Born on State Highway 1

An odd thing indeed. Several odd things combined. Firstly, The New York Times printing an op-ed by Muammar Qaddafi? Qaddafi proposing a one-state solution to the Israel-Palestine Conundrum? Entitled simply The One State Solution, Qaddafi very briefly lists the legitimate grievances of both the Jewish and Palestinian peoples, points out that they’ve got on pretty well in the past, and echoes Chomsky in claiming that a two-state “solution” is not viable.

Thus the Palestinians believe that what is now called Israel forms part of their nation, even were they to secure the West Bank and Gaza. And the Jews believe that the West Bank is Samaria and Judea, part of their homeland, even if a Palestinian state were established there. Now, as Gaza still smolders, calls for a two-state solution or partition persist. But neither will work.

I find myself more or less agreeing with him. Of course, as an anarchist, my ideal would be the no-state solution. And, as someone with too much time on his hands, I would prefer the name “Canaan” to Qaddafi’s proposed “Isratine”, which to me sounds like something you ask-your-doctor-about-and-may-cause-drowsiness-and-breathlessness.

But it’s just interesting to see Qaddafi continuing his recent trend, which kind of began with him declaring and ending his WMD programmes, of engaging more with “the West”. His argument also has hints of a story told about a figure common to both Judaism and Islam – King Solomon. The old “cutting the baby in two” show. Of course, not actually like that at all, when you think about it.

I grew up on Ninja Turtles, Star Wars, GI Joe and I sort of follow politics. So if you were going to buy me a toy, what would it be? It would be a toy with which I could tell the following story:

After a hard day of shooting motherfuckers, chopping motherfuckers up with goddam swords and defeating Darth Vader with a lightsabre, Barack Obama likes to relax with some sit-ups while resting oranges on his lap.

And the toy would be made in Japan.

I’m a big fan of freedom of information. Copyrights and intellectual property… Well, I’ll go on about them another time. But the commodification of education is something that annoys me, so free tertiary education via the internet is one of my favourites. For a while now, I’ve read through MIT Open Courseware notes (that’s Massachusetts, not Manukau). Now I’m starting to watch lectures on Academic Earth, which incorporates videos of lectures from MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, Princeton and Yale (none of which are Manukau). It’s only really just getting going, but as time goes on, I expect the variety of lectures to choose from will become very impressive. Viewers can also rate lectures, so once there’s more of a choice, you’ll have some idea of which to pick.