Two very interesting things happened in Israel this week, both reported in Israeli media and not much outside.

First, the State has agreed to recognize and pay, because Rabbis are state employees, Conservative and Reform rabbis, this breaking the lock that Orthodox rabbis have had on influence in th… Read full post »

"Friday’s assault on the central area of Houla was one of the bloodiest single events in Syria’s 15-month-old uprising, and gruesome images of dozens of children killed in the attacks prompted a wave of international outrage.
The UN said 32 children under the age of 10 were among th… Read full post »

If you haven't yet seen 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel', plan on doing so. Not because it is a great movie but for two other - and substantial -reasons.

First, the acting by the principals is of such surpassing skill and beauty that I wanted to see certain scenes over… Read full post »

I used to subscribe to the New York Times and spend an hour or so every morning reading it.

Now I don't have to.

'Why', you ask?

 Because every article of any possible interest in the Times is quickly clipped and posted here on Open Salon, masquerading as original thought.… Read full post »

It seems almost counter-intuitive that Netanyahu, who is a smart politician, talks tough just at the time when it seems that the rest of the world and Iran might actually talk.

Not being much of a politician myself, I thought this.  On a political front, Israel is pretty well isolated and… Read full post »

OS has a terrible way to deal with photos guaranteed to either present too-narrow images or unsharp images. Whatever size image you upload, OS automatically shrinks it to 240 pixels wide, about half the column width.

 You can edit the html code that OS uses but that just expands the 240… Read full post »

McPherson Square in Washington, DC is where Occupy DC has been for months, protesting and camping. In view of the circumstances, the Park Police have seemingly been laid back against the enforcement of the no sleeping or camping regulations but, pushed by all sort of political and civic pressures, th… Read full post »

The PA Mufti Muhammad Hussein repeatedly denied yesterday that he intended to teach Palestinians that their destiny is to kill Jews when he spoke at a Fatah celebration that was broadcast on PA TV earlier this month.

"The Hour [of Resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews. The Jew… Read full post »

In weekly show dedicated to Palestinian prisoners in Israel, Hakim Awad's mother and aunt describe convicted perpetrator of Itamar attack as a 'hero and legend.'

Twice last week, official Palestinian Authority TV broadcast greetings to the murderers of the Fogel family from the relative… Read full post »

I like the English language, it seems unending to read or to write. I love writers like Hitchems or Nabokov or the like who practice the perfect way to twist each sentence to make it more meaning than that huge flock of pedestrian writers including, at the very bottom, hacks like… Read full post »

 The windows of my house are quiet and there seems to be this grey scrim over everything.  The overcast has made everything so dull and boring and so I go look back at the windows to my other world; the one I like much better.

Photographers like windows; they provide… Read full post »

JW, as is his wont, has taken up the torch of yet another popular issue.

In his blog post he used a very flawed 'study' to make some points about the absolute superiority of lesbiam moms over the rest of the possible pairings.

The main point of the study was that,… Read full post »

People look at a photograph and react to what they see, usually assuming that it is only a direct product of content poured through a camera lens after the photographer presses the shutter button.

If the picture looks manipulated, they might assume that some 'photoshopping' has been don… Read full post »

A fortune from a fortune cookie I found yesterday.

Literally thousands of Syrian protesters have been killed in the demonstrations this year by the brutally repressive Syriuan regime. Just yesterday Huffpost.com reported at least 24 people killed, including at least two children and ten… Read full post »

I worked in health care for 30 years and I know just how complex an institution it is and how resistant it is to change, not just for selfish reasons, but because any complex process that works wants to keep on working the way it does now. Yes,… Read full post »

You may know this from seeing it in the movies but, if a soldier dies, before his effects are forwarded his friends in the unit will go through his belongings and remove any small things that might be embarrassing or hurtful for his family. Before his death he was a… Read full post »

We were sort of lost in Venice. Which, if you have been there, is understandable and probably the default condition for most tourists who are not standing either in front of their hotel or in St Mark's Square.

Venice up close is not as pretty as one would think… Read full post »

"Arab Rejection of ’47 Partition Plan Was Error, Palestinian Leader Says"

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

"The Palestinian president said Friday that the Arab world had erred in rejecting the United Nations’ 1947 plan to partition Palestine into a Palestinian and a Jewish state. Th… Read full post »

"It's not racism, it's fascism"

So I asked this lady, 'so you aren't racist for not wanting Obama, you're fascist?'  

She was too excited to reply.

  Read full post »

 A more complete and full screen slide show of these images can be found at this link http://lewlortonphoto.com/p464609318/slideshow Read full post »

Bibi Netanyahu, besides being the Prime Minister of Israel and a conservative politician, is also a very, very smart man. He is surely smart enough to know that his best move in the short run to gain a better position in the world view in the perhaps endless mid-East struggle would… Read full post »

I was entranced by an article in Salon by Justin Elliot on Friday, 13 May about Dr Terry Lakin, the Army doctor who refused deployment overseas because he believed that Barack Obama is not eligible to be the President and thus could not initiate his deployment orders.

All of the 'birther'… Read full post »

Now that we have settled, at least for now, the issue of President Obama's brithplace and his authenticity as a leader, I think it is time to take a look at Donald Trump's background. He is a pretty cagy guy, as we all know, and my guess is that he has… Read full post »