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LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSIONPosted by Ron Coleman on April 13, 2009
BRUCE BARTLETT WONDERS WHY TEA-PARTIERS ARE PROTESTING, as the United States remains a comparatively low-tax country.
I’m quite a the “tea party” skeptic — but Bruce’s question strikes me as a non-sequitur.
If Europe jumped off the Empire State Building….?
Posted in Euroids, Gelt, Stragety | 2 Comments »
Posted by Ron Coleman on April 8, 2009
Reprinting my annual Passover post on LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®, scrubbed and cleansed and covered with vinyl shelf paper for this year:
Arthur Szyk's Four Sons of the Haggadah
This year Passover takes up two weekdays, Thursday and Friday, and abuts against the Sabbath, so I’m “out of pocket” through Sunday and essentially on mission-critical-only duty for most of the rest of next week, too.
Here’s a nice thought on the topic, apropos for the blogging and social-networking lifestyle:
The 21st century is certainly a marvelous time in which to live. Space exploration, computerization, the taming of vicious diseases are all truly amazing feats. But we also suffer more burnout, mental exhaustion, attention deficit disorders and high blood pressure than ever before. They are no doubt the effects of our own hi-tech servitude. Like it or not, we’re ruthlessly on call to someone for something all the time. And, we call it “normal.”
Well, on Passover everything comes to a halt. It begins with the destruction of the chametz, leavened foodstuffs, our daily bread. What could be more symbolic of the mundane, ordinary and routine than a piece of bread? We scour our homes and clear every morsel. The “normal” is simply unacceptable for eight days each year. Then we turn off our cell phones, close our places of business and sit down to a Seder with all the time in the world to discuss the Exodus experience. And, while many of us cringe at the seeming never-ending questions our kids can annoyingly ask the rest of the year, on this night they’re encouraged to ask the four questions, along with any others they might have.
As for the rest of Passover, the simple commandment prohibiting us from eating leavened foods automatically creates a huge paradigm shift for a whole eight days whereby our regular routines go out the window. We are free of fast food restaurants. Free from the mundane obligations and vicissitudes of life. Passover is freedom indeed, from the spirit-stunting routines of modern life.
The fact is that each and every week we’ve simply got to take a day off just to catch our breath. That day is Shabbat. But in order to “clean house” and truly free our inner selves from the overwhelming clutter of life lived in the fast lane, we need the extra-strength, paradigm shifting power of Passover.
See you on the other side of the Sea of Reeds.
Posted in Faith and Works, Heart and spirit | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ron Coleman on April 7, 2009
It was actually yesterday, not quite the eve of Passover, though it felt like it on 13th Avenue, the commercial heart of Borough Park, New York’s largest orthodox Jewish enclave.
The banner above offers pre-Passover purging of vessels such as pots or tableware to rid them of chometz or leaven essence (“taste”) so they can be used for Passover. It also shows the name of the rabbi who is supervising the purging operation.
Posted in Faith and Works, Heart and spirit, Metropolis | 2 Comments »
Posted by Ron Coleman on April 7, 2009
The brightest object in the sky will get some religious attention on Wednesday — for the first time since 1981 — when Jews recite Birkat Hachamah, the Blessing of the Sun.
The rare ceremony will mark the time that the Talmud says the sun returns to the spot in the sky where it was created — which happens once every 28 years. In response, groups of Jews will thank “the king of the universe, who re-enacts the work of creation.”
Amen!
We’ll be up before the crack of dawn around here so we can make this rare blessing — we hope — at the earliest possible moment. There was some talk earlier on of a consistently cloudy day, but with God’s help it’s looking, well, as if overall the day will be quite a bit sunnier.
Posted in Heart and spirit, Past is prologue, Scientificus | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ron Coleman on April 7, 2009
The Times reports that Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor of New York who has everything, now also has a pretty sleazy — and by all indications, gratuitous — campaign dirty trick to his credit. It’s push-polling to slime his rival for the mayoralty, Anthony Weiner:
As his campaign sought to overpower any candidate considering challenging him, Mr. Bloomberg commissioned a telephone poll last month that spread derogatory information about Representative Anthony D. Weiner, one of the mayor’s possible rivals in the race.
The calls came around mid-March, even as Mr. Weiner announced he was not certain he would run for mayor.
In interviews, several people who received the telephone calls said that they were told when they picked up the phone that a survey was being conducted, but were soon asked a series of questions featuring negative information about Mr. Weiner.
The questions began benignly enough: Are you registered to vote? Do you plan to vote in the mayoral election? But then they shifted to Mr. Weiner, asking whether the person’s views of Mr. Weiner would be altered if he or she knew of certain problems involving Mr. Weiner, from missing votes in Congress to having difficulty keeping staff to accepting campaign donations from foreign fashion models.
I like Mike, even if he is a bit of a reckless scofflaw. He’s running for the post of Mayor for Life, of course, and that raises the problem: We loved Ed Koch, who was — in so many ways — no Mike Bloomberg, and vice-versa. But that third term… oofah. That left a mark.
There is something unhealthy about it, as there is regarding any unnatural attachment to state power (via Insty). Maybe we’re starting to get a preview of what that something might look like for Mike. All power, all the time.
Posted in Metropolis, Narcissus Rex, O Mores!, Politics and Poker | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ron Coleman on April 5, 2009
In light of the “where do I go to get my reputation back?” scenario now faced by Ted Stevens (and see here), I wondered where my friend (bloggily speaking) and idol (same) Glenn Reynolds was on this. He was beating the drum for Stevens’s head quite loudly during, after all.
So, here he is:
I DON’T SEE THIS WORKING: “The head of the Alaska Republican Party today called on Sen. Mark Begich to step down from the U.S. Senate, saying that the state’s voters would have re-elected former Sen. Ted Stevens had they known the U.S Department of Justice would abandon its prosecution of him.” They may be right, but if they’d listened to my advice and replaced Ted Stevens before the trial, the question would be moot.
Glenn’s advice was to lose Stevens. Why? Above all, because he was clearly corrupt. A crook. A felon.
How do we know? Why, these nice young men from the government said so.
It was the right advice, politically. And it does kind of answer the question.
But am I missing this, or is there something very wrong here?
UPDATE: The Queen Mary begins that long turn?…
Posted in Lex scripta, O Mores!, Sisyphus | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ron Coleman on April 1, 2009
Obama is doing AN INCREDIBLE JOB. So the GOP’s at the NY Times can just keep their biased, negative reporting out of the mainstream, cuz we don’t buy it.
That’s a comment on The Caucus Blog of the New York Times (by virtue of this tangentially related link from Instapundit). You’ve got to read this comment section — are they all Party Youth members?
Yeah, those anti-Obama “GOP’s” at the New York Times! They stand between Our President and The People. Wreckers!
Posted in Medialites, Oppression, Sisyphus | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ron Coleman on April 1, 2009
April Fools!
Kind of. William Jacobsen rounds up April Fools’ Day Headlines. over at Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion.
So, who’s the joke on?
Posted in Jocularity, Sisyphus | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ron Coleman on March 30, 2009
Red neck, whitewash
Yes, mixed metaphors can be a downer, but how else to express the silence of America’s Prophetic Voice, Jimmy Carter, regarding the other “apartheid fences”? As Soccer Dad points, out, whether in Belfast, Arabia, “and now, in Brazil,” they all keep out the unwanted, and are quietly ignored after initial bursts of interest by the perpetually brokenhearted protectors of justice. And there is no keening, Jew-obsessed hypocrite like Carter, is there? Is he heading down to Brazil?
God, yes, please. Maybe he can be Rio’s Rachel Corrie?
“Bad, bad man,” as Ed Koch said about the wrong person; and this Carter has a lot of bad, bad accomplices — mainly with press passes and, of course, diplomatic license plates.
UPDATE: Then there’s those who imagine a fence where there isn’t one at all.
Posted in Medialites, Oppression | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ron Coleman on March 28, 2009
WHILE PEOPLE DISS WALL STREETERS AND INDUSTRIALISTS FOR GREED AND HIGH LIVING, note that the most expensive home in America was built by a TV producer.
Yeah, but it was the bailouts, and the would-be bailouts, that made it officially cool to hate Wall Street, though, Glenn. And I’m not so sure I have a problem with that coolness.
There’s always plenty of envy to go around, but as much as there is to despise about Hollywood, including its institutional pipeline to the Democratic Party, and as much as Hollywood gets what it wants from Congress on things like copyright law, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone “taking lunch” on Capitol Hill asking for cash bailouts of “the industry.”
Posted in Americana, Gelt, Medialites | 1 Comment »
