"Why do those damn foreigners try to be just like us instead of enriching our culture and making it more vibrant?"

In the comments to my previous multiculturalism entry Lotta said that she has sought the answers to the questions "Peaceful coexistence takes two. What do you do if the other culture does not wish to coexist peacefully?" and "What do you do if the other culture's values are absolutely incompatible with your own?", and the answers have usually been "Cultures change and influence each other" and "People are more than products of their culture and can switch between several cultural identities."

This is undoubtedly true. Problem is, it's kind of hard to be sure in which directions they change, which culture will influence which culture in which way, and which identities particular people will want to switch into under which circumstances.

(Actually it's not all that hard to make educated guesses, but if you decided in advance that everything will be ok in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, this tends to affect the education and the guesses. Not that the educated guess are always right, either.)

As an aside on cultural influences: Europe has admitted millions of immigrants from a culture that does not believe in peaceful coexistence (don't mean that none of them believe in it, only that their level of belief in peaceful coexistence is much lower than that of the native populations). Noticed any decline in the belief in peaceful coexistence among the native populations lately?

But I digress. What I really wanted to talk about is that in my admittedly limited experience multiculturalists do not really believe in these things (cultural change and switching between cultural identities) themselves, or rather believe in them less than the general population.

In a way this is understandable. If you believe that all the cultures are equal, it is quite reasonable of you to be suspicious of people who want to change their cultural identity. You might suspect that they, unlike you, have decided that the new culture is better than the old one and therefore do not believe in the equality of the cultures.

I usually criticize multiculturalism from the point of view of a westerner, and try to be reasonably civilized about it. When I start criticizing it from the point of view of the immigrant it is a lot harder to keep the critique civilized.

Luckily I did not see the worst of it, or rather only saw it happen to other people. When we came to the US as refugees in the eighties the immigration system was not overrun by multiculturalists yet (it still isn't, for that matter; the school system is, at least in the Boston area). When I came to Finland in the nineties I was a foreign student and therefore not subjected to any ministrations of the social services. So I got to live in peace without anyone trying to strengthen my cultural identity, at least on the official level.

I really don't know from under what log all these identity strengtheners crawl out nowadays. In spite of a considerable number of refugees who like to visit the old countries and claim that everything was better back there, a refugee is, by definition, in a rather bad relationship with his or her former country. Anyone who has two brain cells to rub together should sort of figure out that at least a sizable percentage of refugees really do not want to have their cultural identity or their ties to their homeland strengthened. In a way a refugee leaving the old country is like an abused spouse being escorted from his or her home by police and filing for divorce: it's really not the right situation to tell people how wonderful their marriage was and how they should strengthen their ties to it.

The first person of that kind was my history teacher in high school. There were five Soviet refugees in our history class, and he kept telling us all how wonderful Russia was and how we should maintain our ties to it, and how we are just stupid kids and therefore do not understand yet what a wonderful country we came from. We usually answered along the lines of "if you like it so much, asshole, why don't you move there yourself". He clearly preferred to like it from a safe distance, though.

There were more people like that, both in the US and in Finland, all of them multiculturalists (usually they said it, mostly in the form of claiming that all cultures are equally good; sometimes I asked). In the beginning I was quite amazed at the number of people who wanted to tell me that my (Russian) culture was as good as theirs; I tried to explain to them that this was most obviously not the case, as evidenced by hundreds of thousands of people moving from Russia to the US and very few moving the other way, and suggested that if they don't want to take my word for it they can try it for themselves.

One thing they all had in common is that they clearly did not believe in cultural change, or at least in my right to change myself and my cultural identity in ways not approved by them. They had a grand vision of the country where different cultures live together in peace while retaining their separate identities and changing just enough (and just in the right direction) to live together in peace and harmony. And that vision did not have a place for me. Or for my parents or grandparents. Or for any of their friends. Or for anyone else who has rejected their old country and culture.

(I haven't rejected the Russian culture completely, BTW. I occasionally shop in Russian food stores, own Russian books, CDs and DVDs. What I have rejected is Russian identity and any connection to the country. I rejected quite a lot of the actual everyday culture, too. I occasionally read Russian web forums, and most attitudes expressed there are quite familiar to me, but alien. They are not mine. Some of them used to be mine, but the thought feels strange. I have no desire to reconnect.

Part of it is how I was raised, of course. When you keep telling a kid "you are not a real Russian" and "you can never be one of us", chances are the kid will figure she doesn't want to be one of you anyway. The first time this was explained to me was in daycare at the age of 5 - by the staff, no less - and by the age of 8 it was quite clear to me that I was not interested in being one of them and that the only thing I wanted from them was to get away from them, the sooner the better.

No need to tell me that not all the Russian people are like that. I know this. I have met a lot of wonderful Russian people, both in Russia and outside of it. I just can't find in myself anything but hostility for the Russian nation as such.)

Anyway, that is the country, the culture and the past that some multiculturalists wanted me to embrace, with the result that I told them to do their own damn embracing if that's what they feel like. I don't think they ever did, though.

The idea that the culture is somehow immutably in the blood and that switching completely or for the most part to another culture is either impossible or undesirable is not limited to the multiculturalists, of course. It is embraced, even more so, by those nationalists who are into ethnic romanticism, and to a much lesser extent by normal people. The difference is, the kind of nationalists who are into ethnic romanticism are usually considered somewhat insane in civilized countries, for the most part with good reason, whereas multiculturalists often get to make policy nowadays.

When I was in high school (and the multiculturalists did not make policy) they tested all incoming foreign kids' English skills, and either put them into normal English classes, or the English For Foreigners classes, or, if their English was really bad, into a class where things were explained to them in their own languages (usually Russian or Chinese - the third common language in that school was Hebrew but they all knew English well). It worked, the kids learned English, moved on to normal English classes, integrated quickly, etc.

Nowadays the same school district decided that they want to have bilingual education in Russian - the kind of program where they teach subjects in both English and Russian. I seriously doubt the usefulness of those as far as integration is concerned, but OK, let those who want it have it...

But no, it was not just for those who wanted it. A friend of ours has a daughter, and the school somehow figured that she was bilingual and tried to force her into that program without asking her or her parents' permission. The girl came to the US when she was 2 and spoke English like any native-born American. She also spoke pretty good Russian and read Russian books, but she had no interest in being educated in Russian. The school insisted, however, and the girl and her parents had to make a big scandal in order to keep her in an English-speaking program.

Something has gone seriously wrong when an American girl has to make a big scandal in her school district in order to receive her public education in English. All because she happened to have been born in Russia. Racism, anyone?

(For that matter - does anyone know whether or not the native language classes for immigrants in Finnish schools are obligatory?)

I understand that multiculturalists mostly mean well, in a way in which the staff of my Russian daycare did not. Road to hell, good intentions, etc. However, to me all the attempts to make immigrants "practice their own culture" or "strengthen their identity" have exactly the same ring and taste to them as the antisemitic slurs of my childhood: "you are not one of us and you will never be one of us". As ethnic prejudice goes, this is way worse than, say, drunk guys in night buses who scream that fucking foreigners never work for a living and always come here to live on welfare: in my experience the rednecks who like to stereotype you are usually willing to consider evidence to the contrary; the people who have a Vision of a Better World, unfortunately, are not. Not until you threaten to sue them for discrimination, anyway.

Brink of civil war: the great leap forward

That drinking game I suggested on Tuesday is bad - too much drinking.

But as long as you use very mind drink, add these:

One sip:

- media mentions that Gaza is on the brink of civil war.

Three sips:

- media mentions a three-state solution.

What's the deal with the "brink of civil war" or "risk of civil war" that everyone mentions, anyway? One could think that when the President's army and the Prime Minister's army are continuously shooting at each other, taking towns and bases from each other, shooting at peace demonstrations, killing YK employees, etc., it might mean that the civil war already has started, right?

Or maybe it's just their peace process.

Our aim is unity government! Fire!

Hamas is currently attacking Fatah headquarters. Today both Ismail Haniya's and Mahmoud Abbas's apartments were shot with rocket-propelled grenades. Unfortulately neither one of the great leaders happened to be home.

Helsingin Sanomat reports that all this violence is endangering the work of the unity government. Somebody out there has a gift for understatement.

Although, judging from the track record, I'd say that all this violence is the work of the unity government.

I think there should be a unity government drinking game:

One sip:

- every time a truce starts,
- a truce ends,
- Hamas/Fatah fighters kill each other,
- Hamas/Fatah fighters kill an innocent bystander,
- Hamas/Fatah shoots rockets into Israel,
- Israel shoots back.

Two sips:

- shooting during a truce,
- shooting in a school/hospital/mosque,
- truce lasted less than half an hour,
- Hamas/Fatah shoot their own people by mistake,
- they shoot a person that media describes as a "leader",
- unsuccessful attack on Fatah's/Hamas's supreme leader.

Three sips:

- successful attack on Fatah's/Hamas's supreme leader,
- truce lased less than five minutes,
- some first-world country donates taxpayer money to one or both of the parties.

Whole bottle:

- two or more successful assasinations of Fatah's/Hamas's supreme leaders on the same day (whether the two leaders belong to opposite sides or the same).

Can you do it by yesterday?

When I am the queen of the world (yeah, right) and finally get to found my Boss Reeducation Camp, the first lesson there will be:

IF YOU WANT SOMETHING DONE BY 9 O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING, DON'T FUCKING TELL IT TO THE EMPLOYEES AT 17:10 THE EVENING BEFORE.

The offenders shall be publicly flogged and forced to buy a round of good beer for all the employees.

Multiculturalism: the good, the bad and the stupid

Much as I like to criticize multiculturalism, it was invented for a reason, or some form of it anyway. I am not talking about the obviously absurd idea that different cultures with different values can coexist in a society that considers their values to be equal, but about the idea that different cultures and representatives thereof can in general coexist in more or less the same place.

The idea that ethnic and cultural groups can live together or side-by-side peacefully started to spread after the WWII, although obviously there were countless examples of them doing so, peacefully or otherwise, throughout the human history.

At that point there was a lot of call for it in the Western world, what with WWI and WWII. People looked around, learned from experience, and said "shit, we have killed about 70 million of each other already this century, and kicked god knows how many out of their homes, maybe we should take a break?". They thought about it for a second (having learned more than one thing from experience) and said "ok, first let's kick the Germans minorities out, and then let's take a break". About 15 million of ethnic Germans got kicked out from wherever they lived, and everyone took a break, or at least everyone who was not occupied by communists.

I think that another contributing factor was that by that time everyone noticed that the many millions of various Europeans who immigrated to the US in the late 19th and early 20th century have totally failed to bring the country down, and assimilated quite well instead.

We (obviously speaking of the people who are critical of multiculturalism here) laugh when multiculturalists use the wide availability of various ethnic cuisines as the most commonly quoted benefit of multiculturalism (it's a safe and value-free choice, unlike, say, honor killings), but there are a lot of real benefits to the more tolerant approach to the different cultures that the West developed after WWII. Think about the fact that a war between Germany and France seems to be a rather absurd idea to anyone born after WWII. Or about the fact that some borders that were really bloody for centuries can now only be noticed by the change of your GSM operator. Or about how easy it is for you now to go to study or work in some other Western country.

The current refugee convention was also written after WWII, and for the obvious reasons. So many Europeans became refugees during the war that people wanted to ensure that there would be somewhere to run, just in case, and they did not consider admitting refugees to be a particularly high price for this kind of security.

Mass Muslim immigration into some European countries started in 1960s. The current sort of multiculturalism - the one that encourages immigrant groups to retain their cultural indentities - arose in the 1970s. I am not sure whether there is a causal relation. Probably not. Probably the generation who grew up with the idea that cultures can coexist peacefully somehow decided that it meant that all cultures can coexist peacefully.

The modern multiculturalism is based on a rather unrealistic view of human nature, and fails to answer two important questions:

1. Peaceful coexistence takes two. What do you do if the other culture does not wish to coexist peacefully?
2. What do you do if the other culture's values are absolutely incompatible with your own?

The actual answers that I have received to these questions were 1) try harder, all you need is love, and 2) but of course somebody will see the light and some kind of compromise can be achieved. This goes on the same lower cognitive shelf as "if the people just stop being selfish we will achieve communism" (labeled "jos tädillä olisi munat, se olisi setä").

Multiculturalism has outlived its use and its welcome. The useful lessons have been learned with its help; the new useful lessons are being learned in spite of it sticking fingers in its ears and screaming "la-la-la!". Different cultures coexisting peacefully is something everyone has already noticed, often to the extent that they take it for granted. Different cultures failing to coexist peacefully is an elephant in the living room that multiculturalists want to avoid talking about.

For most of the last century the Western world has been learning a lesson: different cultures can live together. The lesson was true, well-learned and very expensive. I am afraid that now we are learning the second part: "...but not all of them". I am afraid it will be expensive too. I have some idea of what the third part of the lesson might be, but I am not comfortable with discussing it in public.

Londonistan revisited

I used to think that Londonistan, in the sense of majority-Muslim and Islamic-ruled London, existed only in the differently sane heads of Al-Muhajiroun (may they rest in peace, and the sooner the better).

But now there is another differently sane (or differently-intelligent) person with a vision, and he explains his vision in TimeOut London. (via Dhimmi Watch)

It took me a while to decide whether the guy - his name is Michael Hodges - is serious or trolling. I finally decided that he is more likely to be serious, but I am not 100% sure. Not even 55% sure, in fact. I hope he is a troll. But hey, can I feed the troll just a little?

The man starts his article with a description of an Islamic execution in London in 2021. Then he stops halfway and says:

"Okay, not really - that's a hysterical, right-wing nightmare of a future Muslim London: where an cruel alien creed is forced on a liberal city. A society where women are second-class citizens, same sex relationships a crime and Sharia law enforces terrible public disfigurement and death. But the reality is a long, long way from this dark vision."

Errr... Are Al-Muhajiroun, technically speaking, right-wing? Here is a quote from them: "The Islamic judicial system would be implemented where adulterers would be stoned to death and thieves would have their hands cut. There would be no jury service or solicitors or barristers, rather Judges qualified in Islamic Law would preside over all cases and Judge according to God's law."

And what kind of hysterical paranoia could ever make a person imagine that in some Muslim society women might be second-class citizens, same sex relationships might be a crime and Sharia law might enforce terrible public disfigurement and death? Back to reality, you islamophobes!

After that our realist begins to list various advantages that Islam would bring to the city:

Public health: "On the surface, Islamic health doesn’t look good: the 2001 census showed that 24 per cent of Muslim women and 21 per cent of Muslim men suffered long-term illness and disability. But these are factors of social conditions rather than religion."

Education: "Presently, Muslim students perform less well than non-Muslim students. In inner London, 37 per cent of 16 to 24-year-old Muslims have no qualifications (the figure for the general population of the same age and location is 25 per cent). When it comes to university education the picture is equally gloomy: 16 to 24-year-old Muslims are half as likely to have degree level or above qualification than other inner London young people.

Again, social factors rather than religion have led to this state of affairs. Young Muslims in London are often of south Asian origin and therefore more likely to live in households where English is not the first language, more likely to encounter racism (both intentional and unintentional) during their education, and more likely to suffer from poverty and bad housing conditions."

As opposed to Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs, of course, who never come from South Asia, always have English as their first language, never encounter any racism and therefore manage to get more degrees than Christians?

Food: "Application of halal (Arabic for ‘permissable’) dietary laws across London would free us at a stroke from our addiction to junk food, and the general adoption of a south Asian diet rich in fruit juice, rice and vegetables with occasional mutton or chicken would have a drastic effect on obesity, hyperactivity, attention deficit disorders and associated public health problems."

The man lives in the UK (presumably) and has never been to a Pakistani fast food joint?

Note how problems with health and education are totally not the fault of religion, but of social conditions and culture, but the South Asian diet is suddenly an achievement of Islam.

Inter-faith relations (oh, dear...): "Hindus and Sikhs manage to live alongside a large Muslim population in India, so why not here?"

India is not ruled by Muslims. Has the guy ever tried to find out what happened to Hindus and Sikhs who tried to live alongside a large Muslim population in Pakistan?

Social justice: "Each Muslim is obliged to pay zakat, a welfare tax of 2.5 per cent of annual income, that is distributed to the poor and the needy."

What a novel idea! Somebody please explain this guy about the welfare state.

This better be a troll. Otherwise the guy is so dumb that he'd get a second place at a stupidity contest.

The fictional equal abilities

In the Western societies we have invented the fiction of races, sexes, ethnic groups, etc., having equal abilities, especially equal intelligence. This fiction is maintained by almost everybody (paradoxically, most fervently by the kind of folks who also strongly believe that neither intelligence nor IQ can be measured, making me wonder how these unmeasurable qualities can be considered equal).

This fiction has been invented because it has a very useful social function, especially in fairly individual-oriented societies: it encourages us to judge individuals as individuals and not as representatives of their race, sex, etc. It is a very useful fiction to maintain when hiring people, admitting them into schools, etc. Useful both for maintaining equal opportunity in society, and for the individuals in question.

It is, however, a fiction, in the sense of "an assumption of a possible thing as a fact irrespective of the question of its truth". We do not know it to be true. Any research in this matter is of necessity controversial, and often shows that it is not, in fact, true between some group A and group B, which then causes a scandal and accusations of sexism, racism, etc. It might well be true, too, for many particular values of A and B, but usually nobody really knows it. The Swedes of Finnish descent might well be equal in intelligence to Argentinians of Italian descent, but I find it highly unlikely that anybody has ever bothered to check.

The problem with this particular fiction is that nowadays a lot of people take it as The Truth - all available evidence to the contrary be damned - and everyone who doubts it as Nazis Who Are Already Warming Up The Ovens or, alternatively, Evil Sexists Who Plan To Keep Everyone Barefoot and Pregnant.

I think that it's a very good thing that every kind of social inequality between every group A and B is not immediately dismissed with "yeah, but A's are so much dumber, what do you expect?", but I find it unfortunate that in a lot of cases you can't even present the IQ or some other ability difference as one of the hypotheses, at least not in public and not without a major scandal.

There is one thing about all this that bothers me even more than the implications on the freedom of speech and the quality of research in social studies: do we, as a society, need this particular fiction in such a strong form at this point in history? This is not a rhetorical question - I really don't know. My gut feeling is "no, we don't", but I am nowhere near sure of it, and this might just be wishful thinking, because I find the implications of "yes, we do" rather unpleasant.

For all the sometimes-founded and sometimes-unfounded complaints of racism, sexism, etc., we are a rather egalitarian and individual-oriented society (the only exceptions being the result of either strong necessity or strong cultural tradition, and we are usually not comfortable even with those). Some of us dislike some group or other, but by and large even these people are usually capable of dealing with members of the disliked group on the individual basis in a civilized way. Most of the people who make hiring decisions are well aware that "group A is less intelligent that group B" does not usually mean "university X graduates from group A are less intelligent than university X graduates from group B". Etc., etc.

Will this all come unraveling if differences in abilities between various groups become acceptable to mention in public? I don't think so, but the thought is highly disturbing. I realize that the current orthodoxy is the result of the bad old times when people believed that all women, all blacks, etc. were incapable of holding a professional job, but haven't we moved far, far on since then?

Then again, maybe not.

Grrr... unfounded optimism sucks

Why did I come to work today, why?

That's what always happens: I get sick, I eat too much drugs with pseudoephedrine, the pseudoephedrine makes me imagine that I am OK while I am not, and I go to work high as a kite, with my nose dripping and my throat sore.

OTOH, I did manage to fix some bugs and would probably have been just as sick if I stayed home.

Commemorating WHAT?

On Sunday evening the late imam Khomeini was commemorated in Finland, in the Islamic Cultural Center in Helsinki.

Iran's Ambassador to Finland Reza Nazar-Ahari addressed the crowd on different aspects of Imam's life.

Oh, I can imagine those aspects:

- pedophilia: what does it feel like for a 27-year-old man to stick his dick into a 10-year-old girl,

- equality: as soon as the revolution is accomplished all other Iranian men are allowed to marry 9-year-old girls, too (aka "if it was good enough for my mother and wife..."),

- politics: how to use dumb leftists for your revolution and then fuck them over (compulsory for every revolutionary who wants to be successful),

- international relations: fuck diplomatic immunity,

- freedom of speech: "it's the duty of every Muslim to kill Rushdie",

- freedom of religion: "don't kill Jews or Christians as long as they are good dhimmis. Baha'i, on the other hand..."

- funeral: crowd nearly destroys coffin, wants to make sure that the man is really dead.

"In part of his speech, Nazar-Ahari said, "Imam's uprising was not against a special group or person, but it was against darkness." Imam reminded all Muslims, Shia and Sunni, of the necessity of awareness against cultural invasion, the ambassador added," - says the article.

Hmm, cultural invasion... Maybe Mr. Nazar-Ahari should address the Finnish people with this particular lecture? If he can discuss the concept of cultural invasion with Finnish multiculturalists, I would definitely like to attend the event.

Oh, no! Out of context again!

Marija Serifovic has been misunderstood and taken out of context. (This is unfortunately common nowadays, don't you find?) It might even in this particular case be true. This does not change the fact that a lot of other people say similar things, or that there would be a much bigger scandal if the joke were about, say, Senegal and black people.

"I don't like people with dark skin. In fact I despise them."

No, I am not showing my true racist face here. Just trying this statement for size, kinda. How does this sound to you?

(No, I don't despise people for their skin color. Or any other physical feature, for that matter. I do find some physical features of some ethnic groups much more attractive than corresponding physical features of some other ethnic groups, and I am quite open about it when I happen to be talking about sexual attractiveness, but I would hardly put it in the aforementioned form and say it at a press conference when asked how I liked my trip to some country. That, of course, is because I am a shining paragon of political correctness and not because I never get invited to press conferences where people ask me about my trips.)

Anyway, that's what Serbia's Eurovision winner Marija Serifovic said at a press conference last Friday, except that it was about white skin. According to a guy who claims to have been at that press conference, the exact words were "ne volim blede, plave i ljude sa providnom kozom, ustvari ne da ih ne volim nego ih prezirem". ("I don't like pale, blond and people with transparent skin, actually not only that I don't like them, I despise them").

Oh, dear... There is no sin in having sexual preferences based on skin or hair color, but one would think that Marija if anyone should understand that lack of sexual attraction should not turn into contempt for people, considering... (Yeah, I know this sounds catty, but seriously, it's hard to resist.)

Marija is unfortunately not alone. In fact I don't think I have ever heard a so-called civilized person, at least one who does not self-identify as a racist, disparage any skin colors besides white and red (of the kind that a very white-skinned person acquires when he or she spends too much time in the sun), but white and red seem to be fair game.

A couple of years ago a young white American woman who was visiting me here said "almost everyone is white here, it's so creepy". For a variety of reasons I did not try to talk sense into her, but she was exactly the kind of young woman who would never think of saying "almost everyone is black here, it's so creepy" in a black area, even though, like the overwhelming majority of white Americans, she most surely finds all-black neighborhoods somewhat creepy, for reasons not directly related to skin color. (You can say you find them, or some particular black neighborhood, somewhat creepy, but if you want to be polite you don't say "black", you say "inner-city".)

In the US disapproving of white or red skin usually has a bit of class overtone to it. I am not trying to condemn classist remarks here as such - most of the people who belong to educated classes do not think much of uneducated classes in general (with personal exceptions, of course) and make a rather poor job of concealing it - but I find it quite annoying that a lot of people say it both ways, managing to mention both "those trailer-trash rednecks who have to work in the sun while we sit in our air-conditioned offices" and "those pale fishbelly-white folks who have to spend their whole day in the office while we can afford some leasure at the beach" (the latter can be sometimes heard from the people who are lobster-red themselves after abusing said beach for way too long). That, again, from the people who would never-ever mention black skin as a predictor of class, although in the US black skin does in fact have a strong correlation with belonging to uneducated classes.

I seriously think we need a "white is beautiful" campaign. Not to say bad things about other people, including darker-skinned white people. Not to celebrate European or Central/North European heritage (nothing against celebrating it in general, just am not taking about it right now). Just an esthetic/sexual thing with lots of pictures of attractive scantily-clad white-skinned people (of all races that sometimes happen to have white skins, and of both sexes), and advertisement of sunscreen. The tolerant crowd might look at it with suspicion, but the dermatologists of the future will thank us.

Photos

Stockholm photos are here. Israel photos are here (they've been there for a while and I've linked to some of them but now all of them are there).

To people who complain about others putting up too many pictures instead of selecting the absolute best (I am not thinking of anyone specific, but such complaints are common): sorry. Some people, myself included, like to see all the pictures, or at least all the ones that are not totally fucked up. Besides, often I am too lazy to think which ones of the sets of pictures of the same thing are better. Sorry for the aggravation. But that's why I make galleries with thumbnails: so that I can take 10 pictures of, say, Gamla Stan from the west and put them up, and you can click on one of them if you want to see only one.

While we are on the photo gallery peeves: files without thumbnails or descriptive names are annoying, especially if they are big. Yeah, I know, I sometimes do that myself. Does not make it any better, though.

Zionist Aroma coffee reverse-engineered

I think I sort of managed to reverse-engineer the good coffee from the Aroma chain in Israel, or at least got it close enough for my own purposes:

150 ml hot espresso,
150 ml hot milk,
20-30 g chocolate, dissolved in that hot milk,
Whipped cream and cocoa powder to taste (that's the real cocoa powder, you infidels, and not any of those powdered cocoa drinks).

Hot ingredients go together, cream goes on top, cocoa goes on top of the cream.

Smoking bars and restaurants

Anu posted this link in my blog comments, but I think it should be repeated here: from Helsingin Sanomat, 01.06.07. There will be more added to this in the near future as the applications are being processed.

Ympäristökeskus will send you the list upon request, too.

The Stockholm ferries (or at least Isabella and Amorella) had those new enclosed smoking rooms already this weekend.

Life: Stockholm and flu

Had a great if somewhat tiring week: saw the new pirates movie, watched The Deadliest Catch with friends, had several game sessions and, last but certainly not least, went to Stockholm with Heli and spent all Saturday there hanging out with Tanya.

Gotta lure Tanya to Helsinki sometime this summer, or at least to Tallinn. Damn, I already miss her.

Feeling sick now. Figured that if a good night of sleep, a bucket of tea and a fistful of antihistamine does not cure it, I should call in sick. It didn't, and I did. Now my throat feels like somebody has used sandpaper in it, and I wanna stay in bed and drink tea all day, but instead gotta go outside and buy some food and lots of antihistamine. Blaah.

No smoking, finally

Hurrah! Finally smoking has been banned in the restaurants in Finland.

(For those who would like to appeal to my sense of justice and my belief in freedom of choice: behold my profound lack of caring. When one's own high-priority interests are at stake, people - myself, in any case - tend to shove the ideals where the sun don't shine.)

Some of the restaurants that have made the repairs required by the previous smoking law will be allowed to keep their smoking sections for two years.

I have asked Ympäristökeskus to publish the list of the restaurants that will be allowed to keep the smoking section. Hopefully they will. If they won't - does anyone else keep/compile such a list, and if not, is anybody interested in compiling such a list? If I don't find an existing list I will start compiling one myself, and contributions are very welcome.

According to Helsingin Sanomat at least Grand Casino, Suomalainen Klubi, Sir Eino, Michelle and König have received the permission to keep their smoking sections.

For me this would obviously be a boycott list, but I am sure smokers would have another use for it. In either case this is pretty useful information.

Racist and Inappropriate R Us

The other night somebody (not me) posted a link to my previous article to the immigrants-forum on suomi24.fi.

Yesterday morning the posting with the link was censored away.

On top of the forum page it says "Racist and inappropriate messages will be removed from the forum". Hey, it's their forum and I am not trying to question their right to remove any kind of messages they want, but was my article all that racist and inappropriate, especially considering the stuff that usually gets posted on suomi24.fi?

Lukutaidottomia äänestäjiä?

Eduskunnassa on nyt uusi lakialoite (LA 5/2007), jossa esitetään kansalaisuuslain muuttamista siten, että kansalaisuuden saamiseen riittää yleinen kielitutkinto taitotasolla 2 (jos muut edellytykset täyttyvät, tietenkin). Nyt tarvitaan taso 3.

Aloitteen ovat allekirjoittaneet Minna Sirnö, Annika Lapintie ja Merja Kyllönen, Vasemmistoliitto.

Perusteluna tähän on se että "kansalaisuuslain kielitaitoedellytykset ovat yksinkertaisesti osoittautuneet esteeksi kansalaisuuden saannille jopa silloin, kun hakija on asunut Suomessa jo useampia vuosia". Eli siis taso 3 on liikaa vaadittu.

Voihan toki olla sitä mieltä että joko valtio ei tarvitse yhteistä kieltä/kieliä lainkaan (onhan niitä kaksi/kolme/monikielisiä valtioita, tämä muun muuassa) tai että uusien kansalaisten ei tarvitse osata niitä. Voi olla (ja minusta jopa syystäkin) sitä mieltä että niiltä ryhmiltä joille kielitaito on sekä vähemmän tärkeä että vaikeammin saavutettavissa, kuten eläkeläisiltä, sopiikin vaatia vähemmän kuin muilta. Voi vastustaa ihan yleisesti ottaen sitä että kansalaiseksi pyrkivältä vaaditaan enemmän tietoa kuin kansalaiseksi syntyneeltä, vaikka minusta se on aivan yhtä väistämätön länsimaisen elämän fakta kuin se että adoptiovanhempia seulotaan tarkemmin kuin biologisia vanhempia, johtuen siitä että länsimaissa jonkun maan kansalaisuuden saamista syntyessään ja omien lasten synnyttämistä pidetään ihmisoikeuksina kun taas adoptiolapsen tai uuden kansalaisuuden saamista pidetään etuoikeutena joka annetaan vain tarkasti seulotuille ihmisille. Voi jopa olla sitä mieltä että kaikilla ihmisillä pitäisikin olla ehdoton oikeus saada sen maan kansalaisuus, minkä he haluavat, vaikka tässä tapauksessa kyllä toivoisin että tätä hienoa uutta ihmisoikeutta ensin kokeiltaisin jossain muualla kuin Suomessa tai USA:ssa.

Tästä ei nyt kuitenkaan ole kyse, vaan siitä, että jos ollaan jo päätetty että a) maassa on kaksi kansalliskieltä ja b) kansalaisuuden hakijan kuuluisi osata jompakumpaa niistä, niin mikä on liikaa vaadittu?

Katsotaanpa mitä Opetushallitus niistä tasoista sanoo:

"3- Ymmärtää pidempää puhetta ja keskeisen ajatuksen monista televisio- ja radio-ohjelmista, jos aihepiiri on suhteellisen tuttu. Ymmärtää tavallisia tekstejä, jotka eivät vaadi aiheen tuntemusta. Normaalitempoinen puhe ja vaativammat tekstit saattavat tuottaa vaikeuksia, jos puhejakso on pitkä ja aihepiiri vieras. Selviää tavallisimmissa käytännön puhetilanteissa ja pystyy kirjoittamaan yksinkertaista, yhtenäistä tekstiä tavallisista aiheista, vaikkakin kieliopilliset ja sanastolliset puutteet toisinaan vaikeuttavat ymmärtämistä. Hallitsee hyvin jokapäiväisiin tilanteisiin liittyvän sanaston ja peruskieliopin keskeiset rakenteet.

2- Ymmärtää selkeää ja yksinkertaistettua puhetta, joka käsittelee jokapäiväisiä ja tuttuja asioita. Ymmärtää helposti lyhyitä, yksinkertaisia tekstejä ja saa selville pääasiat tuttuja aihepiirejä käsittelevistä teksteistä. Selviää rutiininomaisissa yksinkertaista tiedonvaihtoa vaativissa puhetilanteissa, vaikka ääntäminen on vielä puutteellista. Pystyy kirjoittamaan suppeita, yksinkertaisia tekstejä jokapäiväisistä asioista, mutta teksti voi olla hajanaista. Hallitsee yksinkertaisimman peruskieliopin ja keskeisen perussanaston."


Onko tämä 3-taso liikaa vaadittu ihmiseltä, jos otetaan huomioon että ennen kansalaisuuden hakemista ihmisen kuuluu asua Suomessa 6 vuotta yhtäjaksoisesti tai 8 vuotta yhteensä 15 ikävuoden täyttämisen jälkeen? (Pakolaisille ja suomalaisten puolisoille vastaavat luvut ovat 4 ja 6.) Tätä 3-tason kielitaitoa ei siis nykyään vaadita siihen että ihminen saisi tulla Suomeen, tehdä töitä, opiskella, tai saada sosiaaliturvaa Suomessa - kaikilla hakijoilla on jo kaikki nämä oikeudet. Tätä kielitaitoa vaaditaan siihen, että ihminen hyväksyttäisin Suomen kansan uudeksi jäseneksi, ja että hän pääsisi äänestämään eduskunta- ja presidenttivaaleissa. (Tässä välissä on hyvin vaikeaa pitäytyä vitseistä tyyliin "lukutaidottomat äänestäjät - Vasemmistoliiton viimeinen toivo". OK, ei vaikeaa, vaan mahdotonta. Olen pahoillani.)

Minusta se, että tämän lakialoitteen laatijoiden mukaan monet (kuinka monet?) maahanmuuttajat eivät pääse läpi 3-tason kokeesta on sinänsä huolestuttavampi uutinen kuin se, että he haluavat alentaa ne vaatimukset. Jos ihminen 6 vuoden jälkeenkään ei selviä tavallisimmissa käytännön puhetilanteissa eikä ymmärrä keskeistä ajatusta puheesta jonka aihepiiri on suhteellisen tuttu niin joko ihmistä ei todellakaan kiinnosta, tai suomen/ruotsin kielen opetus maahanmuuttajille on erittäin syvässä kriisissä, tai sekä että. Molemmat ovat aika suuri ongelma.

Sweet memories of Russian freedom of speech

When my mother was a college student (Saint-Petersburg State Polytechnical University, to be exact), they were having some kind of obligatory sermon against people who try to emigrate. The year was circa 1970, the emigration had just started, and all the colleges and workplaces worth their salt were supposed to have meetings condemning the people who were trying to leave the country and demanding that they be forced to stay.

After the official part the Komsomol leader started pointing at various students and demanding that they stand up and condemn. At some point he pointed at my mom, probably waking her up.

She did not really condemn the emigration at all, but she was not entirely suicidal, so she got up and said something along the lines of: "If you think they are totally evil, what do we need them here for? Let them go where they want and we'll be rid of them."

The Komsomol leader nearly had a heart attack, and started the proceeding to kick her out both from the Komsomol and the university. Luckily for herself she had a rather persuasive boyfriend (who later became my father), who managed to persuade the Komsomol leader not to do that (no, I don't know what kind of pressure was applied).

"Can't you get your woman to keep her mouth shut, at least in public?" - asked the Komsomol leader. "She can be very quiet if you don't ask her any questions," - my father explained. The Komsomol leader understood and never tried to wake her up at a meeting again.

By the time I was a teenager the system had mellowed out. You could still get in trouble for things just as trivial, but the extent of trouble (at least the trouble into which you got for trivial things) was quite limited. They said it was cumulative, but I did not stay there long enough to find out.

On the road to Eilat, 28.04.07: desert, Dead Sea, pain in the ass and shower with Bedouins

Lyonya's car can carry 5 people easily, but we take Mira's car too. Partly for reasons of space, partly in order to be able to go to different places, partly for safety. Lyonya's car has been having problems, and part of the road to Eilat goes through West Bank, and it is a really, really bad idea to break down near some Palestinian town. (Settlers usually have a person on duty 24/7, and the people whose car breaks down on the way to or from their settlement calls that person, and several armed people immediately go to retrieve the travelers and their car. Regular Israelis who are just driving from one point in Israel to another through West Bank - I think the road that goes along the Dead Sea is the only place where this is done - have to call the Powers that Be for the rescue. Considering the amount of Powers that Be that we saw on the way, I suppose the rescue is never very far away.)

Anyway, I get in the car with Mira, she installs a flag on the roof, and we go. The flag tends to fall off occasionally.

About flags: apart from the regular Israeli flags, which are sold and waved everywhere, there is the Jerusalem flag with a yellow thingie in the middle, and some white flag with three blue guys on it, which turn out to be the current prisoners of war. At some point we also see guys selling American flags in the street, which is weird because nobody seems to be using them for anything.

Another unexpected presense of a US thing in Israel is that prices on real estate are listed in $US and not in NIS (shekel). Even more weird: the prices in the airport shop are in $US. This is really strange because NIS is a fully convertible currency and does not suffer any more inflation than $US.

Judean desert gets more deserty every kilometer. There are occasional herds of goats and sheep, and we see one camel. That is, we see one camel on its own in the desert. Every place where you can stop has one highly decorated camel and one Bedouin who charges tourists for climbing on the camel and taking a picture.

Nomadic Bedouins live in tent camps like this and are very poor both in comparison to the Jewish majority and to all other minorities. The government tries to offer them all kinds of benefits to settle down, and some do. They are Muslim Arabs, but are not considered a serious security threat like other Muslim Arabs.

We stop to take pictures at the sea level. Without a camel. The desert is almost totally deserty now, except for occasional date palm groves.

We enter the West Bank. A checkpoint with a couple of soldiers who look at us and wave us on. Every exit has its own checkpoint, and they look peaceful, somehow reminiscent of Masspike exits (which have toll booths but no soldiers). These ones, of course, have soldiers.

A stop at Qumran. I knew that it is the place where the Qumran scrolls (aka Dead Sea scrolls) were found, but I had no idea that there was something there. There are the ruins of the place where the Qumran community lived. I kind of feel sorry for the poor buggers.

We get down to the Jordan Valley. This is pretty much the lowest place on Earth, but you wouldn't know it from anything if you hadn't read about it. The valley is part of the huge rift that separates the Arabian plate from one of the African plates. Israel is on the African plate, Jordan on the Arabian. Dead Sea in the middle.

We drive out of the West Bank (the only way we know it is a little checkpoint) and stop at the beach in Ein Gedi. There are a lot of black people here, more than I'd seen anywhere else in Israel. There is some black community not far away which is famous for producing tofu and having a lot of good vegetarian restaurants, I assume they are from there. There is also a bunch of Bedouin women who get in the water fully clothed.

The Dead Sea gotta be the most overrated experience in all of Israel. The pebbles are sharp and you gotta have swimming shoes on. I would also strongly recommend covering your hair the best you can. You go into the water, it feels like any other sea water. The people tell you just to sit on water, and you can't figure out how to do it. You are trying really hard not to splash, because you don't wanna know what happens if any of that stuff gets into your eyes, or what other people will do to you if you get it into their eyes. All your scratches keep reminding you why the expression "rubbing salt into your wounds" was invented. Finally you manage to sit on water, after which you realize that a) your asshole is burning and b) you can't really turn around and get it out of the water, and so you gotta wait till the current brings you to the shore and bangs your ass on the stones.

Then you get out and run to the shower (they provide showers right on the beach, and don't even think of swimming in a place that doesn't have showers if your anus is dear to you). Your skin feels terribly oily and you suspect that you'll never get the stuff off, but after a little while it feels better, and your only concern is how to wash the harder-to-reach parts of your butt without taking the swimsuit off or looking too obscene.

Oska decided to skip the swimming.

On the way out of there I pay for a real shower, the kind where you can take your clothes off. It feels weird to be naked there, because most of the other women there are Bedouins and are at least partially dressed even in the shower. They don't react to the naked women in any way, though.

We get in the car, and continues along the Dead Sea, stopping at some resort for a coffee and then later on to take a look at Lot's wife. I wonder whether the legend really came from people looking at this more-or-less woman-shaped stone.

There is a place called 101'st Kilometer 101 km from Eilat, with a sort of poor man's zoo. There used to be more animals but some of them died in a recent fire.

An SMS. "Welcome to Jordan." Jordan is just a couple kilometers to the left.

It's getting dark as we arrive to Eilat. The place is a nice beach resort, with beaches, palms trees, restaurants, etc.

Mira and Lyonya suggest we eat sandwiches in Aroma. Oska, who is obviously not very fond of the idea, says that he would love to, but I am so obnoxiously picky that we should probably ask me. This makes me explode and say a number of things that probably shouldn't have been said, such as that my most acute requirement for the dining place is the total absence of company.

(I generally need some time for myself on my own on a regular basis. My ability to deal with people is a very easily exhaustible resource. On vacations with family and friends it can be stretched quite a bit as long as I get to run off on my own every once in a while, but for example being in close quarters with strangers 24 hours a day makes me unfriendly and mean in 48 hours, and downright hostile and violent in 72.)

I am on vacation with my family, but I haven't had time to go anywhere on my own for almost a week, and it really shows. I apologize to everyone, come to dinner with them in Aroma, and explain that I need some time off.

After that we take a walk along the waterfront. It's pretty and has a lot of little shops and juice stands. Mira and Lyonya want to know how Eilat compares to other beach resorts, and whether it makes sense for them to go to the Caribbean, for example. Our unanimous vote is "no, absolutely not", unless, of course, there is something other than beach that they want to see. Another thing, of course, is that if they want to go to the beach in the middle of winter the water temperature will be 18 in Eilat and 28 in St. Martin.

Planes fly right over us, very low.

At some point everyone goes home and I run off on my own for a while. I really need a drink and go to a bar, and they are out of most of the ingredients for all the drinks I try to order, but they go to another bar and bring them and make me a drink.

There is some highway nearby. It's huge, looks like an airport runway. In the morning it actually turns out to be an airport runway.

Eventually I go home, trying to buy a juice on the way and repeatedly failing because the salespeople are all missing in action. Finally I find a live one. Orange and kiwi juice is a good combination.

"Hey, you look like an Islamic terrorist!"

The unity government in Gaza has risen to the new heights of, hmm, unity: Fatah gunmen started shooting bearded men on the off chance that they are Hamas members.

Now, if they just did a summary execution of all the members of Hamas, I'd be all for it. But they are just shooting bearded guys.

Not that I am aganst profiling, mind you. But the profiling should involve checking the papers and searching the suspicious-looking person more thoroughly, not shooting them in various body parts just in case. Shooting everyone who looks like an Islamic terrorist, especially in a place where - let's face it - much everyone looks like an Islamic terrorist, is a bit unreasonable. If you are a part of a coalition government whose other part are the actual terrorists, it might also be politically unwise.

"Another Hamas official in Gaza City said that many young men had begun shaving their beards for fear of being identified as Hamas members. "We never imagined that the day would come when Muslim men would be afraid to walk in the street because they are wearing beards," he said."

Don't do that, guys! You'll need those beards after Hamas catches on to the new technique and start shooting all the beardless guys.

That's why the proper rules of war demand at least some kind of uniforms for the combatants, but of course the proper rules of war are for wankers, like the Western countries. That's probably also why all the uniforms tend to look like things that even the most fashion-impaired civilian would never put on by mistake - unlike beards, which tend to grow naturally on most men and some women.

The Muslims around the world are silent as usual. One could expect that the same people who burned embassies and occasionally each other because of some cartoons printed in Denmark would at least bother to organize a peaceful demonstration in protest of the shooting of bearded Muslim men, but I guess they only do that when some infidels forget their place.

In tomorrow news: "Raising the stakes: Hamas realizes that most Fatah supporters are Arabs, decides to kill all the Arabs in order to weed out Fatah suporters."

GSM operators?

I want a new GSM operator (the current one is Sonera). Radiolinja (now Elisa) has been tried and found lacking in quality.

Good advice on which operators to try and especially which ones not to try is appreciated. Most of all I don't like surprises. During the Radiolinja times people used to call me from abroad and get no answer; I never got the calls; Radiolinja refused to correct or even acknowledge the problem - they said that the problem must be with the phones abroad, I doubted that so many phones in three countries on two continents suddenly failed in connection with me changing to Radiolinja. Sonera, on the other hand, produced a 131-euro surprise in the bill last fall (which is an excusable offence) and has failed to properly straighten it out so far (which isn't).

Yafo and other places, 27.04.07

We were originally supposed to go to Tel Aviv that day, but Lyonya and Mira really don't want to. They have given different reasons for their reluctance every day. (I am curious to know what their real reason was, but at this point I am not likely to believe them even if they tell me.) In any case, they are our hosts and we can't pressure them too much, and besides we have a day in Tel Aviv by ourselves in the end of the trip...

They agree to go to Yafo, though. Considering that Yafo is the same city as Tel Aviv (the official name is Tel Aviv-Yafo) we assume that we'd get to visit Tel Aviv on the same trip for a little while, but they say that it is very far away and there is nowhere to park. OK, whatever...

First they want to show us some nice places around Jerusalem. We start in the morning and go to visit the zoophiles.

The so-called zoophiles live on a green mountain and make goat cheese. I am not quite sure why Lyonya calls them zoophiles - maybe because there is nothing else to do there? In any case the zoophiles have cute goats, a cute dog, and really good cheese. We buy some and go away. I should remember to visit the zoophiles the next time I am there.

The next place is a hill with abandonned Byzantine mosaics and a humongous cactus. The hill is unimpressive and dusty and it is hot and blah.

Yafo is an very pretty ancient town. It looks somewhat deserted, though. There are restaurants in the harbor, but only one is open. We go there and get a perfectly decent fish platter.

Either the proper tourist season has not started yet, or the locals are having a major siesta, or something. It is hot.

We walk all over the almost-empty town, enjoy the views of Yafo and the sea, and Tel Aviv turns out not to be all that far away. Lyonya tells us that we can come here to Yafo again when we are in Tel Aviv, instead of spending time there, which makes me wonder again why he doesn't want us to go to Tel Aviv.

The notable local views include a tree in a hanging egg (don't ask me what that means, but looks cute) and the dumbest ice cream vendor in the world:

Me: Two small cups, one scoop of coffee ice cream each, please.
Him: Here you go. (gives me one cup)
Me: And another one like that, please.
Him: (Grabs the cup from me and tries to put another scoop in.)
Me: No, I don't want two scoops in one cup, I want two cups with one scoop each.
Him (looking astonished): Why?
Me: One for me and one for my father.

He gave me the second cup but looked like the idea of a person buying ice cream for someone who is waiting outside was completely new to him and he wasn't sure he approved of such a weird modern invention.

We get back to Jerusalem, and go to Jan's cafe. I sincerely recommend the place, and especially its list of creamy drinks. All of them.

It also has a hot cinnamonny drink called ainar. I am still planning to make some of that at home. It's sort of like glögi but way better.

We get back, and Benka decides to try to read the Koran before going to sleep. She threatens to wake up in a hijab and with a full beard. 15 seconds later horrible snoring is heard from their bedroom.

Jerusalem, 26.04.07

Oska, Benka and I are all by ourselves in the old city. For a very moderate price you can walk on the city walls, and we buy the tickets and start from the Jaffa gate to the northeast.

The views are really nice. After a little while, however, Oska gets all paranoid, as he usually does if he hasn't slept well or had enough breakfast or something, and starts whining that we are entering the Muslim part of town and should leave immediately. The map in fact says that we are entering the Christian part of town, but when did facts ever stop Oska? He sees a mosque somewhere, too.

At some point he sees some construction being done on the wall and a couple of Arab workers, and says that we should go back now, because the way is closed and there are Arabs. It takes some convincing to get him to believe that there is a passage left for tourists, and that the Arabs, while somewhat suspicious in general, usually do not go to work every day with a bomb, just in case.

Finally we convince Oska to continue, and one of the Arabs, instead of turning into a fire-breathing dragon actually smiles and moves some of his construcion stuff out of our way.

We get down at the Damascus gate and on El Wad, which actually is full of Muslims, but this totally fails to impress Oska. Or the Muslims, for that matter.

The tourist guides generally say that the Muslim quarter is safe except For fridays, and we did not go there on Friday, but in general all the people (Jews, Arabs, Druze and even Hebrew-speaking Chinese) whom we met in Israel were pretty nice to tourists, much nicer than I expected. Israelis have a reputation for being somewhat rude and having bad service, but I just found them to be rather direct, more actively so than for example the Finns. You start talking to them and you really get to know what they think about everything, in more sincere detail than you have probably wanted, but I wouldn't say that they are rude about it. The service in the restaurants is much like in Finland, somewhat reserved but friendly, and they don't try to cheat you on the check.
The only places with really weird service were little Arab shops in Jerusalem's old city, and the juice stands in Eilat: the former had salesmen chasing after people and whining that they should buy something, while in the latter the vendor was usually absent as such, drinking coffee around the corner with a friend or something.

The juice stands are great, by the way. If you can find the damn guy who is supposed to sell the juice.

We (or rather I) shop a bit. Benka and I talk about how we should answer "where are you from?" with "Russia" if we want better prices, but it's really unpleasant to call oneself a Russian. I second the feeling. I buy a necklace from an Arab shop, and the guy promises me big discounts if I let him put it on my neck. He is funny, so I let him. He clearly has problems with balance though, and keeps falling on my tits. Heh.

In the Muslim quarter you are supposed to haggle, in the Jewish quarter all the prices are listed, but the end result of haggling is always pretty much the same as the listed price of similar items. There are no miracles in the world of markets.

There is a lot of school groups. Quite a few of them have an armed adult or two. I notice that the Arab school system has uniforms, while the secular Jewish doesn't. The Arab system also seems to be gender-separated. The kids from the religious Jewish system are absent altogether. Probably studying Talmud instead of going to field trips.

We visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre again, and this time Oska believes that tourists are allowed there. The church features Golgotha and Christ's tomb. There is a line to enter the tomb, and the people leaving it seem to touch some candle flame with their hands. There is no screams of "ouch", though.

The Church of the Redeemer is closed for lunch, but after it opens we climb on the tower, and the views from there are really great. The problem with all the views, however, is hamsin, a hot wind from the desert that makes everything look misty.

At some point we buy one of those elongated bagels from some Arab (not the same one who promised to love Oska in Russian the day before). The bagel is clearly an infidel bagel (tastes more like a baguette than like a proper bagel) but the green powder he gave us to put on top of it is really good. It's called zatar.

We make out way to the new city, to Ben Yehuda street. It is much like pedestrian downtown streets all over Europe, and I like it.
We try the local shawarma. It's quite good and you can have fried eggpant and french fries in it. A word of advice: they sell shawarma on a pita or on a lafa, and lafa is the way to go. It's like pita, but bigger, softer and better.

We find an ice cream place and sit there. While sitting we see a guy with a huge grenade launcher and a baby carriage.

There are a lot of armed people everywhere anyway (for some reason soldiers on leave tend to carry weapons), but that's the only time we see a grenade launcher.

One thing I am wondering about: Israel is full of heavily armed teenagers but they have somehow managed not to shoot up any schools so far.

We take a cab to Yad Vashem, which is quite far. The annoying thing about Yad Vashem is that there is a very rigid order to the exhibition, and not enough clues as to where the beginning is. Once we find the beginning, it's quite good, but I liked the Holocaust museum in DC better. Yad Vashem has two things that the museum in DC doesn't have though: the avenue of the Righteous Among the Nations, and the Hall of Names.

Well, at least they have a lot of experience...

Belarus did not make it to the UN Human Rights Council, on account of not having any human rights.

Not that I mind - perish the thought - I think this is a good step in the right direction, but why did they elect Angola, Egypt and Qatar now? More to the point, what are such staunch human right defenders as Nigeria and Saudi Arabia doing there already? I can well imagine their campaigns for election to the Human Rights Council: "Elect Saudi Arabia! We promise to defend your freedom of religion! Besides, we have a lot of experience with beheadings!" or "Nigeria for the Human Rights Council! We know everything about getting stoned! We will also protect children's rights to get polio!".

In a sane world even an application to any human-rights related body by something Saudi Arabia would have been the laugh of all the world for a week, but part of the problem is structural. The Human Rught Council has 13 seats for Africa, 13 seats for Asia, 6 for Eastern Europe, 8 for Latin America and the Caribbean, and 7 for the "Western European and Others". Where do you get 13 even marginally civilized countries in Africa, where? And in Asia?

I think the general problem of the UN is that this is an organization that tries to maintain the fiction that Equatorial Guinea or Sudan are normal countries just like France of Germany, and somehow have a right to an opinion about things like human rights, or rather a right to have someone listen to their opinion.

(Yeah, I understand how playing a little "you are a normal country just like us and we'll try really hard not to giggle" game can be useful in some situation can be useful in some circumstances. Mostly, though, it isn't, as evidenced by the UN.)

As of the beginning of this year, for example, the UN Human Rights Council has passed 8 resolutions condemning Israel, and no resolutions condemning, say, Sudan for that little genocide of about 400 000 people. Seriously - would you expect anything else from a UN body with 13.5 Muslim countries (out of 47), quite regardless of what Israel or Sudan might or might not be doing?

Not that they forgot about Sudan completely, mind you. They have expressed deep concern. Maybe even grave concern.

(Meanwhile, there have been refugees arriving from Sudan to Israel, with Israel desperately trying not to let them in. Are there any Israeli refugees trying to get to Sudan? Or even Palestinian refugees, for that matter?)

OMG! The evil French have insulted Muslims again!

This time, by electing Nicolas Sarkozy. Who, as we know, is of a partially Jewish ancestry and is therefore "thirsty for the blood of Muslim children".

What, French have voted as they saw fit, and not as would have pleased the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades? The nerve of those frog-eaters...

Welcome to the world of the total freedom of speech. Please bring your own moderator.

There is a very special place in Hell. It is reserved for journalists who talk about statistics without being familiar with the concepts of mean and median, and politicians and officials who try to make stupid rules about technical matters without any understanding of how the technology works.

The state prosecutor Mika Illman wishes to have all the Internet conversation moderated postfactum. Web forums, blogs, IRC, chats, you name it.

According to the answers he gave to Kari Haakana's questions, Illman would like to force all web forums to hire moderators.

"If I had all the cards, I would extend these laws also to individuals", he says, when asked whether these rules would also extend to private blogs. Sorry, it's kind of hard to resist making jokes about the man not playing with a full deck.

He would also like to moderate IRC chats. He realizes that it is difficult, but that does not stop him. If he knew anything about the subject, he would have also realized that this is impossible (what is said on IRC is said, and no logs are kept unless users decide to keep their own), but I guess that wouldn't have stopped him either. Taking reality into account is for peasants and programmers, not for the state prosecutor.

He says that IRC can be moderated as easily as radio or TV. Hmm, I have always imagined that radio and TV are moderated before the broadcast, not after like he has just said the Net chats should be, but if Mr. Illman has found a way to moderate broadcasts after the fact, I would gladly hear about it. Oh, dear... Imagine, every time you type a line it has to go through a moderator before it shows up on a channel... That, mind you, in a country that cannot even afford a moderator for the public statements of its chief state prosecutor to prevent him from putting his foot into his mouth too often. (If Illman has a personal moderator he sure is not getting value for his money. I have green hairy things in my fridge that can do a better job.)

That's ok, really. We have already learned that politicians are capable of legislating on technological issues without a slightest understanding of the technology in question. What bothers me more is other issues:

"The line between the permissible and the forbidden is in the same place on the Internet and outside it," - he says. Fair enough. In fact I am more concerned that the man seems to have some problem with understanding the line between the public and the private. IRC channels are usually private places, with a limited number of participants who usually know each other either on the Net or IRL, not public broadcasts. The difference between public and private is not 100% clear and might depend on the size and openness of the channel, but if the man really has a problem distinguishing between the public and the private, what else would he like to censor? Text messages, email, letters? Should every conversation of every group of friends in a bar have its own moderator? (Having its own informer has been tried in Eastern Europe during the last half of 20th century and with dismal results; having its own moderator would probably work out even worse and overstretch the country's medical resources.)

I became curious as to what is Illman's idea of the line between the permissible and the forbidden is, and look what I found: Yle's article on his dissertation:

"Demokraattisessa maassa hallitusta ja sen harjoittamaa politiikkaa tulee voida arvostella voimakkaastikin ja ulkomaalaispolitiikka on yksi sen osa. Jos siihen sisältyy samalla ulkomaalaisten arvostelu, sekin on hyväksyttävä, jos sitä ei ääneen lausuta," - says the article. ("In a democratic country one should be able to criticize the government and its policies, even strongly, and the immigration policy is part of it. If it contains criticism towards foreigners, his is acceptable, as long as it is not pronounced out loud.")

Damn. And here I thought that the freedom of speech was about the things one is in fact allowed to say out loud. If the freedom of speech includes things that are permissible as long as we don't actually say them, then the state of the freedom of speech in the world is quite perfect already. You can't even imagine the vast range of things that one could criticize in the Soviet Union as long as one did not express the criticsm in any way. Hell, I think you can even insult the prophet in Saudi Arabia as long as nobody finds out.

The age of the total freedom of speech has finally come, comrades! Hurrah!

Freedom of speech

"The freedom of speech is a rather relative concept," - I noted to myself about a year and a half after moving to the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, while standing in my guidance counselor's office, accused of sexual harassment. Having realized that, I decided to keep it to myself for the time being.

(The sexual harassment in question involved telling a single joke with sexual content, and did not involve any physical contact. The accuser was Waldemar "Wally" Ulich, a teacher of German, who should have known better, considering that he was an expert on sexual harassment himself. He is currenty serving his 20 years' probation on 10 counts of indecent assault and battery on a child over 14.)

Seriously, though: don't take freedom of speech for granted. Not in the Land of the Free, not in Lintukoto, not anywhere.

I don't want to go into "there is no true and perfect freedom of speech anywhere, so why bother" kind of cynicism. I have had a chance to observe the differences between the civilized and the uncivilized world in this respect, and it is enormous. Freedom of speech is, however, not absolute, and its borders are usually unclear and constantly moving.

The reason for it is, well, us. The freedom of speech belongs to the category of things that are very nice to have for oneself, but when somebody else exercises it to say the things we don't like, we look for excuses to silence them. Because it's insulting. Or obscene. Or bad for the children. Or bad for the music industry. Or likely to piss Muslims off. Or creates a hostile working environment. Or is racist. Or sexist. Or sexual. Or whatever.

It's sort of like tolerance. Almost everyone claims to be tolerant, except of course of things that should never be tolerated.

Of course I try not to demand restrictions on other people's freedom of speech, and even tend to believe that I am totally for the freedom of speech, within reason of course ("fire" in a crowded theater, incitement to murder, etc., etc.), but I guess so also believe all the other people who are totally for the freedom of speech. Within reason, of course. You know, almost everyone is totally for the freedom of speech but every new restriction on it has a fair lot of people behind it.

(Note: I am talking about freedom of speech as a right to say what you want without being punished by the Powers that Be. I am not talking about being censored from HS or Suomi24 forums, or about being ridiculed in the media for what one says, or about losing one's constituency's votes after saying something unseemly. These are very different issues.)

I think people (myself probably included) need occasional reminders that the freedom of speech as such was not invented so that you could tell your neighbor "good morning, isn't the weather lovely today?", although I am quite sure that somebody somewhere got punished for that, too. The freedom of speech is there so that people whom we don't like can feel free to say things we don't like. For example that Holocaust did not happen. Or that having sex with children of any age should be legalized.

(As a carrot to my dear readers: wouldn't you like to know what your enemies are saying and who they are? That's what I usually tell myself when I feel like limiting someone's freedom of speech.)

I did not really write this to remind people to safeguard others' freedom of speech. A lot of people write about that, with variable results, and I don't think I really have that much to add. I wrote this to tell people to watch out, and not to rely on the freedom of speech. They really are out to get you - the people who don't like what you say. The laws are unclear, the exceptions and gray areas are numerous, and it is quite easy to get in trouble. Be careful.

OTOH - people who get in trouble for what they say are constantly testing and pushing the limits of the freedom of speech and are probably the only thing that keeps the whole concept from collapsing in on itself. Keep up the good work, guys.

(Unless, of course, what you are saying is a call to Jihad, in which case do us all a favor and eat shit and die. By yourselves, mind you, and without any innocent bystanders.)

I want resolution!

Why do all the monitor listings tend to list them by size, and I have to click every damn monitor to find out its resolution? Can't they list the damn things by resolution too?

I've been also wondering how come so many people managed to switch from CRT to LCD already. I am only consideing switching now, and probably not gonna do it till the fall, because decent resolutions are becoming affordable only now. How could one switch from 1600x1200 to a 1280x1024?

Also: is there anything particularly good about widescreen monitors, except that they fit widescreen movies?

Eurovision

Saw the Eurovision final yesterday, under the bad influence of my friends and in the company of some of them. Much to my surprise, I really liked Ukraine, Romania and France, and Greece wasn't bad at all (and out of the ones that didn't make it to the final, Israel and Cyprus were nice). And by "really liked" I don't just mean that they were better than the others, but that I am actively interested in listening to them afterwards and trying other songs by the same artists.

Pretty much everyone I know makes fun of my music taste, which is OK, but leaves me feeling a bit lonely (as in alone in the world with my music taste, not really lonely) and wondering about it. Now I wonder: if I am so alone with my fondness for the Ukraine's song, who are those people who voted it into the second place, and how come I never meet them IRL?

While looking for other songs by the same artists today, I found Mon pere etait tellement de gauche by Fatals Picards (the French band) and really liked it.

25.04.07, Jerusalem

Shmuel takes us on a tour of the old city, and the old city is great.

Parts of the walls are rather new, built in Middle Ages when city walls became obsolete anyway.

Near the Jaffa gate there is a monument to a Crusader and a Muslim warrior. Shmuel disapproves.

Jerusalem has funny alien-looking fire hydrants with two eyes.

There are bits of Roman ruins, and a part of an old city wall.

At some point I see a guy who totally looks like an evil henchman from a Hollywood movie: a big rifle, a surly expression, tattoos, sunglasses, a wifebeater shirt, you name it. A bit of observation reveals that the guy is the responsible adult of some kind of a school trip. He has a group of 20 or so schoolchildren aged 9 or 10 and keeps showing them places and explaining something.

Shmuel disses the guy's gun, saying that an M1 Carbine is only good for school trips.

The Dome of Rock is beautiful from outside, but the whole Temple Mount is currently closed for tourists. Couldn't visit Al-Aqsa Mosque for the same reason.

The Valley of Jehoshaphat is the place where all the really cool religious Jews get buried, because that's where the Messiah will start raising the dead from. I am not sure I understand the point: if you are dead anyway and have been probably for hundreds of years, what's the rush, can't you wait a few more days? It's not like they are gonna run out of parking spaces and sale items in Olam Haba.

Arabs sell weird huge elongated bagels and some green powder everywhere. They are quite insistent, and have learned to advertise their bagels in Russian. One of them screams in Russian: "hot bagels! I love you in Russian!" and we wonder which one of us he loves. I vote for Oska.

Somebody should really teach these Arabs the Yiddish song "Koif meine beygele", this is very on-topic in every way.

For some reason it's still difficult to get accustommed to the opening times written in the wrong direction.

We take a look at the East Jerusalem (here be dragons) from afar, and get to listen to the horrible sounds coming from the minarets, howling almost like Serbs at Eurovision.

Then we go the Hezekiah tunnel, a 2700-year old water tunnel. The water is still there after all those years, and electricity mostly isn't, so we put our water-unfriendly valuables such as cell phones in plastic bags, put on some swimming shoes, and arms outselves with flashlights. Shmuel lets me borrow a tiny blue LED light which I hang on my shirt and which mostly just makes my breasts look blue. I take my pants off, too, and replace them with a shawl/skirt thingie which dries way faster than jeans.

The tunnel is 533 meters long. The first 50 meters are kinda fun, especially the deep bit that makes you wonder whether you can make it out with dry underwear. After that this view starts getting old (no offense, Oska) and so does hitting your head on the ceiling (the ancestors could have been more considerate towards tall people). Shmuel impresses us with "that part here is quite new, built during the times of the second Temple".

We get out into the dry-off area where 15 or so Hassidim are already trying to dry themselves off, and I promptly lose my skirt (it became have from all the water and slid down). The Hassidim decide they are dry enough, and retreat in a quick but dignified way.

After we get out of there we thank Shmuel and say goodbye to him. He was a very good guide.

No visit to the old city it complete without Ha-Kotel, the Western wall of the Temple. This is the holiest place on earth for Jews, the place of God's presense on Earth. People come to the wall and write messages to the God on little pieces of paper, like the Japanese. The wall itself is divided by sex (and men got a bigger part!), but the plaza in front of it is quite co-ed. We approach the most holy wall, touch it, and I make a very abmitious wish (somebody here is supposed to be omnipotent, no?) without a piece of paper. Benka writes God a note.

(We - or at least I - do all of the above with the same mixture of reverence and humor with which I am writing this right now.)

The plaze also contains a few yeshivas and a toilet, which is most surely the world's holiest toilet, but even the divine presense turns out to be unable to make the Most Holy Toilet flush.

We try to move from the Jewish holy places to the Christian ones, and get lost in a huge market where Arabs advertise their souvenirs to us in Russian. Their souvenirs include a t-shirt saying "Israel: Uzi does it". I consider buying it, then decide to look for the sweatshirt version, then forget about it.

Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Oska is uncomfortable, feeling as if we are interrupting something, although we aren't. We decide to come back tomorrow.

24.04.07, Jerusalem

Our guide is a red-haired Zionist from Hebron named Shmuel. Today he is showing us the old parts of the new (as in, outside the old city walls) Jerusalem.

Shmuel has a pistol in his belt. When I ask my relatives about it, they shrug ("well, the guy does live in Hebron..."). The pistol does not bother me as such, but what I find disturbing is that it is in his belt in such a way that if it goes off by accident he'd shoot himself in the balls. Shmuel is nice, and I sure hope the safety is on and working well.

He shows us a million of picturesque old neighborhoods and tells something about each of them. Sometimes during the day we see a park full of people, smoke rising above it, and more people going that way with portable grills and picnic baskets. That's the traditional way to celebrate the Independece Day here.

We get a taste of the traditional celebrations at Alla's place later. They have a really nice place, and a huge balcony with a great view. They have a lot of meat and a traditional desert called "Arab thingie with cheese" (not to be confused with Arab thingie with nuts, which is rather vile).

There are lots of people speaking Hebrew, and at some point a lot of children materialize from somewhere (neighbors, I think). Luckily I find a room where Dina and her boyfriend are playing with a laptop, and they admit me into this childfree geek refuge.

At night we go out for a walk and to some cafe, and then I finally realize why locals wear so much clothes. Brr.

Voisiko joku jo paistaa Venäjän voissa?

Voisin lahjoittaa voitakin tähän jaloon tarkoitukseen.

Seriously, though - I am not suggesting anybody really attack Russia (such an action, even when performed by somebody capable of destroying it, would surely pollute the environment and greatly bother the neighbors) - but if the whole country just disappeared somewhere overnight, it would give me a great deal of warm fuzzy feelings.

I just tried to write a post about the Russian politics, but the only printable words it contained were "the", "to" and "off", so I didn't.

Seriously, what is it that makes Russians so incapable of realizing that the rest of Eastern Europe in general and Baltic countries in particular do not see them as liberators, and have no reason to see them as liberators?

23.04.07, Jerusalem

In the morning Mira drops me off in the Israel museum. There are the Qumran scrolls there, in a special little building all by themselves. It's interesting to see that the letters have not changed much since then. I have finally remembered all the Hebrew letters but of course can't read the thing anyway. There is also a lot about the life of the people in the Qumran community, which seems to be pretty miserable even by the standards of 2000 years ago.

There is also a model on Jerusalem during the Second Temple period, a lot of Jewish art, and a small but good collection of art from Asia, Africa and Latin America. There is a lot more, but I don't have time.

Mira said that there was supposed to be a siren and a minute of silence at 10 in honor of the fallen heroes (it's the Memorial Day), but it happens at 11 instead, and catches me in the most unfortunate position. Out of necessity I honor the memory of the fallen heroes while seated, consoling myself with the thought that the fallen heroes don't really care anymore.

I come outside to wait for Lyonya to pick me up, and notice that one of the numerous Israeli flags that look like Finnish is in fact Finnish and belongs to some Finnish tourist group.

We go the the airport to pick up my parents. The Tel Aviv airport, unlike all the other airports, does not permit firearms on premises and puts up signs to that effect. Benka and Oska take a very long time to come out, because they are stuck behind a long line of really weird Argentinian Hassidim.

One of the Argentinian Hassidim wanders into the women's bathroom and does not seem to notice it.

We come back to Jerusalem and have a dinner with all the relatives (Mira's mon Sara also comes), catching up on a lot of family gossip.

22.04.07, Jerusalem

The airport is very modern and rather large. The official signs are all in three languages (Hebrew, Arabic, English) but the ads are mostly just in Hebrew. The only exception is a huge flowerbed just outside the windows that says "NOKIA: connecting people".

The passport check. "Have you ever lived in Israel? Those relatives you are visiting, how exactly are they related to you". I describe the family tree. "What's your father's name? Has he ever lived in Israel?"

Lyonya (for the Israeli passport control and other people who like exact descriptions of family relations: his wife's father's mother was a sister of my mother's mother) picks me up, which is awfully nice of him to do at 5:30 in the morning.

The hills of Judea (the region where Jerusalem is situated) are way greener than I expected. Lyonya explains that the trees were planted there, not indigenous.

Flags are everywhere, in amounts unsurpassed even in Norway. That's because the next day is the Memorial Day, and the day after that is the Independence Day, but Israelis like to wave flags in general, and the fact that the flags are the same color as in Finland makes the whole impression a bit surreal.

Jerusalem is sort of light orangey-pink. That's because the front of every building has to be made of Jerusalem stone, an orangey-pink kind of limestone. The fact that everywhere you see there are hills with Jerusalem stone buildings makes it very difficult to orient oneself in Jerusalem without a map.

Lyonya and his wife Mira (my cousin) and the rest of their family live in Gilo, the southernmost neighborhood on Jerusalem. There is a deep canyon behind the corner, and on the other side of it is Beit Jala, a suburb of Bethlehem. Some parts of the street are separated from the canyon by a bulletproof wall. Those are the places that were the targets of shootings from Beit Jala in 2000-2002.

All the houses have sun batteries and water heaters on the roof.

We drop off my bags, have some breakfast and go downtown. It's very hot already, even though weather.com has promised only 22 degrees.

We pick Mira up at her office. The inside of the building reminds me of Russia, partly by the paint on the walls but mostly by the amount of Russian spoken there.

Mira is a workplace safety official, and a very enthusiastic one at that. She can be sitting at a beach one moment and suddenly start screaming "Look, look, that guy is working up there without a safety harness! Take a picture, fast!"

I hadn't seen them in person for almost 20 years.

The three of us go to a cafe on Jaffa road, called Aroma. Aroma is a chain, and they make a really nice drink called aroma coffee, a kind of latte with a bit of whipped cream and chocolate. There is a guard at the entrance, but we sit outside.

Lots of religious people are walking in the street. Religious Jewish men in all varieties of kipas and hats, some in black Hassidic clothes, some with peyos (the sidelocks), some without. You can sort of tell their differences from their hats, clothes and peyos, but I don't manage to learn this skill.

Religious Jewish women are a lot less exotic-looking - they wear normal-looking long skirts and long-sleeved blouses, and are sometimes difficult to distinguish from similarly attired non-religious women. The married religious women cover their hair: sometimes with a hat, sometimes with a scarf tied on the back of the neck, sometimes with a snood and sometimes with a wig. In New York wigs seem to be the most popular covering, but here in Jerusalem the scarves seem to be in fashion. They are always tied in the back, possibly lest one be taken for a Muslim - Muslim women pass their scarves in front under their chins. A lot of them also wear huge shoes that probably require a tractor driver's license, but this seems to be just the local fashion.

Religious Muslim women wear scarves in such a way that neither the hair nor the neck is visible. Some of them wear jeans and perfectly normal long-sleeved blouses, some (the more religious?) wear a kind of a long coat over their other clothes, but in any case none of them look like tents, or cover their faces.

The non-religious people are fairly well-covered, too, and I wonder about the reason for that until I go out some night and realize how awfully cold it is. Jerusalem is one of those places where it can well be +30 during the day and +12 in the late evening. Tourists beware!

Mira goes back to work and Lyonya and I check out Mea Shearim (he tries to convince me that people who live there do not bite at all, at least not if I put a long-sleeved cardigan on). It's quite interesting, and people really don't bite us. Then we visit Ein Kerem, a very pretty and flowery (in the literal sense) neighborhood where John the Baptist was supposedly born. While there we see some artist friend of Lyonya's. Lyonya himself paints, and paints quite well, which is something I have never known about him in the 30 or so years he's been my relative.

In the evening Mira shows me the university campus, and then we go to visit Alla, Mira's and Lyonya's older daughter. She was 9 the last time I'd seen her. Now she is all grown up and works in the police and has a husband and two children. The one-and-a-half-year-old boy, Guy, loudly demands ice cream and more ice cream, occasionally falling down into a Muslim prayer position. The older girl, Noi, looks at her brother with the most sarcatic smile I'd ever seen on a five-year-old. Heh.

In the evening I finally meet Dina, Mira's and Lyonya's younger daughter. Naturally she does not remember me - she was 3 when I's last seen her. It's very interesting to see her as an adult.

And in weirdbeard news...

Our old friend Abu Izzadeen got arrested for inciting terrorism and fundraising.

Abu Hamza had his pocket money frozen, and no, I am not kidding. Abu Hamza is serving seven years for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred, and managed to find a way to profit from property deals while behind bars in spite of having his assets frozen. This pissed the Treasury off so much that they seized his pocket money. At a very bad time too, what with Abu Izzadeen arrested and unable to raise more money for Abu Hamza.

Careful, man. You keep that up and the treasury will confiscate your hook and sell it for profit.

Ellilä

As some of my readers know, Mikko Ellilä is being investigated by police for allegedly inciting hatred against a population group, on request of the Ombudsman for Minorities Mikko Puumalainen.

Anything I could write right now on the subject of freedom of speech in general and this investigation in particular would be way too cynical. Better read Jussi Halla-aho, Keisarin uudet vaatteet or the man himself.

Israel - general impressions

Just came back from a two-week vacation in Israel. While there I did not get involved in moving any bronze monuments around, as some of my readers have suggested, but did the normal touristy things and visited relatives and friends. The detailed report with pictures is forthcoming, but in the meanwhile:

- the whole country is really owned by cats, who keep humans as pets. Never seen that many cats anywhere.
- they have a different climate in every suburb of every city. Zionist climate control clearly works.
- we tried to avoid as many holidays as possible, and saw only 3 holidays in 2 weeks.
- most holidays seem to be celebrated by barbecuing huge amounts of meat. The people also practice it in between holidays, just in case.
- shawarma really is better than in Europe, mostly due to added eggplant and various salads.
- the people like to wave flags everywhere in the manner of Norwegians.
- the people are very direct, and will tell you everything they think about local politics in very vivid colors as soon as they meet you. The most colorful swearing is used to describe the president Moshe Katsav.
- Russian-speaking people are everywhere. Most of the younger ones speak Hebrew among themselves, so you don't realize that they also speak Russian until they suddenly address you in Russian.
- the people are very patriotic and militaristic in a way that is very similar to Finnish but a lot more intense - sort of like the Finns would be if the Winter war happened every ten years.
- hummus is everywhere. Beware.
- Roman ruins are all over the place.
- most people drive everywhere, even though public transportation exists.
- lots of beautiful flowers, except in the desert.
- before going to an Arab area, ask the locals - the difference between "that horrible place where really nasty Arabs live" and "that nice Arab village where everyone goes to lunch on Shabbat" is not obvious to the naked eye of a tourist.
- Dead Sea burns your asshole and is way overrated. Red Sea is very beautiful and nice to swim in.
- the south is deserty and looks a bit like an alien planet (at least if you are not accustommed to the desert). The north is quite green.
- all the official sings are in three languages (Hebrew, Arabic, English)
- security checks are everywhere (parkings, supermarkets, universities, malls, roads, hotels, etc.) but at least they don't make you take your belt off like in Washington, DC.
- all the supermarkets are kosher. The treif (unkosher) food is sold in small ethnic and delicatessen stores.
- almost everything is closed on Saturdays, but some stores and restaurants are open. Public transportation stops, but taxis work. Taxis are rather cheap.
- weekend is Friday+Saturday. Saturdays and other holidays start on sunset of the previous day, and end on sunset.
- the are a lot of armed people all over the place, so all places that do not want people carrying arms there have cute little "no weapons"-signs.
- there are lots and lots of lifeguards at the beaches.
- the coffee is really good, especially in the chain named Aroma.