Comments on: Blah

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 23:59:59 +0000

Today, in an interview on the “This Morning” radio program on Reshet Bet, the Head of the Electric Company's Marketing Department (didn't catch his name) made a comment that nearly made me throw up. The interviewer, Yakov Achimeir, mentioned the connection between the power outage, the non-working traffic lights on the Ruler Road and the death of the 20 year-old driver. This person had the absolute gall to say something like that in a country where some 500 people die of traffic accidents each year, to connect the power outage with the death of the 20 year-old drive was “inappropriate”. If you hurry, you can still hear the interview on the IBA website, in Hebrew only though.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 23:59:59 +0000

I'm trying to comment on “get over it” re: 9/11. I'm failing. I have mixed feelings. I'd like to get over it, but I probably never will. I was more personally affected than most Americans (though not as much as some), but I can see how even Joe Schmo from Idaho might still be kind of freaked. I'd like people to shut up and stop talking about it. I've done my grieving and would like to remember it as a historical event now. I just don't know how to do that – I've never really had to before. I'd guess you and some of your readers have some insight on that one.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 23:59:59 +0000

The electric company thing may be even more criminal than you think. One theory making the rounds — which has real merit IMHO — is that the electricity “crisis” was actually cooked up by the Electric Company itself.
The IEC and its workers' council have been bitterly fighting government plans to try and privatize it. A few months ago, the Minister for the Environment shut down the Reading power plant in Tel Aviv. The government had ordered the IEC to convert Reading into a natural gas-powered plant and the IEC was dragging its feet over the issue.
Now, because of the “crisis”, the IEC turned around and demanded that the government re-open Reading. The government caved in.
This whole thing feels like a big, noxious, illegal exercise in muscle-flexing on the part of Israel's worst and most hated public monoply.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 23:59:59 +0000

Re: Blahs…me too. I have decided to quit posting commentary and simply write comic scenes from my past, since that is all people tell me they want to read about anyway. Re: 9/11…I agree and disagree. I think I agree that we need to get past this, but at the same time, I know that Islam, in the words of Churchill, is a muscular, vibrant religion. Dawa, Jihad, Taqqiya, Kitman, Kafir, murtad, mushrikeen…these are words I have had to learn to understand in order to understand 9/11 and the mentality behind it. I didn't personally know anyone who died, I am fortunate…but so many did, and now, we are being told by the singularly most unreliable political hack (Al Gore) that global warming is the problem…perhaps it is in Israel right at this time, but we still have a problem on the horizon, and his name is Ahmadinejad.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 23:59:59 +0000

Jauhara, the problem is with how a few extremists have interpreted Islam, no? I am sure that the vast majority would tell you that suicide bombings have nothing to do with Islam. Hundreds of millions of Muslims practice their religion peacefully and with tolerance, and of course many have also suffered as a result of fanatics (e.g., last year's bombings in Amman).

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 23:59:59 +0000

I think that the discomfort I feel about the 9/11 stories are not because I want people to get over it. I don't think we really get over that kind of trauma, only get numbed to it.
But I know that is not what you meant. I guess that I feel pissed off that the memory of that tragedy has become so tainted by the “war on terror” and massive cultural division that followed. I want to go back to that time when,as a New Yorker I know said, “we didn't feel like assholes”. That brief, scary, unifying period before tragedy got exploited, and people were still trying to put words to their shock and grief.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 23:59:59 +0000

I can agree with that! Moving out of the US was something of a relief in that I didn't want the international community to think maybe I chose those freak leaders who don't truly lead.
I did put words to my grief a little later, and while it is very badly written as it is mainly a catalog of what my boyfriend at the time and I did that day, it is astonishing, even to me who lived it. The day reminded me of movies about JFK's assassination – everyone crying in public. I wonder if my parents are over that, or whether, as you say, they got numb. And he was only one man, though one might say an actual leader.
*sigh* I've gotten over trauma before. But tomorrow I head back to the States to get together with my college class, one of whom was on Flight 11. It just keeps coming back.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 23:59:59 +0000

Jordanian Toot has an interesting post today by a Jordanian blogger – 360 east -on GigaOm and Israeli tech industry
http://itoot.net/
http://www.360east.com/?p=463
I've been wondering lately if there is some Israeli blogger who could create a non-political combined Israeli and Arab aggregate????

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 23:59:59 +0000

but, Lis, this movie is how people get over it. Someone has to make a movie about the WTC (and also about United 93). Think about how unhealthy it would seem if they didn't. And, adina, was there a time when New Yorkers weren't assholes??

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 23:59:59 +0000

Son2, I hope that your family is as appreciative of your sense of humour as Noorster and I. We are your Middle Eastern fan club.
As a former New Yorker, though, all I've got to say in response to your second question is this: You must be from Boston.