is anyone else in the mood to hug a ceremonial urn while franz schubert hums gently in the background
?
The best graffiti I saw on the separation wall when I was in Palestine wasn’t one of those photographic portraits by the famous artist Bansky. It was this, at the checkpoint going from Bethlehem (Occupied Palestinian Territory) to West Jerusalem (Israel).
You survived to do this?
My God, I thought with sudden vehemence, so you really are. There are proofs of your existence. I have forgotten them all and never even wanted any, for what a huge obligation would lie in the certainty of you.
-Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, translated by Stephen Mitchell
Journalist, author and publisher Charles Glass has a feature in this month’s edition of Harper’s magazine called “The Warrior Class,” a feature covering the rise of private security contractors after 9/11. The article describes a number videos shown to Glass by a source who had worked for Blackwater. Harpers published clips from the videos yesterday, which show Blackwater guards and other private security contractors operating as if living in the Wild West. One video shows a contractor randomly and “enthusiastically” firing an AK-47 from the turret of an armored vehicle and another shows a private guard yelling obscenities at passers-by and other armored cars smashing into civilian vehicles:
[Video]
Another video shows what appears to be an American-made SUV running over a civilian without stopping. The car videoing the incident also does not stop:
[Video]
Harpers reports that “the tape ended with the inscription ‘In support of security, peace, freedom and democracy everywhere.”
This is American exceptionalism at its finest.
