Charitably Appreciating the President

One great strength of America is its charitable organizations. In other cultures, the poor are poor, and the rich are rich, because that is how the karma has destined them to be. Charitable giving is a Judeo-Christian concept which requires everyone, no matter how disadvantaged, to help those who are in more dire straits. For all the bad press our charitable organizations have received of late, they have enabled Americans, individually and collectively, to succeed and become great forces of responsibility in this world.

As mentioned in this Blog's 13 September 2011 post, my own family was helped by charitable giving, and now, having for the most part achieved a fair degree of financial stability if not affluence, has given back and continues to give back even more than we received in order that others might overcome their obstacles.

Barack Hussein Obama's tax legislation proposals have, over the past few years, included caps on itemized deductions. The Alliance for Charitable Giving is concerned (as am I ) that such restrictions might discourage charitable giving.

Sue Santa, the Senior Vice President of the Philanthropy Roundtable (which sponsors the Alliance for Charitable Giving) has commented on Obama's State of the Union Address as it pertains to charitable giving:


"We believe that our tax code should encourage and incentivize private charitable giving. We appreciate that the President seems to acknowledge the value of charitable giving but we remain cautious and won’t speculate until we see the details of the President’s plan."


Sue, methinks that you are being a bit overly charitable!

Barack Hussein Obama does acknowledge the value of charitable giving, but only to the extent that it enables the donee organizations to pay nice salaries, bonuses and perquisites to his allies, sycophants and cronies. [Can you say "ACORN"?]. In the ideal world envisioned by Obama, there are no charitable organizations, only instrumentalities of Big Brother's governing regime.

America, or any other society, is only as free as its charitable organizations.

Policing the Pill Poppers

Item: Letter to the Editor, Newsday, 12 January 2012, p. A33:


"Put Pharmacies inside Precincts"

The recent robberies and killings resulting from people's addiction to painkillers requires a very simple solution: Make pharmacies stop selling the pills and create a few centralized pharmacies on Long Island in police precincts for pickup of authorized controlled substances.

Then maybe not only will addicts stop filling these prescriptions, but maybe doctors will stop writing them or be held accountable for writing them.

Michele Zodda, St. James"



My comments, in no particular order:

1. Yes, our household receives home delivery of Newsday every morning. The many reasons why I am not the greatest fan of Newsday shall be dispensed with at this time, but here on Long Island the publication does have one minor thing to be said in its favor, namely that it is better than the New York Times. We have chosen to subscribe to it as a source of information, but are not very wild about it. A more practical reason why we subscribe: My wife's patients are always asking her about medical-related items appearing in Newsday, so she needs to know what Newsday published in order to affirm, qualify or (more frequently) debunk it when the patients ask her about it.

2. Lately, there have been a number of violent and deadly incidents at some Long Island pharmacies, perpetuated by drug addicts seeking to sate their chemical cravings. This Blog's posting of 23 June 2011 discusses one such horrific episode. discusses one such horrific episode. Newsday has been running an investigative series on the problem, implicating various physicians and pharmacists who have been less than careful in the prescription and dispensation of certain drugs. In that regard, Newsday is functioning as the press should function because its coverage of the matter will surely spur some reforms.

3. Though I never was really into the Dismal Science of Economics, I did take a number of Econ courses in college and in grad school. The phrase "a few centralized pharmacies on Long Island in police precincts" reeks of oligopoly if not monopoly. This would reduce competition in the marketplace, and raise the cost of prescription drugs. I know nothing about the letter writer, Michele Zodda (other than her address), but wouldn't it be ironic if she were in the camp of the Occu-Shmucks who crowded Zuccotti Park and whined (and continue to whine) about too much money and power being in the hands of too few?

4. More along those lines, what criteria would be used to determine which pharmacy entrepreneurs get to have those coveted concessions inside the police precinct stations? Who would make the decision? How could politics not play a role? And if politics does play a role, how could the big pharmacy chains not sink their resources into the venture, to the exclusion of the small business entrepreneurs?

5. Isn't the whole purpose of pharmacies and drug prescriptions to control the misuse of drugs in the first place? Why should the public tax money be used to duplicate a system that functions reasonably well in the first place? Shouldn't the system be tweaked instead of reinventing the wheel?

6. Why should the pharmacy industry be singled out? Shouldn't other high risk industries also be sited in police precincts? In such regard, try this little Googling exercise: restrict results to the prodeathpenalty.com website. Then google the following words or phrases: "Drug store," "drugstore," and "pharmacy." Each of those will get a small number of hits. Now try "convenience store" and you will get over 100 hits. Convenience stores are even more likely to be the scenes of violence than pharmacies.

7. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? With all due respect to my friends and clients in law enforcement, the powers of the police do need checks and balances. Indeed, the reason the United States has endured as a nation is because its governmental systems have had effective checks and balances. There will need to be measures taken to prevent the 7-Eleven concessions Michele Zodda would logically place in the police precinct stations from giving the police force too many free doughnuts. And, for that matter, Ms. Zodda's pharmacies from giving too many of their wares to the police officers.

8. I agree with Ms. Zodda that there is a problem. But changing the locations of the pharmacies will not resolve it. The problem is not that pharmacies stock controlled substances (remember, that is the very purpose of having pharmacies in the first place). The problem is that the pharmaceutical manufacturers have, over the past 30 or 40 years, bypassed the physician. The full color, full page display ads are not just in the New England Journal of Medicine and other physician-oriented publications; Big Pharma now spends billions to advertise in in newspapers and consumer-oriented magazines, and in the broadcast media. The physician is no longer a fully-empowered gatekeeper to keep controlled substances away from those who should not ingest them. As long as Big Pharma markets to the patients without the meaningful participation of the physician, the drug-related violence will be all the more exacerbated.

9. The police are too busy fighting crime. Why not just let the pharmacists be properly trained and armed? That would free up the police officers to do what they have been trained to do. Besides, at the precinct pharmacies envisioned by Ms. Zodda, the police would be under special obligation to bend over backwards in ensuring the criminals' constitutional rights. The private sector pharmacist with a Glock would not be held to quite the same standard.

Dad and Other Heroes

My parents are now in the process of downsizing their living quarters, and I, as their son, am helping them (read "doing most of the work").

While growing up, my siblings and I always knew that Dad worked in a job which imposed significant restrictions upon what he could and could not discuss with us. We were conditioned to never ask Dad what he did; whatever he wanted us to know he would tell us, and nothing more.

Years later, while working for the Department of Defense and holding my own security clearance, I understood far better my somewhat abnormal childhood predicament of not knowing what my Dad actually did at work. And I had several occasions to interact with individuals, military and private sector, who knew my Dad professionally (and sometimes personally).

Going through my Dad's files has been very enlightening. First of all, his security clearance level was a few notches higher than he had led me to believe, even after I had my own clearance. Moreover, seeing his travel and debriefing instructions, and knowing now about the missions and activities of some of the installations to which he traveled, I now realize that my Dad played a major role in the development and production of some very important military projects.

When I was in Israel during the early 1970s, more than one of my Dad's friends and colleagues whom I visited intimated to me, in a rather surreptitious manner, that Dad's work was a major contribution to the Israeli military's technological advancement. One of the documents I found in my Dad's filing cabinet was a letter of thanks from the Israeli Ministry of Defense for the work he did (whatever that may have been). And, of course, several letters from various offices in the Pentagon reflect some big time involvement in some big time projects.


The engineers and scientists who design and perfect the technology used by the military are heroes of a special kind. It is because of those engineers and scientists in the private sector that America maintains its military firepower, global superiority, and historical prosperity. It is because of them that we have had a successful space program, which paved the way for artificial satellites; you owe them all a debt of gratitude each time you speak on your cell phone.

Those engineers and scientists paid (and continue to pay) a price for the work that they do. There are certain stresses, particularly when security clearances are involved, which come to bear upon the engineers and scientists, and upon their families. For those people, it is not "just a job;" complain as they might, they do it because it is a passion which gives them immense satisfaction. Dad could have taken over his own father's business and amassed far, far more money. But my Dad went into his line of work because it is what he wanted to do.

Of course the civilian engineers and scientists do not take quite the same personal risks as the American servicemen and women who are fighting on the front lines in Afghanistan (though many, including Dad, have served in the military). Their work does not warrant all of the perquisites accorded to military veterans. That being said, my Dad is an American hero, as are the thousands of other engineers and scientists who do and have done private sector work on military contracts. To all of you, I give my thanks.

Going through Dad's papers, I saw mention of some interesting names and places. I have every reason to believe that my Dad was involved in even more serious and salient projects than those directly mentioned in the file. For all of Dad's old age issues, he no doubt remembers those matters, and I really am very curious.

But some questions are best left unasked.

Facilitation Comes in Many Forms

"I was wrong" and "I was wrong, but" are two separate and distinct attitudes.

Certain incidents in Israel of purportedly religious Jews behaving poorly have made the international MSM news [I will not be explicit in this posting; you have probably read about it.]. And some of the more insular rabbinical leaders and organizations, in Israel and in America, have finally issued statements regarding the behaviors involved, stating, quite appropriately and correctly, that the poor behavior on the part of a few misguided individuals is not an exemplar of the overwhelming majority of religious Jews.

Except that many of the aforementioned statements expend more ink on whining about how the news media is spinning the stories against religious Jews than in condemning the ill behaviors.

This, in my opinion, is an attempt to dodge the real issue: The poor behaviors involved are natural and logical consequences of the stances taken by the rabbinical leadership. The appropriate thing to do would be to unequivocally condemn the behaviors, and then follow up such condemnatory statements with support for and facilitation of civil if not criminal consequences against the wrongdoers.

Once upon a time, the religious Jewish community was viewed by the public as exemplars of honesty, rectitude and wholesomeness. By not standing up to the corruptors with vested interests, the rabbinical leadership has, of late, yielded the high moral ground, and their followings have been led astray.

Methinks that the impetus for many of the recent condemnatory statements has been the public embarrassment of the rabbinate, and not the despicable acts of the rabbis' followers. Had these matters not gone viral, I suspect that many of the rabbis would have been content to let their followers do the damage they have done.

By not speaking out unequivocally and definitively, many of these rabbinical leaders have facilitated the poor behavior of their followers. Perhaps, in at least some cases, that was what was intended.

Corzine's $1.2 Billion Locomotive

This Blog's posting of 20 October 2005 invoked a quotation from the works of the late Robert Benchley, specifically, a sketch entitled "The Lost Locomotive."

I shall reprise that same quotation as anent to Jon Corzine and his MF Global's missing client funds to the turn of $1.2 billion:



The day that Mr. MacGregor lost the locomotive was a confusing one for our accountants. They didn't know whom to charge it to.

"We have an account called 'Alterations,'" said the head accountant (Mr. MacGregor). "We might charge it to that. Losing a locomotive is certainly an alteration in something."

"I am afraid that you are whistling in the dark, Mr. MacGregor," I said quietly.

"The point is not what account we are going to charge the lost locomotive to," I continued. "It is how you happened to lose it."

"I have already told you," he replied, with a touch of asperity, "that I haven't the slightest idea. I was tired and nervous and -- well -- I lost it, that's all!"

"As a matter of fact," he snapped, "I am not at all sure that the locomotive is lost. And, if it is, I am not at all sure that I lost it."

[from Robert Benchley, "My Ten Years in a Quandry," page 1 (Blue Ribbon Books, New York, 1936)]




Substitute Jon Corzine for Mr. MacGregor.


Wishing all a Happy Chanukah or a Merry Xmas, as the case may be.

Dhimmi Apparatchik in Training

Matthew Carlson, a student at The College of New Jersey, has just been awarded a scholarship to study at the American University at Dubai for the upcoming Spring semester.

Said Carlson, "Dubai offers the best of both worlds for me as a student studying economics and Arabic. I will be able to continue my business education in an international financial center, and I will be able to improve my Arabic skills by experiencing the Gulf culture firsthand."

I basically believe that students studying in foreign lands is a good thing. I broadens the students' experience, builds cultural bridges, and teaches tolerance and appreciation. I happen to have had an exchange student from China enrolled in one of my classes this past semester.

But somehow, I cannot help but wonder what Carlson will do with his life once he graduates college and goes out into the world. Will he help to further the beneficial influence of American ingenuity and innovation, or will he become a dhimmi apparatchik facilitator of the Islamic agenda for world domination?

I hope for the former, but fear the latter. The fact that Carlson's scholarship is bankrolled by the William J. Clinton Foundation is not very encouraging.

Arab Neighborhood is Going to the Dogs

Shuafat is a neighborhood in the Municipality of Jerusalem. The population of Shuafat is Arab. As such, it is an accepted cultural norm in Shuafat to physically attack Jews who come into their neighborhood. Even if those Jews happen to work for the electric power utility, or the Jerusalem municipality. While the residents of Shuafat unabashedly detest anything Jewish, the nevertheless do feel a strong sense of entitlement to the services of the State of Israel and the Jerusalem municipality.

Packs of wild dogs have, of late, converged upon Shuafat. The Shuafat residents now complain that the Jerusalem Veterinary Service does not provide adequate protection to their neighborhood.

But, as the JVS so appropriately notes, they cannot be expected to send their people into Shuafat without adequate protection from the Shuafat Arabs who habitually attack employees of the Holy City of Jerusalem.

If you want service, then you need to ensure the safety of the providers of such service!


This, by the way, is yet another reason to love dogs!

Talking about the Legacy

I really shouldn't be writing this post now because I have so much to do, but I have just had a very frustrating day (the details of which shall not now burden the reader) and I need to take a break from it all.

One of the e-mails in the In Box was a Call For Papers on teaching students whose primary language is not English.

I frequently get Calls for Papers. Most of them are of no interest to me, but I have been known to submit some, and have made a few presentations at conferences (including one within the past six months).

I have no professional interest in this latest Call of Papers. What I did notice, however, was the use of the term "legacy speakers" to refer to people in America whose language preference is not English.

I remember my grandparents and parents conversing in Yiddish (which my own generation eventually picked up) and other languages from the old countries when they really, really, did not want the younger generation to understand the conversation. But even though my grandparents were born over there and English was their second (or third) language, they each had an excellent command of English (albeit with a heavy accent).

And while only one of my grandparents managed to graduate high school, and none of them attended college (though my grandfather did pass the entrance exam to an Ivy League school), all four of them could read and understand the fine English literature, the daily newspapers, and even a few specialized technical writings.

But in my parents' and grandparents' day, conversancy in one's ancestral language was never an excuse for a resident of the United States to be conversant and literate in English. Today, there are fewer incentives for people in America whose first language is not English (present in the country legally or otherwise) to learn English.

I have no objection to people being conversant and literate in the languages of their parents and grandparents. Millions of Americans of diverse backgrounds are. There is nothing wrong with taking pride in one's ethnic and linguistic heritage.

But I am very conspiracy-minded, and somehow, I suspect that the term "legacy speaker" is part of some grand plot to excuse people in America from learning English, and leaving America all the more vulnerable to a takeover by various and sundry hostile elements.

Occupied with the Occupiers

Yes, the postings here have been few of late. Without going into details, it suffices to say that several changes in my heretofore normal routine schedule (if there is such a thing) are now afoot. I fully expect to be quite occupied with various personal and professional matters during the coming weeks and months, and it is likely to be stressful at times (though not all of it necessarily bad stress).

Speaking of being "occupied," I have encountered more than enough of the Occu-Shmucks and their supporters who run my faculty union and who have been convening many campus events to push the Occupy Wall Street agenda.

It therefore was very reassuring to read this article in the Jewish Press from one academic, Prof. Steven Plaut of the University of Haifa, who is definitely NOT an Occu-Shmuck. It is called "You Just Might be an 'Occupier'."

I now share it with you, dear reader, as I sign off and attend to all of those other pressing matters. I'll try to not delay this long for the next posting.

I Know What I'll Hear Tomorrow

Breaking news:

There was an incident this evening at Baruch College CUNY in Manhattan, where the City University of New York's Board of Trustees was having a meeting, where one of the issues (if not the only one) was a proposal to increase tuition. The news has begun to go viral, but this posting will not link to it because I do not want to boost the hit numbers of the websites which are now spinning the story. I have watched the posted videos. My comments, in no particular order:


1. I have witnessed (and indeed, participated in) "nonviolent" demonstrations which were conducted with far, far better decorum.

2. The arrestees were apparently told to disperse and cease and desist, and were arrested only after failing to do so.

3. The people excluded from the Board of Trustee's meeting were denied admission because they did not register in advance. Advance registration is a prerequisite for admission. Advance registration is open to anybody.

4. Even with the proposed tuition hikes, CUNY's tuition is by far one of the best educational bargains available anywhere.



I'm sure that I will hear more about this one within the next 24 hours.

Ice Cream on Wall Street

As usual, I have been busy with various and sundry projects, personal and professional. At this point, my wife and I are still not sure of our Thanksgiving schedule. On account of business and personal matters at their end, my wife's brother and his wife are not situated to do their usual hosting of the Thanksgiving dinner this year. Whether and how long we will travel this year is still undecided, what with the demands on our respective schedules. We shall see what happens.

Within the past 72 hours I have gotten into several different conversations, with different people, regarding various facets of the Occupy Wall Street dirtbags. The one theme that resonates the most is their inconsistency if not hypocrisy.

It seems that the uberleftist Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream people have endorsed the OWS movement! The company news release whines and moans about (A) the absence of employment opportunities; and (B) the big bad greedy corporations.

I will quote from the Midrash: "Do your ears hear what your mouth is saying?" [Midrash Rabbah, Bereshith, 38:13].

First of all, the OWS crowd has cost lots of people their jobs, including many who have jobs that are not in the stock exchanges or the financial markets.

And secondly, Ben and Jerry's is now a subsidiary brand of Unilever, a big international conglomerate that is about as ubercorporate as they come. In fact, those who seek employment at Ben and Jerry's are processed through Unilever's corporate offices.

It's too bad that my brother-in-law and sister-in-law aren't doing Thanksgiving this year. It would have been interesting to hear what my wife's niece, with her far, far left political tendencies (and whose education and living expenses have been well subsidized by her parents), says about the OWSers.

Teaching at the Teach-In

I do have a certain degree of tolerance for liberals (having once been one myself in the idealistic and sheltered days of my youth). If the individuals in the upper echelons of the faculty union I am effectively compelled by law to join (or else pay them an agency fee equal to what my dues would be) were mere liberals, then I really wouldn't have much of a problem.

Unfortunately, my union is run, from the very top downward, by far left radicals who make the likes of Ted Kennedy or Andrew Cuomo seem like right-wing fascists by comparison. For the past few weeks, my union nomenklaturaniks and their apparatchiks have been promoting a "Teach-in" on the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Murphy's Law did a posting on 4 November 2011 which explains just who the OWSers really, really are. Taking him up on his invitation to disseminate it, I put it to paper (4 pages) and had my local Minuteman Press guy run about 50 copies (Thanks, Murph!).

After arriving on campus today and tending to the business of collecting my paycheck from the Bursar's Office, I then went to the "Teach-in" to take a look. In the room reserved by the union were about 180 - 200 people, mostly students (including one of my own former students, who never did impress me as a clear thinker), all attentively taking in the panel discussion without question.

I wondered what good I could do. For one thing, that particular panel's presentation had just begun, and would last more than an hour, and I had too much on my "must do" list to wait around. And because it was a peaceable gathering, any attempts to agitate may well have backfired (I would have given further consideration if there were a few more like me there, but I didn't see any -- quite the opposite).

Seeing the empty expression on so many of the attendees' faces, I began to wonder whether I could be more effective if I attempted to vaccinate those who had not yet entered the room, instead of trying to cure those already in the room who were eating up the party line without question. A few seconds later, I realized that the alpha panelist on the dais was none other than Frances Fox Piven herself. That sealed the deal; if I am in the same room with Frances Fox Piven then there definitely is something wrong!

I immediately exited the room and then started placing my own printed literature on the tables in the cafeteria across the hallway, right next to the flyers already on the tables which promoted the Teach-in! I also tacked a few to some bulletin boards around the campus.

But I had the most fun when I taught my classes this afternoon. The lecture was on real property, so when I got to the part of my lecture notes about the right of property owners to exclude others from their property, the Zuccotti Park situation with the OWS trespassers fit in real nicely.

And one of my students, who works in Manhattan's financial district, told me and the class that one of the OWS protesters physically assaulted him, and told my student that the attack was because my student was wearing a necktie. A few other students chimed in with their own anti-OWS comments and observations.

I also gave my students something to think about: If they are so indignant that people who work in the financial industry have such high salaries, why do they not complain about the entertainers and professional athletes, many of whom are paid even more? And I also mentioned that the labor unions who have backed the OWSers would not do their memberships any favor if the shutdown of the financial markets they now seek were to tank the values of the members' pension funds.

I also suggested that Barack Hussein Obama might benefit if the OWSers were to get really violent, because then he could try to use it as a pretext to declare martial law and cancel the 2012 election. A bit far-fetched? Perhaps! But at least some of my students are going to think about it, and will at least question the much vaunted OWS movement.

My union urged me to participate in their Teach-in, so I did! But they are surely not very happy about what I taught.

To Burn or Not to Burn

Though I am by no means anti-technology, neither am I on the cutting edge of the computer state of the art. Within the past 2 months I purchased a new computer after the one I had been using for a number of years got one glitch too many. I also purchased a new printer/fax/copier/scanner for similar reasons.

And so, I now have a working Adobe Acrobat program (the software for which I was able to procure at a generous discount on account of my status as a higher education faculty member).

My filing cabinets have been getting loaded, and I really, really do not wish to purchase another one because, being that my wife and I are inveterate packrats, there really isn't too much space around here to accommodate another.

And so, I am now archiving paper files into PDF documents. I have already freed up almost 6 inches of file drawer capacity by PDFing some of our credit card statement files. But that gets boring, and besides, I really don't want to overburden the secretaries in my Department with the task of emptying the shredder machine too many times in one week.

And so, I have taken it upon myself to PDF my Letters to the Editor files from the past 40 years. I have written Letters to the Editors of diverse publications. There were periods when I wrote almost every week (and, there were periods, like when I was in law school, where my letterwriting time was very limited). I still write Letters to Editors. My publication rate is about 1 in 3 or 4, which is quite good. And I have saved just about every one of them (I even retain the copies of the ones which do not get published).

The first 9 years' worth were the most difficult because I didn't have regular access to copy machines at the time, so I kept the actual newspaper clippings (which by now are all good and yellow), and the carbon paper copies. In most instances, using the document feeder on my scanner was out of the question; I had to individually lay each item on the scanner glass. But the next batch is a bit easier, inasmuch as most have already been copied to 8.5 x 11 sheets, and, with a few exceptions here and there, can just be arranged in order and fed through the scanner via the document feed. I have freed up about an inch of file drawer capacity on the project thus far.

A number of interesting observations:

First, the progression of the technological state of the art available to me is apparent. When I was in high school, it was all typewriter and carbon paper. And, environmentalist that I am, I did then, and do now, use the blank reverse sides of whatever 8.5" x 11" sheets I have for my copies. What was on the reverse (or, rather, the obverse) of my copies is often interesting.

Along somewhat similar lines, once I started working for the Government, I started keeping more complete documentation of my Letters to the Editor (e.g., background documents, articles which inspired the LTEs, notes, et cetera), paralleling the recordkeeping habits which I, as a government bureaucrat, learned as a matter of survival.

Most interesting of all, however, is the metamorphosis of my sociopolitical views over the past 40 years. Reading some of what I wrote in high school, I come off as a flaming liberal. But I have shifted my world view, as I matured, experienced more interactions beyond my suburban middle class upbringing, and got burned a few times by the real agendas of those whom I naively accepted as allies. Case in point: After Israel was attacked in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, many self-professed tolerant and reasonable humanitarians showed their true colors.

Which all begs the basic question: Might some of this stuff embarrass me? Do I really wish to preserve it for posterity? Shouldn't I burn some of those old letters?

I did think long and hard about it. And, after serious deliberation, I decided that yes, I will preserve my Letters to the Editor. Moses himself had flaws which are mentioned in the Torah (which actually gives that document some credibility; would the writings of a Chavez or a Castro or an Obama be so open about such shortcomings?). While I have no current plans to publicly post my correspondence with editors on the Internet, I do wish to keep an accurate record. There are too many people today who seek to rewrite history. I will take the risk of having my liberal past uncovered. I would rather be called a liberal than be thought of as deficient in my credibility.

More Folly than Honor

My views regarding Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal, the three American (?) hikers detained by Iran, are and have been essentially the same as those enunciated by Debbie Schlussel. I have been following the story since its inception, or, rather, it has been followed for me by a certain acquaintance of mine who also happens to be a friend of Josh Fattal's mother.

Josh grew up (and his mother still lives) in Cheltenham Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. On 5 October 2011, the Township's Public Affairs Committee proposed that Josh Fattal be honored. Now, some friends of mine (not the mutual one with Josh Fattal's mother -- yet) have informed me that the Township Board of Commissioners has unanimously voted in favor of the proposal!

In my book, Joshua Fattal ranks with those Jewish Kapos who did the bidding of the Nazis in the concentration camps. He is not a hero. He is not a proud American. He is a self-hating Jewish leftist anarchist.

But he does outrank, albeit not by much, the shmucks on the Cheltenham Township Board of Commissioners who all voted to honor him.

Still here, just busy.

I'm still here, but just have been quite busy. Now I am taking a break from grading exams.

Next week promises to be a very active one, with a number of adversarial confrontations on the card.

Thus far, the snow did not stick to the roads or our driveway (though there's about a half inch on the cold metal of our automobiles). The accumulation was far worse over in New York City. In that regard, I take comfort in the fact that the Occupy Wall Street occupiers are uncomfortable with the snow.

Gotta go now, to prep for the many activities next week.

Holiday Timing

In the Hebrew calendar (which long predates the Gregorian), the Month of Tishrei contains a long series of holidays.

1 and 2 Tishrei are Rosh Hashanah (it is a 2-day holiday even in the Land of Israel);

10 Tishrei is Yom Kippur;

15 Tishrei begins the Festival of Sukkot. The first day is one during which religiously-observant Jews such as myself do not engage in activities such as working, switching electricity on or off (this includes booting up on the computer), riding in a motor vehicle, et cetera. Outside the land of Israel, 16 Tishrei is also such a day [a practice from ancient times, before computers and televisions and radios, when those outside the Land of Israel did not know for certain when the Rabbinical Court confirmed the sighting of the full moon, so two days were observed to ensure that the proper day was kept.].

On the intermediate days of Sukkot most of the aforementioned activities are permitted.

But the Festival of Sukkot ends with Shmini Atzeret on 22 Tishrei and Simchat Torah on 23 Tishrei (in Israel, the two occur on the same day, 22 Tishrei), which day/days are also days where we do not do the various aforementioned activities.

Charitable giving in the Jewish community tends to run high around this time of year, (A) because the giving of charity ("tzedaka" in Hebrew) is viewed favorably by G-d when He judges us during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur; and (B) on account of this, Jewish tzedaka organizations tend to go full throttle with their solicitation campaigns.

My wife and I have, in addition to our regular checking account, a special Tzedaka checking account, into which we deposit about 10% of our paychecks and other income. From that account we write our tzedaka checks. In addition to simplifying our records for tax purposes, it also induces a good tzedaka discipline.


So what did I get in the mail today? A solicitation from a religious Jewish organization (I shall not embarrass anyone by naming it) for their fundraising dinner in about 3 weeks. Having just emptied our Tzedaka Account, for us to purchase a full-page Journal Advertisement would place a strain on our budget. Had we known of this fundraising dinner we before the holidays we likely would have gone with at least a full-page ad, inasmuch as one of the honorees is the son of some old friends of ours.

Their timing is piss poor on this one!

Tonight begins Shmini Atzeret. To all, Chag Sameach (Happy Holiday)!

Kids and Cops Behaving Poorly

I will admit to my inherent bias in favor of law enforcement officers, at least in America. This is not to say that I automatically accept the word of a cop, and certainly not to say that cops can do no wrong. But the cop who is out on the street making the arrest usually does not have the luxury of acting out a cleanly scripted routine resembling anything from Emily Post's Book of Etiquette. Moreover, cops, like everyone else, have their own biases and character flaws.

The jobs which the cops must do are not always the cleanest.

The story of a run-in between cops and teenagers last June is now gaining traction in the press. The kids were coming off a party in Manhattan's East Village at about 1 AM, and, if the reported facts of the story are anything near correct, one or more of the teenagers yelled at some plainclothes officers, who took the occasion to make the arrest. One of the kids kept his cool and attempted to calm down the others, except that he did so in their native language, which seemed to upset one or more of the arresting officers.

Up until this point, I'm with the cops. There seems to have been some ethanol and cannabis usage involved on the part of the kids, not at all unusual for parties in places such as the East Village.

One of the cops made some anti-semitic remarks to the kids. While this does not particularly add any luster to his profession, it must be remembered that he is not out there to be an Albert Schweitzer or a Mother Theresa or any other proponent of the universal brotherhood of mankind, but rather, is out there to detect and apprehend wrongdoers. So, while I do not hold this particular cop in personal high esteem, I'm still able to defend his on-the-job performance at this point.

Oh, yes, the audio portion of the incident was recorded by the kids on a cellphone. Cops everywhere should welcome this technological memorialization of the record, because, presuming that the cops were acting legally and professionally, such recordings can be invaluable in deconstructing the whinings of spoiled brats who scream "police brutality!" in their lawsuits. Even after hearing the recording, I'm still able to defend the cops.

Or at least I was until it was asserted that there were TWO cell phone recordings, but that the arresting officers erased one of them. Which is probably why all charges have been dropped -- not because Mamma's Golden Boys & Girls were given a bad rap by the cruel and heartless bigoted policemen, but because the spoliation of the evidence by the cops would not have played well at the trial.

Bad Cops! Bad Boys & Girls! And a good meal ticket for the ABC News producers who made hay of the story.


The Festival of Sukkoth is almost upon us, so I've got to log off. Chag Sameach to everyone!!

Yom Kippur 5772

Tonight at sundown will be Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

I am now preparing to account to G-d for my sins this past year (which are not inconsiderable), and carbo-loading and hydro-loading for the fast.

I ask forgivenness from all whom I have wronged, and grant forgivenness to all who ask it of me.

Wishing all an easy fast, and a happy and healthy new year for 5772.

May your name be sealed in the Book of Life!

Student to the Rescue

I have many gripes about America's educational system, but they all tie, indirectly if not directly, into the fact that students are now being taught WHAT to think instead of HOW to think. It has gotten to the point where students, for example, will ask me which topic I want them to write about for their term papers. I tell them, both orally in class and in writing on the course syllabus handed out the first day of class, that part of the term paper grade is based upon how well THE STUDENT selects a topic of interest in the news and ties it into a textbook chapter covered in the syllabus. This, quite intentionally, requires the students to use and develop their thinking skills. Asking me what I want them to write is tantamount to asking to be told what to think.

Fortunately, there are still plenty of students who can come up with their own ideas and thereby produce some interesting term papers for me to read. But the "please tell me what I should think" crowd is slowly growing in number. What is so scary about this is the knowledge that a society that craves being told WHAT to think is far more susceptible to a repressive takeover than a society of individuals who think for themselves.

The college where I teach is quite culturally diverse. Note that I use the term "culturally diverse" and not "multicultural." "Culturally diverse" is a situation where an organization or a society has participants from different backgrounds who have different perspectives and who think differently and who interact with one another. "Multicultural" is a political agenda that uses cultural diversity as a pretext for impinging upon individual rights. Because multiculturalism is so centered upon group rights as opposed to individual rights and responsibilities, it does not foster individual thinking.

On my college campus one can regularly see students and faculty from many different backgrounds, hear many languages spoken, see many styles of clothing and accessories being worn, and eat from a variety of cuisine styles (some of which are actually quality meals). As a professor, I strive to maintain a classroom atmosphere where students can feel free to contribute to the class discussion. This means that I go to great lengths to not embarrass students, or single out students on account of their exotic names, clothing, accents, et cetera. I try to be accepting of individual opinions, even as I express my own.

But sometimes it is necessary to give a student a figurative kick in the toochas. Like the young lady who came to class wearing a tee shirt with a picture of Che Guevara on it. I knew that I had to say something to her, but was not quite sure how.

But the lecture was about corporations. Corporations can be classified in several ways. One way is the distinction between domestic corporations (incorporated in the same state) and foreign corporations (incorporated in a different state) and alien corporations (incorporated abroad). I mentioned that multinational corporations frequently operate through subsidiaries incorporated in the foreign country where they operate, which are alien corporations. I explained that one advantage of such a strategy is that the foreign government is limited in the assets it can attach.

I realized that this was my entrée to Che Guevara. I gave the example of the various American corporations whose assets in Cuba were expropriated when Castro came to power, and then put in a word about the repressiveness of the Castro regime. That got me right in there to point to the young lady's tee shirt with the picture of Che Guevara emblazoned on it.

This young lady was quite clueless about just who the mass murderer Che Guevara was. And, quite fortuitously, another student in the classroom is the granddaughter of refugees who fled the Castro regime and came to America about 1960. And she, with all of her knowledge and opinions on the matter, saved me the trouble of having to give a history lesson lecture to the young lady in the Che Guevara t-shirt.

And so, to La Cubana, I say, "Muchas Gracias!"

Shana Tova 5772

Am very busy. The sun shall set in a few hours, marking Rosh Hashanah, the New Year (5772) on the Hebrew calendar.

Wishing all L'Shanah Tova Tikatevu, a Happy and a Healthy New Year in 5772.

Gotta run.

Bloods on Their Hands

Like many other areas of the country and the world, Long Island has its share of gang problems. If rival gangs only killed one another, then that would be one thing. But violence between rival gangs is seldom confined to members of the rival gangs.

One such rivalry up here involves two separate factions of the Bloods gang. There is a certain geographic territory which is contested turf between the Braveheart Bloods and the Wyandanch Bloods. Richard Dormer, the Suffolk County Police Commissioner, is now attempting to obtain a civil injunction which would prohibit 37 particular members of the Bloods gangs from congregating in that defined geographic territory.

The New York Civil Liberties Union (which, as the name implies, is the ACLU's New York franchise), now seeks to intervene with an amicus brief in the case. But because each of the 37 gangsters is, at this time, going pro se (i.e., without an attorney), the NYCLU is effectively their attorney.

I understand where the NYCLU/ACLU is coming from on this one. I really do. It is, after all, a significant imposition on one's freedom if one is restricted from associating with one's associates.

But I also understand that the gang members such as the Bloods have zero respect for the law and for the Constitution which the NYCLU/ACLU invokes to protect the so-called "rights" of the Bloods. It was that very disconnect which, many moons ago, caused me sufficient agita and disgust to allow my ACLU membership to lapse, never to be re-upped again, when the ACLU evinced a greater concern for the Nazis in Skokie than for the integrity of American values.

The NYCLU doesn't seem to get it that the Bloods and similar gangs are, in fact, actually dangerous, not only to one another, but to the public at large. Law-abiding citizens cannot safely walk down the street when the Bloods congregate together. The drugs the Bloods purvey corrupt the neighborhoods, and induce formerly law-abiding youngsters to enter into a pattern of crime, violence, and, in too many cases, death. That great abstract notion of individual rights is all well and good, but when the Bloods congregate in Wyandanch, then nobody, least of all the law-abiding citizenry, has any individual rights.

It is ironic that the NYCLU officials are so quick to carry signs reading "Safe Schools," but are doing everything in their power to prevent Commissioner Dormer from making the streets of Wyandanch safe (if such is possible anymore).

And it is certainly not lost on this observer that the lead defendant (because he leads in the alphabetical order if not the pecking order) in the case, Dormer v. Alexander, is a Blood named Jihad Alexander. That given name tells me about 85% of what I need to know about the type of thugs the Suffolk County Police are dealing with.

And so, I'm with Commissioner Dormer 100% on this one. My only misgiving is that the relief sought from the court is to enjoin Jihad Alexander and his fellow Blood thugs from congregating in a particular area of the Town of Babylon. In my own mind, they should be excluded from the entire State of New York (with the possible exceptions of Dannemora, Attica, Rikers Island or Sing-Sing).

Only a Week Late!

Collegiate education is a two-way process. Yes, I get up in front of my classes and I lecture, but the students also have responsibilities. These include (but are not limited to) submitting their assignments on time.

I make this clear on the first day of class. And the course syllabus document explicitly states that assignments submitted late without good cause and absence of negligence will be penalized, and that such penalty can extend clear down to a grade of "Zero" for the assignment. Good cause and absence of negligence includes informing the Professor (that's me!) of the situation as soon as practicable. The greater the tardiness, the greater the penalty!

And it always works out that several students submit tardy assignments each semester. And at least one of them is a real whiner, and uses the line to the effect that he or she was "only a week late." Sure enough, yesterday I got the "only a week late" whine from a student who didn't like the low grade his assignment received.

I have developed a script, which I copy and post in my reply e-mails. I now share it with you. Readers in the education profession are, of course, welcome to borrow it:




Philip W. Warner filed his petition to the New York State Tax Appeals Tribunal just 7 days late. His petition was dismissed for lateness.

In 2000, Kenneth Bernard Rouse filed his habeas corpus petition in Federal District Court just one day after the deadline expired. The petition was dismissed for lateness, and Rouse's death penalty stood (though the cretin is still alive as of this writing).

The Village of Lynbrook filed a motion for summary judgment just one day late in the New York Supreme Court. The motion was dismissed for lateness.

Joanne Austin filed her petition with the U. S. Tax Court just one day late. It was dismissed as untimely.

Christine Lamanna filed her petition with the New York State Division of Tax Appeals just one day after the extended deadline. It was dismissed as untimely.

The protest of "Mama's Restaurant" (name changed to avoid embarrassing the taxpayer) was postmarked one day beyond the deadline. The Illinois Department of Revenue, Office of Administrative Hearings dismissed the protest as untimely.

A certain Indiana business (whose identity is confidential under Indiana law) remitted its employee withholding taxes to the Indiana Department of State Revenue just one day late. The lateness penalty was imposed.

And over in England, Commerce Connections, Ltd. was just one day late in remitting its Value Added Tax to Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs. The default surcharge was imposed. And Geoffrey John Clarke's VAT was electronically submitted a mere 1 hour and 42 minutes past the midnight deadline, and he also had to pay the default surcharge to HMRC.

So don't come whining to me that your assignment was submitted only one day late -- Let alone a week late. If you submit your assignment late, then it will be penalized! End of discussion!!

Out of Their League

I really shouldn't be writing this post because I have a whole load of papers to grade, and lots of other things to do tomorrow (my wife and I have already accepted the fact that our respective time constraints will preclude our attendance at a party to celebrate the engagement of a daughter of some good friends of ours). I have spent the past few hours grading assignments, and am not quite yet halfway finished.

But I am somewhat peeved, not so much by the late submission just e-mailed to me by one of my students, but by his attitude. He is attending college on an athletic scholarship, and seems to think that the demands on his schedule from athletic activities give him an automatic exemption from deadlines for submitting assignments.

I myself was a high school athlete, and appreciate quite well the positive influence athletics can have on a person's development. I am quite willing to make reasonable schedule accommodations even as I hold the jock students to the same standards as everyone else. And I certainly am pleased whenever my jock students win over their opposition.

But people who attend college (especially a college such as the one where I teach, which is heavily subsidized by public tax monies) should be there to pursue their educations.

I have had some students who played various sports, but who were also mindful of their academic responsibilities. These students approached me at the beginning of the semester and apprised me of their athletic obligations, and, where necessary, arrangements were made to accommodate the scheduling conflicts that inevitably arose. And those responsible and conscientious student-athletes used faxes and/or e-mails to submit their assignments timely when they were out of town to play their opposing teams. Some of them even pulled "A" grades in my courses.

This student(?) who now is submitting his assignments late while whining about his jock schedule is not in their league as far as I am concerned. Perhaps what makes his attitude all the more galling is that he has already taken a prior course of mine, and should by now know what my rules are and how I enforce them. He will be graded according to my well-publicized standards. Whether that grade is "A" or "F" or anything betwixt and between depends entirely upon him.

And I also have to wonder about what ever became of the real scholar-athlete. Senator Bill Bradley and Supreme Court Justice Byron "Whizzer" White are not the only role models in that regard. My high school Biology teacher (advanced "Blue" version) was a working-class family's son who got out of Johnstown by going to college on a jock scholarship, and who was the school's football coach. One of his assistant coaches was a Math teacher whose courses I took for two years, who also escaped Johnstown via the jock scholarship route. A former business partner of mine, who has a postgraduate degree, was a national collegiate athletic champion and an Olympic Team alternate. Several teammates of mine from high school have gone into professions such as Medicine, Law and Dentistry.

As matters currently stand, this aforementioned student of mine is not going to be in their league any time soon.

Obama loses Election in NY-9

As reported here and here, Republican Bob Turner trounced David Weprin, the Democratic Party apparatchik who had been viewed as the sure-fire winner in the contest for the seat in New York's 9th Congressional District, which became vacant with the resignation of Anthony Weiner (who was Chuck the Shmuck Putzhead Schumer's successor and protege).

The real loser of the race, of course, is Barack Hussein Obama.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Congresswoman from Florida who is now chair of the Democratic National Committee, is in denial (at least publicly), and claims that NY-9 is an aberration because it has a disproportionate population of religious Jews who begrudge Weprin's carrying the water for the same-gender marriage law recently passed in Albany. But that doesn't explain it because according to DNC Debbie's logic, they also should be up in arms against New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who also supported the abominable legislation.

Moreover, from 1923 until now, NY-9 has consistently sent Democrats to represent it in Washington, notwithstanding its disproportionate population of religious Jews. And the registration ratio is 3:1 in favor of Democrats. And plenty of non-religious Jews (and, for that matter, non-Jews, religious and otherwise) have told the news reporters that they voted out of disgust with the Obama adminstration.

In my mind, there is an even stronger indicium of the seriousness of Obama's loss. There is a Brooklyn-based rag called the Jewish Press [Note: the Jewish Press website has been uncharacteristically slow to load over the past few days.]. Yes, my household does subscribe to it, but with the understanding that beneath its strong advocacy for the Jewish community worldwide, it is largely yellow journalism with blue ink.

The Jewish Press endorsed Weprin in the race [alternate repost link here]. Its rationale:

"He has a long record of standing up for the interests of his constituents in terms of child care, health care, senior care, etc., and has always impressed us with his understanding of the special needs of the Orthodox community’s broad array of voluntary social service safety networks." … " Mr. Weprin’s opponent in the race is Republican Bob Turner, a retired communications industry executive. Preliminarily, Mr. Turner has advocated a prompt 35 percent cut in government spending without any new taxes, but insists this would not necessarily impact significantly on the lives of those who depend on such government funds, particularly Social Security and Medicare. " "Given his overarching negative view of government spending, it is hard to imagine Bob Turner going to bat as strongly as David Weprin in any struggle for funds to minimize the impact of government cutbacks on the 9th CD."

In other words, the Jewish Press's (not so well) hidden agenda is the government funding that some of its cohorts receive. One dirty little secret in the Jewish community is that disproportionate numbers of Jewish families from the more sheltered and insular groups, by dint of their inferior practical educations, are dependent upon diverse government-funded social welfare programs.

But even those sectors of the NY-9 population did not come out in droves to vote for Weprin to protect their rice bowls, as the Jewish Press implicitly exhorted them to do. Indeed, yesterday, the day of the election, I had occasion to walk along the street in a NY-9 neighborhood populated mostly by religious Jews, and the mood of the street was squarely for Bob Turner and against Obama. And not only on account of Obama's policies regarding Israel, either.

Many Democratic candidates for lower offices have, publicly and otherwise, expressed concern over the effect of Obama's national policies on their own local campaigns. My betting record on the outcomes of races for political office is not that great. But I do believe that Bob Turner's win in NY-9 is a bit more significant than DNC Debbie would have us believe.

Press 1 for English, Press 2 for Violence

My wife practices at a large area hospital. The concept of giving aid to the poor is a distinct part of the Judeo-Christian culture, and accordingly, a percentage of her department's patients are the so-called "charity cases." As much as we may complain, this aspect of Western culture is one thing that has made us so great.

I daresay that I myself am a beneficiary of this, because my great-grandmother, widowed with three young daughters, was the recipient of aid from various sources when she came to America. But her descendants have by and large succeeded, and collectively, even adjusting to constant dollars, have voluntarily donated to charity ("tzedaka" in Hebrew) many multiples of the amounts our matriarch received (even when you don't count the multi-millionaire cousin of mine who is active on the board of a large charity). Just today, for example, I myself wrote and mailed out checks to two institutions that care for orphans. I expect to cut a few more checks in the next few weeks, what with the Rosh HaShanah holiday coming up.

But like everything else, charity often gets abused. Within the past week, an administrator in my wife's department was venting to my wife about a patient (not my wife's) who is a "charity case," understands close to zero English, does not work, and is probably an illegal alien, but who took up so much of the administrator's time in getting the woman's medical treatment attended to. What is this woman contributing to our society? My grandparents at least mastered the English language, and didn't need translators to transact normal routine business like healthcare, grocery shopping or banking.

My wife, along with all her other activities, is now taking some post-professional education courses. The particular course she now is taking is about the role of culture in health care. In connection with this, she came out with a somewhat profound observation this evening (or, rather, she had the gumption to post it online for her classmates and instructor to see). It goes something like this:

Being that language is a part of the respective cultures, are we not, in America today, witnessing some cultural violence on account of the great obsession to translate everything into Spanish?

The menu, then, is " Press 1 for English, Press 2 for Violence."

What's on Our Bookshelves (Plural)

[It's September 11th, 2011. As the sun set on September 10, 2001, I saw the World Trade Center towers a few blocks south from where I was walking to the subway. The next morning they would be destroyed by Muslim terrorists. So yes, I do have a strong personal connection to the Muslim attacks of September 11, 2001. But I have mixed feelings about it all. On one hand, I am not comfortable with the 9/11 memorial mania, or, more specifically, its exploitation by certain political and commercial interests. But on the other hand, America must never forget it, and must recognize it for the attack on our values that it was!]

Brigid posted a piece entitled "What's On Your Book Shelf?" Several bloggers have responded, including but not limited to Murphy's Law, Aaron, North, and Rev. Paul. So now, I shall weigh in with my household's book collection.

I have, of late, fantasized actually taking the time and effort to catalog our collection, but, as will become apparent, that day is in little danger of arriving any time soon. The truth is that we have more books than do many small town libraries.

First of all, the only rooms in our house that normally do not contain any books are the laundry room, the bathrooms, and the garage. But books do occasionally find their way even to those locations.

Of the remaining rooms, the only one that does not have a piece of furniture and/or a fixture specifically dedicated to the repose of books is our dining room, but, the two buffets, which were custom-made for my wife's parents over 50 years ago, each have a number of books and magazines stacked on them, which my wife and I have been reading at meals (typically but not necessarily our Sabbath meals in connection with discussion with our guests).

Continuing, room to room:

One of our kitchen cabinets has two shelves of cookbooks.

Our den has my wife's computer stand, which has several computer-related books. There is also a cabinet next to the piano which contains sheet music, old and new. And there are music books and sheet music on top of the piano as well. They will, of course, need to be removed and straightened up when the piano gets its now somewhat overdue tuning.

The living room has four 7-foot high shelving units. They all contain various Judaica books, including a Talmud set, a Mishneh Brurah set, various editions of the Torah and Hebrew Bible, a whole shelf of various prayer books (everyday (English-Hebrew, Spanish-Hebrew and Russian-Hebrew) and various editions for each of the holidays. There is an extensive collection of Jewish Law and Jewish History tomes, and a complete set of the original Ben-Yehuda Hebrew Dictionary (which belonged to my wife's grandfather). And the bar-buffet (also part of the aforementioned buffet set) contains not liquor, but yet more books, mostly Judaica but also history.

The Master Bedroom has 5 bookshelf units. One contains my history/military/law collection, and a yet to be completed set of Maimonides's Mishneh Torah, plus some law-related books. My wife has taken over the other units with her various sci-fi, medical, and romance fiction, et cetera.

Our son is now in an apartment with a roommate, but his bedroom still has lots of his books on the bookshelves there.

The guest bedroom has 3 bookshelf units, one of which is almost totally occupied with my various collections of items other than books. The other two contain old college textbooks, and books of history, humor, Judaica, and various literature. These include Wendy Northcutt's Darwin Awards books. There is also a box full of books which a neighbor had put curbside for trash pickup, but which I rescued, but have not yet put onto any shelf. They are mostly old novels. At some point I will probably donate them to a library, but my wife had expressed an interest in reading them, so there they sit.

My office (a converted bedroom) has 3 shelving units containing mostly law books and books about business. There are also reference books such as dictionaries (English and English-to-Otherlanguages), Thesaurus, the Chicago Manual, the Bluebook, etc.

There is a bookshelf out in the upstairs hallway, containing classic and semi-classic literature, including Kipling, Jules Verne, Gulliver's Travels, Milne's Winnie the Pooh, Pinocchio (the Collodi book, not the Disney version), et cetera.

There are two linen closets in our upstairs hallway. One of them has no linens in it, only books. Old books. Encyclopedia Britannica, with companion Atlas, Dictionary, and yearbooks up to 1974. Also older law books, including past editions of Black's Law Dictionary. And the 1946 Heritage Press edition of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Et Cetera.

At any given time, there are, on various pieces of furniture, books "in transit" which have not yet been returned to their place on the bookshelf, or else have not yet been assigned an established shelf as a normal position.

In our household, we love our books!

An Important Person

I was in Pennsylvania yesterday and this morning. Returning home was a challenge, what with all of the flooding, but I am now safe and sound back home.

Yesterday, en route from my morning appointment, the car in which I was sitting was approaching an intersection, and the driver, an old friend of mine, noticed a funeral procession approaching from the left, the cars bearing a suction-cupped purple "Funeral" flag. He said, "I wonder who they're burying now?"

I, of course, had no idea, but counted 7 cars after the hearse, and speculated, correctly, that they were headed to the well-known cemetery about 2 miles down the road which was at the next intersection.

The car in front of us turned on his lights and flashers and latched on to the procession. My friend wondered aloud whether he should do likewise, and thus be given pass to go through the numerous stop signs along the road to the cemetery.

I told him to go for it, which he did. We probably could have made slightly better time via an alternate route, what with the slow speed of the funeral cortege (but we got to go through the stop signs). But I think that we did the right thing.

First of all, at Jewish funerals (which this was definitely not), those who attend the services at the funeral home but who, for whatever reason, do not go to the cemetery afterward, often follow the hearse for three steps in order to participate, at least symbolically, in escorting the deceased to the final resting place.

Secondly, along similar logic, we and the car in front of us raised the number of cars following the hearse from 7 to 9, an increase of not quite 29 percent. Note that the more cars a bystander sees following the hearse, the more important they will believe the decedent was in life. Anyone who sees a hearse followed by a long string of cars in the funeral procession invariably thinks, "hey, I don't know who they are burying, but it must really be someone important!"

So our car and the other tag-along increased the decedent's importance rating by 29 percent.

May the decedent, whomever he or she was, rest in peace!

Charcoal

We had a relatively nonproductive Labor Day Weekend. While, as reflected in the prior posting, our power was restored after about 24 hours, a wide swath of houses beginning just 5 properties away remained dark for over 6 days.

Our shul had its annual Labor Day barbecue yesterday, run by the Sisterhood. As in past years, my wife volunteered me to run the actual barbecuing (which included procuring the charcoal, setting up the grills, et cetera). My preferred method is to make my own charcoal from wood; this year it would have been ideal because of all of the downed trees in the vicinity. [For the record, when I make my charcoal I have a hose at the ready and frequently spray water into the flaming wood fire to create the charcoal. As seen in the old advertisements, that is how the Jack Daniel's distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee makes their charcoal.].

But there is one particular neighbor who gets squeamish about ordinary outdoor barbecuing, let alone the open flames necessary to create charcoal from wood. She's basically a sweet late-middle-age widow, but her tolerance for risk is extremely low. Another shul neighbor is a firefighter with FDNY, and he has no problem with the conduct of my charcoal-making process, as long as the fire is not left unattended. So, as not to cause this fine woman any untoward angst, I have for several years been using the pre-burnt wood purchased at the store (and known commonly as "charcoal"), at least at our shul barbecues.

At my own home, I do the charcoal-making routine. My immediate neighbors, who seldom if ever have occasion to peer over the fence into my back yard (and vice versa), don't seem to mind, except for the teenage son of one of them who about 2 years ago was all upset about air pollution and greenhouse gasses and global warming. But I explained to him that if the combustion process of which he complained did not occur in the pan of my backyard barbecue grill, it would occur in the charcoal manufacturer's facility -- and gasoline would be burned in order to transport the bag of charcoal to the grocery store. By manufacturing my own charcoal, I use local wood, so while the charcoal-making process is the same in either event, the gasoline or diesel fuel combustion inherent in the transportation process is eliminated.

If I must use charcoal, I prefer the lump charcoal to the briquette charcoal. [And, of course, I never, ever use lighter fluid, let alone the match-light charcoal briquettes.]. The lump charcoal leaves less unburnt charcoal. But this year, I decided to try the Kingsford's Mesquite Briquettes. I bought one bag of Kingsford's Mesquite and one of the lump charcoal. Having done the somewhat scientific comparison, I still prefer the lump charcoal to the briquettes, but if I am compelled to use briquettes, the Kingsford's Mesquites are slightly superior to ordinary briquettes.

In any event, the barbecue went off quite well. We had approximately 50 people in attendance. Busy as I was at the grill, I didn't have much opportunity to sit down and shmooze with the other attendees. I had to tend to the grilling. It was tiring and draining.

But I do not complain! My social isolation was nothing compared to the social isolation experienced by our men and women in uniform whose military duties keep them away not only from the picnic tables at the barbecue, but from their families and friends at home. It is highly likely that I will once again pull barbecue duty next year. And I shall be happy to serve.

Irene's Aftermath

Hurricane Irene was Tropical Storm Irene by the time she got past Long Island. At about 7:45 AM on Sunday morning, after most of the storm had passed and the precipitation was minimal, we lost our electricity. It was still out Sunday evening, so my wife and I had a romantic candlelit dinner and then, after reading by flashlight for about an hour, went to bed. But I couldn't get to sleep, so about 2 AM I went out for my workout run. Being that there were no street lights, nor any light from any houses (except for a handful who had generators), I had to be careful where I stepped. At one point I realized that, about 15 feet in front of me, was a tree that had come down and was totally obstructing the roadway. So I stepped over the trunk and continued my run (the tree was in a section of the neighborhood where the developers had the foresight to lay the electrical and cable TV and telephone lines underground, so live downed wires were not an issue at that point).

But, on the other hand, the lack of artificial lights from the immediate vicinity, together with the clear sky, gave a view of the constellations the likes of which I had not seen since a few years ago when we were up in the mountains.

After about 24 hours our power came back on, and we have been fully operational ever since. Unfortunately, some of our neighbors, including the people directly behind us, have yet to get power restored. My rabbi told me that someone had told him that a major stepdown transformer blew, and while that information would not be admissible in court under the hearsay evidence rules, it completely explains the events; accordingly, I shall go with that story unless and until I hear something more definitive.

Our pool, of course, was full of leaves and twigs, and also a fair amount of algae. I was able to swim a few laps in it today, and got a relatively good workout and cool down after my run. I got out the major stuff but the pool bottom needs a good vacuum. My pool maintenance guy is scheduled to come tomorrow. He is paid to deal with those issues, and so, he will earn his money this week.

During the 24 hours we had no power, I had occasion to drive in the immediate vicinity. For about a mile on a main road out here, the traffic lights had no power. In New York (and, I daresay, just about every other state), if the traffic light is not working, then the intersection is treated as though it were a 4-way stop sign intersection, which means that all cars must come to a full stop. I only saw 3 cars in addition to my own obey that rule, the rest of them just drove through! The Suffolk County police blew that golden opportunity to erase half of the County's deficit, because they could have written an easy 100 tickets at any of the affected intersections.

Yesterday I started teaching again. I'm happy to be back, but it is going to be a very challenging semester for all sorts of reasons.

Waiting for Hurricane Irene

Well, folks, Hurricane Irene will soon make landfall somewhere on Long Island. If trends on the National Hurricane Center's webpage do not significantly deviate, the landfall will likely occur in or near Long Beach, which is in Nassau County, not too far from the border with Queens Borough in New York City.

There is an evacuation order for certain low-lying portions of New York City, including much of Lower Manhattan (including Wall Street) and the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens. Many people are ignoring the evacuation order, and, quite frankly, I do not blame them. For one thing, the shelters provided by New York City are notoriously problematic for those who seek shelter in them, what with the gangs that effectively rule them, and the City's impotence to control such gangs. Moreover, many are very skeptical if not cynical regarding whether Big Brother (up to and including Mayor Bloomberg himself) really, really has their best interests in mind, including the ability of the local police to protect their homes and businesses from looters. And, of course, there are some who see possible financial gain in the looting opportunities that will surely be presented.

I have heard that Riker's Island (which houses New York City's prison complex) is not included in the evacuation order. This is reassuring, although I am somewhat concerned for the corrections officers there. But they should be all right.

My own abode is inland, and on high ground, and, once the storm passes, our main concern will be possible power outages, which conceivably might persist for a few days. But we have taken adequate precautions, including having placed lots of orange juice cartons, cold packs, and other heat sink in our big freezer. In the event of a prolonged power outage, we could transfer some of those frozen OJ cartons into our fridges (we have an additional refrigerator in our garage, which now contains mostly soda, yogurt and beer) and most of our food should stay adequately preserved.

Across the border from New York City on Long Island (Nassau and Suffolk Counties), there are evacuation orders in effect for low-lying areas as well, specifically, everything south of Sunrise Highway. As in NYC, many in such areas of Long Island are also ignoring the evacuation orders.

One such individual who has chosen to stay put is my son. His apartment is in one of the evacuation zones, but he is now with a friend, also in the evacuation zone but on slightly higher ground, slightly further inland. They have adequate provisions to wait out the storm, and seem to be taking prudent measures for the situation.

For reasons unrelated to the hurricane, my son's vehicle (actually titled in my name) is currently inoperative. My wife was contemplating driving down to where he is to bring him back to the empty parental nest, but I talked her out of it. Our son needs to make his own decisions, and abide with the consequences of his decisions, foul and fair. If he wanted to come back here, he could find a way to do so. But he doesn't, and so, he will be waiting out the storm. Moreover, he is more accessible to his places of employment (he works 2 jobs, each in the restaurant/fast food industry), either or both of which would open if it could.

For years, I have been saying that it is only a matter of time before Atlantic City is hit by a hurricane on a Labor Day weekend. Evacuation would be a nightmare. This year, Hurricane Irene is only a week off, and a few miles removed from the Atlantic City boardwalk. It could be a lot worse for them.

As for us, we will be sitting this one out and dealing with it as best we can.

Redirecting Public Funds to the Victim

The term "Midrash" refers, collectively, to various rabbinic writings which elucidate the Torah and the Prophets through various explanations and, in many cases, fables. The latter type would be analogous to the fable about George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. Whether he actually did is not certain (and, in fact, more unlikely than not), but the fable is used to illustrate Washington's attribute of honesty.

Some Midrashic fables similarly elucidate various matters in the Torah.

One famous one spotlights the wickedness of the city of Sodom. Abraham's servant Eliezer was attacked by some Sodomites (capital "S" denoting residency or origin in the City of Sodom, and not necessarily sexual practices or preferences) and was bleeding. Eliezer brought suit in the courts of Sodom. The judge ruled that Eliezer owed money to the Sodomites who had beaten him because they had performed the service of bloodletting (which, in those days, was almost universally believed to have curative effects).

Eliezer then threw a rock at the judge, causing the judge to bleed. Eliezer then said to the judge, "Pay them what you owe me!"

I thought about that Midrash story when I read the case of New York State Victim Services v. Murray.


James Murray, New York State Inmate No. 95-A-4417, is doing time for his conviction on a sex offence charge. Murray has been in the Big House since about 1995, and, during his residency there, encountered an overzealous corrections officer who used excessive force against him. Murray sued, and won a judgment against the State of New York.

The New York State Victim Services believes, and I agree, that restitution to Murray's victim should take precedence over Murray's use and enjoyment of the money (never mind that the taxpayers are footing the bill either way). And so, the NYSVS won a preliminary injunction against the State depositing the funds into Murray's inmate account.

The game has not yet ended, but the results are predictable with a high degree of certainty. The money will eventually go to Murray's victim, but not before plenty of public resources and dollars are expended to give Murray his due process. It's not a good thing, but it is far, far better than Murray getting the money.

A Confirmation of my Observation

As those of you who follow the Lagniappe's Lair blog have been informed, I had a brief but delightful meeting with Murphy's Law during my current visit to Washington. Unfortunately, Murphy was back guarding the Lair, and accordingly, not in on the rendezvous.

The prior posting on this Blog is dated Tuesday 16 August at 3:01 AM. This is the time as reckoned for the Greenwich Prime Meridian (known in military parlance as "Zulu Time"). Subtract 5 hours to get the time for the Eastern United States. The prior posting was done on Monday night.

At the time of the prior posting, I had not read the Washington Times for Tuesday 16 August 2011. On the last page of Section C (it would have been Page 10 if it were numbered) is the article by Patrick Hruby entitled "Obama Souvenir Sales in Tailspin," which effectively confirmed the observations and conclusions of the prior posting to this Blog. I noticed that the quantities of Barack Hussein Obama trinkets and paraphernalia on display in the hotel gift shop were plentiful, made inquiry to the woman at the cash register as to how well they were selling, and the woman confirmed to me that the sales were on the sparse side. I posted it on this Blog. The Washington Times provided confirmation. But you read it here first!

Market Studies and Analyses

Companies pay marketing specialists millions of dollars to do studies in advance of product launches, real estate development projects, musical and dramatic and cinematic ventures, et cetera.

But then again, many entrepreneurs have extrapolated marketing data from a single isolated incident, and based upon such extrapolations, have gone on to earn respectable amounts of money and/or fame.

Such was the case with a number of automobile racetracks, whose founders figured, correctly, that the multiple spectators present at police busts of drag racing contests in abandoned parking lots were a viable customer base for a legitimate racetrack.

And, if legend is to be believed, back when Atlantic City was still Atlantic City (i.e., before the casinos), a little girl's enjoyment of a candy merchant's wares which were damaged by wind-driven water from the ocean gave rise to the Salt Water Taffy industry.

I am now in Washington, attending a conference and, as usual, enjoying the town. In some of the uberliberal neighborhoods, many of the cars have Obama stickers. But the lady in the gift shop of the hotel where I am ensconced told me that the Barack Hussein Obama coffee mugs, bookmarks, fridge magnets and other paraphernalia are not selling as well as the other tourist trinkets without BHO's picture.

During my first visit to our Nation's Capital, back when I was 6 years old, my sister and I wanted souvenirs with pictures of President Kennedy, just like all the other youngsters and oldsters were getting. I am not a marketing expert, but if the tourist trade is not putting down its money dollars on the St. Barack relics, then maybe the guy in the Oval Office has reason to be concerned.

Inside and Outside

Here is the first paragraph of Judge Joan M. Genchi's decision in A.B. v. C.D., 2011 NY Slip Op 51404(U) (Family Court, Suffolk County):

"In this proceeding brought pursuant to Article 8 of the Family Court Act, the petitioner, A.B., filed a Family Offense Petition on April 7, 2011 which alleges that the respondent, C.D., her husband, committed the following family offenses: Harassment in the first or second degree; Aggravated harassment in the second degree; Menacing in the second or third degree; and Reckless Endangerment approximately between December 2009 and January 2010 and again in October 2010 during conjugal visits at the Elmira Correctional facility where the respondent was incarcerated. The petition alleges numerous attempts by the respondent to communicate with the petitioner, either by mail, telephone, texting, or through third-party contact with the petitioner. The respondent has since been transferred to Southport Correctional Facility where he is serving a sentence of 28 years to life for the murder of his deceased former wife's husband, and for other convictions. The parties had a child on August 31, 2004, and they were married on January 14, 2006 at the Clinton Correctional Facility. On April 4, 2010, the respondent had divorce papers served on the petitioner."

So here we have a woman who marries a man who is doing an indeterminate sentence of 28 years to life on a murder conviction. Don't let the number 28 throw you; it is the theoretical date when the inmate can start with the biennial petitions to the Parole Board. And in New York, it is very rare that those convicted of a violent offense get paroled the first time before the Board.

Then this woman decides to divorce the guy. Not a bad move, given the predicament she got herself into. But then, after filing the divorce papers, she continued with the conjugal visits at the State Penitentiary.

And now, she wants an order of protection from the guy who is incarcerated (and apparently in solitary confinement).

Judge Genchi declined to award an order of protection, inasmuch as the incarcerated husband does not present a danger to the estranged wife (estranged, that is, when she's not up at the State Pen on a conjugal visit).

So what do we now have? (A) A violent felon who is now confined behind bars for the next 20+ (and perhaps 30+) years; (B) A ditzy bimbo who doesn't want said violent felon to bother her, but who is not above going up to the Big House for a conjugal visit with him; and (C) a seven-year-old child who has two piss-poor role models in his/her life, one on the inside and the other on the outside.

Society's Investment in Felons

It seems that Diane McCloud couldn't stop stealing if her life depended on it. As reported here, here and here, Judge Francis Ricigliano had seen fit to show the 47-year-old Ms. McCloud some humane compassion by springing her from jail so that she would be eligible for the waiting list for a heart transplant. But Judge Ricigliano's humane compassion does have its limits, and Ms. McCloud pushed them too far with her 27th felony arrest last month. She now has to complete the sentence Judge Ricigliano cut short, plus serve the one on the latest charges for which she has pled guilty -- stealing cosmetics and diet pills from a CVS Pharmacy. Her incarceration puts her off of the waiting list for the heart transplant.

[I am, of course, rather skeptical regarding medical death prognoses for ill prisoners. Susan Atkins was supposed to have only 3 months left when she petitioned the California Parole Board for compassionate release, and she lived another year-and-a-half. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, the "Lockerbie Bomber," was released on "compassionate" grounds because he was given 3 months to live, and, nearly 2 years later, is still alive and revered as a hero in Libya.]

If indeed the purpose of the criminal justice system is to rehabilitate those who can be rehabilitated, then society must be willing to invest in people who have been convicted of crimes. Judge Ricigliano was willing to invest in McCloud, but, like any prudent investor, decided to cut society's losses when the investment went sour.

Some people have been successfully rehabilitated by the system, and are worthy of society's investment. Judge Denny Chin believes (and I agree) that Vernon Lawson is one of them. Lawson, who served 13 years in prison for killing his wife, has, in Judge Chin's opinion, completely turned his life around, and should be granted his citizenship so that he can remain in America. Anent to the case of Lawson v. U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services, the following observations are now proffered:

1. Judge Chin is himself a naturalized American citizen.

2. Judge Chin is not reticent to incarcerate those who truly deserve incarceration. Remember that it was Judge Chin who sentenced Bernie Madoff to 150 years.

3. The USCIS's misplaced zeal in denying Vernon Lawson's application for citizenship stands in contradistinction to USCIS's willingness to hold America's door open for Muslim terrorists, Mexican drug dealers, and other assorted thugs and thieves.

The Talmud, Water and Cell Phones

A few weeks ago, my Rabbi admonished/begged the congregation that we need to be more fervent and concentrating in our praying during the services. He's not wrong on that score. We all do our share of talking during the services, which we really shouldn't be doing (though it isn't nearly as extensive as certain other congregations with which I am acquainted). Every once in a while, we need to be reminded of Whom we stand before.

This evening, the talking during the davening was relatively restrained. The problem was that someone's cell phone went off. Not quite four years ago, I posted on this issue, noting that when the cell phone that distracts our concentration belongs to a rabbi then there's much rabbinical credibility to be lost.

[I note that there are a number of rabbis besides our main "pulpit rabbi" who join us on a somewhat regular basis for the afternoon/evening services. They do things like oversee kosher food preparation at the local old age home, or watch over the dead at one of the local funeral establishments, or, in one case, the "pulpit rabbi" from a congregation in a neighboring town (who happened to have been my son's 6th grade Religious Studies teacher at the Jewish day school) whose own congregation has trouble during the week with making Minyan (a minimum prayer quorum of 10 Jewish males over the age of 13).].

In any event, the cell phone one of these other rabbis went off during the davening, so what did this rabbi do? He kept on davening until he was finished, which took perhaps a minute or two. And the other guys in the Minyan (about 14 of us) were all distracted.

Afterward, I went up to our congregation's "pulpit rabbi" and asked him what happens in the following situation: Two men are traveling in the desert, away from civilization. One has a canteen of water, the other does not. The man with the canteen has enough water to make it to civilization, but if he shares his water with his companion, the neither will be able to reach civilization alive.

That hypothetical was answered almost 2,000 years ago by Rabbi Akiva, who ruled that it is better that only one man perish than to have both men die. Rabbi Akiva's ruling is recorded in the Talmud [Bava Metzia 62a]. In modern times, it comes up with some degree of frequency in discussions regarding health care rationing.

So, of course, my Rabbi quoted Rabbi Akiva's pronouncement to me (as though I had never heard of the Akiva's famous ruling). He wondered what my ulterior motive was, and didn't have to wait long to find out.

I then asked him, "Which is preferable, one man being distracted from prayer for a few seconds to turn off the cell phone which should have been turned off before he began davening in the first place, or fifteen men being distracted because the first guy does not turn off his cell phone?"

The Rabbi laughed. It would not surprise me if, after I left, he had a little private discussion with the other rabbi who wouldn't turn off his ringing cell phone.

The Wisdom of Vilna

Throughout history, various political powers held sway in what is now Lithuania. Depending upon the ruling powers, and/or the language, the city that is now (and has long been) the administrative capital of the territory has been known variously as Wilno, Vilna, Wilna, Vilnya, and, officially today, Vilnius.

For many centuries prior to World War II, Vilna had a significant Jewish population, and was renown as a center of Jewish culture and learning. The Nazi ravages of World War II, of course, decimated Vilna's Jewish population.

Perhaps the most famous Jewish resident of Vilna was Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman Kramer, known as the Vilna Gaon, or Genius of Vilna. The Vilna Gaon had memorized the Torah and numerous other books, religious and secular. He was quite erudite in mathematics and astronomy.

Describing someone as "not the Vilna Gaon," usually means that they are intellectually challenged.

Like any other city, modern day Vilnius has its traffic enforcement issues. But Mayor Arturas Zuokas has come up with a unique approach to resolving the problem of cars parking illegally and blocking the thoroughfares of the city.

This video is obviously scripted and staged, and obviously had a higher than normal production budget for video clips of its length.

Nobody is claiming that Mayor Zuokas is the Vilna Gaon, but there is something to be said for his new and novel solution to illegal parking. Perhaps some American mayors and police chiefs might find some inspiration!

Hate Camp

I've returned home from an out-of-town excursion, catching up on my mail pile, and getting ready for what may be shaping up to be another out-of-town excursion.

Summer camp is a big industry in America and elsewhere. There are many camps which are specialized. Music camps. Athletic camps (one of which I attended during my high school jock days). Art camps. Math camps. Science camps. Computer camps. Weight loss camps. Travel camps. Theater & Drama camps. And so on.

These camps are good for the entrepreneurs who run them, and usually good for the children and youth who attend them. Not to mention the privacy the kids' parents get for a few weeks (which my wife and I certainly enjoyed).

The previous posting was about the carnage in Oslo. Following that posting, additional details emerged about the whole affair in Norway. For one thing, the unpreparedness of the Norwegian law enforcement authorities is nothing short of amazing. More notably, the camp operated by the Norwegian Labor Party on Utøya Island was a specialized summer camp. It was a Hate Camp, as further detailed by Nidra Poller and Debbie Schlussel, where hatred for Jews and Israel was part of the agenda, and where the facilities were shared by Islamic terror groups.

Note that Jewish camps do not have such hatred programs against our enemies (of which we have so, so many).

I would be less than candid if I denied that this new info caused me to revisit my empathies with the victims of the massacre at Utøya Island. After all, the "victims" had, just the day before, engaged in an unabashed anti-Semitic exercise sponsored by the camp and blessed by a Norwegian cabinet minister. So yes, I have done some considerable deliberation regarding the previous posting.

But the first line of that posting, "There is no question that Anders Behring Breivik is truly an evil person," is still a highly valid statement. It is not good that he is being glorified in some quarters, and the fact that he has a good chance of walking freely in 21 years is not reassuring. That's a relatively easy one.

More consterning is the statement "My empathies are with the victims, regardless of whatever connections they may have had to the Labor Party in general, and its policies of dhimmitude in particular." There is, after all, a certain justice in the killing of the enemies of Israel and the Jewish people, and I do see G-d's hand in that. Nevertheless, those indoctrinated youth could have been my children, or, for that matter, me. They were victims of the Norwegian Labor Party's hatred and anti-Semitism.

So, even as I appreciate the justice of the Divine Retribution, I regret the loss of lives. Were I to go celebrate and exult, then I would be no better than the Labor Party, and I myself might just as well go to Hate Camp for a summer.