Friday, December 30, 2005

Hung Upside Down


I promise to post something of a cheeful New Year's nature later on, but first, check this out. The Justice Department wants to know who leaked information to the New York Times regarding George W. Bush's illegal domestic surveillance program.

Does anyone in government want to know how these ANTI-AMERICAN ASSHOLES got away with spying on American citizens in the first place?

Benshlomo says, Wake me up when some patriots get elected.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Oh Those City Lights

The Lumiere Brothers received their first paying audience to a moving picture show 110 years ago today. This audience saw a number of short films, including The Arrival of a Train at la Ciotat Station. It scared the pants off them. Whoever heard of a train bashing right through the wall of a building?

Well, of course, the movies have seen much worse things since that time, but I'm told that December 28, 1895 is widely considered the birth of the cinema.


Just think, if it weren't for the cultural revolution we commemorate today, I personally would have at least 300 extra hours each year for productive work!

Benshlomo says, Thanks a lot, Lumieres!

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Festival of Lights

I hate to be picky, and I'm grateful that my men's chorus included a medley of Chanukah songs in our Christmas program this year. I'm even impressed that the medley included a song in Hebrew, since it would doubtless have been easy enough to find Chanukah songs exclusively in English.

Now, would someone please explain to me why the translator insisted on the following English lyric (emphasis added)?

Chanukah, Chanukah, happy time of year,
Chanukah, Chanukah, presents and good cheer.

Maybe it's just me, but there's something indisputably goyisch about the phrase "good cheer" - makes me think of a bunch of Charles Dickens lookalikes sitting at the groaning festive board, surrounded by holly-decked halls, toasting each other like crazy with mulled wine while a low-level blizzard slowly covers the windows, and suffering from horrible gout for the ensuing six months. In any case, it doesn't have much to do with Chanukah.

Granted, the original Hebrew is pretty difficult. It goes like this:

Chanukah, Chanukah, chag yafeh kol kach,
Ohr chaviv misaviv, gil le-yeled rach,
Chanukah, Chanukah, s'vivon sov sov,
Sov sov sov, sov sov sov, ma na-im va tov!

Which very loosely translated means this:

Chaunkah, Chanukah, a completely happy holiday,
Beautiful light all around, joy for the little child,
Chanukah, Chanukah, dreidel spin, spin,
Spin spin spin, spin spin spin, how pleasant and fun!

(Let's just casually ignore the Yiddish version until next year. Enough is enough already.)

I probably need not go over the Chanukah story here - if John Belushi felt it was familiar enough to spoof on Saturday Night Live years ago, then everyone must know it - but this is my blog and I'm telling the story, so siddown and listen up!

It all starts when the Syrian Greeks conquer Judea, which had before that time been in the control of Persia. (Matter of fact, I think the Greeks conquered pretty much all of Persia at around that time, but everyone knows that we Jews only care about Israel, so let's skip over that part.) Foreign control of Israel was nothing new, but unlike most previous foreign entities, the Greeks decided that everyone in their empire had to imitate them. So they outlawed the study of Torah, put up statues of the Emperor (a guy named Antiochus) in the Holy Temple, and commanded that every religious observance in the empire include the sacrifice of a swine.

Strike three.

A certain priestly family called the Hasmoneans, led by Mattityahu (or Mattathias as he's known in Greek), organize an insurrection and an army called the Maccabees, and despite their small numbers they eventually throw the Greeks out. This is Miracle Number One. Control of Israel is back in Jewish hands for the first time in ages, and one of the first things they do is cleanse the Temple and rededicate it ("Chanukah" is Hebrew for "dedication").

Now, worship in the Holy Temple included a good many activities, one of which was keeping the seven-branched candelabrum, the "Menorah," lit at all times with olive oil. Unfortunately, the Temple has been desecrated for so long that the Jews can only find one small container of pure oil - the rest have either been broken open or used for idol worship. There's only enough oil in the one container to burn for one day, and it's going to take them eight days to prepare more. They decide, rather than wait to light the menorah and keep it lit, they'll light it for the one day. It's a pretty well-established Torah principle that God would have us follow the commandments as well as possible, even if we can't do it perfectly at the moment.

So someone lights the menorah and they get to work on more olive oil. Eight days go by, and the same oil is still burning when they pour the new oil in. Miracle Number Two.

Here's an interesting, if rather disturbing, commentary on Chanukah from a rabbi at Yale named James Ponet. Rabbi Ponet proposes that telling the Chanukah story as I have done above is all very well when the Jews are weak, scattered and oppressed, but that today when we have our nation and land back, we'd be wiser to think of the Chanukah story as that of a Jewish civil war. He has a point - the Maccabees were a considerable minority in Israel at the time, and most Jews wanted to assimilate among the Greeks. There was a lot of blood spilled, with Jews killing Jews, a horrible thing to contemplate. However, I think that Rabbi Ponet's question as to "whether an ethnic group that wishes to survive must turn itself into a nation-state" is disingenuous, at best. We're talking about Israel here, not just any ethnic group, and Israel is in danger at all times of being "wiped off the map," as you may remember.

Rather, I suggest that we take time this Chanukah to wonder whether Israel can survive with its soul intact if it continues to ignore God. I wouldn't dream of advocating that Israel become a theocracy - some of those rabbis are scary enough in civilian life. I do, however, call this to mind; on Chanukah we're told to remember the miracles that God did in saving Israel from its foes. What makes us think that God won't do that now if we let Him?

Benshlomo says, Could you help someone if they thought you weren't even there?

Friday, December 23, 2005

Latter Day Who?

Today, December 23rd, is Joseph Smith's 200th birthday. Do you know where your conspiracy channel is?



I'm a religious man, friends and neighbors, but even I can see what happens when we turn our eyes to Heaven exclusively. We trip on rocks.

Benshlomo says, Watch where you're going.

Monday, December 19, 2005

Open Letter to the White House - Killing the Messenger

Dear Mr. President:

I have to hand it to you, sir. The other day you actually made use of a subtle rhetorical device. First you secretly and illegally wiretap American citizens, then when confronted with this action, you deftly change the subject from your own crimes and focus attention on those who told everyone about it. More slippery yet, you actually own up to your violation of the law, cunningly defusing the charge altogether. Now, instead of discussing whether or not you should be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, we have to spend time discussing whether or not the New York Times should have fulfilled on its basic obligation to inform the public of what its elected officials are up to. Well done indeed!

Congratulations, too, on the obvious effort you've put into studying your vice president, your chief political adviser, and all those right-wing pundits you've either enrolled or purchased over the years. There was a time, you may recall, when you claimed you didn't "do nuance." It was a worrisome claim, sir, since no conservative politician today can survive for more than a few minutes without some skill in weaseling out of his or her self-generated difficulties - just ask Tom DeLay and Bill Frist. Certainly, no politician of your stripe can continue handing over America's future to his rich friends without giving himself some room to maneuver by any means necessary. Of course, your friends must have taken some comfort in the fact that you had masters of fancy footwork like Cheney, Rove, Coulter, Limbaugh, O'Reilly and dozens of others to cover your tail, but on the other hand there would always be the chance that you could stick your foot in it if you weren't supervised. What a sigh of relief they must have heaved when you pulled the old blame-the-messenger game on the New York Times the other day, and apparently on your own initiative! You've been learning your lessons very well, haven't you?


I just can't get over how beautifully you handled yourself. When I try to put myself in your place I can't imagine what I would have done. I'm not as decisive as you; if I had been the President in 2002, I might have hesitated before secretly wiretapping American citizens who hadn't been charged with a crime in order to maybe find some terrorists, just because I have some respect for those pesky civil rights our forefathers fought and died for. And if I had summoned up the courage to commit that crime and some lousy liberal newspaper had caught me at it, I might have folded; I might have actually shown our enemies (not to mention our friends) that America respects democracy and the rule of law, instead of showing them that we can beat them at their own dictatorial game. Not you, by God; you turned right around and nailed those who would hold you accountable right between the eyes. Accusing them of damaging American security was a nice touch; without that, you might have looked like some kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. People might even have said that you were sending the wrong message - that according to you, tattling is a worse sin than tyranny. They sure won't say that now, not when whistleblowing is called treason. Altogether, it was a beautifully designed piece of political theater, sir.

I'm glad to see that you seem to be giving yourself due credit for your cleverness, too, and practicing it more often. I notice that lately you've used the word "irresponsible" for those in Congress who voted to end the Patriot Act and give the American people their civil rights back, and that you've asked us not to "give up on Iraq" when some public speakers suggest it would be as well to plan this war, instead of just sitting there and making the Iraqis angrier every day. George Orwell would be proud.

Yes, sir, your rhetoric is improving by leaps and bounds. Soon you'll be able to burn all our rights down to the ground and make us think it's not only good, but critically important. I know you like to give nicknames, and I've got one for you - how about George "Agent Orange" Bush? You know, that stuff they used in Vietnam to kill all the trees in an area where there might be enemy soldiers, leaving a desert behind but winning the war at all costs? That seems to be what you're interested in.


And when the whole political landscape is utterly barren because of your maneuvers, Mr. President - when there's nothing left of the beautiful and free country we once knew - well, we'll miss America terribly, but at least we'll know that you only destroyed it in order to save it.

Friday, December 16, 2005

Music and Literature Today

As every fan of Peanuts cartoons knows, today is Beethoven's birthday.



He was born in 1770, and let's face it; he had a pretty miserable life. His father was an abusive opportunist who chained him to his piano during his childhood in an effort to make him a second Mozart. He suffered nearly constant pain from the time he turned 30 (the most recent theory is that this stemmed from lead poisoning, but I'm sure he didn't care much about the cause). And, of course, he wrote his greatest music after he lost his hearing, and never got a chance to hear it. Despite all that, a lot of musicologists will tell you that he took the clear rules of classical music and used them to produce something entirely new, a clear and necessary step to the Romantic style in art that we still enjoy today, for better or worse. Good thing, too, because Mozart had explored those classical rules about as thoroughly as possible. Without some breakthrough like Beethoven provided, European composers would have been stuck repeating Mozart's moves until they died a painless death.

I believe that when we die, we experience time in the same way God does, which is to say, all moments simultaneously. Maybe Beethoven is listening to the Ninth Symphony right now.

Well, anyway, I've known since childhood that December 16th was Ludwig's birthday. I did not, however, know until recently that today is also Philip K. Dick's 77th birthday (or would be if he were still alive).



Actually, I suspect that Phil would be the first to suggest that his "death" is insignificant under the circumstances. In his entire writing career, he never stopped questioning the reality of reality. He wrote about drug pushers who exist only in pharmaceutical hallucinations, androids with more soul than their human creators, the victory of Japan and Germany over the United States in World War II (yes, you read that right). Just before his death, Hollywood finally caught on to his genius and gave us Bladerunner, based on his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Since then, Hollywood has given us Total Recall, Imposter, Minority Report and Paycheck, all based on Dick short stories, and there's talk of a movie based on his novel A Scanner Darkly. That last is pretty exciting (apart from the fact that Keanu Reeves seems to be starring in it), since Dick himself considered it "the only masterpiece I will ever write." That may be correct, but you have to read them all anyway, whether you like science fiction or not.

A more interesting point today, however, is that Philip K. Dick did in literature (yeah, literature, you snobs) what Beethoven did in music; he took the established rules and used them to make something utterly unexpected. Good thing, too, because shortly before "Bladerunner" came out, we all went to see a little movie called "Star Wars." Which was a perfectly good piece of fantasy, but it took over the world. Go to any bookstore and check out the science fiction section; at least half of it consists of Star Wars tie-ins, or Star Trek tie-ins, or some other movie or television novelization. If it weren't for Philip K. Dick and people like him, there would be no science fiction left at all.

So, as with Beethoven (born December 16, 1770), so with Philip K. Dick (born December 16, 1928). Both geniuses, both historically and artistically critical. But let's let Schroeder have the last word:



Benshlomo says, Geniuses write their own rules.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Open Letter to the White House - Responsibility

Dear Mr. President:

I've written you a great deal, one way and another, about responsibility over the last few years. Lord knows, I've tried to educate you as to what that word means, and about the consequences of taking genuine responsibility for our actions. I've told you over and over again that taking responsibility is not a mere rhetorical device, but a true philosophical stand we take that affects both our view of the past and our future actions. I must give it up as a bad job. Your latest speech makes it abundantly clear - you neither know nor care what responsibility is.


I'm an optimist, so I'll try this one more time. When you say, of the decision to go to war in Iraq, that "much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong," and that "I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq," that means, sir, that your decision was based on false premises and was therefore the wrong decision. You cannot, a mere few minutes later, turn around and declare "My decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the correct one," and "Saddam was a threat," and expect to be taken seriously. The statements are mutually contradictory. They cannot all be true.

At the very least, when you say that you are responsible for the chain of events that led to a wrong decision, it is absurd to then claim that your future actions will not change. The statement that you are responsible for an error implies, logically, that your previous course of action was based on a false assumption. By insisting, after acknowledging an error, that you will continue to do the same thing you're doing now, you imply either that the error was not a serious one, or that your acknowledgment of responsibility means nothing at all. If the first, you had no reason to construct a major address around a minor mistake; if the second, you display a cynicism and depravity that I think would shame a robber of old-age pensions or panhandler's coins.

You recently insisted that you don't live in a bubble. Mr. President, I wish to God you did. It would be better than having a president who lives in the reflection of a funhouse mirror.

Shades of Wonderful Things to Come

I've been so wrapped up in world events and anniversaries, I completely forgot to blog about a significant event in my own life. Call it humility if you like, but it's probably just embarrassment.

A couple of weeks ago, American Cinematheque held a showing of "Playtime" by Jacques Tati. It's one of the funniest movies ever made, and screenings are not common. So when Little Miss came down for the weekend, I told her I really wanted her to see it.

Friday night is the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath, of course, and Little Miss wasn't thrilled about driving into Hollywood or anywhere else on the day of rest. I don't remember being particularly insistent, but I was very excited about seeing this movie and Little Miss likes to accommodate me, so we got in her car and headed to the theater.

I said "Playtime" is a hilariously funny movie, but it doesn't produce a lot of loud guffaws. You have to get into the rhythm of it. Little Miss found that difficult; she was uneasy about seeing a movie on the Sabbath, and her mind was elsewhere. She left the theater a couple of times to have a smoke and try to calm down. Then she suddenly stormed back in and hissed at me - "They're towing my car!"


Now, Little Miss lives in Ventura, which is 40 or more miles from where I live, and her daughter was still up there. What's more, her clothes and other necessities were still in the car. And finally, that car belonged to her father, who passed away about two years ago; his estate is still in probate, so the car did not have a current registration.

The immediate reason for the tow involved a few unpaid parking tickets, but we couldn't help thinking that God was trying to tell us something. Like, say, "Stop driving around on the Sabbath, you two!" Especially me. It seemed unfair that Little Miss had to deal with so much tsuris when the whole thing was really my fault for dragging us out to Hollywood of all places on a Friday night.

We were pretty upset, but we had plenty of time to calm down, walking the five miles back to my house. It was a pretty nice walk, actually; not too much traffic and some nice homes to look at. Over the next week, with a little help from me and from my mother, Little Miss got some important things out of her car, got it registered, paid the parking tickets and got home to her daughter. (It wasn't easy on the poor girl, but she has lots of family up in Ventura and she came through it all right - she's pretty tough for her age, or at least she can act like it.)

My most delighted reflection about that week, though, comes from the fact that Little Miss and I shared my apartment for that whole time, and not only did I avoid feeling constrained, I liked it a lot.

Man, am I ever going to marry her.

Benshlomo says, I love you, Little Miss.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Tookie Dies

As everyone knows by now, Stanley "Tookie" Williams died by lethal injection early this morning.



The facts of the case are well known, although a commentator on National Public Radio recently refuted Williams' claim that he co-founded the Crips back in the 70s. According to that man, the Crips emerged a couple of years before that, and Williams co-founded another gang on the west side of Los Angeles that later merged with the Crips.

In any case, Williams was there pretty early. He was convicted of shooting four people during a robbery (although he always maintained that he was innocent), spent about 24 years in prison going through the usual appeals, grew to regret his violent past and became an author of children's books designed to turn kids away from gang life. There were plenty of people, mostly Hollywood celebrities and recording artists, who claimed that because Tookie had changed his heart, his life ought to be spared.

Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't agree. He turned down Tookie's appeal for clemency yesterday. He said Tookie's trial was conducted properly, the evidence proved his guilt, he showed no remorse for the crime he committed, and in fact the dedications of his books and various other items showed that he didn't really even feel remorse for any of the violence the Crips perpetrated. (Some say that none of this matters a damn - that the Governator sent Tookie to his death because he's trying to shore up his political support among conservatives.)

Be that as it may, this is my blog and I'm supposed to let you know what I think, right?

Well, I don't necessarily opposed the death penalty in all cases. Like many others, I'm troubled by the fact that most death row inmates are black, and are there because they killed white people, but that doesn't say anything about the death penalty; that says something about the American system of justice, which doesn't work as well as it should.

I can't get too worked up about Tookie Williams, either, to be perfectly honest with you. Assuming that he committed the crime for which he was punished, I'm content with the result; it's a "punishment fit the crime" scenario. If he did not, I can only pray that our system of justice gets fixed in a hurry. If, despite what the Governator says, Williams genuinely repented of his crimes - whether the deaths of the people he was convicted for, or the death spread by his followers in the Crips - that's between him and his God, who does not look at the appearance, but knows the heart. If he did not repent, let's hope that his death effected repentance for him.

Which bring us to the Jewish approach to capital punishment. The Bible teaches that many sins draw execution as a punishment. I know of no obvious common thread; they include various forms of blasphemy, murder, adultery, idol worship, and a host of others. The Bible clearly teaches that, in some cases at least, capital punishment acts as a deterrent to crime (see Verse 20 in particular), but more importantly, Torah text implies that repentance is not enough to provide forgiveness in all cases.

That's a frightening thing to contemplate, but take a look at this. Here's a guy named Achan who commits a sin, disobeying God's command. When asked to confess, he willingly does so. What's more, he doesn't just say "Yes I did that." He calls it what it is - he says "I have sinned."

There are those among us who, when they hear someone sincerely repent in that way, say to us "We should let that person live, because he has repented and now he will do good." Not this time - the Hebrews take Achan out of the camp and stone him. Why? Partly to remove the sin from the people, so that they can get right with God, but certain sages taught something a little different. For some sins, repentance is enough; for others, one must repent and die.

So, because Tookie Williams underwent lethal injection, is he now forgiven? Is he with God now?

Then again, as long as we're talking about execution practices in ancient Israel...

Although many sins draw execution as a punishment, the sages teach that executions in real life were so rare as to be almost nonexistant. Why? In order to sentence a person to death, the ancient Hebrew courts had to hear the same exact story of what happened from at least two witnesses, both of them found to be of exemplary moral character. What's more, they had to testify not only that they saw the sin, but that they approached the sinner first and said "What you are about to do is a sin and you shouldn't do it," and that the sinner went ahead and did it anyway. No wonder the Talmud says that a high court which imposed more than one execution in seven years was considered destructive. Notice, too, that the great Rabbi Akiva with Rabbi Tarfon said "Had we sat on the Sanhedrin [the ancient Hebrew high court] none would ever have been put to death."

So, because disagreement exists as to exactly what Tookie Williams did or did not do, should he have been spared?

Don't ask me to answer those questions, friends and neighbors. This discussion has been going on for a long, long time, and it's not going to stop now.

Benshlomo says, Leave the man alone and talk about what he taught you.

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Sometime in New York City

Twenty-five years ago today, John Lennon was murdered in front of his home.



When I heard the news, in a telephone call from my brother, I seem to remember reacting more or less the way Paul McCartney did; I said something like "That's a bummer." Hardly seems sufficient.

Mind you, at that time, Lennon wasn't such a big deal anymore. His last album, "Double Fantasy", was about three weeks old, and most of the people I knew at the time thought it was average at best, especially considering that half of it consisted of Yoko Ono songs. And despite what her husband said about her, and despite her abilities in other artistic and business endeavors, she can't sing.


Nevertheless, when he died, an enormous number of people seemed to remember what he once meant to them, and his reputation has skyrocketed since.

People now remember not only his music, including the excellences of "Double Fantasy," but his willingness to share himself and his life with those who loved him and his absolute refusal to say anything but what was true, as near as he could manage it. He had talent and guts, he worked ceaselessly at digging himself out of the pit his anger had thrown him into, and he wanted us all to live in peace.


In other new, today Congress extended tax cuts for the rich and extraordinary powers for the FBI to spy on Americans, the President still thinks we can win the Iraq war, the world continues to pay attention to lunatics when it comes to Middle East policy, and America's top diplomat tap-dances so fast around questions about torturing terror suspects that she digs herself and the whole country into a very deep hole.

Benshlomo says, Lennon, thou shouldst be living at this hour.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

La-Dee-Dah

Impossibly, Woody Allen is 70 years old today. If you grew up Jewish in America during the 70s, Woody was the guy.


He started out in stand-up, moved into scriptwriting, and eventually got complete control over his films. Every time he issued a new one, it wasn't so much that you had to go see it. It was more like you were already going to see it.


He gave the country an idea of what Jews looked, talked, and thought like, for better or worse. A lot of people probably thought already that Jews were small, weak, bespectacled, intellectual and from New York, and Woody confirmed it all. These days, a lot of us feel pretty ambivalent about his persona; back in the day, we didn't care because he was funny.

And there was the delicious fact that Woody's humor was aimed at his own people; the rest of the world had to catch up with us for a change. Take that scene in Annie Hall where Alvy (Woody's character) and Annie, played by Diane Keaton, are ordering lunch in a delicatessen. Woody, to no one's surprise, orders a corned beef on rye with mustard. Annie orders a pastrami on white bread with mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato. You could tell, by watching who laughed in the theater, which people were Jewish. Or maybe just from New York.


These days, when (for example) the moron Tom Paulin asserts that the Jews have no rights in Israel because they're all invaders from Brooklyn, you have to wonder whether Woody's legacy is such a good thing. And when you notice that Woody gets older and his leading ladies get younger, not to mention his affair with and later marriage to his ex-wife's adoptive daughter, you have to wonder whether someone else might not be a better most-famous-Jew-in-the-world.

Well, his movies since 1992's Crimes and Misdemeanors have ranged from mediocre to acceptable, but he's about to release Match Point. It's his first non-comedy in years, and he doesn't appear in it, so maybe he's realized that he's in a rut.

And anyway, speaking just for myself, I'm prepared to forgive Woody a good deal just for the closing lines of Love and Death way back in 1975:


As to love, well, what can I say? I think, it's not the quantity of your sexual relations, it's the quality. On the other hand, if the quantity drops below once every eight months, I would definitely look into it.

Benshlomo says, It's never too late to grow up.