Life, logistics, Jerusalem


Posted by Helena Cobban
February 26, 2006 4:04 PM EST | Link
Filed in HC's travels, general

I am still waiting for my Israeli press card to come through! This is a pain, as I can't get to Gaza without it. But tomorrow I'm going down to Tel Aviv to talk to some folks there.

Shoot, I also have lots of great material for a great post about "Sunday morning in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher." But I only have time for the very short version here: Big disappointment. No transcendental music. No services at all in any of the church's heavily contested nooks, crannies, or broader open spaces-- even though I was there for a good part of the morning. Only the old game of fleece-the-tourist continued apace. Though several of the church's soaring domes and cleverly contrived stone staircases could be described as beautiful, still, to my plain Quaker sense of esthetics the odor of idolatry far outweighed the faint whiff of sanctity. As I said: big disappointment.

(Once, I went there and there were some Armenian monks chanting on a hidden high mezzanine. That was lovely. None today.)



Comments
Comment from... selise, at February 26, 2006 04:43 PM:

helena,

good luck getting your paperwork... i am saddened to hear that you can not go to gaza without a press pass - does that mean that tourists can not visit gaza?

Comment from... Tuppy Glossop, at February 26, 2006 06:21 PM:

Helena,

Don't know if you're across it, but if not be sure you clock Jennifer Lowenstein's Dissolution of Palestine piece, which www.counterpunch.org ran on Feb. 24.

Comment from... frank al irlandi, at February 27, 2006 12:36 AM:

Helena

If you are kicking your heels waiting for documentation to come through you might read riverbend's latest posting

She is a bit of a poor thing.

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

Off topic, I know but she needs to be remebered in our prayers.

Comment from... WmPeele, at February 27, 2006 05:59 PM:

Helena,

What are you hearing about the remark a few days ago of Israel's Central Command Chief Yair Naveh to the effect that "Jordan King Abdullah is liable to be the last king of Jordan"?

Comment from... Susan - NC, at February 28, 2006 09:36 AM:

Riverbend's post does an excellent job (as ususal) in documenting what is happening in her neighborhood and her life.

I think the remark "she is a bit of a poor thing" is very insulting to her and I wish frank could walk about 10,000 miles in her shoes. I'm thinking his opinion would be more charitable if he was living in a war zone without electricity, clean water, jobs and basic security.

Comment from... Salah, at February 28, 2006 01:13 PM:

THE ROVING EYE
The occupiers' trial
By Pepe Escobar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GJ20Ak03.html

Susan - NC,
If the power or water cut from you compensated and paid for the inconveniences ‎caused by the cut.‎

But when Occupier for more than three 3 years talking there is progress in Iraq and ‎things better in their speeches and media this so disrobing with billions vanished for ‎Iraq constructions that the big lie they keep saying it.‎

I think their is progress which is the Death Squad forces that designed and made by ‎CIA in Iraq.‎

Comment from... frank al irlandi, at February 28, 2006 02:20 PM:

Susan NC

"Bit of a poor thing" is a slightly british form of understatement, generally intended to reveal a great deal of sympathy and compassion.

Thank you for your empathy with Riverbend.

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