Archive
Iranian parliament speaker urges government to continue uranium enrichment
(WJC)–Ali Larijani, the speaker of the Mahlis, the Iranian parliament, has called on Iran’s government to forge ahead with its controversial program to enrich uranium to 20 percent, in spite of the latest round of UN sanctions against the country. “The Iranian parliament demands that the government continue to produce 20-percent enriched uranium and not stop it at all as some countries have not adhered to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and did not provide fuel for the Tehran research reactor,” Larijani told the Mahlis.
“The bullying countries must understand that their illogical pressure will be proportionately reciprocated by the level of our uranium enrichment which would depend on our needs,” he was quoted as saying on parliament’s website.
Lawmakers chanted “Allahu Akbar” (God is great) in the assembly as Larijani made his statement on the issue, the Iranian news agency ISNA reported. Uranium enriched to 20 percent level can be used as fuel to power nuclear reactors but if refined to more than 90 percent level it can be used to make the fissile core of an atom bomb.
Larijani, until two years ago Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, also dismissed the new sanctions and warned the West against searching Iranian ships and planes as specified in the latest punitive measures. “I am warning the adventurous America and other countries that in case they are tempted to inspect the cargo of Iranian ships and planes, they should rest assured that we will do the same with their ships in the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman,” the speaker said.
“This retaliation is part of defending our national interests,” he said amid chants of “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”. Around 40 percent of world oil supplies pass through the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.
The UN sanctions authorize states to conduct high-sea inspections of vessels believed to be ferrying banned items to or from Iran. They also provide for cargo inspections, either in any port or at sea, if there is reason to suspect a ship is carrying conventional arms or nuclear missile items for Iran. The sanctions resolution obligates states to seize and dispose of any prohibited items that are found in such cargo.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration welcomed plans by the European Union to implement strong measures against Iran. However, it also reaffirmed its commitment to engage Iran in diplomatic talks. “Resolution 1929 [of the UN Security Council] keeps the door open for continued engagement between the P-5+1 [Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States plus Germany] and Iran, as well as other differences between us. We hope the Security Council’s adoption of this resolution will affect Iran’s strategic calculus and cause the nation to take a more constructive course,” a State Department spokesman said.
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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress.
Planned Bollywood movie ‘Dear Friend Hitler’ angers Indian Jews
(WJC)–Plans by filmmakers in India to make a film on Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler that will claim that the despot loved
India and that he indirectly contributed to its independence have outraged members of the Jewish community. “I am a proud Indian and assert my Indian identity everywhere I go in Israel. I tell fellow Israelis that in my birthplace there was no anti-Semitism. However, I am having to bow my head in shame at this recent ignorance shown by Bollywood, which is also very dear to us,” Noah Massil, president of the Central Organization of Indian Jews in Israel (COIJI), was quoted in the media as saying.
“All I know is that Hitler never supported India’s independence. I will write to President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to intervene in order to prevent bringing disrepute to our entertainment industry,” said Massil. He was born in India but later migrated to Israel.
The film ‘Dear Friend Hitler’ is due to be released at the end of the year. Its director Rakesh Ranjan Kumar has claimed it will show “Hitler’s love for India and how he indirectly contributed to Indian independence.”
Some Israelis also expressed dismay at the decision by veteran actor Anupam Kherto (above, on the right) to star in the role of Hitler in the film. The film is said to look at Hitler’s personality, including his relationship with Eva Braun, to be played by Bollywood actress Neha Dhupia (pictured above left). It is said to closely resemble the 2004 German film ‘The Downfall’, which also enacted Hitler’s last days in his Berlin bunker in April 1945.
The film’s title is a reference to the two letters written by Mahatma Gandhi to Hitler before World War II broke out in which he referred the Nazi dictator as “my dear friend”, before pleading that he avoid starting a war.
Bollywood – India’s film industry – has recently moved into more realistic, hard-hitting subjects such as terrorism, internet privacy and physical disability, but with limited success.
In 2006, a Nazi-themed restaurant called ‘Hitler’s Cross’ opened in Mumbai, but was soon closed after protests by Jews in India and abroad.
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Preceding provided by World JewishCongress.
UN Human Rights Council condemns Iran for 2009 clampdown on protestors
(WJC)–Iran has been condemned by the United Nations Human Rights Council for its violent crackdown on unrest after the 2009 presidential election. Fifty-six countries endorsed a US-sposored statement voicing concern at Iran’s arrests and executions of dissidents and calling on Tehran to uphold fundamental freedoms of expression, media and assembly.
“We were able to garner broad cross-regional support for this initiative, from all regions of the world, at a very crucial juncture for the people of Iran,” US Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe told reporters. She added: “The brutality and violence committed by the Iranian regime against human rights defenders and peaceful protesters is sickening,” she said.
The United States joined the Human Rights Council for the first time last year. “US leadership at the Human Rights Council matters. Without US engagement here, we leave a vacuum of leadership which will get filled by the priorities of others,” she said.
Pakistan, speaking for the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), as well as African and non-aligned countries, backed Iran in the debate. The objection was to Iran’s record, a “country-specific situation,” being addressed under an agenda item on a landmark human rights meeting held in Vienna in 1993.
The United States and Norway had heavily lobbied countries to endorse the statement, saying the one-year anniversary of the violent protests should be marked. The text voices concern at “events including the violent suppression of dissent, detention and executions without due process of law, severe discrimination against women and minorities including people of the Baha’i faith and restrictions on freedom of expression and religion.”
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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress.
‘Harvey’ still a great American classic
David Cochran as Elwood Doud (photo Daren Scott)
By Carol Davis
Carol Davis
CORONADO, California–Lamb’s Players Theatre is mounting a charming, sometimes zany but solid production of Mary Chase’s Harvey. You remember Harvey; he’s the invisible six foot three and a half inch tall white rabbit or pooka no on can see except the loveably eccentric Elwood P. Dowd (David Cochran Heath). Dowd’s sister Veta Louise Simmons (Kerry Meads) wants him committed because well…she thinks he a bit off center to put it mildly.
Now if Dowd is eccentric (his sister Veta thinks Elwood should be committed to the local sanitarium because of his habits, like talking to a rabbit, hanging out at the local bars, making friends with everyone he meets, giving them his phone number and inviting them to his house), one might want to compare his actions to those around him.
After sitting through the play, some might leave the theatre wondering whose in charge of the inmates since the rest of the good folks in Elwood’s world and those he encounters are as crazy as loons.
Harvey was mounted on Broadway in 1944. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama that year. It ran for 1,775 performances. In 1950 the play was adapted to film starring James Stewart. Later, over the years it became one of Stewart’s best-loved and remembered films. The film version is so delightful one almost has to put that vision aside when watching the stage play with anyone else as Dowd. In the hearts and minds of most, Stewart is the quintessential Elwood P. Dowd.
David Cochran Heath fills the bill as the kind of Harvey we picture. He is gentle, soft-spoken, clueless and at peace with himself. He is open to all sorts of adventures and carries a perpetual smile on his face. He gives his personal cards out with abandon (”Here, let me give you one of my cards. Now if you should ever want to call me, call me at this number. Don’t call me at that one, that’s the old one”), and he doesn’t go anywhere without Harvey.
Cochran Heath has been with Lamb’s since 1981 performing in well over 100 roles and has a repertoire as diverse as Lincoln in The Rivalry (last seen) to G.S, Sullivan in Tarantara! Tarantana to Horace Vandergelder in Hello Dolly playing against Kerry Meads. Once again, he doesn’t disappoint.
At a first glance one might imagine Harvey et al. to be in a time warp. The setting is 1952. Jeanne Reith’s period costumes (remember the starchy white nurses uniforms?) are just right on target and fitting for each character. Mike Buckley’s clever three paneled revolving set looks like a stuffy sitting room with fussy details by Michael McKeon (properties) until it rotates into the office of the sanitarium which looks truly dated. Yet even set in this time period, the message is universal no matter the date on the calendar.
Simply put, “who is more dangerous to society: the easygoing dreamer with a vivid imagination or the people who want to conform him/her to the accepted form of reality”? In the simplicity of its message a multitude of contradictions, complications and challenges rage on. That’s for another play, though. Director Robert Smith zeroes in on the comedy side of the story, leaving the audience to ponder the what if’s.
The most profound line in the play is uttered by Dowd, when the good doctor suggests that he (Dowd) might find it easier to conform …(“I’ve wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I’m happy to state I finally won out over it”) Who’s to say what someone else’s reality is?
Speaking on behalf of someone else’s reality we daren’t ignore Veta. Veta is sure that if her brother is committed, her life and the life of her socially challenged daughter, Myrtle Mae will improve ten fold. She’s convinced that Myrtle Mae will meet just the right man after Elwood is out of the picture.
Unfortunately for Veta, she is so emotionally involved in trying to cover Elwood’s tracks that she gets sucked into what he’s doing and weaves a no exit trap for herself. By the time she goes to the sanitarium to plead her case against Elwood, she’s ends up being a perfect candidate for Dr. Chumley’s (John Rosen) rest sanitarium and a few Freudian like couches along the way.
Kerry Meads is a little too over the top as Veta especially in Act I. She’s funny but the awkward way she walks and tosses her hands around is distracting. Her misadventures along the way to finally accepting her brother are funny enough without over exaggerating every gesture. She fares better in Act II, settling down and is just plain fun to watch as she comes full circle in accepting her brother’s ways.
Fine support comes from Carly Nykanen’s oddball Myrtle Mae, Glynn Bedington’ s Mrs. Chauvenet, their high society family friend, Lance Arthur Smith and Kelli Kelley as Dr. Sanderson and nurse Kelly, Jim Chovick as Judge Omar Gaffney, long time personal friend to both Elwood and Veta and Cynthia Gerber as Dr. Chumley’s wife.
We don’t often get to see little treasures like Harvey. For San Diegans, this is worth a trip over the bridge to Coronado.
See you at the theatre.
Dates: June 4th –July 25th
Organization: Lamb’s Players Theatre
Phone: 619-437-6000
Production Type: Comedy
Where: 1142 Orange Avenue, Coronado, California
Ticket Prices: $28.00-858.00
Web: lambsplayerstheatre.org
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Theatre critic Davis is based in San Diego
Sanford Lakoff to teach course on Israel
SAN DIEGO (Press Release)–The Agency for Jewish Education continues its summer class offerings with Professor Sanford Lakoff of UCSD. Lakoff will teach a 5 week class beginning on July 8th on “Israel: A condensed history of its origins and challenges.”
This course aims to present a concise history of the origins and development of the State of Israel, with an emphasis on its struggle for survival in a hostile region. It will begin with an examination of the roots of Zionism in the ethno-religious longing for an end to exile and the secular need for a national homeland in the face of persecution and rejection in Europe. It will then examine the period of early settlement, culminating in the Balfour Declaration and the British mandate; the period of state building and defense that followed the UN partition resolution of 1947; and, in the final two meetings, the challenges from Arab nationalism and Islamist radicalism, the successes and failures of the peace process, and the threat posed by Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran as a potential nuclear power.
This class meets at Congregatio Beth Israel in the morning and at the JCC in the evening. Tuition is $80. For more information or to register, contact the Agency for Jewish Education, (858) 268-9200 ext.102 or visit www.ajesd.org.
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Preceding provided by Agency for Jewish Education
Chavez fosters anti-Semitism in Venezuela
NEW YORK (Press Release)–Acerbic and hate-filled statements by President Hugo Chavez and other Venezuelan government leaders are once again contributing to a climate of rising anti-Semitism in Venezuela, where extreme criticism of Israel “continues to be used as a political tool.”
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), recent statements from Chavez and others in the government fit into a pattern of extreme anti-Israel rhetoric from Venezuela’s current leaders. In the aftermath of the Gaza flotilla affair, President Chavez cursed Israel as a “terrorist state” and an enemy of the Venezuelan revolution and claimed Israel’s Mossad spy agency was trying to assassinate him.
“Extreme criticism and the de-legitimization of Israel continue to be used by the government of Venezuela as a political tool,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. “The atmosphere of extreme anti-Israel criticism and an unsettling focus on the Venezuelan Jewish community’s attitudes creates an environment for anti-Semitism to grow and flourish. So far this hasn’t translated into attacks against individual Jews or Jewish institutions. However, we cannot forget that the Jewish community in Venezuela has already witnessed violent anti-Semitic incidents in the past few years.”
In a new online report, the League documents recent anti-Semitic expressions in Venezuela in the aftermath of the Gaza flotilla incident, including those of government and political leaders, conspiracy theories and accusations in the government-run media, and statements on various anti-Israel Web sites.
In a June 12 interview with the government-owned national television network, Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro was asked about Hezbollah’s alleged presence in Venezuela and the threat of an attack on the Jewish community. He suggested that should a terrorist attack be carried out on Venezuelan soil, a likely culprit would be the “intelligence assassin apparatus of the State of Israel,” the Mossad.
Vilification of Zionism is particularly present in the government-run media and the so-called “alternative” media run by government sympathizers who are intricately intertwined with the government apparatus, according to ADL. Media and political leaders seem to take their cues from Chavez, who has in the past few years made his feelings about Israel all-too clear.
“While Chavez tries to inoculate himself against charges of anti-Semitism by issuing assurances that he is not against Jews, he and his government hold the Jewish community to account for their positions on Israel,” said Mr. Foxman. “Chavez has called on Venezuelan Jews to speak out against Israel, and this has put the community in a difficult position where their loyalty to their country is being called into question.”
The League’s report includes examples of cartoons and images from anti-Israel rallies, as well as excerpts of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements from the Web site Aporrea.org, whose founder and webmaster until February 2009 was Martin Sanchez, the Venezuelan Consul General of San Francisco. Aporrea is a forum for anti-Semitic sentiments filled with stereotypes of Jews reminiscent of the fictional “Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.”
Editors Note: The full report, including visuals, is available on the League’s Web site .
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Preceding provided by the Anti-Defamation League
Republican Jewish Coalition enumerates its policy positions
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Press Release) — Through an extensive and comprehensive process undertaken by a committee of the Republican Jewish Coalition’s Board of Directors, the RJC has streamlined its policy platform into a broad and basic statement of the principles that define what the organization stands for.
The committee was chaired by Marc Goldman and included Wayne Berman, Josh Bolten, Norm Coleman, Ari Fleischer, David Frum, Shelly Kamins, and Mark Lezell.
National Security – the first responsibility of government
Without national security, every other debate is meaningless. Once freedom and democracy are gone, you have lost your vote – for/against abortion, for/against taxes, for/against healthcare, or any other topic.
America is the only democracy powerful enough to overcome the evil, enslavement and human rights abuses fostered by dictators, autocrats and other repressive regimes. Only America can and must lead the world in standing for the cause of freedom and democracy. The likely outcome of an America not intervening would be darkness overcoming light. Keeping the world free and safe for democracy is critical to our ability to be free citizens of our own country.
Imagine a world without American strength – what would it be? All of Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa could be under Nazi or Communist rule. America would be alone and the rest of the world would be in darkness.
It’s not enough to have a strong military to protect our own borders; our national security also relies on us actively combating the forces of evil in the world.
Small Government
The tendency of every organization is to grow. Government is no exception. Our founding fathers brilliantly balanced federal, state and individual powers, rights and responsibilities.
This balance has become distorted as unrestrained government growth increasingly defines for us what life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness means. This distortion threatens our freedom and upsets the delicate balance of our founding fathers’ principles.
Economic Policy
We strongly support a low tax, free enterprise, competitive economic system that has proven over time to make America the most powerful, richest and freest nation ever in the history of the world. Individuals are both entitled and better qualified to decide what to do with their money than the government.
In order for an economy to stay vigorous, thrive and provide the greatest opportunities for the greatest number of people, taxes, government debt levels and regulation must be minimized.
High taxes discourage the risk taking behavior that creates the new enterprises and the new technology that keep America at the competitive and economic forefront. Excessive government debt ultimately impoverishes the nation: it distorts monetary values, diminishes foreign policy freedom and crowds out private borrowing. Overly stringent regulation is a barrier for start up businesses and an impediment to expansion for existing businesses.
Policies RJC Vigorously Supports
1) Israel
We fully embrace a pro-Israel foreign policy. The RJC is a Jewish organization; we recognize and support the importance of Israel as a Jewish state to Jews and non-Jews worldwide.
As the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel shares our values and is a bulwark against the forces of repression and anti-human rights regimes. It is our obligation to ally with other nations who share our fundamental values – there are few enough of them – especially those who are willing to stand up and fight for those values. Israel is our only ally that has never asked for American blood to be shed in her defense.
2) Freedom from Oil Dependence
The RJC supports immediate implementation of government policies to eliminate oil dependence.
At the present time, oil is the lifeblood of transportation; therefore, the entire economy, military movements, shipments of food and all other goods are dependent on oil. Unfortunately, the majority of oil is under the control of dictatorships, monarchies and other repressive regimes, seemingly intent on destroying Western civilization. We must not allow this circumstance to continue. We strongly encourage the US government to immediately enact policies in order to eliminate oil dependency.
3) RJC Position on Social Issues – a nation divided
Social issues such as abortion, gay rights, gun control, global warming and others are topics that generate strong emotions on all sides. The RJC membership and Board of Directors are as divided as the rest of America on these issues. The RJC recognizes that many good people hold opposing views on these matters and we respect the differences of opinion among our membership. Despite those differences, we are united on the issues of national security, small government and economic policy because they provide the foundation of freedom that allows those debates to continue.
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Preceding provided by Republican Jewish Coalition
San Diego’s historic places: Lake Murray
Gayle Havens and Karen Ivach sit at a Lake Murray picnic bench. Cowles Mountain is in the background
By Donald H. Harrison
Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO–The 198-acre Lake Murray reservoir is a magnet for humans, animals and plants of all sorts. With a few notable exceptions, all are welcome, say reservoir keeper Gayle Havens and Friends of Lake Murray founder Barbara Cleves Anderson.
Since 1895, when the now-submerged, earthen La Mesa Dam was built on a small creek running through Alvarado Canyon, the lake has served principally as a fresh water reservoir, meeting the needs of a San Diego population that has never stopped growing.
After San Diego’s great floods of 1916, an enlarged reservoir was needed, so under the direction of James Murray, a Montana engineer after whom the lake was named, a new concrete dam 117 feet tall and 870 feet wide was constructed downstream of the La Mesa Dam by the Cuyamaca Water Company. Murray and Col. Ed Fletcher, for whom Fletcher Hills in nearby El Cajon is named, operated the dam until 1926, when they sold it to a forerunner company of today’s Helix Water District. Thirty five years later, in 1961, the dam and reservoir were transferred to the City of San Diego.
Able today to hold 4,818 acre feet of water, the lake is the last stop for fresh water coming from the California Water Project and the Colorado River before it goes through the adjacent Alvarado Filtration Plant and then is sent on its way to approximately 400,000 users within the City of San Diego. The city operates two other major filtration facilities at Miramar Lake and Otay Lake.
In the past, the Alvarado filtration plant with its Spanish colonial-style belltower building was available for sightseeing, but not since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when it was realized that systems controlling water supplies might also become targets. Both for reasons of security and for the safety of recreational users who might bump each other on the narrow passageway over the dam, a lakeside path that stretches 3.23 miles from the main entrance on Kiowa Street stops short of the filtration plant. One cannot walk all the way around the lake, but instead must retrace one’s steps.
Such inconvenience does not deter the lake’s recreational users, who include in ever increasing numbers boaters, anglers, bird watchers, joggers, bikers, walkers, picnickers, photographers and even participants in the annual Jewish observance of Tashlich, when as part of the Jewish New Year, sins are symbolically transferred to pieces of bread and are cast upon the waters — much to the delight of the ducks and other water fowl.
Some weekend days between 1,000 and 2,000 people might use the lake in one capacity or another, reports Havens. Except for vandals, believed to be teenagers who sneak into the park sometime between nightfall and the early morning hours and leave graffiti, attempt to steal or joyride in boats at their dock, and otherwise act immaturely, all lake users are desired patrons of the free facility.
Walking around the lake, one might see such terrestrial animals as rabbits, squirrels, lizards, rats, gophers, mice, and occasionally, in the area closest to the gated-off filtration plant, fox, coyotes and bobcat, according to Cleves Anderson, an enthusiastic animal watcher who generally goes on her lake runs in the early morning hours.
Fish in the lake include large mouth bass, bluegill, catfish, crappies, carp and rainbow trout, according to reservoir keeper Havens. Typically, large mouth bass will run in the six-pound range, but in the year 2000, one weighing 18 1/2 pounds surprised everyone, especially the fisherman who caught it from a float tube. It not only set the lake’s record, but the national record for the year 2000, Havens said.
The water fowl and arboreal bird population is ever changing as the lake is a stop on the Pacific Flyway. Ducks, coots, egrets and herons are commonplace, and recently two osprey have also made their home at the lake. Cleves Anderson says she is hoping the osprey are a breeding pair, but so far there is no evidence that they are. Ravens, blackbirds, sparrows, and other species common to San Diego County also are here in abundance. Sometimes pigeons and seagulls come too, looking for a handout.
An unwanted animal at Lake Murray, which has made its home there anyway, is the quagga mussel, a kind of fresh water clam that makes rabbits seem like reluctant breeders. No bigger than a 25-cent piece when grown, their spawn are tiny, no larger than a flea, but forming gritty colonies, they clog up pipes and screens, and rob the water of nutrients needed by indigenous species.
Thus, Lake Murray and other lakes in Southern California are wary of boats that have recently been in other fresh water lakes — the quagga mussels may have hitched a ride there. While some larger lakes with greater boating populations have thorough-going inspection programs, for now at least Lake Murray has simply posted a warning sign at its boat ramp.
While the matter is not now considered at a critical level, no one wants to see the lake suffer from an infestation as it did in the late 1970s when fast growing hydrilla choked off oxygen supplies in the water and threatened the natural ecology. To beat back the hydrilla, the lake had to be closed, its water levels lowered and an extensive eradication program undertaken. Eventually the “killa hydrilla” was eliminated.
Havens said that the small fleet of 35 boats and five kayaks at Lake Murray will be transferred to other lakes in San Diego because they generate insufficient revenue to compensate for the cost of keeping them available. That is but one effect of San Diego’s fiscal crisis: in another instance when a roadway was seen beginning to crack because of spreading root systems, city officials elected to remove nearby eucalyptus trees and reduce them to mulch rather than to pay the greater cost of repairing the pathway. Safety of the park’s user was a key factor in that decision.
Lake Murray is a part of the Mission Trails Regional Park. The highest point in the City of San Diego, 1592-foot Cowles Mountain, reflects in the lake, which is surrounded by homes located in the San Diego and Del Cerro sections of San Diego, and the suburban City of La Mesa. To make certain that pollutants from the sewers, automobiles and trash from these residential neighborhoods don’t run into the lake and foul the water supply, Lake Murray is surrounded by miles of diversion ditches.
Havens and such assistants as Karen Ivach, a Lake Aide II, keep the diversion ditches clear of debris and alert vector control when more mosquito fish are needed to prevent them from becoming breeding areas. Besides by runoff, the lake can be fouled by animal feces, one of the principal reasons owners are required to keep their dogs on a leash and to carry “mutt mittens” with them.
Havens and Ivach are both dog owners who sympathize with those who would like their pets to run free. However, they say they take their own dogs to places like Dog Beach and the dog run at Balboa Park, where off-leash activities are provided for. At the lake, unleashed dogs might come into conflicts with bikers, roller bladers or even other dogs, they note.
Cleves Anderson recommends that users of the lake become familiar with the names of its five fingers in the event that there is an accident or someone becomes ill. Telling a 9-11 dispatcher that “I’m just around the big bend” doesn’t help them direct EMT workers to the right place.
If you think of the dam and filtration plant as the wrist of a hand, says Cleves Anderson, then the first finger is Alvarado Bay, between the filtration plant and the main parking lot of Lake Murray. Here on Sundays fly fishermen teach children about casting. Here too, unfortunately, pet geese and other animals sometimes are abandoned by people, adding to the park’s wildlife population. Some people make it a habit to feed these birds, a humane yet controversial sentiment. Feeding the animals, instead of letting them forage for themselves, leads to burgeoning populations and possible changes in the overall ecology.
The second finger of the lake, near Baltimore Drive, is Padre Bay, where volunteers for “I Love a Clean San Diego” always seem to have their work cut out for them. The carp seem to love this part of the lake, attracting not only fishermen but also the great blue heron, attracted to those places where the fishing is easiest.
The third finger of the lake is San Carlos Bay, where, according to Cleves Anderson, a colony of turtles has taken up residence. “I also saw a raccoon family there” and this bay is where the osprey live. On one occasion, the osprey made the mistake of building their nests near a power line, and one morning “the branch was crackling and sparking, and it caught on fire.” San Diego Gas & Electric cleared the line, later building a more suitable nesting area nearby for the osprey, she recalled.
Cowles Bay, which is the where the lake comes closest to Cowles Mountain, seems to be the favorite haunt of red-wing blackbirds, who lift from the lake around daybreak, creating a big cloud. Further along this fourth finger of the lake one can sometimes find barn owls in nests near the baseball fields.
The fifth finger of the lake is Del Cerro Bay, which is where Cleves Anderson said she has spotted coyotes, bobcats, and sometimes fox.
Cleves Anderson is both a runner and a bird watcher. Approximately around 1988, the city began fencing off the lake to protect the fresh water supply. She organized a petition drive demanding that the fences come down, and gathered 3,500 signatures, persuading the city that “we need more parks, not less.” That was the beginning of Friends of Lake Murray, a group which has no formal charter but typically draws beetween 30 and 60 people to its meetings, at which people involved in the welfare of the lake and environs often are featured speakers.
Every September, Cleves Anderson said, with September 25, 2010, already set aside is the “I Love a Clean San Diego” day at Lake Murray. Last year, 190 volunteers hauled out trash.
Havens used to work as a private landscaper, but as a single mom, she decided it would be prudent to take a job with a regular paycheck. She has now been at the lake for nearly 15 years, rising from Lake Aide I, to Lake Aide II, to Assistant Reservoir Keeper, to Reservoir Keeper. She noted that many groups have made her job easier by dedicating themselves to improvement projects of the beloved lake, These include the local Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs, church groups, and the Scouts, she said.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. This article ran previously on examiner.com
Professor says ‘Zionism’ often mislabeled in debates
HAIFA (Press Release)–“Zionism has one meaning: The establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, with an emphasis on the establishment of a state,” said renowned Israeli author Prof. A. B. Yehoshua at a conference at the University of Haifa that discussed “What is Zionism in the 21st Century?”.
Prof. Yehoshua opened his talk with criticism of current public discourse: “Zionism has become like ketchup – spread on everything. If you pull down strongholds – you’ve betrayed Zionism; if you’ve harmed Palestinians – you’ve betrayed Zionism. These are all important matters, but have nothing to do with the concept of Zionism. As soon as we blur the concept, we shoot ourselves in the foot and turn Zionism into a slingshot being thrown between political camps,” he said.
Zionism at its outset was a platform for different and sometimes conflicting world-views, he explained, and as it is not one particular world-view it cannot be considered an ideology. “Zionism was the remedy for one ailment: the Diaspora; the Jewish people cleaving to other peoples. The meaning of Zionism is our becoming normal, letting go of the Diaspora disease.”
Prof. Yehoshua added that since the State of Israel was established, the only expression of Zionism has been in the Law of Return: Anyone agreeing with it is Zionist, and anyone opposing it is not. “The U.N. did not grant a state to the 600,000 Jews living in the country in 1948, but to the entire Jewish people. Therefore, the Law of Return is an integral part of the Mandate given to us with the establishment of the state. As such, it is an ethical law and no one can say today that it can or ought to be done away with,” he added.
During the talk, Prof. Yehoshua also related to the tension between Israel and the Diaspora, claiming that Israel is the only place in the world where Judaism is total and not partial. “Zionism created the only place in the world where Jews govern Jews, and therefore every decision that we make and our every act are part of our total Jewish identity.”
He concluded with a vision for the future that seems quite realistic: “Even when human colonies will be living in space, there will be Jews amongst them; and they too will pray for ‘Next year in Jerusalem’; a Jewish Agency emissary will be sent to them, and he too will probably stay there after,” he concluded.
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Preceding provided by the University of Haifa
sdjewishworld 