Art Through One Eye

A while back I blogged about Emily Henochowicz, after IDF guards at Concentration Camp Gaza shot out her eye.

She's doing good now. She says things like

"Having one eye is really just a design problem."

"... this one is sensitive to light, and this one is sensitive to heat. Isn't that cool?"

"The cool thing about this is that paintings look more 3-D to me now,"


Would you be so upbeat?

That picture is her avatar, taken before she was shot. It's a picture of her dressed in the eyeball costume she made for her school's annual parade.  She's always been obsessed with visual science, was just starting her career as a visual artist, so naturally she loses her eye.    I'd go all bitter and grumpy and hate everybody and feel sorry for myself. You wouldn't want to be around me, no sir. But Emily, she's an inspiration.

SALUTE! 

Read her updated story and be all inspired, and go see some of her artwork on her blog, Thirsty Pixels.

Just for the record

an Eye for an Eye for an Eye

GAZA 6/1/10 Back when the Israelis stopped the aid convoy, I heard an American was on board and lost eye. Googling “shot in face” gave me this video where a photographer,

“Tristan Anderson, 38, of Oakland, Calif., was wounded Friday in the West Bank village of Naalin, during a protest against Israels separation barrier”

“wounded” here means hit in the face with a tear gas cannister →  over a year in hospital, brain damage, blind in one eye, now in a wheelchair, relearning how to speak.  It surprised me to see more tear gas canisters landing all around the Red Crescent guys while they were loading him onto a stretcher. I'm so naïve. 

But that's from last year (there's a lot of these).  This is the one and it wasn't even on the ship it was at a demonstration ashore, afterwards.  Amy Goodman covers it here.  So add Emily's name to the list of Americans killed and wounded by Israel, along with Furkan Dogan. He was on one of the aid ships and the Israelis killed him.  

While this was going on, the shooter's Prime Minister 

“was on his way to a state visit to Washington, DC, to be awarded a further $200 million in aid on top of the $3 billion of American taxpayer money the US gives away to him every year.”

Nice to know where your taxes go, innit, while you sit around not getting health care and stuff. Some of that money provides Israel with universal, single-payer health care, BTW. Not sure if it covers their shooting victims.    

But we have to spend this money! Bringing chocolate and potato chips and shoes to the children in Gaza is an attack on Israeli sovereignty, according to their Foreign Minister. No, seriously. 

In this video, Elliot Spitzer tried to defend this and Glen Greenwald handed him his ass on a platter. Fun to watch. 

In Sabina's video, the pro-Israel lobby shows their true colors, harrassing a Silent March for Peace with death threats and such.

This one shows the pro-Israel guys, among other things, chanting “Death to the Arabs” in Asdod, when they towed the ships in after the killings. So classy.

But, this essay really got to me.  Little Ramsey lives on a beautiful stretch of the Mediterranean coast, and he can't go to the beach! 

These “eye for an eye” dicks need to remember another quote “live by the sword, die by the sword.”  Why don't we all just put down our weapons and go surfing?