The time has come to write a summary for a year that many of us would prefer to forget. There were two mega-disasters on the national level, one event that must be classed as a disaster on a personal level, and very few good things to counter these.
Chronologically, the first mega-disaster was the incredibly stupid attempt to wreck the justice system, or as its proponents would put it, 'judicial reform'. I have been reading what I wrote at the time and am amazed at the anger and venom hiding in the words. It appears that this 'judicial reform' has been 'deep sixed', but there's no telling with these people that hold ideas that most would see as ridiculous; to them, these ideas are virtuous and obvious and quite probably God given. Apparently the Supreme Court is about to give judgement on whether dismissing the 'probable cause' law is legal, and the Court is voting 8 for dismissal and 7 for retaining. Two of the judges are due to retire in the next few weeks (or may have already retired), so one might say that 7 are for retaining and only 6 for dismissal. That's all we need now.
Unfortunately, this disaster quite probably caused our enemies, especially in the south, to wrongly evaluate Israel's internal sturdiness, leading to the Oct 7 attack/massacre. One of the first skits on the satirical 'Wonderful country' TV program showed reserve soldiers boarding a bus and being checked off from a list; first to board were the 'anarchists'....
This war is still far from over, and is, in many ways, the worst war that Israel has ever participated in. Obviously it's not a war for survival as were the war of Independence and the Yom Kippur war, and the number of military casualties has not (yet) exceeded that of the previous wars, but in every other parameter, it has been the worse. Civilian casualties are far higher.
I have the misfortune of having been in Israel as an adult for both the wars of 1973 and 2023. I suppose that one must say that fortunately in 1973, I didn't really understand what was happening and so couldn't really participate in the national sense of sorrow. Looking back on those days, I feel a sense of wonder that the country had existed for only 25 years in 1973, meaning that most of the citizens had been born in the British Mandate prior to the declaration of independence, or had emigrated from elsewhere. I don't know the actual figure but I estimate that 85% of today's Israelis were born in the state of Israel.
The disaster on the personal level was the death of my company's president. Due to external events, it's obviously difficult to evaluate how much this has had an effect on us, but I for one feel the loss of an experienced hand on the rudder. In the past few days, I had an argument with someone at work about a certain decision being wrong; this decision was taken by the CEO and I several years ago. Who is this whippersnapper to call it wrong? He wouldn't have done so had the CEO still been alive.
The only good things that happened this year on a personal level are concerned with music: first, my rebirth as a performing guitarist, and second, the discovery of trumpeter Matthew Halsall. I've written about the first item more than enough times, and not enough about the second item. I can't even write about a renaissance of song writing, as I've written only a few songs and it has been murder writing the words for them (although I've just finished writing the words for a new song that was started at the beginning of the month).
I had hoped for an improvement on the academic plane, but that was not to be so. I still waiting, eight or nine months after handing in my doctoral thesis, for the concluding viva exam, and as I've probably written at some time, I've lost almost all interest in this. I had hoped that the studies in nutrition would be fruitful, but these have sorely disappointed me.
There is one personal event that will be a very good thing, but it is yet to happen and I want to wait until it does happen, lest something go wrong.
| Title | Tags | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 225 | The latest bright idea | Programming, Delphi, Non-modal | |
| 527 | Sequencing "House with no door" | MIDI, Van der Graaf Generator | |
| 664 | The Tzora song festival - a review (part one) | Kibbutz | |
| 790 | Meta-blogging | Meta-blogging | |
| 998 | What really makes me happy these days | DBA |
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