DXM writes:

”As I have discussed with you, and periodically on The Geeze, I never trusted that Danny Pearl’s death was at the hands of the obvious bad guys, and have blamed it on the same crowd as who killed Pat Tillman, Margaret Hassan and Nick Berg.

BOOK OF INTEREST:

?Big-Box Swindle illustrates how mega-retailers are fueling many of our most pressing problems, from the shrinking middle class to rising pollution and diminished civic engagement. The book is far more than a critique, however. The second half offers an inspiring account of how a growing number of communities and independent businesses are effectively countering the chains and rebuilding their local economies.

http://www.bigboxswindle.com

TRAILER TO SEE: AMERICAN BLACKOUT

http://www.gregpalast.com/mailing/link.php?URL=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5hbWVyaWNhbmJsYWNrb3V0LmNvbS8=&Name=&EncryptedMemberID=ODgzMw==&CampaignID
=35&CampaignStatisticsID=12&Demo=0&Email=foerstel@aol.com)

Last night on the way home, I passed by a local synagogue. An old man on the street shouted out at me:”Are You Jewish.” I nodded as he grabbed me and pulled me inside. “We need a tenth for our minyan,” he told me. Translation: They could not pray unless there were ten men in the room.

I am not religious, but was felt compelled to help out and found myself in a small stuffy room with 9 older men who would soon be reading verses in Hebrew from a prayer book. I realized how little I know about the orthodox rituals. I do not understand Hebrew and watched the men dovening (bowing) as they read praises to G-D that I couldn’t really appreciate. I was surprised that there was only one younger man present just few days before the final High Holy Day next Monday, Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.

In a weird way, it reminded me of a mosque I visited in Morocco where another religion in another language I can’t speak follows its own rituals. Clearly for me, being Jewish is more of a cultural orientation than a religious one, and I doubted that the men who welcomed me into their midst would approve of my outlook. To them I was a needed body, that’s all. But I was moved by the lonely discipline of the worshippers.

Other Jews in Israel certainly would not approve of the work of one of their greatest poets whose work is influenced heavily by this tradition.

I read this on the RAIN newsletter email.

Aharon Shabtai who is considered one of the greatest poets in Hebrew, could not publish his latest poem against the war on Lebanon in any “Israeli” paper. He wrote this poem during the first week of the war. It is in the form of a prayer and supplication raised so that the occupation army may lose the war.

“In time of war
I side with the villages
with the mosques
in this war
I side with the Shiite family
with Sour (Tyre)
with the mother
with the grandfather
with the eight kids in the mini van
with the white silken headscarf”.

In the name of the beautiful books I read
in the name of the kisses I kissed
May the army be defeated

http://www.jerusalemiloveyou.net/

NOTHING TO WATCH: HERE’S TRAFFIC IN INDIA
http://e.ccialerts.com/a/tBFHFeyAHi236AkTOYUAFlgH3r3/tvwk3

I am off to Newburyport MA for their great small town film festival. IN DEBT WE TRUST has been chosen to open the annual grass roots event tonight at 7 and I am pleased to have been invited to say a word or two. It is amazing how film festivals have proliferated throughout America.

Next week, I will be showing the film at the Rochester Institute of Technology and Notre Dame in Indiana.

Have a great weekend. Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org