Judith Malina and Hanan Reznikoff write:

”We have fifty friends in Lebanon.
Fifty friends under bombardment.
We worked together a long time
in Tripoli and in Beirut and at Baalbek
and we passed through Sidon and Tyre
as we went on to fulfill our creation at Khiam,
at the torture museum run by Hezbollah
where we performed our own play about
what happens when we turn against each other.
And we have lived, too, in the Arab town of Acco
where we brought Antigone’s challenge to the fore
and now the missiles are falling on Acco, too
and we haven’t been able to find our friends there, either…

To make it all right is simple.
To decide to do it is hard.

Esti Marpet writes:

”Rami Khouri was wrong. I knew he was wrong when I read him yesterday. Israel will not accept a weak position from which to negotiate. They will use all their might to show us that they are as strong as ever and capable of defeating Jizbollah or anyone else for that matter. It’s a disaster. You have been doing a very good job.”

Michael Glennon who appears to be a service member writes:

”It is a shame everyone forgets that the war could end immediately if the hateful, blood-thirsty terrorist savages who abducted the Israeli soldiers would release them and leave Israel alone!”

JoAnne Murphy writes:

Dear Danny, … If you were not affected by the anguish of the Middle East conflict, you would be a sociopath. – “My country right or wrong”is not patriotism, -it’s fascism. (And it drove me up the wall in the60s, too.) Those of us who have not given over our spiritual development to anyone or anything of this earth sense one another and seek justice together. Part of the job is not to let discouragement getn the upper hand. Take a little time each day to pamper yourself and those dear to you. Courage, Danny, you are such a joy to those of us becoming victims of physical age. Hope this bumper sticker I found last night brings you at least a small smile. :)

http://www.carryabigsticker.com/images/be_nice_500.jpg

Someone who wants to remain anonymous writes:

”I feel fortunate to have run across your website. It appears to me that it is as good as one can expect to find re the news of the day and the implications of the news.

Thank you for sharing your obsession with us. It is my obsession also, but trolling for even handed truthful reporting takes a lot of time and probably more understanding than I presently have. You are going to save me a lot of time and energy, or so it seems now…”

Mike Martini writes from New Hampshire:

”You are doing a great job in covering this war and I appreciate the detail and the web-linked sources. If I want more detail I can explore your links. Please do not stop your great work. Where else can we get this kind of coverage? Certainly not on TV. Thank you and you have my total support.

Mike Martini/Manchester, NH

Are letters like the one above exercises in “butt kissing?” Larry Xu from Vancouver thinks so:

MarKarn didn’t ‘attack’ you. He/she stated an opposing view to the butt kissing you like to post. I don’t agree with MarKarn, however it was not an ‘attack’ on you personally.

Note: Markarn and I have been having an off line debate and I may have been reacting to one of his earlier comments. I want to try to present our two perspectives including his most recent letter which includes:

Danny: Eric Hoffer said it best, in 1968. I think what he said is more true today than when he wrote it, you think it’s less so. If you’re wrong, Israel is out of business…

“I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us.

“Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us.

Lee Driver writes:

”You’re doing a great job. Certainly I read other news but I start with your synopsis.

Here’s what I wish for, which is pissing into the wind I know but…

I wish that the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rove-Rice-Wolfowitz-Perle-Kristol- Hume-Hannity-Bush-Limbaugh-and ORielly’s of the world, would be required to experience trying to find cover among thunderous detonations, flying shrapnel and debris, and surviving that, to be placed with their families along the road of the refugees – as
prerequisites for enactment of their policies.

It’s clear to anyone who can stand back and look, that superior firepower is not creating a cowed resistance in any these conflagrations presently going on around the world, and in fact throws more grapes into the vat where the grapes of wrath are stored.”

911 (PS I do care!)

Heidi Hooten writes:

”I understand why you stay away from the 9/11 truth movement. It’s been painted with the “conspiracy theory” broad brush. Unfortunately there are so many questions that the government has not answered adequately, that how could we not wonder? Darth Cheney is so secretive that how could people who are curious not think that there was some kind of conspiracy? The PNAC plans seem to be moving right along. Doomed to failure, as any overreaching and unrealistic plans will, but moving along, anyway. I guess that’s what happens when you have planners who have failed, but never had to deal with the negative consequences of their failures. The greed, the viciousness, the cruelty is just beyond the comprehension, and believablity of most people.”

Check out 911 theories on CSPAN:
rtsp://video.c-span.org/60days/ap072906_theories.rm?mode=compact

AFGHAN INDEX

Sarah Meyer writes to call attention this excellent information resource on the war in Afghanistan:

http://indexresearch.blogspot.com/2006/07/index-on-afghanistan.html

“MENTAL ENGINEERING” NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT

John writes:

We have created a brand new 75 second long trailer of ‘Mental Engineering’. You can view it here:

The purpose of the trailer is to get more PBS stations to carry the show. Communications professors and Media literacy teachers are our most avid supporters.

APOLOGIES

Apologies to Lawrence Houghteling for misspelling his name and othe typo crimes. Sorry too Markarn for suggesting that his comments were attacking me. They weren’t. Clearly the heat and the pressures of keeping up the war is effecting me.

“MATERIALIZE,” PLEASE

I don’t know how many of you have seen Woody Alan’s latest, SCOOP. In it he works with an invented machine called the “materializer” which got me thinking. Wouldn’t it be great if someone with editing and administrative skills would ‘materialize” in my office one day and volunteer to help with the blog and Mediachannel for say 20 hours a week. You know who you are. Write to me at dissector@mediachannel.org