We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
This artist just released an album using biblical instruments trying to re-create the music in the Temple in Jerusalem. Remember, the first pilgrims were Jews going there to give homage to G-d. Hence, "halleluja".
Dunkin Donuts is a Yankeeland item which has begun to colonize the world. Mediocre coffee, mushy donuts which are not really fat-fried and have no crunch, but half-decent daily bagels. Also, "Breakfast sandwiches" made of God-knows-what warmed-up plastic-wrapped thawed-out food-like substances.
People like Dunkin anyway. It's familiar, predictable, comfortably mediocre. A welcome sign to see on a cold, sleety night of driving in the middle of nowhere. Clean bathrooms. A Dunkin franchise is a cash cow for the franchisee. I know a Greek immigrant who now owns five of them. He's rich. He is fortunate in having a loyal, smart, and pleasant mostly-Hispanic staff. A few Pakistanis too.
I haven't had one of their too-sweet and mushy donuts in years, but once in a while I'll have a toasted bagel. I only like fried donuts.
Bob Rosenberg opened the first one in Quincy, MA in 1949, and the first of thousands of franchises the following year in Worcester.
In 2006 the parent company was acquired by a consortium of private equity firms: Bain Capital, The Carlyle Group, and Thomas H. Lee Partners. Heavy hitters, for a humble donut shop. Dunkin' Donuts is the world's leading baked goods and coffee chain, serving more than 3 million customers per day. Dunkin also bought Baskin Robbins a while ago, which is why you sometimes see the two carbohydrate outlets under the same roof.
Rabbi Bill Berk, who retired from a large Reform congregation in Phoenix to lead educational cultural tours in Israel, is definitely a liberal -- by US or Israeli standards -- politically. Regardless of liberal or not, almost all Israelis are unified in supporting the Israeli actions in Gaza. That may come as a shock to many Western liberals who have become accustomed to taking positions negative toward Israel.
Below is Bill Berk's "Letter To My Old Friend" in the US who wrote to him criticizing Israel's actions against Hamas in Gaza. Berk's old friend wrote him (as Berk summarizes):
1. Israel has its boot on the neck of Gaza in too many ways; 2. Nothing will stop Hamas rockets--you can’t kill your way out of the mess in the Middle East; 3. Netanyahu is like George Bush—a thoughtless bully.He is jerking us like “political poodles on a leash.”In other words he is manipulating the Israeli people including thoughtful people like me; 4. Israel is losing all its friends except for right wingers and the “Christian TeaParty.”
Below, Bill Berk demolishes those ignorant assertions. Berk's rebuttal is comprehensive, and provides better understanding than you'll see in most of the Western media.
“[F]inally, beginning in 1949. . . you and your employer will each pay 3 cents on each dollar you earn, up to $3,000 a year. That is the most you will ever pay.”
What unites all of these stories is the growing failure of America’s local associations — civic, familial, religious — to foster stability, encourage solidarity and make mobility possible.
This is a crisis that the Republican Party often badly misunderstands, casting Democratic-leaning voters as lazy moochers or spoiled children seeking “gifts” (as a certain former Republican presidential nominee would have it) rather than recognizing the reality of their economic struggles.
But if conservatives don’t acknowledge the crisis’s economic component, liberalism often seems indifferent to its deeper social roots. The progressive bias toward the capital-F Future, the old left-wing suspicion of faith and domesticity, the fact that Democrats have benefited politically from these trends — all of this makes it easy for liberals to just celebrate the emerging America, to minimize the costs of disrupted families and hollowed-out communities, and to treat the places where Americans have traditionally found solidarity outside the state (like the churches threatened by the Obama White House’s contraceptive mandate) as irritants or threats.
Before that article in Salon, this mother was allowed to believe that her staying off the dole had some honor in itself-- some validation of her identity-- and it allowed her to survive her hardships. Now she is forced to swallow that these people are not merely as good as her, but more valuable-- they get an article, they get defenders like you, they are praised for their intrinsic human value, and all she gets is mocked, belittled, "she's too stupid to know what's good for her!"-- all she can do is comment on their life-- and her small act of rebellion is to at least use the space to tell the world she exists. Rage is her defense that keeps her intact while the world seemingly ignores her.
Israel is a democracy, with rights of free speech, petition, and protest. The tiny number of far left Israelis are vocal and often ally with radical Arab-Israelis. In this video today, they held a protest in Jerusalem against Israel bombing Gaza. Then, they scurried away as soon as the air raid siren went off that a rocket may come in from Gaza.
From the Comments to this Youtube video:
these were a group of redical lefties and arabs inside of israel (jerusalem) who protested agains israel and showed support in gaza people..when the siren hitsuddenly nobody supports terror and starts running.
Almost a year ago, I commented on a tax 'solution' which I think could work here in the U.S.
Here we are, post-election, and what are we hearing from Republicans? Astonishingly little pushback, almost no effort to 'obstruct' (not that were ever obstructionist, in my opinion), and a generally held agreement that taxes have to rise because that's what the election was all about.
I doubt the commentary would be vastly different if Romney had won, but the focus on tax increases versus spending cuts would probably be significantly altered. I also don't think that's what the election was all about, either. But that's the meme.
Can the Tobin Tax rise from the dead?
Still, where do we go from here? Every day, we hear that "something has to be done before we fall off the fiscal cliff."
It is sad that so much of what Hanson is describing in this article is coming to pass. While Obama exploited the tribalism to get elected and re-elected, he is not the cause of such divisive politics. One only has to work in a university environment to see where such a racial spoils system is fully entrenched and how counter-productive it can be.
There is no longer a left or liberalism in America. There is only a politics of victimhood that looks on all allocation of employment, college admissions, rewards of any kind as a spoils system to be divided based on formulas that favor formerly underrepresented groups. Visit any website offering jobs of any kind at a university and it will advertise that they are favoring women and minorities.
This is not unfamiliar to anyone who was part of the new left in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The people who had worked so hard to end segregation, create vast new opportunities for women and had pushed for a more human rights oriented foreign policy allowed their movement to be taken over by those who sought to use their cause to fuel their own personal ambitions. That is how a movement with humane ideals could degenerate so quickly into a collection of interest groups promoting their own aggrandizement at the expense of the common good.
“Causes begin as movement, develop into businesses and end up as rackets.” This quote or some similar wording is attributed to Eric Hoffer and I believe that it represents what we are seeing transforming America. The Democratic Party did not create this mess but it has cynically exploited it to gain the presidency where it rewards its supporters by filling the federal bureaucracy and judiciary with advocates for the racial, gender and ethnic spoils system.
Within days of the election we have seen Democratic Party appointed judges vote to void the Michigan law, Proposal 2, by which Michigan voters reaffirmed the racial neutrality of the fourteenth amendment. And we have seen the EPA refuse to allow Iowa farmers to use their corn as food and feed grain because environmental extremists demand that it be turned into ethanol. While clearly, this policy is supported by those with an economic interest in it, it could never be allowed without the support of a “sustainability” movement that is incapable of considering the overall economic consequences of its environmental extremism.
The future is not promising. Title IX extremists will now use it to attack American science, attempting to create gender equality of numbers in engineering and physics the way it creates equal numbers of athletes receiving athletic scholarships. In the process it will create an entire new bureaucracy of regulators and compliance officers who will be paid to ensure that college admissions, scholarships and assistantships, post-docs, conferences, speakers at national meetings and the like are assigned to assure that the number of females is greater than or equal to the number of males receiving such rewards. And when people try to resist it, the armies of regulators and compliance officers will respond by declaring that such resistance is a war on women and is evidence that the problem is that we don’t have enough regulators and compliance officers.
I am a generally optimistic person but it is hard for me to see how this is going to end in anything but disaster.
Interesting premise, but one which goes back to the ancient Greeks. At the family homestead on Thanksgiving evening, we do three things: take a long walk with the dogs, put football on one TV and a movie on another. It's my turn to pick a film.
To illustrate the credible range of debate or discussion within the Jewish community, excluding the left-fringe J Street's usual meowing for a mythical peace with those who adamantly and violently refuse peace, please read this short column by a professor and the reply by another. I favor the reply, because dire realities cannot be wished away.
Hamas fired off more Iranian rockets toward Jerusalem. One landed in a West Bank Palestinian village.
Two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip toward Jerusalem on Tuesday landed in the Gush Etzion area Tuesday, with one hitting an open area of a Palestinian village in the West Bank, police and the IDF reported. It was unclear if the rocket caused any damage or injuries, although AFP reported Palestinian paramedics were making their way to the scene.
Hamas not only tries to kill Israeli civilians but doesn't care about killing fellow Palestinians.
Meanwhile, to continue the report linked above:
Meanwhile, the IDF embarked on a series of major strikes in the Gaza Strip, striking 11 terrorist cells and 30 concealed rocket launchers in Gaza, and engaged in a wave of artillery strikes, an IDF Spokesman's Office statement said.
One of the strikes hit a rocket launching cell responsible for firing on the Jerusalem area.
The IDF said it also struck an apartment used as a hideout by a senior Hamas official, as armored vehicles and artillery units continued to directed fire at Hamas targets.
Hillary is on the way, to talk in Ramallah with the PLO. Gee, that will do a lot of good, since for Hamas and the PLO each other are enemies. She'll be in Jerusalem, presumably to muscle Israel into not launching a ground operation in Gaza to eliminate more rats. Then she'll visit Egypt, whose "mediation" sits on a table etched with anti-Israel statements. Soft diplomacy yields to soft-headedness. At least, one Associated Press reporter called out the State Dept. spokesperson on ignoring Turkey's calling Israel a "terrorist state" at the same time considering giving the faux-NATO partner US Patriot missiles along its Syrian border.
Capretta and Levin: Why ObamaCare Is Still No Sure Thing - The majority of state governors are Republicans, and they have the power to disarm the health-care law.
Reporters Without Borders accused Israel of a war crime, targeting innocent civilian journalists. The Reporters Without Borders, first, need to better understand the Geneva Conventions. The International Committee of the Red Cross is the authority on the Geneva Conventions.
"Inasmuch as they are civilians, journalists are protected under international humanitarian law against direct attacks unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities."
That does not protect those masquerading as journalists nor does it protect terrorists hiding among journalists. Today, Israel killed five of them. Further, Reporters Without Borders has not protested Hamas directly denying journalists in Gaza their right to leave Gaza.
Reporters Without Borders are without the confining borders of journalistic ethics. Quelle surprise!
The author of the piece about the famous long-term study of Harvard students from college to old age says that George Vaillant has demonstrated little more than that an ability to adapt predicts an ability to adapt. From Their Right Stuff -The evolution of the Harvard guinea pigs:
As with orthodox Freudianism, there is a hedonistic bias to the ideal of maturity that the study proclaims. To blossom is to shed “rigid” attitudes. There is nothing more contemptible than an “inhibition.” Perhaps you think that, in a free society, in-hibitions are good since they spare us from having to submit to others’ pro-hibitions.But if that is how you think, you will find this book’s system of values un-intelligible. Vaillant sees evidence of one Episcopal minister’s maturation in the way “he had put aside absolute convictions about faith, morality, and authority in favor of a new appreciation of their relativity and mutability.” If this book has a hero, it is a meathead named Boatwright, who says, “I don’t give a damn if I’m remembered for anything. I’ve enjoyed my life and had a hell of a good time.”
I am sorry to say that the socio-cultural bias is a darn shame. My profession is half-good at defining problems, but terrible at defining relative health. Everybody has at least one problem, and having problems is normal.
Everybody struggles with problems. As CS Lewis reminded us, bear that in mind whenever you meet somebody. Therefore be kind (but always be alert to predators).
Marco, my pal, remember this one thing: When they ask you a question you must assume it's a trap. They don't care about what you think, they are just looking for a gotcha. If you respond as if it were a casual conversation with somebody truly interested in your thoughts, you will be burnt toast. This is not a chat in a pub with friends.
Bill Clinton was good at this. He often responded to trap questions with something like "Oh, that's gooood." Then he would immediately ignore the question and switch to the talking point he wanted to convey.
Watch out for all the traps, you ambitious conservatives. As lawyers warn you, the prosecutor is not your friend nor is the plaintiff's attorney. They may act friendly, but they are enemies.
By the time Sandy hit the northest coastline, she was no longer a hurricane. She had degraded into a husky Nor'easter, but, with the coincidence of a full moon, her storm surge was well above that of the ordinary Nor'easter. Not a "megastorm" as the news hyped it.
I knew that just by taking a walk outside on that Monday evening. Blustery, but not hurricane-blustery. In the northeast, we are accustomed to the inconveniences of powerful Nor'easters. Trees fall down. The sea surges over the beach. Not unusual.
However dramatic and destructive Sandy was, she was nothing like other storms of the past century. What has changed is not storms (we've had far fewer in recent decades). What has changed is coastal development in historic flood zones in the densely-populated northeasern US.
It's a bad idea, and should never have been subsidized by the federal government. It's the same stupidity on the gulf coast. Free market flood insurance would have largely prevented most of the damage because people would not have built things in flood zones. Subsidized flood insurance had the predictable unintended consequence of promoting development of flood zones. A perverse incentive. Flood zones should be for animals, not for peoples' houses.
Champagne is always right for cocktail hour, but I'm talking about accompaniment to food. As a semi-amateur wine drinker, my advice is to drink whatever you like with dinner, provided that it is red in color. These holidays are not about gourmet cooking, they are about traditional comfort food and so they need comfort wines.
This year for Thanksgiving, I am going for a Brunello di Montalcino Riserva followed up by a nice Chianti Riserva. Why Tuscans, why Sangiovese? Just for the fun of it. Also because they do not overpower turkey and stuffing, but who really cares about that?
Our more mature readers surely remember the cheap and horrible-tasting Chiantis in straw wrappings in spaghetti-and-meatball restaurants. That straw-wrapped bottle is/was called a "fiasco" - a flask. That wine was a fiasco but the bottles made for cute candlesticks.
Well, Chiantis imported to the US can be darn good these days, and the so-called Super-Tuscans (with varying amounts of Cabernet added to the mix) are quite tasty too. The Chianti Classicos and Riservas tend to be tastier than the basic Chianti table wines.
Instead of watching Anderson Cooper on CNN say "Wow! What a big blast"(*actual quote below, just as uninformative and inane), supposedly providing useful reporting from within Gaza (actually a "safe" location there), you'd get more info and quicker via the rapid postings from the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) blog. Israel has every interest in getting facts out there before the pro-Pals and enablers among the international media can distort and lie. Bookmark the site to keep up on what's happening. (Remember, Israel time is 7-hours later that NY and 10-hours than California.) Here's a sample of what's available:
Date: 19/11/2012, 5:05 PM Author: IDF Website
4 senior operatives targeted with a pinpoint strike while inside of a civilian media building. Updates here and on Twitter
6:45 p.m.: A short while ago, the IDF released a video showing pilots aborting airstrikes due to uninvolved civilians in the area. Click here to watch the video and read about how the IDF takes care to avoid harming Gaza's civilians.
5:05 p.m.: A short while ago, in a joint IDF- ISA operation, the IDF targeted a hideout used by senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives, who were a part of the terror organization's rocket launching operations, in the northern Gaza Strip. A direct hit was identified.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives, who were involved in firing rockets at Israel, were inside a civilian media building when it was targeted.
This is a further example of how terror organizations cynically use those inside civilian populated institutions as human shields.
Baha Abu al-Ata, a member of the Higher Military Council, is the commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Gaza City Brigade and is involved in orchestrating rocket launching and terror attacks against Israeli civilians. Al-Ata is also involved in the manufacturing of arms and firing long-range rockets at Israel....[read on for bios of the others]
1:40 p.m.: This morning, the IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Yoav (Poly) Mordechai addressed the Israeli press at a briefing. He spoke of IDF activites overnight, including progress the IDF has made in reducing the rocket attacks against Israeli civilians:
"Yesterday saw a decrease of 40% in the number if rockets fired on our territory from the day before, continuing a downward trend. During the night we made 100 attacks, including the bombing of 40 smuggling tunnels between Rafah and the Sinai Desert. We bombed both the opening of the tunnels and along the course of the tunnels ensuring a long process of reconstruction.
In addition, in the last 12 hours we have struck 6 squads in the midst of launching rockets. We attacked a stadium in Gaza City after receiving verified information of a launch from within the stadium, again showing the terrorists' continued use of civilian centers. In an effort to warn the residents and innocent bystanders and keep them away from strikes, we are, at this moment, controlling the radio stations within Gaza in order to deliver these messages to the civilians."...
* Actual quote: "Whoa!" he said, as he dove nearly out of the camera's frame. "Well, that was a rather large explosion," he added as he stood up straight again. "That was probably the largest explosion that we have heard just in the past -- really in the past hour."
The below email just reached me. The Good People Fund is a nonprofit that operates with the highest transparency and lowest costs, to steer funding to small needs that may fall beneath the radar of the giant charities or governments. See the Guidestar review for its 5-star rating. If you can give, please do at the US address below. Make sure to mark your check or credit card contribution with "Package From Home." - Here's a description of the lady who started this program.
Dear Friends of A Package from Home,
It is now 6:30 PM Saturday night and we have just watched the TV pictures of our troops gathering at the Gaza border. A few minutes ago, I received a call from Lt. Col. Zvika Levy. You may remember that he is the Commander that I deal with concerning the needs and problems of Lone Soldiers and other needy soldiers. . He was on his way from his Northern Kibbutz down to the border at Gaza He told me that there is an immediate need to provide 1.000 packages containing a warm fleece jacket, long underwear, boxer shorts and anti-fungal stockings. The total cost of the packages will be $33,000. As always, I told him that I would do the best I could to fulfill the need.. The urgency is for the warm clothes to be distributed immediately to them while they are waiting, alongside the border, for orders to enter Gaza. The package will also include a washable hand knitted woolen ski cap that is sent to us from knitters around the world, even as far away as New Zealand.
If you are wondering why the Army is not providing these things automatically to each soldier, I will give you the answer that the Army gave me at the beginning of our project, 13 year s ago. I was told, “The Army has a budget and when they have to choose between ordering M-16s and fleece jackets, they buy the M-16s”.
Israel can no longer restrain itself in dealing with those who would indiscriminately kill our citizens. As a result our soldiers have been ordered to report to their units at the Gaza border.. The weather in Gaza is very cold. The tanks are not insulated. The need to supply these packages at this time is evident. We need your support to enable us to provide some comfort for the soldiers who are putting their lives on the line in order to eliminate the firing of rockets against Israeli civilians. Once again, I turn to you for financial support. The current situation is an emergency which requires immediate action.
May Hashem protect our soldiers.
Barbara
Tax deductible shekel or other currency contributions can be made to the AACi ,and mailed to POB 53349,Jerusalem 91533, Israel. Please make a notation that your gift is for A Package From Home.
Tax deductible dollar contributions can be made to Good People Fund 384 Wyoming Ave, Millburn, New Jersey, 07041 USA. (For a credit card donation, please see Good People Fund web site at www.goodpeoplefund.org and follow donate here prompt. Please make a notation that your gift is for to A Package from Home.
About 1500 Jews and Christians attended a rally today in San Diego to Stand With Israel.
A group of about 25 pro-Palestinians showed up and tried to interfere with their vile chants of hate through a loudspeaker. The leader of the chants read them off a phone. When the leader stopped for a moment their crowd stopped, like the puppets they are. -- As I and my family were leaving, a young guy shouted his curses in my ear. I flipped him off and told him to come on and try me. He backed off as I called him a "xxxxxx" (begins with f and ends with t). Pro-Pal punks.
Is "fairness" just a nicey-nice word for nursery school teachers? From Asma, In Defense of Favoritism:
The old folk wisdom that group closeness comes from opposition to others is not borne out by recent data. Nor is the old developmental story that we all start out as egoistic Hobbesians, who slowly learn to care for others. Affective neuroscience research on early-childhood bonding suggests that, as mammals, we probably start out as emotionally glued microcommunities (family and tribe) before we become autonomous ego-driven creatures. Favoritism, not egoism, is probably the primal value system.
In short, favoritism or bias toward your group is not intrinsically racist, sexist, or closed-minded. Privileging your tribe does not render you negative or bigoted toward those outside your tribe. And to top it off, we're now beginning to understand the flexible nature of our ingroup favoritism—it doesn't have to be carved along bloodlines, or race lines, or ethnic lines. Psychological experiments reveal a whole range of criteria for ingroup bias. For example, test subjects have been shown to award higher payoffs to arbitrary ingroups, like people who just happen to share the same birthday as the test subject. And ingroup bias can be demonstrably strong when subjects share allegiance to the same sports teams, and so on.
and
If our high-minded notions of retributive justice have roots in the lower emotions of revenge, then why should we be surprised if fairness has roots in envy? I have no illusions and feel entirely comfortable with the idea that fairness has origins in baser emotions like envy. But most egalitarians will find this repugnant, and damaging to their saintly and selfless version of fairness.
A good, provocative essay about human nature and our need for tribal affinities.
1850 travel ad. Drive carefully, readers, this holiday weekend. We cannot afford to lose a single one of you.
How to Live Without Irony
Our more mature readers surely remember the cheap and horrible-tasting Chiantis in straw wrappings in spaghetti-and-meatball restaurants. That straw-wrapped bottle is/was called a "fiasco" - a flask. That wine was a fiasco but the bottles made for cute candlesticks.
