Lost In Translation

After several years of various civil wars, revolutions, coups in Arab states somebody decided that Israel needed another fabricated controversy attached to it. The initial attempt to blame the “Arab Spring” on Israel failed miserably as soon as it all started. Something had to be done.

I am disappointed to see that this month’s wedge issue is about a beverage company.

American actress Scarlett Johansson did an advertisement for an Israeli beverage company. Clearly she was looking for trouble.

In the interest of full disclosure I will point out that I am not much of a Scarlett Johansson fan and I think that SodaStream sucks. I thought she was better before she became an action star. Something happens to them after they do action movies. Remember when Liam Neeson was a real actor?

The whole SodaStream concept is queer to me, though I do appreciate the environmental aspects of their organisation. If you want a carbonated beverage then you should buy a Pepsi. Making your own is like making your own helicopter. It might seem a good idea at the time but it won’t fly.

After Johansson started filming adverts, her friends at Oxfam complained. They did not have the balls to drop her but they were more than willing to complain about her despite all the work she did for them. Apparently they hold firmly to their convictions up to the point of not trying to upset celebrities too much. So Johansson dropped them.

Up to this point I do not particularly care. What any celebrity advertises is none of my concern. What got my attention were the calls to boycott SodaStream and close down its factory.

The narrative is pretty simple. SodaStream is an Israeli company. Therefore it is evil. It has a factory in Ma’ale Adumim. Therefore it is evil. Ma’ale Adumim was part of the British Mandate land handed over to Israel. Therefore it is the new historic ancient Palestinian homeland. If that does not make any sense, ask people who want to return to the 1967 borders why they refuse to even consider the 1948 borders. I know the answer to that one but sometimes it is amusing to see how they rationalise Jordan’s invasion and occupation of land whilst decrying Israel’s control of land it owned before Jordan invaded the first time.

What all the liberal peace activists who love human rights and favour brutal Arab dictatorships over a liberal democracy with human rights fail to realise, or more likely fail to care about, is that closing the Ma’ale Adumim factory would put about 1000 Arabs out of work. SodaStream may be an Israeli, ie evil, company but it pays those Arab employees Israeli wages and gives them Israeli benefits. No Arab company in Judea and Samaria pays anything close or provides evil socialist health cover.

Israeli companies are also forbidden by law and common decency to murder homosexuals and treat women as property. Closing the factory would be bad news for any homosexuals or women working there who do not want to be murdered property. Can anybody tell me why none of the liberal peace activists who love human rights ever comment on how the Palestinian Authority treats homosexuals and women? I have never heard any plausible explanation for this. Or even an implausible explanation. They simply ignore how much their heroes ignore peace and human rights.

Closing the factory would also cause unnecessary unemployment in a time and place that would not benefit from even more unemployment. And even if a few of those thousand people could find other jobs they would likely make far less money and work in Arab working conditions. If you think that all Arabs are oil millionaires driving their racing cars up sand dunes then you should join the liberal peace activists who love human rights and are equally as clueless.

And closing that factory would virtually guarantee a UN resolution condemning Israel for closing a factory and putting 1000 Arabs out of work. There would be a separate resolution against Israel after any former factory employees are murdered by their Arab dictators for being women or homosexuals. Or any former employees for being “traitors”. The Palestinian Authority loves to execute “traitors”. I would think that liberal peace activists who love human rights would be against that. But I would be wrong.

Why do human rights advocates hate the Arabs of Judea and Samaria so much? I cannot say. Perhaps for the same reasons that other Arabs seem to hate them so. I can understand hating the Arabs of Israel. After all, they live with a bunch of Jews. But is their hatred of Israel truly strong enough to condemn all Levant Arabs? Time will tell.

Anybody who wants to boycott Israel either knows that damaging Israel’s economy is very dangerous for Yosh Arabs or is too caught up in their academic indignation to see how much Israel provides to Judea and Samaria. Or they simply have no idea what is going on here.

And if you want to boycott Israel then I sincerely hope that you also want to boycott China, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Qatar, Myanmar, Russia, Syria, Bangladesh, Uganda, Sudan, Egypt and a few dozen other countries. Or is there some way in which Israel is different from those countries?

Touched By Jesus

I have not read the UN’s report about the Catholic priest sex issue and have no intention of doing so. The UN is intellectually dishonest and their reports and condemnations are a joke more often than not. The UN telling countries how to live are as impotent as people arguing politics online. But I am surprised that they found the time to criticise somebody besides Israel. It is not as though Israel and the Vatican have historically been best friends.

I realise that “Vatican” and “Holy See” are not interchangeable but I call it the Vatican anyway. Deal with it.

From what I gather the UN is opposed to priests raping children. Mazel tov. I know of no person or organisation that supports priests raping children. Even a few popes have spoken out against it. I have never come across anybody in favour of it. Though to be fair I rarely associate with sociopaths.

How long did it take the UN to arrive at this groundbreaking decision? Why did this report come out now and not 20 or 100 years ago?

Apparently the UN thinks that the Vatican is legally responsible for the actions of priests all over the world. My first thought was that yes, of course they are. There is a hierarchy in the Catholic church with Vatican leaders and the pope at the top of the ladder. But is that true? Is a priest living in Indonesia bound by Vatican law or Indonesian law? Obviously he should follow his church’s rules, which likely do not include raping children, but if he ignores the laws of where he lives in favour of the laws of his religion then he can find himself in an uncomfortable position. Raping children is often acceptable in places like Saudi Arabia. Does that mean a priest in Saudi Arabia is free to practice local customs?

Obviously I know the answer to that last question but I sincerely have no idea about the others. My religion has no such international hierarchy. Rabbanim are hired and fired by the community and answer to their shul, not to any committee in Israel or anywhere else. A rabbi in Saudi Arabia could theoretically eat at KFC every day and tattoo a giant swastika on his forehead. That is if being Jewish in Saudi Arabia was not punishable by death.

How does the Catholic church deal with local laws that contradict their own rules? Staying with Saudi Arabia as an example, since it is a such a fun loving country, how do priests ignore their mission to proselytise in a country that will happily kill them for proselytising? I would assume that Vatican leaders have already thought about such issues but has the UN? If the UN is saying that all priests are under the direct supervision of the Vatican then have they considered the international differences in cultures and customs? Somehow I think the Vatican has whilst the UN, ironically, has not.

The UN report demands that the Vatican do things their way. This is common practice for the UN. It is their version of the American policy of spreading democracy to weaker countries whether they want it or not. I even think the UN is genuinely surprised when countries choose not to do things their way.

The one part of the report that I read calls on the Vatican to change its teachings to bring them closer to the 20th century. While I do agree that some Catholic rules are painfully out of date, as are some rules of Judaism and Islam, I find it laughably appalling that the UN is telling any church how to be a church. I thought the UN was supposed to favour freedom of religion. Does that only apply to religious teachings of which they approve? Is it not exceptionally dangerous for the UN to be the arbiters of religious dogma?

If the UN decided that all Jews should pray a certain way, which they more or less already do from time to time, then there would be a large collection of middle fingers rising in the air.

Some people say keep your religion out of my bedroom. I agree with that. I would also add to keep the UN out of religion.

Crimes and Misdemeanors

The only thing we love to do more than put celebrities up on pedestals is tear them down. When a celebrity is accused of anything, they are automatically guilty. Sometimes their careers can survive. Richard Gere never suffered professionally from all those gerbil rumours that some people still believe. If the accusation is especially bad then they are probably finished. You can ask Fatty Arbuckle all about that.

Actually, this applies to the rest of us as well. The court of public opinion never renders an acquittal. And now with the internet we can all express our completely uninformed opinions on all the evil things that other people do whilst making ourselves feel superior. The world wide web is the greatest ego inflater ever invented.

In 1992 Mia Farrow found out about Woody Allen’s relationship with Soon-Yi Previn. She was upset by all accounts. Mia and Woody had dated off and on for about 12 years. I can call them Mia and Woody because I have seen their movies and read about them, therefore I know them intimately enough to be on such a familiar level. Right?

Mia Farrow immediately sought sole custody of their three children, Satchel, Moses and Dylan. Andre Previn has always been the father of her older children. Woody refused to annul his adoption of Moses and Dylan. Then things got ugly.

According to Mia Farrow, Woody visited the Farrow summer home in the middle of this bitter custody battle, took 7-year-old Dylan up to the attic and molested her. Mia then videotaped an interview with Dylan over the course of two or three days and then alerted the authorities.

The public immediately went apeshit. And this was long before Twitter. Woody was now a monster. Never mind the fact that there had not been a trial or any form of investigation at this point. He was merely accused of doing something monstrous. That is enough.

This is when the public decided that Soon-Yi was Woody’s daughter, that Woody and Mia were married, that Soon-Yi was a child when she and Woody started dating. So it was rumoured and so it shall always be. What is wholly irrelevant is that Woody Allen has married three times in his life. His first marriage ended badly but provided a good deal of stand up comedy material. This was back when Woody was a stand up comedian. His marriage to Louise Lasser ended amicably and they worked together several times afterward. His third marriage was to Soon-Yi. They are still married.

Woody and Mia adopted two children together, Moses and Dylan. Soon-Yi was adopted by Mia and Andre Previn before Woody and Mia ever met each other. And Soon-Yi was born in either 1970 or 1972. She was young when she started dating Woody in 1992 but not a child.

The Connecticut police launched a full investigation into Mia Farrow’s accusations against Woody. Connecticut is one of those states that is not at all impressed by celebrity and will nail you to the wall if they think you are guilty. They get none of that California and New York movie money. Their investigation concluded that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute Woody and that Dylan’s story changed too many times to be credible. They also took into account the complete lack of medical evidence and the testimony of one of the nannies that Dylan was with her the entire time Woody was at the house. Another nanny said that she was pressured by Mia to say terrible things about Woody.

Less significant are the facts that everybody who has ever met Woody Allen can tell you that he would not do such a thing. Even his son Moses, who grew up in Mia’s anti-Woody house, has said that he did not do it. That is not evidence but people who know him obviously know him more than the rest of us. Woody has always famously been a breast man. Watch any of his early movies. Men who are attracted to full figured adult women are rarely inclined to molest 7-year-olds in a house full of people.

Woody and Soon-Yi went on to adopt two girls. There is a thorough investigation process to adopt children in the United States. Even more so when a man who has been accused of molesting a girl is trying to adopt a girl. The people who approved of both adoptions knew that they would be crucified if anything happened to either child. Both girls are now teenagers and their only complaint about their father is that he knows as much about Justin Bieber as they do about macroscopic quantum phenomena.

There is also the issue of Mia’s questionable moral choices but that does not prove guilt either.

Custody of all three children was given to Mia but Woody’s adoption was not annulled. Satchel changed his name to Ronan and Dylan became Malone. Moses remained Moses. The whole sordid affair died away, save for the rumours that Woody married his own daughter. That will live forever.

Then Ronan got a job on a TV programme. Suddenly Mia wanted to work tirelessly to warn people about how evil Woody is. Dylan, who had always publicly been unsure about what happened, declared that it was all true. Mia announced that Ronan is probably Frank Sinatra’s son and that she and Frank had never stopped knocking boots. Ronan became a household name just in time for his TV debut.

Call me a cynic but if I were Mia and I truly believed that my boyfriend molested my daughter I would never stop telling people about how horrible he is. I would not wait 20 years until my son had a new TV deal to start it all up again. I would also not Twitter about how horrible Woody is and then praise my good friend Roman Polanski on the same day. That is simply bad form.

For the record, I am a Woody Allen fan and not at all a Mia Farrow fan. Other than her work in Rosemary’s Baby, The Purple Rose of Cairo and Broadway Danny Rose, I think she is overrated. I was relieved when they broke up since it meant Woody would be working with other actors. Some of his movies with her, especially September, Another Woman, Alice, would have been better with a different lead.

I was also not present during the crime for which Woody was never charged. Neither was anybody else who is talking about it. The only person who truly knows what happened is Woody Allen. He probably never reads all the blog and Twitter posts about him. He probably does not know what a blog is.

Obviously I hope that this horrible rumour is untrue. I say obviously because it seems to me that no reasonable person would want any of this to be true. The damage to Dylan/Malone has already been done. She has been told for most of her life that something horrible happened to her. Whether she was molested or not makes little difference to her psyche at this point. But there is still time to save Woody. If he did it then he should be castrated. But if he did not then he should be allowed to live his life and make great movies. Being accused of something should not be enough to ruin somebody’s life.

It would be nice if people could be innocent until proved guilty. Too bad that never happens.

Bogie At 2 O'Clock

“American Secretary of State John Kerry, who came here very determined and operates based upon an unfathomable obsession and messianic fervor, cannot teach me anything about the Palestinians. I live and breathe the conflict with the Palestinians. I know what they think, what they want and what they really mean. The American security plan that was presented to us is not worth the paper it was written on. It contains no peace and no security. The only thing that might save us is if John Kerry wins the Nobel prize and leaves us be.”

Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon scratched some thin skin this week. As he has been doing for a long time. When will these sneaky Jews learn not to speak ill of their American saviours?

The funny part is how the American leaders are so terribly hurt and offended. Is this really the worst thing anybody has ever said about them? These people would not last a day in our shoes. This reminds me of the first time somebody called Obama a liar during some congressional speech. Obama’s people were twisting their panties over that one. I bet they look back on those days with longing.

John Kerry, for his part, has only given diplomatic responses as far as I know. It is others who are trying to fuel this, not him. Like him or not, Ya’alon is a military expert in this field and he will tell you what he thinks of your agenda. Obama’s team has no choice but to attack him.

Now many Americans, largely ignorant of their own foreign policies, will once again say that the United States should stop giving money to Israel. I think they would be very surprised if they knew how all that military aid actually worked.

Some Israelis will say that while Ya’alon makes an obvious point, we should be nicer to our closest ally. Especially when that ally is so sensitive.

Many Palestinians will say this is proof that Jews are evil and should all be exterminated. There is nothing new there.

But what people should think about after this is all old news next week is that there will never be peace here as long as the United States tries to dictate that peace. There is nothing wrong with bringing in mediators to negotiate between Israel and terrorist leaders but those mediators should be somebody whom both sides trust, for lack of a better word, to some degree. Nobody trusts the United States. They are in it for their own corporate interests. And for the Nobel prize to a certain extent. They do not give a rat’s tuchas about Israel’s desire to not be murdered or about Palestinian terrorists’ desire to murder Jews. Neither Jews nor Arabs are at the top of America’s list of favourites. We are barely a notch above Africans as far as they are concerned.

I always wanted Thabo Mbeki to come here and do his thing. He was a skilled mediator. But then that corrupt asshole Zuma did his thing. Maybe it is unfair to blame Jacob Zuma for the troubles in Judea. But he is a corrupt asshole. Nobody can deny that with a straight face.

Moshe Ya’alon has never been my favourite person in the world. He was Chief of Staff when I was at Bahad 1. He said some things about female officers that can safely be described as ridiculously stupid. But his frustration at American presidents and secretaries of state who come here with academic theories about life in the Levant and tell us how we should exist is understandable. Sooner or later the United States is going to have to realise that trying to force everybody to do it your way has failed miserably. Every continent in the world can attest to that.

Dear Sir or Madam Will You Read My Book

Letters To Friends is finally available in paperback. I say finally because it took a long time. The e-version came out several months ago.

It is at Amazon of course. Everything is at Amazon. It should be at other outlets soon. The Amazon price seems to change daily. I have no control over that. I wanted it to be lower but I am not in charge. I merely wrote the thing.

Out With the Old

Ariel Sharon finally died. I say finally because he was not especially active the last few years. The doctors were trying to keep him alive at the end but my personal point of view is that after eight years in a coma it might be time to move on. I can see where his family did not want to let him go but when you are in a persistent vegetative state there is little reason to stay alive. If recovery is not an option and you will spend the rest of your life in a coma then what is the point.

There were mixed reactions at his death. It surprised nobody. Most people are pretty amazed that he lasted as long as he did. Some will mourn him deeply while others moved on a long time ago. He was one of those people that most either loved or hated. I think he was an important military commander but only an average politician.

Palestinian terrorists praised his death, of course. He was a Jew, after all. Some predictably called his death a punishment from God. It seems queer to me that when an old and sick Jew dies it is Israel’s fault but when an old and sick Arab dies it is Israel’s fault. I also have to doubt that God sides with terrorists who target schools and hospitals. But what do I know.

Even some Palestinians who might not be considered terrorists were seen rejoicing in the streets when they heard about Sharon’s death. I do not think Sharon was the best prime minister in the history of the world but I have to wonder what is wrong with people who rejoice at another’s death. Sharon was no friend to terrorists but he did more than anybody else to take Israel out of Gaza. You would think that would make the people who wanted Israel out of Gaza happy. Obviously it only made them angry. Terrorist activity from Gaza increased dramatically as soon as Israel left. Maybe the terrorists wanted Sharon to stick around. Maybe they are not praising his death but giving thanks that his family’s long suffering is finally over. That might be unlikely.

Sharon was prime minister when I moved to Israel. I found it hard to label him at first because I was still looking at Israel the way people outside of Israel try to define it. He was very conservative in some ways and very liberal in others. It all makes sense to me now but he seems like an odd character when everything is BBC black and white. In some ways I miss having Sharon as prime minister. But it is right that he is no longer on the political scene. A lot has changed since he was in charge. From my point of view the worst thing about Sharon’s stroke, aside from the eight years in a coma, was that Olmert became PM. I never missed that guy once he was gone.

Speaking of Christmas Shopping

Since I know that everybody will want to buy my new book for Christmas I should probably point out why I did not list every Amazon site. The book is available at Amazon UK, Amazon Canada, Amazon North Korea, of course, but I would actually prefer it if everybody could buy it from a single version of Amazon. Or from another site. It seems that Amazon has found a clever way to avoid paying people what is rightfully owed.

If you sell a book on Amazon and live outside of the United States, as many of us do, Amazon will only pay you after you reach US$100 in sales. After all of their fees and taxes, of course. $100 does not seem insurmountable but there is a catch. Amazon divides each national website. If you sell enough to make $99 at each of their 12 sites they do not pay you $1188. They pay you absolutely nothing. If you make $100 at one site and $99 at the other 11 they do not pay $1189. They only pay the $100.

I seem to be more populat at Amazon US and Amazon UK. I make money from those sites but nothing from the others. I have sold a lot of copies from Amazon Germany but not $100 worth, so I might not see that money for years, if ever. I have currently sold one copy from Amazon Mexico. I will never see those 98 cents. Most sales are from Amazon US, so it makes the most sense to only advertise that site.

So if you are one of the five people who are thinking about buying this thing from Amazon, all I ask is that you use amazon.com.

As long as I am spamming my own blog I might as well remind everybody about the first book. It is still available. What better way to say Happy Christmas to loved ones than to give them a book by somebody who does not celebrate Christmas.

Barnes and Noble
Amazon
Kobo
Sony
iTunes
Bookworld
distributor

Fortnight in the Philippines

So it turns out my blog post about the Philippines was long enough to be a book. It is a bit of a short book but a book nonetheless.

It was such a unique experience that writing about it was both very easy and a bit of a challenge. There is so much to say about what happened, what we did, the ongoing situation. I could have made an epic that rivaled War and Peace. In length. Not so much in artistic value. But who has time to write such a thing. And, frankly, who would ever read it.

It is currently available in a variety of digital formats. Print versions will likely take a while. I am still trying to get Letters to Friends in paperback. That one is flying off the shelves like a zeppelin. This one might have to wait.

Kindle
A bunch of different formats

Barnes and Noble, Sony, Apple are all coming soon.

Tagalong Writing

I started writing about my time in the Philippines. I’ve yet to finish. I cannot say what will happen with it whenever I am finally finished. It is already too long to be a blog post. But I doubt it will ever be long enough to be a book.

I suppose I could add more to it to make a book length but that would take some time and I have no real desire to do such a thing. My current plan is to write whatever comes out and decide what to do with it later.

Stay tuned. Maybe there will be an epic multipart post in the coming weeks.


Update: Nevermind.

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela was internationally known as a peace activist. The world will remember him as the first black RSA president. When I was a child he was known as a hero by blacks and a criminal by whites. He helped found Umkhonto we Sizwe, which was a terrorist organisation by anybody’s definition. Mandela freely admitted to the treason and sabotage for which he was imprisoned. MK killed countless civilians in bombings and guerrilla attacks. Their victims were black, white and everything in between. I vividly remember their attack at Durban’s Golden Mile just after my seventh birthday, although I did not know any of the people killed or injured. I do not think any 7-year-old should have to deal with the racial injustice of apartheid but I do not think any 7-year-old should have to know about terrorism either. Mandela has since acknowledged that he and MK violated human rights.

People who want to deify Mandela tend to whitewash his early terrorist activities but I think it is important to know where he came from in order to understand where he went. One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. To the radical blacks he was helping to free them from oppression. And there was serious oppression under apartheid. It was not simply segregation and inequality. Blacks were treated as common criminals simply for being born black.

But killing people who have nothing to do with your inequality has nothing to do with freedom. Killing blacks to free blacks from oppression simply makes no sense. There were a lot of whites who campaigned against apartheid. Whites were subject to banning just as easily as blacks. It was far easier to be white but most whites had no control of the government at the time, just as most blacks have no control today. Then and now it was a very small group of people who wielded the most power.

Fortunately for everybody, Mandela mellowed out during his years in prison. He gradually evolved from advocating radical urban warfare to a more moderate approach. By the time he was released he sounded less like Malcolm X and more like Gandhi. I never would have voted for the ANC just after my seventh birthday, were that possible. But I campaigned for them just before my fifteenth. I did not vote for obvious reasons. We were all pretty excited when they won and Mandela became president. I would doubt that I knew anybody who had a problem with it. We were glad that South Afrika had finally become South Africa again. Mostly we were happy that apartheid was truly dead.

The reason Nelson Mandela is so well known throughout the world and we are all talking about him now is not because of anything he did in office. His presidency was not very noteworthy save for being the first democratically elected president. He became famous for being in prison and stayed famous for what he did after he left office. He did more for human rights than all the other former South African presidents combined. Though in retrospect that does not say much.

I think Mandela was a good president. He did what he could to unite the races. No minor feat at the time. And no one can deny that we all get along much better than before he was president. There are certainly fewer necklacings. His biggest mistake was ignoring AIDS, as his predecessors and successors have done.

But I still think de Klerk was a braver president. It is much harder to end an entrenched corrupt system than to start a new one.

Mandela did two great things as president. One was to force reconciliation down our throats. Weather we liked it or not. There were more than a few people who wanted to kill all whites. Or at least kick them out of the country. Mandela knew that such a thing would destroy the economy permanently. No country outside of Africa would ever trade with us if we were so hostile to such a large minority of our own citizens. Especially when they are white people. You can disenfranchise whatever minority group you want but if they are white then you lose all support from Europe, North America, Australia, Japan. Trading only with African countries is a horrible fiscal model.

Mandela was willing to trade with absolutely anybody, regardless of traditional allies and enemies. He did not care if you were communist, socialist, capitalist. He reached out to dictators, democratically elected representatives, military strongmen. If you were willing to trade with and invest in die Nuwe Suid Afrika you were golden. Some people did not feel that was the best policy. Getting in bed with the wrong sort usually has lasting consequences.

But Mandela’s government spent a lot of money trying to lift blacks out of apartheid. All those new social programmes were not free. They did a great deal of good but somebody had to pay for them. Raising taxes on people who make $1 a day is not an option. Taxing the hell out of whites would only lead many to leave the country, which a lot of blacks wanted, but would be almost as economically reckless as kicking them all out. Countries like the US and UK were more than happy to criticise apartheid and praise Mandela’s release but they were not so enthusiastic about new investment in the new government. They were happy to hurt the economy with sanctions but far less interested in helping the country when the sanctions were lifted. Symbolically jumping on the hero bandwagon is a lot easier than actually spending money on that which you claim to believe. Mandela’s government had little choice but to seek investment from international leaders who never increased their own popularity by praising Mandela.

Mandela’s other great achievement as president was to serve only one term. He voluntarily retired when he could have easily been elected several more times. Lesser men would have worn out their welcome. Others would have tried to make themselves dictators. Mandela probably could have given himself far more power but he was obviously serious about making his country a democracy.

Nelson Mandela was our George Washington. Neither was a great president but both were necessary for the country to grow and move forward. Both could command attention and respect by simply walking into a room. Everybody liked both men and now historians treat them as noble heroes while ignoring their serious flaws. In many ways both countries need them to be as elevated as they are. We need our heroes to be larger than life.

What I Did On Thanksgiving

I have returned from the Philippines. It was an amazing experience and I am still processing the tsunami of information floating around in my head.

The IDF sent 234 people, including 150 doctors, nurses, medical technicians. We set up a field hospital, found a lot of survivors, found even more dead people, built schools, created entire water systems. The doctors treated 2686 patients, including 848 children, and delivered 36 babies. Two of the children were brought back to Tel Aviv for cleft palate surgery that could be better performed at an actual hospital.

My team spent a great deal of time flying over islands and being endlessly impressed with how powerful a typhoon can be. The mayor of one of the smaller cities said it looked like a war zone. Some areas looked like pictures of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. There would be a lone tree trying to stay up surrounded by debris as far as the eye could see. One of the big differences was that most of the dead in Hiroshima were incinerated. In the Philippines there were dead bodies everywhere.

On an ironic note, the Japanese delegation in the Philippines landed next to a monument dedicated to the people of the Philippines who died in the Japanese invasion.

I will have much more to say about this later. By this I mean the typhoon and our relief mission, not the Japanese.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

Before we got the new car, the future Mr and I were a single car family. One car between two people might not seem like an insurmountable obstacle but the combination of different work schedules, my far superior driving skills and his male ego made me want to go out and buy a new car.

It was his car so you might think I would be content to let him drive. But then you have clearly never seen him drive. He is simply not very good at it. He thinks he should be constantly accelerating up until he has to slam on the brakes. He thinks those lines on the road are for decoration and should be ignored at will. He considers the brake a last resort when the horn is in perfect working condition.

In his defence, my fiancé learnt to drive in Israel. This is not a country known for patient and attentive drivers. Israelis think that people in the road are playing chicken and the speed limit is a dare. Conversely, I began my driving days in a land where grazing gazelles always have the right of way.

I would drive his car more often than not. I felt more comfortable doing it, it got us to work on time and nobody got hurt. But having only one car forced us to alter our schedules. His work schedule has always been more erratic than mine. I do not keep banker’s hours but I know when I will be going to work for the next week. His hours can and do change at the drop of a turban.

A funny little quirk about his job is that people need to know exactly what streets he takes to get there and approximately when he should be where. He downplayed the significance of this when he first explained it to me but it did not take me very long to figure out that it is all about sending out a search party should he not show up on time. If I do not show up for work, they will phone me and wonder where I am. If he does not show up, they will actually send somebody out to look for him. I guess it makes a difference when some people want to kill you. Nobody wants me dead. Aside from the usual wiping us off the map and all.

Not very long ago I was taking David to work and we were running late. I could say that it was an unfortunate series of events that delayed us but in truth the blame lay solely on one person. I shall not say whom. His or her name begins with a consonant and is immediately followed by two vowels. But that is all I will say about that.

Since we were running late, I decided to take a few different roads that should have got us there faster. It was a good plan. Any map and a basic knowledge of local traffic conditions and it all makes perfect sense. However, neither of us took into consideration that people were looking for the wreckage of his bombed and burning car at the same time that I was driving it headlong into those same military police. We were stopped by a patrol surprised to see a woman driving his car. They thought for a second that perhaps he had been kidnapped by a woman. This only embarrassed him and his male ego. Surely he would be able to defend himself from me.

No. I would mess him up.

Where Shadows Fester

Chevrolet Volt

Toyota Prius

We looked at a few conventional cars but then decided to go electric. Tel Aviv is one of the greenest cities in the world and Israel is supposed to be at the top of the environmental food chain. At least that is what they keep telling us. There are charging stations all over the place, tax reductions for those who go electric and even free parking spaces for electric vehicles in some places. Free parking is a wondrous thing.

I see the Toyota Prius driving around town every day. But I was not at all impressed with their hybrid technology. It is like the worst of both worlds. You get the high fuel costs of internal combustion combined with the slow speed and short range of an electric vehicle. I also did not care for the way it felt when the car switched between the two.

The Chevrolet Volt is essentially the same except that it is far more expensive. Probably because it is built in the United States. The Prius is built in Japan and China.



Renault Fluence

Then we looked at the Renault Fluence. It is fully electric, reasonably priced and has an amusing history. Renault originally partnered with Better Place to develop the car and put automated battery stations all over Israel. Their goal was to have as many electric cars as internal combustion on the road by 2016. Instead, they went bankrupt.

That pretty much killed sales but it does not bother me at all. The Better Place system was too authoritarian. They owned the batteries, without which the car does you very little good. They had a complicated leasing system and series of payment plans based on how much you drove, where you drove, what time of day you drove. It was like the early days of mobile phones when companies charged everybody for every little thing.

Now that Better Place is all but dead, Renault has taken over the batteries. It simply comes with the car as it should. Where and how I drive has nothing to do with the company that sold me the car.

You were only allowed to charge your battery at home or at Better Place stations under the Better Place plan. Now you can charge it anywhere. My building put in charging stations two or three years ago which I can now use. Rather than paying Better Place fees to charge my batteries I can charge them at home for free since the stations at my building are solar powered. I went from pay far more for petrol than any American ever has to paying absolutely nothing to fuel my car. Assuming I only charge it at home.

Even if I charge it at a charging station I have to pay for, the prices are a tiny fraction of what it costs to fill a conventional tank.

The only aspect of the Better Place system I would like to see are the automated battery switching stations. The Renault Fluence battery can be quickly removed and replaced and Better Place built a few automated stations where you could replace a dying battery for a new one in about a minute. The stations still exist but nobody really knows what will happen to them now that their company is no more. I can still charge my batteries and/or replace them but not automatically within a minute. Charging from almost empty to full takes about eight hours and replacing them myself takes a good ten minutes. In our instant society, ten minutes is an eternity.

Fundamentally Judgemental

David and I did some shopping after the death of my beloved Z06. It has often been said that men do not particularly enjoy shopping with women. Images are bandied about of men standing stupefied in corners whilst holding purses and mumbling football statistics to themselves.

Automobile shopping is another matter entirely. David was as giddy as a teenage girl looking at shoes when he kicked tyres and looked at engines. To be fair to teenage girls, I never actually saw him kick a tyre. But he looked at a lot of engines.

The salesmen were not as keen on showing me any engines. This may very well be the 21st century but car salesmen still see women as too feminine to have any interest in camshafts and alternators. As far as the men and more than a few women who sell cars for a living are concerned, women care more about fixing their hair than the structural dynamics of their potential conveyance. It is all very insulting to rugged outdoor types such as myself.

There is an Alanis Morissette song wherein the waiter of a fancy restaurant treats her condescendingly because she is dressed like a hobo. The message in the song is that even though she was wealthy enough to pay for not only the meal but the entire restaurant, she refrained from telling the waiter to eat it. I could relate to that while automobile salesmen were talking more to the man I was with than with me, despite the fact that I was the actual shopper. David was far more excited about looking at the cars but we were looking for me.

I am a military officer. I fly into potentially hostile environments and drag broken and bloodied bodies out of harm’s way with relatively little regard for the safety of the people around me. I am trained on the use of automatic weapons and can theoretically beat a man to death with my bare hands. I run and/or swim every single day, rain or shine. I am engaged in some form of physical activity or another more often than some people watch TV. I have climbed large mountains. Salesmen should not look at me and only see a radiant and beautiful young woman. They should also bow down to my commanding presence. Or at least realise that if I am the customer it will not help them at all to kiss my boyfriend’s ass.

To be fair, I was not at all interested in looking at engines and I was having a bad hair day.

Weapons of Mass Distraction

What do people have against chemical weapons anyway? They are bad. They kill. They can cause a great deal of pain and suffering. How is this different from all the good weapons we have and use with impunity?

As an enlightened and civilised species we have banded together and told ourselves and each other that we shall no longer use chemical agents to kill each other. There was even a UN resolution against it. We all know how sacrosanct those resolutions are. Since we are not Godless animals, we should only kill each other with weapons of limited destruction and things that explode.

I do not favour chemical weapons. I think they are as bad as everybody who does not use them says. My concern is how much we legitimise more conventional weapons whenever we try to preach against those weapons of war we despise.

Sarin is horrible and does nothing good to the human body. The same can be said for bullets. They generally only kill one person at a time, unless you get in a very lucky shot, but they kill all the same. Death by bullet can be quick, but it can just as easily cause a very slow and painful death. A tiny bullet can take away parts of your body that you may have wanted to use later.

Bullets are also very unpredictable. A single shot can kill you, simply cause an irritating scratch, or do anything in between. Where you are hit often matters less than how you are hit. John Kennedy died quickly from a bullet to the head. James Brady is still alive 32 years later.

Bullets are perfectly acceptable because they are small and generally only kill one person at a time. Something like sarin can kill hundreds at a time. But how much sarin is there in the world compared to the number of bullets? I have never held any sarin in my hands, but I have handled more than a few bullets. I have some bullets in my house. My future husband has even more. Neither of us keep any sarin in the wardrobe. Not everybody has bullets in their home, but I can safely guarantee that there are more bullets in your community than there are chemical weapons.

We as a species also feel safe with much larger projectiles that can kill far more people at any given time. Rockets, missiles, grenades, bombs and all manner of explosive devices are considered perfectly acceptable ways to kill each other. Is being blown up better than being poisoned? I’ve yet to do either but I would prefer another option. There are many types of missiles that can kill far more people than any sarin attack. Is being set on fire from an explosion better than being gassed?

Some will say that guided missile systems are better precisely because they are guided. Chemicals tend to go wherever they want to go. A missile can be targeted to hit a very specific location. This is all nice in theory, but we have seen time and again how often these surgical strikes kill innocent civilians. It happens so often that somebody even came up with a cute little euphemism for all the children accidentally blown up; collateral damage. Which sounds more benign and abstract, “more dead children than anticipated” or “collateral damage”?

Then there are nuclear weapons. In what universe is a nuclear warhead less destructive than any chemical agent? How can the US, Russia, China, UK, India, Pakistan, France, North Korea, Iran very soon, Saudi Arabia soon, Israel maybe or maybe not, ever complain about anybody using chemical weapons when they are all or soon will be capable of launching the most destructive attack the world has ever seen. Even a French nuclear warhead of today is one thousand times more destructive than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. What happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki is small by today’s nuclear standards yet each of those cities suffered more casualties than the world’s largest chemical attack. More people died in each city than in all of the chemical attacks of World War I combined.

The next nuclear warhead to hit a city will probably kill millions of people. In such an attack, nobody is collateral damage.

Mt Everest Q&A

I’ve yet to decide if I shall write a book about the expedition. It seems like such a book would be a time consuming proposition. On the other hand there is plenty to say. If any book does exist in the future, my loyal reader(s) will be the fifth to know.

Did you make it to the top?
You will have to read the book should it ever exist. If I eventually give up on the book idea then I will likely write a blog post or two.

What is the food like?
In our case it was absolutely dreadful. Every expedition is responsible for its own food so it is possible to have pleasant meals. But nobody goes up Mt Everest for the dining experience.

The point of eating is to make up for all of those calories lost whilst climbing and to keep you from starving to death. Snacks and sweets are easy to carry and very useful. Meals are very utilitarian. We ate a lot of rice.

Did you get altitude sickness?
Yes. Almost everybody in our party had at least some symptoms. None were fatal and we all got over it quickly enough. Water, oxygen and analgesics are wonderful things.

How do you go to the bathroom?
Very carefully. At base camp it is just like any outdoor wilderness endeavour. Higher up but below the Death Zone it is a simple case of whipping it out and letting it go. There is a simple device for women to urinate man style. Beyond the Death Zone you are better off holding it in. Some people even use incontinence products or simply wet themselves.

How do you bathe?
That is best done at base camp. Beyond that it is difficult and not entirely necessary. When you spend days in a very clean mountain environment you don’t get as dirty as you do in a city environment.

Why does a trip to Everest take so long?
Mt Everest is very high up and nowhere close to where anybody lives. It takes time to get into Nepal and get all of the paperwork approved. It takes time just to get from Kathmandu to your base camp. Those of us who live at lower elevations have to adjust in Kathmandu and then slowly head up to base camp. A fast trip can actually kill people. You are really not supposed to go any higher than 1000 feet per day.

A climb like Everest is also not a simple process of going up and coming down. It requires several ascents and descents at different rates and altitudes to acclimatise. Most of us can do it in two or three months. Very few people can make the trip in one month.

There is also an issue of weather which cannot be ignored. There was a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal which obviously never reached Nepal but it did briefly affect our weather and internet access, which we needed to check the weather.

Some climbs seem like you are at the top but you are really not. Are there any false summits on Mt Everest?
You definitely know when you are not at the top.

Catching Up

I was out of town for a bit. I am back.

What happened while I was gone?

On the international stage Syria and Egypt were in the midst of civil wars, terrorist organisations were playing their part, Zimbabwe was looking forward to some illegal election antics, Iran was denying building nuclear weapons while increasing their production of nuclear weapons, the American president was under fire for taking a holiday while his people were complaining about drone attacks.

If you look at a newspaper from the day I left and another from the day I returned, you would see very little difference.

Domestically, the UN is “warning” Israel not to undermine “peace talks”. Why do they never send such warnings to Palestine? Ask Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman.

Far more interesting, but with little to no coverage from CNN, my mother was married in a quiet little ceremony in Jerusalem. She married her rabbi, whom she had been dating for only a few months. Much can be said about their brief courtship but I think at their age there is very little point in taking your time about things. They were both previously married to people with whom they thought they would live for the rest of their lives. But not everybody lives the same amount of time.

Somebody told me that it was amusing that my mother married before I did. That seems pretty normal to me. The point is supposed to be that I have been dating my intended off and on for about seven years whilst my mother and her new husband probably only hit the sheets on their wedding night. As far as I know.

I have no problem with my mother being married. She was married throughout my entire childhood. It is a different man with whom my sisters and I have a completely different relationship but she is still a mother, daughter and wife.

We’ve yet to set a date for my wedding. We are still looking at locations and where we do it will determine when. Our families vote for Jerusalem. The city is full of history and culture and is very important to our people. It is also centrally located and easy for everybody to get to. The groom votes for Tel Aviv. There are plenty of parks, beaches and five star hotels that would work and the Mediterranean is an excellent backdrop. I vote for Yam HaMelach. It is one of my favourite places and significant to our relationship. Time will tell.

In sadder news, my beloved sister crashed my beloved car. She was not injured but the car was destroyed. The cause of the accident was the simple fact that Israelis drive like idiots. The effect is that my beautiful black Chevrolet Corvette C5 Z06 is no more. I bought it in America when I moved to Israel and had it shipped at great pain and expense. It was a fine automobile that did everything I asked of it and provided years of comfort, style and serious horsepower.

The future husband suggests I get a more family orientated car. With any luck and a great deal of practise we should have children in the near future. He thinks said children should not ride around in a sports car. I think any biological children of mine would loathe a Volvo V70.




2004-2013
RIP dear friend

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.