April Fools

"Been a Long Time since I rock and Rolled!" I shake my head whenever I reference a rock band as decadent as the Led Zeppelin. Their glory days of wanton English Rock Blues wanderings across America in the 1970s combined immoral excess and soaring, anthemic rock music into a potent brew that remains with every Zep fan of that age. That is, if you were into their sound then, you're into their sound now; it sticks to your memory banks and continues to entertain. So I plead guilty to subscribing to the Zeppeling-line of thought. By the way, the picture to your right came from the "official Led Zeppelin Website, http://www.ledzeppelin.com/." Visit the website for the multimedia scoop on this legendary band.

The verse I quote above, of course, comes from their song Rock and Roll, and the lyric describes the attention I have been giving this website for the last two months, when in fact much has occurred. Like what you may ask? Well, like BASEBALL SEASON! With Detroit Tigers attempting another run to the playoffs. They missed it last year, and the year before lost in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals in 2006, and now, Good Grief, they begin the season losing game after game. Their record currently is 3-10, but their looking to sweep the Minnesota Twins for their first sweep of the season. Come on Tigers!

Visit their Official Major League Website at http://detroit.tigers.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=det


President Jimmy Carter is visiting the Middle East in his capacity as diplomat, peacemaker, gadfly. He plans to talk to Khaled Meshal, the exiled leader of Hamas in Syria. President Carter says that not negotiating with your enemy is counterproductive. I would have have to agree. As much as I dislike Hamas and their style of governance, and their public rhetoric against Israel and support for low-level resistance against Israel's violent occupation, there is value in talking to them and persuading them to lay off the anti-Israel rhetoric, and publicly state their acceptance of a two-state solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict. Of course, it would also help if Israeli actions were in sync with its public statements of the need to erect and support a democratic Palestine in the West Bank. It is shameful that Israel has shunned President Carter's visit to Israel and Palestine because of his political philosophy. After all, his efforts in the 1970s secured a peace treaty with Egypt, which in turn allowed Israel to focus her attention on its colonization of the West Bank and Gaza. President Carter has devoted his life to peace and justice throughout the world for everyone. Treating him with diplomatic disdain like this is a truly classless act for which Israel should be embarrassed and ashamed. I hope President Carter can knock some sense into Hamas.

I ran across an interesting article, keeping the subject focused on the Middle East, and this article concerns Israel's purchase of oil from Iran. Israel enjoys calling attention to Iran's purported nuclear weapons program, and scolding people who do business with Iran, but it happily purchases oil from the country, know full well where the oil comes from. I bet America gets lots of oil from Iran also. And Iran also, while calling for Israel's dismantling, has no problem selling oil to her. All this talk about boycotting Iran and shunning Israel appears to be a sham when money and energy needs are involved.

Article from commentisfree.guardian.co.uk - Israel's Tehran connection