Introducing the Hardline According To
     ...Ofer Maimon

Since the horrible terrorist attack of 9/11, flying has gone from being a slight hassle to a rather big one. The latest chapter in the saga over ever stranger security measures is the installation in all larger US airports of "Full Body Cameras", basically a camera that strips you of your clothes and shows your naked body to the security official on duty. A lot has been said about these cameras. I personally believe they are thoroughly intrusive. If you don't agree with me, it's probably because mainstream media for some odd reason never bothered to publish the true images these machines make, and opted to publish tacitly redacted versions, where the naked bodies shown look like barbie dolls, and where any detailed body features have beed dimmed out. However, five minutes with Google will show you that these cameras take detailed images of your genitalia, including intimate piercings and,well..the form and size of your equipment, female or male, for lack of a more tzn...

she comes to me in dreams i hear the echoing whispers of her sneakers in the old abandoned storage building dusty cardboard boxes, coffers and long since forgotten luggage destinations never reached in times since long ago committed to memories in black and white i find her by a desk going through an old ladies white leather handbag the black bakelite desk phone looks like it hasn't rung for eons she lifts here gaze and says: welcome to the lost and found department of Long Lost Railroads, how may I help you? when I don't answer, she turns back to the handbag, pulls out a handkerchief i am about to ask her if she works here when she says: you shouldn't be here this late if you stay too long, you stay forever, it's time for you to leave I say: what about you? she says: I lost me a long time ago, i already left I want to ask her if she recognizes me, but as she dials a number on the phone i hear the lower east side harbor din and distant christmas...

Writing or speaking of Israel and it's conflict with it's Arab neighbors, about the "occupation" or occupation, the Palestinians or "palestinians", the territories or Judea and Samaria, and lately a more and more towards Israel hostile Western world – in short what in Israel is referred to as "Ha Matzav" (The Situation) – is to a large extent like walking on quick-sand wearing ice skates over the slippery slopes of the abyss of your choice. There are many reasons for this. First of all the topography of these processes actually is horribly complicated. Second, not one single piece of reality is considered an established fact by any of the parties involved, and every fact presented by one side will immediately be decried as a preposterous propagandistic lie by the other side, which brings us to the third problem: Irrespective of what droves of Anti-Israel thinkers, and unfortunately the current US administration, believes, this is not rational USA o...

Not much happening around here today. Fridays are off for most people in Israel nowadays, including for Ulpan students. Spent the day re-reading Too-Soon-Old-Late-Smart . You'd might call it Self-Hellp literature, but it's completely devoid of happy-go-lucky bullshit advice and self-centered shallowness, and it doesn't serv up any easy solutions to complex problems.. I hate Self Help literature. It's an account of 30 clearcut truths that a psychiatrist named Livingston has extracted over a life's experience of his patients and their therapy, as well as from it's own life, which has been really difficult in many aspects. First time I read it I got pretty upset with the author, because he kindly but firmly discard all our excuses for not leading better lives. The main thrust is that we can't wait around until we feel better to change our lives, because we can not intellectually think ourselves happier, feelings and thoughts and self-perceptions follow behavio...

Haven't had time to report the daily do's and dont's in Beer Sheva lately, so here are a few assorted action shots... The Benjy mystery . After once again deciding to go back to South Africa, Benjy finally left his warmly hated Beer Sheva a week ago. The day after that he was back here again, telling people that he had managed to miss his flight by confusing AM and PM. The next night he managed to miss another flight due to Ethiopian Air demanding twice the ticket prize as when he did the booking The next night, and as far as is understood, he actually got on a plane tho South Africa. Or did he? Rumors that he is hiding out in Tel Aviv abound. Different theories are floated. Someone has managed to get hold of him on his Israeli number. The mystery thickens. Wherever you are Bru, I hope you are having a Joll. We miss you:-) David Peru and Benjy having a joll... Shabbes evening. Was spent with Jochanan, his wife and his three kids. Mayanan, his 2 year old daughter, ...

When I arrived here almost 3 months ago, an elevator had just been installed in the building in a free standing shaft on the outside of the facade. Up until then, all the thousands of immigrants who had been coming and going had been forced to schlepp their kids, furniture and merchandise in the stairs, 4 floors. The news was detailed in an announcement in the office, and among other things it pointed out that no kids under the age of 14 were allowed to use the elevator on their own. Last week, the elevator worked for a whole of 2 days. The main reason for this is the fact that as soon as one of the plentiful toddlers here learns to walk, the other kids take him to the elevator and show him how to play with it. You go up and down, you press the "open door" and "close door" buttons in random order and you shove something in the door when it's closing, forcing the doors sensor to reopen it. Again and again. If you are really brave you shove yourself in the clos...

..is not just Motörheads legendary and masterful Live LP from their Short, Sharp Pain In The Neck tour (where funnily enough, they didn't gig the Hammersmith Odeon venue in London). It also fairly accurately describes how you feel after no sleep at all - like a blacksmith put you on his smoking anvil and slegdehammered you flat as a frying pan. All fun and games and I can't even blame it on insomnia this time. I simply got lost in the technical aspects of the blogoshere and the time ran away between RSS feeds and blocker cookies...until it was 4.30 AM and Quentin had a cough attack of outer-wordly proportions and staggered out of his room, a blueish-reddish tint on his face.  He has some kind of chest infection, poor man. And as if that wasnät enough he managed a backward swan-dive this past Shabbes, landing on the back of his head, and was knocked out cold. When he came about I after 15 seconds or so I had already started CPR....he scared the crap out of me. Dude needs to see...

...is the same as feeling shitty 'bout yourself in Stockholm.” The quote is from a song by Swedish Painter/Comedian/Singer-songwriter Robert Broberg and he should know, alternating successful shows and selling out sports venues, with periods of bad depressions. He has also spent large amount of time in exile, more specifically in Paris and New York City. Robert Broberg, World champion of bad puns. And basically it's just that simple. Wherever you go you take yourself with you, and the dream of becoming someone else by going to a new place remains a dream, and if you can't shake that dream and focus on reality, then changing city, work or country will eventually become a disappointing experience. I come to think of this when I bump into Ron at the laundromats. 3 out of 4 machines have big white notes on them with the text  ” לא עובד !”, and my plan to finally get some washing done is immediately reduced to ashes. So Ron starts on a never ending litany of how he's...

This summer the civilized world has anxiously followed the case of Sakineh Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to be murdered by stoning on trumped up charges. Public pressure conducted by different NGO:s in July postponed the murder, but the last days we've been reached by information that her murder may once again be imminent. To participate in the online information campaign, please go here . At the same time Fox News informs us  (those of you who feel skeptical of Fox reporting can check up the original UN ECOSOC document here  and search for Iran) that Iran has been elected into, and given 4 seats in, the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, a Human Rights organization tasked with - you guessed it - worldwide improvement of the situation and status of women. If you so wish, a feminist organization. Now which part of stoning women or harassing them in the streets for being "immodest" does the UN organization perceive as feminist? The devil knows. Th...

Listening to Susanne Vega and conjugating Hebrew future tense I'm reminded of Infidels. Not as in the kind that gets blown up by crazy Islamists, but as in the record released by Bob Dylan in 1983. I remember when it came out, these were the days of LP's, and the cover had a portrait of a melancholic looking Dylan, with a scroungy, short beard and Ray Ban Wayfarers, no doubt the coolest sun glasses of the time. A very different time, and I was 13 years old and I was looking at the record where it stood in it's stand. It cost like 10 bucks which to me at the time was a lot of money. It was the day before my father's 43rd birthday. I decided to buy it for him. As far as I remember he liked it, but as with many other of the musicians he liked, I ended up listening to it a lot more than he did. The music matched the cover; melancholic, sharp, distinct, sometimes bordering on angry. The record would follow me when I left home and it would follow my ups and downs, drunke...