Blog/May 2013/May 10th
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| May 10th (See this week's devar torah) | Comments or questions? Click here! |
Hi, again!
Lots to say this time around, I hope I don't bore you! The northern front warms up despite the cooler weather. Famous People™ choose to disassociate themselves from Israel. Crime does pay. And who knew CSS could be amazing?
First the weather report: warmer than usual at the beginning of the week, the weather has turned cooler and is forecast to be cooler than usual over shabbat and into the coming week. Yeah! We even had a spot of rain yesterday, here in the desert.
On the northern front, Syria received some special deliveries last shabbat and just after, courtesy of the Israeli Air Force. Apparently, accurate Iranian missiles were being transshipped to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The IAF lobbed its interceptors from within Lebanese territory, in an "alley-oop" maneuver so the pilots weren't in range of Syrian anti-aircraft batteries. Now Assad says that Syria will respond immediately to any further Israeli strikes. Maybe, but he does have his hands full slaughtering Syrians by the boatload.
Since Israel has by far the worst human-rights record in the entire Middle East bar none, it certainly makes sense for Important and Famous People™ to boycott her. After all, no (actual) massacres are happening in Syria, no (real) judicial murders are happening in Egypt, no gays are executed in Iran -- because guess what? There aren't any gays in Iran! So certainly, it makes sense for the renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking to pull out of a conference in Israel in keeping with "advice from his Palestinian colleagues". Though an avowed atheist, he is undoubtedly glad of the support of the Church of Scotland in their ongoing efforts to de-legitimise Israel's claim to the Land.
Not to be outdone, the internationally acclaimed Amnesty International condones the killing of "settlers", while a top official in the PA (Palestinian Authority, not Pennsylvania) states "Israel is our main enemy". Forgive me, but I thought they were our "peace partners"? That's what Peres has continually told us, anyway. Now, perhaps, you can understand why some Israeli developed an application which warns of Arab mobs ahead. Peace partners. Yeah, that's the ticket...
And I wonder at the fecklessness of the Obama administration. Does anyone besides the most die-hard Leftists take Obama seriously anymore? "Red lines" in Syria have been crossed so many times, the map looks like a checkerboard. Likewise in Iran. The Prez has time to congratulate some random gay athlete for de-closetizing, but didn't have time to answer the phone during the Benghazi episode. Seriously, Americans: wake up!
And lest you think I'm enamored of our politicians ... guess again! One report says Netanyahu has ordered a freeze in Judea and Samaria. He didn't deny it, but MK Danon did. In the meantime, the Sephardic "Shas" party reinstated the criminal Deri as its political leader. As if anybody, anywhere, thought Shas was an honest party. And because of the limp-wristedness of our leaders, it is "unwise" to show any Israeli or Jewish identifiers while on the Temple Mount, and to our disgrace we think it's a victory to show an Israeli flag. A flag on a cap, not a real flag. Most dismaying.
In better news: I'm discovering the joys of CSS. The idea behind it is that a website should separate the content (written in HTML) from the presentation, written using CSS rules. I stumbled upon a fascinating site, the CSS Zen Garden, which demonstrates what can be achieved merely by changing the presentation rules instead of modifying the "markup" in the content. Very interesting (to me, anyway). I believe I will make an effort to make this site (e.g. the one you are currently reading) a bit nicer looking, now that I have an appreciation of what can be done.
Sarah pulled an "all-nighter" last night, filming "night life" in Jerusalem. This morning, she had to catch a bus at 7 in the morning, headed for the holy city of Ṣefat in the Galilee region. The "Student's Administration" through which she has a scholarship, sponsored a shabbat in Ṣefat for new-immigrant students (though at this point, Sarah's hardly a new immigrant). So she'll be there for shabbat, and we hope she has a great time. Though we did expect to get a phone call or SMS in the morning to let us know she was fine. Hear that, Sarah? don't forget to call your parents. Repeat, 100 times...
This shabbat it's just the three of us. Not the original three, since Sarah's on a trip and so is my ḥevruta and his wife, we have his daughter with us for meals. Oh, and guests too. So it's not just three. Oh, well; we'll try to get away with only having:
homemade ḥallah,
ḥumus and eggplant,
lentil salad,
beet salad,
Israeli salad,
guacamole,
baked chicken,
rice,
roasted vegetables,
meatballs,
chocolate-chip sticks,
spice cake
and various fruits.
PS: Sarah just called, she fell asleep as soon as she boarded the bus.
Until next week,
shabbat shalom (and ḥodesh ṭov, if you get this before shabbat)!
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