My Alma Mater

From the La Plata paper El Dia, Argentina:

"Our faculty has an enormous pending debt with the educational system, a crisis of efficiency, since more than 70% of the students who enter do not go to the second year," Marín warned in one of the strongest passages of his message delivered at noon yesterday before an auditorium full of university authorities, mayors, students, teachers and non-teachers. In a following paragraph, he specified that "the graduation rate is lower compared to that observed 10 years ago." In that sense, he compared that before it reached 67% while today it is around 18%"

I don't believe that in 2016, 67% graduated, because in my time, it was very low, maybe 10%. I don't know exactly how many graduated in my class because I was the first to finish and left La Plata on the very same day. 

The Ebal Mountain

 

Har Ebal, the Samaritan Jews' sacred mountain. Taken in 2012.

In the Book of Joshua, after the Battle of Ai, Joshua built an altar of unhewn stones there, the Israelites then made peace offerings on it, the Law of Moses was written onto the stones, and the Israelites split into two groups and pronounced blessings and curses as instructed there.

In February 2021 a portion of the site was destroyed by the Palestinian Authority and the stones were ground up and used to pave the road.

President Trump Negotiating

 
US President Donald Trump told Fox News that Iran would be "blown off the face of the earth' if it attacks the US naval vessels escorting merchant vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.

Thinking out of the box

 
        Thinking

https://x.com/i/status/1939933166354972760

Who is Who in British Politics

Zack Polanski is a latecomer to electoral politics. He grew up in Manchester in a Jewish family, came out as gay as a teenager and spent two decades as an actor, boosting his income with odd jobs including hypnotherapist. In 2013 he told a reporter that he could enlarge her breasts using “the unconscious” (he has since apologised). Two years later he joined the centrist Liberal Democrats but failed to mesmerise voters, standing unsuccessfully to be a councillor in London. He switched to the Greens in 2017. Eventually he was elected to the London Assembly, where he still sits.

The Economist’s poll tracker puts the Greens just three points behind Labour and the Conservatives, Britain’s two traditional parties of government.  Polanski is the leader of the Green Party. (from The Economist).

Nous? Puissance régionale dominante?

Arab states fear Israel as a disruptive regional power, even a dominant one; the UAE still wants to do deals with it. (From The Economist)

They are starting to take us seriously. Good.

Tachos

 

The late Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza loved shiny decorations (a popular hobby among generals - see pic from North Korea). The people nicknamed him "Tacho Somoza" (In Nicaragua, "tacho" meant metallic waste, like the Coca-Cola bottle cap). His son was called Tachito.