Blog/March 2016/Mar 11th

Mar 11th (See this week's devar torah)

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It was a quiet week for us, personally; but a very active one for our peace partners. I normally refrain from mentioning those sorts of things in the blog, but I got called on the carpet by my mother for omitting to mention an “event” which struck very close to home recently. So to appease my mother, I will occasionally make mention of “events”.

Please permit me to take this opportunity to say that even taking into account the uptick in “events” this past year, it is significantly less dangerous in Israel (on average) than in America (on average). That is to say, that the statistical likelihood of an individual dying violently in Israel is less (actually, less than half) what it is in the USA — and only a quarter of what it is in Argentina. This, despite the best efforts of our “peace partners”. So chew on that for a moment…

This raises the important issue of how bad we are, as a species, at “risk perception”. We have a strong tendency to ignore commonplace dangers and to give more weight to more “spectacular” but infrequent dangers. Thus we (perhaps) obsess about being murdered, which in Israel has a statistical likelihood of 1.6 per 100,000 per year. But we ignore the far more common danger of dying from complications of diabetes, which (again, in Israel) has a likelihood of 15.3 per 100,000 per year. That means that as an Israeli you are more than nine times more likely to die of one specific treatable and preventable disease than you are of violent death. And that’s just one disease.

Or to put it another way: we get all worked-up about the possibility of an Earth-destroying meteorite (vanishingly small probability) but can’t be too bothered with Iran or North Korea using nuclear weapons on us (not insignificant, and growing probability). Bad risk-perception analysis can lead to spectacularly bad outcomes.

Moving on to more pleasant topics:

I ran a “training session” for our Indian partners this week. I spoke for 90 minutes straight; just about a record for me. At the end, they commented that there was “a lot new” that they had to absorb, and that they would get back to me after they had had time to consider their questions. Admittedly, it was a session which was information-dense. But it’s also a cultural issue: Indians are loathe to say negative things (very much unlike Israelis!), and they also have a very different sense of time. So it may be a week or so before I get feedback, and probably the negative feedback will be phrased in as inoffensive a manner as possible. Not that that’s a bad thing, you understand.

We are also aggressively looking for contract work. So if you know of anyone who needs software designed or written, or systems analysis, please refer them to us. Thanks!

Esther and I attended the Pyup kosher-wine festival in Jerusalem this week. There were a lot of wineries there which we hadn’t heard of before, so we had the opportunity to try some new and mostly very good wines. Some of the ones we tried were incredibly good, like the “Forest Yatir” — but at 250₪ a bottle, we’re not buying any anytime soon.

And now for something completely terrifying (it’s a comic, don’t worry).

According to an interview in “The Atlantic”, Obama sees Netanyahu as the most disappointing of all mideast leaders. That’s OK, BHO — we see you as the most disappointing of all American leaders — North or South — of all time. Even including Jimmy Carter…

The weather this week was warmer than seasonal, but not hot. This weekend it’s supposed to cool down and we’re scheduled to have a bit more rain as the week progresses. Enjoy the spring!

We’ve got a full house again this week, with two of Sarah’s friends and one of ours joining us. To calm their growling stomachs we’ll serve:
meatloaf, chicken soup, veggie soup, baked chicken, homemade ḥummus, veggie stir-fry, veggie egg-rolls, baked potatoes, rice, salatim, and some kind of dessert.

Until next time,
shabbat shalom!

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