Aawww. Paw wittoow fing.

Via Beneath Buddha's Eyes

Please note that the paw wittoow fing is actually not looking at the big bad gun. This can only mean two things: a. The photo is a fake (gasp!). b. There is another big bad gun to the left of the one in the picture, just out of frame. What do you reckon?

Another observation: Either the big bad gun is being held by a left handed big bad person or they've printed the photo the wrong way round. Does this strengthen theory a or theory b, I wonder?
posted by Imshin 20:06

Small world
John Williams was just telling me about this song (give it a minute) and IMAO has linked to it too. I do like the little furry animal with the wings, don't you?

posted by Imshin 19:18

They always seem to catch you mid-track while you're cheerfully going about your business, don't they, these terrorist attacks? Actually there is a good way to look at this. It probably means you are usually cheerfully going about your business, so you are usually cheerful. Being stopped mid-track gives you an opportunity to see this. Unless it's you or yours being blown up.

I've been having this niggling feeling for the last few weeks about the Road Map and the rewarding terrorism thing, that I haven't wanted to put into words. I still don't, really. I'd rather just be swept along with events and hope the guys upstairs are devious and conniving enough bastards to ultimately be able to make sure the ship doesn't sink.

This week is Hebrew Book Week in Israel. There are book fairs in every town and books are sold everywhere for big discounts. There is always a frenzy of book buying. I read a statistic that, on average, Israelis buy five and a half books a year. This made me smile. I probably buy five and a half books a week. Not that I get round to reading them all, and most of them are for the girls anyway. This statistic is actually rather sad, because given people like me, and there are a lot of us, although just as many take books out of their local libraries (we do too), and considering that the religious and the Russian immigrants are big book buying groups, it means a lot of people never ever buy a book. Not even a cookery book.

They were selling books in the supermarket and I noticed they had Agatha Christies. Now all through my teens I was an Agatha Christie nut. I gobbled her books up. I had this standing bet with myself that I should guess whodunit by page thirty and I got quite good at this. So I've been looking around to find some for Eldest, thinking it's about time to get her acquainted, her being such an avid reader.

Buying books in the supermarket is problematic. The chance they are going to get home not smeared by some foodstuff or other or just with all the pages bent is slim, not to mention having to schlep them along with all the other stuff you have to schlep anyway. But I couldn't fight it. I scooped up a copy of every Christie on offer in the place. There were six in all, and bigger and heavier than their English language counterparts. When I got to the checkout the cashier in the next register along noticed I had all those books and flipped. She was just so excited and she went on and on about what a good deal it was and how much more expensive they were at the book fair and what great books they were. I was half way home and she was still shouting after me, "They're classics, I tell you, absolute classics". Well, okay. At least she reads.

Eldest, a very polite child who seemed very grateful to get them, hasn't given them a second look, not to mention actually reading them. Grrrrr. I just know she'd love them and wouldn't be able to put them down once she started on the first. Bish was delighted, though, and said he must read them all again. Apparently he was also hooked as a teenager.

The book fair in Tel Aviv always used to be in Kikar Rabin, which was great because it meant we could walk (no chance to find parking). Now they've moved it to the park. It must be for security reasons, Kikar Rabin is more difficult to enclose, or maybe to ease up on the traffic congestion and parking problems. I was once meant to start a yoga course on Book Week in a yoga center a few blocks away from Kikar Rabin. It was late evening and I naively came in the car. I drove round and round and round, amid droves of crazed book buyers also searching for parking and in the end gave up and went home.

They now plan to renovate Kikar Rabin and add a big car park underneath. So the environmentalists are staging this big public struggle against it. Beats me. I think a car park underneath Kikar Rabin would be great. The environmentalist mustn't live in Tel Aviv.

posted by Imshin 07:45

Shabbat Shalom.

If you're bored during Shabbat you might want to pop into the dullest blog in the world. Don't miss the comments. This via Mr. Accident Dan, whose comments aren't working. Grrrrrr. He seems to know Youngest, judging by his post of 6/12 11:41 pm.
posted by Imshin 17:45

A man who must have cared about the fate of the Jews living in Israel went to great lengths to bring a great spiritual leader here so he could teach Israelis how to live in peace within ourselves, in the hope that this would ultimately help us make peace with our neighbors. Following the visit of this great spiritual leader, this man assisted the creation of local groups that continued to cultivate this inner peace and spent much of his valuable time and his hard-earned money on this endeavor.

A few years later, some of the people who were thus attempting to incorporate peace into their lives were sitting in a room with this man. He was talking to them about peace and stuff. Somehow, the words slipped out of his mouth. "I am not a Zionist". There was a gasp of surprise among the hearers. They were not accustomed to hearing such utterances. Especially not from such a very Jewish looking American (Canadian actually); especially when he had just been telling of his personal history, fleeing Nazi occupied Poland and starving in Siberia; especially when he was investing so much in a mostly Zionist group of people. Somehow it didn't add up.

What did he mean "not a Zionist"? Did he mean he believed we had no right to be in Israel in the first place? Did he mean we should now give up our sovereignty and accept Arab rule? Did he mean his dear old aunt in Kfar Saba should be turned out of her home in her eighties? And if he believed all these things, why was he spending so much of his energy and resources on helping us solve our conflicts?

Roots are one thing, Michael, but life is in the here and the now, as you very well know. Hebrew is live and kicking (literally?). Yiddish is dying. And that's okay. Sad maybe, but okay (This acceptance has taken me a while to reach). Your mother tongue has little use in today's world, because Hitler managed to destroy the world it thrived in. Maybe it would have died out anyway.

I feel offended that you, a person I like and admire so much, Michael, do not believe that Jews should have a homeland in the Historic land of Israel. Because that's what "not a Zionist" means, doesn't it? That or you don't care this way or that, which is obviously not the case.

So I am offended. That's my problem. I'll survive. Something else to look into and learn from.

I never got round to asking what you meant exactly by "not a Zionist" and here I am, judging, which is not fair, especially as you can't answer.

I ask myself if you are not expecting too much of people? Are you not reaching for the moon? Are you not offering us up as the proverbial sacrificial lamb? In a perfect world, countries and nations would not be necessary. The world is hardly perfect. Why is it we Jews who are expected to do without and suffer the consequences? (And not just any Jews - the unlucky ones (?) who didn't get to the "Goldene Medina" where the Jews were, for the large part, accepted as just another ethnic group of immigrants, like everyone else).

posted by Imshin 17:36

A must
Meryl Yourish pointed me to this and I'm so happy she did. Please please please go and read it. I'm going to link to it on my Hebrew blog now.

posted by Imshin 06:16

Matildas
A few weeks ago, someone asked me about books that had special meaning for me. A funny thing happened. Although I read a fair amount and I can now think of quite a few books that had a great impact on my life, the only book I could think of while we were talking was Roald Dahl's Matilda. The book automatically flashed into my mind when he asked. Why davka this book? For those unfamiliar with it, it is a children's book about a little girl with exceptional abilities who has a mediocre family, to put it mildly, and has to deal with some difficult situations (again, mildly put), when they put her in an awful school with a particularly sadistic headmistress. As usual with Roald Dahl, everything is greatly exaggerated and hilarious. It is probably the most adorable book ever written. I first read it at the tender age of 35, when I was ill in bed with severe pneumonia. Adult books all seemed so depressing and I had no choice but to raid the girls' bookcases. By the time I had recovered, I had reread most of my childhood favorites. And Matilda, which I read twice. (There is a very cute movie with Danny DeVito and his real life wife whatshername. You know, the one from Cheers).

So what's with this book that touched me so much? Besides it's being pure magic, of course. I think it's that we are all Matilda, every one of us. We are all special and unique and have exceptional powers and abilities. Life is about handling mediocrity and stupidity and poison and tragedy and not letting them overcome us and pull us down.

Yesterday afternoon I posted my cheerful morning jottings and then went to get something from the bedroom. The radio was on and someone was talking about a bus, which looked like it had been blown up. Back in the living room, I put on the TV and checked my mail. There was an e-mail from Barbara, who I have corresponded with occasionally in recent months, telling me that her mother had died. This morning I got to the office late, having enrolled Youngest in her special class for budding Matildas (yes, we were persuaded that it was a good idea), only to hear the sad news about a friend's brother who hanged himself yesterday.

They are all Matildas. They are all stars shining bright in the dark night sky. The poor victims of the bus bomb, the perpetrator, all those killed in Gaza, innocent and guilty, Barbara's mother, my friend's brother. Each special and unique. Every one of them in possession of magical powers and extraordinary abilities.

So why is it that there is no happy ending? How come Matilda only manages to outshine mediocrity, stupidity and evil in a piece of beautifully written children's fiction?

I don't know what I'm talking about any more. It must be this awful cold I've got and this splitting headache that will not allow me to rest.

Someone told me recently that Roald Dahl had held anti-Semitic beliefs.

Update: Dan the Accident Man, in response:
"though i've never read the book, i've heard about it and think you're right
on the money as far as comparing us all, "guilty or innocent" to a
"matilda". i had a few thoughts regarding a "happy ending" and since your
story inspired them, i thought i'd run them by you...

consider an actor, possibly out of work for some time, who one day attends
the best play he's ever seen. never before has he been so affected on so
many levels. never before has he experienced a play that took him through
the full range of his emotions (and even formed new ones). and the
ending...he never would have expected such an ending. he is forever changed.

so here he is, in a state of total elation. he immediatley decides that he
MUST be a part of this production. he must have a part, any part: whether it
be the lead role, hero or villian, or just a small member of the supporting
cast. it doesn't matter to him: the play is the thing, right?

being a talented actor, he naturally gets his part (not important which
part) and as he's performing, the play begins to lose a little of it's
luster on him. now, being behind the scenes, the everyday trudgery of stage
life causes him to forget the wonder he experienced when he first witnessed
this thing. he begins to wonder "this is not what i expected! why did i ever
choose to be a part of this?"

what he is not seeing is that the play is still a great one. and his part is
still a great one. he, as a part of this thing, is having tremendous impacts
on those that witness it. what he is not seeing is that he is doing the
"Great Work" of inspiring, elightening, scaring, shocking, and moving these
audience members to action, introspection and change in their own lives.

it is not until years later, perhaps seeing his play made into a made for tv
movie, that he remembers how much he loves this story. and now that love is
made even greater by knowing that he was a part of it. he helped make it
happen!

so don't be too discouraged when you don't see the "happy ending". at some
point, this "play" too will be a memory. and i don't think we'll be as
concerned then with "outcomes" as we will be with the stories that led to
those "outcomes". in any good play/book/film, when a character has, say a
ton of lumber and stones fall on top of them, we don't applaud the lumber
and stones, we applaud when we see that hand come reaching out of the
rubble, refusing to give in to the power of the crap that's fallen on them.
lumber and stones and crap and bombs and hijackings, as well as medicine and
books and churches/temples/synogogues/mosques, are all props...objects. WE
are the subjects. we are the great ones who will use these things to make
the story a great one.

and at the cast party afterwards, villians and heroes will still buy the
drinks for one another. at that point, we know the actor, not just the
character they played. no hard feelings. after all, it was just a play!"

From his mouth to God's ear, as they say.

posted by Imshin 15:27

I hate myself for what I wrote yesterday. I was so flippant about terrorist attacks happening on a monthly not daily basis now.

Swiftly I am mocked by reality. A bus in Central Jerusalem. 16 murdered, over 70 wounded, many in critical condition.

I'm all bunged up with my cold and feeling completely numb. The only feelings seeping through the numbness are not nice ones.

Every minute I am updating the number of those murdered as more and more of the wounded slip through the hands of the medical teams trying to save them in the hospitals.
posted by Imshin 17:52

Recidivist apology seeker (and other ramblings)
So today I swallowed my pride and went to seek forgiveness from my boss for my recent obnoxious behavior. Luckily he has known me for years, is quite fond of me (I think) and realizes my drawbacks (one of which is my being slightly unhinged). One of the blessings of working for the government is that your salary doesn't come out of your direct boss's pocket (Or his boss's either, for that matter). Bish always says I wouldn't last five minutes working for him, but I've been holding out quite well as a lowly civil servant for thirteen and a half years, obnoxious behavior and all.

I think I'm hooked on saying I'm sorry, so I pick fights so as to feed my addiction. The girls are used to it already. I yell, I say I'm sorry; I yell, I say I'm sorry. I think they quite like me nevertheless. Maybe it boosts their ego to know that they are so much better adjusted than I am. So fortunate that Bish's genes are more dominant than mine. Bish, by the way, is the only one who has succeeded in taming me to date, but it didn't come easy for him either. (Okay I realize a dependency on forever asking for the clemency of others is not actually the reason for my being a bad tempered pain in the neck, but there is a limit to what I am prepared to reveal on this blog).

Anyway, I celebrated the tension meltdown in my workplace with a very spicy toasted cheese sandwich. I asked Malka, the long-suffering vendor in our little kiosky place, to pile on the hot stuff, hoping it would have a positive effect on this awful cold I've got. It didn't. It just burnt my tongue and sent me running for those yummy lemon flavor B-12 tablets I take (I know, pretty pathetic).

Then a friend took me to her pharmacy and made me get a special potion the pharmacist there makes. Well talk about miracle cures, one swig and I felt much better. By the way, this will be my last post. I remembered too late that he had said one drop, not one swig. At least I'll die healthy - and forgiven.

posted by Imshin 17:32

The UK Guardian's David Aaronovitch on the blatant lies about the looting of Baghdad Museum, and how eager western academics and journalists were to believe it.
posted by Imshin 17:31

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!
posted by Imshin 17:30

We took a shot at Rantissi today. He was wounded and, sadly, so were a lot of other people.

Everyone is jumping around indignantly, as if he were a poor little lamb and not the big bad wolf.
posted by Imshin 18:01

My interest in current affairs fluctuates with my feeling of existential danger. It is something like the heightened awareness and alert of the antelope when it senses the lioness waiting, ready to pounce, in the bushes. Once the lioness has pounced on some other hapless beast, or has moved away to some other hunting ground, the antelope also becomes less wary.

Thus, in the latter years of Oslo, I felt secure enough to spend much of my time sitting cross-legged on the floor with my eyes closed, watching my breath, barely aware of what was going on around me on a national and international level. This period of tranquility came to an abrupt and violent end in September 2000.

When I began this blog, a year ago at the end of this month, I was one very insecure antelope, finding myself surrounded by a whole pack of hungry lionesses. At that time I was hungrily devouring any news item I could find that could possibly alleviate some of my fears, about Israel's instability and lack of international support. That's how I came across blogs, especially pro-Israeli blogs, and started one of my own.

Thanks mainly to the unceasing efforts of the Israeli security forces, the situation is much better now. Terrorist attacks are monthly, not daily, occurrences (at least in most of pre-1967 Israel, where I spend my life). I have little faith that anything will come of the Road Map, but it does give a sort of hopeful feeling, even if I do suspect this is false (Bish is very optimistic, for what it's worth, but he always is). As a result, I have drifted away from the news stations on the radio and TV, my interest in which was rather obssessive and hardly healthy, and back to music, movies, books. I feel safe enough to do so, and that is surely a good thing. I'm not in the lotus position yet, but that could happen. I ask myself where I should be taking Not a Fish now, and I have no answer.

So I'll just keep on chattering.

posted by Imshin 17:45

Harry's friend Kenny was wounded in the attack in Gaza the other day. You can send him a get-well e-mail via Harry.
posted by Imshin 17:15

The end of the school year is getting nearer and I'm busy being a mother (for a change?). Eldest is forever at rehearsals for the end of year show they are putting on. To help fund it, they opened a kiosk in school in recess on Fridays. A fortnight ago I went to help, expecting the worst. It wasn't half as bad as I feared. Actually it was sweet. The little ones were very cute. One first grader tried to buy a candy that cost 1 shekel with 10 agorot (The equivalent would be trying to buy something that costs one dollar with ten cents).

Eldest moves to middle school next year. She had to give in some curriculum preferences this week, and I was pleased to see that my attempted brainwashing with regard to languages was a success. She chose Arabic over French (phew).

We have to make some choices with regard to Youngest, as well, this year. On Thursday and Friday we are to visit a school that houses a special class Youngest has been invited to join. A difficult decision. Should we take her out of her "natural environment" and a pleasant, friendly, and quite adequate academically, community school that I can see from my window, in favor of a more challenging option that she will have to be bused to? Hopefully we'll be wiser at the end of the week.

My basic belief is that school's main function is as a place where you learn to live in society; therefore I'm not really in favor of "special" schools that separate between kids on the basis of their abilities (although I must say we all sighed with relief when two boys with sever behavioral problems were taken out of Eldest's class after first grade and sent somewhere else). This is also why I find home schooling problematic as a concept. However, we often find that Youngest is the exception to the rule, in more ways than one.

Apparently, more boys than girls are accepted to these programs (There are various theories to explain this. Some more PC than others) and, as a result, few of the girls accepted wish to participate. I rang to see why I hadn't been contacted and the secretary initially missed a letter in Youngest's name, giving her a boy's name. When I corrected her, and she understood Youngest was a girl, her whole attitude changed completely ("Would it be okay if I kissed your feet?") and ever since, in ensuing conversations with the school counsellor, I have had the distinct feeling we are being wooed. Teehee. I wonder what Youngest will make of the pitch we will probably be served up with on Thursday and Friday.

posted by Imshin 09:24

(written yesterday - blogger wasn't working)

As peace gets nearer (4 dead; 4 wounded)
A (Jewish) Buddhist friend said, in that sunny voice, that peace is near. And I said we've heard that before and realized how bitter I sounded.

Is there any wonder I have little to say?

What would I vote if there was a referendum tomorrow on the question of the Road Map and the Aqaba understandings? In favor, very likely. I'm a sucker for peace agreements.

Update: Dan (whose blog is a fun accident waiting to happen) wrote: "your (jewish) buddhist friend is right. buddhists tend to see life on a grander scale. the problem is, the closer you get to real-life, here and now reality, the harder it is to maintain a zen perspective. you are only one person. what is the best you can do but keep peace in your heart? that and communicate your vision of peace to as many people as you can. i sound like a friggin' infomercial, don't i?"

The thing is I'm all out of vision, Dan. I had plenty of it last time around. I was one of those euphoric starry-eyed nitwits, dancing around as if the Messiah was at the gates of Jerusalem on his white donkey. It turned out it was just that my specs were dirty. Now they are squeaky clean and I don't see any Messiah's out there. (Just kidding, my specs are never squeaky clean).

So now my support of any peace talks is more of the stark reality pessimism type.

posted by Imshin 07:34

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