Festival of Lights

Eight little lights of freedom . . .and tonight we light the first one.

Happy Chanukah! Hag Sameah to us all!

Hanukka (1999)

Today's cartoon is from 1999.

It was the last Hanukka of the 20th Century.
We are now in the tenth year of the 21st Century
...and the first night of Hanukka is tomorrow.

Happy Holiday!
Hag Sameah!

Z Street and the IRS

The story as updated by Z Street on November 22:

"Z STREET, an organization devoted to pro-Israel public education, today filed in federal court its Opposition to the government’s effort to continue violating the US Constitution by discriminating against the organization because its views on Israel and the Middle East differ from those of this government. On August 25, 2010 Z STREET filed a Complaint in federal court charging the Internal Revenue Service with constitutional violations by subjecting Z STREET’s application for tax exemption to a discriminatory process.

In its response to Z STREET’s Complaint, the government did not deny that it engaged in this First Amendment violation. Instead, the government’s position is that (1) it can violate the Constitution whenever it wants and the only way to stop it is if the government agrees to be stopped, and (2) Z STREET should go to a different court to get something it should already have - tax exempt status - were it not for the constitutional violation the government has inflicted upon it." -more

And as reported by the Arab News on November 26:

Jewish group suing IRS over its tax-exempt status
". . . Z Street accused the IRS of “targeting pro-Israel groups” in federal court saying that it received a letter from an IRS agent that their tax experts said was likely outside the usual or appropriate scope of an IRS inquiry.

“Does your organization support the existence of the land of Israel?” IRS agent Tracy Dornette wrote the organization, according to this week's court filing, as part of its consideration of the organizations application for tax exempt status.

“Describe your organization's religious belief system toward the land of Israel.”

The complaint also alleges that IRS agent Diane Gentry said applications from organizations dealing with Israel-related issues “are being sent to a special unit in the D.C. office to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the administration’s public policies." -more

And here's a link to Z Street.

Leslie Nielsen has Died?

So far the word around the campfire is that Leslie Nielsen has died. A relative in Richmond, BC (Basically Vancouver...) has apparently confirmed this but it is not official yet.

The guy had/has such a natural ability for delivering comedy.

My First Stunt for a Commercial - Famous Footwear

Here's my first stunt. You can't see my face but I'm the guy with the nice shoes falling off the ladder at 0:07

I had to go on my own action as the camera zipped by for a super slow motion shot. Every one of the 12-15 takes we did I ended swinging all the way around in the air while holding half a step ladder and hanging there helplessly from a rope as I waited to be reset. They don't really show me falling off but... I did. Anyways, everyone on set was excellent to me and they all seemed really happy with my work.

Leslie Coffee

An easy and fast individual coffee that is a healthier alternative to high fat creamers and sugar using natural creamed honey as the sweetener.


1 cup water
1 cup 1% milk
1 tbsp instant coffee
1 tbsp creamed honey
1/8 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

Mix water and milk in a coffee mug and heat in the microwave or pour into a kettle or pot and heat using a stove-top. Be sure not to overheat. Add instant coffee, creamed honey, and vanilla extract.

Christian Communities

CAMERA (The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) has just compiled a collection of reports on the ethnic cleansing of Middle East Christians. Here's a sample:

"Priest Wasseem Sabeeh was halfway through Sunday Mass, in Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad, when an explosion shook the church. Suddenly men with guns yelling Islamic prayers burst into the church. They fired at the priests, congregants, even murals of Mary and the saints.

Some parishioners screamed and ran out. Sabeeh, 27, and another priest, Thaer Saadallah, 32, hastily directed dozens of others into a room near the altar, then turned to plead with the men in suicide vests to stop the killing.

They shot Sabeeh at point-blank range, then shot Saddallah in the face. He fell on the steps of the altar, his vestments stained with blood."

For further info on this under-reported Islamism please click on this recently published CAMERA report/

Thanksgiving Day (1996)

Today's cartoon is from 1996.

It's about the most Jewish of American holidays. Thanksgiving Day.

So for those of you (Jewish and not) who are celebrating today
...Happy Holiday!

North Korea

First there was this news, published by the New York Times:

U.S. sees Atomic Arms Bid in New North Korea Plant "Senior U.S. defense officials said Sunday that the revelation of North Korea's new uranium enrichment facility confirmed long-standing suspicions that the country was seeking a second route to build atomic weapons. They dismissed the North's claim that it was simply trying to build nuclear power plants that it had never been able to obtain from the West.

Asked in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where he was on an official visit, whether he believed the North's story that it was producing only low-enriched uranium that could not be used in nuclear weapons, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said told reporters "I don't credit that at all." He argued that the new facility, once it was operating, could enable North Korea to build "a number" of nuclear devices beyond the eight to 12 they are now presumed to have." -more

Then, according to the Sidney Morning Herald (Australia):

North Korean dictator-in-waiting linked to deadly artillery attack
"NORTH KOREA has burnished the leadership credentials of its 26-year-old dictator-in-waiting with a deadly artillery attack on South Korean territory, causing its neighbour to return fire and scramble F-16 fighters.

Two South Korean marines died, and at least 12 were wounded. There were reports of civilian injuries and houses were set ablaze as scores of shells fell on Yeonpyeong island.

A North Korea expert at Beijing's Central Party School, Zhang Liangui, told the Herald that Kim Jong-un was deliberately destabilising the environment in order to mobilise the military and consolidate his power." -more

Hanukka Christmas (1994)

Today's cartoon is from 1994.

In that year the Jewish Festival of Lights began on November 28. This year Hanukka begins on December 2. Still way before the Christmas Holiday. When the holidays are at the same time it's easier for Jewish kids who live in a non-Jewish society.

As the cartoons says, the Christmas Season in America starts on Thanksgiving Day. That's when jolly old Saint Nick rides into NYC in the Macy's Parade and the economic commentators start predicting this year's sales figures.

* * * The LSW (Long Suffering Wife) informs me that I'm "not allowed" to refer to the "Christmas Season". She says that I must call it the "Holiday Season". Are there new and enforceable PC rules that I don't know about?

* * * Had a visit today from a young American cartoonist who immigrated to Israel this year. She's an observant Jew, lives in Jerusalem, and she's getting ready to do the whole turkey, cranberry sauce, and stuffing bit this Thursday.

Ask the Expert

There are reports in the media about the Americans ...oops, I mean NATO, looking for "talks" with the Taliban "insurgents".

According to the Telegraph (UK):

Taliban makes demands in Afghan peace talks

"The Afghan Taliban is demanding names of its senior leaders are removed from US and United Nations terror blacklists and that a number of prisoners are released as a precondition of further peace talks, according to a key insurgent negotiator." -more

And there are reports in the media about other "talks" with the Taliban.
According to Canadian Press:

Taliban leaders hold secret talks with Afghan president on al-Qaida linked Haqqani network
By Kathy Gannon (CP) – Oct 31, 2010

KABUL — "Three Taliban figures met secretly with Afghanistan's president two weeks ago in an effort by the Afghan government to weaken the U.S.-led coalition's most vicious enemy, a powerful al-Qaida linked network that straddles the border region with Pakistan."

A former Afghan official said the meeting in Kabul included an ex-Taliban governor, Maulvi Abdul Kabir. He comes from the same Zadran tribe as the leaders of the Haqqani network, an autonomous wing of the Taliban responsible for many attacks against U.S. and Afghan forces, the former official said over the weekend." -more

So what do YOU think is going on?

Terrorist Triumph

The American holiday of Thanksgiving will be celebrated this coming week. A traditional time for going "home for the holidays". Thinking about how travel has been impacted by Islamist Terrorism got me angry ...as did the increasingly draconian security measures being taken and the continued refusal to use profiling to protect us.

So I did this cartoon. And to those of you who will be traveling through airports this week, my sympathies and thoughts are with you. Happy Holiday!

Pressuring Israel (1978)

Today's cartoon is 32 years old. I drew it in 1978. The latest news (at the time of this writing) is a trial balloon rumor of what America will "give" us if our Prime minister will bow to their demands.

What is offered (and was offered in 1978) is "continued support" if we will do as we're told!

The clear message to the enemies of the West then, and now, is that American support of Israel is conditional. A message which is welcome news to the Arab, Turkish, and Iranian regimes which refuse to accept the UN's 1947 call for a Jewish State in Palestine.

Simplicity

Today's cartoon is based on the story of the sage Hillel.

A non-Jew, so the story goes, came to the home of Hillel and asked the great Rabbi to explain the Torah while standing on one foot; a seemingly impossible request. Hillel's response was "Love your neighbor as yourself."

The seemingly complicated mess in the Middle East is just as easily and accurately explained in one simple sentence; the Arabs still reject the UN's call for a Jewish State in Palestine.

Ronald Reagan (1980)

Today's cartoon is from November 1980, thirty years old this month!

The cartoon was about the November 1980 election in which Republican Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter, the Democrat. Reagan took office in January 1981. He was re-elected in 1984, and served until January 1989, when George Herbert Walker Bush was sworn in.

Three years earlier, in the Israeli elections of May 1977, for the first time in Israel's history, a right wing government had been elected, and Menachem Begin had become our Prime Minister.

Nowhere

The Obama Administration seems ignorant of the simple truth about peace in the Middle East; there is no peace because the Arabs still refuse to accept a Jewish State as native and natural to the region. All administration efforts are about setting the borders of yet another Middle East state in which Jews would be banned.

The only chance for a Middle East peace lies with Arab acceptance of the 1947 UN call for a Jewish State in Palestine.

Lame Duck

Actually, a "Lame-Duck President" is a President who either has just lost a bid for re-election or is ineligible for re-election.

But Obama's recent congressional election losses, coupled with political failures abroad have led some people to begin thinking of him as being a one-term "Lame Duck".

So do I.

Of course that could just be wishful thinking.

Road to Peace (2000)

Today's cartoon is ten years old this month. Nothing has changed. The Arab conquerors of the Middle East still refuse to accept a Jewish State as native and natural to the region. And the current American administration, like those before it, refuses to see that simple fact as crucial to understanding the conflict.

Eurabia

Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, in a speech that aired on Al-Jazeera TV on April 10, 2006, said

"-We have 50 million Muslims in Europe. There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe - without swords, without guns, without conquests. The 50 million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades."

"-Allah mobilizes the Muslim nation of Turkey, and adds it to the European Union."

"-That's another 50 million Muslims. There will be 100 million Muslims in Europe. Albania, which is a Muslim country, has already entered the E.U."

"-Bosnia, which is a Muslim country, has already entered the E.U. Fifty percent of its citizens are Muslims."

"-Europe is in a predicament, and so is America. They should agree to become Islamic in the course of time, or else declare war on the Muslims." -more

* * * To see and hear the Gaddafi speech click on Gaddafi Speaks.

First Rains (1973)

Today's cartoon is from November 1973.
I drew the cartoon 37 years ago this month!

Israel is a country that relies on its annual rainy season to nurture and water the land. Back in 1973 we were in the middle of the distress of the Yom Kippur War and the arrival of the "First Rains" of the season was a welcome diversion.

Here in 2010 we are silently watching the Iranian/Syrian arming of Hezbollah on our northern border, the arms build-up in the Iranian-backed Hamas territory of Gaza on our southern border. Turkey has slid into the Islamist camp, and the West is ignoring both the Iranian threat and the fate of the democracy demonstrators of Tehran. The weather in Israel is all blue skies and sunny ...What we need is a real downpour!! Both to nurture and water the land, and to give us something to take our minds off "the situation".

Hamas Tunnels

Hamas, the flotilla, and the importing of cars into Gaza? Sometimes I use the Dry Bones cartoons to lampoon the situation and sometimes I use the cartoons to report on news that's not likely to be picked up by the main stream media. Trouble is that sometimes the news is so bizarre that you'd think that it was satirical. Today's cartoon is one of those.

Here's the story as reported by the Jerusalem Post:

"Israel has been under international pressure to ease its blockade of the Gaza Strip, especially after an attack by its commandos on an aid convoy to Gaza last May that left nine dead. Yet, even as Israel has begun to let cars and other once-prohibited goods into the Mediterranean enclave, Hamas itself hasn’t always welcomed the increased flow of goods.

Private vehicles joined the list of permitted goods last month. Since then, nine shipments have passed through the Kerem Shalom checkpoint, containing 180 new or slightly used cars.

The problem for Hamas is that it doesn’t profit from the official car imports because the taxes on the vehicles are paid to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, Hamas’ rival for control of the Palestinian territories, said Abu-Shahla. The only reason Hamas allows cars in at all, he said, was to ease pent up demand on the street and mounting criticism of the government, he said

Where it can and does collect taxes is on the vehicles and other goods smuggled through tunnels from Egypt, but the price to the consumer for these vehicles is much higher and the supply is limited. During the years that Israel banned car imports, a new, smuggled automobile -- brought in disassembled through the narrow tunnels -- could cost up to $40,000. The same car brought through Kerem Shalom now costs about $25,000." -more

* * * Africa News is reporting that Egypt has seized a huge shipment of arms on its way to Hamas. The stuff was to be driven through the drive-through smuggling tunnels into Gaza:

"Reports said the weapons and explosives had been transported by 16 vehicles to the huge tunnel network that spanned the Egyptian-Gaza border. The cache found on October 18 contained machine guns, grenades, mines, body armour and other equipment.

No arrests were reported. The sources said the shipment was to have been smuggled through three tunnels from Sinai to Gaza. One of the tunnels was large enough for the transport of the vehicles.

Egypt has made significant progress in the fight against weapons smuggling to the Gaza Strip. In 2010, 582 tunnels were discovered in the region, 16 of them large enough for the smuggling of cars and trucks." -more

Balancing Act

When I started drawing the Dry Bones cartoons, way back in January of 1973, the accepted wisdom was that the future for a democratic Middle East was tied to the fortunes of Christian Lebanon, the secular government of Muslim Turkey, and the Jewish State of Israel. We assumed that the three would eventually transform the entire area.

The accepted wisdom was wrong. We're down to one bright light of freedom and Western democracy in the entire region.

* * * The accepted wisdom now would be that the United States and the Western democracies would spring to support Israel, their last hope for a real democracy in the Middle East.

Once again, the accepted wisdom is wrong.

American Elections (2000)

Today's golden Oldie is ten years old. Nothing has changed. America is still having elections and the collection of theocracies, dictatorships, sheikdoms, and kingdoms that surround Israel are still a collection of theocracies, dictatorships, sheikdoms, and kingdoms.

* * *

The votes "still being counted" in the cartoon refer to the hotly contested Presidential battle between Al Gore (the Democrat candidate) and George W. Bush (the Republican) in 2000.

Surprise

Lonely Planet is the largest travel guide book publisher in the world. This week Lonely Planet released its list for travelers of the world's 10 best cities to visit. Tel Aviv placed third. Not a surprise. Tel Aviv is an exciting, beautiful flower of Western culture on the Mediterranean Sea. It is a place of freedom, fun, and civility in which alternate lifestyles flourish alongside traditional.

The story, as reported by Israel21c:

...Israel's party capital won praise for its tolerant attitudes and thriving gay culture and Lonely Planet also says "Thanks to its university and museums, it is also the greenhouse for Israel's growing art, film and music scenes."

"Scratch underneath the surface and Tel Aviv, or TLV, reveals itself as a truly diverse 21st-century Mediterranean hub. By far the most international city in Israel, Tel Aviv is also home to a large gay community, a kind of San Francisco in the Middle East," Lonely Planet says.

This summer, the prestigious National Geographic Magazine named Tel Aviv as one of the world's top ten beach cities, dubbing it "Miami Beach on the Med." It was also voted the third best city in Africa and the Middle East by the New York-based Travel + Leisure Magazine; one of the world's top "Party Cities" by Forbes Magazine and the Lonely Planet Travel Guide; and was included in the Louis Vuitton 2010 European Cities Guide. -more

One Million Arabs Expelled (1990)

The current news is about how the west was tipped off by the Saudis about mailbombs sent from Yemen to the U.S.
Curious.
Isn't it?

Today's cartoon is twenty years old. It was published in November of 1990 ...when more than one million Arabs were expelled. The double standard applied and, because Israel was not involved, the story was a big ho hum.

So today, 20 years later, you and most of the Western World don't remember that event. But the Arabs of Yemen (who were expelled) and the Saudis (who expelled them) certainly do remember.

Here's an interesting 2009 background piece on Yemen from the Independent (UK) which traced the growing radicalization of Yemen to the expulsion that today's Golden Oldie cartoon had commented on:

"Yemen is the Afghanistan of the Arab world. It is the poorest Arab country, its government is weak, its people are armed, it already faces a serious rebellion, it is strongly tribal and its mountain ranges are a natural refuge for groups like al-Qa'ida.

There is nothing new about the growing political, social and economic crisis in Yemen, but the world is waking up to it only since the attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound plane has been linked to al-Qa'ida in Yemen. Last night the regional wing of the group claimed responsibility for training and arming Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab with the Christmas Day bomb.

Yemen has been becoming increasingly unstable over the past two decades, ever since Saudi Arabia expelled a million Yemeni workers because Yemen refused to support the US-led war to expel Saddam Hussein's army from Kuwait in 1990." -more

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