=jr050505 JOURNAL FROM 5 May '05 ------------------------------------------------------------------ It is better to work on the things on which one agrees that to argue over the things on which one disagrees. This is the principle of issue-oriented united-front political activism. It is how I worked in the New York Student Peace Union, '63--'65. --------------------------------------------------------------- Renatya Nachman notes a Webiste of HIK teachings, www.murshid.mrz --------------------------------------------------------------- Rights are not equal; persons on a destrutive path have no right to disrupt those on constructive paths. ------------------------------------------------------------ 3-Ming Poem: (after a remark by Carl Shrager) You roll a joint smoke it & drop the the roach in a Ming jar. Wen you are out of pot you empty the Ming jar roll another joint smoke it & drop the roach in a 2nd Ming jar. I sort my spare change saving, today, the 20-cent pieces. ------------------------------------------------------------- It is spring on the lake. The bicyclists are pacticisng for the gret race by looking at nothing. They must ride very fast to get there first. : "Grist for the Mill" -- the poet is addressed discourteously by a young man on an expensive bicycle which he had not previously noticed Note: "Girst for the Mill" is a phrase by Ram Dass. I think he used it for the title of a book. ------------------------------------------------------------- On and old-world lake a man drives sprot motorboart$names 'Shark'. ----------------------------------------------------------- Orthodoxy presents itself as normative Judaism, and ultra- orthodoxy presentes itself as the quintessence of orthodoxy. Not so. Orthodoxy is normative only as legalism, and ultra-orthodoxy as obsessuve, Neither even attemts to 'reconstruct' the vital essence of Judaism, "hadesh yamenu k'kedem", renew our days as of yore". Even though 'yore' never were; it lives as our ideal. ------------------------------------------------------------- TIME Matgauine runs a front-page article on a gene inclining one to mystic experience, though conceeding that mystic experience ain't necessrily religion . Nor conversely, religion does pretty good without mysticism. Maybe better sometimes. Jesus was more mystic than pastor, and Al_Hallaj was a mystic, neither got much done on earth while they lived. What religion ain't is a 'belives_that' nor a 'believes_in'. Though Catholicism and Protestantism make these mistakes, respectively. Back to Ben-Zion Gold, Rabbi of Harvard Hillel in the 1970s, who told the story of a college student who came to him and said, she could no longer continue attending Hillel activities because she was no sure whether or not she believed in a Supreme Being. Ben_Zion Gold remarked, best's I recollectd, that he replied, but why deprive yourself of all this pleasure while you are making uip your mind. Chaim Grade apparently makes the same error, taking it as the premise of his book 'The Yeshiva'. The Torah says clearly, and the commentators highlight, 'We will do and believe'. In that order. And PVK too says, in lectures I have input, we learn by doing. Judaism is a matter of mitzvot, of doing. A commitment to religious Judaism is an undertaking to do all the mitzvot, best's one can. Never is one asked, 'Do you believe in _____ '. That is, not in matters of theology. Though one is implicitly asked if one believes the mitzvot are obligatory. That they are obligatory is a presupposition, maybe the only presupposition, of orthodoxy. Again: I'm once at the Abode, and they want me to come to a membership meeting on Shabat, and I say, I can't, it's Shabbat. (I had intended, not to merely tell the truth, which is not work, but to bend shape and spin it so best hustle my way in. And that is work. ) So Aziza says, surely you can give up a little bit of your Shabat (for the interest of a group to which you wish to belong). And that missed the whole point. For the orthodox, keeping the Shabat is primarily an obligation and only secondarily a luxury. Religion then is essentially not the selection of a belief system, but rahter, a commitment to try to make a better world -- a presupposition that this is the meaning and purpose of life. And that is what unites religious persons of all faiths, and many will recognize and respect this in each other. (In this sense the Bush Administration, which is really Cheny_Rumseld with Georgie as their puppet -- partakes, in not merely sanctidoning but I think instigating vicious attacks on the religiosity of its Muslim prsioners -- they speak of 'their G_d', as if this were some idol disparate from the Deity of Christianity -- they tolerate Jews because the prepondderance of USA Jews, even most Zio9nists, are assimilated -- of Nazi_ism, which was explicitly anti_religion -- Satanistic, really, in contrast to the miltant atheism of Leninism, especially Stalinist Leninism. Religion, then, is not a belief_that nor a belief_in, but rather, a project -- to dedicate oneself to making a better world, to bringing harmony where one can -- this is Meshiach, not as an individual, but as an ideal, a goal -- not with a realistic expectation of attaining it, but with a presupposition that one can work toward it -- "and if he will tarry, I will wait". (The anthropomorphic metaphysics of Judaism does make articulationof its beliefs more roundabout.) --------------------------------------------------------------- TIME writes on autism. They speak of an autistic young girl who spoke only Shakespearean English. And of autistics as hypersensitive -- like traumatic post-stress syndrome, it seems to me. So it's clear enough that autism, at least some of what is called autism, is not mental deficiency -- not an organic limitation of intelligence, like Down's syndrome -- but a mental disorder. The Me Generation of the 1970s gave ontologic -- ontic is a better construction -- priority to feelings. The individual, not society, is the paramount value. And so with that everything short of complete health -- an ideal -- is pathologic, and must be rectified. Be it by visits to the doctor, or the hospital -- a draining place, (almost a killing zone I would say, with all its iatagenic, is hospital_caused, diseases, not to mention its vut_and_paste allopathy), as Murshida Vera Corda once remarked about one of her few visits there -- What PVK seems to contiually say, as one of the undercurrents of his teaching, (and to some extent Pope John Paul too, demonstrating that one can and must endure through suffering, though without making the mistake of taking suffering as a desideratum -- as some of the early Christian ascetics did -- they should have knocked St. Simon Stylites off his pillar with a bucket of supper_swill -- nor of taking suffering as somehow as purgatory, something one deserves -- though it may have that aspectd sometimes -- this is "do you desire the suffering" "neither the suffering nor the reward" in Talmud , "and so he cured him" -- is that one must make the best of one's afflictions. And this is Heraklitus remark, "every animal is driven to pasture by a blow" -- which is a theme that PVK continually highlights -- "a breakdown that avers itself to be a breakthorugh" -- So rather than worrying about curing one's defects, make the best of what you have. Often a defect stimulates compensating growth in other faculties, make the best of that. I have poor recognition of faces, rarely dream in full images, am little sensitive to the emotions of others -- this inclines me to conceptual not imagistic thinking, a compensating natural aptitutde for metaphysics, a strong motivation to accomplish things I can barely enjoy. Nu, so go for it. Instead of wasting time on the psychologists couch polishing your defects, like "Peter Quince at the Clavier" in that incredibly apt phrase by Wasllace St4eens, alluding to Shakespeare's rustic -- you could instead have written a half-dozen books of philosophy, so do it. I suppose I have or had Asparagrass Syndrome, a mild form of autism. Best asparagus I ever had was some young shoots I picked by the Rio Grande -- I think it was up around Espanola, but also down by Albuquerque. The Eruopeans make a great delicacy of albino asparagus, which is buried in sand so the sun don't bring out the cholorphyl. Weird. The greatst national mania ever was the Dutch Tulip Flipout. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Sex is a matter of self-transcendence, so all long for it, and so men strive to master it, by dominating women. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Got some Bioatta Bio-Preselbeer Nektar -- Biotta AG, CH-8724, Tagerwilen. Exquisite. They have a whole line of fruit drinks, on sale at health food and gormet shops. Picture looks like cranberries, but maybe red currants. Has that nice tart savour of cranberries. Nectra d'Airelles Rouges bio -- affine avec du concentrate d'agve -- 30% fruit. Well, whatever it is it tasted darned good. Made kiddish over the local wine, after not doing so for maybe 17 years. After all, the only thing non-kosher about the wine of the goyim is that it was not pressed by Jews. One year the French kosher vinyards were hiring Jews from Israel to come pick their grapes, but also I saw some frummies on Rodos on Shabat go to a restaurant -- well, maybe they had pre-paid, or maybe they only dressed like frummies -- and then press grapes into a cup to make kiddish. Though it did seem to be that one ought not press gapes on Shabat. So I don't know, must the grapes be picked by Jews, or is it only that the pressing and bottling of the wine must be done by Jews. In any event, there's no inherent unkashrut in it. Nobody's saying, maybe they greased the utensils with pig-fat. (Which is what makes the bread of the goyim unkosher -- shucks, I used to grease the baking pans in lard, wich is pig-fat -- though they tell me now that using animal fat in cooking, at least in bakeries, is not allowed in Switzerland -- and anyone, ain't we in the 1 part in 60 rule -- I mean, the weight of the pigfat used to grease the pan is less than 1/60 the weight of the loaf of bread, I'm sure. Well, I bought some genuine Olde Englishe scones on Rodos once, and you sure could taste the lard that went into 'em. But anyhow, when we have no (kosher) wine we can make kiddish, at least on Saturday morning, over the national beverage -- which is apt to be beer, at least in Babylon, where they made the rule I guess - so like, ain't the local wine the national beverage in France, and Spain, and i reckon in Switzerland too. If Switzerland has a Merlot of any distinction, I ain't yet foun d it. You expect to pay about SF 10 for vin ordinaire, SF 16 for something better, and SF 30 for something supposedly good. About double the prices for wine in Israel, which I think is somewhat better in all 3 classes. I have seen no Israel wines sold in Switzerland, except at shops selling kosher products -- of which I've found one, in Zurich across from Bahnhof Engel. Ain't hardly found a Swiss beer worth drinking neither. Can't hardly find Guiness for love nor money, though I did see some in Lugano in a shop selling stuff to the GastArbeiters -- I don't think the Swiss even try to make a dark beer worth drinking -- they stick with lagers -- Ain't found English beers on sale neither -- Got a bottle of Catenega beer in Morcote -- which seems to be where one has to go for gourmet stuff -- t his is from Braueri Locher, CH-9050, Appenzelli. The unusual ingredient seems to be catagne, whatever that is -- Kastanien, chataignes -- the rest is just water malt and hops. With a label so beautiful you can barely read it. Picked up a bottle of of SF 10 sellaway wine at a grocery store -- Picco Blanco 6998 Monteggio-Malconte -- local I guess -- not fascinating, but I tad better than whatever you get by the glass in resturantes -- Bot some Piora cheese there, which the shopowner told me is exquiste -- well, at SF 45 a killo, about double the usual price for good yellow cheese, it better be -- I'm trying to develop a taste for it -- though truth to tell, I prefer a simple Israel goat-cheese, that I could get at the Modi'in supermarket -- of ocurse my favorite is sharp Vermont cheddar, with natural apple cider. Can't get that this side of the Atlantic, not that I've seen. Got some Cheddar on Kypros once, but it was bland. A clear cold day today -- bright -- dusting of snow-flakes a half- hour ago -- mists coming over the pass -- air very fresh -- and they wonder why I don't go back to Modi'in, to sit by the superhighway, 1000 cars a minute going past, and the bordering eucaslyptus trees cut down, because some corurpt idiots said it was to build a security road wide enough for 2 vehicles to pass -- I mean mazaltov, they will invade us in Dodge sedans from Sharon's border city of Modi'in -- he built it was he was housing minister in the Netanyahu government, everyone knew it was his idea to pull Israel back to the Green line. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Re: IHT 5 May '05 (Miller): If Aaron David Miller is concerned with "perversions of occupation" he should direct his attention, not to the Israel Defense Forces, but to the U.S. Army. Israel can retain the territories occupied in its counter_attacks during the 1967 and 1973 Wars, while remaining a Jewish state, provided that certain restrictions on the right to vote in national elections remain in place -- eg a demonstration of parmount loyalty to the state of Israel. As for Mahmoud Abbas, he can guarantee nothing: the Palestinian armed militants has repeatedly demonstrated, eg by shooting his bodyguards, that he governs and lives only at their suffrance. An independent Palestinian Gaza would have no economic basis except as a terrorist mini_state. And Israel cannot be expected to allow the citizens of such a mini_state access to its labour pool. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Re: IHT 5 May '05 (Siegman) Harry Siegman is simplistically tendentious in supposing that unless Israel allows the establishmente of a Palestinian state within its presemt borders, then when 'Arabs' constitute a majority of the population of the present state of Israel, Israel will be able to remain a Jewish state only if it "turns into an apartheid state" First of all, Palestinians who had remained with the borders of the state of Israel at the close of the 1948 War were granted Israeli citizenship and are generally termed 'Israeli Arabs'; Palestinians in territories occupied by Jordan and by Egypt after the 1948 war, and then by Israel in its counterattacks in the 1967 War do not have Israeli citizenship and are termed 'Palestinians'. Generally speaking, Israeli Arabs are integrated into Israeli life. Israel is less an 'apartheid state' than the USA was prior to the victory of the civil rights movment in the 1960's Well, those are the most nearly rational of Mr. Siegman's remarks, the rest are anti-Israel without rhetoric restraint. ------------------------------------------------------------------ re: TIME 21 March '05, on Protestant re-appreciation of the criptural role of Mary. (van Biema -- an odd name that, Bima being the lecturn in a synagogue, at which Torah is read.) Can one heckle a preacher -- even the psalms are antiphonal. Heckle on his inbreath. Time-share is no interruptionn, and not disruptive. Mary at the Crucifixtion. Not watching his agony (Elizabeth Ashley, in The White Witch, has her protagonist, a white witch, turn away from the hanging of her -- one-time lover and all-time friend, as I recall the plot -- and how few seem to take that bridge, sad so say -- knowing that he would not want her to see him thus -- and so how unspeakable cruel the English were, inviting mockers to public executions, and the Spanish too -- -- Mary is not watching his agony, this iis there holding out her love, in all but the physical dimension, just as if she were by his bedside when he was a child wracked with t he coughing an dpain of a flue -- that he may leave his suffering body and rest in his mother's love, while his body goes the way one's body, sooner or later, with more or less difficulty, must go. It said (Siddur, morning preface to Shaharit) that on emust accompany the dead to the grave -- so how much more so, should one accompany them in their dying, on their way to their way to the grave. And indeed, most keep a deathbed watch. So too, when Bush, in one of his last acts as Texas Governor before going to White House, had Kayla Thorpe put to death, though she rested then in the Divine Spirit for all that she had once been a murderess, - - her unconsumaed husband, or pastor, or both, came there to that place of unspeakably callous and inconceiveably hypocritical cruelty to stand by her in her by-then unwanted if not untimely passing. They good people of the jury or court had her put to her death not so much because the helped slice a guy to pieces of meat, but that she admitted to having had an orgasm while doing so. Well, no doubt many soldiers have done worse in the manly discharge of their duties. And not unsimilarly, or so I once read, at least one surgeon (not to put to fine a point upon it.) There is a depth of cruelty in Bush that no-one, least of all he himself, should too much reflect upon, though the fires of purgatory if not hell await such ambitious sinners. But Clinton too, another Christian though less flagrant at it, put a man to death on his road to the Presidency -- and that a man who shot away his own mind after committing murder, and so became such an innocent that when they gave him cake for his last summer, he put half of it aside to eat later. MacBeth's Porter will be there to announce them. Well, devil take it, I'll play at Christian Critic no more tonight, the stars are at hand, and this now is Rosh Hodesh Iyar, as we pass from Gvurah to Tiferet with the first day of the Christian Week at hand. sa, Campra, 29 NIsaN. Yes, if Mary and John alone remained at the Crucifixtion, if was they alone who keep faith in the Messiahship of Jesus -- and for that matter, they alone who kept faith in any sense. "Could not one of you have watched with me through this night," he had asked in anticipation of all the others, whose claim to disciplesip must thereafter be deemed compromised -- as one fakes it as best one can on the day after a bad acid trip, or even on the moring after a nightmare, hoping that the shattered upper spheres will eventually realign themselves with the lower spheres one holds together only by one's will "with a little help from my friends" or at least one's workplace collegaues. ---------------------------------------------------------------- "All niggers want is loose shoes, tight pussy, and a warm place to shit." (Reportedly overheard from Ezra Taft Benson on an airplane, no doubt after several highballs cocktails or even beers, in what turned out to have been his last few days as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.) Well, two out of three ain't bad. Especially with a bit of cheese, wine, and soda water still left on the sideboard. "Woman is the nigger of the world." (Yoko Ono, as sung or anyhow decalimed by John Lennon, as filmed in Madison Square Garden if memory serves) "I wouldn't Jew you." (Ed Brewer, who later built the harpsichord for Lincoln Center, while selling me his motorcyle at our suite in The Men's Co_op, Oberlin College, ca. 1960) Ed Brewer once remarked that his class assignment was to write in the style of Bach. I said, That must be easy. He replied, Only superficially.) ---------------------------------------------------------------- He will not be more that Pope Ratzinger. He hustled for the job and now he's got it, and may long yearn to set down that cross, that he hastily thought not too heavy to pick up from his predecessor, Pope John Paul. It must be very hard to be accepted in a role for which one had yearned and for which one is too small. And in Heaven, I reckon, Pope John Paul will have let go of his ultra_conservative morality -- morality, mores -- which all who loved him, especially the young people, and those of us young in heart, simply overlooked. I once met Dorothy Day on a train crossing the SouthWest, and we talked for some time, though once before she had thrown me out of the Catholic Worker Farm (and a young couple who lived nearby said, don't worry Steve, she through out Amnon Hennessey many times). All I recall was, it was just like talking to a real friend of my own age. I do not know what the Christians mean by 'Pentecost', but it is apparently dervived from our Shavuot, just as their Easter is set at our Pesach, the Last Supper being said to have been the Seder. It seems disingenuous of Protestants to reject Mary as 'graven image'. Even commentaries on the Golden Calf say, the people saw through it to the Divine it so ineptly and untimely represented -- as so often happens, it was on the very day that Moses was returning, that they gave him up for dead and gone, and so said, make us another representative of the Divine. And the proof of that pudding is that Aaron, who made the Golden Calf and should have been burnt with it, goes on to become High Priest, without even a recorded remonstrance from Moses. So too Mary, in unlimited love, corresponds, or at least is related to, the Islamic Ishk__ALLAH For all their pretence of religiosity, the Bushies, soi_disant "people of faith", are merely dogmatic ideologues, like apparatchniks of the USSR CP, or the hatchet men of jihadist Islam, or maybe some of the clean_shaven black_suited haredim of Jewish ultra_orthodoxy Protestant croses are said to omit the figure of Jesus on it. That is appropriate. As PVK says, if I recall, one ought focus more on the Ressurection -- or for me, as a non_Christian (and PVKK once said, if Jesus came back, he might not be a Christian) and as someone who likes the Kineret and Galil, on the life of Jesus -- than on the Crucifixtion. Most of us would rather be remembered for our joyous times in life -- and Jesus did not lack for those, walking the length of the heartland of Israel, with friends - I see him saying "the son of man--" -- merely the modern phrase 'ben Adam', meaning something like the old USA 'Joe Schmoe' or the medieval 'Everyman' -- "has no place to lay his head" not in self-pity at having to "sleep rough" as the English hobos say, but joyously, knowing that when dark came they would lie down in their cloaks in the wheat-fields, and wake up to the sounds of birds. For the cross is a very powerful symbol which really has nothing to do with its sardonic misuse as a torture_execution (the JW's are correct in terming it primarily a device for lethal torture, not merely for execution -- Jewish stoning was as humane a method of execution as possible; and burning only for lapsed cohenim if I recall, of whom much more was expected, and who might be deemed capable of spiritually enduring greater purgation. The cross is the symbol of the crusader, in his sword, which is th sword of light and righteousness, and is brought out to make a vow of service, but not to harm another being. And it is the sternum of the human chest. As I lay in the hospital at Rodos, a visiting priest made the sign of the cross upon my chest. (I tried to not indicate that I was Jewish, as I could only bring shame upon my people in my condition.) I think it was that which kept me from the flu that winter. Another visiting priest or some such , in parting, brushed a rather large cross across my lips. which I found less than inspiring. Well, I've also been baptized once or twice -- once when I was pretty well flipped out and thought I was just going up to get a long-delayed drink of morning water in the tip ceremony -- and while that is something very good, a sort of Zen drink of cold water, one does not superimpose theology upon it -- Well, as I often say, a Jew who has just been baptized is deemed a Jew with wet hair. Judaism, like my ruddy Trust Fund, is an Irrevocable Trust. Whether one chooses to draw from and take enjoyment with its riches, or not. Well, so is incarnation. So one can be Jewish, never set foot in a synagogue, and still draw great riches from that inheritance of which Judaism is merely one set of clothes. And Joseph gave Benjamin, if I recall, 7 sets of clothes. If so, those would be the bodies of the 7 spheres, from the physical to the most subtle. I really am a descendent of The Levush, late 1500's, via my paternal grandmother's maternal granfather as I recall, Reb Nochum Jaffee of Grodno. That's clearly set out in the Jewish Encylopedia -- the old one, there's a copy in the Library at the base of the Kineret -- and I noted it several times, and may have it in one of the Amdur Zip's on www.geocities.com/sa73122a. Levush means, 'garments'. Divine garments, of course. That was the title of the book by which he is known. "It does not matter where I start, for I shall come back to the same place." Was that Wittgenstein -- or Heraklitus -- Wittenstein is "Many paths lead out from here in many directions". Which I take as a motto for my Website. What coniptions and convolutions Christianity goes through, with all its theologic variants sectarian schisms and metaphysical make_believe heresies -- and all because they started with a false dualism of human__Divine. And then made themselves crazy for 2 millenia when with great metaphysical clumsiness -- and Wittgenstein is said to have said -- I must have heard this from C.D. Rollins, though maybe Cavell -- "Moore doing philosophy is like an elephant trying to dance" -- clumsiness, albeit ingenuity -- t hey tried to re_integrate the two. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The Rambam says, poop not merely when you get up in the morning -- the Siddur says that -- but before you go to bed in the evening. Keeps one from nightmares, maybe. I once asked Carolla how to ward off nightmares, and she said, brush your teeth before you go to bed. ---------------------------------------------------------------- I'm down to one lower tooth now, plus a stub -- "on my uppers" as the British say -- and I still an eat just about anything -- except I half to cut up lettuce very small, and steak too -- in Israel they alway cut up salads very very small -- becuase dental care is not paid for by the government, and most of Israel is poor, or used to be -- And all the freakouts and money I wasted on account of maintaining deteriorating teeth -- once I was loosing a tooth, running around trying to scrounge up funding for a root canal and crown I think, and Little Joe said, don't worry about it, but I didn't believe him. When I was loosing Susie I went to Little Joe and he said, "Lots of women", but that wasn't what I wanted to hear, so I flipped out instead. My mother once quoted to me, "If looking well won't win her, will looking ill prevail" -- ("Why so pale and wan, fond lover, why so wan and pale -- " etc.) --------------------------------------------------------------- Re: IHT 9 May '05 (editorial) Rather than rebuild on 'Ground Zero', the site of the destroyed World Trade Center should be turned into a public park. First of all, civilized socities - Israel is the only one that comes immedately to mind, and possibly Poland -- do not knowingly build on the bones of the their dead. Second, high-rise office buildings are friendly only to architects, they are user_unfriendly, with all the ills of artificial air. And for that matter, cities are nearly obsolete, except as slumlord holding pens for unemployed proles. Almost anyone who can afford to moves to the greenbelts of the suburbs, except for fashion queens. Third, the spectacular destruction of the World Trade Center -- an unmatched and unsurpassable tour-de-force and permanet PR coup for terrorism -- makes a rebuilt structure an especially tempting target for terrorism. A second successful attack would permanently depict the USA as impotent against terrorism. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Notes on Expenses: DVD*RW -- Minimum SF 3 each (InterDiscount) Up to SF 10 each in computer shops TDK-I's -- SF 3 each (Manor) (Up to SF 5 each) Registered mail -- about SF 8.50 for 1 DVD, SF 19 for 2 (!) So this gives a production cost of about SF 15 for 1 DVD, SF 25 for 2. Usual production is 1 at a t time. 1 DVD holds 10 tapes May, and that's only in Ogg Ogg Vorbis is about 22 Mg per side -- about 2/3 the size of an MP3 -- that's using the defalult optimal paraameters in Saving oGG Contrary to my assumption, I find no significant saving in dropping down to 16 bit sampling, nor in dropping down from 44100 to 22050 MHz, nor in doing both. Audacity files seem to be the same size as WAV files, at least for Mono. A 4.7 DVD+RW formats to 4.36 Gb My 160 Gb HardDisc formatted to 127 Gb Nico tells me this is a Pentium II A 250 Gb external HardDisc costs SF 300 at InterDiscount in Bellinzona. (A 160 costs about SF 200, or up to about SF 220 in a computer shop.) Nico says that exernal is very slow for opening and closing files, so is best used to dump files and so free up one's internal HardDisc. A 2-cassette TapeDeck, DENON DRW 695, is SF 450 in the Olivone shop, new. ------------------------------------------------------------------ NOTES ON RESTAURANT EXPENSES: A 6-pack of Rivella 1.5 liter costs SF 15. Rivella is sold in Restourantes for SF 2.50 -- SF 3.80 for 3 dl. So that's a 500% markup over retail store cost. Over wholesale cost who knows -- maybe 10 times. Honest George does not stock Rivella. I suppose that did not give him a kickback on ordering. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Religion is not essentially a matter of mystic experience -- one can get that from streetcorner pill, or, according to TIME magazine, from a co-operative gene -- or at Zenith Camp -- but a matter of a commitment to act with a reasonable measure of altruism, with the aim of making a better world. But the yuppies come to Zenith to get high. No wonder they're so insufferable, they see themselves as customers, and us as their servants. Only that the nature of the purchase requires a greater degree of gentitlity than one would otherwise be obliged to show. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Re: IHT 10 May '05 (editorial): Congress has it right, and the IHT got it wrong: considering the PLO's history of corruption, and the obvious weakness of its present head, the only way to ensure that foreign aid gets to the poor people dependent upon the Palestinian Authority is to disburse that aid through reputable independent organizations. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Re: IHT 10 May '05 (Ourousoff, writing on the Berlin Shoah Mewmorial) Most of the literate world sympathizes with the dead Jews of the Shoah ('Holocuast'), and looks down upon their living Israeli descendents. Monuments and Museums stoke this sentimental evasion of responsibility, rationality, and realistic decency. Most people would like to be remembered for their achievements, not by the manner of their death. Museums and libraries should be built to recover and preserve the destroyed culture of European Jewry, and to establish a more realistic image of Israel that the smokescreen of mass media. ----------------------------------------------------------------$$ The IHT comics apparently survive by intertia. Gary Trudeau, with 'Doonesbury'm is the USA's best editorial cartoonist since Bill Mauldin and HerBlock, "Calvin and Hobbes is poignant, and the re- run Peanuts whimsical. The rest are vapid, except for 'Dilbert' which is consistently and incisively unpleasant. ------------------------------------------------------------------