Blog/May 2020/May 28th
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It’s a short week, since the shavuʿoth holiday starts tonight. We’ll ease into it by cooking a bunch of things, as usual. Then we’ll celebrate by eating, drinking, relaxing, praying, sleeping; but not by going to services, since we haven’t seen any official indication our beit knesset is open. Last shabbat, we found out the one around the corner from us was apparently “open as usual”, which seemed premature. On the other hand…
… the CDC now estimates that the fatality rate from COVID-19 is only 0.4% on average, and lower for people under 50, which is in line with what one of our former Health Ministry Directors said: “you're not more at risk of dying of coronavirus than the flu”. Recall that WHO predicted a 3.4% fatality rate, and on that basis people’s lives have been turned upside-down, the world economy has ground to a halt, and draconian privacy-invasive measures have been put into place around the globe.
I’m generally disdainful of conspiracy-theories, but it is true that WHO is quite intimate with China. Yeah.
Anyway, though I await the rollback of those measures worldwide, I do believe Pandora’s box has been opened. Just as with the hyper-reaction in the wake of “9/11”, which saw governments justifying invasion of privacy in the name of “security”, we see it now in the name of “public health”. A distinct power-grab: and once acquired, not quickly or easily relinquished.
In the meantime, here in the Land the restrictions are easing a bit; restaurants started opening (with restrictions). There are almost no passenger flights to or from Israel now, and they won’t be resuming really until July. This is not a good thing.
Fortunately, we have almost everything we need right here. And we can see our family via “Zoom” or other digital methods, so it’s not as bad as it could have been. Still.
Some things different:
- “L’Chaim”. Not what you think. Rather, “Listing Jews named Haim who were innocent victims of terrorism and the conflict”. Not a pleasant read.
- An interview with Dr. Einat Wilf and Adi Schwartz, about their book “The War of Return”, subtitled: “How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace”. I want to read it.
- The heights of chutzpa! Olde Merde makes pronouncements about Netanyahu’s legal fate. He should just shut up, considering how bad a PM he was and that he sat “inside” for an actual crime.
- Another take on the Bibi situation.
- In praise of pointy things.
I was able to integrate the math library I mentioned last week, and am very satisfied with its performance. Ten to a hundred times faster for many operations! But a new version of the SQLite library came out which is incompatible with the versions I’ve been using for the past five (six?) years; that’s a major pain, but there may be light at the end of the tunnel. We’ll see.
We enjoyed a “virtual birthday party” for our grandchildren this week. The kids were only interested in the cake; they were not impressed with everyone’s singing or conversations. Daniela and Jeremy produced a nice video of the kids’ progress over the past year. If only we could have been there…
The weather did become much nicer this week, seasonal or a bit cooler. We even had one rainy day. The weekend will be nice as well, with warming at the beginning of the week.
The shavuʿoth holiday is arriving! For it and shabbat, we’ll have: homemade ḥalla, various salatim, lasagna, cheeses, olives, wines, homemade za`tar crackers, lamb, rice, fruit, and torta de chocolina.
Until next time,
ḥag sameaḥ and shabbat shalom!
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