And what is the Israeli ditsy far-left up to these days?
A friend lent me the first issue of a new anti-consumerism publication that just came out in Israel, called Od! (Translation: More!, as in “Please, Sir I want some…). I was amused to see that it costs a mere 39.90 shekels (that’s about $8.50). But that’s all right. That’s not consumerism because the name on the cover is very, very, very tiny. You can hardly see it at all (At first I wasn’t sure which side was the front). It’s edited by Ronen Eidelman of Indymedia Israel fame.

I read quite a lot of stuff each day, not nearly as much as my official numero uno Reader (with a capital “R”) Fred Lapides, but still. So I can honestly say I haven’t read anything as boring, longwinded, repetitive and unimaginative (did I forget pompous?) as this, in a longtime.

One of the main contributors is a well known cable TV video clip presenter. She has taken the time to enlighten us about the adverse effect of brand names to our psyche. She bases this on unsubstantiated claims such as “Severe concentration problems have been noted among boys and girls that have been exposed to a large amount of information channels from an early age”. (I’d say it would take me no longer than half an hour to personally round up at least a dozen examples that prove the exact opposite, taking into account that it's the middle of the night right now. I’ve got two asleep in the next room for a start). The conclusion of her learned essay, the apex of her effort, is that placing advertising placards in open inter-city areas is stealing people’s right “not to know”, is “forced advertising”, is “occupation of the private thought”, is “throwing garbage in the brain of a person”. She obviously isn’t aware that placing advertising placards in open inter-city areas is also against the law in the State of Israel. So what on earth is she talking about?

As if we hadn’t had enough of this nitwit, ten pages of “provocative” photographs later (photographs immortalizing criminal acts of defacing inner-city advertisement placards, photographs intruding on women soldiers’ privacy and so on) she’s back. This time she’s on about mothers and their soldier sons as depicted in Israeli advertising. “…Fourth, he’s a victim. The Israeli soldier bears the guilt of the whole country, the child sent to defend his family, or more precisely the child sent to perpetrate its atrocities in its stead, so it can continue to set up that same consumer normality.” After all, is there any other purpose for our being here? “… The advertisers in Israel choose to ignore the new soldier: The brute, the guilty one, the one who agonizes, the conquerer…” The one who agonizes? Hmm. I think I’ll just pop into the Refuseniks’ site again. See how the count’s coming. Oh, it’s up to 474. So what percentage would that be of all IDF soldiers and reservists? 0,1%? 0,2%? I’d say this shows some serious agonizing going on. The percentages of brutes and other nasties are probably just as high.

What else have we got here? Oh, a poem, that’s nice. Translated from which language? It doesn’t say. Bit cryptic for this uneducated ignoramus. What’s that? “For sale what the Jews haven’t sold…” Sounds rather anti-Semitic. Maybe the esteemed Indymedia editor guy didn’t really get it. Can’t blame him for that, can we?

OK,OK, enough already.

But before I go I have to ask these pathetic, disconnected, self-important idiots one question: Is this the best you could do? Look around you!

(While I was reading this silly publication someone blew himself up in the center of Jerusalem, wounding innocent passers-by).