What a relief!

I'm blocked at Great Wall of China! I thought I was too unimportant to be banned, but I guess I'm playing with the big guys.

Are American school children safe?

We have to consider the possibility that they are not.

The example of Beslan cannot be ignored.

On the first day of school in September of 2004 in the Russian town of Beslan, approximately 100 pro-Chechan Islamic terrorists - many embedded as school workers -- seized over 1,200 children and adults in School Number One. While the details of the siege are quite disturbing, they must be absorbed in order to properly understand the threat before us.

Men, women, and children (including babies) were herded into an unventilated gym, where temperatures rose to 115 degrees. Hostages were given no food or water and women (and some children) were repeatedly raped. Adult and stronger male students were forced to help fortify the building; then shot without mercy; their bodies tossed out a second story window into the courtyard.

Hostiles warned Russian Security Forces that if stormed, they would detonate the building and that for every one in their ranks killed, 50 hostages would be butchered. Armed guards stood amongst prisoners on "deadman switches" which were wired to explosives. Others wore "black widow" suicide vests, which could be triggered by remote control at the whim of their sadistic leaders. Doorways and stairways were booby-trapped and children were forced to sit on windowsills as human shields from snipers.

Could it happen here?

Of all the "soft" targets the United States has to offer these madmen, it's hard to find any more vulnerable than a school.

And, as al-Qaeda has a history of plotting spectacular and awe-inspiring attacks, you'd be equally challenged to find a more inviting one.

Bad dating karma

Rachel has a link to an article about unacceptable dates.

How that article brings back memories of dates, bad, worse and unbelievable. I only remember the unbelievably bad. It was a long time ago, after all.

1. The guy who kept letting out rebel yells when drunk, and who was often drunk. That stuff didn't go over real big in central Ohio.
2. The fellow who kept calling and explaining where he was and why he wasn't where he was supposed to be, namely at my house.
3. The chap who took me out to dinner and ate fried chicken with his hands and had dirty fingernails.
4. The man who didn't change his sheets all semester. Or his socks.
5. The one with an Italian Mother. You know the kind --the mom who thinks no girl is good enough for her son. And she buys all his shirts.

Oh how I hated dating! In Mr Charm's favor, I have to say, he Took Me Away from All That. My condolences to the girls who are still in the game.

Bush gives an older colleague a helping hand

I had forgotten about Bush's basic decency and good manners.

I took civics in the eighth grade

and I seem to remember learning about something called "the separation of powers." Was Senator Hagel out sick the day his class learned about this?

With his go-it-alone approach on Iraq, President Bush is flouting Congress and the public, so angering lawmakers that some consider impeachment an option over his war policy, a senator from Bush’s own party said Sunday.

That senator would be Hagel.

In related news, another Chuck, Senator Schumer, announced in the hearing about the totally manufactured crisis of the eight prosecutors who were fired that the burden of proof was on the Attorney General's staff who were being grilled. I don't have a link, but I heard it with my own ears on the evening news. In other words, they would be guilty until proven innocent. Silly me! I thought it was the other way around!

Is no-one in charge? Where are the grownups?

A beautiful legacy

left to the British nation.

Carbon offsets

A new form of indulgence for energy gluttons who want to feel good about themselves. So what are they exactly?

Nothing more than buying a tree in return for your ability to still emit massive amounts of CO2 and other pollutants into the atmosphere. Read this "Carbon Exchange" sale on Ebay.

CARBON EXCHANGE (Carbon Offsett) - Help stop global warming, we have a 200+ acre property on the pacific coast north of San Francisco California. For every customer who sends $50 we will plant a baby redwood tree in their name. Each year you send an additional $50 to assure that the tree grows and is taken care off properly, we have been planting redwood trees for many years.

We will continue to maintain the property and preserve it for future generations to assure the health and longevity of our children, and our childrens children for many generations to come.

The earth is our gift but it does not come without a price. We could develope our property into a Discount super store, or a Lumber mill but we choose to take the option of environmental preservation and offer to our fellow Americans the opportunity to give something back to the land which has given so much to us. Each year you will recieve a newsletter (Written on recycled paper) explaining the state of our venture and how you can continue your support. Let's do something positive for our children and stop the destruction of our enviorment today. Together we can make this country the world leader in enviormental preservation.




Jewish people have something similar, only it doesn't do anything about your guilty feelings. Worse luck. It's called planting a tree in Israel to honor or memorialize someone.

Former principal cat, Tobermory

I love this picture, but I'm not sure it reproduced very well. This was our favorite cat. We had him for years.

One of James Webb's supporters weighs in

Voters voted for him because he is crazy?

I voted for Jim Webb--just exactly because of the very obvious fact that he is, without doubt, absolutely mental. Nutters. Teched in the head, as they used to say. Advanced syphilis insane.

And thus, I knew, and dearly hoped, for six long, entertaining years of Jim Webb being, well, Jim Webb. And so far, he has not disappointed me in the least.

By the end of the current session, I fully expect him to show up on the Senate floor in an all-white, antebellum Planter's suit. With a hardwood cane. Which he will use to brain some other senator whom he deems to have insulted him.

And after that, the first duel between public officials in over a century.

It's just freakin' inevitable. And I cannot wait.

;-)

Pep

This commentor is being unfair to the rest of the herd. There are plenty of crazy senators who can provide good solid entertainment value. We didn't need another.

Of course, a duel on the Senate floor might provide a refreshing change of pace.

Vote early and often

How to do it if you're in Egypt.

Liar, liar! pants on fire!

the newspaper of record.

Can we try it this way?

Putting people in categories on the basis of race doesn't seem to be working.

Perhaps 'we' ought to consign this whole 19th Century notion of 'race' to the dustbin of history. Dividing people up for the superficial differences of skin tone and feature doesn't seem to have worked, does it?

When the left adopted ‘race’ as one of its causes, naturally it saw it as a collectivist problem with a collective solution. But, rather than wasting away – just as the state was supposed to do under communism - we find that race and race ‘differences’ become accented and entrenched through the systems set up for it like the whole race relations 'industry' we now have – just as the state apparatus became stronger and stronger under communism.

Read the whole thing.

Is Al Gore consuming an unfair share of the world's resources?

On the evidence, I would have to say yes. I mean, look at him.

Do you realize that somewhere in Africa there is a small village whose inhabitants are starving because Al Gore is consuming enough calories every day to sustain them for a week?

It's quite a small village, but still....

Rethinking my blogroll

I don't have any real philosophy concerning my blogroll: it's been pretty much a matter of chance. If I follow a link and like what the blogger has to say, I link to his blog. Or not. Same if anyone comments. And there are some blogs I visit regularly that I haven't gotten around to adding to my blogroll. I really haven't cleaned it up for ages.

This is going to change. I am going to visit every link on my blogroll, and if you haven't posted anything since 2006, unless you have a good reason, it is sayonara. If you're dead, ditto.

I am also going to try to add some of my frequent visitors, or even infrequent visitors--if you want to be linked. If you do, send me a comment with your url and I will add you to the blogroll.

No bad language or naughty stuff. For instance, if your blog is called "girls hot girls" don't bother. This is a family blog.

What Winston Churchill would have said

if he were a Democrat today.

That's to say, a gutless coward.

We shall go on until it is declared an unwinnable quagmire, we shall fight in Turtle Bay, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, which are rising because the Earth has a Fever, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, unless we choke on all the man made Carbon Dioxide, we shall defend our Island, unless it costs too much or the “International Community” disapproves, we shall fight on the eroding beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, as long as no one fights back, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, as long as no one gets killed or even injured; we shall never surrender, because we’ll call it a phased redeployment, and even if, which is most likely considering that this war is and always had been unwinnable,due to the fact that that liberal democracies place restrictions on the actions of their militaries, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, unarmed and guarded by the United Nations, would issue sternly worded resolutions, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, succombs to global warming.”

What you can do to prevent climate change

Some great suggestions:

--Plug in your clocks only when you absolutely have to know what time it is. If you need the alarm, get up five minutes early to set it. [] ---Down more Slurpees, or better yet, nice frosty margaritas. See, this isn't so bad. ---Lower the thermostat in your Gulfstream jet, and make the help wear sweaters. [] Then sit down quietly. Moving, talking and breathing should be kept to the absolute minimum. Human life is eco-unfriendly, and should be lived as little as possible. It's the moral thing to do.

More about Passover

When I was a child seders seemed to last for eons. All my mother's family, my parents, my two uncles and their wives and children were always present, because anything bubbe hosted was a command performance. The good linens, china, and silver made the table gleam under the light of bubbe's two candelabras.

We children were excited beyond hysteria until the ceremony began, and we were forced to come to the table and stop hanging upside down from the sofa, climbing the walls, and knocking down the furniture. I particularly enjoyed the presence of my cousins because I was an only child at the time, and lonely. My eldest cousin, three and a half years older than me, was a goddess of sophistication to me; her brothers were rowdy playmates. Uncle Doc's little girls were too young to play with but they were mighty cute and dressed to the nines.

Once the youngest child present had recited the four questions the prayer competition began. Both my uncles and my cousin Bernie read the haggadah aloud --individually--in Hebrew as quickly as they could. The conversation went like this:

Uncle I: It's time for the first (or second, third, or fourth) cup of wine.
Uncle II: I haven't gotten there yet. You read too fast.
Uncle I: It's a long service.
Uncle II: All right, all right. Come on everybody. Drink the fourth (or third, or second) cup. Where's the bottle? Pass me the wine, somebody.

They raced through the prayers and then had to stop and wait impatiently for the others to catch up. It was rather like riding in a car that alternately speeded up and stopped dead, causing you to lurch forward and back.

Meanwhile, my cousin Sam and sometimes one or two of the other children would drink too much wine and slip quietly to the floor. It taught me the meaning of drinking yourself under the table. After a brief nap the culprit would re-appear, refreshed.

The two little girls were too small to read, so they raced around the table fighting with each other until Uncle Doc started yelling at them and threatening to spank them. My aunt, his wife, would burst into tears because he had shouted at the girls. She would threaten to leave. They would yell some more until he calmed down and apologized to the girls and gave them some candy or gum he just happened to have in his pocket. The girls, of course, would stuff themselves with sweets and would not eat the festive meal when it appeared.

The festive meal! Chicken soup with matzoh balls. We called bubbe's matzoh balls cannon balls. They were heavy but nourishing. Then we had chicken. With the chicken came potato kugel and chopped liver. Gefilte fish. Someone probably slipped a green vegetable in there somewhere, but I don't remember it. Bubbe didn't hold with all this greenery anyway. Her idea of a salad was: take one cucumber; add pint of sour cream; eat. And we couldn't have that, this was a fleisheke meal.

Bubbe would heap each of the children's plates with massive portions of food and then bawl them out for not eating it all. We were starved and ate voraciously. If someone had thrown one of us into the river we would have plummeted to the bottom and sunk without a trace.


Dessert featured, but was not limited to, Manischevitz macaroons, served in the can. The featured wine was Mogen David.

After eating, there was a timeout while the children searched for the afikomen and the adults sat still and burped.

Since I was not used to staying up late, the remainder of the seder was one big blur to me, except for opening the door for Eliyahu hanovi. Then came Chad Gadya, which meant the end of the service and blessed release.

And then we did it again the next night.

Women's seder

I attended a women's seder last night. It was all about Women, not women, but Women. Who've made a Difference. That kind.

They placed a cup of water in the center of the table, for Miriam. Not me, but the priestess, Moses' sister. Also an orange, to symbolize gay and lesbian Jews. Or something. I think. The connection was not quite clear.

A group of singers presided. As singers, they were pretty good. As celebrants, not so much. A lot of carry-on about abortions, abused women, etc. At one point they called for names of women who are Change Agents, and one woman called out Nancy Pelosi.

When I found out the name of the caterers, my heart sank. The last time I attended a function they had catered, the food was miserable. I asked why they are always hired to cater kosher events, and was told they are reliable. I suppose it makes some kind of sense; it probably would have been worse if they hadn't shown up with the food.

Al Gore does it again

I'm not just referring to his testifying in Congress.

It's that hectoring tone of his: the way he speaks slowly, with exasperation, as if everyone were stupid, retarded, or enrolled in kindergarten. A perfect example of his attitude is the way he rolled his eyes during his debates with Bush in 2000. This Harvard C student obviously fancies himself the smartest man in the room, any room.

For instance: "

The planet has a fever," Gore said. "If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don't say, 'Well, I read a science fiction novel that told me it's not a problem.' If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame retardant. You take action."

You see, he has to explain it all to us in words of one syllable. So we can understand. So our limited little minds can grasp the concept. We simple people are just ruining the planet for Al and his ilk, the Hollywood millionaires. He would like us better if we knew our place, if we practiced sustainable living. That means we should live in mud huts, grow our own food, and travel on foot or by bicycle. For entertainment, we could read by moonlight. Gore and company could have all the SUVs and jet planes to themselves. Being so superior to us plebes, they would make use of these things to make our little lives better.

Does he believe this codswollop? Could anyone?

Meanwhile, he goes about his business, jetting around bringing global coldening wherever he goes and glorying in his intellectual and moral superiority to the plebes.

Sitting shiva, yahrzeit, and other memories

My mother died a long, long time ago, over twenty years ago in fact but her yahrzeit was on Monday, and of course I have been thinking of her. Her passing left a great big hole in my life. You never get over it, you just go on.

I can barely remember the funeral, arranged by my cousin B, of course. He is the designated funeral arranger for that side of the family. My family and I were living 600 miles away, and we had to fly in. I remember going to her house, and seeing all the medicine bottles and throwing them away. I remember seeing her slippers, and how they almost broke my heart--such little slippers. They were so sad.

The woman who had taken care of her during her last illness started to regale me with details of her death, details I cannot bear to think of to this day. My daughter saw how this distressed me, and shut her up, the old crow.

When we got back to the house, women from the congregation had prepared a meal for us. We sat down, me and my husband and two daughters, my uncle and his wife, and my brother and his wife, and a strange man. I was in shock, but the kindness of the ladies who had prepared the meal was like a balm to my spirits. They came like elves, they did not intrude, but the food was there. We could no more have arranged a meal for ourselves than we could have climbed Mount Everest, we were so exhausted.

Later, I remembered the strange man who sat at the table with us. Who was he? Oh, someone said, he always comes to funerals and eats.

Then we sat shiva. Oh, it was a long, long ordeal. Every morning, a minyan showed up at the house to pray. After that, people dropped by from time to time. I made fresh coffee over and over. Cookies were put out, and eaten, and more were put out.

Some of my mother's friends sat down and reminisced about their friendships with her. They made me remember lots of things I had forgotten: how we took walks together when I was a child, the way she would always dig up flowers from vacant lots and take them home and plant them, her little quirks that were hers and hers alone.

Every night, someone would send over dinner. Every day, letters would come, sympathy cards, charitable donations in her name. During the times when there were no visitors, I tried to pack up and dispose of her things. She had many things. She kept everything. Her drawers were filled with presents I had given her, wrapped in the tissue paper in which they were presented; they were too good to use. It's ironic how things survive their owners, isn't it?

In a cedar chest in her upstairs hall, I found skirts and sweaters I had worn in college. Some of my grandmother's clothes were there too--she had been dead ten years. I found my grandmother's silver. And dishes, many many dishes. All observant Jews have lots of dishes, but she had her own and her mother's too. Sets and sets.

By the end of the third day, I was just chucking things into garbage bags, right, left, and center. My husband and daughters had gone home, back to their lives, and I was alone there with the shiva visitors, the other mourners, and the stuff. I swore to myself I would never leave all that stuff for my kids to go through. I haven't exactly kept my promise, though.

I went on with my life, too, of course. It would be odd if I didn't. But I find myself missing her at odd times. Yom Kippur is hard, yizkor is hard. Passover brings back memories, because we always spent that holiday with her. But mostly they are good memories.

I was very lucky to have her, and I cherish her memory.