אידיוסינקרטיות
מרץ 2008
Out of the Flat Box, At Last
Ikea hacking is cool, you know. Conceptually. It's thinking outside the flat box (not my pun, unfortunately). It's DIY design for the people. I am always on wait for new Ikea hacker posts.
And then there was that DIY workshop I attended, Rosh Bakir. I should really be posting about it separately. So for the time, let's just say it's totally motivational, and puts you in constant search of home improvement projects.
So in short, when my sister wanted to hack her Antonius high unit (made of two frames and 10 baskets) for baby stuff storage, I was hooked. What we basically needed was a frame, to protect the inside from dust.
For the frame we used something called multi-wall polypropylene sheets. If you are in Israel, you know it under the generic term Polygal, and you can buy it in office supplies stores. Having searched the web extensively for an English term, I tend to think it's not much of a consumer product elsewhere, which is a pity, because it's so easy to use, versatile, colorful and inexpensive.
Now you should go to Flickr to see the project photos. If you are interested in more details, come back here and read the rest.
בא לי לשלוח את הכתבה הזאת למישהוMurdered in that Language
(now the English version for the global audience...)
If I was at Language Log, I would surely have something wise to say about the uproar against Chancellor Merkel's speech at the Knesset.
Background: The German Chancellor Angela Merkel is on a visit to Israel. There was a heated debate about whether she should be allowed to address the Knesset. In general only foreign heads of state are invited to address the plenary - in the case of Germany, this would be the president; so a special approval was needed. Many people thought it shouldn't be approved, not so much because she was German, but - and that's the interesting point - because she was to speak in German. One MK, Arieh Eldad, was quoted saying that his grandparents "were murdered in that language".
That there is so little objection to visits of German officials, shows that most Israelis think there is "a different Germany", as we put it here. But there seems not to be "a different German language". For many people, the German language seems to evoke Nazism more than anything else contemporary German. And it's funny, but I can somehow relate to that idea myself, even though I think it's completely unreasonable on so many levels. I seriously wonder how and why a language assumes such status.
(At the end the speech of course took place, and chancellor Merkel opened with a Hebrew sentence or two, which I think was a brilliant idea given the importance of language in this story. )
אין גרמנית אחרת
אם הייתי כותבת ב- Language Log, בטח היה לי משהו חכם להגיד על הסערה סביב הנאום של מרקל בגרמנית בכנסת.
כי, תראו, זה מעניין: הבעיה היא לא עם הופעת הקאנצלרית בכנסת, אלא עם זה שהיא תדבר בשפת המרצחים. כלומר: יש גרמניה אחרת, אבל אין גרמנית אחרת.
יש משהו מוזר במשפט הזה של חה"כ אריה אלדד, "גרמנית זו השפה שבה נרצחו סבי וסבתי".
אני לא מנסה להגיד שזה טיפשי. נראה לי שהרבה ישראלים מסוגלים להבין מאיפה זה בא, גם אם הניסוח של אלדד כושל, גם אם בשורה התחתונה הם לא מתנגדים לנאום בגרמנית בכנסת. השאלה היא למה. מה המנגנון שבו הופכת השפה הגרמנית לשריד האחרון של הנאציזם.
חידה שאולי תעניין אתכם
מהבלוג של לרמן (תשובות לפרסם שם):
מנה/י שלושה רחובות בתל-אביב אשר ממשיכים אחד את השני, כאשר לכל אחד מהם יש שם אחר, אבל השם הפרטי של האדם שעל שמו נקראים כל אחד מהרחובות נשאר זהה לאורך שלושתם.