Philip Munger

Early last week, when it came out that British physicist Stephen Hawking had decided to not attend a late-spring conference in Jerusalem, he went quickly from being a cult hero in the Israeli high tech sphere to pariah. Although he has been to Israel several times in the past – and to the occupied territories of the West Bank, now called “Palestine” by a growing number of countries, agencies and notable individuals – he was encouraged by British academics, Palestinian scholars and American linguist, Noam Chomski, to back out.

Denmark and Finland jointly announced they were joining Sweden, which had granted Palestine embassy status. The formal announcement was Monday, at a Scandinavian ministerial conference.

No musician matures by herself, or by himself. From the beginnings, child musicians search for ways to express themselves from their own hearts and minds. Even if drawn toward music from within, they usually seek to emulate someone older, though. Eventually, they gain craft and intricate skills through guidance from teachers, mentors, siblings or parents, and from occasionally hearing or seeing prominent or famous performers.

Ten years ago today, mere days before we began our $2 trillion criminal war of aggression against the Iraqi people, American college senior, Rachel Corrie, was murdered near Rafah, in the Gaza Strip.

I’ve never before written that the courageous young woman was murdered. However, having considered the testimony given during the civil trial against the Israel Defense Forces regarding her death, which concluded last August, her demise was indeed murder, to wit: an unlawful killing of a human being, with malice.

At 4:30 PM, Washington DC time Thursday, outgoing Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar and others, held a press conference to announce the release of their expedited 60-day review of Shell’s 2012 Alaska Arctic drilling operations, which were plagued by a series of fiascos.

A battle is brewing in Alaska over how to interpret Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s involvement in, and final vote upon, Senate Bill 47, the Violence Against Women Act. Murkowski was a co-sponsor of the bill, and has been proclaiming for weeks her progressive role in this important legislation.

Next Saturday, March 16th, will mark the tenth anniversary of the death in Gaza, of Rachel Corrie. Rachel, then a senior at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, had gone to Gaza at the beginning of 2003, to fulfill aspects of her senior thesis. While there, she became active in efforts by the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), to protect Palestinians from outrages of the Israeli occupation forces.

You can click here to watch the U.S. Committee on Natural Resources confirmation hearing of Sally Jewell, to replace Ken Salazar as Secretary of the Interior. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski is ranking member, and may put a hold on the nomination, over a longstanding rural access road issue on the western Alaska peninsula

One shouldn’t forget that there is far more antipathy toward Obama in Israel than there is, even among white GOP conservatives and Tea Party fanatics, in the USA.

On Tuesday, Shell Oil’s wounded conical drill rig, the Kulluk, was towed out of Kiliuda Bay on Kodiak Island, headed back to Dutch Harbor, and from there, to a Korean shipyard.

Today, the oil giant announced no drilling this year.