A tale of two headlines

Something happened this morning.  I just can't nail down the details.

I'd noticed a few stories over the last week about the flotilla heading to Gaza to deliver aid and supplies to an area that has been blockaded for the last several years.  I saw one website report that the flotilla was going to stay in international waters for the time being, to avoid a nighttime confrontation with the Israeli Navy.  When I woke up today, I saw headlines all over that there had been an attack, and that there were civilian casualties.  The reports ranged from 2 dead to ten times that number, and it seemed that no two sources agreed on whether the civilians were armed and whether they were aggressive.

Here's the opening paragraph in the New York Times article about the incident:"Israel faced intense international condemnation and growing domestic questions on Monday after a raid by naval commandos that killed nine people, many of them Turks, on an aid flotilla bound for Gaza."

That seems to sum it up well.  Then I read the The Guardian's take:
"Israel was engulfed by a wave of global condemnation last night after a botched assault on a flotilla carrying aid and supplies to the Gaza Strip ended in carnage and a diplomatic crisis involving the UN security council.

"A raid" is something that, at least to my mind, the police or elite soldiers carry out.  An "assault" is something that is equally appropriate for gang violence as military action.  Also, the "raid" in the Times' article "killed nine people."  In the Guardians' take, the opening paragraph leaves out the precise body count, instead saying that it "ended in carnage and a diplomatic crisis."

As interesting as it was to try discerning a sense of condemnation in one that wasn't present in the other, they were both reporting the same incident.  After reading an article on the Jerusalem Post's website, I was certain there had been another naval confrontation that I'd missed.  Their lead:

"Obviously, many of those in the “Freedom Flotilla” were not engaged in a humanitarian mission. Had that been their prime motivation, they would have accepted Israel’s offer to escort them to Ashdod Port and arrange for the delivery of their supplies to Gaza, after security checks, over land. They also would have agreed without hesitation to convey a package from the family of the Israeli soldier held hostage by Hamas for almost four years in Gaza, Gilad Schalit."

The words "international waters" do not appear even once in the article.  Neither does the civilian death toll.  Of course, it's not entirely fair to compare this article to the other two.  The first two were front page stories and this is in opinion piece.  There are two top stories on the Post's website as of this evening.  One is about Turkey's reaction.  The other: Zero housing starts in W. Bank.

It's too early for judgment.  But it's not too early to start judging the enormous discrepancies between the Israeli and non-Israeli narratives.

Incredible video of the night sky

When I was a little boy, I loved learning about space.  Nothing ever came close to beating my love of dinosaurs, but space earned a solid second-place.  I grew up in a large metropolitan area, and I've mostly visited other urban centers, so I've never been able to observe the night skies all that well.

Videos like this touch on that wonder I felt as an eight year old leafing through a National Geographic book on astronomy.  I didn't really comprehend everything I was looking at, but I knew that it was amazing.






(From 3 Quarks Daily via The Daily Dish)

Click here, not here

I found this online yesterday.  It's a series of eight pictures, each with a different pattern, shape, or design.  You can click anywhere on a picture, and after going through all eight, you see the patterns that were created by thousands of other users clicking on the same images.

I was not surprised to see that my first impulse on where to click on each images was also the first impulse of many, many users.  But I had tried to be sneaky and click on the least likely spot.  I thought, "Of course everyone's going to click on the dead center of the box.  I'll click somewhere else."  That's where it got interesting.  As the picture shows, doing "something else" doesn't mean doing something unique. 

Tomorrow

I'll eat better tomorrow.  I'll get more sleep, too.  Come to think of it, I'll start running again.  And after my run, I'm going to email a few hundred alums to see if someone can help me jumpstart my career.  And I'll start being a less aggressive driver.  And I'll learn German.  Oh, why not throw in some "practice compassion" and "start that screenplay" while I'm at it?

This goes on day after day, but each time it's a little more urgent and a little more frustrating.  It builds up, and there are only so many times I can regurgitate something from a self-help book before I can't even pretend that I'm not lying to myself.  "All those other times were just practice."  "It's never too late to begin!"  I'll make a note to add "stop lying to self" to tomorrow's list.

It's not as if I'm trying to achieve things that are new, strange, or unfamiliar.  That's the maddening part.  For example, I haven't eaten meat in five years.  Not one bit.  No exceptions for holidays.  No exceptions for that one hot dog at that one barbecue.  So why is that I can do that without much effort, but I can't resist that one little bag of Cheetos?  I used to spend hours in the library, alone, studying French.  So why is it that I can't find the time to finish a novel?

I don't have the answer to these questions, but I know that there are answers.  I'm going to take the rest of the summer to explore this.  Part adventure, part experiment.  Let's see where I am when September comes.