…and the Mediterranean Sea is, as always, fscking beautiful.
Relax!
Hi everyone,
In response to the huge number of concerned letters and so on I’ve gotten lately about my trip: First of all, thank you to all of you, it does make me very happy to know that there are people concerned about me. Second, stop worrying! The place I’m going to is really not that dangerous. The total violent death rate in Israel, including ordinary murders and terror, was 2.9 per 100,000; the rate in SF in 2000 was 4.3. So even allowing for both sides skewing their numbers to make things look better, it’s still a lot less dangerous than simply going up to the City for a week.
No, the real threat to life and limb in Israel is the traffic. Israelis drive like Italians who have been fed large quantities of amphetamines.
And yes, I will stay off the buses. Just because the murder rate is low doesn’t make one careless.
Wise words from a prof…
“At your age, you should go out and try to do some good. And failing that, make oodles of money.”
– Prof. R. B. Laughlin
dinner party meme
Continuing the meme from adoor‘s continuation, “If you could throw a dinner party for twenty guests (living or dead) who would you invite?”
My list (in no particular order):
Benjamin Franklin
J. R. R. Tolkein
Joseph Campbell
Robert Gregg
Baruch Spinoza
John Donne
Pablo Picasso
Thomas Jefferson –actually, the whole team: him, Hamilton, Washington, etc…
Mae West
Dorothy Parker
Queen Maeve of Connacht
Albert Einstein
St. Augustine of Hippo
Jack Kerouac
Pablo Neruda
King Edward I of England
Hypatia of Alexandria
Gloria Steinem
Michael of Cesena
…and one of the first black women to break the color line mid-20c, preferably a musician. (Need to think more about which)
This isn’t neccessarily the list of people I’d like to speak to, but a list of people to lock together in a party for sheer devilment’s sake – and for the interesting conversation.
(Robert Gregg, btw, is a prof at Stanford, and an extraordinary fellow – the rest are all in the books)
News again…
Well, it looks like my earlier post may have been right after all. Now the NY Times is reporting that we have, indeed, been carrying out bombing raids in Iraq lately. Although they don’t refer specifically to the figure of 100 aircraft, it seems like the rumors in the mideast may be fairly close to the truth.
(For those of you who didn’t hear about it – there’s been a rumor going around the mideast lately, which made the front page of Israel’s largest newspaper as well as military intelligence rumor-mills like debka, that on 6 Sep there was a joint US/UK strike on Iraq involving about 100 aircraft, which took out antiaircraft radar and guns, missile sites and airfields in the western part of Iraq. This was interpreted as opening a path for a special-forces-driven invasion with air support coming in from Turkey; the AA being cleared out lets our bombers through, and taking out missile sites in the west reduces the odds of Iraq being able to hit Israeli targets with Scuds. The airfields are because those were his aircraft most capable of carrying nonconventional weapons.)
Other rel news – Iraq allows weapons inspectors, Saudis to allow US to use bases for war.
Editorial…
And I’m very glad to see that at least someone in the press isn’t falling prey to the usual schmaltz and patriotism for today. Check out Maureen Dowd’s latest column. (Free reg required, blah blah)
And slightly more seriously, Tom Friedman offers a more talmudic interpretation.
11 Sep thoughts
This started out as a comment to tyrsalvia‘s post, but it sort of grew into its own post. Just too much to say in a comment. Again, those of you tired of hearing about it, just skip; I’ll put it in a cut.
Yonatan Zunger’s Blog 