Blog/September 2011/Sep 16th

Sep 16th (See this week's devar torah)

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Hi, again!

The week went by quickly. Seems that just yesterday my cousins were here for shabbat, and now we're almost entering another shabbat! Part of the reason it went quickly was that we were busy all the time. I mentioned last week that we had joined the local gym; well, this week Esther and I went there twice, in addition to our normal regimen of walking. We would each like to lose another 5 k"g or so, but even if we don't the additional exercise will bring health benefits. Maybe we can even keep from gaining weight over tishrei, the upcoming month jam packed with holidays (and their accompanying feasts)!

As part of our own preparations for tishrei, Esther and I had decided a while back that we wanted to start a Hebrew ḥug -- a discussion group. I told you last week we would have our first meeting this week, and so we did -- and I think the participants enjoyed it and got something out of it. There is a lot of variation in the fluency level of the group, but we're hoping to even that out as we go along. This time we just had each person tell about his or her day; next time I think we'll start doing "situations" (like being in the bank, on the bus, etc). Any ideas?

Sarah's been getting into the groove of her new job. Unfortunately, she seems to have inherited her father's tolerance level for stupidity, which may severely impair her ability to be polite to the people who come into the office seeking her help.

The Israeli government is trying to forestall the upcoming "Palestinian" statehood declaration on Sep. 20th., but most Israelis seem to be skeptical it will amount to anything -- besides even more violence on the part of our peace-loving cousins. Israelis are jaded, partly due to declarations like this one from the PLO "Ambassador" stating that the Palestinian state should be free of Jews. Imagine! If the "apartheid" state of Israel said something like that about the Muslim population in her borders, the world would have a seizure. But of course, Israel is not even slightly an "apartheid" state, and it is clear as day that any future "Palestinian" state will indeed be.

Then there's the wider regional turmoil. Egypt seethes with enmity for Israel even as it benefits from the 30 year old peace treaty with it. Just this past week, Egyptian mobs stormed the Israeli embassy in Cairo. But Egypt, as the most populous Arab nation, sees itself as the center of the Arab world. Saudi Arabia, as the holder of the "holy" cities of Mecca and Medina, sees itself as the center of the Muslim world. Iran, as the most powerful Islamic state, sees itself as the neo-Persian empire. And finally, Turkey, the most recently dethroned from power, wishes to reassert itself as the neo-Ottoman empire. Fun times! God willing, they will fight each other so we don't have to.

<Sigh>. The new "light rail" project in Jerusalem is causing minor turmoil here in Maale Adummim. It seems that the Egged bus company (which serves M"A) made a deal with the light-rail company so that Egged will not run bus lines parallel to the rail line. That makes some sense, but there are several lines from M"A which are scheduled to be cancelled, though they only run parallel the rail line for a short while. The bus I take in the morning (and afternoon) is one of them. So I protested to the vice-mayor of M"A, and now I'm his "friend" on Facebook. Talk about direct democracy! I'm hopeful he can convince Egged to keep my line and the other several such lines so my one-hour commute in the morning doesn't become a two-hour commute.

In other news, some assembly is required! In preparation for future "cool" projects, I did some refactoring of the assembler inside Reva Forth, fixing bugs in it as I went along. The basic assembler is now about 10K of code, which is small enough that I think I will incorporate it into the main Reva binary (probably will add about 5K to the final executable, more or less). Sorry if that's just too much geekiness for you!

Around the bend:

• Truly disgusting and horrifying. What is wrong with people?
• Your gov't $$$ at work: been bitten by a turtle?
• The truth about the "peace process"
• Just what America needs: more stupid people

Relatives of one of Sarah's best friends as well as a couple seminary girls will be staying with us this shabbat. They'll enjoy: pan-fried buri, vegetable soup, pot-roast, zucchini, roasted potatoes, salatim, chili, chicken wings, cookies

Until next week,
shabbat shalom!

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