{"id":1562,"date":"2007-06-21T19:53:53","date_gmt":"2007-06-22T00:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/just-one-of-the-chebabs\/"},"modified":"2007-06-21T19:53:53","modified_gmt":"2007-06-22T00:53:53","slug":"just-one-of-the-chebabs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/just-one-of-the-chebabs","title":{"rendered":"Just one of the Chebabs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in 1995, the movie Boys<\/a> filmed several scenes on the campus of St. John’s College<\/a>, where I was attending grad school. I was sitting out in the quad between classes one evening with my friends. The crew was getting ready to shoot an outdoor scene with Winona Ryder<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My buddy Mitch stared at the crew setting up on the lawn.<\/p>\n

Our friend Haydn asked, “Whattaya thinking?”<\/p>\n

Mitch replied, “I’m gonna run through that shot, throw Winona over my shoulder, and carry her all the way down to the river, shouting, ‘Court order or no, we’ll be together!'”<\/p>\n

Mitch had been a rugby player, and if it came down to him and Lukas Haas<\/a>, there was no doubt in my mind to the outcome.<\/p>\n

I asked, “Why ya gonna do that?” I was an awful stick in the mud.<\/p>\n

Mitch replied, “Because I want my college<\/a> alumni bulletin to read, ‘Mitchell Prothero is not allowed within 50 yards of Winona Ryder.'”<\/p>\n

Years went by, and Mitch is now writing from Gaza City<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Sure, some gunmen remain, but they’re all in Hamas uniforms, and the leadership has banned the infamous black ski mask. (Hamas leader Ismail Haniyah said militants should don masks to fight Israelis but not when patrolling the streets of Gaza.) So, people can now see the faces of their police officers. But in most cases, it’s not gunmen doing law enforcement, it’s a collection of unarmed men in Hamas hats and bright safety vests that say Police in English and Arabic. They provide traffic control, investigate petty crimes, and offer a general nonthreatening sense of security not provided in the past by surly masked gunmen with uncertain political (or ethical) affiliations.<\/p>\n

Smart readers will be waiting for the “but” in this story. And Gaza currently has a big “but.” The semblance of normalcy on the streets belies the fundamental problems at work in this tiny, conservative coastal strip. Gaza and its 1.5 million people appear destined, at least for the moment, to be cut out of any political process involving the Palestinians. Not to mention cut off from government funds and humanitarian resources, and barely able to travel in or out of the strip. Even the Israeli fuel company that provides gas and oil for generators is operating on a day-to-day basis. If they cut those supplies, people will run out in a matter of hours, and hoarding supplies of fuel and food grows less possible each day.<\/p>\n

Perhaps even more frightening for the people of Gaza is the sickening sense that things are about to get really bad, which they certainly will. It’s just a question of which direction the fresh hell will come from.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Give it a read, or Mitch’ll come for you next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in 1995, the movie Boys filmed several scenes on the campus of St. John’s College, where I was attending grad school. I was sitting out in the quad between classes one evening with my friends. The crew was getting ready to shoot an outdoor scene with Winona Ryder. My buddy Mitch stared at the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Just one of the Chebabs”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-explicit","category-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-pc","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2796,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/you-make-my-heart-stipple","url_meta":{"origin":1562,"position":0},"title":"You make my heart stipple","author":"Gil","date":"October 28, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This WSJ article on Mitch \"Wild Thing\" Williams' post-baseball career is entertaining, especially when he calls out Paul Newman. My favorite part, of course, is the Drew Friedmanized headshot of Williams: The more I look at it, the more Wild Thing seems to have been put through the Todd McFarlaneizer\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Drew Friedmanizer"","block_context":{"text":"The Drew Friedmanizer","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/the-drew-friedmanizer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/williams.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5605,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-october-1-2010","url_meta":{"origin":1562,"position":1},"title":"Unrequired Reading: October 1, 2010","author":"Gil","date":"October 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Sorry about the lack of an Unrequired Reading last week. I was way too busy helping put on our conference. I'm way too busy finishing the October issue now, but I figure you deserve some of this. Okay, this is Required \u00e2\u20ac\u201d albeit depressing \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Reading: my pal Mitch Prothero\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0312600844","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":980,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/civil-warland-in-bad-decline","url_meta":{"origin":1562,"position":2},"title":"Civil Warland in Bad Decline","author":"Gil","date":"June 7, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Official VM buddy Mitch Prothero recently filed a story on the underreported civil war in Gaza, explaining some aspects of journalism in the process: Palestinians are the easiest people in the world to cover as a journalist. They respect the work, know journalists take risks to tell their story, and,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":470,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/cedar-revolt","url_meta":{"origin":1562,"position":3},"title":"Cedar Revolt","author":"Gil","date":"February 25, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Official VM buddy Mitch Prothero has an update from Beirut: In a land where civil war is endemic but political protest is almost unknown, long-feuding Muslims, Christians and Druze are camping out just blocks from the parliament saying they will not leave until either Syrian troops leave their country or\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16142,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-544-mitchell-prothero","url_meta":{"origin":1562,"position":4},"title":"Episode 544 – Mitchell Prothero","author":"Gil","date":"June 27, 2023","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 544: Mitchell Prothero \"If you deregulate the global economy to the point where you can move whatever you want, wherever and whenever, and you deregulate financial controls so that it's easy to shift money around and hide it, then you're going to get a massive amount of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/protherocomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C508&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/protherocomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C508&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/protherocomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C508&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/protherocomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C508&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/protherocomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C508&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":994,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/it-aint-camp-gitchy-gloomy","url_meta":{"origin":1562,"position":5},"title":"It ain’t Camp Gitchy Gloomy","author":"Gil","date":"June 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Official VM buddy Mitch Prothero has an article on the meanest Palestinian camp in Lebanon in this week's U.S. News and World Report. In any Palestinian camp or neighborhood, the walls are adorned with posters depicting \"martyrs\" of the fight against Israel. But in Asbat's neighborhood, the Iraq battlefield is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}