Putting the Z5 to the Power and Emissions Test
Since writing my first article on the Israeli-invented Z5, a small add on to your car’s air filter to save gas, there has been no shortage of skepticism and critics. I’d blogged about it on TreeHugger and the article was pulled due to all the negative feedback by readers who hadn’t tried it.
The public knows they are no fools: any mention of a “device” that sounds like a Cyclone Fuel Saver, FuelMAX or Water4Gas elicits a knee jerk response. How could a small cylinder added to your car’s air filter save gas, decrease pollution or give your car more power?
People want to believe that they can save up to 30% gas, and spare the environment from emissions, but does it work?
To test the company’s claims that the $208 mail-order Z5 can help the environmental cause, Green Prophet took Gal Luft from Set America Free to a garage in Israel to emissions test and power test cars before and after the Z5 installation.
Here’s what we found: Read more
FB group calls for ‘racist’ cell phone ad to be removed
TV advertisements often have nothing to do with the actual product they’re trying to sell. Case in point is the new commercial for Israeli cell phone company Cellcom.
The commercial, produced by the local offices of advertising powerhouse McCann Erickson, shows IDF soldiers on patrol along the separation fence who stop their jeep when it is hit by a soccer ball from the Palestinian side of the fence.
At first, they think it might be an attack, but when they realize it’s a soccer ball, one of the soldiers kicks it back over the wall. As they get back into their jeep, the ball bounds over the wall again. The soldiers say the equivalent of “game on!” call their friends on their cell phones and start playing with the faceless Palestinians on the other side of the wall.
The tagline says: “After all, what are we all after? Just a little fun.”
The first couple times I saw it, I thought it was a pretty cool idea, because if there’s one thing that unites Israelis and Palestinians, it’s soccer, and the commercial captured that quite well.
So, it was with some surprise when I saw a Facebook posting citing a new group that was started to get Cellcom to pull the ad, calling it ‘racist.’ The Facebook group, called “I too got nauseous watching the new Cellcom ad,” severely criticized McCann Eriksson’s use of the separation fence in its advert.
“We could go into the media messages spouting racism any which way, but if you have come here than you too think they’re uncalled for,” reads the introduction to the Facebook group. “The McCann Erickson copywriter displayed an unbelievable propensity for bad taste.”
According to the group, the ad is offensive because the supposedly “good” soldiers fear the possibility that the “monster living on the other side of the wall could steal the ball – but when the ball returns to Israeli hands, we discover that that monster isn’t fierce at all, and actually feels like playing with the soldiers – oh joy!”
I don’t know what commercial these airheads have been watching, but the ‘other side’ isn’t trying to steal the ball, it’s their to begin with. And so what, if when the ball returns to Israeli hands they realize that the ‘monster’ on the other side of the wall actually feels like playing with the soldiers?
Shouldn’t Israeli feel justified in thinking that there are people on the other side of the wall who would like to do them harm? Wasn’t that the reason for building the monstrosity in the first place?
I thought the commercial did a good job in expressing the views of many Israelis who feel that the people on the other side of the wall are a faceless entity which we know nothing about. If a soccer ball can create a moment of ‘fun’ for both sides, then let the security barrier be stocked with soccer balls.
What do you think?
Nostalgia Sunday – Asimonim
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture, Technology, War
Nostalgia is defined as “longing for something past” and the asimon, or Israeli telephone token, was a beautiful object for which I’m quite nostalgic. Not only did asimonim have a practical function — to make calls from public phones — they were attractively decorated with the image of a phone dial and had a hole in the middle, so you could string them on a leather thong to wear around your neck. Or, as I did, impaled on a large safety pin and hooked onto a belt loop. All very punk.
And here’s something I’m not at all nostalgic for: scrounging around desperately for an asimon, either because you miscalculated the length of your call, or — in most cases — because the public phone decided to eat your last precious token. This after having waited in line for 45 minutes to make the call.
I thought perhaps it was just me imagining conspiracy theories but it turns out that there actually was a national shortage of telephone tokens! This was between 1973 and the post-Yom Kippur War era, when asimon consumption shot way up, and 1981, when the Ministry of Communications found a way to manufacture asimonim locally instead of farming out the work to our friends at Vereinigte Deutsche Metallwerke AG (VDM). (Rumor had long had it that the arrangement with VDM was part of a reparations deal closed between the Israeli and German governments. Now, there’s a conspiracy theory to mull over).
In any case, by the time 1984 rolled around and the Ministry of Communications privatized Bezeq, there were asimonim aplenty and the black market in phone tokens (yes, there was one) had all but shut down. On the other hand, there was a wave of phone box break-ins. To stop the madness, Bezeq introduced the phone card in 1990, and again, war gave the new technology an unexpected boost in 1991 when the first Gulf War created new demand for international phone calls — mostly placed by those of us in sealed rooms trying to find out from relatives and friends abroad what CNN was reporting and which way the SCUDS were heading.
According to an excellent online article (in Hebrew) by Moshe Lipner, “Israel’s Telephone Tokens“, at their peak, there were 13,000 token telephone boxes around Israel. By 1999, these had been replaced by 22,000 Telecard phone boxes. These can still be found, as can phone cards, but their presence has declined considerably with the massive public switchover to cell phone technology — and who can blame the public for wresting itself out from under Bezeq’s monolithic thumb?
Meanwhile the modest little asimon has become a collector’s item on Ebay and an objet d’art. Given my penchant for wearing asimonim, I think I may need to get a pair of these:
Road carnage in Israel
Filed under: A New Reality, Crime, General, Israeliness, Life, Travel
The aftermath of Friday's Beit Shemesh crash.
All the jokes about Israelis learning how to drive from manning tanks in the army, or that Israelis drive fast because of the hectic pace of life here have worn thin over the years. The fact of it is that Israelis are horrible, reckless drivers – and I’m talking a mass generalization here of an estimated 50-70% of drivers, not a manageable sub-sector minority.
Three examples. There’s a stop sign near the bus stop on the street next to my house. While waiting for the bus, I play a game of counting how many drivers actually stop, or even pretent to take their foot off the gas. 50% stop and the other 50% slow down a bit, look around and continue right through the intersection.
Example two are Egged bus drivers. Riding a bus home two or three nights a week on five miles of downhill highway (partially through a tunnel), I’m amazed at the speeds which the drivers achieve. As far as I know the speed limit is 80 km (55 miles per hour) but, the norm for Egged’s finest is more like 110 km (80 mph). Whenever I’ve queried the drivers (when I’ve been brave enough to open my eyes), they just laugh it off and say “Don’t worry, we’re fine, I’m in perfect control. You want to get home quickly, don’t you?”
The last example is on the Jordan Valley road (Ghandi’s Road) which goes south to north from near Jericho to Beit Shean. It’s got some hairpin turns through the hilly region, and the road isn’t too great to begin with.
The two or three times a year I travel on it at night, I make sure to keep to the speed limit of 80 kmh. Every single car flashes me and passes me (some on the hairpin turns).
I may sound like a crotchety, old driver, but enough’s enough. And the trend of driving while drunk, which until a few years ago was not really a factor in Israel, is like giving terrorists extra ammunition.
As long as drivers in Israel feel invincible and behave like the road is their personal domain, then we’re taking our lives in our hands each time we turn the ignition key. And it’s not just one segment of the population, although a higher percentage of accidents involve men, young drivers, and Arab drivers. But it’s a problem that faces all of us, and it’s not going to go away until everyone takes responsibility for themselves.
Night Garden in Jerusalem Exhibited the Beauty of Solar Power
Sunshine helps flowers grow and now, thanks to a joint collaboration of the Israel Electric Corporation and O*GE Architects, it makes enormous steel and metal flowers grow, too.
In mid June, visitors to Jerusalem could stroll through a solar powered garden of larger-than-life sized flowers. As described by O*GE Architects, visitors could “immerse themselves in a sensual delight of magical light, bright sounds and fragrant aromas… The garden demonstrates the importance and beauty of alternative energy.”
The garden included a variety of flowers in different sizes, shapes, colors, and types of illumination. The Giant Lotus flowers, for example, towered at over 4 meters in diameter and would open and close, subtly changing colors. The tulips, on the other hand, were illuminated by a single color in varying intensities. Dewdrop flowers were bunched together in masses, creating “a poetic ambience of tranquility, sensual beauty, and pure serenity.”
The movement of the flowers was accompanied by music composed by Ravid Hang and Andy Isler. (The music can also be heard in the clip above.)
O*GE Architects hope to continue exploring issues of architecture and design, environmental protection, and social responsibility. They pursue many environmental design projects, including their Recycle Be-shikle Workshop.
Read more about solar power in the Middle East::
Phone Home with Sunbeam Power Using Lebanon’s Alfa
Solar Energy is Israel’s Best Energy Bet
Rich Oil State Dubai Plans to Power Up with Solar Energy
(This post was written by Karen Chernick, the Arts and Design editor at greenprophet.com)
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