Monday, October 31, 2005

Alito, Shmalito

George W. has nominated Samuel Alito for the United States Supreme Court, to replace his previous choice, Harriet Miers. Apparently, this is the best the man who declared that he was "a uniter, not a divider" can do.



Leaving aside for the moment what Mr. Alito's ability, experience and anticipated legal thinking might be, I am once again utterly disheartened by this administration's meanness, for lack of a better word. Based on the people he's come up with so far, it seems that George W. Bush can find only two types of nominees; a thoroughly unqualified middle-of-the-road type, or a radical conservative. That's it. Either reactionary extremists or nonentities. That seems to be the way the President of the United States views his constituency - that is, you and me.


Benshlomo says, sigh.

Friday, October 28, 2005

Take Us Out of the Closet, Mr. Sulu - Warp Factor Two

Well, whaddya know - George Takei is gay.



(Okay, the picture is a little obvious, but the guy did prance around shirtless on Star Trek, so what do you want from me?)

This is as good a time as any to reiterate something I've been saying for a while. As an observant Jew, I find homosexuality troubling, but at the end of the day I figure someone else's sexuality is none of my damn business. On the one hand, the constant obsession of the religious right regarding the so-called homosexual "agenda" appeals very much to my sense of humor; on the other hand, there are times when I wonder why the gay community insists on making me know that they're gay. Other than they themselves and the people they love, who cares? (There are lots of answers to that question, of course, but we'll get to that some other time.)


Having said all that, I must admit that I was surprised at this news about George Takei. I never would have guessed in a million years. My next reaction was to ask "Why am I surprised? Do I think I can tell who's gay just by watching them?"

Well, yeah, sometimes.


Regardless, I can understand why Takei decided not to come out for all those years. In his Frontiers interview, he points out that he spent quite a long time in a Japanese interment camp during World War II, and an experience like that could easily give a child the idea that any difference is shameful, whether one is Asian, gay or both. Perhaps his coming out means that he has gotten some peace for himself.


It's a pity for us Trekkies, though, that he didn't get the chance to deal with his sexuality on the show itself. Maybe it was a little early for television to feature a gay character - apparently it still is - but since the whole point of Star Trek was to demonstrate the possibility of tolerance and differences in humanity's future, a gay helmsman would have been a nice touch. Like Spock said, life consists of "infinite diversity in infinite combinations".

Oh well, better late than never. Congratulations, Mr. Takei.

Benshlomo says, Looks like someone turned off my "gay-dar," and that's just fine with me.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

A Visit Last Night


I've got a friend who's been living on the street for a some time now. He needs a lot of help, and he asks me for favors pretty often. If I were a genuinely saintly person I'm sure I'd do as he asked without a twinge, but as it is I sometimes find his requests annoying or inconvenient. When I have those feelings, they are of course invariably accompanied by feelings of guilt. You know, thoughts like "How can I complain, even inwardly, at the chance to help someone in need?" Especially considering that he's always gracious when I turn him down, and he always pays back the money he borrows.

About a year ago he got arrested. He says a couple of store employees were harassing him, he defended himself, they called the cops and the cops found mace on him, which was a big no-no since he was on probation. He asked me to pick up the stuff he had on him when he was arrested before the city destroyed it, so I did that.


A couple of months ago I got a call from a medical social worker saying my friend had been beaten pretty severely in prison at Chino, including a metal bar to the head, and was recovering in the hospital. And why did I get the call? Because he'd used me as a reference upon his arrest. No idea where his family is.

So last night he suddenly showed up at my door. He looked a little like this:


I'm serious, man; his right eye had been pushed halfway down his cheek, and he also had an enormous gash above it. I think a piece of his skull had to be removed.

He had a cab driver with him who wanted to get paid, so I gave the guy some money expecting that he'd take my friend and his bags wherever he wanted to go, but the jerk just drove off. So while we were getting his stuff together, and he threw me a couple of looks that plainly said "Can I stay with you?" and talked to Little Miss (who has done counseling with prisoners and the homeless and has a heart for the disregarded that just about moves me to tears), I got myself to an ATM and got some more cash. Then Little Miss called another cab and off he went to his old haunts. First, though, he turned to Little Miss, pointed at me and said "He's a great guy."


I'm in a complete swirl. I spent $80 on him that I can't afford very easily and that, in his current state, I doubt he can pay back, and he kept me up till all hours getting him on his way so that today I'm wandering around half-asleep, but then he compliments me very nicely, accepts what I can give him and doesn't ask for anything more. I'm irritated, flattered and worried sick, and I don't know if I want to see or hear from him again or not. And while all of this is going through my head, I also have to say to myself "Hey, man, where do you get off feeling sorry for yourself when this guy's got no money, no shelter and a piece of his head missing?"

Benshlomo says, The Good Lord moves in strange and wonderous ways, you'd better believe it.

Bye-Bye Harriet

Well, Ms. Miers has withdrawn her nomination to the United Status Supreme Court. Here we see her, as usual, a step or two behind her chief; do you suppose her offer to withdraw was just another way of following him? Gee, I wonder...



I've been reading some of the comments on this incident. Kos thinks she lost because of simple incompetence; it's not immediately clear to me just why he thinks she bowed out, but it seems like he thinks she just came to the realization she couldn't win after her dismal performance on her questionnaire and with the Senators. Slate points out that this withdrawal gives the White House an excellent issue with which to distract the country from the possible upcoming indictments in the Plame case. Krauthammer evidently thinks that, whatever the real goings-on behind the scenes, the president's partisans can make the case that it was a fight over document privilege.

I'm not as well-informed as these folks, but all that really means at the moment is that I have no mandate to prove my conjectures, so here goes: I think Harriet Miers submitted her withdrawal because, in private, Dubya asked her to. He may be angry about having to ask, but everybody knows that nothing gets out of his office without his say-so on pain of immediate political death. What's more, whatever her virtues, Ms. Miers has spent a good many years as another one of Dubya's lap dogs; asking us to assume that she's retained the ability to think independently in his presence is laughable.


That's just a guess, of course. Whatever's really going on in there, I still feel a thrill from the Dark Side of the Force as I watch this administration duck and cover.

Benshlomo says, I have respect for my enemies if they're respectable.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Open Letter to the White House - Doing Your Job

Dear Mr. President:

I see that a reporter recently asked if the geometrically-increasing revelations of misconduct in your administration bother you at all. Your response, if Time Magazine has it right, was "There is some background noise here...but the American people expect me to do my job, and I'm going to." As usual, sir, you are completely out of touch with what the American people think. We know you don't read, but don't you even watch television?


Leaving that question aside for the moment, I should begin by expressing my relief at hearing anything at all from you recently. I was beginning to think you were sick or something; there's been barely a word from you since Hurricane Katrina hit and you told your buddy Michael Brown that he was doing a great job. Considering the uproar that foot-in-the-mouth statement provoked, perhaps you finally wised up and decided to keep your trap shut for a while; I certainly would in your shoes. It's more likely that, with so many of your brain trust appearing before the grand jury or under indictment, you simply didn't have anyone to tell you what to say.


Given all that, I can't quite locate the source of your statement that the American people expect you to do your job. If it's true that you decided on your own to clam up after Hurricane Katrina, what motivated you to open your mouth at a time like this? If it's true that you stopped talking because the people pulling your strings were busy, why didn't you wait for their schedules to clear before you donated that comment? In any case, sir, what in God's name possessed you to say something so inane?

Expect you to do your job? It should be obvious from the poll numbers that by now, the last thing most Americans expect is for you to do your job. You might have gotten away with a whopper like that a year ago, or even this past summer, but the corruption and incompetence of your administration are at present so blatant, I'm a little surprised you have the audacity to appear in public at all, let alone talk to reporters.


And as for the "background noise" crack - well, Mr. President, it's hard to imagine what you would consider to be foreground noise. With your deputy chief of staff, your Vice President's chief of staff, and your Vice President himself under suspicion of blowing an American intelligence agent's cover, not to mention the bumbling of your various cronies during national emergencies, you relegate all these dangerous and desperate crises to the status of mere annoyance? America is rapidly losing confidence in you, your administration, its own capability to deal with breakdowns and its very sanity, and you describe this terrifying state of affairs as though it could be tuned out in favor of something more important? Like what? At least at your second inauguration you had a program of sorts, however misguided. What exactly do you conceive this job of yours, that the American people expect you to do, to be? Giving another soft government job like Supreme Court justice to another buddy of yours, whether she can do it or not?

As one of your employers, then, allow me to educate you as to exactly what job I expect you to do. I expect you to keep your various promises, including the one to immediately fire any member of your administration who breaks the law. I expect you to deal with the facts of life on the ground in Iraq, in New Orleans, in Florida and everywhere else, whether you find it pleasant to have those facts presented to you or not. Indeed, I expect you to receive unpleasant reports cheerfully. I expect you, based on those reports, to generate and quickly implement workable strategies to fix problems and to protect the lives and property of American citizens. When your plans fail to produce the desired results, I expect you to change plans at once, and to at all times adopt the advice of knowledgeable people whether or not they are friends of yours or loyal to you. Failing all this, I expect you to express your commitment to America's health and success by resigning in favor of someone more able than yourself.


Well, we all know what it's been like lately, don't we, sir? I want your resignation and I want it now.

Good night, Sister Rosa


I guess everyone knows by now that Rosa Parks died yesterday at the age of 92.

I hope everyone knows what she did, though I doubt it. What's so remarkable about the incident that brought her fame was its simplicity. In some ways, Cedric the Entertainer got it right in Barbershop:

Rosa Parks ain't do nothin' but set her black ass down.

Let's talk a little about this: Folklore would have us believe that Mrs. Parks one day in 1955 quite spontaneously refused to give up her seat on an Alabama bus to a white person. She thereby broke the law and got arrested, and when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his associates got wind of it, they initiated a boycott of Montgomery buses that lasted well over a year and touched off the Civil Rights Movement.

This isn't true, exactly. Historically, Mrs. Parks was no naive innocent caught up in a historical movement that was ready to pop with or without her. Unlike many participants in the bus boycott, she was not a domestic, but a skilled seamstress with some college education, and she had been working for the NAACP for some time. The plans for the boycott were ready when she got on that bus; before that, she had frequently surrendered her seat. Romantic as it sounds, Rosa Parks did not spring full-blown from the head of Zeus; if she had, the Civil Rights movement probably would have died of starvation before it ever got started.

And then there are those who find Mrs. Parks a little less than admirable in some respects. At the very least, it's a little ironic that she, who made her name by boycotting the Montgomery bus system, came again to public attention by boycotting the NAACP. Why? Because the man who recited the line "Rosa Park ain't do nothin' but set her black ass down" was hosting the NAACP Image Awards that year! Can you say "feet of clay"?

Well, but what did we expect, utter saintliness? Rosa Parks, like most heroes, was a flesh-and-blood human being who did something brave and noteworthy once because it was time. Perhaps, as a Caucasian, I have no right to call her "Sister". Then again, as a human being, perhaps I do.

Benshlomo says, I'm waiting for the next Rosa Parks.

Monday, October 24, 2005

United How?

The United Nations is 60 years old today.



Ever since the organization was founded (and even before), there were those who said the whole thing was a lousy idea, since there was no way the United States would let itself be dictated to by a bunch of no-account, scratch-farming and maybe even (gasp!) dark nations.

There are those today who assert that the United Nations has become hopelessly bureaucratized, if not downright corrupt (which can be pretty hard to argue with).

Many Jews have lost faith in the United Nations because it constantly passes resolutions condemning Israel for doing this or that - for defending itself against terrorist attacks, say - while remaining so quiet over Arab atrocities you can hear crickets chirp all over Manhattan. Others have lost faith in the United Nations for other reasons.

Heck, there are even those who assert that the United Nations basically doesn't exist.


When I invited the United Nations to respond to these charges, here's what it said:

So nu, I don't do such a good job sometimes. You'd like better maybe World War III?

Well, okay, it's got a point. The original idea behind the U.N. was to provide the nations of the world with a forum to talk out their conflicts and reach agreements amongst themselves without the necessity of going to war. Does it do that? Not really. But, if I may address those who would like the U.N. to be dismantled for that reason, or who would like the United States to withdraw from membership: You got a better idea? Besides war, I mean?

Well?


I didn't think so.

Benshlomo says, Okay, U.N., I've run interference for you - now will you please go clean up your act?

Sunday, October 23, 2005

Happy Birthday


According to James Usher, the bishop of the Irish Protestant Church back in the 1650s, God created the universe on the evening before October 23, 4004 B.C. That means that the Earth is not more than 6,001 today.

Remind you of anything? Pretty soon we're going to have to require teachers to read a statement to that effect before they teach students that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Can't wait.


Benshlomo says, If you ask me, Mother Earth doesn't look a day over 5,750.

Friday, October 21, 2005

If I Had an Iftar

For the past few months I have been working up a project to bring Jews and Muslims together for a series of parties - once every quarter, say. I found a Mulsim man who's interested in the same thing. I'll refer to him as my Muslim Partner, or "MP" for short.

He and I finally met last night. It's the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, during which devout Muslims fast during all daylight hours. There's a feast each evening, needless to say; it's called the iftar. Last night my MP invited me to a very large celebration indeed at the Islamic Center down near USC.

The similarities and differences between his community, his beliefs, his practices and mine are fascinating. For instance, a couple of times during last night's program, someone stood up and chanted a selection of Muslim scripture from memory. In Judaism, although we often memorize sections of Torah, we generally don't memorize the chant that goes along with them; it was explained to me that when it comes to the written scripture, the rabbis consider it wiser to read from the written text even if we have the section memorized. I expect to learn a great deal more from my MP in the future.

After speaking with him, though, I had a moment of doubt. He told me about the attitude of most Muslims toward Jews, and it's everything I was afraid it would be; suspicious, closed, angry and ultimately prejudiced. The people I met at the Islamic Center welcomed me without hesitation, but my MP tells me that that attitude is pretty rare.


What's worse (to my mind) is that I see the same habit of thought making inroads among the Jews. Few Jews that I know hate Muslims, although some do. More depressingly, more and more Jews think of Muslims with deep resignation, as if they had no ears.

There's a lot of work to do, clearly. At least, though, I have now confirmed that my project is one worth doing. If nothing else, my own nervousness at finding myself among a group of Muslims, warm and friendly as they were, is enough to show that the conversation between us could use some refinement.

My heartiest thanks to my MP for the lesson. Now let's go out and change the world, shall we?

Benshlomo says, There's nothing like sharing food to make you feel friendly.

Brought to You by The Conspiracy Channel


I enjoyed this rundown of Jewish conspiracy theories by Joshua Neuman, co-author with David Deutsch of The Big Book of Jewish Conspiracies. The ludicrous nature of the "worldwide Jewish plot to take over the world" is not a new observation, of course. The first time I ran across someone poking fun at the idea, it was Dave Berg, famous for the "Lighter Side" feature in the old Mad Magazine. What he said, in his book Roger Kaputnik and God, was something like this: "They say there's a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. What I want to know is, so how come I'm not getting a piece of the action?"

My own version of the idea goes like this: They say the Jews control the world media. When you consider how much the world seems to hate Israel and the Jews, you have to say that if the Jews control the world media, we're doing a lousy job.


Maybe the most relevant thing about the whole mishegas, though, is what it reveals about the Jewish community.

We've been called a "stiff-necked people" ever since Biblical times, by no less an authority than God Himself, and anyone who's had dealings with Jews knows how true that is. A worldwide Jewish conspiracy? When's the last time you met a Jewish family with the singleness of purpose to sustain a conspiracy? Or even to plan a party?

As Abbie Hoffman said of the Chicago Eight, when informed that they would be charged with conspiracy: "Conspiracy? Hell, we couldn't agree on lunch!"



Benshlomo says, Not to worry, folks; the Jews are too busy arguing to bother you much.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Sunofagun...

I'll be damned if someone didn't link to this blog! Everybody go check out Axinar's blog at once, do you hear?

I've had one or two intelligent comments posted, but this is the first incident I would consider to be a genuine echo (check out the epithet under my name up there if you don't know what that means).


By God, this Internet thing actually works!

Benshlomo says, Am I showing my age too much?

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Art for Art's Sake

Not that they have much to do with each other on the surface, but today marks a couple of important anniversaries.

Twenty years ago today, the first Blockbuster Video opened in Dallas, Texas.


Back then you could rent video at any one of a number of stores, but Blockbuster quickly became the first really well-known national rental chain.
This would be more of a cinematic footnote than anything else, except that shortly thereafter Blockbuster helped to kill the NC-17 movie rating by refusing to carry any NC-17 movies, cutting those films off from an enormous revenue stream and discouraging the studios from making intelligent movies (or any movies, really) on adult themes. We see the results: Movies are becoming more juvenile all the time, and Roger Ebert gets more grouchy. Back in August he gave "no stars" to two movies in a single week - he never had occasion to do that before. You think he would have had to do that if the NC-17 rating were still viable? If he had some decent pictures to review on adult themes, you think he would have bothered with "Chaos" and "Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo"? (I know, "Chaos" had an NC-17 rating. That just proves my point; thanks in part to Blockbuster's idiotic policy, the rating has become a garbage can.) All together now:

Blockbuster, Blockbuster, sis boom bah!
Homogenized movies, ha ha ha!


(Best I could do on the spur of the moment.)

On the other hand, today is also the anniversary of Walt Kelly's death in 1973 at the age of 60.


Now, here was a guy unafraid to take chances. He was just a cartoonist, and a strip cartoonist at that. And a strip about funny animals, to boot. Nevertheless, he got in more trouble with his syndicate over political commentary than anyone until Garry Trudeau showed up.



One thing that interests me about Kelly is that he and Al Capp drew enormously popular strips at about the same time, Kelly's "Pogo" to Capp's "Li'l Abner". More on Capp at the proper time, but the comparison is instructive. Kelly and Capp, as I say, were contemporaries.
They could also draw better than 99% of anyone who has ever published a strip (sorry, but it's true). Their comics took place in the American South, though in widely different locations (the Ozarks vs. the Florida Everglades), and had a populist bent. Yet Kelly was a liberal and Capp was a conservative.

Maybe these two anniversaries have something in common after all. They show that there's room for all kinds of variety in America until something comes along - something corporate or sensationalistic or commercial or chicken or what have you -and steamrollers the whole thing.

Benshlomo says, We have met the enemy and he is us.

Monday, October 17, 2005

The Secret Life of Plants

Yes, folks, it's that time of year again; every few days there's a new Jewish holiday. Tonight, we begin the festival of Sukkot.



This is the week during which we eat all our meals in a temporary booth (a "sukkah") roofed with greenery, the sort of dwelling that our ancestors used during harvest season. The very strict actually sleep in these booths every night, unless it rains.

Some years ago, in fact, a rabbi invited me to his house for lunch during this holiday and finished his meal indoors because he felt unwell. He quoted a passage from Talmud to explain: This week is called "The Time of Our Joy," and everything we do is calculated to make us happy. Therefore, if dwelling in the sukkah makes us unhappy for some good reason, we are to move indoors. Indeed, according to Talmud, if the weather is sufficiently damp to dilute our bean soup as we eat in the sukkah, that's enough reason to go in.

But what makes this the time of our joy? Several things, of course; nothing in Judaism has less than four explanations.


First of all, in ancient times, all peoples celebrated the harvest, since it showed that there would be enough food to keep the people alive for at least a year. We have faith in God to sustain us, of course, but we're not stupid.

Second of all, as we wandered in the wilderness after the Exodus and before entering the Holy Land, we lived in temporary huts, like the sukkah. God took care of all our needs during that time; the midrash goes so far as to say that for forty years no one's clothes or shoes wore out. The sukkah reminds us of that time when God cared for us directly.

Third of all, the truth is that God cares for us even today. It's less obvious because He does so by blessing the work of our own hands, and we might easily fool ourselves into thinking we don't need God to care for us anymore - that we do it ourselves. So during this week we move into flimsy huts that would go over in a good stiff breeze, to remind ourselves that God still cares for us in everything we need to live and thrive. That's good news.

Fourth of all, the greenery on top of the sukkah brings to mind the Clouds of Glory upon which we will one day ride back to the Holy Land in the time of Mashiach. The gaps in the greenery also let us see the stars at night, to remind us of our heavenly protector. That's very good news.


So why shouldn't we be happy?


And then, during this week, we take four plants into prayer services with us: the citron, the palm, the myrtle and the willow. In Hebrew, that's the esrog, the lulav, the hadassah and the aravos. The whole construct is also called a lulav. I first learned about this tradition when I was a kid, back in the Middle Ages, and I didn't understand the rationale. In some ways, I still don't.

On the other hand, when I first went to an orthodox Sukkot service and saw all the men, each with his lulav. It looked to me like they were each holding a spear, only a very peaceful spear. It smelled wonderful, too. With my lulav adding to the feeling of togetherness and the garden smell, I felt more joined to my people than maybe at any time before.

So I still don't quite get it, but so what?

Benshlomo says, God's waiting for us in the garden.

Saturday, October 15, 2005

More More More Jewish Holidays

Yom Kippur was this past Thursday, and the very next night another Shabbat began. I have not been very strict in my observance over the past many years, but even with the minimal discipline I practice now, that struck me as an awful lot of Jewish self-denial in a very short space of time.

There must be many people, Orthodox or otherwise, who look upon a circumstance like this - two holidays in a row when you can't drive, watch TV, cook, or otherwise change the matter of the world - as a cause for great delight. Many people must have gone home last Wednesday evening, started the fast, and said "Thank you, God, for giving us so many days of rest, of concentration upon You, so quickly!"

Little Miss pointed out to me that my attitude is a matter of the possibility I've created over this time. I tend to view these days as long and unentertaining, full of duties. What if I looked upon them as an opportunity for something else?

Good question. I'm going to have to see what I can do with it. And after all, it's not like these days are so burdensome. It's a cliche, but if I had the misfortunes of this New Orleans rabbi, I'd probably think of these last few days as a tremendous gift.



Benshlomo says, Next time I feel the burden of my life, I'm going to try to remember that at least I don't have to part the Red Sea.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Back to the Garden

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, starts tonight. Most people know that it includes a long fast. Some people know that the Arab nations attacked Israel on this day thirtysomething years ago. Fewer people, I think, know that today is the day that we hope for God's forgiveness.



I guess in this day and age it's hard to ask for forgiveness, and maybe harder to experience forgiveness. This is a time in history when we avoid guilt feelings wherever possible. (We're more than happy to assign blame, but to feel guilt is a big no-no.)

The ancient rabbis said that God can forgive the sins we commit against Him, but He can't (or won't) forgive the sins we commit against other humans, so observant Jews spend the days between Rosh Hashana and today saying to their friends and neighbors "Please forgive me for anything I did over the past year to offend or hurt you," or words to that effect. The ancient rabbis also teach us that we may not withhold our forgiveness from others when asked for it.

What does all this mean? It's hidden in the Hebrew word for "repentance," which is "tshuvah". It doesn't really mean "repentance," which is another word for feeling sorry. "Tshuvah" means "return." In Jewish thought, this isn't a time for feeling guilty or sorry, necessarily, unless those feelings are necessary steps in a return to the life we led before we sinned.

That's the crux of the matter tonight and tomorrow. It's a time to repair the damage we did to ourselves and others by our actions, and to re-establish the way it was when the world was new.

Even a slum, like the one Ben "The Thing" Grimm up there grew up in, can look like the Garden of Eden after that.


Benshlomo says, Dear world, I'm sorry if I hurt you last year; please forgive me and remember that I love you.

Israel at the University


Sigh...

This piece from Dennis Prager just came in my email, and as usual when I read world news about the Jews and Israel, I'm very depressed.

I don't always agree with Dennis (I think his approach to conservative politics and religion is kind of naive), but he's been warning us for quite a while that intelligence and education do not necessarily lead to morality, and of course he's quite right.

Are secularism and liberalism the new religion of unaffiliated Jews? Could be, although it sounds a bit exaggerated. Is conservative Christianity the best friend Israel has right now? Could be, although I wonder what they'll do when they realize we're not going to start worshipping Jesus. Is cognitive dissonance running rampant among us Jews today? Could be.


Is anti-Zionism a form of antisemitism? If it calls for the dismantling of one state in the world, and that state happens to be the only Jewish state in the world, you bet it is.

Is antisemitism on the rise? It's undeniable.

Benshlomo says, Here we go again...

Monday, October 10, 2005

What's Good for the Goose...

Not to belabor a point too strenuously, but...

Remember all those various Muslim officials and bloggers who told us, a few weeks ago, that Hurricane Katrina was a punishment from God on the United States?


Well, if God uses natural disasters as a punishment for sin, what do you suppose the terrible earthquake in Pakistan signifies? A freebie?

Notice how quiet all those fundamentalist loudmouths are being right about now?

Benshlomo says, God is not quite so simple-minded, you morons.

Not-Quite-One-Hit Wonders

I don't remember noticing it at the time, but twenty years ago today, Yul Brynner and Orson Welles both died.

There's little question about who was the more important or influential artist; Welles wins, hands down.



He had one of the world's all-time great voices, both for radio and film. He got famous scaring the dickens out of the country with his 1938 radio adaptation of "War of the Worlds" (who the heck is Tom Cruise?). He wrote, produced, directed and starred in plays and movies. A lot of his work appears on "Best Of" lists, like "The Magnificent Ambersons," "Touch of Evil," "Lady from Shanghai," and on and on. He even closed out his career bringing gravitas to television commercials of all things, letting us know beyond doubt with that voice of his that Paul Masson would "sell no wine before its time" (however misguided that phrase apparently was). But for all that work, he's mostly remembered now for his first film, and no wonder; it was "Citizen Kane."

Yul Brynner came to Broadway and then Hollywood from his native Mongolia. He did not have Welles' talent, range or innovative ambition, but he was an exotic, and he remained one.

He started out with roles in second-string pieces and probably would have remained there, except that he shaved his head one day for the lead role in "The King and I" and became a star on the spot. He grew his hair back for at least one turkey and possibly more, but he wised up fast and the hair disappeared. From that point on, he was the King of Siam. He did a lot of interesting stuff - he was the jealous second-best Prince of Egypt in "The Ten Commandments," the mysterious black-clad leader of "The Magnificent Seven," even a robot killer in "Westworld," but he could never get away from King Mongkut. He was still playing the role onstage in his 60s.

In some respects, each of these men was a one-hit wonder, continuing to produce good and even great work but never really topping their initial burst upon the world stage. Must have frustrated them both. On the other hand, most people never get it quite so perfect even once.

Benshlomo says, Will you reflect more often on what you did, or on what you didn't do?

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Buy a Saddle


There's a useful piece of advice from Talmud (well, it's all useful advice, of course), which goes something like this:

If someone tells you you're a horse, ignore them. If two people tell you you're a horse, ignore them. If three people tell you you're a horse, go buy a saddle.

(Another version I've heard concerns what to do if someone tells you you're drunk, and concludes with the instruction "If three people tell you you're drunk, the least you can do is lie down for a while." I'm not sure which version I like best.)


Well, over the holidays, Little Miss told me that she thinks I should go to yeshiva and become a rabbi. She's said that before, but this time she said it at a Rosh Hashana celebration and my mother heard her. My mother, too, has told me that she thinks I ought to go to yeshiva and become a rabbi, and she told Little Miss of her agreement.

The thing is, my brother was there and agreed, also. I don't remember ever hearing him give me that advice before.

In any event, that's three people who told me I should be a rabbi, all at the same time. Hm.

I told Little Miss that, if I were to go to yeshiva, it would probably take me about three years to get smicha (rabbinical ordination), and she'd probably have to support us during that time. She said "I can do that." Hm.

Hm.

Benshlomo says, Can anyone help me with these stirrups?