Highland Bagpipes

This is a pencil drawing of my old Wm Sinclair & Son Highland bagpipes, done by my wife. The backdrop is Royal Stuart tartan.

I waited four years for this fine, hand-made set after ordering them in person from Mr William Sinclair in his workshop in Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland. Mr Sinclair is the second generation to make quality Highland pipes, after his father William, who began in the 1930s. His son Alistair, the third generation, is currently carrying on the family business. I am not certain if his son Ewan is in the business. That would make four generations of maintaining quality in what is now quite a competitive market.

You would think that my set would be the only one in Israel. However, there is another set of Sinclair pipes, made by William Sinclair senior back in the 1930s, owned by a very fine sabra piper of my good acquaintance. A top Jewish player who is a friend of ours, and who visits Israel often also plays old Sinclair pipes, which used to belong to a career pipe-major in the Scots Guards Regiment (a Scottish contribution to the British Army). We all three came by our Sinclair pipes quite independently of each other.

The Cat and I

We've been together almost 20 years. Art's doing ok for an old geezer. A little stiff in the hips, a more bohemian attitude toward hygiene these days, obsessed with food and bowel movements, nervous sleeper, but could be a lot worse considering.

That's the cat I'm talking about--got it?

Editor's note: Arthur Katz Siegel, passed away at the end of October 2009, at home with his human family. We spoke to him, and held him, until he left us. Just a pet? No, he was a friend of nearly twenty years, with a God-breathed spirit just like you and I. He is sorely missed.

Alpha Male Chair in the South Pacific Corner

I would assume that many homes have one of these corners. My wife's paintings, various gifts from my Mother's several trips to Ponape, in the south Pacific, and Churchill's History of the Second World War, as manly a set of books as ever there was. Dad's photo on the wall. Smoking pipes I no longer smoke, but definately a macho accessory. What you can't see are the various cutting tools--a Leatherman, a SwissTool, a diving knife, and the old key rings, bits of chain and string. And a few choice home-made back-scratchers. My favourite I call "the flensing tool," named after a blubber-removal knife with a 2-meter handle I saw in action at a whale-landing station in southern Iceland. Last but not least, a copy of Nevi'im, The Prophets, as in ancient Hebrew, as in Amos and Isaiah and Ezekiel and Habakuk and friends. It doesn't get anymore Alpha-environmental then this.

Cup rings on the tables. Lots and lots of cup rings.

The Good Fence into Lebanon

This is the border crossing into Lebanon from Metulla, Israel, at the northern end of the Hula Valley in the Galilee. Nassrallah and the Hizbullah live somewhere on the other side. In another time, same place but very different dimension, Nassrallah would send me honey-sweetened and rose-water-scented baqlahwa for Rosh Ha-Shannah, and I'd send him a chub of Hebrew National kosher bologna for Eid. For now, its just missiles and gristle.

Yerushala'im Shel Zahav ירושלים של זהב

Jerusalem. This is what it is all about for a very many people. Of primary holiness to the Whole House of Israel, and to Biblical Christianity; a tertiary holy site for traditional Islam. The Qur'an recognizes that God gave the Land of Kna'an to the Israelites in perpetuity, but modern so-called traditional Islam, alas, has a short memory. And Obama apparently has no memory at all.

Sunset on the Galilee Coast

The beach at Nahariya, on the north coast of Israel. The world over, a beach at sunset with a solitary fisherman is a vision of peace and tranquility.

Of course, afterward you have to slit the poor little beasties open and pull their guts out, then go home to house full of screaming kids and a blaring television, cook them (the fish--not the kids), and then splurt ketchup all over them and eat em.

When A Terrorist Was A Terrorist

Dare I say it? Shall those words come from out of my own mouth? Oh! Here it comes . . .

I miss you, Abu Amar. Yasser, you were the genuine article. No silk ties with Oxford knots for you, or putting on deodorant just because you were visiting a president or prime minister. You really made your clothing last, Yasser, season in and season out. And you didn't know about matching socks from adam. They say that khaki, like plaid, is never out of fashion, as you have demonstrated so elegantly. You were a terrorist's terrorist, and not ashamed of it. Forever the desert warrior fresh out of battle, with a manly scent about you, and a crusty festering wound or two. Now even Hamas guys show up in the darndest places wearing Italian suits. And your old PLO trench-mates, they shave, habibi, they shave every blessed day (except for Hanan Ashrawi, who should). Oh the humanity!

But now you're gone, Yasser, and a big hole remains in my heart (but not where you shot me, you bugger!), and another really huge one in Ramallah, which I think is where your house used to stand, yes?

You, I understood. Nu those crazy goons that run around today in Ghazza City, Washington, Ramallah, Paris are pale techno-terrorcrats in comparison. They won't amount to a hill of spicy chick peas in the great scheme of things. But who could ever forget Yasser.

So . . .

Here's looking at you, sh'kheed!