How can we call ours a civilized society if politicians, pundits and preachers gain support and power for demonizing Muslims and gay people?
I would appreciate hearing any thoughts on this.
A puzzlement
Reply
Tag Archives: America
Sanchez and Stewart — A Re-Think
A friend from high school sent me a message and thought I should rethink my prior blog entry on the Sanchez and Stewart dust-up (http://40andoverblog.com/?p=2921).
I re-read it and my high school friend was right that I was unduly harsh and outrageously judgmental (and, although she didn’t say it, I will add, hypocritical) in my comments about Jon Stewart’s religious observance. It is none of my business and I was out of line.
I still believe that there was a potential for a teachable moment with Rick Sanchez, where we could talk about the source of the anger. There is so much anger in our society right now that I just wish we would look more closely at it, together, and find some common ground and possibly healing.
And even as I was trying to make that point in my prior blog entry, I took a needless and shameful pot-shot at Jon Stewart. As much as I love Jon Stewart and I would bear his children if I could (POB (partner of blogger) knows this and accepts this because, well, it is biologically impossible anyway), some things about him push my buttons and I react irrationally. Maybe that it why I feel bad (a little) for Rick Sanchez (whose show is, in my opinion, so bad as to be unwatchable).
Anyway, to my high school friend, thank you for “calling me” on this and I expect you to keep me in line as you see fit.
~ Blogger
Dad at 90
So, Saturday is the big birthday celebration for my dad who turned 90 this week. SOB (sister of blogger) told me I had to give a tasteful toast. (Did she think I was going to give a bawdy bachelorette party toast?)
I have been having the hardest time coming up with something to say. I don’t want it to dwell on the past because it sounds to funereal, but there is more road behind than ahead, if you see what I mean. My dad did promise me that he would live to 120, just as Moses did. Some days he is up to the task; other days, not so much.
Dad is not someone who is comfortable in the spotlight. He always referred to himself as Mom’s husband. But people are drawn to him by his effusive optimism, unassuming nature, cheerful disposition and kind heart. (He also makes us crazy by recounting every little ache and pain and digestive discomfort.)
Most of Dad’s nieces and nephews and dear friends (who are still alive) are coming to the party. In some ways it is the gathering of the clan in honor of an elder. He is the last of five brothers who lived the American Dream in varying degrees of happiness and success. He and his sister-in-law, my aunt, are the last of a generation. They will have seats of honor.
But really his birthday is about us — his family and his extended family and what his generation meant to us and how we define ourselves as more than a family — really, a clan. He and our aunt form our link to our heritage — they are the last of our family’s Yiddish speakers, they are the last to be born into poverty and ride the rising tide of the American Century.
We stand on their shoulders as we do on the shoulders of our uncles and aunts who are no longer alive. They made possible our lives and our choices.
Of course, it IS about Dad on his birthday. I hope he looks back with satisfaction and wonder at his years so far, and I hope he doesn’t think that this party is the coda, but rather a reflection point on a continuing life well lived.
Sanchez and Stewart
I feel bad for Rick Sanchez and I feel bad for Jon Stewart.
I think Rick Sanchez was wrong about Jon Stewart’s sense of entitlement or paranoia as a Jew. I think Jon Stewart’s cultural Jewishness infuses his humor with that contrarian-isn’t-the-world-crazy approach, but that’s it.
But Rick wasn’t really talking about Jon Stewart. He was talking about how he — Rick Sanchez — feels about his place at CNN and the things that have kept him down. I don’t think one tirade should cost him his job. That only cements the anger. More famous people get to hire a spiritual adviser and keep their jobs or move onto the speaking tour. So, I say, CNN needs to listen to him and figure out whether or not his anger is justified.
As for Jon Stewart, I am sorry that he felt the need to change his name, although it is show business. And Leibowitz doesn’t really flow well. And Jon Stewart may have issues with Judaism — hey, he works (or at least new shows air) on the high Holy Days. Even the most lapsed Jew in the world finds a synagogue or stays home from work for self-reflection and contemplation on these holy days. So, he has baggage, too.
I have baggage. We all have baggage. Rick Sanchez should get his job back and he should go into therapy.
I will say it is odd that some bullying assistant attorney general who is targeting a gay college student gets to keep his job on a “free speech” argument and Rick Sanchez gets tossed for a short rant that he probably regrets.
When “Rights” Just Cover Prejudice and Cowardice
A Michigan assistant attorney general, a man who is charged with enforcing the laws of the State of Michigan, is waging a vicious, cyber-war against a gay college student.
Ok, let’s take a moment and feel sorry for this assistant AG who has unresolved issues about his own sexual orientation and a big dose of self-loathing. Now, that moment is over.
Time to rant about him and his employer the Attorney General of the State of Michigan, defends his assistant AG even though he calls him a bully.
The AG hides behind the “free speech” argument. Let’s assume it is applicable here. There are limits to one’s right to free speech. The classic example is “you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater” [unless there is, in fact, a fire]. The government can prosecute you if what you are saying is calculated to incite violence and does, in fact, incite violence.
Here are the rules of thumb for free speech:
Free speech is limited to reasonable time, reasonable place and reasonable manner. (That’s why there are limits to where you can hold rallies and when your neighbor can do heavy construction on his property.)
Free speech doesn’t protect you from the consequences of that speech.
Do you really think that if this Michigan assistant AG were harassing say, a co-worker, a female student or another civil servant, that the AG would feel the same way and hide behind “free speech”? Really?
No, the AG doesn’t want to take the side of a gay college kid.
Because that would be unpopular and require that he take a stand against his conservative constituency.
So, the head legal officer of the State of Michigan in the United States of America in the year 2010 will call a subordinate a bully, but won’t stand up to him??
Don’t you think that bullying has caused too many young people to be emotionally scarred or so despondent as to be suicidal? If the recent suicide of a Rutgers student doesn’t make law enforcement, law enforcement, stand up to bullying, what will become of our society?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Michigan attorney general defends employee’s right to blog
http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/US/09/30/michigan.justice.blog/story.shirvell.cnn.jpg
September 30, 2010|By the CNN Wire Staff *
Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox defended an assistant’s constitutional right to wage an Internet campaign against an openly gay college student, even though he considers that employee a “bully.” “Here in America, we have this thing called the First Amendment, which allows people to express what they think and engage in political and social speech,” Cox told Anderson Cooper on CNN’s “AC 360” on Wednesday night. “He’s clearly a bully … but is that protected under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution? Yes.”
Turning the spin on my head
I had a long talk with my retirement coach.
What, you don’t have a retirement coach?
Wait, you’ve never heard of a retirement coach?
Where do you live? Really, you live on the planet Earth?
Ok, I made it up. That’s what I call my financial adviser. Because, why would I need a financial adviser if not to help me retire as soon as possible and preferably before my death. Otherwise, a financial adviser would just cause me pain every time I followed her advice and lost money. But, if I call her a coach and I still lose money, then it feels like a competitive sport where I put on my “game face” and try to overcome my losing score to make my coach happy. You would think every financial adviser would pay me to convince their clients to think of them this way.
The bad news is that I have to give up my dream of retiring at 62 to try my hand at stand-up comedy. The good news is that I am healthy and can continue to work until I die.
SPAM is so much more than lunchmeat
Has anyone looked in the spam catchers lately? It isn’t about genital sizing anymore. In fact, it has been months since someone wanted to help me up-size my non-existent male genitalia.
The new spam scam craze is selling credit reports, which of course means that you have to give the company all the information it needs to steal your identity. Hey, as long as the economy is bad, only the size of your bank account matters.
It never occurred to me that spam is subject to the shifting tides of public opinion and concerns.
Fascinating.
You may wonder why I am focusing on this. Well, it is too exhausting to contemplate the insanity of world events and the inanity of our nation’s politics. Anyone notice that no one is talking anymore about the mosque at Ground Zero that isn’t a mosque and isn’t on Ground Zero? That’s because it lasted for the requisite news cycle and national attention span and now everyone is on some other made-for-TV-sound-bite faux issue, such as: was Sarah Palin booed when she appeared on Dancing With the Stars? (Was she there to tell her daughter to shimmy less and wear more clothes?)
It is so aggravating to watch the focus shift to meet the needs of a 24 hour news recycle that I have retreated into my spaminator.
Ask about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
Yesterday I arrived in Orlando for meetings. My driver was a burly man named Johnny. I asked him if he were a native Floridian and he said he and his wife had moved here a few years ago after he retired from the military.
So, I asked him what he thought of repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” (now, back to a theoretical issue). I had to ask. I know, it is like picking a scab but I couldn’t hold back.
He said that he is a Christian and that homosexuals were deviants and introducing sexuality on the battlefield was wrong. I mentioned that homosexuals already serve in secret and many with distinctions for valor. He said that it was as wrong as having women on the battlefield because, in both cases, you’d feel the need to take care of them and as a result you were putting yourself in even further danger. I wondered whether this man had ever been on the front lines.
He couldn’t get past his views that homosexuality was an offense before G-d and that gay men were somehow less than men.
When we got to our destination and he handed me my bag, I said “Johnny, I appreciate your honesty. I am gay and I don’t agree with you. Thank you for your service to our country.” He was a little shocked but he shook my hand.
I hope he remembers me.
Sunday night dinner chez nous
Further reinforcing my hypothesis that older people progressively allocate more time to traveling and invariably arrive early, our fathers came for 6pm dinner at 4:30pm, which coincides with the time-honored “early bird” hour. Which makes one wonder whether restaurateurs named, rather than caused, the phenomenon.
I don’t know about other Jewish families, but the first dinner after the Yom Kippur holy day involves comparing Yiskor books (books of remembrance for those who have died) and book plate honors (having someone’s name put in a prayerbook) from the various synagogues to which various members attend. It is a morbid combination of “Bingo”, “Wheel of [Mis]Fortune” and “Celebrity Match-ups”. I like to think of it as “Did You Remember to Name that Dead Person?”
My dad was upset that he forgot to list POB’s (partner of blogger’s) mom (z”l). I said, “Don’t worry. You’ll remember next year, Dad. We had her covered.”
I mentioned that we also covered several uncles and cousins and he mentioned a few we forgot and also the grandparents. Oooooh. Darn!!! Missed that! Harumph. We need to have a huge list for next year, even if the dollars pile up (wait, you thought it was free?).
But we had a book plate put in a prayerbook for Dad’s 90th birthday. SCORE!!! (POB is sooooo awesome.)
POB’s father and our son were watching the football games. The other Jews shrugged and then started to talk about concussions and debilitating diseases, as a way of showing interest in the football game.
Then SOB (sister of blogger) wanted to take out the old family pictures so we can mount them on poster board for my Dad’s birthday party. We all got a little teary-eyed about how young and vibrant everyone looked and how most are now gone.
So, to recap: we have talked about death, destruction and death again. Just what Jews need to work up an appetite.
POB made a delicious dinner, over which we discussed the importance of building that Islamic Cultural Center right where they planned it and argued about the meaning of life, chaos theory and the mysteries of the universe. It got rather heated when we were contrasting a Jewish, G-d-centric approach that assumes that actions have meaning and can cause change versus the view that most of what we do doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. I ventured that, while I am not so sure that I believe the former, if I in fact believed the latter, then what’s the point and POB should just get my life insurance. At that point, POB’s father then asked, “how much?” in a very oddly interested tone. My brother-in-law (the bird nerd from other entries), quietly advised me not to go anywhere alone with my father-in-law. All this while I was choking over the salad course.
Dessert brought calm to the table as we talked about the Million Moderate March on October 30th and exhorted our TV-challenged relatives to tune into Jon Stewart on the web. (I could not speak to Stephen Colbert, because I remember him when he was really a right wing-nut at Dartmouth.)
So, death, destruction, death, religion & chaos, politics and comedy. Another excellent family dinner with the extended family.
This Atonement Day and Beyond
Yom Kippur started Friday at sundown. We have our services at the Jacob Javits Convention Center. It is a free service — no one is turned away. Keeping an open door policy is part of who were are as a community because the synagogue was started nearly 40 years ago by gay Jews who were not welcomed anywhere as gays, as Jews or as gay Jews. Now our synagogue welcomes people of all sexual orientation (including straight) and all gender orientations (I only know the two main ones, but I am told that there are as many points on that spectrum as, let’s say, colors in the rainbow). Almost 4,000 people attended Kol Nidre on Friday night.
The senior rabbi is a woman in her late forties but she looks like a pre-pubescent, book-ish boy. She is a thoughtful and insightful speaker. And, she does have moments of levity, as when she announced that she would like to be known now as “Lady Syna-Gaga“. Ok, there is a reason why our synagogue can never really go mainstream.
We ended around 10pm last night and started up again this morning.
This morning, we all went to the children’s service which had a fair amount of substance. The rabbis talked about seeking forgiveness, saying, “I’m sorry,” etc., and otherwise tried to distill the elements of the Holy Day without dumbing it down too much.
Then we came home and I fixed our son a sandwich for lunch. He is 8 years old, so he does not fast but we do put techno-toys away for the day.
I was about to sit down at the table to keep him company while he ate, but he said, “E-Mom, I would like to eat alone so I can think about all of the things I need to say sorry for and all the things I need to do better.”
Ok, my son is wonderful and all, but this is out of hand. Reflexively, I asked, “Really?”
Right after blurting that out, I thought “I need work on not being so cynical and more trusting of my son’s motives, because we were at this substantive kids’ service and maybe something spoke to him —-”
My thoughts were interrupted by my son — ever the honest little boy, “Nah, I just want to play with the iTouch and I didn’t want you to see.”
At least he is honest.
We returned to synagogue for the late afternoon service through to the end of Ne’ila, the last service of Yom Kippur. After services were over, as we poured into the street to find our ways home, two attendees who were, just minutes before, wrapped in prayer shawls, stole cabs from us. I started screaming at one in the cab that was then stopped for the light, “Yom Kippur is just over and this, this, is how you act?”
Then, I realized that my son was watching me and I thought to myself, “Yom Kippur is just over and this, this, is how you act?” So, I stopped.
We hailed another cab and we went home, a tired but happy family.