6 Degress of Larry Craig

In addition to being a 'tearoom cruiser' (I now know more about this stuff than I ever thought it healthy t do), Senator Craig is/was a member of The Singing Senators - a quartet of Republican crooners: (1) John Ashcroft (R-MO) Baritone, (2) Larry Craig (R-ID) - Lead, (3) James Jeffords (R-VT) - Tenor, (4) Trent Lott (R-MS) - Bass.

Now, I am not saying there's anything wrong with being the lead in a male a-capella group. I'm certainly not saying it's in any way gay.

The Wiki explains the origin:

"In 1995, at New Hampshire Senator Bob Smith's birthday party, Ashcroft, Jeffords, Lott, and Connie Mack of Florida sang 'Happy Birthday.' Later, when Senator Bob Packwood of Oregon was having a birthday party, Jeffords called Lott and suggested that the four of them sing at the party. Mack declined, but Larry Craig joined. "

How nice of Larry to join! And all for Bob "Mr. Morals" Packwood. If anything, this explains that Larry has some important friends (e.g. Lott has so far been holding off from calling for his resignation).

The funny thing about the GOP is that they want him to resign for his sin of being gay; I would want him to resign because, uh, he was arrested (and plead guilty) for public lewdness.

I read on some blog that we should feel compassion for Craig. I guess because he's embarrassed. OK. Sure. But our standards are pretty low if we have such compassion for a ranking Senator who was arrested in a public bathroom.

We should have compassion for the victims of Katrina - many of whom have still been left homeless two years after Bush's Hurricane. Give them sympathy, give Craig ridicule.

New Pringles

OK, I realize this is meaningless, but recently I performed a taste test of three of the new, kosher, 'reduced fat' pringle flavors: (1) Sweet Mesquite Barbecue, (2) Tomato Mozzarella, (3) Savory Cheddar (the last two are OU-D).

(1) Sweet Mesquite Barbecue - this title is marketspeak for just plain ol' Barbecue. The 'sweet mesquite' may explain why barbecue potato chips of all prices, sizes and sophistication taste the same and taste nothing like actual barbecue. Why not call them Orange flavor? That's the color they all sport and the taste is much more similar to the round fruit than to grilled meat.

That said, a low-fat pringle BBQ chip isn't a bad thing to have around. Good with hot-dogs.

(2) Tomato Mozzarella - These are nasty. It's hard to imagine why anyone would want to eat a chip that tastes - strongly - like a sweet tomato. I'm getting a taste-headache just thinking about it. This has been a popular taste option outside the US (I remember eating tomato chips in England back in 1981) and that's probably why Pringles wanted to introduce them into the US: doubtless because there's a massive stockpile of 'tomato flavor' somewhere in Mexico that Procter & Gamble bought sight-unseen and now they need to unload it on unsuspecting fat people.

(3) Savory Cheddar - another marketing title. The first few chips didn't taste any different from a regular pringle but I realize now that was because of 'package settling' or somesuch. This is the best of the new flavors because each chip is (or should be) sprinkled with the orange "cheeze" substance they put on The Doodles. It's still not as good as eating an actual doodle, but ya take what you can get in my snacking world.

The Travesty of Justice

TPM's Paul Kiel gives a rundown of who has resigned at the Dept. of Justice recently. The following is my editing of his data:

1. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, 8/27/07.
   
2. Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, 5/14/07.
   
3. Acting Assoc. AG, William Mercer (the Dept. #3), withdrawing from the nomination 6/22/07
   
4. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales' chief of staff, 3/13/07.
   
5. Department White House liaison, Monica Goodling, 4/6/07
   
6. Michael Elston, McNulty's chief of staff, 6/15/07
   
7. Executive Director of the Executive Office of United States Attorneys Michael Battle, mid-February.
   
8. Bradley Schlozman, an attorney in the Counsel to the Director staff at the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, formerly the U.S. attorney for Kansas City and a former acting assistant attorney for the Civil Rights Division, mid August.
   
9. Assistant AG for the Civil Rights Division Wan Kim, 8/23/07
   

To recap: The AG, his chief of staff, his 2 senior deputies, and other heads of offices. Resigned. Their families must have been lonely, eh?

While the morons of the world still think that the Attorney Scandal is just an 'overblown personnel matter' - and it's not - the scandal did reveal that the DOJ is filled to the gorge with incompetents, blind ideologues, and scoundrels.

It's hard to explain to the detached American voting public - whose brains seem stuck on an endless TiVo loop of monkeys in clown suits - that this is a bad thing. But the department of Justice is important. More important than American Idol and Paris Freakin' Hilton, if you can imagine.

NYTimes Editorial about Gonzales

I hate to admit it, but they wrote a durn fine editorial. The choice quotes:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has finally done something important to advance the cause of justice. He has resigned. But his departure alone cannot remove the dark cloud that hangs over the Justice Department. President Bush needs to choose a new attorney general of unquestioned integrity who would work to make the department worthy of its name again — and provide the mandate to do it. Congress needs to continue to investigate the many scandals Mr. Gonzales leaves behind.

When Mr. Gonzales was appointed, it seemed doubtful that he would be able to put aside his years as Mr. Bush’s personal lawyer, which stretched back to the Texas governor’s office, and represent the interests of the American people. He never did.

In many ways, Mr. Gonzales turned out to be the ultimate “loyal Bushie,” a term his Justice Department chief-of-staff used so incredibly inappropriately to describe what his department was looking for in its top prosecutors.

It was just that kind of craven politics — the desire to co-opt the power of the government to win elections — that was the driving force in Mr. Gonzales’s Justice Department. Dedicated and capable United States attorneys were fired for insisting on doing their jobs with integrity — for refusing to put people in jail, or shield them from prosecution, simply to help Republicans win elections. Lawyers were hired for nonpolitical jobs based on party enrollment and campaign contributions, and top members of Mr. Gonzales’s staff attended pre-election political briefings at the White House led by Karl Rove and his aides.

[snip]

There was a more basic problem with Mr. Gonzales’ tenure: he did not stand up for the Constitution and the rule of law, as an attorney general must. This administration has illegally spied on Americans, detained suspects indefinitely as “enemy combatants,” run roughshod over the Geneva Conventions, violated the Hatch Act prohibitions on injecting politics into government and defied Congressional subpoenas. In each case, Mr. Gonzales gave every indication of being on the side of the lawbreakers, not the law.

Mr. Gonzales signed off on the administration’s repugnant, and disastrous, torture policy when he was the White House counsel. He later helped stampede Congress into passing the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which endorsed illegal C.I.A. prisons where detainees may be tortured and established kangaroo courts in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to keep detained foreigners in custody essentially for life. He helped cover up and perpetuate Mr. Bush’s illegal wiretapping programs, both in the counsel’s job and as attorney general. The F.B.I. under his stewardship abused powers it was given after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the name of enhanced national security.

Mr. Gonzales will hardly be a tough act to follow, but the standard for the next attorney general should not be set that low.

[snip]

The next attorney general will have two critical tasks. First, he or she must get to the bottom of the scandals hovering over the department. Mr. Gonzales played defense, as if it were Congress’s job to discover what laws his department may have broken, and his job to thwart it. The next attorney general should appoint a credible, independent investigator to look into the prosecutors’ firings and likely Hatch Act violations and make clear that the investigation will be permitted to follow the facts where they lead — including, as appears likely, to the White House.

[snip]

Mr. Gonzales, for all of his undeniable deficiencies, merely reflected the principles of this administration. His resignation is a necessary but hardly sufficient step in restoring the nation’s commitment to the rule of law.

Gonzales & Rove

So Gonzales has tendered his resignation. It's a surprise. But it shouldn't be. It's a surprise because - like with Rove's resignation - it's both the smart and moral thing to do. And Bush doesn't do smart and moral. It's that simple.

More later.

Blog, Wiki, and Youtube

I forget if I've made this point before but my resumption of intermittant blogging has reminded me of the interplay of these three devices: Blogs, Wikipedia and Youtube. All three are democratic: anyone can create a blog/edit wiki/upload a pic. Blogs allow the most freedom of expression (content can be cheezily G rated or nasty nasty nasty). And when I blog I usually keep two windows (tabs) open on my browser to allow easy referencing access: Wiki for words and Youtube for images/movies.

We'll see how many of these devices are around in 5, 10, 50 years. I have a feeling that all three will grow stronger and more present as long as we continue to be free. They may not have the same names, but the media form will be around.

Cheney in 1994

Many people are linking to this clip of an April 15 1994 American Enterprise Institute interview with then ex-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney about what a war in Iraq would wreak.


Editor and Publisher, gives this transcript (but you should also see the clip if you have not done so):

Q: Do you think the U.S., or U.N. forces, should have moved into Baghdad?

A: No.

Q: Why not?

A: Because if we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.

Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it -- eastern Iraq -- the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.

It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.

The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their families -- it wasn't a cheap war. And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?

Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right.

Analysis
People have wondered - what could have happened to Cheney. If he was 100% correct back then, why was he a moron now? Some have suggested that he changed; either 9/11 profoundly shook up his mental state, making bold irrational moves seem acceptable, or its a physical change - parts of his brain have been destroyed through micro-strokes.

Both answers are possible but I think overstate the case. I don't think he has changed at all. His speech pattern is the same in 1994 as it was in the 2000/2004 VP debates and this great interview from Nov 4 1976 when he was Chief of Staff to Pres. Ford and was beaten by (gag) Jim E. Carter.



I claim that Cheney, the unhinged greed-hound hasn't changed at all. What changed from 1994 and 2000-2007 are two things:

1. In 1994 he was defending a decision he already had made. He was trying to explain the war policies of his employer, Bush Sr. That administration didn't go into Iraq, so he'll do his Cheney Act - using his calm, reasonable, authoritative voice and his steadfast gaze - to defend his behavior as the only smart rational thing to do. I believe that had Bush Sr. decided to attack Iraq then Cheney would say the same things he's saying today.

2. However, one still needs to ask why Bush Sr. didn't go into Iraq and why Cheney in 1994 was saying things that we now know are correct. My theory is that the fact that Bush Sr. was a major loser (proof: Quayle), his war staff was obviously talented. The decision to not go into Iraq was probably made by smart people (like Powell) and Bush Sr. listened to them (possibly, also, since he himself had been in a war he didn't think it was all playtime cowboys and Indians unlike his draft-dodger son). Cheney was the same but the rationale was being provided by someone else.

As we know, nobody has made Bush Sr. look quite as good as his reprobate loser son George Jr. This is the opposite of effective parenting; my job is to make sure my kids have a better life than I have had. The Bushes take the other parenting view, I guess.

Cheney could very well have not been in charge of decisions back in 1991. Either that or his crackpot idiocy was being routinely shot down by smarter people. Or even that Bush Sr. was not quite as much a milquetoast pushover as his son. Or even that almost every human in history has more of an interest in what is done in his name than George W. Bush. He seems to allow the most horrible things to be done in his name whether it's torturing American citizens or shotgunning puppies.

In any case, Cheney hasn't changed. He's always defending his behavior: in 1976 it was to make Ford look good, in 1994 Bush Sr, and 2000-2007 Bush Jr.

Because Shotgunning Puppies Takes Too Long

That's the answer to the question: Why does the Bush Administration persist in trying to take money away from a federal program to give poor children health insurance.

I mean, we cynics joke about how all politicians need to claim that they support mom, family, baseball, etc. But here we have a case of a president who actually hates children and wants them to die.

Sick.

Rules May Limit Health Program Aiding Children - New York Times:

"The Bush administration, continuing its fight to stop states from expanding the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, has adopted new standards that would make it much more difficult for New York, California and others to extend coverage to children in middle-income families."

Aug 21 Update

I just saw this Aug 5 Tom Toles editorial cartoon that carries my point well.

Block Picture Game

Like any good cheapskate, I enjoy off-beat mail order catalogues. The big mama of the recent catalog craze is Harriet Carter. My wife will, until my dying day tell the story of how I purchased the toilet-paper tube tower from HC. Ya see, it looked pretty good in the catalog, and one of the worst human fears (as categorized by Carl Jung in 1912) is the Fear of Running Out of Toilet Paper. The tower, as I figured it, would provide a stopgap of toilet paper in the event of a sudden empty roll. I'd link to the item in question, but thankfully they no longer make it. When it arrived in the mail, we saw that it was a cheap piece of wobbily plastic that was actually too small in diameter to fit an ordinary roll of toilet paper. Hence why I will never live that item down.

Ahem. Now, even after that disaster, whose lesson I affirmed to learn from well, I decided that while they may botch up bathroom accessories surely Harriet could be trusted when it comes to children's toys! Hence, my purchase of The Personalized Letter Blocks.

Note that this actually turned out to be a pretty good gift. The picture of the gift, is pretty accurate. And my son enjoys them. However, only four of the surfaces have shiny color letters. Another two surfaces have letters etched onto the wood (in 'black and white' as it were). And the last two surfaces have whimsical child-friendly pictures of items that children like. Like cars, or boats, or birds.

However, a few of the pictures are completely goofy. I have no idea what the pictures are to represent. First of all, after the blocks arrived, I discovered that they were manufactured in China. Naturally this means that we have since disposed of them along with any other brightly colored toy from China in our possession (which means our kids play with the only things that are left: dried up food).

So in puzzling out the meaning of these mysterious glyphs, I hypothesize that they must represent playful items that a Chinese slave laborer would imagine an American child would find interesting. You take a look and tell me what you think these are.


Best Guesses:
1. Flower (sorry, it's upside down; note, I think it's a Chrysanthemum)
2. Boat (festooned with military equipment)
3. Duck (OK)
4. Candles (why?)

OK, those were relatively normal. Now try these:

Best Guesses:
1. hovercraft? monorail? electric shaver?
2. ski-lift? Roosevelt Island?
3. trained seal swallowing a dodgeball?
4. a small house with a big chimney? a bong?

Have fun.


Backpost began 4/18/07 and finished 8/10/07, but I really should just label all backposts April 20. Anyway, I just had the pictures.

More Like the Flops

Two other websites that deal with bad movies from a smart perspective:

1. Jabootu's Bad Movie Dimension


2. And You Call Yourself a Scientist

Both are good reads but not as astute, or redemptive, as Rabin's stuff.

Flops Update: Schnitzie Pretzelpants

Seriously, Nathan Rabin's blog "My Year in Flops" is one of the best things on the internet. It's so good that even the comments section is readable. Anyway, his review of Exorcist II by my man John 'Zardoz' Boorman has this awesome paragraph:

Perhaps the film’s central miscalculation, beyond not making much sense and being crazier than 2Pac in that flick called Juice, is expecting audiences to fear a villain named 'Pazuzu'. Now Pazuzu is an actual figure from Assyrian and Babylonian mythology and figures prominently in Blatty’s novel, but that doesn’t make his name any less ridiculous. No matter how scary the film makes him out to be, 'Pazuzu' still sounds like a zany sound effect a slide whistle might make or a baggy-pants vaudevillian’s catchphrase. How frightening would Silence of the Lambs be if Hannibal Lector’s name was changed to Schnitzie Pretzelpants? "

And then there's this from his review of Harvard Man:

28-year-old philosophy professor Joey Lauren Adams, who lectures hilariously about Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard in a bored, flat, disconnected baby-doll high-pitched monotone that suggests she learned the script phonetically.

Wa-hoo. Its especially funny when you know who she is.

And, to emphasize how good the comments are, one dude wrote in about another bad movie:

Fellini's Satyricon is like a bad acid trip. You go from, "this is kinda cool" to "is this ever gonna stop?" to "My God, this IS never going to stop, and I'm going to die like this."

Songs to Wear Pants To

Andew Sullivan recommended Songs to Wear Pans To - a guy who pledges to make any song, in any form with any lyrics as a way of drumming up his business as a songwriter. There are some great novelties here.

I read about this site (at the original post date of this entry, 4-23-2007, 4:44 pm) but sadly forgot about it until now... which obviated my desire to hire this guy to make a song for my musicologist wife who recently finished her PhD. Lets see if I can get it done in time for her birthday...

{2009 Update: pants picture not of the website. It's just a pair of pants.}

About Barry Bonds

Barry Bonds beats Hank Aaron's record. Like I care that much.

But, if Hank Aaron gave his bracha [by congratulating Bonds with a pre-recorded message], and if Bonds' godfather - Willie Freakin' Mays - is standing right next to him, I think we can say that Barry is accepted by his heroes and peers and all the wussoid sportswriters and assorted bellyachers should shut up.

I guess I view Sports the same way I view Halacha: if the gedolim say it's fine, then it's fine.

Backpost finished 9/7/07. Pic from August 8th, 2009 from here.

Last Year at This Time

As I wrote below about being on vacation, I'm currently at my parents' home in Maryland. We come here for vacation so my mom can take care of our kids while my wife and I try to relax. My mom is the only one who has the same energy level as my eldest, so it's a good match.

This year has a totally different feel from 2006. Besides the obvious facet of our having a whole 'nother child along (which makes the adult to kid ratio inadequate for a full bore relaxation), I see from this computer (and from the blog template) what I was fixated on 12 months ago: 1. the second Lebanon war, 2. the Connecticut primary battle.

I would not have predicted 12 months ago that the Lebanon war would go so badly or that once it had been botched that Olmert would still be in power. Nor would I have predicted that after his November win Lieberman would become a hackneyed quasi-Republican stooge. A few comments:

Olmert

Israel - because it's constantly hanging on the lip of doom - is supposed to take leadership quality much more seriously than we do here. Possibly that holds only for their military and not politicians (and that's possibly the opposite structure in America). The US military could be staffed by high level morons and we regular citizens wouldn't even know until the Russkis/Red Chinese/Cubans have conquered the Midwest. The military just has very little to do with everyday life and the protective redundancy built into our 'Homeland Security' means that we just don't pay attention. But our politicians are constantly in our eyesight - probably because we have so many of them and because we insist on constant elections.

Israel seems the opposite. Their military is integral to the citizenry. Everyone serves (except the ultra-orthodox and anti-Israel Arabs... an interesting set of bedfellows). The military is everywhere and is constantly being tested for its efficiency. If something is broke in the military it will swiftly be fixed because the stakes are so high, the scrutiny is so high, and the participation is so high.

The Israeli political class, however, appears to be held in purposeful contempt. Government doesn't really work in Israel; it's a parliamentary system that has infrequent elections and no direct representation. Taxes are very high but to get anything done you need to use corruption - bribery or nepotism. As such, the politicians in Israel seem to be universally corrupt, contemptuous, and negligible.

Cases in point: (1) Olmert botched a war and is still in power, (2) Chaim Ramon sexually assaulted a soldier and is now deputy prime minister, (3) Peres, second in command during the War is now president.

However, the only politician that may be held to the same high standard as the military is the Defense Secretary. Cases in point: (1) Halutz, army head during Lebanon, is gone; (2) Amir Peretz, defense secretary, is gone; (3) Ehud Barak, despite being a disgraced failure of a PM, is still a talented general and so he was promoted to head of Labor and made Defense Secretary.

Under this analysis, it all makes sense. Olmert is still PM because Israelis don't consider it an all that important job; theoretically if Halutz hadn't resigned, then he would have been forced to.

The other component of Olmert's eerie longevity is that he's probably a stupendous political infighter. How else to explain how he managed to be number 2 in Kadima, the next prime minister after Sharon's incapacitation, still PM after a fiasco *plus* getting his favored candidates as President (Peres, who beat both Labor and Likud candidates and who had never before won an election), head of Labor (Barak, as opposed to Ayalon who pledged to bring Olmert down), and keep convicted pervert Ramon in government (*and* promote him). These are extraordinary political accomplishments and make me frightened of Olmert’s abilities.

Yet, despite all that I took down a picture of me and Olmert from my office wall… maybe I’ll put it back up if he manages to liberate Shalit, Regev and Goldvasser.

Lieberman

This is a more mundane story. Joe started to go wacky before Lamont threatened him. I believe the loss of his mother – who I’ve been told acted as his moral and political gyroscope – made Lieberman do all these politically stupid things. I also think that had the Democrats not tried to throw Joe under a bus last August, he’d be less likely now to betray his party principals. It is said that people suffer a loss of loyalty when their employer unsuccessfully tries to fire them. So too with Joe.

It’s still sad to see a man of integrity defend this criminal presidency. Isn’t it ironic that the two men people considered party mavericks - McCain and Lieberman – have destroyed their public integrity by their staunch support of a detested president and a bald fiasco of a war?

If I figure out how that happened, I will learn a great secret of life.

{2009 Update: cool Lebanon map from Debka. Lieberman doggie pic from here.}

Carter UFO Report

I'm on vacation and I've decided to spend a few in between moments trying to clean out the 'drafts' section on the blog. That said, the computer I'm using for this housecleaning is a seized-up laptop. I hate laptops, and while I appreciate the mobility, the lack of a mouse is driving me buggy. Even an external mouse doesn't eliminate the stiff 'mousepad' that is directly in path of my typin' hands - making for unintended button clicking (e.g. like the one that sent this post to be published long before I had intended it to.)

The following is from a number of months ago.

Evidently, in 1969 Jimmy C saw a UFO. And he filed a report. Yup. He was a full bore loony-toony way before he became president. Check it out: Carter UFO Report

Great Reading: My Year of Flops

In the past three or four years the number of must read websites has exploded (at least for me). Sometimes I'll stumble upon a series that eerily meets my interests with such focus that I need to absorb the whole corpus. The latest in that string of 'must reads' is Nathan Rabin's Onion AV Club column: "My Year of Flops"

Best Movie Lines Ever

Andrew Sullivan is compiling a list of nominations for "Best. Movie. Line. Ever." - putting up an embedded YouTube clip and the line recommendation. After all the nominations are in, the readers will get to vote. Some of the suggestions are pretty staid (e.g. "Plastics" from The Graduate; yawn).

Here's the list I sent him this morning with some of my recommendations:

1. The first intro to Bond (Dr. No).

JB: "I admire your courage, Miss...?"
ST: "Trench. Syliva Trench. I admire your luck Mr...."
JB: "Bond. James Bond."

Note, the iconic line that actually made sense in context the first time around (not so in most of the subsequent uses).

2. Big Trouble in Little China:

1. "It's all in the reflexes" (At 1:53 at above clip.)
   
2. "Son of a b*tch must pay"
   
3. "I was born ready"
   
4. My favorite line (and my life's motto): "Hey, I'm a reasonable guy. But I've just experienced some very unreasonable things."
   
5. Also, check out his odd project, some dude bothered to make a South Park version:
   part 1, part 2, part 3

3. Army of Darkness

1. "Well, hello Mr. Fancy Pants. I got news for you pal, you ain't leading but two things right now: Jack and S**t. And Jack left town."
   
2. "All right you primitive screwheads listen up. See this? This. Is. My. BOOMSTICK."
   
3. "First you want to kill me, now you want to kiss me? [Spits grape pit] Blow."
   
4. "It's a trick. Get an axe"
   
5. "Yo, she-b*tch [loads rifle] Let's go"
   
6. "Groovy"
   
7. "Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun".
   
8. The whole end scene, but here are the choice lines:
   1. Demon: "Who the hell are you?"
      Ash: "Names Ash. [cocks rifle] Housewares."
      
   2. Demon: "I'll swallow your soul!"
      Ash: "Come get some."
      
   3. "Hail to the King Baby"

4. Fletch

1. "can I borrow your towel for a second, my car just hit a water buffalo"
   
2. them: "Muchas Gracias!"
   Fletch: "Tierra del Fuego"
   
3. "There's been a lot of changes in the law"
   
4. 8:48: "The coroner had certified Stanwyk as dead... or extremely sleepy"

In retrospect, many are funny mainly in context, but as an unrepentant Fletchophile, I cannot but offer them
[end letter]

We'll see how many he posts/accepts.

{2009 Update: He used none of them. Boor.}

Credit

Unlike TPM, Andrew Sullivan does not seem to acknowledge his contributors by name/initials. Such is life. In any case, I feel gratified that he used a link I sent him. See The Shining as a Romantic Comedy.



P.S. The song at the end, "Solsbury Hill" by Peter Gabirel, is one of the best songs ever made in the history of the Universe. Just sayin'...

Muslim Humor, Nasrudin

This is a letter I sent to Sullivan, in response to some weird jingo, where he posited that Muslims have no sense of humor (mainly because he, a Oxbridge educated Pom didn't know of any). As usual, he did nothing with it. No follow up, nothing.

Sure there's Muslim humor. For example, see the stories of Nasrudin. My favorite, and I should emphasize I'm an Orthodox Rabbi and I find these stories capable of being universally applied to all clergy:

Ignore the Braying
A neighbor comes to Nasreddin Hoja.
"Would you lend me your donkey today, Hoja?" the neighbor asks, "I have goods to transport to the next town."
The Hoja answers: "I'm sorry, but I've already lent her to somebody else."
Suddenly the donkey is heard braying loudly behind a wall.
"You lied to me, Hoja!" the neighbor exclaims, "There is the donkey!"
"What do you mean?" the Hoja replies indignantly, "Whom would you rather believe, a donkey or your Hoja?"

All the best, JC

My wife knows not to start me on reading Nasrudin humor (which I discovered after reading reams of quote books and signature files in the early internet days. Great stuff Nasrudin. It shows that the Muslims who the rest of the world will most likely appreciate the most are the Sufis.

Pic from here. Backpost finished on 2009-11-29.

Circumcision Letter to Sullivan

[Background: Andrew Sullivan thinks circumcision is just awful. He calls it MGM - Male Genital Mutilation. I don't know if there's a broader connection between his antipathy and his being a gay European - America circumcises all male babies as a matter of course and gay men probably venerate that organ more than others do. Whatever the reasoning, I don't like his position and wrote him this letter, to which he has not responded, neither to me personally or on his blog. Score another against him.]

Dear Andrew,

I've been reading your blog steadily for a few years now (and even subscribed to the print Atlantic because I was impressed that a magazine would the guts to have both you and Yglesias as bloggers) and I enjoy reading your perspective, especially because I do not agree with much of it.

It's in this context that I wish to comment about your on-and-off again criticism of circumcision. I am an Orthodox Rabbi and whenever I read a particularly intense post of yours attacking circumcision, I get a chill of fear. In Jewish history and tradition, to attack circumcision is to attack the heart of Judaism. It is the symbol of the Jewish male because it is the symbol of the covenant of Abraham.

(These articles, one from the Jewish Encyclopedia and another from the Christian Easton's Bible Dictionary give a good overview).

Naturally, I'm not positing that it's off-limits to criticize Judaism; Jewish law very well may be antagonistic to many of the things you hold dear. The fear I feel is from the historical linkage between those who attack Jewish practice and anti-Jewish violence. Some of the anti-Jewish edicts have been or are against kosher slaughter (cf. the Nazis) but traditional Jewish education emphasizes that our enemies have taken a special target
against circumcision.

For example, the holiday of Hanukkah (your mate Chris Hitchens' favorite, or so I'm told), is based on the rebellion against an evil government that prohibited circumcision:

From the Jewish Encyclopedia about "Antiochus":

"[Antiochus'] royal decree proclaimed the abolition of the Jewish mode of worship; Sabbaths and festivals were not to be observed; circumcision was not to be performed; the sacred books were to be surrendered and the Jews were compelled to offer sacrifices to the idols that had been erected. The officers charged with carrying out these commands did so with great rigor; a veritable inquisition was established with monthly sessions for investigation. The possession of a sacred book or the performance of the rite of circumcision was punished with death. "

The Hadrianic persecutions, of those fun-loving crucifixion happy Romans,
also forbade circumcision:

'Circumcision is one of the commandments which, having been accepted with joy, are ever obeyed with joy, and, because the people gave their lives for them, are observed with steadfast loyalty" (R. Simeon b. Eleazar, in [the Talmud]). This refers to the martyrdom which the Jewish people underwent during the Hadrianic persecution, which was especially directed against circumcision."

A modern enemy of circumcision was the Soviet Union
(see this page from an organization trying to reverse that history) - as part of their assault on religion, I would suppose.

Circumcision is thus both part of Jewish identity, a symbol of our commitment to God and a litmus test for a government's tolerance of freedom of religion and of Judaism.

Note, I don't think criticism of circumcision is invalid. Jewish law dictates that the life of the child comes before circumcision. For an example from my rabbinate: a congregant's child, born three weeks ago, has a medical condition and can't undergo circumcision until the doctors say the procedure will be risk free - which may be never. The circumcisions you are decrying are, for the most part, against Jewish law. As such, I agree with you that circumcision, were it to be done in a way that risks a boy's life, is evil.

Yet when you get into the deeper ideologies against circumcision you need to know about which alarm bells you are inadvertently ringing. For me, I hear the alarm bells of the Greek persecution, the Roman slaughter, and the Soviet Union.

And just as being anti-Zionist does not make someone anti-Semitic; the anti-Zionists who are *not* anti-Semitic need to know that they share odious company. So too with those who oppose circumcision: there may be good reasons to do so but you need to work hard to make sure you're not lumped in with the wicked historical bedfellows.

Thank you for all the work you do on your blog
All the best,
The Styx

P.S. Two professional mohelim (circumcision rabbis) who may be effective in answering questions you have about how a proper, healthy, circumcision is done are Rabbi Phil Sherman and Rabbi Pinchas Katzenstein

Sept 7 Postscript: The boy mentioned in my letter will, BE"H, have his bris this Sunday.

2009 Update, picture is a sculpture of Hadrian killing a Jew, according to here. Backpost finished 9/7/07.

The Last Sopranos

I was an avid watcher of the Sopranos until the last season. The show peaked, unfortunately, with the death of Nancy Marchand as Tony's mother. The interplay between Tony and his fascinating mother was the intended center of the show and when the actress met her tragic end, the show was actually rudderless. But I still watched, gamely, for two more seasons but the experience was getting too uncomfortable to stand. Basically, after watching a few minutes, I felt dirty and disturbed. It's testimony to the quality of the storytelling, true, but I didn't need to subject myself to it.

David Chase, admitted many times that he began to hate Tony Soprano, and the people who in turn liked the character. So Chase began to ramp up the disgust and the violence - daring the audience to go through a sewer, in a way, to keep watching. I didn't know this explicitly, but I felt it, and I stopped watching for that reason.

All that said, I didn't get to see the last episode. But I read about it, including a detailed blow by blow on a few websites, so I felt I knew what happened and what Chase was doing. And my theory is that the blackout ending meant this: (a) it showed Chase's fundamental contempt of the audience that he began hating a few years earlier, (b) that Chase intended there to be a recognized stasis for Tony's character (see #a)

These guys from Slate had a great discussion about the show and this guy gets it. Also, someone pointed out a key line in the interview Chase gave to the Newark Star-Ledger the day after the finale (key part):

Some fans have already assumed that the ambiguous ending was Chase setting up the oft-rumored "Sopranos" movie, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards.
"I don't think about (a movie) much," he says. "I never say never. An idea could pop into my head where I would go, 'Wow, that would make a great movie,' but I doubt it.

"I'm not being coy," he adds. "If something appeared that really made a good 'Sopranos' movie and you could invest in it and everybody else wanted to do it, I would do it. But I think we've kind of said it and done it."

Another problem: over the last season, Chase killed so many key characters. He's toyed with the idea of "going back to a day in 2006 that you didn't see, but then (Tony's children) would be older than they were then and you would know that Tony doesn't get killed. It's got problems." (Emphasis mine)

From this it seems most likely that Chase meant it to be ambiguous, that we are supposed to not know if he was killed or not but the possibility is there.

Backpost finished 2009-12-10.

The Oniono-Simpson Nexus

Further proof about my claim, made here, about the current humor landscape, this Onion story shows that it is a child of the Simpsons:

Carter Blasts Bush's Foreign Policy

In an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, former President Jimmy Carter referred to the Bush administration's foreign policy as the "worst in history." What do you think?

Ty Burton, Printmaker

"International relations? I have said this before about Carter, and I will say it again: nerd."

Backpost finished 2009-11-29.

Proof the Onion is Written by Me and My Brother

My brother and I, both born in the very early 70s, have known for a while that the major humor outlets of today - The Simpsons, The Daily Show and The Onion - are all written by our contemporaries/clones. Just like when the Baby Boomers dominated culture for decades - bequeathing us narcissitic neo-Hippie trash for years - now it's my generations' time (thus giving lightning rounds of pop-culture irony). The following Onion story is the final proof I need to show that, indeed, the Onion has been unwittingly albeit happily written by the two of us:

Iran, U.S. Hold Bilateral Talks
The United States and Iran held their first formal talks in 27 years in order to discuss the security of Iraq. What do you think?

Meg Stainer,
Road Construction Worker
"Sky-high gas prices, meeting with Iran, Jimmy Carter in the news, it feels great to be 9 years old again."

Backpost finished 2009-11-2009.

Website of the Day: Museum of Hoaxes

Hoaxes. Yum.

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.

Gore in '08?

There is constant speculation. I truly hope he doesn't enter the race. Gore had his chance and despite my affection for him, his policies, and his character - he botched an easily winnable election that turned out to be the botch heard 'round the world. No second chances for that big a botch.

That said, if he does run, I hope that it only serves to torpedo Hillary. In a larger sense, that's the role I want him to play in this momentous election season. If he were to back Obama or Edwards - strategically it would be best to do this the week before Iowa - then Hillary will be destroyed and the people would rejoice.

Then president Edwards/Obama can appoint him to the Supreme Court to replace Stevens.

Hallel on Yom Ha-Atzma'ut

See this awesome overview-shiur on the different opinions for saying Hallel today from Hirhurim (which has my vote for best Torah blog etc). Rav Student says he got this overview from Rav David Shabtai.

Material for the Gun Debate

In reaction to the Virginia Tech massacre many commentators wondered if a change in the gun laws would have made the tragedy worse, better or unchanged. One of the many websites I had been reading directed me to this online book that studied the relationship between gun laws and violence "Firearms and Violence" by Charles F. Wellford, John V. Pepper, and Carol V. Petrie from the [official sounding] Committee on Law and Justice of the National Research Council.

Backpost finished 8/9/07, and again just the link

Who Wants to be an Israeli?

Around Yom Ha-Atzmaut, the Israeli papers print their lists of statistics. And it great to see that Israel's population grew by 1.8 percent, reaching 7,150,000. The increase came from births (148,000) and an increase in immigration (yahoo): "18,400 new immigrants."

Also food for thought (fear) is the ratio of Non-Arab/Arab = 80/20.

And grist for a trivia question: Which are the five largest cities in Israel:

The country's five largest cities, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Rishon Lezion and Ashdod, account for a quarter of the population, or 1,810,300 people. Another 462,200, or 6%, live in small towns, while just 119,700 - less than 2% - live on kibbutzim.

Would not have guessed Rishon L'Tzion. Then again, in the past few trips to Israel I hardly stepped foot outside J'slem.

But the best part of the article was the survey of who would have preferred to have been born in Israel:

Approximately 47% of the population would, if born again, prefer for that to happen somewhere other than Israel, according to an "alternative survey" conducted by the Geocartographic Institute's iGeo subsidiary.

The survey, conducted in early April among 500 Israeli Jews, found that 70% of Israelis from the FSU would prefer to be reborn outside Israel, 19% of them specifying Russia as their country of choice and 15% the US.

Among wealthy local-born Israelis, 62% said they would like to be reborn abroad, 18% in the US or Canada, 8% in Switzerland and 6% in Sweden.

A few thoughts:

1. 70% of Russian olim seem to hate living in Israel. Ingrates. Yet only half of those ingrates prefer Russia and the US. Suggesting that 36% either just hate Israel so much they can't think straight or would prefer to have been born in some undefined fanatasyland.
   
2. The two subgroups quoted have either 70% or 62% preferring to have been born outside of Israel, yet the total number surveyed was 47%. What's bringing the number down?

This:

In contrast, 83% of the modern Orthodox sector, 80% of those living in rural towns and kibbutzim, and 65% of Israel's well off pensioners said they would choose to be reborn in Israel.

83% of Modern Orthodox!

We're the backbone of Zionism, baby, and don't you forget it. When I read this statistics off in shul I quipped that the other 17% wanted to be born outside of Israel just so they could get the mitzvah of voluntary aliyah. Kol ha-kavod to the home team, eh.

Backpost finished 8/9/07. All I had was the link

The Movie Spoiler

This is not a bad website for those of us who want to know what's going to happen before we waste money and time to see a movie: The Movie Spoiler.

Pic from the website. Backposted from, you guessed it, 4/20/07 and finished on 8/10/07. I had just the link.