No no, not another post on body hair. Clearly I traumatized Schmitt, however, as our porn-star smooth host is now himself writing on body hair. Live and learn.
But before I get to serious substance, a quick airline update: On my flight to London last week American Airlines departed an hour late because the video system was malfunctioning. I thought to myself, who cares?!?!?! I'm going to miss my connection over this. Sometimes airlines, perhaps overly taken by the "experiential marketing" trend, forget that getting people to their destination on a timely basis is the most important experience in air travel. You have to deliver the basic stuff before you deliver the fluff. I barely made my connection on British Airways as a result. Incidentally, BA is simply outstanding. I ate some excellent chicken tikka masala on the plane, and I know my chicken. Unlike Schmitt, I don't fly business class, so I don't get to eat foie gras. I guess that if I got foie gras that I wouldn't care about being late.
So now to the elections. We're in the throes of the elections here in Israel, critical elections, but the Israeli voting public is bizarrely apathetic. This is a country where voting rates are typically in the 70-80% range, and with two hours to go the rates are currently about 50%. There seems to be a complete disaffection with politics and politicians. Small parties are expected to gain seats in parliament even though they represent extremely narrow interests--the green party and the retirees' party (yes, we have one) are expected to receive two seats each! And our parliament has 120 members! What's especially troubling is that the party that is expected to win, Ehud Olmert's Kadima party, has advanced a plan to redeploy and evacuate of most of the territory that we control in the West Bank (just like Ariel Sharon did in Gaza). This would reverse a 39 year history, and still no one is mobilizing to vote! Except, of course, for the retirees...
But before I get to serious substance, a quick airline update: On my flight to London last week American Airlines departed an hour late because the video system was malfunctioning. I thought to myself, who cares?!?!?! I'm going to miss my connection over this. Sometimes airlines, perhaps overly taken by the "experiential marketing" trend, forget that getting people to their destination on a timely basis is the most important experience in air travel. You have to deliver the basic stuff before you deliver the fluff. I barely made my connection on British Airways as a result. Incidentally, BA is simply outstanding. I ate some excellent chicken tikka masala on the plane, and I know my chicken. Unlike Schmitt, I don't fly business class, so I don't get to eat foie gras. I guess that if I got foie gras that I wouldn't care about being late.
So now to the elections. We're in the throes of the elections here in Israel, critical elections, but the Israeli voting public is bizarrely apathetic. This is a country where voting rates are typically in the 70-80% range, and with two hours to go the rates are currently about 50%. There seems to be a complete disaffection with politics and politicians. Small parties are expected to gain seats in parliament even though they represent extremely narrow interests--the green party and the retirees' party (yes, we have one) are expected to receive two seats each! And our parliament has 120 members! What's especially troubling is that the party that is expected to win, Ehud Olmert's Kadima party, has advanced a plan to redeploy and evacuate of most of the territory that we control in the West Bank (just like Ariel Sharon did in Gaza). This would reverse a 39 year history, and still no one is mobilizing to vote! Except, of course, for the retirees...
