I went to bed slightly early yesterday evening, partially because I had been late to bed the night before (band practice) but primarily because the evening news programme had been very depressing. 13 soldiers were killed in the previous 24 hours, two - one of whom was old enough to be the father of the second - from the same kibbutz (not mine). Earlier in the day I had received a message saying that the brother in law of a senior employee in my company had been killed in Lebanon, and I think that it was this 51 year old veteran who is past the age for serving but still volunteered.
Cut to the two idiots in the government who want to renew Israeli
settlements in Gaza, 18 years after separation. If the world doesn't like us
now, it certainly won't if settlers return. I suspect that a large
proportion of Israelis are against such settlements, and statements such as
these only cause the dislike/hatred/disgust to grow against these two. Also
mentioned were the government intentions to pass laws regarding evasion of
military service for the ultra-orthodox and renewal of intentions to
'reform' the judiciary system.
Who am I to talk? Two colleagues of mine live in kibbutzim in the north of Israel and were evacuated when the war started over a year ago. Another friend also lives in a kibbutz in the north of Israel, but further from the border than the 'evacuation line', so she has stayed at home. Last weekend, missiles landed near her kibbutz and started three fires that took some time to get under control.
I'm Teflon. This war has barely impacted my life in the same way that COVID had little effect - I often joke (although I'm serious) that I actually benefited from the pandemic in that it gave me the legitimacy to work from home. But that is not to say that the war has had no effect on me: I noticed a few weeks ago a dropping of interest of mine in everything and I suspect that this is due to the long drawn out war of attrition.
I had problems getting to sleep last night: first the television news, then
the hot wind that has been blowing for the past few days has dried out my
skin and the dust blown about is irritating my nasal passages. Just before
midnight I took one of the relaxation pills that I bought in Milano, and the
next thing I knew, it was 7:30 am. I had a dream about volunteering for
reserve duty - I would do the same as I did in the (first) Lebanese war in
1982 when I packed kits for medical personnel. In the dream I was turned
away.
I discover that Israel attacked Iran early this morning. I was out of the world but my wife said that she heard wave after wave of aircraft passing during the night.
I originally thought that the book would be about the flow of information in computers, but it starts by examining how the flow of information affects democracy and totalitarianism, and how inventions of the past 150 years (telegraphy, telephone, wireless, computers) have allowed these to flourish. Reading about populism is very frustrating, especially as a populist candidate again is running to become President of the USA.
Harari also gets in a few mentions of Israel, and reading between the lines, one can see his opposition to the populist policies of Netanyahu et al.: one of the first things that a populist regime attacks is an independent legal system. After all, one of the tenets of populism is that it "speaks the will of the people", and if one is not a supporter of the populist policies then one is an enemy of the state.
When are there going to be elections here?
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| Title | Tags | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 213 | Entity relation diagrams (ERD) | Firebird | |
| 420 | John McCarthy | Obituary, RIP | |
| 897 | Goodbye Mocha | Dog | |
| 898 | Remembering Mocha | Dog | |
| 1180 | First rain | Weather | |
| 1353 | I don't take any pleasure in being a Cassandra | Personal | |
| 1432 | My blood pressure is balanced! | Health, CPAP, Blood pressure |
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