DAS Blog

Travelin' in Israel: Tel Aviv, a small city with a big ideological meaning

2011-02-19T15:35:00.003-05:00

I am finally taking a trip to Israel (woo-hoo! first time!) with a group from my shul. Our trip has begun in Tel Aviv and pretty much that's all I've seen thus far.

Contrary to what I had thought about Tel Aviv being the modern metropolis of modern Israel (which statement seems to be yet another Zionist myth), Tel Aviv is very small, actually. It's like a mini version of LA/Santa Monica, CA. So I guess it's because I'm a proud escapee of the LA area, but I have not yet had the "you're at home" feeling we Jewsians are s'posed to have in Israel.

That being said, it's really nice being in a place with so many kosher restaurants, a shul around every corner, etc. But then again, I already live in such a place. Seriously, though, I do like it here. And I guess I'll get that soulful Jewish feeling (although I had that feeling in a Masorti synagogue here where we went for Shabbos morning services) in Jerusalem.

What really strikes me though is the degree to which Tel Aviv really is a Zionist paradise (which is why I guess Zionist mythos makes it out to be such a grand place): it is really quite a normal place (at least to me as a former resident of Sunny So. Cal) where it is normal to be Jewish, if not religiously so.

This normality also strikes directly at the kishkes of both right wing and left wing arguments about Israel: even if there is no intellectual basis for evaluating arguments based on first emotional impressions, being in Tel Aviv (where security certainly is more of a presence than even in supposedly 'yellow terrorism alert' America) you hardly feel the sense of existential danger the right claims Israel and Israelis are constantly experiencing. And it certainly is hard to feel in such a normal place (with everything translated into Arabic) a sense that Israelis exist solely as colonialists bent on subjugating Arabs for the sake of Western Imperialism as some lefties seem to like to believe.

This place just is. It's not the nicest place in the world. Outside of when I was in shul, I didn't feel any more "Jewish" here or at home here than anywhere else. But from a classical Zionist perspective, Tel Aviv is the Zionist dream: a place where Jews live normal lives without constant fear of pograms, or even (more shallowly) "what will people say when they realize I'm a Hebe?". It's a triumph of classical Zionism -- and that undermines both the rights' arguments based on a fear of "what will happen if ..." and especially left wing anti-Zionist arguments that misrepresent the very purpose of Zionism and imbue it with an original sin that doesn't actually exist within anything but the straw Zionism of the left.

And I guess that's why they like Jews like me to visit Israel. Not because "oh wow! I feel at home here! Now I'm going to support only candidates who feel Bibi is too soft" but rather because it strikes those of us prone to leftist thought right in the kishkes with what Israel is about. We might not agree with (classical) Zionism intellectually and Israel may itself have drifted away, for better or for worse, from its Zionist moorings, but classical Zionism is, at some level what a place like Tel Aviv is about. And that really undermines, if not intellectually, emotionally the arguments of extremists around these parts.

A Thought About Home Ownership

2010-09-15T19:30:00.002-04:00

Widespread home/condo/co-op ownership only makes sense if a lot of people are living on one place long enough that buying, rather than renting, makes sense cost-wise or if housing prices always go up. But the only way housing prices can outpace inflation and interest is if there is an exponentially increasing shortage of housing (i.e. demand growing faster than supply) which means wide-spread home/condo/co-op ownership ain't happening.

A while back it was fashionable to talk about "the ownership society". Did anybody stop to consider that in order to have one of those you need to have some measure of economic stability so that way it makes sense for people to purchase things like housing (without having to worry that they may need to move in order to find a new job in case they loose their old one)?

Either the goals of those who talk a good capitalist talk are fundamentally against what they claim they are for (i.e. those who talk about broad-based home ownership really are interested in the opposite) or such people really, for all their claims that they understand economics better than the rest of us, don't understand economics at all.

Why then, do we still take such people seriously on economics matters?

Relatedly -- why is the media surprised at Geithner's calendar? Of course, come general election time, this will be used to show that "see even the liberal media realizes that the Democrats really work for the plutocrats and not the working stiffs they claim they want to help" in the usual GOP "vote for Side Show Bob" sort of way. So how's that 11-dimensional chess working out? Fortunately, it seems the GOP is in the process of imploding, so I guess it's best we just let them implode. But while were standing their watching, must we shoot ourselves in the foot as well? The old (successful) GOP would have gone for the kill while their enemy was week.

So Hevesi Won the Primary ...

2010-09-15T19:14:00.002-04:00

I am not saying this because I live in the NY28'th assembly district (we don't live in the fancy part of Forest Hills ... heck we aren't even in the city council district for Forest Hills) nor because I happen to know Joe Fox and know he's a stand-up sort of guy, but ... who votes for someone like Young Hevesi?

I would have thought that Joe Fox's well-oiled campaign would have trounced Hevesi. Similarly, who votes for Koslowitz? Not that I have anything against her and she may be a very fine councilwoman, but given the campaigns by so many exciting new candidates for city council, how come Koslowitz won that race?

I know that incumbents (although Koslowitz wasn't an incumbent per se, she had the seat before) have some degree of advantage, if only due to name recognition and that they are known quantities, but when you have a nayfish like the Young Hevesi running, how much advantage can being an incumbent be?

And yet people still vote for them. People complain about entrenched politicians in the City Council, Albany, DC, etc., but if nobody voted for incumbents, then we wouldn't have these entrenched interests, would we?

Nu?

Who votes for incumbents?

A Must Read

2010-08-02T12:34:00.002-04:00

The K-man on Obama.

FWIW, you can substitute "liberal Jews" for "Progressives" and "Israel" for "Obama", and you would also have a similar and cogent point.

*

Meanwhile, in other news ... one challenge of being father to a 5-or-so-year-old daughter is the whole locker-room and even bathroom thing: she's now too old to go into the men's room with me and too young in some circumstances to go into the women's room by herself (e.g. when the bathroom is located within a locker room). I don't know how this should be handled in buildings that already exist but family-oriented community centers should realize that sometimes fathers go to them with their daughters but without their mothers in tow: ideally they need to have kids' bathrooms or something so that kids can use the toilet, change into/out of bathing suits, etc.

It's getting toward the end of summer in Queens ...

2010-07-25T14:49:00.003-04:00

... and that means Shabbos dinner is a picnic at Passport Fridays.

This past Shabbos we saw "Quest for Pasta"*, er, Castaway on the Moon. It's a very good movie: I give it two thumbs up.

* c.f. (aka "Quest for the Missionary Position") ... about half-way through the movie, you'll get the joke.

I'm Feeling Well Enough ...

2010-07-15T17:33:00.002-04:00

... so I tried my new tobaccy -- McClelland's "Royal Cajun Ebony". Instead of being an "everything but the kitchen sink" tobacco like I usually smoke, it has tobacco processed in such a way as to combine the effects of being a Latakia and a Perique (with the oxidation/aromatic nature of a Cavendish as well). The result is, so far, excellent, although the tobacco was a bit dry for my tastes (so I humidified it a bit)

I just hope it will be as good the next time I smoke it, as I worry that maybe I humidified it too much?

A 9-Days Post: I.e., Just to Expand a Little Bit ...

2010-07-12T12:24:00.004-04:00

... on my "Narrative #2" downstairs and Rev. RMJ's insightful comment regarding it, there is a tendency among some on the left to wonder "the Jews have been so oppressed, why do they not realize how Zionism oppresses Palestinians?". To some extent, this is a fair question, but there is much less irony here than lefties like to think.

The thing is when many of us Jews here about the Nabka, the fact is that, far from helping us to identify with the meaning of such a "catastrophe", our history of oppression makes us completely blind to how such an occurrence would be such a catastrophe. And this goes beyond the "I am more oppressed than you are"(*) issue. In Jewish history, there have been so many 'Nabka's, that they are rather meaningless as individual events.

Yes, it is tragic to be kicked off land you and your family have farmed for generations by armed thugs. But to us Jews, that's no big whoop. Throughout our history, even in locations where Jews have finally settled down and lived, eventually thugs would come and kick us off our land (yes, we Jews are very well integrated into many societies in the diaspora and there is little actual anti-Semitism today, but history shows that such idylls often end violently). The idea that we would have an armed struggle to obtain a "right of return" to every place that kicked us out would be ridiculous.

Another way to put this is to imagine the following conversation --

Palestinian: How can you Jews, who have experienced so much oppression be so insensitive to the catastrophe Israel's very existence has caused us. Why when I was a kid, armed thugs kicked us off land my family has lived on for centuries just so a bunch of Jews, many of whom are, by all appearances 100% European, could have a state

Jew: I don't get what's the big deal here: armed thugs kicked my grandfather off his land, and his grandfather off his land before that ... and then, when I was a kid, armed thugs kicked me out of my home and put me in a death camp

This isn't just a game of Oppression Olympics here (again *) but a whole difference in perspective: if your family had lived on the same plot of land for hundreds of years, being kicked off that land is a catastrophe; if your family were kicked around from place to place every few generations (even being kicked out of a place where you thought you were "safe"), you might not see being kicked off your land as such a catastrophe because it is all too "normal" for your expectations. Of course, the very existence of Zionism certainly testifies to the idea that this constant state of expecting a Nabka for diaspora Jews is wrong and damaging ...

... in fact, that is the whole point of Israel -- we Jews no longer have to live in constant fear of being kicked out of our homes and wondering where we would go next: we would go to Israel. Whether that makes sense or not, is a whole other question. But it seems rather odd to purposefully ignore that aspect of our narrative and to ignore that, for many Jews, the idea -- that being kicked out of the place where your family has lived for generations is the greatest catastrophe ever -- is meaningless as this has happened on a regular basis to us.

**

Meanwhile, there has been a little bit of bad press about extremist settlers blocking access of Palestinians to their farms and about some land use issues in Jerusalem. I know the attitude in Israel is "why should we bother to stop these sorts of problems when the world will consider us to be racists anyway". But perhaps if Israel would actually try to make sure these sorts of things don't happen, enough people might think enough differently about Israel to make a difference? Does anybody within the Zionist community understand the concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy?

* to be fair, the lowering of a standard for genocide is somewhat disturbing: while we need to stop mass population transfers that cause so much death and suffering, they are not "genocide". There is a big difference between transferring even millions of people in order to establish nation-states which, no matter what you think of them as a concept, where considered an ideal in much of the 20th century, and actually trying to kill a whole group of people.

Another Sparkling Wine to my Taste

2010-07-04T23:31:00.003-04:00

Freixenet Carta Nevada (Brut). It's a little bit sweeter than a typical brut but doesn't quite taste as candied-fruit like as Cristalino. It is actually a kind of Vueve Clicquot or even Alsatian-style sparkly ... well, actually considering how much it knocks you off your feet, it's perhaps even a Bulgarian-style sparkly!

I don't know what possessed my lovely wife to buy it, but I am glad she did. Since Vueve Clicquot is getting so expensive and since they seem to have decreased the dosage or something in Abarbanel Cremant D'Alsace (and it's hard to find any other good cremants or similar sparklies), I'm glad we discovered this wine.

Now to find another cigar to my tastes since it's so hard to find Onyx Reserve nowadays and Black Pearl Roja was never really findable ...

Balak-Pinchas Blogging

2010-07-03T23:00:00.002-04:00

Why did Pinchas act? According to Midrash Moses "forget the laws", Aaron was a man of peace and Eliezar, as the High Priest couldn't come into contact with dead bodies.

And what was Pinchas' "reward"? To become the high priest ... which means that he could no longer do what he did. So did God really approve of Pinchas' zealotry? Or would it have been better for Pinchas to "forget" the law in the interests of peace? Is discretion not only the better part of valor but also morality? And is sometimes violently promoting moral purity something that makes one impure? Do the pure really need to enforce purity?

I ask these questions in light of the Midrashic explanation that Balaam and/or Balak instigated the events at Peor because Israel could not be undermined from without but only via taking Israel off the straight and narrow path of Halacha. Today there is a lot of concern, and justifiably so, about how the State of Israel will survive in the face of formidable enemies.

But our history tells us that in the face of even horrid persecution we survive. When we face real peril is when we betray our own moral principles. Is the real threat to Israel her external foes or her reaction to those foes -- to retreat into a state of siege in which Israel forgets her moral purpose?

And my reason for bringing up Pinchas here is that too often we think of morality in Pinchas' terms. But maybe Pinchas is part of the problem here? Today Israel's so called guardians of morality actively sow seeds of disunity amongst the Jewish people as they would even attack Rashi's daughters for wearing T'Fillin and declare Ruth to not even be Jewish. They discredit Judaism and drive people away from Torah by making Torah into an impossible burdon.

Is it any coincidence that we read parshas Pinchas right around the time of the Fast of Tammuz -- the first breach? And that the next Haftarah is often one in which Jeremiah points out that our so-called guardians of morality fail when they don't ask "where is God?" Not that they fail by not considering God in their actions -- but by thinking they know where God is when they do not.

The Temple fell last time, according to Talmud, not because of Rome per se but due to senseless hatred. And also, it must be said, due to a too stringent insistence on ritual exactness (otherwise Vespasian's sacrifice would have been accepted even after the animal was subtly mutilated).

So if Israel does, Hashem forbid, "fall" -- what really must have gone wrong? Was it Israel's enemies? Was it those of us on the left who are accused of giving aid and comfort to said enemies? Or would it have been Israel's so-called supporters and the so-called guardians of morality who, for all their talk of Halacha, don't really care if Israel goes down a particularly dark and un-holy path in its pursuit of an always elusive security. Who does our tradition say is most dangerous: the external threat or those who have a misplaced zealotry?

Remember that the Hasmonians' (who began as a zealous group) actions eventually bit the whole Jewish people in the ass.

What I've Learned About Political Ideologues from Reading Comments on Blogs

2010-06-09T15:17:00.002-04:00

Right wing types, whether Randians, neo-cons, Likudniks or what have you, while they would wince at being labeled sociopathic assholes, have an ideology that justifies the morality of sociopathy and the moral status of assholes (although again, they wouldn't use those terms). On the other hand, there is a certain strain of leftist (and even some not-so-left-wing anti-Zionists) whose political ideologies are ostensibly the antitheses of justifications of sociopathy but who, when it comes down to it, are really just sociopathic assholes.

A lot of right-wingers do outrageous things and we liberal, lefty types accuse them of hypocrisy. But a close reading of what they actually do and say indicates that they really aren't hypocrites at all -- just garden variety jerks with a dangerous amount political influence. On the other hand, when it becomes clear that lefties are being hypocritical, e.g., about their views on Israel, they launch into a de facto defense of hypocrisy. And some liberals wonder why people view liberals as hypocrites?

Some Thoughts on I/P Narratives and "Those Kids Today"

2010-06-03T12:11:00.005-04:00

There is a lot of discussion lately within the Jewish community about "why aren't Jewish youth more supportive of Israel" and the nature of the correlation of lack of support of Israel with lack of involvement of Jewish youth in Jewish communal life.

Allow me to put in my $0.03 (gotta figure on inflation) here -- it seems to me there are (at least) two competing narratives about Israel:

(1) Israel is a plucky nation of immigrants -- who have fled or are descendents of those who fled centuries of persecution where they were deemed permanent outsiders -- struggling against a sea of hostility to form a nation where they could finally be considered native inhabitants of that land, and it's done quite well for itself, thank you very much -- so who are you to criticize what it does to survive?

(2) Israel, in its very creation, displaced a native population from its ancestral homeland and, when that native population, quite understandably even if wrongly, resorted to violence, Israel, out of all proportion to the damages it suffered, lashed out at that population it displaced (thus starting all these problems in motion to begin with). Ironically (and leftists love irony, especially when "it figures"), a nation founded by displaced, oppressed people has become a nation of oppressors that has displaced another oppressed people. (*)

Of course, narrative #1 tends to resonate more with people in, e.g., the US, a "nation of immigrants" (**). And this narrative is often re-enforced in Jewish communal settings, so Jews who affiliate strongly with communal Jewish life will naturally reflect upon their or their ancestors' experience as "wandering Arameans". Thus to American Jews to whom the "Jewish experience" is a very direct influence, narrative #1 resonates most strongly.

On the other hand as Jews become more assimilated and established in, e.g., American society, narrative #1 looses its resonance while narrative #2 gains resonance. Whereas a Jew, embedded within a Jewish community and fully aware of our history, will always feel a degree of displacement in the diaspora, an assimilated Jew established in the US identifies as someone who is a "native", of the US -- to them the establishment of Israel and displacement of Palestinians is as much of an injustice as would occur if a swath of the US were deemed a "Native American homeland" and some group of Europeans of partial Native American ancestry and practicing Native religions were to establish a state displacing them from the communities in which they were born!

Moreover, to the extent which young, assimilated Jews identify with the Jewish tradition, it is with Jewish ethical ideals and how we Jews have sufferred at the hands of nationalists. Arguments that we Jews should support Israel because it is a Jewish state while they should ignore the plight of (non-Jewish) Palestinians make them uncomfortable -- haven't we Jews sufferred enough because others supported their own nation-states and viewed the Jews as undesirable outsiders? And this, ironic view drives young Jews toward narrative #2 and away from support of Zionism.

Additionally, the degree to which Jewish communal life embraces Zionism and the larger "tribalism" of Jewish communal life perhaps drives away young Jews whose residual Judaism has taught them to fear the tribalism that (when practiced by Europeans) historically resulted in deadly anti-Semitism.

As to the implications of this analysis to those who want to increase support for Zionism (as well as participation in Jewish communal life), I don't know ... but if the organized Jewish community wants to understand why young Jews don't support Israel and are not involved in Jewish life (and to combat anti-Zionist propaganda better in general), they need to better understand where disaffection and anti-Zionist narratives come from in the first place. The self-defeating paranoid attitude of too many Jewish leaders and rhetorical defenders of Israel blinds them to how best to combat the very forces they claim to be at the forefront of combatting!

* Narrative #2 is obviously attractive to the far right and is, in that context, surely anti-Semitic considering its affinity to "Blood and Soil" romanticism. On the other hand, in as much as it focuses (or claims to focus) on dispossed, powerless people, it is most attractive to the political left, where it is anti-Semitic only to the extent that the left puts its stock in narrative #2 while refusing to even give a fair hearing to narrative #1 -- such refusal to hear all narratives by a political ideology that prides itself on its hearing of all narratives is problematic but, as I have pointed out before, the Puritanism of the left is not limitted to their double standards regarding Israel.

** meanwhile amongst the "natives" of Europe, narrative #2 naturally resonates more, thus explaining the relative anti-Zionism of Europe without explicitly invoking Europe's anti-Semitic history as an explanation, although anti-Semitism is, in some ways, just an expression of the same nativism of Europe that prejudices Europeans toward narrative #2 -- which correlation is part of why many Jews view narrative #2 as anti-Semitic and also are puzzled by the support of supposedly non-irredentist lefties for narrative #2: many Jews view narrative #2 as irredentist while leftists view narrative #1 is the nationalist one! not only do the narratives compete the meta-narratives compete as well!

A(n Almost) State Function Involving Teas

2010-06-03T07:08:00.003-04:00

I fondly remember my lightly fermented Scottish breakfast tea, but sometimes one doesn't have the ingredients. Thankfully we have Pu Li tea (presumably Pu-Erh tea would work as well), tawny port (I should learn though not to save money by buying Cockburns), honey, molassis, regular soy milk and garam masala (tea masala would likely be better). Making the Pu Li tea via the directions but with about a tablespoon of port, a splash of soy milk and sweetening and seasoning to taste is about equivalent to my fermented tea. The difference is that the fermentation is first (in making the Pu Li tea itself) then the nog is assembled in situ from the spices, soy milk, port and molasis, while the honey (and spices) give flavors given by the Drambuie. The port also provides some of the smokiness of scotch and wine-notes of the sherry.

Not quite the same product mixing up the order like this -- so fermented tea beverage production is not quite a state function. But it's almost the same ... hence the title.

Some Strategic Advice for Israel

2010-06-01T10:38:00.002-04:00

I'm a bad chess player, so maybe one shouldn't listen to my advice on "strategery" but maybe next time the Israeli navy intercepts a "flotilla" maybe they should be armed with lots of rocks and have their ships armed with the same rockets that are fired out of Gaza.

That way when anybody complains about Israel's "response" the Israelis can point out exactly how "proportionate" it is. Just a thought ...

Another thought -- many in Israel and in the larger Jewish community feel, with very, very good reason, that no matter what Israel does, Israel will be condemned. The problem with this attitude is that if you think everyone is out to get you no matter what, you don't, no matter how much effort you supposedly put into Hasbara, actually make decisions that are "defensible" (because you figure no matter what you do, you won't be able to defend it ...). Which means everyone does hate you because you do so many "indefensible" things. Thus the paranoia of the right hand of the Jewish community is quite self-fulfilling.

Demythologization

2010-05-28T15:19:00.002-04:00

Here is an interesting resource for all your pro-Zionist apologists out there.

I am not sure how useful these things are, though. The "facts" in these certainly won't convince any dyed-in-the-wool anti-Zionist that Israel isn't the most evilist nation evah, but of course, nothing would convince such people of anything. The real question is whether the "myth busting" presented in documents like this is enough really to convince undecideds who might by sympathetic to anti-Zionist arguments that Israel is not the most evilist nation evah.

I always fear that "truth and accuracy" documents like this really only preach to the choir.

In particular, there are too many holes to be poked in the arguments that the author is convinced run counter to anti-Zionist myths.

For example:

I don't think anti-Zionists argue that the Balfour Declaration says something different than Zionists purport it to have said. I think that when they argue "The Balfour Declaration did not give Jews the right to a homeland in Palestine" they are arguing that it wasn't Balfour's place to make such a declaration. This kind of "response" to an anti-Zionist argument really isn't going to convince anyone now is it? In general, even if we know that the British weren't raving philo-Semites (except for certain Evangelicals*), arguments to the effect that "how could Zionism be imperialist if the British opposed it?" that are based on British testimony simply don't cut it when the British were the imperialists! We are supposed to take the Brits at face value?

And table actually undermines all of the demographic arguments about "Israel not really displacing any Arabs", etc., that the author is trying to make. I suspect the problem is with the table itself (pre-1948, I suspect the totals include the West Bank and Gaza strip and 1948 and after they probably don't) -- but from the table you'd think Israel kicked out almost a million Arabs when this is different than claims elsewhere within the book.

I am no wild-eyed Zionist (in fact I have deep philosophical issues with that ideology) but anti-Zionist arguments are infuriating, and I would love to have a well-sourced document available with good, solid pro-Israel apologia to make. And yet, what we have are anti-anti-Zionist arguments that somehow don't actually respond to anti-Zionist arguments, etc. It's high time we had such a book in hand because the longer we fail to address anti-Zionist criticisms, the more it will seem that pro-Israel apologists simply cannot address such criticisms and that the anti-Zionists were right after all.

In general, Israel needs better allies and defenders. For instance how much of left wing anti-Zionism exists because Israel's defenders are often such wankers and figures that (in a manner that evokes the worst stereotypes of Jews) have stabbed the left in the back?

* one aspect that the anti-Zionists don't quite explicitly point out but which is an implicit (and true) point they make is that, even if Britain was officially full of stuffed-shirt anti-Semites, British (and other) goyim, in particular Evangelicals, did provide a lot of support for Jewish settlement in Israel. The whole "Jews settled Israel and made something with nothing" mythos is about as empty as any similar "up-by-the-bootstraps" mythos so beloved by today's right wing. That a Palestinian state wasn't created in part (although the Arabs at the time did not admit it but rather resorted to anti-Zionist rhetoric about needing to destroy the nascent state of Israel) because at the time the Arab world did not have the resources to create such a state (remember 1948 was before the big Arab oil boom) and Palestinians didn't have the same support in creating a state that Jews had, pace the Zionist picture of what happened. Perhaps a little honesty on the part of defenders of Israel here might clarify things and leave us less open to both real and rhetorical attack as a certain friend of mine (and you know who you are) suggested?

Because the spammers are all over the last one ...

2010-04-21T10:15:00.003-04:00

... time for a new post. That and I noticed how dark it is in the underpasses as the solstice approaches:

Irony

The ghastly spring sun
That blanches all it blankets
Paints tunnels black

All you need to know about the politics today ...

2010-03-23T11:01:00.002-04:00

... and why it is so messed up:

Before all the sausage making to ensure the Health Care Reform (HCR) bill got passed -- people supported HCR.

Now that there is an actual bill about to be signed into law -- people don't support the bill ("even the liberal" CNN has a poll telling us so) because, get this, the bill is "too liberal" ... even though the plan people supported was actually more liberal than the bill currently about to be signed into law!

So let's see here: Senators and Congress-critters, who presumably wanting to be re-elected will support that which is popular, are afraid the plans for HRC are too liberal / go too far. Fair enough, I guess. But then they water the bill down during which process those who oppose the bill are able to convince people the bill is "too liberal". Nu? By worrying that HCR will be perceived as too liberal, the moderate wankers create a situation where the bill is, well, perceived as too liberal.

It's full political employment for moderate wankers (moderates wank off, which convinces people that "both sides are equally bad and full of wankers and the truth lies somewhere in the middle" so then people vote for moderate wankers), I guess. But shouldn't someone, somewhere at the DNC or Pelosi's office or Rahm Emmanuel or someone realize that this vicious cycle of wankerdom is hurting the Democrats and the Progressive/Liberal causes they claim to support?

I mean you can either make sure Senators and Congress-critters know that doing the right and liberal thing is also politically popular or you can let the wankers wank away until suddenly something less liberal than what was popular in the first place is now too liberal. And what does that mean for liberalism and the Overton window?

So why is the Democratic leadership so objectively pro-wanker and pro-letting the Overton window lurch left? Are they stupid? Are they evil?

I vote for them being "duck fondlers".

I Knew People Felt This Way ...

2010-02-24T12:53:00.003-05:00

... but I never thought I'd hear it so explicitly put. Overheard in a conversation between two lefties in our on-campus Starbucks:

"Israel used to be a nation of poor oppressed people, but now it is sending out assassination squads, firing missiles, [...] and now it is evil"

It's one thing to criticize Israel's actions as wrong, inherently self-destructive, etc. or even to criticize the very foundations of Zionism, but to express sympathy for an oppressed people only when we're oppressed and then when we fight back we become "evil"? I certainly would agree that some of Israel's actions have been wrong-headed and in fact evil. But the mentality that "oppressed people are good so long as they don't fight back but when they do, they are evil" is truly remarkable.

And "anti-Zionist" lefties wonder why even those of us who are leftish and critical of Israel find them to be anti-Semitic assholes? And lefties wonder why some find them patronizing? It's exactly this attitude.

In general, there is an issue with lefties -- they are all about (quite rightly, IMHO) the importance of narrative. But then they somehow act (without realizing the degree to which they act from a position of privilege in doing so) as if they are the arbiters of who has a legitimate narrative? E.g. the Zionist narrative is illegitimate because "we all know Zionism is just a cover for colonialism"? Who decides? Isn't that rejection of narratives and identity the very thing that lefties (quite rightly, IMHO) get upset at righties for?

Why do lefties get to decide who gets to be in the elect of the "oppressed"? Isn't this just as much "Puritanism" as what the right does in denying even the narratives of the oppressed?

Anyway (especially as we think of all things Persian with Purim coming up), isn't it too small of a leap for comfort from "your Zionist narrative is to be rejected" and even "your narrative as Jews is to be rejected" (because we are no longer oppressed -- that somehow makes us less human? WTF?) to straight out Holocaust denial?

Of course, one could argue that by using the Holocaust as justification for Israel, the Zionist invite the politicization and the subsequent denial of the Holocaust -- but still ... at what point does it cease being acceptable to deny Jewish narratives? According to some of the left, Jewish narratives are always deniable, short of denying the big-H ...

I guess this counts as a Shabbos Zachor post?

*

OTOH, perhaps we should stop giving lefties ammunition to discredit us? Do we really need to chop down olive trees? Do we really need to have so-called defensive actions that do little to actually increase Israel's security but increase anger at Israel even more leading to more terrorists being recruited? Israel has a right and duty to defend herself ... but defense does not equal "striking back to show 'them' we can". Why should Israel adopt the security ideology of Tom Friedman (considering how successful our Iraq adventure has been, e.g.).?

Masorti in Israel and Progressives Here

2010-01-31T08:00:00.002-05:00

Another issue we both have is how do you "win" the game when your side cares about actually accomplishing goals while the other side thinks the government you're competing to control fundamentally isn't quite legitimate anyway?

Progressives in the U.S. are hobbled by actually wanting government programs that work (although ironically, vide infra, we seem to have issues with actually communicating how our programs will work) whereas what passes for conservatism in this country is actually a nihilist movement that just doesn't care and is in politics merely to win. How do you win against such a movement that doesn't care about for what we're competing but only winning the competition?

Similarly in Israel -- the Masorti (and other religiously liberal yet Zionist-oriented movements) are hobbled by the fact that we care both about Judaism as a religion and Zionism (which, IMHO, is itself oxymoronic -- which is defined as "pertaining to a moron who doesn't get enough Lutein or Vitamin E in his diet"?). OTOH, many Haredi are not even ideologically Zionist. So what do they care if they drive the Zionist entity to the ground with their antics?

Since the Haredim have the freedom to not support any particular government of Israel or even Israel in general, that gives them tremendous power in Israel that we Conservative/Masorti Jews who are, as a movement (although there are exceptions among us), ideologically committed to "supporting Israel" do not have.

Nu? Under such situations how do forces for freedom and progressive change win?

Of course the ultimate example of this dynamic is Hamas and what's happened in Gaza. Lefties oftentimes accuse Israel of not wanting peace simply because they don't proceed to withdraw from occupied territories in the absence of a larger agreement. But the fact is that Israel tried the option of withdrawing, even when negotiations weren't really moving forward, from Gaza and (not only was Israel criticized for being disingenuous but also anyway) did that result in peace? No ... it resulted in more wars.

Nu? What do you think? Israel, of course, now knows that they cannot withdraw from occupied territory in the name of peace and that if peace, the safety of their residents and even the safety and security of Palestinians (what's happened in Gaza ain't good for the residents of Gaza no matter who's to blame) is the goal, Israel best not withdraw from occupied territories.

But what has happened here? Who's won? Israel? The PA? Which, for all their flaws really are interested in some sort of solution (if not a just one) to the problem? No ... Hamas, which is not interested in a solution was able to win (i.e. create conditions in which it would be irrational to solve the problem) because they don't care whereas Israel is hobbled by caring.

I always find it odd when liberal/progressive types are against Israel and de facto pro-Hamas: which side behaves like constructive (insert bad taste pun about the settlements here), albeit oftentimes asshole, progressives and which side behaves like nihilistic so-called conservatives?

Needed: A Few Good Grant Writers ...

2010-01-18T11:55:00.002-05:00

... to transfer their skills for promoting certain political agendas/actions.

It seems to me that the Mercaz's efforts to promote religious freedom in Israel and the Democrats' efforts to promote their agenda suffer from the same problem -- a lack of appropriate detail.

I can go to shul (as I did Sat.) and hear our Rabbi give an inspirational sermon about the need to fight for greater access to the Kotel by egalitarian Jews and about the need to write letters to various people and join Mercaz. I can hear Pres. Obama talk about the need for health care reform and that whatever bill comes out of Congress will provide better and cheaper health care and a pony for everyone. I can also read online various drafts of various health care reform bills as well as all sorts of details about what exactly it is Mercaz does.

But what is missing is some intermediate level of detail. I'm a busy man who has other things on his mind besides the intricasies of Jewish organizations or Congressional sausage-making. But before I give money to some Zionist organization (even though I am a non-Zionist) or support what is, in my opinion, a half-bake compromise on health care reform, I want to know what it is I am supporting and how it will work.

Instead of just telling me to write letters and donate to a cause -- why not tell me, not the goals of the cause, but what the cause will do and how the letters will help. Why not tell me how, in a few bullet points, health care reform will accomplish its stated goals instead of giving me a "steal underwear, ???, profit" statement of goals in answer to questions of "how?"

You'd think a bunch of liberals, many of whom are academics, would know better than to answer a "how?" question with a "plan" worthy of a dot-com bubble-era start-up. If liberal Jews and liberal politicians want to succeed in the very important goals of liberalism, why don't we hire some folks with much success in grant writing to write some real plans and arguments for us to "fund" them?

Shemos Blogging

2010-01-11T11:31:00.002-05:00

Exodus 3:3 -- "So Moses thought, 'I will detour from my path to see this amazing sight. Why does the bush not burn up?'"

Moses can only see God, in his avatar of Mercy (YHVH) when, faced with a "paradigm shift" of an observation, he goes outside of the 4 cubits of Halacha (lit. "the going" or the path) in order to investigate whether his path accords with the natural world. Reason and empiricism are clearly insufficient to be a basis for morality, and it is an aspect of the mercy of Hashem that Hashem has given us a means to go towards (Halacha) a higher moral level (and without a fence, we would not know which pitfalls to avoid, which is part of why we put a Fence around the Law, although c.f. my previous blogs about that concept). But, when what we think we know of God's ways is in conflict with God's creation and a miracle we see therein, perhaps we should re-reflect on what we think God's ways really are -- perhaps, indeed, what this will lead to is a more full revelation of Halacha (as the Exodus leads to Sinai).

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Meanwhile, am I the only one who thinks the "and then Isaac studied in the Yeshivos of Shem and Ever" version of Judaism is a bit tone deaf to Jewish texts? Is that really the root of Haredism? A certain tone deafness to sarcasm, irony and nuance in certain Jewish texts? That they view comments that are not meant to be taken straight-up as a justification for nostalgia along the lines of how some view "as der Rebbe zingt" as not a parody but as a loving portrait"?

To whit, how do you view R. Hoffman's use of the quotation, "Return you wayward sons all except Acher – who knew my Glory and rebelled against Me", here, considering Acher turned away from God because he saw the ultimate example of "no good deed goes unpunished" -- a boy, in the process of performing an ultimate Mitzvah promised to result in long life, dying whilst performing the Mitzvah"? Surely if this is the "glory of God", something is wrong here. No doubt there was a certain bitter sarcasm in the context of the original Talmudic quote that seems to be missed in this frum interpretation of what to do when scholars fall (which interpretation leaves too much room to excuse malfeasance, either sexual or in business, on the part of our community's leaders).

How much is missing the tone, as it is missed here, a part of what constitutes the Haredi (as opposed to an authentically Jewish mindset -- remember sarcasm and irony have long been tools of survival of us Jews) mindset? Or am I reading my modern "ironic" sensibilities too much into Jewish texts?

But really, what are we to make of texts that say things like "Acher saw the full glory of God" or "God created the first pair tongs on the eve of the sixth day of creation"? Traditionally Judaism, when faced with an amazing sight in a text, the humanistic and literary equivalent of a burning bush, also detoured from the path, just as Moses did, and through analysis at all levels of PaRDeS, whether it be close p'shat reading or extensive spinning of midrashic yarns, found new insights into the ways of HaShem. Shall we act as if midrash is some fixed text we should believe some non-zero, non-unity fraction of or should we engage in midrash as a way of bringing the Bible into our times so that we too, in our times, can say we are receiving directly the revelation at Sinai?

I guess that is a question whose answer makes denominations, doesn't it?

The Story of Hanukkah

2009-12-15T12:35:00.003-05:00

In spite of what many lefties think, Jews used to be persecuted. Who knew?

Hanukkah commemorates the triumph of the Maccabees (not to be confused with the Macabres, which are Jews who read the New Yorker, especially Charles Addams cartoons) over the evil tyrant Antiochus Epinephres.

Antiochus sought to destroy the Jewish people by desecrating the Temple (which put a fatal strain on the building fund) and by forcing Jews to eat spit roasted whole pigs, which was horrible as all the Jewish people had to pretend they never ate pork before but were trying it for the first time. Eventually, the Maccabees rose up and, using tactics that pro-Israel apologists would, nowadays denounce as "terroristic" when today's Middle Eastern armed guerillas use them, defeated Antiochus and his armies.

What they found was a mess (and there was nothing in that building fund to pay for fixing it). In particular, there was only 1 jug of oil left with the high priest's seal that could be burnt in the menorah. But a miracle happened. We Jews, being a frugal bunch, used the remaining oil that was not left with the seal but with a bunch of shifty walruses (who assured us of the kashruth of the oil) to fry up all sorts of delicious food. Unfortunately, there was only a day's worth of heart-burn medication left. But by the miracle of Hanukkah, the medication kept the Jews free of heart-burn for a full eight days!

Further miracles ensued -- for example, enterprising bakers were able to convince Ashkenazim that jelly doughnuts were a unique, highly exotic and hence highly prized Sephardic delicacy. On Hanukkah, our hopes are kindled as we light the menorah and read from the book of Zechariah who told us of a day when the transliteration of Hanukkah would finally be agreed upon.

Lighting a Candle or Cursing the Darkness

2009-12-10T12:02:00.005-05:00

One interesting thing about left-wing anti-Zionism is that Zionism is in many ways a response to a situation that lefties generally seem to grok whilst righties don't get: namely that in so much of the world Judaism is not the "default identity" but rather that Jews are always "othered", historically violently so.

Zionism essentially is an ideology that says "well, if we Jews are othered in the rest of the world, let's form a state where we our identity is the default". Certainly one can debate the wisdom of this on secular and especially on Jewish grounds (viz, part of Jewish "chosen-ness" is that Judaism is not supposed to be a 'default identity' but a 'separate' -- kadosh -- one). But somehow the left seems to have a big beef with the idea that we Jews have figured out a way to get around this issue of 'othering' by going off and forming our own state. When I read posts like this (and do see the comments, in particular the responses to my comment), I sometimes wonder if so many of my fellow lefties simply feel that we Jews are condemned to be "the other" and for us to try to be "default" is a grave sin. And this condemnation (from proud "atheists" and "Deists") is certainly not theologically motivated -- one must wonder about the motivation ... and yet those same lefties wonder why we Jews consider them anti-Semitic?

OTOH, it could just be that lefties don't like the example of Zionists lighting a candle rather than cursing the darkness of being "the other" because it sets a standard that cursing the darkness is simply not the best course of action. Of course, cursing the darkness is a lot more fun than lighting a candle, so who could blame lefties here. Still, while I would consider myself a lefty in part because I agree with the analysis of "the other" vs. "the default identity" (as well as because I am a firm believer in saving capitalism from itself via strong government regulation and a solid safety-net and even a fully mixed economy), I find it odd that so many lefties, after agreeing with this analysis so vehemently object to non-default groups trying to find constructive solutions to the problem of "otherness". I guess certain lefties really are Puritans who cannot stand non-elect groups trying to claim the status of the elect.

Update: what does it say about me that whenever I hear some pro-Israel apologist touting all the good things coming out of Israel and how "Israel is so careful when it wages necessary wars" I feel "you just don't get it ... do you?". And yet when I hear anti-Zionists talk all I can respond is "you just don't get it ... do you?". I wish pro-Israel apologists would pause for just one minute to think how they'd feel if a group of people following Native American religions with some Native American identities formed a homeland here and drove them out of their homes and then bombed the locations where they were able to re-settle (even if said people were justified about the bombings and were "careful" to "target" them). And I wish anti-Zionists would pause for just one minute to think about the Jewish experience -- they seem to have empathy for everyone else, but they can't even bother to really listen to the Jewish/Zionist narrative before dismissing it? I thought the left was supposed to be all about listening to alternative narratives -- but I guess it's really about dismissing some narratives as "colonialist" while promoting others? How is that liberal? How is that anything but Puritan?

Thinking About Undergraduate Research (for Grant Writing) ...

2009-12-09T15:24:00.002-05:00

I think I may have mis-underestimated the challenges involved in both teaching of and doing research with undergrads.

First there is the general issue of training vs. doing research. One of my frustrations with getting any research done is that my research students take so long to get even the most basic tasks accomplished. But thinking of what is involved in research from their point of view, I realize that part of the difficulty is that they are not just writing the simple sub-routine I've assigned to them ... they are students and what they are doing is learning. While it would serve my research goals if they just got the work done, it's important for them to understand what they are doing (would that the majority of my general and bio-chem students were this diligent about actually understanding the material). Yes, it's frustrating that, in order to get a student to write a few lines of code to convert between ppm and increments, they need to finish working through an upper-division math text on Fourier analysis, but part of the research experience for them is learning useful concepts they don't have a chance to learn in their regular coursework (e.g. as chem/bio-tech majors).

More fundamentally though is the challenge of working with students who have difficulties with abstract thought. When you think about it, there are really three levels of abstract thought: (1) thinking abstractly about abstract things, (2) thinking abstractly about concrete things and (3) thinking concretely about abstract things.

Most smart students are actually decent at level (1): they wouldn't have gotten 'A's in there general education courses if they were not able to analyze abstract literary concepts in a conceptually rigorous way. But (2) really is a challenge. For students to even take abstract thoughts and come up with concrete examples of those concepts really is difficult. Hence so many student complaints about "well I understand the concepts but I have problems applying them in solving problems on a test". But (2) goes even beyond Bloom's taxonomy of cognitive learning outcomes and most students can't go beyond that. For me, this was not a challenge: which is why I was able to find upper-division math courses so easy. Once you are able to think abstractly about numbers, upper-division math, for example is a breeze. But most students just can't get there.

Of course the real challenge is thinking concretely about abstract things. I am starting to realize that you just can't expect most undergrads to do this, even though it is necessary to get actual results in quantitative research. I was spoiled dealing with the best of the best undergrads in research settings both at Rutgers and at FSU. But as I think back to where I was as an undergrad, I certainly wasn't capable of taking abstract concepts and really thinking through them to get concrete results.

Indeed, when you think about it, it (literally) takes an Einstein to reach level (3) in some cases. E.g., the abstract concept of relativity is very old: Kant had conceptually figured out special relativity and Poe figured out general relativity. But to take those abstract concepts and translate them into a concrete language from which the applied mathematicians could generate models, thus turning (abstract) philosophical thinking into (concrete) science (e.g. testable hypotheses), took the genius of Einstein. I certainly never even mastered level (3) enough to make any progress in applied math (although my Ph.D. should be evidence that I could do such a thing well enough to have a career in scientific research).

So I guess I should be more patient that my undergrads, even my best and brightest research students, cannot make this leap?

I Write Letters

2009-12-09T11:59:00.002-05:00

(when I should be writing finals and grant applications)

To the President [will be sent as soon as the White House website is able to connect to captcha again]:

Recently you addressed the need for us to get small businesses hiring again and have indicated a desire to have tax credits and other incentives to ensure small businesses hire new employees.

However, due to the compromises "necessary" pass much needed health care reform, it is likely that whatever health care bill reaches your desk will contain a mandate for small businesses to provide health insurance coverage for all employees but will also (in the name of "fiscal responsibility") provide little in the way of subsidies to ensure small businesses can afford to pay for that health insurance.

Moreover, it now seems that health care reform will lack a "public option", effectively allowing the oligopoly of private insurance companies to charge whatever they want without fear of real competition to keep health insurance costs low. Considering that any mandate will render demand for health insurance completely inelastic, we can anticipate in an open market, even an "exchange", health insurance costs will skyrocket.

While health care reform is important, I urge you therefore to not allow bills to become law that interfere with your also much needed proposals to ensure small businesses hire again. We need health care reform that ensures increased access to health care. We don't need a "compromise" that will only make health care more expensive.

If you want small businesses to hire more people, propose a bill that will pay for small businesses to provide health coverage for said employees so they don't have to worry about. Don't, in the name of health care "reform", sign into law a bill that makes it even more expensive for small businesses to hire new employees.

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To Senator Schumer,

Recently President Obama addressed the need for us to get small businesses hiring again and have indicated a desire to have tax credits and other incentives to ensure small businesses hire new employees.

However, due to the compromises "necessary" pass much needed health care reform, it is likely that whatever health care bill passes through Congress will contain a mandate for small businesses to provide health insurance coverage for all employees but will also (in the name of "fiscal responsibility") provide little in the way of subsidies to ensure small businesses can afford to pay for that health insurance.

Moreover, it now seems that health care reform will lack a "public option", effectively allowing the oligopoly of private insurance companies to charge whatever they want without fear of real competition to keep health insurance costs low. Considering that any mandate will render demand for health insurance completely inelastic, we can anticipate in an open market, even an "exchange", health insurance costs will skyrocket.

Health care reform is important. I urge you to keep up the good fight to truly reform the health care system. However the current “compromise” does not represent a step in the right direction but rather is an overly complicated bill that, when implemented, threatens to make health care coverage worse for enough people to jeopardize future progressive reforms as people, whose coverage will get worse under the so-called reforms being proposed, will say “why should we support any progressive reforms – look what happened when they tried to reform health care?”

I urge you in particular to vigorously oppose any bill that interferes with, e.g., much needed proposals to ensure small businesses hire again. I also request that you make these concerns known to Sen. Majority Leader Reid who somehow seems to think its more important to have a broadly supported health care reform “compromise” than a bill which will actually provide much needed reforms to our health care system. We need health care reform that ensures increased access to health care. We don't need a "compromise" that will only make health care more expensive.

If we as a society want small businesses to hire more people, we should be willing to help pay for that by paying for small businesses to provide health coverage for said employees so they don't have to worry about that expense. Don't, in the name of health care "reform", support a bill that makes it even more expensive for small businesses to hire new employees.

In general, it may be that true health care reform is something that simply cannot pass Congress. If that is so, it is disappointing. But we should then push for bills that expand coverage so we can evolve toward a better health care system. Let’s not, in the name of reform, push through shoddy “compromises” that only make matters worse and undermine support for future progressive reforms. It’s time for us Democrats to stop shooting ourselves in the foot by attempts to make everyone happy and actually work toward the progressive change we say we believe in!

Misc. Torah Blogging

2009-11-22T09:23:00.002-05:00

Those who take the creation story literally seem to feel slighted that they are "descended from monkeys". Isn't the rejection of the theory of evolution for this reason awful prideful? C.f. all the Biblical references about the vanity of man's supposed pre-eminance over the beast.

In re the Akedah, our Rabbi sang The Story of Isaac during his sermon on that parsha. A good take on that episode.

According to some, what people can't stand about Israel is that we have finally adopted the "hands of Esau" to defend ourselves. I'm not sure that this is really so true, though -- isn't part of the issue that we have the (sometimes duplicitous) voice of Jacob. IMHO, we shouldn't embrace our inner Esau but nor should we reject it because that's what the goyim can't stand. The issue is that we need to make sure we are children of Israel not children of Israel's former identity of Jacob, the trickster.

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pardon the spelling errors -- I'm blogging from home ...

Health Care Reform (?)

2009-11-09T10:51:00.003-05:00

Concerns:

(A) I still worry that once the sausage making is done in the Senate, we'll end up with something that mandates health insurance purchase, gives health insurers every excuse to increase insurance prices and does nothing to ensure real competition to make sure price increases don't happen.

This will be the "compromise" that ensures "bipartisan support" -- except it won't. Holy Joe and the GOoPers (how's that for a band-name) will still filibuster, a few Dems. won't vote for the final bill (including 1 or 2 liberals because it will be a piece of crap bill). Thus in 2010, the GOP will be able to campaign that "the Dems. pushed through a partisan bill, facing bipartisan opposition, that even some liberal Senators didn't support -- and this bill has made your health care more expensive, etc., rather than better", etc., etc. (c.f. all my earlier posts on how problems with health care reform will affect support for Dems and progressive legislation). Of course, the so-called liberal media is always gaga for "compromises", so they'll support the bill -- which will give the GOP more leverage with it's "even the liberal media" arguments (as well as help cement the linkage between liberalism and wanking in the public's eye).

(B) Perhaps the Stupak amendment will be a wake-up call to an issue many Dems (including myself) tend to ignore but looms large in public concerns about health care reform: government run health care will indeed set-up a minimum standard for health care (because in order for private insurers to survive, they will need to do better than the minimum). However, the free market tends to sink to the lowest bar possible. Thus, whatever services are not provided by government health care will, with the exception of a few token services that private insurers will provide to gain market share with "value added" products, will not be provided by private insurers ... even if they provide such services now, private insurers may not continue to provide such services after they have to "cut costs to satisfy new regulatory requirements" (vide supra).

In fact, private insurers have already pulled this trick. Remember in the 1990s where there was a lot of talk about un-necessary procedures and the winds of health care reform under Clinton started blowing? Well, private insurers used this as an opportunity to start denying claims -- and it got so bad you could be in an ER for respiratory distress and your insurer would deny the claim of a chest X-ray! (happened to me)

We (I myself have argued this) argue that adding a public option, etc., will not affect those who already have insurance, but lot of fear that those with health insurance will be affected negatively by health care reform is based on what has happened previously with even attempts at reform. Dems. now are starting to realize this with the Stupak amendment -- if government subsidized health insurance won't cover abortions, why will private insurers do so? -- but it's a general issue.

If health insurance reform will result in those currently with health insurance having their coverage reduced to the point where it is just above the minimal insurance provided via a public option or some similar mechanism, then many of us who do have health insurance will be very unlikely to support it. And, the way sausage making works, you can bet that whatever government run health insurance comes out of said sausage making will be pretty horrid (because "to have robust health insurance subsidized by the government would cost too much money" the wankers will say).

So what will ensure that those of us who are lucky enough to have health insurance currently won't see our quality of health care plummet with health insurance reform?

(C) Small businesses -- health insurance is an issue that turns glibertarian would-be small-businessmen concerned about taxes and regulations killing their nascent businesses into commie pinko moonbat small-businessmen who cannot afford to provide health coverage for their employees but who need to hire employees to grow and who thus realize that the best thing government can do for them is not to get out of the way as they previously thought but rather to provide everyone with socialized medicine.

Unfortunately, the house bill mandates that employers provide employees with health insurance. Health care reform is a winning issue for Democrats because it is a wonderful example for glibertarian chamber of commerce types of how the progressive agenda and big government would actually help said chamber of commerce types. Unfortunately, the mandates, etc., of even the House bill will just re-enforce every fear Joe and Jane Shopkeeper have about "big gummint". And the Senate is, by design, even more out of touch with Main Street than is the House.

In general, I think the Dems are, as usual, shooting themselves in the foot by trying to have a "compromise" health care reform package. We need to have a public health care system in this country -- why not just provide one and let it grow until we get teh socialized medicine? Instead the Dems are crafting an overly complicated bill with a series of compromises that will satisfy no-one and that will backfire, both in terms of providing health coverage to people and politically.

What is up with the Democratic party? At a time when the GOP is in a tailspin, the Dems. still are busy with duck fondling that they can't even take advantage of the situation and pass popular legislation? Instead they have to make a bunch of sausage that will just make everyone sick? What's up with that?

Let's get this right: I am a Concern Niebelung, not a Concern Troll

2009-10-23T09:35:00.003-04:00

Perhaps the conservatives and the so-called liberal media (who know they are "out of touch" and figure -- incorrectly -- they are liberal and hence conflate their own out-of-touch-ness with liberalism) are right -- liberals are out of touch with everyday 'Murkins.

Consider the response to (as well as what prompted) this bit of Niebelungeheit on my part. Do liberals really think that the Dems are guaranteed the kind of establishment in-party status the GOP (in spite of Carter and Clinton) enjoyed from some time in the 1970s until 2006? Right now, of course, the GOP is really bringing out the crazy, but what happens if the GOP gets its act together? To me, the response to Christie blowing a 16 point lead should not be "see GOoPer trolls, the GOP is safe" but rather "what if the GOP gets its act together (which is a big if) and the next Christie-type doesn't blow his lead? how do we prevent this from happening?"

I think part of the problem is that we liberals are mainly used to hearing this kind of question from the so-called liberal media which always claims the solution is for us to moderate and compromise with the GOP even more to remain "in the mainstream". So it is perhaps understandable that when a Niebelung raises such questions, they would raise red flags and so many liberals would immediately get defensive about what is being suggested.

But there is still in the responses to my comment a strong element of misunderstanding of the American psyche, which misunderstanding by the Democrats has hurt us -- and the GOP was able to do so well, until they started to unravel and until it was so obvious what a disaster Bush & CO were, because they understood this aspect of the American psyche. The thing is that Americans are profoundly anti-ideological. The key American question is "what's the big idea?" -- and not as a matter of curiosity about the ideology but as a matter of scorn that any big idea can be good. Our mindset is not "that's a great idea" but rather "get 'er done". And the GOP was able to speak that language very well, which is why they were able to do so well for so long. Of course, it must be added that while the American distrust of ideology is almost positivistic -- Americans are not positivists ... their distaste for ideological thought extends to a distaste of questioning their own ideological assumptions, which leads to a certain traditionalism and maintenance of those assumptions, including a strong tendency toward religiosity, absent in, e.g., the more 'ideological' Continent.

The problem Democrats have -- whether its Blue Dogs trying to be "moderates" in order to appeal to the moderate, non-ideological electorate or it's liberal Dems who think that appeals for Dems to reach out to moderates are necessarily appeals to moderate -- is that we tend to assume people are ideologically consistent when, in fact, they don't give a darn about ideology, which is deemed as squishy and un-American. Americans want to "get 'er done". Thus, when the GOP speaks that language, they do well, but when it finally becomes obvious the GOP has not interest in getting things done correctly and is insane besides, Americans reject the GOP.

And those who note that Americans have rejected the GOP and are not accepting liberal ideology are not necessarily appealing for Dems to be more moderate. In fact, that's the worst thing Dems could do! When people say they are moderates, it doesn't mean they want politicians to be moderate -- it means they don't care what ideology politicians have as long as the government they give us runs efficiently and for the benefit of everyone and not just for those deemed "underserving" (whether they are a powerful few or those whom our Puritan heritage rejects as "non-elect"). In fact, we must remember that the small-p-pragmatism of Americans is one capitalization away from being big-P Pragmatism which is the philosophy at the base of modern liberalism in many ways.

Certainly, if we liberals believe our approach to government is what actually will benefit people, then we should be pushing for Dems to be more liberal. And if people see that we really do believe that our ideas work, then they will be more likely to trust us with government and embrace liberalism themselves. But if we Dems are always afraid that people will reject liberalism, then people will think "I don't really care about ideology -- yet liberal Dems think that I won't support them if they are liberal -- why? do they think their ideas won't work? 'cause that's all I care about -- and if liberals think their ideas won't work, then why should I think they'll work?" E.g. if we liberals "compromise" on health care, not only will it result in an awful bill that will make things worse for many people (who will blame "Democratic health care 'reform'" for their problems, since no GOoPer will vote for the bill), but it will send a signal to people that we don't believe in our own agenda so why should people believe in our agenda?

To me, though, the most bizarre thing, however, is the complete rejection in certain liberal circles of the importance of Democrats actually running government cleanly and efficiently. If Dems would actually listen to complaints about "gummint", what they would discover is that the actual complaints (as opposed to how GOP demagogues use the anger people have at gummint to promote their own agenda) relate rather simply to government not working well. It doesn't make me Tom Friedman or Bobo Brooks when I point out that if government runs smoother, Americans (who don't really care about ideology but rather just want things to get done) will be more likely to support the party of big government, e.g. (liberal) Democrats. And many of these aspects of government that cause everyday people annoyance are local government issues (which may involve corrupt local Democratic political machines)

So shouldn't having (local) government run smoothly be a top priority for Democrats? Shouldn't cleaning our own house be a priority? And shouldn't making liberalism work for people rather than compromising on it be a priority? And why are these to me self-evident priorities so controversial in certain liberal circles?

*

Update -- as you all know by now, no doubt, Christie did win. So my concern was on the mark. Of course, this will be spun as "see a Republican won even in liberal NJ". Of course this ignores that, on a federal level, the Dems. actually gained two seats and if it weren't for Obama, Christie would likely have won by a greater margin, but the spin will still be that this is a loss for Obama. The problem, though, is that centrist Dems will believe this spin and try to push for "compromises" with the GOP "because that's what the 2009 elections showed voters want" -- and these compromises will be disasters for which no-one in the GOP votes anyway -- thus, in 2010 the spin will be about disastrous Dem legislation. Of course, the usual trolls, e.g. at Sadly, No! are predicting a GOP sweep in 2010 and the usual moonbats are sanguine about a Dem victory then. But this just repeats the sentiments about this election. Nu? How do we Dems in the base make sure that the usual suspects in the wanker caucus don't wank us out of a good result in 2010?

Thoughts ...

2009-10-15T12:08:00.003-04:00

I can't get into any detail about what brings on these questions, but recent events do have me thinking ...

Supposed person A allegedly assaults or harasses person B. It somehow seems inappropriate to bring up any past history of B's behavior, etc. as if person A did assault or harass person B, it is still a crime or tort (depending on the nature of the action) no matter "what kind of person" is person B. However, naturally person A will have his/her own version of what happened. And whether or not this version is reasonable (and hence casts a reasonable doubt in person B's story or even whether one judges person A's story to have the preponderance of evidence in favor of it) depends very greatly on what kind of person B is, doesn't it?

How does one set up a system that still presumes innocence of the accused yet also ensures accusers that they won't effectively be put on trial? For that matter how do you set up a system that presumes innocence of the accused yet allows both "sweet innocent" victims and well "not so innocent" victims to both receive justice since their innocence is anyway not the issue if the accused really did what s/he is accused of doing (although it does point to how reasonable the doubts raised by the accused are).

*

How much can our society expect us to be lawyers? In a trial or hearing lawyers may ask you questions and depending on how you answer, this can effect the outcome of the trial/hearing. So of course you will get asked to remember precisely things which happened a long time ago, and failure to answer questions could result in contempt and not phrasing answers 100% "correctly" could result in your testimony being construed to mean something completely different than what you meant.

Now a lawyer would know when certain events occur to immediately start writing things down. But what of us non-lawyers? Does the legal system expect us to go through life notebook in hand, pausing to write everything down -- even when such writing things down could then be used against us: "why were you writing down what you did rather than responding to the problem at hand?"? Does the legal system expect everyone to know exactly what a lawyer would find important to remember and thus to write everything down? Does the legal system expect us to always use proper-lawyer language to express ourselves and consider it ok that if a layman uses non-legal language that his/her words will get misconstrued by the court?

Of course, in Jewish law, this is all simplified -- everybody is expected to be a lawyer (and my previous kasha above is also simplified in Jewish law -- you can make an end-run around presumption of innocence in such sensitive cases because often the accused would at least be patently guilty of violating a fence around the law). But we do not live under Mosaic law (perhaps the religious right is correct and we should? but somehow I don't think they'd like living under such a law ... at least in the sense that I am talking about here) -- if our society expects us to all be lawyers, why isn't being a lawyer part of high school? Why do you have to go to law school to be a lawyer even if, once the legal apparatus is put into motion, we will be expected to use the correct legal terms, have written exactly the kinds of notes of the event in question that a lawyer would write, etc.?

Perverse Incentives in Capitalism

2009-10-06T12:33:00.002-04:00

Conservatives like to talk about perverse incentives due to government interventions in the free market, but I would like to propose that free market capitalism has an inherent perverse incentive against progress.

What is the underlying justification of large rewards in capitalism? Roughly that high risks must be balanced out by high rewards otherwise people won't take risks.

But whom does capitalism tend to reward then? People who act to optimize expected utility (e.g. people who will take risks because the reward makes the risky action have a positive expected utility) -- i.e. people who are Bayesian rational actors. I.e. capitalism awards (a certain kind of) rationality. And since capitalists dictate the agenda of private enterprise in a capitalist system (money always has strings), the nature of private enterprise in free market capitalism is at best (e.g. when the system actually does function -- lately we've learned a lot about market failure, haven't we?) that of a certain kind of rational actor.

However, as GB Shaw (?) pointed out, all progress depends not on reasonable people but on unreasonable people. Yet capitalists are, according to a very specific definition, reasonable people.

So what does this say about the relation between progress and capitalism? Consider, for example, who got richer -- the true innovators of the modern PC age or Bill Gates? Free market capitalism, like any other evolutionary system, at best only sufficiently rewards successful innovations -- Apples' Steves have been amply and sufficiently rewarded, but who really got rich from making our society computer-saturated and how? And what are the implications of "who won" in terms of whether we really are in a technologically optimal environment?

Of course, the real innovations were produced by gummint anyway, weren't they?

Meanwhile, a bit ago on a comments thread at Eschaton I observed (in re. my uncle who has settled in Finland) that for all the emphasis glibertarians give to "the rugged individual", it seems that people who truly march to their own drummer thrive best in more socialistic societies in which they don't have to worry so much about the rat race but rather can do what they want to do at their own pace.

Which society gives individuals more freedom? In which society is being the sort of unreasonable person on whom progress depends rewarded rather than having rewards flow to Bayesian rational agents? And where do so many neat technical things come from anyway?

Hmmm ... I wonder ...

Blog Assignment

2009-09-30T09:37:00.003-04:00

Since I am so busy teaching, I've not had time to blog, I'll give you all (all 5 of you who read this blog) a Yom Kippur themed essay assignment: discuss the prelude to the Kol Nidre where we just declare it lawful to pray with our fellow sinners in light of Blu Greenberg's statement "where there is a Rabbinic will, there is a Halachic way" and relate Jewish conceptions of Halacha with Schopenhauer's concept of "will". Relate your discussion to the health care debate, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict or some other current issue in either Jewish or secular spheres.

A Pre-Mortem on Health Care Reform

2009-09-25T11:00:00.002-04:00

I hope that events prove me wrong and that we'll finally have health care reform in this country, but currently I am not sanguine. It seems that health care reform is the Lucy's football of American politics: every so often Democrats or even liberal Republicans (remember them?) will try to kick that football only to have it yanked from under them, so they fall flat on their faces.

This time around, it may be even worse, in fact. The Dems may be so dedicated to actually "doing something" as well as being bipartisan and compromising that they will pass a bill that will actually make things worse: forcing people who can ill afford to buy health care to purchase health care while doing little to prevent health care costs from rising due to increased demand (and decreased demand elasticity) following a health insurance purchase mandate. Of course, in spite of efforts at bipartisanship, no GOoPer will vote for the health care bill and a few Dems. will vote against it -- so the bill will be labeled as "a partisan Dem. bill that was foisted upon us by the left against bipartisan opposition" -- and it will be so used as a cudgel against future progressive reform even if the left doesn't actually like the final bill!

Some Dems. think any health care reform will be good politically? Well not if you are forcing your base to purchase something they can't afford, are proving every GOP fear mongering talking point about progressive "deform" correct and also screwing small business over (with an employer mandate) besides. BTW, while real health care reform will help small businesses because they won't have to struggle to hire people when they can't afford to provide health insurance for employees, an employer mandate will screw over the same people for whom "socialized medicine" is the one bit of "socialism" that has already turned glibertarian small businessfolk into screaming dirty hippies. So quenching a move left amongst main street businessfolk, screwing over young, healthy, underemployed people who are the base of the Dem. party, etc., is good politics?

Of course all of this just points to the underlying problem with true health care reform: it is indeed a giant leap. And Americans, by and large, are a phlegmatic people (our heritage is rooted in the phlegm of England's Hobbits) who don't trust large leaps, unless the leaps involve Empire (e.g. colonizing and killing people of a more dusky hue for fun and profit). Normally our Anglo-American phlegm serves us well -- it keeps us from disastrous changes that could upset our healthy and liberty-full democratic-republican system. But sometimes it hurts us.

In the case of health care reform, dirty hippies like me want us to leap into socialized medicine or at least single payer or (probably better) some German-style hybrid system. But that is too big of a leap for leap-fearing Americans. The problem is that health care reform is a leap across a chasm. So the tendency to simply cut the leap in half will cause us to fall into the chasm of making health care more expensive with mandates, etc.

Indeed, the whole argument for half-way measures is silly: health insurance is expensive because of adverse selection. Ok. But the solution to this is to force young, healthy to buy health insurance they can't afford (otherwise they would likely have bought it by now?)? And if they can't afford it, maybe, just maybe (if the fiscal hawks don't get too penny wise and pound foolish) we'll subsidize them to buy insurance and thus subsidize the health care of sicker folk?

Doesn't that sound a little foolish? Why subsidize people to subsidize insurers to pay for health care? Why not just expand existing social medicine programs to cover more and more people?

Americans are afraid of big leaps. When we do adopt progressive agenda items, it is often because they are targeted to solve specific problems, and Americans love getting things done and solving problems. For example, even if FDR signed onto the Share our Wealth concept, no way he could get it done. Instead he was able to pass an alphabet soup of agencies that addressed specific needs (both to employ people and to deal with deferred infrastructure building). LBJ was not able to get us nationalized health insurance, but he was able to have social medicine that addressed specific needs: e.g. Medicare and Medicaid.

Similarly, if we want socialized medicine, there is no way that leaping into it will work, as the political winds in a country so afraid of leaping (even if a majority of people like the idea of a leap in theory) to anything except Empire building will cause any leap to either be thwarted entirely or turned into a leap half-way across a chasm that will only land us into a pit. What we should do instead is expand the socialized medicine programs we have to address specific shortcomings in our medical system, thus leading on a path toward the nationally socialized system beloved by us dirty hippies.

Evolution man! Not revolution! That's the way to go. Although if you do go for revolution, don't go half-way. If you want to catch or kick a football, you gotta put yourself into the procedure. Otherwise the football will just hit your fingers and toes and break them.

Commentwhoring

2009-09-23T12:52:00.002-04:00

Check out my comments to this post in which I question this whole ACORN pseudo-scandal, hypothesize about the identity of the vines I saw growing in semi-abandoned buildings near the Poe House in Baltimore, etc.

NPR Translated

2009-09-22T11:16:00.002-04:00

I heard the most ridiculous interview on NPR yesterday of Carl Levin. It was a picture of exactly what is wrong with the media. So, in this vein, I'll give my "transcript"

Madeliene Brand: As a news reporter, it is my job to tell both sides of any story. You, who as chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee speaks for every Democrat about any matter related to the military, disagree with the report of the Great and Manly General McChrystal that says we must surge in Afghanistan now lest we loose the war there. But you and Obama do not want to send more troops to their death. Why are you disagree with this report? I'm a liberal, I'm willing to listen to and even agree with your sentiments about keeping America weak.

Carl Levin: Um, who told you either Pres. Obama or I disagree with the report? Did you actually read the report? It specifically calls people who interpret the report as meaning "just send more troops and ... um ... ponies" complete idiots who are potentially too stupid to breath

M. Brand: Journalistic imperatives tell me that there are two sides of every story. We've heard about what the report says. Now I am trying to be a good journalist and get your side of the story. Could you please explain why you disagree with Gen. McChrystal's report?

C. Levin: Didn't I tell you that I do not disagree with the report?

M. Brand: Why do we liberals like to be soft in waging war? Why does Obama hesitate before sending troops into battle to die? Why doesn't he support Gen. McChrystal's findings?

C. Levin: Didn't I just tell you that everyone agrees with the report? Did you read the report? It specifically calls people who misinterpret its recommendations in the exact way you insist on misinterpreting the report's recommendations complete blundering, blabbering idiots.

M Brand: In order to have a story, I must continue to act as if there is disagreement. Why do you disagree with the report?

C. Levin: Are you a complete nitwit and numbskull? For the umpteenth time, I do not disagree with Gen. McChrystal's recommendations

... and this is NPR which is (supposed to be) a cut above most other media outlets ... and journalists wonder why no-one listens to or reads the news anymore?

Anyway, it was certainly NPR. No-one was shouting and everyone was super-duper polite (that M. Brand was so polite to Sen. Levin will be yet another piece of "evidence" that NPR is teh liberal socialist propaganda ... and thus what M. Brand claimed the liberal position to be will be deemed by the GOP to be the liberal position -- thanks NPR for giving the GOP talking points!) ... which was amazing ... if I were Levin, I don't think I could have remained so polite ...

He's Back ...

2009-08-26T22:46:00.001-04:00

... and nobody gave me the memo. Anyway, check out the blogger formerly known as olvlzl's new digs (link at left).

Niebelungenheit

2009-08-21T11:09:00.003-04:00

I may not be a troll, but sometimes I am a Niebelung (c.f. earlier posts). But it appears that my efforts are for in the comments here. Evidently, in order for lefties to have a sane discussion about Israel, a right wingnut (*) needs to call Israelis Nazis and thus remind the left that Zionism is a form of socialism not racism.

I wonder when so-called "Zionist" righties will realize what kind of country Israel is and I also wonder when anti-Zionist lefties will realize what kind of liberal polity they can't abide. I guess the desire to force a narrative of colonialism (loved by the right and loathed by the left) where it really doesn't belong (as well as old fashioned anti-Semitism) blinds people to who are their friends and who are their enemies.

OTOH, do we as Jews really want to get into bed politically with people who are quick to "heil Hitler" simply because they support Israel and even wear IDF t-shirts?
Are we that blind too?

* it doesn't work when one of us Jews reminds left-wing anti-Zionists of this sort of thing -- they just clam up and say "sure Israel is good for Israeli Jews but it's not very good toward Palestinians" with no regards to how or why the Palestinians are in the (non) state they are in other than "if Israel didn't exist, they wouldn't be occupying Palestinian territory -- not even any regards to the fact that someone else would be oppressing Palestinians anyway ... as if that's an argument, though

Finally: A Peterson Tobacco in my Peterson Pipe

2009-08-21T10:07:00.003-04:00

As you may recall, about a year ago, I received, from a very dear friend of half Irish ancestry who had come back from a trip to Ireland bearing gifts as a belated birthday, in the midst of moving and early starting a new job as a perfessor present, a new Peterson pipe. Well, now I have finally decided to get something other than my beloved C&D "kitchen sink" tobacco and finally smoke a Peterson tobacco. Irish Oak, to be exact. It was between that and Old Dublin: Irish Oak is aromatic and lacks Latakia and Old Dublin lacks perique, and perique won out over non-aromaticity and Latakia. I just hope this mildly aromatic (aromatic in this case meaning seemingly only aged in sherry oak) doesn't foul up my pipe for smoking my usual non-aromatic blends.

In any case, in spite of mixed reviews, I am so far impressed with this tobacco. It has a very nice tin aroma with oak and sherry nicely complementing the fig and musty odors of the perique. It looked like the meta-blend that attracted me to kitchen-sink tobaccos in the first place -- my blend of RLP-6 and Revelation. And it kind of tastes like that too. It was sure strong on the match, having an initial nicotine kick rivaling Missassippi Mud. But as I sit in Rufus King Park (yes, I am writing this blog entry in Notepad in the park, so pardon the spelling errors) smoking it whilst my mechanic desparately tries to find a new tire for me (I ran over a curb Wed. and busted a tire ... and my wife's car has the hardest to find tires evah, evidently), it has a coolness (again similar to Mississippi Mud --albeit without the smokiness of the Latakia containing Mississippi Mud -- or possibly even a hookah -- that must be the Cavendish talking) together with cigar notes including an almost unidentifiable spiciness (remaniscent of Onyx Reserve cigars), presumably a combination of the perique, "exotic" Virginias and the sherry oak aging, of the sort that goes well in coffee (it sure is a nice after coffee smoke, which is how, luckily, I am having it) or with nuts. It would be wonderful to bottle this in syrup format and use it in everything one has with breakfast. It's indeed a good morning smoke.

We'll have to see, though, how well it works in the afternoon and evening and whether I can still smoke non-aromatic kitchen sink blends in my pipe after this. But, while I had been thinking "maybe I should have gone with Old Dublin" and not worried about my pipe, I'm now very glad I got this. Kitchen sink blends with a little sherry note won't be bad at all, anyway.

Update: the tobacco has now had a chance to settle in a bit in the tin (drying out, getting re-humidified, etc.) and now the Perique is really strong (and I am also getting more herbal cigar notes). Just opening the tin now, you can really smell the musty and fig like odors of the Perique and the nicotine, while not noticeable in terms of pepperiness, really has a kick ... it's hard to walk up stairs after smoking this! This tobacco is good! I do miss the Latakia ... but only a little.

If Profits are High, Ur Doin' It Wrong

2009-08-17T12:10:00.001-04:00

Overhead the morning C[orporate] NBC financial talking heads while smoking an Oliva G maduro cigar(*) and writing code at Barklay-Rex (I took the bus in today, and stopped in the city to hang out and code for a bit): they were a bit confused about what it meant that the GDP and corporate profits were approaching pre-reccession levels (cue GOoPers claiming that the media has a liberal bias for claiming Obama fixed the recession ... indeed, the reporters were squarely --citing Reuters -- blaming Bush & CO for the ression, which will just add fuel to the liberal media meme without actually helping the progressive cause ... how is it that media types consistently say just the right things to "betray" their "liberal bias" all while, when all is said an done, putting forward a very GOP friendly message, so that "even the liberal media supports the GOP"?).

Of course, we can't expect much from so-called financial reporters not understanding how a stronger dollar isn't being well received by the stock market (lower exports anyone? -- who's educating the financial correspondents around here? I'm a biophysical chemist, and I know more about finance than these yahoos!). But still, do they not understand that if corporate profits are high yet we are still feeling a bad recession that means there is something wrong with our recovery? Maybe the reason why big business and even big finance are happy but we aren't has something to do with who's on Team Obama? Perhaps things would be better if Obama had people on his team who actually were right about the recession rather than people who helped cause it (and cause economic problems world wide for the benefit of the economic powers that be as part of the World Bank/IMF), things would be different? Maybe we should have listened to the K-man about Obama? After all, the K-man didn't get a Nobel Prize for nothin' ...

Anyway, this isn't the only thing Team Obama just doesn't get. Why the hell are they dropping the public option? Let's go to the tape: GOP (via the tea baggers) push against a public option with scare tactics, Dems. cave, due to a lack of public options, everything the GOP 'warned' us would happen does, so the GOP rides to victory. How is this any different than the GOP's tried and true strategy of push Mayor Quimby to release Side Show Bob from jail then run against Mayor Quimby for being soft on crime and even releasing Side Show Bob? Why is Obama still playing 10 dimensional chess in a football game? As I keep saying, the Dems. need to just catch the football rather than fumbling it and breaking their fingers in the process. Of course it doesn't help that any time some Dems. try to catch the football, "even the liberal media" tars and feathers "extremist Dems" even as they have a record of ignoring or treating as marginal ("of course the liberal media would declare the GOP base to be marginal") similar movements amonst the GOoPers?

BTW -- doesn't the title reflect the free market in general? If the free market really worked as advertised, so to speak, if a company was making a lot of profit, a competitor would emerge and be able to sell the same product/service for cheaper (i.e. with lower profits) and drive the price and profits down? Don't high profits indicate a lack of efficiency in the market? Or am I thinking too much like a physical chemist here in how I conceptualize efficiency? I guess the question is "efficient at what?" ...

***

* you'll have to pardon how nicotine addled this post is. I did write it whilst smoking. Anyway, here are the tasting notes:

Oliva Serie G maduro (robusto?)

Cigar a bit dry
Initial taste on wetting tip: spicy
Bland on match building up slowly with woody, grassy and sharp tannic notes
Changing about half-way through to alcoholic and tarragon
Nettle flavor comes in about 2/3rds way through in addition to (slightly faded) tarragon and alcohol
Approaching nub, tarragon and alcohol notes fade away under the nettle flavor
At very end, slight kumquat-tar and astringent grainy and nutty notes appear along with nettle flavor

This cigar certainly was a much appreciated change of pace from what I usually smoke, but it hardly is a "new favorite". It does leave a nice, almost fruity (and certainly complementary to sun lotion) smell on my clothes. I wonder if anyone'll notice?

Maybe I Should Read This? ...

2009-08-13T11:13:00.001-04:00

... or maybe I shouldn't since, given this book review, the book in question seems like it reflect my views on the subject matter, so why bother reading it?

Questions Occasioned by Lingering News

2009-08-03T09:34:00.003-04:00

Some questions in my mind as the Gates' arrest story, the Kirchik (sp?) hit piece and Obama-care sink in:

(1) Where is the right on the Gates' arrest story? In particular why aren't they concerned that, whatever the context, someone was effectively arrested because he did not immediately comply with an order to produce his ID card? Indeed, many on the right are saying he should have produced such a card ...

Why is this a kasha? Because not so long ago (i.e. before "9/11 changed everything"(TM)) one of the big fears of the right (that even trumped fear of immigrants) was the issue of ID cards, etc. Anti-communists and right-libertarians feared us turning into a Yurpean-style police state in which anyone anywhere could be asked "where are your papers?". Pre-millennialists feared that an ID card would be a "sign of the beast". And yet these groups are now so silent about the issue of having to produce an ID everywhere and for everything? Why? Because "9/11 changed everything"(TM)? Do they not see that if some Commie or Satan (or the Monsters due of Maple Street) wanted to take over then all they would need to do is engineer a 9/11 style plot (Hashem forbid) and then they have their way? Hofstadter (sp?) warned of the paranoid style of American politics -- but now we see that sometimes the most paranoid suddenly also develop blind-spots and become the most easily duped (c.f. how certain Jews paranoid about anti-Semitism thus get into bed politically with theological anti-Semites because said anti-Semites "support" Israel)

(2) Speaking of issues in re. Israel (and thus the Kirchick piece): from a Zionist perspective why should American Jews be any more supportive of Israel than say American Greek Orthodox of Greek extraction should be particularly supportive of Greece? If an American Greek Orthodox Christian of Greek extraction spoke out against some action of Greece, would that make said person a self-hating Greek? If a WASP spoke out about something the Brits did, would such a person be a self-hating WASP?

Isn't the whole point of Zionism that we Jews should be just another nation? We should have a state like all the goyisher ethnic groups were supposed to get as well? Nu? So why should, from a strictly Zionist point of view, any American Jew be any more supportive of Israel than any other ethnic American (belonging to an "ethnic religion") be supportive of his/her ancestral homeland? Can't one argue that people like Kirchick, far from "supporting" Israel are in fact "objectively anti-Zionist" to use a phrase that Commies and their spiritual descendants on the right, the neo-cons would use?

OTOH, of course we Jews do have an obligation to our fellow Jews (although I suspect those quoting Gemarah to say that Jews shouldn't turn in other Jews to secular authorities are missing some important context, e.g. the difference between Rome and Parthia on the one hand and the US on the other!). Thus we have an obligation to support measures that maintain the security of the people of Israel (and also Jewish access to our holy sites). At this point, this means "supporting" the state of Israel (and also a resolution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict that places Jews in harm's way -- including opposition to counter-productive Israeli activities like booting out Palestinians from homes even if "we purchased those apartments fair and square" -- such arguments merely strengthen anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jews and money that we should be trying to break, not strengthen). But support for some abstract state of Israel, whose founding ideology directly opposes the central Jewish notion of being an "am ha-kodesh", is hardly a Jewish thing to do -- although you wouldn't know it stepping into a synagogue nowadays.

BTW -- one issue about Jewish "support" from Israel is that it does blind our eyes to the specter of the religious right, which is hardly really supportive of Judaism in a real sense (as opposed to their "support" of Israel) ... c.f. my comments on a semi-recent thread on Pandagon where I otherwise am concerned primarily with the "New Atheists".

(3) Obama-care: it looks like the Dems. are going to push through a bill that regulates health insurance companies, but in a way (especially if the public option is limited access) that will raise health insurance premiums and cause people to be dropped from health insurance. Is this really what we want to have identified as our "health care reform plan"? Even if the worst fears I mention don't come to pass, given the "compromises" Dems. seem to be willing to make, this is how the health care plan can and will be demagogued. Note to the Democrats: if you want health care reform you need to either catch it like a football or get out of the way. Too many Democrats, as I keep saying, seem like people who've never played catch with a football: if you try to catch the football in a half-assed manner with the tip of your fingers, you'll drop the ball and break your fingers. You either have to catch the ball or get out of the way.

Similarly with health care (and so many things): the Dems. need to either push for real reform or just get out of the way and stop this fight. If they push through some compromise which doesn't go far enough, all that will happen is health insurance companies will start raising premiums, health care will be even less affordable and it will be blamed on the Democrats for pushing through the regulations they did push through. And even the specter of this happening is enough (as it has been in the past) for the GOP to make political hay of the situation.

Anything else I should be questioning while I'm at it?

What should I file this under?

2009-07-21T09:51:00.003-04:00

I wonder if this is a case of "there is no more racism in America" or "liberals, like those pointy-heads in Taxachusetts are the real racists"? Or will right-blogostan even take a break from "teh white menz are being oppressed" to even notice this story?

Update: judging by the comments on The Root itself, it looks like the "explanation" for how this sort of thing can happen since there is officially no racism in this country (gag) is that Gates brought it on himself by not immediately playing step-and-fetchit with respect to his ID.

I Think I Tracked It Down

2009-07-04T19:59:00.002-04:00

A while back I posted about a cigar I had in Bal'more of which I didn't quite catch the name. I think I've finally figured it out: it was one of the Oliva Master Blends III cigars, which do vary from year to year.

I guess I should, in the absence of finding one in the cameroon wrapper as I had it, maybe I should have an Oliva Series G?

Long Awaited (albeit by whom?) Weekly Parsha Blogging

2009-07-04T18:55:00.001-04:00

How do Zionists deal with this week's Parsha in which we Jews are praised as a "people" ("am") different than all the "nations" ("goyim")? After all, the whole point of Zionism, pace whatever anti-Zionists imagine it to be, is that Israel is a nation like other nations?

OTOH, if we would have read Hukkat separately from Balak, we would have read the story Jeptha in which we see the neighbors of the Hebrew people acting, well, just like Israel's neighbors too often act today. Such disingenuity ... to which, of course, the anti-Zionists are blind -- I wonder why? ( / sarcasm ).

Still, Jeptha is really a piece of work, ain't he? Of course, the Zionists would consider someone like Jeptha a hero, and that we should ignore his shortcomings, etc. ... because he's on the right side in re Zionism, everything he did is ok as far as Zionists are concerned?

I write letters ...

2009-06-26T16:05:00.004-04:00

I wrote this one to the President:

President Obama,

You and others have expressed the wish that you will, as president, be a transforming politician who changes the very terms of our political debate. In particular, you have expressed support (and pushed legislation) for a strong and healthy progressive agenda. In particular you have begun efforts to address our great societal need for improved access to health care, perhaps via government run health plans.

We all know that US enterprises, both small and large, have suffered in the global market-place because they have to pay for health care for their employees while their competitors abroad have employees whose health care is paid for by the government. Additionally, we all know many entrepreneurs who would love to grow their businesses and contribute more to our economy but cannot as they cannot afford to pay for health insurance for additional employees and cannot, even with today’s unfortunately large pool of unemployed, find qualified employees who will work in any job that does not provide health care benefits. We all know that the US needs what has been denigrated as “socialist medicine”.

Yet, your proposals for even modest versions of a public option are likely to fail in the Senate. Some of my fellow liberals have dismissed this as the fault of centrist “blue dog” Democrats who are too willing to compromise on what should be uncontroversial aspects of the progressive agenda. I, however, feel that political opposition to “socialized medicine” reflects a broad popular opinion against government ran programs.

This opposition to government programs in favor of private enterprise, even in an age when we have seen how poorly the free market works, is not irrational. People fear, for example, that government ran health care will result in long waiting times for medical care. Why? Well, when I go to a store to purchase something, I might grumble when I have to wait in line for minutes on end, but I rarely would wait, even on a crowded day in a warehouse store to purchase big ticket items, for more than a half an hour. On the other hand, just today my wife and I spent almost two hours in line to get a passport for my daughter. Previously, I have had to wait over a half a day to get a drivers’ license, and for the majority of a day to get a marriage license.

So long as people associate federal, state and local agencies with long waiting times, people will naturally and rationally fall prey to scare tactics about how “socialized medicine will involve long waiting lists” and thus be opposed to even the minimum necessary reforms in our health care system. More generally, so long as the everyday interactions people have with government involve long waits, speed traps, big city political corruption or catch-22 situations, people will be opposed to the entirety of the pro-government progressive agenda our nation needs to do well in the 21st century.

If you truly wish to be a transformative politician, you need to address all of these issues. Make sure nobody has to wait for 2 hours to hand in paperwork to get a passport. Put strings on stimulus money that will buy local political machines off and keep them on the straight and narrow as well as push recalcitrant agencies like the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles to reform (as other DMVs have done). This nation can continue to be a city on the hill and beacon of a forward thinking agenda, but only if we create conditions on the ground where people have every reason to think that a “big government agenda” will be beneficial to them and not result in their having to wait in long lines for medical care, etc., as they have to wait at the post office for a passport or at the DMV.

*

My wife told me to whom to complain about the actual wait time (was it the inspector general or the post-master general? I forget ... I'll have to ask her later) ... but how can we expect people NOT to think that they will have to wait forever to receive medical care if we have "socialized medicine" when they have to wait so long just to turn in government forms? As I've been harping on for years on this blog, people don't like gummint for a reason and if the Democrats want people to support a progressive agenda, they'll need to do a much better job seeing all the trees that make up the forest of anti-government sentiment and addressing those issues.

Because Blogs Come and Go

2009-06-22T13:20:00.001-04:00

... and change addresses, I've updated my links. If I've removed your blog, don't feel insulted ... I've just not noticed any activity recently there. If you want me to add your blog, I might consider it ;)

Some Poems About April

2009-06-18T11:04:00.008-04:00

The showery weather, even though it is June, has got me thinking about April and poems I meant to write about scenes from that month ...

Following a pre-Evening Thunder Shower

A uniform pall
of the lightest slate
is really a dazzling
tensor of chrome 53
once etched to salt
a rainbow
like the one emerging
from the recent storm
whose banging of flint
against the filigree
of the span over which
I now drive
started no fires

The only conflagration
is a slowly descending orb
which,
even a few days ago,
would have already succumbed
to a cold
winter's
night.

But it is April now (and Old 'Possum has allergies)
so her late afternoon showers
don't end in darkness
but rather in the long lilac light -- a Debussy nocturne or Rorem picture of morning --
of a spotless mind's looming star eternally on the verge
of setting

The Morning After

Steamy petrichor liberated from yesterday's rain
and broken sticks of orange from yesterday's pipe
waft through the windows
carried along by the pressure of the sun
which every day
floods the house
with gossamer silver dawn curtains
with monotonically increasing promptness

How soon will the sun wrap itself around us
like a boa
choking us out of our slumber?
How will we remember this first sign
of chartreuse
when the world is too verdant for us?

The faint powder left by the burning

sol
will be a faint memory
and we won't even know whether
it was a mist or a tsunami
that hit us
so gently
on this early April morning

I'm no Zionist but ...

2009-06-15T15:43:00.002-04:00

... anti-Zionist types drive me crazy.

First, we Jews are persecuted because we are deracinated cosmopolitans (doesn't that sound like a diet mixed drink?). So what do we Jews do? We put down roots (why a doctrine that acquieces to anti-Semitism like that has become the sine qua non of Jewish identity also drives me crazy, as do New York drivers and many other things ... is it any wonder my wife says I need to chill? ;) ). I disagree with that (vide supra), but there it is.

But then what happens. Conveniently the world says "oops! we were wrong to persecute deracinated cosmopolitans ... now we'll persecute people who put down roots in land in which other people might live (which is everywhere". Perhaps dispossessing people is wrong. But isn't it convenient how the world decided to finally make this a moral issue when Jews started doing it?

I'm not saying two wrongs make a right or embracing moral relativism (and why are supposedly religious Jews doing so in their support of Zionism?), but the world's newfound discovery of morality at just a time when we Jews are not on the loosing end of things is, as the Church Lady would say, just so conveeenient.

And that so many lefties don't get it (when they are otherwise all about empathy) really says a lot, don't it?

(c.f. the comments section for any post about Israeli issues at Matt Yglesias' blog to see what sort of thing would prompt me to make a post like this)

Dear New York City Drivers

2009-06-15T15:41:00.005-04:00

Why are you so impatient when people slow down to look for parking? People park in this city. Get used to it. You probably are going to park soon too. Do you want me to honk at you when you stop suddenly with no warning to start parking? No. Well, then stop honking me when I slow down or stop, even though I signal my intentions properly, etc.

I guess the essence of being an NYC driver is to be utterly incapable of handling common occurances (c.f. previous blogs on the driving here): rain? snow? either drive like nothing is happening or slow down to ludicrously low speeds to be "safe" ... the idea that snow or rain should be something you would know how to handle is just not NYC-esque. People slowing down/stopping to park? honk your horn as if the person doing said activity is doing something completely outrageous that nobody else ever does in this fair city. Kids crossing the street to get into a playground? That never happens! Feel free to zoom past any playground at a speed that'll get you an 8 point ticket in Central NJ ... etc. ...

*

Updates: I guess that NYC drivers were perfectly polite and reasonable to me when I had NJ plates also fits under the rubric of NYC drivers not being able to expect the expected: "oh noes, this must be one of those NJ drivers I've heard so many bad things about but I've not ever seen [since three minutes ago]: I guess I'll have to give him a wide berth and let him merge, etc. and be very patient with him -- as you never know what these mysterious NJ drivers, whom we almost never encounter in NYC, are gonna do next".

However, note the plural in the word updates ... something shocking happened this morning: NYC drivers were actually responding appropriately to the rain (slowing down a reasonable amount, etc.)! I guess I shouldn't write anything lest I jinx it, though ... I'm knocking wood that this continues on my commute home!

Today's the Big Day ...

2009-06-12T09:08:00.004-04:00

... in which the government is going to force all of us who live in big buildings having roof-top antennas that don't receive UHF signals well to get cable.

I wonder if, even though this whole DTV mess started during the era of Bush & CO, the GOP will use this as another example of how "Democratic governments interfere in your lives and make things more expensive and force you to do stuff you wouldn't do", etc., etc.?

*

Well, whaddya know! Our "high definition", "digital" television doesn't actually have a digital tuner ... so I guess I need to get the converter box after all. I wonder, though, given that we can barely receive any signals in our apartment (and our rooftop antenna can't receive UHF signals worth beans), if even after I get said converter box (if I can find one) we'll have TeeVee.

*

Update: the Alberich household now has entered the DTV age. And you know what? Nu ...

Anyway, our rooftop antenna receives a few channels (but not all) and the amplified antenna I purchased gets the rest, so we have DTV ... but it sure ain't all that. My wife likes it though.

My 0.02$ on the EP Elections

2009-06-08T15:18:00.002-04:00

(1) the victory of the center-right is not nearly so big as the media's been playing it up to be, but the "even the liberal media says even the Euro-weenies are moving toward the right" is gonna be a big talking point in the 2010 midterms

(2) the center-right in Europe is not the same as our center right (as the liberal blogs have been reporting in what should be our talking point to neutralize the above talking point): the Christian Democratic movement, from its very origins, is more akin to our Bull-moose movement that died out with TR going back to the GOP and which otherwise has largely been absorbed into the Democratic party (as has the McKinley GOP, FWIW, c.f. Atrios' comments about the elites as well as M. Lind's comments about McKinley's GOP being now part and parcel of the Democratic party in Made in Texas).

(3) The larger point, however, is that this does point, however, to the difficulties our side will face in the 2010 midterms. Any lack of economic progress will be used against the Dems. Let's not think that 2006 and 2008 mean the GOP era is over. The Dems still have not addressed the underlying causes of the "Reagan backlash". Archie Bunker-ism still is a potent force because nowadays even a young person like me can say "things were so much better in the olden days -- when my dad was my age, he could afford to live in a nice house in the 'burbs on just his salary ... now with my wife out of work -- even with my roughly equivalent salary -- it's tough to make ends meet". As long as people think things were better off in the "good old days", they are, by definition, oriented toward conservative/reactionary thinking. Moreover, Obama and the national Dems have as yet done little to address major beefs with "gummint" (anyway his powers are limited as most of these beefs deal with state/local government, as I've frequently discussed on this blog ... although Obama can put strings on the stimulus money that will at least help break the political machines, etc.), which both undermine the Democratic "pro-government" ideology and often involve Dems. and hence make the Dems. look bad.

We have momentum as a party ... but the EU elections indicate how easily this momentum might be lost in 2010 if we aren't careful. Let's keep the ball rolling fellow Dems!

Longevity II

2009-06-02T06:34:00.003-04:00

I tried this vaguely Balkan-style tobacco even though it has gotten not the best reviews because it was the most "everything but the kitchen sink" mixture Barclay and Rex had when I had a chance to stop by (is it my imagination or are there simply, in spite of the plethora of stores advertising they sell cigars, no good tobacconists in Queens?). While I generally like C&D tobaccos, this one is not a hit. However, I must say that it is a really, really good digestif, so to speak: after a nice lunch, it really got both my digestive and brain juices flowing.

Update: I have noticed nice notes of wine and tarragon (!) developing toward the end of the bowl lately.

Mark Steyn is Objectively Pro-Iranian Extremism

2009-05-21T13:11:00.003-04:00

I guess this is from the most bizarre arguments ever department.

Shorter Mark Steyn (those of you unaware of all internet traditions, c.f. Sadly, No! for references for the "shorter" concept):

Iranian hardliners don't like the peace process. Therefore, Israel should not work toward peace. (warning -- link is to NRO)

Perhaps my paranoia about the neo-cons and Iran/Contra is correct? As much as they claim to be pro-Israeli and anti-Iranian, they really are moles working for extremists in Iran? Nah ... that would make more sense than today's right wing is capable of!

Poetry Corner: A Hokey Post Title for a Hokey Poem (I wrote it myself)

2009-05-12T06:21:00.003-04:00

The Shapes of People
(Upon reflections leading to consideration of Chapter 5 of Pikei Avos)

"There are three kinds of mathematicians:
Those who can count and those who can't"

Some people are pears
and some are apples
They say (and they know all)
that pears are healthier

If some people are squares
nu? maybe some people are rectangles
and some are ovals?

Some people are so circular
as they walk, you imagine them
as roly-polies (or is that rolies-poly?) already in a ball
not as scared Armadillos, though -- not at all

Meanwhile, other people are so thin
you can barely see them
And some stand so erect
it makes you think
about how we all stand on two legs and not four
(When this is all you think about
when watching a sitcom -- you know
that the sitcom deserves to be
cancelled, even
though they give the stars a raise
while you remain out of work)

Some people form a line
Aesclepian snakes of bromine
or Iodine or whatever elements you can imagine
Nature (a singular person,
your heart she alone will gladly batter)
doesn't limit herself to only a few measly elements
the way a committee of divinities would

Of course, like sulfur dioxide,
most people are molecules
It's the combination of shapes
that makes art and keeps life bright
red, green and blue
or at least cyan, magenta and yellow

And yet, somehow
you always seem to meet people
made up of the same constituent elements
a beautiful, if sometimes inelegant tapestry of colors
painted out of indigo dyed canvas

that's Jackson Pollack for ya!

There are two kinds of people
those who classify people into multiple kinds of people
and those who don't to

but somehow the shallow monist
who refuses to see divisions
and connections
and relations
misses the giant, unitary mural

and there's a foundational pun in there
if you choose to find it
if not
well
that's a fine choice too.

The Government's Secret Plan to Make Everyone Get Cable

2009-05-11T06:33:00.003-04:00

(aka the DTV conversion)

So it seems the reason why our apartment building's rooftop antenna won't work after the DTV conversion is that after DTV, some of the stations will be shuffled to UHF or something or other. I'm still confused from my electronics 101 understanding of such things how switching from analog to digital will free-up bandwidth? My guess is that it's more about shuffling bandwidth to make us think this is a good idea.

I still don't get the point of the switch: sorry to sound like a libertarian here, but if the switch were such a good idea, the free market would have made it already.

Anyhoo, it seems that after the switch, we won't get any TeeVee anymore (unless we pay for cable). My wife has long argued that we don't get signal with our antenna because we either need a converter box to receive digital signals (but our TV is already digital ready) or because we need to set our antenna in some special way. But it seems that we need (get/do) neither. We simply don't get enough signal in our apartment to make an antenna (even our amplified one) too useful.

So is this really a plot to get us all to buy cable? Or is the government, bent on proving glibertarians correct, so stupid as not to have figured out that not all of us can get TeeVee signals in our apartments, which have recalcitrant co-op boards who are too busy enriching cronies to have any money to spend to replace roof-top antennas? (if only one of our board members could manage to have a crony in the antenna business)

Why didn't they run a pilot switch to make sure everyone could actually receive DTV signals before fixing when and how they'd make a permanent switch?

Is Our Media Learning? Misc. Thoughts ...

2009-04-28T10:09:00.002-04:00

The news reports are chalk full of complaints about the MTA's rate hikes and service cuts (etc.). Fair enough -- this is a big story with horrible consequences to strap hangers. But since this is such a big story, why are the media only just complaining? The MTA/NYCTC are chalk full of waste, corruption and bad management. Why isn't the media investigating this? You'd think that they would want to rush to get the "big story of MTA malfeasance" ... and yet ... what ever happened to investigative journalism? or, for that matter, journalism?

If the media don't want to be "replaced" by bloggers, perhaps they should do things that someone blogging whilst procrastinating about facing a horrendously long to-do list simply cannot do?

*

For all the so-called liberal media's lurve of Obama (well, compared to how they usually treat Dems, they are showing favoritism to Obama), they certainly don't treat him as well as they did Chimpy McFlightsuit. The media here in NYC have rightly been up in arms about yesterday's "photo op". Again, fair enough. But, pace the rightwing intertubes whom I imagine are pretty much claiming that the media went after Cmdr Codpiece for his stupid photo-ops whilst, I imagine the wingnuts claiming, they are treating Obama with kid-gloves on this, could you imagine the response (given, e.g. the media's response to all of Chimpy McFlightsuit's photo ops) the media would have given if Bush & CO staged this fly-over? Whatever dramatic pictures taken in the photo-op would be plastered all over the TeeVee and magazine covers to indicate how manly our Presnit is ... meanwhile the NYCers who fled would have been labeled as "effete liberals all too eager to cower before terrists".

*

Is our media learning? I think not ...

Dora Overload

2009-04-24T09:47:00.004-04:00

My wife and I are now on Dora overload. So that you can feel our pain (and the pain of everyone with a daughter of a certain age), here is a guide to Dora the Explorer:

The Premise: Dora and friends have to go somewhere, whilst overcoming obstacles and learning Spanish. It scores so many good show points that you feel so guilty for hating it so much ... and yet I dare anyone over the age of 10 to watch it without wanting to pull their hair out.

The Characters:

Dora: The melon-headed Keane kids' hispanic cousin. A positive role model for young girls. So of course, they had to tart her up. The pathetic thing: it could have been worse.

Boots: Dora's best friend -- a cute monkey who wears cute fuschia boots. He also has the range of affect and personality of a Labrador Retriever.

Swiper the Fox: A kleptomanical fox who can be repelled merely by repeating (5000x), "Swiper, no Swiping". Perhaps our national security might work this way -- repeating "Al Qaeda no bombing" 5000x is probably just as effective as anything Pres. GWB ever did. I think Pres. Obama might be seeking to implement this approach in dealing with corporate malfeasance.

The Backpack: the most realistic character on Dora the Explorer -- just like a real backpack, it eats all of your stuff, says "yum, yum, delicioso" and then you can't find anything again (until your in an airport security line with your backpack and the screeners manage to find that trial size shampoo you've been looking for -- who says TSA is useless?).

The Map: what with the advent of Google Earth, GPS and all, this paper map is starting to feel like a useless old relic who doesn't have the prowess he once had. So whenever his services are needed, he makes a big deal about being "The Map" (think Shelley Levene in Glengarry Glen Ross ... which office set-up -- with the "leads" and all -- the play depicts, to me seems a stupid way of running a sales office, but from what "Timmy" has told me of his experiences in sales, I'll believe that's how things work in these environments). He always manages to lead Dora and crew through some obstacle, though. Frankly, he's so desperate that I betcha somebody (Swiper maybe) is gonna pay him off to lead Dora into a trap, from whence Dora's Mami and Papi will have to pay a lot of money to get her back (the risk being that maybe they're sending her out on these "explorations" in the first place to try and get rid of her, so they won't pay much to get her back anyway). I just don't trust that map -- as I said -- always leading Dora and crew into obstacles ... again, The Map reminds me too much of Shelley "The Machine" Levene ...

I know I don't have all the characters ... anybody else have additions to this post?

Tax Time!

2009-04-12T07:03:00.002-04:00

I just finished doing my taxes ... cripes, NY (state and city on top of that!) taxes are expensive! If I didn't know any better, I'd become a Republican right here and now. For the amount of money I'm paying in taxes to NY (relative to my income and compared to my NJ taxes, e.g.), how come I have to wait hours in the DMV, have a stupid parking ticket because the stupid muni-meter receipts flip over when you close your door and NYC doesn't print these in a two-sided manner, drive on roads chock full of tire/alignment destroying potholes, etc.?

As I keep saying, priority #1 for the DNC should be making Democratic areas paragons of good, efficient governance. People should be saying -- I'm gonna move to the Big Democratic City as soon as I find a job there, not I want to get out of this over-priced cess-pit of corruption and patronage where I pay too much in taxes to get bubkis in return.

Nu? The whole case of the Democratic party is that responsible government can do a boatload of good. So, when will the DNC start busting heads (and local political machines) and start making some shining cities on hills to serve as examples of how good, clean and efficient governance can make your life better rather than serving as examples of how Democrats, when they run things, resort to machine politics and end up taxing you excessively?

BTW -- the stimulus package is a perfect place to get this rolling ... with money comes strings attached. The Democrats can subtly shift money to as to reward politicians that initiate anti-machine and pro-efficiency reforms? Perhaps the way to break the machines and local clubs is to fight patronage with patronage? Obama knows what's going on, and he has shown interest in being a transformative politician -- why doesn't he fight dirty as a Chi-town politician must well know how to do and, in the end, really transform the Democratic party and hence allow for a real, solid (transcending our current socio-economic situation) Democratic majority in which people trust good governance because they see it in action (as opposed to the reverse which hurts the Dems. now).

Idealism Shouldn't Be Denialism

2009-03-27T06:13:00.003-04:00

I used to think this sort of thing was just a matter of the Puritanism I have discussed here before or even the "I'm not anti-Semitic ... I'm a tolerant, open-minded liberal ... I just dislike Zionism" thinking that my more conservative friends claim it is.

But it seems that certain kind of liberal really feels a need to deny that such admittedly distasteful things as mass deportations really do play a role in stabilizing borders and preventing border wars (it isn't just about hating on Israel for creating conditions that drove Palestinians out) -- see the reactions to my admittedly trolling comment here.

Note the misrepresentation of my claim regarding borders: just because a country brutally oppresses and eventually deports "troublesome minorities" doesn't mean it can't later become ethnically heterogeneous. And I never claim otherwise. Indeed, one could argue that successful heterogeneous countries are successful because they devise a common culture for all their peoples by picking on an outgroup and unifying on the basis of "we are all different -- but none of us are [OUTGROUP]".

The world really isn't any different than Middle School. The difference between a conservative and a progressive is that a conservative says trying to make the world grow up and at least enter High School if not College is futile whilst a progressive says that we should try to make the world grow up. But pretending like the sins of the first world have not benefited us is pernicious denialism.

The other interesting aspect of the discussion is the reasoning of "we shouldn't make morally repelent hypotheses regarding historical events". Are we to deny the gross immorality of history, or at least deny the benefits we still have from said immorality, in order to improve the future? AFAIC, the opposite is the case -- if we really want to make positive changes, the first thing we need to do is honestly not only confront the sins of the past but also how we still benefit from them. Perhaps this is what Torah/Joshua/Samuel is getting at by including the not so morally happy parts about how the Hebrews came to control Israel: that we need to confront and engage with what happened in our past rather than deny it? This sort of active reflection and self-critique is something liberals should be encouraging others, especially Zionists, to do rather than engaging in pie-in-the-sky denialism themselves.

Of course the odd thing is that, domestically, these same liberals offer such cogent critiques of "white privilage" and how we melanically challenged types continue to benefit from even past racism. Yet they fail to see how this operates on the world stage (except when it comes to talking about the after effects of colonialism hurt everyone in the third world but magically Israel is a colonial oppressor and not also a victim in all of this? I guess that gets back to the "Puritans deciding who is oppressed and hence elected" critique of mine).

Between this attitude and the sheer incompetence and hassles of the New York DMV (once any legal issues are resolved, remind me to tell you what the DMV is doing to my wife -- these people don't even know what their own paperwork says!) and MTA making me hate on gummint, I just might be driven to the political right!

The DAS Blog Economic Recovery Plan

2009-03-22T08:56:00.004-04:00

I know it's a little late for this ... and hindsight is 20/20. But I'm not being paid to think up these sorts of things! If I could think of this now, how come the best "prognosticators" couldn't think of this when the time was ripe for it?

Now onto the show:

(1) The government should eat what Atrios calls big shitpile. But not in the way they have done so. Instead the purchases should have cut out the fertilizer sales agencies that too many of our banks have become. People (in pension funds, retirement plans, etc.) are loosing their future because they've invested in "oh so safe mortgage backed securities"? Government should buy big shitpile directly from the true owners of said fertilizer tower.

(2) Bail out state and local governments (with the condition that their endemic corruption -- which BTW helps the GOP politically by souring people on government, as I've addressed here and elsewhere -- be curtailed) so we don't have to have service cuts (which translates to even fewer people working and hence even more economic shrinkage) and tax increases when we can least afford them.

(3) Now onto the substantive changes -- deal with the Social Security crisis. No. Not the one manufactured by hucksters trying to get more people to "invest" in a market that, with investors just buying stock from each other without regard to what they get from the stock and with investors buying IPOs from underwear gnomes, has become a Ponzi scheme dwarfing Madoff's scheme. I mean the concept. Bubble collapses have destroyed the economy? Well what fuels these bubbles in the first place? People who figure they need to "invest" in order to have the retirement they've earned. If we had a real system of social security, people would get back to saving for retirement, and we wouldn't have so many bubbles.

(4) For that matter, we really need to bring back the New Deal. Is it any coincidence that, as the GOP has eviscerated the New Deal, we've been sliding back into a pre-FDR economy of business cycles with disastrous panics, depressions and recessions?

(5) If we insist on having mortgages be investments (moving away from the "It's a Wonderful Life" paradigm of "Joe's money is in Suzy's house"), we should, well, make them investments ... with risk! (and, c.f. point #3, people shouldn't be dependent on investments for retirement income.) We should institute mortgages in compliance with Biblical (of course the religious right will support this ... do I hear support from anyone? Warren? anyone?) and Talmudic law -- if the price of the house goes down, the investor eats it and not the homeowner.

(6) Finally (or perhaps I will think of more), we gotta do something about the price of housing. As the price of housing increased faster than the economy as a whole grew, it served as a Ponzi scheme (again dwarfing Madoff's) in which you could borrow against your house, etc., and someone would pay even more money to you to sell it to them. Eventually, the scheme has to collapse leaving a bunch of people owing money in mortgages they can no longer afford because no one will buy the house. Meanwhile, as housing prices increased faster than inflation and wages as a whole, this means that, where in my parents' day, a family of four could afford to live in a three bedroom home, in our day on the equivalent salary, one can only afford a one bedroom apartment!

People say "those borrowers should have limitted themselves to housing they could afford"? What affordable housing? We need to let the housing market really collapse ($300K to live in a floodplain in NJ? I don't care if it's in Wayne). The problem is that if the market collapses, Joe and Jane Homeowner will be left holding the bag. How can we subsidize people who loose big to sell homes for bargain basement prices so housing will become affordable again?

Obama says he wants to restore the American Dream? Well, perhaps he should, to the extent that it is still possible, adopt DAS Blog Plan, and allow people to crawl out from under their debts and into decent, affordable housing with full security and no need to fear anything but fear itself? If Obama wants to be FDR, he's gonna have to ditch the "neo-liberal" Geithners and Summerseses of his admin and start thinking like the real Democrat the GOoPers were afraid he was going to be!

Is Opposition to Israel a Necessary Component of Liberalism?

2009-03-05T10:22:00.002-05:00

A friend of mine disputes my facebook profile in which I label myself very liberal because liberalism requires one to have positions that lean even more pro-Arab than my own positions lean in terms of the Arab-Israeli conflict. While certainly I would imagine that any liberal would have positions "to the left" so to speak of, e.g. my friend Nate, on the Arab/Israeli conflict (and my own positions are indeed more friendlier to Arab concerns than Nate's are, e.g.), I fail to see how the positions identified as "on the left" in any way have anything to do with liberalism or leftist thought.

While there is a strain of liberalism (with which I often do battle) that holds, AFAIC, the position of "we will always listen only to the narratives of the oppressed, and we get to decide who is oppressed and thus worthy of having their narratives heard by us", I fail to see how one must hold such a position, which I would think should be relegated to conservative strawmen versions of liberals rather than to any actual liberals, in order to be considered a liberal. Actually, my friend (immortalized in the blogosphere as Timmy at one point) has very, very good arguments (he says I'd make a good appellate lawyer, but his arguments show that he's a master at the appeal) as to how the liberal position on the Arab/Israeli conflict is to the left of my own position (which includes Israel keeping the Golan Heights, e.g.). But I'd like to hear from all of my readers (all ten of them) about this issue. How is "the left wing view on the Arab/Israeli conflict" in any way a necessary component of left wing thought? How is Zionism (originally a left wing movement) incompatible with liberal/leftish politics?

Relatedly, it does feel very odd that people with whom I agree about everything else should have views so divergent from my own about Israel. Does this mean I am somehow inconsistent or wrong about Israel? Or that I need to reconsider my liberal views about other things (like a good neo-con would)?

One issue of course that gets tossed around a lot in liberal circles is Israel's (debatable) "refusal to comply" with international law. The problem here, however, is a problem in general with any liberal or progressive position (including "neo-liberal economics", e.g. ... which most liberals would actually oppose): liberals/progressives believe in reform of unfair rules and the institution of a fair and just rule of law. However, whenever you change the rules -- even if those changes are in the name of fairness -- it always creates a bit of unfairness.

Under any status quo there are winners and losers. A good liberal (for reasons outlined by Rorty and others) is most concerned about the losers and wishes to changes the rules to make things more fair for the losers (e.g. to level the playing field). The problem comes in that there are not just winners and losers but also agents who are new to the game. When you change the rules, you say to the newbies and even to some of the losers, "those winners may have won under the old rules, but to make things more fair we are changing the rules -- so now you won't lose so badly, but you won't be able to win either". On the one hand it is not fair to ask winners to give up their winnings if they won them fair and square playing by the rules. On the other hand, it is also not fair to say "well, the winners won fair and square by unfair rules, but since those rules were unfair, we won't let you win by them". So what does a liberal do? Maintain an unfair system? Do you deny that the winners actually won via unfair rules and Orwellianly claim the rules were always the newly instituted fair ones?

Consider the case of neo-liberalism and globalization. Though it is denied by neo-liberals, many nations got rich precisely via approaches contrary to the prescriptions of neo-liberalism. But now developing nations are hindered from getting rich because neo-liberalism is ascendent (thanks for keeping it that way Obama ... gag!). Even if neo-liberal free trade is somehow more "fair" -- is it right that the winners of the old system should keep their winnings from that unfair system whilst nations that are developing now have to play by new rules that will prevent them from winning? OTOH, should nations that played by the old rules and did well have to give up anything simply out of fairness?

Similarly it happens with the State of Israel. Under the old rules, so to speak, if you were bullied by other nations, fought back and then ended up winning the war and land with it, de facto if not de jure, you got to keep most, if not all of that land you won. But now we have this system of international law that says nations must return occupied territory. But shouldn't this apply to all nations, even those who managed to win territory under the old laws? Is it fair to ask them to return land they won playing by the rules?

Of course our new system of international laws has been put into place in part to prevent what happened to us Jews from ever happening to anyone again. OTOH, it is awful "convenient" (as the Church Lady might say) that, now that the Jewish State is in a position to benefit from the old rules, the rules are magically changed so that we Jews never win. How is that fair that so many other nations get to continue to benefit from a defunct system while Israel gets condemned for doing things as would be considered normal under that old system.

One could argue that is true of any up and coming new nation. But what happens is that, since all the other up and coming nations realize they can't get the winners under the old rules to give up their winnings, they just pick on Israel instead. Of course as a liberal, I am in theory in favor of a robust system of international laws. But the current system, without any real separation of powers (which is the sine qua non of a fair system of laws as far as liberalism is concerned, IMHO) -- in which a bunch of nations gang up on Israel 'cause nobody can win under the new rules and yet the winners under the old rules cannot be made to give up their winnings, is hardly something any liberal can support, is it?

And yet, according to some, supporting such a system and opposing Israel is a necessary element of liberalism? I still don't quite get that.

A Thought about the Mortgage Crisis

2009-03-02T13:57:00.002-05:00

To all those who blame the problems entirely on people buying more home than they can afford -- a thought: when my dad was my age, my family (of four) had a nice, two bedroom house in the 'burbs, in an excellent school district. We could easily afford it on his income. Admittedly, my dad was a solidly upper-middle class professional, but still ... he was toward the beginning of his career, etc.

Meanwhile, my family and I would have to stretch a bit to get a two bedroom apartment. Admittedly, we are in the city (albeit in an outer borough) and I am not as far along in my career as my dad was at this age (it takes a bit longer to become a professor than an optometrist). But still, adjusting for inflation, our family's current income is about the same (if not more) than my dad's (the sole breadwinner by the time he was my age ... my mom stopped working outside the home when she had me). And, if my family and I were to move to Cali, there would be no way we could afford to buy the house I grew up in. Nor could we afford a similar house in Jerz.

I'm not sure what this entirely says about the housing crisis ... but I figured I'd put it out there ... if only on this here blog that only a handful of folks actually read.

Traveling Home

2009-02-17T16:30:00.003-05:00

Soon my family and I will be visiting my parents in Sunny So.Cal. It's our first trip as a family (and also the first time I've seen my parents since my wedding and only the third occasion that my wife and daughter are meeting my parents). My daughter is excited. I'm nervous.

You see, I am what you might call a half-assed Baal Teshuva. Well, there isn't even maybe half an assed involved in it. I didn't go from a completely secular to a frum background. Rather my parents are kind of Reform, and I am now a vaguely Sabbath observing, reasonably kosher Jew ... married to a slightly more stringently Sabbath observing, pretty much kosher Jew.

So the question is: how do y'all deal with going home to parents who are simply less religiously strict? When we visit my family, they won't be serving us bacon, but they will be using their traif dishes, etc. Now I am used to this, and I certainly would not want to make my parents feel uncomfortable by insisting they use paper plates or what not. To me, honoring your parents is a bigger mitzvah than koshrus. But to my wife, even though when she visits non-Jewish relatives or even eats at a restaurant, she'll eat ("pescatarian") food cooked/served on traif dishes, she is not really used to the idea of going to a Jewish family and eating off of traif dishes, not really observing the Sabbath, etc.

So how do people who are even as quarter-assed about Baal Teshuvus (if I can coin that phrase) as I (perhaps especially people in my position -- 'cause if you go full frum, then of course you're eating off of paper plates, etc. ... 'cause you wouldn't even go into a non-kosher restaurant or what not) work this out? How do you explain to not-so-religious parents the psychological (and arguably even halachic) dynamics of "well if those goyim serve me on traif plates, who am I to question that" vs. "these people are Jews ... they should be keep kosher ... so why am I eating off of traif plates?"? How do you honor your parents, honor your new family's desires and your religious commitments? More generally -- how does one handle "trips" home when one's lifestyle is somehow fundamentally different than one's parents' way of living? ... especially if your new lifestyle says that your parents ought to live more as you do?

I guess, in this actually all is, in a way, parsha blogging. After all, the 10 commandments are one thing ... but doesn't morality live in the details? Values are in a sense always relative -- you can claim you value good things X, Y and Z, but when it comes down to saying what your real values are, isn't what matters whether you value X > Y or Y > Z? And those details, the real brass tacks following the big show of the big 10, are what Parshas Mishpatim is about, eh?

People are Talking about Purim Already

2009-02-05T14:56:00.000-05:00

Nu? I'll have some Purim related blogging.

One claim that has been made as to assigning 'fault' in the latest hostilities between Israel and Gaza is that Israel "started it" by placing an embargo on Gaza when Hamas took over. Of course an argument could be made that this is, in fact, an act of war, and, at the very least, if Israel wants to encourage democracy and independence among the Palestinian people, they should have "respected" the election results no matter how loathsome they were.

Of course, one counter-argument is "should the WWI allies, e.g., been so 'respectful' of the election which ultimately brought Hitler to power?" Certainly, Hamas ostensibly supports the same genocidal policies as the Nazis. And we have vowed "never again". Like Haman before Hitler and Amalek before Haman, we as Jews must make sure that we will never again allow ourselves to be caught off-guard by those who want to destroy us.

However, does our vow of "never again" mean that we should be so quick to draw our guns to defend ourselves that we end up shooting ourselves in the foot? When Israel "responds to terrorist actions" does it really make those in Israel any safer? Defenders of Israel's policies will say "of course it does -- imagine how bad it would be if we didn't defend ourselves? ... it isn't as if anything we do will change their minds about hating us ... after all, people hate Jews".

The problem is that when we act as if that is the case, we ensure that is the case. Israel and her defenders say "Israel does everything it can do to make peace". But does Israel? Sure Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip, but at the same time Israel also siezed some additional lands in the West Bank and shortly thereafter initiated an embargo against Gaza. Certainly all of Israel's actions are justifiable here (and anyone who doesn't see how that is the case is likely blinded by their own prejudices even if they claim to be "liberal" and anti-racist), but can't we Jews see how even these justifiable actions are obviously viewed? Israel gives with one hand and takes with the other -- and we clever Jews always come up with some "reasons" why this is ok. It's bad enough that anti-Semites claim this is how Jews behave. Should we Jews actually behave this way?

At some point if we Jews don't want Hitler to have any more posthumous victories, we need to make sure that we stop living in constant fear of another Holocaust. Does Hamas want to destroy us? Yes, it would seem they do. But should we respond to every rocket launch as if it were a realistic attempt at genocide? How is it making us any safer to do so? Even if Hamas has never followed through with a "cease-fire", shouldn't we encourage any reduction of fire with positive gestures without all this "we'll give you X, but then we'll take Y" ... rather than respond to any attack with more force that just escalates violence and results in even more rockets being launched at Israel?

At some point if we keep acting as if Hamas is a collective reincarnation of Hitler, we are letting Hitler live in Hamas. The goal of Zionism is that we Jews should stop living in fear -- and yet we are constantly letting the memory of Hitler keep us in fear. Isn't that giving Hitler a posthumous victory?

Already we are making plans for the upcoming holiday of Purim. Do we commemorate our almost annhiliation as a people by cowering in fear of another Haman? No ... we commemorate what happened by mocking Haman and in literal observation of the Biblical commandment to blot out the name of Haman's ancestor, Amalek, we drawn out every mention of his name with boos, hisses and noisemakers. We cannot forget the Holocaust and other attempts to annhialate the Jewish people. But we must remember that -- we survived! We are commanded not to remember Amalek's name and what he did to us, but to remember what he did and blot out his name.

Let us stop allowing the name of Hitler to live on by letting anti-Semitic bullies have us lash out in blind fear, but let us blot out the name of Hitler by refusing to see every threat as his existential threat. We complain that the Palestinian people should "move on" and stop blaming Israel for population transfers that were par for the course at that time (including those involving all the Jews absorbed into Israel), and that the Palestinian grudges that lead to terrorism are hateful to us (which they are): well, what is hateful to us, we should not do to others (as Hillel would say). We should remember the Holocaust but also move on and stop living in fear of bullies who seek to destroy us, but rather blot out their names and ... you know ... sometimes the way to deal with a bully is to fight back. And sometimes the way to deal with a bully is to ignore him.

Responding to Hamas violence with violence and giving them the power of being Hitler hasn't worked. Maybe it's time to change strategies.

Some Thoughts on the Middle East Situation

2009-01-07T11:58:00.002-05:00

While I have been critical of Israel's "responses" in the past, this time it seems that Israel is doing almost everything right (although I have heard some disturbing news about Israel hitting civilian and NGO targets that are not serving in any way, shape or form as storehouses for bombs or hiding places for radicals -- Israel can't continue to say "oh we are waging war in a way to minimize civilian casualties ... what other country does X, Y & Z to minimize civilian casualties?" and then go on and target schools, etc., with no bombs or terrorists in them! that's completely disingenuous and wrong ... and Israel wonders about it's hasbara problem?).

Moreover, even when I have been critical of Israel, I have found the mindset of my fellow left-wing critics to be very disturbing. How can lefties, who have infinite empathy for any oppressed group suddenly decide that we Jews, who have been oppressed in Europe for so long, are tools of European colonialism and thus our narratives do not deserve to be listened to? How can lefties who so understand how the Palestinians could be driven to violence refuse to even give a hearing to the Israeli perspective? How do they think they would respond if they were in the position of the average Israeli -- having had the world turn its back on 6 million Jews being slaughtered and then, once a Jewish state is established, having the world complain about every single attempt at self-defense by that state? Are we Jews not allowed to be secure? Are we supposed to be living under siege forever? (that being said, Zionism is a failure: the state of Israel has not achieved normalization of the Jewish people -- and any religiously oriented Jew could have told you that from the get-go ... we Jews are not one of the "goyim", nations, but an "am hakodesh" -- a distinguished people, and c.f. the Song of the Suffering Servant ... so why and how did Zionism become the sine qua non of Jewish identity? vide infra for more complaining about this ...)

How can the international community, that does nothing when Jews are refugees, suddenly decide that our solution to our refugee problem is "violating rules" regarding refugees? How can that international community look the other way when sundry other nations violate "norms of the civilized world" and then accuse Israel of doing so? And those lefties and that international community wonder why we Jews are distrustful of them and view them as potentially anti-Semitic?

Still, the attitude of many of my fellow Jews also disturbs me. We are a people who have been persecuted for so long, who have been dispossessed for so long, we know how hateful it is. Yet we still glibly dismiss the Palestinians' situation as "the fault of those Arabs" and are happy to ignore how settlements, etc. are contributing to the plight of the Palestinians. We even ignore our own religion and the great sage Hillel who exhorted us "do not do unto others what is hateful to you".

We Jews refuse to see things from the perspective of the Palestinian Arabs: it's one thing for us to say "well, no matter what, Israel is in the right here", but it's an entirely different thing for us Jews, contra Hillel, to not think "how would we react if our land were taken away from us, etc. ... would we be reacting any differently than the Palestinians would under that situation?".

I am particularly disturbed by the Conservative/Masorti movement in which, religiously, I feel most at home. This movement, for some reason, was one of the first religiously (rather than secularly) oriented movements to embrace Zionism. And now a Zionist orientation is seen as the sine qua non of Jewish religious identity even as the Conservative/Masorti movement embraces (properly, IMHO) visions of Jewish chosen-ness that run contrary to everything Zionism takes Judaism to be. To make matters even more pathetic, that Jewish state that we are asked to support precisely because we are Jews (and anybody who asks me to support Israel for that reason cannot complain about accusations of "dual loyalties" ... because they themselves are promoting what should be a dismissible anti-Semitic canard: who is the real self-hating Jew -- a Satmar or a leftist with a real philosophical or theological beef with Zionism or a "reasonable, moderate" Jew who tells me to behave exactly as anti-Semites claim we Jews should behave) does not even recognize our religious stream as a form of Judaism nor does it recognize our conversions, our divorces, etc. And we Conservative/Masorti Jews are supposed to support a state because it is supposedly Jewish even as it does not recognize our Judaism as Jewish?

And when we raise these questions, we are told "these are good questions ... but now is not the time to raise them". Of course we Jews should support each other. To slightly adapt another famous saying of Hillel's, "if we are not for ourselves, who will be for us?" Israel is in the right here and we shouldn't let our political allies or our very real concerns regarding Israel and Zionism convince us otherwise. OTOH, that saying as slightly adapted would continue "if we are for ourselves alone, what are we?". If we Jews ignore Hillel's version of the Golden Rule and fail to even understand the origins of that Palestinian anger that enables Hamas to kill innocent Jewish civilians, not only have we made ourselves powerless to do anything to alleviate that anger (which alleviation is, in the long run, the only way to ensure Israel is at peace and achieves the Zionist goal of being a normal state) but we also have made ourselves as inhuman as the Palestinians have made themselves by their behavior -- we have sunk to the very level at which anti-Semites imagine us ... thus granting Hitler a posthumous victory (perhaps, though, this sinking is not surprising as the Zionist definition of Jewish nationhood is very much similar to how anti-Semites conceive us Jews), etc.

And as to the issue of "now not being a good time to raise these questions" ... remember the completion of Hillel's three part dictum: "if not now, when?"

Misc. New Year's Notes

2009-01-05T10:16:00.004-05:00

Does anybody study the notions of "private languages"? I notice I have certain code words, inside jokes, etc., that all but constitute a language incomprehensible to outsiders when I speak with my brother (evidently this is the remanent of a "twin language" we used to share as young kids even though we are 3 years and 9 months apart) and similarly with my friends and now my wife and daughter. How widespread is this phenomenon? How many words in, e.g., the Adictionary, are from such private languages? Who studies this? What has been learned?

Specifically from my friends' and my code language -- we have a habit of avoiding all verbs but forms of "to have" and turning all other verbs into nouns ending in the suffix "ness". E.g. the preceding thought would be expressed as "we have a habit of having verb avoidanceness with exception-existingness for forms of the verb 'to have', thus having turningness of other verbs into nouns having the suffix of 'ness' endingness". It ends up sounding like a bad translation of Heidegger (sp), don't it?

In my brother's and my code language, we have "peppiness level" from my dad's minor sub-mania -- he is never fully manic but is oftentimes "peppy".

Speaking of which, how much is it appreciated that bipolar disorder may be a heterogeneous set of disorders? E.g. bipolar disorder runs on both sides of my family, but the disorder on my mom's side is very different than that on my dad's side. In the former case, "mixed states" predominate" while, except for my paternal grandmother who had classic bipolar disorder, on my dad's side, the typical form is "peppiness" with occasional bouts of lassitude and anomie. And I was once set up with a girl who had bipolar with both mixed states, mania and depression but was marked with the sorts of almost autistic like cognitive defects not seen in classical bipolar outside of psychotic breaks -- even when her mood was relatively stable without any other sign of even neurosis and certainly not psychosis, she still lack a "theory of mind" or even the sort of "meta-theory of mind" that many autistic people have in lieu of an intuitive theory of mind. Has this been studied?

Has anybody come up with a "mass transit bill of rights"? I think it's ridiculous that I cannot take a mass transit from point A to point B (within the same metro area with supposedly one of the most extensive mass transit systems in the nation) without it taking 2+ hours (when driving would take < 1.5 hours) and requiring me to walk to my final destination over roads that have no frickin' side-walks! Someone needs to distill this ridiculousness (have distillation of narishkeit?) into a "bill of rights" that can be circulated as a petition.

So many questions ... and yet while I should be doing even my own research, I'm blogging! ;)

PBS Kids Shows

2009-01-03T23:03:00.001-05:00

I'm really pleased with Sid the Science Kid (may recommend that my students watch it!) but what's the deal with the de-emphasis of phonics on the reading shows? Research does indicate that "phonemical awareness" (or something like that) is more important than phonics, and reason dictates that in a language as crazy non-phonenitcal as English (I had ghoti for Shabbos dinner, for example) phonics are not the best way to learn reading ... but still, it seems that every so often (shortly before I went into pre-school, nowadays it seems) everyone gets too excited about research that is never as conclusive as is claimed and reason that only goes so far in an irrational world (nu? if the world were so rational, English would be phonetic so phonics would work anyway ...) with the result that, well, kids just don't learn to read.

So? What's with the lack of phonics in the reading oriented kids shows?

Before My Laptop Discharges ...

2009-01-01T18:45:00.002-05:00

I'm signing in to wish all a happy New Year. My wife, daughter (she insisted on staying up) and I toasted in the new year with juice (for my daughter) and Villa Jolanda Prosecco. The wine was good: it didn't have the melon flavor of other proseccos I've had but rather a smoky tartness remaniscent (sp?) of the Piper-Heisdieck house style.

So what did you all use to toast in the New Year?

NY DMV is teh Suck

2008-12-30T18:40:00.002-05:00

Even NJ has managed to have a DMV that works: why can't NY do this? Why did I have to wait over 2 hours just to exchange an FL for an NY license?

Of course, when someone like me has a meltdown out of the impatience, your average urban liberal will say "I think you need to get some therapy and an SSRI". But if this makes me a neurotic than a good percentage of suburbanites are neurotics.

Pace your typical urban liberal, most flight to the 'burbs is not due to "white flight" (although this does happen) but simply 'cause most people cannot stand the city. Nu? Why do urban liberals then tend to act like the majority of people are insane for not being able to deal with the crowds, the competition, etc. in the city?

What do most people do when faced with 2 hour waits at an urban DMV? They move to the 'burbs; they start hating government ... they become suburban GOoPers! Calling them off-balance ain't gonna win votes ... if we Dems want to get more votes, we need urban, Democratic liberal centers to be gleaming Cities on the Hill (rather than dismissing that whole concept). If people associate Democrats with urban corruption, government with 2+ hour waits at the DMV, etc., then big government liberalism (in spite of the 2006 and 2008 election results) is dead in the water.

If we want the general populace to embrace New Deal/Fair Deal/Great Society liberalism (that does in the large scale work like gangbusters!), we liberals have gotta show people that liberal, Democratic governance works! If big, Democratic cities are cesspools of corruption in which people cannot afford to live, people will think Democrats in charge means that they won't be able to afford the cost of living and that government will be a cesspool of corruption. If we build it (a city on the hill), though, they will come ...

I know I keep harping on this, but why doesn't the Democratic party finally clean house, take the lead against stupid rules and regulations, make sure every DMV in a Democratic city works, etc. ... to show what we Dems. are capable of when we are in charge ... rather than letting big cities and non-running government agencies, and the messes in them win votes for the GOP based on their supposed hatred of gummint and the urbane?

(c.f. letters in the most recent issue of the Queens Tribune which is not yet online alas)

Comments Later Perhaps ...

2008-12-29T22:40:00.002-05:00

... but I saw two movies (an old one and a new one) recently: The Tale of Despereaux and Tokyo Godfathers. There is too much to talk about, and I don't feel like typing so much, so discuss these two fine (and religiously themed) movies amongst yourselves: how do they reflect Jewish thinking, e.g.?

Evidence and Regulations

2008-12-27T19:15:00.002-05:00

Evedently my HS civics class was an epic fail. They taught about how in a criminal case you can only be found guilty if the government provides evidence of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. And in civil law you need to have a preponderance of evidence to win a case.

But evidently in regulatory law (which includes parking violations according to my wife, who is a lawyer), the government doesn't need to provide evidence that the violation occured in order to defend itself if you challenge a fine? The burdon of proof is on the fined person or organization?

I'm all for government regulation, but this inversion of the burdon of proof is ridiculous and invites abuse (and they should have warned us about it in civics ... that there is an end-run around "innocent until proven guilty"): what's to stop cops from issuing parking tickets to people saying "your muni meter receipt was upside down" and then how do you fight that? Show a picture of a right-side up muni meter receipt? Which they could say was taken after you flipped the receipt or something like that?

At the very least, the Dems. should work to change this sorry situation: as I always say, if government were not so annoying (e.g. stupid traffic laws and blue laws), people would hate "gummint" less and be less likely to fall for GOP rhetoric about "gummint".

Free Market Magic

2008-12-27T18:38:00.002-05:00

I just love how the Econs 101 explains it all crowd ignores such things as inelasticity ("assume a frictionless spherical cow" anyone? would you trust building the A-bomb to people who understood physics only at that level and ignored any physics more recent than Newton? nu? why should Econs policy be any different?) and even human nature. Markets are find for things people want but what of needs? Market economics, which assumes "wants" not "needs" motivate buying doesn't work so well when demand (or supply) becomes too inelastic.

But it struck me the counter-example is food. Food markets do work (or so I thought) exactly as Econs 101 predicts even if food is something we need. Of course, you could always say that while food is a need, any particular kind of food is a want, etc. So even if aggregate food demand is inelastic, demand in each, particular food market is elastic. Etc. Etc.

But then it occured to me. While people still alas go hungry, etc., we do produce enough food to feed everyone and many people, even the poor get fed. But when did the market start "working" even as well as it does? With the most recent Ag. Tech. revolution. Which was also a revolution of Big Ag.! The market "works" because it is no longer really all that free anymore ... hmmm ....

Chappy Chanukah

2008-12-25T19:47:00.001-05:00

Can you believe the former Kathy Lee Epstein doesn't get why some people might be offended by the wish of "Merry Christmas"? Does she know that little of her own people's history?

That being said: I do sincerely wish my Christian readership a Merry Christmas.

Also, my wife turned me on to a new website: The Root.

Close of Semester Thought

2008-12-18T14:31:00.002-05:00

(after having smoked a pipe to celebrate the all but ending of the semester: I've still maybe 1 or 2 straggling late assignments to grade and then to submit the grades -- but I've pretty much survived my first semester teaching! that's worth taking time off to smoke a pipe, ain't it?)

What could be more professorial than standing around in a wool cap, smoking a pipe and pondering Tweedie distributions? A colleague of mine spotted me and commented that I was striking quite the pose ...

The Digital TeeVee Transition is Teh Suck

2008-12-15T11:18:00.002-05:00

Have the people who are foisting digital TeeVee on us ever considered that some of us live in apartment buildings in urban or inner suburban areas in which we can't get a TeeVee signal except from the antenna on the roof of the apartment complex? Which means, once TeeVee goes all digital and said antennas don't work anymore, we have either no TeeVee or we have to switch to cable (because the TeeVee signal in our apartment itself is horrible ... since our flat faces the opposite direction of where the television stations are)?

Is this almost forced conversion to cable a bug of the digital switch? or a feature?

A DAS Blog Public Service Announcement

2008-12-12T10:29:00.002-05:00

Good morning fellow residents of the NYC area. Yesterday and today, as you no doubt already know, we have experienced a phenomenon known as "rain". Rain occurs when atmospheric disturbances cause the "precipitation" of water from the sky. Rain is a common phenomenon and nothing to be afraid of. For instance, contrary to what you may have heard, people (not even witches) do NOT melt in the rain.

Did you know that rain consists mainly of water with dissolved gasses that make it pH balanced? Did you know that the New York area gets over 3 feet of rain a year?

Rain can be safe and enjoyable if only a few small safety precautions are observed. There is no need to cover you or your children head to toe in plastic: exposure to rain does not harm the skin nor does it cause colds. That being said, wearing only a mico-mini-skirt in cold rain is likely to weaken the immune system, resulting in increased susceptibility to colds. Please dress sensibly in the rain.

Driving in the rain is a challenge to many. Many are concerned that if they go faster than 20 miles per hour, their car will take off like an airplane and cause them to arrive in La Guardia 3 hours late for a business meeting. This does not occur. There is no need to restrict one's speed to 20 MPH on Interstate Highways merely because of rain. Speed limits in this country are typically set so that, except in the worst of weather, it is safe to drive on the road even at the speed limit.

That being said, rain can cause slippery roads and reduced visibility, which lead to potentially dangerous driving conditions. Thus, it is necessary in the rain to slow down below 80 MPH and not drive like the complete asshole you perhaps are. Accidents are no fun for anyone: not for those involved in the accident. Not for those stuck in traffic due to the fact that people don't understand the concept of merging so that any reduction in available lanes immediately causes traffic to exhibit a change from laminar to chaotic flow.

Fellow New Yorkers: I thank you for listening to this important public service announcement. With proper care rain can be fun, enjoyable and even romantic and need not involve catching a cold which is then spread to everyone with a pre-school age child nor accidents that cause 1 hour back-ups over the George Washington Bridge.

Next week we will learn about the white stuff that falls from the sky here during winter. It is not the Angels of the Holy One having bad dandruff. It is called snow ... and again, with a few simple precautions (not driving like a complete asshole, cleaning off your sidewalk before the snow turns to ice, etc.) can be extremely enjoyable.

Thank you for your attention.

Epic Fail

2008-12-01T16:06:00.001-05:00

I don't know how many of these are true vs. being doctored, but this site is teh funny.

Class in Class

2008-11-07T10:05:00.002-05:00

One thing that I am realizing as I am teaching at a university very different from the ones where I went for undergrad and grad school is how much social class affects the class room.

I went to university primarily with kids of the proletarian edge of the middle class: I was at the far upper end of the class scale at both UC Irvine and Rutgers, but I was still from the same class (roughly) as my classmates.

Of course, at the time, I was more aware of class differences than the similarities -- while in school my relatively less well off parents paid me more mind and gave me less spoilage than was paid to and given to my classmates from more advantaged families, in college, compared with my classmates, my family was relatively privileged, translating to me having been given more (monetarily) and having less overprotective parents than my classmates whose parents had less money but more motivation to make up for that lack with overprotection of what they did have -- fine children.

But now I compare my classmates and I to my students and I see the similarities. In broad outline, even if I was the relatively privileged son of an optometrist rather than the relatively less advantaged daughter of a drill press operator, we were all roughly middle class. That is to say, all of us came from families where you had to work for a living but all of us came from families where, so long as you didn't Cheney-up big time, you'd at least always be able to put food on the table ... and even be able to borrow enough money to send your kids to a good (state, not private, maybe) college and not worry about how you'd pay the money back.

But many of my students are in a different place, which takes some getting used to. They have to graduate as they can't afford to stay in school nor can they afford to have spent all this money on college and not get a degree from it. But on the other hand, I don't want to let my guilt cause me to pass students who really haven't learned the material at a passing level -- it does a disservice to them if they go out into the workforce claiming to be college graduates who have passed course [X] if they don't really know the material from said course nor do they have the problem solving skills one expects from a bachelor of sciences/arts.

And their response to this? "Don't be so unfair Prof. DAS." Now I was used to this from the richer of my classmates in school who mistook their privilege for deserved accolades. But from my friends (and classmates in college ... and I am obviously going to model my teaching of college courses from how I was taught in college and what I thought worked and didn't work for me then -- but now I need to figure out what works for my, very different, students ... and before their evaluations sink my chances of retention!) -- we would never say such a thing. We were privileged enough -- in family resources, in brains, etc. -- to be the beneficiaries of life's unfairnesses ... but not so privileged that we couldn't even see our own privilege.

If ever we would use the "u-word" our moms would bark. And we would say "why the hell are you barking? I just said 'you are being unfair' and you respond by barking?" "yep ... I'm barking 'cause I'm just being a bitch and you are one lucky son of a bitch! Life's unfair, and you should thank your lucky stars that life's unfair, because it has rewarded you so much ... if ya wanna make life more fair, get involved, e.g. politically, in making it fair ... but quitcher beefin' mister!" and our fathers would chime in: "you want sympathy? look it up in the dictionary -- you'll find it between shit and syphilis".

But my students feel just fine using the "u-word" -- why? because life is unfair to them: they do have to worry about keeping food on the table. They have gone to college to get a better life, but it's a gamble and if they loose, they cannot pay back the loans and they are royally done to as Cheney said unto Leahy that Leahy should do unto himself.

So how do I be sensitive to their concerns, not show my privilege too much that it makes them uncomfortable, while still making sure they are not being mollycoddled (as has happened thus far to some of them) as, once they do have that degree, people will expect them to function without being spoon-fed what to do (that's why they are to be paid more money once they have the degree, ain't it?)?

Tobacco Blogging

2008-10-16T17:18:00.003-04:00

I finally am having a few minutes to think about my research (as I am starting to write grants), and during these fleeting contemplative moments, I am breaking in my (belated) birthday (as well as congratulations on landing a tenure track position) gift -- a Peterson pipe purchased by a dear friend of mine when he was in a conference in the home of his father's family and Peterson pipes, aka Ireland. Now I am really feeling professorial (wearing the junior faculty uniform of tan pants and a blue shirt, but now with a nice pipe!).

Anyway, since London SW1 no longer seems available, I purchased (appropriately enough for NJ, what with all the bears in this area and all) the C&D blend, Bow Legged Bear. And boy is it good! It's one of those Perique, Latakia and Cavendish blends I've loved ever since I mixed the remnants of the first pipe tobacco I've ever smoked (a lightly aromatic Lane Limited bulk blend) with Revelation. But unlike many of the other fine C&D blends in this genre, you can't really make out the components so much as you get a very harmonious blend of (very mineral-like and also fermented) flavors, much along the lines of the sort of Chablis that I cannot afford. ;)

I just hope that since I've only a few fleeting moments here and there my less than optimally slow smoking (I'm only smoking 1/3 bowls at this point) habits are not going to ruin this nice new pipe (previously, I've only smoked cob pipes, so no worries ... but this one, obviously, I want to keep) ... of course, it may be problematic in the first place to smoke an English-style tobacco in an Irish pipe? ;)

Debate Thoughts

2008-10-16T15:58:00.007-04:00

I was too busy preparing my biochemistry lecture for this morning to watch the debate, but I bet it was silly. Indeed, the post-debate coverage was very silly.

Nu? How did it sound when McCain kept talking about Joe the Plumber? Was it like with his talk about "the overhead projector" where it made him sound like he was talking about how "I was wearing an onion in my belt, as was the fashion of the time -- kids! get off my lawn!"? Or did the point come through? With the overhead projector example, the media didn't really report what McCain was talking about, but this time the media have given "context" so McCain doesn't come off as Grandpa Simpson here like he did previously.

In any case, either the media are carrying water for McCain by not reporting on how Obama responded to the Joe the Plumber (Joe Sixpack) claims or Obama didn't properly respond. I dunno about Joe the Plumber (he could be lying about something ... and/or the GOP is paying him off to say what he's saying), but the usual GOP game-plan is to get people thinking Dems. will tax gross income rather than profits.

Conceivably a small business may very well be a multi-hundred thousand dollar a year operation (or even a multi-million dollar a year operation) so people are convinced that Dem taxes will affect them even if they don't. Obama needs to make it very clear (with some details about what exactly he plans to tax) that someone like Joe the Plumber is not going to get hit by Obama's tax increases (or, that if he is indeed making that much profit, why should he begrudge the commonweal?). Instead of giving a loosey-goosey, "trust me, I won't raise your taxes" answer (which is, from what I can tell from the so-called liberal media, Obama said) -- which only signals to people that trusting Obama is the last thing they can do (which is why "people don't trust Dems") -- he needs to give specifics. And specifically call the GOP on their "okey-doke" here. Obama needs to challenge the GOP talking points head on and kill them rather than saying "trust me, I won't raise your taxes, only some rich person's taxes".

And btw, what's this naarishkeit about "countries that redistribute wealth always fall eventually"? Um ... and those that don't redistribute wealth last forever? A little bit of reading of the Book of Koheleth (about how nothing is permanent except Hashem and how everything has its time and place) seems in order here for a bit of perspective ... and, whaddyaknow? It's Sukkos ... and what are we reading? Amazing these coinckidinks? eh?

Of course, it seems also that McCain's big, witty zinger (which was indeed witty) leaves McCain open to attack. But does Obama's team have the obvious ad ready (it should only take about a day to conceive, test and produce, it's such an obvious rejoinder):

(voice over) McCain claims he is an independent maverick who repudiates the policies of his fellow Republican George W. Bush, but look at his record: he voted with the GOP, the party of George W. Bush (% of the time he did so) % of the time, including a vote (for/against unpopular vote). McCain says the Democrats shouldn't run against George W. Bush because McCain is not George W. Bush

(appropriate clip from debate)

We'll grant him that -- we have photographic evidence that George W. Bush and McCain are different people

(picture of McCain hugging G.W.Bush)

see the person being hugged -- that's G.W. Bush. See the person deferentially hugging George W. Bush. Which candidate is that?

(picture of McCain that looks like the crypt-keeper)

That one!

John McCain is not George W. Bush. He's just George W. Bush's lackey.

i.e. have a negative ad that links John McCain to George W. Bush, puts the "that one" quote and applies it to McCain and makes McCain seem effete (the deferential hug).

Unlike some, I am still not confident the Dems. will win this one unless they learn (finally) to play hard-ball. The McCain campaign is phoning it in at this point, but the Dems. still seem to be falling for all the old Rovian tricks. Let's fight to win for once instead of counting our chickens before they hatch!

Update: Judging by the CBS Evening News (which I caught on the radio on my commute home) and the free daily, it seems that Joe the Plumber is backfiring big-time. The media are reporting pretty much everything (including unflattering pictures of McCain), although, of course, in such a way that the GOP will be able to scream about media bias and get people not to pay attention. Still, CBS News even managed to carry water for Obama and make the argument Obama needed to make -- that Joe the (not) Plumber's hypothetical business would not make him rich enough to be hit by Obama's tax increases. Of course, the media had to dutifully find something "murky" about Obama's plans to balance their criticism, but still ... the media aren't going after Obama like they did Kerry, so Obama has a chance here ... let's just not blow it due to cockiness about winning.

Update II: I notice Obama is running an ad (not quite as shrill as my suggestion, which is probably for the best) very much along the lines of my suggestion. Does someone in the Obama campaign read my blog? Maybe I'll get ponies for that? Or maybe it's just an obvious idea ... anyhoo, how are these ads playing with people who are not shrill, liberal partisan Dems like me ... anybody have any thoughts on that?

Kosher Labels

2008-10-10T11:07:00.001-04:00

Where does one find those nice sticky labels that you can use to mark your dishes as "meat" or "dairy"? My lovely wife is not a meat eater, so she's basically had only dairy dishes accessible. But now that there are two meat eaters in the house, we need to have both sets of dishes out and clear distinctions between them.

They seem to offer these labels (which you can run through the dishwasher and they'll still stick to the dishes, etc) every so often at local stores, but otherwise I can't even find them online. Any kosher-folk out there know what websites to check?

More Commentwhoring

2008-10-07T15:52:00.002-04:00

This here is my parsha blogging for Yom Kippur. I apologize and seek forgiveness for all I have offended via my lack of regular blogging ;).

Professorin' Is Keepin' Me Busy ...

2008-10-03T12:18:00.004-04:00

... and out of blogging.

But I figured I'd link to formerly of the Big Media Matt's place where I just gave my $0.02 worth on our current pickle. Y'all (or now that I am back in the Northeast, I should say "Youse guys"?) will recognize some of the themes.

Meanwhile the Rabbi at my new shul gave a controversial sermon on what ails the conservative movement. And nobody's yet commented on our shul's highly contentious listserv? What's up with that? (If I have time I'll put links and maybe even my $0.02 worth on that ... but right now the shul's website is down anyway).

Update: link to the sermon in the comments.

You'd Think It Never Rains in NYC

2008-09-26T12:08:00.002-04:00

Why are New Yorkers so afraid of rain? They are obsessed with the possibility that, Hashem forbid, they might get wet. And when it's raining -- while still driving like jerks, they also at various points (where it makes no sense to do so) decide to slow down suddenly as if they don't know how to handle their cars on wet roads. The way traffic gets in NYC whenever there is any bit of rain (forget about snow), you'd think New Yorkers have lived in the Atacama all of their lives. WTF is up with that?

Quick Thoughts

2008-09-18T11:37:00.003-04:00

* Obama gave an excellent sound-bite which was almost Rovian in attacking McCain for his experience. Kudos to Obama! More of this, please. And would it be too much to ask that next time Obama deliver a line like "McCain calls a meeting of 7 top lobbyists a staff meeting" with a bit of a chuckle (but not a big laugh -- it's a sin to laugh at your own jokes in the circles we're trying to reach here: think Ronald Reagan chuckle not Jon Stewart "can you believe this" chuckle ... the latter strikes some people as condescending and cocky) rather than in a strident manner? Couldn't Obama have delivered his killer line with a cadence more like Bill Clinton and less like Hillary Clinton?

I suspect what could have been the killer line of the whole campaign has been ruined because it seems that, like every Dem., excluding The Big Dawg, since Truman (including honest to goodness salt of the earth types like LBJ and JC), Obama has flunked Folksiness 101.

Come-on folks ... the reason why we Dems do poorly in Red 'Murka is that we don't make an effort to be folksy. Let's at least try a little (but without seeming like we're trying too hard). Think Ronald Reagan. Think Bill Clinton. Please, Mr. Obama -- you're lines are witty enough and you have the voice for it ... just look at their body language and cadences ... we know you can do what they did so well!

* (extra credit for guessing the relation between this point and the last ... rephrasing a slightly different post made on another blog, I forget which): it isn't that Americans reject the politics of class warfare. It's that the "proletariat" vs. "bourgeoise" politics of class warfare in this country are being waged by an aristocracy (and their "clerical" retainers in the media and the mega-churches) to their own benefit. Communism's class warfare assumes a prior death of the aristocracy and liberalism assumes unity of the bourgeoisie and proletariate. But what happens when neither obtains? Neo-conservatism, I guess ...

I Guess I'm All Grown Up?

2008-09-12T13:15:00.003-04:00

It occurred to me: I now have a semblance of a real job, a wife, a kid, a commute, the whole nine yards. I guess that means I'm a grown up?

I blogged it last year ...

2008-09-08T09:03:00.004-04:00

... so I don't have to re-blog this this year. Am I yotzei with Parsha Blogging now?

Oh well ... off to get a quick coffee before class.

Cheers!

Update -- back from class ... why do I have (of all songs for a nice Jewish boy to have in his head) "This is my story / this is my song" in my head? I guess it's better than when I get "Oh Come Emanuel" stuck in my head ...

The Travails of Taking Public Transport

2008-08-22T10:52:00.003-04:00

I'd love to take public transportation to work everyday -- I really would. Especially with gas prices and tolls so high as well as the travails of traffic. I'm even willing to get up an hour earlier because public transport takes more time, and the bus I need to take runs only every hour.

But, in order to take public transportation, I need to be able to walk from the bus stop to my job! Why don't communities have side-walks on more roads?

I also need to know which bus to take. Schematic bus maps indicating only major stops have their roles. But why can't I access a list of all bus stops on my route? And why are some of the online planning sites so very wrong?

If we want to help the environment by encouraging mass transit, we need to actually do things to make mass transit feasible. Not only does this mean more routes more often, but it also means better planning services, more scheduling information and pedestrian access to/from bus/train stops (people need to actually get to public transit, often on foot).

It seems to me we have a large population of under-employed people (I know -- where I lived in Tally was filled with idle young men ... and idle hands are the devil's playthings, as they say): why don't we have a new CCC that'll employ people to build some badly needed infrastructure to really make public transport a possibility for people (e.g. side-walk access to public transportation facilities and also roads with dedicated bus lanes, etc.). And with the information age, there's no excuse for how poor the scheduling of public transport is.

Perhaps maybe a Democratic candidate could remember that we are the party of FDR and propose something bold -- a new deal, so to speak?

Tisha B'Av Blogging

2008-08-10T15:17:00.002-04:00

The question is often raised (I guess this is parallel to the "why should Christians be mad at whomever killed Jesus? after all, without the death of Jesus how would Christianity even exist?" question in Christianity) "why should we lament the destruction(s) of the Temple(s)? after all without the Temple(s) being destroyed, we wouldn't have Rabbinical Judaism as we know and love it". Indeed, some argue that the evolution from a national cult to a universalistic religion was necessary, even if it meant the destruction of the Temple, for Israel to fulfill its role as the "light unto the nations". Some have even gone so far as to argue that, to have "Israel re-enter history" (i.e. as a state) before Moshiach comes (and hence "history" ends) is to betray the role of the Jewish people as "a light unto the nations" and a "holy people" (n.b. the Hebraic distinction between "am", "people", and "goy", nation).

So why do we mourn the destruction of the Temple? As with all things destruction of the Temple related, we must turn to Gittim 55bf and the story of Kamsah and Bar Kamsah (why, btw, is the destruction blamed on Kamsah and Bar Kamsah, when Kamsah isn't even really involved?), which explains how the Temple was destroyed due to senseless hatred (note there are other opinions than those expressed in the link as to why the First Temple was destroyed. Even reading Jeremiah, the issue seems not sexual immorality and such things but rather the need of the land to make up for missed Sabbatical years and the failure of people to ask "where is the Lord?", i.e. the issue was environmental and economic immorality coupled with, literally, self-righteousness).

However, the Talmud itself, while discussing the issue of senseless hatred actually blames the destruction of the Temple on something else, "The humility of R. Zekharya ben Avkolus", or more precisely, "the scrupulousness of R. Zekharya b. Avkolus" (also remember "too humble is half proud"). The Temple wasn't (just) destroyed due to senseless hatred, but due to, at every step of the way, from Bar Kamsah not letting well enough alone (maybe that's why he wasn't liked? nu? maybe the hatred against him was senseless, but a minor dislike wouldn't have been? I imagine Bar Kamsah to be a well meaning, and fwiw very rich, chap who is a bit awkward in his social manner ... maybe a bit of an Aspie. nu? maybe the issue is accepting people as they are and not letting one's discomfort with their quirks devolve into hatred) to the horrendous sin of ommission of the Rabbis in not raising an objection to the treatment of Bar Kamsah to Bar Kamsah's desire for revenge (maybe people sensed this demon inside of him and reacted to it -- which reactions are always self-fulfilling prophecies?) to the very actions of R. Zekharya b. Avkolus, who's very strictness in attempting to maintain the sacrificial cult led to its destruction.

So the reason we mourn the destruction of the Temple, in spite of its "good fruit" is not only to demonstrate that we do not believe the ends justify the means, but also because of how senseless that destruction was. Perhaps the Temple was destroyed because not only did we not need it anymore in our spiritual evolution away from sacrifice and toward Rabbinnic Judaism (and ultimately, hopefully, toward Moshiach consciousness), but the Temple had become an active distraction from that goal.

If R. Zekharya b. Avkolus would have demonstrated a certain amount of tact and thinking about the needs of others (including the need to maintain peace), he would have maybe let the sacrificial offering be sacrificed -- turning a blind eye to the flaw. And that would have demonstrated that we could still have the Temple yet also expand as Jews. OTOH, what instead was demonstrated was that we could not both maintain the sacrificial system and see matters of Tahor and Tamei on their face (c.f. Erubim 13b for this usage). Nu? The sacrificial system had to go.

At first the sacrificial system encouraged spiritual growth. But when it became a distraction, the synagogue had to be destroyed. And we mourn the senselessness of it -- that system didn't have to be a distrction: it could have been everyone getting together for a BBQ and thus praising God with our Fellowship. And when we can demonstrate that a sacrificial system will no longer be a distraction -- that is when Moshiach will come and we can rebuild the Mishkan. When we truly can return to the Lord, in the words of Eicha, than the Lord shall return to us.

*

OTOH, perhaps R. Yochanan is merely diverting the blame, given his problems with Lashon Ha-rah (e.g. his comments to Reish Lakish in Baba Metzia 84a). BTW -- the legends around R. Yochanan are interesting -- he is pictured as extremely attactive (enough to turn straight men gay and so that the most expensive prostitutes would pay twice their rate to sleep with him). Is this a legend based in fact or a kind of code about something else entirely? Yochanan means "the grace of God", doesn't it? Is the Sod in the legends about R. Yochanan some critical commentary on the doctrine that later Christians would call "irrestible grace"? If so, what is the critique here? And how does this relate to it being "irrestible grace" that blames the destruction of the Temple on "scrupulousness" whilst said grace speaks a fatal Lashon Harah of someone who has turned away from the low-life of his past in order to turn to God?

Meanwhile, it is perhaps a bit ironic that while we Jews, normally thought of as having a law-based religion, blame the destruction of the Temple on a too strict observance of the law (following the letter of the law and not its spirit to use a cliche), while the Christians (pace certain Protestant notions of a "pre-Catholic" Church), whose religion is typically conceived (if you'll pardon the unintended pun) of as being based on "faith" and "grace", fairly quickly established a religion with its own priesthood, Temple (the Vatican), sacrificial system, etc. There is less irony here than one might think, though. While we tend to think of Jesus as representing the "Prophetic" tradition of Judaism (especially in his preaching), he actually, in meeting the sinners where they were (c.f. the commandment of the priest to make "house calls" to visit suspected lepers where they are), is more of the Priestly tradition -- nu? it should be so suprising that the self-appointed heirs to the Great Assembly and hence the Prophets should develop a religion emphasizing following the laws but also which also critiques following the laws in an empty manner, whilst the heir to a Priestly tradition of direct outreach to sinners should be the "god" of a religion that tried to establish a New Jerusalem on the banks of the Tiber?

Found This Looking for Eicha Trope

2008-08-09T19:57:00.002-04:00

Y'all think I'm quite the Epicurean? Well, here's a real Apikorus ... or at least someone claiming to be such. Appropriately enough, recipes are available ;)

Early Yom Kippur Blogging

2008-08-08T10:12:00.002-04:00

I decided my response to this was just too long, so I'd blog it rather than leave it as a comment:

Actually the point of Jonah is that, masculine depictions aside, God is a Jewish Mother. I can just imagine if I were ever as whiny as Jonah, my mom giving me the same verbal smackdown as God gives Jonah.

More seriously, isn't the point of Jonah -- I never thought of the tie-in with Daniel ... that's a good point -- almost in the end the same as that of Koheleth as well as Daniel?

Jonah didn't make that tree ... yet he mourns for it as if he did? Mistaking his own selfish needs for the order of the universe is pretty much the reason why he gave to God for fleeing his call -- Jonah needs vengeance as much as he needs shade. Which is actually an interesting comment on the human condition, isn't it?

But back to Koheleth -- why does Jonah need vengeance? Why does he feel the tree is his? He has this almost childish need for "fairness" (note how kids always whine about "you're not being fair" ... and isn't, as many have pointed out, the apocolyptic mode one of wanting God to come down in his divine kingliness and make everything "fair"?). But Koheleth warns us that life is not fair -- "the race does not go to the swift, nor wealth to the wise", etc.

It's interesting that we Jews read Jonah on Yom Kippur. The standard explanation is that the lesson of Jonah is one of the importance of repentance and forgiveness. But the Book of Jonah at a more basic level teaches us that God is not just Malkeinu -- our tough, but just King -- but also is our Parent. And that part of life is accepting that not everything works out according to our human needs for the sinners to get punished and the good to do well.

It's interesting that many think of God, Our King as being the "tough" aspect of God and God, Our Parent as being the loving aspect. Now, you'll never get more loving parents than my own, but when I think of how my parents raised us, there was a certain toughness. A king might hear one of his subjects say "that's not fair -- he took my watch" and the king -- the police, etc., would investigate the matter and, in a truly just kingdom, the kind, or his agents, would punish wrong-doing. OTOH, what would my parents say if I whined to them "that's not fair -- he took my watch"? They'd say -- "if you can't work this out, neither of you gets the watch".

Jonah thought that the tree was his, even though he did nothing to make it come to be. He thinks that he is owed a just universe in which sinner get punished -- on an apocolyptic scale. But God, like a Jewish Mother, knows how Her universe is ... that the arc of justice is very long, perhaps too long: to thousands of generations. And this is the lesson of Jonah ... and Daniel ... and Koheleth ... isn't it?

Obamaberg

2008-08-06T13:26:00.002-04:00

David Brooks' latest column is quite interesting. But it only hints around the issue, although quite cleverly enough that I can guess that Brooks' thesis is exactly what I'm thinking it is ... but Brooks, after the whole neo=Jewish fiasco, just doesn't want to say it.

Obama a "sojourner"? Not really ever "fitting in"? And that's why people don't quite fully "support" Obama? Essentially part of what Obama has going against him is not his race (although there still are, alas, all too many racists about) but his perceived religion. And "Muslim" is merely a code word here for "Jew".

Of course, by "Jew", I don't mean people like me of the Hebrew faith. I mean the "Jew" that anti-Semites would have to invent if we didn't exist.

Interestingly, as pointed out in that New Yorker article everybody ignored because they were too busy arguing about the cover (and even if people paid attention -- all that would happen is that anti-Obama people would say "see, this article proves everything we said about Obama is true" and pro-Obama people would say "nu? what's in here that we didn't know?"), at one time Obama was definitely perceived as a "tool" of "the Jews".

Which makes the constant fretting of certain elements within the Jewish community about Obama quite ironic. However, this fretting is merely a synecdoche for how these elements view anti-Semitism as a whole ... they are so paranoid about it, they view any criticism of Israel as possibly being anti-Semitic yet at the same time they get into bed (no matter what diseases they could catch, so to speak) with some people who truly are anti-Semites.

If I were a sociologist, I think I could write a book and get tenure here ...

Weekly Parsha Blogging: Jeremiad Edition

2008-08-03T15:33:00.003-04:00

Notes from which I gave the sermon yesterday:

(n.b. can only trace this to Gerald Heard, but I know ternary classification here predates him) Western, Indian and Chinese civilizations may be distinguished by which questions their philosophies primarily seek to answer. In the West, seeking the answer of "where am I?" leads to a focus on the external world -- to science, etc. In India, seeking the answer to "who am I?" leads to a focus on the mental world. In China, seeking the answer to "what am I?" leads to a humanistic focus. N.B. that Judaism also is concerned with answering the question "what am I?" (c.f. Pirkei Avos, Ch. 1, saying 14).

Similarly, we can ask these questions theologically: paganism sees natural wonders and asks "who created them?" and hence "who is God?" and comes up with myriad mythologies to answer this question. Christianity is concerned with "what is God?" and has been divided over such questions as whether "the Son is made from the same or like substance as the Father". In reaction to this, the Muslim world (and especially Jews within the Muslim world) outlined a negative theology (c.f. Dr. Seuss's "calculatus eliminatus" in The Cat in the Hat) that we cannot know the answer of "what is God?" but we can only begin to answer the question of "what God is not".

But we Jews generally ask "where is God?" (btw -- one may note a correspondence: asking "who am I?" is related to asking "who is God?"; asking "what am I?" is related to asking "where is God?"; and asking "where am I?" is related to asking "what is God?").

We typically ask "where is God?" during our times of trouble. E.g. as we think about the destruction of the Temple during this "three weeks" period, we ask "where was God?" Well ... as Ezekiel points out in the "Merkaba", God was gettin' the heck outa Dodge, so to speak.

While later on in his eponymous book, Jeremiah too notes that we ask the location of God during times of crisis, in this last week's parsha, Jeremiah notes that we should ask "where is the Lord?" (2:6 and 2:8) when we are doing well. We may think that God is on our side when we are prosperous, but do we really know? How can we have any sort of knowledge (c.f. the scientific endeavor) unless we seek to test our knowledge and ask questions?

Jeremiah points out that the very (often self-proclaimed) guardians of morality too often do not ask "where is God" and too often do not walk in God's paths (halacha). Instead, they worship some idea of God as Master (Baal ... c.f. Hosea 2:16) and, because they are too self-assured in their view of God as Baal, they miss where God really is -- not some master, but within each of us (even during this time of year, when the Haftarah and Torah portions are not ostensibly directly connected, they still relate ... the Torah portion last week obliquely introduces the idea of the "Shekhina", the indwelling presence of God ... the Torah portion also speaks of keeping the land free from "tamei", which has an environmental connection -- and note that the Babylonian exile happened, according to tradition, not because of breaches in what the Guardians of Morality would consider to be the sum total of morality -- sexual mores, but because the Sabbatical year was not kept, so the land needed to rest ... i.e. the Guardians of Morality got it wrong -- because they failed to ask "where is the Lord" but instead thought the Lord was on their side when it was only "Baal" from whom they prophesized ... their prophecy was based on a mistaken idea of the Lord as a potentially cruel master and not as a loving Parent or Just King).

One thing to consider, though, is that this is all a polemic. And Rev. RMJ points out the danger of polemics. Even the tradition understands that Jeremiah and his school wrote the "Deuteronomaic history" (the only thing the source critics add is Deuteronomy itself) -- did Jeremiah write his didactic "history" to address concerns of the sort raised by Rev. RMJ? Is part of our "vital lie" that we were personally at Sinai so that we remember that the polemics of Barmidbar are directed to us (as if we were at Sinai we were there as well?). Of course, note also "where God is found" ... in the desert (c.f. the comments to the above linked post).

And we learn a lot reading the prophets as history -- as I keep mentioning here about the geo-political situation and the danger of Israel relying on the US, er Egypt. We need to be really careful that, if we want the US to be Israel's friend, we need to be a true friend, and know when to stand back and let Israel be independent as well as knowing when to intervene. And a true friend sometimes criticizes as well as supports. To use a phrase from this last week's Torah portion (and see the commentary in Eitz Chaim about this phrase) -- some apparent friends are really "thorns in the side".

I had some sort of repetitive yet cool sounding ending as well ... but that is beyond for what I have notes ...

Celebration

2008-08-01T09:58:00.002-04:00

To celebrate getting another paper out after so long, I smoked a Hoyo de Monterrey Excalibur Maduro Cigar I've had for some time, accompanied by some Benjamin (Australian) Tawny Port. I thought I had lost my taste for cigars (the last Onyx Reserve I smoked was a disappointment) but I guess I just needed a change of pace. The Tawny Port (and an excellent one -- cheaper than the Portuguese stuff, but just as good if not better ... it had the creamy and slightly maritime richness of certain sherries) brought out violet and other floral notes that I had not noticed before in this cigar (although it suppressed the coffee and tea notes, transmuting them to a pleasant, but too subtle note of cocoa).

FL News

2008-07-29T17:10:00.004-04:00

Bob Butterworth resigned today.

Does anybody know whether this was planned or whether there's some DFC fecal matter about to hit the air displacement unit? The news reports have been confusing: Bob Butterworth's saying he never planned on taking this position for any length of time and the governor supposedly was begging Butterworth to stay, but somehow this seems to have come right out of the blue as far as I can tell.

I guess I'll get the skinny on what went down in shul this next Shabbos. But until then ... do any of y'all know anything about our politics down here in FL?

*

Also, if any of y'all readers are local yokels, remember to vote in the judicial election. A certain highly incompetent Jeb Bush appointee needs to be voted out of office ... I'd mention her name, but she's pretty vindictive and is probably searching the blogs for mentions of her name and making an enemies' list based therein (and the last thing I need is to be on somebody's enemies' list): I reckon though her ego wouldn't let her search for phrases like "highly incompetent Jeb Bush appointee", so she'll not get wind of this posting (as that many people read my blog anyway that it'll have an effect on the election).

Still ... if you know who and what I'm talking about -- get out and vote this August and vote the bum-ette out!

Weekly Parsha Blogging

2008-07-27T18:26:00.002-04:00

I've already discussed the notion of essential vs. existential threats and the question of why the commanded war against Midian was such a danger. I'd like to add -- the real threat is not the person who tries to fight you but the one who tries to seduce you into sin. We should think about this in considering "Jewish loving" right and their siren song of seduction.

Some other points --

(1) why did Moses issue such a stern command? The Eitz Chaim Humash points out that Moses might have been concerned about being seen as partial toward the Midianites given his marriage ... this is kinda like how some people in the media who really do think themselves to be liberal (and it shows, thus lending credence to conservative claims about a liberal media) go out of their way to be "objective" by skewering liberals and promoting conservatives.

(2) was the command of genocide ever carried out? what are we to infer from the Torah's silence on this?

(3) assuming the Torah is not historical -- what does it mean that the Torah should describe this "event" and not history? what lesson are we to take?

(4) should we follow the Torah and be better about having "purification rituals" to help soldiers reintegrate into society? even as we are generous toward are veterans (perhaps not enough, but still), we still don't give them perhaps what they need to become civilians again -- I know too many scarred veterans ... OTOH, we do celebrate militarism (see Rev. RMJ's latest post) -- we cheer soldiers who return but we don't really give them rituals of return besides some empty cheering. this is what patriotism is?

Different Day, Same Old #@$%

2008-07-27T17:41:00.005-04:00

This morning on NPR, I heard about Israel yet again deciding to conduct some sort of raid on Hamas militants, killing some wanted man (how come they never can manage to bring these people to trial as demanded by Pirke Avos?). Of course, Israel says "this is the West Bank, the cease fire's about Gaza" whilst Hamas is sabre rattling ... and everybody wonders whether this action by Israel means that the cease-fire might not hold anymore ... some even say, in spite of Israel's claim of "l'havdil" Israel did violate the cease-fire which has resulted in a sharp reduction in the rocket attacks from Gaza onto Southern Israel ... yada yada yada ... yet again --

What? Hold on there! "Sharp Reduction"?!?. You thought what I met by "different day, same old #$@%" was a complaint about Israel's stupid addiction to vengeance and retaliation that only feeds into Hamas' strategy of making Israel be widely seen as too violent and too eager to go back on peace agreements that way Hamas gets to keep the position of power (at least in playing the trump card of violence) whilst undermining any hope of real peace for Israel (and if you don't want a peaceful Israel where we Jews can live in peace ... I don't care how 'big' you want Israel to be, in my book that makes you an anti-Semite and not a friend of Israel).

Nope! Yet again, NPR buried the lede, which isn't Israel's action but that fact that this so-called cease-fire didn't really result in a cessation of fire! Yet again, NPR, et al. will report such that everyone will believe Israel "broke" the cease-fire when in reality Hamas has broken it from the get-go! And people wonder why we Jews think there might be some anti-Semitic double standards in regards to coverage about Israel?

No. I've not gone all Likudnik on you all. What Israel did seems profoundly stupid. Nu? The guy they killed is a militant. But why go after him now? Why make sure that Israel is seen as the one who is not committed to peace? Of course, some would argue "they" would hate us anyway ... but maybe, perhaps, new anti-Semites aren't inevitable but get "recruited" in part by the ability of anti-Semites to use Israel's stupid actions to argue to impressionable folk about what kind of people we Jews are? You say "shanda fur dem Goyim" is a retrograde attitude? I say there is a such thing as Hillul Hashem -- we need to do everything to make sure we Jews (and the state with which we are associated) does everything as above board as possible. We should stop being so dedicated to "retaliation" and "showing strength" that we play right into Hamas' hands (you think they don't take into account that Israel keeps doing the same thing? I know -- "what if Israel didn't show strength, it'd be that much worse" ... oh really? how do we know?).

Was killing one militant worth potentially ending a so-called cease-fire that has resulted in very real gains of security against mortar attacks? Was taking the life of this militant worth endangering the lives of many Israelis who could be victims of retaliation? I'm sure many people in the USA will think so, but they are not the potential victims of retaliation, are they?

That being said -- NPR and similar news organizations ought to at least get the story right and not bury the lede. The cease-fire was not a cease-fire if there was still firing! NPR should be ashamed of itself for burying that lede so that everyone will think Israel broke the cease-fire when the cease-fire was already broken!

*

Update: Meanwhile, I guess I could be like Atrios with his "wanker of the day" and make awards for duck-fondler of the day. Except that it would be so tedious as the award would always either have to go to Israel (for it's continued ability to look weak and undermine its security whilst trying so hard to look strong and to be more secure by, e.g., "attacking militants" and "responding to violence" ... here's a hint ... if you're always in "response" mode, you look weak!), the Democratic party (for obvious reasons ... the Dems are the Israel of American politics it seems sometimes -- maybe this is why many of us Jews are Dems?) and China (what can you say about a place so keen to give the world a good Olympic experience it is denying clubs permits to perform live music, when an influx of tourists might actually have a better experience, and spend more money in China, if they get live music? Of course I heard this story on NPR, c.f. above, so who knows what NPR has left out of the story!).

I Made It!

2008-07-22T13:25:00.002-04:00

At least as a runner up to COTW. Interestingly, this is far, IMHO, from the funniest thing I've posted at the Curmudgeon. I guess I lack the ability to judge my work with any objective distance? Or maybe the competition was lower this time around?

Anyway, I guess I'll have a shot of Powers tonight to celebrate.

Pinchas Blogging, Round III

2008-07-20T15:12:00.002-04:00

A few notes (what I actually ensermoned, after summarizing my planned sermon, since the Friday night sermonizer stole some of my thunder on the subject of transitions in Pinchas):

* Of course, one thing important in providing smooth transitions of power is the continuity of tradition (c.f. the arguments by Burke about "British phlegm" being necessary for democracy -- if we want to export democracy, we can't do it by force, but we must first export this "phlegmatism"?) ... nu? thus the placement of all the sacrificial discriptions in this last week's parsha of transition?

* Why the more severe response commanded of Israel to the Midianites? Unlike the Egyptians and the Edomites who presented "existential threats" to Israel, the Midianites presented an "essential threat" to Israel? And the Moabites, when presenting such a threat did so out of fear, but the Midianites did so out of hatred ... what are we to make of this today? Are the real threats to Israel the supposed existential threats against it (which are, IMHO, highly overstated considering that we in the US somehow managed to have a cold, not hot, war with a bunch of crazy, pinko commies who had the bomb) or the internal threats eating away at Israel?

If one is a Zionist, then the whole point of the Jewish state is to have a place of refuge where we Jews don't have to live in fear. Nu? Doesn't the fearmongering of the right in Israel (or similarly here) constitute an essential threat? Doesn't the argument "we have to do what we have to do to survive, so let's throw out our morals and traditional liberties" constitute an essential threat? Doesn't the whispering in our ears by seducers from another religion saying "we'll 'support' you ... and you know what we'll support" resemble that of the Midianites seducing Hebrews into the orgies at Baal Peor? Even the argument that we should write off the Judaism of most Jews in the name of Tahorkheit is an essential threat.

Nu? Perhaps it is these "essential" threats -- the seduction of fearfulness and that we should give up our morals and standards in the name of "survival" -- that are more of a danger than the very real, if not existential threats that Israel, the US and we the Jewish people all face?

Pinchas Blogging: Round II (The Sermoning)

2008-07-18T11:05:00.001-04:00

Fundamentally Parshas Pinchas is about the change in Leadership for the Change in Generations: Pinchas assumes the mantle of priesthood, although part of that is to keep him in line and channel his energies positively (c.f. Jewish legends about thieves whose skill is put to good use, etc. also c.f. how Levi becomes the priestly tribe in the first place). Joshua readies to receive the mantle of political leadership from Moses (and the split between Church and State in Israel becomes more complete as each is no longer headed by the brother of the other ... ooh -- internal rhyme!). And we have the daughters of Zelophohad for whom a new commandment is created that way they can have an inheritance: a passing of property to a new generation.

Meanwhile, in the prophetic reading, we have Elisha receiving the mantle of prophecy from Elijah. And even Hashem gets in on the act -- no longer is he the thunderous divinity of Sinai (too easy to confuse with the storm god Baal -- c.f. another prophetic reading: "no longer am I to be called your Master but only your Spouse") but God is now the still small voice of conscience. And do recall this, for example (in re. Erubim 13b).

I'm still polishing this up (and will probably deliver large parts of this simply extemporaneously as is my wont), but the above will be pretty much on what I'm sermonizing tomorrow.

NPR Blogging

2008-07-18T11:02:00.001-04:00

Last night: "even the liberal NPR thinks the liberal media gives better coverage to Obama than McCain". Funny, they didn't mention anything about the nature of that coverage (positive or negative or concern trolling). And then NPR proceeded itself to give McCain's side of the story on just about everything.

Of course, they did call B.S. on McCain's "we need to apply the lessons of Iraq in Afghanistan" statement (although there was no challenge concerning the efficacy of the Great and Wonderful Surge(TM) opposed by Obama -- 'cause he's an defeato-crat or islamofascist sympathizer or something). Indeed, the liberal NPR displayed extreme liberal bias in having an expert, with direct experience in the military in both Afghanistan and Iraq explain the dealeo.

If you can dig up this story (my skillz with the great gazoogle are less than stellar), do listen to it. Especially "pro-Israeli" types should listen to it because many of the expert's "lessons from Iraq" apply very much to Israel's situation vis-a-vis Palestinian insurgents. Of course, what the expert (I forget his name) said goes 100% against what the "get tough on the Pals" crowd says. Which goes to show that for all of their "we're the non-naive ones" talk, they are either awfully ignorant of what works and what doesn't ... or, they just don't care about actual results or peace for Israel but about vengeance.

I understand why some Jews might feel like a little bit of vengeance after all through which we've been. But the Torah forbids it, so we should be Jews about it. Nu? The world isn't civilized? As the Talmud says, where others do not behave as humans, strive to be human. And let's stop with this "Israel should be tough and we need a US President who 'understands' this, no matter how bad he may be for the US" (and these same people complain when others accuse us Jews of "dual loyalty"?) -- we don't need to wave around our collective dicks ... we need results, which are to be achieved "not by might and not by power, but by the divine spirit".

Remember the Prophets were political advisors. And they spoke words of Truth. And they didn't advise Israel to try and make sure Egypt would remain an ally against Assyria. Nor did they advocate militaristic responses. Let's go with what is in our Teachings and with what works rather than pointless tough talk.

More Niebelungekeit

2008-07-14T09:29:00.003-04:00

Ein Troll ist beinahe ein Niebelung. Eine was für Troll nicht ist.

Bonus German: one possible translation of troll into German is "Schleppangel". Maybe this would have a different connotation in German as ~~English~~ Yiddish, but it sure is interesting to think of trolls as schleppers, eh?

Update -- corrected.