When the engineer fails...

Change of vantage point

Yesterday was Saturday and a cloud of exhaustion descended on me, I could not focus on the drawing in front of me. With chemical help,  I slept the night and now feel less tired. But it is becoming clear that I am not up to my projects, I have entered the different phase of my life and should start retirement. Of course I am afraid of the "golden years", although all my friends have retired and spend their time travelling in the old country. What can I do in Vienna and Budapest? Last time I found the Viennese schwarzwald torte with solid margarine - uneatable, and the Hungarian goulash came with greasy chips. The turn-of-century buildings of Budapest are uncomfortable and unsafe (pic. my old neighborhood, VII kerulet). What can I do? 

Golden shower in Iran

The boys of my barrio were crazy for football but we had no money to buy tickets, so we used to steal into the Velez Sarsfield stadium shortly after the match had started and the guards had left their posts. The tribunes were crowded and people had to relieve themselves in-situ. We had to pass under them with golden drops falling on our heads. We said "it is raining", pretending that there was nothing to notice. 

Iran is attacking left and right and lately sent a well-coordinated air attack on Saudi oil facilities. The Saudis ignored the attack, their papers printed pics of the King attending an exciting camel race. The Americans, ultimate guarantors of the kingdom, did not react. Saudi spends some 50 billion dollars per year on Western weapons, they have the AWACS capable of observing every bird shitting in the air. Iran, with its hundred million inhabitants, spends a fifth of that money on weapons but has an hyper-aggressive policy. 

Iran has been ruled for fifty years by a clerical dictatorship. The CIA easily ousted Mossadegh but does nothing against the ayatollahs. Maybe the West thinks that the ayatollahs in their black skirts and turbans are troublesome but not really dangerous, so let them keep raving, shooting fireworks and frightening the Saudis so they keep buying more weapons? 

The story of Honi HaMe'agel the Rainmaker

From time to time, the weather disagrees with human desires and there is no rain for a few years, or it rains too much and floods the streets, or it is too hot or too cold. It is told that there was a long drought in Jerusalem, and climate activist Honi sat in protest in the sand and menaced God that he will not move  from the circle in the sand he drew till rain comes. God relented and sent him rain, Honi was saved and became famous. His protest was the right thing to do and was supremely effective. It worked so well that in our days thousands, worldwide, are protesting against the climate (pic.: Australian schoolgirls) demanding that it change. They all want to show how much they want to save the planet. Pathetic, I say. Wish them success. 

Bitterness

My Hod Hasharon project was rejected by the Water Company. Two of my proposals were rejected this morning, I am too expensive. In the bank, the cashier retard credited me for 406 sheqels when the cheque was for 460. I had to wait half an hour for the correction. On the street, I saw a nice female bottom, tried to maintain the distance but in two minutes she was 50 meters ahead of me. Younger women walk very fast relative to old fat sedentary engineers. No chance that I catch a girl anymore in my life. "Uno", de Goyeneche:

Déjame que llore como aquél
    que sufre en vida la tortura
    de llorar su propia muerte.
        Uno está tan solo en su dolor...
    Uno está tan ciego en su penar...
    Pero un frío cruel, que es peor que el odio,
    punto muerto de las almas,
    tumba horrenda ...

Observation: I wanted to illustrate this note with the famous picture of Groucho Marx chasing a secretary around the table. Nowhere to find that pic. The images offered by Google are girls chasing boys, or muscular girls competing in a track. It seems it is forbidden to show images of females being chased or in a weaker situation than boys. Also lots of frightening posters of criminals and police emblems - as if to discourage would-be sexual harassment perpetrators. It is a new world out there. As Steven Sailer writes: You can go to jail for noticing. 

Israel voting pattern

Lee Kuan Yew, the father of Singapur, said that in a multi-ethnic country, there is no right nor left, each ethnic group votes its own party. Lee was a genius: when the English colonialist surrendered to the Japanese army, he learnt Japanese so well that found employment in the intelligence service of the Japanese occupation government. Israel is a super-classic multi-ethnic society and people vote as they were following Lee's insight, each one according its identity. 

The United Arab List succeeded in mobilizing the Arab sector and is now the third party in Israel. It is a very important political force. The Moroccan Jews voted massively for the Shas party. The secular Jewish sector of the kibutzim and the politically correct academicians voted for Labor and Meretz. The large religious sector voted for their representatives. There is no similar identity group in the West, nowhere Catholics marry only Catholics and vote for a Catholic party. Jewish religious people marry mostly in-group and is becoming a well-defined ethnia. Russian immigrants vote for Our Home party. The secular majority has divided itself according to the intensity of its hate of the Jews, and I mean the religious Jews, the only group that seriously follows the Jewish religion. I could say that "antisemitism" is the main issue between Netaniyahu (allied to the religious) and Ganz/Lapid, who hate the Jews. The argument against the Jews is that they are parasites, do not work and do not serve in the army. More or less the Nazi accusations against the Jews in Europe. The Jews do not work but exploit the majority, and they avoid fighting in the nation's wars. And have too many children. The terminology used by the press - here and in the West - speaks about right and left, the seating arrangement in the Assembly during the French Revolution. Lee Kuan Yew would have known better. 

Graphic story of the extinction of Hungarian Jewry

A genealogical tree of a typical Hungarian Jewish family. I know dozens like this. Large families in early 20th. Century, the abrupt cut with the appearance of Eichman in Hungary, and the postwar childlessness and dying off.