The consumerist culture insists that swearing eternal loyalty to anything and anybody is imprudent, since in this world new glittering opportunities crop up daily.

I suspect that the peer-review system carries a good part of blame for the fact that something like sixty percent or more of journal articles are never quoted (which means leaving no trace on our joint scholarly pursuits), and (in my reception at any rate) the "learned journals" (with a few miraculous exceptions that entail, prominently, TCS) ooze monumental boredom.

Freedom without security portends chaos, perpetual anxiety and fear.

The tragedy is what - given the 'right circumstances,' - normal decent folks, like you and me, will do. This is what makes me worry whenever looking on the road that Israel entered and shows no intention of leaving.

The value of other people is that they have something unique to offer.

While a few poor countries are catching up with the rich world, the differences between the richest and poorest individuals around the globe are huge and likely growing.

I worry about younger generations who were born to view their country trampling on humanity of everyone that comes in its way, as the 'normal state of affairs" - because they knew no other. We know how easy it is to shed, under such circumstances, the thin and frail veneer of civilization, not to mention the moral standards of which the Jews were presumed to be the world's teachers.