Naked in Fairfax County, VA

So apparently, being naked in your home carries up to a year in prison in Fairfax County, VA. The Washington Post reports here. Eric Williamson was making breakfast naked is his own home, minding his own business when some cops arrived at his door and arrested him. Apparently a mother and her 7 year old son were passing by and saw him and did the obvious thing to do in that situation: they called the cops. They would have made for fine informants in Nazi Germany but that's besides the point.

Viewing nudity as some mortal sin stems from an overly Christian view of the human body in my opinion. If all sexuality is evil, then exposing a naked body, even in your own home, must be some sort of cardinal sin. Makes me glad I live in Jerusalem where the thought of imprisoning someone for this sort of thing would be laughable.

It also reminds me of a run-in I had with the law in Fairfax County, where this absurd comedy of justice is taking place. The year was 2002 and me and two friends (Eytan Bayme and Noam Osband) had done a 2 week spin from NYC down to the first Bonnaroo in Tennesse, then to Memphis, Little Rock, and New Orleans across the Panhandle and back up North. By the time we were passing through Fairfax, our car (the famous 'Lissmobile' '89 Red Astrovan) was a total mess. It was 2 a.m., Osband was at the wheel and got lost and made an illegal turn. Big mistake in Fairfax. We were immediately pulled over and 4 cops spent the next 2 hours combing over every inch of our van until 4 in the morning. They of course found nothing except a legal pill case with prescription medication.

Every so often, the Alpha Male of the group would say 'I know that's ecstasy in the pill case - you boys are in a heap of trouble.' He also asked us if we were following the Dead around - I had to break him the news that Jerry Garcia had died 7 years earlier. He was a pretty sorry excuse for a human being, relishing every tiny bit of authority he had. They also found fireworks which though legal pretty much everywhere south of the Mason Dixon line were illegal on that one stretch of road we happened to find ourselves on.

To conclude, if you happen to ever find yourself in Fairfax County, VA, run like hell. They don't look kindly on people like yourself, unless you've never before had a bottle of prescription medication in your possession and of course never been naked, even in your own home.

There Go Those Horrible Settlers Saving Another Palestinian Life

It's a shame some news doesn't get reported by the liberal-oriented western media. Anyone who knows me knows I'm certainly not the biggest fan of the settler enterprise. But last night pulling out of Efrat in the West Bank just past Bethlehem, I noticed a scene I have come upon once or twice in the past. An Arab family was sitting at the gate looking on hopefully while Jewish paramedics in full settler attire (if such a thing exists) were working frantically to save a Palestinian from a neighboring village. Being that Efrat has better first response medical supplies and personnel than many of the local Palestinian villages, Palestinians in dire need come right up to the gate of this settlement for emergency care when they truly require it.

I'm sure there was no time for these 'settler' paramedics to take a security history of this dying Palestinian. He or his family could have been terrorists or terrorist sympathizers for all they knew. But a human being in need showed up in desperate shape and they treated him as any decent person would: like a human being. Race, religion or creed played no factor in their medical decisions. And if the settlers were so damn dangerous, would a whole family of Palestinians really risk coming right up to the gate of a settlement and risk getting medical treatment? Clearly they wouldn't.

The NY Times, Haaretz, and assorted European media outlets should take note: Things in the territories are rarely what they seem. Or do some members of the western media elite already know this and choose to paint a far more black and white picture of things anyway just to further a predetermined agenda? Either way, these sorts of omissions in reporting on life in the Territories is nothing short of criminal. And instead of focussing on things that bring could people together, they create an unnecessary level of distrust between people for no real reason.

P.S. Thanks to Simone for this title - she exclaimed it immediately after we witnessed the scene described above and I instantly knew it would be the title of my next blog post.