You have no doubt by now heard that Israel's overzealous crippling of Lebanon's infrastructure has lead to a major oil spill, with an estimated 110,000 barrels of crude oil lapping at Lebanon's shores. For comparison, the Exxon Valdez spilled about 257,000 barrels of oil in 1989 (source: Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council)Above you can see what Ramlet el-Beida now looks like. The name of this Beirut beach translates to the White Beach. 
The New York Times published an article today entitled "Israel Suffers Bloodiest Day of Fight With Hezbollah." In fact Israeli soldiers incurred between 8 and 14 casualties while fighting "house to house, and village to village" in southern Lebanon. The Israeli border was not breached by Hezbollah. No Lebanese or Hezbollah casualties are reported in the article.
Vancouver newspaper The Province reported today that Estratest, a combination hormone therapy for severe menopausal symptoms, increases the risk of breast cancer. The article cites a Nurses Health Study, with the report authored by lead researcher Rulla Tamimi.
With such impressive simulacra of reality out there, it is difficult to trust even your senses. News is niche marketed.
Looks like the optimism I expressed in the last post was misguided. Israel has expanded the scope of their attacks to include suspected Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut (see picture) and are preparing for a ground offensive in Southern Lebanon to occupy the area as a buffer zone."Hizbollah’s actions, which it portrays as defending Palestinian and Lebanese interests, in fact, do neither. On the contrary, they hold an entire nation hostage, set back prospects for negotiation of a comprehensive Middle East peace."Technorati tags: Israel, Kofi Annan, Lebanon, Hezbollah
"Israel has confirmed that its operation in Lebanon has wider and more far-reaching goals than the return of its captured soldiers, and that its aim is to end the threat posed by Hizbollah. The mission was informed that the operation is not yet approaching the achievement of this objective.
"Israel states that it has no quarrel with the Government or the people of Lebanon, and that it is taking extreme precautions to avoid harm to them. Yet, a number of its actions have hurt and killed Lebanese civilians and military personnel, and caused great damage to infrastructure. While Hizbollah’s actions are deplorable and, as I’ve said, Israel has a right to defend itself, the excessive use of force is to be condemned."
Hezbollah has a stockpile of about 13,000 missiles (according to Israeli military intelligence). The Fajr-3 missile is manufactured in Iran. The Katyusha is manufactured in Russia while the C-802 cruise missile is manfactured by China. These too are allegedly supplied by Iran. All were used in the recent attacks on Northern Israel, including a cruise missile attack on an Israeli warship.
On July 7, the Pharos Book Club met at the Bean Scene to discuss Albert Camus' The Outsider.
Meursault spends this first half of the story looking outward. Once he is apprehended and imprisoned, trapped in his cell, the scope of the novella changes dramatically, and Meursault is left to look inward, perhaps for the first time in his life. The remainder of the story focuses on Meursault's trial, the flaws of the justice system, and Meursault's epiphany about his insignificance.
The story was quite provocative for our group. We were eventually kicked out of the Bean Scene at closing time three hours after we began our discussion.
Included in the Penguin Modern Classics edition pictured above is an afterword written by Camus. I recoiled at Camus' veneration of Meursault, saying The Outsider is "the story of a man who [...] agrees to die for the truth," because "he doesn't play the game." He goes on to claim "I tried to make my character represent the only Christ that we deserve." We tried to tease out what Camus meant by this statement. Did Meursault die for our sins of projecting falsehoods on the truth to suit our social morés? Did Meursault die not for our sins, but only for his own, as it should be?
Camus appears to indict society more than Meursault. Camus lauds Meursault for seeking sensual pleasure, for not judging those around him, and for an unfailing allegiance to fact. In contrast, the justice system distorts fact. The people in the jury box—like people on a tram, like mourners at the mother's funeral—are quick to judge despite their imperfect knowledge of events. Society condemns the taking of life, yet it takes life itself based on the machinations of a faulty system. At one point, the prosecutor proclaims, "I ask you for this man's head, and I do so with an easy mind." Surely such a demand should never be made with an easy mind, if at all.
Meursault comes to recognize his insignificance, and "the benign indifference of the world":
"...everbody knows that life isn't worth living. And when it came down to it, I wasn't unaware of the fact that it doesn't matter very much whether you die at thirty or at seventy since in either case, other men and women will naturally go on living, for thousands of years even." [p 109]I fixed far more responsibility on Meursault than others were prepared to, including Camus. Meursault recognizes, as he approaches the reclining Arab, before either weapon is drawn, that all he has to do is walk away and a lethal escalation could be avoided. He shows no remorse for his action and no regard for his victim. He blames the sun, but never himself. It is he who allied himself with a pimp who beat the Arab's sister; who placed the gun in his pocket as a precaution when returning to where the Arab was seen; who emptied the gun into the Arab after the first shot disabled him. Until Meursault understands that he chose this course—it was not fated—he will never accept his culpability.
In his long essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus notes:"The most important question is whether life is worth living. Everything else follows afterward. Galileo's inquiry of whether the Earth revolves around the sun or the sun revolves around the Earth is not a dilemma that causes nearly as much suffering or loss of life as the despair felt by some that their lives are not worth living."As a secular humanist (a label I am sometimes willing to accept), I feel that life is worth living because life is all there is. I don't have an everlasting soul, a nirvana seeking spirit, a karmically-challenged id. This is it. And while I agree with Meursault about the benign indifference of the physical world—the mountains, lakes, deserts and oceans—that indifference does not diminish how precious life is, how jealously we should guard it, and how wrongly we squander it.
At 110 minutes, with only 10 minutes remaining in extra time and the teams deadlocked at 1-1, Zidane turned to Materazzi and drove his head into the Italian's chest, dropping him to the pitch. At first, play was going to continue as the referee hadn't seen the infraction. While officials are not allowed to make video-assisted rulings, the incident was replayed in the stadium possibly forming the basis for the fourth official's confirmation of the attack and Zidane's red card.
An Inconvenient Truth is essentially the lecture on global warming Gore has delivered for years, "probably more than a thousand times." As a result, the presentation is polished, thorough, approachable, and compelling.
