I haven’t been writing for the past few days because I had a backache and a stomachache.  Normally I would make a special effort to say something wise, but the mess in values in government world-wide made me this about how we have to step back and reevaluate what our list of relevance is.  Where should we be putting our emphasis, where our intentions, where our time.  

For the first time in a month, for example, I paid attention to my pain and enjoyed the agonies of an osteopath.  I suddenly found myself walking easily, and perhaps am able to take care of some of the other problems that have been haunting me.

And now we turn to politics.  Our concerns and our values have been totally mixed up – by politicians first, but also by the media, and we have to learn to evaluate every single fact that is fed to us.  This is true for Israel as well as New York.  And the naivete is as mad here as there.  

Mamdani will never accomplish most of the things he has promised to the population of the city, even though I would love most of it to happen.  We’ll never set things straight with Gaza, unless we can make major changes to the attitude in the middle east.