I was on my way home from a shopping trip at "Kanyon Malkha" (the big shopping mall in Jerusalem) in a taxi when some familiar vocabulary came over the radio. There's just been some kind of "event" (involving words with many peh's and tzadee's, aka stuff blowing up) in London as I write this. I still don't know much -- there was something about Shepherd's Bush station, which I initially thought was President Bush, but describing him as a Shepherd [Ro'eh] was just a little *too* weird. Thank goodness for my cabbie-cum-Hebrew teacher, who cleared that one up.

He and I agreed it sounded like "ha terror" and that it sounded "rah" [bad], and "meshuggah" [crazy]. He asked where I was from, and I explained that I'm from California but lived here three years ago as a student. "Ahhhhh! So you understand," he said in Hebrew. "Yes," I said, and we rode in silence for a while, listening to the news on the radio.

When I got to the hotel, the shomer [guard] who has been waving me into the hotel for days now went diligently through my bags. Security has been increased here, just in the space of a cab ride.

I'm writing this now so that friends won't worry. (Seriously, I'm fine. I am having dinner tonight with my friend Ellen.) Soon I will write about some of my other adventures here -- it's been too hard to get to a computer to post much. Suffice it to say that as always, I'm glad I came to Jerusalem.

On this summer's travels, I have grabbed email in some odd places, little internet kiosks here and there. This place takes the prize, though, and is so novel that I feel the need to post about it. I'm in the Old City of Jerusalem, a few yards off the path between the Kotel (Western Wall) and the Cardo (shopping /archaeological area). There are about ten terminals crammed into a little stone closet here, and people are tapping away in assorted languages.

Jerusalem is a different city than the one I remember from three years ago. Business is up, traffic is wild, and even the tourists are riding buses again. The current big conflict has to do with the expulsion of the settlements from Gaza. All over town, you see ribbons in either orange or blue, expressing opinions about it. Orange signifies opposition to expulsion; blue signifies support for Sharon's plan. I've seen more orange in more odd places lately -- seems that there is a new fashion for tallitot (prayer shawls) with orange stripes.

I have my own opinions on this, mostly that Israelis didn't belong in Gaza in the first place, so no orange ribbons for me, and definitely no orange striped tallit! It is interesting that ritual wear has become a medium for political expression.

And then there are the things that do not change. I took a stroll Shabbat evening on King David Street, enjoying the breeze and the dark blue sky. Traffic was almost nonexistent. People were out walking, enjoying the cool air after a brutally hot day. The Old City loomed in the background, reminding us that this is truly the city on the edge of forever.

The summer reading proceeds... I alternate between reading philosophy and psalms, Levinas and poetry. Good stuff; I even understand a little of what I'm reading.

I rediscovered an old obsession this past week, and I think I've reframed it in a way that makes some sense to me. I have been knitting since I was a kid, but I mostly quit when I began to study Hebrew. The two didn't mix, and my priorities were clear.

Well, I'm still studying Hebrew, but I've been watching some of my classmates with a bit of envy as they knitted. I always enjoyed it when they asked me to help straighten out a minor knitting crisis, and always hated handing the knitting back. And a couple of weeks ago, when my son pointed out a knit shop near his home, I ventured inside. Before two minutes had passed, I was fingering alpaca yarn and reminding myself that that stuff is expensive and anyway, with my hot flashes, I don't need sweaters and scarves.

I chatted with the proprietor (a woman who knew an addict when she saw one) and realized I miss the knitting itself much more than I miss the product. She suggested I look into knitting for charities, and I rummabede around on line to find Project Linus. I bought a few fat skeins of bright yellow wool-and-acrylic (washable) and a set of double-pointed needles and went to work. Now the problem is in setting the blasted thing down!

Some sick child is going to enjoy that blanket, all lacy and warm and soft. And my shoulders are a lot looser. I still can't study while knitting -- I'm no multitasker! -- but for spare moments, this will be a tonic for me.

Bliss.

I could just quit there, with the single word, but then it wouldn't be very good communication, would it?

I'm back home, getting ready to have lunch with one of my kids, sitting in a coffee shop on one of my favorite streets in the whole wide world, and I'm just happy.

So what else is there to tell? Driving up I-5 in the middle of the night is interesting -- the traffic is lighter, and the stars were so beautiful I had to stop a couple of times at dark exits just to open the car window and gawp at the sky. I know there is a Milky Way, but I hadn't seen it in a while.

I stopped for gas at 2:30 am at a station in... oh, gosh, I forget... and chatted for a few minutes with the lonesome kid behind the cash register. We compared ring tones on our cell phones: his latest composition, and my silliest one (that I never use when school is in session or at work, because it really IS stupid but funny.) Then I got back in the Volvo and drove on up the road.

I listened to an old drama from the 50's on the radio: DeForest Kelley in "Fleshpeddler," on Suspense Theater. I have no idea why they cast a guy with a Georgia accent to play an agent from NYC, but it was fun to hear a familiar voice in an unfamiliar role. It was a creepy little story, too, from the same era as "Twilight Zone" and "Outer Limits."

I like driving at night, if I can have a hefty nap at the end of it.

I found a lovely blog recently, Octogenarian. If you are interested in Israel, Jews in America, and/or common sense, I recommend the writing of this retired journalist. I've already emailed with him to get permission to tell his stories in sermons.

High Holy Day prep is underway at my house, along with a bunch of neglected housekeeping. And if you recall from earlier posts that I was working hard on a paper towards a theology of Jewish Peoplehood, I am happy to report that (1) I finished it and (2) my teacher says it's a good beginning. Sweeter words I cannot imagine. I've already made a list of next steps.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I attended a training of trainers co-sponsored by Mosaic, The National Jewish Center for Gender Diversity, and the ADL. I learned LOTS at the training -- it was a remarkable experience -- and had the pleasure of screening two documentaries I recommend to anyone interested in GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender) topics.

I've reviewed the two films, Keep Not Silent: OrthoDykes and No Dumb Questions on the movie review blog I share with a friend, thumbsupordown. They are both remarkable films, and I recommend them if you are interested in these subjects!

Today is a pause between the Gerecht Family Outreach Institute (a terrific learning experience and a chance to see some old friends) and a training for diversity trainers in Denver, CO, sponsored by
Mosaic: The National Jewish Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity and the Anti-Defamation League. The agenda item for today is laundry, needless to say!

I've also been catching up on the news, and have run across something I want to share, because it does not seem to have gotten much attention. (I've been getting my news via radio from NPR and CBS -- if it isn't on either of those, seems to me it hasn't gotten much attention.)

Have you heard about the Downing Street Memo dated 23 July, 2002? (Clink the link if you would like to read the text for yourself.) Here is the paragraph that made me sit up:

"Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action. "

Those words were written in JULY 2002, by Matthew Rycroft, a British diplomat, after a visit to the U.S.

I, for one, believed in the WMD's. I was really surprised when they didn't find any (after all, I'd gotten the daylights scared out of me in Israel, carrying around a gas mask in case Saddam shot poison gas at us.) I was skeptical about President Bush's motives but was convinced because Tony Blair and Colin Powell and all these other very respectable folks seemed convinced.

It was all lies. The Brits knew it was all lies back in July 2002, before the lies were even made public. This whole thing was planned because our President Bush wanted to invade Iraq.

I grant you, if Saddam Hussein were my head of state, I'd be glad if someone got rid of him. But the lives of Iraqis have gone from one bad thing to another, not from bad to good. Nothing I'm hearing from Iraq suggests that it is a bearable place to live today. Yes, there were free elections, and the people who voted in them took their lives in their hands to go on the street to vote and they STILL don't have a functioning government.

And let's not forget the byproducts: the world has been given a new workshop for terrorists, a new rallying point for Al Qaida and Hamas and all those lovely people. The terrorists have had access to weapons we failed to secure.

Apparently our news organizations don't care. They care about selling you Michael Jackson testimony, and American Idol speculation, and other similar swill. News organizations don't care because they have become profit-driven, or grant-dependent. (NPR does not get off the hook here, either.) They don't care because their research shows that we don't care.

I'm asking you to care. If you don't like being lied to about the war in Iraq, write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper (and TV, and so on) and tell them that you care more about the war in Iraq than you do about the latest titillating details from the Jackson trial and who won American Idol. Tell them you don't understand why the Downing Street Memo hasn't gotten more airplay.

If you are a Republican, and think the Downing Street Memo is no big deal, I ask that you care enough to tell your media sources that you care about real news, about our men and women dying in Iraq, about other things that are Real in the world. Tell them that you're fed up with titillating crowd-pleasers on the news. I respect you enough to believe that you don't really think that the bread-and-circuses approach to news is OK.

Write to someone. Raise Cain. Please.