Robert Howard at the Hamilton Spectator wrote an editorial on the conflict in Lebanon:

Israel has reacted with force in its war on Hezbollah, consistent with its long-standing policies that military efforts must be forceful, even overwhelming, to defeat enemies. It has not been indiscriminate in its attacks, but innocents have died nonetheless. There is never any good excuse for civilian casualties, but Hezbollah must share the blame for sheltering in residential neighbourhoods.

(Full text available here.)

I wrote a letter in response:

Re. “This isn’t just a border clash” by Robert Howard, July 18, A15

Robert Howard’s editorial reads like an Israeli press release: no matter what Israel does in Lebanon, it’s not Israel’s fault.

But regardless of who started this latest conflict – and it should be pointed out that Israel still imprisons Lebanese citizens in addition to 9,600 Palestinians, has regularly violated Lebanese airspace since its withdrawal in 2000, and has refused to give the Lebanese government a map of the 400,000 land mines it planted in Southern Lebanon – all parties have a responsibility to minimize civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure.

As of July 18, Israel has killed at least 215 Lebanese, all but 14 of them civilians. The dead include 20 Lebanese, including nine children, who were fleeing Marwaheen in civilian vehicles after being warned by the Israeli military to leave, contradicting Mr. Howard’s assertion that civilian casualties are a result of Hezbollah’s “sheltering in residential neighbourhoods”. Where, one wonders, was Hezbollah sheltering in this convoy of refugees: in the trunks?

It’s true that Hezbollah and Hamas are a threat to peace and security in the region, but they are not alone in this distinction. Israel’s dramatic escalation of the conflict, utter disregard for the lives of civilians, and continued annexation of Palestinian land makes it clear that Israel is not interested in a lasting, compromise peace any more than the Islamists.

I’ll let you know if it gets published.

[tags]Israel, Lebanon[/tags]

Israel has bombed and killed seven Canadians who were vacationing in southern Lebanon:

Seven Canadians are dead, six of them possibly members of the same Montreal family, after an Israeli air strike in Lebanon. Three more were seriously injured.

The Department of Foreign Affairs did not release their names.

However, reports said the dead included a family of four children, their mother, and her husband’s uncle. They were vacationing in Aitarun, just 50 kilometres south of Beirut.

Israel’s reckless escalation of the conflict has now cost the lives of more than 100 civilians in Lebanon, including an estimated thirteen people who fled their village after Israeli loudspeaker warnings urged them to do so:

In one attack, apparently on vehicles full of families trying to get away from the bombing, an estimated 13 people, including eight children, died when a truck and a car were incinerated by an Israeli air attack.

The small convoy was carrying people evacuating the village of Marwaheen after Israeli loudspeaker warnings to leave their homes. Seven of the dead were from a single family, according to eye-witnesses including a photographer from the Associated Press, Nasser Nasser, whose pictures show bodies, including a baby, scattered on the road.

More on this situation later.

[tags]Canada, Israel, Lebanon, politics[/tags]

I was emailed a link to a piece called China’s Crackdown on Falun Gong after posting about the chilling report that China is ‘harvesting’ organs from prisoners:

Nearly a decade after it was outlawed in China, the mysterious movement known as Falun Gong is struggling to survive government persecution. What is the movement about – and why does it frighten Chinese authorities?

The article goes into some detail about the movement’s origins, current status in China, and its philosophy, which is something like a mixture of traditional kung-fu (or tai chi, or qi-gong) and Scientology. It’s worth the read.

Scientific American recently reported on a recent study of psilocybin mushrooms, commonly called magic mushrooms. Neuroscientist Roland Griffiths and his team at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore recruited 36 middle-aged Americans with no previous psychedelic drug experience and gave them the trip of their lives:

[T]he subjects lay down on a couch in a comfortable, living room-like environment and were encouraged to use an eye mask to block out visual distraction and headphones that offered classical music. […]

Immediately following the roughly eight-hour sessions, the participants were asked to fill out a series of questionnaires designed to probe the nature and quality of the experience. Twenty-two out of the 36 volunteers described a so-called mystical experience, or one that included feelings of unity with all things, transcendence of time and space as well as deep and abiding joy.

In follow-up interviews conducted two months later 67 percent of the volunteers rated the psilocybin experience as among the most meaningful of their lives, comparing it to the birth of a first child or the death of a parent, and 79 percent reported that it had moderately or greatly increased their overall sense of well-being or life satisfaction. Independent interviews of family members, friends and co-workers confirmed small but significant positive changes[.]

The use of psychedelic drugs dates back millennia. The psilocybin mushrooms used in the John Hopkins study are revered in some Central and South American cultures, and stone carvings depicting the mushrooms that date back to 500-1000 BC have been found there.

The brightly colored Amanita muscaria, pictured above, also has a long cultural history. Its common name is fly agaric because of the old practice of soaking pieces of it in milk and then leaving the milk out for flies, which drink the milk and die.

This mushroom belongs to the same family of mushrooms as some of the most toxic mushrooms in the world, like the Destroying Angel, and can be found in many parts of North America, including Southern Ontario, but it is not deadly like its relatives.

It does contain a number of hallucinogenic compounds, and like psilocybin mushrooms has been used by some cultures as a ritualistic or shamanistic drug, especially in Siberia. Some believe that the Berserkers, Norse warriors who swore allegiance to the sky god Odin, may have worked themselves into murderous fury before battle with its help.

In spite of their ancient, mystical history – or perhaps because of it – the use of psychedelic drugs is stigmatized in most modern societies. Mystical, spiritual experiences achieved through drugs are ersatz compared to Jesus’ work in one’s soul, a Christian may comment.

In fact, few religions have any regard for spiritual experiences achieved in ways other than the doctrinal ones. (Interestingly, Griffiths intentionally chose “spiritual” people for the study because, he said, “volunteers who had some engagement with prayer, meditation, churchgoing, or similar activities would be better equipped to understand and consolidate any mystical-type experiences they might have”.)

But most people, religious or not, are apt to dismiss drug-induced mystical revelations – “transcendence of time and space”, for example – as not real, or at least, not as real as experiences achieved without the use of substances. But in the mind, what is a real experience?

I had a conversation with a friend who recently ceased taking anti-depressants, which he had successfully used for several years to treat his moderate depression. Some of the symptoms started to return soon after stopping treatment, causing him to reconsider his decision. “But I don’t want starting taking it again,” he said. “Maybe the real me is supposed to be down, and the drugs are just turning me into someone I’m not.”

But who is the “real” you, or I, or him? Is someone anyone else than themselves when they are under the influence of a psychoactive medication?

I was at the Montreal Jazz Festival last weekend. We hadn’t traveled there for that reason, we were just there to have a good time. On Friday night we stumbled on one of the stages and caught the last 8 minutes of a fabulous performance. Unfortunately, that little scrap of a performance was all we managed to see that night.

I love live music, and when I went to bed that night I felt really disappointed to have missed it. I started imagining what it would have been like to arrive at that stage an hour-and-a-half earlier. I could picture it vividly – the orange and blue lights, the lead singer flailing her arms around, the percussionist beating out his complex rhythms, me grooving a bit at first and then dancing full out, smiling and sweating and bumping into people, hands moving to the beat, whoops of appreciation. I felt like I was there.

The next day, I still felt that way, as though I’d seen the full set and danced my ass off. I felt almost but not quite satisfied, the way you feel after dreaming of sex. If it was with someone you know, you might look at them a little oddly the next time you see them. It wasn’t real…but in the mind, what is a real experience?

[tags]drugs, science, religion, mysticism[/tags]

This is about as appalling as it gets:

A former federal cabinet minister and a prominent lawyer will report today that they have found credible evidence that the organs of Falun Gong adherents in China are being harvested for paid transplants, and will call for international pressure to stop it.

The report, by former Liberal cabinet minister David Kilgour and Winnipeg immigration and rights lawyer David Matas, will call for international human-rights organizations to take the allegations seriously, and for governments and international bodies to shun China’s burgeoning transplant industry until it is stopped.

“Alarming is an understatement,” Mr. Kilgour said yesterday. “We simply can come to no other conclusion than that this is going on, on a large scale. That vital organs are being taken from people involuntarily in large numbers.

“All of the ‘donors’ — in quotation marks — are killed in process. Because they don’t just take one of your kidneys. From what we’ve learned, they take both of your kidneys, and anything else that anybody might want.”

Many of the alleged victims are in prisons.

And a report in the Montreal Gazette suggests that Canadians are travelling to China for these organs:

The Canadian government should revoke the passports of Canadians suspected of travelling to China for transplants and deny visas to Chinese doctors wanting to study transplants here, says a contentious report written by a former MP.

Our close relationship with China appears hypocritical yet again.

[tags]China, falun gong, medicine[/tags]