treppenwitz

And here I thought it was me

Have you ever popped a DVD of one of your favorite movies into the idiot box and settled in to watch... only to find the familiar characters jabbering in a foreign language you can't identify, much less understand? We used to have a haunted DVD player that would occasionally lose its mind and randomly pick an overdub language (Serbian, Hungarian, Finnish, etc.) for movies that had previously played flawlessly in English.

The result of these occasional DVD malfunctions was an unsettling mix of familiar and unfamiliar.

When Zahava and I started raising kids, I felt that same mix of familiar and unfamiliar in just about everything we were hearing from experts, as well as other parents, about child-rearing.

My only frame of reference was my own childhood which, while not Theodor 'Beaver' Cleaver perfect, was certainly happy and normal enough to have produced a fairly well adjusted, functioning adult.  Yet everything I was hearing and reading about how to be a good parent made me feel inadequate, disorganized, uninvolved and even (at times) reckless.

This morning, my younger brother, who is a psychologist and heads up a unit of a large California county's Child Protective Services, sent me a link to an article.  As I read through the article it was as though someone had gotten up off the couch and changed the disc language back to English.  Suddenly everything made sense.  The problem wasn't me... it was the system which had gone and lost its mind.

If you do nothing else productive today, take 10 minutes and read this piece.  Trust me.

Note:  Ignore the intrusive advertising links between paragraphs.  They are unrelated to the article.

Say cheese

Years ago when I was a single man, I once decided to wreck my kitchen whipping up a batch of blintzes.  SIngle men can do that with impunity.  Married men require permission.

Anyhoo... It wasn't a rational decision, since you could get perfectly acceptable blintzes at local restaurants... or even in the freezer section of well stocked grocery stores.  But for some reason the idea of making blintzes from scratch really appealed to me, so...

As I recall, those long-ago blintzes came out fine, but the trauma to my small apartment kitchen was both extensive and extended.  I think I finally washed the final pan and mixing bowl about two weeks after the last blintze was consumed.  If you've never tried to scrup dried-on farmer cheese and sour cream off of dishes and mixing bowls, trust me... it's no picnic.

Well, the other day I was reading one of my favorite blogs and was delighted to see he had posted about making home-made blintzes... and had even shared pictures and a recipe.  I have no idea what ever came of the recipe I had used way back when... but here was an engraved invitation - a challenge, even - to give it another try.

So this past Motzei Shabbat (Saturday night) we invited my parents over to celebrate both Yonah's and my father's birthdays (Yonah is 6 and my dad is, well... older than 6, keneynahorah, tfu tfu tfu), and I whipped up a metric buttload* of blintzes. 

The bletlach (crepes) came out just the tiniest bit thicker than I would have liked (which can probably be attributed to the 70% whole weat flour I used), but the filling was perfect... a little sweet, as befits a main course, but not so sweet as to be confused with a dessert.

I even made a big batch of eggnog (nicely seasoned with nutmeg and Bourbon) for the occasion!

Sadly no pictures were taken, but I assure you that Elisson's recipe is a traditional winner!

Don't thank me... I'm a giver.  But do go thank Elisson, since he did all the heavy lifting .  :-)

* Elisson is an engineer, so I rely on him for all my technical terminology.

My new hero (and I'm not even the designer in the family)

Hat tip Book of Joe

I'm confused (as usual)

Picture the following scenario:

A kidnapper has a hostage at gunpoint and is barricaded inside a house or place of business.

The crime scene is surrounded by police S.W.A.T teams. 

After several tense hours, the hostage negotiator manages to convince the kidnapper to release the hostage to an attorney (i.e. a 'neutral third party') pending the granting of the ransom request and safe passage for the kidnapper out of the country.

The kidnapper's attorney walks into the building, and after a few tense minutes, walks out again accompanied by the hostage.

What happens at this point? 

Here are a few questions to ponder:

1. Once the hostage is safe are the authorities obligated to follow through with the payment of ransom and the granting of safe passage to the kidnapper?
2. As an officer of the court, is the attorney obligated to turn over the hostage to the police immediately.
3. If the attorney doesn't turn over the hostage and insists on holding on to him until the authorities live up to their end of the bargain, does the attorney now become an accomplice to the kidnapping?

The reason I've asked you to engage in this little thought experiment is that this is precisely the scenario that is being played out with Gilad Shalit (or is about to be, depending on which reports you trust).

Gilad Shalit was kidnapped in a blatant terrorist attack.  The kidnapping was a crime by any standard and under any legal definition.  It was not part of a declared or undeclared military operation.  The kidnappers were not part of any recognized army, nor did they wear uniforms, rank or identifying insignia (as required by the Geneva Convention) to be considered soldiers in combat. 

The terrorist organization which ordered the kidnapping (Hamas) is not recognized as a government body by anyone and has no rights under international law to formulate foreign policy (i.e. enter into treaties and raise or maintain a military force).

That Israel has been negotiating with Hamas has no bearing on Hams' status any more than a kidnapper's status is elevated by the ongoing dialog with the police hostage negotiator.  When police negotiate with a 'garden variety' kidnapper , those negotiations do not elevate the kidnapper's status above that of common criminal, or grant him special legal status whereby unreasonable terms would have to be honored after the hostage has been freed. 

There are credible reports that Gilad Shalit has been (or will soon be) transfered to the custody of the Egyptian government pending the last stages of the exchange of nearly 1000 terrorist.

What I can't quite figure out is why Israel (or any country) should be obligated to follow through with deals struck (under duress) with extortionists and terrorists once the hostage has been safely released to a third party?

How is it that Egypt (roughly parallel to the attorney in the scenario above) is able to continue the hostage's imprisonment without being considered an accomplice to the crime?  Aren't they obligated under any international conventions to free the hostage as soon as he is in their hands?  Aren't they subject to enormous pressure from the U.S. based on the large amount of foreign aid they receive (second only to Israel) to live up to such conventions?

I'm honestly confused as to why this proposed exchange of terrorists for our soldier is being viewed by the world (and even by the Israeli government!) in the same light as, say, the exchange of POWs at the end of a war.  

As stated earlier, Hamas has no standing under international conventions of war.  They did not observe any of the requirements for the treatment of POWs (e.g. visits from representatives of the International Red Cross, inspection of living conditions and health audits. etc.) and certainly nobody has ever alleged that Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prions have POW status (even though Israel has granted access to its security prisoners and guaranteed living conditions consistent with international norms).

This kidnapping was a crime, plain and simple.  It was carried out by private individuals with no authority to enact treaties or claim diplomatic privilege.  Why has everyone forgotten this?

And most important, if/when Gilad is in Egyptian custody, how is it possible that that country will be allowed, under international law, to continue his imprisonment until Israel (the police in the scenario above) agrees to complete a devil's bargain struck during a hostage situation at the point of a gun?

I can't wait for someone to make sense of this for me!

I think I've been outed

A word of advice: If you are a blogger and you are tempted to blog at work... resist the temptation.  Except for occasionally responding to emails and comments during lunch or on breaks, I am pretty strict about leaving my blog alone during work hours.  They pay me to work, not blog... and there are too many stories with unhappy endings about people who learned that rule the hard way.

With that having been said, you probably noticed that I rarely talk about work... and I NEVER directly identify my company or anyone working for it.  I work for a big company here in Israel... perhaps one of the biggest.  So it's a near statistical certainly that at least a few people in my company read this blog.  Whether these theoretical readers know we work for the same company is something I try not to dwell on, because I worry about even the appearance that my work and blogging life overlap.

So it was a little jarring yesterday afternoon to get a call from someone rather high in the company (with whom I've never had any previous contact) that started out like this:

"Hi this is ****** ***** .  I have a trip coming up and I was looking for that wonderful list of travel tips you published a year or two ago.  Can you send me the link?"

It took me a couple of seconds to figure out what list he was talking about... and only then did my internal alarm start flashing with the warning "Danger, this is someone who shouldn't know you have a blog!"

I told him I would look for the post when I got home and send him the link.  He thanked me and we hung up.

Note to self:  Email the IT gang today and make sure all office Internet use is logged and archived so that if anyone ever decides to make the old 'mis-use of company assets' accusation, I'll be as pure as freshly fallen snow (or at least as pure as anyone whose non-work browsing is mostly confined to news sites).

BTW, I found the link to my travel tips post and sent it to him last night.  I told him not to thank me... I'm a giver.

I wonder...

... if the United Nations' denouncement today of Switzerland's ban on new minarets as "clearly discriminatory and deeply divisive" is an indication that all U.N. member nations are required to guarantee complete freedom of religious observance and expression to their visitors, residents and citizens?

Naaah... that's crazy talk!

Swiss Muslims get a small taste of Dhimmitude

In a completely unexpected turn of events, Switzerland has just voted to ban the construction of Minarets because these structures have come to represent militant Islam to many of that country's citizens.

What had started out as a pre-doomed right wing initiative has gained unexpected traction with more than half of Swiss voters in recent weeks.  The ban has many of Switzerland's political leaders and bankers deeply concerned about the financial implications of well-heeled Muslims closing their numbered Swiss bank accounts and moving their wealth elsewhere.

I'm actually surprised that Switzerland, where less than 6% of the population is Muslim, turned out to be Europe's test case for enacting legislation designed fight off what is seen as a hostile foreign cultural invasion.  After all, France, Holland and Belgium are much more deeply engaged in the struggle between maintaining an open, democratic society and preserving their unique cultural and religious heritage.

Personally, I find it satisfying to see Islam subjected to a very small taste of Dhimmi status after so many centuries of unapologetically imposing the full Sharia on non-Muslim minorities.

If you don't have a working knowledge of what Dhimmitude is, I strongly suggest as a start that you go here and read up.  But for the sake of this discussion let me provide a few examples of what a 'protected' (Dhimmi) class of people such as Christians and Jews, have been subjected to in Muslim societies:

First of all, Dhimmis have a lower legal status than Muslims.  This means that in legal proceedings, the testimony of a Dhimmi and a Muslim will be given different weight.  Simply put, if there is a dispute between a Muslim and Dhimmi... the word/case of the Muslim will always prevail.

Dhimmis have also traditionally had restrictions placed on their modes of transportation.  Dhimmis were only allowed to ride donkeys while camels or horses were reserved for Muslims.  Some scholars argue that this was to ensure a military advantage for Muslims since horses and camels were the tanks of the pre-industrial world.  But it is worth noting that, whether in peacetime or at war, someone on a donkey could not be on a higher level than someone riding a horse or camel.

Also, under Islamic law, a Dhimmi can't build structures more than one or two stores high. Again, this could easily be a matter of making sure the high ground would always remain in Muslim hands in case of war.  But this could also be seen as a simple matter of pride.   

Whatever the reason, this apparent emphasis on relative stature in Islamic law offers a logical justification to the Swiss legislation banning what many see as a militaristic or cultural grab at the 'high ground' of Europe's skyline.

In a New York Times article about the Swiss vote, I was floored to see the following:

"[As a result of the constitutionally binding vote], the [Swiss] government must now draft a supporting law on the ban, a process that could take at least a year and could put Switzerland in breach of international conventions on human rights."  [emphasis mine]

Why are only non-Muslim countries subject to 'international conventions on human rights'?  Why is it that due process, freedom of religion, a free press, etc., are only western responsibilities?  Why is it when Muslim countries butcher their citizens (or neighbors), harbor/fund terrorists and kidnappers, impose oppressive Sharia law on non-Muslim visitors, and in dozens of other ways refuse to adopt the most basic protections/freedoms they so vociferously demand in the west, that nobody feels the need to explain the finer points of reciprocity to them?

Several other quotes from the Times article are equally troubling such as the one from Farhad Afshar, who heads the Coordination of Islamic Organizations in Switzerland:

“Most painful for us is not the minaret ban, but the symbol sent by this vote. Muslims do not feel accepted as a religious community".

I wonder if he also feels the pain of Lebanese Christians, Yemenite Jews or Afghani Buddhists.  In fact, in many cases, Muslim countries do not allow the open practice of any religion other than Islam. 

Don't believe me?  Just try to enter Saudi Arabia or Iran wearing a Crucifix or with a set of Tefillin in your carry-on.  Muslims are unapologetic about their treatment of non-Muslim minorities, and the lesser status to which they relegate the cultural heritage, pride or sensibilities of such minorities.  So why should we automatically be so sensitive to their feelings?

In another quote, Manon Schick, a spokeswoman for Amnesty International offered the following eye-opening rationale to why the ban is unjustified:

"Close to 90 percent of Muslims in Switzerland are from Kosovo and Turkey, and most do not adhere to the codes of dress and conduct associated with conservative Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia."

I call it eye-opening because it inadvertently reinforces the notion that only Islam-lite (e.g. a de-fanged form of Islam practiced in places like Kosovo and Turkey) is considered non-threatening and therefore unworthy of such protectionist legislation.

I'm sure that other European countries will be watching this development closely to see how the Muslim 'street' reacts.  After all, if a simple cartoon insulting Mohamed was enough to prompt weeks of rioting and mayhem, the placing of a 'Dhimmi-like' restriction on Swiss Muslims may force Islam to change tactics from a quiet, but relentless, metastasis in Europe's body, to open warfare in pursuit of the goal that is the cornerstone of their religious texts; the subjugation of the entire world to the sword of Islam.

An observation

Most of my Sunday morning hitchhikers/passengers tend to be soldiers heading back to their bases after having been given permission to go home for the weekend.

I never really spent much time thinking about it before today, but there is definitely a specific scent to the car based on the gender breakdown of the soldiers.

For instance, even after a weekend at home, a carload of male soldiers will usually smell like a combination of gun oil, B.O. and a pile of freshly laundered clothing that has been heavily doused in Axe body wash and deodorant. 

A mixed carload of male and female soldiers will smell of gun oil, B.O., fabric softener and Axe.

This morning was the first time in a very long time that I've had a car full of only female soldiers; a group of women heading down to officer's training at the 'Bahd Ehad' base in the Negev. 

In addition to the smell of freshly baked cookies (which one of the thoughtful young women brought me as a thank you for the ride), the car smelled like freshly laundered uniforms, soap, and a soft hint of shampoo.

Look, I don't shop around for passengers... they find me.  But I have to say I much prefer the smell of today's lot over the usual mixed or all male crowd.

Palestinian responds to announcement of settlement freeze

It never fails.  Every time we make a concession, it is immediately followed by terror.

Within hours of PM Netanyahu announcing a ten month moratorium on new constructions permits in Judea and Samaria, a Palestinian terrorist approached and stabbed an Israeli man and women (aged 52 and 49 respectively) who were waiting at a bus stop near Kiryat Arba. 

This attack occurred at the same spot where I wait for the bus on days when Zahava takes the car.

The two Israelis were lightly wounded and evacuated to a Jerusalem hospital after being treated an the scene by medics.  The terrorist tried to flee but was shot by a bystander and is in serious condition.

Our leaders still haven't quite figured out that there is a clear connection between acts of appeasement, which are seen as signs of weakness, and an increase in terror attacks.  Every single time we do anything that can possibly be perceived as weak... Israeli citizens are wounded and/or killed by our partners in peace.

Oslo, Camp David and the disengagement from Gaza were enormous good-will gestures which had enormously negative security consequences for Israel.  Thank G-d Bibi only made a small good will gesture this time or who knows what mayhem might have resulted.

JPost Photo Editor Fails Again

I really shouldn't be so hard on the poor photo editor(s) over at the Jerusalem Post.  After all, they have a much higher legal and ethical bar to clear when looking for just the right photograph to accompany any given story.  I, on the other hand, simple have to do a quick Google image search for a photograph that is in the public domain (or at least not blatantly copyright protected), and slap it up on my blog.

A quirk of the JPost on-line site over the years which has provided nearly endless blog fodder for snarky people like me is their use of a balky picture server system.  Simply put, when they load a story for publication on their web site, they have a parallel - but not synchronized - process for loading whatever photograph will appear with the story.  Worst of all, the captions for the photos are served up by the text loader software, not the photo loader software! 

The result is that the lag between the publication of the story / caption and the appearance of the accompanying photograph can vary anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes... which has resulted in a photo of Tzipi Livini bearing the not entirely inaccurate caption, "A burned out wreck in Jerusalem", and a pic of Ehud Barak captioned; "Stem Cells".

But following a tragic accident this week where a civilian sightseeing helicopter crashed into the ocean off Israel's coast, the breaking news on JPost was accompanied by a photograph that can't possibly be blamed on the balky timing of the loading software:

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I want to be clear that I'm not trying to make jokes at the expense of an event that cost four people their lives.  I'm just wondering out loud what could have possessed the photo editor to think that of all the file pictures they certainly have in their archives of civilian helicopters... that this picture of a child's remote-controlled toy would be the best of the lot.

Back when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, I was the Executive Editor of my university's undergraduate newspaper (Y.U.'s Commentator)... a journalistic endeavor that was, admittedly, not known for strict adherence to 'The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage'.  But I assure you that if anyone on my all-volunteer staff had suggested pairing the above story and photograph, they would have been laughed out of the editorial meeting and would never have been allowed to live it down!

It truly boggles the mind!

Leather Dreams

At some point in Junior High School I decided I wanted a leather jacket.  Not a black leather biker jacket with metal studs, mind you... just a simple brown leather bomber. 

I haven't the faintest idea where this longing came from.  It certainly didn't fit with my band-geek personality or the somewhat nerdy crowd with which I hung.  At some point in mid-eighth-grade, I just realized I simply had to have a brown leather jacket.

Now, eighth graders are not the most solvent demographic on the planet (to say the least), and as eighth graders go, I was probably less solvent than most.  Oh sure, I mowed the occasional lawn and did odd jobs, but I didn't really have anything approximating regular access to discretionary income until I landed a job flipping pizzas in high school.

Whenever I went to the local mall with my friends, I always slipped away and paid a visit to the big leather store there.  Once inside, I'd check out the heavy leather bomber jackets and imagine that one day I'd be able to have one.  The staff in the store had long since stopped letting me try the jackets on after I'd made the mistake of asking about setting up a three year lay-away plan.  But they never actually banned me from the store.

Even the passage into high school didn't dim my desire for a brown leather jacket.  Again, in my mind, there was no connection between my jones for a leather jacket and the types of people who were actually walking around in them.  If anything, the leather jacket crowd at my high school kind of scared the crap out of me.  But their jackets were a symbol of rebellion.  Mine was a day dream.

But even though I now had at least the possibility of finding the money for a jacket, with the typical high school expenses of socializing, dating, formal dances, class ring, etc., I never quite got around to buying one.

The four years I spent in the navy were tough on me, jacket-wise.  I finally had the means to buy a leather jacket, but brown leather jackets were exclusively in the domain of the 'brown shoe navy' (aviators), and I certainly didn't want to look like a poseur.  So, yet again... my itch for a brown leather jacket went un-scratched.

Years passed, and there was always something more important or more urgent that kept the leather jacket of my dreams out of my closet.  In fact, it wasn't until I was over 40 and Zahava and I were in the preliminary planning stages for our move to Israel that I finally decided it was now or never.  I had no idea if leather jackets were in fashion in Israel (they are... but mostly among Russian immigrants), but I didn't care.  I had waited long enough.  Zahava even encouraged me... making the jacket a gift from her.

But by now the dream had gone unfulfilled for so long that a regular off-the-rack jacket wouldn't do. 

A friend told me about a small custom leather shop in Bridgeport CT that catered mostly to the biker crowd, but which also supplied some of the leather stores around the north east.  The store/workshop is located in a section of Bridgeport which had once been rather upscale, but had become... how to say this delicately... well, to call it 'working class' would be transparent flattery.

The first time I went down to check the place out it was early evening and I was seriously nervous about leaving my car unattended.  Yeah... the neighborhood was that sketchy.  Many of the street lights were broken, and trash collection seemed to be a random thing, at best. 

As I was walking into the shop, I bumped into two guys walking out wearing biker jackets with the 'colors' of a well known Motorcycle 'Club' emblazoned across their enormous backs.  They both politely excused themselves and walked out into the growing darkness.  I suddenly wished I'd had the presence of mind to paste on a few temporary tattoos beforehand.

But the shop itself was well-appointed and the staff immediately made me feel welcome.  They listened carefully to my description of my dream jacket and then began showing me different styles of jacket, types of leather, lining options, pockets, cuffs, collars... you name it!  

Once I'd made all the important decisions, they started measuring my shoulders, arms, neck, chest, waist, back, etc., to make sure the fit would be just right.  Next, they brought out an assortment of leather samples so I could pick exactly what color and texture I wanted.  Lastly, I picked a zipper, cuff closure and a thermal lining that could be removed in warmer weather.

I was about to pay the deposit and leave when a thought occurred to me.  I turned to the burly guy at the counter and said, "Um... would it be possible to add an invisible slit pocket with its entrance just along the zipper in the front for... um, a gun?" 

Maybe it was my middle-class suburban upbringing, but I could feel myself blushing as I asked the question, and fully expected everyone in the store to suddenly fall silent and stare at me like some sort of criminal. 

Without missing a beat, the guy said, "Sure, no problem.  You a righty or a lefty... and how fast are you gonna need to pull the thing out?". 

I felt like I'd just asked the guy to help me rob a bank... and here he was answering me as casually as if I'd asked him to round the collar points.  I answered his expert questions (I suspect I wasn't the first customer to have asked about accommodating a concealed firearm) , and went on my way. 

A couple of weeks later I got a call telling me my jacket was ready.  I drove down to the shop, tried on the jacket... and fell in love.  Although, I have to admit I was somewhat unprepared for the sheer weight of the jacket.  It was made from a thick, chocolate brown leather that was as soft as a baby's bum... but weighed easily 30 pounds.  But it fit like it had been made just for me (which it had!), and I'm fairly sure I heard angels singing right there in the store.

I've taken you on this stroll down memory lane this morning because, provided it doesn't look like rain today, I think it might finally be cold enough to wear my leather jacket for the first time this season! 

You have to understand, the pleasure I get from wearing this jacket makes me want to grab each and every one of you by the shoulders, shake you vigorously, and shout:

"For heaven's sake, if there is something that you have wanted for a long time, and it will make you truly happy (without putting you in the poor house, of course)... WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!.  Life is much too short to regret setting aside perfectly attainable dreams".

Extinction of a species

When I was a kid, the words 'Gas Station' and 'Service Station' were interchangeable   It was a rare thing indeed to see a gas station that didn't also have a couple of service bays where hydraulic lifts magically lifted cars so burly men with noisy pneumatic tools could work underneath them.

To a little kid a service station was a distinctly masculine place, coated with grease and grime, smelling of gasoline, exhaust and stale cigarette smoke, and staffed by large men in stained uniforms with their names sewn over their shirt pockets.

Even though a service station existed entirely in the realm of the grown-up world, a kid might visit one for any number of perfectly legitimate reasons, including getting air for his/her bicycle tires, using found couch change to pull a bottle of Orange Crush or Grape Nehi (depending on where you lived) out of the hinged door of the vending machine, or asking one of the mechanics for an STP sticker with which to decorate a new bike seat.

But somewhere along the line, the bean counters began to weigh retail businesses on the amount of profit they could generate per square foot... and in response, gas station owners began casting a greedy eye towards the potential profitability of those service bays which took up most of their property's footprint.

One by one all of the big chains came to the conclusion that even a busy service center couldn't produce nearly as much profit per square foot as a mini-mart packed with snacks, candy, drinks, cigarettes, auto supplies and other impulse items.  Not only that, they soon realized they could pay a cashier a heck-of-a-lot less than a mechanic... cutting 'overhead' even more.

This transition took place during a time when I was just learning to drive, so the excitement of my new-found freedom must have muted whatever misgivings I might otherwise have had about this trend.  And besides, it was a time when my parents were responsible for getting the cars serviced, so other than the need to occasionally fill the tank, I didn't spend much of my teens thinking about gas stations.

For the past few years I've been filling up the family car at a grimy little gas station in Beer Sheva.  I tried a few of the shiny new stations first because of deals they were offering such as free car washes (with fill-up), and the convenience of being able to buy a cold drink for the ride home on a hot day.  But one day I started driving home and belatedly noticed that my gas gauge was deep into the reserve zone.  Not wanting to turn around, I pulled into the first station I saw and began filling up.

While the tank was filling, I looked around at the dingy little station around me.  It was the first I had seen in ages that didn't have a shiny new mini-mart and cases of bottled water neatly stacked on the pump islands.  It looked like once upon a time there had been a single service bay.  But that side of the business had long since been abandoned, and the darkened bay and attendant's office stood partly filled with trash cans and a few oily 50 gallon barrels that might once have held waste oil.

The gas pumps had been brought up to date (almost certainly in response to environmental and safety requirements), but the rest of the station could have easily been from any period in the last 50 years.  In fact, other than the pumps, the only other modern fixture in the entire place sat on a table out front.  It was an electric 'Barad'  (Hebrew for hail) machine like you might see in a typical 7-11 (think 'Slurpy'), whose agitator arms continuously stirred two different flavors of frozen slush in a hypnotizing circular motion strangely reminiscent of a mechanical salt-water-taffy pull.

The shiny slush machine seemed so out of place in this grimy little gas station that I couldn't help but ask the attendant about it.  He just shrugged and said that the owner had put it in the previous year, and that his job was to keep it filled, and make sure it was emptied and cleaned once a day.

Looking at the unkempt pump jockey I had serious doubts about the efficacy of whatever daily cleaning the machine might get, but I was thirsty so I asked how much a cup of Barad was.  He pointed at a new sleeve of small disposable plastic drinking cups and said, "It's free... help yourself". 

From that day on, whenever I needed gas, I drove past all the shiny filling stations with their well-stocked mini-marts and made a bee line for this dingy little place with its free Barad dispenser.  The flavors were usually apricot and raspberry... but occasionally strawberry or lemon made an appearance.  And in the winter they replaced the Barad machine with a small hot water urn and a box of generic teabags.

Each time I would pull out of that gas station with a cup of slush or a hot tea in my hand, I couldn't help but marvel at the business acumen of the owner.  The cost of the free beverages he was providing was negligible, but because getting refreshments (or anything!) for free was so uncommon in this day and age, there was nearly always a line of cars waiting to fill up.

Then one hot day a few months back I pulled in to fill up my car (and get a cup of Barad, of course) and saw that, not only was the Barad machine gone, but there were workmen actively knocking down walls and jack-hammering the floor of what had once been the station's office and service bay.  When I asked the attendant about it he gave me his characteristic shrug and offered a single word, "progress".

Since then I have continued to buy my gas at this station, more out of habit than loyalty... but each time I pull in I've been saddened to see that what had once been a dank office and service bay were being quickly transformed into another cookie-cutter mini-mart. 

Thinking about it rationally, I realize that it is no longer enough to get people to buy gas.  The big oil companies are the only ones making a decent profit on the stuff coming out of the pumps.  The only way the station owners can make a living is to maximize their profit-per-square-foot (or meter) and relieve the motorists of as much of their hard-earned money as possible before their tank is full and they drive away.

I can't fully explain why this has made me so sad.  Certainly I can well afford to buy a cold or hot drink when the mood strikes me.  But there was something charming - nostalgic, even - about paying a regular visit to a little gas station where something simple was being given away for free.  Having that replaced by a vapid counter girl pulling espresso shots with her lacquered claws nails just seems... wrong.

In truth, service stations have been absent from the landscape (but for a few privately owned exceptions) for a generation or more.  But finding this little place which had yet to be scrubbed, polished and converted into a sterile, over-lit convenience store, had been a novel experience for me... like spotting a leopard in the Judean desert years after the naturalists had reported their extinction. 

Not that he'd care...but I wish I could tell the owner of this gas station how sad he's made me.

I am Spartacus!

Everyone seems ot have their panties in a bunch over the sudden interest the U.S. has taken in Gilo.

For those not up on their current events, Gilo is a neighborhood on the southern edge of Jerusalem that is home to approximately 40,000 people... almost all of whom are Jewish.  From 1948 - 1967 Gilo was in Jordanian hands.  But since the Six Day War, it has been under Israeli control and was annexed by Israel as part of unified Jerusalem.

The U.N. and European Union view Gilo as an illegal settlement, but until recently, the U.S. has seemed to have shared Israel's view of it as an integral part of the municipality of Jerusalem.

However, Israel's plan to build new housing units in Gilo has revealed that the U.S.'s position might be more like that of the Europeans than we suspected.  Like the E.U., they are demanding that Israel freeze all building, even in what had previously been considered just another Jerusalem neighborhood.

Personally, I couldn't be more delighted.  In fact, I'd like the U.S., U.N., E.U. (and any other pair of letters you can think of) to express outrage at new building projects in as many places in Israel as possible. 

Seriously, what's so magical about the so called 'Green Line' (more correctly known as the 1949 Armistice Line)?  Why is it that only building/settlement activity outside the Green Line is problematic?

In 1947 the U.N. approved the Partition Plan that, had the Arabs simply agreed, would have created a barely-contiguous Jewish state in a tiny fraction of the area once set aside for us in the Mandate.  But as we all know, they didn't agree.  They attacked us and tried to destroy the tiny, patchwork Jewish state.  Because even the tiny entity pictured below (in orange) was too much:

 

Well, as we know, the 1948-49 war didn't work out so well for the Arabs (as can be seen by the 1949 Armistice lines in the map below):

Make no mistake, while certainly better (for the Jews) than the 1947 Partition Plan borders, the 1949 Armistice lines were no great 'metzia' (bargain).  In fact, Abba Eban once famously called the '49 lines 'Auschwitz Borders' because of the narrow area in the middle where Israel could so easily be cut in half and/or it's primary population centers shelled at will.

Yet for almost 19 years we were quite happy with our shiny new country.  Except, of course, for the fact that our neighbors (the ones whose @sses we had already so soundly kicked), looked upon the 1949 armistice the way a boxer looks upon the bell between rounds.  For the Arabs, it was a (very) temporary break in the hostilities... forcing the infant Israel to weather its formative years quite literally with a gun in one hand and a plow share in the other. 

Finally, by the end of the first half of 1967, the usual suspects had begun massing their armies on our borders and making open threats to push us into the sea... again. 

This time, rather than wait for them to invade, Israel made the first move... and in the time it took the Lord to create the entire world, we were able to accomplish the more modest task of turning three countries' armed forces (Egypt, Syria and Jordan) into smoldering scrap heaps.  Actually, make that nine if you count the other belligerents in the conflict; Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Sudan.

By mid-June 1967, Israel's borders looked like this:

 

The Arabs tried again on Yom Kippur of 1973 to wipe Israel off the map, but after a brief set-back (due to the surprise attack) we were eventually able to push our enemies back so far that our heavy artillery was within range of the outskirts of Damascus, and the Cairo Hilton had begun taking Bar Mitzvah reservations. 

Over the years we gave bits and pieces of our war spoils away in an attempt to buy a little quiet with our neighbors.  Menachem Begin famously gave all of the Sinai peninsula back to Egypt (a move which resulted in a peace that was notable only for its lack of open hostilities.  And of course Ariel Sharon handed the Gaza strip over to the devil himself (based on the results, since nobody has been able to demonstrate a single good thing to have come from that transaction).

But I digress.

My original point, before I got sucked into a history lesson, was that the Arabs have convinced the world that the 1949 Armistice Lines are somehow sacrosanct and imbued with the sweet smell of International Law. 

But anyone with a third grade education can read for themselves that the '49 Armistice Agreements (there were individual agreements between Israel and each of the enemy states that attacked it) clearly state that the final borders must be negotiated between the parties, and that the so-called Green Line (the lines when the fighting ended) was never intended to be viewed by anyone as a permanent border.

So again, I ask what is so magical about the 1949 Armistice Lines?  If the Arabs feel they are entitled to a do-over for any and all of the military fiascoes they perpetrated, why not demand a return to the original Partition Plan lines??? 

I'm being serious here!  

Other than the areas indicated in orange on that first map above, every last inch of land in Israeli control today was taken by force from our enemies on the battlefield.  Therefore I feel that the U.N., E.U., U.S. and anyone else with even tenuous standing on the international stage, should view everything else as illegal Israeli settlement/occupation and demand that we immediately withdraw to our ORIGINAL borders as set out by the United Nations in 1947!

This may sound like a somewhat strange position for an Israeli to be taking, but if you think about it... it is the only logical place to begin the process of making everyone understand the real situation; that no country is allowed a do-over after losing a war... and that no country that wins a war is required to offer up land in order to sue for peace. 

Yet, we've had to fight for our very survival on so many occasions that the world has gotten into the habit of thinking of Israel as temporary... negotiable.

Well, enough already!

Personally, I couldn't possible care less what the world wants Israel to do.  If we've learned only one thing during the short history of our country, it is that we are the only ones who will ever have our best interest at heart. 

But more importantly, I honestly feel that the only thing that has a prayer of unifying the Jewish people (or at least unifying those living in Israel) is for nearly all of us to be labeled illegitimate by the international community. 

Do you remember that climactic scene near the end of 'Spartacus' where the recaptured rebel slaves are asked to identify Spartacus in return for leniency?  In a show of unity, they all began shouting "I am Spartacus!"... even though they knew it might very well cost them their lives? 

Well, I have a fantasy about the world finally showing some honesty about their hate of Israel and demanding that Israel return to the Partition Plan borders in order to appease the 'downtrodden' Arabs. 

And when that happens, people from Kiryat Gat, Ramle, Beer Sheva, Ashdod, Jerusalem, Beit Shemesh, Modi'in, Nahariya, Ashqelon, Afula, Beit She'an, and other vibrant, thriving Israeli cities, will rise up with one voice and shout, "I am from Gilo!... and my legitimacy is not a question for my enemies and their supporters to decide!"

I think I need to sit down...

In among the usual flotsam and jetsam in my inbox this morning was a newsletter from my alma mater's alumni association with all kinds of chatty news about my former classmates.  There were promotions, births, job changes, marriages of children, you name it... my classmates have been a busy and productive lot. 

But one particular announcement caught my eye... a happy snippet about the birth of a grandchild to someone my age.  People my age aren't grandparents, are they?

What's next, retirement announcements and death notices?!

I think I need to un-subscribe from that particular mailing list.

I feel like a need a shower

The following is a video of a bogus casting call for babies and young children from the movie Bruno that demonstrate just how low some parents will sink in order to pimp their kids.

IMHO they should make it mandatory for social workers and Child Protective Services officers to be on hand at these sort of things to relieve such monsters of their children!  Seriously, you know there are parents like this out there.

[BTW, can anyone make out what he is asking at the 01:39 mark in the video?]