View From The Throne

New locale!

2009-12-14T08:57:00.001-05:00

Please follow on Facebook... Thanks!

2009-06-20T10:31:00.003-04:00

As long as my father was alive, I know very little about him, his family. He didn't talk about them much. He was 51 when I was born and I am not named for anyone in his family, or my mother's either.

I knew he had a brother Vance,a sister, Fern. That's it.

Good thing I'm not one of those Genealogy types who can trace their family all the way to Great Great Uncle Horace the horse thief.

Still, he was my father; good hearted, generous, private and hot headed, he could be no less to us than a great dad. He did his best to be one.

So, in honor of my dad who would have been 104 this December, a bit of Groucho Marx, a father in his own right:

Today, father, is father's day,
And we're giving you a tie.
It's not much we know,
It's just our way of showing you
We think you are a regular guy.
You say that it was nice of us to bother.
But it really was a pleasure to fuss,
For according to our mother,
You're our father,
And that's good enough for us.
Yes, that's good enough for us...

TwitterBookface

2009-05-17T08:12:00.002-04:00

I discovered Twitter and Facebook in the same week a month ago.

Facebook because my friends use it and instead of an annual phone call, we send little notes back and forth on Facebook pages. My "friends" scan from comedians to son of comedian to friends back in WA and in NY. And the occasional Jew, of which there are 6 or 7. I think there is a limit to how many characters one can type in the little space, but it's more than Twitter's 140 characters.

Twitter, well, because that CNN reporter loves it, so you check it out. Now, I get all sorts of updated from blogs, news nets and the occasional Jew, of which I have 30 some odd of them.

It's nice to even know that there is an astronaut Twittering from the Space Shuttle. I just hope in it's 140 character max count, he doesn't waste things by Twittering "Oooh! Lookie the planet!".

Oh hell, give me the luxury of a good ole blog for word maximum, for I don't believe there is one.

May The G-d Of Your Choice...

2009-05-10T08:19:00.003-04:00

Took this test after reading Ebert's column on death. I have been thinking on that myself of late. Not sure why, but maybe at 53 I am wondering not how I am, but for how long?

So, anyway, I took this test and found I am:

1. Liberal Quakers (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (92%)
3. Reform Judaism (90%)

I suppose I am Quaker in some ways, since I am for Bayit Shalom, but I still consider myself more and Unorthodox Jew than anything, even Quaker.

My friend Terry, who IS a Quaker, would laugh his ass off over it.

Back To Roger's column. For a guy that has fought cancer as hard as he, he gives a rather gentle look into death. I loved the Behan quote:

I respect kindness in human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I don't respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer

As for my demise, I don't think I'd be afraid, I just hope I did some good while I was here. (and with a few hearty laughs)

My Quote: "And In my final moment, may I hear YOU whisper, " When you made My people smile, you made Me smile".

He's 90!

2009-05-03T06:37:00.002-04:00

Folk forms die out if someone doesn’t decide to carry them forward. Luckily for our nation’s musical heritage, Pete Seeger decided to play just that role. Between 1957 and 1962, Seeger recorded five volumes of America’s most repeated, and characteristic, blues, country, gospel and folk songs, providing a gateway from the past to the folk revival that helped define the ‘60s. While countless other artists have recorded these songs - from "John Henry" to "Goodnight, Irene" - Seeger’s versions had the broadest cultural impact.

Seeger’s versions of the American canon were far from the coolest, edgiest or deepest versions of the songs. His cool, clean sound erased much of the music’s mystery and darkness. But his takes nailed this country’s optimism and gung-ho spirit. Seeger’s approach to songs about hobos, farm hands and train workers - as well as those about lost souls and spurned lovers - shows Americans as we most often like to see ourselves: open, fair, and true, just like him.

Anything Certainly Went Here!

2009-04-19T07:10:00.002-04:00

Perhaps I may be a bit jaded, having done my share of work on plays in High School, but have today's High School Musicals gone "Disney"?

Here's an example. Last night. "Anything Goes", Arlington HS.

This slickly produced musical is so neat,so nicely done, it looks less like a high school musical and more like regional theater, even Off Broadway. It was like a scene from "High School Musical". Neat, colorful, sassy. So...Disney.

Overall: Cole Porter's "Anything Goes" is a fine piece of Americana, a musical farce with no purpose other than to entertain, with fantastic songs, mistaken identities and general mayhem set aboard a cruise ship.

Skip trying to understand the plot ( and there is one a whisper of one...passengers on an ocean liner in 1936) and enjoy the dancing and singing.

The production has all the full-bore earnestness you'd expect from high school theater, but lacks the punch of what should be a fast-paced comedy. Lines that should be wry or sarcastic are coming out wide-eyed and broad -- over-selling the joke in other words, which is the worst thing you can do to a joke.

The set, the ship and the moving interiors, look like they were picked up over from Sony Pictures Props. No work done by high school hands here. Costumes? Rented. Snazzy, colorful, fitting the period. Just darling.

Rented.

Rented? How about raiding thrift stores or Grannie's attic? Or is that passe in the new world of "High School Musicals"? That money is to be spent looking like the play that should be opening next week at the New World in Brooklyn instead of a redone high school cafeteria?

Are we sure this is the same school district pleading poverty to get an tax increase from the already beleaguered upper middle class who send their kids there?

Thankfully, the kids are still the kids, and there is quite a bit of talent for Disney to take a gander at. The characters of "Bonnie", "Hope Harcourt" and "Reno Sweeney" among them. One fellow, who played Rev. Dr. Moon (Moonface Martin), was either channeling Woody Allen, or Mad Dog Russo from Sirius radio. He was funny, very funny, but guilty of overselling with the pun work.

Much tap dancing. Who knew that all those lessons Mom and Dad drove them to would come in so handy? Would make Ann Miller proud.

Cole Porter tunes, hummable, classic and delivered with style by kids who more than likely have no idea what an "Arrow" collar is and don't care.

The play was swell, colorful, jazzy, snappy with a motivated, cheerful talented cast. Overall, quite the program. Very...Disney.

"Frump" Whumps Competition, World!

2009-04-17T06:18:00.004-04:00

They call her look "Frumpy".

Doesn't look like some teeny thing with blonde hair, bling and a silly ass name, like M.I.A or B-yache.

No, she doesn't look like Americans and the Brits want their singers to look. No booty shaking in your face and wearing outfits hiding little.

She is 47, Scottish and damn proud of who she is.

The other night this woman shocked the hell out of the world's depression over housing and unemployment and the economy (of which she is a member) by singing.

And SHE, folks, has more talent than any of the top pop tarts on the Charts right now.

By the time this "frump" finished the first line of a song from Les Miserables, she had the judges (including a shocked Simon Cowell)amazed, the audience on their feet cheering and the title of whatever it is, possibly in her pocket. Not to mentiion over 11 MILLION hits on YouTube.

Chances are the record labels are already pounding on her door, begging her to sign with them.

And once she does, those labels will try to make changes to this woman, like hair, makeup and weight. We hope they will leave her alone. Let HER tell THEM what she wants.

For she is a woman confident of who she is...and backs it up with a voice on loan from G-d. (and an attitude from her upbringing, she was bullied and the tough sassiness came from her taking NO crap from anyone!)

A wee dram of Scotland's finest in toast to Susan Boyle, proud Scot, proud woman and a heck of a singer.

2009-03-27T07:46:00.002-04:00

Ronald Tavel, Proudly Ridiculous Writer, Dies at 72

I don't know who this writer was, but I would love a Times Obit headed like Tavel's.He sounds from the obit like a really interesting playwright:

In August 1965, two one-act plays by Mr. Tavel opened at the Coda Gallery in downtown Manhattan. The plays, “Shower” and “The Life of Juanita Castro,” were based on short screenplays that Mr. Tavel had written for Warhol films.

Mr. Tavel (pronounced ta-VEL) referred to the gallery as the Playhouse of the Ridiculous. But soon after, his work and that of other budding playwrights with a similar sense of the bizarre became a movement known as the Theater of the Ridiculous, with a string of productions at many Off Off Broadway houses.

Mr. Tavel’s manifesto for the movement was “we have passed beyond the absurd; our position is absolutely preposterous.”

The script for “The Life of Juanita Castro” exemplified that stance. It was based on a Life magazine article by Fidel Castro’s sister titled “My Brother Is a Tyrant, and He Must Go.” The Castro family used a mix of English, Spanish and Mr. Tavel’s concoction of what could be called Spanglish, and Fidel Castro was played by a woman.

I would see this, it sounds funny as hell. Well, I am sorry to see such creativity go by the wayside. Condolences to his family, and may the ridiculousness never end.

I Always Feel Like..

2009-03-26T20:19:00.003-04:00

Some days I feel a bit like the song...

I continue to fail to understand the corporate "culture" that says " we live in fear of our employees, so we monitor everything they do and say".

THIS is the "culture" at Untied Hellcare. They have Workfarce monitoring e-mail, and Communicator, watching the screens on the computers while we work and then report any "errant" (non work related like "Hey! what do you want for lunch? to " The supe is an idiot"...oh wait, that one may be work related )messages to the person's supervisor. Meanwhile, there is one coworker so far up the backside of management, she is allowed time off the phones to do "special" stuff for them.

Nice. Meanwhile, I am cleaning up (yet) another angry caller upset over something this same coworker said...and was wrong on.

I hear one local radio group is paying min wage for jobs. If there was an opening, I'd be applying...wage be damned!!

A Fine Bat Mitzvah

2009-03-22T05:08:00.004-04:00

No, no bad stuff to bitch about this time, just a hearty "Mazel Tov" and "Yasher koach" to these lovely ladies!

March 22, 2009
Having a Bat Mitzvah in Their 90s Because It’s a Hoot
By CHRISTOPHER MAAG, NY Times
BEACHWOOD, Ohio — Ann Simon is worried she might forget all the Hebrew words she has memorized to become a bat mitzvah, a Jewish girl marking the transition into religious adulthood.

Ms. Simon is no 12-year-old, though. At 94 she can be forgiven her fear that she might be seized by a senior moment or two as she stands on the bimah on Sunday to recite the section of the Torah that was read in synagogue on the Saturday closest to her 12th birthday. So can the other nine women who will take part in the bat mitzvah ceremony at the service in the synagogue of the Menorah Park senior residence in this Cleveland suburb.

The youngest, Mintsy Agin, will turn 90 in July. The oldest, Molly Kravitz, will celebrate her 97th birthday in August.

The women grew up in the shadow of the Great Depression, when bar mitzvah ceremonies for boys were weekly affairs but Jewish girls came of age without notice or fanfare.

A bat mitzvah was rare in the United States until the 1950s and ’60s, said an associate rabbi at Menorah Park, Howard Kutner. Since then, many adult women have decided to make up for what they were denied as children, but most who do so are in their 50s and 60s, Rabbi Kutner said. A septuagenarian is rare and a nonagenarian nearly unheard of, he said, but only those in or near their 90s showed up when he offered bat mitzvah instruction to Menorah Park women of any age.

“Most people in their 90s, they just eat their three meals a day and are happy to be alive,” Rabbi Kutner said. “I think this shows that at any age you can set a challenge and meet it.”

A challenge, perhaps, but not all the women see it quite that way. “My first thought was boy, what a hoot!” said Millie Danziger Fromet, 90.

A self-described “feminist all my life,” Evelyn Bonder, 90, said she “always thought girls should have the chance to participate” in something that Conservative, Orthodox and Reform congregations embraced in stages.

Ms. Agin said: “My daughter had a bat mitzvah. But it was on a Friday instead of a Saturday. It wasn’t held inside the synagogue, and she wasn’t allowed to read from the Torah.”

The women have met weekly with Rabbi Kutner to study Hebrew and the Torah in preparation for the service, which is scheduled for Sunday.

The rabbi had planned to hold the ceremony in January, but he bumped it back to give the women more time to prepare. “The joke went around the room: Let’s not do it after March,” he said. “Who knows if we’ll still be here!”

On a recent Monday, the women entered Menorah Park’s synagogue for a dress rehearsal. Three used walkers. Another carried a small oxygen tank. As they rose to speak, they left their medical gear by their seats. They approached the bimah unassisted, some limping, and steadied themselves at the lectern with both hands.

Practice began with prayers in Hebrew. Some women stumbled and stuttered through the complicated scrum of consonants. Those who had taught Sunday school for decades spoke more fluidly.

“One generation to another praises thy works,” said Eva Rosenberg, 91, reading from Psalm 145. “They speak of thy awe-inspiring might, and I tell of your greatness.”

Next came the speeches, which traditionally respond to the Torah passage read in synagogue that week. Rabbi Kutner had consulted old calendars to determine the week in which each woman would have spoken at age 12. He asked them to prepare messages based on the passages they would have addressed eight decades ago.

When Ms. Bonder was a child during the Depression, her parents lost their life savings in a bank failure. She later served as an aide to a United States senator. Her speech drew parallels to her Torah reading about Joseph, who rose from slavery to become a pharaoh’s chief adviser.

Belva Singer, 91, meditated on the power of the Birkat Kohanim, the ancient Priestly Blessing.

“This is one of the oldest and most beautiful prayers,” Ms. Singer said. “It is only 15 words, and it has been repeated by our people for thousands of years.”

Class members argued intensely over whether to limit each woman’s speech to three minutes. The concern was not whether aging bladders could handle a ceremony that lasts an hour and a half, but whether relatives, some of whom are flying in from as far as Boston and California for the event, might be bored.

“These women have spent their entire lives nurturing other people, and now the spotlight is finally on them,” Rabbi Kutner said. “They were afraid of burdening their audience.”

They were not, however, afraid of telling the rabbi to pipe down.

“You’re overpowering me!” Ms. Simon yelled during a period of singing.

“Really?” the rabbi said with an embarrassed smile. “I’m sorry.”

The singing resumed. Rabbi Kutner followed along, silently mouthing the words.

“You’re doggone right we’re feisty,” Ms. Agin said at one point.

After Sunday’s ceremony, each woman is to receive a certificate with words from Psalm 92: “They shall be fruitful even in old age; vigorous and fresh they shall be to proclaim that the Lord is Just. He is my strength.”

The new “adults” of Menorah Park may beg to differ.

“We’re not old people,” Ms. Bonder said. “We’re senior adults.”

Ms. Fromet looked over and frowned. “No we’re not,” she said. “We’re adult seniors.”

Imus: Change the Name of the Ranch

2009-03-16T08:01:00.000-04:00

Don Imus just announced on his radio program he has stage 2 prostate cancer. In an announcement where he was "changing the name of the Imus Ranch for kids with cancer to the Imus Ranch for kids with cancer...and me", Imus said it was localized to the prostate " so far" and his prognosis will depend on which doctor offers the best "weiner warranty". He is now trying blaming someone, as he always has for the stress that brought this on, (in a rather lighthearted way) and to "use it to get stuff I want" as he always have done.

It may sound like he's mean and selfish and greedy, but that is why we love him.

"What kind of Musical is this?-- Confusing!

2009-03-15T07:52:00.005-04:00

Last night, saw "Urinetown" with some friends.

THIS? won a Tony Award, for what, "Best Set Design"? (no, best score, director and book) Anyway, a quick idea of this play from Wikipedia:

Urinetown is an American award-winning satirical comedy musical that pokes fun at capitalism, social irresponsibility, populism, bureaucracy, corporate mismanagement, and petty small town politics. Urinetown rejects musical theatre convention, parodying successful Broadway shows such as Les Misérables, Evita, Annie, West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, and even satirizes its own significance. In reverse pantomime style, the unconventional plotline shatters audience expectations of a pleasant ending.

Yep. It rejects a lot of things, like cohesion and clarity. It was an "Insider" play, in which few could understand what plays were being parodied. In the segment that featured a rousing song about freedom to pee, a huge red flag was raised and I thought "Chinese Opera?" (no, Les Misérables) That was how clear this play was.

There were a few chuckles in the play, the best one being when the "SECRET" in the "SECRET HIDEOUT" sign fluttered down to the floor from its place on the stairway. The other was, during the cops coming out of the sewers, amid light and smoke, was a comment from a kid in the audience; " How'd they do that?"

There is a need for callbacks in comedy, the repeating of a punchline in a different part of the set to get a laugh, but in "Urinetown" the callback was a horrified group of people reacting to different twists in the play by saying " WHHHHHHAAAAAAATTTTTTTT?!" Again...and again...and again...and again... After the first three, it was NOT producing the laughs the first one did.

In other words, not even a urinal cake could freshen this mess.

Now, here is the funny part. The ACTORS are fantastic, wonderful. They have fun playing their roles in this weak disaster. They take the characters and smarm, cajole and smartass themselves all over the place. It was a joy to see them act, rightfully satiric and hammy with the material they were given.

I can't say I'd recommend "Urinetown" on the basis of the PLAY, ( unless you've seen the plays satired) but the performances of these actors, these actresses...are worth the money.

JeebusJabber

2009-03-08T09:16:00.003-04:00

At Untiedhellcare, I sit next to a rather fervent xtian, in some odd quirk of managerial fatwa. She reads books like " Prayers to Route Demons" and other weirdly titled tomes. Me? I enjoy the "Jewish Hero Corps" comic books, but I don't bring 'em to work.

I am off Monday, I mention to her Friday. Reasons: partially to extend a nice weekend, the other because it is Purim.

"Never Heard of Purim" my cubemate sez.

So, I give her the " Minute Megillah". Everthing you ever wanted to know about Esther, Haman ( noise!!!) and the King whose name is hard for me to pronounce in 60 seconds.

I also mention it is the only text that omits the word "G-d".

"Oh, well you know about Revelations and Isiah (something or other)?" she says.

Oh yeah, the one that goes "We all have a freind in Jeebus.." something like that.

She continues that unless we accept the ol' jeeber, we are "sinners"

Well now, isn't that special?

But I say...

I say...

Nothing.

I felt like Vanessa Hidary, the Hebrew Mamita, whom I adore! She performs a poem that has this part:

"...I'm The Hebrew Mamita...long lost daughter of Abraham and Sarah The sexy, Oy Veying, Chutzba having, non-cheaping, non conspiracizing, , always questioning, hip-hop listening, Torah scroll reading, All people loving, pride filled- Jewish Girl!

Bigging up all people who are a little miffed, cause someone tells you dont look like, or act like your people. Impossible. Cause you are your people. You just tell them they dont look. PERIOD!.."

I haven't figured out what to say to Jeeberjabbers, especially in a corporate ennviroment, that isn't going to get me canned.

So, I watched a video of Vanessa at a Poetry Slam. I am again empowered like the overweight, 53 year old Colombian Irish Proudly Jewish by Choice that I am.

I will work on the reply. Suggestions welcome.

"Ran Away to Join The Radio": RIP Paul Harvey

2009-03-01T17:42:00.000-05:00

From my family, who welcomed Paul into our homes each day, to the Harvey family, our deepest condolences on the loss of America's Voice, Paul Harvey. It was during one of the many tributes this morning that I heard the most wonderful quote from Paul: "As a boy, I fell in love with words and ran away from home and joined the radio." It is pretty much what many of us who pursued careers in radio did, some borrowing Paul's style to create their own homey style of radio to their local audience, as I did for 13 years.

There are few instructors that teach the subject of Radio better than those who listened each day to Paul's show. May his memory be for a blessing to all who loved him.

Obama Inviting Hamas to U.S.?

2009-02-13T08:46:00.002-05:00

(I haven't see this around...it may be a red herring, but if not, THIS is something to worry about)

Obama Invites Hamas Terrorists to America

--------------------------------------------------------------------
February 11th, 2009 at 7:20 pm

By executive order, President Barack Obama has ordered the expenditure of $20.3 million in migration assistance to the Palestinian refugees and conflict victims in Gaza.

The “presidential determination” which allows hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with ties to Hamas to resettle in the United States was signed on January 27 and appeared in the Federal Register on February 4. President Obama’s decision, according to the Register, was necessitated by “the urgent refugee and migration needs” of the “victims.”

Few on Capitol Hill took note that the order provides a free ticket replete with housing and food allowances to individuals who have displayed their overwhelming support of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the parliamentary election of January 2006.

The charter for Hamas calls for the replacement of the nation of Israel with a Palestinian Islamic state.

Since its formation in 1994, Hamas has been responsible for hundreds of terrorist attacks, including the 2002 Passover suicide bombing. The leaders of the movement signed the World Islamic Statement of 1998 - a document, penned by Osama bin Laden, which declared war on America and Israel.

President Obama’s executive order is expected to bring hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, many with ties to radical Islam, to our shores, furthering a process that was inaugurated in 1995 by Senator Ted Kennedy and the Cedar-Hart bill.

In 1965, Senators Ted Kennedy and Edward Celler initiated changes in the immigration law that made it possible for millions of Muslims to make their way to the New World - as the Christian Europeans had done in the early years of the 20th Century. The Cedar-Hart bill, which was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on October 3, 1965, abolished the national-origin quotas that had been in effect since 1924. In the spirit of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it barred discrimination on the basis of race, creed, religion, or national origin. America, by fiat of liberal secular humanists, was to be become a multicultural country - a country severed from its Judeo-Christian roots.

Remaining cognizant of the common roots as the American people, the legislative had enacted stringent laws pertaining to immigration and naturalization. The Naturalization Act of 1790 stipulated that “any alien, being a free white person, may be admitted to become a citizen of the United States.” The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prohibited Chinese families from immigrating to the United States. The Immigration Act of 1907 reorganized the states bordering Mexico (Arizona, New Mexico and a large part of Texas) into Mexican Border District to stem the flow of immigrants into the US.

The Immigration Act of 1924 further limited the number of new immigrants by the establishment of a stringent quota system. The number of newcomers was now limited to 2 percent of each nationality who lived in the country not in 1924 but in 1890. The reliance of this legislation on the ethnic composition of the country before the turn of the century guaranteed that the majority of new arrivals would be from Northern Europe. Since few Italians and Eastern Europeans lived in the US in 1890, the quotas for these nationalities became fixed at marginal rates and the number of new immigrants from “undesirable” regions greatly reduced.

It is hard to conceive of an act of Congress that could be more culturally biased than the Immigration Act of 1954 and yet it received nearly unchallenged bipartisan support. Yet The New York Times editorialized: “The country has a right to say who shall and who shall not come in…The basis of restriction must be chosen with a view not to the interest of any group or groups in this country…but rather with a view to the country’s best interests as a whole.”

In 1952, The McCarran Walter Immigration Act affirmed the national-origins quota system of 1924 and limited total annual immigration to one-sixth of one percent of the population of the continental United States in 1920, or 175,455. The act exempted spouses and children of US citizens and people born in the Western Hemisphere from the quota.

THE KENNEDY PROMISE

In 1965, Kennedy and company viewed such legislation as pig-headed and prejudicial. Few elected officials, Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina being one of the exceptions, dared to disagree with them. Championing the Celler-Hart bill, which called for the abolished all quotas, Kennedy, being far from prescient, said: “Contrary to the charges in some quarters, S500 will not inundate America with immigrants from any other country or area, or the most populated and economically deprived nations of Africa and Asia…The charges I have mentioned are highly emotional, irrational, and with little foundation in fact. They are out of line with the obligation of responsible citizenship. They breed hate of our heritage.”

Forty years after Senator Kennedy made this pledge, Dean Steven Gillon of the Honors College at Oklahoma University assessed the results of the 1965 Immigration Act by noting:

”The US added at least 40 million immigrants after 1965. Before 1965, 95 percent of the new immigrants had come from Europe. After 1965, 95 percent came from the Third World. The 1965 act has transformed American society and had consequences exactly the opposite of what we were promised.”

In his speech before Congress, Senator Kennedy had said; “Our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually.” The level of immigration, he swore, would remain substantially same as it was in 1965 - 156,700. This, too, proved to be woefully incorrect. The present immigrant rate exceeds 1.5 million annually. Noting this, Pat Buchanan writes:

The 1965 Cedar-Hart bill was the greatest bait-and-switch in history. Americans were promised one result, and got the opposite result that they had been promised would never happen. They were misled. They were deceived. They were swindled. They were told immigration levels would remain roughly the same and the ethnic composition of their country would not change. What they got was a Third World invasion that is converting America into another country.

From 1965 to the present, more than half of all the immigrants to America from the Middle East and Asia have been Muslim with radical ideologies.

{By Dr. Paul L. Williams-The New Media Journal/Matzav.com Newscenter}

here is the federal register piece:

Presidential Documents

[[Page 6115]]

Presidential Determination No. 2009-15 of January 27,
2009

Unexpected Urgent Refugee and Migration Needs
Related To Gaza

Memorandum for the Secretary of State

By the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, including section 2(c)(1) of the Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1962 (the ``Act''), as amended (22 U.S.C. 2601), I hereby determine, pursuant to section 2(c)(1) of the Act, that it is important to the national interest to furnish assistance under the Act in an amount not to exceed $20.3 million from the United States Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund for the purpose of meeting unexpected and urgent refugee and migration
needs, including by contributions to international, governmental, and nongovernmental organizations and payment of administrative expenses of Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration of the Department of State, related to humanitarian needs of Palestinian
refugees and conflict victims in Gaza.

You are authorized and directed to publish this
memorandum in the Federal Register.

(Presidential Sig.)

THE WHITE HOUSE,

Washington, January 27, 2009

Not So Benevolent Despot

2009-02-13T08:40:00.003-05:00

It's been a while, I know.

Milton Parker died the other day. He was a partner in my fave deli, the Carnegie. He will be laid to rest on seedless rye ( toasted) with a side of slaw and a half sour garlic pickle.

A few weeks back we at work had the ol' Town Hall meeting, where all are awash in nonsensical buzzwords and bizatudes , lovely positive stories and nothing of substance is said. No one asked any questions either. I would have, but this whoaman from Impire ( they tell me she is the manager, emphasis on the "man" since she has short, short hair, a deep baritone and Clark Kent glasses.) was there. Last time, I asked a question about layoffs at UntiedHellcare and was smacked down with a booming "THAT IS AN INAPPROPRIATE QUESTION!".

Two weeks later, were all had 15 minute meetings addressing ...layoffs. Imagine that. How...appropriate. No sign of whoaman. Perhaps she was sharpening her buzzwords on the grindstone.

SHADES OF DICK CHENEY!

The day after the Town Hall, my supervisor was perusing his email, when he asked me " Hey, about that town meeting...something about why ask a question?.."

Funny, I don't 'member anyone hearing that comment, since I commented TO MYSELF!

(like a nice little whisper..you know the style...)

So, I'm wondering, is the Conference room bugged? Not even my next cubicle neighbor, the xtian, heard me. So I told him the story of what happened before, and the question I was going to ask. He explains that there is indeed a marketing campaign going to to address the very question I had. End of story.

Or...so I thought.

Then later on in the afternoon, same supervisor tells me HIS boss asked him about my comment. (he says he passed along my version of the story... uh HUH)

Okay, this is insipid! So, you can't ask a question, can't be anything but positive, because SOMEONE is going to find out and nail you for it?

What was my question you ask?

It was, "given the negative press the company has been getting of late, wouldn't it be a really good idea to show some of the POSITIVE aspects of what we do to others besides ourselves?" ( marketing, think marketing) I thought about it, saw whoaman in the room and decided against asking.

(sigh) Give me the Frenches.

They Tried to Kill Us...

2009-01-25T09:34:00.003-05:00

CIVLIIZATIONS, NATIONS AND EMPIRES THAT HAVE TRIED TO DESTROY THE JEWISH PEOPLE

NATION STATUS

Ancient Egypt X-GONE
Philistines X-GONE
Assyrian Empire X-GONE
Babylonian Empire X-GONE
Persian Empire X-GONE
Greek Empire X-GONE
Roman Empire X-GONE
Byzantine Empire X-GONE
Crusaders X-GONE
Spanish Empire X-GONE
Nazi Germany X-GONE
Soviet Union X-GONE
Iran/Hamas ??????

THE JEWISH PEOPLE
The smallest of nations, but with a Friend in a High Place

SO ... BE NICE!

(courtesy Ken Spiro)

This is Not a Jewish Woman...

2009-01-23T08:01:00.001-05:00

This is a very funny line from "brighton Beach Memoirs":

Kate: My grandfather had to pick up my grandmother to see the Statue of Liberty. This is what they dreamed of. Their whole life. To get to America. And when they saw that statue, they started to cry. The women were wailing, the men were shaking, everybody praying. You know why?

Eugene: Because they were free.

Kate: Because they took one look at that statue and said, "This is not a Jewish woman. We're going to have problems again."

Word!

2009-01-18T10:50:00.000-05:00

Some people like the Jews,
and some do not.
But no thoughtful man can deny
the fact that they are,
beyond any question,
the most formidable and
the most remarkable race
which has appeared in the world.

-- Winston Churchill

Pretty Much Says It All...

2009-01-17T10:57:00.000-05:00

Imitation Is the Sincerest...

2009-01-17T09:34:00.002-05:00

I've been reading how PrezElect Obama, a product of Illinois by way of Hawaii, is channelling the ghost of Abe Lincoln, also of Illinois, in his actions as President. From reading his speeches, to being sworn in on the same bible Lincoln did, to the Train Trip to D.C., Barack Obama is attempting to capture an old time feel to the Presidency. He even set up his Cabinet to have a "Team Of Rivals" as Lincoln did.

I suppose next Obama will grow chin whiskers because his daughter asks him to.

And we all know what happened when Lincoln attended the Theater...Pres, just stay home and watch DVD's.

The Presidency, Brought To You By...

2009-01-17T08:45:00.002-05:00

Yesterday's Washington Post had a story about how Prezelect Obama's Inaugural committee is selling the rights for various Inauguration events to the highest bidder

"Barack Obama's inaugural organizing committee has struck deals with three television networks to the tune of more than $5 million, giving the networks exclusive access to inaugural events. But the arrangement is prompting questions about the president-elect's efforts to raise money by turning his inauguration into made-for-TV productions.

All told, Obama's licensing of inaugural events to TV is the most ambitious and expensive in presidential history..."

Am I the only one seeing that this is WRONG?! Can we say..."PROPAGANDA"? To "organize events" to make some political party or individual look good, then sell it to broadcasters for a price? Smells like propaganda to me.

Maybe Barack Obama should have titled his book "Audacity of the Shilling of the President"

Or, perhaps in a few years will we see " The State of the Union address, brought to you by Merriam Webster, the Official Dictionary of President Obama's speech writing committee" and "Liquid Paper- The official correction fluid of the President's Speech writing committee.

Will we see the Presidential Limousine bearing sponsor stickers as the race cars do in NASCAR?

"Yes,by George, today's "Motorcade 6.2" (miles to the airport) is sponsored by Sunoco, the official gasoline of the Obama Presidential motor fleet, Ben's Chili Bowl, the official creator of gas for the entire Presidential Family...and look! even Mama Marian Robinson is sponsoring her famous "Oh! Mama, it's Obama's Fried Chicken!"...That French chef hasn't been the same since he quit over Mama Robinson taking over the White House kitchen..."

or "The President and the First Lady welcome Ireland's Vegan President to the St. Patrick State Dinner, brought to you by Idaho, with the best potatoes on earth, Cal's Cabbage and Klein's Faux Corned Beef: "You have no beef with Klein's". Michelle Obama is wearing an darling teal Liz Claiborne ensemble purchased "off the rack" at the Georgetown Goodwill, home of many second hand fashionistas who like to splurge on the name and save on the coin.."

So, I'll catch bits and pieces of the swearing in on You Tube, then stick to the Travel Channel for the rest of the night.

Can the Obama Committee make money selling Obama to the highest bidder? "Yes, We CAN!"

How COLD is it?

2009-01-16T09:18:00.002-05:00

Temperature is a balmy -3 today, thanks to an Alberta Clipper...

It was so cold... my shadow froze to the ground - when I took a step it snapped right off!

It was so cold . . . pickpockets were sticking their hands in strangers' pockets just to keep them warm!

It was so cold . . . we had to chop up the piano for firewood - but we only got two cords.

" I had a 401K...now it's a 4.1K"

2009-01-10T06:08:00.002-05:00

Heard that joke, or a variation? ElLay Pundit, Tim Rutten says it may not be that far off at all...

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rutten10-2009jan10,0,3603490.column

The failure of our 401(k)s

The accounts were never meant to entirely fund retirements, and the financial crisis has hit many hard.
Tim Rutten

January 10, 2009

As President-elect Barack Obama and lawmakers attempt to reach agreement on what sort of stimulus package has the best chance of arresting America's economic free fall, the enormity of the immediate crisis naturally pushes any issue that can be deferred to the margin.

As a consequence, there's been little discussion of the way in which this economic implosion has exposed the utter failure of the now-ubiquitous 401(k) retirement accounts. In fact, the entire 401(k) system looks increasingly like the sort of bait-and-switch con relished by the Bernie Madoff's of the world.

As Robyn Credico, a leading consultant on pensions, told the Wall Street Journal this week, "This is the biggest test that the 401(k) plan has seen to date, and it has failed."

Here's the problem: In 1978, when Congress amended the Internal Revenue Code to include Section 401(k), it envisioned the provision mainly as a way for workers to supplement their companies' traditional defined-benefit pension plans and Social Security. (Secondarily, it also was a nifty hideaway where highly paid executives could shelter income from taxes.)

Nobody at the time envisioned the 401(k) as something on which people would rely for their retirement.

But in the years that followed, more and more employers began to look for ways to get out of funding the pension and health plans that, up to then, had been regarded as part of the responsible capitalist social contract. Two innovations in political ideology -- one on the left and one on the right -- provided superb cover for the companies' greed.

For the Democrats, "choice" became a mantra, and the 401(k) suddenly became a mechanism through which working people could "choose" how to fund and manage their own retirement. On the Republican side, the notion of "an ownership society" came into vogue. There, the theory was that giving working people an ownership interest in the equities market would promote greater personal responsibility and make people better citizens.

Nobody bothered to ask employees whether they wanted to swap their pensions for choice or ownership, nor did anybody stop to notice that very few people are suited by background, ability or temperament to actively manage investments.

If there is such a thing as lethal social poison, it is avarice cloaked in political piety.

Companies seized the opportunity to abandon their defined-benefit pension plans. Today, more than 60% of all U.S. workers rely on 401(k)s as their primary retirement fund. They're not eager to "choose" their own retirement program, nor are they enthusiastic "owners" of American business. They're draftees. Essentially, millions of us have been conscripted into the equities markets, where we have helped fuel stock prices and provided a bonanza for the financial services companies that manage and sell investment funds.

The problem is that, since the markets' peak in October 2007, our 401(k)s have lost a collective $1 trillion in value. That's fully a third of the value of all 401(k)s. The picture is actually worse than that because another $1 trillion has been stripped from people who lost or changed jobs and rolled their 401(k)s into individual retirement accounts.

Those are the most obvious losses. Look a little closer and the picture is even bleaker: According to a study by the American Assn. of Retired People, 20% of American workers have been forced to stop contributing to their 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts by economic hardship.

Millions of others have been forced to make early, so-called hardship withdrawals from their accounts because they've lost their jobs or healthcare or are facing foreclosure. The 10% early withdrawal penalty is a catastrophic expense in such a context. Millions more have taken loans from their 401(k)s to meet pressing debts or expenses, like college tuitions. Not only are those workers missing out on any available appreciation in their investment, but -- in a time of rising unemployment -- they're running a terrible risk. If you lose your job, you must immediately repay the entire balance on any outstanding loan from your 401(k). If you can't, you're liable not only for income tax on the unpaid balance but also the additional 10% penalty for early withdrawal from the 401(k).

With many economists predicting unemployment at 9% to 10% by the end of 2009 -- welcome to hard times.

Finally, consider this: The collapse of the 401(k) experiment is occurring just as the baby boom generation begins to retire in significant numbers. Welcome to hard times, indeed.

The War in a Nutshell

2009-01-05T05:58:00.003-05:00

2008? Audi!

2008-12-30T06:07:00.000-05:00

Eight Nights, 24 Hours, One place...

2008-12-26T11:03:00.002-05:00

Philadelphia's three all-Christmas stations get some company - all-Hanukkah WHAT (1340)
WHAT had also previously been all-Christmas – but says it saw an opening to demonstrate “our commitment to the entire community.” So the Marconi Broadcasting standalone AM is doing the “Eight Nights of Hanukkah”, through Sunday, December 28.

Well, THIS sounds interesting...so you head to the WHAT1340 webisite:

AM1340 WHAT has been playing all-holiday music, The Greatest Christmas Music of All Time since before Thanksgiving. We are demonstrating our commitment to the entire community with the following program.
Sunday December 21st through Sunday December 28th tune into AM 1340 WHAT for our special
8 nights of Hanukkah Program!! Great Music as you enjoy the special holiday of lights
with your family. The Hanukkah Show December 21st through the 28th from 4:30-5:00 pm.
Brought to you by Goldstein, Rosenberg's, Raphael-Sacks Funeral Home,
Temple Beth Ami, The Kaiserman J C C, Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia. and AM 1340 WHAT.

A half hour? Well, you can play oh,seven tunes a night, or three with commercials.

Happy...Whatever

2008-12-20T19:03:00.005-05:00

It's that festive holiday season, and the lady across from me has her lit cross up.

Jews. We have a lovely holiday that isn't electric, unless you count a menorah.

Chanukah comemorates the rededication of the Temple after the Greeks came along and messed things up. After the Jews came along whupped on the Greeks and kicked them out of said Temple, they cleaned it up and rededicated the Temple. Only they had a days' worth of oil for the oil menorah. (nowadays anything using oil that frugally would toss Mobil-Exxon into a tizzy)

Toss in a miracle and the little jar of oil lasts eight days. So, the holiday of Chanukah features oil based foods, like potato pancakes and jelly doughnuts.

Yum!

Then again, there is that other holiday, the one that gets all the PR. the great satrist Stan Freberg once said the main reason he recorded "Green Chri$tma$" was because Christmas had become too commercialized...in 1956!!!

We haven't learned a thing.

But back to the lady with her lit cross... we aren't celebrating the nailing of Jeebus on the cross in December, are we? Perhaps it was hard to do the manger scene in lights...unless you are the people below. Seems they aren't celebrating anything but a whopping electric bill.

30 Some Odd Days Later...

2008-12-13T09:43:00.002-05:00

One month. It's hasn't been a busy month, but there are a few things happening.

Tomorrow, I have a show in front of assorted Yidden and Goyim in Poughkeepsie. The set, funny enough to pleae both.

Tonight, seeing the magic of RBO over at Gotham Comedy, dinner, of course at Sardi's.

The weather has been weird, the financial scandals are getting more hideous and there is the Governor in Il who brought "corruption" to a new Huey Long low.

Yikes...PLENTY of material!

Whatever you celebrate...make it merry!

Kosher Krush

2008-11-14T07:17:00.003-05:00

Some days,it's just not worth dealing with an opinion.

My boyfriend's sister, who is not all that observant when it comes to kashrut, disses me in that I ate mashed potatoes last year at her dinner, saying I wasn't kosher, since the meat that she served wasn't either. Frankly, what I do outside my home is rather lax, given I would not eat in a LOT of places, including Sister of BF, if I was shomer kashrut.

I realize this, know what to do, and it looks like I am not keeping anything but not getting hungry. Outside my apartment, I do rather well in keeping the basics of kosher dining, like not eating dairy and meat together, not eating questionable mixed things, like stuffing. If I do hit the fleishig/milchig deal on one plate, I keep a sutable time interval between the two, something Sister of BF failed to notice.

Ah well, maybe she was in a fowl mood and just needed something to pick on besides her brother. Dave wasn't invited to his younger brother's 60th birthday and frankly, I would love to ask his family why. It's not like I'm going to throw out that to her.

Some mother's children. Maybe I'll show her how to make parve mashed 'taters.

Cook Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
4 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cubed
4 tablespoons olive oil or parve margarine
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 or 3 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 cup water
1 tablespoon parve chicken soup powder
salt and white pepper to taste
Preparation:
1. Place peeled and cubed potatoes in a pot. Add water to cover potatoes. Cover pot and bring to a boil. Cook for 20 minutes, or until a knife slips out easily when inserted. Drain in a colander. Mash potatoes with a fork while potatoes are still warm.
2. Heat oil in a skillet. Add finely chopped onions. When onions begin to soften, add minced garlic. Saute until onions are translucent.
3. Mix the mashed potatoes with the sauted onions and garlic. Add the soup stock, a little bit at a time. A bit more or less soup stock can be added depending on the consistency you want. Season with salt and white pepper.

VARIATION: Vegetable broth or cooking liquid saved from potatoes can be used instead of the chicken-flavored stock.

YIELD: 6 servings

OR:

CREAMY PARVE MASHED POTATOES
8 servings

3 pounds of Russet potatoes
1/4 c Tofutti sour supreme
2-4 T Parve margarine (I prefer Smart Balance)
Salt
White pepper
Reserved cooking water from the potatoes

Peel the potatoes and put into a large pot. Cover with water, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook for 20-30 minutes until the potatoes are soft.

Remove the potatoes from the water; do not throw out the water. Reserve at least 1 cup!

Put the potatoes through a ricer, or mash with a fork or masher. Fold in the sour supreme and the margarine. Add small amounts of water about 2 T at a time to get the desired smoothness.

70 Years...and the World Remains Silent

2008-11-08T04:42:00.000-05:00

KRISTALLNACHT

SEVENTY YEARS AFTER KRISTALLNACHT
THE WORLD REMAINS SILENT
Baruch Cohen

In loving memory of Malca z”l

“Comrades, we cannot allow this attack by international Jewry to go unchallenged!” This was said by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, on November 9, 1938, referring to the shooting of Ernst von Rath, a low-level Nazi diplomat in Paris, by Herschel Grynszpan, a young German Jew.

November 9, 1938 was a defining moment for the Nazi regime, but in fact it was one day earlier in Munich that Kristallnacht, The Night of Broken Glass, was ordered. According to renowned historian Martin Gilbert, “at November 8, 1938, the first collective punitive measures were announced… All Jewish newspapers and magazines must cease publication forthwith. This ban cut off the Jews from their most accessible contact with their leadership.”

The official German view, that Kristallnacht represented a spontaneous response of angry Germans to a Jewish crime, was so fanciful that nobody believed it. Local authorities across the country had compiled lists of Jewish-owned stores months before, and the names and addresses of Jewish men were kept on record. If ever there was a thoroughly organized crime, it was Kristallnacht.

At one minute to midnight on November 9, 1938, the Munich city fire department received its first call. Demonstrators had smashed the display window of a textile business in the Augustenstrauss and set fire to the display. The fire department’s records note the cause of fire as “anti-Jewish demonstration.” Three minutes later came the first major alarm: the city’s first synagogue was ablaze. The pogrom had begun.

Businesses and residences of Jews may be destroyed. The police have been directed to supervise the execution of this order…. Immediately upon receipt of this telegram, the police are to seize all archives from all synagogues and offices of Jewish community organizations. The archives are to be handed over to the SD security service.—SS Gruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich, who would later chair the 1943 Wannsee Conference at which the Final Solution to the Jewish Question would be decided, in Kristallnacht: The Unleashing of the Holocaust by Anthony Read and David Fisher (New York: Peter Bedrick Books, 1989).

A Jewish businessman in Munich, J. Littner, wrote in his diary:

The circle of non-Jewish friends will be smaller day by day, we shall soon be living in an invisible ghetto—the mood for November 9 grows worse, massive penalties. We Jews now fear November 9, the great feast of the Nazi party. On the evening of the 9th, the radio broadcast called for the murdering of Jews…—Kristallnacht: The Unleashing of the Holocaust.

For the German people, Kristallnacht—in which at least 90 Jews were killed, and 1,000 synagogues destroyed—proved that the Nazi regime was willing and able to use any kind of terror necessary to carry out its outrageous racial policy. As Gilbert explains, “[t]he Jewish community in Germany dated back 1000 years. Despite their enthusiastic patriotism, the Nazi regime portrayed them as disloyal parasites on the pure German national body.”

The story of the crime of Kristallnacht has since been told year after year. November 9, 1938 marked a tragic turning point for European Jewry. After that day, there was no safe place for Jews in Europe.

When I was 21, I survived the Bucharest Kristallnacht of January 21-23, 1941, an authentic copy of November 1938. In Bucharest alone 25 synagogues were vandalized, most razed to the ground. One hundred and thirty Jews were murdered, beaten, tortured or maimed. Jewish corpses were hung in the Bucharest slaughterhouse with tags reading “kosher meat.” I went there in search of my father.

The Romanian thugs had exceeded their German counterparts. And the world remained silent! In 1938, Joseph Goebbels was not stopped. The world was silent. Today, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is free to call for the destruction of the State of Israel, and the world is silent!

November 9, 1938 and January 21-23, 1941 are a few of history’s darkest moments. The calamity that occurred on those days was a warning sign pointing to the Holocaust. The world refused to see it. We must remember Kristallnacht! The appalling resurgence of global antisemitism, the unopposed call—within the walls of the United Nations—to wipe out the State of Israel, must raise the entire world’s consciousness. History is repeating itself. The world must not remain silent again.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s unambiguous demand for the destruction of the State of Israel must not be ignored. If “Never Again” is to have any meaning, Ahmadinejad’s genocidal ambitions must be stopped. Sadly, the United Nations is silent.

Kristallnacht was the warning that should have been heeded by the civilized world. Nonetheless, the world remained silent!

I call upon all decent persons, all peace-loving nations, to raise their voices, to stand up strongly against the perilous threat of a new Kristallnacht, to oppose, now, Iranian, Hezbollah and Hamas-style terrorism.

It is our solemn and urgent duty to remind the world that a new Kristallnacht against the Jewish people must be taken off the agenda for ever and ever.

The world must NOT be silent!

DO NOT FORGET! ZACHOR!

Vote Early And Vote Often!

2008-11-04T07:11:00.002-05:00

Today is Election Day. I voted early, especially after Don Imus mentioned on his radio show how huge the line was where he votes. So, I bundled up, wandered down to the Middle School, and there...were two people.

It's early. The great unwashed that is the local college is still recovering after a night out and are still in bed.

I didn't vote for either of the empty suits. Obama might win, but he will out Carter Jimmy Carter in ineptitude. McCain is just past his prime.

Neither one is worth my vote, since neither presented any solid plans for anyone childless, single and tax paying. I saw nothing for ME in either candidate.

Pretty Much Says It All

2008-10-25T07:22:00.000-04:00

L'Shana Tovah!

2008-09-29T07:06:00.000-04:00

When texters rewrite Torah:

>hit rock
What do you want to hit the rock with?
>hit rock with staff
Water gushes forth from the rock! It is a miracle!
>hit Aaron with staff
Water does not gush forth from Aaron. Aaron is cranky.

and

The tabernacle of the Hebrews, during the Exodus…[contained]…3 pieces of sacred furniture: a seven-branched oil lampstand on the left (south), a table for twelve loaves of show bread on the right (north) and straight ahead before the dividing curtain (west) was an altar for incense-burning…

You can go North, South, East or West
>N
There is a table of bread here
>Eat bread
You are not hungry, trust me.
You can go South, East or West
>S
There is a lampstand here
>Examine lampstand
See Exodus 25: 31-40
>Take lampstand

It is very heavy and you drop it. The Lord is displeased. You will be eaten by a grue, restart Y/N?

and later

Greetings, Moses! You have escaped the clutches of Pharaoh!
>i
You have:
Robes
Staff
40000 Hebrew ex-slaves
>look
You are lost in the desert.
>N
You are lost in the desert.
>N
You are lost in the desert.
>N
You are lost in the desert.
>W
You are lost in the desert.
>S
You are lost in the desert.
>E
You are lost in the desert.
>W
You are lost in the desert.
>N
You are lost in the desert.
>E
You are lost in the desert.
…
>WTF GOD
God says, “Forty years, sucka.”
>look
Hey, there’s a mountain there!
>climb mountain
The view is spectacular. You can see where you came from, and all the lands you’ve claimed, and there, in the distance, is The Promised Land.
God says “Look but don’t touch!”
You are dead.
Play again (Y/N)?

Y! A Shana Tova!

Paul Newman And the Blue Eyed Wonder

2008-09-28T07:59:00.000-04:00

“I picture my epitaph, ...Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown.”-- Paul Newman

Long ago, I knew a TVgnuz producer whom I was fortunate to have been invited to observe his show from behind the scenes.

Afterward, we talked about two hours on all sorts of things and during that conversation, I noticed, then asked if he was ever told he "had the bluest eyes this side of Paul Newman".

"You are the second person to notice...the first was my wife, Ellen"

Well, he's no longer with her, I hardly hear from the guy (and more's the pity)but he's doing well over at a cable news net over in DC.

Now? Who am I going to compare Terry's baby blues to?

RIP, to a great actor of the common scalawag, rebel, racer and just an all around good man...with a hell of a pair of blue eyes.

Bail ME out, too!

2008-09-27T06:38:00.002-04:00

Recently, there has been a crash and burn in the Stock Market, taking a few old names in the financial world down and CEO's leaving with millions. Meanwhile, everyone else is stuck with, if Congress has their way, paying higher taxes to pay for Wall St's mistakes.

I don't think so.

So...

Dear Mr Paulson and Mr. Bernanke,

This has been a rather tough year for me financially. Not because the government was in my way preventing me from prospering. They actually did a pretty good job of not advising or regulating any of my economic behavior. No, the truth is I made some pretty poor decisions and it looks like I might not be able to dig myself out of the horrible credit situation I've gotten myself into.

So I came up with a plan; call it the Queenpat Bailout Plan, in order to keep my economy sound and maintain a high level of consumer confidence amongst those in my household. Now since this financial crisis, which is bubbling well into the thousands of dollars, is the worst I have seen, I figure $7 million is just what I'll need to keep my economy on strong footing and regain that consumer confidence amongst us here at the apartment.

Of course, the entire sum will not be used immediately and I am even hoping that I will see strong returns on the initial uses of the funds. And once I start to see a return on the investments made with this Bailout Fund, I will surely return some of the money to you. Now I must insist that you not waste too much time in making a decision on this matter.

I realize that I've been telling everyone for months now that my financial situation was nothing to worry about as my economic footing was very secure, and even on the up and up. But I see now how I have failed and that is why I'm showing leadership by asking you to go forward with my plan to fix My Family Economy. I trust you will treat me just as you would have me treat you should you ever find yourself in a similar situation.

Urgently,

Now, THAT'S what I'm Saying!!

2008-09-21T06:55:00.001-04:00

Boeing arguments just don’t hold up under close scrutiny

ELI BERNIKER Published: September 17th, 2008 12:30 AMRe: “Long-term job security drives Boeing workers to strike” (Richard S. Davis Viewpoint, 9-14).

Davis has swallowed Boeing management’s arguments about costs along with the economic clichés that are the current gospel in business. Thus, the Boeing offer coupled with its long-term plans to outsource much of the remaining work are the keys to remaining productive and competitive.

In effect, Davis tells the workers to take what they are offered. Long-term job security is to be achieved via outsourcing. None of these generalities holds up to examination.

Less than 15 percent of Boeing’s costs are labor, and that includes many people who are not involved in touch work – i.e. making, moving and assembling parts into aircraft along with the engineering design of the aircraft, its maintenance, the manufacturing processes and quality standards. Such actual productive labor is much less than 15 percent.

The biggest cost is “overhead.” Back in 1997, it was charged at 490 percent of direct labor and growing. It is always growing.

Over the last 25 years, Boeing has had a stream of management initiatives intended to improve efficiency. All shared two characteristics.

• “We do it to them” – “them” being direct labor in manufacturing or engineering. “We are OK, and they are the problem.”

• No matter what the initiative, it always increased the ratio of chiefs to Indians. That’s overhead growing. By the way, the automotive companies are no better in that respect.

What is overhead? For the most part, it is the cost of distrust. Because the company does not trust its employees, it builds many layers of supervision and management to control. Since nonunion employees are “totemed,” all remain fearful about their job security. Since there can never be enough control, layers of management are piled on.

Some of that overhead is the cost of maintaining 147 metrics of performance in just the 737 manufacturing operation. Overhead keeps growing, justified by the need to control costs, even when the costs of control exceed any plausible estimates of the benefits of control. Thus, for every dollar in wages, there are five more to administer their work.

Davis claims that outsourcing is a necessary component of Boeing’s strategy to remain competitive and not just the current fad from Wall Street. Let’s look at that more carefully.

Why is Airbus a competitor? The Boeing answer is because it was subsidized by the European governments, thus allowing it to cut prices.

That is the wrong answer. Airbus was certainly subsidized, but not to cut prices. The European governments made very clear that they wanted to preserve those high-tech jobs for European workers.

What was Boeing’s response? Ron Woodward laid off 22,000 workers followed by Alan Mullaly laying off an additional 10,000 among a continuing stream of smaller layoffs. So Boeing’s answer to Airbus was to eliminate thousands of years of competitive advantage encoded in the skills and talents of its workers.

When there was the dramatic turnaround in 1996, it was estimated that the average experience level of the 737 assembly workers went from 10 years to three years as employees moved up to better jobs that they had to learn. The aircraft may be commoditized but the skills required to build a quality, safe and beautiful bird are complex and only mastered with years of experience.

Boeing claims that outsourcing will keep it competitive, that it wants to get out of making parts and reduce assembly work by outsourcing. It is a great system integrator and that will be its long-term strategic competitive advantage. So it outsources more and more of its engineering and manufacturing work.

What is a company that is only a systems integrating company? Basically, it is an all-overhead company. What value is it adding that China, Japan, and India cannot readily duplicate? It is hard to imagine a more dysfunctional long-term strategy or one better designed to reduce Boeing’s competitive advantage. It is literally training and tooling its competition.

So, we, as a community, should support the Boeing strikers. They are defending the jobs that sustain a major part of our state economy, and they are defending the long-term competitive advantage of Boeing for the benefit of shareholders and our community.

The skills being displaced and destroyed by outsourcing are crucial to our ability to defend our country. Enough outsourcing and the Air Force will have to go overseas for its prototypes and airplanes.

Eli Berniker of Puyallup is a professor of business at Pacific Lutheran University.

Boeing, Boeing...Gone (on Strike)

2008-09-06T15:09:00.000-04:00

Boeing is on strike. So am I. No, I haven't set foot in the place since July 4, 1994, (ironic, Independence day for a layoff)but I will be a Retiree in three years, in which that and the fully paid healthcare that comes with it is important.

It's important that a company who makes record profits gives the workers a share of that and not just reward their executives, which is what happened. The workers were told, " You have to pay more of your health insurance, make your retirement a 401K and we need to have outsiders do more of your work".

No.

No.

NO!!!
HELLLLLLLLLLLL NO!

From my little spot here in the Hudson Valley, I wear my Machinist (2005) shirt in support. It's OUR time, this time!

I Don't Roll, I Take the Bus...

2008-08-31T19:24:00.003-04:00

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Walter Sobchak: I told those fucks down at the league office a thousand times that I don't roll on Shabbos!
Donny: What's Shabbos?
Walter Sobchak: Saturday, Donny, is Shabbos, the Jewish day of rest. That means that I don't work, I don't get in a car, I don't fucking ride in a car, I don't pick up the phone, I don't turn on the oven, and I sure as shit
[shouts]
Walter Sobchak: don't fucking roll! Shomer shabbos!
The Dude: Walter...
Walter Sobchak: Shomer fucking shabbos.
The Dude: Oh fuck it. I'm out of here.

Now, I am so so involved, but I try to do my best on Shabbat. Viisting the sick is a mitzvah, so, yesterday we went to visit a friend of mine over at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan.

I was born there 52 years prior, so let's just say I was checking up on things. It's a BIG hospital center now. There is a Shabbat Elevator. I thought that wonderful and quite thoughtful.

My friend is doing quite well,on medication, wearing a gown that shows a bit more of him that I am comfortable with. But I am glad he is going to be okay,B'H.

Get Well Soon, Robio!!

2008-08-26T08:01:00.002-04:00

Rob Bartlett is in the hospital and it is hoped this mentsch is soon well enough to be funny (which I hear he is from his bed at St. Vincent's)and be the sweetheart he is. So get well, before Imus has to hire Opie, or Anthony or whoever!

Mi-sheberakh avoteinu v'imoteinu, Avraham v'Sarah, Yitzhak v'Rivkah, Ya'akov, Rachel v'Leah hu y'varekh et Robert Bartlett v'yavi aleihem refuat hanefesh u'refuat haguf yachad im kol cholei amo Yisrael. Barukh atah Adonai, rofeh ha'cholim.Omein

May the One who was a source of blessing for our ancestors, bring blessings of healing upon Rob Bartlett, a healing of body and a healing of spirit. May those in whose care they are entrusted, be gifted with wisdom and skill, and those who surround them, be gifted with love and trust, openness and support in their care. And may they be healed along with all those who are in need. Blessed are You, Source of healing. Amen.

Presumables Loves Themselves Much Money...and to Hell Wit' th' Common Folks!

2008-08-20T07:22:00.006-04:00

Matt Taibbi hits another outa the park with his new blog entry...

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/16389#comment

"Over the summer, the Obama camp has relentlessly pushed the notion that its record fundraising is mainly the result of small online donations... In truth, Obama is still raising tons of money from big corporate donors. In June alone, as Obama was raking in more than $30 million from small donors, he also bagged $6 million in a single fundraiser at Ethel Kennedy's home in Virginia and another $5 million at an event in Hollywood. But time and time again, you see Obama aides boasting about how the day of the big-dollar donor is over. "More people are involved, and I think that necessarily dilutes the impact of any individual — which is probably a good thing," one prominent Obama supporter recently declared. This staunch champion of the small donor happened to be none other than James Rubin, son of former Goldman Sachs co-chairman Bob Rubin.

Obama's decision to embrace Clinton's moneymen coincided with his decision to attend a public forum on economic policy with an A list of Clinton-era economic advisors, including Rubin and Corzine. "The message is that he's going to be a friend to Wall Street, just as Bill Clinton was a friend to Wall Street," says Pollin. "Wall Street will want to be at the head of the table.""

McCain doesn't get away either: "McCain entered this election with a reputation as a strict Goldwater conservative. "I have always been committed to the principle that it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly," he declared. McCain also sounded off in the past about troubled quasi-governmental lenders Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, pledging to "make them go away" and to strip them of their right to lobby.

But this year, McCain — perhaps emboldened by the $238,100 he got from seven JP Morgan Chase executives or the $500,000 bundled for him by Chase executive James Lee Jr. — caved in and supported Chase's outrageous government-backed acquisition of Bear Stearns. He also backed the recent bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae — no surprise given that former Fannie Mae lobbyists are serving as his chief of staff and the head of his vice presidential vetting panel..."

Nice...The only change I'M going to see will be my underwear.

Leroy Sievers

2008-08-17T09:18:00.004-04:00

Cavett on Comedy

2008-08-16T08:39:00.003-04:00

This from Dick Cavett... and I like it.

Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be…

I still want to be one.
But there is good common sense in the question I promised to deal with in my Johnny Carson column: Why would anyone want to be a comedian?

Obviously those who burn to be professional jesters mean that they want to be successful comedians. And those are always an elite, microscopic portion of the population. But, oh how they try. And in droves. It is a profession where, as the saying goes, many are called, but….

There can’t be many professions where the aspirant risks so much. Or where you can get such instant, smack-in-the face humiliation. And get it time after time for a long time.

Coming up through the ranks of any calling can be rough, but that battered soul who survives the early years of courting the comic muse comes close to knowing what only the soldier knows: What combat is like.

What puts that vulnerable soul standing up there in the most brightly lit part of a room, clutching a microphone, to be judged by skeptical and often hostile strangers?

Desire to be loved is surely part of it, cliché though it be.
What better substitute for real love than a sea of eager faces, beaming, laughing, applauding and celebrating your existence?

The contrast between the moments with them in front of you and the feeling, alone back in your room, whether it’s at the Waldorf or a roach motel outside Minden, Neb., is stark.

For the extremely neurotic performer, that contrast between “on” and “off” gets worse with time. Judy Garland did my old ABC morning show shortly before she died. (That tape is gone. It was reused to tape “Let’s Make a Deal.” Trust me.) I think it was her last television appearance — 1968.

And what a comedian! She was garrulous, witty and wickedly, wickedly funny. What they say was true. She made you feel you were an old friend, while keeping you in stitches.

But afterwards we couldn’t get her out of the dressing room. I left the theater and later walked back well after tape time, and she was still there.

She couldn’t make a false move on stage and so did all she could to delay leaving it; and, equally, leaving the cozy womb of the dressing room. She was home in those two places.

Leave them, and you are back in so-called real life — where it seemed poor Judy made only false moves.

I did standup while still working for Johnny Carson in the mid-’60s, thus gaining the advantage of at least getting laughs from him about how I hadn’t the night before.

When you’re a club comic on the road, nightly fighting your way toward the golden sunrise of The Big Time, the hotel can be particularly lonely and depressing. Even if you didn’t happen to bomb that night. Going from the laughing throng to your often dismal lodgings is at best a jolt to the psyche.

In a blizzardy, knee-deep-with-snow week playing The Act Four in Detroit I learned that you can owe your survival to an animal. The fact that I had a small dog along to greet me in the hotel room after the show may well have been the one thing that kept me from twisting the shower curtain into a rope.

The gifted-without-limits Darrell Hammond of “Saturday Night Live” — the man who fiendishly “does” everybody while seemingly changing the very structure of both his head and his face — said quite straight-facedly when we met, “Your book ‘Cavett’ saved my life.” He actually credited reading my accounts of the horrors of the road with saving him — while on that road himself — from despair and its unpleasant consequences.

Few comedians kill themselves. (Maybe because audiences so readily do it for them.) Young Freddie Prinze comes to mind. At least two in recent years have indulged themselves to death (in different ways) — John Candy and Chris Farley — but I think the legendary funny folk outlive the general population as a rule. And I guess you could say Lenny Bruce — whose alleged genius largely escaped me — did himself in. And of course John Belushi, whom I had great affection for. But by and large (will anyone ever explain that phrase?) comics are long-lived. (See Hope, Burns, et al.) Quite a few hundreders.

Comic genius rises to the level of art — as with Groucho — all the way down to Aunt Martha who says, “Tell the one about that was no lady, that was my wife.” (Just in passing, can the human mind conceive of anyone funnier than Jonathan Winters?)

When I was coming up in clubs, wise old heads would bore you to idiocy on talk shows with two favorite old standbys: “Where are the new comedians going to come from?” And, “There’s no place to be bad anymore.”

The first can be answered in two ways: “When they get here we’ll ask them” and “Aren’t there at least one or two more urgent questions facing the human race?”

No place to be bad? Try Comedy Central, or your favorite comedy club. (Yes, of course: both have lots of crackerjack talents.)

Another convenient place to be bad was “The Ed Sullivan Show.” (Ed loved comics, and stood about six feet to your right, looking at you, not the audience. Being hard of hearing and an optimist, he assumed the audience was laughing, and so invited the good ones and the clunkers back equally. Does that clear up that mystery?)

One defensible reason to be a comedian. In the words of my legendary (now retired) manager, the incomparable Jack Rollins: “Succeed at comedy and money will pour down on you like a golden waterfall.”

And when it works and when, as the great Lynn Fontanne — of that unsurpassed pair of stage comedians, Lunt and Fontanne — phrased it on a show of mine, “on those nights when you’re going high” the thrill is one you don’t get in the pants business.

That doesn’t mean I agree totally with a comic who said somewhere recently, “There is no thrill that compares with getting a big laugh.”

Really? I can think of at least one.

(I can, too...behind the microphone on the radio. It's close, REAL close)

Chinese Knockoff

2008-08-13T05:32:00.002-04:00

So, reports have been coming out that the opening ceremony fireworks at Bejing were faked, a little girl with a wonderful voice was swapped for a "prettier" girl who couldn't carry a tune in a paper bag, and "cheer" squads are hired to fill empty seats.

A story that could only be made in Hollywood...but it wasn't. Seems those communistas learned a lot from the Special Effects gang in CA.

How else but to hide the shortcomings of a sporting event no one really seems to watch, save Michael Phelps in swimming.

Maybe THAT's all faked, too.

Mammy! Mammy!

2008-08-02T09:33:00.003-04:00

Somedays, it's actually fun to work in the UntiedHellcare whirl:

Woman calls, asking why didn't we pay for her " mammy-o-gram".
(yes, she is from the South, need you esk?)

Anyway, we find that it would indeed be covered on her secondary plan and we inform her of same.

To which she replied:

"Oh great! I couldn't see why anyone wouldn't want to take a picture of my "mammies". They are pretty good looking!!"

She...is 87 years old.

When I'm her age, I want my "mammies" looking good enough for a picture of them, too.

Quickly!

2008-07-26T08:12:00.002-04:00

Some quick thoughts...

Imus has been on vacation so much that I'm actually starting to ENJOY Mark Simone and Warner Wolf. However, Rob Bartlett has been hitting them out of the park with his Fred Schneider parody bits. (Those of you know that Fred is the lead singer of the B-52s)I accidentally fired off a missive meant for Rob to my friend Chuck, who replied! Good to know he doesn't watch " Ugly Betty" either.

I don't know who stole Barack Obama's note from the Kotel, but if you see a pillar of salt around Jerusalem...that may be them. I can't stand Obama, but you just don't steal the dang prayer he places in the Wall!

I have had quite enough of the political sniping. Obama delivered a nice " Ich bin ein Moron" speech in Berlin to 200,000 people...who are NOT going to vote for him. McCain? He went to a German Restaurant in Milwaukee or thereabouts.

I'm voting for Laura Ingraham and Seattle's Pat Cashman and to Gahenna with the two who are running. I think that is a nice balanced ticket.

And I really,really,really mean it! (to quote Pat's great bit, " Roscoe's Rug Emporium")

You are not a person, Mr. Burns. You are an experience!

2008-07-15T07:39:00.003-04:00

Sunday afternoon, I watched one of my favorite movies, "A Thousand Clowns", starring Jason Robards, playwritten by Herb Gardner.

The synopsis (from IMDB):
Twelve-year-old Nick (played by Barry Gordon) lives with his Uncle Murray (Jason Robards), a Mr.Micawber-like Dickensian character who keeps hoping something won't turn up. What turns up is a social worker (Barbara Harris), who falls in love with Murray and a bit in love with Nick.

As the child welfare people try to force Murray to become a conventional man (as the price they demand for allowing him to keep Nick), the nephew, who until now has gloried in his Uncle's iconoclastic approach to life, tries to play mediator. But when he succeeds, he is alarmed by the uncle's willingness to cave in to society in order to save the relationship.

It's said Gardner based the main character Murray, on Jean Shepherd, radio iconoclast, who didn't like it. I thought it was much like Shep, except fans know he wasn't crazy about kids. Shep would have kicked Nick out long ago, telling him "Get a job!" as he did so.

It's a sad ending, sorry for the spoiler, but in watching " A Thousand Clowns", I so want to be Murray, happy within his stuff, to figure out nothing for anyone, to contribute only to the betterment of his fellow man by yelling in empty streets "ALL OUT FOR VOLLEYBALL!". In all,to be alive:

(Murray) "I just want him (Nick) to stay with me until I can be sure he won't turn into Norman Nothing. I want to be sure he'll know when he's chickening out on himself. I want him to get to know exactly the special thing he is or else he won't notice it when it starts to go. I want him to stay awake and know who the phonies are, I want him to know how to holler and put up an argument, I want a little guts to show before I can let him go. I want to be sure he sees all the wild possibilities. I want him to know it's worth all the trouble just to give the world a little goosing when you get the chance. And I want him to know the subtle, sneaky, important reason why he was born a human being and not a chair."

I want to be this person...and not a Norma Nothing.

I try each day to give this world a "little goosing", because I want to stay alive within the confines of work and of the toils of daily life.

My life is a mix of Murray Burns, Torah and Talmud, to make the world a better place by exposing the phonies,the fraud and the nonsense and still laugh about it. Living the mitzvot and not some Ortho Rabbi in Israel's rules.

I am an UNorthodox Jewish human being.

Don't Quit Your Day Job, Senator

2008-07-12T05:00:00.004-04:00

"...Bernie Mac makes off-color joke at Obama event

CHICAGO (AP) -- Comedian Bernie Mac endured some heckling and a campaign rebuke during a surprise appearance Friday night at a fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Toward the end of a 10-minute standup routine at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Chicago, the 50-year-old star of "The Bernie Mac Show" joked about menopause, sexual infidelity and promiscuity, and used occasional crude language.

"My little nephew came to me and he said, 'Uncle, what's the difference between a hypothetical question and a realistic question?'" Mac said. "I said, I don't know, but I said, 'Go upstairs and ask your mother if she'd make love to the mailman for $50,000.'"

As the joke continued, the punchline evoked an angry response from at least one person in the audience, who said it was offensive to women.

"It's not funny. Let's get Barack on," a man shouted from the crowd, which paid $2,300 each to support the Illinois senator..."

Okay, I actually know this joke and it's pretty dang funny. What is not funny is paying $2300 bucks to see him. If I had 2300 bucks they would see my mechanic and fix the oil leak in my car. :)

Note to Obama supporters: Bernie Mac is a COMEDIAN!!! He tells jokes to be FUNNY!! If you don't like Bernie Mac's sort of comedy...SHUT THE HELL UP and LEAVE THE ROOM!

I do clean comedy, and have heard other comedians, both dirty and clean.

I have heard Bernie's stuff and he's pretty good.

I have heard Barack Obama's attempt at jokes. He is NOT good.

And people are going to vote for this elitist wannabe comedian?...I'd rather vote for Bernie.

Freedom Big and Small

2008-07-04T09:59:00.004-04:00

These are portions of two very different documents, each indicating that " we are mad as hell and won't take it anymore!" Each were tired of the British holding them as nothing more than a trophy, a source of revenue for THE KING!

Two nations, both roughly the same size at the times these documents were presented, said basically the same thing. "Go 'way King. We can handle ourselves. Don't bother us either, or else we won't play nice."

Everyone would be equal, welcome as a part of these nations. We'll make the laws and all citizens will be part of that, to give opinion on those laws and those who make them. We may be made up of many religions, races, styles, opinions but as a nation, we are one.

Not bad, be you 232 or 60 years in existence. These two show to all the meaning "Democracy".

The United States and Israel.

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States..."

"...We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."

********************************************************************

ACCORDINGLY WE, MEMBERS OF THE PEOPLE'S COUNCIL, REPRESENTATIVES OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF ERETZ-ISRAEL AND OF THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT, ARE HERE ASSEMBLED ON THE DAY OF THE TERMINATION OF THE BRITISH MANDATE OVER ERETZ-ISRAEL AND, BY VIRTUE OF OUR NATURAL AND HISTORIC RIGHT AND ON THE STRENGTH OF THE RESOLUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, HEREBY DECLARE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A JEWISH STATE IN ERETZ-ISRAEL, TO BE KNOWN AS THE STATE OF ISRAEL.

WE DECLARE that, with effect from the moment of the termination of the Mandate being tonight, the eve of Sabbath, the 6th Iyar, 5708 (15th May, 1948), until the establishment of the elected, regular authorities of the State in accordance with the Constitution which shall be adopted by the Elected Constituent Assembly not later than the 1st October 1948, the People's Council shall act as a Provisional Council of State, and its executive organ, the People's Administration, shall be the Provisional Government of the Jewish State, to be called "Israel".

THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

*******************************************************************

Keeping Thy Religion-Carlin

2008-06-25T18:09:00.001-04:00

In honor of a great comedian and his take on...

GEORGE CARLIN ON THE 10 COMMANDMENTS
from "Complaints and Grievances" (HBO special)

Here is my problem with the ten commandments- why exactly are there 10?

You simply do not need ten. The list of ten commandments was artificially and deliberately inflated to get it up to ten. Here's what happened:

About 5,000 years ago a bunch of religious and political hustlers got together to try to figure out how to control people and keep them in line. They knew people were basically stupid and would believe anything they were told, so they announced that God had given them some commandments, up on a mountain, when no one was around.

Well let me ask you this- when they were making this shit up, why did they pick 10? Why not 9 or 11? I'll tell you why- because 10 sound official. Ten sounds important! Ten is the basis for the decimal system, it's a decade, it's a psychologically satisfying number (the top ten, the ten most wanted, the ten best dressed). So having ten commandments was really a marketing decision! It is clearly a bullshit list. It's a political document artificially inflated to sell better. I will now show you how you can reduce the number of commandments and come up with a list that's a little more workable and logical.

I am going to use the Roman Catholic version because those were the ones I was taught as a little boy.

Let's start with the first three:

I AM THE LORD THY GOD THOU SHALT NOT HAVE STRANGE GODS BEFORE ME

THOU SHALT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD IN VAIN

THOU SHALT KEEP HOLY THE SABBATH

Right off the bat the first three are pure bullshit. Sabbath day? Lord's name? strange gods? Spooky language! Designed to scare and control primitive people. In no way does superstitious nonsense like this apply to the lives of intelligent civilized humans in the 21st century. So now we're down to 7. Next:

HONOR THY FATHER AND MOTHER

Obedience, respect for authority. Just another name for controlling people. The truth is that obedience and respect shouldn't be automatic. They should be earned and based on the parent's performance. Some parents deserve respect, but most of them don't, period. You're down to six.

Now in the interest of logic, something religion is very uncomfortable with, we're going to jump around the list a little bit.

THOU SHALT NOT STEAL

THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS

Stealing and lying. Well actually, these two both prohibit the same kind of behavior- dishonesty. So you don't really need two you combine them and call the commandment "thou shalt not be dishonest". And suddenly you're down to 5.

And as long as we're combining I have two others that belong together:

THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTRY

THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR'S WIFE

Once again, these two prohibit the same type of behavior. In this case it is marital infidelity. The difference is- coveting takes place in the mind. But I don't think you should outlaw fantasizing about someone else's wife because what is a guy gonna think about when he's waxing his carrot? But, marital infidelity is a good idea so we're gonna keep this one and call it "thou shalt not be unfaithful". And suddenly we're down to four.

But when you think about it, honesty and infidelity are really part of the same overall value so, in truth, you could combine the two honesty commandments with the two fidelity commandments and give them simpler language, positive language instead of negative language and call the whole thing "thou shalt always be honest and faithful" and we're down to 3.

THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR"S GOODS

This one is just plain fuckin' stupid. Coveting your neighbor's goods is what keeps the economy going! Your neighbor gets a vibrator that plays "o come o ye faithful", and you want one too! Coveting creates jobs, so leave it alone. You throw out coveting and you're down to 2 now- the big honesty and fidelity commandment and the one we haven't talked about yet:

THOU SHALT NOT KILL

Murder. But when you think about it, religion has never really had a big problem with murder. More people have been killed in the name of G-d than for any other reason. All you have to do is look at Northern Ireland, Cashmire, the Inquisition, the Crusades, and the World Trade Center to see how seriously the religious folks take thou shalt not kill. The more devout they are, the more they see murder as being negotiable. It depends on who's doin the killin' and who's gettin' killed. So, with all of this in mind, I give you my revised list of the two commandments:

Thou shalt always be honest and faithful to the provider of thy nookie.

&

Thou shalt try real hard not to kill anyone, unless of course they pray to a different invisible man than you pray to.

Two is all you need; Moses could have carried them down the hill in his fuckin' pocket. I wouldn't mind those folks in Alabama posting them on the courthouse wall, as long as they provided one additional commandment:

Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself.

George Carlin

2008-06-23T07:49:00.003-04:00

Funniest guy I ever saw the most, not as many as Rob Bartlett, but for a five month period in college, I saw Carlin something like eight times in Boston and NYC. You left the theater laughing,quoting and holding your sides from the soreness of laughter.

Now, he's outa here. Fuck. No. Damn.
Not exactly the "seven dirty words", but close. Damn.

"I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately." --George Carlin

A Little Time Spent...

2008-06-22T09:05:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, my boyfriend and I attended a graduation party for our friend Chuck and Shari's son, Matt and his friend,Chris. It was a nice party hosted by the families, well attended by kids and adults alike. It's also one of the few times I actually see and talk to Chuck about what's going on with his world and work, since his e-mails tend to be on the sparse side.

So we did, and it broke my heart to listen.

How can you give advice to a guy, whom you love dearly and works 65 hours a week shuttling back and forth between three companies under his corporation's banner?

How can you give advice when he speaks about the only time he will rest is when he is dead, and his family wil be taken care of? How do you tell him NOT to?

I can't. I'm not Dr. Phil and I don't think HE can give advice to Chuck either. But what Chuck does with his kids is far more priceless than leaving them financially okay when he's gone.

He spends time with his kids.

Chuck will miss Matt. They were not only father and son, but buddies. Played hard together,hung around together. You can't ask nothing better in a dad.

Chuck and Shari still have a daughter, Hayli, at home to whom they give a goodly part of their time as well. Chuck does his share of father-daughter bonding and it shows. She,too, is a very special part of his world. Both kids are great,unassuming, fantastic to be around.

I understand the work mentality of Chuck. I saw this with my own father,him working 60-70 hours at a gas station or dealership garage, only he didn't take us on far off trips. Trips? Vacation?Never.

His idea of a "vacation" was to take us to Brighton Beach for the day and he DRESSED for it, as in slacks and a white shirt, rolled up sleeves.

Dad, while reticent in displays of affection (Protestant upbringing),spent as much time as he could with us.

Play games, no.

Learning how to rebuild and install a fuel pump in a 74 Ford?

Yep.

So, it's not what you DO with your kids, it's the TIME you spend doing that is important.

Now, if I can only tell Chuck to make time for the child that is inside HIM...

Dot's All

2008-06-14T06:18:00.003-04:00

As a comedian, I am used to instant response both good and bad from the audience. I tell a joke...laughter,the expected response. No laughs...move to next joke.

At work, the phone call is a request (usually with much yelling, screaming and use of colorful metaphors over why _"I_ didn't pay their claim.." Like I do that)which usually gets resolved with a "Thank You" and "you are great"...that kind of response. That's fine, I know I did my job for that person.

The powers that be at Untied Hellcare have run a black (there's a sign in itself the use of that color)streamer along the walls of the building with little colorful construction paper "dots" with the person's name on them and the "outstanding" job they did.

I have no dot on the wall and frankly,they can stick their dots up their *.

I am a rebel at Untied Hellcare. I am HONEST. I am out for no one but me. Believe me, this comes from many years of working for employers who have shafted me, made empty promises and basically lied to my face.

I find that honesty and brutal, yet professional comments and questions are a fine way to get back at them, because it makes their bosses ask questions.

If there is some reason why this company does what it does and I feel it is unfair. I talk about it,usually to some visiting higher up.

It makes my supervisor, normally as unseen by us as a palm tree in a jungle, nervous.

I've supervised people. I know you can get busy with crap that doesn't allow you to do your job, but WHY on dear G-d's earth would you want to NOT TELL YOUR SUBORDINATES IMPORTANT INFORMATION??!

To me, communication is pretty FREAKIN' IMPORTANT!

And our supervisor doesn't do that.

While other employees are finding out about closed contracts, new procedures, other news, five of us are left out in the wilderness.

We five employees are using other methods of finding out this information,usually by way of other employees e-mailing it to us from their supervisors who at least have the decency to tell them.

Recently,our supervisor just now sent us a survey of how well she is doing her job that was due..in MAY.

And in her e-mail, she was wondering why only one reply was sent. She was "taken aback" was the phrase she used.

Maybe, perchance, the REST OF US DIDN'T GET THIS SURVEY??!

Now, one sent out a pretty honest assesment, two others in fear of their jobs (one wants this supervisor to give her not only two weeks vacation, but Fridays off as well as her honeymoon, the other on third warning, grovels on how much she "loves" her job,when in fact, she does not and " please don't fire me" in e-mails),sent out glowing replies, one is pretty much her butt girl so she much have been the lone reply back in May.

This same girl has been seen over at the supervisor's desk, feet up, chatting away like old friends.

And me? The week before I was told of a wrong answer I gave over a month prior. Now, why wasn't I told of this at the time it happened?

Palm tree in the jungle...you remember. This supervisor can't be bothered communicating with me or any of the rest of us five.

We are not dumb,it's just this supervisor won't do her job.

Then over a minor thing, she said to me " Don't worry that won't count against you because you did exactly right".

Wanna BET it didn't??

Within five minutes, that mistake and one other from over two months ago (no one ever told me..thanks!), added up to me getting a WARNING and supposedly,she "has to listen to all my calls for June" to make sure I don't make anymore mistakes.

Well, now...hope they are exciting for ya. All that listening going to keep you from chatting with Kristen or buddying up with your other pet CCPs?

No dot for me.

Back to this survey. I was professional and honest. BTW, this survey is NOT anonymous. Her boss gets these e-mailed surveys. Guess who's id are on those e-mails?

So, I told the truth. In my opinion, my supervisor does not talk to me about ways to improve each month, does not communicate daily, has people that she has in her "inner circle" that she shows favoritism to and basically is "too overwhelmed" in her job to do a good one.

Am I worried about my job? At age 52? No. If it was a job that actually cared about what the hell I do, I would. If it was a job that gave positive as well as timely constructive criticism, I would.

If the bitch did her damn JOB...I would.

She doesn't...I don't. No dot for me.

Quick Thoughts

2008-06-04T16:24:00.003-04:00

Obama and Nation Of Islam?

Say it ain't SO, O!
(yet another reason why this "audacity" should not be in the White House...unless he bought a ticket for the tour)

Now don't get me wrong...the other two ain't looking so good either.

Salute To Israel parade... Wall to wall Jew! Beautiful Day, beautiful people, Beautiful country.

Laura Ingraham...smart, funny, why is she not on radio?

Imus. Come Home...Simone is BOR-ing!

Rob Bartlett...Come HOME, we have the fans a'waiting!

Universal Studios Fire.
Walked in "NY Street", as close to Brooklyn as I ever saw in the city of the Angels. Gone, as is classic prints of "Frankenstein," "Son of Frankenstein," "Duck Soup,","Hell's Angels," and many many more. Supposedly the negatives are stored elsewhere and are safe, but are too $$$ to restore and print.

I am tired...

Good Night, Dick

2008-05-25T05:50:00.003-04:00

It was the nicest birthday present this 12 year old got, back in 1968. January 22 was the debut of " Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In". Funny, wild, I was in love with it from the start. Two guys in tuxedos running a crazy party full of double entendres, painted women and people yelling "Sock it to ME". Anyway, Dan Rowan, who I understand was the Yin of the duo, was stern, had atemper and wanted more from the program than he was given. Dan Rowan passed from this scene in 1987, but his Yang, the lovely Dick Martin, has now joined Dan in G-ds version of the program.

Here from two sources, CelebrityNews and Mark E's personal recollections, is Dick Martin's obit:

Dick Martin, who co-created and co-hosted Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In - a show which forever changed the face of television - and who championed free speech and satire as staples in American media, died today of respiratory complications, while surrounded by his wife, family, and friends. He was 86 years young.

In addition to a 25-year career in nightclubs and the success of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Dick Martin began a second career as a television director in 1976, starting with The Bob Newhart Show. He was the chief director of the 1980s sitcom Newhart as well as the host of the short-lived Mindreaders game show in the late 1970s. By the time he retired from his second career, he had directed over 200 hours of television.

He married Britain's first Playboy Playmate Dolly Read (Dolly Martin) in 1971. Dolly Read had starred in the cult classic feature film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Martin was formerly married to Peggy Connelly. He has two sons, Richard Martin and Cary Martin.

Mark E's recollection: "...Dick and Dolly were a wonderful couple. She's a former Playboy model who was one of the stars of the legendary movie, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. About fifteen years ago, there was a screening of that picture at UCLA with much of the cast in attendance, along with director Russ Meyer and screenwriter Roger Ebert. I took a cartoonist friend of mine, Carol Lay, and we wound up sitting in front of Dick and Dolly. As much fun as the movie was, it was even better to be eavesdropping on the Martins howling at the intentionally-funny parts of the film and convulsing at the unintentionally-funny moments.

That's what I've thought of ever since when anyone mentioned Dick Martin...the sheer joy that he and Dolly were sharing that afternoon. There's something beautiful about people who can be that happy..."

Mark E got to know him a little when he was doing one of his early directing jobs, helming a short-lived sitcom called "The Waverly Wonders".

ME: "That show shared office space with a show I was writing, and Dick was always coming over to our quarters to chat, tell jokes and just to be sociable. One time, our associate producer greeted him by reeling off about a dozen of the filthiest-possible sex acts — a list, he said, of fantasies he'd had about Dick's wife, Dolly.

There was a pause and then Dick pulled out a pad of paper, began making notes and said — with the precision timing of one-half of a great comedy team — "Hey, I should try some of those." And then he broke into that loud, wonderful laugh of his..."

Dick Martin was born on January 30, 1922, in Battle Creek, Michigan. He took an early interest in comedy and in his twenties worked briefly as a staff writer for the radio show Duffy's Tavern, working with the author and Broadway director Abe Burrows.

He then appeared in two episodes of The Dinah Shore Chevy Show, the first of which featured Shirley MacLaine and the second of which involved his first appearance with Dan Rowan, who was to become the other half of his famous double-act.

It was 1952 when Dan Rowan and Dick Martin met. Dick Martin, who had just seen Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis perform at Slapsie Maxie's nightclub, decided "that looked like a lot of fun." Nine days later, Rowan and Martin broke in their act at Charlie Foy's Supper Club in the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles. They didn't do all that well but while sitting at the bar after the show, comedian Joe Frisco came up to them and said "Don't give up kids - you've got class."

Rowan and Martin began playing nightclubs throughout America. The first time they played Las Vegas was early 1953 at the Golden Nugget; they played three times downtown at the El Cortez before moving "up" to the Strip. They received their first big break in Lake Tahoe at the Calvada Lodge, owned by Joby Lewis of the Detroit "family."

It was in 1955 that Rowan and Martin first played the Sands Hotel for a four-week engagement on the Las Vegas strip - they had arrived!

Nat King Cole had opened the doors for Rowan and Martin, and they were now booked continuously as an opening act in Las Vegas and New York. At the same time, they began making appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show (a total of 18 times), the Perry Como Show (8 times), and The Hollywood Palace (10 times). They also appeared on the Dean Martin Variety Show on NBC.
In 1966, Dean's producer, Greg Garrison, sold NBC on the idea of a Dean Martin summer show. NBC wanted to have rotating hosts in the manner of The Hollywood Palace, but Dean Martin insisted on Rowan and Martin as sole hosts of the shows.

The 12 shows they hosted were so successful that NBC approached Rowan and Martin to host their own variety show. Dan and Dick said they "had something a little different" in mind. NBC said, "let's give it a try" and Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In was born. They shot a special in September, 1967. NBC was not thrilled with the show, but critics around the country were so enthusiastic that NBC relented to a 13-week run beginning mid-season.
Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In began their 13-show run in January, 1968. NBC put the show on opposite The Lucy Show and Gunsmoke, two mega-hits and nobody gave the show much of a chance - but by the eighth show, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In was the number one show in the country. Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In taped 144 shows and went off the air in 1973.
Though he never neglected his television work, Martin became eagerly involved with Hollywood, appearing in comedies such as The Glass Bottom Boat; Zero to Sixty, with Darren McGavin and Joan Collins; and Carbon Copy, with George Segal and Denzel Washington. Martin also had acting roles in popular series including Coach, with Craig T Nelson and Jerry Van Dyke; 3rd Rock from the Sun, with John Lithgow and Kristen Johnston; Blossom, with Mayim Bialik and Joey Lawrence; Baywatch, with David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson; and Diagnosis Murder, with Dick Van Dyke and Scott Baio.
Dan Rowan retired to France until his death from lymphatic cancer in 1987.
Rowan and Martin also appeared together in comedy western film Once Upon a Horse and in the 1969 horror spoof film The Maltese Bippy, with Julie Newmar.
Dan Rowan and Dick Martin received the 2,194th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2002.
As requested by Martin, there will be no funeral.

One last word from Mark: "The secret, some said, was that Rowan was a sharp businessman and Martin was genuinely funny and likeable. Dick Martin was, in fact, one of the nicest guys you could ever want to be around, with a loud, contagious laugh. He got along with everyone...and if the stress of any job ever got to him, he sure did a good job of not letting it show. I used to hang out occasionally on the set of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, where it was not uncommon to see Rowan lose his temper and yell. And then along would come Dick Martin, breezing onto the set at the last moment, and the entire mood of the studio would lighten. He had that magic.

No one around them seemed to have much respect for Rowan as a performer. On Laugh-In, the crew cringed when he'd insist on playing characters and trying to be anything but a straight man. But to all those same folks, Dick Martin could do no wrong.

It's sad to lose him and especially sad to lose that wonderful laugh..."

Sad? You bet your sweet bippy! Good Night, Dick.

Here's My Fricken' Laser!

2008-05-16T02:56:00.000-04:00

My "upclose and personal" laser story was when I worked at The airplane comany what counts (starts with a "lazy B"), and was in a lab with a HeNe (Helium Neon) Class 4. (Those babies can hurt).

The technician was telling me about the observation window, glass with mesh built into it. It was the reason I was there, to make sure no external radiation (if any) got out of the room when the laser was operating.

A few days before, when the laser was turned on, one of the steering mirrors was just a tad off, causing the laser to briefly hit the window. The techs shut the laser off and adjusted the mirror, then checked the window, which looked okay.

LOOKED.

Right after the techs went back into the control room, there was this "BANG!" followed by the window shattering. They had to replace the window...and here I was, watching a nifty yellow green stream of liquid light go all around a little maze of mirrors. And all was well again.

VERY kewl!

Anyway, today is the anniversary of the FIRST laser, one made in California.

From : "A Century of Nature: Twenty-One Discoveries that Changed Science and the World"

"..Theodore Maiman made the first laser operate on 16 May 1960 at the Hughes Research Laboratory in California, by shining a high-power flash lamp on a ruby rod with silver-coated surfaces. He promptly submitted a short report of the work to the journal Physical Review Letters, but the editors turned it down. Some have thought this was because the Physical Review had announced that it was receiving too many papers on masers—the longer-wavelength predecessors of the laser—and had announced that any further papers would be turned down. But Simon Pasternack, who was an editor of Physical Review Letters at the time, has said that he turned down this historic paper because Maiman had just published, in June 1960, an article on the excitation of ruby with light, with an examination of the relaxation times between quantum states, and that the new work seemed to be simply more of the same..."

Man, talk about turndowns! You have the same stuff going on each day in TV production and nobody turns THAT stuff down for being " more of the same".

By now, lasers come in countless varieties. They include the "edible" laser, made as a joke by Schawlow out of flavored gelatin (but not in fact eaten because of the dye that was used to color it), and its companion the "drinkable" laser, made of an alcoholic mixture at Eastman Kodak's laboratories in Rochester, New York. Natural lasers have now been found in astronomical objects; for example, infrared light is amplified by carbon dioxide in the atmospheres of Mars and Venus, excited by solar radiation, and intense radiation from stars stimulates laser action in hydrogen atoms in circumstellar gas clouds. This raises the question: why weren't lasers invented long ago, perhaps by 1930 when all the necessary physics was already understood, at least by some people?

What other important phenomena are we blindly missing today?

A lot. An awful lot. Hashem is always inventing, but we aren't seeing it. Go. See.

Sixty Years

2008-05-08T06:14:00.002-04:00

"...ACCORDINGLY WE, MEMBERS OF THE PEOPLE’S COUNCIL, REPRESENTATIVES OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF ERETZ-ISRAEL AND OF THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT, ARE HERE ASSEMBLED ON THE DAY OF THE TERMINATION OF THE BRITISH MANDATE OVER ERETZ-ISRAEL AND, BY VIRTUE OF OUR NATURAL AND HISTORIC RIGHT AND ON THE STRENGTH OF THE RESOLUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, HEREBY DECLARE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A JEWISH STATE IN ERETZ-ISRAEL, TO BE KNOWN AS THE STATE OF ISRAEL..."

Sixty years, whodathunk a little bit of a piece of sand would have lasted this long? The State of Israel, a homeland for Jews. Where, it is said all would be protected. I wonder what David Ben Gurion and the rest of the signers of that document would have thought of the Israel of today? The one where a small group of religios zealots control what goes on for the majority:

"...THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations..."

May the country's politicians remember that previous paragraph.

This Day...

2008-05-01T08:22:00.001-04:00

Who has inflicted this upon us? Who has made us Jews different from all other people? Who has allowed us to suffer so terribly up till now? It is God that has made us as we are, but it will be God, too, who will raise us up again. If we bear all this suffering and if there are still Jews left, when it is over, then Jews, instead of being doomed, will be held up as an example. - Anne Frank

Four The Ladies

2008-04-19T18:30:00.002-04:00

Two 16th-century rabbis - the Maharal of Prague and Rav Isaiah Horowitz of Tsfat - identify the Four Cups of wine that we drink on Passover with the Four Matriarchs of Israel.

1.The Cup of Kiddush stands for Sarah, the mother of converts - believers by choice.
2.The Cup of Maggid is for Rebecca, mother to both Esav and Jacob, two opposed natures.
3.The Cup of the Blessing after the meal represents Rachel, whose son Joseph provided the whole family of Jacob with bread in a time of great famine.
4.The Cup of Hallel is for Leah, the first women to praise God (Genesis 29:35).

Excerpt from A Night To Remember: The Haggadah of Contemporary Voices by Mishael Zion and Noam Zion

A Bit Ul Chametz is Good For Ya!

2008-04-19T08:50:00.001-04:00

Preparing for Passover can drive you crazy. The laws of cleaning for Passover have become over the centuries so involved and complicated that they can take on a life of their own. The meaning of the holiday can get lost in the compulsive cleaning, scrubbing and boiling. Fortunately our tradition provides an antidote for those who are in danger of going off the deep end in the direction of thoroughness and attention to detail.

Along with the ceremony of burning chametz there is a special prayer that is said, called Bitul Chametz . In this prayer we ask God to render as null and void whatever chumetz might remain despite our most careful efforts to get rid of it all. To me this prayer humanizes the strictures of the rabbis. It keeps the rules from becoming unbearable.

The Torah sets high goals, but is forgiving. Judaism recognizes human imperfect. It wants us to stretch and to strive. But it also recognizes that some crumbs will remain despite our best efforts to get rid of them. What this prayer of bittul chametz, nullifying the leftover chametz comes to teach us is that it is our responsibility not to let these remaining crumbs spoil our entire life.

Someone may be a really good friend, but then they offend us in some way. Can we overlook that offense, the way we ask God to nullify the last few crumbs?

We may be working towards a health or fitness goal. If we demand perfection of ourselves, we may get so discouraged that we give up. We can learn from the practice of bittul chametz, to accept our best efforts as good enough.

Bittul Chametz is a sanity preserver, it remains us, as the title of a wonderful book on caring for aging, parents say: "Your Best is Good Enough!"

Work hard and strive to do well, but remember – God overlooks those last few crumbs

Lberation and Obligation

2008-04-13T14:47:00.000-04:00

By Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf

The Biblical story of Pesach, the story and the very notion of exodus from Egypt, stand at the root of what is today known as "liberation theology," faith ideas about a Divine imperative to free the slave, the weak, the small, the few, from the master, the strong, the giant, the many. From here, many peoples throughout the developing world have conceived ideas of rebellion against colonizing powers; those struggling for a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rightfully also recognize parallels between the oppression of the Israelites, and the horrors of the occupation -- and the Divine imperative to end the occupation and seek true peace.

Where liberation theology often fails, however, is in forgetting the completion of the Passover story: Shavuot. The Israelites were not freed from Egypt to wander the desert in some imagined anarchic bliss. They were freed to receive Torah, and be made a people. Exodus leads to Sinai, Passover leads to Shavuot, freedom leads to law and obligation.

Thus, the holiday of Passover doesn't truly end until seven weeks later, when the Jewish community remembers our stand at Sinai, before the ineffable power of the Creator. Each night of the intervening weeks, we count the Omer, a small reminder of the struggle in which the Israelites were engaged to leave behind the vestiges of slavery and the mindset of subjugation, and prepare themselves for the awesome responsibility of living godly lives. This is where liberation theology is often half-hearted -- it is often very strong on liberation and freedom, but far too weak on law and obligation.

The Palestinians are right to demand their liberation; the Jewish people need look no further than their own history to understand the wrong of the occupation. But it must not be forgotten that Israel is also right to demand the end of violence coming from some segments of the Palestinian community. Liberation is not enough -- we have also the obligation to live ethical lives.

Both sides, then, must recognize the humanity of the other, and work together toward their mutual freedom, their mutual obligations. We learn in Exodus 12 that the Israelites went up from Egypt with a mixed multitude -- they were not alone as they shook off their oppression, and, we can presume, they were not alone at Sinai.

God does not speak only to the Jews. The Creator speaks to all Creation, calls on each of us, individually and in our communities, to live in freedom and responsibility. Israel and the Palestinians must talk with each other, in honesty and mutual respect, and achieve a durable peace agreement, if either people is to know real liberation.

In this season of celebration, we wish all Jewish communities and all Palestinian communities true freedom, and we await a new Sinai that will bring law and justice to us all.

A very Inspiring thought.

Charlton Heston: 1923-2008

2008-04-06T07:46:00.001-04:00

"...If you need a ceiling painted, a chariot race run, a city besieged, an ape waxed, or the Red Sea parted, you think of me..."

I Have a Birthday!

2008-03-31T06:39:00.001-04:00

This, according to Chabad, is my Jewish Birthday. Five days before the New year...for trees.

Your Jewish Birthday is
Shvat 10, 5716

This will occur next on
Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Torah Portion: Parshat Beshalach
(Exodus 13:17-17:16)

Guess I should learn, eh?

Let My People...Laugh!

2008-03-30T07:40:00.003-04:00

With Pesach not all that far away. (and man the year is flying by!) I've been on the prowl for fun, inspiring Pesach stuff:

http://community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/499954.html

Why? Because!
"A happy (or joyful) heart is good medicine" (Proverbs 17:22)

Did you hear about the new Jewish Game Show?

It's called: The Price Is Too Much

"We eat matzoh, because when our ancestors left Egypt they did not have enough time to let the bread rise...although apparently they had enough time to beat egg whites..."

What does that mean??????

OK OK, here's the explanation: During Passover, Jews are forbidden to eat leaven, which of course includes "leavened" bread, which in turn has come to mean "Anything whose airiness comes from yeast or baking soda." Hence, all cakes, etc. are held up by beaten egg whites during Passover.

Last but not least, this snippet:

G-d: Pharoah won't let your people go unless he is forced. So I will stretch out my hand and smite Egypt by doing all sorts of wondrous deeds there. Lots of people and animals will die.

BURNING BUSH: Couldn't you just make Pharoah say yes the first time?

G-d: I cannot. But perhaps Moses can convince him.

MOSES: How will I convince him? What if he doesn't believe me? I need some proof of your wondrous power.

G-d: Do you know any card tricks?

MOSES: No.

G-d: The nickel in the ear trick?

MOSES: No.

G-d: The rabbit from a hat?

MOSES: No.

G-d: Saw the lady in half?

MOSES: No.

G-d: Don't worry. You'll think of something.

BURNING BUSH: Get your brother to do it. He's a fast talker.

G-d: Now go!

Fun Time!

2008-03-23T15:59:00.003-04:00

There has been too much lack o' fun around these parts since who knows? So, here is some good things to peruse:

"It is a great mitzvah (sacred deed) to be in joy always.... When there is defect in one's quality of joy, it leads to illness...and it is through rejoicing that all illnesses are cured...The principle of the matter is that you should muster all your powers to be always in a state of joy. For our nature is to incline toward being depressive and sullen due to afflictions that befall us and to the circumstances of the moment, and everyone is filled with troubles. Therefore, you need to move yourself with great effort towards becoming joyful always and to gladden yourself with whatever it is that you can find, and even by means that appear silly. And while a broken heart, too, has its very positive qualities, nevertheless it should be relegated only to a particular hour of the day, to break your heart out of your troubles to the Source of Blessing, as is our tradition. But during the rest of the entire day, you should be in a state of joy"
--18th century Rabbi Nachman of Breslav in Likutei HaMoHaRaN Tanina, Chapter 24, paragraphs 1 and 2

"From jesting purpose is brought to wisdom, for if there were no silliness in the world, neither would there be wisdom in the world. Indeed, it is a responsibility upon every person to experience a bit of jesting and to know her. For there is a greater purpose lent to wisdom that comes from out of clowning around as there is greater illumination lent to light that comes from out of the darkness. For without darkness, there is no light, and the light would serve no purpose. Rabbi Shim'on once said to Rabbi Abba: "Come and see! The mystery of a thing is not illuminated except within the context of jesting, which awakens it from the other dimension, and if not for that illumination, there would be no empowerment or purpose to wisdom. And the more jesting, the more clarity is brought to wisdom. Moreover, if there would be no jesting found in the world, there would be no wisdom found in the world. And thus did the Grandfather, Rabbi Ham'muna, always begin his mystery teachings for the clan with several jokes, for through jesting does wisdom have any purpose." --
the Zohar, Volume 3, Folio 47b

"And Sarah said: 'Laughter has God made for me'" (Genesis 21:6). This teaches us that when Yitzchak (Isaac:literally, "laughter") was born, all those who were sick became healed; all those who were deaf could hear; all those who were blind, could see. This is what she meant when she (Sarah) said: "Laughter has God made for me." --Midrash Tanchuma, Va'yera, Ch. 37

NOT the "Wright " Stuff

2008-03-21T05:56:00.003-04:00

Many bloggers are citing this "two faced" approach with Hobama and his minister Jeremiah Wright. HObama was all over firing Don Imus and all HE said was " nappy headed ho" regarding the looks Dennnis Rodman-like women on a NJ hoops team. Hardly a beauty in the bunch. All tatted and dreadlocked up. They looked exactly that.

Minister Wright laid out a buffet of hate so vitriolic, so caustic, over the 20 years Barack Obama and his family sat there and LISTENED, AGREEING, that I am surprised there isn't an uprising.

And HObama...never said a word. Not until the YouTube videos came out. Then, instead of facing reporters to explain, he wrote a nice flowery speech, that had much sound and fury, but signified nothing.

If it doesn't cost the guy the election, it will definitely cripple him in the "trust" department. If you or I went to a church/temple/mosque that had so much hate and vitriol, you'd confront the pastor, priest,imam or rabbi and tell them so. You sure wouldn't STAY for 20 years!!

Acording to those who regularly attend Wright's church, this man ain't no dummy, speaks three langauges, knows the Bible upsidedown and backwards. But look at what he will be known for forever...and as Imus knows, no amount of good works will get Wright's evil language of hate out of the American psyche.

And Don Imus, now more cautious with his words, since THE EVENT, knows what's cooking and it ain't just breakfast!

When the Spitzer Hits the Fan

2008-03-15T05:50:00.003-04:00

This week has been interesting, as far as politics goes. The Governor of NY, was caught in a money laundering scheme. And HOW did they catch him?

By transferring large amounts of $$$ to pay for...a prostitute. Seems he was paying boookoo bucks to pay "Kristen" whose real name changes depending what day it is to do the horizontal mambo.

Kristen, or Ashley, or Ralph, whatever her name is today, wanted to be a famous singer. Now, she's famous all right, in that way that makes America great, by being notorious. Her MySpace single is blasting off the download charts and you know she's making bucks. (wonder why she didn't crib " Tell Ya What I Want,(What I really Want)". Maybe now she will form her own group, with the other poons du jour, the "Spitz Girls".

Not for nothing, but the man has a smokin' hot smart, funny wife at HOME. So why play on the low down?

Variety, as NY Post columnist, Cindy Adams says. Like Chinese take out, a change of pace from the ordinary.

Uh-HUH. As Groucho Marx once said, " I love my cigar, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while". In other words, keep that rascal IN YOUR PANTS! Oh and Spitzie?, don't let the doorknob hit ya on the way out.

So, now we have the first African American, blind, Governor, David Patterson, taking over on Monday. You can bet HE won't be LOOKING at hookers, or anything else.

All you need is some Bob Fosse chorography, and some music and... "All that Jazz", and you'd have "Chicago". Minus the murder. Think about it, ditz is in trouble with the law, the news hounds take a liking to her, want to know all about her, and she gets a famous lawyer who becomes her "mouthpiece"...hot until the next best thing comes along.

At least, it took the front page off Hillary and Hobama.

Shabbat Shalom

2008-03-08T07:29:00.001-05:00

Here's yer Parsha:

Moses: One gold coin, two gold coins...(looks up) whatcha got there, Betzalel?
Betzalel: The new Priestly garment, We got Yitzaac Mizrahi to design.
Moses: I'm not crazy about the ruffles. Can we change that for a breast plate in front, with a nice linen apron, maybe some breeches?
B: You wanna go COWBOY?? Mizrahi's going to be MAD...he thought the feathered hat was silly, so he put the ruffles on the shirt.
M: Well, do that anyway, then I'll anoint it and Aharon, too. Now where's that oil...?
B: You are gonna throw OIL on this??! No way! It's LINEN!! YOU get oil outa that!
M: AW, Just Jew it, willya? And go find Aharon...tell him the Mishkan's ready.
B: Okay, okay...hey, how come it's getting cloudy outside?...the forecast was supposed to be sunny.

You Will Be (Un) welcome as the Outcast...

2008-03-07T04:22:00.003-05:00

"...A convert to Judaism is called the son or daughter of Abraham. The reason is that a convert has the greatest test of all; the convert is the potential Jewish soul that has been born to non-Jewish parents. The convert is the one that has to stand on the other side, to break away from how he or she was raised, educated and brought up to believe, and say, “No matter what you think, I know my soul, and I am a Jew.”

And yet, it is not only the righteous convert, but every one of us that needs to do this as well. Each Jew must look at him or herself and ask the question, “Who am I? What do I believe?” For we are not intended to be robots, we must do, but we also must know and understand. Judaism is not only about practicing, it is about living..." (from Chabad.org)

Now given that, why do I feel such a outcast? A good theory is the news from Israel, where converts are treated as nothing more than Arabs, where they are not allowed in certain places to pray, or even walk. Why should I go visit such a place where more than likely, the first Haredi to throw a rock at me is going to get schooled in the ways of handling disputes...Brooklyn Style.

After Rabbi C left Temple Beth El, I was at a loss because I was not crazy about the new Rabbi. So, I looked around and found an Orthodox shul, that was appealing and spritual, but when I began attending regularly? I was informed I was not Jewish enough to join. That did it.

I was so angry, I just kept to my practices at home, keeping Shabbat, but not going to shul. This is not what I wanted, but I feel so unwelcome anywhere else.

Now I hear about how haredi more and more Jews are becoming, more unfriendly they are to those who do not follow as they do. I love my religion, but for it to work, I need a good foundation to hang on to. The issue is that the platform is changing and no one seems to agree who is Jewish. Enough!

The Tankers Of Boeing

2008-03-05T19:13:00.003-05:00

US Government Sells Out America

To All American Citizens:

On February 29th 2008, the Department of Defense chose Airbus and European workers over Boeing and American workers for Air Force Tankers. This is the second largest military contract in US history!

44,000 family wage jobs will be lost to Europe: Jobs YOU will pay for with YOUR taxes.

There have been protests by many concerned American citizens. However Congress and The White House MUST see a nationwide outcry over this ill-conceived decision.

We need ALL American citizens to send a message to their Senators, Representatives and the White House.
Lookup your:
US Senator here http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

US Congressional Representative here http://www.house.gov/house/MemStateSearch.shtml

Boeing operates in many states and has suppliers in all 50 states of the US. This decision by the Defense Acquisition Board adversely affects every tax paying American.

The proud men and women who build the finest aircraft in the world are asking for your help.

This betrayal of America will transfer $40 billion of technology, jobs, military and economic security to our nation's rival in the aerospace industry. It also places our national sovereignty at risk by giving France and other foreign decision maker’s power over whether or not to produce our military hardware if they disagree with military action by our government.

We ask that you cc Senator Patty Murray and Senator Maria Cantwell from Washington State in your correspondence.

We know you will have statements and questions of your own.

Once again, thank you for your help as we try to reverse this bad decision for America.

Some message examples include:

1) Our military hardware should be labeled "Made in the U.S.A.” NOT made in France

2) In the future, if France disagrees with our military action will they continue to deliver our tankers?

3) With our economy teetering on the edge of recession why would our government ship $40 billion worth of defense jobs overseas?

4) It is wrong to give away America's aerospace manufacturing jobs at a time when our nation has a record trade deficit?

5) With respect to the air refueling tanker contract, why did the U.S. Air Force decide the location of the jobs created by the contract was of no importance?

6) Why is the U.S. Government granting a $40 billion contract to Airbus for Air Force tankers while filing charges on Airbus through the World Trade Organization for unfair and illegal developmental subsidies? These are the same type of subsidies used to create the very Airbus made Tankers the US now wants to buy?

Email address as follows:

Email to the White House

To:comments@whitehouse.gov

cc Your Representative

This Is Not Good...

2008-02-25T08:48:00.003-05:00

"...As a fledgling Christian, Barack Obama didn't join just any church. He joined the United Church of Christ.

The United Church of Christ is very anti-Israel and supports divestment. It also sponsors speeches at its many functions by the Arab "Christian" pro-terror religious organization, Sabeel. Sabeel holds some of its biggest meetings in Chicago., (www.scoop.,co, nz/stories/HL05 10/500139.htm).

The Democrats attract the majority of Jewish voters and funding, and this guy is being grooned as their golden boy?

Essentially Obama is a Christian convert--but also then a Muslim apostate..."

And Americans are liking this guy when this theory exists? Someone, and not the NYT, needs to look a bit harder into this.

All the hope and "change" in the world will not help us when Obama not only doesn't pull the troops out, but denies Israel's existence.

I Have a New Computer

2008-02-24T10:51:00.002-05:00

This is my tax refund, a new computer with tons of room, windows Vista and a popped out CD drive door. (I have to get that fixed.)

I spent most of Saturday night and today making it more personal, like removing stuff I won't/don't use and putting things in I do, like Winamp.

I'm getting there, the only think left is to put in Office, which I can't do until the CD door is fixed.

Torah, Torah, Torah

2008-02-09T17:16:00.000-05:00

I adore my friend Chuck. He's a good guy, spritual in his own way and seems to find my stuff funny. Now, what I've been doing of late, is sending him brief, funny, d'var Torah on each week's portion.

Then I thought, not to be sacreligious or anything, I thought I'd post them here, too.

This week's Torah portion: Moses goes to Fortunoffs (all the while complaining that G-d is Chai Maintenance) and is figuring out how to build an ark..the OTHER kind:

"..G-d tells Moses to instruct the Israelites to bring gifts – precious metals, fine fabrics, skins, wood, oil, spices, and jewels – for the building of the mishkan, the portable sanctuary, and its furnishings. G-d says, “Let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.”

G-d then provides detailed instructions for the ark and its cover, the table, and the menorah. Next, there are the instructions for making the mishkan’s coverings – layers of cloth, goats’ hair, and skins, from inside to outside. Next, the wooden structure of planks and silver and gold fittings is described..."

Everytime I hear about arks, I think THIS one:

"..Noah!
Who is that?
It's the L-rd, Noah
Right!

Where are Ya?
What You want? I've been good.
I want you to build an Ark
Right!
Whats an Ark?
Get some wood build it
300 cubits by 80 cubits by 40 cubits
Right!...
Whats a cubit?..." ( Bill Cosby's "Noah")

Barack to the Past?

2008-02-03T07:29:00.000-05:00

In all of the hoo-hum of the 30 second sound bites, why hasn't anyone noticed that Barack Obama's speeches are ripped from another Democrat who promised " change you can trust"...back in 1992:

Here's Bill Clinton ...

"...Now that we have changed the world, it's time to change America.

I have news for the forces of greed and the defenders of the status quo: Your time has come and gone...That's why I'll fight to create high-paying jobs so that parents can afford to raise their children today.

That's why I'm so committed to make sure every American gets... health care ...

That's why we need a new approach to government, a government that offers more empowerment and less entitlement. More choices for young people in the schools they attend- in the public schools they attend. And more choices for the elderly and for people with disabilities and the long-term care they receive. A government that is leaner, not meaner; a government that expands opportunity, not bureaucracy.."

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25958

Then you have Barack Obama:

"...and the federal government should make sure that our states have the money to make that happen....what will move us toward that goal of universal coverage for all..."

"...And as people have looked away in disillusionment and frustration, we know what's filled the void. The cynics, and the lobbyists, and the special interests who've turned our government into a game only they can afford to play...

We've made some progress already...But Washington has a long way to go. And it won't be easy. That's why we'll have to set priorities. We'll have to make hard choices. And although government will play a crucial role in bringing about the changes we need, more money and programs alone will not get us where we need to go. Each of us, in our own lives, will have to accept responsibility - for instilling an ethic of achievement in our children, for adapting to a more competitive economy, for strengthening our communities, and sharing some measure of sacrifice. So let us begin. Let us begin this hard work together. Let us transform this nation..."

http://obamaspeeches.com

A good Google search and a bit of time can drag out even more comparisons. It's the same stuff, just a different millenium. I fell for Clinton's ear wash in 1992. I'm not falling for the same old, same old again.

A Dozen Treesons

2008-01-19T05:27:00.000-05:00

So, Blogger is now availible in Ivrit? (Hebrew?) Kewl! Can't really speak it execpt as a prayer, but for those who can blog left to right, now they can.

Speak of...my birthday is a reason to celebrate...trees!

Trees. (It's 23 freakin' degrees and YOU want to mention Trees?)

Yep. It's Tu'BShevat, the New Yer for trees. AND, it just so happens it falls on my birthday, so THERE.

No, I'm not having a slice of Maple (frosted) cake in honor...but I did find this list.

Tu B'Shevat, the birthday of the trees (or the new year of the trees) is a minor Jewish holiday.

1. Trees are a source of shade when the sun is hot. They protect our homes, our grass, our land, from the heat of the sun. Trees control climate by moderating the effects of the sun, rain and wind. Leaves absorb and filter the sun's radiant energy, keeping things cool in summer.

2. Trees produce nourishing fruits and nuts for all fauna, including us, to eat. Animals, including elephants, koalas and giraffes eat leaves for nourishment. Flowers are eaten by monkeys, and nectar is a favorite of birds, bats and many insects. Animals also eat much of the same fruit that we enjoy.

3. Trees purify the air we breathe and are sometimes called the "green lungs" of our cities. Earth has "lungs"..the Brazilian Rain Forest!

4. Trees help prevent the soil from erosion and the land from becoming a desert.

5. Trees can be beautiful and inspiring to gaze upon. As the old adage goes, “I have never seen something as beautiful as a tree.”

6. Hundreds of living creatures call trees their home. Leaf-covered branches keep many animals, such as birds and squirrels, out of the reach of predators.

7. They have a wide variety of practical and commercial uses. Wood was the very first fuel, and is still used for cooking and heating by about half of the world's population. Trees provide timber for building construction, furniture manufacture, tools, sporting equipment, and thousands of household items. Wood pulp is used to make paper.

8. The bark of some trees can be made into cork and is a source of chemicals and medicines. Quinine and aspirin are both made from bark extracts. The inner bark of some trees contains latex, the main ingredient of rubber.

9. Today, there are over 200 million trees in Israel – forests of pine, tamarisk, carob and eucalyptus.

10. Since its founding, the Jewish National Fund has planted more than 240 million trees in Israel to protect the land, prevent soil erosion, green the landscape and preserve vital ecosystems.

11. Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net GAIN in numbers of trees.

12. The Yatir Forest, which grows on the edge of the desert, is the largest of Israel’s man-planted forests. The father of afforestation in Israel, Yosef Weitz, jabbed the ground of Yatir with his walking stick and declared: "A forest will grow here!" contradicting the experts who argued that it was impossible for trees to grow on such arid soil. Which generally sums up Jewish gumption

Happy Birthday, Ak!

2008-01-12T06:05:00.000-05:00

Today's my friend Chuck's birthday, his 47th. We met when he was the VP of something and I was the lowly peon at a lighting company, a place we both called the "Nazi Death Camp". He was then and is now, a sincerely nice guy, loves his kids and has been married to the same woman for nearly 20 years. He's also one of the most sincere Jews I know. Not devout, as in go to shul each week and keep kosher, but a decent, spiritual one.

Today, he also goes to the UK on a business trip, and to him, I say " Zei Gezunt" or "Go in good health". Something like that. I usually come up with something clever to leave on his voicemail. Last year, I scored with the theme to Canada's hockey night.

This year, I gave him a week's worth of caffination ( gift card at Dunkin' Donuts) and I actually spoke to him. Started out as TRYING with the secretary to leave a voicemanil message, and turned out " Hello, this is Chuck"

"Aw, krist, I didn't want to speak to YOU.." I replied.

"Okay, I'll hang up" he said, laughing.

So, we chatted, maybe two minutes, and he promised when he got back, to chat some more.

Chuck is one of those friends that we both can be quite liberal as to what we can discuss, which usually amounts to everything. He's also a busy person of late, trying to keep hearth and home going and the kids to college. That's where the phone calls and e-mails come in. I miss just talking face to face, though. The "Ak" is his nickname, he has one for me, "Rebbitzin". and this one he came up with for him.

So, whereever he roams, a most happy 47th to Chuck. See you soon, kid.

Roast Camel and Fish Tasting Jam...

2007-12-31T05:13:00.000-05:00

So, I decided that no job is worth my getting into my car and heading into work on a snowy, ice slicked New Year's Eve, when the call flow will be as dead as Anna Nicole Smith. It's because of the ONE THOUSAND ON HUNDRED dollar deductable on my health insurance...and I WORK for UntiedHellth! They want to swallow that, I'll come in.

The job is picky about attendance, I mean REALLY picky. I missed one day in four months for the same reason. I will not drive on roads that are dangerous because the idiots in the Highway Dept won't clean them. This second time, I may get talked to about it, and I'll give them the explanation above. I will make it to work 99.5% of the time, the other 5%...well, snow what?

So, today, I'll rest, get ready for stuff and look for a job close to home, or at least has mass transit. This one, while okay, is not what I want to do.

But my last post of the year should not be so bitter. Here's some lighter stuff:

At Bedouin wedding feasts in the Middle East and North Africa, one food traditionally served is stuffed, roasted camel.

Ingredients: 1 medium-size camel, 1 medium-size North African goat, 1 spring lamb, 1 large chicken (some recipes substitute fish or monitor lizard), 1 boiled egg, 450 cloves of garlic, and 1 large bunch of fresh coriander. The chicken is stuffed with the egg and coriander, then stuffed into the lamb, which is stuffed into the goat, which is stuffed into the camel. The camel is then spiked with garlic, brushed with butter, and roasted. The finished dish is placed at the center of the table. Pieces of camel, goat, lamb, and chicken are pulled off and eaten with the hands. (Serves 100 to 150 guests.)

Camel is not kosher, btw...

Speaking of kosher...a story told by the immortal Myron Cohen. When his mother was presented with a plate of black beluga caviar and a glass of vintage Champagne, she commented, "Feh. The huckleberry jam tastes from herring and the ginger ale is sour."

Happy New Year!

Happy Newly Year!

2007-12-30T09:41:00.000-05:00

It's been a heckofa year. New job, not quite where I want to be, which is in radio, natch,but better for me mentatlly. I do miss my friend Chuck, who ran the place.

Dave and I still are! My nephew Cody's health is not the best, so for him I wish all good to him for the new year. Yesterday was his 18th birthday, and a good thing!

I hope 2008 is great for me, for you, for all!

Having NO debt to MasterCard? Priceless!

2007-12-25T05:47:00.000-05:00

On this Christmas day, I know one thing:

I owe no credit card.

Otherwise, I owe one bill to a hospital, and it's about $50.

Why do I mention this?

Because the news mentioned the average American owes Credit Card companies OVER TEN THOUSAND dollars, JUST for the Holiday Season!!

Your kid needs a Wii THAT badly? To put yourself in debt? With the rate the banks charge in interest fees, your kid will be paying off that debt long after you are gone.

Donations are down, because people haven't got it. Costs are up, gas is up, and people...go...shop? I don't get it.

Even when I haven't got it, I always aimed for a little to someone down and out. That's the way of Tzadakah, of charity.

Somewhere, that message gets lost in December. They all think charity begins at home with a ton of gifts under the now dead tree, ablaze in energy gulping lights. The Electric bill? Wait till next month to pay it...they don't have it this month.

I can't tell crazy people who get up earlyfor those faux bargains, stores who stay open 24/7, so they can sell another overpriced marked down sweater to give to the less fortunate. They won't listen.

But I can give just a little more and hope that others will.

Hell, I don't own a video game. I think they are boring.

Wiii!

Shiii!

For the Halacha of It..

2007-12-23T18:36:00.000-05:00

I saw this joke about a Catholic asking the father of a Jewish boy ...well, here's the joke:

The Cohen family was on good terms with their Catholic neighbors, the O'Brian's. In fact, little Yainkele Cohen and Chris O'Brian from next door would play together from time to time.

Well, one late December's day, Tim O'Brian, the non-Jewish father, came storming in to the Cohen's house holding poor Yainkel by the ear. "Your son is not going near my Chris again; he just has no respect for us and our religion!" "What's the matter; what did he do?" inquired Mr. Cohen. "I'll tell you" said Tim in a rage. "He saw our Christmas tree and started making fun."

"He did?" said Mr. Cohen. "What did he say?" "He saw our tree and started asking all sorts of ridiculous questions - which kinds of pine trees can be used for a Christmas tree? What's the minimum required height? How close to the window does it need to be? Do too many decorations render it unfit? What if it's under a neighbor's balcony?!"

I thought it funny, a Talmud Tree Rule...until I looked it up:

"...R. Jannai had a tree which overhung the public way, and another man also had a tree overhanging the street. Some passers-by objected and he was summoned before R. Jannai. He said to him:
Go away now and come again tomorrow. During the night he sent and had his own tree cut down. On the next day the man came back and he told him to go and cut the tree down. He said: But you, Sir, also have one? He replied: Go and see. If mine is cut down, cut yours down, and if mine is not cut down you need not cut yours down. What was R. Jannai's idea at first [when he kept his tree] and afterwards [when he had it cut down]? — At first he thought that passers-by were glad of it because they could sit in its shade, but when he saw that they objected to it he had it cut down. Why did he not say to the man, Go and cut yours down and then I will cut down mine? — In conformity with the maxim of Resh Lakish, who said: [It is written], Hithkosheshu wakoshu:1 trim yourselves and then trim others. -- Bablonia Talmud

I'm sure they do not mean pine, decorated with tinsel and baubles, or even weight loss...but it COULD sound like the start of something Yule. ;)

I know, Mr. Scrooge, I know...

2007-12-22T12:55:00.000-05:00

Sure, I'm Jewish. I don't celebrate xmas. I do love Holiday Novelty songs, however.

This is my favorite, one I played as the last tune in my christmas day radio show, much to the chagrin of the sales dept.

Tough...it still rules! Stan Freberg knew the commercialism back in 1956!

SCROOGE: (SINGING) Bah, humbug, everybody. CHORUS: Good morning, Mr. Scrooge! SCROOGE: Well, the meeting will come to order, if you please. Are all the advertising people represented here? CHORUS: Everyone except Amalgamated Cheese!
MUSIC: OUT

SCROOGE: Well, if they're not here for the Christmas pitch, I can't help them find new ways of tying their product in to Christmas. That's why I'm chairman of this board! Let's hear it for me! CHORUS: Hear, hear! SCROOGE: All right, Abercrombie, what are your people up to? ABERCROMBIE: Ahhh, same thing as every year. Fifty thousand billboards showing Santa Claus pausing to refresh himself with our product. SCROOGE: Mmmmm, hmmm, well, I think the public has come to expect that and . . . ABERCROMBIE: That's right. It's become tradition!

SCROOGE: You there, Crass, uhh, I suppose your company's running the usual magazine ads showing cartons of your cigarettes peeking out of the top of Santa's sack? CRASS: Better than that! This year we have him smoking one. SCROOGE: Um-hmmm... CRASS: Yes. We've got Santa a little more rugged, too. Both sleeves rolled up and a tattoo on each arm. One of 'em says "Merry Christmas." SCROOGE: What does the other one say? CRASS: "Less tar!" SCROOGE: Great stuff!

CRATCHET: But Mr.Scrooge... SCROOGE: What? Who are you? CRATCHET: Bob Cratchet, sir. I've got a little spice company over in East Orange, New Jersey. Do I have to tie my product in to Christmas? SCROOGE: What do you mean? CRATCHET: Well, I was just going to send cards out showing the three wise men following the Star of Bethlehem... SCROOGE: I get it! And they're bearing your spices. Now that's perfect. CRATCHET: No, no... no product in it. I was just going to say, "Peace on Earth... Good Will Toward Men."

VOICES: MUMBLING IN BACKGROUND MAN: Well, that's a peculiar slogan! SCROOGE: Old hat, Cratchet! That went out with button shoes! You're a businessman . . . Christmas is something to take advantage of! MUSIC: PUNCTUATES SCROOGE: A red and green bandwagon to jump on! MUSIC: PUNCTUATES SCROOGE: A sentimental shot in the arm for sales! Listen!

MUSIC: CYMBAL CRASH CHORUS: Deck the halls with advertising, Fa la la la la la la la la. While you can be enterprising, Fa la la la la la la la la. On the fourth day of Christmas, My true love gave to me Four bars of soap, Three cans of peas, Two breakfast foods, And some toothpaste on a pear tree! On the fifth day of Christmas, My true love gave to me. . . SCROOGE: Five tube-less tires! CHORUS: Fo-ur quarts of gin, Three ci-gars, Two cig-ar-ettes, And some hair tonic on a pear tree! (TEMPO CHANGES ROMANTICALLY) Chest-nuts roasting. . .

ANNOUNCER: Sayyyy, Mother, as sure as there's an X in Christmas, you can be sure those are Tiny Tim Chestnuts roasting. Tin-y Tim Chestnuts are frill-bodied . . . longer lasting! This visible shell . . . SOUND: KNOCK-KNOCK ANNOUNCER: ...protects the nut! Now with X-K 29 added, for people who can't roast after every meal. GIRL TRIO: Tin-ee Tim! Tin-ee Tim! Chest-nuts all the way! ANNOUNCER: Tin-y Tim's roast hot... like a chestnut ought! And.. . they are (ECHO) mild, mild, mild, mild. ORCHESTRA: PUNCTUATES
CHORUS: Deck the halls with advertising, Fa la la la la la la la la. 'Tis the time for merchandising, Fa la la la la la la la la. Profit never needs a reason, Fa la la la la la la la la. Get the money, it's the season, Fa la la la la la la la la.

SCROOGE: Words to live by, Cratchet! CRATCHET: For you, maybe. Can't you just wish someone merry Christmas, for the pure joy of doing it? SCROOGE: Why? What's the percentage in that? Let me show you how to make Christmas work for you!
CHORUS: We wish you a merry Christmas, We wish you a merry Christmas, We wish you a merry Christmas, And please buy our beer!

SCROOGE: There you go, Cratchet! That's Christmas with a purpose. CRATCHET: I know, but wait a minute. Don't you guys make enough profit the other eleven months? Christmas comes but once a year. SCROOGE: Humph! Funny thing you should bring that up. That's exactly the point I was about to make. Hit it, boys!

SCROOGE: Christmas comes but once a year, So you better make hay while the snow is falling, That's opportunity calling you! CHORUS: Rub your hands, December's here, What a wonderful time to be Glad and merry! SCROOGE: Just so you're mercenary too! CHORUS: Buy an ad and show all the toys, Show all the toys up on the shelf SCROOGE: Just make sure that you get a plug, You get a plug, In for yourself! SCROOGE AND CHORUS: Christmas comes but once a year, So you better cash in, While the spirit lingers, It's slipping through your fingers, Boy! Don't you realize Christmas can be such a Monetary joy!

CRATCHET: Well, I guess you fellows will never change. SCROOGE: Why should we? Christmas has two s's in it, and they're both dollar signs. CRATCHET: Yeah, but they weren't there to begin with. SCROOGE: Eh? CRATCHET: The people keep hoping you'll remember. But you never do. SCROOGE: Remember what?

CRATCHET: Whose birthday we're celebrating. SCROOGE: Well, ....... don't get me wrong. The story of Christmas, in its simplicity, is a good thing - I'll buy that. It's just that we know a good thing when we see it. CRATCHET: But don't you realize Christmas has a significance, a meaning?

SCROOGE: A sales curve! Wake up, Cratchet, it's later than you think. CRATCHET: I know, Mr. Scrooge, I know.

CHORUS: On the first day of Christmas, The advertising's there, with Newspaper ads, Billboards too, Business Christmas cards, And commercials on a pear tree. . . Jingles here, jingles there, Jingles all the way. Dashing through the snow, In a fifty-foot coup-e O'er the fields we go, Selling all the way. . . Deck the halls with advertising, What's the use of compromising, Fa la la la la la la la la.

MUSIC: AS TRADITIONAL HYMNS ATTEMPT TO BREAK THROUGH THE MUSICAL ENDING, IT BUILDS TO A CRESCENDO. WE HEAR "JINGLE BELLS" PUNCTUATED WITH THE SOUND OF A CASH REGISTER RINGING UP SALES.

Sfx: MONEY DROPPING IN AND THE CASH REGISTER SLAMMING SHUT!

Here Come...Fatty?

2007-12-08T13:37:00.000-05:00

It's Hanukah and I am listening to Holiday music. XM radio and AOL have this channel where you can listen off AOL's radio beta.

However, if you think I am lovin' " Jingle Bells"or other hoary old xmas tune...try:

"Another White Trash Christmas"
" Green Chri$tma$"
"Here Comes Fatty and his sack of..."

Oh, no. Nothing says the Holidays like...novelty tunes. Ren and Stimpy, Tom Lehrer, even Dave Duchovney (X Files Christmas).

There are Chanukah tunes, too, from Smooth-E, the Hanukkah Homeboys as well as Adam Sandler.

We wish you a Hairy Chest Wig...and a Happy Laughing Holiday.

Bee A MaccaBee!

2007-12-01T06:38:00.000-05:00

HANUKKAH kicks off on Tuesday night, but are you finding yourself feeling more ho-hum than filled with holiday spirit - and the thought of your average Hannukkah party fills you with dread?

Well, snap out of it! This eight-day holiday is packed with more fun, more moxie - more just plain oomph - than you can shake a yule log at. Channukah literally translates as “re-dedication," which means it's time to broaden your latke-eating boundaries and embrace all the events that are out there.

I don't know what is around here in the Hudson Valley. NYC seems to have the fun Chanukah stuff, but I did like the idea of bringing in jelly doughnuts to work.

Wait! Breaking news!

Mentos fountain record set in Missouri
The Associated Press

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. Cape Girardeau is in the record books in a very fizzy way.
The southeast Missouri town is now officially recognized by Guinness World Records for the most Mentos fountains launched at once.

Soda added to the candy causes a reaction that creates a geyser that can spew up to 30 feet high. In October, 973 fountains were launched at once at Arena Park in Cape Girardeau. That broke the old record of 850 Mentos fountains launched in the Netherlands just a month earlier.

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled blog.

I like Hanukkah, and don't think it's a "poor man's christmas".

After all, nowadays, xmas is more about a saint who gave gifts rather than a birth of the baby who would be a "savior" to some. In some homes, the light displays seem to comemorate GE than G-sus! At least Jews are GREEN about their light source!

Think about it. Eight days light out of a single bottle of oil. My car doesn't get that kind of milage.

Great holiday: spin the dreidle, toss the coins, because you don't want the Greeks to know you are REALLY teaching about the "great miracle" that happened. Foods cooked in oil.

Boy! You have to get up oily too! ( ow...ow...)

The holiday, while celebrating a great victory, is not quite what we're about. Jews don't celebrate war or death resulting from war.

So, we celebrate the miracle of light, because the learning Torah is equal to light illuminating a home, for it brightens up the Jewish soul. Even the name Hanukah, means "rededication, or enlightenment".

NOW...if we can all agree on how Chanucah is SPELLED, we'd be in great shape!

"So...

Put on your yarmulka, here comes Hanukkah
It's so much fun-akkah to celebrate Hanukkah...

Hanukkah is the Festival of Lights

Instead of one day of presents, we have eight crazy nights...

So,drink your gin-and tonic-ah, and smoke your marajuanic-ah

If you really, really wanna-kah,

Have a happy, happy, happy, happy Hanukkah."

( Adam Sandler)

Imus...FINALLY Returns Dec. 3

2007-11-30T05:17:00.000-05:00

May his appearance Monday bring the longest, loudest standing ovation in the history of radio.

An ovation not just from the fans, near and far, at Town Hall, but in their cars, at their desks, and homes. Stand and Cheer!

Toast Imus from your Imus Ranch ( or ABX if you have them) coffee mugs, dig into your Turquois Buffalo Tortilla chips and Fred's Hot Stuff. Raise your mugs high and cheer, cheer loudly!

Loud enough to drown out the naysayers, the rats who feign "outrage" and those who latch on to a wagon led by a so called spokesman, who claims is for his "community" while reaping profits off them in a bogus subprime mortgage scam.

The I-man returns...and HE IS PISSED!!!!!

Funny? You Should Say That...

2007-11-25T07:19:00.000-05:00

I perform comedy. IHave been doing this for 11 years, off and on, and no drive to be famous. However, I do love to make people laugh. Now, my audience is one person, over the phone as I help them with their health insurance. I don't do it often, because quality will nip me, but every so often, I do. Makes them and myself feel better as well.

Some of the more "interesting" calls have now become material in the act, like people not knowing they are divorced, about boils in very personal places ( in great detail) and all, but there are some pieces of work that, G-d knows, should be brought to His attention.

What I seldom do is go into NYC and perform in the clubs. I should, I know I should, but the open mikes are on weeknights and right now, the new job is all I can do.

People ask me why I do comedy. I have been called brave to stand on a stage and talk about me and events around me.

I'm not brave. Nuts, but not brave. And I wouldn't have things any other way.

Joan Rivers was a damn fine comedienne in her day. This is what she says about being a standup:

You want to hear stupid? Major stupid? Stand up comic.

You walk onto a bare stage absolutely alone, no comfort, no help, no script or actors to support you, no lyrics and music to give you life - just yourself saying your own words out of your own head, telling each person one on one, the weirdest corners of your psyche. And everybody is judging your personality, judging whether you are worthy of their money, whether you make them happy.

When they do not laugh, that silence is a rejection of you personally, only you. Not your mother. Not your piano player - if you have one. A thousand people in a room are saying, "You stink. You're nothing."

But here's what is even more stupid. In order to get on that stage and walk that terrible tightrope, you struggle through years of humiliation and privation, feeling like the misfit of the world.

For this job you have to be nuts, but it is the craziness that makes you funny, makes you obsessed with your career. It is craziness that makes you live for that hour facing an audience which can destroy you at any moment. Yet, those are the truly happy times in my life, riding the laughter higher and higher, feeling that euphoria, feeling washed in love."

Bits and Pieces..

2007-11-17T14:37:00.000-05:00

Of late, I have been so immersed in this new CCP job that it seems like I'm in class forever. Call it a call rep, customer service, whatever, it is pretty good. Good enough to the point where I again look forward to getting to work in the morning.

This was not the case at my last job, and their reputation for treating employees like chattal continues by sitting on my 401 K funds for nearly two months. I finally yelled loud enough for someone to do SOMETHING. I hope to hell that HR bitch gets fired. She couldn't manage a Mickey D's much less a company that makes freeze dryers.

The Stagehands of B'way are on strike. Right now, I would be enjoying Amos Hart's first appearance in "Chicago" at the Ambassidor theater...well, I would have been if the performance wasn't cancelled because the stagehands walked out.

NASCAR is pretty much wrapped, college football is down to the last and it is time....for HOCKEY!

On this Veteran's Day...

2007-11-11T16:40:00.000-05:00

An elderly gentleman of 83 arrived in Paris by plane. At the French customs desk, the man took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry-on bag. "You have been to France before, monsieur?" the customs officer asked, sarcastically.

The elderly gentleman admitted he had been to France previously. "Then you should know enough to have your passport ready." The American said, "The last time I was here, I didn't have to show it." "Impossible. Americans always have to show their passports on arrival in France!"

The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained.
"Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn't find any Frenchmen to show it to."

The "Spirit Of Radio" Returns December 3...

2007-11-04T09:00:00.000-05:00

November 4, 2007
Our Towns
Perhaps a Boor (or a Bore), but Imus Makes It Work
By PETER APPLEBOME

ON THE SAW MILL RIVER PARKWAY -- Forget, for a moment, the Rutgers women’s basketball team and all that. Here’s one drive-time driver’s opinion about Don Imus’s old morning show. It wasn’t very good.

You switched the station whenever his wife, Deirdre, came on to expound on green cleaning products or he began sputtering yet again that thimerosal causes autism. You turned off Bo Dietl’s completely unfunny mangled English, half the celebrity journalists back to hawk their books and the annoying cackling of his posse of middle-aged homeboys, celebrating one another’s bon mots.

And here’s another opinion. It was much better than almost anything else on the radio. Depending on your mood and tastes, on New York radio there are the blissfully literate and informed grown-ups like Brian Lehrer and Leonard Lopate on WNYC, the hyper-tasteful music wonks at WFUV, the standing army of the all-news nation on WINS and WCBS. Wherever you are, the NPR station is one of America’s wonders.

But as Michael Harrison, editor and publisher of Talkers magazine, put it, there isn’t really anything on the radio like Mr. Imus, with his unscripted and sometimes revelatory interviews with politicians and authors, his hit-or-miss humor, his ecumenical bad taste and cranky neither-left-nor-right politics.

“Imus had a marvelous niche offering a nonstop parade of top contemporary newsmakers who you actually hear in an unpredictable setting, as opposed to the predictable, sanitized way you see them on television,” he said. “Sure, he could be curmudgeonly, and nasty and weird. So what? No one forced you to listen. If you don’t like it, listen to someone else.”

There were two kinds of reactions last week when it was announced, inevitably, that Mr. Imus would be returning to the air, on morning drive-time radio on Citadel Broadcasting starting Dec. 3: from those who spend much of the day in their cars and those who don’t.

If you grew up around New York in the 1960s, you grew up with radio, whether it was Cousin Brucie, Big Dan Ingram and Scott Muni on WABC, Jean Shepherd’s baroque soliloquies on WOR, or Bob Fass’s Beckett-like free-form excursions on WBAI. It’s where you got your music, much of your inspiration and assorted blasts from distant planets, like the Billy Graham sermons that used to air on Sunday nights. Radio mattered.

Now, as Mr. Harrison laments, it matters a lot less. You get your music from the iPod or the computer download; you get every flavor in the cultural medicine cabinet from the Internet.
“Radio’s becoming marginalized,” he said. “Cars are like the last bastion where AM radio has a captive audience, but even there children today don’t think of cars as the place where you listen to the radio. They think it’s where you get to see cartoons and Barney videos.”

Still, for people who drive a lot, radio is still almost all there is — the last uni-media zone. Yes, you can listen to music CDs, and I’m addicted to audiobooks. But if there’s any romance or pleasure left to driving in America (a big if), part of it’s inseparable from what’s on the radio.
If you were on the road Friday morning, you heard what felt like Week 100 on A-Rod and Joe Torre. (Can people really listen to this much sports talk?) On the obscure corners of the dial (if your car still had a dial) you could find sweaty preachers howling from distant churches, confident market gurus and pitchmen selling herbal remedies and get-rich schemes. It’s the flea market of American media.

On the main destinations, where the talk tilts male and right, even the excesses were predictable. In the slot Mr. Imus will fill on WABC, a substitute host, Jeffrey Lichtman, lamented that we hadn’t gone after the right “psychotic, Muslim, fanatic animals,” meaning Iran, but added that the United States could still bomb both Iranians and Iraqis. “I’d send the biggest bomb possible that would kill the most people. All those people that show up in their stadiums with their eyes bulging and their tongues hanging out saying, ‘Death to America.’ I’d drop a bomb the same size as that stadium.” Anyway, 9:27, let’s get the traffic and weather.

I’m not a member of Imus’s club. My only brush with him came when he lambasted me for a few days a lot more vigorously than he did the Rutgers women. (Long story. It was all shtick.)
But anyone who listens to the show knows he insults everyone, though this time he did it
entirely inappropriately on the cultural third rail. Even the “shock jock” label seems a little tired (given what’s out there, how shocking can radio be?), but if, as rumored, he’ll return with a black co-host, maybe he’ll get the contemporary ground rules right next time.

We could do better, but in the prefab world of commercial radio, we usually do worse. For all his flaws, Imus is closer to the spirit of what radio used to be than almost anyone out there.

Last Saturday...

2007-10-25T06:37:00.000-04:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/sports/ncaafootball/21penn.html

If you were listening to WCBS radio Saturday Morning and you heard about a bus stuck in the Lincoln Tunnel, oh about 8:30 or so...

..That was the bus with Dave and I, on our way to NYC.

With one mile or so left, the rear of the bus began to make banging and crunching sounds not usually associated with the operation of a diesel engine. Then, in the tunnel, the noises ceased.

"Great!" said Dave, " That must mean the problem has stopped".

"Or the transmission did..." was my reply.

Being the good mechanic's daughter I am, I was right. The tranny went, about a half mile from the exit into Manhattan, slowing the bus to a stop in a unusually traffic free tunnel.

Within five minutes, a tow truck specially made for tunnels came up and towed us out of the Lincoln Tunnel onto 10th Ave, where we all got out, and walked toward midtown.

After that exciting start...the game was great!! Penn lost in triple OT, but damn! whatta game! ( see above). Even the Yale AC said to us, " I don't know how this team ( Penn) lost to Dartmouth". We were surprisedto hear that, but Yale thought the Quakers gave a good fight.

Between the third and fourth quarters, the Penn crowd sang " Drink a Highball". Now, it is during this classic Ivy tune that when the line " A toast ...to dear old Penn", in shades of " Rocky Horror" midnight shows, showers of toasted bread slices come flying from the stands, a couple hit me, but outside of leaving my hair crumbed, I was fine.

The track, that runs around the field, was covered in black, brown, and white squares. Then the "Toast-zoni", a specially modified ( by Penn Engineers) sweeper comes out to clean up the bread.

We also were witness to the " Size DOES matter" attempt from the ( ahem)
The Huge, the Enormous, the Well-Endowed, Undefeated, Ivy-League Champion,
University of Pennsylvania Oxymoronic Fighting Quaker Marching Band!!
where the largest, to date, baton was brought to conduct the band. To me, it looked like a 15 foot filter tipped joint, but hey...at least it wasn't the Penn engineers who designed it! The reception afterward sold bumperstickers and other souvenirs of the event, along with sandwiches and drinks for all.

Hey, we had fun...and that, along with suggesting a better mechanic for Trailways...counts!

Now, Junior, Behavioral Yourself!

2007-10-05T19:41:00.000-04:00

The new job has been great...until today.

Behaviorial Analytics.

Since the main part of the job is connecting with the customers on the phone, it would make sense to have an understanding of them.

Enter e-loyalty and their version of "Pop Psychology". For L-rd knows how many thousands of dollars, they will train people to train call reps to figure out what sort of caller they have and " Connect" with them.

That's okay by me...I'm all for that.

What I was not and am not comfortable with is that part of that "analyzing" involves recording calls and "coaching" reps to "connect" better.

Judging people by people who have no degree and a few hours of training from a guy who looks like the Professor from "Critter Gitters". Hack actor, and failed shrink, he moved to where the big bucks are. Dr. Phil has more credentials than this guy. Hell, I'm tempted to believe Maury Povich before this guy Hedges.

So, I didn't open my "condo" as the assessments are called. Told the trainer I would not before my therapist looked at it.

I was afraid that, once again, I would be labeled something I am not. I go to therapy to get rid of THAT sh*t. Spend 20 years in a marriage where all you got were negative labels all day, every day, you'd be really cautious of stuff like this. Paranoid...yeah.

"Coaching" is the buzz word for yelling at you, but at a lower volume. You did something wrong, so you get "coached".

Here's what is up on the e-loyalty webpage:

" ...eLoyalty Client, Unite******* Group, Receives Award for Behavioral Analytics Deployment

eLoyalty client, Unite******* Group, received the CRM Excellence Award for achievement in sales, marketing, or customer service from Gartner, Inc., at the Gartner CRM Summit in Chicago. The recognition is based on Unite******* Group and eLoyalty's partnership in developing a new, cutting-edge call center technology application based on eLoyalty's Behavioral Analytics(TM), which vastly improves the customer service experience for health care consumers..."

Nice, isn't it. But the truth lies in that people, being people, want to point out things. Things that happened in class were similar:

"HA! YOU are a Emotions!!! LOSER!!!" Yeah, shut up, you...!"

Gads, I've forgotten the categories. THAT is a sure sign of stress for me.

You see why I didn't want any part of this crap? These classmates will do this. They are young, care only about themselves like any good Gen XX and are caustic, vicious people.

And yes, you bet they will "connect" with those callers.

Outside The Silence of One Mime

2007-09-23T06:09:00.000-04:00

Mimes are interesting, but not much more than that. I liked Marceau, but outside of a single word in Mel Brooks' "Silent Movie" the man simply never made me roar with laughter. Chuckle, smile, sure, but never laugh. But I always respected Marcel Marceau for the actor he was.

He is gone now, that little Bip. And only now, I learn the man was a proud Jew:

Marcel Marceau, who revived the art of mime and brought poetry to silence, has died, his former assistant said Sunday. He was 84.

Marceau died Saturday in Paris, French media reported. Former assistant Emmanuel Vacca announced the death on France-Info radio, but gave no details about the cause.

Wearing white face paint, soft shoes and a battered hat topped with a red flower, Marceau played the entire range of human emotions onstage for more than 50 years, never uttering a word. Offstage, however, he was famously chatty. "Never get a mime talking. He won't stop," he once said.

A French Jew, Marceau survived the Holocaust - and also worked with the French Resistance to protect Jewish children.

His biggest inspiration was Charlie Chaplin. Marceau, in turn, inspired countless young performers - Michael Jackson borrowed his famous "moonwalk" from a Marceau sketch, "Walking Against the Wind."

Marceau performed tirelessly around the world until late in life, never losing his agility, never going out of style. In one of his most poignant and philosophical acts, "Youth, Maturity, Old Age, Death," he wordlessly showed the passing of an entire life in just minutes.

"Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us without words?" he once said.
Marceau was born Marcel Mangel on March 22, 1923, in Strasbourg, France. His father Charles, a butcher who sang baritone, introduced his son to the world of music and theater at an early age. The boy adored the silent film stars of the era: Chaplin, Buster Keaton and the Marx brothers.

When the Germans marched into eastern France, he and his family were given just hours to pack their bags. He fled to southwest France and changed his last name to Marceau to hide his Jewish origins.

With his brother Alain, Marceau became active in the French Resistance. Marceau altered children's identity cards, changing their birth dates to trick the Germans into thinking they were too young to be deported. Because he spoke English, he was recruited to be a liaison officer with Gen. George S. Patton's army.

In 1944, Marceau's father was sent to Auschwitz, where he died.

Later, he reflected on his father's death: "Yes, I cried for him."

But he also thought of all the others killed: "Among those kids was maybe an Einstein, a Mozart, somebody who (would have) found a cancer drug," he told reporters in 2000.

"That is why we have a great responsibility. Let us love one another."

Ha-Yom Kippur, Away!

2007-09-23T05:13:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was Yom Kippur and in my own, non paying way, spent it in shul. Don't get me wrong, I'm not cheap. It's just that when you make half of what every other Jewish person in the area makes, you tend to be a little more frugal. I also believe that on the holiest of Holy Days, Jews should not be denied worship in their shul because some board decided to charge twice the cost of a hit Broadway show for a seat usually free.

We won't count the upcoming Mel Brooks hit, "Young Frankenstein", which is charging $450 for THEIR seats! There may be shuls that charge that much for High Holy Day seats, but you won't get the cantor singing " Puttin' on the Ritz" either!

Up until last year, the "Community Service" at the Dutchess County JCC was free and well attended. In my opine, it's the warmest, loveliest service around. Then they slipped a flier saying in 2007 they would be charging the same for the Community service as the services held in the shul. I didn't think $250 per day per service was great then and I do not think so now. No wonder people are flocking to Chabad services. The community service was created, in part for those who COULD NOT AFFORD Temple Beth El's outrageous prices.

Yesterday was spent pretty alone, too. My friend Chuck, who is up to his armpits with work and life issues, said he wasn't sure if he'd be there until that morning. He wasn't where I was, but I hope he attended Yom Kippur services SOMEwhere. Damn three days a year Jews. Only with Chuck, it's hard to tell WHICH three he sticks with.

As for why I didn't go with David, he is a member of the other Reform temple in town, from which the Reform temple I was attending services broke away years ago in a rather bitter parting. So he was there, I was up the street and I'll be in Gan Eden afor ye!

The place where the Shir Yom Kippur services were held was a Quaker church. I know little about the Society of Friends, outside of my friend Terry, who is one ( some of my good friends are...Friends?). So, walking into a building that looked like it was closed and all the items save the pews removed was a bit disconcerting at first, then I realized why.

You don't need an icon to see/hear/talk to G-d. He is right there waiting on you. And from what I know, is how Quakers worship. Sitting in silence, waiting for G-d.

The services, Reform, but the Rabbi was very good, very spiritual and inspiring. One was on how to change one's life so that you are remembered for making a difference. The parsha ( read from the Torah by Rabbi in a real time cross translation of Hebrew and English!) was Nitzavim, which uses "hayom", ("Today") quite a bit.

"...Ye are standing this day all of you before the L-RD your G-d: your heads, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, even all the men of Israel,
י טַפְּכֶם נְשֵׁיכֶם--וְגֵרְךָ, אֲשֶׁר בְּקֶרֶב מַחֲנֶיךָ: מֵחֹטֵב עֵצֶיךָ, עַד שֹׁאֵב מֵימֶיךָ. your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in the midst of thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water; יא לְעָבְרְךָ, בִּבְרִית יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ--וּבְאָלָתוֹ: אֲשֶׁר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, כֹּרֵת עִמְּךָ הַיּוֹם.
that thou shouldest enter into the covenant of the LORD thy God--and into His oath--which the LORD thy God maketh with thee this day;
יב לְמַעַן הָקִים-אֹתְךָ הַיּוֹם לוֹ לְעָם, וְהוּא יִהְיֶה-לְּךָ לֵאלֹהִים--כַּאֲשֶׁר, דִּבֶּר-לָךְ; וְכַאֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּע לַאֲבֹתֶיךָ, אֱלֹהֶיךָ לְיִצְחָק וּלְיַעֲקֹב. that He may establish thee this day unto Himself for a people, and that He may be unto thee a God, as He spoke unto thee, and as He swore unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob..."

Something like that . Not bad for a Hahvahd man. I wish he was Conservative, but I don't think I'l hold that against him. He's the most spiritual rabbi I have seen since Rabbi Jon.

I'll think about joining...anyone who was in charge of one of THE oldest temples in LA can't be all secular.

New Year, New Job

2007-09-15T18:20:00.000-04:00

You should work here.

Really.

The spirit among the employees here is pretty high for what they do. The benefits aren't bad once you understand them, hell, the co PAYS for part of your deductable and there is a stock buy plan....

...and everything EVERYTHING is online, which is what we have been doing the past few days. Filling out forms, picking out coverage and learning the Knowledge Library which has EVERYthing you need to do your job.

After training, and if one has no warnings, they give you a 500 buck raise.

Other raises follow, merit and annual. You do good, you can go far here.

There are letters of praise from customers all over the place, raving about something someone did to make answering their request " as easy as breathing". The morale here is incredible, and people here are friendly.

All that AND a stainless steel travel coffee mug, with which, immediately everyone headed to the "village" ( coffee, vending machine area) to fill.

They dimmed the lights and everyone went silent this morning to commemorate the September 11 attacks. The place is quiet enough as is, but it got cemetary like...NO sounds at all, not even the click-click of the keyboards.

And there are 1,000 employees taking care of TWO customers. Two, yes, but they are the BIGGEST ones around.

Wednesday and Thursday, we shadowed a CCP ( Customer Care Pro) , which is what I am once certified and trained.

Watching them is like watching a tennis player at the US Open. Click, click click everwhere there were screens and the whole thing can look up, transfer, determine and replicate any answer, plan or person you need.

I got tired just WATCHING.

My favorite call was the guy who said " I want to eliminate my wife...( good 10 second pause) from my plan."

Whew! Thought he was wondering if that was covered!

I could relate though when asked when his divorce became final: " March 6, 2007 at 3:19 PM"

Oh yeah, that boy wanted OUT!

Safari, so good.

Happy 5768! It's Great!

2007-09-15T17:46:00.000-04:00

Welcome to 5768! A year divisible by 7 I am told, and one that follows a set of guidelines unfamiliar to me.

So, I see Jewschool's BZ has a really helpful post as to why:

"This ( seven year rule) means that here in Eretz Yisrael, this is not just any old Rosh Hashanah, but the beginning of the shemitah year, the seventh year of the seven-year cycle.

Like the other agricultural commandments, shemitah is observed only in the land of Israel. The Torah says that during this sabbatical year, no crops should be planted and no agricultural labor should be done. The land gets a Shabbat, and people may eat only the produce that grows anyway, which becomes hefker (ownerless).

I don’t know enough about agriculture to know whether it was possible 2000 years ago, with Israel’s lower population density (lower than today, but higher than during the hunter-gatherer era), to subsist without agricultural production. I do know that it’s not possible today, with a much higher population, to observe shemitah the way the Torah describes it (which may or may not have ever been observed) without relying on loopholes..."

So, if I understand it, it is similar to the "rest" period for cropland that farmers have been doing forever, just the farmer not working the land is added.

What is happening in Israel is that they are determining "WHICH" loophole to follow! Of course, it will be economically driven, but the fact that they even DISCUSS anything like that is amazing to me.

Always changing, always discussing. I love that about Judaism.

Speaking of...the president got things out of the way EARLY...

White House celebrates Rosh Hashanah a Week Early.

Sept 6: "President Bush issued a statement wishing “greetings” to those “celebrating Rosh Hashanah.“

Unfortunately for the White House, Rosh Hashanah does not start until sunset on Sept. 12.

Maybe he was looking for those early New Year sales...

and could someone PLEASE send Bush a decent looking kippot instead of the $1.99 special?

September?

2007-09-02T06:52:00.000-04:00

September already. The year flies by fast. It's been quiet, I gave my notice at work and people have been very nice to me or total dickheads. There are two of those dickheads. One is scamming HUD out of getting a subsidized apartment by having the HR beeyatch lying about how much he makes WITHOUT the 20 plus hours of OT he logs in weekly.

But that...is another blog.

In looking for a place to do the High Holy days without it being a "pay per pew" deal I inquired to the local Orthodox shul.

I was asked to supply a copy of my conversion certificate. It irritated me briefly, because I have to PROVE I'm a Jew every for things like this, but one who is born, and bred and practices not...? No Problem!

Grrr...

nothing in particular:

"Oslo (AFP): A grown moose belches out methane gas equivalent to 2,100 kilograms (4,630 pounds) of carbon dioxide a year, contributing to global warming..."

One weekend, I was at this shul when Hal, a former member of Temple Beth El, told me if I was to become a member, I should know what I am in for...conversion-wise. How HE found out, irritates me. Did stop by TBE on my way to the car ( the two shuls are very close), where my friend Alan and Rabbi were involved in a discussion on mentioning the war dead from the bimah. Rabbi wants to and knows that if he does he will get it from both sides. He is interested in politics, but doesn't like to be a target. Still don't think he is a spiritual type.

Alan agrees that if a Jew wishes to come to Temple during these very important and very pricey days, and has no ticket, who are we to refuse them? I let in many a Jew who had no ticket when I ushered the HHdays. We had a good chat in the heat...I suppose I should have suggested a cooler place to talk.

Returing to this Orthodox shul, I was turned down last week, after a nice talk with the Rabbi. I am not a Jew by birth or Ortho conversion and while I know that, I will forever fail to understand why a Jew who is sincere, but a convert, no matter how, cannot be counted as a Jew but a reprobate born to the faith is counted. NEVER will I understand that.

I am thinking of heading to Shir Shul ( Reform, but no tix needed for HH services) instead. I don't need any more tzuris that I have.

All this research I pass along to Chuck, who is not as financially strapped, but still wishes to observe. He won't even know if he will be anywhere until Yom Kippur Morning.

Last Tuesday, I gave notice to Mike who says " I won't tell anyone". And I am the Queen of Rumania.

I still remember that "car" he told me about, the one that wouldn't drive, but HEY! it was free!

I was supposed to learn the Advantages and Benchtops, too. His "word" is useless as tits on a boar hog. Me? I wasn't going to tell anyone, since it is no one's business where and when I go.

So, I timed it...

20 minutes.

Sophie the engineer, comes along and asks me " You're leaving?!" "Who told you?" I ask. "Mike" she said.

Uh HUH.

The place is nothing mre than a way for the investors to get theirs when the company goes back up for sale in a year or two. I hope Chuck gets out of the way and into something better.

****

A man and his wife are awakened at 3 o'clock in the morning by a loud pounding on the door. The man gets up and goes to the door where a drunken stranger, standing in the pouring rain, is asking for a push.
Not a chance," says the husband, "it is 3 o'clock in the morning!He slams the door and returns to bed.

"Who was that?" asked his wife.Just some drunk guy asking for a push," he answers."Did you help him?" she asks.

No, I did not, it's 3 o' clock in the morning and it is pouring out there!""Well, you have a short memory," says his wife."Can't you remember about three months ago when we broke down, and those two guys helped us ? I think you should help him, and you should be ashamed of yourself!"

The man does as he is told, gets dressed, and goes out into the pounding rain.

He calls out into the dark, "Hello, are you still there?"

"Yes" comes back the answer.
Do you still need a push?", calls out the husband.
Yes, please!" comes the reply from the dark.
Where are you?" asks the husband .
Over here on the swing!" replies the drunk.

Once Upon a Time...or " Take This Job and..."

2007-08-12T11:24:00.000-04:00

I recently told my boss and best friend Chuck, that I was leaving his company. He got me the job as a "survival" gig while I looked for something better in Broadcasting or elsewhere.

My new job is not in Broadcasting, but it IS a better job, something Chuck was very happy to see his " talented and intelligent" friend get.

After two years of being underworked, underpaid and unappreciated by this loser of a company, I delivered this news not in anger, but pretty Grimm...like the fairy tale bros of the same name. This is the original. I delivered a shortened version to him.

"Once upon a time, an employee toiled in the Land Of the Lyophilizers, a cold, dry land, where all was chaos. No one knew when they would receive work to keep them busy, or time when a flood of work arrived, only be told it must be done "in one day".

Planning for anything was bad, for they were owned by a rich King, King WarMinister of Riverlake. The King's people, it was told, were far removed from the Land and not just physically, either.

Morale was bad in the Land, but no one left because the factory was a short distance from where they lived and the price of fuel was high while their paychecks were not.

This employee, who was a refugee from the Borough of B-roll, was unhappy in the Land Of the Lyophilizers, but did their best to do the job they did, if only to please the Wizard of Workorder, Chuck.

One day, there was a job posting. " We seek ye to service our Customers!" it said. The employee read the notice and was gladdened, for it was a job they did before the Borough and they enjoyed it. So, the next day, the employee presented their resume and asked the Evil HR director, Cruella dePaychek, to be considered.

The next day the answer came: "NO!, thy skills weaketh, thou are too lame", cried the head of what was known among the employees as "Cuss em', err Service", Miss Ayn Thrope. " You must possess a MINIMUM of 25 years experience to be one with OUR customers...why, you would be yelled at all the time! How could you handle THAT?!" Cruella de Paychek screetched along in harmony.

" What? You never heard a director screaming at the anchorman on a live news program?" the employee replied, having learned their lesson well from the days of living La Vida Local News.

"Not good enough!!" bellowed Cruella.

And so the employee departed, returning to their damp, hot washer world, defeated, but unbound.

Soon, another job posting was issued. " Canst Thou Write Technicalese? We seeketh a Writer of Manuals and Reports to Bullshi*t the folk interested in the Products of the Land!"

Again, the employee sent their resume, with writing samples from their days at the Flying Fool Factory, and from their Radio Days.

Again, the answer was "Not just no..." from the Evil HR person.

The employee pondered as they returned to the washers. "Why, these people possess papers that say they are smart, they must know these things, far better than I. Then...then...I MUST be stupid!!" The employee's heart sank.

And so they wandered aimless in the Forest of Forlorn, dazed and confused, for many weeks.

One day, the employee became angry, and fled the Forest. "I KNOW what I shall do!" they yelled" " I shall FLOOD the world with my resumes! Surely, SOMEONE will appreciate the talent I possess!"

And so they did. For many days, the employee sent resumes to the Monster, the Bistro and the Builder, all seeking work in something other than cold, dry products in a hot, damp building.

One day, a missive came to the employee from the Home of Healthy Habits. " We liketh thy style and experience, but we need to test you in the skills you say you possess. Come by Wednesday" and was signed " Seekers of Smart People". And so the employee, with happy heart...called in sick that Wednesday to the Land and went to the interview.

And tested the employee the managers of the "Seeker of Smart People" did, for over three hours. Professional and proud, the employee answered all challenges, with aplomb and a sense of humor. Healthy Habits liked the employee very much and were very pleased with the employee's test results. " Can you be ours, to serve and to be true to the people we serve?" asked the manager. "Not to mention we pay far better than those silly cold and dry people. Your commute will be double, but the rewards of promotion for your hard work and knowledge will be yours", the manager added.

"I can" said the employee.

And that is why...my last day will be September 7 at SPI."

A Neeeeeeewwwwwww Job!

2007-08-11T07:15:00.000-04:00

Well, finally, after 70 resumes, and five interviews, I start a new job in Customer Service next month. Better pay, full training and a slightly longer commute...to Kingston!

I told my boss and best friend last Wed. The way I did was in the style of a fairy tale, even started with " Once upon a time...". Chuck nearly laughed with the "evil HR director" mention. I relayed my frustration and disappointment with SPI with a comedic, satiric " Take this job and..." story.

Chuck, after the tale was told, said he was SO proud and happy for me. The only regret is my leaving him, but he says he will hang on and do what he can to stay where he is. He isn't thrilled where he is, but he'll stay.

We talked for nearly 40 minutes, about everything, which is what I like about Chuck. He gave me a compliment that knocked me for a loop: " You are SO talented and SO smart, you will do well anywhere you go..."

Except where I will soon not be. My former employer.

Stupid people don't know what they had...well, ONE did.

You had a bad day...

2007-07-27T05:07:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was awful at work. The place has no A/C, everyone in a foul mood and I had nothing to do. Even my boss, who is my friend didn't speak to me. Later on he went out on vacation, more than likely looking at colleges for his son, Matt.

I was miserable.

Then I came home, hot sweaty, tired about to hop in the shower when I heard a gentle tapping on the door.

It was Dave.

And he brought a bouquet of flowers.

And it wasn't even a dinner date!

I was so happy and surprised I began to cry, the pain and frustration of the day pouring out in hot salty tears. Dave said " Hey, hey, no crying!" Then he threw his arms around me in a hug.

Dave wanted to thank me for getting his certification registration online. Dave is not crazy about computers, but needs them from time to time to do things. Since I have a computer, I'm more than happy to do that.

We spent a bit of time together, playing with the cat, and then he went to get his mail.

He comes back, while I was in the middle of getting UNdressed to take a shower. So, I throw on a cover, open the door. Dave shows me a small card that I spy the Postal Service Zip coding as "117"

Long Island. From Rob?

Indeed. It was a thank you note from my big medium brother and comedic mentor. He wrote that it was wonderful to have friends like Dave and myself in his corner during this difficult time for his family.

Such a love and such Rob.

I have few friends as it is, and I am so thrilled that one like Rob, a star performer and busy man as is, would be one of mine.

Dave is my love and my life and my best friend.

G-d has a good way of showing me that once in a while.

Belittle me all you want...BUT DON'T IGNORE ME!!

2007-07-25T17:13:00.000-04:00

I cannot shake this depression I am in. My job sucks, work sucks and not being able to find something else sucks. What's worse is that Chuck now doesn't talk to me and for the damned life of me I cannot ask him WHY?. I can take him yelling at me, which he as never done, but I cannot stand being ignored, because I think " WTF have I done??!!".

I'm believing he just is up to his ass in crocodiles trying to get a factory to run...two actually and no building to put the three companies in, because his boss LIKES the slum we are in...maybe he owns that too, like the slum apartments he has down the road.

David, thankfully has been a love through this and he has health issues that by caring for him, takes my mind off the fact that I hate work.

And Lauren Bacall needs a date. Now THAT I can sympathize with:

TODAY'S men are neither intelligent nor witty enough for Lauren Bacall. "They don't exist anymore. Why? Don't ask me. I haven't met anyone I wanted to spend an evening with, much less a life with," the Hollywood legend, 82, tells the Times of London. "Frankly, the only men I've been interested in these past 20 years, that I thought attractive, were married, and there weren't many of them. They had wives, and I can't deal with that - although both my husbands [Humphrey Bogart and Jason Robards] were married when I met them. It's weird, isn't it?" As for sex, she adds, "Sex? I don't even remember the word."

Thoroughly Modern...play

2007-07-01T16:31:00.000-04:00

Friday night was the second night of the run of " Thoroughly Modern Millie" at SUNY Ulster's Quinby theater. It's a production from a new company and wasn't bad for a first attempt.

My boyfriend Dave said the play seemed to lack "cohesiveness". I called it " songs in search of a plot". The music was okay, the second act being far better and moved faster than the first.

The sound, choppy. One minute the actors sounded great and then they faded to a near stage whisper.

The plot, what there was of it, was single young women at a boarding house which is also a source for the White Slave trade in Asia. A Chinese laundry serves as the processing point, where two brothers, slaves themselves, work there to get their Mom out of China by assisting Mrs. Meers in her dasterdly deeds.

That is it.

From this...a musical?

"Sweet Charity" had a better plot.

I thought the woman who played Dorothy Parker in the party scene was miscast; too willowy, too tall and too blonde to play a short half Jewish woman writer and raconteur (I am a huge Parker fan). Would Dorothy Parker be at a party at all?

The actress who played Millie, Jenn Kelly ( Equity waiver) WAS Dorothy Parker to me. She did sing very well, but not as good as Dorothy, Danielle Borkowsky.

There are two actresses playing evil white slave trader and failed actress Mrs Miers. The one we saw, Sue Gies ( or Geis depending on the website or the program one saw) muddled her words so badly in the first act it was hard for anyone in the audience to understand her in EITHER Chinese or Engrish! I've heard more enunciation in a NYC subway announcement.

Gies/Geis did enunciate far better in the second act. Maybe someone took the potsticker out of her mouth at intermission.

The two Chinese workers, Ching Ho ( Lee Albright, who is Korean) and Bun Foo ( Joe Augustine, who is not) were a hit singing Al Jolson's "Mammy" in Chinese! Loved that idea of the on screen subtitles.

A friend's daughter, which is why we saw the show ( she was in the ensemble) , was a delight as she tripped the light fantastic. Looked far older than her 14 years. In fact, all the dancing was superb, especially the "typing pool" number, thanks to choreographer Andy Paluselli. Sets and lighting from Richard Prouse reflect the "Roaring 20's" theme of the play, and were wonderful.

I realize it's their first production and for what I saw, it a great and good attempt. We both enjoyed the effort.

However, the hope is they figure out the works by the time Goldenstone produces "Seussical", which is a great play and has a fairly solid plot...if you count the works of Dr Seuss a "plot" ;)