Stuff that Mish thinks about when he's bored

Thanks to Instagram and Twitter, when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict starts making headlines, everyone seems to have such strong loyalties for one side or the other. It's difficult to find any other conflict which generates such divisive emotional reactions from people who don't even have any stake in the outcome of the conflict. Unfortunately, I have noticed that for the vast majority of people on both sides, there's a fundamental lack of understanding about the historical context behind the conflict even though both sides use history to justify their positions. Instead of throwing just another emotionally charged opinion into the void, I figured I'd write this post as an easy read for anyone who's been seeing Israel-Palestine all over their feed but struggles to sift through all the conflicting information about how or why this conflict began. I'm not going to pretend that I'm a completely neutral arbiter in this situation; I have my own opinions on this

I don't think there's anything that I need to say about the video of George Floyd's murder that hasn't already been said.  The footage showing Floyd being slowly murdered by apathetic police officers is horrifying and I see no way that anyone could see that video and then reasonably defend the actions of the police officers. Anyone reading this post now should be fully aware that I'm not alone; large protests have erupted across the world in spite of the pandemic, and a firestorm has started over social media; wherever you look online now you're bound to find millions of people showing their solidarity for George Floyd. Now, my own reaction to this has changed overtime. At first I was worried that this whole situation was just going to turn into another case of temporary outrage. Everyone will go ahead and publicly post their outrage on social media before returning to business as usual a few days later and forgetting about the whole thing. However, I believe th

So, the national lockdown just got extended for another three weeks. In addition, the national death toll is now above 15,000, the global death toll is above 160,000 and the end is still nowhere to be seen. It looks like this pandemic will continue to get worse before it gets better and we've still got some weeks to go before we can go meet our friends. Also I really need a haircut right now. Things are looking pretty bleak. But I think there's an angle here that we're missing. Looking at the numbers and reading the news is depressing. But looking at the news has always been depressing, it was depressing before the pandemic and it'll continue to be depressing after the pandemic. I don't go to the media expecting good news; I can't remember the last time I heard any good news from them. Reading the news now is no less depressing than reading the news on any other day, the only difference is now the current situation means I'm actually paying a lot m

A month ago, I had no idea that I'd find myself in the midst of a global pandemic the likes of which nobody alive has ever experienced before. Like most people reading this, the pandemic has cancelled almost all of the plans I had this year and forced me to spend the past couple of weeks, and probably the next couple of weeks, stuck indoors. For me, this whole situation came out of nowhere. It's been unfortunate, and at times, downright depressing. But in the past couple of days, my tone has started to shift, and as misguided as it may sound, I'm starting to wonder if we should feel grateful for the lockdown. If you're like me, then your thoughts on the lockdown were probably optimistic at first. Not having all of the commitments you normally do gives you time to focus on yourself and pursue all the things you never had time to before. Hell, when I think about it, having a few weeks with almost nothing urgent to do is something I've been waiting a long time for.

Not all who wander are lost. But if you made it this far down, you must be lost as shit.