May long weekend behind us, as Canadian, Vicky day for the English and Pentecost for the Christians and who knows what for those! A holiday is welcomed by all, even by those who work, because they get double pay. As it was, the weather was tolerable, with some sun and still at 21dC at the close.

I spent about half the day transcribing and arranging Herman’s Shakespearian quotes from his April 28th presentation. I had offered to do this, because I like those sayings myself too, and could not catch all of them during the presentation. All in all, it came to four pages of quotes and one for reference. I may put is on my web site under ‘Topicals’.

Lots of political turmoil in Ottawa this weekend. It is all about appearances, 90k$$ is peanuts for most of those people, but in politics this grabs the attention. I often wonder as to what it is that gets neglected, when all the attention is on this trivia. And then again, the whole thing could be the politics of intent.

Wright was slated to leave after two years anyway and now he looked to take the fall, while he actually laid down, allowing the government to move on … could it be to … Senate reform! It certainly would be opportune and Harper is strategist enough to manufacture this situation. Time will tell in this case.

Trouw.nl of May 19, this Dutch newspaper site had a tongue in cheek opinion article about orthodox Jews in Jerusalem. The author Dros in his article - transliterated as ‘We have been here before’ - questions why Jews pick the particular times in history that they do in order to make their claims. Dros suggests they could just as well pick 700 AD instead of 700BC and then you would have a whole different scenario for the Al Aksa cum temple mount cum Mount Moriah situation. His Jewish guide, believer and history scholar answers: “As a scholar I can’t defend that, but we were promised the land. That is the truth.”

I always ask in such cases: ‘Who was taking the notes?’ This is of course also tongue in cheek, but it puts into perspective the relative nature of such claims and highlights that their truth value lies not in their historicity, but rather in their functionality!

Be that as it may, it is a peculiarity to me that the nation of Israel, along with their orthodox component constantly needs to prove that their claims are justifiable. I know of no other nation that does this and it makes me wonder why they - the Jews - feel this need and act on that to the point of making up evidence in some cases. Are they trying to gain confirmation from the ‘goyim’, for something they doubt themselves?

In today’s perspective of humans having come from the continent of Africa 60ky ago, claims of being anywhere first are silly at best. It took 20k years for humans then to reach all the continents. Moreover, first claims actually should go to the animals, because they were in the lead of the hunter gatherers, who followed them for food!

For the Jews all these claims are best explained by referring to their identity as a people, prone to and successful at dispersal and adaptation in the diaspora. The claim of the ‘promised land’ having an eschatological ring, just as does the long lost pure teachings or the lost histories for others. Such beliefs are a shared treasure held in expectation only, because once attained its numinousness dissolves and realities need to be accommodated.
<9:42am and 10:21 edited with break~