CHELM-ON-THE-MED©, NOVEMBER 2016 COLUMN 2

BREAKING NEWS: Even the Daily Mail in the UK carried a story about the victory of Florida’s freshman congressman from the 18^th District – Brian Mast. The American army vet lost both his legs in 2010 in Afghanistan, but that didn’t stop him from running successfully for Congress in 2016.

            Name sound familiar? It should.

            See the March 2015 Chelm-on-the-Med story “Going the Extra 6,000 Miles” – how Mast stood up for Israel after encountered Israel bashing while studying economics at Harvard.  Don’t miss this CBN televised report.

            Today we’ve got a staunch friend in Washington. Photo credit: Representative-elect Brian Mast in a freshman class photo on the far from veteran-friendly Capitol steps. Brian Mast’s Twitter Account

NOVEMBER 2016 COLUMN 2

FREE FRIES BUT NO FRIER (SUCKER)

In 2009 a couple went out to a mall. Because he was hungry, the guy ordered himself a McRoyale in the food court…adding a 10 NIS ($2.60) side order of fries for his girlfriend - despite the fact she’d said she wasn’t hungry – to double his chances of winning a sports car in a
McDonald’s raffle where the minimum order to be eligible for a raffle ticket was 10 NIS.

            Lo and behold, a month later, McDonald’s informs the fellow he’d won the lottery. All he needed to do to collect his 300,000 NIS ($100,000) Porsche Boxter was to bring them the receipt for the fries…

            Unable to find the slip, he hired a lawyer to take McDonald’s to court arguing the raffle ticket left at the eatery should be enough…and won. Now 300,000 NIS richer (he took cash), the lucky winner wanted to give his by then long-gone girlfriend a share of his winnings (20,000 NIS).  Instead of taking the windfall, she took him to court demanding half his winnings (150,000 NIS)!

            In late 2016 a Haifa judge accepted the guy’s testimony as ‘the most plausible version of the two’ - that he’d paid for the winning 10 NIS fries. Moreover, while indeed the two had been sleeping together (were a ‘couple’) they were not living together (a ‘joint household’) since each has their own flat, so the winnings were solely his. (haifakarayot.net)  Photo credit: McDonald’s Israel

CHUTZPA…OR IGNORANCE?

After convincing UNESCO that Jews have no ties to the Temple Mount, the Palestinians’ delegation to UNESCO plans to demand* Israel turn the Dead Sea Scrolls housed in the Israel Museum’s Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem over to their ‘rightful custodian’ – the Palestinians, charging the scrolls discovered in the Judean Desert between 1947 and 1956 were ‘illegally removed from Palestinian territory’…

            It’s more than ironic, considering the Dead Sea scrolls include the Temple Scroll** dating back to the Second Temple Period,  details God's instructions in regard to the construction and operation of the Temple… (Israel Broadcasting Authority)  

* through the auspices of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation

** Discovered in 1956 north of the Kumran caves, the Temple Scroll is written in square Herodian Hebrew script, penned in the first half of the first century CE.

REST IN PEACE?

Beersheva police received a truly unique ‘missing person’ report filed by the daughter-in-law of a woman named Shaina: When the daughter-in-law (identified only as “D”) went to visit her mother-in-law in Beersheva, she found Shaina’s grave (her mother-in-law had died in 1993) had plum ‘disappeared’ into thin air. 

            Not only that, in its place was the tombstone of some elderly geezer named Bernardo Tuvorovsky. And, if that wasn’t enough to put D. in an early grave herself, cemetery officials found there were two gravestones on the premises for a Bernardo Tuvorovsky (who had died in 1989)…challenging the old Yiddish saying - You can’t have your tuchis (behind) in two places at one time.

            In the meantime, it remains for police to establish whether only Shaina’s headstone disappeared or also the contents of grave Section 10 Plot 4 – a further complication that threatens to add an element of habeas corpus to this strange state of affairs… (walla.com) Photo credit: a photo apparently taken by the family

POLICE LEAK

It’s a common sight in Israel to see male drivers pulling over to the side of the roadside to relieve themselves.  But after being pulled over in his car by traffic cops and pulled in for questioning after he refused to show identification or allow the officers to examine his vehicle, suspected mobster Amir Mulner demonstrated what he thought of the police force by taking a leak on the interrogation room floor. Equally pissed-off cops asked the court to send the suspect for psychiatric observation, but the bench turned them down*… (Yediot)  Photo credit:  Wikipedia Commons – Hendrike

*Mulner claimed the law had refused to let him go to the restroom in a timely fashion and he had no choice in the matter.

FORGET ABOUT EQUAL TREATMENT!

A leading Israeli hospital has ceased transplanting female hearts in male patients…except in
dire emergencies as a last ditch measure.

            Why? 

            A study of the data on 36 such patients out of 166 heart transplants conducted at Shiba Medical Center showed not only does it take male patients longer to recover with a woman’s heart (a 28 day hospital stay compared to 21 days); such men suffer from a significant increase in a host of medical problems – starting with an organ rejection rate in the first three months of 0.7 percent compared to 0.3 percent, and 0.52 percent compared 0.09 percent in the first year. If that’s not enough, 36 percent of the male recipients of ‘female hearts’ suffered heart failure and 29 percent suffered kidney failure, compared to eleven percent and five percent failure respectively in men whose donor was also male.

            Why does this happen? No one really knows, but one theory is that gender-specific antibodies are at work. (Yediot) Photo credit:  Wikipedia commons

'ONE-OF-A-KIND NATURE PRESERVE

The pristine surroundings of Israel’s Dimona reactor are an undeclared but very efficient de facto ‘nature preserve’…

            A six-month survey by dozens of researchers found there is more abundant wildlife and more biodiversity within the parameter fence of the nuclear facility than in the surrounding environment – for example seven species of gerbils inside the compound compared to four outside the compound and more than double the population. Among the well-off residents in the off-limits compound: deer, well-fed wolves and foxes, rare beetles and huge land lizards (none with three eyes)…

            Environmentalists labeled the mini ecological system ‘perfect’.(Yediot) Photo credit:  Wikipedia “Negev Nuclear Research Center”

FIT BEHIND THE WHEEL?

While it’s usually ‘full figured’ women who suffer from discrimination in the workplace, the Egged Bus Company raised the ire of the Transport Council (the Israeli equivalent of the Teamsters Union) when Egged posted a want ad indicating candidates built like a Mac truck need not apply: The bus company only wanted candidates with a BMI below 30-35.

            The Israeli teamster’s chair Gabi Ben-Harush (who not surprisingly, is built like a truck driver himself) argued medical physicals should suffice, retorting curtly: “With a shortage of thousands of truck and bus drivers, what are they looking for, beauty queens?!”  (Yediot) Photo credit:  port2port.co.il