[IsraelTimes] Bestselling writer Lisa Barr – targeted by hecklers and review bombers – vows that though she wants to ‘curl up in a ball’ after Oct. 7, she will ‘fight back constructively’.
Bestselling author Lisa Barr never expected to call her newest novel “eerily relevant” to modern times. Historical fiction, “The Goddess of Warsaw” is a compelling tale of Warsaw Ghetto resistance, old Hollywood and revenge as a final means toward justice.
In the wake of the October 7, 2023 Hamas onslaught on southern Israel, Barr, a former Jerusalem Post reporter, found herself on a list of “Zionist authors” to be blacklisted and the subject of heckling detractors. Over a year later, Barr said she sees common denominators between the past and present on a daily basis.
“When October 7 happened and I was in the throes of edits for this book… Well, a lot of writers get to escape in their work, but for me, there was no escape,” Barr said in a phone interview with The Times of Israel.
In recent months, there has been a veritable crescendo of antisemitism within the literary establishment. Author Sally Rooney and more than 1,000 writers and publishing professionals recently signed a letter pledging to boycott Israeli cultural institutions that “are complicit or have remained silent observers of the overwhelming oppression of Palestinians.”
Signatories pledge to not work with Israeli publishers, festivals, literary agencies and publications that are “complicit in violating Palestinian rights,” including operating “discriminatory policies and practices” or “whitewashing and justifying Israel’s occupation, apartheid or genocide.”
Unexpectedly, Barr said she found herself taking strength from the character she’d created.
“The Goddess of Warsaw” is a page-turner telling the fictional story of Bina Blonski, a Jewish actress-turned-resistance fighter in the Warsaw Ghetto, and her transformation into Lena Browning, a Hollywood femme fatale with a secret past who uses her time off-screen to hunt Nazis and execute vigilante justice.
“I have drawn strength from Lena, born Bina,” Barr said. “I’ve drawn strength from her in everything, from what I am writing to what I am living in my real life. I am choosing not to be silent about what is going on now, just like my character made those same choices.”
[Garden & Gun] The gumption, grit, and resilience of Western North Carolina is on full display following the impact of Hurricane Helene. The region, known for its vibrant arts, food, and outdoors scenes, is currently in the process of reopening, and though the road will be long, signs of hope are appearing: Asheville and Black Mountain, among other communities, have been designated safe to begin planning a visit, and the iconic Biltmore welcomes the public back, just in time for the holiday season. Here are three ways you can help them from afar.
Helping Asheville’s Hospitality Industry Weather the Storm
Powered by artists, chefs, brewers, and makers, Asheville has evolved into an international destination in recent decades. FEMA estimates that 40 percent of small businesses don’t reopen after a disaster, so to ensure Asheville beats that statistic, Explore Asheville, a 501(c)(6) nonprofit, has launched the Always Asheville Fund. This initiative offers emergency grants to small, independent travel and hospitality businesses in Asheville and Buncombe County. By donating, you can help the area’s resilient small businesses get back to showcasing their vibrant city.
Shop Local, Save Local
October typically brings droves of foliage admirers to Western North Carolina. But Hurricane Helene disrupted that tradition. To help local boutiques, galleries, restaurants, and other independent retailers make up the lost income, you can patronize their online shops or visit Love Asheville From Afar, a website that showcases wares from more than five hundred local businesses, from family-owned yarn shops to ceramic arts purveyors. So you can knock out your holiday shopping while doing a little good.
Tune In to Help
Garden & Gun is offering additional support by pledging a portion of all sales of G&G Vinyl Volumes 1 and 2 to the Always Asheville Fund. These albums, which highlight some of the South’s most talented voices, were produced in partnership with Explore Asheville (and in the case of Vol. 2, with AVLFest and Wicked Weed Brewing) and pressed by Asheville’s Citizen Vinyl. This holiday season, give the gift of great music—and help this remarkable community thrive again—with G&G Vinyl.
Donate to the Always Asheville Fund
Support Love Asheville From Afar
Shop G&G Vinyl
See Asheville’s resilient spirit and vibrant culture come together in the face of Hurricane Helene here
The choice is Mr. Zelensky’s, and has been for months as his forces, armaments, and prospects dwindle. He could suspend hostilities, go to talks, even raise a white flag and put an end to the needless suffering. Under no circumstances will he get the Donbas or Crimea back. I doubt that Russia wants to take over the rest of Ukraine, considering the cost of having to support it indefinitely. Better that it should remain a sovereign state and look after itself — but neutral, demilitarized, and, if you like, de-Nazified. You understand that these will be Russia’s final terms? And that there is nothing unreasonable about them?
In short, the hypothetical coup would fail, and the Ukraine war will end, and Mr. Trump will get inaugurated if he is careful to avoid the blob’s assassins until January 20. As for Rep. Jamie Raskin’s scheme to prevent a Trump swearing-in on account of him being “an insurrectionist,” you can file that under “dumb-shit grandstanding.” So, the new government will come in, the new department chiefs will get into office, and the leviathan will get the therapeutic treatment it deserves.
[BEE] PALM BEACH, FL — President-elect Donald Trump officially announced that he plans to impose a 25% tariff on all imports from California into the United States.
While California Governor Gavin Newsom had publicly vowed to resist any attempts by Trump's administration to force policies promoting freedom on residents of the state, he warned that Trump's tariff could cripple California's already debt-ridden economy.
"Trump, who promised to be a dictator on day one, is going to impose these tariffs as a way to punish the People's Republic of California," Newsom said. "We won't stand for it. I've already contacted my good friend Xi Jinping and he's going to send Trump a strongly worded letter."
Trump imposed the tariffs in response to looming trade disputes with California. The Golden State exports most of the United States's avocado oil, tofu turkey burgers, red wine, organic bamboo salt water crackers, and paper clips. Despite the U.S. demand for such goods, Trump pledged to stand firm.
"American products for American patriots!" Trump said in a post to his Truth Social account. "We will not allow the majority of the products we consume here in the United States to be produced over there in that communist hell hole. We also urge the brave people of California to stand up against their oppressive regime and fight for freedom."
At publishing time, Trump had also announced that he would impose tariffs on Canada, but only for maple syrup because no one really cares about anything else coming out of Canada.
[Self Relieance Center] Amaryllis Fox Kennedy is an American writer, television host, public speaker, former Central Intelligence Agency officer, and campaign manager for her father-in-law Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
"In standing with Ukraine, the Biden-Harris administration convinced them to abandon a peace deal that would have seated (ceded?)
…definitely ceded. Homophones are hard…
only half the territory that Russia now occupies. And for that opportunity to lose twice as much of their homeland, they paid with tens of thousands of innocent lives.
We did this to control the $11 Trillion of minerals under the Donbas.
We did it to grind down the Russian war machine on the grist of Ukrainian teenagers.
We did it to hand out hundreds of billions of dollars to U.S. hedge funds, who are, as we speak, carving up rights to Ukraine’s fertile soil and vast mineral resources.
The truth is, the United States has never stood with the people of Ukraine. That is simply a jingle, an ad campaign broadcast to those who have never been there, designed just to sell taxpayers on the appeal of prolonging war for profit. We have cost Ukraine her territory. We have cost Ukraine her children. The war hawks and the bankers are no friends to Ukraine."
— Amaryllis Fox Kennedy
When Amaryllis Kennedy says the intel agencies are a threat to our country, she’s not guessing. She spent ten years as a CIA officer before running Bobby Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign. She’s now campaigning for Trump. ~ Tucker.
#1
Strange isn't it, seems ten years is about the maximum length of Klingon employment for people who have the means to migrate elsewhere, with their reputatiion intact.
[NY Post]"Smell of desperation....or Legacy Desperation"
With the IDF striking Thursday against terrorists moving to launch another attack, the wheels are already coming off the supposed Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire.
And predictably so, since (as with every Team Biden "success") it’s far, far less than it seems — and significantly a gift to Iran.
First, Hezbollah is not in fact part of the accord: It’s formally an agreement between the governments of Israel and Lebanon — the latter of which is a joke, an impotent bystander.
What the deal envisions — both the IDF and Hezbollah pulling out of Lebanon south of the Litani River — was supposed to happen back in 2006 at the end of that Israel-Hez war; there was even a UN resolution (1701) saying so and declaring a "permanent ceasefire."
Israel pulled out; Hezbollah never did. Indeed, it dug in deeper — literally so, with a network of terror tunnels far larger than Hamas’ excavations in Gaza.
And Hez has launched sporadic attacks on Israel out of south Lebanon ever since, with the rocket and missile fire alone spiking up to the thousands after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror invasion.
The United Nations left enforcement of 1701 to the Lebanese government, which then as now couldn’t sneeze without Hezbollah’s permission, and to UNIFIL — the UN peacekeeping force that’s done absolutely nothing to keep the peace in Lebanon for decades.
And those same toothless marvels are now in charge of enforcing the Biden "achievement," though now the United States and maybe France promise to monitor compliance.
Not that either Washington or Paris will send in troops to enforce compliance.
OK, Hezbollah has a veto over anything Beirut does, so Lebanon’s agreement indicates some Hez buy-in.
After all, the terror group’s masters in Iran put out the word that Hezbollah should agree to a cease-fire well before Biden and his envoys set out to produce one.
The IDF has devastated the terror group and its assets these last two months, among other things, taking out so many Hezbollah leaders that the fighters on the ground are likely on their own, with limited if any communications with the higher-ups in Beirut and Tehran.
Iran wanted a cease-fire to end the destruction of its proxies.
Israel, meanwhile, might have wanted to settle for the gains it’s made so far (and certainly has little appetite for fully conquering Lebanon to "finish off" the terror group) and focus on getting the remaining hostages back from Hamas.
But reports out of Israel are that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is claiming that Biden’s diplomats left him no choice: If he didn’t agree to this deal, Washington would cut off weapons shipments to Jerusalem even though it’s at war on seven fronts with Iran and its proxies.
That’s entirely believable, since the prez would like to leave office on a high note — and his minions immediately turned to pushing Israel for another cease-fire with Hamas.
Biden wants to be able to claim he left a peace behind, so Democrats can blame any return to hostilities on Team Trump.
In other words, it’s all about building a "narrative," not about addressing any of the grim realities on the ground, especially not Iran’s role as the master and funder of Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as of the Houthis in Yemen and other "death to Israel" forces in Syria and Iraq.
Which makes it a textbook "success" not just for Biden, but for the entire modern Democratic Party: No wonder they keep losing.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/30/2024 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
