2019

There were 163 posts published in 2019 (this is page 10 of 17).

How writers can get work done better with Git

Link

On the editing side, though I use and really prefer text editors and markdown, I had never thought to place every sentence on its own line (sentence = line). That simple idea in itself is kind of revolutionary and could do wonders for writing structure. Imagine if school children could be taught to write like that. It makes paragraph structure so much more transparent.

Have used pandoc, except that when you are working on a document with others who only know MS Word, early on in the process, it’s already gone into Word, and you aren’t going to keep converting it back.

I still need to read more carefully about using git. Since I’m not a programmer, I have only ever used it in installing or updating software (like hubzilla).

 

Modem Router

I’m returning the shiny new modem-router the phone company sent me and have bought a new one over the counter instead. The phone company’s modem came with a long contract that involved agreeing to all kinds of data collection. They can probably gather this anyway, but at least I don’t have to agree to it. My sons, who, I’m sure are smarter than me about such matters, say that they are already resigned to the fact that nothing we do online or offline is private anymore. My only response is that at least we should resist, even if our resistance isn’t effective. “Like Palestinians,” I say. “And where does it get them?” they respond. I suppose freedom is a state of mind. If we make choices, even when they are inconvenient, difficult or even dangerous, we grow in spirit. When we just accept the default options, we are cowed, enslaved, though we may not realise it. The awareness of our subjugation only comes when we begin to resist a system and sometimes get pushed into compromises. But small acts of resistance restore the sense of our integrity.

Paying attention

I’m thinking that our lives are like a rich field of individual moments and responses; interactions with persons, things, situations. Whatever way we find to allow these moments to reverberate in our consciousness permits the weaving of them into an intricate tapestry, that gives joy through its beauty and intelligence. Processing our experiences through private journals, or communicating them in social media or in direct conversation may help us in this patient weaving. The question of whether this takes the place of something greater or more unitary may eventually be a false dilemma. Some of the world’s creative geniuses neither wrote nor expressed themselves through any art. Others started out by writing a short poem that organically grew, without prior intention, into a major epic; still others left short haiku or sutras that together assume a similar grandeur. Life, the listening to life, and the sweet or discordant music that we are sometimes able to discover there and express, are not amenable to our egoistic manipulation. Our only responsibility is to pay attention, and not to sleepwalk through this divine comedy. And to love; to love and do what we want, and to leave the rest to the universe, and whether we bloom like a rose or stink like a stinkweed is not in our hands.

Visit to a Palestinian peace activist

Lewis’s description of the Narnia children coming home to dear old England, having had adventures beyond the conception of the people in their narrow world; or Tolkien’s description of Bilbo Baggins coming home to the Shire, where the only thing that matters is intrigues among neighbours who have known each other all their lives… ring true because they remind us of the things we hide from our own parents and circle of friends; or, if we do try to relate them, we know that what we say will go over the top of their heads and they will immediately resume the talk about matters that are more intelligible to them. And probably there are matters that my own kids don’t discuss with me, though they might talk about them with their friends. There is a bubble effect even among people who know one another well. Most Israelis live in a bubble. They could not imagine visiting Palestinians in the West Bank, while people are being shot at and killed.

On Friday, during a period of Palestinian strikes and “days of rage”, we went into the West Bank to visit a disabled Palestinian peace activist; a victim of the second Intifada – he had been shot on his doorstep by a soldier while trying to usher some children out of the firing zone. Since then he is in a wheel chair and paralyzed from the waist down. But he remains committed to peace and reconciliation. We had gone to see him with a visiting French Buddhist monk. Our friend took us on an outing to a lovely wadi where both Palestinians and Jewish settlers were out picnicking and enjoying the fine Spring weather; though keeping a bit of distance from one another.

Our friend’s village, and the two adjoining villages have three entries. At the first entry there was a group of soldiers preventing access. They were armed to the teeth and carrying several kilos of military equipment. They said that there had been three incidents of throwing stones and molotov cocktails and they had orders to the close the village. At the second entry there was simply a locked iron gate, and nobody to argue with. At the third entry; reached after a lengthy detour, there was another group of soldiers, but these could be persuaded to let people in. In our case, they said that it was legally forbidden for us to go in – they pointed to a large sign – but that we could do so on our own responsibility. We had been warned. (Israelis are normally permitted under Israeli law to enter Area B, unless it is declared a “closed military area”, due to local tensions, as was the case on the day of our visit).

On the way back to lunch at his house, our friend also took us to see someone who some of us also knew. He had built a fine new house – one of the largest in the village, perhaps. In order to pay for it, he was working two shifts a day at a Jewish settlement industrial park, and was up to his neck in debt. A week ago he had received a demolition order on the house. Although, when he purchased the land and built the place, it was in Area B (i.e. under Palestinian administrative control), a more recent aerial survey had moved the line, and the Israeli authorities had decided it was in Area C (under Israeli administrative control), and, since building by Palestinians is virtually never permitted in Area C, they had served him with the demolition order. He’s attempting to fight it legally, but the fate of the house will probably be the same as the various other demolished houses in the village. The time between receiving a demolition order and the bulldozers is usually about a month.

Our nice meal was cooked by our friend’s Jewish partner. His own wife died of cancer a year ago, leaving behind a family of five children. But a Jewish woman peace activist quickly stepped in to take her place . A brave woman indeed. She manages to speak to the kids and the villagers in her Egyptian Arabic. There are two or three other mixed couples like this in the area.

In the course of our discussion following the meal I asked our friend what he would tell his eldest son if he too decided to “throw stones” (I think we both understood I might mean something worse). He said carefully that it is “not for him to tell any Palestinian how to resist the Occupation”. Violence is not our friend’s way and, I think, not that of any of his children, but still, it would be their right to resort to violence, however ill advised this might be, or how badly it might turn out. (This reminds me of Aurobindo Ghose’s early essays against British rule in India.) The tension is very high just now. A settler and a soldier had recently been killed not far away from the village, while in Bethlehem there had just been a horrendous incident in which it looks as if soldiers were culpable.

We returned home in the evening. The iron gate at the village entrance was still locked; but the soldiers had gone from the other one. A temporary peace had returned to our friend’s village. My wife was able to visit on Sunday with the other Buddhist monks and nuns for the bi-weekly meditation and meditation meeting in our friend’s home. The whole country is tense, however; a missile fell on a family home north of Tel Aviv; Netanyahu returned home from the US; reprisal attacks took place across Gaza; Palestinian rockets continued to be launched, and the army is today sending another infantry brigade and artillery battalion to the Gaza border. We’re a couple of weeks away from a general election.

Renting a car in Italy

Renting a car is relatively cheap in Italy but as a foreigner it seems to be almost impossible to drive there without receiving a fine for infractions of which one is not aware of committing. Cameras are everywhere, and fines, by the time they reach you back home are quite high, together with the additional cost of information being sent by the rental car company. The rental car companies also charge high amounts for the least nick or scratch. If possible it’s best to rely on public transportation or take taxis while in that country.

Violence

With mass killings spreading around the world as they are it seems like there’s a kind of international civil war going on. Except that till now it’s being waged by people mainly on the fringes radicalized by hate propaganda, or in some parts of the world by mobs who are either gullible or eager to attack neighbours of another caste or religion. But there are all kinds of ways that this can and probably will get worse:
– the internet and technology make it easier than ever to buy or create weapons that kill a lot of people.
– Overpopulation makes for easier targets.
– Finding people with similar beliefs and organizing was never easier.
– the disparity between rich and poor is growing; the failures of capitalism and neo-liberalism are causing explosive social pressures
– climate change, population density, resource scarcity and all kinds of other problems are also likely to raise the threat of violence.

I don’t think that governments can contain these pressures through anti-terrorism measures, surveillance, gun control, etc. any more than they can control ordinary social problems through policing. Trying to cap popular anger through authoritarian control never works in the long run.
Since the problems that we face are probably unsolvable, the best that governments can do is probably to admit that and make a convincing case that we are in it together and will work together; the greater the feeling of community, the more this will be effective.

chickpeas

An article in Haaretz about etymology got me looking into chickpeas. There are apparently about 90 varieties of this legume. It’s known that from ancient times it was used around the Middle East, Turkey and eastern Europe. In Jericho it existed before the age of pottery, but it’s thought that the plant may have come from Turkey. In India the local variety, known as chana dhal, looks similar in size and colour to yellow split peas (dhal meaning “halved” in Sanskrit, refers to any split legume). However, that’s the Desi chana dhal. Indians also knew the Kabuli (i.e. Afghan) variety that is a bit larger and a different colour. Finally, from the west, the modern large variety arrived, and I have seen this also sold as chana dhal in shops. In India, chana dhal is an ingredient in many dishes, including Mysore pak – which is a sweet sold alongside burfi and ladoo and halwa in many sweet shops.

Around the world chickpeas have a variety of uses. In the Middle East it’s cooked and mashed to make Humus and is the main ingredient in Felafel. It turns out the original Hebrew word was “afon”, which seems to derive from its shape. “Afon” means a little nose, and apparently references the small knob on the bean. Afon was dropped in modern Hebrew in preference to the Arabic word “humus”, and today the only similar Hebrew word to “Afon” is “afuna” which means a green pea. “Humus”, however, may have come from the Aramaic word for the chickpea, which was “himtza” or “hemetz”. “homtza” in modern Hebrew means “acid”. Apparently if chickpeas are harvested by hand, the action causes chemical burns to the skin.

It’s so wet out, it seems I can’t walk around at night without killing snails, poor things.