There is a big thing at the moment because the Olympic gold medal swimmer Rebecca Adlington thinks the comedian Frankie Boyle should be banned because he said she looks like "someone who's looking at themselves in the back of a spoon". He's been told off but she doesn't think that's enough.
I think the whole thing is ridiculous and I'm fed up with all this criticism of comedians and the BBC getting more and more careful about everything. Why doesn't she have a thicker skin? They have done worse than that in the past about other people - a good example is that about a year and a half ago, John Prescott, a British politician, admitted to having bulimia. I thought it was really brave of him and really good to show that it isn't only teenage girls who get disorders like that. OF COURSE he got LOTS of flack over that and the comedians in the satirical panel shows were absolutely MERCILESS. But was there anything in the news saying Ian Hislop or Paul Merton should be banned for that? No there wasn't! And yet to me that is more mean-spirited than saying someone's not very good looking.
I also still really miss Russell Brand on Saturdays, so that just adds to it! Not that Russell was into insulting people. Not really at all - he mostly insults himself!
I'm quite happy we don't have people like Bernard Manning now but I still don't like the way things are going. :(

Coming into work today...saw a man walking 3 doggies, 2 of them dachshunds, and one of the dachshunds had a little wheeled contraption over his back end. Awww...He was going just as fast as the other 2 doggies and looked really happy otherwise. I love people who will do that kind of thing for their dog rather than have them put down because they can't walk well on their own anymore. :)
I believe dachshunds are kind of prone to problems with their back legs because of the way they are bred, am I right about that, brynhilda and hypnobarb1?

Well, the latest news here is aptly described by Stephen Fry:

I gather a repulsive nobody writing in a paper no one of any decency would be seen dead with has written something loathesome and inhumane.

that's about it!
The Daily Mail has struck again. One of their columnists has written a really horrible and homophobic article about Stephen Gately, the member of Boyzone who has just died, apparently of natural causes.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1220756/A-strange-lonely-troubling-death--.html
That's it there, although I wish there was a way of going on to it without giving the Daily Mail revenue for their advertising etc.
She is trying to defend herself now, claims it isn't homophobic and thinks most of the people who complained didn't read it - well I read it, and it looked pretty homophobic to me.
One of the worst bits:

"The real sadness about Gately's death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships.

Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael.

As a gay rights champion, I am sure he would want to set an example to any impressionable young men who may want to emulate what they might see as his glamorous routine.

For once again, under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see.

===
She's actually now claiming that she was trying to say civil partnerships were just the same as heterosexual ones and have the same problems! I don't see that there, is it just me? :(
I don't think someone like her should be banned, though. Let someone like that show how stupid and bigoted she is.

Well, just reading the CBC, I found this article:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2009/09/08/edmonton-shatner-lucy-elephant-zoo.html

Canadian actor William Shatner is calling for the City of Edmonton to move Lucy the Asian elephant out of the city-run Valley Zoo, a major animal rights group announced Tuesday.

In a letter addressed to Mayor Stephen Mandel on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Shatner said he is adding to a "crescendo of voices" calling for Lucy to be moved.

"Edmonton can capably take care of its own. Yet, in a larger sense, these extraordinary animals are everybody's responsibility," Shatner writes. "I humbly ask you to allow Lucy to retire to better circumstances than at the Edmonton Zoo … she's old, feeble and many of us know how that feels. I hope you don't mind my intruding but the cause is just."

Shatner, the latest high-profile individual to call for the city to move Lucy out of the zoo, is best known for playing characters such as Capt. James T. Kirk on Star Trek and Denny Crane on Boston Legal.

Earlier this year, retired U.S. game show host and animal rights advocate Bob Barker wrote a letter to Edmonton city council urging the city to move the elephant after the case was brought to his attention by Zoocheck Canada.

In May, Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Nico Ricci, Jane Urquhart, Barbara Gowdy and 31 other Canadian authors called on Edmonton's mayor and council to move Lucy.

Lucy is the only elephant in a Canadian zoo that lives alone. She has been on her own since September 2007, when the Valley Zoo's other elephant, Samantha, was moved to be part of a breeding program at a zoo in North Carolina.

The elephant has lived at the zoo for most of her life.

Animal rights advocates believe Lucy's health is poor. Records obtained by Zoocheck Canada suggest the elephant is facing a number of problems, including foot infections and arthritis. Her health and isolation have prompted the campaign to have Lucy moved to one of two elephant sanctuaries in the United States where she can interact with other elephants.

Officials at the Valley Zoo have rebuffed offers to relocate Lucy, arguing a move could aggravate her health problems, including a wrongly positioned molar in her mouth.

---
My opinion of William Shatner has now gone up greatly. (Although I'm not sure I'd go as far as one of the commenters on this article: "Aside from his acting career, which is stellar, he's a many-times published author and his last CD received rave reviews. I bought it, and it's simply fantastic.". Hmmm).
I had not known about this issue before but found this website http://www.SaveLucy.ca and I think it's important to raise the issue. I haven't been to Valley Zoo for years, but it was always known as a shit zoo, and if you wanted to go to a decent zoo in Alberta, you went to Calgary. I might add that my sister worked there in the summer while at Uni, and apparently at that time they had a really crap vet there and several animals died under his so-called care. The reason they got him in? He was willing to accept less money than other vets.
I'm not an expert on elephants, but it sounds like quite a few people who ARE have been saying that this elephant SHOULD be moved to a sanctuary. So...help save Lucy!
There's a petition on the site and also contact details of people on Edmonton City Council.

Thought I'd post this link from the Moscow Times...it's a photo gallery so I hope they won't stop the link after a day like they tend to do with their articles. It shows dogs in Moscow...really great photos! Showing how resourceful the strays there really are! No one usually believes me when I say the dogs use the Metro there! ;) This shows that they do...;)
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/photogallery/1484/

I know I'm an old grump, but I really am thinking about writing to Transport for London to complain about the inappropriate poster campaign they have for their Cycle Fridays scheme. This is the page about it here and you can see the poster they're using: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/cycling/12293.aspx
As you can see, 2 of the people in the poster are NOT wearing helmets and none of them are wearing reflective clothing. In fact the broad in front is wearing a long loose scarf - which I also think is probably NOT a good idea on a bike, cos it might get tangled up. I really think they are being irresponsible not encouraging people to WEAR HELMETS and reflective clothing!!!
Or maybe I just feel more strongly about it as my sister would be dead now if she hadn't been wearing her bike helmet!

well, so there is Rabbi Hillel (I have mentioned him before on here - really lovely gay Rabbi from Northwood and Pinner Liberal synagogue), giving a speech and saying Kaddish at the rally in support of the Israeli LGBT. Unfortunately it was rather a small group, I suppose because it was rather last minute. I found out about it from lethargic_man only about 40 minutes before it was due to start, and then I got there rather late partly because of that and partly because I was a bit confused by the Victoria Line being partly down and took a silly route. Anyway...Rabbi H gave a very stirring speech, he's a very inspiring speaker, I have to say. Two friends from the NLPJC were there and one of them filmed Rabbi H so perhaps the speech will appear somewhere.
there is meant to be a memorial service at the Montague Centre some evening this week, maybe Wednesday, i'll probably go to that too.

This somewhat amused me, about Johnny Depp: (got it off yahoo france!)

Puis il évoque, le zizi de John Dillinger, gâté par la nature, comme on le découvrira dans le film : "J'ai également fait des recherches. Nous avons la même taille. Exactement la même ! "

(Then he talks about John Dillinger's willy - John Dillinger was blessed by nature, as we discover in the film: 'I even did some research. We have the same size. Exactly the same!')

well, it's that time again...
Happy Canada Day, to anyone who might be celebrating it ;)

Interesting article from the Moscow Times...about the animist religion of the Mari people (one of the native ethnic minorities of Russia):
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/600/42/379152.htm
'Europe's Last Pagans' Worship in Marii-El Grove
30 June 2009
By Nikolaus von Twickel / The Moscow Times
MARISOLA, Marii-El Republic -- More than 50 worshippers gathered in a sacred grove on a hot June afternoon outside the village of Marisola. The crowd, mostly women dressed in national costumes and colorful headscarves, stood on a glade opposite a spruce where men were busy conducting prayers.

The congregation kneeled while the men under the spruce, dressed in suits, white felt hats and linen towels cast over their shoulders, said prayers in a low, monotone murmur.

They prayed to Osh Kughu Yumo -- Mari for "Great White God" -- who was being revered that day as Agavairem, which means both deity of creative energy and the feast marking the end of spring labor.

The women lined up in the grass in front of piles of thick homemade pancakes, white cheese, dumplings and brown kvas, the fermented rye drink. Pots and kitchenware were adorned with burning candles, as was a makeshift table in front of the spruce.

The extraordinary ceremony testified to the little-known fact that an animist faith has survived centuries of Christian and Muslim hegemony in this obscure region 800 kilometers east of Moscow.

The Mari, a Finnic people of roughly half a million whose language sounds a bit like a strange mixture of Finnish and Turkish, are said to be Europe's last pagans. Yet their priests, called kart in Mari, reject that notion.

"We are not pagans. We call our faith the Mari Traditional Religion, and we are registered officially in the republic," said Vyacheslav Mamayev, who oversaw the ceremony as the chief kart of the local Sernur district.
He went on to explain that for the Mari, God has nine substances, or hypostases, ranging from the life-giving Ilyan Yumo to the birth goddess Shochinava.

Asked about the theological foundation of his faith, Mamayev smiled and said, "Everything works through nature."

Indeed, like most animist religions, the Mari faith traditionally knows no written scriptures and no sacred edifices. Prayers are chiefly held in sacred groves, where some feasts include the ritual slaughter of animals as sacrifice.

"Nature is our temple," said Zoya Dudina as she walked with worshippers on a winding path through high grass after the ceremony in the grove had ended.

Dudina, a poet and intellectual from the republican capital, Ioshkar-Ola, expressed pride that her people had regained the possibility to practice their traditional faith.

In Soviet times, she said, villagers would sneak out to the sacred groves after midnight, hoping that nobody would report their forbidden prayers.

Indeed, unnoticed by much of the outside world, the Mari faith has made a remarkable recovery since the end of Soviet Union.

In Marii-El, the Mari Traditional Religion, dubbed MTR, is recognized as one of three traditional faiths, along with Christianity and Islam.

The Mari High Kart Alexander Tanygin regularly attends official ceremonies alongside local Christian and Muslim leaders.

About 15 percent of the people of Marii-El consider themselves adherents of MTR, according to a survey conducted in 2004 by Sociologists of the Mari Institute for Language, Literature and History. Because Maris make up just 45 percent of a population of 700,000, this figure means that probably more than a third of them follow the old religion.





Even local Orthodox clergy acknowledge the traditional faith's dominance in the republic's northern rural districts.

"This is certainly the weakest parish in all of Marii-El," said Father Sergy of Marisola's Pokrovka Church.

Of the local population of 2,500, only 10 to 15 believers attend his services regularly, he said, standing outside his small 19th-century church.

In the local district center of Sernur, the Eparchy of Marii-El is building a new church, but construction, which began in 2003, has stalled because of a lack of funds.

Yet Father Sergy, a gaunt man with a scrubby beard and a kind voice, made it clear that he bore no grudge against the pagans. "We have friendly relations. We are not foes," he said.

He noted that about 1,500 locals were baptized, although he added that he considered practicing traditionalists to be lost souls. "They have no hope of being saved -- that can only happen to believers," he said.

The Mari faith is no isolated phenomenon and has been described as syncretic, combining elements from various religions.

Many Mari villagers have icons in their homes, and drivers stick miniature images of saints on their dashboards, just like anywhere else in Russia.
On their way out of the grove at Marisola, women turned around and crossed themselves, just as Orthodox believers do when leaving church. When one of the karts saw them, he mildly told them to stop.

"You should not put too much significance in this," Dudina explained. "Our people have lived with the Russian church for generations, but our faith is older."

Christianity, she said, had not entered Mari rites, but rather the rites had entered Christianity. "There are so many pagan traditions in Christianity. Look at the Christmas tree," she said.

Other Mari classify themselves in groups with varying degrees of Russian-Orthodox influence, including "Rush Vera" followers, who might even go to church at times; followers of "Marla Vera" who are baptized; and the nonbaptized "Chi Mari."

Mamayev, the Sernur district kart, said the various groups should be allowed to coexist. "Many who come to our prayers are baptized. We will not exclude them. Everyone should be allowed to pursue his own form of worship," he said over a traditional meal of pancakes and kvas held in the Marisola village after prayers.

Juha VКliaho, a Finnish Lutheran missionary who worked in Marii-El for 10 years before moving to Bashkortostan, estimated that 60 percent of the Mari are baptized into the Orthodox Church. "But in their hearts, they are all pagans," he said in an interview in the Finnish Lutheran Church in the outskirts of Ioshkar-Ola, the capital.

The city of 280,000 displays few signs of animist traditions. More striking here is the Orthodox Church's construction activities, which can be seen at numerous churches and religious schools.

VКliaho said that while traditions are strong in the villages, pagan structures are weak in the city.

"It is a totally rural phenomenon. You don't really hold on to these beliefs in a city," he said.

Asked about the local success of missionaries, he said the Lutheran parish in the capital had more than 150 members. Despite the low numbers, he mused that Protestants might be more successful in proselytizing here than the Orthodox. "Many Mari do not want to go the Orthodox church because it is perceived as quintessentially Russian. We, however, can offer worship in their own language," he said.

Even Father Sergy, the Orthodox priest in Marisola, suggested that he did not see much sense in his church winning over the traditionalists. Asked about the future of the Orthodox faith in Marii-El, he said he did not worry so much about paganism but rather about people with no faith at all.

"Look at the youth in our villages," he said. "They have little hope of finding work. They either start drinking or move away to the cities, where they find all sorts of bad things but no religion."

Just a minor thing, but I'm annoyed with the Metro.
I saw this article:
http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?Animal_has_a_moose_of_a_crossing&in_article_id=691818&in_page_id=2
A young female moose uses a school crossing in Canada.
The animal had wandered into Newfoundland earlier with it's male twin, disrupting traffic and attracting onlookers.

The pair has already been captured and released once before in this same area. They were released outside of town last month.

------------
It makes out that Newfoundland is a TOWN in Canada. Erm...(not to mention the misspelling of 'its')
I thought it was probably actually St John's (the capital of Newfieland) where this happened and I was right...
http://www.thetelegram.com/index.cfm?sid=263688&sc=78
I wrote a comment stating that Newfoundland is a PROVINCE and there are quite a lot of moose living there anyway as far as I know (this article makes it sound like the moose came in from Nova Scotia, or something...), and that the city concerned was ST JOHN'S.
They haven't posted my comment nor have they changed the article. :(
Guess they don't like comments that show they've made a mistake. :(
They also clearly copied the story in the Newfie Telegram but skipped out the info about the town and misspelled 'its' (it's spelt properly in the Telegram!).

Rather upset to read this...:(

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/06/18/belarus-program.html
Program to bring Chernobyl kids to Canada cancelled
Last Updated: Thursday, June 18, 2009 | 11:28 PM ET Comments18Recommend17CBC News
A summer program that brings children from radiation-affected areas of Belarus to Canada has been cancelled because Ottawa has so far refused to agree to new travel demands made by the Belarus government.

Around 100 Belarusian children, who come from areas contaminated by the 1986 explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in Ukraine, are taken in every year by families across the country.

But in recent years, a few children have remained in Canada (and other host countries that participate in similar exchanges with Belarus). Belarus is now demanding guarantees from participating countries that children be sent back home to Belarus after their visits.

So far, Canada hasn't agreed to the demands.
(...)

This is really a shame :( When I was living in Minsk, I knew a woman who was involved with this programme. Lukashenko's probably freaking because the population in Belarus has been going down for years. Partly due to the radiation! This is NOT going to help. Any break these children can get surely can only be good for them. Especially as many of them live in poverty as well.
...and, reading the comments, I'm a bit shocked to see how many Canadians there still are who apparently don't know the USSR split up...

NOT happy about this...:(
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8096717.stm
Postal workers decide on strike

Royal Mail says productivity in some offices is 10% worse than the average.
Thousands of postal workers in London are to strike.

Up to 10,000 Communication Workers Union (CWU) members will walk out for 24 hours on 19 June causing disruption to mail deliveries across the city.

They claim "arbitrary" job cuts will affect about 1,600 workers and that staff may be downgraded into part-time positions, threatening services.

The Royal Mail disputes the job cut figure and said a fall in mail volumes meant fewer jobs were needed.

CWU deputy general secretary Dave Ward said: "Royal Mail is blocking modernisation by refusing to negotiate change with the CWU.

Productivity 'lagging'

"We have offered a moratorium on all strike action if Royal Mail will suspend executive action and enter into meaningful negotiations."

Mr Ward added: "The future of the business must be safeguarded through careful planning, not shooting from the hip."

But a Royal Mail spokesman said: "A strike will not modernise Royal Mail - it will simply disrupt the service to which customers are entitled, lead to an even greater loss of business and leave Royal Mail far less able to protect full time jobs.

"Productivity in Royal Mail offices in London already lags behind the rest of the UK with the productivity in parts of London now 10% worse than the UK average."

He added: "We are only putting in place changes which are already agreed with the CWU as part of the 2007 deal."

----
One thing I can believe, about the productivity in London being behind the rest of the country...I've had MUCH worse service in London than anywhere else I've lived in the UK. Loads of letters lost here...:(

pinched from the Moscow Times, again...:( Seems not much has changed in Russia...:( The thing is because there is so much ignorance about this stuff, a lot of the young people are really promiscuous and don't use condoms very much - the men tend to refuse them - and so HIV is rising most among young women...and then there's a HUGE stigma against that too...

Vow to Europe to Offer Sex Ed Angers Parents
11 June 2009
By Anna Malpas / The Moscow Times
Russia has one of the world's highest rates of HIV infection among young people. At the same time, schools are teaching students that sexually transmitted diseases are caused by a "frivolous lifestyle," and textbooks fail to mention the word "condom."
( Read more )

Thought I should post about the West Memphis Three, since tomorrow marks 16 years since they were put in prison.
From the Myspace blog about Damien Echols:

Having no physical evidence, three teenagers were pinpointed, harassed and accused of murdering and mutilating three 8-year-old boys. June 3, 2009 will mark the 16-year anniversary Damien Echols was arrested along with Jessie Misskelley Jr. and Jason Baldwin dubbing them the West Memphis Three. Damien Echols sits on death row, Jason Baldwin was sentenced to life without parole, and Misskelley got life plus forty. For more information about the case on these three innocent young men visit http://www.wm3.org.

Two more days for auctions to end. http://www.skeletonkeyauctions.com/index.php?
All monies minus shipping goes directly towards the Defense Fund. To date you all have helped raise over $15,000 through the auction site. Please tell others about it and bid on the great donated items. Thanks!

FREE THE WM3!!!

Found some really nice photos of my former home province in Canada...I guess it is some kind of competition, to find a photo to represent Alberta!
I think the first one would be great for that, or some of the mountain ones. I don't like the oil rig ones too much of course and also wouldn't like to see the one of the watchtower at Fort Edmonton used. I don't really like watchtowers too much, even if it IS at a museum.
they're here
There are a couple in there actually of Edmonton, too...I don't know what they are doing with the art gallery! It used to be quite a normal looking building, it looks really mad now.
The other thing is that the mountain ones really show the effects of global warming...there used to be a lot more snow on those peaks!! I always notice how barren the mountains look when I go back now.

Ok, ok..
I have to post about this...
Alan Carr
on Twitter...Gosh he really is the funniest one on there!
He doesn't post all the time but when he does he always makes me giggle! :D
Some of his highlights:
( Read more )


hee hee hee hee....

More on Russia...
Peter Tatchell's opinion on the gay pride disaster...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/19/russia-gay-pride-luzhkov
Russian gay rights campaigners are toasting Moscow's homophobic mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, after he ordered the banning and violent suppression of last Saturday's Slavic gay pride parade in the Russian capital – just hours before the Eurovision song contest was staged in the city.
"Luzhkov has done more than anyone to publicise gay rights in Russia," beamed Nikolai Alekseev, the gay parade organiser, as we chatted on Sunday afternoon following his release from nearly 24 hours of police detention:
By stopping the gay parade he has provoked massive media coverage of our fight against homophobia. The Russian media has been full of reports about gay issues for the last week. This has hugely increased public awareness and understanding of gay people. (...)

There were three successive protests, one after the other. First, the Belarusians kicked off with chants against homophobia, which is when I was arrested for holding a placard with "gay rights" written on it in Russian and English. After we were dragged off, another group unfurled a 25-foot banner: "Gay Equality. No compromise." Then, finally, Alekseev and his "bride" were bundled into a police van. Several people were arrested for simply speaking to the media. Nearly all those detained – including myself – report being arrested with excessive force.


All in all, it was a PR disaster for the Russian and Moscow authorities, ensuring that Eurovision 2009 will be forever associated with police brutality, government homophobia and the suppression of a peaceful protest.
It is good to know that Russian gay campaigners are having the last laugh. In March, the then Moscow police chief, Vladmir Pronin, had promised there would no protests at all. No gay demos would be allowed to mar Eurovision. He boasted of "tough measures" and that protesters would be "torn to shreds." No person would be brave enough to risk the wrath of his riot police, Pronin warned. He was wrong. There was a gay protest. Gay people had the guts to defy his uniformed thugs. By so doing, they not only defended gay human rights, they defended the right to protest of all Russians, gay and straight.

From the Moscow Times...I've copied it again as they don't keep the articles available...
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/600/42/377260.htm
A Tank That Brings Judaism to Moscow Streets
( Read more )

Well, this isn't exactly Jewish stuff, but it's about Israel...
Found an interesting article on Jewcy.com about a documentary following Bedouin people in Israel, particularly a community where a lot of them are deaf.
I'd be rather interested in seeing the film, if I can get hold of it.
----
from http://www.jewcy.com/post/sounds_citizenship
In his film Voices from El-Sayed, Oded Adomi Leshem tackles the often-neglected issue of Israel’s unrecognized Bedouin villages. Contrary to stereotype, Israeli Bedouins lead a sedentary, non-nomadic life. 170,000 Bedouins reside in the Negev Desert, in the south of Israel, in some 46 villages and small towns. It is rarely noted, however, that between 40% and 50% live in one of 36 unrecognized settlements.

The term “unrecognized villages” refers to settlements that the Israeli government refuses to recognize as ‘legal.’ Accordingly, they are not marked on any commercially available maps, and are denied state and municipal services, such as connections to the electrical grid, water mains, and telephone network. These communities are excluded them from health, education and transportation planning as well (scores of unrecognized Bedouin and Palestinian villages do not receive any such services). It should be further noted that none of these villages are new. Some predate the state of Israel, while others are decades old, established as a result of government attempts to resettle Bedouins in these same areas.

Leshem does not take the all too-obvious and well-trodden route of recounting the history of these communities, tracing the predicament of their residents to the discriminatory policies of successive Israeli governments. All of them, Labor and Likud without exception, from the establishment of the State in 1948 to the present day have continuously refused to acknowledge the rights of Palestinian and Bedouin residents to the very land on which they reside. Yet, neither do the director nor his interviewees point fingers either. Rather, Leshem explores what life in such a village entails for its residents. He seeks to show the friction between the lives Bedouins in such unrecognized villages lead, and of life in “Israel proper,” that is, in a society that presents itself as part of the developed, “first” world, one that prides itself for being at the forefront of industrial and technological innovation.

Leshem thus turns to the village of El-Sayed (alternatively spelled as el-Sayyid), a village that went unrecognized until 2006 and that is located about 11 miles east of Beersheba, on the road to Arad. The reputation of this village lies, however, not in its troubled relationship with the Israeli government, but, rather, in the fact that it serves as a home to a community with arguably the highest percentage of deafness in the world: about 5% of the villagers are deaf, 50 times the average rate in the general population. Given the extraordinarily high rate of hearing loss, deaf people in this community are fully integrated, and are neither marginalized nor considered abnormal. Indeed, the villagers have developed a unique sign language, spoken by all villagers, hearing and hearing impaired alike, which has attracted the attention of scholars.

Usurprisingly, Voices centers on the question of communication (or lack thereof), not only between hearing and hearing impaired, but also between Israeli Jews and Bedouins, between health providers and clients, between employers and employees, between academics and laypersons, and, obviously, between “recognized” and “unrecognized” citizens of Israel. It is here that the director distinguishes himself, for whereas much of this communication is dependent upon translators and mediators, Leshem masters his subjects’ two languages: Arabic alongside sign language.

The significance of this gesture is huge. As enthusiastic as many Israeli directors may be in exploring Palestinian and Bedouin lives in Israel, few have the linguistic skills to dub their interlocutors without the mediation of a third language (commonly English, if Palestinian or Bedouin interviewees do not know or refuse to speak Hebrew,) or of a translator. This is all the more true for those directors who have featured deaf subjects. In many films, there are oftetimes three parties to every communication, a fact that underscores the alienation and the distance of a filmmaker from their interviewee. Leshem, on the other hand, converses and interrogates the people of El Sayed directly. Thus his interviews present a flow of language, uninterrupted.