Van the Man

Van Morrison is 60 years old today.


He was born George Ivan in Belfast and started his career singing r&b and soul with Them. That band recorded a couple of albums in various configurations, and Van provided them with classics like "Here Comes the Night" and especially "Gloria," which has been covered by approximately everybody and is probably being torn through in some bar at this very moment.

After that, he moved to New York and cut some more classic singles for the Bang label, particularly "Brown Eyed Girl". He doesn't seem to have liked them very much, which is incomprehensible, but no artist is the best judge of his or her own work.


The combination of limited success and distance from his home seems to have pushed Van deep into his own soul. His next album, "Astral Weeks," belongs on every top-ten list of great pop music ever generated; if it isn't there, the writer of that top-ten list is hereby excommunicated.

That was in 1969, and the music, while of the very uppermost quality, sounded unlike anything ever recorded, before or since. That's the definition of a masterpiece.
If Van had never recorded another note he would still be some kind of genius, but of course he recorded a great many more notes.


Over time, he's developed a sort of combination of soulfulness and spirituality in his music that cuts Prince every time. It's taken many forms, one of the greatest of which IMHO is the duet he sang with John Lee Hooker of his own "Gloria" a few years ago.

Listen to it and notice that Van and John Lee never quite sing the lyric all the way through. They don't need to. It's Van's song, so he can do what he likes with it, and John Lee had one of the greatest blues voices God ever let out of heaven. What's more, both of them had developed a vocal style of chewing up words, notes, phrases and melodies and dancing them around and about. Listening to their version of "Gloria" is a little like watching Fred Astaire dance; there's something inspiring about watching someone with nothing to prove, doing what he or she does best.


In any event, it's a demonstration (if one were needed) that Van's refusal to churn out another "Astral Weeks" was not due to any inability - his "Gloria" with John Lee shows quite clearly that he could have done so at any time. He moved on from "Astral Weeks" because he'd done that and it was time for the next thing. I wish we could all live like that.

Benshlomo says, Life is change.

Bloodsucking

You know, much as I hold Chris Hitchens in contempt for his politics, I at least comprehend his standing to make political arguments. This, however, is utterly beyond my comprehension.

Hitchens' writing on Jewish ritual circumcision, and especially the metzitzah b'peh (in which the mohel sucks the blood from the wound after removing the foreskin), has attracted a good bit of notice. It seems that a few babies in New York contracted cases of Type 1 herpes from the mohel's mouth.

First of all, let's dispose of Hitchens' debatable points:

(1) The fact that this procedure could possibly infect newborn babies is indeed deplorable, and by itself should bring the orthodox community up short. As a matter of fact, I read several years ago that most orthodox mohels now use a silver tube rather than direct skin contact to cleanse the circumcision wound, for this exact reason.

(2) That some orthodox rabbis insist upon continuing the practice regardless of consequence is likewise disgusting, and as near as I can tell, directly contrary to the basic Torah principle that all but three laws must be disobeyed to save lives. (In case you're interested, the three laws one must die rather than violate are the laws against idolatry, adultery, and murder.)

(3) That Mayor Bloomberg contorts himself into all kinds of odd shapes to satisfy both the orthodox Jewish voting bloc and the rest of New York should surprise no one - he's a politician, after all. Nevertheless, if Hitchens chooses to see Mayor Bloomberg's statement on circumcision as further proof of his invertebrate status, I cannot disagree; since I don't live in New York, I can have no direct experience with Mr. Bloomberg's administration. (And I must admit that Hitchens' nickname for Mr. Bloomberg in this context, "little putz," is rather amusing; "putz" is the little word for the male sex organ in Yiddish.)


Hitchens goes on to argue that metzitzah b'peh is no different than any other evil perpetrated in the name of religious faith: female genital "circumcision," polygamy, holy war, even an incident in which Bengali religious leaders prevented enough people from getting polio vaccinations to set back the universal cure of that disease. I find this argument more than a little hard to stomach, but since I have no particular belief in metzitzah b'peh, I'll let that one slide. There's argument on both sides of the circumcision question; for purposes of this posting, I make no argument for the specific means by which we perform brit milah. I seriously doubt that Father Abraham underwent any sucking of his own circumcision wound, after all.

At this point, however, I really need someone to explain to me what sexual neurosis Hitchens suffers from that he holds up the New York Jewish community as a bunch of pedophiles, child-torturers, and just plain dirty old men. Check out his last paragraph:

Jewish babies exposed to herpes in New York, thousands of American children injured for life after the rape and torture they suffered at the hands of a compliant Catholic priesthood, prelates and mullahs outbidding each other in denial of AIDS … it's not just your mental health that is challenged by faith. Anyone who says that this evil deserves legal protection is exactly as guilty as the filthy old men who delight in inflicting it. What a pity that there is no hell.

Oh yeah? Who exactly is the filthy old man here - the ones who cleave to an ancient and almost always harmless tradition, however misguided, or the one who rails at the entire world of faith because he finds those traditions sexually disturbing? On his own showing, Hitchens believes (with nothing but anecdotal evidence, and therefore on faith) that faith as such is a mental disease, and at the same time would consign those who disagree with him to perdition. Let's be very clear; the mohels and other authorities who seek legal protection for a possibly dangerous procedure may be kidding themselves, but there's no evidence whatsoever that they're pursuing this course because metzitzah b'peh gives them physical pleasure. Hitchens, an apparent atheist, may believe that there is no spiritual explanation for anything, but that's his problem, not Mayor Bloomberg's and not the rabbis'.

My thanks to the Volokh Conspiracy for a carefully-reasoned discussion of this issue. It's a refreshing cold-water bath after Hitchens' feverish rant.

Benshlomo says, Atheism doesn't exist.

Strange and Wonderous Ways

I don't know why this didn't occur to me before...

In November of 2000, partly because of some highly questionable maneuvers by his brother in the critical state of Florida, George W. Bush assumes the Presidency of the United States. Questions remain as to the legitimacy of poll results in his brother's backyard.

All is quiet until the 2004 election heats up. A few months before Election Day, Florida gets socked with four separate hurricanes in quick succession; Charley in August, then Francis, Ivan and Jeanne in September. It's like God is trying to warn Jeb Bush to keep his hands off the election results this time. It works; the questionable results arise in Ohio rather than Florida. Nevertheless, people are sufficiently cowed by world and domestic events that they return Dubya to the White House.

This is not a Presidential election year, and Jeb Bush has stated positively that he won't run in 2008, but the hurricanes have started even earlier than usual in Florida. Hurricane Dennis smacked into Pensacola in July, and now Katrina is causing problems down in the south. There's been more deadly storm activity in that state over the last two years than at practically any time in the past. Poor Jeb.

I say that God is still very unhappy with the 2000 Presidential election results and he's letting the citizens of Florida know it, loud and clear.



Well heck, it makes as much sense as Ann Coulter's accusations of murder against Hillary Clinton, or Rush Limbaugh's statements that Cindy Sheehan has forged documents in the course of her vigil at Bush's "ranch" in Crawford (???).

Benshlomo says, Having God on your side works both ways, pal.

Discouraging Words

Yesterday I spoke to a friend's mother about buying a house. She's been in the real estate business for many years, so I figured she was a good person to go to for advice.


She was. She told me that, for the kind of place Little Miss and I want to move into, a half a million dollars is cheap. Yet at the same time people are buying and selling houses like mad. I feel kind of like I did when I was growing up and got picked last for games; everyone's playing except me, and I'm left out because I haven't got the right abilities.


Today, on Slate, appeared this article all about how abrasive the career of a freelance writer can be, what with stagnant fees, late payments, and the certain knowledge that one's skills can be found anywhere. According to Mr. Yagoda, magazines want nothing but the plainest vanilla writing, the sort of thing anyone can do. Therefore, good writers are a drug on the market. Great news for someone who wants to make a career out of writing, as I do.

I was all set to throw in the towel on both projects, when it occurred to me that I was about to make some life-altering decisions on the basis of one conversation and one on-line article. Kind of jumping the gun, aren't I?

Yes, folks, from here on in it's going to take at least three contrarian viewpoints before I give up on my dreams, you betcha!

Benshlomo says, Maturity is largely a matter of taking the next step when your previous one landed you in a prairie dog hole.

Simple Statement and Response

George W. Bush: "So long as I'm the President, we will stay, we will fight, and we will win the war on terror."

Benshlomo says, True, false, and false.

OMG

Every once in a while you have to just let it rip, and therefore I will not apologize for bellowing like a deranged fanboy over this.

I've referred to Tony Pierce as my teacher before now - just how cool is it that the man reads my blog and posted a comment? And an approving comment, at that?

Well, I'll tell you how cool it is, by cracky - it's at least as cool as meeting Ray Bradbury all those years ago.

Benshlomo says, So much for that - I'll be regaining my composure any minute now.

Out of Context??

I see that that peace-loving Christian soul, Pat Robertson, claims that he never said the United States should assassinate the president of Venezuela.

Well, read his remarks for yourself. And they say that we liberals are liars and traitors.

Benshlomo says, Whatever.

What a Day for Science Fiction

Yes, we readers of imaginative literature really hit the jackpot on this date. Two of the most original thinkers we have mark birthdays today.


Alice Sheldon was born on this date in 1915, but she's better known to the sf world as James Tiptree Jr. For a long time she kept her identity secret. Some suggest that Robert Silverberg withdrew from science fiction for a few years at least in part because he publicly insisted that Tiptree could not possibly be a woman.

In any event, her stories landed like a nuclear bomb. Her novels lack the same force, but there's nothing like "The Last Flight of Dr. Ain," "The Women Men Don't See," "Love Is the Plan, the Plan Is Death," "And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side," "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?", "Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light!" and half a dozen others. She wrote about scientists who murder the human race to save the Earth, about women who leave the planet with aliens they just met because it's got to be better than the men they know, about sex and murder and death and joy. There was a critic, I can't remember which one, who suggested that Tiptree cut every other author in existence in her ability to narrate huge, long, sustained action sequences, and that's certainly true, but to me above all it's the imagination of Tiptree that lies at the root of her staying power; just check out those titles. Then her husband developed Alzheimer's and she shot him and herself. Where is her like now?


Orson Scott Card, born on this date in 1951, is a very different animal. He's a good writer of short stories, about aliens who worship humans as gods because they die, about a man who saves a colony of humans from carnivorous aliens by amputating human body parts and cooking them, about a man who defeats a death sentence by dying hundreds of times. It's his novels that have brought him fame, though, especially two novel series informed by both his tremendous imagination and his Mormon faith.

He's won awards for the Speaker for the Dead series, starting with Ender's Game, the story of a young boy in training as a fighter pilot in Earth's war against a rapacious alien species. The Alvin Maker series, more fantastical, tells the tale of a messianic figure growing and learning in an America where magic works and several nations (one Puritanical, one an English colony, and several others) share space.

The Science Fiction Encyclopedia claims that Card's uniqueness comes from his concentration upon the past rather than the future, upon the efforts of his characters to find a way home rather than new worlds to conquer, and upon the family rather than upon individuals or states. I wouldn't presume to argue.


If you believe, as some do, that those who share a birthday or an astrological sign also share certain characteristics, consider this: In the works of both Tiptree and Card, there's an overlay of sadness that you don't find too often in imaginative literature. That's all to the good, if you ask me. Science fiction ought to include the whole of human life, or why was it invented?

In any case, happy birthday to Orson Scott Card in North Carolina, and James Tiptree Jr. wherever she is now.

Benshlomo says, Some days you just get lucky.

Which Historical Lunatic Am I?

My teacher, Tony Pierce, recommends against these sorts of tests and I can easily understand why, but I couldn't quite resist this one because I got this result:


Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

It just so happens that I have a soft spot for Emperor Norton, not least because he was - you guessed it - JEWISH!

Benshlomo says, rules were made to be broken.

God's in His Heaven, All's Right With the World?

Okay, I'm not a Christian, I'm not very knowledgeable about what Jesus said or how his followers interpret his words, but didn't he say "Put away your sword" several times? Didn't he claim to be the Prince of Peace, or didn't his followers give him that title? Did he ever suggest that anyone commit murder? So can anyone explain this to me?

Benshlomo says, The greatest blasphemy is using the name of God to justify what you wanted to do anyway.

Bradbury, Old Student in a New School

Ray Bradbury is 85 years old today.


Certain authors are so masterful at what they do, calling them "masters" is almost insulting; they simply produce work that no one else (including other masters) could possibly turn in. Ray Bradbury is one of those.

He's the one, from the earliest days of Golden Age science fiction, who not only demonstrated the poetry of science and the science of poetry, he also showed better than anyone else that a writer of science fiction could also handle fantasy and some of the grisliest horror that ever haunted our sleep; in short, that imaginative writing was all of a piece. He's the one who insisted that science without poetry will get us to the stars, but will cripple us in the process.


He's also the one, beyond any other science fiction pioneer, who proved that science fiction could do for the 20th Century what Dickens and those guys did for the 19th; draw a bead on our world and preserve it in living words. As Harlan Ellison, another master, once said (and I'm paraphrasing), you take someone who doesn't like science fiction into a bookstore to give them something to defend your love of the stuff and you might find no Asimov, no Bester, no deCamp, but by God you always found The Martian Chronicles.

And speaking quite personally, I had the pleasure of meeting Ray Bradbury when I was in high school (back when he could still walk, alas). The drama department was presenting readings of his "Kaleidoscope" and "Dandelion Wine", and he came to see what we were up to.


When I found out he was coming, I was probably the second or third most excited I've ever been in my life. I had always loved his stories and I had no idea what he would even look like, let alone be like.

Well, his face is pretty well known now. He was a round guy with a big funny nose, a helmet of dark gray hair, and black horn-rimmed glasses. It's a cliche to talk about how disappointingly ordinary one's heroes look in person, but it's a cliche because it's true.

I wasn't disappointed, really, just a little shocked, and I was a young smartass, so I said something like "Wow, I didn't know science fiction authors looked like regular people!"

He must have heard that a million times, but he didn't get the least bit annoyed. He just said "You have to wait until it gets dark; that's when the horns grow out of our heads."

For that kindness and everything he's ever done, I'm an eternal fan.


Benshlomo says, Happy birthday and endless thanks to Master Ray.

Who's Zoomin' Who on the Enterprise

Here is an interesting column attempting to explain the apparent frequency of Star Trek fandom among predatory pedophiles.

There mere notion of such a connection, of course, disturbs me no end, since I am a fan of the series and not a pedophile, but what can you do? It seems that when police enter the home of a pedophile, they often find Star Trek paraphernalia about. Some explanation is in order.


And it's also undeniable that although the Enterprise crew goes prancing around half-dressed (particularly the women), no one ever really seems to get it on unless forced to by some outside influence. That fact is so obvious it's become a running joke. Of course, even implied sexual relationships were pretty much taboo on television in those years, but that doesn't explain the presence of Star Trek products in the homes of pedophiles instead of, say, Bonanza products, despite the suspicions brought on by three confirmed bachelors living in seclusion on a large Texas ranch.

What interests me, however, is what comes to mind when we reflect on the various spin-off series. On "Next Generation," "Deep Space Nine," and "Voyager," sexual relationships flourish and occasionally lead to marriage. If pedophiles look for environments free of adult relationships with which to identify, that explains why the original series is their favorite.

Nevertheless, whether it's comprehensible or not, I find the connection disturbing, and by virtue of the power vested in me as a Star Trek fan who is also a engaged person, I hereby order all pedophiles to surrender their Trek paraphernalia forthwith. All such material may be delivered up by filling out a comment below and arranging a pickup with my agent.

Benshlomo says, Oh my God, the people you find yourself associating with!

A Little Something About Women

Here's an interesting coincidence.


Eighty-five years ago today, the Tennessee state legislature ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, which was thus officially adopted into the United States Constitution. That's the amendment that guarantees women the right to vote. Credit for this achievement goes to a great many people, of course, in particular to the two women at right - Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Unfortunately, they were both long dead by the time women got the vote, but it was they more than anyone else who made it happen. Congratulations, ladies.


Forty-seven years ago today, on the other hand, G.P. Putnam's Sons published Lolita in America. The book scandalized Europe three years earlier, and five years later it still carried a sufficient burden of unease to provoke the tag-line "How did they ever make a film of Lolita?" for Stanley Kubrick's film.

So over the course of some 38 years, the United States moved from a time when the objectification of women provoked outrage and legislation to a time when the objectification of women provoked ridicule and various kinds of art.

You could look at that as a step in the wrong direction, but to me it seems more like progress. As someone once said, if you can't fight the devil, laugh at him; he can't bear scorn.

Benshlomo says, Which is more important, the law or the movies?

Lynched Leo

Ninety years ago today, Leo Frank was lynched after being convicted on false evidence of raping and murdering Mary Phagan.



In addition to costing Frank his life, this incident cost the governor of Georgia his career, since the man looked at the evidence and commuted Frank's sentence. It didn't help.

The incident also led in various ways to both the rejuvenation of the Ku Klux Klan and the founding of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League.

And why was this unassuming, actually somewhat boring young man pursued so viciously? Because he was a Jew, of course.

And people wonder why Jews get so nervous when conservative preachers insist that the United States is a Christian country. Ninety years is not all that long ago, people, and we have seen what can happen to us in Christian countries.

Yes, these days Islam is a greater danger to us than Christianity is. We don't forget that. We're a 3,500-year-old people and we have long memories. That's why we remember people like Leo Frank.

But we're fast learners and we now know what happens to us when we try to meekly accept our fates in the hope that the pain will soon end. So anyone who tries to lynch us now is in for a big surprise. Kindly govern yourselves accordingly.

Benshlomo says, The meek shall inherit the earth, but they're liable to get less meek beforehand.

A Dialogue with Torah

I've described my support for the Gaza pullout as "lukewarm," and mentioned that a lot of observant Jews would describe such lukewarm support as pretty nearly blasphemous. At Tisha B'Av observances last week, several people mentioned the evacuation from Gush Katif (which is one of those bluish areas down in the south end) and linked it to the sin of the spies. Like the spies, said these friends, the Israeli government is now saying to the Jews, "This land is too dangerous for us to live in, the inhabitants are too strong, let's just go back." In both cases that declaration is wrongheaded and utterly incompatible with what God would have us do.

One of us even went so far as to point out that after the sin of the spies, the Jews had to wander in the wilderness for 38 years before they could enter the land, and it's been 38 years since the Jews took back East Jerusalem and immediately surrendered control of the Temple Mount to the Muslim waqf. This, he said, is our opportunity to enter into our inheritance of the Holy Land fully, and the Israeli government is simply repeating our sin by withdrawing from the land.


The Gaza pullout is indeed alarming on a number of levels, not least the spiritual level noted by my friends. I'm reminded, however, of a passage from Torah which instructs us to go by the interpretation of law given us by the sages of our own time and not rebel against those sages when they disagree with earlier ones (I'll see if I can find the passage later). To the best of my knowledge, there's nothing in Torah that says we may not exchange land for peace, and in fact Israel has offered to do so repeatedly since it was founded without, I believe, any previous outcry from Orthodox rabbis.

That statement does not, of course, address the question of how realistic it is to assume that this pullout will in fact help establish peace in Israel, but at the moment we're not asking that one - we're asking whether or not we may give up land in the hope of peace.

There are certain pieces of land which, we are told, our fathers bought for cash. Those are Hebron, where Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Leah are buried, bought by Abraham for cash; Jerusalem, specifically the Temple Mount, bought by King David for cash; and (if I remember correctly) Shechem, where Joseph is buried, bought by him for cash. Other lands, presumably, may not be given up because the original ten tribes owned them by divine gift, and had to be available during the Jubilee year every fifty years so the tribes could return to them. Any other lands obtained by Israel in war have a different status. As I said, to the best of my knowledge there's nothing in Torah that says those lands may not be surrendered for peace.

There's the prophecy regarding Greater Israel, promised to the Jews by God at some future Messianic date, but since the Messiah has not arrived yet, as far as I can work out, Greater Israel has no status as yet that would forbid us to surrender it for peace.


Gaza is a part of Greater Israel, but until the Messiah arrives has no special holy status that I know of. Indeed, in Biblical times, Gaza was not a part of Israel at all. In fact, like today, it was a serious pain in the rear for Israel, since that's where the Philistines lived, and the Philistines were a problem for Israel for a couple hundred years or more. (Let's hope the Palestinians don't take after them in that way, at least.)


Now, there are plenty of ancient sages upon whose opinions people rely now to say that Israel ought not to pull out of Gaza. And Ariel Sharon certainly is no Torah sage. But there's that passage in Torah saying one ought to obey the Torah interpretations of one's time. Failing the presence of any central Torah authority in this age, why not follow the dictates of the Prime Minister of Israel?

Yeah, yeah, it's a bit of a reach, but observant Jews keep talking about Jewish unity, and it rather gets my goat that many of them seem to work steadily against any unity with their non-observant brethren.


The Gaza pullout is a painful process, especially for those who live in Gush Katif and places like that - those directly involved. Suicide bombing is also a painful process, especially for those directly involved. Given the choice (which is what we may have here), I'd have to opt for carrying live bodies out of the home of Gush Katif rather than dead ones. We'll see if the number of live bodies increases as a result of the pullout.

Benshlomo says, Weep for the homeless - weep more for the dead.

Go, Chris, Go! Again

Why am I even surprised? Chris Hitchens has joined the right-wing attack on Cindy Sheehan.

I've got my differences with Ms. Sheehan, as I detailed early this morning, and they are not small, but what Hitchens has to say on the subject strikes me as nothing more than his usual junior-high level rant, for all his factual knowledge.

Let's see:


He says Ms. Sheehan lacks any particular moral authority to comment on the war in Iraq, asking "Suppose I had lost a child in this war. Would any of my critics say that this gave me any extra authority? I certainly would not ask or expect them to do so. Why, then, should anyone grant them such a privilege?" Well, the fact is that Hitchens has not lost a child in this war, and neither he nor any of us can know what he would say if he had. Would he say the same thing he's been saying right along? Change his mind about the need for war or the justification for it? Most of all, would he remain consistent in his attitude toward the Bush administration and its pronouncements on this war? (That is, after all, what Ms. Sheehan's activities are all about.) We can't know the answers to those questions, but the point is not whether Ms. Sheehan has the right to express her opinion. Hitchens agrees that she certainly does, this being a democracy and all. No, the point is how we listen to what she says now that she's lost a child. If Mr. Hitchens had lost a child in this war, I might agree with what he said and I might not, but whatever his comments, they would have a lot more weight than they do now. That's why I'm more interested in what Ms. Sheehan has to say than in what Hitchens has to say at this point; not because of what they may do - because of what they have done.


Hitchens goes on to give us a total mischaracterization of what Cindy Sheehan is doing in Crawford: Having spent time with President Bush before, "she now thinks she is owed another session with him, presumably in order to tell him what she asserted to the Nightline team." That's nothing more nor less than a Hitchens interpretation of what she's asking for, and it may or may not be true, but it's no more reliable than any other interpretation. The only honest thing to say about what Ms. Sheehan is really asking for is to quote her - she wants President Bush to explain what "noble cause" her son died for. Hitchens obviously wants to present her request in the most ignoble terms possible, but in doing so he's only telling us what he wants to believe, not what's actually happened.

The man criticizes Ms. Sheehan because she's dissatisfied with President Bush's "compromise" in sending his national security advisor, Stephen Hadley, to talk to her. First of all, it's laughable to praise President Bush for compromising - his entire political persona depends on his uncompromising nature. For a man like that, a "compromise" is obviously an attempt to brush off Ms. Sheehan, her concerns and her pain. Of course she's dissatisfied with that. Second of all, Hitchens characterizes Ms. Sheehan's refusal to accept this "compromise" thus: "the Sheehan demand is liable to expand the more it is met." That is, according to Hitchens, the President has actually met Ms. Sheehan's demand, so now she's making a new one? Nonsense - as noted above, the President's "compromise" is nothing of the sort, and Ms. Sheehan's demand (far from being expanded) remains exactly what it was. She does not, as Hitchens says, want the President to come crawling to her camp, abject apology in hand; she wants an explanation of what "noble cause" her son died for.


Hitchens works in a nasty crack about what he perceives as the mischaracterization of the president's vacation - in actuality, he claims, it's not the president who's lazing his time away, but the press. Anyone who read President Bush's recent claim that he has to "get on with my life" knows how viciously nonsensical that assertion is. And in any case, whatever the press is doing in Crawford, they're not the ones people voted for to represent them faithfully and be accountable for their safety. That falls to George W. Bush. He fell down on the job and one of his employers is asking for an explanation, but he apparently thinks it's more important to ride his bicycle.

Hitchens' next claim is so tortured a bit of logic it should be broadcast on Comedy Central. He says that, because the military is under civilian control in the person of the President of the United States, the military and their families actually have less right to petition the government for redress of grievances than civilians do. I suppose you could make a case for that in the academic sense, but in real life that's exactly the sort of alienated, cold inhumanity that George W. Bush expresses every time he blinks. (I suppose, in the unlikely event that Hitchens ever reads this, he'll feel flattered by the comparison.)


Going on from there, Hitchens reminds us that presidents often, and generously, make exceptions to this supposed exemption from the right of petition in time of war. He uses the example of Lincoln's letter to a bereaved mother - apparently our greatest president would have been perfectly within his rights to ignore this mother of young men who died because their country asked them to put themselves in harm's way. Well, maybe so, and maybe it's that very act of climbing down from the presidential heights that makes us love Lincoln so much. Certainly we can't expect any similar humility from George W. Bush. But then Hitchens asserts that if, after receiving that letter, the mother addressee had stood up and demanded something more, she would have been removed.

Very possibly. But Hitchens is overlooking one crucial fact: Lincoln never lied to that mother or to the country about why we were at war, how long or bloody it would be, or what his aims were. Bush did. As far as I'm concerned, that fact is more than enough to excuse any inconvenience that Ms. Sheehan presents to this administration, much as I loathe her pronouncements on Israel. And any comparison between Lincoln and George W. is enough to make me vomit.


Hitchens ends by expressing his unease at anyone who claims to speak for the dead, and then proceeds to do just that, saying "Casey Sheehan joined up as a responsible adult volunteer. Are we so sure that he would have wanted to see his mother acquiring 'a knack for P.R.' and announcing that he was killed in a war for a Jewish cabal?" Never mind for the moment that Cindy Sheehan, as far as I know, made no mention of a Jewish cabal; let me repeat for the third time that Cindy Sheehan is asking President Bush for an explanation not for her son, but for herself. Call it selfish if you want, but ghoulish it isn't, and Hitchens' attempt to make it so is just one more example of the right-wing attempt to smear Ms. Sheehan by attacking statements she never made.

Happily, I am in no position to ask Chris Hitchens what the deuce is going on in that dimly-lit labyrinth he calls a mind, but if anyone ever manages to dig him out, would you send him back to school for a while so he can get some clarity in his thinking and give us all a break?

Benshlomo says, If you want to kill someone, the least you can do is shoot straight.

Hollow Woman

I can't quite believe I'm posting on this issue, but there's something about it that just gnaws at me.

Paris Hilton has apparently thrown over her baby, the chihuahua Tinkerbell. The dog has been replaced with a smaller one. PETA is about ready to bust a gut.

Now, we really don't care about Paris Hilton or Tinkerbell or anything remotely connected with either one, do we? What irks me is this: It wasn't so very long ago, was it, that Paris was calling Tinkerbell the love of her life? It's not just the dumping of the dog that galls, it's the suddenness of it. This person is so disconnected from reality that it doesn't even seem to occur to her how empty she is.




She's one of those people of whom a professor of mine once said, "They don't do anything, they're celebrities." That about sums it up. Paris Hilton, as a public figure at any rate, is a useless person in a useless environment, and the fact that we who live in the real world even know her name (let alone her damn dog's name) is just pathetic. And that includes me for mentioning her here. Even cotton candy, a useless object, is tasty - reportage on Paris Hilton and people like her has no value at all.

Benshlomo says, Empty calories is one thing, but negative calories?

Slap in the Face

Having said all that in my latest letter to Bush, and still believing it, my sense of betrayal at this is enough to make me choke.


Not that I disagree with most of what Ms. Sheehan has been saying lately. Unfortunately, this letter makes her sound like more of a whiner than anything else. I don't respond well when people adopt a "What about me?" attitude to tragedy. She's upset because Ted Koppel interviewed women who lost husbands, and fathers who lost children, without interviewing mothers who lost children? I suppose if she ever slaps a cop like Zsa Zsa Gabor did, she'll complain because the jury isn't composed exclusively of Gold Star mothers. Waah.

More than that, Ms. Sheehan's attacks on Israel do nothing for her case. Those attacks have no logic and no honesty. Yes, the United States supports Israel, thank God, and if I thought President Bush went into Iraq to protect Israeli interests I'd be very thankful. I'd be even more thankful if I thought President Bush was protecting Israeli or American interests effectively. He is doing neither, and on that Ms. Sheehan and I certainly agree.


I do not, however, stand idly by while Ms. Sheehan draws a false connection between American presence in Iraq and Israeli presence in disputed territory. "You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you'll stop the terrorism," is it? Well, Israel is now withdrawing from certain territory claimed by Palestinian Arabs, at great cost to its unity and security - we'll see if the Arabs respond in a peaceful manner. Given the history, I'm not holding my breath.

I still want President Bush to talk to Ms. Sheehan. Maybe the two of them can straighten each other out.

Benshlomo says, Two wrongs don't make a right.

Open Letter to the White House - Cindy Sheehan

Dear Mr. President:

Unlike some of my previous messages to you, this letter should be rather short, since there isn't much to say on the subject.

Your war in Iraq has failed to accomplish any of its goals (and in fact failed to set specific goals at any time). It has devastated whatever security there once was in the region, provoked new acts of terrorism in the West, wreaked havoc on the economy and on the families of servicemen, and made the United States a laughingstock around the world.

Meantime, your war rhetoric seems to come from another planet, one in which things are going well in the Middle East and everywhere. If we were to rely on your words and actions - your endless bizarre claims of victory and progress, your failure to attend a single military funeral for an American victim of your war, and on and on ad nauseum - we would think no American or other national had so much as stubbed a toe in Iraq, let alone died there.


Now, while you relax in your air-conditioned Crawford ranch, Cindy Sheehan swelters at your gate and asks you for no more than a few moments of your time and an explanation of why her son had to die thousands of miles from home in a war that two-thirds of Americans agree you are losing. It seems a reasonable enough request. Your lack of respect for her, and by extension for the troops you claim to support, is breathtaking.

Mr. President, you work for me, and I am giving you an order; invite Ms. Sheehan into your living room for an hour, give her a glass of tea and explain to her and to the rest of us just what in God's name you are doing. You've rested for long enough. Before you settle back down onto your couch for another nap, I want you to earn it, sir.

Time of Grief to Time of Hope

This Saturday night, right after the Sabbath, begins the observance of Tisha B'Av, the anniversary of the date when the Holy Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed.

We fast and pray and read Lamentations, and remember all the other disasters in our history - the expulsion from Spain, the pogroms in Russia and Poland, the Holocaust. It's not a happy time, but it's important.



Midrash teaches that God chose this date for our loss because it's also the anniversary of the day some months after the Exodus from Egypt when the spies returned to the Hebrew camp and ten of them reported that the land was good, but the cities strong and people enormous. The people went to their tents and cried for fear, saying "God must hate us for bringing us here to die by the sword." In some ways that was even worse than the sin of the Golden Calf - God, as it were, said "It's enough that the people keep disobeying me and rebelling against Moses after all the miracles I've shown them, but to say that I hate them after all that? The minds of these people have been crippled by the slavery they grew up in. These people aren't ready to go into the Holy Land - they'll all die in the wilderness and their children will go in."

So from that day forward, this is the day that God's anger expresses itself against us for our sins, and the results have been devastating.

It's also worth mentioning that Midrash teaches different reasons for the destruction of the two temples. The first one, say the Sages, was destroyed because the people sinned through murder, adultery and idol worship. Pretty grievous sins, you'd think, but that temple was rebuilt less than a hundred years later. The second temple was destroyed because the people sinned through causeless hatred - sounds like a much lesser sin, but the temple hasn't been rebuilt yet, and that was about 2,000 years ago.

On the other hand, say the Sages, this is actually good news, because it teaches us the precise remedy for the temple's destruction. If we lost it because of causeless hatred, then clearly we will get it back through causeless love. And indeed, for all the pain we recall and re-experience on Tisha B'Av, the Sages teach that it will be (probably already has been) the Messiah's birthday.


There are plenty of Jews in the world who would consider me either a poor Jew or not a Jew at all because I'm lax in my observances, because of my politics, because I express a lukewarm support for the Gaza pullout and the security fence on the West Bank, or for any one of a number of reasons. Those folks would probably say I have no business waiting for the Messiah's arrival. It's hard for me to feel anything but anger toward them. The lesson of Tisha B'Av is a difficult one, but clear - I and those of my Jewish brothers and sisters who lack patience with me, whether more or less pious, need to embrace each other wholeheartedly if we're to have any hope of living to see the Messianic age.

For that matter, the same thing goes for me and those of my brothers and sisters of all persuasions. This is not just a matter of "Can't we all just get along?" The message is "Choose causeless love, or causeless hatred will choose us." I'm ready to choose.



Benshlomo says, We want Mashiach now, we don't want to wait.