Durban 2

Holland and Australia Boycott Durban 2

According to today’s Jerusalem Post, Holland and Australia have announced that they will boycott Durban 2:

Hours after the US said it would boycott a UN conference on racism starting Monday in Geneva over objectionable language in the meeting’s final document that could single out Israel for criticism, Australia and Holland followed suit on Sunday morning, saying they were concerned the conference would be derailed by some countries to issues other than human rights.

So let’s see,  that makes the US, Israel, Canada, Italy, Holland and Australia the only countries officially willing to admit that tomorow’s conference actually has nothing to do with racism or human rights? Where is the EU? According to JPost,

The European Union was still weighing its own participation.

Well, they still a few hours left to save themselves from embarrassment.

First impressions

Not half a day into it and I’m already having serious doubts. Not only is the name quote unquote seriously overused by bloggers (which means I will eventually have to revert to my own name to avoid further confusion), but I am shocked that this didn’t occur to me at the very first moment. No matter.

Macy Halford at the New Yorker has the dope on the new vogue of vampire fiction. She nobly dives in where I fear to tread. Plus, sooner or later I hope to confront David Plotz, A. J. Jacobs and the recent trend in rediscovering the Bible and writing about it as if it had been dug up from some archaeological backwater (think Gilgamesh). Oh boy, books are fun!

Then there is a whole slew of other stuff that deserves attention, the pesky Durban 2 conference next month foremost among them. Who said it was just books?