Trump’s pick for ICE director (a nondescript flunky bureaucrat named Mark Morgan) told Tucker Carlson on Fox News last January that he has toured detention centers where unaccompanied children refugees are held & he can tell who of them will become gang members by looking into their eyes. Pity his mother didn’t have the same clairvoyance so she could have sought help for her delusional & criminally deranged son at an age when it might have helped.

It’s shocking to see how many BDS supporters are applauding the band Hatari as heroes for crossing the BDS picket line & trying to make up for their betrayal by waving a Palestinian flag like Madonna did. The power of the cultural boycott & the authority of Palestinians are undermined by flouting the boycott & it is a serious misunderstanding of picket lines to consider Hatari as anything but self-serving stooges of Israeli colonialism.

The French Senate just voted to ban mothers who wear Islamic headscarves from accompanying children on school trips. The first French ban on the hijab in schools was enacted in 2004 & women & girls wearing them have since been routinely suspended from schools & colleges. What’s with the sick obsession with the hijab?

A French man who was an automobile engineer introduced the bikini bathing suit in 1946, naming it after the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean where the US had just done nuclear weapons testing. There’s a cognitive rupture there that’s not easy to explain. At no time has the French government made any moves to outlaw the bikini despite it being at odds with the social standards of modesty which prevailed at the time. Can the French government explain why it thinks near-nudity is the preferred attire for women & any sign of modesty a matter to outlaw? Does lechery play any part in their determinations? Why the hell does the French Senate give a rat’s ass about what Muslim women wear when it has never tried to outlaw the attire of French Catholic nuns who are notorious for flying buttresses called cornettes as their headgear? Why is the French Senate acting like halfwits when the mayor in southern France still hasn’t recovered his dignity from trying to ban Muslim women from wearing tankinis on public beaches? It’s called Islamophobia which directs its propaganda against Islam at women to make Muslim men seem oppressive & Muslim women submissive. It’s long since time we took to the streets to end this oppressive nonsense. It isn’t just a Muslim issue but a feminist one.

(Photo from Getty)

Madonna thought this maudlin addition to her crummy performance would cover for her capitulation to Israeli apartheid & occupation. It just makes her look politically pathetic, not just venal & money-grubbing. It is not a matter of Palestinians making nice with Israelis. It is a matter of Israeli colonialism, occupation, genocide. It is a matter of massive land grabs; snipers shooting unarmed kids, medics, journalists & disabling young men; of bombs terrorizing little kids & making thousands homeless. That doesn’t require hand-holding moments. It requires building Palestinian political power, of which the cultural boycott plays a major role.

(Photo from the Reykjavik Grapevine)

A reliable source reports that Madonna’s performance at Eurovision stunk. Off-key & pretentious. Even more than usual. BBC, which is promoting the event, says she braved a bomb attack threat to perform but if they were honest they’d report that it was her performance that blew up & landed with a thud. She may have done more for BDS by performing since Israel is now forced to draw on the dregs politically & artistically.

(Photo from BBC)

Now this is something to be proud of: Israeli human rights activists have been protesting outside the Eurovision 2019 venue in Tel Aviv calling for a cultural boycott of the event. They are a distinct minority in Israeli society & we should take a moment to honor the role they are playing against considerable odds to stand publicly with Palestinians against occupation, colonialism, apartheid, genocide.

(Both photos from Faiz Abu Rmeleh/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

The Icelandic band Hatari ignored the Palestinian call for a cultural boycott of Israel & performed at Eurovision 2019. They thought to redeem their betrayal of Palestinians by holding up Free Palestine banners but that’s called playing both sides of the street, trying to further their own career while compromising with apartheid. They do not deserve accolades for this empty gesture with the banners but are more worthy of a Bronx cheer because they crossed the BDS picket line. (A Bronx cheer is derision & contempt expressed by making a vulgar sound through puckered lips.) The guys are young. So what? That’s no excuse at all since many prevailed on them to honor the boycott & they are familiar with Israeli apartheid, occupation, genocide against Palestinians. The Palestinians getting shot at, bombed, losing limbs, protesting for their lives are young too & they’re the ones who asked Hatari to honor the boycott. Too bad Hatari tried to have it both ways since they end up the losers.

(Photo of the dumb asses at Eurovision from BBC)

Assadists are stone-cold reactionaries on every political issue except Israel. If they appear to be progressive on that issue, it is not because they are committed to Palestinian justice but because they can mask hatred for Jews behind anti-Zionism. Even their opposition to US militarism is warped because to them it means support for repressive regimes, not opposition to US wars.