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Originally uploaded by Rachel Ariel.

Listening to: NMH (ipod on shuffle for the first time in ages)

There are certain situations that make me feel as though no matter how much I learn I will always be a novice. Sometimes I think that any subject on which I have actually devoted any amount of time studying actually falls into this category. Today, and most days, it is the Israel / Arab/ Palestinian/ Middle East Conflict.

Folk at work asked me last week “how concerned” am I about the current situation with Lebanon. I don’t always know what to say when asked questions like that. I’m always concerned when there is violence in Israel. I also remember that living in Israel is just like living anywhere else, they just happen to be in the International news a whole lot. People still get up every day, they go to work, they send their kids to school, or camp, or out to play with their friends. People live their lives because they have to.

But I’m no expert. I’ve lived in Israel about a total of six months. I can’t speak authoritatively on anything really. My Israeli friends are concerned though. They are worried, and they are nervous, and they are trying to go about their business, just like everyone else in the world.

In reference to God and belief, one of Jonathan Safran Foer’s characters says “I’m an atheist, but I believe that it’s very complicated”. I think that sentiment basically describes almost every thing I believe. I know what I think about something, but I know that if it is in any way important, that it is complicated beyond my comprehension. Part of the reason zealots scare me beyond reason.

There are so many things that I believe, but reigning over them all, is my firm belief that Israel has a right, a necessity to exist.

I also believe that the Palestinians need their own land.

I believe that the Arab countries have treated the Palestinian people atrociously and no one seems to be paying attention to it.

I believe that destroying someone’s home is not going to accomplish anything but making that person more mad at you.

I believe that misinformation often creates a veil behind which more ominous ideas may hide.

I believe that any army which uproots fruit trees needs to reevaluate it’s motives (especially if that army is the army for the homeland of a people who believe that if one is planting a tree when the Messiah arrives you must finish planting the tree and then go greet the Messiah).

I believe that people have the capacity to make the world an amazing place.

I believe that people have the capacity to destroy the world.

I believe that there is no person who wakes up in the morning with the thought “Today I will do evil”.

I believe that violence necessary only rarely, and only after a breakdown in diplomacy.

I believe that the majority of problems in the world stem from communication issues, people who don’t, can’t or refuse to understand one another.

I believe that I am an incredibly naiive person.

I beileve that I am an incredibly jaded person.

Ok, so I finally got my grubby paws on TV on The Radio’s “Return to Cookie Mountain”. I was planning to listen to it at work all day, but alas, my ipod remains firmly ensconsed in my alarm clock where I forgot it as I ran out the door this morning (note to self, you really *can’t* stay up until 2:30 and still get up at 7, no matter how much you tell yourself that you can).

I haven’t been able to concentrate on the album as much as I would like to, mostly because I haven’t really been in the mood for TVoTR at the moment, also because I picked up “The Avalanche” a mere four hours prior to getting “Return to Cookie Mountain” and was completely blown away and obsesseed with “Springfield, or Bobby’s got a Shafly Stuck in His Hair” (which, for those of you who are as obsessed with Colin Meloy as I am, sounds remarkably like “Save Yourself” on Tarkio’s “Omnibus”, at least musically).

So anyway, here I am, finally feeling ready to leave behind my four song Sufjan/Tarkio playlist, and I forgot TVoTR at home. So I’ve been Pandora’ing it, and that’s been about as touch and go as it usually is. I think I’m too eclectic for the music genome project. I am trying to figure out why it is taking over 7 months to create a working TVoTR website. I mean, aren’t they signed to a major record label these days? Dosn’t Interscope have a couple of people on their payroll who can make things happen on the internet a little more quickly than glacier speed?

I guess I’m complaining because I’m still bitter about missing the NIN/TVoTR/Bauhaus show and I want to know when they will be touring again, and where.

Anyway. Music is one of the few good things in my life at the moment. Word.