Plane Minyans

I've been saying for years - much before 9/11 - that it's a big problem to organize minyans on planes. It's an inconvenience for all the other passengers, especially those who don't understand halakha. Then, after 9/11, it looks like a bunch of religious crazies, wearing black leather straps and shaking back and forth, are congregating to follow their Ancient God's will. I'd be scared, were I not frum.

So I'm glad to see that other rabbis came on my bandwagon, even if it's a decade late: Manchester Rabbi Says Don't pray in a minyan on a plane. (Jewish Chronicle).

Pic from here, of a miyan of tefillin Barbies.

Thoughts on the Ft. Hood Massacre

As you've heard, a nutjob shot up 50 people in 3 minutes in Ft. Hood, Texas. A few thoughts:

1. The moment I read he was a Psychiatrist, not just a guy with a Muslim name, I thought that this is another Baruch Goldstein. The pattern is familiar. Two motives of BG (yimach shemo) were (a) as a doctor he was driven nuts by the trauma of his patients, and/or (b) he was nationalist scum going for a big score via 'collective punishment.
   
2. I'm not a pure mental health professional (despite being on the front-lines, as it were, of the nutjob world as a pulpit rabbi), but I am training to be a behavioral scientist; and I've been fascinated, for years, on how most people don't know the warning signs of these mass murderers. I claim, and we'll see what we find about yesterday's (and now today's) mass murdering mamzers (MMM), but I'm certain there were warning signs. Remember Virgina Tech.
   
3. Connected to the 'warning signs,' I've also hoped that one day we'd catch one of the MMMs alive, and it looks like we've done that for both shootings. This is good - because, especially with the Hood shooter, who's was not only a psychiatrist, but he's also a client! Who better to give insight as to why these crazy men (and it's almost always men) snap and decide to kill random strangers.
   
4. Related to that, maybe by talking with Hassan Hassan Hassan, we can find out the best way to convince these budding MMM to just straight out commit suicide, first, before the rampage. Because, as I claim, these guys are usually giving off many warning signs. Yet since there is, as a guest teacher confirmed for me in pastoral psychology, a "license to be crazy" in America, we can't do anything for the MMM before he takes out his family/coworkers/random innocents. So my idea is to create a stress kit for mental health professionals who can convince the pre-MMM that suicide is the best option. In the long run, we'll save many lives. I'm only slightly joking.

VINDICATED!

If you know a redhead then doubtless you've been forwarded this Times article: The Pain of Being a Redhead, which reports this recent study that: "A growing body of research shows that people with red hair need larger doses of anesthesia and often are resistant to local pain blockers like Novocaine." See this as well.

This news makes me so happy (or as happy as I could be given that I'm living under this forced physical curse; yet, I have so many of those, I have learned to live and even value my legion of corporal pain). I'm happy because I've been claiming this for years - and have had many doctors (not just dentists) scoff my testimony. This experience, in fact, is a defining point for why I'm even in the professions I'm in.

Ya see, I've often felt that I notice things others overlook and when I report these neglected facts I've been repudiated by the 'respected' authorities. As such, I've spent most of my life trying to develop both the tools, and the authority, to teach people about these disregarded truths. It's a fiercely personal mission and I'm finding some success (about as much as I can expect) - because while most people absolutely do not want to know about facts that contradict their comfortrably acquired rationalizations, there are many others who have nagging feelings about unanswered questions. Yeah, it sounds like the Matrix, but there's often a kernal of truth in sci-fi.

Anwyay, the dentist thing is a perfect example because I was perceiving a difference in facts that had serious consequences for my health and I was - for the most part - mocked and rejected for these facts. Yet, I kept going to dentists and doctors, and enduring more pain that I needed to, because I could only convince only so many people. I had a root canal this way; and I kept telling the stupid dentist that it wasn't supposed to be that painful and they looked at me as a wimp. But a lifetime of this disregard has toughened up my insistence on more pain killers.

It's a sweet vindication: to live my whole life knowing something was true despite constant gainsaying - it's encouragement for the rest of my life. And my advice for you redheads? Print out the article and take it to the doctor with you. Doctors won't listen to patients, but they may listen to third party authorities...

Post finally written on Nov 9, 2009. Top pic from here of Dentistry in 1611. Second pic from here.

Pakistan Problems

Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister of Pakistan, declared "emergency rule" on Saturday. He dissolved the Supreme Court, and has been arresting people he doesn't like. According to the AP-Wire:

Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup and is also head of Pakistan's army, suspended the constitution on Saturday ahead of a Supreme Court ruling on whether his recent re-election as president was legal. He ousted seven independent-minded Supreme Court judges, put a stranglehold on independent media and granted sweeping powers to authorities to crush dissent.

Here's my cynical take on the situation, based on my earlier analysis of Turkey.

While Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the rest of the so-called neo-cons could be considered non-"realists" in foreign policy (a nice way of calling them morons), I've always felt that Cheney was a realist. Mainly because Cheney, like Nixon and his ilk, couldn't give a good goddam about liberty and freedom. Realists know that the best foreign government isn't a free Democracy; it's a dictatorship that's loyal to US interests.

Allied dictatorships, while being oppressive and against human rights and all that, have the wonderful tendency to do what we want them to do. And I can imagine that Musharraf - seeing the writing on the wall with Bhutto returning - felt that it was time to tighten his reign on power... and asked Cheney for his blessing. And got it.

What's the downside? Pakistan becomes even more able to crush the Islamicist threat, hunt down Osama, and all it takes is for the US to wink at 'em. The only people who lose are Pakistani lawyers. And human rights, yeah, but all kidding aside I'm not sure how well Pakistan was doing before the current power-grab.

In any case, the silver lining to Musharraf's gambit is that we get a better ally in the region. And all due to the realist school of foreign policy. Messy business, this.

Dwight Macdonald

I stumbled across this book review by Dwight Macdonald - who was described as a "critic's critic" - or something like that. Since (a) I'd never heard of this influential man of letters from the 40s and 50s and (b) I aspire to me a critic's critic's critic, I felt I should read more of the dude. I came across this essay, his evisceration of an attempt to create a definitive Great Books collection: "The Book-of-the-Millennium Club."

So, as a long delayed student of Master Dwight, I have to say that this guy is one-thousand percent spot on. I have spent many years trying to understand Greek philosophy (and only so I can try to understand Maimonides) and Macdonald gets the problem with books about the Ancient Smartguys correct:

A fifth of the volumes are all but impenetrable to the lay reader, or at least to this lay reader -- the four devoted to Aristotle and Aquinas and the six of scientific treatises, ranging from Hippocrates to Faraday. "There is a sense in which every great book is always over the head of the reader," airily writes [series editor] Dr. Hutchins. "He can never fully comprehend it. That is why the books in this set are infinitely rereadable." I found these ten volumes infinitely unreadable.

There is a difference between not fully comprehending Homer and Shakespeare (in that one is always discovering something new on rereading them) and not even getting to first base with either a writer's terminology or what he is driving at. Aristotle and Aquinas should have been included, I would say, but four volumes is excessive. Furthermore, no expository apparatus is provided, no introduction relating their Weltanschauung to our own, no notes on their very special use of terms and their concepts. Lacking such help, how can one be expected to take an interest in such problems, vivid enough to Aquinas, as "Whether an Inferior Angel Speaks to a Superior Angel?," "Whether We Should Distinguish Irascible and Concupiscible Parts in the Superior Appetite?," "Whether Heavenly Bodies Can Act on Demons?," and "Whether by Virtue of Its Subtlety a Glorified Body Will No Longer Need to Be in a Place Equal to Itself?" In fact, even with help, one's interest might remain moderate. In the case of a philosopher like Plato, essentially a literary man and so speaking a universal human language, the difficulty is far less acute, but Aquinas and Aristotle were engineers and technicians of philosophy, essentially system builders whose concepts and terminology are no longer familiar. [Italics mine]

Replace "Aquinas" with "Maimonides' Guide to the Perplexed" and I could have written that paragraph (and using, presumably, far fewer cigarettes or shots of Rye).

This is back from 4/25/07 & finished on 8/8/07 and all I had was the link and the blockquote.

British Holocaust Education Hoax

I've already received from a few people this news story from the British "Daily Mail":

Teachers drop the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims

By LAURA CLARK

Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Government backed study has revealed.

It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.

Yet, despite coming from the (never incorrect) Internet, I had the sneaking suspicion that this was a hoax.

First off, this sounds impossible in the real world but totally plausible to the deranged black-white extremism of bigots and/or tabloid readers. E.g. "Bill Clinton impregnates Panda!" Me: 'Impossible'; Tabloid/Bigot: 'Well of course he did, the randy bastige!'

The bigots somehow think that Muslims deny the Holocaust as a matter of faith. They don't; it's a socialization problem not something in the religion and only a right-wing-wacko would think the leftist wackos would be so self-sacrifically stupid to legislate Muslim hatred. This is Glenn Beck/Rush Limbaugh/Ann Coulter country. Stupid on as many levels as stupidity can be.

Second of all, I hadn't heard of this earth shattering news from any of the daily papers I read - mainstream Israeli and US stuff - who would pick up this atrocity rather quickly.

Third of all, after I searched for the original piece online, I saw that the article was dated "1/4/07"

Fourth, I search for the news story in a quick google-news search: nothing. Grand google search: only right wing wacko blogs.

Fifth (and what I should have done at the beginning): I went to the ADL website. Where they say this:

False E-Mail Claims UK Has Ended Holocaust Education

Friday, April 13, 2007

A much circulated e-mail claims that the United Kingdom has 'removed the Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offended' the Moslem population.' There is no truth to this claim. Holocaust education is mandatory in British schools and continues to be part of the national curriculum.

Thank you [deep bow], thank you.

Scott Horton Agrees with Me About Republicans

If you recall, back in February, I remarked that it's unfair to put Lincoln and George W. in the same political party. So Scott Horton took no time in his new blog ("Of Republicans and Banana-Republicans") to say I am correct.

[Disclaimer: he doesn't know me, I don't know him and as far as I know he doesn't read my blog... yet]:

I can’t suppress the question: how did it come to this? It’s hard to see even a trace of the party of Fremont and Lincoln in the party of Bush and Rove. Indeed, the values that Bush and Rove espouse and the constituencies to which they pander seem very much just what’s in the crosshairs for the Republicans of 1856 and 1860; a check of the electoral map in 2004 and 2006 shows the Republican constituencies of yore are, with very few exceptions, safely in the Democratic column, while Bush builds off a base starting with the old Confederacy.

Paul Mooney Agrees With Me

Paul Mooney is a comic virtuoso. I first saw him on the Chappelle Show as "Negrodamus" and I had heard that he wrote one of the best routines in SNL history: the job interview word association sketch between Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase (Monney was Pryor's main writer).

The Onion AV club has an interview with Mooney this week and they asked him why he no longer uses the N-word:

AVC: You've vowed to stop using the N-word.

PM: I won't be using that, no. That's a no-no.

AVC: What was the reasoning behind that?

PM: Well, Michael Richards, his meltdown. His nervous breakdown is what did it.

AVC: How so?

PM: Well, it was something else. I heard about it, and then I saw the video, and it freaked me. I'm not easily freaked. And the way I used the word, I was an ambassador for the word. The way I used the word, I was a part of it too. It became an equal-opportunity word.

[snip]

And there were layers to his breakdown, to Michael. I've known Michael for over 20 years. There were layers to it. This came out of Michael. Michael's a victim of America. There are a lot of white people who have this stuff inside them. It just takes the right situation to bring it out. White America should take responsibility for it like I'm taking responsibility for it. I'm not saying it. You have to say no to it. I was married to the word, I was the ambassador for the word and now I'm not saying it any more.

I've seen too many commentators and pundits associate any use of a racial slur with "Michael Richards" or "Mel Gibson." But those two acted in a very different way than using a slur - Gibson reportedly and Richards on camera were completely insane with hatred. See the clip to see what hatred looks like unleashed (if you've, thank God, never experienced it).

In fact, I can't see "Seinfeld" anymore. True, I was never much of a fan, but I can't see Kramer anymore and laugh. He makes me sick.

ADL Agrees With Me

Hence, the "ADL Statement on Dennis Prager's Attack On Muslim Congressman for Taking Oath of Office on Koran."

Talking Points Memo Agrees With Me

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall December 1, 2006 10:50 AM:

Back in the 1980s, when I was a teenager, and then when I was home from college, I used to listen to a Sunday night radio show called Religion on the Line.... The host of the show was Dennis Prager. Prager was always the most self-satisfied voice on the panel. And always a bit pretentious. But for those of you who know Prager now as hate-ranting whack-job that he's become, I can only say that back then he was or seemed far more sane.

Novak Agrees with Me?!?!

Whoa. After I wrote the post below about dumb people being a major voting bloc for the GOP - which I meant as a joke - I read this from Robert "DB" Novak hisself:

For good reason, the GOP often is called 'the stupid party.'

Scary.

{2009 update, pic from here.}

In Your Face Rove

The New Republic, saying many of the same things I have said (so naturally, I think they're smart and correct).

More Support for the Psak

Turns out that I was not the only one dealing with this halakhic issue. Some blogger wrote about it and you can see his discussion here. DO NOT BE FOOLED - his blog "Biur Chametz" looks exactly like mine. Rackenfracken templates, now I have to change the colors!

Psak Reaction

I wrote that two weeks ago I ruled that the shul wouldn't say tachanun in reaction to the death of Arafat. While most of the congregation applauded the loss of tachanun, if not the loss of our enemy, there was some opposition. One member asked me for the sources of the halakha and I have spent the time since shoring up the halakhic support for the psak.

First of all, the Shulchan Arukh is very clear in Orech Chaim 575:11-13 that when we fast for rain, and the rain falls, we can say Hallel. Siman 576 then expands the need to fast to all difficult situations - including a feared enemy.

In any case, every shul Rav I've spoken to agrees that we have the power to suspend tachanun for a communal simcha, but that wasn't enough for the textually minded. Two poskim - one black, one white - ruled on the matter. Rav Nachum Rabinovich, the Rosh Yeshiva of Ma'ale Adumim, agreed with my decision (said that I did the right thing) and said that since tachanun was a minhag, I as Maara d'Atra could make that decision.

Rav Ephraim Greenblatt (the famed Rivevot Ephraim, whom I know from Memphis) was less enthusiastic about my ruling but said that I had halakhic grounding, specifically the Chaya Adam, klal 155, siman 41.

Rav Greenblatt pointed out that people associate omitting tachanun with the death of a tzadik and thus my psak was difficult. I explained that the omission of tachanun is only with the yahrzeit of a tzadik - the death of a tzadik (according to the Shulchan Arukh) requires everyone who hears to tear kriah! However, the death of an enemy requires rejoicing and the yahrzeit is forgotten (because of the yimach-shemo stuff)

Since then, it was pointed out to me that there were those in Israel who ruled the same as I: see this story from (ugh) Arutz-7.

It's gratifying to know that my halakhic-intuition was on the mark.