By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Jul 5, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
Recent reports have some speculating — most prominently his widow — that the late PLO President Yasir Arafat may have died from illicit poisoning.
Larry Ben-David (NOT the Israeli version of Larry David) argues in The Times of Israel that the claim is a distraction from the clear probability that Arafat died of AIDS:
Less romantic and mythical, however, is the more likely cause of Arafat’s death – AIDS.
Arafat’s sexual proclivities have been an open secret for years. The former head of Rumanian intelligence, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa , disclosed in his book “Red Horizons,” that one of his officers reported, “the ‘Fedayee’ [Arafat’s code name] is in his bedroom making love to his bodyguard. The one I knew was his latest lover. He’s playing tiger again. The officer monitoring his microphones connected me live with the bedroom, and the squawling almost broke my eardrums. Arafat was roaring like a tiger, and his lover yelping like a hyena.”
In an in-depth 1976 biography of Arafat, writer Thomas Kiernan chronicled the life of a young Arafat in Cairo. When Arafat discovered his girlfriend, Jinan al-Oraby, was friendly with the daughters of the Harkabis, an Egyptian Jewish family, he arranged for the murder of their father. When Jinan expressed sorrow for her friends, “Yasser went into a rage… he proceeded to beat me, tearing my clothes off…he threw himself on me… He tried to penetrate me, but he could not do so. This made him even more irrational.”
Kiernan also relates Arafat’s relationship with a boy, Ahmed, whose parents ended up on the Israeli side of the border after the 1948 war. An associate of Arafat’s related, “Yasser tried to get the boy to publicly denounce his parents…Yasser really loved the boy. He was delicate, sensitive, like a flower. He was very much a part of Yasser’s inner circle – four of five boys who lived in the same place, and well, you can imagine what I mean.”
Kiernan continued: Arafat held a “kind of formal hearing for the boy” because of his refusal to denounce his parents. “Arafat sobbed and sobbed as [a young associate] proceeded to castrate the boy. The next day the boy was dead.”
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Jul 4, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Sometimes the only way to fit in is to simply be yourself.
Just went to truck stop to fill up. I notice when I’m inside a truck stop I try to act a little more manly. I stand up taller, scowl a little, and try to look like I know how to chew tobacco and operate a two way radio.
And never, ever buy a bottled Starbucks latte. And I even believe I may fool some people.
But today I walked into restroom and caught a glimpse of myself wearing a pressed button-down shirt, khaki slacks and dress shoes with tassels. I’m not sure I’m really fooling anyone after all.
I can either try harder to fit in or just accept I never will and just be myself. And buy the Starbucks latte.
There was genuine suspense in Barack Obama’s announcement that he will through executive order legalize about a million young undocumented immigrants. The details are a bit more nuanced—a minimum five years residency, high school graduate status, and a crime free record are preconditions, and the order contemplates applications for guest worker status rather than citizenship—but it is still a sweeping unilateral move that broke the partisan gridlock on immigration. As such, the non-Fox media has pronounced it a masterstroke that will widen the already sizable gap between Obama and Mitt Romney with Hispanics.
To be sure, the politics are considerably more complicated. The white working class voters whom Obama is struggling with, and who swung decisively toward Republicans in 2010, are unlikely to be impressed. The portion of the Latino vote preoccupied with immigration policy, as opposed to jobs or social issue controversies, could already be secured for Obama and this latest move may not move the needle much more. To conservatives, Obama’s by-pass of Congress drives the narrative that a closet, hard-left agenda is lurking in a second term, which may keep them galvanized to defeat him.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: Immigration and a Missed Opportunity
By Patrick Derocher, on Tue Jul 3, 2012 at 12:30 PM ET
After nearly a month of power plays, peace may finally be coming to the University of Virginia’s administration.
In Virginia, the never-ending UVA power struggle may finally have come to an end. Governor Bob McDonnell has reconfirmed Helen Dragas as Rector of the University’s Board of Visitors (what most schools would call chair of the board of directors) and appointed several new members to that board. What began as an internal academic dispute when the Board effectively forced president Teresa Sullivan to resign on June 10 morphed into a statewide political matter; outcry against Sullivan’s ouster was fierce, and McDonnell had threatened to remove the entire board if they couldn’t reach a consensus regarding her status at a June 26 meeting where her resignation was unanimously reversed. The governor’s most recent move has been met with praise, even from those organizations that had called for Dragas’s resignation, namely the UVA Faculty Senate. [C-Ville]
Read the rest of… The RP’s Weekly Web Gems – The Politics of the States
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Jul 3, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
How social media could save your life.
(A hypothetical situation)
If you are one of those people who believe Klout is just another vanity website and waste of time like Facebook and Twitter, think again.
And please listen to how I had to learn the hard way the true value of these websites.
One night last week I was walking alone through a dark isolated parking lot worrying I could get mugged. I clenched my fists as my fight-flight syndrome kicked in.
My pulse spiked, pupils dilated and my mind raced thinking of potential weapons I could use. I first thought of my car keys…and then, in a flash of brilliance, I had my answer, if mugged, I would immediately shout out to my assailant:
“You picked the wrong guy, pal! You will really want to rethink mugging me after hearing what I have to tell you. I have a high Klout score. That’s right. Do you know what that means? Probably not. So let me tell you. Klout is a metric that measures Facebook and Twitter usage. That means I know a lot of people on Facebook and I Tweet quite frequently. Yes, Tweet! That means I will tell on you and you will get caught through modern social media tools. And if that isn’t enough to make you quake in your boots, I’m also pretty active on LinkenIn.”
At this point I plan to eerily and ominously glare at my assailant, eyes squinted, and make the sounds “Tweet. Tweet. Tweet.” (Like the guy in the movie Warriors when he says “Warriors, come out and plaaaayyyy”)
And then I am going to add, “And by the way, my female colleague is leaving the office right after me. And btw she has a pretty low Klout score.” And then raise my eyebrow as if to say, “That’s something for you to think about.”
In my scenario, my assailant lets me go and waits for my colleague.
And Klout, Facebook and Twitter, helped save me from getting mugged. At least in this made-up hypothetical situation that ends happily ever after for everyone. Except my female colleague who I spend the next year making this up to.
Maybe now you’ll think twice before you criticize these websites again….Word.
