On the road again...

I'm traveling again, for simchas , also to visit kids and grandchildren, laden with gifts etc. Melbourne airport is not bad but, as with every airport, the security lines are interminable. Now they have body scanners. Also random checks for explosive residue. A blessing: unlike the US, you don't have to take you shoes off. That slows things down even more as we fat westerners struggle to get them on and off. But they are really strict about carrying liquids. Anyway.
Every time I'm in these lines I reflect on why we have to do this. Who made it all necessary?
Why can we not carry on board as much as a pair of tweezers, let alone a Swiss Army knife or Leatherman, both of which I have had confiscated in the past? And for a while we all had plastic cutlery until someone came to their senses and realized that you could turn anything into a weapon. Well, of course that was after 9/11, where box cutters were put to lethal use.
Why are we not allowed to send luggage unaccompanied? Why is luggage X-rayed? Lockerbie. And why the shoes? Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. And the body scanner? Well, that's so we don't have to strip down to our undies because of the Nigerian underpants bomber who set himself on fire a few years back. And the liquids? Wasn't there a couple with a baby who were trying to assemble a bomb on board a flight using liquid disguised as baby formula? That just might be the sickest example of all. Lucky most of these people are idiots and got caught. Not so fortunate were those on Pan Am flight 103 in 1988, who were murdered by Libyan terrorists who were themselves not on the flight. Also not so fortunate was the airline itself which went belly-up soon after this atrocity.
And lest we forget the hijackings of the 70's which resulted in locked cockpits and the beginnings of all the security measures.
But what is the one thing these crimes all have in common? Think hard! Right, they were all perpetrated by Muslims. Mostly Arab Muslims. Yep, they weren't Buddhists or Jews or Catholics or Falun Gong or Zoroastrians. Or IRA or ETA or Tamil Tigers. They were of various ethnicities perhaps, and different birthplaces, and at least one was a convert. To Islam, the religion of peace, excuse me while I choke on that lie.
But when it comes to the Middle East reportage, why is it always the Jews who are the meanies and the poor Arab Muslims who are the victims?
Something to think about. Gotta board now.

Siman tov umazel tov

I'm at a wedding and I shouldn't be posting because I've had a few mojitos, but I wanted to share my delight in the fact that two young Jewish people have committed to each other under the chuppah in front of two witnesses in the presence of a young Chabad rabbi. (Sorry, had to stop to eat a delicious little vegetarian quiche). There was a ring from the chossen to the kallah and she walked around the chossen 7 times. It was, in short, a 100% kosher orthodox chuppah. The reception is 100% kosher too.
Who cares if the song played after the chuppah was 'I Feel Good' by James Brown. Who cares that the bride wasn't as modestly dressed as I would prefer. Who cares that the bridesmaids ditto. And that nobody knew the Sheva Brachot apart from the grandfather of the bride who said the second one. The Chazzan said the rest. And who cares that he didn't have much of a voice for a Chazzan. Who cares that the parents of the groom were dancing together under the chuppah while waiting for the bride to come out. And who cares that half the guests aren't (obviously) Jewish and some of the ladies are dressed like ladies of the night and some if the men wouldn't know what a yarmulke was if it bit them. Who cares. And I see a lesbian couple here too. But it's a Jewish wedding.
A Jewish wedding. A Jewish couple.
The bride - a grandchild of Holocaust survivors. Their first grandchild whose wedding they have - the only word for it - achieved. Thank G-d.
And thank G-d for Chabad rabbis who , while being sensitive to the vibe of their largely not-very-religious congregation and while cracking jokes with the groom under the chuppah, insist on 100% kosher observances of all the holy laws of marriage. For I have seen too many chuppahs where the rabbi seemed to be pandering to the silliness of some couples rather than giving them much-needed direction and instruction.
Please G-d that the next generation should have such a wedding. I'm not sure of the chances but we can always hope.
I'm going to dance now. It's a real simcha, thank G-d.

DEAR NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EDITOR:

I always look forward to receiving National Geographic magazine, to which I have been a subscriber for 30 years. It is one of the few magazines I allowed into the house when my children were small. But when NG starts up with anything related to the Middle East, you can be sure that Israel will be getting a bashing. There were several articles in the past year or two that had my blood boiling, one on the separation fence, which basically accused Israel of creating a prison camp in Gaza and the West Bank (how I hate that term, it's Yehuda-Shomron, or Judea and Samaria; it's the biblical Jewish heartland, not the West Bank of the Jordan river. Let's call Jordan the East Bank then.) The other even more heinous article was in The Water Issue, again, accusing the Israelis of shutting off water to the Palestinians while they frolic in their swimming pools. Truly appalling 'journalism'. With great photos of course.

Anyway, I had to say something about this piece on the Gaza smuggling tunnels, but I know this letter is far too long to get published, I mean, where would they even start to edit? But I had to say something. So I thought I would share what I wrote. Of course I could have gone on for pages, I had a chunk about the 'Peace Flotilla' which was also mentioned in the article, but I had to stop somewhere. I regret not having the techspertise to actually publish the original article. Maybe check out NG's website.

Editor:

In the December 2012 issue of NG, there was, nestled between an article on Redwoods and another on Birds of Paradise, a piece on the Gaza smuggling tunnels. It is not the first time that NG has written about issues relating to the Israel-Arab conflict, and I do concede, this one wasn’t was as blatantly anti-Israel as some have been in the past (Separation fence and Water issue for example). So I am grateful for small things.

No doubt the regular Gazans have a terrible time of it, but it isn’t because the bad old Israelis are so mean to them. It is largely because Hamas, for whom the Palestinians voted in a travesty of an election, demolished the feeble democratoid structure that voted them in and established a theocratic terrorist state. Its charter quotes Koranic Hadiths in support of its goal, which is the destruction of Israel; anyone who bothers can read this charter. When the Israelis withdrew from Gaza, leaving their successful greenhouses fully operational along with international money to train the Arabs on how to maintain and profit from them, the first thing that the Arabs did, after destroying synagogues, was to loot and destroy the greenhouses. The article makes mention of ’abandoned Israeli settlements…their greenhouses lying in tatters’, but it doesn’t say who trashed them.

Only a careful, almost forensic reading yields any information as to why the Gazans are closed off in their ‘prison camp’ and why Israel and Egypt blockade Gaza. Only a cursory mention is made of the thousands of rockets which are sent into southern Israel’s towns on an almost daily basis, staunched temporarily by IDF actions such as Cast Lead and recently, Pillar of Defence. In between these 2 actions, Iran managed to supply Hamas, a proxy, with longer range missiles to bombard Israeli population centres, including Ashkelon, Ashdod and even Tel Aviv. How are these missiles getting into Gaza? Through the porous Egyptian border. Now that the Muslim Brotherhood has hijacked the Egyptian  ‘Arab Spring’ and Morsi has grabbed autocratic power, it remains to be seen how Egypt and Gaza will relate to each other. When Morsi, ludicrously, was appointed as mediator between Hamas and Israel in the ceasefire after Pillar of Defence, he solemnly swore to seal the border to weaponry into Gaza; then he took power and who knows what will be. Nothing good for Israel, I’m sure.

Another thing not mentioned is the tons of humanitarian aid which Israel sends in, and the water, and the fuel, and the electricity wired in from Ashkelon; yes, the same Ashkelon upon which missiles from Gaza rained in the past conflicts.

So why the aid? Because Israel keeps saying that its war is with Hamas, not the Palestinian people, however they can tell them apart. So why the tunnels? Because the Hamas kleptocracy commandeers the supplies. And because Israel is leery of sending in supplies which can be used for non-peaceful purposes. But it is Israel who ‘makes it extremely difficult and expensive for the UNRWA…-the source of life and livelihood for thousands of the 1.6 million Gazans- to import basic materials for rebuilding…’ UNWRA, the only ‘refugee relief’ agency which has not ever tried to solve the Palestinian ‘refugee problem’ but fosters it from generation to generation and pours international money into the coffers of the kleptocrats of both Hamas and Fatah. Every Palestinian would be a millionaire if the money hadn’t been squirreled away into Swiss bank accounts by Arafat and his cronies, Abbas included.  But that’s Israel’s fault too.

And that ‘a handful [!] of rockets are launched by young militants hired by local merchants whose profits would decline if Israel’s closure were further relaxed’ is not just ‘hideous enough to be believable’, it is an example of the mindset of the Arabs who are only too happy to terrorize Israeli families in the Negev even for no profit. And then when Israel finally retaliates, it is told to practice restraint, and that air strikes are ‘disproportionate’, while Hamas exults in the killing of not only Jews, but Gaza’s own citizens who are used as human shields by Hamas. Higher Gazan body counts equals more world disapproval of Israel. A double bind for Israel. 

When NG tries to take the complicated situation of the Arabs and Israelis and turn it into a piece of photo-journalism with a few sad human interest stories and half a background, it does itself a disservice. Really, stick to the trees and the birds and the mammoths and the mummies. Those articles are truly educational and enjoyable.

FORM-FILLING AND OTHER CURSES

I recently agreed to be part of a study of patients who had undergone laparascopic gastric banding, ie Lap-banding, for the treatment of obesity. I had the band in 2006 and lost 30kg (read previous post) but had review surgery in August this year because I was having terrible trouble with reflux. So now the reflux is cured, praise the Lord, but I have yet to lose any more weight, so I am having serial adjustments until we hit the ‘sweet spot’ where there is the balance between hunger and satiety, between food slipping down too easily and some sort of restriction which acts as a behaviour-modifier. Interestingly, the experience is quite different the second time around, partly I guess because I know more what to expect. But an odd thing has happened to me; I have developed what looks (and sounds) like IBS. Sure, in the past I might have had a bit of a wind problem, but nothing painful, no bloating etc. Now, OMG, some days I can’t be in the same room with anybody. I now understand those women who have babies without knowing they are pregnant, because they think that the baby’s kicking is ‘wind’. Well, I have that sort of wind now. If I didn’t know I wasn’t pregnant, I would wonder.

It’s as if I have suddenly become intolerant of fructose or lactose or everything with an –ose at the end, or who knows.  Whonose. G-dnose. (But no reflux, so I can sleep at night even though we have to keep the windows open.) Plus all sorts of shenanigans with bowels which I won’t bore you with.

Apparently, according to the GP who looks after me in the Centre for Bariatric Surgery in Glen Iris, this is not rare and should settle. But nobody seems to understand why this happens. We agreed that I should keep a food diary and maybe we can pinpoint the cause. She suggested MyFitnessPal app. This just looks at calories really, so not quite what I need, but I downloaded the app and have rediscovered that I am crap at food diaries, no matter how they are presented. And it’s easier with pencil and paper. Duh.

But all food diaries, provided one fills them in honestly, and that is a BIG if, are pretty confronting.

Before I had the band I had a whole training diary which I got from my personal trainer, and I was so stringent with everything I ate, drank and exercised, and I thought I was pretty good. I looked at the pages recently and I was shocked at how much I was eating. I eat a fraction of that now. Really, no wonder I’m such a fatty, without the restriction of the band and the fact that it does take away your hunger, I could eat infinitely. So I am eating a lot less than I used to, but it’s far from ideal. FAR, FAR from ideal. I do tend to eat –not to put too fine a point on it- crap. And now the question is, am I really intolerant of FODMAPS, or is this just a transient phase and will I just wait it out? I’m flying out in a few days so that will sure be a testing time. Is there anything worse for everybody concerned, than excessive gas on an airplane?

Meanwhile, I received a questionnaire in the mail from a researcher in the Bariatric Centre and it went on for pages and pages of multiple choice questions about physical and mental well-being. And they actually did ask about excessive wind, so maybe this really is a common problem after surgery.

The mental stuff was interesting because it was like ‘I have felt sad for no reason- never, hardly ever, sometimes, all the time’ in the last 2 weeks/4 weeks whatever, or ‘I have felt panicky and anxious’ or ‘I have felt like killing myself’ etc and the way they phrased it all, I just ticked never/never/never etc until I could see at the end that I scored zero. Which, in my experience, usually means that the client filling these forms out is in denial. So I went over it and I really didn’t change anything. I must be the happiest person around, which surprises me. But then, they weren’t asking have you EVER been sad etc for no reason, they were asking about the last 2 weeks. So I am delighted to say that, at least for the last 2 weeks, I have indeed been the happiest person around.

Oh yes, the ‘for no reason’ bit. Well, I have been completely pissed off FOR VERY GOOD REASON, several times in the past 2 weeks. For example, I was in despair when Julia Gillard bowed to the Greens and lost all moral authority, allowing Australia’s abstention vote on Nov 29 on upgrading ‘Palestine’ to observer status in the UN. And I was enraged to the point of ignition when Bob Carr called the Israeli ambassador, Yuval Rotem, for a dressing-down concerning Israel’s decision to build more homes in the E1 ‘settlement’ area (12km square, I believe, adjacent to Ma’alei Adumim, and anyone who calls that a ‘settlement’ hasn’t seen it). I didn’t see Carr call in the Syrian ambassador to express concerns about Assad mobilizing chemical weaponry to be used, I’m only guessing here, against his own citizens. Nor did I see any mention of calling the Egyptian ambassador to ask hard questions about Morsi’s self–empowerment and complete destruction of any nascent democratic process in Egypt. And no sirree, Carr had no desire to quiz the Iranian ambassador about obvious lies to the world about nuclear aspirations, threatening genocide and Holocaust denial. But give a Jew a hammer and a fistful of nails, and World Peace is threatened.

So that all made me pretty unhappy. But apart from the feeling that Armageddon is getting closer, I am officially a happy person.

Maybe there are worse things than a rogue fart.

GRANDCHILDREN: A time to sook, a time to be strong.

Yesterday I picked up my eldest grandchild from her ballet class. She is 7 and she is about to be in her first concert with her class of 8 little girls. She wasn’t quite finished when I came and she invited me in to watch her rehearsal.

She is tall and lean and leggy, and she has been learning ballet for only a few months, but she really looks the part with the white leotard and pink slippers and little crossover cardy. I don’t think that I will spoil anything by telling you that her dance is to ‘I want to be where the people are’ from The Little Mermaid, and she isn’t Ariel. She was tippy-toeing and wafting her arms around in the chorus and doing little jumps and knee bends (we used to call them petits jetes and plies and porte-de-bras, but I guess they don’t anymore) and I did what I usually do every time I see little kids trying so hard to do things that the teacher wants; I cried. I am such a sook, and anyone who knows me will think I am making this all up. After all, my own kids used to call me Mr Spock, for my lack of emotional demonstrativeness and my tendency to intellectualize away everything. And the other thing I used to do, which I deeply regret, was to be critical. I always felt that it was dishonest to gush over every little thing and that it would be more instructive for the child to know that, say, the piano playing wasn’t that great and it wouldn’t be great unless more practice was going to happen. Or the toe wasn’t pointed properly and the arms were a bit stiff. Here, do it like this! (I did ballet and tap for 6 years, from age 6-12, even though I was a heifer. RAD training, exams and medals and everything. But then I really was too fat and embarrassed to continue. Yet your body never forgets.) What I should have done was realized that my kids, in fact, most kids, are unlikely to actually become ballerinas or concert pianists, and they should just enjoy what they were doing, and I should stop trying to live my thwarted dreams through them and just praise, praise, praise. But even back then, put me in the audience and put a bunch of little kids on stage and get me the Kleenex box.

So the ballet chorus comprised little girls of different heights and sizes and abilities, and they all looked like little pure angels, and they were enjoying themselves, and I was sniffling away trying not to look like an idiot- this whole thing took not more than 5 minutes- and I got a bit of a quizzical look from my granddaughter. But she took it all in her stride and we went home and that was that.

Today I accompanied my daughter with her new baby to have his 6-week-old immunizations. He is Baruch HaShem, a lovely plump baby with beautiful smooth olive skin and dark eyes, and he is just starting to smile and coo; he is, in short, adorable.  Sure, he kvetches a bit and burps and farts like a navvy, but that’s to be expected.

I preface the next comments with a statement of the fact that I am strongly pro-vaccination. I have engaged in many an argument about vaccination and all I know is that I won’t change the mind of anyone who is strongly on the other side of the fence; maybe I have encouraged a few of those mums who are sitting on said fence to have their children immunized. Most vaccines are so effective that we have forgotten why we use them, because we just don’t see tetanus, diphtheria and polio anymore. We don’t see much measles or mumps, either the misery of the diseases or, more important, the complications and post-infective syndromes, such as encephalitis or sterility. We hardly see epiglottitis due to Hemophilus anymore, and that was a shocker. We don’t see many rubella-affected newborns, and the disaster that this is. I don’t intend to list every vaccine-preventable disease here. Yes, some vaccines are better and some are worse. Better approaches to pertussis immunization of carers means fewer unimmunized newborns are dying of whooping cough. 

Anyway, I’m not on a crusade here, that’s not what I’m writing about. I’m writing about how I wanted to grab the baby and run. And how the sight of the needle sinking into the plump little thigh and the absolutely affronted protest from the baby- twice! 2 jabs!- made me want to leap the vaccine fence and head for the hills. But I didn’t. He cried for a few seconds, had a bit of a breastfeed and fell asleep. He is fine. He will be fine, please G-d. He has been through worse, when he had his Brit Milah, and I am NOT NOT NOT going to get into any fights about that with anyone, not today, not tomorrow and not again. He is a beautiful Jewish baby and he will not die of tetanus or diphtheria or polio or any of these nasties. This is a lesson in the way of the world; there is Chessed- love, kindness- and there is Gevurah- strength, boundaries, discipline. It’s a balance. Through the Gevurah of the needle, he has the Chessed of the blessing of good health. That’s how I see it. You can choose to disagree.

So I got teary at a ballet concert rehearsal and I had a subdued panic attack at the doctor. This grandparenting caper ain’t for sissies.