Best Of

Not a documentary, but some food for thought.
Peter Beinart sits down with Jon Stewart to discuss his book "Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning."
Together, they reflect on what it means to speak out against Israel’s actions, from a Jewish perspective.
They explore how Jewish history can guide us to be saviours, not oppressors; the failure of the U.S. and U.N. to hold Netanyahu accountable; the importance of critical discourse within the Jewish community; and how truly listening to Palestinian stories reveals the depth of dehumanisation they face.

Peter Beinart - "Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning" | The Daily Show

At our Saturday market stall, where we collect donations for Medical Aid for Palestinians, we're sometimes joined by a local Israeli woman. She has supported Palestinian self-determination for many years, both here and back in Israel.

What’s happening in Gaza has been hard for her to come to terms with. It causes her real anxiety and distress. And yet she continues to help out.

Her presence is a quiet reminder that this is not about religion or ethnicity, it’s about standing with others in their struggle for justice, even when it’s personally painful.

Generally, whenever you receive a crucial email or such, check the address it came from. If it’s a scam it will likely refer to some odd domain or other, like dhl-service.it instead of dhl.com, that’s always a good identifier. Otherwise I always call the people back, using a phone number from their actual web page, and ask them if they tried to contact me.

The ‘technical stuff’ is difficult. You can make calls end-to-end encrypted, so that no-one can eavesdrop, but in order for people to connect you have to use some kind of identifier. FaceTime uses both email addresses and phone numbers as endpoint id’s, I believe, so if you know someone’s primary phone number you can likely also FaceTime them. This data can be scraped off the web, for example there was a massive data breach at Facebook a while ago which exposed people’s names and email addresses.

@Jeroen you could try regenerative gardening. Just added a link on my website.
https://mettaray.com/Health/

also...
https://communitysupportedagriculture.org.uk/

We are not and never have been dependent on technology. Except for the sheep amongst us. AI is a tool and humans are good at breaking their tools...

Interesting video, but I think what he said in the beginning about agency is more to the point than the middle and end section about encouraging philosopher-builders.

The thing is, our digital lives are currently mediated by algorithms not through choice but through necessity. The raw volume of data on the internet is so vast that it isn’t navigable without a computer programs aid in summarising and representing it. So would AI truly change such a lot on this level? I think perhaps not.

I'm a movie and arthouse enthusiast, so there are a lot I enjoy or consider my favorites. Some of the ones I most recently watched and consider to be masterpieces: Sorcerer, Tár, Afire, Aftersun, Shoplifters (rewatch).

A fairly positive experience from about a week ago: Superman (2025). I found it to be entertaining and it brought the character closer to me (I was never a fan of Superman for some reason), because it basically told a coming of age story with him going through some healthy dose of disillusionment and breaking with the drive to meet all kinds of external expectations. I really liked that aspect of it.

https://ozyandmillie.org/1998/06-25/index.html

@Shoshin1 said:
There were moments where you could sense a shift, where at least a couple of them began to recognise the flaws in their own logic once certain things were pointed out.

This is what I appreciate with Jubilee. You can see over the years how the discussion changes minds, often not right in the moment, but later on if the general topic comes up again people's opinions have changed to include good points others have made.

Yes, some of the opinions expressed by the MEGA mob around Medhi can, for various reasons, make people feel uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s not just the extremity of their views, but the unsettling recognition that certain aspects might, in some way, align with one’s own, that can be even more confronting. For me, it’s important to face that discomfort when it arises.

The content isn’t meant to be 'enjoyable': it’s about exploring what makes MEGA people tick, and what that reveals about human nature, particularly how easily some can be influenced or drawn in.

There were moments where you could sense a shift, where at least a couple of them began to recognise the flaws in their own logic once certain things were pointed out.