All posts by kirsch

Not much activity here

Man… I haven’t posted anything to this website in months… The problem is I was writing all the PHP from scratch, had a small system up and running but I got sick of enhancing it, I’m too busy with work. I need to get a good blogging system, then I’ll start all over with this website.

Busy Sunday

Very busy day yesterday:

  • 8 AM: Last game of the Austin Soccer City League, at SEMP (30 minutes drive). We won and took the championship.
  • 11 AM: About 7 people came over for lunch and to watch…
  • 12 PM: Monterrey VS Guadalajara (at Jalisco stadium). Score: 1-1.
  • 2 PM: Clean the apartment. Specially that kitchen floor. Wow.
  • 5 PM: Cirque Du Soleil, it was a great show.
  • 8 PM: Dinner at El Dorado, by the lake.Now I need another weekend.

The mistery of the matzah balls

Twice on the past week I made matzah ball soup. Used the same little mix that vomes from the little box, same brand, same amount of eggs and so on. The first time, the matzah balls came out big and fluffy. The second time, they came out small and hard. I have no preference for either type, yet no one seems to be able to predict when nor tell why sometimes they come out one way or the other.This is one of the last great misteries in the world, right up there with the Loch Ness Monster. If I had a way for you to provide feedback in this poor excuse for a blog OR if I had any readers, I could ask you to provide some insight. But I can’t.

Canned farts

Credit for this invention goes to Mr. Robert Thurman. Using a can of Office Duster 3 (For precision cleaning of hard-to-reach areas on computers and electronics office equipment) and your arm pit, you can create fantastic fart noises. Excellent ice-breaker for those tough job interviews or meet-your-in-laws dinners. Cracks me up everytime. I have been experimenting creating different pitches by using your arm, leg and stomach (the flabbier, the deeper the sound)

Warning: Please note that shaking the can, holding it upside-down or overuse may cause frostbite. Keep away from eyes and out of reach of children.

Pearl Jam

Last Saturday I went to the Pearl Jam concert in San Antonio. It was kind of a random last-minute thing. Alex Schwarz drove from Monterrey to Austin on Friday, called me about, told me about the concert and we bought the tickets. Good concert, even though I’m not a big Pearl Jam fan.

Next show: Cirque Du Soleil

Liberte, Fraternite, Egalite

Yesterday, a sad, terrible, deplorable thing happened in Paris.
In the middle of a manifestation against the war in Iraq, in which you could see hundreds of people wearing keffiah (traditional arab head-wear) and carrying Iraqi and Palestinian flags, two counselors in the jewish zionist youth movement Hashomer Hatzar happened to walk by. One of them 25, the other 18, were first insulted by the crowd, then phisycally attacked. They ended in the hospital.
During this whole thing, you could hear insults against jews. On a loadspeaker, one of the manifestants yelled (roughly, my french is not so good) “Nous, les musulmans, nous les Arabes, nous pouvons nous promener la tute haute dans la rue. Eux (jes juifs, ndlr) sont obligs de se cacher. Un verset du Coran dit : Ce que l?on vous a inflig, vous pourrez l’infliger. Mais la patience est une vertue. Sachons attendre, la roue va tourner.” – it translates: “Us muslims, us the Arabs, can walk around on the streets with our heads high. Them (the Jews) are forced to hide. A verse from the Coran says: Those who inflicted upon us, you can inflict on them the same. But patience is a virtua. We must know to wait. The wheel will turn” (excuse any errors on this translation).
After this, the members of Hashomer had to go to the place where they carry out their activities and lock themselves inside, while outside many people went out of the path of the manifestation to yell, hit on the doors and terrorize them. There were about 150 kids inside, between the ages of 6 and 15 most of them, about thirty in their early twenties or less.
I am myself a member of Hashomer and went as a kid and as a counselor in Mexico for about 12 years of my life. What happened in France is shameful, a true showing of violent antisemitism. The saddest part, is the weak covergae by the French and world media and the apathy shown by the French government on the face of such event inside their own society.

Shana Fleszler is a counselor in Hashomer Hatzair Paris, and a personal friend. She told me about what happened over there (she was in the middle of the whole thing, of course). My disbelief is incredible. I post this humble words as a show of support for the people of Hashomer and for those that were personally attacked. Refuah shlema (health) to them. I hope I can help to raise consciousness in any way.

Last, I’d like to briefly sum up the ideology of the Hashomer Hatzair movement. This is an educational movement, started in Poland in 1917. It is a left wing movement which that founded over 85 kibbutzim and is one of the strongest advocates of dialogue with the Palestinians and the formation of a viable Palestinian state through territorial concessions.
Links:
Article in Proce-Orient (Google translation)
Article in JT Digipresse (Google translation)