Mel's World

Anti-Semitism

About Mel Gibson’s latest performance involving dem Jews: Larry Auster of View from the Right claims that Gibson’s “anti-Semitic ravings while in a state of extreme intoxicationâ€? are not a fair indication of his real feelings about Jewsâ€?—no more than “his ravings and threats against the arresting officers indicate his ‘real’ feelings about police.â€?

Oh yes they are. But let us deconstruct this mistake.

Mel was drunk. Drink lowers inhibitions. In his uninhibited state, Mel didn’t rave against an authoritarian archetype (Cop), but against the genus Jew.

He didn’t mention Rodney King and yell out, “You’re all pigs out to violate our liberties.â€? Instead he conjured a third entity, Jews, spoke of events unrelated to the arrest, and projected his diffuse anger onto this third entity, which he held responsible for the events he ranted about. At one stage Gibson even wondered if the arresting officer was not part of the cabal that menaced Mel’s World.

I like Gibson’s work and will continue to enjoy it. (Bar “The Passion of the Christ,â€? which I didn’t see. Sitting through hours on end of bloody torture, with no happy ending in sight, is not my idea of entertainment.)

So long as Gibson doesn’t lead a pogrom against Jews, his anti-Semitism is his business. There is more credibility in defending his right to be a jerk than demanding phony apologies, making him grovel, or pretending he isn’t what he most certainly IS.

Mel’s World

Anti-Semitism

About Mel Gibson’s latest performance involving dem Jews: Larry Auster of View from the Right claims that Gibson’s “anti-Semitic ravings while in a state of extreme intoxicationâ€? are not a fair indication of his real feelings about Jewsâ€?—no more than “his ravings and threats against the arresting officers indicate his ‘real’ feelings about police.â€?

Oh yes they are. But let us deconstruct this mistake.

Mel was drunk. Drink lowers inhibitions. In his uninhibited state, Mel didn’t rave against an authoritarian archetype (Cop), but against the genus Jew.

He didn’t mention Rodney King and yell out, “You’re all pigs out to violate our liberties.â€? Instead he conjured a third entity, Jews, spoke of events unrelated to the arrest, and projected his diffuse anger onto this third entity, which he held responsible for the events he ranted about. At one stage Gibson even wondered if the arresting officer was not part of the cabal that menaced Mel’s World.

I like Gibson’s work and will continue to enjoy it. (Bar “The Passion of the Christ,â€? which I didn’t see. Sitting through hours on end of bloody torture, with no happy ending in sight, is not my idea of entertainment.)

So long as Gibson doesn’t lead a pogrom against Jews, his anti-Semitism is his business. There is more credibility in defending his right to be a jerk than demanding phony apologies, making him grovel, or pretending he isn’t what he most certainly IS.

In Politics, Rubbish Rises to the Top

Bush, Democracy, Iraq, Israel, Middle East, Politics

When Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman, piously pontificates that the actions of the Israeli government are for the benefit of the Lebanese people (of which, in his atomistic mind, Hezbollah is not a part), and aimed at “freeing them of the cancer of Hezbollah,” I feel bilious.

It’s the same sickness rising one gets when Genghis Bush promotes his actions in Iraq as of benefit to the Iraqi people, a million of whom are now impoverished, displaced, aid-dependent refugees in their own country.

If these pols are such populists and democrats, why did they not let the beneficiaries of their humanitarian humbugs vote to accept or reject their ‘good deeds’? Why not ask the people you are supposedly helping if they want your liberating bombs? Or is this ‘charity’ compulsory?

I’d disrespect Gillerman less if he cut the treacle, and said, “We hate what we’ve become, but we have no option but to kill more innocents than guilty?

Israel in Lebanon is coming across in a worse light than is America in Iraq, even though the reverse is true. The first incursion, as bad as it is, was a response to provocation; the last, nothing of the sort. Iraqis had nothing to do with 9/11 and Saddam and Osama never sat in a tree kissing.

But so stupid are the Israelis that they keep commandeering the American rhetoric with respect to Iraq to justify their actions. I guess their thinking goes something along the lines of, “Iraq: hmm, that went well, so let’s take that ‘experience’ and its language and put it to work for us Lebanon.”

Updated: Glorious GTI

Ilana Mercer, Political Correctness, Sport, Technology

He’s black, he’s beautiful, and he’s mine. He’s a 2006 Volkswagen GTI, with a high-tech 200-horsepower, 2.0-liter turbocharged engine.

My favorite features are the spectacularly smooth six-speed manual transmission (I won’t drive an automatic, never have; never will.), the 18-inch alloy wheels, and the six CD changer. But it also sports leather seats with heating, along with electronic lumbar control, power sunroof that can tilt up or slide open horizontally, satellite radio, heavy-duty mats for floor and trunk, and dual zone climate control.

Carey Russ and Wayne Cunningham of CNET write that, “The Volkswagen GTI has been a performance icon since its debut on American shores in 1983, when it offered a high degree of fun and performance nearly matching those of much more expensive German sports sedans for a very reasonable price. ‘A pocket rocket,’ they call this thing. Consumer Reports name the fifth-generation Volkswagen GTI the top sporty car in its price range.”

You can say that again. A one-time race driver in South Africa, my brother-in-law is a fan of the GTI and is responsible for piquing our interest in the “pocket rocket.” Sean told him, “We had both planned to test drive it. Ilana started out driving and that was it; she liked it so much that I never got to try it! It goes like a bat out of hell.”

Oh, you’ll laugh at this one. I thought I was driving suspiciously fast. Yet Sean kept tut-tutting, “You’re not going fast enough. Well, he was looking at the Rev counter not the speedometer. So it turns out I must have been going about 40 miles per-hour in the zones designated for “our children.” A pox on them!

We immigrants from the Third World are not spoilt. This is the first new car we’ve ever owned; I’ve been driving my second-hand, 1986 two-seater, Toyota MR2 for quite a while. I loved “Mr. Two” (other than some rust, it looks just like this; still a classic beauty).

What’s more, the engine is fantastic. It goes just splendidly. I have to confess, though, that once I was speeding down the highway in the GTI, I fecklessly forgot my old chariot.

Update: I am now able to report that zero to 60 takes 7.0 seconds. The stick-shift GTI–mine–is apparently an imperceptible one tenth of a second slower than the automatic and a great deal more fun. (Related, and equally revved reading: “Make Friends With Your Fast“)