The Art Of Not Asking Why

Sinwar is dead, and Israel’s Netanyahu is offering a “pardon” for Hammas terrorists if they release the hostages. This is good, and I’m glad to see this statement in English, but it’s not enough.

Israel was never too good at explaining itself to the rest of the world, and the war in Gaza (and in Lebanon) is just another example. Many people do not understand the details, and some don’t even know why Israel went to war to begin with. Once again, Israel leads two steps in the direction of war and half a step in the direction of peace.

There’s no question: the hostages must be returned. But instead of waiting for whatever leaderless fractions remains of Hamas in Gaza to take the initiative, Israel should step in.

Sinwar is dead, and Hamas is in shambles. Gaza is a hip of rubble, with thousands dead and millions without a home. It’s time to stop the onslaught and step in with humanitarian aid. It’s time to call other Arab nations - and the US - to step in and help the Palestinians to get the freedom so many Americans and Europeans feel they deserve (I don’t believe the Palestinians in Gaza can care about freedom at this point; they are to concerned with surviving the next day). The Arab nations will fail and argue among themselves because they don’t care. They never did. The US might draw some plans to look good for the elections, with both sides having different versions. And Israel will pull up its sleeves: “Well, if no one’s gonna do it…” and get to work. Yes, while the hostages are still in the tunnels. While the world is still screaming about genocide. Israel can still maintain an army presence to protect a project like this while still looking for the hostages. One does not prevent the other.

This is the chance to move forward and show everyone another side to Israel. It’s the chance for Netanyahu to step forward and tell his blood-thirsty right-wing Ben Gvir and Smotrich monsters-ministers to put a sock in it. It’s time to show the Palestinians that Israel can offer a better alternative than Hamas ever could. It’s not that hard: the houses Israel will erect will not come with built-in tunnel entrances in children’s bedrooms, and the mosques will not come complete with weapons stockpiles in their basements.

Everyone will yell. It will look like an absolute shit show. But if Israel keeps at it, just like it kept with the war, something amazing will eventually happen. People will see that the only way to do something is to do something and not just talk about it. Hamas will be destroyed because it will stop having a reason to exist. And maybe, just maybe, after years of work with help from other nations that will slowly join, Palestine will be free, with support from everyone, including the Israelis right next door who won’t go anywhere - not the river, and not the sea.

Breakfast is veggie lasagna with a glass of intense juice at a local French cafe. A walk with a fluffy dog is next on the agenda.

Note to self, again: don’t write long posts. It doesn’t work well, especially after not blogging for several days. Short posts already take enough time between writing, editing, uploading photos, checking links, and spreading the word. Long posts never see the light of day. Split ‘em.

I don’t know Bob yet, but this place smells nice 🥯and it is much cheaper than flying to NYC, for sure ☺️

I’m up. Way too early for Seattle, but normal for New York. I’m ready to make coffee and ready to work, jump on my emails, fill up my schedule, drop down to pushups.

I don’t understand this time off. I’m not sure I like it just yet. What is happening?

Extra money for priority boarding. Buy lunch on the plane if you want more than crackers and juice. Pay up if you want space so your knees don’t touch the seats in front of you. Faster WiFi that allows you to work is premium.

And ads. Ads everywhere. On the walls of the jetway, on the terminal top walls, when you have to see them as you slowly zigzag in line to the security check. Before movies. After movies. On brochures.

Services are crappy in advance, so you have to pay your way out of the imposed sub-minimum. Sad.

We arrived. Krickland feels colder than New York, probably because of the humidity next to Washington Lake. It’s a chill kind of evening here, with no obligations. My stomach is full, and I’m ready to go to bed, but it’s too early for me in this time zone.

We’re headed to Seattle tomorrow to meet friends. I’m excited to have a camera with me in a place I don’t know again, and I could use some time off.

Today, I broke down and wrote in my Emacs journal instead of my written one for the first time in over a year. There was just too much to write, and there were too many places I wanted to mention and link to, something I can do easily with Emacs OSM package, as I mentioned before. There was resistance at first since I was writing something personal since Emacs is not as intimate as my notebook, but the words came flowing soon enough. I’m glad I did it this way. We’ll see if I switch back or not; I’m not sure at this point.

On the other hand, I almost finished my pocket notebook and I’m ready to start a new one. It’s been good. I like that I can open it and look through my various reminders and notes and start working on things I need whenever.

Jason Becker]] writes that that the situation in Israel is not simple for him, and it frustrates him when people pretend it is:

how angry I felt toward Americans who overnight felt like they were experts on this conflict. What little I could say is “a whole lot of people seem to think that this is all very simple and clear – simple and clear what the United States should do and what Israel should do– and anyone who has ever spent any time understanding the Middle East would not be so sure.”

As an American-Israeli with most of his family still in Israel, I feel the same way. In fact, these days, I automatically block/ignore anyone new who has some sort of “free Palestine” or its equivalent emoji on their blog or a pin on themselves. The notion that you can reduce what’s going on to a mere pin on a bag or an emoji is infuriating.

I hate car horns so much sometimes. Someone was blocked in the street, and they leaned into their horn for half a minute (after that, I put on my noise-canceling headset).

What’s the dea,l you think they’ll move from the soundwaves? Do you have to make it my problem too at 07:30 AM?

I said I’ll do it, but I finally did: macOS Sequoia. My main concern is dealing with the permissions (as described here among other places).

I ran and upgraded Homebrew and its various packages with no issues. Emacs however seemed to have “forgotten” how to access the Desktop. Looking into this.

For Halloween, I decided to get parts 1 and 2 and see if I could finish it this time. The game 🎮 is beautifully animated and creepy. It does indeed feel like a kid’s nightmare.

I wrote about writing thoughts down vs typing them before, and this morning, I did another round. There are quite a few things that repeat, but some are new.

I forget who explained it and where, but when I looked into notebooks 📓 again, that person said that writing something down in a notebook is not supposed to be as easy as saying, “Siri, remind me to,” because it acts as a delicate filter for stupid things. If you really need to remember something, you will reach for the notebook and write it down. Because it’s important enough to write it down, most chances are you’re going to remember it anyway without looking into your notebook 🖊️. It might sound counterproductive, but I enjoy the ability to recall things I’m supposed to do when I take a break from an active task I’m doing.

The notebook also “cuts the crap” with all the apps available: what should you use? Reminders? Notes? Beorg for Emacs? Calendar? No such thing with the notebook. You write it down, and that’s that.

Another somewhat odd benefit of the notebook is privacy. Sure, you can encrypt your notes, and as long as you use a custom ROM on an Android and something like syncthing you don’t depended on “the cloud,” but that’s a pretty hefty setup for something as simple as a quick grocery list, no? And as soon as you start thinking, well, maybe the grocery list can go somewhere else, you’re starting to break the Notebook idea down because then it’s not all in one place.

A notebook doesn’t depend on the whims of a developer and the features they choose to include or exclude. I drew a table in the picture above; call me crazy, but I could swear Apple Notes didn’t always support it. Some apps support it, some don’t. I can always find something to use for tables later, if the table is important for the note I’m going to save, but I don’t want to be bothered about what an app supports and what it doesn’t when I need to write something quick. A notebook also doesn’t go away, get bought, or change how it works like Evernote did on me back in the day. Even Emacs, as stable and as available as it is, is out of my control. There’s a comfort in a notebook that it won’t go anywhere.

Here’s a page featuring videos showing the differences between rainfalls, from 1.5 down to inches to 0.05 inches. Useful!