Coretta Scott King: 1927-2006

I don't take namings lightly. A name means the world and more to the parent choosing it: it often tells their life story, who they are, what they dream about.
So the other day I was at the Target checkout and the cashier asked the lady in front of me for her ID.
That's a pretty name, the cashier said tapping on the laminated card.
Coretta, the lady said, you know after Coretta Scott King.

Let me say it the other way round from the way I always hear it said:
Martin Luther King Jr. was the husband of Coretta King Scott.
Coretta's achievements are such that parents name thier daughters after her. Did Coretta's parents ever think such would be the case...
Parents can make or break our inner selves in many ways (no everything is not the fault of a bad childhood, but yes, sometimes many things are, including never ending self-hatred ) here's an interview where Coretta talks of her parents.

I was blessed with parents who taught me not to let anyone make me feel like I wasn't good enough, and as my mother told me, "You are just as good as anyone else. You get an education and try to be somebody. Then you won't have to be kicked around by anybody, and you won't have to depend on anyone for your livelihood, not even a man.

Munich- The movie???

Spielberg's film Munich follows the story of Avner and his team, Mossad agents sent to exact revenge on the Palestinian Black September members for killing the Israeli Olympics team in 1972 during a botched German rescue mission.
I watched Munich and I liked it. It's is very indirectly a film about Palestine and concerns itself instead with the moral make up of the Mossad team and essentially presents an amoral look on good man-bad man-every man and, as such, raises questions about the nature of retribution and terrorism and what makes and who is a terrorist.

After his mission, Avner asks his mother, who lost many family members during the Holocaust, if she wants to know what he did on his mission and she declines. "Whatever it took, whatever it takes, we have a place on earth at last," she tells him. But whether a people — citizens of Israel like Avner or supporters of the state like Spielberg — can feel morally whole with such fresh wounds is the question that truly needs to be dealt with.
read rest here

Indeed the Mossad agents do seemed awfully guilt ridden....but this is a movie... And more over soldiers with consciences is not always an oxymoron... So I left the cinema feeling Speilberg had shown well how Israel carries out state sponsored terrorism...okay, okay secret state sponsored terrorism. It seemed the movie was very much an unbiased look at revenge and its cyclical nature. So then come across this:

Some of the legitimacy that Spielberg and Kushner hope the film (Munich) will receive comes from the dissatisfaction of Zionists with it, which to the US media confirms Munich’s “objectivity.” This is hardly different from how Sharon’s policies are presented as “fair” when opposed by Palestinians and Israelis who are to the right of Sharon. While this simple-minded tactic works with naïve US audiences, it has a harder time being persuasive to more savvy ones outside the country.
read rest here

And then I wonder am I or am I not just a naive citizen of the world?

A scene I found particulary powerful involved a woman and nudity. Spoliler ahead: Agents arrive to shoot a woman who has shot one of them. She's in her dressign gown. When she sees them she hopes to buy herself time by slipping the gown off her shoulders. She's shot anyway and died spalyed out in a chair, blood spurting down her chest. Avner throws the goen over her, another agent throws it back off. There is shame in her nudity, it implies, a fundamental disrespect that a man's nudity does not seem to invoke. It's chilling, actually.

Think Before Drawing Incendiary Cartoons

Why is Islamic art fraught with geometric configurations and nature?
Because Islam forbids all representations of the human form that can lead to idolatry particularly of the Prophet Muhammed. It was only time then before cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, including a depiction of the Prophet with a turban shaped like a bomb, sparked yet another bout over freedom of speech versus sanctity of religion versus growing racsim and nastiness .

The newspaper has since then released a statement that it 'never intended to offend it the religious feelings of any body' and that 'what happened was not a deliberate act'.
Times of India read here

The BBC has involved itself in a growing Europe-wide controversy by broadcasting cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that have caused outrage in the Islamic world and led to the sacking of a French newspaper editor.
Guardian read here

Since economics does make the world go round:

Danish officials said they were particularly concerned about the economic fallout caused by the cartoons' publication. Sudan, Saudi Arabia and many other Muslim countries have called for boycotts of boycotts of Danish products. On Tuesday, Carrefour removed Danish goods from its shelves in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar. The group said hypermarkets it runs in the region with its partner company, Majid ad-Futtaim Group, had stopped importing Danish goods.

Danish industry representatives said the boycotts had cost Danish companies $55 million in lost sales in the Middle East. Arla Foods, the biggest Danish retailer in the region, said the boycott cost it $2.4 million a day in lost sales, or 8 percent of its global revenues.
International Herald Tribune read here