My column at The Daily Beast‘s new Zion Square blog will run every other Friday, starting next Friday.
However, I had already sent them a different post, on a topic they asked us all to write about: My relationship with the word “Zionism.” The plan has been to scatter those posts along the way, over the next week or two.
And lo! They decided to run mine today, on the very day that the blog went live! O_O (I’m reduced to emoticons at this point).
Here’s the top of that post:
Posted in Emily L. Hauser, International Shenanigans, Personal Tales
Tagged Israel, Palestine, Peter Beinart, The Daily Beast, Zion Square
So.
Peter Beinart, columnist at The Daily Beast (Newsweek’s online presence) and author of The Icarus Syndrome and the up-coming The Crisis of Zionism (and, not incidentally, of a cri de couer entitled “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment” that set the American Jewish world on its ear when the New York Review of Books ran it in June 2010, in that it told the truth that no one wanted to talk about) is launching a new group blog, called Zion Square, to be hosted on The Daily Beast.
I’m one of the columnists.
Ahem.
This is very cool. This is very, very cool, and in many ways, is the very thing I’ve been trying to achieve since I started writing op/eds in 2002, post-graduate school.
And I was hardly even talking about it, though it’s been in the works for a month or so, because as an old school reporter, I know that your story isn’t safe until it’s on someone’s doorstep (or, in this case, computer monitor) and why on earth would I want to jinx this? So, you know: Mum = the word!
But Tablet Magazine ran a piece about the project today, and, well – if it’s online, it must be true, right? Here’s what they said:
I hereby submit, for your consideration, the following, as our nation’s best contribution thus far to the sheer horror that is #HugGate :
“I have HAD IT with these motherhugging hugs on this motherhugging plane!” #Imeanwhoisflyingthisthinganyway
— Lex Alexander (@lexalexander) March 8, 2012
BWAAAAhahahahahahahahahaha! /gasps for air/ HAhahahaha! Ha! Heh. Whew! /wipes tear from eye/
(Technically, @lexalexander tweeted this last night, but I’m new to this whole embed-a-tweet thingie and am only just now catching up. Please do forgive!)
I’ve had an abortion. (If you’re an old hand around these parts, you’re aware of this fact, because I’ve noted it before).
I’ve had an abortion, but I’ll be honest: For me, it wasn’t an easy decision. I don’t believe I ended a life, but I know I ended the potential for life, and while it was the best of (what felt to me like) two bad choices, that didn’t make it a happy thing.
I figure that’s ok. I’m not required meet the anti-choice stereotype of just loooooving me some good ol’ abortions in order to have the right to avail myself of a legal medical procedure. One may be conflicted, unsure, sad, even grieving, and still be pro-choice.
Which is why, despite whatever ambivalence I may have had about my own abortion, the following information (from a post by Sarah Kliff on the Washington Post‘s WonkBlog) makes my hair stand on end:
Powerful, honest rape awareness video from RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) – anything I say (other than to hat-tip my good internet buddy sara_l_r, on whose blog I first saw it) will only detract and distract.
Posted in Body/Health Shenanigans, Emily L. Hauser
Tagged I KNEW HIM, RAINN, rape, SEXUAL ASSAULT OF BOYS AND MEN
In honor of today’s many GOP primaries (eleven! ten!), I thought I’d just leave this here:
For details on the foregoing, you could always read my recent post entitled The GOP rides into the sunset, but there’s nothing like a good graphic artist to make a person humble: What I took 850 words to write, graphic artist Will Amato (I’m guessing that’s him in the Batman mask on his website’s front page) accomplished in 12 lines.
Vote Republican 2012!
h/t David Graham at The Atlantic
Two years ago today, a beloved and wonderful man died. I wrote this for him and his daughter, my oldest friend in the world, and I post it again today in his memory. I miss his laugh, the laugh that would fill rooms and call over strangers. I miss his words, his stream, his rushing river of words. I miss his whistle. I miss him. He didn’t believe in heaven, but I hope that he has found whatever rest any of us may find after this world.
There’s this house.
It’s at the bottom of a hill, to the left and in a small valley, as you drive north on Wisconsin State Highway 23. If you come over the hill at night, you’ll see the lights in the windows, an amber glow under more stars than you’ll ever see in a Chicago sky.
The house is small. The kitchen floor is rough and unfinished, the wallpaper torn here and there. There’s a terrible Christmas clock hung on one wall because it met a need and now serves to amuse. The house smells of wood stove heat and cooking, and of the earth that washes off vegetables fresh in from the fields.
Posted in Emily L. Hauser, Musings, Personal Tales
Tagged Brett Moore, Cedar Creek, Dodgeville, Lake Bluff, Waukesha
I have roughly zero time to post today, but I suspect some folks might be coming by to see what I think about President Obama’s AIPAC speech, or about his talks with Prime Minister Netanyahu, or about the whole Israeli effort to lead the world into a cataclysmic war with Iran. The thing is I don’t have time to write about any of that, or anything else! (Though I may have just tipped my hand with the use of the word “cataclysmic”).
So instead, I bring you the opinion of the editorial board of Israel’s newspaper of record, HaAretz:
Obama, who was playing on Netanyahu’s home court at the height of an election year, criticized the excessive talk about war with Iran. Hinting at both Israeli government officials and the Republican presidential candidates, who have been vying with each other in calling for war, Obama said this was causing oil prices to rise, which in turn helped finance Iran’s nuclear program. The president said that excessive public discussion of the Iranian issue not only undermined the security of both America and the world, but Israel’s security too.
Posted in Emily L. Hauser, International Shenanigans
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: The President of these United States is a feminist. It would also appear that he is a really nice guy.
President Obama called Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University law student who testified at a House contraception hearing. Rush Limbaugh recently had harsh words for Fluke, calling her a “slut.”
