Hang ups

Like a stopped clock, even a botched government gets it right twice a term. While the B.C. Liberals are suffocating the province's artists with savage cutbacks (behind a veil of Olympic hoopla), I will give them credit for two decent moves: the carbon tax (in opposition to which the NDP impaled themselves last election) and the new ban on talking and texting while driving.

The latter is a bit of a half-measure—drivers are still allowed to use hands-free phones, despite the evidence that they're just as dangerous—but it's better than nothing. And it puts the force of law (which will finally, maybe, sort of be enforced come February after a month of issuing warnings) behind me whenever I dementedly scream from the sidewalk at drivers holding their mini-screens up to their eyes to "Get off yer frickin' phone!!!!" End rant.

In other news, while I've hardly been the most diligent of bloggers of late, it's partly because I've moved my online writing to a new home that will let me focus on a current project. It's got a little to do with adventure (or at least my first travel experiences abroad) and writing (or at least my trying to make sense of those memories), and a lot to do with the transformation of Israel's kibbutz movement and its communal ideas over the last 20 years. And I've thrown down a gauntlet to myself: 100 posts to mark the centenary of Degania, the original kibbutz.

Come join me at Look Back to Galilee. I'm still waiting for my first comment! (And I'll hold on to this site, too, for whenever I have more spleen to vent or non-kibbutz tales to share.)