Maybe. Maybe not. It’s simply different. I am teaching about the effects of religious fundamentalism instrumentalised for political ends to justify all sorts of things in authoritarian regimes at the moment so let’s hope I’m not in the news, eh. It’s a topic I started about a month ago, so before all the latest events.
3 Likes
Of course, but that doesn’t negate my point, I think.
We got an email from the minister saying lessons won’t start until 10 tomorrow but it didn’t say whether we’re all supposed to be in at 7.30 as usual. We are all slightly more vulnerable than we might be because we can’t use the staff car park (because of the previous terrorist threats from last month) so it’s chaos in the morning around school before everyone gets in and it takes ages since bags are checked.
4 Likes
Sorry to hear this vero. This is all so tough and so at odds with what the experience of going to school (as teacher or pupil) should be.
1 Like
Have to admit to shedding a tear lunchtime watching the 13h journal and all the people paying homage in Arras. A decent teacher killed for doing his job by a mad lunatic who apparently had also attended the same Lycée previously.
4 Likes
Since the thread title well describes the current horrors in Isreal, and the specific thread was closed after becoming inflamed, I think those that haven’t already caught the report by BBC may be interested to see how WhatsApp really helped connecting members while harrowing events befell kibbutz commnities
People need people, and tech helps them connect.
OTOH it is reported that Israeli strikes into Gaza have killed 2500, half of them women and children.
Chicken and egg Billy, if Hamas hadn’t have carried out their attack would Israel have launched air strikes day after day?
Hamas rolled the dice and got a double six, any chance of a meaningful peace has been put back years which was the aim all along.
1 Like
Oh, absolutely - both sides are equally to blame in this. Unfortunately there isn’t an adult in the room who can knock their heads together and put a stop to it.
1 Like
“He said a man claiming to be the attacker had said in a video on social media he had been inspired by the Islamic State group.”
I hope we don’t see more and more of this, but I fear we will.
That brings back rather chilling memories as I landed at Brussels airport the day before the carnage there all those years ago.
I deleted my previous post after reading a NYT Opinion article by Elizabeth Spiers that contained a quote from Alcoholics Anonymous, “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions” -
“Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen,” writes A.A.’s co-founder Bill Wilson. “We must avoid quick-tempered criticism and furious, power-driven arguments,” which he calls “emotional booby traps baited with pride and vengefulness.”
1 Like
I’ve never been a fan of Joe Biden but his comment that the rocket that hit the hospital in Gaza ‘came from the other team’ was beyond bizarre as using the word ‘team’ to me suggests a game of some sorts, could he not have chosen a different way of expressing his belief that Israel was not responsible?
2 Likes
He is American and speaks a bastardised version of English, I’m not surprised 
Perhaps in the US the word ‘team’ can have a military connotation, as in ‘Seal Team 6’ . . . . just a guess . . . .
1 Like
Yes, it’s sometimes a strange thing to listen to American with British ears. Equally I always remember GW Bush calling Osama Bin Laden’s associates “Folks”… “these folks want the destruction of everything we value” or something like that. I was working in a TV studio in Hollywood at the time surrounded by people from all over the US (and UK) and it was noticeable how some people were like “WTF is he calling terrorists ‘folks’ like they’re someone’s kindly auntie from Louisiana?” and some found nothing strange about it at all as it was just part of their vocabulary they grew up with in some states.
2 Likes
Equally I always remember GW Bush calling Osama Bin Laden’s associates “Folks”
‘folks’ = ‘people’ but unfortunately does make the Taliban sound kinda homely to Brit ears…
Conversely, A friend upset his American hosts in NY by saying he was just going outside to smoke a fag.
which they took to shooting a homosexual.
1 Like