keliata

Buffalo Helps to Save Polar Bears

2012-01-15T19:31:00.000-05:00

The Miracle Revisited

2012-01-04T03:47:00.000-05:00

I've made many tentative Chanukah videos over the past few months but none of them seemed right. One song by Kenny G. was beautiful, had a Jewish melody, and was from his holiday CD. It was Jewish but didn't seem right even as the title of one of the tracts was called Eternal Light.

Yet another one--a sweet but IMO rather sappy song called One Little Candle. That didn't seem right either. Do I sound like Goldilocks not finding the chair/song that was just right in the house of the three bears? I felt like that. The soup that was too cold, too, hot, just right. The bed that was too hard, too soft, just right.

I considered an entirely secular and quite popular song by an Irish singer but that one seemed wrong. I actually made of video using that song but deleted it from my You Tube channel. The video was made in anger as a small family I invited to my apartment totally stiffed me. Home alone for Chanukah:( Well, one night at least). But as the night went on I enjoyed myself, I became much more reflective. I knew what song I neeed for my Chanukah video. It's secular but from a very significant movie called ALIVE, the true story of the Miracle of the Andes, the survival of a plane crash. One of the heroes seemed to have no faith at whatsoever--he made comments such as "What's so great about hope?" After the search has been called off he says, "I have good news. They've called off the search...that means we're going to save ourselves."

Long story short Nando Parado was a man of great faith and he did save his friends. I suppose in a Jewish context it was much like celebrating a miracle even as we're forbidden to rely on miracles.

I've written about ALIVE before but it was and always is. Two tracts in particular--the tender tract called Alberto (I think of it as a line in the movie spoken at a very sad moment at dawn--"Wake up, wake up everyone." Not urgent, not loud but everyone does wake up and listens to him. This was the song I ultimately chose from my Chanukah video.

This night of being home alone for Chanukah was actually beautiful. I took down the electric blue lights and blue garland and decided to put up another form of decoration aside from the menorah of course. My parents passed down a set of glasses etched with a family crest of sorts--an A within a diamond. Odd family "crest" but that's what we had. I had three of the glasses. My brother had the other six. Hmmm. That would make nine just like a menorah. Little problem though--I only had three and the one that stood out that would have made a great shamash was smaller than the rest. If I had the other six glasses I could have put the small shamash glass in front of the others, not as a tall leader but one in front leading the way.

Try as I might I couldn't find small blue votive candles to place in the glasses, only white ones. I used those. Much to my surprise the little votive reflected on the white wall in front of them. It was a large shadow of blue. Pure white reflecting through transparent glass created a large shadow of blue. I got my blue lights in a way (included in my final video.)

I visited Angola several times in the two or three weeks before Chanukah. My brother lives there (about 35 miles outside of the city) and my best friend's daughter. She has a pond on her property, home to eight beautiful white ducks. I've taken videos of the ducks when they were just little brown ducklings swimming in a kiddie pool.

The weather had been unusually warm in the high forties and these eight little white ducks also had me thinking about Chanukah and the menorah. Eight ducks swimming around. Eight seemed to be on my mind quite a bit. It made me think of the number of people on Noah's ark and how they survived in the water. An out there theory about why there are eight candles on a chanukiya but nevertheless mind thoughts and spirituality goes where it goes and absorbs what it absorbs.

My emotions are on the surface with this Chanukah video. Perfect song from a wonderfully religious movie. It's only gotten about 14 views (probably most of my views to see if the HD camera took good pictures). But that's okay. This video reflects my thoughts and emotions this year.

Off topic but I also made a water glitter globe for someone but decided to keep it as a gift to myself. I was sad to see all of the water globes in stores. All Christian. The Jewish ones online were primarily for children, so I made my own sort of. It took a while to figure out how to put a picture in it but it's kind of pretty. That was one of my Chanukah decorations too. Shake a water globe up, down and to the side and the glitter fills the globe, the figures inside never lose their place.

I like that, too:) I secured a picture of my two favorite relatives in the globe. Again, my gift to myself. I also did some reading about the history of water/snow globes or domes and kept coming across the phrase "under glass" and how things of value were and are often kept under glass and still convey a sense of luxury, value and wealth.

I like that, too.

So there you have it--I managed to insert eight ducks, a song, and a water globe into a post game-post on Chanukah.

Back Here Again!

2011-08-29T04:03:00.001-04:00

Confusing as hell, but I find myself back on this old blog, after having major problems accessing it. To access it, I have to use my alternate AOL email to log on. I have a few new posts on the other blog at www.keliata2.blogspot.com but perhaps I should just stay here, where I began, after all. Here I have my much nicer template and as long as I remember how to access it...I apologize for flipping around so much. This whole computer thing has me confused.

Let's see if this shows up as a new post on my initial Keliata blog. Let's see.

Bella's Beck

2011-08-11T07:29:00.001-04:00

I wish I were Bella from Twiilight but sadly, no. Still, I couldn't help but use the phrase "Bella's Back" for a subject heading. Sadly (LOL) no opportunity for the equally famous Twilight (New Moon) phrase, "Oh. I'm not really into the whole cougar thing."

I guess I've been watching New Moon a little too much. Never thought I'd get attracted to the Twilight Saga as I have, but I've read a few of the books and they're so much more enjoyable than the movies, though the movies are fun. It's hard to believe so many young Harry Potter and Twilight fans are having an Internet battle royale over which is better. They're two completely different genres. Harry Potter is darker, sorcery, fantasy about magick (deliberately spelled with a k). Twilight is another recreation of Romeo and Juliet. The Cullens and Volturi--Capulets.

Wolves--Montegues. Again, it's all a reworking of Romeo and Juliet just as Westside Story and Endless Love were.

Other news--been sick for a couple of weeks and not really reading too much of anything and not writing.

Computer troubles again--I've gotten several pop up notices from Windows that someone else has the exact same IP address that I do. I figured something was up when I had to wipe out virtually my entire hard drive that there might be something more malicious than that going on. The guy downstairs from me, a convicted felon, loser, loner, but somewhat computer savvy has a Time Warner cable access witha router. I have Cricket, which is wireless. Maybe that could have made it easier for him to hack into my computer.

I've noticed that at least one email I've saved on my alternate AOL email account has been deleted. I saved it because it was documentation of my conversation with the NYS Racing and Wagering Board, which busted this guy's little illegal gambling racket.

Then I noticed that I could no longer access that email at all. Everytime I started to type in my password another password would appear. Someone had changed my password to access my email and I can't access it at all.

What worries me are other allegations about this sicko and his stuff online. With the same IP address his sick stuff could potentially be traced to my computer. I'm definitely going to the computers crimes division over this.

NOTE: If you get an email from me with my first initial, last name and two numbers it's actually from me. That is my primary email. If I haven't responded to any emails, well, AOL is causing problems accessing them and sending them out hours or days later. Hate AOL.

Finally...Tisha b'Av...........................who can even write a post about that? Close your eyes and imagine pain, anguish, remorse, guilt, suffering,supplication, prostration, tshuva.

Unique Experience

2011-07-24T20:33:00.002-04:00

This certainly has been an interesting few months. First, I get the word out that a city councilman is anti-Semitic. That, in turn, led to hostility between me and my boss (which had resolved after the councilman lost the election. He was running for NYS Assemblyman in my district.) What shocked me was my boss saying "This better not reach Bloomberg or Schumer. I'm pretty sure it did, since I had been in contact with the incumbant assemblyman and had contacted several news outlets. This isn't something I would normally do, but in this case it was the right choice.

Nevertheless, it was kind of interesting that a reporter at a 17,000 circulation newspaper could have anything that could reach Michael Bloomberg or Charles Schumer (who BTW is now a friend on my Facebook page, I didn't add him but there he is.)

Now this--An eighty-year old woman in my apartment, who is gay, had been facing harassment and abuse. Without going into details, I contacted a very prominent gay rights activist. Interestingly, I met with her and the elderly woman in my aparment building literally hours before the NYS Senate voted on marriage equality. What I found interesting was the flurry of emails she received--40 I believe--on her cell phone before the vote. It seems another gay rights organization was planning a protest at Mark Grisanti's house. His wife was scared. Fearing that this could sabotage Grisanti's vote. Quick action was needed to squelch this so Grisanti wouldn't vote against the marriage equality act.

Another tenant later told me that it was amazing that this activist was here just hours before the vote. they didn't want to rock Grisanti's vote and the protest was canceled.

I don't really care about this issue, but it was interesting to see last minute efforts to see a key bill in New York State passed into law.

Rebulican Grisanti will no doubt face opposition from his fellow Rebulicans, but I'm certain he'll get the support of Democrats.

Unique experiences for me but I'd still rather sit on the sidelines. I hate politics, don't understand them and never will. I have no doubt I could run for the common council, and some have suggest I could win based on name recognition in the area. Screw it. I might get elected but I know absolutely little about government and woefully ignorant of history. What can I say? I didn't major in history or political science in college. Interestingly, a college professor did tell me that people interested in journalism should minor in history.

Tnu Ligdol Besheket

2011-07-24T14:04:00.001-04:00

I was hestiant to post this since a very brief comment on an Israeli blog on child abuse was deleted. It was in direct response to another comment regarding child abuse in Jerusalem. This IS NOT to tarnish the Jewish community, Israel, or any religion. Child abuse crosses all locations and religious groups. NO community is immune to it, sadly.

I just find it ironic that people would be more concerned with image than with protecting children. Really, if even the worst of the worst prison inmates beat the crap out of child killers can't decent people at least try to prevent kids from sex offenders? Reconize the threats, even if they happen in a deeply religious community?

Next month marks the 26th anniversary of my nextdoor neighbor's nine-year old daughter who was stabbed repeatedly, and sodomized. Due to a police blunder he will be eligible for parole in New York State in 2012. I have been following his release date, including earliest release date on the NYS Corrections inmate look-up for a few years now. I was shocked to learn that Israel doesn't have a Sex Offender Registry.

I recently checked to see how many sex offenders live in in the same ZIP code as Levi Aron, accused killer of eight-year old Leiby Kletzky. Granted, this was difficult since NYC had too many street names that are numbers, with east, west etc. and then the actual house number. But assuming I got the correct ZIP code, there are several, including some involving children as young as seven. If anyone can find the exact ZIP, just go the New York State Sex Offender Registry and type the ZIP code in. You'll find the sex offender's information, picture, and exact address.

While Leiby Kletzky was not, according to most media accounts, sexually abused, many child killer's do. I read this article from the Jerusalem Post, which was published earlier this year. I was shocked to learn that Israel does not have a Sex Offender Registry. More in another post on Tnu Ligdol Besheket.

Leiby Kletzky Memorial Fund

2011-07-24T12:46:00.002-04:00

Here is a link to the Leiby Kletzky Memorial Fund. In the first day alone they received over $90,000 in donations. It is now over $180,000. Their goal is $1 million. Please donate.

http://www.give2gether.com/projects/help-support-leiby-kletzky/

Less Beck, More Beatles

2011-07-24T12:24:00.001-04:00

Forget all the rhetoric from Glenn Beck and his ilk Christian Zionists and their proclamations of "love" for Jews in general and Israeli Jews in particular. Suffice to say, I don't find anything loving coming from a man who compared Reform rabbis and Reform Judaism to "radicalized Islam. Let's forget the pounding Moshe Feiglin has taken for a very thoughtful op-ed on Israel National News. Forget all of the "Christians are the only friend Israel has."

I say, more Beatles, Less Beck! Next month, go to You Tube and check out the videos of Paul McCartney's Tel Aviv concert in 2008. The crowd reaction in the Hello/Goodbye video is simply amazing. I have never seen anything like that at a concert in my life! In another video, Paul says a simple "toda Tel Aviv toda." At the end of the video, an Israeli faan says a simple "toda raba."

That concert is more meaningul and sincere than anything that will be said at Beck's rally (which had, B'H been moved from the Temple Mount). Let's not forget that Hamas threatened McCartney, threatened him with suicide bombers.

He came anyway.

BTW, I haven't posted in days due to blogger problems and Google not accepting either of my two emails to log in.

Pay for Praise

2011-07-13T17:36:00.001-04:00

.
I've heard about it before, but pay for praise really does exist in journalism. I'm not talking about a politician granting interviews in exchange for a little extra coverage. Nope. Literally paying a reporting (more likely the publication) to write positively about the politician in exchange for political ad.

Monday I did a story about a multi-generational eyesore. The judge sentenced the owner to 45-days in jail and a $4,500. When she failed to appear in court he issued an arrest warrant. Simple enough story. Go to the problem property to show what horrible condition it was in. Interview the judge, climb up raiload tracks for a different shot. Back to the entrance to interview the judge. Again, routine stuff.

Just as the interview was about to end..."You know this is an election year? I'll be putting in two ads towards the end..."

Pay for praise! I literally felt dirty, and not just from being on the railroad tracks. This was a neutral story that reflected positively on the judge. Why did he think for a second that the coverage would make him look bad? Or were his ads brought up for another reason? In my columns I not just include arrest information. I've started to periodically report what judges do when a defendant is first brought before him. Which judges releases some arrested for crack cocaine on his own recognizance? It's something readers want to know (and as voters have a right to know), and others like the public to know that it's "not just the cops."

Still...all of this I'll give you money for ads in exchance for positive coverage and a reducation of bad coverage reasks to high heaven. But in fairness, I really don't have a choice. I don't do the editing, don't own the paper and am not in a position to change things.

Status update--gaining even more speed wi

Picking Up Computer Speed

2011-07-10T10:30:00.000-04:00

My computer is running infinitely faster than it did last week. Much faster. It probably has to do with Microsoft installing so many updates since my computer is basically out of the box, same condition as when I bought it a year ago. That's really good new for me.

I still can't down load AOL desktop (my browser since I first got a computer), but I still have AOL. No need to go through the bother of changing that. Plus, I was able to Bookmark Blogger in Draft, which is goo.

Now to brief and totally random thought--I read that a NYC councilman wants to end perp walks. Here we go again. The same excuses as ever--the defendant is innocent unless proven guilty, perp walks invade their privacy, perp walks are demeaning, and unnecessary. Just to clarify a little. I have no problem whatsoever with perp walks. Perp walks aren't the same as posing defendants, as if they were the catch of a fisherman's day. The majority of police departments forbid posing with criminals, because that can really become demeaning if taken to extremes.

If people worry about criminal defendants and their privacy, where do we drawn the line on how much privacy they are entitled to? Cover the windows/bars of their cells? And it's not as if court proceedings aren't open to the public. Some complain perp walks could bias a jury if potential jurors and witlessness see what a the defendants looks like before the trail. The majority of cops are aware of this and simply put a paper bag over the person's face. It's as simple as that.

This on again/off again debate over perp walks typically occurs after some high profile person is arrested.

2011-07-06T13:40:00.001-04:00

I recently brought out my Canadian ancestor's Declaration of Intention to become an American citizen. I've done this for a few years now, always on the Fourth of July. It remains as confusing as ever.

"It is my bona fide intention to renounce forever all alllegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignity, and particularly to George V of Great Britian and Ireland, of whom I am now I subject..."

Impressions--impressed at the committment to renounce every country and leader. Sadness at the phrase, "Of whom I am now a subject." It sounds so pitiful, no desperate and pleading, waiting for rescue. Come and save me. All the while it was the ancestor who saved himself by leaving Canada by boat for the very short trip to the US. I also looked up George V. First thought--he didn't resemble a Brit at all, more like the Czar of Russia. Sure enough..

Back to the Declaration of Intention--"I am not an Anarchist." Try as I might, the political beliefs of Anarchists is incredibly complex, too far over my head to have even an inkling as to what it was all about, but apparently a big threat to America in the early 1900s.

Finally, "and it is my intention in good faith to become a citizen of the United States of America and to permanently reside therein; SO HELP ME GOD." Yes, that last part is capatilized for some reason, a strong affirmation of his intentions in the name of a generalized god.

Side bar--The red stamp at the bottom is imprinted with Lady Justice--blindfoldned, scales of justice in one hand, and a sword in the other. Strangely, I never noticed the sword before as many times as I've seen it on statues. Justice is blind. Very admoralble indeed. So why the sword? Perhaps this desire for justice to be blind and balanced needs to be constantly protected and defended.

Wikipedia's explanation:

Depiction: The personification of justice balancing the scales of truth and fairness dates back to the Goddess Maat, and later Isis, of ancient Egypt. The Hellenic deities Themis and Dike were later godesses of justice. Themis was the embodiment of divine order, law, and custom, in her aspect as the personification of the divine rightness of law. However, a more direct connection is to Themis' daughter Dike, who was portrayed carrying scales

"If some god had been holding level the balance of Dike" is a surviving fragment of Bacchylides's poetry. Ancient Rome adopted the image of a female goddess of justice, which it called Justitia. Since Roman times, Justitia has frequently been depicted carrying scales and a sword, and wearing a blindfold. Her modern iconography frequently adorns courthouses and courtrooms, and conflates the attributes of several goddesses who embodied Right Rule for Greeks and Romans, blending Roman blindfolded Fortuna (fate) with Hellenistic Greek Tyche (luck), and sword-carrying Nemesis (vengeance).

Justitia is most often depicted with a set of scales typically suspended from her left hand, upon which she measures the strengths of a case's support and opposition. She is also often seen carrying a double-edged sword in her right hand, symbolizing the power of Reason and Justice, which may be wielded either for or against any party.

Sheesh! What were all these immigrants actually signing and what's with the fear of Anarchy, George V, and possibly Russia???

Major Computer Virus

2011-07-06T12:27:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted for a few days because my computer was either infected with a major virus or decided to go all Anarchist on it. I'd been having trouble with it for a few days. I couldn't click Microsoft Essentials Security open, or delete and reinstall it, so I had virtually no protection. I tried system restore to turn back the clock all to no avail. System Restore was blocked with a red circle and X. Finally, the screen went black. I kept getting a message about prompt initiated interactive something or other not working due to an error and to consult the event log. Yet, the cursor was frozen so I couldn't click on anything.

Brainiac that I am, I just kept turning the computer on and off. Not logging off, just clicking the button to shut the whole thing down. Next, I kept getting the black screen and prompts to start the computer in safe mode. No use. Safe mode with networking. Nope. Safe mode with command prompts. Nothing. Finally, a notice that my computer would not start (duh) and I should run repair launch and that popped up. The repair launch wouldn't work. Again, it didn't work. I tried several of the "advanced" recovery methods. Nothing worked so at this point I tried the very last resort--wipe out my entire hard drive with the exception of one part (no idea which part that was). The hard drive would be wiped and re-written. This choice came with a black screen and an orange warning in large letter WARNING!

Long story short, with a couple of essentials my computer is in the same condition as it was when first shipped from Toshiba to Best Buy. B'H Windows 7 was still on the computer, and accepted my Cricket broadband. That's where I am now. Things are okay but now my computer is incredibly slow. Slower even than dial up, and that's really slow. How slow? I tried to download AOL Desktop and it would take 14 hours to install.

And now there's a conflict with the recently reinstalled iTunes and my iPod. A conflict between the computer recognizing the iPod as a new device and my previous iTunes library.

Still...I am grateful that when my hard rive was rewritten Windows 7 was still on it, and the computer recognized the the Cricket USB and ability to go online.

If you find it impossible to open or uninstall your security software and system restore won't work at all---you've got something pretty serious going on.

Scary stuff having to erase your hard rive and hope Windows will still be on it, and it recognizes the stuff to go line. But when all else fails...that's what you need to do. That's one hell of a virus to disable my security software and system repair, to disable all but the most serious method to get your computer to work again. To bring to out of box status.

First the security goes. Then the ability to restore and return to the past. Those where hit first.

Now hopefully with time my computer will speed up to broadband again.

LOL though. As the computer was being reconfigured and shutting on and off I kept getting message to keep my hands off the keyboard and mouse pad. You better believe I complied! YES SIR!

Fourth of July

2011-07-03T21:45:00.002-04:00

"According to fellow Chicago member Walter Parazaider, Lamm was inspired to write the song during the recording of V in New York City on July 4, 1971:

"Robert came back to the hotel from Central Park very excited after seeing the steel drum players, singers, dancers, and jugglers. I said, 'Man, it's time to put music to this!'"

The song is played at Wrigley Field during Chicago Cubs home games on Saturday afternoons, and at Yankee Stadium before New York Yankees home games.

There is indeed something unique about Saturday in the Park, aside from Robert Lamm's excitement about Central Park on the Fourth of July.

Consider the lyrics:

Saturday in the park
I think it was the Fourth of July
Saturday in the park
I think it was the Fourth of July

People dancing people laughing
A man selling ice-cream
Singing Italian songs

([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_in_the_Park_(song) Fake Italian lyrics])
Can you dig it, yes I can
And I've been waiting such a long time
For Saturday

Another day in the park
I think it was the Fourth of July
Another day in the park
I think it was the Fourth of July

People talkin' really smiling
A man playin' guitar
And singing for us all

Will you help him change the world
Can you dig it, yes I can
And I've been waiting such a long time
For today

Slow motion riders fly the colors of the day
A prose man still can tell stories his own way
Listen children all is not lost, all is not lost, oh no, no,

Funny days in the park,
Every day's the Fourth of July
Funny days in the park,

Every day's the Fourth of July
People reaching, people touching,
A real celebration
Waiting for us all,
If we want it, really want it
Can you dig it (yes, I can),
And I've been waiting such a long time
For the day

Consider the lyrics--Saturday in the park. Saturday...Shabbat, rest, peace, joy. A real celebration. Sounds like a messianic era. Playing Italian song...the line is supposedly improvised. I have another interpretation: Controversy over whether Christopher Columbus discovered American; or the Italian influence on the US largely forgotten that it all sounds like gibberish. Still, these "fake" Italian lyrics aren't entirely fake. Ecco (sp) means here or behold. Vare refers to a staff of justice; Iseh, apparently a common adjective in foreign languages. Nate (pronounced Nahtay).

Obviously this song has meaning to both Chicago and New York City. It has meaning in Buffalo, too. The Friendship Festival, a joint celebration of Canada Day and the Fourth of July. US/Canadian border is the largest relatively unprotected border in the US, if not the world.

Fly the colors of the day...Canadian maple leaf. The US stars and stripes. BTW, the lyric about a bronze man does not refer to a Bronx man, the author said it meant a bronze man, which could refer to bronze statues, military or other famous people. In the lyrics above it says a prose man, which could also make sense. Though again, Lamm has said it refers it refers to a bronze man.

In any event, I made a video slide show of the Friendship Festival today. I was disappointed that the dissolves from picture to picture on You Tube . No problems when I saved it to my computer, so I am a little disappointed. Still, I did enjoy going to the park this afternoon.

Final thoughts--Fourth of July--FREEDOM!

A belated Happy Canada Day! An early Happy Fourth of July!

And for those in NYC, it must be amazing to celebrate the Fourth of July there!

What's In a Name?

2011-06-26T20:27:00.002-04:00

I was surprised when a friend said that she liked my last name, and why:) Something it is a strange surname, others feel it is made up, but it is indeed my family name and I am proud of it and its history. Oh, and for those wondering, the DNA confirmed what I and others have thought all along:) I am delighted! It's true. It's really true.

My View of Yerushalayim

2011-06-26T19:58:00.000-04:00

Oh, how I long to visit. If even for an hour:( Sigh. But every since I read a quote from the Talmud saying that only pink roses will be allowed to bloom in Yerushalayim, I see Yerushalayim in every pink rose. Interesting that none of the online quotes about Yerushalayim and pink roses cite the exact source. What is written in the Talmud is so truthful about everything that when it comes to Yerushalayim and pink roses, nobody questions it.

My vision of Yerushalayim:

Until I visit there, I will see Yerushalayim in every pink rose. Pink roses...something I can relate to, as my yard on the old Wests Side was filled with wild pink roses. Wild? Because nobody knew who planted them yet every year there they were.

So with every pink rose, I remember Yerushalayim, and this image comes to mind--My real pink rose superimposed on the holy city I will one day merit seeing in her glory.

I posted this a few days ago, but deleted it, thinking others would find my comments silly, but, they are indeed heartfelt and true.

IN MEMORY OF THE FOGEL FAMILY - HATIKVA

2011-06-17T11:28:00.000-04:00

This tragic version of HaTikvah.

Truman: Pro-Israel AND Pro-Jewish?

2011-06-17T11:27:00.002-04:00

I was working on a video slide show and found this document signed by Harry Truman. Note where he crosses out certain words and revises them.

Any significance that he crossed out "the new Jewish state" and replaced it with "state of Israel" ? I'm probably reading too much into it, but there seems something odd about replacing new Jewish state with state of Israel.

State of Israel...sounds as if the state of Israel has little to do with Jews. Again, I am reading too much into it. Apparently Truman was quite pro-Israel, but I don't know if he was pro-Jewish.

Harry Truman, My Flawed Hero
By Abraham H. Foxman
National Director of the Anti-Defamation League
This article originally appeared in the Forward on July 18, 2003

Okay, the Richard Nixon tapes were one thing. But Harry Truman? A heroic president to Jewish people, with institutes and forests in Israel named after him - and now we learn from the recently discovered Truman diaries of 1947 that he, too, was capable of the most sordid anti-Semitic attitudes.

"The Jews, I find are very, very selfish," he wrote. "When they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the underdog."

What gives?

First, Truman's comments remind us how strong anti-Semitic attitudes were in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. America, for reasons of history, of constitutionalism, of diversity, was never a place of pogroms or other violence against Jews the way Europe was.

But prejudice toward and stereotypes about Jews were pervasive. Seventeen years after Truman's diary was written, the ADL found that 29% of Americans had anti-Semitic attitudes, including views of Jews as dishonest in business, as caring only about themselves, as not loyal to America, as having too much power.

Remember that during the late 1930s, "Radio Priest" Father Charles Coughlin was heard by millions of Americans every Sunday night articulating the vilest attacks toward Jews. And in 1940 and 1941, when America was deciding whether to join the allies in the war against Germany and Japan, Charles Lindbergh created the America First movement, which drew the support of many millions of Americans. A major tenet of America First was the belief that it was the Jews who sought to bring about American intervention for their own selfish interests and against the interests of the American people.

Keep in mind that educational programs to encourage tolerance were not a hallmark of America in those days, as they are today. Children who were taught prejudice at home or in church had fewer opportunities to unlearn their prejudices.

Of course, the most significant perspective in which to place Truman's views is the historical impact of his presidency on the Jewish people. In that regard, whatever his cultural views of Jews, his contribution to Jewish history is unique and everlasting.

His decision to support the creation of the State of Israel despite the opposition of such powerful figures as George Marshall makes the diary comments pale in significance. Why Truman stood up for Israel at that critical moment has long been debated by historians. Seeking Jewish votes in 1948? His friendship with Eddie Jacobson? Biblical beliefs about Israel? Feelings for the Jewish people's suffering? In the end, the decision speaks for itself.

Recognizing that the revelations in Truman's diaries reflect the resiliency of the anti-Semitic virus, are there lessons for us in the 21st century?

For one, it reminds us to avoid complacency about anti-Semitism. Even in America, the place for a different kind of life for Jews, anti-Semitism has resilience in quarters where one might not expect it - Harry Truman, a highly respected progressive national leader; Billy Graham, the most prestigious religious figure in the country. Even as discrimination against Jews disappears, as attitudes improve, as Jewish security is strong, what people think and feel and say in the privacy of their homes or boardrooms is still uncertain. America the exception is also still America the product of a 2,000-year Western tradition of anti-Semitism.

Secondly, Truman's diaries reveal once again the irrational character of anti-Semitism. It has often been noted that Jews are often accused of being contradictory things: Communists and capitalists, too powerful and too weak.

The 33rd American president writes of how "very, very selfish" Jews are and how brutal they are when in power. This, only two years after the Holocaust, when the Jews of Europe were destroyed; when more than one-third of world Jewry was wiped out; when the world, including the United States, largely stood by in the face of the Nazi inhumanity toward Jews, when Jews themselves failed to do enough to try to save their brethren in Europe.

Jews were at a low point in their history in 1947. That didn't seem to stop Truman from attributing classic stereotypes about Jews.

The diaries, along with the Nixon tapes, also speak to the variability of anti-Jewishness. Those two presidents were capable of standing up for Israel at critical times, even while sharing many of society's worst stereotypes abut Jews. Today, things are turned on their heads: Denials of anti-Semitism abound while one-sided criticism of Israel is rife and acceptable. Anti-Semitism is not only the largest hatred, it is the most elastic.

I am a Holocaust survivor, a displaced person, and in 1947 I was a stateless 7-year-old waiting to be received by some country other than Poland, Lithuania, Germany or Austria. Harry Truman was my hero, and in 1950, when as displaced persons my parents and I came to the United States, we believed it was the president himself who made it possible. It personally saddens me to learn that he too was so flawed.

Truman was a product of his time and of a civilization's attitudes. The anti-Semitism revealed in his diaries is a stain on his reputation.

Still, he remains a hero of Israel."

True enough I suppose, but why did he cross out Jewish state and replace it with state of Israel? Something bothers me about that. Is it honorable to support the state of Israel and express such contempt for Jews? That seems like a variant of the feelings a lot of anti-Semitic people express, such as, "I support the Jewish people, but I 'm against Zionism.

Truman's support of Israel and feelings expressed about Jews is contradictory. At the end of the day, was it more important that he support the State of Israel but not recognize it as a Jewish state?

Sigh. The Jewish state is becoming the State of Israel with little to do with Jews. And Arabs fighting for the right of return? Messianic Jews/Christians arguing for Israeli citizenship? Who knows? And is it important? How long can the State of Israel remain a Jewish state?

Another sigh, and can of worms---

I know there are some Jews who refuse to stand or sing HaTikvah because it doesn't mention Hashem. I have and will stand during it. But as someone once told me, HaTikvah is a sad song. I thought that odd, but thinking about it now, I can sort of see where she was coming from.

This is what I find perplexing, and yes, sad:

Hatikva bat sh'not alpayim,
Lihyot am chofshi be'artzenu
Eretz Tziyon virushalayim.

Our hope is not yet lost,
The hope of two thousand years,
To be a free people in our land
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.

I have to disagree with those who claim it doesn't mention Hashem, but in mentioning Jewish soul and land. A rabbi told me that one of the many things that strikes him is that the word bat is used

The national anthem definitely refers to the Jewish people, to be a free people in our land.

Land...Eretz...

Or state?

Obama and Revenge the the ATM

2011-06-17T08:04:00.001-04:00

And again, I feel justified in calling president Barack Obama a college educated idiot.

First he tells the American public that there are 57 states in the US. Then he says he wants to be president for four to ten years to accomplish his goals. But this comment really steals show! He's blamed the country's fiscal problems on ATM machines. We use ATM machines instead of going to a bank and making transactions there. So now it's the fault of the ATM machines. Talk about passing the buck, blaming innocent ATM machines.

Fox News reports:

"Merciless mocking from Republicans hasn't put President Obama off his focus on the economy, as the White House insisted Thursday that the president is taking "enormously seriously" the hardships Americans are enduring.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/06/16/revenge-machines-obama-mocked-for-blaming-slow-recovery-on-atms/#ixzz1PX8FXvE5

Earlier in the week, at a jobs council meeting, the president was called out for saying that "shovel-ready projects' weren't quite as shovel-ready as he thought. Then later, in an interview with NBC News, Obama suggested that innovation and technology -- like job-stealing ATMs -- were reasons why the employment rate was not rebounding as quickly as he had hoped.

"There's some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers," Obama said after being asked about a report that shows businesses were spending 2 percent more on employees since the recession officially ended, but 26 percent more on equipment .

"You see it when you go to a bank and ... you use an ATM, you don't go to a bank teller. Or you go to the airport, and you're using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate," the president said.

Republicans, who are ratcheting up pressure on Democrats this week by highlighting the first anniversary of what was once dubbed "recovery summer," roasted the president for the comment.

"I didn't do it," read a "guest blog" posted on House Speaker John Boehner's site. The blog was signed by "the Automated Teller Machine (ATM) in your favorite convenience store near the Slurpee Machine."

In the satirical post, the ATM author blamed high taxes, burdensome regulation and excessive spending for the slow jobs report. "ATMs and airport kiosks (and even teleprompters) are tools that help make life a little easier."

Hear that, Mr. President? Practice what you preach-- give up that evil economy destroying teleprompter. Rage against those ATM machines.

The GOP Takes Its Gloves Off

2011-06-15T03:06:00.223-04:00

The GOP has taken their gloves off, and no longer seem to walk on egg shells when it comes to Islam. Whether they're as disgusted with the kowtowing as the majority of Americans are, or fear their political careers are on the line due to the momentum of the Tea Party isn't clear, but for whatever reason they're taking their gloves off. Unlike John McCain who was criticized for being mean to Obama in one the debates, the debates this time around could be entirely different.

Maybe our politicians are finally getting the drift. At least the Republican ones. In 2008, the media would have had a feeding frenzy over some of the statements made at the recent New Hampshire debates.

Newt Gingrich's comment during the New Hampshire debate, as reported from one media outlet:

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich then intervened with his bid to be the most anti-Islam voice of the night by alluding to both Nazis and communists:

"I just want to comment for a second. The Pakistani who emigrated to the U.S. became a citizen, built a car bomb which luckily failed to go off in Times Square was asked by the federal judge, how could he have done that when he signed -- when he swore an oath to the United States. And he looked at the judge and said, "You're my enemy. I lied."

"Now, I just want to go out on a limb here. I'm in favor of saying to people, if you're not prepared to be loyal to the United States, you will not serve in my administration, period.

(APPLAUSE)

We did this -- we did this in dealing with the Nazis and we did this in dealing with the communists. And it was controversial both times, and both times we discovered after a while, you know, there are some genuinely bad people who would like to infiltrate our country. And we have got to have the guts to stand up and say no."

Then there's this more direct excerpt from the debate:

Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain addressed his recent comments that he would not be comfortable appointing a Muslim to his administration:

"I would not be comfortable because you have peaceful Muslims and then you have militant Muslims, those that are trying to kill us. And so, when I said I wouldn't be comfortable, I was thinking about the ones that are trying to kill us, number one."

Former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney followed up on Cain's remarks when asked whether certain segments of the American population should be treated differently based on religion:

"First of all, of course, we're not going to have Sharia law applied in U.S. courts. That's never going to happen. We have a Constitution and we follow the law."

"No, I think we recognize that the people of all faiths are welcome in this country. Our nation was founded on a principal of religious tolerance. That's in fact why some of the early patriots came to this country and we treat people with respect regardless of their religious persuasion.

"Obviously, anybody who would come into my administration would be someone who I knew, who I was comfortable with, and who I believed would honor as their highest oath -- their oath to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States."

That one sentence speaks volumes about how many Americans feel about Obama. They view him as a stranger. Not all strangers--immigrants--to the country want to destroy it, but there are those who do. That could explain why Obama makes many people nervous. They view him as a stranger, not one of us. If we we were talking about religion it would be the difference between a ger and...whatever the opposite of that is, a stranger who does not want to be one of us.

It doesn't seem to matter whether he was born here or not.

Jerusalem Syndrome? Huh?

2011-06-12T12:59:00.033-04:00

I thought someone was pulling my leg when he mentioned Jerusalem Syndrome. But lo and behold it is real. Sounds like a brief reactive psychosis among tourists (larges protestant evangelicals). They get intoxicated or entranced by the holy city and become obsessed with cleanliness, wearing white, and singing or reciting psalms or other passages quite loudly. While some have preexisting mental illness, in Jerusalem Syndrome the psychotic behavior is unique to their trips to..

Israel; the symptoms typically abate once they leave the city or they can treated with low-dose anti-psychotic medications.

Here's one excerpt on the condition:

Jerusalem Syndrome Treatments

When people exhibit signs of Jerusalem Syndrome, authorities know to bring them to Kfar Shaul, a psychiatric hospital. Doctors don't tell "King David" that he isn't King David -- it doesn't help to invalidate the patient's notion of himself and his mission. Doctors sometimes give patients mild antipsychotic medications or tranquilizers.

The best way to help, say the doctors at Kfar Shaul, is to get the patients out of the city and to their families. Once the people are out of Jerusalem and around their families and people who know them, they return to normal. They walk right back into their lives, and not a trace of mental illness seems to follow them. The whole process of Jerusalem Syndrome, from start to finish, takes from five to seven days. It's as if it never happened.

Many people who get Jerusalem Syndrome don't get treated at all. In a year, maybe 100 strangely behaving tourists are referred to Kfar Shaul, but only 40 or so are deemed in need of admission.

Because of people like David Koresh and Michael Rohan -- a Christian tourist said to have Jerusalem Syndrome who tried to burn down the al-Aksa Mosque -- Israeli authorities take Jerusalem Syndrome seriously. Before the year 2000 hit, Israeli doctors and authorities and even the FBI were worried about millennial violence that might take place in Jerusalem. They feared that apocalyptic cults and dangerous charismatic leaders would commit terrorist acts in an attempt to bring about Armageddon -- and take impressionable tourists along for the ride. Fortunately, there was no rise in people admitted to Kfar Shaul for Jerusalem Syndrome.

Well now I've seen everything.

Passenger List for US Boat to Gaza

2011-06-05T15:01:00.047-04:00

Ah, no surprises here. One passenger is from the International Solidarity Movement; another from CODEPINK; another from Olympia, Washington (Rachel Corrie Land); and even author Alice Walker (The Color Purple). A Holocaust survivor is listed as one of the passenger.

For a more comprehensive list and short biography of the passenger go to:

http://ustogaza.org/passengers-on-the-audacity-of-hope/

Just a few thoughts--The passengers are probably paying a small fortune for the right to go on this trip.I certainly hope the IDF scrutinizes the list. The ISM and CODEPINK aren't exactly concerned about peace. But this story of the Holocaust survivor is heartbreaking:

Hedy Epstein was born in Germany in 1924. She was 8 years old when Hitler came to power in 1933. In 1939, she left on a Kindertransport (children’s transport) for England. Her parents and other family members perished during the Holocaust. After World War II she returned to Germany and worked as a research analyst at the Nuremberg trial of the Nazi doctors who performed medical experiments on concentration camp inmates.

Epstein came to the U.S. in 1948, and quickly became involved in civil rights, human rights and peace related issues, both professionally and in her personal life. In 1989, she visited Guatemala, Nicaragua and Cambodia as a peace delegate. Since 2003, she has visited the Israeli occupied West Bank five times, and has made four attempts to visit Gaza by land and sea. She has written and traveled extensively in the U.S. and Europe to speak about social justice issues, with an emphasis on the Israel/Palestine issue. In 1999, her autobiography – “Erinnern ist nicht genug” (Remembering is Not Enough) was published in German, in Germany.

Epstein will be on the U.S. Boat to Gaza, part of Flotilla 2, her fifth attempt to reach Gaza.

I agree with her on one issues: Remembering is NOT enough. You can't remember the past and ignore the here and now reality. The Palestinians are not fighting for statehood. They want to destroy Israel and Jews. And if you listen to the uncensored communication the Israeli Navy had with the Mavi Marmara, the person on the ship tells the Israeli Navy to "Go back to Auschwitz."

Montrous Mantraps...

2011-06-02T09:59:00.074-04:00

Not to beat an issue to death, but after the last couple of posts about Get Smart I couldn't help but see if any of the actual episodes were on You Tube. Indeed there are, much to my delight. One episode, which I cited previously involved a contractor named Frank Lloyd Joshua , head of Jericho Construction, whose buildings were blowing up. In the episode, Control agents learn that the building explosions are a result of a collaboration between the construction company, and an explosives manufacturer.

''Incongruous mantrap of monstrous dimensions!'' he wrote. ''Enormity devouring manhood, confusing personality by frustration of individuality? Is this not Anti-Christ." Wright saw high-rises as a necessary evil. To preserve the land it was necessary to cram people into high rises building. But make no mistake about it, he hated the them.

Anyway, this episode had nothing to do with September 11, aside from the coincidence of the episode airing in 1968, the same year construction began on the World Trade Center. Yeah. The contractors of the World Trade Center and government watched Get Smart and hatched an evil plot to destroy the buildings...three decades later.

Ironically, one of the high-rises Wright designed was supposed to have a television antenna on top of it which would reach the world. I'm sure the 9/11 conspiracy theorists would find significance in that. Really, 9/11 paranoia based an episode of a comedy??? LOL.

A little more about Frank Lloyd Wright and skycrapers:

"He was talking about other people's work, of course. In his own, the man known for his ground-hugging prairie houses (and his habit of matching ceiling heights to his own diminutive stature) worked through a series of revolutionary ideas for the construction of tall buildings. Only two were built (one in Racine, Wis., and one in Bartlesville, Okla.) and they weren't all that tall. But that never stopped Wright from claiming that, on paper, he had solved all of the nagging structural problems -- and not a few of the social ones -- associated with skyscrapers.

''Frank Lloyd Wright: The Vertical Dimension,'' a show at the Skyscraper Museum in Manhattan, is the first to examine this conflicted aspect of the master's work. Wright often claimed that to preserve open land, building tall was a necessary evil. And how better to preserve the land than to pack a city of 100,000 into a single mile-high tower? Wright presented that idea in Chicago in 1956, standing before a 26-foot-tall, 6-foot-wide drawing of a building called the Illinois.

The origins of the tower are in dispute. One historian says it evolved from a request to design a television antenna; another claims that a client asked for a half-mile-high tower and Wright answered, ''the hell with that.'' But on one count everyone agrees: it was the single most grandiose gesture in Wright's grandiose seven-decade career. He claimed that the transmitter at the top of the tower would reach every television set in the nation. And you just know he wanted to be a part of that broadcast.

SKY BOX -- The highest habitable floor was to top out at 5,280 feet. Wright proposed atomicpowered elevators for travel within the structure.; CORE -- Like many of Wright's towers, the structure is conceived to resemble a tree. All of the floors hang off of a central ''trunk,'' here made of reinforced concrete.; MULTI-USE -- The total rentable area of the tower was to be six million square feet, comprising residences, shops, offices and space for concert halls seating 70,000.; SCALE -- As a reminder of his place in history -- and for scale -- Wright sketched in the Pyramid of Cheops, the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building. His tower is much bigger.; FOUNDATION -- Never content to leave well enough alone, Wright developed a novel structure to underpin his towers, which came to be called a tap root foundation. Wright wrote that it would be ''three times stronger in any disturbance.''; HISTORICISM -- Late in his life, Wright began quietly working historical allusions into his designs. Here, Gothic flying buttresses support the spire.; WONDERS -- Hanging gardens, much higher than those in ancient Babylon, appear on several levels. Wright did not shy away from pronouncing himself the greatest architect who ever lived, nor from taking on the wonders of the world.; INFLUENCE -- When Daniel Libeskind unveiled his plan for a 1,776-foot-tall tower at ground zero, many observers noted a resemblance to the Illinois..."

More fodder for the conspiracy theorists. I think they're funnier and more wacky than Get Smart and the adorable Agent 86 (Max Smart).

Oh, final bit of trivia: the phrase "Sorry, Chief" came from Get Smart.

No more Get Smart related posts!

Picture of Next US President...

2011-05-31T17:43:00.011-04:00

Following up on my original Get Smart/2012 presidential elections post: Here is a picture of what our next president will look like.

Blogger in Draft

2011-05-31T17:13:00.017-04:00

Okay, I'm typing this in Blogger in Draft and keeping my fingers crossed that this solves my Blogger problem.

Not particularly interesting, but I am going to use a color font, larger font, and post a picture of my new electric fireplace. It's crazy--85-degree outside, freezing inside with the air conditioning inside, and watching my electric fireplace (I don't have the heater on, I'm crazy but not that crazy).

Yep. I was able to change font size, color and add a picture! Thank you Daniel!

2012 Elections: All That's Missing is the Shoe Phone

2011-05-29T14:28:00.001-04:00

Oh Dear. It's a little early into the 2012 presidential elections for me to start choosing a theme music for the campaign or individual candidate. This time the theme music can apply to all sides--Republican, Democrats, and just about anything between them.

Oh dear. Watching one of the annoying Sunday morning talk shows made my pick of theme song and concept a no brainer.

Theme music and concept? Get Smart. Not any of remakes or movies based on it. Nope, the original 1960s show created by Mel Brooks. The theme music was ranked #2 of American television theme songs. It's an awesome theme song and title sequence. It's the American CONTROL intelligence agency versus the Romanian KAOS. Book ends in a lot of ways. Each against each other but resembling each other at times, in terms of incompetence.

Arabs are featured in at least a couple of the episodes--Survival of the Fattest. Maxwell Smart has to protect an Arab prince who must remain fat to retain his power.

Since these are Arabs, an Israeli agent is brought in to help CONTROL's agents. Episode The Man from YENTA (working title--he should live and be well). Max, agent 86 and an Israeli agent #498 (Allan Oppenheimer) work to protect an Arab prince...but things go wrong in protecting the Arab prince. Naturally. They always do.

Why CONTROL (and the Israeli version of CONTROL) feels the need to protect Arab princes? No clue.

This is classic Mel Brooks, comedy at its best. The cases CONROL and KAOS are involved in...just plain insane. Another example, Smart Fit Jericho:

"When a CONTROL Agent is killed (made to look like an accident) while undercover, Max is assigned to investigate his death and to find out how a man named Frank Lloyd Joshua is causing high-rise buildings to explode." Frank Lloyd Joshua!

Max is such a bungler. The Chief only keeps him at CONTROL because the alternative, Larrabee, would be worse. Anyone but Larabee! Sooooo....I believe the winner of the 2012 election will be whoever has Max Smart's shoe phone. Democrat or Republican he or she still be only slightly better than Obama.

A lot of people view the 2012 elections as America's saving grace. I'm not so sure. In fact, I think things will only go further downhill.

The winner of the 2012 election is...the guy who inherited Max Smart's shoe phone.

---Edited edition of original post.

One more thing to add about Maxwell Smart--Mel Brook's side he was sick and tired of the typical sitcoms and wanted to make one about an idiot. He sure did with Get Smart. As for the origin of Max's phone obsession? No idea, but while his shoe phone is the most famous, he has had phones hidden in sandwiches, pictures of phones, inside a real phone, and even in his car steering wheel. He claimed that if he made a right turn, the phone dialed the operator.

Shavuot: Outdoors in Doors?

2011-05-26T21:32:00.000-04:00

For some reason I'm wondering why with Shavuot we bring the outdoors inside with Sukkot it's the opposite, going from indoors out.

Yom Yerushalayim...

2011-05-26T14:03:00.000-04:00

I didn't know whether to smile at this intro to an INN story about Jerusalem Day, find it very sad, or ironic:

"The question of how and where Jerusalem will celebrate Jerusalem Day has been settled--with a compromise."

Where else would Jerusalem Day be held but in Jerusalem? Okay, there's more to the story regarding road and routes and stuff, but still, that introduction said a whole lot, when my first reaction was that there was doubt at some point as to whether Jerusalem Day would be held there. Maybe Gaza? Silly as hell I know.

But that was my first impression. Things are scary when satire and real news gets blurred. When the absurd seems absurd.

AIPAC Response to Obama Speech

2011-05-24T22:46:00.000-04:00

I haven't really followed this story, but apparently there is debate as to the response of people to someone against Israel--dead silence, walking out, booing. Apparently, the crowd cheered.

Cheering? Obviously not an option with some as anti-Israel as Obama.

Silence: Giving a person the cold shoulder makes them nervous and uncertain. They'll do anything to figure out why people are upset with him. It would throw him out of kilter. Obama needs to be adored, when he's not it really does throw him off. He's desperate to say something, anything, to understand why he isn't adored anymore.

Walking out--if an entire group walks out it's a good thing. People taking a stand, united against what Obama is saying. If a single person boos or causing a disruption they'll be regarded as a nutcase and quickly removed, as the person who heckled Bibi in his speech before Congress. Effective protests involve people not single individuals in general.

Not Attending--could be perceived as a lack of interest, and Obama would speak before the mutual admiration society. Obama flatters his supporters, they flatter back. Flattery is a sin, I believe. But in responding to the issues of flattery, whether on the giving end or receiving end: I did a search online and found this quote about flattery:

"Talmud says, "A community where flattery prevails will end in exile." WOW, what a quote!!!!!!

There is so much truth in that, especially where Obama and Israel are concerned. Now I'll have to do more online searches (not studying, just looking for the exact words in the Talmud. It seems the Talmud is very precise in wording and definitions. And in today's world it seems critical to know what one is really saying and for that you need to define terms.

Should people be respectful to someone who is evil? Another online, one line search:

"The worst kind of flattery, that is absolutely forbidden by the Torah, is telling someone they're good when they're sinning."

Now, I'll have to search to see the precise definition of flattery versus other things such as respect, an attitude of let's agree to disagree. There's a place for that but not when one group of people (say Hamas) wants the destruction of another people (Israelis).

Off topic again but this excessive flattery of missionary groups in Israel is an example of destructive flattery. This missionary group sent Bibi 100 roses. Excessive and could certainly be perceived as a form inappropriate communication. It would have been different had they sent him a loving single red rose, or perhaps 18 (chai) number of roses. Bibi rejected the roses but then gave in an sent them to a hospital.

I'm sure the missionary group felt they were flattering Bibi but even his government saw it as inappropriate communication. Excessive flattery can be dangerous, regardless of if one is one the receiving or giving end.

Okay, as I continue to write this blog entry I have several searches or whatever it is when you're looking for information and that little circle keeps spinning. So far I only found those verses from the Talmud on flattery. I'm certain there is much more but I wouldn't even know where to begin to look. Oh, Obama in his speech apparently quoted the Talmud. Isn't there always a point and counterpoint among the great sages? Perhaps when it comes to Obama and Israel there should be firm debate. Pin him down on issues.

Going back to flattery: flatterting someone could be the same as lying, which is a sin. But I think those two quotes above pretty much says it all. It would be fascinating to study the Talmud and have all of this great wisdom that could solve so much of the world's problems.

BBC-America's MI-5 Show Slams Israel

2011-05-22T15:48:00.000-04:00

The BBC-America drama MI-5 is fictional and could be considered the polar opposite of the US show "24." I watch MI-5 because there's often little to watch on broadcast over the air television, but last night's episode went way too far in its libel against Jews, particularly Israeli Jews.

MI-5 is a real intelligence/counterintelligence organization similar to our CIA or Israel's Mossad. In a nutshell this episode involved an Israel plot to assassinate a key figure in the United Nation voting recognizing Palestine as a state. Mossad isn't mentioned directly but rather the show alludes to an extremist Israel organization plotting "The November Campaign." The MI-5 agents are trying to stop this, claiming Israel would force Arabs out further out of the West Bank, an act of "ethnic cleansing." Israel expanding (especially in the West Bank) is a great evil in the episode. The Palestinian organization MI-5 seeks to protect is referred to as the Palestinian Freedom Council.

One character says that Israel's greatest victory--Six-Day War--would be its ultimate downfall. I can't recall the reason behind this statement but it does seem very ominous. MI-5 also decodes intelligence information written in Hebrew from the November Campaign such as Nabulus and an attack on the Palestinians. No idea if Nabulus is near the West Bank and I always assumed that Palestinian referred only to Arabs in Gaza, the south. Regardless, the code word Nabulus involves Arabs living there is significant. There's a connection between Israel's "greatest victory and greatest downfall."

Another MI-5 agent is suspect when they learn that his daughter has a Jewish surname. The agent, obviously nervous, explains that her mother was Jewish and had a Jewish surname. The Jewish surname could involve an interfaith couple in which the wife retains her maiden name. Or an interfaith couple that has divorced. Either way, the agent is suspect because his daughter has a Jewish surname.

It didn't seem to matter whether someone was actually Jewish or not. Having a Jewish name was enough for MI-5 to consider the person a counter agent. Which makes no sense at all. My understanding is that with the exception of derivatives of Cohen or Levite a Jewish sounding surname could also be a German name, Spanish name, even an Arab name.

In any event, this episode of MI-5 really went too far, even for the BBC. It's not as if the chief characters--MI-5 agents--want to avoid an explosive situation in the middle east, but threats to Arabs in the West Bank and their planned battle royale against Israel.

Homeland Security, It's All About the River

2011-05-22T00:32:00.000-04:00

The US boarders with Canada are probably the largest in the world. That is why this story is so important.
Homeland Security visits Peace Bridge

Jane Holl Lute got a glimpse of the Peace Bridge

Published : Wednesday, 15 Apr 2009, 6:06 PM EDT

Rich Newberg

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Jane Holl Lute got a glimpse of the Peace Bridge on a good day.

People were detained for secondary questioning without a hitch, and traffic moved smoothly through the plaza. Her mission was simple.

"Ya know, get a feel for how things are going, particularly the smooth operations, and have a chance to chat," said Lute.

But had she had a chance to chat with people who use the bridge on a regular basis, people who are fed up with the congestion and indecision of the government on whether to share border security with Canada, and when a new Peace Bridge will be built, she would have gotten an earful.

"Just that it's been going on forever and ever, forever and ever," explained Mary Dominick, a Peace Bridge traveler.

Another Peace Bridge traveler, Christine Bronson, said, "Buffalo doesn't have any respect, I mean, things get bandied about here for years before anything gets done."

"They're frustrated with the lack of clarity, with the lack of certainty. The federal government has an obligation to the people of this community to communicate with clarity and certainty," said Rep. Brian Higgins, D, South Buffalo.

The issue of where to put the plaza is holding up progress on building a new Peace Bridge...and it is dividing this neighborhood on Columbus Parkway, where homes might be purchased if a new plaza is created on the U.S. side.

Plaza supporter Joanne DiFrancisco said, "I want them to build the plaza. I want it to get through, get it done and over with, because we're hanging by threads here."

Anti-Plaza Resident, Elizabeth Martina, said, "We believe it's the wrong thing for the community. We believe destroying a neighborhood is wrong."

Locating the Peace Bridge Plaza in Fort Erie for cross border management would mean that U.S. Homeland Security would have to alter the way it handles border functions.

"Unless they're prepared to do that, shared border management is really not a likely possibility," said Ron Rienas, Peace Bridge General Manager.

News 4 asked, "Can we get a sense of priority?"

Deputy Secretary Jane Holl Lute responded, "I didn't come to render any decision here. I did come as a first visit to see first hand what the challenges are, hear what the issues are."

Forget about when and whether the new bridge should be a twin span or signature span and deal with whether the plaza should be on the Canadian side.
I frankly don't care if the new bridge is on the US or Canadian side as long as it is secure. Which country will provide the best security? That's what is up in the air.

The Deputy Secretary's visit includes talks with Canadian officials. Congressman Brian Higgins is asking for a final answer on cross boarder security management within thirty days.

(Yeah, right. That's gonna happen in 30 days!) Let's not forget the former head of Homeland Security saying that it's the US priority to protect the bridge, not the area under the bridge. Yep. Terrorists have never heard of rivers and boats being from the middle east you know.)

I think the Buffalo/Fort Erie border is perhaps more important than others.

1. The river crossings below the bridge. I see more US Customs agents at the alternative site, the International Railroad Bridge. The distance between the two isn't all that great. How secure will the area under the bridge be???? In my opinion it would require an extensive amount of boat patrols.

2. Arab immigrants gobbling up blocks of properties in poor neighborhoods for as little as $1 at city autions and the city willing to do anything to get these properties on the tax rolls at any cost, rather than spend the $68K it costs the city to demo many of these houses...

AOL SUCKS

2011-05-21T23:17:00.000-04:00

That's all I have to say. Not only do they regularly log me off saying that I am no longer connected to the Internet, when I am. I recently tried to post a picture on my blog and got a message saying that the URL was not available on this server. Not available on my own server? I assume that means AOL and not Cricket.

Then when AOL logs me off the entire screen freezes and I have to literally unplug the computer to get back on. I doubt it's the computer as it is only one year old.

Facebook and having to block a relative

2011-05-21T22:13:00.000-04:00

It's pretty sad when you have to unfriend an quasi relative (brother's niece/ not a blood relative but for all intents and purposes a "relative" as we must be forced together for virtually every holiday and event) for sending you a message in private that is just too, too personal. I don't know how to hide a private message from Facebook, so I just blocked the woman entirely . I have to see this person again tomorrow though, unfortunately.

Well, I'll just have to visit for a short while, take pictures at the beach and then beat feet. I do hate having to deal with this person's entire family. I shouldn't hate, but they are just so...arrggghh!

I have my 24 hour EEG on Thursday-Friday. Hopefully that will explain the cause of the falls and injuries and memory problems, which are becoming more of a problem. Hopefully just a side effect from a medication.

Otherwise things are well, no falls but some memory problems; confusing. I am still enjoying my apartment and the peace and quiet.

Kiddush Levanah/Bungled Post/Apologies

2011-05-21T14:53:00.003-04:00

I have the feeling that I have offended or angered readers. I don't recall doing anything offensive or which would cause someone to become angry or hurt, but if I did it was most likely a result of the complex partial seizures I have. Look up the symptions and you will understand.

Clarification: In previous post regarding the phrase ata she'ahava nafshi le'olam I have misinterpreted it I apologize. I interpreted it as You whom my soul loves forever. My Hebrew is lousy so I may have gotten that wrong. I apologize for that, too. Regarding my post on Mothers Day, and the halacha of oberving it is a matter of debate in some circles and I don't know which opinion carries more weight, so I don't understand, but I do try to.

Honestly, I do try. I did find the following online- basically it is the same as asking someone if they celebrate Superbowl Sunday. Some do, others don't. There is no halacha on the matter aparently, though I am not certain about celebrating secular holidays, which I thought was wrong.

But regarding the last few posts on the matter which I have removed several times--the choice of music...I tend to hear the instrumental aspects, not so much the lyrics. This is a professionally done DVD though I totally created the video. The company the turns videos into broadcast quality the DVD is correct. The melody stands out and is very emotional.

But this was my mother's favorite song, and listening to the song and watching the professional DVD I had made brought out emotions and questions. Also, one of the first pictures of her was just weeks before her death.

My faith is strong. I can still say and write ata she'ahavah le'olam and believe it 100-percent (assuming I got all the words correctly). I have explained it in more depth under the title along the lines Kiddush Levanah--a reflection. I asked for those commenting to be kind as the video involves my feelings on Hashem and trying to understand, and my deceased mother. And the instrumental aspects that my heart and soul hear more than the lyrics seemed more appropriate.

I am not in any of the pictures as I was taking all of them, with one exception: my brother flying a helicopter over Niagara Falls, with an empty seat next to him. Besides, the pictures in this sequence seem especially beautiful in my opinion. Regarding the pictures of the moon that I took and included.

From My Jewish Learning
Praising God While Experiencing Creation

"What is religion in general about, if not feeling God’s presence while experiencing his creation?"

Some of my family can't view the DVD. It is too painful. Others thought it was beautiful. Regarding the song, I know it is very unusual to use of a DVD of its type, but I would simply love to hear it as an instrumental, not lyrics. Regarding Franz Schubert--his music has always been a favorite of mine. He was a master at every musical form it seemed, except opera. In other words, using words to express emotions.

And this from The Symphony website on Schubert:

"He expanded Classical form immensely, and introduced harmonic innovations that remained unchallenged until well into the late 19th century. But it is the emotional expression of his music that places him firmly in the canon of great composers. He was, in many respects, the first true Romantic."

I can relate to that. Regarding my pictures of the moon, well, the best I have been able to accomplish. Capturing the moon on film has been exceedingly difficult for me. Cheap camera, poor photography skills, forgetting that the moon is a lighted obect and adjust the camera accordingly.

Still, I do understand this:

"To the moon He said that it should renew itself as a crown of splendor for those born (of Him) from the moon, those who are are destined to renew themselves like it, and to glorify their Molder for the name of His glorious kingdom, Blessed are You Hashem, Who renews the months."

I know a lot of this post reflects an insecurity OR a terrible averah of some kind. A small or great averah I can't say either way, regardless, I will end this post with:

Ani Mitza'eret.

Ata She'ahava Nafshi le'Olam

2011-05-20T07:17:00.000-04:00

I don't think people can say and think that enough, so I decided to post it, and a picture of a DVD I made but was remade professionally.

A Beautiful Day/Pre Shavuos Planning

2011-05-18T09:34:00.000-04:00

I don't know why I did it, but it was 6:30 a.m. and pouring rain. So what did I do? Went outside, plucked branches from flowery trees and came inside. I started to think about my Shavuos ice cream and cheesecake party and the decorations and...came up with a little decorating idea.

Pink and green plastic cups transformed into vases. Cheap but festive, and I'm not the most creative person in the world lol. I'll have to modify things a tiny bit since one of the guests is allergic to flowers. I'll keep the real flowers in my apartment, but the artificial (silk or even paper kleenex flowers in different colors) for earlier in the day downstairs.

Here's what the vases will look like:

Of course I would use healthier real flowers and more vibraint silk or paper flowers. Now hopefully by June the weather will be above 45-degrees! BTW, these are the colors I am using for the party--table cloths, plates, utensils etc.

What a Couple of Weeks!

2011-05-16T11:03:00.000-04:00

First the bad: I need another EEG (this time a 24-hour one). I have to walk around for 24-hours with EEG electrodes on my head and my head covered in gauze. What fun! I've had the 24-hour EEG done years ago, but never had to have my head covered in gauze. I don't see why I need another EEG since I had a traditional one last year which was abnormal. But since I have gotten worse, I suppose it's necessary.

Still a pain and I attribute the increase in seizures do to the constant noise and stress from my neighbor. This is the result of it, falling out of bed and bashing my face into the floor. This was bedore it really got swollen, but suffice to say it was quite swollen and one of the cuts was directly on eye lid. I came pretty close to having a major eye injury. It would post more but they're pretty graphic. I had to blur this one, too.

On the plus side--I moved to my new apartment in a quieter section of the building. It's smaller but cozier and I feel much more at home. I still have the air conditioner, quieter neighbors (B'H) and love my new menorah housing warming present I got. It's pewter and from an estate sale. Very pretty, though I don't know how to polish pewter. I'll have to search around a bit in December to find candles large enough to fit in it, though who knows? It might be large enough to use wicks and oil.

I wouldn't mind sitting by a fireplace in the dark tonight. It's cold (45-degrees F) and raining. Honestly! This is ridiculous! But it certainly refutes global warming. Here it is is mid May and I had my heat on 78 this morning. Hopefully by June we'll reach 60 or 70.

Love the ceiling fan that came with the apartment, and most of all, I'll be getting the electric fireplace next week! Not that I'll be using it for the heat, but as a pretty piece of furniture and the ambience.

Here's a little glimpse of my apartment (sans the fireplace):

Of course this is only day two of the move, so I have plenty of other things to add--more pictures and some green plants. I definitely want more green in the apartment. Oh, the little blue friendship bonnet belonged to my mother. I have it hanging above the sofa.

No to drone on about the fireplace but one of the reasons my sister is giving it to me is because my brother teased her so much because it didn't give up much heat. So she spent around $2,000 to get a nice one that gives off heat but raises her electric bill.

Naturally my brother laughs at that too. He's the only one of us with an actual wood burning fireplace. Personally, I don't care for it. I'm more than happy with the small electric fireplace I'm getting.

I know my apartment is nothing spectacular but 1. it's quiet 2. pretty park view and the sounds of sea gulls and geese in the morning.
3.it's quiet
4. better neighbors

4. though I've already gotten some informal house warming presents: the menorah and a new tzedaka box. I guess there's no fixed date for a chanukat habayit but I am looking forward to it.

A mini chanukahish dedication of my little one bedroom apartment..kind of sweet.

hmmm what?

2011-05-08T20:51:00.000-04:00

I received this message, but it wasn't removed by the person who wrote it. The poster was anonymous. FYI if he or she is listening. I don't drink at all. WTF?

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "OSAMA BIN LADEN KILLED!!":

So drunk...

Mmm..

Later

I have no idea what this is about, nor do I care. I've had a seizure (epilepsy) and bashed my face on to the floor again, and I have a swollen right eye. I don't have the time or patience for this. Frankly, if your going to make mean comments your timing is extremely poor. At the very least, include your name.

The injury is right on the lower eye lid. Guess that would have been funny to the anonymous person too. No matter, nobody responds to my blog. I should close it down.

Happy? I thought you'd be. Really, hiding behind a fake name. Real classy!!!!!! NOT. Excuse my language but go fuck off of!

Posted by Anonymous to Keli Ata at Sunday, 08 May, 2011

OSAMA BIN LADEN KILLED!!

2011-05-01T23:06:00.001-04:00

At long last! Justice for 3,000 people!

The Cosmetic Blood Libel

2011-05-01T14:53:00.000-04:00

An editorial on INN by Guilio Meotti:

"The attacks focus on innocuous face creams and body lotions. They are made in a non disputed area of Israel? There is no non-disputed area of Israel.

Music legends, such as Elvis Costello, Santana and Pete Seeger just came out in support of the movement for divestment and boycott of the Jewish State. The Swedish best selling writer Henning Mankell is preventing the Hebrew translation of his books.

South Africa’s University of Johannesburg just voted to sever links with Israel’s Ben Gurion University. It seems like a Nazi fantasy, but these are teachers who have spoken of removing any Israeli presence from academic institutions, as well as any scientific cooperation with Israel.

Today there are many Israeli targets of the growing boycott movement: Teva, Agrexco, Intel, Delta Galil, Better Place and Sabra. But nothing is attracting this high tech antisemithic demonization more than Ahava, the famous Israeli cosmetics company.

The Ahava shop in Covent Garden, London, was just closed by the company after years of protests and demonstrations. The boycott was starving the shop’s activities. The peacenik organizations that filled the streets of Europe during the years of the Iraqi war have found in Ahava their new ideological enemy. Ahava, which in Hebrew means “love”, has factories located in the kibbutz Mitzpe Shalem,at the Dead Sea.

The company’s problems began in 2002, when the superstore Harrods in London banned Ahava. In the last two years, hundreds of Western women in bikinis, belonging to the femminist association Code Pink, protested in front of Ahava shops in Washington and in the European capitals. These women are usually streaked with mud, some feauturing the words “Ahava is a dirty business”.

The first symbol of the boycott campaign against Israel, the Caterpillar company, was far removed from public opinion and public consciousness.

Ahava ,however, is the perfect target. It deals with beauty and vanity, digging deeply intp the flawed and rotten conscience of the European “chattering classes”.

Ahava works well as a scapegoat.

It doesn’t matter that two-thirds of the Dead Sea belongs to Israel.

It doesn’t matter that Mitzpe Shalom is on the Israeli side.

Ahava became the symbol of the anti Israeli hysteria. The slogan of the campaign is fashionable and catchy: “Stolen Beauty”.

Ahava is also topping the list of Israeli products boycotted by the Christian liberal churches. Even the Dutch government promoted an investigation to determine whether Ahava should enjoy tax privileges granted to foreign goods.

The “Sex and the City” actress Kristin Davis was suspended by the humanitarian group “Oxfam International” after she unknowingly waded into Middle East politics by joining an Ahava advertisement campaign.

Sixty percent of Ahava’s capital is held by the kibbutz movement, the symbol of leftist collectivism. Arabs work in Ahava’s laboratories and their jobs are now at risk due to this growing boycott.

Ahava’s haters don’t want to “end occupation”. They want to strangle Israel’s economy.

In the past the blood libels were focused on stories of Jews seeking to kidnap Christian and Muslim children before Passover in order to murder them and use their blood for matza. Then came the modern twist which was to accuse Israel of distributing drug-laced chewing gum and candy, intended to kill children and to make Arab women sexually corrupt.

Now the mud of antisemitism and anti-Jewish paranoia is personified by these satanic Ahava body lotion tubes.

Well, the women in Leftist churches and the feminists in Code Pink are probably ugly. All the face and body lotions in the world won't make them beautiful. If there's not a store in your city purchase it directly online.

As for Harrods, it doesn't suprise me in the least. Remember who it is owned by. Boycott Intel? Good luck trying to get people to stop buying computers.

That these Ahava haters are boytcotting a company that employees Arabs says a lot about the true motives behind the boycotts. A faux pro-Arab stance is all it is. It has little to do with a genuine concern since they have no problem trying to put Arabs out of work. The true motive is anti-Semitism. A means to an end.

Superman Renounces U.S. Citizenship

2011-05-01T06:27:00.002-04:00

After recently undertaking a journey to walk -- not fly -- across the United States in the "Grounded" storyline and reconnect with the country and everyday Americans, Superman appears to be taking another step that could have major implications for his national identity: in Action Comics #900...

...Superman announces that he is going to give up his U.S. citizenship. Despite very literally being an alien immigrant, Superman has long been seen as a patriotic symbol of "truth, justice, and the American way," from his embrace of traditional American ideals to the iconic red and blue of his costume. What it means to stand for the "American way" is an increasingly complicated thing, however, both in the real world and in superhero comics, whose storylines have increasingly seemed to mirror current events and deal with moral and political complexities rather than simple black and white morality.

The key scene takes place in "The Incident," a short story in Action Comics #900 written by David S. Goyer with art by Miguel Sepulveda. In it, Superman consults with the President's national security advisor, who is incensed that Superman appeared in Tehran to non-violently support the protesters demonstrating against the Iranian regime, no doubt an analogue for the recent real-life protests in the Middle East. However, since Superman is viewed as an American icon in the DC Universe as well as our own, the Iranian government has construed his actions as the will of the American President, and indeed, an act of war.

Superman replies that it was foolish to think that his actions would not reflect politically on the American government, and that he therefore plans to renounce his American citizenship at the United Nations the next day -- and to continue working as a superhero from a more global than national perspective. From a "realistic" standpoint it makes sense; it would indeed be impossible for a nigh-omnipotent being ideologically aligned with America to intercede against injustice beyond American borders without creating enormous political fallout for the U.S. government.

While this wouldn't be this first time a profoundly American comic book icon disassociated himself from his national identity -- remember when Captain America became Nomad? -- this could be a very significant turning point for Superman if its implications carry over into other storylines. Indeed, simply saying that "truth, justice and the American way [is] not enough anymore" is a pretty startling statement from the one man who has always represented those values the most.

It doesn't seem that he's abandoning those values, however, only trying to implement them on a larger scale and divorce himself from the political complexities of nationalism. Superman also says that he believes he has been thinking "too small," that the world is "too connected" for him to limit himself with a purely national identity. As an alien born on another planet, after all, he "can't help but see the bigger picture."

I'm not so sure Superman is rejecting the US. He's rejecting the Obama administration. After all, it's the government here that is persecuting Superman for the crime of engaging in a non-violent protest with Iranians. Again and again and again think about Obama's virtual silence on the Where's My Vote protests in which hundreds of Iranian students were murdered in the streets.

Superman is just taking the high road and doing the right thing. He hasn't renounced his US citizenship or committment to truth, justice and the American way. He's just divorcing himself from a government adminstration that has lost sight of truth, justice, and the American way.

Who knows? Maybe Superman is Jewish, and just trying to be a light unto the nations. Yeah, I know, he's adoptive parents were Methodists. But that was the religion of his adoptive parents. Religion is a curious thing in the Superman comics. Lois Lane is Catholic; Jimmy Olsen is Lutheran; and Lex Luther is Jewish.

Hmm. If Superman is Jewish, and has fought angels in the past, perhaps he is more of a Yaakov type character fighting Esau. Ah well, not that I get all serious abour arguing whether Superman (or Spiderman for that matter) is Jewish.

I quote I found on a web site regarding whether or not Superman is Jewish:

"Like Elvis Presley, he's a pop-culture icon that can be stretched to fit different points of view. Because Superman was created by two Jews, and the character fought against the Nazis before the United States officially entered World War II, some academics have interpreted him as a modern Moses or a golem, a mythical creature that will rise up to save the Jewish people from annihilation."

No Sleep in Queens, Either? See Two Previous Posts

2011-04-24T22:59:00.000-04:00

The You Tube description for this video:

Bizarre Mosque prayer service in the middle of an Astoria NY (Queens) street. 28th Ave and 32nd St. Obviously approved by someone at City Hall (see No Parking Signs), but not sure what was approved. Woke up to loud PA blaring Allahu Akbar! I was told this was happening throughout NY streets 9-20-09 Eid...end of Ramadan. This is a historically Orthodox Greek neighborhood, so one can imagine there were residents who were disturbed. The Mosque (aka Masjid) that organized this event is at the end of the block behind the gathering."

Third post including a video with the Muslim call to prayer invading non-Muslim ears. A bit much? Well, I imagine people in Russia, Brooklyn, and Queens feel the same way. No Sleep till Queens? Again, no sleep IN Queens.

Mosque in Brooklyn: Where Form Does Follow Function

2011-04-24T21:45:00.004-04:00

Not to beat a dead horse but the entire time I was writing the previous post, and thinking about the potential replacement of Russian onion dome cupolas on churches with Muslim minarets, a single phrase kept coming to mind--form follows function. form follows function.

Normally applied to archeture I first learned about it in college in biochemistry. This was when the professor explained why eggs changed their shape and consistency while being fried. Denaturation. When eggs are exposed to heat the proteins molecules come apart, and the form of the egg changes.

You had to really pay attention to what this professor said. If you didn't, you'd likely fail the essay portion of his exams which typically were along the lines of--explain the biochemical basis for...

Which brings us from eggs back to Russian churches and onion domes. If the Muslims in Russia are truly threatening to take over Eastern Orthodox Churches and pray there, no doubt the onion domes (made to resemble candles) on top of these churches, and bell towers in other churches will eventually be replaced with minarets.

I read that the later were designed along the lines of a church bell tower. There's a difference between a bell tower and wordless sounds from a bell, which basically tells people what time it is, and in Catholicism often was rung ten minutes before Mass started, and a Muslim muezzin in a minaret calling everyone within hearing distance to hear, Islamic prayers drummed into your head five times a day. From sunrise to sunset. Like it or not.

Their mandatory prayers become OUR mandatory prayers.

A church bell tells you what time it is, a minaret tells what to pray, and blasts religion into your ears, like it or not, five times a day. It's Orwellian. But that's the function of a minaret, a muezzin, and a mosque. Can you imagine if the Russian Imam cited in my previous post got his demands to have a mosque in every neighborhood was implemented in the US, starting in Brooklyn? The Muslim call to prayer in the entire city of New York? All in unison? SCARE-EEE.

Can you imagine New Yorkers waking up to this racket at 6 a.m.? You don't have to imagine. It's actually happening, and has been caught on tape by Logan's Warnings:

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/12/muslim-call-to-prayer-at-6am-in-brooklyn-ny.html

Form follows function. A controversial phrase indeed, but in its entirety it's actually quite beautiful. Again it is normally applied to physical structures. A little background of the phrase courtesy of Wikipedia:

"The authorship of the phrase is often, though wrongly, ascribed to the American sculptor Horatio Greenough,[2] whose thinking to a large extent predates the later functionalist approach to architecture. It was, however, the American architect Louis Sullivan who coined the phrase, in 1896, in his article The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered-- Here Sullivan actually said 'form ever follows function', but the simpler (and less emphatic) phrase is the one usually remembered. For Sullivan this was distilled wisdom, an aesthetic credo, the single "rule that shall permit of no exception". The full quote is thus:

It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,
Of all things physical and metaphysical,
Of all things human and all things super-human,
Of all true manifestations of the head,
Of the heart, of the soul,
That the life is recognizable in its expression,
That form ever follows function. This is the law.

"Form follows function is a principle associated with modern architecture and industrial design in the 20th century. The principle is that the shape of a building or object should be primarily based upon its intended function or purpose."

The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered...sigh. The very beautiful and creative onion domes on Russian Churches replaced with the bland minarets with one single function...

The morning prayer in Islam includes something about prayer being better than sleep. Wanna bet? Let the sleep deprived person writing this go to Brooklyn and get roused by that noise at the crack of dawn.

In case you haven't been following this blog, I have suffered severe sleep deprivation the last few months (from a neighbor's pounding bass from his mega speakers). So much so that I am forced to move to a quieter section of the apartment building. Yep. Let me go to Brooklyn and hear that call to prayer at 6 a.m.

Use your imaginations to figure out what I'd like to do to the speaker in that minaret making that call to prayer at 6 a.m. Come on, invite me to Brooklyn. Surly someone would be willing to invite me to Brooklyn, on or near:

Masjid al-Taqwa ( translation: mosque of strength or endurance)

1266 Bedford Ave.

New York, NY 11216

Geez, it gives new meaning to the Beastie Boys song NO. SLEEP. TILL BROOKLYN! Re-released as No Sleep IN Brooklyn.

Muslims in Russia: No Place to Pray?

2011-04-22T14:52:00.000-04:00

Forgive the source of this post, CBN, Christian Broadcasting Network, but I found this article and video quite interesting and disturbing. You really need to watch it to get an appreciation of how crammed the streets in Russia are with Muslims praying in the streets.

MOSCOW - Moscow has the largest Muslim population in Europe, with four mosques in the Russian capital city serving some two million people.

But Muslims say that's not enough and so the need for more space is stirring controversy.

No Place to Pray

This is a typical Friday scene in Moscow: Thousands of Muslims fill the streets and sidewalks around Moscow's four mosques.

"We just don't have enough space," Yusup Sadjanovich, a Muslim worshipper, said.

(I have embedded the video so people can see just how crammed these Russian streets are):

For Sadjanovich, a frequent worshipper at the Central mosque - Moscow's largest, getting to prayer early doesn't guarantee a place inside.

"Most of the time I'm praying outside. I can't remember the last time I got to pray inside the mosque," Sadjanovich said.

The argument the Muslims make is this: there are only four mosques in this entire city servicing some two million Muslims.

The imam of the mosque, Ildar Ayautdinov, declined our request for an interview. But he told Moscow's Metro Daily newspaper that unless the situation changes, Muslims in the city may end up praying in Russian churches.

"We would rather avoid this extreme measure," he said.

His brother, Shamil Alyautdinov, is also a prominent Islamic leader. He did talk to CBN News.

Fighting a Perception Problem

"The problem is that we are fighting a perception issue in Russian society about Muslims," Imam Alyautdinov said.

"Most people associate such places of worship with terrorism and radicalism and so people get angry when we talk about building new mosques," he said.

And that push back was on display late last year when plans were drawn up to convert a sprawling park into a massive new mosque that would hold 5,000 people.

Local residents converged on the site protesting the mosque construction and confronting a local Muslim imam.

"You are monsters, ugly creatures, go away from here to your motherland," shouted a concerned Muscovite woman.

Muslim Backlash

The neighborhood is made up of an ethnic group called the Tartars, the vast majority of whom are Muslims.

"Do any of you even know a Tatar family? Do you have Tatar friends?" a local Imam asked. "We need to grow our kids in the right way-- not to drink alcohol or do drugs."

Authorities have since scrapped plans for the mosque. But that has done little to calm fears here.

"I am scared," one Russian woman told CBN News as we interviewed her near the proposed mosque site.

"They come into a neighborhood and begin to tells us things we can and cannot do," she said. "We like to walk our dogs here and have outdoor barbecues. But the Muslims can say you can't cook pork or you cannot walk your dog around here."

The story concludes with this remark by an Imam:

"Iman Ildar Ayautdinov told a French news agency quote, "We are asking, and even demanding, that there be a mosque in every borough, ideally in every neighborhood."

A couple of impressions on this story, one logical, the other entirely illogical. Muslims are forbidden to pray in churches, due to the Christian belief in the trinity, and also the many idols found primarily in Catholic Churches. All Catholic churches have such idols, but Eastern Orthodox churches have many icons on display. No Muslim would pray in such as environment, yet some in the this article suggest praying in churches.

The implication is obvious--take over.

Which brings me to my illogical response--onion domes. Come again? Onion domes, the cupolas on many Russian churches. When I think of Russia the color red comes to mind, as well as the onion domes. Word association 101.

Sad to think that these church onion domes could be replaced with minarets. The onion domes are supposed to resemble candles, lights. The architural history is interesting, though confusing.

Not that I would worship in a church, but I nevertheless find the replacement of structures identifialble with various nations quite sad. What is France without the Eiffel Tower? England without Big Ben and Buckingham Place? The US without the Statue of Liberty and White House?

Russia without the Winter Palace (for all of its beauty and controversy over the centuries) and onion domes?

Kissinger on UN Vote Re "Palestine"

2011-04-22T13:53:00.001-04:00

A few days ago PBS aired a newspaper featuring an interview with Hillary Clinton and Henry Kissinger regarding the September UN General Assembly vote on welcoming Palestine as a state to the UN. The impression I got from Clinton was that the US would in all probably vote no.

As for Kissinger...He said he could only speak in generalities. His comments were about as clear as mud. I didn't get a sense as to whether he was for or against the UN declaration of Palestinian statehood. While I don't know Kissinger's background when it comes to Israel and "Palestine."

His comments in this interview were far too ambiguous. Yet, his body language (eyes slightly lowered); tone of voice (low, guarded, faint, guilty, sad) were obvious. However, what was even more obvious was his lack of the word Israel. I don't think he used the word in his entire interview.

He seemed to be avoiding any mention of the nation. It was almost identical to the way people avoid uttering the name of a dead person to his or her loved ones.

That's the same impression I got from Kissinger; that he was speaking as if Israel was already dead, or about to be. Again, his comments were indeed over generalized so I might have gotten him entirely wrong, but just on impression, I got the sense that he felt on an unconcious level that Israel was dead, or about to be. Kissinger definitely conveyed a combination of guilt, and grief. That's the only way I can describe it.

His avoidance of the word Israel was very apparent.

Pesach Cards Messed Up

2011-04-21T05:53:00.000-04:00

Hi there. I just wanted to apologize. I sent Pesach e-cards and they were bounced back, presumably due to typos, but that doesn't explain why the dates were messed.

In any event, I re-sent the cards, hopefully with the correct addresses.

Obama's Passover Message Versus Mine

2011-04-18T10:58:00.000-04:00

Another Pesach, another exploitation of another Pesach by Barack Obama. His first seder he hosted at the White House was a mockery.

This year's message is one of total exploitation and manipulation. First, he once again dilutes the true story of Pesach--Jewish slavery and ultimate victory over a Middle Eastern tyrant and regime--Egypt.

This year Obama has watered it down to a touchy-feely general message (read article below). While I took down a post I had about Obama's message to Chabad and invoking the name of their rebbe to score points with Chabad because I thought my post was too flip, the more I think about it, the more disturbing it is. Obama wants to hijack every religion and culture into a mish-mash of religions and cultures with no identity.

(Aside, there is something sad about Obama trying to cozy up to Chadad hassidim. I can't place my finger on it but it does seem particularly sad, manipulative, and cruel. More than anything, reading his message to Chabad struck me as sad and cruel).

Unlike messianic groups and xtians (okay, the same thing) to turn a uniquely Jewish holiday into a slick way to christianize Pesach (most likely for to confuse and convert Jews), Obama's tactics are disturbing. Why couldn't he just say in his message to Jews but especially non-Jews that Pesach is a Jewish holiday commerating the freedom of Jews from bondage by non-jews? He could have added a warning about anti-Semitism; where persecution of Jews leads and the devastating impact it has.

In my opinion Obama is over generalizing Pesach to reverse Jewish history and identity and give it to Arabs, especially Palestinians. As for xtians and Pesach...it is pathetic in its own way. It's one thing for non-Jewish to join in our celebration and reflect on how gentiles have persecuted Jews and vow never again, just as we say Next Year in Jerusalem. But to hijack it as a vehicle for conversion through assimilation?

Never Again. Next Year in Jerusalem, capital of the land of Israel, the Jewish state. Jerusalem, not under threat, not under the thumbs of the US and any other country. In other words, Freedom!

Okay, that it is my Pesach message...and CHAG SAMEACH!

Clarification of Last Post

2011-04-17T23:37:00.000-04:00

No, I wasn't writing about kosher pizza for pesach. Just mentioning my cooking skills regarding pizza.

Cleaned of Chametz

2011-04-17T21:14:00.000-04:00

Okay. My apartment is clean of every crumb, and now I am all set...to celebrate Pesach at a friend's house. Somebody who actually knows how to cook. I'm a terrible cook. Thank G-d for all the online stores where you can order prepared "TV" dinners.

Bad as my cooking is, I have managed to make a kosher pizza with kosher cheese and it turned out quite well. So, it is possible to make a good kosher pizza. Start with a basic white cheese pizza.

Definitely helps if you're Italian (jk). Still in all, even though anchovies can be kosher (check the label first), I don't care for anchovies at all.

Oops

2011-04-17T18:28:00.000-04:00

I think I deleted the draft of a post a few posts down. I wish Blogger wouldn't make so many drafts. Well, not their fault, me being careless lol

US--1. Terrorist??

2011-04-15T12:16:00.000-04:00

Nope. That comment isn't from Hamas or any of the myriad Middle Eastern countries that hate the United States. It's from a local member of MoveOn.org.

I don't know too much about them, but if they're calling the US government a terrorist organization or country Joseph McCarthy would have a field day.

Updated: April 15, 2011, 10:45 AM

Three members of the activist group MoveOn.org who were arrested during an an April 7 downtown anti-war protest were allowed to remain free without bail by City Judge Joseph A. Fiorella this morning after they pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges.

Nate Buckley, 25, of Massachusetts Avenue, who allegedly was maced and clubbed by Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority police officers during the late afternoon rally outside the M&T Bank building, said he is considering civil action over his alleged mistreatment.

About two dozen people appeared in court in court in support of the activists, including Buckley's father John Buckley, local organizer for MoveOn.org. activist group. The judge appointed noted local attorney Paul Gordon Dell to represent Buckley.

Jason A. Wilson, 24, of Summer Street, is being represented by his attorney brother, Jon Ross Wilson and the judge assigned the public defenders office to represent Elliot Zyglis, 27, of Amherst Street.

All three have been charged with misdemeanor rioting, trespass and disorderly conduct charges. Fiorella scheduled further proceedings in the case for May 5.

In a rally in Niagara Square after the 10 a.m. arraignments, Nate Buckley told his cheering supporters he will not abandon the fight against the U.S. government, which he called the world's "No. 1 terrorist" organization, big businesses and the three Middle East wars now under way.

John Buckley said another rally is scheduled for noon Monday in Lafayette Square.

Hmmm. Noon Monday at Lafayette...I just might be there to see these clowns. Naturally I'll have my video camera on.

Dayenu: Latma Version

2011-04-15T08:02:00.000-04:00

Dayenu! Lo Dayenu!

Two-Minute Haggadah for the Impatient

2011-04-14T22:14:00.000-04:00

I just found this very cute:

The Two-Minute Haggadah

A Passover service for the impatient.

By Michael Rubiner

Opening prayers:

Thanks God, for creating wine. (Drink wine.)

Thanks for creating produce. (Eat parsley.)

Overview: Once we were slaves in Egypt. Now we're free. That's why we're doing this.

Four questions:

1. What's up with the matzoh?

2. What's the deal with horseradish?

3. What's with the dipping of the herbs?

4. What's this whole slouching at the table business?

Answers:

1. When we left Egypt, we were in a hurry. There was no time for making decent bread.

2. Life was bitter, like horseradish.

3. It's called symbolism.

4. Free people get to slouch.

A funny story: Once, these five rabbis talked all night, then it was morning. (Heat soup now.)

The four kinds of children and how to deal with them:

Wise child—explain Passover.

Simple child—explain Passover slowly.

Silent child—explain Passover loudly.

Wicked child—browbeat in front of the relatives.

Speaking of children: We hid some matzoh. Whoever finds it gets five bucks.

The story of Passover: It's a long time ago. We're slaves in Egypt. Pharaoh is a nightmare. We cry out for help. God brings plagues upon the Egyptians. We escape, bake some matzoh. God parts the Red Sea. We make it through; the Egyptians aren't so lucky. We wander 40 years in the desert, eat manna, get the Torah, wind up in Israel, get a new temple, enjoy several years without being persecuted again. (Let brisket cool now.)

The 10 Plagues: Blood, Frogs, Lice—you name it.

The singing of "Dayenu":

If God had gotten us out of Egypt and not punished our enemies, it would've been enough. If he'd punished our enemies and not parted the Red Sea, it would've been enough.

If he'd parted the Red Sea—(Remove gefilte fish from refrigerator now.)

Eat matzoh. Drink more wine. Slouch.

Thanks again, God, for everything.

Obama and Chabad?

2011-04-14T21:55:00.000-04:00

Ah, Obama has one upped his sham seder last year. Now he is schmoozing with Chabad and the memory of the rebbe to foster a day of sharing and education. I don't mean this to be mean, but the thought of OBAMA wearing a long black coat, black hat, peyos, and tzitiz...just makes me laugh. Not at Chabad hassidim but at Obama dressing like them. Not that he's actually doing that, but reading this article on the Chabad.org brought that mental image to mind. Now if only I were an artist.

Seriously though, I have never heard of Education and Sharing Day, and Chabad hassidim are so sweet it's painful to think Obama...I don't know. I somehow seems cruel, manipulative, and exploitive. I would hope Obama wasn't invoking the name of the rebbe just to score points with them.

And Education and Sharing Day? Same as turning Sept. 11 into a day to do volunteer work.

This from Chabad.org:

THE WHITE HOUSE

EDUCATION AND SHARING DAY, U.S.A., 2011

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

The future of our Nation depends on our ability to instill in future generations the values that will help them write the next proud chapter of the American story—a dedication to knowledge and a sense of compassion for their fellow citizens. As we celebrate Education and Sharing Day, U.S.A., we recommit to preparing our sons and daughters to thrive with principle and purpose in the 21st century.

Over the next decade, nearly half of all new jobs will require advanced training or a college degree. Ensuring our children meet this standard will take the collective commitment of parents, teachers, and communities coming together to instill a love of learning in our young people. By doing so, we can unlock every child’s potential and give them the chance to fulfill their dreams, while laying the foundation for our country’s continued prosperity.

Education alone, however, cannot fully prepare our children to stand at the helm of our Nation. In an increasingly interconnected world, America remains a beacon of hope for many across the globe because of our open hearts during times of extraordinary challenge and our dedication to our common humanity. We must nurture these traits in our children to ensure America continues to be a symbol of promise to the world.

On Education and Sharing Day, U.S.A., we celebrate the example set by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who dedicated his life to improving education and fostering goodwill for all people. His legacy continues to inspire individuals to carry forward his effort to build a brighter future. Each year, Education and Sharing Day, U.S.A. reminds us of our obligation to create opportunities for a better tomorrow—life lessons we pass on to all our children.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 15, 2011, as “Education and Sharing Day, U.S.A.” I call upon all Americans to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

Bibi Answers

2011-03-31T10:04:00.000-04:00

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's answers to the questions submitted by You Tubers on Worldview.

Here's a recap of the interview from Arutz Sheva. I am posting it because the video interview (in English) is a little long.

"An interview of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on the YouTube World View series based on questions from viewers around the world has been removed from the Internet – but only for temporary, technical reasons. It is expected to be restored Thursday afternoon (Israel time).

The 25-minute long interview with the Israeli leader, featuring a clear and succinct presentation of Israel’s stance on critical issues, is the third in the YouTube World View series. The series features interviews with world leaders based on questions from viewers around the world; Netanyahu follows U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameroon.

The interview was held in Netanyahu’s home in Jerusalem, and was screened live on Channel Two news, whose star interviewer, Dana Weiss, asked the questions. The queries were asked and voted upon by the YouTube community around the world. A record number of questions - 3,673 - from a record number of countries - 90 - were asked of PM Netanyahu.

Brother's Death Steered His Life

Asked what experience most changed his life, Netanyahu said that it was the fall in battle of his brother Yoni as he commanded the Entebbe rescue of Israeli hostages from the hands of German and Arab terrorists.

“That event changed my life and steered it towards its present course,” Netanyahu said. “Yoni believed that the war against terrorism was not merely military, but also political and moral - and that is the war that I have been waging for these 35 years… When I go to visit a bereaved family [of Israelis murdered by terrorists or killed in battle] and I see a mother grieving for her son, I say, ‘That’s my mother.’ And when I see a father grieving for his son, I say, ‘That’s my father.’ And when I see a brother grieving for her son, I say, ‘That’s me.’ When I have to send our soldiers into harm’s way, I think [an extra time], and I think it makes me a more responsible leader.”

How to Wake Up the World

He was similarly asked, as were Obama and Cameroon before him, “If you could ask one question of a world leader, what it would be and to whom?”

Netanyahu said, “I would ask Winston Churchill, the prime minister of Britain during World War II, ‘Is there anything you could have done differently to persuade the world to act in time against Nazism?’ Because even though he was a great leader, he failed in this task of getting the world to wake up to Nazism in time. Perhaps his answer would be, 'Naah, nothing could have been done differently, because ultimately there’s such a thing as the slumber of democracies, they have to be banged on the head.' I feel that same frustration now, because I’ve been talking for 15 years about the danger of Iranian nuclear terrorism, how they could control the world’s oil supply, and how they threaten our country with obliteration and could do the same with others. You try, and you try, and you try, and I don’t want to say that there’s been no progress - but not the kind of mobilization that is required against something so great.”

One question dealt with the violence and uprisings in Middle Eastern countries: “What side are you [Israel] on, and do you feel threatened?”

Netanyahu: “We’re all on the same side – Israel, America, the democratic world, we all want to see the triumph of democracy. This includes the people of Iran, where it really all began a year and a half ago – not in Tunisia, as is widely thought. The Iranians stormed the streets because they had a fake election there. So we want democracy, but we’re all concerned, I suppose, that the democracy will be hijacked by radical or militant Islamic regimes. That’s what happened five years ago in Lebanon. People there wanted to see a liberal, open, tolerant Lebanon – but five years later, we don’t have that kind of democracy: we rather have a theocracy, with Iran and Hizbullah controlling Lebanon. We don’t want militant theocracies.”

Netanyahu reiterated several times that Israel “is the only country in the Middle East where Arabs and Muslims enjoy full civil rights.”

The Real Issue: PA Refusal

The top vote-getting question was this: “Do you believe that approving more homes in the settlements in response to the slaughter in Itamar will bring peace, and if so, how?”

Netanyahu: “Well, look, first of all, I think that a few houses is not the real issue. I think the real issue is –"

At this point, interviewer Weiss interrupted and said, “One second. Because the asker is not here, I’m going to ask you to answer his question, and not the question that you think is the main issue.”

Netanyahu: “No, no, I’m answering: He asks if the settlements will stop peace, and I’m saying that this is not the reason we don’t have peace! The reason we don’t have peace is because the Palestinian Authority, so far, refuses to recognize a Jewish State in any borders.

“They negotiated for 18 years when there was plenty of settlement construction, and they didn’t make it a pre-condition, so a few houses on less than 1% of 1% of the land is not a big thing. Yes, it’s disputed land – we have a historical connection to it. My name is Benjamin; the first Benjamin, the son of Jacob, walked these hills 4,000 years ago, so we have some connection with this land. The Palestinians claim it, so we have to sit down and discuss it, we’re prepared to negotiate; they’re not.”

Every Fair-Minded Person Knows

Netanyahu also explained that the new units are being built “in areas that every fair-minded person knows will remain in our hands - suburbs of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.” Reminded that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had just called for an end to settlement construction, Netanyahu said, “Any one in his right mind knows that this is part of the ancestral Jewish homeland; it’s in the Bible. We have to reach a compromise, everyone knows we can’t kick out 350,000 or 400,000 Jews from their homes; many of them, by the way, were kicked out [from their homes in Arab countries] before the founding of Israel by hostile Arab armies…”

Continuing to attack the PA obstinacy of Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria, Netanyahu said, “We had 50 years of conflict before there was a single Israeli in any of these settlements – what was that all about? For decades, when [Judea and Samaria] was in Arab hands, they attacked us again and again, even though there were no Jewish settlements [in Judea and Samaria].”

Jewish day school students in Ohio asked Netanyahu if he was concerned about a new Palestinian intifada – apparently a reference to the plans to march on Israel on May 15 - and what can be done to stop it. He did not address the question directly, but said only that he hopes the Palestinians will choose peace and not alliance with Hamas.

Are You Kidding?

Asked what the United States gains from its alliance with Israel, the prime minister said, “My answer would be: Are you kidding? The entire Middle East all the way up to India is shaking and rocking, and the only stable country in the whole place is Israel! … If we didn’t exist, America would have to invent us! If not for Israel, the entire Middle East would simply collapse.”

He concluded by listing what he felt were the two great missions facing our generation and the next one: “We must make sure Iran and other radical regimes do not get nuclear weapons, and we must find a substitute for oil.”

Friend-a-Soldier Ask An IDF Soldier a Question

2011-03-30T18:59:00.000-04:00

I just learned about this new website where you can ask an IDF solider a question and he or she will answer it in an email. It's a way to interact, understand what they're doing, but personal; a way to befriend an IDF soldier. All you do is click on one of their pictures to ask a question and get things started.

http://www.friendasoldier.com/en/

That site is in English. I don't know how to access the Hebrew site, assuming there is one.

"Settlements – Terrorism – Gaza Blockade – Occupation – Checkpoints – Middle East Uprisings-Peace Talks -Refugees: We answer it ALL!

"Friend-a-Soldier is an interactive website which allows anyone to meet, talk to and befriend an Israeli combat soldier. Your job is simple: pick a soldier, think of a question – - any question — and ask away! You will receive a transparent, personal response in your e-mail inbox from the soldier you’ve chosen."

From a JPost article:

A group of IDF veterans has set up a new website aimed at debunking accusations against Israel and its military in the most direct way – questions and answers.

Called “Friend-a-Soldier,” the site was established by IDF veterans Daniel Nisman, Yagil Beinglass and Joshua Mintz, American and British immigrants in their early 20s who were distraught over the way IDF soldiers were being vilified in news stories, blogs, and online chat rooms.

The site enables people around the world to ask IDF soldiers personal questions about their army service and life in Israel, and receive a transparent, truthful answer in return.

“Establishing these personal connections is the only way to break the misconceptions about us,” explained Nisman, 24, who studies government at the IDC in Herziliya and served in the Nahal Brigade after moving to Israel from Cleveland, Ohio. “The existence of this website shows that we have nothing to hide. We would never see a website like this of Hamas rocket-launching squads.”

Since the launch of the site, Friend-a-Soldier has had visits from over 3,000 unique users from over 50 countries, including Kuwait, Yemen, and Turkey.

“The most interesting e-mails have come from Arabs,” said Beinglass.

“Some want our opinion on the peace process, others ask if we kill babies. Many seem skeptical about their own government’s portrayal of Israel and Jews.”

The site works on a system of volunteers, who represent a wider array of civilian and military backgrounds. Yuval Zimerman, for example, made aliya from Mexico and is currently studying history at the Hebrew University.

He served as an officer in the Paratroopers Corps during the second intifada and has fielded some of the questions regarding IDF operations in the West Bank.

Another soldier is 24-year-old Liran Suhareanu, who was a commander at the IDF Induction Center in Tel Hashomer. She answers questions regarding the social role the military plays in Israeli society.

“For me, it’s important for people to understand that since its inception, the IDF has had women serving alongside men, and that Arabs and gays serve openly,” she said.

The project’s founders have high hopes for the future.

“We aim to reach a point where we have IDF veterans from all parts of Israeli society volunteering to answer questions in many languages to personally influence hundreds of people a month,” Nisman said.

The Devil in the White City

2011-03-30T18:41:00.000-04:00

Fascinating clip from an audiobook of The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson.

In general I try not to blur my online writing with my offline writing for a number of reasons. But here will combine my thoughts about an article I did offline. It was a frustrating piece because with the exception of a few people; people who could read between the heavily self-edited lines...Self-edited because I knew it would be rejected if I wrote the truth about violent crime in my community.

I was assigned to cover the arrests of three garden variety graffiti vandals from the suburbs. They were primarily just kids in their early twenties with black Sharpies and cell phone cameras who took pictures of their very inartistic scribblings; scribblings made to make them feel important. Ten seconds of fame that can easily be destroyed with a power washer. A bit pretentious, sort of like William Shatner's character on Boston Legal. Shatner repeatedly punctuates his sentences by uttering his name--Denny Crane! In one episode we learn about his stuffed teddy bear. Denny squeezes it and it also says, "Denny Crane!"

That's what these kids with the black Sharpies remind me of. Denny crane, Denny Crane, my tag, my tag. It goes without saying that these kids have no right to mar another person's property, the costs to remove it, or the aggravation involved in getting hit so often. But these kids are small potatoes. They're neither harmful nor innocent but for the most part they're insignificant, pathetic.

I'll admit I was a bit nervous snapping pictures of their tags while alone on a dark street. I had absolutely no idea if I was dealing with gang tags, little suburbanite kids with Sharpies, or the more artistic graffiti "Writers."

Actually, I could pretty much tell these weren't writers, which left me uncertain of if it was common garden variety vandals or something much more dangerous like a gang. I had every reason to fear gangs and their tags in this area. Yet even as I was on the phone talking with sources about the article one of them said, "there are no gangs, no Bloods or Crips." Not true, but there are small homegrown gangs that the majority of civic associations and self-important block club and historic preservationists are oblivious to. Forget the crime, violence, and murder.

Then there are the much more artistic graffiti writers. There tags are typically very large, in hard to access places. Not infrequently on vacant properties. The taggers/writers feel they are making the city more beautiful. Are they? That's for people to decide. Is it a genuine crime? A crime aside from trespassing, making graffiti, and possession of graffiti instruments.

To go back to my article, I cited the case of a high-profile graffiti tagger from Buffalo now in prison in another state for causing about $250,000 in damages to property here and in Pennsylvania. He has a cult following locally and perhaps nationally. They have a website set up to raise funds to help secure his release. So far his fans have raised $40,000 towards fine he must pay to make restitution. People have sent him numerous books including the narrative history novel, "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson. The novel has received numerous awards, including one for best fact crime.

Just some snippets here from Wikipedia, the Reader's Digest version for those who have never read nor heard of the novel or the true events that it is based on.

"Bringing Chicago circa 1893 to vivid life, "The Devil In the White City" intertwines the true tale of two men - Daniel H. Burnham, the brilliant architect behind the legendary 1893 World's Fair, striving to secure America's place in the world; and Dr. H.H. Holmes, the cunning serial killer who used the fair to lure his victims to their death in his elaborately constructed "Murder Castle."

And so you have the white pleasure castles of Burnham in close proximity to Holmes and his murder palace, the World's Fair Hotel.

"Herman Webster Mudgett (May 16, 1861[1] – May 7, 1896), better known under the alias of Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, was one of the first documented American serial killers in the modern sense of the term. In Chicago at the time of the 1893 World's Fair, Holmes opened a hotel which he had designed and built for himself specifically with murder in mind, and which was the location of many of his murders. While he confessed to 27 murders, of which nine were confirmed, his actual body count could be as high as 250. He took an unknown number of his victims from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, which was less than 10 miles away from his "World's Fair" hotel...

Holmes purchased a lot across from the drugstore, where he built his three-story, block-long "Castle"—as it was dubbed by those in the neighborhood.

It was opened as a hotel for the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, with part of the structure used as commercial space. The ground floor of the Castle contained Holmes's own relocated drugstore and various shops, while the upper two floors contained his personal office and a maze of over one hundred windowless rooms with doorways opening to brick walls, oddly angled hallways, stairways to nowhere, doors openable only from the outside, and a host of other strange and labyrinthine constructions. Holmes repeatedly changed builders during the construction of the Castle, so only he fully understood the design of the house, thus decreasing the chance of being reported to the police.

After the completion of the hotel, Holmes selected mostly female victims from among his employees (many of whom were required as a condition of employment to take out life insurance policies for which Holmes would pay the premiums but also be the beneficiary), as well as his lovers and hotel guests. He tortured and killed them.

Some were locked in soundproof bedrooms fitted with gas lines that let him asphyxiate them at any time. Some victims were locked in a huge soundproof bank vault near his office where they were left to suffocate. The victims' bodies were dropped by secret chute to the basement where some were meticulously dissected, stripped of flesh, crafted into skeleton models, and then sold to medical schools.

Holmes also cremated some of the bodies or placed them in lime pits for destruction. Holmes had two giant furnaces as well as pits of acid, bottles of various poisons, and even a stretching rack. Through the connections he had gained in medical school, he sold skeletons and organs with little difficulty...

Holmes was paid USD $7,500 ($197,340 in today's dollars) by the Hearst Newspapers in exchange for this confession. He gave various contradictory accounts of his life, claiming initially innocence and later that he was possessed by Satan. His faculty for lying has made it difficult for researchers to ascertain any truth on the basis of his statements.

On May 7, 1896, Holmes was hanged at Moyamensing Prison, also known as the Philadelphia County Prison. Until the moment of his death, Holmes remained calm and amiable, showing very few signs of fear, anxiety or depression.

Holmes's neck did not snap immediately; he instead died slowly, twitching over 15 minutes before being pronounced dead 20 minutes after the trap had been sprung. He requested that he be buried in concrete so that no one could ever dig him up and dissect his body, as he had dissected so many others. This request was granted.

Now for Daniel Burnham:

Daniel Hudson Burnham, FAIA (September 4, 1846 – June 1, 1912) was an American architect and urban planner. He was the Director of Works for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

He took a leading role in the creation of master plans for the development of a number of cities, including Chicago and downtown Washington DC. He also designed several famous buildings, including the Flatiron Building in New York City and Union Station in Washington D.C...

Burnham was born in Henderson, New York and raised in Chicago, Illinois. His parents brought him up under the teachings of the Swedenborgian Church of New Jerusalem, which ingrained in him the strong belief that man should "strive to be of service to others."

Burnham and Root had accepted responsibility to oversee design and construction of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago’s then-desolate Jackson Park on the south lakefront. The largest world's fair to that date (1893), it celebrated the 400-year anniversary of Christopher Columbus' famous voyage."

"Much of his career work modeled the classical style of Greece and Rome.

In his 1924 autobiography, Louis Sullivan, one of the leading architects from the Chicago School but one who had enjoyed difficult relations with Burnham over an extended period, criticised Burnham for what Sullivan viewed as his lack of original expression and dependence on Classicism: Sullivan went on to claim that "the damage wrought by the World's Fair will last for half a century from its date, if not longer"—a sentiment edged with bitterness, as corporate America of the early twentieth century had demonstrated a strong preference for Burnham's architectural style over Sullivan's.

(Given the eerie similarities between Holmes and his Murder Castle, and the designs and uses of death camps in Nazi Germany, and Sullivan's quote about the damage from the World's Fair lasting half a century or longer, I just had to look up a timeline on Nazi Germany 50 years after the World's Fair, 1943. Downright scary. In May 1943 Josef Mangele arrived in Auschwitz. You have to wonder if the Nazis knew of Holmes and his evil, or if evil people are hardwired the same way, creating and recreating the same evil.)

"Burnham was quoted after his death as saying, "Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably will not themselves be realized."

(wonderful sentiment when applied to the greatness of good people, but large evil plans can and do stir the blood of evil men, and the grand plans of evil are also realized).

"In Washington, DC, Burnham did much to shape the McMillan Plan, which led to the completion of the overall design of the National Mall. Going well beyond Pierre L'Enfant's original vision for the city, the plan provided for the extension of the Mall beyond the Washington Monument to a new Lincoln Memorial and a "pantheon" that eventually materialized as the Jefferson Memorial. Inter alia, this involved significant reclamation of land from swamp and the Potomac River, and the relocation of an existing railroad station on the site, which was replaced by Burnham's own design for Union Station."

In any event, in my article I simply mentioned that The Devil in the White City was among the books sent to the high-profile graffiti taggers serving time in a Pennsylvania state prison, same state that Holmes was imprisoned in after his arrest. No doubt the person who sent him the novel either thought it would simply be a good read to past the time or felt that the graffiti tagger is a Burnham wrongly accused of being a Holmes, something loosely along those lines.

But I merely left my article by describing the book in less than a paragaph and a warning that graffiti, like designs, can be innocent and beautiful or roadmarks of danger and violence. Yet even in that brief conclusion to the article people couldn't get the point I was making about the difference between the taggers with their stupid little Sharpies, graffiti writers and the extremely dangerous street gangs. and their tags.

For all the bragging in this community and its "historic nature" it is a crime ridden community where the murder of teens in gangs is largely swept under the rug while the outrage of kids with Shapries elicits wails of protests. I am not dismissing the impact of such quality of life crimes, but damn, be at least a little concerned about the crimes that take human lives.

Oh well. Not to be dramatic. Mine was simply a crime story about three petty graffitti tagers, though I did interview a graffiti expert on the high profile tagger, his crimes, and graffiti in general. And we did indeed discuss this person, so I wrote a bit about him, especially since he was a local.

I could probably go on forever with this. In any event, graffiti taggers are not serial killers that we should be interested in what makes them tick, but I did find the list of books sent to a graffiti tagger in PA quite interesting. Incidentally, if you've never read The Devil in the White City you should. At least listen to the audio clip.

I was utterly unfamiliar with either, or the crimes of Holmes. It probably would have scared the daylights out of me as I walked that dark street taking pictures of the graffiti at night not knowing what was around the corner...

Netanyahu: You Ask, He Answers

2011-03-24T22:34:00.002-04:00

Have a Question for Netanyahu?

2011-03-24T22:05:00.000-04:00

Ask him a question via text or video on You Tube. You have three days left to ask your questions.

Go here:

http://www.youtube.com/worldview?feature=ticker

Terror is a Man/Are We Not Men

2011-03-23T16:44:00.000-04:00

I browse You Tube and typically end up watching videos that have absolutely nothing to do with what I was originally watching. I initially wanted to learn more about the near fatal attack of Roy Horn by a white tiger used in his multi-million dollar Los Vegas show. White tigers do not exist in the wild. There is no such species as a white tiger or lion. They are bred in captivity--how? Years ago a couple of tiger cubs were born with a genetic disorder--they were white.

Someone got the "brilliant" idea to breed these genetically inferior mutations with normal, golden and black tigers. Scientists must go through several tigers to get just one white tiger. These throw away tigers are typically rejected because they are the wrong color--black, golden, and white. Their fate is more often than not ones of cruelty.

These irresponsible breeders of white tigers took things a step further--breeding the white tiger with a much larger Siberian tiger.

That was the breed of tiger that attack Roy Horn. Speaking of his attack, the contention by the Mirage Hotel that Montecore the tiger grabbed Horn by the neck and dragged him off stage was comparable to a mother tiger carrying a cub by the scruff of the neck is ludicrous. Naturally, the Mirage refused to release video of the attack.

But what is clear from witness accounts is that the tiger grabbed Horn by the arm and Horn felt the big cat was under his control that all he would have to do is issue a command: Release. That didn't work so Horn started hitting it on the nose with a microphone (what did he think this was? A puppy misbehaving that he could just hit it on the nose with a newspaper?).

The tiger was doing what big cats do with their prey. That is, drag them away to a place of safety where they can consume them without fear of another animal snatching it up.

I was totally shocked to learn that the same type of irresponsible breeders that created these oversized and dangerous even in captivity white tigers have also bred what are called Ligers-a female tiger bred with a male lion. Rarely does this happen in nature or in captivity. These ligers have a genetic defect, too. They are prone to giantism.

Snopes.com wrote this about ligers, one named Hercules:

"Part lion, part tiger he is not just a big cat but a huge one, standing 10-feet tall on his back legs...50 mph runner...Not only that, he likes to swim, a feat unheard of among water-fearing lions. In the wild it is nearly impossible for lions and tigers to mate. Not only are they enemies likely to kill one another, but most lions are in Africa and most tigers are in Asia."

These tigers at maturity (who can define maturity and ultimate weight and height when these cats are prone to giantism?) over 1,000 pounds and 12-feet tall.

Apparently there are people who think ligers are beautiful. I've seen many pictures of them and watched videos. It's deeply unsettling. In a way it's like the montrous animal to human experiments seen in The Island of Lost Souls by H.G. Wells. Incidentally, Wells despised the movie because it ignored the underlying movtive of trying to turn a wild animal into a human being. The novel was written in the late 1800s, the movie in 1939, and the 1986 film Island of Dr. Moreau. There was another adaption called Terror is a Man.

I'm not sure what the underlying motive or message is. But I would imagine it involves the grave dangers of trying to combine natural enemies of one another. Perhaps a metaphor for something...putting these natural enemies together and forcing one kind to coexist with another resulting in an ever growing monster.

I read this interpretation by Ted Gioia online:

"But Victorian England wasn’t as open-minded as the modern capital markets. Unlike the devil-may-care folks of our post-Dolly-the-sheep age, H.G. Wells’s readers were actually horrified by his hyena-swine with human characteristics.

They were disgusted by the mutant ape-man servants, unable to see the glorious profit potential of these critters. Just as Detroit is gung-ho about hybrid vehicles, the rest of us need to get excited about hybrid pet-servants.

But this is precisely why The Island of Dr. Moreau, of all of H.G. Wells’s sci-fi offerings, is the most relevant today, the least dated by the more than century of scientific progress that distances us from Victorian England.

The brilliance of this book lies in its insightful treatment of a world in which technology has run ahead of our moral sentiments, creating scientific options outside the traditional domain our of values and ethical choices.

And that is an angle that doesn’t ever seem to have an expiration date.

This problem stares us in the face, long after the scenarios of 1984 or Brave New World have lost much of their piquancy—a topicality driven (in the case of Orwell) by the Cold War and (in the case of Huxley) by the spread of Henry Ford's mass production mentality.

Unlike these other works, The Island of Dr. Moreau is not sci-fi in which the science is ancillary to the real story, merely a pretext for social commentary.

Rather Wells, back in 1896, gets to the crux of the matter, understanding that technology itself can be problematic, and that story-telling may offer a way of circumscribing its equivocal nature, getting to the heart of the matter in a way that scientists themselves are unlikely to do...

The escapism of present-day sci-fi is quite a departure from the zealous moralizing that Wells brought to his books. Fans today enjoy the The Time Machine as a literary forerunner to the special effects adventure films of our own day; but for Wells, the Morlocks of his tale were the heirs of the oppressed workers of industrial England. By the same token, The War of the Worlds is more than just an alien invasion story, but an incisive critique of the colonialist policies of the British Empire.

The Island of Dr. Moreau, however, does not rely on ambiguous symbols to make its points. It attacks a type of scientific imperialism, but does so directly, in ways that one could hardly misinterpret.

Wells adds many brilliant touches. His depiction of the animal-men repeating their creed is one of the most memorable scenes in science fiction literature. Wells describe a dark hut with “grotesque dim figures, just flicked here and there by a glimmer of light, and all of them swaying in unison and chanting":

Not to go on all-Fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?

Not to suck up Drink; that is the Law. Are we not Men?

Not to eat Flesh or Fish; that is the Law. Are we not Men?

Not to claw Bark of Trees; that is the Law. Are we not Men?

Not to chase other Men; that is the Law. Are we not Men?"

H.G. Wells had much in common with Rod Sterling. Sterling used analogy, but when it came to his one-hour episode He's Alive Sterling was as clear as clear can be about Hitler and the Nazis. And Ford...mass produced cars, and being anti-Semitic mass producing evil.

I went off track a little (okay, a lot off track) but as with many of my posts this was basically a stream of consciousness post.

I'm a Marxist

2011-03-22T14:15:00.000-04:00

Groucho Marx not Karl:) As Marx sings in Horse Feathers whatever Obama is for I am against it. I just don't trust the man. This is especially true when it comes to Barack Obama and his foreign policies. If he wants the US to get involved in Libya I say I'm Against It even if I don't fully understand it.

Now if more Americans beccame Marxists this country might stand a chance and we'll get our country back. The 2012 elections can't come soon enough for me.

And Then What?

2011-03-22T05:41:00.000-04:00

This is another post about the film Valkyrie. It seems odd that I would watch a movie about Nazis over and over again but the more I watch, the more questions I have. This time it's two questions: Debate in the movie about whether to wait out the war since it was inevitable that the allies would invade Germany and force it to surrender (actually, if I recall, that was FDR's opinion too). This option was rejected because it would result in even more deaths across Europe.Doing nothing was not an option. Other options were to confront Hitler and forced him out of power.

Stauffenberg scoffs with the suggestion that the German resistance could simply storm the Reich Chancellory. Were the plans to confront Hitler political or military? Which would be best? This wasn't really the point for Stauffenberg since the only pratical solution was to kill Hitler.

"And then what ?" Stauffenberg asks. That's a question I often wonder about in our war on terrorism. Whether it's Saddam Hussein or now the dictator of Libya. You can remove the leader from power, but then what? In the first days of the Iraq war were euphoric with Hussein's downfall, symbolized by toppling Hussein's statue of himself. That inital high then seemed to fade away, and the country is still a mess.

Moving back to the movie, Stauffenberg gets the idea to implement Operation Valkyrie during an air raid. Stauffenberg has returned home. His kids and wife are delighted. The kids stomp their feet to Wagner's Valyrie. Valkyrie plays in the background during an air raid as the family sits in a bomb shelter. Valkyrie...this is when Stauffenberg decides that the assassination of Hitler followed by the implementation of Operation Valkyrie is the option.

It was Hitler's emergency contingency to maintain order during civil unrest if he is dead or otherwise unable to rule. This involved putting the many soldiers in the Army in control. But what about the SS? Kill off Hitler and Germany would still have the SS to contend with. There was a country loyal to Hitler, and a military that had taken an oath to serve Hitler.

Stauffenberg is transfered into the war department. His plan is to kill Hitler (bombing) and implement Operation Valkyrie. But it would have to be modified to exclude the SS. Due to Stauffenberg's military bravery Hitler seems to respect and trust Stauffenberg, and signs the modifications to Operation Valkyrie.

But my question is--if the Army was loyal to Hitler and went against the SS, what's to say the Army wouldn't have installed a new regime like Hitler's? In the war on terror it's not a person that people are loyal to, it's a religion.

Ah well, not a great post but at least I am getting back into the swing of blogging again.

Dissolving Israeli History Through Film

2011-03-20T17:03:00.000-04:00

I attempted to write this post before but promptly removed it fearing it would be misunderstood but given the promotion of the film Miral and the increasing cries of Free Palestine! I feel compelled to reconsider the post. If it is offensive it is because, I feel, it is all to honest.

Months ago I embedded a video of a young "Palestinian" girl reciting an emotional poem about her "Palestinian" identity. Watching the video and reading the English subtitles was disconcerting--it sounded like an attempt to hijack Israeli history. It wasn't so much the content of the poem but the way it conveyed a Palestinian quest for a homeland and Palestinian identity that seemed eerie. A nation and people persecuted fighting for freedome from oppression and a poem...I don't know. It had an eerie feel to it that reminded me of another poem, Shir Betar.

A horrible comparsion and yet the tone of the poem reminded me of the tone of Shir Betar. My first reaction was that the Palestinians were indeed hijacking Israeli identity and history.

Perhaps a better comparision--in the Torah Hashem parts the Red Sea. In Christianity the curtain of the temple is torn in two. In Islam, Allah supposedly split the moon. Revising history/religion/national identity. It is all the same--plagarism and lies until the truth is buried. With every dissolve the truth transitioned out.

When you really look at all of the Palestinian PR it does indeed seem like a hijacking aimed at getting westerners to regard Palestinians today as the Israelis were protrayed in the mainstream media in the 1970s. I still remember the movie A Woman Called Golda (Judy Davis playing Meir as a young woman and Ingrid Bergman as the older Golda. Even as a child I can still vividly recall Moshe Dayan with his eyepatch in a foxhole. If nothing else, I remember that battle scene, Dayan's name, and that eyepatch.

I would imagine most people my age remember A Woman Called Golda.

Then there was the film Raid on Entebbee. I don't recall too much about that movie, only that Israelis were incredibly courageous. The public perception of Israel in 1970s was entirely different. Muslims with deep pockets are now funding major pro-Palestinian films such as Miral and will no doubt fund other films mimicking the truth about Israel to sympathize and respect "Palestine" and Hamas as the west did in the early to mid seventies?

The Hamas PR machine is in full swing; writers plagarizing Israel's history. But I wonder...did Nazi Germany limit its anti-Semitic PR campaign to Germany or spread it on a more global level? As a scriptwriter makes revision after revision after revision until the truth is turned on its head.

Several weeks ago I purchased the movie Valkyrie. The opening is in my mind the most powerful--an entirely red screen with the word Valkyrie in black dissolved from German to English. Then written in English an oath Nazis made to Hitler, but spoken in German by several voice. The oath written on the screen is white against a red background:

"I swear by G-d this sacred oath: That I shall render unconditional obediance to Adolf Hitler. Fuhrer of the German Reich and people, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forced, and that I shall at all times be ready, as a brave soldier, to give my life for this oath."

Chilling to hear the name Adolf Hitler in German, even in film. The finale scene is entirely different: A memorial to Stauffenberg and the German resistence. The words in white against a black screen...but primarily that transposition of Wulkure to Valkyrie at the beginning of the movie says everything you need to know about what Hamas is doing in the PR department. Dissolves...rather than an abrupt jump a more gradual transition. Effective in film, photography and photoshop; less effective in print.

That is why Muslims with influence and deep pockets are using movies and videos to sway and convince the ignorant and gullible.

The Palestinians are trying to replace the Israeli narrative into their own. Except they can't. Israel isn't evil, Hamas is. You can't--without being in massive denial, ignorance or state evil.

Yet this gradual dissolve from truth to fiction is proving very successful for Hamas. Why I cannot say. Perhaps the supporters of Nazis of the 1930s-1940s are dissolving into the 21st century anti-Semitic/anti-Zionist we see today.

Then again, it probably doesn't take much to bring the anti-Semites of old into the 21st century. It could be latent, lying dormant until the "right time" and brought to the surface at the "right time."

I think we are living in that time. G-d help those who try to erase Israel's history with a manufactured Palestinian one.

Sigh. This is a difficult post to write and I can't seem to articulate adequately what I want to convey...

Meet Shifra Shomron

2011-02-24T14:38:00.000-05:00

In contrast to the PR of the film Miral, here is a video in which Shifra Shomron discusses her book, Grains of Sand: The Fall of Neve Dekalim.

She is very articulate and fluent in English. The video is entirely in English. It was a treat to actually see Shifra after hearing so much about her on blogs and actually reading her book

Anti-Israel PR Film to go Mainstream?

2011-02-24T14:07:00.001-05:00

The Pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli film Miral is set for release in the US next month. Accoring to column by Roy Jones in IsraelToday, "Miral follows the turbulant life of a young Palestinian Arab girl who becomes involved in terrorism against Israel. It unabashedly demands sympathy for this girl and other Palestinian terrorists in their battle with a Jewish state that is portrayed as arbitrarily cruel and barbaric."

"There is little surprise there, since the film is an adaption of a book written by director Julian Schnabel's new Palestinian Arab girlfriendd Rula Jabreal. In a series of interviews following screenings of Miral at the Toronto and Cannes film festivals, Schnabel, who Jewish that it was not the films intent to give a comprehensive background to the conflict or present a balanced view."

Ah. This reminds me of the time I wrote to various Christian child sponsorship organizations as to why they do not sponsor or assist Jewish Israeli children. One organization in particular wrote to me in an email that they try to address and understand the conflict in the area, which is why they only offered people the opportunity to sponsor Palestinian Arab children.

How much of an impact will Miral have when it is released? I've watched the trailer ,on You Tube. Most foreign films are marginalized in the U.S. It's hard to imagine that Miral will stir much interest or media attention. However, the trailer is being shown in theatres along with high budget films that Hollywood feels will do well.

"Israel today has learned from a number of people in the U.S. that trailers of Miral are being shown before currently playing major feature films at American movie theatres. The lead-up to major feature films is usually reserved for trailers of movies studios believe will become blockbusters, or want to become blockbusters."

I seriously doubt Miral will become a blockbuster. Still, that's not to say that liberals, liberal organizations against Israel (ie. ISM), won't rally around the movie and push the Palestinian PR angle. It could also stir some Rachel Corrie like college kids to advocate the movie, and hold anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protests.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the ISM will also rally around Miral, possibly to recruit college kids.

Vanessa Redgrave has a cameo in the movie, but her role is being used in marketing. Yep. The same Vanessa Redgrave who referred to "Zionist hoodlums" in her 1978 Academy Award acceptance speech.

I have to disagree with Ryan Jones on a couple of issues when he writes, "But is anti-Israel propaganda finally breaking through into mainstream media as well?"

Finally? He apparently forgot about Munich? It didn't matter how high profile Steven Spielberg is, or how much acclaim he received with Shindler's List. That Julian Schnabel is an American Jew essentially gives the movie and its message the stamp of approval. Whenever a Jew promotes a cause, be it messianic Judaism or an anti-Israel movie, people tend to get the attitude of, "Well, he's Jewish and EVEN HE sides with the Palestinians." Pity there aren't more American Jewish filmmakers around to say, "Well, I'm Jewish and I don't side with the Palestinians."

Actually, maybe there are. It's entirely possible that Jews in Hollywood thought Spielberg went a little too far with Munich and gave it and Spielberg the cold shoulder at the academy awards. It's conveyed throughout the movie and if there was any doubt, all you needed watch of it was the finale, which takes place with the World Trade Center in the background.

I'm not sure Miral will go mainstream and become a blockbuster. As for stirring anti-Israel sentiments two thoughts--1. there's plenty of anti-Israel PR already 2. there's harm is stoking the flames with a movie like this.

For average Americans Miral will be a dud, not worth spending $10 to see, let alone waste an hour or two of time on. Then again, I spent $10 and two hours to watch Munich.

But among liberal college professors and their students? That's another story. All you really need to understand about this movie is that it is virulently anti-Israeli with several torture scenes, including one in which Miral is blindfolded, hung, and beaten. If she gets into trouble, she's told to say that she is an Israeli citizen, and a 17-year old school child.

Miral could also sway people who are largely ignorant of what has and is happening in Israel and of the Intifada. The IDF takes a beating in the movie, too.

Sad that as far as I know Hollywood hasn't shown an interest in Shifra Shomron's Grains of Sand.

(Personal note--I haven't posted for a few days due to an infection in my finger. A minor infection but quite painful and since it was on my dominant hand, made it difficult to type and put any pressure at all on it.)

Play Spent

2011-02-17T12:22:00.000-05:00

I friend who is the director of a homeless agency sent me this. Play Spent; it's an eye opener. Some people are really living on the brink. Could you survive a month if... click on the link below. It only takes a few minutes. Wait for the spend down and options.

Play Spent

http://playspent.org/

How I Blew My Trip To Israel

2011-02-13T19:10:00.001-05:00

I was so close to achieving my dream of visiting Israel. I had $900 as of two months ago and blew it. I was a little more than half way there; well at least for a weekend or four day mini vacation.

This missed dream didn't occur to me until a week and a half ago on my trip to get an MRI. My sister remarked that I had gone through $900 pretty fast (in a month).

"I'll be that money went to Israel," she said. Yes, I had made a donation to an Israeli charity.

Where did all the money go? Part was on my Chanukah party. What utter joy to see my two menorahs facing the street for the first time (normally they face a neighbor's backyard. I invited non-Jews too. What delight to see Nathan,2, spin it across the room. And the look on Steven's face as he gazed at the menorah was priceless.

So Part of the money went towards the party and Chanukah presents. The rest? Helping a young unmarried mother. I gave my mother's old 25-inch television to the girl. Then she said she had it attached to cable, which is $70. How is a poor family able to spend $70 on cable when I can't? Not to mention a brand new mp3 player after I received my first real Apple Ipod.

Then there was the $20 cab fare to bring the TV home. Another $75 to an older woman to make it through the month. Then another $45 towards the purchase of her vacumm cleaner. I gave $45 towards that and I would pay the rest in January. I know she didn't want to sell it, and I am happy with my electric broom. It was her way of asking for money.

Now the single mother I helped is supposedly in an emergency shelter and upset that she doesn't have to pay her $35 bill on her Cricket cell phone, which has mobile web. It her phone is off how is she sending me messages on Facebook? Is she at a friend's house? Really has her cell phone and just wants $35?

Going back to the TV her mom told me so places things in hock (spelling). Now the mother (the older lady) wants nothing to do with me--no visits, no response to texts, phone calls. I get the drift. I used you now go away.

I feel duped. I was closer to Israel than ever and like an idiot blew it all:(

So I took down my video of Im Eshkachech by Six13, a version that I love. I may or may not make the video again...but I feel like a total hypocrit. I want to visit Yershalayim so bad I can taste it and I blew it. I can watch TV shows and You Tube videos of the holy city, but unlike the verse in Yerushalayim Shel Zahav: I can't smell the air or winds.

"the wind is flying
Among the dreamy pines."

Sadly, many missionaries and others express their love of Israel and Yerushalayim based on the number of times they've visited.

I haven't been there once, and blew my chances of getting closer to that dream.

My readers (all two of them) no doubt are sick of hearing me complain about how much I want to go. Well, one thing is true at least: I will never forget Yerushalayim (יְרוּשָׁלַיִם)

Interesting to me fact about the name Yerushalayim from Wikipedia:

"Typically the ending -im indicates the plural in Hebrew grammar and -ayim the dual thus leading to the suggestion that the name refers to the fact that the city sits on two hills."

Correction

2011-02-09T17:24:00.002-05:00

This is the correction link

http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_416417

BTW: What does Arabaim mean? That is the name of the song

Name This Tune, Please

2011-02-09T17:22:00.000-05:00

This is another song by Noam Jacobson. I love this one, too. I hope he is a famous singer in Israel with such a voice and guitar playing.

These lyrics seem very familiar. Can some translate the first verse, please? Here is the link. Listen to it on ReverNation

http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song

He should put these songs on iTunes as well as his Latma Jihad Bells.

Egypt: Give Me The Reader's Digest Version, Please

2011-02-07T23:07:00.000-05:00

Unless you've been following events in Egypt closely and are even minimally aware of foreign affairs you are probably clueless about what's going on.

Somebody give me the Reader's Digest version. The Who, What, Where, When, and How. That's all I ask. It's embarrassing but the whole situation brings me right back to my childhood watching news coverage from Vietnam. Though the gruesome war pictures weren't in real-time as they are now, you could see exactly what was going one. The foreign war correspondents were outstanding back then, even if I thought the guerrillas they referred to were gorillas lol.

But I digress. The point is, even as a small child I had a basic knowledge of what was going on--Americans at war in a foreign land, blood, death, horror, small kids carrying weapons and shooting soldiers and forcing soldiers to shoot small kids (and suffer PTSD from the gut-wrenching act of having to kill kids).

Fast-forward to the protests in Iran. We knew what the young protesters were fighting against--Islam. The right to be normal young people, to kiss in public, dance, dress without having the morality police haul them off to jail.

Neda...who can forget the video of the 27-year old woman getting shot? Or baffled reporters asking their beloved Obama why he waited so long in condemning the murder of an innocent woman? Who can forget the Where's My Vote signs?

And behind all of this a secret...loss for words...admiration? Hope for success...of bringing down the modern day Hitler? I can still remember watching the human rights violation videos from Iran on You Tube. While many wanted to do away, others found Communism an attractive alternative to Islamic rule.

But this thing in Egypt has me confused. If you weren't on top of the coverage from the beginning you're lost. That's why I can't really comment on any of it. I'm lost and clueless.

Who?

What?

Where?

Why?

When?

How?

Before There Was 9/11

2011-01-28T13:24:00.000-05:00

My problem with Barack Obama's use of the phrase Sputnik moment is what troubles me the most--though hearing a Socialist president using those words sounds odd. Funny in that alluded to a Russian space shuttle. Common? Yeah, just like our current president. Yeah, I got what he was saying, we need to surpass the Russians who beat us into space.

But the timing of the Sputnik comment was all wrong.
I just think he could have invoked the memory of something else. Truly a man who never misses an opportunity to miss a uniquely American opportunity. That is, to remember the 25 anniversary of the Challenger disaster. Like the question, "Where were you on September 11?" Many people today are asking, "Where were you when the Challenger exploded?"

Granted, the Challenger was not a terrorist attack, but it has some commonality in imagery. A beautiful clear blue sky suddenly in flames. Eyes looking upward in horror. The chilling last words, Roger go, throttle up--

Where was I when the Challenger exploded? In my doctor's office watching it on television. The pilots boarding the shuttle, their smiles and waves. Then the blue sky filled with orange and yellow. Horrific and yet beautiful combination of colors.

The horor. The stranger beauty of the colors in the clear blue sky. The smiles and waves, Roger go throttle up."

That's what I remember.

Not to mention the huge memorial service and the way Ronald and Nancy comforted the family members of the fallen crew. It was so filled with genuine emotion; something Barack and Michelle Obama are incapable of doing.

Here is a description of the tragedy followed by Ronald Reagan's address to the nation:

On a crisp winter's morning in Florida, January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger was launched with seven persons aboard, including Christa McAuliffe, a 37-year-old teacher from New Hampshire, who was to be the first ordinary citizen in space.

The flight began at 11:38 a.m. and ended just 73 seconds later in an explosion apparently caused by a failure in the joint between the two lower segments of the right solid rocket motor. The explosion caused the complete structural breakup of the Space Shuttle, killing all seven crew members. The disaster was witnessed live on TV by many thousands of school children watching McAuliffe venture on what she had described as "the ultimate field trip."

That evening, President Ronald Reagan consoled the Nation from the Oval Office....

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd planned to speak to you tonight to report on the state of the Union, but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans. Today is a day for mourning and remembering. Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss.

Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the ground. But, we've never lost an astronaut in flight; we've never had a tragedy like this. And perhaps we've forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle; but they, the Challenger Seven, were aware of the dangers, but overcame them and did their jobs brilliantly.

We mourn seven heroes: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe. We mourn their loss as a nation together.

For the families of the seven, we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss, and we're thinking about you so very much.

Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says, 'Give me a challenge and I'll meet it with joy.'

They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve, and they did. They served all of us.

We've grown used to wonders in this century. It's hard to dazzle us. But for twenty-five years the United States space program has been doing just that. We've grown used to the idea of space, and perhaps we forget that we've only just begun. We're still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers.

And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them.

I've always had great faith in and respect for our space program, and what happened today does nothing to diminish it. We don't hide our space program. We don't keep secrets and cover things up.

We do it all up front and in public.

That's the way freedom is, and we wouldn't change it for a minute.

We'll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space.

Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue. I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA or who worked on this mission and tell them: "Your dedication and professionalism have moved and impressed us for decades. And we know of your anguish. We share it."

There's a coincidence today. On this day 390 years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said, 'He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it.' Well, today we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake's, complete.

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honoured us by the manner in which they lived their lives.

We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.'
Thank you."

Jewish Approach to Anger Management

2011-01-28T08:37:00.000-05:00

I've never really been prone to outbursts of anger. But even when I do become angry it's hard to tell if my handling of anger invoking situations is correct. My Cricket computer modem broke last month and replacing it wasn't too much trouble other than the scam of the local Cricket dealer telling me they could not sell me a replacement modem, that I would have to go to the store I originally bought the modem from (Best Buy). It made no sense. In any event, I got the new modem from Radio Shack easy enough.

Since I had an existing Cricket account I thought all I had to do was plug it into the USB port. Nope, I kept getting the "no device" message. I called Cricket. A foreign guy asked from my old account number, name, address, date of birth, and even Social Security number.

They couldn't find me anywhere in their files. I didn't exist. I didn't exist, nor did the $50 I had just paid on the previous account. Fine, after several frustrating minutes I decided to just open an account. I followed the guy's instructions to the letter, hung up the phone and tried to log on. No device. Needs to be activated. Called Cricket again and got the same customer disservice fellow. He claimed he fixed everything and I should be able to log on.

Great. I hung up and tried to go online. No device... at this point my blood is boiling, my hands and legs are shaking from rage. I don't think I've ever been that made in my life, but I needed the computer online for work the next day. I told the Cricket guy I refused to get off the phone until they fixed everything so that I could go online. I was firm about this, complained also about having to eat the $50 I had already paid for the old account. All the while clenching my fists.

Make no mistake about it, the Cricket guy had no idea how made I was. Short of being in my apartment to see me, he'd have no idea.

But the tone of my voice was calm as can be. I was very polite. A friend in the apartment was amazed that I could remain so calm. Not calm, just polite, I reminded her. she said she wouldn't have been able to remain that calm. She wouldn't have blasted the guy (and I imagine her internal rage wouldn't have been as strong as mine).

So who handles anger best?

Another time, I had to help a computer illiterate friend write an important email. I had to tell her where to find letters (the middle of the keyboard, to the right; hit the shift key which is on the extreme right or left etc.) A three sentence email took about a half hour since we had to do this literally key by key. When we were finished she said I had the "patience of a (expletive) saint."

Not by a long shot. It was very tedious and slightly frustrating but why make her feel bad about not being able to type?

So was/am I hypocrit or just plan crazy to be furious without letting it out by giving the Cricket guy a tongue lashing and piece of my mind? Which would have kept me more calm? Lashing out or trying to control my anger by keeping a calm tone? I was furious but my tone was sweet as pie

I didn't have a clue. So I decided to see what Judaism had to say about anger management. I came across this article from the OU:

"The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn't angry enough." - Bede Jarrett

"I believe that I am allergic to anger. I cringe whenever I see someone lose his or her temper. I hate to see a parent yell at a child or a boss admonish his or her workers. My revulsion is immediate, and I have always considered my revulsion to be a good trait. There are many quotes from the Torah and the Talmud condemning anger. Likewise, when I occasionally hear someone praise their parents, "My mom never got angry at us," my response is "Wow! What a great human being!" Recently, however, I have begun to wonder.

Anger is a normal reaction, as natural and honest as sympathy or fear. Though it may be ugly to see someone lose their temper, perhaps those of us who avoid getting angry are really engaged in an subtle form of escapism. If I train myself to stay calm in the face of oppression, am I not stifling my own humanity? If I fail to protest evil, if I let my children pursue the path of least resistance, if I decline to admonish inefficient employees, am I not contributing to the decay of society? Have I stifled my own conscience?

An often quoted Talmudic statement provides: "When a person gets angry, it is as if he is worshipping an idol." The trouble is, however, that this passage does not exist. What the Talmud does say is: "He who rips his clothing or throws something in his anger, it is as if he worships idols." The Talmud teaches us the not so subtle distinction between the person who gets angry and the person who loses himself in his anger; while it is never correct to lose control, controlled anger may have its place.

This brings us to our current Pardes issue. When we get angry, are we displaying strength or weakness? Sensitivity or callousness? And when we deflect our anger, are we reacting maturely or out of cold-heartedness and indifference? The answer is crucial. The future of our society is at stake.

Note: As in all Pardes issues, many of the sources compiled were written many centuries ago and therefore reflect the thinking and culture of their times. However the concepts are eternal.

Rabbi Yaacov Haber

I still don't know if this make me a hypocrit or someone who controls her anger well. But I never throw things or hit anyone so at least I am not guilty of idol worship.

Hassan Trial Gets Even Stranger

2011-01-27T04:45:00.000-05:00

If the O.J. trial was the trial of the century, the Muzzamil Hassan case is right up there at least in Buffalo crime history. The Buffalo News is providing--literally--hour and even half hour--updates on the trial. By the 11 o'clock news, the media was reporting that the prosecution has wrapped up its case, Hassan may have no witnesses when he starts his defense, and may call himself to the stand. Whether he would attempt to cross examine himself (how in the hell...?) or not hasn't been resolved.

Remember, this is not satire, it's real.

Text messages submitted into evidence showed that Hassan wrote to his wife about how good he had been, and that G-d loves forgiveness. Fifteen minutes later he killed her.

Just to show how off the wall Hassan is check out this gem:

9:56 a.m.: The sister of Aasiya Zubair Hassan has told News Staff Reporter Sandra Tan there is no truth to a suggestion Hassan made in court on Tuesday that Aasiya Hassan "killed her brother."

"We have only one brother," Aasiya's sister, Asma Firfirey, wrote in an e-mail. "Thank God he's alive."
Firfirey, who lives in South Africa, was responding to questions from The News about Hassan's statement.

Hassan, during cross examination of an Orchard Park detective lieutenant on Tuesday, asked: "Have you become aware that Aasiya had killed her brother?"
Franczyk stopped Hassan from continuing the line of questioning after the prosecution objected.

3:54 p.m.: Hassan has told the judge that he expects to be ready to call witnesses to the stand in the morning.

"If not, then I'll go on the stand," Hassan told Franczyk.

Comical as Muzzamil's representation of himself is at times, this case is a disgusting display of a man who cut his wife's head off, turned himself and now wants to prove he didn't do it. His beautiful wife, actually the more religious of the two, is lost in all of this. Whether the fact that both Muzzamil and his wife were Muslims was a factor is debated. On the one hand, it appears (at least according to his wife's statement and actions) a simple though horribly tragic case of domestic violence.

But the manner of death (beheading) has many people wondering if Islam was a factor. Again, Hassan's wife was the more religious of the two, but beheading...anyone who is honest would perceive it as an unusual and in this day and age, a Muslim manner of death.

Elan Bielski

2011-01-24T17:02:00.000-05:00

This is an interview with Elan Bielski, grandson of Zus Bielski. Elan discusses his grandfather's bravery and his own reasons for joining the IDF.

You Have to Wonder About The Logic

2011-01-24T13:07:00.000-05:00

"Bottom line is [Hassan] does have the right to steer his own ship, even if unwittingly he steers it into an iceberg," Judge Thomas P. Franczyk said today.

That pretty much says all that needs to be said about anyone who decides to represent himself in a murder trial. Muzzimil Hassan has decided to do just that. No doubt he wants to intimidate his former wife's family and friends but he wants the last word. He wants total control of the court system even if it is not in his best interests.

OT but I love some of the quotes judges come out with. Aside from this one, was the case in which a man wanted his court appointed lawyer along with a privately hired attorney to work with his other lawyer. Judge: "He's either indigent or he's not."

And, "Why does he want a second lawyer to sit at the table with him? As a good luck charm?"

Last But Not Least--Bibi

2011-01-21T13:16:00.000-05:00

There. Three cases in which pictures say a million words.

Obama: The REAL Mr. Freeze

2011-01-21T13:14:00.000-05:00

Butt out of Israeli politics Mr. Obama.

Well, Finally!

2011-01-21T13:08:00.000-05:00

It's nice to know that others are saying what I've been writing on just about every You Tube video that reads Free Palestine!"

Yafati--Noam Jacobson

2011-01-20T14:01:00.000-05:00

Video: Noam Jacobson singing Yafati and Haleluya

I found these songs on reverbernation.com/noamjacobson They were available for free download so I hope I am not violating any copyright laws. Everyone is familiar with his many characters and songs on Latma but these beautiful songs, I believe, were recorded before Latma. What a sweet voice he has and his guitar playing is beautiful and comforting, even if you don't understand the lyrics. I know the lyrics in English to Halleluyah, but I don't know what Yafati means. Yet for some reason it seems familiar to me.

If you're having a stressful day just listen to this. You'll mellow out for sure.

Tawil Fadiha's Bi'lin war story

2011-01-14T04:21:00.000-05:00

Latma's most recent video in which Tawil Fadiha--the Palestinian Minister of Uncontrollable Rage describes his experiences in the Bi'lin. What ironic is those this is satire it's sounds as exactly like a newsreport from Hamas.

Politicians and Karma Chameleons

2011-01-12T03:59:00.000-05:00

Karma Chameleon. What the heck is a karma chameleon? That's what I thought the first time I heard the song when I was in high school.

I downloaded the song a couple of days ago and watched the video on You Tube. Watching it now, I know what a karma chameleon is.

"In an interview, Culture Club frontman Boy George explained: "The song is about the terrible fear of alienation that people have, the fear of standing up for one thing. It's about trying to suck up to everybody. Basically, if you aren't true, if you don't act like you feel, then you get Karma-justice, that's nature's way of paying you back."

If you're too young or for whatever reason have never seen the Karma Chameleon video you should. It starts out in 1870 on a Mississippi steamboat called the Chameleon. A pickpocket moves among the passenger, sealing from them. Long story short, the passengers make the thief walk the plank.

That could certainly describe the Obama Democrats perfectly. In fact the song Karma Chameleon has been used in political campaigns against certain candidates. Per Wikipedia:

"Likely because of the lyric "I'm a man without conviction," and the chorus, which includes the word chameleon, "Karma Chameleon" has been used by several politicians in political ads. In 2006, Britain's Labour Party used "Karma Chameleon" as the theme song for a series of political advertisements against Conservative party leader David Cameron in the 2006 UK Elections.

Also, during the 2010 U.S. senate race in Pennsylvania, Republican Pat Toomey used the song as backing music for his video "Happy Anniversary Arlen Specter!" as a way to criticize a sitting Senator from Pennsylvania and recently-turned Democrat Arlen Specter"

A final thought on the song--the repetition of Loving would be easy if your colors were like my dreams, red, gold, and green.

There are lots of theories and speculation but one I found interesting--that the colors represent colors on a traffic light representing order and structure.

Israel IQ at UCLA

2011-01-07T18:10:00.000-05:00

Comedian Mark Schiff interviews UCLA students about their knowledge of the Middle East. It's funny but sad. There's not much to say. Just watch.

Capt. Kirk Was Right: Read The Constitution

2011-01-04T21:36:00.000-05:00

The Omega Glory episode of Star Trek in which Captain Kirk reads part of the US Constitution.

I found this very interesting op-ed on AOL News about the US Constitution being read at the opening of Congress.

It's been amusing to read the reaction in some quarters to the House Republicans' decision to read the entire U.S. Constitution at the start of the new Congress.

Last week, Washington Post columnist and blogger Ezra Klein called it a "gimmick."

Post blogger Greg Sargent added his two cents, calling it "a cheap way of humoring activists."

A blogger on Firedoglake went a little further, dismissing it as an example of the House "shamelessly pandering" to the tea party.

David Corn over at our Politics Daily site said the House GOP was turning the Constitution "into hollow political ammo."

Seriously? What's the beef?

It's a waste of time? True, but we're talking about a legislative body that spends the vast bulk of its legislative efforts naming post offices.

It politicizes the Constitution? It's hard to fathom how reading a document out loud is akin to politicizing it.

It's purely symbolic? Maybe so. But then again, Americans are woefully uninformed about what's in the Constitution, according to a survey last fall by the James Madison's Montpelier organization. So reading it in public every once in a while can't hurt.

In my mind, the only real question is not whether the U.S. Constitution should be read on the House floor, but who should read it. A bunch of boring lawmakers nobody's ever heard of? No way.

If the GOP really wants people to sit up and pay attention to the country's founding document, they need to think big.

Here are a few suggestions:

How about getting William Shatner to do it? After all, he's already read the preamble, in a stirring speech at the end of "Star Trek's" "The Omega Glory" episode.

Obamas Not Invited

2011-01-04T07:02:00.001-05:00

Interesting that Barack and Michelle Obama won't be invited to Prince William's wedding in April. If they were they'd probably try to upstage the bride and groom. Good for William and Kate not inviting them. The Obamas have no class.

I can't blame the Brits for not inviting Obama, especially after he removed a bust of Winston Churchill that had been in the Oval Office for eight years. Then there's the disgraceful treatment of Israeli PM Netanyahu. Not that Netanyahu has anything to do with the royal wedding, but it does show that Obama has no class or diplomacy.

What in the world would Obama have against Churchill?

US President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, will not be invited to the London wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, Britain's the Daily Mail reported Friday.

Since Prince William is "neither the sovereign or the heir to the throne," according to a spokesman from St. James' Palace, his April 29 wedding is not classified as a "state occasion" and escapes the more formal trappings of such events -- including the high profile guest list.

The royal couple reportedly wants to fill the 2,000 seats of Westminster Abbey with charity workers and citizens deserving of special recognition as opposed to heads of state.

"It is certainly not the case that all foreign heads of state will be excluded. The guest list is still being drawn up and could change, but as things stand it’s right [to say Mr. Obama will not be invited]," said an unnamed courtier quoted by the paper.

It is thought that French President Nicolas Sarkozy will be among the chosen few to attend, as well as a handful of leaders of commonwealth nations.

Not inviting the American First Family would be a break from royal tradition. Former first lady Nancy Reagan traveled to the nuptials of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer, as well as the non-state occasion wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson.

Saudis Arrest Bird as Mossad Agent

2011-01-04T04:55:00.000-05:00

This one is even better than the Arab paranoia about Harry Potter:

Vulture in Saudi Custody Suspected as Mossad Agent

by Gil Ronen

Saudi Arabian security forces have captured a vulture that was carrying a global positioning satellite (GPS) transmitter and a ring etched with the words "Tel Aviv University." They suspect the bird of spying for Israel, Maariv-NRG reported Tuesday. The GPS and ring were connected to the bird as part of an long-term project by Israeli scientists that follows vultures' location and altitude for research purposes.

The arrest of the vulture - whose identification code is R65 - comes several weeks after an Egyptian official voiced the suspicion that a shark that attacked tourists off the Sinai shore was also acting on behalf of Mossad. The incidents may reflect a growing irrational hysteria among Arabs surrounding Israel's military prowess and the efficacy of its intelligence services, possibly fueled by the Stuxnet virus' success..

Maariv said that the R65 was caught near the home of a sheikh in the community of Hayel in Saudi Arabia. The words "Tel Aviv University" etched in English on a ring clasped to its leg, and especially the transmitter, caused the finders to suspect espionage and alert the security forces.

Ohad Hatzofe, bird ecologist for the Nature and Parks Authority, said that the vulture story has been making the rounds in Arabic internet sites, including Al-Jazeera forums and Arabic military forums. "The subject is receiving great publicity and it is important that Saudi authorities understand that it is not true. There is also an international treaty of nature protection professionals, that forbids doing things like this," he added.

The researchers said that seven vultures that were marked in Israel in the last few years reached Saudi Arabia. Transmissions from four of them have ceased and they are presumed dead. One vulture - beside R65 - is still alive and flying around Saudi Arabia, after spending the winter in Sudan.

Harry Potter: A Zionist Plot?

2010-12-30T20:47:00.000-05:00

If the Palestinian claims of specially breed rats and wild boars that attack only Arabs was silly enough now comes an Iranian video claiming that Harry Potter is all part of a Zionist plot.

You can watch the video, posted on We Jew, and translated by MEMRI here:

Iran TV: Harry Potter Is A Zionist Hollywood Plot

In a series of accusations that sound ridiculous to those raised in the West, Iran's Irinn TV channel produced a documentary that purports to show how the various elements of the Potter story – the use of magic, the struggle against the Dark Lord, and other themes – essentially reflect the tenets and goals of Zionism (read: Judaism), and encourage innocent people around the world to support those goals.

"Propaganda for purity of blood and race, one of the principles of global Zionism, is openly portrayed and emphasized in the second Harry Potter film," the film's narrator says, referring to the obsession of the film's villain, Voldemort, with pure bloodlines – symbolic of the Jews' parochial attitude to non-Jewish nations. "If we add this [film] to the other pieces of the puzzle – the beliefs depicted in the other propaganda and political products of the Ziono-Hollywoodists, the Satanic features of this inhumane movement will become more evident."

In addition to the blood theme, the series alludes to the Jewish desire to rule the world, says a prominent Iranian film critic quoted in the movie. "[The Zionists] support Harry Potter because he is the promised Messiah," Sa'id Mostaghasi says. "As you can see, he has the same traits and wants to defeat a dark force, which in this film is depicted as Voldemort. In the sixth episode, there is even mention of the War of Armageddon."

Perhaps worst of all, the documentary says, is the series' attempts to influence innocent Christians and Muslims to worship the devil, as the Jews do. “The creation of new stories, based on mythical themes leading to witchcraft and devil worship, has always been a tool used by contemporary Zionists, and is once again being used by them... targeting innocent children and youth” to join them in their Satanic ways."

The Iranians are apparently the first to make the three-way connection between Harry Potter, the Devil, and Jews, although they did not invent the two strands that make up that connection; Christian Europe has for nearly a millenium portrayed the Jews as the representative of the Devil on earth, while modern-day Christian evangelicals preachers have railed against Harry Potter because of its magic and fantasy related themes – although there have been a number of commentators across the spectrum of Christianity, including evangelicals and Catholics, who have rallied to the series' defense. Thus, while the Focus on the Family group has said that the Potter books contain some positive messages, “they are packaged in a medium – witchcraft – that is directly denounced in Scripture,” evangelical author Connie Neal has written.

That the Iranians would connect the devil theme to the Jews is not surprising at all, given that Christians have been doing this for much of their own history. In his seminal work on the subject, “The Devil and the Jews,” author Joshua Trachteberg laid out a sordid history of European anti-Semitism, which showed that much of Christian anti-Semitism over the past 1,000 years stems from a fear – and suspicion – that the Jews were working with the Devil to destroy Christianity.

“How is it that the Jews can be hated for being Communists and capitalists – at the same time,” asks Trachtenberg, as he explores some of the most ridiculous beliefs that Christians have had about Jews: that they poison wells, desecrate the “host” (the wafer representing Jesus in Catholic ritual), and destroy morality, among many other sins. In his work, published in 1943, Trachtenberg builds a persuasive case that Christians have seen Jews as allies of the Devil, working against them, and that those vestigial beliefs are still around today – for example, in the accusation that Hollywood (which everyone knows is “controlled by the Jews”) spreads moral perversion and unpatriotic attics.

Thus, it didn't take much for Iran to pick up on these themes in its battle against Israel and the Jews, says history researcher Morris Cohen. “Those themes were out there for the taking, so it makes sense that they would use them against Israel.” The Islamic world, he said, is much more vehement in its condemnation of Harry Potter than the Christian world: In 2002, the books were banned in schools across the United Arab Emirates (UAE), on the grounds that its themes were contrary to Islamic values; in 2007, police in Karachi, Pakistan discovered and defused a car bomb located outside a shopping center where the final Harry Potter novel was scheduled to go on sale that day; and of course, Iran has harped on the Jewish connection to the sorcery themes in the books, saying that "Zionists had spent billions of dollars" on it in order to encourage devil worship, as described above.

The Jewish attitude to Harry Potter, it should be noted, has been a bit more varied. While some rabbis, especially in the hareidi-religious community, have spoken against the series, few have pointed to its emphasis on magic as the reason – and are more likely to lump it together with other popular culture phenomena that can draw the attention of children away from Torah study.

However, there are a fair number of rabbis and Jewish authors who have made deep analyses of the books and movies, and have found what they say are many parallels to Jewish philosophy and thought, with themes such as the power of good over evil, the importance of loyalty and friendship, and the value of doing right vs. the value of preserving light. In an article on Aish.com, for example, author Shira Albertson says that Harry “has to find the inner strength to act with independence and conviction,” reflecting Hillel's famous saying, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?”

While one would expect Judaism to be as vociferously opposed to Harry Potter as Christians and Muslims are – after all, magic and sorcery are capital crimes in the Torah - one reason that the Jewish towards Harry Potter is more relaxed may be because of the way Jews practice the Torah. “Jews are used to interpreting the Written Law through the lens of the Oral Law, and thus don't necessarily automatically jump on things that appear 'suspicious' on the surface,” Rabbi Chaim Shapiro of New York told Israel National News. “For example, the death penalty is mentioned numerous times in the Torah for a wide array of sins, but the Talmud tells us that a Court of Jewish Law that killed too frequently – even once in 70 years – was condemned. The Oral Law obviates many of these penalties, so it makes sense that rabbis would look beyond the surface on the Harry Potter issue as well.”

An article on Arutz Sheva reads:

"If you thought the Harry Potter series was an innocent children's fantasy story, you're wrong, an Iranian movie producer says: In reality, the Harry Potter books and movies are part of a “Zionist plot” to “spread their poison.” With its emphasis on witches, warlocks, and wonders, he says, the Harry Potter series "serves to spread the dark and evil essence of Zionism and its goals."

A Cup of Kindness for Scotland and Israel

2010-12-30T20:06:00.003-05:00

Millions of people around the world will sing the same song at the stroke of midnight January 1, 2011: Auld Lang Syne of course. I can't hear the song without becoming tearful. I hardly get past the lyrics "should all acquiantence be forgot" without being tearful. There's the melody, which ironically has the same meter as America the Beautiful, so there is naturally the effect of a powerful patriotic ballad.

But the lyrics have always moved me deeply. It's one of my earliest childhood memories. I remember my parents rousing me out of my sleep at midnight and listening to the Guy Lombardo band playing it.

The old Scottish song, written by Robert Burns (who also wrote My Love is Like a Red Red Rose) is stirring. Some associate it with new beginnings and others with funerals. Usually it is bitter sweet--recalling past friends or anything one/person/country being left behind with a sense sadness but kindness.

I associate it with the scene from the Poseidon Adventure as everyone sings it while doing the traditional locking of arms and swaying back and forth just before the ship is turned upside down by a meassive tidal wave.

It's also hard to listen to it and not remember that the song came from the British Isles by people who ultimately left for other countries. As with the Irish, it has this sense of leaving a cherished place, and mourning it. Ah, always with the Scottish and Irish that sense of either being left behind or leaving behind.

Auld Lang Syne: Scottish and Jewish Thoughts.

This excerpt from an article written by Michael Medved:

With this obsessive desire to connect with a significant past (all Jewish holidays serve to emphasize that connection) Jews should particularly welcome and cherish the emotions invoked on New Year’s Eve by “Auld Lang Syne”—best translated as “Old Times Past” or “Times Long Ago.”

Why sing of the past just as you’re crossing over into the New Year, and letting the old year go? Because it’s the process of connecting past and future that makes the present fully alive—as in the now-realized Scottish nationalist dream of reconvening their parliament after a 300 year interruption, or the vibrant Jewish dream of rebuilding a homeland after 2000 years of exile. The question that begins “Auld Lang Syne” – “Should auld acquaintance be forgot?” – is answered definitively in the negative by the remaining four stanzas of the song.

No, old acquaintance and experience and national history must not be forgotten or ignored, but they shouldn’t be distorted or falsified either. The past matters, but we poison the present if we look back through a clouded lens of dishonesty and delusion."

The excerpt is from a very interesting article entitled Auld Lang Syne, Scots, Nationalism and Palestinian Fraud.

Very interesting indeed.

http://townhall.com/columnists/MichaelMedved/2007/01/03/auld_lang_syne,_scots_nationalism,_and_palestinian_fraud/page/full/

The Simple Logic of Fighting Terrorism

2010-12-27T11:01:00.002-05:00

There's a game on Windows 7 called Purble. I had to laugh a couple of weeks ago when my score was high and I achieved the rank of Master of Logic. What logic? It's taken months for me to realize the correct matches on the Purble game (similar to tic tac toe) can be found either immediately above or on either side of the tile you click on.

Champion of logic lol. I got a new Ipod and my computer wouldn't recognize it at all. I didn't get a message on my computer. Nothing happened when I connected it to my computer. I tried everything--installing iTunes again and a bunch of complicated things with my computer that were way over my head.

Finally, I read something so simple on an Ipod message board--make sure the Ipod is tightly connected to the USB cable. That did the trick and now this Ipod I was going to toss in the garbage worked.

The light bulb above my head turned on lol.

It reminded me of the movie Silence of the Lambs. Hannibal Lector kept throwing out seemingly insignificant clues to the identity of the killer and his location. In his cell Lector describes a painting in his cell, the view of Vienna from the Belvedere (first killing was in Belvedere, Ohio, which went over Clarice's head.)

Second clue, Lector tells Clarice that she is close to the way she is going to find the killer. Lector considers Clarice a rube. The implication is that Clarice shouldn't rely so much what she learned about behavioral science but rather her intuitive and simple logic and experience. He asks Clarice, "What does he do, this man you seek?" Clarice launches into a litany of behavioral reasons for the killer doing what he does-- instant gratification, hatred of women etc.

Lector rolls his eyes and says, "THAT is incidental."

Lector: "He covets"

You covet what you see everyday, a co-worker tells her late in the movie.

Later in the film we see that Lector has left a notation on the map of where the bodies were dumped. Only one--the first victim--was weighted down in the water. Lector indicates that the pattern of where the bodies were dumped was "desperately random", like the "elaborations of a bad liar."

The first clue, Lector indicates, is simplicity. A wonderful pun. The first victim was a seamstress; the victim and the killer, who is making a suit out of the skin he removes from the victim, can also sew. Simplicity--an easy to over look clue--considering the reference to Simplicity sewing patterns for clothing.

Such simple and logical clues to the identity of the killer and his location. Ironic, when Clarice is sent to Lector's cell and have him complete a psychological profile, paying attention to everything in his cell and what he says she ignores the obvious and fails to use basic logic and attention.

I suppose that's how logic works. Sometimes it's not as complex a puzzle to solve. We just make things more complicated than they need to be.

All of this got me thinking about Islamic terrorism. Critical thinking skills are important, but they don't have to be complex at all.

What do these terrorists do? They kill. Motive? They covet. They want our land, our freedom, and our submission to them. How do we stop it? A simple NO and refusal to buy into the lie that Islam is a religion of peace and a commitment to fighting for our land, freedom, and lives.

The solution is right under our noses.

Glad It's Over

2010-12-24T12:05:00.000-05:00

I was dreading it for week. How would my boss treatment as Christmas approached? Would a co-worker receive a year end bonus and I stood their without such a bonus? Things have been extremely tense the past few months. There was the Swastika, the TV report, my article on the swastika which was rejected for publication by my boss.

Let's not even go into the election for NYS Assembly (my apologies to those who don't know what this means) in which I went out on a limb and was probably the first time I took a risky--risky emotionally to me--and was yelled at, screamed at, called every name in the book, and resented by a large segment of my small community.

If you knew how timid I naturally am, how I defer to just about anyone who is remotely critical of me...you'd know why taking a stand and facing so much hostility and resentment was so difficult yet needed to be done.

So yesterday the boss asks me to come early. It was just the two of us. He gave me twice my pay and asked me to close up. He asked what I was doing over the weekend. At least this wasn't a repeat of how he repeatedly asked what I was doing EASTER Sunday, until I finally just told him I was going to the movies with my sister (which was true BTW).

I got my bonus--twice my usual pay--and the subject of Christmas wasn't brought up until he left, wishing me a merry Christmas. Not a big deal to most people but so hurtful after everything else that happened the past few months. I was glad it was all over when he left and I was alone to close up. But my entire time there I suffered severe anxiety wondering if and when religion would be brought up.

Eventually I was alone and turned off the Christmas music. I went on the computer to check my aol email. Strange. When I signed in there was, right on the page when I signed in, the words, "Hang in there Patty."

Had someone I knew hacked into my computer and then thought to offer words of comfort and support? I signed out, signed in again and the words were gone.
I still can't explain it. Normally all you get on the AOL homepage is "Welcome" and your screen name. This was right on the homepage. There, and then gone.

I put the closed sign in the window, locked up and went home. I was glad it was over...until next December :(

On my way home, I recalled my boss's message to reader's before Thanksgiving about how we live in a country where everyone is has the freedom to worship in whatever way they want. I couldn't stop thinking about that on the way home.

I listened to the original, instrumental version of Born Free by the brilliant composer John Barry. Much more powerful without lyrics. I became teary eyed as too many emotionas flooded me. Emotions I cannot begin to express or even understand fully. I cried for myself and my situation at work, I cried for Israel, so beautiful and yet the desire of 2,000 years to be a free people slipping through their hands like grains of sand.

To a lesser extent I cried over the loss of religious freedom and other freedom in the US. Land of the free.

But mainly I cried over my situation and Israel. If you have never listened to the instrumental version of Born Free I recommend it. Powerful and very emotional (either that or I am just too tender-hearted).

That was my Thursday, and I am glad it's over.