We are, as
always, having a wonderful and meaningful time during our stay in Israel. We have rented a car, which we drove from the
airport. For $5 a day we added on a GPS
device (with an English option), which all in all has been extremely helpful. We were able to go visit my wife's plemenitza
last night, who had some of her brothers and sisters and their families over;
about 25 persons, mostly below the age of 10.
Religious Jews, making lots of kids, to catch up on that setback from
Hitler's failed master plan.
Proportionately
speaking, there seem to be a lot less shmucks on the roads of Israel than in
America. Not that there are zero; not by
any means. But the drivers here know
that they are driving in order to get to some place, and that there are others
with whom they share the road.
Okay, so we
did encounter a shmuck last night on a narrow Jerusalem street, who was going
in the opposite direction from us, and who refused to pass us so that we could
proceed, even though he had clear road ahead of him beyond the constriction his
car occupied. While my Hebrew comprehension
is good when I read the written word, my conversational Hebrew leaves much to
be desired. This particular driver
sounded as though he was from somewhere in the former Soviet Union. So I spoke to him in Italian. Well, I didn't actually speak to him, I just
gave him a hand gesture used by my Italian-American friends to indicate disgust
and dissatisfaction. Then, the drivers
of the cars that had lined up behind him began to grow impatient, and they all
started hitting their horns. Eventually
he moved, thereby unblocking me and the cars behind me. I suppose that a shmuck driver level of zero
percent is, as a practical matter, unachievable.
Some of the
traffic circles in Israel (which the GPS people call "roundabouts,"
and which in Hebrew are called "kikarim") no longer exist, and,
conversely, some of what were ordinary intersections have been made into
roundabouts, and the GPS has not yet been updated. These
are but minor glitches, which we are able to surmount with a small dollop of
common sense.
EXCEPT …
Except that
political correctness has really, really made bollixed up our routine today.
This morning,
we checked out of our hotel in the Holy City of Jerusalem, and proceeded to
visit my wife's friend (whose late mother was a client of mine), who lives in
an area considered the Jordan Valley, which Kerry and Obama are pressuring
Israel to give to the terrorists in the so-called peace process. The GPS informed us that the location was out
of its range (though it did get us there).
That wasn't
so bad, at least not at that point. We
had a delightful visit with our friend until noon, when she had to leave for
her job. We then proceeded to visit our
son, who currently is based out of a locale in the north of Israel. Instead of taking us up the usual road that
parallels the Jordan River (which is in the politically incorrect territory), the GPS routed us out west through Tel Aviv, then up the coastal highways, and
then back inland near Haifa, easily adding more than an hour to our trek.
Actually, I sort of understand this. I can easily envision some attorney for the GPS manufacturer sending out a memo expressing concern that some American tourist who gets routed to an Arab village will sue the GPS people.
[I shall not now
comment upon the number of carbon debits the global warming apostles should
claim from the GPS people on account of the increased fuel consumption from the
politically-correct GPS.].
Labels: global warming, GPS, Israel, Political Correctness
2 Comments:
At 06 June, 2014 15:42, Anonymous said…
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At 06 June, 2014 16:37, Expatriate Owl said…
Incunabula is the term used to refer to books printed with movable type printing before 1500. There are a number of them still in existence today, many in very good condition.
But it seems that the ones that have remained intact are, in many cases, the ones that received little wear and tear because they were useless.
Seems that the first users of the newer information technologies do not always put the new technologies to optimal use.
The Internet is still a relatively new information technology; therefore, much of the information on it will be of questionable utility.
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