Gideon's Spies -- the secret history of the mossad

so i just finished reading this book by gordon thomas, loaned to me by my brother in law, steve. it's a quite fascinating and remarkably (even surprisingly) well researched account of the history of mossad from its inception in the 1950s.

the book begins with an examination of the death of princess diana from mossad's perspective. it gives details about the conspiracy theories surrounding her death and the death of her lover dodi al fayed, and driver henri paul--who was an informant, not only for local french intelligence agencies, but also for mossad and other foreign intelligence services and the press.

the book is full of anecdotes. it tells the story of rafael eitan's kidnapping of adolf eichman in argentina, it tells stories about assassination attempts (both successful and unsuccessful) against terrorist leaders who could not be brought to justice. it also tells about mossad's involvement in the death of britain's media tycoon robert maxwell. the most annoying thing about these anecdotes is that they are often inconclusive. they tell a small part of a story, or are used as an example and then the author trails off to discuss something entirely different. for example, it tells the story of dr. ri che-woo, a north korean microbiologist who escaped from north korea along the new exodus route, revived by douglas shin--a korean-american pastor at a suburban los angeles church--, and norbert vollersten--a german doctor who completed a work term in north korea. the story is quite touching but ends abruptly when dr. ri che-woo is captured by chinese public security officers. nothing more is told about new exodus or any of its other participants, though they were painstakingly introduced.

the book made me think, though: it's hard to justify the existence of secret intelligence or security agencies in a democratic country. the very secrecy surrounding the actions of these agencies makes them inaccessible to the democratic process. the only way they can be controlled by the people is through the democratically elected head of state. but, these are often untrustworthy. furthermore, how can we even know that we can trust our democratically elected heads of state if some of the actions that they approve are forever cut off from public knowledge?

it is our fear of the 'other' that necessitates secret agencies: fear of terrorism, fear of enemy nations, fear of friendly nations... it was fear of the soviet union that brought on the need for secret agencies in canada and the usa, and much of the western world.

gideon's spies does not vilify mossad but neither does it lionize it. it simply "tells it like it ... is" (in the words of meir amit, former director general of mossad 1963-1968).

i think the main lesson from the book is that human intelligence (called "humint" in the book) is better than electronic intelligence, gathered by satellites and computers. mossad relies almost exclusively on human intelligence through its katsas (field agents) and sayanim (sleeper agents or informers). they have a relatively small number of katsas, but many thousands of sayanim in almost every country. mossad's model is contrasted with american intelligence agencies such as the nsa and the cia who rely heavily on satellites and space age computer technology.

the book should be required reading for anyone who wants to study modern history and the role of secret intelligence and security agencies around the world in the cold war era and the post cold war era.

Dan and Katie Come to Halifax for the Weekend

We had Dan and Katie for the weekend. They arrived shortly after midnight on Friday. (Thankfully, Janelle and I had the weekend off.) So after I got off work I did five loads of laundry and tidied up the apartment a little. By the time Janelle got home after seven, we were both exhausted. And Janelle had been so busy at Little Caesar's that she hadn't had supper yet. (It was halloween, they made their greatest sales ever.)

Saturday morning Dan and Katie, Heidi, Janelle and I went to the market. While Katie, Janelle, and Heidi shopped, I accompanied Dan to the part of the market where they sell peanut butter balls. Dan bought a couple and an apple and then we walked along the waterfront for a while.

Then Mary Ann (my big boss) called and I had to reclean an apartment that I had cleaned Friday... So we all went back home and Dan helped Janelle and I clean while Katie and Heidi went to the blackmarket. (Probably to buy drugs and guns--thereby ensuring Kenny's job security.) Anyways, it took a little more than an hour to clean the apartment, Janelle was fantastic because she knew just what to do and how to do it. It was a bit of a consolation to me that Mary Ann made the carpet cleaners redo their job in that apartment too.

After lunch we went to Peggy's cove (see Janelle's facebook for photos) and had a wonderful, great time. And when we got back we had Nathan and Andrew and Emma Joy and Heidi for supper. We decided that, instead of having a guestbook, we would make our guests draw pictures for us with the tablet. That's how we discovered that Nathan is an artistic genius.

Nathan painted this with watercolour

and drew this with crayons

this is heidi's contribution.

Dan drew this guy. He also drew the first one.

After supper Janelle, Katie, and Emma Joy went to the mall while Nathan, Andrew, Dan and I stayed at the apartment. We jammed for a bit, and drew pictures, and Andrew and Dan had plenty of Cape Bretonese conversations (yikes).

Sunday we had Heidi and her dad (who flew in from Fort McMurray on Saturday night--Janelle and Katie made a "welcome home" poster for him). for lunch. After lunch Dan and Katie had to head back for Sydney. And it was freezing cold outside. Janelle and I spent the rest of the evening recouperating from the weekend. We napped, snuggled, watched a movie...

On Monday, after work, Juaniece came over and we worked on her website. Ok, it's still not up yet, but I'm hoping to get something up SOON. This time she wanted it totally revamped... so we completely changed the look of it.

Sofa Shopping with the In Laws

janelle and i had the night off yesterday, so we called up her parents and decided to go sofa shopping.

so, after a wonderful meal with janelle's parents (baked potatoes, cheesy broccoli (how do you spell that anyway??), and roast beef (i think), with delicious carrots--i think she baked them with honey and orange juice--yum) i was full and sleepy. perfect for sofa shopping.

the first place we went to was ashley furniture in bayer's lake. it's a fantastic store with a huge sales floor full of sofas, mostly, tastefully arranged and set up to sell. also, the sales staff is really helpful and not pushy at all.

sofa shopping, especially when i'm not doing the purchasing, is probably one of the most relaxing things there is. i just sat on all the different couches and recliners while we discussed the pros and cons of different couches. we found one sofa that we all really liked, that would look excellent in janelle's parent's apartment but we were still wondering what else there was out there, so we went to sears.

sears is a ridiculous store. they just put everything they got on the floor with no arrangement or design to it so you have to go looking for what you want. anyways, we just sat in one couch and talked about the one we liked from ashley's, then we went back to ashley's and janelle and i waited in the car while mister and misses went inside to buy the sofa.

afterwards, we all went over to our apartment and played apples to apples and banagrams while we feasted on whole grain tortilla chips and cheesies and some caramel brule and wine. it was an altogether fantastic evening.

after they left, i was in a hurry to get out of my pants because they were getting painfully tight.

Bamboo Tablet Thing

so, janelle bought me a writing / drawing thing, like one of those tablets that come with a pen and you write on the tablet with the pen and it shows up on the computer screen. well, she bought me one of those.

so i started playing with it and at first i found it really hard to work with, but i've now figured it out (i think) and produced my first painting:


ok, so it's not that great--it's just a tree with a sky and a sun. but it's start, you know. maybe eventually i'll be able to paint all sorts of things. what i really want is to see janelle develop her stick figure art. :)

on the darker side... i've gone back over to windows :( well, at least 25% of the way there. we're now running windows exclusively on janelle's computer because i couldn't use the tablet thing on mine while it's running ubuntu. so here's to many more forays into piracy...

Che -- A Revolutionary Life

So, I recently finished reading "Che -- A Revolutionary Life," the biography of Ernesto Guevara by Jon Lee Anderson.

It's a good book because Ernesto Guevara is a fascinating and exciting character. He adopts the name "Che" (which means something like "Hey You!") around the same time he becomes a solid communist. Interestingly, though, he never joins the Soviet sponsored international Communist Party. After studying to become a doctor specializing in asthma and allergies, he spends the rest of his life trying to spread the proletarian revolution in South America. The book records his early life, his struggle to bring the revolution to the world by guerrila warfare first in Cuba and later in Africa and finally in Bolivia and finally his death by execution in the Bolivian Andes.

The detail provided in the book is amazing; it was obviously very well researched. What I liked most about the book was its honesty about Che's character. It wasn't romantic or glorified but it showed him as a regular human being. It's true that he was an outstanding man who did some very remarkable things, he also had some very admirable qualities--his determination, his hard work, his passion, and his quirky and kind of weird sense of humour--but the book also records his flaws and presents him as a deeply flawed individual (just like the rest of us).

For example, Che continues to believe unquestioningly that people are basically good and that they will put their self interest aside and work for the good of the group even when he is faced by the complete self-centeredness of some of his closest comrades who, after they have commited their lives to the revolution and are told by Che to count themselves as already dead, lose faith in the struggle and abandon both their comrades and the revolution.

When he goes to the Congo, the great Congolese revolutionary fighters won't fight, they run away dropping their weapons and baggage as soon as anyone fires at them; they won't carry anything but their weapons--when asked to they say, "what do I look like? a truck?" or "what do I look like? a woman?" or "what do I look like? a cuban?" (Because Che and his soldiers ended up having to do all the heavy carrying because the Congolese wouldn't). Anyways, the Congolese revolution ended in failure because of the simplicity and self-interestedness of its fighters.

In Bolivia, Che himself is betrayed by the people he came to help. His goal in Bolivia and in all of South America was to improve the conditions of the common people and give them a stake in their government because they were being oppressed by North American backed capitalist military dictatorships. It was the common people of Bolivia who, many times over, reported his whereabouts to the Bolivian army. It was the Bolivian army that tracked down and executed Che in the Bolivian Andes as he was trying to escape the country after the failure of his short-lived guerrilla campaign.

It's a book worth reading. It shows the flaws of the communist-socialist system through the eyes of a communist. Che drew much opposition and disapproval from the officials of the Soviet Union for his methods and practices, and also his militant anti-North American stance. But his stance is justified, to a certain degree; the book shows North American adventurism and imperialism and their effects in South America resulting in the poverty of the common people and the dependence of the state on North American industry for import/export and economic aid and how this dependence was fostered by American imperialism. It also showed how the North American anti-communist campaign saw many fascist dictatorships installed in South America: Augusto Pinochet's North American backed government in Chile; Batista's regime in pre-communist Cuba; the CIA sponsored coup of the Arbenz government in Guatamala when the US government thought he was getting to be a little too socialist; and the US supported dictatorship of Rene Barrientos in Bolivia. Nevertheless, it also demonstrates the imperialism of the Soviet Union as it tried to gain exclusive control over its sattelite states.

It's a book that can change your world-view of the events of the Cold War.

Bongo Drum

So the other day, Vince inspired me to buy a bongo drum for my wife.

Okay, well, he didn't exactly intentionally inspire me to buy a bongo drum for my wife, what he did was send me a book in the mail. Of course, I wasn't at home when the mail came it, so when I got off work I had a notice saying that I had a package at the post office.

Meanwhile, I've been wanting to buy Janelle a bongo drum ever since she bought me a guitar. That way I can play the guitar and she can beat the drum and we can be kind of like band. If only we could find someone to play bass.

Anyways, it just so happens that the music store is right across the street from the post office, so while I was at the post office getting my book from Vince I thought, hey, I'm gonna go look at how much those bongo drums cost. So I went. And they weren't as expensive as I thought they'd be. So I bought one and brought it home, and played with it, and left it in the livingroom.

So when Janelle got home from work, I surprised her with it and she was thrilled :) Now we read psalms to each other: one person reads and the other beats the drum.

And We're Back

So, after a long silence, we've returned. And, as you've probably noticed, we've also updated the website.

Maybe the reason I haven't written anything in so long is that noting really interesting has happened. We've had a long and mostly uneventful summer. The furthest from home we've gone is to Sydney to visit Dan and Katie and for Andrew and Emma Joy's wedding in Margaree. All on the same weekend. And we spent a week and a half in Ontario in June to see cute, dear little Jelena Joy Labelle. And her parents and grandparents, of course.

While we were in Ontario we also got to see my old room mate and great friend Jason and we found out that our automobile needs a new transmission. So we decided that we're going to sell it. Living without a car is going to be interesting...

There's a lot of things we intended to do but never did, like white water rafting, hiking, more travelling. But, all in all, we had a pretty good, quiet summer.

Now Janelle is back in school and very busy. I'm now working out of the office instead of doing all the cleaning, which is a nice break; also, I'm learning a lot of new things so that's pretty exciting. I'm sure it's temporary, though.

Also, Janelle and I are teaching ESL one night a week and we've made some great friends through that. It helps that a lot of our students live in our building.

We've kind of decided that we're going to try to go abroad to teach English with our friend Luke. We're thinking Egypt right now, but that could change. So I'm looking into taking a TESL course to get certified for teaching English. Janelle and Luke will both have it because they'll have graduated from the B.Ed. program at Mount Saint Vincent University.

Anyways, that's the boring plot of our uneventful lives.

Doughnuts and Coffee

so it's five am on sunday morning. i just relieved our night watchman. in three hours, we'll all be awake and ready to face another day of move ins and move outs. i can't wait until the craziness has subsided. janelle can't wait until school starts. (she's crazy.)

Capitalism Strikes Again

The province of Nova Scotia is in the process of increasing the minimum wage to something like ten dollars per hour or something like that.

One of the government's reasons for doing this is that it will match inflation rates. Which means that, as prices rise with inflation, the minimum wage rises so that stuff doesn't become unaffordable.

The main problem with this is that most people make their money by making and selling stuff. So with an increased minimum wage, it's now more expensive to make stuff. To offset this, company owners will either increase the price of their stuff or lay off lots of their employees. And the cycle begins again.

What causes inflation anyway? The simple answer is this: as the amount of money in circulation increases, prices increase accordingly. Deflation occurs when the amount of money in circulation decreases and prices decrease.

So, throwing more money into the mix is not going to fix the real problem of inflation. Inflation is a problem because it raises the price of stuff beyond it's actual worth into an area called "perceived worth," which is the amount of money people are willing to pay for it. The actual worth of stuff can be calculated by how much it costs to make it and then you can increase that number by as much as seven or eight million percent to make a profit. For example, at Little Caesar's Pizza(tm), it costs an estimated average of $0.18 to produce one bag of Crazy Bread (tm). The same Crazy Bread is then sold for $2.99 resulting in a profit of $2.81 per bag. (Cut that it half on Fridays and Wednesday.)

In actuality, the problem isn't inflation, it's the amount of money in circulation. And when you consider that as much as 75% of the money in circulation is actually artificial money--ie. Credit the problem of inflation becomes a little more understandable.

Survey finds passengers call airline service 'dismal' -- No Kidding.

So I was reading the news today and came across the titled article. Here's a quote from it:

"Passengers are more dissatisfied with airlines' customer service than they have been in years at a time when carriers are charging more and more for tickets and services.

"An annual survey being released Tuesday by the University of Michigan found customers giving airlines the worst grades since 2001, with the industry's overall scores dropping for the third straight year."

It's no secret that airline companies are scrambling for money. Ticket prices are increasing, major airlines are going under, other airlines are merging. They're all tightening the belt to save or make more money.

Do you want to know where your customer service is going? How well do you think these airlines treat their employees?

I worked in two different grocery stores and one pizza joint, so I'm kind of acquainted with the customer service industry. The one rule in customer service is this: treat your customers well and they'll come back.

But what's happening more and more is that the owners, always desperate for more money--it seems the more money they make, the more they want--are cutting their spending all over the place. When I worked at the Superstore, they were cutting labour hours drastically, including cashiers, to increase their earnings. If there's one thing you don't do at a grocery store, it's cut your cashier hours.

What resulted, as we expected, was less cashiers working during peak times, resulting in huge long lineups of customers at every cash. We found that more and more customers were leaving their groceries in their carts, at the checkout, and heading to other grocery stores. Do you think those customers will come back? Not to do their major groceries, they won't. Maybe to pick up bread and milk on the way home, if at all. Add to that the cost in labour of putting their unpurchased groceries back on the shelves and the cost of spoiled meat and dairy items being left in the cart too long while they wait (usually 12 hours to two days) for someone to put them away.

The bottom line is, if you want to keep your customers and have record setting customer service, treat your employees well and they will treat your customers well. If you have cranky employees who hate their jobs because they're being forced to do more and more work for less and less money (they get less hours per week--thus less money--and when they do work, they have to work harder because there are fewer people working) they aren't going to be very nice to their customers.

I've worked some places where the employees actually hate the customers. Granted, this is sometimes because the employees have personal problems, but often it's because they have more and more work piling up on them while more customers only mean more work.