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All these years of pioneering, hiding earphones in my sleeves during taxiing, take-off and landing to be able to listen to my music, reading my kindle away from the flight attendants' gaze, illegally playing on my phone (while on flight mode), have finally paid off. I am probably the cause for this: European aviation regulators have approved the use of certain personal electronic devices during taxiing, take-off and landing. They saw me and finally saw it isn't dangerous! Joy to the world! It will probably be allowed before Christmas to play Angry Birds and read your latest cheesy novel while they tell you how you have to put on your own oxygen mask prior to helping your child. No more hiding! The US is embarrassing itself by  blocking the publication of Chilcot's inquiry . The report is on how Britain went to war with Iraq and includes the Blair-Bush correspondence. David Cameron will probably end up following the US decision. Yet another lie to the people. What about ...

Today I didn't buy the newspaper, shame on me. But I still read the Indyand the Guardian online so I can tell you that: Hawaii has legalised gay marriage last night, making it the 15th state in the USA to allow gay couples to say YES to one another. YAY!! That's cool. Meanwhile in North Dakota this guy, Craig Cobb is trying to found this all white town in Leith. The guy is a self proclaimed white supremacist, he was told yesterday on live TV that his heritage is 14% Sub-Saharan African (He had previously agreed to taking a DNA test on the same show). That made me chuckle, I have to say. I wonder how the guy feels about himself now, will he attempt to amputate 14% of his body? Will he die from self loathing and shame hidden in a corner of his house? More seriously though, the confirmed dead numbers are increasing in the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan pretty much destroyed the country . A lot of country are supplying help and donating emergency funds. Both the UN and ...

I randomly came accross the BBC reality tv show "The World's Strictest Parents" the other day on youtbe so I watched a few episodes. The story line is simple: in each episode, two British "problem" teenagers are sent to very strict families over the world for one week. The chosen teenagers a first shown back home with their family and then they meet at the airport where they leave from to get to their final destinations. I watched a couple of episodes in which the teenagers go to American cities and one in which they go to South Africa. In all the episodes I have watched so far, the host families are of Christian faith, some are more involved in their religious communities than others but they basically all gave blessings before family meals versus the British teenagers who don't appear to be religious except for a couple who are Muslim but do not practice their faith (they drink, smoke, don't go to mosque etc.). So this makes me wonder, is the BBC ...

For a little while now I have been struggling to find a subject to write about but tonight I have found something that really affects me. You might have seen KONY 2012 posters, people wearing tshirts with the same slogan or even heard about a man named Joseph Kony and wondered what it was or who he is. I urge my readers to support the KONY 2012 campaign and to raise awareness to stop the criminal that Joseph Kony is. For almost three decades Kony has been abducting children from their homes to turn them into soldiers or sex slaves. Kony is the founder and leader of the Lord's Resistance Army which fights for a theocratic governments based on the bible laws and while it started in Uganda, the LRA has now spread to other African countries. An estimated 66,000 children are forced to fight for them. These children are forced to mutilate others, to kill their own parents and other terrible things. Last year, Obama sent 100 advisers to help the Ugandan Army catch this man but t...

!! שבת שלום I met so many people in Jerusalem, from the weird guy selling bread at Sha'ar Iafo to that homeless free spirited religious man who hangs out near the Kotel and the Golden Menorah Replica who invited me for a walk around the old city ramparts before buying me tea. And his friend who lives underneath his shop on Rehov Chabad who gave me a picture of an aerial view of the Old Jerusalem and a large bottle of water for no apparent reason then invited me inside to watch french tv which he did not understand. I am glad I am writing this, in a certain way it allows me to relive things I did not especially wrote down in my diary. At the hostel, I met David who was volunteering there and told me about a Rabbi (of whom I have forgotten the name unfortunately) who welcomes anyone that shows up for Shabbat dinner on Friday night, Saturday at lunch and Saturday night for the Havdallah. And the word is on the street so sometimes the house located in Mea Shearim is too sm...