Tuesday, December 02, 2008

One million words

Over 1,000,000 words, that's how much I have written since I started writing letters to friends in America in the year 2000 describing the situation in Israel during the intifada that started that year. During the past few months I have completed the arduous task of transferring all my files from e-mail to Word and compiling them by year. I have now completed them up-to-date.
Note that one problem was that they were written of course in order of increasing date, with the latest first, while for any useful reading they must be in reverse order, with the latest last. So within each month all the articles had to be reversed manually. Then the differences between e-mail files, such as hard line ends, and word processor files, had to be changed. Fortunately most of this could be done with single commands, thanks to advice from my son-in-law Jeff.
Now I have saved a few copies on CD and it is preserved for posterity, in case posterity is interested. Of course, the real measure of the value of this blog is not the quantity of words but the quality of the contents. Dare I say that the quality, with suitable selection, could make an interesting book. All manner of things are included, as most of you know. Apart from the basic stuff on Israel and the Middle East, and political topics in Israel, America, the UK and around the world, there are items about music, art, literature, science and a fair amount of humor. If any one knows of any publishing house that might be interested in publishing this work, please let me know.
I have a working title "A Journal of the Terrorist Years, Israel 2000-2008." Any other suggestions would be welcomed. If I said that "all human life is there" that might be a bit exaggerated, but not much. From the intifada to Mumbai practically everything that has happened in relation to Jews and Israel is included and much more.

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