Who moved my city?

Yesterday afternoon the temperature in the shade was 44 Celsius. At arrival in Ariel University, it was 38.5 (Ariel is in Samaria, at about 400 m over sea level). We are only in May while the highest temperatures in Israel are in August-September. My hometown, Kever Benjamin, used to have a temperate Mediterranean climate, but I feel that suddenly it has been transported to the hottest spot on Earth. Where may we be now?

According to NASA (see satellite pic), the highest land skin temperature ever recorded is in the Lut Desert i.e. Dasht-e Lut (دشت لوت‎, "Emptiness Plain") measuring 159.3 F (70.7 C). How did our enemies move a 80,000 strong Jewish city so far without we noticing it? At night?

Already we are feeling the beginning of a drought. According my estimate, this summer there will be insufficient water for urban supply and irrigation. Already the Water Authority is asking to shorten showering times. Two minutes, they say, is enough.

Poem by Margaret Randall

Some girls said Albuquerque High boys
kissed better
and when the captain of the downtown football team
asked me out I trembled yes
beneath anxious folds
of Dotted Swiss.

When one running-back hand tore at my blouse
and the other charged between my legs
I cried for him to stop
and to the couple in front for help.
Their moans sounded light years away.
He laughed, pried deeper, at ease
with male right.

Through the triangle of window
a splash of stars
seemed distant and pale.
I took remembered advice
and brought my knee up
fast and sharp to his groin.

He let go and I pushed the door,
leapt free and ran
down a rocky road
‘til I hit pavement
and kept on running
afraid he might follow.

But I was alone that night
flying toward city lights
panting and crying
slowing to walk
then running again
until my house appeared.

Years later I could say
the word rape
—what the high school football star
did to me that night—
know he didn’t follow
because it wasn’t me he wanted,

only conquest there on that car seat
in the presence of buddies,
only the ancient ritual
of male entitlement:
another notch
on the stock of his teenage gun.

My daughter, the one learning English Literature, has to write an essay on a 20th Century poet.

She selected Margaret Randall. She lived in Latin America (Mexico, Cuba, Nicaragua) from 1961 to 1984. 
When she came home, the US Immigration and Naturalization Service ordered her deported:

 the only case of an American poet forbidden to return home. In Mexico she edited a leftist literary magazine, el Corno Emplumado, which I read.. 

Thus I got to read the above poem and re-publish it here.  

The New European Aristocracy

Victorian literature describes how upper middle class and noble families carefully educated their daughters to acquire social skills - how to organize a five o'clock tea party, play the piano, dance, riding, etc. - all to eventually land a good match. Prospective marriageable parties were carefully evaluated and discussed, and contacts were cultivated to be invited to parties and have the opportunity to meet advantageous alliances. In the initial years of the blogosphere (I was there!) it was debated how the European aristocratic genotype had been refined over the centuries and came to embody the highest in human intelligence, character, courage, etc. There was much lamentation about how their bloodlines were being debased, etc.

This talk has been totally muted. I wonder what they would write today about the English royal marrying a second hand 36 years old American mulatto actress.  I confess that I was taken by surprise by that Chicago Black preacher recycling saint MLK. His rambling sermon on L O V E being the universal panacea did not lift my spirit. Obviously, I belong to former times.

The View from This Side of the Fence

It is a very hot day today on the Gaza border. Over 42 Celsius. No shade anywhere. What surprise expects us this morning?

Argentina Begs IMF Bondage

Without opposition, Argentina asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan that would allow it to stop the run on the peso. Macri and his Finance Minister Nicolas Dujovne congratulated themselves for their elegant solution. The Argentine press continued focused on futbol (soccer) and TV actresses's asses.

Dujovne repeated some smart-sounding nonsense imbecilities like "gradualismo es hijo de algo superior, pragmatismo" and "se armó un clima de angustia en la sociedad porque ir al Fondo trae el recuerdo de otras épocas en las que se acudía en otras condiciones." Meaning: "They tried to create a climate of fear, because the IMF bring back the memories of other times".

No one tried to bring back memories to me, they arrived by themselves. I remember the seventies in Buenos Aires, the mass street demonstrations against the arrival of a IMF representative, followed by sanguinary repression by mounted gendarmes. The IMF demanded immediate devaluation of the peso, to free up the system of controlled prices for basic foodstuffs. It imposed freezing salaries in a Weimar-like inflationary economy. Argentine working class, having enjoyed Peron's populist policies, found themselves starving and without money to buy the traditional end of year "pan dulce".

The consequence of the IMF's recessionary regime caused widespread suffering and the fall of the government, and eventually the return of Peron to power.

Like everything, IMF's rule in Argentina was corrupt. Finance Minister Kruger Vasena, being in the secret of coming devaluation, bought up many estancias and factories, all  to be paid in pesos. Worthless pesos.   

Dr Nassar screwed 332 girls

Sports doctor Lawrence G. Nassar, the Michigan State University physician who reportedly  sexually abused 332 young women while under his medical treatment, was condemned to one hundred years of jail, and his employer, the university, will pay $500 million to the victims.  The university has lost prestige and resources. Why should universities pay for sex? Pic.: the judge.

Rape is the most severely punished crime in our days. In the Bible, 3000 years ago, the punishment was even more severe: stoning. The difference is that today, for all his perseverance and hard work, Nassar did not generate even one baby and did not cheat anyone of his legitimate descendant. He did not hurt physically any one of the girls, but certainly did confuse them a lot. Nassar is misprogrammed for today's world: "misfit" is the perfect word to describe him.

National IQ set - Updated

James Thompson published the latest updating of  national IQ. The note does not mention IQ results per country, only the colored map above, which obscures the actual results, and has one guessing them. One cannot extract any conclusion about countries too small to figure on the map, for example Israel. Presumably, this way of hiding the conclusions was adopted to avoid hurting any nation. Anyway, we can see that Venezuela is dumb but Ecuador is the dumbest in America. Syria also appears low on the scale. Romania is the dumbest spot in Europe. Japan, Taiwan, Singapur are points on the blue extreme.