Pigs and Politics

What a storm we had last night. Strong cold winds and rain lashing across the City. Temperature fell to about 5 degrees. This morning we had no hot water. Had to wash my face in freezing water ... I think that caused my headache the whole day. The roads are very slippery and many tourists fell on the steps of our courtyard. I had to go up to Ratisbonne for a meeting - its 2 kms away. With the cold and rain, I decided to take an arab taxi there. 2 kms cost me 40 shekels or US$11. Dreadful. So coming back, I decided to walk ... and the rain and wind lashed right across. Got home soaked and shivering and a very bad headache. And we had several blackouts today. No electricity = no heating.

My elbow tendonitis is back with a vengeance. Hurts like hell. Am trying to do some stretching exercises to loosen the tendons. Now I can't carry anything even a little heavy. Awful. Sounds like the New Year is not going so well after all. The rain is still beating down. I'll just stay put in my room with my heater on and hope tomorrow morning we have hot water.

There's an interesting article in the newspapers today about pig-rearing in Israel. Apparently before Independence, there were pig farms everywhere and Jews and muslims never complained. Then when the State was formed and religious Jews got into politics, then the law was passed to prohibit the rearing of pigs except in a couple of places up north. This prohibition law was reluctantly enacted and only because the ruling party was afraid of its coalition with the religious party collapsing. Politics determine pork. And it was only the Vatican and a nun who protested to fight for the right to rear pigs here.  http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/the-makings-of-history-pork-and-the-people-1.409478#.TyPFfTyQIUQ.facebook