While missing the hell out of Jerry Garcia, many here among us are aware that the surviving core of the Good Old Grateful Dead has reassembled from time to time since Jerry left us.  Most recently last year, first for an Obama benefit on the eve of California's Super Tuesday primary and followed up by an autumn U Penn benefit show with the Allman Brothers Band heading into the home stretch.  For the sake of meaningless disclosure, I personally fall into the Phil camp, and the recent vintage Phil & Friends lineup including Dylan vet Larry Campbell on lead guitar was tremendous last summer.  Meanwhile, I have heard lots of good things about Bobby's Rat Dog from those whose opinions I greatly respect.

So, who's got some stories from the old days, and who's checking out The Dead on their Spring Tour?

As often as people don't appreciate their teachers while they're in school, leadership fails to appreciate academia as much as it should.

Reality Based Community's Jonathan Zasloff reports hearing Palestinian scholar and Peoples' Voice Accord co-author Sari Nusseibeh speak last Monday night,

George Mitchell, Nusseibeh suggested, should take an American peace plan (and he made it clear that it should be the People's Voice framework) to both Netanyahu and Abbas.

He should then publicly challenge Netanyahu to place this plan on the Israeli ballot as a referendum. Netanyahu would not have to endorse the plan, but rather allow the voters to decide whether they would accept it as long as the other side does.

On the Palestinian side, he should publicly challenge Abbas to call for new elections (due in the PA thus year in any event) and run on that platform for his presidential campaign -- accepting the plan as long as the Israeli electorate does.

Nusseibeh believes -- and I agree with him -- that such a public offer would be difficult for either side to refuse. It would not require Netanyahu to endorse the plan, but would undermine him politically if he refuses to allow the voters to decide. It would give Abbas a concrete platform and plan to rid the Palestinians of the occupation.

...

This is worth a try. It is better than anything else yet proposed. Is anyone listening?

It's not just for "Zionist neocon Likudniks" anymore.  JTA reports,

When the Algerian diplomat, Idriss Jazairy, argues that anti-Semitism's definition should be expanded to include Arabs, who are a Semitic people, the director of the Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust at Touro College, Anne Bayefsky, shot back. The greatest source of anti-Semitism today operates "under the guise of anti-Zionism and anti-racism activities," epitomized by the U.N. Human Rights Council's disproportionate focus on criticizing Israel, she said.

When Bayefsky spoke, Jazairy immediately raised his hands to form a T - as in "time-out" - and the forum's chairwoman, Libyan Najat Al-Hajjaji, began tapping her gavel, cutting off Bayefsky to permit Jazairy to respond. Bayefsky was allowed to resume, but was interrupted twice more by Al-Hajjaji's gavel and Jazairy's interjections.

Looking forward to the sequal to Durban in Geneva next month....