Ex Bibliotheca

The life and times of Zack Weinberg.

Tuesday, 4 June 2002

# 8:10 PM

sugar

I cannot find anywhere that sells organically-grown white sugar, or even brown sugar. All there seems to be is "evaporated cane juice," which tastes quite strongly of molasses, much more so than brown sugar. It's not a bad taste, but even so. Why shouldn't there be people out there who want to buy sugar without pesticide residues in, but still refined — say, for use in recipies where molasses is inappropriate?

politics

I would like to be anti-war and pro-Israel at the same time. I don't think this is too much to ask. Yet somehow, all the local anti-war protesters are thoroughly pro-Palestine, to the point where one suspects them of outright anti-Semitism. I can't countenance that.

Furthermore, my own opposition to the present war is based entirely on my opinion that it's not going to help any. We may or may not have succeeded in removing a despotic government from power in Afghanistan; it's too early to say whether another one will replace it. Meantime, we haven't even dented the root causes of the terrorist problem. If we were doing things that would, and those things happened to include the use of military force, I'd support that.

The local anti-war protesters, however, take the position that War is Bad, end of discussion. Since this is an absurd stance, it actually strengthens the pro-war position; they can just brush off more meaningful objections as equivalent to the above.

(When I rule the world, rhetoric will be a required subject in elementary school.)

Here's an article by Paul Berman on the subject of resurgent anti-Semitism in the developed world.