Saturday, December 29, 2007

So I’ve been home for the second full day since my ten-day trip to Israel ended, a wonderful, amazing, incredible time. I hope to return someday, and make aliyah. And I also hope to see the people I met once again somewhere across these United States. I got bused with mostly Univ. of Florida people, great people, very cool people. And I hope to meet the wonderful Israelis we met once again, someday, somehow. Thank God for Facebook; I’ve been able to get my pictures developed (woot, Motofoto!) and posted. I usually don’t do personal stuff on this blog but I feel it is appropriate, more than appropriate here. We did, and saw, and experienced so much. Unfortunately I have to spend the next few days I am home until I return to college to draft my undergrad paper, something about media critiques and propaganda.

So I’m sababa (cool) and wondering about haMatzav (the situation) and everything, hoping I can stay connected with my new hevre (friends). The biblical Hebrew I’ve taken, one semester’s worth, has not prepared me. Nor should it have. I’ll continue with it, and throw in the new conversationals I’ve picked up. And here’s to the children we spent time with at the daycare center, a government-financed home for them to go to as respite from their “at-risk” or otherwise dysfunctional family lives. Atsuv (sad), I know, but at least they’re happy there, and here’s hoping they turn out as great as they are now.

Israeli music and food and sights and sounds, it’s still unfolding. I observed some interesting parallels between the culture and what I saw in Spain some three years ago. On one point they’re both Mediterranean countries. So now I’ve seen both ends of it. Balkan Beat Box; these guys are incredible. Bought a copy of their record, “Nu Med,” on the way home at the Ben-Gurion airport. Ben Gurion, son of a lion cub. My Hebrew name is Ari, simply meaning lion; well the Kabbalists won’t settle for simple meanings. Ari. I knew someone named Ari once. He was the brother of a girl I once knew, Yelena, a very rambunctious kid. I’m rambling, and digressing.

Probably going to sleep soon, been quite sick all day. Estoy enferma. It’s a winter thing.

Thursday, December 13, 2007


Thank God for conservative writers like Andrew Sullivan. I’ve been a long-time reader of his, and it appears that the impeachment option is not only common-sensical but, by now, practically mandatory if we are to remain a constitutional republic, and a free society. I’ve taken the liberty to post (above) a delightful memo he clipped on his blog, simply because it’s so fucking chilling. The writing is on the wall, I fear.

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Some words on the Ron Paul phenomenon: how has it come to pass that anti-war, anti-empire and pro-Constitution positions are nearly universally labeled radical and fringe?

(Disclosure: Some weeks ago I contributed $25 to the campaign, my first and hopefully last political donation. Therefore supporters of his candidacy are hopelessly biased.)

Thursday, December 06, 2007

“You see, my mom, she saw Kristallnacht; and my dad, he saw worse/the land called Lithuania was the country of his birth/and before the Auschwitz ovens fired, the Nazis went there first/

“So I heard their stories and, well, I guess I keep ‘em someplace in my mind/Though I go about my business pretty carefree most of the time, when I see the mark of Nuremberg I have to speak my mind/

“Excess nationalism; religious intolerance; corporate worship; unchecked military growth, with a global reach/Sounds like fascism to me.

“… I remember a boat full of dreams carryin’ my mom and my dad/And I can’t be silent about the only country I’ve ever had.”

— Dan Bern, October 2004
Nelsonville, Ohio

Monday, December 03, 2007

There is democracy in Venezuela. Take that, Chavistas.