Letters to Friends

Does anybody read old blog posts? Let’s find out.

You may have noticed that this blog is not quite what it used to be. That is because I deleted most of it. You might not have noticed any such thing.

About a year ago a publisher or editor or somebody approached me about writing a book. He saw this blog, showered me with flowery compliments and offered me a deal. I said no. I’m not a writer. The lifestyle does not interest me. I do not want to spend all day isolated in a room somewhere. I like being around people and being outside. I would be a terribly miserable person if I spent all of my time online trying to market and sell some book in a world where fewer and fewer people read books.

I have come across a few writers online and they all seemed obsessed with finding new ways to promote their book. I suppose if you are JK Rowling or whoever wrote all that Twilight crap then you rarely have to worry about it. But I’m sure that 90% of authors are lucky to sell enough copies of their book to buy a book.

A month or two ago an editor approached me about writing a book. She saw this blog, showered me with flowery compliments and offered me a better deal. I said sure, why not. I like the idea of having something to look at long after Blogger has made it impossible for people to use without their Google browser.

With a little effort this blog became a book. Or about half of it did. Rather than simply be lazy and publish the blog as is I went through it all and did some heavy editing. The book is roughly half of this blog with brand new extra special additions and a bunch of ravings I always meant to post but never got around to. There are also bits that I thought too personal for a blog. So I put them in a book that might still be around long after the blog is dead.

The first draft was entirely too long. Apparently your first book is supposed to be about 60 000 words. Mine was closer to 225 000. My editor politely set me straight. The conversation went something like this:

“Nobody wants to read a 900 page book.”
“People read War and Peace.”
“Most people don’t.”

She had a point. But my blog will never be considered one of the great works of Russian literature. For several reasons.

So I settled on a theme. The blog is pretty random. The book has a narrative. More or less. Telling a story made it much easier to decide what went in and what got cut.

They did not want what they are trying to sell to be available here for free, so I deleted a good deal of the blog. Even though there are many differences between the two. I also don’t want to deal with issues of plagiarising myself. Each post is now an excerpt of what it used to be or what is now available in book form. Depending on your point of view. I kept the post pages so I can put it all back when this book fad wears off.

My editor wants me to write a book about climbing Mt Everest. I’m not sure I can do that. That seems like the kind of thing that would take up a great deal of time. Climbing the mountain is hard enough. I don’t want to be typing on a computer whilst doing it. And it would probably take years if I wrote it all after I got back.

The current book is supposed to be an introduction to me so that the Everest book sells. A book about Mt Everest by somebody who has never written a book is not likely to attract any readers other than people who read Everest books anyway. The theory is that if I already have something available and have built some sort of following then there will be a larger audience for the Everst book. Just like in any other field, the people who are the most successful have the most success, thereby making them more successful.

The problem with all of this is that I’ve not actually gone to Everest yet. It is impossible to predict how it will turn out. And there are more than a few scenarios that are not book friendly.

Right now I feel as though I might as well give it a go. I can always make whatever I come up with a blog post if I do not have enough material for a book or I abandon the idea altogether.

Letters To Friends is currently available in pretty much every electronic format known to man.

Kindle versions are at Amazon.

The Nook version is at Barnes and Noble.

The iTunes version is at Apple.

It is at the Sony store. I am not even sure what the Sony version of a digital book reader is.

The Kobo version is available here. I’ve no idea what Kobo is but it exists nonetheless.

I am not sure what the format is, but it is at Bookworld.

Kindle, ipad, nook, kobo and a million other formats are available directly from the distributor but you have to have an account with them to buy anything. I think that is stupid since they sell books, but they mostly sell to booksellers and not to individuals. Anybody can create an account but it just seems an unnecessary extra step when you want to buy something.

I am part of a programme that makes books available to libraries for free but I have no idea which libraries will have my book.

On the Road and Hanging By a Song

The future husband and I leave for Nepal on Thursday. I understand that the people of Cyberia hang on my every word and wait anxiously for my next update but you are going to have to do without for a little while. I can pretty well guarantee that there shall be no updates while we are climbing the mountain. We will have internet access almost the entire time. Nobody goes up Everest without all of the latest satellite navigation and positioning systems. It is also very important to have up to the second weather information and a reliable way to play Solitaire online. But I will be otherwise occupied.

I have a big announcement that I’ll post in the next day or two, but after that this blog will be as dead as objective reporting on TV news. At least until we get back. Then I’ll have a bunch of mountain stories to tell until everybody is sick and tired of hearing them.

So if you think I am not the most prolific blogger in the world, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Mother Superior Jumped the Gun

So a rabbi and my mother walk into a bar.

My mother has just announced that she and her rabbi are dating. Nobody is more surprised than I. Or my sisters. Or my grandmother. Or everybody who knows my mother.

I’m sure somebody knew about it, but I was completely in the dark. I have never heard my mother talk about him other than in a rabbinical context. She always had nice things to say about him but she is not the sort to say bad things about her rabbi anyway.

For anybody unfamiliar with arayot, there is nothing untoward about a person such as my mother dating a person such as her rabbi. His wife died several years ago. Her husband died 10 years ago. There are no halachic restrictions on their dating, hitting the sheets, shacking up or even being married. A rabbi is generally considered a good catch and more than a few mothers have been known to hit great lengths to have their daughters marry amongst the rabbanim.

We are all supposed to be married at a younger age and remain married until both partners die hand in hand of old age in their bed. But that does not always happen. It probably rarely happens. People live a lot longer than they did a few thousand years ago and not everybody can stick around as long as everybody else. My father was 59 years old when he died and my mother was only 53. She could theoretically live another 40 years and it is unrealistic to assume that she would remain unmarried for the rest of her life.

An interesting point here is that if they are to marry, when will this happen? Weddings are a pretty big deal in my family and right now everybody is talking about mine. I’m finally marrying. Everybody always puts the finally in there. Will my own mother’s wedding steal some of my spotlight? That’s probably not something most people think about.

Not that I mind. I like the idea of taking some of the focus off of me and letting everybody ask her a million questions every day. I have absolutely no objection if she wants to marry before me, after me or even on the same day. Though a double wedding with my own mother might be a little more than I can tolerate.

Of course, they are only dating. Talk of marriage might be premature. But people like my mother who are my mother’s age do not date lightly. To her mind the sole purpose of dating is to check the horse’s teeth before you buy it. I would be very surprised if she simply rides him around the stables a few times only to mount another steed.

Which brings us to sex. Are they getting any? I’ve no idea. But I am morbidly fascinated with the idea. My mother has been celibate for the last 10 years. To the best of my knowledge. She was something of a hellion in her younger days but she likes to pretend that was a lifetime ago. Given her frequently vocal disapproval of my loose morals it would be hypocritical of her to sleep around like a TV doctor.

What is it like to get some after a 10 year drought? I hope I never find out first hand. They say the longer you go without the easier it is to go without. I have found that the longer I go without the hornier I get and more willing I am to do things I just might regret later. Fortunately I’m recently engaged. This is probably the most sex I will ever have in my entire life. I am happy to report that I’m starting to walk funny. Everybody who has ever been married in the entire history of the world will tell you that there is far less sex after marriage. Entire movies, sitcoms, comedy routines revolve around this concept.

Should my future husband die far earlier than I do, I can’t say that I would ever be married again. But I can’t imagine I would deny myself the fleshly needs of human contact. It took me 31 years to find the first man I wanted to marry. How old would I be by the time I found the second? Or do you lower your standards with age? At 20 I had a very wide selection from which to choose. At 80 just finding a man who can breathe on his own is a plus.

My sisters and I are very happy for our mother. Her rabbi seems to be a nice enough man. My older sisters know him far better than I do and they approve. Our grandmother is more relieved than anything else. She thought her daughter was going to remain alone for the rest of her life.

It’s supposed to be a serious adjustment for children when one of their parents remarry. But we are all very much adults and our father has been gone for a long time. We have no fear of any man replacing him. We know that he was the love of our mother’s life and you certainly can’t accuse her of not observing a respectful mourning period. We also know that a companion for the rest of her life would be a positive thing and no future husband can ever make her forget about our father.

My future husband joked that at least she can’t have another child. That would just freak me out.

Take a Cruiser with All Hands

Many Americans cheered when Osama bin Laden was killed. Some people said that was in poor taste. Osama was a bad guy to most of us. He was a terrorist. He was responsible for the murder of thousands of people. Sane people would not mourn his death. But openly applauding the murder of a fellow human being is a bit much for some.

My personal view is that people can cheer his death as much as they want. He was evil. Plenty of people are vilified and characterised as evil but he truly was. I did not applaud his death but I do not mourn him either.

Many Brits are now cheering Margaret Thatcher’s death. Some Americans say it is all in poor taste. Maggie was a bad person to many. She was not a terrorist by any stretch of the imagination. But one could argue that she was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people. Though I doubt she ever ordered anybody to strap on a bomb and blow up children.

I will not mourn her death. She was the leader of a country with which I have no special connection. I reacted to news of her death in the same way that I reacted to the death of Roger Ebert. Neither was a particular surprise.

A glaring difference between Thatcher and Osama, other than the terrorism and democratic elections, is that one of them was the active leader of his group while the other had been out of power for more than 20 years. I can see rejoicing when Thatcher left office. But there seems little point in gloating at her death. If you think she was a terrible leader who ruined your country, fair enough. But she stopped doing that a long time ago. Dying changed nothing.

Americans, those people who were called gauche when Osama died, rejoiced when Richard Nixon resigned. I don’t remember any of them cheering when he died. Perhaps the British could learn something from their backwoods cousins.

Obamania in Israel

Much to the surprise of the exploding sandbox ilk both McCartney and Obama survived their trips to Israel. The rest of us never even considered otherwise until we were told by outsiders that we are supposed to always assume that everybody who comes here is in danger.

A more important difference between the two is that I saw Paul McCartney perform. It was a very good show and the only time I did not have to make any special plans to see him. I paid very little attention to the Obama visit.

Island of Peace

Now that King Hussein is dead and political life in Jordan has changed, there are more frequent calls for the unconditional release of this murderer. Prominent leaders have tried to get him released since it happened, and came close in 2011. Now they are trying again, only with more public support than usual. With all of the revolutions and civil wars in Arab states, this is exactly the kind of thing that a government might cave in to just to appease the masses.

Always From Now Until Then

If you do not worship these men then what difference does it make if they resign rather than stay in the job for life? I see the benefit in not having people resign helter skelter but anybody who hits 80, 90, 100 has earned the right to take a break. If you want them to stay in office longer then pick younger people. Being the pope is a job, no matter how important a job you might think it is. Everybody should have the right to retire from their job. Even the queen of England can retire. Though nobody wants her to because then her son would be king.

A Silver Model of a City on the Air

I was going to comment on Garry’s comment, but then I ended up writing a book about it, so I might as well make it a post.

Like Crimson Curtains Slowly Rising

Unless you can somehow take a story of Israel taking in refugees and turn it into a crime against humanity or racial profiling or sexism or whatever you want it to be. Israel takes in refugees and lets them become full members of society rather than houses them indefinitely in refugee camps or turns them away. I think that is a good thing. Israel is a very small country. There really is not all that much room. But we know why it is bad to turn away people who will probably be imprisoned and murdered in their homelands.

Lord, I Can’t Believe My Eyes, I Must Be Dreaming

And if all that was not enough, my boyfriend is now my fiancé. David got down on his busted knee and begged me to make him the happiest man in the world. Then he changed his mind and asked me to marry him. I thought about how this would affect the most important thing in life, my Facebook status, and said yes. Now we have to plan a wedding while planning an expedition to the highest mountain in the world.

All the Way Home I’ll Be Warm

Jerusalem’s light rail covered by 4 inches of snow

I used to live in Alaska. If you want to impress me with a large amount of snow you will have to do much better than anything Jerusalem can ever come up with. This year’s most snow in the last 20 years is nothing compared to Alaska’s most snow in the last 20 minutes.

Me covered by 4 feet of snow

You Came and You Gave Without Taking

I understand all the filler in between sets. People have to move all of those instruments on and off the stage and TV audiences cannot be expected to stay tuned for five seconds without something shiny to keep their attention. All the tributes to everybody who ever lived anywhere near New York and New Jersey were a bit much but you have to expect that sort of thing from Americans. The comedy bits could have been cut entirely. That drunk guy thing from Saturday Night Live was terrible. Is this what Saturday Night Live does now? Bad drunk impressions are not as edgy as they were back when Buster Keaton did them.

We Kissed As Though Nothing Could Fall

The soldiers we deal with are not necessarily heroes either. The current trend is to call all soldiers heroes but most just do a routine job. David’s job is anything but routine. If the day comes when he has to jump on the proverbial grenade then he will be a hero. I would rather that never happen. He would be called a hero but I would be too selfish to see it that way. If anybody told me he saved lives I would point out that he has also taken lives, so it all balances out. Some of the soldiers who actually sacrifice their own lives to save others have also killed others. There is nothing heroic about putting a bullet in your enemy’s brain.

Blame Canada

Carter: Israel not committed to two-state solution
By REUTERS
10/22/2012

Former US president says two-state approach seems to have been "abandoned," points finger at PM during "Elders" visit.

Former US president Jimmy Carter on Monday said the Israeli-Palestinian peace process had reached a crisis point and that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's government was not pursuing a two-state solution.

"That policy of promoting a two-state solution seems to be abandoned now and we are deeply concerned about this move towards this catastrophic so-called one-state choice ... this is a major concern," Carter told a news conference.

Carter helped forge Israel's peace deal with Egypt in 1979, the first between the Jewish state and an Arab country but has been a strong critic of Israeli settlement policy in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

"Every (Israeli) prime minister that I have known has been a pursuer of the two-state solution and I don't know that (US President Barack) Obama has found that Prime Minister Netanyahu has been willing to go that route," Carter added.

He spoke during a visit along with other members of "The Elders", a group of former world leaders, to Israel, the West Bank and Egypt.

"All indications to us is that this two-state solution has basically been abandoned and we've had a moving forward towards a 'greater Israel' which I think is contrary to the two-state solution concept," Carter said.

Netanyahu has voiced support for a two-state solution, but has said a future Palestinian country must be demilitarized and accept an Israeli military presence along the Jordan River, its likely eastern frontier.

Israeli Apartheid

Under apartheid, blacks were not citizens of their own country. Since they were not citizens of any country they could not get passports to go elsewhere. Not that many blacks had enough money to go anywhere. There was no legal black infrastructure and the only way to make any money was to work for whites. They could not vote in elections or hold any public office. They could not use white hospitals, schools, parks, transportation.

Every Israeli citizen has the same rights and responsibilities as every other Israeli citizen, regardless of religion, race, gender, sexuality. There are laws against discrimination just like any other advanced democracy. Israelis can leave the country any time and live somewhere else if they want.

Citizens of Palestine have limited rights, especially women, homosexuals, Christians. Palestine is not a democracy. Their president’s term ended in 2009, yet he continues to rule unelected. Most Palestinians cannot legally leave the country, except to go into Israel, and if they go somewhere else they are usually forced into refugee camps and never allowed to assimilate into that country. Palestine’s infrastructure is the responsibility of the Palestinian government, though they get a great deal of assistance from Israel. Some people used to complain that Israeli funded hospitals in Palestine were occupation. But when Israel completely pulled out of Gaza those same people complained that Israel was hindering Palestinian access to health care.

Will This Wind Be So Mighty As to Lay Low the Mountains of the Earth

We had previously discussed injuries in relation to the mountain. In the unlikely event that one or both of us make it to the summit we are on our own. We are going as a group but beyond the death zone it is every woman for herself. You can’t take somebody down with you if they are unable to move on their own. This is why people are sometimes left to die. It is not that they were with heartless bastards. It is physically impossible for any human being to carry the equipment they need to survive and another person down from the death zone. Helicopter rescue is not an option. You can’t actually land that high on the mountain and a stable hover is incredibly dangerous to everybody involved. I would never do it.

Happy New Year

The funny thing about significant others is that they have families too. During festivals where one normally spends time with family, which family does one choose? This has always been an easy choice for my older sisters. Since they cannot bear to leave my mother and grandmother alone they spend family festivals with them rather than their husband’s families. While I agree with that in principle, my boyfriend is rather close to his family. He does not want to be away from them any more than I want to be away from mine.

World Leader Pretend

I’m going to ignore how annoying it is that it takes them so long to hold elections. France held elections in April, run-offs 2 weeks later and Hollande was sworn in a week after that. Our 2009 elections were in February. About a week later Netanyahu was asked to form a coalition. A month later he was prime minister. It would have been faster had Livni been able to form a coalition. I still think she would have been a better PM.

Americans do it differently. Obama started campaigning in February 2007. He was elected in November 2008 and took office in January 2009. It takes them 2 years to get a job that lasts 4 years.

I suppose I’m not going to ignore it. Hindsight is 50/50.

Biko

For their efforts, Helen Zille and Donald Woods lost their jobs. Zille left the Rand Daily Mail when it was forced to retract everything she wrote. From there she went into antiapartheid activism full time. Donald Woods was banned and eventually went to Britain. His book was made into a decent movie with Kevin Kline doing a horrible accent and Denzel Washington doing a pretty good accent.

Unnecessary Financial Expenditures

Hong Kong Harbour from Victoria Peak in 2004


2008


2012
If there were not so much smog and weather you would be able to see the rise of the new ICC building, now Hong Kong’s tallest, on the left of each picture. In 2004 it was little more than a large patch of dirt. In 2008 it was probably half finished. By 2012 it was fully operational.


Name the tails