Our right to privacy has been under attack for a number of years, albeit quietly, in the background by people we commonly refer to as ‘they’. I can’t go any further without mentioning that disastrous day in September. It was on this very day that they seized a golden opportunity and pushed the overly broad surveillance bill known as the Patriot Act into law under the guise of ‘public safety’.  It was one of many such bills that are designed to strip us of our privacy and Civil liberties, piece by piece.

Make no mistake about it, they started tinkering with our digital rights as early as 1995. By 1998, they had already drafted and enacted Bills like the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which made it illegal to share music and other copyrighted content. Criminal penalties for first-time offenders can be as high as five years in prison and $250,000 in fines, even if you didn’t copy and distribute for financial or commercial gain. A bit steep, if you ask me. Some may argue that such strict laws are perfectly legit because, after all, the music and film industries are losing billions to pirates and while there may be some truth to this, putting people in PRISON with hardened criminals for downloading music hardly seems reasonable, not even rational.

12 years on, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has released a document concerning the DMCA’s unintended consequences, noting that provisions in the bill “have been used to stifle a wide array of legitimate activities, rather than to stop copyright infringement.” AS IF the authors of the DMCA didn’t know this would happen from the get go. Pffff!

More recently, bills like Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT-IP Act (PIPA) were stopped in their tracks by those that are wide awake to this new reality, yet the FBI still managed to track down and arrest the owner of Mega Download, Kim Dotcom, in another continent without SOPA or PIPA (and he’s not even an American Citizen). If you ever paid to use Mega Download for whatever reason, rest assured, you’re going to wake up to a harsh reality one day soon.

In the latter part of 2011, Facebook made more sweeping changes to their privacy tools following complaints filed by EPIC and other consumer and privacy organizations in 2009 and 2010. According to the complaint, Facebook “deceived consumers by telling them they could keep their information on Facebook private, and then repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public.” Facebook has recently settled with the FTC, but failed to roll-back the privacy settings to pre-2009. Although Facebook “says” these latest changes give users more control over their personal information, they really don’t. They simply give that illusion, but the bottom line remains: Facebook owns your profile and that creepy Mark Zuckerberg is a filthy, lying, reptilian scum bag. He will sell his own mother, so what makes you believe he gives a damn about your privacy? Guess again.

Warren Jones, Technology guru for MyTekLife magazine, said it best:

“To me, Facebook is an experiment gone wrong. An idea born in a Harvard dorm room, designed to introduce us to the people around us has become an invasion of personal privacy on the deepest level. Like someone breaking into your home and rifling through your stuff, your CDs, photo albums, address book, day planner and even recording your thoughts and conversations. But here’s the kicker; we let them in, we left the door wide open with a big neon ‘open’ sign above it.” He adds: “Even if you’re profile is private, by default, Facebook still allows third-party apps and websites to access your information through your friends.”

I hate Facebook, I don’t want to be a part of it anymore, yet, I recognize that facebook is only part of the problem because after all, we CHOOSE to share this information to some degree, right? Facebook just exploits our natural tendencies, like our desire to ‘connect’. Facebook cleverly ´gives´ us convenient tools, assuring us that they are going to boost our user experience or make our lives easier somehow. Many of us welcome these changes without ever giving a second thought to their implications. We are driven by curiosity, we explore the ‘cool’ factor, we embrace the phony convenience and enthusiastically participate in connecting ourselves to friends and their friends friends and before too long, people we barely know are tagging our name on old pictures which we didn’t even know existed! I hate it when people do that, even though I’ve asked ‘friends’ not to tag me, some do it anyway. Sure, I have this ‘cool’ little feature now that allows me to block tags, but nobody even has to bother tagging me now since facebook implemented Facial Recognition into their latest features. Somewhere in some database, I’m still tagged, like it or not and that really sucks.

I’ve decided to commit facebook suicide and this is only the beginning. I know it will be hard for friends to find me, but that’s ok. I don’t have a whole lot of real friends anyway. I’m not doing it because I have something to hide or because I’m paranoid, I’m doing it out of pure protest. Because it seems everywhere I look these days, I am discovering more information on how governments are coming together to trample on our basic rights and it’s really pissing me off. I mean, seriously, WTF is going on here? Why is the American Government so keen on spying on its citizens? Government agencies are making no secret of using social networks to monitor the activities of common citizens, not just criminals, but people like you and me that have strong opinions or want our voices heard. THEY don’t like that we want to be heard. THEY want us to sit down and SHUT UP. Well, I’m not going to do that. Some social networks have fallen prey to Congressional bullying and are being forced to disclose information on their users, people like me that support FREE SPEECH, WikiLeaks and are PRO OCCUPY your momma! A lot of people give the lame excuse about not caring because they have nothing to hide but it’s not about hiding. It’s about you or someone you care about becoming the victim of a false positive someday. It is about the danger of losing our rights to privacy altogether, if not now, in 10 years or even less. It’s about not sitting down and shutting up when these so-called LAWMAKERS are succeeding at eroding our basic right to vote or passing draconian laws like the National Defense Authorization Act.

No I’m not going to shut up, I’m going to do something about it, even if that means you can’t find me on fricken stupid ass Fakebook or Twitter or any other Social Site that will eventually fall prey to the CIA, NSA or any other government agency that is hell bent on turning us all into a complacent heard of sheep. You can get behind me or go about your life, but remember the famous words of Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak out because I was Protestant.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Israel has an antiquated educational system which lacks any form of comprehensive structure. Most teachers lack support, are ill-prepared (or otherwise incompetent) and the curricula is categorically defective. To make matters worse, the band of clowns running this circus, (the Ministry of Education), frequently changes its leadership leaving very little hope for any sort of solid reform. As a consequence, billions of shekels are senselessly wasted, year after year, on an archaic system which does not meet the needs of Israeli youth, society or the economy.

In all fairness, I do believe that most teachers in Israel have a sincere desire to positively contribute to the enrichment of young minds but they are quickly disillusioned when faced with an untamable lot of rowdy kids that have been left to their vices for far too long. An unruly bunch, combined with limited resources, overcrowding, a mediocre curricula and an anachronistic Ministry of Education subsequently forces teachers with even the best intentions to conform to an unhealthy, irrational norm. The devastating effects of such a norm are evident in Israel scholastic achievements which are among the lowest in the industrialized world.

Education was, ‘once upon a time’ a cherished value in every Jewish household. It was the torch that lit the path to freedom and perhaps the principle reason why this nation has produced dozens of Nobel Prize winners throughout history. Despite the fact that Israel dedicates 10% of its GDP to education, Israel ranks at the bottom of the list among Western nations.

Israeli youth is perfectly capable of being electrified by the wonders of knowledge but here we have a system which is incapable of igniting so much as a spark in their minds. Informed parents who have carried on those well-engrained values of educational values feel they have no choice but to spend a small fortune on private tutors. Private tutoring is quite common. Not only do teachers earn extra money on the side to compensate for their poor salaries, school faculty encourages parents to take on the extra expense as a sort of guarantee to their childs’ academic success. Private tutors charge anywhere from $30-60 an hour leaving children of families in lower socio-economic levels far, far behind in the dust. With this in mind, it is therefore fair to say: the richer the family, the better test scores.

The mind of today’s youth is saturated with technology and media. They are a generation that does not know what it is like to live without an iPod or a mobile phone. Some kids don’t even use email anymore and opt for IM instead. It is a fast moving generation which requires parents to keep up with the times as never before. If I ran the educational system I would implement these ten ground-breaking steps, not in this particular order:

#1) Do away with all school books – Aside from breaking their backs with the weight of schlepping a ton of books to school every day, kid’s today loath and despise the very feel of paper. Let’s face it, they are better equipped to handle electronic devices than they are notebooks. All students should be given electronic devices, such as ipads or even small laptops which could be easily monitored by parents and educators alike. This is not a draconian idea, it is actually based on an obvious need for this new generation to connect and interact with one another in a way which is most practical and comfortable for them. All homework, study material and so forth should be done electronically. Not only would we save a whole lot of trees, parents would save a fortune on books! For those of you that don’t know, books in Israel are not provided by the government. Parents must buy the books for their children instead. The average cost for books ranges anywhere from 200-500 dollar annually, depending on the students age. Also, the excuse of ‘the dog ate my homework’ would no longer be viable. All devices would be limited to an internal network and backed up, so there goes the possibility of any further excuses such as viruses or computer crashes.

#2) Open up the bloody system. Some kids are good at Science while others prefer Language or History. It’s impossible to impose one strict curriculum on children with a vast range of capacities. By giving students the freedom to choose ‘elective’ classes, we should see better test scores. The goal in life is to find a job doing what you love most and I strongly believe this core principle should be taught in schools. Furthermore, mandatory courses, such as reading , writing and arithmetic should be taught on a sliding scale so children with a lower learning capacity would be encouraged to excel to their own next level without feeling as if they are less than others in the class. Testing should be done to determine their level and never revealed to anyone other than the student and parent.

#3) Longer weekends. Israeli students learn from Sunday to Friday, some students are in school up to 10 hours a day learning useless information which they will never actually need. On top of this, they are given a mountain of homework to deal with on a daily basis (more useless information). By shortening the weekday, children have the opportunity to recoup their energy and are given more time to interact with their families. This should be coupled with a 5 day work week for parents, without the pay cut.

#4) More physical education. Teaching kids about the miracle of this machine we call a body would encourage them to use it more often. Physical education would include teaching them about nutrition and the importance of a healthy lifestyle. Teaching youth to prepare healthy meals should be an option as well, since so many of them return to empty homes and are forced to eat processed foods. Teaching them to prepare simple, healthy meals which they enjoy will instill healthy habits that will last a lifetime.

#5) Re-educate the educators . Most teachers are clearly out of touch with today’s young minds. By giving educators modern tools and re-teaching them on how to be better teachers in this brave new world, they would effectively contribute to the production of brighter minds.

#6) Less homework. Kids hate homework. I hated it, you hated it. After 10 hours of school, the last thing kids need is more work. By limiting kids to a structured 3 day homework system, kids would have more time to develop new ideas and establish a set rhythm. It would also allow parents, who work long hours, to actively participate without feeling overwhelmed.

#7) More Creativity. Be it through music, theater, dance, art or any other form of creative self expression, creativity should be strongly encouraged and adopted as part of the basic curriculum. Kids have a lot trapped inside, getting those emotions out in the open is a crucial step towards developing healthy, stable minds. Creativity helps kids “get it all out of their system”, and by doing so, parents and teachers alike will effectively open up a new line of communication. By understanding more about who they are, adults will all be better equipped to guide them towards a higher understanding of the world around them. These classes could be provided as an after school activity and preferably funded by private organizations.

#8) Teacher and Student Bonuses. Teachers as well as students should be rewarded for their dedication and the money should not come from tax payers, but rather from so called Tycoons. An annual donation of a few million dollars from the top 5 richest families in Israel would suffice The annual fund raiser would be an extravagant event where each tycoon family competes to top one another’s donation. What could be better than that? Rewards for students will come in the form of trust funds which will be used to pay for their higher education. Rewards for teachers will come as non-taxable funds for those who produce highest ranking students.

#9) Separation of Religion and State. Most Israelis are proud of their Jewish heritage so despite what the government tends to believe, there is no need to impose religion on students. Surely it is important for Jews to learn our own history, however, there should be a limit on the number of hours religion is taught in schools. Religious studies should be an elective in my opinion and events in Jewish History should be taught as part of History. Religion should be a choice.

#10) Tolerance and Respect. Last on the list, but certainly NOT least. One of the greatest problems faced by teachers today is student abuse. Students have no sense of respect anymore, they are clearly out of control. Students should be taught values of respect and tolerance from a very early age. Although with all of the above steps in place, I believe tolerance and respect would flourish naturally. Students should be forced to walk a strict, fine line where things like bullying, racism, disrespect and teacher abuse is simply not tolerated. On top of this, parents should be held accountable for their children’s misbehavior since good manners begin in the home.

I’m writing by candlelight right now, giving some thought to this notion of a mysterious ‘other world’ (or possibly other ‘worlds’) and psychic abilities.

Millions of people from all over, for centuries have recounted hair raising paranormal experiences in technicolor detail; some people are capable of things like telekinesis, mediums can communicate with the dead. Are they all crazy? Surely there are some phonies in the mix but that’s normal, wannabe’s are everywhere. What about the people that have been telling the truth
all along?

This is probably way beyond the layman’s current level of understanding, an open mind is fundamental to paranormal ideas, psychic powers and the afterlife Truth is, there is a massive body of work in psychic studies, some we are privy to, some we are not.

Ultimately, it’s the brain that makes it all possible. I like to think of our brain as the Universe because much like the Universe, it remains largely unexplored and just like the Universe, we still have a lot to learn about the brain. Our technology, so far, does not allow us to unlock all of its secrets.

Advanced societies, gods and prophets throughout time have urged us to look up for the answers and so we’ve spent a tremendous amount of energy and time trying to figure out as much as we can about planets and stars but WHAT IF they meant something else… what IF they actually mean that we should look up into our own minds for these answers. One great example is Jesus. He said ‘Know the truth for it shall set you free’ (or something to that effect). Maybe the truth really is in our own heads and it is only when we discover it that we truly are set free.

Geniuses have an extraordinary capacity to learn and do phenomenal things, psychics are geniuses, they too are gifted yet I believe every single human being can all unlock their own unique hidden psychic abilities. We all have a third eye, but for most of us, it is closed shut. Opening it up requires a tremendous amount of mental work and unfortunately, most of us are held back by so many things,
including man kinds worst enemy: time. We’re too busy surviving, scraping through life; we get up in the morning, drive to work, try to pay the bills by the 15th of the month. This common day to day routine is an unstoppable wheel in motion, like a ferris wheel, sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down. At one point kids get thrown into the mix and you can just kiss enightenment goo’bye, bye-bye, bye, goo’bye…

Our full mental potential, like the wick of a candle flooded in a tiny pool of hot wax, slowly wanes with time; it is weakened to the core with too much media (on top of years of social pressures, stress, bad food and of course, fluoride) BUT there is hope in the fact that the mind is a gooey, flexible muscle that can adjust to just about any environment. If properly strengthened, your brain, my brain, anyone’s can achieve the unimaginable.

Surely most of us cannot find the time to dedicate a large part of our life to prying this third eye wide open but perhaps it would be worth our while to take baby steps towards this end. I suppose one would start by simply clearing our minds of a lifetime of crap… that would be partially achieved by doing small things like not watching television for an extended period of time, turning off the radio, disconnecting your phone… Once fully disconnected from the digital poison, the brain will begin to think again. One should expect
some minor withdrawals but after a few days or so, you should begin to notice subtle differences in your outlook on life.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if one combined this disconnected state with eating only certain types of food, all organic, for instance; loads of greens, or foods rich in antioxidants, high in protein. Of course, most of us will not get too far in the nutrition department, we can’t get enough of our carbs and cupcakes.

Another possible key to shining some light into our third eye would be to read more. People don’t read much these days. Books are collecting dust on shelves in
libraries across the world, great works by genius minds are left there to rot, forgotten forever. When was the last time you walked into a library? I suppose E-books are available but not all books are in that format. I hope something will eventually be done about that but until then, think about something that you’ve always wanted to know about and commit yourself to reading up on it. Feed your mind with new and interesting ideas. Try to figure out what the ‘man behind the machine’ desires most! Ahhh… and the man behind the machine is really you… the real you. Much like that little man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz!

A quick word on other Dimensions

There is proof of other dimensions so this afterlife business doesn’t necessarily have to be all about ghosts and goblins. I’m sure there is a perfect and highly advanced scientific reason for all of these sightings and paranormal activities.

Could it be possible that spirits and ghosts truly are nothing more than a mere reflection of us, perhaps in another incarnation existing in another dimension, on another world? That would change everything, wouldn’t it?

It appealed to my voyeuristic side at first but then I started having these bizarre dreams about he and I shacked up together in a swanky loft in NY… I developed a strange obsession to Jerry Hall and Andy was just so peculiar and so absolutely marvelous! When I read his diary it was as if my mind was peaking into his mind somehow. I could relate to him so well which made me wonder about my own sanity. I remember saying to myself: “Gods, I wish you were still alive Andy! I wish, I wish!” Had he been alive, I believe my life would have been completely different because I would have sought him out and made him my BFF. One thing I found incredibly amusing was how he kept a detailed account of his daily expenses. He’d write things like “I stopped by Chads in Soho for a night cap, (Taxi $2.85)”. I adopted that practice for a while, but I could never manage to keep a diary for long, much less track of my expenses.

Today I asked myself for about the hundredth time: How does someone go about finding such a discipline?  Then I realized, you don’t find it, you develop it, silly! This isn’t my first time setting up a blog. As a matter of bloody rotten fact, TELAVIVNIGHTS.COM was hacked 2 years ago by Right Wingers after I wrote something NASTY about them. I didn’t have the energy to rebuild the website before, but I’ve decided it’s time. For me own sanity, I’m going to start writing again… yes… so, although I took a break, I’m getting back on me horse now and I’m starting here, again… fresh! I am going to write and stick to it much the same way I stick to brushing my teeth in the morning. The same way I’m sticking to exercising, eating right and all that other crap. After all, I enjoy writing, I am full of ideas and there is so much drama in the world, I’m sure I could find SOMETHING to write about.

I don’t think I could write too much about my own boring hum-drum life, I’m certainly no Andy Warhol! I can’t imagine writing down trivial, day to day stuff like: “The dog took a massive crap on the carpet today” or “Spent the day at home sniffing my own…”  No, none of that would do. And I’m certainly not going to write about my tedious little “job” either. My entries would read something like: “Answered 12 emails today, lots of pissed off customers want refunds!” Ugggh. No, no, that wouldn’t do either. Well, with all of this in mind, I am going to make a serious effort this time around. I’ll make it a point to write an entire book of opinions online… or rather a ‘blog’ loaded with opinions or outlandish ideas, racy, jarring rants that will surely get someone’s panties up in a bunch… things of that sort.

Then again…

I don’t know if anybody would really care to hear my opinions. Why should anyone care about what I think? I mean, who TF am I? Like most people, I have millions of bizarre thoughts per week. Sure, I’ve got what to say but so do you and the next bloak, so why should anyone give a stinkin’ crap? I mean, honestly, do you care? Probably not, but you’re here because at this very moment, you’ve probably got nothing better to do or perhaps you do have something better to do BUT I’ve managed to keep you interested this far and therefore, here we are! Since I have you here as my witness, I am going to make an oath to myself, again with you as my witness, and that is to make reading this book of opinions  worth everyone’s while for the next 2 years and 27 days. Why 27 days? No reason. It was the first number to pop into my mind and so that’s what it is.  As a matter of fact, I’m going to REpost all me old posts… as irrelevant as they may be by now… in order to revive this bloody website for the 4th time in 7 years. Yes, dearest readers, I am going to make it my solemn duty to write one interesting, thought provoking, enraging, hysterically funny or otherwise terribly amusing entry per week for the sole purpose of keeping my own sanity! I can’t go on through life without dedicating some time to creative writing!! I MUST write!! FFS!

If I make you smile, know that I smile with you. If I make you angy, that’s a good thing because it means you’re thinking. If I hurt your feelings… you will get over it and if I plant the seed of change in your mind, I hope something positive will grow from it. My only hope is that this time around I’m not referred to as a BLOGGER or categorized as a leftist, rightist, feminist, racist, environmentalist, capitalist, anarchist, Marxist, socialist, Zionist, activist or any other sort of ‘ist’ for that matter.

Are we good to go?