RAVE: Thank You, Michael

This past weekend saw not only the end of the 2012 Formula 1 season, but also the (second) farewell of the all-time greatest Formula 1 driver, Michael Schumacher.



Courtesy of SuperSport South Africa

Schumi came back to Formula 1 in 2010 after a three year hiatus and his first retirement from the motorsport at the end of 2006. Expectations by all, fans (like me), detractors and sober commentators alike, with his return were HUGE. Everyone, myself included, fully expected Michael Schumacher to come back with a bang and take up his rightful place at the very top of this most supreme and elite of motorsports. 

Alas, it did not turn out that way. Having left Ferrari in 2006 at least having had some race wins and a shot at the championship that year, he was forced to wallow for three long years from 2010-12 in a Mercedes team that was unreliable, usually not that quick and totally undeserving of his huge talents.

It was a waste, and for even some of his most ardent fans (and he has many) his baleful return for the past three years did go some way to tarnishing his incredible and awe-inspiring legacy. It was a pity, yes, but he gave it his all without ever once running down his team or the technical crew at Mercedes, as only Schumi only knows how to do.

Always the consummate professional and here and there he showed glimmers of the speedster and racing genius many of us came to love (like his blistering fastest time at qualifying for this year's Monaco Grand Prix). If only he had been given better equipment with which to take the fight to the likes of Vettel and Alonso and Hamilton, etc. 

His always had his haters and detractors, and he did do some questionable things in his time. But, quite frankly, Scarlett: I don't give a damn. The man was a racing genius and a pleasure to watch on the track.

And it was only Michael Schumacher, together with a dream team that only joined Ferrari because of him, that managed to finally pull Ferrari out of years in the politics-riddled doldrums and downright embarrassing mediocrity. As an ardent tifoso, for that alone I will be forever grateful to him.

This is how I will always remember Michael:


Courtesy of Mibz

Although I am forever a Ferrari fan and those two scarlet cars are always foremost in my undying support and anguish on a racing weekend, it was still always good to be able to watch Michael in action. And just simply know that he was around, taking part in the action and having the time of his life. Always smiling, always waving at the camera.

I was truly devastated when Michael Schumacher retired the first time at the end of 2006. I remember having a knot in my stomach for days after his last race that season. For those, like my mother who had loved him since his early days at Benetton, it was as painful. He had been my unfailing hero, my touchstone for all those glorious years with Ferrari and, suddenly, he was gone.

Now this time around as he retires for a second time, I am not devastated nor was I that sad. I do wish he'd remained for longer, and I do believe he still had it in him to fight for wins. But, as I and so many other tifosi needed to move on when he left Ferrari (which has never really since been the same, by the way), Michael deserves now to finally rest on his enormous laurels. Yes, he too must move on.

It is sad to think of a 2013 Formula 1 season without Michael Schumacher on the grid, but, just like the first time, those of us who loved him as a driver will continue to be left with memories few other fans can profess to have.

And, oh boy, does he leave us 'Schumisti' with some terrific memories!

Danke, grazie, thank you, Michael - auf wedersehen...if only for now.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Oscar Wilde

I feel that this quote by the simply brilliant Oscar Wilde really speaks to me:

"Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong."



I wonder just how many people will completely miss Wilde's point with this quote.

I, a fellow misanthropist to the hilt, know exactly what he meant - and how he felt.

Thank you, Oscar - how very prolific you would have been had you lived today...

IT SAYS IT ALL: Israel the Indignant Aggressor

It's fitting that I conclude my current crop of anti-Israel posts with this brilliant cartoon by the ever-excellent Carlos Latuff, courtesy of QW Magazine:



It really does say it all. Israel is really hardly the 'victim,' now is it?

RANT: Boycott Israel, Boycott the 729 Barcode

As I am on a determined anti-Israel tirade, so I must once again make a plea (and continue my own pledge) regarding the boycott of all Israeli goods and services.

However, it's not always easy to know which products indeed come from Israel. One enormous help is knowing that the international barcode number assigned to Israeli products is (mostly) 729.

The following graphics serve to highlight the international campaign for the boycott and disinvestment of all things Israeli with the help of this barcode number:



Courtesy of OpEdNews

 
Courtesy of Indymedia of Ireland




Courtesy of the Misswinthrop blog



Courtesy of the Politically Confused blog




Courtesy of My Catbird Seat





Courtesy of Live From Occupied Palestine (an Australian blogger)


If South Africa had to endure boycotts, embargoes and sanctions in the 1970s and 1980s, then why not the Israel of today?

It's the very least every person with a conscience should do.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Proud, Apartheid Israel

My last post was a rant about how Israel is undoubtedly an apartheid state - if not identical in its racist and segregationist policies to that of apartheid South Africa, it nevertheless meets all the criteria for having its own brand of Zionist-inspired 'apartheid.'

Just over a month ago a poll of Israeli Jews was published by the Israeli liberal left-leaning daily, Ha'aretz, that subsequently provoked a firestorm of controversy against Israel around the world, and even perhaps some serious soul-searching within Jewish Israel itself. It also inspired the al-Jazeera article by Ben White that formed the basis of my last post, and to which I made many references. Below is a graphic breakdown of that poll's controversial findings:



NB: The "famous American author who is boycotting Israel" as quoted in the above Ha'aretz poll is Alice Walker, the African-American author of the best-selling novel The Color Purple. 

They are very telling results indeed. They strongly suggest a (Jewish Israeli) nation that is at somewhat odds with the oppression of the Palestinian people by their state of Israel, but who seem somehow resigned to being the oppressor and, even more bizarrely, to being okay with living in what is essentially an apartheid state. 

Even the article in Ha'aretz by Gordon Levy about their own poll had the headline: "Apartheid, by any other name."

But then the byline to the that very headline reads: "No, Israel is not an apartheid state, but the occupation in the territories is apartheid." 

Excuse me?

That's a bit like a headline back in 1985 in, say, the Johannesburg daily newspaper The Star having stated: "No, South Africa is not an apartheid state, but the homeland system is apartheid."
Yeah, right. Talk about cognitive dissonance on a grand, national scale.

The journalist Christopher Bollyn wrote an excellent article in his blog in response to this poll in late October, entitled "Israel - Apartheid Without Shame or Guilt." Here are some of the points he makes, even further evidence of the apartheid state that is Israel, if any was needed:

• Israeli checkpoints prevent Palestinians from moving freely in their own country. Jews, and cars with Jewish license plates, however, are allowed to pass without stopping
• Three out of four Israelis support the use of segregated roads for Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank
• A third to half of Jewish Israelis want to live in a state that practices formal, open discrimination against Israeli citizens who are not Jewish. An even larger majority wants to live in an apartheid state if Israel annexes the territories

Bollyn makes the telling observation that the Ha'aretz poll shows how it "...lays bare an image of Israeli society, and the picture is a very, very sick one. Now it is not just critics at home and abroad, but Israelis themselves who are openly, shamelessly, and guiltlessly defining themselves as nationalistic racists." 

He continues, "We're racists, the Israelis are saying, we practice apartheid and we even want to live in an apartheid state. Yes, this is Israel." And makes the further salient points that, "The "Jewish" part of "Jewish democracy" has won big time. The "Jewish" gave "democracy" a knockout, smashing it to the canvas. Israelis want more and more Jewish and less and less democracy. From now on don't say Jewish democracy. There's no such thing, of course. There cannot be. From now on say Jewish state, only Jewish, for Jews alone. Democracy - sure, why not. But for Jews only." 

Bollyn then makes a very serious conclusion about the state of the state of (Jewish) Israel: "the image of Israel 2012 is this: We don't want Arabs, don't want Palestinians, don't want equality, and the hell with all the rest. Values-shmalues, morals-shmorals. Democracy and international law - those are matters for anti-Semites, not us. We will vote for Netanyahu again, recite that we're the only-democracy-in-the-Middle-East and wail that the whole world is against us."

Because that is indeed the Israel of today - democratic, yet for whom?; defiant, yet so very scared; oppressor, yet always the victim. 

Hypocritical, shameful Israel.

Do you get my point?