Winter is here ...

And personally, I'm freezing.

That was going to be my entire blog, but blogger decided that it couldn't process it, for some reason, so I'm writing more, just to fill in time.

Anyway, did I mention that I'm freezing yet?

Idan has a succinct post that sums it up, really.

Today I went out and bought sweaters. Three. And a new pair of jeans. And some undershirts. And a button down shirt (because, well, you've got to). Oh, and a pair of shoes.

Later on this evening I discovered that things are so often not what they seem. Even when they seem it really, really clearly, they are still, sometimes, just not what they seem. And even more cryptically, perhaps, sometimes (or so it would appear) ping pong is just, well, ping pong.

More's the pity perhaps, but there you have it.

Freezing? Did I mention that yet?

...

Commenting

Ok, I can't seem to comment for now on blogger blogs that have gone beta, apparently because beta is going alpha (or gamma) (or whichever way these things work - I have no idea which it is) and so in the meantime, my blog (which uses a format best described as 'sug zayin'*) is, apparently, incompatible. That is the only logical reason I can think of for this particular fault - and blogger's help page (the blogger buzz) doesn't even mention this as a possible problem. All it says is that sometime in the indeterminate future, all blogs will be new version (alpha or gamma or epsilon or whatever), including sug zayin blogs like mine.

I wonder whether blogger beta users can post comments here? And I wonder how I will know if they can't ... :)

In cyberspace, no one can hear you scream ...

____________________
* sug zayin is a pun on sug bet which in Hebrew means 'second class', bet being the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet. zayin is the seventh letter of the alphabet, but is also, essentially the word for 'dick' (of the phallic variety), so sug zayin is basically used to describe something that's really been fucked over (pardon my Latin).

On Recapturing Rapists ...

Yudit, over in Yafo, wrote an interesting post about her views on the capture of escaped serial rapist, Benny Sela. I was going to comment on her post, but my comment got too long, so I decided to post it here instead (apologies, Yudit!).

One of the things I found distasteful about the whole affair was the way in which it sort of absolved everyone else. All of a sudden, the country is full of angels looking for that ultimate evil: Benny Sela - unkempt, unshaven and looking menacingly at us from billboards around the country. So long as he was a fugitive, no-one was safe. Now that he has been recaptured, everything is dandy.

I heard about the recapture by word-of-mouth. I saw the police congratulating themselves for finding someone who should never have gotten lost in the first place, late last night on tv.

So the police who caught him did a good job. You can't argue against that. Certainly, they did a much better job than the police who lost him two weeks ago to the day.

However, his recapture is nothing more than the rectification of a huge blunder. It is nothing short of simply what should have been done. There should be no parties involved, and there should be no self-congratulation. World order has not been restored.

And what is more, he's only one rapist. Yes, he had many victims, but he's hardly alone. There are, unfortunately, countless others - many of whom even operate within their own families, and many who will possibly never be caught.

In a country where the President is under serious investigation for rape, and the Justice Minister for sexual assault, we should not be so naive as to think that by recaputring one serial rapist, we have, in any way, solved a problem.

Ack, I've been tagged!

Who knew that blogging would be all about these meme thingies.

The vonderful Noorster has tagged me, and it would be amiss of me not to play along. So along I play ...

1. Grab the book closest to you.
2. Open to page 123, scroll down to the 5th sentence
3. Post the text of next 3 sentences on your blog
4. Name of the book and the author
5. Tag 3 People

Ah.

1. The book closest to me is in fact the Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language, by Klein. Not exactly a novel, and not exactly written, as it were, in sentences. So, instead I turn to the book that is next to my bed (which is not quite next to me, but is next to where I would prefer to be most of the time, so it almost counts).

2. P. 123. 5th sentence:

3.

'Tell me what you think I'm thinking.'
'I think you're thinking it's time we got off this ship.'
'I think you're right,' said Zaphod.

4. Yes, all you clever people out there who guessed, I'm reading (once again) The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, by Douglas Adams, having just finished reading (once again) The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. There was a time when I would read the entire H2G2 series at least once a year, to the point where I could actually recite most of them. That was the period of time that I now like to call When I Didn't Have A Life. Fortunately, though, even though I do now have a life (at least, demonstrably) (I do, really ...), I still find Douglas Adams amusing, although I am less inclined, these days, to laugh out loud - it tends to frighten the dog.

5. Tagging will once again be by the honor system, as is my wont, however, there is a catch this time: I would like you to tag yourselves alphabetically. I'm trusting you to get this right. Now, who's handle begins with an A ... ?