I woke up around 1:30, and turned the radio on. I hear that the attack on Israel by Hamas was predicted by many IDF soldiers, who were women, who tried and tried to warn their commanders that Hamas was planning something big. There's a "macho" culture in the IDF apparently, and the women were ignored.
This is a case of a very bad thing, Hellenism. Hellenism is to "be like the Romans" the Romans of course being very big on the macho thing. Come on, Israel! We just celebrated Purim, which celebrates a woman saving the whole Jewish people! For shame!
If the story's getting all the way out to US radio, I'm sure they're very seriously examining themselves in Israel. Jews got attacked for, in aggregate, acting less Jewish.
I feel like I really beat myself up for $36 yesterday. Should have just gone up to the Campbell Whole Foods as per my original plan. I need a good hat for the sun though. Probably ought to get another "boonie hat" in a light color.
I've been thinking about how much the world I'm in has changed in the last 10 years. In 2014, Nazism was *not* in fashion, I felt I could go and live in any state or territory of the US and be fine. I'd be fine going to any college. There was no reason at all to even contemplate leaving the US, although I think at that time I wished I'd known to leave for Europe, France particularly, as a 20-something and "wetback it" until I'd been there lone enough to become a citizen. In my 20s I could do any work, pick grapes all day or whatever. But this was simply because of France's good health care and quality of life. Now of course France is off-limits.
Only one country, Israel, is a possibility for me if I decide to leave the US. Most of the US itself is off-limits.
I packed big things and small things alike, in order, so none of them would go "overdue". I took a load of the big things to FedEx, dashing into H Mart for some things, and also buying some more paper at FedEx. So the $75 in my pocket changed into $47.
I found some good packing stuff, and stopped by Tom's because the place next door often throws out whole bags of good packing foam sheet but this week there was nothing and Tom was out.
I got back here, did some parking lot cleanup, and settled down to eat smoked salmon, hummus with za'atar, and celery. In the case of the hummus, I added some tahini and water and lemon juice and mixed well, making it a nice light, smooth, hummus. And put a liberal amount of za'atar and olive oil on top. It came out great.
Still no word from my sisters. When I was a kid, I used to sneak into my older sister's room and borrow books. She had all the "smart" books, Huxley and Salinger and Vonnegut and so on. I am not sure she read them of her own volition or because one had to, to keep up with the elite crowd in Punahou. I read them of my own volition.
Brave New World was the most striking. Written in the early 1930s, it described a completely "scientific" society where hedonism was the highest ideal and no one cared about each other other than on a very superficial level because no one ever had to. Also, one of the world insults one could be called if not *the* worst, was "viviparous". In other words, associating you with a biological animal, that gave birth and cared about its young. And my older sister used to call us younger kids, who were certainly not going to the hallowed Punahou, "Beasts".
In Brave New World, no one had to deal with pregnancy or childbirth as children were "decanted" from big jars or something (hey, this was written in 1931) and no one was ugly, or fat, or lonely, or anything other than the ideal. Everything was superficial and hedonism the highest ideal.
It all sounds sort of good, but this is fiction. It's not at all how the real world works. But I'm beginning to wonder if my older sister fully internalized that it is a work of fiction and not a description of the proper way to be? Out of the 5 of us there are no children. If we'd been raised Jewish, I'm pretty sure that the 5 of us would have found a way to raise a few kids at least, everyone pitching in.
Somehow I think my older sister may have thought of Brave New World as a sort of manual of how to live. As for the rest, I doubt they've read it or even heard of it but I think of Brave New World as the work of a genius who saw the way American society was going. They didn't have to read it, just living in the US will assure almost anyone that the highest ideal is wealth, power, and hedonism and the best course of action to run right over anyone who stands in your way.
Such people do *not* want to hear from what they'd consider a scolding sibling who might talk about other ways to live, might not actually care that much about money, and so on. Like the character "The savage" in Brave New World.
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