I am doomed

I have to reduce my weight by some 30 kg to survive a little more. I did it more than once but always gained back the fat loss and some more. Mood: Fakir-esque. Depressed. 

"Bassa"

 

Bassa means swamp or just depression in the Hebrew/Arabic lingo we speak here. I am a bit depressed because it was discovered that I suffer from BP.

Dear Wife is angry. She says that I don't see her. That no one sees her. She has chronic backache. I am trying to be nice to her. 

Persia

TAHAL worked in Iran till the fall of the Shah and I remember that in the general assembly of that year, the employees that escaped were celebrated. I talked with the agricultural - irrigation experts and they had a rather poor opinion of the local farmers. Iran, then, was considered underdeveloped. 

Now they are saying they will burn Tel Aviv and Haifa. One paper even published a map with the targets - it includes Hebron and Ramallah. It is part of the negotiations in Vienna, which seem to go well. The Brits, this time, are with us: 

 "This is the last chance for Iran to come to the negotiating table with a serious resolution to this issue, which has to be agreeing to the terms of the JCPOA," said Truss, adding, "This is their last chance and it is vital that they do so. We will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon."

A line in the sand

 I bought Barr's book and I painfully am reading it. It is long, detailed, and complicated. It tells the seventy years of English (and French) conflict in the Middle East to divide the Turkish possessions after WWI. The English intelligence officer, the faintly feminine T.E. Lawrence created the Arab national movement (paying off lots of gold) which twenty years later the Brits had to put down (more gold and 100,000 "rations" = soldiers). They still subsidize the Kingdom of Jordan, to keep Lawrence's promise of a kingdom for Faisal and Abdullah. 

It is rather surprising the difficulties of the British (and French) armies in eliminating irregular Arab forces in Syria, Lebanon, and of course Palestine. Israel, once established, fought against the same forces and, apparently without too much effort, Ariel Sharon (*) conquered Beirut in two days and we ruled South Lebanon for a decade. I don't know the secret but we are different.     

(*) and moi. I was there. 

Commenter TIM in Amazon resumes: None of the actors come out of this well. The squabbling, fading empires of France and Britain are at the heart of it all, both obsessed with maintaining their place in the world at the expense of the Arabs. The Arabs themselves come across as bumbling and incompetent, except for perhaps the Druze and Bedu, but they are all riven by petty infighting that allows the "great powers" to maintain control of their lands. The Zionists come later to the story as ruthless killers and extremists - founding a country, etc.  

Amira's Honor

 سبحان الله !....الشعب الفلسطيني المسكين المحتل المهجر المشرد المتآمر عليه دوليا و إقليميا و حتى عربيا من طرف بعض الأنظمة العربية المطبعة الخائنة ، وصلت بهم الدرجة التشكيك في "شرف و عرض " الشعب الفلسطيني ! تحياتي لكل شريف فلسطيني  و شريفة

Glory be to God!...the miserable, occupied, displaced Palestinian people, that were conspired against internationally, regionally, and even in the Arab world, by the treacherous media, have reached the low point that its very honor is being questioned! Greetings to every honest and honorable Palestinian! 

The reactions to the Egyptian film Amira have been very emotional. Above is one comment. (The translation is mine). The story is about a prisoner's sperm being smuggled out by a guard, who substitutes the sperm with his own. Since hundreds of children were born this way, the film undermines the honor and the morale of the Palestinians. 

Rotten tomatoes writes:

Amira is a highly contrived, ridiculous melodrama seeping with endless implausible details that rob the story of any credibility it may have had. The biggest crime of the film though is its portrayal of Palestinian society.

The community of Amira - essentially a microcosm of Palestine as the film implies - is a band of freaks: a company of sexist brutes with not an ounce of empathy in their souls. The Palestine of Amira is a conservative, hypocritical place populated by merciless patriarchs only concerned with preserving their honor rather than safeguarding the daughter who grew with them and among them; a daughter who had no hand in the great shame they plaster her with.

This is an insultingly regressive, bafflingly over-simplified, imprudently outdated treatment of a Palestine clearly concocted by an outsider. Its take on identity is shallow and largely underexplored; its depiction of the downgraded status of women in middle-class families is Victorian in essence. At a time when the evolving discourse around women's rights across the region has shifted towards body integrity and equal rights, Diab is still stuck on honor and virginity.

Cultural Origins of Demographic Transition

 

The mystery is perfectly explained in this research paper by Guillaume Blanc, Brown University. It is secularization. Everywhere. Always. 

Dollar Inflation > 7% p.a.

 

Much of the world's gold is in India. Unfortunately, we use the dollar, which in 2021 lost 7% of its worth. One could even say that the American Government expropriated 7% of the world's dollar income to spend it on public programs, such as food stamps. Also in keeping open and safe sea and air routes. Next year the dollar interest rate will jump from zero to 10-15%. Many will lose their savings.