Polygamy and Pilegesh

I was at a conference on Monday at the HBI with the topic: "Polygamy, Polygyny, and Polyamory: Ethical and Legal Perspectives on Plural Marriage." Now I naturally went to the conference expecting that a massively feminist organization like the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute would *oppose* polygyny (multiple wives), polyandry (multiple husbands) maybe, but definitely not polygyny. I based this on my own knowledge of the practice which basically treats women as property and was eliminated from Western and Jewish tradition through the combined force of the otherwise disenfranchised women. It's in fact the best proof that women had 'unofficial' power over the past few centuries.

Well, was *I* in for a surprise. I was only able to go to the first and third sessions (see the above link for the schedule) but that first session was the weirdest, most disturbing, academic panel I'd ever heard. It was filled with pro-polygamy weirdos and the audience, filled with feminists, didn't grab pitchforks and torches - rather they seemed to find the whole thing awesome.

How?! Well, in the airy academic world of anti-empiricism, all that's necessary is to have a compelling *idea* plus one or two anecdotes, and you're all set with a policy proposal! These doofi don't seem to bother with thinking about what the future would look like once the plans are implemented; I guess that's why communism is alive and well in the academy even though it's dead in every country it's been attempted.

There were some sane people in the crew. Prof. Elimelech Westreich, gave a detailed talk on polygamy in halakha, and the best stuff was from Prof. Alean Al-Krenawi who has published studies on the psychological impact of polygamy. His work shows that there's severe unhappiness and anomie in polygamous families. His was the last talk and I could see that he was nearly quivering with frustration and how all these progressives were seriously accepting what he knows to be a retrograde, and even evil, practice.

Yet, the biggest repudiation needs to be given to Prof. Zvi Zohar who spoke about his advocacy for pilagshut, a.k.a. Biblical concubinage (see above for "weird and disturbing"). His article, and a bunch of other wickedness, is found here.

Zohar's point is that there are many current social problems - a singles crisis, an agunah crisis, and his main focus: the crisis of liberal Orthodox Jews who wait until their 30s to get married but want to have sex in their 20s - that can be solved by re-instating 'pilegesh.'

To put it simply, Zohar's idea is both pernicious and ignorant. Pernicious because it will cause many more social problems than it would possibly solve, and of those it cares about, the only thing that will be helped is guiltless sleeping around. It will actually prolong the singles crisis, it won't help agunahs because he acknowledges that people will eventually get married anyway. So all he wants to do is allow nominally-frum Jews to sleep around. Yipee. It's basically the equivalent of saying "people are driving to shul, so let's just make driving OK on Shabbat!" And boy did that work out.

It's ignorant because he actually read the "Pilegesh at Giva" story as somehow advocating pilagshut instead of it being a CLEARLY OBVIOUS ATTACK ON PILAGSHUT. Its kinda like reading the golden calf episode as a support for golden idols.

Anyway, I will end my trashing of his idea with one of my favorite Onion stories: "Desperate Vegetarians Declare Cows Plants"

Worst Product Placement Ever

My wife and I have been watching Bones at night (it's syndicated via TNT or TBS or Bravo - who can tell nowadays). It's yet another one of the 'police procedurals' that infest prime-time television, but it's also a cross-over with the medical procedurals that have been around for a while (so, in Hollywood speak, it's CSI meets House!). But while I don't like those other shows that much, Bones is a winner because of (a) the smart and funny writing, (b) the relatively open plot possibilities (they follow every type of grisly murder, even cold cases - and oh man, the grotesqueness is over the top), but most importantly (c) the ensemble cast is top-notch.

Ensembles are usually the silver-bullet for long running TV shows. That's one key reason why Star Trek has lasted so long, but also M.A.S.H., Mary Tyler Moore, Cheers, The West Wing - all of them went beyond the possibilities of plot because any small item can be fun to watch when the characters are well known enough to make even minor gestures or phrases payoff. Listen up Hollywood: this will save you a lot of grief.

Note, this is possibly why I have more trouble with Law & Order and such - same 2 cops, same 2 lawyers every time!

Anyway, down to the worst product placement: last night was a new episode on its home, non-syndicated, channel. In the plot, three of the geekier male characters are enthused to the point of distraction because 1 guy managed to score tickets to the best movie evah: Avatar! 'No way' you say. 'Yes way!' I retort.

The main subplot, thus, was how these three guys needed to camp out on line to await the film (even though they had tickets?! yes!) And were telling unbelievers that Avatar wasn't just a movie, it was the total geek experience. They knew all the trivia about the movie and how it was the bestest to ever be presented to modern eyes. Furthermore, not only did they wait on line for a few days - needing to make flimsy excuses to their boss for why they aren't doing their forensic work to catch the on-the-loose killer (because Avatar is more important!) - but while waiting on line, they meet a bunch of very hot, promiscuous women who intend to sleep with all three of these geeks.

Yes, Avatar is so cool that you need to skip your life-and-death deadline job to wait on line to see it even though you still have tickets. And while on line, you will meet and sleep with beautiful women. Got all that?

Now the first commercial of the first commercial break was for: what? Avatar, of course. No problems there. Why not? But the crass, blatant product placement within a normally decent show, made me look up the information on the network Bones is on - which I discovered was Fox. And you get one guess as to who produced "Avatar:" Fox again.

It all came together and I was repulsed. I will not see the movie, out of spite, for how crudely that tried to carry that off. What an insult to my intelligence as a viewer. Blah.

America's Might

Just a brief thought about American military might. I can't recall if I've written this recently, so forgive me for repeating myself...

The non-Styx Claim: I've read many people claim that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have emboldened our enemies because it demonstrates that the US is not all-powerful and that sustained guerrilla warfare will undermine the American resolve. The conclusion of these pundits is that the wars have weakened the culture of intimidation that the U.S. needs to maintain in order to scare the world into loving us. Or something like that.

The Styx Response: OK, here's the deal. We need to make a distinction between the way that idiots think and the way that our enemies/allies think. Idiots will believe propaganda, myths, and won't read newspapers. Generally speaking, idiots aren't powerful and don't run countries - this is especially true for autocracies whose leadership are often cruel, canny mobsters. Alas, it's possible that democracies can elect idiots - and this happened to us back in 2004 with Bush (because, it bears repeating, Bush lost the election in 2000, although because he got very close some could say that it matters - and, sadly, this *is* something I repeat over and over and never ask forgiveness despite my polite request at the beginning of this post).

So, yeah, GWBush and his ilk were idiots and did not actually pay attention to the real facts (e.g. they believed there were no difference between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq). And this had real consequences. But generally this is not true and it's wise to behave as if the other countries of the world are led by people who endeavor to know real facts and to plan consequences accordingly. And, I'd posit, the more powerful the country, the more likely the leaders are to know the true facts.

OK, that's my ground-rule to analyzing the above claim about the current two wars.

My conclusion is that the wise, fact-loving countries still fear the United States' might, possibly at the same level they did before these two wars. Why?

(1) We still have enormous numbers of nuclear weapons and as such can destroy every country in the world. This is not the Styx getting all jingo on you and posturing for the mirror, this is part of how the other nations see us. We can destroy them all - many of them without a serious counter-strike.

(2) While #1 is known and cited, the next point is the same one but for conventional forces. I claimed here that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were botched, but I misspoke: the war part of those wars went well, it's the recovery and reconstruction that was botched. This is a big difference, especially if you are an enemy of the U.S. We had the power then, and have the power now, to utterly and unilaterally destroy a foreign government. If we as a nation weren't so moral as to be concerned with rebuilding, if all we wanted to do was destroy another nation, then our wars were successes!

Please remember that: from the standpoint of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, they are no longer in power. And that matters a lot for our enemies. You can ask why we haven't done that more often (e.g. to Cuba, since the fall of the Soviet Union) and I assume it's to maintain the general ability of US military supremacy (which I define, in part, as our ability to act unilaterally).

So the botchedness is from the position of 'nation building' not fear and destruction - which is the whole argument of the above idiots.

(3) While we are definitely hurting because of the two wars - all war is expensive - we haven't raised taxes nor called a draft. As such, from our enemies standpoint, we are running the wars rather easily. Unlike Vietnam, Korea, and especially WWII, these two wars have had comparatively little impact on everyday American lives. Yeah, you know that already, but just apply it logically to the above question: if we know it, other countries know it (because the knowledge is freely available). And even though our economy is in the dumps now, and while I think extricating from Iraq will help alleviate the dumpitude, the one didn't directly cause the other.

(4) Related to point #3 is that just as we are not sacrificing too much to run these wars, our enemies know that if we wanted to we could thus gear up to fight even more wars. Granted, most experts claim that we are at our military's limit right now. The Iraq surge before and the new Afghanistan surge have stretched us to the utmost. But that's within our volunteer-army sacrifice-less guidelines of no draft and no tax. I'm not denying the enormous sacrifices of our military - including the hapless sods who joined the guard many years ago and were thrust by Bush-Cheney into unagreed commitments and stop-loss madness. All true.

But the country hasn't sacrificed for the two wars because Bush-Cheney were trying to steal them. They didn't want us to question how and why the wars were being fought. We were sold lies about Iraq and 9/11, and since we didn't have to pay up front, Congress and the GOP were able to ignore the consequences. This is why the wars are so hated now: because the lies have been exposed.

But were we to face a true existential threat then that would change. So, quiz, based on what I've said above: if the American people were convinced that the only way to stop Iran from becoming a rogue nuclear state hell-bent on destroying America with nukes, then would we be able to fight that third war?

First of all, I need to deal with the cynics who would say: the American people won't believe the threat because of the lies of Cheney and Iraq.
The Styx says: if the threat were credibly stated, and if it were real, then our government would be able to prove the claim without the smoke and mirrors Bush needed to employ to dupe Congress/the Press. So for the purpose of this quiz, the threat is credible and believed.

So the idiots would say: we cannot fight a third war because we're stretched thin!

The Styx would say: of course we could fight a third war. We fought World War II in three major theaters (1. Europe (North Africa to Italy to France), 2. Pacific (Australia to Indonesia to Philippines to Japan), 3. India-China-Burma). We did so because of a draft and rationing at home. And we can do so again if existentially threatened.

Last point: many wags try to compare the current U.S. position/empire to the Romans or the UK. I'd refute the comparisons with two facts: the US is both an isolated island 'empire' (like UK) but with a huge land-size and natural resources. We run contiguously from coast-to-coast. Our borders are with a wussy frozen North and a chaotic developing nation to the South. Running an empire from England was always a stretch because they lacked the internal national resources to conduct their wars; the same for Rome, except they had major border issues as well. We don't. More anon if needed.

To review/conclude: our allies know that we're still the strongest around. Our enemies, because they're run (usually) by intelligent fact-loving despots who want to maintain a hold on their seized wealth, also know that. Our paramount strength has not been undermined by our two wars because (a) we still have the most nukes, (b) we have shown we can act unilaterally and while we may botch nation building we're awesome at government destruction, (c) we're running our wars without a draft or raised taxes, and (d) if we wanted to tax and draft, we'd be even more destructive.

First pic from here, second from here, third pic from the Wiki.

Warning Signs? What Warning Signs?

Sigh. "No warning signs"...

See the NY Times story: Fort Hood Gunman Gave Signals Before His Rampage. Or these 2 via Sullivan, from the Telegraph, and NPR.

NPR reported:

The psychiatrist [who worked alongside Hasan] says that he was very proud and upfront about being Muslim. And the psychiatrist hastened to say, and nobody minded that. But he seemed almost belligerent about being Muslim, and he gave a lecture one day that really freaked a lot of doctors out.

They have grand rounds, right? They, you know, dozens of medical staff come into an auditorium, and somebody stands at the podium at the front and gives a lecture about some academic issue, you know, what drugs to prescribe for what condition. But instead of that, he - Hasan apparently gave a long lecture on the Koran and talked about how if you don't believe, you are condemned to hell. Your head is cut off. You're set on fire. Burning oil is burned down your throat.

And I said to the psychiatrist, but this could be a very interesting informational session, right? Where he's educating everybody about the Koran. He said but what disturbed everybody was that Hasan seemed to believe these things. And actually, a Muslim in the audience, a psychiatrist, raised his hand and said, excuse me. But I'm a Muslim and I do not believe these things in the Koran, and then I don't believe what you say the Koran says. And then Hasan didn't say, well, I'm just giving you one point of view. He basically just stared the guy down.

Note, this may not be true (why would the Feds investigate some things Hasan said online but not when he gave an unprecedented religious rant about the Joy of Murder?), but hey, when you need to reduce the 'warning signs' to zero, some evidence gets thrown out.

Yet, back on The Styx's planet, it's predictable: every time there's some massive disaster or mass murder, the news agencies are quick to say that there were no warning signs. Besides the problem of retrojecting warning signs (Hasan was quiet! Killers are quiet!) there happen to be in almost every case huge red flags. As we saw with the VTech killer (a psychotic off his meds who published videos and stories about mass murder) Hasan gave numerous signals. Sure, most people seem to be dense, and it would have been nice had he told people explicitly - like John David Stutts - that he was about to go nuts. But honestly, what more do we need?

New Rule of Debate

I guess one step is to make it harder to buy a gun, but that would be unconstitutional. And guns don't kill people - nutjobs who easily buy guns do. And anyway, the media people - including most blogs I read - have emphasized that it is unseemly to use a mass murder (using handguns) to advance my partisan position of gun control.

Except, uh, two things: (1) In general, I don't take ethical lessons from journalists, and more importantly, (2) I am not a partisan on gun control. Were I to have an emotional connection to guns (e.g. an innocent loved one was gunned down, or I was saved by a gun) then you can say that I am partisan. But when do the Grand Ethicists allow a neutral person, like me, use evidence to make a decision about gun control?

In fact, the only people who demand that an incident not be used as evidence are the partisans themselves. So, OK - you can accuse me of being a partisan, but when that can be demonstrably gainsaid, then I claim that the incident is fair game.

Application of this Rule

So here goes: (1) I am neutral about guns. I happen to like them and would love to own one, shoot one every day, and if the opportunity presents itself, to kill someone who - if allowed - would have killed me or someone I care about.

(2) Yet, as an intelligent, judicious, and educated person, I have determined that the chances of my using a gun correctly is low while the possibility of inadvertent tragedy is high. I have three kids.

(3) It appears, from numerous major tragedies, that easy access to firearms has led to mass murder. As such, I believe that our gun rules are more likely to hurt me than to help me.

(4) When a new mass murder occurs, I see ways to prevent another one. Hence in this case, I want to bring up - as it is very relevant - that the killer used a handgun to destroy innocent people.

Conclusions?

To be honest, I think - beyond the gun control issue - the real 'cause' of this - and the reason why the warning signs were ignored - is from the breakdown of resources in the military. If we weren't stretched to our limit, it's more likely that this guy would have been stopped earlier. But, IRONY ALERT, because we needed mental health professionals to help with crazy soldiers, this crazy solider was forced to keep his crazy.

Quick Update

A quick clarification, and prediction: I predict that we'll discover (and if not, then it's a probable coverup) that Hasan would have been diagnosed as a security risk had it not been for our insane need for active-duty retention. The army paid a lot of money to make this psycho a doctor and they were not going to allow his being psycho make them lose their money. Even if we find out that he was convinced to go on a suicide mission by a Crazy Cleric, all that will show is that the crazy clerics could recognize the warning signs. As such, if we *was* recruited, it will show that his psychosis was even more evident. Take it from me, there are always warning signs. I'll expand on this with my long-awaited "Jaws" Essay.

First pic was self-made, second from this site.

The Robots Are Already Here

Holy frackin' frijoles! Remember this day as the one when you were told that the Martix-Terminator warnings have been ignored.

Read this story by P.W. Singer (h/t Sullivan):

The irony is that for all the claims by military, political, and scientific leaders that “humans will always be in the loop,” as far back as 2004 the U.S. Army was carrying out research that demonstrated the merits of armed ground robots equipped with a "quick-draw response." Similarly, a 2006 study by the Defense Safety Working Group, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, discussed how the concerns over potential killer robots could be allayed by giving "armed autonomous systems" permission to "shoot to destroy hostile weapons systems but not suspected combatants." That is, they could shoot at tanks and jeeps, just not the people in them. Perhaps most telling is a report that the Joint Forces Command drew up in 2005, which suggested that autonomous robots on the battlefield would be the norm within 20 years. Its title is somewhat amusing, given the official line one usually hears: Unmanned Effects: Taking the Human Out of the Loop.

So, despite what one article called "all the lip service paid to keeping a human in the loop," auton­omous armed robots are coming to war. They simply make too much sense to the people who matter.

This is happening, even with the Onion proposing the absurdity of it all (Scientists Abandon AI Project After Seeing The Matrix). Foolish earthlings!

Pic from here.

The Pie and Thomas Friedman

Or, as another blogger put it: "Don't Pie Me, Bro!"

I don't like the NYTimes' Thomas Friedman at all. He's a pompous ignoramous, especially about Israel. Par for the course for the Times which now appears to have NOBODY of value on the op-ed page. Anyway, some pissant group of puerile environmentalists threw pies at Friedman right before he was to give an Earth Day address at Brown University:


A few thoughts:

1. As a professional public speaker, watching this video put me in a cold sweat. I don't like thinking that I can get attacked on a podium and I don't condone it - even for the pie attack vs. Ann Coulter. It's the mildest kind of terrorism - near the level of vandalism - but still terrorism. And I condemn it.
   
2. I still don't understand why Friedman was targeted. Evidently it has to do with his bad attitudes about environmental policy. "Greenwashing" so I'm told. Yawn.
   
3. Brown University should prosecute the terrorists to the full extent of the law. They caught one of the schmucks. No joke: Brown should expel the student - for the assault on an invited guest, and for embarrassing the students, faculty, and alumni. If I were Friedman, I would bring suit against the student for assault, public embarrassment, etc.

h/t Yglesias.

Update: If you really want to mock Friedman, read this. (h/t RBC)

Mukasey

I read all over the news and the liberal blogs that the Democrats surrendered again by allowing Mukasey to be Attorney General. See Sunday's Frank Rich, and the NYTimes editorials. Schumer, especially, is criticized for capitulating and blah blah blah.

Alas, this is another case of poor analysis and poor priorities. Read Schumer's op-ed on why he voted for Mukasey. Everything he says is plausible and reasonable. Here's the summary:

1. Chuck Schumer (CS) sympathizes with those who want to reject Mukasey over his bad answers.

2. But Bush has threatened that if Mukasey is rejected, there won't be another nominee. Rather a low-level staffer, who has not gone though Senate review, would be acting attorney general until Bush leaves office:

Should we reject Judge Mukasey, President Bush has said he would install an acting, caretaker attorney general who could serve for the rest of his term without the advice and consent of the Senate. To accept such an unaccountable attorney general, I believe, would be to surrender the department to the extreme ideology of Vice President Dick Cheney and his chief of staff, David Addington. All the work we did to pressure Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign would be undone in a moment.

3. Mukasey has said that if the Senate passes a law to clarify the waterboarding issue, Makesey will abide by it, even against the Unitary Executive horse-manure shoveled by Bush & Co.:

On Friday, he personally made clear to me that if the law were in place, the president would have no legal authority to ignore it — not even under some theory of inherent authority granted by Article II of the Constitution, as Vice President Cheney might argue. Nor would the president be able to evade a clear pronouncement on the subject from the courts. Judge Mukasey also pledged to enforce such a law.

4. Schumer felt that rebuilding the Justice department was far more of a serious issue than the ambiguity about waterboarding, especially given the Senate's ability to clarify issues with an actual law.

Yes, it's terribly disturbing that Mukasey isn't up-front about waterboarding as torture, but is the Senate's job to (a) prevent an otherwise important cabinet officer over that issue or (b) to actually make a law saying that waterboarding is torture. Just to remind you viewers at home, the Senate is part of Congress which - until the GOP took both houses over - is the body that makes the laws that govern the executive branch.

Schumer's points are correct: while torture needs to be rejected (and it's unbelievable that we're even talking about it as ambiguous - thank you Bush voters!) it's WAAAAAAY more important to actually clean up the Justice Department. Why? Because of (a) warrant-less wiretaps and (b) the vote-suppression tactics perpetrated by Karl Christian Rove and Alberto Gonzales.

In fact, any partisan Democrat should want Mukasey over some DOJ hack because until the DOJ is cleaned up, there's no way we can trust our own US elections to be held safely... yet another think we need to thank Bush voters for.

Oh, and why was the vote done so swiftly (midnight Thursday)? According to the TPM it's because Sen. Reid made a deal with the GOP:

According to sources inside and outside the Democratic leadership, Harry Reid allowed a vote on Mukasey because in exchange the Republican leadership agreed to allow a vote on the big Defense Appropriations Bill, which contains $459 billion in military spending but doesn't fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And because the Times and other mush-heads don't understand what Reid did, I'll explain. Mukasey was supposed to be a cake-walk for the GOP. Because of Democratic opposition - which still wasn't enough to prevent his confirmation - Reid was able to pass a bill that funded the military WITHOUT FUNDING THE CRAZY WAR.

Reid triumphed; Schumer chose the lesser of the two evils that have been forced upon us by the scumbag Bush crew. And, yet, the Democrats are blamed for rolling over and playing dead.

Why doesn't the GOP get such bad press for all the crap they do? To be honest, because of the liberal bias in newspapers: the journalists *expect* the GOP to be scumbags.

Gergen is a Liar

David Gergen, adviser to Clinton and 3 other presidents, was interviewed by Foreign Policy about the Midterm elections. And he's a big fat liar.

Oh, I know, why should I expect otherwise from a James Baker style political killer? But it's just good to know that I have proof, that's all.

Here are two doozies (after I read the second one I stopped reading the article because I have always felt that reading idiocy actually physically makes you dumber)

1. "The Republicans ran on a platform of saying they wanted to adjust course in Iraq, but they didn’t say how"

They did? You mean the fact that 3 weeks before the election Bush stopped saying "stay the course" suddenly makes that a platform?? This lie also tips us off that Gergen is currently being paid by the GOP.

2. "What we are seeing in Iraq is not a replay of the Vietnam Syndrome. Rather, it’s a sense that we are engaged in a conflict without an obvious end in sight and [that] things are getting worse. The Vietnam Syndrome argued that we should not commit force again unless our vital interests are clearly at stake. But in Iraq, we did commit our troops to conflict without a clear national interest at stake. It was a war of discretion and yet, the American people supported it." (Emphasis mine)

Yes. Gergie actually said that the American people went along with Iraq despite their feeling it was not vital to our interests. I do agree with DG that anyone who had an iota of sense knew that Bush was lying back in 2003, but the American public supported the war (and the GOP was wholeheartedly claiming up until November 7th) because they felt that Saddam was a DIRECT THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES. Saddam had WMDs, he bought yellow-cake from Niger through Valerie Plame's dentist (or something to that effect), Saddam funded terrorists and may actually have been the real mastermind behind 9/11 (at least according to Tricky Dick Cheney).

So, David Gergen is either stupid (which we know he's not), or lying like a paid political operative. Harumph.

My advice? Don't read anything the dude says in the future - it'll be just like hitting your head with a dumb-hammer.

Cinderella Man

The new movie Cinderella Man, besides being the type of drab treacle Oscar-bait that I avoid both on principle and on the finest medical advice, presents an All-American vision of good and evil that should make Jews shudder.

The titular hero, a nice Christian family-man, is the underdog White Knight in this most recent WHITEwashing of fact to come from Ron Howard. After he simplified "A Beautiful Mind" he did the same erasing with James J. Braddock and in his opponent Max Baer.

Because the "Cinderella Man" is the hero, his life is blocked off into a puritanical dreamvision of rectitude. As such, whomever his opponent would be would be presented in a similar simplistic way. History put Braddock against Max Baer, so Ron Howard had to depict Baer as a stone killer.

As this Slate article points out (Fight Snub - How Cinderella Man sucker punches the Jewish boxer Max Baer. By David Fellerath) and confirmed by the all-knowing Wiki, Baer was nowhere near a villainous type. In fact, Baer publicly flaunted his Jewishness in response to the rise of Hitler (as seen in the photo below) by putting a huge Jewish star on his trunks.

The opposition to Baer's Jewish was explicit in the news stories of the time. Personally - while I cannot bring myself to actually praise a person whose job entailed committing savage violence for money - I can still give Baer a modicum of respect and I can feel it an affront against a significant symbol of American Jewry.

This is yet another proof for my ongoing thesis that movies which deal with historical subjects should be held accountable for their lies. It is NOT benign when they change facts to fit Movie Magic. People get hurt.

Movie Review: Shark Tale (2004)

Rented and saw Dreamworks' Shark Tale (2004). It reminds me of "Matrix Reloaded." Actually, it reminds me of the movie review I wrote for Reloaded (see below) - the critics savaged "Shark Tale" for reasons that I cannot understand.

What's wrong with these people? Have all journalists been taking stupid pills with their whiskey? The older I get, the more I realize how much I need other people to help understand the world yet the more I realize most other people have the minds of dumpsters.

Check out this review from the once reliable Onion A.V. Club:

"the real, uncredited architects are a bunch of kids in the mall: Every single joke, character detail, music montage, and pop-culture reference looks extensively market-tested, whether via screenings, focus groups, or other box-office successes. With dollar signs in its eyes and nothing in its heart, Shark Tale calculates each moment for the broadest appeal, but its impact couldn't be more impersonal. The filmmakers are convinced people will like it because the spreadsheets and pie charts tell them so, not because they've invested it with originality or passion. "

What on earth is he saying? The movie was very smart - the amount of detail that went into the Fish World and the fast, frequent inside jokes that NO kid would understand show that this movie wasn't a cheap knockoff of "Finding Nemo" (a claim almost every review made), e.g. from the Onion: "Shark Tale steals shamelessly from Finding Nemo"

OK, first of all, these animated movies are so long in pre-production that there's really no way they stole from Finding Nemo. Second of all, "Nemo" had almost nothing in common with "Shark" except that they were under water. The movie industry has this weird tendency to put out two movies from two studios on the same theme (e.g. "Volcano" and "Dante's Peak"; "Armaggeddon" and "Deep Impact"; and most relevant for this discussion, "Antz" and "A Bugs Life")

The comparison to Antz/Bugs Life is apt because "Antz" was from Dreamworks and "Bugs" from Disney-Pixar and it was seen as the first stage of the battle of animated giants (which sounds like another good movie idea, by the way). Critics of all brain-capacities have weighed in on which movie was better (or "won") but they are very different films. They are both remakes, "Bugs" of "Magnificent Seven" and "Antz" of "Love and Death" (roughly). But Bugs was G, Antz PG - and that's just the beginning. Antz was adult oriented and had a A-list celebrities parodying their personas in a knowing, mature way. Woody Allen, Anne Bancroft, Danny Glover, Gene Hackman, Jennifer Lopez, Sylvester Stallone, Sharon Stone, Christopher Walken in a plot about betrayal, government genocide, and headless bugs. Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin playing WASPs was funny for me but would fly over the head of a 16 year old. "Bugs" was a cute movie about believing in yourself.

"Finding Nemo" vs. "Shark's Tale" is the same story. Nemo has all B-listers and the protagonist is the irritating Albert Brooks. The theme? Finding yourself (and your son). Actually it has the adult theme of not being as uptight as Brooks and more uptight than the fish Dory. I liked the movie, no doubt, but it's not in the league of "Shark's Tale" for references and easy humor.

How would 'focus group kids' get the trivia? e.g. "When Lenny coughs up the objects on the table, one of them is a license plate with the registration "007 981." This is the same plate found inside the tiger shark in Jaws" or that the fish voiced by Renee Zellwegger responded well when Will Smith's fish nonsensically said "You had me at hello"

Now, if you want to trash focus-group trash, take out "Shrek 2." Yeeeeeeeeugh.

Here We Go With Stage Two

If I ever run for public office, I believe my platform will begin with a public condemnation of PETA. The "animal rights" organization is filled with pernicious wrong-headed views (that would allow me to bash the Left). The newest stage of their lunacy: Fish Rights.

Check it out.

Kerry is what now?

According to the AP wire, Kerry hints White House run in his future. He's hinting that he wants to run in 2008.

I must admire the type of abject idiocy that makes someone think he can prevail in what others would think are hopeless circumstances. However, this ain't that. Didn't Kerry get the memo? He was running against the most hated man since Richard Nixon and HE STILL COULDN'T WIN! It wasn't because there weren't enough Democrats, or "swing voters" or "get out the voters" - it's because he was so profoundly unappealing as a person and 'leader' that more Americans went with the inbred frat-boy thug.

In fact, my rage over Kerry has redoubled with this rumor. How dare he?!?

{2009 Update: French Kerry pic nabbed from a lost part of the interwebs and recreated on my computer - enjoy you image-googlers.}

The Most Liberal Senator

John Kerry is the most liberal senator who ever lived. Who ever *can* live. He is the platonic ideal of liberal and when he dies he'll be buried in the liberal section of the most liberal cemetery. How do we know he's so liberal? Because the National Journal says so.

In a recent story they re-emphasize that Kerry is the most liberal senator out there. Surely so liberal that Bush wasn't lying when he said last night:

"As a matter of fact, your record is such that Ted Kennedy, your colleague, is the conservative senator from Massachusetts."

To prove his point, here's the National Journal article list:

SENATOR (Year First Elected Or Appointed) -- Liberal Score
1. Mark Dayton, D-Minn. (2000) 90.3
2. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md. (1976) 89.4
3. Jack Reed, D-R.I. (1996) 89.3
4. Jon Corzine, D-N.J. (2000) 88.8
5. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. (1962) 88.6
6. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. (1992) 88.5
7. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa (1984) 87.6
8. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. (1996) 87.3
9. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. (1982) 86.2
10. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. (1974) 86.0
11. John Kerry, D-Mass. (1984) 85.7
12. Carl Levin, D-Mich. (1978) 85.5
13. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. (2000) 83.9
14. Patty Murray, D-Wash. (1992) 83.8
14. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich. (2000) 83.8
16. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md. (1986) 82.4
16. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. (1998) 82.4
18. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii (1990) 82.0
19. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. (2000) 81.0
20. Russell Feingold, D-Wis. (1992) 80.0
21. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. (1996) 79.8
22. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. (1980) 78.9
23. Tom Daschle, D-S.D. (1986) 78.8
24. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. (1984) 77.3
25. Joseph Biden, D-Del. (1972) 76.6
25. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii (1962) 76.6
27. John Edwards, D-N.C. (1998) 75.7
30. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. (1992) 70.9
37. Bob Graham, D-Fla. (1986) 64.7
39. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va. (1958) 64.3
40. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. (1988) 64.1
48. Zell Miller, D-Ga. (2000) 35.0

OK, I'll admit, it's scary to think that Hillary is not as left wing as Kerry, but where's Bush and his oafs come off calling him to the right of Ted Kennedy and the most liberal?

It's because when the Republicans are losing, they need to tar the opponent as a liberal. They're like evil smurfs, except with the word "liberal," e.g. "He's so liberal liberal that he'd liberal his own mother."

Another reason why Bushoafs got this wrong was that they read the wrong list. On this page we see that the NJ used a strange ranking "...Is More Conservative Than __% Of The Senate" as opposed to using a voting record. The key to statistics is to understand that they are to reflect reality and mean something.

Life in the Styx, vol. II, no. 38 (Old Styx)

Hello to the Styx,

Beware, Pesach is right around the bend!

MAZEL TOV!

[names redacted to protect the innocent]

FEATURED FEATURES

Gratefully, nothing super extraordinarily evil has been inflicted on Israel in the past few days -- especially since we have become accustomed to such evil -- so I am finally able to compose some good text about recent events. Because while there isn't great evil being done against us in the world-sphere, we take over and start whacking each other. In that vein, I'd like to relate some of the Torah and craziness I have endured in the past few days (not so much since Sunday since I have been struggling to rid myself of an odd Spring flu thang; it's either the flu or I have been simultaneously been tromped on by a drunken hippo and attacked by the Phlegm Monster. Either or, eh?)

NECHAMA LIEBOWITZ

I sent the message out about Nechama Liebowitz Zt'l on Sunday as soon as I saw the news -- which was 5 minutes before I needed to be at minyan, so I was unable to address the sad news with the honor and gravity that such a great sage deserved.

It's too late now to rectify the affront, to add the fancy things I try to reserve for such a figure (double dark lines, etc.), so, even though she publicly requested that there be no public eulogizing (hespedim), I don't feel obligated to honor that. Because, honestly, even though Chazal say that the eulogy enables the Defending Angel to make a better case for you in the heavenly court, a eulogy is mainly for the surviving loved ones. It is we who are comforted by the eulogies; and when it comes to a Torah Great the imperative is even more important since all of us who have read her works, who have lived in the revolutionary wake of her impact on Bible study, need to find some outlet for the shock and grief -- and to spread to the world how much her Torah was valued.

This reminds me of one of the events which happened last Sunday (April 6) -- we had a Hachnasat Sefer Torah in YU in honor of HaRav Dovid Lifshitz Zt'l. I came to late to witness his greatness and tzidkut, but the eulogies delivered at the service made it clear that Rov Dovid was universally known as a tzaddik who exuded tremendous ahavat ha-briot, love for his fellowman; a trait sorely missing from most of the major rabbeim we all seem to hear about.

For those unfamiliar, a Hachnasat Sefer Torah is an installation ceremony to celebrate the writing and completion of a new Torah scroll. It is a joyous occasion where the Torah is danced around and escorted into synagogue.

It is a wonderfully appropriate ritual to employ to honor the memory of a great Torah Sage. Because the honor we attribute to a Sage, the reason why we stand for him is the same reason we stand when a Sefer Torah is present -- because of the honor we bestow to a physical embodiment of Torah. The comment "he's a living Sefer Torah" reflects this honor.

The ceremony in honor of Rov Lifshitz, and the Sefer Torah that was crafted/created to "replace" him (even though he is, duh, irreplaceable) was very inspiring [and this practice of writing a Sefer Torah to honor the passing of a Torah great to whom a community is indebted may solve our -- by which I mean Princeton Yavneh's -- Rabbi Teitz problem. As I discussed last year; R'Pinchas Teitz was the Prometheus of Princeton's Jewish community, it was through his influence and might that there was a Kosher Kitchen at Princeton all the way back in 1960. We had been searching for a proper way to honor him and the best we had come up with was to rename the CJL Beis Medresh for him. But since it was already named after some rich stooge, we were at a loss. Here is a solution. More later]

In any case, during the whole ceremony and dancing for the Rov Lifshitz sefer Torah, I got a hopeful feeling that amidst all of the rancor and degradation that have been swirling within the Jewish polity, some of our core values can still remain intact. Also, it was satisfying to dance a Torah down Amsterdam towards the Beis Medresh with a few hundred YU students and rabbis considering I had slowly walked down Amsterdam in the other direction a few weeks beforehand during the funeral for Rov Romm Zt'l. A measure-for-measure of tragedy and celebration is always good for the soul, even considering that both were honoring the passing of Torah giants.

Which brings me full circle to Nechama Liebowitz. Here she is Torah giant; the honor we give her is not because of her as much as the living Torah personality that she became. We need to honor and spread that Torah fame! I'm sure there is a good chunk of the Styxlist that has not read her work, or have heard of her even. So let me construct a meager eulogy the best I can.

###########################################################################
We mourn the passing of Nechama Liebowitz, who changed the face of Parshanut ha-Mikra for our and future generations. Her expertise was in elucidating the purpose and direction of major commentators, and tying together their positions into a organized instruction; she took parshanut to a new level. She was above all a superb teacher, not only on the personal level, but with her ubiquitous publications (those turquoise and blue books that many received as bar/bas-mitzvah presents) she opened up the tangled meanings of the Torah.

One of her long time students, Dr. Gavriel Cohen, is quoted by Arutz-7 as saying:

"She insisted that the student know not only what Rashi or Ramban [the two premier medieval Bible commentators] said, but she demanded that he struggle with WHY they said what they said, and think about which one seemed more correct. In this way the student became part of the Torah study, 'creating' the commentary himself. This was a totally new method, and she wrote once that this is part of a system where the student 'reproduces' the Torah from his own soul, and in this way becomes one with it. .... She wrote a little booklet on Psalms, in which she wrote that her goal was that the student should not only hear King David singing, but should hear himself within the songs of King David. In this way the Torah would become a true "Living Torah."

###########################################################################

WOMEN'S ISSUES & AGUDAS HA-RABBANIM

How darkly fortuitous that I can use the above subscreed to segue into two crucial topics. Nechama Liebowitz was a crucial figure in the history of the struggle for women's learning. She was so well recognized and respected that her Torah couldn't be hidden or suppressed. This is similar as the Rav -- who while being spurned by the black-hatty world, had to be accepted at least as a premier scholar (of course the same is said about Elisha ben Abuyah, but we won't go into that now).

It is a lesson for any revolutionary figure -- that being The Fastest Gun in the West will often make one chary of fame -- because the notoriety will draw attackers instead of letting the virtuoso sit a practice his/her craft. But with a revolutionary skill of silence, great changes can be wrought.

Part of the current problems in the struggle of Orthodox Jewish feminism is that the votaries and activists are perceived to be both loud and impatient. While the feminists will argue that the impatience comes from long desperation -- who can blame the gasp of air of one who's drowning? -- to the Outside it appears not as sincere desire but greed.

This is of course detrimental to both sides. If both camps are similarly self-righteous then how can they not assume the other side to be guilty of many crimes from insincerity to oppression/insurrection? But I have spent many months analyzing this issue with the personal-ideology that being trained to understand another person's perspective would allow me to penetrate the worldview of both the Feminist and the Charedi camps. All in the hope that were I to understand both sides, I could help both sides understand -- and eventually compromise -- with each other.

Fearfully, I have come to the temporary conclusion that there may be no compromises. The two sides may be in a shooting war.

I did not want to take this space to be my screed on Women & Judaism, so I will end this here; but suffice it to say that I have spent especially the past few weeks in intense study on the subject.

HOW DARE YOU CALL THEM IDIOTS?

The proper segue, though, would be for me to lead from Nechama Liebowitz to the Agudas ha-Rabbanim. L'havdil.

I'm sure many of you sensitive to the issue wondered how I would dare call the Agudas ha-Rabbanim, alias the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of America and Canada, the Union of Orthodox Idiots. Aren't I transgressing the serious rule of Kavod ha-Rav (showing respect and honor to rabbis)?

No.

First of all, let me say that I take Kavod ha-Rav *extremely* seriously. I am a stickler for order and authority -- especially when it is Gdly. But with the same ardor and vigor that I uphold the honor of authority when it is duly earned, I repudiate those who violate the sanctity of their rank and responsibility.

As I set forth clearly above, a Rabbi is only given honor commensurate to the Torah they embody. And, pardon my French, I don't give a rat's ass how much Torah these Agudas Idiots may have learned, how many pages of gemara they packed into their weensie little minds, they do not practice what they have learned. And learning gemara without practicing it, is avoda-zara. How can they blather about Reform and Conservative Jews being anti-Torah when they themselves rolled out the Torah and Gd for use as a public relations latrine?

How many good Jews were lost because of the Agudas ha-Rabbanim? How much rancor, how much hatred, spitting on the name of Gd, did they increase? They should shave off their beards and join Baruch Goldstein with the bastards and apostates. At least *he* may agree with them and their strategy of well timed blasphemy of Gd's Holy Name.

THE MEANING OF IDIOCY

P.S. The term 'idiot' has a very specific meaning to me. I use it to refer to people who may technically be smart, but act with extreme stupidity. That is, a person who believes that they are more intelligent than they actually are, and speaks and acts on this belief, is an idiot. Idiots, ironically, in the Cypess tongue, are most often people that less perceptive people would label 'smart.' But smart people don't shoot prime ministers, do they?

THE HELICOPTER CRASH

There was a tragic helicopter crash in Manhattan on Tuesday. What makes it extraordinarily, and personally, stirring, is that my brother was an eyewitness. His lab in Rockefeller University overlooks the East River and has a great view of the helicopter port. Aaron told me that he was working when he heard his advisor, Dr. Tom Sakmar, utter interjections. Aaron ran to look out the window and saw the chopper pinwheel around in the sky then plummet into the East River. At least this is what he told me over the phone.

Here is part of the New York Times story:

NEW YORK (April 16) -- A corporate executive was killed and three other people were injured when their helicopter crashed into the East River moments after lifting off from the heliport at 60th Street in Manhattan.

Witnesses said the helicopter plunged into the river about 15 feet from shore after the rear rotor flew off the aircraft and lodged in the heliport's one-story terminal.

Police officials said the pilot and co-pilot of the six-seat BK-117 helicopter escaped on their own, but the two passengers were underwater for 10 to 15 minutes before being pulled from the helicopter by police divers. One died, and the other was taken to a hospital in critical condition. [...]

The helicopter had just come from Piscataway, had let off two passengers in Manhattan and was taking off for White Plains, N.Y., about 5:35 p.m. when the accident occurred, said Police Commissioner Howard Safir.

"It rose about 30, 35 feet and it started sparking in the rear," said Jose Collado, a livery-cab driver who was waiting at the heliport for someone to arrive. "You heard cracking in the back and then the helicopter turned and went into the water." [...]

By the time police divers arrived, the pilot and co-pilot had got out of the helicopter, but the two passengers were stuck inside the helicopter in the darkness of 35 feet of water.

"We couldn't see anything," said Police Officer John Drzal, a member of the police scuba team that came to the scene from Floyd Bennett Field. "It was black."

The officers said they searched for an opening in the helicopter, broke the door off its hinges and pulled out the two unconscious passengers.

The passengers were taken to New York Hospital, where one was pronounced dead on arrival. The other was listed in critical condition. The helicopter's crew members were listed in stable condition. Police did not release the names of the victims because their families had not been notified. [...]

STYX:

After I downloaded the story from the Times online and included the transcript in the Styx, my brother filed this eyewitness report. The "Tom," mentioned is Dr. Sakmar who runs [his] lab (and is not a PhD, but one o'dem research MDs).

[Styx],

I got your message about the copter crash, but here's some more material that actually may never get reported:

At 5:30 a blue and white helicopter began to take off from the 60th street heliport along the East River. From Tom's office, I heard him yell (I don't remember exactly what he said--it was a measure of disgust and alarm). I stood up to see the copter spinning. At that point, the tail hit the building and the copter went into the water. It dropped immediately, from about 10 feet above the river. At 5:35.

My immediate reaction was, "I didn't catch all of that--let me see the replay." And I was hit with the extreme discomfort of the realization that this was REAL. We had a good view, and a pair of binoculars. The entire lab started to watch.

....Except Tom. He grabbed on his leather jacket, ran outside, across the pedestrian bridge, and entered the heliport. He disappeared behind the building, and we couldn't see him for the rest of the time.

Meanwhile, the police, fire, and coast guard all converged on the scene. News helicopters started to set up above the scene and film the events. Soon, a police helicopter arrived, flying UNDER the Queensboro Bridge and over the site of the catastrophe. Two divers jumped out and started to search for the submerged copter. By now, though, it was fifteen to twenty minutes after the copter sank. Being in medicine, we knew that it was too long for anyone still inside to survive. The probably was no air...the water was not cold enough....

But Tom had actually found something to do. As he arrived on the scene, he noticed the EMS people attending to one person, who was the copilot. He had escaped before the copter sank. Nearby was another man, lying face down on the ground, blue in the face. It was the pilot, who also escaped. But nobody was helping the pilot! All of these cops and fireman were beginning to stand around, but the EMS guys were opening and closing bags, looking for things. Well, it'd been over 10 years since he worked the trauma wings at Massachusetts General, but he knew what to do. He started to resuscitate the pilot, who had a pulse, it turned out. After some assistance, they got the pilot into an ambulance and headed up the ramp to York Avenue. There was confusion on the ramp, with cars heading down and up, so Tom told the EMS guy to clear the way. Shortly afterward they arrived at the New York Hospital emergency room, where Tom gave his report to the doctors, and answered a police statement. He then came back to lab.

All in a day's work.

STYX:

Now THAT's job satisfaction!

Wow. Hats off to doctors! And to all of you stalwarts still in Med school, I assume this is why you are slaving away for years, in order to be able to be the right person at the right time. To be a quotidian superman. In this vein, all other professions seem pale; I doubt that in my rounds as a rabbi I will ever have the life-or-death ability or impact ("Rabbi saves woman's chicken from being treife, news at 11.").

That's all for now. I'll hopefully get to write the R'Lamm - R'Rosensweig - R'Lichtenstein - D'Letterman stuff up before the end of the week.

bye now