'Carnival of Vanities' 102 hot off the presses...

HOTDAWGS! BEERHEAH! SOOVINEERES! PRO-GRAMZ! PRETZELS! HAVEILHAVALIM! Get em' while they're hot!

Jerusalem: Friday morning at the market (exclusive video)

This is a ridiculously great way to warm up a rainy, freezing Friday morning in the Mahane Yehuda open-air market.

The duo of buskers are regulars in the market, and are regaling (con brio!) shoppers with a well-known melody welcoming in the Sabbath.

The chef (one taste and you'll agree...) at the stall - one of my regular stops - is preparing a steaming hot, fresh-out-of-the-oven, "Ramla-style" boreka pastry. Made with filo dough, and stuffed with cheese, pickles, a sliced egg, salt, pepper, za'atar and topped off with tahini sauce and a dollop of fiery "schug," (the "ch" is pronounced as though you just swallowed a whole spoonful) this am-freakin'-brosia, and the music make for serious contendahs' in prepping physically and spiritually for the coming Sabbath.

Dialogue between owner & bystander (offscreen):

Bystander: He's filming us for the Internet?!
Owner: Yeah.
Bystander: No kidding?... Wha' - and I'm not famous here?
Owner: He stopped by - you weren't around...
Later...
Me: He's preparing something for me, something simply out-rageous[ly good]...

Here's something sweet (well, spicy, actually...) about Israel cinema classics and borekas from Jewlicious.

More video, pics and written coverage among the market stalls is here. Colleague Shoshana Cordova penned ("keyboarded?") a superb article about the "up-scale-ization" of the shuk here.

Meanwhile, I've got to get going with my own Shabbat prep, so Shabbat Shalom, and have a great weekend.

Google Earth: Dissing Israel one slanted post at a time

This is a story/meme that I have noted repeatedly to Foreign Ministry officials, bloggers here, as well as others involved in Israeli activism - so far, without much positive response:

So much of of what passes for "successful" efforts to combat anti-Israel reportage, propaganda, etc always seems to overlook "viral," bottom-up, grassroots activism, with proponents preferring top-down "dreiing with the machers," and, all too often coming out looking overwrought, and counterproductive.

Along with ubiquitous online tools like Wikipedia, Google Earth is a great example of how skewed coverage of Israel begins, from a nominally neutral source, that is then picked up by the ill-informed as "fact," and then spread at the speed of "enter." This - yet again - forces Israeli supporters into a reactionary mode, instead of taking charge of the agenda in the first place. To wit: A report appearing in the UK's Totally Jewish reports that:

Google has launched an enquiry into its interactive atlas program Google Earth after a TJ investigation revealed the online mapping and navigation service is replete with anti-Israel propaganda.

Google Earth, which claims to provide “local facts” and “critical tools for understanding a story” about the world, also contains factually incorrect data and biased images relating to Israel and the Middle East.

One Israeli settlement is displayed alongside comments implying citizens are stealing water from neighbouring Palestinians, while other images purport to show copies of land confiscation orders as well as plans to extend the security fence into Bethlehem.

Read the rest. (And just wait till you see what Hizbullah supporters have done with maps of the Lebanon War...)

Another glaring example is here, in a previous entry about avid "amateur" photography sites, like TrekEarth (along with its sister sites, TrekLens, and TrekNature) where I wrote, "PA area shots are accompanied by agitprop, in a sort of "soft-propaganda" exploitation..."

Man loses nose in circumcision

A "briss" gone terribly wrong...

A traditional circumcision ceremony in South Africa went awry over the weekend when a policeman had his nose bitten off.

The policeman had tried to put paid to an argument between a man and his family during the ceremony in the Eastern Cape province, when the man attacked him, biting off his nose.

The aggrieved policeman then shot the 30-year-old man in the chest, the SAPA news agency reported.

Both are now recovering in hospital.

Circumcision is a rite of passage for some South African boys who go through a lengthy initiation before undergoing the procedure.

Two questions: Who was the mohel, and just how lengthy was the "initiation" - it sounds like they saved on catering costs by doing "the procedure" at the Bar Mitzva. Guess the Manischewitz "Mad Dog 20/20" really packed a punch...

Well, at least the kid wasn't the one needing hospitalization.

Heads-up! UFO crashes in Iran (no - this is a real news report)

Betcha' you thought that was a joke headline, right?

UFO Crash in Central Iran
Jan 10, 2007

An Unidentified Flying Object crashed in Barez Mounts in the central province of Kerman Wednesday morning. Deputy Governor General of Kerman province Abulghassem Nasrollahi told that the crash which was followed by an explosion and a thick spiral of smoke has caused no casualties or damage to properties.

Ok - think it's still a parody? Then you read it yourself.

Don't worry - they'll get their revenge on the ship's occupants yet...

Unless, perhaps, sorta, maybe, couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't be that the UFO turns out to be connected to the earlier related post: Israel: Pondering 'Hammerin' time' with Iran.

Naaaaa.

Behind the Headlines: Six months (and 24 years) in terrorist captivity (UPDATED)

From the Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

Six months have passed since the unprovoked abduction of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser on the Israeli side of the Lebanese border, and of Gilad Shalit on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza.

(...)To date no word has been heard from the two captive soldiers, and neither their families nor the government of Israel have any knowledge of their whereabouts or their current state of health.

Two weeks prior to their abduction, another soldier, Gilad Shalit, was abducted as well, this time on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza. His family, too, anxiously awaits news from him. Especially grave is the fact that these unprovoked abductions were carried out on sovereign Israeli territory.

Read the following brief bios of the three. For their sakes, and for ours.

...and thanks to a swift kick in the reminder by A Town Crier, do absolutely not forget Zvi Feldman, Yehuda Katz, Guy Hever, Zachary Baumel and Ron Arad.

Oh, and by the way, there's also a $10,000,000 reward for anyone providing information leading to them that is "reliable, up-to-date and fully verifiable."

Israel: Pondering 'Hammerin' time' with Iran

Former US immigrant and advisor to Menachem Begin, and New York Post columnist, Zev Chafets mulls whether Israel "doing the right thing," by Iran may, in fact, mean doing the unexpected thing.

It is possible, even likely, that Israel could survive an Iranian nuclear attack physically — but not psychologically. It is doubtful that Israel could carry on as a sane, not to mention democratic, society. This is the great insight of Ahmadinejad.

An Israel assaulted in this way would react, of course. But it might not react in the predictable, proportionate, tit-for-tat fashion that the realists have laid out.

Read the rest.

Earlier posts about Israel and Iran here, here, here, here, here, and the linkdump is here.

Jerusalem & Tel Aviv: Spot the subtle differences...

And ever the twain shall meet.

Jewish worshiper at Western Wall holding sprigs of myrtle during intermediate
days of Passover, 2005. More Jerusalem images and stories are here, here
and here.

Cor-Ten steel sculpture on observation deck of Tel Aviv's Azrieli office towers.
More of my (color) shots of Tel Aviv structures are here, here and here.

Click on images for full-size photos. Justing getting started in working with B&W post-processing, so professional or personal comment and critique is welcome.

Black, Jewish, oh - and did I mention he can put your butt in the slammer?

Hint: Reportedly religiously observant, and temporarily served as an infamous dictator.

C'mon - think...


No peeking...


Aww, all riiiiight - (ya' wus)

(H-T: Israellycool)

Olmert, bribery, resignation & Jerusalem's secret nuke shelter

Did that headline cover most of
the Israel "media buzz" tags?

Webzine Israel Insider reports:

Channel 10 reported Tuesday evening that Attorney General Menachem Mazuz plans to instruct Israel Police to launch an investigation against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert over three affairs to which he is allegedly connected.

According to the report, the decision to open a criminal investigation was made during the investigation of alleged criminal conduct in the selling of Bank Leumi's majority shares.

Ynet News, amplifying this report, quotes a source in the Ministry of Justice who opines that:

Olmert has public and legal obligation to resign upon becoming focus of police investigation.

And, while we're at it with a "Hop-On-Pop" post against Olmert, let's wrap with an acidic commentary by hard right-wing political wannabe Moshe Feiglin, who weighs in about the massive bomb shelter taking shape - somewhere - beneath the Knesset Parliament building and the exit from the capital:

Why does Israel have to invest three billion shekels ($700 million) to build an underground nuclear bomb shelter for the government? For those of you who do not understand what the endless construction work at the entrance to Jerusalem is all about, we have some disconcerting news. The construction is part of an atomic shelter six kilometers (four miles) long in which Olmert, Livni, Peretz and their aides can continue to run the country with no fear -- even if a nuclear mushroom is billowing at street level. The shelter also serves as a shortcut to Israel's airport. No, this is not a joke. An elevator descends from the Prime Minister's office to the secret tunnels, far from the traffic congestion on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway -- or the radioactive fallout -- straight to the airport and the reunion with Olmert's sons in New York. It's sort of like a modern-day Cave of Tzedekiah.

Read the rest.

The Jerusalem Post report on this amazing, but true story is here. And the government isn't the only one digging deeper.