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A refuge for the posts from my posterous.com blogs. Thanks for nothing, Sachin Agarwal!

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Something that always fascinates me about the whole US presidential election process is the amazing number of incredibly hot women in the in the background when candidates (from either party) appear on TV, especially when making victory speeches.  Where do they all come from?  What’s their role in the process?  (Volunteers?  Supporters?  Cheerleaders?)  And most importantly, where do they disappear to when the election is over?

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I was listening to the news while travelling in the car yesterday.  A black trade union leader was demanding (I quote) “more black professionals in the mining industry”.  In other words, displace the current (white) incumbents and replace them with black professionals.  A few thoughts on this:

• If these black professionals existed, they would be hired.  Even before the days of racial quotas in the New South Africa, companies were bending over backwards to hire blacks, in preference even to more qualified or experienced whites.
• Why, in our shiny new democratic, non-racial South Africa is this even an issue?  We should be hiring colour-blind, based purely on merit!
• Why not start a whole new industry (or if not, then at least a new company, for ~!@#’s sake).  Make the pie bigger, and stop worrying about slicing it up into thinner and thinner slices.

But these are things that have been said since the 90s, to little effect.  Instead, the ANC and its allies will continue making promises that simply can’t be kept, until the only option remaining is a Mugabe-style land and asset grab.

So will end Africa’s last hope for a success story…

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I sat and watched the movie The Day of The Jackal on TCM a few Saturday nights ago, and it triggered a few thoughts:

• Firstly, this is one of the movies I grew up with.  How did it come to be a classic?  How did it (and I) get to be so old?
• While it can’t compete with the Bourne trilogy today, it still holds together well.  It’s believable and gripping, although I know the plot almost by heart.
• Released in 1973 and set in 1963, it reflects a far more Gallic France and Paris, long before the era of globalisation, multi-culturalism, and the “levelling” of cultures, languages, countries and “the locals”.

Coincidentally, 1973 was also the year of the manufactured “fuel crisis” and (according to conspiracy theorists), the year in which unrestricted immigration from Arab/Muslim countries into Europe began, transforming Europe, and not for the better.

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I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:  Jewish history IS the history of the Diaspora.  The Diaspora existed long before anything resembling a Jewish commonwealth and (given the direction Israel has been taking since it first came under the sway of Likud), it will probably exist long after the 3rd Jewish Commonwealth has vanished from the world stage.

At times, the Diaspora may also have been exile (Galut), but for the most part it was just a diaspora, in the same way that other nations which overflow the bounds of their native land have a diaspora.

We’ve been conditioned to think that the Diaspora is unnatural, an aberration, and that statehood is our natural (albeit mostly denied) condition.  In fact, it seems as if living in a Diaspora is our natural state, the place where we do our best work.

And I admit, this does sound a little strange at a time when a plurality of Jews lives in the State of Israel…

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The masculine side of North Korea’s military parades is kinda the standard fare for oppressive totalitarian regimes.  Lots of goose-stepping, stern faces, perfect formations, tank tracks, rockets and exaggerated saluting.

The feminine part of these parades is a whole different matter, however.  In fact, I suspect that those who organise the female cohorts show a definite talent for the understated erotic.  In a different society, he, she or they would probably earn an excellent living from choreographing erotic extravaganzas.

Goose-stepping men look grim and menacing (with just a hint of the ridiculous).  Women (especially slim Oriental women) marching in a similar manner just look like someone’s sexual fantasy.  If you think I’m imagining this, the clip of a group of young soldierettes drilling with swords also treated us to several synchronised flashes of uniform panties, while the marching female bands were the Korean equivalent of all-girl college bands and drum-majorettes rolled into one.

The original report appeared on the BBC’s Reporters (Chris Hogg).  Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find the full insert online to point you to.  This looks like a snippet from the original:

BBC News - Kim Jong-un attends North Korea parade

Let’s hope that Kim Jong-un shares the Dear Leader’s taste for military parades, along with the hint of erotic extravaganza.

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While it would be outrageous to suggest that we are responsible for anti-Semitism, it would be just as nonsensical to suggest that our behaviour as individuals and communities (including Israel) has no impact on anti-Semitism.

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The modern State of Israel is swiftly becoming an extension of the coercive power of (a particularly malevolent) orthodox rabbinate; a power that that had almost disappeared elsewhere with the end of the Kehillah.  The rabbinate has been able to abuse this power to negatively impact the private and public space in Israel.  With its increasingly Papist tendency, it is now extending this baleful influence throughout the Jewish world.

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Did Judaism miss the boat 2,000 years ago?  Or does the window of opportunity still exist today?  Christianity has its whole baggage of crucifixion, resurrection and saints.  Islam in turn has its baggage relating to the Prophet Mohammed and the Islamist ideology, which always appears to contain a need for Jihad.  Judaism has somewhat less baggage on the theological front, but is weighed down by its ethnic/national/tribal/ attachments and associations, as well as a rather onerous burden of observance and study texts.

As a result, we don’t actually appear to have a pure, unadulterated monotheism, not weighed down by some or other historical or ideological baggage.  Was Judaism attempting to change this 2,000 years ago, before the emergence of Christianity as a separate religion derailed the process?  Is it time to revive the project?

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Taking DNA samples should be part of the process of registering the birth of a child.  Similarly, fingerprints should be taken at age 16, when an identity document is issued, along with photographs and fresh DNA samples.

This is both for the identification of victims or human remains in the event of crime, war, terrorist attack or natural disaster, and also so that no suspect in a crime can simply slip through the cracks because his/her genetic profile is not on file.  (It may also assist with genealogical research.) Provided the right safeguards are put in place, I’m not sure why any law-abiding citizen should have an issue with the idea of such a national identity database.

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Although the success of Zionism and Israel would appear to have closed the discussion on whether Jews are a nation or a religion, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that (at least in the Diaspora), the only kind of Jewish identity that makes sense is a religious one.  Hopefully a rational, moral and welcoming community, but religious nonetheless.

In a way, it’s kind of ironic.  Here we are, the original monotheistic faith, and if you brought all of us together in one place, we couldn’t even populate your average 3rd World city!  There must be something drastically wrong with our “business model”!

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Some people (in spite of all their shortcomings), some events, are just so powerful that they send out ripples throughout the ocean of human life.  Pres. John F Kennedy was one, Princess Diana another.

I don’t recall what I was doing when JFK died; I was only 3 at the time.  I do remember what I was doing when the news of Princess Diana’s death was announced.

It must have been a weekend, as my alarm wasn’t set.  I would have normally slept until at least 09.00.  Instead I woke up suddenly, between 4 and 5.  Not only did I not simply roll over and go back to sleep, I turned on my bedside lamp and the clock radio on my bedside table.  The presenter was in the middle of announcing the dramatic news, which he repeated several times.  Nothing like that has ever happened to me, before or since.

I wasn’t a particularly avid Lady Di/Princess Di watcher, although I did think she was hot.  At that time, though, it became clear what a gift her life had been to the world, and what a loss her death was for the world.

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When the Afrikaners gave up their ambition to be masters of southern Africa, when they stopped being a threat to others, they became a much more successful, useful and (I think) happier and likeable people.  There are clear indications that the same would hold true for the Israelis in the Middle East.

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The problem with us progressives is choice.  If we don’t manage to change Judaism and the Jewish/Israeli reality for the better, we might choose to leave (physically or virtually).  Most of us would (with greater or lesser difficulty) be able to achieve our ethical and spiritual objectives outside the goodly Tents of Jacob.
Those on the political and religious right probably know this, and it’s not an option for them.  So perhaps all they need do is wait us out.  And in the meantime carry on with the breeding program.

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via blog.posterous.com

When importing from into Posterous from Tumblr, there seems to be an issue with the import routine not picking up posts that have been Autoposted from Posterous to Tumblr. As an experiment, I ran the import against a Tumblr blog I had specifically set up to “mirror” a Posterous blog. It failed to detect even one single Autoposted post (from about a hundred), even although a manual inspection clearly showed that the posts contained the “Autoposted from Posterous” markers. I’m not sure that Posterous has done its homework when it comes to persuading users to switch from Tumblr.
My own view is that there’s more than enough room for both. Posterous should rather just concentrate on getting better and leaving users to draw their own conclusions.

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Until a few days ago, I’d never given much thought to the impact of the Egyptian pyramids on the environment.  I watched a documentary regarding the construction of the Great Pyramid;  presumably the same techniques were applied to building most of the other pyramids.  The documentary dealt in depth with the labour, materials and techniques used in these massive construction projects, and it appears that wood was heavily utilised in many of the processes and phases of construction.  But hang on a minute, isn’t most of Egypt a desert?  So where did the timber come from?  Much higher upstream, e.g. Sudan or the highlands of Ethiopia?  Egypt itself?  Does this explain why Egypt is today mostly desert, i.e. was it at one stage somewhat more wooded, and was that resource mined to provide timber for the pyramids?  Either way, the ecological impact of these gateways to eternal life must have been huge.

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Probably like an increasing number of Israel’s supporters, I’m starting to have a problem defending what I don’t understand.

Also (coming back to the impact of the proposed changes to the conversion laws on Reform converts and Patrilineal descent), if there’s to be no place in the Israeli scheme of things for my daughter and me, I’m not even sure I’m interested in helping to make Israel’s case.

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Conventional wisdom in Israel has it that she cannot afford to lose a single war.  Losing a war to its Arab (or Iranian!) neighbours would not result in an unfavourable peace treaty, but rather in the extinction of Israel.

And yet, Israel hasn’t won (or at least convincingly won) a single one of its wars or campaigns since the victory in June 1967.

It is probably also true to say that Israel’s neighbours haven’t attempted to wage an existential war since 1967 (although the 1973 Yom Kippur War could easily have turned out that way).

Does that mean that this conventional wisdom is totally wrong, or does it just mean that not winning a war is different to losing it?

Perhaps we now need to redefine the threat to say that if Israel continues to lose (or not convincingly win) its non-existential wars, sooner or later it may badly misread the existential nature of a threat against it (or fail to respond correctly to it).

It is in this sense that we should now understand the conventional wisdom, and reaffirm that Israel indeed cannot afford to lose a single war.

Or, to put it in simpler terms, if Israel continues to fail with the less important stuff, the pattern will become difficult to break.  Sooner or later she will fail with the (national) life and death stuff.

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