ModernGnosis.org

Everyone knows that Hamas uses children and other innocent civilians as human shields – trying to put them into harm’s way so any attempt by Israel to stop attacks against THEIR civilians also kills innocent Palestinian civilians. All the posters around schools and holy sites in Palestine are blood-curdling…praising “martyrdom”. They’ve even gone so far as to take pictures of Israelis who have been killed by Palestinians and release them to the press and claim they are Palestinians who have been killed by Israelis.

But, here is an article I think you should read. It is about a Muslim who is sick of Hamas and what it is doing to the Palestinian people.

Some great quotes: “To Hamas, a Palestinian life is worth more when “martyred,” a dead child more of a blessing than one living. “The children of the kindergarten are the shaheeds [martyrs] of tomorrow,” reads a sign displayed at a Hamas-run kindergarten. The martyrdom mantra is their anthem.”

“Coloring their fascism with Islam, Hamas claims religious legitimacy to openly seek destruction of the Jewish state and eradication of the Jewish people. By grafting themselves onto Into Islamic ideals – the vertebral column of that which is most sacred to Muslims – they render Islam itself heinous, representing their true ruthlessness: theirs is a willingness to sacrifice anything –including Islam – to portray Israel as evil.”

“We must ask ourselves the difficult questions. Does Hamas, who prostitute their progeny in the service of terror, represent Islam? Is Hamas emulating our Prophet as they rain rockets on unarmed, civilian, non-combatants? Do their Fajr missiles, named after Muslim prayers no less, encompass the spirit of Islam as was revealed to its followers? Do Hamas’ stated goals – including elimination of Israel – represent coexistence with the People of the Book, who are cherished in the Quran as dear to God and their Messenger, Moses, particularly admired by our Maker for his courage in the face of fear?”

It’s easy to think, given the US press, that all of Islam supports the acts of the terrorists. But, it’s great to see articles like this one, the one by Turkish TV personality Ceylan Ozbudak, and the one by the Israeli Arab Boshra Khalaila. These are three courageous women who remind us that true Islam does not support terrorism, putting children into harm’s way, etc.

I’m going to keep this brief. A lot has been said about this tragedy and nothing I can say will do justice to what has happened. I will keep my comments to a few points.

1. This was not a mental health issue. Yes, the shooter was mentally ill. No sane person becomes a shooter. No sane person goes out with the intention of hurting others. The issue wasn’t that this person was mentally ill, but that this mentally ill person had easy access to firearms. Many countries deal with mental illness. We are the only industrialized Western country that deals with mass shooting after mass shooting. In China on the same day, a mentally ill person went into a school there to harm others. Because he only had a knife and not a gun, the situation turned out very differently. Just as many attacked, but they get to go home and be with their families. Sure, we can look back on the situation and say the killer exhibited “warning signs”. But, how many people exhibit those warning signs and don’t go out and commit mass murder? Hindsight is 20/20.

2. We will not make the situation better by giving more people guns. Ft. Hood was a military base with plenty of guns. Columbine had an armed guard. Virginia Tech had a police department. The problem wasn’t that good people didn’t have guns. The problem was that a single bad person did. People feel they need a gun to protect themselves because the people they need to protect themselves from have guns. Guns get stolen and then more criminals have guns. So, more people feel the need to buy guns to protect themselves. This creates a vicious cycle where everyone – good or bad, is armed to the teeth.

3. In order to remedy the situation and decrease gun violence, we are going to have to decrease the availability of guns. We are the only Western industrialized country that has not done this and the only one that suffers so often from this problem. It is NOT that our country is more violent than all the other Western countries. It is the fact that a person with a gun sees a need for that gun – he responds differently to stimuli and sees threats requiring a gun whereas a person without a gun is less likely to do so. A gun changes a person.

I hope that, as a country, we can rise up to meet this challenge and honor the lives of those who were senselessly gunned down in this tragedy.

A final word: I have not said the shooter’s name. As I sat in synagogue Saturday morning, we heard the names of those who died in this tragedy read aloud. All the victims’ names rang out. The shooter’s did not. I’m sure the same thing happened in synagogue after synagogue across the world. That is a difference between Judaism and Christianity. Christianity sees the shooter as the victim of sin. He did a horrible deed, but he was also a victim. In Judaism, we see every person as being responsible for their actions. He was an evil man. He CHOSE to be an evil man. His name should be blotted out from among the living. I agree.

I got the $100 PC and, not long after, discovered the all-in-ones with touchscreens. I fell in love with them, sold my PC and I now have a nice Gateway on the way: 3.3 GHz core i3, 1 TB hard drive, 23 inch touchscreen, 6 GB RAM etc.

So, as soon as I get that and get it set up, I should be back to normal on here.

Many of you that know me know that I have a 24 inch imac. It was bought in 2006 and served me well. However, there are a few factors that have me going back to Linux – which I ran for about 10-12 years before switching to Mac in 2006.

1. The graphics card is overheating again. It was replaced once at the very end of the warranty period. It’s now doing it again. This left me with a predicament: spend $800 to get Apple to replace it once again (we’ll call this one the crazy option), spend $400-$500 for a replacement iMac (I don’t like the newer ones, so I’d end up getting the same year and, possibly, running into the same problem), but, the third option was the clencher: I found a PC that had a 50% faster CPU, same hard drive, same RAM, etc. for $100. Given the fact a. it’s 50% faster and b. I can plug in my iMac hard drive and RAM, doubling both from what I have now, it was a no-brainer.

2. My DVD writer has been acting up for a couple of years. Given as it’s an iMac, I didn’t feel comfortable delving into the innards of the machine to replace it. That brings us to another benefit of PCs – I can work on them myself. I can upgrade, replace, etc. without having someone else do it for me…which means the machine can actually get upgraded.

3. I don’t like the direction OS X is heading in. It seems like they want to turn your desktop into a tablet. Those are, and should be, two very different beasts. I want my desktop to focus on giving me a good desktop experience – not mimicking my iPhone or an iPad.

So, my $100 PC is on the way and I’m looking forward to the experience. Yes, I could have bought a $1,000 gaming system tricked out with all the extras, but you know what? I don’t own a single game. I don’t play games. I surf the internet, I do videos, I watch videos/movies/etc. and organize myself. You don’t need an expensive machine to do what I do – especially with Linux. In addition, this machine is a feeler. At a later date, I can get a better PC…..go back to Mac…etc. I don’t feel tied down because I’ve sunk a lot of money into a machine.

So, I’m in the process of getting all my data out of OS X and getting it ready to transport it to Linux. It should be an interesting time!

The 9th day of Av is traditionally a day of mourning in the Jewish faith. I will not mourn for the birth of modern Judaism. I have no desire to return to the days of animal sacrifice as some of our Orthodox brethren do. Without the destruction of the temple, Judaism as we know it would not exist.

I do, however, mourn the loss of life. I mourn the loss of life when the second temple was destroyed. I mourn the loss of life in the Holocaust. I also mourn the senseless killings at the Batman movie. What does the last one have to do with anything? It is a senseless killing that should touch us all. I just now saw word that a woman who lost her six year old daughter in the shooting has now suffered a miscarriage.

The world is not a perfect place. People sometimes choose evil with devastating consequences. It is my hope, and it is only a hope, that as the years go by, people choose good more often than they choose evil. It is useless to ask where God is when these tragedies strike. God had nothing to do with them. He gave humans free will and humans are free to choose evil. My heart goes out to those affected by that evil.