Adar, Adar, Chodesh Tov! I am SO over Shevat. I never have a particularly fantastic Shevat, and I’m always a little relieved when it’s over. And Adar! Fun fun!

And it’s like properly springy today, a fitting entrance into spring.

In other news, the election here seems to be heating up. The campaign slogans are starting to be everywhere (though I’ve been informed that this is actually a pretty tame election season here, as all things go). Likud’s (they’re the right-wing party) are of course the most…something, with one that says, “Hazak mul heHamas” (Strong against the Hamas, not sure what that definite article is doing there, but whatever) and Bibi (Netanyahu) glowering menacingly out at us from the side of the bus. This picture got cut off, but it’s the sign:
They also have one that says “Smoelmert Natan Kesef L’Hamas”–Smoel is “left” in Hebrew (also politically), so it’s a nasty way of saying that Olmert, the current Prime Minister (taking over since Sharon is out of the picture) gave $$ to Hamas. Same old right-wing techniques here as back in the States, trying to play people’s fears instead of offering concretely productive ideas.

Meretz is the very left-wing party. “Meretz is on the left, people are in the center.” I haven’t seen much out and about from Labor, the centrally left-wing party, the Democrats to Meretz’ Green Party, if you will. Shas has one about raising the minimum wage, and a whole bunch featuring their Rav, Ovadia Yosef, telling people to (I think I’m remembering this correctly) “Choose life,” or something along that line.

Evidently now-ish they’ll be starting the ads during prime time TV. If I understand this correctly (somebody correct me if I don’t), there’re a fixed number of hours of ad time, and they are delegated to the parties based on their existing representation in the Knesset. So if Shas has 13% of Knesset seats (it’s something like that, I think, not sure the exact number), then they get, automatically, 13% of the total time allotted for ads to use for their own propaganda. And a party can’t buy more air time–they get their percentage, and that’s it. I’m fascinated by this. It’s certainly better than the US system, where rich people can buy more access and all that. I don’t have any deep thoughts beyond that, though. I’m not actually sorry that there’s no TV in my apartment, but I am sorry that I seem to be missing the opportunity to see these ads. Maybe sometime in a week or two I’ll be at somebody’s house on a weeknight evening and I can check it out.

That’s all for now….

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