Latest Parries
April 2012
From Nokia N95 to iPhone 4S
Annoyances and upsets with the iPhone 4S have been more than offset by its screen, the silkiness of its surfaces, the camera, and the third-party market for both software and hardware.
February 2012
2001: A Space Odyssey: Dry, Juicy, Linear, Luminous
After they finished watching the Bond movies, I figured the next series John Gruber and Dan Benjamin would discuss on The Talk Show would be Stanley Kubrick’s oeuvre. But Gruber refused — too personal for podcasting, he said. Disappointed, I rewatched 2001.
January 2012
A Scheme of a Number of Friends
Instead of acknowledging the wisdom of leading from behind, the Right jumped on the Obama administration’s handling of Libya as yet another example of at best incompetence. They lost me there.
October 2011
The Mouse and the Cantilever
Steve Jobs we lost at the age of 56; when Frank Lloyd Wright reached that age it was still only 1923, the time of merely his second comeback with Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel.
March 2010
Friendship is for Weenies
It’s amazing, given the adulation he enjoyed elsewhere, that the Israeli public knew from the start not to trust this US President.
Before the Setup
Nobody from usesthis.com has asked me what my setup us, nor is likely to anytime soon. So I’m just going to mouth off here about it. But first, some background.
February 2010
Walter Russell Mead steps gingerly into the Wieseltier/Sullivan imbroglio
On the Leon Wieseltier/Andrew Sullivan spat, Walter Russell Mead seems to want to have his strudel and eat it too.
October 2009
My Hope: Obama’s Change
Defeat in the Olympics bid may focus the mind in the Oval Office where it should be: Afghanistan.
July 2009
At Modi’in Mall
There’s nothing else around here except empty desolate pretty hills. The Israel Trail passes by a bit to the west. It’s a hot July Wednesday morning. Things are reasonably busy. The shops are mostly franchises, almost all homegrown — Super-Pharm, Aroma, Tzomet Sfarim, Cup O’ Joe’s, LaMetayel, Mega, Fox, Castro, H&O.
Israel, the Bad So Far
I’m surprised at the general appearance of Tel Aviv folks. Yes, it’s hot, but people appear dressed as if they’re in, I don’t know, Be’er Sheva. And the people in Be’er Sheva, last time I was there, looked to me like they’re dressed for Gaza.
H ere in Britain the top of the national agenda should be Wimbledon but instead it has been fatal flooding, then botched terror attacks by foreign-born doctors, and now today the relief of BBC journalist Alan Johnston’s release from Gaza. Britain, the middling nationstate with the mightiest legacy, is as caught up in the whirlwind of jihad as Israel.
One newspaper column — in the Murdoch-owned Time no less, not The Guardian nor The Independent — tries to explain why a foreigner working in the NHS might become a terrorist.
Nowhere can inequality be so devastatingly stark as in a well-resourced British hospital where a well-fed patient, preparing to have her varicose veins removed, complains to an Iraqi doctor whose medic brother was killed for treating bomb victims back home; or a Malawian nurse whose young child died of an easily preventable disease; or a Zambian whose life expectancy at home would be lower then the age of the woman in the hospital bed – where she complains to these people treating her that the food sucks or she hasn’t got enough pillows or painkillers.
Ludicrous, eh? Admittedly, this is not mainstream, even if published in a mainstream newspaper.
As for Hamas, a very impressive job, getting this guy freed. Their first step in power has been a successful one. Though I saw a previous impressive sign: all the masks came off during media shots of them doing their thing — this one now directing traffic.
Today I’ve been indoors all day, the first time since returning from the US and entering our new place. Up to now I’ve been haunting the local cafes and pubs for internet access, but now the laptop’s picking up an unprotected wifi network here from the house! Great! Nonetheless, not leaving the house all day is the other extreme of discomfort from not having one’s own spot.
Since Davide was here to visit I’ve had a renewed taste for spaghetti. Hadn’t touched it in months but he conjured some up so quickly and easily and it was so tasty. I also pointed him to our moka (actually three of various sizes, all untouched since moving to the UK) and some coffee I’d brought from Italy that hadn’t been opened for six months, and I’d forgotten how good it is — mixed with milk it’s better than any Americano I’ve had at £1.50 a pop here around town. Also bought a finjan and Turkish coffee from the new Taj shop. Daniel’s influence — it’s the only coffee he makes at home.
Meanwhile I’m warming perhaps to the new home. It’s substantially bigger and I actually have a room to myself for the first time since Sapir. It’s pretty barren without the dogs mind you, and wall-to-wall carpeting is despicable. But the outside is nice. Whereas in the previous place I had a patch of sky to look up to, I now have a long narrow strip — the entire block of back yards. And once again I have a place that’s quiet for birds and trees and seagull racket. Though at the front of the street there’s the occasional shockingly loud sound of people as they pass by while speaking. Yet we’re in the centre of Brighton, a significant enough town to appear on the weather map on TV — the next town over that appears is Southampton. So that’s good.
GTD goes well. Everything work-related is being collected and I’m being reminded of tasks at the proper time — hey it’s only taken me a decade to get in order.
Happy birthday, America. 231 today!
Previously
The Soft Ache of Cold Hotels
Nextly
Busy, Busy City