fiTN I Opinion
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Dry Bones
THE ISRAELI ARMY
IS BACK IN GAZA!
BUT THEY
WERE INVITE-0
BACK IM
TRUE.
When Leadership Fails
A
fter the first series of terrorist
bombings in London, Mayor
Ken Livingstone stood up,
and in a pretty fair imitation of
Winston Churchill, ringingly declared
that his city would not yield to such
cowardly intimidation.
But 12 days later, just two days
before the second string of bombings
on July 21, Mayor Livingstone was
already singing a tune that sounded
more like Neville Chamberlain,
Churchill's predecessor as British
prime minister and derided for appeas-
ing Nazi Germany during
the lead-up to World War II.
Livingstone's great left-
wing mind had figured out
who was really to blame for these
bombings. Not the bombers; no
indeed. It was understandable how
frustrated these young men must have
been, he said, over the "crimes against
humanity" going on in Iraq and Israel.
He said that Israel's governing Likud
party and the radical Islamic Hamas ter-
rorist organization were "two sides of
the same coin" since Israeli troops were
indiscriminately slaughtering Palestinian
women and children. In an earlier anti-
Israel outburst, Livingstone had stated
that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
"should be tried as a war criminal."
Well, that certainly clears things up.
In Livingstone's view of the world,
not every nation has the right to
defend itself. Should a country exer-
cise this right in a way that some folks
find objectionable, then it is perfectly
understandable that people are going
to get blown up.
It may help to understand
Livingstone's point of view to know
that his nickname in
England is "Ken the Red."
He is regarded as being off
in the leftist fringe — which
in the British political scheme is way,
way out there.
Still, some people are just a bit slow
to get the point.
Israel has lived with the sort of ter-
ror being visited upon London for
many years. It has seen more than a
thousand innocent Israelis and foreign
visitors murdered and the regular pat-
terns of daily life disrupted.
As staunchly as Livingstone promised
in his first speech, Israel has not com-
promised with terror. It has stood up to
it and defended itself by any means it
could find. If the British prize the qual-
ity of pluck, they need look no farther
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Rambling Wrecks
W
hatever happened to
describing someone as a
"reckless" driver? That
seems like a perfectly fine word to me.
There is a nice Middle English lilt to
it. It has the connotation of being
unaware or unheeding of conse-
quences, which is the perfect descrip-
tion of a bad driver.
But now the accepted phrase seems
to be "aggressive." Why that is regard-
ed as an improvement is beyond me.
Could it be that some people
confused "reckless" with
,
"wreckless," which is a good
thing for drivers to be.
The way language is dumbed
down these days, I wouldn't be sur-
prised.
I was pondering this on a recent visit
to my local Secretary of State branch
office. You will have time to ponder
many things should you go there.
aggressiveness does pay off in
It was my own fault. I dal-
some places, if not on the
lied too long in getting new
highway.
license tags and when I tried
In another part of the room,
to do it online, my PIN code
people were hard at work tak-
was rejected. I felt sad but
ing the written test for their
there was no alternative to
license renewal. They ask the
driving over, pulling a number
wrong questions on those
and waiting. And waiting. And
tests. All about traffic laws.
waiting.
GEO RGE
They never address real-life
At one point, a friendly clerk
CAN TOR
situations. For example: You
rounded up all of us lost souls
Colu mint
are driving 25 miles an hour
who were there to get new tabs
in the left lane of Orchard
and had us form a line. She said
Lake Road. Other drivers keep honk-
this would speed things up.
ing, passing you and giving you dirty
It didn't. All it accomplished was to
looks. Should you A) Get out of the
get me out of the chair in which I'd
left lane? B) Ignore them because 25
been comfortably resting and
miles an hour is a perfectly good
making me stand.
speed? C) Flip them the bird? D) Go
Adding to the fun were two
home and lie down with vinegar com-
people — one from a foreign
presses on your forehead?
land and one elderly gent
You are on Orchard Lake Road and
who seemed, to use another obsolete
suddenly remember a real good joke
term, a bit gaga — who decided that
someone told you the night before.
they didn't want to wait for their
Should you A) Pick up your cell
numbers to come up and simply
phone and call everyone on your
walked straight to the counter upon
speed dial list? B) Shake in silent
arrival.
mirth? C) Pick up your cell phone
Much to our consternation, they
and call the person who told you the
were taken care of ahead of us. So
RBA LIT!
CBE CE
George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor614@aol.com.
7/28
2005
52
than Jerusalem and
Tel Aviv.
The sorts of
"atrocities" deplored
by the mayor are the
actions of a free
WHAT 00 YOU
society in counter-
PALESTINIANS
CALL
MORE THAN
ing an absolutist,
SENT ISRAEL AN
murderous oppo-
MISSILE
ANO
100
INVITATION TO
nent. The only per-
ATTACKS
REENTER GAZA?
son capable of such
IN LESS THAN A
statements is one
who rejects Israel's
right to exist or
totally fails to com-
prehend the nature
and goals of the
enemy.
And when mem-
bers of his own
www.drybonesproject.com
police force mistak-
enly gunned down a
where, followed by the violence they
Brazilian man in an Underground
had forcefully advocated, seem to bear
subway station, Livingstone had noth-
him out.
ing to say about "atrocities."
The people of London may have to
Daniel Pipes, one of the world's
endure more of this terror, and, in
most astute analysts of radical Islam,
time, almost inevitably, it will come
said a few years ago that its ultimate
here, too. Strong leadership is a pre-
goal was not driving troops out of
requisite in times like these.
Iraq nor even extinguishing Israel. It
The mayor of London, his finger
was the Islamization of Europe.
pointing in the wrong direction, has
Pipes was ridiculed then as an over-
failed abysmally on that score. Let us
wrought alarmist. But the words of the
hope our leaders are wiser and better
extremist imams in England and else-
than that.
N
I
MORTER
WEEK?
❑
joke because you can't remember the
punch line? D) Go back to eating
your ice cream cone?
You are in a right turn only lane on
Orchard Lake Road when it suddenly
occurs to you that you do not wish to
turn right. Should you A) Beat the car
next to you across the intersection? B)
Turn right anyhow because it might
lead to an adventure? C) Remain at a
complete stop, holding up all the cars
behind you, until the traffic clears? D)
Roll down your window and yell
yoo-hoo" while waving a newspaper
at the driver beside you?
These are the things you encounter
every day, and judging from what I
see on the road, the right answers
elude many people.
The actual time spent at the branch
office counter when I finally reached
it was 90 seconds. The clerk said she
couldn't tell me why my PIN hadn't
worked. I don't think she cared,
either.
I drove home carefully and then
took to bed with vinegar compresses
on my forehead.
"
❑