But I Thought Everyday Was Halloween on The Gaza Strip
From Vice's Jason Mojica comes an interesting report from the Gaza Strip on Halloween. Take it away, Jason:
…a group of masked members of Al Ahrar, a Hamas-affiliated group that started in 2007, gave a pop-up press conference on a busy sidewalk in downtown Gaza City. The five young men armed with Kalashnikovs seemed to appear, like phantoms, from nowhere. They read a prepared statement condemning Israel to a small cluster of cameras and barely amused children before posing for a few photos. And like that, they were gone. The camera crews packed up, the kids dispersed, and everyone went back to complaining about the constant, high-pitched buzzing of Israeli drones overhead.
Mojica notes
Although Gaza was once a paradise for pagans, in recent centuries this disconsolate stretch of land has taken on more of an Islamic flavor, giving rise to groups like Hamas [and] Islamic Jihad…
What a massive amount of human suffering and misery all around is packed into that "in recent centuries" descriptor. And those kids' faces.
Check out Mojica's recent (and stunning) Vice documentary on the Congo: "The Heart of Bleakness."
And do watch former Reasoner Michael Moynihan's Vice Guide to Belfast, featuring the most adorable and hate-filled little people on film since Darby O'Gill darkened American drive-ins back in the day.
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Would you rather spend Halloween in Gaza or in San Francisco?
Everyday is Halloween
Needs moar Joy Division.
Morning links time prediction subthred:
9:03
Make that 9:15
BZZZZT! Not a winner!
9:04, I was robbed!
..mohammed jihad!
Hey Reason people,
are y’all going to do a thread on the UNESCO vote?
If it involved making a border, no.
Although Gaza was once a paradise for pagans, in recent centuries this disconsolate stretch of land has taken on more of an Islamic flavor,
Is he going for the Pulitaer Prize in understatement?
Gaza has an Islamic flavor in the same sense that North Korea has a slight bouquet of Stalinism.
+3 to Abdul
A got a trick-or-treater last night that was male, middle-eastern, and about 5’8″, dressed as a terrorist. He pointed his colorful toy gun at me and said “trick or die”.
Being real life and not the Internet, I had no snarky comment or tuff gai response. He got a fun size Snickers just like everyone else.
Very creepy, or just angsty tweens being angsty?
On the way home from work yesterday, I passed a woman in a hijab and told her”Great costume!”
Turns out, that’s the wrong thing to say.
Duh. You’re supposed to say “When’s the due date?”
Well, next year give out pork rinds.
I had a similar experience, though mine was dressed in TSA garb.
Those two links to the Vice pieces are great!
I’m originally from Northern Ireland and do recommend the Vice Guide to Belfast as an excellent little insight to the place.
If you want to get your ass kicked, do you reccomend wearing Celtics gear to a Rangers pub, or vice versa?
Wouldn’t it be hard to find a pub with Scottish football fans in Belfast?
condemning Israel to a small cluster of cameras and barely amused children
Fate worse than death.
This post breathes new life into the phrase, “dark humor.”
Gaza’s border with Egypt opened months ago. How before Gaza just develops ties with Egypt and stops milking the international community for sympathy?