Check out this website please

One of my quaker friends pointed me towards a website intended to document the testimonies of members of the Israeli army. A whole lot of reasons why I won't be caught dead in the Holy Land fueling that regime.
http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/database

Nobody cares about you but I do

Last week, I got invited to a fund raising dinner in which a very famous Australian activist for homeless youth was giving a talk.

To be honest, I hated it. I found it voyeuristic on the part of the assembled diners to come and have a look at the guy. What is this? Weeknight entertainment? A one man freak show?

I still tried to get something out of it, and I was surprised to be able to distill the guy's whole stance in just one half line: "nobody cares about you but I do".

I haven't had a chance to fully think about it any further. My first reaction was: what an annoying populist brat. Thank you very much for depicting all of the world except yourself as the bad people who don't care. As if that's going to help.

At the end of the day, I still don't know how constructive or unconstructive that stance is. It sure is appealing to a strand of adolescent angst. But then again, so was National Socialist fascism.

I'm uneasy about that stance, but I can't pinpoint why...