#Palestinians are the most faithful people I’ve ever seen and I think it’s the most amazing quality | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

schraubd · 5 years

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Let's Analyze Maryland's Anti-BDS Executive Order!

Back in 2017, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (R) promulgated an executive order barring state contracts with companies which boycott Israel. Now, a former Maryland State Delegate, Saqib Ali, is suing, claiming the order violates the First Amendment. I actually knew Saqib, back in the day (we used to be Facebook friends). He was elected to the House of Delegates in 2006, served for four years before unsuccessfully mounting a primary challenge to incumbent State Senator Nancy King, and hasn't returned to politics since. He was also an ally of then-Rep. Albert Wynn, back when he was trying to fend off an (ultimately successful) primary challenge from Donna Edwards. But enough reminiscing. You don't come here for trips down memory lane, you come here for my cutting-edge analysis of anti-BDS enactments -- e.g., my guide for writing anti-BDS laws without making a "constitutional and PR mess". So how does this one fare? Honestly? Better than many, albeit not perfect. What's interesting about this particular EO is that it is actually quite narrowly written -- indeed, it is one of the closest to my preferred "just write a damned anti-discrimination provision" formulation that I've seen. The EO's definition of boycotting Israel covers only actions taken "because of [an entity's] Israeli national origin, or residence and incorporation in Israel or its territories." Moreover, it expressly does not cover non-commercial actions, boycotts of the Israeli government or other "public" entities, and, most importantly, boycotts taken "because of the specific conduct of the person or entity." So, in effect, the Maryland EO would preclude a contractor from saying, flatly, "I won't work with any Israeli entity, because they're Israeli." But if one had a specified objection to a given company -- "I won't work with this Israeli company, because they engage in this objectionable practice" -- that would be fine. It's worth juxtaposing this order against the Rubio bill being debated in the Senate. To be sure, the latter is awkward to talk about because its really an anti-preemption bill and doesn't actually change any positive law regarding BDS. But the way Rubio formulates anti-BDS laws is quite different from how Hogan did it. Rubio's bill purports to encompass boycotts taken "for purposes of coercing political action by, or imposing policy positions on, the Government of Israel." The at least quasi-expressive character of the boycott is built in; indeed, as I observed, Rubio's bill actually doesn't cover straightforward discrimination cases ("I won't work with Israelis because they're Israeli"), but would cover even boycotts of certain American companies if the goal was to "coerce" Israeli political action (e.g., boycotting Caterpillar to try and get Israel to change its housing demolition practices). The more expressive the boycott is, the more vulnerable it is under Rubio's proposed law. By contrast, the Maryland EO runs in the opposite direction: where one is acted for specified, expressive reasons -- i.e., due to particular choices that company or entity has made -- the boycott is protected. It is only the raw act of refusing to work with someone based on their nationality that is proscribed. And while one could characterize even that as "expressive", we have very good reasons not to go down the road of "my refusal to do business with people based on their nationality is protected expression!" So those are some of things I like about the EO. What don't I like? Well, there's the failure to differentiate between Israel proper and the territories, to begin with. And more importantly, I continue to think we'd be better off just writing a general anti-discrimination requirement, rather than an Israel-only one-off. Why not just say state contractors must certify that do not boycott any company "because of [its national origin, or residence and incorporation in a particular nation or territory"? So much aggravation could be avoided this way! (Which suggests that, maybe, the aggravation is the point). The inclusion only of Israel also creates a needless viewpoint discrimination opening that otherwise wouldn't exist. On the one hand, it seems to me that the Maryland EO only prohibits conduct targeting Israeli national origin that could already be proscribed by a general anti-nationality discrimination rule. But there is obviously something askance in only prohibiting national origin discrimination against one nation (just as I'm fine with prohibiting discrimination on basis of a contractor's "religion", but I'm much less fine prohibiting discrimination on basis of a contractor being "Protestant" or "Buddhist". No, I don't think you should be able to discriminate against Buddhists -- but what message does it send when it's only that religion that's protected?). I also observed that my preference is for these laws to only regulate contractors as contractors, not in their "off-the-clock" decisions, and that they probably should exempt sole proprietorships. The "off-the-clock" issue is vague here -- while the EO on face seems to also cover anti-Israel discrimination that is unrelated to the contractor's work for the state, the implementation of the EO seems to narrow its ambit. A bidder or contractor is asked to certify that it

has considered all bid/proposals submitted from qualified, potential subcontractors and suppliers, and has not, in the solicitation, selection, or commercial treatment of any subcontractor, vendor, or supplier, refused to transact or terminated business activities, or taken other actions intended to limit commercial relations, with a person or entity on the basis of Israeli national origin, or residence or incorporation in Israel and its territories. The Bidder/Offeror also has not retaliated against any person or other entity for reporting such refusal, termination, or commercially limiting actions.

That, to me, asks only about their conduct with respect to subcontractors, vendors, or suppliers for the contract they're bidding on -- a case where Maryland's interest in the conduct of the potential contractor is at its apex. Obviously, Maryland has an interest in ensuring that its contractors pick their subcontractors, vendors, etc., based on their merits and not winnowed the field via political litmus tests. But the EO definitely does apply to sole proprietors. That gives us a chance to mention Ali's specific suit, since he is suing as a sole proprietor who wants to apply for certain state software development contracts. The thing is -- I think it's an open question whether Ali even has standing to sue, because I'm not sure he successfully pleads that his conduct actually conflicts with what's proscribed under the EO. For one, David Bernstein has argued that there is a difference between regulating a "sole proprietorship" and the individual who is a "sole proprietor" in their personal capacity -- only the former is precluded from boycotting Israel, but the individual-qua-individual is free to do whatever he wants. The complaint Ali filed does not, to my knowledge, ever say that Ali-the-software-engineer engages in any boycotting activity -- it's a personal stand he takes personally. Indeed, if anything it indicates the opposite:

Personally, Saqib Ali refuses to purchase Sabra hummus or SodaStream products, which have ties to Israel and its occupation of Palestine. He also advocates for others to join the BDS movement, and monitors current events in order to identify and promote specific BDS actions (Para. 35).

This is the only place in the complaint where Ali alleges any conduct or practice by him which supposedly clashes with the EO, and it speaks of what he does personally, not professionally (it should be, though almost certainly isn't, needless to say that Ali's expressive advocacy to promote the BDS movement is not covered by the EO and isn't germane to the complaint). If we go back to how Maryland appears to be implementing the law -- asking the bidder whether it has refused to contract with an Israeli-qua-Israeli "in the solicitation, selection, or commercial treatment of any subcontractor, vendor, or supplier" -- this problem comes into sharper focus: has Ali, at any point, had even the occasion to reject Sabra or Sodastream as a "vendor" for one of his software engineering projects? I'm dubious. Now to be fair, the whole point of sole proprietorships is that the border between the "company" and the individual is blurry and doesn't really need to be kept firmly separate. If Ali works out of a home office and decides he's not going to keep Sabra Hummus as a snack in the minifridge, is he boycotting or is the proprietorship? So there remains some uncertainties in such a case -- which is one reason why I think states need to be very careful in applying these laws to sole proprietorships. But there's a bigger problem lurking Ali's case: His complaint doesn't actually say he boycotts Israeli companies on basis of their nationality. It says that he boycotts Sabra Hummus and SodaStream -- but it doesn't say why in any real detail ("which have ties to Israel and its occupation of Palestine"). The indication is that he chose those companies "because of the specific conduct" they've engaged in with respect to Palestinians -- conduct which Ali objects to. But such decisions are expressly not covered by the Executive Order. It seems to me that to establish an actual clash with the law, Ali would have to aver that he boycotts those companies because of their "Israeli national origin" or their "incorporation and residence" in Israel or Israeli-occupied territories. And so while he says he can't sign the certification "in good faith", I actually think it's likely that he hasn't done anything that would foreclose him from doing so. Indeed, I kind of suspect that Ali's problem isn't that he actually engages in conduct proscribed by the EO. It's that he doesn't want to say he doesn't boycott Israel -- even if, for purposes of the rules of the EO, he doesn't. This isn't as uncommon as you'd think -- there's a long history of government compelling corporations to engage in certain speech (e.g., being forced to label that their product is "Made in China"), and an equally long history of corporations trying to allege that such compulsions violate the First Amendment. I tend to be skeptical of those claims, particularly in the context of a certification submitted to a contracting officer -- hardly an activity typically thought of as "expressive". And here, where Ali could sign the certification and would nonetheless be free to state -- as loudly as he wants -- that he's still boycotting SodaStream and he's doing it because of this that and the other malign conduct SodaStream has engaged in, the restriction on his expressive capacities is minimal. The law here remains unsettled, and the Maryland order is certainly not perfect -- in particular, I just really wish states would get off the "anti-BDS" kick entirely and just pass consistent rules governing nationality-based discrimination if that's what they care about. That said, the Maryland EO is considerably better than many of its peers -- mostly because it contains itself to cases of straightforward discrimination and, unlike Rubio's bill, doesn't target expressive conduct. And because it's so narrowly focused, it might not even be the case that Ali actually has standing to challenge it -- I think there's a very viable motion to dismiss here for the state's attorney general's office. I suppose we'll see soon enough. via The Debate Link http://bit.ly/2HvVsjS

#boycott #free speech #Israel #Larry Hogan #Maryland

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topfygad · 4 years

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The Best Things to Do and See in Israel: Looking Past the Conflict

I didn’t at all know what to expect when I boarded that flight to Israel.

My friends had been sending me articles about El Al, Israel’s flagship airline, and their onboard missile defense systems. Apparently, they have the most sophisticated security system of any airline in existence.

I had been warned about the airport interrogations and had been told not to let anyone stamp my passport. Some countries don’t recognize Israel as a country and won’t let you enter if they see that you’ve crossed the border.

It’s a complicated place, this Israel.

It’s no easy task understanding what’s going on over here, and the whole story involves elements of history, politics and religion from hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

If you want to brush up on your knowledge, it might be worth reading this.

I’ll do my best to address the conflict in a future article because I think I would be doing both the country and yourselves, the readers of this website, a disservice by not broaching the subject. But outside of the conflict, and through sinking my teeth into the culture, people, food, and religion, I walked away with a very different understanding of Israel as it stands today.

And on top of that, I found something in Israel that I truly wasn’t expecting.

Things to Do in Israel

My three weeks in Israel were a whirlwind. I covered almost half of the country in the first couple of days, and somewhat slowly completed the rest of it over the following two weeks. I wasn’t totally sure what to expect from a country found right in the middle of a desert, but I knew I would find some unexpected treasures.

And a lot of sand.

Land Rover-ing in the Negev Desert

Inside the Ramon Crater

The Ramon Crater (aka Mitzpe Ramon), found in the Negev Desert, is 28 miles wide and is actually not a crater–it’s what it called a makhtesh. There’s not actually an English translation for this word because the geological landform it refers to is unique to this specific region, where the two official languages are Hebrew and Arabic.

Hanging off the edge of the Ramon Crater

Cruising in the Negev Desert with Adam Sela

A makhtesh is essentially a valley caused by thousands of years of erosion. A hard outer layer of rock forms over a landmass and the softer minerals underneath it wash away. The top layer then crumbles into the empty space below, creating what you see in the images above.

Exploring the Negev Desert with Adam Sela and his Land Rover

Adam Sela, a South African transplant and regional expert, loaded us up into his Land Rover and showed us petrified artifacts, geological formations, and stunning views of one of Israel’s most unique landscapes.

His trusty Land Rover has clocked more than 1.3 million km in the Negev Desert.

Pro tip: Ask Adam about his other job—he has some incredibly interesting stories!

Photographing the Dead Sea

Toasted land next to the turquoise Dead Sea

I didn’t have very high expectations of the Dead Sea. From what I had heard, the coastline was littered with garbage and the water was gross and murky. To be perfectly honest, these assessments are mostly true—the swimming areas of the Dead Sea are cluttered with plastic bags and bottles and the water is brown and salty.

Getting outside of the swimming areas, though, and photographing some of the vistas in the lesser-known areas of the Dead Sea was particularly rewarding. Long turquoise waves brushed up against the toasted brown of the desert, creating an exceptionally rare effect. One particular area on the southern Dead Sea, just outside of Jerusalem, is host to huge salt formations and was perhaps one of the most photogenic vistas I’ve ever seen.

Salt formations at the southern Dead Sea

At 420 meters below sea level, the Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth. It’s salt concentration is so high that every part of your body floats and trying to keep any limb below the surface of the water is a difficult and hilarious task.

Pro tip: Don’t shave any part of your body before swimming in the Dead Sea. The salt burns, burns, burns, and if you’re a lady, well, it’s not going to be a pleasant experience.

Exploring Timna National Park

Timna selfie!

30 miles outside the resort town of Eilat lies Timna Valley, an old copper mine now encompassed by a park. Most notably known for it’s unusual and stunning rock formations, the sights in the Timna National Park were created through hundreds of years of rock fractures and erosion.

Climbing Solomon’s Pillars, Timna National Park

With limited time available, I decided to conquer one monument rather than just barely see them all. Solomon’s Pillars, perhaps the most well-known formation in the valley, called my name, and I made it my mission to climb the entire thing. There are stairs leading about halfway up, but the rest required some free climbing.

View of Timna National Park from the top of Solomon’s Pillars

The views from the top, though? Totally worth it.

Pro tip: Don’t rent bikes at Timna. They’re impossible to ride in the sand.

Experiencing the Holiest City in the World

Looking out over Jerusalem

I didn’t have a particular interest in visiting the holy sites of Israel, but I found them just about everywhere I went. Jerusalem is hugely significant to many religions including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and there are sacred places for each religion found all over Jerusalem.

– In Christianity, Jerusalem is the place where Jesus was crucified, buried, and resurrected.

– For the Jews, Jerusalem is the ancestral and spiritual homeland. Those who practice outside of Jerusalem pray facing its direction.

– In Islam, Jerusalem is sacred due to its association with Islamic prophets, namely Muhammed, who is believed to be a messenger for God. Abraham, David, Solomon, and Jesus are also regarded as Prophets of Islam, and each one has a tie to Jerusalem.

Western Wall, Jerusalem

The site where Jesus was buried

Lighting a candle inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

People of each faith intensely desire ownership of the city of Jerusalem, and so religion plays a large part in the conflict I mentioned before. Currently the people live in general peace within the city, but there is still a lot of tension. Jerusalem is divided, in fact, and one-half is considered to be a part of the new State of Israel (which was only recognized recently—in 1949) while the other still remains a part of the Palestinian Territories.

To see the holiest place on earth was, indeed, an eye opening experience. To see a city so largely divided, yet living as one, was something else entirely.

Pro tip: The Abraham Hostel in Jerusalem is just minutes from the famous Mehane Yehuda Market and a 15-minute walk to the Old City. They have affordable dorm beds and private rooms and they provide one of the most comprehensive hosteling systems I’ve ever seen.

Falafel, Hummus, and Tahini, Oh My!

Eating in Israel is something to be especially excited about. I wasn’t excited when I arrived, but the more food I was presented with, the more infatuated with the cuisine I became.

With influences coming from all over the Mediterranean and Middle East, the present day cuisine in Israel is something of a Jewish fusion including foods from all over those regions. I was met with chickpeas in almost every form, and some manifestation of bread and olive oil at almost every meal.

And though it usually was, when hummus wasn’t served, I got very, very angry.

Connecting with My Heritage

Coffee with Moshe, my 2nd cousin

But my pilgrimage to Israel was enriched by something more significant than incredible experiences and delicious food. I not only saw one of my good friends who now lives in Tel Aviv, but I met some of my family for the first time—cousins on the side of my family that I haven’t connected with much.

I’ll tell you a secret. It’s something I don’t share with people often, but I have four names on my birth certificate. The name I don’t publicize is a German name which extends from my father in the United States to his family who now lives in Israel. Until my trip to Israel, I had never met another person with this name. But, when I saw the smiles on Hannah and Moshe’s faces, and when I met Henia, Sharon, and Gaya, I felt a unique sense of coming home that I had never experienced before.

You see, my grandparents left Vienna in 1939 at the start of the German invasion and, after a year of refuge in Italy, they migrated to Israel where they have remained ever since. Somehow, their warm welcomes and stories of my family left me feeling like I had found a piece of myself that I never knew I was missing.

Even though I had never met these people, something in me felt safe, and something between us clicked. They told me stories of family which gave context to my name. I felt like I had known them forever. They were my blood, and I could feel it. Through some strange twist of fate, I came to Israel as a tourist, but left feeling like I had found another home.

More Information on Visiting Israel

Traveling to Israel is safe. Unless there are imminent warnings, there is no need to worry about traveling in Israel–it’s a wonderful, culturally eye-opening place to visit.

If you’re looking for more information on visiting Israel, Tourist Israel is the go-to resource for planning your travels in the region. From tours to hotels, restaurants to events, it’s the single most valuable guide I’ve found. Check them out now!

The topic of Israel can be controversial. This is a travel article, not a political one. Please keep your comments relevant and respectful.

READ NEXT: Breaking the Rules in Petra, Jordan: Free Climbing to the Top of the Monastery

Disclaimer: My trip to Israel was made possible through partnerships with the Israel Ministry of Tourism, Tourist Israel, Abraham Tours, and Abraham Hostels. Partnerships like these allow me to continue bringing you content from all over the world. I never allow such partnerships to compromise the integrity of my words and I will only ever recommend companies that I genuinely trust and believe in. Thank you for reading

from Cheapr Travels https://ift.tt/3dhF56k via https://ift.tt/2NIqXKN

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academicatheism · 7 years

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Hi, have you heard about Street Epistemology? I'm pretty sure using its principles would make your conversations with believers more productive. I love the evil god arguement, but the ensuing "conversation" seemed futile to me. For example Zionism had nothing to do with it. It seems like you put a lot of effort into your replies, but ultimately it seems to just strengthen the jerk atheist stereotype. I assume you heard about the backfire effect. I hope you take this as constructive criticism.

SE has its flaws. “Don’t pretend things you don’t know.” So because your interlocutor doesn’t know what you know, they can flippantly throw that claim at you. I’ve experienced it and the guy was an agnostic atheist who couldn’t believe that I was a post-theist who knows gods don’t exist.

Then this whole idea of understanding rather than debating. I can very well understand something false, but I’m not going to pretend as though it deserves a stage. Imagine if I used that mindset when addressing ID advocates and creationists. Sometimes my approach is absolutely necessary. Never mind that I’ve been rather successful at changing minds. The cold, hard truth is better than accommodation. I don’t accommodate people who believe in falsehoods and defend them.

SE sounds like “teach the controversy.” Let’s understand alchemy; let the chemist talk to the alchemist as though his view is equal to that of the chemist’s. Also, let’s act as though people have raw talent for seeing the flaws in their reasoning when philosophy is a niche subject buried in the corners of college campuses and when it’s a topic that’s assailed by people from all walks of life because apparently it’s useless and doesn’t having much earning potential. You have too much faith in the snakeoil salesman. I don’t.

As for Zionism, follow the trail of the discussion. First guy says “what’s a good god?” Others then join in to add their two cents and inquire further. One admits to believing in a good god and that being the catalyst to the good we observe in society. I then talked about an obvious failure of his beliefs; that being Zionism and specifically the mistreatment of Palestinians. It was all germane to the discussion. A couple of them are rude and I knew that from the start. Apparently I’m nothing more than a “fuck” now to one of them. I’ve lost all humanity, but of course, I knew I would because people don’t want their beliefs questioned and they certainly don’t want the failures of their community exposed.

In any case, SE would be useful if people were more rational. More than half of the human population is religious with a chunk of them being Christian or Muslim. Some of them might be rational in every respect except for when it pertains to their religion, i.e. cognitive dissonance. SE is useless because people are, for the most part, irrational, especially when they hold an opinion too closely. Just one look at political and religious discussions will disabuse you of any utility you think SE has.

I’ll stick to utterly debasing views that have no business getting airtime and I couldn’t care less about the person I’m debating. My interest has always been the people following the debate. That’s where the convincing is done. If SE proponents knew anything about human psychology, they’d know that people dig their heels deeper when challenged; they double down. So this idea of not taking a defensive stance makes no sense in light of well-documented human behavior. The ones with their guards down are the ones not directly involved and plenty of them have seen the light of reason. You know why?

Because despite my mean streak, I can be respectful; in fact, I’m usually not the one who attempts to draw first blood. Bad history or a stupid question might make me break character, but I don’t talk to believers like they’re not even human. Can’t say the same for people who have called me all sorts of names and who have gone as far as making open threats on my life – promising to shoot me dead if I ever stepped foot in their state.

Humans are irrational; Bertrand Russell drew that conclusion and so do I, and the second you challenge a deeply held belief, a defensive stance is guaranteed. And they very often don’t question the process by which they arrived at a conclusion; sometimes there’s no process to assess since religion sometimes involves childhood indoctrination. In the end, if this rationality were so common, they wouldn’t need a dialectical back and forth to assess their reasoning and realize its flawed. Some of us have that gift; it’s almost prodigious. Others learn these tools and use them well. Others never acquire these tools and in fact, assail the use of or need for reason. These are the people you have faith in. Before SE can be of any use, people need to value reason and seek it. That’s not the world we find ourselves in, unfortunately. There’s work to be done!

#atheism #philosophy #logic #street epistemology

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networkingdefinition · 4 years

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Brokers Quotes

Official Website: Brokers Quotes

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• A broker is a man who runs your fortune into a shoestring. – Alexander Woollcott • A crafty knave needs no broker. – Horace • A man cannot be a good doctor and keep telephoning his broker between patients nor a good lawyer with his eye on the ticker. – Walter Lippmann • A newly elected representative quickly discovers that his job in government-aside from making new laws-is to act as a broker, middleman, special pleader and finagler. – William Greider • All of Robert Caro’s biographies are exceptional, in part because of Caro’s fundamental ambivalence about power. He sees its necessity and use for getting things done, even as he is often repelled by watching power at close range. His masterpiece on Robert Moses, The Power Broker, describes the evolution of Moses from idealist to pragmatist as he became one of the most powerful figures in the 20th century. – Jeffrey Pfeffer • Ask any real estate broker to name the three most important factors in buying a property, and he’ll say: “Location, location, location.” Now ask him to name the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, and he’ll say: “Location, location, location.” This tells us that we should not necessarily be paying a whole lot of attention to real estate brokers. – Dave Barry

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Broker', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_broker').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_broker img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • But I have never had the privilege of unhappiness in Happy Valley. California is about the good life. So a bad life there seems so much worse than a bad life anywhere else. Quality is an obsession there—good food, good wine, good movies, music, weather, cars. Those sound like the right things to shoot for, but the never-ending quality quest is a lot of pressure when you’re uncertain and disorganized and, not least, broker than broke. Some afternoons a person just wants to rent Die Hard, close the curtains, and have Cheerios for lunch. – Sarah Vowell • Diversification is something that stock brokers came up with to protect themselves, so they wouldn’t get sued for making bad investment choices for clients. Henry Ford never diversified, Bill Gates didn’t diversify. The way to get rich is to put your eggs in one basket, but watch that basket very carefully. And make sure you have the right basket. – Jim Rogers • For you, o broker, there is no other principle but arithmetic. For me, commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred; nor can I detach one duty, like you, from all other duties, and concentrate my forces mechanically on the payment of moneys. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Full service brokers, in this day and age of low cost mutual funds and discount brokers, are really nothing more than machines for ripping off retail investors. – Joel Spolsky • I am currently reading, “The Broker” by John Grisham. it is alittle slow to start so I will have to let you know if it gets better – John Grisham • I did everything in my power to give my brokers brand identity and clout in the market. I saw my job as parent to build them up and if I took care of them, then they would take care of their customer. – Barbara Corcoran • I do not regard a broker as a member of the human race. – Honore de Balzac • I do not regard the procuring of peace as a matter in which we should play the role of arbiter between different opinions … more that of an honest broker who really wants to press the business forward. – Otto von Bismarck • I do not respect the Dalai Lama. He’s a political power broker. The Dalai Lama is not honorable to me. – Ashin Wirathu • I dont want to just be a broker all my life, I want to lead. – Luis D. Ortiz • I find it funny because people complain about Brooklyn becoming too hip, but would they prefer stock brokers or gunfights or something? – Kemp Muhl • I had probably seven agents by the time I became a legitimate real estate broker. – Barbara Corcoran • I have always been a critic of government policy. I was in government for more than five years. Before that I was a critic. Within the government I was a critic, pushing for reform and always at odds with power brokers within the party. – Jonathan Moyo • I just made a killing in the stock market — I shot my broker. – Henny Youngman • I made a killing on Wall Street a few years ago…I shot my broker. – Groucho Marx • I think America has to do more than be a broker now. Because both the Palestinians are weak and Israel is very weak. – Brent Scowcroft • I think that of most leaders in religion as power brokers. They give orders, in a sense, to an audience every week, and that’s where the definition of God starts. – Norman Lear • I told my broker that as long as he doesn’t tell me where my money should go, I won’t tell him where he should go. – Leopold Fechtner • I was a stock broker once. I think there is an absolute place for market investments. But they should never be the basis of one’s retirement. They should be an additional piece on top of a basic, secure, guaranteed retirement benefit. – Barbara Boxer • I was a trader for a company. That’s different from the brokers who we sort of disdain as sort of just errand boys. – Melvin Van Peebles • I was always an artist. I was a broker to earn a living, but I was always thinking about my art. – Jeff Koons • I would not want to form a partnership with an architect who has only a little knowledge of building or a broker who has a limited knowledge of the stock market. Still, we form what we hope to be permanent relationships in love with people who have hardly any knowledge of what love is. – Leo Buscaglia • I’d like to take a motorcycle trip across Europe, maybe even across China. Of course I’d also like to broker a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but it’s important to put ceilings on one’s ambitions. – Stephen King • If I have something to apologize, I want to be the first one to step up and make that apology. I don’t want anyone to broker it for me. I don’t want anyone to take the hit for me. If I have anything to apologize for, I’m only human. I’m prone to making mistakes. – Michelle Shocked • If the Nation can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money broker collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%. Whereas the currency, the honest sort provided by the Constitution pays nobody but those who contribute in some useful way. It is absurd to say our Country can issue bonds and cannot issue currency. Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the usurer and the other helps the People. – Thomas A. Edison • If you take sales presentations and brokers of commercial real estate and businesses… I’m 70 years old, I’ve never seen one I thought was even within hailing distance of objective truth…. ‘incentive-caused bias,’ causes this terrible abuse. And many of the people who are doing it you would be glad to have married into your family compared to what you’re otherwise going to get. – Charlie Munger • If your broker or investment advisor is not familiar with the concept of standard deviation of returns, get a new one. – William J. Bernstein • I’m beginning to wonder about my broker. Yesterday I told him to buy a hundred shares of A.T.&T. He said, ‘Would you spell that?’ – Robert Orben • In the commercial real estate business, brokers spearhead major accounts. But they wouldn’t have customers without the people who oversee construction. – Roger Staubach • Intelligence, goodness, humanity, excitement, serenity. Over time, these are the things that change the musculature of your face, as do laughter, and animation, and especially whatever peace you can broker with the person inside. It’s furrow, pinch, and judgement that make us look older – our mothers were right. They said that if you made certain faces, they would stick, and they do. But our mothers forgot that faces of kindness and integrity stick as well. – Anne Lamott • Invest less at the end of the month. Brokers tend to push stocks at the end of the month in an effort to match or surpass their previous month’s sales. – Nancy Dunnan • Israel must never be expected to jeopardize her security: if she was ever foolish enough to do so, and then suffered for it, the backlash against both honest brokers and Palestinians would be immense – ‘land for peace’ must also bring peace. – Margaret Thatcher • It is curious that Christianity, which is idealism, is sturdily defended by the brokers, and steadily attacked by the idealists. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • It’s common knowledge that a large percentage of Wall Street brokers use astrology. – Donald T. Regan • Japan should get more involved in mediating disputes between countries and seek to play the role of a peace broker. To make this possible, we must train people so they have a solid understanding of international politics and great negotiation skills. – Sadako Ogata • Kyoto costs a lot, does nothing to prevent calamity, and pays no compensation in the event of loss. If my insurance broker offered that sort of policy, I would not carry insurance. Instead what my broker offers is a policy that costs a little and pays full compensation in the event of loss. If someone wants to propose that as a policy on global warming, I’m all in favour. – Ross McKitrick • Many of those whose task it is to broker the truth of God to the people of God in the churches have now redefined the pastoral task such that theology has become an embarrassing encumbrance or a matter of which they have little knowledge; and many in the Church have now turned in upon themselves and substituted for the knowledge of God a search for the knowledge of self. – David F. Wells • Maybe you’ll take the cash out. So a credit card company or a bank that goes into the business of saying we’re going to be the broker, we’re going to sell you a mortgage that you’re going to be able to pay off, we’re going to help you reduce your credit card debt, we’re going to help you save for retirement, we’re going to put you into mutual funds that have low fees rather than high fees. – Richard Thaler • Mutual funds charge 2% per year and then brokers switch people between funds, costing another 3-4 percentage points. The poor guy in the general public is getting a terrible product from the professionals. I think it’s disgusting. It’s much better to be part of a system that delivers value to the people who buy the product. But if it makes money, we tend to do it in this country. – Charlie Munger • My rather puritanical view is that any investment manager, whether operating as broker, investment counselor of a trust department, investment company, etc., should be willing to state unequivocally what he is going to attempt to accomplish and how he proposes to measure the extent to which he gets the job done. – Warren Buffett • National security advisors, like White House Chiefs of Staff, their job generally if they`re – if they`re competent and qualified and effective is to be honest brokers in the White House. – Lawrence O’Donnell • Never call your broker on Monday. Out of courtesy and common sense, wait until Tuesday. A good broker is focused on the opening of the market – at home and around the world – and on getting back into a business frame of mind after the weekend. – Nancy Dunnan • Never take advice from anyone in a tie. They’ll bankrupt you. Don’t ask a general for advice on war, and don’t ask a broker for advice on money. – Nassim Nicholas Taleb • Now I’m in real trouble. First my laundry called and said they lost my shirt and then my broker said the same thing. – Leopold Fechtner • on Broadway money rules. Like a host of vultures, the ticket brokers, the speculators, the craft unions, the agents, the backers, the real estate owners move in on the creative body and take their bite. The world of dreams breathes in an iron lung; and without this mechanical pumping it dies. – Marya Mannes • Once the brokerage house, rather than the bank, became the locus for American savings, that money would find its way into the stock market, because the broker was someone with a much higher tolerance for risk than the banker. – Ron Chernow • One day I visited a guy who had made a fortune as a broker. He was sitting in his office with his computer. I hire people from here and make deals from this room, he told me. Then he took me to the trading room. Nobody was talking to anybody else, the place was silent as a tomb, they were all sitting there watching their terminals – a great word, terminal. I tell you, it scares the crap out of me. – Studs Terkel • One of the ironies of the stock market is the emphasis on activity. Brokers, using terms such as ‘marketability’ and ‘liquidity,’ sing the praises of companies with high share turnover… but investors should understand that what is good for the croupier is not good for the customer. A hyperactive stock market is the pick pocket of enterprise. – Warren Buffett • One of the really positive things about minority government is that there is the necessity to broker policy positions. What happens is you get a hybrid of what a single party might do. And I don’t think that is a bad thing. – Kathleen Wynne • Our standard prescription for the know-nothing investor with a long-term time horizon is a no-load index fund. I think that works better than relying on your stock broker. The people who are telling you to do something else are all being paid by commissions or fees. The result is that while index fund investing is becoming more and more popular, by and large it’s not the individual investors that are doing it. It’s the institutions. – Charlie Munger • Panic in Wall Street, brokers feeling melancholy. – Scott Joplin • People who invest make money for themselves; people who speculate make money for their brokers. And that, in turn, is why Wall Street perennially downplays the durable virtues of investing and hypes the gaudy appeal of speculation. – Benjamin Graham • Progressive visions pale and are smashed next to the normalization of market-driven government policies that wipe out pensions, eliminate quality health care, punish unions, demonize public servants, raise college tuition, and produce a harsh world of joblessness – all the while giving billions and huge bonuses, instead of prison sentences… to those bankers and investment brokers who were responsible for the 2008 meltdown of the economy and the loss of homes for millions of Americans. – Henry Giroux • Quinn’s First Law of Investing is never to buy anything whose price you can’t follow in the newspapers. An investment without a public marketplace attracts the fabulists the way picnics attract ants. Stock brokers and financial planners can tell you anything they want, because no one really knows what’s true. The First Corollary to Quinn’s First Law states that, even when the price is in the newspapers, you shouldn’t buy anything too complex to explain to the average 12-year-old. – Jane Bryant Quinn • Ron Reagan amazingly qualifies as an honest broker. I asked him if he was a mamas boy and he said no, more of a papas boy. At the same time he was willing to say that his father had many shortcomings and needed to be held accountable. – Eugene Jarecki • So I conjured one of the brokers and promised him my soul if he’d protect her. (Zephyra) You can’t do that. Only a demon can. (Stryker) You’re such a brainiac, baby. And to think, I thought I married you for those amazing abs. Who knew all that brainpower was buried under those bulging biceps? (Zephyra) – Sherrilyn Kenyon • Stuyvesant chats with Kelly and Katz, The professor warms to the broker, And life is good in the brotherhood Of an air-conditioned smoker. – Ogden Nash • The average person can’t really trust anybody. They can’t trust a broker, because the broker is interested in churning commissions. They can’t trust a mutual fund, because the mutual fund is interested in gathering a lot of assets and keeping them. And now it’s even worse because even the most sophisticated people have no idea what’s going on. – Seth Klarman • The Carlyle Group is the most politically connected investment firm in the world. The company has mastered the art of influence peddling on a global scale, hiring executives and consultants ranging from Republican power broker James Baker and former president George Herbert Walker Bush to foreign leaders like former British prime minister John Major and former Philippine president Fidel Ramos. – William Hartung • The Dutch must be understood as they really are, the Middle Persons in Trade, the Factors and Brokers of Europe… they buy to sell again, take in to send out again, and the greatest Part of their vast Commerce consists in being supply’d from All Parts of the World, that they may supply All th World Again. – Daniel Defoe • The financial collapse of 2008 got its start with predatory mortgages, that weren’t sold by community banks and credit unions, they were sold by fly by night mortgage brokers who had almost zero federal oversight and then the big banks looked over, saw the profit potential and they wanted it bad. So they jumped in and sold millions of these terrible mortgages while the bank regulators just looked the other way. – Elizabeth Warren • The general systems of money management today require people to pretend to do something they can’t do and like something they don’t. It’s a funny business because on a net basis, the whole investment management business together gives no value added to all buyers combined. That’s the way it has to work. Mutual funds charge two percent per year and then brokers switch people between funds, costing another three to four percentage points. The poor guy in the general public is getting a terrible product from the professionals. – John C. Bogle • The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods. – H. L. Mencken • The job market of the future will consist of those jobs that robots cannot perform. Our blue-collar work is pattern recognition, making sense of what you see. Gardeners will still have jobs because every garden is different. The same goes for construction workers. The losers are white-collar workers, low-level accountants, brokers, and agents. – Michio Kaku • The leaders of the establishment and the power brokers in it and the global establishment, they’re never, ever gonna say, “You know what? We were wrong and [Donald] Trump is right. And we need to get behind him.” – Rush Limbaugh • The market gives you the opportunity to arbitrage what the emotional investor will pay or sell at versus the fundamental value of a company, but you’ve got to pull the trigger promptly without hesitating. We’ve disciplined ourselves mentally and prepared ourselves in terms of information, as well as relationships with brokers, to do that. – Richard Chandler • The ‘medium’ is unaware of its attractiveness, that’s all. Everyone loves comics. I’ve proven this to my own satisfaction by handing them out to acountants, insurance brokers, hairdressers, mothers of children, black belts, pop stars, taxi drivers, painters, lesbians, doctors etc. etc. The X-Files, Buffy, the Matrix, X-Men – mainstream culture is not what it once was when science fiction and comics fans huddled in cellars like Gnostic Christians dodging the Romans. We should come up into the light soon before we suffocate. – Grant Morrison • The reason so many financial advisors are called brokers is because they are often broker than you. – Robert Kiyosaki • The same with the mortgage brokers that were selling people mortgages they couldn’t afford. We shouldn’t pay them on each mortgage they write. They should have what they call “skin in the game,” where they’ve got to reimburse us if the guy who sold the mortgage defaults. – Richard Thaler • The US must be the honest broker between the Israelis and the Palestinians. America needs to be to both of them what neither could be to the other: a trusted brokering partner. It is in their interest and our interest for America to play that role. – Jesse Jackson • The way the left is reacting to the death of Fidel Castro up against the incontrovertible facts of who he was, you want to talk about a disconnect. In fact, I don’t think it is a disconnect. I think the left, the power brokers, the leaders, I think they actually did admire the guy. I think this is what they think Castro’s power – I’ve always said, the people have asked me, how do these actors and people and these leftist politicians, how come they admire people like this? I said, “They envy their power.” And I think there may be a lot to that. – Rush Limbaugh • There is no love-broker in the world can more prevail in man’s commendation with woman than report of valor. – William Shakespeare • Those of Manhattan are the brokers on Wall Street and they talk of people who went to the same colleges; those from Queens are margin clerks in the back offices and they speak of friends who live in the same neighborhood. – Jimmy Breslin • Time and again-from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the events of 9/11 to the onset of the Arab Spring-events have caught the experts, whether in government or on the outside, completely by surprise. Business owners with comparable performance records go bust. Brokers lose their clients. Physicians get sued for malpractice. Yet think-tankers and policy wonks continue to opine, never pausing to reflect on-or apologize for-their spotty records. – Andrew Bacevich • To some, the temporal triumph of the Christian community in the world is a sign of God’s favor and the essential righteousness of the Christian position. The irony of the matter, though, is that whenever the Christian community gains worldly power, it nearly always loses its capacity to be the critic of the power and influence it so readily brokers. – Peter J. Gomes • Too many people say to their brokers, I can’t deal with this. Take my money. Do what you want. That’s the worst attitude you can have. – Maria Bartiromo • University administrators are the equivalent of subprime mortgage brokers selling you a story that you should go into debt massively, that it’s not a consumption decision, it’s an investment decision. Actually, no, it’s a bad consumption decision. Most colleges are four-year parties. – Peter Thiel • Up until 35 I had a slightly skewed world view. I honestly believed everybody in the world wanted to make abstract paintings, and people only became lawyers and doctors and brokers and things because they couldn’t make abstract paintings – Frank Stella • Wall Street, with its army of brokers, analysts, and advisers funneling trillions of dollars into mutual funds, hedge funds, and private equity funds, is an elaborate fraud. – Michael Lewis • Wall Street. – The abode of the Brokers and the Broke. – Carolyn Wells • Washington was not just a city of marble buildings and smoke-filled rooms and power brokers, but also a town full of people who do care about each other, in good times and bad. – Andrea Mitchell • We have Christians against Muslims against Jews. They’re making incompatible claims on real estate in the Middle East as though God were some kind of omniscient real estate broker parsing out parcels of land to his chosen flock. People are literally dying over ancient literature. – Sam Harris • We in the press like to say we’re honest brokers of information, and it’s just not true. The press does have an agenda. – Bernard Goldberg • We never will have any prosperity that is free from speculation till we pass a law that every time a broker or person sells something, he has got to have it sitting there in a bucket, or a bag, or a jug, or a cage, or a rat trap, or something, depending on what it is he is selling. We are continually buying something that we never get from a man that never had it. – Will Rogers • We’ve always had a dual role in the region – friend of Israel, and honest broker. We’ve given up the honest broker role completely. – Chris Matthews • What boy well raised can compare with your street gamin who has the knowledge and the shrewdness of a grown-up broker. – Elbert Hubbard • What brands can do brilliantly is broker change in people’s lives. – John Grant • What kind of country is this where a woman can’t weep her heart out on the highways and byways without being tormented by retired bill-brokers! – Samuel Beckett • When a Wall Street analyst or broker expresses optimism, investors must take it with a grain of salt. – Seth Klarman • While no one wishes to incur losses, you couldn’t prove it from an examination of the behavior of most investors and speculators. The speculative urge that lies within most of us is strong; the prospect of a free lunch can be compelling, especially when others have already seemingly partaken. It can be hard to concentrate on potential losses while others are greedily reaching for gains and your broker is on the phone offering shares in the latest “hot” initial public offering. Yet the avoidance of loss is the surest way to ensure a profitable outcome. – Seth Klarman • Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker? – George Carlin • You shouldn’t trust the judgments of stock brokers picking individual stocks. – Gary A. Klein

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equitiesstocks · 4 years

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gracewithducks · 4 years

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Zacchaeus, too, is a Son of Abraham (Luke 19:1-10) - Sunday School Stories #8, preached 10/27/2019

At more than 250 meters below sea level, Jericho is the lowest town on earth, and it also considers itself the oldest city on earth. The first people to settle here made their homes in Jericho something like eleven thousand years ago, settling around a powerful spring, which enables life to thrive in the wilderness, not far from the Dead Sea.

The city is mentioned many times in the bible, perhaps most famously as the first town captured by Joshua and the Hebrews as they left the desert and entered the Promised Land; the story goes that the people marched around the city walls, and when they cried out, the walls came tumbling down.

The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was well-known to be dangerous, so much so this is the road where Jesus sets his famous parable of the Good Samaritan, the foreigner who dares to help while the good religious people pass on by.

These days, if you ever travel to Jericho, as you leave the Dead Sea behind you and follow the road through the wilderness, you begin to see big red warning signs, with writing in Hebrew, in Arabic, and in English, saying: “This Road Leads to Palestine. Entrance for Israeli Citizens is Forbidden, Dangerous to Your Lives, And Is Against [the] Law.”

The first time I saw one of those signs, I got nervous. I asked our tour guide what the signs were about. He said, simply, “Israelis tell Palestinians where they can and can’t go. So the Palestinians claim the same rights: to protect their homes, and to protect themselves.”

But then he shrugged, because as we entered the city, I don’t remember the bus even stopping at a checkpoint; we just drove on in. There aren’t any walls around the city these days; the miles of barren land are enough to keep the city isolated. And it’s clear that, for all the big red warning signs, the city’s inhabitants are too busy going about their lives to check the credentials of all their visitors and hunt down any Israelis who cross the line.

In Luke’s gospel, we read that Jesus just passing through Jericho, on his way to Jerusalem. After leaving Jericho, Jesus will enter Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and he begin the final days on the road to the cross. This encounter with Zacchaeus, then, is where Jesus’ ministry ends.

On the way to Jerusalem, as he passed through Jericho, there was a man named Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was a “chief tax collector and was rich.” We know so little about Zacchaeus, but what we do know speaks volumes. Zacchaeus was a tax collector; as much as we grumble and argue about taxes today, it’s nothing to the resentment of the people two thousand years ago. Tax collectors colluded with the empire; they collected taxes to support the foreign powers who occupied and oppressed the ordinary folk – and tax collectors lined their own pockets along the way. Often, in addition to the wages they received from the empire, tax collectors were known to pad their collections, to skim off the top, to use their authority to exploit their neighbors. Even honest tax collectors were despised; and if everyone was going to hate you and assume you’re corrupt, why not at least get paid?

Whether he came about it honestly or not, Zacchaeus was a man of power, authority, and wealth. He was one of the few who could live in comfort, not fear, a man with a steady job and a healthy nest egg, a man who never had to worry about whether he’d have a roof over his head or food to eat.

Zacchaeus was living what, for many, is the dream. But he’s still missing something – he has to be; men who are happy, who are contented with their lot in life, aren’t men who set aside their dignity to go running through the streets and climb trees, hoping to catch a glimpse of something more.

Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. Which tells us this: he was one of the least popular men in town. Nobody wants to be friends with the tax guy; nobody wants to look too friendly with the empire, to be suspected of being corrupt yourself. Nobody gives Zacchaeus a boost that day; nobody saves him a space at the front of the crowd; no one offers to move aside so he that he can see. For all his wealth, Zacchaeus is alone.

For all that Zacchaeus has, he knows that something is missing. So when he hears the rumors about Jesus – this strange teacher, who blesses the poor, the powerless, the hungry and the meek – when he hears about this Jesus, who opened the eyes of a blind man right here, in Jericho – when Zacchaeus hears that Jesus is coming, he is curious, wondering if maybe this is the man who can show him what’s missing, who can show him something more.

But the crowds are in his way. This man, who’s used to people making way, this man finds himself excluded, pushed out, pushed aside.

It’s understandable. Jesus comes to proclaim a new kingdom, not to shore up the old empire; those who live in power and comfort now are pushed to the fringes in this vision of a new world to come. Zacchaeus and his kind aren’t welcome in the revolution. It’s understandable, why the crowds would want to keep Zacchaeus out. But I also wonder – we don’t know if the crowds got in the way on purpose. Maybe they were so busy looking at Jesus that they didn’t even realize that there was someone else behind them, jumping, looking for an opening, struggling to find a way in, struggling to find a way to see.

And that right there, friends, that is such a powerful warning to us as the church. In our eagerness to press close to Christ, who is it that we’re squeezing out? Who is it, that can’t see Jesus, because we are getting in the way?

So many give up – because we don’t open the circle, we don’t let them in. But thank God, some like Zacchaeus persevere; some, like Zacchaeus, are willing to run, jump, climb a tree, searching for just a glimpse, believing that – even with all those crowds – there is still a way, still a place for him.

And even with all those crowds, Jesus sees Zacchaeus. He sees this man who’s been shut out; he sees this man who, for all his privilege, isn’t allowed to belong. Jesus sees Zacchaeus, and he calls him by name… and rather than passing through the town, Jesus invites himself into Zacchaeus’ home, into his story and into his life.

The crowds start to grumble. In a town full of needy, hungry, desperate people – why is Jesus wasting his time with the rich guy in the tree? In a town full of righteous, respectable, decent people – how dare Jesus single out the tax collector? Doesn’t Jesus know what kind of reputation Zacchaeus has?

And this is the thing: Jesus knows. Just like Jesus knows the ways all of us have failed, our flaws, our greed and our guilt – Jesus knows who Zacchaeus is, and Jesus still invites himself in.

There’s a reason John Newton wrote about “amazing grace… that saved a wretch like me:” because God’s grace is for wretches, wretches like you and me, and wretches like the people we try with all our might to avoid and ignore. When Jesus says “all,” he means “all” – all are welcome; there is a place for everyone – even the people we’d rather keep on the outsides, even the people we don’t want to let in. When we don’t let them come, Jesus goes to them – when we don’t invite them into our lives, Jesus invites himself into theirs.

And when Jesus shows up, everything changes. While the people grumble and complain that Zacchaeus is greedy and dishonest, Zacchaeus says, “Look, I will give half of my possessions away; and if I’ve cheated anyone, I’ll pay them back four times over.” Zacchaeus moves from greed to generosity, in this one day, this moment, of recognition and grace. And we do Zacchaeus an injustice if we just remember him as a short man, and we forget that his faith, his experience with Christ, changed his life, in real ways, with economic implications: he doesn’t just receive a blessing that day, but he commits himself to be a blessing, too.

Just a few verses earlier, Jesus was talking to a rich young ruler – a rich young ruler whom Jesus challenges to sell what he has and give it to the poor – a rich young ruler who goes sorrowfully away. Following Jesus has implications for what we do with what we have; loving our neighbors doesn’t mean we share warm fuzzy feelings, but rather, we share food, and shelter, and resources; we put our money where our mouth is, because – as Jesus says, where your treasure is, there is your heart.

Although this is the curious thing – and stick with me for a minute, because I’m going to talk about verb tenses. In the original Greek, the verbs that Zacchaeus uses aren’t in the future tense, but the present tense; so he doesn’t say, “I will give away half of what I own, and if I’ve cheated anyone, I will pay them back four times over” – but what Zacchaeus actually says, when his neighbors complain, “Jesus is going to be the guest of a sinner,” is, “Look. I give away half of what I own, and if I’ve defrauded anyone, I pay them back four times as much.”[1]

It’s delightfully ambiguous. Maybe Zacchaeus has had a total turnaround, an awakening; maybe just knowing that Jesus has seen him, and cares for him, is enough to convert him to a life of grace. But maybe, it’s just as possible, maybe Zacchaeus has been this quietly generous man all along: giving away what he has, doing his work honestly, and if he hurts someone, doing everything he can to make it right.

His neighbors have assumed that he’s a greedy man, untrustworthy and pompous and unkind… but what if they’ve been wrong? What if Jesus is the first person ever to see Zacchaeus for the man he’s been all along? A man as flawed as any, but no more evil than the rest of us – a man who has done the best he can, with the hand he’s been given, to make the world a better place?

So often our assumptions get in the way; so often, we think we know someone’s story, we know their heart, and we write them off, we turn our backs, we refuse to let them in. I love this story, if it’s about one man’s total transformation after encountering grace – and I love this story, if it’s about one man’s true character finally being revealed underneath all the layers of rumors and suspicion. Either way, whether he’s a good and generous man or whether he’s a cheat and a thief, either way, Jesus sees him, Jesus goes to him, and Jesus offers him grace and offers him love. This is what Jesus is all about: not asking whether we deserve his presence, but showing up for us all the same.

Maybe the call to repentance and conversion in this story isn’t so much for Zacchaeus, but for the crowds, his angry neighbors, who judge and assume and exclude him – until the day when Jesus stands next to Zacchaeus and says, “He’s a son of Abraham, too.” Zacchaeus, too, has been blessed to be a blessing. Zacchaeus, too, is a member of the family of God.

When we look beyond our assumptions, when we call each other by name, when we learn to welcome one another as guests, to share our lives, that’s when the kingdom of God breaks in.

Remember those big red warning signs, on the way to modern Jericho? They remind us just how divided Jesus’ homeland continues to be. Neighbors are divided by history, by religion, by race, by language, by culture, by fear… The Holy Land is a place full of dangerous assumptions, full of prejudice and suspicion; thousands of years after Joshua saw the walls come falling down, walls are being built all over again.

But one summer, a few years ago, for just a few days, those big red warning signs said something different. They were covered by a group of Israeli women, helped by some of Palestinian allies; the old signs were covered with new signs, which said – again, in all three languages, in rows full of colorful letters: “Women say no to the rules of occupation. [This is a] Civilian Zone: no entry to the army… Israeli civilians do not be afraid! Come and visit Palestinian settlements. Refuse to be enemies!”[2]

Come and visit! Refuse to be enemies! Do not be afraid! There is power in sharing our lives together. There is power in laying down our weapons, in laying aside our preconceived notions, and actually getting to know one another, and realizing we aren’t so different after all. There is power to seeing each other, realizing we are all children of Abraham, and we are all children of God.

This is who we are called to be: people of generosity and grace. We are called to move beyond assumptions; we are called to look around, to see who it is we are excluding, who it is that we’re hampering from seeing Christ – and we are also called to do something, to share what we have, to remember that we are blessed to be a blessing to all.

Lord, you blessed children, you welcomed foreigners, and you invited yourself to share the tables of tax collectors. You offered healing and you offered hope, to rich and poor alike; you looked at people, and you saw in them people who bore God’s image, people who are flawed but also beautiful, people worthy of your love. Lord, teach us to see one another and to see the world as you do. Help us to put aside our suspicions, our prejudice, our fear; help us to put away our selfishness and our greed; help us to recognize that we are all connected, that we are all part of your big family, and when we live with love and grace, lives are changed. In the name of Christ we pray; amen.

[1] https://biblehub.com/interlinear/luke/19.htm & https://www.ezraproject.com/greek-tenses-explained

[2] https://972mag.com/israeli-activists-replace-threatening-military-signs-with-messages-of-peace-and-resistance/76431/

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nyranfoyle-blog · 5 years

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The Diary of Chloe R——-

Editor’s Note:

The following is a series of diary entries written in the Fall of 2017 by Chloe R——-. The last entry is dated one day before her death, which occurred on the occasion of her thirteenth birthday, November 27, 2017. All names and identifying information have been omitted or altered out of respect for the R——- family’s privacy. This document is for educational purposes only.

***

September the first,

If the definition of insanity were a sincere belief in the supernatural our world will be one monumental mad house. And it’s not like I’m ruling that out, but if we use the standards forwarded by the medical and cultural authorities of our time only a tiny minority would qualify as insane. Today the doctors came over. Usually we go to them, but these were special circumstances. They informed me in clear, unmistakable language that I am a certified member of the aforementioned minority. In my excitement I forgot to ask for a subscription to the newsletter.

More soon,

Chloe

September the fifth,

I did a little experiment. For seventy-two hours I acted as if the diagnosis our doctors gave me was the gospel truth. I exercised my (long neglected) capacity for faith. It occurred to me that if insanity could explain Harriet’s presence I should give it a chance. I had to second-guess my assumption that the answer I preferred was the objective truth. The experiment was and wasn’t useful. I became more sure of my sureness about my state of being. I am not insane.

September the ninth,

Harriet agrees with me about my sanity, of course. I know in the way I always know. No matter how much hell I raise she won’t open her mouth to speak. Maybe it was spite motivated her unchangeable resolution to communicate with me through the Tele Path, I don’t know. It was blue today, and it glowed especially bright. How thoughtful, Harriet. You’ve upended my life entire, but you want me to feel your sympathy. Meanwhile I was fantasizing about stabbing you in the face. Maybe I would have tried, but the last thing I need is more bad luck.

More soon,

Chloe

September the fifteenth,

Alex had his birthday party this afternoon. Somehow Mimi and Papa found out, and they were preposterously reverential to me all day to make me feel better. Mimi was delighted when her treacherous network of spies informed her that Alex cried and punched a hole in his baseball-themed birthday cake on account of my absence. Why would I care? Mimi and Papa’s assumption that because the big things are going wrong the little things are especially important makes no sense. Could it be that they’ve given up on their sickly orphan granddaughter? And now that they’ve forfeited the only fight that matters they are trying to gaslight me by focusing on matters entirely meaningless? Even for me that’s dark. No, the only acceptable explanation is they just don’t understand. I have no room for Alex in my mind right now. I need to keep my eye on the ball.

More soon,

Chloe

September the twenty-sixth,

We’ve been haggling for days on end. I hardly sleep. Somehow I’ve lost more weight. Where did it come from? Did I shed an internal organ? It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Negotiations are hopeless. Harriet and Chloe. Israelis and Palestinians. That is if the Israelis were constantly trying to convince the Palestinians they were star-crossed lovers, not mortal enemies, whilst continuing apace with their occupation of the West Bank (I wrote that for illustration purposes only, I have no idea what’s really happening in the Middle East, none of my affair, none of my concern). Some wise person once said “no one loves the man whom he fears.” As true as that is for men and men, it goes double for girls and monsters.

More soon,

Chloe

September the thirtieth,

Another doctor today. Young. Female. We acted out our little play in the mirror. I have it down to the letter, and she didn’t do so bad for a first performance. I described every wild hair and stinking pore on Harriet’s twisted body while the Lady Doctor pretended to take notes. She was probably doing a crossword puzzle. Smug bitch.

More soon,

Chloe

October the ninth,

Try this on for size: a delusion is a delusion when only one person can see it, while a God is a God when no one ever has. Joseph Smith claimed he walked with Jesus, and to this day the prevailing wisdom outside the confines of his cult is that he was either a quack, or more likely a con man. Faith is willful self-delusion. If it comes anywhere close to reality believers get nervous, not excited. It’s like getting a valentine from a cute boy. If you open it, no matter what it says, it’s just a scrap of paper. This is why so many mothers suicide themselves after having babies. Whatever form it takes, reality is a letdown. The powerful have to protect their faith, so when someone introduces them to reality they break out the straitjacket.

More soon,

Chloe

October the sixteenth,

Lady Doctor. Back again. She wanted to watch me negotiate with Harriet. Okay. She sat crosslegged on the floor and squinted in a patronizing attempt to see the Tele Path. It was blood red. Harriet can be as mad as she wants. She can hiss, spit, snarl. Her mood isn’t going to make any difference. Neither will Lady Doctor, but she pretends to be very interested.

More soon,

Chloe

October the twenty-first,

Strange day. Lady Doctor. She must have asked me a hundred questions as I listened to her muffled voice from the Tele Path. I had to remind myself not to respond in a shout. At first it was the standard headshrinker routine. Is Superman real? That one never leaves the rotation. I guess they think it’s funny. In any case, Lady Doctor started asking about Mom and Dad. They were personalized questions, but I had heard them all before. They’ve long since cracked the case. My parents die and I respond by developing a dangerous imaginary friend. When I tell them Harriet entered the fold long before the fire they develop spontaneous hearing damage. At a certain point Lady Doctor’s questions shifted. It was subtle. I’m sorry about your family. Do you ever dream about them? Yes. Good dreams or nightmares? Good. Do you get nightmares? Pretty soon that was all we were talking about. I described every dream and every nightmare I could remember. Lady Doctor was very fixated on the Gray Woman. A recurring player in my subconscious. Sometimes she’s a witch. Sometimes she’s my mother. Sometimes she’s a trash can, I don’t know. Oddly enough, I couldn’t think of a single dream without her. None of this was particularly interesting to me, but it was to Lady Doctor, and more importantly, it was to Harriet. She feigned impatience, but this was something else. She was lashing out. Stalking back and forth like she had to pee. Gnashing her teeth furiously and cutting herself where the top fangs hit her bottom jaw. At one point it almost looked as if she was going to speak. I have no idea why she had this reaction. All I know for sure is tomorrow I’ll wake up bleeding.

More soon,

Chloe

November the tenth,

It wasn’t difficult to find a book on lucid dreaming. There were so many. The real challenge was choosing between them all. In the end I went with one that reads like a textbook. “Lucid Dreams” by Dr. Anthony Ford, phd. Mimi hovered over me like a vulture at the booksore. Thank God she doesn’t know about Amazon. I would’ve had to wait days. As it happened I was able to read the entire book before going to bed that night. I’ve had weeks of practice since then. I’m not a pro yet, but I’m getting there. Soon I’ll be able to find the Gray Woman. She’s been conspicuously scarce recently. Isn’t that something?

More soon,

Chloe

November the eighteenth,

I got the bitch. Without a word of warning I wrapped my hands around her wrinkled throat. She tried laughing, then pleading, then cursing, then crying. Guess if it worked, go ahead. There were eyes shining all around us in the dark. It felt like forever. I was squeezing as hard as I could, but I’m only small, after all. First the Gray Woman went purple, then she went limp. I let go a few minutes later, after I heard a loud pop. Her face was familiar, but I had never seen her in the material world. She was too real to be an invention. Just like Harriet. How could my mind conjure up something so complex? I studied her face and hands for a long time. One by one the prying eyes were disappearing. Show’s over, guys. I went back the next night and most of the Gray Woman was right where I left her. Something had done a very thorough job relieving her of her innards. She smelled horrendous, so I lit a match and burned her to a crisp. It was a beautiful fire. I’m almost sure there was green in it. Harriet hasn’t opened the Tele Path since. I guess she thinks the silent treatment is some sort of punishment. Whenever I catch a glimpse of her in a window or a drinking glass she has her back to me.

More soon,

Chloe

November the twenty-sixth,

Tomorrow is going to make me puke. I don’t know what Mimi and Papa have planned. The doctors and the lawyers decided months ago. As long as there were no more incidents I could stay home until after my birthday. In hindsight I wish I’d just ask them to take me in September. Why expend so much energy covering up the scratches? For a party? It’s something about girls. They love big occasions. Every Disney film is about some grand ball. Girls put on shows, they obsess over holidays. Almost like they’re trying to make up for something. Whatever it is, I never had it. I don’t like attention. Or parties. It’s not that I dislike people. I think I dislike noise. I’m going to ask Mimi and Papa to cancel their plans for tomorrow. It’s my birthday, I can be dark and brooding if I want to. I think I’ll to to D——- B——- on my own and climb the rock. It’s so quiet there. All you hear is the wind. It’s the best place in the world to pretend I’m alone.

More soon,

Chloe

***

Editor’s note:

The next day, November 26, Chloe R——- went missing. Her body was discovered ten days later at a local nature preserve. There were dozens of lashes and festering wounds on the face and torso. The entire body was bruised and battered. The throat was hanging by a thin strip of tissue. Medical examiners estimate she was clawed and beaten for at least an hour before succumbing to blood loss. Multiple forensics experts were invited to review the case. By universal agreement, Chloe R——-‘s death was deemed a suicide.

This document is the intellectual property of the University of Pennsylvania Psychology Department. It may not be reprinted or otherwise distributed without the written consent of the department chair.

#fiction #writing sample

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albinohare · 6 years

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A voyage for 21st Century madmen? What drives the Golden Globe skippers

Helen Fretter went to the start of the Golden Globe Race to find out why 17 men and one woman have eschewed modern technology to race solo around the world for 300 days

PPL PHOTO AGENCY – COPYRIGHT FREE for editorial use only PHOTO CREDIT: Christophe Favreau/PPL/GGR Tel: +44(0)7768 395719 E.mail: [email protected] web: www.pplmedia.com ***2018 Golden Globe Race – Mark Sinclair (AUS) Lello 34 Coconut, passing through the Marina Rubicon ‘Gate’ off Lanzarote in the Canaries.

A voyage for madmen, so was the original Sunday Times Golden Globe Race deemed. When the first non-stop race around the world began in 1968 few thought a man could sail around the world alone. The common opinion was that the limits of human endurance would be reached long before 30,000 miles around the planet could be completed.

In some respects those early critics were tragically correct. Donald Crowhurst was famously driven beyond the edge of reason during the race, falsifying position reports before his presumed suicide. Bernard Moitessier felt the siren call of the sea so strongly he continued on alone, unable to return to western life or even his family. Six others failed, one – Nigel Tetley – after his yacht sank beneath him.

But one man and one yacht proved them wrong. Robin Knox-Johnston and Suhaili showed it could be done when he completed his solo circumnavigation in 312 days.

Since then more than 200 people have sailed around the world alone, non-stop (for context, some 530 have gone into space, and 306 have summited K2).

From BOC Challenge and Vendée Globe competitors to record-breakers and record-seekers, pioneers of different ages and nationalities, sailing the wrong way round, or from start ports as various as Qingdao and Mumbai, solo sailors have pushed the limits of what a non-stop circumnavigation can be. No longer is there any question that it can be done: the current record time stands at a breathtaking 42 days, set by François Gabart in the 100ft trimaran Macif last winter.

Yachts have never been faster, communication equipment never more advanced, weather forecasting and routeing tools never more accurate. So why on earth would 18 souls bid to sail around the world with the same privations those nine original Golden Globe entrants had to endure? They will not be the first nor the fastest, so why voluntarily cut contact for months on end, place their faith in small, traditionally equipped yachts, and let their fates be determined by the wind, the waves, and their own mental fortitude?

The reasons are as varied as each of the 18 entrants. The premise of the 2018 Golden Globe race is a little extraordinary, and it has attracted a collection of unique and extraordinary characters.

The race was born out of a personal passion. Australian adventurer Don McIntyre finished 2nd in the 1990-91 BOC Challenge solo round the world race, but harked to sail around again in Knox-Johnston’s wake. As the 50th anniversary of Knox-Johnston’s return approached McIntyre started to plan how it could be done. Others showed an interest in joining him, and what started as a personal pilgrimage rapidly evolved into a full-blown race. McIntyre initially planned to take part, but the organisation required escalated until he sold his boat (to entrant Kevin Farebrother) and became race chairman instead.

Perhaps surprisingly, there was never any shortage of people willing to take part. At one stage the entry list was overflowing with 30 declarations of interest and another 15 on the waiting list. In the end, 18 became official entrants, 17 took the startline – the financial, practical and qualification demands of the race having seen all but the most determined away.

Among those 18 were numerous professional sailors, whose CVs include the Jester Challenge, OSTAR, Vendée Globe, BOC Challenge, superyacht events, the Whitbread Round the World Race, and many more.

But there was also a former firefighter, Kevin Farebrother, who admits that he ‘barely’ had the qualifying mileage under his belt; Palestinian currency trader Nabil Amra; 28-year-old Susie Goodall, taking part in her first ever solo race, and amateur yachtsmen for whom the event is a fantasy made reality.

For Jean-Luc Van Den Heede the race is a chance to recreate a formative moment in his own life. “I followed [the 1966 Golden Globe] at the time – I was 23. I dreamt about this race.”

From watching those early pioneers, Van Den Heede went on to carve out a sailing career few could dream of. He has five circumnavigations to his name, four of them podium finishes (2nd and 3rd places) in both the Vendée Globe and BOC/Around Alone Race. Aged 73, he has absolutely nothing to prove and is gleefully doing this for the sheer fun of it.

“I didn’t want to sail again around the world, for me that was finished. Even if Matmut [his sponsor] gave me €10million I wouldn’t do the Vendée Globe again. I’ve done it twice, and now it’s a technological race, and less of an adventure,” he tells me.

Eager entrant

Yet when a friend mailed Heede details of the Golden Globe Race proposal in 2015, he was signed up within the week. Having raced at the leading edge of competition, will he not find it frustrating to be sailing round the world so slowly? “No,” he says, “it is because it is different that I want to do this.”

At 73 years he considers that he might be “a little bit too old”, so says he’s taking part with an open mind. However, he is clearly not a competitor to be underestimated and after two weeks of racing was lying 3rd.

Australian Mark Sinclair is another sailor for whom a major draw is the sense of becoming part of maritime history. Sinclair’s diminutive orange Lello 34 Coconut carries a library that includes everything from Homer’s Odyssey to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Naomi James’ Alone Around the World, and of course, Knox-Johnston’s A World of My Own.

“I think it’s crazy to sail single-handed around the world without stopping – why would you do that? Why not stop at all those interesting places? But this is a re-enactment of Knox Johnston’s voyage: frame it like that with a sextant and a Walker trailing log and Nories tables, and it’s just so exciting.”

Sinclair sailed solo from Australia to New Zealand in his early 20s and dreamed of a circumnavigation, but a career and family life got in the way. “One of the problems of sailing around the world is you can put it off, and put it off…” he admits, “But this is the 50th anniversary of Knox-Johnston doing the first circumnavigation. It’s on a date – if you miss it, there’s not going to be another. So it’s a catalyst to action, and I just found it absolutely compelling.”

Others discovered the notion much more recently. Former firefighter and SAS soldier Kevin Farebrother only started sailing five years before he started the Golden Globe, and confirmed his entry after reading A World of My Own during an Everest expedition.

Dutchman Mark Slats is another adventurer for whom the Golden Globe is another personal challenge. Intensely driven and competitive, Slats interrupted his Golden Globe preparation to row the Atlantic, demolishing the solo world record time by five days and rowing relentlessly for 18 hours a day.

He has set targets for the number of days he wants each ‘stage’ of the Golden Globe to take and says the thing he is most concerned about is losing motivation: “The hardest thing will be to not get lazy, every job can be done tomorrow.”

Slats uses some bizarre psychological tricks to keep driven – even listening to music he hates for hours on end during his Atlantic row so he could ‘reward’ himself with something better at the end of a watch.

He has already completed two solo circumnavigations and has ambitions of one day doing a Vendée. “I want to be competitive in this, I’m going to be racing the whole way,” he says. He is one of the early stage leaders.

As individual as each competitor is the way they’ve approached the preparation and modification of their yachts. Philippe Péché, a Breton whose career has included twice winning the Jules Verne Trophy, is sailing one of six Rustler 36s in the race, but his is branded in the famous orange livery of PRB. His Rustler 36 has hanked-on headsails, lightweight Karver blocks and similar to make the cruising design as lightweight as possible.

Mark Slats is a world record breaking ocean rower

Mark Slats is sailing another Rustler 36. He too has focussed on reducing weight, packing as minimally as he can with no treats or luxuries. Uniquely, Slats also has two rowlocks fitted to his yacht The Ohpen Maverick with an over-length oar designed to be rowed standing. Slats plans to row for up to 12 or 15 hours a day if needed, giving extra impetus through 100 miles or so of the Doldrums.

Jean-Luc Van Den Heede has modified his Rustler 36 by shortening his rig and increasing the roach on his mainsail. He believes being able to sail consistently, reducing the need to reef repeatedly, will pay off. He also wanted to reduce weight aloft for the Southern Ocean.

Traditional aids

Mark Sinclair has kept his Lello 34 as authentic as possible, refurbishing original winches and engine and fitting a 40-year-old Aries wind vane.

Abhilash Tomy went one step further – his Thuriya is a new build near-replica of Suhaili.

Tomy, who was the first Indian sailor ever to circumnavigate the globe, wanted to build a boat in India but, according the rules, the only new build permitted was an Eric 32 – the original design of Suhaili (all other yachts must be production models, with at least 20 built and designed prior to 1988).

When he approached Knox-Johnston for advice, Sir Robin pointed out that it would be the slowest boat in the fleet. Undaunted, Tomy bought the plans for $200. “She’s the oldest design, from 1923, but the youngest boat,” he says.

Thuriya is actually a thing of loveliness, more spacious below than many of the more modern designs with beautiful woodwork on the gunwales and bowsprit. While Knox-Johnston was not always complimentary about Suhaili’s sailing capabilities, Abhilash seems fond of Thuriya.

“Upwind I don’t need to touch the tiller, she sails on her own. At 25 knots she starts moving. She likes it; I don’t have to shorten sails too much.

“The boat is in charge, she has a life of her own.”

Besides the restrictions to design, there are huge limitations on what each skipper may take. The banned list includes GPS, radar, AIS, chart plotters and electronic charts, electronic wind instruments, electric autopilots, electronic log, mobile phone, tablets, iPods, or any computer-based device, CD players, video cameras and digital cameras, satellite equipment of any kind, digital binoculars, pocket scientific calculators, electronic clocks or watches, watermakers, and materials including carbon fibre, Spectra, Kevlar, and rod rigging.

For safety the boats may carry an AIS transponder that does not give access to GPS. For emergency use only, they also carry GPS units in sealed packages. If the seals are broken, or the skipper makes landfall to carry out repairs, then they are moved to the ‘Chichester’ division of the race.

Navigation is by sextant, and all celestial observations and calculations must be clearly recorded for verification.

Communication is limited to Ham radio, weekly satellite calls with the organisers, and very brief telegram-style messages – outgoing only. Weather bulletins are received by radio.

Despite the drive for authenticity, curiously, engines are not sealed and competitors may carry up to 160 litres of fuel, buying them a few hundred miles of motoring through the lightest airs and at the compulsory film drops to handover their Super8 footage and stills photos.

Provisioning and stowage was a huge challenge for all. Every skipper I spoke to was carrying a spare mainsail, a massive item to carry on such small yachts. Spares included replacement headsails, spinnaker poles, and windvane gear. Endless tools and repair kits have to be carried – Mark Sinclair explained how he had planned to convert Coconut’s saloon table into a work bench if needed, with vices, clamps and timber packed.

Sinclair estimated he also had some 1,000 cans of food on board. Provisioning choices varied with a mix of canned and vacuum-packed meals. With no watermakers on board skippers will need to catch their own water, limiting the usefulness of freeze-dried food. Susie Goodall even opted to go plastic-free with her provisions, using dozens of glass Kilner jars.

A transformative experience

Few of the skippers who set out on 1st July had any real idea how they will contend with nine or ten months with virtually no contact from other people.

As the youngest skipper, Susie Goodall, born in 1990, will never have known life without the internet, email or text messages. It’s likely that music on cassette tapes is as alien to her as the Super 8 cine film supplied to each boat.

Goodall seemed brittle with nerves before the start, but it was hard to judge if she was nervous about the upcoming voyage, or more likely struggling to contend with the hundreds of people wanting to talk to her about the event in the final few days.

Mark Slatts thrives on utter isolation. Two days into his cross-Atlantic row he cut the wires on this GPS because he found the ‘miles to go’ countdown so intrusive.

Mark Sinclair, who has sailed thousands of miles solo, was also looking forward to it. “Moby Dick’s got 600 pages, if I read two pages a day I’ll just get through it,” he jokes.

“I spend most of my time sitting up in the cockpit watching the water go by, I find it hypnotic.

“Sometimes I have to make a radio sched and it’s so invasive, I feel like it’s invading my space.”

But not everyone can cope: within a week of starting, Ertan Beskardes withdrew from the race. He explained on Facebook: “Not talking to my family regularly to share the daily experiences has sadly taken the joy and happiness from this experience. These feelings gradually got worse until nothing else mattered except to talk to them. This wasn’t an experience I was prepared for.”

Before the start Kevin Farebrother admitted he was nervous about his lack of experience. “And to be honest, the solitude for nine months. It could be too much, I don’t know – if I only last two weeks we’ll know it’s a problem?” he said presciently.

In fact he retired after exactly two weeks, unable to adapt to sleep below decks. “For me it is like getting into the back seat of a moving car to sleep when no-one is at the wheel,” he said, as he retired from the race.

Abhilash Tomy is another looking forward to the isolation. For him the bigger challenge is rejoining the modern world.“It’s always the return, coming back that’s harder. It’s painful integrating back into society.

“I found it very amusing last time. You see people having conversations – they’re talking a lot but they’re not communicating what they want to say.”

Tomy believes the race will be transformative for all the skippers. “They all will be changed, but to what degree, to what extent and in what direction is something that will be decided by their expectations of this race, and what experiences they have.”

We will have to wait some 300 days to find out.

This article appeared in the September 2018 issue of Yachting World magazine – visit https://goldengloberace.com for latest updates on race places and retirements

The post A voyage for 21st Century madmen? What drives the Golden Globe skippers appeared first on Yachting World.

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topfygad · 4 years

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The Best Things to Do and See in Israel: Looking Past the Conflict

I didn’t at all know what to expect when I boarded that flight to Israel.

It’s a complicated place, this Israel.

It’s no easy task understanding what’s going on over here, and the whole story involves elements of history, politics and religion from hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

If you want to brush up on your knowledge, it might be worth reading this.

And on top of that, I found something in Israel that I truly wasn’t expecting.

Things to Do in Israel

And a lot of sand.

Land Rover-ing in the Negev Desert

Inside the Ramon Crater

Hanging off the edge of the Ramon Crater

Cruising in the Negev Desert with Adam Sela

Exploring the Negev Desert with Adam Sela and his Land Rover

His trusty Land Rover has clocked more than 1.3 million km in the Negev Desert.

Pro tip: Ask Adam about his other job—he has some incredibly interesting stories!

Photographing the Dead Sea

Toasted land next to the turquoise Dead Sea

Salt formations at the southern Dead Sea

Pro tip: Don’t shave any part of your body before swimming in the Dead Sea. The salt burns, burns, burns, and if you’re a lady, well, it’s not going to be a pleasant experience.

Exploring Timna National Park

Timna selfie!

Climbing Solomon’s Pillars, Timna National Park

View of Timna National Park from the top of Solomon’s Pillars

The views from the top, though? Totally worth it.

Pro tip: Don’t rent bikes at Timna. They’re impossible to ride in the sand.

Experiencing the Holiest City in the World

Looking out over Jerusalem

– In Christianity, Jerusalem is the place where Jesus was crucified, buried, and resurrected.

– For the Jews, Jerusalem is the ancestral and spiritual homeland. Those who practice outside of Jerusalem pray facing its direction.

Western Wall, Jerusalem

The site where Jesus was buried

Lighting a candle inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

To see the holiest place on earth was, indeed, an eye opening experience. To see a city so largely divided, yet living as one, was something else entirely.

Falafel, Hummus, and Tahini, Oh My!

Eating in Israel is something to be especially excited about. I wasn’t excited when I arrived, but the more food I was presented with, the more infatuated with the cuisine I became.

And though it usually was, when hummus wasn’t served, I got very, very angry.

Connecting with My Heritage

Coffee with Moshe, my 2nd cousin

More Information on Visiting Israel

Traveling to Israel is safe. Unless there are imminent warnings, there is no need to worry about traveling in Israel–it’s a wonderful, culturally eye-opening place to visit.

The topic of Israel can be controversial. This is a travel article, not a political one. Please keep your comments relevant and respectful.

READ NEXT: Breaking the Rules in Petra, Jordan: Free Climbing to the Top of the Monastery

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topfygad · 4 years

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The Best Things to Do and See in Israel: Looking Past the Conflict

I didn’t at all know what to expect when I boarded that flight to Israel.

It’s a complicated place, this Israel.

It’s no easy task understanding what’s going on over here, and the whole story involves elements of history, politics and religion from hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

If you want to brush up on your knowledge, it might be worth reading this.

And on top of that, I found something in Israel that I truly wasn’t expecting.

Things to Do in Israel

And a lot of sand.

Land Rover-ing in the Negev Desert

Inside the Ramon Crater

Hanging off the edge of the Ramon Crater

Cruising in the Negev Desert with Adam Sela

Exploring the Negev Desert with Adam Sela and his Land Rover

His trusty Land Rover has clocked more than 1.3 million km in the Negev Desert.

Pro tip: Ask Adam about his other job—he has some incredibly interesting stories!

Photographing the Dead Sea

Toasted land next to the turquoise Dead Sea

Salt formations at the southern Dead Sea

Pro tip: Don’t shave any part of your body before swimming in the Dead Sea. The salt burns, burns, burns, and if you’re a lady, well, it’s not going to be a pleasant experience.

Exploring Timna National Park

Timna selfie!

Climbing Solomon’s Pillars, Timna National Park

View of Timna National Park from the top of Solomon’s Pillars

The views from the top, though? Totally worth it.

Pro tip: Don’t rent bikes at Timna. They’re impossible to ride in the sand.

Experiencing the Holiest City in the World

Looking out over Jerusalem

– In Christianity, Jerusalem is the place where Jesus was crucified, buried, and resurrected.

– For the Jews, Jerusalem is the ancestral and spiritual homeland. Those who practice outside of Jerusalem pray facing its direction.

Western Wall, Jerusalem

The site where Jesus was buried

Lighting a candle inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

To see the holiest place on earth was, indeed, an eye opening experience. To see a city so largely divided, yet living as one, was something else entirely.

Falafel, Hummus, and Tahini, Oh My!

Eating in Israel is something to be especially excited about. I wasn’t excited when I arrived, but the more food I was presented with, the more infatuated with the cuisine I became.

And though it usually was, when hummus wasn’t served, I got very, very angry.

Connecting with My Heritage

Coffee with Moshe, my 2nd cousin

More Information on Visiting Israel

Traveling to Israel is safe. Unless there are imminent warnings, there is no need to worry about traveling in Israel–it’s a wonderful, culturally eye-opening place to visit.

The topic of Israel can be controversial. This is a travel article, not a political one. Please keep your comments relevant and respectful.

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source http://cheaprtravels.com/the-best-things-to-do-and-see-in-israel-looking-past-the-conflict/

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