An evening of political punchlines & laughter from the Left with a line-up of comedians from the Onion, Comedy Central, Showtime, MTV, the Huffington Post and C-SPAN.
1. Big crowd at Housing Works. There are never enough chairs! 2. Dale Peck, co-founder of Mischief + Mayhem, reads. 3. Ben Greenman (Celebrity Chekhov) takes a break from the reading to catch up on his favorite picture book about the first lady.
As my boyfriend lives a hundred and seventy-seven miles away and Valentine’s Day dinner over Skype seemed a pretty grim idea, I headed down to Housing Works Bookstore for Mischief + Mayhem’s take on the Day of Love, a reading that promised to be “evil, sarcastic, and mean.” The MC for the evening was Katie Halper – hysterically funny and “recently single” – who was happy to share her red flags for soon-to-fail relationships: writer-types, drinking straight out of the bottle, talking about how much of an asshole you are, aspiring to be a pot head. The good thing, she notes, about dating underachievers is that you don’t have to wish ill on them… they’re already living it. Jeez, someone hire this girl as a comedy writer.
Dale Peck, co-founder of Mischief + Mayhem, read first, then had to run because he had a class to teach at The New School. He did, however, introduce us all to his boyfriend and gave him a box of chocolate in front of everyone. WTF, where’s the meanness and sarcasm in that? I barricaded myself in front of the door as he was trying to leave and asked why he started M&M: “We wanted to change the way people bought books. We’re bourgeois revolutionaries, we’re not blowing anything up. It’s boring and exciting.”
1. Max Blagg, journalist and poet, loves Valentine’s Day. Sort of. 2. MC Katie with an adoring fan. Actually, while I was talking to Katie about how funny she was, writer Cara Hoffman (whose novel So Much Pretty is out from Simon & Schuster next month) accosted Katie to say she was absurdly funny and listening to her was incredibly therapeutic. Why therapeutic? “I just finished writing a really dark book.” Katie thought she looked like Tina Fey.
1. I caught reader Marian Fontana (A Widow’s Walk) outside with friends Scott, Jesse and Tara. “We’re going for dinner and cocktails. I hope they have tables for four and not just two.” 2. And look! I wasn’t lying about 30 Rock! Watch out for the episode that takes place in a bookstore. You’re in the know!
I first heard of Jeff Halper at Israel-Palestine-related events, where people would ask me if I was related to him. It took me 30 seconds of Googling to realize that I’d love to be related to this Minnesotan anthropologist, activist, writer, Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and founder and coordinator ofIsraeli Committee Against Housing Demolitions (ICAHD).
Katie Halper: What does ICAHD do?
Jeff Halper: I’ve lived in Israel now for 40-something years by now and I’ve been involved in the peace movement from the very beginning. We started the ICAHD in the middle of the 1990s, in the context of Netanyahu’s first election. Most of us knew there was no peace process anyway, but now it was really clear. Netanyahu’s election was the wake-up call. So a number of us from different organizations got together to think about how to re-engage resistance to the occupation And we went and talked to Palestinians and asked them what their priorities were. We asked them what they would like us to work on, what they’d like to work with us on. And the issue of house demolitions always came up.
So we took up that issue. It’s a powerful approach for a number of reasons. It’s very visual. The occupation can become very abstract. But here’s a family, here’s a bulldozer, this is their story. It’s something people can relate to. It’s also a very important source of solidarity with the Palestinians. And it’s a vehicle to show how the occupation works and to re-frame the conflict, which is really important. Israel has succeeded in capturing the public discussion, the discourse. The Israeli case can be put out in three seconds: it is a small Western democracy (read white), besieged by Arab Muslim terrorists. read the rest here.
It’s not often that a movie’s theatrical release is an historic moment. But Miral, which opens today in LA and NYC, is the first Hollywood film to look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the eyes of Palestinians Palestinian women, at that. The film is based on the autobiographical novel of Rula Jebreal, the Palestinian journalist, who was born in Haifa, raised in East Jerusalem, has lived in the Middle East, Europe and, most recently, New York. Directed by the New York-based Jewish-American artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel, Miral offers glimpses of history, as experienced by Palestinian women, starting with the formation of Israel and ending with the Oslo Accords. It premiered at the UN’s General Assembly, on March 14th, drawing stars from Robert de Niro to Sean Penn, along with a storm of protest. Schnabel’s Jewish credentials are true blue–and white. His mother was the President of the Brooklyn Chapter of Haddassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization, in 1948, during the establishment of Israel as a state. Schnabel recalls seeing Exodus at Manhattan’s Rivoli Theater with his parents: “Everybody stood up when they sang ‘Hatikvah,’ and put their hands on their chests. My mother and father were very proud.” But Schnabel’s history and his film’s vision mattered little to the film’s critics. Seeing the movie, in fact, mattered little to the Israeli Government, the American Jewish Congress and the Anti-Defamation League, who, on principle, (unsuccessfully) called on the UN to cancel its March 14th screening. This week, days before Miral’s release, I talked to Rula Jebreal about her life, her story, the film, violence, and her optimism for a peaceful future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
Katie Halper: Were you surprised by the response of the Israeli government and by American Jewish organizations like the AJC and the ADL?
Rula Jebreal: No, not at all. No, no, no, no. Absolutely not. No, no, no, no. After every screening, I see the fear in people’s eyes. This is their censorship response, their way of avoiding the truth. The movie is really about one thing: peace. And I’m not sure this is on their agenda. I’m more dangerous than Hamas. Hamas responds in such a stupid way–with violence. But people like me–artists, writers, intellectuals, journalists–raise awareness and consciousness. You can’t label them as the enemy. These are the people that build bridges.
KH: When I saw the film I kept waiting for something that people could construe as anti-Israeli or anti-Semitic, which is the charge made by the film’s most vocal critics, sadly without even seeing the film. But what I saw was a film filled with thoughtfulness and sensitivity. It certainly challenges the idea that we hear all the time–that all Palestinians hate all Jews.
RJ: I have to thank you very much for this interview. Many people shy away from interviewing a Palestinian. They avoid talking to me. In this country where there is supposed to be so much freedom of expression, there is still a fear of considering a certain perspective. I know what is important and that is telling stories. What I’m interested in is telling the story of civil society in war time. What are the implications of war on women in terms of security, in terms of freedom, in terms of sexual harassment? I think all of that is breaking the wall of silence. I know that’s not easy. The fact that in America, the land of freedom of expression, I see this concern, this fear of considering that point of view, makes me think there’s an issue here that needs to be addressed. There are always two sides to every story, and if we don’t listen to each other, how can we find a solution? This culture of demonization has been creating more violence.
KH: You collaborated with a director who is Jewish. So much for your being an Anti-Semite. But I guess there are those who can’t believe a Jew and a Palestinian can or should work together. Or more specifically, what kind of Jew would work with a Palestinian?
That’s why on February 18th, so-called “pro-life” members of the House of Representatives, voted 240 to 185 to defund Planned Parenthood, a premier women’s healthcare provider for nearly a century serving 3 million women a year in its 800 centers across the country. The leader of the crusade, Representative Mike Pence (R, Indiana), prides himself on being “a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order,” promising during his campaign, ” to deliver … legislation that will prevent abortion providers like Planned Parenthood from receiving a single dime from the federal government.” The fact that abortion is legal aside, 97% of Planned Parenthood’s services are NOT abortions, but rather cancer screening and prevention, STD testing and treatment, contraception and general women’s health care, ranging from high blood pressure to urinary tract infections. But Pence apparently, didn’t get the whole Jesus healing the sick thing–the lepers, the blind, the deaf, the mute, the blood-disease afflicted, the dropsy-sufferers, the hand-withered, etc. (which in all fairness you miss if you blink while reading the bible, since Jesus’s healing appears only 22 times and only in the Book of Matthew… and Luke… and Mark… and John). But Pence has decided to throw out the unaborted baby out with the healing bath water. The resolution still has to pass the Senate. In order to get the Vote Yes to Life and No to Health! campaign going in the Senate, here are our top 10 names for the amendment.
As shown by this pie chart from Planned Parenthood’s annual report, 97% of the services they provide are not abortions. The non-profit offers STD testing and treatment, contraception, cancer screening and prevention, and other women’s health services.
Planned Parenthood provides nearly one million Pap tests each year.
Pap tests screen for HPV (Human papillomavirus), a disease which at least 50%of sexually active men and women get at some point in their lives. Approximately 20 million Americans currently have HPV and another 6 million people become newly infected each year. But this amendment means that even more people would contract the virus and the genital warts it causes!
Pap tests also screen for, help prevent and lower rates of cervical cancer, which, though highly preventableand treatable, is one of the top 5 killers of women.
Planned Parenthood also provides 830,000 breast exams and mammograms each year.
These exams screen for breast cancer, which approximately 200,000 women will be diagnosed with and 40,000 women will die from this year. But if this bill passes, we will be able to get those numbers up even higher! As fewer women have access to these life and breast-saving exams, more women will lose their breasts and lives to cancer!
Planned Parenthood services help prevent more than 612,000 unintended pregnancies each year. But if the Pro-Unwanted Pregnancy Bill passes, there could be 612,000 more unplanned or unwanted pregnancies and countless more women without access to contraceptives, resources and education!
Just as Planned Parenthood helps women avoid unplanned pregnancies, it helps those who want to be pregnant get pregnant with male and femaleinfertility tests, resources and information. But if the Anti-Fertility Bill passes, who knows how many hopeful would-be parents will be hopeless and child-less!
Planned Parenthood also provides general health care, such as anemia testing, cholesterol screening, diabetes screening, physical exams, flu vaccines, help with quitting smoking, high blood pressure screening, tetanus vaccines, and thyroid screening. This Amendment would increase rates of disease and even death for countless women! In all fairness, at least the Republicans are consistent in their anti-health care stance.
Planned Parenthood tests and treats UTIs or Urinary Tract Infections, which 1 of 5 women have at least once, and consist of burning pain during urination, an urge to urinate when your bladder is nearly empty, feeling like you need to urinate all the time, difficulty controlling when you urinate, lower abdominal pain or back pain, and blood and/or pus in your urine! This amendment would mean more pain and more pus! What could be better?
Earlier today I wrote about the Philadelphia DA’s decision not to seek the death penalty for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Preceding this good news was the tragic news of the death of another death penalty abolition organizer, the utterly amazing Martina Davis-Correia, who fought tirelessly and with grace and dignity against for not only her brother Troy Davis, but for all victims of the prison-industrial complex. In a heartbreaking miscarriage of justice, Davis was executed in September by the state of Georgia, despite undeniable evidence of not just police and judicial misconduct, but his innocence. The evidence was so compelling and Troy’s death sentence was so abominable, that his international campaign enlisted unlikely allies including Bob Barr, a former federal prosecutor and Republican congressman from Georgia, and former FBI director William S. Sessions. But the real leader of the movement for Troy was his older sister Martina, whose death last Friday, deserves far more attention than it has received. Correia was fighting two death sentences, her brother’s and her own, having been diagnosed with breast cancer over a decade ago and given six months to live.
Yesterday, Philadephia DA, Seth Williams, announced he would no longer seek the death penalty for Mumia Abu Jamal, who has been on death row for nearly 30 years. Abu Jamal, who was convicted of shooting Officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981, will serve a life sentence, with no possibility of parole, behind bars. This is a bitter sweet victory–bitter […] read the rest of the post of Feministing here
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights says Georgia’s execution of high-profile death row prisoner Troy Davis last Wednesday may have violated international law, citing serious concerns that the rights of Davis to due process and a fair trial were not respected. We speak with Davis’s older sister, Martina Correia, one of his most steadfast advocates. “I know the fight is not over,” says Correia. “Millions of people from around the world are very upset by this. Troy’s case is going to be a catalyst for change in the death penalty, particularly in the South.” The funeral for Troy Davis is planned for October 1 in his hometown of Savannah, Georgia. [includes rush transcript]
katiehalper.com 