Tel Aviv Diary

Karen Alkalay-Gut,October 3-7, 2012

October 3, 2012

Not only did we not get the computer fixed yesterday but my backup refused to connect to cyberspace. After all my predictions all day that in the near future our lives will be totally dependent on electronics and then someone will pull the plug, it happened... It took me a night of fiddling and thinking to restore it. And hopefully today the technician at the factory will talk us through restoring the newer one and I'll be back in business. At the moment I'm limping my way through paperwork.

October 4, 2012

Watch the sleight of hand. At the moment we are told that there will be elections on February 12m 2013, but I have no doubt the date will be moved. Back a month, for3ward a month - not sure yet, but definitely at the moment the other parties will be off guard. And the election process will be fast. The time period will be lightning quick and under great pressure.

Meanwhile I can't go a day without thinking of my familys' house, in the middle of Tel Aviv. "Where do I go in case of an attack?" my sister-in-law asked at city hall - because she, like most people in Tel Aviv, doesn't have a shelter. "The nearest school," she was told, which is far too far for her to get to in case of an emergency. It's about a ten minute walk. Now that's what should have been taken care of instead of planning mobile elections to ensure victory

But I'm old fashioned.

October 4, 2012

Because this is the anniversary of my second wedding with my second husband, I am thinking a lot about relationships and identity. That is, how a person is a different person with different people. I think my enitre personality changed with the different husbands - in great part because of very tiny details that encouraged one kind of behavior rather than another. I think this is true of government as well - that with the right environment any leader can be good, and with the wrong environment even the best leader can be terrible. Obama, for instance, could be doing so much were it not for the hostile government he works with, and even Bibi could be a much more enlightened leader if he had a coalition that operated legally and cooperatively rather than subversively and antagonisticly(?). Some relationships give positive guidance and some do not.

October 5, 2012

an old-old computer makes it possible to write but impossible to write well. Can't adjust the size of the screen, fonts, can't move back and forth from screen to screen. And yet to you it may appear the same. It makes me think of how so many journalists write and sweat over stories of tycoons and riches and high fashion, in their lonely bare rooms. I know journalists who sleep on matresses on stone floors and write for slick upper-middle-class audiences. But I digress. What I really mean is that you never know what's behind the information you're getting.

October 6, 2012

To return to relationships and government, when Obama began his debate with congratulating his wife on their anniversay, I began to think of the first requirement for a good marriage, politeness. And how politeness used to be taught in school, at home, and in general society. Maybe if women were making the rules, we'd be more considerate of each other in government. The Palestinians are attempting it now: All Female Party to Run in Palestinian Elections. Wish we would do it.

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