"In a festive intergalactic interview with the (NRG) home caller, Zohar Argov tells about his days as Jackie McCain's driver, denies the rumor that in heaven everyone is drugged, throws in a kind word for Eric Einstein, speaks densely about the fairer sex and pays respect to life on Earth"
8.6.2004
By: Avi Blizovsky
Direct link to this page: https://www.hayadan.org.il/dibuk080604.html
When the new website from Beit Maariv, NRG, went live last night, I was happy that there is another place where someone is willing to pay for content on the Internet and ultimately expand the demand for content in general. However, when I entered the site, my eyes darkened. An interview with the singer Zohar Argov was prominently published on the New Age channel. But make no mistake, this is not an interview from the Ma'ariv archive that comes to remind us of oblivion, or perhaps an interview that was forgotten and not published until today, in honor of the publication of a book about the late singer. This is a high-profile interview - but in the non-rational sense of the word. Not communicated in the sense of "famous in the media" but communicated from the language of communication to the next world.
"In a celebratory intergalactic interview with the caller of the house, Zohar Argov tells about his days as Jackie McCain's driver, denies the rumor that in heaven everyone is drugged, throws in a kind word for Eric Einstein, speaks densely about the fairer sex and pays respect to life on earth." By the way, the article was not signed.
We know what Zohar Argov smoked that caused his death, but what did he smoke in Maariv who wrote the article, who approved it and who even gave his hand to the existence of the New Age portal? Maybe you want to increase the pool of Maariv readers among the dead as well?
Another news refers to the passage of Venus over the sun that takes place this morning. The editors of NRG insist that the news will contain two parts - an astronomical part and an astrological part, and here in the same news we read a short physical explanation of the rare celestial phenomenon followed by a right of response to the stethologists who talk about an increase in the level of love. Love in Venus? A block of rock the size of the Earth with an atmosphere of sulfur and carbon dioxide, and that the temperature on its surface is 500 degrees Celsius? How can you make love under such conditions?
At a press conference that took place yesterday morning and which I was present at, I asked Ofer Nimrodi, as well as the people responsible for the website, including Ofer Shani, who served as a consultant for the construction of NRG, exactly the question I asked earlier - what did the person who wrote the interview with Argov smoke, and by the way, did not bother to sign his name About the article. Ofer Shani claimed that within the options there is also this option, and that those who want to take the interview seriously. Those who don't want to, should see it as a joke or a fantasy story. The big boss of the group tried to compare the New Age field with other fields of soft news or in the language of Ted Turner Infotainment - a combination of news and entertainment, just like tourism, gossip or sex. "The unity of opposites", as Nimrodi put it.
Well, now I have the opportunity to explain the difference - tourism, gossip and sex are areas that are in our reality - that is, on the same planet and in the same dimension of time and space, and really provide an escape from the hard news of the day. On the other hand, all the New Age philosophies seek to create a completely alternative world. There are some alternative worlds that have gained legitimacy because of the political power of those who hold them, and usually these are versions that change from place to place - religion for example (try to explain abroad what it means that an entire country is closed and closed on a day like Yom Kippur, or the strange food restrictions in Israel) and to a lesser extent also Astrology (and newspapers unfortunately play a large part in preserving this superstition), but even among the most religious and astrological believers, few believe in the more extreme nonsense such as channeling, reading the future, belief in the power of letters, and the like. In other words, turning to anti-science and therefore also anti-reality (or alternative reality) is explicitly crossing red lines.
Nimrodi claims that because the people of Ma'ariv 40 years ago wanted to educate the people, they lost their status as the most widely used newspaper in the country, and therefore a correction should now be made in the other direction. I don't agree with him. I would like to direct him to a book that was published in 1997 by Had-Artzi Sefrit Ma'ariv (the publishing house has closed in the meantime, but the library exists in a different framework). The reference is to the book "Haunted World - Science as a Fiddler in Alta" by Carl Sagan. In the book, Sagan, one of the last intellectuals who knew how to both engage in science and explain it, attacks the superficiality, ignorance, and stupidity that fell upon the American people because of that infotainment (and in retrospect, five years after his death, experts blamed the poor reporting on American television, which mostly prefers to communicate with aliens on its broadcasts News, about what is happening in the world as a cause of surprise on September 11, 2001).
In an attempt to somewhat repair the damage, he details, starting on page 207 of the Hebrew edition, "A Kit for Detecting Nonsense", and in it several tips to know if a certain claim is serious or if it is nonsense. Gossip of the type of "whirling in the jacuzzi" also does not add respect and, on the contrary, detracts from the good name that has gone to Maariv, but hey, it is still legitimate despite the poor language. . After all, it is enough for a few good citizens to go study complementary medicine and card reading instead of going to real science and developing technology that will move Israel forward - we all lost.
They say that everyone has a right to their own portal, but there is a portal and there is a portal. The articles I write on the "Hidan" website, which show the beauty of the world as it is without spiritual alternatives, have a few thousand individual readers per day, compared to a site like NRG, which seeks to compete with YNET and Walla, and which seeks to acquire hundreds of thousands of readers per day. If it was a small site, it would be fine, but as mentioned, it is a central site or at least pretending to be one. I don't have 25 million dollars to invest in the website and another 5 million dollars in advertising, and I won't have such a cumulative amount even if the website exists (and I will live) for a thousand years, and therefore Maariv is using his power unfairly to destroy everything and despise the intellectual elite without which we would not have a country, or At least not TLG of 18 thousand dollars per person per year.
We will end with the example of Asimov when there was someone who criticized the "cold" and unspiritual science with the claim: that "during its 200-year flight, science gave birth to some successful tricks such as canned food and long-playing records, but in truth, what real value did science contribute to the seventy years of the person? And to this Asimov said: I quickly responded in a letter in which I wrote, among other things: "...One of the things that have 'real value' are those seventy years of a person's life... For most of history, the length of life was closer to thirty. Are we not entitled to expect anything but gratitude from you for that extra forty years of life that you had the opportunity to enjoy?"
I am almost convinced that Amnon Yitzchak and a friend of his flock will be able to more easily convince the youth to buy their drug (a spiritual drug but no less dangerous) by claiming that even 'Maariv' is convinced of the existence of the next world - and it is not a religious body, you should trust him...
Science is not just a subject for plodding intellectuals. It can and must be in the public domain if only explained in the right way. Haaretz does this well, as does veteran reporter Alex Doron in Maariv. But if NRG's new line continues, Maariv and Haaretz will not write about the same reality at different levels of depth like until yesterday but will live in completely different realities.
I am convinced, if I believed in spiritualism, that Azriel Carlebach is turning over in his grave right now. And maybe you should use NRG's home caller, to ask him?
And another promise of mine to Nimrodi and in light of the offer on this site, I direct the more educated and intellectual readers who were intrigued on the first day of NRG's airing, to the science and nature channel on YNET, where you will not get astronomy and astrology mixed up and of course the science site http://www.hayadan.org. il.
* The author serves, among other things, as the editor of the website Hidan and the Israeli skeptic, and deputy editor of InformationWeek from the People and Computers group, as well as co-author of the book "The Crash" published by Kinneret-Zamora Bethan, which deals with the Columbia disaster
For comments: editor@hayadan.org.il
