Dear Lisa

re: your link to "that trashy book" about Saudi Arabia,

Have you read "Closed Circle - an interpretation of the Arabs" by David Pryce-Jones"? It's powerful and scary!

I was highly amused by that graffiti on Rothschild Bvd, which I rode over on the way to work. Then I was struck by the violent nature of graffiti, which forces ideas, often unpopular, fringe ideas, on the rest of us, by defacing public and private property.

Eldest has been playing with the idea of joining HaShomer HaTza'ir every now and again for a while now, much to my dismay (and her paternal grandmother's delight). She has a few friends there, who promise her the politics are not the central issue (yeah, right).

Luckily, when the time has come to actually leave the apartment and go to a Shomer HaTza'ir meeting, she's always just happened to be far too busy downloading something or watching Friends or Seinfeld reruns on TV, so she hasn't actually ever gone. Phew.