July 20, 2011 You realize that they're rioting in the streets here - the doctors are demonstrating outside Ichilov to protest the situations in the hospitals, assorted but numerous citizens sleeping in tents in the avenues protesting the inability of young people to support themselves, and the government is worried about investigating the funding of leftist organizations. Where are the mayors? Where are the politicians?
July 21, 2011 In case you get an apartment out of this, here are some poems for your shower curtain. July 22, 2011 On Thursday Ezi had a cataract operation on his only eye. It was at Assuta - we got there at 10 and were home by 2. Test messages announced to me that he was being operated on (I was waiting in th recovery room) and then that he was out. Today he went to the surgeon. While we were celebrating Omer's birthday at Pappas, the hospital called to see how he was, and make sure he has the emergency number. It's 'private medicine' but connected to the health clinic. Now if only the lymphoma people at Ichilov pick up this system we'll be set. But public health care is so underfunded and overworked... well you know how it is. And since we're on the topic of funding, read about Naomi Hazan. She is amazing in her determination and stamina to fight the war for freedom and sanity in this country. My parents admired her parents very much - that sounds like a little footnote, but as I recall they introduced me to them once or twice and I was struck then by their dignity and devotion to the cause of Zionism. The generation of the Harmons determined my ideology and are the reason I'm here. July 23, 2011 "They tried to make me go to rehab...I said no, no, no." Amy Winehouse always reminded me of the amazingly talented Victorian poet Amy Levy, and now she too is dead at 27. Amy Levy "took gas" and Amy Winehouse's death is "unexplained" but suicide here is only a matter of degree. Just as I always mourned Amy Levy's death for the potential she had to develop the image and the self-awareness of her people as well as for the works she might have written, I mourn Amy Winehouse. But more than that - I miss her. July 24, 2011 Al-Jazeera shows - Norway - was happening all along and we didn't pay attention. We never notice what's going on until it's over.