Today I got around to doing something I have been planning to do for at least a couple of weeks now, or at any rate I made a start on it - tidying up the front garden. Tall grass, almost but not quite pampas grass, from last year, now dry but still droopily tall, rose briars trying to extend all over the little plot, the flowering bush making a bid to fill the place as well were all trying to hide new, and more attractive, growth. There are bluebells populating one corner, fighting with the bossy rosebush, and I would like them to be more visible when they come into flower. And I wanted to tidy things up before the wild aquilegia and poppies spring up, giving the garden its brief moment of glory. People actually stop and admire it … or maybe they just stop and exclaim at how unkempt my garden is!
Anyway, as the morning was fine - fine enough and blowy enough anyway for me to hang washing to dry in the back garden - I decided that today was the day. Over the last few days the rain has held off or has been thin drizzly stuff, so that the garden was not too squidgy underfoot and the taller plants were not dripping wet.
But the weather was still against me. I think I managed maybe three quarters of an hour before it started to rain. Most of the tall grass and brambles have been trimmed back but the bush in the middle now looks decidedly lopsided. Everything had to be abandoned, though, so that I could scuttle into the back garden to bring in the washing, the sight of which blowing on the wind probably provoked the weather gods into sending rain rather earlier than originally predicted. So it goes!
One-time heartthrob Alain Delon (full name amazingly Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon - how many names does a heartthrob need?) is 88. As is the way with heartthrobs of yesteryear we’ve not heard much of him lately - last major appearance was at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival where he received a Palme d’Or d’Honneur, a lifetime achievement award, and then, less publicly, at the funeral of his friend and fellow star Jean-Paul Belmondo in September 2021. He’s not been well and it seems his family have been bickering over who might or might not be exploiting his frailty. A court-appointed official had to visit his home in connection with this, spotted a weapon and alerted a judge. And now they have seized 72 firearms from his home as he doesn’t have a permit for any of them. They also found 3,000 rounds of ammunition and a shooting range. Monsieur Delon did play gun-toting gangsters on some of his films but, oops, he “has no authorisation that would allow him to own a firearm”, according to the local prosecutor Jean-Cédric Gaux. I wonder why he had such an arsenal - maybe a sort of collector’s obsession or maybe to protect his fortune. Who knows?
On the subject of weapons and fighting and such, here’s an odd twist on the Israel-Palestine conflict, a report yesterday from Another Angry Voice:
“Israel wants to force Orthodox Jews to participate in occupation and genocide
Israel wants to force orthodox Jews to betray their religious beliefs by conscripting them to participate in occupation and genocide, and they're using heavy handed tactics to smash resistance.
Orthodox Jews make up about 13% of the population of Israel and until recently they’ve been been allowed to claim exemption from mandatory conscription into Israel’s military if they study at religious schools (Torato Umanuto) or undertake civilian conscription (Sherut Leumi) instead, but Israel is trying to change that and force religious Jews to participate in occupation and genocide against the Palestinians.
As the Israeli Supreme Court has been debating whether to end the exemption from conscription for Orthodox Jews, Israeli security forces have been brutally repressing protests outside.
Let’s not fall into the trap of generalising about why Orthodox Jews reject conscription.
There are pacifist Orthodox Jews who vehemently object to the occupation and Israeli Apartheid against Palestinians, and there are several staunchly Anti-Zionist Orthodox Jewish groups (Satmar, the Charedi Council, Neturei Karta …), but then there are Orthodox Jewish settlements in the stolen and illegally occupied Palestinian territories too, and Benjamin Netenyahu’s barbaric extreme-right government is propped up by several Orthodox political parties.
It would be as absurd and ridiculous to generalise that all Israeli Orthodox Jews oppose Israeli occupation, Apartheid, and genocide on principle, as it would be to nod along with the obscene racist fiction that all British Jews support such Israeli atrocities.
However it’s absolutely clear that very many Orthodox Jews refuse to participate in Israeli atrocities for religious reasons, and that they should be supported in their efforts to prevent the Israeli state from stripping them of their right to conscientiously object.
If someone feels so strongly that they would rather die than participate in violent occupation, they should have the sympathy of all decent people.
However there is a great deal of resentment in wider Israeli society at this conscription exemption for Orthodox Jews, conveyed by the leaders of the counter-protest in favour of forced conscription who said "The prolonged war in Gaza teaches us the critical need to expand recruitment to all parts of Israeli society".
It’s interesting that the framing isn’t 'why are we committing genocide in Gaza?' but rather 'why are Orthodox Jews given exemption from committing genocide in Gaza?'.
When the Israeli state is brutally repressing Jewish people who say they would rather die than abandon their faith to participate in occupation and genocide, it certainly raises important questions, like what kind of “Jewish state" seeks to force devoutly religious Jews into betraying their religious beliefs?”
Hmm! Food for thought!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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