One thing that I would like to address here are claims by some people, clearly made to embarrass us, Israelis, that the Palestinians are the Na-vis of the Middle East oppressed by our hi-tech neo-colonialist mini-empire. These claims are very wrong. Based on my experience with Bedouins, who are the closest approximation the local Arabs have to the alien noble savages of Cameron, I can confirm that these guys have zero appreciation for animal lives and nature and an elevated capacity for cutting through living flesh. I can easily imagine one of these guys, in case he needs a leg of a goat or something, tearing the leg off and going away without even caring to finish off the hysterical animal.I find it hilarious.
If you really want to see the Na`vis of the Middle East, you should visit one of Tel Aviv's Sushi bars and vegetarian restaurants. There you will find throngs of Na`vis vigorously sharing with each other their wholistic connection to the nature and passionately worshiping their rat sized dogs. They are the Na`vis of the Middle East, and not the Palestinians. In the local slang these people are even called "koksinelim", which is Hebrew for Na'vi.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
AVATAR from the Palestinian Vantage Point
From the Happy Arab News Blog:
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14 comments:
Ha, ha. Very funny. For those who do not get the joke at the end, Koksinel (really Coccinelle) is Hebrew slang for transsexual or "drag queen". The name comes from a French actor (turned actress) of that persuasion who in turn took his/her name from the French word for lady bug, or more to the point, as the British call them, "ladybirds".
Although he/she was pretty famous in Europe (and apparently Israel) in the '50s/'60s, Coccinelle is pretty much unknown in America, the iconic American transsexual being Christine Jorgensen - I guess there is only room for one at a time in pop culture.
K
BTW, his point about native people not being environmental guardians but in fact more concerned with the struggle for their own life (environmentalism is a luxury affordable only to the rich) is quite true almost everywhere. Where I am from, one of the favored techniques for the local Indians to catch game was to set a forest fire and catch the animals as they fled the forest. Deer today are much more abundant than they were in pre-Columbian times (with the result that they are eating all the undergrowth in the forests plus the flowers that people plant near their homes. Rather than shoot them, animal lovers advocate that they be given birth control pills - you can't make this stuff up).
K
I read that about 200,000 deers per year are killed on the roads and farmers consider them a pest, to the point that the are favor of importing Canadian wolves to control their numbers.
Much to the grief of our fanatical environmentalists, the Beduin have zero feelings for all things natural, and no empathy toward any living creature, their women included.
Just in front of my house a deer was hit by a car. I have seen this several times in my lifetime. The deer itself causes an incredible amount of damage to the vehicle (think of 100 kilos of meat and bones shot at a vehicle at 100 kph) and sometimes the occupants and often the driver swerves out of control due to the shock of suddenly seeing something in front of him and hits a tree or a pole at the side of the road, so the injuries are even more severe.
K
K, I don't know if you saw it, but one of the major nightly hour long news shows profiled an island off of New England where the deer were breeding to the point of starvation. Many of the residents of the island were spending quite a bit of money every month feeding these pests and would protest when state game officials proposed hunting as a solution.
The funniest part of the whole affair is that deer are not even native to that island.
The same thing goes on out West with wild horses (also not native to the Americas). They have to round up the excess horses so they do not cause environmental damage or starve to death but they can't kill them because of the animal lovers, so 30,000 are kept corralled and fed at huge US gov. expense - something like $1 Billion per decade - sort of like Gaza for horses. The horses, as an introduced species (and because most predators have been hunted to extinction) have no natural enemies and the herd size doubles every few years.
There's a parable in there somewhere but I don't know what it is, other than everything the government does it does with the best of intentions and the worst possible results. I think that's the fundamental problem with liberalism in general - there's a feeling that noble intentions are what count. If your actual efforts fall short or are costly in relation to the results achieved or backfire completely (as they usually do), well at least you had a good heart and were trying to do the right thing.
K
Those horses are auctioned off by the Bureau of Land Management every year. However, animal rights activists have discovered that since the horses are sold for so little some of them get purchased and slaughtered.
Incidentally, Gaza is not a zoo, it is a high-density feedlot, like the ones used for cattle. If the US/UN could the Palestinians would be grown in testtubes, eliminating the need for parents completely. This might seem extreme, but the pali state raises the kids, feeds them, educates them, and clothes them The only contribution made by the parents is to give birth.
I fail to see why Animal Rights activists would be against buying surplus horses to make dog food. Are horses some kind a "sacred cow"?
You don't understand Animal Rights Activists then. In their view a horse is a dog is a chimp is a human. Therefore, it would be like making dog food from your own grandmother.
The government is NOT selling these horses for dog food anymore precisely because of these activists. If the horses cannot be adopted as pets (and most cannot) then they are kept corralled in pens at govt. expense for their entire life, currently 30,000 of them.
K
I thought most of the horses were sold, silly me.
What's next? I imagine the activist will advocate improving the living conditions of those corraled horses. First of all, what is a corral if not a fenced in concentration camp? Second, do they get enough veterinary care? Third, do they get cognitive stimulation? They need something to do, like drama circles, exercise, etc. to provide some meaning to their existence. They also have a right to a sex life, viagra should be provided to them.
You are right, I do not understand animal rights activists.
Don't give them any ideas.
K
glad to see it isn't only anti-semites that realize the people of Gaza are treated like penned cattle.
I think comparing the navi to the bedouins are kind of a false analogy. How much fighting was there between Israel and bedouin tribes? The real comparison is between Israel and the native arabs that lived locally. The key to the analogy is not who is most tied to the environment, but who is weak and helpless and "native" vs. who is strong, aggressive, and "foreign" (clearly sushi-eating yuppies do not fit the bill). The environmentalism is only there for sympathy. Perhaps if the arabs were that way, they would evoke even more international sympathy. Lucky for us, there is a lot of anti-arab racism in the world.
Why sushi-eating metrosexuals are more or less foreign than the polygamous hashishniks living off Social Security? And why are the Na'vis weaker than the Mining Corporation employees whose helicopters were shot at and downed by those ferocious flying dragons? the Na'vis won, ergo, they are the stronger party. They deserve no sympaty.
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