From the New York Times today:

... At the recent talk and discussion session, one man stood and said Mr. Manekin and his friends were hurting Israel, especially its image abroad, in order to salve their own consciences. Many in the audience nodded in agreement. Tall and dignified, about 45, the man said that he, too, had served in the West Bank, “and I’m proud of what I did there to defend Israelis.”

It is crucial to intimidate people at checkpoints to keep them cowed, he said, his voice shaking a little, “because we are so few there, and they are so many.”

Then he said: “These people are not like us! They come up to our faces and they lie to us!”

That was enough for Uriel Simon, 77 years old, a professor emeritus of biblical studies at Bar-Ilan University and a noted religious dove.

“As for liars,” Mr. Simon said, then paused. “My father was a liar. My grandfather was a liar. How else did we cross lines to get to this country? We stayed alive by lying. We lied to the Russians, we lied to the Germans, we lied to the British! We lie for survival! Jacob the Liar was my father!” he said.

As for the Palestinians, he said: “Of course they lie! Everyone lies at a checkpoint! We lied at checkpoints, too.” ...

Colin in Alaska

Wow, Colin Haley and partner Jed Brown may have made the first winter ascent of Mt. Huntington in Alaska. Jed’s site has pictures. Pretty amazing stuff!

funny open house

Kris, the boys and I went to a Kindergarten today, and had a fun time. The boys really loved a mini tree-house in the building. I would reach in and tickle them. “Teekle!” said Rowan. There were two older kids there who I played with a while. I had to speak in German which was a great workout. The boy had a spaceship of sorts made of Legos. I asked him for one Lego, then I pretended it was huge, and contained 4000 sleeping people. He added wings to it, so it became a container ship to hold 8000 people. I made it fly slowly from Earth to Saturn, explaining that the journey took 100 years. The little girl thought that was crazy, so I explained how the people take a pill and go to sleep. When they wake up, they think only 5 minutes passed. Then I showed how sometimes, when they fly back to Earth from Saturn, they go off course! “und sie sind verloren! (they are lost)”. Their eyes widened and they looked a little afraid. Uh-oh, I scared them! “Okay but then they wake up and realize they have to turn around,” I said, and there was relief all around. So they go back to Saturn. “The people will be very hungry,” I said. “And thirsty!” said the little girl. She went off to get some eggs and apples for the people. Elijah and Rowan came up at this point, with a big collection of plastic eggs. The girl sort of bargained with them for some eggs. We fed the 8000 people the eggs, and put on a play for them involving a horse. “That’s a donkey!” said the little boy. He was mad when I said stuff in English, he made sure I always said the German word too. The little girl loved putting on plays to entertain the 8000 weary interstellar travelers. So that was fun.

Kris told Elijah to get his bike out of the kitchen today, and he said “why?” She was shocked. But she said “because I’m making your breakfast and the bike is in the way.” So he took the bike out. That is the first “why...”