irony

today began with a two hour lecture on irony. our professor was amused when i approached afterwards to share my adoration for the sheer brilliance of alanis morissette's ironic: it is precisely due to the fact the song contains absolutely no irony whatsoever that it is a most perfect specimen of irony.

i was misquoted today: i said "paper-mâché is the perfect combination of journalism and art."
in hebrew, that last word's a bit difficult to hear sometimes: "paper-mâché is the perfect combination of journalism and masturbation." that's not what i was getting at, it's disgusting and amusingly accurate.

after lunch with pg, i sat with wordsworth over my manifesto and accepted his most constructive criticism: it wasn't written seriously enough, and the modifications make just enough of a difference... it should be published in the missing slate soon; that's a surprisingly interesting magazine that i'd never heard of.

i was caught up in our university's magazine ("teza", or "thesis") on my way to work - i'm shocked at how readable it is for someone who doesn't enjoy reading hebrew. they have some interesting things to say, it seems.

i walked into work, requested some of my next month's salary up front (damn you, israeli internet / cable companies!), began working on a task manager and then entered a meeting about installing servers.

during the meeting i was attacked with sage advice: not only regarding server installation, but also concerning programming habits. i've become used to reinventing the wheel over here, and as the server i'm setting up is to become our very first testing environment i can actually go wild (whooooo!!!) and play around with helper applications. like off-the-shelf task managers.

it's like i'm living in the future, man.

i've spent the rest of the day downloading all the software and setting up the server... but i've hit a dead end. that's what asking a programmer to do a techie's job will get you.

and i gotta go soon - pg and i are celebrating five whole months together. ridiculous :D

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as i mentioned yesterday, facebook is my news source. this morning, while one of the girls in class was laughing at me about my delayed earthquake awareness, i informed her about the horrors of the day - which i'd discovered through facebook. sometimes, it's not nice to be the first to know...

the message i received that alerted me to the news:
a family was murdered in cold blood as they slept. the killer entered their home and slit their throats, then left. among the victims were a four year old boy who was stabbed in the heart and his baby three month old sister who had her throat slashed. their parents and their 11 year old brother were also viciously stabbed and murdered. hours later, on the streets of gaza and the west bank there was celebration in response to this heinous crime.

the victims were rabbi and IDF tank unit officer udi fogel, his wife ruth, 11-year-old yoav, four-year-old elad and three-month-old hadas. the palestinian authority, israel’s “peace” partners seem to be in no hurry to condemn this abominable act. instead, PA leader, mahmoud abbas stated ambiguously, "violence will only bring more violence – we must hurry to find a comprehensive, just solution to the conflict.” just what does this mean?

where is goldstone and the UN now? where are the international press who are so quick to demonize every action of the state of israel. there have been no international headlines reporting this. will a response to this go just as unnoticed? the answer is ‘NO’.

our government needs to respond harsh and swiftly without fear of international opinion. international opinion against israel and the jews is already at an all time low. now is not the time to be concerned with what the world thinks about how we defend ourselves and survive. if this goes unpunished, we will be seen as even weaker than we already are.

only last week, it was reported in the press, how a new mini-series currently showing in britain, portrays israel in a completely biased light showing israeli soldiers as blood-thirsty, while the palestinians were mostly in the role of helpless victims. the show received an audience of two million people. this is completely reminiscent of nazi german propaganda in the 1930’s. history is repeating itself at an astonishing rate.

condemnation is not required, action is the answer. to begin, these words need to be repeated and repeated until they are heard and action is carried out.

this update is what i read after seeing the above. i didn't need to see the pictures (although i did, and they're horrific). i certainly won't be passing them along.

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and like any news source: the humourous mail saved for after the tragedy. i recently received an email from a friend of a friend who i was once in touch with, and couldn't for the life of me remember what we discussed.

[...]
my boss has asked me instead to help him with the optimization of his daughter's website.
this is a whole new field that i am trying to get to grips with and there are plenty of hurdles and pitfalls but i am beginning to understand the basics. following courses and reading books is one thing but from time to time one does need someone to ask a technical question. {the gemarra teaches us that one should choose a rebbi for himself}
[...]
i do not expect you to do this for free
[...]

i did put a bit of thought into the response:
[...]
i'd suggest you wait until you hit that end-of-the-world brick wall before seeking assistance from an offline source - there is so much material online that you're not going to find a single "expert" who knows more than you can find out with a simple google search and five minutes of reading.

i'm pretty sure the gemarrah doesn't include a section on apache servers - i'd stick to the free and abundant advice online before finding myself a rebbe :)
[...]

that, plus a politely worded response to my muslim "friend" from india - who keeps trying to convince me that embracing islam is only a logical next-step for any upstanding christian - suggesting that he get educated before we continue the debate...

so i think my karma's good for today.