shlomi

The Anti-Christ is Here (Thank God!)

shlomi on August 11, 2008

Wow. I didn’t know I was rooting for the antichrist. I mean, as a Jew with a sharp tongue, I certainly _hope_ I’m rooting for the other guy. Just not that one. Whatever he stands for. Our people have no connection to ‘The Rapture,’ a construct of 19th century umm, passionate people. I disingenuously paused, because, again, as a Jew, the whole thing is hooey to me. We didn’t have a 1st coming, so the second one makes no sense. We have no hell, only the absence of being part of God. There’s no purgatory. No wacky ‘what SHALL we do with all these unbelievers.’ No fire, no brimstone. [Full disclosure: while Christianity is fully Thanotic (death- and afterlife-focused), Judaism does refer to this life as the ‘prosdor’ (literally: the hallway) and the next life as the room. But we Jews get do-overs in the form of reincarnation, and a chance for our souls to make right what we failed in previous lives.]

The Obama = Nicholae Carpathia idea is hideous. It’s hateful, paranoid, and smacks of all the things for which the KKK was and is reviled. The Nazis used fear of the Jew, the unknown, the other to kill my family. And the hateful, prejudiced, zealots aligned with the McCain campaign are using the exact same tactics now, in 2008.

Debate is great. McCain certainly presents a different set of options to Obama. I welcome discussions of substance, of the priorities, strategies and even tactics of the two candidates in solving our upcoming problems. But bringing religion into this is a wedge designed to scare the Evangelical, the dim-witted, or those that bought the last lie: that Obama is actually a Muslim. Not that that is wrong in any way! (I’d love to see a Muslim President! He’d be just as fair as Kennedy was, as a Catholic, in a majority Protestant country.)

Perversions and Perverts

shlomi on August 7, 2008

The perversions of Amerikans frustrates me. Today there was a story on CNN (see link) referring to a “swinger” group that coerced children into having sex.

Rampant sexuality scares people; definitions are definitely in order!

Swinging is between consenting adults. Pedophilia is adults on children.
Swinging involves consenting adults. Children, by definition, cannot consent.
Swinging is between singles and couples. Pedophilia is sexual assault on a child.

Please, don’t anyone think I approve of swinging personally. IMHO, marriage is between consenting adults, for the purpose of entering into a long-term relationship with a loved one. Or several. And “swinging” is for fornication with (sometimes randomly selected) people with whom there isn’t such a relationship. Morally, ethically (and, if there are kids involved, as a parent) I object.

But swinging is not pedophilia. And trying to mix the two together perverts, a very basic level, grownup decisions, however misguided, with violent sexual assault on children.

The case is before the courts is about the rape, pedophilia and illegal acts committed by the Mineola Swinger’s Club, which clearly consists not of consenting adults, but sick child rapists. But the media, not making the distinction between ‘swingers’ and ‘pedophiles,’ commits a grave sin of omission. It’s the media’s sacred responsibility to tell the truth, even if it’s not socially or conventionally convenient. Swingers, open marriages, gays, lesbians, polyamous couples and others all exist in the real world. We might not all agree or believe in their legitimacy, but it’s a cruel punishment to besmirth a societally unpopular label with the grotesque tar of rape.

Shame, shame, shame!

May His Name be Blessed

shlomi on June 19, 2008

I generally regard ‘News Fleas’ as being replaceable and generally irrelevant, but Tim Russert’s untimely death has thrown a wrench into my asinine assumption.

Each generation has its cadre of honest, blunt, frank and otherwise weatherbeaten tellers of truth. Tim was one of them, and, especially in this charged election year, he will be missed. Perhaps more than in decades past, where the differences between candidates were accented, rather than blurred, Mr. Russert was a speaker to power, and an honest reflection of the vaunted and villified ‘man on the street.’ He asked the questions we would never be able to phrase, given candidate management systems and infrastrutures build specifically to keep their lauded ‘chosen one’ from having to respond to the direct spear thrust of the honest question.

Tim spoke truth to power, and, like the Jewish “Ethics of the Fathers,” was the one who asked the blatant questions where others feared to go. We need more like him, even more now that he is gone.

Baruch Dayan Emet. And may God help us see the truth from the lies this fall.

2B, or not 2B: Work permits are the question

shlomi on May 29, 2008

H-1B visas, which permit foreign professionals of various ilks to work legally in the US, were all issued by late winter. H-2B visas, essentially created for migrant farm laborers, were sunset when Congress let a key provision lapse.

Let’s consider the implications:

We have national shortages of doctors, nurses and all manner of technical professionals. For example, HMOs have squashed the profitability out of these careers. $60,000 is a lot of money, but for the work a nurse must do for years to reach that lofty number, it’s almost better to get into sales, or something equally less messy and regimented. $60k for someone from the Philipines or Pakistan is a huge boon: for people with a work ethic, this means they can support entire extended families back home. That’s not a slam: even accounting for the weak dollar, the standard of living in these countries is much lower than for the United States.
Picking grapes or tomatoes is back-breaking work. For the extremely low pay proffered, only people who can’t flip burgers, greet people at Wal*Mart, or wrangle carts at the grocery story would apply. To say nothing of the gas bill they’d incur just getting to and from the farms.

Americans are supposed to have choices, and our alleged free market system currently gives more choices to people in hedge funds, finance and arcane niche careers. For the millions worried about their chances of enjoying their old age, the current economic climate does not, to say the least, bode well.

Refunds and Recipients

shlomi on April 29, 2008

Let’s do a little math, shall we? Uncle Sam, in the name of “economic stimulation,” is giving each of us $600, plus $300 per child, of our own money back, to help pull our economy back from the brink.

Let’s see where that goes…

Eighteen months ago gas prices in, oh, say Baltimore, were low. about $2.12 a gallon. That’s about the time agribusiness started spooling up for the great ethanol ripoff.

Price now: $3.55. So, assuming 12,000 miles a year, that’s 18,000 miles times. At an average of 21.9 MPG, that’s $1,060.27 more for the next 18 months, assuming (LOL) that the price of gas won’t rise any more.

That’s the big gorilla. For those of you not afflicted with a car, here’s a small one:

Got Milk? Got Money? According to a NY Daily News article in January, milk prices are up 36% year-to-year. So what was $3.18 is now $4.41. I guess it’s a good thing we’re using less of it, since cows are eating corn that would otherwise be used for ethanol.

Makes a great case for breastfeeding and leaving it at that, only the cost of soybeans has also risen, due to the diversion of acreage to growing corn for ethanol instead of food. But these are trivial rises.

Bottom line: the $1,800 a family of four (with two cars) would receive from the government’s economic stimulus package melts, just opposite the $2,120 in additional cost just from gas increases, not to mention all the other food and essential goods increases.

So if someone wants to stimulate the economy, I have the following suggestions:

Stop making ethanol from corn. It’s increasing food prices all over the world, and competing with feed corn for livestock and milk production.
Put negative price pressure on the cost of a barrel of oil. Price increases are a function of purchase of oil on the spot market; refineries and distributors peg their increases to them.
Oil companies are engaging in profiteering. While Libertarians might rejoice in this exercise of the free market at work, it puts an incredible burden on those of us who depend on this liquid for our lives. Trucks, trains, planes, automobiles, generators… you know, civilization as Americans like it? If an electric trading company decided it wanted to play with the cost of electricity… oh, wait: Enron! Anyone seeing this? ExxonMobil’s excessive profits are at the cost of the entire US economy, and if the government really wants to loosen the pressure on it’s citizenry, getting prices audited and under control is a big deal. (And before anyone talks about price control, realize that cutting Strategic Reserves oil stocks loose is a direct form of price control as well.)

Well? What are you doing sitting around? Go and tell people!

Teen Sex Here!

shlomi on April 27, 2008

The blogosphere and the press, even the former Grey Lady, are atwitter with pictures of Hannah Montana’s naked back on Vanity Fair. And references to her wearing a green bra that was visible under her shirt. Compare this to the ability for the public — anyone in the public — to see girls or women with backs naked but for a single strand of fabric for the back of a bikini top. This isn’t even about sexy — except in the way in which visual innuendo inflames minds.

I’m not sure what disturbs me more: parents that give their children up to be sexualized and prostituted by the mass media, or the corporations that pimp out underaged children and then, mortified by their sexualization, make even more money on the rebound.

The Spears’ clan? Multiple children.

Compare this to the way the Jackson Five were “exploited.” Or the Partridge Family. How did the child cast of “Sound of Music” work their teenage lives?

Sure, kids in the spotlight have been around since well before Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. And child actors have self-destructed because of the glare of the limelight — or the demons lurking in the shadows. But the machinery and money around children, along with the dual fascination for sexy tweens and concurrent prurience around sex, make for a toxic environment for children with the lethal combination of talent and good — or at least well marketed — looks.

The Golden Compass Can’t Find North

shlomi on December 12, 2007

As a firm disbeliever in anything dogmatic, and one who rarely takes things “on faith,” I initially snorted at the Catholic League’s well-reasoned denouncement of The Golden Compass. (Okay, the trailer, with a sinuous Nicole Kidman and very impressive graphics also more than held my interest.)

I read the first book, then saw the movie. Then read the other two books.

Cinematically, the movie of the first book in the Dark Matter trilogy is badly reminiscent of the Harry Potter movies. If you haven’t read the book, the movie barely skitters across the time alloted, and does not do the book (or the author) justice. It was clear that, aside from any well-publicized crises of angst by the director, that Hollywood definitely bent the book. Almost severed it (that’s an inside phrase, and a spoiler).

The second and third books of the Dark Matter trilogy definitely bear out the worries of those representing dogmatic, doctrinal religion. I can’t see Unitarians griping about it, but hierarchical religions should definitely see this as an attack not only of their system of governance, but on theism itself.

I have more objections to this series, aimed at children, than the Narnia books (to be fair, I’ve only read the first two in the series). In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, one can choose to ignore the Christian references in the book: it’s a lion, pretty vs. ugly is a Hollywood prejudice, who cares how many days the lion lies injured/tortured… It’s not much different from Starman, which is much more the prototypical Christian story than even Narnia. But greatest stories ever told (whether the “original” was fiction or not) are common movie riffs.

In the Dark Matter trilogy, Pullman makes a cogent case against theism. It’s not just calling for deicide (killing of god) — it brings in negative stereotypes like the almost successful pederast priest and the essential evil of those charged with teaching morals. It mocks angels, portraying them as gentle, delicate, homosexual lovers.

There are many reasons to poke fun at religion, to question it, to question one religion over another. But Pullman’s books take the dark matter of theologic dogma to the edge — and then distastefully over it, to the level of ‘discourse’ similar to portraying Islam’s Mohammad with porcine qualities.

My only hope is that Hollywood manages to as effectively neuter the second and third movies as “well” as they did the first, since clearly this first movie was only a portent of things to come, and not a work that stands on its own — unlike even the least of the Harry Potter movies.

Teheran Victory and NIE Assumptions

shlomi on December 5, 2007

Training Iraqi insurgents? Check.
Providing military hardware? Check.
Giving cover to Shi’ite extremists when folks come a’knockin’ at their door? Yup.
Nuke-u-lar bomb makers? Sez who?

The National Intelligence Estimate, released yesterday, provided fodder for almost every point of view in the Iran discussion. Almost all these compass points, however, are belaboring under self-imposed delusions.

The President and his sycophants showcased it as a success of their pressure, even though National Intelligence Estimate dates Iran’s cessation of activities to 2003, when the biggest threat was not a direct one to Iran, but a ‘flinch,’ in all probability, to the invasion of Iraq. I guess technically Bush is correct — but we can’t be in a constant state of war with Iran’s neighbors to expect good behavior from them.

Iran, of course, heralded this as a victory against the United States. But they probably heralded the insane Omaha mall killer as a strike against fascist Amerika, so his pronouncements are probably not worth heralding. This is also a great coup for them on the military front, since it deflects, in the fickle, ADD media world, Iran’s huge investment in destabilizing Afghanistan and arming and training Iraqi militants. So long as it’s not nuclear, it doesn’t count!

Bloggers, always keen to have fun, have added this to the list of reasons not to live in America. Silly, but accurate as far as it goes. America is imponderably puzzling to non-residents; it’s local, State and Federal laws ebbing, flowing and conflicting in an amazing, unpredictable rhythm.

Serious analysts have bemoaned America’s foreign policy towards Iran since before the uprising against the Shah. They are right in their plaints; Iran has been interfered with as long as every other country in the Middle East: since the fall of the Ottoman Empire to the Infidel British.

The reality is that Iran is playing the spoiler in many fronts: Lebanon, Israel, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Where it can’t win, it can disrupt. Where it can’t disrupt, it can foment. And it will not change its stripes until the people, heretofore subdued, subjugated and scared into silence, raise their democratic voices and bring reason and logic, for which Persians have been known for millenia, back to their part of the Middle East.

More of the Same (when will it end?)

shlomi on August 18, 2007

On one hand, Hizb’Allah rearms. Syria gets Russian missile systems so new even the Russian Army hasn’t received them for deployment. Hamas continues its pacification of the Gaza Strip, creating the path-of-no-return that American advisor Karl Rove so wanted to make, and failed, for his party.

On the other hand Israeli ministers continue to be put under criminal investigation for abuse of power, removing PLO terrorists from their wanted lists to appease the weak moderates in the West Bank, and continuing to pay a bare lip service in reining back Israeli fanatic ultra-nationalists, who get away with abuse and assault on Israeli soldiers and police at best, and foment insurrection within the ranks of the military at worst.

It’s true that the West has never learned how to truly deal with the Middle East (it’s much easier to work with a despot than a democracy in that part of the world). But Israel, with a population steeped in all the world’s cultures, has shown not to be the ‘light to the nations’ as it was charged in the bible, but yet another corrupt and in many cases morally bankrupt entity.

Perhaps. But Israel has not stooped to commit the evils proclaimed by many of its neighbors (and carried out by them). And Israeli’s as a people, have never stopped striving to embrace the idea that fixing the world is a core belief. Even if that requires overcoming the internal inertia that is modern Israel.

British Counting Schemes

shlomi on July 27, 2007

I’ll be the first to say, as a veteran of the first Intifada, that the Israeli Defense Forces have a problem no less pervasive than America’s Los Angeles or New York City’s police departments in terms of how they treat Palestinians. (I mention these two as those US departments manage populations of civilians larger than Israel does the West Bank, only with better trained officers.) This does not eliminate reporters (seems that this is my theme of the week) from reporting factual information.

For the information of any reporters, a squad is five-eleven soldiers. 3 squads to a platoon. 3 platoons to a company.

The BBC believes (apparently in consultation with J.K. Rowling, their military correspondent) that a company of soldiers fits in a taxi. To set the record straight, neither Israelis, nor Palestinians, have managed to magick vehicles to seat the minimum of 35 or so soldiers necessary to be involved in the reported incident, where an apparently innocent Palestinian was shot by Israeli troops.

No, I’m not making apologies for illegal actions: any Israeli soldier using lethal force against a civilian should be held criminally liable. And if more than one soldier is involved, then conspiracy charges and the appropriate investigation should be launched.

Of course, this presumes that there’s some kind of reality to the BBC’s claims. No Israeli news or government sites, at the time of this writing, point to this issue at all.