Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Mira Sucharov Agonizes over Hawkings Supposed Hypocrisy

Several weeks ago, cosmologist Stephen Hawking said he would not attend a conference in Israel in protest of Israel's policy (Hawking claims Israel is occupying Palestinian land but the policy could also be called 'partially administrating' or something (I'm not sure whether Hawking thinks Israel inside the green line is an occupation).

Several opinions came out accusing Hawking of hypocrisy because he uses Israeli made devices to communicate (including the communication of his non attendance at the conference). 

The accusation of hypocrisy, is I think, incorrect because Hawking didn't say 'everyone should attend the conference and then didn't' or 'no one should denounce Israel and then did, both of which would be hypocrisy. Since the two issues are separate, I don't consider it hypocrisy.

However, I may be in the minority. 

An Haaretz blogger named Mira Sucharov, who is also a professor (the second image is her), assumes that this is hypocrisy and agonizes over it and over an event in her (Mira's) life that she thought was hypocrisy but justified, that is, she bought something from a store with a Nazi poster. (something I would not consider hypocritical unless she had previous said to boycott all stores with Nazi posters).


Mira's column is here.

An opinion piece in a British Newspaper on the Hawkings non attendance of the Israel conference is here.

Wednesday, May 01, 2013

An Endorsement of Hypocrisy

Larry Flynt (that's him in the image) is the publisher of Hustler magazine. In today's news was word that Flynt is endorsing former Governor Mark Sanford for a House seat in South Carolina. Flynt is also donating funds to Sanford's campaign.

The reason Flynt gives is that while he dislikes Sanford on policy, he likes Sanford for exposing the hypocrisy of traditional marriage.

Actually, Flynt means to say (I think) that Sanford is a hypocrite and also was a pro family value conservative.  (Sanford, while governor of South Carolina) famously flew to Argentina to carry on an affair while telling his wife and the media that he was hiking the Appalachian trail.

I'll not comment on whether Sanford was a hypocrite or Flynt is one. Its just interesting that someone puts money into his pro hypocrisy opinion.

News article on Flynt's endorsement of Sanford is here.

 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/larry-flynt-endorses-mark-sanford-449105