Another Quick Update

Tonight I lost 40 sheckes playing poker. A number of my friends are trying to start up a regular monthly game. Amir lost all of his money, Justin made about 20 sheckels, and both Jonah and Dovi doubled their cash. It was at my house this time, which was fun.

Saturday was a big family lunch as well at a restaurant called Susanna in south Tel Aviv. Clockwise from the top left of the table: My grandmother, Michael, my father's cousin who lives in Paris, Shula, my great aunt (grandmother's younger sister), my uncle Berti, my cousin, Daniel, Yossi, my father's cousin (Shula's eldest son and Michael's brother), Adi (yossi's eldest daugher and my 2nd cousin), Marc (her man), my aunt Ruti, my grandfather, Roi (my 2nd cousin and Adi's younger brother), and Nili, his mother.

Another quick update

Nothing new to report, really. Joy and Jason left Israel after being here for 5 weeks. We went out to a final lunch on the Namal with Katie, which was fun. I'm typically not such a fan of the Namal, as all of the Brara (read B&T) of Israel show up pretending to be cool Tel-Avivi residents for a day. It has the same vibe as when the East Bay dregs show up in Union Square on Saturday's in SF and start spilling over in to the other neighborhoods (I sound like such an elitist bastard).

But the lunch was great, and the food was great.

I'm in the process of reading articles for Dr. Rosa about endogenous factors to democratization, how fun.

Quick school update

School starts this sunday, how fun. I registered for classes and got what I wanted. This semester is going to be rough. I have 4 classes, and two mini-courses. Next semester is going to be equally as bad. Due to last year's student strike I am basically loading a year and a half of classes into a year so I can finish on time.

Not just that, I finally finished my project for my econometrics class last semester. A whopping 44 pages. We used the GMM estimation method to test various leisure-specific utility function forms against historical data from the OECD. I know it is thrilling for you, and therefore feel free to email me and I will send you the PDF of the project.

Lastly, I also have finagled a research assistant position for the year with Dr. Rosa Alonso, who is on sabbatical at TAU from the World Bank. I will be helping her write two papers, both dealing with endogenous variables to democratization.

Eitan

Below is a photo of the newest member of my extended family, Eitan, who is now 3 months old. He is the first child of the middle cousin on my mother's side, Itay, and his wife, Silvana. He looks a little stunned, or gassy, or both..

Mazal Tov

One of the three kids I study with frequently just had a little baby girl. Below is Shir, three days old, photo taken today when I was at his house working on our econ project due in 2 weeks. I have never seen a person who is so young and new to the world, only 3 days. My new little cousin, Eitan, is 3 months (I will get a photo of him up as soon as possible), but 3 days is remarkably young.
Mazal Tov to Hadar and Naama and on the birth of their little girl. Mazal Tov to Micki and Mati as well on the birth of their baby girl two days ago.
Mazal Tov to me for finally getting Matlab on my computer (over 2 gigs), and for registering for classes.

The Jerusalem Post

The Jerusalem Post ran an article I wrote today, both online and in print.
They did a TERRIBLE editing job. I mean, horrible. First, they screwed up the language by dumbing down any sentence that I wrote that was a little too intellectual in nature. Second, they destroyed the context by taking out any transitional lanuage, so instead of a well thought out expository article it seems like a random string of non-sequetors. Most obnoxiously, they screwed up the content. I made a very clear opinion and they took out three full paragraphs with my opinion.

I was really pissed, so what did I do? I wrote about how pissed I was. You can see for yourself
Here is the original version (link)
Here is their version (link)
here is my rant (link)

Benny

I forgot to mention in my postings that my good friend Ben was in town last week with his friend Zev. Ben and I go all the way back to NYC 4 years ago. He has his own blog as well, which I added to the links on the right. Below is a photo of us from their first day in Tel Aviv, which was Yom Kippur. Here we are breaking fast at Hannahs. Also, I got a new bike today. I went to the sketchy stores in Yaffo to get a used bike, and I am forever parking it in my stairwell at night. I don't care what Ms. Gutman says about it.