plans of Afghanistan on Sept. 10th one day before 9/11. You have to believe that the removal of authority for Generals to issue shoot down orders of hijacked civilian aircraft was taken away in August by coincidence. You have to believe that The President and Vice President were both accidentally removed from the Chain of command just long enough for the two trade center buildings and the Pentagon to be attacked. You have to Believe that building number 7 Containing the New York offices of the CIA and the Operational Emergency Command for New york isn't suspicious. I could go on. These are things You can't find suspicious if you are to believe the official story.
To believe in the "Conspiracy Theory" all you have to believe is that George Bush and a few Cronies with the help of a former CIA asset who just happens to belong to a family that was VERY close to the President, and perhaps less than 1,000 military or intellegence people executed an enhanced version of Operation Northwoods. To execute a plan to gain control of the Caspian Sea Natural Gas and Oil Reserves.
Ockham's razor Says the "Conspiracy Theorists" Have it right.
At the end of the day, after reading much of the evidence on both sides over the course of years, I'm still asking myself a lot of questions. What brought the towers down and whether a plane or a missile flew into the Pentagon (plane - the plane or missile debate is a red herring to catch people out and discredit the insider theory) are the least important among them.
Anyway, here are some of my questions...
How could a guy in a cave in Afghanistan stand down NORAD?
Answer: he couldn't.
What do I believe?
9/11 began as an Al-Queda initiative but that it was shepherded by the Dick Cheney and cohorts to success. Probably with Mossad support. Mossad seems to be a lot better at keeping secrets than either the KGB, the CIA or the FBI, so it would make sense to bring them in where possible and involve a minimum of loose-lipped American operatives.
Why do I believe this?
History is full of such false flag terror incidents. Hitler's Reichstag fire. Standing down air defences at Pearl Harbour before the Japanese attack. The Gulf of Tonkin incident - on President Johnson's watch. Operation Northwoods (against Cuba but not put into action). The Israeli attack on the USS Liberty with the support of President Johnson.
None of this is to mention the overt meddling involved in the Pinochet Coup, Nicaragua and the Iran-Contra incident.
American statecraft has a greater history of such false flag incidents than any nation I know of. The whole country was built on disenfranchising and dispossessing whole peoples (American Indians). When one reads the PNAC documents, one can see that the PNAC group desperately needed an incident like this to begin their campaign to rearrange the Middle East. If such an incident didn't occur by accident, it would have to be created.
It's up to you to decide for yourself whether this incident was fortuitous or artificially abetted.
The more modern history that one reads the more astonishing and sinister the world. Don't click on or read the links above. Once you know who the game is played, you will are like Alice falling down the rabbit hole - but there's no way back.
November 26th, 2006 §
Where are my dance projects?
I make three times as much money but previously - in my opinion - I contributed far more to the world. Truth, beauty, justice, compassion.
How upside down society's values. Like my lead charachter in Lapinthrope, I am broken, the joyful madness and the natural spontaneity gone from my eyes. I sit at a desk and move the wheels of commerce. What is the alternative?
To end up face down in a city part somewhere in France or Canada, my spine broken by a police boot but my soul intact, the light extinguishing altogether.
Some would argue that there are successful directors who live from their art. To be honsest, for most well off directors make their money and spend their energy on television commercials, banal television or empty commercial film.
Most of the best filmmakers I've met live very poorly.
My pledge is to reinvest myself in society and art when the occasion returns.
In the meantime, dance reviews and the occasional dance photo shoot will have to stand for me.
I'm delighted to announce four dance articles (three reviews and a theory article) over the weekend.
September 27th, 2006 §
This year global military spending has reached the highest point of history, outranking even the highest years of the Cold War.
Global military spending this year is estimated to reach US$1,059bn, outstripping the highest figure reached during the Cold War in real terms, and roughly fifteen times current international aid expenditure. This growth in military budgets has caused a boom for the arms industry, with the top 100 arms companies seeing their sales increase by almost 60 per cent, from US$157bn in 2000 to US$268bn in 2004.
One has to ask oneself if Bill Clinton or Al Gore were in power would this be happening... The answer is no. The US economy would be growing in the direction of services and international consumer goods.
American influence would be expanding as its products and its businessmen took over whole markets and could even control huge sections of the media sector via their advertising.
I know how the system of control and domination of foreign markets works, from my experience as head of televison in Russia for two of the world's largest ad agencies with, in both cases, P&G as our principal client.
Of course, some American expansion into new markets carries on anyway, despite the animosity of the Cheney years. There is a great deal of momentum in world trade which takes years and decades to succumb fully to inertia and negative forces. But the Americans would be having a lot more success stories and a lot less bloodshed, had they not played the imperial card and instead carried on with Bill Clinton's friendship hand.
Had the Israel-Palestinian issue been resolved instead of launching the foolish (and deadly) Iraq crusade, there would have been little standing in the way of a mass PR and business benefit to American business throughout the world.
And we would be in a much better position to take on issues like world hunger. Not solve them, but make them a lot better.
If we could alleviate world hunger even a little bit it would be a wonderful thing. Each statistical percentage points is the difference between hundreds of thousands starving. Conversely, each billion dollars of military spending ends up costing tens of thousands loss of life and limb.
Statistics like this should make us angry, not depressed. This is how our money and how our efforts are being spent - on arms and not on helping our fellow man.
Vote, protest and educate.
September 27th, 2006 §
No doubt the Americans learned their bad habits from the English masters of two centuries ago. Here's what the British soldiers in Iraq are up to.
Mr Matairi, whose brother was killed by Saddam Hussein's regime, said he felt betrayed at being ill-treated by British soldiers he had welcomed to Iraq.
"I put flowers in my children's hands to welcome the British soldiers when they came to free us from Saddam," Mr Matairi told the court with the aid of an interpreter.
"I could not believe that these criminals were from Britain. According to our knowledge it was a civilised country, so I could not believe it."
Mr Matairi said he feared that the treatment he received would leave his three children fatherless. "We were hit all the time, continuously without knowing the reason why," he added.
Mr Matairi, part-owner of the hotel from which he and his staff were arrested, told them "we are going to die".
"They [the soldiers] were celebrating the beatings like it was Christmas," he said.
He said the soldiers laughed at his cries of pain, playing a karate chop game as they hit him.
Next time you are listening to Tony Blair droning on and on about compassion and democracy, it's worth remembering where the buck stops.
Laughing British soldiers playing games of karate chop and torturing Iraqis, innocent* and otherwise.
* If they were not innocent, what would they be guilty of? Wanting foreign invaders of their country out...
September 27th, 2006 §
There is no justice in the world. While there are people doing life sentences (three strikes and you're out) for stealing hubcaps in California, one of the five core figures in business crimes which shook the American economy gets six years of minimum security. The judge even knocked time off of the plea-bargain his lawyers had made.
Andrew Fastow, who helped engineer the financial trickery that sank Enron Corp and then helped convict his former bosses in the scandal, had four years knocked off the plea deal he made, receiving a six-year sentence instead.
US District Judge Ken Hoyt said the 44-year-old former Enron chief financial officer had given "exceptional" assistance to prosecutors, had pledged to help victims and had shown remorse, and his wife had gone to prison for a year....
Judge Hoyt imposed no fine and recommended a minimum-security prison for Fastow.
Enron's crash caused investors to lose billions and cost thousands of employees their jobs and retirement savings.
No fine!
Unbelievable.
This means Andrew Fastow should be out on the street within two and a half years. Perhaps he will even have weekends out.
The Enron men should be going away for twenty years and up. Business leaders need some clear signals from the criminal justice system that their misdeeds will not go unpunished.
How can we expect honesty and diligence from:
- ordinary people
- small business owners
- employees
- politicians
when every day they see the rewards for crime.
On the other hand, a mass murderer and an election thief is allowed to stay in The White House and continue to menace the world and hold up peace in the Middle East.
We are entering a Modern Dark Ages, a latter day feudalism. There is one set of laws for hereditary lords and another for the common folk.
Any such system degenerates quickly enough into mass bloodshed and disintegration. It is the opposite of a merit-based system. It is the opposite of fairness. Such a system encourages sycophancy and corruption. Third-world nepotism makes it into the big leagues.
Frankly, these are not the rules of the game which I would wish on my children and grandchildren. Or yours.
August 17th, 2006 §
There's been a lot of argument about whether Israel or Hezbollah won the war in Lebanon.
Here is a comment from Haaretz which pretty much sums up recent events in the Lebanon war. The comment matches Israel's stated goals against the actual outcome. It looks like a draw, at a very high cost to both sides.
Israeli Goals
- Get release of IDF soldiers without a prisioner exchange. Failure
- Disarm Hezbollah. Failure
- Avoid civilian casualties. Almost 1,000 women and children dead. Failure
- Destroy rockets. 250 landed yesterday alone. Failure
- Win international support. Outside the USA Israel is hated more than ever before. Failure
- Moderate Arab behavior. More arabs hate israel more than ever now including moderate states like egypt, jordan, and saudi arabia. Failure
Outcome
- Hezzbolah is more popular than ever
- The war cost Israel hundreds of millions of dollars.
- The pro USA, anti Syrian/anti Hezzbolah PM is weakened.
- Hatred for israel is at an all time high even among suni and christians in Lebanon
- Many Israeli towns damaged badly
- 150 Israelis dead. Hundred injured.
Conclusion
Hezbolah did not win the war but Israel definitely didn`t either. There should have been a prisioner swap from the beginning.
August 16th, 2006 §
At this point (I don't write this war off yet), the Israelis are big losers in Lebanon.
Hezbollah is still armed, the Israelis are on their way out of Lebanon and the entire IDF and political leadership of Israel comes off as bullies, murderers and war criminals.
The words above are harsh, but nothing compared to the rage of the belligerents' own supporters, who would also like to try the Israeli government as criminals - for their failure to spill enough blood!
Here are some of the comments from just one story:
6. The West DOES see
mike - USA
08/15/2006 22:45
The West, like the rest of the goy world, wants to destroy Israel and exterminate the Jewish people. Unfortunately, so does Israel's current government. I can understand the motivations of the West -- the goyim have always been out to exterminate us and always will be. However, the motivations of the Olmert government are less obvious. Perhaps the Olmerites' goal is to steal lots of money from the public treasury and run under the cover of Israel's chaotic destruction. Perhaps the Olmerites are being paid and/or blackmailed by some foreign intelligence service. Either way, Israel is lead today by a treasonous government.
3. A war Israel should and could have won
Kenneth S. Besig - Israel
08/15/2006 21:43
The war just ended in Lebanon with a Hizbulla victory should never have turned out that way. Israel had the means, the will, and the force to win, but because of our inexperienced and fearful political and military leaders, that is Olmert, Peretz, Livni, and Halultz, we not only gave Hizbulla a victory over us, we gave them a victory over Lebanon. I once thought that an Israeli government inquiry into the political and military misconduct of the war would be enough. Now I am inclined to think that a criminal trial of our leadership might be in order.
With supporters like that, the Israeli Prime Minister would do better to clean house at home, than waging war abroad.
Instead Prime Minister Olmert was celebrating a Volksdeutsche moment at the airport, welcoming those olim who chose to immigrate from the U.S., Canada and the U.K. during his recent quest for Lebensraum, a.k.a. the 2006 Lebanon campaign.
August 16th, 2006 §
For a profound look at Israeli cynicism regarding war and human loss from the inside, I cannot recommend enough a good read of one of the latest articles in the Jerusalem Post: Anglos voice Israel's case to foreign media. Here are just a few teaser quotes.
Anglo-Israelis know how to better shape a message because they know how its received, Spigelman argued. "We can understand how things sound to an international audience because we were once part of the international audience."
That knowledge is what leads the IDF Spokesman's Office to release different tapes of army operations to local and foreign journalists. The former might receive a heave dose of the air force destroying bridges to reinforce success. But to internationals, Spigelman said, "It looks like we're destroying roads people take to get to work."
So instead, he explained, they got footage of rocket launchers being used in Kafr Kana. "They needed more convincing that Kafr Kana was a hotbed of terror, whereas in Israel, they know that. They've been receiving the Katyushas up north."
"For an American, you might want to be more aggressive, more vocal, more victorious in tone," Ovits said. "For a European, you might want to emphasize humanitarian [aspects], because pictures of tanks... bring up very negative emotions."
If the right accent helps, the wrong accent can be a "turn-off," according to Spigelman. He said a "slick" American wouldn't seem authentic to Europeans the way an officer with a slight Israeli accent would, making the latter a better choice.
It looks like the Israelis read Goebbels private diaries carefully.
We certainly wouldn't want people abroad to see the bridges pointlessly blown up, preventing people from going to work or doing their shopping.
Fortunately (unlike in Iraq where the policy of screening embedded journalists and indiscriminately shooting independent journalists succeeded in limiting information), we have other sources for our footage and our news than the IDF.
