Blog/March 2019/Mar 8th

March 8th

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It was a quiet week in the desert Aaron household; none of us did anything noteworthy. We did get to have dinner with Sarah one evening, which was nice. And Esther and I went to a showing of “Bohemian Rhapsody” here in our town. That’s a good film, especially if you like Queen’s music. I was a bit dismayed to note that almost all the audience were our age or older. Other than that, excitement was hard to come by this week.

In our house, that is. Since it’s “election season” in Israel, there’s never a dull moment! Even though indicting Netanyahu should make all Israelis sad, it doesn’t, quite: certainly, the “Blue and White” party is reaping some benefit according to polls and I don’t think they’re crying in their beers. Of course, Bibi attacks them as “far left”. I’m not sure where that would put “Labor” and “Meretz” — “really far left” and “extremely far left”, maybe?

The truth is, as I’ve explained many times in other contexts, that the Israeli political parties are not easily categorized as “Left” and “Right”. You have to look at multiple axes (plural of “axis”, not “axe”): the party’s stance on defense, economy, religion, Zionism, personal liberty, etc. It’s not enough to just look at one of these (and of course, there are other issues as well; these are just the major points of difference between the parties). So the question to ask Netanyahu is, “in what way are they ‘left’ of Likud”?

He claims they’ll bring Oslo version 2.0, which is probably true based on Gantz’s own statements. Lest we forget, however, Bibi brought us Hevron 1.0. Pot. Kettle. Black.

The “New Right” party released their platform statement this week. Thirty-three pages as opposed to Zehut’s some three-hundred pages. There’s a lot of overlap between those two parties: both are “free market” oriented, though Zehut is frankly Libertarian while NR is less so but perhaps more realistic in its goals. Now that I can examine both platforms, and having seen Shaked in action in the 20th Knesset, I’m beginning to lean towards NR — even though I can’t stand Bennett. Oh, well: it’s a multivariate optimization problem, as always.

Well, the US election cycle has also been interesting. You’ve got some serious anti-Semites in public now. Fortunately, you have an Entertainer in Chief who probably will be re-elected, since the Leftists just can’t control themselves and are becoming truly insane. Stay tuned!

The strange, unusual, and amazing:

• Has Jeremy Corbyn become undone by Uri Geller’s Zionist mind-powers of Doom?
• “Captain Marvel” is a towering artistic achievement. Or something like that.
• I thought I was being messed with, but no — these are real books: Algorithms of Oppression and Weapons of Math Destruction. Someone unironically recommended those to a person who was looking to improve his company’s ethical behavior.
• “Backlash” after BBC Scotland recruit a “Nazi dog salute criminal”. It’s worth it just for the headline. For the record, the guy they’re targeting isn’t actually a Nazi, he’s a comedian. I know, I know: pretty much the same thing, these days. By the way, the “backlash” consisted of exactly 42 Twitter complaints.
• Pay inequality is a real thing; only Google found it was underpaying men, not womyn.

We’ve had a lot of rain this week, but it’s stopped for now. Presumably the rain will resume towards the middle of the coming week; but for shabbat it’s supposed to be warmish and pleasant. We agree to that.

The three of us will have a simple menu this shabbat:
homemade ḥalla, rump roast, pargiot, oven-roasted potatoes, bok-choy, onion pashtida, various salatim, and fruit.

Until next time,
shabbat shalom and ḥodesh ṭov!

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