Mirzakhani, Persian Math Genius, Dead at 40

Twist in Tehran

A troupe led by director Hossein Parsai performs “Oliver Twist” based on “Oliver!”, a British musical, at Tehran’s Vahdat Hall on December 18, 2017. 

Iran is a modern, secular country.  Is it logical that it has been ruled by obscurantist clerics in the last thirty years? Or is it a temporary anomaly that will end soon?

The Zs think they invented sex

The Zs are wrong!

The CIA brought back to life in Iran

Once, the CIA organized a revolution in Iran and defeated a Communist-leaning regime. Today, another revolution is under way to expel the Ayatollahs. These good news follow from Donald Trump replacing the cowardly defeatism of Obama. Iranian papers are obsequious to the USA. Trump is a miracle.

Nikki Haley presented a week ago the remains of the Iranian rocket fired at the Saudi capital. I have seen the collection of remains of Saddam's Scud missiles but this thing is at least five times fatter.

Tehran delenda est.  

Amadeus, the most beautiful scene

2017 A Good Year

In the year 2017 my savings increased 24% in US$ terms, which is average in NASDAQ but good on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, that increased only 3%. The problem with TASE was/is TEVA, an important component of the index, that lost half of its worth during the year. The best performing stock was Frutarom (3-400%) and Ashtrom, a building company. Ashtrom is something of a mystery, its founders and owners are dead and it is managed by unknown insiders. This is not an unknown configuration in Israel, with most of its institutions established by communes fifty-hundred years ago, that continue to operate and grow with its original members long dead and forgotten. The Kever Benjamin water company is like that: it was founded by a handful of farmers to finance a borehole to provide water for irrigation. That was when it was a small settlement in the Dameseq province of Turkey, and it developed into a large water and sewage corporation.  It is owned by the original families and managed in total secrecy. The water is drinkable.

2017 was a year when all the family was healthy and we increased by two newborn boys. Peace reigned in Israel.

I continued teaching in the university, lectured in a Water Congress and completed about forty - fifty projects. I have about then signed contracts to start working on. Although I am very old and obese, I managed to have an active sex life; specifically, I ogled lots of female bottoms in the street. The neighborhood was gentrified and the Cofix store nearby is selling cheap red wine (20 sheqel = 6$ a bottle). Most drinkable. 

Under the Pressure of January First

Two workdays more and thousands of official permits and licenses end and have to be renovated. Clients are pressuring me to complete their submissions to be in time. The more they pressure, so grows my internal resistance and less I can work. I want to work but my mind wanders.

Then this afternoon we have the "Pidyion Ha-Ben" (The Redemption of the First Son"). It is a Jewish ceremony said to be in memory of God killing the evil Egyptian's first sons (and first born calves too). God had declared unambiguously that all firstborns belongs to him, although as a special favor to the Jews, he is ready to accept money from the Jews instead of the circumcised babies. Therefore, a silver coin is paid to a Cohen, a descendant of the priestly line, to redeem the child. The Bible also states that a firstborn ass may be redeemed with a lamb.

Any person called Cohen can perform. I suspect that explanation whitens the real source of the ceremony, which is the Western Semite ritual sacrifice of the first born boy to God.They burned them alive in the "Tophet". There was a large Tophet near Jerusalem, in Guy Hinnom (Gehenna), the Valley of Hinnom, but the largest known was in Tunis, in Carthage. I am a first born son, I was redeemed, thanks to the Almighty God.