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Last week’s post, “Orwell in Gaza,” drew much response, including an email from Becca Orwell received yesterday. I reprint it here. In the interest of responsible journalism—the hallmark of modern media—I make no editorial comment. Dear Mr. Perlstein: I am disturbed, to put it mildly, by your post of July 18. While you reported my…
ORWELL: This is Becca Orwell reporting live with Abu Jihad, Deputy Minister for Information of persecuted Hamas here in besieged Gaza. Minister, I want to be entirely objective about the Israeli war machine. What’s going on here? ABU JIHAD: The Israelis keep bombing our rocket launching sites and targeting our military leaders. Now they’ve entered…
Psalms 90:10, which serves as an epigraph to my novel The Boy Walker, advises, “The span of our life is seventy years.” That makes “The Big 7-0” seem ominous. I know. I turned seventy on Wednesday. Fortunately, the psalm holds out hope of additional life by adding, “or given the strength, eighty years.” Then it…
Medical science has helped many cancer patients extend their lives. Further, it’s inching towards cures. Military science has been far less effective in fighting religious cancers, such as ISIS—the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (aka ISIL, the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant). The United States might take that into account as Iraq…
Construction cranes abound in San Francisco. Is growth good? I asked Lynn Sedway, head of Sedway Consulting. Her San Francisco firm provides real-estate research to developers, nonprofits and government agencies. You may think Lynn has an agenda to push. Not so. She just offers expertise, including assembling facts and providing analysis. For some San Franciscans—both…
Last January, I wrote about Michelle Holstein, who had battled cancer for ten years (“Laughing With Cancer”). She did so with courage, grace and humor. Regrettably, the Malach HaMavet—the Angel of Death—cannot be put off forever. Last Tuesday, Michelle died. She was fifty. We all share the same sad stories. A cousin of mine died…
Russia threatens Ukraine. Nigerians cry for schoolgirls abducted by Islamist terrorists. China and Vietnam confront each other over sea rights. Turkey and Thailand are in turmoil. Again. And Iran, says a UN report, is developing more advanced ballistic missiles. So this is the perfect time for me to announce that I’m thinking about considering maybe…
Leviticus 19:4 commands us not to put a stumbling block before the blind. The Rabbis interpret this as not placing temptation before the morally weak. Both the youth culture of Missoula, Montana and Montana law—the “castle doctrine” allowing residents to defend their homes with deadly force—seem to have violated this mitzvah to the detriment of…
Anti-Black comments by Donald Sterling, owner of the Los Angeles’ Clippers, have been heard and rejected far and wide. NBA commissioner Adam Silver defused the anger of players and coaches, the dismay of fans and withdrawals by Clippers sponsors by banning Sterling for life. But let’s consider another issue potentially more frightening than Sterling’s racist…