just back from a trip to mars

Just back from a trip to Mars

By David Verveer

I am just back from a round trip to Mars, (on the way we visited also the moon, and some other outer space regions). My travel companion, my grandson Tom, still on vacation from school, was so kind to hold my hand in frightening moments, but in general, I must say, the trip was wonderful and enlightening. I would have preferred a newer model of space ship, as the one we traveled in was a rather shaky affair, but for the low fees, we should not complain. I thought, however, they would serve some drinks, half way, but no, we went directly up, but wasted some time on the moon, which is really a pity of your time, nobody there, dry like hell and such a silence, the only thing we heard was the guide, telling us what we saw.

Of course, you understood by now that we visited the planetarium in Tel Aviv, and participated in a simulated flight upwards. But this made me think, my grandson is now 9 years old (9 and a half to be precise), and he, most likely, will participate in such trips when he gets to my venerable age (passed 50 years, a long time ago).

When I was a kid of his age now, we did not have TV, or transistor radios, or mobile phones, and if you wanted to phone, you had to go to the sole public phone in the neighborhood, but of course, to whom would you call, nobody had a phone those days. We had a huge radio, standing in our living room, with a station indicator, on which local (one) and foreign stations were written, I don't think it broadcasted the entire day.

Still, we never got bored, like the kids of today, we played, read and enjoyed ourselves with primitive equipment but time available was always too short. Today, my grandkids continuously get new electronic equipment, from play station to hi-fi, what ever that might be, but surprisingly, they get bored, with more than 5 TV stations for kids alone, with DVD (video is already out, not to mention tape recorders, or gramophone players), and their own computer, with non limited sources of sites for kids, and still I hear Saba (Granny in Hebrew) I am bored!

I feel like a prophet, when I imaging my grandson, with his grandchildren go for a weekend to Jupiter, where he rented a solarium for the weekend (included of course a rented rocket for visits to the surrounding moons). There, grandmother prepared for them a take away breakfast) and their favorite entertainment program, injected through their toes, when the youngest child tell his granny, that this antique manner of traveling bores him, his friends from school flown with his parents on robototic plasma waves. Sound wild, remember that if somebody in those days, would have prophesized that you would be able to talk and see each other through the computer (what is a computer in heavens name?), and that it won't cost you a cent (if you don't take into account that your equipment and your connection to internet cost lots of money, and that you have to replace after a year your equipment, because it is not anymore capable to cope with the basic requirements).

O.K, I have to stop now, because my daughter has just sent me by email, pictures of their trip with their kids to Canada, and I have to figure out, how to open them and view them, together with my wife.

don't bite the hand which feeds you

Don't bite the hand which feeds you

By David Verveer

My brother Bob told me a traumatic story, which when you think about it, gives you a true and realistic picture of the world of today. It started some years back, when one of the many street cats in their neighborhood, found a new way to get fed, by standing outside their backdoor and crying softly. One day my sister in law made the mistake in putting out some milk, which was the beginning of a daily ritual of feeding the cat.

My brother, like many, hates cats; especially because some years back he was attacked by one cat, without any apparent reason and ended up with a poisoned hand.

He was against the infiltrating animal from the very beginning, but that did not change anything and slowly but surely, the cat moved in, and transferred from street cat to house cat, with his comfortable cushion in the corner of the kitchen.

Then trouble started, when the cat became ill and of course, my brother took it to the veterinarian, who examined the beast and told my brother, that the cat it had a serious infection in his belly, that has to be removed immediately by operation, at the cost of a mere 480 NIS (US $ 115). Understandably, Bob could not refuse, and the operation was performed and according the veterinarian was successful.

After a half day of keeping the cat under observation, my brother took it back home. The animal was drugged and tranquilized and looked near death.

Bob put him on the back bench of his car in a blanket, and brought him home, where a long night of severe suffering started for both the cat and my brother, as it cried non stop, and he was forced to go and look every time the animal cried out. They decided that there has to be something wrong with the animal, and the following morning, the cat and my brother went back to the vet, who examined him, and gave it some more pain killing drugs.

Again the cat was put back on the back bench in the blanket, but this time it looked like near death, worrying about it, my brother stopped the car, and checked if it was still breathing. Suddenly it jumped up and attacked my brother, resulting 24 serious deep bites in his right hand. After this attack, the cat in deep amok jumped out the car and disappeared forever.

Bob's hand started swelling and for more than a week he suffered severe pains and could not hold the paint brush (Bob is a painter). End of the story.

But does this story not teach us some facts of life, for example, don't try to change a street cat to a house cat, on one hand, and gratitude is not a part of an animal instinct, or cats don't attach to humans and in actual fact find a way to exploit the human to give them what they want, and if we go somewhat deeper, we find that if we replace the above cat by some humans, the story remains unchanged, and ends with the same result, the donator gets bitten, without any show of gratitude, as whatever we try to think that we are different from animals, history shows that animals without conscious act the same way as humans.

Yom Kippur thoughts

On Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) we generally make a list of people, who have done us wrong in the past year, and whom we have to forgive. We also make a list (secretly and mentally), for ourselves, whom we perhaps have wronged, generally this last list is rather short, as the really bad things we personally did to others, somehow, we do not count and remember. I won’t bother you with my misdeeds, nor will I bother you with those stupid bastards, which made me angry the past year, people like this stupid maniacthat nearly killed my wife and me, when he drove into my car, with enormous speed, and had the bloody cheek, not to admit his fault. Of course I won’t forgive him and will meet him in court in a few months. However, I will forgive the people angry with me, because my stubbornness, my idiotism and principles. And I have to admit; I don’t care what other people think of me, and please do not hurry to inform me, as I don’t like emotional talks.

But there are people; I will never forgive, as they are in my mind, mass murderers. I refer to religious freaks that are opposing birth control, and who are responsible for the population growth, precisely in the sectors of poverty and ignorance. I add to this the green environmentalists, tools in the hand of bankers, brokers and businessmen, who as irresponsible unscrupulous criminals promote the manufacture from corn and grain derived energy fuels instead of using them to feed the world, thus driving the food prices sky high, and driving the poorer nations into famine.

I also will not forgive fanatics, terrorists and zealots, people without conscience or hearth who because belief and principles will cause suffering and sorrow to others, irrelevant if their cause and grieve has grains of justifications, and I do not accept the argument that the enemy can not be trusted, because they never have kept their promises. We are not allowed to take away their human rights, not from their leaders, but from the people living next door to us, born there, lived and toiled in poverty their entire life, in neighborhood of our riches. Who are we, to take away, what is not ours to take? Nobody chooses his own parents, religion or circumstances under which he is born. We all have an irrevocable and equal right to live and prosper.

And going back to forgiving and not forgiving, I forgive you, if you say that I wrote this time, nonsense, which was not funny at all.

Oh, and before I forget, I am not a racist, but I hate those green creatures from outer space, who, in name of science, fight the production of my favorite gas, the carbon dioxide.

Gmar Hatima Tova (I hope that God has decided to write your name in the book of the living).