Fundamental Truth

I just realised a fundamental truth that has somehow eluded me until now, and it is this: At any given time, there is a limited amount of money in the world*. Meaning that if I want money, I need to get it from someone else. There are several ways of going about this. There are people who try to get a few people with a lot of money to give them some, particularly at the same time as the people who they are getting money from are getting money from other people. These include the professionals of this world - lawyers, accountants, engineers. There are people who try to get lots of people with a little bit of money to give them some, particularly at the same time as the people who they are getting money from are getting enjoyment. These include the retailers of this world, the coffee shops, the supermarkets, the door to door salesmen. There are people who try to get people with a little bit more money to give them a little bit more, and end up also getting people who don't have quite enough money to give them a little bit more, particularly at the same time as the people who they are getting money from are living some kind of dream. These are the luxury good suppliers, the car manufacturers, the fancy restaurants, the brand label clothing retailers, the niche marketers, the addiction sellers. There are people who try to be everything to everyone, and often those people fail (apparently). There are also people who tell people lies in order to get money from those people, and often those people end up in gaol, or incredibly wealthy, or both. And then there are people who don't try to get people to give them money, and wait for people to come to them to give them money. The problem with these people is that it is fundamentally difficult to convince someone that you and they will both get more happiness by them giving you their money, since people will generally feel their own emotions more strongly than yours. It takes effort to do this. Sometimes the effort is not worth the yield. But often it is, and you just don't realise it because you missed something, like the fundamental truth that there is a limited amount of money.

* Let's keep on the side the idea of "printing money" (which governments can apparently do but not really) and "creating wealth", which I'm not even sure if it exists (probably it does but it's difficult to sort the truth from the propaganda).

SVO

The great weakness of English as a Subject-Verb-Object language only really becomes apparent when it forces you to hang a name in the air for the eternity it takes to get out "died". No object can follow, of course, and it is lucky that this is so, because the difficulty in forming the name, with its potential to be followed by an infinite number of verbs, knowing that the one to come is the ultimate intransitive, is only exceeded by the impossibility of getting out anything further.

I wrote the above to myself on the back of a Service Agreement while I was waiting for the family of the deceased to arrive at a recent funeral. While the body was being placed in the ground, I was mentally describing the light-brown colouration of the fringes of the tallit which had been unwrapped from the body of the dead boy, brought out from the grave by the man whose job it is to jump into graves with dead bodies and make sure they lie properly, and laid on the stretcher which just a few minutes beforehand had been followed by all of the mourners to that place, and which was now lying just near my foot.

I had left it until now.

I have a funny relationship with death. I relate to the dead person, thinking that maybe that's me and my living is the illusion. I relate to the family, to their genuineness, and try to let them know that no matter how unconventional they think their feelings are, it's okay to feel it while I'm there. Having some brief experience in the world of mourning from the inside, I think it's very common that the mourners themselves feel pressure to feel in a certain way, to act in a certain way. In most cases, if you ask the mourners, they will probably say that it's like any occasion where they are hosting guests - they will act in a certain way and try to control the behaviour of those around them so that their guests feel comfortable. Davka I think that death is the one occasion where we should be released from these bonds of politeness, and allowed to feel whatever the hell we want.

ושיניתם לבביך

A change of heart is sorely needed.

Today, my fiancee and I attended the amended and contracted Gay Pride March. Well, it was originally a march. As a result of fears and negotiations and security concerns and all the rest of it, it was turned into a static event in an enclosed stadium surrounded on all sides with a wide and sweeping police presence.

The event, itself, was wonderful. It was a pleasure to see so many people who were not prepared to be intimidated, who were prepared to take the risk, and come together to stand up for themselves, their friends or family members, their partners. The drag queen comperes were also funny.

But what was incredible was that the only form of provocation that I could see was of the intellectual and emotional kind.

People seem to have the view that gay & lesbian people are ipso facto naked paedophile nymphomaniacs, who would walk down the main street of Mea Shearim humping haredi children and animals, to the tune of Dana International's Viva La Diva, if they could. It turns out that in practice, the Israeli Gay & Lesbian community are, on the whole, responsible and sympathetic to the sensitivities of other minority groups (of which haredim still are one or more) - and are, moreover, non-violent - and are more interested in having people stop trying to harm them than really anything else.

For me, this was the reason it was important that the March occur in Jerusalem, and this was the reason it was important for me to be there. It is impossible that Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish State, will turn into a hub of theocracy and intolerance. It is impossible that with the Jewish People's experience of vilification and persecution, we will allow minorities to be vilified and persecuted in our midst. Clearly it happens, and more often than we would like to believe. But not on my watch.

ושיננתם לבניך

On the same evening that we are commemorating the 11th anniversary of the murder of the former Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, certain haredim are carrying out acts of violence and intimidation against police, journalists and members of the public, over the holding of the annual Gay & Lesbian Pride March in Jerusalem.

It brings to mind all the times I have heard people say that the Palestinians should do something about the murderous acts carried out by their extremists. What the hell are we meant to do? Is it my civil obligation to go out and confront these dangerous criminals in the name of freedom of expression and the fundamental human right to life, family and equality? To form a militia? What have we come to? We live in a democratic state where a bunch of extremist thugs believe that they have the God-given right to throw rocks at citizens driving on the roads, assault police officers, burn tyres, and threaten to throw apples filled with razor blades, on the pretense that they don't want a bunch of people who have carried out acts prohibited in Leviticus to walk together in the streets of the city in which they live. Woe betide all of us when they decide to take up arms against those of us who violate the laws of kashrut, have extra-marital heterosexual relations, or light their stove on Shabbat.

And the police are now deliberating as to whether they will follow the order of the High Court of Justice and permit the march to take place (read, to provide it with adequate protection) or whether to postpone it again or cancel it (read, not to provide it protection). I can't believe that this is even a question. And of course, everyone's calling everyone else Nazis. To be honest, I think we may have bigger problems.

Academic Honesty

I have a dilemma.

A certain young gentlemen whose acquaintance I have not made other than in this virtual world of almost friends and not-quite communities, owns and operates a small web-log by the delightfully paronomastic name of "De-Lingu-ent: Latin Language Defective".

In the blog's profile, the young gentleman (who goes by the odd pseudonym of "500.50.100", and whom for convenience I shall therefore call "Five"), describes his self-assigned task as follows: "a Spartan in Rome investigates language – mediaeval and classic Latin, slang, Ecclesiastical Latin, Etruscan, Monasterish, and more - with an eye on etymology. I'm not a professional linguist, and will be using this blog to explore my own questions, and I welcome yours as well." He does not address the question of why he uses the word "defective" in the name of the blog, possibly on the assumption that we, his readers, will understand that he, being of Greek heritage, has been "tainted" by his deep interest in a language not his mother tongue.

A certain other gentleman, who calls himself merely "Phaedrus", regularly posts comments on the blog of this magnanimous host. In his comments to the blog, he not only expresses great wonderment at the etymological findings of the blog's author (which are indeed of some academic merit), but also adds certain hypotheses of his own as to connections between some of the Latin roots in question and other, quite different words, often in other languages.

For instance, where Five might construct a post about the Latin word "dat" ("he gives"), its etymological sources, its change in use over time, and its connection to other Latin words, Phaedrus might open with a compliment to his host as to the latter's enlightening insight, and follow with the tasty suggestion that perhaps the same word is somehow connected to Hebrew's "דת" ("religion") – after all, religion is something that the gods "gave" to humanity, and the similarity in pronunciation is just uncanny. Phaedrus presents his hypothesis as just something which sprang to mind, and indeed we are inclined to believe that he is merely another enthusiastic amateur throwing ideas around the intellectual ball-park.

By chance, after noticing a certain way of thinking and writing in Phaedrus' comments, a recollection itched its way to the forefront of my memory, whereby I had met colleagues of Phaedrus' (if not Phaedrus himself) in the past, and been exposed to their ideas. This had occurred back in my university days, when I had been studying linguistics, a field in which I was then (as now) keenly interested.

These colleagues were spear-heading a linguistic theorem known as "Aeneidics", under whose banner they posited that all the world's languages sprang from one original source, and that only over time did they mutate into the almost unidentifiable bastard descendants that they are today. That original language, according to this school of thought, was the proto-Latin language of Aeneas, son of the goddess, and founder of Rome. And using certain proprietary techniques, so they claim, it is still possible to see and hear the Aeneidic source in a great number of words commonly used in every modern language in existence (though due to the practicalities of research, most of the examples they have come up with to support their claim are in the Hebrew language).

On this basis, the proponents of Aeneidics would persuade the world that Venus is the one true goddess, Vergil's Aeneid is literally true (after all, in Book X, this dispersion of languages from one original source is foreseen with uncanny perspicacity: "Speak the same language … and Rome's immortal majesty remain"*), and all people of intellectual honesty and goodwill (in particular, Hebrew speakers) ought therefore to subjugate themselves to the rightful dominion of the Roman Empire.

And now to the dilemma.

Being of the opinion that:

(i) Phaedrus is a proponent of a theory, the theoreticians of which are so strongly motivated to prove their desired conclusion, that serious questions may arise as to their adherence to objective scientific method; and
(ii) Phaedrus seems not to have been heretofore open as to his membership of this club, instead posting what I consider "teasers" to lure unsuspecting amateur linguists to his way of thinking;

do I have some kind of moral obligation to unmask Phaedrus in the name of academic honesty?

If so, what does this obligation contain? To publicly connect Phaedrus with his colleagues (all it would take would be providing a link to their website)? To privately notify Five of my take on Phaedrus' intentions, by way of a friendly "heads-up"?

Or is the above approach merely arrogant and rude? Ought I respect Phaedrus' right to hold and freely purvey his opinions as any vendor in the great marketplace of ideas that is this worldwide web? A fortiori, given that Five seems also to be somewhat of a follower of the goddess of Rome? Ought I allow (or even participate in) academic debate to take on Phaedrus' arguments on their own merits, without prejudicing the forum by denigrating Phaedrus' intentions as I perceive them? Should I, in short, mind my own business?

Your suggestions would be appreciated.

* From the Project Gutenberg translation of the Aeneid.