No Internet Month Diary 2017 (Part 4 - Worrying News)
December 8th
Got a headache. Don't know if it's because of the gradual build-up of LSD in my brain over the course of this week, or the fact that I had a wisdom tooth pulled out two days ago..
Drinking Georgian brandy in honour of Dr Vladimir, the tooth puller of Carmiel. I'll admit that when I saw him I was quite filled with dread. A massive, towering hulk of a man with huge forearms and the hands of a blacksmith, dark rings around deep, sunken eyes and the expression of one who has returned from the grave – he reminded me of no one more that Dr Frankenstein's monster – I considered running away as his unsmiling assistant arranged the fearsome selection of pliers and they exchanged a few sombre words in Russian...
In the event, Dr Valadimir was exceptionally skilled at his job and the immense power in his hands was used with well practised precision and just the right amount of force necessary to extract a large tooth from the place where it was deeply rooted in my head.
Once again, as I always am when I visit the dentist – despite my fear of dental treatment – I am profoundly grateful that I live in a modern age and that I am privileged to have access to clean, modern medical facilities if I should be in need of them.
If it hadn't been for the anaesthetic, it would have been nothing less than torture. Think about dentistry of 100 years ago next time you're pining away for days gone past and be thankful you live in the here and now.
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One week into No Internet Month 2017...
Not exactly No Internet to be honest. I haven't been quite as strict as perhaps I should or could or would've been – although there have been a few extenuating circumstances...
I've been talking on Messenger – 'chatting' as it's called – that is, having a real-time conversation with a real person, somewhere else, using the written word, transmitted by some kind of magic, instantly across the globe (or the flat, as some people believe) using satellites and cables and wires and unimaginable computing power – on a daily basis with Karly, my friend and lover in Midwestern USA...
I suppose I could be tough in my principles and strictly cut out all internet use completely – but I knew when I allowed myself to fall in love with someone halfway across the world, and I allowed her to love me, that this would be an impossible situation, only made possible by insane levels of technology. What could I do? Love is my guiding principle. Everything else is by the by.
Karly is a facebook user. Of course. That's how we met and how we managed to get to know each other very well in the months before we finally met in person – which happened just the week before last.
After such an intense, significant and meaningful visit, I'd be a hard man indeed to say 'That's it – No communication for one month. My Investigations into Facebook Algorithms etc. must come first!'
So Karly, being a big facebook user and also a sensitive kind of person, gets very affected by what she sees there. Well, we all do , of course, because facebook algorithms are intentionally tailored to provoke an emotional response from us. This is well known and understood. She is also someone who follows news of current affairs and politics closely and takes developments seriously...
Me, I don't take the news so seriously (or at least I take it with a big grain of salt) because I always have a sneaking suspicion that for some reason, stories are always spun in such a way as to keep us (the consumer) in a state of fear and anxiety, close to panic, that everything – EVERYTHING – is just about to descend into total chaos, violence, disaster, war, famine, disease, lawlessness, environmental and economic collapse and nuclear apocalypse – sometime around next week...
So when Karly told me that she was very worried because President Trump was about to announce US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital city – my initial reaction was - Meh. So what? After all, Jerusalem is Israel's capital and nothing has actually happened, so what's the big deal? It can also be the capital of Palestine – or better still, an international city of peace...
But apparently it was a very big deal indeed. It was quite possible that a few words spoken by a demented madman in the Whitehouse could quite easily be the spark that ignites all of the doomsday scenarios we have been led to believe are just around the corner – and quite possibly are.
And since I live in Israel, not a million miles away from Jerusalem (not even a hundred) these things are bound to effect me. So I decided to get myself informed. I would have gone and bought a newspaper – except for that it was the middle of the night, I live miles from any shops, I'm quite illiterate in the country where I live and the only English language paper to be had in most places that sell papers is the Jerusalem Post, which is blatant pro-zionist propaganda from cover to cover (in my opinion)... so I decided that since the end of the world was about to begin, I could bend the rules of my No Internet Month a bit more than I had already bent them.. I would look up the news sites on the internet to try to get a handle on the situation..
So off I went – The Guardian, the BBC, Al Jazeera, Haaretz, The Times of Israel, even the Jerusalem Post for a bit of balance – because from everything I read, violence, doom, hopelessness, chaos and war are just around the corner.
Feeling not entirely better, but at least better informed, I tried to make light of the situation – to set Karly's mind (and my own) at ease. Whatever will be will be. It's all for the best. Etc, etc..
It struck me how irresponsible are the news reporters and all of the leaders who are predicting or calling for violence. There's always someone who'll answer the call. And how we fall into the same trap time and time again. Being told when to be angry, when to be scared. It's like being operated by remote control. What would happen if we all just thought for ourselves? Is that even possible?
It's a good thing I'm not on Facebook. I just know I'd get into a fight with someone. Fact is, even with all this technology at our fingertips, we're as primitive now as those people in ancient times who built the high stone walls of Jerusalem to keep their enemies out and who raised their flag above the walls, proclaiming to all the world – This place is holy – and it's ours, not yours!
I'll be glad to read the news when the headlines read 'WAR IS OVER'
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10th December, Sunday
We were talking about reality. Subjective or objective? I thought, if anything - it's relative.
Everyone sent me photos of a snowy Sunday morning today. London, New York, Cleveland. Made me miss the snow. Made me miss my friends and family. Made me miss Sunday mornings...
Sunday is a regular working day here. It may as well be Monday.
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12th December
For the past week, I have been painstakingly, piece by piece, building the body of a very unusual and special sitar that will be home to some bees. This is my first real foray into the strange parallel dimension otherwise known as the world of conceptual art. It's a lot of work – I've been at it all week, 14 hours a day, cutting and fitting little blocks of cypress wood together to form a kind of wooden igloo – thinking if the bees will like to live in such a place. I think they will, but mostly I've been thinking about the things people do with their time...
Karly was anxious when we spoke last night and I wasn't much help. Maybe I was too tired to concentrate on the complicated story she was trying to tell me. While I'd been spending long hours constructing a musical igloo for bees, she'd been on facebook, following the news of some odious character running for office in Alabama. A Republican, a Baptists and a paedophile. The vote was to be cast in the morning. It would be very bad if he won. It would be very good if he lost. That much I understood. The story had many incidental characters with names that meant nothing to me, each with stories of their own that I would have known about if I'd been following US politics. I don't closely follow news of US politics even at the best of times, let alone during my no internet month...
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You can read my 'No Internet Diaries' from 2015 and 2016 at:
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It is interesting to hear the view of a person in Israel about Trump’s announcement. So far it seems that life goes on as usual, just as I hoped it would.
Except for Isis declaring war on Hamas for not being able to stop the US Government from declaring Jerusalem the capital.... Insane world. Insane.
Totally crazy....
The strange thing is that if my friend in America hadn't told me about Trump's announcement, I probably wouldn't have heard about it at all.
I’m sure that most of what people think is true here in the US is total bunk. When I was in Israel about 6 years ago, my husband was just sure I would get blown up by some crazy person. I think I felt safer in Jerusalem than any big city I’ve been in at home.
It's true that most of what we see on the news is sensationalist fearmongering. Karly almost cancelled her visit because of the volotile situation involving the Saudi arrest of the lebanese leader which appeared to be about to spark ww3. Gladly she didn't and it didn't (yet). Generally, life goes on as normal for most people. Saying that, life as normal for palestinians living under occupation is far from what we'd consider normal . The tension and unrest is tangible, especially around Jerusalem, which is now a very divided city. The feeling of safety is largely due to draconian security measures used to control and subdue half of the population. Here in galilee where I live, there is relatively more coexistence and I certainly feel safer walking around Arab neighbourhoods here than some parts of England where I come from.
Thank you for the report of the situation from someone who is there experiencing it.
I don´t care much about the news either.
First, it is the past, so nothing can be done about it anyway.
Second, I usually don´t know if it´s true at all, but my experience with newspapers reporting about events I was actually present at, leads me to believe that many times it´s not.
Third, the real objective of news is to be watched or read or clicked on, so ads can be sold and the more outrageous and disturbing the news the more clicks, that´s why there is hardly any good news.
But fear not:
The good news is that not all bad news are fake news. 😉
a joy to read! i missed your writing style! its so, Gideon!