Ideology #2: With Respect

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New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter warms up Thursday night: photo by Kathy Willens/AP via Chicago Sun-Times, 26 September 2014

Netanyahu uses Derek Jeter analogy while talking about terrorism

Chad Merda/AP via Chicago Sun-Times, 29 September 2014

UNITED NATIONS — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the United Nations General Assembly Monday, comparing his country's recent bombing campaign in Gaza to the U.S.-led strikes against militants in Iraq and Syria, saying Hamas and the Islamic State group share the same goal of world domination.

He railed against countries who condemned Israel for its war with Hamas while world leaders praised President Barack Obama for attacking Islamic State militants and other extremists.

And Netanyahu managed to incorporate a Derek Jeter analogy into his speech.

"To say that Iran doesn't practice terrorism is like saying Derek Jeter never played shortstop for the New York Yankees," he said.

Netanyahu addresses the general assembly: photo by Seth Wenig/AP via The Guardian, 29 September 2014

After a 20-year rivalry, Fenway Park tipped its collective cap to Derek Jeter on Sunday: photo by  M. Scott Brauer for The New York Times, 28 September 2014

Awesome in pinstripes for Bibi and the Captain tonight

The Empire State Building in Yankee pinstripes for the captain tonight. Awesome: image via Meredith Frost @MeredithFrost, 28 September 2014

Pure Class, plus Bonus Pickle WMD and Weird Derek Good Luck Icon

The Weirdest Derek Jeter Memorabilia You Can Buy Right Now: image via Molly Fitzpatrick @mollyfitz, 25 September 2014

Hey! It's About Me! And New York! And Iran!

The Captain. #Walkoff. How else would you expect it to end?: image via New York Yankees @Yankees, 25 September 2014

God Is Great, with Two Classic Meats

#FarewellCaptain: image via Meredith Frost @MeredithFrost, 25 September 2014

At The UN Bibi Netanyahu Compares Iran To Derek Jeter, Twitter Responds Accordingly: Zayin A'Ayin, Heeb, September 29, 2014

Pop quiz, hotshot: When is the Nation of Iran like one of the greatest baseball players of the modern age?

If you’re scratching your head at that one, it’s safe to say you probably haven’t been watching Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu speak at the United Nations General Assembly. There, the Israeli head of state stood up in front of some world’s most powerful political figures, jumped on the Derek Jeter good-will bandwagon… and, well, see for yourself:

“To say that Iran doesn’t practice terrorism is to say Derek Jeter never played shortstop for the New York Yankees”

Wait, what? Is Derek Jeter Iran? Are The Yankees… terrorists? It’s a sloppy metaphor to be sure. Clearly Bibi here is trying to speak over the heads of the assembled UN notables, and directly to the folks at home. But insta-viral quotes like this smack of zeitgeisty opportunism, and not the serious business of statecraft. Which is probably why the moment Bibi uttered his Jeter jibe, the internet reacted with the same degree of somberness a line like that deserves:

And what do you think, #2?

Spencer Ackerman @attackerman  ·  12h 12 hours ago

So I guess Bibi is saying Iran is in first-ballot terrorism hall of fame but, by the numbers, is statistically overrated as a state sponsor

Spencer Ackerman @attackerman  ·  12h 12 hours ago

Damn you, Bibi, for inviting Derek Jeter/Iran-terrorism comparisons.

 

Spencer Ackerman @attackerman  ·  13h 13 hours ago

You can taste the classiness RT @JessicaGlenza: Carnegie Deli honors Jeter with $28 sandwich.

Derek Jeter with ad for Derek Jeter $28 Sandwich: image via TMZ Sports, 29 September 2014

Derek Jeter: Famous NYC Deli Honors #2... With $28 Sandwich

It might be the most special of all the Derek Jeter tributes -- TMZ Sports has learned the legendary Carnegie Deli in NYC will now offer a $28 sandwich to honor the Yankees captain.

So, what does one get for $28?

A rep for the deli tells us ... the "Derek Jeter Triple Club Sandwich" comes piled high with 2 classic meats (because he's #2) -- turkey and bacon.

Plus, several slices of American cheese -- with tomato and lettuce ... served on toasted white bread.

Mmmmmmmm.

The deli rep adds, "We chose American Cheese because nothing is more American than baseball.

"BONUS -- if you sit down to eat at the restaurant, you get complimentary pickles!"

Man Carrying Prop

Is that a prop? RT @IsraeliPM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his way to speak before the UN General Assembly: image via Gregg Carlstrom @glcarlstrom, 29 September 2014

Excerpts from twitter commentary on Netanyahu UNGA speech by Haaretz.com US Editor Chemi Shalev, 29 September 2014:

Netanyahu speech at end of GA, with hardly anyone around, sparks Twitter-Facebook memes and jokes about which gimmick he will use this time

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I can already hear the groans RT @BarakRavid: Netanyahu's speech at UNGA will include a reference to Derek Jeter

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Netanyahu laying the groundwork for claiming that Gaza campaign was part of war against militant Islam rather than Palestinians

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Hamas=ISIS=Nazis

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Hello? Not sure Yankees' fans will appreciate comparison of Iran to Derek Jeter. Gimmicks sometimes backfire, you know

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Israel tries to enlist UNGA in war against Hamas. Not sure there will be many volunteers

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Netanyahu - IDF upholds the highest moral values of any army in the world. Says army deserves "admiration of decent people everywhere"

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Netanyahu shows blurry photo of rocket launchers near Palestinian children. Where's the guy who drew the Roadrunner Iranian nuke?

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Now for the anti-Semitism chapter: Netanyahu says it masquerades as "legitimate criticism of Israel"

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Netanyahu using every trick in the hasbara book that he's used in the past: perhaps this speech should be called Bib's Greatest Hits

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Looks like Netanyahu didn't persuade the Icelandic FM who followed him: lambasts settlements and "superfluous" Gaza campaign

Netanyahu's hate speech at #UNGA today: image via kristyan benedict @KreaseChan, 29 September 2014

Netanyahu's done. Militant Islam=Nazis=Iran=Derek Jeter, obligatory graphic, no mention of Palestinian state.

 

-- from the United Nations General Assembly: Gregg Carlstrom @glcarlstrom, 29 September 2014

#Palestine delegate listening to Netanyahu’s speech is not having it: image via Shawn Carriée @Shawncarrie, 29 September 2014

Zzz-z-zzz-zz

#UNGA hall half empty during Netanyahu’s speech. ~100 guests of #Israel Gov. on upper/side seats applauded repeatedly: image via Bahman Kahlbasi @BahmanKalbasi, 29 September 2014

Derek's dating diamond: can Bibi have been driven into mad metaphor by simple envy of the captain and his awesome pickle?

Derek Jeter's dating diamond is something else: image via Meredith Frost @MeredithFrost, 28 September 2014 [retweeted 182 times since original SportsNation post 13 February 2014]

Marwan Ali: Translation

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Mr. Barack Obama Just look at this picture: photo via Marwan Ali @Marwan68 on twitter, 7 May 2014

You:
 
another reason for the Dutch translator’s passion to translate my poems. He got confused like the rest of them and translated the poems back into Arabic.

Marwan Ali (Syrian, b. 1968): Translation, translated by Raphael Cohen in a supplement to Banipal 50: Prison Writing, 2014

Mr. Barack Obama Just look at this picture: photo via Marwan Ali @Marwan68 on twitter, 7 May 2014

Marwan Ali: Train / Ahmed Ashraf: The Iron Way

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Cairo's train station, built in 1853, is the most important station in Egypt: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014

Whenever the train
goes by your house
it looks back.
That, in spite of the long journey
is the secret of the passengers’ joy.

 

Waiting for the absent train: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014



Untitled: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014



Life in the train stations moves fast: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014



Banha station, the city before Cairo: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014



'Your ticket, please.': photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014



The train is the only method of transport for people from the south going to Cairo and the delta cities: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014
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Traveling from the village to the city: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014



Commuting to work outside Cairo: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014



The train's bathroom is not adequate for human use, so it has became a place to sit instead: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014



Those riding without paying resort to sitting between train cars or above them: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014

Commuting to work outside Cairo: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014

Untitled: photo by Ahmed Ashraf



At the back of the train: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014

Marwan Ali was born in 1968 in Qamishle, Syria. Since 1999, he has published his poetry in several Arab magazines and newspapers. He has published two collections of poetry. He left Syria for Holland in 1996 and now lives in Essen, Germany. His poem Train appears as a supplement to a selection of his work in Banipal 50: Prison Writing, 2014.

Ahmed Ashraf Is an Independent self-taught photographer from Egypt. He has documented events of the Egyptian Revolution, "but quickly realized that documentary photography suited me better... after that i was very Interested in working on personal documentary projects"  His work has been published in Time Magazine, The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Telegraph, Boston Globe, New York Daily News, Associated Press, The Guardian, Le Monde, EPA and NurPhoto.
 
Ahmed Ashraf dedicates his Iron Way portfolio "to the soul of Youssef Chahine," director of the 1958 Egyptian film classic Cairo Station.

Mahmoud Darwish: Think of Others

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The Red Sea. Guided-missile destroyer USS Arleigh Burke launches a Tomahawk cruise missile, as the US and allied forces began air strikes against Islamic State militants in Syrian territory: photo by Carlos M. Vazquez/US Navy/EPA via The Guardian, 23 September 2014

Mahmoud Darwish: Think of Others … فكِّر بغيركَ

As you prepare your breakfast, think of others. Don’t forget to feed the pigeons. As you conduct your wars, think of others. Don’t forget those who want peace. As you pay your water bill, think of others. Think of those who only have clouds to drink from. As you go home, your own home, think of others don’t forget those who live in tents. As you sleep and count the planets, think of others there are people who have no place to sleep. As you liberate yourself with metaphors think of others those who have lost their right to speak. And as you think of distant others think of yourself and say “I wish I were a candle in the darkness.”

وأنتَ تُعِدُّ فطورك، فكِّر بغيركَ لا تَنْسَ قوتَ الحمام وأنتَ تخوضُ حروبكَ، فكِّر بغيركَ لا تنس مَنْ يطلبون السلام وأنتَ تسدد فاتورةَ الماء، فكِّر بغيركَ مَنْ يرضَعُون الغمامٍ وأنتَ تعودُ إلى البيت، بيتكَ، فكِّر بغيركَ لا تنس شعب الخيامْ وأنت تنام وتُحصي الكواكبَ، فكِّر بغيركَ ثمّةَ مَنْ لم يجد حيّزاً للمنام وأنت تحرّر نفسك بالاستعارات، فكِّر بغيركَ مَنْ فقدوا حقَّهم في الكلام وأنت تفكر بالآخرين البعيدين، فكِّر بنفسك قُلْ: ليتني شمعةُ في الظلام

Mahmoud Darwish (13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008): Think of Others, 2005: translation via TheSemiClassicalLimit, 10 August 2012

Suruc, Turkey. Thousands of Syrian refugees, mostly tired and devastated, enter Turkey at Yumurtalik crossing gate. Over 200,000 people fleeing the Islamic State militant advance on Kobani, Syria have arrived in the last four days: photo by Burhan Ozbilici/AP via The Guardian, 24 September 2014

Sanliurfa, Turkey. A Kurdish woman runs away from a water cannon near the Syrian border after Turkish authorities temporarily closed the border near Suruc: photo by Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images via The Guardian, 22 September 2014

Suruc, Turkey. Turkish soldiers stand guard as Syrian refugees wait behind the border fences near the southeastern town of Suruc: photo by Stringer/Turkey/Reuters via The Guardian 17 September 2014

Mahmoud Darwish: Think of Others … فكِّر بغيركَ

while preparing your breakfast,
think of others
don’t forget the aliment of the doves

and while you are going to war,
think of others
don’t forget those seeking peace

and as you pay your water bill,
think of others
those who drink the clouds

and while you are returning home,
your home,
think of others 
don’t forget the people of the tents

and as you sleep and count the stars,
think of others 
those who don’t have a space to sleep

and as you liberate yourself with metaphors,
think of others
those who have lost their rights to speak

 
and while you are thinking of others far away,
think of yourself
and say: I wish I was a candle in the dark

Mahmoud Darwish (13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008): Think of Others, 2005: translation by Fayeq Oweis via oweis, 8 September 2010

New Delhi, India. A homeless man takes a morning bath in the old city area: photo by Bernat Armangue/AP via The Guardian, 22 September 2014

Marikina city, Philippines. Residents wade through floodwater brought by Typhoon Fung-Wong. The tropical storm has triggered widespread floods in and around the Philippine capital: photo by Francis R. Malasig/EPA  via The Guardian, 19 September 2014

Manila, Philippines. A boy stands in a window overlooking burnt houses following a fire near the international airport in Pasay city. Over a hundred families were left homeless after a blaze that destroyed shanties: photo by Francis R. Malasig/EPA via the Guardian, 16 September 2014

Lagos, Nigeria. Muslim women on route to Mecca undergo health checks for the ebola virus at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos: photo by Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via The Guardian 17 September 2014

Islamabad, Pakistan. A displaced teenager sleeps outdoors to escape the heat in his home: photo by Muhammed Muheisen/AP via The Guardian, 22 September 2014

Mahmoud Darwish: Think upon Others

قصيدة محمود درويش

فكّر بغيرك

وأنت تُعدُّ فطورك، فكر بغيركَ
لا تَنْسَ قوتَ الحمام
وأنتَ تخوضُ حروبكَ، فكَر بغيركَ
لا تنس مَنْ يطلبون السلام

وأنتَ تسدد فاتورةَ الماء، فكَّر بغيركَ
مَنْ يرضَعُون الغمامٍ
وأنتَ تعودُ إلى البيت، بيتكَ، فكَّر بغيركَ
لا تنس شعب الخيامَ

وأنت تنام وتُحصي الكواكبَ، فكرِّ بغيركَ
ثمَّةَ مَنْ لم يجد حيّزاً للمنام
وأنت تحرّر نفسك بالاستعارات، فكَّر بغيركَ
مَنْ فقدوا حقَهم بالكلام

وأنت تفكر بالآخرين البعيدين، فكِّر بنفسكَ
قُل: ليتني شمعة في الظلام

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When you prepare your breakfast, think upon others

Do not forget to feed the pigeons

When you engage in your wars, think upon others

Do not forget to demand peace

As you pay your water bill, think upon others!

Who seek sustenance from the clouds, not a tap

And when you return to a house -– your house -– think upon others

Such as those who live in tents

When you fall asleep counting sheep (planets), think upon others

Who cannot find a space for sleeping

And as you search for meaning with fancy metaphors, think upon others

Who have lost their right to words

 

And while you think of faraway others, think of yourself

And say: I am a candle to this darkness

Mahmoud Darwish (13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008): Think of Others, 2005: translation by Hamish Kinnear via The Edinburgh Arab Initiative, 12 February 2012

 Kabul, Afghanistan. A displaced girl from Helmand Province stands outside an adobe house: photo by Xinhua/Landov/Barcroft Media via The Guardian, 19 September 2014

Jerusalem. A Bedouin boy herds sheep in the West Bank village of Al-Eizariya: photo by Ammar Awad/Reuters via The Guardian, 19 September 2014

Gaza City. Young Palestinian students at their school, which was damaged during the recent conflict with Israel, on the second day of the school year: photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via the Guardian, 16 September 2014

 

Hebron, West Bank. People gather at the site where Israeli troops shot dead Palestinians Marwan Kawasme and Amar Abu Aysha. The Israeli military said they were Hamas members responsible for killing three Israeli youths in June: photo by Ammar Awad/Reuters via The Guardian, 23 September 2014

Robinson Jeffers: De Rerum Virtute

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This magnificent blue iceberg was shot from a ship off the South Sandwich Islands in Antarctica. It’s a cathedral of ancient ice, with a little group of Adélie penguins and a prion perfectly positioned overhead. To catch the moment and frame it perfectly reveals skill, in this case, of a photographer in love with ice: photo by Cherry Alexander, 1995, from 50 Years of Wildlife Photographer of the Year: How Wildlife Photography Became Art, edited by Rosamund Kidman Cox (Natural History Museum, 2014) via The Guardian, 17 September 2014

I.
Here is the skull of a man: a man’s thoughts and emotions
Have moved under the thin bone vault like clouds
Under the blue one: love and desire and pain,
Thunderclouds of wrath and white gales of fear
Have hung inside here: and sometimes the curious desire of knowing
Values and purpose and the causes of things
Has coasted like a little observer air-plane over the images
That filled this mind: it never discovered much,
And now all’s empty, a bone bubble, a blown-out eggshell. 

The elephants are obviously relaxed, but also they are perfectly composed and almost perfectly still -– hardly a ripple in the water. They all appear to be meditatively watching the heron walking slowly in front of them, looking for fish they might disturb when drinking: photo by Angie Scott, 2002, from 50 Years of Wildlife Photographer of the Year: How Wildlife Photography Became Art, edited by Rosamund Kidman Cox (Natural History Museum, 2014) via The Guardian, 17 September 2014

II.
That’s what it’s like: for the egg too has a mind,
Doing what our able chemists will never do,
Building the body of a hatchling, choosing among the proteins:
These for the young wing-muscles, these for the great
Crystalline eyes, these for the flighty nerves and brain:
Choosing and forming: a limited but superhuman intelligence,
Prophetic of the future and aware of the past:
The hawk’s egg will make a hawk, and the serpent’s
A gliding serpent: but each with a little difference
From its ancestors—and slowly, if it works, the race
Forms a new race: that also is a part of the plan
Within the egg. I believe the first living cell
Had echoes of the future in it, and felt
Direction and the great animals, the deep green forest
And whale’s-track sea; I believe this globed earth
Not all by chance and fortune brings forth her broods,
But feels and chooses. And the Galaxy, the firewheel
On which we are pinned, the whirlwind of stars in which our sun is one dust-grain, one electron, this giant atom of the universe
Is not blind force, but fulfils its life and intends its courses. “All things are full of God.
Winter and summer, day and night, war and peace are God.”

  Two bronze whalers (copper sharks), their mouths stuffed with fish, burst out of the swirling mass of sardines. The predator feeding frenzy accompanies the annual sardine migration off the east coast of South Africa: photo by Doug Perrine, 2004, from 50 Years of Wildlife Photographer of the Year: How Wildlife Photography Became Art, edited by Rosamund Kidman Cox (Natural History Museum, 2014) via The Guardian, 17 September 2014

III.
Thus the thing stands; the labor and the games go on—
What for? What for? —Am I a God that I should know?
Men live in peace and happiness; men live in horror
And die howling. Do you think the blithe sun
Is ignorant that black waste and beggarly blindness trail him like hounds,
And will have him at last? He will be strangled
Among his dead satellites, remembering magnificence. 

 

 

On the frozen Lake Kussharo, on Hokkaido, Japan, a population of whooper swans (Cygnus cygnus) gathers around the lake in winter, migrating there to take advantage of areas of open water kept ice-free by hot springs: photo by Stefano Unterthiner, 2011, from 50 Years of Wildlife Photographer of the Year: How Wildlife Photography Became Art, edited by Rosamund Kidman Cox (Natural History Museum, 2014) via The Guardian, 17 September 2014

IV.
I stand on the cliff at Sovranes creek-mouth.
Westward beyond the raging water and the bent shoulder of the world
The bitter futile war in Korea proceeds, like an idiot
Prophesying. It is too hot in mind
For anyone, except God perhaps, to see beauty in it. Indeed it is hard to see beauty
In any of the acts of man: but that means the acts of a sick microbe
On a satellite of a dust-grain twirled in a whirlwind
In the world of stars ....
Something perhaps may come of him; in any event
He can’t last long. —Well: I am short of patience
Since my wife died ... and this era of spite and hate-filled half-worlds
Gets to the bone. I believe that man too is beautiful,
But it is hard to see, and wrapped up in falsehoods. Michael Angelo and the Greek sculptors—
How they flattered the race! Homer and Shakespeare—
How they flattered the race!

 

Narwhals in sea ice, shot from an ultralight plane on floats in the Arctic Bay of Baffin Island. It took six weeks and a series of disasters before the moment when a group of males was seen taking a breather within a teardrop area of water surrounded by a pattern of melting ice: photo by Paul Nicklen, 2007, from 50 Years of Wildlife Photographer of the Year: How Wildlife Photography Became Art, edited by Rosamund Kidman Cox (Natural History Museum, 2014) via The Guardian, 17 September 2014

 

V.
One light is left us: the beauty of things, not men;
The immense beauty of the world, not the human world.
Look—and without imagination, desire nor dream—directly
At the mountains and sea. Are they not beautiful?
These plunging promontories and flame-shaped peaks
Stopping the sombre stupendous glory, the storm-fed ocean? Look at the Lobos Rocks off the shore,
With foam flying at their flanks, and the long sea-lions
Couching on them. Look at the gulls on the cliff wind,
And the soaring hawk under the cloud-stream—
But in the sage-brush desert, all one sun-stricken
Color of dust, or in the reeking tropical rain-forest,
Or in the intolerant north and high thrones of ice—is the earth not beautiful?
Nor the great skies over the earth?
The beauty of things means virtue and value in them.
It is in the beholder’s eye, not the world? Certainly.
It is the human mind’s translation of the transhuman
Intrinsic glory. It means that the world is sound,
Whatever the sick microbe does. But he too is part of it.

Robinson Jeffers: (1887-1962): De Rerum Virtute, from Hungerfield and Other Poems, 1954

One of the last great wildlife spectacles to be seen in northern Europe is the winter evening gathering of hundreds of thousands of starlings over their roost sights. Here the stage is Gretna Green in Scotland, the swooping, swirling flock boosted by huge numbers of wintering starlings from Scandinavia: photo by Danny Green, 2009, from 50 Years of Wildlife Photographer of the Year: How Wildlife Photography Became Art, edited by Rosamund Kidman Cox (Natural History Museum, 2014) via The Guardian, 17 September 2014



 The Helix Nebula (NGC 7293). Resembling a giant eye looking across 700 light years of space, the Helix Nebula is one of the closest planetary nebulae to Earth: photo by David Fitz-Henry, 2014 (via The Guardian, 18 September 2014)