law abiding murderer

yesterday a man hanged himself shortly
after stabbing his wife to death. It seems
she had a 30 days restraining order
against him, and when it was over the
judge ordered him to go home and
"make peace" with his wife.

well, the guy obeyed the restraining
order and didn't go home to murder his
wife until legally allowed to return.

both of them were in their 50s, and
lived in tirat-carmel - a large town
on the southern slopes of mount Carmel.

complete coincidence

Here in Israel we have just one, government owned
power company. yesterday the ministry of finance
ordered the company's employees to return millions
of dollars in unauthorized pay bonuses.

since this morning, the entire ministry of finance is
suffering from total blackout, and the power company
is saying nothing is wrong at their end, it must be
a local failure.

Yeah, Right.

carelessness worse than evil

just when you think things might be going
your way, along comes some thoughtless
army commander and blows up the wrong
building.

Israel's army might be superior in technology,
but many of the career officers are people who
couldn't make it in life outside the military.

there may be war

About 3-4 hours ago, the lebanese militant organization hizballah started
an attack on Israel's norther border.

At the height of the attack, at least 2 Israeli soldiers have been kidnapped
and transfered into southern lebanon. it now seems that the whole purpose
of the attack was to bring about the conditions to make possible this kidnapping.

Since hizballah is a political movement in lebanon and a part of their
government, this may escalate into a full scale war.

As you (probably don't) know, most Israelis serve in the military forces and
later on become reservists (up to age 45 or so). I have been fortunate
enough to be made a part of the auxelery reserve units, meaning they
never call me unless an actual war starts.

so if war starts, I may not be around for a while.

sometimes it's close to home

my parents are immigrants. my mom came to this country as a little girl,
but my dad came (over 30 years ago) already a grown man. he escaped
from communist Romania.

Because he worked for an important company over there, with
government connections, and because he escaped rather than leave
legally, my mom has always been dead set against him ever going back.

She said she was afraid the country's secret service would lock him up
somewhere, but she kept on saying that even after the communist regime
fell. personally I think she was afraid he wouldn't want to come back
or something.

my dad finally flew to Romania for a 3 day visit last month. He didn't tell
my mom he was going until about 10 hours before the flight.
since he returned, my mother has been more than half mad with anger.
he tried to weather the storm, but finally snapped today and they
"had some words".

at the moment they are not talking to each other much, and my mom
is making very little sense when she is talking. some wishing him dead,
sometimes wishing herself dead.

and I can't help them. I tried some years ago to mediate one of their
arguments and it went very very bad.

Thank God I don't live at home any more. If I did, each of them would
expect me to take his/her side. If I thought either of them could be made
to listen, I'd even write to dear abby for advice. but they never listen.

the untimely cost of divorce

A man from Nazereth, fearing he will lose his 4 year old son
in a divorce (children under 6 are almost automatically given
to their mothersw custody) took his son to a wooded area,
gave a bag of treats and, while the child was looking happily
at the treats, shot him in the head at point blank range.
immediately after, the father killed himself with a shot to
the head as well.

Suffer little children

(no links, since no source in English)

3 stories in the news today about youngsters & teenagers who were
victims or pepetrators.

The first is the story of a nanny (age 63) who came highly recommended,
and the parents even checked out the recommendations. So they were
quite distraught when they used a hidden camera to check up on her
work and found that she beat the baby, shook him & sometimes forciblly
held him down and screamed at him to be quiet.
The nanny was arrested & her lawyer is making all those sounds lawyers
make when facing irefutable evidence.

The second story tells of two 15 year old boys who confessed to
molesting a 7 year old boy. After the case was dragged for a year
through the courts, the judge ordered them released because the
prosecution made some HUGE procedural error, then rather than
try to fix it, the prosection tried to have the error ruled out so they
could go on.

way to go, rule of law :-(

The third story tells of a man who had been charged with beating his wife.
to take out his frustration he took to driving around certain religious
schools in his area, offering rides to teenage boys and molesting
them en route.

Later on he would call them, claim their encounter was taped, and demand
money or else he'd reveal to their school what he did to them.
(in religious society, being a male victim of rape can actually be worse
than being a rapist) So far 6 boys have come forward to complain, and
police believe there may be others.

when happy endings meet bureaucracy

Jewish woman seeks to return to Yemen

A young man who was sort of kidnapped from Yemen & eventually
reached Israel has not seen his mother in 12 years. When he joined
the border guard, his friends made an effort to surprise him and
managed to bring his mother from Yemen. the reunion was a joyfull,
tearfull event, the sort where in story books would end in
"and they lived happily ever after".

Unfortunately we live in the real world.

Since Israel has no coordinated plan for bringing in Jews from
Yemen, the poor woman was not offered the financial assistance
which immigrants from Russia or Ethiopia are given.

For the past year she's been living with distant relatives, growing
more and more distraught, and now begs whomever might listen
to give her a ticket back to Yemen.