Schalit presents a nuanced perspective of Israel, which I found refreshing. My whole life it has been a hotbed of conflict--I'm weary of the whole lunatic enterprise. For such a small country it consistently presents big headaches. I keep hoping (wrongly no doubt)that somewhere along the line "reason" will prevail and Israelis and Palestinians alike will see the advantage of living in peace. Must there be this eternal victimizing of one another! The absurdity is truly monumental. I rec More...

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

As regular readers know, in the last couple of years I've been trying to teach myself more about the Middle East and Southeast Asia, regions of the world in which I had an almost complete ignorance until Bush started bombing the sh-t out of them in the early 2000s. And in this I am very t More...